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[phoenixyfriend]

I truly believe that an underexplored concept in Star Wars fics that involve Earth being an unknown/forgotten planet in the GFFA, hidden away somewhere in Wild Space and only found by accident, is that Earth doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. Not tech, not natural resources, not even particularly nice tourist locales compared to some of the planets we see, and the local culture would definitely shade towards hostile to unfamiliar species, just based on the way things as simple as race or gender feature in our biases.

However.

The galaxy far far away has no idea where humans, one of if not the dominant species in the galaxy, come from. Nobody knows the home planet. Nobody knows the history. There is nothing, in the tens of thousands of years of history they have in their databanks, about where humanity started.

And Earth, this stupid little backwards planet that’s fractured into hundreds of unallied governments, where there’s always a war going on somewhere and man hasn’t made it past the nearest natural satellite, where the media is no more or less interesting than what the GFFA has already got floating around over the last few thousand years, where the natural resources are nothing special...

Earth has a fossil record.

[all-purpose-dish-soap]

32 / 1.4k / soap soulmate au, part 9

...

Soap goes still and quiet, his grip loosening. "People?"

"Human trafficking."

"How do you know?"

"Because security is quadrupled in the basement lounge. The client and his inner circle are scheduled to move downstairs after midnight. They're calling it an afterparty."

"You're sure it's not drugs?"

"I'm sure. I saw the dossier given to security downstairs."

Soap's mouth twists. The target sure as hell isn't leaving this place alive if he can help it. “Could’ve mentioned that earlier."

“I tried. Who do you think tipped Laswell off?"

That gives Soap pause. "Laswell? You’ve been in touch with her?"

"Once." You curl your fingers tighter into his vest and grab his chin to make him look at you. "Johnny, listen. If you kill him now, everything locks down. You won't be able to get into the basement. You need to get down there quietly with the element of surprise."

"What have you got in mind? Covert extraction, no prep, no briefing?" He raises one hand as if to cover yours, to trace along your knuckles. After so long, he can’t help it. He just wants to touch you. "That's a lot to ask. What was your plan if we didn’t show? Go it alone?"

"Figure it out as I go along, I guess."

"Christ, you're a headache." Soap's hand tightens around yours, gently pulling it off his collar to bring your hand up to his cheek. He turns up your palm and presses a kiss to the inside of your wrist. You're on his side this time. He can't put into words how light it makes him feel. 

He makes a low sound in his throat before he pulls back again. He clicks on his radio. "Captain, LT, you'll want to hear this."

While Soap explains the situation on his team's comms, you put yourself back together, checking your rifle and your gear. He watches you the whole time. You’re not what he remembers—not the cornered animal he met in that interrogation room before. You're in your element. If he could, he’d drag you away, take you back to some safehouse somewhere, and focus on getting to know you in every way and every position he knows. Patience, he tells himself. After this mission, he'll have all the time in the world. 

After the brief conference--and Laswell confirming she’d received an anonymous, cryptic tip about stolen goods in the target’s favorite Swiss Alps resort--he turns back to you. "Price wants the target no matter what. We're pullin' back to regroup and plan our strategy."

Your stomach drops. "What? There's no time."

"You said it yourself: we have no intel, no time to prep, and no good way in. Civilians everywhere. If it goes tits up, people die." He grabs your hand and pulls you into the hall, heading for the stairwell. "We're fallin’ back and regrouping while we still can."

You jerk your hand out of his, stumbling back. "We have intel. I was briefed on this mission. I can get downstairs,” you argue.

You mean alone. Soap doesn't like that. "Not happening,” he snaps, his voice rough with frustration. He glares down at you, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenches his teeth. “I know you can more than handle yourself, but not against a hundred of these bastards."

"Those bastards are my coworkers," you retort. "They won't look twice at me."

That's the worst part. Your familiarity with this place makes you an undeniable asset for this mission—that’s why he sought you out. The reason that’ll be in the official report, anyway. Damn it. He's torn between the knowledge that he should be happy you’re willing to help his team out and his desire to throw you over his shoulder and carry you out of the building.

"You said yourself security's quadrupled down there. If it goes loud, you're done. I'm not lettin’ you play hero. No. Ain't happenin'."

“Then we find a different plan,” you argue. You've never met someone so hard-headed.

"She might have a point," Gaz's voice says in Soap’s earpiece. "If we find a way to bring security up to the ground floor instead, you and Ghost can get down there and find the hostages. Security's already jumpy with the power out--give them a reason to come upstairs and they will. It’s just a matter of finding a distraction. And we've got snipers posted. Distractions are easy."

Hearing Gaz, you nod. “I'll take the target and lead him into view for your snipers.”

Soap curses under his breath, running a hand over his mohawk. He wishes he’d turned his radio off. He doesn't like putting you at risk.

You huff and sling your rifle over your back. Time is slipping away. "I need to find the target. I'll wait for your signal and--"

Soap grabs your arm before you can walk past him. "Jesus, stop. Give me a minute to think."

"We don't have--"

"Time, I ken." Soap's grip tightens. He tugs you against him again, one hand going to the back of your neck to hold you in place. "You're not goin'. Not without me."

"That's ridiculous!" Your voice climbs despite the way he forces you closer--folds his arm around your lower back and pulls you chest-to-chest. "They’ll see you. And they’re not just going to arrest you, okay—they’ll kill you."

Soap’s expression tightens. "How do I know you won't abscond with the target? Wouldn’t be the first time you left us high and dry."

You close your mouth and stare at him. He’s worried you’ll betray him. Your gaze falls to his chest, silent, because it wouldn't be the first time.

At the look on your face, Soap’s chest feels like it’s caving in. But he keeps going before he loses his nerve. He doesn't care if it's selfish. "You disappeared. No word. No message. Not even a thank you. I'm not lettin' that happen a second time. One wrong move and I'm pullin' you out."

He lets go of you, unhooks the collar radio from around his neck, and puts it around yours instead. "Tell my team when and where you have the target in place. They'll take care of the rest."

You put the earpiece in place and adjust the bit around your neck. "Fine."

He stands still, arms crossed, as you adjust your gear one more time. Your nerves are shot.

You glance at him, an apology stuck in your throat. "I was going to contact you, I just..."

"Just what? Had more important things going on? Assholes to protect?" he snaps. He stalks closer, towering over you again. The frustration flashing through his eyes eclipses the sudden, haunted look of a man who hasn't slept well in weeks.

You press your hand to the armor on his chest and lower your voice. "I get it if you don't trust me. Just... trust that I want your target dead as much as you do."

"Promise me you won't disappear on me again."

You bite the inside of your lip and put your hand on his cheek. Something in your chest twinges when he leans into it. "I promise," you lie.

"Good." He closes his eyes and lowers his forehead to yours. He breathes deeply, committing your touch to memory.

Then he opens his eyes and angles your jaw up toward his, his mouth slanting over yours in a hard, possessive kiss that empties your brain completely. When he pulls away, his eyes glimmer.

"You’d better stand by that promise, darlin’,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “I let you go in Las Almas because you didn’t want my protection yet. Could’ve taken you with me whether you liked it or not, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you hatin’ me. Even if it meant keepin’ you safe.” The cool leather on his knuckles brushes tenderly against your neck. "But those reservations aren’t holdin’ me back anymore. I will do what needs to be done if you play games with me. You understand?"

You stare at him, heart thumping strangely. "I don't think that's... necessary."

“I hope it’s not.” He cups your jaw in his hands and brings your lips to his again. The kiss this time is gentler, softer—just a slow, intimate press that melts you completely. You’re breathless by the time he lifts his head. "When this is over, you're mine."

You nod weakly, not trusting yourself to speak.

...

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / [part 9] / part 10 / part 11 / part 12

more Soap / masterlist tag

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

something that doesn't come up very often in the How Bad Is Emps discussion is that he's. he's really old. millennia old. there's no way his sense of time isn't flagrantly broken. i mean look at him! every time we get an immediate perspective on him the dude is making plans with thousand-year timeframes. all of his buddies (well, ex-buddies) are perpetuals. emps has more in common with the eldar or the necrons when it comes to sense of time than he does with literally any non-perpetual, and that includes the primarchs.

just think about it. the primarchs are, what, three centuries old at Ullanor? they're BABIES. ok, maybe they're not babies, they're clearly old enough for simple tasks like systematic genocide and aggressive expansion, but c'mon, they haven't even reached their first millennium. of course emps isn't going to burden them with adult concerns like the encroaching threat of Chaos, or the potential dangers as humans evolve into a psyker species, or the existential challenges imposed by their warp-entity-wearing-flesh natures. they're kids! let them be kids! their brains are still growing, probably.

so yeah, emps holds off on some big conversations. and yeah, he ducks out of the crusade to go work on the webway by himself, what's wrong with that? it's just a few decades! he's spent more than a thousand years uniting humanity, surely he deserves a little time to himself. from emps's perspective, he's just spending an afternoon building a treehouse in his workshop. the kids are old enough to know better than to stick forks into electrical outlets, they'll be okay for an evening. horus you're a responsible guy, you're in charge.

but then like five minutes later magnus fucking bursts through the wall like the kool aid man screaming bloody hell about horus and then the hole he made starts puking daemons everywhere and yeah emps loses his temper and yells but he was gone for FIVE MINUTES. and now there's daemons all over his workshop! magnus what the fuck! only magnus fled as soon as emps started yelling without explaining a damn thing. also the hole is still puking daemons. ok, ok, emps will stay in the workshop and try to fix the hole before everything is covered in daemons, but he still needs to figure out what the hell is going on. leman, you're an obedient kid, hell you're always boasting about it, surely YOU'LL listen. go get magnus--yeah, i know you don't get along, this isn't the time--go get magnus and bring him here so he can explain himself.

emps goes back to the hole and--leman did WHAT? magnus did WHAT? HOW DID THEY FUCK UP BASIC INSTRUCTIONS. hang on, what's this about an isstvan. horus is rebelling? fucking HORUS??? nine legions????? HALF THE ARMY????? wtf wtf wtf oh shit it's chaos isn't it. emps looked away for five minutes and chaos got its claws in his boys. it's been six years. that's like a bathroom break. how did the boys break everything in SIX YEARS???

[redsrooftopprincess]

Monster

Raphael x AFAB!Reader

Warnings: Smut. 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Happy Monsterfucker Pride Month you fucking deviants. 😈 Here's a present.

There are a lot of words that come to mind to the average person upon meeting the Hamato clan. "Thing" is pretty popular, and "Freak" is always a classic, but by far Raphael's least favorite is "Monster."

That one tends to stick around, like a "Hello My Name Is" sticker, even after first meeting. The others have an easier time. Leo's the calm, cool one, Mikey doesn't need any help making friends, and Don's got that cute nerd thing going on, but Raphael is big, quiet, and Close Quarter Combat has left him with more scars than clear skin, making an already ugly situation worse.

So when he was sitting at your desk while you were hanging out one night and a notification popped up on your computer, the word caught his attention.

"What is a... 'Monsterfucker?'"

You're not sure sure if anyone has ever died from asphyxiating Dr. Pepper, but you wonder for a moment if you'll be the first.

When you can once again breathe, you look up at him raising a brow at you, "You good?"

"Yup," you croak out with a nod and a thumbs up, clearing your throat, "good."

He gives you a moment to catch your breath, "So... You gonna answer my question, or...?"

Damn. You were hoping he'd suddenly magically forget that he asked.

You've been holding off on coming clean to the guys about this particular personality quirk. You're conflicted because, while it would do wonders for their self esteem, it would more or less be the equivalent of wearing a big sign around your neck that says "HEY RAPH! I'M INTO YOU!" You're still trying to figure out how to approach him about it, and whether or not doing so would ruin an already amazing friendship.

Apparently, you aren't going to get a choice.

You clear your throat, procrastinating, and looking down at the Halloween coloring book you've been working on so you don't have to meet his eyes, "Well..." You clear your throat again, "... a Teratosexual... or... 'Monsterfucker'... is someone with more... exotic... preferences," you cringe internally.

"Exotic as in...?"

"Exotic as in... non-human." You say, making an attempt at sounding casual, suddenly very focused on the cat you're coloring.

That was not the answer he was expecting.

The longer he's quiet, the louder the heartbeat in your ears.

"So you're... not... into humans." He ventures hesitantly.

"Not generally, no..." You say, still not looking at him. Your face is burning.

"Oh..." He says, sitting back and attempting to process, "So what kind of, uh... monsters, I guess... are you, um..." He can't believe he's actually asking this question.

"Depends," you say, thankfully without your voice squeaking.

"On..."

"On... who they are as a person," you say, "just like anyone."

He's quiet again, and you resist the urge to look up at him. He's running through moment after moment with you in his head. The looks, the touches, the gentle words, all those times he kicked himself for reading too much into things...

You tense as you hear him get up and walk over to your side of the bed. the mattress dips as he sits down beside you, and a hand comes up to still the hand coloring. You look up at him, heart thundering in your ears as his thumb brushes over your wrist.

"Now, I could be way off base," he says softly, "and if I am feel free to tell me and I swear I'll never bring it up again... but sometimes I feel like you and me, we..." He takes a breath, "What are we? Friends? I mean, Donnie's your best friend, but you spend all your time with me, and... um..." He trails off.

"Is that what you want...? Friends...?" You ask, hesitantly. You're talking about it. Everything the two of you have both very purposely avoided talking about. The time, the touches. You're talking about it, making whatever the hell this is real. Which means the next words out of his mouth could either build or break you.

"Honestly, at the risk of possibly ruining the best thing that's ever happened to me... No."

"Honestly," you say, breathless, your heart doing backflips, "me either."

"So... If not friends, then... what do you want?" He asks, holding your gaze.

He watches every one of your reactions closely. Any sign of unease or discomfort and he's going to bail. But there aren't any. He's pulled to you, and he closes what little distance there is, a blush blooms across your cheeks and chest.

"Honestly..." You whisper, "you."

He inhales sharply, and looks down at you in awe for a moment, heart pounding behind his armored chest. Exhaling, he cups your face with his other hand, brushing his thumb over your jaw before sliding it back slightly and tilting your head up to him.

"You sure that this... that I'm... what you want...?" He's vibrating. Everything in him is screaming out to take you. Claim you. You're right here. You're giving yourself to him. Anyone else would have just kissed you by now. But he isn't anyone else, and this isn't exactly a normal situation. He has to be sure.

His soft caress is sending sensations rippling down your arm, and you can barely breathe for the ache in your chest. The night they met, Mikey had been injured. Badly. So badly, that they had to drop in at April and Casey's even knowing there was a stranger there.

He stood in the corner and watched you like a hawk. You were new, and new was dangerous. He watched you jump in to help Donnie with whatever he needed, eyes clear and calculating.

In the moment, you were too focused on making sure D had what he needed to save his brother's life, but the memory set your skin on fire.

"Pretty much since the beginning." You whisper, nodding.

He wastes no more time. You've wanted this as long as he has and that thought sends a surge of heat through his bloodstream. He releases your hand and slides his around your waist, pressing his lips to yours, pulling you into his lap, and as flush against him as he can. He's been dreaming of this since the moment you met.

It feels right. Natural. Like you should have been doing this all along, but the moment the hand against your cheek slides into your hair, gripping it gently, and you can feel the rumble in his chest within your own, any whispers of regret are forgotten.

All too soon, he pulls back, both of you needing a moment to catch your breath.

His forehead pressed to yours, you look up at him curiously when he starts laughing softly.

He beams down at you, "You know, on the list of shit I though was gonna happen... ever..." You smile up at him, laughing gently as well. He looks at you with elated, if not confused, eyes, "You got any idea what you're signing up for."

"Pretty sure, yeah," you grin.

They all tried so hard to be human, but it was the hardest for Raphael. Whether it was a result of his mutation, his wildly inconsistent emotional states, or some combination of the two, he was the closest of the four of them to their primal nature.

That night, and the hulking figure in the corner, like some kind of ancient sentinel watching over his charges, was a memory you had come back to so many times you're pretty sure you could recreate it perfectly, not that you would want to.

You pull back slightly to look at him, and bring your hand up to his face, cupping his cheek. You look down at his lips, brushing your thumb over his scar, you've always wondered what it felt like, "... and I think I've been handling it pretty well, so far." Your eyes meets his like the period at the end of a sentence.

Looking at you as if you were the only thing he's ever really wanted, he presses his lips to yours far less tentatively this time, growling into the kiss.

You rest your hand on the back of his head as he kisses down the curve of your throat, nuzzling against it and leaving traces of himself on you. You don't miss the significance of being marked as His and something warm and grateful fills your chest.

He works his way back to your mouth, kissing you deeply before pulling back. He looks down at you, still in almost disbelief.

"I want to see you..." He says, breathless, running a finger just under the hem of your tank top. He looks down before meeting your eyes once again, and you would shudder if you weren't pinned down by his gaze.

You smile, pulling your shirt over your head, letting it fall to the ground. You had no idea what you thought his reaction would be to finding out everything, but this was way better than you could have hoped. Gooseflesh scatters across your skin, though you're not sure if it's from the change in temperature, or the way his eyes laser focus on on every inch of you. They light your skin on fire, but he doesn't move.

"You're allowed to touch me, Raphael..." you whisper. His eyes shoot up to yours, "I want you to." He inhales sharply, fingers already tingling, he hesitates for just a moment before a calloused hand brushes tentatively over an already hardened nub, making you shiver.

His hand covers your breast and he squeezes gently, the sigh that ghosts from your lips emboldening him.

When he dips his head and captures the other in his mouth, circling with his tongue, the whimper that escapes you as your eyes fall closed is nearly his undoing.

One of your hands rests on the back of his neck, while the other guides his hand lower. As he caresses your waist, his mouth moves to your other breast, giving it the same treatment and leaving your pulse racing.

You can feel the dampness between your legs, and from the way his churr has deepened, it's evident he can smell your arousal. His fingers play at the waistband of your shorts, but no further.

"This doesn't have to go any farther than your comfortable with," you reassure him.

"It's not that, it's just..." His cheeks darken, "I'm not... um..."

"Human?" You venture, with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah..." He says before laughing softly, still not entirely able to process that this is happening, "But, I guess... that's not really a problem for you, is it?"

"Nope," you say, offering him a wicked smile which leaves him swallowing hard.

You smirk and reach up to tug at his paldron. "Feeling a little one-sided here, Red," you say looking over all the clothing and equipment he still has on.

He exhales, a permanent smile of disbelief resting in the corner of his mouth. Him. You want him. You climb off of him, laying back on the bed, and he stands. He sheds his gear and clothing as you look on hungrily, reclined on the bed like a God damn empress. His tail twitches. You aren't just letting him have you, you want him right back, and that is doing amazing things for his ego.

As he's removing the last of his clothing, he glances down at your shorts before meeting your gaze with a brow raised in expectation.

You narrow your eyes and smirk, pushing yourself up and standing beside the bed, before pushing your shorts from your hips and letting them slide to the floor. Now it's your turn to look at him expectantly as he tosses his red mask on top of his gear and takes the few steps towards you.

He looks down at you as if you're the most beautiful creature he's ever seen, and if you ask him, you are. With fabric no longer impeding, he is glutting himself on your scent and his head is swimming as it takes everything in him not to drop right there.

Your eyes roam over his body greedily, drinking him in, something you previously could only ever do in secret, and he shivers. You can't help it, you reach up a hand and hesitate for only a moment before placing it on his chest, following the labyrinthine whorls and channels in his plastron. He's cool and hard under your fingertips, and rough in many places where the keratin has been damaged.

"You know what kills me?" You ask softly, fingers tracing a particularly deep scar, "You have absolutely no idea how beautiful you are," you step forward, pressing your lips to the deep groove. You're rewarded with a sharp inhale and the rumble in his chest against your bare skin.

His hand slides around your waist and he pulls you into him as you kiss upward along the length of the scar. Your softness caresses him, and warmth pours through his shell, filling all the parts of him starved for sunlight. A deep hum reverberates inside of him when you reach the divot in the top of his pectoral scute, and kiss the scarred skin just above.

You look up at him, whispering, "Will you let me show you?"

He looks down at you, and he looks terrified. But he nods. He trusts you.

You take his hand and walk to the end of the bed. You close the door to your room, the light flashing in the full length mirror on the back of the door.

"Sit," you say with a gentle squeeze of his hand, leading him to the side of the bed facing the mirror. He does as he's told, and you climb into his lap, also facing the mirror.

You take his large hands in yours and guide him, showing him how you like to be touched. He watches your reactions to every movement closely, and it isn't long before he's confident enough to explore on his own. His fingers trail lightly down your side, following the line of your hip slowly inward. He stills, waiting to see if you're going to stop him from moving forward.

You don't.

He holds your gaze, watching your features change as his fingers slip into your folds. You gasp as he teases you slowly, and it isn't long before you're near trembling.

You're eyes fall closed, and your mouth falls open as one finger finally pushes into your soaked center. You lean back against him, whimpering as his finger curls, brushing against the soft part inside of you, before pulling out and pushing back in. He repeats the action, slowly, and again, slowly. He feels you clench around him, writhing impatiently, and looks up at the mirror.

Flush and trembling in his arms, one hand nearly covers your abdomen, the contrast of your smooth skin and his pebbled scales looking almost intentional, color and texture complimenting each other perfectly. The other continues disappearing inside of you and drawing from you the most exquisitely frustrated sounds. And it's him. He's doing all of it. His oversized, inhuman hands are creating this moment.

There is no other word for it than "beautiful..."

Your lust blown eyes open to meet his as you whimper and twist in his lap. "f-fuck..." he shudders as he drops, gripping you tighter.

The corner of your mouth turns up slightly as you meet his reflection's eyes. Trembling, he angles himself to rub against your sex, coating himself in your slick, pulling a small sound from your throat. You're already so wet and ready, and when you tilt your hips and capture his spade-tipped head, you are very grateful for that.

The burn as you stretch around him is glorious. He's bigger than you were expecting (and you were expecting), and a deep moan is pulled from you as you sink down on him slowly, your eyes falling closed.

You still once he's buried to the hilt, both of you needing a moment to adjust. When you open your eyes, his are still closed. His arms hold you tightly around the waist, and measured, trembling breaths ghost over your shoulder.

He needs a minute. This is new for him and the worst thing he can imagine right now is for this to be over before it starts. You are so soft and warm and tight, and he can feel your heartbeat pulsing in the walls around him, and if he doesn't get some kind of control, he's going to bust right here.

After a few moments, he opens his eyes, meeting yours in the mirror. His fingers find your clit again, and he strokes it slowly, groaning, his head falling back, when you clench around him.

In an involuntary search for friction, your hips rock against his and he gasps, his other hand tightening around your waist, and he's never been more grateful for years of training in meditation.

He breathes heavily for a few moments, and once he feels like he has his bearings, he holds your gaze and tightens his grip on your hips, pulling out of you slowly before pushing back in. You can feel his churr inside you and you shudder as he sheathes himself again, feeling the vibrations of his desire scatter outward from your center, leaving your fingers and toes tingling.

You move together in a slow rhythm, his eyes never leaving the mirror. He's going to remember every single second of this for the rest of his life. Whatever happens next, this is his. This moment. This feeling. He's wanted a lot of things in his life - peace, acceptance, love -, and for this one shining moment, he has all of them. For this once shining moment, he has you.

This beautiful, brilliant goddess of light and mercy is with him, wants him. You are watching him in the mirror as if he is something sacred. Divine. This broken deformation of something that isn't even a man, held in reverence, and he is filled with something indescribable.

His head falls to your shoulder with a deep moan, as a fire ignites inside of him. Not the one he's used to, there is no burning rage. No barely contained fury. This is not the fire of battle, but the fire of a forge.

Red hot iron burns in his veins as years of doubt and insecurity are boiled away. They didn't matter anymore. Every weird, unacceptable mutated turtle thing he had to deal with. Every scream of horror at his terrible visage. Your light. Your heat, is burning it away. Allowing him to make something new. He leans back, lifting you and bucking up into your harder as that heat fills him, and with every thrust, something in him is reshaping itself.

You could see it in his eyes. That fire of creation. And if you thought he was beautiful before... He holds your gaze with open purpose, unsure but ready for anything, pouring that fire into you. The catalyst of his recreation. And for the first time in his life, he feels like maybe he deserves something good.

And, Gods, you felt SO good.

He's transfixed, his hand reaching around to find your clit again, moaning as his mouth descends to your neck and shoulders. Needing to pull more of those exquisite sounds from you. Every one of them ringing through him like a struck anvil.

A smirk turns his lip as he stands, growling, and you brace against the door as he shows no signs of slowing. His large hand comes to cover yours on the door, wrapping around it. Eyes no longer fixed to the mirror, gaze downward, watching the way you stretch around him as he disappears into you, he can feel his release building as your body flexes around him.

The fire roars under your skin as his speed and strength increases, capturing every sight, sound, and scent, and tossing them back into the flames.

You're beyond language at this point, grunting and whimpering with every thrust. You can feel him in every part of you, until there is nothing left in the world but him and the burn of him filling you completely.

You can feel the pressure building as he growls low and sparks shoot up your spine, his hot breath crashing over your shoulders in waves as he is lost to you. He wraps his arm around you, leaning back and pulling you flush against him as his eyes fall shut.

You are consumed by the flames, arching against him with a cry as white fire streaks through you, the pressure breaks, and you are undone. Raphael follows with a roar, gripping you tightly as he buries himself in you. A second wave crashes over you when you feel him spill himself inside of you, your body milking him dry.

Trembling and breathing hard, you sit back and hold each other as you come down together. You meet his eyes in the mirror, and he's looking at you in reverence and gratitude, like you're his own personal miracle.

Because you are.

He wraps his arms around your waist and buries his head in your shoulder and breathes deep, pulling your scent into his lungs as he pulls out of you, leaving you feeling empty. Glancing up, he watches himself drip out of you, staining the rug below. You are flush and exhausted, but smiling as your heart rate and breathing slow.

After taking a few moments to clean up. You crawl back into bed together. He slips his arm around your waist, pulling you closer.

You smile up at him, happy, truly, actually happy, for the first time in... ever? That can't be right. It feels right. All you know is you've never been happy like this.

It won't last. It can't. He's too special. And now he knows he has options. "Just think, when you get bored with me, there's a whole community of people that will also find you hot." you chuckle softly. It was only a matter of time, right? You were nothing special.

His smile disappears.

How could you think...

"Y/N, I don't want anybody else." He says softly, sure.

"Raph, you haven't met anybody else." You counter.

"Fuck anybody else. Everybody else. I got it in one, and I ain't about to question that." He presses his forehead to yours.

You smile at him in patient, loving, disbelief. "Okay, Red."

He raises his head to look at you. "Want me to prove it? Fine. Give me a few years, I'll have you convinced."

This gets him a laugh. "Years?" you really like the sound of that.

You grin up at him. You really, really like the sound of that. But moments later, you cringe hard and start giggling, a clear sign that your brain has interrupted with something ridiculous. "Okay okay okay, I'm gonna say it. I have to say it... I've created a monster."

"If I'm lucky," he says. You look into his eyes as he smiles down at you, tucking a few strands of hair behind your ear. "You better be prepared for me not to be able to keep my hands off you," he says with a smirk.

"Y/N..." He groans and covers his face with a pillow while you cackle.

"No wait, see? Now you can't hate that word anymore because it will remind you of sex!" You chirp delightedly.

"You can't possibly be fucking serious right now..." He says, muffled by the pillow.

The next several minutes are spent with you vehemently defending your joke, while, delightfully annoyed, he quietly admits to himself that being a Monster might not be all that bad.

...

Happy Pride Month, my Monster. I love you. ♥️

...

Tag list

@thelaundrybitch @the-cauldron-witch @fyreball66 @ninnosaurus @tmntngl @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos @zagreustomb @ramielll @silverwatergalaxy @gornackeaterofworlds @daedric-sorceress @sophiacloud28 @iridescentflamingo @milykins

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

Hiiii since it’s my birthday really soon, can I get Hu Tao, Yae Miko, Chiori, UMP45 and Makoto from P5 celebrating readers birthday?? Maybe a surprise party?!?!?!?!

(Genshin Impact/GFL/P5) Hu Tao, Yae Miko, Chiori, UMP45, and Makoto celebrating Reader's birthday

Oh god, I hope I'm still on time for this.

(Hu Tao) "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Hu Tao pops out of absolutely nowhere and scares the hell out of (Y/N), but she is beaming with energy.

Despite the fact the clock had just struck midnight, and S/O was in their own room.

(Hu Tao) "Soooo, what do you plan on doing? Got any cake for today?"

(Y/N) "Hu Tao, I'm trying to sleep. We can talk about this in the morning...Actually, how did you even get in my house?!"

(Hu Tao) "Details we can discuss after your birthday plans! Now, what do you want for today? I can try my best to get you a good sale!"

(Y/N) "Well, it's not a coffin or ghost, I'll tell you that much..."

(Hu Tao) "Wow, buzzkill! I guess I won't treat you to Xiangling's today after all!"

Hu Tao is definitely the type to throw a surprise party, though it's not much of a surprise since she appeared in their bedroom.

Later when it's actually a humane time of day, she invites them over to her home to celebrate properly!

She still wishes they could've had the celebration late at night though, Hu Tao had a lot of jokes planned...

Normally, Yae is supposed to do a formal recital of wishing a pleasant birthday.

But to hell with that, that was boring.

Yae decides to wish (Y/N) a happy birthday in her own way.

(Yae) "(Y/N), I expect to have a good meal today."

(Y/N) "Shouldn't I be the one saying that to you?"

(Yae) "Perhaps, but surely you don't plan on going anywhere mundane to eat for such a very special occasion, right?"

(Y/N) "N-Not if it's going to bankrupt all of my Mora!"

(Yae) "Oh come now, I do not eat that much."

(Y/N) "Wait, why am I paying for you on my birthday?!"

(Yae) "Well, thank you for offering! You're such a kind soul!"

(Y/N) sigh

She doesn't really host a party for (Y/N), at least not by herself. But at the very least, she'll make it a damn entertaining day, for better and worse.

Oh, (Y/N)'s birthday. Neat, Chiori supposed.

(Chiori) "Yes yes, happy birthday and all that."

(Y/N) "Hah, calm down there Chiori, you're getting a bit too excited."

(Chiori) "I hope you don't expect me to have cake and balloons ready to spring out at you."

(Y/N) "Frankly, I'd be more shocked if you did."

(Chiori) "At least you understand that part."

Bluntness aside, Chiori handcrafts (Y/N) a nice present before their very eyes.

A handmade gift could speak more than a million bought gifts ever could.

As much as Navia would disagree with her.

(Y/N) has better chances of Chiori throwing them a surprise party as they would surviving a lightning strike from the Raiden Shogun herself.

45's smile seems to soften when (Y/N) enters the dorm, though it was nearly pitch black.

(UMP45) "Well, you took your sweet time coming back."

(Y/N) "45? Why are you in my-"

UMP9 leapt out from underneath the table as the lights came on. HK416 was leaning against the wall while G11 was face first on the same table, sleeping away.

And in the middle appeared to be a cake that looked...ambitious, to put it kindly.

(UMP45) "Happy birthday.~"

UMP9 blew on a party horn, the small paper unfolding and making a small doot noise as her arms extended in joy.

HK416 simply shrugged and grunted, and G11 was still comatose.

(Y/N) "T-Thank you guys! You didn't really need to-"

(UMP45) "Not really, but I figured it'd be fun to celebrate something special with you."

Her smile only seemed to grow when (Y/N) joined her, watching the chaos unfold as UMP9 tried to cut a cake, despite the fact the knife was getting dangerously close to G11's unkempt hair.

(UMP45) "Thought I'd bring the squad along to have fun too. Clearly it's working better than I thought."

(Y/N) "This is already so chaotic though!"

(UMP45) "Exactly."

Makoto is caught off guard when (Y/N) enters the room, holding a small cake with a candle in it.

The cake itself seemed terribly made, as it looked like it'd crumble if one simply stared at it for too long.

(Makoto) "U-Um...Welcome back! I tried to make something for you myself and...you see how that worked."

Makoto sighed but (Y/N) laughed, giving a comforting hand on her shoulder.

(Y/N) "I appreciate it, still. But hey it smells really good!"

(Makoto) "And the taste...?"

(Y/N) took a bite out of it, and smiled, turning back to Makoto.

(Y/N) "Honestly, not bad! I'm not dead yet!"

Makoto chuckled as she sighed.

(Makoto) "Well, I suppose that's good reassurance."

Makoto would fail instantly at a surprise party, mostly because she'd spend too much time to get it ready, only for (Y/N) to walk in way too early.

[ethereal-writes]

Toy Jail (Ft. Lucifer and GN! MC)

Warnings: Romantic relationship

Length: 0.8k words

Genre: Fluff, slight hurt/comfort

A/N: Whoah! First fic in how long? What’s even more wild, I wrote this and am posting it on the same day! And even wilder? It’s Lucifer centric! I’m super excited to start posting again.

As always, if I’ve missed any warnings, please feel free to let me know! Enjoy!

-Ethereal (✿◡‿◡)

Story below, please don't claim as your own!

Lucifer sighed, hanging up his coat. He had finally made it back to the House of Lamentation after a long day of the usual nonsense.

The day had started off relatively calm. He’d spent the first part of his morning in your room, working on his paperwork. His own desk was entirely covered in papers he had yet to even start, so working there would have been virtually impossible. Besides, he didn’t mind spending time with you anyway.

Then it had all gone downhill. He’d been forced to intervene in his brother’s shenanigans once again when he started hearing explosions from the kitchen— they had been trying to follow a recipe exploding cheesecake. Seriously? Why had they thought that was a good idea in the first place?

After he’d dealt with that, Lord Diavolo contacted him, letting know he had some more work for him to pick up. So, off Lucifer had gone to pick it up. At least these papers wouldn’t need to be high on his priority list.

He arrived back home just in time to diffuse a massive brawl between Levi and Mammon. Something about Mammon selling off some of Levi’s figurines or posters or some…sort of anime paraphernalia that had nearly resulted in Levi summoning Lotan.

 By the time that had all been dealt with, he had just enough time to wrangle his brothers into looking vaguely presentable before shoving them all out the door in order to make it to the student council meeting.

Now he was home, exhausted, and he still hadn’t finished the damn papers he’d left on your desk. He made it to your door, knocking three times and waiting until he heard you call for him to come in.

You were sitting on your bed, doing the last few bits of homework you’d been assigned before the weekend. You offered him a smile. “Hey, how was your day?”

He hesitated at your slightly off tone but decided he didn’t have the energy to figure it out right now. “Very long, my love. And unfortunately, still not over.” He turned to the desk to return to his papers…but they weren’t there anymore. He turned to you with a quizzical look. “Have you seen the papers I left here?”

“Your papers?” A slightly…smug look came over your face. “Yes, I have.” You gestured to a plastic tub in the corner of the room, which, sure enough, contained the stack of documents.

“Ah, thanks.” He went to go retrieve them but paused when you held up your hand.

“Ah, ah,” you said, standing up. You gestured to the box. “Your papers are in toy jail.”

“Toy jail?” He repeated. He glanced at the tub, seeing the label on it. “…what does that mean?”

“It’s a common punishment in the human world. When a child leaves their toys out where they aren’t supposed to, their toys get put into a box, or “toy jail”. To earn them back, usually they have to do some sort of chore. I got so sick of everyone leaving their stuff here I decided to implement something similar in my room.”

Lucifer huffed. He really didn’t have the time nor energy to deal with this today…though he couldn’t help but find it a little endearing. “So…you’re punishing me like a child?”

You nodded.

He sighed in mostly false annoyance. “You’re saying that I…the Avatar of Pride, the eldest, one of the most powerful demons in hell…may not retrieve my paperwork from a plastic tub in your room…because you said so…because this is how children are punished in the human world.”

You finally looked up from your homework to give him a smirk. “Uh-huh.”

He groaned, though it was really difficult to pretend to be annoyed when you were looking at him like that.

“And…what is it you’re asking me to do in exchange for their…” bail”?” He asked. He took a seat beside you on the bed, leaning back slightly to look down at you.

“I want to watch a movie with you and order takeout.”

“I…huh?” He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting you to say, but it definitely wasn’t that. “Out of everything you could ask…that is what you want?”

You nodded. A slight frown tugged at your lips. “Yeah. You’ve been so busy lately, you’re overworking again. And…I feel like I haven’t spent time with you in a while. I miss you.”

Oh.

Well, that softened him up immediately, and the guilt pulled at his heart. “…it…has been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry, I’m just…terribly busy…”

You nodded. “No, no, I know. But…I finished the paperwork you left here while you were gone. It was pretty easy, just…really…really tedious. So…can you maybe spend the rest of the night with me?” You asked hopefully.

Well…he definitely couldn’t say no to that. He wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you to lean against him. “…of course I can, dearest.”

[softspace-fics]

Lost pt.3

⚠️ THIS IS NOT A AGE-RE POST. THIS IS A DARK POST. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION, DONT READ IF WARNINGS TRIGGER YOU⚠️

Masterlist - All my work!

⚠️ WARNINGS ⚠️: Mentions of violence blood, sewing skin, passing out, being lost with no contact, mature language (cussing), Steve and bucky being worried over reader, reader is mentioned to be a victim of hydra, Reader does not know or remember bucky or Steve in this part! This is mainly backstory to explain reader!! please let me know if I missed any!!

________________

As the next missions continue to come, the murder, the crime, the fraying of your brain, the pain, the burning, the destroying of the sweet person you used to be continued on as well. They forced you to only remember the metal armed man as a traitor and a nuisance to your work. You continued your pattern of jobs for a few more weeks until the day came, where your mission got compromised, the day you were supposedly “saved” from the terror and the experiments.

You slide down the side of the building, bracing yourself for impact while repeatedly hitting your abort button, the button that was supposed to get you safely back into your handler's possession, apparently, they lied.

The moment you pressed that button you were on your own, you were no longer their responsibility. They didn’t care if you died or lived.

Why weren’t they coming?

After everything you had done for them,

They. Weren’t. Coming.

You flew off of sight from your eventually to be boyfriends, and you start to shake as you somehow escape downtown, trying to keep off the radar.

To help you try and keep away from those chasing you down, you sneak in and out of a thrift shop, raiding the clothes that you could find to be able to hide yourself.

You carefully break into a apartment that used to be a place for soldiers under hydra to stake-out, but had turned into a ghost town after they changed locations. Sitting in the bathroom after finding old sewing supplies, you slowly piece your flesh back together after being grazed and hit with a few shots.

When you would get harmed after missions, you never received medical attention unless it was to fix something massive like the time 3 of your fingers went missing. Other than that they threw sewing supplies at you and you had to figure it out.

After 4 hours of doing your best to sew yourself up, you clammer to the corner of the bedroom and under the side table. You position yourself where you cant be seen but you can easily hear if someone enters the apartment. If someone as much as makes a move 4 streets over you’ll know.

You were pumped with similar serum as to your metal armed traitor of a partner. Your senses were so heightened that sleeping was the worst thing to have to do but even after all those training sessions and all of those experiments, you were still somewhat human.

You spend a few hours getting a minimal amount of sleep before you end up waking up and climbing out from under the table. You’re so used to being in a cage that you feel almost concerned being able to now walk freely among other people. How were you not being locked up and trapped again?

Why was life doing everything in its power to trap you in a place between hell and eternal living of the damned? You mindfully check every window, closing the blinds and making sure its completely sealed shut before you move on to the doors, vents, and anywhere else someone could hear you or try and make a move on you.

You search for food in the kitchen, but to no avail. When the place was left behind after hydra expanded, they totally ransacked the place. That means you’d have to go out for food.

As you leave to go and try and find food, you try to mimic everything around you, how people walk, the way their arms move, how they look at others, you were analyzing everything to try and fit in to survive. You just needed food and then you could go stake out back at the apartment.

When you get to a fresh food market, you walk in and steal whatever you could afford to slide by people before quietly sneaking out the back and getting back to your apartment the same way you originally went.

You do your best to live this way for weeks. you never go out, you never are seen anywhere that wast necessary. When you do have to go out whether it be for food or anything important to you, you do it as fast and efficiently as possible. You’re always checking over your shoulder.

As the weeks continue on, your confusion starts to bloom as memories of how you were before being held by your leaders, eventually floods into your mind, one by one ripping a piece of you apart.

The pain of seeing faces of people in your brain that you just can't put a name to, or a place, or anything. Who were they? Why did you feel like you should know them? Why know was it only resurfacing? Were you supposed to know them?

The nightmares begin as you attempt to sleep through countless nights, you remember how every surgery they did felt, the way the serum felt when they would inject numerous variants of it into your blood before shoving you either back into the cryostasis chamber or put back in your cell.

Memories begin to flood your mind at all times of the day, the countless faces you faced before they tried to make you suffer. The many scientists who experimented on you to turn you into the monster that was only just a pet. With the amount of pain and suffering your body went through, you weren’t sure the memories were even yours. The sensors to all of your memories were so frayed and broken that you couldn’t remember them until your body made you borderline live through them again.

There was a time you remembered a family, 2 boys, a mother, and a father. Was that your family? Did you ever have one?

You think about ending it numerous times, you feel pain every time you move, every time you breathe. The scars you stare at for hours, just wondering when did you start to look like you had been touched by the devil himself? You felt nothing but pain and aching pulsing through your veins.

Was this going to drive you to the end?

_____________

Part 4?

[bioodorange]

predator and prey -> Slasher! EJ x FinalGirl!Reader (preview)

this is the first few words only! i have the rest outlined and wasn't sure if you guys would like me to continue it or not!!

CW!! uh not much so far, slight degradation if you squint, size difference

and GN reader as usual besides one mention of a "final girl"

Please tell me what you think and if I ya wanna see another part

NSFW BELOW THE CUT!! MDNI

No one likes feeling afraid.

The relentless trembling of your body, the sticky feeling of your skin being covered with sweat.

You may even cry, tears welling in your eyes and blurring your vision.

It gets hard to see, hard to breathe and everything feels impossible.

Especially survival. 

People aren’t meant to be hunted like animals

Yet here you were

Running frantically through the woods as if you were something’s prey

You were the last one left, the last person alive and the only one still fighting.

A dull ache ran through your body, you yearned for a break. The only thing keeping you going was the adrenaline coursing through your veins. You needed to survive.

However, exhaustion was beginning to weigh on you. Lungs burning with every breath became harder and harder to breathe.

You began to slow down, body swaying as you tried to carry on, but you couldn’t.

Your skin burned as it scraped against the coarse forest floor. Blood peaked through small cuts on your palms and cheeks, dribbling out as you gazed down at your hands. 

Fuck!

You were the fucking final girl god damnit! You-

You couldn’t help the gasp of fear that escaped your lips as you looked up, emotions flickering between shock and fear. 

Towering above you, was the damned man himself- if you could even call him that.

He barely registered as human in your mind. 

He hardly even looked the part. 

He was unnaturally big, even when you weren’t curled up on the ground, bordering on 7 feet tall.

Nearly every inch of his skin was covered, the only thing you could make out was the ashy tone of his neck from beneath his hood.

His face was completely obscured by an expressionless, blue mask. 

The only thing human about him was the tufts of curly, dark hair that escaped his hood.

How he got so close without you noticing? You would never know.

“Go to hell!” You hissed at him, glaring into the empty voids of his mask.

His chest rumbled he had hummed- no laughed in amusement.

Silently he crouched down, his figure somehow still towering over yours.

You gritted your teeth, pressing your blooded palms into the dirt in an attempt to push yourself away from him.

In return, he leaned in closer, masked face now mere inches from yours. 

“Don’t run.” he chastised, hand reaching out to snatch up one of your wrists, pulling you back towards him with a swift tug.

His height forced him to lean in slightly to make eye contact, his broad shoulders blocking everything else from view.

All you could see was him.

“There’s no use in it, I’m only going to catch you again, you might as well behave.”

Your heart beat out of your chest, body shaking in his grasp. Like hell you were going to behave.

With your last bit of energy, you forced your knee up between the two of you and pushed, hoping it would create some distance.

For one glorious moment it worked, a glimpse of the starry night sky peaked in your vision as you fell back onto the forest floor- but the man came with you.

With a grunt, he landed ontop of you, caging your small body between his large frame and the ground.

It was only now that it dawned on you how big he was.

The upper half of his body almost covered yours entirely, one of his hands easily held both of your wrists pinned above your head.

You swallowed dryly, feeling a wave of heat rush through you-

You hoped to god it was simply a survival instinct, your adrenaline kicking in.

“I--”

“It’s like your begging me to hurt you.” he hummed, deep voice cutting off your own.

He leaned in again, body hovering over yours as he spoke again

“I think we could both use a break, don’t you?”

[bltzgore]

I doth drabble...

Background info:

Whumpee is being held at the base of a group of whumpers (maybe for interrogation, or ransom, or maybe just entertainm). There is this sort of arena where some of the whumpers like to take turns beating whumpee in the cement floor. This scene comes on the tail end of one of those beatings.

Tw: broken bones (specifically ribs), collapses lungs, blood in the lungs, bruising, strong language, mentions of sci-fi augments, pain relief drugs

Laying on their stomach was brutal. Whumpee wasn't sure they still had a fully intact rib left in their torso. But they were exhausted. This round had only gone three hours, not the shortest, but hardly the longest they'd suffered through.

This didn't change how horrendously the position they were laying in made their entire chest burn, and their lungs practically spasm with the strain.

They needed to move. They needed to breath properly.

So, Whumpee began to arrange their hands against the ground, well, one of their hands. Their left shoulder had stopped working right since the particularly vicious handling whumpee had received about an hour and a half into this session.

Still, they worked against the shaking of their right arm and pressed up. Slowly, they shifted the weight off their abused chest cavity and were rewarded with a fuller breath.

Whumpee was figuring out which way to let themselves back down when there was a sudden pressure on their back that dissuped the careful architecture of their current position.

Whumpee crashed back onto their stomach. The second they made contact with the floor, their world went black. Their mouth gaped in a scream, but their lungs were on fire. Nothing left their mouth but a strained wheeze like sob.

The world pieced itself back together in patches, their vision crept back at a snails pace, as they tried to handle the shock and the lack of oxygen.

The pressure, which had now been identified as Whumpers foot, pressed down harder, making whumpee gasp and immediately regret it, siezing up with rabid heavy tears. The less oxygen their body got the more it struggled, forcing whumpee to squirm and aggravate almost all their existing injuries in the process.

Whumper grinned, "That's right, you fuckin' worm." They dug the toe of their boot into whumpee's back.

Whumpee's spine arched, and their face contorted. They felt their ribs scraping together and displacing, stabing new holes into their lungs, crushing into everything they were supposed to protect.

"Can't even scream." Whumper laughed, deep and satisfied, "how pathetic can you get?"

Whumpee's vision was fraying at the edges, pain lighting up every corner of their body as they writhed under the pressure. Whumper was right, they were a worm.

Whumper removed their boot and let whumpee breathe, unconscious creatures were no fun.

Whumpee tried to breathe in. They tried so hard, but they couldn't breathe deep enough to get their vision to clear. They could at least stay awake though. That was something, right?

Tears ran down whumpee's face without permission, whumper sneered, and pulled whumpee's head up by their hair. "Damn, you look awful. With that many broken bones, maybe it'd be more humane to put you down." They laughed at their own joke, "You want that little worm? Want me to make it all stop?"

Whumpee blinked heavily as their view of whumper cycled through degrees of blur. They weren't sure they wanted to hear themselves answer that question.

Whumper had opened their mouth to continue when from across the room-

"Hey! The hell are you doing? The boss said 'e needs 'em alive, dumbass."

Whumper dropped their grip on whumpee's hair and stood, turning to go address the source of the voice. "I wasn't actually gonna do it, caretaker."

"The hell you weren't." They muttered, then more directly, "You're time is up anyway, get the fuck out you freak."

Whumper sighed, "Yeah yeah." And started off. "Patch 'em up better this time, maybe then they won't break so easy." Heading out through the door.

Caretaker growled something more obscene than usual and climbed up onto the arena floor. They knelt next to whumpee, who was trying to move again, lacking the lung capacity to cry properly.

Caretaker set the makeshift medical kit down and gently drew whumpee off the floor, taking the weight mercifully off their torso. They shifted how they were sitting just enough to lean whumpee's back against their chest to keep the weight pressing against bones that weren't as damaged.

They could feel all of the small movements whumpee's muscles were making in their failing attempts to protect themselves. All of the light twitching of muscle that had been pushed to their brink. They could feel whumpee trying to breathe. Stuttering, wheezing, shaking.

With the gentle treatment, whumpee's body had a free moment to remember the fluid building up in their lungs. Whumpee tried to cough, and it was hell. A spray of red on the cement floor and their world went white. Their sobbing picked up enough to just be heard over the wheezing. But their body didn't take the hint, it just wanted to expel the collecting blood.

"I know, kid, I know." Caretaker soothed, holding them up with one arm and rooting through their medical supplies with the free hand. It stopped on the cool glass of the syringe and brought it out. Caretaker closed their teeth on the cap and tugged it off. "This'll help, just hold on for me." They forced the needle into whumpee's arm and pressed down the plunger, sending the clear liquid in, to work its magic.

As it took effect caretaker layed them back on the floor for assessment.

A gentle warmth slowly traveled through whumpee, pooling in places where the pain was heaviest, and making it hard to think. That was ok with whumpee though, they didn't want to think anymore. Not about the agony, not about the hopelessness, not about how they had almost said yes to whumper.

Whumpee felt a hand on their cheek, thumb carefully brushing away a new tear. They leaned into it, and whimpered. The only soft touch in weeks. "Evrything h-hurts." They whispered.

Caretaker felt their heart clench, but they kept it out of their voice, "I know, kid. I'm gonna fix it."

Caretaker started by investigating what was clearly going to be the biggest problem. The ribs. So they carefully drew up whumpee's shirt. Holy shit. What had whumper been thinking?!

Whumpee's skin was a galaxy of black and blue, with sick undertones of yellow and un-oxygenated red. When their chest rose it rose wrong, there were inconsistencies... dents, in the usual contours of the ribcage, and places that reshuffled themselves as they moved.

For a moment, Caretaker was paralyzed. This was such a mess. They weren't even sure how many ribs could be saved. They were going to have to open up and replace, and they barely even knew how to- caretaker shut down the spiral. They needed to think clearly... as clearly as they could.

First, the things they knew they could do. Drain the blood from the lungs and the air from the chest cavity. Then, they could worry about reconstruction. Because that's what this was going to require, if whumpee was going to live, much less live through another one of the doubtlessly impending beatings whumper or whumper 2 was going to give them the moment caretaker stepped away they needed to open-

Caretaker caught the spiral again, focusing back on their breathing, slowing it.

"It's bad-" They stopped for a few half breaths, blinking slowly, and looking up through half lidded eyes, "isn't it?"

Caretaker looked down at whumpee. They hadn't realized it had shown. They hadn't meant to let it slip. But they wouldn't lie, "Yeah, whumpee. It's bad."

"Am I- g-gonna?" They couldn't say it.

"No." Caretaker was sure this time, "Not if I can help it."

"I-its gonna h-urt though, i-isn't it?"

"Yes."

[triglycercule]

mtt playing poker but why would they bet with money thats soooo boring boo boo boo no they bet with increasingly worse and concerning things and its fun for some reason

oh theyd LOVE that shit istg. luck and bluff and tells and lies??? god who knows your own lies and deceit better than another version of yourself??? and yet picking up the other two's tells is oh so very hard because theyre not the same anymore than when they were all sans and sometimes they dont even know themselves so how could they pick up on a mirrored version's? it works out a lot more than they think

killer would have no disregard for what he bets. he plays unpredictably and sneakily. probably faking some emotion here and there to get the hasty (horror) confused and concerned about what he could do and then it turns out killer had a fucking ass hand yet he won??? BULLSHIT horror cries out!!!! but dust just picks up the cards on the ground and deals them again and they play another round. sometimes killer purposely loses. why? he dont know its just to throw a wild card into dust and horror's predictions and mayhaps for the reactions

dust is a dirty player he is a fucking CHEATER‼️‼️‼️ phantom paps are his eyes that he uses to spy on killer and horror's hands. would he need to even try anymore at that point when he could easily win every round? well yes because that wouldn't be a fun game and dust wants to have as much fun as he can in this game of lies. he pretends he doesn't know what horror and killer's hands are. they both know. theyre both more than aware of dust's cheating. and that's why their betting starts going against him specifically and then dust has to figure out how to bet them higher while also trying not to fuck himself over

horror's main thing is just to not get fucked over. goddamnit why did he agree to this he's not as open to getting hurt than dust or killer are!!! (but you still agreed anyways?) so he thinks he's the only one to have a real reason to win (because horror no wanna get hurty hurty owww owww painpainpain ouch!!!) maybe he gets too cocky and ends up betting too high because dust or killer had been losing and he wanted to take a chance. maybe that high bet was actually what got him to win?? it's all a game of chance of course and horror'll only show what he thinks after the round's done. when the cards are dealt and the stakes are up he'll just analyze the hell out of the two (don't YOU hate being analyzed??) and tap his fingers on the table over and over

their way of betting would be like: the winner gets to do whatever the other two said as their bets to the betters. like if dust loses and horror wins and he said he could get sucker punched horror is sucker punching the FUCK out of him. but these three argue they fight and bicker and throw gibes and taunts!!! how would they ever agree on what bets are higher and which are lower ⁉️⁉️⁉️ to horror a bet of saying that he'd have to eat something could be like straight hell to him but killer and dust could just put the argument that it doesn't REALLY mean that much (they know it does to horror) and then force him to bet higher because cmon coward you can do better than that!!! dont you want to get some sort of revenge on us if you lose a previous round and win this one??? and other forms of logic like that 4 dust and killer

killer starts off with an absurdly high bet (because he would) like getting to mess with his soul or something. is he sure that dust and horror have losing hands? he doesn't know. and because killer has no form of limit for himself and that's already a high bar to set for dust and horror to reach (if they don't have good hands i think they'd probably want killer to bet lower. but would they tell him??) so damn it horror has to pull out some bullshit fucking bet like he'll allow himself to get hunted down by the two with every trap he's ever set on a human in horrortale (sooo much more psychological thinking and trickery going on without betting money and instead scenarios its SO FUN). and then could dust fold? does phantom paps say he should? it depends on the cards dust has (and what if he doesn't believe paps based on his own assumptions? (paranoid bitch)) and if he can't fold he has to match the bet or go higher and then he comes up with some bogus situation like ok i'll let you guys dress me up in my human's clothes and throw me in an au and have to do what they did (and OH GOD what about if they make a bet that the other 2 wouldn't actually want to do if they win??? if killer won that round with that as dust's bet would he want someone to reenact something similar to what his own human did and have to watch??????)

oops they just got another new set of scars from last week's poker night and another layer of trauma but why the hell are they sitting down at the table again??? idk man i'm just the dealer here trying not to get killed

[foone]

We should start a star trek voyager project to rewrite the 138 episodes that take place after Threshold. Maintain the original plots for the most part, but now the lizard babies are there.

Introduce a crewman who is a babysitter for them when Janeway and Paris have to go do Mission Stuff. For one episode the babysitter gets injured or something and tuvok and neelix to take care of the babies and they're teething! Have Paris tell his dad that he's now a grandfather. Seska steals Voyager in Basics but she misses the babies because no one has gotten around to adding them to the crew register yet, so now Lon Suder has to take care of them while sneaking around the ship.

By the time of The Year of Hell, they can talk, and they're of equivalent intelligence to like 5 year old (modern) humans. One of them dies during the episode, and Janeway is devastated. They come back at the end, of course.

They get mad when they find out the publisher edited them out of The Doctor's hit holonovel of life on Voyager. They show up in Barclay's recreation of life on Voyager, but he gets them completely wrong. They look like iguanas, not salamanders.

During The Killing Game, one of them eats a Hirogen Nazi. Janeway is so proud.

The Voth use them as PROOF that their two species are related, during Distant Origin.

When Q wants to have a kid with Janeway during The Q and the Grey, she replies "I've already got enough kids, thank you very much"

One of them decides to stay with Neelix when he leaves Voyager, having become attached to him, and Neelix treating them like the child they never had.

By the end of the show they'd be six years old, and they obviously grow up fast. They could easily be junior members of the crew by then. They are close friends with Icheb and Q2.

Tom has redesigned the Delta Flyer so that one of the Lizard Kids (the "oldest", Mark) can fly it too, as they're taking after their dad and becoming a damn good pilot.

Another (the middle child, Owen) is helping out B'Elanna (and later, Seven) with tech stuff, and he enjoys helping fix the ship. You'd be amazed how fast a quadrupedal lizard can run through Jeffries Tubes and fix a plasma coupling.

The third (the youngest, Shannon) is an artist and a musician, and is closest to her "godfather", Harry. She's not sure she wants to join Starfleet like her siblings, but she's still happy to help out when she can. She's doing some training with Tuvok as it seems Future Humans have some empathic abilities, and hers are strong enough to need practice to be able to control.

There's a subplot in some random episode where Mark is unsure how they fit in with (modern) humans, and decides they don't fit the gender binary. The Doctor rattles off a long list of species with more than two genders, and he mentions humans. Mark then decides their gender is "lizard" and uses they/them pronouns for the rest of the show. They keep the name Mark for now, commiserating with The Doctor about having a placeholder name until you can figure our your True Name. The gets referenced in one of the future segments of Endgame, where it's revealed that The Doctor has taken the given name "Mark", but it's not revealed what name (if any) Mark has changed to.

Speaking of Endgame, Shannon is on Vulcan helping take care of Tuvok. She's become quite a good doctor by then.

And Owen... didn't make it. He died on the long trip back, valiantly saving the whole ship from a destabilized warp core on the verge of rupture, but took a lethal dose of radiation in the process. Janeway held him in her arms as he died, and she posthumously gave him a promotion to lieutenant, first class. It's one of the things that drive her to go back in time and get Voyager home sooner, and can you really blame her?

Mark's teaching at the academy, after they'd enrolled to make their enlistment official. They barely made it a semester before they were being asked to help teach classes, and then eventually just running half the navigational and piloting divisions. Half of Starfleet wants them as a pilot for new missions to uncharted space, but for now they're staying close to home. Dad is so proud. Their little (half) sister Miral Paris likes to gently rib them over this, pointing out that she's probably gonna end up becoming a full Captain before Mark even gets out of the Academy. Mark points out they could have graduated years ago, but they need to stay here and train the next generation of Starfleet pilots, or Captain Miral Paris's first mission will end real quick when some badly trained ensign accidentally flies them into a black hole.

(Momma Janeway, of course, likes to point out that their dad already DID fly into a black hole, and he even managed to fly out of it afterwards. Miral and Mark both agree that the physics on that one doesn't make much sense, so they're not sure how much they believe that.)

Basically I just want to radically reimagine most of Voyager from Threshold onward, first in small ways with the lizard babies being a small background element and occasional B-plot, but then having their role grow until they're regulars, on even footing with the main cast, appearing in A-plots and having plots of their own dominate an episode.

I get why the show couldn't manage having full-time cast members who are fully CGI, it was 27 years ago after all. But that's no limitation for writing, and besides: we've got Janeway appearing on a fully computer generated show now! We could totally have the Threshold Kids as primary characters.

There'll also be a crossover episode taking place in the primary (no-threshold-babies on board) timeline. It's after voyager, and more importantly after DS9. Janeway and Chakotay are relaxing on earth, having made it safely back home, when they get a vision. The missing-in-action former captain of Deep Space Nine has learned about what happened, and he is pissed. At first he's angry at Janeway for leaving her children behind, no matter the circumstances of their birth, but then he learns it was Chakotay who made the decision (Janeway was too busy being a lizard at the time). His anger is only mostly redirected, as Janeway had every chance to turn around the ship and go back and get them once she'd been cured. He talks to them about the importance and duty of being a parent, and both Janeway and Chakotay agree... They messed up. Janeway wishes she could fix it. The Sisko ask her if she really means that, and when she confirms it, he smiles. You never left them behind, you know. Chakotay made the right choice and when you had the chance, you agreed with him. The Sisko fades away, and six years sideways Tuvok and a younger Chakotay are staring at a pond on some unnamed alien world, having just zapped Lizard!Paris and Lizard!Janeway with a phaser. They see a light on their faces as they go into an Orb of the Prophets Vision , and The Sisko, official demi-god and prophet of Bajor, gives them a direct order. They are to bring those babies on board their ship, because Starfleet is about discovering new life and new civilizations and THERE IT SWIMS. Voyager is a family, and it's a family that just got bigger. He holds the lizard babies in his arms for a moment, even if only in the vision, and he's so proud of them. The Sisko has always loved babies, and the number of Bajorans who have reported having unprompted Orb Visions in the days after they give birth is becoming a bit of an epidemic. (For what it's worth, they're very happy about it. It's a great blessing after all. Imagine you just gave birth and Jesus or Moses shows up in a vision to tell you your baby is very cute and is going to grow up big and strong. You'd probably take that as a good omen, you know?)

Back in 2372, Chakotay and Tuvok agree. The rest of the episode is altered: Janeway and Paris have a brief talk in the med-bay, then go down to Cargo Deck 2 to see their kids swimming in the little artifical pond that Kes and Tuvok set up for them. Neelix is there, trying to feed them small spoonfuls of Feragoit goulash. They don't know what to make of Tuvok and Chakotay's report of getting a vision that told them to bring the babies on board, but they agree it was the right choice, even if it's going to be a challenge raising three babies on a starship this far from home. The episode ends with one of the babies missing the spoon entirely and latching onto Neelix's thumb, and Paris and Janeway laugh.

His high-pitched screaming echoes through the ship as we cut to the view of Voyager flying through the stars, and the card "Executive Producer Rick Berman" pops up on screen. As if on cue, the screams get louder.

[titlemewickedwonderland]

Lost and Found (Ghost Oneshot)

Summary: Y/n is a newly summoned ghoul who's getting used to her new life topside. When her new packmates can't find her during a bad storm at the Abbey they go searching for her with worry only to find her in the oddest spots!

Prompt: Requested by anon for this one! I hope you find it and enjoy reading it! Thank you for the request <3

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It's a tricky thing being part of the Ghost Project. Being a newly summoned ghoul, that is. After living a life of literal hell for such a long time; going from a normal human to a creature of hell, well it's hard. Even when you know life topside is far better than the life you had in Hell; it's still quite hard to relax and fall into a normal life; especially when you don't remember who you are or what your name was before dying and being reborn as a hellish creature.

Y/n could still remember the scent of sulfur that was thick on her tongue with every intake of breath. Hear the bone-chilling screams and wails from the damned that resided in the Pits where she found herself spawned. Could still feel the rattling heart pounding in fear with every pump.

It wasn't a life she had expected. She wasn't sure where she would have gone when she'd die. She honestly didn't expect to go anywhere. She didn't imagine she'd be destined for the pearly gates of Heaven but she honestly didn't fathom the idea of being dropped into Hell. It wasn't as bad as people made it out to be; she could be biased about it though after living there for such a long time. She sure knew how utterly terrifying it could be at the beginning. If Hell was a form of PTSD well she'd imagined she had it.

She could still remember finding herself hiding for her life from some ferals down in the Pits who were searching for fresh blood when she suddenly felt a burning energy inside of her body and the next thing she knew she was lying naked in a cold room surrounded by masked figures. She remembered being so disoriented and confused but not feral as they seemed to have expected with how cautious they were when approaching.

It'd been a few weeks since then and while she did well to acclimate herself to her new life here at the Abbey she still felt off inside of her. Like a part of her still clung to the horrors that lay in a portal beneath her very feet. She had been told that her ghoulish abilities wouldn't come in for a little while as she got used to her new home but she'd already known her abilities...she was just too skittish to say anything.

Her new packmates; a group of ghouls like herself were an amazing bunch. The support, care, and comfort they gave her while she adjusted to being topside while being understanding of her was something she didn't realize she had needed; she certainly wouldn't have found it down in Hell even if she tried - there was no light or love in Hell. Only terror, greed, and horror are in an endless cycle surrounding the lives down there.

She didn't want to tell them; her new packmates of her issue. Of her mental state that didn't quite find peace like her body was trying to while being here. She wasn't stupid, she'd hoped they wouldn't have heard the cries of endless pain and torment that plagued her mind while she slept. She knew better, of course, she did. While they did not outwardly speak about it - they had shown kindness and support in their own ways.

Mountain, the Earth Ghoul would leave flowers on her nightstand to find every morning after she had her nightmares. Swiss the Multi-Ghoul would be overly chipper and jokester in the morning as if trying to distract her from her nightmares. Rain, the sweet soft spoken Water Ghoul would give her random little trinkets he'd find; like shiny stones, pennies or other coins he found in the waterfall in the Abbey's court, or some river stones he'd find on a swim that reminded him of her in some way. Dewdrop, although grumpy to most people, had gotten in the habit of draping himself across her whenever possible; whenever she'd sit down somewhere or merely be standing by he'd be there draped across her lap or shoulders as if his unearthly heat would wrap around like a comforting heated blanket to chase away the fog that clouded her mind after a particularly long night. Phantom, the newest member of the pack who had been there a few months to replace their last Quintessence Ghoul Aether would find any spare moment to talk about music with her and show her his guitar skills as if for a distraction. The ghoulettes were very sweet too; always bringing her comfort foods and cute little stuffies they'd found somewhere.

She loved the fact that they cared so much and didn't speak aloud the glaring truth of what they knew was happening every night behind her closed bedroom door but sometimes; they felt stifling and she needed some space. Her chance came in the form of a brewing storm on the horizon.

The sky was dark and thick with the scent of a storm that was forecasted by the dark grey clouds above their heads. Because of this practice had been canceled; not wanting to have the ghouls out in such a storm that had been predicted by the weather channel to be quite a thunderstorm with heavy rain, lightning, thunder, and a high chance of flooding. But while the others made preparations to be holed up in their quarters together for the night by building a large nesting area on the floor in the common room they realized in the midst of this someone was missing.

"Hey, uh guys?" Swiss blinked looking around the room where the others were busy bringing in blankets, pillows, stuffies, and rearranging the floor for a ghoul pile.

"What's the matter, Swiss?" Cumulus perked up from her spot on the floor where she was making a stuffed animal pile.

"Has anyone seen Y/n?" the Multi-ghoul asked still scanning the room of each of his packmate's faces trying to find the newest member of their pack.

"Yeah, wasn't she supposed to be with Phantom grabbing some snacks from the kitchen?" Dewdrop added stopping what he was doing in favor of turning towards the Quintessence ghoul who just entered the room with an armful of snacks.

Phantom paused when he saw everybody's eyes on him and he looked around nervously. "Vwhat?" he mumbled around the corner of a bag of chips hanging from between his teeth.

"Is Y/n with you?" Rain piped up; his eyes worried as he craned his head around the other to see if the newest member was trailing behind but he was alone in the doorway.

Phantom dropped the snacks onto the coffee table and frowned as he shook his head slowly. "No? She said she was going to get some extra batteries or something like that..." he replied slowly.

"We have batteries already. It was like the first things we grabbed." Mountain stated sharing a look with Rain.

"So what are you saying?" Phantom asked placing his hands on his hips.

"We're saying...." Cirrus piped up from behind Cumulus with a firm tone. "Y/n's missing."

"Well, we got to find her!" Phantom replied waving his hands around. "She's still pretty new being here...she could have gotten lost or..or or..." he looked around the room and then out the window staring at the downpour outside followed by lightening.

"Do you think?" Aurora asked softly seemingly speaking up on what Phantom was thinking.

Rain's jaw set and he stalked towards the door; throwing it open to stare out into the hallway where it echoed loudly with the rumbling of the storm brewing outside.

"Rain, where are you going?" Mountain called turning to his companion.

"I'm going to go find Y/n. It's storming outside...she could be lost or hurt." the water ghoul replied before slipping from the room.

"Rain!" Cumulus called worriedly but her attention turned towards Dewdrop as he began walking towards the door to follow Rain. "Dew!"

"Look, Y/n's the kit of this pack. It's our job to make sure she's safe. Lucifer only knows where she is and I agree with Rain. Now you can come with us or stay here. But I'm going." Dew turned to the group with a glare before the Fire ghoul followed Rain's path out the door without even waiting for a reply.

It didn't take long before the others looks around at each other with concerned expressions. Dew was right. Y/n was technically the kit of the pack. She was new and had only been topside for a few weeks. She didn't know the Abbey as well as them and with her unspoken PTDS night terrors, they were worried that the storm could trigger her panic attacks. So they did what they always did when it came to their packmates; they followed out the door in search of their companion because no one leaves a pack member behind no matter how fresh and new they were.

~

The rain was heavy on her skin. It felt like little daggers pelting her unprotected skin. Or that could be the small pea-sized hail that was falling along with the rain. But instead of being frightened; she leaned back on her palms and raised her face to the sky allowing the storm to drench her from head to toe in it's icy pellets that rained down on her. She didn't care if she had goosebumps crawling along her skin from the cold. She didn't care about the cracks of lightening that lit up the darkened clouds above her every few seconds. She didn't even care about the fact that thunder roared in her ears like a furious god.

The storm didn't frighten her. It actually calmed the racing of her mind as she just let Mother Earth wash away the worries, the stress, and the tension that had been coiled in her body since day one of being here at the Abbey.

Y/n liked to pretend she was okay. That she didn't suffer from the memories of her life in Hell. She liked to think she was normal when the sun came up. But at every corner, there was just something that reminded her of her inadequacies in comparison to her new packmates. While everybody else seemed in a comfortable routine here she always felt like the outcast, she knew it wasn't true. While the Siblings of Sin slowly got used to her and her them; her new packmates were always right there as silent support. It wasn't something she was used to but she secretly enjoyed it even when she felt an unexplainable guilt of wanting that kind of connection. It was silly, to think she craved their affections; of anybody's affection as much as she did and she felt wrong for wanting that even when she knew she shouldn't. Maybe it was the fear of Papa finding out of her struggles and deciding she wasn't worth it - afraid of him choosing to end her contract and send her back. She didn't want to go back. Not when she was trying so hard to accept the life she had been granted for a second chance at happiness.

As if reading her thoughts aloud she heard something among the sounds of the thunderstorm above her head. Voices suddenly came from below where she sat on the rooftop of one of the wings of the Abbey's church. Casting her golden gaze downwards she spotted them through the sheet of rain and hail the group she'd come to know as her new family stared up at her with glowing eyes. Because of her inhuman senses, she could hear their shouting even among the thunder and lightning crackling.

"Y/n! Omg! What are you doing up there?!" Phantom shouted looking up at her in panic.

"Honey, come down! It's okay. We're here now!" Swiss added as he searched for a way up to her; where the hell had she managed to get herself up there from? He didn't see a ladder and he didn't see a door up there for her to have made it up from inside the Abbey. Did she climb?!

Y/n stared down at them for a long moment wondering why they were panicking? It was just a storm. A small smile graced her face though as she noticed Dewdrop looking like a half-drowned cat staring up at her; clearly not liking the rain but he was out here anyway looking for her. And that warmed her heart a little. They were all there for her. Had they thought she was lost? Well, she had sort of just slipped away from them without saying where she was going so she could understand that.

The Ghoulette finally got to her feet; careful of the rain rushing down the steep roof and made her way to the edge; apparently, this wasn't what they had expected and they began to panic.

"No! Y/n! Blossom get away from the edge! We'll come up there to get you!" Mountain called looking around for a ladder or something.

But she didn't listen and instead stood right at the edge of the roof and raised her arms out on either side before tipping herself forward to freefall off the roof. As she fell through the air she could hear the shouting of panic and terror as several bodies lurched forward to catch her. A pair of arms snagged around her waist right before she fell to the ground; the momentum caused her and her rescuer to fall flat on the ground into the wet grass with the breath knocked out of their lungs. Well, that certainly wasn't a good idea.

She rolled over onto her back and a figure scrambled over her; hands brushing away her drenched hair that stuck to her face as they frantically made sure she was breathing and okay. She started to laugh. Actually laugh, carefree and awfully delighted with herself; her eyes peeking open a crack to Rain hovering over her looking no better than she with his dark wavy curls sticking to his face as he made sure she was okay.

"I'm fine." she finally let out between muffled giggles. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you guys."

"Damn it, woman!" Dewdrop knelt at their side and examined her to make sure she wasn't hurt too. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I needed a moment to myself." she replied with a sigh as she closed her eyes again.

"Blossom you're shaking! Look at you, you are drenched to the bone! You don't even have a jacket on!" Mountain's voice resembled the booming of the thunder above them.

"I'm okay really I just..." she opened here eyes again to look up at all the worried faces hovering above her and she felt a slight pang of guilt for worrying them so much. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to make you think-"

She was cut off as Swiss yanked the girl to her feet and picked her up. "Stubborn girl. You could have said told us! You didn't need to run off and give us a heart attack; we thought you got lost or hurt in this storm." he muttered.

"I'm sorry." her eyes softened a bit as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Come on, let's get out of this rain and get dried off." Rain added as he rose to his feet.

"Don't ever do that to us ever again!" Cumulus chided a little too harshly as she gripped onto Cirrus and Aurora as the three walked after the others. Despite her harsh tone worry was still swimming in her eyes; her anger came out from the depths of her concern and fear for their packmate.

They made it back inside in record time; dripping water all over the floor. While Mountain went to go grab some towels for them to dry off with Dewdrop started a fire in the fireplace to get the place warmed up and an extra source for them to dry off with as they placed themselves around it with Y/n in the middle. The ghoulette sat between Dewdrop's legs as he hugged her from behind; his usual form of affection she was growing fond of as he used his fire ghoul powers to heat his body up to dry off and warm her better than the fireplace ever could and she snuggled into him as she cuddled a pillow to her chest while Phantom and Swiss handed out some hot cocoas for everybody that had been made earlier before Y/n's disappearance.

"I am really sorry for worrying so you so much. I didn't mean to. I just...I don't know I just needed space to gather my thoughts and I guess I just thought you guys wouldn't notice." Y/n finally spoke up as she stared into the fire in front of her.

"What was all of that about though sweetheart? You know you didn't have to run off like that to gather your thoughts. You're part of our pack now, you could have just come to us if there was something on your mind." Cirrus said as she scooted closer to the girl and grabbed her hand.

"I..." Y/n looked down at the ground. "I just...you guys have been so kind to me...turning a blind eye when it came to my night terrors; and I'm not stupid, I know you hear me at night when it gets bad. I just, I felt like such a burden. Being the new one that didn't fit in. Even when you went out of your way to make me feel part of you guys I just..." she sighed rubbing her eyes when she felt the sting behind them.

"Y/n... No matter how new you think you are, we all have been there at one point. But you are here with us right now. Your family. You are our packmates and we love you. We were trying to give you space to make sure you settled in on your own time. But if you worried so much all you had to do was tell us. We wouldn't have let you go through this alone if you were struggling." Rain murmured from his spot nearby.

"I just didn't think you'd want to hear about it." Y/n confessed sheepishly. "It's been a long time since you guys were summoned I just thought you didn't want to have to deal with it again with me."

"Have you not heard a single thing we've said?" Dewdrop grumbled from behind her as he rested his chin on top of her head between her horns. "You're fucking family now, we wouldn't let you go through this alone, idiot."

Y/n nodded slightly feeling her eyes burn with tears and her throat close up a bit; she stifled her sniff by burying her face into the pillow and Aurora gave a little coo as she crawled over and placed herself in the other's lap to cuddle.

"You're okay, blossom." Mountain wrapped his tail around Y/n tightly and leaned closer to see her face; the glisten of her silent tears wetting her cheeks as it reflected from the fireplace.

"No more running and no more hiding from us okay You got an issue you come to us. We'd do anything for you and for each other; that's what packmates do, we can only imagine the kind of life you had in the pits because we had something similar. But you are safe now. You're home." Swiss added firmly as he reached out to grab one of her hands beneath the blanket she had on her lap.

"I promise. No more running or hiding," she replied wiping at her nose.

"Atta girl." Cumulus smiled getting comfortable in the nest made earlier that day. "Now come on. Join the pile. I'm pooped and I think we all need a nap."

Y/n laughed a bit and nodded as she crawled from between Dew's legs and came to rest against Cumulus's side while the others did the same; joining them in the pile of blankets, pillows, and warm bodies to nap out the storm brewing overhead.

[kiyans-corner]

Danny Phantom conspiracy theory hour! Or prompt time, whatever.

ok but what if his rogues gallery, all his usuals... What if that's actually his family? hear me out!

ok so there's a ThingTM I've seen floating around where baby ghosts get dibs-ed by mature ghosts to keep them safe while their core settles or whatever, right? But ghost bonding time = fighting. So they just absolutely wrecked his shit to say hi and stake claim... gently, with no irreparable damage to him. A lil literal love tap for the newly dead, newly formed.

Except.

The kid isn't a regular ghost. He still breathes, sometimes. If you catch him in his meatsuit, he's warm too, and either way he still has actual factual BLOOD in him! HUMAN blood! And if you hit him as hard as you would another full ghost that shit FALLS OUT OF HIM, and it just. it actually needs replaced! no one is sure exactly how squishy their Ghost Boy is, but they're pretty damn sure that it wouldn't be a matter of "just" collecting and guarding his core if he got his ass handed to him badly enough he needed it.

And without a steady exposure to ectoplasm, without the support of at least one AdultTM like you'd have in the zone... He might not even need to get busted down like that to destabilize.

That's a hell of a weakness. That's a hell of a way to figure out why the kid just... doesn't go to the Zone. They don't think he even knows he needs to, that he needs contact with AdultsTM to help him settle right, and even with all his freaky cryptid bullshit, where he'll be normal one minute, and then out of the corner of your eye his skin will flush, his eyes go flat and dull- an eerie blue, icy and disconcerting. Fangs shorten to little useless things, just for a second, just long enough to see. He's still a baby.

And his fucking human parents want to kill him a second time over, the exact same way they'd do if the fuckers caught one of them. To their SON.

To the kid they just collectively called dibs on.

There isn't enough ectoplasm in Amity Park to sustain a literal baby while his core finishes out. AdultsTM have a driving need to protect baby ghosts, just by default (not that anyone minds, in the Infinite Realms it's not exactly common to run into an unaccompanied minor. They usually get picked up within the first few days when they're exploring, if they weren't born in the zone somewhere populated in the first place). Outside of the zone, it's going to take all of them to help keep his core stable... And they have to do it without their Ghost Boy catching on, so his stupid human progenitors- those are NOT fucking parents, what in the fuck, absolutely THE FUCK not, not if the scum suckers would kill the Ghost Boy if they found out he'd been claimed by ~ectoplasmic scum~ and maybe actually hung out with them like this was supposed to work.

The best way to get close enough for some literal core support, close enough to fucking smother everything around him in a halfway decent amount of ectoplasm? Gonna have to fight him. All the time. Badly. As many wide shots, as much of their own ectoplasm soaking into the stone and soil and sublimating the air around him as possible for him to feed off of. Their own attacks fizzling in the air after making contact with anything, bonus points if their Ghost Boy gets a lung full of the newly unimprinted ectoplasm.

They aren't growing in power as Danny grows. They're just using more of their power as he grows. Just enough that he can still "win" until he's actually on a level playing field. Baby raising basics, their controlled combat was also indirectly teaching their boy to fight better!

And if another side effect of scattering their own ectosignatures on every available surface was keeping everyone weaker than their combined strengths that would go for their boy too hard, accidentally or on purpose, out of Amity Park if they told them to gtfo, even with a permanent portal right there? It didn't matter that Amity Park was in the human realm, or that at least one of them had to go for a play date every other day at minimum instead of less frequent check ins, that they spent so much time in the wrong realm now.

It was a parent's job to help the youngest ones establish and hold their lair until they can manage it on their own too, after all.

[bumblebeeenby]

Does how does everyone else feel about Jay being an android?

Kai, at first, is in disbelief that this Jay is actually Jay. He knows it makes no sense, but he can’t believe there would be something this big and important about one of his friends that he overlooked. He’s got whiplash from the cognitive dissonance of it all. He feels guilt over not seeing it earlier, not being good enough to know. What if Jay had died because he failed to notice something so important? What kind of teammate is he? He feels like he’s failed his friend. After he gets past that, he gets a little paranoid about the whole situation and starts checking over his own body, as well as Cole’s to make SURE they’re not also secretly robots.

Zane is obviously concerned for Jay. He’s been through the process of discovering he wasn’t human, and doesn’t want Jay to go through the same identity crisis he did. Jay’s behavior is also concerning, and while the rest of the group is quick to assume that his unreasonably calm attitude in the first realm is some sort of malfunctioning, Zane is less convinced (he’s right, it’s purely psychological). He also feels regret for relying so much on Jay, Nya, and Pixal to perform repairs on him in the past, as he realizes how many vital robotics skills he lacks, making him unable to even reattach Jay’s arm or care for any of his other injuries. Although he hates himself for thinking it, his first thought after recovering from the shock is “I’m glad I’m not alone”. He can’t get over this shameful feeling of relief in learning that Jay’s also an android. It makes him happy. It alleviates some of his concerns about the state of his own humanity and he hates that he feels that way while Jay is clearly suffering.

Cole is freaked out, but recovers quicker than the others. This is fine, it’s still Jay. They already have two nindroids on the team, this is nothing new. Nothing has to change. Within seconds, he’s offering Jay verbal assurances and totally supporting him as if nothing has changed at all. He goes along with Jay’s calm attitude and keeps the other two in check. He can freak out when they’re all safe.

Nya is already stressed out when the boys return, to the point that she sees Jay and is like “haha…. okay funny prank”. They all look at her blankly and she starts asking them what the hell happened while they were gone?! She deals with it pretty well though, offers Jay comfort, and then goes into full-focus work-mode and makes damn sure she fully understands his mechanics so she can repair him in the future. For a while, Jay isn’t really emotionally ready to study his own mechanics yet, and she ensures him he doesn’t need to until he’s ready for it. (She does, however, have the same paranoid thought that Kai had and starts checking everyone else to make sure they aren’t robots too).

Lloyd asks how this is even possible, and starts trying to reason out how they could have missed all the signs. He’s the one who actually goes over all the things they’ve been through and figures out what details they’d been overlooking. The vengestone “allergy”, the weird seventh-sense Jay seemed to have around electronics, the time Jay hyperfocused so hard on a project that he didn’t eat or drink for three days but seemed perfectly fine. He’s frustrated that he missed all the obvious signs, but brushes off the feeling to instead focus on what they need to do next. No time to process his emotions! Gotta focus on the next crisis!

Finally, Pixal realizes that NO ONE KNEW. And just…. bursts out laughing in a really uncharacteristic way. She can’t believe it. She can’t believe her teammates are all this unobservant. Then she’s just like “Welcome to nindroid club, Jay. Here’s your membership card,” and prints him out an actual card.

[kursedmayo]

Story time. I think Donnie would also hate most lipbalm. They're so fucking greasy on the lips and good lord, I would rather feel the pain of dry ass lips than have it plump and moisturized but feeling like I just put cooking oil on, so with the power of headcanon on my side I'm inflicting this annoyance to him too.

I bet he takes like an obscene amount of time researching on lip products before realizing that there's no guarantee that they'll help all too much because he's half-turtle, his skin is different than a human's, which eventually compels him to go on a sort of lip care pilgrimage trying out all sorts of lip balm, like a lot of them. A LOT of them. He jots down the results in a fun little spreadsheet before he manages to narrow down to one brand which happens to be from a smaller, more ethical company than the rest. Even if that brand was much more expensive than others, its not as if he didn't have money that he stole to spend on quality products, so he managed to put his cracked lip woes to rest.

Unfortunately for him however, his brothers keep stealing from him so he barely even get to use the stuff he buys.

Mikey's the biggest culprit of this of course, he's one hell of a yapster (/pos ofc I love Mikey) his lips dry out easily, and he doesn't usually carry a lip balm with him (because he forgets to/keep losing them/keep eating them) so sometimes he just swipes on those bad boys off Donnie's pouch and he doesn't even notice and well, its not as if Donnie wants to take it back anyways. Its already got his lil bro's cooties all over it.

Meanwhile, Leo mostly just steals for funsies. He doesn't even use the ones he steals from Donnie, He's got like, a whole stash of flavored lip balms because he's the face man, he doesn't want chapped lips it'll ruin his gorgeous face! Anyways he gets a whole different bunch in case he loses one (which he never does) and keep buying some until he amassed a whole ass collection (which Mikey also steals from, not that Leo minds). He doesn't need to steal Donnie's, but its REAL fun to figure out how to. He'd literally figure out a whole ass 8 step plan in his head and even learn new tricks with his portals because Donnie literally had to resort to locking his lip balms up in a multi-password protected vault, only to end up not even using the damn stolen things because like Donnie, ew his twin's cooties.

Donnie's extra offended because of that cuz like, at least use the damn thing like Mikey does you heathen he paid 15 dollars for a tube!!

Anyways, since Donnie's no pushover he schemed to get revenge on Leo and begun to steal his chapsticks too, much to Leo's (hypocrital) annoyance and amusement, so now there's an unspoken war that's happening in the Hamato household at the moment which they both refuse to back down on.

Meanwhile, Raph's at the corner just shaking his head in exhasperation. He doesn't really care much about lip balms in the first place because he didn't really use those, but Donnie got disturbed seeing him walking around with El Niño on his lips one winter and begrudgingly gave him one to use, which Raph does use but only sparingly so he doesn't run out, though it's not like he doesn't have money to buy his own cuz he does off jobs in the hidden city then and again. Also he kinda gave up trying to stop the disaster twins from fighting over lip balm because they're gonna keep doing it anyways, so he kinda just kinda tune them out when something inevitably explodes in Donnies lab and Leo comes out running holding a lil tube. Mikey gets let off the hook though, lil bro priveledges you know?

So yeah.

Even if there's a huge L in Leonardo there's still two Ls in Donatello. He's gonna be having PTSD flashbacks whenever someone mentions chapsticks near him for sure.

[littlelostmabari]

Day 28: Red Lyrium

This one is a little early, preparing for this week's spoilers!

Characters: Inquisitor Cadash, Varric, Bianca Davri Pairing: Cadash x Varric CW: A few threats of violence

Thanks to @daitranscripts for the dialogue!

Braren Cadash was tired. No, scratch that. She was still tired.

They had made her the fucking Inquisitor.

Varric had laughed that they'd called a dwarf the "Herald of Andraste", and he'd laughed for days after they made her Inquisitor — at least in public. In private, when he was alone with her in the late hours of the night and the anchor glowed and itched something terrible he rubbed her back and told her that he still knew that she was Braren deep down. The last night they had spent in her lavish new quarters she had thrown a wardrobe at the far wall, ranting about how Cassandra had forced her to walk up those bloody stairs into an ancestors-damned ambush. Fucking humans and their fucking politics. Braren could see in Josie and Leliana's eyes — the eyes of her ambassador and her spymaster, she called them now — that they had known exactly what they were doing. Shoving her in front of a crowd of the faithful, who had escorted her to this fortuitous fortress with songs of their Maker, where she could not tell them to sod off with this entire leadership business. At least Cullen apologized afterwards.

She wasn't their hero. She didn't want to be. And yet they made her fit their mold.

So Varric laughed, humanized her (such an odd turn of phrase, 'humanize'). Iron Bull had dragged her in front of soldiers and made sure that she knew that she had people that didn't see her just as a figurehead. Sera had made sure the advisors understood Braren's distate for their antics, even when the Inquisitor couldn't say it outright.

But in private… in private, she wept into Varric's shoulder as he told her how well he understood her pain. That he had seen this kind of thing before and he would never let the world forget that the Inquisitor was a surface dwarf with a penchant for breaking heavy and expensive things, for drinking the shittiest liquor in the tavern, and for playing a mean hand of Wicked Grace. The humanizing things.

Today, she was regretting letting him tell those stories. The Inquisitor was a dwarf, and it was another dwarf who had helped to doom Thedas.

They had emptied Valammar of Carta again, diving deeper into the ruins at the behest of Varric's old flame — that was a wound that would need serious TLC when they got back to Skyhold. But the tone in Varric's voice led Braren to hold her tongue.

"When I got to the location, I went and had a look for myself. And I found the red lyrium, and I… studied it." Bianca at least had the decency to look contrite to Braren's eyes, but Varric seemed to see something she didn't.

"You know what it does to people!" he snarled, taking a step closer to her and shaking his fist in the air.

"I was doing you a favor! You want to help your brother, don’t you?" Appeal to emotion, Braren thought. Classy. Manipulative bitch. "I just… wanted to figure it out."

"Well your 'wanting to figure it out' went swimmingly," Braren sneered. "You could have been killed. Or worse. And for what?"

"Knowledge! You’re not going to beat Corypheus with ignorance!"

"It would have been a hell of a lot easier to kill him without his fucking red lyrium, though, wouldn't it?" Braren made to close the distance but Varric's arm stopped her movement.

"I found out that red lyrium… It has the Blight, Varric! Do you know what that means?"

"What?" he sighed, his hand remaining on Braren's shoulder. Bianca's eyes twitched to the connection. "That two deadly things combine to form something super-awful?"

Bianca cleared her throat. "Lyrium is alive, or… something like it. Blight doesn’t infect minerals. Only animals. I couldn’t get any further on my own, so I looked for a Grey Warden mage. Blight and magical expertise in one, right?" She began to pace. "And I found this guy, Larius. He seemed really interested in helping my research. So I gave him a key."

"Larius? He was the Grey Warden we met in Corypheus’s… " All of the blood in Varric's face seemed to drain away. "Oh, shit." He looked back to Braren now. "That’s how he survived."

Bianca wrung her hands and stared down itno them. "I didn’t realize until you said you found red lyrium at Haven. I came here and… well…" She raised her eyes to meet Varric's and the Inquisitors. "Then I went to you."

"You told Varric you had a 'lead'," Braren growled, "so we’d straighten out your mistake." Varric's hand dropped from her shoulder.

"I know I screwed up, but we did fix it! It’s as right as I can make it!" It was Varric's turn to approach her, nearly nose to nose.

"This isn’t one of your machines! You can’t just replace a part and make everything right!" Braren thought about putting a hand on his shoulder this time, but reconsidered when Bianca responded with a huff.

"No," she said. "But I can try, can’t I? Or am I supposed to wallow in my mistakes forever, kicking myself, telling stories of what I should have done?"

"Hah! As if I would tell stories about my own mistakes!"

Silence filled the small chamber. Varric swallowed and stepped back into Braren's shoulder, where he looked back and met her gaze.

"The red lyrium is out. Closing this entrance won’t undo that." Braren spoke only to him, now, soothing the hurt that was roiling in his chest. He sighed and turned back to Bianca with grief plastered across his face.

"We’ve done all we can here. Bianca, you’d better get home before someone misses you." Then he pushed past Braren and made for the exit alone.

"Varric…" Bianca called after him.

"Don't worry about it," was the sigh that responded.

Braren and Bianca watched him go, both tense around the other. Bianca spoke first.

"Get him killed, and I’ll feed you your own eyeballs, Inquisitor."

Braren turned on her in an instant, teeth bared and eyes narrowed.

"Do not for one second blame me for this mess," she snarled, hand inching behind her for fingertips against the comfort of her steel battleaxe. "The only reason you still have your skull intact is because the man I love loved you once. I am not in the habit of making him grieve."

Bianca tried to stand tall, but Braren Cadash had been intimidating people for the Carta long before this bitch stood in front of her. She didn't need to throw her shoulders back or puff her chest out. She wiped the hair from her face with the hand that glowed underneath leather, accentuating the scars that plastered every bit of her not covered in armor.

"If I ever see you again, Bianca Davri, paragon or no, I will send you back to the Stone."