#Alien don’t you even think about it either I will bite you if you say anything-
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Matt Groening is infecting my fucking brain I am looking at two Simpsons characters as crushes oh god oh fuck what do I do-
#😈 : salem says#❣️ : crush gush#🥰 : self ships#No I’m not going to say who just yet#Alien don’t you even think about it either I will bite you if you say anything-
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Submitting to the Alien Barbarian: #1
Alien x fem reader, a dom/sub erotic short.
TW/CW: rough consensual sex, primal play, knotting, breeding, aliens, dominance/submission, blood play, spanking, and violence.
MASTERPOST
The heat radiating from the crowd, along with the smell of sex, hits you in the face as the door clicks open and the pilot bot dumps you unceremoniously into the dirt.
Your heart thuds in your chest, but it’s not because of the excitement you thought you would feel.
You’re scared shitless.
But this is what you wanted, this is what you signed up for.
“Mates needed for Volkroth spawning season. All expenses paid for biologically compatible species.”
You wanted someone to be rough with you, to be a fucking barbarian with you.
Maybe it was too much to expect an orientation before being dropped off at the spawning pits. You figured after the extensive medical testing, to ensure biological capability, that they’d ease you in.
You were so wrong.
Besides the chorus of fucking masses that surround you, there’s the guttural noises of males as they slam their fists into each other’s bodies.
Something you didn’t realize from the holo communication is that the aliens are fucking huge.
They tower over you as one purple brute rips the other male off a yellow alien female, who arguably looks like she’s having a great time. She even laughs as the male turns and clocks the attacking alien on the jaw.
His bones audibly snap as he crumples to the ground. You’re not sure if the breaking noise was his jaw or his neck—but you don’t think anyone cares.
They’re barbaric! They kill soldiers deemed too weak to fight, how could you want to mate a Volkroth? Your roommates disgusted face flashes in your mind as you wonder if the alien on the ground is dead or not.
“If you’re too weak to fight, you’re too weak to carry on the bloodline,” the victor yells.
The last male standing drips with the perspiration of sex, his body slick and shining. Unlike the one you saw on the holo comm, he’s completely nude.
More importantly, the big beast has two massive cocks resting on one heavy set of balls. They twist around each other, almost looking like they’re prehensile. You must gasp, because you draw his attention.
You scramble to stand when the alien’s eyes fall on you. His thick black hair, falling free of his top knot, spilling over the four horns. There are two on either side of his head, that curl proudly away from his face.
“A human?” He almost laughs as he says it. “I’d have thought you’re kind too soft, too exotic to be in the spawning pits with the rest of us.”
His voice is deadly smooth as he approaches you, a predator stalking his prey.
You’re frozen, even if your brain is screaming to flee, that you shouldn’t let this monster near you.
But there’s a broken part of your judgement that wants him to grab you by the neck and fuck you into the dirt.
So you stay still, stuck between two desires, your heart in your throat.
You crane your head up to look at him. He moves one very deliberate step closer. He’s so close now you can feel his breath on your face.
His golden eyes darken, and he licks his lips.
“You should run,” his voice is almost a whisper as it leaves his mouth.
The logical part of your mind wins, and you bolt. But you don’t have time to worry about where you’re running too. You feel his huge hand shoot around your midsection, pulling you back against his body.
His enormous cocks strain against your ass, the thin fabric of your jumpsuit doing nothing to protect you from the heat of his body. He brings his free hand up to your neck and squeezes rough fingers against the column of your throat. It sends sparks down to your weeping pussy and you squirm in his hold.
“I want you full and dripping with my seed, and only mine, human,” he breathes into your ear.
You bite back a moan.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You want a beast to breed you, to make you submit?”
“Yes,” you manage to eek out. The first words you’ve spoken on this planet are to agree to be some space barbarians plaything.
His hand rips the neckline of your jumpsuit, exposing your breast to the planet’s humid air. Your nipples pebble instantly as he drags his rough hand over the sensitive flesh.
The hand on your neck weaves into your hair, grabbing your ponytail and yanking your head further back until your cheek rests against his. His stubble rubs your cheek raw.
“How do you want it?” He asks.
“Rough,” You groan as his fingers pinch your nipple. You arch your back, searching for some friction as your hips lift. You want him to fuck you.
Suddenly, there’s a flash of pain and you yelp as his hand comes down hard, sharply smacking your tit.
“Can you handle rough, with all this softness?” His palms smoothes over the agitated skin of your red breast, the stinging melting into something blurred with an intense pleasure.
“Only one way to find out,” You say, with some shocking boldness. “Fuck me.”
His breath catches at your change in tone.
This is what you wanted. Your body is singing with joy. You want him to use you; You want him to fucking breed you.
You look back at the alien, and his brows are knit. A look of resolution crosses his face.
“I won’t share you,” he says before throwing you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
NEXT PART
#monster fucker#monster fuqqer#monster smut#monsterfuqqer#monster romance#monster lover#smut#terato#aliens#i love aliens#alien romance#alien x reader#alien x human#alien#petra palerno#STTABshort
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☼masterlist☼
02 <- ☼ -> 04
warnings: 1.6k, captivity, restraints, non-con, forced orgasms, forced lactation, fingering, exhibitionism/voyeurism, toys, fisting, gape, orgasm torture
notes: this one took me a while because i could not find a good place to write it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) but here ya go! this is gross! (also i have zero experience with lactation, but this is sci-fi so let’s just pretend)
tags: @ssplague @makepastanotwar13 @kaidabakugou @kiarathace @kllrkitty @itachiwho @siempre-entre-dos-opciones-blog @clerdecat
let me know if you would (or would not) like to be tagged, but you must have your age somewhere visible on your blog!
You don’t know how long it is before Kat returns, no way to tell when it’s day or night (or even if this planet has days and nights, how long they may last). A different alien had come in some time ago to clean you, or so you assume. It had spread some sort of gel over the exposed parts of your body, the substance tingling then drying by itself.
The creature had also given you something, held a gun shaped object to your thigh, aimed right at your femoral artery, and shot you with what you guess to be sustenance considering the way your appetite was suddenly satiated.
Despite not feeling as drained as before, headache and stomach cramps having subsided, your heart drops when you see Kat walk in followed by two others that you vaguely recognize from when your crew had first arrived.
He thinks their names before you have to ask, and the closest you can get is Deku and Kiri. Both are even larger than Kat, a fact that makes you swallow nervously. He had told you he would find better ways to stretch you. Is this how? Are they going to…?
No. They’re just here to watch.
Also scary but not as bad as it could be.
Kat fiddles with the panel behind you again, tightening restraints, spreading your legs, just like last time. You already know that any struggling is useless, so you focus more on your breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
The device on your chest has been active for some time, and though Kat doesn’t adjust anything on that, he does uncoil two clear tubes—the ones you saw attached to Kendou, and connects them to the smaller ones that sit right over your nipples.
I’ve never been pregnant… you won’t be able to get anything from me, you try, knowing damn well that pregnancy isn’t the only way to induce lactation.
I’m sure we’ll get plenty, Kat thinks with a huff.
You feel the machine initiate a light suction that makes you bite your lip, and when Kat walks around you to take up his place between your legs, you can see the smirk on his face.
A new set of tools is brought out this time, similar balls and speculum but other items that vary in size. They look very similar to a certain kind of toy you used to pleasure yourself with at home, except you never tried to use anything as big as some of these. Two of the oblong shapes look doable, but after that they start to get… intimidating.
You tense at the first touch, fingers tracing up and down your folds.
You either relax now or I make you, he tells you. Threatens you, more like.
You don’t doubt him. He learned how to unravel you last time, and judging by the way his finger lightly circles your clit, he retained all that information.
He teases for a little while, speaking to his comrades in their native tongue. Part of you wishes you could understand what he’s saying while another part is glad you can’t. Who knows what he’s telling them about you and your pussy?
You want to cry when you feel yourself throb, know that Kat can feel your wetness when he pushes a finger into your heat.
Like I told you… relaxed. He must be referring to the way your legs stop trembling.
It doesn’t feel good, doesn’t feel good, you repeat more to yourself than to him. Natural reaction, biological response. You need these reminders. You need to know that it isn’t the alien who’s making your skin hot, making you want more.
Kat adds another finger, scissors them, pulls out only to stretch your hole with different digits. He grunts something and you hear heavy footsteps, the other two creatures coming closer in order to watch, to look inside of you.
You clench your muscles as if it’ll do anything to hide your intimacy, but all it does is make the first bit of slick leak out of you. All three aliens make curious noises, something more appreciative coming from Kat when he rubs a finger through your folds, gathering the liquid.
To your horror, he raises his finger to his face to sniff it, examining it for a moment before poking his forked tongue out and licking it.
Deku and Kiri are suddenly shouting at him in alarm. Maybe they think it’s poison, a defense mechanism. That’s an amusing idea.
Taste good, Kat thinks, and you’re horrified at the pleasure that rolls through you. You don’t want him to enjoy the taste. Fuck, what if it makes him want to eat you?
I just might. His mouth is lifted up on one side, the edge of a fang poking out.
He uses the speculum first, stretching you slowly, so slowly, until your hole is opened wide enough for him to slide one of the long shapes inside of you. There’s even room to spare, prompting him to switch the tool for a bigger one. You feel the speculum against your walls rather than the insert, but that changes when Kat removes both to replace them with the next size up.
You moan, eyes squeezed shut. This is all I can take, you think to yourself. I can’t fit anything bigger.
Yeah, you can.
Kat moves the tool in and out of you, fucking you with it as your noises rise in volume and pitch. Oh, it feels good. It feels too good, and it only gets better when he flicks your clit. Your arousal streams down your folds and ass followed by squirt when Kat begins moving faster.
“Fuck fuck fuck.” It comes out as a whisper. You don’t want any of them to hear. Not that it matters since they—or at least Kat—knows what you’re thinking.
Another, girthier tool (at this point you feel they’re more like toys) takes the other’s place, and tears prick your eyes as you feel your flesh stretch even more. You have no idea how wide your hole is at this point, but you do know you’ve never had something this big inside of you. You also know you’ve never experienced the sensation you’re feeling in your tits.
Kat has enough understanding to go slowly, keep working your muscles and not just shove into you. You’re embarrassingly wet, letting the toy slide in and out of you with ease, and soon you’re even trying to buck into it.
You’re close to an orgasm. You can feel it building inside of you. And then it disappears when Kat stops pumping, leaving the tool inside of you and watching as you whimper and clench around it.
Push it out, he commands. I wanna see your cunt work.
You whine out loud and sniffle, unable to mask your shameful thought: but I don’t want it out of me.
Push it out and I’ll make you cum.
Bearing down as best you can, you groan and push, again feeling how large the object is as it slowly slides out of you. When it falls between your legs you let out a sob, inhaling raggedly when Kat touches you again. Fingers delve inside of you but it’s only to open you up. No part of his hands are touching, and though you can’t see what he sees, you know you must be stretched obscenely wide.
The three aliens peer into your guts, and you’ve never felt more exposed. You’re morbidly curious at your state, what Kat has done to your pussy, and in a silent answer to your question he releases your folds and begins pushing fingers into you. Two… three… four… oh god, five… and you take another without issue. You must be gaping, loose enough to—Christ, he starts fisting you. His whole hand is inside of you, making squirt splash out of your cunt. The way your body greedily takes what he’s giving you is absurd, and the way it makes you climb closer to your peak is even more so.
Wanna feel you clench around me. Can you do that?
You nod, back arching. He’s literally bruising your insides, and you’re loving it.
When you cum, it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Your hole opens wider as if begging for Kat to push further, and a geyser of fluid sprays from between your legs. At the same time, you feel a tightness in your nipples as milk is pushed from them. Your jaw drops open in awe as you watch the white droplets get sucked up the tubing attached to you. He was right. It actually worked.
Could play with your cunt all day, Kat thinks as you take a shuddering breath. I think I might.
You feel weak as you raise your head to look at him, your face sticky with drying tears. I don’t…
He wiggles his fingers inside of you, cutting off any argument you thought you had.
There’s no way to tell how long he’s there with you, long enough for Kiri and Deku to grow bored and leave, but Kat stays, making you cum again. And again. And again.
The table is drenched and so are you and so is he, your juices dripping down his chest and into his lap. You cry and beg him to stop, so lightheaded, so sore. Every orgasm is paired with lactation. The first couple climaxes only produce drops at a time, but eventually you’re spewing enough milk to coat the tubes. All you want to do is hold your tender breasts, cover your nipples and soothe them, but it’s not an option. Instead Kat just keeps making you cum, keeps milking you, until all that’s left for you to do is pass out.
2023©️shdo-xplosion. please do not plagiarize or repost my work to any other platforms.
#bakugou x reader#katsuki bakugou x reader#bakugou katuski x reader#bnha x reader#tw dark content#tw noncon
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What I Say: I'm fine.
What I Mean: There was a Star Trek Novel in which Tuvok and Jack Crusher (Beverely's Husband) have to go undercover in a bathhouse that they think is a brothel to get information out of a potential lead and because of a series of hijinks at one point must come to terms with the fact that they're definitely going to have to go into the boss's private room completely naked and might have to go even further than that to get the info they truly need. They were ready to go all in on that "I'm not gay but a mission's a mission" life.
Transcripts under the cut
[Image 1:
“We’re here to meet someone,” he said. “I was told that a Melacron named Pudris Barrh enjoyed visiting this establishment.”
The alien smiled. “Oh, I see…you’re one of Barrh’s boys,” she remarked with a knowing lilt.
Barrh’s boys? Crusher asked himself. What did she mean by that? He experienced a moment of alarm but kept his composure.
“If you can get past Old Scowly there,” the female continued, “you can join Barrh at his pleasures if you like." She raised a long slender arm and pointed to a gilded door to her right.]
[Image 2:
“I don’t know for certain what kind of establishment this is,” said the commander, “but I can make a pretty good guess.”
“Unfortunately,” the Vulcan whispered back with sincere and undisguised revulsion, “so can I.”
"Still, we may have to go along with it.” Crusher regarded Tuvok. “Would that…pose a problem?”
“Naturally,” the Vulcan replied.
The commander grunted. “I was afraid you would say that.”
“And knowing what I do of human marriage customs,” said Tuvok, “I would imagine it would pose a problem for you as well.”
Crusher looked lost “Maybe we could just play along for some of it…for the sake of-”
“My master will see you now,” said Old Scowly. He had reappeared before the Vulcan knew it. “You may enter through the changing room, remove your clothes, and join Pudris Barrh at his pleasures.”]
[Image 3:
As it happened, Tuvok wasn’t happy either. If he didn’t know better, he would have said that the uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach was apprehension. Of course, that was impossible. His control over his emotions was impeccable. And yet the sensation remained.
“There must be another way,” said Crusher.
“There is no other way,” the Vulcan told him. “This is the situation in which your plan has placed us.” He knew his words sounded biting, but he didn’t wish any of them back.
The human ran his hands through his thick, dark hair. “Damn it,” he said, “If Beverely ever…”
“Find out about this?” the ensign suggested.
Frowning, Crusher nodded. “But as you say, there’s no other option open to us. I guess we’ll just deal with whatever comes as best we can.” He grunted. “The things we do for king and country.”]
[Image 4:
When the air cleared for a moment - a byproduct of their entrance - the Vulcan was able to get a better look at their host. He was rather corpulent for a Melacron, it seemed, and more pale-looking than most.
As thick, sludgy ripples made their slow way outward from Barrh’s generous torso, he waved to Tuvok and Crusher. “Please, gentlemen, join me. We’ve not met yet, but there are few better places to get to know someone than in The House of Comfort!”
[Crusher] and Tuvok exchanged a quick glance. Taking a deep breath, the human walked up to the carpeted stairs and placed first one foot, then the other, into the hot, liquid muck.
The ensign had little choice but to follow suit. He assured himself, as he sank up to his chest in the thick, surprisingly pleasant-smelling stuff, that there was realy no logical reason T’Pel ever had to become acquainted with this misadventure.
Besides, he reflected, there was quite a good chance that the majority of his and Crusher’s actions would be classified. He had to confess that he found some comfort in the prospect.]
Bonus:
Tuvok and Crusher apparently both go home and tell their wives about this experience. I don't know if we learn of T'Pel's reaction but Beverely apparently thinks its hilarious!
#novel experiences#TUVOK. HEY.#-POINTS-#HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS#Tuvok CANNOT keep getting into dubiously moral but incredibly gay scenarios he just can't I'm gonna start howling at the moon#The fact that he has a wife is so funny#GOD there was an old post I LOVED that was like#'I know Tuvok has a wife and kids and I'm so happy for him but he has sex with men.'#<- VERY paraphrased by me#st voyager#tng#Jack Crusher#Tuvok#st voy#star trek#Is he....you know? -gestures- One of Barrh's boys?#Crusher: We might have to suck this guy's dick Tuvok. / Tuvok: Tch.#I love that Tuvok's like 'he knew his words sounded harsh....and he meant it<3 He meant every syllable <3'#him being so devoted to his wife just makes the whole thing more lascivious /positive
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Today's prompt: 5. "You're the smartest person I know."
Fluffy-fluff set in Detour: We get to see a bit more of Scully singing to Mulder... (wc: 1,000)
tagging @today-in-fic @xfficchallenges
Fictober Day 5: If I Were The King of The World
“Joy to you and me,” Scully sings, letting the words fade away into the thicket. Even with her being quiet now, there's no silence here. Every sound is a potential danger and every snap and crackle makes her hold Mulder closer to her body. He’s warm. So very, very warm. She knows she won’t fall asleep, but she can’t help but think about how it would feel to be pressed against his warm body in other circumstances.
“Where’s the second verse?” Mulder mumbles.
“Sleep, Mulder,” she replies, evading his question.
“You stopped singing. Can’t sleep if you don’t sing.”
“You can’t hear me sing when you’re sleeping.”
“I’m not asleep yet. Come on, Scully. The second verse is the best.”
“I don’t know it,” she lies.
“If I were the king of the world,” Mulder starts and she has to bite her lip because his singing is worse than her own. “Tell you what I’d do. Throw away the cars and the something and the something, hmm, how does that go? Now your line, Scully.”
The only sound is the rustling of their outdoor gear as Mulder moves his body to get more comfortable. She waits and holds her breath. It’s just a song. The line doesn’t mean anything. She knows the lyrics by heart, having sung the song with Melissa when they were children. One day, while at the beach, her sister was singing the second verse quietly watching a group of others, and Scully, feeling brave, asked her what making sweet love even meant. Melissa smiled and kissed her hair, promising her that she’d explain it to her when she was a little bit older.
“Scully? Sing the last line.”
It has been on her mind all day. That’s a lie. It has been on her mind for many days now. Making sweet love to someone. No, not someone. To Mulder. She can admit it to herself now. Here, in the dark, damp forest, where her secret is safe among the trees. At some point in the last couple of months, her feelings have sprouted in spite of it all. Now, she can no longer bury them deep inside. She doesn’t want to anymore either. If there’s one thing her cancer has taught her, it’s that no one is guaranteed a future. When this seminar came along, her plan began to hatch. With no monsters or aliens to hunt, she figured she and Mulder could maybe, just maybe, try and catch a slice of life. But of course, they ended up here, lost in the woods, Mothmen loose and Mulder wounded.
“Did you fall asleep on me?” Mulder asks. His clothes rustle again and his elbow digs into her thigh.
“I’m awake,” she assures him. She’d tried. She’d really tried. Came to his room with wine and cheese. How much clearer could she have been? And now he wants her to sing that line. He’s good at making jokes, at flirting. The following through? Not so much.
He starts to hum the melody and then stares up at her again, making her wonder what’s going through his mind. A lock of hair is stubbornly standing up from his head, making him look impossibly young and boyish.
“It’s I'd throw away the cars and the bars and the wars,” she sings softly, correcting his earlier lyrics. The corner of his mouth twitches in amusement.
“What’s the next line then?” he asks with a voice smoother than the wine she drank without him last night.
“Make sweet love to you.” She says the words instead of singing them, hoping they’ll register somewhere in that brilliant mind of his.
“That’s it.” He sighs, burrowing deeper into her lap. He lies still and his breath is even. That’s it?
“Mulder, you’re the smartest person I know,” she says, shaking her head.
“Thank you?”
“But sometimes you just-”
“I just what?”
“Do you really not know what I was – when I came to your room with the cheese and the wine, did you really not know what I wanted?” He’s quiet for a long time, but Scully knows he isn’t asleep. They could have had this conversation in a warm, comfortable hotel room. They could have forgone the conversation altogether and just let their bodies talk. But that would have been too easy.
“I didn’t know. I figured that’s what you were doing, but… I wasn’t sure.”
“Mulder, I almost kissed you – who I thought was you – a few months ago. How can you not be sure?”
“So much for being smart, huh? What if you’re wrong about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if we… and then you decide it’s not worth it. That I’m not- I can’t risk that, Scully. I just can’t risk losing you again. I just got you back and I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize it.” Tears prick at the corner of her eyes.
“You couldn’t lose me if you tried,” she says, running her hand through his hair.
“Am I still the smartest person you know?” he asks, and she chuckles. She leans down even though her back protests and kisses his forehead.
“Yes, Mulder. You are.”
“Likewise, you know. You’re the smartest person I know. So I hope you know that I’m- I’m not not interested.”
“I know,” she says quietly. And she does know. She understands that he needs more time. She can wait for him.
“I just-”
“I know, Mulder. Now close your eyes and sleep so that we can get out of here tomorrow.”
“Will you sing me another song?”
“Any requests?”
“How about some Elvis?”
“You promise me that you’ll close your eyes and sleep?”
“I promise.” She takes a deep breath before she lets go and just sings for him.
“Wise men say, only fools rush in. But I can’t help, falling in love with you,” she sings with a steady voice and she thinks Mulder is smiling against her. But he keeps his promise and falls asleep.
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Season Finale Predictions
⚠️ Y’all know the drill ⚠️ spoilers below ⬇️
We’re doomed …
Haha just kidding let’s get into it 👏 there is so much that can happen this episode I think it’s pretty much impossible to predict what’s going to happen. I mean there are a few things we can predict but as to how the other 90% of this finale is going to go is beyond me.
1) zillo beast 💕
first things first… not so much a prediction as more of truth… we know omega is going to free the zillo beast, we don’t know how and we don’t know how that’s going to affect everything else. She could release it early on, or it be released late in the game. I can certainly see it being released pretty early or atleast halfway through the episode to amp up the stakes, cause the zillo beast is her own being, she’s pretty angry, and she is going to rampage against everything. I don’t think anyone is going to be able to control her. Her release is not only going to be problem for hemlock but for the bad batch and omega as well even if it does serve to help them out in some way. It certainly adds some unpredictability to the episodes events. Just like her first appearance in the bad batch, she is very much Alien esque. She’s in the walls, she’s hiding, you never quite know where she is or where she will strike next. She’s big so she’s gong to cause carnage but she’s going to go where she wants. I place my money on the fact that she will destroy Tantis and also kill hemlock or in someway be responsible for his demise. Hemlock said to omega “actions have consequences” or to some effect if that… and that’s what this will end up being for him. I can very well imagine somehow after the climax hemlock is able to scurry away, and he thinks he’s in the clear only for the zillo beast to pop up and gobble him up. Think like that imperial captain dying at the end of s3e4. A small part of season 3 has also been showing how far reaching hemlock’s research has been: the clones, the creepy black vines, palpatine clones, the children, the zillo beast. I think it’s safe to say that after all the harm he’s done, his experiments are going to bite back hard. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.
2) Emerie and Echo
I think omega and the children are going to escape before emerie and echo get to them. There’s no reason for the writers to show us omegas escape plan if she was going to get saved before she could even execute it. I think echo and emerie are actually going to end up being the ones to release the clone prisoners. They either do this before going to find omega or after they find out omegas escaped. I can very well see them letting the prisoners go first… and then before they can even head towards omega the zillo beast is unleashed and all plans are thrown out the window. This is one of the predictions that I’m pretty unsure about, I can see this happening in just not sure how it will happen and how it will seamlessly meld with the plot. I also am not sure how emerie would be able to get echo down to the vault anyway. It seems like only commandos are allowed down that far so unless they find a commando uniform I don’t think they are going to make it all the way there without raising suspicion.
3) CX-2
Lots of opportunities for CX-2 in the finale. These two images pretty much foreshadow some shadow clone captain or leader making an appearance in the end. He’s got different armor and a pretty brutal looking weapon
Now I’m not sure if CX-2 is going to be the one to use the big suit or if there is another clone that has been brainwashed specifically to wear this suit. My money is on Hemlock unleashing CX-2 to find and eliminate the bad batch. It’s obvious they are making their way slow and steady towards the base, hemlocks trick card is the shadow clones, he uses them to get what he wants and I have no doubts he’ll use CX-2 to clean up this mess. I don’t know if this confrontation will happen outside or inside the base though. Cause CX-2 has been a thorn in the batches side for a few episodes, especially to crosshair. I think either we get another one on one battle between CX-2 and crosshair or we get the whole batch versus CX-2. I can see both happening. The major question though is “is CX-2 tech?” If he is then I think we would get the whole squad versus tech so that there’s the shared experience of his reveal. But if it’s not I can see a one on one fight being the way to go because overcoming Cx-2 is like a finale to crosshairs character arc, he’s overcoming his past. Im not really sure when this reveal would happen though. I can see it happening early on or in the middle. I’d really like it if it happened earlier on then we would get the whole squad going in… i wouldn’t really want it to be a middle part of the episode cause I think the much meaner looking CX clone is going to be one of the main bosses… though if it turns out the meaner looking CX outfit is just an outfit meant to be worn by CX-2 then yeah I can see this fight happening in the middle of the episode. Idk this is getting pretty complicated. A tech reveal would be a major moment, so I don’t know how early in the episode that can happen. My other theory is that the meaner looking clone is Cody, but I’m not really behind it.
4) Rex and the clone rebellion
I 100% believe Rex is going to arrive with the clone rebellion. I think in echos last moments on the ship he was able to get word out. But not sure how he could do that if long range coms are monitored. I’d like to think that when Rex arrives, Wolfe is with him 💕 and that’s how we get the how did wolffe leave the empire reveal. Bonus points if Gregor is right beside them too and we get the old man trio ! I think there will be a tag up with the clone prisoners and it’ll be a storm trooper versus clone trooper battle. Hopefully scorch gets his head banged a bit and joins the fight with the clones.
5) rampart!
This is so up in the air. Last time we saw rampart he was confronted by storm troopers. But not necessarily captured. The bad batch may swoop on and rescue him. Other wise I guess rampart gets taken to the base. Not sure what’s going to happen from there… I mean hemlock already knows the bad batch are out to save omega haha 🤣 what other info are you going to ask for or need. Not sure if rampart would give the bad batch up or not…. But hear me out I actually think somehow rampart is going to be roped into helping these kids find their way home. I know…. It’s crazy…. But what other narrative purpose will rampart serve. He’s on Tantis for a reason, the writers have something in store for him I just am not sure if it’s good or bad. With all the talk of the empire betraying him and crosshairs change I’d like to think that rampart will turn a new leaf too.
6) omega and the children.
Omega is def freeing that zillo beast. I’m not sure to what extent that means for her. Is she freeing it and then coming back to the vault??? Or is she taking the children with them. The problem is that those kids aren’t as trained as her and there’s even a baby … I’m not sure they would make it though the walls like omega did. Would omega let the zillo beast go and return to the others and try and escape through the door with all the chaos??? Or is she going to go around and free them herself??? It’s really up in the air at this point. And when they do escape what then? Kind of nervous that we will get a parallel scene to that one part of the episode with the bounty hunters in season 1 where she is looking into the tubes of the dead kaminoin bodies except this time it’s with a palpatine clone ya know very creepy. Really hope the final climax isn’t in the vault… but it could be I just don’t see how everyone would end up down there. It’ll be very interesting if that is what ends up happening.
7) hunter, crosshair and wrecker
I …. Do not know…. I’m not sure how they will get into Tantis base … maybe they’ll use batchers kennel again??? Not sure… as for what they do once they are inside there’s a lot that could happen. But out of all the pieces on the board these are the ones I’m the most unsure about.
8) Tantis
I would very much like to see the whole place in flames, I want it absolutely wrecked, I want to be able to see the sky and see sparks and embers. I want climatic battles as smoke and fire rages around the opponents. I don’t want clean sterile battle rooms, I need there to be absolute chaos. I need to see it be a battlefield. I can 100% see a parallel to the Clone wars ending but with hunters helmet. Where his helmet is on the steel floor, broken surround by embers and smoke, the reflection is of the bad batch running away to escape the flames of Tantis. It would be … amazing
9) the end / epilogue
A big theme of this show has been about settling down and family. I 100% believe we are going to see the bad batch get their happy ending, they will finally be able to live in peace on some random planet on the outer rim. I’m not really sure what will happen to emerie or the remaining shadow clones. I thought that maybe the shadow clones would actually be a good plot point for a clone rebellion show but it seems like the shadow clones are directly tied to hemlock and may not be able to be continued without his presence. Tho I wouldn’t put it past tarkin to swoop in and continue it himself by stealing the brainwashing machines not really sure how he would do that. If the shadow clone story continue though then I can very well see emerie being a MC in the clone rebellion show as she has a lot of information on that kind of research probably. But I can also see emerie being in charge of helping the kids find their way home. My biggest fear is that omega would go with them but I can see her saying her good byes and wishing them all luck. I don’t know if emerie will survive by the end of the show but if she does I can also see her coming to stay with the batch too… or at-least adventuring out on her own now that she is free. Anyway back to the batch 😭 I don’t think they would live by themselves… I think it’s likely that the citizens of Pabu would relocate to another planet possibly and that’s where the batch stay with. Though I don’t like the idea of them leaving the archium behind. I would LIKE for everyone to stay on pabu but the empire knows about it now… maybe the empire won’t even bother coming back since there’s pretty much no resources there and it’s unstable… (with all the earthquakes ya know ) if tech IS alive then you bet your bottom dollar we are getting a reunion KISS!!! Dee also mentioned that there is an epilogue and I’m about to cry cause this can be really anything.
It could be a few weeks or months after the escape. We see everyone settled and happy
It could be a few years down the line, maybe omega has decided to go off and explore the galaxy on her own and the batch have to let her go
It could be MANY years down the line to the point where the empire has been defeated. In this case we either get old men bad batch or … dare I say it omega talking to their graves 😭 I wouldn’t mind the old man path though cause 1) I would like to see that haha 🤣 2) it shows they all lived happy lives to the end. But I don’t mind just a few weeks or years after the escape too really leaves it open ended. I think watching the bad batch let omega go to go on her own journey is pretty on the nose to what Dee said about the shows ending reminding him of his own path raising his daughters.
Anyway!!!! That’s all I have pretty much at the moment. The only thing I have is I have some theories about what the bad batch would do in their retirement haha but that’s for another post.
I salute you all, it’s been a joy speculating with y’all 💕
#the bad batch#star wars#tbb#bad batch#star wars tbb#crosshair#tbb crosshair#tbb hunter#hunter#tbb omega#omega#tbb echo#echo#wrecker#tbb wrecker#tbb tech#tech#star wars bad batch 3 spoilers#tbb s3 spoilers#bad batch season 3 spoilers#the bad batch season 3 spoilers#tbb season 3 spoilers#the bad batch spoilers#bad batch spoilers#tbb spoilers#tbb speculation
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I don’t think I’m ever gonna write this fic out, keeping my word to not writing another full/finished nsfw fic, but I mulled this concept around enough that I just started typing
tw mtf, sex swap, mention of rape (doesn’t occur; it’s all consensual), bad sex
Zoro gets hit with a curse where his chest becomes breast tissue and his dick gets replaced with a vagina, and that’s it. He’s completely the same otherwise. and of course, the cure is either to wait for a long time for the spell to wear off or have sex with a man.
Zoro asks Sanji, citing that even though he knows Sanji doesn’t see him that way at all, he knows that Sanji is horny to stick his dick in some pussy and Zoro doesn't feel like dealing with this body so he figures it’s a win-win. Zoro clarifies that if Sanji really can’t stand the idea of having sex with Zoro, Zoro will just go to someone else on the island. Sanji is embarrassed at being asked such a thing so casually and hesitates, but agrees, and they grab a cheap hotel.
Zoro doesn’t bother arousing himself, grabbing a bottle of lube and telling Sanji to get himself hard while Zoro works himself open real quick, trying to be very clinical about the exchange. Sanji seems disarmed over the way things are going, even tentatively offering to help, but Zoro snaps back that even though he’s letting Sanji fuck him, he is NOT one of his ladies to fawn over. He tells Sanji that he can pretend he’s a woman during the act if it gets the job done, but he doesn’t want the swooning, he just wants to get back to the usual.
Sanji gets really quiet and focused after that. He tries to follow Zoro’s example, tries to be clinical, and gets himself hard after a bit of messing around. Finally, Zoro takes off his shirt and places it over his own face; even though his body isn’t that much different than his usual (the trademark scar across his chest especially damning) he figures it’s enough to help keep the cook aroused. He even tells Sanji that he can touch Zoro’s body if it helps him get off, but otherwise he’ll be quiet until it’s over.
He can’t see Sanji this way, only listening to Sanji’s panting and feeling as he gently starts moving, hands firmly placed on either side of Zoro on the bed. Even if he’s not used to the sensation of having a vagina, he’s had sex with men and even bottomed before, so it’s not completely alien. To his surprise, it even feels a bit good. However, he doesn’t want to distract or turn off Sanji with moaning, so he bites his lip to keep it in.
But Sanji does start to soften up inside Zoro. And his pace slows down, and his breathing starts to get erratic. Zoro can’t help biting something out like “wow I know you don’t like me but I didn’t think the thought of having sex with me would be that disgusting for you” before he really thinks about it. In his mind, even though he was getting into it, Sanji’s rejecting him, and he’s trying to start a fight to mask how he feels disappointed.
Until he feels something wet falls on his pelvis. And he hears Sanji choke out a sob. Tentatively, Zoro pulls his shirt off his face to look up at Sanji failing to hold back tears, and not in a good sexy fun way. Immediately, Zoro shoots to sit up, a cautious hand between them until Sanji kinda falls into Zoro’s arms.
“Whoa whoa hey, Curly!“
“Shit, I’m sorry—“
“No no no it’s fine, it’s okay, I didn’t mean it, we can stop.”
“I can’t—it felt like I was violating you, I couldn’t—“
“…What?”
Sanji explains that the dissociation between Zoro and his body didn’t work as intended and the sight of Zoro still and covered and quiet during sex made him feel like he was raping Zoro and it freaked him out bad. Zoro kinda understands Sanji’s perspective, admitting that he had a feeling Sanji already didn’t want to do all this and pushed him to keep going anyway, apologizing for it.
Very quietly, Sanji corrects Zoro by saying he was never REALLY opposed to having sex with him. Zoro can’t seem to comprehend what he’s saying, like it’s some sort of paradox. Sanji admits that the idea excited him, because he was already attracted to Zoro on some level, regardless of genitalia, but he knew Zoro wasn’t on the same boat. He felt bad taking advantage of Zoro’s situation too much and tried to separate his feelings from it and not demand anything from the exchange, but it obviously ended poorly.
Everything starts clicking into place in Zoro’s brain while Sanji is clearly ashamed, saying that maybe it’d just be easier for Zoro to find another guy until Zoro fuckin pins Sanji to the bed with his muscular arms, his ample chest dangling between them. Sanji is fucking red in the face as Zoro asks again if Sanji wants to have sex with him. Sanji gulps and sputters a weak affirmative.
Zoro reaches down to his own crotch and puts a finger in, pulling it out slowly to show a string of slick, his own face flushed.
“Then lets get you hard again.”
Zoro then rides Sanji for awhile before Sanji confidently takes over. Zoro changes back and they have probably have more sex bc they’re fuckin animals.
(can you tell that it’s easy for me to write the emotional stuff surrounding smut but I have difficulty writing the actual smut without sounding like an alien)
edit: important thing is that when Zoro is riding Sanji in the end, he looks him in the eye and lets himself pant and moan and make sounds and curse and shit. He's vocal, and while he's clearly just chasing his own orgasm until Sanji does something, he's trying to be vulnerable. In the back of his mind, he still worries that this will turn Sanji off leave Zoro rejected. But of course it pays off because it turns Sanji on so much to see Zoro feel good and enjoy this, and that gives him the confidence to be an active participant and be vulnerable too, taking control to make Zoro feel even better. Because they're stupid repressed horny dummies but they're workin on it okay bye
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Summer of Like // Farleigh Start x OC (21)
It’s exactly the same as any other day - we are lounging by the lake, Venetia and I on the little wooden dock, soaking up the suns rays, Felix and Oliver on the shore, dipping their toes in the water now and then. It’s exactly the same as any other day, except it’s not. There’s a strange cloud in the air, hanging over us, even though the sky is cloudless. The hole of Farleigh’s absence is tangible.
Venetia is fuming, not quite understandably. “I mean, it's outrageous!”
On the shore, Oliver picks at the grass by his feet. “What actually happened?”
Felix sighs, the same exasperation from earlier. “He sent an email to Sotheby's to say he'd ‘come by’ some Palissy plates. I mean, the idiot. He had to have known Dad went to school with the chairman.”
An email. I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses, and lean back on my elbows. It’s wild to me how no one thinks it’s out of character at all for Farleigh to be so careless.
Venetia chimes in. “I mean, talk about biting the hand. Mum and Dad would give him anything he asked for!”
I could never hate Venetia. Never. But the way she’s so easily berating her cousin over something that I know she doesn’t really care about, gets me close to it. I know for a fact that she couldn’t care less about the Palissy plates, I know she’s only mad for the theatrics of it, because pretending to be angry is better than being bored. But it makes me mad.
Felix is more sympathetic. “Yeah, well, obviously he got sick of asking.”
“That's ridiculous. He's more spoiled than we are!” Venetia says.
How is it that Farleigh has lived with these people, is related to these people, and they don’t seem to know him at all? In the time that I’ve known him - significantly less than Venetia or Felix - I feel like I learned more about him than either of his cousins seem to have in their whole lives.
Felix tilts his head. “Come on, V. You have to admit. It's a little bit dark, you know, him having to go to mum and dad with the begging bowl.”
Venetia is unwavering. “Oh boo-fucking-hoo.”
I turn over, to sun my back and to tilt my face away from the conversation, lest Venetia see the anger on my face.
Felix finally gives in. “Alright, yes, fine, it was incredibly fucking stupid -”
“Guys, guys guys.” Venetia hisses, her eyes on the shore as James and Elspeth as they breeze towards us. Felix dips his head down towards Oliver, quietly saying something to him. A wave of silence descends on the group of us - I’m a little grateful, the conversation was beginning to grate.
James is as sunny as ever - if I hadn’t seen the ruckus this morning myself, I would have never guessed anything at all had happened. “What a glorious day! I've never known a summer as hot as this one.”
Elspeth drapes herself into a chair on the shore. “Sweltering!”
James titters on. “I think it's hotter than last year. I didn't think that was possible but here we are again! It's hotter than Barbados, apparently. Barbados!”
“I can believe it, darling.” Elspeth says. “I honestly don't think I've ever been hotter in my life.”
It’s like they’ve forgotten about him already. God it makes me mad - and its alienating at the same time. It might be an American thing, it might be an Italian thing, but I could never imagine disavowing one of my cousins from the house. Blood relation means nothing to these people.
James tucks his hands in his pockets. “I need to check with Robert to make sure that he’s being extra vigilant with the hydrangeas.”
“Very wise, my love.” Elspeth says. James wanders off, and she sighs, relaxing. “Bliss! Bliss, bliss…”
I shouldn’t be angry. It’s not my place - I’m a guest of Venetia’s, this is not my family, what they do and say to each other is really none of my business.
Tuning into the little portable radio, Elspeth gasps. “Oh, this song. God, I haven't heard this song in forever! I used to hang out with them all, actually, when I was modeling. Britpop, Blur, Oasis. God the parties!” She sighs. “But then of course "Common People" came out and everybody thought it was written about me. Which was completely mortifying and ridiculous! I mean I barely knew Jarvis.”
Venetia sits up on her elbows. “What?”
“‘She came from Greece. She had a thirst for knowledge.’” Elspeth quotes. “It couldn’t have been me. I’ve never wanted to know anything.”
It’s like these people live on another fucking planet. And at first, it was a novelty, just another part of this vacation, but now it’s almost horrific.
“God, I wish we didn’t have to go to London.” Elspeth sighs.
“I didn’t know you were going to London.” Felix turns to look at his mother over his shoulder.
“Pamela’s funeral.” She says, matter of factly, not a hint of sorrow in her tone.
Oliver turns to Felix. “Pamela died?”
At least Felix has the decency to sound upset. “Yeah.”
“She’d do anything for attention.” Elspeth says.
God I can’t wait for the summer to be over. To go back to reality, where people care about each other and work through their problems instead of tossing each other out like trash. I love Venetia - truly and wholly - but I know that she doesn’t feel the same. How could she, when her parents treat people like they’re disposable?
Like she knew I was thinking about her, she turns to me. “‘S a bit sad, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” I say.
< previous part | next part >
#farleigh start x oc#farleigh start x reader#saltburn#farleigh start#farleigh x reader#saltburn x reader
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How about a marley au where levi is a warrior and the reader is a scout? He was sent to spy on paradis, but fell in love with reader.
Hi Anon!!! Thank you for sending this request on my way!! I started writing it during my solo trip in December and time has come to finally post it.
T.W.: Angst, depictions of war.
W.C: 3.5k
The houses are crumbling, bricks and walls dematerialize. Soldiers cry and pray, weeping for the ones they will never see again; for the ones who stay and will meet absence. For the broken bones and deep wounds. Those who chose their own death blindly, without looking at the moribund face of a future that waits for the lives traced on the other way round. Who would’ve said that for winning the war you had to conquer a cemetery?
The air thickens, pulsing with the pungent smell of iron.
Right now, none of it matters.
The only space in the world that stands solid and doesn’t melt into unreality: the spot where you and he are standing. Everything else grows shadowy, almost non-existent to you.
Your back is pressed against the wall as you struggle to catch your breath. Your hands feel alien to you, your legs too, your limbs are cold and fizzing, and the ground tips under your feet. Your head throbs dull with the pressure behind your eyes, and the knot in your throat, crafted with the tangle of raw emotions, strangle you. You can’t put into words the mesh in your head.
A rock smashing your head could be less painful than this.
Zeke called Levi’s name. He said, let’s go home.
Home.
Bawling, you try to push him off you, but he has you imprisoned, his palms flat on the wall on either side of your head. You’re heaving, you’re face swollen, tear-streaked, and your heart broken, clinging to a smidge of hope that everything is a cruel, big lie. But Levi doesn’t deny it; he looks at you, his bottom lip quivering, his eyes unwavering, holding your hazy gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is not how it was supposed to be.” He ducks his head, still meeting your glassy eyes.
“You were supposed to kill me,” you babble. “To exterminate us all.”
“Please, let me–“
“Don’t want to hear you.” You clout fists on his chest, but he doesn’t budge. “Leave me alone, please. Leave me alone, Le—“ your eyes open wide, your chest rising and falling, and you tip the head to the side. “Is that even your name? Or you lied about that too?” Your chin wrinkles and wobbles. Titans’ blood hisses and evaporates from his cheeks.
“Just, let me—“
“No.” You let out a hard sigh, squeeze your eyes shut—tears sifting through your lashes—and cover your ears with both hands. “Leave. Leave! Go back to wherever you came from, I don’t want to see you again.”
“That’s my name,” he huffs. “And that’s not the only think I didn’t lie about.” Tears begin to peek at the corners of his eyes, and it is the first time you see him shedding tears and red eyed. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck and takes prisoner one of your hands; his breath scorches where it used to soothe, and you want to reel away but there’s nowhere to go. “I fell in love with you.” He rasps every syllable, bites it, savors it, bittersweet. “You show me that this war is nonsense.” He peels away, clasps your cheeks between his palms, once soft against you, now rough like sandpaper. “And that’s true.”
“Don’t make it harder, please.” You beg with a cracked voice. “Let go.”
But he hunches and presses his forehead on yours. Streams of tears blending at his chin. “I didn’t want to do this.” His breathing is hard. “My mother was ill, and this was the only way to help her. Please don’t hate me.”
You can’t hate him, and you hate yourself for that. Because no matter the heap of lies lying before you, you can’t despise the man whose breath is mingling with yours. If the heart could think, it would stop beating.
It’s a civil war unleashing inside you, head and heart taking their sides, ready to battle.
“Ask me to stay,” he pleads. “And I will.”
But you chuckle and turn your face away. “Take the cloak off and leave. This is not where you belong,” you said without meeting his eyes.
“Then look me and tell me. Tell me you want me to go, tell me you don’t want to see me again, and I’ll make sure our paths will never cross.”
You close your eyes. His lips taste like salt.
His cheeks feel warm under your palms; his skin incandescent through the clothes, swathing you. You were afraid of this, yet you needed to try, he still molds to you perfectly.
You pull apart, studying him, his face as flummoxed and flushed like yours, but before he can speak a word, you quiet him with a finger and shake your head. “Go.” You muster all the determination and courage as your heart cracks in the process.
His jaw tightens, his lips set in a thin line, and he nods. Levi turns around and unpins his cloak, green waving behind him as this chapter of his life comes to an end.
Please turn back.
Please turn back.
Please turn back.
Your plead rings in your head, but he doesn’t stop; further and further he ambles, like a lost man, until his silhouette vanishes for good.
That’s when your knees yield, and you crumble by the weight of agony.
Gulping sobs rack through you as your tears paint black dots on the gray stone, your weeping drowned by the screams of soldiers. It makes sense now, the evasive answers, the meager scrapes of a past he barely talked about. The mysteries, the pieces of a puzzle you never put together because the edges could never fit.
That day will be carved in you forever, rewinding and pressing forward like the sepia film flashing before you, crumbs of popcorn pooling on your skirt. A happy ever after ending, the one you didn’t have.
In real life, the good moments are eclipsed by the pain, sorrow, and betrayal.
They say wounds heal with time, and even though the days have bled into years, the thorn is still buried in your heart. What you had, your loving ways, your golden time, the longtime plans, all crumpled in the chest of forgotten things dusting in the attic.
Days passed, the weeks, the years. But everything seemed to have fused into an amalgam of loneliness, despair and numbness. You could not tell one day from another, a place from another. Nothing was distinguishable. Often you lost yourself for hours at a time, oblivious to what you had done. You were dead with a beating heart, wondering if you’re hanging at the edge of his thoughts the way he drifts at the tail of yours.
The credits roll on the screen roughly, little specks tarnishing the letters. the lights turn on, the room bustles with the motions of people spilling out.
The light blinds you as you hit the street, making your face scrunch up as you adapt to the brightness under a clear sky; the sun throbbing mercilessly at its full splendor, glinting on the boundless sea like diamonds. The streets are lively, the market area hustling and whisking with unintelligible languages; the mingle of herbs and condiments swirl with the briny air. Ships hoot, cars whisper as they roll by, and in the distant, cargo trains roar, spewing sooty gray smoke. You continue your ambling, taking peeks at your reflection on the store displays, smiling at you and how beautifully that navy sailor dress suits you, billowing around your knees as you spin and catch your angles. The cloche hat and your red lips stealing furtive glances as your stride by. You should’ve accepted that drink last night at the bar.
The cobblestone roads are flanked by loaded orange trees, skimming the mélange of colorful tiled facades of the buildings. The breeze lashing tendrils of your hair against your cheeks as it sweeps away the beads of sweat of your temples. It feels as if war wasn’t brewing between the lines as you revel in the brief pause amid disaster.
Hange was right, the probability to find him in this infinite world is too low.
But what if…
You shake your head and sweep the thoughts away. Why not to enjoy the wonders of the outside world?
You’ll need more luggage to take all your trinkets back home.
The street fans out into a square, and you spot a display crammed with luring pastries and desserts, little bombs of flavors you’re yet to try. They make puppy eyes at you, and then the tiny bell is chiming over your head.
“Welcome to White Lily.” the woman’s voice is pretty and tinkling, and her shiny gray eyes dart toward you when she finishes placing the white lilies in the vase. She rubs her palms on her taupe apron and smiles, little lines creeping at the corners of her eyes. Behind her, a chest crammed with little drawers of blends, five down and eight across, each compartment labeled with the spices’ names in a tall, leaned serif. "May I help you?" She holds her welcoming smile as your eyes roam around the overwhelming number of options of drinks. "Uhhh..." you brood, biting your lip, "I'll have a custard pie and," your eyes fall on her, "your favorite tea."
She nods. The woman’s dark hair contrasts against her fair skin, still fresh, blushed, and downy, but crow’s feet near her eyes for years of smiling. Raven hair falls over her shoulders, and that's when you notice the red band around her arm, though, she doesn't seem a warrior, or a former one.
She brings your order to your table, and suddenly memories swirl and cling to the steam, the smell replaying the old tapes in your head. The first glance you exchanged, the playful smiles, the spark of mischief in his eyes; your fingers threaded, the sneaky swims in the lake and the afternoon walks; the stars twinkling in his eyes, and his cheeks ruddy with wine. “Kiss?” He lifted his face and smiled curiously, twirling a lock of your hair around his finger.
“Daren’t I?” You giggle and clasp his puffy cheeks in your hands. “Don’t love me.” Your thumb whisked his quivering bottom lip.
“You’re asking the impossible,” Levi muttered, snorting, and swept your hair behind your ear. with a coy smile that seemed to overspread its glow through your body, you closed your mouth over his, and his arms folded around you, deepening the long kiss, his lips so soft, gentle, and shy. Tittering and blushing, you drew away from him, looking at him with longing eyes as your fingers played with the buttons of his shirt until one gave up.
The blaze in his eyes shuddered. In that moment, something switched in him, a subtle flicker you ignored then; doubt was gnawing him. He knew it wasn’t right.
“Are you sure?” He gulped, and you nodded without taking your eyes off his. And how could you miss the next hint? The sprinkle of freckles on his shoulders, tiny dots of latte. Someone deprived from the sun a huge part of his life would have a clear canvas and not enough stars to draw all the constellations. But madness had blinded love, and the truth is always hidden in the petty things.
Your hands are clenched over your thighs, shaking, unshed tears stinging your eyes. You rub your palms on your skirts and let out a long-repressed sigh, blood hot and furious running through your veins.
“Everything ok?” The woman’s sweet voice snatches you out from your reveries, and you look at her, pulling out a tight smile. "Chai and Rooibos." You breathe in a shudder.
"It is." She smiles and bows and turns around, the wooden tray tucked against her chest.
While the steam falters, you prop your chin on your hand, fingertips tapping your cheek, and glance around. The place is sober, with a minimalist touch, furnished in wheat brown furniture that match the countertop. The walls in bone white embellished with strings of pearls spilling from their hanging pots, bathed with sunlight sifting through the floor to ceiling window. And the shelves stacked with rows of tea pots and other tea appliances for tea enthusiasts, as well as white boxes labeled with spices. All fresh and impeccably clean. People laugh, sip and murmur, spoons clink against the saucers.
Scalding tea burns the tip of your tongue, and as you set the cup back, a few drops flaking the table. Your eyes open wide, and your palm drinks the heat from the mug, as you stared, flummoxed at the memory-swishing drink. You bite your lips to muffle a gasp and slap a hand over your mouth; close your eyes, bring your hands down to your lap, and shake your head. A wistful smile creeping over your lips.
Then the back door squawks, drawing your attention. You crane your head over the till, but you can't see the person toting the heap of cardboard boxes.
"Levi! I wasn't expecting you this early!" The ravenette woman grabs the one on top and sets it down on the floor, and that's when your heart and guts change places, the pastry cream turns bitter as hemlock in your mouth and feels like a chunk of lead scraping your throat. The air is leaving you, draining your body from any self-control. You want to leave but your legs don't obey, and the blood rushing through your veins start melting into tears; tight with panic, you heave as your numb fingers tug at the collar of your dress.
You are pale. Through your wide eyes, your soul quivers, an earthquake obliterating your senses, making way to madness. You’re burning, and throbbing, and all you can think of is to run and kiss him, drink him by the lips, eat his mouth; every inch of you aches for his touch.
Your seat screech against the floor, and in a haste, you scramble out, running into a customer as you stride out of the shop, fists clenched by your side, tears pooling at your lower lash lines. The first cannon of an internecine battle fires; the attack coming from the heart, taking the brains by surprise.
Sweat thaws behind your ears as you catch your breath under the shade of the alley. The wall stroking your back with every rise and fall. And you shut your eyes close, squeezing them tight until you see sparks behind your lids, but tears don’t come out anymore. You duck your head and breathe out a long calming sigh, your palms flat against the brick.
Hopefully, he didn’t see you; hopefully, he didn’t recognize you.
“Y/N.”
Damn it.
That voice, that husky luscious voice caresses your name in trembling, mellow whisper; that voice that still makes your knees go weak.
“Hey.” He sounds louder and closer.
With your eyes still closed, you raise your head, your hands squeezing between your back and the wall.
“You left this.” He gulps.
“You shouldn’t have bothered.” You say bitterly, rolling your head toward him, and break one eye open, his image coming clearer through the veil of dried tears.
“You… look… beautiful.” He scratches his head and bites his lips. You snort and smirk. “I think green suits you better.” You quip, and he chuckles mirthfully. A honey-coated sound that catches you by surprise. “So, the real Levi laughs.”
His giggles ebb, and the sunshine from him wanes, giving way to a shadow in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He’s wearing a white t-shirt that clings to his sculpted chest, light gray trousers that drown into his knee-high leather boots. The red armband hugging his upper arm.
He stands there, fighting his primal instincts to close the six feet gap and kiss your cherry lips.
“Isn’t it late to say I’m sorry?”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“The real you isn’t eloquent either.”
He snorts and shakes his head. “I was real to you.”
“Except for a little detail.” You wink, mockingly, holding your index finger and thumb so close they almost touch.
“Spare me.” His shoulders fall. “It’s been a torture, all these years.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“I missed you.”
“Please don’t.” You walk the chasm that keeps you from him, your feet urging instinctively, gravitating to him. “You made me live in a lie. You built a fantasy world for me and shattered it.” Your voice swirls up with scorn.
“Stop!” He lifts his palms in the air in surrender. The golden chain of your handbag slips down his arm and swings on the bend of his elbow.
“You didn’t turn around!” You stab him with your forefinger, his eyes are wide and dark, bewildered. “You,”-poke-, “didn’t.” Your eyebrows knit closer, and he smooths down the wrinkles with his thumb, making you jerk at the supple touch, and your heart hammers anxiously, threatening to break free.
“I’m sorry.” He cocks his head to the side and brings his hand down. “I wanted to know if you were real or I’m delusional.”
“I’m of flesh and bone, you idiot, and I’m standing right in front of you!” with your shoe you bump the tip of his boot. The breath of your words brushes his mouth, and he dithers forward, his imploring lips hesitating to take yours. He’s so closed the warmth of his chest consoles you; you can feel the erratic beating of his heart mimicking yours. His eyes, yearning, full of unrestrained passion, he kept fixed on you.
Fleecy and ticklish like baby’s breath, his lips close on yours briefly as his hands linger on your shoulders. The place where he’s touching runs hot with friction, but when you try to chase his mouth, he parts and kisses your forehead that he knows so well, the marks rising as you arch your eyebrows, befuddled and expectant.
“Why?” You freeze, your palms hooked on his sides, and blood scorches under your cheeks. “Why did you kiss me?” He buries his face in the cradle of your neck.
“You taste like my favorite drink,” he murmurs.
“You’re unbelievable, Levi.” You roll your eyes and try to push him off, but he doesn’t move an inch.
“Say it again. My name, say it again.”
“Levi, Levi, Levi.” You slide your arms around him, crooning into his ear. It still feels like chai and rooibos in your tongue. He smiles a wistful smile against your pulse.
“Thanks.”
You let go, and he reels back. “I’m Levi Ackerman. A Marleyan warrior who can’t turn into a titan. Obsessed with cleanliness and black tea,” he coughs into his fist and smiles, holding out the other hand, “and I’m also big mama’s boy.”
A belly laugh bubbles out from you, your eyes glinting with mirth. “She looks like the type who’d spoil her child.” You pinch his cheek, and he grumbles. “She looks… healthy. I’m glad.”
“They treat her well.”
Then you take his hand. “I’m Y/N, from Paradis. A scout of the Survey Corps who loves pastries and motion pictures, and—“you exhale, “how could you hide all this from me?”
He unclasps your hand and tucks an unmoored lock of hair behind your ear. Then, he slings your purse on your shoulder, whisking his rough fingertips down your naked upper arm. “We’re starting again, aren’t we?”
“Is that what you want?”
“Do you?” He lifts an eyebrow, and a solitary finger sails along your forearm, a winsome smile tilting at his lips, wheedling the heart-melting dimple on his left cheek. Now he uses his dirty tricks, though he should’ve smiled more.
“Let’s make it right this time.” You take his bold hand in yours and interlace your fingers. Palms meeting; pulses connecting, adjusting to the same tune; a love that twisted and strained in space and time, woven in the simplest form.
“Come with me, I’ll show you my favorite places.”
#Levi ackerman#levi ackerman x you#levi ackerman x reader#levi ackerman/reader#levi ackerman/you#Levi ackerman attack on titan#levi aot#levi attack on titan#aot#attack on titan#snk#snk levi#aot Levi#Levi ackerman fic#Levi ackerman x y/n
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Superbat: The Boy With The Pearl Earring
Alternative title: nemestie gives me too many ideas
So. @annoyingartblizzardskeleton did some DM magic and I wrote a few notes. Then @superbatlvr1 shared one of his piercing hcs (THANK YOU BBY) and here we are. Enjoy!
Clark pierces Bruce’s ear on an undercover mission :)
“Are you sure?” Clark asks nervously.
Bruce sighs and his entire back aches from the movement. He’s been sighing a lot these past few hours. “Yes, Clark, for the last time, I am absolutely sure,” he says.
“It’s gonna hurt.” Clark is biting at his lip and Bruce is not distracted by it at all. He’s got things to do, people – well, aliens – to spy on. He can’t be distracted by Clark’s teeth biting into the soft flesh of his lower lip, denting it, making it flush red when he releases it.
“It’s a piercing, it’s supposed to hurt,” Bruce says when he finally finds a way to shake himself out of his thoughts. He just needs this over with; he’s not exactly a fan of the situation either.
“I don’t like this,” Clark says and drops his hands by his sides. He’s been doing this a lot; moving his hands around as he speaks and removing them from Bruce’s proximity whenever they talk about what he’s actually supposed to do.
“I get that,” Bruce says and even though he’s trying to sound patient, he can hear the edge in his own voice.
Clark flinches at his tone (it’s not the first time today, and any other day Bruce might have taken a tiny bit of pleasure knowing he has such a strong effect on what is essentially the strongest being in the universe, but this isn’t the time or place for that kind of thinking), and Bruce breathes through his nose to calm himself down. He continues in a slightly softer voice: “But I can’t place the needle at the right angle myself without damaging the device.”
“And you really want to do this?” Clark asks. Again.
Bruce finally turns his entire body towards Clark. He clasps his hands in his lap to keep from just grabbing Clark’s hands and bringing them up to his ear.
“You’re not even really piercing it, okay?” he says. “You’re re-piercing it. You’re just opening up an old piercing, alright? That’s not nearly as bad.”
“It’s still pretty bad.”
“I know and I’m sorry but-” Another sigh. “This is the best we can do, okay? And I need your help here, Kal. I can’t do this by myself.”
Bruce wishes he could, he really does, but it’s an event for bonded pairs. Not single men looking for a good time. If it was, he would’ve been chosen for the mission in the first place and not desperately trying to fill in after realizing that bonding pairs were the same damn gender. He should’ve been aware of this, but his background information was lacking; he’ll obviously fix this mistake for future references but that’s not going to save them now.
“Okay,” Clark agrees quietly, and he looks like Bruce just told him he has to give up the puppy he found on the street.
Bruce is going to strangle Hal for this.
It’s the Lantern’s fault they’re even in this mess. If he hadn’t gone and gotten himself captured, they wouldn’t have to attend a fancy alien party to try and save his ass. Although Bruce supposes it’s mostly the other Lanterns’ fault for dragging the League into this, but it’s easier to be angry at the Lantern he knows and loathes. Alright, so maybe he’s a little overdramatic but he’s not exactly in a forgiving mood right now.
They need to figure out where the Kroloteans have taken Hal and without an easy way onto their ship, they’ll need to do all the recon they can beforehand. Which is why Bruce is trying to convince Clark to pierce – sorry, re-pierce – his ear.
The listening device is in an earring, because bonded pairs wear matching jewelry. The device transmits back to the ship where Diana, J’onn and Shayera are waiting. The plan was for Diana to be here with Clark, because they’re both human looking enough to go as Earthlings but with just enough of them being different that they won’t be considered too weak to attend the ritual. They’re also strong enough to defend themselves, should it come to that. Bruce made sure to design the earring elegantly but effectively. It wouldn’t get in the way of a fight or interfere with Diana’s usual uniform. Which is also why Clark’s piece of jewelry is a large bracelet, covering most of his wrist. Bruce would simply switch the pieces, if he could, but he has no equipment capable of piercing Clark’s ears – obviously – and so they have to improvise.
Bruce, however, does have his ears pierced. Or rather he did have one ear pierced. It’s been several years, if not over a decade since he’s last worn any type of jewelry it in though. Hence, once again, why he needs assistance. The device is rather fragile and he’s not sure he could press it through his ear without ruining the circuits inside it. Clark can – and not just because he can see through the material. He’s always extremely careful when handling people, whether it be physically or mentally. Bruce trusts him to do this.
“How come you only have one ear pierced?” Clark asks and it’s clearly his attempt at distraction. Bruce isn’t sure if he’s trying to distract himself or Bruce but either way, Bruce is more than willing to make this as comfortable for Clark as he can.
“I only needed one,” he says.
“Because?” Clark prompts as he cleans the needle. His hands are steady the way Superman’s hands always are, but he’s still hesitant. It’s clear in his voice.
“I had an earring made when I was younger,” Bruce explains quietly. “From one of my mother’s necklaces.” There’s really no reason to tell Clark which necklace he’s referring to but of course the story doesn’t make much sense without that piece of information. Either way the look on Clark’s face lets Bruce know that he doesn’t have to explain that part.
“Oh,” he says quietly, and he’s got that sad look on his face again.
“I can’t quite remember much of how the night went by after-” Bruce soldiers on.
“Bruce, you don’t have to-”
“-but when I got home, I had a single pearl in my hand. Alfred obviously wouldn’t let me keep it; it was covered in blood.” That last bit comes out rougher than he means it to and Bruce swallows with difficulty. His throat feels tight, and he blinks a few times to make sure no tears can betray him. There’s really nothing Clark can say, and Bruce realizes he’s not making him feel any better about this, so he pushes on, ignoring the catch in his throat: “Anyway, when I turned fifteen, I found it stashed away and I had it made into an earring.”
He skips past the part where he sobbed for days after finding it, the part about Alfred scolding him for roaming through his things, the part where Bruce ran away with nothing but that silly pearl in his hand. Alfred found him, he always does, still to this day, but it took hours and hours. The atmosphere in the manor was tense and awkward for weeks and it didn’t help that Bruce went out and got his ear pierced only to switch to the pearl earring mere hours later. It was a miracle that it didn’t get more infected than it did. It warranted another scolding but as soon as Alfred saw the earring, he stopped yelling.
“There was only one pearl, so I never saw a reason to get both ears pierced,” Bruce ends, a little awkwardly. He’s not quite sure why he shared that story. It’s not a particular happy one, nor is it relevant to their mission.
“Do you still have it?” Clark asks gently.
“Somewhere, yes. I stopped wearing it when I turned eighteen. Cool boys don’t wear their mother’s jewelry, you know?” It’s a sad attempt at humor but the story is much less sweet than Bruce aimed for.
“I think it’s a nice sentiment,” Clark says. He swipes Bruce’s earlobe with the antibacterial pad and then presses his finger against Bruce’s skin until he feels the old hole. It’s clear that he’s doing this for Bruce’s benefit. He could’ve easily just looked through Bruce’s ear and pushed the needle through without the show of preparation. “I’m sure your mother would have been happy.”
“Probably not about the piercing,” Bruce says and then sucks in a quick breath as Clark pushes the needle through his ear. Could’ve done with a warning there but Clark’s hands are gentle on his skin and soothe the slight ache as best they can. “The sentiment, maybe.”
“Either way I think it’s a sweet thought,” Clark says and fastens the earring.
It’s not at all like his mother’s pearl; it’s a simple golden stud with a small diamond in the middle. Enough light reflection to hide the microchip should someone get close enough to want to search for it. It’s pretty, Bruce designed it with Diana in mind after all, and the Amazonian deserves jewelry beautiful enough to suit her. She also wouldn’t leave the cave until he’d made it just the way she wanted it. Joke’s on Diana; there’s no reason for her to keep the earring after this.
“All done,” Clark says with a smile. He doesn’t remove his hands from Bruce’s face though.
There’s something oddly intimate about having Clark’s hands on him like this, on his skin, so close. He’s cradling Bruce’s jaw gently in his strong hand, turning his head slightly to see how the earring looks. The piercing didn’t hurt, not really, Bruce meant it when he said Clark was merely re-piercing his ear, but it is still an odd sensation, having Clark’s hands cause him even the slightest bit of pain. Clark is always so careful, so afraid to hurt anyone he doesn’t mean to. Even those he should want to hurt, he hesitates to lay his hands on. It’s an admirable moral he keeps to, albeit not always one that Bruce agrees with.
Today though… today he’s grateful that Clark is a gentle soul with a good heart. To be fair there aren’t many days where he isn’t, but he doesn’t like admitting to that; there’s no reason to make Clark do that I-knew-you’d-come-around smile of his. He does that plenty as it is. In Clark’s defense, Bruce has absolutely come around already. He’s willing to admit it to himself (unspoken, obviously) while Clark is caressing his skin to make sure he’s alright.
“Is it bad?” Clark asks and finally takes a step back.
Bruce instantly misses the warmth of his hands while simultaneously feeling like he can breathe properly for the first time in an eternity. He really has to get his feelings under better control, but he’s stressed out right now and going undercover on a mission he hasn’t personally prepared for. Thank God he insisted on planning everything with Diana and Clark from the moment they came up with this plan.
Not that they’d ever been allowed to leave the Watchtower without him knowing every single detail anyway. Bruce might have a small issue with control. He’s working on it. Sort of.
“Not at all,” Bruce says, because he doesn’t want Clark to keep looking at him like he’s going to fall to his knees crying. “Are you ready to do this?”
“Of course,” is Clark’s instant reply, and Bruce expected no less.
The ceremonial gown is a bit much – and absolutely impractical to wear in a fight – but at least Clark is allowed to keep his suit on. Bruce is sending a silent thank you to the Kryptonian designer who made sure the thing can be manipulated by Clark’s touch alone. While he’s only ever seen Kryptonian ceremonial clothes on a screen, Clark’s uniform is a pretty good dupe all things considered. He might be supposedly human but there’s no harm in dressing in a powerful species’ designs. The high neck is a nice touch and makes him look almost royal.
The downside to Clark’s uniform being so easy to fix is that Bruce has to match. Diana could get away with her Amazonian uniform – nobody would look twice at her and deny her access anywhere – Bruce cannot. Mostly because Diana refused to let him wear it even if it would fit but also because he has to match Clark properly now that they have more details for the ritual. Bruce would have liked more than an hour’s warning, but he’ll take what he can get. Which is also why he doesn’t comment on the gown that’s presented to him; apparently, he looks human enough (and isn’t that an insult in and of itself? He’s wearing the batsuit!) that he’s assumed to be Clark’s… pet? Companion? Slave? Bruce isn’t entirely sure.
Either way their hosts have graciously prepared a dress – a gown – for Bruce to wear. Once again Bruce wants to strangle a Lantern, although this time it’ll be Kyle. Why he felt the need to reach out to the Kroloteans for proper etiquette (and share color schemes) instead of actually joining the League in their mission, Bruce will never know. There’s nothing he can do about it now and he tries not to frown too much as he sheds his own uniform.
Clark has graciously turned his back so Bruce can pretend he’s got any privacy. They’re in a small room; there is no privacy for either of them. If Bruce breathes in hard enough, he can smell Clark’s cologne from here. Or maybe it’s just how he smells. It’s warm and earthy and makes Bruce think of broad fields and sunny afternoons.
He pulls the gown up over his hips and closes the odd broch-like clasps at his shoulders. The red isn’t that bad but combined with the blue sash he feels like he just got branded on his ass: Superman’s property. He can’t dwell on that, they’re already late to their plans but he still pulls at the skirt awkwardly. Is he supposed to pick it up, so he doesn’t step on it? It’s not like it’s the first time he’s been in a dress (Brucie Wayne should be a full-time job), but this is a little different. He’s thankful for the slit running all the way up his thigh if nothing else, because it makes it easier to move around, even though he is showing a lot of leg, even by Brucie standards.
The gown, the silly colors, the possession-stamp basically written on his ass Bruce can live with; he doesn’t care that a bunch of aliens think Clark owns him or is bonded to him, it’s a mission like any other. But. His cowl.
Kyle was very specific. Any sort of alteration in the ceremonial uniform will be taken as an insult. So, the cowl is a no go.
“Wishing you had one of Robin’s domino masks right now?” Clark asks with a soft smile on his face.
He’s nervous, Bruce can tell. He’s trying not to show it and Bruce gets that. It’s not like they do this every day. Punching bad guys and saving Earth? That they know how to do. Pretend to be a bonded pair long enough to figure out where their teammate is being held hostage? Not so much. If only this was a punch first, ask questions later kind of mission they could’ve sent Shayera in here instead.
“I do, actually,” Bruce says because he does. He always carries an extra mask in his utility belt for emergencies. While it doesn’t happen often, breaking a mask isn’t unheard of, especially with his boys. They’re self-sacrificing idiots, which Bruce only knows because – as Alfred puts it – they haven’t learned that from strangers. “But I’m not sure it would go with the outfit.”
“Which looks amazing on you, by the way.” It’s Clark’s attempt at making Bruce smile. It absolutely works.
“I couldn’t let you grab all the attention now, could I?” Bruce fires back and he is suddenly eternally grateful that their communicators are off for the moment. There’s no way he’d survive the rest of the League hearing him flirt with Superman like this. He’s not in Brucie-mode, this is just Bruce flirting with Clark. Which he shouldn’t do. For… some reason or another he can’t really remember when he looks into Clark’s bright eyes.
“There’s no way anyone will look at me with you looking like that,” Clark says with a cheeky grin. “You ready to go dazzle some aliens?”
“Obviously,” Bruce says and shoves his worries to the back of his mind. There’s no one here who can recognize him and Clark – the League – already know who he is. It’s an undercover mission, he’ll be fine. He fells oddly naked though.
Clark holds his arm out and Bruce accepts it. He does end up grabbing a fistful of the gown to make sure it doesn’t get wrapped in his boots. Those, thank God, are his own, but he doesn’t think anyone will notice the black soles as long as he doesn’t do any high kicks.
“When we’re done with this, you should wear your earring again,” Clark says quietly as they walk down the hallway. They’ve already planned their escape and know every way out of the ship in case something goes wrong.
“Why?”
“I think it’d suit you,” he says and he’s staring at Bruce’s ear now.
“I can’t wear it as Batman,” is all Bruce says because… he’s not sure what else to say. Clark’s comment doesn’t feel like their earlier back-and-forth so Bruce can’t exactly say something sleezy back. He also doesn’t feel like ruining Clark’s sweet compliment, so he focuses on what’s safe: Batman. He can’t wear the pearl earring underneath the cowl, and he doesn’t know if it’ll bring up too many bad memories. The way Clark is looking at him makes him think it might be worth a try though.
“You’re not always Batman, B,” Clark says gently.
“No,” Bruce says. “I suppose I’m not.”
***
Bruce has no idea how they pulled it off. Of course, something went wrong, it always does on these types of missions. While Bruce was perfectly fine playing the pet (okay, so mostly fine; fine enough that he wasn’t causing a scene), Clark didn’t have the same mindset and kept interrupting when someone spoke over Bruce or asked him insensitive questions. Not part of the plan but they could’ve downplayed it, saved it, if it wasn’t for the fact that they immediately found out where Hal was kept prisoner.
At the damn ceremony. Apparently, it’s Krolotean custom to bring a sacrifice (best kept alive for later slaughter) that their guests can then consume together. While Bruce is indeed angry at Hal, he’s not angry enough to kill him. Okay, so not angry enough to eat him, at least.
He obviously tells Hal this as he’s dragging his semi-conscious body through the halls while Clark blasts his heat vision at the group of angry aliens running after them. Why not take the opportunity when Hal is quiet for once?
They make it back to their own ship with minimal injuries. Luckily Krolotean weapons aren’t made of Kryptonite and Bruce didn’t like the gown’s long skirt anyway. It’s much better suited for someone not running for their life. Fighting might have been an option if they had been able to call for backup, but Krolotean technology has advanced enough to be able to block outside signals (Bruce is once again tempted to strangle Kyle. Or Hal. Or both of them).
As soon as they’re on board the ship takes off and not even Kroloteans are dumb enough to follow the League when they’ve escaped. They may be stupid enough to kidnap a Green Lantern, but even they know what the Justice League can do when all their members are ready. Good thing they don’t know there’s only five of them there.
The flight back to Earth goes by without incidents. Mostly without incidents. Kyle shows up to thank them for their help and of course he chooses to do this before Bruce has had a chance to change out of the ruined gown. There is no shame in a nice dress, but Bruce is not in the mood to be on the end of Kyle’s – and Hal’s, because of course he chooses this exact moment to wake up – comments. It doesn’t help that most of the dress is still on the alien ship because of their escape and Bruce is left in red and blue tatters.
There is no murder though and no strangling.
Clark is a traitor who got in the way, but Bruce can see why he did it. It wouldn’t do to murder the guy they just saved. He’ll have to wait a few months before accidentally pushing Hal off a cliff without his ring on.
It’s a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on who you ask) mix of too little sleep, too much adrenaline and more annoyance than being locked in a room with four children asking endless questions that has Bruce falls asleep on the flight home. Not before he’s changed back into his suit though. He feels instantly better when he feels the tightness of the cowl around his face.
He does keep the blue sash though. It’s soft and pretty and carries no trace of tracking devices. It’s not like he’s going to wear it. He’ll keep it in the cave, nobody has to know. He does this with a lot of seemingly silly things. It’s his way of keeping memories, of keeping track of missions.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the way Clark’s eyes lit up seeing Bruce in his colors, wearing them like a brand. And just because his heart beats a little faster at the thought of maybe wearing it as a scarf in the winter to see Clark’s reaction, it doesn’t mean that he’s obsessed, thank you very much.
Bruce somehow manages to pick the seat next to Clark and if his head lulls to the side Clark is sitting at when he falls asleep, who is he to blame? It’s not his fault he’s only comfortable enough with Clark to relax enough to sleep.
Neither of them comments on it when they’re back at the Watchtower.
***
It's a few days later when Clark arrives at the cave. It’s not like he needs an invitation and he’s finally started actually showing up without dragging seven emergencies with him, which Bruce appreciates. He likes calm Sundays. Or at least as calm as they can be when he’s got patrol in less than six hours.
He’s been thinking a lot about Clark the past few days – more than usual anyhow. Bruce even went so far that he started searching through his old things for his mother’s pearl. Of course, it’s in the last place he looks, and he should’ve remembered how 18-year-old Bruce liked to keep his things close. Good thing Bruce hasn’t cleared out his nightstand in years.
It’s taken him a few days to bring the small box to the cave. Even after finding it he found is difficult to move it. There are a lot of memories connected to that one, small piece of jewelry and Bruce isn’t certain he’s ready to face it.
And then Clark stops by.
Clark’s always been better at the emotional stuff; not just with his own but with Bruce’s too. It’s why it’s so easy to open up to him. Okay, easy might be a little too simplified, but now that they’re friends it’s easy. It’s natural and feels good to share things with Clark.
It doesn’t mean Bruce isn’t hesitant to show Clark to the box. It’s his mother’s pearl, after all. Clark reacts better than Bruce could have imagined. Then again, he isn’t really sure what he should imagine.
Clark just smiles at him and holds the box very carefully in his large hands. He turns it over as if he doesn’t have perfect vision and instead needs to examine it like any other human. Bruce assumes he’s just putting on a show to make Bruce comfortable. He’s slightly annoyed that it’s working.
“It’s gorgeous, Bruce,” Clark says and he’s so genuine that Bruce feels a knot in his throat. “I’m glad you got to keep this with you.” He doesn’t comment on how sad it is that it’s all Bruce has left, the last little piece of his mother, because they both know that already. Instead, Clark tries to see the beauty in the pearl, the sentiment and love Bruce carries for his mom in keeping that silly little earring with him all these years.
“May I?” Clark asks as he gestures at the box.
It takes Bruce a second longer than he’d like to figure out what Clark wants to do, but as soon as he does, he feels peace settle in his stomach.
“Sure,” he says.
Because this isn’t only for Bruce’s benefit. This is for Clark as well. Bruce sees the way Clark eyes the small device in his ear, the way he frowned at how red Bruce’s skin was when he’d pierced it. This is something Clark can do to make it better, even though Bruce doesn’t need him to fix anything. Clark always does what Bruce needs – even when he doesn’t know he needs it – and that’s why he agrees instantly.
Clark’s hands are gentle, just as gentle as they were on the spaceship. He carefully takes out the listening device, laying it on the desk and picking up the pearl. Bruce hasn’t let anyone else touch it – not even Alfred – since he took it out all those years ago, but it feels natural to let Clark handle it.
He pushes the earring through Bruce’s earlobe and because he is who he is, Clark also makes the extra effort and breathes cold air on it afterwards. It is way too soon to change such a new piercing, but Bruce has never been known for his patience. And it’s not like he’s going to wear the spyware until it’s appropriate to change it. The cool air feels heavenly on his skin.
“There,” Clark says with the enthusiasm of a guy who just finished three weeks’ worth of work in a single day. That’s probably what it feels like to work successfully with Bruce most days.
Bruce reaches up to touch the pearl gently. It feels warm underneath his fingertips despite Clark’s efforts. He doesn’t mind; he can pretend the heat on his face is from the throbbing in his ear and not the thundering of his heart. Clark is standing very close.
“Beautiful,” Clark says softly, but when Bruce looks at his face, he’s not looking at the earring. He’s staring into Bruce’s eyes.
When he leans forward Bruce’s body is faster than his brain; he leans in to meet Clark in the middle. There’s no way he’s standing passively by while Clark kisses him. He’s been waiting years for this. It’s a lot easier to admit to himself now that Clark is pulling him closer.
His hands are still strong, still the hands of Superman, a being strong enough to crush Bruce in a single breath, but they’re also gentle, oh so gentle, like Clark always is when he handles Bruce. The same way he cradles Bruce’s jaw, he’s now pulling Bruce’s waist towards him. The hand on his back flattens and smooths down to his lower back, resting perfectly there, like Clark’s been waiting for this moment too.
When their lips meet there aren’t any fireworks going off, but it does feel like Bruce’s blood sings. It feels so right and warm and perfect that he can’t help but wrap his arms around Clark’s body to pull him even tighter.
Clark’s strong back flexes as he slides his hand down Bruce’s back to join the other at the small of his back. Bruce feels him intertwine his fingers and then he’s pulling upwards until Bruce has no choice but to lift his legs off the ground.
Their mouths never separate, even as Clark turns and pushes everything off the desk to be able to put Bruce down on it. Bruce might complain about that later but for now he’s busy trying to see if he can suck Clark’s soul out through his tongue.
Needless to say, the pearl earring is staying in.
#misha writes#superbat fanfiction#superbat#Clark Kent/bruce wayne#Clark Kent x bruce wayne#Superman/Batman#superman x batman#nemestie listen. I don't know what happened here. so just. pretend like this is what you wanted#thanks <3
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aoba johsai pet headcanons
oikawa literally begged his parents for a pet bird when he was in middle school, even though he’s rarely home to take care of it (his parents take care of it). the bird is called tweety and oikawa’s private snapchat story (tooru’s hoes; has all of aoba johsei’s team and many of his volleyball rivals) has tons of videos of him making fake retro/beatboxing/2016 youtube channel intro noises while spinning his phone around his bird. the birds like “…🧍🐥🐦🦜 what is this giant creature doing.”
iwaizumi had a bulldog who he defends with the world. the dog will literally try to eat oikawa, forcing that poor man to climb a tree while screaming, and iwaizumi will be like “oh he don’t bite. he’s chill don’t worry.” the worst part is that the bulldog loves everyone else on the team but hates oikawa. oikawa uses it as a sign that either he’s too sexy for every being on the planet that the universe sent him a mere pet in spite of him or that aliens are real and sent this demon dog as a way to lure him away.
matsukawa has three pet fish; one for himself and the other two for his siblings. their names are, respectively; titty, princess sparkles, and sharknado. he’s disappointed that his siblings didn’t get the memo. he often spends his time wrestling with iwaizumi’s dog because of this. whenever the others brag about their adorable pets, he says ‘well at least i have a clean car that I can drive’ to shut them up. iwaizumi and hanamaki always respond with ‘well fair enough’ while oikawa glitches out of existence like ‘we- you can’t just- that’s not fai- i have volleyball!’
hanamaki has an orange cat that never gives him a break. the cat will hide inside the couch until hanamaki’s mid-breakdown searching for it while thinking it died or ran away. the cat has purposely shat on his laptop multiple times. his teachers are tired of the excuse ‘my cat destroyed my homework/laptop, so I didn’t finish the work’ but it’s always true. the cat has also clawed up $200 shoes before. hanamaki’s private snapchat story (‘satan’s furry little shitbag’) where it’s just him recording what his cat has done with the caption of ‘orange cat tings’ or ‘bruh ur scaring da hoes’ or something similar.
kyoutani has two dogs (as previously mentioned), and they’re both the sweetest pets in the world. he unexpectedly gets hit on a lot because he looks less threatening with two happy dogs dragging him along, and he has to awkwardly reject people while trying to play fetch with his dogs. multiples times he’s sat down in front of his dogs like ‘listen here guys. you are actively destroying my reputation. i need you to be mean, cold hearted, and ruthless from now on, okay?” and the dogs will just have these dumb, happy looks on their face while panting, and then lick his face. he responds by sighing and then cuddle/wrestling his dogs because they are the most important thing to him.
watari has an elaborate hamster set up for his four hamsters. it takes up a whole wall of his bedroom and there’s this whole wheel and upwards maze for them. he’s incredibly precise when he cleans the cage and feeds them. he brags about it often, and makes sure he has a hamster on his head or in his lap whenever he video calls someone. their names are turbo, milk, porkchop, and sticky. he let a random english word generator name them and then didn’t put any extra thought into it.
yahaba has that crusty white dog that’s prim and proper. he regularly washes it and feeds it, even though he’s upset that his dog started to hate him after he dyed his hair. he’s been like ‘even though my hair isn’t white, i’m still me! don’t hate me now!’ whenever he has to wash his dog. his dog also has separation anxiety so yahaba wakes up most mornings with his dogs ass in his face became the dog refuses to sleep anywhere that isn’t touching her owner (even after yahaba spent the money and put the effort into making a literally royalty passage/mini bedroom for his dog to sleep comfortably (yahaba now just throws his shoes onto it because he’s accepted that his dog will never sleep on it)).
kindaichi has no pets so he often visits this giant aquarium near his house. he’s gone so often that, more often than not, they let him in for free because they know all he’s going to do is stare at the dolphins for an hour and then try to over compensation financially for it. he’s gone so frequently that he’s been allowed to meet the dolphins in person and pet them. the dolphins adore him because his hairstyle reminds them of their fin. the employees see how sad he gets when he sits by the dolphins, so they started actively tutoring him on how to take care of them, in hopes that he’ll work a part time job there.
kunimi also has no pets, but he’s fine with that because he hates doing any form of work and also hates messes. though he does appreciate sitting in parks and watching squirrels run around because it brings him peace. he started internally naming all of them after his teammates after a while. out of the team, he favors yahabas crusty white dog the most because the dog loves attention and is fluffy, though he would never admit that out loud.
#haikyuu#haikyu headcanons#haikyuu!!#haikyuu headcanons#haikyu#haikyuu!! headcanons#haikyū!!#aoba johsai#oikawa tooru#iwaizumi hajime#seijoh#matsukawa issei#hanamaki takahiro#watari#yahaba shigeru#kunimi akira#kyoutani kentarou#hq hcs#kindaichi yuutarou#still don’t know his first name
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Alien Alien: Encephalitic×Lullaby
The Prince of Orange is infected with a strange virus never before seen in the Netherlands. Supposedly it will kill him, they say it all the time, but when you hear that this or that or the other thing will kill your Prince...well, Bentinck's patience is stretched a little thin.
I would post this on AO3 but I don't have a proper reference post yet, so I think people who find it will just be very confused. It'll be there eventually, maybe?
CW: illness, religion, attempted murder, cannibalism, violence, period-typical homophobia, sexual tension involving insects, mentions of drool, implied/referenced unreality.
Story under cut, please enjoy :)
The Defender of the Faith was but one of the species of insects that dominated the Netherlands; though they had been chosen by God to far outrun the intelligence and advancements of the other, insentient beasts, they still found themselves hunted on their own land as the prey of larger beings.
Their Prince could chase off a hungry spider with a few swipes, drive a sword through a frog’s eye, in no small part due to Johan de Witt’s mentoring of the little spiderling— but good luck getting the Prince to admit that. Yet it was not in one of these oversized monsters that William found his match.
They said it was something like rabies, caused by a virus that had somehow survived countless journeys through galaxies and many, many species. Hans William Bentinck shamefully knew very little about any of those illnesses; even his database found almost nothing. He only figured out that it could kill his Prince when he first came across the symptoms.
In that moment, despite William’s head being held up by a few pillows, his breathing was still labored, wheezing, his tail lashing furiously under the blankets as Bentinck approached. His lips were damp as he ran his tongue over them, again and again with an anxious fervor.
“Your Highness,” Bentinck greeted him with a dip of his head. So-called emotions had been coded into him long before, and yet he still couldn’t name many of the ones that came to him, such as this one he felt currently as he stared down at William.
“Hans,” the Prince managed. “What- what are you doing—?”
“Did you think I was going to leave you alone here?” Bentinck asked. He knelt beside the bed, reaching a hand out towards William’s head. “You know I am immune to illness, so why shouldn’t I come see you?”
William flicked his antennae back and snapped his jaws at Bentinck’s hand. Bentinck drew his hand back just in time, buzzing with irritation.
“Please don’t do that.”
William buzzed as well, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. His smaller eyes were screwed shut, as if the room was much too bright for all of them at the same time, even with the dim neon lamps flickering from the walls and floor.
“They tell me you cannot drink,” Bentinck went on. “So I wanted to try because I hear you keep trying to bite everyone.”
Another buzz from William.
“I think there are more civil ways of telling someone you don’t like something,” said Bentinck. “I think you can shake your head and just hide.”
William’s eyes widened with outrage, and he turned to Bentinck, trying to sit up. “No- no more hiding—!” He broke off with a fierce cough, falling back down with a shudder running through his body, and Bentinck hurriedly pulled the blanket back over him.
“Very well, you don’t have to,” he said. “But you don’t have to bite, either. You’ll get other people sick, William.”
William said nothing. His tail kept lashing in its erratic manner, and Bentinck realized then that he wasn’t doing it willingly. It swung before him like a noose, the spikes on it shaking and producing a rattling sound like a serpent’s tail.
Actually, he’d never heard a rattlesnake. He’d never even seen one, but he knew the sound as sure as he knew his own name. The name that William had chosen for him. So he decided that the snake sounded like William and not the other way around.
“Well, where is the water?” Bentinck glanced to the side, and William hissed, shaking his head rapidly.
“You have to drink something.” The android stood up and hesitated as he took the bowl of water from beside the bed. He could see the light of his eyes reflected right back at him.
Don’t spill it. His fans whirred faster for a moment, and then he turned to William, holding the bowl up to his lips.
William’s eyes widened, and he batted his claws out with another hiss, his tail slapping Bentinck in the legs. Bentinck pulled the bowl away with a sigh.
“Why don’t you want it? You need it.” He lifted William’s head in his free hand before quickly pulling his hand back with a shocked buzz. “Oh, look at how you are drooling!”
William opened his mouth, and Bentinck could see the saliva drip down from his deadly canines. He shook his head in disbelief.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he murmured. “Please, William, could you at least try?” He held the bowl out again, and this time William sank his teeth into Bentinck’s arm.
“Oh, um, ow, I think?” There was no pain from that, but he could feel the saliva begin to dampen his sleeve, too warm and too heavy. He shuddered, setting the bowl down before gently prying William’s jaws off of him.
William lay back, wheezing once more. “I am sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s...no problem.” Bentinck lifted his arm and realized there were tiny tears in the fabric where William’s teeth had buried themselves, the infected saliva aside. That would be a problem; not for him, but for all the Defenders he spoke to on the daily. The fingers he had used to pull William off of him, too, had the saliva on them, slipping deep into the openings where they bent.
“Don’t bite anyone else,” he said firmly. “Please.”
So William would not drink. He would only keep biting, Bentinck knew, and by experience he also knew that William’s bite force was possibly one of the strongest in the galaxy. Consequently he suggested to even the physicians that maybe they should keep their distance unless Bentinck was there.
He spent the rest of the night out under the waving flowers, blocking out the light of the moons, far from any Defender. On occasion he would blink to increase the brightness of his eyes as he paced in front of a stream.
Just wash your hands, he told himself. What are you waiting for?
He couldn’t do it, not ever and not now. He could almost understand William’s reactions to being given water, if only William would certainly die if he lapped up every last drop in the bowl.
But he’s not going to die. It would make him better.
He has to get better. He looked up to the stars and crouched down in front of the water. He held his hand out, cautiously dipping his fingers in for a second or two before pulling back again.
There. That’s enough, isn’t it? He buzzed as he examined the water dripping from his hand, then dried it on his coat before he had to stare at it any longer. Whoever heard of a wet robot? How unnatural.
No damage was done. All his systems were functioning properly and up to date.
He lifted his head, at that moment hearing a sort of miserable weeping behind him, sobs of a lady getting closer. He gasped and stood up, looking wildly about him before realizing that through the leaves he heard the steady crawling of an insect. A large one, too.
The animal dragged itself out into the light of Bentinck’s eyes. It was a green praying mantis, certainly a female judging from her size alone. He ducked back down to make himself smaller in front of her, and she looked at him, holding one of her forelegs up to her face. She was the one crying, though without any hint of tears.
“Oh, android, forgive me, I did not mean to interrupt- whatever you were doing,” she said in rather coarse Dutch, trying to speak through her gasps. “I- I had nowhere else to go.”
“It’s no problem,” Bentinck said softly. Somehow he wasn’t awfully shocked that a praying mantis should be speaking to him. Maybe they had always spoken to the Defender of the Faith, but none had ever listened. He could listen now.
“Thank you,” she said, a little quieter now. “Thank you.” She crawled around him, towards the water, and he sat down, looking curiously up at her. He had never dared to get closer to a mantis, de Witt had always forbidden it, but what could they do to him?
“Is something wrong?” he asked. “If I may know.”
“Oh, I suppose,” the mantis replied. “No one else will listen.”
“The Prince calls me a good listener.”
“The Prince himself?” She tilted her head to the side. “Well, may your android ruler reign long.”
“Oh, no, no, we- I do not- androids have no monarchy,” he said, shaking his head. “The very thought, robots ruling themselves! No, I work for the Defender of the Faith.”
“And who is that?”
“You have never seen them?” he said incredulously. “They’re magnificent Asterothiriots. They hunt the males of your kind sometimes.”
“Then they should come for my husband next!” the mantis cried then. “I cannot take it anymore! I- I cannot love him, much as I have tried! He will not listen, he will not even look at me.” Her voice shook, as if she would start crying all over again. “And I have been faithful.”
“Is that why you are here?” Bentinck asked.
“Yes, I just had to get away,” she said. She bowed low, burying her head in her forelegs. “He has no heart, though I suppose I should not have expected him to fit one in his tiny body.”
“Of course, he’s much smaller than you,” Bentinck murmured.
“He never speaks to me,” she went on. “And when he does, it’s only to be cruel. I feel as if I can never please him.”
“No man should treat his wife like that,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What is he thinking he’ll get away with?”
“That’s just it, android.” She shook her head helplessly. “No one knows. He hides behind so much, but I just know- I know there is something there. There has to be.” She sighed. “I wish I knew how to find it.”
“Oh, trust me, it is very easy,” Bentinck said, reaching out to pat her on her leg. “You must look inside him.”
“Inside him?”
“Yes,” he said with a firm nod. “That is what you do with a robot. If something is not working right, you open him up and look inside. And then you repair him.”
“I must...repair him?” She sounded skeptical. “Why must it all be up to me?”
“Well, nothing of mine is up to me,” Bentinck said. “I would know love if I could. Maybe he knows nothing of it, either.”
“Love is something difficult to define. Maybe you do know it and you haven’t realized.”
“I- I don’t believe so,” he said, laughing a very metallic laugh.
“Why not? Already you have been much kinder to me than my husband has been in all the months I have known him.”
“Nothing is real within me.”
“It has a real effect on me,” she insisted. “And does that not make it real enough, Bentinck?”
He thought it very sweet of her to remember something he had never even told her. He shrugged his shoulders.
“To a girl like you, perhaps anyone looks kind,” he said. “Anyone that isn’t him.”
“I should have known,” she said, her voice hardening. “You and him— you crawl in the dirt like worms and never bother to stick your head out to the skies. Only when it rains. And by then it will be too late.”
Bentinck was silent. In the rain? He’d never come out in the rain.
“Very well, I will open him,” she said. “I will tell you how it goes. Thank you, Bentinck.”
“It’s been my pleasure,” he said. And he meant it.
The next morning, a dark, early morning, he was with William again, who had only worsened over the night. The bristles on his insect arms shook, and he bit down on his pillow constantly, his tail flicking from side to side in a manner that reminded Bentinck of when the Prince was younger. He loved to bite de Witt, constantly, and it was only acceptable because de Witt was the one who had taught him to bite in the first place. And William’s tail would always wag, like he found it very exciting.
Bentinck sat on the floor beside him and stroked William’s head, being very careful not to tangle the damp curls in his heavy fingers. William twitched once, twice, then sprang up and bit Bentinck’s hand.
“Please don’t do that,” the android tried, though he didn’t expect William to listen. “Do you want to try water now?”
William chewed on one of Bentinck’s fingers and shook his head.
“Please don’t do that,” Bentinck repeated. “Please don’t bite my hand.” He wanted to pull away, but it was as if the warmth trapped him there, the drool seeping into the open parts of his hand and wrist.
Please don’t...do that. He buzzed nervously and shook his head, unable to say more.
William looked up at him, and Bentinck took the chance to jerk his hand away, shaking off the excess saliva. He flexed his fingers to check if they still moved, but he had no time to run a system scan as William was snapping his jaws at him again.
“Alright, calm down,” Bentinck said, shuffling back. “What is it?”
William blinked, digging his claws into his blankets and bowing his head. Bentinck realized he was trembling.
“Do you think I will die?” he asked faintly.
“You?” Bentinck shook his head. “No.” He never once believed that of William. God was always watching the Defender of the Faith, for one reason or the other.
“They say it used to be fatal. Every time.” William paced on the bed, turning around to nip at his tail.
“Used to be. The chances of survival are higher now.”
“What makes you think that I will survive this?” he snapped. “Look at me, Hans!”
“I am looking.”
“I should have died,” William said. “I should have been dead long ago.”
“You know there’s a reason you’re still here,” Bentinck said. “Why do you think your life should have been cut short? You know God chose you. You cannot take that for granted.”
“You think this is a gift?” William wheezed out, his eyes widening. It gave him a wilder appearance, one Bentinck would have been afraid of coming across in battle. “Nothing is so simple.”
“Well, it has to be something. At the very least your reason to live.” Bentinck leaned in and cupped William’s face in his hand, carefully avoiding his lips. “Though I think you should live for more.”
“What do you live for, Hanni?” William leaned into the touch and closed his eyes, managing to purr.
“I—” Bentinck paused. “I live for you.”
“I told you you that you did not have to.”
“Then what else should I live for?” The robot shook his head. “I was created for one purpose.”
“So was I,” William retorted.
“Then maybe we can find more reasons to live later on,” Bentinck said. “Right now, you have to focus on getting better. You have to take what they give you, without biting.” He wagged his finger in William’s face, pulling it back just before William’s jaws closed around it. “What did I just say?!”
“I- I don’t know,” William said, backing away. He had always been small, but what he lacked in physical size, he made up for in determination, and, beyond that, spite. But Bentinck couldn’t see any of that in him now; he was just what he was, small.
Oh, William. He sighed and stood up, looking around for the bowl of the water that the physician had left for him.
“Are you not thirsty?” he asked.
“Very.” William glanced at him, lying back down and chewing on his pillow again.
“Then why...why do you refuse the water?”
William’s spikes shook warily at the word. “It scares me.”
“But nothing ever scared you,” Bentinck said. “And we are Dutch, William.”
“Do you fear water?”
“Well, I must. To survive.”
William said nothing, then sat up, turning to look at the bowl of water. Bentinck took it and cautiously held it out to him. Much to his surprise, William did not spring back nor try to bite this time. He shut his eyes and leaned forward, the spikes on his tail shaking rapidly.
He lapped at the water once, then jerked back, coughing and hacking up the few drops he had managed. Bentinck set the bowl aside and rubbed at William’s back.
“Closing your eyes was a good strategy,” he said.
“I- I want to try again,” William said. He shook himself and buried his face in his claws, this time nipping at the blankets.
“Very well,” Bentinck said. “I could try covering your eyes, if you’d like.”
William looked up and nodded. Bentinck brought his hand down on all six of William’s eyes, and the Prince fell still. Even his shaking stopped. The only sign of life from him was his heavy breath.
“Here,” Bentinck said, holding the bowl to William’s lips again. He stroked soothingly at the antennae as William sniffed the air warily and began to lap at the water with his tongue. Much of it he did not swallow, as he appeared to have great difficulty in doing so, coughing as he was, but Bentinck was pleased to see that he was drinking something now.
William made it clear he was done by throwing the hand off of him and biting into the wrist instead, shaking it furiously in his jaws. Bentinck buzzed and looked away to set the bowl down. The water and saliva from William’s mouth was sliding over him, into him, freezing and yet somehow burning him—
Do not say a thing. He covered the speaker on his chest and shut his eyes. Give him time.
Indeed, William did not let go for a long time, and Bentinck sat down on the floor, resting his head on the bed to watch his master slowly fall asleep. By then his hand and wrist felt nearly detached from him, and his fans were whirring faster than before. Somehow, despite the noise from the robot, William fell asleep, purring slightly.
“Very good,” Bentinck murmured, carefully opening William’s jaws and pulling his hand out. It was a little scratched up now, the fingers stiffer as he tested their movement. Or was he imagining it?
Oh, please don’t do that again. He stayed there for a moment as his fans slowed down. William snored softly away as if he had never bitten anyone at all. Bentinck wondered, for the first time, if he would wake up the next morning. He might have prayed, but surely God could not hear the words of an android.
As Bentinck had no reason to stay inside during the night, he made his way back through the plants once more. There were Defenders still out, watching him warily from their places on their flowers and webs. He knew they could smell the sickness on him.
He ignored them and kept walking until they fell behind him and he was sure he was alone. He had dried his hand, but not very well, so the saliva still clung to him and his parts. He hadn’t been imagining it— movement was definitely limited.
He didn’t want to wash his hand, but he remembered his First Law and decided to walk to the stream again, where smaller insects and bacteria swam. He threw off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and shoved both of his hands into the water, scrubbing hard with his fingers.
He hadn’t realized water was so heavy. His movements were not as flexible, and he was relieved to finally pull his arms out. He found he could no longer make a fist with either hand, rather the fingers stopped short before reaching his palm and shook in place.
Reduced mobility. Well, that was going to be a problem.
“Are you doomed to die, android?”
“W-What?” Bentinck looked up, high above into the cattails, where a black spider hung from a small web. “Oh. No, not me. My master might be, though. I mean, I wouldn’t like to think so, but they always say he will. I never believed it.”
“Because you have no concept of death,” said the spider. “You think you live forever.”
“No, only until my plutonium core has reached its half-life,” Bentinck said. “And- and I know what death is.”
“What is it?”
“When life ends,” he said indignantly. “Everyone knows that.”
“I fear you have a dull understanding of the world,” the spider said. “Poor thing. Why is it all so simple to you?”
“I was created to understand the world around me as I see it,” Bentinck replied. “I know what life is as I know what ends it, and that is death.”
The spider barked out a laugh, a highly unnatural sound from its body. “Well, is that what you were seeking when you touched the water?”
“No, I wanted to get clean.”
“Are there not better ways?”
“No, I—” Bentinck paused. “Sometimes the Prince will wipe at my face and hands with bleach, but I never liked it.”
“I assume it is safer than this,” the spider said.
“I suppose, Mijnheer. But he is very ill right now, so I couldn’t ask,” said Bentinck. “And I cannot do it myself.”
“But you can- you think you can touch water?”
“Water I must have an aversion to,” he said. “That is part of my Third Law; I must protect myself from damage. But I can disobey it if it comes in conflict with my First Law, part of which is to stop harm from coming to biological beings. It is not a specifically coded restriction like avoiding dangerous chemicals is.”
“What odd programmers you must have had,” the spider said.
“My mother did very well,” Bentinck protested. “It is for the safety of the Prince and everyone else.”
“You care so much for the safety of your master,” the spider said thoughtfully, raising a leg to his face. “The Prince, is he? Look here upon my web, android, and see all the harm that would have come to your beloved Prince had I not caught it before.”
Bentinck narrowed his eyes. There were flies and mosquitoes tangled in the web, even a bee near the center. All creatures potentially dangerous to Defenders, but nothing William had never fought off.
“Those are just your meals,” he said.
“Ah, ah, ah, Bentinck,” the spider said, shaking his head. “They told me themselves that they were all plotting here, amongst the cattails. They said that they were coming for your Prince, that they would kill him and bring about the rule of the queen bee, who ruled long before he did and will rule for centuries after.”
“The queen bee?” Bentinck buzzed in disbelief. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“She is a Catholic,” the spider said. “All bees are.”
“Truly?”
“I have met many bees myself. All follow the same God.” He kicked a leg out towards the dead bee in the center of the web. “Including this one.”
“Then why do they produce honey for a Protestant planet?” Bentinck asked.
“Because they had no choice. It was either work for the Defenders, swear allegiance to the Prince...” The spider tilted his head to the side. “Or die.”
“No one ever told me that,” Bentinck said ruefully. He was always sort of offended to hear new information; he was supposed to know everything!
“Why would they?” said the spider. “You would think it unfair.”
“I do not.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“I see.” The spider ducked his head. “You are a very faithful robot, Bentinck. And yet for all your loyalty, it was I who caught these traitors. Not you.”
“You cannot call them traitors if they never had an allegiance to us,” Bentinck said. “They were just a bunch of angry insects.” He stepped forward, precariously closer to the edge of the stream. “And you took care of them, yes? So there is no more problem.”
“Of course, I will be expecting a reward,” the spider said. “I saved the Prince’s life.”
“He could have fought them off himself. He did not need you.”
“Never underestimate the cunning of the queen bee,” the spider went on. “Besides, these ones may be dead, but there are still traitors within your web.”
“You cannot be serious,” Bentinck scoffed. “The Prince knows who he employs. He can get within their heads. He knows where every Defender is at every time.”
“But you said he is ill, yes?” The spider leaned in, crawling onto one of the cattails. “He has no mind for that now. There are Defenders in your midst who would kill for the queen.”
“And- and your prey told you this?”
“I injected them with my venom,” the spider said, “and then they told me everything. They were going to assassinate the Prince, but should they fail, it would be up to their Defender allies.”
“Traitors.” Bentinck’s fans whirred in fury.
“Yes.”
“Who are these men?” the robot demanded. “If you tell me, I will make sure you are rewarded.”
“I do not share such things with the Prince’s little android,” the spider said. “Bring him here, up to my web. I do not mind his illness; he cannot infect me with it.”
“But he may be too weak,” Bentinck said. “Can you not come with me instead?”
“No, it must be here. In my web, it is safe. Safer than any other place in the Netherlands.”
“Safe?”
“Very, very safe. I will protect him. He is my Prince as much as he is yours.” The spider crawled upwards again. “In fact, you must come see how safe it is.”
“What- up there?” A spiderweb had never held Bentinck before.
“Yes.” The spider tilted its abdomen towards him, shooting down a thread of silk. Bentinck lifted his hand to catch it, but as his hand could not close around it, he felt it slip through his fingers, getting caught there.
“Oh, it’s...very sticky,” he said. “And a little thicker than what we— than what the Defenders produce.”
“I do take pride in it,” the spider said. “Nothing escapes my web, Bentinck. Now come up here, come see it.”
“Shall I climb the plant—?”
“Yes, I will pull you up.”
Bentinck brought the silk up to his mouth and clamped his jaws around it. It was a better hold than the one he could take with his stiff hands. Instead, he climbed up the cattail with them, which bent slightly under his weight, but was surprisingly strong enough to hold him as he made his way up to the web.
The spider, too, was strong, helping him up and moving back onto his web as Bentinck got closer. He pulled Bentinck onto the web, and the android lay back on it, staring up at the sky. He was closer to the stars.
“You have a nice view up here,” he said. He looked down and realized he still had the silk in his mouth. He tried to lift a hand to pull it out, but it was stuck to the silk he lay on. “Oh, I- I am sorry—”
The spider stared at him. “What did I say, Bentinck? Nothing escapes my web.” He severed the silk that still connected them with his fangs and began to crawl towards Bentinck. “You have nothing to apologize for, save perhaps to your master for betraying him.”
“What are you talking about?” It seemed to Bentinck that the more he struggled, the more the silk stuck to him.
“You will bring him to me,” the spider said, “so I can kill him.”
“No- no, I will not!” Bentinck buzzed in terror as the spider looped silk around his limbs, pulling his arms behind him. “Please don’t do that—!”
“The Prince is a shameful excuse for a ruler,” continued the spider calmly. “Peace will come only when the queen bee rules the universe, but you only know what you are told.”
“Nothing can kill William!” His arms having been tied back, he kicked out at the spider, who hissed and backed away. “And I certainly will not allow you to do so!”
“They all say that, until they get a taste of my venom,” the spider said. He shot silk out at Bentinck’s legs and pulled hard on it, pinning them back against the web.
I can’t move! He buzzed again like a helpless insect as the spider crawled up behind him.
“Your Prince was a mistake,” he said. With that, he dug his fangs into Bentinck’s neck, and Bentinck tossed his head back with a metallic shriek. The fangs had not pierced through his metal, but he felt the venom that they injected slip through the opening in his neck, leaking into the parts within his chest. It was like a snake in him.
“Mijnheer- please don’t— please—” He couldn’t even finish a sentence, breaking off with his miserable, broken buzzing. He was sounding more and more like static.
But the venom was still going, and when the spider at last stepped away, he felt it dripping through the openings in his legs and feet. The spider snapped some of the threads behind him, and he fell forward with a cry, towards the water. The silk had not let go, however, instead leaving him dangling upside down over the water.
Oh, my God! “Please don’t do that, please don’t do that, please don’t do that—!” He tried in vain to wrench his arms free from the silk. The venom ran back down to his face, trickling out his lips and eyes like tears.
“How are you still fighting?” the spider said curiously.
“I- I will see to it that you are never forgiven—!” Bentinck’s voice could hardly be heard through the rapid glitches; he did not know if it was caused by the fluid in his parts or simply his fear.
“Bring me the Prince and I will consider not letting you drown,” said the spider, “like you robots know how to do.”
“Caution: vision impaired,” came automatically from Bentinck’s speakers. Indeed, the venom falling from his eyes was pooling in his eyelids, blurring the sight of the water before him.
“Never,” he said of his own volition.
“Then you can die.” The spider snipped the remaining silk from his legs, and Bentinck shut his eyes and mouth, a bit like a Defender who held its breath.
The impact did not come from below, however, like he expected; rather it came from the side, powerful arms throwing him against another cattail. He landed a fly-length away from the stream, and he looked up to see what it was that had saved him.
It was the praying mantis from the other day, staring at him with her wide eyes. “Are you damaged?” she asked him, but Bentinck did not get to answer as the spider jumped from his web and landed in front of him.
“You think you can get someone else to protect you?” he snarled. “Just like the Prince thinks he is so safe. I will kill him, and the queen bee will return, and you will die like all unnatural children do—”
“That is enough from you!” The mantis fluttered her wings and carried herself over the stream. The spider looked up at her and hissed, batting his legs out at her, which she sliced off with a nimble swipe of her foreleg. She hooked her other leg beneath his head and ripped it off without much effort at all.
That there is death. Bentinck shuddered, unable to look away as she kicked the spider’s body away. She landed in front of him and leaned in.
“There, he cannot hurt you anymore,” she said. “Nor anyone else.”
“Did you know him?” Bentinck whispered. It was the only thing he could manage.
“No. But I saw enough.” With the same leg she had used to kill the spider, she tore the silk off of him, and he stretched. “How are you?”
He wiped away the venom from his eyes and lips. “Running system scan.” He paused, then buzzed with alarm. “Moderate moisture detected in critical systems. Mild disruption and impairment of mobility signals.”
“Is that a problem?” the praying mantis asked.
“Yes.” Bentinck nodded, trying to quiet his fans down. They whirred away at full speed, but it seemed like it took more energy out of him than usual. For once, he was exhausted.
“I do not want it fixed,” he said.
“Why not? Is it not akin to illness?” She prodded him in the shoulder and handed him his coat. “And it can make quick work of you, too.”
“I was created to be very- very resistant,” he said, slipping the coat on gratefully. “It’s no problem.”
“Should you sound like that?”
“Like what?”
“You sound a little muffled,” she said. “Muted. Even if you wanted to hide it, you couldn’t.”
“The Prince orders all repairs on me,” he said. “But he cannot notice anything now.”
“What about your Third Law?”
“You know about it?”
“Well, I must.”
Bentinck hummed thoughtfully. “I would hate to cause trouble.” Changing the subject, he asked, “How are things with your husband?”
“I did as you said,” she said, “but it only seems like he has spoken less and less to me. Truthfully, Bentinck, I cannot say if I fixed him at all.”
“It never goes right the first time,” he said. “There is usually a lot of trial-and-error involved in these sorts of things.” He winced. “Trust me, I know. It hurts very much.”
“For him?”
“For everybody involved. That was what my mother used to say, at least; supposedly I was very dangerous to create.” Bentinck shrugged. “I know very little about biological pain, though.”
“If he hurts, then he should tell me,” the praying mantis muttered. “I have tried to say— many times— what he does is hurt me. I tell him everything and yet I cannot tease a single word out of him.”
“Something has to work eventually.”
“I wish things were as simple as you saw them.” She sighed and waved her leg at him. “I must get back to him now. He would still like me at his side.” She helped him up and patted him on the head, accidentally tearing a few strands of the plastic wig out with her claw. “Be careful around spiders from now on.”
“I- I will,” Bentinck said, smoothing down his hair. “It’s one of the first things Defenders are taught.”
The mantis tilted her head to the side but said nothing more.
In the days following Bentinck realized he was trembling, which had never happened before save for a few times when he’d been shocked by the wires the technicians liked to shove in him. But this was something highly unnatural, and every movement, every step forward, felt like it took everything out of him.
Still, he was ordered by the doctors to stay with William, and he obeyed, even when the Prince’s jaws closed around his arms and made him want to vomit. There was a good, nice biological word; it made no sense to him, but it sounded like what he felt in the moment.
It was with this shaking, scratched metal that Bentinck was meant to bathe the filthy Prince with. They said he was getting better, but nobody knew if he was safe to approach yet, or truly how one could become infected at all, so they gave Bentinck some gloves and locked him in a room alone with William and a bathtub.
William immediately scurried to the door, his wide eyes fixed on the water in front of him. He had been able to drink more, but not yet without a great fight on his part.
Well, first of all, this is just too much. Bentinck shook his head and brought the switch down at the side of the door. There was a loud click heard from it, and then the two of them were in total darkness save for the light from Bentinck’s eyes. The light that was, he saw now, much dimmer than before.
“Is that better?” he asked.
William blinked and looked up, his pupils widening to cover much of his eye. He gave a slight nod. Under the spotlight of Bentinck’s eyes, his body fully exposed, the state he was in was all the more shameful— in particular his matted, tangled hair, almost resembling Bentinck’s own.
“Well, you certainly need the bath,” he said. “Come, William, get in.”
“Will it not— should it not hurt you?” William asked. He backed up against the wall, and Bentinck sat beside him.
“If it helps you, it cannot hurt me,” he said. “We can get this over with quickly. It doesn’t have to be so hard.”
“I- I cannot even look at it.” William turned away to nip at Bentinck’s finger, tearing the glove away, much to the android’s relief. “Oh, Hans...why are you shaking so much?”
“I don’t know,” Bentinck said honestly. He suspected it was the venom that had gotten into his parts, maybe that and something else, but it was all just his own theory.
“Are you afraid too?”
“Yes, very.”
“You don’t sound like it.” William bit into Bentinck’s wrist next, tapping his claws against his friend’s thigh.
“I have to sound calm for you,” Bentinck said.
William shook his head. Bentinck sighed, leaned his head back on the wall. Were they just going to sit here uselessly the whole time? The doctors at least wanted him to stop stinking of his own drool.
“Just take a look in, I promise it’s not so bad,” Bentinck said, leading William to the tub. They both peeked in, and then froze, buzzing warily as they stared at the water.
That spider nearly drowned me. He looked into his own eyes, batting at them once with his gloved hand, and as the water fearfully drew back, so did he.
“Just- just think about how nice it will be when it’s over,” he said.
“It will not have to be over if we don’t do anything.” William began to step away again, but Bentinck took his arm, pulling him back in.
“Maybe it will make your fever cool down,” he said. “My mother used to spray water on my core every time I heated up too much.”
“Water on...plutonium,” William said with a lazy flick of his antennae. “I see. And what am I?”
“You are the Prince of Orange, the hivemind ruler of the Defender of the Faith, William Henry—”
“I am all of those things,” William interrupted, “but not made of radioactive substances.”
“I would not be too certain. Your mother was definitely exposed to something before your birth.”
William coughed. “Hilarious. But I am no—” He broke off with another cough, and Bentinck rubbed at his back. “I’m not a- not a robot.��
“Lucky.”
“Unlucky.”
“So lucky.”
“Un-fucking-lucky.”
“How obscene.”
“I’ll cool down, Hans.”
“You have to do this first.” Bentinck held his hand out to William, who gave it the gentlest bite and wagged his tail in what was perhaps amusement. “Please? I want to see you recover.”
William drew back, glowering up at him. “You first.”
“Me? You- you want me to take a bath?”
“Just touch it some more. I want to see it is safe. I would like to- to convince myself.” William lifted his head, and Bentinck glanced uneasily at the water.
“Very well.” He tore off the remaining glove and braced himself before dipping his hands in the water. A dim, tantalizing feeling came over him, but it was by no means peaceful; in turn, it scared him how he wanted to fall in and let the water take him.
“Look how great it is,” he said, his voice blinking in and out in his speakers. “Look— come here, just look at it, William.”
“Is something wrong with you?” William asked, digging his claws into the ground.
“Never. Come here, William, you’re safe. See how safe I am—” He broke off with a buzz as William jumped into the water, splashing it all over his face and clothes.
Oh, no, no, no! Bentinck hurried to undress, and William bit into the side of the tub. Wet clothes were the closest thing to cold that Bentinck could feel.
“That was- that was very, very uncalled for, William,” he said once he was done, shaking himself off. “How are you doing in there?”
William bit down harder, the spikes on his tail shaking so quickly over the water that more of it was spilling out again. Bentinck pushed his tail under the water and stroked at William’s head, emitting a low, constant buzz like the one that Defender mothers used to soothe their children.
“You’re doing well,” he said, smoothing out William’s antennae. “See? If you can stay here, it means that you- you will survive, like you have survived everything else.”
William shut his eyes and let out a weak purr. He brought his insect arms out of the water and tapped them over Bentinck, as if he was attempting to crawl over him, but the rest of his body was still.
What is he doing? Bentinck winced when one came near his face. Kneeling down in front of William, still buzzing, he reached out for the soap, but his shaking hands only knocked the bar into the water. At the noise, William drew back a little.
“Oh- oh, forgive me.” Bentinck scratched William’s head between the antennae. “I have been...unstable as of late.”
“You have?” William opened one of his eyes. “And...why is that?”
“It could be anything.” It wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t exactly a lie, either.
Who knows what it was? He shrugged it off and tried to take the soap again, but it kept slipping on his sleek hands.
“Now that I hear it...” William sat up. “Something is wrong with your voice.”
“Nothing is wrong,” Bentinck insisted. “Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.” His voice was being overtaken by glitches, his buzzing rising into high-pitched static. “This- this is nothing—”
William covered his ears. “Oh, whatever you say, just stop that noise!”
“Recognized.” Bentinck clamped his mouth shut, slowly bringing his buzz back to the low one William liked. As he did so, the light in one eye flickered, and when it came to again, he saw half of the world in black and white. Well, half of William, who was the world, anyway.
William started to crawl out of the tub, and Bentinck pushed him back in, more water landing on his face. His legs slipped out under him, and he fell forward, slamming his head against the water.
Oh, God, no! He brought his head back up with much effort; water had never been so heavy before. No, it wasn’t the water, he realized, it was all of his body, and he realized now why he had slipped.
My systems are not obeying me. He huffed and sat back, and William frantically jumped out of the tub and onto him, shaking the water and soap onto Bentinck’s face.
“Please don’t do that,” Bentinck said, pushing him off. He let out a frustrated sigh. “You are not going back in easily, are you?”
William narrowed his eyes and shook his head.
“Then that’s that, I suppose.”
Bentinck didn’t care where he found himself that night, he just wanted to get as far away from William as possible. When Defenders spoke of the stench of sickness, he thought he could almost smell it when he was by the Prince, but today it felt overpowering, like it followed him everywhere. He was not ill, though, certainly not— he could survive anything.
Anything except water! He glared at every Defender crossing his path, eventually just kicking out the wheels under his feet and skating past them. He was far less balanced than he usually was, though, and had to grab onto the surrounding plants to keep himself up.
He sat beside a pitcher plant and let out a relieved sigh as the light of the moons fell over him. The constant trembling of his body and the colorless vision of his eye, however, made it impossible to enjoy the moment.
Ugh! He turned his head abruptly to the side and slammed it against the pitcher plant. It didn’t hurt, but it was sudden, so sudden that as the plant wavered, it looked surprised as well.
“Very sorry,” Bentinck said hastily. “This is nothing like me, I swear. I fear that I am breaking, but I am afraid of making it better. I- I don’t know what else to do.”
He looked back down at the ground, only for a small, clever voice to come from the pitcher plant.
“You are breaking?” it asked.
Bentinck nodded. “Yes. Just a little.”
“Let me look at you.”
“You have no eyes...”
“What- of course I do! Who do you think is talking to you?” The plant leaned forward, and Bentinck shuffled back.
“The, uh, plant,” he said. “But I suppose plants don’t talk, do they?”
“No,” said the voice, laughing. “I am a moth trapped within the plant. If you can get me out, I can tell you what is wrong with you.”
“I know what’s wrong with me.”
“Then I can kiss it better.”
“You promise you really would?” Bentinck leaned in towards the plant, and the supposed moth laughed again.
“As to how effective it is, I cannot say,” it said. “But whatever helps you sleep better at night.”
“Robots do not sleep,” Bentinck sighed, blinking wistfully at the sky. “At least, I do not.”
“You must be run by nuclear energy,” the moth said.
“I- yes. How did you guess?”
“Those robots have no need to charge.”
“Oh.” Bentinck looked up at the plant. “How do I get you out of there?”
“I would tell you to rip through it, but then you would say that that is against your First Law,” answered the moth. “I would then say that I am a biological being, too, and that leaving me here would also go against your First Law. You would say that I am a prey animal of the Defenders, and you see my species hunted everyday, and I would tell you that I am no longer a prey animal if I can speak to you and the plant cannot. You cannot allow me to die alone here, and besides, it’s only one plant, so, Hansi, rip through it with your hands.”
“I think I may want to hear you speak forever,” Bentinck declared.
“I would return the compliment if you sounded any better!” the moth giggled. “Now, would you save my life?”
“Recognized.” Bentinck slammed his fingers through the plant, seeing the beautiful moth just barely managing to keep his body over the digestive liquid, gripping onto the slippery walls of the plant. “You haven’t been here for long, have you?”
“Long enough, my legs are weary.” The moth lifted one of its legs, and Bentinck pulled it out through the hole in the plant. The fur upon the moth was soft, and, he realized when it fell against him, delightful to press his nose to.
“Oh, my, thank you.” The moth shook out its wings. “What a horrifying situation.”
“It’s very good that I found you.” Bentinck sat beside it, running his hands through the white fur. “You can take a break here, if you would like.”
“I would like that very much.” The moth placed its head on Bentinck’s lap. “Why are you shaking so much? Are you ill?”
“Impossible, Mijnheer Moth.” Bentinck shook his head.
“Ah, one would think,” the moth sighed.
They fell silent, and Bentinck looked back towards the plant that he had torn through. It really was a shame; it was so pretty.
“I can see you want to say something,” the moth said.
“I do, yes,” Bentinck said. “Did you know that what captured you is a cobra lily? Very rare around this side of the Netherlands, you see. Every Defender is taught to keep away from these plants, but my master once was caught within one; he thought it had a very nice smell to it.”
“Did he escape?”
“He had to be rescued by his tutor at the time. Mijnheer de Witt, perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
The moth shook its head. “No, never.”
“The Defenders said he tasted a little like spider meat.” Bentinck laughed. “Well, that’s nothing to think about now. What was I saying? Right, cobra lilies! Very beautiful plants, and such skillful hunters, too. I read that you cannot see the sky from in there.”
“I could not,” the moth murmured.
“Ah, wonderful!” Bentinck clapped his hands once. “Very, very good. My master said the same thing. Ah, such clever little things. If they were not so regulated, I would care for one myself.” He glanced fondly back at the plant.
“If they make you happy, why not?”
“They pose a threat to Defender children.” Bentinck sighed. “I would hate to see a little one in such agonies. My master only narrowly escaped.”
“You think about everything and everyone,” the moth said, drawing back and staring at Bentinck with its great, black eyes. “If only my kind had half the kindness that you robots exhibit.”
“Well, you are a very kind moth,” Bentinck said. “Your species is thought to be very annoying around these parts.”
The moth chuckled. “And isn’t that the truth.” It crawled closer to Bentinck, its haustellum hovering over the android’s lips. “Do you want your kiss now?”
“Are you leaving so soon?” Bentinck asked, disappointed. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come back with me.”
“I must return to my own master. I’m sorry.” It pressed its head against Bentinck’s nose, staring right into his glowing eyes.
“You will come back?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to stay.” His voice broke off at the end. He didn’t know why he wanted the moth to stay; William would never let him keep it, and yet he suddenly couldn’t imagine a life without it. “Nobody else understands.”
“I am a moth, I really understand very little,” the moth said apologetically. “Here is your kiss.” It extended its haustellum out towards Bentinck, and Bentinck placed a tiny kiss on the tip, as gentle as he could. It improved none of his systems, only made his fans whir faster. But he welcomed it.
“Thank you,” he said. The moth bowed its head and flew away, leaving nothing but the rush of a dam nearby to fill the silence.
Just when you think it all might get better. Bentinck lay back on the grass and stared up into the stars. Nothing could hurt him here.
“Mr. Bentinck,” called a gentle, familiar voice. “Mr. Bentinck, is that you?”
“Oh, yes!” Bentinck sat up, turning around to see the praying mantis from days before crawling tentatively towards him. She looked as mournful as ever. As she approached, Bentinck took her foreleg. “What is it, madam?”
“It is very good that you are here, I needed someone like you,” she said, glancing to the side. “What have you been up to? I waited yesterday night and you never came.”
“Well, things have come up,” Bentinck said with an awkward buzz. “You will have to forgive that.”
“And I do.”
“What troubles you?”
“My husband, sir, it is always him!” She raised her voice, then, turning to the side and pacing about the android. “I have done what you told me to do. So many trials, or errors, or whatever you called them; none of it matters because he is impossible to get through!”
“You have opened him, you have tried to repair him?”
“Yes!” She brought one of her forelegs up to her face and began to cry. “Heaven forgive me, I was never made for this—! Oh, what must I do now?”
“Please don’t do that,” Bentinck said. “Cry, I mean. If you take me to your husband, maybe I can tell you what needs improvement. I cannot do it myself, but I can at least point you in the right direction.”
“He would listen to a man,” she said miserably.
“No, no, not at all that, no,” he reassured her. “I am no husband, but I know what the proper way to treat a woman is.” He held his hand out, and she took it in her leg. “Take me to him.
“Well, if we must,” she said. She led him through the mess of plants everywhere, twitching her antennae as she walked. “I- I must warn you, he is very cold with strangers, from what I have observed.”
“You must not be a stranger anymore.”
“If only...”
She stopped at an exceedingly small pond, what would probably have been a puddle to one of the larger frogs inhabiting the planet. It was covered in black, but he couldn’t tell if it was the reflection of the dark sky or algae, or just his malfunctioning vision.
“Here,” she said, “is where he last spoke to me.” She pushed the cattails aside and motioned for Bentinck to come closer.
He saw a far smaller mantis, indeed, lying beside the pond with its legs splayed out beside its body. The forelegs were still raised in their usual prayer, but the body never moved, and when Bentinck leaned in he saw that it was headless, and a black sort of blood flowed endlessly from it into the water.
“Madam,” he said, “did you consummate the marriage?”
“We did, but it was a very disappointing performance,” she said. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”
“Do you think it might be because you ate his head?”
“What- what are you saying?” She drew back in horror, and Bentinck motioned towards the body.
“I don’t know death very well,” he said, “but this is what it looks like to me.” It felt then that something was splitting apart in his chest, like his core was being torn in two. He thought it was a familiar pain, and maybe he could fall to his knees and weep because of it.
He was nothing to me. Why should I care? He stepped back, covering his mouth with a trembling hand.
“I told you he would not listen!” said the mantis.
“Madam, we must go,” he said, turning to her and taking her foreleg. “There is nothing for you here.”
“But- but my husband—”
“Your husband does not deserve you,” Bentinck snapped. “No one can speak to him now.”
“You said I could make him better!” The mantis was crying again, pushing him away with one sharp swipe from her leg. “Is there no hope, then? Have I- have I failed, Hans?”
“No,” he said, stumbling back over the body. “You were only doing what you had to.”
She stared at him as she wiped at her tears, though they still came, falling over the body of her husband. “What now?” she whispered.
“You can start by leaving.”
“And then?”
“Kill more men?” Bentinck shrugged. “I was never a praying mantis.”
“I am no murderer,” said the mantis. She dipped her head towards him. “I thank you for everything, Bentinck.”
“Recognized,” he said, though he didn’t know what he had done.
He watched her leave, pushing her way through the plants, and he was tempted to follow her, knowing very well that he would never see her again. But perhaps it was for the best.
Instead he glanced down at the body and kicked it, letting it fall into the pond. Looking at it was only making him feel worse— he recognized it as grief, as if he had just lost his own husband.
Or...wife. He buzzed as if he were scolding himself and left the water as it was.
Apparently it should have been a shock that William was recovering well by the next week, because everyone couldn’t get enough of it. But Bentinck already had. He had to admit, however, that it was a great relief to see William crawl out of his bed and hurriedly lap at the water as if he had never feared it at all. He truly was biological.
“How are you today?” Bentinck asked, observing William bat around at a fairyfly that had gotten into his room.
“I want to hunt again,” the Prince said. He snapped his jaws in the air, catching the fly and shaking it furiously in his teeth. He spat it out again with a disappointed flick of his tail. “You think I want to catch these pathetic things for the rest of my life?”
“It isn’t for the rest of your life, Will, it’s just while you recover,” Bentinck said with a sigh. “In the state you are in, even a cicada could knock you over.”
“It’s no worse than it ever was,” William mumbled.
Bentinck paused, narrowing his eyes at his master. There was some truth in that, he supposed; William was as pale and thin as ever, but in fact his eyes were brighter than they had been in the past few weeks. They still fluttered shut when the light of Bentinck’s own eyes flashed over him.
“Maybe not,” the android said, “but I could never risk it. Maybe a walk when less predators are active would be nice. And I must be with you,” he added.
William rolled his eyes, turning away. “I was ill, not a prisoner.”
“You are ill.”
“I am going to bite you again.”
“Please don’t do that—” Bentinck lifted his arm as William sprung at him, clinging onto it while batting his claws against his friend’s metal belly. But he was purring, his tail flicking from side to side excitedly, once again in the manner that he had done it when he was younger with de Witt. The purrs weren’t so bad, Bentinck had to say.
“It’s not so long now,” he said. “You will recover, and then you can go back to terrorizing hapless insects and other horrible creatures.”
“Like the heart-eaters.”
“Yes, very good, Your Highness. You are very, very fierce.”
William drew back, licking his lips. “I know. So I can handle a little walk.”
“Not until the physicians say you can.” Bentinck lifted William in his arms and placed him back on the bed. “I can bring in a few larger flies if you would like.”
William groaned, falling onto his pillow. He blinked, staring out the window listlessly, before his tail twitched suddenly and he sat back up again. “Oh, would you?”
Bentinck nodded.
“Then go, I want a crane fly.”
“Which one?”
“The biggest one you can find, now!” William sprung forward, snapping his jaws, and Bentinck hurried off.
Biggest one I can find? Does he expect me to kill it before or after I bring it to him? He shook his head as he walked, causing his vision to be covered in static for a moment. He covered the speaker on his chest before anyone had to hear the embarrassing warning again and walked faster, calling for the wheels on his feet. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it seemed that every Defender who looked at him this time did so with fear.
Is something wrong with me?
He dismissed the idea and kept going. William always found crane flies near the streams; maybe he would have the same luck. Just as long as he didn’t fall for the claims of a spider again.
He heard a curious buzzing up ahead, one much louder than anything he had ever heard from any insect in the Netherlands. He was tempted to turn back, but he decided that as long as he didn’t provoke whatever it was, he would be fine.
He looked up, trying to find what could possibly be making that noise, only for the wheel on his left foot to spring back inside him. Before he realized what had happened, he stumbled, and he fell hard on the grass, his arm failing to catch him. He landed on his face, his vision shaking as if something had knocked him on the head.
What on the Netherlands is this? He put away the other wheel and tried to push himself back up on his shaking arm. He couldn’t find the strength this time, however, and let himself fall again, staring out at what he found in front of him.
At least I got to the stream. Much to his disappointment, though, there were no crane flies around.
But he did find the source of the buzzing. Looking up, he saw a huge bee perched on a water lily, staring right at him with its head cocked to the side. From the size alone, he recognized her instantly as a queen, but a very peculiar one. The fur on her abdomen had a strange, cross-like marking running across the back instead of the usual stripes.
“Your Majesty,” he blurted, trying to sit up to kneel before her.
“Hans William Bentinck,” she said. “Do not move.” In her voice ran the unmistakable confidence of a monarch, and he obeyed, bowing his head.
“F-Forgive me.”
“Ah, there is nothing to forgive.” She flew over to him, landing at his side. “I have heard much about you.”
“An honor to be known by a being such as yourself.” Bentinck tried to back away, but the queen flung a leg over him.
“Is something wrong, what troubles you?” she asked.
“My whole body, I suppose.” He shuddered at the feeling of the leg and closed his eyes. “I must be looking for a crane fly for the Prince of Orange.”
“The Prince, you say?” He felt her lean in, the fur brushing the side of his face. “How is the boy?”
“Error: you do not have access to that information.”
“What are you—”
“Error: you do not have access to that information.”
He cried out when she slammed her leg against the side of his head, forcing him on his back. “Look up here,” she growled, “look at me. What is it that you are so afraid of, Bentinck?”
“I said that you do not have access to that information.” He glared up at her, though looked only at her wings; the black eyes were terrifying things. “I only serve a Protestant monarch.”
“So you do know about me.” She laughed. “You think you are so faithful, don’t you? You think your loyalty can never waver because you are an android. But let me tell you something, Bentinck; it only makes it easier for you to betray your precious master. I mean, look at how easily you fall apart!” She leaped onto him then, ripping through his waistcoat with a swipe of her leg. He buzzed in fury, shaking his head but unable to do much more than that. He couldn’t hurt her.
“Please don’t do that.” He lifted his head, and she forced it back down with a fierce shove from her mandibles. He let out another buzz, this time one of fear.
“You think he cares for you?”
“Please don’t do that.”
“You think he would be surprised if you turned your back on him? If you began to work for me instead?” She shook her head. “No one would be. You know no such thing as loyalty. God did not create you.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“You believe in Him,” she continued, “but He does not believe in you.”
“Please don’t do that—!” He kicked his legs out, and she drove her stinger into the opening that connected his thigh to his torso, tearing through his breeches. He tossed his head back and screamed as he felt the stinger sever the wires there, the venom squirting through finally taking any movement left on that limb.
“A shame about your strength,” she said. “It really could have saved your Prince from my vengeance.”
“Please don’t do that,” he pleaded. “Please don’t hurt him.”
“Nothing can stop me from what I have planned for that little monster,” she spat. “Not you, not him, and not all the armies in the galaxy.” She lifted her stinger and shoved it in the same place in the other thigh, achieving the same result there.
Bentinck bit back another buzz. “You- you can always go be Catholic somewhere else—”
“This is my kingdom!” She buried her mandibles into his hair and slammed his head back against the ground, again and again until the vision was gone from his eye where color had disappeared.
“Please don’t do that— caution: vision impaired— please don’t do that-” His voice was quickly becoming unrecognizable.
“Then fight,” she said, leaning in until the only thing he could see was her empty eyes, “if you think you can give me orders.”
“I- I don’t know what I did to you—”
“You ask as if working for the Prince isn’t the crime!” She drove her stinger into the speaker on his chest until she broke through. He felt the venom seep through him, burning up everything it touched, and he let himself fall limp, unable to speak coherently anymore. He knew he was still speaking, please don’t do that, but it sounded like nothing to him.
“Pathetic beast, always breaking, always whining,” she said. She pulled the stinger free, flying high above him, and the venom from her stinger fell to his face. It was disgusting. “I would kill you now, but I want to see William’s face when he sees me do it.”
Do not speak his name! Bentinck opened his mouth to tell her so, but before he could manage a sound she took his head in her legs and pushed it back into the water.
It was so quiet. So peaceful. He knew he should have been fighting it, but what was his Third Law compared to this? He was prepared to go, if he could hear nothing forever—
There was a screech from the surface, and then the weight was lifted off of him. The instinct to live returned to him. Using all the strength within him, he pulled himself out with a gasp, water leaking from his eyes and lips. He turned his head to the side to see where the queen had gone.
She had not gone willingly. There was the Prince, beautiful William, swiping at her face, hissing as he drove her back. He was many times smaller than she was, but she couldn’t manage to push him off.
“No one will touch my android!” he snarled.
“No!” Bentinck tried to call out, reaching out towards William. He wasn’t supposed to be out here! He had certainly never fought a queen before.
“You have brought him straight to me!” At last the queen bee threw him off, and Willaim landed with a huff on the ground. She lifted her head triumphantly, glancing at Bentinck. “Good boy.”
No, that was never—! He dragged himself forward with his arm, but was too unsteady to keep the motion. He let his head fall. Was this how William would die, with Bentinck watching on helplessly?
I was supposed to protect him. He wanted to cry, then realized that he was, the water from the stream still dripping slowly from his eyes.
William bared his teeth as he stood back up, the spikes on his tail shaking in warning. And Bentinck saw then that he would not die here. If he had survived illness in the past month, if he had defeated mantises, spiders, frogs, and liars, liars, liars, then a bee would never be anything at all.
“I am going to rip those beady little eyes out of your skull until there is nothing left to see heaven’s light,” the queen hissed.
William’s eyes flicked to black, and he sprung once more at her, clinging onto her abdomen with his claws as she flew up. She kicked at him with her legs, thrusting her stinger forward, but he held on from behind. She could land nothing on him. He crawled over her body, bringing her lower to the ground, and out of the plants bounded out more Defenders, old and young, hissing along with him at the queen.
It was undoubtedly his hivemind. Their black eyes matched his as they pounced on the queen, and they moved as if they had tails, carelessly unbalanced on top of her. William himself slipped off the side and bounced back, wheezing and circling the scene.
He needs me! Bentinck tried to call out to William, but it was much too low to be heard, and William never looked over at him. He seemed incredibly focused as he shifted his claws on the ground, as his Defenders shot silk from their wrists and tangled it around the queen’s legs. He tensed, then jumped back onto her, burying his claws into her wings. With the way her abdomen was moving, trapped within the silk, Bentinck guessed she was trying to sting him again.
William bit into her head and rolled sharply to the side, taking her with him. The rest of the Defenders stepped back, their eyes returning to normal, though wide with terror. These were not soldiers— they were merely the Defenders closest to the area, and thus could be anything. There were even a few children in the mix, hiding behind their mothers with nervous growls.
William shook the queen in his jaws, then threw her down below him, his jaws dripping with the hemolymph he had taken from her. It looked as if he was drooling again, but he licked the liquid away almost too gleefully.
“Kill me, then, but I will always return,” she spat at him. “And when I do, you will have more to lose.”
“Heaven take you, Your Majesty.” William bit into her antennae and tore her head from her body. Her legs still twitched under the silk as he jumped off of her, shaking himself and trying to catch his breath.
“A queen without a hive,” he huffed. “Now I have seen everything.” The Defenders backed away from him as he bounded towards his android. “Hans! How are you?”
“You- you need me—” Bentinck propped himself up on one arm as William curled his tail around him. He could only manage a broken whisper; anything louder than that would spook William with all its clicks and glitches.
“Shh, don’t speak,” William said. “I- I am very well—” He broke off when he started coughing, and Bentinck shook his head.
“You were not supposed to do this.”
“Then who else would, if I had not disobeyed you?” William smiled, leaning in to purr against Bentinck’s cheek. “My antennae couldn’t have sensed danger if I had been inside.”
“Enough, just kiss me.”
“I don’t need it—” He attempted to laugh, interrupted by another hacking cough, and Bentinck brought his head closer and kissed him. He prayed that the inhaler function in his throat still worked.
Out of all my systems, please, please, please.
William blinked, then backed away, his eyes wide. “No, Hans, I-” He took a deep, rasping breath, his tail twitching uncomfortably as he glanced at everyone around him.
Did it not work? Bentinck reached out, took William’s hand.
“I- I am sorry.”
“Hans, it isn’t—”
“She said she would come back.” Bentinck’s voice rose. It was like speaking through shattered glass.
William stared at him, still stepping away. “What are you talking about? Who?”
“The queen!”
William shook his head. “You are not well,” he breathed. Then, turning to his subjects, he said, “Help me- help me take him back—! Now!”
Did I say something wrong? It could have been anything, Bentinck thought.
“You are safe now, Hans, don’t speak anymore,” he heard William whisper on his blind side. His warm breath on Bentinck’s face was labored, but reassuring nonetheless. “Just- just close your eyes.”
He knew what that meant, but closed them anyway. He felt William reach his claws into his throat and shut him off. From there he could have been out for a few minutes or centuries upon centuries; he could never tell.
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god i like. need a second blog to process all the stuff i can’t say on my first blog anymore
i mean i could, i guess, it’s just queerness and sex really and what are we here for if not that
but like. i spend so much time thinking i’m mostly fine and then someone says something or i read something and it’s like. oh right i’m all shut down bc i hate myself but good god would i love to be fucking actually. touch someone’s hot soft mouth with my fingers. stroke their lips and tongue and wish i had a cock. so much stuff about like. putting someone on their knees and petting their hair a little. pulling it a little. either. both. would love to get on my knees for someone whatever they’re packing, god, i used to love putting my mouth on people. such a joy. wouldn’t mind being an alien slippery landscape for someone to explore either. like. i don’t know. i don’t want preconceived notions abt what my body is or wants or means, or abt yours either for that matter; i want mesmerized weird hot mutual discovery. biting. getting fucked in the ass. fucking someone else in the ass. god i can never pick, i want it all both ways twice over. why aren’t we lying together flushed, skin prickling, trying things. i want my neck kissed. i want to kiss yours. wanna put my fingers in you somewhere. yours in me. want.
like i said. i’m all shut down but really under that—fuck. the thing is like. i love sex but not by myself, i love it with someone (or someones!) else who’s got my heart hammering and my skin singing and the closest i get to that these days is bashful terror when something online feels like it could maybe someday be real if i could bear to keep engaging with it. which i never can bc it’s agony to talk to anyone ever even when i like them—maybe especially when i like them. god.
(mind you it’s also agony to talk about this where anyone can see me so it may die. but like. it’s also agony and death-in-life not to talk about it so. a readmore oui-hour compromise.)
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Prompt? Mulder and Scully pick out baby furniture and later talk about baby names? Or one or the other, I'm happy either way! 🙈
Look who's answering a five-year-old prompt! I think this was supposed to be about the new baby, but I wrote about William instead.
Fluff, set after "Alone": With Mulder being unemployed, and Scully on maternity leave, they spend their time thinking about furniture, baby names, and all the ways their lives will change. (wc: 1,378)
Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2023
Fictober Day 14: Preparation is Everything
Fox Mulder is a new man.
His naked body is still adorned with pale scars, but they’re healing, slowly fading away. Soon, they will be gone, and with them the only proof of what he went through. How many people can claim to have come back from the death? Mulder doesn’t even want to know.
The other day, Scully left a pamphlet for group therapy on his coffee table. His first instinct was to throw it into the trash, but then he reconsidered. Scully isn’t pushing him. No one is. They’re all just glad he’s back among the living. Well, most of them. He bets that Kersh can’t wait for him to die for real. That feeling, he realizes, is mutual.
When he stood in front of Kersh's desk, his former boss barely able to contain his glee, he was ready to fight. To defend himself and go on another rampage. That feeling lasted all of five seconds. Not worth it, a voice inside him whispered. He thought of Scully, and the baby, and knew that they were the only thing that mattered to him now. They didn’t need him jumping off oil rigs. He’s caused Scully seven years of grief and he was done. Enough was enough. Someone else could take over the X-Files. He may not trust Doggett yet, but Scully does. And when Scully trusts someone, he knows they’re good people.
So, he’s Fox Mulder now. Just Fox Mulder. Unemployed bum, spending time at his partner’s apartment whenever she lets him, and trying to figure out what to do next.
“What are you doing?” Mulder asks as he steps into the living room where Scully sits on the couch, engrossed in a colorful catalog.
“Looking at baby furniture,” she replies with a sigh.
“I thought- I thought you already had everything.”
“I thought I’d have more time,” she admits sheepishly, biting her lip. Seeing his Scully unprepared for anything just makes him love her more. But he knows better than to tease her.
“Well, you’re in luck,” Mulder says, sitting down next to her. “We both have plenty of time. With me being fired, and you on maternity leave, we have all the time in the world. Let’s go shopping.”
“Mulder, we have the catalog.” She points at a crib with a smiling baby inside of it. Mulder thinks it looks a bit like an alien. “We can order everything we need.”
“Or,” he says, drawing the word out. “We can go into a store and pick things out.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I don’t want the kid to sleep in a thing that looks like this.” He points at the ugliest crib he’s ever seen. “$1000? Does it come with the whole apartment? Come on, Scully. It’s going to be a nice trip to Babies'R'Us.”
*
“Does no one work anymore?” Mulder mumbles as he and Scully step into the crowded baby store. There are squeaky bright colors everywhere and Mulder doesn’t know where to start. He keeps close to Scully’s side, but she, too, seems overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place.
“Wish you were hunting monsters instead?” he asks Scully and she gives him a small smile.
“At least we have experience with that.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Mulder assures her. “Look, that’s the baby section. Let’s start there.”
In the end, it’s not as difficult as either of them thought it would be. It doesn’t take them long to find the essentials. They both fall in love with the same crib and Mulder gets so excited that he kisses her quickly and noisily in front of another family, not caring at all.
“Mulder.” Her cheeks are coloring and she’s looking around nervously. Old habits die hard.
“I doubt we’ll run into Skinner or Kersh here, Scully. Or anyone we know. Either way, we’re not working together anymore, are we?” The realization hits him that he’s telling the truth. As of right now, they’re no longer work partners. There’s nothing holding them together. He’s not even FBI anymore.
“Are you all right?” Scully touches his chest.
“I’m- I just realized that we’re no longer partners.”
“Are you leaving me?” There’s no worry in her voice, but rather amusement.
“You know what I mean.”
“Mulder, we don’t need to be working together in the basement to be partners. You know that, right? We are partners in this.” She takes his hand and puts it on her stomach. “Unless you-”
“Oh, I want. I’m all in, Scully. I hope you know that?” She nods, and he sees a few tears pool in the corner of her eyes. He almost ruined another moment with his insecurities.
“Do you think we have everything we need for now?”
“You’re tired,” Mulder states and she doesn’t deny it.
“And hungry,” she says with an apologetic smile.
“We’ll get you and Junior something to eat. Let’s get out of here.”
*
Their baby is a pizza lover. They may not know much about their child yet, but they do know that. Mulder watches Scully happily lick her fingers clean after eating a slice of greasy pepperoni pizza and thinks he might even be a little turned out by her enjoyment of it.
“Happy now?” he asks her, unable to hide his own happiness.
“Very much so. I just- I need to get comfortable.” She’s half sitting, half lying on the couch, and watching him with curious eyes. She’s been doing that a lot lately. Who can blame her? After all, she had to bury him. Had to try and make peace with him being gone and having to do all of this on her own. He doesn’t want to think about missing all of this. He’s missed so much already. The moment she found out. The morning sickness. Her growing belly. He missed all of it. He can only try to make up for all of it now. But they will never get that time back.
“Mulder, stop,” she says gently, a hand on his thigh. “I can feel you thinking.”
“Can you?” he asks with a sad smile.
“I wish I could turn back the time and-”
“None of this is your fault, Scully.”
“It’s not your fault either.”
“Debatable.”
“Not debatable,” she says firmly. “You’re here now and it’s everything- Mulder, it’s everything.”
“You know you’ll see a lot of me now, right? With me being out of a job. I need to- I will find something. We can’t let Junior think I’m some kind of slob.”
“You’re going to be an amazing father,” Scully whispers as if she were sharing a secret.
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right.” She winks at him and they both laugh softly. A truce.
“Have you thought about names for Junior?” Mulder asks as Scully snuggles into his side. He puts his arm around her and, a bit more hesitantly, lets his hand wander to her stomach. What a miracle they’ve created together.
“I have a few ideas. What about you?”
“It’s your decision.”
“Mulder.”
“No, I think you should decide. I’ll veto if it’s something like… Nimrod.”
“Too bad. That was my favorite.” She grins up at him. “I was thinking about all the people we lost. Samantha and Melissa. We could pick something similar to that, to honor them. Or give them a name with no memories attached. Give them a fresh start.”
“They deserve a fresh start.” Mulder kisses her temple.
“All of us do,” Scully says, putting her hand on top of Mulder’s on her stomach. “We’ll know what to call him when we see him.”
“Him?” Mulder asks.
“Or her.”
“You know,” Mulder says, closing his eyes, and letting his imagination take over. “I think our child is going to change the world. Save it even, maybe. They’re going to do great things.” He can see it. Can see their child grow up from baby to child, to teenager and adult. He can’t wait to be there and watch every single step they take. Holding their hand if they need him to.
“I think you’re right, Mulder,” Scully says.
“You hear that, baby?” Mulder presses his ear to her stomach, murmuring the words against the fabric of her shirt. “Your mom just said I’m right.”
#fictober23#so proud of myself seriously#not the oldest prompt i might add#i was *this* close to writing angst#ohhh and i will#but you get fluff today#msr#xf fanfic#my writing#my fic
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Febuwhump - Secrets Revealed
Fandom: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
It only takes a month and a half after the Krang invasion before they’re back on the streets. Thank Draxum for super-healing. They’re not quite the same as they were. Leo’s got a new scarf wrapped around his neck and draping over the cracks in his upper carapace, while Raph doesn’t try to hide the lightning crack in his plastron or the patched hole in his carapace. Raph’s mask already hides the scars on his face, much as Donnie’s battle shell hides the scars he would rather no one saw. Mikey is wearing long black compression gloves, jazzed up with a bunch of neon rubber bracelets down the wrists. They’re all moving easily, though, and Mikey’s grip on his nunchucks is sure. There’s an 80% chance they’ll be fine as long as they take it easy.
“Okay, listen up,” Leo says. “Meatsweats has been sighted at Greenwich Village. We don’t know what he’s doing causing trouble so soon after the Invasion, but until we’re absolutely sure he’s not eating anything contaminated we treat it as an emergency.”
“Yeah, I don’t think even Rupert Swaggert could cook Krang and make it tasty. That is some nasty calamari,” Mikey chips in.
“No one moves in until Donnie’s finished scanning him. Donnie you’ve got the… the krang-bio-scanner ready to go?” Leo ignores Mikey and continues, his tone clipped and professional in a way that feels like another kind of scar. A wound in Leo’s bright personality healing rough and grey. Except Donnie caught the quick, self-satisfied gleam in Leo’s eyes, the tell-tale sign that he’s thought of a really terrible pun and is about to inflict it on his brothers, before he stopped himself. Leo pushing himself down, putting himself in a box, is still better than the idea that parts of him might have been lost.
“Ready and waiting,” Donnie confirms.
Leo nods. “Move out.”
The krang-bio-scanner is a delicate piece of work. Donnie has it set up on the roof, pointing down at Meatsweats from its tripod. Meatsweats seems to be doing nothing worse than looting a bakery, so once they’ve confirmed he hasn’t eaten any Krang this should be an easy first mission to get back into the swing of things.
Raph holds out an arm between Donnie and the scanner just as he goes to throw the switch. “Donnie, you’re sure it won’t give a false positive this time?”
“Scoff. You really think I have not adjusted it perfectly before using it in the field?” He ducks under Raph’s arm to swivel the tripod until it points at Leo and then pulls the lever. “See? It no longer registers the minor alien energy of mutants (which I am hypothesising is connected to empyrean, pending further research and an interview with Draxum) as a threat. Version 2.3.5 is completely reliable.”
“We went through this before the mission,” Leo says. “Let Donnie do his thing.”
“Thank you,” Donnie says, and swivels the scanner back towards Meatsweats. “Reading 0.63 KE, well within normal parameters.” He stands to his full height with a flourish. “We’re good to make our entrance.”
They land two on each side of Meatsweats, blocking both ends of the alley. Donnie is next to Raph, while Mikey and Leo are both watching Meatsweats from the other end of the alley, Mikey openly excited and Leo neutral.
“Oh, no, turtles,” Meatsweats groans. “Thought you lot was injured.”
“We heal fast,” Leo says.
“What are you doing robbing a bakery?” Raph asks, making Meatsweats turn. “Thought you did your own cooking.”
“If they want to use my recipe they can either put my name on it or let me eat the results,” Meatsweats says. He throws a cupcake into the air and swallows it in one bite. “Delicious.”
“Marketing is really important for a professional artiste,” Mikey says.
“Okaaaaay,” Leo says. He sounds tired and annoyed, which is about how Donnie feels. They’re all nervous about letting anything slide after the Key, but somehow even in the wake of an alien invasion they’ve managed to find something genuinely trivial. “I’m not even going to make you put that back because that’s probably against ADA laws-”
“CDC,” Donnie hisses.
“-CDC laws. But I am going to beat you up if you don’t get out of here now.”
Meatsweats picks Leo and Mikey as the ones he’d rather walk between to leave the alley. He swings his bag over his shoulder with one hand and raises the other to wipe his mouth. Then, right as he’s level with them, his teeth catch his glove and pull it off, tentacles sprouting and writhing towards Leo who jumps back out of reach with eyes like saucers.
“Or maybe I’ll get the main course before I go enjoy my dessert,” Meatsweats says.
Those writhing tentacles are making Donnie’s stomach churn, it’s like he can feel them on his back, sliding through his spine and into his mind. He’s never felt so scared and disgusted at the thought of being eaten by Meatsweats, not even the time Meatsweats put a pound of butter on him.
Leo looks like he feels the same way which doesn’t stop him grinning as he says, “Aren’t your lines getting awfully stale?” Only then he winces, tooth catching his lower lip, like even in this situation it hurts him to break his professionalism. Except, no. Donnie’s not the best at reading expressions but he doesn’t think it was just that.
Mikey’s nunchucks close around Meatsweats’ neck and whip him over their heads to land the other end of the alley, where Raph punches him a few times and takes the bag of cakes. Meatsweats groans, staring up at Raph, then tucks those horrible tentacles back into his glove, turns his little curly tail and scarpers.
Raph looks from the bag in his hand back to the bakery.
“You might as well bring those,” Mikey says. “Leo’s right about the CDC but I don’t mind eating them. We’re probably done now, so we can go home and have a nice snack.”
“We’re not done,” Leo says. “But if Donnie finds us a good vantage point we can eat while we keep a look out.”
Donnie picks a flat roof with a roof garden as their vantage point because he thinks they could all use the soothing influence of greenery. Especially him, since he would like his stomach to settle enough to actually eat a cupcake. Raph and Mikey are happy enough to dive in, Mikey taking bites out of three cakes at once for comparison purposes while Raph eats two in consecutive bites. Leo perches on the edge of the roof like a gargoyle and ignores them.
Donnie takes a coffee cake, thinking about the first time they met Meatsweats and how and why Donnie had ended up being buttered for cooking. The problem is that Donnie has a suspicion that is, he has to admit, really far fetched. One data point isn’t enough for anything like a hypothesis. If he’s wrong he’s going to look very stupid saying anything but if he’s right then for once he doesn’t want to leave things as they are while he collects data. He takes another cake and goes over to Leo.
“I brought you one,” he says. “It’s carrot cake.”
Leo holds out a hand for it. “Thanks, Don.”
Donnie leans over the edge, next to Leo, looking down at the brilliant neon of New York. Here and there it’s broken by dramatic black and white as, under floodlights, repairs go on into the night. What a town.
Donnie takes the back of Leo’s scarf and tugs.
Leo ends up on his ass in someone’s herb garden, Donnie with a long blue scarf trailing from his hand and linking them together. Around Leo’s neck, gleaming blue and unmistakable, is the collar Donnie built for him two years ago.
Donnie stands there, staring down at Leo, neither of them able to pull their eyes away. Leo’s cheeks are darkening with the brown colour of a blush under green.
Raph makes a small, pained noise.
Leo jumps to his feet, released from stasis all at once, and yanks the scarf out of Donnie’s hands, fumbling to wind it back around his neck.
“Leo,” Donnie says. “Take it off.”
“Why?” Leo asks. “You gave it to me. No one had any problem with me wearing it back then. I’m finally using your gift correctly, so lay off.”
“If you thought we’d find this acceptable you wouldn’t have hidden it,” Donnie says.
Raph steps forward, hesitating when Leo steps back. “You can’t wear something that hurts you,” Raph says.
“It’s just a reminder!” Leo’s twisting the end of the scarf in his hands, twisting the tassels. “I turned the voltage down, it doesn’t even make me twitch now. Just.” He sounds embarrassed. “Until I remember without it. That’s all.”
Donnie swallows hard, choking back bile. He hadn’t meant to hurt Leo. Not really. Not much. Just a reminder. It sounds so much worse in Leo’s voice, as something he’s doing to himself. Nor did Donnie think - at all - about how humiliating it would be to be given a behaviour modification device. To have someone think you needed one. They’d hurt his feelings when they’d misused the devices but he must have hurt theirs - all of theirs - so much more.
Mikey steps forward but like Raph, like Donnie himself, he stops outside of touching distance of Leo. They’re all thinking the same thing about the guy who can make portals and checks out of uncomfortable conversations.
“Dee didn’t mean it,” Mikey says. “None of us want you to feel bad enough you’d hurt yourself. That’s a really big thing, Leo.”
Leo’s going to argue that point but Donnie interrupts before he can. “Mikey’s right. I should not have given you something like that.”
Leo shakes his head. “It’s fine, I’m fine, you’re all worrying too much. It doesn’t really hurt. Look, back then I didn’t get it, why you’d want to change me, but you were right and I understand that now.”
“No,” Donnie hisses. “You don’t. Two years ago I thought that the team would be better if everyone on it was more like me. You were stupid and inefficient and I felt like everyone was slowing me down. Last year I did something even worse than that stupid collar and found out exactly why I was wrong. I altered your minds and nearly couldn’t bring you back. I nearly lost you because I thought I was the only one who could do what the team needed. You are not the only one who has learned this lesson..” Donnie’s shaking, tears gathering in his eyes. He hates this, he hates this so much, that he can only ever express his emotions by letting them take him over. Hollow out his insides and fill his head with static. “Now for Pavolov’s sake, take the stupid thing off.”
Leo looks like he’s been punched in the snout, hands pulling nervously at his scarf like he’s unsure whether to unwind it again. For once he seems lost for words.
“Leo, please,” Raph says, voice a hoarse rumble. Mikey nods frantically, fixing big, scared eyes on Leo, and Donnie sees Leo wilt under that gaze. He tugs his scarf away and undoes the collar, finally taking it away from his neck and holding it loosely in one hand.
Donnie swipes out his bo, knocking the collar out of Leo’s hand and into the ground with enough force to smash it. Electrical components scatter over someone’s parsley.
Leo meets Donnie’s eyes still looking stunned and nobody has anything to say.
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I've always believed Will was Henry's target all along, too. The only thing I need clarity about is when and how Henry learned about Will's existence, powers and potential. Do you have any theory about it? I've thought about Lonnie taking Will to the lab (c0nversion therapy vibes) in the guise of baseball or Henry seeing/detecting Will in the woods (or in Castle Byers) before he was banished by El, but I' not satisfied with either option yet.
Ciao, anon! This is one of the biggest mysteries of the story. I talk about it here and I think in other posts, too. You can find them here .
I thought about Lonnie taking Will to the lab and Henry (and El?) seeing him there. And, even if Brenner thought he was just a normal kid, Will could've done or said something that made Henry realise he has powers. (EDIT: I now think Will’s powers weren’t activated until he arrived in the UD, so I don’t know how Henry could’ve noticed them. Something about him being sensitive to certain things?)
I really don't know. There are cameras everywhere in the lab. And if Henry had showed any interest in Will, then wouldn’t Will vanishing the very night the gate opened be a bit suspicious? But in S1 Brenner didn't care about Will at all. In 1x08, when a woman asked him: "What if they find the boy?" he answered: "They won't". He just wanted to find El. And them knowing how to make a perfect replica of Will's body, one of the reasons people think he was at the lab at some point, could just mean that the government knew everything about the people in Hawkins. In fact, we know they listened to every phone call. Plus, if Will was brought to the lab, it must’ve happened when he was younger. So he looked different from when he got kidnapped. I know people could say that it's S1 and the Duffers said they wrote the story of the UD and the mythology of the show in S2, so everything is possible. I get it. It is possible. But it's not like the events of S1 have no meaning at all. And the Duffers said that Henry was always the villain. In S4 we saw many callbacks. El killing with the head tilt in S1 just like Henry does in S4 and the lab kid turning on the lights in the same way Will did in his bedroom, when Holly was there. So I think they would've at least hinted at something about Will and the lab in S4, maybe when El was with Brenner. But we'll see. Maybe Lonnie brought Will there, because he thought Brenner and the other doctors could fix Will’s queerness like Virginia wanted Brenner to fix Henry. I just think other theories make more sense.
This is my theory. EDIT : I believe that all the people with powers are connected to the UD. Specifically, to the powerful being that lives there (or even conquered that world that now seems dead) The Mind Flayer. I think all the powers come from it. When he was a kid, Henry Creel communicated with this being probably because the veil between the worlds was thinner in his house, and since he was special, a sensitive child (sensitive to powers) this contact made him acquire many abilities. Then we know that all the powers of the people Brenner experimented on come from Henry. Terry’s, El’s, Kali’s. As for Will. He’s like Henry. Not a lab kid. He was sensitive too and when he arrived in the UD, he acquired powers.
The evidence of all this is El sending Henry to the UD without even knowing that place existed. The lights when she remembers her mom imo mean that she was remembering her connection to those powers. The reason Project Nina was created. The MF’s bite/toxin had interrupted her connection to her powers. So they made her remember it in her past. The Mind Flayer is a cosmic being with supernatural abilities, like an alien plant or mushroom that wants to spread into other worlds with its spores and vines. We know for a fact that Henry didn’t create them. They were there when El opened the gate, like they were waiting for Henry. And Henry only shaped the spores that were in the sky. Then he became Vecna by merging with the vines. I don’t know if the Mind Flayer is evil. After all, spiders, viruses or mushrooms aren’t evil but they’re definitely dangerous. We know what those vines do.
So back to question. How Henry could know about Will. If he didn’t see him at the lab, it is possible that he sensed him just like he and the MF sensed each other when he was a kid.
That's how. Now Let's talk about the when. Henry told El that after she banished him, he just had to wait for her to open a door. He knew it was just a matter of time, because El was still with Brenner and Henry knew Papa very well. He knew he would've tried to find him. But waiting for El to open a gate doesn't mean just sitting there, watching floating rocks. A man like Henry wants to be ready, to have a plan. So I think that, after he found the MF and, like he said, he became the predator he thought he was born to be, he started to spy on Brenner and El. And he made El find the Demogorgon. It's totally in character for him. He spied on a lot of people in S4, and at the end of S2 we see the Mind Flayer looming over the school, probably spying on both Will and El.
So, I think Henry sensed Will, somewhere between 1979 and 1983, while he was spying on Brenner and El from the Upside Down. This would be important, because so far the show has only explored Henry and El parallels. If Henry has spied on this sensitive kid, who loves drawing and feels different, he would think they're alike, just like he thought he and El were. I guess they could just say he sensed him when the gate opened and then attacked him. But I really hope Will and Henry have a long history, too. : )
What do you think?
#will byers#will has powers#henry creel#st theory#st analysis#henry/vecna/one#henry/vecna/001#the mind flayer#will and henry#stranger things theory#stranger things analysis#stranger things#stranger things asks
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