#that’s gotta mess with his psyche a little bit

[ephemxras]

winter and summer 💫

[jals-stuff]

Hihi! First of all I LOVE your writing and thank you for feeding us hungry Orter fans with your work (I have been STRAVING for his fic) so if you don't mind, I have a little request! So I imagine in a what if Orter has a crush on someone (aka us and ofc we gotta like the sandman back) who's always on a dangerous mission due to how strong they are who is ALSO his partner time to time and one day, they just went into a coma from overusing their magic. MAYBE when they woke up, the two will confess to each other or?? Idk I will let you cook 🧑‍🍳

(Sorry if my wording is a little confusing!)

good day/evening anon! your wording is just fine no worries

first of all, thank you SO much, this brightened my day by a lot, you have absolutely no clue what kind of serotonin torrent you have unleashed. I am glad at least some people like my writings, that's why I'm doing it.

I don't think this is 100% close to what you described, but I hope you'll like it regardless-

Should be gn!reader if I didn't mess it up...

warnings: SLIGHT SPOILIES, bit dark, mentions of death, bit of despair... not proofread I am so sorry.

word count: 2.8k

note: I apologise for any dumb mistakes because I physically cannot proofread myself at 6am but if I don't post it now I won't do it ever. please don't hate me anon

What if...

As much as he hates to admit it (to himself, of course), Orter had grown a little bit too fond of you. The way you greet him whenever you come back from a mission, or the way you always make sure to respect the rules and act logically while also protecting everyone around you when the two of you would go on missions together. 

The way you whine when your legs are tired after walking long distances, the way you always bring him a little something to eat when you know it’s going to be a long trip. You’ve always been good to everyone, much opposed to the cold man; but it wasn’t the only difference between the two of you.

Everyone has their own logic and, as much as you respected your own, his was quite different. While you wanted to take every single possibility into consideration, he preferred not to overload his mind with useless statistics and just think of a solution when the time comes.

However, a lot of things aren’t affected by logic, such as feelings, and how could the dense sandman guess that you were absolutely enamoured with him? These were variables he would’ve never imagined, even though he was painfully into you as well. 

Of course, he was your top priority, and protecting him from harm even though he was a rather powerful mage was of the utmost importance. He should’ve known that when the two of you recklessly charged into enemy territory in an attempt to weaken the devil’s quintuplets before they would be on the move.

Orter was a man of many things, but “what if''s were not part of his usual reasoning, and that was the biggest mistake of his life. However he only realised it too late when you had to break your own limits to make sure he’d go back safely. It was time to retreat, but the two of you had been completely cornered. 

Having a dormant god inside of your wand had many benefits, but Psyche was not an entity to be trifled with. The Soul Goddess would, each time you requested even a fraction of her power, take a huge toll on your stamina and sanity, and this time it was more than critical.

You were already exhausted from using so much of your mana, and now you were completely surrounded by Innocent Zero's sons. Unleashing your Psyche Inclination and ordering all of the quintuplets to sleep immediately surpassed your own boundaries.

You knew what would happen if you pushed beyond your limits with your personal magic, but it was completely worth it. After all, what was the point of living anymore if the only person you loved was dead? 

All of them were immensely powerful, and neutralising such strong enemies was not a meagre task. As soon as the last one fell to the ground in blissful slumber, you felt something rupture inside of you; like a used rope that suddenly lets go, your breath hitched and you collapsed to the floor. 

It was all pitch black, and your consciousness kept you company just long enough to let you hear Orter’s panicked voice calling out for you. Yet somehow, despite the fact that you were falling into the pitch-black abyss, you felt relieved that he, above everything and everyone, was safe.

But anything beyond the confines of your darkened mind was unknown to you and despite your multiple attempts to open your eyes and wake up, everything went silent.

“No, no no…”

Had you been awake, you would’ve been astonished at how Orter had never been that distressed before, at least not in front of you. The loss of his dear friend Alex Elliot had taught him a painful lesson not to get attached to anyone and to simply stick to the rules, but he had let himself fall for you, and now he was experiencing the trauma once more.

“Please, no… not them…” 

Not only were you unconscious, you had done this to yourself for his sake. He was aware of that fact; had you not decided to literally put yourself through such an ordeal, the two of you would be dead already.

But unlike his deceased junior, your heart was still beating and there was still time to save you. He had never run so fast in his entire life, carrying you carefully in his arms to bring you back to the Bureau’s infirmary, laying you down as gently as he could as the nurses rushed to assess your state.

You weren’t hurt, so to say, but the abusive usage of your personal magic had plunged you into a coma, and it was unsure if you would ever wake up from it. 

It looked like you were peacefully asleep, maybe dreaming of a better place you would possibly join soon; unmoving and slowly breathing, as if nothing had happened. Orter knew you could possibly open your eyes anytime, and it kept him distracted every time he would fill his paperwork or go on a mission.

Whenever he had free time, he would rush to the infirmary to check on you, make sure you’re still breathing, or even talk to you. It could help you come back to your senses, or so the nurses said, and as ridiculous as he felt when he talked to your inert body, he would’ve done anything in his power to bring you back, as slim as the chances were.

But then it suddenly hit him. What could he possibly tell you if you ever woke up? He would for sure apologise, but other than that? How could he face you after you had quite literally sacrificed yourself for him? He wasn’t even sure he could look into your eyes again.

Did you resent him for this?

Would you forgive his recklessness?

Would you give him this warm smile he had gotten so used to?

And would it be time for him to finally admit his feelings? You were right here, in front of him, yet you weren’t there. He missed you so dearly, the sound of your voice, the shit eating grin you’d give him whenever he was wrong and you were right, the way you’d laugh at his disgruntled expression afterwards…

All of these interactions he thought annoyed him were now severely missed and he would’ve given anything to even just see the colour of your eyes one more time. 

And see he didn’t, for what seemed to be an eternity. Everyday, when he’d come to visit you, a small part of him hoped your eyes would be open and you’d greet him the way you always did, but every time, he was met with your inanimate form, comfortably laid in the infirmary bed. 

His hope of hearing your voice ever again gradually vanished with every one-sided conversation he had with your unconscious figure, swallowing down his emotions with every word he said. He was slowly accepting the fact that you might just never open your eyes again.

The more this thought settled into his mind, the more desperate he grew, and suddenly, his usual mindset faded away and his brain filled with “what if”s. 

What if he had taken some time to listen to your suggestions, what if he had thought of a plan B like you always had? What if he had ever told you about his feelings, what if you loved him back? What if you didn't? What if you never woke up?

Dread took over on his other emotions and suddenly, it wasn’t hope that drove him to visit you everyday; it was despair. What if you never opened your eyes again? How could he ever live with your presence replaced by this horrifying feeling of guilt for letting you die in his place? 

You were surely powerful enough that you could’ve ran away on your own, and left him behind if needed; it would’ve been the logical, reasonable thing to do. But the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Of course, he should’ve known that you would never leave him behind, but precisely because it was completely illogical, it never occurred to him that you would willingly let yourself be hurt if he had a chance to make it out alive.

Now he was sitting at your bedside and kept hoping you’d wake up, just open your eyes and talk to him, greet him and say everything was going to be fine, just the way it was before… it seemed like he hadn’t heard your voice in an eternity, and it was weighing on him the whole time. Like a burden he would have to carry forever if you didn’t wake up from this coma you had put yourself into for his own sake.

His eyes never left your figure as he spoke to you kindly, as if you were still awake. Of course, occasional visitors would look at him like he was a lunatic, talking to someone who was obviously not here to answer, but it didn’t matter to him anymore.

Orter was ready to abandon his image for your sake, sometimes even skipping work and breaking his own principles so he could hold your hand for another minute before going on yet another perilous mission. 

The thought of you dying peacefully in your sleep haunted his mind every single day, and his sorrow was great enough that, more than once, he did consider exhausting himself enough so he would be defenceless enough for an enemy to just take him out of his misery.

For weeks, months, his mind was plagued with the thought of you leaving him forever, of not being able to tell you about these feelings he thought were completely unnecessary. Shame and rejection didn’t even matter to him anymore and he just longed for the day you’d wake up and even just look at him. 

He was on a mission, the day he heard that one of your fingers had merely twitched. Breaking protocol was far from his usual behaviour, but he needed to see you. That is how he accidentally drowned an entire area in sand, catching both enemies and harmless monsters in his Antlion’s Nest. 

The rules didn’t matter to him anymore, it was a physical need to see if you were okay and to maybe, just maybe hear your voice. 

However, he walked in on something completely different. Many of the other Divine Visionaries were gathered around you in religious silence, observing you. He had to push through the crowd and his heart stopped for a second when he saw you. 

You were sitting up in your bed, slightly confused as to why everyone was staring like this. For you, mere seconds had passed but in reality it had been literal months. As your eyes travelled amongst the crowd, you saw Orter, who was also staring at you in utter disbelief. 

The infirmary was completely silent, and no one was moving, as if time had suddenly stopped. Ryoh threw a glance at the others and they just silently left. Now it was just you and Orter, looking at each other in both confusion and shock. He stumbled towards the chair that was resting near your bed and he slowly took a seat.

“Well… you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Upon hearing your voice, he let out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding. It was like all of his burdens were suddenly lifted off his shoulders and his head and arms simply collapsed against the mattress, much to your confusion. You raised your hand to reach for his hair and upon seeing how your nails had grown so much, you realised something probably happened.

“It’s been months! I thought you’d never wake up! I thought I wouldn’t hear your voice ever again. Why on Earth would you do such a thing? No, no... it was all my fault. I'm sorry, (Y/N), I'm so, so sorry.” 

He sounded angry, but he really wasn’t. You started connecting the dots and it took you a bit of time to understand that you had been unconscious for the past few months, worrying the poor sandman to death, though right now it didn’t matter at all. 

“I’m glad you’re alive, Orter.”

Although you had been unconscious for literal months, seeing the Desert Cane unharmed was such a huge relief for you. However, not everything was swell inside his mind. He still felt extremely guilty that you nearly died for him, and nothing could possibly pay back this humongous debt he thought he owed you. 

But seeing his relieved expression when he looked at you was enough of a payback. He had watched you wither away for months and now you were finally back to the world of the living, eyes focused on him and him only. 

You tried to stand up but as soon as your arms attempted to lift your form, they gave out and you started losing balance. Orter immediately stood up from his chair to catch you, wrapping his arms around your now weak body to support you, but even after you were back to your spot, he wouldn’t let go. He simply sat on your bed next to you, not letting go. 

Almost out of instinct, you rested your head on his shoulder and let out a long sigh, your arms raising up slightly.

“Please, just rest, you must be really exhausted.”

But his words just didn’t reach you, you needed this. After a while and a lot of effort, you managed to rest these weak arms of yours against his shoulders, on the sides of his neck, and he fell silent. You had no strength at all but he could feel you use all of your willpower to embrace him, and you also seemed like you wouldn’t let go.

He seemed fine with it as he slightly nuzzled your neck and closed his eyes, finally relaxing a little after this emotional rollercoaster. It felt so comfortable to finally be in his arms after such a long time spent longing for him, as if you were finally where you belonged. 

“I missed you.” Orter said quietly, close to your ear. His arms tightened around and you would've probably cried hadn't you been so exhausted. Your words were stuck in your throat and you could only nod and hum softly, your voice cutting inside your throat. 

His arms tightened around you further, holding you into a comforting hug, one of his hands gently going through your hair and keeping your head close to him. You exhaled again, wanting nothing more than to keep holding him. 

“Just don't let go. Please.”

Your voice was muffled by his embrace but you were close enough to his ear for him to understand your words, and you could've sworn you heard his breath hitch for a second as his arms tightened even harder around you.

“I won't.” He sighs into your neck, comfortably seated on the side of your bed, and you wanted nothing more than to lay back down and have him hold you, but you were still in the infirmary and it would've been very problematic to be seen like this.

“I won't, ever. I can't.” He held you even closer now, like he was trying to merge with you, your chest and his pressed against each other as if to share your heartbeats.

Although you had never seen Orter being this close with anyone before, it all felt very natural. Just like the way his hand slid from your hair to your cheek, like the way he moved away from you slowly, his usually cold gaze now soft and filled with something you weren't quite used to.

Just like the way he couldn't take it any longer and gave in to the physical urge to softly press his lips to yours. You didn't pull away, of course; the moment too precious to let surprise ruin it. 

You returned the kiss, your eyes now closed to take in the pleasant, wholesome warmth his embrace brought to you, after you'd been so cold for literal months. 

As nothing lasts forever, your lips and his slowly separated, but his eyes were now on yours again. 

“I won't let you fall again, (Y/N), I promise.”

You couldn't help but give a soft chuckle and his expression turned slightly puzzled. Of course, you two didn't share the same braincells.

“I've already fallen too hard.” You breathed out.

His eyes widened for a second before he regained his composure and brushed a few hairs away from your face to place them behind your ear.

“Then I guess we’re both down now.” he finally admitted, his expression just a little softer and his lips almost curved into a smile. 

You were suddenly thankful for Orter holding you so close, lest your heart would've jumped out of your chest. 

“I love you, just… in case it wasn't clear enough.” He awkwardly added, and you thought it was just adorable. Another chuckle escaped you with a nod.

“I know. I love you too.”

He hummed softly and sighed deeply in relief. 

That was one “what if” finally satisfied, and probably the first of a long list.

[justyourtypicalwriter]

I just saw the post SERVICE DOGS HCS PLEASEEE !!!

HERE WE GO GANG! These are the one's I have so far! Feel free to suggest recs for any characters or disabilities y'all wanna see! (feel free to rec it even if it's for a character on the list)

STAN:

Service Dog: Brown Newfoundland, Delta (F)

Psychiatric Alert & Response Dog

Disabilitie(s): Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Minor Psychosis 

The hair dye oh my god. He can rarely drag himself out of bed during depressive episodes but occasionally he’ll get a random burst of impulsivity and re-dye his hair. Most of the time he does the same shitty job at bleaching it blonde

“DARLING! GUESS WHO’S BACK FROM THE PSYCH WARD” vibes

Sharon and Randy officially divorced when he was fifteen. He got a little better now that there isn’t constant screaming or the threat of a drunk or high Randy doing something stupid

Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a total mess-

Patched his relationship with Shelly

Misdiagnosis club AND public breakdown club

God his entire aura just radiates LOSER energy but he’s somehow insanely popular

Not cousins with Craig & Red in this AU but their parents are insanely close so they hang out a lot

CRAIG:

Service Dog: Irish Setter, Saturn (M)

Medical Alert & Response Dog

Disabilitie(s): Epilepsy

Lowkey autistic but Saturn isn’t task trained for anything related to that

Goes non-verbal at times but it’s pretty spontaneous. Most people outside his group can’t tell if he’s actually non-verbal or just not talking to fuck with everyone

Peru drama was secretly worked out when they were twelve. Craig was hospitalized for a while when they were running tests to get a diagnosis, it was roughly a month long stay. He told Stan he’d call it even if Stan looked after Stripe until he was out. Tweek was away for the summer and he knew Stan wouldn’t let anything happen to her since he’s a massive animal lover

Gotta maintain the bitch personality 

TWEEK:

Service Dog: Doberman, Latte (M)

Psychiatric Alert & Response Dog

Disabilitie(s): Chronic Anxiety,

“Ah fuck, the magic school bus is waiting outside to take me back to rehab-”

I kid you not, he was absolutely terrified of Latte when he first got him

Which is funny because Latte is the sweetest goddamn thing, not at all like Fable whose a fucking demon shit

CPS was called on his parents right before senior year

Placed with the Broflovski’s so he and Kyle got closer

Public breakdown club

BUTTERS:

Service Dog: Boxer, Haven (F)

Psychiatric Alert & Response Dog

Disabilities: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Depression

Public breakdown club (IN DEVELOPMENT)

KYLE:

Service Dog: Black Giant Schnauzer, Noble (M)

Medical & Psychiatric Alert & Response Dog

Disabilities: Diabetes, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)[This one might be switched]

Tubie Kyle (I fucking LOVE this one)

For once I give Kyle an ED that doesn’t stem from body image issues

Humancentipad trauma bc I love being problematic about the episode

DESPISES his lows because it means he has to eat something

Also goes non-verbal but only during times of high stress

Noble is a program dog. Kyle got him when he was 14 and initially he was so against it. He wants to function independently but he really fucking can’t. As he grows older he learns to accept the help more

HATES mirrors. The Humancentipad incident left him with scars

Public breakdown club

KENNY:

Service Dog: Anatolian Shepherd Dog, Harbor (M)

Medical Response & Mobility Aid Dog

Disabilities: Muscular Dystrophy, Chronic Pain

Regularly hospitalized, fucking dies, and revives the next day

DUMPSTER DOG<3333

He trained Harbor mostly by himself (Wendy, Tolkien, and Kyle pitched in a bit and bought him books on training techniques)

MOM FRIEND! Bro I just love making Kenny one of the parental figures of the group. He’s just got a bag of shit he carries around for both himself and everyone else. Stan forgot to swap his bandages? Boom, Kenny’s got new ones. Kyle’s sugar is low? Boom, he’s got whatever little snack the boy is able to tolerate. Someone needs a distraction? Medical episode causes them to need a vomit bag? Boom, done. Mom friend Kenny

So fucking ADHD

JIMMY:

Service Dog: Grey Great Dane, Kitty (F)

Mobility Aid Dog (IN DEVELOPMENT)

TOLKIEN:

Service Dog: Papillon, Jax (M) (IN DEVELOPMENT)

WENDY:

Service Dog: Black German Shepherd, Nike (F)

Psychiatric Alert & Response

Disabilities: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (IN DEVELOPMENT)

CLYDE:

Service Dog: Husky, Fable (F) (IN DEVELOPMENT)

BEBE:

Service Dog: Golden Retriever, Bucky (M)

Medical Alert & Response Dog

Disabilities: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)

Misdiagnosis club

Went to multiple doctors from 13-15 who all told her it was all in her head

And she’s just sitting there like “bitch please, the only thing in my head is my girlfriend and how hot she is. Now tell me why I keep experiencing these symptoms-”

HEIDI:

Service Dog: Chocolate Labrador, Isa (F)

Psychiatric Alert & Response Dog

Disabilities: Autism Spectrum Disorder

Public breakdown club (IN DEVELOPMENT)

[pinazee]

Gus’s dad may have killed an old guy

Gotta gif right outta the bat! Liams run here! So cute!

I tell you what, i love the Shassie friendship here because yes, Shawn is going to mess with him by getting him something he hates for christmas, but then he’s also going to casually convince Jules to invite him to her family dinner because he knows he’s lonely.

Ohmygod i missed this part somehow! Gus forcing a vision see it! see it!

So a few things about the Gusters and how that plays into Gus’s character.

If they thought Shawn was a bad influence, then why let him hang out at his place all the time? Obviously they couldn’t just refuse to let him see him anymore but why not have him over at your place so you can keep an eye on him? Plus, Henry’s a cop… its complicated is all I’ll say. I think it had more to do with the fact that Shawn was just too much to handle as a kid. He strikes me as the type that needed to be constantly stimulated (i might go into more detail about young shawn in a later ep. Possibly when i try to narrow down their origin story). And Gus apparently agreed with his parents, so i have to believe part of him blames Shawn for how his life turned out, which is a little unfair.

I love the juxtaposition of how they treat Gus compared to how henry treats Shawn. Gus was heavily sheltered and coddled, whereas Shawn was being hardened for reality. Both are overprotective to a degree, except you’ve got Gus’s parents putting up foam guards on all the corners of their furniture until he’s 18, and then you have Henry who probably taught shawn how to swim by throwing him into the deep end of a pool when he was three. Weirdly, i think of the two, Henrys way was a little better, because even though he was a pretty shit dad, he, for the most part, didn’t try to shield Shawn from the world. In fact he was taught to observe it, to understand it.

This ep made me wonder if Gus was born sick. It would explain why they act like he has a “Delicate health and weak disposition”, why he didn’t have that many friends growing up, why they didn’t want him to go to that school. His parents are so overprotective and stuck in the mentality that he is a feeble child, that i think thats what made Gus so terrified of everything, but on the flip side, sparked his need to know how things worked, and why he has such a wide variety of interests. Shawn also does this, though. He never told Gus Henry killed his dog (henrys a canonical dog killer lol and i think he accidentally killed one of shawns pets too in a later ep. How many pets have to die before its no longer considered accidental???) and just in general he’s looking out for him whether emotionally (agreeing with him that he is definitely happy with his life at the end of 9 lives) or physically (standing between him and a gun in the same ep)

But they should be concerned that Shawns Psych business put Gus’s life in danger on multiple occasions already but that wasn’t discussed. So I have to assume Gus hasn’t told them those bits yet because he knows they’d freak out and make him stop.

Ernie freaking Hudson and Phylicia freaking Rashad! Which is even funnier when you remember Gus/Dulé keep getting referred to as Bud

I love that they’re a family of super sniffers and it bonds them. shawn seems to really get a kick out of seeing it too (probably because a family enjoying each other is so foreign to him 🙃)

U-turn Singleton everybody! I love when Gus has a little thing to go with his nickname!

Gus was really about to kick lassies ass! Dulé is killing me in this ep!

Gus being very subtle as always

P.S I LOVE HIM SO MUCH (but he definitely cheated)

[puppiesandnightlock]

LINK: but since the world’s obsessed with saying ‘psych’ (pt.2)

summary: Milkshakes, fries, trespassing and mild auto theft :D

Jon bounced on his toes, hands behind his back as he waited for the teacher to poke their head in and allow them both to leave. That was the only way Damian would let them leave would be if they were formally dismissed, and for some unknown reason, he was ready to do anything the other boy said, as long as it meant they’d be going to the diner together.

At first glance, it seemed as if Damian was fully invested in his book, but a bit closer and he was watching the bouncing teen from the corner of his eye, resisting a smile as the earlier characterization of him being a puppy ruled correct. His clothing needed work, and his mannerisms as well, and he’d make that known once he figured out just how long this would actually last.

“Mr. Kent, Mr. Wayne, you are both free to go.” The teacher finally dismissed them, and Jon hovered over Damian’s chair, watching as he arranged his things in his messenger bag.

He slung it over his shoulder, shooting the excited teen a mildly annoyed look. “And you were offended about the puppy comparison.” 

“I’m holding onto that, I will turn the gremlin thing onto you eventually.” Jon smirked, looming above him. “Would you look at that, you’ve got the height part down already.”

“Shut up.” He grumbled, holding onto the strap of his bag. “Do you want me to come or not?”

The other only chuckled, holding the door for him. “But of course, Your Highness. Forgive my words.”

He sniffed, nose in the air as he played along. “I suppose you’ve been pardoned. Now, onwards to the feast.”

The face lasted a moment longer before they both dissolved into laughter, moving down the halls of the school at a swift pace.

“We’ll have to walk.” Jon noted, once they were out at the pick up area. 

“The sun is up, does not seem like an issue.” Damian brushed it off. “You have directions and I wish to have lunch, so the quicker we’re off, the better.”

“Yes, of course, your very royal highness.” Jon rolled his eyes, beginning to stride away in one direction, longer legs making for quicker strides. 

“Hey!” the other boy protested, jogging to keep up. The taller one laughed, speeding up more.

 “Asshole.” he heard Damian mutter, smiling to himself. Yeah, so maybe he was, but really, it was all worth it to mess with him.

They ran down the streets of the city, Damian calling out obscenities as Jon cackled, always a few paces ahead. He slowed as they neared their destination, letting the shorter boy catch up and swat at him.

“See if I ever come with you again!” He huffed, holding onto the strap of his messenger bag, tugging at the collar of his green pullover.

“Aw, come on, D ,” he said, nickname coming out mockingly. “If we’re gonna be friends, you gotta keep up with your little gremlin legs.”

He groaned. “Oh my God , fuck off. How many jokes are you going to be making about this? Gets old pretty quick you know, J .”

“A bad word !” Jon gasped, now walking in tandem with him. “Whatever will your family say?”

“They’d wash my mouth out with soap.” Damian deadpanned. “Only there wouldn’t be any left by the time they’d finished with my brother.”

He snorted, before tugging on his sleeve, boldly slipping his hand into the smaller caramel one. “C’mon, we gotta cross the street.”

Damian said nothing, only flushing mildly. Jon looked anywhere but at him, cursing the fact that the paleness of his skin did nothing to hide the growing red creeping up his face.

He let go as they reached the other side, gallantly opening the door for the other boy, bowing slightly as he did so. The other boy made a clicking noise, one that he’d so often associated with negative things, now sounding mildly amused. If he’d looked up, he would have seen the slight shake of his head, lips turning up a tic.

A blond freckled girl with the same piercings as Jon came up as they entered, tying back her apron without looking up.

“Hello, welcome to-” She paused looking up at the two, a grin spreading on her face. “Jonathan Samuel, why haven't you come around and who is this beautiful boy?” 

Jon looks sheepish. “Hey Kath. I been busy lately, how’re your folks?” 

Damian was almost appalled, flushing from the girl’s words and marveling at how easily Jon slipped into a much more civilized manner, southern accent showing when he spoke to her.

They stopped in their conversation, Jon pulling Damian in front of him. “This is Damian, he’s…a friend.”

Kathy’s eyes sparked at him. “A friend you say, huh?” She eyed him for a minute, before turning to Damian. “What’d he do to you?”

“Kathy!” Jon barked, flushing.

“Ain’t no way he bagged a pretty thing like you, you gotta be here because he did something to ya and now he’s tryna make it up.”

He raised an eyebrow at Jon. “You do this a lot?”

“Taking that as a yes.” Kathy nodded. “You look prep, he knock your books over?” 

A devilish smirk came over his face and Jon was hit with the reminder of gremlin-like. “Well, that’s one way to put it, but really, the whole story is a lon-MPFFH!” 

His mouth was covered and instinctively he licked the palm, biting at the hand as it was wrenched away from his mouth in disgust. Jon wiped his palm on his jeans while Damian wiped his mouth, both disgusted. Kathy ( The traitor, Jon thought bitterly,) was doubled over laughing, arm propped on the podium holding menus for stability.

“Y’all make such a funny pair, never thought I'd see the day someone corralled Jon.” She giggled as Jon shot her a dirty glare.

“Oh, like you weren’t just as bad! You got a piercing every time I did and you dyed your hair black, and I bet fifty bucks you still wear your eyeliner like I do!”

“Mm, yeah the black hair was not my proudest moment but also, it was like 8th gradebordering freshman year, and i’m attempting to reform.” She put her hand to her heart dramatically. “Of course, I tend to relapse when you drag me into shit.”

“Like you’re complaining.” Jon laughed. “Now, table for two, please.”

They eventually made it to a table, ordering two milkshakes (an almond milk one for Damian) and a side of fries. 

The whole thing was oddly date-esqe and it made the both of them desperate for small talk. Damian, ever equipped with manners and experience in polite conversation, started up the questions.

“So, when you said you were raised in a barn, what did you mean?” 

Jon seemed to light up, recounting his old life in Kansas, talking about the farm he’d grown up on, his and Kathy’s old adventures, and stopped once he mentioned moving to the city.

“Kath moved here a bit ago, we’d kept in touch but don’t see each other too much anymore. She’s still my best friend and stuff but the city’s weird.”

Their food arrived and they shared the snack, chattering on about things. By the end of it, Jon had learned Damian had six siblings and several brothers-in-laws that hung around their father’s large house, as well as many pets. He liked art and led the art club with his friend Skylar, and had met Maya and Colin in elementary school.

Damian learned that Jon had been raised a well-mannered southern boy, as much as he tried to deny it and undo the teachings now. He saw flecks of homesickness when he talked of the country, sadness when he spoke of his parents who had once been there and were now constantly busy, leaving him with his older brother, even though said brother had his own life.

It was insane to the both of them just how much they’d learned about each other after one civil interaction, how much they were being drawn to one another. It was all getting much too sappy and feelings-like for the both of them, so they split the bill and walked out into the night, afternoon sun shining a bit lower in the sky, not quite yet sunset. 

“C’mon, we’ve got some time before it gets dark. Let’s just chill for a bit.” Jon gestured towards the signs pointing to the parks around the city. 

They wandered around a bit, going towards the edge of the city where the forests were. “Hey, wanna wander around here a bit?” Damian said, breezing past him through the broken gate. 

Jon eyed the sign, hanging off one side of the wire. “I’m pretty sure that says no trespassing, D.” 

“The gate’s broken, it isn't as though we’re committing some great offense.” He knocked the gate with a shoulder and the sign fell off. “Oops, there’s no longer a sign to read.”

Jon looked scandalized, what was this, some sort of personality switch? “You’re insane.”

“C’mon, the sun's not down yet.” He went through the brush, raising an eyebrow as Jon refused to follow, bouncing on his toes nervously.

“Scared, farm boy?” He taunted, Jon scowling and taking a step forward.

  Knew that would work.

“Not a chance, darlin’.”  The other boy followed after, pet name slipping from his tongue easily. “I am blaming you though, if we end up being caught doing something as stupid as this.”

Damian scoffed, walking through the thicket. “With your demeanor, I'd assumed you knew the most important thing about doing something mildly illegal.”

“And what is that, exactly?” 

He swallowed as the other boy turned, mouth going dry as a mischievous smirk was shot his way. The words that followed, however, were completely unexpected. 

“Don’t get caught.”

They made it around, exploring the tangles of greenery and knocking branches into each other’s faces when they heard the beginning of a party. The sun was hanging dangerously low in the sky, still not yet sunset. 

“Damian, we’re gonna get in trouble,” Jon hissed. “We should go.” 

“Shhh.” the other boy waved at him, creeping closer. It’s been awhile since he’d done something like this, but he felt the once familiar excitement creep up on him, an amazing feeling that he was determined to chase. He was nearly there, when a branch behind him snapped .

The chatter from the place stopped, and Damian squeezed his eyes shut, cursing everything. Slowly he turned to the culprit, mouthing at him to ’Move back, you idiot, you’re going to get us caught.’

Someone from the other side of the brush called out, “Hello?”

”Shit.” Damian backed away, and suddenly footsteps began coming towards them. 

“This is private property, you’re trespassing!” The voices were mixing together and the steps getting closer and suddenly he turned, snatching Jon’s hand and bolting, uncaring of how loud it was.

”HEY!” the voices behind them screamed. Jon seemed paler than usual as they burst through the brush out into a clearing with a dirt road leading out. 

“There must be a vehicle around here somewhere, they did not walk down here…” He murmured, glancing around the area. He turned, letting go of the other boy’s hand and smacking him lightly on the cheek, frozen blue eyes coming to attention and locking on his green ones.

“Is Houston having a problem up there, Hayseed?” 

Jon seemed to come back to life, mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out. Finally, he blinked a few times, blurting out “You’re actually clinically insane.”

“So you’ve said.” The shorter boy deadpanned. “Thought you would have done this kind of shit all the time with your track record.” 

Jon attempted to sputter out a response as Damian looked around, finally spotting a few bikes and ATVs hidden behind a small fence.

“Well, when we were gonna get caught, we ran the other fuckin’ way, not towards it!”  He followed Damian, still talking and waving his hands in the air. 

“Keep your voice down.” Damian hissed at him, climbing the wiring and swinging a leg over to the other side. “And move your skinny ass, we’re gonna book it out of here.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jon retorted, doing as he said anyways. “You’re the most asshole goody-two-shoes teacher’s pet I’ve ever met and a day into getting to know you and we’re on the run and you’re climbing fucking fences and holy shit are you hot-wiring the fucking bike? ”

Damian had produced some small tools from his messenger bag, prying into the closest vehicle, which happened to be a motorcycle. “Yes, now shut up and go pick the lock on the fence.”

He tossed him a kit and waved him away, Jon smirking as he moved towards the lock. “Bold of you to assume I knew how to do that.”

He snorted. “Please, it would be an embarrassment to yourself and your reputation if you couldn’t at least do that .” 

The bike started up, and he swung a leg over it, grinning at the noise of the engine. He guided it over to the entrance, where Jon had successfully opened it. “Get on.” 

”What the hell?” a screech came from where they’d come out of the brush. ”Yo, someone’s jacking your Dad’s Harley!”

Jon needed no more prompting, barely getting on as Damian hit the gas, propelling forwards and zooming past the trail in record time.

He had an iron-clad grip around the other’s waist, fear dissipating as they cleared the area.

 “Holy shit. ” he whispered. “Holy fucking shit.” 

The sun was setting now, painting the sky beautiful colors of orange, pink, yellow, and deep blue. The rush of adrenaline was catching up with him now and the events of what had just happened came crashing down on him. Throwing his head back, he let out a loud laugh, whooping as they shot back into city limits. 

“You didn't leave your mind back there, did you, Kent?” Damian called over the roar of the engine. “I’d hate to have to explain that to your brother.”

Jon was still giggling as he leaned forwards, loosening his grip on the boy in front of him. “No, just the rush. Dude, how’d you learn how to do all of that? Like, God, that was so cool , and if we ever get caught we’re in so much trouble , but it was freaking awesome!”

“I’m glad you thought so.” he responded dryly, slowing the bike down. “We can leave this here, and we’ll walk the rest of the way.”

The sky was close to dark as they walked back up to the nicer areas of the city, pausing at the Waynes’ residence. 

“Thank you for inviting me today,” Damian told him as they reached the gate, the line perfectly practiced. 

Jon stared at him blankly. “This isn't a gala, dude, you don’t have to thank me. You’re a pretty cool guy, not at all what i expected.”

He bumped him on the shoulder gently, the atmosphere softening. “If anything, I should be thanking you, because I haven't had this much fun for a while. I honestly didn’t think you had it in ya, but after this and you kickin’ my ass, i’m pretty sure i misjudged you completely.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Kent.” Damian said after a moment of silence. “But today, you’ve seen more of me than most people have.”

“Friends?”

“I suppose so.” 

[itsmistyeyedbi]

of plants and dresses

Pairing: F!Detective/Farah Hauville

Word Count: 1,4k

Prompt: Fix (and Fall)

Warnings: There's nsft content in the last half of this. Nothing crazy I think, but it's there.

Tags: @happyhauvillebday

Summary: One of Zuri’s plant pots fell somehow, and Farah decided to fix it. This is nsft so minors dni!

Zuri’s apartment is full of plants.

Seriously, they're everywhere.

Farah remembers the first time she saw it. After Zuri found out about the supernatural world and the truth about Murphy, Unit Bravo were put on watch duty.

They spent ages squished into her tiny, silver hatchback with her and Nate sitting up front, giggling at her fighting for space in the back with Adam and Morgan. And once they were free of that hell, they went up two floors, took a left and spent a good minute going back and forth over house rules while Zuri psyched herself up to open the door.

When she finally did it was nothing but greenery.

They lined the windowsills, sat on counters and tables and her bookshelf, hung off the walls and ceiling. They're in the kitchen, the living room, her bedroom, her bathroom. One day Farah asked for a tour and got to learn some of their names. She even got to name some of the new ones!

Humans love to talk about the afterlife. If there’s one for plants, Zuri’s apartment was it.

She just needs to… rethink where she puts some of them. Or the type of pots she puts them in at least.

Farah is in the living room, sitting cross legged on the floor and staring at the pieces of an orange, ceramic plant pot on the coffee table. They are glinting in the light from the lamp she turned on - she doesn't need it to see better but it doesn't hurt to be extra careful.

The pieces have been cleaned and I did a test run on what Frankensteining them together will be like. Now to glue.

Nate glances over the top of his book, eyeing the super glue in her hands from his seat on the couch. “Perhaps you should put more newspaper underneath the pot. Just in case.”

“No way! What if it gets stuck on it? I won't be able to rinse it off, it'll ruin it. Besides, you,” she narrows her eyes at him and purses her lips, “are supposed to be reading and not hovering over me.”

“I'm not hovering, I just-”

“Don't worry, Natey, I won't mess up your precious, antique coffee table. Now shush, I wanna have this done before she gets here.”

She turns her attention back to the task at hand, ignoring Nate's sigh and waiting for him to turn a page before taking off the lid of the tube in her hand.

She reaches for the biggest piece, turns it delicately in her hand. She can do this, she knows she can do it. There aren't that many pieces. She just needs to take it nice and slow. With a deep breath she squeezes the tube and applies the glue on the jagged edge; she puts it down, picks up the piece that aligns with and holds them together for a few seconds.

And that's it.

Well then.

That was easier than expected. She didn't even realise she stopped breathing.

It's fixed in less than an hour. Nothing broke, nothing got stuck to things it shouldn't and she managed to add a little pizzazz to it too. After a final inspection, she stands over the ceramic pot and dusts off her hands.

“Done at last,” she grins and puts her hands on her hips. She looks over at Nate and bends at the waist to catch his eye. “And your table survived. It got a little decorated, but survived.”

Thud.

Huh. That's the fastest she's seen him close a book.

“Excuse me!?” Nate puts the book down beside him with some force and stands up to make his way to the table. “Decorated? Why would you do- oh.”

He gives her a deadpan look. Farah laughs and nudges him with her elbow.

“Come on, you've gotta have more faith in me than that. I've just gotta remove the newspapers and it'll be squeaky clean.”

He huffs and shakes his head before looking at the plant pot. He tilts his head a bit, smiling softly while nodding in approval, “It looks good. The stitching detail you added makes the cracks look intentional.”

“I know, right? I really hope she likes it.”

Their heads swivel towards the direction of the entrance as their ears catch the sound of Zuri’s car slowing to a stop outside the warehouse. A thrill of excitement runs through her. Just in time.

Nate returns to his seat, leaning back with his book in hand as he raises a brow and asks the questions she's been trying her best to prevent him from asking. “How did it break, anyway? Did something happen?”

“Oh, well, something would have to happen for it to fall over wouldn't it? It wouldn't fall by itself,” her voice pitches up as she speaks and she takes a few, frantic steps away from the coffee table. She laughs sheepishly and rubs the back of her neck with her hand. “So yeah, something happened. Obviously, but it wasn't bad…”

-

“Keep this on.”

Farah shudders as Zuri whispers in her ear, brushing her lips against it before sucking gently. The hands on her waist trail down to her hips, gripping them tightly and pulling her in, keeping them firmly against hers.

Farah can barely remember how they got here, the events of the day are all lost in a haze. She can vaguely recall going shopping and sending Zuri pictures of herself in a new sundress, some of them were steamy… It hardly matters now. All she wants to do right now is to get as close to her as possible. She wants her kisses, her hands, her.

She wants her. And she wants her to show her just how much she appreciates those pictures.

Farah lets out a breathless laugh and cups the base of her head. “I don't think I'll ever take it off with you reacting to it like this.”

“Oh, I'd like it off at some point,” Zuri walks her backwards until the back of her knees hit the window seat, her nose brushing against her skin as she slowly moves down to the place her neck meets her shoulder. Her lips tickle her skin while she speaks. “It's gorgeous, especially on you, but I don't think I could stand having anything between us for long.”

“Then you'll have to make the most of me wearing it now.”

“I plan to.”

She slowly coaxes her to sit down. Farah keeps her arms around her to pull her down with her. She doesn't want anything between them either. But the dress can stay for now, it's just thin enough for it to not really be in the way. Zuri’s touch is just as effective at turning her into a puddle with it on.

Her feet are off the floor the moment her ass touches the seat. She spreads her legs and just as she goes to wrap them around Zuri, her knee knocks into something and-

Crash.

From the wall to the seat to the floor, a potted plant falls.

They freeze, eyes darting from the broken plant pot to each other. Shit, she didn't mean to do that. Aren't those plants usually mounted higher up on the wall? She swears it wasn't there before. Farah braces herself for some kind of scolding or an expression of disappointment, but instead-

Zuri’s shoulders shake with laughter she's trying to keep in, and then her face scrunches up and she wheezes.

Farah must make a funny face at that because she bursts into laughter, and she can't help but join her. Zuri rests her forehead against hers, braids falling onto Farah's chest. She lets her laughter peter out and watches her with a grin. She's always thought Zuri was beautiful but she always manages to stun her into silence in moments like this, where she's laughing and smiling and happy, genuinely happy. And she'll never get over the fact that she's the reason she is.

Eventually her laughter stops and Farah takes the opportunity to say something. “Sheesh. I forget how flexible I am sometimes. Sorry, babe.”

“Don't worry about it,” Zuri giggles, shaking her head and cupping Farah's face. “That's hardly something to apologise for. And it's not too bad, I can fix it later.”

“Or you could leave that to me.”

“Hmm?”

Farah shrugs, wrapping her legs around her and putting her hands on her back. “I could fix it for you. Like you said, it's not too bad.”

“That's sweet, but you don't have to.”

“I know, but I want to.”

Zuri strokes her cheeks with her thumbs, pursing her lips in thought before smiling at her with a hint of mischief in her eyes. “Okay. But you'll have to let me show you how thankful I am for that at some point, in whatever way you want.”

“Deal.”

[blackhakumen]

Mini Fanfic #1093: Visiting Mom Again (Epithet Erased)

1:09 p.m. at Sweet Jazz City's Sidewalk.........

Cashier: Thank you! Come again!~

Giovanni: (Looks Down at the Bonquet of Flowers He Just Brought From the Outdoors Flower Shop a Few Seconds Ago) Sheesh....I know it's Spring, but do they really have to charge us over thirty bucks for a bunch of these flowers?

Molly: (Walking Next to her Boss) Considering how gorgeous each of them look together, I can't really say their prices surprises me all that much.

Giovanni: ('Sigh') Well, I guess I won't really matter so long as your mom will like them.....(Starts Getting Nervous) She'll.....like the flowers we're going to give her, right?

Molly: (Giggles Softly) Boss, she'll love them and you as well. Don't worry.

Giovanni: ('Psh') Me? Worry? Honestly, Beartrap, do you have any idea who you're talking to right now? I go by Vincent Murder now and I shouldn't get feared by anyone!

Molly: (Starts Smirking a Bit Teasingly) Except for my mom apparently~

Giovanni: (Pouts at his Beartrap) Hey, I am NOT scared of your mother! (Starts Looking Away While Rubbing the Back of his Head Back and Forth) I just.....wanted to make a good impression is all.

Molly: (Gives her Boss a Reassuring Smile) I know you do, Boss. But again, you really have nothing to worry about here. She won't bite, not physically anyways.

Giovanni: Yeah, but she can possess me against my own will....(Starts Doing the Mini Thriller Dance) Make me dance around like a puppet on strings if she wants to.

Molly: (Starts Snickering a Bit) Okay, first off, you really gotta stop watching these Scooby Doo Movies till midnight, it's clearly messing with your psyche a bit. And second, my mom is way too professional to go around possessing every person she sees.

Giovanni: (Grabs his Chin in a Curious Manner) Ahh....a professionist, you say? Do tell.

Molly: Really don't think "professionist" is a real word, but if you must know, my mom was a pretty busy lady over the years. She always worked so hard to make sure the toy business is in best shape possible, as well as making sure that our family doesn't fall apart in the process.

Giovanni: So the actual breadwinner of the family?

Molly: Pretty much, yeah. She was even able to keep dad in check a whole lot better than Lori and I ever could. (Smiles Fondly at the Thought of her Mother) But even then, she still did everything she could to give us the love, support and care none of us hardly knew we needed at the time..... (Starts Frowning Sadly) Regardless of how short lived her time here was.......

Giovanni: (Frowns at Her Sadden Minion as He Gently Place his Hand onto Her Shoulder) I'm really sorry for your loss, Molly.....

Molly: Thank you. It's still a lot to take in completely, but I won't let it get me down forever. (Looks Up and Gives her Boss a Determined Look on her FaceL Not when I still have a whole life ahead of me going forward.

Giovanni: (Smiles a Little But Proudly at Molly) Atta girl. (Playfully Ruffles the Top of Molly's Hair) And don't think for a second you're on your own on this, you hear?

Molly: (Giggles Ticklishly by the Haor Ruffles) I know, I know!~ We're a team. We stick together, am I right?

Giovanni: (Smiles Brightly) Exactly!

The (not so) villainous duo begins to stop walking as they see a sign on top of a horse shoe shaped entrance that reads "Sweet Jazz's Cemetery".

Giovanni: Hm. (Looks Back to Molly) Is this the place?

Molly: (Simply Nodded) Yep. We're here alright. (Turns to her Boss) You ready to finally meet Momma Beartrap in person?

Giovanni: ('Sigh') As I'll ever be. (Watches Molly Makes her Way To the Cemetery) But uh....Molly?

Molly: (Stops Walking as She Looks Back.at Giovanni) Hm?

Giovanni: (Takes a Deep Breath Before Speaking) Listen, i....know I can never live up to be as good as a parental figure as she was. But I'm still gonna do my damndest to be there for you every step of the way!

Molly: (Stares at Giovanni for a Few Seconds Before Smiling Softly) Boss, you don't have to be exactly like my mom to look after me. Because you're already doing a amazing job at it just by being yourself. (Smile Turns into a Sincere, Bright One) And that's all it really matters me right now.

Giovanni: (Stares at Molly For a Brief Second Before His Heart Begins to Melt in Genuine Happiness) Thank you, Beartrap.

Happy Late Mother's Day

@aprilbrowines

[barry-j-blupjeans]

@taznovembercelebration - jewelry or blanket

"Just give Lup the ring," Taako said. "It's not that big of a deal," Taako said. "Stop being a fucking coward," Taako said. Well, uh, first of all, Taako, it was definitely a big deal. It's not like Barry had the suave and charm of Kravitz, who could swoop in and propose to Taako after they'd dated for only two years. Sure, Barry and Lup had been dating for a while but not that long. And what if she didn't want to get married? What if he screwed it up? What if he did it at the wrong moment? What if-

What if he fell asleep with his jean jacket on after a date when he had once again tried to work himself up to propose and when he woke up, the ring box was missing from his pocket?

So, no, Taako, it wasn't that easy. Especially if the love of your life was still sleeping and you were quietly panicking and attempting to move the blankets without waking her up.

Barry was an idiot. An idiot with a doctorate but still an idiot nonetheless. Science was easy. Science didn't have feelings and, therefore, he could not ruin his relationship with it. With science, he could experiment and mess up and try again, with Lup? He didn't want to fuck this up. He loved her. A lot. Maybe too much.

And she was sleeping on the goddamn ring.

Barry could see it from where he was sitting. All the other pillows and blankets had been deposited on the floor in his search but the second he looked under the one Lup was curled up in, he could see it near her ribs, half wedged underneath her back.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. He could do this. All he had to do is more Lup over like, a little bit. A small, minuscule amount. It was like looking at something under a microscope. Easy. Fun. Weird little squirming dots and lines- no, that didn't make sense. Very, very gently, he slipped his hand under Lup's back, carefully turning her to face the one way. He held his breath and stopped when the ring was free, propping Lup up on her side.

He took the ring. And, slowly, slowly, he began to put Lup back in place. Pulling softly on her shoulder, he lowered her back down. When he was finished, he scrambled to get the ring box in his hands and popped it open.

The ring was gone. Fuck.

"Looking for somethin', Bar?"

Barry snapped his head up to see Lup, looking a little bleary-eyed, but grinning. Between her pointer finger and her thumb, she held up the ring.

Fuck.

"Fuck," Barry said.

"You're such a doofus," Lup said, turning over to face him. She pulled on Barry's shirt to get him to lie down. He laughed a little, breathless, both from nerves and just because he loved her so much. "Taako said you've had this for a month."

"Fuck," Barry said again. Lup broke into giggles next to him, shuffling forward to hide her head in his neck. "He said he wouldn't tell you!"

"Babe, Taako tells me everything," Lup said. "Have you seen him trying to lie?"

"Unfortunately," Barry said, resting his head against Lup's. Lup slowly stopped giggling and Barry found himself smiling despite the situation. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, where Lup lifted her head to press little kisses along his jaw. Barry wrapped an arm around her, holding her closer.

"What were you nervous about?" Lup whispered.

"Just- y'know..." Barry said. He signed, shuffling back a little. "I get too worked up about and then I psych myself out and then I start feeling weird that like, you won't wanna spend the rest of your life with me. I know we've talked it through before and stuff, but it's just- I love you a lot, Lup, and I don't wanna- I don't wanna fuck that up. 'Cuz it's gotta be special."

"Hm," Lup said. She brought a hand up to his face, lacing her fingers in his hair. "I get that. I also don't wanna fuck this up. But I think that, uhm, at this point, babe? Even if things do get weird, in a bad way, I mean, we can work to fix it. I've known you almost my entire life and I love you so much. Nothing you can do is gonna make me not love you. I know you have- worries-" Barry snorted and Lup grinned a little. "But really. We got this. If you wanna wait on it, then we can, but you are my forever. Got that?"

"Got it," Barry said. Lup leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips. "Thank you."

"No prob, hot stuff," Lup said. She reached for his hands and pressed the ring into it. "You wanna try again?"

"Ehh," Barry said. "I kinda wanna sleep. After, maybe?"

"After works," Lup said, pulling her blanket up. She paused, clearly thinking. "You gotta get your blankets off the floor, though, 'cus I'm not gonna share with you."

"That's, uh, that's fair," Barry said, scooting towards the edge of the bed. "I'll get 'em."

[bookgirl1997]

Chapter 2: Wilford

The boys all sat in the green room, just taking a bit more time before their show. Wil sat on his phone scrolling through TikTok. Colson had his headphones on as he was off to the side shirtless doing some pushups. Emilio was playing Mario kart on his switch and Aizen had ducked off to the bathroom, he often got excited bladder right before a show. The boys had arrived in Melbourne two days ago, most of the time they had just been sleeping off jetlag and ordering room service as they adjusted to the Australian time zone. Outside the room stagehands and technicians rushed around double and triple checking equipment to ensure the show ran as smoothly as possible. Outside the theatre began to fill in the mosh pit as fans were let in, although it seemed like the line wasn’t moving,

“So do you like enjoy going on stage all sweaty or?” Wil asked as Colson sat up on his knees and pulled his headphones down around his neck.

“It gets the blood pumping, warms me up before the show” Colson replied checking his heart rate on his watch.

“Or you just wait until you get on the stage, you know how warm those lights get” Wil chuckled getting up from the couch.

“Hey, I gotta keep looking good for the ladies” Colson laughed starting to dry himself off with a towel.

“Yeah, yeah” Wil said rolling his eyes. The boys all slowly began to get ready before they were given their 10- and 5-minute warnings. They then headed to side stage to be fitted up with their earpieces that muffled the sound of the roar crowd whilst also giving them a direct feed from their instrumentals and any information from their stage manager during the show.

“Four minutes” one of the stagehands informed them. Wil, Aizen and Colson pulled their guitars over their heads whilst Emilio grabbed his drumsticks, giving them a few taps together as he always did before a show. Wil looked beside him to see Aizen energetically bouncing from foot to foot.

“You good?” Wil chuckled adjusting his guitar strap that had loosened in transit.

“Dude” Aizen looked up at Wil with the look of an excited puppy, “We are in Australia, halfway across the globe, I’m psyched” Aizen grinned excitedly. Wil couldn’t help but smile back at his friend’s excitement, he couldn’t blame him. They were playing on the opposite side of the world from where they came from. And to think this time last year they were just a dingy garage band messing around in Wil’s garage before Emilio’s sister filmed them and posted it to YouTube for Emilios family to watch over in Mexico. Little did they know at that time that it wouldn’t just be watched by Emilio’s family and friends, but by complete strangers and blow up, becoming viral and leading them to playing a tour on the other side of the world.

Aizen’s excitement was infectious as the other three began to feel the exciting buzz flow through them. Wil began to feel the itch in his fingers, just wanting to play already.

“Two minutes” They were informed. Wil took a deep breath before picking up the water bottle with his colored tape, Blue. He took a few mouthfuls before putting it aside, there was always a handful of them near his mic for during the show.

“One minute” Came through their earpieces, he could hear the sound of the smoke machines whirring to max.

“30 seconds” The lights began to dim.

“20 seconds”

“10 seconds” The lights were off, leaving them in darkness.

“5” Wil followed the glow in the dark tape to his mark, although even in the dark it was hard to see the tape through the smoke.

“4” Breathe in.

“3” Breathe out. The crowd began to get louder and louder.

“2” His fingers brushed against the strings with a featherlight touch.

“1” Wil’s spotlight lit up, illuminating just him as he played a cord as the light faded until it was darkness again. The next light flashed on Colson as he did his cord, his light fading in time with his cord. Then it was Aizen’s turn, light, cord, fade. And finally, Emilio’s turn, the lights flashing with each of his strikes against the drum before all the lights turned on and they began to play their song, ‘My anthem’.

Wil grabbed hold of the mic with one hand and the stand with the other, leaning in his nose brushed against the microphone as he began,

“I’m feeling lost in this world that’s spinning fast,

Lookin’ for a place where I belong at last,

Stuck in the same routine day to day,

But I’ve got this fire burnin’ refusing to fade away” Wil’s veins flowed with adrenaline as he sang the lyrics into the mic and having the crowd shouting the lyrics back at him. A proud smile pulling across his lips as he glanced over at Colson absolutely tearing up his guitar. His attention then returned to the mic as his fingers et the strings of his guitar.

“I’ll scream, I’ll shout, I’ll break free,

This is my anthem, my say, my decree,

I won’t be held back, no chains to bind,

I’ll make my mark, I’ll leave the world behind”

Wil panted lightly when the song ended, but the smile never left his face.

“Hello Melbourne!”  Aizen spoke into his mic, giving Wil a moment to catch his breath. The crowd roared in response.

“How we doing tonight?” Colson called through his mic.

“You know they’re gonna scream no matter what you say” Emilio laughed.

“Ready, watch” Wil said, “hamburger” and true to Emilio’s claim the crowd roared once more making them laugh. “Ok, ok, hush now” Wil chuckled motioning to quiet down a bit, which surprisingly kind of worked. “Guys, we are so excited to be here, our first show in Australia.”

“Yeah, Aizen couldn’t even stand still backstage” Emilio laughed causing Aizen to throw a half drunken bottle of water at him, purposely missing.

“It’s exciting ok, I’m 100% holding a koala bear at some point during this tour” Aizen claimed.

“Don’t worry, you will get to hold a Koala” Colson laughed shaking his head.

“Those things will murder you” Emilio added in.

“They will not” Aizen argued turning to look at Emilio.

“Your thinking of drop bears” Wil grinned, he had seen a comment on his live that he did yesterday about drop bears and he looked it up afterwards,

“Wait, what’s a drop bear?” Aizen asked.

“They are murderous koalas” Wil said grinning towards the crowd, in on the joke.

“Wait, I’m not dying from a koala, or drop bear” Aizen claimed.

“Oh, its easy to prevent, you just put some vagamate on your nose” Wil explained.

“Wait, is that true?” Colson asked.

“Yeah” Wil turned to the crowd, his lips against the mic as he spoke, “if its true, shout ‘yeah’, if it’s not, shout ‘Nah’ ok, 3,2,1 go!” the crowd erupted into majority of ‘yeah’s. “Told ya” Wil grinned. “Anyway, if you see one, you might want to…... Run Away” he grinned into the mic as they began with the next song called ‘Run Away.’

“God, I need a shower” Emilio groaned rolling his head as they sat in the car that was taking them back to the hotel they were staying at.

“True that, I can smell you from here” Colson laughed.

“Nah, that’s your funk dude” Emilio laughed leaning back in his seat. It did not take long for the boys to get back to their hotel and split up into their own rooms. Wil and most likely the others headed straight to the shower to cleanup after sweating their asses off on stage. Afterwards Wil sat on his bed just in his towel as he chucked on some music on the tv for some background noise. He ran his fingers through his wet hair as he looked down, he was trying to ignore the bulge in his towel, it happened more often than not after a show, apparently it was normal from all the adrenaline onstage. However, it was starting to become a nuisance and his arm was a bit sore already. A groan left his lips as his head fell back against the headboard,

“Just once I’d like to be able to just go to bed after a show, cold showers don’t even deter you anymore” he spoke to his crotch as if it would listen.

[dcviated]

@starryskied sent: " I've made my decision, Zephyr. " The Aegir spoke up, his voice barely audible above the familiar clink of silverware, and excitable chitter-chatter of operators occupying the mess hall. Before him, the tray of spaghetti and meatballs sits largely untouched, as Lumen's mind races to conjure up an appropriate sentence. How does he word this? A brief pause, followed by an exhale. " I've thought it over and over again. Your words the other day made complete sense. I should at least think about learning a bit of self-defense. " Golden hues fixate on viridian ones, expression contemplative. " The goal isn't to impress anyone, but I want to protect others. Tell me... where do I start training? Never in my life... have I touched a sword. " Your hands aren't made to handle fire and steel.

Such a philosophy seems antiquated now. He needs to grow stronger...

Even before Lumen began to talk, there was a sinking feeling that bubbles in the Aegir's visage. Zephyr has worked and dealt with people from all walks of life. From the warriors and generals of Ursus as they relaxed in the clubs to the bandits of the wilds while keeping his kin in health, and now to the labyrinthian psyche that made up the roster of Rhodes Island. So the Liberi knows when someone is in a little deeper when he sees em. Deeper, fish, ha, anyway-

"Oho? Well. Lets hear it, then." A rhetorical statement precluding philosophical waxing of the poetic inclination. So it is prophesized. So it passes. Zephyr may not be the best idea for a teacher that matches up in values to the gentler nobler Iberian, but he's not the worst either. Little bit of ego. More than a little. Is it possible for Zephyr to admit he's not amazing at something?

"Alrighty then."

Lumen isn't unlike an unkempt shrubbery. Messy to look at but capable of being shaped into a variety of forms. A dastard would take advantage of that. But there's brighter blood running through the former hunter's veins than even the body may realize. To be a teacher. Force of good. There's props to that outside of improving his treading reputation.

"Maybe you haven't realized it, Lumie, but you answered your own question on where to start. First time for everything, right? You gotta pick up a sword. Hold it. See what it feels like. Could be you like it could be it sucks. Just like ladies, there's compatibility when it comes to weapons. But there's some ice to be broken. Here. Try mine. May not be ideal for what you're going for but ..."

The Liberi shrugs, and from his person the weapon is drawn from his hip. A short blade meant to be used in one hand, partnering well with a dagger and for swift and close-quartered strikes. In a drawn out clash it'd fall short, and struggles of strength it'd find itself losing out. But maybe it was that same lightness that would ease in the Aegir.

Zephyr spins the weapon once in his hand, then turns it- gripped by the blade- so the grip and pommel are offered out to Lumen.

"Give that some cartoon swings. Careful though. It's sharp. Also maybe a little bloody."

Seeing as he just used it in a mission that he returned from. No biggie, right? . . . right?

[lillaxtrigger]

Street Smart: Chapter 23

The swirl of a loading wheel spirals all across the screen before the scene shows the inside of a baby’s bedroom; an ear piercing bawling can immediately be heard as soon upon entering. Standing aside a changing table, a man nervously looks down to a crying infant as its diaper soils with disgusting brown sauce. “Honey, The baby wont stop crying. And I don’t know why.” Yet despite beckoning for another to come to his aid, the man baits no response outside the bedroom; left to only gaze down to the baby on the table as it wails harder than before. Panic starts to set in as the infant’s nappy rapidly swell by the second, leaking out a fowl mixture of feces and piss; the baby’s crying harder and louder as its diaper expands. The guy watching all of this unfold quivers as he can do little but watch the situation escalate. The problem reaches its climax when the bottom half of the infant violently erupt in a geyser of red and brown mix of poo and pee, gushing out from the baby’s blown bottom and spray all across the entire; the man becoming hysterical as he watches this nightmarish chaos unfold. “Oh my god, there’s shit everywhere! Its all over the fucking walls!” the guy screams.

All of this madness was displayed from the TV screen set along the end of the safehouse’s living room; his demented program holding the eyes of both Frida and Thursotte as they watch from the comfort of the repaired and patched up couch. “You know, I sometimes imagine what my life would be if I simply chose different interests and careers; maybe then I would be sitting here watching a show about a baby expelling a geyser of shit, piss, and organs.” wonders Frida. “I just wonder if this is okay for Sunny to watch.” Thurs follows with, looking down to the sound controlling kid sitting on the floor as he intently watches the show. “Oh my god, Harold! What have you done to our baby!?” a woman’s voice shrieks. “I don’t what happened! He just shat himself to death!” “Its on the floor; its in your mouth, our baby’s colon is in your mouth!” ‘Belughrhheueeuheu!” “Meh, I’m sure the kid’ll be fine. Gotta lose that childhood innocence eventually.”

“What streaming service is this from, anyway?” asks Thurs. “I’m afraid that its not possible to install any streaming service down here.” Mr. July then informs, Thursotte yelping as he scoots back when the host pops out from between the cushions. “Can’t get anyone in here to install it without compromising the location.” “Then...what are we watching?” “Sometimes, my thoughts, memories and dreams stream themselves into whatever visual output happens to be plugged in. I don’t know why it happens, it just does.” the host admits. With the horrific realization of the show they were all watching was in reality a sick peek of their hosts psyche, Thursotte peers back in horror as the scene they behold looms to the parents of the exploded infant; the spouses shouting threats as they point their guns towards one another. “You sick son of bitch! I’m gonna fucking kill you!” the wife swears. “Not if I blow your brains out first!” the husband threatens. The bangs and blasts of firearms ringing out from the Television, Thurs constantly shifts his sites from the show and over to their enigmatic host; their blood curdling screams causing the young man’s stomach to plummet.

Amidst this terrifying respite, everyone’s attention is drawn to the door as its kicked wide open and see Satette entering the living room as she lets out an exacerbated sigh; her dressed covered in stains of scarlet and bits of meat. “Shwew. Glad I got that mess worked out.” “Sat!” Sunny exclaims, all three of them rising from their seats. “Is Wedsle okay?” “Oh sure. Real messy biological stitch job, but I managed to patch him up. Weds would’ve wound a lot worse had Mr. July not had all the compatible organs on hand.”

“Organs? Like actual human organs?” Thursotte questions. “Oh, yes.”answers July “Where did you even...” “I harvest them from people I lure in here.” “What!?” “How you think I can afford my collection of imported furniture?” “Oh, that’s what those are. When I found them in the fridge, I thought they were sheep’s bladders. Had this weird craving for haggis one night and used those; I could hardly tell.” “Frida, you ate them!?” Sat questions. “How was I supposed to know they came from a person?” “Why would you keep organs in the kitchen fridge!?” Thurs demands out of their host. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you happen to find any other cold storage I could use?” Mr. July snidely claps back with. “I want to go see him!” Sunny demands, zooming right past them all and through the door Sat came out of.

Following after the little sound silencing squirt, everyone else pours into the bedroom to find their violet leader nestled comfortably in the embrace his bed, with most of his body wrapped in gauze and bandages; Wedsle watching them all come in with a cheeky grin. “Hey, Weds. You feeling alright?” first asks Frida. “Well, I recently had the pleasure of a woman exploring my body...just not in the way that I hoped.” “Okay, yeah. You’re fine.” “Now, it might take about a week or so for all the new organs and muscle tissue to properly integrate to your body. But after that, you’ll be as good as new.”

“A week, are you serious? We don’t have that kind of time.” the purple psychic objects. “Whelp, tell that to your recovering immune system; but if its even a tiny bit as stubborn as you, I don’t see it listening.” jests Frida. “God dammit!” “What’s got you bent, Weds? Relaxing in bed for about a week? I don’t see the reason to be so ornery.” Thurs asks. “It’ll be any day now before the dear doc hears about the location of his lab having been leaked. And once news of that reaches his ears, Dr. December’s gonna be out of there faster than your shadier relatives on Christmas. Pilfering and picking every single thing they can before flying south for the winter. We might as well kiss our one chance of taking back the stone goodbye, because we’ll be sorely screwed.”

“Wedsle. I’m so so so sorry. If you didn’t fight for me back in my old neighborhood; you wouldn’t be this hurt.” Sunny sobs. “Kid, quit with the water works; we were after that bastards head, anyway. Avenging your folks was just a nice bonus.” assures Weds “But what are you gonna do if you can’t even get out of bed?” “Eh, don’t sweat it. Weds might be out of commission, but the rest of us ain’t.” Sat declares. “Xcuse me?” “You don’t gotta worry a hair on your violet greasy hair; just leave getting the stone back to us.” “You mean just throw you all guys down into the biggest wolf den in the whole woods? I don’t think so.” denies the violet psychic. “We haven’t had problems with any of the other crap you’ve sent us on; Why not?” Frida further questions. “That was all just small shit. This is a whole ass septic tank.” “Even so, its like you said. Time is of the essence, and we can’t stand here waiting for it to flush down; we need to get down in here and clean the…I-I don’t know where I’m going with this whole plumber analogy. But the point is we need to get down in there now.” reinforces Tuesco.

“Ugh! Fine, you guys got me pegged. There’s not chance in hell I’m rocking my cock off in this condition. But I ain’t sending you down in the ditches with your thumbs up ya butts. Even if it does wind up sinking,  there still has to be somebody taking the wheel. That somebody’s gotta be real lean mean machine, someone I’ve seen take names and kick ass all the same. It has to be someone I’d know for a fact would gladly dive down a fox hole of explosives and dig themselves out just to finish the job. But most importantly, they have to be somebody I trust on every single facet. And I’d feel the most comfortable that being-” “Wedsle, I’m touched. I mean I’ve only been with you guys for about half year now, but to think you seeing that highly is-” Satette says with a warm smile. “Sat. I was gonna say Frida should take the lead.” Weds correct. “Oh...Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.”

“Okay, we got a lead; but what about a sitter? We need somebody here to watch over the little guy right here while the rest of us are gone.” brings up Tuesco, tussling Sunny’s hair. “What!?” the boy denies. “Good point. He obviously can’t come with us, but we can’t just leave him here with Wedsle either.” Satette adds. “What the fu- Why not?” “Physical complications aside, leaving such a young and impressionable child behind with somebody so perverse and with an ambiguously amoral compass might not be the best idea.” argues Thursotte. “Oh sure, when the rest of you teach him something, its an important life lesson. But when I do it, I’m suddenly contributing to the delinquency of a minor? Well maybe some delinquency is what a kid need in this cruel, hopeless, and greed fueled world, you ever think of that?” “I’m sure that July can keep a hawks eye on the little squirt while were gone.” claims Frida.

“This isn’t fair. The rest of you get to break into a secret lab of a mad scientist while I’m stuck here doing nothing. Why do I have to get left behind?” “Sunny, this ain’t some kind of old video game or cheesy campy late 90 action movie.” Satette starts to explain. “How this mission turns out could determine the fate of not just you, not just us, but everyone living in this city, maybe even beyond. I know you don’t wanna hear it, but we can’t focus on that while making sure you stay out of trouble. I’m sorry Sunny, but you can’t join us, that’s final.” The decision cemented over the matter, the kid’s face quickly turns sour before he stomps out of the room; everyone flinching as he slams the door behind him.

The lively psychic lets out a weary sigh from how miffed the boy became lamenting how: “Maybe I should talk with him.” “Meh, he’s been through worse, he’ll get over it. Besides, there ain’t no time to. The earlier you guys break into the dear doctors lab, the better chance the psychic stone can be pilfered from his vaguely artificial mitts. You all need to be like a pick pocketing hoe after stealing from the guy she banged. Be swift, be stealthy, be uh…striking. We might not know a thing about Decembers lair aside how to get in; it could be big, it could be layered with traps, it could fuck you all over six ways from Sunday if your not careful. And not in the fun way where you get to meet new people either.” “Weds, come on. Like that’s stopped any of us before?” Sat reminds. “It didn’t then, and it won’t now. Take my word as a former CIA agent, I’ll make sure that little bauble gets back in our hands before the doc know’s its gone.” “Alright, I know your words are worth their weight in pounds of imported cocaine. With you as the second in command, I know you’ll lead this motley crew of criminals and rejects out into the horizon of the fresh open sea.” “Yeah, you can count on it.” the 2nd dimensional psychic assures with a hint of false confidence.

Though Frida is ultimately assured of her dedication to take the crew down into the bowels of the doctors lab, splinters of doubt bore into her mind as she leads them all through the tunnels of the city sewers; none of them able to notice her worry as they all steer clear of the unsanitary dangers around them. The rancid river of piss, the slippery sides they walk upon, the foul stench haunting the very air; all of it encapsulating an experience each of them deal with differently. While Frida meanwhile was too caught up in her own thoughts to take in any of the sites, sounds and smells around them, Thursotte on the other hand is, as expected, repulsed by the mixture of grueling sensations; the young man pinching his nose as he fans away the foul stink. Tuesco on the other hand finds his own solution to repel away the horrendous odors that plague the tunnel they travel across in the form of a bubble of solid air encapsulating his head; the transparent dome keeping the terrible stench of the sewers at bay.

“You’re gonna run out of air in that thing, you know that right?”Thurs warns Tuesco. “I got about 20-25 minutes in this thing before then. I’m sure we’ll be up in the doctors lab by that time. You sure you don’t want me to make you one.” the air solidifying psychic offers. “No thanks, I actually prefer to breath. Even if that air is crusty sewer smell, its still air.” “What about you Sat, you want a bubble to breath in.” Tues then asks, glancing back to the lively psychic following them. “Nah, I’m good. It ain’t that bad for me, really.” she turns down. “What do you mean it ain’t that bad? We’re walking right beside a literal river of urine and feces; how the hell are you not heaving?” wonders Thurs. “Well, my dad used to be a sewer plumber back when I was a kid; and every night when he got back home, he smelled pretty close to this. I guess I just got used to it. Feels more nostalgic than anything.” “That’s not something a person should freely admit to being used to.” Tuesco advises. “Either way, I’m just hoping we don’t have to ravel through this place much longer; I’d rather take the sense of danger than the smell of poo and pee anyday of the week, you know what I’m saying Frida...Frida?”

The words of Frida’s partner baiting her out from her funk, the 2 dimensional psychic shakes off the looming sense of worry and respond with: “Ye-yeah. Sup Thurs?” “You’re spacing out a lot; are you doing okay?” “Oh yeah, sure. Never better. You?” “Frida, come on.” Thursotte further pushes, an obvious sign he knows that she’s not feeling all that well. A cautious sigh escapes from between her lips as she gives out the tough and cool act to admit: “Its just...There’s seriously a lot riding on this. I’ve had my share of escaping from sticky situations, babysitting some of our, uh, less competent partners.” “I can still hear out of this thing you know.” Tuesco claims. “This meanwhile is a lot bigger than those.” “Come on, Frids. I’m sure something like this isn’t that different from a mission in your CIA days.” “Maybe, but those times, I was always taking orders from whatever head of operations I was assigned to. Now, I’ve been put up as the head, and I’m not sure if I’ll make a good one. I’m a sniper, not a leader. Like, what if I get one of you guys-” “Hey, hey, Frida.” Thurs then returns her attention with. “Just, think back to when you were with your old team. From the way you described it, it sounds to me like everyone on your team was like one giant contraption; each of them playing their part to get the task at hand done as smoothly and efficiently as possible. If your feeling like its too much, just remember that your part of that same unstoppable machine just like every one of us.” “Thurs...that’s seriously some of the cheesiest shit I’ve heard come out of your mouth. But...a little bit of dairy sounds like just the thing I need to build up my backbone.” claims Frida, her words bringing a hopeful smile to the chaotic psychic.

Right on the cusp of this uplifting pep talk, Frida’s eyes widen when looking back to discover a shadow lurking around the corner behind them; her smile vanishing while she silently nudges her head around to return her teams sites to where they came from. Upon everyone at once glancing back at the same time, the shadowy figure darts back into the corner; an obviously suspicious notion that whoever is following them doesn’t want to find out. Knowing they’re being followed, the gang carry on through the sewer tunnel like as if they never saw; a farce of which lends their stalker the confidence to continue tailing them. Yet in the middle of attempting to quietly follow the four, the shadowy stalker trips against what seemed to be a bar of solid air and is sent plummeting into the flowing sewer river; all of them peering back to watch with cathartic glee their stalker flailing in the foul water.

Their satisfaction immediately shatters as they see the figure be carried towards them; the fair bits of light atop the tunnel revealing them their stalker having been the sound controlling kid thought to have been left back at the safehouse, coughing and hacking as he desperately stay afloat. “Sunny!?” Thursotte exclaims. Realizing this, Satette is the first among them to delve into the sewer river and swim after the flailing young boy, paddling across the waters as fast as she could in hopes of making it to Sunny. Just when moments away from sinking into the flowing river, the kid is lifted out from its dirty depths by the lively psychic and is swam back to the side of the tunnel; safely dragged back onto the tunnels solid walkway.

Once back on the tunnel path, Sunny hacks up what water manage to slip into his mouth in struggling to swim, all the while the others gather around to make sure he was alright. “Easy, kid. Breath through your nose.” Tuesco tells him, kneeling down to pat the boy’s back. After a couple more moments of coughing out the last of the water, Sunny does what Tues advises and breaths through his nostrils; slowly but surely recovering his breath. “You good there?” Thurs asks him. “Agh...agh...yeah.” the kid finally speaks. “You sure.” “...Pretty…pretty sure.” “Glad to hear your alright. So, now that we’re sure that your all hunk dory, can you answer one question for me?” Sat calmly states. “Yeah. Wha-” “What the hell were you doing down here stalking us!?”

“Its just.... Why do all of you get to help while I have to stay cooped up at the safehouse.” “We’ve been through this already. This ain’t some trip to the playground, we’re down here doing some serious shit. Its not some game you think you can just barge your way in. Lives could be at stake.” tells Frida. “I know it isn’t. But I-.” “Kid, we’re not going through this again. Get your butt back to the safehouse before Wedsle knows your gone.” Tuesco sternly orders. “That’s why I want to help!” the boy then exclaims. “What are you talking about?” asks Satette. “Wedsle’s in the shape he’s in because he took down the monster that killed my parents. Its cause of me he’s not down here with you guys on your guys’ most important mission yet. I can’t go back up there to face him, not after all putting himself through all that for my sake. That’s why I’m not gonna leave. I won’t leave. Not until I make it up to him.” Sunny proclaims, standing back up on his feet. “Sunny, we know you mean well, but we can’t risk bringing you where we’re going; you could seriously get yourself killed. He might not admit, but it’d devastate Wedsle knowing you needlessly risked the life you have ahead of you.” Thursotte explains.

“Hang on a sec there.” Frida then cuts in with, staring down to the kid find the determination held in his eyes. “You sure you want in on this, kid?” “Yu uh.” the boy goes, putting on a brave face. “Frida, are you really thinking about letting him come along with us?” wonders Sat. “He seems willing. I don’t see the big deal.” “The big deal, woman! Is that we’re debating on taking this 10 year old child down with us into a precarious life and death situation! Are you gonna stand there and tell me we should drag this poor kid down with us!?” staunchly objects Tuesco. “I’m 11!” “I’m surprised your so against this, Tues. You said yourself you witnessed this boy shatter hard solid ice with nothing but the vibrations of his whistle. A power like his could save us plenty of precious time and energy breaking through some of the security the doctor no doubt has installed. Choosing to forgo such a unique skill set in this precocious problem we have ahead of us sounds a little foolhardy, don’t you think?” elaborates Frida. “You can’t be serious.”

“Frida, even if his powers could help us sneaking through Dr. Decembers Lab, do you even think he’s ready for something like this? I mean, we’ve only had a couple days to teach him the basics. He’s only been with us on just a few jobs; bringing him down here on the biggest one we’ve been on so far, well…” Thurs then chimes in with. “Thurs, you’ve been with us on some of the craziest, life threatening situations back when you had next to no idea on how to use your own psychic powers, and it didn’t stop you from growing into a force to be reckoned with. If the overly cautious little bitch you used to be can grow into a helluva typhoon, then we got nothing to worry about with this kid. Plus, he’s been surviving on the streets for about uh...how long?” summerizes Frida. “About 4 months.” Sunny answers. “4 long grueling months and come out of that relatively okay, he’ll definitely be alright with us. Right kid?” “I saw a homeless man get stabbed to death for a sandwich once.” “Besides, it’s like you said, each one of us is just one part to a whole unit; so him around is like an add on to make this machine run better than ever.” “I don’t think your taking my uplifting analogy the right way.” states Thursotte. “Come on, Sat. You know how much he could help out. Back me up here.” Frida requests to the lively psychic. “I...I don’t know if I feel alright with this. He’s so young, and if something happens, well…”

A weary sigh seeps out from between Frida’s lips as she moves over to stand before the rest of the crew, all before declaring that: “Okay. I didn’t wanna pull this dick move, but it seems I gotta. We need every advantage we can get breaking into Decembers lab, and I ain’t gonna stand here and piss them away. Wedsle left me in charge of this ship, and as long as I’m acting captain, the kid’s coming with us. That clear?” Upon the dimensional psychic putting her foot down, Tuesco’s demeanor harshly bitters as he walks past while simply uttering: “Crystal.” Both Thurs and Sat don’t fair much better with her as they follow the air solidifying psychic, remaining silent with upset and disappointed glares; ones that Frida tries to bare before peering over to the sound controlling kid and ordering to: “Well, come on, kid. Got a real bumpy road ahead of us.” With an affirming nod, Sunny joins the rest of them in their trek through the tunnels of the metropolitan sewers; the fresh sensation of confidence the dimensional psychic had been boosted with wavering once more.

Their trek through the filth ridden tunnels remains as dank and damp for around several more shafts and turns; the dark and moist atmosphere weighing down upon them until coming to a break in the tunnels brick walls. Planted right in the middle of their path, perched against the tunnel wall, stood what seemed to be a mechanical control panel made of sleek chrome; one that seemed as if it had been installed relatively recently. “I’m not that much of an expert on sewer system architecture, but I’m sure something like that isn’t supposed to be there.” Thurs claim. “Yeah, even for the Manhattan tunnels, this seems pretty far fetched.” Tuesco agrees. “What do you think that panel’s supposed to be for?” then questions Satette. “Lets see and find out.” suggests Frida.

Curious of what could be within the enclosed control panel, the dimensional psychic comes up to the bit of tech  and slaps her hand across its locked lid; Frida run her arm across the panels 2nd dimension to slip into the keyhole. She constantly prods through the inside of the lock in hopes of cracking the control panel open; but instead of hearing the crack of the lock breaking, all Frida hears is the harsh crack of electricity as she’s shocked from within the keyhole. The others are quick to come to her aid as she pulls herself out from the depths of the keyhole, all of them saving her from taking a nasty dip in the river. “Jesus! Frida, you okay there?” Thurs worries. “Yeah, yeah. Just didn’t expect that. Least with this shocking revaluation, we know we’re on the right track.” “Booooo!” Sunny jeers, holding a thumbs down to her leaders cheap ass pun.

“Well, we found the gate. Now we just need a way to break the lock.” Tues then summarizes. Its then that all of them hear the distinct sound of a false cough, baiting their attention over to the lively psychic standing next to them; who starts to brag how: “Not to brag but, I fancy myself a little bit of a lock pick prodigy; had my fair share of breaking into doors, safes, even the occasional drawer before I joined up with you guys.” “Not doubting it Sat, but I don’t think even the best lock pick in the world could break through; long as it’s holds the lethal voltage of a comic book villains joy buzzer, no pick is picking at that electric hazard.” “Maybe not with some regular pick, but the one I’ve just got might.”

Confident of such, Satette waltzes over to the mysterious control panel as she conjures a pinch of natural green aura upon her finger, poking at its keyhole to send a smidgen of her power crawling within. “And 3, 2, 1.” she chimes as she steps back from the box. Upon the end of the countdown, Satette’s friends are astonished to see the strange control panel suddenly lets out vicious sparks from underneath its steel lid; the box momentarily crackling and banging before a plume of smoke blows open the panel lid.

“What the...how in the hell did you-” babbles Frida. “Let me answer that by asking you all something. What do you think that the river beside us is filled with?” the lively psychic follows with. “Poo and pee?” Thursotte first answers. “Uh, yeah...W-what else?” “Flushed down incriminating evidence.” Tues then claims. “I guess that can be true, but that’s not what I-” “Water!” Sunny the jests. “No! Just let me-” “Well, quit dicking us around and say it.” Frida then demands. “Bacteria, this river is swimming in bacteria! God, I thought that would’ve been simpler.” laments Sat.

“The heck does biology 101 that gotta do with this?” Tues follows with. “See, while I was fishing Sunny out from a fate that some people would have nightmares of, I went and beckoned to some of the more active germs and microbes that hung around some of the grimier parts of the river. I figured something so small and eager to infect could come save us in a pinch; I didn’t expect a pinch this shocking and so soon.” “I get it.  You commanded the germs to worm through the lock and disable the electric trap.” “Great, so what’d your little germ gesture get us?” the dimensional psychic brings the conversation back to.

From beyond the vial of smoke against the control panel, all of them are amazed to suddenly see the tunnel wall move apart; its brick face nothing but a visage to cover the chromatic steel steel it was actually made of. Beyond this false wall revealed a hidden elevator sporting the exact same chromium steel, its doors slowly parting to present up its cold and uncaring inside. “Huh’ that’s convenient.” Tues comments. “Too convenient. Almost like the doc’s inviting us in.” suspects Satette. “Well, we don’t got much other options on the table. Think we should take it?” Thurs questions. “Even if the doc got the place rigged, this might be our one and only chance to get in So, invited or not, we gotta take it.” Frida decides. Their minds set on taking this obvious ploy, the motley crew step right into the inviting elevator’s cold chromatic steel chamber; each of them feeling a foreboding and tense sense of worry upon stepping inside.

As soon as the chamber’s doors shut tight, all of them feel the elevator descend, some of their stomachs churning as they sink further down into whatever unknown depths they’re whisked to. It’s among waiting for their stop that all of them suddenly feel the chamber cease its decent, the crew bracing themselves for whatever may rush out at them from the other side of the door. But rather than the pair of doors standing before them sliding open, the floor beneath them instead parts from beneath their feet to make them plummet down into the depths of the abyss; the light of the elevator disappearing in the darkness as they fall.

“Everyone, grab onto each other!” Tuesco demands. Quick to hold onto one another like the air solidifying psychic advises, they suddenly feel their descent come to a sudden stop; all of them hearing Tues let out a relieve sigh as he says: “Wow, can’t believed that worked.” “I can’t see a damn thing, what’d you do?” asks Sat. “I got a light, hang on.” Thurs claims. With the push of a button, a small flashlight expels a beam of luminescence to pierce through the darkness; lending them a slice of vision among the shadows. Thursotte aims his small light upwards for the light to shine upon the others; all of them holding onto one another as they hang in the middle of the air. Suspending all of them be the air solidifying psychic suspended at the top; clutching against a freshly made pipe of solid air he had constructed between the shaft walls. “Are all of you okay?” Tues asks them. “We’re fine. A bit shaken, but in one piece.” Frida reports. “Talk about pulling the rug on us. A little announcement would’ve been nice.” Sat snides.

“Whelp, seems we wound up stuck in the middle of this shaft;  only two ways to go, up or down. Which one, Frida?” Thurs then questions. “Uhh…” A look around the part of the chromatic shaft all of them were suspended in, the dimensional psychic’s attention is brought to a pair of doors a little ways below them; the sliding doors meant for where the elevator would’ve stopped. “Looks like our ride’s gonna resume to its destination. Those doors down there are just tight enough for me to squeeze everyone through.” On Frida’s words does everyone grow strangely quiet, the dimensional psychic peering to the others as she wonders: “What’d I say?” “Nothing. I just feel like something’s missing.” claims Thurs.

Out from the other side of the elevator doorway, the dimensional psychic slides out from the tight space between the twin doors with the rest of the crew in tow; all of them taking in a breath of fresh air the moment they pop out of the wall and spill onto the floor. “You know, it feels kind of weird not having Wedsle around making about 7 dirty innuendo like an immature teenager.” Satette states. “That’s it.” claims Thursotte.

As all of them peer to which part of their foe’s layer they slipped into, they are astonished to discover standing before them several hallways made from slick metal walls, with lengthy wires that slither and slide across their surface in different directions. A look up to the ceiling shows them a myriad of pipes of which pulsate as something glowing within moves down their insides. Even the floor was no mere solid surface, for underneath its glass panels can small robots and machine be seen crawling along like an ant colony. Just the hallway alone was enough to lend the impression of all of them having not broke into any simple facility, but rather the inner of a giant machine. “Wow. This is all very...futuristic.” Thurs claims. “Feels like we’ve broke into a sci fi spaceship.” comments Tuesco. “Wow. This looks so cool.” Sunny awes.

“This place is so big; the stone could be anywhere. We’re do we even start to look?” wonders Sat. “The doc’s gonna realize is little rug pull didn’t pan out as well as he hoped, so that doesn’t leave us with much time to scour through every inch of this faux future hole. I say splitting up to cover more ground is our best bet here.” suggests Frida. “Frida, considering the kind of first impression this place’s already given, you sure that’s the best idea.” worries Thursotte, glaring down to the little insect like automatons that scuttle underneath the glass. “Alright, how about two groups? You tag along with Sat, so while both of you go bust some of the doors down around here and see what sort of sick surprises are waiting inside. I’ll be taking both of the other boys with further down into the shaft with; see if maybe our prized mcguffin is somewhere deeper inside. That sound better to ya?” “Can I give a second opinion?” Tues tries to interject. “Nope.” Frida shuts down.

Clutching both the psychic of air and sound by their shirt collars, Frida jerks both Tues and Sunny back to the elevator door with her; the three shifting into the door’s second dimension to squeeze through the space between. “Come on, boys. We got some “Weee!” cheers the kid. “Wait, I’m not ready-” Tuesco exclaims. The three slurp through the crack in the twin doors as cleanly as water draining down the sink, leaving both Sat and Thurs to peruse through the hall of this floor of metallic majesty; the lively psychic left a tad concerned as she turns to Thursotte and wonder: “So...You think Frida’ll be okay watching Sunny?” “Ehhhmmeehhmmeehh...I don’t know. If she’s as good with children as she is with her guns, then we got nothing to worry about.”

Sliding down the darkened wall of the elevator shaft with both the boys in hand, slips into the crack of a small vent and slithers across air ducts as cleanly as a serpent; the two she drags with her holding their breath as she takes them across the tunnel. Its coming upon the first vent she see’s that the dimensional psychic delves through the grate to pop out from the other side; the trio dropping down into the room the vent leads. The first of them to land, Frida catches both of her crewmates before they can fall to the floor; Sunny and Tuesco taking in breathes of fresh air as they rise back on their feet. “You know, a little word of warning before dragging us to who know’s where couldn’t hurt.” the air solidifying psychic complains. “Whelp, now you know how I felt in my early CIA years. Everytime I got an assignment, something that could go wrong, often did. Helped me stay on my toes all these years.” Frida comments. “Where are we?” Sunny being the first to ask.

Peering into the room that they had dropped into, their astonishing surprise swiftly reinflates when discovering themselves to be in the corner of what seemed to be a bigger part of the laboratory housing a dozen of the insect like androids that they’ve seen earlier. The mechanical bugs swarms along piles of miscellaneous stuff that range from household objects, discarded trash, even some biological matter, all that the insects tear apart and break down into material they then carry to receptacles along on the side of the walls; a bright tan light shining from within the disposal as it opens. “What are those things doing?” the boy wonders aloud. “Don’t know. Don’t matter. Only thing we need to worry about is sneaking through without any of those bugs spotting us.” advises Frida. “Are you kidding? There’s so many of them, though. We’re lucky they haven’t swarmed us yet. How do you expect us to do that?” Tuesco stresses. “It doesn’t look like they even know we’re in here. It’s like they don’t even care we broke in.” the sound controlling kid claims. “All the more easier to paruse right on by, grab on.” the dimensional psychic orders, holding her hand out to the two. Grasping at their team leaders hands, both Tues and Sunny take in deep breaths as they’re both pulled into the wall beside them with Frida; the trio sliding across to go over the debris the swarm of robotic insects break apart.

Though the majority of the android like bugs scuttle across the piles of unsorted garbage across the floor, there is about a fraction of them crawling across the walls in their seemingly never ending task; carrying the balls of garbage they collect down into the shoot that line the sides of the chamber. Frida swerves around the insects that scuttle along the walls as she tugs both of the boys with her across the room, constantly making turns in evading where they crawl; Tuesco and Sunny struggling to hold their breaths as they’re whipped around. While traveling across the face of the chromatic wall, one of the insects crawling down ends up touching Sunny’s foot as they slide by; a discovery of which immediately makes the robotic bug start to dig through like the pieces of garbage below. Feeling the bug drilling into his ankle, the sound controlling kid instinctively disperses his aura to silence his shouts of pain; that same aura unfortunately forcing him out of the wall and back into the 3rd dimension. Tuesco forces himself out from the wall as the boy plummets towards the floor, quick to cast his cerulean power down after the boy in hopes of catching him in the nick of time. The air beneath the boy crystallizing, Sunny is caught in a sling of solid air moments before he could descend down upon the swarm of metallic insects below; Tues suspending the boy as Frida keeps the both of them from falling. “You okay, kid?” Tues asks. “I think so. It didn’t get that deep.” Sunny assures, rubbing the spot of his shoe the bug dug through. “Glad to hear. Just hang on.” grunts Frida, straining to pull the two of them back into the wall with her.

Once pulling both of her crewmates back into the safety of the second dimension, wall merging psychic slides further down the wall until coming upon a grate platform on on the other side of the hall; the trio emerging out from the side to stand atop the catwalk that holds nothing but a lone door. “Phew, almost threw my back out with that.” claims Frida, stretching her backside out. “I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t know I’d come out the wall the moment I tried to quiet my own screaming.” the kid apologizes with. “Don’t sweat it. Happens to the best of us.” “Um, no. I think some sweat is worth perspiring here.” Tues cuts in. “Gross.”

“Just look at his leg. If I didn’t catch him in time, those scrapers would’ve scrapped him to pieces. You starting to see why bringing a defenseless kid down here with was a horrible idea.” the psychic of solid air chastises Frida with. “I can help you guys, I swear, just give me a chance to-” “Nah, he’s got a bit of point.” the dimensional psychic admits. “You reckless bi- I do?” “Yeah, can’t believe I missed such an obvious over site. If the kid here gets in a snagged, there ain’t much he can do to fight back. But, I think I got something here that should keep you safe.”

Burrowing among the inside of her denim jacket for a brief moment, Frida takes out a modern style pistol to present to the boy; Sunny gazing to the firearms with a sense of wondrous curiosity. “Cool, a street glock.” “Okay, no!” objects Tuesco, swiping the weapon out from the kids hands. “Hey!” “So, I’m gonna have to be the only rational adult in the room and say no to giving the 11 year old child a loaded handgun.” “We’ll how else do you expect him to defend himself down here, whistle real loud and hope the sound somehow causes a malfunction in their circuits?” “He shouldn’t even be down here in the first place!”

Its while the adults are arguing among themselves that Sunny’s attention wonders over to the part of the disposal hall they had just finished traversing, alarmed to discover chunks of the chromatic wall shaking off; steel wires and tendrils wriggling out from underneath these sheets of steel. “Uh…Ms. Frida!” the boy utters. “So he’s a bit on the young side, does that mean he can’t prove himself?” the gun woman counters. “This isn’t about pride, its about putting him in danger.” argues Tuesco. Once soon popping out from the shiny steel wall, the wires underneath the sheets of metal starts to rapidly weave among each other as they form into pairs of fin like wings. “M-Mr. Tuesco.” Sunny again attempts to grab their attention with. “So your idea of proving himself is to be needlessly put in mortal peril? He’s been through enough already.” barks Tuesco. “You saw how the kid looked at how beat up Weds was after avenging his parents, you think he should try to resolve those mixed feelings and let it fester into guilt?” Emerging out from the backs of these sheets of steel be thin, but sharp tails that hold a tan sparking glow right against their tips; that same beige glow matched in their stingers as that bubble out from the other end; the several security drones coming together into a flock of hovering steel manta rays. “Guys, look!” the sound controlling kid screeches.

Their glowing beige tails aimed to the three, the flock of mechanical manta whip them out to let loose a volley of bright beams from their tips; both Frida and Tuesco finally paying attention when the barrage of blasts start raining down upon them. “Oh shit!” the dimensional psychic exclaims. “Stand back!” Tues demands, leaping in front of them as he holds he erects a barrier of solid air. Tuesco’s transparent barricade fends off the barrage of beams effectively; though it doesn’t stop the swarm of metal manta from advancing after them. “Flee now, fight later!” he states. “See, now we’re on the same page.” Frida compromise. “We’re are not through talking about this!” Taking the sound controlling kid by the hand, Frida and Sunny hurry through the door behind them, racing out of the disposal chambers with Tuesco following after; the flock of mechanical manta ray delving into the door to pursue the intruders.

A couple more of those mechanical manta swim across the hallways that stand several floors above; their steel wings letting them float across the chromatic corridors in search of the intruders they were deployed to find. The doors lining the hallway slide open as they hover over to lend the security drones a brief peek inside for searching through the facility, only to find nothing awaiting within. Behind one of these doors does one of the manta peer in, unaware of the intruders it seeks standing right next to it, standing closely against the walls beside the doorway. As soon as the fish themed security drone enters a fair ways into the room, both Satette and Thursotte cleanly slip back out into the hall and sneak around the corner. Peeking out around the hall they just crawled away from, a quiet sigh escapes from Sat’s mouth when watching the last of the metal manta glide away. Its among searching across the hall behind her that the lively psychic discovers something slide inside one of the open doorways; the part of its body she had caught draped in electrical piping and wires that drag across the floor. Silently does Satette grab her partners attention and direct them over to the door she had seen the thing slither through; Thursotte following her as they both sneak to the door.

Coming upon the closed chromatic door, they inspect the face for any kind of way to open it back up, only to find nothing but an electronic keypad taking the place of a lock. “Oh jeez, a digital lock? There’s no way we can break through it, not unless one of us is some kind of secret super hacker or something.” Thurs claims. “Well, I might not so much about computers, I do know a little something about some pretty nasty bugs they can get.” states Satette, reaching her hand over to the keypad. From the lively psychic’s arm, a colony of miscellaneous bugs comes crawling down to her hands and crossing over to the digital pad from her fingertip; the insects squeezing their way through the cracks to make quick work of the lock, with with the inside of the digital pad sparks and crackles. “Where the hell did you get those bugs?” “Sewer.” “Uh...You’re right, stupid question.” Thursotte admits, the chrome door sliding open before them.

As soon as the two step inside the mysterious chamber, the doorway leading out suddenly slides shut on them with a loud thud; Thurs turning back to try and force the door open, only to no avail. “Dammit! We’re locked in!” he exclaims. “Don’t sweat it, Thurs. We can bust our way out if we have to.” Sat assures. “Hmph, a feat I would be fascinated to observe.” “What, you don’t think I can do it?” she argues. “Sat...That wasn’t me.” Thurs then shutters. “Then who…”

“Your partner is correct.” both of them hear a synthetic voice confirm. “The steel consisting of my domain was constructed to be stronger than platinum. An expense necessary for the research and experiments that I conduct down here.” “Your domain. Guess that makes you the dear doc we’ve dug down here to defeat, huh?” Sat assumes. “Indeed. You currently speak to the master of this technological fortress. I know I’ve garter a reputation out upon the streets above, countless of your kin referring to me as something of an urban legend. Let me put your doubts to rest that you speak to the very same man whispered in shadows. Let me introduce myself as Dr. Delco December!” the voice proclaims.

“Where even are you?” asks Thursotte as the two gaze out in the room before them. “Yeah, too much of a quivering pussy to come out and take us on face to face?” taunts Sat. “Oh, if only you two were aware.” the doctor responds with glee. “But I know why you all have foolishly decided upon yourselves to infiltrate my den of ingenious prowess; to pluck the stone of psychic power out from my grasp. Rest assured that what you desire is close at hand, but you lot are moronic if you think I will simply hand it over to you.” “Yeah, tough shit! We’re getting out of this tacky sci-fi looking dump with the stone weather you like it or not.” the lively psychic declares. “I must admit, your eagerness is admirable. Perhaps with that gusto, you two can aid me in running some experiments.” the doc insists.

Its in that instant that the rest of the room the two stand within flashes brightly, the shadows departing to unveil a pedestal holding what appeared to seemingly be an ordinary big battery. “A car battery?” Thurs wonders. “Indeed, but one I modified to harbor an incredibly potent power source: cold fusion generator. The output just one unit alone can produce constant power to entire city block.” “That’s, amazing! But how can you-” “However, I know full well this city holds its fair share of leeches that would kill for a source this powerful, a contingency I’ve fully prepared to counter. You see, there exist companies and corporations out there that dump countless sums of money in protecting their precious energy grids, which is why I’ve cut the middle man of security straight out.”

Suddenly protruding out from the side of the seemingly ordinary car battery, a line of electrical raceways and wires comes shooting out to whip its charged end towards the two intruders; Satette and Thursotte leaping out of the way before the wires strike the ground and unleash a blast of lightning upon impact. Glancing back to the battery, both are astonished to see more and more of these electric tentacles sprouting out from its surface; raising itself off from the pedestal to stand against them with its elongated wires and pipes. “You see, while I was designing the method of which this battery could connect itself to different power grids, I thought to myself that such methodology could be used as a sort of security system in of itself; it kills what wretches leeches attempt to pry it away and operates at peek efficiently, you couldn’t ask for a better deal.” “Well, when you put it like that…” “Thurs!” “What? I mean he’s not wrong.”

The rest of the battery’s wire flailing about, the chaos inducing psychic rolls aside as another of the batteries whips comes barreling at him: Thurs evading its crackling end by the skin of his teeth. Against the stream of electrically charged wires, all the pair could do was evade their fury; the countless crackling tentacles constantly thrashing about forcing the duo to stay on the evasive. “Nrgh. There’s just too many wires flailing around for me to even get an inch in.” Sat regrets. “Maybe not from you, but I’m packing something that can take way more than a measly inch.” Thursotte claims, digging inside his pants. Just as the battery was on the verge of slithering after them, a single bullet is shot directly into its plastic casing; the bullet lodging itself in its shell as its knocked back. A glance back to her partner in crime, she finds the bulllet having come from a pistol that Thursotte wields; the tip of its barrel smoking from the fresh shot. “Huh. You know, I don’t know why I was expecting something completely different from the way you said that.”

Despite the octopus like robot taking a piece of led right to its side, it takes little time for it to simply rise and once again lash out at the two; Thursotte almost immediately firing at it again as it nears. Yet the two or three more bullets he puts into the battery isn’t nowhere near enough to halt its approach, the machine not even so much as phased as it continues to whip its wires upon them. “Crap! What’s that thing even made of?” he complains. “We gotta find some other way to bust through it, else it’ll only be a matter of time before we get-” the lively psychic warns. Amidst her dire warning, one of the tentacles crackling charged ends up whipping against her side to inflict its lightning like wrath upon her; the young woman letting out a painful shriek as countless volts of electricity runs through her body. “Sat!”

Below the deeper parts of the laboratory, a few mechanical manta float across the stairwell and down the corridor before coming upon an intersection in the hallway; one of them takes to the left as the other goes right; all the while the last goes straight. Unbeknownst to any of them is that the intruders they hunt down were hanging above them the whole time; Frida and the boys dwelling within the surface of the pipes above. Seeing the coast clear, the trio emerge out from between the pipes to drop back down to the floor; all of them taking in their breathes before Tuesco claims how: “Looks like we finally gave them the slip.” “Shame my silencer wouldn’t work down in a place this cramped. Shoot one down, a dozen more would swarm us in no time. If we weren’t on doing stealth, those dinky ass fish’d make great targets.” admits Frida. “They looked cool though, think I’ve seen some of those things on a field trip to the aquarium once.” Sunny mentions. “Still they’d look cool shooting a laser through your head?” the dimensional psychic then asks him. “Yeah, probably.” the boy states without so much as a second thought. “...I like you, kid.”

“You know what else’d be cool, us making it out of here with all of ours intact.” Tuesco says. “Good call. Soon as we nab the stone, we’re bailing out of this hole.” Frida claims. “Yeah, I’d say sooner than later, preferably with him out of here.” “Come on, you’re still on that. The kid says he wants to stay, so he’s staying. Don’t know how many more times I gotta say it.” “I shouldn’t have to say it! Even if he’s willing, a boy his age isn’t ready for something this danger. For god’s sake, I bet you didn’t bother coming up with a game plan before we went down here, did you?” “I’m more of a go with the flow kind of woman.” “Well, that kind of on the fly thinking might’ve worked with you so far, but it ain’t gonna slide down here. There’s so much riding on this, that without any sort of strategy on our hands; we might as well be buried down here.” “Okay, okay. I might be having something going on in the back of my head. It’s just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure of it. You know that big room with all the spiders we came out of?” “Yeah?” Tuesco responds. “Well, they all can’t be toiling away, breaking all that shit down just to toss out again. Wherever they’re chucking it, it’s gotta be somewhere critically important.” “I get it, we stop them; it’ll mess things up around here.” Sunny guesses. “See, kid’s already on the ball. Maybe you should share some of his enthusiasm.” suggests Frida.

“You three won’t get the chance.” all of them then hear somebody deny, each of them gazing around for where this voice may be coming from. “The only way you all are leaving my lab is through the waste processing.” “Your lab? Guess that makes you the dear doc we dug down here to pilfer from.” responds Frida. “Indeed And I’m to assume you three are the rest of the traitorous lot that my bosses had allowed me to experiment on.” “Allowed? So that means-” Tuesco states. “That’s right. Both of them knew it was only a matter of time before you people worked up the courage to infiltrate my lair to take back the stone; so they gave me their permission to do whatever I wish to you all. Believe me when I say I have so much planned for you all.”

“Tell us where the stone is, right now, you cretin!” shouts Sunny. “Don’t think I’m gonna give it to you so…Is that a child? Did you all seriously bring a child down here with you?” “This kid’s got way more to him than meets the eye. You know the saying, big things in small packages?” compliments Frida. “I seriously can’t believe you people, taking a kid down here. I mean, I heard your lot was idiotic, but this is borderline reckless.” “I mean he’s not wrong.” “Not the time, Tues.”

“It doesn’t matter, any who are sent down here are subjected to testing purposes; and I have a rigorous schedule ahead for you all.” Upon this conclusion do pieces of the walls that make up the intersection around them start to come out, with what seemed to be eels of chromatic silicon slithering out int the hallway; the aquatic life form based drones lunging towards their with their maws line with buzz saws. “Split!” the dimensional psychic demands, Frida escaping from the swarm in one direction as both Tuesco and Sunny flee down the other.

Popping a few more shots against the remarkable self defensive battery, Thurs find none of his bullets so much as penetrate through the portable power source’s outer hide. With several of the battery’s spark charged tentacles hurdling his way, he rolls right out of the way as he dips his hand back in his pants, pulling out another mag as he prepares to discard the other. Just when he was about to reload, a loud groan draws his attention back to the side of the chamber to discover Satette slowly waking up from her shocking blow. “Sat!”

Discovering his lively partner still with him, Thursotte is quick to toss his empty magazine out at the flailing robot; the battery effortlessly whipping it away and sending it hurdling overhead. The young man is nowhere near deterred as he fires his weapon right up at the careening empty pistol mag; the bullet he fires out encapsulated in his thick orange power that spreads to the mag upon being struck. Upon being shot, the discarded mag is redirected to hit the pedestal that their electrical foe had risen from; the pistol mag impact combined with Thurs chaotic power causing the stand to tumble down into some of the batteries wires.

With the marvel of power management caught under the weight of its own stand, Thursotte races over to his fallen partners side while the battery was struggling to squirm its way out. “Sat, are you okay?” he first questions, kneeling down to help the lively psychic up. “Agh, man that’s a nasty shock. Probably doesn’t help that I’m still moist from the water.” she claims. “Hmm...Hey, you know that trick you did with the germs back up in the sewer?” “Yeah. But this over glorified car battery tanked about a handful of bullets. Doubt we’re breaking through it anytime soon.” doubts Satette, watching as their mechanical menace start to worm its way out from under the stand. “Maybe we don’t have to.” Thurs assures her.

Seeing the octopus like android slip its wires out from underneath the knocked over pedestal, the two immediately split as the battery lunges out for them;  thrusting and flailing its exposed wire tentacles at them both. When seeing some of the crackling whips streak after her, Satette hops to the side of the chamber and kicks off its chromatic wall to leap right over the barrage of electrical tendrils; the young woman careening across the mess of exposed wires and stamping down upon the battery itself. Stepping atop the power source, Sat kicks off its side to send it tumbling against the very same wall she jumped off of. Among their electrical enemy’s stumble does its tentacles part to expose the same spot where Thurs had shot it before, the pistol bullet still lodged in the battery’s thick shell. Thursotte waste’s not another second to take aim at that very same part and unload his pistol against the machine’s tough hide; one of the bullets successfully managing to strike the same place the other did, burrowing its brother deeper into the batteries hide. “Got it!”

Reviling back from the potshots of led, the mechanical beast thrashes its exposed wiring towards the same man who had fired at it; its crackling arms suddenly freezing up mere moments before even a single end could so much as scratch him. “Guess you still need to put this puppy through a couple more beta tests, Doc.” taunts Sat. “Yeah, seems you still got a couple bugs to work out.” adds Thurs, kicking the whips in front of him aside. Among the part of the battery’s protective shell that had been shot at, several minuscule insects scuttle their way in from the burrowed bullet hole Thursotte had made a moment ago; the bugs crawling into its inner workings causing the mechanical menace to freak the fuck out and wildly thrash about. “Nice comeback.” the lively psychic compliments. “Hehehe, thanks. I’ve been waiting to use it since I got down here-”

Despite the invasive insects plaguing its insides, the octopus like android refuses to simply shut down and instead starts to frantically flail all throughout the chamber; its electrically charged wires thrashing everywhere. “Whoa nelly! Guess it needs one more shock to the system.” Ducking right underneath the whips that come careening their way, Satette makes a lunging dash at the thrashing piece of technology; the lively psychic leaping around and over the bundles of wires that flail her way. When narrowly dodging one of these crackling whips, Satette holds her hand out towards the tentacle as a scaly serpent slithers out from underneath her dress; the snake, coated in her natural green power, wrapping around the insulated parts of the electrical wires to jerk the tip of the sparking strings towards the very battery attached to it.

The moment she finds the compromised part of the machines shell, the lively psychic shoves its own lighting charged limb right into the bullet hole; the pieces of led still lodged inside providing a perfect path for the wires current to loop right back around to the very same place it spawned from. The electrical feedback loops all around from the battery back into its hardware, making the entire machine rapidly growing hotter as it quakes violently;  Satette makes her escape with a bounding jump as the battery explodes in a burst of sparks. Landing right beside her fellow partner in crime, Thursotte backs away as the snake she used to finish off their electrical enemy slithers up from the lively psychic’s arm; the serpent sticking its forked tongue out as Sat pets the top of its with her index finger. “Where did you even get a snake?” “Sewer.” “What?”

Along the chromatic corridors, Tuesco races through the polished steel hall with Sunny following behind, the sound controlling kid keeping up as fast as he could while being careful to watch for any other nasty traps. Its coming upon a four way intersection that they make their stop and hide behind the one of the walls; the air solidifying psychic peering around every corner before noticing a couple of the manta drones nearing. Tuesco holds the boy back as he pushes himself against the wall, hiding around the corner as the pair of aquatic based robots simply float by without taking the corner the boys hide behind. Once the pair of mechanical manta are out of site, Tues lets go of Sunny as both him and the kid continue their way through. But when attempting to proceed along one way, the psychic of solid air turns back to see Sunny heading down the other hallway; Tuesco swift to catch up to the kid before going: “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?” “That trash room we came in from is this way.” “Well, I’d rather wait til we find a safe route out of here for you this way.” insists Tuesco. “But Frida said-” “It doesn’t matter what she said. I ain’t just gonna putting you in any more danger than you already are.” “That’s... that’s not fair!”

“You’re right. It isn’t fair. It ain’t fair somebody as young as you got roped in this whole mess.” Tues then mentions, a concerning response of which calms the kid down a tad. “A kid your age shouldn’t be worrying about the weight of the world on his shoulders. You should be out there enjoying your youth while you still have it; playing basketball, hopscotch, video games, or watching movies with your friends. Not wasting it being tied up in all this cruel and confusing grown up stuff. Maybe we can’t bring the life you had with your folks back, but that doesn’t mean you should throw away the rest of it, dammit. You only have so much time to be a kid, and I think you should enjoy it while you’re still one.” “I...I guess I see what your saying, but-”

Before the young boy could speak his mind over the man’s spoken intent of this situation, the slick steel of a mechanical manta suddenly slithers between them, making their their hairs standing on end as a whole swarm of droids swim right beside them; neither of them so much as moving single muscle while the wave of metal manta rays simply float by. Yet despite literally passing some of the intruders they feverishly search for, not one of them so much as turns or glances to either of them; the wave of aquatic creature based robots simply hovering through the hall before turning around the corner. “Those things...they didn’t even glance at us. How? Why?” “Maybe they just didn’t hear us.” suspects Sunny. “Wait, so you’re saying you made us both silent?” “Yeah, since we were talking, I thought to put up a sound line so that only both of us can hear each other. Not sure why they didn’t see us though.” “I think it’s because they couldn’t. If those pseudo sea creatures can’t see, then maybe they’re running off of some echolocation sensors.” “Echo what?” “Sound; the manta rays were following our sounds. God, no wonder they sniffed us out so easily earlier when Frida and I were bickering.”

“That’s great. If they can’t find us while I use my powers, getting around her should be real easy.” Sunny claims. “Hmm…I still don’t think you should be-” Tues weakly attempts to rebuttle. “Come on, you got any better ideas? Even you have to admit that’s our best bet.” After a moment or two to ponder over this newfound discovery, a worried groan can’t help but seep out from Tuesco as he finally relents with: “Alright. If it can keep you out of harms way, then I’m willing to go for it. But I need you to promise me two very important things for me, okay?” “What’s that?” the kid asks as the psychic of solid air kneels down to his level. “One: if things get hairy in any way, I need you to run and hide. Don’t think about me, don’t think about the mission. I want you to escape the moment the situation turn sour; is that clear?” “Fine.”

“And two: when we get through all this and we all make it back at the safehouse. I need you to swear that you won’t try and sneak with us on one of our missions again; you gave us plenty of heart attacks to last a lifetime. Can I get that from you?” “...Yeah…I promise.” “Good.” Tues says, patting the boy on the shoulders before getting back up on his feet. “Lets hope you don’t let us down, kid.” The solid air psychic’s words drag the sound controlling kid out from the shell of self defense to instead carve out a smile to reflect his joyous determination, following Tuesco through the rest of the hall as he cheers: “You bet I won’t!”

Among another part of this set of corridors, a couple of other manta hover across a part of the corridors lined with sliding doors, each of these doors shifting open as the security drones check to see if there be anyone within. Their highly advanced sound based dictation sensors however detect not so much as a ting anywhere in the chamber. But slithering right overhead of the mechanical manta ray, the dimensional psychic scuttles right over the doorway and hides up among the pulsing pipes that line the top of the ceiling. So close to the metal line, Frida can’t help but hear the feel an intense chill coming from what flows coming from inside. The aqua based droid soon breaks away from the chamber to resume its patrol with its brethren, failing to so much as notice Frida having slipped right over it. With the coast clear, the gun woman descends down from the pipes above and slides back down onto the floor; her attention however still fixated on the pulsing pipeline overhead.

Curious of what flows in these chilling pipes, Frida trails their length across the chromatic corridor, following their pulsating flow around corner after corner through the hallway. Its after about several twists and turns across that her pursuit has her halt in the middle of a lengthy stretch of hall; her gaze beckoned upwards to discover all the pipes from each end of the hall spiraling up within a darkened hole left in the ceiling. Simply standing under it was enough to lend the dimensional psychic a slight chill, as if all the cold that the pipes were carrying were spilling upon her. Regardless of the freezing chill that pours from the depths above, Frida wastes no time merging herself into the wall to climb above to the shaft, determined to find where it rises to. The spine tingling chill she initially felt only intensifies as she scales the pipe lined shaft, the sensation comparable to standing in the middle of a fresh winter day with but only a light jacket to shield from the bitter cold.

Its enduring this chill among her ascent that she manages to rise up to the other end of the shaft, phasing out from the side of the hole to find herself standing in the middle of a massive chamber encompassed with a bright beige glow. Though the light relieves her from the chilling cold, she gazes to the source of the luminescence and is she astonished of what could expel such a heat; Frida standing in awe to behold a massive cluster of computers suspended together by the dozens upon dozens of pipes tightly wrapped around them. The incredible heat fuming from these machines countered by the bone chilling cold pipes that envelope them was truly a strange feeling; like the forces fire and ice were locked in an endless conflict. But why? Why for something this huge? Its wondering this that she starts to notice some of the wires that wind out from the countless computers, each of them stretching out from the cluster to the chamber walls, suggesting their power and data being carried across to other parts of the lab. Regardless of what this cluster of computers does for a facility this massive, even Frida knows that it must be incredibly important for it to not just needed to be cooled by these countless cool pipes, but whatever information they may send through all the wires strew about.

Realizing the importance of this giant piece of technology regarding this facility, the gun woman reaches into her denim jacket with an excited grin before pulling out a military grade rocket launcher; the armament already loaded with a highly explosive rocket. Frida’s trigger finger practically itches as she aims the powerful explosive towards the cluster of computers, excited to finally have an excuse to us this bad boy. Yet despite her eagerness to launch the portable missile like a kid lighting a box of fireworks, she begins to come to her sense upon realizing what may happen if she decides to blow her payload on this thing now.

This giant technological tumor might be the only thing holding this whole place together; blowing it up to high hell while we’re all still in here ain’t ending too good. Still, setting it to blow could be our best bet. Ain’t got any other explosives with me, so I gotta find another way to do this, but how? Pondering of this is her attention then drawn to the dozens of pipes strewn across the chamber with the cold radiating from their metal hitting her ankles; a sly grin starts to form between her cheeks as the feeling lends her a devious idea.

The slick metal of a chromatic door slides open to let both Tuesco and Sunny back into the side of the trash processing chamber from whence they came, walking to the edge of the catwalk to gaze upon the swarm of robot spiders on their never ending, thankless job of breaking down what material drop down. Despite the upset intervention from when the trio had first broke in earlier, the arachnid androids are unfettered by the brief interruption and keep to their task like clockwork in dragging the carved debris to the glowing beige shoots. The spiders unfortunately are not the only machines that roam throughout this facility, for floating among them be several of the mechanical manta patrolling along the length of the chamber; their auditory sensors picking up whatever foreign intrusion may come their way. “Okay, here’s how this is gonna go down. I need you to hang on my back while masking our sound while I go across clogging the shoots set around here.” Tues summarizes. “Is that it? I think I can do way more than that.” “This isn’t up for debate. I’m not putting you through any more danger than I have to. Now just grab on and don’t let go.”

Letting out an upset groan, the sound controlling kid hops up onto Tuesco’s back and wraps his arms around the  air solidifying psychic’s shoulders; Sunny conducting a thin sheet of silencing aura to mask themselves with. The kid safely stuck to his backside, Tuesco makes a bounding leap right off the catwalk and drops down towards the heaps of garbage below; an unexpected play that leaves Sunny panicking. But before the two of them could crash down into the piles of trash, their plummet comes to a sudden halt as Tuesco stands in what seems like the middle of the air. But when the sound controlling kid gazes down to what suspends them above the line of garbage, he discovers a pair of columns erected underneath his guardians feet. One careful step at a time, Tuesco walks across the waste processing facility one solid air stilt at a time; the kid hanging onto the psychic’s back as tight as he can.

While standing high atop his solid transparent stilts, Tuesco gathers the air around them to construct a long necked shovel that he thrusts down against the collection of trash beneath his feet; the shovels sharp tip piercing the hardened garbage quite effectively as it scoops up a big chunk of the stuff. With a heap of trash in hand, the air solidifying psychic chucks the chunk of trash right towards one of the open beige shoots; the garbage lodged right against the opening. Wishing to be safe than sorry, Tues cocks his shovel back before swinging its solid head right into the big piece of debris further down the shoot to choke it. The shoot successfully backed up, the psychic of solid air proceeds to repeat this process with every other shoot the two of them see, stuffing and choking every opening across the processing chamber.

“How you doing back there?” Tuesco checks in on Sunny with. “This is cool and all, but why do you get to have all the fun? I wanna throw trash at private property and not get arrested for it.” the boy complains. “Kid, this isn’t fun. It’s a matter of life and death.” “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep score or something. Be better than just hanging off you doing my best impression of a backpack.” “Just keep up the barrier and we’ll be fi-.”

Their brief exchange suddenly takes a drastic turn when one of the mechanical manta rays ends up hitting against the sound controlling kids side; the strike knocking Sunny off of the solid air psychic’s back and sending him tumbling down the piles of trash below. Acting fast, Tuesco swings his long shovel after the young boy in hopes of catching him; Sunny just barely clutching the tool as he slides down its neck, stopping just short of crashing into a mess of busted up plastic toys. The kid curls his legs as the arachnid androids that crawl across the debris dare not scuttle up to him in their duty to break down what trash falls down here, hoping that he won’t be mistaken for one. Peering back up to Tuesco, Sunny is alarmed to see his sound proof aura dissipating from the man that holds him up; the sound of his breathing and grunting beginning to echo across the chamber. The noises that Tuesco makes involuntarily bait some of the nearby manta his way, a distressing situation that starts to escalate as the gathering drones aim their glowing stingers towards them; the psychic of solid air left with no way to defend himself as he keeps Sunny suspended above the garbage piles.

Just when the swarm of mechanical manta Ray was ready to unleash their wrath upon Tues, a wayward bullet suddenly streaks by and strikes one of the drones with a resoundingly sharp ting; a clang that redirects their aim away from the psychic of solid air before releasing their fury. Glaring back down the neck of his shovel, the psychic of solid air is astonished to discover the bullet having been fired from the pistol in Sunny’s hands, the same one Tues thought he had confiscated before; the firearm’s boom having been silenced by the kids muffling magenta aura. Against the rays of these fake sea creatures, the lone drone is eviscerated into chunky metal piece that scatter down to the rest of the trash below; the swarm of arachnid androids beginning to break them down just like any other bits of garbage.

This close encounter successfully averted, Sunny quickly climbs up the length of his guardian’s shovel to return to Tuesco’s side; the sound controlling kids magenta aura again restoring their words to only private conversation, the first words Tues shares between them being: “I thought I took that away from you.” “I picked it out of your pocket while you weren’t looking.” “Sunny!?” “I had to pick a lot of pockets to scrape what I could before meeting you guys. Are you that shocked?” “Young man, when we get back home, we’re gonna talk about this pilfering habit you picked up.

Along the upper levels of the facility, both Satette and Thursotte book it through the chrome corridors as quickly as their legs could carry them; all the while hotfooting it away from the several manta machines that tail after them. In her attempt to slow the school of faux sea creatures, the lively psychic casts her reptilian whip against the pursuing armada as the head of her snake opening wide as it careens at one of the drones; the fangs of its maw piercing through the machines chromatic steel and locking it onto the sewer serpents jaw. Sat whips the length of her snake around to send the mechanical manta it bit down crashing against its fellow drones, cascading into one another to take out about a third of the chasing swarm. Though when Sat tries to reel her slithering whip back to her side, its return is violently thwarted when a stinger emerges out from the swarm to stab the snake right through the middle of its lengthy body; the poor serpent inflicted with such a nasty shock of the manta’s beige power that its fried to partial ash. “No, Slipknot! You had so much to live for!” she cries, the remains of her snake slipping off her arm. “You named it?” questions Thurs. “He was meant for slithery success down in the sewers. All the rats and bugs a boy like him could eat.”

There proves no time to lament for their small loss, for what remained of the pursuing pack of mechanical manta start to fire out volleys of beige beams at the two of them; the fleeting duo ducking, weaving, and leaping away from the barrage of blasts behind them. “I-I think mourning your dearly departed pet will have to wait. Unless you got something else up your sleeve, we’ll be next.” Thursotte warns in the middle of dodging. “I do got one more trick up my skirt, but it might take me a minute. Think you gotta come up with ass pulls this time, Thurs.” “Don’t refer to it like that. You’re starting to sound like Wedsle.”

His turn to step up to the plate with his own brand of abilities, the chaos triggering psychic pulls out his pistol to use against the tailing mob of mechanical manta; his aim drifting away from above the swarm and towards the part of the corridor ceiling ahead of them. “Uh, Thurs. The swarm of superficial sea creatures is behind us.” Satette reminds him. “I only got a couple more shots on me here. Trust me when I say I need to make them count.” “Do you even trust yourself?” “Barely, but what else is there to put it in at this point.” he admits, coating the pistol he wields in his orange chaotic influence.

Blasting out from the head of his gun, Thursotte fires a shot right into a glass panel held along the chrome ceiling and breaks into the circuitry behind it; the piece of led embedding itself into the delicate electrical wires and boards. Quickly jerking the pistol over to the hallway wall, the young man again spends a bullet through another panel to damage the circuitry it poorly shields; sparks flying across the computer boards upon being shot at. With the final piece of his guns ammunition, Thurs unloads it down through one more glass panel left embedded on the very floor they race over, shooting into another piece of circuitry like the rest. “That’s was it!? That was your big brain play!?” blurts Satette. “Wait for it.”

Pouring out from the three bullets that Thursotte had fired out, his orange aura floods across the lengths of circuitry that line the inside of the chromatic corridor; the spreading power encapsulating the entire hall in a hue of deep orange. Aside from the captivating hue, Thurs’ infesting power immediately gets to work on making countless errors and mistakes occur all across the complex circuitry; electrical screw ups of which send the corridors in chaos as the dozens of glass panes they explode in blasts of scattering shards and plastic. Among the relentless cascade of computer malfunctions, the pursuing school of manta ray machines are torn asunder as they’re caught within its fury; their chrome shells stabbed and slashed by the scattering chunks of sharp glass and circuits. Even with the ongoing concocted chaos thinning the army of dastardly drones that chased them, the duo are left in the midst of the raging storm as they shield themselves from the relentless rain of shattered glass and electric sparks. Desperate to escape from the furious downpour of orange madness that plagues the hallway, Satette’s site catches a doorway left open in the middle of the hallway; the pair darting straight inside the room without so much as a second thought.

Dashing out from the hectic hall and into the unassuming room, Thurs and Sat slam the sliding steel door behind them to shut out the discordant disarray on the other side; the two breathing easy once out of the chaotic maelstrom. “Well, I guess that’s one way to clear a place out. A little bit too close of a shave to be honest.” Thurs concludes. “At least we got out of that shit storm, better to find ourselves in...wha-where the hell are we?” wonders Sat, peering further into the chamber they had both rushed into.

Within the rest of the room do the two come to discover standing before them a big computer terminal that hosts about a dozen or so displays across the wall; the information and data processing across the collection of screens mesmerizing to the naked eye, a site of which beckons Thursotte to approach. “The hell is this?” wonders Sat. Coming to the computers keyboard, the young man rests his hands upon the keys to trigger a couple of the screens to blink back on; Thurs reading some of the information that’s displayed and concluding how: “This seems to be a sort kind of computer terminal meant for personal use, maybe for the doctor? Wonder what I information I can fish out of this?” “Do you even know how to work that monstrosity?” Sat questions. “I might not be some kind of ingenious computer expert. But I know my way around a PC well enough; all a matter of looking in the branches. Hmm...I think documents would be a good place to start.” he affirms, tapping away at the terminals keyboard.

Thursotte’s interest is peeked when finding the documents resting in the file to not be titled as one would expect; relying on an assortment of numbers and symbols to refer to them instead of any conventional words. When attempting to crack open a couple of these mysterious files however, he is swiftly denied access as a window pops up to claim how they are locked behind an encryption. “Dah! Figures most of these are encrypted. Ah well, nothing we can’t sort out later.” Upon this digital dilemma, the young man delves into his pocket before pulling out a small USB stick decorated with a chic sea blue design; Thursotte plugging the stick right into one of the terminal’s ports before returning over to the screen. “What’re you doing?” Sat can’t help but ask him. “Oh. That informant we meet up with back at the art museum told me to download what files I could when we got down here; said they could decode whatever info the doc got on here to read and use.” “And how you figure that’s gonna take?” “Well, seems there’s a lot to gather here. The amount Documents and spreadsheets alone look pretty numerous. Best guess I got for you is...20 minutes, tops?” “20 minutes!?  There’s ain’t no way we can wait that long. Frida and the others are further down looking for the stone and who know’s how long we got til the jolly old doc finds us.” “I think December will be to preoccupied dealing with the cacophony of chaos we caused back in the hall to be worried about us. I’d just sit back and take a breather while I work on transferring these files.” suggests Thursotte.

With there being very little for the lively psychic to do during this moment of technological thievery, she leans back against the cold chromatic wall and lets her sites drift to the other displays that line the wall; dozens of pictures, video feeds, and data running across their screens. The stream of ongoing information was almost impossible to look away from; all the live security video, downloading pictures and texts, and the abundance of information coming in, some of it from places she had been to before. Was this how the criminal mob gathered their intelligence?

Its while staring into the stream of endless data that she spots something strange swimming in the stream, catching glimpses of static blobs bubble out from the stream of downloading data; soon finding more of these little pieces of static broiling across these screens. From the numerous displays do countless more of these little formless blobs come crawling out from the woodworks, cobbling together into clumps of static; their amorphous shape starting to form into swimming sea creatures.

But the lively psychic’s alarm bell’s don’t start going off until she witnesses these frightening fish begin to slowly breach from the displays; their heads and fins surfacing out from the screens as they float over towards the young man messing with their nest. “Uh...Thurs.” “Hang on. I think I’m starting to uncover a whole smorgasbord of info here. Company CEO’s, upcoming politicians, international officials. These guys have a whole web of connections here.” Distracted by the bevy of intelligence he was discovering, Thursotte is left clueless over the school of predatory static creatures that prowl towards him; their static maw’s opening wide to reveal the numerous rows of teeth lining their jaws. Realizing verbal warnings will not reach him in time, Satette springs into action and hurries to her occupied partner in crime; her natural green aura commanding the hide of a scaly beast to emerge out from her back. The tail of the lively psychic’s scaled creature the first part to lunges forth as the static sea monsters threaten to bite down upon her partner in crime, wrapping around Thursotte to swipe him away from the monster’s fuzzy maws.

Tugged back to Satette’s side, the chaos inducing psychic is left astonishingly frightened over the budding blobs of static bubbling out from the terminal’s other screen’s all of them beginning to congeal together as they breach into the physical world. “What the- What even are those things!?” he exclaims. “The latest innovation in antivirus technology.” they hear Dr. December begin to elaborate. “For countless decades, programmers the world over have sunk their efforts into keep up in the unending battle against the waves of virus’ and malware that plague our modern age. But this conflict can only go so far as long as the borders between the virtual world and reality stand; that all changes with the innovative bond of psychic power and technology. From reverse engineering the code of a catastrophic virus, one originally designed to target and delete critical data, I have breathed new life into its design and forged its code to electrically output through the hardware of whatever machine it has been installed in order to hunt not just malicious software, but the very fiends that use them. I have forged the perfect anti virus program. The perfect predator.” The last of its form boiling out from beyond the computer screens, all of the static blobs conjoin together into one mass; one that molds itself into the image of its namesake. The ruthless great white shark. “That’s so fucking cool!” Sat exclaims in hyped awe. “You’re gonna be thinking twice when its sinking its teeth in us.” reminds Thurs, the terrible static shark lunging at them with its maw agap.

Just when the crossbred terror between technology and psychic power was on the cusp of rending the two before it to shreds, the rest of the scaly creature hiding underneath Satette’s dress emerges out to clash against the terror of the ocean; the maw of the shark held back up the mouth of a large alligator. “King of the sea, meet the queen of the swamp. 7 feet of scaly terror that prowl the marshlands for its next meal; a terrifying hide with an even worse bite. Let me give a warm welcome to the lockjaw Alligator. I call her Linda.” the lively psychic introduces. “Where did you even get an alligator!?” Thursotte exclaims. “Sewer.” “That doesn’t make any possible sense!”

With her alligators powerful body, Satette shoves the static shark against the wall of the chamber; the whole room quaking from the overwhelming impact. “Forget sense, we got more important things to worry about. Are the files still downloading?” she asks. Bolting right back over to the screen he had been jerked away from, Thurs checks the progress window to discover the download process still proceeding; claiming how: “About halfway done. Got about 10 minutes.” “10! Are you for real!?” the lively psychic barks, smacking the static sharks swimming assault with the tail of her gator. “Its countless gigabytes of files, Satette; get off my back!”

Out from the opening the countless pipes climb up, Frida descends out from the hole and cleanly dives into the corridor floor below like a pool of water; the gunwoman breaching out from the 2nd dimension to stand back onto its metal surface. Whelp, got all that up there set and rigged to blow. Say that it’s got about uh...an hour, maybe less before the whole thing begin to melt. So that’s about how long we all got to get the stone and get outta here before those processors are blasted. Might wanna give the crew a heads up before shit’s launched right into the fan.

Thinking of this, the dimensional psychic pulls her phone out from the depths of her denim jacket and taps at Thursotte’s contact; Frida putting it up to her ear and hearing the dial tone ring. But while waiting for her partner in crime on the other end to pick up, the dial tone starts to contort as the pitch of its mild blare warps wildly, almost like a broken radio’s attempt to grasp hold of a fleeting signal. An effort that would go to waste as the phone’s tone stops entirely. The fuck? Why’d it...What was… When trying to pull her phone back to check what might be the problem, the dimensional psychic feels the device pull against the side of her head; refusing to let go no matter how much she tries to pry it off herself. Gah...What the hell is up with my…

Amidst struggling to tug her phone away, the chromatic wall beside her catches her attention as she discovers a beige light glowing in its reflection; the dimensional psychic noticing a couple of strange details about this newfound luminescence. That light! Its just like the glow that was coming from all those computers up there. Same one that the drones floating around her got too, not to mention the shoots back in the room with those spiders. Thought it was all just decorative lights before, but now with it coming from my phone… Frida starts to approach the side of the wall to see what could be behind this unexpected glow; a deep dread setting into her as the reflection begins to clear. She discovers this beige glow coming from her phone to be a powerfully potent aura that disassembles her device and threads its electrical wiring into the side of her face. It’s aura! It’s psychic aura! And its controlling my phone!

Realizing the severity of these escalating developments, the dimensional psychic frantically tries to jerk her weaving phone off the side of her head; its wires starting to burrow into her ear as she repeatedly pulls the device away. The manipulated piece of tech stubbornly refusing to let go, Frida leaps at the wall and merges into its 2nd dimension in hopes of forcing her phone to finally pull away; her sky blue aura conflicting with the beige power running through her phone and uprooting it out from the side of her head. The last of the phones wires flushed out from the dimensional psychic’s flesh, her phone drops from her head and down onto the floor; the aura that plagues the gadget refusing to fade away as it springs after its former owner once more.

Before even a single loose wire could reach any part of Frida, the gunwoman swiftly pulls out her trusty glock and spends about half of her magazine putting several holes into her rogue phone; sparks and plastic flying across part of the hallway as the bullets take whole chunks out from the device. Smoke and sparks wafting from what remained of her phone, the bright beige aura that infests the device withers away as the last of its power fades with it; Frida popping what was left in her pistol before reemerging out from the wall. Whelp, there goes the heads up. But the relief she feels in felling her rouge phone falls short as a beam of beige barely brushes her backside; the dimensional psychic glancing back to where the ray had been shot to witness a dozen or so of the mechanical manta chase after her, with their stingers constantly firing off more of their beams. Too bad they don’t seem to give any heads up.

Racing along the second dimension of the steel walls that make up the chromatic corridor, Frida slides through the hall as swiftly as her power may let her as over a dozen or so of the mechanical manta remain hot on her tail; several more of the dastardly drones popping out from the walls to join the pursuing swarm. Out from the growing school of droids, one of the Manta lunges forth at the dimensional psychic as its stinger pulsates a bright beige light; the fake sea creature thrusting its tail into the wall to unleash a jolt of psychic power across its shining steel; the spreading shock inflicting its intense jolt upon the flat gunwoman sliding on the wall. Such an overwhelming surge of power coursing through her forces Frida to eject herself out from the 2nd dimension and instead flee from the chasing sea creatures on foot.

Pointing her pistol out to the school of mechanical manta behind her, the gun woman unloads a full magazine against the swarm as she attempts to outrun them; her bullets simply denting their hard chromatic bodies. Frida’s situation goes from bad to worse as she peers back to find herself coming up to a dead end, with not a single crack, vent, or crevice for her to slip away into anywhere lining the walls ahead; nothing for her to see but slick shining steel. The dimensional psychic stops just short of the wall before she turns back to face the rapidly approaching school of steel sea creatures, with the dense swarm of drones too thick for her to slip through. The reality of her entrapment starting to sink in, Frida faces the nearing school of mechanical manta not with dejected hopelessness, but a fiery determination while reaching into the inside of her jacket. Don’t know if my big dogs here can maul them all… From the depths of her denim garb does she pull out a pair of AK-47’s to aim against the incoming swarm of steel drones; her glare shifting from worry to determined as she prepares to unload everything she’s got. But I’ll let them damn well try!

“Got about 5 minutes left on here. Once its all downloaded we can break on out.” claims Thursotte. “Sounds like a plan, just let me finish grinding this piece of fish into thoroughly chewed sushi.” brags Sat. After evading the ghastly maw of the sea beast, the lively psychic see’s an opening to strike and quickly capitalizes, charging right towards its exposed side with the mouth of her own monster wide open. Clamping tightly down against the hip of the static shark, Satette’s alligator digs its jagged fangs deep into its fuzzy flesh with such a terrible bite; akin to a natural guillotine. Against the predatory reptile’s sheer jaw strength, the artificial shark can not withstand the awesome pressure and is crushed within its mouth; the static sea beast shattering to pieces against such a frightening force. “Yes!” she cheers.

Satette is sadly quick to retracts her celebration as she beholds the pieces of static floating around her start to reform, witnessing their amorphous bodies molding themselves to reform into a school ravenous piranha; their small mouths lined with small, but sharp teeth perfect for tearing meager flesh apart. “Dammit! Thurs?” “Almost there.” Thurs claims, nervously watching the progress bar tick towards the end. Right as the young man tells her this though does another window suddenly appear to interrupt the download, one which questions the existence of a duplicate file and asks weather to discard it or not. “What the...Wh-why are there copy files on this thing already? No.”

Though their small and sharp razor teeth bite down upon the gator’s body, its thick leathery hide proves far too tough for them to puncture through; Satette able to shake them all of with abundant ease. Its while the school of piranha are stunned that Sat thrusts the head of her reptilian weapon to gobble them all up with one big sweeping scoop, nearly taking the entire school of nibblers in the alligator’s maw.   The lively psychic’s attempts to quell the static blob start to waver however when her giant scaly friend lets out a pained roar; the swarm of piranha she had just swept into its maw having reformed themselves into clusters of barbed sea urchin, with their barbs pricking across the inside of the beasts mouth. The head of Satette’s monster flails about as the urchins are flung out from the mouth of the beast; the collection of prickly balls congealing together once again back into a massive static blob. What emerges out from this crackling mass next be several wriggling tentacles as the middle of the blob transforms into the head of a kraken; the squid casting its numerous arms after the lively psychic and her gator. Despite the mouth of the reptilian beast managing to clamp down upon a few of the monsters writhing tentacles, the rest of them envelop themselves all across both the alligators scaly body and the very same woman that commands it. Both of them are left no match against the elastic limbs as they jerk and tug at every part they could, beginning to violently tear the two apart from one other.

“Aaaand...Done!” Thurs exclaims, seeing the progress bar finally complete. Reaching down to pull the USB stick right out from the port, Thursotte stashes the stick in his pants as he dashes away from the terminal, going: “Got every single byte of crucial information about the mob all on this little drive. Now we can get back to searching for the-” His happiness immediately shatters upon beholding the site of his partner having fallen against the might of the  static squid, Satette having been pried of her scaly beast as she struggles to free herself from the iron grasp of its crackling tentacles. “Stone?”

Clutching tightly onto his guardian’s shoulders, Sunny remains firmly hanging off of the air solidifying psychic’s back as Tuesco continues to shovel the garbage below to then fling and stuff into the glowing beige shoots; the sound controlling kid making sure to keep his aura up and enveloped around them to mask their presence from the noise sensitive drones. Yet their efforts to clog up the processing chamber run into another gap as Sunny start to feel an odd sensation flare against his own back; the psychic of solid air hearing all the grunts coming from the boy he carries and asks: “What’s the matter back there?” I don’t know. I feel something crawling on my back. It feels like its digging through my clothes.” “Can you see what it is?” wonders Tuesco. “I think...Just let me-” the young boy states, turning his head as far back as he could. Straining his neck to turn halfway around, Sunny is able to turn over enough to see just a piece of his own backside and catches glimpses of something scuttling back behind there; the kid’s stomach dropping when realizing what had hitched a ride with them. “Tuesco! It’s one of those metal spiders! It got on me!”

Once having burrowed through the final layer of Sunny’s clothes, the arachnid android then begins to dig against the skin of his back with its small laser; the sound controlling kid letting out a painful outcry as he shrieks: “Its burning my back!” “Hang on!” Desperate to aid his young ward, Tuesco tosses aside his solid air shovel to snatch Sunny by the shirt collar and hold him up to behold the mechanical menace that harms the boy’s back; the robotic spider threatening to burrow past the kids skin. Tues is quick to whack the arachnid android right off and send it flying across the chamber, slamming into the chrome wall. But among this close call does another swiftly turn its head as what remains of the young boys clothes rip away and send Sunny plummeting down to the piles of metal spider infested garbage below; the magenta aura that masked their sound dissipating from the air solidifying psychic as he shouts: “Sunny!”

Tuesco starts to gather the air around them as he drops down off his stilts and descend after the boy, crystallizing the oxygen to conjure a big headed shovel in one hand and a long pitchfork in the other; the psychic casting the shovel down to scoop the boy right out from danger. Falling in the oversized dirt spoon, Sunny’s descent stops just short of him being a mere inch away from the nest of arachnid androids; the boy peering up to see his guardian hanging in the middle of the air by the lengthy trident he had thrust into the wall beside them.

Thankfully saving the boy from the mechanical mass of spiders, Tuesco tosses him right back up into the air like a flung pancake before dropping down himself; the solid air psychic manifesting a pair of springs beneath his feet before dropping down to the floor. The crystallized coils bend in from impact against the chunks of debris and spring back out before any of the spiders below could crawl after him, letting Tuesco bounce back up after the sound controlling kid he had lobbed up. Reaching after Sunny, the air solidifying psychic snatches the boy out from the air before casting his cerulean aura down to the ground below; quickly creating a big transparent pillar for him to stand on. “Glad that went well!” he claims. “Not as well as you think. Look.” warns Sunny, pointing behind them. Looking back towards the part of the chamber corridor they had just came from, they discover popping out from the walls a building school of alerted manta rays feverishly darting after them; firing out a bevy of beige blasts from their tail as they approach. “Oh geez! Hang on!” Leaping off of the pillar of solidified oxygen, Tuesco gathers the air below to create a big wheel to roll right over the mounds of gathered garbage and away from imminent danger; the swarm of robotic arachnids that foolishly try to climb up being crushed to scrap under the terrible weight.

Tearing across the trash facility on the top of a wheel of solid air, Tuesco and Sunny roll through its lengthy corridor as the growing school of mechanical manta pursue them; the several bumps they go over slowing their escape. “They’re not stopping!” claims the boy, attempting to mask their sound with his aura. “It won’t work, kid. Pretty clear to them we’re in here by now. Ain’t any noise canceling force in the world that can make them just quit.” Tuesco states. “Tues, I’m sorry. If I’d had just held on better instead of trying to do something else, this whole situation wouldn’t have snowballed like this.” “Hey, don’t sweat it; you did way better then I gave you credit for. And silencing that pistol to draw the manta away from me, making the bullet clank off that piece of scrap metal real loud. Pretty neat idea.” “You think so?” “Absolutely. You’ve been full of surprises since we first met you, Sunny.” “Thanks. I think I’m finally getting used to these sound powers.” “Don’t thank me yet.” the air solidifying psychic warns.

Peering to what lies ahead of them, a shocking terror sets in for the young noise controlling psychic as he discovers them rolling towards nothing but a dead end waiting; the other side of the garbage processing chamber holding seemingly no other way out. “Why is there no door on the other side!?” the boy shouts. “Probably didn’t expect people to come out this far. I mean, since we’ve been seeing nothing but robots in here, it makes sense.” “Too bad we ain’t; what do we do!?” The solid air psychic slinks his sites up and down the chromatic wall they approach in frantically looking for anyway they could escape from this situation; his eyes locking to an air vent left placed in the middle of the wall. And though salvation is on the horizon, a glance back to the horde catching up to them assures that crossing into their saving grace isn’t guaranteed; Tues peering back to the boy holding onto him. “Tuesco!?”

“Kid, I might have an idea. But you need to do what I say, think you can follow that?” he asks the boy. “Anything, just name it.” “Get in my arms and curl yourself up.” Doing as his guardian instructs, the boy climbs over from Tues’ back and over to his waiting arms, coiling himself up in the fetal position as tightly as he could. “Like this?” “Good. Now take a deep breath.” Sunny draws in as much air as he could while remaining huddled up, alarmed suddenly feeling an invisible force enclose upon him; the solid air psychic having encapsulated the kid in a shell of solid air. Realizing he’s been trapped in a prison of his guardian’s making, the sound controlling kid looks down to the man holding him with a gaze mired in worry and concern; a stare to which Tuesco can only smile to and say: “Good luck, Sunny.”

Taking a bounding leap off the wheel, both of them lunge across the snippet of the corridor and towards the vent against the wall; the psychic of solid air chucking the boy in the shell of oxygen as hard as he could. Sunny crashes against the vent face with enough of a bash to bend the grate a ways inward, helpless but to watch as Tuesco conjures a hefty mallet from the air around them. The former officer swings his transparent hammer against the capsule encasing the kid and breaks him right through the grate, with the solid air shell shattering from the immense impact. “Tuesco! No!” Plummeting down the shadowy shaft, Sunny desperately reaches out for the vent’s opening as he descend into the dark abyss; the last site he witnesses being the Tuesco’s departing smile moments before the overwhelming mob of mechanical manta ray swarm swarm upon him.

[elvisabutler]

I will request the walls have ears scene hard-on scene again and also I mean I would DIE for a psych perspective of elvis all day every day but i know that’s pretty heavy and god bless him what a mess of a man🥴

bless you. OKAY. so you have got to forgive me for how unsure i am about this. i'm like a damn baby deer walking on my legs for the first time. also that's coming at some point. probably. it really requires a lot of research. ( for a tumblr post i know but you never know, maybe i use that bullshit to get into grad school like i've been dying to go. and then at the end all of y'all can call me dr. ally. )

so. tw: i mean it's got him getting a hard on so, sexual themes? phone sex? mentions of elvis' sad sad hang ups? i do not know this is new territory for me.

the walls have ears ( but not eyes ) - elvis presley

elvis is used to dancing, he's used having his hips move every which way but loose. well, maybe there was that one time they went a bit loose but that was between him, that audience and god. and there wasn't a soul in that group who was gonna be a tattle tell. the point is, he knows how to dance, knows how to move his hips. so doing the scene he's being asked of with laurel seems like a simple enough ask. she's sweet and he likes her well enough. doesn't like her like he likes the girl he's got waiting for him at home but- he gets her allure, gets how his character could like a girl with her face.

it's a complicated set up for a scene, one of the most complicated ones elvis has ever seen in his pictures. there's so many moving parts that a part of him wants to ask the director and the production team what went through their heads and how they went about setting all this up. anything to find out more about the film industry even if- well even if it seemed like he was gonna get stuck doing these musical-singing pictures for a long while yet. maybe one day- maybe some day he'll get to have his moment as a dramatic actor get to be like james dean and marlon brando and paul newman. one day.

the moment they start the camera elvis finds himself aware of two things- one, that he was made to do this sort of dancing and he's got to take his girl out and show her one of these days and two, his pants are too tight. he knew the second point before hand and has been half trying to wiggle to make his inseam feel less strange and has honestly asked the costume team, "darlin' could you please take this out jus' a lil." only to be told that no they couldn't which was a crying shame if he did say so himself. he's been telling himself it wouldn't be a problem, telling himself he'll be fine but now the pants are rubbing him just the right way and he can feel himself hardening. lord have mercy. was this honestly when his goddamn body wanted to betray him like this. laurel's not gonna say anything but he knows she just saw it when she looked down from the way she looks up at him afterward. he wants to call time on the scene, tell the director he's gotta deal with this but he knows they're already- he's heard how hard this scene was to set up, he can't just stop because he's got a problem. maybe if he jiggles his leg- nope no, that made it worse.

if him and laurel maybe are rushing through the steps a little quicker or if he uses the table to give himself a bit of friction then that's his business. when they're finally on the table after the ceiling "caves" in he looks over at laurel.

"you're a professional and-" he starts before laurel waves him off.

"elvis, we don't need to talk about it. it's just my big brother having a- problem." she bites her lip trying not to laugh before a small giggle escapes her.

elvis scrunches up his face before grinning and letting himself laugh as he gets off the table and holds out his hand for her. "yeah, yeah, laugh it up, laurel. come on you."

she takes that as permission to fully laugh as she lets elvis help her off without a second thought. "go- i'll cover for you."

he opens his mouth to tell her she doesn't have to before she just shrugs and shoos him away. god, she's a good girl. he's got to remind himself to double check if that boyfriend of hers was still bugging her too much.

it doesn't take him that long to reach his dressing room and the second he shuts the door he practically tears off his pants. he's careful not to ruin them because while he hates the damn things someone still worked damn hard on them and they deserve to be respected because of it.

he eyes the phone in the corner of the room that taunts him with the knowledge that the person he'd like here- the person who's been in his thoughts as he danced-who might have inadvertently caused this problem is merely a phone call away. he shouldn't, but elvis has never been good at following what he should and shouldn't do. it's what always gets him in trouble time and time again. it takes a minute for them to patch him through but the second he hears your voice tension he didn't know he was holding since he felt his erection just slides away.

"elvis?" you ask your tone of voice betraying your confusion.

"hey darlin', am i interrupting anything?" he asks, his hand moving down to touch his cock through his underwear. it's just a light touch, almost as if he's scared to do more.

"you're not. i was thinking of going out, but then you called." you pause and hum quietly. "not that i mind, handsome, but you never call me like this when you're on set. you miss me that much today?"

"you know i always miss you." the sentence slips off his tongue before he even stops it. he knows he doesn't need to charm you, he's got you wrapped around his finger even without it. still, there's something to be said about always making sure you're happy with him. he knows he can be a bit much. "i- gotta promise you won't laugh, satnin."

"you- i won't. unless it's really funny." you say, twirling the phone cord around your finger. "what's got my man all shook up?"

"you." he answers with a low chuckle as he presses the palm of his hand against his crotch, inhaling as he does. "they got me wearing these tight pants- rubbed me all the wrong ways. felt like you in that dress i bought you last week. all tightness and heat, damn near felt like a vice grip."

he hears you shift and he didn't realize until that moment that you were on your shared bed. you were on the bed, maybe you were wearing his favorite dress. or maybe a nightie, it was early enough to have you wearing that still. you might have just gotten up. he knows how you are when you first wake up, all wet heat and warmth and he stops his thoughts there. you're not into this just yet, you haven't given him the go ahead, he doesn't need your permission but he wants it right now.

"like my-" you pause and there's another shift of fabric and your voice gets a little softer, like you're embarrassed to say it. "pussy?"

he hums in acknowledgement. "yeah, just like that. laurel- she's a good girl, satnin, didn't even bat an eye. i've got a bit of time. she's- covering for me. telling our director something." he pauses and takes a deep breath. "you- wish you were here. you could take care of this with those pretty lips."

the laugh that leaves your lips sounds almost like wind chimes to his ears and somehow it makes him even harder. "wish i was there too. but i don't think i'd like to take care of it that way. i think i'd prefer to be on your lap."

elvis can't help the low groan the image you're providing him with elicits and his hand moves to actually lower his underwear so he can take his cock in his hand. "like that one time in the cadillac when you thought we were gonna get caught."

a breathless sigh. "yeah, elvis, just like that. with you holding my hips so tight i get bruises from it later." you let out a small groan and elvis swears he hears how wet you are from the other end. "i'm wearing a ring you left here. makes me think this are your fingers."

that does it, that's what has him wrapping his hand around his cock listening to you talk. has him gripping himself like his life depended on it and right now it just might. he doesn't have the door locked but honestly, everyone in the mafia and on this set know better than to barge into his room lest you end up with an eyeful of ass or breasts. "didn't realize my satnin has such a dirty mouth. you playing with your clit too, baby, rubbing it like i do? you got me touching myself like you do. feel like i'm gonna burst already."

you nod before remembering elvis isn't there with you so he can't see it. you exhale shakily, your answer a tight whisper. "only got a dirty mouth when you need it from me. i'm- my fingers aren't yours but i can be a little faster with the wrist. it evens- oh- out." you bite your lip. "i think we're both there- i haven't- i didn't have you this morning. this is the first time today."

his pace quickens at your quiet oh, knowing fully well that's you telling him you're going to come soon if you aren't already starting to. his grunts are getting closer together, he's gotta be quiet about this but you can be as loud as you want and he can hear you, can hear the sighs and the soft moans. "you gonna come for me, baby? gonna come on your fingers and take a picture for me?"

"uh huh." is the only answer he gets, the only words you can manage as you take that as cue to go faster, to curl your fingers inside yourself to- do everything that has you letting out a shout of elvis' name a minute or two later. elvis' own hand tightens the grip on his cock and pumps even more as he hears the click of a camera on your end.

"good girl. my bestest girl, takin' a photo for me." he mutters focusing on just coming shutting his eyes to try and picture how you look, half fucked out and- it's then that he comes with a grunt. he's gotta be quiet even if he knows you love hearing him groan your name. he has to catch his breath before he speaks again. "you still there?"

a hum. "i am. sleepy again though." you yawn and stretch being mindful of the cord. "can i go take a nap, elvis? you're not gonna be home-"

"for a few more hours at least, baby." he finishes for you. "go take a nap, darlin'. rest up for me for tonight. think i'll take that ring back from you."

you laugh softly. "okay. don't go getting excited again. can't help you until you come home if happens."

his answering laugh is a little dark but he knows you're right. "don't think i have to wear these pants any more. should be fine. wear the blue nightie when i get home, alright?"

the only answer he gets back is a snore and he hangs up. he knows you heard him when he gets home and sees what he asked you to wear on your skin. the photo you took- when you two get it developed- comes with him on the next shoot.

he doesn't have another problem with his pants like that again. not until 1968.

[atlabeth]

transferred part 17 - atla smau

part 16 | masterlist | part 18 

summary: trying to run from your past is hard, but falling for your brother’s roommate is even harder. little do you know he’s falling for you as well. 

a/n: ahahah a ??? im sorry?? that this took so long?? as you know ive been dying of school and exams and even though ive gotten a couple oneshots out and did my celebration i just have not had the energy to write a whole mf chapter. but it’s here ! after a month of waiting

wc: 4.8k she is a LONG ONE FOLKS prepare yourselves

warning(s): cursing, alcohol and getting drunk, toxic relationships, mentions of cheating, implied emotional abuse, y/n having a breakdown, just an overall mess 

-

“Katara, don’t pull so hard!” You exclaimed, reaching a hand up to touch your scalp. You had entrusted your sister with styling your hair for the party tonight, but only after insistent nagging on her part. She had invited — or forced, as you liked to call it — you over to their dorm to get ready for the party that night together and do all kinds of girl talk. You figured this was a trap to get you to talk about you and Zuko, but it’s not like you would deny an opportunity to hang out with some of your favorite girls. 

“Sorry,” she chuckled. “Just think of it as retribution for all the times that you pulled my hair like this when you did my braids.” 

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly and glanced over at Toph and Suki who had already gotten ready but still lounging around the dorm to hang out. “So.” 

“So?” Suki repeated. 

“So when are the questions going to start?” You asked with a small laugh. “I appreciate the invite over here to get ready, but I know you all just wanted to ask me about what’s going with Zuko. So ask away.”

“What happened during that car ride—”

“Has he said anything to you since the kiss—”

“What’s going on at the tea shop—”

“Woah, woah! One question at a time!” you interrupted as they all started going on at the same time. “First off, nothing happened during the car ride. We worked out some miscommunications, and we’re all good. Second — yes, we’ve talked since the kiss, but there’s been nothing groundbreaking. And third, the only thing going on at the tea shop is the tea that we’re serving.”

Toph groaned and shook her head. “Are you serious? That’s so boring!”

“You’re telling me that nothing has happened in the couple of weeks since the kiss? Like, are you sure you’re not in a secret relationship with him and just neglecting to tell us?” Katara asked.

“There’s nothing going on,” you insisted. “As much as I want something to go on, I… haven't’ really said anything either.”

“What?” Suki cried. “You are crazy for him, how have you not tried to make something out of this yet?!”

“I don’t know!” you shot back defensively. “I guess I’m just scared that everything will go wrong.”

“Look,” Suki began as she took a seat on the floor in front of you. “You are kind, funny, gorgeous as hell, and an all around amazing person — and Zuko has it just as bad for you as you do for him! So embrace all of that, get out there tonight, and make a move!”

It had been too long since you had gotten a pep talk from Suki, and it was strangely refreshing. You nodded and sat up. “You know, you’re right! I have just… I’ve been sitting around, waiting for him to make a move because I’m too scared of getting rejected. But I am a delight! I am a lovely person, and I am a delight. Besides, we’re both adults! Even if he doesn’t like me the same way I do—”

“Which he does,” Toph interrupted, which earned her a joking glare.

“Even if he doesn’t like me the same way I do,” you repeated. “We’re still going to be friends. It’ll just be a couple awkward weeks, and then we’ll be back to normal.”

“That’s as close to the spirit as we’re gonna get!” Katara exclaimed as she gave you a high-five.

“It’s about time,” Toph joked as she hit you on the shoulder. “Now, are you gonna get ready or what?”

“Right,” you chuckled. “I did get this super cute dress a while ago that I haven’t gotten a chance to wear. I think it’ll be perfect for tonight.”

“What are you waiting for, girl?” Suki asked. “Show us!”

After showing off your dress, you had finished up the final touches of your makeup and gotten one last pep talk from all of your girls — you were feeling more confident than ever, and you were sure that tonight was the night you would tell Zuko how you felt.

-

Back at the apartment, the boys were going through a similar dilemma.

“Zuko, what are you so scared about?” Sokka was hanging upside down off of the couch, a move he must’ve picked up from his sister, as he questioned his friend.

“I don’t know, everything? She could reject me, she could start to hate me, I could ruin everything that we’ve built over the past few months— you know, it’s not even that bad, what we have right now! What’s the harm in just staying like this?”

“Zuko,” Aang groaned. “I get being cautious, but this is just too much! You’re letting your fears get in the way of you and Y/N being happy. You kissed her, right? And she kissed you back! I’m telling you, if you let her know how you feel tonight then everything will work out. Trust me!”

“Seriously, buddy — it’s just painful at this point. It’ll be kinda weird having one of my friends date my sister again, but somehow, you two being apart is worse. Just tell her already!”

“Okay!” Zuko exclaimed defensively. He finished doing his hair then ran his fingers through it, ruining his work completely. When Sokka gave him a weird look, he shrugged and smiled to himself a bit. “Y/N likes it this way.”

Sokka gestured at him in disbelief and shook his head. “This is exactly what I mean!”

“Okay!” he repeated. Zuko leaned against the kitchen island and nodded. “Okay, I’ll tell her how I feel tonight. After she’s gotten into the party a little, I’ll take her outside and I’ll tell her how I feel.”

“And then you’ll kiss and it’ll be happily ever after!” Aang crooned.

Sokka rolled off of the sofa and stood up, then picked up the car keys from the table. “Someone text the girls, because we’re leaving. I can’t deal with this anymore.”

“You’re gonna do great tonight, Zuko,” Aang reassured as he gave Zuko a pat on the back. “Just remember why you like her in the first place, and speak from the heart. She likes you, so as long as you’re you, things will go great.”

Zuko nodded and gave Aang a small smile. “Thanks. I hope you’re right.”

As the two of them followed Sokka out of the apartment, he took another deep breath and tried to psych himself up. He was sure that tonight was the night he would tell you how he felt.

-

The seven of you regrouped with each other where you would be spending the rest of the night — because a ton of students were expected to celebrate the end of the first semester, the party was being hosted in a warehouse that a couple of kids had rented out for the night. It was more extravagant than the first party you went to in every way — you could hear the music thumping from all the way down the street as you got out of the car.

“Do you think we beat them here?” Suki asked as she helped Toph out. Katara locked the car and looked around, shaking her head as she pointed down the street. Sokka, Aang, and Zuko were all walking up together, having parked a couple cars down.

“They beat us by a minute. Probably broke a hundred different traffic laws in the process.”

“You guys made it!” Aang exclaimed as he gave Katara a kiss on the cheek. “Sokka forced Zuko to let him drive here, said he’s too slow and that he wanted to beat you all.”

“Sounds like him,” Suki joked as she took Sokka’s hand. “You ready, Big Shot?”

“I’m always ready,” he grinned, earning a laugh from you and Katara. Your eyes fell on Zuko as he walked up and you smiled, already starting to feel your cheeks heating up.

“Wow, Y/N, you look…”

“Amazing?” you guessed coyly.

“Breathtaking,” he clarified, the beginnings of a smirk playing on his lips. You laughed and looped your arm through his, and the two of you began making your way towards the party.

The rest of the group shot each other looks that ranged from overjoyed to bewildered to confused. As they started to follow you, they realized that getting the two of you together might be easier than they thought.

-

It wasn’t hard to get into the spirit of the night once you got into the party. There had to be at least a couple hundred people there, but it didn’t take long for everyone to start breaking off into groups. Suki had roped you in karaoke while Aang had taken Zuko to meet some of his friends, giving Sokka, Katara, and Toph time to strategize before setting the plan in motion.

“Okay!” Katara shouted so she could be heard over all the noise. “I don’t think we’re actually gonna have to do that much tonight! Just.. keep him busy for a while and then give him an out, and we’ll do the same with Y/N!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the whole plan. I made it up, remember?” Sokka wasn’t completely focused on the conversation at hand as his eyes darted around the scene, seemingly searching for something. His eyes suddenly lit up and he started to back away from their small group. “There he is! Sorry Katara, gotta go prove to a bunch of freshmen that they don’t know anything and I’m better than them. Aang can handle Zuko!” He grinned at her then ran off into the crowd before Katara could protest.

She sighed and turned to Toph. “Suki’s got Y/N occupied and Aang’s got Zuko, so it looks like it’s just you and me, Beifong. Whaddya wanna do?”

“You’re telling me you don’t want to see your sister embarrass herself with karaoke?” Toph asked.

Katara laughed and grabbed Toph’s hand as she started to lead them through the crowd. “You know what? That sounds perfect. After all the work we’ve done for her and Zuko, I think I deserve to laugh at her for a while.”

-

The first two hours of the party passed by quickly. You spent the first thirty minutes making a fool of yourself with Suki as you sang a couple classics on karaoke — though it was a bit humiliating, you had an amazing time. The second half of the hour went to the beer pong competition that Sokka’s friend Zhen had organized (they did end up winning, so you supposed his pride was well earned), and the next hour was dedicated to dancing, drinking, and letting loose. You had finished the first semester of your masters program, so you felt like you deserved it.

You had stolen away to an emptier corner to give yourself a breather as well as some alone time — you were enjoying yourself, but it was close to claustrophobic in the heat of it all. You were passing the time on your phone when you heard a familiar voice call your name. Your eyes immediately shot up as you tucked your phone into your purse, and you were met with your favorite pair of golden eyes.

“Hey,” Zuko breathed, taking a second to straighten his ruffled clothes. You couldn’t help the smile that played on your lips as you ran a hand through his hair to muss it up even further.

“Hey yourself,” you laughed. “What’s so important that you had to run all the way over here?”

“I have something I need to tell you. It actually is really important, but I think it’d go over better if we weren’t in the middle of all this chaos.”

You would be lying if you said that didn’t make your heart beat a little faster, and as you felt your cheeks heat up you realized that this was your chance. “Uh, yeah. Sure, totally— I actually have something I need to tell you, so that’s perfect!”

“Really?”

“Guess we’re just in tune.”

Zuko smiled as he took your hand and started to lead you through the crowd, but when you heard someone calling your name you froze. The blood in your veins turned to ice, and your grip on Zuko’s hand tightened. He shot you a questioning look but you didn’t even see it.

“No,” you muttered, barely legible. “No, not here.”

You almost didn’t want to turn around to confirm your suspicions. You could’ve ignored it, pretended like you didn’t hear it over the sounds of the party, but there was a voice nagging in your head that you couldn’t just ignore it, you had to find out if he was really, truly here — so you did.

You wanted nothing more to be wrong in that moment — honestly, you thought that you were hallucinating at first. You hadn’t had that much to drink, but maybe the alcohol combined with the sleep deprivation was making you see things. Unfortunately, it was real. You could never forget those eyes.

“Hahn,” you mumbled, the sight taking a moment to register. “Hahn, what the hell are you doing here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m here to party, and I’m here to see you.” The grin on his face didn’t waver as he looked you up and down, choosing to ignore the blatant shock on your face.

“You are not here to see me,” you clarified coolly. “We’re not together anymore, and ex-boyfriends don’t make hour-long drives to see their ex-girlfriends, especially ex-girlfriends that they treated like trash.”

“I figured you’d be more happy to see me than this,” he huffed. “Ungrateful as usual.” Hahn seemed to finally notice Zuko and scoffed as he looked at him. “What, is he your new boyfriend? You really downgraded.”

“You have no right to talk to her like that—” Zuko stepped forward to say more but you held out your hand to stop him. You gave him a short nod and stepped forward yourself.

“Hahn, I’m going to ask you one more time.” You could feel your hands shaking, whether it was from rage or fear you didn’t know. Your voice was deadly calm, but it was taking all of your energy to stay that way. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Hahn laughed and crossed his arms. “You’re joking right?” His amusement was a notion that you didn’t share, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably before he continued. “You wouldn’t answer my texts, and you obviously still want me after the things you sent me. My brother had a game here and I came along to see him, so I figured I would pay you a visit as well. You never really officially broke up with me, y’know. Are you really going to let three years go down the drain because of one little incident?”

Now it was your turn to laugh — it was from pure disbelief rather than amusement, though. “Are you serious? Hahn, I left you! I walked out, I moved out, I transferred universities to get away from you! Are you really so dense that you still think you stand a chance based off of some drunk texts?”

“Woah, you think you’re giving me a chance? Y/N/N, this is my olive branch to you — I messed up, I know I did, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fix things up! I could have any girl I wanted back at Kyoshi, but I’m here because I want you — I love you, babe. You know I do.”

“You don’t get to call her ‘babe’,” Zuko snapped. “She doesn’t want you here, so why don’t you just save yourself some trouble and get out of here?”

Hahn snorted and shook his head. “Stay out of this, fireboy. Y/N’s a big girl, she can speak for herself.”

You looked around and saw that a modest crowd was forming around the three of you, and more than a few people were filming. If you didn’t want your relationship problems to become BSSU news, you had to defuse this as soon as possible.

“Listen,” you interrupted. “Zuko’s right, Hahn. It was a mistake to come here — if you’re as smart as you always say, then you would know that. Just.. go home.”

Hahn scoffed as if he couldn’t believe what you were saying. “No, you listen. I’m trying to do you a favor here, Y/N! I made one mistake, and apparently that was enough to ruin everything we had.”

“You know just as well as I do that it wasn’t one mistake!” you cried. “If you can really get any other girl you want, then do it! I mean, that wasn’t a problem for you during our relationship, so I don’t see why it’s a problem now. We’re not getting back together, so just stop!”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” he sneered as he gave Zuko another onceover. “He’s the reason you’re acting like this. I never thought that you would sink so low, but you’ve clearly gone soft. Come on, stop acting like a baby and we can talk this out alone.”

He started to reach for your hand but you pulled it back, and before you knew what you were doing, you had handed your drink to Zuko and your fist was flying right at Hahn’s face. It hurt like hell, but the pure satisfaction from seeing his shock as he recoiled was a painkiller on its own.

“How’s that for soft?” you spat as you rubbed your injured knuckles.

“You.. you bitch!” he yelled, staggering back a few feet as he put his hand over his nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding. “This is how you repay me after everything? You should be thankful I’m giving you another chance—” he started to reach for you again, but you slapped his hand away. You cast a glance back at Zuko and saw that he had been joined by Sokka and Katara, and knowing that they were with you made all the difference.

“I don’t want another chance!” you shouted. “You are the one that fucked up, you are the one that made my life hell, and you are not the one that gets to give out second chances! I gave you so many chances, and you messed up every single one! Hahn, I never want to see you again. And if you ever try something like this again, if you ever even try and talk to me again, I will do something so much worse. Now do the smart thing and get out!”

You gave him one hard shove to the chest then turned on your heel and ran. It was the coward’s move, you knew it was, but you couldn’t be there anymore. Tears blurred your vision as you pushed through the crowd to get to the back door, heaving shaky breaths once you finally made it outside. You could hear familiar voices yelling and felt the slightest tinge of joy knowing that your younger siblings were giving Hahn hell.

You leaned against the side of the building, pressing the heels of your hands against your forehead to try and stop yourself from having a full on breakdown. You started to count backwards from twenty in your head as your eyes scanned the area for something, anything, to ground you. It helped in the sense that you weren’t about to lose it right then and there, but you were still on the brink. You slid down the wall into a sitting position and hugged your knees to your chest, the tears finally falling.

This was your university, this was your night, this was for you to make new memories and end your first semester, but like everything else he had come in and ruined it. You had no idea how he even found you, how he knew you would even be here, but it scared you.

“Should’ve blocked you as soon as you… fucking asshole… can’t believe..” you mumbled incoherently as you pulled your phone out with shaky hands, blocking and deleting his number. You dropped your phone in your lap and then put your head in your hands, still trying to process everything that happened. You didn’t even look up when you heard someone coming outside, but somehow you immediately knew who it was.

“Hey, Y/N.. Are you.. okay?” Zuko’s voice was full of sympathy but also caution, as if you were a delicate flower you didn’t want to tear.

“Do I look okay, Zuko?” Your words came out much more aggressive than you wanted them to, and you bit your lip. You had always expected his kindness to be a double-edged sword, something he used just to get something from you, but it never was. Not even once. It made sense after what he told you, and it just made him an even better person in your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m just.. not. Not in the slightest. Hahn was the last person I expected to see tonight.”

Zuko moved over and sat down against the wall with you then hovered his hand above yours, giving you a chance to pull away. When you didn’t move, he set his hand on yours, filling you with the comforting warmth that you missed.

“You don’t need to apologize. What he did was fucked up.” He cracked a small smile. “Punching him was pretty badass though.”

You wiped a tear away and let out a soft laugh. “It was about time I stood up for myself. Our whole relationship was built off of this sick power dynamic that he loved to wield over me. Things were fine for the first few months, of course. He had this douchebag reputation on campus, but I believed that I could change him, that I could be the one to make him settle down, and— and it felt like I had at first! He was the sweetest guy, and he always brought me things and took me out on dates and it was just- it was just a dream. But I should’ve known he was using me. He had never changed, he had just gotten better at hiding those parts of himself.”

“I had zero sense of self worth and he used that. Told me that if I broke up with him I would never find anyone better, always convincing me that I was the one in the wrong, that if I wasn’t so dramatic then we wouldn’t have all these arguments. And the worst thing about it? I believed him. I believed him every time.” Your voice cracked on your last sentence and you could feel yourself getting choked up again. You swallowed hard and tried your best to push your emotions back down. “I was so terrified that he was right, that I would end up alone if I broke up with him, that I stayed. And that was our relationship for the past three years — built off of fear and manipulation.”

“A lot of people wonder why I transferred here. Sure, I did it for my masters, but Kyoshi has a perfectly fine program. I had already established my life there, I had an apartment, lots of friends, and yeah, I was going to go through with it. I was going to get my masters back there, but I… I did it because of him. I left because of Hahn.”

“Y/N. What did he do?” There was a dangerous undertone to his words, and you placed your intertwined hands on his knee. You didn’t want him to do something he would regret, and more selfishly, you needed him here right now.

You closed your eyes and let the question hang in the air for a moment. You hadn’t told anyone the truth of how your relationship ended with Hahn, and this wasn’t how you had pictured telling Zuko. If you were being honest, you didn’t think you would ever tell him — but he deserved to know.

“He cheated.” You said the words so easily, so simply that you almost shocked yourself. It shocked Zuko too; you could see his eyes widen slightly from your peripherals.

“Yeah. He cheated on me. That’s how things ended. After everything I put into that relationship, everything I did for him, everything he took from me… I still wasn’t enough for him. I got home from class one day to find him in bed with another girl, and… that was it. Something inside me just snapped. That was my moment of clarity — no yelling, no crying, no… anything. I just left. A friend let me crash at her place, and that night I started the process of transferring here. I made a promise to myself that I would never let someone like Hahn in again, and… well, now we’re here.” You laughed humorlessly and wiped a tear from your eye.

It was like the breath had been stolen from Zuko’s chest. He had never fully understood why you were so reluctant to open up to people, but this explained it. You weren’t someone who gave out love freely, but you had to Hahn — and the way he had treated that love made him sick. He had ingrained in you the ideal that you couldn’t be loved, only tolerated, and that was why you had such a hard time accepting help from anyone. The thought alone made him want to find Hahn and get him back for everything he had done to you. The only thing stopping him was that he didn’t want to leave you alone.

“Y/N,” he muttered. “I had no idea. Katara and Sokka didn’t even know.. Why did you hold all of this in?”

“Because I was scared, Zuko! I got myself into this mess with a stupid boy that everyone had warned me about, so I felt like I had to get myself out. Even when things took a turn for the worse, I felt like I couldn’t involve anyone else because it was my fault. It was my fault for trusting someone like him, it was my fault for believing all of his lies, it was my fault for not being good enough. And even after everything he did to me, a part of me still missed him.” You let out a laugh that was a touch unhinged. “There’s something seriously wrong with me.”

“Y/N, look at me.” You tore your eyes up from the ground and at Zuko — his golden irises looked the same as the first time you met him and it was oddly comforting.

“There is nothing wrong with you. Okay? And I know it’s easier said than done, believe me, I know, but you don’t need to be scared. I understand why you were so hesitant to share what happened with Hahn, but you don’t need to be. I don’t know how much weight my words have, but I want you to know that you can always tell me what is happening with you. Whether it’s a life changing event or just what you did that morning, I’ll listen to you. You aren’t alone, Y/N, because I’m here for you. I always will be.”

Your eyes widened with surprise as you stared into his own. This was the most sincere you had ever seen Zuko, even more than the night he told you about his life. There was a nagging voice in the back of your head telling you to kiss him, feel that warmth again, forget about what had happened for just a moment.

But as the familiar prick of incoming tears returned, you knew you couldn’t. You were drunk, on the verge of a complete breakdown, and anything that happened between you tonight would be tainted with the memory of Hahn. So with a concentrated effort, you tore your eyes away from his and swallowed, your throat dry and scratchy from the screaming match you had gotten yourself into.

“I don’t think I can spend another minute here. I hate to ask, but.. can you take me home?” you asked quietly. “You might not be able to tell, but I’m not in a state to do anything right now.”

“Of course.” You gave his hand another squeeze to let him know that he hadn’t overstepped, and stood up. The two of you began the walk back to the car and Zuko let go of your hand, shifting so that he could instead wrap his arm around your back. You smiled softly and leaned your head against his shoulder, the gesture a welcome comfort.

“Thank you,” you whispered. He squeezed your shoulder softly in response, a silent notion that said everything he couldn’t.

Tonight had been a wreck, that much was certain. Your past had resurged in the most painful way possible, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to get through it alone.

But you weren’t alone this time. You had Zuko.

And with Zuko by your side… you knew you would be okay.

-

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atla: @marianne1806

[ticklishfiend]

Cool Beans (My Hero Academia)

Pairings : Lee!Ojiro / Ler!Bakusquad (minor lee!bkg, ler!kiri with kiribaku!!!)

A/N : aaa this was a rlly cute prompt, tysm anon! took me a while to write this considering i wasn't really sure how to write for ojiro's character haha. i also don't think the toe bean thing is canon whatsoever but guess what, neither is kiribaku and u dont see me shutting up abt them do u? either way, hope u guys enjoy this!! much love <333

Summary : Denki decides to invite Ojiro to one of the Bakusquad's weekly sleepovers, and once they both arrive, is shocked to find that Ojiro has...toe beans? No way he can't investigate those! (even if they do turn out to be a bit sensitive...)

Word Count : 3651

⚠️quick heads up!! i had to add some lines after the "keep reading" so tumblr wouldn't mess up the writing! pls ignore them, they have nothing to do with the actual story!⚠️

REBLOGS ARE HIGHLY APPRECIATED!!! MWAH <333

. . .

“Here, just glue that last paper down and we should be done!” Denki clapped his hands together with a wide smile, his tongue poking out of his teeth in excitement as Ojiro pasted the last picture onto their poster board for the night.

The pair had been working on a group project together for the past two days, and after hours of pretty heavy research and planning, they were finally finished, and Denki could not be more thrilled to not have to work anymore tonight. He’s had a good time with Ojiro the past two days, though, and wasn’t really ready to just part ways with him just yet. He’d never really hung out with the guy much before this, and as it turns out they got along much better than he would’ve initially guessed. No way Denki was just gonna give up the chances of a new good friend.

///

///

“So that’s it, right? We didn’t, like, forget a chunk did we?” Ojiro asked cautiously, knowing Denki was one to often forget important details like that. The electric teen sat in genuine thought for a moment, before popping his mouth with a smile.

“Nope! We’re all good, man,” Denki stood from his spot on the floor, moving the poster over to another side of the room and picking up his bookbag, turning back around to face Ojiro who was busy putting stuff away in his drawers. “Hey, um, me and a couple others are having a sleepover in the common room tonight. Would you wanna join us? I’ve kinda enjoyed hanging out with you these past few days so I think it’d be pretty fun if you went!”

Ojiro looked at him with an almost shocked expression on his face for a moment, eyebrows raised and mouth just slightly agape. “O-Oh, um...sure!” He looked towards his bedroom door a little warily and almost like he was confused, looking back to Denki with a thumb pointed towards the door. “Is it happening, like, now, or…?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah Bakugou and Kirishima already finished their project so they’re probably down there right now, but you can just come down whenever you feel like it! I’ve gotta grab a few pillows and my blanket first but I’ll be down there in just a minute.”

“Alright then, um...I guess I’ll meet you there?”

“Sure thing, man! I’ll tell the others you’ll be coming,” Denki gave Ojiro a big thumbs up before practically bouncing his way out the door and towards his own room to grab his stuff. This was definitely gonna be a fun night.

…

It took a while for Ojiro to get his stuff together for the night, wanting to make sure he had everything so he wouldn’t have to walk back to his room in the middle of the night and risk waking any of the light-sleepers of the dorm. But, once he was sure he had everything and had hyped himself up enough to do it, he finally made his way out of his bedroom, walking towards the common area with his pillow and blanket in hand.

Upon entry, Denki’s whole little friend group was sat lounging around the common areas. Bakugou and Kirishima were cuddled together under the same blanket at the corner of one of the couches, while Mina was on the opposing side of the same couch under her own pink and purple blanket. Sero sat on his own little chair, while Denki sat on the floor on top of an orange bean bag someone must have brought from their own room. Ojiro took a deep breath in before marching his way towards them, waving his arm that held his pillow under the armpit.

“Hey guys!” Ojiro greeted with a smile, all the teens turning around to face him with smiles of their own (well, all except for Bakugou, but Ojiro took no offense to that).

“Ayyye, it’s the Tailster!” Sero chuckled from his spot on the chair, giving Ojiro a little nod in welcome. Denki hopped off his beanbag excitedly, speeding his way behind Sero’s chair to grab a purple bean bag he must’ve brought just for Ojiro’s company. He plopped it right down next to his orange one, showing it off with pride.

“Jirou let me borrow this tonight! I invited her over too but apparently she had plans with Momo,” Denki rolled his eyes playfully with a grin, pretending to gag with a finger in his mouth.

“Booooo, love sucks!” Sero heckled with his hands cupping around his mouth, chuckling when Bakugou threw a throw pillow at him from his spot cuddled up against Kirishima.

Ojiro giggled at their playfulness, sitting his pillow down beside his beanbag before sitting himself down on it comfortably. “Thanks for inviting me, you guys, seriously.”

“Babes, of course!” Mina exclaimed from her spot behind Ojiro on the couch. “We love having you around, Oji!”

“Yeah man, what she said!” Kirishima spoke up, pointing at Mina in agreement. “You’re a super manly dude, Ojiro. We were so excited when Denki told us you said you’d come!”

“Dude, even Bakugou was psyched,” Sero smirked, pointing his thumb at a now seething Bakugou.

“I was not PSYCHED you Spider-Man wannabe! He’s just less annoying than any of you bastards; thought it’d be a nice change of pace for once,” Bakugou rolled his eyes, slumping into Kirishima’s chest with his arms crossed like a pouting toddler. Kirishima just giggled at his boyfriend’s little temper tantrum, scratching at his scalp just the way he knew the blonde loved (which immediately calmed him down from any previous rage he felt towards the, quote, “Spider-Man Wannabe”).

Denki threw himself onto the bean bag next to Ojiro, TV remote in hand as he grinned up towards the tailed hero-in-training. “It’s a Disney movie night; got any suggestions as our guest of honor?”

Ojiro sat in thought for a minute, scratching at his chin as he scanned through all the past Disney films he’d watched over the years through his head. “Hm...Wreck It Ralph?”

“Oh FUCK yeah, this guy’s coming to every movie night from here on out!” Bakugou exclaimed, the compliment making Ojiro feel a little sheepish as he chuckled shyly. The others nodded in agreement, Denki getting the movie ready on the TV from his position propped up on the beanbag.

Once the movie had started, Ojiro decided he wanted to make himself a little more cozy now that he felt more comfortable around the group of other teens. He laid his pillow down on the floor, lounging back against the beanbag and propping up his feet on the soft cushion. Denki glanced over towards Ojiro when he noticed the movement, his eyes naturally gazing towards the boy’s now propped up feet. Denki gasped in excitement when he saw something he had never noticed before on the boy.

“Dude! You’ve got little toe beans!” The electric blonde pointed eagerly down at Ojiro’s feet, the tailed teen blushing slightly at the attention. Denki scooted in closer to his feet, looking intently at the little pink buds on his soles and toes. “No way, this is so cool! Can I touch them?”

“U-Uh, sure, just be gentle please,” Ojiro scratched at his neck sheepishly, unable to keep down the blush pushing at his cheeks and ears from the attention.

Sero suddenly hopped down from his spot on his chair, plopping down next to Denki to get a look at Ojiro’s feet as well. “Yup. Tailster’s got beans.”

Ojiro chuckled at the nickname before flinching when he felt a single finger touch down on the pink pad right under his toes. Denki used the pads of his fingers to idly trace and feel around the flesh, and Ojiro couldn’t help the way his toes tried to instinctively curl up at the sensation.

“They’re so soft, I could do this forever,” Denki sighed, continuing to brush little shapes into the pads. Ojiro gasped with a small jerk when he felt a nail accidentally scrape against the skin, and Denki instinctively pulled his hand back in shock. “Oh, dude, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

Ojiro shook his head immediately. “No, you didn’t hurt me, it’s okay! It’s just...the uh, the ‘beans’ are a little...um…sensitive.”

Ojiro could see Sero raise an eyebrow at the word, a small grin appearing on his face as he nudged Denki in the shoulder with his elbow. “I think what Oji’s tryna say is, his beans are ticklish.” Sero glanced at the embarrassed Ojiro, Denki following suit with a large grin plastered on his face.

“Aww, that’s so cute! Kaminari, tickle his beans!” Mina giggled from her spot on the couch, Bakugou rolling his eyes at their silliness. The angry blonde pointed an accusatory finger towards Ojiro, the tailed boy’s eyes a little wide at the intimidation.

“Don’t be fuckin’ loud, Tail, I’m tryna watch the movie you picked out,” Bakugou grumbled, dropping his arm and pushing himself further into Kirishima’s chest as the red-head played with his hair soothingly.

Before Ojiro could respond, he yipped when he felt two teasing nails scratch slowly along the padding on his feet, his leg jerking back only to be stopped by Denki grabbing his ankle and holding the appendage in place.

“Ah ah ah, no getting away now, Oji! I wanna test this out a little more,” Denki chuckled, scribbling his two fingers into the bean. Ojiro gasped, quickly clamping his hands onto his mouth to muffle any giggles that threatened to burst out. Denki continued his slow, ticklish touches while looking over towards Sero. “Sero, get the other foot for me.”

“With pleasure~,” Sero chuckled, gently grabbing Ojiro’s other ankle and scribbling his fingers along the pad on his arch. Finally, Ojiro’s dam broke, muffled giggles being heard from behind his palms as he squirmed in his beanbag.

“Guhuhuys! Nohoho!” He giggled, gently pulling at his trapped feet to no avail. He really didn’t want to kick them, and was almost a little glad they were holding him by his ankles to prevent it, but at the same time it tickled so so badly and he didn’t know how much longer he could take it before he was gonna start to scream laugh.

“Does it really tickle?” Denki asked honestly, but the question only made Ojiro blush even harder behind his hands, the electric teen unintentionally teasing him beyond belief. “I’m gonna go faster, okay? I wanna test and see if it tickles more like that.”

Ojiro nodded shyly, before shrieking at the feeling of three fingers scribbling even faster along the pads of his foot, Sero’s hand still scribbling rather slowly on his other foot, but oh so teasingly.

“GYAHAHA! Kaminahahari! Guhuhuys! It tihihickles!” Ojiro cackled, keeping one hand over his mouth while the other went to grip at the side of his bean bag for support.

“Get his toes ones, you idiots. The toes always tickle worse,” Bakugou called from the couch, Kirishima giggling beside him.

“Yeah, you would know, wouldn’t you Bakugou?” Kirishima teased, pinching Bakugou’s side under the blanket and causing the blonde to yelp before hitting the redhead in the chest playfully with a frown.

Denki heard Bakugou loud and clear, moving his fingers up to scribble along the pads covering Ojiro’s toes. The poor tailed boy squealed, his kicking and thrashing getting a little more aggressive as Sero also moved upwards to mimic Denki’s tickling.

“NAHAHA! STHAHAHAP! IT TICKLES SOHOHO MUHUHUCH WOHOHORSE!” Ojiro cackled, both of his hands shooting down to clutch at his tummy that was convulsing from laughter. “PLEHEHEASE! I CAHAHAHAN’T TAHAHAKE IT!”

“Oh c’moooon Oji! You’re a hero in training! I’d think you could handle a couple bean-tickles!” Sero teased, switching to pinch at the pad with his finger and thumb. Ojiro screamed through his giggle fit, making Bakugou groan and grab the remote to turn on the subtitles.

“NOHOHO! NOHOHO PIHIHINCHING! PLEHEHEASE!” Ojiro pleaded, his eyes squeezed so tightly shut that he could see little colorful fireworks in the darkness of his eyelids. Kaminari just giggled, pinching at the boy’s big toe despite his desperate pleas.

“You’re really ticklish, man! Is it like this everywhere or just your beans?” Denki raised an eyebrow before glancing over towards his three friends on the couch. Mina squealed excitedly, knowing exactly what the blonde was implying, while Bakugou just groaned into Kirishima’s chest.

“I don't wanna moveeeee,” Bakugou whined, making Kirishima just roll his eyes with a smile. Kirishima pinched Bakugou’s side again without stopping this time, making Bakugou jerk with a few choked giggles. “N-Nohoho! Kihihiri!”

“I’ll just tickle you ‘til you help us tickle Ojiro, Kats,” Kirishima teased into the blonde's ear, who promptly scrunched up his shoulder and batted at the boy’s face.

“Fihihihine! I’ll hehehelp! Just quhuhuit!” he giggled, huffing when Kirishima finally relented. They both moved from their cozy spot on the couch, the three of them getting down on the floor next to Ojiro. Denki and Sero had momentarily stopped their tickling at this point to give the boy a breather, but still held onto his ankles firmly as to not let him escape just yet.

“Guys, w-wait, hold on-” Ojiro pleaded with a blush before being hushed by Mina.

“Sorry, Oji, but this is a tickle-friendly group! Might have to get used to it if you wanna spend more time with us!” Mina giggled, plopping down on his right side while Bakugou took his right. Kirishima sat behind him, quickly hooking his arms under Ojiro’s and pulling him back some to give the others access to his torso.

“Which we definitely want you to do! You’re super fun, Ojiro, and we wanna keep spending time with you!” Kirishima smiled, though Ojiro couldn’t exactly see it as Kirishima was behind his head. “And hey, if you really really need us to stop, our safeword is ‘koala’!”

“I came up with that one,” Denki chuckled proudly, holding a hand to his chest.

“That’s...that’s really nice of you guys to say,” Ojiro smiled with flushed cheeks, sighing before bringing his head up to face them. “Alright, I’m ready. Someone should probably sit on my tail, though; I’m really ticklish and sometimes it goes a little out of control.”

“No problem, buddy! Bakugou; tail,” Kirshima pointed with his finger extended towards Bakugou, who just rolled his eyes and plopped down on his tail. “Comfy?”

“Y-Yeah, just hurry up, I’m not sure I can take waiting any longeR-HRG! HEHEHEHAHAHA! NAHAHAHA GAHAHAD!” Ojiro cackled wildy as all the teens around him dug into his sensitive body. Mina scribbled her finger in the hollow on his right armpit, while Bakugou took a much rougher approach, digging his fingers into the grooves of Ojiro’s ribs and vibrating mercilessly. Denki and Sero continued their incessant assault upon his so-called “toe beans,” scribbling wildly with their fingernails and leaving Ojiro an absolute mess underneath them. Kirishima got a little bored just being Ojiro’s physical captor, and took to blowing teasing air along the backs of Ojiro’s ears, which resulted in him scrunching up his neck with high-pitched squeals.

“Aww, he’s so ticklish!” Mina cooed, massaging circles with her thumb into Ojiro’s armpit, making the teen jerk and writhe under her assault with vicious cackles.

“It’s fucking hilarious, he’s losing his goddamn mind,” Bakugou chuckled, moving his fingers down to pinch along Ojiro’s sides right above his hips. Ojiro screamed, thrashing under their hold with desperate cackles and pleas.

“NAHAHAHA! BAHAHAHKUGOGOGOU! NAHAT THEHEHERE!” Ojiro’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his body trying desperately to wiggle away from those torturous fingers that refused to relent on his sensitive sides.

“Aww, someone’s got really ticklish sides!” Denki teased, pinching at Ojiro’s big toe pad while having to hold on to his ankle for dear life so he didn’t kick it out of his pin.

“PLEHEHEHEASE! I CAHAHAHAN’T!!” he bursted, his body trying to curl in on itself from the ticklish sensations. “I’LL DOHOHO ANYTHIHIHING!”

“Looks like we’ve got a beggar,” Sero chuckled, scratching relentlessly at those little beans. “Tell you what, Oji; promise to come to our next sleepover and you’ve got a deal.”

“I PROHOHOMISE! I PROHOMISE JUHUHUST PLEHEHEHASE! NO MOHOHORE TIHIHICKLES!” Ojiro begged through his giggling mirth. Those fingers against his sides just would not let up, as Bakugou was quite the mean tickler he’d come to find out, and he really didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. It was incessant, it was torturous, it was...it was so much fun.

“Oh yeah? You wanna bring us some snacks too?” Bakugou added, one hand continuing it’s deathly ticklish attack on the boy’s sides, while the other took to scribbling along Ojiro’s stomach and pinching at the pudge when he felt absolutely necessary.

“YEHEHES! ANYTHIHIHING!”

“Hmmm...what snacks do you guys like for a movie?” Denki asked, as if he wasn’t in the middle of pinching and scribbling at his friend’s sensitive feet and making the boy thrash and cackle cries of mirth underneath him. “I could probably go for some sour gummy worms. Sero?”

“Oh, definitely some Reeses Pieces. Goes great with popcorn,” Sero grinned, looking calmly towards Bakugou who was very evilly grinning while squeezing torturously along Ojiro’s sides. “Bakugou?”

“Hot Cheetos, easy. Forget those next time and this will look like child’s play in comparison,” Bakugou chuckled lowly, Denki raising an eyebrow at him.

“Dude...this is child’s play. We’re literally having a tickle fight right now,” Denki grinned, the background melody of Ojiro’s desperate cackles making him giggle from the contagion.

“SHUT UP, SPARKY!” Bakugou yelled, which only made him drill even harder into the boy’s sensitive flesh.

“NAHAHAHAHAHA! PLEHEHEHASE STAHAHAHP! ANYTHING YOHOHU WAHAHAHNT! I CAN’T TAHAHAHAKE IHIHIT!”

“Alright, alright, just two more snacks for you to jot on your mental list and you’ll be good to go!” Kirishima hyped the cackling boy underneath him, but looked to his friends to mentally tell them, ‘give the boy a second to breathe.’ They all slowed their tickling down some, still not relenting fully, but instead reducing Ojiro to a pile of happy, giddy giggles instead of the desperate cackling cries he had just seconds before. Kirishima smiled at the adorable sound. “I’ll take...hmm...I’ll take some jerky! Mina?”

Mina stopped her assault on the boy entirely, Ojiro opening a tear-filled eye to glance at her through his giggles. “I’m more of a fruit girl, so I’ll have to go with…” Mina grinned, pulling up Ojiro’s shirt to reveal his bare tummy, her face leaning down close enough where the boy could feel her breath brush against the skin, sending goosebumps across the expanse. He sucked in his stomach much to no avail. Mina smirked evilly up at Ojiro, his eyes now wide and his mouth still spilling giggle after giggle from the slowly tickling fingers along his side and feet. “...raspberries.”

Ojiro’s eyes widened. “No! Nonono, not thahahat! Wahahait, Mina pleheh-EHEASE! GYAHAHA STAHAHAP! NAHAHAHA!” Ojiro cackled and kicked as he felt Mina place teasing raspberry after teasing raspberry along his bare and ticklish tummy, He wiggled and squirmed to no avail until Mina finally let up, sitting up and back against her hands on the floor with her own little giggle.

Everyone finally stopped their tickling, letting go of the boy’s limbs and backing off to let him breathe. Denki chuckled at Ojiro’s heaving breaths and residual giggles, patting his calf in comfort. “You okay, Oji?”

Ojiro just nodded with a giggle, holding up a big thumbs up. “Yuhup, all good here.”

Kirishima smiled widely, clapping his hands together once before patting Ojiro on the shoulder in support, shaking the boy around a little. “You did great, man! Way better than I could ever handle a good tickling!” the redhead chuckled.

“Yeah, man, you were a total champ,” Sero grinned, holding up two thumbs up to the tailed boy who just smiled back at him.

“I’ll go grab you some water from the kitchen, cutie! Get comfy on the couch, I’ll take the beanbag,” Mina ruffled his hair as she stood from her spot on the floor, skipping her way to the kitchen to grab him a glass of water. He watched her leave, seeing Bakugou stand up from the corner of his eye. The explosive teen just plopped back down on his spot on the couch like nothing had happened, unpausing the movie and making grabby hands towards Kirishima. The redhead just chuckled and obeyed the boy, getting up and throwing himself on the couch to cuddle Bakugou back under their shared blanket.

Denki just rolled his eyes at the gross lovey-dovey display, standing up and offering a hand to Ojiro. “Seriously, man, you’re getting that other spot on the couch after all that. Waaay comfier than this old beanbag,” Denki smiled as Ojiro took Denki’s hand, letting out a huff of air as he pulled Ojiro off the floor. Ojiro plopped himself down on the couch tiredly, letting out a small ‘oof!’ when Sero threw his pillow at him before laying his blanket down on top of him.

“Get comfy, we sleep in here,” Sero smiled before walking back towards his own seat. Mina finally made it back from the kitchen, handing Ojiro the glass of water with a smile.

Ojiro just sat there, almost dumbfounded for a moment at their kindness. “Um...thanks, guys. You’re all like...super duper nice.”

“Aww, babes!” Mina pouted happily, her hands shooting to her chest over the spot that contained her swelling heart. “You’re such a sweetheart, of course we’d be nice to you!”

“Can you guys shut the fuck up already? Shit, I’m tryna watch the goddamn movie,” bakugou grumbled, pouting like a child against Kirishima’s chest.

Ojiro really couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends, and he was so happy they felt the same way about him.

. . .

A/N : aaa i hope u enjoyed that!! if u did, pls consider reblogging, it helps my fic to reach more ppl!! much love to u all, mwah!! <33

[blackbat05]

Day by Day

Shangqi x Reader 

A/N: My love for this man has hit an all time high so let me capitalize on it while I still can! If you read everything, I sincerely thank you for doing so!!! And holy cow 2 fics in 2 days have I gone back into my prime days? 

Genre: PG-13

Notes: As the title mentioned, I’ll probably set it some time after endgame. You could see it as a prequel to my first post! Reader is a social worker and she’s just dealing with all the mess that the snap bought back. The reader’s name as Jen Lee. I also apologize in advance for the potentially long fic. 

***

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for my child? Her name’s Wang Yiman and she’s seven.’ Another frazzled-looking parent fought her way to the front of the receptionist, approaching the helpless intern who looked like she was going to be on the verge of tears if another request came in. 

‘I got this,’ a hand calmly reassured the young intern as she beckoned the relief parent. ‘Mrs Wang? My name is Jen Lee and I’m the social worker here.’ I offered my hand for the anxious mother. ‘Oh thank god! Is Yiman ok? She must have been so scared!’ I slowed to a stop outside the room at the end of the corridor, gently sitting her down. 

‘Yiman has been a very brave girl Mrs Wang, but I will not lie to you. The sudden disappearance of their parents has traumatized a lot of kids. We’ve managed to explain to them what was going on but they will need a lot of support.’ I gave a glance over Mrs Wang’s shoulder, nodding to my colleague, Tammy who was holding the hand of a little girl in pigtails and a floral dress. 

妈妈! mā ma (mommy!)

The young girl ran into her mother’s open arms, allowing the floodgates to open from both ends. I turn to Tammy as we shared a silent agreement to leave the area. ‘That’s the last one for the day,’ Tammy unceremoniously plops herself onto the chair, letting out a groan. ‘Thanks for your hard work Jen.’ 

‘Right back at you.’ I entered the last bit of paperwork before uploading Yiman’s case file onto the portal. Yiman’s reunion with her parents meant the Children and Youth Centre were halfway in getting every displaced child back to their parents. Looking at the dingy television that was hung on the walls at the waiting room, despite not being able to hear anything, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. S.W.O.R.D was apparently in a stand-off against Wanda Maximoff? Reported rumors that Sam Wilson didn’t want anything to do with the shield? It’s been a crazy few weeks but that was utter- 

‘Bullshit! If anything it’s the government. They must have psyched him into giving up the shield.’ My chair swiveled to face Tammy who returned a nonchalant shrug. ‘What? You know I’m right. Doesn’t matter if half the world’s gone or our universe gets split into two - they’re the true evil here. I’m still struggling to find a place after I found a couple making out in my apartment! And you know what the global repatriation council told me? We’re only dealing with urgent cases right now. Well I say f-’

The incessant ringing of the bell interrupted our conversation, replacing Tammy’s tirade into a cheeky grin. ‘Look who’s here!’ 

Shangqi stands behind the counter, dressed in his usual red varsity jacket and jeans, holding bags of what I could only make out as takeout from the Chinese restaurant that was run by a friendly Singaporean couple. ‘Did I interrupt something?’ He scratches his head nervously. ‘Nope, in fact you just saved me from Tammy’s monologue, any further and she’ll explicitly tell me what she saw in her apartment when she got dusted back that day,’ I shivered in mock fear. ‘Still haunts me up till today.’ Tammy meets us by the door, bag in her hand. 

‘I thought you were staying? We got fried dumplings and 泡饭  pào fàn (poached rice).’ 

‘Last minute duty - A parent called, gotta run! Enjoy your dinner date.’ She waggles her eyebrows suggestively, much to our embarrassment. ‘What? It’s not...’ Shangqi stutters, trying to form intelligible sentences. ‘Get out before I throw a fried dumpling at your face Tammy!’ She winks at me, before darting out of the door. Once my nosy colleague was out, I turn towards a red-faced Shangqi. ‘I’m so sorry... just don’t mind her.’ 

‘Huh?’ The man was knocked out of his stupor. ‘Oh yeah... sure,’ in an attempt to forget everything that had just happened, he opened the packets of fried dumplings. ‘Ready for war?’ 

‘I was born ready.’ 

Thirty-five minutes later, all that was left were the remnants of fried dumplings and three empty containers. 

‘This should be illegal,’ I patted my stomach in satisfaction to his amusement. ‘Laugh at yourself! You lost track of how many dumplings you had and ended up taking my share!’ 

Raising his hands in defeat, Shangqi starts to clear the table up. ‘So how’s the center? Everything alright?’ I nodded numbly. 

The past five years had been a blur. Hazy, even. All I remembered was a kid running into the office telling me that half of the staff disappeared during a school holiday program that we were running with a dozen other kids. Parents who survived the snap rushed to our center, demanding to see their children. We couldn’t give them any answer as we too, were equally perplexed. Maybe the only thing that made sense was Shangqi and Katy bursting into the center to help us with the chaos. 

Coming back from what could be the 1000th phone call, I got a glimpse in the children’s playroom where the five years old kids were at, treating myself to an amusing sight. They all had red cloths draped around their neck, each holding a stick that was from the abandoned prop box. Katy wasn’t spared to as she was wearing her own red cloth that seemed a few sizes to small for her. Not that she didn’t seem to mind. 

‘Alright my warriors! Chargeeeeee!!!!!!’ 

In unison, little pairs of feet pattered across the room towards their ‘enemy’, a cardboard cutout of a monstrous creature who was really just Shangqi in disguise. 

‘RAWR! I’ll eat anyone who stands in my way!’ He stands up, mimicking a dinosaur that was about to trample an entire city. I decided that the paperwork could wait, standing near the door to watch an Oscar-worthy performance. With great effort and bravery from the kids, they finally managed to take down 5 foot 10 worth of muscle. 

‘Again! Again!’ 

I chuckled upon seeing Shangqi on the floor, about to drift off into wonderland. It was time for me to step in. ‘Alright kids that’s enough for today! Dinner’s here.’  As the kids dispersed with the help of Katy, it was just the two of us left to clear up the mess. ‘Thank you so much, both of you. I honestly can’t think of what would happen if you guys didn’t come to help.’ 

Perhaps my body language was screaming ‘I’m dead tired, please just knock me out’ as Shangqi takes a cloth from me, folding it back into the box. ‘It’s what we would have done, this place, it means a lot to us - to me.’ 

A small knock on the door diverts our attention away from the trash. Little Yiman stands at the door, as she stares at the both of us with big round eyes. 

‘Yiman, it’s late, what are you doing here?’ I squat down to her eye level. The little girl beams, ‘ 妈妈 said that I could give this to you!’ She passes me a juice box together with a handmade card with colorful scribbles. Maybe I was carrying too much on my shoulders, as I suddenly felt a boulder lifted off me. ‘Thank you,’ I smile at her sweetly, ‘I love apple juice.’ Happy with the response, she runs to Shangqi. ‘Shangqi 哥哥 gē ge (brother)!’ 

He breaks out into a smile, opening his arms wide. Yiman nuzzles her head into his shoulder before breaking out into uncontrollable giggles from his sudden attack of tickles. ‘Are you hear to help Miss Jen?’ I took the trash from his hands, giving him some time with the girl. 

‘Yes I am. Miss Jen needs some help so I’m here today!’ 

‘Are you her boyfriend?’ 

Shangqi freezes on the spot. He had undergone what could be the toughest training by his father, fought the greatest assassins in the world and here he was - stumped by a question from a seven year old. ‘Well... I’m her close friend since when we were very young,’ Yiman looks at him expectantly. ‘She helped me when I was in trouble so I had to be a good friend when she was in trouble too.’ 

‘Like how Ningning helped me when I injured my knee?’ 

‘Yeah... something like that.’ He breathes a sigh of relief, thankful to escape his first crisis. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if he was telling himself the truth. 

‘Yiman! Your mother’s here!’ The little girl gives him one last hug before running to the waiting room. Shangqi takes a moment to recollect himself. ‘Here I am thinking that you finally managed to have some stamina while interacting with young children, maybe I was wrong.’ I teased as I sat beside him. 

‘Har har, hilarious.’ He tosses me a straw for our peach teas, as we were greeted by the amazing night view of San Francisco. ‘Enough about me, you good though?’ Looks like he didn’t forget the conversation that was cut off earlier. My mind goes back to a few minutes earlier, eavesdropping on the conversation.

‘I had to be a good friend when she was in trouble too.’

Life has been so unpredictable, I don’t even want to think too far into the future. With appearances from more superpowered beings, I don’t know what’s real anymore.

‘Yeah. To be honest, it’s been so crazy and overwhelming but I’ll get through it. I have you don’t I?’ Giving him a wink, I slowly sipped on the sweetness of the tea, savoring the pearls. He pauses for a moment, nodding thoughtfully. 

Life isn’t the same as it was before. But maybe, just maybe... if I had Shangqi, I’ll take each day on one at a time. Day by day. 

[END]

A/N: Hoho! I literally spent the whole afternoon writing because I just had to get this idea out and also because work was pretty slow today. I have no idea what is up with my first two fics hinting at unrequited love? I guess I got inspired by Shangqi’s and Katy’s platonic relationship because I thought it was so well written but I also love Shangqi so I guess is a compromise kinda thing. Again, do like and comment if you wish! Really thankful that y’all have been so kind to me so far! 

Perhaps I’ll try my hand at shorter ones like headcannons before this girl exhausts herself out and I don’t want to do that because I believe I have more to show! 

[leviaju]

𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎-𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚜𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚔

beelzebub x gender neutral reader

nsfw

1.6k+ words

anonymous asked: Can I request a oneshot or Drabble of Mc sitting in beels sweater and then he loses it n ends up cockwarming them cuz they’re so cute? >\\< ily -🌸

oooOOOOOOO an anon after my own heart!!!! love cockwarming, just so intimate!! this one is on the softer side, but still nsfw for obvious reasons

also i changed the title from 𝚌𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐 cuz i realized that anyone who saw a notification on my phone would know that i’m actually secretly a hoe! 

“Baby.”

The sound comes in a low hum, reverberating through the chest that your head rests on. You snuggle in closer, hands trailing the warm skin underneath you. For a few beats, all you can hear is the two of you breathing, and the lift of his chest every time he takes in air.

“Cupcake...”

He sounds a bit more imploring now. The arm that had been holding you against him loosens a bit, and you whine, gripping him tighter. Above your head, you can hear a low chuckle, and you tilt your head up. His hair is a mess still, thanks to your hands tugging and carding through the roots, but it’s the blush on his face that captures your attention more than anything else. The highs of his cheeks are still a pretty pink colour, dyed by exertion, and your heart swells. Beelzebub leans down, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

And then you hear, and feel, a loud grumble from his stomach.

“Dumpling, I really love you, but…” Beelzebub trails off, looking abashed as he smiles shyly. As much as you hate the thought of letting go of him and losing your heat source -- your room is so cold, why is it always so cold? -- you know he can’t help it. Laughing quietly, you slowly slide yourself off of him, already missing his presence despite him not even leaving your bed yet.

“No worries. Can you bring me back something too?” You hum at his grin, and can’t help but smile back. Beelzebub crawls out from under your bed covers and walks over to the other side of your room, searching for the boxers he has discarded early on in the night. Whistling as he bends over to grab them off of the floor, you bury your bare body further under your blankets. The bed is already cooling down without his heat. Beelzebub laughs softly, shaking his head before making his way to the door.

“Of course. I’ll be right back,” he smiles, shutting the door behind him quietly. Everything is too quiet now, without his breaths, without his heartbeat against your ear. Especially after the extended intimacy of the night, you’re desperate to fill yourself to the brim with him once more, craving the touch of his skin. Not only that, but his body heat as well. Even for a demon, who naturally have higher body temperatures than humans, Beel runs hot; it proves extremely beneficial, especially because the House is always kept so damn cold. What that also means, though, is that at times like this, you’re left even colder than you’d started.

Soon enough, however, your saviour comes into view. While you much prefer to have Beelzebub at your side, his sweater will do. You’ve always loved the sweater; it looks so good on him, and is worn down just enough so that it became one of the comfiest things that you’ve ever worn. It’s also big, even on him. What this means was that when you put it on, you can practically swim in the soft fabric. You don’t get to wear it often, as it’s his favourite and therefore always on his body, but you’ll be damned if you’re going to pass up this chance. Psyching yourself up for a moment, you prepare to bear the cold air with no protection from your blankets. Okay… okay.

First, you decide to slowly peel the sheets out from under you. Nope! Nope. Bad idea. That draws it out and makes it worse, and already your nipples are getting hard from the chill. Okay, no… gotta do it like a bandaid.

Damn it all.

Quickly, you pull the blankets from your body. The movement causes cold air to fan against your body and you curse, but manage to waddle as fast as you can towards the sweater, despite the initial shaking in your knees when you climbed off of your mattress. Beelzebub is always kind to you in bed, and the soreness is a delicious reminder of what just occurred, but it still inhibits your ability to move very fast. Nevertheless, you manage to lift his sweater off of the table in your room, where it had been thrown haphazardly, and tug it on. It’s cold from being left alone for so long, but the scent that fills your nose makes up for it tenfold. Pushing the sleeves up so that they bunch at your wrist, you zip up the sweater, and once again find yourself completely surrounded by comfort. For a moment you stand there, relishing the feeling, but it doesn’t take long for you to notice the chill air on your legs causing goosebumps, and you sigh. Now just to make your way back to bed, and…

“I didn’t know what you wanted, so I grabbed all of it.”

You can hear the smile on Beelzebub’s face through his voice, and can’t help but smile back. Turning around to face the door, you see a stack of various snacks, some with bites taken out of them already, completely hiding your boyfriend’s face. Beel walks over to the table in your room and sets the snacks down, before casting his gaze on you.

“Do you want some of…” His voice quiets to a murmur and you tilt your head, walking up to him. As soon as you’re within arm’s reach Beel pulls you in, holding you close against his body. Already, against your leg, you can feel something semi-hard prodding your thigh.

“Beel?’

“Sorry,” he mutters into your shoulder, arms tightening around your waist. “I was thinking about you the whole time I was in the kitchen, thinking about what we did.”

His voice takes on the low tone that he only ever uses in bed, and once again your legs shake. You’re not sure how much more you can take.

“You’re insatiable,” you laugh, wrapping your arms around him. “I don’t know how much more I can handle, though. We’ve already done it more than usual.” Your reply is honest, and even though Beel tries to hide it, you can feel him deflate a bit. To make up for it, you squeeze him for a moment. He’s quiet, thoughtful.

“Could I just be inside you? Wanna be close. You’re too cute.”

Your heart pounds at the thought, and you take a few moments to consider. There’s no harm, right? And with little Beel poking at your leg, growing bigger by the second… who are you to say no?

“Alright. Yeah, okay. That sounds g-- ah!” Breathe evades you for a moment as Beelzebub lifts you without a second thought, carrying you in his arms. He takes a step towards the bed, hesitates a few moments, then grabs a few snacks from the table to place on your nightstand. Despite how exhausted you are, your body responds to the thought of him being inside you once again, twitching subtly. You’re still… prepared. He’d wiped you down afterwards, but that doesn’t change the fact that he came in you almost every time, leaving your insides wet and weeping. Even now, he can just slip in and not be met with any resistance, and the thought itself is delectable.

Ever so gently he places you on the bed, and you roll to your side. He tugs off his boxers before making his way into bed behind you. Already, you can see he’s fully hard, and it takes all you have not to bite your lip at the thought. He’s so fucking big. Maybe you’re up for one more round?

The ache in your body as he pulls you closer says otherwise, however, and you sigh. This might be enough, then.

“You’re so cute,” Beel murmurs against the back of your head, one arm slipping its way under his… no, your sweater, to wrap around your waist. The other, you feel, is positioning his tip against your entrance, and you find yourself clenching around nothing in anticipation. You can hear Beel lick his lips.

Your body shivers.

“So adorable,” he murmurs half-mindedly, pushing in the tip agonizingly slowly. A shaky breath finds its way into your lungs, and you slip your arm under the sweater, placing it over his and squeezing gently with your hand. He hums.

“I love seeing you in my clothes, did you know that? Makes you look so small and cute.”

He pushes in another inch and, as you expected, is met with no resistance. The multiple rounds before had prepared you well. “And makes you smell like me.”

You can feel him smile against the back of your head as he tightens his grip on you momentarily. His hips stutter, and he swallows hard.

“And makes me smell like you, too. Afterwards, I mean. When you give it back.”

This is something you’ll always appreciate about Beelzebub. Despite knowing you’re more than ready to take him quickly, he makes sure to go slow, lifting his head to check your expression to ensure you weren’t in any pain. When he notices your furrowed brows he worries, but the flush of your cheeks and redness of your bottom lip tells him otherwise, and he leans down to press a kiss to the shell of your ear.

Finally, he’s fully seated inside you. You sigh, almost grateful that he doesn’t have to move anymore, and allow your body to fully relax. Now, you can fully appreciate the feeling of him inside you, how big he is. Beelzebub presses a gentle kiss to the back of your neck, and you feel him move his lips to speak a few moments before any sound comes out.

“... Are you sure you can’t go another round, Muffin?”

You laugh, and the feeling causes him to shudder. As much as you’d like to… you’re tired. Your body aches and your eyelids are so heavy it’s hard to keep them open. Without you answering, Beel knows. You reply anyways.

“Maybe later. For now, just hold me?”

And who is he to turn you down?