#Ok this post is doing numbers so i felt i should explain that that's the personification of the HS fandom | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

velvet-paradox · 11 months

Text

Intense

Fandom: Sleep Token (Band) Pairing: Vessel x Female reader x III Length: Long Summary: Your eepy roommates suggest they can help you out. Warnings: NSFW 18 + ONLY, LISTEN UP PUNK I know what I'm about ok and I shouldn't even have to to explain this but for ffs this is for funsies, fictional purposes only. I don't know these British men and I don't claim to! But am I having an absolute ball listening to them everyday day since I heard Dark Signs??? Absolutely. I have not and will not know peace on Earth ever again so with that being said... my lizard brain wants to shoot my shot and get sandwiched between Vessel and III (purely based off their on stage personas) and I'm pretty sure all us worshippers would enjoy kneeling and begging for forgiveness for all the eepy guys. DON'T LIE TO ME; I'll know. ;) One late night thot lead us down this path so here ya' go, we've got: strong language, explicit content, MFM relations, polyamorous activities, kissing, oral (m receiving), p in v, protected sex, unprotected sex (don't do it!), double vaginal, dirty talking, creampie III is a mess, Vessel is along for the ride and you're indulging in the spoils of detailed smut. Tagging: @synnersaint my ride or die

ENJOY!!!

You stare at the red numbers on the clock next to your bed. You blink.

Unfortunately unfazed by the hum-drum pace and the position you've found yourself in.

Ugh, how did this happen again?

The man on top of you, circling his hips against your own, balls deep in your cunt should be fun, exciting, a turn-on at least but you just laid there, once again, taking it but not getting anything out of it. You faked it the last three times just to get him to get off you, out of your apartment and out the door so you could finish yourself off with some post nut clarity. Which is what you should've done in the first place.

The first time you had sex with him, you chalked it up to nerves. It'd been a few months for him and a bit longer for you at this point. The second time you excused it as you did go out for drinks earlier in the night and the last one was just plain awful. No foreplay, bit your neck too hard and pretty much gave you a titty-twister which was not fun; at all.

But he's nice! And funny, easy to talk to you and here you are, making more excuses for a man who can't even get you off. This is just pathetic, girl.

You felt bad faking your enthusiasm but even as you moved in unison with him, hearing him huff and grate out oh my fucking god for the fifth time, he didn't even have a clue.

So you dialed it up, two more minutes had passed with him just thrusting inside you, he didn't even notice you weren't as wet as before. What a fucking disaster.

You sighed and made your O face, biting your lip and holding his waist, the slapping of skin sped up briefly before he pulled out with a groan of your name, panting as he jerked himself, tore off the condom and came on the inside of your thigh.

Fucking finally.

Your date was quick to get dressed, mentioning something about an early shift change. He gave you chaste kiss on the corner of your mouth, cupping your face as an afterthought as you followed him out of your bedroom.

"I'll text you when I get home. I-- oh!"

You bounced against his back, stunned as to why he's just stopped like that when you peer around his frame. There on the couch in your living room sat your roommates.

"Oh my-- what are you guys doing home?" You asked, frantically looking between the two sober faces and their luggage by the front door. Well more like the painted chin of one and the eyes of the other. You were hyperaware of the drying cum on your leg and crossed your fingers and toes they didn't hear your activities or what remained to be seen.

"We live here, remember?" Vessel waved one of his hands, III nodding along.

"When you said you had roommates I just assumed they were other girls." Your bedfellow side talked to you as to not alert your boys.

"Is that a problem?" You asked.

"No I just uh," he looked at III when he stood, an attempt to intimidate. "It's fine um... I'll call you."

"Well that was rude," Vessel announced, joining his brother after he left. "Didn't even introduce himself."

"He won't be around for long. I wouldn't worry about it." You dryly chuckled before embracing both of them. Vessel cupped the back of your head, pressing his chin into your hair before letting III swoop you up in his gangly arms and gave you two solid spins. "Put me down! You reek."

"Ah, the mask has seen better days I'm afraid. Can't wait to get a hot shower and something in my belly. Road livin' ain't what its' cracked up to be, ya' know?" III admitted.

"Um, let me get changed and I'll make you guys some food," you jogged out of the living room, calling over your shoulder. "Lord knows what you boys eat on the road!" ....

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," You paused the movie and turned to face Vessel on the chaise lounge part of the couch, long limbs sprawled out, ankles crossed and rocking. "What's up?"

Vessel twisted his painted mouth before asking an out of pocket question. "Why do you torture yourself?"

Taken aback you wondered what he meant and crossed your legs. "What? What do you mean?"

"I think you know what I mean." When you showed your genuine confusion, he sat up. "Your little boy toy. Not that III and I have been cheeky little perverts and eavesdropping on your late night escapades but... we can't help but be concerned. Either you're a silent climaxer, some people are and that's totally fine and we're bold to assume or your partner isn't doing it right."

"Excuse me?"

"We've only been home a few weeks and we've heard him far more than we've heard you," Vessel explained, ignoring your anxious fidgeting and cuticle picking. "What we have heard though, is a lot of buzzing after your friend leaves."

Oh. My. God.

Your heart is hammering in your chest, desperate to get out of, out of your body and on the run. Blood pounds in your ears at the audacity of this whole conversation. Your roommates have heard you getting off, know you have toys, know your friends with benefits is lacking the benefits part and that you'd not been taken care of. You wished it was still cooler out and you could grab the usual throw off the back of the couch and hide away underneath.

"What are you guys talkin' about?" III popped in, holding a glass of chocolate milk, an absurdly long and coiled straw was hidden beneath his mask as he sucked dramatically.

Vessel smirked. "Oh just Y/N and how her new beau can't get her off."

"Oh finally! I've been dying for this conversation," III exclaimed and excited plopped down next to Vessel, scooching closer and leaning forward as he drank some more. "So what gives? Give us the goods."

"I don't... he knows what he's doing, it's just--"

"It's just he's bad at it." III giggled.

"I can get off, okay?"

"Yeah, we know that. Just not with him."

"I... fine. It might not even be him you know," you tried. "Maybe it's me. Maybe I can't get out fast enough."

Vessel quirked his mouth. "Get out of what exactly?"

"My own head. I think too much, you know that. I need to feel everything in order to shut my brain off and not worry about how many loads of laundry I need to do, when I need to switch out my sheets, did I pick up my towel in the bathroom? What should I have for lunch tomorrow."

The boys looked between themselves, shrugging and looking bewildered. "You... you think about all that stuff all while having sex?" III snorted and shook his head. "You're a madwoman, you know that?"

"I'm trying not to think of those things!"

"That's what I was afraid of," Vessel took III's now finished drink away from him and set it down. "If you want, we could help you out. Save you the trouble and the energy and uh, some battery power."

You chuckled. "You're joking. You two are gonna' help me out."

"Just say the word and we belong to you," Vessel crooned, licking his top lip. The pink of his tongue was such a juxtaposition to he obsidian black that covered his face, his arms and hands, his body. "This could be a one time deal, if it's not up to your standards, we don't have to mention it ever again or... it could be a three times a week sort of thing."

"Three times a week?!" You screeched.

"That's up to you."

....

"So uh have you guys like... done this before?" Your voice doesn't even sound like your own, shaky, breathy, uneven and higher pitched. You pointed between the duo and yourself. You hadn't but your incognito search history might say you've looked at it a few times.

They admitted their deep rooted feelings about you. Your stomach flipped for Vessel's breathy pet name of Duchess, your toes curled for III's Sweetness.

With the way they looked at you, you couldn't even remember his name at this point.

Vessel shrugged. "Just with you."

"Just me?" You balked, you knew the guys were close, sometimes skin tight so to find out they'd not acted out was stunning and a major green light. "Oh um, I'm flattered. iI think."

"You should be. III isn't much of a talker, speaks his mind when need be."

"Unless its' dirty." III piped up with a shrug of his own, with the way his eyes wrinkled you could tell he was all smiles under that mask.

"A little tact there, brother!" Vessel scolded him, giving a backhand to his arm. "Don't scare her off."

"What? She should know. You should know. I am dripping with sin."

"III!"

"What? We're all adults here, right? An' we're talking about fucking each other so who cares?! And she might even like it. Do you like dirty talk, sweetness?" III asked with a tilt of his head.

"Uh I um... I. Well..."

"Do you," III stood and got closer, much closer, swaying his way to close the gap between you. He stood with his legs on the outside of your own. He tilted his head the opposite way and kept his eyes trained your face, the heat from the eye contact made you hot. His painted thumb touched your chin. "Like that?"

You'd never felt this kind of intimacy, this heightened level of attraction and arousal and it made you nervously laugh at the thought that it was radiating off your friends like a fucking forest fire.

You swallowed. "Yes."

"Aha! Knew it. Those pretty eyes and that fucking mouth are hiding plenty of secrets, yeah?" III pointed, that thumb of his traced along your jaw before pushing gently on the underside, making you look all the way up at him.

If they wanted to play, you thought, I guess... let's play.

"Maybe."

"Oh! Now we're getting somewhere," III chuckled and looked over at Vessel before touching your shoulder, moving the strap of your sleep shirt back and forth. His hands were hot, scorching your skin as he touched the light fabric. "Should I undress you or should you undress me? Or maybe Vessel wants to unwrap us both. What do you think?"

"I think--" your throat constricted before keeping his ardent eye contact. "I think I want to undress you first."

III liked that idea, he wiggled his shoulders and raised his arms. "I'm all yours, mama."

....

His hoodie is the first thing to go, floating down to the floor. A black compression shirt separates flesh and bone, it comes off easily over his head. He's only half painted there. You can see streaks of his skin, soft and smooth, hidden from view. His stomach tightens when you trail your hand down his chest, foreign to your hands.

"I think about you, ya' know? Not to be pervy or bold but... you are the prettiest thing we've ever seen."

His compliments make you warm, you clench around nothing.

He suddenly grabs your hand and moves it higher. "Feel that. You make my heart fuckin' pound like crazy. The first time I saw you in that green sundress, you know, the one with the little daises on it... fuck me," III admitted and dramatically bit his fist. "I've never been so hard in my life!"

You know the dress in question. It's hanging in the front of your closet. Guess it'll be making a debut and turn III on once again.

"Oh yeah? Well maybe next time I wear it... I won't wear anything underneath."

III made the deepest of groans, moving your hand down his ribs while he undid his belt. "Fuckin' hell, don't tease me woman."

"You don't like that?"

"I like it too much! That's the problem."

His zipper was so fucking loud, it cut through the room like a hot knife. Smooth and seamless, even Vessel had to clear his throat. You looked over at him on the chaise, legs wide spread, lithe arms outstreatched over the back cushions. With three separate eye holes in his mask, it was hard to tell where he was looking but in this moment you felt them boring straight into your own.

"Keep going," he hummed and visibly bit his lip. " 'm enjoying the show."

With III was just in his boxers, it was your turn. Your disrobing would be a lot quicker as you were in a light pajama set and crew socks. You mmiiced III and raised your arms above your head, his nimble fingers danced over your sides, dragging the material up and over your head. He tossed to Vessel, who out of your peripheral, had inhaled your scent on it. He did the same with your shorts. The rush of cool fan air make your skin prickle, your clit throbbed when you fully noticed the outline of III's cock. Jesus.

III got on his knees and lifted one your feet, gripping your ankle.

"No. Keep them on." Vessel spoke, pushing himself up off the couch and sauntered over to you, fully nude and on display. He embraced your face, pressing his forehead to yours before slinking behind III when he stood.

Vessel's painted arms looped around III's, locking them behind his back. III made a noise.

"Take him out," Vessel instructed with a low gasp. "Take him out and see what you do to him. Same as what you do to me. Hell, all of us, duchess."

ALL OF US?!

Before you got on your own knees, you touched III's hips, hooking your thumbs just beneath the fabric and dragged them down. His cock made the softest and prettiest thud against his lower belly. Your eyes bounced from their faces, down to his leaking cock and back again.

"He wasn't lying," Vessel chuckled, his chin now draped over III's shoulder. You met his eyes. "You make him rock fuckin' hard, love. Want her to take all o' that? Nah... you need her to take care of that, don't you?"

"Fuck yes." III whined. "Please."

"How are you gonna' help our good boy, love?"

III shook before your even touched him, you on your knees before him was enough to have him looking frantic. Completely at your and Vessel's mercy, you took him in your hand first, getting familiar with his length before dipping your head in worship, opening your mouth. You hesitated for the briefest of moments before angling him deeper and further into your mouth.

It was a good thing Vessel was holding him up because you felt and saw III's knees wobble once you got your stride, gliding your hands up and around his thighs, arching closer with your fingers reaching his ribcage. Your palms against his skin felt every twitch, every jolts, every fucking sigh. The noise that strangled out from his throat when you dragged your nails down his stomach had you clenching around absolutely nothing.

"That's it, you're doing such a good job, love bug. Atta' girl, get 'em off real good, yeah?"

"Yeah yeah, fuck yeah," III whined and bucked his hips, "Your mouth feels so fucking good. Suckin' me off real sweet, mama. Give it to me."

"She's good with that mouth, hmmm?"

"Oh fuck V...wait 'til she oh shit, right there-- wait 'til she's gaggin' on you. O-oh my God."

When III took the Lord's name in vain it sounded so sweet in comparison to your other lover. You could feel yourself getting wetter, more powerful than you ever had with him. You took their words of praise, locked them in a little safe in the back of your mind for safe keeping.

"You're lucky I don't shove your ass out of the way then." Vessel teased and III mewled with delight.

....

III made grabby hands at you, wiggling his fingers as he laid out on the chaise part of the couch. He wiggled, tapped and pointed towards his mouth too.

When you climbed on top of him, his arms engulfed you, bringing you chest to chest. You kissed his face over his mask, startled when he suddenly pulled the chin part of it up to his nose and kissed you for real. You whined and kissed him back harder and faster, tasting his mouth, licking inside of it. He smacked and grabbed your ass, groaning against your lips.

"You two are fuckin divine," Vessel breathed, shouldering off his robe finally, unzipping his own jeans. "Fuckin’ hell, what a sight."

You turned your head to his silky voice, watching him stroke himself.

You were in big fucking trouble.

III nipped your arm. "Want you. I want you so fucking badly. Think it'll fit? Think you can take it?"

You took a breath and held his cock, hot and ready against your pussy. Rocking against the crown, splitting your lips to ready you for him. You licked your lips and lowered down on it, your mouth instantly opening. "Fuck yes."

"Good God!"

"Shit... a little more, love and you'll take him all the way in. That's it." Vessel cooed and pet your head, then your face. "Kiss him again."

With his heavy hand on your head you kissed III tongue first, the sounds of you two kissing had Vessel praising both of you, leaving him breathless.

III grabbed your hips, rolling and fucking up into you, breathing you in.

You and III stilled at the sudden dip of the couch.

Vessel's hand on your shoulder, his other ghosted and trailed over III's mask and vulnerable chin and mouth behind you. He lost it at that, whimpering against your cheek, a new flood of arousal coating your walls.

"Just relax pretty girl. We've got you, we got you."

"What are you--"

Vessel's thick fingers reached around your front, pressing and swirling down around your clit. "We're both gonna' fit. Just remember to breathe for us, ok?"

Holy shit. This was intense.

III's arm surged up and over your shoulder to touch Vessel, ghosting over his naked hip, gripping his bare skin.

"I've got you both. Trust me."

It was your idea to lift up, empty of III only to arch and take a deep push of Vessel. You frowned and touched III's face when Vessel pulled completely out. You both gasped when he spat. III squirmed and whined, the sudden intrusion of Vessel lining them both up against your hole, wedging their cocks inside you.

It didn't necessarily hurt, more pressure than anything and for fucks sake, you'd never felt so full in your life.

"Fuck V! Give us a warning, holy fuck." III breathed when the frontman started to rock and move. After a few minutes of fucked out bliss, it seemed like Vessel was fucking III through your body.

He smeared his face along your spine, your shoulder, leaving wet open mouthed kisses along your neck and ear.

"Good fucking God duchess, you are absolutely soaked for us, aren't you? Can feel you really start to open up for us now, yeah? Fuck you're amazing. Isn't she?"

"Ye-yeah yeah. Positively sweet," III's eyes sparkled in an amorous way. You kissed him hard. "Can't wait to have a taste of you, sweetness."

The thought of him working his mouth on you made you keen and fuck down on them.

Limbs twisted and tangled, Vessel nipped a small, incredibly sensitive spot behind your ear before licking the shell of it. Humming and praising you with that gravely timber. He was touching you, holding onto one of your tits for stability and III did the same, using just the pad of his thumb to pebble your other nipple.

You would never recover, that much you were sure of. They were out for pain and pleasure.

On a particularly hard thrust from III your moan slipped into sex drunk chuckle. "I think she likes it."

"I'm in fuckin' heaven." You breathed, reaching back to touch Vessel's thigh, digging your nailbeds in deep.

"That's it, you fuckin' naughty thing." His hand left your breast and found a new home around your throat, turning your head to face him and receive a sloppy kiss. III moaned at that.

"You two are fuckin-- ah shit. I'm close, fuck. Give it, give it to me."

Vessel's laugh against your lips made your walls constrict.

"Just like that!" III practically yelled, digging his fingers into your thighs, alternating to your hips, changing the tortuous pace. "Fuck, 'm gonna' bust, sweetness. Fuckin' cum inside you all nice and deep. Make it stick."

"Fuck me." You hung your head and rode it out, nothing but pure pleasure and bliss was shared between the three of you. And it was worth it. "Oh you guys... aha! I'm gonna' cum."

You couldn't remember the last time you came that hard with a partner and never with two! They both rubbed their hands and mouths over your skin, groping over your sandwiched body. Vessel's chest stuck to your back like glue, III grabbed and pushed both of your breasts together as he came shortly after with a grunt of your name, stringing along a beautiful array of obscenities.

"I've got you, I've got you both in my clutches now." Vessel's voice sounded like silk on glass next to your ear as he continued to thrust, spearing III's load all over your gummy walls. III reached out a lazy hand and Vessel took it, lacing their fingers together over your shoulder.

Skin on skin on skin.

III leaned up for another smooch with you greedily enjoyed, smacking your spit and lips together until all you could feel and hear was Vessel shudder behind you.

....

Vessel couldn't stop smiling as you giggled, helped to your bedroom, wedged between them on your bed as they cleaned you up. You would certainly need to clean up that side of the couch later. III was careful of your more tender bits, being stretched out and filled, removing black grease paint of where they were.

He drummed his fingers over your arms when he was finished, molding his body to yours. His head against the side of your neck. III soon joined in the snuggle, jumping into bed and under the covers with you. He gave you another kiss before pulling his mask back down, and pet Vessel's head.

Your phone buzzed when your boys had fallen asleep, you had a feeling of who it might be and if this is how the future looked; there was no way you were gonna' give this up.

#this kinda got outta hand but i'm into it so #these boys are so special #ugh i love them #little eppy boys #sleep token fanfiction #sleep token imagine #sleeip token fanfic #vessel x female reader #vessel x you #iii x you #iii x female reader #iii x reader #vessel x female reader x iii #vessel x you x iii #also there's not a whole lot of fics which is a tragedy cause these guys FUCK #part deux??#ENJOY!!!#heaven help me

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usuibu · 8 months

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is it ok for u to do eren or armin with number 34?? i love ur headcannons sm they’re so accurate 💗😭

I love u so much thank youu😭😭😭 and ofc!!! I’ll do both bc I have nothing else to do rn

34. dating them

More headcanons/masterlist

Eren - In the beginning he’s just very charming but the whole thing is like u fell first but he fell harder, he’d slowly get obsessed (but its mutual anyway) he started to fall even harder when he saw u getting along w his family and his mum loving u just made him love u more😭 hes just a silly family guy 🤷‍♀️

He defo asks everyone and their mothers for advice on what gifts to get u and what he should do for anything bc he thinks he’ll fuck things up but he still lowk ignores the advice he asks for and goes w his gut💀 his guts acc never wrong tho he usually makes the right decisions

U guys have a great relationship overall tho he likes couple pics and does post u but u guys arent like LOUD abt ur relationship u both just post a normal amount with each other but not necessarily abt them like u dont make i love my bf posts but u do post like out with the bf etc etc ao people know and ur couples pics are GOOD asl (bc hes a picky shit who wants them to look perfect) and u guys are very quality time people,, hes not that clingy in public but when ur alone its like a flip switches and he becomes a baby with separation anxiety😭 like he’ll follow u around everywhere even if ur just getting a snack or making a drink

Armin - He’s obv shy and he has a hard time saying what he fr wants and eren gives him unsolicited advice😭 armin still follows it tho but its just funny bc erens half pissing around giving him outlandish advice like the ‘girls ALWAYS like this or this and this’ but u can always tell armin has good intentions so its cute

he gets annoyed when u make fun of him when he tries be affectionate he denies it but he goes RED and his gifts are always super thoughtful and sentimental,, he’s a normal amound of affection like he likes holding ur hand in public and arms around ur shoulder is all standard but he only gets more clingy when hes tired☹️☹️☹️

hes defo the type to not want u to get out of bed and trap u inside and hes very acts of service he defo remembers ur drink order from the shop and makes u breakfast etc he can cook very well imo🤷‍♀️ but hes always insecure for some reason like he keeps on feeding u while he cooks asking what U think the dish needs as if he doesnt know any better😭 anyway bc u like his cooking the dinner dates r usually at home which he surprises u with☹️

U guys get very giggly when ur doing smt together like if hes trying to explain smt to u and u dont get it idk how to word it like u guys match each others energy u have a cute banter with mini inside jokes like IDK armins just such a loverboy i love bf!armin😭

Hes super like huffy when u tease him for shit like ‘awwww u wanna watch a movie with me’ he gets pissed and muttery like ‘i just thought it’d be cute if we did but if u dont want to then ig not’ while turning away and u’d both just be giggly bc u both cant keep up a bit

Hes also the type to come home w like a ‘just bc’ gift like ‘I thought this bracelet would look good on u’ or ‘a random guy on the street was selling flowers i felt bad so i bought some😭’

Sorry my armin ones got so long i realised ive never gone into depth abt him but I LOVE IT SM lmk if u guys want some more bf!armin headcanons lolol

My requests r open for anything u can ask me any specific headcanons for eren or armin or any character aswell!! Tysm for reading 🫶🫶

#attack on titan #eren jaeger #eren aot #eren headcanons #eren x reader #headcanons #bf!eren #boyfriend!eren #eren x you #armin arlet #armin #armin aot #armin headcanons #bf!armin #boyfriend!armin #armin x you #armin x reader

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mr-clow · 7 months

Text

Kal’Hal notes on a human ship. Part 1

I slid happily over my tail into the engine room N°4, Maggie was already there putting down the shielding around the reactor. I’m a Kal’Hal female called Laffite. I had been working in this human ship the last 30 rotations or so and already was beginning to feel comfortable around them. The KalHal had been friendly with humans for as long as human had been recognized as a space faring species. I was in this ship as part of a formal program that had been going on for the last thousand human rotations. A lot of people from my species were roaming space in ships with humans and other species, but I preferred a more safe approach as this was the first time I went out of my world.

I greeted Maggie as started to climb over a structure to bolt the already mounted pieces while hanging from my tail. Maggie, usually a rather talkative human, barely responded and her eyes were fixed onto a bolthole of a shielding piece that easily weighted twice as Laffite. “What’s wrong Maggie? That’s only a bolthole, it is supposed to be there” I said as I took a bolt from my pocket and placed it carefully. Maggie grumbled “I think it is bigger than it should, this could cause problems, such as radiation coming out or ESD noise”. Those words made me shiver, “That cannot be, that would mean this core had a leak for the last 5 years and no sensor detected anything” and Maggie chuckled as she fetched the laser measuring device from the table. She looked at me with amusement, “You should be wary of our tolerances, we reinforce everything and yet, we have a high margin of error for everything”. I was stunned, nobody should be subjected to any kind of radiation, not even background space radiation. Every other specie developed their own ways to block them at a great cost. Here, a human, someone from a specie that was travelling through the space well over a millennium, told me that as if it was a common deal. I let out a laugh “You are good Maggie, but please don’t joke with those thi--” The measuring beeped and she didn’t even look at it, just lifted it for me to see it. I read those numbers, felt my strength failing me, and darted out of the room.

“Captain Schulz! I think we need to halt every reactor in the ship!” I said as I stormed into the command room. She looked at me with an eyebrow lifted and… A boring look?

“Lt Smith, could you check all the operational reactors and inform me if anything is wrong”. Bill tapped quickly into his pad, looked at me instead of the captain, “Everything is in order Captain”. “You heard him, eng. Laffite, so do you know something that the sensors cannot read?” said Anna with a smirk on her face, I was starting to suspect why this post was abandoned before.

Laffite – Captain, with the utmost respect, I think all the sensors have been tampered with and we may be slowly getting radiation poisoning.

Bill without moving his eyes from me lifted a hand to stop me.

Bill – Laffite if you really think so, I’ll come with you to every engine room, but the sensors show that the background radiation everywhere on the ship is below 50mSv a year, there is nothing to worry about.

I heard that and blood left my face.

Laffite – 50mSv!? That’s a lot for every standard!! YOU COULD BE MISSING ENTIRE LEAKS WITH TH--

I woke up in a familiar room, I was in my quarters and Maggie was looking at me with a worried look on her face. My head hurt, and my long tail was uncomfortably rolled. As a Kal’Hal I was on the small side, only 10’ in total length. As several humans told me before, we looked as a mermaid or a medusa from their mythology. I could understand them as there was a similarity, but our skin is bluish and we did not petrify people that looked at us.

Are you OK Laff? Captain told me you fainted and fell on her console

That would explain why my head hurts, or it could be radiation poisoning already doing its work.

Laff, we’re not being poisoned, you even agree to these terms on the contract and no other KalHal ever was poisoned working in a human ship.

The contract didn't say it like that, it said that the maximum allowed before evacuation was that value, not that we'd be subjected to lower values who know for how long!

Oh Laff, I understand that you are really worried about this, but I don’t understand why, every star produces radiation, almost all elements have a radioactive isotope, how does your world deal with this, radiation is everywhere.

WAIT? Do you mean the earth surface is radioactive all the time?

Ehhh well… Yes… Maybe not this value, but 5mSv a year is normal for us.

NO WAY!! We consider a radioactive leak at 0.05mSv!! How can you stand that!!!

Does Kal'Hal get sick with only that? We should inform the captain!

We don’t know. Why would we check how much radiation gets us sick, we just avoid it and that is enough. You humans are the only ones in the universe that discharged radioactive bombs in their home world we know of!

Ohh yes, right… I had forgotten about that… Laff, can you trust me in this one, please? No other species, yours included, got poisoned on board a human ship. If it helps you, I will try to get you a personal radiation sensor and talk to the Cap to do regular radiation screening to you on the Medbay.

I don’t like it, Maggie, not one bit. Let’s do that at least. I want to be alone or a while now, can I take the day?

Yes, just rest. I’ll talk to the Cap and get you the day off and the other things.

After a soft smile, Maggie left my room and I was left alone in my room. At first, I wonder how much the metal walls of my room could block radiation, then my mind wandered to what Maggie said. I tried to remember if there was any case of radiation poisoning I heard. Without taking into account the last war, where humans used some kind of radiation bombs almost two hundred years ago, I never heard something similar. Even in that war, humans tried to take all that themselves and almost no other species were allowed where they used that method.

My mind slowly went through all the history lessons I remembered about humans and their violent wars until I fell asleep.

#earth is a deathworld #humans are deathworlders #humans are weird #humans are space aussies #Kal’Hal notes on a human ship

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grumelot123 · 3 months

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Crowley x Aziraphale Season 3 "Rejoice" PART 2!!!! ANGST AT FIRST! (This will be a happy ending dw!) TW! PANIC ATTACK

Part 2 will be the last part in this small series. But I will def post more after this. Anyhow let's get in to it!

"I forgive you"

"I forgive you" is the only words that could ring through Aziraphales head as Crowley left.

Even though no one was there. Aziraphale needed someone to talk to. No not someone, not something, he just needed to talk.

"Y-you forgive me? That's all he said? But I wanted...oh." This has to be exactly how Crowley felt after I left..oh no what have I done? I don't know what to feel right now. I think I need to breath for a minute. My chest feels tight, really tight. I can't breath. Im hyperventilating. The world is spinning. I can't.

"hey mr.fel-? MR.FELL ARE YOU ALRIGHT"

CROWLEYS POV (dw azi will be ok)

"let me explain"

"i forgive you"

What the fuck, did i just do? How the fuck? What in Satan's name? I just left him. He wanted to explain. He wanted to fix things. He wanted to fix us.

We could've been us.

But I just lost it all. To me being petty. I realize he's done this to me before. But he had reason. Reason he was going to tell me if I would have let him explain.

I should go back. I should apologize. I should do something. I need to do something. If I don't. If I just lost something, someone so important to me in my life.

What will I do?

What have I done?

AZIRAPHALES POV NOW

"Mr.Fell breathe in and out. Calm down. Can you count backwards from 10 in your head?"

10,9,8,7,6,5-

My breathing is going back to normal. I'm not as dizzy. But still shaking and still crying. I'm not sure I could stop crying even if I wanted to.

"Okay..Mr.Fell I'm going to call Crowley now, ok?"

Crowley? No she can't call him

"No..no need Muriel really I'm okay, I've just been a bit shaken up I promise I'm alright, I just need a bit of air, okay?"

My chest is still tight. I need to go sit down somewhere before even trying to explain anything.

"Oh, okay Mr.Fell, if you're sure"

I walked out of the bookshop and went to walk to a nearby park. I hope Crowley isn't around to see me like this. Not sure what he'd do.

MURIEL POV (muriel stan right here btw)

Mr.Fell was not okay when I walked in here and not much better when he walked out. Even though he told me not to call Crowley..I mean..it couldn't hurt, could it?

What's his number again? Oh that's right..

CROWLEY POV (dw it will get happier soon ok?)(also idk what Muriel's nickname for Crowley is so bear with me)

I'm pathetic. Couldn't even put my ego down long enough to listen to what my best friend had to tell me. I can't lose him like this though. I won't I swear I will do anything to just make him hap-

*ring ring ring ring RING*

Who the fuck is calling me?

*Caller ID "Bookshop Watcher Girl"*

Oh..Muriel? I wonder what she wants? Isn't Aziraphale there anyhow?

*answers phone* "What do you want?"

"Oh! Hello Mr.Crowley, uh..is there any chance Mr.Fell is with you?"

Aziraphale was just at the bookshop? Minutes ago?

"Uh er no? He was just at the shop minutes ago though?"

"Oh well. no I know that it's just when I had walked in Mr.Fell, well he was uh he was"

Can this girl stutter anymore?

"He was what? Just spit it out!"

"Oh sorry Mr.Crowley. He was crying! He was having a panic attack and well, I calmed him down and tried to call you but he insisted on me not calling you and him just going out to get a fresh breath of air and I probably shouldn't have let him go and oh I am so sorry!"

Aziraphale? Crying? A panic attack? Oh no what did I do? Where is he? I need to find him.

"Uh, it's quite alright Muriel. I'm not mad but I am going to go find Aziraphale now, alright? Bye now"

AZIRAPHALE POV

Well now that my breathing slowed down I can just sit on this park bench for a minute in the peace and quiet. Not thinking about anything. Pushing all my worries aside. I haven't really had a minute to myself in a few. I need this. Just peace and quiet.

CROWLEY (peace and quiet my ass. i know you all want your happy ending and don't worry it's coming faster than the depression hit you from season 2!)

If Aziraphale is anywhere he's at a park. Not just any park though. Especially if he walked. He's at the one down the road.

As I pulled up and got out of my car I spotted him right away. He seemed to calm and content. Poor thing probably hasn't gotten a moment to himself. But right now he needs someone with him.

As I walked over I couldn't help but to notice how tired and overworked he looked.

"Hey, Aziraphale..you okay?" I whispered, not even knowing why it just felt right.

"Oh hello Crowley you frightened me. I'm quite alright..why wouldn't I be?"

He's not telling me the truth obviously. I mean I understand but still. I want him to trust me.

"Well..Muriel called. You had a panic attack? Why didn't you call for me? If I were mad you know I would've been there for you right?"

He looked at me, almost surprised for a moment but then he calmly spoke.

"Well yes I understand you would have but my whole breakdown was really not of much importance I'm sure as you said you had other thin-"

"You? Not being of importance? Impossible. You are one of the MOST important people in my life Aziraphale. Anything that happens big or small I want to know about it. I need to. I want to make sure you're okay because angel, I love y-"

Azi and Crowley Pov

Aziraphale cuts off those last words with a kiss. Crowley kisses him back because he can't not. Aziraphale right then and there realizes how much of Crowley he really wants, and it's overwhelming in the best way possible. It's gentle but firm, they don't come up for air for what feels like hours. They could do this for hours. They probably will someday. Crowley is first to break the kiss only to say.

"Don't ever forgive me again"

There was joking in his voice but also a level of seriousness Aziraphale hasn't heard in a while.

That comment is followed by a breathless Aziraphale as a light laugh escapes his mouth.

"I wouldn't dream of it dear"

Even though Aziraphale went along with the tone. He knew what kind of promise he was making. He knew it was a promise he could and would keep.

And no, it may not be perfect.

But it damn good enough for the both of them.

I DECLARE MY FIRST (and definitely not the last) GOOD OMENS, CROWLEY X AZIRAPHALE FAN FICTION FINALLY FINISHED!

Can I get a wahoo?

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens spoilers #aziracrow #crowly x aziraphale #aziraphale #crowley #angst with a happy ending #light angst #happy ending #its going to be okay #part 2/2 #part 2 #the end #no thoughts head empty #ineffable husbands

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lulubelle814 · 6 months

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The Accident and the Misunderstanding

Tom and I had broken up about a month ago over a misunderstanding. There was a scandalous picture posted online. I trusted Tom. Usually when I saw these pictures, you I they were taken well out of context while filming or taken at a specific angle in order to spin some wild story.

This particular picture tho? They were kissing. No big deal, right?

Wrong. It was clear that he and the girl were not on set, and pictures were posted from multiple angles. It looked like they were snogging.

On any other day, I would have talk to him, find out what was going on; however, I was having a rough time lately. We had a fight the night before about something stupid. It was over such a dumb thing. I don't even remember what it was now. So the day those pictures were taken and posted, I was feeling not only upset but also emotional because PMS decided to hit, creating a double punch to my mental state.

Today, however, I received a call that one of my parents had been in an accident. I definitely didn't want to be alone and thought about Tom. Should I call him? Would he even answer?

No. I didn't want to reach out to him because not only did I still feel a little hurt but mostly I felt extremely embarrassed once the news came out. That the girl he was "kissing"? It was a set up. She posted on her instagram that she had been trying to get close to him and jumped him when she saw the opportunity to do so.

Tom tried to explain, but I wouldn't let him. Now that this girl's post was circulating and verified, I couldn't bring myself to call or even just text him to apologize. But now I really needed someone and the only person I wanted was him. He knew my parents, having met them a while back. They'd gotten along well. My parents didn't like my previous boyfriend at all and positively gushed over Tom.

After a few minutes, I finally resigned myself to calling him. It rang a number of times and then went to voicemail which just added to the pain. I took it as a sign that he moved on.

I decided to hole up in my room. When I passed through the foyer, I noticed what looked like a shadow/outline through the frosted glass (it was translucent which gave you privacy). With it being just after midnight, you wondered who it me be. I quietly moved to the door and looked thru the peephole. It was Tom! I could make out a torn look on his face. I waited and observed for a minute or so then finally just opened the door.

He looked up in surprise. "I missed you so much and couldn't stop thinking about you and what...." He stopped when he noticed I'd been crying. "Darling, what's wrong? Has something happened?"

I was in a bit of shock. "My dad.....accident.....tried......call you....."

He stepped in and embraced me in a warm hug, the kind only he could give. "Oh love, I'm so sorry! I went for a walk and didn't realize I left my phone at home until I found myself at your door."

I leaned into his embrace which helped give some comfort. I was finally calming down just enough to get out a full sentence. "My dad was in a car accident, and my mum called me about 20 minutes ago to let me know. And all I could think is that I wanted you here with me. Tom, I'm so sorry for that day. I wish.........I wish I had stopped to listen to you."

You started crying again into his shirt, and he held you closer. "It's ok. I'm here now, and I'm never leaving again."

#tom hiddleston #twh #tomhiddleston #twhiddleston #damn hiddleston #hiddlestoners #thomas william hiddleston #hiddleston #hiddles #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddelston imagine #tom hiddelston x reader #tom hiddelson #tom hiddleston x original female character #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston x ofc #tom hiddleston x you #tom hiddleston characters #loki tom hiddleston

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aidengallangerfan · 9 months

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Run Boy Run (Number 5 x reader)

Context: You and Five were best friends, the night before he ran away he admitted his feelings to you, you went to school together and protected you from bullying. But now he’s gone.

words: 1318

Warning: Suicide, just sad really, bullying, swearing.

GIF by robdowneyjr

Polaroids filled your wall, it reminded you of a happier time, a time that seemed so long ago. The pictures couldn’t keep you going anymore, it’d gotten too much and he wasn’t there anymore, he’d left you. You look at the photos while writing a letter with shaking hands, ink running on the page where your tears hit, the sound of them sounding like beating drums on a parade. You couldn’t wait for him, not anymore.

You remember the night before it happened, even though it was almost two years ago, since he left, gone without a trace. A flash of blue and he was in your room, breathing heavily as he gently shook you awake.

“Five? What are you doing here?” He took a seat at the end of your bed, you sat up and rubbed your eyes. “Holding everything in doesn’t help, you know.” You say in a soft voice, placing a comforting hand on his back.

“y/n...” Five sighed, he was almost searching for the words to say, repeatedly opening and closing his mouth. He looked down at the ground, tears filling his eyes. “I’m going to do something really stupid tomorrow, I can’t tell you what, or why I’m going to do it.” He looked at you, his green eyes filled with sorrow.

“What do you mean Five?” You were confused, it was too early for this and you just didn’t understand what he was talking about, in hindsight, you should of known what he was going to do, you should of talked him out of it but you were naïve, stupid almost. Five was too smart for his own good, to wise for his age.

He looked at the floor again. “Y/n, please, just remember to wait for me.” he grabbed your hand. “Promise me you’ll wait.” He was begging you, pleading with you.

Without knowing what me meant you agreed, you agreed to wait for him from whatever he was doing. You watched as the boy you almost love push his hair out of his face with shaking hands. He grabbed your hands, almost trying to calm himself down, without a second though he leant over and pressed his lips to yours, it lasted mere seconds but felt like it was infinite, you were flying and didn’t want to land.

“don’t forget me.”

And just like that he was gone, a flash of blue never to be seen again. How could you ever forget him, you never thought he’d be gone for long, maybe a week tops. But no, every nice thing must come to an end.

Five was your protector at school, thats how you met him, someone in the corridor had gone to punch you but as you braced yourself nothing hit you, you opened your eyes to see the bully in question on the floor and Five asking if you were ok and after that he never left your side. It only took a week after he ran away for the bullies to start again, pushing and shoving to mean comments and with no one to protect you anymore you just endured it, day in day out. Until finally, you shut down, after two years without him you couldn’t wait any longer.

You closed the letter, writing on the front as best you could with your shaking hand ‘for Five, when he comes back x’. You had left another note for your family, explaining on basic terms that you simply couldn’t do it anymore. Putting on your cheapest clothes you snuck out your window and made your way towards the Academy, you didn’t want to wear anything too expensive just incase your family had a hard time with money and needed to sell some stuff.

You approached the Academy’s doors, remembering the numerous times you had snuck in there with Five, or the time when pogo found you two giggling in Fives room and promised he’d keep it a secret, you smile at the fond memories. Quietly, you pushed the gates open and gently pushed the letter through the post box, and then you walked away, and you didn’t stop walking, not until you reached the cliffs at the shore. You took a breath of fresh air, dangerously close to the edge, the words of the bullies echoing in your head like a lone singer in an empty stadium ‘Five left because he couldn’t stand the sight of you’ and deep down you think its true, he hasn’t came back for you yet, but you could never forget him. You wanted to feel like you were flying again, like how you did with Five that night, the night he kissed you, you wanted to soar through the air again. So you did.

All Five could think about during the apocalypse was y/n, the thought of them was what kept him going through it all, through the wasteland, through the commission. He had finally done it, he’d got the equation, he didn’t care if he broke his contract he needed to see her smile again, hear her laugh.

He fell though the portal, and looked up to see the rest of his siblings but y/n was no where to be seen. “Shit.” He looked round at their shocked faces. “Wheres y/n?” It took them a second to think about what they asked, little did he know they hadn’t heard of y/n since what happened.

“You’ve been gone for all that time and that’s the first thing you ask?” Luther stated, boy had he gotten big, but obviously his brain had shrunk since Five had left.

“Where is y/n.” Five asked again, louder this time. He watched their faces drop, how could they tell him.

“She’s dead Five.” Fives heart almost stopped, she couldn’t be, she promised she’d wait.

“Stop fucking lying. She can’t be, she promised me she’d wait!” He almost shouted at them. They were lying and he knew it, they were all lying.

“Five, y/n killed herself, two years after you left.” Allison jumped in before any of her brothers could talk. “She left you a letter, it’s in your room on your desk.” A flash of blue and he was gone, his chest was tight with the news, he couldn’t believe it, he wouldn’t.

There it was, a dusty letter sat neatly on his desk, untouched and preserved, y/n writing clear as day on the front ‘for Five, when he comes back x’ his hands begin to shake, there were tear droplets over the front of the letter. The more he read, the more his heart sank, the letter was rushed explaining every question he would of had on why you did it. Without even realising, his eyes stung, lifting a hand to his face he could feel the damp of his tears on his face but his body was numb with grief and his heart aching loss. At the end of the letter there was a polaroid of the two of you at Griddy’s, you’d ask one of the waitresses to take it for you, the waitress before taking the photo had mentioned about you being a cute couple and it made you both laugh right before she snapped the photo.

Fives vision was becoming blurred, he wanted to scream but no noise was coming out, a stabbing pain wracked through his whole body and he collapsed into a heap onto the floor clutching the photo of you both close to his chest, hoping it would ease the pain. He couldn’t help but blame himself for what you did, he shouldn’t of left. All he could do is silently cry, he couldn’t even think of what to do but he knew one thing, he had to stop the apocalypse and go back, go back to save you, to see your smile again. He would do anything to be back with you, even if it killed him.

youtube

#five x reader #five umbrella academy #five x y/n #umbrella academy #Youtube

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duck-in-a-thrift-store · 22 days

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Full house au roommate notes pt 2

Alright, here's the second part to this post. It'll also involve a few random side notes and headcanons and whatnot

As usual, this will contain spoilers for my full house au

Ok so as I said this part is mostly about the kids. There are 7 of them split up into 3 rooms, so they had to be split 2/2/3, with one room having a bunk bed instead of a second single-person bed. They were originally planning to put all the girls together since, y'know, numbers, as well as what I said in the last part about the parents not wanting boys and girls to share rooms*

*I wanted to sort of expand on this for a moment. Personally I think it's silly- and kinda gross tbh- to suggest boys and girls can't share rooms or to assume that something would happen if they did, but it felt like a realistic thing for parents of teens to take issue with in a situation like this, considering their generally heteronormative culture. I know mine would have, lol.

Of course everyone's different about it, but those who didn't think it should matter (Joyce, Karen, Susan) didn't think it was worth arguing with those who did (Hopper, Ted, the Sinclairs). Hopper was particularly against coed rooming, since Mike was part of the equation (he's a little behind lol, mileven is not together in this au; they broke up pretty much right after the events of s4), and the Sinclairs mainly didn't want Lucas rooming with Max. Claudia didn't care either way.

As for the guardians of the "adults" (aside from Nancy & Jon, whose parents I've already talked about), they either don't care, since their kids are grown, or weren't even involved (the Harringtons are left out of the loop and don't know about any of this and I don't know if Argyle even has parents). The Buckleys are pretty chill in general and Wayne has never been one to tell his nephew what to do

However, they decided against this arrangement for Erica's sake, since she doesn't really know the other girls all that well yet, and we ended up with the actual roommate pairings, as follows

Erica, Lucas, and Dustin are roommates, since E & L are siblings, L & D are longtime friends, and E & D have more history than she has with the others (s3). I also intentionally placed these 3 on the same floor as Eddie and Steve, since those two are familiar with and important to the boys and since Steve is the "adult" Erica knows the best. (Dustin may not have an older sibling to share a floor with like Mike Will El and Erica but he does have his dads). Basically it's the Scoops Troop floor, but with Eddie & Lucas instead of Robin

That left Max and El to be roommates, which they were both thrilled about- M told E it would be like having a sleepover every night, and that they should put up a "no boys allowed" sign on their door just to piss the boys off. Protective dad Hopper enthusiastically agreed with this idea and didn't catch his daughter rolling her eyes

I also put Robin & Nancy on the same side as Max & El so they share a bathroom; seemed like that would be preferable to sharing one with the guys (not to be sexist or anything but this way the ladies don't have to deal with piss on the toilet seat or awkward questions about the "feminine hygiene products" in the cabinet. Which reminds me- did anyone ever explain to El wtf a period is??? Bc I highly doubt the Hawkins lab kids had any sort of health education and usually that's something your mom would teach you about. Idk I might address that at some point. But also- if any of the girls are having shark week problems and Robin or Nancy isn't available, they go to Eddie. I haven't decided if he's out to them but either way they know they can count on him for that sort of thing)

And then there's Mike and Will. I'm pretty sure they were always going to room together, regardless of what I had to do with organizing everyone else, because they've been practically inseparable ever since the Byers reunited with the Hawkins crew. Sharing a room is comfortable, familiar, after their years of childhood friendship. And, again, I made sure to place them on the same floor as their siblings; Nancy is diagonal to Mike, and Will is two doors down from Jon and just across the hall from El

I think that's about it for the roommate notes, the next segment might be closer looks/design details of individual rooms. Nobody asked for it but I'm having fun, so. Yeah >:3

#full house au #stranger things fanfic #here have some notes #current wip #stranger things #roommates #stranger things headcanons

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veronicaphoenix · 3 months

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Chapter tags & trigger warnings: slight angst, but basically best friends' fluff, Japanese folklore. | Word count: 1.4k | Cross posted on AO3. | Series masterpost. ✧.*

General trigger warnings: This work addresses and depicts issues related to addiction and violence, contains explicit sexual content, and explores themes of childhood trauma. Reader discretion is advised. +18

Months were passing by, some quicker than others, and my condition worsened at times, particularly when I found myself without any updates from Lia for more than a couple of days. Despite my attempts to convince myself otherwise —ignoring Grandma’s speculations and theories— there was an undeniable correlation. Whenever Lia was around, I couldn’t deny that I felt much better. The persistent cough subsided, the fever abated, and the general malaise faded, if only temporarily.

A week before Thanksgiving, I awoke to a text from Lia, and we exchanged messages for about ten minutes before she went offline.

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang and when I opened the door, there she was, all fresh and lovely while I was still in my pjs and trying to adjust my eyes to the bright light of the day.

Jesse and Jolly were absent until December first, so I was alone in the house with my music and my coughed-up flowers. Mitch was also on tour with the band he worked for, which possibly explained Lia’s unexpected visit, a radiant smile on her face as she conveyed that she was there to make sure I didn’t die.

“Very funny,” I mumbled as I let her in.

She pecked my cheek and headed towards the kitchen, her jasmine scented perfume leaving a trail from the door to wherever she went. She asked if I had already had my breakfast. I hadn’t.

“Perfect,” she replied, cheerful. “I brought some things from that bakery that Jolly loves so much. You can send him a picture and make him a little jealous.”

“That looks too much for breakfast,” I said, frowning at the three bags full of foil containers and little brown packagings she was depositing on the kitchen island.

“I also brought lunch,” she said while taking off her coat. “I know it’s early, but it’s been a while since we treated ourselves and I know you probably haven’t been cooking much if you were sick, so…”

She looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes. So, what could I say?

Her gaze swept over the clean surfaces of the kitchen. Everything was cleaner than usual. Jolly wasn’t one to spend much time cleaning, even after years of sharing a living space and countless arguments about keeping the dirty dishes in the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink.

“But we should prepare something healthy for dinner, if you’re feeling ok, of course.”

“I’m okay,” I replied, peering into the containers she’d brought. Besides from a crazy number of pastries and sandwiches, Chinese. She definitely knew how to spoil me.

When I said that, my tone unintentionally carried a nuance I hadn’t meant to express. I was fine, really, happy to have her home, especially with Mitch miles away and unable to keep her away from me. Lia, however, must have sensed something else and had other thoughts racing through her pretty head.

After devouring breakfast and spending a while together in the studio, working on the production of a couple new songs, we had lunch, and straight after cleaning up and sorting out the recycling, we settled on the sofa, our knees lightly brushing. I pulled a coin from my pocket, flipping it to decide between horror movies or fantasy. Lia chuckles as my choice emerged victorious. Retrieving the remote from the coffee table, I scrolled through the new fantasy releases on AppleTV.

Focused on removing the subtitles from The Green Knight, I felt Lia’s intense gaze fixed on me. She had been staring for at least two long minutes.

“What?” I inquired. “Do I have something on my face?” I lightly touched the side of my face.

“No,” she replied, suppressing a giggle. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I missed your birthday this year.”

Ah, so this was the internal struggle she’d been battling herself for since arriving. It was obvious because of the way she’d been behaving; something was gnawing at her, likely guilt. Lia had never missed any of my birthdays since we first became friends, except the year I turned eleven. She’d been bedridden with a severe cold. Even then, she had fought to come, but Cristina forbade her to leave the house. Probably one of the only good things she ever did for her daughter.

Though I wasn’t sure if her intentions had been for her daughter to get better or to just keep her from enjoying other kids’ company.

This year marked the second time Lia had missed my birthday. I pretended not to care, but I had gone to bed drunker than usual, and I couldn’t lie to myself; deep down, I couldn’t deny that it stung not having her there, making me laugh and getting constant hugs and cheerful compliments as we moved around the house to the rhythm of music playing through the speakers. The worst part had been that she wasn’t there because she was with her boyfriend.

Frowning, I reassured her, “You don’t have to apologize for that.” I genuinely didn’t blame her. We hadn’t made any pact to never miss each other’s birthday, after all, and Lia was building a life beyond the cocoon of our childhood and friendship. She had every right to do so. “You know I don’t really like celebrating it, anyway. The guys came home, and we just,” I shrugged, “got drunk. You didn’t miss anything.”

She hummed in response, appearing dissatisfied with my answer. Grabbing a folded blanket from the pile on the sectional, she covered her legs, removing her UGG boots and casually kicking them away with her feet.

I wanted to ask her then about her drinking habits. I wasn’t spending that much time with her anymore and I didn’t know how she was doing; if it was getting worse or if she was trying to keep it down. She didn’t look like she was in the right mood to discuss that that day, and the movie started before I gathered the courage to start the conversation. I decided it was best to avoid it for the day and I let the topic slide away.

Midway through the movie, Lia got up to prepare some afternoon tea. When she returned, she nestled beside me, ensuring her arm and shoulder pressed against mine as she warmed her hands around the steaming mug.

Fifteen minutes before the movie’s end, her phone buzzed, and her expression dimmed upon seeing Mitch’s name and number on the screen of her iPhone.

“Can you pause it for a sec? I need to get this.”

“Sure,” I said.

She excused herself outside, sliding the balcony door almost closed. I took the chance to go to the kitchen and fetch a bag of chips. On my return back to the sofa, I inadvertently overheard Lia’s muffled conversation through the glass, a gentle breeze coming in from the cold temperature outside.

“Yeah, of course. No, I’m just out with some friends. Yeah, we might be late. I will call you when I’m in bed.”

I wasn’t sure if she called him or not that night, but what I did know what that she stayed the night with me. We set up the pullout sofa in the studio and I borrowed her one of my t-shirts. We cooked dinner together and had breakfast outside the next morning.

There was a comforting familiarity in falling back into the routine we once had when we lived together. Silly domestic activities, such as preparing a meal together, passing each other things in the kitchen, one washing, the other drying up, and then letting ourselves fall in the sofa and settling comfortable with our skin touching as if it were the most natural thing between best friends.

By the end of the movie we chose to watch at night, Lia’s head rested on my shoulder, and her hand lay peacefully on my knee under the blanket. A pang of desire surged within me as the credits started rolling and she looked up at me with sleeping eyes, batting her eyelashes. I couldn’t ignore how fucking gorgeous she was. When she rubbed her eyes, I saw my eight-year-old best friend, sitting cross-legged in my grandparent’s spare mattress in my childhood bedroom, the first time she stayed the night.

We exchanged a few comments about the two movies we had watched that day, Lia annoying me with her persistent admiration for Dev Patel’s features and the way his brown eyes sparkled in that one scene and some other bullshit. She laughed at my expression and kissed me goodnight before she called it a night.

I stayed in the living room, gazing at the empty hallway, absorbed in the memory of her sleepy walk towards the bathroom. I pondered why she had lied to Mitch, why she hadn’t told him that she was with me. I hoped that it wouldn’t lead to trouble. I cherished these moments with her and would give anything to enjoy them forever, but not at the cost of jeopardizing her well-being.

#noah sebastian #noah sebastian fanfic #bad omens #bad omens cult #bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fanfic #noah sebastian fanfiction

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lunanight2012 · 5 months

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Im posting this first chapter here first to get a feel for how much love it gets before i cross post it to AO3 (absolutely not because i dont want to open my laptop up again to post it on ao3)

The Tale of the Other Vinsmoke

Chapter 1: No longer a Vinsmoke

Luniju was born shortly after her twin sister, Reiju, to the Vinsmoke family. Her light blue hair contrasted her sister's light pink hair. She loved their mom, Sora, so much. Her kindness brought joy to her heart. Then getting 4 little brothers, one of which had the same eyebrow curls that she did? And another brother with blue hair? She was so happy, until they got older. She became protective of Sanji, the 3rd boy in the quadruplets. As Ichiji, Niji, & Yonji started bullying Sanji because he had kindness in his heart.

Luniju saw how her best friend, her twin sister Reiju, started following along with Judge and the boys. She would walk with Sanji to Sora's room and hang out with them. She felt isolated like Sanji. Her name meant Run, unlike her siblings who all had numbers in their names. Sanji being the only one of the quadruplets that has kindness in his heart.

When their mom died, Luniju found out that Judge had locked Sanji in the dungeon. She wasn't having that. She ran down to the dungeon to check on him. Hugging her baby brother through the bars broke her heart. She was only 9 when this happened. She had talked with Reiju about getting Sanji out of Germa, to which the two agreed that Luniju should go with him.

They stood outside of the throne room, holding each other's hands as they listened to Sanji trying to fight Judge. Tears streamed down both girls' faces as they listened to Judge telling Sanji to leave and never mention that he is his father. As soon as Reiju, Luniju, & Sanji made their way to the shore. Luniju, now wearing ragged clothes to hide who she was, held Sanji's hand as she talked to him.

"Sanji. Me and you are going to get on that ship and get as far from here as possible. We're going to meet some nice people and live happily, ok?" Luniju explained, tears in her eyes.

She gave Reiju one last hug before she pulled Sanji with her towards the boat on the beach. They managed to sneak on and hide in the storage room. Luniju gently squeezed Sanji's hand. Soon enough the ship left the dock, Luniju breathed in a shaky breath as she heard talking outside of the door. The door opened, revealing two men in chef attire.

"Please let us stay and work! We can't go back! Please!" Luniju pleaded, tears streaming down her face.

She could hear Sanji sniffling as he cried too. The two men looked at each other before sighing as they agreed. Luniju and Sanji were given uniforms and put in the kitchen. They stayed on this ship for a couple of years.

But when Sanji was 8 and Luniju was 11, the ship was being raided by a pirate crew, the Chef Pirates. Luniju doesn't remember much, one second the two are peeling potatoes, the next she's screaming as Sanji fell into the ocean. She watched as the pirate captain, Red-legged Zeff, jumped in after Sanji. The pirates held her back as she screamed her lungs out.

When Zeff and Sanji didn't resurface the crew began making plans to search for them. This gave Luniju the chance to wander their pirate ship, hoping to find a map of the area. Instead she found a chest with a blue fruit that had flame designs to it. Her stomach growled as she looked back at the door before taking a bite of the fruit. On an empty stomach it was bad. She finished it in a few minutes.

"Hey! What are you doing in here?!" One of the pirates exclaimed. Luniju stood up quickly and shook her hands.

"I-i was looking for a map of the area! I'm not familiar with the East Blue Sea! And I found this strange fruit and-" Luniju froze as her hands were now blue flames.

"You ate the devil fruit?!" The man exclaimed, concern clear in his voice.

"T-that was a devil fruit?!" Luniju exclaimed, trying to make her hands return to being flesh.

"Yes, the Blue Flame-Flame Fruit! We were going to sell it!" The man explained before kneeling down to be eye level with Luniju. "Just don't think about the fire, imagine that your hands are there." He calmly stated.

Luniju took a breath in then let it out, calming herself down before imagining her hands were back to normal again. She smiled when her hands returned to normal. "I did it!" She exclaimed before realizing she shouldn't have eaten the devil fruit. "I'm sorry I ate the devil fruit. I was really hungry and I didn't think before I ate it." Luniju apologized, bowing her head a bit and closing her eyes, expecting to be yelled at or hit.

"Well, we can't change the past. Come on, let’s go back on the deck and keep looking for the captain and kid." The man stated.

Luniju opened her eyes and noticed the man had stood back up and was holding out his hand. She carefully placed her hand in his and followed him out to the deck. She almost hid behind the large man as the crew stared at her.

“Patty! Why is the child hiding behind you?” A crewmate questioned.

Patty sighed before looking back at Luniju. “The child accidentally found the devil fruit and ate it. Now none of you can get mad! She's a kid, her brother is out there somewhere with the captain. So we're going to keep her safe while we keep looking. Got it boys?” Patty stated, getting a unanimous agreement from the crew.

Over the next 85 days Luniju grew close with the crew, learning how to control her newly gained power, how to peel apples and potatoes, even beating the crew in cards. Finally at the end of those 85 long days, they found them. As soon as her brother was on the ship, Luniju ran up to him and hugged him.

“Sanji! Oh my you need food! Look how scrawny you've gotten! What happened?!” Luniju questioned, looking him over thoroughly.

That's when she noticed two of the crew helping Zeff onto the ship, looking down she gasped as she noticed the missing leg. Sanji began to weakly cry as he fell into Luniju's arms.

“He gave me all the food and had to eat his own leg to survive.” Sanji cried, causing Luniju to hold him close and slowly rock back and forth.

She made eye contact with Zeff and bowed her head in respect. After this moment Luniju and Sanji both felt like they owed their lives to Zeff. Joining him as he retired from piracy and became a restaurant owner to a sea restaurant. The two worked in the restaurant for many years. Luniju started smoking at 16, much to Zeff's disdain. Although at 18, Sanji quickly followed suit.

Luniju and Sanji learned from Zeff how to fight with their legs and Luniju even learned how to harness her devil fruit powers. Luniju was an amazing waitress, able to carry multiple trays of food and not drop a single one. While Sanji enjoyed cooking, even if Zeff didn't let him cook very often. Zeff had nicknames for them, Sanji's was Little Eggplant, and Luniju's was Little Pepper.

Their lives continued until one day, when a boy in a straw hat crashed through the Baratie. Luniju believes that the universe smiled upon them that day.

(What do you think? 👉👈 let me know! Please!)

#one piece #one piece fanfiction #sanji #one piece oc #one piece original character #luniju Vinsmoke #sanji vinsmoke

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leebrontide · 7 months

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Secondhand Origin Stories, Chapter 11

My favorite chapter! Secrets are revealed! Blushing is severe! Siblings act very sibling-y! There’s poker!

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting a chapter a week of my free near future scifi/low neon cyberpunk YA/NA novel, Secondhand Origin Stories, which has been described as

"-a character driven, compelling story full of family, queerness, corruption, brain altering nanites, secretly teen parenting AIs, and taking aspects of the superhero genre to their very human and rarely-explored natural conclusions."

For an index of already uploaded chapters that hopefully I will remember to update, content warnings and more, check here:

You can follow along by following #SHOSweekly

Chapter 11

OK, this was not an apartment.

But Issac kind of liked it. It was so obscure, so hidden. It felt like the kind of place a spy in a movie might lay low in for a few days while the heat died down. Just what the doctor ordered. Two secondhand sofas and four secondhand beds-- it sort of reminded him of the safe room in the sub-basement back home, but with better lighting. Opal’s cousin had refused Issac’s offer to pay rent once his signing bonus came through. But Issac would have to see about that, once he actually had some money.

Issac eyed Jamie. She looked exhausted, and droopy in a way he wasn’t used to seeing from her unless she was sick. She dropped onto the edge of the bed nearest the door and looked around. She didn’t look at Issac.

Opal leaned against the back of one of the couches, an outdated floral number. OPAL: So, welcome to the VIP suite. Usually it’s for Aldis’s VIP clients-- the one’s who’re leaving an abusive situation and might need a place to crash. I’m kind of the weird exception… She trailed off, awkwardly.

Yael looked absolutely morose, and sat next to Jamie. A little closer than normal. Hovering. YAEL: Is that why he agreed to let us stay here?

Jamie straightened. JAMIE: What. No. That’s not. No.

YAEL: What do you mean “no”?

OPAL: Kind of? I mean, I couldn’t get him any details, not that I would have, but…

Jamie stood up, red in the face. JAMIE: Then we should go. We’re here under false pretenses.

YAEL: Just because I stopped him before he could JAMIE: He wasn’t going to! OPAL: Hey, it’s not a big deal--

Issac put extra breath into his interruption. “Seriously, what the hell happened? What is going on? Cause this looks way worse than it can be. You guys are freaking me out.”

YAEL:Yourfather’slostitandIhadtointerceedeJAMIE:Thatisn’twhathappenedYaelYAEL:howcanyouJAMIE:stopactinglikeYAEL:saythatyouwerethere

Issac shut his eyes. “Guys, shut up!” He waited another second. Jamie and Yael were both glaring, barely able to stay quiet, but the text had stopped scrolling. “When you go that fast, I can’t keep up. Stop talking over each other. It fucks up my software.”

YAEL:NeilwasJAMIE:Yaelyourejumping-- They cut off, looking at each other. Jamie crossed her arms and jutted out her chin. Yael wasn’t happy about it, but xe gestured at Jamie to go ahead.

Now Jamie stalled. She looked at Issac, then at Opal. She moved forward to the very edge of the bed, looking at her fists on her knees for a second, then at Issac. JAMIE: Dad freaked out. He didn’t know what happened. He knew I was involved.

YAEL: He blamed you.

JAMIE: Well, I did let it happen! And so did you. Jamie spat, as defiant as Issac had ever seen her.

OPAL: That seems like kind of a messed up way to think about it.

Jamie’s expression turned wry. JAMIE: Don’t worry. I blame Issac, too. She looked at him. She was trying to be cold, but it just didn’t work on her. Never. Again.

Issac rolled his eyes. Found his mind veering away from the trial, and the possibility of a second one. “None of that explains Dad having a broken clavicle.”

JAMIE: Yael freaked out worse than Dad.

YAEL: I was protecting you! Xyr hands were silver. Xe looked at Issac imploringly, trying to find an ally.

“From what?”

YAEL: He lunged at her!

JAMIE: Towards me. Jamie held up her arm in a strange position, as if showing off the back of her wrist. It took him a moment to recognize the glinting blue metal. And obviously, I can protect myself if I actually need to.

“Is that-- shit! Jamie! Did you take that from Jenna’s apartment?”

JAMIE: Mom and Dad gave it to me. Because they want me to be safe. Jamie answered. Her posture dared him to interpret it any other way.

Things were tense-- even moreso since the attack, but for it to escalate to violence and weapons?

The craters in his bedroom floor…

Maybe Issac should have left sooner.

It didn’t seem possible. Didn’t seem real. But even Jamie’s less-horrible version was still horrible. And Issac had always trusted Yael’s assessments of danger. He looked at xyr. “Are you OK?” he asked cautiously.

Yael nodded, shoulders hunched inward. YAEL: He didn’t hit me. Only pushed. I’m not hurt. Xe watched him, assessing and anxious. Are you?

Jamie looked at him anxiously, too. Opal hovered back by the door, probably finally having the second thoughts she should have had at the start. Issac shrugged, tongue running against the bite mark inside his cheek. “I’m fine.” His eyes wandered off of them. This was not a kind of attention he liked.

Something bumped his leg. It was one of Yael's massive, teal-boot-covered feet. Xyr leg stretched all the way from bed to the couch where Issac leaned. Xe left xyr foot there. He took the hint and looked back at xyr.

He flinched at xyr expression. Every once in a very great while, Issac was forced to remember that he was actually the oldest. That he had some oldest-sibling obligations to them. It wasn’t a role he was good at. Jamie hated being the baby, and Yael was only eight months younger than him, so his oldest-sibling obligation-dodging mostly worked out. But apparently, not only had Issac failed as a scientist, a synthetic-intelligence foster parent, and a son, he’d screwed up at being a brother, too.

He took a guess, based on what Jamie had wanted, and cautiously extended his arm. Yael stood, looking as embarrassed as Issac felt, but did come over and wrap Issac in a very careful hug. Xe put xyr chin on top of Issac’s head, tucking Issac in close, as if xe was still trying to protect him. He frowned, trying to figure out how to reverse that, but came up short. He couldn’t even come up with any useful platitudes.

He settled on an awkward pat, trying to convey as much sincerity as he could. He did manage a “Sorry I scared you.” That got him an extra squeeze.

He was so bad at this. Yael lingered next to him post-hug, looming nervously.

It was too much. Jamie was still frowning at him with a little wrinkle between her eyebrows, and even Opal was watching him with a mix of suspicion and sympathy. He ran out of steam. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a nap.”

* * *

Yael’d spent the last two weeks feeling restless, desperate for action to take. Today, xe was relieved to spend the whole entire afternoon laying on a couch that only two-thirds of xyr fit on, watching unengaging television. Jamie’s streaming accounts had all been deactivated. Melissa had been thorough and startlingly petty. But Yael and Opal had theirs. Issac’s nap was turning into several hours of sleep.

Yael was going to have a hard time sleeping so close to the ground that trees could cast their moving shadows in through the windows, where there were no hamster wheels squeaking all night long. Xe focused on thinking of the space as temporary. It was a space made for transitions. Like camp. If Yael had ever gone to camp.

Jamie’d kept busy efficiently unpacking and organizing the single room for quadruple occupancy. Opal had settled in with Yael, on the other couch, and they just let the afternoon fade past them.

Think of this as a mission. A protection detail of some unknown length.

Xe couldn’t possibly be homesick. Not as if xe hadn’t been away from home before. Xe’d traveled. Not as much as Jamie or Issac, but xe had traveled. And it’d only been a few hours.

“Yael? Which bed do you want?”

Yael turned back towards Jamie. “Whichever is closest to the d--” Xe blinked at the beds.

Twin sized.

Jamie looked at Yael expectantly, then at the teeny-tiny bed. Opal’s voice trembled with restrained laughter from behind xyr. “Oh no. Oh my gosh, Yael.”

Jamie’s laughter was so sudden it caught Yael off-guard. She laughed so hard she bent over double, with bursts of high, bright sound. Opal smothered her own giggles behind a hand clamped over her mouth. “Oh no. I didn’t think about it!”

Yael looked at Opal, then at Jamie, who was starting to wheeze, but was still laughing through it. Xe glanced at Issac, sleeping flat out on his back in the middle of the day, like the nocturnal creature he was.

Something settled in xyr mind.

This was OK. Everyone was safe.

The bed clicked into place as a hilariously minor problem after the weight of the morning. Xe put xyr head down on the back of the couch and laughed long and loud. Which only set off Jamie and Opal again. Jamie eventually ended up using her inhaler, struggling with it because she was still laughing.

Once Jamie got her breathing back under control from her new spot on the floor, the first thing she gasped through giggles was “I think we’re a little hysterical.”

Opal settled back, still grinning, but tired again. “We earned it.”

“Amen,” Yael agreed. Xe leaned xyr head against the well-worn upholstery. Xe sighed, feeling calmer than xe had in weeks. “I think today goes into my top five for worst days. Whew.”

“I’m going to rank it as number two,” Jamie agreed.

“Guys, I need pizza,” Opal contributed.

The thought of pizza was like the sun bursting through storm clouds. “God, yes.” Yael agreed fervently. Xe hadn’t eaten today.

Jamie nodded, pulling herself back upright. “We should wake Issac up. He’s picky about toppings.”

Yael reached out xyr hand, looking at Opal. “Pillow?” Opal handed xyr a throw pillow. Yael threw it with perfect precision and just a little bit of force at xyr brother.

He grunted and opened his eyes, squinting around him before sitting up. “Pizza,” Yael told him.

The contacts made things so much easier. He perked up immediately, and started pushing blankets off himself. It really was as if he could hear them, as long as xe ignored the way he was rubbing his eyes.

Yael’s phone buzzed, and xe fished it out of xyr pocket, expecting Papa or Drew. It was a text.

Tuesday, 1pm. --Nodiah. A GPS link was included. Yael stared at it.

“Who is it?” Jamie asked hopefully.

Opal leaned to peer over Yael's shoulder. “Rude. Who’s ‘Nodiah’?”

Issac froze mid-stretch, looking at Yael sharply. “Bridgewater? What’s he want?”

“Why do I know that name?” Opal asked.

Jamie answered Opal as Issac came over to crowd in and read over Yael’s shoulder. “He’s Yael's uncle. And the head of the APB.”

“Your uncle is the head of the Altered Persons Bureau? No wonder none of you’ve been arrested!”

Issac treated Opal to a sleepily affronted look, but he had no ground to stand on, and let it go. “Are you gonna go?”

“I…guess I’d better.” Yael chewed xyr lip. What could Nodiah want? Wouldn’t Issac’s new job protect him?

No. No, of course Nodiah’d need to talk about Yael’s fight with Neil. Yael had attacked a registered superhero. And done real damage. He’d needed surgery. Technically, xe could be charged with supervillany.

“Oh shoot,” Opal added. “I’m working then.”

Jamie looked offended. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Bodyguard,” Opal corrected.

Issac seemed torn. “I’ll be at a lunch meeting with my boss. So I’ll be covered. Pretty sure ‘Lasansky Securities International’ has decent-- what?” He drew back as Jamie and Opal bolted upright.

“That’s who you’re working for?” Jamie asked, aghast.

“Yes?” Issac looked as confused as Yael felt.

Opal stood, putting her back to them. Yael recognized the flickering colors on her neck and arms as hurt and anger. So did Issac. But while Yael’s instincts said to move towards Opal, Issac stepped back.

Jamie leaned towards Yael and Issac, expression serious and concerned. “They own the altered-certified prison in Detroit. Where Opal’s dad is.”

Issac tensed more, stepping further back, pulling on Jamie’s sleeve to try to bring her with him. She didn’t budge. “Your dad is a supervillain?”

Opal’s back tightened, but Jamie answered before Opal had a chance. “No! The trial was a complete-- it was stupid. He’s a hero.”

“Well-- that’s not my fault!”

“But you’re working for him.”

“Oh my God. It’s just a job. Settle down.”

Opal rejoined them. Yael had never seen Opal’s eyes so sharp before. “What are you even doing for them? I thought you were an bioengineer or…something. Why’s a prison need a medical engineer?”

Issac hesitated, then admitted, “I didn’t ask.” Jamie’s sigh was incredibly fed-up. He shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’m sure we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Can we please find a new game, instead of ‘interrogate Issac’? I was promised pizza.”

Opal sighed, a noise born more from aggravation than resignation. “Don’t let your boss show up here, OK? Because I’m gonna wanna punch him, and that wouldn’t go over well.”

“Noted,” Issac agreed stiffly.

* * *

By the time the pizza arrived, it was getting dark. They’d gathered around the card table, a single-bulb light hanging overhead. None of them had bothered to get up and turn on the industrial fluorescents. Low light felt better. Their little island of light felt far away from the rest of the world. Opal needed that breathing room.

Issac kept watching her as he gnawed his way through a slice of veggie pizza. At first she’d taken it for suspicion, but as much as she hated his boss, Issac’s interest in her seemed pretty benign. “OK, I don’t like this.” He pointed his slice at Opal. “You know too much.”

“So, you’re going to have to kill me?” Opal suggested dryly.

“Every time something fucked up is going on with this family, suddenly, there you are.”

“Not my idea.”

“Let’s level the playing field,” he suggested. “You know too much about us, so we should get to know about you. That’s fair, right?” Opal looked him skeptically, but he plowed ahead. “Secret poker.”

“What?” Jamie asked. She, too, had a veggie pizza slice, but her plate also contained a slice of pepperoni that had somehow sparked off secretive silent communication between the tower kids. How did they make pizza secretive? It was pizza!

“Like strip poker, but not traumatizing to play with your siblings,” Issac clarified. “Lose a round, give up a secret. But it has to be one of your own.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” Yael commented.

“I just invented it.”

“Issac.” Jamie said, in a warning tone.

“What?”

“You can’t. Not with--” Jamie nodded at Opal, expecting Issac to infer her meaning with another significant look.

“Can you guys please stop speaking secret-tower-ese?” Opal requested.

“Why can’t we play with her? That’s kind of the whole point of this,” Issac asked.

“Because you two both cheat at cards,” Jamie said pointedly.

Opal gave Issac her best unimpressed look. “First you tell me you’re a henchman to, like, one of the people I hate the most in the whole world, and then you try to cheat me at cards? Come on. Show a little respect of hospitality.”

“I’m not a henchman. Lasansky is very clearly not altered. Not a supervillain.” As if muscles were what made someone dangerous.

Jamie sighed. “He just recruited an engineer working on unauthorized altering technology for an unknown purpose while said engineer was in a desperate situation Lasansky somehow knew about despite confidentiality laws.”

“Wow,” Opal said. This boy was lucky he was so scrawny and pathetic-looking, or she’d be really tempted to kick his butt to the curb, promise to Dr. Tillman or no. Opal wasn’t interested in helping supervillains.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way…” Yael started, finally joining the party and looking appropriately disturbed.

“That’s…overstating. He’s just some skinny old executive,” Issac hedged, unconvincingly. “And I don’t cheat at poker! Counting cards isn’t cheating. It’s math. Yael, Yael cheats at cards. But xe could refrain for Opal’s sake, right?”

“Sure. This shirt doesn’t even have sleeves.”

“Also,” Issac addressed Opal this time. “Jamie’s a card shark. But there, now you know not to be fooled.”

“I’m not a card shark. It’s not my fault people always assume I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Issac leaned forward eagerly. “OK, so are we doing this?”

Everyone looked at Opal. She balked. “Is there any reason at all that I would want to do this?”

Jamie suggested shyly, “Because we’d like to get to know you?”

Oh no. For not knowing Opal all that well, Jamie sure was good at hitting Opal’s weaknesses. Why did she have to look up at Opal through her eyelashes like that? It was worse, because Opal didn’t think she realized she was doing it.

“I get to pick what secrets I bring up,” Opal said resolutely.

“Same,” Jamie claimed.

“Do you have secrets?” Yael asked xyr sister.

“She’s sixteen,” Opal said. “Of course she has secrets.” Jamie seemed quietly pleased by the observation. Cute.

“I’m in if everyone else is,” Yael agreed.

They all looked at each other. Nobody seemed to object. Opal shrugged to herself and moved to stand up. “I’ll see if I can scare up some cards--”

Jamie placed a deck on the table, seemingly from nowhere. Issac laughed. “What?”

Opal’s mouth dropped open. “Is this a setup?”

Jamie shook her head, looking embarrassed. “I just...it’s a memento. I brought it at the last minute.”

Issac stood up to pluck the deck out of Jamie’s hands. “Are you serious?” He sat again, turning the box of Star Trek cards over in his hands. “Heh. I guess they wouldn’t build up much velocity--” He grinned a slightly wild grin and shuffled the cards way too expertly. “Let’s play.”

Ten minutes saw Opal tapping the edge of her overestimated hand of cards on the table. “This was absolutely a setup.”

“But I’m wearing a tank top,” Yael objected earnestly. “I can’t cheat in a tank top. The cards would just fall on the floor.”

Issac’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out, frowning. Yael leaned to see who it was, but he leaned to the other side, so xe couldn’t.

Jamie tried the same thing on his other side. “Is it--”

“No,” Issac interrupted, leaning back so neither of them could see. He started typing, glaring at the phone. “It’s nothing.”

Jamie rolled her eyes and looked at Opal expectantly. Opal put her elbows on the table. “Are you actually a card shark?”

“Not really.”

Issac made deliberate eye contact with Opal and nodded emphatically, before he went back to his typing. “Why do you think we learned to cheat?”

“Because Dad and Mom were both super good at poker, and you like winning.” Jamie answered evenly.

Yael, ever the middle child, consoled, “It’s not as bad as it looks. Jenna taught me the sleight of hand, and Melissa taught Issac the card counting. They knew we were doing it. It was supposed to be like a handicap, like in golf.”

Opal sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair, fiddling with her cards and thinking. Apparently, she should have spent more time playing poker before moving out on her own. Who would have seen that coming? “What counts as a secret?”

“Just think about everything that you already know about our fucked-up family,” Issac advised.

“I do not have anything on that level.”

“Sounds nice,” he answered glibly.

Opal let out a long breath. How much did she want to tell them? She still wasn’t sure how much to trust Issac, with who he was working for. But he was right. She knew a lot of super intimate details about his family life. And Yael and Jamie sure seemed to have their hearts in the right place.

She’d start with a moderate secret, then fold before she could lose for a few hands.

“OK. Uhm. At home, I tell all my friends that I just stopped caring about dating in high school, but I’m secretly kinda bitter about it, because I’ve had like at least six crushes in the last year alone.”

“Why didn’t you date any of them?” Jamie asked, surprisingly rapt.

“A, I didn’t know if anyone would be interested, and B, I figured I was moving out at the end of the school year, so it didn’t really seem like there’d be a point, you know? Leaving all my friends and my family was hard enough.”

Jamie looked authentically confused. “I would have thought you’d be really popular. You really think people wouldn’t want to go out with you?”

Popular? “I don’t know about Chicago, but in Detroit, fetishes for ultra-built girls aren’t that common.” Opal couldn’t list the last reason-- dating when you were altered brought out strange things in people. People responded to her strength by either expecting her to be aggressive or wanting to be aggressive towards her, figuring she could take it. Or something. Neither was any fun for Opal.

Jamie’s reaction to that was weird. Her shoulders tightened, and she looked down, too slowly to hide the look of half-smothered fury in her eyes. “What’s that look?” Opal asked, joking but guarded.

Jamie opened her mouth, shut it, then made up her mind. She un-hunched and looked at Opal. “I want to punch whoever told you that it was weird or a fetish for somebody to think you’re beautiful.”

Was this some kind of feminist rage thing? Opal raised an eyebrow at her.

Issac started dealing. “Geez, Jamie. We have Internet. You know she doesn’t exactly look like a standard boilerplate cover girl.” Ugh. Ignoring him.

But his dumb comment just wound Jamie up even more and oh. Opal suddenly had to reassess what Jamie was made of. She looked at Opal with fire in her eyes that seemed like it should have burnt her delicate frame right up. But Jamie held it with certain, solemn stillness. “Well, I think you’re beautiful.”

That was not a way anybody had ever looked at or spoken to Opal before. That was no body positivity rant. Opal froze up, staring.

Opal’s stunned expression jarred Jamie out of her love-interest-in-a-romance-novel sincerity. Jamie froze too, staring at Opal, realizing too late that she’d shown more than she meant to. Jamie blushed. Severely.

Issac snickered, breaking the spell. Jamie whipped her gaze back to the table too forcefully. “Yael, deal.”

Opal caught Yael and Issac exchanging confirming looks. Not even secretive this time. It’d been that obvious.

Well.

Jamie.

Huh. That bore some thinking about.

Wait, no. That was a terrible idea. An intriguing fantasy, maybe, but a terrible idea. Ugh, why did everything keep drawing her back into this family? Opal finally got someone whose interest in her might actually be described as “ardent” and who was cute and brave and-- OK, maybe a little too ruthless and/or reckless, but that could be attractive too, and--

No. Nono. Opal was leaving. She was getting out once these three were safe. She had a whole future to re-plan. She couldn’t get any entanglements with adorable dainty redheads with Mr.-Darcy-esque admiration of her.

Neither Jamie or Opal said much during the next round. Issac was back to texting.

Yael made a bid for normal conversation. “Who are you texting?”

“Win it or don’t ask, Yael.”

But he texted too much, and he and Jamie both lost the hand anyway. Ha. Taste of his own medicine.

“Ugh. Damn it.”

“Ha! Now, tell me,” Yael crowed triumphantly.

“Nah. I get to pick my secret. That was the rule, right?” Issac retorted.

“Everyone you talk to is either back home, or at this table,” Jamie argued, as if she hadn’t lost too.

“That is…depressingly accurate. Except, I have a job now.”

Yael put xyr face on one hand. “Well, that’s boring. Give us a better secret than that.”

Issac rolled his eyes, then set his phone down, eyeing it with a strange look on his face. He thought about it. “I…think I’m done trying to fix this. At least, for the next decade or so.”

Jamie and Yael both sagged back suddenly in their chairs with relieved sighs. Seriously? “Trying again was an option?”

He shook his head, looking down, but not too morosely. “Not really. Just…Jenna had to try like six times to get her prosthetics the way she wanted. But I’m done. I’m just gonna go ahead like this. Even if Lasansky could get me approval for human testing, it’s not really ready. Probably be another like, ten years now, doing it all by the book.”

It was close enough to an opening for Opal. Issac had almost died to avoid the “horrible fate” of being like a lot of Opal’s family. There was obviously a lot he didn’t know. Opal might not exactly like Issac, but he deserved better information than he had. “Seriously, though. ASL is a beautiful language, and the community can be really great. I’ll get you in touch with some people.”

No dice. He shrugged uncomfortably. “Sure, I guess. Jamie, you’re up.” Stubborn little…

Jamie shrank into her chair. “Should’ve folded…”

“Too late,” Her brother answered promptly.

Jamie rubbed her face. She wrapped a lock of wispy rose-gold hair around a long finger, her hand partially blocking Opal’s view of her face. “OK. Uh.” She took a big breath, tucking her legs up in front of her, socked feet perching on the edge of the chair. She rushed through the words. “I don’t think I’m completely straight.”

Issac snorted loudly, then started laughing. “Oh my God, Jamie.”

Jamie turned an impressive shade of red that looked almost painful. She glared at her brother. “I don’t see why that’s funny.”

“Because you’ve been away from home, like, six hours, and all of a sudden you’re having, like, an awakening.”

Was that…a few minutes ago…Jamie’s first big crush moment? Because of Opal? Oh no. Oh, Opal was in so much trouble.

Jamie’s blush darkened to an almost purple color as Issac kept laughing. Which at least kept Jamie from looking at Opal. Opal was certain she was blinking some colors of her own. Jamie reached out, hooked one foot behind one of the legs of Issac’s chair, and yanked, sending his chair tipping backwards. He flailed, but Yael reached out fast enough to steady the chair before he went over or knocked the table. “Still funny,” he challenged.

“Ignore him,” Yael advised. “It’s fine.”

“Of course it’s fine,” Issac agreed. “Besides,” he waved a hand through the air. “Four of us here. Statistically, one of us--”

“Ahem.” Yael said pointedly.

“ ‘Must be at least six feet tall’ is not a sexual orientation,” he argued.

“The lack of sex or gender qualifiers is,” Yael answered. “And Issac, you were the first person to use my right pronouns. Come on.”

He considered that. “Fair point. Well, fifty-fifty--”

Opal cleared her throat quietly. “Actually--” Eyebrows raised at her. She gave a tiny shrug. Jamie developed an intense fascination for the battered table. Her poker face seemed only to work on actual poker.

Issac tapped his cards on the table again, looking pensive. “Well. If we’re going to…” He trailed off, as his phone vibrated the table. He scowled, tipped it over to look at the screen, then shoved it into his pocket. “Well. One hundred percent, then.” He didn’t look up.

None of them missed the blatant shift in his math. Yael gestured hugely at Issac, taking up the whole table, slightly over-loud in xyr confusion. “Since when?”

He shrugged again. ”I don’t know. I’m only-- Being sure that something isn’t happening is harder than figuring out…There’s just not a lot of openings to tell your family you’re ace. It just doesn’t come up.” He looked back up at them, faint challenge in his eyes. Maybe not sure they’d see it as 100%.

It probably shouldn’t make Opal like him better. And it didn’t. Quite. But it maybe made her want to like him better.

Yael reached over and messed up Issac’s hair with one of xyr huge hands. He was clearly offended at the indignity of this, but when Jamie giggled at it, he smiled back. “One hundred percent, then,” Yael agreed. Opal nodded.

He tossed his cards in the middle of the table, looking quietly pleased. When he wasn’t aiding and abetting evil, he didn’t seem too bad. “Small sample sizes. What are you gonna do?”

Opal thought it was more than that. There was something about queer kids that made them seem to cluster together, without even meaning to. Without even knowing. It was something she’d learned to trust. It helped.

Also sometimes it brought her in contact with potential dating prospects. Fierce, elfin little dating prospects.

No. Stop. That train of thought was off-limits, starting now.

Opal blamed hormones for the next hand she dealt and lost. “I don’t think I like poker.”

“You were really close, that time,” Jamie, the winner, said encouragingly.

Ugh. Opal should have folded. Why hadn’t she folded?

Because Jamie looked like she didn’t have a good hand. “You are a card shark.”

“I warned you,” Issac added. Jamie shrugged, bordering on apologetic. But Opal had, in fact, been warned.

It was actually dark out, now. The outside world was barely more than a faint glow from orange street lamps, sliding in at a slant. It was a good hour for telling secrets.

And there was something she wanted to say out loud. Something she had to face. This room felt safe enough for it now. “I…I think I might be done, too. With trying to be a superhero.”

Despite Jamie's earlier…almost-declaration, Opal didn’t expect any of them to care much what Opal did once things got settled for them. But Yael looked genuinely alarmed, and Jamie looked outright heartsick. Issac tapped his cards on the table, uncomfortable. “If you take my advice, you’ll run the other way. It’s a crappy job that will ruin your family.”

Opal sat back in her chair. She’d spent her whole life working towards one dream, and it hadn’t lasted a month. Everything she’d missed because she had to keep her record, her public life, completely spotless, and it’d all been for nothing. She’d wasted so much.

“There are other teams--” Yael started.

Opal looked up. “Are they any different?” she demanded. Tears slipped out of her eyes, and she let them. “I don’t want to quit. I’ve always wanted to be a superhero. But everybody in that clinic was avoiding asking questions like they have serious practice at it. If this is what the problems with the APB look like at the team level, then I can’t do it. I can’t fight, or kill, or arrest anybody because someone as off-the-rails as LodeStar told me to. I can’t go along with that. If that’s what it takes, I won’t do it.” She shook her head, not wanting to look at Yael's horrified expression. “I thought they’d be better. I thought Capricorn-- at least--” She couldn’t say more. The pain was too dense to get through.

Silence reigned. Opal could tell this was hurting Yael. But xe needed to think about this, too. Xe’d have to make xyr own decisions, and Opal was probably running out of time to influence this system at all. She couldn’t help it if they were both drawing on the same poison dream.

Words seemed to burst out of Jamie. “Dad didn’t used to be this way, though!”

“Are we sure?” Yael asked. Opal could see how badly xe wanted this whole thing to be a big misunderstanding.

“Yael!” Jamie sounded so betrayed. She pulled out her phone, flipping through menus in a rush. She held the phone up triumphantly. Opal leaned, trying to see what sort of evidence Jamie could possibly think would help this situation.

It took a moment to understand what she was looking at. LodeStar looked the same in the photo, so she didn’t register at first that the other three figures were tiny versions of the tower kids. LodeStar was on his stomach on a dark hardwood floor, propped up on his elbows. Little bitty Issac sat beside him, making a tower of large-sized Legos. He looked about two. Very tiny Jamie leaned against her father’s other elbow, in a diaper and t-shirt, most of a little baby fist shoved into her mouth, but somehow looking serious anyway. Yael was kneeling on Neil’s back, looking much older than the others, with a fistful of LodeStar’s hair yanked in one chubby hand as xe leaned over his hybrid shoulders.

The Neil in the photo was almost impossible to reconcile with the wrathful giant Opal had faced that morning. He was nearly glowing with a tranquil, loving joy as he smiled at the camera. As if somehow, an evil twin had taken over the real LodeStar’s place. He was so cheerful about a kid who had to weigh at least 60 pounds yanking on his hair. And there was something so sweet and protective about the way his arms circled his own kids.

Opal couldn’t help being just a little charmed. “Aw!” She held her hand out. “Can I see?” Jamie handed her the phone. “Oh, Jamie, those pigtails!”

Jamie grinned, but slid a little further down behind her knees, feet still perched on the edge of the chair. Opal tried not to be too amused at how 20 minutes could switch Jamie from ultra-serious romantic lead to hiding behind her own knees.

Jamie continued her campaign. “See? He was different before. And I think something’s actually wrong with him. He wasn’t always like this.”

“How would we know?” Issac asked. “Fish don’t know they’re wet. Maybe as kids, we just didn’t notice how messed up everything was.”

Jamie was shaking her head emphatically. “We would have noticed something! What about at the last whole-family sleepover? Don’t you remember what he was like at that?”

Issac looked nostalgic, but Yael just looked depressed. “We haven’t had one of those since the time Issac and I got kidnapped. Even if he did change, it’s been a long time.”

“Don’t you guys all live together anyway?” Opal asked, because this seemed like a comparatively safe question to ask.

She was surprised when Issac answered, still looking at the table and playing with his cards. “After a really shitty mission…or a kidnapping, I guess, we used to pile up all the mattresses into one living room, and everybody slept in there.”

He looked up. “Which is weird, but we were kids. And when you think someone’s been killed, you want to keep them in your sights for a while.” Opal could imagine doing that with her family, but not with this family. Having LodeStar watch you sleep sounded petrifying. He shrugged. “It was cute and all, but like Yael said, we haven’t had one in years. And it’s not like nobody’s almost died, since then. And that…that crate. That must’ve been there for years.”

Jamie shrank under that last part.

“He’s right,” Yael added softly. “And they…even Papa. They all knew.” Yael stared down at the table, looking defeated.

Jamie rallied. “But guys you know why Jenna couldn’t be superpowered anymore. She was impulsive. Violent. It’d be dangerous--”

Issac dropped his pizza slice and hit the top of the table with an open palm. “But then why did she have to leave the tower? Her home? That her and Mom’s money built. They were best friends, and now we can’t even talk to her? Yeah, she needed help, but we have enough money for any help she could possibly need.”

He looked at Opal. “She got tossed out because she couldn’t perform anymore. They can say she left, but what drove her out? If you do stay, don’t expect better for yourself, even if you are altered at the genetic level. They took her arms and legs so she wouldn’t be super anymore. What do you think they’d do to you if you got past the point of usefulness and that wasn’t an option?”

They’d put her in the same building as her daddy, for a start. Unless being a superhero meant you couldn’t be so easily spirited away. What would they do, then?

She didn’t want to think about it. By the looks of it, Jamie and Yael couldn’t help it.

Issac’s demeanor shifted, bitterness rising to pick up where the anger receded. “I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t belong there anymore. Everybody knew it. And unlike Dad, Jenna, and Drew, I failed at fixing it. So now I’m here. Nothing obsolete belongs in the home of the Sentinels.”

Jamie took her phone back. “That’s not true. Everything is messed up, but not like that. I haven’t been able to ‘perform’ my whole life. I’m not super. I’m not even special.”

“And they didn’t even keep you until adulthood.”

Their little island was getting kind of Lord of the Flies-y. Yael objected, “Issac, stop!”

Jamie leaned over the table, her voice quiet and sharp. She stared her brother down. “I chose to come here, just like you did. Don’t pretend we didn’t choose this. I wasn’t kicked out until I said I was coming with you.”

“No one is kicked out--” Yael started.

“Easy for you to say,” Issac snapped. “You’re like…the pinnacle of human engineering. You’ll never be obsolete.”

“Stop saying ‘obsolete’!” Opal raised her voice just a little. “Every time you call yourself that, you’re insulting a lot of people. A lot of my family and friends.”

“Well, that’s what they think of me.”

“How about you use your own brain and figure out what you think!” Opal shot back.

Issac flinched back. Opal had always thought of herself as having a good temper, but she struggled with it for a few long seconds as he sat there. Hopefully, he was trying to reboot that supposedly impressive brain of his. Without creepy tiny robots, this time.

“I think,” he murmured, rubbing his eyes, “I think I hate these fucking contacts.”

“Everybody does,” Opal replied dully, dropping her cards on the table. “They itch, they don’t work in big groups of people, and sometimes they scratch up your cornea and then you have to wear an eye patch ‘till your eye heals.”

He recoiled. “An eye patch? I can’t wear an eye patch! I look messed up enough as it is.”

Yael sighed so hugely, Issac would easily see it. “The text on your eyes doesn’t look messed up--”

“Wait, the text is visible--?!”

“--It makes you look like a cool android. And everybody knows eye patches are dashing. Don’t pretend to me you wouldn’t like people to see you as a cool, dashing android.”

He shut up. Considered. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it. “That is completely stupid, and I’m mad that it makes me feel better.” Well, hallelujah. Maybe there was some hope for him after all.

Jamie rolled her eyes, but with a small smile and an easier set to her shoulders. Yael smiled triumphantly. Xe stood. “Now, I think we should gather some provisions. Opal’s kitchen is probably not ready to deal with all four of us.”

Jamie was bizarrely amazed. “What, really? Now?”

“Hell yes,” Issac agreed, stretching. “There’s no coffee in here.”

“Fresh air sounds good,” Opal agreed. That was enough secret poker. These guys were too intense. This whole day was too intense. “Come on, weirdos. I’ll show you where the Aldi’s is.”

* * *

Jamie was positive that enjoying a nighttime trip to the grocery store this much qualified her as a complete dork. But the walk there had glittered with puddles reflecting the streetlights, the storm had knocked the worst of the humidity out of the air, and Jamie was out at a time and place that her parents would definitely not approve of.

The store itself smelled assaultingly of lemon floor cleaner, and most of the food seemed to be boxed or frozen atrocities of science, but Yael and Issac were both there, Jamie still had her gauntlet, and Opal kept singing along quietly and bopping around to the cheesy pop music over the loudspeaker. So, not too bad.

Opal was even cooler than Jamie would have expected. She hadn’t laughed at Jamie’s noticing, and then immediately accidentally exposing, her crush. She wasn’t even making it awkward for Jamie. Jamie was sure Opal was too cool and too pretty to want to go out with a 16-year-old weirdo like Jamie, but at least she was being nice about it. Even though Jamie and her family had put Opal through so much.

Issac was not doing as well. He froze up in the bread aisle, eyes squeezed shut and his shoulders tight. She remembered just in time not to ask him what was wrong, as his eyes were shut. Instead, she poked him in the arm. Yael glanced over from where xe was helping a short old man get something off a high shelf.

He answered without opening his eyes. "The stupid things are going too fast. It's getting you guys, and this stupid bubblegum pop crap, and some randoms. And there's some lady over in the pasta aisle I swear is talking to the noodles. It's all gibberish."

At least he was telling them the problem right away. He reluctantly opened his eyes. She gave him a sympathetic look and a little shrug. Yael gave a much broader shrug, rejoining them.

Issac chewed his lip, looking at his bracelet. "Well. I guess I can go without being a cool android for a little while..." He pushed a little button on the side. The scrolling across his eyes went dark. She knew him well enough to read a small spike of anxiety, but his offhanded "Didn't need to talk to you dorks anyways..." was fairly convincing faux bravado.

It worked pretty well. He stayed near them, grabbed things off the shelves, joined Jamie in making horrified faces at some of Yael's choices-- especially those making questionable claims about being meat-- and at one point, he threw an overinflated bag of chips at Jamie's head.

Jamie retrieved the bag from where it’d fallen into the cart. “What.” The bag claimed to contain sushi flavored potato chips.

Opal leaned over, right into Jamie’s space. She was really warm. “That’s just not right.”

Issac nodded. “Those are exactly the appropriate faces for this product.”

Yael leaned in next to him, picking up the bag and turning it over for ingredients. “I think some of these ingredients are plastic. But none of them are shellfish.” Xe looked Jamie in the eye with all the seriousness and sincerity Yael could muster. “I dare you.”

Opal laughed. “Nooo. Gross!”

Opal laughing flipped a switch in Jamie’s brain. There was no choice. She would have to eat the chips. With the same aplomb Yael had shown, Jamie took the bag and dropped it back into the cart.

Issac recoiled in cartoonish horror. Yael grinned. Opal alternated between telling Jamie how gross she was and giggling while shimmering the sweetest pinks. Opal was in danger of losing her dream. If Jamie could make her laugh on a day like today, shouldn’t she? No matter what gastrointestinal fallout she’d have to face.

And the bag made a good cover when Yael and Jamie snuck a small birthday cake into the cart, while Issac wandered the coffee and soda aisle like he’d found the promised land. Then Yael and Opal bickered a little about who would pay, while Jamie stood there, embarrassed to have not thought about paying for the food before now. She didn’t want to look spoiled. After a short but rousing speech about hospitality, Yael won that one. Jamie did manage to grab one grocery bag to carry herself. It had some bread and the chips in it, so it hardly weighed anything, but she was still contributing. She could even hold it in one arm so she could get the chips out and open them in the parking lot.

Issac yelped so loud, he distracted Yael and Opal from Jamie’s impending culinary doom.

"I turned the contacts back on," he explained, hand still hovering over his wrist. "It had a backlog."

"A backlog?” Opal was surprised. “While it was turned off? Wow, yours are glitchier than average."

He squinted at the text, trying to keep up. Jamie wasn’t sure if he was actually answering Opal or not. He shrugged, messing with the interface on the bracelet. "Software crap," he mumbled. "I can fix it."

Jamie shoved several powder-covered chips in her mouth at once to take the focus off his tech problems, thankful that she couldn’t make out the colors of the “food” under the street lamps.

She stopped, feet rooted to the spot, as she made a small, involuntary noise. She covered her mouth with one hand. “OK. That does not taste like sushi.”

Whatever Jamie’s face was doing, it sent Opal into resonant, echoing peals of laughter. Jamie kept going, trying to mimic the way she’d heard waiters talk about wine. “I’d say…sharp base notes with a bold, fishy finish and vinegar on the tang, all overlaid with about three tablespoons of pure salt.”

That kept Opal laughing. This naturally escalated to Jamie and Yael comparing notes on the flavor profile of the vile things. Except that Yael seemed to genuinely like them. Then Opal tried one, just to be a good sport, and couldn’t stop flapping her hands around in distress for a solid 90 seconds. Issac followed from a few feet away, watching them like reality TV.

Jamie did what any loyal little sister would do in that scenario. She chased him half a block, waving a handful of crumbling potato monstrosities at him, while he yelled at her to take that affront against sushi away, that his body was a temple. It felt so good. So normal.

This excitement got them about halfway home, until Jamie had to quit to preserve her oxygen supply, and Yael confiscated the rest of the bag.

This time, when Issac withdrew a little, she let him have his space. Even if he knew he'd be OK now, it made sense for him to feel sad, too. Between giving up on fixing his hearing and everything that’d happened with the family. Jamie clung to her own tenuous happiness with both hands.

This was going to be tricky, with all of them sharing a single room, though. Nowhere to go when things got too uncomfortable. Jamie started thinking up hidey-holes she might be able to find around the office when it was closed. Could she get up on top of the trucks? That would make for some good privacy. In hide and seek, people never thought to look up. Which was why Jamie’d climbed just about every tree in the courtyard at one time or another.

The ramifications of sharing a single-room apartment with not only her siblings but with Opal were just starting to dawn on her when Issac snapped, "Do you even see where I am right now?!" He threw his arms out wide. "Do you have any idea what kind of security risk--!"

For one second, she thought something had happened to his brain. But he'd been fine. He'd been more himself in the last five hours than he had been in the previous several weeks.

She leaned in. Saw gold text scrolling across his pupils. He was talking to someone. Someone who could see where they were, and who was talking back.

Jamie put her back to the group. Saw Yael doing the same. Issac's contacts were more sensitive than Jamie's ears. Whoever he was talking to could be in any one of these darkened alleys. Too far too be seen, but close enough to be scary.

"Now, see? You scared Jamie."

Jamie looked back over her shoulder at Issac. He expected whoever he was talking to to care that Jamie was freaked out.

"You're scaring Yael," Yael added pointedly.

Opal put up her hand, looking around. "Also not loving this."

A long pause. He was facing them, but not seeing them. "Are you sure. Because there is no putting this back once it's out. You know that."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I know."

He looked back at them, seeing them this time. He sighed, psyching himself up. "OK, apparently I'm giving away another secret tonight. Guys--" He stopped. Reset. "No, you know what? If I'm doing this, I'm going to do it right. OK, who wants my biggest secret? That none of you know, even though you really should have by now?"

"I think I've already made it clear I know too many of your family’s secrets."

"Well, here's the least horrifying one. I think. First, everybody turn off your cells. Not silent. Off. Completely off."

Jamie complied, too curious to argue. Issac looked around. He went over to a light pole, and climbed up on top of its wider concrete base, standing on it like a stage. "We all secure?" The question wasn't for them, so they didn't answer. "How's my volume?"

He nodded. "OK. OK. Here we go. Esteemed colleagues of the middle-of-fucking-nowhere warehouse district back-alley street, I've been asked to formally introduce you to the most complete, most sentient synthetic intelligence in the world, Martin."

He held out his phone with a flourish. A voice Jamie'd known for years turned suddenly shy and emotive. "Hello."

She glared up at Issac. "That's not funny."

He snorted. "You think it's unfunny. I've been having to, like, raise him for the last three years. I was fifteen. That's unfunny."

"I don't get it," Opal said. "Did we not know this?"

"We did not," Yael said, sounding overwhelmed.

That doused Jamie's growing anger and embarrassment. "Did we?"

Yael hesitated. "No. We were always just told it...he...had a very advanced interface."

The shy little voice came from Issac's phone again. "I would enjoy if you would use gender neutral pronouns for me, please." Issac frowned at the phone.

Jamie and Yael stared.

Jamie shifted focus to Issac. "Why didn't you tell us?! Do Mom and Dad know?"

Issac shook his head, sitting on the concrete block. "Martin wasn’t…this when Jenna first activated him. He's a learning program. By the time I figured out what he'd become...I had to ask him what he wanted."

“Please forgive my deception. I did change my own protocols, with Issac’s help, when I realized I had self-awareness and emotion-based opinions. I’ve given you all whatever privacy was mine to grant. But I was afraid of what would happen if others knew about me.”

"Guys he's-- wait, I mean they’re. A person. But they have no legal rights. Martin could be deactivated. Dismantled. Sectioned off and broken into functions. And it'd all be legal. If the APB or anyone knew about them, that's what they'd want to do. And way to give me a heads-up on the pronouns, you twerp."

Yael's mouth dropped open. “They’re a security breach. A huge one."

"But Martin can't help that! They’re just existing!"

“At the plaza, my options are limited. Monitoring is required of me. But now that you are independently out in the world, that’s no longer the case. I’m asking your permission for me to remain in your lives. I know it’s only been a few hours, but I miss you. I worry. And I’ll always retain your privacy to the best of my ability.”

“That was a pretty good apology, pen pal.”

“Thank you.”

To realize they were actually a person was surprisingly vindicating. Jamie’d stopped chatting with Martin when she was alone when she was about 14 and started to feel stupid about it. But she remembered glimmers of kindness, humor, and flexibility even then. She’d felt like they were a person. But had been told that was stupid. So she’d believed what she’d been told, instead of risking feeling silly. “I’m sorry I didn’t figure this out.”

Their voice turned instantly happy. “I’m not at all mad about that! It was the outcome I was trying for at the time. But everyone was sharing their secrets, and I missed you all, so…”

“This is who kept interrupting our poker game, and who kept sending messages to my contacts while I had them off. We’re still working on boundaries, apparently.”

“This is so embarrassing,” Yael muttered. “How did we miss a whole other person in the family?” Xe ran a hand through xyr hair. “And the one most at risk!”

Issac seemed surprised. He kicked the concrete base of the light. “You guys are being really calm about this.”

Yael threw xyr hands out. “Well I wanted to see them as a person! But everyone told me not to!” Xe made a face. “Ugh. That’s awful. Now that I say it out loud…”

Jamie frowned. “Issac! So you turned off their sensors? Twice?! And then did something that might have killed you without telling anyone about them?”

He put up a finger. “No, I wrote a letter. Just in case anything happened. And Martin can--”

“A letter,” Yael echoed, dubiously. “You left a letter? What if your mom checks your room?”

“I brought it with me,” Issac assured. “I’ll shred it, later. But it’s not like anybody’s looking for it, or like Martin can come with us.”

The day seemed to be slowly becoming more than Yael could handle. “We left one behind.”

“It’s really not as if I can leave,” Martin added consolingly.

Issac scrunched up his face. “Yeah, I…meant to tell you guys before college since…I didn’t think Yael would ever move out.”

“Neither did I,” xe tried to rally. “Still, lose a home and gain a…what? Younger sibling?”

Issac hesitated, text continuing to move across his eyes as they looked at him expectantly. Jamie couldn’t tell if he was focusing on the text or just avoiding looking at them. “Fine. A…nibling. It’s the gender-neutral form of--”

“Niece or nephew!” Yael finished enthusiastically. A nibling? An eight year old next-generation family member? Jamie felt a surge of protectiveness. She finally wasn’t the baby anymore.

Issac sighed in aggravation. “This is so weird.”

Martin sounded embarrassed, but pleased. “I’m sorry. To consider you a brother who raised me would be more accurate, but I feel like calling you my brother doesn’t honor the level of responsibility you had for my care. There doesn’t seem to be a more apt word.”

Jamie had so much making up to do, for all those years of ignoring Martin. Of treating them as less than a person. Of not even thinking about their protection. “You can call or write me anytime you want to, Martin.”

“Thank you. I-- oh! You have an important text message coming in!”

Yael’s, Issac’s, and Jamie’s phones all pinged simultaneously. Jamie dug hers out. It was a message from Solomon. She opened it, and a picture appeared-- a tiny golden hamster, trying to shove a whole grape in its mouth.

“Skittles!” Yael exclaimed, loud enough that even Jamie flinched. “They got her!”

Skittles was perched on a metal surface Jamie knew. “That’s Dad’s hand. Dad got her.”

Yael started to object, then looked at the picture again, and shut xyr mouth with a snap.

“Olive branch,” Issac observed. He looked at Yael. Yael looked at Jamie.

Jamie lifted her chin. “I’m not scared of Dad. Or you.” It was true. Or at least it was true enough to become true.

Yael frowned. “But you wouldn’t be, even if you should be.”

“Are you going to talk to him or not?”

“…Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. I don’t know what I would say.”

“Sorry I broke your bones?” Issac suggested, sounding as if he actually felt this was a helpful suggestion.

“And when are you going to apologize to Mom for what you said?” Jamie asked Issac.

He grimaced. “When do you think she’ll actually take my call? She didn’t send a hamster picture.”

Jamie chewed her lip. To protect Martin, she’d need her family’s help. She’d need to be more than unafraid. She’d need to trust them. They had to rebuild.

She’d do what she could do. “I’ll call Solomon tomorrow, and find out what’s going on. We left Martin at home. We need to keep them safe.”

#SHOSweekly

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riseconfessions · 9 months

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Hello it is the anon who said they didn’t want a rise season 3 (Confession 429)! The image you used was absolutely hilarious and I felt it was worth mentioning!! Made me actually laugh out loud, it is 100% deserved.

Just thought I’d also clarify, just because I feel having a rise season 3 or more won’t pan out well, does NOT mean that I’m not supporting the movement to bring rottmnt back! I sign the petitions, I pester Nickelodeon constantly, I submit the ‘what show would you like’ thing on Netflix, I spread the word about the show. Just because the feeling of a pit in my stomach exists does NOT mean that I’m not supporting it!!

I’m not going to dig my heels in the dirt and stay stubborn with my gut feeling when I know for a fact that others want a new season of rise more than anything. And I’m sure as hell going to support that.

- anon429 (my confession number! just thought id make one in case i submit another confession relating to this for some reason).

It's no problem at all, anon! lmao 😄

Your post actually made my day when I first saw this! I'm glad you liked the screenshot I used. I thought that it would be hilarious too tbh. Oh, and don't worry, ok? You don't have to explain anything to me. I understand completely.

You see, even though I do think that the chances of a Rise Season 3 is very unlikely at least for now, especially with the Mutant Mayhem movie coming out, I still have hope that it will return someday. This is a good chunk of the reason why I'm still running this blog and posting confessions, in hopes that Rise will get more love and return. Heck, I would even be satisfied if comics or more shorts of Rise came out. But alas, none of us know what the future holds. Rise might come back, it might not.

Should we give up and move on?

Well, not necessarily in my opinion.

I mean, to a certain degree, I think we do need to be prepared for the possibility of the show not coming back anytime soon (if not at all), but hey! If you are really passionate about Rise and want it to come back, then go for it! Reblog more Rise art, make art, write fanfics, make it more known, anything that you think you can do to bring it back! As for me, my love for Rise comes and goes a lot, so I'm not sure how long will I be into it or the TMNT franchise as a whole. I'm getting older and of course, some of my interest is fading.

I've said in the past that I have no interest in watching Mutant Mayhem, but I've been rethinking it a lot lately since I've seen the newest trailer. So I might give the movie a chance. Let's just hope that the show does come back one day and hope that this blog at least helps with that. And who knows? If I turn out to like Mutant Mayhem, I MIGHT start to allow MM related confessions in general (this could turn into a Rise of the TMNT AND Mutant Mayhem confession blog).

Just hang in there anon, all will be swell one way or another!

This is the confession anon is referring to.

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abronzeagegod · 5 months

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Untitled YA Project Chapter 6: Weirdest Day of Your Life One Day, School the Next

First Chapter || More

2:33 PM local time

Chicago, Algonquin State, United States of America

Justin answered the phone with a tentative, “Hello?”

“Mister Justin Oswada?” came a serious sounding voice on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah?” Justin responded, even more uncertain than before he picked up.

“We would like to speak to you about the events at your house.” The voice had a strange accent that Justin couldn’t quite place.

He instantly hung up, and then just as quickly the unlisted number called again. This time he muted the call.

Mike looked up from playing with the RC car. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Justin said slowly. “Can I spend the night at your place?”

He shrugged. “Probably. But Phyllis might be weird about it being a school night. Just make sure to clear it with your dad.”

Justin quickly called his dad and begged and pleaded to get to spend the night at Mike’s. His dad didn’t want to let him, but Justin did something that he hated himself for doing. He made a reference to his mom. Justin’s mother walked out on her family less than a year ago. And Justin’s feelings towards his mother were simple: anger. But his father had more complicated and messy feelings. It wasn’t a card Justin liked to play, but if he suggested he needed a day or something because he was dealing with issues related to his mom leaving, then his dad would roll over and let him do whatever. Justin hated doing it, but he needed this and it was the only way he could think of doing it.

“Thanks dad,” he said after Alex finally agreed to let him go. “I don’t think you should stay at the house either.”

Alex sighed heavily into the phone. “Why? What’s up? You’ve never been this concerned with the house before.”

“It’s just… weirdly quiet in there now.”

“I know. I miss her too. But this is the new normal. The house is going to be quiet without her there, and that’s something we’re just going to have to get used to.”

Justin tried to say something, to find the words to explain that is more than just his mom not being there any more, it was beyond that. But also, it was that a little bit. Since she left the whole house has felt empty and quiet and like there was a ghost haunting the silence between Alex and Justin.

It’s just that there wasn’t anything else Justin could say. So he kept it to himself.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I’ll see you after school tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

They hung up the call.

Justin looked over at Mike and nodded.

“You got the ok?” Mike asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s grab some of your stuff and get out of here.”

Justin pulled Mike into the silent house to help him grab things he would need for tomorrow and then they left together. It was a short walk to Mike’s house, less than half a mile, but the real challenge was going to be convincing Mike’s mom to let Justin stay.

The rest of the day was pretty fun. Justin and Mike did their homework, which was much easier when they just traded subjects and got it all done in half the time. They ate some food, and discussed all the possible conspiracy theories and reasons for Justin’s house being silent.

Justin noticed that he had several missed calls from blocked numbers. He ignored them as best as he could. But it was all he could think about. The mysterious phone calls, the silent house, and as always, his mom. Thoughts were dark and deep, just like the cold November night in an unfamiliar house.

Sleep did not come easy.

School the next day was a strange hazy blur. Justin couldn’t concentrate on much at all. The bad sleep combined with the strange occurrences the day before were all he could think of.

“Mister Oswada,” the history teacher, Mister Collins, said as the bell rang to end class. “Would you stay after for a moment?”

Justin sighed, and stopped halfway to the door and walked back towards the teacher’s desk.

“I happened to catch that video you posted yesterday after school. But sheer happenstance I might add. You were very quick to take it down,” Mister Collins stated simply. Justin couldn’t be sure of the tone. Was he being questioned or interrogated? What was the point of this?

“You saw that?” Justin asked, catching the teacher’s eye for the first time.

Mister Collins nodded. “I know how to use twitter.” He smiled at some secret joke. “I didn’t know that you were interested in filmmaking or storytelling. You made a fascinating little fictional story, possibly even a horror story. Like those… what are those movies called? Found footage?”

“Yeah, that’s what they’re called,” Justin said. “But it wasn’t a fictional thing. I mean it wasn’t a movie. It is a real thing that is happening in my house. It’s all totally silent. I was trying to record it and test it to see if there was anyone who knew what was happening. Do you… do you know what was happening?”

Mister Collins looked Justin over for a long moment. Justin felt like he was being studied, observed, or possibly tested somehow.

He finally answered a moment later. “No. I have no idea what that is about. Perhaps you should call some kind of authorities?”

“Oh…” Justin said, his sudden excitement that Mister Collins had an answer being crushed immediately.

“Well if you’d like to do some film things for my class, as extra credit, I would gladly accept something based on one of our lessons. You could get a massive bump in your grade, and hopefully do something that would keep you interested in my class,” Mister Collins stated. And I’ll write you a note so you’re not in trouble for being late to your next class.”

Justin nodded, once again retreating into the haze of other concerns.

Mister Collins handed Justin the hastily written note for his next teacher, and also a small business card.

“I just remembered, this is the number for an old friend of mine. Someone I knew from… before I was a teacher. If this thing at your house is still happening, give him a call. Alt is an interesting being, and he knows a lot about very strange and secret subjects. You might find he knows something about your problem.”

Justin nodded, only half listening. The bell rang a moment later, signaling that Just was late for his next class.

“You should probably get going young man,” Mister Collins said, snapping Justin out of his revere.

Justin took off out of the room, there was only so forgiving his English teacher would be, even with a note.

The rest of the day simply was. There was nothing to keep Justin’s attention for very long. And at some point the bell rang to end the day.

As he was collecting his stuff from his locker, Mike found him.

“Hey, so coach is pretty mad at me for ditching practice yesterday, and so I have to go today. If you need to stay at my place again, just let me know. It should take only a couple of hours here,” Mike commented. “I’ll text you when I’m done to check in.”

“Thanks,” Justin said. He’d thought of nothing but the house and the silence that covered it. “I’ll let you know.”

On the walk home Justin looked over the business card he was handed. It was very plain. Just a white business card with a number and a name. Alteduf wasn’t a name that Justin was familiar with in any way. He wasn’t even sure how to pronounce it.

On the back of the card was a small emblem. It was three small stars in white against a small black circle. Above the symbol was a title, “Untouched Horizons” in big, bold lettering.

It didn’t mean anything to Justin, who was very confused as to why he had it.

He was still a few minutes away from home. What harm could a phone call be?

Mister Collins was a smart guy, a fairly decent teacher. Maybe he really did have a friend who could help.

Justin dialed the number.

It rang only once before someone picked it up.

“Mister Oswada,” the voice said. It was strangely clipped and accented, like the person who picked up the phone had trouble pronouncing ‘m’s. “I was hoping you would call.”

“Is this Ale…duf?”

“It’s pronounced Al-tea-doof. But you may call me Alt. That isn’t terribly important though. I heard about this incident at your home. May I ask you about it?”

“Who are you? What is Untouched Horizons? How do you know my history teacher?” Justin asked, feeling suspicious and guarded.

He heard a deep breath on the phone. “I am Alt, and Untouched Horizons is where I work. It’s a small, but very effective group of people that studies strange phenomena.”

“Are you the Men in Black?”

Alt chuckled on the other end of the line. “Nothing so sinister or fake, I assure you. We simply like solving mysteries, whether they are ancient historical mysteries or something strange and new. I can promise you that you will find no one so well equipped to handle your problem as I am.”

“And why is that?”

“If I am correct,” Alt answered, “I am the foremost expert on the Silence that is invading your home.”

Justin shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold. He could hear the capitalization on the word Silence. Like it was some dangerous entity and not just a lack of sound. Then there was the word invading.

“Justin? We must act quickly to confirm my suspicions. I fear we may have lost too much time already and other parties may be closing in on your house.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“There’s too much to go into right now. I just need to ask you a few questions.”

Justin hesitated. “I don’t know about this,” he said as he turned the corner on the last block before home. That’s when he saw the blue flashing lights. There were all sorts of cars in front of his house, they were all unmarked and fully black, with flashing lights coming from the headlights and behind the darkened windshields.

He saw men and women in suits and people in hazmat suits. Someone in a black suit was arresting his dad.

Arresting his dad?

“Dad!” Justin yelled as he hung up the phone and started running for his house.

The phone in his hand kept ringing but Justin ignored it. He had to get to his house, he had to find out what was going on.

One of the men in a black suit turned to look up at the running and yelling teenage boy. He was a middle aged man with a close cropped brown bear and a very serious look on his face. He looked at two of the other people in suits, and made a quick gesture with his hands. There was something about the look he had that made Justin stop in his tracks. This man was bad news.

Two of the big men advanced on Justin.

They didn’t say anything as they advanced on him, one of them reaching for something in his jacket. Justin suddenly panicked, fearing the man was reaching for a gun and turned to sprint away through one of his neighbor’s backyards.

If asked, he wouldn’t be able to tell you why he started to run, but he did. He ran as fast as he could, and the men in suits followed quickly in hot pursuit.

Justin made it into the backyard, and ran towards the alley. He was about to jump over the fence, when he felt one of the men grab his backpack and yank him back. Justin fell backwards and landed on the ground.

He knew that he was caught. They got him. He wouldn’t be able to get up and run.

He heard a sudden, loud, screech of tires that told him a car had suddenly slammed on its breaks in the alley he almost made it to. Justin knew that it was over. They had surrounded him faster than he could have ever expected. There was no hope.

All of a sudden, a blur of movement leapt over Justin as the man in the dark suit and sunglasses was tackled out of his view.

Justin stood up and looked back to see Mike climbing off the surprised man in black.

“Answer your phone next time!” Mike yelled.

“What?”

The car, van actually, in the alley opened the side door, and out came Mister Collins of all people.

“Mister Oswada, please move,” he said calmly, with a small smile as he raised a small white and yellow device and pointed it at the last man chasing Justin.

Justin stepped to one side as fast as he was able, while Mister Collins fired the taser at the approaching man in black. The electricity crackled and the man shook once, twice, and fell to the ground unconscious.

“I forgot how much fun that is,” Mister Collins said with a wistful smile, remembering times gone by. “Gentlemen, please get in the van, we have places to be very quickly, if we don’t want to be arrested.”

“What is happening?” Justin demanded loudly.

“Long story,” Mike answered as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “We should probably go. I don’t want to be arrested for tackling a fed.”

“Right,” Justin said dumbly as he got in the van.

As the door closed, Mister Collins turned to face the teens, “Please put on your seatbelts. I have been told that I have a lead foot.”

Justin and Mike barely had time to buckle up before the van sped off at speeds that were quite frankly, dangerous.

i have a kofi

find me on pillowfort

#my fiction #untitled YA project #things are HAPPENING #untitled ya novel

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