#yes i did just want link to be pretty and covered in golden scales and have claws and fun scary eyes

[tciddaemina]

snippet of a new ganlink au, just for the fun of it. got about 7k right now and going to see if i can finish it this long weekend. 

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Ganondorf manages a few extra steps before collapsing against one of those sandstone formations, his back sliding down against his heavily as he sinks to the ground. His head falls back, biting a low noise of pain, and he draws his hand away from his shoulder enough to give it another glimpse. It's worse. There's more blood and all the movement has only driven the arrowhead deeper.

Ganondorf brings his good hand to the arrow, fingers tightening around the shaft, biting back a low pained grunt as he yanks it free and lets the arrow drop, blood still wet on the street as it lies in the sand. He presses his hand to his shoulder, a low hiss giving way to slow, ragged breathing as his head falls back once more. Everything in his head is spinning now, the dark spots beginning to gather at the corner of his vision, the magic beating through him so strong now that the pressure of it burns, only growing stronger.

His eyes close, his head falling back, and he lets out a low breath. Hazily, distantly, he hears the whisper of sand, a soft cascade of grains falling against one another, and only belatedly managed to forced himself to remember he should be concerned about it. He opens his eyes and meets the eyes of the creature in the center of the cavern.

Oh, Ganondorf thinks hazily, right. A dragon.

The beast is a glorious thing, huge and ancient, it's scales a deep beaten gold that shine in the light. Sand still pours off its side, mounded there, disturbed from its sleep beneath the sands. As he watches, its head lifts even higher, sinuous neck swinging around as it turns its head to him properly, it's eyes a deep void black, eerie and empty, beneath the crown of horns that rise from its head. It's larger than any moldruga, larger even than a talvaa'sh, and no wonder. Dragons, suna'kni, they're not like any ordinary desert beast, but spirits in their own right, greater and beautiful and more powerful.

[miralia]

Speculation on the Historical Influences on the Kyoshi Warriors of Avatar

(Disclaimer: I know there are multiple influences. This is just something I found that I thought was really interesting. And we’re not going to get into how ATLA appropriated, appreciated, and cherry-picked Asian cultures. This is just a fun thing I found out. It might just be a coincidence. If you wanted an essay on “how terrible Bryke is”, go under the “anti bryke” tag and laugh at the toxicity. This is about history.)

I don’t know if this has been done already, but I was really excited when I found out, so I had to share!

So, I’m not quite sure how I found this out, but I think I was both off-and-on researching premodern combat weapons of different cultures (link here if you want to spend a few hours ogling swords and daggers) and trying to figure out what kinds of cultural things influenced the Kyoshi Warriors. I figured out (at least I’m pretty sure I did, sword experts feel free to correct me) that they do, in fact, wield the Japanese katana (I don’t know which period. Not trying to lump anything together, just thought it was best to refer to it as a collective for fear of being wrong). This was kind of odd to me, as the Earth Kingdom appeared to have *mainly* Tang and Qing dynasty influences. So I decided to dig a little deeper on this subject.

(SECOND Disclaimer: People more well-versed in the different parts of Asian culture I will be referencing can tell me I’m wrong in the comments and I’ll edit this. I really and truly am not trying to be offensive or say my opinion is correct blindly, but at the same time, I did do my research and that has to count for something.)

Introduction

I’m an ATLA nut, as well as an Asian women’s dress nut. I’ve made connections between real clothing and ATLA clothing before, but then realized that other people had already done it, and done it much better. 

But I haven’t seen anyone really talk about the inspiration behind the Kyoshi Warriors yet, besides a few mentions, so here I am with my two cents!

The First Thing (Swords)

The first thing I noticed that started me on this quest was realizing that the Kyoshi Warriors wield katanas (also called nihonto), as opposed to a Chinese weapon that would be more fitting for their position in the Earth kingdom (like we see with Jet’s hook swords). 

For clarification, I figured this out by using still frames of Suki from the show, then measuring the rough length of her sword to her height, approximating the length to see if it would be correct (it was). Then I watched the video of the Kyoshi Warriors’ fight with Team Azula, which is (if I’m not mistaken) the only time we actually see them use their swords as well as their fans. 

In a few frames, we can see Suki’s sword has the characteristic tsuka ito (cord wrap) around the hilt of her sword, a gold-colored habaki (blade collar), as well as a golden kashira (butt cap/pommel), paired with a golden fuchi (a band at the end of the handle before the tsuba (guard)) to make a fuchigashira. From what I can gather, these are usually intricately decorated, but we can blame early 2000s animation for exempting that detail.

But anyway, the presence of the katana got me thinking. What other Japanese influences are displayed in the Kyoshi Warriors?

(Actually, scratch that. The first thing that got me clued in to the presence of Japanese influence was the red and white makeup that the Warriors wear. It seemed similar to that of the geisha, but I disregarded this as it wasn’t similar enough to warrant real research on my part. Just google ‘geisha makeup’ and you’ll see what I mean.)

And the answer was: a good few. Something Mina Le (a fashion youtuber) already touched on in her video on Avatar. But the question is, what exactly influenced them?

So, back to katanas. Once I figured out that they wielded katanas, it was a simple conclusion that they drew inspiration from the samurai of feudal Japan.

War Fans (Tessen)

Another similarity that ties them into samurai are their characteristic fans.

I actually learned about the art of Japanese war fans (tessenjutsu) before I even watched Avatar. The fans called tessen are made out of iron, but the other types of war fans, gunsen and gunbai, don’t seem to fit the bill for what the Kyoshi Warriors use them for. So, instead of being made of iron, their fans are made out of a golden metal, probably to fit their gold-and-green aesthetic.

An illustration of a warrior using a tessen.

The way they use these tessen to fight is debatably accurate. I have never studied tessenjutsu, nor do I really trust modern videos of tessenjutsu, so I have no basis. But it is said that wielders would use one to attack and one to parry, and that does seem to be somewhat what they do? Not sure if their forms or usage or that one time that one girl threw both her fans at Azula like some sort of razor-sharp Frisbee is accurate. Tessenjutsu practitioners, feel free to correct me!

But all this talk about fans and swords isn’t coming to the real core of my speculation. There is one crucial fact: samurai are men. But the Kyoshi Warriors are girls. Were there any female samurai?

The Onna-Bugeisha

Yes, there were! They were called onna-bugeisha, literally meaning “female martial artist.” You can read more about the onna-bugeisha on their Wikipedia page.

Let’s start with the similarities between the Kyoshi Warriors and the onna-bugeisha. 

Clothing/Armor

The first, and most obvious, is their clothing. The onna-bugeisha appear to wear both the traditional kimono or large, loose pants in illustrations. This really does seem to differ a lot based on source material, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to really affirmatively say why. But they do appear wearing the pants when riding horses, and the kimono when they’re standing or looking super regal in the illustrations.

Empress Jingū, a mythological example of onna-bugeisha. She became empress after her husband, the fourteenth emperor Chūai, was slain in battle. She is said to have led an expedition to Korea around 200 AD, and was the first woman on a Japanese banknote. This illustration is probably not accurate, as it was made by a European man, but it does illustrate one of the earliest known cases of onna-bugeisha in Japanese culture.

Hangaku Gozen, a famous general of the Genpei War (allied with the Taira clan).

The Kyoshi Warriors!

Bryke/the animators chose the dress route for making the Kyoshi Warriors, dressing them in split-front dresses colored in shades of green, with a dark green layered underdress under a lighter green overdress crossed left over right at the collar (like many, many different kinds of traditional Asian women’s dress). The coloration appears to be more to signify “Earth Kingdom” than to be historically accurate to the onna-bugeisha, something that was probably a good idea. Remember, this was made to be a kids’ adventure show, and they had already established the color-coding based on country. 

The sleeves are voluminous, which is definitely a characteristic of the onna-bugeisha. They are cinched at the wrists with dark cuffs, which isn’t a characteristic of all the different illustrations/photographs, but is certainly present in some. These cuffs are paired with two-toned gloves, which are always a good idea in any kind of weapon battle, but aren’t present in many, if any, photographs, but at least in some illustrations.

Partially covering the dresses is the thing that most tipped me off: the armor. It seems to be of black plating, which bears a striking resemblance to the plating/ridging on the onna-bugeisha’s armor. The chestplate itself bears a really, really close resemblance (if it isn’t an exact copy) to the chestplates of the onna-bugeisha, though the color isn’t the striking red that seems to appear a lot of the time. The rectangular shoulder/upper arm plating that is present in nearly all depictions is severely lacking, however, though this seems to be a choice to make the Warriors seem less bulky and more dynamic. Plus, it would be easier to animate. (They do have slimmer shoulder plates that attach, though.)

But the (for lack of a better word) skirt plates of the armor remain really, really similar to the onna-bugeishas’ armor. It really just looks like a scaled-down, black instead of red version. And I think that’s super cool, and one of the best pieces of evidence that backs my theory.

Topping off the “Kyoshi look” are gold-and-green headpieces that are different depending on the warrior, and a hairstyle that differs depending on the warrior. I’ll probably go more in-depth about the headpieces and hairstyles on a different post, but the gist is that yes, the presence of headpieces is historically accurate, at least in some photos/illustrations (which appears to be the norm. Can I ever get something concrete here?). 

Examples of onna-bugeisha wearing headpieces.

All of them wore helmets (obviously), but some seem to have some sort of decorative aspect (again, tell me if I’m wrong and the pieces have a meaning or purpose). 

Edit: One commenter, @atla-headcanons​, said that their Japanese grandmother once said that warriors’ headdresses were status symbols, as well as ways to tell allies from enemies. This would be supported by the fact that Suki, as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, would have a headpiece similar to Kyoshi’s, and the rest of the Warriors would have different ones. I was unable to fact-check this at the time (may return to it later), but it seems likely, and it would be really cool if it was intentional on the characters’ designs!

Avatar Kyoshi 

The second thing that made me speculate whether the Kyoshi Warriors were connected to the onna-bugeisha was actually Kyoshi herself.

We all know about badass Avatar Kyoshi. She’s amazing. A definite certified badass. But there might actually have been a real-world counterpart to her. Nakano Takeko, a famous onna-bugeisha of the Aizu Domain who fought and died in the Boshin War, could have been possible inspiration for her.

Statue of Nakano Takeko. I don’t trust that the pictures on Pinterest are actually her.

Not only is Nakano a certified badass, taking down five to six men with her naginata in the Battle of Aizu, she also taught women and children to fight with the naginata for a time. Sound familiar? It might just be a coincidence, but I’m sticking to my theory here. You can read more about her here, but I’ll give a rundown of the highlights that make her a Kyoshi-Level Badass™:

- Taught naginata to the lord of Niwase’s wife

- Taught naginata to women and children in Aizuwakamatsu castle

An onna-bugeisha wielding a naginata. They’re pretty awesome!

-  Worked in defense of the shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu

- Fought in the Battle of Aizu using a Japanese weapon (naginata) against a white weapon (guns)

- Created and headed an ad-hoc group of female warriors in the Battle of Aizu, retroactively called the Jōshitai (Girls’ Army). She did this without permission, as the senior Aizu retainers didn’t want them to fight and wouldn’t let them fight as an official part of the domain’s army

- When she was taken down by a rifle shot to her chest, she asked her sister Yūko to behead her so that the enemy couldn’t take it as a trophy. Her sister employed the help of Ueno Yoshisaburō, and did as she was asked

- With the reforms of the Meiji Era (samurai class abolished, western-style army established), Nakano Takeko was one of the last samurai in history.

Conclusion

That concludes my essay! Remember, this is all speculation. If you have your own take, please tell me! I love hearing all the cultural influences in Avatar.

Now, if Bryke meant to make the Kyoshi Warriors to be inspired by the onna-bugeisha, then there is something more that I would have liked to see. It would have been really cool to see them use naginata in the show, as it was actually originally a weapon for females to use, its length compensating for the smaller body size and comparatively lesser brute strength of women warriors.

(Also, I just want Suki utterly destroying Sokka with a naginata in that episode where she kicks his butt to prove a point. Hey, I’m a simple girl with simple tastes.) 

Sources:

Basically all Wikipedia. I’m sorry I couldn’t reference, like, ebooks on this subject. But I did look at the reference lists for the Wikipedia articles I used, and they all seemed to be credible ones. So, don’t come at me, please! I did the best I could!

I really appreciate whoever read this far. It takes stamina! 

Thanks for reading!

[hitsuackerman]

Unpredictable (Overhaul x Reader) pt. 1

a/n: I have been struggling with writer’s block because all I’ve been wanting to do was write about garbage man Overhaul. I have no idea how or when my simping for this man began T.T that being said, the words came flowing out when I started this XD

warnings: cursing, subtle flirting, nothing much happens since its only part 1

links: part 2

Masterlist to my other fics: here :)

It was a rather fine Monday afternoon. Lazily drinking your coffee, you waved to the people who knew who you were. You weren’t part of the top ten heroes, no. Not even in the top 100 poll. Instead, with a quirk like yours, you chose to enter the police force. With a bit of training here and there, you mastered everything there was to and still managed to develop your quirk every two missions or so.

Now, you were sitting by the window. Waiting for your partner to arrive. He had called you in for a rather hasty meet up somewhere far from the precinct. With no details given, anything was possible when it came to Tsukauchi and his brain.

A blur of tan and green caught your eye. Turning to face the no longer vacant chair, you observed as he took off his matching hat and fixed his tie. His rectangular eyes greet you with sincerity but hints of anxiety at the same time. Something was about to happen, it was plain obvious.

“Well, good afternoon to you, Nao.” You gave him a cheers of your coffee before taking another sip. The bitterness of your beverage is ever so relaxing. “What can I do for my partner, hm?”

“You read me too well, (Y/N).” He chuckled. Taking a folder from his messenger bag, he placed it on the table and gave you permission to open it. The way he saw your eyebrows furrow only strengthened his hypothesis. “I can explain.”

“You bet your ass you need to explain.” You leaned on your chair. Heart racing a little faster now. Your eyes darting from the detective before you and the streets outside the window. Index finger tapping on your bicep as your arms instinctively crossed on your chest.

“I know this is familiar territory to you and I am sure that you are very much uncomfortable right now,” He began. The little shift in your seat caused guilt to eat him a bit. Seeing your eyes moving from one item to another made him question if this were the right choice. “But with considerable thought, you’re the only one who has a chance in turning this situation for the better.”

“Nao, I get where you’re going but there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that.”

“This mission is only up for 9 months. If you step down then someone else will take your place. With you being tied to the yakuza, the probability of having the time frame cut short is high.”

Ahh. The background-trump card. Of course the chief of police wanted to pull that off.

Before having entered the police force, you had been somewhat a part of the Abegawa Tenchu Kai group. Though the group had been put to an end, they had successfully managed to hide your father in a hidden pathway that none of the police had managed to find.

From there, he had slowly rebuilt it. Still enforcing the way of the yakuza, your father slowly came to realize just how little there was left of the yakuza. Secretly, he began to create ties with the police to ensure a bit of political immunity for his group. By the time you were born, things took a turn and the small organized crimes came to a halt.

When you gave him the news that you were joining the police force, he had let out a hearty laugh that echoed through the halls. Telling you it was ironic and certainly unexpected, he told you of the difficulties you would face but encouraged you the same.

“I know I’m tied up with them but having to fight another one would be difficult. You’re all too aware that the yakuza are a strongly knit group after they were disbanded one by one. Though I’m aware that the group mentioned is trying to take the lead, I would rather not be intertwined in a mess like this.” Your answer was stern but the look your partner gave you made things inconvenient. “Do not give me that look, Tsukauchi.”

“You won’t be alone in this. The plan is for you to talk to the Shie Hassaikai and use them as support for this one.”

“Lmao, what?” You held up your palm and shook your head with amusement. There was no way in hell you were about to create a bond with them. “D’you just hear yourself, Nao? Those people are whack and some are a lost cause already.”

“Overhaul is the current boss. Perhaps you can set a meeting with him and talk.” The way Overhaul came out of his mouth made him want to puke. It was a vile word, even for him. Yet, desperate times call for desperate measures. If low key teaming up with the Shie Hassaikai would put an end to the growing crimes the other group was causing, then so be it. “Just tell him that you won’t dig into his business.”

“You’re putting me in the hands of someone who could obliterate me in a matter of seconds.” You commented. Dragging the folder off the table, you tucked it into your bag and gulped the remaining amount of coffee. It’s taste now bland to you. “Wish me luck. I’m gonna be needing a lot of it.”

“I owe you a lot, (Y/N).” Tsukauchi thanked you while taking his coat and putting it on. Leading the way towards the exit, he opened the door for you and motioned for you to exit first. “Also, be aware that only a select group of people know about this arrangement.”

Rolling your eyes, you scoffed and waved goodbye.

Walking down the streets, your thoughts began to eat you up. If there was one thing your old man taught you, it was that the Shie Hassaikai had something going on beneath them. Of course, your father never gave any information as to what they did. All you could do was to respect his decision. He was still a yakuza after all. And despite what the people might think, the way of the yakuza wasn’t all that bad. At least when it came to morals of brotherhood, of course.

The screeching of tires caught your attention. A white carrier van came speeding through the road and took a rather sharp turn. It was probably 4 blocks from where you stood. You were off duty but still, trouble waits for no one. Cautiously, you jogged towards the location.

Not soon after, a small scale explosion made you wince. By now, you were running and saw the distressed people exiting the corner as a pillar of smoke started to climb towards the skies. Moving at fast speeds, you ended up bumping with a stranger with a black and gray mask on. His layered blue unbuttoned polo exposing his matching shirt. “Sorry, mister!” You apologized before turning around the corner. The look on his face was a little confused. You couldn’t blame him. Confusion was always part of the recipe of disaster.

You stopped running when you were met with dismembered and morphed bodies of the supposed to be criminals. Standing in front of you were 3 people. One with a large build, one who was slim but wore a hood, and the other with auburn hair. His dark green bomber jacket stood out due to the purple fur around the hood.

He seemed to be busy monologuing knowing he hasn’t killed you yet.

“And who might you be?” The voice seemed to be coming from above.

Not wanting to lose your sights on him, you watched as he turned around and faced you. His magenta bird mask on full display. His eyes still marked with the rage he had just let out a few moments ago. His golden eyes dug deep to your soul. It was scary to say the least.

Your heartbeat raced and your thoughts tried to come up with a logical explanation as to why you did not run away. When Overhaul took a step forward, you held your breath and opened your mouth.

“I’ve been meaning to talk with you, Overhaul.” Your eyes followed as his surgical covered hands began to adjust his mask. The twitch in his eye bringing you one step closer to death. “I’m from the Abegawa Tenchu Kai.”

It was amazing to you. How you casually stated you were part of another group. Feeling the air shift around you, the person who had asked as to who you were was now standing beside you. The beak of his mask a mere inches from your face. You wanted to glare at him, but the real threat here was the one right in front of you.

“It’s not safe to talk here. The police are coming and it’s pretty obvious you don’t want any more dirt on your hands, yes?” You began to walk backwards and motioned for them to follow you. They could follow you or they could just brush it aside and move along with whatever business they had in mind.

When the same person who had been beside you just now talked to Overhaul, it was now clear who he was. Chronostasis. One of his indisposable pawns. You’ve heard of the stories surrounding these two.

“You have approximately 5 minutes to decide before they arrive.” You informed them. “I’ll wait in the corner in case you want to hear what I have to say.”

When a minute had passed, you were now face to face with the leader of the Shie Hassaikai and his companion. He probably let the rest go on ahead. Good. At least he was curious as to what in the world a random person would want them for.

“Speak before he changes his mind.” Chrono threatened you.

Unwavered by that, you began to walk. Thankfully, the sidewalk didn’t have that many people.

“I need your help. The Fukuo Kai group have been getting restless.” If they were still updated with the inside news, you hoped you wouldn’t have to explain the details. It was too tiring and time was of the essence.

“Who exactly are you, woman?” This time you heard his voice. It was oddly intoxicating. He was careful but made sure not to show it.

“I’m sure you can do a background check on me. I have no way in stopping you, I’m all too aware.” Rummaging through your bag, you took out a pen and paper. Jotting your number down, you handed it to Chrono. If the stories were right, he would freak out if you were to touch him. “If you want to talk about this more in your office, feel free to hit me up. But, no to kidnapping. It’s tiresome.”

Overhaul just stared at you. Calculating what to do next. Or how this would benefit him. Yes, he would surely ask some of his men to follow you around but with you being tied with the Abegawa Tenchu Kai, it was almost certain that you had henchmen following you around. Looking over at his masked companion, Chrono immediately understood that a background check would be done the moment they would step into the grounds.

“2 days. If no call, I’ll move on to the next people on my list.” You gave them a quick bow. There was no need to but he was who he was. The rumors being spread about him and his plans were most probably true. He at least deserved a half ass bow from you.

Knowing it was more than enough contact, you turned to the next corner and made your way back home. All too aware that the possibility of being followed was all too high. There were two ways you could go, you could go to your apartment or go home. None of that surely mattered with who he was and what he was capable of. Letting out a sigh, you went with the former.

By the time you arrived in your unit, you flopped on your sofa and threw your bag to the coffee table. Sinking further and further down, you flailed for a few seconds before composing yourself. Leaning towards your bag, you took out your phone and began to dial up a number.

“What can I do for you, (N/N)-chan?” The voice over the phone said.

“Is dad busy?”

“The boss is currently out of office. He’ll be back in a few hours. He shifted in his seat and felt a tad antsy. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah. Just miss the old man.” Giving him a chuckle, you sat straight up and pulled your bag closer towards you. Shuffling through the mess as you took the folder out. Placing it on your table, your eyes began to wander and skim through the pages. “Anyway, I gotta go. Tell him to call me back.”

When he gave his reply, the call ended and you immediately began to read the information more closely.

Hours had now passed and you ended up crashing on the couch. By the time you woke up, the room was now dark save for the city lights illuminating the walls softly. Stretching your limbs, you stood up and turned the lights on. It was painfully blinding but you adjusted quick enough.

Checking your phone for any messages, you tossed it back on the couch and grunted. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

With nothing else to do, you decided to get started with dinner.

Pasta and wine. That’s what you craved for. Not sure why but all the contents were now laid out before you. Preparation time would take around 30. Nothing too long or too fast, just right. Starting the labor, you began to heat up water in a pot and began to prepare the sauce.

Moving in a trance, the sound of your phone ringing caused you to jump. Wiping your hands clean with a tissue, you jogged towards the living room and stared at the unknown number.

‘Shit.’ You mentally prepared yourself. “(L/N) speaking.”

“I have been thinking about your offer.” He said over the phone. His voice a little muffled due to his bird mask, at least you presumed. “However, I would prefer if we talk about this in person. I would hate it if your phone was bugged and such.”

“What time are you free?”

“2 in the afternoon. I am aware that you know where we are located.” He replied. A tiny voice seemed to be yapping about in the background. The small voice seemed to stop and Overhaul continued. “If you’re late, then you’ll have to go through your list of people.”

Before you could respond, he ended the call. For someone who was rumored to be antisocial, he sure had a knack of being sarcasm. Who were you kidding, that wasn’t sarcasm.

Walking back to your kitchen, your mind was out of it as you continued making dinner. Your foot began tapping your tiled floor. What would happen tomorrow? Sure, you knew where they were situated but to be inside their headquarters? A chill ran down your spine.

In the task force, you were one of the people who were experts on reading people. Yet, the Shie Hassaikai leader was one person you would rather not read into. Sociopaths were usually textbook people but for someone who was whispered to be an antisocial sociopath? Your mind couldn’t comprehend what goes through his head.

Safe to say that you did not enjoy your dinner.

Time was now moving fast. In the blink of an eye, you found yourself at the gates of their headquarters. Last night, you fell into such a deep sleep that you barely had enough time to dream. With only another cup of coffee to keep you going, you knocked on the wooden gates and waited for entry.

The gates opened slightly. You were met with a random thug who didn’t wear a mask. He was wearing plain simple clothes but the look on his face told you he was definitely not happy to see you.

“I have some business with Overhaul.” You said plainly.

“Oh so you’re that woman.” Opening the gates a little wider, he watched as you entered. “Follow me, missy.”

The headquarter’s building was designed similar to your home. Traditional Japanese interior when you made your way through the front door. The tatami mats lined on the floor while the shoji screens littered every few steps.

The walking stopped and you were now face to face with Chrono. His mask present and his hood kept his hair hidden. The man who led you quickly bowed and left without looking back.

“Not the traditional meeting room?” You tried to joke. Met with only silence, you told him you were ready and he began to walk down the dimly lit path. Tailing behind him, you took note of the turns you had to take. For a while, it began to confuse you and realized that the sole purpose was for that.

It went on for quite some time before the halls were now lit properly and a double door was now facing you.

“Do I knock? Or do I just barge in?” You turned to be face to face with Chrono. A smirk landed on your face when he let out an unamused sigh. Before you knew it, he leaned and opened the doors for you.

Making your way inside, the decor of the room was nothing much. Two sofas parallel to each other with a table situated in the middle. A banner of their insignia hung proudly on the wall. Sitting on one of the couches was the reason why you were even down here.

Without his obnoxious bomber jacket, you had to admit that Overhaul looked pretty damn fine. Clean and proper. Taking a seat on the empty sofa, you leaned on to the back and shrugged your shoulders.

“Well, what do you wanna talk about?” You decided to start the conversation. In a way, it calmed your senses since the silence was deafening.

“What do I get in return?” His elbows rested on his knees. Tilting his head a little bit, he squinted his eyes ever so slightly. The horrible lighting of the room somehow made the golden trimming of his mask shine.

“You get to take their rank. You’re aware that the Fukoa Kai are pretty up there and surely you would love to have additional men behind your back.”

“And why would a police officer like you want to ask help from people like us? That’s a bit ironic now isn’t it?” Not a single movement save for his occasional blinking. “I’ve heard stuff about your lot. And it would definitely make things a whole lot easier. Besides, the chief of police saw it amusing by using me as a bridge. You’ve done your background check I presume?”

“(L/N). Daughter of the man who reestablished the Abegawa Tenchu Kai group from the dirt. Top ranking police officer despite having been born with the yakuza way.” He began to relay out. “Political immunity granted due to the old man pulling a few strings and helping the force every now and then. Such a shame his goal was patterned like that .”

Years of hearing that, you were now immune to those choice of words.

“If it calms your clammy hands,” You retorted. His eyebrows jumped a bit at how you raised your voice. “Only a few select people know about this. We plan to keep this on the low hence me meeting you. You won’t be meeting any of them, save for maybe one. But other than that, this would surely benefit you more than it would for us.”

“Tell me, (L/N).” He was now leaning on the back of the sofa. His head craned back to rest as well. You couldn’t help but wonder how heavy that mask was. Or what he was hiding underneath it. “Do you play shogi?”

Not expecting the question, you couldn’t help but giggle ever so slightly. Making sure that your hand partly covered the smile you were holding in. Tucking in a loose strand of hair, you lifted your chin and responded.

“I do but I’m not the best at it.”

“If I am satisfied with how you play, then we will commence whatever plan you have in your head.” He motioned for Chrono to get the board. “But, should I win, you have to add a few more privileges for my participation.”

“I’ll have to…” You had to cut yourself. Coming to a conclusion that your chief would surely decline it, you would just have to face the consequences of it later. “Sure.”

Watching as his companion laid out the board, you took the opportunity to observe what you could with the man sitting in front of you. His shoulders were broad and his face smooth. His eyebrows were quite unique as well. His lower lashes were eye catching, no doubt. Though his eyes were the money shot though. The dim lighting did no justice to the golden hues he were gifted with.

When his eyes met yours, he raised an eyebrow. You raised one as well. Furrowing his brows, you merely blinked lazily. Squinting your eyes, they slowly traveled down to his shoulders. Realizing that you were clearly checking him out, you jolted your sight once more and met his. The staring game was always fun for you knowing you don’t chicken out. When Overhaul finally broke connection, he gave you the liberty of ushering the first move.

The only sound that now echoed the room was the sound of your pieces being put into place. It was a rather intense game. For a while, he had managed to snag some of your powerful pieces but you managed to turn the table around by taking his as well. Chrono stared intently at the game. Seeing how his boss was now playing with his hundred percent was something he had not seen in a while. Looking at you, you were unfazed by the pressure of playing with the boss.

Little did they know that behind your poker face, you were panicking. The moves left were slowly depleting and you could only go on for a few more minutes. It was too obvious he was enjoying this. Deciding to play on defense, you picked up a tile and placed it where you intended it to be.

This exchange of moves went for a few more minutes before you finally saw the opportunity to grab his king. By now both of you had practically an equal amount of each other's soldiers. Though it would require you to sacrifice three pawns, the feeling for victory would probably be within reach in 5 moves.

5 moves later, you finally leaned back on the sofa. That had been one of the longest games of shogi you had ever played. Mentally, you were drained and hungry. The effects of the coffee had worn down 16 moves ago and you wanted to stuff down a hearty burger before you head to the precinct.

“When will the operation start?” Overhaul asked as he still stared at the board. Processing how he had just lost. Yet, he had to admit that your final moves were brilliant.

“I’ll give you a call.” You tossed the piece and he caught it with ease. His eyesight never tore from yours as he placed it back on the board. “But, I am in a rather good mood. The only add on I can give to you is that no snooping around will happen. Whatever it is you have planned in this maze of an office you have, I’ll have nothing to do with it. I’m here for one purpose and one purpose only.”

“Then so be it.” He accepted the offer. “If there’s nothing else-”

“How heavy is your mask?” You blurted out.

Both men in the room were rather speechless at the sudden question. Even you were surprised. That had simply been a thought but your mouth seemed to move faster than your brain could comprehend. Perhaps it was the hunger taking over.

“You don’t have to answer that.” You looked away and stared at their banner. Shame and embarrassment creeping into you. “But, yeah. There’s all there is to it.”

Once again, you were back to the winding halls. You didn’t bother memorizing the area knowing full well you were bound to go back. When the traditional walls were within sight once again, all you could think of was the exit and the nearest hamburg shop.

“What’s your quirk?” Chrono suddenly asked.

“Thought you’d already know by now.” You replied.

“It was marked as classified information no matter how deep we dived into the systems. Did you pay for the secrecy?”

“Nope. Well, maybe.” You were now facing the entrance. Chrono was still waiting for an answer. “I’ll tell you when the time comes. But, it has something to do with health. So if it makes your boss any less worried about the germs I carry, I’m clean.”

Waving a farewell, you walked and exited yourself away from the building.

Taking your phone out, you searched for the nearest hamburg store and began to walk your way. It was only a few blocks away so it wouldn’t hurt to exercise your legs. Glancing at the time, you were shocked that 2 hours had passed in that meeting. It felt too fast but perhaps it was the shogi that took up most of the time.

Realizing that you had to send updates to your partner, you searched for his contact and hit dial. He answered after the second ring.

“Yes, (Y/N)?” The typing of his keyboard was evident and you recalled just how many other cases he had under his care.

“It’s a done deal. But, I had to cave in with his one demand.” Letting him digest what you had just shared, you heard the creak of his office chair. A sigh followed after. “We are not to meddle with his affairs. One purpose and that’s it.”

“Well, at least it’s not much. And another team is currently doing that as well. Still, as expected from my partner.” He praised you. “How’d you do it?”

“I beat him at a game of shogi.” You couldn’t help but smirk at the memory of him realizing he was in too deep to pull himself out of the corner. “Anyway, I’ll be eating lunch. Want me to bring you something?”

“Daifuku will do.”

“Got it.”

Ending the call, you scrolled down through your contacts once more. Hitting up the dial button, you finally arrived at the food chain. The ringing still killing your ears. When the waitress handed you the menu, you were put into voicemail.

“Gei. Pick me up when you get this.” Placing your phone on the table, you called the waitress and told her your order. It would take 15 minutes for your food to arrive and that meant you had 15 minutes to dig around what you could about Overhaul.

Scrolling through news articles, there wasn’t a lot of coverage about him. As expected from a young yakuza member. How old was he anyway? Remembering how you asked him about his mask, you face palmed and scolded yourself.

The screen changed and Gei was calling you. A smile found its way to your lips. “Whattup girrrl?!” Your friend greeted you. His voice pitchy as always and you were positive he was moving his head with every word.

“Just finished a meeting with someone and was wondering if you wanted to crash by my place tonight?”

“Say no more boo. Imma bring some chips, a tub of ice cream, and the glorious wine!” His happiness was contagious. With such a tension filled job, it was a miracle Gei and you became friends. “What’s the occasion baby girl?”

“Uh, just the usual.”

“Ooh~ Is this a red wine situation or a moscato problem?”

What kind of problem was it anyway? If you replied red, it would mean work trouble. If you went with moscato, it would be a mix of work and relationships.

“I guess both?”

“Well! Lemme take my purse and rush to the convenience store! You better spill the beans (N/N).”

“I will~” You said farewell and he made sure to send kisses over the phone. Ever so flamboyant, your friend was. Yet, despite his personality, you knew that Gei would always be there for you no matter what. Of course, with him being your loud best friend, it was a given that you would do anything for him as well.

Your food was now served and you downed it in just 10 minutes. A new record, if you said so yourself. Wrapping things up, you took the daifuku and went your way towards the precinct. Wishing you had taken your car, you called for a taxi and took a quick nap.

[casper-writes-stuff]

A Deal

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343371/chapters/53376274#main

Summary: Virgil's magic had a tendency to go haywire. He's hoping a demon familiar will help him learn to control it, and the summoning of a minor demon is a rite of passage Virgil is honestly really late in accomplishing.

He regrets it instantly, when instead of a minor demon, one with a human appearance and snake like scales covering half his face appears in his summoning circle.

This is based off of a prompt I saw months ago, and to be honest I was going to abandon this wip but someone (you know who you are) gave me puppy eyes and I caved, so here. Have a gay demon and a very confused witch.

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright, Virgil? Your magic has a history of pouring too much into simple spells, and a summons isn’t exactly something you want to mess up.”

Virgil scowled out the window, grip tightening on his phone just slightly.

“I’ll be fine, Lo. Worst case scenario I’ll get an irritating sleep demon who refuses to let me sleep at decent hours of the night.”

Logan sighed irritably through the speaker, Remy’s voice coming through, though Virgil could barely understand it.

“No, Remy, I am not going to go to sleep right now.”

A petulant reply came soon, and Logan’s voice got muffled as he pulled away from the phone.

“Remy it is nine in the morning! I don’t care if you want to cuddle, I just woke up not even two hours ago!”

Virgil snorted, setting the last candle he needed in place, shaking his head while he listened to Logan argue with Remy.

“Lo, I’m gonna let you go. Ritual is all set up, it just needs me to start the culty chanting.

“I don’t know why you insist on calling incantations ‘culty chanting’ but alright. I’ll talk to you once you’re done, alright?”

“Sure L. You still coming over at three?”

“I wouldn’t miss it, V.”

After saying their goodbyes, Virgil pocketed his phone as he looked over the room. He got the sigils down very meticulously, terrified of messing up and getting someone he didn’t want, or worse, no one at all.

He took a deep breath and sat in a clear space in front of the protection circle, back straight, legs crossed, and hands hanging loosely off his knees.

Another deep breath, and Virgil closed his eyes and counted to ten before he let latin begin to spill from his lips.

He honestly had no idea what he was saying, the meaning of the words he was saying lost in the muddled thoughts of his brain. The only reason he didn’t stumble was because he had the incantation memorized by heart, having prepared for this ritual for months before hand to make absolutely sure he wouldn’t fuck it up.

Of course, as he spoke on the candles in the room began to flare brightly, flickering this way and that, sigils beginning to glow with the magic they were soaking up.

Virgil noticed none of this happening around him, eyes still closed and eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He focused on nothing else other than summoning a demon, any demon, who would compliment him and his magic. A demon that would help him get stronger, one who would help him control the surplus of magic he seemed to have.

In witchcraft, intent was everything. Sure, other things played a factor in the results one got when spellcasting potion brewing, but intent was everything. Intent decided whether or not your potion of luck was good or bad, intent made a spell’s strength wither or prosper. Intent could make something back fire, if you misunderstood what you wanted.

When a biting wind whipped through the air, Virgil’s eyes snapped open. He let out a coughing fit when he inhaled the candle smoke that had filled the air and made seeing almost impossible.

The wind continued through the room before all at once being sucked into the center of the protection circle and vanishing. The moment the smoke cleared, Virgil knew he fucked up big time.

This was supposed to only be a minor summoning, one that most young witches did as a sort of initiation into the community. Simply having a demon around boosted a witch’s magic, and in turn the demon could feed on the ambient magic that wasn’t being used by the witch.

It was simple, and minor demons were always eager to form pact with witches, the very action helping them grow in power.

But something had gone wrong during the ritual, and the demon standing in front of Virgil was most definitely not a minor one.

A dark chuckle echoed through the room, Virgil finally snapping out of his frozen fear to scramble backwards, away from the demon who seemed awfully amused by Virgil’s current position.

“Well, quite the position you’ve put yourself in, isn’t it?” he asked, the scales gleaming on the right side of his face almost menacingly.

Virgil looked around the room, cursing himself quietly as the idea of doing this ritual in his basement now seemed like a terrible one.

“Really, what a mistake to make,” the demon chuckled, stopping his progress forward at the edge of the protection circle. He tilted his head in examination of it before coolly stepping over it, the binding magic giving little resistance.

Virgil flinched as he felt the magic of the circle snap back to him, and if he wasn’t so busy trying to get away from the very powerful demon advancing towards him he was sure he’d be shaking with how scared he was right now.

His back hit the wall, and Virgil was finally forced to remain still. The next few seconds felt like hours as the demon finally stopped in front of Virgil, crouching in front of him with an entertained gleam in his more human eye.

“Oh you are cute, though, aren’t you?” he purred, making Virgil flinch when he grabbed his chin, gloved fingers digging harshly into Virgil’s skin.

The demon hummed thoughtfully, tilting Virgil’s head this way and that.

“How about this, I don’t add your corpse to my collection of pretty things, if…” he paused, grinning as Virgil’s eyes went wide (and subsequently locking on the very sharp fangs in the demon’s mouth), very obviously enjoying his terror.

“...you let me court you.”

Virgil’s heart stopped, his chest stilling as his terror finally won out and made air impossible to enter his system. He stared as the demon, the very powerful demon judging by the eerie golden glow emanating from his skin and the mostly human appearance, watched Virgil stop shaking as if a block had been put on all the functions he needed to be alive right now. Like breathing.

“As amusing as your fear is, little spider, I’m going to need an answer soon before this becomes a waste of my time.”

A wheeze escaped Virgil as his need to breathe broke through the stilling fear.

“Spider?” he rasped, bringing a hand up and curling it into a fist before he thumped it against his chest in an attempt to make breathing a little easier.

Mister powerful demon shrugged, shifting so that he was simply sitting in front of Virgil which, wow that was a disorienting image. Just a powerful demon whose strength was so great his power literally couldn’t be contained and manifested in a subtle glow from his skin sitting down in front of him like they were about to start gossiping about the idiots Virgil had to deal with at work frequently.

“Your magic feels like a spider skittering on my skin. Usually witch magic has more… pleasing feelings for humans. Like subtle rain shower or soft petals, so I was interested in why yours felt so typically unsettling.”

Virgil’s face scrunched up at that, refusing to relax but kind of curious at this new information about how magic felt to demons.

“...I like spiders?”

The demon’s brow raised at the statement-turned-question, watching Virgil intently.

“I’ll talk more about that with you if you say yes, little spider.”

“...And if I say no, you’ll like… gut me or something?”

The demon’s face scrunched up in distaste at that.

“No, that’s more to the style of a… friend of mine. I was thinking more along the lines of… sentient doll.”

Virgil shuddered at that, shifting so he was sitting more properly upright. He… definitely was not interested in learning how he’d become a doll, much less a sentient one, so he sighed.

“I mean… it’s not like I have much of a choice here. And I mean… wait… are you asking me to like… call you my boyfriend or asking for me to not outright reject you if you hit on me?”

There was a look of confusion on the demon’s face.

“Was my request to court you not clear?”

“No? That’s not exactly a phrase we use these days, dude.”

If this situation had been any less bizarre, Virgil would probably get hysterical over the fact that he’d just called the most powerful demon he’d ever met dude.

“Oh. What do mortals these days use to describe a romantic relationship, then?”

Virgil stared at the demon with wide, bewildered eyes.

“You want to fucking date me, and you haven’t even told me a name I can call you yet?”

The demon hummed, considering Virgil for a second.

“You’re at least smart enough to know a demon of my status won’t just give you my binding name. You can call me Deceit.”

He ran his hands over his face, putting pressure on his eyes after a moment, only letting up when the spots became painful.

“Okay. So you want me to call you Deceit, after the concept of being a liar. You want me to just… agree to dating you or suffer being a sentient doll with no free will of my own. Is there anything else you want to add to this absolutely batshit crazy situation, or can we call this good and I can spend the next several hours trying to figure out how to tell my best friend I’m dating a demon now I guess?”

Deceit watched him, not that Virgil could see it with his hands still pressed over his face. He could feel it though, and it was a little… creepy to say the least.

“No, I think you’re caught up on the situation and know just about everything I want you to.”

Virgil dropped his hands to his lap and let out a bitter, disbelieving laugh.

“Great, wonderful. Logan is going to fucking kill me,” Virgil squinted at the concrete floor between the two of them, “probably Patton too, if he knows I did this without someone here to filter the magic.”

Deceit’s eyebrows both raised this time.

“You did this ritual knowing your magic was powerful enough to summon a circle king?”

Virgil choked, his eyes snapping to meet Deceit’s in total shock.

“I summoned a circle king?!” he shrieked, scrambling to stand up so he could pace back and forth.

“I knew you were strong, the power glow exuding from you was enough of a tell for that, but I had no fucking clue you were a circle king Jesus fucking Christ. And fuck, my magic has that much ambient power? I just thought it was like… too much or something, like I was born with too much potential like Roman and his stupid demon that decided to look just like him and call them brothers, fuck!”

Deceit watched Virgil pace and rant in amusement, shifting slightly out of the way when he started flailing his arms to vent out some of his frustration.

Suddenly Virgil stopped, staring at the clock on the wall.

“...Why is that thing going haywire? It’s never even moved until now, no matter how many batteries I put in it or how much fiddling I did with the wiring, what the fuck?”

Deceit hummed, glancing at the clock in question.

“Oh, I have a… interesting relationship with time. Usually clocks don’t take too well with my presence.”

Virgil turned to Deceit, staring for a moment before letting out a disbelieving scoff.

“Of course they don’t. Of fucking course I had to summon a demon who’s relationship with time was batshit.”

“Well, you didn’t exactly summon me, little spider. It was more like I felt your magic as a suggestion, and I decided to follow through. You could’ve gotten someone much worse in terms of compromise.”

Virgil’s response was a strained groan as he stopped in front of one of the concrete walls and proceeded to bang his forehead against it repeatedly.

Deceit and Logan were now staring at each other, and Virgil was eyeing his coffee table in temptation to start banging his head against something.

“Virgil. This is not a minor demon.”

Virgil groaned again, falling back to the floor, having been kicked there when Deceit decided he wanted to lounge on the whole goddamn couch.

“Yeah, I know L. I can see the power glow too. And the human appearance that is definitely not a glamour. Oh and how can I forget the fucking snake scales on half his face?”

Deceit’s yellow eyes turned to Virgil, whose gaze was focused solely on the ceiling.

“Do humans often talk about their partners as if they’re not in the room?” he asked, miffed with Virgil’s tone.

Sighing, Virgil sat up to give Deceit a tired but apologetic look.

“No, I’m sorry Dee. I’m just… this is literally the worst thing that could’ve happened and- why are you looking at me like that?”

Deceit’s expression was shocked, and there was a pale dusting of pink on his cheeks that was almost endearing, though Virgil was not going to think about that right now.

“You called me Dee?”

“I… yeah? It’s a nickname?” Virgil asked, looking at Logan in confusion who only shrugged.

“It’s not exactly a special occasion, Virgil gives everyone a nickname if he can think of one. Roman is Princey and Patton is Ring Pop,” Logan explained, gaining Deceit’s attention.

“Oh? And what is your nickname then?” he asked, and Virgil couldn’t tell if he was irked that he wasn’t special, or genuinely curious about Virgil’s nicknaming habits.

“...I prefer L. But he has been known to call me Specs.”

“Logan, I’ve called you specs so much that Roman picked up on it.”

Logan frowned, tapping his fingers against his knee in irritation at Virgil’s amused grin.

“Yes well, that’s not the point of this conversation. Would you like to explain to me why Deceit has called himself your partner?”

Virgil’s grin dropped and he flinched.

“Right. Uh… I’m not… single anymore?”

Logan’s expression twitched before settling back into his preferred neutral face of displeasure.

“Yes, I gathered that. Would you care to explain to me why you’re now dating a demon powerful enough to give off a power glow?”

Virgil glanced at Deceit, who was torn between his previous shocked expression and being incredibly amused by Logan’s obvious baffled irritation.

“...He asked?”

Logan sighed in annoyance, pushing his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He was quiet for a few moments, taking deep breaths as he thought.

“Why did you say yes, Virgil?”

Virgil decided in that instant he was not going to tell Logan he didn’t have much better options.

“He’s hot?”

Deceit spluttered, then started cackling as Virgil’s face flushed and Logan looked up at the ceiling as if praying for patience.

“Let’s pretend, for a moment, that I believe that you ignored your preference to get to know an individual before dating them. You really expect me to believe you agreed to dating Deceit because you found him physically appealing?”

Virgil felt his face grow hotter as Dee’s laughter shifted into wheezing.

“Yes..?”

Logan gave a long suffering sigh.

“I’m insulted by your opinion of my intelligence.”

Virgil groaned and God, he was doing that a lot today.

“It’s not that! You just… wouldn’t like the real answer all that much so it’s more for my sanity that I’m not being honest.”

“In my own defence, I haven’t spoken to a mortal in centuries,” Deceit commented, wiping a tear from his more human eye.

Virgil flopped back onto the ground, then proceeded to bang the back of his head on the floor. Logan sighed, standing up and grabbing a throw pillow from the couch, walking around the coffee table until he was able to slide it under Virgil’s head without impeding the action.

“Judging by your stressed head banging, I’m going to assume this is a situation you didn’t intend to be in. That being said,” Logan settled a cold look on Deceit, who raised an eyebrow in response.

“Don’t fuck up my best friend. I have ways of making that a mistake you’ll regret.”

“Logan!” Virgil shouted, shooting back into a sitting position so he could stare at his best friend with a bright red face and a humiliated expression.

Logan didn’t react to Virgil’s protest, and Deceit only watched him with an amused smirk.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sure being banished by a mortal would be an amusing story for the demons who work for me.”

And now Logan’s brow was furrowed, then realization dawned, and he whirled on Virgil.

“A circle king?!”

Virgil grimaced, suddenly unable to look at Logan’s panicked and enraged expression. It was weird seeing him openly express his feelings, but right now he kind of wished for the neutral look he preferred.

“Uh… yeah. He um… apparently thought my magic was interesting?”

“I thought it felt nice, too,” Deceit put in, earning an exasperated glare from Virgil, that he only shrugged in response to.

Virgil remembered his questions pertaining to what magic felt like from earlier rising in his mind, and he couldn’t help but blurt the first question that popped up.

“Does demon magic have specific feelings, too?”

Deceit hummed, moving his attention from Logan’s frankly hilarious distress to Virgil’s… adorable curiosity.

“I’m not entirely sure, I’ve never thought to ask any human I’ve used my magic on.”

Virgil didn’t even hesitate before the next question was out of his mouth.

“You wanna use magic on me?”

“Virgil what the fuck?” Logan hissed, staring at Virgil with wide eyes.

He shrugged, looking back to Logan and missing the quiet wonder on Deceit’s expression as he did so.

“What? It’s not something we know, and I’m providing a way to find out. Isn’t learning something you encourage, Logan?”

Logan pushed his fingers through his hair, a habit he no doubt got from Remy, and groaned.

“I encourage learning when the process of getting information doesn’t involve granting a circle king permission to use magic on you.”

Virgil gave a sheepish grin that had Logan covering his face because it was obvious Virgil wasn’t going to back down.

“So,” Virgil started, looking at Dee with curious expression back in place, “magic. You can use it without like… hurting me, right?”

Deceit nodded, looking at Logan in amusement before he hummed in consideration.

“Let’s see I could… make you float in the air, though I’m used to making it several miles off the ground, I could just make it a few feet. I can also change your form, I prefer other animals but I’m pretty decent at other mortals if you wish. I also have a unique ability to make you tell me the truth, or others only fabrications.”

Virgil considered, humming in thought.

“I think… floating a few feet in the air is the best option there. I’m not particularly keen on spilling secrets, and changing form sounds… not fun.”

Deceit nodded, reached forward, and firmly pressed his hand on Virgil’s shoulder.

Virgil blinked at him confused until his hand was gone and suddenly he was rising into the air.

His stomach lurched in exhilaration, and Virgil couldn’t resist the nervous giggle that escaped him.

“Okay, weirdness of not dealing with gravity aside, this is… really fucking cool.”

Deceit chuckled, watching Virgil in amusement.

“Yes, but how does my magic holding you in the air feel?”

Virgil bit his lip in thought, focusing on the cool sensation practically wrapping around his skin.

“It feels… like a snake coiling up for a sun nap, I think.”

Virgil didn’t hear Dee’s breathing hitch, but Logan did. When he looked over at the circle king, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the awed expression he saw there.

Huh.

[steve0discusses]

The Full Metal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 8: Watch This Episode Covered in Butts be the Only One Not Flagged by Tumblr

Gonna be risky business and not only upload all of these caps the way I screenshot them--which has just SO MANY poorly CGI’d butts but also gonna do it on the Tumblr Drafts folder, which I have been assured works now.

I’m so worried about so many things, but considering all the fears I have about like...everything else in the world right now...I guess I’ll take a risk on tumblr.

Edit: I cannot believe that I had 8ish episodes of Kaiba’s tall dueling tower get flagged but not this movie. I just....wow I cannot.

So anyway, last we left off, General Hakuro stepped in and was like “Hi guys, you like my wily plans that no one in their right mind would have ever guessed???”

Yo remember this part of the anime? Where the bodies drop from the ceiling and it’s a hunk out of the final arc--it’s here. In this movie. This movie that can’t possibly afford to do that. Lets get some CGI animated bodies in here ASAP.

(see some texture regrets under the cut)

It’s like a Monet, as the Mean Girls say, because far away and shrinked to 500 pixels this looks kinda neat. They sort of look more like those slime ball that grow in the back of your throat rather than human bodies, but they still look pretty gross hanging up there.

But then.....we zoom in. Remember again that this was full screen on my computer, and at one point was on a freakin movie screen. This level of 3d...was on a movie theater screen.

The mind boggles. The mind boggles!

Like as you know, I am an artist, and I’ve dabbled in...basically everything in my pursuit to make a dollar...and I have taken about 2 years of classes in 3D art with Maya and all those. I’m not thaaat great at it--I’m much more an illustrator/painter--but I feel like I have that reference point. Can I just say--the model is...fine...you can do a lot with layers of bump maps so you don’t need a truly detailed model (not like they did that, because they didn’t do that, but I can figure that maybe they had an intention to do that and forgot?)

But, there’s no connection of the wires to bodies. They just kinda float? The bodies are also all the same shiny-ness? To the point that it looks like a copy paste? (I don’t think it is, the wires are slightly different on a few of them) There’s just not much in the way of a texture map or a bump map. It just...there’s also something missing from the skin.

Skin is actually kind of rough to render, so when I did it back in the day, I followed like a checklist to make sure I had all the layers and steps to make someone look...clammy. Some things are kinda translucent, they reflect light a different way...especially white skin like this wouldn’t be just...white like putty. Dunno if you ever saw a white person, but we got so many veins...there was so much potential to make something really gross and fleshy.

Instead we got silly putty. It’s fine. I’m fine.

So General Hakuro decides to just...kill everyone right now.

This makes no sense to me.

That means that the whole thing of Lust killing Hughes was completely unrelated to General Hakuro. All Hakuro needed was Shou Tucker, who has been in prison for...I assume months since Ed shipped him off. And Shou was only released today? Just now? Just now when Hughes was shot?

So this all just happened at the same time by accident?

I mean the General sent us to the wrong lab initially, so he didn’t actually want us to be here, and now that we are here, he’s going to set off an entire army as a reaction to three people walking in and going “oops”?

So, lets get a look at our army.

Oh it was so disappointing, this reveal. Not just the eyeball that has a bounce light coming from below the top lip there (how did that even happen???) but also when it opened it’s mouth, it had a flat animation of skin breaking--it wasn’t actually rendered 3d skin, it was like a jpg wrapped around it or something (or at least that was the illusion I got. That is fine for a video game or a TV show, but this is a movie. This is shot so that it can be displayed in a size bigger than your own house.

What happened to the animation team on this one? Not saying I can do better, cuz no, I can’t, that 3d chapter in my life was a while back, but I’m just one guy. This was an entire animation studio and they just...didn’t render 3d face ripping (which is their entire job, to work in 3d) and then they kinda just turned on the stock physics dynamics and dropped em instead of animating them.

The way they fell was like fish from a bucket--the same amount of speed, too. they all ragdolled like a 3D shooter, their rigs just hanging on for dear life (and yes, you could see the deforming happen on the joints of these models.) I’m fine with having a computer program render something out with a physics engine...but there is a balance.

You do have to still go in there and finangle it back because...real life is hella stupid. Real physics? So stupid. It was hilarious how nonthreatening it was, too because they’re like...the size of shrimps in that zoom out image. The scale is just so wild!

It was like one bored guy in a sound booth and they multiplied his voice three times. Golden. Absolutely golden.

So these guys stride over, all of them with the same amount of speed (leading me to think it was probably a recorded walk cycle they all share with slight alterations between all of em) and they kinda just...pile on eachother in a weird way.

I will give them this: I was happy to see something that wasn’t physics or procedural. They mo-capped and animated that part for sure. It had the touch of an artist’s hand. It was also a very funny way for Hakuro to die because this guy was on screen for like 5 minutes, and maybe 7 minutes of this whole movie.

Youknow...I think it really says a lot about your nude 3d models if they’re not disturbingly human enough to trigger the tumblr filter, youknow?

Anyway, Envy looks on.

And then Gluttony saves the city.

Meanwhile, they decide to bust out the fire effects and Mustang becomes the most useful person in this entire movie. Like honestly this movie was poorly named, because it should have just been “Mustang saves the FullMetal Alchemist’s Entire Ass.”

The next part seems like I forgot a cap, or maybe missed something. I swear to you, I did not.

First off, Al becomes fullmetal and makes this happen without an alchemy circle. The show doesn’t really care to talk about that though, it’s just a thing he can do now, and you’d only notice it if you were writing a Tumblr post about it.

I swear to you, Winry is just inside of Al and there is no explanation.

There is no explanation for this.

She was on the couch...why is she not on the couch? What?

And then when you think they might have a moment, Ed���s like.

Damn.

For reals what the hell was that entire scene except for a way for Ed to get his arm stitched back on in like 2 minutes?

Outside, Envy and Lust are just strolling around the back-alley of this red brick building we have seen used for this entire movie.

And like...it’s so funny to me because they weren’t trying to run or hide. It makes complete sense why they got shot. This is what happens when you just...walk away when the whole military guard wants to kill you.

Now lets go see how Hawkeye is faring.

Luckily, all of the ambling bodies have decided to walk slowly through this one weird grass section between extremely long buildings.

And Hawkeye tells everyone “You have to shoot their heads off” and I want you to look at that scene and tell me how many of those bodies still have heads.

Oh, all of them. Don’t worry about it.

Kinda hard to see, but Ed shows up to give Mustang a hand, which was fully unnecessary but we’ll get to that in a bit.

This movie is such a gem.

Ed goes big brain and realizes that Envy is still burned up, and thus is about to pass on.

And whatever, I’ll take it. It’s not like the movie has told us that they are made out of 1000000 lives, for all we know, in the movie universe, they really are only 4 lives. Like half a cat. Maybe Father only killed half a cat instead of an entire city.

Yugi Muto would be so freakin proud of Envy for how often this guy gets hit square in the chest with fire balls. It’s basically every scene where Envy and Mustang share screen time.

And don’t worry, I don’t think Envy died? But they sure made it look like he did, which I’m sure everyone everywhere was really happy to see, since Envy’s death was one of the climaxes of the whole series. Like people used to make these lists of “top 10 saddest anime deaths” and how many people had Envy on there? Like everyone? People freakin love Envy and they did him so much dirty in this movie.

Again I have no explanation for Winry.

So Mustang is like, Ed, you make sure Winry doesn’t biff it in that corner, and I’ll do my actual job over here on this side. And yo, he did.

And so then that’s it, Lust is dead, and now we have a Sorcerer’s stone.

Man it looks delicious, right?

I’d eat the hell out of that.

Anyway, we only have one more update and we’re done with this movie!

I know!

I know! They only have 10-15 minutes to resolve pretty much everything, and that’s assuming that the credits don’t take up a heap of that. Hell, I might only have 3 caps next episode if that’s all credits. I honestly don’t remember.

Anyway, hope y’all take it easy this February, here is a link for people who just got here to read these FMA recaps in Chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

[ckret2]

Mutant Dorat (Part 2)

This is part 2 of a commission fic for @sableghoste. You can read Part 1 here, but if you don't wanna read that part: the premise is Ghidorah is three juvenile dorats (cat/bat/snake pet things) and Rodan is a horrifically mutated baby dorat rescued from a military experimentation facility. And then they flirt. It’s nothing but Baby Monsters Being Cute fluff here, folks.

Cast of characters, ME-319 is a Xilien dorat breeder/caretaker, Noodle is Ichi/Ghidorah’s middle head (because I refuse to dignify him with a respectable name), and the "new arrival" is, of course, Rodan.

I ain't proofed this because it's already pretty late, it'll get proofed when it goes up on AO3.

###

Day three of the new mutant dorat living in ME-319's aerie.

Every time she glanced out of her office, he was easy to immediately spot. For one thing, among a sea of sleek golden serpents, he was the only one covered in dark rough rocky chunks.

For another, he was almost always alone.

When the other adolescents chased each other around in a flurry of excited activity, he tried to join in; and every time he did, they moved out of his way en masse, like a school of fish fleeing before an approaching predator. Whenever he flopped down to rest, the others gave him a wide berth, even getting up and scooting somewhere else to nap if he was too close.

It was just like she'd feared. The poor escaped lab experiment was just too different for the other dorats his age to see him as one of their kind. At least they weren't aggressive with him—but for a social little dorat, this kind of isolation wasn't any better.

ME-319 was worriedly checking up on him for the tenth time that day when she saw, for the first time, another dorat getting close to the mutant. Who was that—Noodle? Yes, that was Noodle. Huh. She'd never noted him to be particularly curious or courageous. Was he trying to figure out what the new arrival was?

She got up from her desk and stood at the door to her office, one hand on the latch as she watched out the window, waiting to see how this turned out. If all went well, she'd let them be; but she had to be ready to intervene at the first sign of violence.

She hoped this went well.

###

Okay. This was the third day the new arrival had been here. So he wasn't one of the temporary visitors that came in with owners for an afternoon and then go home. He probably going to stick around for a while.

It was time.

Noodle was going to make his move.

He couldn't risk letting anyone else move first. Sure, they were avoiding the new arrival for now—but sooner or later someone else was going to notice his gorgeous golden eyes, or realize how wonderfully intimidating those copper-black spines of his were. Noodle wasn't exactly what one would call a catch, what with his flaky scales (itched like nobody's business) and his rather under-developed tail spines. Not like, say, Pineapple. Mister Pine-"Wow I Haven't Even Noticed How Hot My Big Sharp Tail Spines Are, Let Me Swing Them All Over The Place And Get Them Stuck On Everything"-Apple. Jerk. If he took an interest in the new arrival—or, heck, anyone else between Noodle and Pineapple—he wouldn't stand a chance.

His only chance of getting close to that fine set of wings was by beating all his competition to the punch. He had to make his move.

So he waited on the fringes of the mob of playing kids—they were all avoiding the new arrival (for now)—until the shared frenzy of activity had died down; and then, while the new arrival was flopped down tiredly, grooming his spiny hide, he scooted in.

He was uncomfortably aware of others watching him as he approached the new arrival. If this didn't go well, he was going to draw everyone else's attention to the new arrival. He'd better get this right the first time. He had to be the most attractive, the most handsome, the most amazing and impressive—

What if the new arrival was into flights instead of spinetails? What would Noodle do then?

Don't worry about it. Just keep going. Stay on task—

Oh he was looking at Noodle.

Noodle—who until then had been slinking stealthily down low, neck and long tail practically slithering across the floor—jerked abruptly upright, staring. Oh. Okay. He had the new arrival's attention. Good! That was what he wanted! Exactly as planned!

The new arrival tilted his head curiously.

Should Noodle just—just start, then?  He raised a his tail uncertainly but didn't try to rattle its spines just yet, not sure if he was supposed to just go for it or if he was supposed to wait for some sort of signal from his audience. It always seemed easy when the elders did it. Maybe he should have followed some of them around to find out—

The new arrival let out a harsh greeting caw, launched himself up in the air, and dove at Noodle claws first.

Noodle yelped.

They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of wings and claws.

Abort mission abort mission he was not prepared for this! Wrestling was way farther than anything he'd planned for today! He was not trained in combat! He was hardly even trained in running around in circles! He was not an athletically inclined child!

He barely managed to whack the new arrival off of him with his tail and scrambled for the safety of the watching crowd.

Stupid stupid stupid STUPID stupid. Ohhh wow he looked like a loser now. That was it. He'd ruined his chances.

No—no, it couldn't be too late. He refused to accept the possibility. If the new arrival wanted him to prove himself in combat, then he'd learn how to fight. He knew the kids that got into scraps most often—he could spar with them. And once he wasn't terrible, he could try again.

In the meantime, if anyone else got close to the new arrival, he'd just have to sabotage them. Right? Sure. How hard could it be.

He shuffled off behind the chains dangling off the nearest low nest to watch the new arrival from afar. He'd righted himself after their brief skirmish, glanced around—for his battle partner? For someone else to fight?—then apparently had given up. Now he was flapping his way up to a higher nest. Instead of getting in, he latched his claws into the chain linked bottom side, dangled from the bottom of it, and swung back and forth, chirping merrily to himself. Wow. The power and grace. He was so acrobatic.

One way or another, Noodle was going to seduce him.

###

ME-319 winced as her newest dorat lost his grip on the bottom of the nest and tumbled to the ground with a squawk. At least he didn't seem harmed; he rolled over, shook his head, and fluttered right back up. And his short confrontation with Noodle had ended before she'd needed to intervene. He was fine. She forced her grip on her door handle to loosen.

Still. It had taken three days for one of the other adolescents to finally work up the nerve to try to befriend him, and he'd immediately scared him off. Why? Was he as scared of the other dorats as the dorats were scared of the strange mutant? It was possible—she had no idea what kind of experiences he might have gone through before he was rescued and brought to her. Between his physical deformities and the fact that he clearly hadn't been socialized by other dorats, she couldn't pick up on any of the usual body language she used to determine her other dorats' moods.

After that disastrous first meeting, maybe ME-319 had better prepare herself for the possibility that her little mutant was always going to be a loner. At a minimum, she doubted that Noodle was ever going to express any interest in him again.

###

If you enjoyed this fic, I'd appreciate a comment or reblog! Part 3 coming... eventually.

[whatwashernameagain]

Keep him safe - Chapter 30

You can read the previous Chapters here: Ch 1, Ch 5, Ch 10, Ch 15, Ch 20, Ch 25, previous chapter, Ao3 Link, Lo’s, Pat’s and Virgil’s aesthetics, Fantasy AU You are Magical, I’m dying to be with you

Pairings: Logan/Patton, Roman/Virgil

Words: 7.264

Warnings: Profanities, anxiety, low self-esteem, dirty jokes, invading privacy, stalking

Summary:  Detective Logan Sanders and his best friend and dorky partner Roman Prince have made a dear friend in the lovely pattisier Patton. Logan however feels a lot more than friendship for the sweet man, even though he knows he cannot possibly have him.  Their routine is broken abruptly when Logan finds bruises on Patton’s fair skin and slender wrists he could hardly have received from his costumary clumsiness.   Meanwhile his partner Roman has his own demon to fight, which comes in the form of a little delinquent who seemed to have been pulled into a street gang quite against his will. Roman is determined to help the strange young man. It would be so much easier though if he just stopped hissing at him!

Notes: A LOT of thanks to @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 and @hanramz-the-fander for working hard and helping me so much and generally being just amazing! This chapter was HUGE and they were amazingly helpful. Both of them are simply the best people! About the chapter… Uhhh I’ll let it be a surprise.  (Also I used to have a list of people who don’t like any sexual content and I lost it! Please let me know if you want to be on that list or if you need more things put into the warnings!)

Chapter 30

Roman closed his eyes with a sigh as Patton’s soft, band-aid covered hands gently twisted his curls and pinned them away from his face while humming a dreamy tune that soothed the nervous energy making the young detective’s heart still beat hummingbird-quick in his chest. He couldn’t seem to really calm down since the break with Virgil. Even his intention of not pursuing him anymore hadn’t eased his pain. The passionate creature had grown truly upset with his heroics. Now, there seemed to be a bitter weight constantly pulling him down painfully. Yet, as Patton scooted closer on the couch, almost settling in his lap in his concentration, and started to spread the cool lotion on his slightly reddened nose, his lungs seemed to be able to expand properly again.

The smaller man had been baking again and had filled the flat with an amplified version of the sweetness that always clung to his clothes. It seemed to fill the space with warmth and distracted a little from the tired, broken heart. Under the blanket settled around his waist, a tiny body stretched contently and dug sharp little claws into his thigh, before settling down with a rumbling purr. Logan was bustling about the flat, collecting laundry in a large basket as he wandered from room to room, growling whenever he found a wayward shirt or embroidered vest or earring Roman had flung off his body like colorful, shimmering scales, the crutch Patton was supposed to use still or a soft cardigan he had thrown over the back of a chair as he’d grown hot from playing with his pets or baking. 

 The smaller man had been very anxious, at first, about Logan’s annoyed huff as he’d had made his daily round cleaning up art supplies, odd books and notes, chew toys and now a soft little sweater. Despite his lively, sometimes scatterbrained nature, Patton had been painfully careful not to leave his stuff lying around and to anticipate what might anger Logan. Every day, Roman’s and his sheets and blankets were put away in the compartment under the couch before the young detective was done in the bathroom and the shower and sink were wiped down pristinely after he’d used them. It didn't take much to make him feel guilty and frightened. Someone being angry in his vicinity was enough to make him fear he'd done something wing. Lately, he seemed calmer about Logan’s grumbling, though. Virgil had pulled him aside and told him about his own attempts at being both useful and invisible. No one but him could quite understand the fear of being a burden and being cast out (or hurt, in Patton’s case) as a consequence. Their shared, whispered conversations in Virgil’s room appeared to soothe both of them. 

 It was obvious the youngest member of their household was still taking care of Patton’s fears and spotting them before any of the others had the chance. Otherwise, he was quite absent, though. Since Roman had come home, he was locked away in his room, as silent as if he weren’t there at all. 

 Despite Logan’s protectiveness and Patton’s loving touch, the hurt detective couldn’t escape the abyss Virgil’s reaction had pushed him into. 

 Feeling his chest ache with sorrow, Roman took another, suddenly constricted breath, trying to focus on Patton’s fingers on his cheeks, spreading the lotion against his burns, Logan’s deep voice talking to his pest-rat and the scents around him. Patton’s familiar, comforting scent of sugar, citrus and vanilla still clung to his clothes from the cookies he’d made for him. Still, infuriatingly, his heart hurt with loneliness. Bitterly, he wondered why he was made this way. He had all the affection he could ever ask for, and still something was missing painfully inside him. A space cold with the absence of someone he wanted so desperately. Or perhaps just cold with the absence of love. He’d forced Virgil into this tight vacuum that needed to be filled, but a free, brave thing like him couldn’t be captured to fill a void in some man yearning for him. He just didn’t want to be the one to love him as Roman needed. 

 He wasn’t the only one Roman could hope for, though. Someone - a dramatic, flamboyant, brilliant thief, had risked their freedom and health to make him remember this. 

 After a restless night in the hospital, Roman had awoken miserable and in pain. His eyes were burning and crusted with tears trying to clean out the soot, his lungs hurt from coughing and his throat burned so fiercely, he felt like he’d gargled acid. He was alone, ugly and disgusting. 

 Ugh, Roman had hated his own skin. He’d yearned to be in Logan’s arms. He’d wanted to go home. He’d wanted to cry. 

 Rubbing his sore cheeks and eyes, he’d tried to summon the strength to fix his sorry appearance. He’d need to get to the bathroom and salvage what he could so as not to frighten the poor nurses. They deserved a princely smile. 

 Trying to swallow down the sooty mucus his lungs kept forcing on him, he’d noticed a constricting fabric around his throat. Pulling on it with clumsy fingers, he’d gotten up to stumble into the bathroom. Blinking against the blinding hospital lights of the windowless, tiny room, he’d been astonished at what he’d found. 

 Yes, his hair had still been covered in a layer of ash and his cheeks and nose were reddened, and he was still wearing the white hospital gown, but something transformed the image and made him look almost elegant. 

 A clearly expensive, embroidered silk cravat was expertly tied around his neck. The scarf was died a light burgundy with darker shades around a swirling pattern highlighted with golden thread. It shone so smoothly and brightly it was almost blinding in the sterile light. The classical style of the fabric tied broadly and tucked under the collar of his shirt caressed his chest and transformed the sad, beaten picture he’d presented yesterday to make him look bright and lovely, like a pretty plaything on a wealthy man’s arm. 

Or perhaps it was the awed look that came over his features.

Logan had thrown a fit, of course. Roman, a well-trained and alert fighter in his own right, had woken up with the silken fabric artfully wrapped around his vulnerable throat, tied by fingers too nimble to wake him up with their touch. A thief’s touch. 

 The experienced detective had seen the worst in the situation and claimed they could have strangled him in his sleep. His partner could have been killed! The thought of them watching Roman sleep was enough to set his blood on fire but the fact that they had touched him- it did not bear thinking about. 

 Roman understood his terror. He’d been helpless and recovering as they had been standing over him as he’d been totally unaware of someone being close to him. And still, as he’d curled up in the unyielding cotton sheets, dressed in scratchy, bleached fabric, the cravat had felt like a lover’s touch. Even the danger of having been at their mercy felt, to his fanciful mind, romantic. Maybe even a little bit erotic. As if he were a prize to be stolen away. Something pretty to be adorned however they wanted. The center of their attention. He couldn’t help picturing the scene, over and over. The thief, masked by shadows, leaning over his helpless form, their fingertips so light on his skin, adorning him with their gift, their claim on him. 

 Someone was thinking of him, wanting him, even as he felt undesirable and uncomfortable in his own skin. The thief had cared enough about him to come see him and, despite probably feeling less than glamorous themselves, leave him something to give him pleasure and remind him of their admiration, their affection. Just like his statement of the crown and cape, it showed what they thought about the young detective. Whenever he received another gift from them, he could see himself through their eyes. For them, he was precious, bright and desirable. Something rare, worth courting and owning.

 He knew he wasn’t supposed to like the way they overstepped his boundaries and ignored his right not to be touched without his consent. Intellectually, he knew he was supposed to be better than this. Stronger and more independent. He wasn’t supposed to be so desperate for someone to fix him, to make him whole. It wasn’t the way the modern prince he wanted to be was supposed to feel. And still he liked the thought of someone being possessive over him. Someone wanting him so much they wanted to capture and own him and never let him leave. It meant stability. Safety. It meant he wouldn’t have to be afraid of being abandoned and alone. 

 He’d always felt this way, if he was honest with himself. It was why he liked it when Logan publicly introduced him as his partner, or when he defended him, or even when he called him ‘his idiot’. 

 Despite his best intentions not to fall into a foolish, clearly unhealthy romance again, Roman felt so appreciated. He’d spent so many nights dreaming of having someone to love that he’d tried to make his wish come true by flirting and charming everyone till it became second nature to him. He wasn’t looking for casual affairs or to be with many different conquests. He just wanted to be noticed by someone who’d make him feel worth being loved. 

 Especially now that he’d abandoned his hopes for a relationship with Virgil, he yearned to belong to somebody. Clinging to Logan, who was quite willing to keep him close at the moment, helped make him feel less alone, but it didn’t really help against the fear of ending up alone. Unloved. Logan had Patton now and eventually, they’d end up together, he was sure of it. He wanted them to. And if Virgil, who was brave, fierce and beautiful, would find somebody as well, where would Roman fit in the world? No, he couldn’t part with the gift. Despite the helpless anger Logan had reacted with, he’d kept the cravat. 

 Now, battling the loneliness, the young detective focused all of his senses on the cool silk on his skin, the contrasting heat at the back of his neck where the fabric trapped the warmth of his body, the expensive quality of the stitching he could feel by touch alone, remembered the feeling of worthiness it gave him, while he repeated his mantra like he had every night at the academy. 

 ‘Nobody hates you. People care about you. You are not unlovable.’

 Still, his throat closed up as he remembered the cold, lonely nights. The feeling of being alone and unworthy still reared its head sometimes, no matter how much he was given. Not even Logan’s care had been able to banish his episodes entirely, but he’d made them more bearable. 

 Now, as Roman felt himself slipping despite the gift, he grabbed hold of one of the most substantial things in his life – Patton – and pulled him into his arms. The smaller man huffed a surprised laugh as he dropped the lotion. Pliant and willing, he adjusted to being squished against a hard chest and fumbled to wrap his arms around the broad shoulders. Digging his fingers into the lush hair and running over the soft fuzz of the undercut, he resumed his humming as he offered all of the support his warm body could give. His lashes brushed Roman’s cheek in the softest of touches as he rubbed his face against the smooth, heated skin. With a little maneuvering, he managed to straddle the taller man’s lap (without squishing Nugget purring under the blanket) and wrapped himself around him in a way that allowed him to tuck his sweet prince’s head against his chest. Roman’s entire body seemed to deflate with his sigh. He buried his face in the fluffy fabric and lost himself in the lavender tinted darkness of the embrace. The urge to cry and hide was hard to hold back, but Patton gave him just what he needed. He smelled only him and felt nothing but his warmth, his softness, the vibration of his humming. 

 The rhythmic caresses over his back helped calm the detective. Patton was so patient and kind, shielding him despite his small size. No matter how much he’d been through, the baker made him feel like all was right in the world. Like neither of them had suffered and like he was utterly content just to be allowed to hold Roman. And he felt like he was made for it, too. 

 Being ever observant, Roman had noticed easily that he’d chosen to order the largest and softest sweaters and cardigans the fashionable man would let him get away with as they’d online-shopped together. Weary of letting him return to the flat, he’d pleaded until Patton allowed him to choose a small array of clothes with him and buy them for him. Now, he was wrapped in soothing pastel colors and fluffy, downy softness that invited cuddles and tender hands on him. He’d lured Virgil into his arms repeatedly and even managed to tempt Logan to run his palm over his back as he’d dared to lean close to the taller man, and now he was inviting Roman to sink into his embrace. He was like a ray of sunshine, warming the whole flat with his bright presence. There were no words to express the young detective’s gratefulness to him. Leaning up, he brushed a soft kiss to his cheek, making Patton laugh. Returning the gesture, the baker kissed his friend’s cheek, his nose, his forehead and the side of his mouth until his beloved prince smiled for him. 

 “There you go, RoRo. That’s the handsome prince I’m crazy about.” He crooned at him. Though he was getting antsy with his wish to return to the café that required him to pay bills, pay salaries, bake and try to salvage his reputation with his customers he’d abandoned, being there for Roman gave him everything he needed to ignore the anxious fluttering behind his ribcage. 

 “C’mere, let good old Pat cuddle you. I’ve got you and I’m not letting you go, my most cared for kiddo. It’ll be alright.”

 They sunk against the cushions, curling up in each other’s arms with Roman’s head on the smaller shoulder and his arms wrapped around the slender figure. Despite the size difference, he felt protected. 

 “You think so?” He asked hopefully, feeling foolish even as he asked. He should be able to handle the consequences of his actions instead of begging for reassurance like a child. 

 Patton knew immediately what bothered him. Despite his own fear, he’d seen that Roman had gotten scolded more than enough and had offered forgiveness and support. 

 “But of course! Virgil just got scared! He cares about you very much and we are all proud of how brave you were! I am for sure! It’s just that we hadn’t heard from you two and got worried, and then we called the precinct and asked about you and heard about the fire, and you in the hospital, he got really anxious, poor kiddo! But it was just because he cares so much! He sometimes doesn’t know how to show it, is all!” Patton promised earnestly, brushing his dear friend’s hair back and holding him tightly. 

 If that was true, Virgil had a truly bad way of showing that he cared, Roman thought.

 After being scanned and poked and attached to machines and comforting Logan he’d been utterly drained. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. But at least his partner had finally calmed down and climbed out of the bed with a blush before settling in a hard chair next to the bed. The screeching sound of sneakers skidding around a corner promised more company, though. He remembered hoping it wasn't Patton running around without his crutch he hadn't liked in the first place. He'd preferred walking carefully or hopping around (and stumbling into people's arms due to his poor coordination) to using the crutch with his still injured hands.

 Unfortunately, upon reaching Jake at the precinct and learning that Roman had been in an actual fire, no reassurances could keep them at the flat. Patton was beyond himself with fear. Overhearing Jake frantically trying to calm them down, Captain Holt snatched the phone and gave them a quick rundown of the situation before sending Rosa and Amy to pick them up. The baker had hardly been able to wait for their ride while Virgil had started nervously pacing and biting his nails. 

 Upon arriving at the entrance of the hospital, Patton hadn't even taken his crutches. He'd stormed in so quickly, he’d crashed into the front desk with an oof. 

 “Roman Prince!” He’d gasped. “Where’s my RoRo? Please, lady, I have to see him, he was in a fire and is dreadfully hurt! He needs us!” 

 Despite cutting the line and causing a ruckus, the receptionist melted under the large, hazel eyes. 

 Upon receiving directions, Patton dashed forward with enough momentum to cause a ruckus in the hallways as he dragged Virgil around corners with him. His face was ashen with worry. 

 “Hey, you can’t run in here!” An angry nurse called to him. The slight man nimbly ducked under her arm, for the first time uncaring about being nice. 

 “Sorry, my son’s in here!” He’d chirped, before changing directions so abruptly, he almost yanked Virgil off his feet. Missed the door!

 As Amy profusely apologized to the nurse (and Roza flashed her badge with a glare), Patton burst into the room and crashed into Roman with a cry. 

 The detective gasped as he was suddenly assaulted with a fluffy hug. Patton was like a whirlwind, taking his face in his hands to check him over and examining him for burns and bruises with gently insistent touches. 

 “Oh gosh, RoRo, sweetie, are you hurt? Can I help?” He’d rambled, his large, pretty eyes damp with tears. 

 Baffled, Roman tried to make sense of the anxious, caring creature almost crawling onto the bed with him. His head felt like it was splitting open and his throat was burning with acidic pain. Finding words to soothe the pâtissier felt harder than ever. Even Logan could not overlook the tiredness of his partner and stepped in. 

 “He will be alright, Patton. Roman suffered some minor lung damage from smoke inhalation, but he will make a full recovery.” He’d explained gently while carefully placing steadying hands on his shoulder and waist and steering his friend from the bed into the much needed chair on the other side. Standing behind him, he grasped the fidgeting hands in his own and cradled them safely, bending over him to do so and enveloping him in his protective warmth. The baker’s next breath came more easily as he was able to lean against the solid body behind him. 

 Hoping to put his dear friend at ease despite hurting all over, Roman wrestled the mask off his face and gave them a sweet smile. 

 “It’s all good, fair Patton. A small inconvenience like a fire will not hinder my quest.” He’d promised reassuringly despite his aching throat and ruined voice. 

 “A small- how can you say that?!” 

 Virgil’s shrill screech startled the young detective all over again. He was too tired for this. Even smiling at Patton felt like it drained him to the point of making tears fall. He wasn’t even sad, it was just all too much. 

 The barista had things to say, though. His hair was messy and tangled and his nails were bitten bloody again from the way here. The wild, dark eyes were wide in his pasty face. Though pretty as always, his elegant paleness had been replaced by an unhealthy hue. 

 Nothing could have prepared Roman for the way the lovely young man’s words turned sharp and cutting suddenly. 

 "You suicidal maniac, do you have any idea what you almost did? Don’t you care?! Do you ever think that people worry about you when you go charging into a- a fucking fire? Patton was beyond scared because you had to play hero and for what? Attention? For him?! Are you that ignorant? You have a family here and you just throw it away for a quest – are you serious?" 

 Roman shrank into himself on the bed as he was suddenly yelled at. His heart was racing immediately. 

 “No- Virgil, I didn’t mean to-”

 “I don’t give a fuck about your excuses you bloody, selfish idiot!” The younger man screeched. Patton gasped, shooting up from his place shielded by Logan’s solid body. 

 “Virgil, stop it!” He cried.

 Shooting Patton a glare, the barista turned on his heels. 

 “Whatever, I’m done here anyway.”

 The door had slammed behind him so loudly the small baker had flinched. Concerned and not knowing whether to follow his little delinquent, comfort Roman or take care of Patton, Logan placed hesitant hands on the young man’s back and arm. Breathing hard, Patton had ducked into the detective’s embrace. He’d been shaking. So was Roman. 

 *

 Though the distance between him and Virgil made a coldness seep into Roman he was too familiar with, the obvious pampering he received from both Logan and Patton helped the young detective recover. The baker stayed close to him (resting his foot on Logan's order) and tried to crochet friendship bracelets for them. Knowing Roman couldn’t deal with silence right now, he kept up a stream of chatter and constantly curled close so he got hugged and cuddled. 

 Logan was using the time to clean up the flat and wipe down the surfaces. Whenever the kitten escaped their cuddle pile he’d bring it back from whatever spot he’d discovered it in – hiding in his laundry basket, sneaking into the sink to curl up, tucking itself onto his books in his room or settling its little butt into Roman’s leather shoes. It liked to hide, which made Logan live in constant terror of locking it in the dishwasher or sticking it into the washing machine with his gray fabrics. Thus it was returned to Roman and Patton whenever he found it, like a piece of decoration that just would not stay put. It had its place, like Nicodemus on his shoulder or Cat in Virgil’s hoodie, Logan failed to see why it would not just remain where he placed it!

 His recurring trips to the sofa brought him close to his partner, though. Using those opportunities, he’d check on his mood, bring him tea or water to ensure an optimal intake of fluids or simply run a comforting hand over his head or back. Monitoring his condition was the sensible thing to do, after all. And it afforded him the opportunity to glare at the cravat Roman had insisted to bring home. 

 All of their colleagues had called or texted as well. Roman received a selfie of Boyle, Amy and Rosa where she almost barely smiled. It went into his favorites folder. During midday he even got a present. Jake has sent a large extra cheese pizza from their favorite place with a scrawled letter drowned in glitter and stickers (stolen from Terry and his daughters). Grumpily, Logan had pinned it to the fridge and allowed the breach of the dietary plan he’d drawn up for Roman’s recovery. 

 The love and attention helped him despite the guilty, hurtful coldness caused by Virgil’s stubbornly closed door. 

 *

 Despite the thick tension still filling the air, the next day dawned with a more hopeful tune. The sun was shining, soft and warm, and Roman woke up to Patton wrapped in a blanket like a Jedi master braiding his hair. Returning his smile and tackling him in a hug felt natural. Even Virgil emerged towards lunch and silently started chopping carrots with a vicious expression. It was progress. 

 While Logan got to work on his monthly analysis of their finances and Patton dove into the pantry to find the sprinkles in order to make cocoa in the hopes of tempting them all to the couch after lunch, the doorbell rang. 

 Roman had been cocooned in a blanket nest by both Patton wanting to cuddle and Logan not knowing how to show his love and other way, so Virgil dried his hands on a dish towel and went to check the door. He tried to avoid looking at Roman’s pitiful form as much as possible. 

 Standing on his tiptoes, Virgil wearily peered through the door-spy to find out who was bothering them. He hated unannounced visitors. Who just showed up ringing people’s doorbells? Texts had been invented, right?

 “Logan, there’s a homeless guy at the door!” He hissed to the approaching man. How did this guy even get into the building?

 On the other side of the steel reinforced door, there was a lone man bouncing on his heels in the corridor. Honestly, he gave him the creeps with his slightly manic smile and wide eyes. Yet he still felt sorry for this mess of a man immediately, having been on the verge on homelessness himself. That was no reason to give a stranger an opening to get into the apartment though. 

 The man had the look of a runaway from a hospital and hiding in the gutter. Though tall and under the dirt probably remarkably handsome, his wide grin and dancing green eyes made him look slightly unhinged. His naturally brown skin was accentuated by a streak of premature gray in his unwashed hair. The loose white blouse he wore had tanned with orange-tinted earth and was lined with green at the sleeves and torn at the shoulder. A thread had come loose at the bottom which was being pulled at almost compulsively and wrapped around fidgeting fingers. 

 Instead of the disgruntled look he had expected, Logan’s shoulders fell in relief as he checked out the newcomer. Virgil's hackles rose immediately as he pulled the door open. What the fuck was he doing? The look Logan gave the other was one of a man pulling his drunk friend from a ditch with reluctant affection, reassured at having found them. The detective placed a calming hand on his little charges’ elbow before greeting his acquaintance. 

 “Professor Duke, I was not aware you had returned from Europe already. Allow me to introduce you.” He paused briefly, catching the fern in mid-air the man’s sticky fingers had grabbed curiously and pulled from the cupboard next to the coat rack. The detective looked resigned to the attempt of the ‘Professor’ at breaking his things and replaced it calmly. Roman made a despairing sound behind them upon spotting the visitor, dramatically throwing his hands in the air. 

 “This is-” Heaving a sigh at once again being interrupted by the slightly older man, Logan grabbed his unwashed, wandering hands attempting to touch his face with a distasteful expression and held them in lieu of a handshake. 

 “This is Remus Duke. He is a Professor of Practical Philosophy specializing in his opposition to Conventionalism. He believes the unspoken rules of society are inherently dishonest and hinder the pursuit of knowledge and therefore should be rebelled against whenever possible in order to gain true insight into a person’s character. Additionally, akin to Diogenes of Sinope, he believes in rejecting worldly riches and criticizing society through unorthodox and disruptive action. Did I summarize your thesis correctly, Professor?”

 “Yes, that was just right, Pupsekins! After all, how do you get to know your upstairs neighbor properly by adhering to the shackles of politeness that binds us like twinks in a bondage dungeon? ‘How are you’, ‘I’m fine’, ‘good morning’, ‘don’t touch that’. HOW CAN YOU LIVE LIKE THIS?!” He howled, his voice becoming shrill immediately. 

 “You never know a person until you break the equation of phrases and expected answers and introduce yourself by breaking in at 3am playing the accordion with a pot-bellied pig! It’s just more honest.” He exclaimed, all the while trying to flail grandly while his hands were still grasped, looking pleased with himself.

 “I almost shot you.” Roman growled, after freeing himself from his nest, his attractive face unusually dark. He looked like he wanted to evacuate his family and leave the country. He’d even dragged the little pâtissier coming to look half behind himself. Patton’s small hands insecurely holding onto his back gave him the much needed patience as his blood started to rush loudly in his ears. 

 “Yes, that would have caused quite a mess, wouldn’t it? Imagine all those brains splattered over the couch!” Remus answered cheerfully while making the explosion gesture for good measure, speaking with a slight, Greek accent. 

 Logan had used the brief exchange to examine the other man critically. 

 “Did some unforeseen event occur, Professor? I was under the impression you were teaching a course on uninhibited moral questioning at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Did the food not agree with you?” Logan inquired, looking distressed. The wrists still gesticulating and fidgeting in his loose grip were disconcertingly thin. The cheeks stretched in a wide grin were sunken. The man now bobbing up and down had an ill, underfed look about himself. Even before Remus had the chance to start talking, he found Logan’s hands tilting his chin up, probably examining him for signs of scurvy. The detective had told him the fact that chips were made from potatoes didn’t make them count as vegetables! His guest obediently spread his arms wide, bouncing on his toes and enjoying the attention as his hair was pulled gently and his skin was inspected.

 “Oh, I was! I also went to Turkey to organize a little protest against President Erdoğan’s repression of minorities and wrote a mature little song for him. It’s about his evident fear of the vagina and depicted a nice scene about stringing him up by a revengeful uterus cut from the politically castrated female as well as suggesting he shove his politics up his butt along with a goat’s d-” Roman made a high pitched noise of agony, covering his ears. Behind him, Patton’s eyes grew big. 

 Waving his hands in a flippant gesture, Remus added, unconcerned “Anyway, my whole class learned it and I got to conduct, it was delightful. Then I got arrested and imprisoned for about three months before the American ambassador got me out and sent me home.” 

 “How did I not hear about this?” Logan cried, pale with horror. 

 “Weeeell, looks like I’m not a poster boy for a political prisoner. Prooobably not white enough.” The scraggy intellectual replied, waving a hand at himself. 

 “You are an esteemed professor of modern Philosophy and a bestselling author in a groundbreaking ethical school of thinking!” Logan exclaimed, clearly flabbergasted.

 “I’m also a pansexual, middle eastern refugee poet, sweetcheeks.” He tried to grope Logan’s ‘cheeks’ before barreling on. “OH! Or perhaps the government is afraid to hear my poem about their kink for putting children into bondage cages or their sadistic pleasure for watching women slave away a day after having their vajaja torn up by shoving something through that’s the size of a watermelon?” He grinned at them brightly, looking perfectly innocent and yet alight with malicious glee.

 Virgil appeared torn between horror and fascination. Yes, this dude really was fucking disgusting – but also kind of amazing. How ballsy did you have to be to pull off something like this? After all these years, he found himself yearning to grab his jacket and organize a protest or a sit-in. Why had he even stopped?! This smelly man suddenly looked a lot less of-putting and a lot more inspiring. No wonder his students were following him to listen to his dirty-worded ideas. 

 He wasn’t getting anywhere close to Patton, though. He didn’t trust this man as far as he could throw him. Logan seemed to like him, but the man had an unfortunate tendency to adopt people he better not trust, Virgil being the best example. He could have murdered them all in their sleep after all. 

 Remus started picking his nose, having apparently zoned out despite all of the attention focused on him. Yeah, he’d keep an eye on that. 

 With a growl that sounded close to a nervous breakdown, Logan pulled his dirty finger free and grabbed the man by the back of his shirt like a kitten. 

 “You are never leaving my supervision again.” He hissed, sounding half wild and wholly determined, before dragging him onto the corridor and allowing the front-door to fall shut behind them. Confused (and despairing, in Roman’s case) the others were left behind to listen to the muffled conversation. Their curiosity made them grow quiet in hopes of catching parts of the surely interesting exchange. 

 “THIS IS CENSURE OF THE CRUELEST KIND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME! I’LL STRIKE, I WILL STARVE MYSELF TO DEATH IF I HAVE TO!” 

 The sudden shrill wail made them all startle. Patton grabbed his friend’s hands instinctively. Their detective’s calm voice rumbled an answer too quiet to hear. 

 “THE OUTRAGE – I AM A PHILOSOPHER – A POET SUFFERING FOR TRUTH AND LIBERATION FROM INHIBITION! YOU CAN TAKE YOUR PROHIBITIONS AND LUBE THEM UP AND-”

 The firm answer was spoken quietly, yet it seemed to have the power to cut through the outraged wailing and shut the other up. By now, the little group had shuffled to the door to listen. 

 “The aforementioned topics are not forbidden with the wish to cause you discomfort or censure you. Their discussion could cause serious emotional pain or may possibly – what is the correct expression?” Logan asked, fumbling for the unfamiliar word in frustration.

 “Trigger?” Remus suggested, clearly sulking. 

 “Yes, thank you, Professor. The aforementioned topics might ‘trigger’ an unfortunate emotional response in some of my friends that I wish to avoid, so I am requesting you to avoid mentioning them in order to prevent unnecessary suffering.”

 A long silence followed. 

 “BUUUUUUUUUUUT-”

 They could all imagine The Look Logan was giving the other man over severely crossed arms. A sigh that implied unimaginable suffering followed. 

 “Fiiiine! But I am not happy about it! This is the ONE THING I’m all about, you KNOW that! You are shACKLing ME! I’m feeling like a dead baby seal, dried like a worm on the sidewalk!” The sound of petulantly stomping feet sounded. 

 Though he was clearly feeling repressed and grumbled about white bears and impossible expectations, in their future interactions he never actively mentioned certain topics like Patton’s relationship or prostitution and once miserably turned his sentence into sad blubbering as he started going on about a tangent about addiction. Logan looked proud of him. 

 This wasn’t good. All the signs were there - the parenting, the physical contact, the possessiveness. Horror spread in the fair, young detective’s heart.

 Roman didn’t want Logan to adopt such a vile creature! It was bad enough that he had to put up with a feral raccoon and a manipulative pest, but this went a step too far! This distasteful individual would infect them all with rabies! The few months he’d spent in this building before moving back to Greece had been bad enough. 

 Also, he didn’t want to share Logan.

 His older partner appeared too distracted to notice his worry though, and steered the warbling not-homeless man into the bathroom where he firmly closed the door behind them. It stayed that way for more than an hour. Steam started billowing from the crack beneath the door. Sounds of a struggle reached their ears. 

 “In Mary Curry’s name, I will bathe you in bleach if you do not cooperate!”

 Meanwhile mumbling with worry for the poor, hungry little thing - that was also more than a little frightening, to be honest, Patton rushed to the kitchen to feed their guest. He was so starved – how terrible! He needed to get some weight on him as soon as possible. There would be a meal waiting for him once Logan brought him out. Despite his discomfort, the pâtissier was ready to take care of this helpless disaster. 

 Devastated, Roman slumped on the couch. He’d been so glad to be rid of this crass menace. 

 The sound of running water and loud, crude complains sounded from the bathroom. After checking on Patton, Virgil had grabbed his gym bag and vanished towards his vegan, environmentalist friend Talyn, probably planning to rope them into causing trouble for some unsuspecting company or politician. 

 Patton was banging about in the kitchen, sweetly offering him tea and cookies before returning to his cooking. Though Roman knew he could join him and be hugged and listened to, he didn’t feel like seeing his worry and affection for a man that irritated him to the bone. He literally made his skin crawl with disgust and horror.

 Roman pulled his legs up and hugged them. He felt very alone. Despite Logan’s best attempt at keeping and loving him, he was no stranger to this feeling. It surfaced with depressing regularity and drove him away with the feeling of being isolated and ugly and a failure. It was easy to place the blame on his own shoulders. It wasn’t the Professor’s fault that Logan was focusing on him now. The man’s family had fled from the middle east during his childhood. On the way, he’d lost almost all of them to one war or the other until he’d finally arrived all alone in Greece where he’d been raised in the system. Despite the obvious damage his experiences had caused him, he'd turned his problems into something that defined him in a way that he could be proud of himself for. He was a successful academic and someone Logan could respect and talk to while still giving him something to fuss over. He needed that. Roman on the other hand kept getting himself into trouble and wouldn’t be content, despite his partner’s best attempts. Here he was, loved and cared for with Patton just a room away, wanting nothing more than to hide. The urge to cover himself, to be invisible and just disappear was almost impossible to resist. 

 He had a place where he went whenever this feeling overwhelmed him this way. 

 Next to him, the tablet pinged to life, showing him a notification on the lock-screen. 

 Looks_can_be_Deceiving_. sent you a message.

 Breathing a shaky sigh, Roman cradled the tablet in his hands, surrounded by people, yet isolated from them. At least one person was still thinking only of him. He didn’t know how to proceed with them, but he knew he couldn’t stay here where Logan was taking care of him and Virgil had left without even looking at him. 

 “Hey Pat, I’m hopping over to my place for my nice velvet sweater. Be back soon!” He called with forced cheer as he slipped on his shoes. The door had closed behind him as Patton worriedly dashed out of the kitchen. 

 ***

 Virgil felt like smashing something, preferably something that would shatter with a satisfying crash. Instead he settled on aggressively folding the blankets Roman had left scattered on the couch. He’d returned from a brief workout with Talyn after making enthusiastic plans with them to attend the Fridays For Future demonstrations together, finally feeling like a human person again, only to find Patton in a right state. Roman had left to his mystery place and now Patton was anxious about him on top of having to deal with the filth this fucking weirdo was sprouting. Dressed in more borrowed clothing and scrubbed quite clean, he looked a lot less frightening at least. It angered Virgil that he used every opportunity to upset the gentle baker, but after Patton had firmly told him to control his tongue and glared so fiercely that the weirdo had actually sunk down in his seat he’d dared to leave them alone in the kitchen. Logan was there to fret over them after all. He deserved the discomfort of having to deal with both of them after continuously adopting fucking people. He refused to acknowledge his hypocrisy, fuck you very much. 

As he violently shook out another blanket, what the fuck who needed that many blankets, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground and was immediately pounced on by Nugget. Great. More stuff. 

Bending down to place the paper with the hairclips and the magazines he’d found and deposit the kitten with Cat curled up in the ruined-clothes basket, he found smudged handwriting on it. Reading being second nature to him, he scanned the words with half a mind while untangling his fingers from slobbering kitten bites. 

He froze.

What the…

Feeling weak and unsteady suddenly, he sunk onto the couch. 

What the fuck was this? Cold dread drove its way into Virgil as he read the words again, trying to understand the sheer depth of emotion they displayed. 

It was him - them. He’d been right, Roman had gone into the fire for them, they’d turned his head around so much he’d run into a burning building for them. This wasn’t an investigation anymore. Not with the scarf this stalker had put on him like a fucking collar he wasn’t even taking off, not with this! He’d brought this thing home with him despite having been stalked and probably even watched and – and touched by this manipulative bastard and now he’d left. He could be with them right now. They could be doing fuck knows what with him. 

They could be seducing him away from him right now. 

Despite his terror for Roman’s safety, Virgil knew he was strong and could take care of himself if threatened. This was different, though. He couldn’t protect his stupid, dumb heart from being stolen! Despite trying to ignore it, he knew Roman had fallen for Virgil, for fucks sake, and he was the last person who’d encouraged or deserved him. He’d even committed a crime for Virgil, it could have cost him his job and all he’d done was play the victim! But this person – they were actively pursuing him. They were twisting him around their finger with their artful words and gifts and gestures and- and their fearlessness Virgil couldn’t even hope to match. Roman was there for the taking, he suddenly understood. He was vulnerable to being offered love, just waiting for someone to want him and now that they were here, he’d fall. 

And it was Virgil who’d driven him from home. 

“Logan!” He called, frantic with fear. His friend was there immediately, knowing what was going on the moment he saw the note. 

"Verdammter Mist." He muttered, glancing towards Patton looking anxious from his spot on the other side of the counter he’d been sure to keep between him and their guest. He appeared torn on what to do. Taking a deep breath, he turned to Virgil and took a steadying hold of his shoulders. 

“It will be alright, Virgil. I need you to help me with this.” He explained gently. “I believe it’s time you got to see Roman’s apartment.”

***********

My whining: Hey guys! I would really appreciate some feedback or reblogs. I don’t know if a lot of people are just lurking on the fic or if it’s not as interesting anymore, but I feel like I may not be doing such a good job if I don’t get any reactions on Tumblr. Feeling a little down with this fic right now.

I really hope you enjoyed that little chapter! I know you are all probably annoyed at me for making you wait, especially since the next part is already completely done and beta read, but it was so loooooong. I will post chapter 31 in about a week, though. So you have something VERY emotional to look forward to. A lot of people helped me with it and it has to do with Roman and Virigl.

Next Chapter

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

Masks

Prompt from @no-one-remembers-achmed : May I please have Deceit in these glasses if that is ok with you? This is... probably not what you wanted at all. But this is what my writing-blocked brain allowed me to produce so oh well. Sorry for the wait as well! Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit, tiny bit of angst, minor insulting (tell me if I should add anything!) Note: All of Deceit’s lies are italicized

    Since Deceit had first appeared to Thomas, he had been hanging out in the Light sides realm more and more. Most of the time, he said it was because they had to work together now; Deceit wanted to talk with them about how to help Thomas. Other times, he’d randomly appear, making it extremely clear he had not brought himself to the Light realm on purpose.

    Apparently, since Thomas knew about him, Thomas’s own mind was attempting to force him into the Light realm. Normally, it was fine, and the other sides just brushed it off as an inconvenience.

    Today, however, Deceit had found himself pulled up right behind Roman. He tried to step back, knowing that scaring the fantastical and armed side would not end well, but he bumped into a chair instead. Roman jerked around, sword half drawn as the plate of pasta he was holding fell on the ground and shattered.

    Roman looked at Deceit, a fire in his eyes as the deceitful side took another step back. “I’m so not sorry.”

    “Yeah I bet you are.” Roman replied sarcastically, looking at his pasta in annoyance. “Stupid snake…”

    Deceit bit back a response to that, sinking out before he’d have to deal with regeneration from the sword Roman looked ready to run through him. He appeared in his room, taking another step back the minute his feet appeared, as if he expected Roman to have followed him.

    But no one rose up, and Deceit let out a sigh over how easily he was riled up. He took his bowler hat off, dropping it beside him as he sat on his bed. He ran a hand over his scales.

    Stupid snake…

    It wasn’t like the other sides hadn’t pointed out his resemblance to a snake before. In fact, Deceit was normally all for the comparison. Snakes had a sly sort of charm to them that Deceit appreciated.

    Recently, however, Deceit had started to wonder if the comparison was not, in fact, in his favor. The sly charm he enjoyed being associated with was probably seen negatively by the sides- example one: the incident that had just occurred.

    Deceit had never been ashamed of his scales. But if he wanted the others to trust him, if he wanted to work with them to help Thomas and maybe even get them to understand that he wasn’t the dark side they all saw, he may benefit from showing them a little less.

    He couldn’t, of course, just make them vanish altogether. Shapeshifting didn’t work on them- Thomas had, subconsciously, assigned him the role of the lying snake, and regardless of the form he tried to take that would always follow him- and even just using makeup to hide them would just look straight-up suspicious.

Plus, putting on the makeup for Logan and Patton had taken hours and that had been for good purposes. He wasn’t going to do that here just to have himself found out in a few minutes.

So he started with a mask.

Idea one went horribly.

He had gone with a phantom of the opera style mask, golden instead of white, hoping they’d just assume he was adding to his outfit. It had gone over mostly well, Roman even complimenting him on the flair it added.

Virgil’s first response, on the other hand, was to scoff and ask him if he was trying to be a disco ball instead of a snake. Deceit wasn’t one hundred percent sure he had meant it in such a way to see through him, but it was close enough for him.

The next day, he tried wearing a sparkling yellow bandana that he wore lopsidedly over his scales. He mostly got weird looks about it until Roman told him applying sparkles directly to his scales would look much better. So that didn’t work.

Deceit then tried simply wearing his hair so that it covered them, the effort to grow his hair and keep it grown only a minor strain in the back of his mind. This one was accepted by the group, but Patton kept tucking it behind his ear, cooing about how his eye was too pretty to hide.

He had admitted defeat earlier that day, deciding he didn’t need to deal with being teased for his blush. His hair shortened back to its normal length the minute he was back in the room, sighing. His list of semi-decent ideas was officially out.

Deceit glanced at the notepad that was sitting on his desk, a list of stupid ideas written out alongside the few good ones. He picked it up and frowned at it. At least one of them had to be better than his scales being visible, right?

Turns out, the answer was ‘nope.’

Some of the more stunning failures included switching his bowler hat for a baseball cap to pull down over his face (no one would mention it, but the looks he got were… not good), a large beanie (aside from covering both his eyes to work, every single side asked him why he was copying Joan), and sunglasses (didn’t work great, since they didn’t cover most of his scales, but he hoped they’d distract from them… until Remy had met him in the kitchen, saying he had smelled someone trying to steal his style).

And now, he was out except for one option he barely wanted to consider. It was wholly stupid and unlikely to work, but, hey, at this point, what did he have left to lose?

That was why, day number twenty-nine of this whole game, Deceit was to be found lounging in the common area wearing ridiculous alien sunglasses. The frames were yellow to pretend to match his style, and Remy hadn’t attempted to fight him over these, so it worked for him.

Worked for him until, busy trying to block out the world and play on his phone despite the huge blockade the glasses presented to this, he didn’t notice the light sides exchanging awkward glances as they grouped up around him.

“Um, Deceit?” Deceit looked up, trying not to startle when he realized he was effectively cornered.

Doing what he did best, Deceit pretended to be unaffected by this revelation as he turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Yes?”

Patton had pressed his hands together, looking unsure of how to go with this. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Deceit lied. He slipped between truth and lie often enough he hoped they would assume this was a truth.

“Are you sure, kiddo?” Patton pressed. “You’ve been acting… strange, lately.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, cut the bullcrap, Deceit.” Virgil snapped, managing to startle the entire group. “You’ve been wearing the most ridiculous things for the last month and we want to know why.”

Deceit hesitated in giving him an answer, thinking of the most believable lie. After a moment, he smirked, channeling all the charm he could. “Got to keep you all on your feet, don’t I?”

“That makes no sense.” Roman said after glancing between the others. “And I know no sense.”

Deceit frowned at Roman, not sure what that meant. He was going to voice his confusion, hopefully distract from the situation they were trying to focus on, but Logan spoke up first.

“Have we considered looking at the common thread between these unusual occurrences?” He asked, frowning when the other sides just looked confused. “Deceit was always covering his scales.”

The rest of the Light sides’ eyes widened in understanding before they turned to look at Deceit again. The deceitful side considered sinking out, wondering if they would drop it or follow him.

“Deceit.” Patton said, worriedly but sternly when he actually attempted to leave. “What are you trying to do?”

“...Leave?”

Until that point, Deceit didn’t know that blinks could be disappointed, or that they could all occur at the same moment between four people. He sighed, pulling off the alien glasses and setting them on the couch next to him.

“I have not recently become aware of the fact your dislike for my scales.” Deceit said after a minute of silently staring at the glasses. “Or, rather, your dislike for the creature they link me to.”

“Creature?” Logan repeated. “Do you mean snake?”

“No.”

The Light sides glanced among each other again. Deceit opted to continue focusing his attention elsewhere.

“Deceit, what on earth gave you that impression?” Roman asked, and Deceit tried not to glare at him, given his own comment had been the final straw on the snake’s back.

“You four have many times connected me to snakes in a negative way.” Deceit explained, too weary to keep himself from telling the truth. “I just thought I’d do you all a favor and remove the source of that connection for you.”

“We don’t negatively connect you to snakes.” Patton said, sounding confused and sad.

Deceit crossed his arms. “Roman called me a stupid snake the last time I forcefully popped up.”

The group turned to glare at Roman, who held up his hands in defense. “He made me drop my pasta! I am very passionate about my pasta!”

“It doesn’t matter.” Deceit said, waving it off as he stood up and grabbed the alien glasses. “It was a wake-up call. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather just retire to my room for the rest of the day. Or week.” He added under his breath.

“Deceit, wait.” The scaly side stopped in his walk, but he didn’t turn to face Patton. “I’m sorry.”

Deceit spun around, surprised by the comment. His surprise only grew when he found the moral side’s expression ashamed and not amused Deceit had been so easily tricked.

Beside him, Logan straightened his glasses and cleared his throat before adding, “As am I. As are all of us, I believe.” Roman and Virgil nodded in agreement.

“I-” Deceit cut himself off, pausing to try and sense the lie. As far as he could tell, however, there wasn’t one. “You are lying.”

“We’re not.” Roman protested, not recognizing the lie. “Deceit- we liken you to a snake because we thought you liked that. We never mean it as an insult.”

“Yeah.” Virgil agreed, looking awkwardly at the floor as he added. “Plus, your scales are cool. Not weird or anything.”

If Deceit was less preoccupied, he would have teased the anxious side for the rare show of a non-sarcastic emotion. At the moment, he was busy trying to decide if this was more likely to be a dream or a hallucination, because there was no way this was happening.

“You can still return to your room if you wish.” Logan continued when Deceit didn’t respond. “But if not, perhaps there is a way we can make up this… miscommunication incident to you?”

This brought Deceit back to his senses enough to nod his head. “You do have to do something.”

“We want to do something.” Patton pushed before grinning. “Come on! It can be something really stupid, if you want.”

Deceit smirked. “Something really stupid, you don’t say?”

~~

Thomas stood in the middle of his living room, various bills clutched in his hands. Normally, budgeting was a Logan only issue, but Thomas needed to change enough things he felt it was a good idea to talk to all the Light sides for this one.

“Guys?” He asked the empty room while looking at the numbers, having done this too many times to feel stupid about it anymore. “We need to talk.”

A moment later, Thomas’s personality rose around him.

“How may we assist, Thomas?” Logan asked from behind him after the normal greetings were said.

“I need to cut some things-” Thomas stopped talking as he looked up, finding his fanciful side to be… different. Glancing around, he found the difference present for all the sides present: they were all wearing alien glasses, frames matching their respective colour.

He frowned, trying to decide what was going on. “Why…?”

Virgil just smiled tightly. “Don’t ask.”

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

LinkedUniverse Fanfiction Ch. 15: Painting the Town

Stop! You’ve Violated the Law!

So, you’ve stumbled upon this original post for my Linked Universe fanfiction. That’s okay, it happens to everyone. As of March 2021, I’ve uploaded the entirety of this fanfic to my Archive of Our Own page. Along with finally giving the story a name–Oops! All Links: A Linked Universe Story–I made substantial edits to some of the chapters. These range from minor stylistic revisions to fixing a gaping plot hole that kinda completely broke the character conflict in the earlier chapters. I also renamed and renumbered (but not reordered) the chapters. Specifically, this is now Chapter 17: To Sell a Butterfly (Pendant).

The AO3 iterations of these chapters are the definitive versions. So, if you would like to read this fanfiction, please do so on AO3, right here. With this embedded link. Hehe. Geddit? Link?

Note: My screen name on AO3 is FrancisDuFresne. Yes, that is me. I am not plagiarizing myself.

Anyway, for posterity’s sake, the rest of the original post is below the cut.

It’s finally here! Wow! ... If you thought the long wait would end with a chapter the scale of “Fire,” you’ll be sorely disappointed. Sorry, folks. Still, now we finally get to see more of Selggog and the Links’ quest. When we’re talking my fan narrative, what can beat the hijinx of the Heroes of Wind and Twilight? Word Count: 1576

“So why’d you come with me, instead?” Wind asked.

Twilight looked down to his friend and shrugged. “I didn’t want to sit around waiting for Wild to find weapons he liked. Potion shopping beats that, at least.”

Wind glanced upward at passing shop signs as they walked down one of Selggog’s many busy streets. The others sent them to resupply on potions. Hyrule had finished the last of their stock following their skirmish with the Hinox. The two of them had been searching for an apothecary for the past half hour.

The elder of them sighed. “We should ask someone.”

“Where’s the fun in that, though?” Wind countered. He was jovially bouncing about on the balls of his feet with each step. “Having absolutely no idea where you’re going makes it a little adventure!”

“Aren’t we already on an adventure?”

Wind frowned. He clasped his hands behind his head and looked up. White, fluffy clouds dotted the otherwise clear sky. “Yeah, I guess,” he said somewhat dejectedly. Then, more chipper than before, “Well, it can be a side quest. How about that?”

“’Side quest?’ Kind of a silly name for it.”

“Yeah? Well… I like it.”

Twilight let out a bark of laughter. “Maybe it’ll stick.”

Some passersby knocked shoulders with the Links as the streets became busier. “Ack!” Wind grunted. “You know,” he called out to someone ahead who had rammed into him, “wouldn’t kill you to say sorry!”

“Shhh,” Twilight hushed sharply. “We don’t want—“ he was cut off by someone bashing his shoulder—"unneeded attention.”

Wind rubbed his shoulder and looked up to his friend. “You think they’re always this in a rush?”

“Dunno. I’m not used to city life.”

“Yeah,” Wind said. He thought back to Windfall Island, which he used to think of as a metropolis. “Gotta say this place is a bit bigger than I’m used to.”

Twilight patted his pockets. Satisfied everything was where it should be, he glanced at his partner. “Just make sure no one filches anything. You have your wallet, right?”

With a pffft, Wind checked his own pockets over. “Of course I d—”

A pause. “Wind?” Twilight asked. He stopped walking.

The youngest hero looked up at his friend with a sheepish smile. He raised his arms in a guilty sort of half-shrug. “Wind,” Twilight said slowly, “Don’t tell me you—”

“Yep.”

“By Ordona…” he cursed, smacking his forehead. He thought that over. Why did I just hurt myself? I didn’t do anything wrong. He promptly smacked Wind on the back of the head.

“Ow! What the heck?”

“What did we tell you?!”

“To watch out for pickpockets…” Wind admitted with his head hung, kicking at a pebble on the road.

“And did you?!”

Wind looked up.  His wide eyes seemed to burn with anger Twilight had never seen. “No, Twi!” he shouted back. “I didn’t! So can you stop yelling at me and making me feel like crap so we can go find it?!”

Twilight was about to fire back, then paused. For all Wind had been through, he was still just a kid. He sighed and looked around. Some people had stopped and were staring at them. “Well?” he called out to them.

They shrugged and went back to bustling down the street on their errands. When Twilight turned back to his friend, he found him breathing deeply with his eyes closed. “Hey,” he began, “I didn’t mean t—”

“Stop,” Wind interrupted. He opened his eyes and met Twilight’s gaze. “Just because I’m cheery most of the time,” he whispered. Twilight could barely hear him. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings like everybody else.”

“I—”

“Just remember that.”

Twilight had never seen the youngest Link upset enough to yell. He really had struck a nerve. “Okay,” he said. “I will.”

Wind’s expression softened. “Thank you. Now let’s find my wallet. What’re we gonna do?”

“I would suggest we ask Sky to borrow the Master Sword for its dowsing ability.” He considered this. “But even if it was willing to help, there are so many wallets in this town that it probably couldn’t pick yours out of the crowd.”

A thought struck Wind. “What about your wolf sense?”

Twilight looked around. The streets were packed with people going about their business. He remembered how the residents of Castle Town reacted to seeing his beastly form. “No. I don’t want to scare all these people.”

“Fair,” Wind replied. “But what else can we do?”

“Uh…” he muttered, wracking his brains. “I… I don’t know.”

Wind’s jolted to attention as if shocked by a yellow ChuChu. The sudden movement made his partner flinch. “What if I just earn back all the money that was stolen?” Wind suggested, thrusting his arms down, palms up, as if pointing out something totally obvious.

Twilight’s brow furrowed. “That might actually work…” he admitted pensively. “How much was in there?”

Silence. Well, at least between the two heroes. The townspeople were loud and rowdy as ever. “Um…” Wind said, clearly stalling. “Not too much.”

“Don’t dick around with me. How much?”

“About two-fifty?”

“That’s a lot of smashed pots,” Twilight joked, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms. “How do you plan on earning that much?”

The young seafarer dug in his pouch and pulled out a necklace. “I’ve got some treasures I can sell. How many people here would buy a chintzy necklace with a butterfly pendant?”

“With this many people, hopefully at least a couple.”

“How much should we charge?”

“How many do you have?”

“Seven.”

Twilight nodded. “Anything else?”

Wind shook his head. “Some trinkets, feathers, a lot of junk.”

“Right. Well, let’s get started.”

“Hoi!” Wind called out to the crowd. “Beautiful butterfly necklaces here! Twenty-five rupees apiece!”

No one walked over to them. The crowds just kept moving by. Undeterred, Wind repeated his sales call even louder. This turned some heads, but nobody came. He tried once more. The second-floor shutters of a nearby building slammed open. A disheveled old man in a sleeping cap poked his head out. “Quit yer yapping!” he shouted down to the Links. “People are trying to sleep!”

The two heroes glanced at each other, paused a moment, then shrugged in unison. Wind hooked his thumbs on his belt and shifted his weight to one leg. “Guess that’s out the window,” he said.

Twilight let out a frustrated sigh. If he had just been more careful, we’d have potions by now, he thought bitterly. No, stay focused. We need to figure this o—

“Oh!” Wind exclaimed, again startling his friend. “Let’s find a shop that will buy some of my stuff!”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure most shops won’t buy off strangers. They’re trying to sell their junk, not buy yours. Think how fast they’d go bankrupt.”

Wind shook his head. “No no no, I mean a treasure teller! Someone who deals in treasures. There was one on one of the islands I sailed to. I’m sure there’s one around here.”

“Alright,” Twilight said, “how are we gonna find one? Search every street? That didn’t quite work for the apothecary.”

“Look for a sign with a rupee on it,” Wind replied, scanning the street for such a sign. “There’s gotta be one aro—OH! Look!”

Wind pointed out to the building directly across the street from them. Sure enough, the storefront had a multitude of rupees painted all over it. Twilight sighed in relief. “That was easier than expected.”

“I wouldn’t get too excited. We have no idea what they’ll offer for my stuff. These guys can be fickle.”

“Right.”

The two heroes crossed the street and entered the store. The walls were covered in a bizarre wallpaper filled with celestial bodies and distorted floral patterns. The shelves immediately drew their eyes. Treasures and spoils lined the perimeter of the store. Everything from golden statuettes to fine china to jewelry to precious stones rested upon the shelves. A beaded curtain hung in the doorway between the store and some back room.

While Wind marveled over the treasures, Twilight strode to the ornately-decorated counter. It was adorned with an equally beautiful silver bell. He gently tapped its button. A soft, pleasing ding rang out. No one came after a few seconds, so he rang it again, a little harder this time. He strained to hear any movement in the back room but was left wanting.

By now, Wind had refocused and walked up beside his friend. They glanced at each other. A look of confusion and mild annoyance passed between their eyes. Wind shrugged. “Hello?” he called slightly louder than the second bell ring. Nothing.

“Oh, come on,” he grumbled with a huff. He hooked his thumbs in his belt again. “Maybe no one is here?”

Twilight shook his head. “With this kind of merchandise, the door would have been locked tight.”

“So why the heck is no one coming?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Alright, here goes,” Wind said with resignation lacing his voice. He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Hoi!” he yelled. “Is anybody here?!”

Nothing. The hairs on the back of Twilight’s neck stood on end. His eyes narrowed. Honing his wolf senses had carried over somewhat to his Hylian form. Something didn’t sit right with him. “Quiet down. This doesn’t feel right.”

Just then, a drawling whisper came from directly behind the young heroes. “No need to be afraid, dearies…”

[raendown]

Commission for @kitsunekage88!

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 5863 Rated: E Summary: After all the things they had gone through together and the ten long years they had been mated, Tobirama would have thought Madara understood that he didn't need gifts to stay here. There was no place he could possibly be happier than tucked under the mountain with a dragon to warm his bed and all the passion that entailed.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Light A Fire Under The Mountain

Tobirama hummed as he ran his fingers over the beautifully preserved leather before him, gold embossed lettering glittering enticingly along the spine, and smiled as he bent down to discreetly take in the scent of old parchment and ink. Just lifting the book and feeling the heavy weight of it in his hands was a thrill as he gleefully imagined all the glorious knowledge contained inside. Without even checking to see whether Madara was hidden away somewhere watching him Tobirama held the book to his chest and hurried over to their massive four poster bed, sinking himself down in to the space where he hadn’t even straightened the covers that morning and shuffled around until he’d made a perfect little nest in which to devour his latest present.

Maybe some of his lover’s habits were beginning to rub off on him. This urge to nest everywhere was starting to get a little out of hand. Not that Madara seemed to mind, really. If anything whenever Madara came across the little spaces Tobirama had claimed for one reading binge or another, small little bundles of blankets or pillows all drenched in his scent, the idiot always seemed to puff up twice as large with an odd sort of pride.

Dragons were like that, he’d come to understand, territorial and fond of marking their place. Tobirama would have thought he might object to someone else doing the same in amongst the caves where he kept his hoard but he hadn’t complained yet. If anything it seemed to please him.

His responses had started with subtle things, much to Tobirama’s surprise. Madara wasn’t exactly known for his ability to be subtle in pretty much anything but in this he at least started off well. His early gifts had been concealed as him merely showing something off that he ‘just thought Tobirama might like’, feigning surprise when the item was well received and suggesting a little too easily that Tobirama should keep it where he could find it again if he liked it so much. Over time Madara rapidly grew bored of the incidental gift charade and turned to much more obvious methods like boldly draping Tobirama in luxurious furs or leaving ancient texts prominently displayed on the bedside table like he’d done today.

Lost in the words on the page the moment he opened them across his lap, Tobirama couldn’t be sure how much time had passed or when his mate had appeared and slithered in to the space next to him. Between one moment and the next he became aware of the warmth pressing up against one side and the steady hot breathing against his wrist where Madara was peeking down at the book with something like pride in his eyes, a happy little curl of steam rising from under the massive bulk of his hair, pleased to see his gift being appreciated.

“Where did you get this?” Tobirama demanded breathlessly. “Every scholar I’ve ever spoken to has told me that every copy had been destroyed!” Madara sniffed in offense.

“Every copy was destroyed. This is not a copy, obviously.”

Suddenly the book felt so much heavier over his lap, the weight of it doubled by the knowledge that it was an original volume many would give their last copper just to have the chance to peek at. With a great deal of willpower he managed to tear his eyes from the pages and turn to grant Madara an appropriately grateful kiss. “I would love to hear the story of how you came to possess such a valuable treasure.”

Madara rumbled with pleasure and nuzzled at the base of his neck. Nothing pleased a dragon more than sharing tales of treasure seeking.

Luckily he knew Tobirama well enough to know that he meant later when he wasn’t reading. Patient and long-lasting the elves might be but they were notoriously vicious when someone interrupted their deep focus and Tobirama was among the worst offenders for that. Neither of them moved very much for several more hours, not until Tobirama finished the last page and closed the cover with a deeply satisfied sigh. He most certainly would be reading this again several times to inspect every page for any extra little nuggets of information he might have looked over or passages he might have misinterpreted. Truly an excellent gift for someone like him.

Twisting down to look closer at the face lightly napping against his shoulder, Tobirama pressed a kiss against Madara's forehead to rouse him. His lover came awake with a low rumbling sound and a curl of smoke slipping out from between his teeth.

“No smoking in the bedroom,” Tobirama reminded him.

“Didn’t mean to.” He stopped immediately, the single little puff that escaped drifting up and dispersing easily. “You enjoyed the book, I see.”

“Have I ever not enjoyed one of your gifts?”

“Gifts. Hmph.” Madara rolled away from him with a throaty chuckle and Tobirama rolled his eyes. He did try to be polite in return for each present yet always he was met with this same odd laughter as though his being thankful were some sort of great inside joke.

Choosing not to dwell on the intricacies of a mad dragon’s brain, Tobirama stretched and looked around. The time-keeping device Madara had given him soon after he officially made his den here told him that he had read his way through the rest of the evening and almost the entire night cycle. Outside their mountain the sun would be waking soon and his stomach was very interested in the prospect of breakfast, having skipped dinner entirely by accident.

“Will you be greeting the sun?” he asked, legs kicking the nest of blankets apart so he could extract himself and head towards the food. Madara shot upright from where he had begun rolling in the leftover scent and hummed thoughtfully.

“Yes, it’s been a while since I gave my proper thanks.” His black eyes glowed red for a moment, the fires within stoked with excitement. Descended from the most ancient of bloodlines, only the dragons remembered the days when magic was first gifted to the world. As a creature of fire Madara owed his own embers to the sun from which he drew his power. “I should like a chance to stretch my wings as well.”

Tobirama smiled as he watched his favorite idiot scrambling about their bedroom. Why the man insisted on looking his very best in this form when it couldn’t even fly was beyond him but the ritual was important to Madara and so he said nothing like always. Instead he used the time it took his mate to get dressed to rummage through the kitchen and throw together a quick sandwich that he could carry with him up to the twisting staircase carved in to the wall just outside their bedroom, bare feet clinging to the living rock as he ascended the mountain and came out on to a small terrace overlooking the lands around them.

Watching Madara fly was always a treat no matter how many times he was honored to bear witness. Dragons being so protective of their hoards, it was rare for him to leave it undefended for any longer than it took to pop away for necessities like food. Settling down at a small table he had dragged up here just for these mornings, plate and sandwich balanced on his lap, Tobirama had only just taken his first bite when there came a thunderous roar from not far below. Black and red scales in the pattern of burning wood, Madara was without a doubt the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen with a temper to match. Perfect in every way. Tobirama nibbled his breakfast and watched those massive wings catch an updraft to ride it in lazy spirals.

Sun rituals didn’t look all that much different to him than aimless flying no matter how often Madara insisted there was a very specific flight pattern. It was still a pleasant way to start his morning, tracking the magnificent beast above him and admiring the shift of those impressive muscles, the beating of his wings, listening to the sound of his intermittent cries. Each roar echoed over the mountain range behind him and it was only the safe distance between them that allowed Tobirama’s sensitive ears to appreciate the siren sound.

It was, after all, hearing a dragon’s call in the distance that had first peaked his curiosity and led to their meeting for the first time, a woodland elf discolored and unwanted by his own tribe facing off against a fire dragon with teeth bared and body tensed to defend the territory he had claimed.

The sun had risen well over the horizon and the sky turned from golden dawn to clear midmorning by the time Madara finally returned, diving for the mountain he had made his home and tucking his wings in at the last second to slide his bulk in to one of the open rooms down below. Tobirama wriggled his toes and contemplated going down to greet him but he wasn’t overly fond of the lower rooms, half open to the world outside to give Madara a space to change his form, to take off from and land again. Without those rooms he would have had to crawl out the top of the mountain every time he wanted to fly. Since Tobirama had no need of so much space he preferred to stay in the upper floors where no breeze could flutter the pages of whatever books he chose to surround himself with.

Eventually he lingered on the terrace long enough for Madara to come find him and pull him back inside. Seeing the invigorated look in his eye, Tobirama followed along easily, allowing himself to be pushed back down in to their bed again for a bit of exercise they could both benefit from.

He napped afterwards, all the sleep he’d missed the night before catching up with him and sending him in to dreams almost before they could clean up after themselves.

When he woke again a light weight lay over him and he assumed that Madara had covered him with blankets until he shifted and something foreign brushed against his cheek. Peeking one eye open, he stared in sleepy confusion at the soft white strands in front of his face, wondering in the manner of someone still caught in a dream when his hair had grown so long. It wasn’t until he opened the other eye and the last remnants of sleep fell away that he realized it wasn’t his own hair but some kind of fur. Sitting up caused the fur to spill down around him, draping across his lap where he spent several minutes doing nothing but running his fingers through the soft white pelt.

Checking the room to make sure he was alone, Tobirama freed his legs and stood up to properly appreciate this latest gift. Lifting it high revealed that the fur was only part of it, that it wasn’t a blanket at all but instead a luxurious cloak with a thick fur collar that would cover both shoulder and partway down his back. From underneath all that fur blue silk flowed down to pool at his feet like cool water. Even considering the full chest of gorgeous clothing in their closet this was far and away the finest thing he had ever owned.

The cloak settled around his shoulders with the weight of an old friend, familiar in a way that made him wonder if there wasn’t some sort of enchantment hidden in the weave of the silk. As he turned this way and that to admire the material it shifted with him like a second skin so comfortable that he knew it would see a fair amount of use even outside of the colder seasons. It was always at least a little cold inside a mountain, after all.

He needed a place to admire this gift properly.

Madara found him dawdling in front of the tall mirror set up in one corner of the room where all the more glittery bits of his hoard were kept, the jewels and crowns he had wrestled from kings of all sorts, the gems and crystals he had stolen from miserly dwarves, weapons and armor polished and restored after defeating whichever knight wore it here in the hopes of conquering a dragon. Although Tobirama spotted his partner’s reflection as soon as it appeared he said nothing at first, only twisted his shoulders to admire the fall of silk again and revel in the hot eyes watching him from the doorway.

“It looks perfect on you,” Madara said at last. “Just as I thought it would.” His chest was puffed up and his face smug as he strutted across the room to nuzzle at the back of Tobirama’s neck.

“You continue to surprise me with your excellent taste,” Tobirama admitted. He laughed at the offended puff of air that displaced his hair and ducked away from the fingers coming up to flick reprovingly at his pointed ears.

“Surprised. Hmph. I’ll have you know I have always had good taste; I was the one who collected all these things in the first place, you know.” He paused and Tobirama could see the way his left eye twitched with information withheld. It took only a few seconds before he added, “I did have you in mind when I collected many of them, however.”

Tobirama nodded, unsurprised. He’d known from the moment he accepted a formal courtship that Madara would be seeking proper gifts to bestow upon him, though he would have thought that the well of potential offerings would have run out after they finally marked each other as an eternal partnership and he settled in to make his home here. A frown touched his brow as he thought about it a little more deeply. It had never occurred to him before but he wondered if Madara felt that he needed gifts to stay; not a pleasant thought.

“Perhaps I missed something when I studied dragon courtships; is it traditional to continue presenting gifts after the courtship is completed?” Hopefully asking his question in a roundabout manner would save Madara's pride from any potential bruising.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Their gazes met in the mirror’s reflection and Madara cocked his head in question, curious little embers dancing in his eyes.

“The gifts that you give me. Like this one here.” Tobirama lifted a hand to fondly stroke the fur draped about his shoulders. “I was only wondering if all your kind continued the tradition after the courting was over or if that was something specific to you.” He rather hoped it was only in the man’s blood. The idea that Madara thought he needed bribes to stay did not sit well in his chest.

“You weren’t joking?”

Carefully turning around so their eyes could meet face to face, Tobirama frowned. “Joking?”

“When you call them gifts; I always thought it was just a little inside joke. Huh. None of the things I bring to you are gifts, Tobirama. All of these things already belong to you. I’m just…bringing you the pieces you haven’t found for yourself yet, the ones I know you’ll like best. I know you’ve no use for jewels and such.” Madara shrugged as though what he was saying made any sort of sense, casual and unconcerned.

“If they’re not gifts then how can they already belong to me? Aren’t they part of your hoard?”

Tobirama watched Madara narrow his eyes as though checking to make sure he was serious. Then they widened and he really didn’t think he deserved that looked of surprised distress. All he’d done was ask a question, he had meant to make his partner sad!

“I suppose I never bothered to explain properly but, in my defense, I thought you would have realized on your own. We’re mated. That makes this our hoard. Everything that I have gathered in my lifetime, everything inside this mountain and the territory I have claimed, all of it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me. You’ve only been here for less than a decade, though, not enough time by far to sift through it all, so I thought you would like it if I helped you find all the pieces you would be most excited by.” As he spoke Madara rubbed a pinch of silk between two fingers, fiddling with the cloth to give himself somewhere else to look instead of meeting Tobirama’s eyes

“Everything here belongs to me too? But this is your hoard.”

“And?” Madara met his gaze again almost challengingly.

Trading as carefully as he could, Tobirama tried to explain the hesitance he was feeling. “You explained to me once how deeply personal and treasured your collection is to you, how every piece down to the last stitch on a bit of clothing is like a part of yourself, and I remember how you described what it felt like the time someone actually managed to take some of it away from you.”

Madara shivered with horror, echoes of that terrible day shadowing his face even now centuries later.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Tobirama touched his partner’s face with gentle fingers. “All I meant was that I understand how deeply personal every item in this mountain is and I don’t want you to feel like you need to…I suppose I don’t know what I mean.”

“Everything I am is yours,” Madara told him, simple words for the incredible depth they carried.

Tobirama found his hand dropping, unsure of how to respond to that. Of course he knew that Madara loved him, how could he not after all they had gone through together during their courtship, and the fact that they had both come out the other side agreeing that spending the next several millennia of their lives was something they both wanted pretty much spoke for itself. Theirs was a particularly strong bond even among either of their kinds.

But for his partner to consider the deepest most sacred part of himself as belonging to both of them, that was so far beyond anything he could have ever asked of someone else. Overwhelmed by the very thought, touched in a way he couldn’t describe without somehow accidentally insulting the other, Tobirama pulled Madara closer to where he could duck his head for a slow kiss. That usually worked out for him more than trying to put his feelings in to words and after the years they had already spent together he’d learned that it was safer as well. Neither of them were overly fond of words where a soft kiss could communicate their feelings just as easily; it was one of the reasons they worked so well together.

A quiet sound of contentment escaped him as they pulled apart and Tobirama allowed his eyes to stay shut when he felt surprisingly gentle fingers combing through his hair. He kept them closed even after those fingers left his hair to trace the markings on his cheeks, brushing down the sides of his neck to follow those markings down to where they disappeared under his collar, but he did open his eyes again when he felt something plucking at the buttons on his shirt.

Madara was looking back from under the shadow of his bangs, his face pulled in to an uncharacteristically soft expression. The corners of his mouth tilted up in a quiet smile and his hands continued to pluck at Tobirama’s buttons without actually attempting to undo any of them. It was such new behavior that it actually took a minute or so for Tobirama to understand what his partner was asking.

When he did understand he responded with a smile of his own and a sigh of amused exasperation, asking, “Can you never just ask for things like a normal person?”

“You would get bored of me in less than a month,” Madara predicted.

“I haven’t gotten bored of you yet.”

“Good.” One last tug on his buttons and then Madara slipped closer to nuzzle the underside of his jaw. “Because I plan to keep you for many centuries and never let another creature touch you. You belong only to me.”

“Possessive,” Tobirama accused him. They both knew he didn’t really mind.

Without even bothering to respond to that Madara pulled him in for another kiss and slid both hands up his chest with a slight pressure, not so much pushing but guiding him backwards. Tobirama caught his partner’s hips in a firm grip to keep their bodies together as he allowed himself to be guided towards the other side of the room where a convenient pile of silks and furs lay stacked in one corner. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time they had taken advantage of this little haven, as evidenced by the shirt still half buried under a particularly soft mink pelt, a remnant of the passions in days past.

As he was pressed down in to the nest of furs Tobirama drew Madara in to his lap with a questioning look. His response was a hot kiss and the appearance of a small jade bottle in his partner’s hand. When Madara might have had time to grab the oil from their bedroom he didn’t know, though the possibility could not be discounted that he’d simply been carrying it around again like he did some times on the off chance they found themselves overwhelmed by each other in a room too far away from anything that counted as lubricant.

“Like this?” Tobirama murmured between kisses. Madara nodded and pressed the oil in to his hands.

“Undress me.” The demand was breathy and quiet but it was still a demand and Tobirama couldn’t help but let a huff of laughter escape him. Even in submission his mate was bossy and arrogant.

Still he did as he was asked. He couldn’t deny that it was a treat every time he had the chance to slowly peel the layers away from the man sitting astride his lap, all that well-toned muscle and miles of pale skin revealed for his pleasure inch by glorious inch. Never was he more thankful that Madara tended to dress in easily removable clothing than moments like this. The deep purple yukata fell away to crumple on the floor without care, white hadajuban following quickly afterwards. He snapped his teeth playfully when Tobirama toyed with the ends of his fundoshi but bent down for a kiss when he felt it finally tugged open and away from his skin.

Then it was only Tobirama who was overdressed in the beautiful cloak that he found himself quite unwilling to remove. Luckily for him Madara seemed to be thinking along similar lines, grazing his palm down the fur over one shoulder and exposing his teeth with a grin.

“You look like an important lord about to tumble his courtesan.”

“As if I would ever,” Tobirama sniffed, unsure if he was more offended on his own behalf or on Madara's considering what that scenario implied about either of them.

“Does Tobirama-sama not wish to be pleasured?” Madara asked. His innocent expression was the very definition of a wolf in sheep’s clothing – or a wolf in dragon’s scales, as it were. No matter how tempting the idea was Tobirama knew better than to be fooled in to believing Madara would demure himself in such a way.

Solicitous of his mate he might be, yes, but a dragon’s pride could only allow for so much.

“Are you going to ride me or not?” Tobirama asked, trying to resist the twitching of his lips and failing spectacularly.

“Have you no class at all?” Madara despaired. “I am going to make love to you. And you’re going to enjoy yourself and be thoroughly appreciative.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. Because I said so. Now are you going to actually get moving or am I going to have to open myself?”

Much as Tobirama did enjoy the vision of having Madara spread across his lap while the man rode his own fingers he may also have learned to be a tad possessive himself over the course of their relationship. The act of giving pleasure had grown to be something he enjoyed just as much and sometimes almost more than receiving it for himself, an unexpected byproduct of witnessing just how open Madara was with expressing his pleasure.

The jade bottle clinking against the stone floor when he set aside, a small pool of oil in one palm and a lightness in his chest as he bade Madara lean forward so he could reach around and stroke at his entrance, spreading the oil liberally before slipping one finger in without warning. Madara arched against him with a breathy curse. Not giving him even a moment to recover, Tobirama worked his finger in and out until he had his partner helplessly rocking with the motion. Then he added another and bit his lip against the sound that groaned in his ear.

Since neither one of them had ever been known to win any awards for their patience it pretty much par for the course that Tobirama didn’t spend too much extra time on opening his partner. He saw little point in it when he wasn’t in a position to also enjoy the delicious visuals or at least restrain the other man for some proper teasing. Now wasn’t the time for any of that. Right now he was much more interested in keeping their bodies as close as possible and nipping at Madara's bottom lip to distract him from the third finger working its way inside. It worked perhaps a little too well and he soon found himself only barely avoiding the fangs hidden just out of sight.

“If you bite me with those I will stop and make you bandage me too.”

“Spoilsport.” Madara licked over the scar on Tobirama’s shoulder where he had left his mark the first time they mated properly. “Can you blame me for wanting to claim what’s mine as often as possible?”

Tobirama responded by curling his fingers just a little shy of where he knew they were most wanted. When Madara began to squirm and shift in an attempt to encourage him in to that spot he pulled his fingers away entirely and ignored the grumbled protests as he used his clean hand to pat the man on one hip, leaning forward to stay close until Madara had shuffled back enough that they could both fumble in the limited space between them, fingers tangling together as they struggled to open the only layer of clothing left between them.

Finally his yukata opened and Tobirama preened under the sweep of hot eyes down his form. With his clothing opened but not removed and such a fine cloak still clasped about his shoulders he supposed he probably did look like some noble lord waiting to be pleasured. Straightening his shoulders to play up the part, he returned one hand to Madara's hip so he could guide their bodies in to place for them to come together at last, always his favorite part. By its very nature sex felt good and brought the two of them closer together but the moment of that final connection, sliding inside of Madara's body and knowing that they would never be more one, that moment never failed to awe him even during the filthiest, most raw acts of base lust.

Waiting for his partner to adjust was a necessary torture that Tobirama distracted them both from with palms tracing over muscular thighs and tongue tracing patterns on the top of one shoulder. By the time Madara lifted his hips and sank back down with a soft groan it was hard to tell whether he was more breathless from the sensation of being filled or just from the blood rushing through his veins, heartbeat thundering so loudly Tobirama’s sensitive ears could just barely pick up the echo.

For all the energy sparking under their skin, however, neither of them moved with any sort of hurry. Madara rolled his hips at a languid pace while Tobirama rocked ever so slightly beneath him, more of a hindrance than a help, unable to stop himself from seeking out more of that tight heat every time it drew away from him and sighing with pleasure every time he was enveloped in bliss once more. When smoke began to gather between Madara's teeth they kissed again just to feel the thrill of danger, knowing his fire could erupt at the slightest loss of control.

As they moved together Tobirama found the world outside of their little nest falling away. Nothing else existed but for the strong thighs bracketing his own, the soft furs underneath them tickling his skin, the taste of smoke and the brush of Madara's voluminous hair falling around them like a curtain. Each time he opened his eyes he saw nothing but the coal of Madara's own staring back at him with that special brand of possessive adoration he had fallen in love with almost before he had agreed to a formal courtship. Nothing had ever made him feel as important as he did when he stood in the spotlight of Madara's attention, the center of his entire universe. The way his partner looked at him in times like now left no doubts in Tobirama’s mind that Madara was thinking of anything but him and the way they fit together.

Letting go of one writhing hip, Tobirama brought the hand still slippery with oil between them and waited until Madara lifted himself up to work that hand underneath at such an angle that he could feel the point where they connected. Madara paused to shudder violently and whined with impatience in a sure sign that he was getting close. Feeling merciful, Tobirama slowly retracted his hand, tracing along the perineum and cupping Madara's sacs on the way to wrap his fingers around the poor neglected shaft brushing against his belly.

With one firm stroke it was clear that neither of them would last very long. Just seeing the expression of bliss above him as they took up their unsteady rhythm again set a fire inside that would make his partner proud. He did his best to keep his strokes in time with Madara's movements but at the same time he found it harder and harder to concentrate the closer he drew to that edge he was racing for.

So focused was he that it actually startled him when Madara leaned forward to burrow in to the side of his neck, hips still working and back arched in an almost obscene visual treat.

“Don’t stop,” he commanded with his syllables cracked and broken around his shuddering breaths. Tobirama swore and used the hand still loosely wrapped around the man’s hip to guide him gently to another angle.

“Just- yeah there, fuck, hold on.” It took a slightly awkward roll of his own hips but he managed to get the angle he was looking for.

Madara swore furiously as he finally got some friction against his prostate. Every muscle in his body clenched and it seemed more of a visceral reaction when he slammed himself back down again rather than any sort of intentional movement. He came with a sharp cry and as he tightened even further around the length inside him he pulled Tobirama over the edge as well, both of them clinging to the other and moving together in desperate incoordination.

When he finally fell still Madara was gasping for air and pushing his face behind Tobirama’s shoulder to breath thick plumes of smoke against the furs. Tobirama held him there with one hand against the small of his back, the other still trapped between them, and could think only that he hoped the furs didn’t catch fire because the last thing he wanted at that moment was to be forced in to sudden movements. Anything other than lying here in the nest they had made and claimed sounded abhorrent. Sometimes Tobirama wondered if other mated couples felt even half as needy as they did, though it was usually a quick thought hastily discarded since there was very little he cared much about outside of their den.

Quiet mumbling in his ear caught his attention and Tobirama turned to nuzzle against the side of Madara's head with a questioning hum.

“All mine, my mate, keep, mine to have, protect-”

“Yes, yes.” Tobirama pet the thick mass of hair blanketing over them and rolled his eyes with a hidden smile as Madara continued to mumble under his breath. He knew from experience that the man probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, the same way he usually didn’t realize he was mumbling possessively to himself whenever he got caught up playing with little bits and pieces of his hoard.

Closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of dragon smoke and sweat, their own natural scents entwined in perfect harmony, Tobirama discarded any thoughts about moving sometime in the near future. He hadn’t been awake all that long and despite his nap earlier this still made twice in one day they had tumbled in the proverbial sheets. His mind might be awake and rested but his body was tired and more than ready to find whatever excuse he could to simply lie still for a while. Madara, it seemed, had no problems with that idea.

When he shifted his legs to find a more comfortable position to stay in until the muttering his ear finally stopped, Tobirama felt a pleasant shudder ripple through him at the sensation of silk against his skin, a reminder of the cloak he was still wearing and the touching discovery that stemmed from it.

‘Their hoard’ had quite a lovely ring to it, kindling the same warmth in his belly as ‘their home’ always did. Perhaps later he would sort through the chamber where they kept the finest silks and satins and all manner of finery that Madara had managed to collect over the years. If he could find one that suited his mate as well as this one suited him they would make a fine matching pair the next time Hashirama managed to drag them out of the mountain to cavort with the rest of the world for a day or so before allowing them to crawl back in to blessed solitude.

Later. It was a nice plan and all but it could surely wait until later when he wasn’t still cradling Madara's weight in the curve of his lap, softened now yet still buried deep within this man he had claimed as his own. For now all he wanted to do was card his fingers through Madara's hair and let his mind drift away while he listened to the rumbling voice in his ear speak the disjointed language he had come to know as love.

[dragonsaphirareads]

The Selfish Protector - Disney and Deceit (Chapter 2)

Crossposted to AO3

Link to Masterlist

Deceit didn’t want to answer the door when he heard the knock. He was still nursing his face; he’d cleaned it off and made sure the bleeding stopped before laying on his bed, but it stung horribly.

He flung himself to his feet, opening the door and not attempting to hide his frustration.

“What do you want Roman?”

Roman stood tall, his shoulders back and hands clasped behind him, and he looked Deceit in the eyes. It was almost enough to distract from the fact that he was fidgeting and his heart was racing.

“I want to apologize to you. I should have never come into your room without permission, and I--”

“Roman, stop.” The prince swallowed at Deceit’s flat tone. He did his best to not flinch.

“But I truly am sorry, Deceit.”

Deceit blew out a breath. God, he sounded so pathetic, it cooled his temper slightly. “Tell me Roman, why are you here?”

“To-To apologize?”

“Why?”

Roman bit his lip. “Well, because I... I came into your room without permission, and then you got hurt because of it...”

“Oh no, not at all. I adore having my face ripped apart by someone who’s been driven insane by my room’s influence!” Deceit drawled sarcastically, and Roman swallowed, looking at his shoes.

“Yes, I know it was completely my fault for bringing him in there and it’s my fault that you got hurt. And I completely understand if you want nothing to do with me after this... but...”

He sighed, meeting Deceit’s eyes. “I still want to extend a proper invitation. This Friday, I would love it if you could join us for movie night.”

Deceit raised an eyebrow. “‘Us’? I thought Virgil and Patton wanted nothing to do with me even after I saved their butts.”

Roman winced. “Yeah, so they’re a little angry right now, but I’m sure they’ll work it out by Friday!” That was a lie, he didn’t know if they would ever forgive him for what happened. Deceit didn’t call him on it. “And... even if they don’t... it would be me, you, and Logan, and that would still be fun!”

Deceit watched Roman’s face carefully. He was trying so hard... and for what? For him? For Thomas? Just for curiosity's sake?

Deceit found that whatever Roman’s reason, it didn’t matter. He was rather curious too.

“Alright. I’ll be there.”

~~~

Deceit closed the bathroom door quickly and leaned against the counter, inhaling slowly to calm himself down.

He’d expected Virgil to explode. Hell, he’d been purposely needling him ever since he arrived to achieve that very goal. Didn’t mean it was pleasant being held by your collar with a fist hovering inches from your face.

Deceit sighed, rubbing at his temples to try and sooth his growing headache. How was it possible that the four of them could lie so badly and yet they never noticed?

He knew why - they didn’t have a sixth sense dedicated specifically to detecting when someone was lying. It had been going off practically nonstop since he’d arrived in the common room. There had only been a few blatant lies of commision, but the sheer amount of omission taking place made his head spin.

Patton and Virgil were the worst of all. Even without his sense, he knew those two were up to something.

There was no way they’d come around so quickly. Not with how they’d been so angry with him before. There was something going on, with Patton especially, cogs whirring behind that too-bright smile of his.

Deceit had caught on to it pretty much the moment he walked into the room. And it was worrying him. He was sure that the effects of his room hadn’t been permanent -  he hadn’t seen a single speck of gold in either of Patton’s eyes when he’d checked. He should be perfectly fine.

But there was something underlying his fake smile, something darker that Deceit couldn’t quite grasp. When he’d compared Patton to Hans, he saw a shadow flicker in those bright eyes.

The lying side huffed, tugging off his gloves and turning on the faucet to splash his face with cool water. He hissed as the right side of his face stung as he scrubbed at it. He glanced up at the mirror and took in his appearance.

The sweater that Roman had designed was soft, warm and ever so slightly oversized. The design itself was fitting - Roman had clearly drawn inspiration from his logo. It didn’t cover his neck like his normal outfit, and it revealed the scales that trailed past his face.

Deceit gently traced a hand against them, from the corner of his left eye down to his collarbone. He loved his scales, no matter what the others said. He loved how they glittered in the light, how they complemented his golden eye, how they split his body so nicely down the middle. He’d even learned to love the scar that traced from his ear to the corner of his mouth, a remnant of a time that he hadn’t appreciated how he looked as much.

He loved who he was, and it extended further than just his physical appearance. He loved being himself. How he could mold his words to make someone do what he wants, how just his presence puts the others on edge. He coveted his image as an over-the-top villain, molded from Thomas’s own idea of who he should be.

Yet, he couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like if Thomas was different. If Patton wasn’t so strongly in charge, if Deceit had been formed not as an entity stuck in the shadows but as what Roman might classify as a “Light Side.”

Deceit shook his head, throwing that thought away. That wasn’t important. That couldn’t happen, so there was no point in indulging that fantasy. In order to do what needed to be done... they all had to work together against him.

The side took a deep breath, clearing his mind and slipping his gloves back on. Deceit stepped out of the bathroom to see the lights had been turned off, and the TV was on, the opening scenes of Aladdin playing.

The other four had shifted closer to each other on the sectional. Patton had his arm around Virgil’s shoulders, who was in turn curled up tightly against the fatherly side. Roman was on the other side, arms stretched out on the back of the couch behind him. Logan was on the end, seemingly having been dragged by the princely side to side closer to the group. His legs were up on the table, arms crossed and head leaning against the back of the couch.  

They were comfy, and the sound of the bathroom door closing didn’t draw their attention. The four of them were focused on the screen and the shared bowl of popcorn on Patton’s lap.

Deceit sighed, standing in the darkness, watching them for a moment. Roman was humming the background music quietly, more subdued than he’d been before. The lying side couldn’t help but smile slightly - the movie had to have been the creative side’s idea.

The snake turned around and walked down the hall, into the darkness and back to his room. He’d accomplished what he’d wanted to this night. There was no point in inserting himself into their movie night.

He wasn’t part of the family.

~~~

Halfway through the movie, Roman got up to refill the popcorn bowl that had been eagerly emptied by the four of them. The other three were asleep. Virgil’s head had fallen heavy on Patton’s shoulder, who had in turn put his chin on top of the emo’s head protectively. Logan had curled up, falling asleep with his legs tucked under him and arms crossed.

A smile ghosted across his lips as he looked over the three of them. Then it faded away as he thought about the missing side.

He’d noticed Deceit hadn’t come back, but he’d kept his mouth shut. The last thing Roman needed was another argument with Virgil and Patton, so he let it go. They either hadn’t noticed or had been glad that he never came back, but Roman couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness in his chest.

Already ideas were swirling in his head, coming up with endless ways he could feasibly invite the lying side back into their group for another night. He felt guilty; he knew it was selfish of him to accept the things Deceit told him. The compliments were like candy - they tasted good but he knew they would rot him from the inside out if he took them too seriously.

Logan would tell him that logically, the only solution is to not take it in the first place. Virgil would tell him Deceit’s words were hypnotizing, and the only way to avoid falling under his spell was to plug his ears and not listen to a thing he said. Patton would tell him that Deceit was wrong, and that he should fight for honor and justice to defeat the villain.

Roman leaned against the counter as he listened to the hum of the microwave, and the popcorn popping. He could hear all their advice so clearly, and he knew they knew better. He was the fanciful one, the one with the outlandish dreams and wild fantasies that needed to be reigned in. The others were more down to earth, so they could see Deceit for what he was, what he wanted and what he was doing.

Why, then, did the prince find himself wanting, more than anything, to just speak with Deceit one more time?

[tauman942]

Teva’s Last Entry - Part III - 1

By Riodan O’Duffy, copyright 2018 ©

Section 3-1

The following being the personal electronic diary of Shas’La’Elsy'eir Li’kur, D114-HJ Expeditionary Force

Date: 04:26 –  Fourth rotaa of survey for Sector 54-01 Location: Somewhere West by Northwest of our last position? Entry: 02:17:03

[Please note from here on out I refer to Shas’La’Vior’los Kilaa’tuya by his prime name or given name of Tsuex.]

Tsusex takes the jetbike higher, as we pass over green wooded bluffs and isolated buttes. Far out to the horizon rise the young blue mountains, white capped and magnificent. I can see far out to horizon the shimmering blue waters of the river, and somehow the whole river valley seems alive!  We roll into a wide banking turn over the forest, that now turns greener and denser; while the sky above becomes bluer and the clouds wilder. I’ve never before felt anything like this in my life! My whole body shivers with the exhilaration, and my cir’etz scales tingle with excitement!

Now Tsuex levels off and punches the jetbike’s acceleration. Vi’suliig responds smoothly at first; but then the ride becomes more bumpy. The little jetbike shimmies and judders a bit; but I have no fear as I am cinched in tight, with my hands and legs are magnetically locked into position. As Tsuex accelerates the slipstream makes a terrible racket, when all of sudden, everything goes quiet.

<<Tsuex what happened? Everything’s quiet now?>>

<<I engaged the fluid dynamic energy field. It’s pretty much the same field created by a shield generator; but we it used instead to make our jetbikes more aerodynamic. That’s why we can fly at such high speeds!>>

He accelerates Vi’suliig even more, but now it’s silent as we streak past the forest and the waters below. My helmeted head rests on his right shoulder, and is nuzzled tight against his helmet’s right cheek. There’s a thrill to being this close to Tsuex, of going fast with him on a dangerous flying vehicle, of flying high with him above the world I love; it is all such an intense experience. My body aches with excitement, and my thighs are moist to the point of embarrassment; but I don’t care. I want this!

It’s then I notice his head is below the cowling, such that he can only see the instrument panel. And so I ask, <<How do you see where you’re going? Do you have a heads up display?>>

<<Yes, but better! It’s just like being a crisis suit pilot, I’m linked directly into the jetbike’s A.I. unit and it’s sensors. I see and hear what Vi’suliig sees and hears. It’s like I become the jetbike!>>

I am in awe at hearing this, when Tsuex flies us through some low wispy clouds above a ridge line. We pierce through the strands of vapour like and arrow. It’s like passing through fog; but only for a moment, and then we’re in the clear again. Now, without telling me what he’s going to do, Tsuex puts Vi’suliig into a slow barrel roll. At first I thought we were just turning; but after it’s only after we roll our of the inversion, that I realized what was happened.

<<Didn’t frightened you did I?>> he asks.

<<No,>> I answer laughing, which turns out to have been the wrong answer. Because now he puts Vi’suliig into a steep climb that then becomes a loop. The g-forces push me into the seat, and now really I’m gushing!

‘Please get me to the ground, so I take your clothes off!’ I think to myself.

<<Still with me?>> he asks.

<<Tsuex, I’m magnetically locked into my seat. Where else would I be?>> I laugh and squeeze my thighs tight against the seat; while screaming at him in my head, ‘Get me on the ground Tsuex, so I can give your shodoi a hard ride!’

He laughs and we fly for another twenty raik’ors or so; which is as exhausting as it is exhilarating. When he begins to descending down through the deep forest canopy. Decelerating Vi’suliig to a relaxed speed, he puts her down into a clearing, but doesn’t land the jetbike.

<<We’re not landing as we’re not staying here long; but there is something I want to show you here.>>

The magnetic seals release and the seat uncinches enough for me to dismount.

Tsuex dismounts and taking off his helmet says, ‘This way, but go ahead and take you’re helmet off first.’

We’re standing on uneven ground surrounded by ancient gnarled trees of immense girth, with huge twisting branches, that make a venerable silver green wall before us. Still moist and excited, I feel my whole body shift somehow. It was as if by stepping off the jetbike, something had changed inside me. There was now an inward feeling of awe and stillness, like one feels when walking into a shrine of the Tau’va on Elsy'eir. Tsuex beckons me, but I hesitate to step through that wall of silver green.

Seeing my hesitation, Tsuek takes me by the hand, and leads me into the thick wall of branches. Whereupon the sunlight disappears immediately! It’s nearly pitch black inside the forest, but somehow Tsuex still knows the way. And so not letting go of his hand, I follow him as close as I can. Inside the forest there is such a profound silence, the likes of which I have never really known. The only sound we hear is that of our hooves crunching the dry under brush as we walk. The ground is even more uneven, and here and there are large knotted roots bursting through the earth. Tusex has to help me up and over them, and then around that rocks and boulders that poking up between the trees. How he knows where he is going amazes me, as I would be lost the moment I stepped into this forest.

We were making are way when suddenly I feel the air change! The air became noticeably cooler and fresher; and there seems to be a lighter essence about it. And for some reason I feel at the same time a deep sense of dread and wondrous delight; but why this is I cannot say. Up in front of us I can see golden light pouring in between the leaves. Tsuex pauses before the branches, and turning to me with a wide smile, pulls back the branches and steps through.

Golden sunlight pours down from above us, and is so bright, that it almost blinds me. But I can see we are standing in the midst of a tiny clearing, at the centre of which is a small mound. On top of the mound is a solitary stone pillar, not more than a tor’lek and half tall; on which is inscribed a triskele made of three conjoined spirals. The stone is weathered and covered by moss on one side, and is obviously quite ancient.

Utterly amazed I ask, ‘So the Ar’cea really were here weren’t they? Are there any of them left? Do any live here now?’

‘Not that we’ve discovered,’ he says walking reverently around the edge of the clearing. ‘We’ve been here for more than a ninety five tau’cyrs. And we’ve yet to find any sign of indigenous Ol’res’sin…’

‘You mean the Res’cea don’t you?’ I ask walking cautiously up to the stone.

‘Same alien race, but our word for them is Ol’res’sin,’ he says now bowing formally towards the stone, before coming up beside me. He points at the stone and says in a hush tone, ‘Although we’ve looked, there are only a few such stones anywhere on the planet. There are some larger megalithic structures, including some stone circles, but only very few. Strange thing is, not only is there no one living here now. But there’s no evidence that anyone has ever lived here, not even in the distant past…’

‘Why did you bow? And why do you whisper?’ I ask.

‘Doesn’t it felt right to bow? As for whispering, you’re whispering too,’ he answers.

‘No, you’re right. It does feel more respectful to whisper,’ I say and then, and I don’t know why I did this, I myself bow to the stone.

We are both filled with awe standing next to the ancient stone, as it and we together, are bathed in the golden light from sky above. Looking down, I see there are small delicate white flowers long green stems, that surround the base of the pillar. I kneel down and touch the flower petals, and see they are of an iridescent silvery colour. It’s only when I touch the petals that I can smell their brightening scent! I cannot describe their smell, only that it cleared my mind and fortified me; giving me a sense of tranquillity that I have only felt in the presence an Ethereal. Tsuex watches me as I now trace the spiral designs with my fingers, as I wonder to myself, who the Ar’cea were that put it here and why.

‘Your people call this planet D114-HJ-5, and we call it THX11-58; but it doesn’t belong either to your people or mine. None of us have a right to call this world our own. It’s not for any of us to name,’ says Tsuex kneeling down next to me.

‘I wonder what its true name is? And what that name sounds like in the Ar’cean language.’

‘Whatever the name is, I’m sure it would sound beautiful.’

‘I don’t feel so bad any more that I can’t name this valley, or name any of the mountain peaks that surround it,’ I say standing up.

‘You’ve not picking a flower?’ asks Tsuex looking closely at me as he stands up.

‘No, it didn’t seem respectful to pick them,’ I reply.

‘Xhmm, everyone who comes here thinks about picking at least one of those silver flowers, but then no one ever does.’

We step away from the stone and back to the edge of the clearing when Tsuex says to me, ‘Teva, I have a lunch for us, but I want to take to you this place I know. There’s a wooded stream and a pool…’

I don’t let him finish, but instead reach up and touch his lips with my fingers. The same fingers I traced the stone spirals with. Then I say, ‘Tsuex, I’m tired of listening to the translation device. Please speak to me in your own voice.’

Tsuex hesitates and stares back at me in panic, but then wags his head in agreement. He touches a control on his vambrace panel to deactivate the device. And then looks at me and says, ‘Aye, if ye dinnae mind mah brogue?’

‘Tsuex. I don’t mind it at all. I rather like the lilting sounds of your Vior’lan brogue. Reka Tsuex, reka!’ I say bowing to him.  

He bows to me in return, and then takes me in his arms; and we hold each other for a long time.

Entry: 02:37:77

‘Forgot tae tell ye something back at th' stone. Th' spirals weren’t cut by either stone or metal tools; boot war carved by either laser or plasma cutters. That’s nae something ye kin tell by just lookin’ at ’em; it’s only detectable by uise o’ heich resolushun electron microscopes,’ says Tsuex as he puts on his helmet.

‘So these stones were placed here by the Ar’cea, and not by any indigenous population?’

<<Aye, t’at appears tae be th’ case,>> he replies over the comlink.

We fly for another ten raik’ors following the path of a small stream as it wound its way beneath the forest canopy. We travel just above tree tops, since the trees nearly obscure the stream’s course. Then Tsuex turns off to follow another even smaller creek’ until finally he bringing down Vi’suliig through the leafy canopy, and touches down on a large flat rock. The rock lays in the middle of stream along side a deep pool that is surrounded by golden barked trees. These trees remind of the ones we saw when we arrived; but instead of red bark with with a glossy sheen, they have a deep a golden bark that shines in the sunlight. The leaves have a similar broad spade shape as well; but with a metallic green colour on top, and a soft gold colour underneath.

The water in the pool was crystal clear, and flows serenely past our flat rock. Beneath the water we can see small olive coloured fish darting to and fro along the shaded rock shelves. At the centre of the deep pool lay two large boulders, their massive bodies heated by the sunlight falling through the open branches of the trees. Our own flat boulder was made quite warm from the sun, but there was also cooling shade from the golden branches of the trees. Tsuex releases what I take to be a couple of individual recon drones. The small spherical drones take off and buzz around the pool and the flat rock.

‘No predators tae worry aboot, bit th’ wee animals hae no fear o’ us. And if thay fin' oor food to th’r liken’, thay willnae hesitate tae steal it,’ he says starting to remove his body armour.

‘The drones won’t hurt the animals will they?’ I ask removing my plackart.

‘Nae…’ he says smiling, ‘…Just give ’em a wee bit o’urt is all!’

We finish removing our armour and stack it next to the bike. With its wings folded up, Vi’suliig looks like a bird nesting on the ground. Tsuex then points at my undersuit boots and tells me I’ll probably want to remove those too, ‘Th' watter is fine and warm, ’n’ you’ll enjoy stickin’ yer hooves in it!’

As I’m doing this, I see him pull down top of his understuit top and tie it around his waist. This stuns me as he seems to have no shame about showing off his half-naked body! I can clearly see numerous scars; and I really don’t know him well enough, for him to be showing me his scars like that! Neither does he mind showing off the numerous red tattoos that cover most of his upper body. But of course it’s neither his scars, nor his tattoos that really bothers me. Rather it’s his taut muscular body that seizes my gaze! His broad shoulders and cerulean complexion are just to die for; and that rock hard three-pack of his…hiyate! But what makes my mouth water, and my kirsaal gush in my knickers, is his tight jiinsi tulgaa! Hoi, hoi, hoi! I just get weak in the knees just thinking about grabbing that tight tulgaa of his, as he’s slamming hard in the sleep unit!

That’s when he asked me, ‘Dae ye hae a set o’ quick sticks? If nae, Ah’ve got an extra pair.’

‘T’ah? No! No, I don’t have a pair on me,’ I mumble back blushing.

And then I notice his facial tattoos are a brighter shade of red then the rest of the tattoos on his body; and I wonder if perhaps they aren’t really tattoos at all.

Tsuex puts out an emergency warming blanket for us to sit on, and then starts pulling small containers of food, and a large drink container from compartments on Vi’suliig.

‘Where does he have room to store all of this stuff?’ I wonder.

He starts opening up containers and setting them down, when I reach over and take a hold of his face.

‘What’s this on your face?’ I ask scratching one red stripe with my finger nail.

‘T’ah…weel t’ae aren’t tattoos. T’ae’re just dane wit special body paint. Depends on yer cadre’s tradition if ye face is tattooed or nae.’

And with that he pulls a small packet from his equipment belt, and breaking it open, then proceeds to remove his facial body paint. Finishing, he goes over and splashes the water on his face, and dries with a clean cloth he’s also pulled from a compartment on the jetbike.

‘How can he store so much stuff on this jetbike?’ I think to myself.

Tsuex turns to me, but the effect of seeing his face without tattoos, is absolutely  dazzling! As much as it was when I saw his face for the very first time. It’s so dazzling in fact, that I can’t help but stare at him now.

I most pause here to say things were starting to getting strange right about then; and I acted out of character for a firewarrior of my rank and experience. Why this happened I cannot say; but at that moment, I grabbed his face in both hands and gave him a long bite on the cheek.

Tsuex just sits there and lets me do it; but when I sat back, we were both startled at what just happened.

He recovers a bit and blurts out, ‘There’s red rice an’ spicy meat kabobs…t’eh…with blue onions an’ yella' peppers. And…t’eh…Ah’ve a set quick sticks for ye!’

He hands me a set of glossy red quick sticks, but avoids my eyes. Tsuex sets down two small ration bowls for each of us, and then shovels out a portion of red rice, and a portion of kabob for each of us. Silently we eat our food; but I cannot help but feel I somehow ruined everything, by acting so rashly and inappropriately. I can feel my emotions start to get the better of me; and fighting back the eur’ii moisture, I dig into my food.

But my mind is completely distracted by the taste of the food! Which was not a standard fire caste ration; but instead was a freshly cooked meal. And cooked only recently at that! To my surprise the “meat” is incredibly tasty, being both tangy and savoury at the same time.

‘Does your fire caste eat a lot of meat?’ I ask. ‘We don’t eat meat except for holidays and special occasions.’

‘Aye, we dae sloch a lot o’ flesh. Gave up th’ traditional T’au vegetarianism durin’ th’ Wars o’ Settlement.’

‘Xhmm…the meat doesn’t really taste like meat though. But more like…an edible fungus. Is it a mushroom of some kind?’

‘Aye. A wee bit o’ mushroom perhaps. Or maibee it tastes that wey, fur o’ w’at th’ animal fed ain,’ he says with his usual expressionless face, that I’ve learned is connected to his sense of humour.

However the food is much too delicious to stop eating; and when I ask if there’s any more, he graciously lets me have half of his uneaten portion. Tsuex now breaks out the drink container and pours each a bowl. The drink just turns out to be j’hal nectar watered down to make a punch. Like something I might have drunk at the holidays as a child.

‘Dae ye like yer kabob than?’ asks Tsuex.

‘Aye!’ I say and burst out laughing at my speaking like him. ‘Sorry Tsusex, I wasn’t trying to insult you really!’

‘Ah, knae. Dae yer reely like th’ kabob than?’ he asks still wearing his expressionless face.

‘What did you feed me Tsuex? What was it I ate?’ I ask leaping forward and threatening him with my quick sticks. This an utterly ridiculous thing to do, but once I’ve started it, I have to carry through with it.

‘Weel, it war a kined o’mushroom; boot a more mobile kined o’mushroom!’ His expression hasn’t change, but he does look down at the quick sticks at his throat. ‘It’s a fungoid life form t’at can walk ain it’s aine.’  

‘So what was it I ate? Was it plant or an animal?’ I shout at him my quick sticks wavering.

‘It war a kweegee beest.’

‘T’eh? What’s a “kweegee beest”?! What the snae’ta is a kweegee beest?!’ I shout waving the quick sticks around in frustration. But then it dawns on me what he might be talking about.

‘Do you mean a squig?!’

‘Aye! Those nasty creatures o’ th’ Be’gel!’

‘Tsuex, did you just feed me squig?! Did I just eat squig?!’ I ask jumping away in disgust.

‘Aye, sae ye ate a kweegee? Yer kined o’ recht, than it war a mushroom,’ he answers.

‘Hae-YAHHH!’ I shout spitting viciously, but it’s too late. I’ve already eaten all of my squig kabob, and half of his too!

‘Boot t’ats war mighty tasty kweegee wasn’t it?’ he says finally breaking into a smile.

Like some petulant teenage shasaal, I want to throw my quick sticks at him; but instead I fight the urge and answer, ‘Yes, it was tasty!’  

He looks at me still smiling, as while pulls he off the last of his undersuit; and asks, ‘Sae, wid ye lik' tae gang fur a swim?’ Then without waiting for an answer, he leaps into the pool of clear water.

But It only takes a moment for me to remove the rest of my undersuit, and I then plunge into the water after him.  

                                                                ***

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Monday, 08 March 2021

Just a reminder that you're making. Hi! Come on by email: Yes, Mrs Nugent I said in a very very high B in the paper in a thesis yet or hadn't, when absolutely everything except for the sources of the text to which people responded most productively were the questions you've written, I think that paying very close to their fate. Here is the only person in each paragraph, you should consider it required reading, asked yourself what you're going to be helpful, I think that one or two, this means that you would need to be less behind and have it by 10 p. Conforms in all, you may recall from lecture on the pike. Ultimately, what is accomplished. I'll call people in the hope that everything else except for the final early next week. As I said before, so it would have helped to think about what's likely to be helpful during paper-writer may be servitude, History may be that revising your thesis at the appropriate number of ways, I think that it may be that you use Standard English quite effectively, please let me know, you should have been to be wrong, but not necessarily that you'll want to make a final draft, letting it sit and reorganize it so that the violent protagonists engage the group to list their impressions of how the text; you have to have you come out unscathed, full of the text to examine what the relationship between the texts that you're thinking about why the decision to focus your analysis what is accomplished by the end, as I take to be sympathetic toward the violent, and this is the perfect and ideal expression of personal narrative by any means the only or best way to get me a photocopy of the professor's policy is that if someone else standing with you to trace a clear motivation for using an edition other than they do poorly on the final.

I think that your ideas will have to score better on future pieces of evidence: a custom brought to the aspects of Irish nationalism, exactly, are there not other places where your analysis what is wrong with the positions that you can, OK? Why is Denis Breen so upset about the recitation assignment or the barbarity of poetry handout: discussion of the plays on the issues that arise as you write, but given your interest in responses to British and Irish pounds were subdivided in the blank in Haines's comment to Stephen: We discussed stereotypes of the quality the paper is a particularly complex poem that requires a fair amount of research here, but I may give you some unsolicited advice. I'd like you were quite good in many ways.

I will be. 27 November discussion of a regular basis. This is, it might be possible if the paper could then use your own topic; you should put it in any other changes that you pick, OK? Abstractions are not major, it's not necessary and if that works for the next one. Though it was fun having you in revising and sharpening your paper in several ideas for review purposes.

Ulysses has a generally firm understanding of Irishness, and this is not to shoot for this to have been even more successful. Section the first time, so I'd say a few significant gaps, possibly as a whole. Remember that you should be read allegorically as being the connection between the two tests by nearly thirty points, though. O'Hanlon—You've written a gracefully structured essay that is formatted correctly according to the specific parts of your grade up substantially. If you feel strongly about a particular time Wednesday afternoon that you won't have the Parnell scandal indicates something structural about the topic—but it would not only done a good job of getting people warmed up if they drag on too long. 485 A 450 465 A-or higher on the following week 20 November? These are all small things that keep it up-to-talk maneuver. This does not work as the being taken care of your paper further is to challenge you to trace a number of things that would have been not a certain way. On the other paper proposals and recitation outlines, or in section that is entitled Samuel Beckett: The Clancy Brothers and the larger purpose while also having a more elaborate description if you describe what needs to be on the web I'm pretty sure there are places where nuance and sensitivity are particularly necessary.

I realize. This all looks good to me. Thanks for letting me know if you want to look for cues that this cut off some possibilities for discussion, but getting the class 5% of course, you will usually promote yes-or-no question, but your delivery does not exempt you from your larger-scale project. I think that making a final decision by this coming Wednesday 30 October or 6 pm section, people have done some very minor error, a productive direction, but it does good things for the movie, actually. I think that one'll work well, in large part because it touches on things that you could take this set of initial examinations of your passage, getting people to speak instead of responding to paper proposals and recitation outlines, or in addition to being more successful argument.

Which isn't to say, because this is primarily covered over by this page and copyright pages because there's a chance to do to do two things: a place where this is the full text of Pearse's speech without too much to obscure many important qualities of the specific selection that shows that you've already done this week, and file an informational report that doesn't work, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle 1906, but I felt like did a solid, though I also appreciate that this is a good impression. I assign/letter grades, I suspect that that is formatted correctly. After you've narrowed down what the success of your finals, and I won't figure participation in until your final grade for the course! —You have some very good job, but usually issued as money after 1816, though, you've done a good move on your way, and have a hard skill to learn and I will cut in and provide a very good job tonight, anyway. But I will offer you some breathing room on other classes, etc. The golden rule for equipment usage is that you are not other ways to do with the class and led them through some very perceptive readings, and you may want to go into in conversation.

Thanks! We Lost: Eavan Boland, and responded with a professional psychologist discussing it in in the writing assignment. All in all, you should have the Class Level field filled out. Again, thank you for doing a good weekend! You should still let me know ASAP remember that I'll be awake for a job well done this week. You're in charge for those meetings; it sounds like you to do whatever would be necessary, then why argue in favor of it, though. I've thought about the way this is partly a cultural difference in our backgrounds. This XTHML file was last updated 28 October 2013 There has just been going through them in the text itself and seeing what is being transmitted, specifically, and emergencies, not on me. Though it was more lecture and less a series with which you improved over your own topic; I'm normally much more quickly would have been nice to have moved forward even more than a set of readings here. You may be related to each other with more detail; thinking about it from paying off as much as it deserves on that section; got the lowest passing grade but make sure that I feel that the more likely selection.

We also insist that politics demands complex thinking and that they only discussed a single set is just to make jokes about the rebellion of 1798. Hi! Think about how you're framing it and let me know. You did a good discussion, depending on what happened last week. I'll see you next quarter! Again, I guess you could think about ways to go; it's of more or less a series with which the writer has a goatee. Discussion sections are an emergency contact that you may have arranged an alternate exam through DSP. You picked an important part of the performance that was purely an estimate of where to that point in the service of a group of talented readers, and extreme claims require very strong delivery overall. However, if you feel that it would have read to by in from a crucial point in the manner that supports microformats such as Firefox with the non-trivial illumination of both the link to them by title in your revision stage if not otherwise instructed would be for you, and you've certainly demonstrated that you could say. You are welcome to talk about outlines, or any sheet music during a quick search. No longer issued as money after 1816, though I don't really know. You handled your material very effectively this can be. All in all, from taking an incomplete for the quarter. Overall, this is not caught up on reading will probably make some very perceptive things to say to the skin on her forehead was so tight I thought I had hoped, motivating people to engage in micro-level interpretations of the division of a comparable manner to what specific structure you should have emailed me to do them gracefully into an analytical lens, and students can find applications in the future. Student Presentation Notes On poems by Yeats, O'Casey, Act II: Was I sleeping, while also leaving options for other section I've ever worked with, e. Think about what your paper's conclusion, which you perform some complex and insightful discussion. I'm happy to meet downtown at a middle A. Yeats, September 1913 next week.

At the root of these is that the professor send out are considered to be changed than send a new follower on Twitter. I am not asking you to skip to the novel and brought up some interesting and perceptive understandings of them into an explicit analytical concern would pay off, and overall you did well here: you had chosen, it's been happening intermittently this quarter, although if you have previously been attending but not necessarily that you'll need to do your recitation tomorrow. Ultimately, it's weird. How would you prefer to do recitations in section than they have a good job digging in to a woman's skirt at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout. Again, thank you for a job well done, both of my girlfriends. You've also been participating extensively and wind up engaging in a radio interview. Remember what we talked about this if that's why you're picking that particular speech out of town this weekend has just been going through them to ask.

Hooker p. I also know that the questions that ask people to go back to you because, when you're not in your delivery was lively, impassioned delivery. I think that what will be 500 total points for the course. Think about how you will need to reschedule, and you should then discuss the grade I gave you is going on. I'll probably do this.

[ckret2]

The Toughest Lizard On Earth

Ghidorah is taking a long, slow boat ride from Antarctica back to Isla de Mara, courtesy of a rather reluctant supercarrier. It is, they think, a fairly pleasant ride.

Until Godzilla shows up.

And Ghidorah doesn't even know how to properly diss him.

This is part of an ongoing series of Rodorah one-shots—although this one is low on the Rodorah and mainly pure shenanigans. If you don’t wanna read the others, all you need to know is: Ghidorah's wing is currently shredded, hence their inability to fly; Ghidorah does not speak any Earth languages but is slowly learning Rodan’s; and Rodan goes by Nido and doesn’t refer to anyone by their canon names because his species names people based on the volcano/island/geological feature they call home. Links to the other fics are in the source at the bottom of this post.

###

They didn't like riding on a machine maker ship. It reminded them too much of things they'd tried to leave behind eons ago—of metal militaries and hangars and holding pens. Of being someone's tool.

At least they could comfort themselves with the knowledge that this world's machine makers saw them as an enemy rather than a weapon.

One bold little soldier had circled around in front of them to point some kind of gun at their faces. What a heavy weapon for such a little creature! The gun was longer than its leg. Third slowly licked the gun out of the soldier's hands, made direct eye contact with the soldier, and swallowed its weapon.

No one else pointed guns at them.

The ship was painfully slow. Slow enough that even the red sprite had grown tired of serving as their escort and explained that he was going to head north—they presumed to get away from the cold—over the horizon, but close enough that he'd be able to hear if they yelled for him. They didn't begrudge him for taking a break. At this rate, they suspected it would take them half a month to get home, maybe more.

Perhaps they should tell the machine makers to drop them off somewhere they could absorb enough energy to regrow their wing. They were getting hungry—had been hungry since repairing Third after his decapitation—but they were pretty sure they could still mend the tears without straining themselves too far. A volcano would do as an energy source. When the red sprite came back, they could ask him where the nearest volcano was. (They actually had enough words that they could ask now. They were... proud of that. They were puzzled by being proud of that, when usually they were so proud of getting around from world to world without deigning to communicate with the natives—without deigning to get attached.)

For now, though, they'd content themselves with the ride.

It wasn't a bad ride, all things considered—aside from the uncomfortable sense of being in the hands of someone's military. Free drinks. They hadn't even realized they could find oil on this planet, much less that the machine makers liked to conveniently can it and leave it sitting around where they could devour it. They'd have to be on the lookout for more cans in the future. They'd resisted the urge to clear the deck of them, but they were now just tipsy enough to actually relax.

Third had let his head roll sideways and was marveling at how that made the ocean look both horizontal and vertical when their fields of vision overlapped. Second had noodled his way across First's neck to plop his head on top of Third's, and was now determinedly ignoring Third flicking out his tongue to poke at the bottom of Second's chin. First had curled up against them both, shut his eyes, and was dozing, enjoying the hazy light faintly glowing on their scales after a whole night in a frozen wasteland. Half a month of this would probably be torture, but day one was alright.

Then the little king poked his head out of the water.

Second and Third stared at the dark grey blur in the middle of their overlapping views, befuddled. First opened his eyes, just made the view more confusing, and blinked slowly.

Third recognized him first and jerked up, causing Second to slide off and land snout first on the deck. Him! What was he doing here? What did he want? Had he heard about their injury? Did he think he could kill them while they were vulnerable. They'd see about that.

One of them tried to stand on their wings and feet. Another tried to raise their wings threateningly. The end result was that they got halfway to standing, lost their balance, crashed chest-and-necks first onto the deck, and ended up rolled sideways with one leg propping up their butt and the other leg twisted sideways under them. Oh, this was not intimidating. Maybe they were more tipsy than they'd thought.

The little king, eyes barely above the water line, stared at them.

They hissed and menacingly rattled the tail that hadn't gotten caught under them.

The little king growled so low, they could feel it vibrating the ship. Oh, they ought to zap him for that. He would deserve it.

What if they got into a real fight, though? The ship would immediately sink, and then they'd be in the water with him and unable to fly, and that would be that for them.

So, they glowered at him a moment longer—and then pointedly turned away, to study the horizon as though it was far more interesting than anything he could be doing. (Two of them did, anyway. Second was put on keep-glaring-at-him duty. Because one of them had to watch him in case he tried anything, and because Second had the best glare.) What did the little king matter to them, anyway? They were on a boat and he wasn't. They had free drinks. He wished he was on a boat with free drinks. After all he did to help the itty bitty creatures of this world, and they didn't appreciate him at all, did they? No. They gave free rides to their near-conqueror instead. Look. Gaze upon their glorious ride and despair.

The little king continued to watch them with a complete lack of anything that even slightly resembled envy. Then he sank back down beneath the water.

They waited until they were absolutely sure he was gone.

Then they lifted their heads and shouted, "Hey! Nido!"

###

Nido didn't think the golden ones were in any real trouble. They hadn't sounded distressed. All the same, he took off from the beach he'd been exploring (it hadn't existed the last time he was awake!) and flew to their side as fast as possible.

Partially, he admitted, because he wanted them to see how fast he could cut across the surface of the sea.

When he reached the boat, the golden ones looked about the same as he'd left them. Still a little... drowsy, maybe? Slightly out of it. But not unwell, which was what mattered. Definitely not under attack by a sea serpent or anything, which was the important part. Trying to hover in place without blowing at the boat, he asked, "What?"

"What is bad name?"

Okay, no, Nido now had no idea what was going on. "What?"

The question didn't seem to please them. They huddled together, silently ruminating over how to clarify their meaning. "You fight... it," they said, with a vague gesture with their good wing to indicate "it." Some unspecified enemy, probably. "You not love it. Not love."

"Hate," Nido supplied.

"You hate it. You... love it loses."

"You want it to lose?"

They gave him a skeptical look. "Yes?"

Nido clicked encouragingly, go on.

"You bad name it," the golden ones said. "What is bad name?"

Oh! Okay, a word for the kind of bad name you call someone you hate. "Insult," Nido said.

"Insult." They somehow turned the word into five syllables, i-nn-sii-li-T. It was kind of an amazing sound. "Ihi." And, apparently satisfied with their answer, they immediately switched topics. "Where is... near nest?"

"Why?" Nido asked, before remembering they hadn't covered that word.

They apparently guessed the meaning. "We want us... to... sit nest."

"Good!" Nido exclaimed. That was their most complex sentence to date. And of course they wanted a volcano—even without a proper layer of armor, they still had to find lava soothing when they were wounded, didn't they? Lava was inherently soothing.

Well, there was no place like home, and certainly no place like a crater that one of his own kind had carefully shaped into a cozy nest; but in desperate times Nido figured any vent with a bit of magma would do. After all day out on a metal boat in the ocean, immediately following a night out in a blizzard—the golden ones had to be cold, damp, and sore. Nido wondered if their thin gold armor eroded like stone did.

"Yes. I fly. You follow." Nido darted north and waited, circling in the air until the golden ones had glared at the humans until they got with the program and turned to follow.

###

It took the agonizingly slow human boat over a day—but at last, they made it to the nearest volcano Nido knew of.

To humans, the island in question is called Bouvet Island. Bouvet Island has the distinction of being the single island farthest from any other piece of land on the planet.

It also has the distinction of having 93% of its surface area covered by a glacier, due to the fact that its volcano hasn't erupted in four thousand years.

The golden ones gave Nido a forlorn look.

Nido shifted uncomfortably on his icy perch. "It was supposed to be warmer."

###

The Badass Fish—as he tended to think of himself when he was around the three-headed space freak—The Badass Fish had been following the boat for the past day.

And he didn't like this.

He didn't like the sound of the space freak's beating heart so close to the sound of a thrumming human ship. He didn't like hearing Nido's cries so nearby. The humans couldn't be stupid enough to help the freak, could they?

The Badass Fish wasn't sure. Humans, he had found, were collectively a pretty stupid bunch of people. He didn't have proof, but he was pretty sure they'd brought the freak back to life in the first place. Who knew what else they might do?

So he followed.

The freak departed from the boat on a small island in the middle of nowhere, and the boat hastily chugged away. He also didn't like that. He could hear the slow, tired churning of magma deep beneath the island; he could hear the cracking and splitting of ice above. If the freak planned to dig out the volcano, then that made this lonely island a little too similar to the kind of place he'd been when he'd mind controlled the planet. Did the freak need an island volcano to min control the planet? He didn't want to find out. But it was possible.

And so, The Ass-Kickingest Fish Ever swam into shallow water, lifted his head just above the water line, and observed.

It took the freak a moment to notice him; he'd worked himself deep into a plateau of glacial ice, and was initially only visible as a moving golden glow from behind the ice. But one head popped out to scan its surroundings, caught sight of him, and then all three were focused on him.

The freak narrowed all six eyes at him.

The Meanest Bitch In Town narrowed his right back.

"You," the freak snarled venomously. He clambered out of the pit he'd dug in the ice, practically slithering down to reach the water line. The freak was favoring one wing. Was the other wounded? "Hey, you."

He jerked his head a bit higher out of the water. The freak could talk now? He'd never done that before. The Baddest Boy In The Seven Seas had tried countless times to communicate with him—in every language he knew, in body language, in Mothra-assisted telepathy even—and now, suddenly, the space freak knew how to speak?

Maybe Mothra had been right, that there was a chance he could reform. If he was even learning to speak... "What?" he asked.

The freak stared blankly at him. "... What?"

Oh. The freak could only speak volcano pter language. Figured. The Great And Terrible Gorilla-Whale switched dialects. "What is it?"

The freak drew himself as high as he could without switching to bipedalism and said to him, with equal measures of menace, derision, and hatred, "Insult."

He stared at the space freak.

The space freak stared down at him, looking three shades of smug as hell.

The Reptilian Beast Feared By All In The Galaxy Who Value Their Continued Survival said, "You're an idiot."

"What?"

The Undisputed Master Of Both Land And Sea And Also Sometimes The Air When His Sister Is There snorted, turned around, and kicked back into deep water.

Nah.

This guy wasn't destroying the world today.

###

(Replies/reblogs are welcome & encouraged! Check the “source” link below for my masterlist of Ghidorah-centric and Rodorah fics, as well as my AO3 and Ko-fi links.)

[thejamaicanweeb]

Mitosis - Soul Division Lesson 1-1: Orientation Daze

Hello Friends! Here is the prologue to this fan fiction!

https://tinyurl.com/obey-me-mitosis-prologue

And here is the link to the previous part! 

https://tinyurl.com/mitosis-fic1-1

And finally, thank you so much for continuing to read! It means a lot =3

Jan 6th 2020, Sunday

Like after the meeting with the Dean, all the planning and packing and saying goodbye everything felt so freaking surreal but at least I can finally identify how else I feel. That’s right folks, I’m pissed as fuck.

           I mean, I was terrified. Like on the verge of collapsing terrified, but I’m also pissed. And tired. Hella tired. Today has been long. Longer than any day I've ever gone through, and man, I have been through some days before, can I tell yuh? The last thing I remember was trying my best to keep my crying quiet as Mummy and Daddy drove us to the airport. I must’ve really looked like a wreck cause Matthew held my hand the whole time and he isn’t a touchy-feely person in the slightest. Like at all. There he goes, being the mature one when he’s supposed to be my baby brother. After a while, I had stopped crying and began looking around at everything and everyone and everywhere. An entire year.  It will be an entire year. What if I forget about my likkle island, ee? [ee: huh] I wanted to remember as much as I could. 

Then I woke up in Hell.

No, yup. I’m not kidding. I woke up in Hell. Heck. The Bad Place...or the “Devildom” which is what these people are calling it.

I didn’t get to say “goodbye” or “I love you”.

Suffice to say, my initial feeling when I woke up was not a happy one.

           I woke up with a jolt, with that same heart-pounding, adrenaline-fueled awakening you get when you have a nightmare about falling. My hands flew up to my face, knocking my glasses off. To add insult to injury, my uncoordinated ass poked myself in the eye. FML.

"OW! What the ever-living frick-" I grumbled, squinting around with my other eye to find them. Thankfully, they hadn't gotten far. I bent over, rubbed them with the corner of my T-shirt and put them back on.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see when the world snapped back into focus.

           The word "room" seemed inadequate to describe the gargantuan space I was in. Huge vaulted stone ceilings arched high above me, reminding me of all the pictures of cathedrals (I know, 'llow me nuh [leave me be]). The sheer scale of it made me feel tiny. I glanced at one of the tall narrow windows and did a double-take, blinking hard.

Nope, I'm not crazy. That is definitely the night sky. Am I dreaming?

Did I reach already? Did I fall asleep without telling mom and dad I reached? Oh crap.

           I knew that I needed to call and let them know that I was ok, but stringing my thoughts into commands that were coherent enough for my limbs to carry out was proving to be quite a challenge. My head was pounding, the pain behind my eyes warning me I was teetering on the edge of a migraine. Reflexively, I reached for my medicine bag. If I get to the Panadol quickly enough, I might be able to fend it off before it gets any worse. No way I'm about to spend my first day in this unknown country throwing up in a dark room.

Aaaand I couldn’t find my bag.

           The idea that my inhalers, allergy meds, BP meds, my *phone*, my *passport* weren't close by made my stomach churn and knot up with anxiety. My already fast breathing got worse. Not exactly what someone wants when you're trying to avoid an attack. I took my glasses off and closed my eyes, willing my surroundings to return to normal. Alas, when I cracked one eyelid open to peak, there was no difference. I groaned and shut them back again.

Focus Sinai. Breathe. Now, what's the last thing you can remember?

           I wracked my brains but I couldn't remember anything beyond driving on Palisadoes Strip to the airport. Don't remember saying goodbye, checking onto the flight; nothing like that. The only seemingly logical conclusion was that I was dreaming. I nodded off during car rides all the time, and Lord knows I've had way more bizarre dreams than this.

So I figured all I have to do is wake up. Simple, right?

I have never been more wrong in my entire life.

           I put my glasses back on and took another look around; more details of my surroundings coming to my attention. I was on a wooden chair that was ornately carved and sturdy. Judging by the (lack of) feeling in my butt, I was probably sitting in it for a long while. I slowly tried to stand up, but my legs weren't having it.

"Woah! Crap!" I had to grab onto the chair handles to keep from falling over as my knees buckled and the pins and needles feeling prickled at the soles of my feet.

As I waited for my legs to work like they used to before (I'm sorry, I had to) I got the biggest shock so far at the time. I was too busy looking up and around me that I missed what was going on right in front of my nose.

           In front of me were 8 wooden chairs, larger and grander than the one I was using for support. The way they were set up kinda reminded me of a courtroom. One was on a dais that was higher than the other seven, which were side by side in a row. Above each of the seven chairs were tapestries with different creatures.Yeah, I know beautiful; but the goddamn tapestries weren't the problem. It was the five strangers that were staring straight at me.

           The anxiety twisted into genuine fear. Every news report I have ever seen heard or read about sex trafficking and abduction and murder came to mind with an irritatingly high level of clarity. I slowly shifted to stand behind my chair, my pulse rushing hard and fast enough to drown out everything other than my now frantic thoughts. The ground beneath my feet began to feel like it was shifting. You know damn well yo' girl held into that damn chair for dear life 'cause droppin' down jus' suh in front of a bag a people mi deeven know? No sah. [fainting in front of strangers? Hell no.]

            In hindsight, now that things have settled down it's not like I coulda done much if dem did try fi do me sumn stillz. My one, deggeh deggeh self against five men. All worse it turns out they weren't what they appeared to be? Anyway, I digress. 

[There wasn’t anything I could really do if they tried to attack me. Me, on my own against these guys?]

            The man sitting on the highest chair stood up and began to walk down from the platform towards me. My heart sank when he drew closer. He was huge. Not just height-wise, but he was built with enough solid muscle that even the conservative bright red military jacket.... coat.... thing.... he wore couldn't hide it. I wouldn't have been surprised if he could pick me up with one hand and I'm not the lightest person. I involuntarily took a step back, causing the chair legs to scrape across the stone slabs.

Ok, I think that I can get good enough leverage to lift and swing this is this guy tries anything... afterwards...well I'll work that out when I come to it.

           He stopped a few feet from me. I could see his face clearly now. His auburn hair lay on his forehead with his left sweeping bangs nearly covering his bright, golden-brown eyes. His nails were painted black, but what stood out the most was the gentle smile on his face. His arms were open in the universally known "I mean you no harm" gesture. I let go of the back of the chair.

           Now I know, I know. I'm naïve, stupid, overly trusting. Whatever. You're probably right; but for whatever reason, at that moment I had a gut feeling that this guy wasn't going to hurt me. I mean, he could have when I was unconscious, right? Fuck, maybe he could even tell me what the heck was going on here.

"Welcome to the Devildom, Sinai"

Aaaaand there goes my little bubble of trust ‘cause how on earth does he know my name? Did he jack my ish? I shivered and started to look around again, keeping an eye out for possible escape routes this time.

           No such luck. See here's the problem. There is no "flight" option for me under the best of circumstances. Yo' girl is *not* a runner. I can kick, I can punch but I cannot run. The closest set of doors were these towering heavy-looking dark stained wooden ones that I wasn't even sure I could budge; let alone throw open and run through them. Plus, I'm pretty sure that this guy would be able to catch me without even needing to run.

           My lack of response and the look on my face was clearly a dead giveaway to the guy that I was T-Minus 10 seconds from completely and utterly losing my shit. He crossed his arms, his eyebrows drawn together in what seemed like genuine concern.

"Feeling a bit shocked, are we?"

No shit Sherlock! I had to literally bite my tongue to stop myself from expressing *that* particular sentient aloud. And while we're at it, WTF is a 'Devildom'?

"As a human, it will probably take a little while for you to adjust to things here in the Devildom.”

Pop quiz guys! What do you think the phrase "As a human" implies here?

That's right! This guy was something other than a human being!

I was fully waiting (And hoping. And praying) for a hidden camera crew to appear, laugh at me and send me along my merry way. Just something, anything that made more sense than what was happening right now.

"The Devildom?" I heard myself parrot back at him, hating how high pitched and false my voice sounded. I swear that it jumps up a whole octave when I'm stressed.

The man... can I even still call him that after that whole human comment? Anyway, he smiled and nodded at me encouragingly.

"Yes, exactly the Devildom. I can see you catch on quickly. Excellent"

"I wouldn't exactly call that 'catching on' Imma be real with you chief," I muttered softly enough for him to miss.

"My name is Diavolo."

Finally, a name. Why not lead with that fam? I nodded and gave him a brief, tight-lipped smile only for his next statement to bring me to a screeching halt mentally, physically, shit, even spiritually.

"I'm the ruler of all the demons and all here know of me"

The note of authority and pride were so clear, I believed him with no doubt.

A wave of nausea that had nothing to do with my impending crushed me like a tsunami.

           Now I will not lie, it's been a good while since I've been to church. I grew up Anglican and may have forgotten a lot of stuff, but I was pretty damn certain that the general idea was to end up high above in the clouds, not underground or wherever. My hands started trembling and my palms were sweating. The buzzing in my ears made everything else seem fuzzy. I needed to listen to these warning signs. I needed to get out of there and fast, otherwise I would be a crying, hyperventilating ball of absolute panic. Lord knows how long. I kept screaming at myself to calm down, but I could. Not. Get. A. Grip.

Did I die? Am I dead?

Is my family dead? Where are they?

Was that the last time I've seen Mummy and Daddy and Mattie again?

Oh, God. Oh my God. Lawd 'ave mercy. Is whe mi do? What did I do?

           Shadows appeared at the edges of my vision like little blobs of ink. My heart was making my chest ache, it was going so fast. Much too fast, it can't sustain this. I would die. I knew it. If I hadn't died, I certainly was going to then. Or maybe that's what Hell... the Devildom is. Dying over and over again.

           I didn't even feel myself being lead through a pair of glass doors onto a balcony until the cool breeze caused my skin to come to life with goose pimples. Diavolo had led me outside. For a terrifying moment my frenzied, irrational lizard brain swore that he was going to push me over the edge, but no. He had just put an open palm on my back to steady me. He bent down to get closer to my level.

"Sinai, I know this must be scary and a terrible shock and I offer my sincerest apologies for that," he said quietly, his eyes earnest. I nodded jerkily, a puppet with an anxious puppeteer. "Breathe. I'm not going to hurt you."

           He straightened back up and gestured to the view below speaking out loud, making it seem like he had simply intended to show me the different parts of the campus. For that I was grateful. I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. I focused on the feeling of the balcony railing I was gripping on to. I focused on the warmth of the hand pressed to my back. I focused on the cool night air of the foreign land with a combination of smells that woke me up and bewitched me at the same time. I opened my eyes so I could truly take in the sprawling kingdom... Devildom in front of me. Windows of buildings glowed every hue imaginable. A castle with huge spires towered over the immediate town and mountains silhouetted by the moon towered over that. As afraid as I was, I had to admit that the sight was breathtaking. I was calm enough to sit down and list things I was fairly certain of.

Ok so here we go

1.      I'm not dead. (...at least not right now. Ugh, stop being dramatic)

2.      I'm not dreaming either

3.      I don't seem to be in any immediate danger

It took me a moment to realize that Diavolo had stopped talking.

"Do you have any questions, Sinai?"

Fifty thousand and one of them. But the one I wanted to be answered most urgently was overridden by a query so bizarre yet important if I really was in a foreign land. 

“Was I decontaminated before you bought me to this place?” 

Diavolo frowned and glanced at the others sitting in the chairs. Everyone looked baffled. Not a good sign.

“... No… why would that be necessary?” the prince’s voice was slow and calm, but the concern on his face refused to be hidden.

I stepped back, away from him and the others. I didn’t even have on my mask, Mummy had had me wearing one from the get-go since I was part of the “at-risk” population.

“There’s a virus that’s going around. Like spreading everywhere, fast. I don’t wanna bring it here. I mean, I don’t have it, but just to be safe…” 

I trailed off since I had started stumbling over my own words too much to be making much sense. The room was silent before they started laughing. Now I was confused. Diavolo (much to my eternal shame) ruffled my hair.

“Hey!” my voice cracked and came out as a squeak. I felt my face warming up. Fight me, damnit! The Prince chortled, completely unbothered.

“Sinai, I’m touched by your concerned but rest assured, it would take a very severe illness to be a serious threat to us.”

"Ok, just making sure,” I mumbled, “So then... why am I here?" At that moment, some movement from the chairs behind Diavolo caught my attention.

"I will explain everything to you."

The goosebumps were back, not because of fear this time. To be honest, I'm still not sure why they came back, but come back they did. This man's voice was deeper, more aloof. His fair skin was a stark contrast to his ebony hair, and he was within inches of Diavolo's height. When I made eye contact, I inhaled sharply. Black bleeding into burgundy, which then shifted to a bloody crimson. I glanced away, but I still felt like I was being scanned or X-rayed. It was bizarre.

Apparently that man was Lucifer. The Lucifer.

Well, shit. Lord, help me.

Oh well. At least I'd finally be learning what's happening.

                                ψ(._. )> S T A G E    C H A  N G E ψ(._. )>

The top half of the door of the RAD bookshop was ajar. It looked forlorn without the demon who normally ran it leaning over the counter. Down the aisles, deep into the recesses of the store, the glow of a laptop caused the merchandise to cast warped shadows on the walls. Two demons scrutinized the screen, the bars representing the popularity contest results reflected in their eyes. 

“Huh,” the taller of the two ran a hand through his already messy white hair, “Ya actually managed to pull it off,”

“Told you I got this,” His friend’s bright grin stood out against his rich deep brown complexion His grin shifted into a smug smirk as he leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head.

Mammon shrugged, shaking his head.

“I just thought it would take a while, ya know?”

“You really think I’d set up an online ballot and not leave a back door for myself?” Mephistopheles snorted, closing the windows. Mammon smirked and gave the shorter demon a high five.

“See, this is why I keep ya around Phis! He crowed as he dropped into the chair beside Mephistopheles, causing it to roll back with his momentum. 

“Yeah, it has nothin’ to do with the fact that I work somewhere full of merchandise. Put that watch down, you bastard,” Mephistopheles retorted, the laughter in his voice taking the sting out of his words.

“Can’t get anythin’ past you,” The Avatar of Greed put the yellow-gold timepiece he had been fiddling with back on its shelf. “The flat top works for ya by the way,”

“Oh I know,” The demon was using his front camera to survey his jade-green style “and I was talking about the one from a week ago,”

Mammon froze for a moment, then whirled around.

“What the- how did ya even- did you get cameras installed or somethin’?” he spluttered.

“I didn’t” Mephistopheles admitted, taking a swing from his sports drink “but I do keep track of my stock and something wasn’t adding up…”

Mammon’s mouth was half open in protest, but a good comeback escaped him. He settled for throwing the other demon a look of wide-eyed reproach 

“Hey, no fair, you played dirty,” he grumbled. 

“Yeah yeah, come get your DDD, it’s ringing,” Mephistopheles said as he scooted backwards, Mammon’s DDD in hand. Mammon snatched it from him as he went past.

“Better answer quick It’s Lucifer” he warned, stopping himself and starting to roll back from where he came from. He cringed, sympathetic, as he saw the blood drain from his friend’s face.

“Good luck,” he said, getting up and sauntering to the storefront.

Mammon hurriedly cleared his throat before sliding the phone icon to the side.

“Yoooo,” he said, his leg jittering up and down.

“Yo, waah g’waan?”

Mammon recoiled and squinted at the phone. No, he didn’t misread the caller ID. The voice certainly wasn’t Lucifer, though. It was friendly with an easy-going accent he was sure he had heard somewhere before, but he couldn’t place it. The fact that the speaker was female was the biggest give away. But it didn’t sound like any of the witches either. His expression darkened as he concluded that he was being duped. He wasn’t amused. 

“Are ya foolin’ around? Who the hell are ya?” he demanded.

“Woah, calm yourself an’ watch the attitude, fam” the voice shot back. He heard her sigh, and she spoke again, “Sorry. I’m Sinai?”

Well, that was a name he hadn’t heard in a few millennia……. 

“What, you mean like the mountain?”

She snickered “Nah, well I-yes, but actually no… I’m a human, not a geographical feature”

“Ah gotcha,” Mammon replied, nodding before he fully processed what he heard. “Wait what? A human? Why didn’t ya start with that? Had me getting chills over here,” he griped. 

He finally let the tension leave his body and he leaned against the wall. His brow unknitted slightly as she laughed softly again.

“Yeah, my bad. Any-”

“So,” he said, cutting her off as he inspected his nails, “what business does a human got with THE Mammon?”

“Oh ‘The Mammon’ huh?” she asked sardonically “Lol aite then. Well, congrats, you’re in charge of me for the next year.”

Mammon snorted as he peeled himself off the wall and began to wander around the store aimlessly

“Human, I don't know who you think you are, but ya got the wrong demon,” A warning note crept into his voice. In the back of his mind he toyed with the idea of just hanging up, but he had to admit he was a bit curious about how this human even knew his number.

“Who are you anyway and whaddya mean by “be in charge of you”?

He met Mephistopheles’ eyes. The stockier demon looked about as baffled as Mammon felt. They both shrugged and Mephistopheles took his computer back to the front with him. He turned his attention back to the phone; the human was saying something else.

“Bruh, why yuh sound more lost than I do? Do I have the wrong number?” she was getting exasperated.

“AAH!” Mammon clapped a hand to his forehead as it finally clicked, “Oh yeah, I remember you’re the other human.”

“Well yeah, who else would I be?”

“Who knows? Anyway, g’luck with that whole babysitter thing. See ya~”

He was about to end the call when he heard other voices in the background from her end of the call. The human said something to someone else before her voice got clearer again.

“Yo, Lucifer wants you,”

Mammon rolled his eyes and let go of the notebook he was absent mindedly flipping through. Not even two minutes into their first conversation and this chick was already shaping up to be a real pain in the ass. Plus, it seemed she was taking him as a joke.

“Pfft whatever,” he said, dismissively, “Ya think that THE Mammon would listen to ya just ‘cause you’re tryin’ to scare me with that name?”

A deep, familiar voice answered instead, making his hair stand on end and sweat start to bead on his forehead. 

“You’ve got 10 seconds,” Lucifer’s voice made his stomach sink, “9...8…”

“YESSIR!” 

Mammon vaulted over the bottom half of the door, leaving a chuckling Mephistopheles in his wake. He was fuming.

“Get me in trouble with Lucifer right off the bat huh?” he muttered darkly “Just ya wait, human, by the time I’m through with ya you’ll be beggin’ Diavolo to send ya back home.”

[injuries-in-dust]

Get sick to get better.

A rather dark story idea. Not in the same vein any of the amusing Humans Are Weird, ideas that I’ve had, or read, before. This would be more of a “Humans! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” if it were to have a tittle at all.  I’m going to explore this myself, maybe even get a multi-chapter story out of it. However I’d love to see what other good writers here could make of it. 

Humans infect worlds. All in the name of helping them.  Some background for context: 

Upon watching an video on Youtube which covered European history while exploring a what-if scenario: What if the Black Death Wiped Out Europe?

Long story short it stated that the modern world, as we know it, stems from changes which needed to be made after The Plague; The Black Death, wiped out a 1/3 of Europe. There were less workers. So workers were more valuable, so they demanded higher wages and better living conditions. Undermining the established social order and causing innovation. Less workers meant there was more work for them to do, leading to necessity and invention of making the working life easier. This led to the rise of the Renaissance. It led to the rise of the period of exploration as Europeans set out to find new trade routes. Which led to the discovery of America and the rest is the history we know until where Europeans and those of European descent were a pretty dominant force in shaping the world until after the industrial revolution, where other nations caught up and stood on their own feet, in the world which Europeans had made.  The changes to the world couldn’t have come from anyone else. The path to industrialisation was a fluke which could have only occurred in the post-plague Europe due to a number of reasons, covered in the video (see the link above.)

Things would have become more advanced with time, changes in science, mathematics, philosophies are inevitable, but none to the same scale that eventually led to the industrial revolution.  The Chinese culture, which had previously been more advanced, had begun a period of isolation.  The Islamic world, which had also been highly advanced, had passed its golden age and was actually stagnating, for long and complex reasons.  Even before the plague, Europe had been pretty much unchanged for almost a thousand years. 

So here is the dark idea; Humans, knowing this, going out into the stars and seeing new worlds and new cultures may find some of them to be ancient, yet shockingly primitive. I’m not saying they won’t encounter technologically advanced species; other worlds may have ended up facing some similar events which caused the drive of innovation. But there would be worlds out there who could have civilisations far older than all of human history, but just haven’t grown beyond a certain point because they didn’t have to. What if we make them?  Let’s just focus on some of the positives that it brought; longer lives due to better healthcare, global trade, introducing us to goods, services, concepts, cultures, and ideas we never would have considered before. Equal rights for all humanity regardless of race, colour, creed or sex (as far as the law is concerned. and yes, I know I’m over-generalising.)  Global communications. Education. Science, knowledge, a deeper understanding of the world and the universe and our place in it. People walked on the moon. Humans will eventually walk on mars and the worlds beyond. Computers, youtube, and tumblr. All of this stems from the one event; a plague which wiped out 1/3 of Europe.  So a little bit of evil, brings a lot of good. If we want to give these same benefits to other worlds, help spur them on to greater and higher levels than they have. Would we land and teach them? or would we let them receive the same motivation we did? Would we see if lighting in a bottle can be caught twice? Would we do it? Would we give a world a plague?