#the way he was panicking and when they had the closeups of his hands with her bleeeeding.... perfectionnnnnnn

[storge]

Fangyin, please be fine. I won't let anything happen to you. Our happy days haven't started yet.

QIN TIANYU as Lu Xian Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

[am3mb3r123]

4/28 TBB Rewatch Notes

✨ i'm trying to rewatch all of The Bad Batch, including the four Clone Wars episodes, before the finale airs. wish me luck!! ✨

Episodes watched: 11

Today's runtime watched: 351 mins

Total runtime left: 1,099 mins (nice)

Can I finish it? maybe, i'm optimistic! though depending on tomorrow's numbers i might cut back to the end of season 2

rambling below the cut

Anakin: hold on, we can talk to them! Hunter: WHY

there are ice crystals on Echo's skin how have i never noticed that before??

also the eye contact and the expressions of the clones are on point this season, Jesse and Kix sharing a moment of "what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into", Rex searching for something in Echo he lost, i'm physically deceased

i was trying to remember if we've seen Echo's ears since the Citadel and so far we have not. his ears in the last episode had me kicking my feet like a lovesick kid

update: we see his ears in season 7, ep. 4. still kicking my feet

"was there ever any doubt" Echo i love you

DBB doesn't do Crosshair's voice as raspy in the Clone Wars episodes and it's kind of messing with me cause i can't tell who's who by just their voices and my eyes aren't glued to the screen

Rex trying to make Echo more comfortable with the idea of going with CF99 is so soft

hearing adult Kanan's voice coming out of young Caleb's body makes me laugh out loud every time

i still can't believe i had to watch Order 66 being carried out on Depa and Caleb

her screams?? Rebels era me is quaking in their boots

god the lighting in tbb proper's animation is so good, i can't get over it

i'm struck by the fact that we've still never gotten confirmation on why Crosshair's chip activated so suddenly

rip to Soup Clone, you would have loved Gregor's cooking

"kid's aren't our area of expertise" CROSSHAIR YES THEY ARE YOU ARE THE DADBATCH

Wrecker diffusing tense situations my heart 💕

i don't think i've ever noticed how panicked Hunter is when they take Crosshair out of the cell

THERE'S A CLOSEUP OF CROSS'S HAND ON THE VERY FIRST TIME THEY INTENSIFY HIS PROGRAMING THE DRAMA THE FORESHADOWING I'M DEAD

is 0219 Omega's number? or just a prisoner number

DUST FLEW OFF THE CORRIES HELMET WHEN WRECKER PUNCHED HIM god the animation is good

Cross stripped his armor?? i have watched this episode at LEAST 6 times how am i still noticing new things

i did cry when omega went through hyperspace for the first time, thank you for asking

just reworked my math and i have to get part way through s1e6 to stay on track what have i done

wrecker and tech not knowing how to bribe someone is fucking hilarious bc who did they have do that before? this cannot be the first time the batch's needed to bribe someone to not scan in their ship

getting a "go to bed" notification during this thing was hilarious

gotta love Echo's droid outfit. it's loving Echo hours over here

things we were robbed of: more Rafa and Hunter interactions

i'm always surprised at how soon we see evidence of Wrecker's chip activating

hunter helping trace get omega is giving Barbie Rapunzel iykyk

sobbing at Rex's shoulders under the cloak

[redphlox]

The art in chapters 301 and 302

As cute as it was seeing the Todoroki siblings as babies and young children in chapters 301-302, it was also heart-wrenching and tragic. Horikoshi put so much thought and care into how he portrayed each Todoroki family member, their relationships, and their feelings through his art.

Let's start with Rei. There have been many metas about the significance of eyes in the Todoroki family, mainly in reference to the hatred in Endeavor's, and Rei is no exception to this motif. There isn't enough attention brought to the fact that Rei also had her identity broken many times over by Endeavor. Like her children, she was also a means to an end for him. It's significant that 301 starts off with a closeup of their eyes: Endeavor with that determination that eventually spiraled into violent obsession, and Rei with resignation that morphed into fear.

All the other panels of Rei's eyes show her sinking into feelings of helplessness while Endeavor's frustration festers. These panels after Touya's quirk started hurting him and before Natsuo's birth depict Rei and Endeavor's spirals so clearly:

As the chapter progresses and the abuse escalates as Endeavor becomes increasingly frustrated with All Might's success, Rei's eyes take on a panicked, fearful gleam. Not only did Endeavor put pressure on his children to give him what he wanted, but he did so to Rei too. Present-day Rei admits that she didn't see Touya's suffering, and this is depicted by her eyes covered by her hair.

Knowing the importance of eyes in the Todoroki family makes the fact that Touya cried so hard his tear ducts burned - that he burned alive - harrowing.

Present-day Rei no longer has fear or sorrow in her eyes. She's determined and present. Present-day Endeavor also doesn't harbor the same blind ambition in his eyes, as noted by Inasa during the remedial course arc. Present-day Shouto is working through his feelings of hatred. Following this pattern of the family member's healing symbolized by their gaze, it makes sense that Touya will also lose that manic look of hatred, too.

Now, for the family dynamics:

Horikoshi also uses character placement to convey the Todoroki's relationships. For example, Natsuo is never shown alone. Every panel with Natsuo shows that he's either with Fuyumi or Touya, conveying that while he was never wanted by his father, he was loved by everyone else in the household. But this also highlights how deeply Endeavor's neglect impacted him - nothing could soften the blow of being unwanted.

On the other hand, Touya is seen alone frequently, training, and present day Dabi is alone, too. Anytime he gets close to someone he ends up getting hurt or rejected and therefore distancing himself. Touya stomps away from 3 year old Fuyumi after she shoots down his idea to continue training despite his quirk hurting him. He stands at a distance as Rei holds newborn baby Natsuo and Fuyumi looks at her new brother in awe, and Touya marches out of the house angrily after Rei tries and fails to have a talk with him. When Natsuo rejects him (in Touya's eyes), Touya recoils. Touya doesn't push Endeavor away when Endeavor tries to talk to him - in fact, he keeps touching him despite being rejected. This coincides with the fact that Touya always vied for his father's attention no matter how much Endeavor thought he was a failure.

When the 3 eldest siblings are playing with a ball, Touya is the only one who notices Shouto watching and then being dragged away by Endeavor, who doesn't glance at his other children. This is symbolic because Touya is the only one watching Endeavor - Natsuo and Fuyumi have each other, Shouto and Rei have each other, and Touya is still unsuccessfully trying to regain his father's approval. Touya is the only person in the household who is actively calling out his father despite trying to get his attention. In fact, Touya is different than his siblings in many ways. He's never smiling like Fuyumi or Natsuo do. He's shown crying in the majority of his panels - crying and burning and alone.

The other person who cries a lot is... well, everyone except Endeavor. Fuyumi and Natsuo cry while their father screams. Shouto screams a lot, too. While his older siblings were introduced to us as quiet and calm babies, Shouto's first appearance is of him screaming inconsolably, implied by his wide, quivering mouth and flailing arms. He's only calm when he's being held by Rei or alone with her, even when Touya is yelling and about to attack him. Shouto's safe space was his mother, and he considered Endeavor a threat because he not only abused her but also was the reason she couldn't be home with him anymore. He, like Touya, also calls out his dad in a rage even as a small child.

Shouto cries when Endeavor hits his mother while Fuyumi and Natsuo cower together in another room, and Touya isn't shown at all - this is probably to convey that each member of the family experienced the abuse differently. Rei was a scapegoat for Endeavor, Shouto was caught in the middle as the prized creation, Fuyumi and Natsuo were ignored and left to fend for themselves, and Touya felt abandoned, used, unseen, and worthless.

Although it was cute to see Shouto defend his mother, the way he describes Endeavor (a towering, muscled man in his prime who fights criminals and throws punches for a living) hitting his wife so hard she falls over as "being mean" and "bullying" only emphasizes Shouto's innocence and young age. Shouto isn't a hero for standing up to his mother's abuser. Let's not romanticize this, although it was brave of little Shouto - he was a powerless, angry, hurt child who grew up into that powerless, angry, hurt teenager we met at the beginning of the manga.

Shouto was isolated from his siblings the same way his mother was taken away from him: not for his or the family's wellbeing, but for Endeavor's benefit. Shouto had to witness violence against his primary caretaker and the person he was attached to the most by the man who kept telling him, "you're like me but perfected, you will carry my legacy, you will surpass me." It's no wonder Shouto was so distant and cold. It was a defense mechanism.

Horikoshi depicted the cycle and escalation of abuse incredibly realistically in these chapters. We're shown that Shouto wanted to play with his siblings so badly he begged to play with them just once. We're shown that Touya's mental health spiraled loudly, like Rei's, and both were ignored until it was too late. We're shown that Endeavor's ambition knew no limits, that he was the aggressor, and most importantly we're shown that Touya, like the other Todorokis, was also a victim. He's humanized to us - just like Rei burned Shouto because of the abuse she suffered by Endeavor, Touya's actions to this day take root in Endeavor's treatment of him. Touya and Rei are set up to mirror each other in both their mental deterioration and their recovery, foreshadowing that Touya can and will be saved, too.

[itsclydebitches]

I’ve been seeing an uptick in “anti-RWDE” posts lately  — which is a phenomenon I’d like to comment on at a later date  — but for now one of them (quite unintentionally) made me realize something about the finale that I haven’t seen others discuss yet. 

So RWBYJNOR saves everyone, right? Let’s just put aside the animation for a moment  — which didn’t show any army members making it out  — as well as the forgotten side characters  — Maria, Pietro, Qrow’s group isn’t forgotten, but still left behind  — and take things on good faith here. We’ll read the finale through the thematic intention: RWBYJNOR saved “everyone” in the Kingdom of Atlas in Volume 8, deliberately contrasting them with Ironwood who was willing to sacrifice a chunk of the Kingdom in Volume 7. Forget all the messiness and just accept that regardless of the consequences  — like a destroyed Kingdom and a “dead” team  — the heroes are heroic because they didn’t give into a “lesser evil” thinking and managed to save everyone. 

Now, how was that possible? 

Let’s go back to the beginning of the seventh episode of Volume 8, “War.” Salem’s grimm have just burrowed through Atlas’ defenses and taken them out. The shields are gone. She flies Monstra into the fields and releases an army of darkness that immediately heads for the city. What’s the very first thing Ironwood does? 

Soldier: Yes, sir?

Ironwood: I am evacuating all citizens to the subway. Prepare Manta Squad Omega, and dispatch to every part of Atlas.

Soldier: But sir-

Ironwood: Now!

He evacuates the people, with “the people” meaning all the Atlesians and however many Mantle folk got to the city prior to Salem’s arrival. When this episode aired I mentioned being confused as to why the soldier was so hesitant. Why wouldn’t you want the people to get to safety when a grimm army is heading their way? Fans against Ironwood took the soldier’s side, claiming that Mountain Glenn proved that any underground evacuation is a death sentence and thus he obviously doesn’t really care about the peoples’ safety. Fans in support of/neutral towards Ironwood pointed out that this is a pretty big leap, no one is coming up with a better idea for what he should do instead, and that within these circumstances it reads like the soldiers is illogically against this idea simply because everyone is against Ironwood now. The show wants characters criticizing his decisions and making him out to look like a crazed dictator... even during moments when it doesn’t make any sense to be upset with him. Shooting the councilman yes, trying to keep the people safe no. Basically, this small exchange was a mess, but the rest of the volume proved that this was a sound call. The subway never collapsed and no grimm ever made it to that enclosed space to pick the civilians off like fish in an underground barrel. 

So, why didn’t that happen? Well, one answer is because Oscar and Ozpin destroyed the whale. But how did they have time to do that? Without the people dying while they were being tortured, talking to Hazel, escaping with Emerald, fighting Salem, etc.? A lot happened between Salem starting her attack and Oscar ending it, so why wasn’t 2/3rds of the Kingdom’s population decimated during that time? 

Because Ironwood sent his army out to keep the grimm occupied. 

Outside of Ironwood’s cartoon villain actions  — random murders and bomb threats  — which get the most attention due to how deliberately, over-the-top horrific they are, these are the two actions that get the most negative attention from both the story and the fanbase. The soldier seems horrified by the order to evacuate. Marrow is devastated that young adults are fighting in this battle. The fandom is disgusted by both aspects of Ironwood’s character: giving orders that, as general, he expects to be obeyed and having an army that follows those orders. Putting side that cartoon villainy, this is what supposedly makes Ironwood the antagonist here. These are the qualities that have existed since Volume 2, resulting in a “he was always a bad guy” interpretation. These are the qualities that have resulted in anyone who likes his character being labeled as a “bootlicker.” We know these qualities make the fandom hate him because otherwise, more people would be confused as to why a presumably heroic character randomly shot Oscar. Orders, armies, and general military associations are at the heart of Ironwood’s presumed villainy. 

So let’s remove them. 

Ironwood has no evil army. Ironwood gives no evil orders. Power and control lies solely in the hands of our non-military heroes. Everything is better! 

...well, no. Because we saw in Volume 8 precisely the choices our heroes made when the attack started: half of them focused on saving a single individual (Oscar) and the other half kept to the sidelines. At no point did our RWB group act after sending the message and prior to securing the Staff. AKA, during the attack of Salem’s army. We got a very explicit moment in which Ruby looked out the window at the battle going on and turned away from it, continuing to discuss ethics instead of joining the fight. The people of Atlas (which, again, includes many Mantle citizens) had no one but Ironwood and his army because a third of the group was trying to rescue Oscar (they never even had a plan to blow up Monstra — that was also Ironwood), a third of the group was up in Amity, and a third was sitting in the mansion. They did nothing to help the people of Atlas being attacked by grimm. 

Thus, if you remove Ironwood’s actions, everything goes to hell. There is no longer an order to evacuate to the subway. Maybe some people go there anyway. Most probably don’t. They run in a panic wherever they can. Hide wherever they can. Go back home for some semblance of safety. 

There’s no longer an army. Either it doesn’t exist because we’ve determined it’s simplistically bad despite RWBY’s grimm-specific context, or Ironwood likewise never gives the order to protect Atlas’ border. Salem’s army moves unimpeded through the city, killing countless people as it goes. How do we know? Because they’re civilians who can’t defend themselves and there’s literally no one else to help. Remember: Ironwood is not giving orders, there is no army, RWB is in the mansion, YJOR is in the whale, Penny is out of commission, the Happy Huntresses are in Mantle. Those in Atlas are entirely alone. In time, Oscar destroys the whale, but by then it’s too late. There’s no concrete way to theorize how many have died, but it’s inevitably a lot. Everyone else is scatted across the city, trying to survive. 

So this scene 

no longer exists. 

When the group gets the Staff and creates portals for “everyone” to escape through, Mantle is ready to go. They’ve gotten everyone into the crater and can funnel them straight to Vacuo. Atlas, however, is in chaos. When Jaune enters the subway there’s only a few people there, many of which may be wounded or dying. He’s right back where he started, in Mantle at the beginning of Volume 8: needing to go door-to-door to find where people have hidden themselves, trying to convince them all to follow him (remember Oscar commenting to Ozpin about how difficult that was?). Except now, he and Nora are the only ones trying to get people to safey, the city is filled with far more grimm, a significant amount of time has passed for people to be killed or injured (making evacuating them even harder, both due to injuries and an unwillingness to leave hurt/dead/missing loved ones behind), he’s trying to convince these panicking people to go through magic portals, not just walk to a crater, and he’s aware that there’s a very short time limit for this task. 

Jaune returns in a panic of his own, explaining how difficult it will be to get that 2/3rds of the Kingdom to Vacuo. How many are already dead. Barricaded. Missing. Closeup on Ruby looking horrified, but then she rallies. They can do it. Atlas is falling, but residual dust gives them just enough time to find, calm, and evacuate those people. They’re heroes after all. Beating the odds is what they do. 

Then Cinder attacks. 

Suddenly, the group can’t evacuate people because they’re trying to keep themselves safe from her. Maybe Cinder gets the powers because Jaune was off looking for civilians, leaving Penny without a mercy kill. Maybe Nora dies because she’s still trying to help people on the city that plows into the one below. Regardless of how details might change, they’re not getting a spread out, decimated population through those portals before Cinder changes the wish and makes them disappear.  

In this version, the story starts with Ironwood wanting to sacrifice 1/3rd of the population to save 2/3rds and the future of the war. It ends with 2/3rds of the population dying instead. 

This is what I mean when I say the majority of the fandom wants to view a very complex situation through a ridiculously simple lens. The fandom wants to denounce every bit of RWBY’s fictionalized military, the context issues of that aside. The story wants to paint RWBYJNOR as the only heroes, in part because they succeeded in saving everyone (“everyone”) in the Kingdom when Ironwood gave up. 

But they only managed to save everyone because of Ironwood. Because he kept fighting for his people to the bitter end. This is why, though his horrific actions obviously exist in the story, they make no sense (he’ll threaten to kill his people so he can... save his people?) and mess up what little is working in the finale. The story wants us to celebrate the group for evacuating Mantle and Atlas, but the Atlas evacuation would not have happened if not for Ironwood’s actions  — the actions that are ignored in favor of having Winter blame him for everything and then killing him off. The rescue of “everyone” was very much a joint effort. RWBYJNOR’s win is not actually a contrast to Ironwood’s intended sacrifice, for the simple reason that their win depended entirely on Ironwood’s actions. 

If we’re going to celebrate the group getting everyone to safety, we should probably also celebrate the guy who got them all to an easy evacuation point and ensured they weren’t eaten before then. Does that mean Ironwood never did anything wrong? Of course not. As established, the story went out of its way to make him into a villain. Rather, it means that other parts of the story failed to maintain that black and white view, complicating the heroism of RWBYJNOR in the process. If we want Ironwood to be incapable of heroic action, always the bad guy, nothing good to say about him whatsoever... then we likewise need to accept that the group is rather unheroic in many regards too. That, on their own, they would have failed to save everyone, just as Ironwood’s plan failed to save everyone at the end of Volume 7. Because they chose their friend over a kingdom. Because they sat around in a mansion. Because by the time they took action again and tried to escape, without Ironwood’s help they would have lost a larger majority than they originally insisted be saved. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 278: MOMO IN CHARGE

Previously on BnHA: Deku and Kacchan were all “SIR, THAT’S OUR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SENSEI” and got really ferocious and made a very passionate attempt to blow Tomura up and it was great. It basically did nothing, but it was still great. AFO was all “COME HERE LIL BRO”, and Tomura was all “silly Sensei, you can’t just take over my mind and body just like that”, and he was very confident of this despite there really being no evidence to back it up, but okay! Gran was all “time to make the fandom mad at me” and grabbed Tomura by the collar and yelled at him about Nana a bit, and then Bakugou and Endeavor made an even MORE passionate attempt to blow up Tomura, which may or may not have done some actual damage. The chapter ended with Gigantomachia battling Mt. Lady, just kinda out of the blue, which is FINE, but she had better be all right, though!

Today on BnHA: Everyone is all “WAUGHH IT’S GIGANTOMACHIA” and running around freaking out about it. The U.A. alums all kick some ass, and pretty much everyone else not from U.A. does jack fucking shit. Mt. Lady, who I plan on naming all of my future children after, does her best to stop Machia but he keeps flinging her aside. Kamui Woods is all “here I come with Midnight to put Gigantomachia to sleep!” and is PROMPTLY FUCKING MURDERED!? by Dabi because he’s a flammable tree man, and so Midnight falls all the way to the ground and is badly injured. So then she’s all “well I better call the most competent person I can think of to fix this mess” and dials up YAOYOROZU FUCKING MOMO, who proceeds to take charge LIKE THE BOSS SHE IS, and mobilizes the rest of the kids. And honestly I have more faith in them than in any of the adults at this point, so yeah, you know what? Let’s do this.

so I am possibly a bit spoiled on this chapter because I did a “top five predictions” post earlier this week, and someone replied to that yesterday on Thursday saying that they were mostly correct. I don’t know exactly how close to the mark I was though, and in any case most of the predictions were just “so-and-so shows up, probably”, so it’s not too bad. we’ll see how it goes!

OH THANK GOD MY BABIES ARE SAFE

I mean, CLEARLY they’re all about to be in horrible danger, seeing as Jirou is about to inform them of the whole “THE BIG GUY EVERYONE WAS AFRAID ABOUT WAKING UP WOKE UP” thing, but in the meantime at least Kami and Toadette and Honenuki made it back to the group safely

also Kaminari’s use of “Jirou-Jack” here is fucking inspired and I want him to teach a class on nicknames. isn’t he the one who coined “Yaomomo” as well? this boy has a gift and it needs to be appreciated

so Jirou is all “SOMETHING REALLY BIG IS COMING”, and actually she says “INSANELY HUGE”, which if anything is still an understatement, hard as it is to believe

WOW

“A BAD GUY IS HEADING THIS WAY?? SOUNDS LIKE IT’S TIME TO ABANDON THE CHILDREN IN THE WOODS” kjlfakh okay you know what?? fine!! you weren’t even going to do anything anyway so let’s not pretend!!

holy shit it’s like Mt. Lady isn’t even there

look at those speed lines!! goddamn. I just felt this huge rush of empathy for Mt. Lady though. like can you imagine growing up with this super-destructive quirk, and managing to become a hero with it against all odds, and having to put up with the manga making fun of you all the time just because sometimes you have a tendency to DESTROY A LOT OF STUFF, but it’s not like you can help it!! but the upside has always been that when your quirk is on, you are fucking UNSTOPPABLE though. so even though it’s been a hell of a rough ride for you, it’s worth it because you’re a complete badass and the number of people who can beat you out in terms of sheer physical strength is probably in the single digits. and you’re working really hard too, and lately you’ve been moving up through the ranks and actually becoming a damn fine hero if I do say so myself (and I do), and it’s like, about time though?? like finally, finally it is all starting to come together for you. and then this snarling trashrock person suddenly comes stampeding along and you put your all into trying to stop him, and it doesn’t even do a damn thing. like, holy shit. that’s just not fucking fair and YOU DESERVE BETTER, MT. LADY

anyway so she’s still hanging in there for now though so let’s check in with our villain squad riding on his back

lmaooo they’re all “I don’t even understand what is going on here”

YOU GUYS, THIS IMPLIES THAT THEY WERE ALL PLUCKED OFF THE GROUND BY THE SCRUFFS OF THEIR NECKS AND THEY HAD ABSOLUTELY NO SAY IN THE MATTER OMG. like I’m picturing Spinner being held by his cape pinched in between Machia’s thumb and forefinger, and awkwardly trying to lecture him like a mom with his hands on his hips all, “BAD GIGANTOMACHIA! NO! NOOOUAGH -- !” and cutting off with a yelp as he’s dropped onto his back

and I am glad they got Toga some clothes! I like to think Gigantomachia grabbed those for her as well. so thoughtful

wow Skeptic actually wants to go back to Re-Destro??

color me legit impressed. I underestimated your loyalty my dude. and let me also just take this moment to extend my gratitude toward Horikoshi for leaving the rest of the MLA out of it because good fucking riddance to them, goodbye forever hopefully!!

I guess they’ll be needing Skeptic’s quirk down the line for some reason? maybe he is meant to be like a new, less out-of-control Twice. smdh y’all out here trying to replace your dead buddy like a pet goldfish

who is this “they” Dabi is referring to

do you mean the heroes? lol yeah I guess they’re pretty distracted by the literal fucking kaijuu you’re currently piggybacking on

SIGH

“the Jakku team must’ve made a mistake” BOY, I’LL SAY. you know what, don’t even talk to me about that yet. it’s still too fresh. suffice it to say that your suspicions are correct and things in Jakku are not very daijobu right about now

anyway here’s a closeup of this bubble person just cuz

they are everything and I want them to be my friend. also there’s a squid person a few paces behind them who can probably do anything a squid can do. or they might actually be a shark person, actually. I don’t know. either way I love them

GETEN PLEASE GO AWAY

WE ARE PHASING OUT THE MLA!! MOVING FORWARD IT’S ORIGINAL LOV ONLY!! I’M SORRY BUT YOU DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT. we already have an ice character so shoo

OH DAMN MY MAN CEMENTOSS HAS HAD ENOUGH OF HIS NONSENSE TOO AHHHH YESS

1) hey so Cementoss is legit terrifying who’d’ve thought

and 2), did Cementoss always have a mouthful of gigantic perfect teeth each the size of a slice of bread, or is this just something I’m only noticing now because I’m behind the curve. either way, let me just say sincerely, DKJDLKFJLSKJG

RE-DESTRO YOU GO AWAY TOO!!

@waywardfacegarden​ you asked the other day which are the characters I actually dislike, and this is one of them lol. he’s just a big ol’ prick, and on top of that has the audacity to not even be interesting in any way so as to balance it out. anyway so apologies to any Re-Destro stans out there but I basically spend every panel he’s in hoping that someone will punch him in the face hard enough to finally make him shut up

anyway so my man Edgeshot is here though, finally!! but of all the people for him to fight! this is a real predicament for me. the most soothing character in the series contrasted with the character who grates my nerves the most. Edgeshot’s sexy ASMR voice is gonna be drowned out by all of RD’s punching and self-important ranting in the anime and I’m lowkey devastated but I’m gonna pull myself together and read on

SPEAKING OF SELF-IMPORTANT RANTING

Edge, if you can liberate us from having to put up with his insufferable ass once and for all I will be so grateful to you. can you do this. please. for me

and it looks like some other boring MLA villains are following along behind Machia so I’m gonna need someone to kick their asses as well. please

-- YESSSSSS

okay so now I see what that comment on my prediction post was referring to lol. I did indeed have my fingers crossed that these two would show up again, and sure enough! THE GANG’S ALL HERE YAY

and Mt. Lady is being sumoed aside!

anyone want tonight’s lotto numbers. during this brief fleeting moment of having my predictions be actually credible, I would just like to say that Hagakure is the U.A. traitor. thank you and goodnight

OH NO KAMUI IS WORRIED

HE LOOKS SO PANICKED?? OUT OF THE BLUE I SHIP IT SO MUCH?? I keep forgetting they’re on the same team and stuff and wow, I need to calm down

LOL MIDNIGHT IS ALL “NO TIME FOR SHIPS!!”

I wonder if her quirk will actually be enough to take him down? this is something I’ve been itching to see for a long time, actually. just how powerful is she? we know her quirk is more effective on males than females, but is anyone actually capable of resisting it? imagine if she really did just knock Gigantomachia out after all of this buildup. that would be some god-tier shit omg, DO IT

(ETA: I am just going to assume that since Horikoshi had to go to elaborate lengths to take her out of the fight, this means that her quirk really was capable of knocking them all out. another tragic case of Too Badass For The Plot. y’all better respect Midnight.)

YESSSSSSSS

is she stripping. you know what -- don’t think about it. I won’t let you ruin this for me Horikoshi. Midnight’s gonna be a badass because the ladies are fucking ruling this arc and that’s all there is to it

NOOOOOO

DABI GET BACK HERE I JUST WANT TO TALK!!

oh thank god, she’s all right. BUT KAMUI ISN’T THOUGH DLKJSFLKSJDG??!

did Kamui Woods just... die

(ETA: okay but for real, is there an actual curse in effect on the Billboard Top Ten right now, though?? did one of them accidentally disturb the tomb of some ancient king??)

...

( ･ั﹏･ั)

oH MY GOD!?!

NOOOOOOO WHY ARE YOU SO QUICK TO SLEEP ON MAJESTIC, LET’S SEE IF THEY CAN DO IT!! GIVE US MAJESTIC GOD DAMMIT

(ETA: Horikoshi is seriously just yanking our chain at this point. when Majestic finally does show up, he or she better have the coolest fucking quirk of all time, that’s all I’m saying.)

okay how badly injured is Midnight here, though?? she just fell all that way?? DO I NEED TO BE REALLY MAD. I CAN WORK MY WAY UP TO IT PRETTY QUICKLY, JUST SAY THE WORD. I’M ALREADY HALFWAY THERE HONESTLY. WHERE’S KAMUI WOODS

!!!!!!!!!!!

AND JUST LIKE THAT MY ANGER EVAPORATES INTO THE NIGHT, YESSSSSSSSS!! MOMOOOOO

holy shit. “a quirk that can stop that thing,” she says. and goes and calls YAOYOROZU FUCKING MOMO y’all I am barely holding myself back from SCREAMING right now I...

you guys

you guys. if Midnight and Yaomomo team up to take down Gigantofuckingmachia using some sort of MOMO MADE A MACHINE TO SPREAD MIDNIGHT’S QUIRK strategy, or whatnot?? I will fucking die on the spot. you can end the manga right there. Kacchan you can keep your quirk I don’t even care

“IT MIGHT BE AGAINST THE LAW” lmaooooo insert John Mulaney “WE’RE WELL PAST THAT” gif here. holy shit. listen, that is fine. if anything it’s even better

WHAT THE FUCK

DO I NEED TO START GETTING REALLY MAD AGAIN!?!?! FUCKING WHIPLASH, IS WHAT THIS IS, BUT YOU JUST TELL ME WHAT SORT OF OVER-THE-TOP REACTION IS NEEDED HERE AND I’LL GO FOR IT

(((( ;°Д°))))

[GRABS HORIKOSHI BY THE COLLAR] listen, you. if you only just now, for the first time ever, gave us a lady hero actually mentoring another lady hero, which we have somehow NEVER HAD BEFORE in almost three hundred chapters, only for you to then KILL OFF THE MENTOR IN THE MIDDLE OF HER GODDAMN SPEECH TO THE MENTOREE, I will... there’s... I’ll... okay, listen. DON’T. THERE WILL BE A RECKONING. CAPSLOCK SUCH AS THIS WORLD HAS NEVER WITNESSED!!

ヽ(#ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ┌┛

I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO REACT TO ANYTHING IN THIS CHAPTER AND I’M LOSING MY MIND OVER IT

so the other kids are all “what the fuck” and “so Momo’s in charge??” which, YES!!! IT’S THE ONE GOOD PART ABOUT ALL THIS SO DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION IT

MOMO NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE CRIPPLED BY YOUR ANXIETY, YOU CAN DO THIS GIRL I BELIEVE IN YOU

hell, it’s not even just an “I believe in you” thing, because it’s not just belief, it’s fact. you motherfucking can do this, you are the most capable and brilliant student in 1-A, you just gotta have faith and let yourself shine!!

so now there are some more panels of Machia running and the villains and heroes fighting, blah blah blah. and Momo screwing up her face as she makes her decision...

YESSSSSSSSS

my baby girl is all grown up and TAKING THESE MOTHERFUCKIN REINS and MOMO I WILL LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU JUST SAY THE WORD!!

lol she’s all “Jirou use your ears and scientifically calculate how long it’ll take him to get here”, and Jirou is all “I can literally fucking see him, he’s gonna be on top of us in like two seconds” WELL OKAY THEN

thank god there are no adult pros left to fuck this up. is that weird that this is a real and honest and completely sincere thought that just ran through my head? like, at this point if any of the adults were around I’d just be afraid of them dying honestly. but with the kids I actually feel real hope that they’re somehow gonna do this. of course it helps that unlike the adults they’re pretty safe from being killed off

also! way to represent the entirety of class 1-B there Honenuki lulz. sorry, The Rest of Class 1-B

OH MY GOD

MT. LADY I WILL LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU AS WELL!! YOU HAVE MY LOVE AND FEALTY!!

I’M STANNING HER SO HARD I’M GONNA EXPLODE SOMEBODY HELP!?!

JIROU SAYS THAT MACHIA HAS SLOWED DOWN!! YOU GUYS I’M ABOUT TO GET “MT. LADY FOR PRESIDENT” TATTOOED ACROSS MY FOREHEAD

lmao at Shouji using his power of “putting some extra eyeballs on my arms” to inform everyone that Gigantomachia is Right Over There and Very Big

good job Shouji

oh my glob I have so much love for Momo right now that it can’t even fucking be contained. brb wildly flailing my hands around a little to try and release some of this excess excitement

maybe Momo can be president instead and Mt. Lady can be the vice president

NO THE CHAPTER IS ENDING I’M NOT READY

AND JUMP IS ON BREAK AGAIN NEXT WEEK TOO, FML!!

okay!!

Kaminari is so fucking brave right now I just want to crush him in a hug?! we know he’s still scared!! look at his eyes!! and he was freaking the hell out earlier too, and now the situation is much worse! but he doesn’t give a fuck because his friends need him! he is ready to be a hero, my little baby boy is all grown up and I’m so proud??

Mineta’s face in the bottom right corner is everything. I know, I know, boooo Mineta, but that’s still the best face anyone has made in the entirety of this manga

Tetsutetsu’s out here all “I humbly request to also represent class 1-B” and Momo is all “okay fine I guess we can have two of you guys”

can we all just stop for a moment to appreciate how KamiJirouMomo is alive and well. like, we had interactions between all three of them in this chapter, in all possible permutations? do you know how happy this makes me?? I am vibrating with joy??!

I really can’t stress this enough -- I have no clue at all what these little soda can things are (anesthetic, I guess??? you know, like how you sometimes buy cans of anesthetic at the supermarket?? what do you mean you don’t do that??), or what they’re gonna do with them. I have like negative clues. but DAMNED IF I GIVE ONE SINGLE FUCK. the next chapter can be them all fucking hurling them at his face for all I care. THE DETAILS OF HOW SHE KICKS HIS ASS DO NOT MATTER!! GOOD MORNING TO YAOMOMO AND YAOMOMO ONLY!! MY MOMO ACADEMIA

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

So who’s ready for things to go horribly horribly wrong in the second half of the chapter? 

I’m excited! But I was also just watching a fantastic video about a firework simulator, so like. Maybe that’s affecting my attitude.

[No. 16 - Know Your Enemies]

We came back to Shigaraki looking horribly menacing in his close-up shot as he just gives ‘random’ second counts. Eraserhead sends some of his scarf around to try and lash him up while asking if he’s the boss, but Shigaraki manages to grab the scarf while continuing his random counts. 

Honestly, it took me a second to realize why the scarf doesn’t immediately start crumbling, and that’s because Shigaraki’s actually pretty careful to not clasp all five fingers on the scarf!

See? Thumb’s just sticking out. And I mean, it might just be because it’s a natural grab position, but I think it’s also one of the early signs of his quick thinking and analysis and planning, like with the counts. 

Anyways. Eraserhead is alarmed at how quickly Shigaraki reacted, but keeps pushing himself, dodging under another villain as he continues to target Shigaraki. Shigaraki gives another second count as Eraserhead ducks down, yanking at his scarf to try and pull Shigaraki in for a blow.

Shigaraki takes the blow, but keeps on speaking - now about his observations about the hero. He says it’s hard to tell when Eraserhead is scampering around, but there’s moments where his hair falls in front of his eyes. Aizawa has a moment of alarm as Shigaraki continues - the hair falls every time Eraserhead finishes a move, and the max duration has been getting shorter. Meanwhile, Shigaraki has all five fingers of a hand on Eraserhead’s elbow, and it’s starting to crumble. 

Like, not just the costume, but also the skin underneath. All while we get another horrible closeup of Shigaraki’s face, this time with a visible eye in between the fingers of the hand on his face. As if that we’re enough, the same panel also has Shigaraki warn Eraserhead mockingly to not overdo it now.

As any sane person would, Eraserhead reacts by swinging his other arm around, clocking Shigaraki in the face and releasing the death grip (hah, name puns) on his elbow. He leaps back as Shikaragi hits the floor, processing the fact that his elbow had been disintegrating. He then is quickly forced to dodge two attacks from other fodder villains while Shigaraki starts to pick himself back up. Shigaraki offers some more observations.

That analysis is… pretty close to what Izuku noted about Eraserhead’s fighting style right before the man leapt down and into the fray. Which implies a startling amount of hero knowledge about a hero whose whole thing is maintaining secrecy about his identity and quirk and all that. From a protagonist like Izuku, it comes off as a fun and compelling character trait. From the antagonist… suddenly it’s terrifying.

~Narrative parallels~ (rainbow hand gif here).

Also, can I note the nomu is fucking terrifying like this? Because it’s damn fucking terrifying. And this is before it’s revealed in the story how the nomu are made. (shudder) It just. Isn’t there one panel, and then is there the next. The tone immediately shifts from Eraserhead just barely able to hold his own in an unfavorable situation to being completely outclassed.

As if that weren’t enough, we get to briefly take a peek at how things are going over with Thirteen and the kids there.

Not well, I have to say. 

Kurogiri casually notes that a disaster relief hero can’t measure up to even the most ordinary of heroes when it comes to a fight. We get a brief preview of the damage Thirteen is taking, as well as the shock and horror of several of the kids there with her, before we see the full effects of Thirteen’s quirk turned against herself by the warp quirk.

Thirteen realizes he’s warped her and that she’s done for as more of the back of her costume disintegrates, though where a person would be in there is just. Dark. I suppose a side effect of her quirk?

Yeah, same, kid.

Sato yells at Tenya to run like Thirteen told him. Tenya finally gets himself moving, his expression a mixture of fear and focus that just really highlights the fact that these are fifteen year olds who are being thrust into a life-or-death situation in their first week of high school. Kurogiri moves to intercept Tenya with another portal as he tells the kids that the villains merely need to wait for All Might to appear, so it would hardly be to their benefit to let the kids call for their teachers. Tenya doesn’t have time to move or dodge the portal, panicking as he thinks about how the whole class is counting on him and that it’s up to him-

But Shouji manages an intercept! All while telling Tenya to go, and quickly. Tenya keeps going as Kurogiri swears- no wait, that’s Shouji swearing as he loses his grip on Kurogiri. Whew, for a second I thought my entire worldview of Kurogiri was gonna be overturned there.

Anyways, we get a closeup shot of Tenya’s face as he mentally begs all his classmates to hold on. We’re shown him thinking about all of them through the lens of little snapshots on what the others are up to at that exact moment:

Katsuki and Kirishima are fighting villains. Kirishima is worried as he looks at Katsuki, seemingly ignoring the sword that just got broken against his hardened skin. Meanwhile, Katsuki’s just fucked up another villain while wearing what I hope isn’t entirely a slasher smile. 

Yaomomo has just noticed that villain who’s emerged from the ground, while Kaminari is still completely out of it. 

Shouto is on the move, likely with the information on the villains’ plans. 

Tokoyami and Kouda are in a storm, looking at something in wariness - likely the villains still in there.

Ojiro is in a fighting stance, with flames behind him as he’s shown sweating and a bit roughed up.

And finally, in the top left of the panel, we see Izuku, Tsuyu, and Mineta at the flood zone’s edge. When we go to the next page, we see they’re all staring in horror at the plaza - more specifically, at the state Eraserhead is in right now.

Not great! I don’t think bodies are meant to bend that way. The narration from Izuku continues the litany of fear from the start of the chapter - these are villains. What pros deal with. And the kids of 1a hadn’t seen anything yet.

We close out the chapter on another horrifying close up of Shigaraki’s face as he gleefully introduces the anti-Symbol of Peace, the bio-engineered Nomu.

Next chapter is the last of volume two! Time to see what horrible cliffhanger that ends off on for people who were only reading the bound volumes way back in the day, instead of chapter by chapter online.

[flydotnet]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. I don’t have any request left, so feel free to send in suggestions for this card!).

What... did you say...?

It's been a hot, like, 2 years since I last wrote for THH or Naegiri, and man, it shows... My Makoto writing is all rusty and I hate it. This fic isn't very good by any of my usual standards, but I really wanted it out of the door, and I just remembered just how much I like Makoto, Kyoko and Naegiri. I may not have the same fervor I had for DR as I did almost 4 years ago when I started writing Febris-Induced Case, but hey... I still like those guys. I hate canon but I love those guys. It's such a weird feeling. I usually go back to V3 instead, so seeing them again... made my heart flutter a little, then realize my prompt fill sucked ass lmao. Oh well. I'll probably go back to the ship and characters later during this card; but for now, I think I at least got that one prompt out of the way. Honestly, I had to do it with a THH-inspired oneshot because, y'know, Chapter 5 is a thing and it was the glorious sick episode that got me into DR in the first place. Also, is this set Post-Canon or is it in an Everybody Lives AU? Who knows! I sure don't!

--------

Last Heartbeat

Summary: Someone is trying to kill him while he's down for the count; yet Makoto can't find the strength to move away from the danger. 

Fandom: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Wordcount: 1.6K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo​

AO3 version available here.

--------

There’s a shadowy figure hovering over his bed.

 He doesn’t know who it could be or why they’re here – but he’s got a bad feeling about this. All he can see about them is the reflection of the moonlight in their eyes (he forgot to close the curtains before collapsing back into bed, but he’s thankful for it, now) and the way their smile shines through the darkness like white under the black light, sharp teeth threatening him.

He doesn’t know why, but there’s one feeling that’s overwhelming the rest of his sense – he needs to escape from whoever that person is, as fast and as soon as possible.

 That’s all well and dandy, but the thing is, his limbs won’t bulge. He’s trying his hardest to push him out of the bed before that person can do anything to him – he doesn’t even know if they’re armed or not – yet neither arms nor legs are responding to his desperate calls. He feels like his entire body has been covered in lead and that, in turn, seeped into his blood and flesh and made him heavier than he has any right to be.  

The light reflects in the sharp edge of a knife pointed right towards him by the mysterious figure, ready to strike at any moment, to extract the breath from his chest – but he’s already breathless, so he wonders if he hasn’t been stabbed already… but that can’t be, right? He’d have felt if the blade had struck. He’d be able to see blood flowing down it, right?

It doesn’t make sense, but he feels lightheaded and breathless, so it may just be his head playing tricks on him.

 Adrenaline kicks in before long and he manages to push himself to face the mysterious figure, legs following with a delay, as he sees their eyes: sulphuric yellow, bright and glistening, unrealistically bright even considering the lights outside – like a demon’s. Their breathing is unnaturally heavy, so close to him that he hears every crackle, every wheeze and every wet sound in it, oppressing him through merely existing and being in such a close range.

He’s now facing the figure, who has lied down on him, their knife still showing under the moonlight. Their expression is haunting, a mix of pleasure and pain like he’s never seen one before – their eyes are full of sorrow, but their teeth keep smiling, distorted in a pleased grin, a droplet of red falling down from one of them, one sharper than the blade they’re holding.

 Their intent is nefarious indeed, but his legs are trapped in the drapes and covers tangled in his feet, and he finds himself cornered by the wall against which his bed is. He attempts to flee from the sides, left, right, left, right – but the person (the creature?) flawlessly matches his pace, if they’re not actually predicting what he’s about to do, so there’s no way out there either.

With strong hands, they pin him down to the bed, preventing him from even attempting an escape. He now has a closeup view of their eyes: their pupils are slit, like a cat’s in a way, and focus directly into his despite the fact it should be impossible in a mostly dark room like that one. They emit their own light, so they can probably bypass his limits, making them invincible by default.

 His own breathing is heavy (albeit less than the creature), his hands are trembling and he’s stuck in this position, having to wait and see what the other person is going to do, even if he can guess their intentions can’t be good – he still has some hope left that it could be one giant misunderstanding. This may just be weird dream, after all, and his luck could finally be on his side for once and –

Hands wrap around his neck, cold and leathery to the touch, as the fingers dance around the edges of his jaw – he has no idea of what they’re doing, but he wishes he wasn’t so vulnerable and lethargic right about now, wishing he could recover just enough strength to get away from this dangerous situation. Their gaze is cold as it studies him, contrasting with the caustic grin, and their intent is now too clear for him to remain any optimistic about it.

 Oh my God. They can and will kill him.

 He has no idea of why someone would kill him, right now. Something tells him he must have done at least one thing to be a person to eliminate. He must know too much or snoop around too many places, and that must be displeasing to at least one individual. Kyoko did try to warn him, after all, of what sort of cases she may get on; but he didn’t mind because, simply put, he’d go through the apocalypse to be with her.

He’d very much appreciate her to be by his side, right now, considering he’s about to get killed, all alone, and it stings to think he’ll be drawing his last breath all on his own. If there was one thing he could be proud of about himself, it wasn’t any sort of talent nor ability, but his role as the heart of the class, the beacon of hope of the group as some have nicknamed him (it used to be ironic, but it grew on people); so, now that he’d need someone to pay him the favour back (now that he ever thought of it that way, but you know…), there’s nobody by his side and he’s left facing a demon in the darkness.

And that’s when one realization strikes him.

 He’s going to die alone.

 He’s going to die right here and ow without having had the opportunity to see all of the people he loves one last time and to tell them how grateful he was for every single one of them.

He won’t have the chance to hug Komaru one last time and tell her how she’s the best sister ever.

He won’t have the chance to thank his parents for their love and support, for comforting him in times of needs.

He won’t have the chance to tell the class he loved being their classmate and friend, how he spent some of the best years of his life with them, how they were the best thing to happen to him.

He won’t have the chance to tell Kyoko that… that…

 The fingers around his throat slowly move from his neck to his head, eyes glancing into his, still burning with hellish flames, albeit suddenly expressionless, evoking nothing in his panicked mind. The person’s breathing gets heavier and heavier as his starts to disappear, second by second, as his own breath is starting to run short. He’d try to fight against it if his limbs weren’t, again, too heavy to move, too stiff to use, especially in a situation like that – adrenaline isn’t enough to save him, now.

And there he is, dying in his bed, slain during a moment where he was too vulnerable to escape. It’s sad, sad thing; but at least, it’ll be a quick and easy death, if it comes to it.

 --------------------------------

 He wakes up to the soft light of the sun peeking through the curtains and the faint scent of lavender. The air is soft and a little cool, unlike what he can vaguely remember having felt before – only to jolt up when he remembers he shouldn’t even be alive to think that.

Two hands push him back into the bed, gentle yet firm. He doesn’t need to think much (and thank goodness for that, his head is heavy and feels like it could split in half if he used it too much) to know who this is, smile a little at the realization, then get even more confused about how he landed in this dream-like situation.

 “Stay put,” Kyoko tells him in this tone that only her voice has, the one that’s stoic yet caring, in a way he can’t quite describe.

“B-but… I…”

He coughs, loudly, and his laboured breathing reminds him of something: the person’s, the creature’s.

“Everything’s okay, Makoto. You’ve just gone through a terrifying night. Everything else is fine. You’re still here.”

 Her words are making him think a little more rationally about what felt like his death: it must have been a nightmare he didn’t wake up from. That’s weird, because usually, he’d wake up when he’d pass away in his dream, only to jump awake, drenched in sweat. The apocalypse happening before everyone’s eyes hasn’t helped.

“I don’t know what you saw while I was tending to you, even if I can imagine a version of it.”

He’s used to comforting Kyoko, not the other way around. She used to be very much uneasy with it, stumbling with her words and preferring silent gestures to words – which she still does and does very well at that with people she’s opened to – but she’s trying her best, he can tell.

“All I can tell you is that you were trying to escape from me but couldn’t.” She puts a damp washcloth on his forehead, prompting him to notice she isn’t wearing her gloves. “I assume you mistook me for someone else while I was simply trying to keep your fever in check.”

 So, the figure… wasn’t trying to kill him, then.

“That’s probably it,” he replies with a cough interrupting him. “Sorry if I scared you.”

“It’s fine. Please tell me about it if you feel like it. I want to understand what happened when you pushed me away.”

“Will do,” he gives her the biggest smile he call pull off.

[shinobimagpie]

hi!! may I please request kabuto and tayuya in a platonic context with behind the scenes/actor au and the free space trope? maybe a backstage prank war? thank you!!!

Ari this request made me squeal out loud when I saw it! I had SO much fun writing this thank you! I chose the Reactive Continuous Scream for my free trope because it was what immediately came to mind for the scenario I wanted to write. I hope you enjoy this! :D Thank you sooo much for the request!

Stage Fright

for the 25 Follower Bingo Event (requests still open!)

Characters: Kabuto and Tayuya (platonic)

Prompts: Actors/Backstage AU + Free Trope

Warnings: Tayuya is here so there’s swearing, mention of fake gore

Tayuya is halfway through filming for the day and halfway through draining her water bottle when she thinks she hears something. 

Operative word ‘thinks’. 

Damn these stupid horns costuming put on her. The irony of playing a sound-based character while being smothered half to deafness by her headgear isn’t lost on her either.

At the risk of Sasori going nuclear on her at touch up she pulls the headband of the horns out from her hair a bit, nudging them back from her ear until she can hear a distinct; “Psst, hey!”

“Me?” she asks, looking around for the source of the voice and finding only an ajar door a bit back and to her left.

From within a weary voice calls, “Can you pass me one of those water bottles out there please?” and although part of her wants to say ‘get your own, you’re right there’ she is conscious enough of the fact that she’s done three hours of takes and has yet to take lunch to not actually say it.   

Tayuya grabs a new bottle from the refreshment table beside her and crosses the hall, shouldering the door open casually.

“Here ya- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

Whatever Tayuya was expecting on the other side of the door it had not been a nearly naked half-serpent man, covered in pronounced veins and bloodied scales, gnarled hand outstretched for the water bottle over a massive severed stump of a snake body protruding from his chest.

She fumbles the water, half throwing it at the creature in the chair, staggering back till she hits the door frame. Likewise startled by being offered water by a yelling demon woman with black and yellow eyes and a crown of horns the snake man slaps the thrown bottle away in a panic and screams back.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

There’s a second or two more of mutual screaming, then hard panicked breathing, and then...

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHWHATINTHEFUCK?!?!?!”

 

“WHATISONYOURHEADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

“....Tayuya?”

“Oh my god, it’s you! I forgot you were filming that third stage stuff today.”

Her heartbeat is coming down a few notches as the situation sinks in but her eyes still go wide as she recognizes his voice. “Kabuto?”

He sighs with explosive relief, laughing a little now that he recognizes her too.

“Holy FUCK!,” Tayuya flails a hand at the elaborate cocoon of prosthetics he’s been ensconced in. “What did makeup DO to you?!” she asks in fascinated horror, scooping up the fallen drink to give to him.

“I thought they were gonna do this shit with CGI?”

“They’ve been torturing me for hours!” Kabuto groans, as he tries to find a way to open the bottle without messing up the carefully painted veins on his hands. “Now the last layer has to ‘bake’ or something? I don’t remember I just know if I move from this spot before he brings back lunch Sai might murder me with a makeup brush.”

Tayuya reaches out to twist the cap off the bottle for him, feeling a sympathetic frown creeping over her face. And here she’s been bitching all morning about her sclera contacts itching. At least she’s not wearing a horrible stretchy snake sleeping bag thing. 

“I guess only for the distance shots.” Kabuto grumbles. “They wanted to get some closeups for my death scene today so here I am.”

“Dude that sucks.” Tayuya gives a sympathetic pout as she looks him over. “...it does look pretty sick though. I mean, shit you look creepy.”

“I’ll tell Sai that you said so.” Kabuto says with a wry smile, one he is still wearing when the camera flash on Tayuya’s phone pops off...

“...Hey so uh, do you still use that dating profile? Is your password still infocards with all the vowels as numbers?” she asks, thumbs already tapping away on her screen as she slides a step back toward the door.

Kabuto pales under his layers of makeup. “Tayuya....”

“TAYUYAAAA!!!”

“You know you haven’t had a date in a while have you? Maybe you need to change it up a little? New profile picture?”

“Tayuya don’t you DARE!”

“Don’t worry, glasses.” she teases as she slides back out into the hall. “I definitely got your good side!”

[let-me-write-shit]

Like We Used To: 18

A/N: **WARNING** brief smut! I put **** before and after so you can skip.

This chapter was inspired by a request from @pzb2006​. Thanks so much for the Ellen suggestion! I kinda tweaked it a little bit, but I hope you like it! 

Anything you’d like to see in upcoming chapters? Message me some suggestions. I’ll see what I can do :)

[CLICK HERE FOR PREVIOUS CHAPTERS]

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

The birds chirped louder than they had all year on tuesday morning, causing Elizabeth to wake up before Harry’s alarm got the chance to go off. The morning sun beamed down on Elizabeth’s face and she turned to see Harry, lightly snoring, next to her in the lounge on his back patio. She bit her lip, smiling as she felt slight irritation from the tattoo behind her ear. Last night’s date was perfect. 

Elizabeth traced her fingers lightly over some of Harry’s tattoos, hungry for a little more of last night’s action. *****She started to trail little kisses from his lips, to his chin, and down to his neck, causing Harry to stir in his sleep a little bit. She continued, slipping underneath the duvet, kissing his chest, and his belly button, before taking hold of his limp cock and putting it in her mouth, sucking on him. Harry shifted, realizing what was happening, and pulled the sheets off of him to see Elizabeth, bobbing her head up and down on him. 

Quickly he started to harden up, muttering a quick, “Whoa,” placing one hand on her back while the other stayed by his side. She gagged as he hit the back of her throat and continued, eyes beginning to water, taking him in deeper, massaging his balls with one hand while the other pumped the base of his cock that she couldn’t fit in her mouth. It didn’t take long before Harry grunted her name, pushing her head further onto his cock. She could feel his member pulsate as his salty, thick cum squirted at the back of her throat. She swallowed as quickly as she could, licking up any spillage before sitting up and wiping her mouth.

*****************************

“I like that wake up call,” Harry smirked at her, sitting up. 

She laughed, snuggling into Harry’s side, “Think of it as a thank you for a great date.”

“Does this mean you’ll be my girlfriend now?”

Elizabeth sighed, “Harry, don’t ruin it.”

She was fine with being more free-spirited when it came to general messing around with Harry, but her last failed relationship had made Elizabeth more shut off to the whole idea of being a girlfriend. Having three years worth of memories up in flames from her ex-boyfriend’s infidelity made it hard for her to want to be in a serious relationship again. Messing around was one thing, but once there was a label involved, especially in this case where everyone around the world will know about it, made the relationship even more serious, which would, in turn, make a break up even more difficult. She just didn’t know if she was ready for that kind of commitment yet.

Harry groaned before dropping it, “Fine. But are you still coming to my Ellen interview today?”

“Yeah, I already finished most of my work for today. I just have a quick call with a client that I can take later on.”

“Great. Sarah and Mitch will be excited to see you. We have to leave here by 9 to meet up with them. What time is it anyway?”

Just at that moment Harry’s alarm started blaring, meaning that it was 7:30 AM. He reached for his phone to turn it off while Elizabeth shot out of the lounge shouting, “I need to take a quick shower!” Running inside, still naked. She swiped her phone from the kitchen counter on her way up the stairs to Harry’s bathroom, turning the knobs on. While the water warmed up she finally looked at the screen to turn on some music and see how much battery life she had when she noticed dozens of missed calls and text messages.

“What the hell?” she whispered to herself, opening a text from her mom.

‘Hello?   /    Are you awake?   /     I’m not sure of the time difference of where you are, but I tried calling a few times.   /    Call me back when you see this. Xx’

Her eyes furrowed in confusion, mind going to the worst, thinking someone in her family had maybe gotten hurt. She opened Matt’s texts next.

‘Earth to Lizzy, you up?  /   wtf is going on?   /   Kinda feelin left in the dark right now.    /    Listen, I’m not one to believe in tabloids but is there any truth to these rumors?    /    Also if you got ur first tattoo without me imma be a little annoyed, ngl.    /    call me’

Tattoo? How did he know she got a tattoo? And what rumors? She continued onto the next texts from Daisy.

‘How could you not tell me you went to LA with Harry?! I need all the details when you get back. How big is his dick?? Don’t even try to deny you slept with him! Have fun ;)xx’

Okay, wtf is going on. She opened up Kate’s texts next.

‘Just woke up to another beautiful sunrise on my honeymoon and checked the news on my phone to see this article??? Is it official? Also offended you didn’t tell me yet, if it is! Love ya!’ with a link to a TMZ article. 

Elizabeth’s heart was beating a thousand miles a minute as she clicked on the link. ‘Harry Styles dating High School Sweetheart: They make it official with ink!’. In the article there were several pictures of them from the night before including one of them inside the ice cream parlor, one of Harry holding her hand as they entered the tattoo shop, the picture the two of them took with Frank and Derek, and the closeup pictures of their new tattoo’s along with a screenshot of an instagram post from the tattoo shop explaining their experience with Harry and her. In the article they mention her full name, her profession, her (very wrong) net worth, the neighborhood where she lives, and details of how her and Harry met.

She felt the heat rise to her face, panicking a bit, when there was a small knock on the door. Harry slowly opened the door to see her expression and stepped in, softly speaking, “So I’m assuming you saw it?”

“How the hell did they find all of this information out? Where I live? How we met? How much I make-which isn’t even right, by the way! I wish that was my net worth!” She threw her hands up, exasperated.

Harry let out a soft chuckle, wrapping his arms around her reassuringly, “I know. I don’t know how they get their information. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised it took them this long to figure out who you were. But don’t worry, we can handle it. Let’s just take a shower and get ready. Jeffrey and Lisa are going to be over soon and we’ll have a little sit down with them before we head on over to Ellen, okay?”

Elizabeth took a breath and agreed, setting her phone down and stepping under the hot water with Harry right behind her. Harry hugged her close with her head resting on his chest, letting the water cascade like waterfalls down their body for a few minutes before washing their hair and massaging body wash onto each other. 

Once out, Harry shaved his facial hair and Elizabeth quickly blow dried her hair straight and slapped on a bit of makeup before getting changed into cotton white crop top with puffy short sleeves, and a fitted pink floral mini skirt that had a small slit in it, pairing it with a pair of chunky white trainers. 

When Jeffrey and Lisa got there, they prepped her and Harry for possible questions they may be asked, verifying everyone was on the same page in that Harry and Elizabeth, as far as the world was concerned, were only friends as of now. She felt slightly more nervous than before on the way to the Ellen show, squeezing Harry’s hand in the back seat. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she would get to actually meet Ellen, but knowing how quickly the TMZ article blew up, she was almost certain that Harry would be asked about her and she didn’t know how everyone would react, regardless of Harry’s response.

They drove to a private entrance of the Ellen DeGeneres Show lot, basically entering underground, and were ushered inside, passing dozens of employees who said quick ‘hello’s to Harry on the way to his dressing room. Harry got changed into a different set of clothes while there and was going over details with Jeffrey and the producers of the show, so Elizabeth took the time to head across the hall to the band’s dressing room. 

“Elizabeth!” Sarah stood up, followed by Mitch, Adam, Ny and Charlotte. 

They each gave her a hug and Mitch put a hand on her shoulder, “You doing okay? We heard about the TMZ article.”

She sighed, stepping towards their table of food, popping a grape into her mouth, “Yeah, I’m alright. Jeffrey and Lisa came over this morning so we could all get our stories straight. I was not expecting this to happen.”

“They love to assume, those tabloids, eh?” Ny declared, earning nods of agreement from the rest of the group.

They carried on talking and joking for a bit before Elizabeth went back over to Harry’s dressing room to see how he was making out. Jeffrey and Lisa had taken the conversation with the producers outside of the dressing room so that it was just her and Harry, chatting about all the times he’s been on the Ellen show and different memories, when there was a knock on the door. 

“Come in!” Harry called as they both sat up straight. 

Elizabeth’s throat tensed up and she felt her heart drop to her stomach when the door swung open and Ellen DeGeneres popped her head in. She smiled friendly at them, stepping in the room and closing the door behind her. Harry stood up and grinned, shouting a hello to her, which made Elizabeth stand up as well, not wanting to be rude. 

“How are you doing?” Harry asked Ellen before motioning to Elizabeth, “This is my friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth, this is the lovely Ellen.”

“Hello,” Elizabeth smiled, coyly, shaking Ellen’s hand. It was softer and colder than she had expected.

“Yes, I’ve seen you all over the tabloids this week, it’s nice to meet you!” Ellen said, bluntly, still smiling at her, and motioning for them to sit back down on the sofa. She took a seat across from them on a chair and continued, “How are you both doing? I’m excited that you’re back here.”

“Yes, We’re good. Excited to be back. Love coming here,” said Harry.

“Great,” Ellen nodded between the two of them before looking at Harry, “Elizabeth, did you know you’re the first person I’ve met that knew Harry when he was just a kid.”

Harry looked at Elizabeth as Elizabeth smiled, still shyly, “No, I did not know that. I’m honored.”

“Yeah, I think he’s purposely hiding everyone from me,” Ellen joked, “Do you have any embarrassing stories of him growing up?”

“Alright, I don’t think we need to go there,” Harry put his hands up, smirking a bit, causing Ellen and Elizabeth to laugh.

“I actually do,” Elizabeth giggled, “We were probably fifteen at the time. Harry and I were walking to get food after school when he saw his mom up the street. So he snuck up on her and grabbed her from behind, spinning her around. Only to find out it wasn’t actually his mom and he had just spun a complete stranger around in the air. She screamed so loudly everyone on the street turned to look, and she hit him with her purse and ran away.”

Ellen burst into laughter as Harry buried his head in his arms in embarrassment, “See, this is exactly why I don’t let you meet anyone I grew up with,” he joked to Ellen.

They chatted for a bit more and Elizabeth started to feel a bit more comfortable before Ellen asked, “So you two really aren’t dating?”

“No,” they said at the same time, Elizabeth looking over at Harry, uncomfortably.

She looked between the two of them with a raised eyebrow, “Mhmm...you sure?”

Harry laughed, “Yes, we’re sure. What are you doing?”

“I’m just saying, you two would make a cute couple,” Ellen threw her hands up in defense. “Alright, well I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you two were doing and I’ll see you out there.”

The two of them joined the rest of his crew in their dressing room, watching bits and pieces of the show while all joking and laughing together. The atmosphere in the back was so cheery and fun, Elizabeth almost forgot that they were at a talk show set. She and Harry would steal little flirtatious looks and touches, not that they needed to hide it since everyone in the room was aware of their situation, until it was time for Harry to make his way towards the stage. Elizabeth stayed in the dressing room with Lisa and a few others while Jeffrey accompanied Harry towards the front and the band made their way towards the side of the performance stage. 

Harry would be interviewed by Ellen first before performing. Once he was announced, the audience started screaming as he walked out, waving at everyone and saying hello. He gave Ellen a hug and sat down on the white sofa, getting comfortable. She started off praising Harry for his recent performances and his upcoming final performance of his current album.

“Now, you’re doing a huge show in New York City in about four weeks as your last performance of this album. What can we expect from that show? Are there costumes involved? What’s the night going to be like?”

“Well….there will be costumes involved. You’ll have to wait and see what. And there may even be songs from the new album being performed,” Harry hinted, causing an eruption of screams and applause from the audience. “Maybe, we’ll see.”

“Oh, wow!” Ellen exclaimed, smiling. Once the audience quieted down she asked, “That’s exciting. Can you tell us what your album is kind of about? We all know that your current album is based around a break up, is there a storyline to your next one?”

“Uhm, kind of,” Harry crossed his legs and pinched his bottom lip, thinking, “You know, I don’t really like to explain my songs too much, I just feel like the lyrics kind of speak for themselves. But it’s funny because we started writing this album almost a year ago now, and it started off kind of being about one thing, but just recently it’s turned into something completely different. And it’s just weird how, you know, one or two songs can change the feeling of an entire album.”

“Wow, just recently, huh?” Ellen started, “Now, I heard in an interview recently that your album was kind of centered around old friendships. Does this sudden change in your album have anything to do with your ‘friendship’ that’s been circling all over the news outlets these last few days?” she put ‘friendship’ in finger quotations, and pictures  of Elizabeth and Harry were blown up on the screen behind them with the TMZ title plastered at the top.

Harry looked back at the screen and laughed, uncomfortably shifting in his seat, going between looking at the picture, looking at Ellen, and squeezing his temples with his middle finger and thumb. Elizabeth felt her face start to warm up in embarrassment, squeezing onto Lisa’s hand for support. She watched as the audience cheered at Harry’s nervousness and Ellen chuckled a bit before continuing, realizing Harry wasn’t going to say anything.

“Because, listen, now I just met Elizabeth backstage, you brought her here with you today,” Ellen said as the audience quieted down, “And she’s a lovely girl. Very sweet. And I mean she is just gorgeous, right?” Ellen pointed at her picture on the screen, looking at the audience which earned a few yelps.

Harry nodded awkwardly, “Thank you. I will, erm, I will be sure to tell her you said that,” he said, furrowing his eyebrows and throwing his hands up in the air as if to say ‘what the hell am I saying?’

Ellen laughed, “Yeah, and, listen, you both were pretty adamant that you two were just friends. I mean, you’ve been friends since you were, what, fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Fourteen, yeah,” Harry nodded.

“Right. A long time. Now she just told me a story about how you had confused a stranger with your mom and embarrassed yourself by swinging her around, not realizing it wasn’t your mom. She hit you with a purse!” The audience burst into laughter as Ellen continued, chuckling, “It seems like you’ve been through a good amount together. It also came out that you recently reconnected with her at a mutual friend’s wedding and spent the weekend together…” which earned another round of ooo’s from the audience.

“Yeah, there were eleven of us together that weekend,” he put an emphasis on ‘eleven’, “And, you know, most of us have been friends since we were thirteen, fourteen years old. It was a very strong sense of nostalgia being back with them again, so they all kind of played a part in the inspiration behind this next album. It was fun. We’re not done the entire album just yet, we’re still finishing up, getting everything just right, but it’s getting there and, yeah, I’m excited.”

Ellen nodded, listening, before bringing the conversation back, “Yeah, of course. I’m sure nothing happened between you two at all that weekend,” she teased before continuing, “And it’s also all over the internet that you and Elizabeth were supposedly out on a ‘non-date’, a one-on-one ‘friendly outing’ last night,” she overplayed, unconvinced, “You both wound up getting some tattoos. And she tattooed you, is that right? What did she tattoo on you?”

“Yeah, uhm, one of the tattoo artists there, he’s called Frank, told us about how his wife, Leah, was recently diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and was undergoing treatment, so my friend decided to attempt to tattoo the outline of the breast cancer logo and the letter L for his wife’s initial as a kind of homage to her.” The audience ‘awed’ as a picture of his tattoo showed on the screen.

Ellen nodded, looking at it, “Yeah, there it is. That’s pretty good, was that her first time tattooing someone?”

“Yeah it was her first time getting a tattoo, and tattooing someone, so pretty eventful night for her.”

“I’ll say,” Ellen continued, “Well that was very thoughtful of her to think to tattoo that on you. I mean, that’s there for life, so, pretty big deal. So we reached out to Frank today because of this and I’m happy to announce that the Ellen Show has decided to pay for all of Leah’s current and future medical expenses related to this diagnosis.”

The entire room cheered and Harry’s eyes widened, clapping hard and smiling, “Wow. Fantastic. That’s amazing!”

“Yeah, well, thanks to your ‘friend’ we were able to find out about Leah, so it’s really all because of her. I mean, listen, like I said, she seems like an amazing woman. I told you back stage that I think you’d make a great couple...”

“You did. You did say that,” Harry nodded awkwardly.

“Yeah, so, you know. I’m just saying. You have my blessing.”

“Great. Thanks,” Harry laughed, shifting in his seat and clearing his throat while the audience continued to laugh and cheer.

Ellen smiled, amused by his discomfort, and changed subjects, “So, the LA Fashion Week Runway Shows and Wrap Party are in three weeks, which you will be attending……”

Elizabeth looked at Lisa, speechless. What the hell just happened? She had expected maybe a question or two about her, but that was damn near the entire interview! Also, Ellen had said she was gorgeous. She was both freaking out of embarrassment, and fangirling at the same time. If people didn’t know who she was before, they definitely did now. She tried not to think too much into it. It was still too early to tell, and this particular Ellen episode wouldn’t air for two days, so she didn’t want to put too much assumption into it. Who knows how much of it would be edited out. 

While Harry had wrapped up the interview and performed with his band, Elizabeth took the time to finish up a scheduled conference over the phone with a client and return her family and friend’s calls back, reassuring them that the press had just been over exaggerating, and apologized to Matt for getting her first tattoo without him promising that they would get tattoos together soon. What a freaking day.

KEEP READING

[dancingwithinsanityssoul]

Comatose Love

BamBam is anxious. Jackson can see it clearly no matter how hard BamBam tries to act normal. BamBam had never been able to sit still but he is more fidgety than usual, abnormally quiet, and  Jackson has watched him check his phone no less than twenty times in the last three minutes only to drop it onto the dining table with a huff a second later, running his hands through his hair and then repeating the process. He’s trying to hide it from the rest of his members, laughing loudly as he watches Mark attempt to climb Yugyeom like a tree, but Jackson could tell it was forced, his smile never reaching his eyes. 

“BamBam,” Jackson calls, catching everyone’s attention, “What’s got you so distracted?”

“Huh? Oh. Nothing. I’m fine,” BamBam says hurriedly, looking back down to his phone.

“No you’re not,” Mark says from where he is perched on Yugyeom’s back, wrapped around him like a koala, “You keep checking your phone and then looking like you wanna throw it across the room a second later.”

“Why are you on me, hyung?” Yugyeom says in annoyance and Mark just shrugs, causing Yugyeom to growl. He walks over to one of the couches in the dorm living room and flops down, effectively squishing Mark between him and the back of the couch and Mark lets go with a groan, the rest of the boys laughing again as Yugyeom pushes back, pressing Mark harder into the back of the couch until Mark gives him a hard smack on the side of his head. Yugyeom jumps up quickly, scurrying over to sit at the table next to BamBam just as Jinyoung and Youngjae enter the dorm, both laden down with bags of food. 

The boys all gather around the table as Jinyoung and Youngjae hand out the food, and Jackson watches as BamBam ignores his in favor of checking his phone again. He sets the phone aside again with a sigh before grabbing his fries. He only eats a couple before picking his phone up once more, only to have it snatched out of his hand by Jaebeom as he plops down next to him. 

“Seriously, BamBam, what’s up,” Jaebeom asks, holding BamBam’s phone out of his reach, “are you that lost without Karlie here to hold your hand?”

“I am not lost without her, hyung,” BamBam says in exasperation, wincing at the mention of his fiance who also happens to be Got7’s American manager. Jackson can’t help but chuckle as he watches BamBam attempt to grab his phone from Jaebeom, almost climbing into his lap, only to have it taken by Jinyoung across the table. He flops back in his seat with a hard, crossing his arms and glaring at the table. 

“Right,” Jaebeom says with a smirk, “Then why do you look like a kicked puppy?”

“I do not look like a kicked puppy,” BamBam growls before sighing, “I’m just worried, okay? She usually calls or at least texts me once a day. I haven’t heard from her in three days. I’ve been trying to call her but it goes straight to voicemail.”

“Maybe she finally got sick of listening to your whiny ass, and shut off her phone,” Mark says from where he is sitting on Jaebeom’s other side, and the other boys laugh when BamBam lunges at him and he lets out a small shriek. 

“That’s rude, Mark,” Jinyoung admonishes as he slides BamBam’s phone into his pocket, sits down, and looks back at BamBam, “I’m sure she’s fine, BamBam. But checking your phone every two seconds and stressing out isn’t going to make her call you any quicker. So eat your lunch and spend some time with us before you leave for Thailand tomorrow.” 

“Fine,” BamBam says with a pout before taking a large bite out of his burger. Before anyone can say anything else though, Day6’s Sweet Chaos rings out and BamBam is lunging across the table, shoving his hand into Jinyoung’s pocket and fishing out his phone.

“See, I told you she was fine,” Jinyoung says with a laugh as BamBam answers the phone, wandering into the living room. 

“Karlie what the hell?” BamBam says loudly, “I’ve been trying to call you for-”

Jackson looks up from his food when BamBam stops mid-sentence.

“Tyler? Where’s Karlie?” BamBam says in English as he stops next to the couch.

Everyone’s attention snaps to BamBam at his question, food forgotten. Jackson watches as a mix of confusion and pain settles onto his friend’s face. 

“What are you- Why is she-” BamBam stutters and stops as whoever is on the other end continues speaking. Yugyeom stands from the table and moves to stand next to his best friend when BamBam fists a hand in his hair. As Yugyeom reaches out to place a hand on BamBam’s shoulder, BamBam’s knees suddenly buckle, phone slipping from his hand and bouncing across the carpet. Yugyeom manages to snake his arm around BamBam’s waist in time to keep him upright, and BamBam presses his forehead into his best friend's collar bone as Yugyeom slowly guides him to the floor. Everyone is moving now, rushing to their friend’s side. Jackson stops short when he sees BamBam’s phone lying face up on the floor a few feet away, call still in progress, screen showing a closeup picture of BamBam and his fiance, BamBam pressing a kiss to Karlie’s cheek. He snatches the phone up quickly and presses it to his ear when he hears a male voice calling BamBam’s name filter through the phone speakers. 

“Who is this?” Jackson demands in English.

“Who are you?” The voice on the other end says, “Where’s BamBam?

“This is Jackson,” Jackson replies, looking over when he hears BamBam’s breathing hitch, bordering on hyperventilation and the other boys around him attempting to calm him down, “and BamBam is currently having a panic attack and I wanna know why.”

“Jackson, this is Karlie’s father,” The man says with a sigh, sounding tired, “Karlie was attacked three days ago and is currently in a coma. The doctors don’t know when, or if, she will wake up.” 

“Oh my God,” Jackson whispers, drawing some of the other boys’ attention to him, “We’ll make sure he’s on the next flight to the States.”

“Thank you, Jackson,” Tyler says.

“Of course, sir,” Jackson says, and hangs up the phone. Jaebeom and Mark are next to him almost instantly, eyes full of questions and Jackson relays what Karlie’s father had told him. 

“Shit,” Mark says quietly before switching back to Korean, “well he’s already packed for Thailand. All we need to do is cancel his current ticket and buy him a new one.”

“I think someone should go with him,” Jaebeom says, “Make sure he makes it okay.”

“I’ll go,” Mark says, and Jaebeom nods. As Mark heads to his room, Jackson looks over to see that BamBam has gotten his breathing under control and is now leaning back against the couch with a blank look on his face. Jinyoung, Youngjae, and Yugyeom are trying to talk to him but give up a minute later when they get no response. They wander over to where Jackson and Jaebeom are, all looking concerned. 

“He won’t tell us what’s going on,” Youngjae says, sounding panicked, “he started hyperventilating and then he just shut down. No tears, no explanation, nothing.”

“Who was on the phone, Jackson hyung?” Yugyeom asks quietly, eyes still glued to his best friend, who hasn’t moved. Jackson explains again while Jaebeom goes to book tickets for BamBam and Mark. By the time Jackson has finished explaining the situation, Youngjae and Yugyeom both have tears running down their faces and Jinyoung’s eyes are glassy. Jaebeom walks back over a few minutes later with a couple sheets of paper, just as Mark returns from his room with BamBam’s suitcase and a duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

“Okay, I have you on the next flight out,” Jaebeom says, handing the papers to Mark, “It leaves in an hour and forty-five minutes, so if you’re going to make it with enough time to get through security you need to leave now. The cabs on its way and I called JYP. He’s paying for the tickets, and sends his best wishes. All that’s really left to do is call his mom, let her know what’s going on so she’s not freaking out when he doesn’t show up tomorrow.” 

“I’ll call her,” Yugyeom says, and Jaebeom nods. As Yugyeom walks away, the sound of a car horn outside catches everyone's attention.

“Cab’s here,” Jinyoung says, looking out the window. Mark takes BamBam’s phone from Jackson before picking up the suitcase and heading for the door. Jaebeom and Jackson squat down in front of BamBam and Jackson places a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, BamBam,” Jackson says in a soft voice, “You need to get up. The cab’s here to take you to the airport.”  

When BamBam gives no response or sign of moving, Jaebeom lets out a noise that sounds like a mix between a sigh and a growl. He reaches out quickly, grabbing BamBam’s chin firmly and forcing his head up.

“Hey,” Jaebeom says sharply, and BamBam’s eyes finally focus on him, “You need to get your head in the game. Karlie needs you right now and you sitting here is doing nothing. So move your ass.”

At the mention of his fiance’s name, BamBam’s eyes widen and he nods, allowing Jaebeom and Jackson to pull him to his feet. The three of them make their way outside, where Mark is waiting by the cab. 

“Call us when you get there,” Jaebeom tells Mark after depositing BamBam in the car.

“Will do,” Mark says, “I texted Karlie’s dad with BamBam’s phone, letting him know our itinerary.” 

Jaebeom nods and Mark climbs into the car. Jackson and Jaebeom watch the cab until it disappears around the corner before heading back inside. 

“You were a bit harsh on him, hyung,” Jackson says as they climb the stairs. 

“Yeah, well. We needed him to move,” Jaebeom says with a sigh, “We had to snap him out of whatever that was and the soft approach was not going to work.” 

“Yeah,” Jackson sighs, “I guess you’re right.”

~~~~~~

BamBam doesn’t speak a word the entire trip. Mark tries multiple times during the fifteen and a half hour flight to talk to him, but BamBam never responds, simply stares out the window. He also refuses to eat, despite having not eaten lunch. Mark knows he’s not going to get through to him so he leaves BamBam to his own devices, dozing off here and there. It’s mid-afternoon when they finally land in Karlie’s hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, and Mark is stiff and sore. As he and BamBam make their way through the terminal, trying to shake the cramps out of their muscles, they hear a feminine voice calling BamBam’s name. They turn towards the sound and see a petite woman standing next to the baggage carousel. Mark turns to BamBam in confusion, only to see his eyes widen just before he scurries over to the small woman, stooping to wrap her in a hug. Mark hurries after his friend, reaching the pair as the woman pulls back and gives BamBam a small, motherly smile. Now that he’s closer, Mark sees that the woman is an older, slightly shorter version of Karlie. 

“I didn’t know Karlie had an older sister,” Mark says without thinking, because his brain-to-mouth filter must be malfunctioning due to jet lag, making both BamBam and the woman give him strange looks.

“Oh hun,” the woman says with a thick Southern drawl, a sweet smile adorning her face, “you must be exhausted. You’re not seeing things clearly. Did you two get any sleep on the plane?”

“Maybe an hour?” BamBam says uncertainly, the first words Mark has heard him speak since he got the call, “But he slept most of the flight.”

“Did you at least eat something?” the woman asks as they grab the boys’ luggage, giving BamBam a pointed look and he looks away quickly. The woman huffs and smacks the back of his head, before turning her gaze to Mark, “What about you, Mark?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mark squeaks, slightly frightened of the tiny woman before him, before something else occurs to him, “Wait. How do you know my name?”

“Don’t call me ma’am. Carrie is fine. Or mama,” the woman says with a smirk, “And I know all of your names. My daughter talks about the ‘crackheads’ that she manages all the time. Plus, I like your music and Bam is always showing us videos of the crazy antics you boys get into. So it wasn’t hard to match names to faces.”

“Oh, daughter…” Mark says, scratching his head in embarrassment, “That makes sense. I feel dumb now.” 

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Carrie says with a giggle, patting Mark’s arm, “We can just blame it on the jet lag. Now come on. Let’s go see our girl. We’ll pick up some food on the way.”

Mark and BamBam follow Carrie out to her SUV, stowing their bags in the trunk. As Carrie pulls out of the parking lot, Mark sends a quick text message to their group chat, letting the other members know that they had landed safely and that he would call them later that evening. They stop at a McDonald’s then a Starbucks, Carrie buying two extra coffees. The rest of the ride is pretty quiet, only the sound of crumpling food wrappers breaking the silence. When they finally arrive at the hospital, the atmosphere seems to grow darker around them. The hospital is busy, people in scrubs rushing around. The elevator is packed when they catch it and they are all thankful to get off two floors later. The third floor is quieter than the first floor had been, an almost somber quality to the air that makes the hair on the back of Mark’s neck stand up as they follow Carrie down the hall. They stop at a desk with a middle aged gentleman and a young man in scrubs leaning against it, and Carrie hands the young man one of the coffees. 

“You didn’t have to get me coffee, Carrie,” the young man says, accepting the cup anyway.

“I know, hun,” Carrie says, handing the other coffee to the other man, “But you’ve been here all night and you looked almost dead when I left.”

“Well, thank you,” the young man says, before turning to look at Mark and BamBam, “And who are these gentlemen?”

“This is Karlie’s fiance, BamBam,” the other man says, placing a hand on BamBam’s shoulder then points to Mark with the hand holding the coffee cup, “And this is his bandmate, Mark.”

“They aren’t technically a band, Tyler. They don’t play instruments,” Carrie says, patting her husband's arm before turning back to the man in scrubs, “How is she today, Josh?”

“Well, the swelling has gone down considerably. The doc ran another CT scan after you left and he’s optimistic about being able to remove the drainage tube tomorrow,” Josh says, leaning across the counter to pick up a clipboard, “She’s also breathing on her own, now.”

“May I see her?” BamBam asks in a small voice as Carrie lets out a sigh of relief.

“Of course,” Josh says, nodding, “this way.”

As they follow the nurse down the hall, BamBam gets antsier with every step, and when they finally stop by a door at the very end of the hall, he looks ready to bolt. Mark places a reassuring hand on BamBam’s shoulder as the nurse opens the door. The lights in the room are out and it’s quiet except for the constant steady beeping of a heart monitor. As they all file in, Josh turns on the lights and Mark suddenly feels the urge to puke. Karlie is the room’s only occupant, but if Mark didn't know who they were there to see, he would not have recognized the girl laying in the bed. The entire left side of her face is a dark purple, with a matching bruise ringing her neck. There are bandages wrapping around her forehead and covering her right eye. There are tubes and wires everywhere, some attached to her right arm and some disappearing into the neckline of the hospital gown she wears. Her long brown hair almost seems dull, laying limp and greasy around her. 

“Jesus,” Mark breaths out as BamBam stumbles forward. He falls to his knees next to the bed and reaches out tentatively to grasp her hand, lacing his fingers through hers and pressing the back of her hand to his lips. Mark sees his friend's shoulders start to shake, and he presses his forehead against Karlie’s hip as Carrie moves forward, kneeling down next to him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. BamBam shifts, never releasing Karlie’s hand, and buries his face in Carrie’s shoulder as she cards her fingers through his hair, broken sobs ripping their way out of his chest. 

“What happened,” Mark asks shakily, turning to look at his friend's father. He is trying to be strong for BamBam, but he can feel the burn of tears welling in his eyes. Karlie had become like a little sister to Mark and seeing her like this hurt. 

“We had gone to dinner with a few of her bridesmaids and were talking to a couple of gentlemen while waiting for a table,” Tyler says, looking exhausted, “one of them was very interested in Karlie, and looked angry when she said she was engaged but he didn’t say anything. Then about halfway through dinner BamBam called her, so she went outside. We all figured she would be a while, so when she wasn’t back after twenty minutes, we didn’t think anything of it. But then a woman came running into the restaurant screaming that ‘he’s killing her’. We were pretty far from the door so it took us a while to get out there, but when we did, we saw the angry guy from earlier being pulled off of Karlie by his friend. We don’t know why he did it, his friend doesn’t even understand what happened. Apparently he just snapped.”

“Jesus,” Mark says again, not knowing what else to say, and a silence settles over the room, only BamBam’s sobs being heard. They stay that way for a while, Tyler sitting in the chair against the wall, Mark leaning against the wall next to him, and Carrie holding BamBam as his sobs quiet down. After a while, when BamBam has stopped crying and settled himself in the chair next to the bed, still clutching Karlie’s hand, Carrie turns to her husband. 

“Hun, you look exhausted,” she says, placing a hand on his shoulder, “and both boys probably need sleep, too. So why don’t you take them home and I’ll sit with her.” 

“I’m not leaving,” BamBam says firmly, eyes never leaving his fiance's face, before Tyler has a chance to say anything.

“Bam, you need to sleep,” Mark says, “You barely slept on the plane.”

“I’m not leaving her, Mark,” BamBam snaps in Korean, springing to his feet and turning to Mark with a glare, “I don’t need you telling me what I do or don’t need. The woman I love is lying in a hospital bed and we have no idea when she’s gonna wake up. Or if she even will. So if you think I’m leaving her side anytime soon you are sorely mistaken.”

Mark’s eyes widen at his normally goofy friend’s angry outburst. He doesn’t know how to respond, so he just nods and makes his way out the door. He wanders down the hall a bit before collapsing into one of the many chairs lining the hallway. He rakes his hands over his face and through his hair, taking a deep, shaky breath as he lets his head fall back against the wall. He feels the stress of the day catching up with him; the jetlag, the shock from his friend’s condition and BamBam’s outburst becoming too much and he feels tears stinging at his eyes again. This time, though, he doesn’t fight it, just lets the tears slip past his closed eyelids and down his cheeks. He sits there for a few minutes, crying silently, until he feels a hand on his shoulder and he opens his eyes to see Tyler and Carrie both standing in front of him. 

“Come on, son,” Tyler says, “Let’s head to the house and you can sleep.”

“Oh, I was just going to book a hotel,” Mark says, wiping his eyes and standing. 

“Nonsense,” Carrie shakes her head, “We have a spare room. There’s no point in wasting money on a hotel when you can just stay with us.”

Mark nods, too tired to argue, and follows the couple out of the hospital.

~~~~~

When Mark walked out, BamBam collapsed back into his chair and buried his face in his hands, immediately feeling guilty. He hadn’t meant to yell at his friend, knew he was just concerned for BamBam’s wellbeing, but the stress of everything had gotten to him and he’d taken it out on Mark. 

“Shit,” BamBam says, letting out a ragged sigh. 

“I may not know what you said,” Carrie says, placing her hand on his shoulder, and he looks up at her, “But even I could tell that was harsh.” 

“I know,” BamBam says, sighing again and training his eyes back on his unconscious fiance, “I didn’t mean to snap at him. I just-”

“I get it,” Carrie says, “Hey. I’m gonna take Ty and Mark to the house so they can get some sleep, then I’ll be back. It’ll probably be a couple hours. You gonna be okay here by yourself?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” BamBam says. His eyes don’t leave Karlie as he hears Carrie and Tyler leave. He picks up Karlie’s hand again, reaching out with the other hand to gently rest it against the top of her head, careful of the bruising on her face and the bandages on her head. He sits that way, carding his fingers through her hair and listening to the steady beep of the heart monitor reassuring him that she was still there, still alive, for about half an hour until his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He fishes it out and sees that Mark is calling the Got7 group chat. He takes a moment to gather himself and makes sure that his headphones are connected before accepting the call. It takes a second for the call to connect, the sound coming through before the video does. When it does, he sees Mark in the guest room of his soon to be in-laws house, eyes slightly red and puffy, and feels another wave of guilt wash over him. At the bottom of the screen, the rest of the members of Got7 are squished onto one of the couches in the dorm living room. They all look rather surprised to see him. 

“Hey guys,” He says quietly. 

“Hey Bam,” Yugyeom says softly, with none of his usual exuberance, “How you doing?”

BamBam doesn’t answer, just makes a noncommittal noise and turns the camera around, showing the boys the girl on the bed. The boys all gasp, while Mark just looks away. He turns the camera back around so the boys are looking at him once more and rubs his eyes. 

“What happened?” Jaebeom asks, voice neutral, face blank.

Mark relays the story they heard from Tyler, but BamBam isn’t really listening, not really wanting to hear it again. His mind wandering to the “what ifs”. He remembers calling her that day, and he wonders if he had waited a little longer to call her would she still be in this situation. If he hadn’t begged the other boys to take a break earlier than planned so he could call her, would she have made it home with no more contact with the angry man? Before he can fall too much farther into that train of thought, the sound of his name pulls him back to the conversation and he 

sees his best friend giving him a knowing look. 

“I know what you’re thinking, BamBam,” Yugyeom says, and BamBam looks away, “It’s not your fault and blaming yourself isn’t going to do anyone any good.”

BamBam doesn’t say anything, just nods, knowing there’s no use arguing with his best friend because no one knows BamBam better, except maybe Karlie. 

“So wait,” Youngjae says, “Mark where are you? Did you stay at the hospital, too?”

“No, I’m at Karlie’s parents’ house,” Mark says, a small smirk working its way onto his face, “They wouldn’t let me get a hotel.”

“I could have told you that,” BamBam says with a snort, “They wouldn’t let me get a hotel either. Made me sleep in the guestroom the first couple times I came with Karlie for a visit. That bed is damn comfortable though.”

Mark laughs and nods in agreement. They talk for a few more minutes before Mark lets out a loud yawn and the other boys laugh. The boys all say their goodbyes and demands to be kept updated on Karlie’s progress. 

“Mark hyung,” BamBam says, catching everyone’s attention before anyone can hang up, “I wanted to say I’m sorry. About earlier.”

“It’s fine, BamBam,” Mark says, a reassuring smile on his face, “I get it. You’re stressed out. I probably would have reacted the same way had I been in your position.”

“That’s still no excuse for snapping at you,” BamBam argues, and he sees confusion on the rest of the members’ faces, “I appreciate your concern. I really do. Thank you. And I am sorry.”

Mark doesn’t say anything else, just smiles and nods before hanging up. BamBam tells the other boys goodnight once more before hanging up, just as the door opens behind him. 

“Oh!” the woman says in surprise, “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting a new face.”

“I’m sorry,” BamBam says, standing and offering her a hand, “I’m BamBam.”

“Oh! The fiance!” the woman says with a knowing smile, shaking his hand, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Becky. One of the nurses taking care of Karlie. I’m here to change her bandages and clean her up a bit.”

“Oh,” BamBam says dumbly, finally noticing that the woman is wearing scrubs. Becky seems sweet, around Carrie’s age, with short cropped black hair that's graying at the temples and wrinkles around her kind eyes. He watches as she moves about, checking the monitors, before grabbing a cart holding medical supplies and moving it closer to the bed. 

“So how did you two meet,” she asks as she starts unwrapping the bandages around Karlie’s head, “If you don’t mind my asking. I bet it was something cute, right? Like in a coffee shop or a bookstore?”

“I wish,” BamBam says with a snort, trying to ignore the damage to his fiance’s face that was hidden by the bandages; the stitches in her eyebrow and under her eye, the bruising and scrapes on her forehead, instead focusing on the heart monitor beeping away steadily as he remembers his and Karlie’s first meeting, “She actually called me a dumpling on a pair of walking chopsticks when we first met.”

“Really?” Becky says with a laugh as she gently cleans Karlie’s face.

“Yeah. I was 19, dumb and immature, and tried hitting on her five minutes after I met her,” BamBam says, smiling at the memory, “She was 21, gorgeous, and had just started working at the entertainment company I’m signed with. We were doing a Q&A video with our fans in Germany and they brought her in as a translator. She speaks seven languages. She actually insulted me in Thai, which is my native language. Shocked the hell out of me.” 

“Seven?” Becky asks, “I knew she spoke Korean and Spanish. Didn’t know about the others.”

“Wait, you know her?” BamBam asks in surprise.

“I went to high school with her dad,” Becky says with a smirk, “and Karlie grew up with my twins.”

“Oh wow,” he says quietly. 

“So,” she says, looking at BamBam conspiratorially, “If you were a dumb, immature teenager and she was insulting you in the beginning, what changed?”

“I’m persistent,” BamBam says smuggly, “ And stubborn. Granted so is she. It took me a year and a half to get her to agree to a date. But after that first encounter, I stopped trying so hard. I flirted less and tried to get to know her better. We became really good friends and I think that helped me mature a lot. Though I’m 25 and still act like a dumb, immature teenager sometimes, she keeps me in line. She keeps us all in line, actually.”

“Tyler tells me she manages a KPOP group,” Becky says, “That’s you, right? Isn’t it frowned upon to date your manager?”

“She was actually my girlfriend before she became our manager,” BamBam explains, “She’s only been our manager for about a year, we’ve been together for about four. My group was being rowdy and crazy backstage at an awards show, not listening to our manager when he would tell us to chill. It wasn’t the first time we gave our manager a hard time. And then she came in to wish us good luck, saw how we were acting and ripped us all apart and we settled down. JYP, the CEO of our company, I guess he saw it, and when our manager quit the next week, he offered her the job. Didn’t even care that she and I were together. He had just never seen anyone corral us like that.”

“Wow,” Becky says.

“Mmm, I got lucky,” he says, turning his gaze back to his fiance, “She’s the best thing that’s happened to me.”

“So how long have you been engaged?” Becky asks, “Have you guys set a date? How did you propose?”

BamBam looks at her with bemusement, amused by her curiosity. When he doesn’t respond after a few moments she looks up at him with wide eyes, and he chuckles. 

“I am so sorry,” she says hurriedly, “It’s not really any of my business. I’ve just found it helps the family to talk when a loved one is hurt. Just think of me as the nosey aunt.”

“It’s fine,” BamBam says with a laugh, “It’s what? February now? I proposed in October, so four months. The wedding is supposed to be in April, in Thailand.” 

“Wow. Short engagement,” Becky says.

“Yeah, Karlie’s very organized.” BamBam says with a fond smile, “She had almost everything planned by December.”

“Mmm,” Becky hums in agreement, “So why BamBam?”

“Huh?”

“Your name,” Becky clarifies, “I know that’s not the name you were born with.”

“His name is kinda hard to pronounce,” Carrie says as she walks in the open door, making BamBam jump, “Hi Becky.

“Hi Carrie, I’m almost done here,” Becky says with a smile, gathering up her supplies, “and what do you mean about his name?”

“The first time we met BamBam, Tyler said he refused to call him that, demanding to know his real name,” Carrie starts, giggling.

“When I told him my real name he just kinda blinked at me for a good ten seconds,” BamBam says laughing, “then he held out his hand for me to shake and says ‘It’s nice to meet you, BamBam.’ Karlie fell off the couch laughing.”

Carrie and Becky join in with his laughter as Becky finishes up and says her goodbyes, having other patients to tend to. After she leaves, BamBam and Carrie sit in silence for a while, both lost in their own worlds. 

“You know that’s part of why she wants to get married in Thailand, right?” Carrie asks suddenly, the sound of her voice making BamBam jump again.

“Huh?”

“She wants to make sure that whoever officiates can properly pronounce your name, and what better way to assure that happens than get married in Thailand,” Carrie explains with a smile, and BamBam snorts. 

“Is that the only reason?” he asks with a chuckle.

“No,” Carrie says with a small smile, “She’s always said that she wants to get married wherever the person she loves is from, because that's their home. I asked her about it when she was a teenager and her cousin got married in the Philippines. I was complaining about having to travel for the wedding and she said she thought it was sweet. I asked her where she wanted to get married and she just smiled and said ‘wherever they are from. If he’s from Florida then we’ll get married in Florida. If he’s from Montana, then we’ll get married in Montana. If he’s from Korea, we’ll get married in Korea. If he’s from Georgia though, we’re getting married in the Bahamas.’ That’s just the kind of person she is, Bam. She wants to make sure the person she loves is happy and comfortable and wants to experience their culture with them.”

BamBam can’t find the words to respond, so he simply nods and threads his fingers through Karlie’s again. It’s quiet for a long time before he realizes that his soon to be mother-in-law has fallen asleep in the other chair. He gets up, grabbing the extra blanket from the cabinet nearby, gently placing it over the slumbering woman before returning to his silent vigil. 

~~~~~

The next day is pretty uneventful, Tyler and Mark wandering in around eleven. The doctor comes in after lunch, talking in a bunch of jargon that BamBam doesn’t understand before Karlie is wheeled out for about an hour, returning with a few less tubes and wires attached to her and the bandages gone. The day wears on, filled with meaningless chatter and stories from Karlie’s childhood and her time with Got7, until it’s already well into the evening and her parents decide they will both go home that evening. BamBam once again refuses to leave, and this time no one says anything. After they leave, he tries to distract himself from the quiet, surfing social media before quickly becoming bored. He ends up scrolling through his photo gallery, losing himself in the images of his fiance stored there. It's one of his favorite hobbies, taking pictures and videos of Karlie, capturing all of the different sides of her; the way she looks when she’s sleeping, mouth slightly open and hair falling in her face; when she first wakes up, hair a mess and looking grumpy before having her coffee; the cute way her nose scrunches when she laughs. As he scrolls he comes across a video that looks to have been taken in the Got7 practice room that he doesn’t remember taking. When he opens it, all he sees is a forehead. 

“Oh god! Why is that so close!” he hears Karlie’s voice, almost drowned out by the cacophony of laughter coming from the background, and the video pulls back showing Karlie’s beautiful face. She moves the phone to show what’s happening behind her, and he sees himself held bridal style in Jackson’s arms, laughing loudly as Jackson spins in circles, before the video moves back to Karlie’s face. 

“Ya know, sometimes it’s kinda hard to tell who he’s dating. Is it me? Is it Jackson?” Karlie says, laughing as she points to herself then over her shoulder before moving the camera again, this time showing that he has moved from Jackson’s arms to Yugyeom’s, wrapping around his best friend like a koala as Yugyeom sprints around the room, before tripping over Youngjae’s extended foot and they both end up on the floor, BamBam trapped under Yugyeom’s body.

“Whoops, maybe it’s Yugyeom. I don’t know anymore.” The video focuses on Karlie’s face once more as she sounds annoyed but her smile shows that it’s all an act. There’s movement behind her that BamBam can’t quite make out before there are suddenly hands on Karlie’s face, turning her head. BamBam gets a quick glimpse of his own face as he slams his lips against hers before the camera is suddenly moving very quickly, a clattering noise echoing from the phones speakers before the screen goes black. BamBam chuckles as he remembers when that video was taken, not having realized at the time that she had been recording in the first place. He continues scrolling through the gallery, passing more pictures and videos before he comes to one of his favorite videos, one taken for Instagram the morning after he had proposed. He had taken her on a weekend getaway for her birthday to a little bed and breakfast in the Scottish countryside. It was a place she had always wanted to visit and he wanted to make her birthday and the proposal special. They had gone to dinner and then for a walk near the lake and it had honestly been perfect. He opens the video, his face coming into focus, hair messy, dressed in a black tee with the sides cut out.

“Wassup guys,” he says quietly, smiling sleepily at the camera as he makes his way into the bedroom of the suite they were staying in. He places the cup of coffee he carries on the bedside table before climbing onto the bed, collapsing next to a lump under the blankets. He pokes the lump causing it to shift and let out a groan and he chuckles. 

“BamBam go away,” Karlie’s voice filters out of the bundle, speaking Thai. 

“Rude babe,” He says with a chuckle as he wiggles his way under the blankets and pressing himself as close to her as he can, her messy hair and eyes squinting as she glares at her fiance. The screen goes black before the sound of Karlie squealing and giggling filters through. When the screen lights up again, they are sitting up leaning against the headboard, BamBam leaned back against Karlie’s chest with her arms wrapped around his waist, hands clutching the coffee cup and her chin resting on his right shoulder. 

“No babe,” she whines, still speaking Thai, when she notices the phone in his hand and buries her face in his shoulder, “Why are you filming? I have no makeup on! Please tell me this isn’t going on Instagram.”

“Neither do I. It’s fine. And I would be lying if I did.” BamBam says with a laugh as she groans. He threads his fingers with those of her left hand, showing off the diamond ring that rests on her ring finger, sparkling in the sunlight that filters in from the window. She starts grumbling in German and BamBam doesn’t know what she’s saying but he’s fairly certain it’s not nice. 

“I have no idea what she’s saying right now,” BamBam says in English, “But I am fairly certain she’s swearing at me in German.”

“You would be correct in that assumption,” Karlie says with a smug smirk as she picks her head up from his shoulder and takes a sip of the coffee, “I can say it in a different language if you want me to.”

“Nah,” BamBam says, smirking as well, “I wanna hear you say ‘I love you’ in Thai.”

She mutters something that the mic can’t pick up as she rests her cheek on his shoulder once more, looking towards the window. 

“That is definitely not how you say ‘I love you’ in Thai,” he says laughing, “Th- That is actually quite rude, babe. Come on, say ‘I love you’. Please?”

“Chăn rák ter,” she says with a sigh, but BamBam can hear the smile in her voice. 

“German!” BamBam says. 

“Ich liebe dich.” 

“Spanish.”

“Te quiero," she says, resting her chin on BamBam's shoulder before her face scrunches in confusion, "Wait. Nope. That's I want you. Te amo is I love you. It's too early for this shit. I hate you.”

“No you don't. You love me,” BamBam says as Karlie takes another drink of her coffee and rolls her eyes. 

"I don't know why," she says with a smirk.

"That hurts me, babe," he says, placing the hand holding hers over his heart with a pout, "right here."

"You'll be fine," Karlie says and BamBam laughs.

"How about Korean?" BamBam says, and Karlie rolls her eyes again. 

“Salanghae,” she says, pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

“Chinese!”

“Wǒ ài nǐ.”

“Japanese,”  he says looking smug. 

“Aishiteru.”

“English!” he says, shifting himself a bit so he can look at her better.

“I. Love. You.” She says, punctuating every word by pressing a kiss to his lips, “Are you done now? Can you turn off the camera yet?”

“Well, I was gonna make an announcement,” BamBam says with a smirk, playing with the ring on her finger, “but I don’t remember what it was about ‘cause you distracted me with your amazing language skills, so yeah I guess I can. Peace out guys!” 

The screen goes black as BamBam chuckles, remembering the response he had gotten to that video. Instagram had blown up, grumbles about the ring and BamBam not outright saying that he had asked her to marry him. He had made a formal public statement announcing the engagement a couple of days later, once they had returned to Seoul. The other members had been mad because he never even told them he was planning it, Yugyeom hadn’t spoken to him for a week. He feels tears stinging at his eyes again, thinking about just how close he had come to losing the love of his life, her survival still not one hundred percent certain. He sets his phone down on the table next to him and lays his head down on the bed next to Karlie’s hip, gripping her hand and pressing it to his lips, allowing the tears to slip from his eyes, and he cries himself to sleep. 

~~~~~

He’s awoken the next morning by someone slapping his face less than gently. He opens his eyes to see Carrie standing there, looking annoyed. 

“Alright, get up,” She orders, and he blinks at her as he sits up. He looks blearily at the clock hanging on the wall and realizes that he only got maybe two hours of sleep. His back is stiff and his neck is cramping badly.

“Wha-” he’s cut off by her reaching out and grabbing his ear, pulling him forcefully from the chair and out of the room, the sound of Mark’s laughter echoing behind him. He’ll have to remember to hit Mark later, “ OW! Shit! Mama, what are you doing?”

“I am tired of watching you sit there in that uncomfortable chair, fighting sleep,” Carrie says in exasperation, finally releasing his ear only to grab a hold of his wrist, preventing him from turning around. For someone so small she is deceptively strong, “Plus you are still wearing the clothes you wore on the plane. So we are going to go back to the house, you are going to shower, eat, and sleep in a real bed for at least six hours.”

“Mama, I’m-” he starts only to be cut off again as they make their way outside, the sun momentarily blinding him. 

“Boy, if you try to tell me you’re fine, I will hit you,” she says quickly as she unlocks her car, “Then I will call your Ma. Don’t test me. Now get in the car.” 

BamBam gulps audibly and nods, doing as he is told and climbing into the passenger seat, knowing that it isn’t an empty threat. They drive in silence, only the quiet crooning of some country song playing on the radio being heard. When they reach the house, BamBam climbs out of the car and up the steps of the porch on his own, his ear still stinging from Carrie’s earlier attack. 

“Your suitcase is in Karlie’s room.” Carrie says, nudging him towards the stairs as she makes her way towards the kitchen, “Go take a shower while I fix some breakfast.” 

BamBam nods quickly and trudges up the stairs and into his fiance’s childhood bedroom. He glances around quickly, taking in the soft purple walls, the large bed up against one wall, gray and purple sheets unmade, the photos and awards scattered around, the desk in the corner stacked high with books and the bookshelf against the other wall, piled high with more books and photos. Nothing has changed since the last time he was here, except the bridal magazines stacked neatly on the corner of her desk, small post-its poking out, marking pages of interest. He shakes his head and opens his suitcase, pulling out a pair of basketball shorts and a loose tee shirt, along with his toiletries, before heading into the adjoining bathroom. He only plans to take a quick shower, but the hot water feels so good on his stiff muscles that he can’t help but stand under the spray, water beating down on his tense shoulders. By the time he is done, the water has gone cold and steam fills the bathroom. He dries himself quickly, pulls on his clothes, and makes his way downstairs, wandering into the kitchen to see Carrie setting a plate piled high with pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon onto the table along with a glass of orange juice. He hadn’t realized just how hungry he was but the mouthwatering smell has his stomach growling rebelliously, catching Carrie’s attention and making her chuckle. 

“Eat,” she orders and he nods, plopping himself in the chair and digging in. He eats quickly, clearing his plate before leaning back in his chair with a content sigh for a moment then standing and taking his dishes to the sink with the intent of washing them.

“No, I’ll do that,” Carrie says as she takes the sponge from him and gives him a small shove towards the kitchen door, “You go up and sleep. I want you to try and get at least six hours. We’ll go back to the hospital after you wake up. 

BamBam nods and thanks her for breakfast before making his way back upstairs. He flops down on the bed, letting the familiar scent of Karlie’s shampoo soothe him into a restless sleep. 

~~~~~

He only manages four hours, not being able to sleep without Karlie next to him.  He gets up quietly, not wanting to alert Carrie to his wakefulness, looking through his clothes from earlier for his phone, only to realize that he left it at the hospital when Carrie had dragged him out. He sighs in frustration before grabbing a pair of sweatpants, an oversized tee shirt, and his hoodie from his suitcase, dressing quickly before grabbing his phone charger and making his way downstairs. Carrie is sitting on the couch when he walks into the living room, flipping through a large book. As he gets closer, he sees that it’s a photo album containing photos from Karlie’s childhood. When she notices his presence, she closes the album, asking if he wants any lunch before they head back, not commenting on the fact that he didn’t make it six hours. He shakes his head, more than ready to be back at Karlie’s side. They make the trip silently, not even the radio playing this time. When they make it back to Karlie’s room, Tyler is asleep in the chair against the wall and Mark is sitting in BamBam’s chair by the bed with headphones in, music blasting as he scrolls through social media on his phone. BamBam smirks to himself as he moves to stand behind his friend and flicks him hard in the back of the neck. 

“Ah, shit!” Mark exclaims loudly, clutching at the back of his neck, “The hell, Bam!”

“You're in my spot,” BamBam says, laughing loudly. Mark's outburst and BamBam’s laughter shakes Tyler from his slumber and he grumbles about overly loud children before letting out a huge yawn that has Carrie giggling next to him. They all settle in, talking and bantering much as they had the day before for the next couple hours, simply passing the time. 

It’s about 9 o’clock, as Tyler, Carrie and Mark are getting ready to leave that a groan grabs everyone’s attention. They all wait with bated breath, hoping for another sign of waking from the unconscious woman. She groans again and shifts in bed, spurring everyone into motion. Carrie, Tyler and BamBam gather around the bed as Mark runs out of the room in search of a nurse. He returns a few minutes later, Josh in tow, just as Karlie’s eyes slowly flutter open. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as her eyes drift around the room. 

“Hey baby,” BamBam breathes, smile breaking across his face, as Josh moves forward, checking the monitors and shining a small flashlight in her eyes which causes her to flinch and whine. Josh moves away from her, stepping over to a computer mounted on the wall, as Karlie’s eyes drift around again, never focusing on anything. 

“Hey baby girl,” Tyler says and her eyes drift to him for a moment. She gives no sign of recognition before her eyes move on again. She shifts again, seemingly looking for a more comfortable position as her eyes land on BamBam. Something flashes across her face for a moment, something akin to recognition, before her eyes fall shut again.

“Wait, what happened?” Carrie asks, turning to Josh in a panic, “Why didn’t she say anything? Is she okay?”

“She’s just fine,” Josh says, giving them a reassuring smile, “It’s normal for coma patients to come out of it slowly. Waking up multiple times without truly waking up. This will probably happen multiple times over the next few hours, maybe days, but that’s okay. It means she is coming out of it. This is a good sign.”

Josh gives Carrie a pat on the shoulder and another smile before making his way out of the room. Everyone else settles back in, all previous thoughts leaving flying out the window. It’s quiet, everyone lost in their own thoughts. BamBam never lets go of Karlie’s hand, eyes never leaving her face. Carrie and Tyler settle into the chair by the wall, while Mark makes himself comfortable on the wide window sill. 

True to what Josh said, Karlie opens her eyes multiple times throughout the night, never focusing on anything for more than a few seconds, only keeping her eyes open for a couple of minutes at most before closing them once more. 

~~~~~

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, had never intended to in the first place, but when he opens his eyes, BamBam notices that the room is brighter, the sunlight just starting to spill into the room. He’s leaned forward with his head pillowed on his arms, and he can see Tyler and Carrie asleep in the double chair against the wall, Carrie’s head resting on Tyler’s shoulder while Tyler’s head is leaned back against the wall.

He shifts, adjusting himself in the chair and turning his head the other way, catching sight of Mark asleep still perched in the window before closing his eyes again. He sits like that for a moment, attempting to go back to sleep while also trying to figure out what had woken him in the first place, when the feeling of fingers carding through his hair finally registers in his brain and his eyes snap open. He bolts upright and is met with the most beautiful blue eyes he’s ever seen, accompanied by a bright, tired smile.  

“Hey handsome,” Karlie whispers, voice rough from having not been used, and BamBam chokes out a breathy laugh, feeling tears prick at his eyes as he grabs her hand, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. 

“Hi,” he breathes, cupping the side of her face. She closes her eyes for a moment, leaning into his touch. 

“What are you doing here, Bam? Shouldn’t you be in Thailand?” she asks as she shifts before letting out a groan, “And why do I hurt so much?”

BamBam can’t help the strangled laugh that escapes him as the tears finally break free. The sound wakes the other people in the room, and he hears a squeal from behind him. There’s a loud “oh shit” from the window and he looks up in time to Mark tip sideways, limbs flailing as he falls from the sill, hitting the floor with a resounding thud. 

“Oh my god, Mark!” Karlie squeals as BamBam presses his mouth to her knuckles once more in an attempt to stifle his laughter, “Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Mark groans, his voice strained as he lets a chuckling Tyler pull him up off the floor. Everyone crowds around the bed, smiles lighting up every face. 

“How are you feeling, baby girl?” Tyler asks, resting a hand on his daughter’s shin. 

“Like I was hit by a truck,” she responds with a grimace, “Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck?”

“What do you remember?” Carrie asks.

“Going to dinner with Bree and Zoe, and Bam calling,” Karlie says, “Nothing after that. Mom what’s going on? Why are Bam and Mark here?”

“That was-” Carrie starts but is cut off by the doctor walking in, followed closely by Josh. 

“Josh? What-” Karlie starts before looking around the room, “Oh. I am in the hospital. That explains a lot. It also raises a lot more questions.”

“Hey, sis,” Josh says with a laugh, and BamBam raises an eyebrow in confusion, “I have questions, too, ya know. Like why you didn’t tell your best friend you were getting married. I had to hear it from my sister, when she tells me she’s gonna be your maid of honor.”

“Uhh, not true,” Karlie says, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “I specifically called you that night and told you.”

“Was I working?” Josh asks with a smirk.

“I believe so,” Karlie says.

“Girl, you know better than that,” Carrie says with a laugh, “It’s hard enough to get the boy to remember what you tell him when he hasn’t been working a 24- hour shift. Good luck if he has.” 

“Alright, fair,” Karlie says, laughing before grimacing and placing a hand on her head, “I’ll tell you about it later, right now I want my own answers.”

“Oh my God, I feel so stupid now,” BamBam blurts out, causing everyone to turn to him, “I knew you looked familiar. You’re the best friend Kar is always talking about. How did I miss that? And how have we never met?”

“I work a lot,” Josh says with a laugh, “But you’ve met my twin sister. And my mom the other night.”

“Becky was here?” Karlie asks, and Josh nods. 

“I’m done,” BamBam says, dropping his head to the bed, “This world is too small.”

Everyone laughs and the doctor steps forward, asking Karlie basic questions about herself as he shines a light in her eyes then has her follow his finger. BamBam tunes him out, unable to take his eyes off of her face. The bruising is just starting to yellow at the edges and the scrapes have scabbed. The pupil of her right eye is ringed with red, and the stitches stand out against her pale skin. But her eyes are open and she is smiling and that’s all that matters to BamBam. 

The doctor leaves after a few more questions, stating that he would like her to stay for a couple more days so they can monitor her for any ill effects. Josh follows a few minutes later with promises of returning later for answers. Once they are gone, Karlie demands answers so Tyler tells the story again. Karlie listens intently, eyes widening as the story goes on. When he’s done, Karlie doesn’t say anything, just nods, fiddling with the tube attached to her arm for a moment before looking up at BamBam. 

“Did you call your mom, Bam,” she asks.

“Uhh.”

“Don’t worry,” Mark says, laughing, “Yugyeom called her before we left.”

“Okay, but have you called her since you got here?” Karlie asks, and both boys’ eyes widen, “I’ll take that as a no. Go call your mom, babe.”

“I will later,” BamBam says with a pout, “She’s probably asleep. It’s fine.”

“Fine,” Karlie says as she scoots herself over a bit before patting the bed beside her, “Then get your scrawny ass over here and cuddle me.”

The others chuckle as BamBam smiles and nods before climbing onto the bed next to her. She cuddles into his side, resting her head on his chest, and he feels himself truly relax for the first time in days. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and places a kiss on the top of her head. They talk for a while, Mark regaling Karlie with stories of BamBam’s reaction to the situation and how her mom had dragged him out by his ear the day before as well as stories of the antics the rest of Got7 had gotten into in their absence. Karlie laughs and grumbles about her inability to leave the boys alone for extended periods of time as Tyler lets out a loud yawn. Carrie decides it’s time for them to head home, with Mark opting to stay with his two friends. After her parents have left, the three friends talk about anything they can think of for a while until Karlie falls asleep on BamBam’s chest. Mark dozes off in the chair a few minutes later. BamBam sits in silence for a while relishing in the feeling of her head on his chest, her warmth in his arms, before he too drifts off to sleep. 

~~~~~~

Yugyeom and the other boys are just finishing up breakfast when Jackson’s phone goes off. When he shows the other boys the text from Mark asking if they’re up for a video call, everyone scrambles into the living room where Jaebeom’s laptop is set up. There’s a moment of wrestling between the five boys, all fighting for a place on the couch, which Yugyeom and Jackson lose, leaving them sitting on the floor. Jaebeom accepts the call without giving it a chance to finish the first ring and they are met with a somber looking Mark. 

“Hey, guys,” he says quietly, immediately putting everyone on edge. 

“What happened?” Jinyoung asks, his voice filled with worry.

Before Mark can respond, something looking suspiciously like a pillow collides with the side of his head and his facade breaks as a familiar female voice echoes through the speakers. 

“Mark Tuan, if you don’t get over here with that damn phone, I am gonna come over there and kick your ass.” Karlie’s voice filters through as Mark laughs, “And bring me my pillow back.” 

“The hell you are,” Yugyeom hears his best friend scold as Mark moves over to sit next to their manager. When he does, Yugyeom sees Karlie sitting up in bed with BamBam on her left side, laying on his side with his head on her shoulder. She wraps her other arm around Mark as he settles his head on her other shoulder. 

The boys all cheer excitedly at the sight of their manager awake and making threats. They all bombard her with questions; how is she feeling, how long has she been awake, is she getting enough rest, when are they coming home. She laughs and answers each question as best as she can. Yugyeom doesn’t say much, focused on his best friend. The small smile gracing BamBam’s features is a welcome change from the broken look he had worn the night they had arrived and Yugyeom can’t help but smile, too.

Karlie is alive and awake, BamBam isn’t anxious anymore and all is right with the world.

[dominicsolletti]

Ceci n’est pas un pied.

I was trying to salvage the shading between Mina’s second and third fingers when Mr. Kelly called for a stop. “All right everybody; time to switch.“

I tucked my unfinished sketch—a closeup study of Mina’s clasped hands—into a folder. Not my best work, but the assignment was to draw a part of human anatomy you find difficult, so I figured we’d be graded on a curve.

Mina got out her own sketchpad and frowned. Despite this being a cheap evening “continuing education” class, she took her work very seriously. I could immediately tell something was bugging her about the assignment. “Well, what body part do you want?” I asked.

“There’s something I’ve been really struggling with,” she started, “but it’s silly.” She was embarrassed, which was unusual for her. “The thing is, what I really can’t draw is feet.”

I was so eager to ease her anxiety that I plowed forward without really hearing what she’d said. “Oh, sure—they’re just as difficult as hands.” I reassured her.

“Right? And if you mess up one little detail, they just look totally wrong!” Her confidence returned. I nodded in agreement. “So, would you mind if I did your foot?”

Oh. My foot. My brain belatedly put together the pieces. I glanced nervously at the other students; they seemed to be preparing to draw eyes, or noses, or earlobes, or hands. My foot was apparently the only one being discussed at the moment. My extremely sensitive foot.

Mina pulled a stool between us and set her sketchpad on her knee. Why had I agreed to this? Trying not to look as nervous as I felt, I slipped off my left shoe and peeled away the sock. I settled low in my chair, and lifted my foot onto the stool.

I had a flash of memory: my foot in this same position, toes wiggling slightly in the air, an instant before they disappeared into my ex’s mouth. It was a scene I’d only ever watched through the gaps between my fingers, as though covering my face with my hands could hold back the tide of overwhelming sensation.

“Oh, you’ve got a bit of fluff.” Mina plucked a speck of sock lint from my arch; the edge of her plum-painted fingernail grazed across my skin. My heart was pounding. She started working her pencil across the page; I tried to remember how to breathe while she studied my foot intently.

My eyes darted around the room; I felt sure I’d meet another student’s confused or disgusted gaze. No one was looking at me. With my bare foot propped up like this, I felt dangerously, deliciously naked, as thrillingly vulnerable as if she’d asked me to remove my pants and spread my legs for her.

“You must really take care of your feet.” Mina was outlining the curve of my heel with short, quick strokes of her pencil. “Do you get pedicures often?”

Of course I do. They’re my favorite way to get humiliatingly turned on in public. I sweat more at the salon than I do at the gym. I bit my lip and just nodded.

I started to watch the image of my foot take shape on the page, but that only intensified my embarrassment. I took out my phone stared at it without actually seeing anything. The urge to wriggle and flex my toes was dizzying, but I held still.

“Interesting choice.” Mr. Kelly’s voice startled me, and I suddenly wished I could magically disappear. But his attention was on Mina’s drawing, and the brief conversation between teacher and student was entirely technical and educational in nature.

As he turned away to attend to other students, Mina leaned in and placed her hand on the side of my foot. “You’ve got the tiniest little wrinkle right ... here.” She dragged her thumbnail across the ball of my foot, presumably tracing the delicate line in question.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I gripped my chair with both hands and took in a little panicked gasp. My face felt unbearably hot, and my stomach was tied in a massive knot.

Mina finally read my mood. “Oh, sorry!” she said, genuine concern in her tone. “I’m just trying to get this exactly right.” As an afterthought, she added, “Gosh, you must be really ticklish.”

Sorry, I didn’t catch that last comment, on account of being deceased.

Just a few agonizing minutes later, Mr. Kelly brought the class to an end. I quickly and sheepishly pulled my sock back on. I was sweating like I’d just run a mile.

Mina eyed her sketch skeptically. “This is so much better than what I was doing before, but ... it’s still not quite right. If only I had a little more time. Would you be able to pose again for me sometime?”

I gave her what must have been the least convincing smile of my life. “Oh, yeah, sure. Any time.”

[alj4890]

Chapter 35 Reunited

The Royal Romance Fan Fiction (Liam x MC*Riley) (Maxwell x OC*Amanda) (Drake x Olivia) (Hana x Rashad)

These characters are from the amazing writers of Pixelberry's Choices stories: The Royal Romance and Red Carpet Diaries. The only character of my own is Duchess Amanda Bridgerton of House St Orella. 

Masterlist The Other Friend TRR

Chapter 35 summary: Drake, Maxwell, and Riley go to see Savannah. Amanda is giving interviews with Thomas in the Four Seasons George V hotel in Paris.

Chapter 35

Amanda groaned when her alarm clock went off at 6am. She started to get up when Maxwell pulled her back down. "You know you would rather stay here with me," he mumbled against her neck.

She groaned again. "You have no idea how badly I want to. I promised Thomas and I have to go to some of those meetings with Liam."

She swung her legs over the bed and was yanked back. "Maxwell!"

He grinned. "15 more minutes. Then I will atrempt to let you get up." Amanda laughed and got back under the covers.

An hour later she was on her way to the Four Seasons. Thomas was waiting in the lobby for her. A small smile appeared when he saw her. He gave her a quick hug. "Excellent. I have printed out an itinerary for the next few days. If I need to change some times for your courtly duties, then do not hesitate to let me know."

Amanda looked at the list and felt her heart sink. Both day and night had interviews scheduled. This along with her other obligations meant that she would not have much time with Maxwell in Paris. So much for romance.

Thomas studied her face. "Something's wrong. You aren't pleased with the schedule."

"No. It's fine. I understand we need do do this. I noticed I won't have a lot of free time this week. I was hoping to take advantage of the City of Love with my husband. That's all."

Thomas stood there a moment. "Ah. Well, we will see if we can move things around. We will come up with some idea. Now, come with me. We have the first interview in my suite."

Drake, Maxwell, and Riley were standing outside of Savannah's apartment close to noon. Drake hesistated knocking.

"What if she is mad I'm here? If she wanted to talk to me, then she would have contacted me sooner, right?"

"Drake, from what you have shared about Savannah, I don't believe she will be angry. I think she must have had a reason for the silence." Riley waited to see if he would knock. When he did not move, she decided to take action.

Riley moved in front of him and knocked. Drake and Maxwell stood nervously behind her.

Savannah opened the door. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Drake. "Oh my...Drake? Drake!!!" She wrapped him in a hug, tears falling down her face. "I've missed you so much!"

Drake held on to her, overwhelmed with seeing her again. He had finally found her. "Savannah. You have no idea how much I have missed you. I--" A cry interrupted him.

"Hold on sweetie!" Savannah pulled on Drake's hand and grabbed Maxwell's. "Please, come in. All of you." She ran into the bedroom. Riley, Drake, and Maxwell stood in the small living room.

When Savannah came out with a small bundle in her arms, introductions were made. She smiled a timid smile at them. "I think it is time to tell you what happened."

Drake shook his head. "You don't have to. We found out through Bastien's investigation what basically happened. I just wish you had told me. I would have helped you."

Savannah's eyes were filled with remorse. I'm so sorry. Bertrand told me that this...that getting pregnant was my fault. He told me I would ruin your life in Cordonia if I told you. I didn't want you punished for my actions. Everyday, I would pick up the phone to call you, but I knew if I did, you would leave for me. I could not let you be ostracized because of me."

Drake was so angry. Bertrand had so much to answer for. He wanted to beat him into the ground. He looked over at Maxwell. He had his eyes on the baby, sadness etched in the tense lines of his face. Maxwell turned to Savannah. "I wish you would have told us. There is no way I would have let you believe my brother's words."

Savannah glanced down at the baby. "Maxwell, your brother is a duke. His words carry more weight. I...had to do what I could to protect those I love."

"Liam would have helped you." Riley said.

Savannah shook her head, "I did not want the infamy of causing a court scandal. I know I made a decision that hurt everyone. I did not see a way of not causing hurt to someone. I had to protect this innocent one. I had to protect you, Drake. You spent your life looking out for me. I wanted to do the same for you."

Drake sighed. "Savannah you are the only family I have left, well other than this little guy. We could have found a way. We still can find a way."

Savannah gently rocked the baby. "What do you mean?"

Maxwell sat forward. "We want you to come back to Cordonia. Bertrand is not the only Beaumont who's a duke now. Since I married Amanda, we have both power and influence. You have the King and Queen of Cordonia on your side also. Bertrand would be a bigger fool than he already is to try and defy all of us."

Drake nodded. "You also have Olivia's backing. So that's another powerful noble. Everyone loved you, Vanna. Many of the nobles will support you. Bertrand's actions recently have pissed a lot of them off. I don't think there will be many who would stand with him."

Riley nodded. "They are right. Please think of returning. We all want to be there for you and little Bartie. You will always be welcomed at court and I dare anyone to say differently!"

Drake chuckled. "As you can tell, Riley has a bit of a temper when she thinks someone is being bullied."

Savannah sat there thinking of everything. "I need some time to think about my decision. I want to believe you. I need to think about if I'm ready to face Bertrand and if he should be a part of Bartie's life."

Maxwell swallowed and looked at his little nephew. "Do you...do you want me to stay out of his life until you decide?"

Savannah reached for his hand. "Not at all! I expect you and Drake to fight over who is going to be the favorite uncle. Maxwell, you are nothing like your brother. You are a man I would want my son to be like, minus some of the crazy shenanigans."

He grinned. "Do I get to hold him?" Savannah placed him in Maxwell's arms. Riley snapped a picture with her phone. After a few moments Drake held him. His heart swelled when he saw that Bartie had the Walker chocolate brown eyes. "Vanna, he is perfect." Riley snapped another picture, catching him off guard.

Savannah smiled with pride. "He is the best thing to ever happen to me." They sat and visited for another hour. Drake made plans to come back the next day. Maxwell promised to find time to come back and hopefully bring Amanda with him. Riley hugged her goodbye, making her promise to call her if she needed anything.

On their way back to the train, Drake was relieved and excited. "Do you think she will come back home?"

Riley smiled, "I believe there is a very good chance."

"Thanks for going with us, Riley." Drake said.

"Anytime gentlemen, anytime. You both have been there for me. It's what friends do."

Maxwell's phone vibrated with a message. It was from an unknown number. When he opened it, he was shocked. There were pictures of Amanda. Some of them were from her time in California, a few months ago. Some had been snapped today. The ones in California were of her and Matt Rodriguez. It was the pictures of them on the beach, kissing. This was what Drake had been talking about during truth or dare. These pictures were more in focus.

He could see her bathing suit clearly and Matt wrapped around her. He could make out the towel's color and pattern they were laying on. There was a question written on the picture. "Was this the only time?" The pictures taken today showed her and Matt sitting at a table on a balcony with Thomas, Ryan, and some other Hollywood people.

The closeup of her and Matt showed them looking at each other. He was leaning toward her smiling and she was laughing. There was another question written on it. "Was this planned or an accident?" At the end of the message, it showed a copy of a hotel reservation. Amanda had booked the Royal Suite at the Four Seasons for the week. One more question for him was attached. "What does she need a hotel suite for?"

Maxwell swallowed hard. His hand gripped his phone. It was hard enough knowing she had been kissed by both Matt and Ryan while in California, but to actually see it was worse than he thought. They had not been together during that kiss, but it still felt like a punch in the gut. Questions were swirling through his mind. What was Matt doing in Paris? He was not a part of Thomas Hunt's movie. Why did she book a suite? Why did she not tell him about the suite?

"Maxwell? Are you okay?"

He looked up at Riley and Drake. "I'm fine."

Their limo pulled up to the train. Riley smiled at the two of them. "Don't forget about tonight's ball. It will be at the Four Seasons. We will have such beautiful views of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triomphe. I can't wait!"

"Did you plan this?" Drake asked her.

"No, Madeleine did. She wanted to since her house did not host the court during the social season. I know I am supposed to meet her mother this evening too. Hopefully that will go smoothly." With a wave Riley left to get ready.

Maxwell was looking at the pictures again. Drake glanced over at his phone. His eyes widened. "Maxwell? Where did you get those."

He shrugged. "It is from an unknown number."

Drake looked at the last one. "Was that taken today?" Maxwell nodded. Drake looked panicked. "Someone's following Amanda!"

Maxwell's head jerked up. He had not thought of that. Guilt hit him hard. That should have been his first thought, instead of jealousy. "Why would anyone follow her?"

Drake looked at him. "Probably the same reason why anyone would send those pictures of her to you: To cause trouble." He scrolled through all the images and stopped at the hotel receipt. "Did you know she was getting a room there?"

"No."

Drake studied him a minute. "You don't actually believe she is cheating on you with Matt or any of these movie guys?"

Maxwell shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "I don't think she is cheating. I guess sometimes it's hard to believe she did not choose one of them."

Drake put a hand on his shoulder. "She chose you out of everyone. She's been in love with you for years. Don't let whoever sent this win. Don't doubt her."

Maxwell nodded. His phone beeped with another message. He reluctantly opened it up. It was from Amanda.

"I'm running behind. I have another interview to do. I will meet you at the ball. Oh and I have a surprise for you! 💋💓U!"

Drake read it over his shoulder. "See, the suite has to be the surprise. You need to tell her that someone is following her when you see her. Text her back that you can't wait or what ever you would normally."

Maxwell sighed and went to get ready. He did not know what was going on. Why would someone want to cause doubt in their marriage? What could they possibly gain? Who was doing this?

@fullbeaumonty @darley1101 @cocomaxley @katurrade @krsnlove @hopefulmoonobject @annekebbphotography @mynameiskaylabella @umccall71 @museofbooks

[elkian]

5 Bar Connection

On AO3

Rating: G

Words: 1,080

Fandom: Transformers (Not Canon Compliant)

Characters: Optimus Prime/Orion Pax, Megatron, Soundwave

Genre: Gen, AU

Warnings: None

“Prime, don’t you dare!”

Megatron’s snarl rang across the battlefield, a field frozen in time as his eternal enemy prepared to do the unthinkable.

Optimus Prime met the towering warlord’s gaze, as calm as could be, as he held the Matrix aloft in one hand. The light that poured from it was enough to dazzle and halt almost every bot on the field.

“I won’t let you have it, Megatron. No matter the cost.”

The Decepticon leader bit back on an order to  fire, dammit - there was no guarantee that his soldiers wouldn’t hit the Matrix even without the lightshow. Only himself and Soundwave seemed capable of even looking at the Prime.

Optimus turned to his nearby commanders. “Ironhide, I’m counting on you.”

“‘course,” the armored van muttered, barely audible across the battlefield, one arm blocking the light as he tried to look at his leader. “Won’t let you fall.”

Optimus turned, his arm drawing back, looking like nothing so much as a classical art piece as the burning blaze of the Matrix (and the lesser glow of his still-exposed own spark) set the world alight-

“NO!”

The Matrix glittered like the most radiant gem as it hurtled through the sky. Broken of the spell by his shout, Starscream and a few others shook themselves and started forwards-

The Matrix hit the Star Forge.

Light exploded from the surface, the whorling galaxy within burning so bright that it scorched plating, let alone optical relays. The concussive force of the destruction knocked every bot on the field onto their afts as Optimus - no longer and never again the Prime - fell from his perch…

Megatron had just reset his optics in time to see him begin to fall - Ironhide was already there, reaching out to catch his leader in his arms-

No. Not his arms.

His hands.

Pr- the former Prime’s descent was unfairly graceful, landing one-legged on Ironhide’s palm and stabilizing as the bigger bot brought up the other hand around him.

The  much  bigger bot.

---

“...how did you know?”

Optimus had inclined his head at Soundwave, something twinkling in those blue optics. “Soundwave is one of the best communications experts I’ve ever had the, ah, dubious pleasure of meeting.” Soundwave had dipped his own helm in a show of acknowledgement, but nothing further. “Even had he needed a physical comm piece to ensure a secure connection with you, he wouldn’t have chosen something so obvious.”

Disgruntled gray faceplates had scowled at the Prime across the quiet clearing. He couldn’t argue that.

“Your lack of appearances as the war dragged on -  especially as it dragged on - reinforced that guess. Because you would need the time and resources to not only set up, but ensure that everyone not in the know wouldn’t find out about it.” Optimus’ head had tilted to the side, and Megatron had  known  the Prime was laughing at him, but… he wasn’t  laughing  at  him . “Our research indicated that hardly any bot in your army has met you face to face - most haven’t even seen you in public appearances. You only ever communicate with your own command staff over comm lines and the occasional data packet.”

Megatron had sighed and slumped against his subordinate’s deep blue plating. “Well done, Prime. You’re the first since Soundwave himself to find me out.” He’d told Shockwave, at least, and he knew Starscream didn’t know, because the tricky Seeker had never been skilled at playing the long game. He would have outed Megatron in less than a week (and then Megatron would have been down an Aerial Commander), either to take advantage of the knowledge or simply laugh at him.

---

Megatron had privately wondered why Optimus Prime had not pressed that advantage, had not reminded the Decepticons how little they knew of their own supreme leader, or even so much as mocked him in private, let alone revealed his not-so-terrible secret..

Now he knew.

Oh, he  supposed  it could have been because the Prime - the former Prime - was just that decent  of a bot.

But honestly, he thought to himself, as the former Prime straightened up in Ironhide’s hands, it was a bit of a relief to know that it was because Optimus hadn’t wanted to invite the very same onto himself. Because he was  biased.

It was  definitely  not because he hadn’t seen another of his own frame type since well before the war.

---

Of course, that was all secondary to the  real  issue at hand.

Suddenly annoyed by his own pretense, Megatron impatiently dismissed the hard light copy. Before his Decepticons could get too panicked, he detached from Soundwave’s helm, his loyal lieutenant raising one arm for him to stomp down. The projection flickered back to life, this time courtesy of the symbiote twins scrambling at Soundwave’s feet.

Megatron reached Soundwave’s outstretched hand, knowing that his exact scowl - his  real scowl - was being shown to every bot on the field. Laserbeak disengaged from where she’d been circling to wheel over, and a ‘split-screen’ closeup of Optimus joined his own.

The warlord crossed his arms and glared at the bot who was his mirror in more ways than he’d expected.

“What were you  thinking!?  ” he snarled, several of the assembled, confused warriors flinching back - he’d never needed help projecting his  voice.

Calm as still waters, the former prime folded his own, now more silvery arms and regarded his opposite. “I was thinking that when it comes to Matrix candidates, you’re as bad as they get, Megatron,” he said, nearly-as-deep voice booming across the field in turn. Then he grinned - grinned! - and indicated his own, true form. “Besides, you wouldn’t like being changed to suit Primus’ needs, let alone listen to His directives.”

“You think I can’t-”

"The Matrix changes the bearer, not the other way around," Optimus said mildly, arms crossed again. "And speaking from experience, you won't win a battle of will against Primus Himself. Especially not when you've never truly beaten  me."

Megatron snarled, but before he could speak again, a sound he knew well split the air: sonic booms, heralding the incoming of the delayed Autobot gestalt just as well as the frantic patter over his comms.

“This isn’t over, Prime- no, not even that.”

“It’s Orion. Orion Pax. And you’re right - it isn’t.” In a blatant show of solidarity, the Autobot command team gather around Op- Orion and Ironhide. Megatron shot him one last glare before turning that gimlet gaze on his own soldiers.

“Decepticons… fall back.”

[mandibierly]

'Blue Planet II': See what happens when penguins come between battling elephant seals

No episode of Blue Planet II has more action than this Saturday’s “Coasts,” which shows the lengths to which animals go to survive the world where land and sea collide.

One memorable sequence, as seen above, follows King penguins as they tip-toe through slumbering elephant seals on the shore of St Andrew’s Bay in South Georgia, an island close to Antarctica. It’s breeding season for the elephant seals, which means the bulls are vying for power, and since it’s spring, hundreds of thousands of penguins are arriving en route to the colony (where 40,000 chicks await, but also, as narrator Sir David Attenborough says, “a trial of endurance” that involves shedding all their feathers and growing new ones). The penguins just need to make it through the obstacle course of elephant seals without getting caught in the testosterone crossfire.

“There’s certainly an element of Clash of the Titans with the elephant seals,” episode producer Miles Barton says of the moment conflict erupts. “We’ve seen the penguins and the elephant seals on beaches before. The key there was, we got a handheld movie camera rig so that the cameraman could move in amongst the elephant seals as they moved. It was like he was the King penguin making its way up the beach, and he would have to move to the left or the right according to where the elephant seals were thrashing.”

King penguins march through St. Andrew’s Bay in South Georgia. (Photo: Mary Summerill/BBC)

“It’s quite a dodgy business — you’ve got to leap out of the way,” Barton says. “I’ve been on those beaches, and you do go along armed with a stick. Although a stick against a three-ton elephant seal doesn’t do much. But you feel slightly safer carrying it anyway.”

The stakes are even higher on the coast of Brazil for Sally Lightfoot crabs. Every day, they wait for the tide to go out and expose their feeding grounds — algae-covered rocks 100 meters from the shore. They leap from rock to rock to get there, hoping to stay out of the water. Why? Meter-long moray eels and clever octopus. To us, it feels like the Blue Planet II equivalent of Planet Earth II‘s viral “Iguana vs. snakes” sequence. For Barton, it’s a bit like Mission: Impossible. “Every day, this wave of crabs has to march out to those rocks with the low tide. Then when the tide comes back in again, they’ve got to repeat it all over again. There’s literally a gauntlet of moray eels and octopus in every pool. It’s amazing how some animals have to live their lives,” he says. Watch the clip above, and we guarantee you’ll be shouting “Go! Go!” at the screen. “I always like to surprise people,” Barton says. Somebody said to me, ‘I hate crabs. I’m not interested in crabs at all. But by the end of that sequence, I felt really sorry for it.’ To get people to feel empathy for a crab is a hell of a wonderful thing to achieve.”

Sally Lightfoot crabs queue up to leap from rock to rock at Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. These crabs appear to be afraid of water because that’s where predatory eels and octopuses lurk. (Photo: Miles Barton/BBC)

It was a challenging shoot, though. “It was just an incredibly slippery beach. You’ve got camera equipment worth 50 grand. Half the time the cameraman had to be up to his waist in water, because everything happens literally on the tide line as the crabs move in and out. What would happen is, our local guide, Joao Paulo Krajewski, who had actually studied these crabs, would go ahead and he would just trip across the rocks no problem at all. But it was very difficult for us to keep up with him. By the time we arrived, there’d been a couple of splashes and we’d missed it. So we split into two teams,” Barton says. “It was the fast team just carrying a camera in the hand with a beanbag and then running across the rocks as quickly as possible, slam the beanbag down, slam down the camera, and just get the moment when the moray eel would leap out of the water. Then we had a bigger camera with a longer lens, and if the behavior continued, we would capture that. Sometimes we would actually have two cameras on the same event, which meant you’ve got a wide and a closeup.”

Seeing the crabs slow down, scuttle, and leap from rock to rock was actually comical at times. “Occasionally they’d fall short and land in the water. Then they just paddle frantically to get out of the water. Of course, as soon as you see one of these eels leap out of the water, you realize what the crabs are so nervous about,” he says.

What really surprised the crew, however, was that there were nearly as many octopus as eels stalking the crabs. “The funny thing is that the octopus were so reactive to any movement above the water, a couple of times they actually grabbed hold of us around the ankles,” Barton says. “I suppose there was a shadow. But they would try to bite off a little bit more than they could chew, really.”

A Galapagos sea lion attacks a yellowfin tuna that it has driven inshore. This hunting strategy only happens on the Galapagos and had never been filmed before. (Photo: Richard Wollacombe/BBC)

In terms of “sheer drama,” Barton’s pick for the must-see sequence in “Coasts” is Galapagos sea lions banding together to herd their prey — 130-pound yellowfin tuna that can easily outswim sea lions in the open sea at speeds of 40 mph — into a cove. Two years before a team was dispatched, cameraman Richard Wollocombe came into the BBC offices and told producers a fisherman’s tale: “He’d been having a drink in a bar, and there’s a bloke who says, ‘The sea lions run the tuna up onto the beach and grab them off the shoreline.’ He initially said, ‘Well, I don’t believe that.’ We said the same to [Richard],” Barton says. “Then over that period of time, we got this fisherman to go out and put out a GoPro. That took about six months to [confirm his story]. Then we took another year or so to carefully plan the shoot.”

It’s a behavior that has only been witnessed there — and it had never been filmed before. On the first trip, the Blue Planet II team saw the cooperative hunting. But it was on the second trip that they realized the best way to really capture it was from the air. “That’s when we got our drone pilot, Dan Beecham, out there, and just by hovering above you could see the strategy perfectly,” Barton says. “You could see two or three sea lions bringing a group of tuna in. They get narrower and narrower into this channel, and then nip into sections and culverts that are created by the black lava in the Galapagos. Then you actually saw that the one sea lion would hang back and block the escape route. Then one by one, they could pick off these tuna. Sometimes they were able to grab them underwater. But every now and again, the tuna panicked so much they would leap out and be flapping around on the beach. Obviously it was a complete doddle then for the sea lions just to grab them.”

An Atlantic puffin with a beakful of food for its chick at Hornoya Island, Norway (Photo: Miles Barton/BBC)

For an action sequence that really pulls at the heartstrings, Blue Planet II traveled to Norway, where Puffin parents take turns traveling roughly 60 miles roundtrip to feed their chicks. Just when they’re about home, they have to fend off “pirates” — birds, namely the Arctic skua, who want to steal the fish. It’s heartbreaking, but also like watching a dogfight in Top Gun as the puffins maneuver to shake the skuas.

“We had an amazing bird cameraman, Barrie Britton, who can follow and predict the behavior of birds. If I was standing next to him and I saw the chase, I wouldn’t know whether the skua had made contact with the puffin, or where the fish had fallen out, or anything because it’s happening so fast. It’s only when you review [the footage] that you see all the detail,” Barton says. “You’d feel so sorry for the puffins. Initially there might be one skua, but as soon as there’s a sign of vulnerability in the puffin and it starts to go down, or drop its food, then three, four. It’s like the starfighters in Star Wars. The goodies and the baddies. They’re just being chased. It is an aerial duel. The trouble is, the poor old puffin, because he’s designed to swim underwater, he’s compromised, whereas the skuas are designed for aerobatics, and so they can twist and turn. They’re actually plucking the puffin’s feathers. They grab hold of their tails and shake them, and it’s always to shake the food out. The puffin may have been out feeding and flying for four, five, six hours. It comes back, and then it loses its food and has to go all the way out again. It’s a sad story.”

Ochre starfish are the main predators of limpets in rock pools at Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. But the limpets are known to fight back. (Photo: Paul Williams/BBC)

Heading to the rock pools of Canada to capture the battle between limpets (marine mollusks) and their top predators, starfish, Barton had another cinematic inspiration in mind: “I’d hoped we would get the best of Pixar,” he says, “but the great thing is, it’s all happening and it’s all real — all those creatures are that colorful.” The trick here was using time-lapse technology that could turn minutes into seconds. “You walk past a rock pool, you look in and you think, ‘That’s quite pretty, but nothing much is happening.’ But if you take time and move it the way the animals are experiencing it, then you see it’s kind of tooth and dagger, tooth and claw down there. All these mini dramas are just happening everywhere,” Barton says. (To us, the tone then becomes more like Tim Burton’s stop-motion The Nightmare Before Christmas.)

He loved the idea that he might be able to make viewers start to think of a limpet as a hero as it fends off a starfish. “Nobody’s interested in a limpet. But when it’s kind of crawling along with its little face out, you feel sympathy for a limpet,” Barton says. “Not only do they kind of look cute, but also they’ve got these cool defenses. One is a little protective shield that comes up. Who’d have thought that a limpet could deploy a [slippery] shield? The other is that it has its [friend, a scale worm] inside as a kind of guided missile that pops up from underneath the shell and gives the starfish a bite and sends him on his way.”

A Pacific leaping blenny in its nest hole in Guam, Micronesia. It spends almost all of its life on land using its tail to leap from rock to rock. (Photo: Chase Weir/BBC)

The last sequence we asked Barton to preview is a decidedly lighter tale. The most terrestrial fish on earth, the leaping blenney, lives on a few remote islands in the Pacific. “They’re extraordinary creatures because they have a unique form of locomotion. Every other vertebrate uses kind of the four-limb shuffle approach to traveling around. These curl their tails and flick — that’s extraordinary in itself — and they can go six body lengths,” Barton says. What’s particularly charming is that, like little birds or lizards, the males display colors to attract a mate. So they make their nest holes high up on a limestone cliff, then try to attract — and keep — the attention of females feeding on algae down by the tide zone and focused on avoiding being swept in by approaching waves.

“Any time a wave comes in, they leap away from it. This is the other fun thing about these fish: it’s effectively a fish that’s afraid of the water. It’s just like kids on a beach. They run down toward the waves, and then they run away from them. This is what the blenneys are doing,” Barton says. “But the problem for the males is, that keeps distracting the females every time they’ve kind of caught their eye. But eventually the females do head up toward the males, and they choose them. Then the males go completely demented, kind of wriggling and writhing. They’re not really designed for agile work on a rock, but they do their best. That black body with a bright orange fin really stands out. Then if she chooses, in she goes.”

Still, the courtship isn’t necessarily over: “The nice thing that I’d noticed was that the females weren’t putting all their eggs in one basket. They’d go along, sometimes they’d check out that one. But then they’d pop into the guy a meter or so down the way,” Barton says. “They were hedging their bets sometimes.”

Planet Earth: Blue Planet II airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on BBC America.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

‘Blue Planet II’: How an octopus outsmarts a shark

The most heartbreaking sequence in ‘Blue Planet II’: A pilot whale mourning her calf

The most terrifying sequence of ‘Blue Planet II’: The Bobbit worm

Why ‘The Deep’ episode of ‘Blue Planet II’ is the one you can’t miss

‘Blue Planet II’ premiere: Bird-eating fish and 5 more sequences you’ll be talking about

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 151: The Reason Heroes Wear Capes

Previously on BnHA: Mirio caught up with Overhaul and his final group of henchmen. Overhaul was all, “oh it’s that guy who couldn’t save Eri last time!” and Mirio was all, “that’s why I’m here this time.” Overhaul’s henchmen Sakaki and Nemoto appeared and tried to take out Mirio by giving him vertigo and hitting him with some fresh truth bombs, but Mirio shrugged them both off and kicked their asses. Then he ran over to Overhaul and roundhouse kicked the guy carrying Eri in the face while phasing his foot right through Eri, and Eri went flying out of the guy’s hands and into Mirio’s arms. Overhaul was all, “WHAT THE FUCK,” and Mirio was all, “I know I’m weak!” and the audience was all, “UH, YEAH, NOOOOOOOT REALLY THOUGH.” Anyway, so he caught Eri and was all, “everything’s fine now,” and I can’t fucking believe he’s going to die after all that. Or something else horrible is going to happen to him. I can’t fucking believe it, Mirio. Because right now it sure does look like he’s got this.

Today on BnHA: Overhaul activates his disassembly quirk and shreds the floor into bits and then reassembles it as a bunch of spikes. Mirio is able to phase through them while hoisting Eri out of harm’s way, but he’s super pissed at Overhaul for putting her at risk. Overhaul is unconcerned and says he can just put Eri back together again if she does get hurt, and that he’s done it many times before. Obviously this is the worst thing anyone’s ever said ever, and Mirio is enraged, but between dodging the spikes and dodging the bullets Overhaul’s last henchman Chrono is firing at him, it’s hard for him to fight back. So he wraps up Eri in his cape in order to confuse the bad guys, and then warps over to Chrono and knocks him out. He then punches Overhaul square in the jaw, which has been coming a long time and is super satisfying. As Mirio continues to whale on him, Overhaul has a flashback to when he tried to get his boss to follow his jerk plan and his boss was all, “no thanks that’s fucked up.” Meanwhile Nemoto wakes up in the adjacent hallway, crawls on over, picks up the case of Quirk-be-Gone bullets that Overhaul throws to him, and takes aim.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 183 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.) 

I don’t like this side text

it’s so confident. why you gotta jinx us like that manga

you guys Overhaul is staring at Mirio and Mirio is shaking a bit

I hope that’s a rage/adrenaline tremble. I don’t think it is. but I don’t like him being nervous. but he’s all alone with the Big Bad and now he has this little girl to protect and he already fucked up once and she’s counting on him and he can’t let her down and omggggg. TENSION

Overhaul is beckoning Eri back and threatening to kill Mirio. “how many times must I tell you before you understand?”

hey what the fuck

kay. maybe it is a rage tremble. bc I’m starting to feel the same way just a little. I really need this asshole to never talk to this little girl ever again. Mirio, get her out of there!!

Eri’s panicking but Mirio’s telling her not to listen to him

Overhaul’s continuing to push all of my rage buttons and gggerhfrrrffghk

my god he’s the worst. almost makes Endeavor look like father of the year in comparison

he says Eri is cursed and her actions are destined to kill people. actually he specifically says “every single one of your actions is destined to kill people.” because what better way to keep an innocent child in line than to manipulate her with guilt and fear sdflkhs wow this man is evil

--!!!!!!

OH MY GOD FINALLY

AHHHHHHHH

I LIKE THAT THE TITLE HAS EXCLAMATION POINTS ON IT THIS TIME BECAUSE THEY SEEM APPROPRIATE. MIRIO, RUN

holy SHITTTTT

I HAVE VASTLY UNDERESTIMATED THE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF OVERHAUL’S QUIRK. HOLY FUCKING SHIT

okay, so quick tactical rundown: the main problem here is that Mirio can’t use his ability to its full extent while also carrying Eri. what he should do is put her down for a sec and use his “warp” ability to fuck up Overhaul’s shit real quick. he was insanely fast while he was tearing class 1-A apart, and I feel like he could do it before Overhaul would be able to do any serious harm to Eri

because the thing is, Overhaul can’t kill Eri because she’s his cash cow. but I absolutely believe him capable of hurting her. which is why speed is of the essence

however I don’t think he’s going to be willing to risk it, which is why I think he miiiiiight be screwed

oh hey, Overhaul is casually confirming that yes, he’s totally willing to fuck Eri up if need be

jesus fucking christ. pretty sure you could show this page to fucking All for One and he’d be like, “holy shit that dude’s evil”

like, while Shigaraki Tomura was chilling on a couch on the beach, this guy was torturing a six-year-old and coldly reminding her that if she ever tried to ask someone for help, they would die and it would be her fault

just... I don’t even have words. I feel like Overhaul traveled to BnHA from some seinen manga and doesn’t realize we have certain rules here about what lines it’s okay and not okay to cross

anyway, here’s Mirio’s response to that

like, I obviously feel the same way, and it’s obviously more horrific for him to hear because he’s living it and doesn’t have the luxury of reminding himself it’s fiction. so I don’t blame him

but also I really need him to just keep his cool now omg, because she’s counting on you dude! fff and also I’m counting on you to not die because I love you. and also I really need Eri to not be traumatized anymore because holy shit please protect this sweet angel

anyway, so Overhaul’s continuing to do his Fullmetal Alchemist bullshit, and asking Mirio what he’s going to do if Eri gets hurt. because presumably they, unlike him, are not capable of putting her back together

clearly the only solution is to not let her get hurt!

“you can’t phase your way out of here while holding onto her” fuck me he’s figured it out

we need Aizawa stat. but who knows how long it’ll be before he catches up omg. they were in that maze for five hundred years

aaaaaand Overhaul’s sealed the path with his quirk

okay I feel like now is a good time to call bullshit on Overhaul’s reassembly power. this is too damn much. why is he allowed to reassemble matter in different fucking forms than the original. what the hell is the limit on his power then. you’re telling me Twice has a limit of two copies and Toga has to drink liters of blood in order to get any prolonged use out of her quirk, and here comes fucking Overhaul who can disassemble one thing and reassemble something completely different as long as it’s made from the same material. and he can even do ranged attacks, and he can manipulate this giant fucking room the size of a school gymnasium, and he doesn’t even seem to be tired?? jesus christ

then again, Todoroki Shouto can create a mountain of ice out of literally nothing in like .02 seconds. so maybe I’m really just mad because he’s so damn evil and I need someone to punch him in the face already

anyway, meanwhile this remaining henchman is aiming a gun at Mirio. because apparently he’s still conscious. so now it’s two against one, and they both have ranged attacks, and Mirio’s gonna have to dodge them both while not being able to fully phase his arms or hands

SON OF A BITCH

STOP GIVING HIM POINTERS

now Mirio’s turning around and hiding behind his cape which seems like a really bad idea??

okay first off, that closeup of the gun firing reminded me that guns are always censored in anime, and now I’m wondering how kooky this arc is going to look when it gets animated, because it’s pretty gun-heavy. hmm. gotta go back and see if we’ve had any other scenes with handguns already prior to this arc

(ETA: nothing comes to memory, but I admittedly haven’t gone back to check the anime yet with this in mind)

and second, Mirio’s cape isn’t bulletproof, and all this does is make it so that he can’t see where the bullets are coming from. and if he phases, he risks letting Eri get hit

so like I have no idea what he gains from a move like this. any thoughts??

but anyway he got lucky at least

OH!!!

nice!!!!!!

shit, this is why he’s the hero and I’m the person reading this and running my big mouth. it never occurred to me he could use that to hide Eri so that he could spring this move

and at first I was like WHY DIDN’T HE HIT OVERHAUL, but then I thought maybe that’s not such a good idea to get that close to a guy who can splatter you with a touch

so now I’m thinking he should grab this guy’s discarded gun and fucking shoot Overhaul instead. but I somehow can’t picture him doing that. even though it would be perfect and the safest way to dispatch him and nonlethal while still being poetic justice

but now I see the gun has been knocked away

so on top of being insanely overpowered, Overhaul is also great at thinking on his feet

OH SHIT, AGAIN

HIS TRADEMARK ATTACK FROM BEHIND MOVE! DEKU SAW THROUGH IT, BUT OVERHAUL WASN’T FAST ENOUGH OH SNAP

I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE MIRIO PHASED THROUGH HIS HAND AND STILL HIT HIS FACE. I KNOW HE DID THE SAME THING WITH ERI IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, BUT THE TIMING IS STILL UNBELIEVABLE AND IT’S LITERALLY LIFE OR DEATH IF HE DOESN’T GET IT RIGHT

LOOK AT THIS!!!!

I’M READING THIS ON DEC 20TH, SO CHRISTMAS IS STILL FIVE DAYS AWAY, BUT SUFFICE TO SAY THIS IS JUST WHAT I WANTED

I always think of the cape montage from The Incredibles, which is a whole lot of reasons to not wear capes. and meanwhile Mirio gives just this one very specific reason to wear them which I have to assume doesn’t come up very often

but I gotta say, he sells it

the henchman guy is running to pick up his discarded gun. hey Mirio, you wanna warp over here and punch him again

that works too

shit the gun is in pieces now. well at least it can’t be used against him

meanwhile Overhaul is back on his bullshit, but Mirio’s warping again

fuck yessssssss

I KNOW WE JUST SAW THIS, BUT MY GOD, IT’S STILL JUST AS SATISFYING THE SECOND TIME. HELL, MAYBE EVEN BETTER, BECAUSE THIS TIME I KNOW IT’S NOT JUST A ONE-OFF

naturally the other shoe is still waiting to drop though. what’s it gonna be. does Overhaul have a gun of his own? he seems the type who’d do that. or will he catch Mirio off guard somehow?

fuck, I’m getting nervous now. things are going too well

Mirio he’s a germaphobe so you should just sneeze on him. see what happens

Eri’s watching in awe as Mirio screams that Overhaul won’t ever lay a finger on her again

“you lose, Chisaki!!”

what in the hell is this

no amount of sympathetic flashbacks can make me feel sorry for you, dude. I feel fucking confident saying that. I’d wager real life money that I don’t have

present day!Overhaul is telling Mirio not to call him by that name and saying he threw it away

and now we’re flashing back again, but Overhaul is already a young man now

he wasn’t a babyhaul for very long huh

he’s talking to the old boss and they seem to be discussing how the family is getting weaker

Overhaul is requesting the boss to reconsider “the plan I talked to you about before”

but boss isn’t having it

tell that to those assholes who fought Tamaki for like three whole chapters

holy shit the plot is twisting all of a sudden! we’re back in the present!

Nemoto (the truth serum Reborn guy from the previous chapter) is crawling toward Overhaul slowly

I’m sorry, the main takeaway I got from that is that Mirio’s been at it for ten minutes already, and where are Aizawa, Nighteye, and Deku, again??

and Nemoto is having a flashback explaining why he became Overhaul’s right hand man

apparently because other people kept lying to him, and he wanted a friend he could trust. because nothing sums up Overhaul’s general vibe better than “trustworthy friend”

so now he’s all “I must walk with him!!!”, and I want you all to know that I’m thumping my head on the back of my desk chair and rolling my eyes very exasperatedly. for fuck’s sake where did Overhaul fucking find all of these assholes

and I know I said I wanted Nemoto to stick around, but that was for shipping purposes!!! not Mirio-killing purposes! what the fuck!

what the fuck guys!

you’re telling me Mirio did ALL OF THAT SHIT and yet he couldn’t stop Overhaul from throwing a case of bullets at Nemo?

and Nemo had time to load his fucking gun and everything, and Mirio was what?? just standing there??!

I’m sorry, Mirio. you are so deserving of being the next Symbol of Peace. but it’s not you and it won’t be you, and the reason is that you’re not the main character, and so you don’t have the power of always somehow winning the day no matter what, and shit like this happens to you that you don’t fucking deserve. it’s not you, sweetie. it’s the plot

oh man

 BONUS:

 FA’s doing another omake corner with pages from the character book! 8DDDD just what I needed after this stress

lookit this. lookit

so peaceful. even though Deku’s stressing me out just a tiny bit because who the fuck reads standing up. sit down and relax

then there is a page of Horikoshi being excited over his book, and then a page of the characters as cute little stickers with catchphrases

and I need someone to explain Todoroki’s catchphrase to me. because what

isn’t this the name of Mr. Burns’s teddy bear

like, the others make sense! Deku’s is all “smash!!” and Katsuki’s is “boom!!” and Ochako’s is “float” with a little heart. so now tell me. wtf is bobo. that’s the word my Puerto Rican mom and grandma used for “pacifier” when my siblings and I were little. it’s weirding me the fuck out

(ETA: 

yes google. that’s exactly what I meant. todoroki bring your own beer.)

on an unrelated note, I was wavering on whether to post Aizawa but I think I have to

just because. he has no arms and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

and now we’re moving on to Kirishima and Mina’s profiles, but I’m thinking I’m gonna just do a separate post on the kids’ profiles at some point, so I’ll skip this for now. anyways that was fun

ACTUAL BONUS:

so now here’s the omake from the actual volume!

my takeaway from that paragraph about Sakaki is that Horikoshi is probably always drunk while writing this series and that sure explains a lot

someone needs to smack the Nemoto inside of Horikoshi’s head. fuck the stupid masks. these guys would have been at least 10x more interesting without them (not an exaggeration; the bar was so low that even something as small as that would have improved them drastically)

actually, now I kind of wish he’d gotten to fight Nighteye. salaryman vs salaryman. maybe get Iida in on this too somehow. battle royale

[sp4c3-0ddity]

Be Gentle

For Lance Loves Ladies Week, Day 4:  Music / Makeovers

Lance and Pidge swap bodies, which totally counts as a makeover

This one beta-ed by @bouquet-roserade

Read it on Ao3 (which I would recommend because this one like 4000 words and tumblr is being weird about the italics)

Pidge did not expect to wake up in a bed, anymore than she ever expected to fall asleep at her workstation in the Green Lion's hangar.

Nor did she expect to see Lance's belongings strewn over the floor, his jacket hanging from a hook on the wall.

I'm in Lance's room. Why am I in Lance's room?

Well, that was the question she should've asked, but at the moment she was still too groggy from sleep to do much more than roll over and bury her face in a pillow.

A pillow that smelled suspiciously like Lance, piney like cologne and minty like toothpaste. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent far more than she would've if she was more alert, but a knock on the door interrupted her.

She jerked up, almost bumping her head on the bed's frame.

"Hey Lance, we're starting drills soon, so hurry up and do your morning hygiene routine."

Pidge relaxed. It was just Keith, there to wake up Lance in case he overslept.

Wait.

If Pidge was in here, alone in Lance's room (she glanced around quickly, making sure she was alone), then where was Lance?

Her eyes fell on the floor-length mirror in one corner of the room, and she finally caught sight of her reflection.

Lance's face stared back at her.

"What. The. Fuck."

---

Lance woke up slowly, more uncomfortable than he had ever been in his life - and yes, he included the time he almost blew himself up pushing Coran from the path of a bomb. His neck and back both ached from his awkward position of sleeping sitting up, with his head resting on a desk, and he idly wondered if he had aged several decades overnight.

He straightened, stretching and trying to work the ache from his body. He extended his arms over his head, then behind him. Rubbing his eyes, he stood, wondering why and how he fell asleep at a desk.

He heard a Lion rumble at him, and he glanced behind him. "Oh, hi Green," he said.

Then his slow morning brain processed what he said.

"Green?" he said.

The Green Lion stared at him, eyes alight with...well, Lance didn't have the same bond with her that he had with his own Lion, but he felt like they were narrowed at him with suspicion. Because he was in the Green Lion's hangar. Without Pidge.

"Why am I here?" he asked the Green Lion, as if she could answer him.

The Green Lion simply growled, and Lance was not versed enough in cat-speak - sentient robot or otherwise - to translate without the direct mind link.

"Where's Pidge?" he asked.

"Pidge!" someone called from outside.

Lance glanced up to see Hunk staring at him; when did Hunk get so tall? "Pidge isn't here, buddy," he said. "It's just me."

Hunk frowned, confusion on his face. "Yeah, and I came here to get you. Shiro's assembling us for drills." Then his frown deepened into worry. "You slept here again, didn't you?"

"What do you mean again?" Lance demanded. "I've never slept here before."

Hunk chuckled, but he still looked stern when he said, "That's a lie."

"No, seriously, I sleep in my own bed every night!"

"Please, Pidge, we both know that's not true."

"Pidge?!" And then dread curled in his gut, and Lance knew why the Green Lion eyed him like she did, and why Hunk seemed so much taller, and why he didn't remember falling asleep in the hangar.

"Oh, fuck."

---

Training drills were canceled in favor of something a little more important.

"So you are Pidge?" Allura said, pointing at Lance's body, then at Pidge's, "and you are Lance?"

"Guilty as charged," Lance - in Pidge's body - joked.

Pidge shot him a look, as if she didn't appreciate him using her voice to joke. Lance shrugged, to show her he really couldn't help this. Pidge rolled her - his - eyes and crossed her - his - arms.

Damn this was weird; and he'd only recently found out Pidge was a girl too!

Which made this whole thing even weirder. He was trapped in a girl's body!

It didn't feel much different than his own, really. His hands and feet were smaller, and he had to look up to talk to everyone, but the change was otherwise not awful.

Except Pidge had some dry skin; when they switched back, he needed to talk to her about moisturizing. Which reminded him.

"Pidge, I'm charging you to take care of my face."

Pidge turned her head to glare at him - and boy was it strange seeing her glare at him with his own two eyes. "What? Seriously? That's what you're concerned about?"

"Looks like mine - uh, yours don't take care of themselves."

Nearby, poor Shiro looked like he was having a conniption, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Coran stroked his mustache thoughtfully, and Allura just frowned in confusion.

Keith and Hunk, however, seemed to be fighting giggles. Lance made a note to himself that, as soon as he got his own, stronger body back, he would kick both of their asses for this.

"How can you be so calm about this?" Pidge demanded. "You're in my body! I'm in yours!"

"Enjoy it while it lasts?" Lance suggested.

Pidge really looked like she wanted to smack him; she probably refrained only because she didn't want to damage her own body.

"How do we undo this, Princess?" Shiro asked.

"I honestly don't know," Allura admitted. "Perhaps we can put them in a healing pod? Or a cryopod?"

"The same cryopod," Coran said. "Like with you and the mice."

"The mice and I never exchanged bodies," Allura pointed out.

"How did this even happen?" Pidge asked. "We haven't done anything strange. No cryogenic sleep, no mind melding, no telepathy, nothing! Why is it me and Lance? Why not Keith and Hunk? Or Hunk and Lance? Or--"

"All right, we get it," Lance interrupted, rolling his eyes. "You want your own body back."

"And you don't?!"

"I do," said Lance, "but there's no point in panicking about it."

Then, Pidge grabbed him by the collar and brought his face close to hers. And though, in the deepest recesses of his mind, he imagined this sort of scenario many times - Pidge tugging him closer, their faces inches apart - he never thought he would have this perspective, in this situation. And usually he didn't mind a closeup of his own face, but knowing Pidge's mind was operating it was jarring.

It didn't help that she was taller now.

"Listen, Lance, I'm panicking because I have no idea how or why this happened!" she explained. "Which is why I'm annoyed that you're not panicking. Do you want to be trapped in someone else's body for the rest of your life?!"

Lance grabbed her - his - wrist, and she let go of him. "Okay, obviously this isn't ideal, but if I had to choose someone's I wouldn't mind having Shiro's."

Nearby, Keith snorted, Hunk snickered, and Shiro rubbed his face as if exhausted.

Pidge rolled her eyes. "But do you see my point now?"

Lance sighed. "Yes, I see your point."

"Good." Pidge stepped away from him, crossing her arms. "Now we find out how this happened."

---

Coran's first idea was to have them 'strengthen their telepathic bond' with the mind-sharing headset.

Pidge fidgeted as she put it on, the device tangling uncomfortably in hair that was even shorter than her own. She wanted to tell everyone that wasn't directly involved to leave the room, since for some reason they all insisted on lingering.

But in truth, if she heard either Keith or Hunk laugh or even heard the suggestion of a laugh from one of them, she would make use of Lance's physical strength and kick them.

"So yesterday everything was as it should be, yes?" Coran asked, looking between Pidge and Lance.

"If you mean I was sleeping in my own body, yes," Pidge agreed. She glared at Lance, who glared back, seeming to say, This isn't my fault!

"Now, before we begin, can either of you think of some way your minds might have crossed?" Coran wondered.

"Whenever we form Voltron," Lance said, shrugging.

"Then if that's the case, why have only you two been affected?" Hunk said. "Shouldn't we all...I don't know...have rotated bodies or something?"

"That reminds me," Allura input thoughtfully, "we don't know how long this will last, so once we're done here we'll have to verify you can still pilot your Lions."

Great. Not only could Pidge not 'pilot' her own body, but she might not be able to pilot Green either.

"Uh, if it helps," Lance said, putting a hand up as if he was answering a question in a classroom, "the Green Lion didn't seem to like me very much this morning."

"I don't like you much either right now," Pidge said, crossing her arms.

"Again, not my fault, Pidge," Lance retorted.

"Guys, let's not argue," Shiro said, staring them both down. Pidge shrunk under his gaze, and she saw Lance do the same from the corner of her eye. "I think it's obvious that neither of you wants this."

"Yeah," Lance muttered under his breath, "if I wanted to be stuck in a girl's body this isn't how I would've chosen to do it."

Pidge's face heated up, angry and embarrassed, and before she could stop herself she struck out at Lance, socking him in the shoulder.

"What was that for?!" he demanded, rubbing his arm.

At the moment, Pidge didn't care that she might've left a bruise on her own damn body. "I heard that," she hissed. "And I'd better not hear it again."

Shiro sighed, and Hunk and Keith seemed to decide - finally - that they would rather be anywhere else than there. They left, leaving Pidge and Lance alone with people who were, functionally, the only adults aboard the Castle.

"Well, Number Five, or should I say Number Three," said Coran, glancing once more at Pidge, "let's have you think of the last thing you remember before falling asleep in your own body, shall we?"

Pidge rolled her eyes but agreed, considering the task she was intent on the night before. She closed her eyes, and her brother's face flashed in her mind, broadcast for everyone in the room to see. It was the grainy image she'd found of his escape on Beta Traz, but it flickered into the photo of them together she still had in her room.

I'll get you back, Matt, Pidge thought, you and Dad both. Only Lance would be able to hear that though.

She cracked her eyelids, and sure enough Lance stared at her, frowning. It was strange seeing sympathy for her on her own face...though doubtless it was an expression that Lance still somehow managed to make his own.

"All right, your turn new Number Five," Coran told Lance.

"Okay, that nickname is kind of demeaning, Coran," Lance complained. But he closed his eyes, and Pidge saw herself in the midst of a huge family, ranging in age from baby to ancient. Everyone as far as she could tell smiled, and some of them smiled just like Lance did.

"Oh," she said. The sigh slipped out of her before she could stop herself, and her chest ached.

"So what do we think is the through-line?" Coran wondered.

"We both miss our families," Pidge said quietly.

Lance only grunted.

At least you know yours is safe, Pidge thought along the link.

I know, Lance replied. His internal voice sounded like his usual external one. But I still miss them.

I know, Pidge said. My mother must be safe, but I miss her just as much as I miss my father and brother. Heat pricked her eyes, and she reached up to wipe the tears before they fell between the gaps in her eyelids. She even heard Lance sniff.

Blindly she reached forward, only for Lance to meet her halfway. The hug was a little awkward, since Pidge was used to being the smaller one, but somehow she managed to tuck Lance into her arms, his chin on her shoulder.

Crying while being held was cathartic. Maybe they should've done this sooner.

She felt Lance's amusement at her thought; it was not unlike her sensing the Green Lion's feelings and impressions, nor was it entirely unwelcome.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and Pidge opened her eyes to see Allura patting her awkwardly, a frown on her face, probably attempting to comfort her. Shiro seemed to be doing the same for Lance.

"You're still Pidge then?" Allura asked.

Pidge nodded, wiping her face. She and Lance disentangled their limbs carefully and looked up at Coran, waiting.

"I am, as you Paladins say, stumped," Coran admitted. He stroked his mustache.

Disappointment coiled in her gut. "If there's nothing we can do now, I'd like to go work on something."

"Of course, Pidge," said Allura. "We'll let you know if we have anymore ideas."

"Thank you," said Pidge. She stood up and walked out of the room, Lance's eyes following her out.

She still felt them on her back even when she stood before her Lion.

---

Lance found Hunk in the kitchen, drawing designs of some kind on a tablet.

He looked up. "Pidge?" he asked cautiously.

Lance shook his - or Pidge's, really - head. "Nope," he said, scowling, "still Lance."

"That sucks," he said.

Lance sat in the chair across from Hunk and propped his chin in his hand. "So do you have any idea how this might've happened?"

"Can't say I do," said Hunk. "It's kind of weird though."

"What is?" Lance wondered.

Hunk, attention diverted from the tablet in front of him, explained, "Well, before we shot into space in the Blue Lion, I never thought magic was real, you know? And yet here we are, and it turns out magic is real. Sort of."

"Uh, okay?"

"But magic isn't really reasonable," Hunk said, clasping his hands together on the table. "We don't understand its laws like we do with physics."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at, buddy," Lance admitted.

"What I'm saying," Hunk said, grinning, "is that you and Pidge? Maybe what happened has nothing to do with science, or at least not with science as we understand science."

"I'm still confused."

"Maybe it's magic?"

Lance stared at Hunk, and Hunk stared right back, grin widening. Then Lance laughed. "You know, maybe you're right." Then he scowled. "But if you are, how do we fix it? Who on the Castle knows about magic?"

Hunk shrugged. "Ask the princess?"

Usually Lance would jump at the opportunity to speak with Allura, especially for a reason that wasn't frivolous, but this body swap seemed too intimate, something shared only between him and Pidge. Even now he felt a little uncomfortable confiding in Hunk.

"I don't know, Hunk," said Lance. "She seems like the wrong pers--" An idea struck him, and it was so perfect he wished he'd thought of it before. He stood, his chair falling over with the vigor of his excitement. "I'm going to talk to Blue."

Hunk blinked at him. "That's actually brilliant."

"What can I say?" Lance said, smirking at him over his shoulder. "Maybe Pidge has rubbed off on me."

"You can only wish, dude."

---

The Green Lion had opened up for Pidge easily enough, so that was a load off her mind (and off Allura's too; she would have to tell the princess the 'good news'). But sitting slumped in the pilot's chair and avoiding her reflection wasn't doing her any good.

Neither was staring at her hands - Lance's hands, and imagining them holding her real, tiny ones. She tugged the gray hood of Lance's jacket over her head, and was glad that, at least, she had a reason to be wearing it that wasn't contrived.

The console in front of her lit up green, and Pidge straightened, wondering what the Green Lion was telling her. "What's wrong, girl?" she asked.

Pidge's own face appeared on the console. "Hi, Pidge," said Lance, waving at her from the screen.

"Hi Lance," she said, leaning in. "You're in the Blue Lion?"

"Yep." Lance smirked, the expression interesting on her face; Pidge wondered if she looked like that when she smirked. "Seems we had the same idea."

"How did you know I was in my Lion?"

"Blue told me." Off-screen, the Blue Lion purred.

Pidge scowled, and she felt the slightest hint of an apology from Green; doubtlessly she had informed the Blue Lion.

"So Blue, at least, doesn't care what I look like," Lance said, smiling.

"Why would she?" Pidge said.

"Well, I can't say I look as handsome as usual at the moment," Lance said, stretching.

Pidge scowled at him. "Gee, thanks."

"I mean, you're pretty, Pidge, don't get me wrong, but I miss my body, you know?"

"Yeah," Pidge said, though her mind was replaying the way Lance said, You're pretty, Pidge. She shook her head, dismissing the thought; what was wrong with her?

"So Hunk had an idea," Lance continued.

"What's that?"

"That magic had something to do with our dilemma."

Pidge hummed, considering; so many strange things had happened to them since they'd first formed Voltron that magic being the cause of all this wouldn't be surprising. But it was still too ambiguous for her liking. "Anything more specific?" she wondered.

"Nope," said Lance, "but I did come to ask Blue about it. Not talk to you, sad to say."

"I'm crushed," Pidge quipped.

"I know, I know," Lance said, laughing. "Conversations with me are treasures to be coveted."

Pidge didn't like how much she was blushing today. "You have no idea," she said.

Lance narrowed his eyes at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Pidge shrugged. "Nothing," she said, "but I'm cutting you off to talk to Green, like you suggested."

"Sure, whatever." Lance saluted her, and she ended the transmission with a single cue with her mind.

Then she slouched in her chair, huffing. "Green," she said, "what do you think happened?"

---

"An unfortunate side effect of getting shot through with quintessence?" Lance summarized as Blue fed him information. At an affirmative from his Lion, he tapped his chin. "That doesn't explain why it only affected me and Pidge though?"

Blue passed on more images and impressions, and Lance felt himself blushing. "That's not--what?" He rested his face in his hand. "You're saying it's because I was more concerned about Pidge at the time than I was about myself?" When Blue agreed, Lance said, "So what? And I call bull, because Shiro was plenty concerned about the rest of us!"

An image of Zarkon. Lance wrinkled his nose. "Okay, so Shiro was preoccupied with Zarkon and keeping the Black Lion away from him. This doesn't explain why Pidge and I are the only ones affected."

Not to my satisfaction anyway. For the first time he understood how Pidge felt about science and data.

Blue purred, sounding amused, and Lance grimaced, frustrated. "So if I had been more concerned about, say, Hunk than about myself, I would have swapped bodies with him?"

A negative.

"Uh, why not?"

A new image, that of a strong link, a connection, running two ways.

"I see...so Pidge was just as concerned for me as I was for her?"

Blue rumbled her agreement.

Lance cursed under his breath, words that his mother would've swatted him for uttering. "And how do we fix it?"

---

"So according to the Green Lion," Pidge explained to Allura, Shiro, and Coran, "Lance and I need to spend some time in the cryopods while wearing the headsets."

"How long?" Shiro asked.

Pidge shrugged, rubbing her arm. "I think for as long as our minds have been...swapped." She hugged herself; she didn't fancy spending twenty-four hours in a small enclosed space, whether or not she was aware of it. Thanks to her unwanted familiarity with the Castle's ventilation system, she found herself dreading any time spent in tight quarters.

"I'm curious how the Lions know the solution," Coran said contemplatively.

"According to Green it happened to two past Paladins."

Allura and Coran looked at each other, surprised, before they faced Pidge again. "That's certainly interesting," Allura said.

"Yes," said Coran. "Did your Lion know how this came about?"

Pidge blushed. "Yes," she said.

When she didn't explain, Allura pressed, "How?"

"I don't think--"

"Pidge, we need to know so we can keep it from happening again," said Allura.

Usually, Pidge, scientific mind that she was, would agree, would be more than happy to share what she knew, but this was simply too personal, too private. It was bad enough that Lance must know at this point.

Shiro, however, seemed to sense her discomfort. He rested a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm sure that can wait, Princess. Let's find Lance and set up cryopods."

Allura frowned but agreed. She spoke a few quiet words to the mice on her shoulder and they scurried away, presumably to retrieve Lance, but he walked through the door before they got far.

"I know how to fix this!" he said, grinning.

"So do we," Pidge told him, a hint of smugness in her voice.

"Aw, you beat me?"

"What can I say?" Pidge said, smirking. "My Lion loves me more."

Lance pouted but didn't retort.

A cold, sinking feeling lay in Pidge's gut then when she remembered how, exactly, the mind swap came to be. She looked away from Lance and wordlessly followed Allura into the hall lined with cryopods.

Coran fixed them once more with the headsets, while Allura set up the cryopods. "We'll have you sleep for ten vargas," she explained. "I think that should be long enough, and we can't afford to be waylaid any longer if we require Voltron."

"Of course, Princess," said Lance without a hint of flirtation.

Pidge peered at him suspiciously, but he wouldn't look at her either. In fact, even through the activated mental link between them, he seemed to be keeping his mind carefully blank.

Pidge stared at the pod. She didn't want to go in.

"If it's anything like the healing pods, you won't even notice."

Pidge glanced to the side, at Lance. He smiled reassuringly at her, and Pidge realized that of course he must have sensed her reluctance. "I know," she said, "but it still..."

Lance reached out and grasped her hand. It was all backwards, her hand should've been the smaller and paler, but the gesture was comforting and warm nonetheless. "Don't worry, Pidge," he told her, "I'll be right here when you wake up."

Pidge then nodded, shoving aside her apprehension, and extracted her hand - too big, too dark - from Lance's - too small, too fair. "I'll hold you to that," she promised.

She stepped into the pod, grateful for the reassurance that he broadcast across their mind link even if it didn't do much to make her more comfortable. The pod closed, and she shivered as the temperature inside fell.

The last thing Pidge knew before she slept was Lance's warm presence in the back of her mind.

---

Lance blinked and flinched at the sudden warmth that flooded the pod as it slid open. He stepped forward on weak legs, falling bonelessly into someone's waiting arms.

"Ugh, I hate this part," he complained, voice muffled by a muscular arm.

"Lance, buddy?" said Hunk. "That you?"

Lance lazily raised his hand and offered a thumbs up. He followed the motion, and recognized the hand as his own. He smiled. "Well, that's a relief." Then he frowned, straightening as feeling returned to his limbs. "Where's Pidge?"

Hunk helped him turn to where Keith held Pidge up. He had one of her arms slung across his shoulders while she rubbed sleep from her eyes with her other hand.

Lance felt the all too familiar, all too unpleasant sting of jealousy in his stomach. "Aw, I wanted to catch her when she came out of the pod," he whined.

"Dude, you couldn't even catch yourself," Hunk reminded him.

"Details," he mumbled, burying his face in Hunk's shoulder.

Hunk removed the mind-linking headset from his head and patted him on the back, and he instantly missed the low, sleepy rumble in his mind that he knew to be Pidge. "You remind me of when my brother had his wisdom teeth taken out."

"Why's that?" Lance wondered.

"Because it's like you're on anesthesia, since you're being more honest than you normally would be."

"I'm plenty honest, Hunk."

"Not about everything," Hunk pointed. "Now do you want food first, or sleep?" He helped Lance out of the hall of pods and towards the Castle's main wing, Keith and Pidge stumbling along ahead of them.

"Pidge," said Lance, "I want to talk to Pidge."

"How about when you're not slurring your words?" Hunk suggested.

Lance just grunted, allowing Hunk to lead him to the kitchen. Halfway there, he managed to start walking on his own power, but he still almost tripped over his feet a few times, Hunk reaching out to grab his arm before he fell. And thanks to the return of his own height - and his longer legs - they caught up to Pidge and Keith right outside the kitchen doors.

Pidge glanced at him over her shoulder; she blushed slightly, and then Lance remembered why they swapped bodies in the first place.

"We should probably...talk," Lance said lamely.

Pidge eyed him suspiciously, but nodded. "Yeah, we probably should."

Nearby, Keith asked Hunk, "What are they talking about?"

Hunk patted Keith on the shoulder, a gesture that was one part comforting and one part condescending. "I'm sure we'll find out eventually."

---

Out of sight and hearing of the others (she had even gone so far as to check the vents for Allura's mice), Pidge sat on the floor of Lance's bedroom, her back against his bed. Her stomach was comfortably full of green goo, and she kept yawning even as Lance paced the entire length of his tiny room in front of her.

"So...you like me?" Lance said.

Pidge started to regret her meal. "Yes."

"Like, romantically?"

"Yes," Pidge snapped, rolling her eyes. Why him? she asked herself not for the first time.

Lance laughed, sitting beside her on the floor. He tried to hold her hand, but she snatched it away. "What?" he asked.

"I may have romantic feelings for you, Lance," she said, looking at anything but him, "but I also have enough self-respect to not want attention from a guy that likes someone else."

"Oh," said Lance. To Pidge's ears, a single syllable never sounded so disappointed. "What if I told you that I...don't?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

"Why not?"

Pidge shrugged and scowled at the floor. "I have no reason to. You've given me no reason to."

Lance squirmed, and Pidge fancied she knew him well enough by now to know he was ashamed. "You're right, except for the whole...justification."

"Of course." Pidge rolled her eyes.

"Look, our Lions told us there's a reason that we swapped and no one else did."

"And you think it's enough justification to put the moves on me?" Pidge said. Her heart pounded painfully, and even though she wanted nothing more than to lean into him, she still slid away, putting some space between them.

"No, no, that's not what--" Lance cut himself off and sighed, rubbing his face. "Listen, just... Pidge."

"What."

"I have feelings for you too, okay?" Lance said, and before Pidge could comment, before she could feel anything but blood rushing to her face, he continued, "And I think I have for a while now. Maybe it took something as extreme as exchanging bodies for me to realize it, but I do. I like you."

Pidge exhaled, then she turned her body to face his. She still refused to get closer, at least for the moment. "Prove it," she said.

Lance blinked at her; she half-expected him to scoff, or worse, to refuse or claim he already had. But instead he leaned towards her, smiling. "Tell me how."

Pidge smirked, a plan forming in her head. "It's easy," she said, trying a flirtatious tone. She wasn't sure it was convincing, but then she saw the way Lance blushed. She inched just a bit closer to him. "Don't just tell me how you feel; show me."

He moved a little closer. "And how do I do that?"

They were now seated so closely together that she could feel his warm breath on his face. "You're smart enough to figure it out yourself."

"Heh, you finally admit I'm sm--"

"Oh, just kiss me, stupid!"

And he did.

It wasn't all the proof Pidge needed, but it was good enough for now, feeling his soft lips on hers and his nose brushing her own.

Lance pulled away first, but any disappointment Pidge felt dissipated when he peered at her through half-lidded eyes.

"No offense Pidge," said Lance as he took her small hand in his large one, "I have nothing against your face and something really good did come of all this, but that was the worst makeover I've ever had."