#that needs to be study in a remote lab

[the-odd-shu]

Sky regrets trying to play wingman

A continuation of lab shenanigans.

Masterlist

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Characters: Viktor, Jayce, Reader, Sky

(Pre-Jayce/Viktor/Reader) (POLYCULEEEE!)

Summary: A sketchbook goes missing, Viktor and Jayce feel soft about it and Sky is fighting for her life.

Note; this takes place during season 1, and the reader is gender neutral with they/them pronouns.

Lab Illustrator!Reader has a secret A5 sketchbook they don't use for assignments. It's a small thing, that they keep tucked beneath all of their other paperwork during the day, and take home with them every night.

It is as non-descript as sketchbooks come, with a plain, black cover and pages brimming with hundreds of sketches and stuck in sheets of paper.

But what makes it different from their professional sketchbook, you ask? And why does it need to be a secret?

Well, because it is a notebook solely dedicated to drawings and doodles of their co-workers. And neither of them know that Reader has been drawing them.

There are hundreds of stolen moments stuffed between these pages. Late night coffee breaks, where the pencil lines are thick and dark to accentuate the dimness of the lab against the stark light leaking out of the kitchenette, where backs are turned and coffee mugs steam, whilst eyes fall to half-mast from the sheer weight of the late hour.

There are a dozen or so slower, more carefully done doodles of Jayce sprawled out across the lab couch in various positions. Several cane studies, because Viktor had a habit of leaving it in more and more odd places when he has had a breakthrough, and sheer determination and spite keep him standing unaided before the whiteboard.

There are pages dedicated to Viktor reading. And pages brimming with Jayce's broad shoulders and winning smile.

There is a double page spread of Viktor stood before the chalkboard, cane in one hand, his other tucked under his chin with a piece of chalk tucked between two of his fingers, his lips pursed in thought as he tried to find a solution to the problem before him. The lines of this sketch are soft and gentle, almost dreamlike, as the image was teased out of the page.

The pages directly after it show a heavy handed pen drawing of Jayce bent over his desk, goggles over his eyes, his tongue peeking out from between his lips as he welds pieces of metal together. A single, loose curl of hair having broken free of its slicked back appearance, and is now sprawled cutely down his forehead.

And that's only the beginning.

Neither of them know that Reader draws them. As far as they know, Reader can't even draw people. And Reader wants to keep it that way. Because if EITHER of them found the sketchbook, they just KNOW they would not let them live it down. Jayce would be embarrassed, no doubt asking stupid questions like, 'is my nose really like that from that angle' or 'why didn't you tell me I had soot on my cheek', which, how dare he, you'd spent hours learning how to draw him and picking out imperfections was just an insult to your skills. Whilst Viktor would make fun of your subject choices, and then make it one hundred times harder to sketch him without him getting suspicious and catching on and deliberately moving around MORE to make it seventeen times more difficult.

Out of everyone in the lab, Sky was the only other person remotely artistically inclined. She'd shown an interest in your work one afternoon, and let slip that she liked to draw in her spare time. And although she insisted her work was nothing like your professional illustrations, they were good! And you told her as such.

Unofficially, the pair of you had begun taking your lunches outside in the academy gardens together to chat and draw. She did not look it, but Sky was a mean gossip, and seemed to know everything that was going on in the science department. Such as who in the academy was currently trying to court who, or the latest experiment that blew up (literally) in a freshman's face, or that Councillor Medarda herself dabbled in painting.

The last one certainly caught your attention more than the drama on campus, which of course Sky was more than happy to provide more details for. Apparently, the Councillor's paintings were bold and striking. Depicting scenes from her childhood lands, and figures dressed in traditional Noxian-style garbs.

"Gorgeous, simply gorgeous." Sky said, tone bordering on wistful. "And large too. Councillor Medarda works on such a large scale, that some of her pieces literally command your attention the moment you step into the room. I'm sure you can talk Jayce into getting you a glimpse of some of her works. He and the Councillor have been growing close lately."

You ignored the suggestive hint to her voice, in favour of humming noncommittally and finishing up your lastest sketch of Sky perched on the wall beside you, waving her sandwich around as she talked animatedly. You were so engrossed in your work that you didn't notice she was watching, when you flipped back towards the front of your sketchbook, only for her to choke on her next bite.

“Wait!" She blurted out between sharp coughing. "Is that Viktor!?” And then suddenly your sketchbook was no longer on your lap and the apprentice of the man you were always drawing was flipping through the pages. The pages that HEAVILY featured Viktor's face.

Your cheeks burned, and lunged for the sketchbook out of sheer panic, as Sky began discovering just how MANY sketches of Viktor you've been hoarding and that he's not the ONLY ONE you've been drawing.

"Jayce too I see." She mused, more to herself than you. And then she snorted. "Why are there so many?”

“Because I get bored sometimes, and they're always just there!" You defend yourself guiltily. "It's good anatomy practice.”

Which wasn't technically a lie. The lines never came as easily as they did when you’re sketching your co-workers. So much so, that now, it had almost become instinct to know when your pencil had drawn a line wrong, even before you glanced back to the reference themselves to check. The pair of them were just so effortlessly beautiful in their own ways. It would a a crime for you <i>not</i> to draw them, and focus solely on the things you're SUPPOSED to be illustrating instead.

Sky hummed along, having paused on a page with a rapid, barely recognisable pen sketch of Jayce ducking away with a cackling laugh as a furious Viktor swung his cane at his head. Her fingers idly slid down the sketchy lines, a fondness to her expression.

"Have you shown them these?" Sky asked, "they're really good. All loose and fun. I can practically hear Jayce laughing in this one with how you captured his expression."

“Of course not!" You were quick to deny as your cheeks heated. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to show someone you’ve drawn them? Jayce will pretend to be all impressed but subconsciously begin to pick out all the things I got wrong. Like the shape of his ears. And Viktor will tell me it's 'lovely' without looking up from his textbook."

You shuddered at the very thought, already seeing Viktor's disinterested frown and Jayce's tight grimace in your mind's eye.

Sky frowned, her eyes jumping between your down turned expression and the sketchbook in her hands. “I dunno about that."

“Can I have it back now?” She shook her head and went back to flipping through the pages, the other half of her sandwich forgotten in her lap. “You know, I think Viktor would be flattered if he knew you paid so much attention to him. And Jayce would probably try to steal a couple of these and frame them for his desk.” You scoffed.

Sky's frown deepened. "Why are you having such a hard time believing they might like these?"

“Because in the end it doesn’t matter how they'd react,” you decided sharply, “because they're not going to find out. Are they, Sky?”

“You’ve even drawn Viktor's canes!”

“Sky, focus!” “I am focused- IS THAT A JAYCE HAND STUDY-?!”

"OKAY ENOUGH OF THAT FROM YOU!" You tackled her, and she went down screeching, drawing the attention of several passing students as the pair of you fell cleaningly off of the wall and landed in the flowerbeds below.

Sky did not keep her promise.

After a week or two of waiting to give the impression she'd forgotten about the whole ordeal, she sprung into action.

It was obvious now that she knew just how much Reader paid attention to their co-workers. It seemed like they were constantly sketching the boys throughout the day, a private, fond smile on their stupidly love-struck expression, as their pencil flew across the page, documenting coffee breaks and break throughs, and verbal spats. Now Sky has noticed that they did it, she couldn't stop seeing it, and it is driving her crazy. All three of them are so oblivious, and watching her superiors pine for one another whilst doing nothing to move things forward, was NOT the working environment she'd been hoping for during this internship.

So she took matters into her own hands.

When the hour was late, and the lights were dim, Jayce passed out at his desk for a quick nap, Viktor's attention on his textbooks at the chalkboard, and Reader in the kitchen cracking open a can of energy, Sky sidled over to the latter's desk. Her eyes immediately clocked the little, black sketchbook, easily overlooked amongst the other papers and opened notebooks with half complete drawings scrawled all over the place. It was a testament to how much they trusted each other in the lab, that no one questioned why she was lingering so close to a desk that was not her own.

It almost made it too easy for her to simply pluck the sketchbook out of the pile, add it to her pile of library books already balanced in one hand, all before loudly calling "good night" to the room and leaving.

Sky planned to be the first person in the next morning to plant the sketchbook, but the lab doors were unlocked when she turned up, and all three of her superiors were already in the room, looking in various states of exhaustion. Did they even go home last night?

Not to mention, half of the lab looked like a hoard of dogs had come tearing through. Come to think of it, Reader's desk was especially messy, with papers strewn everywhere and the drawers hanging on just barely- oh fuck! They had already noticed, hadn't they?

"Ah Sky, good morning." Viktor acknowledged her from where he was calmly sorting through a stack of books. Picking one up, and shaking it out before placing it onto a second stack and picking up the next. "Right on time." "Good morning," Sky greeted calmly, "what's going on here?" She motioned to the war zone that was the lab. To Jayce balanced precariously on a chair, checking a high book shelf, and the frantic shuffling sounds of Reader under their desk. They were out of view, but somehow, Sky could just envision the frenzy in their expression from the sound of their searching alone.

"Ah, well, Y/n appears to have misplaced a rather important sketchbook."

There was a yelp as a skull collided with the underside of a desk, before Reader's head popped up over the edge. "Sky! I can't find it!"

"Oh no." Sky replied, trying to ignore the burning weight of the 'it' in question, currently hiding in her backpack. "Where did you see it last?"

"They insisted it was on their desk." Jayce interjected, hopping down from his chair with a shake of his head.

"But I'm assuming it's grown legs," Sky joked, "judging by that picked over, barely standing, mess of a desk."

"This isn't funny Sky."

"No, you're right." She put down her backpack and began to help in the search. After all, not doing so would immediately out her as guilty, and she'd already come this far, why stop now. "Come on, it can't have gone far."

Of course, Viktor discovered it amongst his books and papers a couple of days later.

It was during one of those rare hours in the lab when he was alone. The hour was late, but the curtains were not yet drawn despite the darkening sky.

He frowned when his fingers brushed the unfamiliar notebook, tucked behind a stack of textbooks and scrunched up balls of notes. Pulling it out of its hiding place, his brows furrowed as his eyes tracked the state it was in. How the edges of the hardback covers were creased from numerous journeys in bags, whilst pencils marks and scuffs from countless hours of being opened and used, marred the covers.

At first, he assumed it was one of Jayce’s notebook. The material was expensive enough. Definitely of high quality. The paper itself was thick when he rubbed his finger along a page. But when he opened it, he quickly realised the pages are not lined, and were once blank before they had been filled in with hundreds of drawings.

The first few pages were illustrations of everything under the sun. Still life drawings. Animals. People. Silhouettes. Isolated body parts with detailed annotations encircling them, such as the names of muscles and tiny corrective comments like ‘fingers too long’ or ‘that muscle doesn’t stretch that far’. 

Then he turned a page, and was met with himself. And then Jayce. And then more and more sketches of himself and Jayce. Sometimes together and interacting. Sometimes just existing.

The drawings were skilfully done, as all of Reader's illustrations tended to be. A little rough in the beginning, from rushed pen strokes. But then the artist seemed to understand something. A break through of sorts, and he recognised himself more and more. The sketches held his likeness. From the way he stood, to the slouch of him sitting at his desk, to the way his hand held something as simple as a stick of chalk.

They were always sketches from behind or a side profile. Never head on. And any that did depict him as facing the artist, were drawn when his attention was elsewhere; focused down at a textbook, or fixing something on the table. 

It was flattering really. He looked good in the drawings. Confident, with an authoritative aura. Seemingly engrossed in every task he sat down to complete.

And Jayce, Jayce looks good in his drawings too. His sunny personality shining through in drawings where he was animatedly talking or debating with sketched Viktor. There seems to be a whole double page spread trying to figure out the shape of his slicked back hair, and then even more drawings of the gel softening throughout the day, causing strands to fall down around his ears and frame his eyes.

But what really catches Viktor's attention was the way the artist had caught their interactions. The way they have depicted Jayce's softened eyes when looking at Viktor when his attention was elsewhere. The way they caught Viktor's private little smile when Jayce got lost in a muttering spell and stopped including Viktor in the debate. It left him feeling a little raw in truth, like this person had seen something no one else had taken the time to notice before.

No wonder Reader had been so adamant about finding this sketchbook. This must have been hours upon hours of careful work.

Carefully, Viktor closed the sketchbook and sat back in his chair. It felt heavy in his hands, and he almost didn't want to put it down.

The door to the lab swung open then, and Jayce called out a greeting.

"What you got there V?"

And of course, Viktor was contractually obligated to show him. It would simply be criminal if he didn't show his partner just how well their resident illustrator managed to capture his winning smile. A much more accurate depiction of it, compared to the 'man of progress' merchandise the academy sold nowadays.

The sketchbook continued to go unfound.

Reader was growing more and more distraught.

The guilt gnawed at Sky and she confessed.

All hell broke loose.

An hour later, Skye came SPRINTING into the lab, the double doors CRASHING into the walls in her haste to get into the room.

Both Viktor and Jayce jumped in their seats in the kitchenette. Viktor barely managing to keep from spilling his sweetmilk everywhere. And Jayce almost THREW the little black sketchbook across the room, where he had been admiring its pages.

“Woah there, where’s the fire?” Jayce tried to joke, but Sky looked GENUINELY scared. 

“Sorry! Sorry! I left something in here, and the owner is NOT happy with me.” Sky scrambled to explain, as she charged towards Viktor’s desk and began pulling apart stacks of paperwork. Sweat beading on her brow.

“Hey, calm down. What is it? Where did you see it last?” “It was a sketchbook. Um, uh, black, hard cover, it was practically bulging with how many pages it had stuck in it.” Sky explained, "I could've sworn I left it on Viktor's desk." Viktor’s brows jump up in realisation. His eyes dart over to the sketchbook in Jayce's hands, before leaping up to meet the man's wide, knowing eyes.

“I take it that Y/n found out you took it then.” Viktor spoke up. Sky winced. “I may have let it slip-” her voice began to backpedal, before the distant stomp of approaching footsteps made her pale. The gait the recognisable, the tempo just a touch faster than its normal pace. “DON’T THINK HIDING BEHIND VIKTOR OR JAYCE WILL SAVE YOU NOW!” A booming voice hollered from down the hallway. 

Sky became frantic again. She redoubled her efforts.

Jayce very slowly lowered the sketchbook down to his lap, where the table would conceal it from view if anyone peered into the kitchenette. And Viktor just sighed as he got comfortable.

Heavy footsteps approached the laboratory door, which was then promptly kicked open, so fast that the door smacked into the opposite wall for the second time today. Y/n, brandishing a broom of all things, visibly seethed in the doorway. 

“Do you know how much <i>work</i> has gone into that sketchbook?” They demanded, more furious than Viktor had ever seen them before. “How many hours I’ve spent amongst those pages.” Sky looks appropriately guilty. “I know! And I’m so sorry I lost it, I really thought I was doing you a favour!”

Reader’s lip curls up into a furious snarl, eyes narrowing. “And I thought I told you to leave it alone!” They snarled.

“But they’re just so good. I seriously don’t think you should be hiding your talent. What if the right person managed to find it, like Councillor Medarda, imagine the connections-” “And how, pray tell, is Councillor Medarda, supposed to come across my sketchbook in the laboratory of all places.” Skye’s voice lowers. “Well, she does stop by to see Jayce often enough.”

Reader sighed heavily. "Side-stepping that poor excuse, because we both know you were just trying to embarrass me-" "I was not! They're good drawings!"

“Where is it Skye? For the final time.”

They stepped menacingly into the room then, broom clutched tightly in both hands, only to pause when a single sheet of paper slipped out of their pocket and fluttered to the ground. The action clearly held significance, because Sky winced.

Meanwhile, Reader took a deep, steadying breath, before slowly, calmly leaning down to pluck the paper off of the floor. It was only for a second, but Viktor could have sworn he saw yet ANOTHER sketch of him and Jayce, which HOW? They'd been with the pair of them in the lab ALL DAY!

“Now look at me, I’m shedding paper left and right without my sketchbook to keep all my thoughts ORGANISED!” “I’m sorry! I’ll buy you a new one.”

A groan. “Skye, that is NOT the point-!”

“Okay, okay! Time out! Let us all take a breath.” Viktor interjected to which both apprentice and Illustrator startled. 

Reader visibly seethed in place, whilst Sky just winced and ducked her head.

It was the former who spoke up first. “Sorry for the interruption.” They said sharply, eyes cutting over to Viktor and Jayce. To which Viktor just inclined his head, whilst Jayce very poorly concealed his guilty wince. Reader was too preoccupied with Sky however to notice as they turned back to her. “May we continue this debate outside? Preferably away from the workshops?” Skye seemed to shrink in on herself more. Eyes darting over to Viktor, then jumping up to Jayce. 

“Sky!”

“Only if you promise to stop yelling.” She demanded. 

Reader breathed out forcefully through their nostrils. Expression thinning out, shoulders easing, although the tightness to their jaw remained stubbornly present. “Fine.”

"Leave the broom!" Viktor called after them, to which Reader audibly groaned but let the broom in the lab before stepping out into the hall with Sky. The door clicked shut behind them. 

Jayce and Viktor shared a look and held their breaths. Waiting. Listening. The conversation that inevitably started up once the door closes was fast paced, but in the promised quieter tone. 

"I'm just going to-" Jayce began to say before motioning to the desks out in the main lab. Viktor shrugged, and allowed his partner to stand, sketchbook in hand, only for both of them to freeze when a loose slip of paper fell out.

"Oh no." Jayce said aloud as Viktor quickly pinned the sheet to the floor with the toe of his shoe, before it could drift away. "This is going to be adorable, isn't it?"

Viktor did not reply, as he stooping to pick it up. He turned it over, and he and Jayce collectively sighed as they discovered yet another sketch of the pair of them.

They're stood in front of the chalkboard, which seemed to be Reader's favourite place to draw them without being discovered. And it was clear from the way the pair were facing each other that they were deep in one of their debates. But what really caught the pair's attention, was the way that their drawn selves were looking at one another.

Viktor's with a small, knowing smile and a visible twinkle in his eye - which should have been an impossible thing to capture with merely a pencil. And Jayce's who was staring down at Viktor with an intensity in his eye and a playful lift of his eyebrows that spoke of challenge. They looked happy together. Feeding off one another's energy.

And it was startling that an outside perspective had managed to capture such a moment without either of them noticing.

"We don't get that absorbed in our debates, do we?" Jayce asked tightly, a soft look in his eye now as he gazed down at the sketch with reverence.

Viktor did not bother to deny it, because they both knew that they did. Here was a sketchbook stuffed with the evidence right before them.

Jayce tucked the sketch back between the pages, his expression complicated and yet oh so fond for someone who was no longer in the room with them.

Jayce and Viktor put the sketchbook back on Reader's desk, who later comes back in, visibly more subdued, and Sky nowhere in sight.

Viktor cracks a joke about them having stuffed her in a supply closet somewhere.

To which they reassure him that, "no, she had a meeting," and he would still have an apprentice turning up to work tomorrow.

Jayce looks up from his work, as does Viktor, when they make a beeline for their desk. In time to watch Reader stiffen when they see the little, black sketchbook placed neatly on top of their larger, official lab sketchbook. Then they lunge forward, snatching it up and flipping through the pages, shoulders loosening when all seems to be in order.

"You found it!"

"Viktor found it." Jauce interjected.

To which Viktor just preens and makes another joke about Sky thinking twice about getting between Reader and their belongings. He also throws in a compliment on the penmanship, just to see how Reader reacts.

To both of their surprises, Reader locks up at the compliment. “Please tell me you didn’t look though it.”

“I liked them." He said truthfully, "you certainly captured my likeness.” They groan and drop eye contact. 

“Please don’t joke about it.” They plead, “it was just anatomy practice. But I completely understand if it makes you uncomfortable-”

“Uncomfortable?" Viktor parrots back, shooting Jayce a look. "Why would it make us uncomfortable?" "You might feel watched?" Reader offers.

Jayce shrugs. Viktor waves off their concern.

Jayce, "can we put some up on the pin board?" "No. None of these are remotely good enough to be hung up on display!" Reader is quick to deny.

By the end of the day, there are three new papers pinned to the pin board above Jayce's desk. One drawn by each of them in the lab. A chicken scratch drawing of Jayce, courtesy of Viktor. A carefully, but wonkily drawn Reader, courtesy of Jayce. And a recognisable and remarkably good drawing of Viktor done by Reader.

(Yes, they had a drawing competition and sat in a circle around someone's desk, simultaneously posing for and drawing each other. The boys had to do some major convincing so that Reader didn't assume they were being made fun of. And they all ended up having a great time).

Next part

[corruptedcaps]

Out of Office

Dr. Morgan stood at the threshold of his lab, his pulse quickening as he stared at his phone. He had just returned from a week-long vacation in the remote mountains, completely cut off from civilization. It was supposed to be a simple break from his intense work of studying alien biological samples recovered from a meteorite impact site.

His assistant, Claire, had assured him that everything would be fine in his absence. But as he listened to her voicemails, a growing dread gripped him. Something had gone wrong.

At first, her messages were normal but they got increasingly... odd. He had listened to them in the car on the way to the lab and with each subsuquent message he sped up faster.

VOICEMAIL 1 Monday, 8:32 AM

"Hey, Doctor! It’s Claire. Just wanted to check in and let you know everything’s good here. The samples are stable, no unexpected changes. I’ll keep logging their activity and make sure nothing gets near the containment units. No need to worry. Enjoy your time off! You deserve the break."

VOICEMAIL 2 Wednesday, 10:17 AM

"Hi, Doctor. So… small update. One of the samples, Sample B, showed a bit of activity. It pulsed for a second, almost like it was… alive. Weird, right? Anyway, it’s back to normal now. Probably some environmental fluctuation. I’ll keep monitoring it, just to be safe."

VOICEMAIL 3 Thursday, 11:43 PM

"Doctor… something’s happening. Sample D started moving on its own. And B, it’s… growing. It’s not contained to its chamber anymore. I tried to secure it, but it, it touched me. I feel… strange. My skin’s warm, almost buzzing. I don’t know what it’s doing to me. I need you to call me as soon as you get this."

VOICEMAIL 4 Friday, 2:27 PM

"Hey, Doctor. You know what? I was totally overreacting. I think… I was afraid of something I didn’t understand. But now, I see it. The samples… they’re not hostile. They’re… welcoming. When Sample B made contact with me, it didn’t hurt. It felt incredible. Like it was… part of me. I feel connected to something bigger, something extraordinary. You should experience it too."

VOICEMAIL 5 Saturday, 8:19 PM

"Doctor… The samples, they’ve helped me so much. My skin is softer, my body… enhanced in ways I can’t describe. I look in the mirror and barely recognize myself… but I love it. My lips are fuller, my boobs are big and perfect. I feel… powerful, seductive, radiant. Every inch of me hums with energy. The samples made me better. That’s why I’m going to release the rest of them. I can feel their eagerness to touch me."

VOICEMAIL 6 Sunday, 6:00 AM

"Evan… come to the lab. They’re waiting for you. I’m waiting for you. We’ll be whole, together. I’ve missed you… so much."

-

Evan’s breath quickened as the last message ended as he stood in front of his lab door. He hesitated. Something was clearly wrong with Claire and the samples but maybe he could help her. He threw open the door and rushed toward the lab. But just as he stepped into the hall, he skidded to a stop.

Claire stood there, waiting for him.

Her once-pristine lab coat had now morphed into a tight and shiny black dress that barely clung to her body. Speaking of her body, it was now the most perfect female form Evan had ever seen. Her skin was flawless, her breasts envious and her curves made Evan feel weak. Her eyes were now black pools of liquid light, swirling with alien energy. She smiled, her lips impossibly perfect, her voice honey-sweet yet filled with something darker.

"We’ve missed you, Doctor." She said softly, stepping closer.

Before he could react, she reached out and pressed her hand against his chest. The black goo slithered off her fingertips and onto his shirt, spreading like liquid fire across his skin. Evan stumbled back, gasping as the substance soaked through his clothes, cold and burning all at once.

He tried to scream, but the goo surged upward, a wave of darkness pouring into his mouth and down his throat, silencing him. He thrashed, struggling to resist, but the alien substance had a mind of its own. It moved inside him, rewriting him. His muscles bulged, growing stronger, leaner. His skin tightened, taking on a flawless sheen. His features sharpened, transforming him into a figure of striking beauty and power.

Claire watched with a wicked smile as he convulsed, his body remade in the image of something far beyond human.

Evan fought against the alien organisms infecting his body and mind. He couldn’t give in.

“No! This is wrong. We have to fight it Claire!” He said trying to plead with her humanity but she wasn’t human anymore.

“Shh…” She whispered. “Don’t fight it. You’re becoming what we need you to be. What I need you to be. We have been chosen for a great purpose Evan, we will birth a new race to conquer this worthless planet. You and I are will be the first. I will be the queen and if you give in, you shall be the king.”

Evan tried to fight the pleasure now coursing through his body. He felt strong, powerful, alive. The alien organism showed him images of a world that he controlled, of an army that bowed before him. It was an intoxicating sight but what tipped him over the edge were the images of Claire, his wicked queen, moaning in carnal pleasure as he fucked her with a new more massive cock.

Evan’s body stopped trembling. His breath steadied, his eyes snapping open, jet black, swirling like Claire’s. His lips curled into a slow, hungry smile as he looked at her, desire and power coursing through him.

“Yessss…” He hissed, his voice thick with newfound strength. “Give in… I want to give in!”

The black goo solidified, wrapping around his body like armor, transforming his vacation wear into a sleek, obsidian suit that clung to him as tightly as Claire’s did to her. His hands flexed, marveling at the raw power that surged through him. He stepped toward Claire, his eyes burning with lust and purpose.

“My queen.” He said, his voice like velvet. “There’s much work to do.”

Claire’s eyes gleamed with delight. She traced her finger down his chest, her touch electric.

“So much glorious work, my king.” She whispered. “And we’ll make this world kneel before us.”

"This world is merely an appetiser. Once it is under our heel our destiny awaits out in the stars." He said with a dark and triumphant laugh that Claire soon joined in on. Their reign was about to begin.

[hoonigiris]

JEALOUSY

p. sunghoon x f!reader

0.9k

just silly shenanigans from a chronically jealous guy (he can’t help it he was born this way, just check his birth chart!!!)

“i think i need to lock you up.”

you slide your eyes over to him, exasperated. “what…”

sunghoon mutters under his breath, nodding seriously as he repeats the idea in his head until it sounds more plausible than insane. “yeah…” and then again, softer, “yeah…”

“nurse,” you call out to the empty air, “he’s out again.”

he looks at you gravely, shaking his head. “i think it needs to be done. for the greater good.”

“what am i, rapunzel?”

sunghoon opens his mouth to retort, but the image of you as a princess in that pretty, purple dress has him sidetracked and pondering. “that would be a good couple costume this year—flynn and rapunzel.”

“personally, i was thinking more rapunzel and mother gothel.”

the dreamy look in his eye drops almost immediately, suddenly remembering the reason he burst into the living room in the first place. whatever it was, nothing was worth interrupting you in the middle of a grey’s anatomy episode.

sunghoon moves in front of the tv, feet planted and stance determined. you crane your neck to the side to catch a better look of the screen. “can you move? dr. mcsteamy is in this scene and he’s extra hot this season.”

“wh—listen!”

you roll your eyes, pausing the show. “yes?”

“i’m serious!”

“about mother gothel?”

“about locking you up!”

you tilt your head, innocent. “isn’t that what i just said?”

sunghoon groans loudly, running a hand through his hair and squeezing his eyes shut to fight off an incoming headache. you’d almost feel bad for making his life harder if the threat of imminent captivity wasn’t looming over your head.

but he’s your boyfriend, and he’s obnoxious, and you love him anyway, so you toss the remote on the couch cushion next to you and you give him a smidge of what he wants. you like to call it a pity crumb.

"ok fine, i'll stop teasing," you relent, leaning into the couch with an amused glint in your eye. "why am i under arrest and why is it for the greater good?"

you have some vague idea, of course. any time sunghoon acts like this, the reasoning always lands somewhere around him being jealous, which, as frequent as it comes, is something you’ve learned to take in stride. play dumb, laugh at his antics, give him a kiss, and everything settles back to normal.

the reasoning tended to differ each time, enough to consider creating an encyclopedia page to study from, so you like to make it a game of sorts, to see if you can guess it correctly before he tells you. it’s the closest thing you’ll ever get to the thrill of being on an episode of jeopardy, so you like to relish in the challenge while you can. topic: things that make sunghoon jealous, for 500.

“you’re too…” sunghoon starts, taking you out of your proverbial podium and back to the couch, dr. mcsteamy and mcdreamy blocked behind him. he narrows his eyes, searching for the right word. “unassuming.”

“unassuming,” you repeat, bemused.

"yes." sunghoon knits his brows together, tortured at even the thought. "why else would you have come home with a coffee. from another man."

you look at him quizzically, and then remember how this morning, your classmate who you kept running into every morning at your local cafe offered to buy your drink. you'd accepted, of course; who were you to deny a perfectly innocent gift?

"oh please," you roll your eyes. "he was just being nice! besides, i'm sure he just did it since i helped him finish his lab report on time the other week."

sunghoon frowns. "he was hitting on you. he has motive."

you stare up at him with big, innocent eyes, like a defendant in front of the jury. "how could you ask me to look a gift horse in the mouth... especially when the horse had a cinnamon honey latte."

"because the horse wants to eat you!"

"but it was free!"

sunghoon whips out his phone, tapping a few times, and a ding! sounds from your own phone on the coffee table. you glance over, and try not to laugh.

VENMO sunghoon paid you $6.00 - 😐

"there," he huffs. "if you want free coffee, i'll pay for it from now on, okay?"

you eye him, amused. "if i say yes, will you free me from my predestined shackles?"

he opens his mouth and you can tell by his expression he's about to get started again, so you rescind yourself quickly. "okay, okay. consider it done."

it's sweet, in some way, to have him care this much, even if he makes such a big fuss about it. there's something in his gaze that bleeds earnestness, even through the indignancy, that makes you want to peel him back more. jealousy is an ugly beast, even if you think it looks cute and amusing on him, and often you wonder if it consumes him, if he allows it to lead his thoughts astray.

(it was so easy to fall for you—he couldn’t blame others for doing the same. and if you ended up leaving him for someone else then—well. sunghoon tries to stop it before he gets to that point.)

"hoon," you call gently, and he physically softens at the nickname. you wonder how one word can mean so many things—my love, my heart, my home. all yours. "you know i love you, right?"

he flushes at the sudden confession, ears turning scarlet. and then quietly, sincerely, he mumbles, “i love you too.” perhaps that’s the secret, the reason you can be so flippant about everything, suspiciously free coffee and all.

at the end of the end of the day, you’ll always be his, too.

[devotedlyandrogynousyouth]

okay hiii i heard requests were open so i thought i'd try, first off i love your writing so much, when i tell you it moves me to tears im not exaggerating so i havent read the comics so bare w me please 🥹🤍 idk if you do OCS, if you do could it be about a woman called thea, if not fem y/n or however you feel comfortable doing it basically this girl is a medical student studying to be a doctor, dating richard (dick) grayson/ nightwing, and it's kind of angsty, she sees hi injured, rushes in and patches him up- dangerous, stakes are high, maybe she could ever get injured too in the process? just a thought! love ur work, and absolutely no pressure for this request 🤍🥹

Aw you're so sweet💜💜💜

Pretty High Stakes

Injured! Dick Grayson x Medschool! Reader

Warnings: Graphic injury, trauma, blood, panic, emotional breakdown, language

You knew the risks when you fell for him.

When you let him kiss you with bruised lips and bloodied knuckles. When you let his hands cup your face even though they'd been breaking ribs hours before. When you chose to stay—not just in his life, but in his world.

But nothing prepares you for this.

Not med school. Not emergency rotations. Not any of the hellish scenarios you’d run through in simulation labs. Because this wasn’t a controlled environment with crash carts and proper lighting.

This was a filthy Gotham alley at 1:17 in the morning, and the man you loved was bleeding out in your arms.

You’d only been part of the mission in the smallest way. Remote first aid support, coordinating through Oracle, helping ID the traffickers. Dick hadn’t even told you the full details, just that he “had it handled.” You’d believed him—until his comm went dead.

That silence had cut through you like a scalpel.

Now your shoes splashed through dirty puddles as you sprinted toward the last coordinates. Every second felt like glass dragging through your chest. Your breath caught when you finally rounded the corner and saw him.

Dick.

His suit was torn open along his ribs, blood pouring out in terrifying waves. His body was crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been severed. His head lolled to the side. One escrima stick was still in hand, the other abandoned a few feet away.

For a moment, you couldn’t breathe. Then instinct slammed through you like lightning. You hit your knees beside him, skidding on the wet pavement. “Dick—Dick!”

His eyes fluttered weakly. One barely opened, revealing his near-lifeless baby blue. “Sweetheart...?”

“I’m here,” you said, voice trembling. “Jesus, Dick, what—what the hell happened?”

"Got… the kids out,” he rasped. “Three of them. They’re safe.”

You pressed your coat against the gaping wound at his side. Blood soaked through instantly. Your stomach turned, but you didn’t stop. Couldn’t afford to. “Focus on me,” you said, voice cracking. “You’re okay. Just—keep your eyes open.”

“Couldn’t call,” he murmured. “Comm—busted.”

“You should’ve waited.” Your tone wavered somewhere between fury and despair. “You always do this. Always push too hard, too far—”

“No time,” he said. “They were gonna move them. I had to—”

You gritted your teeth, adjusting your weight to apply more pressure. He let out a low groan that hit you like a bullet.

“I’m calling Oracle,” you whispered. Your fingers, slick with blood, fumbled for your phone. You activated the encrypted emergency line. The screen was blurred by rain and tears. “Oracle. Code Nightfall.”

Barbara’s voice came through instantly. “Where’s Nightwing?”

“Down. Severely wounded. Multiple lacerations. Stab wound to the abdomen. He’s going into shock.” Your voice caught. “I need med-evac. Now. 9th and Haven.”

“I’ve got you,” she said, calm but urgent. “Stay with him. ETA four minutes.” You threw the phone aside and turned back to him. His skin was pale. His lips tinged blue.

“Stay awake,” you begged, clutching his hand like you were the one dying. “Please.”

His fingers curled weakly around yours. “Didn’t want you to see me like this.”

You let out a laugh that was half a sob. “Well, too late. And you still look stupidly handsome, you reckless idiot.”

A ghost of a smile flickered on his lips. Then his body seized.

Your heart stopped. “Dick!”

He coughed, and blood spattered against your neck. You scrambled to clear his airway, lifting his head just enough to tilt it, trying not to scream.

“I’ve got you,” you whispered over and over, as if repetition could bend reality. “You’re not dying. Not here. Not tonight.”

You heard the Batwing before you saw it—the roar of engines slicing through the storm. Bright searchlights bathed the alley in pale blue. The dropship’s doors opened mid-hover. Medics in Wayne-Tech armor repelled down before the skids even touched pavement.

You didn’t want to move. You didn’t trust anyone else to touch him. But you had to.

“He’s going into hypovolemic shock,” you barked at the lead medic. “Massive blood loss. Suspected liver laceration. He needs blood and surgery. Now.” They didn’t question you. They moved fast. Intubation. Fluids. Vitals. A hard collar. They cut through his suit while stabilizing his spine. You helped strap him to the gurney. His blood was everywhere.

He was still conscious—barely. He almost couldn't rasp out your name.

You bent close. Rain soaked through your scrubs as you practically cradled him to your chest, mindful of every painful wound inflicted upon his body. “I’m here.”

“Love you.”

Your breath caught. Your hands trembled. You’d said it before, once, quietly. He never had. Until now. Until this. Until he was dying in your arms in the middle of a filthy alleyway. “I love you too,” you whispered. “So stay alive and say it again when I’m not covered in your blood.”

He gave a barely-there nod before his eyes fluttered shut.

Masterlist

[excalculus]

I saw some mentions of rabies going around again and have no clue what's set it off this time, but given recent scientific developments I want to revisit the idea of curing symptomatic rabies.

First things first: there is still no practical way to do this. The famous Milwaukee Protocol fails far more frequently than it succeeds, and even the successes are not making it out in anything like a normal state. It's been argued that it should no longer be considered a valid treatment [1] due to these issues; any continued use is because there's literally nothing else on the table.

However. There are now two separate studies showing it's possible to cure rabies in mice after the onset of symptoms. The lengths you have to go to in order to pull this off are drastic, to put it mildly, and couldn't really be adapted to humans even if you wanted to. But proof of concept is now on the board.

long post under the cut, warnings for animal experimentation and animal death. full bibliography at the end and first mention of each source links to paper.

Quick recap - rabies is a viral disease of mammals usually transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal. From a contaminated bite wound, it propagates slowly for anywhere from days to months until it reaches the central nervous system (CNS). Post-exposure vaccination can head it off during this phase, but once it reaches the CNS and neurological symptoms appear it's game over. There will typically be a prodromal phase where the animal doesn't act right - out at the wrong time of day, disoriented, abnormally friendly, etc. This will then progress to the furious (stereotypical "mad dog" disease) and/or paralytic phases, with death eventually caused by either seizures or paralysis of the muscles needed for breathing.

That's the course we're familiar with in larger animals. Mice, though, are fragile little creatures with fast metabolisms.

In the first study's rabies infection model, lab mice show rabies virus in the spinal cord by day 4 after infection and in the brain by day 5. Weight loss and slower movement start by day 7, paralysis starting from the hind limbs from day 8 on, and if not euthanized first they're dead by day 10-13. [2]

This study (fittingly conducted at the Institut Pasteur) had two human monoclonal antibodies, and wanted to see if there was any possibility they could be used to cure rabies after what we think of as the point of no return.

Injecting the antibodies into muscle saved some mice if done at days 2 or 4, and none if done later, even at high doses of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight of each. Conclusion: targeting the virus out in the rest of the body is no use if it's already replicating in the CNS.

Getting a drug past the blood-brain barrier is, to use a highly technical term, really fucking hard. It's the sort of problem that even the best-funded labs and biggest companies in the world routinely fail at. And that's for small molecule drugs, which are puny compared to antibodies.

But this isn't drug development for a clinical trial. This is a very, very early proof-of-concept attempt, which means you're willing to ignore practicality to see if this idea is even remotely workable. So you can do things like brute force the issue by cutting through the skull to implant a microinfusion pump, which lets you deliver the antibodies directly into the normally-protected space around the brain. Combine this with the normal injections, and you can treat both the CNS and the rest of the body at the same time. Here's a survival graph of treated mice. X axis is days, Y axis is percentage of mice in that group still alive.

Figure 2A from reference 2, accessed February 2024

The fact that the blue, green, and purple lines did anything other than sink horribly to zero is unheard of. When the combination treatment was started at day 6, 100% of the mice survived. Started at day 7 (prodromal phase), 5 out of 9 mice recovered and survived. Started at day 8 (solidly symptomatic, paralysis already starting to set in), 5 of 15 mice recovered and survived. And when they say "survived", they kept these mice all the way to day 100 to make sure. Some of them had permanent minor paralysis but largely they were back to being normal mice doing normal mouse things. So, success, but by pretty extreme means.

Enter the second paper [3]. This was a different approach using a single human monoclonal antibody against Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV - closely related to rabies, similar symptoms in humans) to try for a cure without needing to deliver treatments directly into the CNS. They also made a luminescent version of ABLV that let them directly image viral activity, so they could see both where the virus was replicating and how much there was in a live mouse.

Figure 1 from reference 3, accessed February 2024

Mice infected with ABLV start showing symptoms around day 8. You can see in the figure that at day 3 there's viral replication in the foot at the site of infection, which has shifted into the spine and brain by day 10. So what happens if you give one of these doomed mice one single injection of the antibody into the body?

Done at day 3, the virus doesn't make it to the brain until day 14, and while disease does set in after that around 30% of the mice survive. Days 5 and 7 are much more interesting. Those mice still develop symptoms at day 8, but the imaging shows the amount of virus in their spines and brains never gets anywhere near the levels seen in untreated controls, and within days it starts to decrease. Around 80% of day 5 and 100% of day 7 mice survive.

Okay, sure, you can stop another lyssavirus, but technically you did start treatment before symptoms appeared. What about symptomatic rabies?

The rodent-adapted rabies strain CVS-11 starts causing symptoms as early as day 3 after infection, and untreated mice die between days 8 and 11. The same single dose of antibody saved 67% of mice treated on day 5 and 50% of mice treated on day 7. Without making the luminescent version of the virus there's no real-time imaging of the infection, but you can still track symptoms.

Figure 2 from reference 3, accessed February 2024. CVS-11 is the name of the rodent rabies strain and F11 is the name of the antibody.

Disease score is a combination of several metrics including things like whether the mice are behaving normally and whether they show signs of paralysis. In untreated mice it goes up and up, and then they die. If one of those lines starts coming back down and continues past day 10 or so, that's a mouse that recovered. The success rate isn't as good as against ABLV, but again, this is a rabies strain specifically adapted to rodents and treatment wasn't started until it was well-established in the CNS.

So how on earth is this happening? The antibody neutralizes both ABLV and rabies really well in a test tube, but we've already established that there's no way a huge lumbering antibody is making it past the blood-brain barrier without serious help. Something about the immune response is clearly making it in there though. And it turns out that if you start trying this cure in mice missing various parts of their immune systems, mice without CD4+ T cells don't survive even with the treatment. By contrast mice without CD8+ T cells take longer to work through the infection, but they eventually manage it and are immune to reinfection afterwards.

To grossly oversimplify the immune system here, CD4+ are mature helper T cells, which work mostly by activating other immune cells like macrophages (white blood cells) and CD8+ T cells (killer T cells) against a threat.

Normally, T cells are also kept out by the blood-brain barrier, but we know that in certain specific cases including viral infection they can pass it to migrate into the brain. In the brains of the infected mice for which antibody treatment either wasn't given or didn't work, you can find a roughly even mix of CD8+ and CD4+ T cells along with a whole lot of viral RNA. But in the brains of those successfully fighting off the infection, there's less viral RNA and the cells are almost exclusively CD4+. So the antibody doesn't work by neutralizing the virus directly - something about it is activating the animal's own immune system in a way that gives it a fighting chance.

Again, neither of these proof of concept treatments is really workable yet as a real world cure. The first one is almost hilariously overkill and still has a pretty good chance of failure. The second is less invasive but careful sequencing still shows both low-level viral replication and signs of immune response in the brains of the survivors even at day 139, so it may not be truly clearing the virus so much as trading a death sentence for life with a low-level chronic infection. But now we know that 1. curing rabies after symptoms begin is at least theoretically possible, and 2. we have some clues as to mechanisms to investigate further.

Not today. Not tomorrow. But maybe not never, either.

References:

Zeiler, F. A., & Jackson, A. C. (2016). Critical appraisal of the Milwaukee protocol for rabies: this failed approach should be abandoned. Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, 43(1), 44-51.

de Melo, G. D., Sonthonnax, F., Lepousez, G., Jouvion, G., Minola, A., Zatta, F., ... & Bourhy, H. (2020). A combination of two human monoclonal antibodies cures symptomatic rabies. EMBO molecular medicine, 12(11), e12628.

Mastraccio, K. E., Huaman, C., Coggins, S. A. A., Clouse, C., Rader, M., Yan, L., ... & Schaefer, B. C. (2023). mAb therapy controls CNS‐resident lyssavirus infection via a CD4 T cell‐dependent mechanism. EMBO Molecular Medicine, 15(10), e16394.

[onmyyan]

Straight venomous CH 9 teaser

A/N: lil something to feed y'all thank you for your support I hope you enjoy this sneak peek, feedback welcome

Bruce couldn't remember the last time he felt as relaxed as he was right now.

Sure his chest ached from a nasty kick he couldn't block on last night's patrol, and his ribs still throbbed uncomfortably from his last tango with poison ivy, but he couldn't be more at ease.

Having you under his roof, under his care, took a bone-crushing weight off his shoulders, he craved this feeling, successfully keeping a vulnerable person like you safe, this itch to be a protector was being scratched in a dangerously pleasant way, his tired blue eyes watched the monitors, different angles of you reflected in his iris's.

Unbeknownst to you, Bruce was the one who spent the most time watching you, he liked to tackle all obstacles in his life with a tenacity and vigor that made him a fearsome man to be up against, and he was using those well-honed skills against you.

He rather enjoyed this side of his (y/n), it was a soft, genuine side only he got to see.

Now, Bruce wasn't delusional by any means not like the rest of his family seemed to be, he saw the way you tensed up whenever one of his sons entered your space, the way you seemed to shrink into yourself, curl against the farthest corner of your temporary room, far from what you perceived as a threat. 

He much preferred moments like now, the rare times when you believed you were truly alone, when your fists unclenched and your face softened in the sweetest way when you allowed yourself to relax, Bruce was there every time, enjoying the peace of the moment with you.

He couldn't wait to do this the right way, to relax with you, close enough to watch the steady rise and fall of your chest, to read to you, in his deepest fantasies your head rests in his lap, your eyes fighting to stay open as he lulls you to sleep, the hand not holding the book open, gently petting your hair, your lashes would flutter as you surrendered to the peace of the moment, to the protection he offered, to the fact that as long as he was there you had nothing to worry about.

But that had to wait, he had to wait. After all, you were still adjusting.

His thumb brushes over a small handheld remote, a green light repeatedly blinking, his eyes honed in on the flash, with this small device he was able to keep your dangerous companion at bay, he'd looked at the lab results from the aliens brief stint in Bludhaven, the scientists report from their time spent studying the symbiote gave him the information he needed to construct this little countermeasure of his, it kept a high pitched frequency playing lowly throughout your room, which in turn kept you on the leash he wanted you on, a leash held tightly in his fist.

He'd eventually turn it off, and reunite you with your alien friend, that is of course once you earned his trust. Once you understood your place was by his side, by his families side 

The house was full for the first time in a long time, Bruce loved having his sons under one roof, it was rare to gather them all here, even rarer for them to be getting along as well as they had been, you'd united them in a way that had never been done before and you had no idea, Bruce would be forever grateful to you for the fact. 

He watches you read a book smiling softly at the sight

[homestuckreplay]

Act 2 Reread

It feels illegal to read 500 pages of this thing in a single day after only getting 4-5 pages per day for the last year+. anyway here's some thoughts on act 2

can you imagine opening up GameFAQs not knowing about the meteor apocalypse and finding Rose's walkthrough. you'd never believe a word of it. you'd be like 'what is wrong with this emo kid that they hate this game so much that they talk like it's the end of the world'

also, what's Rose's motivation for trying to save people's lives with her GameFAQ? is she selflessly trying to save the world or is she trying to be the savior so she looks cleverer than everyone else?

Dad's Serious Jester magazine uses the phrase Serious Business. I'm NOT wrong about Dad's friends being clowns and Hussie cannot gaslight me into thinking they're normal guys

Colonel Sassacre's book was involved in Nanna's death, crushing her as she fell from the ladder when a meteor struck her joke shop, and was involved in her resurrection, as Rose was trying to prototype the sprite with the book when Nanna was accidentally prototyped instead.

I genuinely think that ‘Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton.’ (p.307) is my favorite line in all of Homestuck so far - definitely my favorite from the first two acts. So evocative, and the rhyme and the cadence in that second part is beautiful.

I cannot believe people on the forums genuinely believe Dave is cool. I feel like Act 2 makes it so explicit that he's pretending (and badly at that) but I've seen SO many people buy it.

When Dave makes an angry face, his anger comes across as much more serious than John and Rose do in similar situations. I don't know if I see it that way because of their personalities, or if it's because Dave's eyes are always hidden.

‘just once id like to see dad crap his pants when a kid says theres a vampire in his closet’ (p.386) put another way, Dave wishes he had a guardian who cares for and protects him.

When Rose walks downstairs and beholds the Zazzerpan statue for the first time (p.358), she's literally just sharing headcanons about her wizard OC. Her description matches up pretty well with Complacency of the Learned too.

Rose's house is so cool and I wish we'd gotten a walkaround flash for it. I kinda love how Rose went from a haunted house, to a remote mausoleum, to an ominous green mad science lab, back to a haunted house (on fire this time)... to a land of pastels and rainbows. unbelievable tone shift

It's VERY funny that John tells Rose she 'need[s] a new hobby' when she's psychoanalyzing (p.442). I wish we had more of their pre-Sburb conversations.

'the big red eye of a hot needle skipping on a groove its tracing 'round the earth. While lingering in midair its heat seems to suspend time itself, stretching it like warped vinyl' (p.444) definitely makes me think of the giant record that Jack and Bro are fighting on in '[S] Descend', especially as it's been cracked with a sword, which would definitely make its needle skip.

There are at least six different issues of GameBro visible in Dave and Bro's apartment, some of which are doubled up, meaning they're BOTH subscribed to this shit. :/

Rose did not need to remove the piano from Dad's study to make room for the punch designix. Girl there was room for both

It still seems pretty wild that Rose couldn't see into Dad's room until John went in there. Perhaps because Dad wasn't made through ectobiology and isn't 'part' of Sburb like the other guardians are, he's protected from Skaia's omniscience somewhat?

This act features the origin of the crumpled hat - a top hat owned by Dad, worn by an imp, crushed by Rose dropping a heavy bookcase on the imp, placed on John's head to get his attention, and thrown out the window by John when he's annoyed at his sylladex. From there, it falls down to LOWAS and gets found by Crumplehat, who dishonors his ancestors beyond comprehension with this frivolous accessory. This is of course the most important backstory of any item in Homestuck.

John refers to his early punch card alchemy as 'mad science' (p.531), and is excited about experimenting, fitting with the ectobiology he'll do in a couple of acts.

TG: PUPPETS TG: AWESOME TG: THATS REALLY ALL THERE IS TO SAY ON THE MATTER -- turntechGodhead [TG] changed his mood to RANCOROUS 😡 -- TT: John, I'm about to throw a bath tub through your wall. TT: Watch out. (p.537)

^ maybe the funniest pesterlog page of all time?

TT: I can't interact with you directly, or anything that you are touching, if it will result in moving you. [...] TT: The game probably regards that as a kind of cheating. TT: In a way, thieving you of your free will as an adventurer. (p.643)

I would say that 90% of Rose's theories about Sburb and about her friends are basically proven right by the narrative, but occasionally, she has some big misses. Thinking that Sburb wants its players to have free will might be the biggest of those misses in my opinion.

The WV bunker segment plays very differently now I know his backstory. In his commands to John, WV talks like a military commander before learning human etiquette. In Can Town, he dreams of an 'orderly, civil democracy' where things are 'mannerly and reasonable', 'friendly and happy'. and based on 'mutual respect' - the opposite of the Skaian battlefield - but he also imagines himself as a leader who's obeyed without question, far more similar to his work as a revolutionary. He trains these cans to fight, setting up a practice battle for them, but his goal is to arm them so they're able to mobilize as a unit against a greater threat. In '[S] WV: Rise up', the soldiers who followed WV were all armed and ready to use force, while WV himself was both the leader and the only one who got to be peaceful - he was the inspirational figurehead, and they were comparatively expendable. This dynamic is replicated in Can Town. WV might be against kings, but he has no problem with hierarchy, especially when he's at the top of it.

How the FUCK does '[S] WV: Ascend' manage to keep blowing my mind every time I watch it? surely I should be used to it by now?

Act 2 is also good!! It introduces some key processes and technology - command terminals, sprite prototyping, punch card alchemy, and appearification - and does a great job of taking these things step by step in their first appearance and slowly making them more difficult, as though I'm learning how to solve a new type of math problem. Like learning algebra in Act 2 before going on to learn calculus when things like time loops, dream selves and ectobiology start showing up later. In hindsight it's very easy to see how it sets up these building blocks that are really just the beginning.

[grumpyeagleandfriends]

Vigil - Chapter 1

Summary: Using the genetic material extracted from Yusuf al-Kaysani and Nicolò di Genova, Dr. Metak Kozak initiates Project Eos as an attempt to artificially replicate immortality through forced human trials. Nine embryos are created, implanted, and birthed under controlled conditions. The experiments she conducts represent a grotesque evolution of Steven Merrick’s work.

When Copley first uncovers the program, Kozak’s records declare total failure: "Group Gamma yielded no viable candidates. All subjects compromised beyond analytical utility." But six weeks later, an anonymous lab technician leaks damning footage—a single surviving child, a three year-old male designated "IL-9" with confirmed cellular regeneration and disease resistance.

The team must address the danger this discovery represents. Nicky and Joe are confronted with a child created from their stolen blood.

A/N: A post-cannon story imagining the concept of a lab-generated immortal and how it affects the Guard. Could also be seen as an examination of parenthood. Mostly that, actually. Medical torture. Dr. Kozak is her own warning tbh. Child Abuse. Nicky is a doctor. Death. Immortal Parents. Hurt/Comfort. Illness. Blood. Angst.

11:00 AM. 30 Jan. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

Copley’s study smelled of eighteen year Macallan and citrus wood polish. It was a space of crisp angles and warm walnut paneling, where afternoon light slanted through floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the English countryside. Every detail was curated, devoid of personal clutter save for a single silver-framed photograph facedown on the desk. The hidden image of Copley’s late wife was the only concession to sentimentality in a room so meticulously tailored it might have been lifted from the lair of a Bond villain.

They sat in mid-century leather armchairs, tension coiled in the air. Gathering them like this was a liability. Intel could be shared remotely; discussions didn’t require proximity. Yet here they were.

Andy knew before Copley even spoke. There was something in the way he surveyed them, like the weight of an inconvenient truth was pressing down. He stood before his Scandinavian desk, crisp in a navy cashmere sweater, fingers resting on a dossier thicker than a Bible. Not with hesitation, but ceremony.

It was clear for everyone that serious news was about to be delivered, but she knew that this went deeper. They had been gathered to sit in a war room.

Booker denied the quiet itch in his hand to reach for his flask. The fact that everyone agreed to show up despite his presence and ties to Copley’s new intel had been nothing short of miraculous. The conditions of his exile had been clear, but the current circumstances demanded an annulment of sorts, a truce. He registered the heel of Nile’s boot thunking against the floor. She was the only one who agreed to sit near him. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t necessary, that the others were right to keep their distance. But the meaning behind the gesture lodged somewhere in his throat, there was a sharp feeling of gratitude.

For now, he alone knew why they’d been summoned. He wondered if she would stay so close once the truth hit.

Across the coffee table, Joe and Nicky occupied a leather loveseat. Joe’s hand masked his mouth, fingers pressed to his jaw as he leaned against the armrest, eyes unreadable. He hadn’t wanted to come. He’d argued with Nicky the entire drive, listing every reason why they owed Booker and Copley nothing of their time.

Nicky had listened then, patient, prepared. He knew Joe only needed to voice his hurt, to let it dissipate before it festered. Andy and Nile’s presence alone had been more than reason enough to go.

Now, Nicky sat perfectly still, his breaths measured, glacial.

"I've been tracking Kozak since Merrick," Copley finally began, thumb clicking the presentation remote.

The monitor sitting behind him on the glass top desk bloomed to life with a classified document header. The title "Project Eos" was written in stark black and white. 

"Over six years now," he continued, "I've followed money trails through seventeen shell corporations across three continents. Dead drops in Geneva. Burner labs in Minsk."

A click. The monitor flickered, they each absorbed the blue-tinted security footage of a woman in a white coat. 

Nicky could only stare. That same face had hovered over him while pieces of his flesh were carved away and dropped into plastic sample containers. 

"This is in Cardiff." Copley narrated. "In a private genetics facility fronting under the guise of pediatric regenerative medicine." 

Andy cut in, voice firm but tired. "Skip the build up, James. Just get to what's she's done." Get to why we're here.

Copley didn’t flinch. But when his gaze landed on Joe and Nicky, the mask slipped—just for a second. A swallow. A flicker of remorse.

“Kozak’s Project Eos attempts to artificially replicate immortality through forced human trials.” He paused. “She’s created, implanted, and birthed nine embryos under controlled conditions.”

His voice was too calm, the way surgeons would begin to present a case to a patient’s family before announcing complications. 

“This was done using genetic material from you both. The nine candidates, labeled “Subject Group Gamma” were all listed as 'non-viable'.”

Genetic material.

Nicky could remember when Kozak extracted samples from a more intimate area of his body, particularly the special technique she used to procure what she wanted. When it was done to him, the act was undoubtedly degrading, but he was able to process the moment as a temporary humiliation. When she turned to do the same to Joe's unconscious form, Nicky's calm abruptly dissolved. He bucked against his restraints, unable to tolerate the sudden onset of searing anger under his own ribs.

Copley continued on, pulling him from his thoughts.

"But a whistleblower has since come forward, a lab technician recently moved from a Merrick facility in Geneva. They revealed that our previous intel was inaccurate. A false flag."

A new slide flicked across the monitor. The first horror. Autopsy reports.

"We gained the autopsy reports of the first eight subjects," Copley said quietly. "All infants. Seven died before reaching one year of age, but then there was a breakthrough. The eighth child lived to 18 months." 

The details of the autopsy reports were clinical, detached. Causes of death: organ failure, hemorrhaging, neural degradation. There were only serial numbers instead of names. Nicky’s fingers tightened imperceptibly on the edge of the armrest. His eyes dialed in on the information, scanning the details as quickly as he could.

Joe didn't look. He couldn't look.  

"The ninth child, named Subject IL-9, is still alive." Copley continued. "A three year-old male who demonstrates consistent accelerated healing, though they haven’t yet tested mortality."

A single photograph came next. A boy, small and pale with a shaved head, curled on a metal cot. His face was partially obscured by a black censorship bar, but what little of him was visible was unmistakable. He had Joe's nose and mouth. The child looked sickly, too young to be three. Too thin.  

"What is being done to him?" Nicky demanded, voice impossibly level. He rested a hand briefly on Joe's thigh, to ground himself, to check in, but withdrew the moment he felt the muscle beneath twitch like a live wire. The act had been too soon. Some wounds needed pressure. Others needed air.

Joe bent forward, elbows on knees, face buried in his hands. His fingers dragged through his beard, rough and unsteady. The room tilted. He needed air. Needed to put his fist through something, or maybe feel someone else's fist collide with his cheek. He didn’t look at anyone. He couldn’t. His gaze fixed on the floor, on the wood grain under his sneakers, on the two birds chasing each other just outside the window, on anything but the screen where the deaths of eight children were dissected in unforgivingly clinical language.

He could only force himself to breathe. There was no other way forward, no other way to process what he was feeling from this violation—this mix of revulsion and hurt.

"The testing on the child has been...systematic." Copley's voice was measured, face souring as he carefully chose his words. The white plastic casing of the remote softly cracked under the force of his grip.

"Phase one consisted of pathogen exposure to common strains of measles, influenza, and tuberculosis. Each infection was meticulously timed to measure recovery rates." A click. Graphs of fever spikes, white blood cell counts. "They noted his immune response was 'anomalously efficient', with recovery achieved by day four of each trial."

Nicky’s jaw shifted, but his voice never changed. Always calm, always even. "How much information did you recover on his medical history?"

"It’s incomplete,” Copley began. “But the whistleblower provided us with daily vital logs, trauma and healing reports, neurological assessments, weight charts—"

"Give separate copies to me. Everything you have." Nicky interjected. He squinted as he read the numbers of a growth chart fixed on the screen. The last entry was from nearly two months ago, the child was recorded as 84 centimeters tall and weighing 10 kilograms.

"Phase two tested his resilience to environmental extremes." Copley’s mouth thinned. "Four hours in 2°C water. Five hours in a climatic chamber at 42°C. Timed oxygen deprivation just before the threshold of brain damage. Fourteen days of gradually reduced calorie and fluid intake.”

Joe rose abruptly from the love seat, his knee roughly bumping the coffee table as he stood. He crossed to the window in large strides, his back rigid, one hand braced against the window frame. The tendons in his forearms stood out like cables.

Copley continued, quieter now. "Phase three moved to physical trauma. Compound fractures—" A slide of an X-ray, a tiny femur snapped clean through. "—lacerations, burns. Healing averaged one to two hours for deep tissue, three hours for bone."

The cap of Nile’s pen snapped in her grip, but she continued to listen attentively. Those rates of healing were longer than what it took for them. Her eyes flicked over to the faces of the others, but there was no way to discern if their thoughts were following the same paths. Everyone looked ill.

For a moment, Copley showed signs of fatigue. He let the hand holding the remote fall to his side. He glanced at his desk before finishing.

“Phase four has not yet begun, but the whistleblower warned that this is when they intend to test his mortality.” 

Andy’s voice cut through. "We don’t wait on this one." She stood, approaching the desk to seize the dossier prepared by Copley and Booker. "We go in and extract the boy. Steal every byte of intel, then scrub the place." Her gaze swept the room. "It has to be full sanitization. We leave no witnesses."

Copley nodded, clicking to the blueprints. "All intel indicates that he is held here, in a third floor isolation unit." He pointed the red dot of a laser at the west wing. 

Booker leaned forward, tracing demolition points on the schematic. "C4 in the parking garage and ground floor support columns. Thermite cocktail here—" He tapped the server room. "—enough to melt their research into slag."

He had memorized every inch of the building: entrances, exits, corridors, stairwells, and ventilation shafts. There was no escape route not pre-mapped out in his mind, no corner to hide in that he didn't know. The rotations of security and staff, the layout of the below ground parking garage, the brand of bleach the janitors used—over the last month, Booker had funneled all of his remorse into learning every detail about this facility. 

He cleared his throat before focusing tentatively on Andy, finding her unreadable mask to be steadying in some way. This was only soul he knew to report to, who he knew to follow without question.

"The largest shift change happens just before 0200. That's the time to hit. Two nurses. One resident. Guards cut to skeleton crew."

Nile’s fingers drummed a marching rhythm against the armrest. "Andy and I can breach through security. Disable cameras, clear a path." Her eyes flicked to Joe’s motionless form by the window. "Nicky and Joe take point on extraction."

Nile, who sat stiff-backed, her dark eyes flickering between the screen and her family, so unflinching in the face of a reality that they all viscerally rejected. She never had a choice in the matter. Being an immortal of the modern era, she would never know the luxury the others once did—of lifetimes spent hiding in the shadows, of drifting untraced. Her immortality was always going to be a game of cat and mouse, and now, before she could even adjust, she was being asked to protect another life that would never know peace. 

Silence settled after her proposal, seemingly as acceptance. Then—

"No survivors, then." Joe spoke, still facing the glass. His reflection was blurred, his words like a serrated blade, something not meant to cut clean. "What about Kozak?"

Copley was quick to answer. "Bern. She’s presenting at a private symposium tomorrow."

Andy sat back in her seat, legs outstretched. The lines around her eyes deepened as she stared at something at midline only she could see.

"We hit the lab first. Then we end this." It landed like stones—final, immovable. 

"News from the lab will hit her immediately," Nile countered. "Doesn't that give her time to disappear?"

Andy didn't move, her eyes remained steady. She spoke with the weariness of someone who had seen more bodies buried than the ground could contain. "Let her run," she spoke so quietly that it might have been to herself. Then louder, with the full weight behind it: "I've hunted smarter prey. This stops now."

Copley cleared his throat. "For what it’s worth, we’ve had eyes on her financial trails for over three years. Every alias, every shell account. She hasn’t taken a step without us knowing since 2021." He looked to Nicky, then to Joe's back. "If you go for her first, we risk the boy being moved. The lab’s servers need to be melted before they can scrub the data."

Joe turned from the window, his face eerily blank, the kind of calm that came before a surge. This wasn't the absence of fury, but the absolute clarity that rage could provide when put to good use. Everyone expected him to walk out after Copley’s presentation. He had every right to. Every reason to slam the door, to vanish, to let the complex storm of shock and fear burning under his flesh fuel him through the English countryside until his legs gave out.

But he didn’t.

Surprising everyone but Nicky.

His attention locked onto Booker first.

Not Andy, not Nile, not Copley. Booker.

Because Joe knew Booker was the one who prepared this work. Because despite the betrayal, despite the fractured trust that still ached between them, Booker was the one who had always been best at this: the slow, methodical gathering of intel, the obsessive mapping of every variable. And now, he was here with them, trying to atone in the only way he knew how—by providing a way to fix this.

Joe crossed the room and dropped himself into the armchair Andy had abandoned. 

"Walk me through your plan." He quietly demanded. His voice was hollowed out, the kind of tone that made the air in the room feel thin.

Joe and Booker sat and discussed for hours. Their gear was already sourced—untraceable weapons, ammunition, a van with plates that would burn clean after extraction. It was an hour's drive to Bristol, where a private plane would be waiting to take them quickly back to East London, then a second van to bring them back to Copley's house in Sheldwich. From there, they would work out where everyone would go next. Copley would monitor the situation and work through covering their tracks. 

Nile and Andy joined in. The four of them hashed out the plan all afternoon, then well into the evening. Timing. Division of roles, who would be covering who. Contingency plans in the event the child was too weak at any point to be moved. 

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

01:17 AM. 31 Jan. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

The moment the intel presentation ended, Nicky didn’t join where the others were clustered around the coffee table, debating extraction plans and arguing timelines. He cornered Copley near his large desk, demanding the boy’s medical files.

To his credit, Copley didn’t hesitate. A laptop and two USB drives were deposited into Nicky’s hands without question. It was impossible to miss the flicker of guilt in the man’s gaze during the exchange. He understood what horrors he was silently delivering, he knew the pain that awaited.

For the next twelve hours, Nicky locked himself in the guest bedroom, the glow of the laptop screen painting shadows under his eyes. He operated with the urgency of someone who believed he could already be too late, racing against time to undo what might already be irreversible. 

He cross-referenced every procedure, every notation, every spike or drop in vitals. His fingers worked tirelessly over the keyboard, constructing a meticulous chart—weight fluctuations, heart rate anomalies, the jagged decline of a body pushed beyond its limits. The reports were inconsistent. Sometimes his injuries closed unnaturally fast, other times his fever raged for days unchecked. Nicky knew how stress at these levels could inhibit healing. Even if the boy’s body could repair at a similar rate to them, the constant strain he was under would greatly disrupt his abilities. If Kozak’s team was truly nearing phase four, the boy would be in no state to recover quickly. His body would be eating itself alive to keep up with the pace of forced regeneration.

With this information, Nicky knew he had to work under the guiding principle that the boy was mortal. He would plan for the worst, and then hope for the best—against evidence, against the gnawing dread in his chest. 

He made an exhaustive list of the medical supplies they would need, things Copley could source quickly from his connections. Pediatric IV kits, bags of standard saline as well as lactated Ringer’s solution, nasal cannulas, oxygen tanks, a portable blood analyzer, a glucose monitor, pain killers, broad spectrum antibiotics, a child-sized pulse oximeter and blood pressure cuff...

Nicky also made a separate list of practical items and things for comfort: clothing, toiletries, toys, books. The reports had been clinical in their omissions. There was no mention of play time, of going outside, or of any schooling. Nicky had doubts about how much interaction this child received. Did someone come consistently whenever he cried? Did the staff take the time to talk to him, to teach him words? The sparse references to toys were particularly bleak. They were used only as bribes during cognitive and neurological tests, brief rewards taken away the moment the boy’s cooperation was ensured.

The grandfather clock in the hall hummed past midnight when the others finally dispersed. Footsteps retreated in different directions down the corridor, doors softly shut one by one. 

Joe padded quietly into their borrowed bedroom, his face a mask when he found Nicky still sitting on the bed, laptop open on his legs. 

The door slid closed behind him with a click, sealing them away from the outside world.

Neither spoke.

There was a certain weight in the way Joe moved that was all wrong. His limbs operated too cautiously, not with the calm before battle, but with the quiet of someone trying hard to control his breath, as if an undetonated bomb shared this space with them.

The silence stretched in the room, tight as a piano wire. There was only the faint crackle of dying embers in the Malm fireplace, their glow creating warped shadows across the floor. 

"You should sleep." Nicky murmured, voice hardly above a whisper.

Joe let out a rushed exhale, not quite a laugh. "You first."

Nicky’s gaze flickered over him in the dim light, reading the lines of his body like a map. It was as if he could see right through his skin. The hurt was still there, simmering beneath buffering layers of calm. But even deeper under that façade, Nicky knew there was something wounded, something terrified.  

Joe settled down onto one of the winged armchairs next to the vintage fireplace. They were given the largest of the bedrooms. Nicky imagined that it had at one point been used by Copley and his wife, but he would never ask. Joe's elbows rested on his knees while he began rifling through their shared suitcase, searching out his desired clothes for sleepwear. The thermal henley came off in one rough tug, the fabric catching briefly on the curve of his shoulders before he wrenched it free. His jeans followed, discarded in a heap beside the chair. He dressed for bed with the same efficiency he might use to strip a rifle—methodical, detached. He opted to wear one of their stretched out sleep shirts and a pair of joggers, glancing down at his feet and internally debating for a moment before deciding to keep his socks.

Wordlessly, he plucked his toiletry sack from the side compartment and slipped into the ensuite. His face remained distant, checked out.

Nicky waited until he returned from brushing his teeth, watching the way he traipsed over to the bed. Joe sat down on the edge, but didn't turn, didn't move to settle himself back against the headboard. His dark eyes gazed through the floor to ceiling windows that comprised the entirety of one wall in the bedroom, watching the unrelenting rain continue to fall outside. 

"Talk to me." 

Joe’s arms loosely crossed, his fingers gripping his elbows, his jaw taut.

"What is there to say?” He demanded softly. “Tomorrow we go in and we get him out. We burn the rest."  

Nicky’s attention didn’t waver from his husband's back. "And after?"  

The question hung between them, heavy with everything they could not say, sagging under the weight of all that they didn't have time to discuss.

Joe’s fingertips skimmed over the skin of his arms, a motion meant to self-soothe. 

"After, we make sure no one else comes. We rip the weeds out by the roots, then salt the earth."  

"That’s not what I meant—" 

"I know." 

"Do you?" Nicky wondered in what was barely above a whisper. "This isn’t a mission, Joe. This isn’t extraction and extraction alone. If he is—" He stopped, the words stuck in his chest, too difficult to give form.  

Again, Joe had the encroaching feeling that he couldn’t breathe. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, raked his fingers through his beard. 

They submitted once more to the awful quiet. The wind outside caused the windows to rattle. 

Joe's arms uncrossed, hands now resting down at his sides, his fingers unclenched only to curl again into the fabric of his sweat pants. His head bowed forward, the words scraping out like gravel underfoot.

"I can’t stop thinking about how we didn’t know."

The silence that followed was leaden. 

Nicky watched the strain build through Joe's body—the rigid line of his shoulders, the way his breath stuttered before he forced it to steady. In that moment he ached to reach for him, to press his palms against the tension and work it loose with his fingers, his mouth, his whispered reassurances. But Nicky knew that it wasn't the right time, that whatever he would say would only fall flat. 

"We felt Nile. We felt Booker." Joe's voice dropped lower, rougher. "How could we not feel any of this?" 

This.

A child's suffering. The silent agony of the ones before him. The way their own blood had been turned against them, used to create and destroy in equal measure. Centuries of war, of loss, of resurrection. He struggled to think of a prior experience that could have prepared them for this particular feeling of helplessness

"We can't be sure how it works." Nicky said carefully. "Maybe because he wasn’t born. He was made."

Made. The implications of the word curdled between them. 

Joe's lashes fluttered as his eyes slipped shut. His jaw clicked as it shifted minutely to one side. 

"Or maybe because we weren’t paying attention."

Nicky didn’t have a response. The guilt was there, in both of them—a silent, aching feeling that they had fallen short.

He found himself wishing so deeply that they had the time to help each other ease into this. It was a cruel stroke of irony: that immortals who inherently had only an abundance of time, suddenly found themselves with none. There would be no slow unraveling of this pain, no gentle easing into the horror. 

Joe let out a breath, his head turning to glance over his shoulder. "What are we supposed to do after we get out of there tomorrow?" The question was hushed and lost. "Because, Nicky, if he lives, if he’s ours to—" 

He stopped himself, rocking slightly as he failed to continue that line of thought. Because what he was really asking was too callus to be voiced outright. How do they help a child who was never meant to be a child? How do they teach trust to someone who has only known pain? How were they to care for something born from theft and defilement?

Nicky leaned forward, his knuckles skating over the small of Joe's back. "We do what we have always done." he murmured. "We adapt."  

Joe closed his eyes. "And if he dies in that lab before we reach him?"  

"Then we make sure no one else suffers like him again." 

An ember cracked in the fireplace, spitting crimson sparks into the darkness. Nicky blinked against the dry ache in his eyes—he'd been staring at screens and reports for over twelve hours. The medical jargon blurred at the edges, but the numbers were still stark imprints in his mind. 

He closed the laptop, letting it click shut with finality.

"You haven’t read any of it, have you?" 

Joe turned to properly look at him then, his head twisting in gentle disbelief. 

"Why would I need to?" His voice frayed at the edges. "I know what they do in places like that. I remember."  

Nicky's fingers slid down the laptop's edge before he set the device aside. He chose his next words carefully. "They infected him with tuberculosis back in November. He recovered in three days." A deliberate pause. "They broke his femur to test the rate of regeneration. Twice."  

Joe flinched as if struck. "Nicolò—"  

"As far as I know, they never gave him a name." The words were meant to be informative, but his tone was like broken glass, brittle and fragmented. "In the reports, he’s just IL-9."  

The air left Joe's lungs in a wounded rush. He surged to his feet, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if trying to erase the images flooding his mind. "Stop."  

He took three stumbling steps towards the bathroom before he whirled, his composure shattered.

“How can you?" The words tore from him, accusatory, unable to hide his own disgust any longer. "How can you spend hours looking at that? It's torture. Every fucking line.”  

Nicky didn’t flinch at what he was saying, even if a small part of him did feel incredulous towards the man across the room from him. His gaze held Joe's with a terrible sort of patience, aching with something too vast to name. 

What was he to say? That he feared turning away from what was done somehow made him complicit? That bearing witness was the only absolution left to them? Even for someone like him, it was too self-righteous a thing to say out loud. He knew that the reality was much simpler, much uglier. 

Truthfully, Nicky thought that if he focused on the broken bones, the fevers, however much blood was drawn, he wouldn't have to consider the greater violation—that this child only existed because someone had stolen pieces of them both. If he let his mind wander beyond the boy’s physical wounds, he would have to face the enormity of what had been done. Not just to this child’s body, but to himself, to Joe.

Instead of saying any of this, Nicky only blinked. And now, his own throat burned as he struggled to speak normally. 

“Someone must.”  

The truth sat between them like a third presence.

Because it’s a child, a child made from your blood and mine.

One that we may have failed before we even learned of his existence, before he ever received a name.

Nicky rose from the bed, his eyes never straying from Joe. His hands hovered between them as an offering—a rope cast out amongst the waves they treaded. He didn’t come close enough to touch, but enough to feel the heat radiating from his husband’s rigid shoulders. 

"Maybe," he began, voice roughened from spending hours in silence, "if I know what they did, I can learn how to undo it." The words were frail sounding, the intention of hope behind them so unstable. "So when we bring him home, I can meet him where he is."

Joe’s lips compressed together into a tight line, the skin around his eyes folded. The look he leveled at Nicky wasn’t just sadness, it was the quiet devastation of someone watching their beloved grasp at threads.

"There may be no 'after' for him." 

The gentleness in his tone made it worse. This careful doling out of mercy, as if Nicky hadn't already dissected every horrific possibility in the twelve hours he'd spent with those files. As if the image of a small body wrapped in sheets wasn't already seared behind his eyelids.

Nicky didn’t argue. He studied the tremor in Joe’s clenched hands, the way his husband's gaze darted to every exit but never once to the laptop on the nightstand.

"No, perhaps not." he agreed softly while stepping into Joe's space. His palms mapped the familiar terrain of Joe's arms, sliding down to pry open his stiff fingers. "But we still must plan as if there will be."

With an unsteady exhale, Joe surrendered to Nicky’s touch, letting him manipulate his wrists and hands however he wanted. Even in anguish, he was taking the time to consider his love's words, much like he always did. Though his emotions were known to burn bright, he was a man capable of immense reflection, always able to land at the core of things. Here, Nicky could see him trying to measure their needs, much like a merchant pouring over the figures in his books—what surplus still remained, what could they salvage? All of his calculations looked to be coming up short. This pain was too thick to quantify, stuffed away for survival’s sake yet hanging over their heads with mocking laughter.

Nicky guided Joe’s palms to his own ribcage, pressing them flat against the rise and fall of his breath. His large hands settled over them, anchoring them both there.

"We learn what he is—” He murmured, the bass of his voice the only steady thing in the dark.  “—we learn what they made him. Then we try to become what he needs."

Joe swallowed before nodding. His eyes closed tightly for a beat, then a soft curse slipped from his lips.

Their bodies folded together. 

Nicky’s chin tilted in wordless invitation, allowing Joe to press his face into the familiar hollow of his neck. They inhaled each other, finding the very scent of home—a place they had been able to carry with them for centuries because they understood that it could never be tied to a single location or physical dwelling, but rather to this life they carved out together. Nicky hummed as his husband’s hands fanned over his shoulder blades, each of them finding solace in the other's frame. They remained like this for an uncertain amount of time, listening to the sounds of their own breathing, the wet click of their throats swallowing, their syncopated heartbeats. 

The silence between them had always been its own language. It was Joe who eventually chose to break it. 

"It wasn't just him." He said, voice thick and trembling. He tried to steady his hands by finding Nicky's waist. "Eight others. Brought into this world and snuffed out. And we never had the faintest clue." 

Nicky had avoided this, because he could not afford thinking about the others. Perhaps years from now, when enough time and distance sat between them and this revelation, he would step into a quiet church and light eight individual candles. He would recite familiar prayers, not for forgiveness, but for the grief he’d been forced to bury away. But this would be a ritual for far into the future—for a time when he and Joe had steadier ground beneath their feet, for when their family was no longer in such immediate danger. Now, they could only focus on what they still held the power to change.

“Yes.” His agreement was quiet. “But now he is all that matters.”

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

02:21 AM. 01 Feb. 2025, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

Joe sat cross legged on the floor of the van, his back pressed against the metal wall. 

The weather report had promised a dry night, but Cardiff exhaled a bitter, icy mist all the same. The fine drizzle floated through the air, the small droplets clinging to hair and clothes alike, needling through layers until it penetrated the bones. 

The operation had been clean, until it wasn’t.

Disabling the cameras took Nile ninety seconds. Andy dispatched the entrance guards and those posted inside with barely a pause—they fell one by one as she and Nile pushed deeper, silenced by blade before their shouts could form. With each fallen guard, Andy and Nile called out their kills through the comms system. Joe and Nicky flowed a few paces behind them in perfect sync, sealing exits and watching angles. Only Booker broke rhythm from the group, vanishing into a side stairwell to descend to the lower levels, his bag filled with enough C4 to demolish a building twice as tall.

Locating the boy on the third floor cost them the most time, a dangerous amount of time. They had to force access code information from the two nurses on duty, the type of work that is never pretty.

Andy bent fingers backward one by one until one of them sobbed out a series of entry numbers.

Three minutes. A result that was nowhere near her personal best.

Nicky and Joe went in alone to collect the boy.

Fifteen minutes total.

That's all it took to breach the facility and extract what should never have been taken.

Now, the mangled security gate screamed under the van’s tires as Andy drove them away. 

Joe hadn’t been able to touch him back in that sterile room. They found the boy lying in an elevated metal crib, it's barred walls looming over him more like a cage than a bed. His small body was tethered by electrodes and wires. Velcro straps pinned his arms outstretched on either side. Even as he slept, they felt the need to keep a sickly three year-old restrained.

In the van’s rattling dark, Nicky cradled the boy against his chest, swaying slightly on his knees. His gaze flickered over their gear, pausing on the thin padded mat they’d brought for the child. It had seemed practical back in planning. Now, with the boy’s shallow breaths warming his collarbone, his body too weak to properly lift his head, it felt unforgivably stark.

Something in Joe shifted. Without hesitation, he wrenched over the nearest duffel, rummaging past weapons and wire until his fingers caught on familiar fabric—a shared sweatshirt that belonged to them, threadbare from years of use, still carrying traces of Aleppo soap and sandalwood. He spread it across his lap, a buffer against the cold damp of his tactical gear. Shifting forward, he quickly lifted his vest up and over his head, tossing it aside. 

"Set him down." Joe swallowed to make his voice cooperate. "It's—it's okay." 

Nicky shifted, murmuring, “Fai piano, tienigli la testa…” (Easy, support his head...)

Joe’s hands rose on instinct to help settle the boy's delicate weight. His palm pressed to where the back of the child’s neck met the base of his skull, fingers splaying to support his head. The contact was like a hot spark landing in dry tender—real, real, suddenly too real. A child, a living thing made from him, taken from his body without permission, now lay cradled across his lap. Not quite his, but certainly of him.

His mind stuttered when he looked down at the boy’s face, so undeniably close to his own—from the slope of his nose, to the arch of his brows, Joe could see his own features softened into something small and fragile. A few echoes of Nicky were threaded throughout: in the stubborn set of his chin, the unique shape of his small ears. It made something sick and heavy coil in his gut. This was no miracle. It was violation given form, a life wrenched into existence without thought for mercy or consent. And yet—

The boy stirred weakly, his cracked lips parting around a soundless gasp. His fingers twitched against Joe’s thigh, the movement barely there.

Before he could think, he gently shushed him, the back of his fingers smoothing over his brow. The motion came without his explicit permission, pulled from some deep, unguarded place. 

His eyes snapped up, meeting Nicky’s over the boy’s trembling body.

“Help me get this off him." He jerked his chin down towards the off-white lab blanket. The stench of bleach and something sour, like sweat gone stale, clung to the rough fabric. He couldn’t stomach the thought of the child being wrapped in anything from that place for a second longer. Not when they were meant to be taking him somewhere far away and safe. 

Nicky didn’t argue, able to plainly hear the plea beneath the words. With careful hands, he helped peel the blanket off and tossed it aside. Together, they worked to swaddle him in the material of the old sweatshirt, the garment dwarfing his emaciated frame. 

Around them, the others kept up their careful pretense of focus—Andy’s hands steady on the wheel, Booker’s tense silence in the passenger's seat. Nile was positioned just behind them, her head stuck between the two while she watched the road. 

“What’s the time on detonation?” She demanded, directions provided by Copley pulled up on her phone. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Booker dismissed her question as Andy turned onto a side street. “I gave us enough of a window.” 

None of them for a single second doubted Booker’s calculations, in the same way they still trusted his ability to forge their identification papers and to iron out the logistics for the next mission. Nile's question was more about filling the silence, about not disturbing the intimacy of the moment Nicky and Joe were sharing behind her. They were giving them this, at least: the illusion of privacy in the cramped, rattling space.

The gentle clunk and swish of the windshield wipers continued against the rain. Still only a few blocks away from the lab, the aftermath of Booker’s work would come soon enough. The Tesco across the street from Kozak's facility would rattle with the force of the explosion, glass windows would shatter out into fragments against the pavement.

The lab would be left as a hollowed shell.

Nicky was already pulling supplies from his med kit, his movements fluid despite the van's jolting rhythm. A stethoscope draped over the back of his neck, he shifted to kneel before them, steady even as the vehicle lurched, his large hands hovered at the sweatshirt's zipper.

"Joe.”

His name sounded different as it left Nicky's mouth, not a summons but a tether, spoken so it wouldn't travel any further than Joe's ears.

Joe blinked, like surfacing from deep water, the sounds of the present drawing him back from where his thoughts had spiraled. His dark eyes slowly sharpened, the weight of his gaze shifting from shock to awareness. He didn't realize how tightly he had been clutching the sweatshirt, his fingers felt nearly fused to the cotton fabric. 

"I need to check him." Nicky’s voice was firm but not unkind. "So I can see how to help him."

The words passed easily. Joe managed a stiff nod, his throat dry with a sort of helplessness they had been unable to shake since they were gathered in Copley's study. His hands fell away from the small body stretched across his lap.

Slowly, Nicky worked down the zipper of the jacket. He unfastened the shoulder snaps of the boy's grey medical gown, pulling back the thin fabric to reveal his bare torso. The signs of malnourishment jumped out at them, he was all sharp angles and prominent bones. Each breath he drew pulled the skin taut over his ribs. 

The boy's eyes, a lighter shade of brown than Joe's, watched as Nicky warmed the diaphragm of his stethoscope between his palms. There was no reaction when the metal made contact with his chest, his half-lidded gaze continued to travel warily between the two men hovering over him. 

The child’s breath sounds were guarded and shallow. When Nicky shifted the chest piece lower, he could only frown as he listened to the ragged pull of air through his lungs. He gently felt for the pulse at the boy’s carotid, finding it slightly elevated, the rhythm fluttery against his fingertips. The lymph nodes along the column of his throat were normal, though his skin still held a feverish heat.

Carefully, slowly, Nicky's hands skimmed over his narrow extremities, feeling each bone with featherlight pressure. There were no obvious fractures, no bruises or abrasions, but the joints were too prominent, the wrists too fragile. Despite the gentleness of his touch, Nicky still detected the flash of a grimace across the boy's face. He managed to free one of his small hands from the folds of the jacket. When applying pressure to the nail beds, he noted how the color drained and returned slowly—poor perfusion. 

He reached for the penlight set out amongst his tools, clicking it on with his thumb. 

The moment the beam touched the boy’s pupils, he jerked back with a sharp gasp—the first real reaction he’d shown since they’d taken him. His face screwed up, turning away from the light like it burned.

Joe caught him before he could retreat too far, one broad hand cradling the back of his head, the other bracing his cheek. "Shh, almost done." he murmured, his thumb stroking the curve of the boy’s temple.

Nicky worked quickly to check his pupillary response. The reaction to light was slow, but equally present. Finally, he brandished a thermometer. There was a quiet beep in the boy's ear before the digital readout confirmed what he already knew.

Low-grade fever. Dehydration. Aches. The beginnings of an infection simmering.

He began to clear away the unnecessary supplies back into his med kit, leaving out only what was needed for an IV. "He needs fluids," he said quietly. "And likely antibiotics."

Joe considered the information, his gaze trained down towards the boy. His palm lightly brushed over the crown of his shaved scalp, noting the angry red patches of irritation—a sort of allergic reaction to the electrodes' adhesive.

"He breathes like he's in pain." 

The child weakly tried to turn his head from Joe's careful touch, his hands flinching at his sides. 

"Tranquillo, piccolo. Fammi vedere questa mano, sì?"  Nicky spoke gently to him as he settled his small arm across his knee. His fingers nimbly fastened an elastic band around his skinny bicep before he turned his palm upward. (Easy, little one. Let me see this hand, yes?) The Italian was deliberate. Not just for comfort, but as a boundary against memory. Nicky's voice and his words were nothing like the sterile English used in the lab. He knew that the boy wouldn't fully understand, but he hoped that the tone of what he said would still register. It felt important to create a distinction from the doctors he had known before, so he would eventually learn that his and Joe's hands would never seek to harm him. 

Nicky knew that the severe dehydration would make finding a suitable vein more difficult, and the moving conditions of the van were not ideal for steady hands, but there was no choice. He took a moment to center himself, slipping into the focused calm he'd learned to hone over centuries. These were the same measured breaths he took when perched on a rooftop with his rifle. In moments where there was no room for error. He glanced upwards to Joe, silent understanding passed between them. 

Joe's hand cupped over the boy's eyes, shielding his view from the needle. 

A slight tremor ran through his small body as the needle pierced skin. There was the subtle feeling of resistance when the IV catheter met vein, then a small amount of blood filled the chamber, signalling success. The boy's breathing caught, but he didn't cry out. Nicky suspected that he was too weak to even whimper. 

"Tutto fatto." He whispered, as much to himself as to the child. He taped the line in place, his thumb brushing the inside of his elbow in silent apology. (All done.)  

Joe began fixing the jacket around the boy's body once more, assuring he was well covered. He sat back and watched as Nicky busied himself with hanging the bag of Ringer's solution on a makeshift hook. His husband made the necessary calculations in his head before drawing a syringe of pain medication, administering the dose directly through the IV bag's port. 

Nicky's silence could often be more telling than any outburst. There was something unsettled in the calm way his eyes scanned over the child, a sort of anger kept well guarded under the water's surface. It could never be lost on Joe that the person lying across his lap was just as much of Nicky's flesh as of his own, and so this violation felt all the more heavier. What wounded Nicolò only wounded him doubly.

"He needs a name..." Joe whispered, the words raw. There hadn't been time to comb through all of the records Copley and Booker amassed before the raid, but that crucial piece of information was listed nowhere. The boy had a number, but no other title tied to him. 

As the child fought against the pull of sleep, the message of what needed to be done was silently understood. What Joe was proposing was a tentative step towards trying, towards undoing, towards atonement. It was their attempt to stand between this child and a world that tried to exploit him.

It came together organically. A discussion they never once held before, but in that moment they found themselves inexplicably equipped with the answers.

"Ilyas." Nicky breathed, only loud enough to be heard between them.

Joe nodded as he exhaled, his thumb tracing over the boy’s cheekbone. The prophet Ilyas had remained ever faithful, was resurrected before bringing down fire from the sky. He was someone taken and then returned. Neither he or Nicky were particularly religious anymore, but symbols were perhaps their oldest shared tongue. This was a name that fit the person receiving it, and that fact alone brought a small modicum of comfort. What remained of life if our words and names no longer carried meaning? 

"Ilyas Nicolò." Joe finished, his gaze still trained downward. 

Nicky’s head tilted, just slightly, but his fingers curled around Joe’s wrist in agreement. No paperwork, no witnesses, just this: a claim, a promise sealed in the shuddering dark of an unmarked van.

[spacemothsota]

Cyberform AU - Part 4

Commune "Deception" (Decepticon base for Cyberformed allies).

Warning: Attention in this AU all people are in one universe (reality), for their own psychological well-being. Also in this post real places on our planet are mentioned (they just have a different history).

Before the Decepticons took over the island, it housed a human research base for studying Antarctica (climate conditions, observing local fauna, as well as observing volcanic activity. Deception Island has one of two active volcanoes on the northern continent).

After the Cybertronians arrived on Earth in 1984, the Decepticons sought to gain a tactical advantage over the Autobots. Obviously, the Autobots had gained a lot of human support, and later the government gave them a military base in Diego Garcia, which was quite remote and secluded. Megatron knew that his forces needed such a secluded base more than enough, and over the next couple of years, he not only found a few human allies, but also had Starscream and his trine on research missions (this definitely made the Autobots nervous and on high alert). The task of these flights was to find a suitable place for Shockwave's new base, far from human eyesight, with the necessary energy potential and with a climate harsh enough that the Cybertronians themselves did not want to attack or engage in espionage. Oddly enough, there are quite a few islands on Earth that are not inhabited by people for one reason or another, but they were not suitable for the Decepticons' business. Some of them, like the Archipel Kerguelen, although they were remote, had zero population (as it later turned out in the second reconnaissance, there were researchers there, not so zero), had no energy potential, the second was Bouvet Island, it was an ideal place, there was no human population, a harsh climate, but the problem of the lack of a power source was not acceptable. The last option was Deception Island.

Besides the fact that the name was extremely ironic, the territory had everything necessary. The volcanic island had a power source (a volcano), no human activity and, most importantly, an unpleasant climate from the outside. The Decepticons did not even have to drive away human researchers, since after a series of eruptions in the 1970s, they simply left the territory alone, which the Cybertronians subsequently rushed to take advantage of.

Much later, when the scientific lab and base were built and protected, it became a place for cyberformation of the Decepticons' few human allies.

Deception Island: a former research island, now a Decepticon military and scientific base. Consists of several floors, the lower floors are used to power the entire base from heat generators powered by the island's volcanic activity. Then come the storage floors (energon reserves, parts, metals and weapons, as well as an archive of Shockwave's scientific works and other Decepticon scientists). Later come the laboratories themselves (the territory where the cyberformation process takes place belongs to the research part of the base), testing areas, archives. On the upper floors of the base are residential complexes and training halls, as well as a communication point with the main base of the purple-faction.

Usually, once a person gets to the Decepticons' island, there is a chance that he will not return to the world of people. The cyberformed ones of sorts become primarily a defense force against potential Autobot attack (however, as practice has shown, the Autobots avoid Deception Island as much as the Decepticons avoid Diego Garcia). However, Soundwave and the others are not inclined to erase information about their activities, so the human government is forced to figure out whether a human has become a victim or a willing ally. In either case, the information about him will be erased (this is done by the human government itself and the same secret agents who erase data on the Autobots' allies).

The commune of Cyberformed people on the island was formed spontaneously. They have no main leader, no management system or hierarchy, everyone does what is close to them and brings benefit to the cause. For the most part, Silas and Harold Attinger fight for control of the commune (you know how Megatron is always fighting with Starscream for leadership? Well, imagine that it is about the same, only these are two Megatrons). Silas uses military methods of management, iron discipline in his hands becomes a severe test for other cyberformed. Attinger uses the interests of others to force them to obey, this usually works more effectively than Silas's strict attempts (sometimes he can be even more frightening than Leland Bishop, not afraid to hurt an ally or threaten death. This is a cold calculation, not a business approach, Silas can simply threaten deactivation). Despite this, the commune reports directly to the Decepticon High Command, whether they like it or not Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave and Shockwave are their new bosses. Due to the lack of unity in the commune, it is not entirely clear whether the former humans share a common culture or holiday, for the most part they are consumed by personal ambitions, the desire to gain a certain position in the Decepticon hierarchy or to come to terms with the new state of affairs. (The only ones who care the least about this are Priscilla Pynch and Vince).

On the island, the Decepticon allies are trained in military affairs, Cybertronian sciences (only two of the former humans have received such an honor) and are trained. Unlike the Autobots, the Decepticons do not see anything wrong with taking new allies into battle. This creates a direct confrontation between the Autobot and Decepticon allies (Many of them have personal scores to settle, so if Silas is involved in the battles, there is a chance that he will clash with Fowler. The same goes for Harold Attinger and Cade Yeager). Deception Base performs primarily a scientific research function, but also treats wounded soldiers (as does Diego Garcia).

Access to the island is via spacebridge and airspace (probably by water, too, but due to the harsh conditions, none of the Decepticons and Autobots were stupid enough to try).

Prev | Next (coming soon)

[darlingdaisyfarm]

hi!! sorry to bother but i just had to ask, do you by any chance have any headcanons for pre-portal fiddleford? 👀 like… what kind of kinks you think he’d be into?? i totally understand if you’re not into him like that or don’t feel like answering, no pressure at all!! i just got curious and thought you might have Thoughts™️

okay anon sooo i think we’ve got some real Fiddleford lovers in the house! and while yeah, i’m usually more into Stan & Ford, i’m always down to write for Fidds, especially after i stumble across some of that really good art of him... you know the kind... yeah. he’s honestly super cute in canon too, let’s be real.

answering ur question, i’ve been carrying around some thoughts about Fidds in my brain for a while now. they’re probably not the most original takes out there but.. ehhh, i’m gonna post them anyway because why not?? he deserves the love!

nsfw

toy-building.

this is the obvious one i think. nah, Fiddleford doesn’t just buy a toy, he’s in his little lab, sleeves rolled up, grease on his fingers, building some remote-controlled vibrator specially for his darling. he’ll build you some wearable stim device. and he’s not even that smug about it, he’s just earnest. he will gently ask you to test prototypes while he takes notes. and yes, he blushes when you cum too fast. and yes, he tries not to jerk off about it but absolutely fails

oral fixation / praise kink

there’s no question in my mind, he’s an oral fixation boy, through and through. not just about getting you off (though that’s obviously a huge part of it), but about the sensory act of it. the taste, the smell, the way you grab at his hair or thighs when you can’t take it anymore, he’d be studying you with the same reverent focus he gives his machines. and i think it makes him shy afterward, almost embarrassed by his own neediness. he’ll say things like “hope i didn’t get too carried away down there” even while your legs are still shaking. he’ll never quite admit how feral he gets for it

this man is obsessed with putting his mouth on the person he loves. “i don’t know what i’m doing with my hands so i’m just gonna use my mouth” energy. he really needs the other person’s reactions to feel reassured he’s doing okay. lots of tongue, lots of sucking bruises into skin absentmindedly while taking a break from studying, tons of focus on inner thighs, fingers, lips, ears even. he’s so weird with it. like “i was thinkin’ ’bout you all day and now i just wanna taste every inch of you, if that ain’t too much” with this pathetic look in his eyes, he’s just starving.

PRAISE. being praised and giving praise. he's tender, still someone who overthinks everything, and having a partner go “you’re so good at that,” “you’re making me feel so good,” “you’re such a sweet boy” just makes him melt and pant and probably bust way too early. and if you beg, if you look down at him and say “Fidds please don’t stop,” that’s it. he’s finished. “yes ma’am/sir/baby” is all he can manage. and if you call him “baby”? oh lord. bring a defibrillator.

he’d absolutely be the type to ask “didja like that? did i do okay?” after giving head/eating you out, blushing. hopeful and looking for reassurance, which makes it all the more intense because he’ll want to go again until he knows without a doubt that he did it right. multiple orgasms for you is the goal.

he’s def a “consent king but also gets off on being used” kind of boy. he would ask to be used, softly, scared to say it out loud. “i mean, if ya ever wanted to just. . . y’know, sit on my face ‘n let me help ya relax, i wouldn’t mind none. promise.” and then he’d get off on being treated like a toy, a tool, a good little thing who exists to make you cum. and the praise just loops right back around, “that’s my good boy” does smth to him

light powerplay?

but here's the twist. he’s a giver, yeah, but he also wants to have you too, to own just a little. he’ll be under you one night and the next he’s got you bent over a cluttered blueprint table, one hand on your spine, telling you “i’ve letcha play enough, sugar. now hush and lemme show you who runs this lab.”

semi-public play

he doesn’t realize it at first, it just sort of happens. you kiss his neck too hard while he’s calibrating something and he forgets he has lab assistants three rooms over. but when Fiddleford realizes you’re a little breathless and shameless about where his fingers are inside you, it does something to him. it’s probably the adrenaline thing. or it’s just how damn proud he is that the person writhing in his lap is the one he gets to take care of. and that someone else might hear, might know what he’s capable of?? yeah, he holds onto that idea. might even whisper in your ear about it, “s’not my fault yer so sweet i can’t keep my hands off ya. now stay quiet for me, hon.”

overstimulation!!

this man has never once wanted a normal orgasm. he wants to see you lose your mind. wants this kind of sex where you're curled into his lap afterwards trembling and murmuring his name over and over again, dumbfounded, whispering you can't do it anymore. he doesn’t mean to overwhelm you, it’s just that when he starts, he can’t stop. he’ll say “one more” twelve times. he’ll gently scold your whines like “now now, sugarplum, don’t start gettin’ dramatic on me, yer almost there.” + he’ll absolutely use his toys on you for this, might even build one with a timer so he can watch your face when the pulse changes mid-orgasm. will whimper with you when you beg for a break. and then still keep going. for science!

so, i think he's not into degradation (would cry)

he's very responsive to gentle domming

definitely would be the type to cry during sex if he was emotionally overwhelmed by the love part

i think Fiddleford’s whole sexual philosophy is built on three things. curiosity, reverence, and utility

[macgyvermedical]

Med school teaches a lot about handling various conditions with all kinds of medication and equipment etc. but so little on what to do when there isn't access to any ( in the middle of the highway in a movie bus/car with a first aid box consisting of a few band-aids. Or in the middle of a forest or a remote lake or beach.)

So what can we do in these situations when people look at you (as a known healthcare professional).

Eg: a case of anaphylaxis and no epi-pen, case of ureteric colic due to a kidney stone. Or something very acute.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. The first is from a first aid sense, the second from a broader medical sense.

The first aid sense:

One of the best things you can do is take a Wilderness First Aid course or get your Wilderness EMT. I know it seems like you'll be learning a lot you already know, but I promise- first aid (and particularly wilderness first aid) is so so different than the kind of medicine you learn in med school. These courses teach you to make decisions in contexts where you're thinking about safety of a group, how and when to go for help, and what basic things you can do about the most common illnesses and injuries in a wilderness or remote setting. Mostly, it gives you permission to improvise in a way that med school doesn't.

The broader medical sense:

This one is tougher to fit in a tumblr post, because I've been studying this my whole life and honestly I know there's still so much to learn. Think of low-resource medicine as an entire medical specialty. You could fill an entire residency program with the information you would need to provide high quality medical care in low-resource environments.

In order to improvise, you need a lot of knowledge about the subject area. You need to know how bodies work, and you need to know how and why they break. Med school is great for this.

You also need to know how to figure out how a body has broken. Hopefully, you got a class or two about physical exam skills. This is a great jumping off point. A lot of these skills were perfected in the 1930s-1970s, so getting a physical exam (AKA physical diagnosis) textbook from this era will give you a much deeper dive into how to figure out how a body has broken without a CT scan or a lab test.

Then you're just going to need to amass knowledge. One of the best ways to do this is to, as you encounter medical problems in your patients, ask yourself: "What did we do before we had the current treatment for [illness or injury]?". Talk to older doctors and ask them what treating __________ was like when they were going through residency. People love to talk about this stuff. If you can find someone who was in residency in the 1960s or 1970s, you're in for a real treat.

I would also highly recommend you find textbooks like Improvised Medicine by Kenneth V Iserson (designed for doctors) or Where There Is No Doctor by David Werner (designed for lay people who need primary care). Also, because a lot of low-resource care is nursing care, I recommend Barron's The Complete Guide to Home Nursing by Diana Hastings. All of these are available on Internet Archive if you want to sample them before you buy.

[blade-liger-4ever]

How do you think the decepticons would react to Smokescreen's background? Wouldn't be surprised if up to this point, they assumed he was born in Iacon or Praxus.

First of all, thank you for the interest in my headcanons and Smokescreen blog. It means a lot!

Now, down to business.

Megatron

So, Smokescreen isn't merely a successor to Optimus, but a youngling from the Mithril Sea? The Matrix really makes no distinction between the classes, or so it seems.

Megatron is both impressed and suspicious of the revelation. On the one servo, that explains a great deal of his ingenuity and resourcefulness. Hailing from Kaon, the Lord of the Decepticons knows just what kind of creativity can sprout from such a background, as well as how it forges tenacity in the face of such odds.

On the same token, Smokescreen never betrayed either an accent or the ruthlessness associated with such locations as the Mithril Sea. Only a fool would dismiss it as a sheltered experience in the Sea. Megatron knows for a fact that even the upper classes in such places are not blind to how life is on the streets.

This all makes the future Prime more dangerous in his optics...and a tad more interesting than he'd given Smokescreen credit for.

Should they meet again in battle, Megatron will enjoy testing the abilities of the Elite Guardsman.

Starscream

How - what - Smokescreen is from the Mithril Sea?! AND older than Bumblebee?!?!

He can't fathom it. Starscream can name the Cybertronians who served in the War that called the Sea home on one servo. Any who were remotely close to Smokescreen or Bumblebee's age were turned down or used in Shockwave's lab experiments. They were sick enough and far enough from most of the city-states that no one would be the wiser. Except for the Decepticon High Command, of course.

Now Starscream is just liquid angry. Here he'd thought he was dealing with a fellow Praxian, and yet Smokescreen was simply an urchin from the Mithril Sea.

An urchin who'd also be named a future Prime. Auagh, what a development....

Soundwave

Curious...not only was Smokescreen at the top of his class in the Guard, but he hailed from the Mithril Sea. Based off his appearance, Soundwave had assumed he was a native Iaconian. However, comparing his tactics and fighting style to that of a select few Mithrilian combatants, the communications officer can now see the connection.

Interesting that he sports no accent. Perhaps Smokescreen suppressed it during training.

Digging up more files, it doesn't take Soundwave long to find his health records and family history. Parentage will need more study; lower classes tended to be separated from their sires and carriers upon birth, which leave many questions to his lineage. However, he does find a sister: Chromia. She was apparently Special Operations, and has quite the record of achievements and ferocity during the War. Last seen assigned to Ironhide's detachment of soldiers. The health of them both is remarkably high; the two possibly grew up in the middle of the Sea, though that still speaks volumes about their immune systems.

Lord Megatron will want to know of this, as well as about Chromia. Not only would either of them be good test subjects for artificial diseases, but if Chromia still functions, then she might just prove a good bargaining chip.

Knock Out

After a long tangent of swears over a lowly working class 'Bot having such a shiny finish (and better than his own, the nerve of it), Knock Out's medical processor immediately begins questioning his health.

Mortality rates in the Mithril Sea were incredibly low. So low no one had thought any new Cybertronians had been born there since eighty millennia before the War began. Pit, when had the brat been born?!

He'll be demanding those health records from Soundwave soon. He needs to understand just HOW the little punk survived the Sea - especially if the Elite Guard's passing commentary on his food consumption is true.

AllSpark, just how is he so healthy from a lack of energon, never mind the ore substitutes....?!

Breakdown

Whoa whoa whoa. Back up.

The shiny rookie isn't just a candidate for the Primacy, but a native of the Mithril Sea? Shoot, that might just explain his loose screws.

Breakdown would've guess Iacon or Praxus as the kid's home. He was upbeat enough for the former, and flashy enough for the latter. The fact that he was from such a cesspit was shocking - and more than a little impressive. Come on, it's not like Breakdown's had many opponents of the same social standing as himself.

Now Smokescreen's not getting any slack for his working class background. Breakdown's never had any, nor would Lord Megatron appreciate it.

That said, it's definitely gonna be fun for upcoming fights. And something to take his processor off of Smokescreen's future Primehood.

Dreadwing

Intriguing. Dreadwing should have seen the signs sooner, for not many Iaconians or Praxians possessed such resiliency and determination.

Admittedly, considering the health of most Mithrilians, Smokescreen's physical health was astounding. He must have had quite the parentage to inherit such a strong immune system. He should consult Soundwave about his family records, if for no other reason than to provide Lord Megatron and Shockwave with sources for his genetics.

The revelation of Smokescreen's sister is...complicated, for Dreadwing. Chromia was quite the feared warrior in the quarters he'd dealt with, and many a Decepticon longed to finish her off for her ability to lessen their numbers.

Although he doesn't acknowledge it, Dreadwing doesn't know how to feel about killing either sibling. Perhaps he should simply kill both and spare them the pain of separation.

It would be a greater mercy than the Prime gave him.

Shockwave

Fascinating. The health records provided by Soundwave are unique compared to the Mithrilians Shockwave has experimented upon. Not only does Smokescreen's frame show no sign of illness, but the few times he has suffered a sickness have been overcome quickly. Clearly, the future Prime has an advanced immune system.

A quick survey of Chromia's physical file ends with similar results. Thus far the siblings are the only Mithrilians Shockwave has encountered that did not suffer greatly from the living conditions of the Mithril Sea.

A cause for either Autobot's life to be spared should be made to Lord Megatron at once. Not only could they glean something about how the Matrix operates with live test subjects, but if Shockwave can extract the necessary information from experiments on their immune systems, then that could turn the tide of the War.

Especially if they return to chemical warfare.

@kzele I hope you have fun with, as well as you, Ask Box Questioner! God love you both, this has been a blast!

[shippingmyworld]

Youtuber!Timmy and Youtuber!Jimmy AU

Follow up to my Youtuber!Danny Phantom AU from this post cus I can't stop thinking about this AU.

Timmy runs a channel named Fairly Odd Creatures where he makes full-blown mockumentaries about all kinds of mythical creatures/cryptids. Once every 2-3 months he will post a video that's about 60 minutes long and the production value that goes into them is absolutely mind-blowing. People are constantly flooding his inbox, demanding to know what his secret is. There are all-out wars in the comment section of his videos (or whatever social media platform his videos are being discussed on) debating on how in the world the footage is pulled off. Nobody can agree on if it's super-advanced cgi or the best blend of makeup and props the internet has ever seen.

Timmy's secret of course is just the fact that Cosmo and Wanda will simply poof into existence whatever creature Timmy needs for his video. Then he just has to follow it around for a few hours with his camcorder and then edit the footage together.

The funniest part of his videos (and probably the reason that they're so popular) is that nothing in them is even remotely in line with what has already been popularized. For example: "Chupacabra's? Yeah, it turns out they don't drink the blood of livestock. They eat metal. Specifically, automobile metal. Don't believe me? Well I lost this Chupacabra in downtown Dimmsdale for a few hours and it ate half of this totally random car before I found it again. Here's a clip of it taking a chomp out of the tire like it's a donut." (The car belonged to Mr. Crocker and it wasn't an accident).

Each and every video Timmy uploads is guaranteed to hit number one on trending for a few hours, and then hover in the top 20 for a few days. This gives Timmy a bit of an ego, especially since whenever he posts a new one everyone at school is talking about it the next day. He tells himself that he can't reveal his identity because then he's have to explain how he's pulling everything off (his voice is disguised with a magical voice modulator that makes him sound like a dramatic narrator) and thus risk exposing Cosmo and Wanda. However, the second that Trixie off-handedly mentions she watches them he spills the beans. Thankfully for his fairies, nobody believes him.

Jimmy's channel is called Brain Blast in which he posts about his projects and the science behind them. While he does have a small and dedicated subscriber base, most of the comments on his videos are from months or years after he's uploaded them in the first place of people thanking him for posting such great study aids.

Part of the reason why he has a smaller subscriber base is because he doesn't edit his content. They're all done with a single take, which only is extremely impressive to anyone that notices. He writes the script, preps his slideshow and props, and then hits record. Even though he does plenty of "Fun Science" videos ("Alternative Travel Methods feat. Bubble Travel", "How to Launch Your Toaster into Orbit", "Make Your Own Rust in a Can", etc.) the low production and sound quality for everything gives off the same energy as those channels run by a middle-aged man recording stuff about their niche interest on their phones.

Sheen and Carl appear in most of his videos as his assistants (or lab rats depending on the context). They're pretty great helpers, despite the fact that Sheen always goes off script and Carl gets so camera shy that he forgets his lines. Jimmy has to cut in a lot with "That's an excellent question!" to get them back on track. Libby and even Cindy will make occasional appearances. In fact, most of his popular uploads come from videos that his friends requested: "How Real is the Science in Ultralord?", "Surprising Biology of Lamas!", and "The Science Behind Enjoying Music." are counted among his most popular uploads.

Cindy once tried to get her own channel up and running and was pretty popular for a while, but after a few months she decided that even part-time content creator wasn't something she wanted to invest her time into. Instead, she'll just muscle her way into Jimmy's videos on occasion. More than once she has basically hijacked Jimmy's script halfway through to talk about famous women related to whatever topic Jimmy is covering.

Jimmy can't really bring himself to interrupt Cindy's hijacking's, because whiles she's right about the contributions these famous women have made, they're not super relevant to the hyper-specific topic/experiment he's currently covering (he will just shoot a second video when he's alone and upload it to make sure all his points got covered). Eventually though, he'll get so annoyed with Cindy barging into his lab whenever she finds out he's planning to film (Sheen spills the beans to Libby all the time and she reports to Cindy) that Jimmy will begin to start most of his videos will a few quick facts that he thinks Cindy will like so she'll leave him alone.

When the Youtube algorithm starts recommending Jimmy some of Timmy's mockumentary's, Jimmy will start posting follow-up videos to Timmy's in order to debunk Fairly Odd Creatures. This in turn starts to push Brain Blast up in popularity due to association. Then a portion of Timmy's fanbase gets latched onto Jimmy. They start taking stills from Jimmy's videos to use as reaction images (because Jimmy gets very upset and frustrated with just how wrong everything in Timmy's videos are).

As to not expose himself on his channel, Timmy creates a second channel in which he uploads videos in exactly the same style as Jimmy's. He discredits this "Science" thing that Jimmy is apparently basing all his arguments on and jokes about how Jimmy sounds like a witch. The second channel isn't very popular until Jimmy posts a "In Response to..." video addressing Timmy's second channel directly. This inadvertently brings Timmy's second channel a flash rise in popularity and sparks a whole chain of video uploads between the two of them. There's a solid month of them uploading daily and basically yelling at each other about why people should unsubscribe from the other person.

Timmy throws himself heavily into the second channel (so much so that he almost forget to film content for Fairly Odd Creatures once), adopting a conspiracy theory persona that believes the earth is flat and that the moon is just a government projection. He invites his totally real alien friend Mark Chang onto the channel all the time to talk about Yugopotamia and help discredit Jimmy ("Like yeah man, I totally saw your radical disc-looking planet and had to fly down and check it out.").

And because people are normal on the internet, there's a whole sub-genre of fans that have started to ship Jimmy and Timmy's YouTube channels. 'Enemies-to-lovers' is the most popular trope for them, and there's even a whole subreddit dedicated to the ship that gets fanart and fanfics posted to it on a regular basis. Timmy is very aware of this group of fans and will occasionally sneak in an off-handed remark about Jimmy just to fuel them because he thinks it will piss off Jimmy even more. In fact, there's a whole slew of small channels that clip and compile 'JimTim Evidence' to fuel their theory that Jimmy and Timmy are secretly dating.

Little does Timmy know, there's actually a clip out there of him saying, "Jimmy may not be able to use his oversized head to deduce simple facts, but that least he can pick out glasses that make his eyes look pretty." Jimmy has watched that clip at least a thousand times on loop because he's low-key attracted to Timmy but refuses to admit it. It's part of the reason as to why he gets so worked up about Timmy's responses to him, because how can someone he's attracted to be just so wrong about everything???

[dungeonclown]

Dungeonclown D20 “Rankings”

In quotes bc i love pretty much all of them and just had to post this for posterity and if one of my friends asks which season(s) to watch. [Bullet Points not in any particular order]

Level 0: did not finish

Pirates of Leviathan (lovely cast but i couldnt get all the way thru due to audio quality issues from being the first remotely recorded show.)

Shriek Week (gabe hicks)

Coffin Run (didn’t hold my interest)

Level 1: I Really Like This 😊

Fantasy High Sophomore Year (i love this season, literally the only downside was the livestream format. No!!)

Fantasy High (OG - we’ve come so far)

Tiny Heist (i mean, so darling, so funny. what so u expect)

Mice & Murder (better quality for remote but could tell the cast would have killed it in person since the zoom call situation is a big barrier)

Misfits & Magic (very cute and wholesome. Spaulding forever)

The Seven (needed more episodes to tell the story!!! wish they had sets and minis; covid problems)

Neverafter (love the themes and imagery, such a good study on storytelling.)

Dungeons & Drag Queens (fave sidequest character art and minis, mainly so impressed by brennans skill as a gm for new players/roleplayers)

Level 2: I Absolutely Love This 🤩

Fantasy High Junior Year (first show watched as it was airing, best FH yet, mary anne skuttle what more could u ask for)

Unsleeping City Part 2 (literally only downside is being filmed remotely. Breaks my heart they couldnt do this in person since this season is so special. BUT - got to see character art and illustrated backgrounds which was really fun)

A Crown of Candy (goddamnit brennan)

The Ravening War (goddamnit matt)

Mentopolis (superb cast w great chemistry and just lots of fun idk man i just think theyre neat)

Burrow’s End (fucking incredible storytelling by aabria, the cast, the crew w sets and minis and SHADOW PUPPETS goddamn.)

Never Stop Blowing Up (so stupid so joyful im just happy to be here)

Level 3: Has a Special Place In My Heart 🥰

Unsleeping City (some of my all time favorite characters and i just love how deeply these people love and understand New York City. Its the molecular structure of NYC in a show and its special)

Escape from the Bloodkeep (the first season i was like I Have To Stop Immediately And Share This With My Family. Every character is perfect. Every NPC is perfect. The minis and sets are darling. Every day i think about Hamhead and about muh hert)

A Court of Fey & Flowers (i just love them, i never thought id be invested in regency shit but if you put it in the feywild and add goblins and hobgoblins and owlbears and idiot bird people and shit im so down goddamn. Killed it. Absolutely killed it. Also gorgeous sets and costumes and props??? Gagged.)

Level 4: Rewired My Brain Chemistry 💀

A Starstruck Odyssey (screaming, crying, throwing up. The energy of these people being in person after covid creates a truly incredible maelstrom of dumb beautiful bozo shenanigans. id give a kidney for more ASO content. I Love This Show. And that it was based off of Starstruck is so fuckin special. This setting is amazing. also big barry syx is the exact bullseye of character im obsessed with that it makes me feral to think about him. I was going to joke that he was made in a lab specifically to appeal to my big beefy sex idiot himbo mercenary sensibilities but thats exactly his backstory and im mad about it)

[ixhika-jsx]

## What’s a Cyber Forensic Investigator?

Master post - part 1 • part 2

You must have heard bout forensics yk investigating bout dead people who might have been killed and all

You must have seen shows on those topics too.Cyber forensic investigator is just of same kind but investigating through all types of modern gadgets.

Catching hackers and all but cooler

### The Money Talk: How Much Do They Make?

- **Cash Money**: Expect to rake in about $60k to $120k a year. If you are very much experienced and skilled then you can expect about 150k+ a year.(obv different countries and companies may have different wages)

### Companies That Want You

- **Tech Titans**: Google, Amazon, Facebook—they all have requirement for such heroes

- **Gov Jobs**: FBI, CIA—basically every spy agency wants you.

- **Cybersecurity Firms**: CrowdStrike, McAfee—so every gateway you go you gonna have opportunities everywhere.

### What Other Forensic Investigators Are There?

- **Forensic Pathologists**: Real-life detectives who figure out how someone died. Less tech, more science.

- **DNA Analysts**: The ones matching DNA samples

- **Forensic Accountants**: Following the money to catch fraudsters and scammers

- **Toxicologists**: Poison experts, figuring out if someone’s been covertly poisoned. (Yeaa yk snow white story)

### What’s the Work Environment Like?

- **The Lab**: Imagine a room filled with more screens than your gaming setup. Gadgets galore, maybe even a Red Bull or two

- **On the Move**: Sometimes you’re out in the field, collecting evidence. Think of it like collecting rare items in a game.

- **Remote Vibes**: You could be solving cybercrimes from your bed in your PJs .

### How Long Does It Take to Become One?

- **Time Investment**: About 4 years for a bachelor’s, and then 1-2 more years for a master’s if you’re going all-in. So, 5-6 years total. But hey, good things take time, right?

### What Do You Study?

- **Cybersecurity/Computer Science**: Your main jams. Think of them as the ultimate cheat codes for this career.

- **Digital Forensics**: Specialized courses where you learn to be a digital ninja.

- **Law and Ethics**: Learning how to catch the bad guys without breaking the law yourself. (You yourself don't want to be troubled obviously)

### Subjects You Need to Get Into It

- **Math**: Yep, but not the boring kind—more like coding and algorithms.

- **Computer Science**: Your go-to for everything techy.

- **Optional Nerd Points**: Chemistry/Physics if you’re into hardware forensics or just want to flex those brain muscles.

### Work Hours: What to Expect?

- **9 to 5-ish**: Standard hours if you’re working for a company, but expect some late nights or weekend shifts when big cases pop up.

- **On-Call Madness**: Sometimes you’re on-call like a digital firefighter. Cyber-attack at 3 AM? Time to suit up (or log in) and handle it.

- **Flexible/Remote**: If you’re lucky, you can work from home. Just remember, no solving crimes in your underwear during Zoom meetings!

### Interview with a Cyber Forensic Investigator

**Interviewer**: What’s a day in the life of a cyber forensic investigator?

**Cyber Sleuth**: Imagine rolling out of bed, grabbing your coffee, and diving into cases. I’m talking analyzing hard drives, sifting through emails, or tracking down cyberattack origins. Some days it’s all data, other days I’m working with law enforcement or testifying in court. Never a dull moment!

**Interviewer**: What’s the coolest case you’ve worked on?

**Cyber Sleuth**: Helping bust a phishing ring that was scamming millions. Tracked their digital footprints, caught the culprits, and recovered their loot. Felt like a total legend.

**Interviewer**: Ever seen some dark stuff, like murders?

*Cyber Sleuth**: Yeah, I’ve stumbled across some pretty grim stuff. It’s not all memes and malware—sometimes it’s serious business. But catching those bad guys makes it all worth it.

**Interviewer**: Have you ever been on the dark web?

**Cyber Sleuth**: Oh, for sure. It’s like the sketchy underbelly of the internet. Lots of shady deals. I go there when I need to, but it’s not a fun hangout spot.

**Interviewer**: How dark can a case get?

**Cyber Sleuth**: It can get really intense. I’ve worked on cases involving human trafficking and other serious crimes. It’s tough, but making a difference makes it worth it.

**Interviewer**: Any advice for someone who wants to get into this field?

**Cyber Sleuth**: Stay curious and keep learning. Tech evolves fast, so you’ve gotta keep up. And don’t be afraid to dig deep—sometimes the answers are buried in tons of data, but finding them is like hitting gold.

So if you’re into tech and have subjects like mathematics , chemistry and physics then you are all set to start your journey.i have seen ppl running for a common a job and all and they are not even specified about what they want. So just research and find out what you want.

[mattyswhqre]

𝙆𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙨 𝘼𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙮

♫ "𝗌𝖺𝗂𝗅" - 𝖺𝗐𝗈𝗅𝗇𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇

𖦹.

"𝙞-𝙞... 𝙞 𝙘𝙖𝙣'𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙙𝙚, 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜.."

the pale white halls bustled with people. some in blue scrubs, white lab coats, and protective gear. others in plain clothes just looking for family. something to grasp. something to desperately hold on to. that's how odessa slipped past them, through the automatic doors, a quick jog up the stairs and a snatch of a white coat. she entered the first operating room and thankfully erwin was still giving his hearty speech to the interns.

the runts of the hospital. she wondered if this was how her brother felt before he completely uprooted everything he knew, how he gave up all those late nights studying in med school just to rush off at the crack of dawn. but that was months ago. she had gotten this far without even a notion of why he suddenly disappeared. and she had gotten this far without him. amongst the lowest at mercy trost hospital was a tight knit group.

she didn't know them but their faces seemed familiar. except for one amongst the crowd. he stood tall, eyes fixed on erwin as he tried to light a fire into his first years. his grown out hair tied up in messy bun, his blue scrubs pressed to perfection and his white sneakers cleaner than any she'd seen before. it made odessa grimace at her scuffed converse. eren. the boy she grew up with. over mermaids in the pool he had told her he'd be a great surgeon one day. with the best of the best working on hearts. curing people.

she told him she would follow him until it made him sick. guess he got tired of her because they hadn't talked in years. his ego got the best of him and he didn't mind tossing some lowlife with substance abuse problems out of his life. he had one thing on his mind, to be great like his father and to be better than his brother. but it didn't matter, it took her some time but odessa was here. in the big leagues alongside him.

beside him was a boy she'd never met before, his layered brown and blonde split dyed mullet was unavoidable in a crowd, and his slouchy stature didn't make it any better. on the other side of her lost friend was a girl with dark hair, dark makeup and even darker attire. behind her was a shorter girl with blonde hair and a kind face, with her a blonde boy with glasses. and beside him a boy with grey almost silvery short hair, with him another girl with brown hair that bounced with her every time erwin mentioned something remotely close to bones.. or maybe it was food.

odessa wasn't sure. besides she took note of those hanging in the back with her. a boy with short blonde hair had his arm around the shy one that had been fidgeting with his coat the entire speech. and the blonde girl next to him with the cold look in her eyes. yes. she had seen these faces amongst the halls of med school. seen them studying together in the study rooms on campus.  one was missing. but odessa couldn't place his face. she knew the group of first years among her were close friends. she'd get chewed out and dropped if she couldn't at least get along with them before residency.

that wasn't an option. she made it her duty to never fall behind again. she had to catch up. prove to her brother that she wasn't a waste. and proving him wrong gave her all the strength she needed to keep pushing.

"each of you, comes here today hopeful. Wanting in on the game. a month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors and breaking your back to study all your material. today, you are the doctors! the seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best... and the worst of your life. you will be pushed beyond your breaking point. look around you. say hello to your competition,"

and as the room falls silent, the interns glance around at familiar faces with smiles and hopefulness. eren locked eyes with her then, and he felt something boil deep down in his very being. odessa. his challenger. someone he hasn't wished to see in a million years.

"this," erwin says, resting his hands on the empty surgical table. "this is your starting line. this is your arena. how well you play? that's all up to you."

erwin finishes firmly, a sense of pride washes over him as he sees the faces of the interns light up. especially the one in front of him. kirschtein. he knew the boy would become his favorite if he showed promise. although there was a close second beside him who also was headstrong with plenty of passion as well. but his third was the one he truly wanted to look out for these upcoming years. kode. hidden amongst those in the back row. it was almost as if she believed she wouldn't be seen especially since she had slipped in so late into his speech but he noticed.

"odessa, lovely of you to join us. i'm glad you made it in time for the ending of my speech. most interns say that's the best part."

erwin looked directly at her. odessa tensed up slightly, the last thing she wanted was to be called out in front of everyone but leave it to someone like erwin to do just that. everyone turned, eyes bore into the girl in the back row and she could practically feel the pressure. if she wasn't considered a runt she'd probably tell erwin to fuck off and let her ride out her hangover in peace.

that was the only reason why she was so late in first place. she had promised herself one drink before she started her internship the next day at ymir's then she'd have a clean slate no more booze or pills. she'd change. but she remembered it all too vividly.

𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧. 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙨𝙝 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨. 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧, "𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙤 𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙡, 𝙞 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪," 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙣𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙤𝙣 𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝. 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙨𝙢.

𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙮𝙚𝙨 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙧, 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙜𝙧𝙪𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙠. 𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙢𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚. 𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙨. 𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙖 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙧.

she blinked. biting her lip slightly, moved her mouth but no words came out.

"i wouldn't say that was the best part," a voice spoke up.

it was the one with the mullet. she silently thanked him with her eyes. as erwin instantly scoffed and began to lecture the boy as to why that was the most significant part of his speech. eren just chuckled, giving his friend a knowing look but she didn't miss the small glance he'd thrown her way. odessa was just glad she didn't have to formulate a sentence at the moment. it wasn't like she could anyway.

her mind had been ransacked with thoughts of the mystery man from last night. the one that stole her drink and made her cheeks flush. he kissed her body raw and sent her to heaven so many times that night. she was late for a good reason.

𖦹.

odessa walked into the cramped locker room, her eyes fixed on the patterned tile beneath her. pushing her thick curls behind her ears she made her way to her locker with a sigh. after facing the embarrassment from earlier, walking into the locker room felt like the ultimate death trap. she figured if she kept her head low, surely by now they'd forgotten her little mishap in the o.r.

she grimaced when eren was the first to speak up, like he couldn't wait for her to walk in to say something snarky. she hadn't spoken to him in years and these were his first words to her.

"well, well, bet she freezes up in here too. right dessa?" eren says, leaning against his locker, chewing on a green apple.

"shut up, eren," she says, pushing up the lock on her locker. she shoots him a glare as a counter.

"hey, if jean didn't save your ass you would've gotten us all scutt." he says, pushing off the locker and waking towards her.

mikasa stops him though, raising an eyebrow in concern. she didn't understand why he was angry and geared up towards this girl they barely knew. eren huffed, going back to his apple out of boredom. mikasa always seemed to stop him before things got good. and it worked every time for some reason.

"nazi! he's coming!" connie suddenly rushed into the locker room and ducked behind sasha for safety. the girl in return chuckled and pushed connie in front of her instead. as odessa watched the group interact with each other, gauged everyone's dynamic, she realized the only one she could really get along with fully was either connie or mikasa. she kept that in mind for later if she ever needed help on the floor.

a man walked into the locker room, his cold demeanor so intense everyone instantly stopped talking and laughing. the seriousness of their careers coming on full force as the man crossed his arms. odessa looked away from connie and sasha then, her eyes met his and her body froze. it was him.

she could practically still feel his hands wandering up her dress then and there. his cold gaze as he looked up at her from his knees and kissed up her body. she looked away, her face flushing slightly. if only she could hide in this locker. but he didn't so much as spare her a glance. he noticed though someone hiding. he had to. with his keen sense of spatial awareness he could spot anything with his eyes. they were just that good. and even better when he was on top of her, staring into her soul. he had practically fell to his knees for her.

levi glanced around at all the first year interns with an annoyed look on his face. he hated interns. they were the bottom of the surgical chain. the lowest of the low. and it was his job to teach them everything they needed to know to become remarkable surgeons by the end of their time here. he sighed, glancing at his clip board.

"two rules. don't bother me unless someone is dying, missing or on fire. and don't bother me if i'm sleeping or i'll make you one of those people missing, dying or on fire." he says, looking towards eren then connie.

for some reason. he felt like these two were gonna be the biggest pains in his ass.

"now, i'm assigning groups. jaegar, fritz, kirstein, and hoover."

he scoffed as eren and jean, clasped their hands together. a look of determination spread across their faces. he knew then he'd messed up with the groups.

"springer, kode..." he mumbles, looking up and noticing the girl in the far right. it was as if she was trying to stuff her head into the locker and get away entirely. but he knew that name. he told himself he'd marry her last night. how could he forget.

even in his drunken haze. he felt something bubbling deep within him for her. fuck. he hated getting drunk. he slept with his own intern and now she probably believes he's some lonely desperate old man.

"ackerman and leonheart," he finished. odessa sighed in relief at least she was with the two people she knew she'd get along with for sure. that made things a little bit more bearable.

"arlert, braus, braun and bodt.." levi says, looking up, he notices how jean and eren's faces instantly dropped along with some of the others. he raises an eyebrow, resting the clipboard on the bench in front of him.

"out with it." he says, the sooner they addressed it the easier it would be to get over it. they shared glances but they all led back to jean. as he stood with a completely unreadable expression. it was as if someone had taken a knife and stabbed him while kicking his puppy and left him out in the rain. a mixture of emotions all blending together in his eyes.

"he won't be able to make it," eren said slowly as if he was testing the waters. feeling the weight of his words on his tongue. marco not being there felt like part of their group had been snatched away from them. he knew it was worse for jean, which is why he spoke up.

she wondered then, with all the grim faces and sad expressions. what happened to marco that made them so melancholic.

levi nodded, picked up the clipboard again and simply crossed his name out. like nothing. it stung to jean. tossing marco aside as if he didn't fight alongside them to earn his rightful spot at this hospital. he had just as much passion as they all did if not more just for it to be shot down with one diagnosis. one slip up.

marco was alongside them fighting but his battle was much more difficult. jean needed to save him.

𖦹.

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