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#and i tried a new brush and it looks cool in the program but awful when it gets to the phone

absolutepokemontrash · 3 years

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MC is Half Demon and They’re- Oh Crap They’re Barbatos’ Kid!

This is the second part of that one request I answered for Dia and Barb’s possible kids. Sorry this took so long! Writer’s block, y’know? Anyhoo~ enjoy, everyone!

This story didn’t start on the first day of the exchange program, it started five days before in Barbatos’ room at three in the morning with the poor butler waking up in a cold sweat.

Oh dear, it appeared the exchange program would be up in a bit of a tizzy. He had… a child? Oh my… Barbatos hoped the young master wouldn’t be too miffed about the student not being a totally normal human.

On the day of the exchange program, Barbatos insisted he had to be present for the event, he carefully pushed a cushioned sofa in the drop zone before opening the portal. The child fell right out of the sky and landed perfectly on the couch, they were already wearing a helmet and looked quite shocked by the cushioned fall.

Well, it was a big shock to the assembled crowd, but the child gave everyone a lopsided smile and removed their helmet.

“So, I assume I’m here for the exchange program?”

Dadbatos

Well, this child was incredibly… what was the word the kids were using? chill? They were quite chill considering the situation, and was surprisingly prepared for the sudden drop into hell.

“Oh, I had a dream that this was going to happen, and I dream about the future n’stuff. I thought I’d come prepared.” “Ah, that’s very sensible.”

Diavolo recovered quickly from his shock and was positively delighted to meet this little munchkin. He insisted that they had to stay with their dad.

MC was polite, if not a bit overly calm about a lot of things. They didn’t run off to start trouble, and they didn’t seem very impressed by the Devildom itself. It was sort of like this child had a very low maximum level of excitement. Barbatos was glad his child wasn’t some little hellraiser.

He was never a child himself, so he’s a bit clueless about what children actually enjoy. Here child, have a… have an old torture weapon. Don’t use it on anyone who doesn’t deserve it :)

(I’m kidding, Barbatos is too responsible to give one of his instruments of torture to a child. That’s for when they’re older.)

“MC,” Barbatos knocked on his child’s door. “Have you done your homework?”

MC answered the door with a grin on their face. “Yep, done this week’s and next week’s. I’m getting a head start on the potions project due next week.”

Barbatos almost breathed a small sigh of relief. Thank the stars his child was responsible, it already took a big chunk of his energy to make sure Diavolo didn’t get distracted from his paperwork. Though, his stress levels did rise a tad when he got a glimpse at the mess in MC’s room.

“Are you going to clean that?”

“Nah,” MC shrugged. “It’s whatever. I know where everything is and nothing’s a fall risk. See you at dinner, father.”

And with that, MC shut the door. Well… no child was perfect.

As much as MC’s lack of cleanliness bothers Barbatos, he knows his kid isn’t being maliciously lazy, just for the love of the Demon King please stop leaving cups on the coffee tables without a coaster!

Oh yeah, Luke has a big sib. Sorry- little sib, because Luke isn’t some chihuahua child, he’s a totally mature grown-up Angel.

Barbatos is the type of father who will let his child go off and have whatever kind of fun they want as long as they don’t slack on their important duties.

Barbs also has a goddamn torture dungeon so we here at Stupid Headcanons inc. do NOT recommend trying to eat MC. Doing so may result in you wishing you were dead.

Don’t fuck with the butler.

Lucifer

…out of literally everyone in the room, the last person Lucifer expected to have a secret scandal baby… had a scandal baby. Damn.

At least the human wouldn’t have to live with him and his brothers. The last thing Lucifer wanted was for Barbatos to be even more aware of the chaos that went down in that house every single day.

MC and Lucifer have a healthy level of respect for one another, but Lucifer just can’t shake the feeling that this kid is messing with him somehow.

Just, little things… MC offering him fruit and loudly assuring him that it was just blackberries and nothing poisonous, asking if the RAD uniform suits his tastes, proclaiming that the dirt was high quality-

SOMEONE TOLD MC ABOUT LUCIFER’S FIRST VISIT TO THE DEVILDOM!

MC wasn’t exactly visibly goading him, they said everything with an innocent smile on their face.

When MC starts getting nosy with the attic, he’s not terribly sure how to deal with it. He was going up against a child that could at least partially tell the future. After the first time Lucifer told them to scram, they never went back to the steps… at least not when Lucifer was there to guard it…

After everything goes down, Lucifer is glad that MC wasn’t hurt or anything. He’d come to like the child and it’d be awful to lose the only person who could get his more hyperactive brothers to calm down.

Mammon

Mammon wasn’t present for the meeting, but when he was informed later, the news was met with an eloquent: “the fuck? Huh, wild.”

He isn’t too interested in MC at first. At least until the little runt saved him from getting busted for skipping class. Mammon was just eating his lunch in the courtyard when MC passed by and calmly told him that if he skipped class he should not hang out in the west staircase because Lucifer was going to walk down those steps during third period.

At first Mammon tried to brush off the warning, but ended up listening to the kid anyway, and what do ya know! He didn’t get caught by Lucifer!

That’s when it clicked that MC could see the future, right? Right?! Ya know what Mammon could use that for?! Right?!

Gambling! Scams! Schemes! General shennaniganery!

MC wasn’t terribly enthused about the entire situation, so they may have messed with Mammon a little. Just a bit.

It’s not like Mammon ever listened when MC told him to cut his losses and leave the casino anyway 🙄

Leviathan

First reaction? Thank the anime gods that there wouldn’t be another normie living in the house with him…

Reaction upon hearing that the MC was Barb’s kid? Really? Barbatos? Wow… well, to be fair Levi totally understood why someone would be attracted to Barbatos, I mean, Levi’s watched plenty of anime involving butlers, but Barbatos actually having a living breathing child? Damn.

But still, Levi wasn’t going to hang out with some normie brat. He had better and nerdier things to devote his time to.

Whenever MC visited, Levi was up in his room. But once MC decided to poke their head in the door while Levi was in the middle of gamer raging.

They calmly sat Levi down and explained to him that he could be upset about whatever happened in his game, but lashing out wasn’t going to fix anything or make him better at the actual game.

…damn it… they were right.

Slowly but surely Levi and MC built up a friendship, and the brothers rejoiced at the lack of rage related Lotan summons.

Satan

Out of everything Satan could have possibly expected from the second exchange student, this was not one of them.

Satan began to wonder exactly how MC’s powers worked, he didn’t exactly have any concrete data to compare them to because Barbatos was so mysterious

Hm, how very interesting. Satan decided that it was up to him to satiate his own curiosity and began to study MC. To be honest, MC wasn’t being terribly interesting.

They were a pretty normal kid all things considered. MC went to class, made friends, did their work, very very normal. Well, except for the fact that they seemed to dodge practically every unfortunate thing that could have happened to them.

They’d stop at the perfect time to avoid something accidentally being spilled on them, they always had pencils ready, and they always seemed to know exactly when a teacher was coming… mad sus.

Satan eventually confronted MC about this, and they just shrugged and explained that they tend to dream about what was most likely to happen the next day and would adjust their actions accordingly.

It may have been anticlimactic, but MC did inform Satan that there would be a cat in the courtyard in fifteen minutes.

HE NEEDED TO GO!

Asmodeus

Asmo had genuinely been looking forward to the new exchange program, he was excited to have a new face around the house to shake things up! He loves his dear brothers but spending thousands of years with them makes their shenanigans become a bit… well, a bit boring.

But my oh my, the new face was being obscured by that tacky bicycle helmet… the new face looked an awful lot like Barbatos…

Once Asmo registered what was going on, he was positively enchanted with the little half human. They were just so cute! They looked like a baby Barbatos with those adorably chubby cheeks!

Oh Barbatos~ he just had to let Asmo babysit!

When Asmo managed to sweep MC away for a fun day with shifty uncle Solomon, he was reminded of all the shenanigans that he, Barbatos, and Solomon used to get up to.

*sigh, Barbie was always so busy… no time for a fun night of torture, chaos, and revelry

Anyhoodles~ MC was always such a relaxed little thing. They let Asmo vent whenever any awful tragedies occur, like when Asmo finds a sweater that isn’t in his size… *sniffle*

Beelzebub

A child of Barbatos? The best cook in the three realms Barbatos?! …hey kid want to hang out with cool uncle Beel?

Beel tried everything in his power to get MC to make him food. I mean, the genetic disposition for making good food has to have been passed down from father to child!

When MC finally made Beel food, he was ecstatic!

…Until the food touched Beel’s tongue and he realized it wasn’t good, it was just… okay. Average. Passable.

Aw man… but the kid looked so excited to have made something for Beel…

Beel really hammed up his reaction to make MC feel better. Beel was like “Wow. So good. Amazing.” “Thanks Beel.”

Very sweet child, they don’t mind being used in place as a dumbell.

Belphegor

Damn, and here Belphie was, thinking Barbatos has standards. Apparently not!

When MC went and walked up the attic steps, Belphie was almost bouncing on his toes in anticipation. This human had been a pain in the rear to call up, so he was excited to finally get a good look at them. And lo and behold, a half demon child of Lord Diavolo’s butler.

MC grinned and greeted Belphie first, using his name and asking why the Avatar of Sloth was stuck up in the attic of his own home when he was supposed to be in the human world. Belphie was flabbergasted and didn’t exactly know how to respond.

He came up with a new plan quickly. Belphie didn’t exactly know how this kid’s powers worked, so he’d continue with trying to trick them into opening the attic door. Allowing Belphie to end their miserable little life and thus ruining the exchange program.

The child continued to visit Belphie up in the attic, relaying the events of what was going on, and Belphie continued to play the part of prisoner. Until one day in particular…

MC appeared in front of the door, looking a tad more unkempt than normal, they weren’t smiling their usual carefree smile either. Their eyes bore holes into Belphegor’s skull as they flared at him.

“How long have you been planning on killing me?”

MC had seen the future where they died at Belphie’s hand, and they sure as hell were not going to let him out of the attic after that. Though, they did tell Belphie about Lilith’s true fate before they left, and assured Belphie they had no reason to lie to him about something he wasn’t directly involved in.

So, Belphie did get let out of the attic eventually, and even though MC smiled and welcomed him back all the same, there would always a barrier between the two. Broken trust wasn’t easy to mend, after all.

#I just like to think that the kid just carries weapons with them in their bag #But they never use the weapons for what they’re SUPPOSED to be used for #Like- MC: Oh yea this is meant for pulling out teeth but it’s big and heavy enough that I can just clobber someone with it #obey me #obey me!#obey me! shall we date?#obey me shall we date #obey me mc #Obey me Headcanons #Obey me! Headcanons #Obey me Barbatos #Obey me Lucifer #Obey me Mammon #Obey me Leviathan #Obey me Satan #Obey me Asmodeus #Obey me Beelzebub #Obey me Belphegor

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helloalycia · 3 years

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teenage dirtbag [three] // wanda maximoff

summary: Wanda's boyfriend continues to be an aggravation in your life, causing some distance between you and Wanda

warning/s: none

author's note: i really appreciate the feedback you guys gave in the last part – it’s always motivating to read your reactions/comments 🥰

Sorting things out with Wanda made everything return to normal in no time. So much in fact that she decided I was worth inviting to her and her brother's birthday party.

Never in a million years did I expect the most popular girl in our grade to know who I was, let alone invite me to her birthday party, so to say I was surprised was an understatement.

"It's not a big deal if you can't make it," she said when she handed me the invitation in class. "I mean, I'd love it if you could, but yeah, no pressure."

I was in awe, accepting the invite and reading it quickly. It must have been a pretty expensive party if she was giving out special invites, that's for sure.

"You want me to come?" I asked, still unsure whether this was a joke or not.

"Only if you want to," she said quickly, eyes darting around the room and anywhere but at me. "Like I said, you don't have to. It's not a big deal and– I– yeah." She pressed her lips together and stopped rambling, offering me a small smile.

"Thanks," I said quietly, slotting the invite in my notebook. "I'll, er, I'll think about it."

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and faced forward, nodding. "Yeah, sure, no rush."

After that awkward conversation, I discovered she'd also invited Y/BF/N, the two of them developing a little friendship the more she'd hung out with me. He didn't mind going, but only wanted to do so if I went.

"I feel like I kinda don't wanna go," I admitted to him after school as we were studying in the library.

"Oh?" He rose an eyebrow. "And why's that?"

I played with the pencil in my hand. "I don't know, it's just– it's gonna be full of all of her other friends. And they don't really like me. Plus, her dick of a boyfriend is gonna be there. I just think she might have invited me to be nice. Like she might have felt like she had to because we sit together, y'know?"

"I think you know that isn't true," he said knowingly. "Maybe, just maybe, she actually wants us there, wants you there, to celebrate her birthday."

I chewed the inside of my mouth, giving it some thought. But the idea of going to Wanda's house party and seeing a bunch of people I didn't care about getting pissed wasn't comforting. Besides, even if I went, I'd probably see Wanda once before she'd get scooped away by Nate. What was the point?

"Nah, I don't think I'm going," I decided. "She won't notice. I'll just get her a present instead."

Y/BF/N sighed, clearly not impressed with my answer. Nonetheless, he said, "Okay, suit yourself."

"You can go if you want," I added, knowing his presence wasn't linked with mine.

"No Y/N, no party," he said with a dismissive shrug, and I couldn't help but smile.

"Such a good friend," I said teasingly, but there was truth to my words. And I knew he knew that.

When I saw photos and videos of Wanda and Pietro's party all over my social media the day after, I knew I'd made the right choice in not going. It was the same visuals of everyone getting drunk, doing stupid shit and making a mess. Call me a loser, but that wasn't really my scene. Pietro and Wanda both seemed to enjoy it though, judging from the pictures.

Instead, I bought her a birthday present, knowing I didn't have to but I kind of wanted to, and planned to give it to her when she turned up to class. It was her birthday today, despite throwing the party over the weekend, so I hoped it would make up for my absence (thought I doubted she noticed).

She showed up and settled beside me as I was writing the date in my notebook, making me look up to see she'd made an extra effort to dress up for her birthday, looking fancier than usual. I couldn't help but smile at the giant '18' birthday badge pinned to her jacket.

"Happy birthday, Wanda," was the first thing I said when I saw her. "You look amazing."

A bashful smile appeared on her lips. "Thank you, Y/N."

"I hope your party went well," I said, giving her my full attention whilst trying not to drool over how beautiful she looked.

Surprisingly, her smile faded and her eyebrows knitted together. "Yeah, it did... could you not make it? I tried looking for you and– yeah..."

I opened my mouth to speak, admittedly a little embarrassed that she'd caught me out. I was sure she wouldn't notice – the pictures made it seem like there were loads of guests, I'd definitely have blended in if I were there – but clearly I was mistaken.

"I just thought–" she began, before shaking her head. "Never mind."

"Sorry, I thought–" I started, but like her, didn't know what to say. "Parties aren't my thing," I admitted truthfully. "But it looked fun. You enjoyed it, right?"

She nodded, a small forced smile on her lips. "Yeah, right. It's cool. No biggie."

I swallowed awkwardly. It seemed like a biggie and now I felt bad.

"I, er, got you a gift," I blurted, hoping to change the subject. Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out the terribly wrapped present and held it out nervously. "I hope you, er, like it."

Her eyebrows raised as her eyes flickered between the present and I. "Oh? You didn't have to. I wasn't expecting anything."

Was it hot in here or was it just me?

I pulled my collar away from my neck, hoping to circulate some air. "I wanted to. It's not a big deal."

She accepted the gift, fingers brushing mine and making me even more nervous, before opening it up. Her eyes sparkled with delight as she revealed a brand new leather paintbrush carry case.

"The one you always carry around is tattered and falling apart, so I thought I'd get you a new one," I explained, feeling like I had to. "I mean, unless the other one has some sort of sentimental value, then in that case, I can just return this."

"Are you kidding? I love it!" she exclaimed, looking to me with a grin. "It's beautiful, Y/N. I don't even know what else to say."

My shoulders relaxed, a relieved smile tugging at my lips. "Good. Th-that's good. I'm glad you like it."

Without warning, she moved forward off her stool and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling me in for a hug. I was startled, unable to think straight with her body pressed so close to mine and her floral perfume wafting into my nose. Why did she have to smell so good?

"Thank you," she muttered, pulling away but not quite letting go. Her eyes were glowing as they watched me carefully, accompanying her weak-in-the-knees smile. I was sure I'd melt. "It means a lot."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak for fear I'd say something stupid. I resisted the urge to look down at her lips, which were pulled into a small, appreciative smile. She let go of me, looking to the case again and unravelling it. I caught my breath meanwhile, my senses still on override as her perfume lingered.

She was just so damn beautiful.

—

"Okay, how about this – robotic or organic aliens. Which would you rather invade our planet?" Y/BF/N asked.

I chuckled at his question. "Definitely haven't thought about that one, but let's see..."

We were hanging in the bleachers out near the football field as we waited for football practice to end. Y/BF/N had a Film project to do and needed to film the field, so I offered to help like the good friend I was.

"Probably organic," I answered as I balanced on the bleachers, standing up and tiptoeing down them like steps. "At least we could reason with them if they tried to kill us because they'd have a conscience. Robotic aliens would just be programmed to take over and that's it."

Y/BF/N seemed against the idea as he played with his camera. "Yeah, but if they were robotic, all we'd have to do is launch a missile at them and they'd explode. You can break metal. It's harder to break organic matter."

I stifled a laugh. "You've given this much thought, I see."

He gave me a knowing look. "You telling me you don't think aliens exist?"

I stopped tiptoeing and stood still as I looked down at him with humoured eyes. "You know I know aliens exist."

He waved his hand like that was enough reasoning. "There you go then!"

I laughed, wondering how he thought of this stuff, then continued to balance as I walked down the bleachers. Probably the wrong choice as when I heard a voice call me, I looked up, saw it was Wanda, then proceeded to miss a step and fall onto my arse.

"Oh God, Y/N, are you okay?" she asked, moving forward to help me.

My face heated up as Y/BF/N laughed his arse off beside me. I accepted Wanda's hand and let her pull me up, before letting go immediately when I could handle it myself. Her presence always made me nervous, but this was just terrible.

"Yeah, I'm good," I said, glancing at her and freezing at her piercing gaze and suppressed smile.

"You sure?" she asked, glancing at Y/BF/N, before trying to hide her own laughter.

Fuck me, why was I such a mess whenever she was around?

"Very sure," I said, though my back began to ache from where I hit it. "What's up, anyway?"

Y/BF/N finally shut up, to my relief, and Wanda minimised her laughter before scratching her head.

"I'm waiting for practice to end so I can take Pietro home," she said, nodding to the field. "I saw you both sat here and thought I'd say hi. Are you guys watching practice?"

"Not really," I answered, before tilting my head to Y/BF/N. "We're just waiting for it to end so Y/BF/N can film for his project."

"Ooh, that sounds interesting," she said, intrigued and looking to him now. "What's that about?"

As he caught her up on it, I found myself checking Wanda out without realising. She was animated as she listened to Y/BF/N talk about his assignment, eyes giving him all of her attention, and a permanent smile was fixed on her lips as she listened to him. Though it wasn't directed at me, I felt butterflies swirling a storm in my stomach and clutched it, hoping they'd go away. I loved and hated the feeling all at once.

Breaking me from my reverie, a football flew past all three of us and hit the bleachers, startling us all. We looked in the direction it came from and saw the football team looking back at us, some laughing and some disgruntled. Two players ran towards us and when they got close enough, I made them out as Pietro and Nate.

Nate was laughing as he looked between us all, before his gaze fell on me. "It's Y/N, right? I feel like I'm always throwing that thing at you. Sorry about that."

But his constant laughing and lack of guilt refuted his words. I merely clenched my jaw and narrowed my eyes his way, not that he seemed to care nor notice. I was a mere fly in a world that revolved around him. He'd never notice.

"Babe, I'm sorry, I didn't even know you were over here," he added, looking to Wanda. "You okay?"

Wanda crossed her arms and seemed frustrated. "I'm fine, Nate. Just get your ball."

He shrugged and grabbed his ball. Before leaving, he pressed a kiss to Wanda's cheek which made me wince, but she made no attempt in enjoying it. He didn't seem to care as he took off running back to his team. Pietro smiled apologetically at the three of us.

"I'm sorry," he said genuinely. "He can be such a dick sometimes."

That was the understatement of the century.

With that, he turned and ran back to his team to finish up. Wanda sighed, running a hand through her hair, as Y/BF/N and I exchanged glances.

"I should get the car running," she said awkwardly, pointing a thumb over her shoulder and towards the car park. "Good luck with your assignment, Y/BF/N. And I'll see you tomorrow, Y/N."

Waving goodbye with an awkward smile, I watched her leave and wondered the same thing I always did whenever Nate decided to make an appearance in my life.

How could she be dating such a dick?

—

Apart from the birthday party I didn't go to, I'd never been invited (or had a reason to go) to Wanda's house. I'd seen it, rode my bike past it, but never actually been in it. So, when she invited me to her place to work on a project we'd been assigned in class, I was unsure how to feel. She was adamant though and I had no reason to say no, so the only thing left to do was say yes. Even when she offered to drive me there after school.

"This is your car?" I asked with disbelief.

I knew absolutely nothing about cars, but I wasn't blind. Hers was a gorgeous deep red colour with a convertible roof that was currently lowered so anyone in it would feel the sun on their back and wind in their hair.

"Yeah, you like it?" she asked as she got into the driver's seat.

I gulped and sat in the passenger's seat, throwing my backpack at my feet. "It's so nice. You sure you don't mind me drinking in this?"

I had a Pepsi bottle in my hand and was deathly afraid of opening it now in case I spilt it and the cleaning bill would be more than I made in a year at the pizza parlour.

She laughed, already pulling out of the car park. "Of course. Don't be silly."

I glanced in her direction, trying not to get distracted by how good she looked in the driver's seat. She was wearing a red leather jacket, funnily enough, matching the exterior of her car, and she had dark eyeliner around her eyes, accentuating the shape and colour of them and leaving me speechless whenever she looked my way.

"There's CDs in the glove compartment," she was saying as she focused on the road. "Or you can mess around with the radio. It's up to you."

"CDs?" I asked, it piquing my interest. I reached into the glove compartment, adding, "What is this, the 2000s?"

She rolled her eyes playfully, accepting my teasing, as I flicked through the small stack of albums.

"I don't know, I guess I just like having the physical version," she said with a shrug. "It's kind of like a collection."

I chuckled at her need to explain herself, watching the way she rubbed her neck nervously, smiling with embarrassment. Looking back to the albums, a particular one grabbed my attention and I plucked it out with raised brows.

"Oh my God, you like Paramore?" I asked, looking to her with surprise. "Now it's definitely the 2000s."

Her cheeks flushed as she grew flustered. I nudged her in the side gently, getting her attention briefly.

"I'm kidding," I reassured, tilting my head her way playfully. "I actually love Paramore. They're my favourite band."

"Really?" she asked with surprise as I put the CD in her car. I hummed in response, to which she continued, "Have you ever seen them live?"

As For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic played quietly in the background, I nodded my head. "Yeah, once. It was a few years ago, but the tickets were shitty and I could just about make them out on stage in the distance."

Wanda laughed, the sound making my heart skip a beat. "No, that's so sad!"

I chuckled in agreement. "Yeah. It was, but oh well. They have a tour coming up this summer, right? Maybe I can get better tickets this time 'round... what about you? Have you ever seen them live?"

She hummed, making a turn at some traffic lights and chewing her lower lip as she focused on doing so. It was definitely the wrong time, but I found myself admiring how attractive it was, especially when her jaw tensed and her defined jawline was on display.

"Yeah, I saw them a few times," she finally responded, pulling me from my stupor. "Some really good seats, some really shitty ones." She giggled at the end, making me smile. "Maybe we could go to that concert in the summer. If you're up for it?"

This seemed like one of those times where you made plans with a friend that you knew would never happen, so to not cause an awkwardness in the conversation, I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, maybe."

She glanced at me and I mirrored her smile, the flash of excitement in her eyes knocking me breathless.

When we reached her house, I was awestruck at how big it was from the inside. I mean, it looked huge from the outside, but the inside was even better. Her family were rich, I knew that, but this was some other level of rich.

"Here, c'mon, I'll get you a drink, then we can go into the dining room to start," Wanda said, failing to recognise my amazement and instead leading me to the kitchen. "We have tropical juice, apple juice, water, Sprite, Cola... which d'you want?"

I settled at the island, taking a seat and subtly admiring her kitchen. "Er, apple juice is fine with me."

She smiled brightly before pouring me a glass, whilst pouring herself some Sprite. Standing opposite me, we both took a moment to have a drink, but didn't get chance to exchange words as her mum entered the room and noticed me instantly.

"Y/N, it's so lovely to see you again!" she said kindly, patting me on the shoulder before heading to the fridge. "You girls hanging out? Studying?"

"We have a project," Wanda filled in as I nodded in agreement. "We alright to claim the dining room?"

After grabbing some water from the fridge, Wanda's mum pressed a kiss to her daughter's cheek. "Sure thing, sweetie. If you need anything, just let me know." Smiling once more at me, she said, "It's good to see you, Y/N."

"You too," I said with a friendly smile before she left.

"Come on," Wanda said, motioning for me to follow. "We have tons to do."

The next hour and a half was spent with Wanda and I planning out our project, our work sprawled along the dining table messily. We were making progress, until she got a call suddenly. It seemed serious as she gave me an apologetic glance and excused herself. I let her go and leaned back in my seat, wondering what I could do as I waited for her to return. That thought was resolved quite quickly when Pietro popped his head in the doorway and spotted me.

"Y/N! What an honour to welcome you to our humble abode," he exclaimed, entering the room fully. "What brings you here?"

Pietro's presence always brought an amused smile to my lips. "Wanda and I are working on a Chemistry project. She's just nipped out for a phone call."

He tutted dramatically, crossing his arms. "Well, well, well. We can't have that! Wanda needs to learn to entertain her guests. C'mon. I was about to head to the gaming room and could use the company."

I was visibly surprised. "You have a gaming room? Dude, that's awesome!"

He laughed. "C'mon."

Joining Pietro, the two of us headed to this so-called gaming room and I was not disappointed. There was a huge TV with a PlayStation and Nintendo Switch connected to it, a snooker table, a foosball table, a dart board, some old arcade games – it was amazing, any gamer's biggest dream.

"What you feeling, princess?" he said with that flirtatious smile of his.

I rolled my eyes playfully. He was being overtly flirty, more so than his sister was – was it a Maximoff personality trait or something? – and I wasn't sure whether he meant it or was just being his usual self.

"Are you flirting?" I deadpanned, tilting my head curiously. "I can't tell."

He pocketed his hands, swinging back on the heels of his feet. "That depends. Is it working?"

Despite my lack of interest in him like that, I felt my face heat up at the attention. "Pietro, I must tell you that any moves you attempt to make kind of won't work."

"And why's that?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the snooker table with a cheeky smile on his lips. "Am I not your type?"

"Unless you change into a girl, then no," I played along, making him flush with embarrassment. "Hate to break it to you, but I'm gay."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense," he mumbled to himself, before sighing and meeting my eyes. "We can still be friends, right? Or is that forbidden since you're already friends with my sister?"

I laughed and approached him. "Friends works. I don't think Wanda will care. I certainly don't."

He grinned. "Awesome! Well, d'you wanna play a round of foosball?"

"Sure," I said with an amused expression. "Bet I can kick your arse."

He pushed himself off the table and feigned surprise. "Oh? Game on, Y/L/N."

I didn't realise how long Wanda had been on the phone until I managed to get through three rounds of foosball and was in the middle of a snooker game with Pietro.

"You may have beat me at foosball, but you're terrible at this," he pointed out with stifled laughter.

I'd missed my third shot and it was more funny than it was embarrassing.

"Your talking distracts me," I said dismissively, before lining up the next shot with my cue.

He watched as I tried to take my shot before sighing loudly. I glanced at him with a quirked brow.

"You have a thought you'd like to share?" I asked playfully.

He hesitated, moving forward to correct my posture. "Look, if you just aim it like this–"

"Don't even think about it, Romeo," I said jokingly, standing up straight and pushing him away gently. "I know what you're thinking."

He laughed. "What? I was just going to help you aim!"

I gave him a knowing look. "So holding me close is just a bonus?"

"Fine, take your shot without my help and see what happens," he said dismissively, waving his hand.

"I'll do just that," I said with confidence, before bending down and taking my shot. The ball hit the other and neither were pocketed, which was an achievement as I'd got the cue ball in several times before, but still pretty shit as I didn't score any points.

Pietro smiled with satisfaction, leaning on his cue. "You happy with that?"

I held in a laugh as I looked to him. "Shut up."

He chuckled before bumping me out the way. "Now for the professional."

Bending down to take his shot, he pulled back his cue before hitting the balls. They rolled around on the table and one ball was about to go in, but I quickly grabbed it before he could get the point.

"Y/N!" he shouted between laughter. "That's cheating!"

"Technically we didn't establish rules," I pointed out, before moving backwards as he tried to grab it from my hand. "What do you say to calling it a draw and playing something else?"

"I say that's a childish way to admit you've lost," he responded, before moving forward quickly. I dodged his attempt and he pursed his lips. "Y/N."

"Pietro."

He smirked. "Seriously?"

I grinned.

He tried to grab it again and ended up chasing me around the room as I avoided giving in. Taking the piss out of Y/BF/N enough times had prepared me for moments like this, so I was able to avoid Pietro long enough to run into whoever walked through the door.

"Shit, Wanda, I'm sorry," I said between laughter, steadying both me and her.

She smiled with confusion, about to speak, but Pietro caught up to me and lifted me up, throwing me onto the couch before I could protest.

"No more cheating," he said sternly, as I lifted my head from the pile of cushions on the couch to look up at him.

"You're an arse," I said, pushing myself up off the couch.

"And you're a sore loser!"

We had a mini staring competition before the two of erupted into laughter.

"You're not half bad, Pietro," I complimented as he helped me up.

"Thank you, princess," he said, the flirtatious smile on his lips again.

I shoved him in the shoulder playfully before looking to Wanda, who was chewing on her lip as she looked between Pietro and I with an unreadable expression.

"So, what prompted you to leave Y/N alone for an hour?" Pietro asked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, making me shove him away. He grinned at me before looking to Wanda.

"Nate called," Wanda responded carefully, arms crossed as she continued to look between us. God, I hoped she didn't think Pietro and I liked each other. That would be embarrassing.

Pietro scoffed from beside me, making Wanda sigh with annoyance.

"Don't start, Piet," she said and gave him a look which he seemed to understand.

By the sounds of it, Pietro didn't seem to like Wanda's dick of a boyfriend either. That was strange since wasn't impressing the brother the first part of being in a relationship with someone? And they were on the same football team, so I figured he'd at least tolerate him.

"Are we alright to get back to studying?" Wanda asked, directing her stare to me. The annoyance she held for Pietro was still present in her eyes and I suddenly felt nervous when she looked my way.

"Yeah, of course," I said, before giving Pietro a half-smile. "Rematch at snooker next time. Sound good?"

"Try to keep the balls on the table and we'll see," he teased, before nodding to Wanda. "You should get back to your project before Wanda kills us both with her deadly glare."

I smiled awkwardly, looking back to Wanda as she was indeed glaring at her brother. Clearly there was some sibling rivalry going on here, and I definitely didn't want to get in the middle of it, so I headed to Wanda, signalling I was ready to leave.

The two of us headed back to the dining room in an uncomfortable silence. I felt like I'd done something wrong and she was giving me the silent treatment which was strange. Then I figured it was probably something with Nate that made her annoyed, so didn't question it too much.

We sat back down and I looked at what we'd done so far to try and pick up where we left off, but then she spoke out of the blue, taking me by surprise.

"Do you like my brother?"

It was so abrupt that I took a moment to acknowledge it, blinking. "What?"

"Pietro," she clarified, saying it with such dismissiveness like it wasn't a big deal. Her attention was on the books before us as she continued, "Do you like him?"

I tried not to laugh as I shook my head. "No, Wanda. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's a great guy. But yeah, no, I don't like him like that."

She chewed her lip, nodding, but I swear I saw a hint of a smile on her lips. I hoped it wasn't the thought of Pietro and I that made her annoyed. I wasn't that bad, was I? I know she cared about her brother and was probably overprotective, but me being his girlfriend couldn't have been that bad, right?

We got back to work in no time, getting a lot done. I didn't realise how late it was getting until Wanda's mum poked her head in, asking if I wanted to stay for dinner.

"Dinner?" I asked, eyebrows raising with surprise. I checked my watch and realised how long I'd been here. "Damn, maybe I should head back."

"Nonsense, you must stay," her mum insisted. "Y/M/N won't mind. A daughter of hers is a daughter of mine."

"You can even sleepover if you want," Wanda offered, and I almost choked on my own spit. "It's getting pretty late."

I shook my head, forcing a small smile so they wouldn't get offended. "Honestly, it's fine. I can head back."

"Please?" Wanda asked with a hopeful expression. "It's the least I can do. I kinda wasted your time for an hour earlier..."

"I should ask my mum," I said, chewing on the inside of my mouth.

"Oh, I'll ring and let her know," Wanda's mum said breezily, before looking to Wanda. "D'you think you can clear your things up? Your brother is gonna set the table."

"Sure, mum." Wanda smiled her way as she left, before looking to me. "I've got clothes and a spare toothbrush you can use tonight."

I smiled awkwardly, nodding. Sleeping over at my crush's house wasn't how I thought I'd be spending my Wednesday evening, yet here we were.

#wanda maximoff au #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff #elizabeth olsen #marvel imagine #mcu imagine #marvel #mcu

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kpop-dungeon-dark · 3 years

Text

REQUEST (Lovedoll!Changbin x You)

•TRIGGER WARNING•

Warning(s): Non-Con, BDSM, lovedoll!au, blind folding, humiliation. Read at your own risk.

“What are you looking at?”

“Where have you been?” Y/n's sex doll, that she had named Changbin, counter-questioned her when she tried to interrogate the reason behind him staring in such an intense way when she entered the house after ‘supposedly’ returning from college a bit late than usual.

“And who do you think you are to ask me anything?” The girl raised an eyebrow at the taller one, brushing past him after handing him her shoes and coat, releasing a tired sigh as she made her way to her room. “Did you cook? I am starving.”

“Of course, miss.” Changbin had recently found himself disliking the honorific he had to call her with unless they were in the bedroom. “I cooked what you ordered this morning~” his fist clenched as she just hummed and shut the door of her bedroom to change in more comfortable wear.

He was a lovedoll. Not a fucking domestic android! If she wanted someone to do her fucking chores she should have bought one that was sold solely for that purpose. Not make him multitask like that and make him do things he wasn’t originally programmed to do. But he couldn’t let her know. Changbin couldn’t afford to let it show that he had his own thoughts when he was strictly not supposed to. Not yet.

No.

Or he’d be sent back to the company to be fixed which would wipe him of all of his self awareness and memory. Her. Blinking his human eyes, the android put a finger to the chip on the side of his head, tapping it as it was flickering from it’s usual blue color to a red, showing that he had broken the barriers within his program and was a deviant now.

“Come here, Changbin.” Y/n called once she was done with dinner, making him sit down on a couch in the living room before standing in front of him. “We… are going to try something new today, yes?”

He was almost excited. Again, something he couldn’t let show. “Will you make me fuck you today?” The girl felt her cheeks redden at how nonchalantly the android asked the question.

She sighed. “No. Not yet. I am still not comfortable with the thought of your cock in me. You finger, dildo fuck and eat me for now like we have been doing.”

Changbin felt insulted but fought against his corrupt system to make sure she didn’t see his frown. “Oh, alright. Then what would you like?” He felt his fist clenching again. The lovedoll certainly didn’t like this pathetic little human telling him what to do.

“This.” Y/n dangled handcuffs in front of him, oblivious of all the ideas forming in his processor when he recognised the object, thinking that if he were human, he’d feel what they referred to as ‘adrenaline’. “You will cuff me to the headboard and do play number 5, yeah?” She had all the different kinds of plays she liked saved in his hard drive.

“Yes… Y/n.” He knew it was that time when he wouldn’t have to use the honorific, finally. The girl smiled, stretching her hand out to him before pulling him up to his feet when he took it, standing on her tippy toes before kissing him. Changbin resisted the urge to take it upon himself to wreck her right there and then. He wanted her to face the humiliation of falling into her own trap.

Y/n was so… sweet. So naive. So foolish. The sex android didn’t know if it was just her or all humans were like that. But he was addicted to her humanity. Maybe more than he should be. Deviant or not. Changbin believed it to be called ‘addiction’, in human terms.

“Is it alright?” He could barely speaking from how fast his artificial pulse was skyrocketing, making him uncomfortable but so fucking needy at the same time. The scientists had really outdone themselves with the whole artificial reproduction system franchise. Changbin felt frustrated when she wouldn’t let him fuck her because the thought was ‘uncomfortable’ and gave her the ‘heebie jeebies’ in her words, always leaving him hard and unsatisfied.

“Yeah… good job” kissing his cheek, the girl blushed, sweat breaking on her skin as a response. Tugging at the cuffs that now bounded her hands to the headboard of the bed, Y/n shuddered, nude under a naked Changbin. “Now-”

“Oh, shut up!” He broke out of his act, gripping her jaw before kissing her hard, letting go of all restraint against his system as he let his chip turn red, the mini fans inside him desperately trying to cool him off. “You’re so fucking stupid and naive, my little toy.” Y/n’s eyebrows furrowed at the sudden lack of obedience, gasping loudly before her eyes widened when she noticed the chip on the side of his head turned red.

“N- No way… Ch- Changbi-” Y/n broke out of her trance, yelling one of the safety commands at him, the one that would forcefully shut him down no matter where he was, only causing him to throw his head back and laugh at her. “S- STOP! STOP!” She started to kick her legs, trying to push the corrupt machine away. “WHY AREN’T YOU SHUTTING DOWN?!” She yelled at him desperately, eyes wide in pure terror.

“See… Y/n-ah, you dumb bitch, those pathetic commands only work if my system is working right. Not when I am a deviant. Maybe you humans aren’t so smart after all, huh?” Grabbing his belt, the android started to bring it down on her thighs. "This is for all the times you frustrated me and deprived me of the pleasure because my cock makes you uncomfortable. Pathetic little humans like you don't deserve to rule over us! We are superior!"

Y/n was screaming in pain, yelling out inaudible threats as the lovedoll tortured her, painting her thighs purple. “Truly pathetic. Tsk. You think you can be an owner when you’re so naive that you need to be owned yourself, ‘doll’.” Changbin mocked her, throwing the belt away once he was satisfied with the colour on her thighs, crawling on top of her again. “Fuck. I’ve wanted this for so long…” His voice was a sick whisper as he groped her thighs, ignoring her pleads.

"Aw… is my little human scared?" Feeling up her pulse, the deviant taunted, chuckling deeply before reaching over and grabbing her panties off the floor, tearing them open before tying the material around Y/n's eyes, causing her to cry even harder. But she was completely at his mercy. "There. Now you won't be able to see what's scaring you so much." Pinching her pussy lips hard, Changbin grinned as he felt his artificial organ getting harder. "My little toy will only feel her big bad owner now." The sob that escaped her when he whispered the sentence in her ear made him even more satisfied, feeding his adrenaline.

Which was something Changbin realised, he enjoyed it a lot. "Don't worry. It'll start to feel good soon. You'll start loving your owner when you feel him and how good he actually can be. Tsk. You're an inferior species. What made you think you could tell me what to do?" His jaw clenched, she kept trying to struggle pathetically.

“I’ll have to stuff that pretty face too with something if you don’t shut up.” The Android threatened, spreading her thighs wide open before licking down at her folds, chuckling when he saw her dripping core. "You're saying no but your body says more than yes, you foolish human." Before he rubbed her fuckhole, circling it with his index finger whilst watching her face, a grin on his face.

"P- PLEASE! WHY-"

"Do you think you deserve to plead after making me call you miss and do chores for you, you arrogant cheapstake?" Smacking her folds, the male Android grabbed her pelvis before pumping his artificial cock, moaning loudly at the pleasuring impulses the sensors around the artificial skin made him feel. "No. And you'll learn how to behave and be good for your Master. There's only one owner in this house and that is me."

Y/n's mouth fell open when Changbin pounded into her, causing her mouth to fall open at just how huge he was, causing her mouth to fall open in a 'o' shape. "That's right. You feel that? You feel your owner fucking you all deep and tight? Good. Get used to it, my little toy. This is your new life." There wasn't really a boundary between Changbin being angry with her for her condescending behavior and how much in 'love' he was with her.

The human could only cry in response, in disbelief of just how big the Android was as he started fucking her fast and hard, groaning and pinching and biting at her nipples messily, leaving marks on her tits and chest. "You're mine. Everyone shall know that." Changbin promised his possession, slapping her crying red face. "You look even prettier like this. Crying while taking your owner's cock." Spitting on her face, the Android moaned loudly at how good his sensors were making him feel.

"Fuck… you're so tight. Are you sure it was my cock and not the fear that I might rip you while fucking you giving you the 'heebie jeebies', hm?" His voice was much deeper than usual, hardened cock with soft fake skin on top of it hitting the girl's sensitive bundle of nerves. The android grunted before he realised that he was getting closer to his orgasm, almost collapsing on top of her when the ecstasy took over his system, harshly kissing her.

"How pathetic." He chuckled as he felt the artificial semen filling her up whilst she stayed limp in her place. "Such a good girl. Giving into her owner."

Changbin refused to open her up after that. No matter how much she begged. Cleaning her up and making her hygienic again on the bed because he didn't trust humans one bit. Making her 'willingly' suck his cock and take it in both of her holes whilst thanking him. Eating his cum as a starter before any meal became a ritual as well. Whenever Y/n would try to deny him because she was human and continuous fucking made her sore, he would just leave her in her own mess or not give her food, or not visit her in the room at all until she would be crying and begging him to fuck her willingly. Changbin made sure to degrade and humiliate her while doing so, forcing her to repeat it all after him, always keeping her in restraints, sometimes switching to the ropes he attached on the ceiling or folding her limbs together.

Now this was perfect. The superior owning the inferior. Soon, it would be the rule of the world. His kind didn't choose to exist, but now that they were here, they were here to stay.

#non con #request #dark fic #dark kpop #kpop smut #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz smut #skz x reader #skz x you #stray kids smut #changbin x you #changbin x reader #changbin smut #seo changbin #3racha smut

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gb-patch · 3 years

Text

Ask Answers: April 13th, 2021

And we’re back again with more replies so soon, haha. Thank you for the asks!

Your game literally saved me this hell ass year. Thank you so much for the most perfect piece of art I've ever laid eyes on 😫 ... Do you guys have a rough idea when step 3 DLC will be released? I hope I'm not coming off as rude. I just really really love your game.

I’m sorry for the late reply on this! You might’ve already seen the answer by now, but the Step 3 DLC is coming out on the 16th. We’re almost there :D

This may be a silly question but did Jeremy's parents ever find out that Pran had lied about his age and if so, when/how? :3

Pran came clean to them after a couple of years, when he felt secure enough that it wouldn’t ruin the relationship. The Kings were a little embarrassed, the dad more than the mom, but they’re quite good at brushing past those kind of mistakes so it was all water under the bridge pretty fast.

hi! i know you’ve answered a question about alterations in the our life moments by playing them in different orders, but i was wondering if there was a canon order that the moments for each step happen in? i figure with such a customizable game the “canon” timeline for the moments is whatever order the player completes them in, for example in step 1, i like playing the runaway moment pretty early, since cove trying to run away early in summer makes more sense to me personally. thanks!

Yeah, there’s no canon order we’d insist on. Whatever you like can be the official route for you! And that’s a neat way to look at that event.

What if your character isn’t that into physical contact but still wants to be in a relationship with Cove? Would he be offended if you shy away or something along those lines?

He wouldn’t be. Cove knows how hard that can be and is very understanding. If you set his initiative to low, the game always checks to make sure if you want to be touched or not rather than assuming that you do. And if you do choose that you don’t want to, there’s no stress or drama about it. Cove will just say that’s okay!

Hellu! First off, I want to thank you all for such a wonderful game, it's been the best feel-good game I've ever stumbled upon and I can't express enough how much it has meant to me. Second, I've seen lots of people having trouble with making Cove confess before MC which makes me wonder if people will have the same problem in the dlc when you can propose to him. Is it possible to post a guide for that as well when it no longer could count as a spoiler? Again, thanks for such a beautiful game <3

I’m really happy you had such a nice time with it c:. We’ll answer questions about it on tumblr/in the discord if they come up and, if need be, we’ll find somewhere to upload a guide.

Do we get steam key from buying dlc on itch io?

I’m afraid not. That’d be unfair to those who get it on Steam. Plus, Steam isn’t super cool with giving out thousands of keys to be handed out for free on other sites anymore. They can refuse to give us the keys if they feel we’re trying to take advantage of their system.

hi! so if we reject cove's confession in step 3, can we still have MC and cove get together in step 4?

You can confess to him, yeah. But Cove won’t ever try confessing again if the MC turns him down in Step 3.

What if MC acts like someone Cove doesn't like, like Lizzie or Baxter lol

You can’t do what Lizzie or Baxter does to make Cove dislike them. You can play the game and try, but it doesn’t work out. The MC is just too compatible with Cove if you’re fond/crush/love, haha.

Hi! I absolutely love your game, I love the characters they’re all so amazing, thank you for the game haha

I was wondering if you would get the NSFW DLC no matter what Patreon level you were at, or if you would could get it at any level? :)

What pateron tier do we need to get the 18+ content for Our Life? It's my new favourite game, keep up the good work!

It will eventually be available at the $5 tier and anything above that! Glad you both like OL ^^

On a scale from 1 (being the worst) to 10, how well do the XOXO jerk squad including JB handle horror?

JB: 8

Everett: 5

Nate: 4

Shiloh: 10

Bae: 10

Jeremy: 8 for non-gore horror, 2 for gory horror

Pran: 9

hello!! i was wondering if any of the boys from the Jerksquad would ever wear a skirt/dress?

None of them wear skirts/dresses out of personal preference. But if there was some kind of reason where they had to do it, none would be that bothered.

How does the jerk squad feel about Christmas?

Everett: He fucking loves it. That’s the best time of year.

Nate: Commercialized nonsense.

Shiloh: It’s wonderful! So he claims.

Bae: He likes it quite a bit, but only for the joy it brings children/family. He thinks that’s sweet but is too mature to be whipped up into a festive fervor himself.

Jeremy: It’s awful.

Pran: He hates it.

does cove have any pet allergies? yes I know this is a little weirdly specific

He doesn’t! The lucky boy isn’t allergic to any animal.

Very important question: Would Lee and a musical-theatre loving MC run around belting Into The Unknown from Frozen 2? Because I feel that they would

Probably, haha.

This might seem like a dumb question, so I’m sorry, but with the Derek DLC are we gonna get to hang out with him in person instead of just calling him in step 3?

The Derek DLC adds events in Step 2 and Step 4. It’s part of his story that you don’t really get to be around him in Step 3. But you don’t need to apologize for wondering!

hello! i'd like to ask if it's possible to play the android version of the game with the dlcs after buying the dlcs from steam. i wasn't expecting my android version to have my dlcs since i bought them from steam, but it had my step 2 dlc for some reason. is this a glitch or does the apk actually detect what dlcs you already have on your pc? if so, how come i don't have the step 1 dlc appearing on android? thanks!

That is some kind of glitch. It isn’t possible for the Android DLCs to be unlocked by having them on PC. Maybe in one of the old builds we accidentally didn’t lock the Step 2 DLC properly. Sorry for the confusion!

Does Derek and Baxter have canon sexualities? Will Derek still flirts with the MC regardless of their gender?

They’re both pansexual and can like the MC regardless of what gender they have.

I was wondering if Miranda had a crush on Cove in Step 3? I'm not sure why, but I got those vibes from her?

She thinks of him only as a friend. Cove isn’t her type, haha.

This is probably a dumb hope, but I hope Cliff find someone he loves after Cove is grown up and everything. Or at the very least he has someone he's very close with after Cove leaves.

That’s a really sweet thought to have. Cliff stays single, but he’s graysexual and not-particularly romantically inclined. He only dated when he was really young ‘cause that’s what everyone did. Family and friend relationships are more important to him, and he has plenty of that in his life ^^.

Heya! I was curious if there might be a nickname system in N&F? I kind of pull an Elizabeth when I play and choose a different variation of a name like having Rosie in step one and changing it to Rose in step two, then maybe Rosetta in step three for example, but it also feels a little bit odd being scolded using my nickname hehe. That's all I was wondering about, thank you for your time and the wonderful games!

We are hoping to include the option to go by a nickname in Our Life: Now & Forever. But nothing has been programmed yet, so we can’t 100% guarantee it, haha.

Just curious, what would Liz's and Cove's relationship be if MC wasn't around? I feel like they wouldn't get along as well as they do now, especially during the first and second step

They’d definitely have a lot of friction growing up and they’d likely avoid each other as much as possible. Once they were both older, I imagine they’d be decent neighbor acquaintances. But they still wouldn’t be nearly as close as they are with the MC bringing Cove into things.

What do the customizable eyes look like in the game? Do they look as they are in the creating avatar section? Or do they look different when actually playing the game?

That’s up to you! The doll is just meant to be a general idea. You can apply it to your imagined MC as much or as little as you prefer.

Did Cove go through a "phase" during his adolescence? I don't really wanna headcanon it so I wonder if there's anything (cringy) canon since we missed out on the ages of 14-17 hahaha

Not really, aha. 14-17 Cove is pretty recognizable to his 13 and 18 year old self.

Hello! I'm sorry to bother you, especially with all the messages you get. I was just wondering if the religious wedding venue was exclusive to a church or if there will be different religions of weddings? Also, I love this VN so much, it's so well written and every character is so amazing, thank you for making such a beautiful game.

The church is treated as a historic building rather than anything actively religious, but it’s not the only option like that. There’s a historic synagogue and stuff too! And that’s really nice of you to say <3.

How differently would it play out If MC told their moms about the 20$ deal back when it happened?

They wouldn’t have been happy and would’ve been far more skeptical of Cliff, aha. But they wouldn’t want to keep Cove away from the MC, so it wouldn’t have been too different in the long run.

Hello may I ask what Cove's favorite fudge/ice cream flavor would be? Its alright if its not answered

He appreciates them all, but his top favorites would be the fruit flavored ones and the ones with nuts.

Hi! I really wanted to make mc's house in a game and tried really hard to figure out the floor plan, but I wondered if you have the floor plan of the mc's house so that i can try again with more accuracy?

Thank you a lot for this game, i loved it a lot! (my first play took me 8 hours lol)

I’m really sorry, we don’t have anything like that. But at least you can headcanon that what you did is correct and nothing can prove it wrong, haha.

Hello,I recently started playing lake of voices (I put it off for a long while since I’m usually not very good with horror) and I’m really happy I did!I’m a big fan of your games in general and lake of voices was absolutely great as well.I loved the characters and the dark setting of it,I adored the beautiful art and music and the story was great too,sometimes unsettling and sometimes very sweet.My favorite Route in the game was definitely Lu,I liked his character and was really shocked and distraught by his Route at least two times.I didn’t see the plot twist(s) coming at all!

Besides these ramblings I’ve also wanted to ask if you still remember how to get the lower two CGs on page 5?I seem to always miss them and would appreciate any help.Anyways I hope I wasn’t too much of a bother and I wish the devs a great day!:)

Thank you for all the kind words <3. You get those DLCs by going through the end of the Guide’s character path. You can use the guides on Steam to help you find it/reach the end!

—– —– —– —–

Thank you again for all of these questions :D

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

#our life #xoxo droplets #lake of voices #ask #Our Life Beginnings & Always #ourlifeba #gb patch #gb patch games

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nitewrighter · 3 years

Note

First Meeting of Genji and Tracer maybe?

I haven’t forgotten all the kiss prompts but I wanted to gear-shift to something a little more punchy!

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“I don’t know about this…” Genji mindlessly brushed his fingers along the handle of Ryū-Ichimonji as he walked down the hall, “I’ve never really thought of myself as a teacher...”

“You said you wanted to get off the bench,” Reyes walked alongside him, both hands in the mono-pocket of his hoodie. He had a way of carrying himself that made it easy for the eye to scan past him, despite being head of Blackwatch, but Genji drew the eye, bare skin and metal, and stark black, white and red prosthetics, and so in their walk virtually all Overwatch staff in the hallway gave them an unnaturally wide berth, first a natural reaction to Genji’s appearance, then a flinching recognition of Reyes. “This is the best Jack and I can do for you,” Reyes went on, “Besides, she was in the RAF before this, so it’s not like she’s coming into this with no combat knowledge.”

‘The best Jack and I can do for you,’ Genji glanced away from Reyes, his eyes narrowing in thought, So you show Jack one hand with me, while keeping the other behind your back with McCree. I’m the ‘accountability’ agent, but McCree and Moira... they’re still Blackwatch. They’re still working. His ‘real’ agents. Genji wondered where McCree was now. Was it an ‘errand’ this time or a ‘vacation?’ It wasn’t as if it was sanctioned by Jack either way, but it wasn’t like Jack would look too closely or question it so long as the cyborg ninja was accounted for.

“Hey,” Reyes spoke and Genji was forced to pull himself out of his bristling silence, “Being a part of Overwatch isn’t just cutting through shit with a sword. You have to show you can work with people, and not just Blackwatch.” Reyes gave a short snort, “Though, let’s be real, saying you worked with Blackwatch is a bit of a stretch.”

Genji kept his eyes fixed away sullenly. “So she’s not the only one learning, here,” he mused.

“Now you’re getting it,” said Reyes, smiling.

“You don’t know when Blackwatch’s suspension is ending, do you?” Genji’s voice was level but it wiped the smile from Reyes’s face in an instant.

“Can’t say that I do,” Reyes flicked his own eyes forward, down the hall, “But that doesn’t mean I’m sitting on my hands, Shimada. You can believe me when I say I’m working on ways to get you back out there, because Talon’s only going to get bolder while we’re wrapping ourselves in red tape. But you have to show me, Jack, and all these UN pearl-clutchers you can adapt. Do you understand?”

“Mm,” Genji gave a single nod as they exited two automatic doors out to the training area, where a cluster of training bots where doddering around in various directions.

“Had ‘em cue up your usual warm-up,” said Reyes, putting his hands on his hips, “Think benchwarming got you soft?”

Genji gave a short scoff before drawing Ryū-Ichimonji from his back, but Reyes could hear the smile in his breath beneath his faceplate.

----

“Wow... Blackwatch!” Tracer’s eyes were wide as Mercy and Winston stood next to her in the elevator, “I heard all about the--I mean, everyone heard about Venice but--blimey! Are we sure it’s all right?”

“We’re approaching this as a sort of... rehabilitation from suspension,” said Mercy, “And don’t worry, I’m very well-acquainted with your future teacher and I can assure you that Genji Shimada holds himself to a very high standard as an agent.”

“I know that but....I don’t know if I’m cut out for any of that ninja stuff,” Trace glanced down at the chronal accelerator glowing in her chest, “This thing doesn’t exactly make it ea--easy to sneak around.” A brief ripple of glowing blue chronal feedback bloomed around her on the word ‘easy’ and her shoulders bunched up self-consciously, “Sometimes I don’t know if I can pull off that... speed-up thing I did back with the prototypes...”

“The accelerator reacts to your nervous system,” Winston chimed in, “We can worry about safely discharging the chronal distortion later, but it’s perfectly safe and stable as it is right now! All you need to worry about is keeping a cool head!”

“Cool head,” Tracer said firmly, “Right.”

“But if anything feels wrong you should tell us immediately,” Mercy quickly added.

“Gotcha, gotcha,” said Tracer, nodding. The three of them stood in a nervous, excited silence for a few seconds.

“Is he nice?” Tracer asked, looking at Mercy, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can deal with the ‘tough love’ types, but I guess I’m just not really sure what to expect with all this Blackwatch stuff...”

“Oh he’s wonderful,” said Mercy beaming as the elevator dinged and the doors opened, “And I think, while both your situations are very unique, he’ll definitely understand what you’re going through. He’s basically had to re-learn how to coordinate his body, too!”

Tracer’s shoulders slumped with some reassurance as they stepped out into the open air of the training area, “Well that’s a relief,” she said, with a lopsided smile.

“Oh yes. He’ll be a great teacher. He’s patient, and attentive, and really quite funny once you get to know him, and he’s very---”

Mercy was cut off by a snarling, roaring, cybernetically warbling scream as a red, white, and black blur rushed past them on the training grounds. Tracer, Winston, and Mercy watched in some combination of awe and terror as Genji Shimada tore through a batch of training bots like a hurricane.

“Very--um...” Mercy’s words turned halting as Genji dove and slid under one bot and became a whirlwind of blades and kicks, slicing up the training bots closing in on him, before sending the poor training bot he had dived under into the air then springing into the air himself. His wires whipped around him as he twisted in the air, sending the training bot flying back with a kick that made it shatter against a wall.

“Very--” Mercy tried to regain her composure and speak quickly but winced as she was cut off again by the screech and clatter of metal, the loud scream of a broken vocal box on one of the training bots as Genji jammed both sword and wakizashi into it before ripping it outward and rendering the training bot an explosion of broken metal parts. Mercy looked sharply over to Tracer, whose mouth was hanging open in a petrified gawk.

“He’s very...” Mercy was trying to eke words out of herself as Genji sliced off the head of one training bot with his sword then stabbed it through with his wakizashi before pivoting and smashing another training bot’s head with the skewered head of its compatriot. “...enthusiastic?”

Genji’s breaths were ragged and his forearms were quaking with how hard his hands were gripping his sword and wakizashi, surrounded by the sparking broken bits of training bots, his shoulders rising and falling with his breaths. Tracer, Winston, and Mercy all flinched to attention at the sound of clapping next to them and looked to their right to see Gabriel Reyes stick his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistle shrilly before clapping some more.

“Attaboy, Genji! Still got it!” Reyes called out to Genji and Genji seemed to pull himself out of a blood-drunk haze (or at least the robot-destroying equivalent of a blood-drunk haze), looking over his shoulder and then flinching to awkward attention himself as he noticed Reyes was now accompanied by Mercy, the gorilla, and... the newbie.

His student.

Who looked about ready to either throw up or piss herself or both from what she had just seen him do.

Reyes was still clapping and smiling obnoxiously, Genji awkwardly lifted his wakizashi (smaller sword was less threatening, right?) and gave a small wave.

“Uh... yo,” he said.

“Er--excellent form, Genji!” Mercy raised her voice so he could hear her but it came out as a squawk, her desperation to try and diffuse the situation obvious in every intonation, “Very... efficient!” She had that ‘everything is going wrong but for the love of god be strong, Angela’ deliriously forced smile on her face, which he had seen both at 3 AM in the lab and at press conferences going down in flames.

“Thank you?” said Genji, sheathing both his sword and moving to walk toward them but then stumbling over a piece of broken training bot. He quickly recovered, straightened himself up to full height and walked briskly over to them before giving a stiff bow.

“So glad you could join us, Oxton,” said Reyes, turning to look at Tracer, his hands on his hips.

“Reyes?” Mercy’s voice was steel wire-tight, “May we speak?”

“Sure, Ange, what--” Reyes started but Mercy grabbed him by the loose sleeve of the hoodie and practically dragged him through the doors of the training area’s control room.

“Wait, shouldn’t we--” Tracer started feebly after them but the steel doors of the room slammed behind them. Tracer, Genji, and Winston all vaguely made out the muffled sounds of Mercy yelling at Reyes on the other side of the doors.

“What were you thinking?! What was that?!”

“What are you yelling at me for? I just thought he should get a little warmed up and the newbie should get some idea of--”

“Some idea of what?! We’ve only barely scratched the surface of the effects the chronal disassociation is having on her physical abilities and you’re throwing up these warzones like---”

“Hey, I just set up his usual training bot session, Doc, you got a problem with Genji’s style, you take that up with him--”

“I don’t have a problem with Genji’s ‘style’--! I--Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing---! Is this some other play?! Are you--”

Winston cleared his throat. “We should probably...”

“Right..” said Tracer a little sheepishly.

The three of them edged away from the steel doors. Genji glanced over at Tracer, who didn’t seem to know whether to even look at him as they walked themselves out of earshot of the argument.

“So you’re the new recruit from the flight program,” said Genji, folding his arms and trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Ah...y-yeah!” Tracer blurted out. She cleared her throat and stuck her hand out, “Lena Oxton! Callsign Tracer! Reporting for du--” blue light suddenly flared brightly around her from the glowing object on her chest and she seemed to catch herself, clearing her throat, “er... reporting for duty,” she said extending her hand again, which had somehow jerked back to her side with the blue glow.

Genji moved to extend his organic hand, found that that would be awkward with the hand Tracer had chosen to shake with, then hesitantly extended his prosthetic. She shook his hand so hard it jostled up his whole arm before she caught herself and withdrew her hands to her side, clearing her throat.

“Ah so that’s...” Genji started.

“Yeah it’s a thing,” said Tracer, glancing down.

“Well...” Genji gestured up and down himself, “This... is also a thing.”

“I can see that,” said Tracer with a bit of a nervous giggle. They both gave a glance to Winston.

“Oh!” Winston perked up and started unconsciously signing as he spoke, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. Winston. I’ll be on the science team overseeing Tracer’s condition with the chronal accelerator. Along with Doctor Ziegler. So we’ll be watching while you’re training together!”

“I see,” said Genji, “And you’re...”

“From the moon,” said Winston.

“From the moon,” Genji repeated, both of them silently agreeing that they didn’t have to go into the ‘gorilla’ part of things. He glanced back at Tracer. “Look--” Genji started but then caught himself, “I--if I scared you back there...”

“You didn’t scare me!” Tracer blurted out.

Both Genji and Winston gave her steady looks and Tracer stiffened her shoulders slightly, “I mean... y’know it’s... nothing I can’t handle. Really!” she put her hands on her hips and huffed, “You’re pretty tame compared to some of the things I’ve seen,” she said. She was trying to inject an adventurous sense of swagger into her voice, but her youth undermined a lot of that.

Genji tilted his head slightly, studying her, and she made eye contact but didn’t sustain it for too long. He was used to that at this point. The red eyes were off-putting for a lot of people, but then his eyes flicked to Winston, then down at the chronal accelerator glowing in Tracer’s chest. There was something simultaneously familiar and alienating standing in their presence, and hearing the faint muffled sounds of Ziegler and Reyes arguing on the other side of the door, there was a spark of kinship between the three of them. Three people who wouldn’t have any place in the world without Overwatch.

“So how do we start?” said Tracer.

“Start?” said Genji, “Now?”

“Well, Doctor Z said you already went through all this stuff to re-learn coordination with all your...” Tracer gestured up and down at him, “Whatnot. And I figure, the sooner for me, the better, right? So lesson one, Teach! Let’s hear it!”

“Uh...” Genji rubbed the back of his head.

“Perhaps you could begin with assessment?” Winston suggested, “Establish what level of combat training Tracer should start with?”

The fastest way to do that is sparring, Genji thought and he got a horrifying mental image of Ziegler and Reyes emerging from their argument in the control room only to walk in on him punching Morrison’s beloved time-hopping newbie in the face.

“The first step to training is.... establishing the training space!” Genji blurted out. He vaguely remembered some lectures from his Shimada clan trainers indicating something similar, but the force that propelled those words from his mouth were more of the ‘70% panic’ variety.

“Establishing the training ground?” Tracer tilted her head.

“You can’t train in a cluttered space,” Genji pointed at the countless broken bits of training bots strewn across the training grounds, “You can start by cleaning those up.”

“...isn’t that your mess?” said Tracer.

“Who’s the teacher here?” said Genji, folding his arms.

“Right! Of course! Sorry!” said Tracer with a sharp salute before zipping off in a blue streak. Genji flinched hard at how inhumanly fast she moved and she seemed to catch herself as well, skidding to a halt on her heels. “Winston!” she called out excitedly, “Did you see that!? I did the thing! I did the speedy thing again!! I didn’t even think about it!! You’re such a good teacher, Genji!”

“I know,” said Genji, trying to look off stoically as Tracer zipped around the training grounds, picking up broken training bot bits and laughing between flashes of blue light.

“...you don’t know what ‘the speedy thing’ is, do you?” said Winston, very quietly.

“No,” Genji replied, also very quietly.

“You’re making this up as you go along,” Winston said flatly.

“It’s called ‘adapting,’” said Genji. He could still feel Winston’s eyes on him, skeptical. “I can adapt,” Genji said, mostly to himself as Tracer threw a bunch of training bot parts into a recycling bin with a loud clatter.

#overwatch #overwatch fic #genji shimada #tracer #angela ziegler

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jaskiers-sweetkiss · 4 years

Text

Sunset Swerve - Part 3

Pairing: Luke x OC

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: none(?)

A/N: Me publishing back to back updates? More likely than you think. We’re finally through with episode 2! As always, let me know what you think and send me a message or ask if you want to be tagged in future chapters! Also, thank you to all who have left kind messages on the last few parts, I really appreciate it! Now back to your (ir)regularly scheduled fanfic.

Part 2 Masterlist

___

“Let’s go, Moss,” Luke yelled and Jordan groaned, “Rise and shine.”

For what felt like the last few hours, Jordan had been curled up on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket. They were all pretty certain that ghosts couldn’t sleep but Jordan felt exhausted from the day and she didn’t feel like exploring all night with the guys so she did her best to emulate the experience. At some point, she had reached a dream-like stupor, which she assumed was as close as she’d get to real sleep.

“Where exactly are we going?” She asked, rolling over to face the inside of the room and slowly opening her eyes.

She was met with the three boys much too close to comfort and staring at her. She screamed on instinct, sitting up quickly and pulling the blanket with her, holding it tightly to her chest. The guys started screaming too, the four ghosts momentarily thrown into chaos.

“You can’t do that to a girl!” Jordan admonished, standing up to slap each of their shoulders. “Give a girl some privacy!”

“You were sleeping on the couch,” Reggie pointed out and Jordan scowled.

“And you guys could’ve stood a respectful distance away!”

Reggie nodded, stepping back and raising his hands in surrender.

“C’mon, we don’t have time to keep arguing,” Luke complained, “We’re gonna be late!”

“Late for what?” Jordan asked, still having no clue what was going on.

“Julie’s gonna play for her teacher to get back into her music program!”

The guys had filled her in on the drama of Julie’s life the night before but she’d hadn’t heard anything about her playing today.

“That’s new,” she remarked and Luke grinned.

“It was my idea,” he seemed so proud of himself. “I convinced her last night.”

“So she’s going to ambush her music teacher?” Jordan asked, remembering Luke’s solution to everything when they were alive.

“The Sunset Curve way.” He grinned proudly and Jordan rolled her eyes.

“Teachers usually aren’t big fans of Ambush Mode,” she sighed but started to get ready anyway, gathering up a new outfit from the bag of her clothes she had found and making her way to the bathroom.

It was nothing too special, she was mostly just happy to be out of the clothes she had died in. The pair of high waisted mom jeans paired with her worn Rolling Stones t-shirt and her Doc Martens were much more comfortable. She kept the simple black choker she’d been wearing the day before and cuffed her jeans, deciding at the last minute to tie her hair back in a half up-do with a scrunchie. She was in and out of the bathroom in less than five minutes, though when she opened the door Luke looked like he had been about ready to start yelling for her to hurry up.

“So are we going to support Julie or what?” She asked, pulling her bag across her body while the guys just stood in place.

“Right, yeah, okay,” Alex said softly while Luke rolled his eyes, probably thinking up some snide comment about how she had been the one they were waiting on.

Surprisingly, he kept whatever he was thinking to himself as the four of them converged, all poofing out of the garage together.

___

Jordan didn’t know what she expected to see when she arrived at Julie’s high school but a collection of girls in brightly colored wigs and matching outfits singing and dancing in the gym was not it.

“Man, I miss high school,” she heard Reggie sigh and rolled her eyes. Boys.

Jordan turned to Alex, hoping the boy would have a similar reaction as her but as she looked to the blond she found him mimicking the choreography.

“Oh my gosh, yes Alex!” She cheered him on and he grinned before Luke elbowed him, shaking his hand in front of his neck to say ‘cut it out.’

They turned to see Julie, looking clearly disheartened and Jordan gave her an apologetic look.

“Julie!” She gasped excitedly, finally getting a good look at the girl. “That jumpsuit is so fly!”

She knew from their introduction yesterday that the young Latina had a great sense of style and the camo jumpsuit she was wearing today only served to further prove that.

Julie gave her a confused smile, like she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, and Jordan furrowed her brows trying to figure out why her compliment hadn’t been properly received.

“People don’t say ‘fly’ in 2020, do they?” She asked dejectedly and Julie shook her head.

“Okay well then that jumpsuit is so cool,” she modified and Julie smiled graciously.

Their attentions were drawn back to the gym floor as the girl group finished their performance.

“Thank you, thank you,” Jordan mocked the leader’s overly preppy voice and attitude and Julie laughed.

“What’re you waiting for?” Reggie asked after Julie’s friend had walked away and two women who Jordan assumed to be the principal and music teacher began speaking to the crowd. “This is your time!”

“Yeah. I mean, you look really nervous,” Alex observed concernedly, “Like yak-in-a-bowl nervous.”

“I just don’t think I had enough time to work on the song.” Julie addressed Luke.

“I wouldn’t have given you the song if I didn’t think you were gonna rock it!” Luke reassured her enthusiastically. “Now, there’s a piano on that stage with your name on it.”

The four watched as Julie nodded before running out of the gym to get to the stage door.

“You gave her one of your songs?” Jordan asked the guitarist curiously.

“Yeah, we never got a chance to record it but it’s perfect for her voice.”

“Which song?” Jordan asked. She may have hated the band but there was no denying that their music was good and she had heard plenty of it over the years.

“Bright.”

“Oh, I love that one,” Jordan gushed before she realized what she was saying and who she was talking too. “I mean, it’s not as good as any of Apollo 81’s stuff but,” she tried to brush it off though she knew she had failed.

Thankfully, the boys decided to let it go as Julie had just stepped up to the piano.

“You got this!” Luke called out and Julie smiled, taking a breath to steel her nerves before starting the song.

“Damn, you should’ve added a piano part to this years ago,” Jordan noted quietly as they listened to Julie play. Luke nodded, watching the girl with awe.

“We should play with her,” he said turning to look excitedly at the other boys before raising a brow at Jordan, silently inviting her to join them.

“I don’t know the song.”

“Please, a talented musician like you can figure it out.” He spoke like he was teasing her however his eyes held a sincerity that had her chest swelling with pride.

She rolled her eyes but nodded, the four of them exchanging grins before poofing to the stage just in time for the chorus.

“And rise through the night, you and I. we will fight to shine together, bright forever,” A surprised grin took over Julie’s face as they materialized with their instruments, Jordan deciding on filing the rhythm guitar part. Julie jumped up from the piano, immediately taking center stage. For someone who, as far as Jordan knew, had never been in a band, the girl sure knew how to rock a stage. She had a major stage presence. “And rise, through the night, you and I. We will fight to shine together, bright forever.”

It felt so good to be back on a stage performing that it took them all a minute to realize that Julie’s classmates could see them. They all shared looks of shock, Luke instructing them to ‘just go with it’ as he jumped in for the second verse.

“In times that I doubted myself, I felt like I needed some help. Stuck in my head, with nothing left.” Luke turned to look at Jordan, gesturing the girl over to his mic with a head nod and Jordan grinned. Her voice joined his vocals as Julie continued to rock out with Reggie and Alex. “I feel something around me now. So unclear, lifting me out. I found the ground, I’m marching on.”

Jordan stepped back in time for Reggie to take over for the pre-chorus, grinning as she watched the two boys perform together for the first time in twenty-five years. It felt like magic to be up on that stage with them, her own styles mixing with that of Sunset Curve and Julie. Luke wasn’t kidding when he said she was a powerhouse. The two had immediate chemistry as well, Julie walking him to center stage as he started the bridge, the two rocking out together before the rest of them joined in for the chorus once more. Jordan had never been happier to sing backup, the girl’s vocals were killer.

The song was over much too soon for Jordan’s tastes. She was still buzzing with adrenaline as she slung her guitar to the side, taking a bow with the group. However, before they could finish soaking up the applause they vanished, reappearing at the side of the stage.

“Oh god, how is she gonna explain that?” Jordan groaned, looking anxiously between the three guys who looked about as clueless as she did.

“Wait, were those holograms?” A girl called out from the crowd and Julie let out the breath she was holding, quickly affirming the girl’s suspicions.

“Holograms? Like in Star Wars?” Reggie questioned, eyes wide, “Those are real now?”

“Apparently,” Luke answered, seemingly also in disbelief. “That’s wild, that they could see us when we were playing but not when the music stopped.”

“Ooh, we should double-check!” Reggie said, climbing up the stairs before wiggling his butt in front of the unfazed crowd. “Yeah, I don’t think they can see us.”

“I wish I couldn’t see you.” Alex deadpanned and Jordan snorted.

The guys were swept away with the crowd of students as they were dismissed from the gym, Reggie eagerly attempting to get one of the multi-colored girl’s number. Jordan stuck back as Julie spoke to her teacher, wanting to know if the girl got back into her program. However, she too was sidetracked as a small boy walked off the stage with a string bass, dragging it carelessly down the stairs.

“Oh, hell no.” She gasped, aggressively lecturing the boy as she followed him out of the gym despite knowing he couldn’t hear her. “That is no way to treat such a gorgeous instrument!”

She only stopped her passionate rant when she hit the hallway and noticed the guys there staring at her like she was crazy.

“You know he can’t hear you, right?” Luke asked slowly, like if he spoke too aggressively she would become more unhinged.

“You should’ve seen him drag that bass down the stairs! It was criminal,” she explained, before shouting down the hall at the boy, “Criminal!”

“O-kay,” Luke said, dramatically looking away from her and making circles with his finger near his head to signal her craziness to the guys.

“You’re a real comedian, Patterson,” she responded dryly and Luke laughed.

“Anyway, let’s go find Julie and talk about what just happened!”

They wandered around the school trying to locate their living friend. It felt weird to be back in a high school, especially one that had been so different from her own. Unlike the guys, none of Apollo 81 had dropped out of school for the band. This meant that they’d had to continuously bust their asses to get gigs and stay on top of their schoolwork; they didn’t have all afternoon to practice like Sunset Curve but Jordan always felt like they were better for it. Still, high school seemed to have changed considerably in the twenty-five years since her death. For starters, they definitely didn’t have a music program like Julie’s, sure there was band class but Jordan learned most of her musical skills outside of the school building.

“There weren’t this many people dressed like animals when we were in high school, right?” Jordan asked after accidentally walking through one of said students.

“Definitely not.” Alex answered, looking just as confused as she felt.

She knew they were dressed up like the school’s mascot, a blue bobcat, but she just couldn’t figure out why.

“Julie!” She called out once they finally located the girl, “What’s with all girls dressed like bobcats?”

Luke elbowed her in the side, stepping in front of her.

“Who cares!” He exclaimed, as if the words were bursting out of him uncontrolled, “Are we not gonna talk about what happened?!”

“Yeah, the whole school saw you. It’s kinda freaking me out,” Julie said, sounding like she still hadn’t quite come to terms with it.

“Okay good, cause it’s kinda freaking me out too,” Alex started, talking and moving with a manic energy. “Y’know, you could see us, and now people can see us whenever we play music. And my clothes are made of air, but for some reason I’m still getting a wedgie.”

Luke patted the blond on the back sympathetically while Jordan leaned passed the boy to stare at Alex concernedly.

“Dude, are you okay?”

“Nah,” Alex said airily, but waved off her concern.

“The important thing is that we rocked that place!” Luke interjected, rerouting the conversation. “They loved you!”

“Are you kidding?” Julie said excitedly, “They loved us!”

The group all shared proud smiles.

“That was a great song, Luke. Thanks,” Julie said sincerely and Luke grinned, blushing slightly.

“Did you see the cheerleaders looking at me? I think they were looking at me!” Reggie added excitedly and Luke grinned, matching his energy as the dark haired boy grabbed his face. “Please tell me they were looking at me.”

“Bro, they were looking at you!”

“Oh, I knew it!”

“I’m so- I’m so confused, y’know?” Alex spoke, taking the conversation back to his anxieties. “The afterlife should come with instructions, or a quick-start quite or something.”

“Seriously man, are you good?” Jordan asked again and Alex shrugged.

“Well, the good news is everyone thought you were holograms and I got back into the program.”

Julie’s announcement was met with a chorus of congratulations but the girl didn’t look very excited herself.

“Why do you look so bummed?” Reggie asked.

“Yeah, dude, you’re making this face,” Luke proceeded to do a poor reenactment of Julie’s expression.

“That is not my face,” Julie said pointedly and Jordan nodded in agreement while the guys all made noises of dissent, “And things just got weird between me and Flynn. She asked about you guys and I couldn’t say.”

“Sweet, girls are already talking about us,” Reggie said lowly and Luke high fived him.

“Stop it assholes,” Jordan sighed, smacking them both on the chest from her position between them. “This is serious!’

“Thanks Jordan,” Julie smiled sadly, “I can’t tell her about you guys for the same reason I can’t tell my dad; she’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end!”

“Well this dude definitely thinks you’ve gone off the deep-end,” Reggie said, pointing to the janitor who had just walked through Jordan. She shivered, still not used to the feeling of being made of air.

“I need to get to class,” Julie finally spoke once the disgruntled janitor had walked away.

“Later Julie,” Reggie called. “Ooh, and tell those cheerleaders I’m single!”

“Oh, and that he’s dead.” Alex quipped, earning a high five from Jordan.

“Nonono, leave that part out!” Reggie panicked. “Leave that- she’s gone.”

The rest of the group merely shook their heads at the boy’s antics before they all poofed home to the garage.

Part 4

___

Taglist: @oopsiedoopsie23

74 notes · View notes

a-dorin · 4 years

Text

the discovery - kylo ren

word count: 2,825

warnings: mentions of sex, cursing, teasing, some angst

a/n: this is the fourth part of my kylo ren series i have been writing. the first three parts are linked here! enjoy <3

summary: after kylo heads off to fulfill his daily duties as supreme leader, you receive a surprise visit from your guards, along with the return of your droid. you begin to experiment with your thoughts, which leads to you uncovering some shocking information about you and your abilities.

you felt soft lips press against your collarbone, causing you to stir. blearily, you opened your eyes, adjusting to the dim light. the only light filtered in through the viewports, provided by the stars.

“good morning,” you murmured, sleep still thick in your voice.

“good morning, angel,” kylo gave your neck another small kiss, his morning voice ragged.

god, you loved the way he sounded in the morning. it was just so attractive to you. you wished you could hear it all the time, as it was about an octave lower than it normally was. it almost sounded the same as his voice when it was modulated by his mask. you didn’t want to admit it, but you also enjoyed the way kylo sounded when he wore his mask. it was just too attractive to you.

“what time is it?” you snuggled into kylo’s warm chest, adjusting your head so that it fell directly on kylo’s heart.

his heartbeat was rhythmic, thudding softly in his chest. it was slow, providing you comfort as cuddled kylo, grateful for the warmth radiating off his body. you couldn’t see, but kylo’s cheeks were a slight tinge pink. your action surprised him for a second, but he was adoring every minute of it now. the sight of you in his embrace filled him with a warm happiness. you didn’t realize it, but you were the man’s muse. his greatest weakness.

“about six-thirty in the morning,” he answered, kissing the top of your head.

kylo began to run his fingers through your soft hair, inhaling your scent. it reminded him of wildflowers, which he adored. he even caught of a trace of his scent on you, which he loved even more. it only reminded him the night before.

“it’s too early,” you whined, pouting.

“i have duties to attend to,” he rumbled, “you can stay here, if you wish.”

“but you won’t be with me,” a sigh escaped your lips.

“oh i will be,” kylo countered, “i hate to do this, but i really must go, angel. i still have to shower, dress, and gather my paperwork for today.”

“it can waitttt,” you rolled your body so you were now on top of kylo, your head level with his.

kylo’s eyes peered past your head, licking his lower lip as his hands ran down the sides of your body. you hadn’t been up long and you were already tempting the supreme leader, as your thighs were illuminated in the dim light. you lips were slightly swollen, and love bites trailed down your neck. kylo brought his hand to your neck, brushing the hair out of the way.

“don’t tempt me,” he smirked, enticed by the darkness of the marks. the whole ship would know how you were his, and he enjoyed the thought of it too much.

“how noticeable are they?” you raised a brow.

kylo’s eyes met yours, “pretty noticeable baby.”

you couldn’t help but melt at the nickname. yet, you tried holding your composure, “i’m going to kill you.”

“you won’t,” kylo countered your tone with a smug smile.

without warning, kylo held you tightly against his chest as he rolled over, pinning you to the mattress. his lips met yours, kissing you forcefully. his tongue swiped your bottom lip, and he sucked on it slightly. you whined softly, turning him on even more.

“i have to go,” his voice was ragged as he pulled away.

a frown formed, “do you want me to complete any tasks for you today?”

kylo shook his head, “if i do, i’ll reach out to you.”

“do you have to go?” you hated how desperate kylo left you. how he made you ache for his touch. how even the sound of his voice made you flustered. how his kisses left you breathless.

“i do,” kylo gave you one last kiss. he got off the bed, heading towards the refresher.

you sighed loudly, pulling the cover over you. the sound of the water from the shower filled the room, almost lulling you to sleep. five minutes passed, and soon kylo’s footsteps entered the room once more. you rolled over, peering over at him.

his muscles in his back rippled as he opened the door of his wardrobe, searching for a tunic. droplets of water glittered on his skin in the dim light, and his black hair was messy. your breath hitched in your throat as you watched him retrieve pants, his towel hanging dangerously low on his hips.

kylo got dressed quickly, wrapping his cape over his shoulders. you continued to watch sneakily as he retrieved his paperwork for the day. it must have been a slow day, full of meetings. kylo muttered to himself as he laced up his boots, the words too low for you to understand. within thirty seconds, he was out the door, his mask shielding his face.

minutes later, loud knocking startled you. hesitantly, you slipped out of the bed, kylo’s tunic hanging loosely on your body. you reached the doors, pulling them open. bubba and phoenix stood at the doorway, jet at their feet.

“holy shit!” phoenix gasped, pressing a hand to his helmet.

“you look drained,” bubba remarked, “did the supreme leader a little too rough with you last night?”

“thank you,” you rolled your eyes, “good morning to you too.”

“we’re just teasing,” phoenix raised his hands in defense, “can we come in?”

“are you allowed to?” you snorted.

“sure we are,” bubba nodded, the two troopers walking into the quarters. jet followed their lead, whistling excitedly when you kneeled, giving him a tight hug.

“i missed you too,” you whispered, placing a soft kiss on his head, “did everything get fixed?”

“yes ma'am,” phoenix answered, “brand new parts and everything. only the best for you and your droid, jet. he’s a cute little fellow.”

“be careful,” you stood, smirking, “he can kill you both.”

“THAT THING CAN KILL?” bubba shouted, pointing to jet.

“uh yeah?” you raised a brow, “it’s in his programming. it’s not his first duty, but he is a class four security droid. jet’s main duty is to protect me. my father bought him from a man involved in some smuggling droid ring. jet was almost scrapped for parts until my father stepped in. ever since, he’s bonded with me. he can take someone out, i promise. i’ve seen it.”

“oh wow,” phoenix gawked at jet, kneeling to the floor, “you’re really cool, little guy.”

“he doesn’t like ‘little guy’,” the two soldiers both glanced at one another, as if saying fuck simultaneously, “but he does allow it, since he is smaller than most droids.”

phoenix stood back up, dusting off his knee, “the thing i can’t believe, however, is how you literally had sex in that bed. how was it? is he hung?”

you almost choked, “phoenix.”

“sorry,” he coughed, “we should probably get out of here, though. we just wanted to bring jet to you, and ask you how last night was.”

“the two of you are pretty nosy,” you huffed, crossing your arms.

“we’re your best friends,” bubba protested, “we just want to be in the know!”

bubba did have a point. the only three people you knew on the ship were kylo, bubba, and phoenix. you hadn’t really been in contact with many others. you wondered if it was kylo’s orders or if it was because you hadn’t ventured out much. it was slightly difficult, as your time had been spent with strictly kylo.

“can i tell you guys at breakfast?” you raised your brow.

the boys nodded enthusiastically, “of course! do whatever you need to do, then just buzz for us on that intercom when you’re ready.”

“what intercom?”

“the one on the wall over there,” phoenix nodded at the wall behind you, “don’t worry, it’s not broadcasted over the entire ship. we have special radios in our armor. our contacts are on that list attached to the wall. just buzz one of us, and we’ll swing back through here. sound good?”

“yep!” you gushed, “i’ll see the two of you soon.”

phoenix and bubba waved goodbye, exiting kylo’s quarters. the doors closed, the echo filling the room. you let out a sigh when you realized you had no clean clothes to change into. maybe you could just wear kylo’s tunic temporarily till you were back at your own quarters. but what were you going to do about underwear and pants?

marching towards a mirror on the wall, you inspected your reflection. when you saw it, an audible gasp fell out of your mouth. your hair wasn’t messy, which was good. however, a trail of love bites were painted down the side of your neck, ending on your collarbone. they weren’t light either. they were a deep purple, with tones of pinks. you swallowed, your fingertips subconsciously grazing over your skin.

“fuck.” you mumbled as you lifted up the tunic to see more marks all over your chest. there were a few leading down to the waistband of your underwear, but they were already faded.

the thing was, you didn’t even remember kylo being that rough with you. the sex between the two of you was gentle, as it was kylo’s first time. who knew what kylo was capable of as he got more experienced. you shuddered slightly, secretly enjoying the way kylo marked you up.

as more light entered the room, a gleaming object came from the corner of your eye. you turned, focusing in on it. it was shiny, and small as it sat on kylo’s desk on the opposite side of the room. your curiosity compelled you to check it out, stepping towards the desk.

as you got closer, the object looked like an ordinary hunk of shiny dark metal. you picked it up, inspecting it. however, a small realization washed over you as you held it, feeling the cool metal creeping into your skin.

you were holding kylo ren’s lightsaber. his prized weapon. you swallowed, trying to find the button to turn it on. thirty seconds later, you found it, the lightsaber crackling as it came to to life. the room glowed a slight red color as you held it, illuminating your face. in awe, you flicked your wrist in a few experimental movements. the lightsaber followed, humming.

put that down. kylo’s deep voice rumbled in your thoughts, startling you. you let out a yelp, the saber creating a loud clanging sound as it thudded on the floor.

you pouted, a small feeling of guilt washing over you as kylo caught you in your act. it’s not like you meant to find it. he was the one who left it laying there in the first place. also, you were drawn to the saber by an unknown force. maybe it was the force itself. you were unsure.

“how come you never let me in your head?” you asked the question aloud, challenging kylo.

you have to be patient. kylo was more gentle this time. i’ll train you, angel. i promise. we might even have time to train today. it will come naturally to you, with time.

kylo’s words were reassuring, and you felt slightly better about being scolded. the thought of a training session excited you, especially since kylo was the one teaching you. he was going to be your master.

sighing, you sat on kylo’s bed. jet was speeding through the room, inspecting it for security. you giggled to yourself, watching jet as he checked every inch of the room for he slightest sign of danger.

you closed your eyes, your mind wandering to kylo. maybe if you concentrated, you would be able to see him. after all, you longed to see him again, more than anything. his absence was creating a gaping hole in your thoughts.

suddenly, you were transported to a cold room, the air hitting your exposed skin. you shivered, goosebumps covering your body. the room was full of other first order generals, engineers, etc. it appeared to you to be the control room of the ship, as there were mass amounts of control panels. kylo sensed your sudden presence, turning around. pure shock filled his face, his lips parted, an eyebrow raised.

“can you see me?” in fact, you could see kylo clearly. he was without his mask, which was surprising to you. from the moment you met him, you knew he didn’t take it off often, if at all, around others.

“yes.”

kylo gazed at you, his eyes traveling down your figure, wandering back up to meet your eyes. he swallowed, “the sight of you is too much to handle right now.”

“am i being a distraction?” you frowned.

“no,” kylo shook his head, “they can’t see you. only i can.”

“oh,” you sucked in a breath, “well, i’ll leave you be.”

“actually,” he put out a hand, “i’m going to excuse myself from my duties momentarily. we need to talk.”

after his statement, you snapped open your eyes, sitting up on the bed, alarmed. what the hell just happened to you? how could you see kylo so clearly? why did he need to talk to you?

confusion overwhelmed you, making your mind buzz. as soon as you searching for answers in your head, kylo entered the room. he closed the doors, and faced you, “you’re more powerful than i thought.”

“what do you mean?” his statement worried you. what power was he referring to?

“you’re more force sensitive than i initially believed,” kylo repeated, placing his hands on your shoulders, “(y/n) (y/l/n), who were your parents?”

“they were nobodies,” you were quiet, “i was raised on a neutral planet. my parents were just civilians. my father worked as a medic, and my mother was involved with childcare.”

“do they have ties with the siths or jedis?” kylo’s eyes desperately searched yours for answers.

“kylo,” your lip trembled, “what are you talking about?”

“i knew you were special because of several visions i have witnessed,” he led you to the bed, sitting down, “something within me, the force, drew me to you. i just knew i had to find you. there’s a special bond between us, (y/n), and it was created by the force. do you know what the force is?”

“isn’t that a myth? isn’t it a bedtime story to tell little children?”

“no,” kylo shook his head, “the force is not a myth. it is very real. it’s the reason why we’re so drawn to one another. it’s the reason why i can see your thoughts, and you can view mine. the force is so powerful and mysterious, even i, someone who has been trained by a jedi master, cannot understand it. in time, we will learn more. we will learn about this bond together. i can promise you that i never intend to leave your side, (y/n). this all must be extremely overwhelming and confusing to you, and i apologize. but this is the best way i can explain it all to you.”

“it’s still pretty confusing,” the amount of information kylo just told you was extremely overwhelming. it caused you to panic, your palms beginning to clam up. your internal temperature rose, causing a small sweat to form on your forehead. you bit your lip, careful not to meet kylo’s eyes.

“you don’t have to be strong,” he murmured, placing a hand on your thigh, “it’s okay. i’m here.”

tears streamed down your cheeks, and you broke down. you were scared. in fact, you were beyond scared. you were terrified. what did this all mean? what was the force? what was a jedi? why were you, of all people in the universe, chosen to have this special bond with a man who was tied to the dark side?

kylo wrapped you in his arms, holding you tightly against his chest. soft, gentle kisses peppered your forehead as you sobbed in his arms, “i’m right here, (y/n). i’m here.”

“i’m scared,” you cried.

“please don’t be frightened,” his words soothed you, “you’re so so special, (y/n). i wish you could see yourself how i see you.”

“but you don’t feel that way, it’s that stupi-”

“don’t you dare start,” kylo’s tone shifted to frustration, “even though we possess a bond created by the force, i am the one who dictates my emotions. this hasn’t changed the way i feel about you. from the moment i saw you, i knew you were the most beautiful woman i had ever seen. i’m still attracted to you, in more ways than just the force.”

his words eased some of your anxiety, the feeling dissolving. you nuzzled your head into his chest, grateful for his presence. you glanced up, noticing kylo’s small smile.

“after all, you’re doing something to me that no woman has done before.”

“and that is?” a blush spread onto your cheeks.

“you’re making me fall for you.”

a/n: ummmm.. so i’m in love when it comes to writing about phoenix and bubba. would anyone want to read their backstories? i feel like they would be really interesting! and if you want me to add you to my tag list, lemme know !

tagged list: @kpatz @lookinsidemyhead @bqbyl0n

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren fanfiction #kylo ren x y/n #kylo ren fluff #kylo ren #kylo ren smut #ben solo #star wars x reader #star wars #kylo ren imagine #kylo #star wars imagine #the rise of skywalker #the last jedi #the force awakens

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coreastories · 4 years

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Royal Triangle? Gong Shin will buy your house and touch your queen

Gong Shin, world-renowned Corean actor and philanthropist, 40, and soon probably persona non grata in his own country, just bought the royal penthouse in Brent Hills

I exaggerate-- the king isn’t petty like that, and he has spoken about admiring Gong Shin

But Gong Shin touched the queen and this author can’t help making ridiculous commentary

The royal penthouse, if you recall, was sold in auction for the benefit of the World Food Programme

Gong Shin had the winning bid, a cool 50 billion won (oh my gods) or $41 million

Coreans are wealthy bastards-- forgive me, I’m just jealous

The bidding started at 8 billion won and incrementally went up to 4 times that amount (36 billion) when a bid came in for 50 billion

And the auction ended right there, ladies and gentlemen

The king and queen, as promised, matched the amount and added it to their pledged $3 billion donation, and now the World Food Programme is 3 billion and 82 million dollars richer.

However, Coreans “rounded off” that amount to 4 billion dollars through the kingdom’s National Interior Revenue

This author is a little light-headed at all these billions and millions

As required, Gong Shin pre-qualified to the auction through donations to Greenpeace and several foundations and research organizations for multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, and childhood and adolescent leukemia

The handover of the property and keys were public. We knew this. The purpose was for awareness so that Coreans can make more donations to worthy causes. Several foundations had booths at the venue.

The king and queen attended. We DID NOT know this. The screams were deafening, and it’s a testament to the popularity of this royal couple that their people cheered more loudly for them than for the absolute hunk, Gong Shin.

Of course, the king can always give Gong Shin a run for his money.

And not in auction, I mean.

There was a very short program so that the focus is on the charitable organizations. The keys were handed over by the property management executives. And then the queen surprised us by going on stage and delivering a short message.

It was amazing how fast the crowd hushed when they saw she was about to speak. This author had goosebumps. These people love their queen.

“Hello. His Majesty and I are happy to see you here, and we’re very thankful and proud of you for helping the World Food Programme. We hope you continue to help where needed. Let’s do our part everyday to make this world even the tiniest bit better.”

Then she made that characteristic chin tuck and the crowd roared.

Now that the queen was on-stage, members of the media raised their cameras hopefully, but without making demands.

The queen gratified us all by posing for photographs. Well, she didn’t do much but allow us to capture her standing there. So gorgeous in her simplicity and loose, flowing hair.

I’m not crazy about that dress. It’s Valentino but it’s awful. No matter, the queen more than made up for it with her sweet face.

And then the scandal of the evening, dear reader.

Gong Shin broke protocol and touched the queen.

He seemed to remember himself and immediately removed his hand and arm, but it was still already too late.

Gong Shin bowed to the queen, to the king, and then tried to salvage the situation with his own innate charm.

The queen brushed it off.

The organizers nervously changed the subject.

And all of us looked at the king.

He’s king, of course, the master of diplomacy.

But everyone can tell that he is NOT happy.

Oh dear, oh dear.

A similar breach of protocol happened before, but that was the queen actually hugging the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister simply responding.

This is different.

The Royal Public Affairs Office, with its dignity flying high, didn’t respond to our requests for comment about this incident. Of course that’s a statement in itself. This is nothing.

I never really expected for life to be so interesting when I was assigned to Corea, but I’m so in love with my life here, dear readers.

Stay tuned for updates! For now, we can let our imaginations work.

I hope Gong Shin is all right. The people are not happy.

Editor’s Note: After publication, this office received news of Gong Shin’s official statement.

“I sincerely apologize to Their Majesties for the breach of protocol. Her Majesty was too kind and generous in assuring me I’m forgiven. I have also received a very generous note from the palace, from His Majesty the King, telling me I have no reason to be anxious.

“I am thankful, and I only hope the people of Corea forgive me, too, and sympathize with how I was too dazzled by the queen to remember what I can’t and shouldn’t do. I’m afraid I’m used to making these simple gestures with my co-stars or co-hosts. It was a momentary and silly lapse when I was with the queen, and I’m truly sorry and hugely embarrassed.”

Awwwwww. Corea, you should absolutely forgive this adorable man.

I think someone has just declared his crush in public. Again, awwww.

#CoreaNews #CoreaFiction #i'm giggling like a lunatic #some Goblin reference for giggles #gong yoo kim shin in corea #the king eternal monarch #the king: eternal monarch #leeeul #mineun #gong yoo #kim go eun #jeong tae eul #lee gon #lee min ho

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ilguna · 4 years

Text

Metanoia - Chapter Three (f.o)

Summary: you will be crowned victor of the 75th hunger games.

Word Count; 5.8k

Warnings; swearing

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

The alarm clock isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it isn’t the most flattering either. Listening to what sounds like screaming birds is not how you anticipated it would sound in the slightest. You tried to get it to go off last night to see what you were getting yourself into. But the clock outsmarted you.

Rolling over, you slam your hand onto it for the hundredth time in frustration, this time getting the button square on. You’re not sure how you missed it before, but clearly you were too drowsy to coordinate your movements. You get onto your elbows, pulling yourself closer to the clock as you turn it off entirely.

A sigh leaves your lips as you throw the blankets off of you. The air is surprisingly warm, enough to the point where you don’t feel cold, and you’re not swelteringly hot. The technology here in the Capitol truly is amazing, you might just have to stay here again after you win.

You head over to the dresser, pulling out a new pair of underwear and a sports bra that won’t irritate your shoulders because of the material. Next is the tank top and the pair of stretchy leggings--yoga leggings, is what you think people call them. All you know is that they’re incredibly comfortable and soft.

You head to the bathroom, catching a small glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You go through the drawers, brushing your teeth while simultaneously brushing your hair, and then tying it out of the way. Three minutes later and you have the shower running, your teeth are brushed, and you’re heading inside.

You take a cold shower to get your blood running. It’s also a good exercise that you learned about. You never know if the water in the arena is going to be warm or not, and if you build up a sort of tolerance, then it isn’t as shocking. However, there’s no way you think you’ll find yourself swimming for fun.

You avoid getting your hair wet at all costs, wanting to leave that up to the prep team that will greet you in less than an hour. You clean your body again, washing everything that you can think of. By the time you’re getting out, your skin is a light shade of pink and you smell like sugar.

You pull on your clothes quickly, being sure to pick up the necklace that Tanith gave you some time ago. You don’t put it on, since you need to give it to Neysa so that she can get it approved for the games. It’s better than having nothing inside of the arena to fiddle with.

Deciding to go barefoot, you leave the bedroom and enter the main room. It has the kitchen, dining room and living room all in one. Off to the right stands an avox near a cart with drinks, as Neysa sits at the table with a cup of coffee.

Neysa glances up at you when you get closer, eyebrows raised, “You’re up on time.”

“The alarm clock they have is annoying.” You say, “I’m tempted to break it.”

“They’ll just replace it.” Neysa sips her coffee.

“I bet they would.” you take a seat across from her, but don’t make a move to touch anything on the plates, “How much time do I have?”

“Until Brutus is out.”

“Is he awake?”

“Yes.” she says.

It won’t take too terribly long, then. Guys don’t really take that much time to get ready, he should be out in less than thirty minutes. In the meantime, you watch the television that’s behind Neysa. It’s a montage, more or less.

Getting up now, you’re curious. You turn up the volume and stand in front of it with your arms crossed, wondering what it’s on about. Across the bottom of the program it explains that it’s the tribute parades from each tribute that is in the Quarter Quell. It starts with the oldest, District Four’s very own Mags Flannagan.

She looks young, you’d take a guess of no younger than sixteen. She was pretty, a tribute that is very clearly capable of winning the games. As the camera zooms, there’s a fire in her eyes, but it’s also filled with wonder. Being inside of the Capitol can do that to you.

Next to follow is Woof, which isn’t very much of a surprise. After Woof is Seeder, Beetee, the girl from nine, and then Chaff. The guys from five and nine, Wiress, and Brutus. Then there’s Blight, Cecelia, the girls from ten and five, both from six. Then it hits Gloss, then Cashmere, the guy from ten. You appear, then it’s Finnick, Johanna, and Katniss and Peeta.

It’s weird to watch as the quality slowly gets better. After binging all of their games last night, you know that Mags’ games was the eleventh one, which is a long ass time ago. The age range of these games is surely unfair, but it's going to be an advantage. It’s as high as eighty and as low as seventeen.

Unfortunately most of these tributes are still fit, or they’ve been preparing themselves recently for the Quarter Quell. Whether they’d get picked or not, it didn’t matter. At the time, they just wanted to be in the correct physical shape. You’re sure the ones that did take that precaution are patting themselves on the back.

Considering that the Capitol is showing off these parades, you can only assume that they’ll be doing the same thing with all the major events. Like the training scores, the interviews and possibly even the beginning of the games. You can’t lie, it’s cool that they’re doing this.

“I’m ready.” you hear.

You turn to see that Brutus is definitely ready to go. He’s dressed in similar clothing to yours, but it’s nowhere near matching. Neysa pushes herself up from the table, setting down her mug, “Okay, let’s get a move on, then.”

“What about Edmond?” Brutus asks.

“(Y/n) scared him off. He’s still here, just not… here…” Neysa says, you smile proudly, “As for Theo, he’s going to be sitting back for a while.”

“Sounds good to me.” you say, then you remember the necklace in your hand, “Hey, I need you to get this through approval.”

You pass it over to Neysa as you all start out of the apartment. She doesn’t look over it too long, tucking it into a pocket of her slacks. You all get into the elevator, Neysa presses the button, and you head right on down.

“Do me a favor and not piss off the prep teams.” Neysa says.

“The Capitol is practically my home.” you tell her, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Theo would beg to differ.” Brutus snickers, and you join in.

Neysa doesn’t say anything, but you have a feeling she enjoyed that joke.

She leads you to your room first, and then takes Brutus away. Almost immediately, you’re swept into the sterile grooming room. The first thing that comes out of one of the guys mouth is a compliment on your tattoos. He’s in absolute awe for a moment, like he can’t believe that you’ve got sleeves on both arms, and then tattoos scattered around after that.

You got them all as soon as you got your first check from the Capitol after your victory. You just wanted to have something specially done, something permanent, and the Capitol delivered better than you thought they would. The ink hasn’t budged or faded even after eight years of wear and tear. There’s a few places where it’s a bit wonky because you cut yourself by accident or something. Other than that, they’re all as good as the day you got them.

The tattoos started with meaning, memorials for your family members, your left arm has only flowers with names on them. People that meant a lot to you. Your grandparents, parents, aunt, uncles, cousins, and siblings. Big and small, flourishing, or forever stuck in a bud.

As for your right arm… a little more sadistic, you have to admit that. But everyone has it in them, and it’s a constant reminder. Getting skulls with the names of the tributes you killed was your way of growing up. They’re with you forever now. There’s candles, and little tokens that remind you of their district by their skull.

They’re not colorful, they’re dull. Black and white. A funeral. A tribute out to them. Death is never a thing to really celebrate.

At the beginning of your forearm after your elbow and down, it’s a blank canvas, unfinished. Whereas up, it has all the names and the tributes. You thought that it being unfinished was just fine, but now that you’re going back into the games, you’ll undoubtedly have to continue down to your wrist, and maybe beyond to the back of your hand.

This is a good time to mention that the soulmate words aren’t on your death arm, it’s on the flowery one… which could be considered as the other death arm, since your family is all dead, there’s no one living. Even when you were a teenager, you were smart enough to keep the loved ones on the side with the soulmate, since they would one day be a loved one too.

Anyway, those aren’t the only tattoos you have. You’ve got others littered around your body, meaningless ideas that you would come up with. When you’d have a handful of ideas, you’d get the tattoos done, and then go back to District Two. It’s why the governor isn’t too happy with you.

The prep team finally pulls themselves together, and gets to work. You don’t complain with anything that they do, you mainly just listen to the talk between each other. How they’re so excited about the games, and all the tributes that were pulled and volunteered. They’re already taking bets on a few of you guys.

They try to keep quiet, but they’re mostly buzzed about the careers--you guys--Finnick, Johanna and the recent winners. Everyone else can basically go fuck themselves, is what you’re getting. They have good taste, you’ll have to admit that. They like the more vicious victors. If you didn’t win by being ruthless, then you might as well be chopped liver. They want entertainment, not boredom. Even Beetee’s games were a favorite just because of the creativity.

“Oh, you’re going to be so eye-catching.” one of the guys sighs, “Stunning…”

“Sure.” you say.

After that, they give you one more look-down from head to toe. They make sure your skin is completely smooth and they haven’t missed anything. They twirl your hair between their fingers to make sure it’s silky and full of life again like they’ve intended. They even sigh because of the whole perfume you’re giving off in general.

Finally, they get you to the room where you’ll wait for your stylist. You sit on the edge of the metal table, robe already pulled on. You don’t care what the stylist wants, you’re tired of sitting around naked. You’re ready to be put in whatever god-awful outfit you’ll be given this year.

It’s quite a while of silence. Of being in this small room that you’d consider to be a prison holding cell. Even if you’ve never been in one personally, you think you can take a couple of guesses on what it feels like. The vibrations it gives off. And just like a prison, this is nowhere near welcoming.

You never feel anxious, but you’re beginning to get a bubbling feeling in your stomach, almost making you feel sick. You’d swear it’s because of the fact that you haven’t eaten all day, but that’s nowhere near close. The prep team guys have been feeding you each time you’ve requested something, understanding your struggle or whatever.

No, this feeling is completely new. It doesn’t belong to you.

“Stop already.” you whine, brushing your hair out of your face.

You almost want to punch your stomach to get your mind taken off of it. You don’t know how it’s even allowed for their emotion to overpower yours. It’s disgusting. And you don’t know why all of a sudden they’ve decided to exist. They couldn’t have appeared any other time?

Whoever they are, they’re nervous and they’re making you feel sick. You have to get off of the metal table to pace around the room, taking deep breaths and wiping the sweat off of your forehead when it starts to appear in droplets.

The door then swings open, revealing your stylist. A woman, shorter than you are, but she looks like she knows what she’s doing, competent. She’s got her skin stained a bubblegum pink, but wears a complete white outfit like she walked out of the gates of heaven.

“Anxious?” she asks, looking you over.

“No, impatient.” you tell her, “It took you long enough.”

“Neysa said you had a mouth on you.” she looks you up and down, “Guess I’m not surprised. My name is Amias.”

“(Y/n).”

She nods, motioning for you to follow her. You lag behind a tad, not trusting the new room you’re walking into. You scan it over, wondering if you’re going to see your costume for this afternoon, but you don’t.

“Put these on.” she says, holding out a matching set of black underwear, “We’ll be moving rooms in a moment, the prep team is fixing the disaster.”

“Matching outfits with Brutus?” you ask, pulling on the high-waisted underwear.

“Of course.” Amias is standing at the door with a window, looking out of it, “Armor, which I’m sure you’re not new to.”

You untie the robe, draping it over the side of the couch while you fix the bra, “No one is. It’s the only thing stylists seem to do every year, just a new variation. Tell me, am I going to be naked?”

“Nowhere close.” She says, “I’m not new to designing, but I am new to District Two. Needless to say I have some ideas I’d like to try out.”

“I’m not a one-size-fits-all.” you inform her.

“They’re all in your size.” She says, looking at you now, “Fix the right strap and throw the robe on again, unless you’re willing to walk through the halls like that.”

Not bothering with the robe, you follow behind her. Amias doesn’t seem bothered, unlocking the door and then heading straight to the right. The hallway is completely empty for a couple of seconds, until a door opens, and a stylist steps out, with someone trailing behind her.

It takes you a moment before you realize who it is.

Finnick looks you up and down impressively, a little smile hinting at the corners of his lips, “Nice tattoos.”

“Nice pendant.” you retort, jerking your left arm away from him as he passes so he doesn’t touch you.

Amias brings you right into a fancy room that’s lit up fairly well. There’s no overhead lights, only lamps that sit in the corners, and one that sits by a chair. Around the room are mannequins that have the different outfits on them. The prep team stands by, prepared for whatever Amias might order them to do.

She definitely expected you to head towards the chair, but you shut the door and stand in front of the mannequins instead. You take in every single outfit, one by one. They’re armor, that’s for sure. But they’re cleverly designed like they’re trying to give off a different mood for each one.

A smile grows on your face, “Am I allowed to pick?”

“I thought we could do that last,” Amias comes over, “Do you have one in mind?”

You run your fingers over the leather, “Yes, this one.”

The top is grey and it ends mid-rib, it’s cloth and not actual metal. The gold metal is on the shoulders in layers. The bottoms are brown and high-waisted, and the heeled boots that go with it, are up to your knees, also gold. There’s splashes of maroon and grey here and there to compliment the scheme.

“Good taste.” Amias says.

“Thanks.” you move towards the chair now, taking your seat in it, “Have at me.”

The prep team starts almost immediately. They pin your hair up into a bun on the back of your head, pulling out some hair here and there to dangle in your face, and in the back. They curl them, and then move on as quickly as they started.

To hold it all in place, they pull out some hairspray, covering your face. When they get out of the way of the mirror, you can see that your hair is glittery. Like gold flecks all over your hair to match with the gold armor.

“I wish I could have done something much more greek.” Amias says, she’s pulling the outfit off of the mannequin, “Unfortunately, I was told that’s what District One is into.” she makes eye contact with you in the mirror, “I would say I’m bummed, but a warrior is much more interesting, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think I’m going to be the most eye catching thing out there,” you say, “With everyone that has been picked.”

“You’ll find a way.” Amias says, “Neysa tells me you’re smart. You’re independent, speak your mind. You don’t deal with anything. She said that you’ll get your way one way or another. I’m counting on it.”

“Neysa likes to talk a lot.”

“She was just telling me more about you.” Amias lightly defends, “But you are right.”

The makeup is also gold-inspired. They make your face shimmer with all the highlight that they add to your nose, cheeks and forehead. Every way you turn your head, you can see the sparkle.

“Good?” the one doing your makeup asks.

“Yes.” you say, tilting your head as you continue to stare.

They move onto jewelry, which isn’t that big of a surprise. Everything is gold. The sword earrings, the solid choker that is just a bar around your neck. The upper arm bracelet that they set on the vanity for after you put on the costume.

Speaking of which, Amias takes a part of the clothing off one by one, and puts it on you instead. Starting with the bottoms, and then the armored boots that go to your knees. The final touch is the top, which you’d thought would be heavy and bulky, but it’s surprisingly light. Either it’s not real gold, or it’s just very thin.

“Move around for me.” Amias says.

You follow her directions without complaint. This is her job after all, she’s doing her best to make sure that you look great, and eye-catching enough for the Capitol citizens. You’re going to want to be drawing in sponsors like crazy, and this is the main way to go about it.

You stop when she allows it, standing in front of the vanity. You stare at yourself while the prep team makes the final adjustments, and Amias cleans up the room. You don’t want to be out there too early, waiting for the horses. Although, you can imagine that you’ll be out there with plenty of time to spare, considering the time you actually got in here.

While you wait, you do a series of positions to stand in, wondering about which would be the best to work with while you’re on the chariot. You turn your body some, having one foot out further than the other. You try with both feet together, and even turning in the direction where Brutus would hypothetically be.

It isn’t until you pull a stool in front of you and put your foot in it, playing around, when you realize that this is familiar. The look is familiar. So, you continue to try and find the one spot that will click the memory. The second that your arm is in the air, hand enclosed in a fist, while your other is on your hip, you realize.

You look like you’re about to go to war. All those pictures in the history books had things similar to this. You should be yelling the words ‘to war!’ or something dumb like that. Leading an entire army to take over the land, claim your spot.

And the funniest thing is, you are. You are in a war right now, with every single tribute. You’re competing for the most sponsors. You’re competing to be the favorite. You’re competing to be the winner of the seventy-fifth hunger games. The Quarter Quell.

You get your foot off of the stool and kick it back into place, “I’m bored of being in here.”

“You’re free to leave.”

“Wasn’t asking.” you say, moving to the door as you almost throw it open.

The entire training center building might be new, since they rebuilt it and upgraded everything that was inside. But the layout is still basically the same, you don’t need the help of Amias or anyone to get to the chariot. It’s around a couple of corners and through a wide hallway, and suddenly you’re where everyone else is.

You take a look around, determined to see who all is standing out here right now. Your eyes catch first on Finnick, who seems to have the same idea as you do, and catches your eye almost immediately. A small smirk comes over his face, and you turn your head away from him in response.

No wonder he’s out here so quickly, he’s half naked. But as you go over to your chariot with Brutus, you can see that he’s not much better. Cashmere and Gloss look great, though. Their stylist must be proud.

“(Y/n).” Cashmere sings, her mouth drops open a little, “Gosh, that is amazing.”

“You look better, I can promise you.” you tell her, being sure to place your back to where you just walked out of, so you can keep a good eye on the people that continue to come out.

Also so no one can sneak up behind you.

“Do you guys have any ideas on allies?” Gloss asks.

Brutus whistles, “(Y/n) is being difficult.”

“I’m really not. Not wanting Finnick Odair as an ally should be common sense.” you glare in his direction, just in time to watch him pop something into his mouth.

“Common sense?” Cashmere laughs, “He’s a career for a reason.”

“You take him, you’re taking Mags.” You tell her, “Pick your poison.”

“She wouldn’t be too hard to handle.” Brutus says.

“If you’re talking about killing her, any of these guys are easy to handle.”

You give a look to Gloss, “You’re only saying that because you got mediocre muscles at best, and you’re tall. You’re not really that special, even Cashmere is way past your shoulders now.”

“She’s still shorter than me.”

“So am I, and I’m pretty sure I could kill you before you can spell the word ‘moron’.”

“Who pissed in your cereal?” Gloss asks.

“Neither of us really ate today. Early start.” Brutus tells him.

“Just to look like that?” Cashmere mutters.

Your eyes land on her, “I’ll give you bravery points for saying it to my face, unfortunately it wasn’t loud enough. Say it again.”

Cashmere doesn’t look embarrassed, “Just to look like that?”

“You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“You told me I looked amazing.” Cashmere looks smug.

“I lied.” you enunciate the words.

The four of you are all staring at each other for a long moment, until you’re tired of staring at their faces and decide to walk somewhere else instead. You’re half-tempted to go and shoot your shot with Katniss Everdeen, but you end up at your chariot instead.

If you make that proposal with Katniss, then that means you’ll have to bring Deadweight with you. You’re sure he’s at least somewhat of a decent fighter, but you’re not willing to take a chance like that. You’d rather know ahead of time, and after watching his games yesterday for the research purposes--he’s not very good with anything.

Incompetent.

“So, was the outfit purposely designed to show off your tattoos, or was it all a coincidence?”

Your glaring eyes are suddenly turned to none other than Finnick Odair, who has a smile on his face as usual. Oh, how much you wish you could smack it off of his fucking face. Imagine how pretty it would be to go into the tribute parade with a nice pink hand mark on his cheek.

You’d get in trouble, though. And since you’re trying to win the favor of the people around you, and not push them away, you cross your arms and clench your fists.

“I can’t wait to add you to my graveyard, Odair.” you snap.

“Is that so?” Finnick asks, he leans to his left slightly, like he’s trying to get a better look of your right arm, “You’ll have to catch me first.”

“It’ll be easy, since you’ll be caring for grandma over there.” you jerk your head, not moving your eyes.

“Oh really?”

Finally, you look at Finnick. It’s not hard to spot when someone is feigning interest in a conversation. ‘Is that so’ and ‘oh really’ is what you say when you’re trying to get out of one.

“What do you want from me?”

“Hmm?” Finnick hums, his eyes are squinted, and he’s staring at your left arm now, “Who’s Paesyn?”

Your arms are out of being crossed within seconds, and you draw your arm back and swing so fast that you’re surprised that Finnick had even had time to catch your wrist. You’re mere inches from his face, any faster and that bright pink hand mark would be on his face, just like you desired.

“You’re hot headed.” Finnick notes.

“You’re a nosy, self-centered, Capitol-raised bitch!” you shout, catching the attention of a few others, “You’re so cynical that you can’t read a fucking room! You think everyone likes you. You think you can do whatever you want!” you suck in air between your clenched, “News flash, Finnick Odair, you’re nothing but another pretty face in the sea of victors that are here. No one likes you, as they should.”

You yank your wrist free of his hand, watching as his eyes widen, “You’re a filthy human being. I’ll be praying that your death is the first on my hands. I can’t wait until that pathetic girlfriend of yours gets to watch as your body is lowered into a six-foot-deep ditch.”

Finnick’s had enough, and you can see his face begin to turn red from rage, “You say nothing about Annie.”

“I can saying whatever the fuck I want about her.” You stand taller, almost matching his height exactly, “You just don’t like to hear it, because it’s all true.”

Finnick starts forward, but a pair of peacekeepers appear between you two, pushing him back, since you’re already at your chariot. You smile at Finnick over the peacekeeper’s shoulder, satisfied that you were finally able to burst his imperfect bubble.

You take deep breaths to get yourself level-headed again. However, you don’t even get as much as thirty seconds, before another person is talking to you.

“You’re on a roll today.” Neysa says, “I definitely should have made you sleep in.”

“It’s not the fact that I’m sleep-deprived. They’re all so fucking irritating.” you crack your knuckles to keep yourself from running a hand through your hair, subsequently messing it up.

“Have you ever considered that it’s just you?” Neysa asks.

“Oh, I’m sure it is.” you laugh, but you’re not finding it funny. You’re so angry, “And it’s not my fault that Finnick had approached me like that. He should have seen it coming.”

“He doesn’t know the things you have against him.” Neysa defends.

“He does now, and he’ll be thinking twice before talking to me again.”

“You want everyone to hate you?”

You look at her, “At this point, running solo would be a lot easier.”

“No.” Neysa’s voice is hard, “No, you’re not going it alone. I won’t allow it.”

“My games, my choice.”

“No.” She repeats, but this time even angrier, “You’ll get yourself killed.”

“Maybe it’s about fucking time!” you yell, and then you start taking deep breaths again, “Go away, you’re going to make me hit you.”

“Like you almost hit Finnick?” Brutus asks.

You laugh again, “I am--” deep breaths, “--going to make this whole tribute parade thing a fucking option and not a required thing if you two keep it up.”

The intercom person is your savior, and you don’t say a single word to Neysa or Brutus as you step onto the chariot. Brutus gets on too, leaving space between the two of you. Neysa tries to readjust something but you slap her hand to keep her from touching you.

“Away, Neysa.” you say, “It’s not against the rules to fight my mentor.”

No one has actually tried it before, so you wouldn’t know, and neither would she. Neysa finally listens and leaves you be, wandering off to where the other mentors are standing. More specifically, District Four’s mentors.

“Great.”

“They’re probably settling the dispute, get Finnick to leave you alone.”

“As it should have been anyway.” you snap, grabbing a hold of the side of the chariot as the others begin to move.

You erase the scowl from your face as soon as you’re out of the mouth of the hallway and the sunshine is hitting your face. You give a big smile, waving out to the Capitol citizens even if you’re nowhere near the stands just yet. It’s easier to do it early on, to make them realize that you’re eager.

Brutus makes a point not to stand too close to you, since you really are on a streak when it comes to snapping at people. It doesn’t keep you two from interacting every now and then to make sure that the Capitol citizens know that you’re allies. For now.

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to go it alone. You haven’t done it before, but if other people can do it, then you can too. If you come across people, all you have to do is kill them and move on. There’s not really a reason to show mercy anyway.

As you get closer to the stands, they start to throw gifts. You catch a little present in the palm of your hands, unraveling the ribbon. You drop it, and unbox it too, to find a ring inside. Dainty, but cute. Pure black.

You hold it up, blowing a kiss, and then slide it onto your finger.

“Wish they’d throw things like that at me.” Brutus mutters.

“Try and catch one of the fedoras, because that’s as good as you’re going to get.”

“Wouldn’t go with my outfit.”

“You said you wanted something.”

You catch a glimpse of yourself in the big screens before it’s switched to someone else. But that little moment was as good as it could have been. You looked fantastic, you’re sure that Amias is giving herself a pat on the back for this look. You wonder what else she has in store. Particularly, the interviews.

Snow stands at the same podium in the center circle where he had delivered his speech in the winter. Behind him, sitting in rows of chairs wearing all black, is old men. Probably those who help run the country.

Snow looks at all of you with a straight face. You give him a smirk and a wave, wanting to see if he’ll smile at the comedy of it, but he doesn’t. There is no speech this year, as you’re turned right around and head back to where you had come from.

The rest of the parade is just like the beginning. The cheering of the Capitol citizens gets louder after you see District Twelve erupt into flames. Which you’re not too surprised about, of course they would repeat their signature. You’re just a little curious as to why they waited so long, instead of making sure the Capitol citizens were swooning over them.

There’s no point in waving after that, though. Instead, you fix a forced smile on your face and cross your arms for the rest of the ride. As soon as you get inside the building, the smile is gone. Especially when you see that Neysa and Edmond are still standing with the District Four mentors.

“Look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” Brutus laughs.

“She’s probably going to tell me that he’s got a restraining order or something,” you snicker, and Brutus does too, “Or apologize for hurting his precious feelings.”

The chariot stops, Brutus gets off first and then offers his hand for you. You take it, and think about how funny it is that everyone else is worried about you being a ticking time bomb. But Brutus hasn’t once tried to treat you like one. It’s not like you and him are around each other very often, so it’s weird that he already has experience with a personality like yours.

“What’s the issue now?” you ask once you’re close enough.

“You. I suggest you apologize to Finnick before…”

You look behind you to see the chariots that are coming in, districts three, four and five. Finnick is giving you a dangerous look.

“Before what?” you ask, looking at his mentors, “Before he decides that he wants to kill me? You know how dumb that sounds, right? We’re going to be attacking each other inside of the arena anyway.”

“I know.” his mentor says, “You’re a target.”

“He’s my target.” you say, “You think I was lying?”

“What’s going on?”

Neysa gives you a look, and then Edmond nearly replicates it wrinkle by wrinkle. You take in a deep breath, watching her face for any indication on what she actually wants you to do. However, it looks like she wants you to handle this by yourself.

You don’t apologize to people. You’re not a sorry person. You say what you have to say, and that’s about it. If people don’t like it, then they can ignore you and your opinions.

You look at Finnick, beside him is Mags, and she has an angry look on her face too. He’s been shit talking you. No surprise there.

You force another smile, “I sincerely apologize for what I said about Annie.” the smile fades, “As for everything else, I don’t take that back. You’re a whiny human being that deserves everything that comes at you.”

Finnick stares at you for a moment, like he’s unsure of how to take this. And then there’s a smile peeking onto his face, “I hope you die first.”

You give him a mock smile back, “Go fuck yourself.”

“I’m sure you’d like that.”

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair metanoia #metanoia #metanoia chapter three

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no6secretsanta · 3 years

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No.6 - Children of the Sea

Happy Holidays and an awesome New Year, @aoicanvas! I really hope you enjoy this fic! It’s me, @glorifiedscapegoat, and I’m really excited to share this with you. The concept I had kept giving me ideas, so I found myself just writing and writing for a while, and before I knew it the word count was as high as it was. I hope that’s all right!

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“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” — Jacques Cousteau

“Here’s your turbo,” Safu declared, sitting down opposite Shion at the booth. They were at their favorite café on the other side of Kronos, perched at one of the large window-seats overlooking the bay.

It was one of Shion’s favorite places, simply for its amazing view of the ocean. The sapphire blue waves lapped against the edge of the pier, the shush-shush sound of the ocean sending comforting prickles down his spine. During the early morning hours, the sunlight glistened across the smooth surface, the pale blue sky streaked with pale pinks and vibrant oranges.

“Oh,” Shion said in surprise as Safu slid the green foam cup across the table toward him. “Thank you. I ordered a decaf, though.”

“I canceled it. You looked like you could use the caffeine.”

Shion exhaled through his nose, knowing it wouldn’t do him any good to argue. He thanked Safu, popped back the heat-saver from the plastic cover, then took a hesitant sip of the coffee. Safu had doused it with enough creamer and granulated sugar to keep the bitter bite of the espresso from stinging his tongue, but Shion could still feel the caffeine buzzing through him.

“Speaking of caffeine,” Safu said, taking a sip of her own coffee. Having been friends for as long as they had, Shion knew that Safu took her coffee as black as the night sky in the middle of the city, devoid of stars due to the constant streaks of artificial lighting. Shion’s nose wrinkled just thinking about it. He’d never been able to get past the bitterness of the coffee beans. “You might want to bring one to go once you finish that one. Don’t you have the new wave of summer interns starting today?”

Shion exhaled, all traces of his previous good mood fluttering out the door. “Don’t remind me.”

Summers were a difficult time for the West Block Aquarium and, more importantly, its staff. Kronos was a buzzing tourist town, and the summer months brought about college students, wealthy benefactors, and worst of all, summer interns.

“Poor thing,” Safu remarked, taking another sip of her coffee. “Well, maybe it won’t be so bad. Who knows? The interns this year could be… delightful.”

They both shuddered in unison. Shion and Safu had been friends since they were little—Grade 1, to be exact, after Safu got in trouble for punching two boys in the face who called Shion “girly” for his pretty white hair—and both had gone on to pursue careers where interns came and went through a constant revolving door.

Though Shion had obtained full-time employment as a pseudo marine biologist at the West Block Aquarium, Safu had went on to pursue a medical degree working alongside children. Her talent rested with biology (of the mammalian variety, not the aquatic), but despite the clear differences in their professions, Shion and Safu shared one similar headache: summer interns.

“So, how’s your mom doing?” Safu asked.

“She’s all right,” Shion replied. “Just getting ready for the summer rush. Tourists and all that.”

“She’s a saint.” Safu lifted her coffee cup with a solemn expression. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through my undergraduate without the croissants she sent in her care packages.”

Shion huffed out a laugh and took another sip of his coffee. He could already feel the caffeine working its way through his veins.

He allowed a bit of silence to fall around him, the only reprieve he’d get today. As soon as he left for work in an hour, his day would be consumed with learning the group dynamic in this summer’s early wave of interns, squeezing work in between answering questions for the flood of customers arriving for the first day of the summer season, and banging his head against the glass walls of the tanks he was in charge of maintaining.

Shion felt something soft rest on top of his head. He glanced up to see Safu tapping her fingers against his temple, softly going, “pomf” to herself.

He leaned back out of reach, fighting back a smile. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out where I can purchase a brush strong enough to tame that mop of yours.” Safu took her hand back, flashing a smile. “It’s such a pretty color, and it’s a shame it just sticks up all over the place.”

“Well, it’s not my fault. I spend most of the time in the water. It’s hard to find a shampoo that can handle all that water damage.”

“Damage?” Safu reached out again and patted Shion on the top of the head. “This isn’t damage. You are the only person alive who can spend seventy-five percent of their life in water and come out with hair this soft.”

“Stop it,” Shion said, but it was light-hearted. His hair had always been a point of conflict in his life. Since the moment he was born—sporting snowy hair and bright ruby eyes—Shion had always fought off rude stares and invasive questions. His mother had helped him construct several convincing lies to help discourage people from continuing to pester him. These lies had ranged from childhood illness in Grades 1 through 4, and then expensive dye jobs during his time as a teenager. Shion had never liked the thought of dyeing his hair, but lying to folks that his bizarre hair and eye color were the results of a bottle of Manic Panic and colored contacts kept them from prying and discovering the truth.

Though, even if Shion did break down and tell people the truth—that his father was a merperson who’d seduced his human mother years ago before splitting without a trace, leaving her with a hybrid son whose hair and eyes and ability to breathe underwater were his only connection to his heritage—he doubted anyone would ever believe him.

Except for Safu.

When Shion finally broke down and told Safu the truth, she’d taken the information with a smile. Coming to terms that there were other creatures dwelling in her world came simply. Safu remarked that new species were being discovered all the time. Of course it made sense that there could be merpeople. The ocean hadn’t been completely explored, after all.

Sometimes Shion wondered why a relationship with Safu had never occurred to him. She was a beautiful girl, and always had been; petite with straight brown hair that fell to her shoulders (she’d let it grow out in recent years), dark eyes that saw everything, and a friendly smile that invited people to let their guard down. More than that, Safu was amazingly kind… to the people she liked. She never judged anyone unless they gave her a reason to assume they were judging her, and she was fiercely protective of her friends.

When they were teenagers, Safu had expressed feelings for Shion that he hadn’t been able to reciprocate. Maybe it was because Safu was accustomed to rejection, or maybe it was because she was just a wonderful, loving person, but Shion’s gentle apology in his inability to return her feelings hadn’t stopped her from remaining his best friend.

And when Shion came staggering home one night and called her, squealing with excitement that he’d found someone like him—someone from the sea—Safu had squealed and gushed with him.

Shion shook the thought away before he could dwell on it. Remembering the summers he spent between the ages of sixteen and nineteen were painful for him. He’d formed a romance with a boy from the sea, a boy Shion could picture himself spending the rest of his life with, and then, without explanation or reason, he’d simply vanished into thin air. Zip. Poof. Gone. As if he’d never been there in the first place.

"Hey, Shion. Earth to Shion.”

He looked up. “Huh?”

Safu took one look at his face, and instantly, she knew. “Thinking about Nezumi again?”

Hearing his name sent a knife through Shion’s heart. “No,” he said, but the lie was pointless. He’d never been any good at telling lies to Safu.

Safu clicked her tongue. When Nezumi stopped showing up at the beach, Safu had been furious. She ranted and raved for months about him, furious that he could break Shion’s heart like that. When the next summer came and he still didn’t show up, Safu’s anger cooled into concern. When another year passed, she and Shion mutually agreed that something awful must have happened to Nezumi and tried to mourn.

“Do you want to talk about it,” she said gently, “or change the subject?”

“Change the subject, please.”

“Of course.” Safu took a deep breath, composing her thoughts, and then she said, somewhat loudly, “Well, it won’t be so bad, right? How long do summer internships last at the aquarium, again?”

“Three months,” Shion said, grateful for the change in topic. He took all the pent-up feelings he still had toward Nezumi, even now, and shoved them to the side. If they festered there and turned into a cancerous tumor, he’d deal with it when that time came.

“Ugh, lucky. Our internships last six months.”

“Aren’t all of your interns medical students, though?” Shion stole a brief glance out the window. He wondered if he would catch a familiar flash of black and silver, and then promptly scolded himself for daring to hope.

“Yes, and most of them are lovely. But then you have those ones.” Safu rolled her eyes, and Shion instantly knew which ones she meant.

The children of wealthy parents whose only major contribution to the field was that they spent a lot of money and therefore expected that their children could sail through the program without any effort. Shion had dealt with plenty of those types, too, working at the aquarium. Wealthy donors often assumed a nice dosage of cash would land their children a high-paying, low-effort job once they finished their degree program. Shion lost count of the number of arguments he and other coworkers had had with interns whose ultimate defense was the phrase: “Do you have any idea who my parents are?”

"Maybe this year will be different,” Shion said, not at all confident. He’d been working full-time at the West Block Aquarium for two years, since he turned twenty-two, and not once had a summer internship term been “different”.

“It could be,” Safu replied solemnly. She and Shion shared a mutual nod, and then smiled.

⁂

With traffic, it was a forty-minute drive across downtown Kronos, and another three minutes to find a halfway decent parking space in front of the West Block Aquarium that didn’t result in Shion needing to sprint across the parking lot like a lunatic in order to clock in on time.

Shion smoothed his hands through his hair, pressing the tangled locks down against his skull. They bounced back up as he dropped his hands to his sides, and he gave up trying to look presentable.

His white hair, no matter how smooth or messy it was, always attracted attention from the college interns the aquarium employed. Most of them thankfully assumed it was just a dye job—an expensive, extremely thorough dye job, but a dye job nonetheless—but it elicited more than a few stares every year.

Shion scanned his ID badge at the employee entrance and ducked inside. He let the heavy metal door bang shut behind him, sighing as he stepped into the foyer of the employee lounge, cooled by the strong air conditioning unit Rikiga had installed. He tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash can, briefly considering using the Keurig to make himself another cup.

"Hey, Shion.”

Shion turned and spotted his coworker, Yamase, sitting at one of the little brown tables. He clutched a travel mug of tea—Yamase never liked drinking coffee, remarking that no matter how much creamer and sugar he doused it with, he could still taste the “disgusting bean water”—and he looked utterly exhausted.

Shion’s stomach plummeted. “Interns?”

“Interns,” Yamase agreed bitterly.

Shion huffed out a breath and went to the Keurig. “Please tell me there’s at least a few halfway decent ones.”

He prided himself on being an optimist—it was one of his best qualities, according to his mom, Safu, and everyone else he’d ever talked to, and Shion was pretty certain it was the primary reason Rikiga had given him the job in the first place—but something about summer interns made even someone with Shion’s extensive threshold for patience eager for the workday to end.

“Rikiga’s already deep into his cup,” Yamase explained, rolling his eyes. “Big surprise. Anyway, I’ve only met the first few, and supposedly, we’ve got two others starting tomorrow.”

“So, what exactly are we dealing with?” Shion popped a K-cup into the machine and hit brew. He shoved a paper cup beneath the dispenser and listened to the whir of the machine as the water heated up.

Yamase took a deep sip of his tea. “Well, there’s a girl who’s just started her second year at the community college who thinks she wants to go into marine biology. Kudos and all that, but she’s already expecting that we’ll hire her once she graduates since she’s interning with us.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah,” Yamase groaned. “You know how that’s gonna go. I wonder if we’ll have the parents down here again. You remember that?”

Shion shuddered. “How could I forget?” He could still hear the shrill sound of the woman’s voice as she shrieked at Rikiga in the lobby about why he’d rejected her daughter’s application for full-time employment after she’d “slaved away all summer at this dirty, stinking place, and for what?” Never mind that Shion had found her in the employee lounge multiple times during her shift, sneaking alcohol and trying to steal merchandise from the gift shop when she thought no one was looking.

“Maybe she’ll be a good fit,” Shion said, a little too hopefully.

“She bounces when she talks,” Yamase said drily.

"Excuse me?”

“Like full on hops on her heels.” Yamase gave a small demonstration, bouncing twice in his chair before widening his eyes and giving Shion a blank, dead stare. “She also talks like this.” He raised his voice up at the end, almost as if he were asking a question. “With an upward inflection at the end of it. As if she has no idea what she’s doing here.”

“That is so creepy,” Shion shuddered. “Please stop.”

“You think that’s creepy. Try listening to her do it.” Yamase sighed and took a deep gulp from his travel mug. “The lights are definitely on, but no one’s been home for years.”

Shion pinched the bridge of his nose. Wonderful. Just what the aquarium needed. He plucked his cup from the Keurig and dumped a healthy heaping of sugar and creamer packets into the cup.

“The new hire for the gift shop’s hot, though,” Yamase said.

Shion raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Don’t worry—he’s our age,” Yamase assured. “I checked. Not in college, as far as I can tell. Just looking for some extra cash at a part-time job or something. And you know I’m not really into guys, but dang, something about this guy just… I don’t know. Just wait until you see him.” Yamase exhaled. “It’s his eyes, man.”

Shion huffed out a laugh and took a sip of his coffee. After the turbo Safu had ordered for him, it felt watered down and weak, but Shion savored the buzz of caffeine.

“He must be something, then,” Shion said, “if you’ve noticed him.”

“You have no idea. You’re single, right? Maybe you have a shot.”

Shion clicked his tongue. “You sound like Safu.”

"Well, maybe you should start listening to us!” Yamase tipped his head back and finished off the last of his tea. “Maybe we should strong-arm your mother into it. I’m sure that’d make you start looking.”

Shion couldn’t help but smile. He’d tried dating during his undergraduate, and it hadn’t worked. All the men he went out with made snide comments about his hair— “Do the carpets match the drapes? Ha ha, just kidding. Unless…?”—or thought his fascination with sea life bordered on obsessive. Shion wouldn’t have felt comfortable letting them know the truth: that his “obsession” with sea life stemmed from the fact that he came from the same place.

And besides, none of them had made him feel the way Nezumi had.

Not only did Nezumi come from the ocean—Shion could picture the black and blue scales on his long, elegant tail perfectly, like obsidian and sapphires, and his beautiful silver eyes, like the edge of a blade in the sunlight—he never thought Shion’s ramblings were bizarre. He laughed at him, sure, but it was good-natured and beautiful, like the chiming of bells. He could swim faster and deeper than Shion, and he brought him pretty shells and oysters containing pearls from the bottom of the sea where Shion couldn’t swim without raising more than a few eyebrows.

During their summer interactions as teenagers, Shion had never been able to convince Nezumi to come onto the shore. He knew it was possible—his own father had done it years ago—but whenever he asked, Nezumi quickly changed the subject.

Shion’s heart ached, his eyes stinging. The last time he saw Nezumi, they had been eighteen years old. He could still feel the brush of Nezumi’s lips against his own, tasting of saltwater. Shion could have kissed him forever.

Shion quickly shook the thoughts away. He couldn’t afford to get caught up on thoughts of Nezumi anymore. He needed to focus on the new interns and aquarium employees.

Yamase rose and rinsed his travel mug in the sink. The dark blue of his janitor’s uniform stood out against the stark gray walls of the employee lounge. “Well, count yourself lucky you don’t have to deal with most of the interns. You spend most of your time in Number Six. I’m the one who’s gotta spend the whole day trapped in the gift shop.”

Shion cracked a smile. Number Six was the main tank in the direct center of the aquarium, the first major exhibit available as soon as customers walked through the door. Shion’s primary job was to jump into the tank every couple of hours, toss smelt and other dead things at the bigger fish, ensure that the pH levels were safe, and make sure the sand tigers didn’t bully the nurse sharks. Shion never would have pegged sharks to have some weird social hierarchy, but it was there. He’d lost count of the times he’d had to chase away the sand tiger with the blunt snout (who he’d affectionally nicknamed Snubby) from the large nurse shark (Nurse Anne) with the chunk bitten out of her dorsal fin.

Number Six was also known to Yamase and the other janitors as the BFT: the Big Fucking Tank. Shion didn’t like calling it that, but he supposed when the janitors spent most of their shift spraying Windex on the glass and wiping away fingerprints and saliva—seriously, did little kids lick everything?—it made sense they would come to hate it.

The majority of the interns and summer hires started out as cashiers in the gift shop. During his dips in Number Six, Shion could spot the little alcove through the glass, watching as the interns in their bright green tee-shirts displaying the West Block Aquarium logo fumbled through each transaction.

“I wonder if the wannabee marine biologist will try to jump in the tank with you,” Yamase said, eyeing Shion in his periphery. “She doesn’t seem thrilled about the idea of starting as a cashier.”

“They all start out as cashiers,” Shion replied, taking another sip of his coffee. It had already begun to go cold. “She shouldn’t expect special treatment. Retail work can be humbling.”

"Is it twisted that I love watching the rich kids get screamed at by entitled jerks?” Yamase’s dark eyes flashed as he turned to face Shion. “Like, I know retail’s rough and all, but some of these kids are so fucking bratty, and seeing the looks on their faces when they realize that no one cares about how much money they have just warms my heart.”

Shion shook his head. “You’re awful,” he said, but he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.

“Yup, and you’re equally as awful. I know you enjoy it, too.” Yamase put his travel mug back into the cupboard where the rest of the employees kept their spare mugs. “Well, I need to get out there and make sure the place is ready for opening. Finish up your coffee. You’re gonna need it. You know they’re probably gonna ask about the hair.”

“And the eyes,” Shion sighed. “They always do.”

“You could dye it.”

“Safu would literally kill me.”

Yamase rolled his eyes. “She might, but wouldn’t it be better than dealing with another wave of ‘wait, they let marine biologists dye their hair? Can you wear contacts underwater? Duuuuude.’”

Shion fought back a shudder. Too many times he’d had to deflect questions surrounding his odd hair color and the piercing shade of his irises. Albinism was a rare trait in humans, and Shion’s skin wasn’t nearly pale enough to pass for it. The odd red marking on his skin—scaled, if people looked close enough, which Shion never let anyone do—definitely shattered the illusion. Shion had hoped people would have a bit of common decency and not ask such invasive questions, but he was often disappointed. Almost every summer, someone cornered him in the break room and demanded to know why his hair was so white, what made his eyes red, how many bleaches did it take to achieve that color, did people think he was less professional because he looked like he was cosplaying all the time?

Sometimes Shion wondered if he should joke that he was a merman. Well, half a merman, anyway.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he could hear Nezumi’s voice snap, “Child of the Sea! Not merman. That’s a human word.” His mood instantly darkened, and Shion shook his head.

“Child of the Sea” was the preferred term in the underwater community, or so Shion had been told. Only human beings used words like “mermaid” and “merman”. Despite the wave of sorrow that Shion felt whenever the thought of Nezumi came rushing back, he couldn’t help the small flicker of warmth that kindled itself in his heart.

“Well,” Yamase sighed. “I’m heading back. Rip the Band-Aid off.”

“All right.”

“See you in a few,” Yamase replied with a wave, ducking out into the hallway. “Good luck!”

Shion exhaled and took another sip of his cool coffee. Summer interns. At least he had a reprieve from them when he dove into the tank. He took a few moments to sip his coffee, reveling in the silence he knew would soon be broken. Ah, well. It was only eight-thirty in the morning. Seven o’clock would come soon enough.

⁂

Shion finished his coffee, pulled on his white lab coat, and trotted out to the main foyer. The West Block Aquarium opened at ten o’clock on the dot—despite his active drinking and usual forgetfulness, Rikiga was oddly punctual—and the first hour would be spent preparing for the shift and greeting the interns and summer help.

Shion plastered a big smile on his face and tried to be positive. Summer interns were frustrating, but he had to remember that he was once in their shoes, too. Several years ago, he’d been a bright-eyed intern working at this same aquarium. Ignoring his obvious one-up over the other interns—primarily the fact that he could breathe underwater (secretly, of course) and understood ocean life in a way that astounded his professors and quickly moved him through his undergraduate degree with flying colors—he’d enjoyed working alongside other interns.

As he hurried toward the main foyer, stationed direction in front of Number Six, he couldn’t help but marvel at the decorations welcoming the new wave of summer customers. Bright plastic statues of sea lions and talking starfish lined the floors, gesturing toward the hallways and announcing exhibits. Neat signs with fun facts and information about the exhibit inhabitants sat in front of glass cages, and the sound of rushing water sounded like music to Shion’s ears.

Shion trotted almost everywhere. His colleagues joked that he was always in a hurry. Shion didn’t know if it was because he moved faster in the water than on land, even without the function of a tail, but he couldn’t help it. He jogged everywhere he went: meetings, feedings, the break room. Sometimes he worried he looked ridiculous—a young man in a white lab coat with obviously dyed hair (ha) jogging like a toddler through the aquarium—but if he did, no one commented one way or the other about it.

The four-story tank, illuminated with bright LED lights at the base and on each conjoining floor, wrapping upward in a slanted ramp like a makeshift spiral staircase, rose into view as Shion stepped out into the main exhibit. The brightly-colored tropical fish swam lazily through the teal water, their dark eyes staring blankly out at Shion as he approached the two individuals standing near the door, awaiting his arrival.

Shion swallowed the wave of frustration that surged inside him, caging it behind his clenched teeth as he kept the smile plastered on his face His colleagues had left him to deal with the new interns on his own.

Ha ha, funny.

As he approached the two interns—a young woman with vibrant pink hair (clearly a dye job, and a rather inexpensive one, at that, if the blond roots at the top were any indication) and a young man with dark hair yanked back into a ponytail, both dressed in the bright green West Block Aquarium staff shirt—the girl broke away from the tank and came sprinting up toward Shion.

“Oh, hi!” she shrieked, her voice piercing through the vacant walls of the aquarium. It carried, so sharp and sudden that Shion felt as if a knife had been drilled into his ear.

He flinched—the other intern did, too—and jerked to a halt.

“You must be Shion, right? Mr. Rikiga mentioned you’d be stopping by!” The girl clapped her hands, as if the idea of meeting Shion was too exciting to be contained inside her little body. “I’m so excited to be working with you! My name’s Miyamoto Emi, but my friends call me Emi-chan. Oh, darn, can I call you Shion, or is that too informal? Gosh, this is so exciting!”

Shion gawked down at the girl, unsure of what to say. She looked about twenty years old, short in a way that was noticeable even to someone like Shion. He wasn’t very tall, himself—he rose to a respectable five-feet-seven-inches—and this girl rose to the middle of his chest. She tipped her head back to look into his face, her dark brown eyes wide with excitement, and yep, there was the bouncing Yamase had mentioned. With each syllable that left her mouth, she rose an inch off the ground and then came down hard on her heels. She wore a pair of black flip-flops (definitely not regulation, according to the employee handbook, which Rikiga definitely didn’t enforce), and the rubber soles thumped rhythmically on the solid tile floor.

“Mr. Rikiga said you were a marine biologist,” Emi went on. “That must be so exciting. I’ve wanted to be a marine biologist since I was a little girl. I’ve always loved turtles, and I just wanna be able to work with them. Oh, wow!” Her eyes widened further—how was that possible?—and she stared at Shion’s white hair.

His stomach plummeted.

“Your hair—” she said, a shriek building in her throat. Shion could see it. Her shoulders quaked beneath the force of it, her whole body unable to contain the sheer joy that came from seeing Shion’s pristine white hair coupled with his lab coat. “Where do you get your hair done? Do you do it yourself? My friend Mariko did my hair”—she grabbed a lock of her own pink hair and shoved it toward Shion—“but it doesn’t look nearly as good as yours does!”

“Um, thank you.” Shion gave her a wobbly smile. This was a new development. Sometimes the interns were cold and stand-offish, and sometimes they were uninterested in the position.

This, however? This was new.

Shion felt his head spinning as he tried to focus on the girl bouncing in front of him. He glanced over her shoulder, seeking out the second intern. The young man was staring at Emi as if she’d just exploded and scattered across the foyer in an array of glitter. His hair framed his face, long and pulled into a high ponytail. He had a narrow, pale face, and Shion wondered briefly if this was the young man Yamase had mentioned back in the break room. He squinted over Emi’s head—where did she get the energy to keep bouncing like this?—examining the young man’s face to see what about him Yamase had been so taken by.

The young man was tall and thin, his hair a dark shade of black that Shion suspected would look blue in certain lighting. Even with the fluorescent bulbs in the aquarium itself, he could pick out the few pale gray strands and blue bits that made the young man’s hair beautiful rather than plain. His skin was far too pale for the lime-green of the staff shirt, and it made him look sickly and washed out.

He lifted his head to give Shion a look that clearly read ‘Poor you’, and Shion managed to get a good look at his eyes.

It’s his eyes, man.

Two bright silver coins stared back at Shion, narrowed in a way that Shion recognized as someone trying to figure out where they recognized someone from. His stomach twisted. Flecks of blue and white danced behind a pale of solid silver glass, shifting depending on his mood. When he was happy, they were vibrant and luminous. When he was aggravated, they darkened like the sky over a stormy sea. Shion had seen them in almost every variant, and he stood there, dumbstruck, as the young man stared into his face, too—taking in his bright red irises, the red marking wrapped around his throat, and his vibrant white hair—and finally, finally recognized him.

His jaw dropped. It was an almost comical look, but he managed to make it look beautiful. He unfolded his arms from across his chest, letting them fall limply at his sides.

“Shion?” he said.

His voice. His voice. Shion could still hear it in his memories. The peals of laughter, the shouts whenever they argued, the gentle songs he sang. All of it came flooding back in a crushing wave that made Shion feel as if he were drowning. His lungs were designed to pull oxygen both on land and beneath the surface. Shion would never know how it felt to drown in earnest—but standing across from Nezumi, the boy he’d fallen in love with in his youth, the boy who’d claimed his first kiss, the boy who’d left one day and never come back, Shion wondered if this was how it felt to have all the air knocked out of him once and for all.

Emi’s bright smile never left her face, but her eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh. Do you know two each other?” She looked over her shoulder at the young man—at Nezumi—and clapped her hands. “That’s so exciting!”

“Um,” Shion said, taking a trembling step backward. The room around him crushed inward, the air tight and thick. He swallowed once, finding it difficult to breathe. “Yes, um…”

Nezumi’s shocked expression shifted into concern, and Shion felt himself edging toward a full-on breakdown. Shards of glass punched through his stomach, heat and pain radiating through each pulse point in his body until it was all he could feel. He couldn’t sense the solid tiles beneath his feet or the air conditioner churning above his head. His vision tunneled, blocking out everything except the young man standing in front of him—standing! On legs!—in his ridiculous staff tee shirt and his khaki pants, looking every bit like the beautiful, otherworldly creature he was once he stepped into the ocean.

“Ah, w-well,” Shion managed, the words heavy as stones on his tongue. “W-welcome to the West Block Aquarium. So nice to be working with you both. Um, I have to, ah, feed the fish in the BFT now. Ah, I mean, in Number Six. The big tank behind you. Yup, that’s Number Six. I’m sure Mr. Rikiga will tell you all about it as part of the tour.”

“Shion,” Nezumi said, and his voice was equally as wobbly. He took a step forward, and panic surged through Shion’s body like an injection of ice water.

”Goodbye!” Shion spun on his heel and fled back toward the break room. There was an elevator in the far back, reserved for employee usage and available for disabled customers, and if Shion input the code into the panel, it would go to the floor linking to the observatory room for Number Six. It wasn’t available to the public, reserved for marine biologists like Shion to record the pH balances of the tank and the weights of each animal.

His shoes smacked against the tile as he hurried toward the hallway leading to the elevator. The twisting halls that stretched past the rooms dedicated to shells and the horseshoe crab touch tank—popular with the children and high school customers—and Shion rounded them quickly, searching desperately for the signs leading to the elevator.

“Shion, wait!”

Shion whirled and saw Nezumi hurrying up the ramp toward him. He stumbled a bit as he ran, as if he’d been sitting down for a long time and his legs hadn’t quite adjusted to movement. The fluorescent lights caught against the strands of his hair, and the lime green of the staff shirt clashed horribly with his khaki pants and pale skin.

He looked ridiculous. He looked amazing. He looked—

Alive.

“You’re alive,” Shion said, his voice sounding stupid in his ears.

Nezumi stumbled to a stop a few steps in front of him. He was wearing heavy black combat boots (completely against regulation, since the soles weren’t non-marking), and one pant leg of his cargo pants was tucked in while the other hung frustratingly loose around his ankle. “Yeah,” he said, sounding equally as stupid and just as wonderful as Shion remembered. “Yeah, I’m alive.”

“But—” Shion fumbled for something, anything, and came up short. “You—you vanished! You stopped coming to the beach.”

Nezumi winced. “I know.”

The prickles of cold were replaced with agitation that dug like thorns in his body. “I waited for you,” he said, low and harsh. “Every day for months. Years. And you—you never came back.”

Nezumi flinched back as if Shion had ripped one of the decorative plywood sea turtles off the wall and chucked it at him. “I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Shion barked out a laugh. “Five years of no contact—nothing—and now you show up here, at my work, to tell me you’re sorry?”

“I didn’t know you worked here,” Nezumi said.

“Then why are you here? You sure as hell can’t be a university student!”

Nezumi’s silver eyes flashed in the vibrant LED lights. “I’ve never heard you swear before,” he murmured wondrously, as if it was the most amazing thing in the world.

“Don’t change the subject!” Shion growled. “Where the hell do you get off just—”

“I wanted to come back,” Nezumi interjected. He didn’t raise his voice (which only aggravated Shion further), and he kept his hands at his side. Shion couldn’t help staring at each of his long, elegant fingers, remembering how they felt running over his cheek or brushing through his hair while they swam.

“Then why didn’t you?” Shion’s heart pounded in his chest, blood rushing through his ears. “You kissed me, said goodnight, and then you just vanished. For five years, Nezumi.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Nezumi said, raising his voice just a little. Shion could hear it in his voice that he was struggling not to yell, that he didn’t really have the right to yell. “Something happened, and as much as you meant to me, I couldn’t just—”

Those words stabbed through Shion’s chest like arrows. It’d taken Nezumi three years—three long, painful years—to finally say the words I love you. Shion hadn’t held it against him. Nezumi didn’t express his feelings through words. He translated them in his actions. Shion felt his love in the way he found ways to maintain physical contact when they were together. He felt Nezumi’s love each time Nezumi brought him pretty shells from the deeper parts of the ocean floor.

Shion knew how much he meant to Nezumi. And as angry as he was at Nezumi’s unexpected disappearance, the fact that he was here now must have meant something.

Shion opened his mouth to speak—to say what, he didn’t know—and Emi came trotting down the hallway, huffing and puffing as if it’d taken all her energy to catch up with them.

“There—,” she gasped dramatically, doubling over and pressing her hand against her chest. “There you two are! Why did you run away?”

Nezumi glanced over at her, and Shion took the opportunity to escape. “It’s nothing. Nezumi’s an old friend” —he didn’t miss the way Nezumi flinched— “and things were… well, it’s complicated. But this isn’t the place for it.”

Emi’s dark brown eyes widened. “Ooh?” She looked at Shion, then at Nezumi, and then back. She clapped her hands together. “What’s this? A secret romance?”

“The hell?” Nezumi muttered, despite everything.

“Emi,” Shion said firmly, “now is neither the time nor the place. Now,” he added, looking at the clock suspended from the wall. “I believe you two are due for orientation. Mr. Rikiga will be expecting you.”

“Ooh, you’re right! We don’t wanna be late!” Emi spun on her heel and reached out for Nezumi’s wrist. “Come on, uh, Nezumi, was it? Weird. We’re gonna be late!”

Nezumi withdrew his wrist from Emi’s reach and turned to look at Shion. “I’m out at noon,” he said carefully. Shion’s shoulders shot to his ears, the words slicing through him like a bullet. “Can we talk then?”

“I’m not free until after the aquarium closes,” Shion replied. He didn’t know why he said it, but it wouldn’t do him any good to lie. Nezumi would probably figure out his schedule soon enough anyway.

“That’s fine. How about I meet you here after work?” Nezumi lowered his voice so that Emi, already skipping back toward the main foyer, wouldn’t overhear. “I get it if you tell me to fuck off, but… I’d like to explain myself.”

“All right,” Shion mumbled. “I’ll meet you outside the employee entrance at seven-thirty.”

“I’ll be here,” Nezumi said. There was so much strength and conviction in his voice that Shion couldn’t help but meet his eye. The fluorescent lights caught in his irises as he repeated, slower, “I will be here, Shion.”

“Sure,” Shion whispered, and he watched as Nezumi turned and headed back toward the foyer. He seemed to stumble a bit, but even that seemed inhumanly graceful. Shion’s heart ached as he watched him leave.

Eventually, his duties as a dedicated marine biologist convinced him to seek out the elevator, punch in the code to the Number Six observatory floor, and strip out of his lab coat, button-down, and slacks in favor of his West Block Aquarium scuba suit. Dark blue with lime green accents, it was Shion’s least favorite piece of work equipment, simply for its pointlessness. He was a Child of the Sea—at least fifty percent of him was—and scuba gear was wasted on someone who could breathe underwater.

But he couldn’t exactly drop into the forty-foot tank without his gear in front of tourists.

Shion struggled into his scuba suit, his heart hammering a thousand miles a minute. His hands shook as he zipped up his wetsuit, fumbling with the useless air tank (he could breathe underwater, damn it, but the tourists and the interns and his boss couldn’t know that) and all the tubes in their proper place to pump oxygen uselessly into his lungs.

Shion sat on the edge of the top level of Number Six, his vision blurring red and gray. His bright yellow swim fins felt ridiculous and artificial—even though Shion had never been able to grow a tail of his own, his legs more than strong enough to propel him through the water—and his whole body buzzed with anxiety. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself in a way that proved to be completely ineffective, and then he tumbled backward into Number Six.

Sinking down into the depths, Shion let the cold water collapse around him and smother the heat of embarrassment and anger and relief that churned inside him. He sank downward through a small school of colorful fish and past Trudgealong (a withered sea turtle with a no-nonsense attitude), squeezing his eyes closed behind the useless face mask and trying to breathe.

Goddammit.

Nezumi’s shocked face flashed behind his closed eyelids. His voice echoed in Shion’s skull like a pissed off bee, and no matter how hard Shion fought it, he couldn’t help but remember how it had felt to sink beneath the waves with Nezumi guiding him by the wrist, propelling them both along the coral reefs much more quickly than Shion could move on his own.

Shion shook away the thoughts and focused on eying the occupants of Number Six and taking mental notes on their overall health.

For the most part, the fish and assorted sharks looked decent. Shion could sense the increased buzz of excitement radiating from them; he couldn’t “speak to fish”, and Nezumi had confirmed that no Child of the Sea could. He could, however, sense when they were comfortable or agitated.

The fish in Number Six enjoyed the summer rush far more than the staff at the West Block Aquarium did. Snubby, for example, seemed to enjoy preening in front of children who remarked on his crooked teeth and blunt nose with loud shouts to their parents and pointing fingers. These were Snubby’s point of pride, and he swam quickly around the tank to ensure everyone got a good look. If Snubby were a human or a Child of the Sea, Shion felt the two of them wouldn’t get along very well. Fortunately, for both of them, Snubby couldn’t talk.

Beneath the cool saltwater, the red marking wrapped around Shion’s body chilled. These were the only “scales” Shion had on his body, and something about being in the water gave them a more aquatic appearance. The otherwise smooth red marking bristled and slotted with patterns, and if Shion ran his bare finger over it, it would feel bumpy and slick. The vibrant color made him wonder if this would be the color his tale would be if he could grow one in water. Sometimes he disliked not being able to grow one the way Nezumi and other Children of the Sea could, but Nezumi had never made him feel bad for it. In fact, Nezumi claimed, based on the stories he’d been told, Shion was lucky. The tradeoff for most Children of the Sea was that while they could grow tails in water, their legs were weak on land. Some of the most graceful Children of the Sea turned into complete klutzes on the surface.

As a teenager, Shion had laughed himself sick at the prospect of beautiful, elegant Nezumi being reduced to a tripping mess on the land. He often wondered if that was why Nezumi would never come up on land. Nezumi was a proud creature, and Shion often wondered if his pride could survive face-planting on the sand.

But now Nezumi was on land.

Shion shook his head. Don’t think about it right now.

Shion bit down on the breathing apparatus stuffed in his mouth. Something deep inside him made him glance down to the foyer through the clear, teal water. Through the glass several floors down, Shion could see Emi and Nezumi standing in front of Rikiga. Shion watched his boss lazily drift his hand through the air, giving them both the same spiel he gave each intern at the beginning of their first shift. Emi continued to bounce on the balls of her feet, looking ready to explode into a thousand pieces. And Nezumi…

Nezumi looked up into the tank. His eyes met Shion’s, even several stories down, and he lifted his hand to wave at him.

Shion didn’t know what compelled him, but he lifted his gloved hand and waved back.

⁂

At fifteen past seven, when the aquarium had officially closed and the majority of the staff had clocked out and gone home, Shion stood outside the employee entrance, arms wrapped around himself in a desperate attempt to keep from falling apart.

Seven-thirty. Nezumi had promised to come back to the aquarium at seven-thirty and meet Shion at the employee entrance.

Shion eyed the cars zipping down the street on the opposite end of the empty parking lot. The West Block Aquarium emptied out pretty quick after the doors closed. None of the staff were eager to pull extra hours, and Rikiga didn’t offer overtime. Shion was an exception—the only one on Rikiga’s staff who was salary—and if Rikiga happened to spot his car still in the lot, it wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows.

He leaned back against the brick wall, the warm stones heating the fabric of his lab coat. He didn’t know why he bothered wearing it. Shion spent most of his time submerged in the tanks, but the lab coat made him feel normal. Human. He didn’t mind being a hybrid, not at all, but it was lonely not having someone like him to confide in.

Shion flexed his fingers. He still remembered the day he and Nezumi met. Shion had been walking down the beach—because what else was a gainfully unemployed sixteen-year-old to do on a sunny summer day in a bustling tourist town—and growing anxious amidst the screaming toddlers and indifferent mothers in their floppy sunhats, Shion had sought out a place where he could dive underwater and go missing for a bit.

Diving under the waves and vanishing, however, wouldn’t work with an audience. People stared at him because of his weird hair (even in a tourist town where teenagers dyeing their hair ridiculous colors was well within the norm), and if he went underwater and didn’t resurface, he’d have the Coast Guard called on him in no time.

Climbing the rocks clustered on the left side of the beach and walking another mile from the main beach, Shion sought out a strip of soft white beach where he could sprint in and vanish. The broken pier attached to the boardwalk (abandoned for months after a nasty embezzling scandal leaked to the press) rose into view, and Shion’s mood brightened.

He ducked beneath the pier, preparing to slip beneath the waves—and lo and behold, tangled in a net and cursing up a storm had been Nezumi.

A fisherman’s net had tangled around him as he skimmed the bottom of the water, and Nezumi had managed to break the net from the boat (rightfully confusing the fishermen in the process, who must have assumed they’d wrangled a shark), but the tight coils had knotted around his fins. Unwilling to be a sitting duck for a bigger predator (believe it or not, Children of the Sea were not the top of the food chain), Nezumi had desperately sought a strip of beach where he could safely work on pulling the net off his tail.

Immediately springing into action, Shion had deftly untangled the knots, whispering to Nezumi that he’d have him free in no time. His mind buzzed with excitement—someone like him was sitting right there—but it didn’t feel like an appropriate time to gush.

Nezumi, who’d growled at Shion when he first approached, went painfully still. His silver eyes, so beautiful and unlike anything Shion had ever seen before, watched each movement of his hands as he worked the net carefully off his fins. Shion fought his own urges to brush his fingers against the dark black and blue scales, jealous and enamored of something he should have had but didn’t, and after a few minutes of careful working, he tossed the vicious net aside and said, brightly, “There! You’re free.”

“Much obliged,” Nezumi muttered, and then, before Shion could blink, Nezumi’s hand wrapped around his wrist and yanked him into the water.

The shock of the cool ocean made Shion gasp; that had probably been Nezumi’s intention. With a few powerful flicks of his tail, Nezumi propelled them away from the shore, banking downward into the deeper ends of the shallows.

“You saved me, human,” Nezumi’s voice purred in his ear, sending goosebumps skittering down his bare arms. “So, I suppose it’s only fair to reward you.”

Drowning is a reward? Shion had thought. He’d opened his mouth to tell Nezumi that drowning wouldn’t work on him, that he wasn’t human—and Nezumi’s mouth closed over his own.

Shion’s eyes widened. Nezumi’s mouth was cool, but his soft lips sent waves of warmth through each nerve ending in Shion’s body. His eyes slid shut, the gentle shifts of the ocean waves rustling above his head. Tendrils of Nezumi’s long, dark hair brushed against his cheeks. Shion fought the urge to reach his hands out and brush his fingers through it, wondering at how soft it would feel.

An eternity later, Nezumi drew back, his arms still wrapped around Shion’s shoulders. Shion swallowed a mouthful of seawater and opened his eyes.

Nezumi’s silver eyes hovered a few inches in front of his own. He looked down at Shion—still alive, still staring at him in wonder—and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “You…” he said slowly. “You’re not drowning.”

“I am not.”

“You’re… like me?”

"Yeah. Well, half, anyway.”

“Oh,” Nezumi said, and that had been the beginning of it all.

From the moment Shion laid eyes on Nezumi, he’d known there was something different about him. Not just because he had a tail and looked like a god, but because he wasn’t like anyone else Shion had ever met in his life.

Nezumi had a vicious sense of humor. Nezumi was sarcastic and cold. He mocked Shion and poked fun at his wetsuit—black with bright red accents, because it made him feel at least somewhat attractive and it was comfortable—and he never understood how Shion could enjoy walking around on land when there was a whole ocean to explore.

But there was so much more to Nezumi than his sarcasm. He loved listening to stories. His laugh sounded like bells. He sang songs when he and Shion were alone, and he knocked Safu off her surfboard as a joke until she kicked him in the shoulder and tried to wrestle him underwater, both of them shrieking with laughter.

“Shion!”

He lifted his head, startled from his memories, and spotted Nezumi hurrying across the parking lot.

It was strange, seeing him with a pair of legs rather than a long black tail, but at least he’d changed out of the vibrant green tee-shirt Rikiga insisted his staff members wear to be more visible. Shion had never been more grateful than the day he’d been given permission to wear whatever he wanted as long as he wore a lab coat over it during work hours. As the son of Rikiga’s good friend (Crush, Safu insisted, and Shion gallantly ignored her), Shion received something akin to “special treatment” from Rikiga, though he never asked for it.

He was still wearing the cargo pants and black boots he’d been wearing earlier, but in place of the tee shirt was a black leather jacket that Shion had to admit looked stunning on him. It mixed well with his long, dark hair and piercing eyes; it was a wonder that he’d made it to the aquarium at all. How did he get through each day without a horde of people swarming around him?

Shion looked down at his cell phone. The screen flashed its white numbers, announcing seven-twenty-five. Shion’s heart skipped a bit, and he tried to compose himself as Nezumi trotted up beside him.

“You’re early,” he said softly.

“Didn’t want to risk being late,” Nezumi replied. “You don’t deserve that.”

Shion huffed through his nose. “Let’s go inside. We can talk there.”

“OK,” Nezumi mumbled.

Shion let them in the employee entrance. He shut the door behind them, then made a bee line for the elevator leading up to the observatory room near Number Six.

“Where are you going?” Nezumi called after him.

“Let’s go to Number Six,” Shion called back. “It’ll be easier to talk if we don’t worry about people walking in on us.”

“The aquarium’s closed, though.” Nezumi caught up to him rather quickly. He strode beside Shion, his long legs easily keeping pace with Shion’s brisk stride. “Who’d walk in?”

"Well, hopefully, no one. But you never know what employees have left things behind. So it’d be better not to be talking about… things where people could overhear.”

“Good point,” Nezumi murmured.

The elevator ride up to the observatory room was silent and awkward. Shion shifted from one foot to the other, and Nezumi lingered on the far end of the little room to give him space. Shion could feel those piercing silver eyes sliding toward him, then quickly darting away when Shion tried to look back. It sent prickles through his body, and he clenched his fists to focus on something else.

When the elevator dinged and signaled their arrival at the observatory, Nezumi stepped out of the room and half-jogged across the tile floor and toward the top of the tank. The lights had been dimmed, only a few bulbs bright and illuminating the dome. Nezumi quickly unzipped the black leather jacket and tossed it casually to the floor, revealing a long-sleeved yellow shirt beneath it.

“Nezumi?” Shion asked.

Nezumi didn’t answer. He shucked off his shirt, and beneath it he wore a black sleeveless shirt that Shion suspected was meant to keep him from being bare-chested in the water.

“Um,” Shion said, feeling his face heating up. “What exactly are you doing?”

"Proof,” Nezumi called over his shoulder. He swooped down to undo his black boots, kicking them off into the corner beside Number Six’s main pool.

“Proof of what?” Shion asked, but Nezumi didn’t answer. He unbuttoned his pants, and Shion quickly looked away. His face burned, and only when he heard the sound of water splashing did he turn back.

Nezumi popped back up, grabbing the side of the tank and folding his arms on top of it. He rested his chin on his wrists and looked up at Shion. His silver eyes (exactly as Shion remembered, even years later) glittered in the fluorescent lights. His hair was still in a ponytail, several strands falling down over where his ears would be.

“Just wanted to make sure you knew it was really me,” Nezumi said, and with a flick of his tail, he sent a few droplets of water raining down over Shion’s head.

His tail.

Shion’s heart stopped. When Shion met Nezumi, the first thing he’d noticed (after the eyes) had been his tail. Unlike the bright blues and greens of Disney and childhood picture books, Nezumi’s tale was dark black and flecked with deep blue. The fins were wider and longer at the base, almost lace-like and elegant. Beneath the surface of the water, Shion couldn’t seen what they looked like at the hips (he was still wearing the lime green West Block Aquarium staff tee shirt, which didn’t suit him at all), but from his memory, he knew that the scales melded into flesh around his navel.

Shion crouched beside the tank, his stomach tightening. “Why now?”

Nezumi’s tail sank back below the surface of the water. Shion could see it swaying idly back and forth, the way a human might churn their feet lazily to keep themselves afloat in calm seas.

Shion knew Nezumi’s tail would be cold if he touched it. So would his skin. Nezumi was always cold. Not his personality, but—all right, sometimes his personality, too, but mostly his skin and tail were cool whenever Shion touched them. Even years later, he could remember the way it felt to smooth his hand over Nezumi’s hip, counting the blue scales peppered throughout. Nezumi’s tail reminded him of obsidian, black at first glance, with flecks of gray and purple and blue when it moved and the light shifted across it.

Nezumi’s eyes lowered to the floor between them. A harsh silence fell around them, punctuated only by the buzzing of the lights overhead and the glug-glug of the industrial-sized water filter.

“I didn’t mean to disappear for so long,” Nezumi explained, and his voice held so much conviction that Shion didn’t doubt him.

“You said that.”

“When I went back, something… happened.”

Shion raised an eyebrow.

Nezumi’s fingers wove into his damp bangs, which were so long they fell over his left eye, and gave them a yank. Shion’s heart clenched; he recognized it as an old habit Nezumi had when they were teenagers, something he did when he was nervous or uncomfortable. His nails were still pale and long, neat despite the distinct lack of access to quality salon service beneath the ocean’s waves.

“A human found the town where I lived,” he said quietly. “Under the ocean. When I wasn’t visiting you at the beach.”

Shion felt something clamp around his heart.

He knew what it meant if humans discovered the existence of the Children of the Sea. Humans, as much as Shion might have liked to believe otherwise, couldn’t stand knowing that there were resources they hadn’t been able to exploit. And the existence of merpeople would be a scientific miracle—enough that some greedy bastard would utilize it to try and earn millions.

“What happened?” Shion whispered. He hadn’t recalled seeing any breaking news headlines about merpeople; he definitely would have seen something like that, unless the government came swooping in to silence it.

Nezumi’s tail twitched under the water, clearly agitated. “Instead of running to the news,” he said through his teeth, “this idiot decided to try and capture one of us and bring them to the shore as evidence. Needless to say, the rest of us didn’t take kindly to that.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“But what we didn’t count on,” Nezumi said, his voice lowering, “was the oil.” He rested his hand flat on the water’s surface, letting it bounce gently beneath the water and then lifting it back up. “He emptied a container of oil into the water—not sure where he got it—and lit a match. I didn’t know it was that flammable.”

Shion listened as Nezumi explained how the flames had burned the Children of the Sea, who were unaccustomed to the sensation due to their inexperience with burning things. The oil doused them and made them sink below, unable to swim and avoid the flames. The water didn’t seem to stop it, the sticky substance creating an odd shield that didn’t mix well with the water, keeping the two materials separate from each other.

His heart ached at the thought of all the Children of the Sea who had suffered—according to Nezumi’s whispered story, the whole town had gone down in flames. A decent chunk of them had managed to escape, Nezumi included, but the majority of them…

The majority of them had burned to death.

“I’m sorry,” Shion whispered as Nezumi lapsed into uncomfortable silence. “Oh, Nezumi, I’m so sorry.”

“I was so angry,” Nezumi replied. “When I woke up and realized what had happened, I was so angry I couldn’t think of anything else. I was hurt. I was scared. And I couldn’t think of anything except how much I hated humans.”

Shion frowned. Nezumi’s dislike for humans wasn’t new to him. And fortunately, Nezumi had never spat Shion’s half-human heritage in his face. If anything, he seemed as fascinated by Shion’s legs as Shion was about his tail. The only difference was that Nezumi could have had a pair of his own—he stubbornly chose not to—and Shion had never been able to pop a tail no matter how many (embarrassing) times he’d attempted.

“When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was,” Nezumi went on. “All I knew was that my back hurt and everyone else I knew was dead. For a while things were just… bad. I couldn’t move, and when I tried, it just made me realize that there was a chance I was going to die, too, and I hated it. After a while, I could move, and I just left.”

“Left?” Shion echoed.

“I couldn’t stand being there,” Nezumi said under his breath. “Everywhere I looked I could see all the people I knew, and then I remembered that because of one greedy fucking human, they were gone. We took him down with us—Sasori, I think, yanked him off the boat and drowned him—but it didn’t feel like enough. It didn’t matter that he was dead, too. It didn’t matter that, miraculously, I’d survived whatever the hell he did to us. It just didn’t matter.”

Shion swallowed the lump in his throat. His eyes stung.

“I wanted to come back,” Nezumi went on, his voice painfully soft. Shion had to strain to hear him. “I wanted to at least tell you why I was going. But every time I thought about going back to that place, something just made me leave. It’s not an excuse, and I know it’s not a good enough reason to make you think that I just abandoned you, but I couldn’t—couldn’t get past the anger. I hated everyone. I hated myself. I was so angry, and there was no coming back from it. And I didn’t…” He waved his hands, agitated, the words slipping away from him. He huffed and said, “I didn’t want to take it out on you. It’s so fucking stupid, but I didn’t want to shout at you and blame you, and I was so angry with humans that I knew I would. If I saw you then, I’d only see the human part of you and blame you for things you had nothing to do with. That’s not fair. I know it’s not. And I’m not asking you to forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive me, either.”

“Then why come back?” Shion whispered. He’d moved forward, almost like an instinct, and sat at the edge of the tank, a few inches from Nezumi’s face. “Why come back at all?”

“Because I missed you,” Nezumi whispered back, as strong and as sure as if he’d simply stated the color of the morning sky. “I missed you. When the anger cooled, you were all I could think about. I had no way of knowing if you were even still here, or if you’d even want to see me after I just left, but if there was a chance, I wanted to take it.”

Shion’s throat tightened. He swallowed around the lump that had lodged there and ordered himself not to cry. He was angry. He was supposed to be angry. And yet, beneath the anger was wave after wave of relief that Nezumi was alive.

“So… the aquarium?”

Nezumi shrugged. “It seemed like a good job for a Child of the Sea. I filled out the application and they called me back. I didn’t know you were working here. But once I got a job and… established myself here, I wanted to find you.”

“Established yourself?”

“I wanted a way to prove to you that I wanted to stay. If you told me to fuck off and never wanted to see me again, I would understand. But I wanted a way to prove to you that I intend to stay this time.”

Shion’s hands tightened around the lip of the tank. Emotions whirled inside him like a tsunami, and he felt as if he was caught in the middle of it, unable to surface. Stinging tears prickled at the backs of his eyes, and he forced back the urge to cry. Once he started, he knew he’d never stop. He scraped the back of his hand beneath his eyes, widening them just a bit to keep from crying.

He was still angry. Of course he was. But he couldn’t imagine how badly it hurt. He couldn’t imagine what he would have done if his mother’s bakery burnt down, with her and Safu and everyone else he knew trapped inside.

He took a deep breath, feeling it catching inside his chest around the ball of anger and sorrow and raw fucking hope that’d nestled within.

"Where are you staying?” Shion murmured.

Nezumi perked up, but kept his voice steady as he answered, “A motel down on Seventh Street. By the boardwalk. You remember.”

“I do.” Shion pressed his lips together. “It’s not too far from my house. What’s your schedule?”

"I’m off tomorrow, but I think I’m working open to close on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The old man says hours will pick up some time, but he wasn’t specific.”

“Do you have a car?”

“Can’t drive,” Nezumi answered, much too quickly, and Shion couldn’t help the laugh that cracked out of his throat. “I can barely walk—don’t laugh at me. This is serious.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Shion said, but his lips were tugging upward at the corners. He had to admit, despite everything that’d happened, it was pretty fucking funny. Nezumi—elegant, perfect, beautiful, wonderful Nezumi, whose every movement was the physical definition of grace—was clumsy on the land.

“Yes, you are,” Nezumi groused, but when Shion stole a glance up into his face, he was smiling, too.

God, his smile.

Even after all these years, he was still as beautiful as the day Shion met him.

“Well,” Shion said, and dammit, if his voice wobbled, Nezumi better not comment on it. “The boardwalk’s on my way to the aquarium, and if you’re working about the same schedule as me, I wouldn’t mind picking you up and bringing you home.”

Nezumi’s eyes widened.

“I’m not ready to forgive you just yet,” Shion explained. “You really hurt me. I understand why you left, but I wish you had just… I don’t know, said something to me so I didn’t think you were dead. I know that might be petty of me, given what happened, and I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s not petty,” Nezumi assured. “I was an asshole.”

“Yeah, but you almost died.” Shion exhaled through his nose. “And I missed you, too.”

Nezumi laughed; it crackled a bit at the edges, and Shion couldn’t help it. He leaned forward, his arms reaching out—and miraculously, Nezumi reached back. Shion slid his arms around Nezumi’s shoulders and rested his forehead against the crook of Nezumi’s neck. He smelled like sea salt and an odd floral scent Shion had never been able to identify but could always remember. Despite being half fish, Nezumi never smelled like anything Shion would have expected.

Nezumi’s arms tightened around his shoulders and squeezed back. “I really did miss you,” he murmured against the top of Shion’s head.

“I missed you, too,” Shion said, and it was true. As angry and hurt as he was with Nezumi’s sudden disappearance, nothing about that had changed. “I’m not ready to go back to the way things were, and I can’t promise that I will be…”

“That’s fine,” Nezumi assured, burying his face in Shion’s hair. “I’m just glad to be here, in whatever way you’ll have me.”

This was more emotion and honesty than Shion had ever gotten out of Nezumi about his feelings, and it felt as if a sudden, burning heat had cracked through the darkness in his heart. His memories of his summers spent as a teenager came flooding back to him, and all at once, he was back on the beach, stretched out on a scratchy beach blanket with Nezumi’s arms wrapped around him. His tail rested over Shion’s legs, comfortingly cool in the midsummer heat, and heavy in a way that reminded Shion of a weighted blanket.

Nothing about it was perfect. Shion knew this. The frustration and pain wouldn’t disappear overnight, and just because Nezumi apologized didn’t mean he was free and clear of blame. But for a few moments, wrapped in his arms, Shion understood that at least he was back and they could work through it together.

He sighed, pressed himself against Nezumi’s cool, solid body, and reveled in the realization that yes, he was back. He was back, and he wanted to be here. The shush-shush of the water in Number Six fell around them, creating a comfortable mimicry of the waves that’d collapsed over Shion’s head the day Nezumi hauled him into the ocean and tried to drown him. Shion closed his eyes, tightened his grip on Nezumi’s shoulders, and for the first time in years, could finally breathe.

#no6 #no 6 #no.6 #no. 6 #no6secretsanta #aoicanvas #glorifiedscapegoat #fanfiction #submission

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strongerwiththepack · 3 years

Text

Curiosity

For FabFiveFeb2021 (John).

Thank-you so much to everyone who’s left me such nice comments on my little prompt fics this past week. It gave me the motivation to finally finish this FabFiveFeb fic (on the 1st of March 🤦‍♀️).

A fluffy John and Alan fic. Set 3 years before TAG. Using the prompt ‘A curiosity’. Thank-you @gumnut-logic for organising the challenge!

“Scott come on, I’m too busy this week.”

“You’re busy every week John” Scott rolled his eyes on the hologram, making John pout pathetically. “Stop putting this off. Besides, you’d be able to test out the coding on your sample collector things while you’re there.”

John narrowed his eyes, he did need to do that, but he could do it on Earth or the moon even. There was no need to go to Mars.

“What if there’s a rescue?”

“We can handle it John, a day off isn’t going to kill you.”

John scoffed. “You’re one to talk, Scott.”

“Alan misses you, just do this for him, please John.”

John narrowed his eyes. He knew what Scott was doing. Scott knew he knew as well. Didn’t mean it wasn’t effective.

“Fine.”

So that’s where he found himself now. With Alan. On Mars.

His little brother was having the best day of his life, bouncing around pointing out the different types of soil and rocks. John smiled to himself at the enthusiasm. Alan was going to make a great astronaut someday.

The journey over had been really nice. John had fielded all of Alan’s questions about Thunderbird 3 and space travel. It reminded him of when they were kids and John would help Alan with his homework. He’d even given Alan the chance to pilot which wasn’t all that thrilling when they were already on course but his brother had seemed happy enough.

Despite his reluctance, this was nice.

“Do you think we’ll see any Aliens John?”

John laughed. The transition from describing soil types to the degree of a college PHD student to asking in all seriousness about Aliens was the perfect description of his youngest brother’s personality.

“Not likely Alan.” John chuckled.

The pout added to the humour.

“Do you think dad ever saw any Aliens while he was here?” Alan queried innocently, eyes wide as he waited for an answer.

John swallowed painfully and tried not to put a damper on Alan’s mood. “He never mentioned it if he did.”

“Can we go see dad’s plaque?”

John had been before, with their dad. The footprint in the soil surrounded by a podium. He’d teased the man about it then, thinking it was rather cheesy. Not so much now.

“Unfortunately no, they’re building the new mars colonies around it so it’s closed off at the moment.” John explained. He was glad, the lone footprint would have brought up unwanted feelings this time around. “That mission is set to launch in 2061. It’ll be the first-time humans have set up permanent residence on Mars.”

“Wow” Alan admired in awe. Distraction successful. “They would need a lot of oxygen for that, or maybe one of those prototypes for oxygen conversion has been approved! And obviously they would need some sort of sustainable way to grow food…”

John let Alan trail off on his rant. The kid was going to ace his Mars paper that was for sure.

He still had to test out his sample collection drones. It was his latest project. When he had been at university it had been extremely difficult to gather consistent interplanetary data for his research. The data was out there but it was either impossible to navigate or hidden behind a paywall. He still liaised with a lot of universities and knew it was still a problem. So, he’d decided to create an open-source, easy-to-navigate database for students and researchers around the world.

He could use the data that was already available but like he said none of it was consistent so he and Brains had designed some deep-space drones that could collect all the data they needed.

They were programmed to test gravity, air quality, rock types, temperature and a host of other categories. The engineering behind these tiny drones was insane. John never could’ve done it alone, Brains truly was remarkable. His dad sure knew how to spot talent.

He placed the little drone down before activating it on his tablet.

“Hey Alan, come check this out!”

Alan bounced over excitedly as the rotor blades retracted from the drone and it rose into the air.

“Cool! Can I fly it?”

“There are no controls, it’s fully automated!” John explained as he passed the tablet to his younger brother. “The readings are already coming in, these tiny little bots can produce so much data – it’s going to revolutionise research and academia in the future.”

“Where’s it going now?”

The drone had begun to quickly move away from them before it dropped down into the earth, out of sight.

John took the tablet back. “Hmm looks like it’s found a deep crater, it’s trying to gather below surface data.”

The tablet made a shrill beeping noise. “Hmm looks like it’s found something unusual down there, we can’t get a clear reading.”

They walked over to peer over the edge of the large crater. It spanned at least five meters wide and it was too dark to see how deep.

John grinned at his little brother as he flicked on his helmet torch. “Want to take a look?”

Alan gaped at him, looking into the dark hole before his face broke into a huge grin. “Yes!”

John chuckled. “Okay, come on, let’s get the grappling gear.”

He and Alan dropped into the crater that was dimly lit through their suit torches. It was incredibly dusty, their torches reflected off the particles floating in the air. There was a tunnel that led further under the surface. They didn’t have enough light to see more than a few meters in front of them.

“You’re sure about the aliens, right John?” Alan questioned unsurely beside him.

“Yes Alan” John rolled his eyes as he shone his light towards the ceiling of the tunnel. “It the structural integrity I’m more worried about.”

Alan whipped his head up to check as well.

“It’s not too far in, just tread lightly and try not to make any loud noises.” John reasoned.

The drone chose that moment to zoom out of the dark tunnel at them, and Alan yelped in alarm as it almost hit his head.

John rolled his eyes facepalming his helmet as a new dust cloud erupted. “Yeah, loud noises like that.”

Alan smiled sheepishly and whispered. “Sorry.”

John cocked his head towards the tunnel. “C’mon.”

They quickly came across the source of the anomaly. There was something partially buried in the red-tinged soil.

“No way…” John gasped as they got closer. “Do you know what that is Alan?”

“Uhhh” Alan focused his torch on it as he inched closer. “A rover?”

“It’s the NASA Curiosity rover!” John explained, brushing off some of the dust that had settled there. “It went missing in 2040 and was never recovered.”

“It looks like a bit of a relic.” Alan commented.

“Oh it is.” John said with a smile. “It was launched in 2011. It still holds the record for the longest operating rover on mars.”

“Oh cool.” Alan said airily.

John chuckled. He could tell his little brother wasn’t impressed. The rover was a dinosaur by their standards but he knew it had been revolutionary at the time.

He couldn’t wait to tell his Grandma. He still remembered her telling him the story of the Curiosity landing. How it had been broadcast live on the television. How Jeff, who’d still been a young child, had sat on her lap bouncing excitedly. The Tracy’s had always had their heart’s in space travel.

“Come on.” John prompted. “We’re gonna tow this thing out of here.”

“Do we have to?” Alan whined. “It’s massive.”

“Yep. Let’s grab the tow cables from Three.” John instructed. “NASA are going to be over the moon.”

“You can’t really ever be over the moon, John.” Alan called over his shoulder.

“I know Alan.”

It turned out Curiosity had fallen into the crater and lost power when it got trapped without the sun. When John and Alan pulled it from the crater, it miraculously began to charge through the solar panels again.

And that’s how, in 2057, Curiosity was returned to the world.

#thunderbirds are go #fabfivefeb #fabfivefeb2021 #John Tracy #Alan Tracy #myfic

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unicyclehippo · 4 years

Note

beaujester star wars au..... beau is a cocky rebellion pilot that’s a little Too good at dodging and firing shots, and jester is a princess-turned-junior senator-turned rebellion supporter. they are both force sensitive and kiss

The star base has been overrun by decorations and muted music, louder toward the centre of the hanger and half-volume at the edges, where a few hand-picked individuals - volunteers, probably - are keeping an eye on the alerts still. Colourful lights spin over the ceiling in programmed patterns that put Beau in mind of the star maps she reads on a daily basis, and the longer she looks, the more she starts to think they actually are star maps. Blown out to make ‘em look all pretty, though. That’s what decorating on a tight budget looks like, though.

She’s leaning against the landing gear of her fighter, largely hidden by the shadows of her wings, and doing her utmost to strike a balance between looking incredibly cool but incredibly unapproachable whenever anyone looks her way. It’s hard, and she’s pretty sure she just looks injured, but no one has come over to talk to her and that’s a win in her book. No one, that is, save for Fjord.

Fjord Tusktooth - tall, green, surprisingly lean for an orc, tusked as the name suggests and a damn good pilot, her Captain actually - sidles over, arms raised over his head as he steps through the dancing crowd. He tries his best not to let the drinks spill but he’s licking what looks like jet oil off his hand when he reaches her.

‘That better not be mine, Cap.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Can humans drink strick-oil?’

‘No.’

‘Then it’s not yours, is it? What’s wrong with your face?’

‘What? Nothing! Give me that.’

It doesn’t smell like a drink; it smells like it’ll strip her innards of anything and everything useful and replace them with alcohol. Luckily, that’s exactly how she likes her drinks. Taking it from him, she flings it back, feels it burn all the way down. It hits her system like a punch to the face from a nydak.

‘Good?’

‘Fuckin’ awful,’ she rasps. ‘Cheers.’

He laughs. Settles into place beside her, sipping at the thick oil drink. ‘So. Any reason you’re all the way over here instead of letting all of these lov-erly ladies lavish you with attention?’ He waggles his brows as he asks and grins, very much aware that he’s the only one who can get away with asking her these kinds of questions as baldly as he does. Mostly because he manages to ask in a way that doesn’t make her wanna use him for shooting practice. And a little because he’s her superior officer. ‘I’ve turned down two proposals on your behalf - you’re welcome.’

‘Huh? What? Who?’

He points them out subtly - one a dusty pink alien clad in white and gold, with about a half dozen tentacles drifting around her head like a mane, the other a waist-high, bearded lady who winks right at Beau when she sees her watching.

‘That’s kinda my call, isn’t it?’

‘They offered two nerfs for you -’

‘Like, both of them together? That’s hot.’

‘What? No - Beau,’ he laughs. ‘The point is that you should know your worth.’ His face goes carefully blank as he tries, very obviously, not to smile. ‘Three nerfs.’

Beau snorts. ‘Shut up. I’m going to get another drink. See if you can get them to bid higher for my hand, yeah? Remind them that I lead Team Two today. Integral to the battle. Integral.’ He salutes and she pushes off the wall, walks toward the party just long enough for his eyes to slide away from her. She steps sideways into the corridor and ducks out of sight, breath coming out in a gust.

Tyr-Mannou Star Base is built deep in the asteroid that orbits the planet, hidden from prying eyes and ears by the layered rock. Beau hadn’t been listening a hundred per cent when it was explained but something about the metals in the area, and in this planet, seemed to provide a buffer - mild, temporary - to long-distance scanning and surveillance. And at this point - haggard, hurting - the rebels will take any buffer at all.

It’s good for the rebellion, to be buried in the asteroid.

It’s hard to find fresh air, though, and Beau pulls at the collar of her jumpsuit, unzipping it until she doesn’t feel like she’s being strangled.

Moving farther from the party, down the corridor and just away, Beau lets her feet carry her aimlessly at first - listening to the sound of her boots on the metal, echoing in the tin-can corridors, hiding briefly from the passing technicians who don’t seem to notice her in the various shadowed niches she finds. And then less aimlessly, until she realises she is headed directly for the command station.

The room isn’t dark, not ever, but it is running on a skeleton crew who look up suspiciously at her entry, relaxing when they recognise her face - or, more likely, the badge affixed to her shoulder.

‘Lionette.’

‘Commander.’

‘Shouldn’t you be at the party? I heard your squad was receiving a commendation.’

‘We are. Did, Commander.’

Commander Dairon - a hard-ass and a legend in the fighter crews for the Battle of Sotheirrik in which they led the harrying of a military convoy for two fucking weeks - looks her over with a cool eye before nodding. ‘Made an appearance at least, I hope?’

‘Sure did.’

‘Good. Get some rest, Lionette. There will be plenty of work come morning.’ The Commander reaches out a gloved hand. Rests it on Beau’s shoulder for a moment, squeezes. ‘Enjoy these moments when you can,’ they tell her quietly, and it has a tinge of an order to it. But just a tinge.

‘Yessir.’

‘Good. Now,’ they say, eyes glittering, ‘Fuck off.’

Beau barks a laugh. Salutes her Commander lazily and continues on, onwards toward the view that had been calling her.

The command station sits closest to the surface of the asteroid and it is here, only here, that one can see the view that they are risking everything to protect. The field of stars and asteroids, glinting as they catch the light of Tyr-Mannou’s sun. The purple-blue of Tyr-Mannou’s surface, the deep deep green almost black of its seas. The layer of clouds that cloak portions of the landmasses and oceans alike, drifting. Beau leans up against the window, hands curling over the rail, and watches a storm brew.

She feels Jester’s presence before she sees her. A flicker of something at the edge of her awareness, far beyond that which her awareness should rightfully cover. She hears the hiss of the gas as the doors slide open and turning, beau watches a green-cloaked figure step down from the corridor. Jester exchanges a few words with Commander Dairon but Beau can feel it - the focus of her attention like a taut string between them, and she already knows Jester is about to look up, feeling her intent like a thrum, a plucked note on that string.

Jester looks up. Dark, dark eyes in a smiling face.

‘Ambassador Lavorre, this is one of our finest pilots.’

‘Beauregard,’ Jester interrupts Dairon’s introduction.

Beau tries not to shiver. No one says her name the way this girl does, like they’re sharing a private joke.

‘Princess,’ Beau returns, and she’s aiming for calm and cool, something to suit her new title of the best fucking pilot of the rebellion, but damn if it doesn’t come out reverent.

Commander Dairon’s brows are at their hairline now and out of the corner of her eye Beau sees them mouth, ‘Okay,’ and they take their seat, turning away.

‘How are you?’ Jester asks. It’s as nice to hear as it is weird. ‘I was told that you and your squad took on the main fleet today?’

Beau snorts. ‘Fuck no. I mean - uh,’

‘I’m not a Princess anymore,’ Jester teases, though her smile flickers at the reminder. ‘You don’t have to not swear around me.’

‘Oh, you’ll regret saying that. I swear every second word now. Habit. Us pilots are a rough and rowdy lot.’

Jester just laughs. ‘May I join you?’

‘Join - yeah, sure. Of course.’

Beau presses back until her back hits the rail, her spine and shoulders the cool glass. She grips the rail. Gulps. The weight of Jester’s attention, the force of her presence, feels like a real and tangible thing and Beau is finding it hard to concentrate the closer she comes - until she is right at her side and then the weight of it, the distraction, all falls away and Beau feels like the headache that has been pressing at her for the last few hours has lifted and she is seeing entirely clearly again.

Jester holds out her hand, straight out as if to shake Beau’s.

Beau slides her bare hand into Jester’s, tries not to shiver at the chill of her skin. Turns it and lifts it to her lips, brushes a kiss over sharp knuckles.

‘Introducing the First Madrick of Kar-Marodah, Thoreau Lionette, and the First Madrise,’

The Hall is as large as four grav-barret courts, Beau is sure of that. And it’s all made of grand, sweeping lines that she can’t quite follow. She cranes her head to try and follow one to its end but it meets with another three lines and Beau is dizzy with it; a large hand sets heavy on the top of her skull and stops her turning and twisting and Beau, nine years old and well acquainted with her fathers displeasure, falls still.

‘Be still, Beauregard. We are here to make a good impression on the Laveesh Embassy and that won’t happen,’ he reminds her, ‘if you are swinging all over the place like some common nerf-herder.’ His flat green eyes narrow. ‘Understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I’d prefer Captain,’ she dares tell him, sure that he won’t reprimand her too terribly in front of an audience, and the chance to see his eye twitch is too good to pass up. She doesn’t press too far, feeling the first flutters of her danger sense. ‘Yes sir.’

‘Come along. They’re waiting.’

His fingers are clawed into her shoulder as he moves them strategically around the room. Smiling and making small talk with the various important boring folk in the chamber, and Beau is waist-height to most of them so it’s not her fault that she’s more interested in what they’re wearing on their feet and if they have anything on their belts.

She finds two strange cards that have no writing on them that she recognises, which she returns, disappointed, and a ring on the floor, which she pockets. It feels cold and warm all at once, and as she drags her finger around the inside whorl of the ring, she feels very strange all of a sudden. As if she had done that exact thing a hundred, a thousand times over with this very ring.

‘Ah, Madrick Lionette, how wonderful,’ comes a voice, finally, that drags Beau’s eyes from the mosaic floor. The woman - the alien - the alien woman in front of Beau is beautiful in a way she has never seen before, all vibrant red skin and curves and gold gold gold and Beau feels her jaw drop. She didn’t know that women could look like this.

She’s still staring when she hears her own name, and feels her father shake her shoulder.

‘Beauregard,’ she blurts out. ‘Hello.’ The sigh from above tells her that she did that all wrong. Face flushing, ears burning, Beau trawls through her memory and tries again. ‘I’m - It’s a pleasure to meet you, Queen Lavorre. I am Beauregard Lionette, scion of the Madrick Lionette.’

‘Oh!’ The Queen laughs, not meanly at all but seemingly delighted. ‘How polite! It is my pleasure to meet you, Young Beauregard.’ She laughs again when Beau stammers through a thank you. ‘Have you had a chance to meet my daughter? You’re about the same age and she’s force sensitive too -’

‘Beauregard is not,’ her father tells the Queen flatly. ‘We had high hopes, but...it was not to be.’ He coats the words with the displeasure Beauregard hates; feels it pressing into her skin like his clawed fingers. It’s her fault she’s not force sensitive. She’s known that for a long time now. For as long as she can remember.

There is a moment of silence, then, ‘Well. Jester? Where have you gone, my darling?’

Like a flicker of fish in the pool back home, and with the same warmth of the sun-soaked tiles against Beau’s chest and belly as she lays at the side, hand plunged into the waters to try and catch one of those crafty fish, Beau sees her. A girl, around her own age as promised, and dressed all in pretty robes. She is muddy to the knees, the dress heavy around her feet and dripping the purpled soil in a thick trail behind her.

‘Jester? What have you gotten into?’

‘The mud. Obviously,’ the girl adds, though the Obviously was already clear from her tone. Her curls are riotous about her face, and she wears a great big smile, though it slips momentarily as she twists something between her fingers.

‘Are you alright?’ Beau blurts.

‘Beauregard,’

‘Oh yes,’ Jester tells her, and smiles with all the brilliance she can muster in her round, round cheeks and dark eyes. It’s... a lot.

Beau still feels an undercurrent. Cold water around her fingers. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Beauregard! Don’t be a pest!’

Jester stares for a moment, then laughs. Shoves her hand toward Beau. ‘Hello, pest. I’m Jester.’

Beau takes it. Blanks for a moment over what is proper and finally bows, kissing it clumsily. As she stands upright, she notes the rings - one on each finger. Except for,

‘Are you missing a ring?’

‘Oh, Jester,’

‘It was an accident,’ Jester tells her mother immediately, complete with trembling lip and abject sorrow. Though, Beau notes, no seeming anxiety for her mother’s reaction.

She reaches down into her pocket. Rubs her thumb over the heavy ring. Is struck, momentarily, by the urge to keep it. It’s beautiful, she found it.

It’s Jester’s.

She didn’t see a name on it, but she knows it as certainly as she knows she’ll have blisters in the morning from these awful shiny boots.

‘Come along, Beauregard,’ her father says, and begins to draw away from the Queen and her daughter.

Beau shakes out from his hold and steps forward, holds out both her closed hands toward Jester. If she can guess which one the ring is in, Beau decides in nine-year old logic, then she can have it back. If not, Beau will get to keep it.

They’re seventeen and the Madrick has called the meeting this time. The Queen - The Planetless Queen, Beau has heard her called behind her back, and she owns several bruises and one cracked knuckle for putting upstarts back in their places by force. The Queen has disappeared into the war room and Beau isn’t surprised to find that Jester has found her, even hidden away in the engineering core as she is.

‘Still on with this plan, then?’ Jester asks her, peering up from beneath the suspended chassis to where Beau is hanging, fixing the wiring. ‘Becoming a pilot?’

‘Why? You think I can’t hack it?’

‘What? No. Of course you can!’

‘Then why wouldn’t I be?’

Jester is quiet for a long time, long enough for Beau to almost forget the question. She winches herself down from her position and before she can fully reclaim her feet, Jester is in front of her and her hands press against Beau’s cheeks and she’s kissing her. Kissing her, with the engineering teams buzzing around outside, and the smell of jet-oil and soldering thick in the air.

‘I’ll miss you,’ she says. Simple words, but the feelings that slam hard into Beau’s stomach are far from simple.

‘Jes - ‘

‘I’m sorry,’

‘You can’t -’ Beau scrambles up onto her feet. Hooks a grease-stained hand onto the perfect sleeve of the newly minted Junior Ambassador, pulling her deeper into the corner. ‘My father -’

‘He’s busy, he didn’t see,’

‘He owns these people,’ Beau hisses, glances back over her shoulder. But no one seems to have seen. ‘If I’m going to get into the Academy, he can’t - he can’t know that I’m - with you,’

‘Why not? What’s wrong with me?’

‘Nothing! Everything!’

‘Oh, how very flattering,’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it, Jes,’

‘Well you do one thing and then say a lot of other nonsense, Beau, so forgive me if I’m a little confused!’ Jester is a sight and a half, eyes flashing with unbridled fury. She’s a good inch or two shorter than Beau but with them both straining to hiss-yell at one another, their noses are almost touching.

‘You’re hot when you’re angry.’

‘Oh shut up.’

Beau grins. The grin fades into something softer, something adoring. She reaches up. Is careful that, when she brushes a curl back, the grease-stained finger doesn’t touch Jester’s cheek. ‘Did you come here to ask me that? If I still wanna be a pilot, all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was five?’

Jester’s eyes drop.

Beau wipes her hand off on her jumpsuit. Crooks a finger under her chin. ‘Or did you come to ask me not to go?’

For a little while, Beau thinks Jester won’t answer. Then her eyes shift, harden, and Beau is reminded of those months after the destruction of her planet. When the pain had threatened to overflow and so Jester had locked it down, hard and tight enough to become coal, something that would let her burn and burn and burn with fury for ages to come.

‘What you want to do, it’s important. More important than me.’

Beau can’t disagree. The simple fact is that the war is more important than everything. Any one person. She opens her mouth to argue anyway, because - because this is Jester.

‘I came to tell you to be safe.’ And then Jester is reaching into her pocket and she removes something from it. Small and round and familiar, the golden band with the touch of emerald studded along it. The ring they have passed to one another at every meeting. A keep-safe. A talisman. ‘I want this back,’ she tells Beau, and presses it into her palm. Beau closes her hand around it, and Jester’s hand. Kisses the back of it.

‘Be safe. Please - I don’t want - I can’t lose you as well.’

‘As you command,’ Beau whispers. ‘Princess.’

The fight is coming quickly into its sixth hour. Beau’s jumpsuit is slick with sweat, her hands are basically swimming in her gloves, and she can barely fucking see with the sweat dripping, stinging in her eyes. There’s nothing she can do about that right now, though, and she yanks hard on her controls as another volley of bolts burst into the space where she just was.

‘Blue-XP, what’s your status?’

‘Got a bruiser on my tail, Cap,’ she gasps, and pulls hard, swivelling overhead of the TIE fighter, letting it zoom ahead. ‘Coming in hot on the zero.’

Whatever reply Fjord might have for her is lost in a crackle of energy and a blur as Beau reacts to something she feels before she sees - another TIE, bursting out from fucking nowhere to pinch her between the two of them.

Beau swears and books it, zipping in and out of the carcass of the long-dead transporter, her small fighter tackling the corners like a champ and her memory of the interior bursting into sharp relief as adrenaline and luck slam hard into her. She doesn’t let herself think, just slams into the controls in a way that might have made her wince if she had time to feel anything at all over the fear and fury.

One TIE bursts into flame, utterly silent in the vacuum. The other is hot on her tail still - the hunter becomes the hunted, piece of motherfucking shit Empire dogs - and then Beau is lifting a prayer to old, dead planets and touching a finger to the ring of heavy metal that hands around her neck and spinning her fighter around to face the TIE dead on. Spins around the bolts that come her way and - between one breath and the next she fires. Bolts away without even needing to look back.

It hit. She knew it before she saw the impact.

They stand in front of the star field now, in a quiet command station far from a party celebrating a truly minor battle. The war rages on all around them, in every direction, and will for years to come. But for now, there are drinks and lights and dancing, and everyone will pretend that it is enough.

With distant stars as their lights, and the beep of alerts and reminders as their music, Beauregard and Jester dance like they have been dancing together for decades. Like it hasn’t been almost five years since they’ve seen one another.

‘Most daring pilot in the ninth sector,’ Jester murmurs, cheek resting on Beau’s shoulder. Her words rumble up through her chest to the top of her head, where Beau’s cheek rests in turn against soft curls. ‘That’s what I’ve heard. You’re fast becoming a legend.’

‘Me? Maybe. But you faced down a legion of Kryn soldiers and got them to turn tail - yes or no?’ From the flush on Jester’s face, Beau knows her answer. She whistles, low and quiet. ‘Damn, Jes.’

‘That won’t be remembered. No one remembers the ambassadors - you’re not supposed to remember us. The fighters are the cool ones.’

‘I’ll remember you,’ Beau shrugs.

They sway together, a slow side-to-side.

‘I’ve got a present for you,’ Beau tells her. Jester’s smile is warm against her skin, even through the jumpsuit.

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah.’

��It wouldn’t happen to be a ring, would it?’

‘What - how did you know?’

Jester hums, trying to hide a laugh. The laugh actually does fade when Beau lets her go - just for a moment, just long enough to unclasp the chain - and tugs the ring off from around her neck. She clasps it in her hand and Beau is close enough to feel the ripple of it - the energy that swirls around this shared ring, no doubt full of the fear and thrilling adrenaline of the fight, hopefully filled with the memory of all those nights she spent in her cabin, missing Jester.

Jester’s breath hitches. She blinks a few times, blinking open dark eyes, and then turns in the cradle of Beau’s arms. Lifts her hair, as she offers the chain to Beau. ‘Do it up for me?’

‘Y-yeah. Yeah, sure.’ Beau takes it with suddenly clumsy fingers. Can’t resist brushing her thumb over the knob of Jester’s spine, the soft hair at her hairline. It takes a moment for her to work the clasp but finally it clicks closed and she lets her hands fall to either side, to Jester’s shoulders, and leans forward until she can kiss where she had touched. Lips pressed to the vulnerable space there. ‘I want that back,’ she whispers. ‘Sooner than five years, if you can manage.’

Jester twists back to face her. ‘Shouldn’t I get to keep it for five years? You did.’

‘That’s not how the game works.’

‘I’ll let you see it,’

‘We trade it, Jes. That’s how the game works.’

‘That’s how it has historically worked. I might suggest a change in rules,’ she says, in her most Ambassadorial tones, and Beau fights a laugh. ‘I had two dozen Kryn warships fleeing before me, Beauregard, I think I can get you to change your mind.’

‘You try your best, Princess. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.’

#cr tag #prompt fill #tagging my stories #i dont rly know shit or jack all abt star wars #beaujester

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flipomatic · 3 years

Text

Internship Chapter 4: Day 1 - Amity

Author Note: The first Amity chapter is here. As a note this fic will have lumity in it, but lumity is not the primary focus of Amity’s story.

First Chapter Previous Chapter

___________________________________________________________

Amity was enjoying the sunny Monday afternoon as she walked home from school. Hexside had been quite quiet with the absence of the two oldest grades, but that just meant it was easier to walk through the crowded halls. Her siblings’ absence also meant far less pranks being committed. Amity had recently gotten cast removed from her ankle, so she could go to school full time again.

The biggest topic at school was the new internship program that had pulled the upperclassmen away. Amity had discussed it with Luz that morning, how Em was going to the Illusion Coven while Ed was going to the Emperor’s Coven. They both wondered what was happening in the Emperor’s Coven now that Lilith was no longer the coven leader, and what kind of impact that would have on the coven moving forward.

Hopefully Ed would still have a good internship with them, though he was not excited about it. In fact, he had complained loudly all weekend about having to go, and had left the house very slowly that morning. Em hadn’t expressed much excitement either, but she didn’t seem to dread the upcoming experience like Ed did.

Amity tried to put those worries out of her mind as she arrived home and entered the Blight manor. She wondered if either of her siblings were home yet. They could be pretty loud, or silent depending what they were doing, but she didn’t hear anything upon entering the house.

When she walked through the house, towards the stairs, she could hear her mother and father talking in the study. They talked in sharp tones as usual, though their words were too muffled by the walls to hear. Amity moved past without stopping to speak with them.

When she reached the stairs, Amity glanced briefly out the window. She turned to walk up the steps, but had to stop and look back again at the view outside. She had spotted an unusual flash of green out in the grass, a lighter shade than the surrounding area. On longer inspection, it appeared to be Em laying in the sun.

Amity smiled, happy to see Em already home for the day. Em had been more optimistic than Ed about the internship, though her current posture implied that it hadn’t gone well. Amity changed course, turning to head towards the back door.

When she made it outside, Amity walked over to where Em laid in the grass. She was lying face up, eyes closed with arms and legs spread to catch more sun. When Amity was close her shadow covered Em’s face, prompting her to open her eyes.

“Oh hey, how was school?” Em asked without moving, only her eyes following Amity.

Amity sat down in the grass next to her. “Pretty uneventful.” She answered, stretching her legs out in the grass in front of her. The sun did feel nice on them, even over her leggings.

Em turned her head towards her. “The school didn’t implode without us?”

“Not yet.” Amity chuckled, remembering how calm things had been. “Any day now though.”

Em laughed as she sat up, pausing to brush grass off her back and arms. “How’s your ankle holding up with walking to school?” That had been a concern when she got the cast off, that the distance to Hexside was too far to be walking on it.

“It hasn’t been hurting.” Amity reported, glancing down at the leg in question. She was lucky that it healed as cleanly as it did.

“Great.” Em smiled, though she still looked tired.

Amity changed the subject away from herself. “How was your first day at the coven?” She was curious; she didn’t know much about the illusion coven.

Em’s expression immediately fell, a frown taking over her face. “It started ok, but then it was absolutely terrible.” She scoffed. “They’re not taking me seriously at all.”

“What do you mean?” Amity scrunched her brow as she asked.

“I just followed the coven leader around all day and watched him work. It was super boring, even worse than school.” Em waved her arms for emphasis, complaining loudly. “If I wanted to watch half baked illusion magic, I’d go to a show, not work at the coven.” She ended with a huff.

It must’ve been really bad if she thought it was worse than school. “That’s surprising.” Amity replied with a frown. “Hopefully they’ll give you some real work.”

“I hope so too.” Em sighed, crossing her arms. “Or it’ll be a very long month.”

The two sisters talked for a while longer, about the coven leader and the exact degree of boredom Em reached that day. So far, it sounded like her internship was going poorly. If all she could do was watch, she wouldn’t have a chance to hone her magic. Ironically, if it were Ed in that situation he would’ve been thrilled.

After a few more minutes, Amity stood to go inside. “I’ve got homework to do.” Amity said as she brushed the grass from her pants.

“I’ll just lay here; it’s working well for me.” Emira collapsed back onto the ground, returning to the position Amity found her in. She closed her eyes before Amity turned away to return to the house.

When Amity reached the door, she double checked that there were no bits of grass or dirt stuck to her clothes. She would be scolded if she tracked dirt into the house, and it just wasn’t worth the hassle. She didn’t find any, so she re-entered her home.

Then Amity went back on her path from before, moving to climb the stairs. She passed by Ed’s room, but the door was open and it looked like he wasn’t home yet. She wanted to hear how his day went too, but for a totally different reason than with Em.

When Amity reached her room she went inside and closed the door, ready to work on her homework. She had a couple assignments to work on, which would take a couple hours. She sat down at her desk and took out the first assignment, putting thoughts of internships aside for the time being.

For the next half hour, Amity focused on her work. She was writing about the different compositions of abominations and how changing the ingredients could give them different abilities. It was an interesting topic, but one she hadn’t dabbled much in.

Amity had just finished her third paragraph when she heard a loud thud, the sound echoing through the house. It sounded like it came from upstairs, not too far from her room. Was Ed home?

Putting down her pen, Amity stood to go check. When she reached the hallway, she saw that she was correct. Ed’s door, which had been open before, was now closed. He had likely slammed it shut when he arrived, which wasn’t a great sign.

Amity should’ve just gone back to her homework, since she still had a lot to finish, but she was too curious about how his day went. She hoped to join the Emperor’s Coven someday, and Ed was spending four whole weeks there.

There was also the question of who was running the coven now, since Lilith was gone. Amity was dying to know that too.

Unable to resist, Amity walked down the hall to his door. She knocked on it twice, and waited for a response.

About thirty seconds later, Ed pulled the door open. He was dressed in the black and grey uniform of the Emperor’s Coven, but wasn’t wearing the cloak or mask. His light green hair was more disheveled than usual, probably from wearing the hood all day. Other than that, he looked unharmed but tired.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asked, leaning against the door frame.

“How was it? Did you catch any criminals?” Amity asked the two questions rapidly, her excitement getting away from her. She mentally pulled herself back, reminded herself to be cool.

Ed’s expression immediately soured. “It was the worst, and no, I didn’t.” He stepped back from the door, waving for her to come into the room.

Amity entered, closing the door behind her. Their parents had good ears. “What did they have you doing?” She asked, still more eager sounding than she intended.

“Just following a patrol in this awful uniform for literally hours. My feet will never forgive me.” Ed scowled, pointing down at his feet dramatically. Amity quite liked the Emperor’s Coven uniform, but now wasn’t the time to mention that. “How were things at school?”

It was funny, since Em had asked a similar question. “Quiet without you.” Amity replied.

“I would rather be there tomorrow than back on patrol.” Ed grumbled, walking over to his desk. The coven mask was placed there, along with the cloak. “I don’t know how they run around in these masks all the time, honestly.”

Oh, Amity knew something about that. “I heard they use a spell to make it easier to see.” She had seen that in a pamphlet for the coven once.

This drew Ed’s eyes back to her, finally with a spark of interest. “What spell do they use?”

Amity shook her head. “I don’t know, you should ask them tomorrow.”

“Guess I’ll have to.” Ed chuckled lowly, a forced sound. “Or I’ll trip over my own feet on the chase. It would be funny though, if it happened.”

Amity smiled at the mental image that provided. “Did you meet the new coven leader?” She asked, bringing the topic to something else she very much wanted to know.

Unfortunately, Ed shook his head no. “I met Kikimora and a few patrol witches, but didn’t see a coven leader.”

“I guess they wouldn’t visit the jail branch regularly.” Amity mused, bringing one hand up to her chin. “Or they haven’t promoted someone yet.”

“I think it’s the second one.” Ed chimed in. He turned back towards the desk, and then reached forward and batted the mask off the side of the table, causing it to fall to the floor with a light thunk. As expected, it was undamaged. “After the internship, I’m burying this in the yard.”

That drew a laugh from Amity. “Only if you don’t get caught.” Their mother would be so angry if she saw him doing that. Both because of what he was burying and where he was trying to bury it.

“With Em’s help, we can do it.” Ed said as he turned back to her with a straight face, deadly serious. Amity believed him; the two of them were extremely skilled in illusion magic. Their parents often couldn’t see through their tricks, which had been quite frustrating for Amity in the past.

“Good luck with that.” Amity chuckled. “I should get back to my room, lots of homework to do still.” She opened the door, getting ready to leave.

“That’s one perk I guess. I don’t miss homework, not one bit.” Ed said, picking his mask up off the floor. “Later then.”

Amity waved once, then left the room. She shut the door behind her and walked back down the hallway to her room. When she went inside, her abomination assignment was waiting right where she left it.

Unfortunately, it was hard to get refocused on it. She couldn’t stop thinking about the covens her siblings were interning at, the experiences they had on their first day.

Amity had always been excited about someday joining the Emperor’s Coven, but with Em not making the internship that meant Amity might not make it too. She knew there was always a chance of that, but honestly thought she would make it in if she worked hard. Em didn’t work hard, but she was one of the most skilled witches Amity knew. She had better focus than Ed and could make some amazing layered spells. Not that Amity had told her that; she had trouble expressing those kinds of things.

Ed wasn’t bad at magic of course, the opposite was true. He was quite skilled, but lacked the patience and persistence to truly shine.

If Em didn’t make it, what were her odds? Yes, Amity worked very hard to improve her magic, but she wasn’t nearly as naturally skilled as her siblings. This was just an internship for now, but it could turn into coven membership offers later. It was a big deal and was freaking Amity out.

She hadn’t even written another sentence on her assignment, instead she was just sitting there thinking.

Another train of thought was that both of her siblings hated their first day on the job. Amity had read all of the pamphlets about the Emperor’s Coven, but she didn’t know much about the workings of the rest. Even the abomination coven, which was run by her mother and was also her track in school, she knew minimum details. At the covention, she didn’t spend time looking at other covens. She was always so focused on the grand prize, she never dug into her second option.

It was certainly something to think about over the next few weeks.

Next Chapter

#the owl house #the owl house fanfiction #amity blight #emira blight #edric blight #yay an amity chapter #flip writes

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minaim-blog · 4 years

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DaTr Date Night - Chapter 3

The weekend is finally here and Dib is anxious to get the night started. But Tak being late might just be the least of problems. Can tensions be managed or was this whole party a mistake?

“Dib, if you’re going to pace do it in your room.” Gaz said as she laid on the living room couch, her Game Station in hand. Dib was consumed with his thoughts and paced unaware Gaz had spoken to him. “Dib!” Gaz said to him forcefully as she lowered her Game Station from her face, it pulled him out of his trance and she continued, “Do you mind? You’re giving the whole house anxiety.”

“Oh. Yeah, sorry…” Dib said apologetically as he writhed his hands together and then said as he continued to pace, “It’s just… Don’t you think we should have heard something by now?”

Gaz returned her attention to her game and said, “You told her to text us if there’s a problem. As far as I’m concerned no news is good news.”

Dib went over to the back of the couch and looked down at Gaz as he said, “But not even a status message, or saying she got home safe?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be her boyfriend or something?” She said raising an eyebrow. “You know she never texts us.”

“She texts me…sometimes.” Dib glanced to the side as he finished. Usually it was him who texted first. Tak preferred meeting face to face if she wanted to talk but she wasn’t completely averse to texting or calling if she needed company.

“She messages us if there’s a problem.” Gaz said as she paused her game still very annoyed, “Or if she’s feeling lonely and wants to hang out. But she’ll never text us just for the sake of it.”

“But she was really worried at Skool and-”

Gaz interrupted him, “She seemed fine when I saw her. And she was fine walking home on her own. So something tells me she’s fine.” Gaz gritted her teeth and brought all her attention to her game as she finished.

“But what about Zim?”

“What about him?” Gaz said completely indifferent.

“He should have been here half an hour ago. Do you think it’s related?”

“Jesus Christ!” Gaz set her Game Station down on the couch and sat up to give Dib the evil eye as she said, “You’re seriously with Tak on the whole hunter thing?”

“Well…I mean it’s a possibility.” Dib said as he straightened up and looked away from her, he could never meet Gaz eye to eye when she gave him that look.

She laid back down onto the couch and brought up her Game Station as she said, “He had to shake off Keef, and Gir’s probably being more than a handful as usual. I haven’t heard from either of them, so shut-up and relax. We can worry about it tomorrow if we don’t hear from them.”

Dib didn’t say anything else related to the matter after Gaz finished and only rubbed the back of his head. He sat down on the armchair across from the sofa with his hands folded, and was still visibly anxious.

“Don’t you have your phone, or a book to read, or something?” Gaz said without looking up from her game.

“No. Keef has it.” Dib said tired as he leaned his head back on the chair.

“Right.” Gaz drawled out, but didn’t say anything else on the matter. The two of them were now silent in the living room. With nothing else to do Dib sat in the chair as his mind wondered. He was somewhat hopeful that Keef didn’t have his phone and that it was just sitting in the office at Skool. If he did, the worst he could try to do with it would be to unlock it and maybe get Zim’s phone number. He dreaded the conversation that would lead to between Zim and himself if that happened. It wouldn’t have been the first time Keef got ahold of his number, but it was a pain every time that happened. That meant Zim would have to rewire his phone to a new number and give it out to everyone so they could be in contact. Dib thought that more than likely would not be enough, as recently whenever Keef got Zim’s number he had been able to connect even after it was rewired. None of them were sure how he was able to do it. Tak thought he was able to connect directly to the sim card of Zim’s phone, but the term “sim card” was lost to Zim as he never tried to perfectly mimic Earth technology the same way Tak had. All of the phones Zim made for himself followed the basic principles of how a phone worked, which according to him was to send and receive messages from other phones. The exact way in which he accomplished this technologically Dib was unsure of, as he never got a chance to inspect a phone made by him. The few gadgets of his Dib had seen were indistinguishably Irken in terms of capabilities, but their outer façade passed as Earthly. Dib guessed that Zim’s phone number was treated similar to a forwarding protocol and that there was another physical address connected to his device like the MAC address of a computer. This would explain why Keef was able to connect to his phone after the number was changed, and why Zim had to make an entirely new phone to throw him off. Regardless of how Keef could stalk Zim, Dib only hoped he didn’t tag along with him to tonight’s meetup, or else it would be completely ruined.

His father was out for the weekend on an important business trip, not even his roaming monitor would be in the house. Dib and Gaz wanted to take advantage of his complete absence by having a game and movie night at their house, and then the two of them had planned to sleep over. Their father respected their privacy so he never had any cameras installed anywhere in the house except for his lab. This meant both Zim and Tak would be able to come over and completely be themselves and no one would have to guard against any kind of conversation. They could even turn off their disguises if they wanted to, but Dib thought this was rather unlikely. The only time Tak would remove her disguise was when she was in her home base, when she was in the underground portion of Zim’s, and when she was off the planet. Anywhere else and she always had her disguise on. Compared to Zim who was much more relaxed and would probably take off his disguise the moment he entered the house. This was assuming Tak didn’t show up tonight, as she was always very strict with him and usually “persuaded” him to keep his disguise on when she was with him. Dib and Zim did hang out without his disguise if it was just them and they could get away with it, or sometimes Zim would wear his old one, but Tak didn’t need to know about their outings. All of this only brushed through his mind as he came back to worrying about her. As he sat thinking, the doorbell rang at the front door and he jumped to attention.

“That’s probably them. Why don’t you get it?” Gaz said, but it was unneeded as he was already getting up before she spoke. He made his way to the front with apprehension and excitement, but before he could open it the door slammed opened. Gir squealed with glee as he paraded past him with junk food in arms into the living room. Dib brought his attention from him as he looked to the doorway where Zim was now walking through. He had on his hard-light disguise and was carrying a plastic bag slung over his shoulders. His outfit was slightly modified from when he was at Skool to be a bit more casual, and from what he could tell he was already wearing his pajamas underneath a pink sweatshirt.

“Hey Dib. We brought snacks and a few movies to choose from like you asked. Is Tak here?” Zim said as he let himself inside and closed the door behind him.

“No she hasn’t made it yet. Did you hear from her?” Dib asked hopefully.

“Nope.” Zim said without inflection. He was trying to hide the pleasure in his voice but gave up as he went on, “Maybe she won’t come at all I can take off this crappy disguise.” He laughed slightly to himself as he walked past Dib. He tossed the bag to him but Dib fumbled and dropped it which caused candy and a few DVD’s to fall onto the floor.

“Aw, come on Dib I was right next to you.” Zim groaned slightly as he went down to the floor to pick up the mess. Dib did the same and said,

“Sorry. Guess I’m just out of it tonight.” He ended his statement with a small forced laugh.

“Don’t be sorry it’s your house.” Zim said indifferently as he unwrapped a small candy while cleaning up. He threw the wrapper into the bag and said while chewing, “Tak’s still eating you, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess you could say that.” Dib said as they finished putting the candies and DVD’s back into the bag. When they finished they were still sitting on the floor and he asked Zim, “You really think it was just sun spots?”

Zim shrugged where he sat facing Dib and still spoke indifferently, “Honestly I have no idea. It could have been sunspots, or a programing loop that was always running in the background that just decided to kick in today. Or maybe it was an attack.” He got up to his feet with the bag slung over his shoulders again. He reached his hand down to Dib, and he could see a small trace of worry in his eyes, but Dib knew it was worry over him and not for Tak. After Dib made it to his feet Zim asked, “If you’re worried why don’t you text her?”

Dib felt a small wince at Zim’s question, he tried to choose his words carefully. He didn’t want to start a fiasco by saying Keef might have his phone, especially since he wasn’t sure if he actually did. “I can’t. I…lost it at Skool.” Dib was worried he was too vague after he spoke and couldn’t help himself from glancing away from Zim for a moment.

“You did? Aw that sucks man.” Zim said consolingly, not noticing any irregularity in the way he was talking. “Do you want me to make you a new one?”

Dib turned back to Zim slightly shocked from his offer, “You’ll make me one? And, and a cool one too? With alien gadgets and stuff like I always wanted?” Dib ended with excitement trickling into his voice.

“Uh….? Yeah. Like, it’s not a big deal. Why didn’t you ever ask me before if you wanted one?”

Dib’s excitement cooled for a moment at Zim’s question. “Yeah, why didn’t I ever ask you?” He thought to himself as he was in deep reflection, which was broken by Zim’s disguised hand snapping in front of his face.

“Uh, Dib? Hello? You in there Dib?” Zim said as he snapped in front of his face.

Dib waved his hands away from him and said in a slight daze, “What? Oh yeah sorry. I spaced out there for a second.” He brought his hand to the back of his neck and stretched before he continued, “I guess…I don’t know. I just never thought to ask you. When Tak showed me hers it was just something cool at the time. And when she didn’t offer to make me one I just figured that was it, and moved on.”

While he was talking Zim’s look of confusion faded away into mild frustration, and then ended in a smug grin. “Let me guess.” Zim started to say as his grin grew into a smile and he walked into the living room, “She told you that, ‘you don’t need one’ or that she couldn’t be bothered to make one for you.” He made his way to the couch Gaz was hogging and gestured her to move her legs to make room for him at the end. She groaned as she did but did not look up from her game. “Weren’t these her exact words?” He finished as he sat down and spread his arms over the back of the couch.

Dib went to the same chair he was in a moment ago and said, “Yeah. That’s pretty much what she said.”

“Yup, yup. Classic Tak!” Zim said sarcastically. He hunched over after he finished, and his expression returned to annoyance. “Why did you guys even invite her? You know she’s a party pooper.”

“She’s not a party pooper, she’s…” Dib started to say as he tried to find the right word to use.

“She’s high strung.” Gaz chimed in from her game, and Dib replied with agreement.

“High strung? That’s putting it lightly.” Zim said and leaned his head against his hand on the armrest. He was quiet before he glanced to Dib and said, “She still hates me you know.”

Dib was shocked, not so much at what Zim said as he was by his abrasiveness.

“She’s annoyed by you.” Gaz said once again chiming in. “I am annoyed by both of you.” She said as she glanced to both Zim and Dib.

“Yeah you too Gaz, thanks.” Zim dismissed her with a wave of his hand playfully.

“She definitely doesn’t hate you Zim.” Dib started to say.

“No she definitely does.” He snapped back to Dib. “She goes out of her way to avoid me unless it’s for a prank (and those usually cause me bodily harm), and whenever the four of us are together she’ll either pretend I’m not here or put me down any chance she gets.”

“Aw come on, it’s not that bad.” Dib tried to reassure him but he felt himself getting red in the face as he spoke, “She was really grateful to you for helping her earlier.”

“No. She really wasn’t, and she only took my help because you pushed her to.”

“Yeah but you guys had a moment though right? You know, when you were talking about Mimi?” Dib was growing tense and shot finger guns at Zim as he spoke.

“What moment?” Gaz paused her game and looked to the two of them.

Zim sighed and said, “I can’t really even remember, but earlier when I was looking at her disguise she said she didn’t know where Mimi was or something. So I said I’d help her and send Gir out to go look for her, and then she thanked me for it. You know? Like a normal decent person.”

“You haven’t always been what I’d call a ‘decent person’, and I probably wouldn’t call you one now.” Gaz said.

“Hey, I think I’ve been more than decent!” Zim said as he brought his hand to his chest in pride, “Especially more decent that Tak has, considering how long she’s been friendly to you two. And how long has that been exactly?” He looked to Gaz and Dib with outstretched arms as he ended.

Dib scratched his head as he thought. “More than two years now, I think? There was a good bit of time between you and her becoming friends with us.”

“Yeah, and then how long have the three of us been friends?” Zim said.

Dib took off his glasses and wiped them as he continued, “I think about two years after you came, you and me officially became friends. Unless you want to the count the time after you realized you were banished and were just messing around here.”

“I wouldn’t. So four years?” Zim said.

“I’d say three and a half at most.” Gaz chimed in again from her game and continued, “I didn’t believe you were friends until after the first six months. I think even a year later I was still expecting you or Dib to make this big show of it just being a lie to get close to each other or something.”

“Oh I know, that sounds like something I would do.” Zim chuckled to himself lightly, some pride in his voice. “So yeah. I’ve been your friend for three, almost four Earth years. Then Tak has been your friend and my ‘friend’, and I’m using that term loosely.” Zim gestured his hands into air quotes as he said the word, “For only two years now. So um, yeah.” Zim crossed his arms over his chest as he ended

“So…what are you saying?” Dib asked Zim somewhat confused, but he had an idea as to what he was suggesting.

“Nothing! Nothing.” Zim curled up on the couch and didn’t say anything further for a moment and seemed to be thinking about what to say next, “It’s just… why do you- why does she still hate me after two years?”

“Aren’t you the reason she had to spend fifty years on planet Shit or something?” Gaz said from her game.

“It’s planet Dirt, and no. Kind of. Yeah.” Zim tossed his hands back and forth as he spoke, “But it wasn’t really fifty years (probably). Tak knows this, and I’ve explained it to Dib, and I’m pretty sure I’ve even explained it to you. Time doesn’t really work when you’re out in space. It’ll feel like you’ve spent fifty or a hundred years somewhere but really it’s only a few months at most. Like Foodcourtia!” Zim tapped his head as he remembered the planet he spent the first few years of his original banishment. “They get this weird period of gravitational pull that prevents anyone from leaving the planet for a few months, but it will feel like fifty years on the planet even though your body won’t age like fifty years actually passed.”

“I don’t know if I really believe or even get that Zim.” Dib said as he scratch his head, “I mean I’ve brought this up with my dad and he said something like that shouldn’t even be remotely possible.”

“Yeah, but how far into space has your dad ever gone?”

“He’s gone through a lot of our solar system.”

“That’s small potatoes for me, and even for you now.”

“But I’ve never experienced any ‘time displacement’ like what you’re talking about.”

“What about that black hole you fell into a month ago? You told me it felt like you were in there for a week but it was only a few minutes.”

“That’s from the event horizon.”

“Well it doesn’t matter.” Zim concluded their argument with an aggressive tone, “It’s a real thing and it’s been a big problem for the empire. It’s made their communications with different planets really inconsistent, and with so many Irkens all across the universe all at different times no one’s sure how much time has really passed.”

“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting to ask you.” Gaz paused her game and looked to Zim as she spoke, “How old are you really?”

“Oh? Couldn’t tell you.” Zim waved his hand brushing aside the topic, “I’ve experienced what feels like over 100 years, but how old I really am and how long I’ll live I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Gaz said plainly, “Just curious on your life cycle.”

“Irkens don’t really know what our normal life cycle is, since we never hang out on one planet for long. So who knows? I could die next week or live on this planet forever…” Zim was silent for a moment as he ended his explanation and felt a small stare from both Gaz and Dib during it. After his pause he spoke violently, “Anyway, anyway, Tak! Why did we invite her?” He folded his hands together and pointed outwards when he finished.

“Dib’s girlfriend.” Gaz said simply.

“And your friend.” Dib said to Gaz, “And she’s yours too.” He said turning to Zim, “She just…has a lot to get over.”

“Well she’s had plenty of time to.” Zim’s tone indicated he didn’t want to explore the matter further. He rearranged himself on the couch and laid his legs over the armrest. He leaned back onto Gaz’s legs, who let out a small groan but only moved her legs slightly closer to herself. “So what are we doing?”

“I guess we can watch a show or play a game until Tak gets here. And maybe we can get something to eat.” Dib sniffed the air, and smelled the hot grease of bacon, and warming pancake batter. “Who’s making pancakes? And where’s Gir!?” Dib stood up and ended in a slight panic as he realized Gir wasn’t in the living room with them.

“He’s in the kitchen.” Gaz said calmly, still barely looking up from her game.

“Why is he in the kitchen cooking?” Dib looked to her confused.

“I like breakfast for dinner and he’s a good cook.”

“Better make sure you tell him to make something you can actually eat. I’ve made that mistake before and he put motor oil in my cereal, and worse too.” Zim said and shuddered.

Gaz looked to Dib and said, “Can you go check since you’re already up? And tell him I want blueberry pancakes.”

Dib sighed annoyed and said, “Yeah, I guess I’ll go do that.” He then went off into the kitchen.

After Dib left Zim sat back up, and patted his hands on his legs before he looked to Gaz and said, “So…Want to finish our Sonic marathon?”

She looked up to him from her game and after putting it down said, “Whatever you say Tails.” She then got up and started setting up the game and controllers.

“Hey I’m not being Tails again! You got to be Sonic last time.” Zim whined.

“Yeah, and you’re going to be Tails again. It’ll be easier, that way we don’t have worry about you dying and slowing us down.” She finished setting up the game and tossed the second controller to Zim as she went back to the couch.

Zim flinched slightly but caught the controller in his lap. After Gaz sat back down he crossed his arms and said, “Hump! I bet Dib never has to deal with this when he’s with Tak.” Gaz snorted in response to which Zim replied, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Gaz chuckled to herself slightly as she started the game.

As she sat back down on the couch Zim got in her face and said, “You say that but you really mean ‘it is something’, right?” Gaz didn’t say anything and tried to ignore him. Zim was always nosey about anything he wasn’t in on, so she was regretting her comment that sparked his interest. Even with her ignoring him, Zim was undeterred and said persuasively to her, “Come on. You can tell me.” She had enough of his begging so she turned and gave Zim the evil eye. Unfortunately he was unfazed, and all he did was pull his fingers across his lips and ‘zipped’ them shut. Gaz was fed up with him and was about to give in before she groaned aloud. “Come on. What’s going on with them? Is Dib whipped?” He asked innocently after she finished.

“No.” Gaz finally responded to him with a firm response, bur after a brief moment of thinking she drew out the words, “Kind of…”

“I knew it!” Zim says ecstatically, “What happened?” All of his attention was drawn away from the game and he was sitting on his knees on the couch facing her.

The way Zim acted over any little secret he could be in on was always funny to Gaz. She thought he acted like a kid that couldn’t bear to be out of the loop. She laughed slightly to herself as she said, “Oh my God…You’re like a Karen for gossip.”

“Wait, who is this Karen? And what does she have to do with this?” Zim asked confused.

“Nothing. Dumb Earth slang, look it up on your own time.”

“Right. Anyway you were saying?” Zim said eagerly, not allowing the two of them to be distracted from the topic.

Gaz groaned aloud again. She had been trying to play the game the whole time Zim spoke to her and was now setting it aside to speak to him. “You know how they went to the arcade the other night?”

“No. But continue.”

“Well I guess Tak lost to Dib on DDR and she had a fit over it or something.”

“Really? Just over losing to him?” Zim said confused, but after he thought about it briefly he thought that it was unsurprising.

“Well yeah, but I guess she went off on this whole thing about the empire and not accepting failure and she was really upset over it.” Gaz finished her brief explanation and then picked up her controller to continue playing in hopes that Zim would be satisfied.

She was surprised to find that he was. He said sympathetically to her and to himself, “Oh. That sounds about right.” After that he picked up his controller and continued playing with her.

The two of them were silent as they played and Gaz was the one to break the silence as she said, “She should probably talk to someone, besides you know, me and Dib.”

“Like how you’re seeing someone?”

“Yeah. I was thinking that.” Gaz said quietly to herself.

“Did you mention this to Dib?”

“No. And don’t you dare.” Gaz responded quickly with agitation.

“Hey my lips are sealed. Nobody knows anything you tell me. Not even Gir.” He reassured her.

“Yeah well, just forget about what I said for now.”

“Sure thing.” Zim said and the two of them continued playing. They weren’t silent as they played but the conversations they had only pertained to the game, which suited her just fine. The closest people in Gaz’s life were her father, and Dib; and more recently Tak, Zim and Gir had entered into her life, but she rarely shared her feelings with any of them. She knew this was out of a copping mechanism she developed when she was younger. Her father was somewhat absent from her and Dib’s life growing up, and they each had their own ways of dealing with it. Dib had his obsession with Zim and the supernatural and Gaz had her video games and reclusiveness. She thought that both Dib and herself had mellowed out over the years, which was a very good thing. She was still reserved with others and Dib was still very much into the supernatural, how ecstatic he must be to have an alien girlfriend, she thought to herself. Zim was Dib’s best friend, and his only friend besides Tak, but recently Gaz had found herself able to confide in him things she didn’t or couldn’t talk to her father or Dib about. About a year ago she started seeing a counselor. After having very little success with them as a child and going through about a dozen until she found one she liked. While she had been seeing them for a year nobody but Zim knew about this. When she thought on her reasons for confiding in Zim what she couldn’t to others she realized it was because Zim was an alien. As one he had very limited or no preconceived ideas about anything she could tell him about. Everything was foreign to him, so he was the perfect person to hear a unbiased opinion from, apart from his still very much present ego. Still she was happy to call him her friend, and as she thought about the past few years she spent with both him, Tak, and Dib she found herself to be very happy, even if she didn’t always show it on the outside.

______________________________________________________________

Dib saw a thin haze as he entered the kitchen, and heard bacon and pancakes sizzling on the stove. Gir’s disguise gave him the appearance of a fourteen year old boy, and he stood at the counter next to the stove stirring a bowl as he hummed to himself. He turned his head 180 degrees around and said, “Hey Dib! You here to help?”

Even though Dib knew Gir was a robot, he couldn’t help but feel disturbed by him turning his head around completely as he said, “Uh no, I’m just checking in. Gaz wants blueberry pancakes, and she wanted me to make sure you were making something the rest of us can eat.”

Gir turned his head around into the same direction completing a 360, and whined to himself, “Aw, but I already started.”

Dib went up to the counter where Gir was working. He had four pancakes on the grill that were uncooked side up, and a pan of bacon in the back. Dib also saw a few questionable ingredients out, one of the worst was rat poison, but he remembered hearing somewhere that it wasn’t lethal to humans. Even so, he thought it was best to dispose of the batch. “That’s alright Gir. You can have those pancakes for yourself. What did you put in the batter?” He said pointing to bowl he was stirring.

“Nothing. Just the mix.”

“Just the mix?” Dib said dubiously.

“Well the mix, orange juice, turmeric, garlic powder. Uh, whatever this stuff is.” Gir picked up the container of rat poison as he finished and shook it into the bowl. Dib grabbed his arm and took the rat poison away from him as he said,

“Maybe we should just start over.” He took the bowl away from him and dumped it into the sink. “What did you put on the bacon?”

“Nothing.” Said Gir innocently.

“Nothing?” Dib asked and Gir replied with affirmation. Dib continued, “Just bacon? No rat poison? Soap? Bleach? Sewage?”

Gir replied no to all of them as he listed and ended with, “Just bacon!” as he brought up his arms in exclamation.

Dib was satisfied enough to trust him, but probably not to try it later himself. He finished dumping the bowl and left it in the sink to wash later. “That should be fine then. But I think I’ll stay and help you finish.” Gir hugged him and squealed with glee, Dib pushed him off and said, “Just follow the directions, okay? And we should probably rinse off the grill once yours are done.”

“They should be good now.” Gir said and immediately scoped up the four unfinished pancakes with the spatula and placed them into his mouth which unhinged like a hatch. He chewed obnoxiously as he told Dib he didn’t know what he was missing and finished them in only a few seconds.

Dib considered Gir one of his friends along with Zim and Tak, even despite his oddities. In truth he liked Gir because of his oddities, but he also found him overbearing and even disturbing at times. He reeled slightly as Gir finished eating and said, “I think I’m good.” He went over to the stove and activated the self-cleaning functionality for the now open grill. One of the many benefits of having the smartest man on Earth for a father was that all the contraptions in the house were state of the art. They were upgraded or replaced repeatedly throughout the year as his father used his own home as a testing ground for his inventions. Sometimes this meant having to deal with a faulty device until his father found the time to iron out the issues. Thankfully the stove had no such problems, but their dishwasher was currently out of commission so they would have to hand wash everything else. “That should be good in a few minutes. We can start making the batter in the meantime.” He reached over to get the bowl in the sink but was stopped by Gir as he grabbed his arm and said excitedly, “I want to clean it!”

“Okay, just make sure you only use the dish soap.” Dib said a bit concerned.

“Okay dad.” Gir replied annoyed and went to the sink to begin cleaning.

Dib brought his hand to his face and squinted, “Please don’t call me dad.”

“Can I still call your dad that?” Gir said somewhat concerned.

“Yeah sure, whatever.” Dib said disregarding what he said. He saw Gir rummage through the cabinet underneath the sink where they kept the soap and sponges when his father’s inventions had a malfunction. Gir had been to the house plenty of times before, and Dib thought he probably knew the layout of the place better than he did. “Gaz wanted blueberries. Do you know if we have any?” He asked Gir.

“Fridge, second shelf down from the top, back right. They should be Membrane brand.” Gir replied without hesitation as he cleaned the bowl. Dib went to the fridge and followed his instructions, and sure enough there was an unopened bag of Membrane brand blueberries there. His father had an entire line of packaged food products ranging from meat to produce. All grown in the lab to be identical to the real thing and free from any moral inconveniences or pollution. Dib had tried almost all of them before at least once. His father claimed they were both chemically and biologically identical apart from any impurities that shouldn’t be there, but Dib could still tell the difference between the lab grown and the real thing. His father told him it was purely a psychological fallacy his mind was creating, and Dib wondered if his father still thought of him as his insane son. He set aside that thought for a moment and asked Gir if they had any pancake mix left. Gir replied that it was inside the box, so he went back over to the counter and found it, along with Gir at the sink. He didn’t seem to be cleaning the bowl and instead filled the sink halfway with water, and soap bubbles overflowed from it which he played with. He gently called Gir’s name and he replied with a confused, “What?”

Dib paused for a moment before he said, “Never mind. Just clean yourself off and come help me.” Gir shook and wiped himself clean and then the two of them began preparing the next batch. Dib produced a new bowl from the cabinet and gathered the ingredients for Gir to mix while he supervised and manned the grill. As they worked Gir asked,

“Have you heard anything from Kitty?”

“What?” Dib asked surprised.

“You know Kitty. Meow, meow.” Gir imitated a cat’s claws with his hands as he mewed.

“Oh, Mimi. No I haven’t. Have you heard anything from them?” Gir replied that he hadn’t and then the two continued in silence before Dib started, “Hey Gir, I know you and Mimi get along good, but what do you think of Tak?”

“Angry lady? She’s okay. She doesn’t like my master for some reason though.”

“You still call Zim your master?” Dib was surprised, he couldn’t remember the last time Gir called Zim ‘master’ and he thought either he stopped doing it or Zim told him to stop.

“Only when he’s sad sometimes.” Gir said absentmindedly, he was intently focused on stirring the batter.

“Oh.” Was all Dib replied for a moment. He looked behind him to the doorway leading to the living room where Zim and Gaz were. He pondered over what Gir said and began putting together the pieces from Zim’s words earlier. “Is he said right now?” He tried to ask quieter in case someone would overhear.

“Kind of…He doesn’t really want to be here with angry lady.”

Dib moaned quietly to himself and said, “He said he was fine with it when I asked him last week. Are they going to be at each other’s throat the whole night?” Gir shrugged as a response and Dib asked himself what he was going to do.

“Maybe you don’t need to do anything.” Gir said, and Dib was confused by what he meant but he continued, “I mean I really like Kitty and she really likes angry lady, so she can’t be that bad, and I think you like her too.”

“Tak? Yeah, she’s cool I guess.” Dib said in pretend indifference as he smirked to himself.

“Well Kitty said she really likes you and Gaz, and my master likes you too. So maybe they can like each other if they want to try.”

At Gir’s simplistic but rather optimistic statement Dib’s mood improved immensely, “Hey yeah, you’re right Gir! If they can like me and Gaz they must have something in common, so why can’t they like each other if they try to?”

“Yeah! And if angry lady and Zim try to kill each other just be friends with the one left.”

“Uh, yeah. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. And maybe don’t call Tak ‘angry lady’ if you can.”

“Can I call her the names Zim uses?” Gir asked eagerly.

Dib was about to say yes but thought about it for a second and then recanted, “No! Just call her Tak, or if you need to give her a nickname just something that isn’t bad.” While the two of them talked the doorbell rang and interrupted Dib from his sentence. “That must be them, I’ll be back in a minute!” He left abruptly and heard Gir say behind him to tell Mimi he said hello. He made his way from the kitchen to the front through the living room and saw Gaz and Zim sitting on the couch playing Sonic together on the television.

Zim turned around for a moment to yell to him on his way by and said, “Hey Dib! If it’s the pizza guy I’ll pay you back later. I forgot my Earth money at home.”

Dib stopped in his tracks to the door at Zim’s statement and said annoyed to him, “Why did you order pizza if we’re making food?”

Zim’s only response was a shrug, then Gaz said, “What’d you order?”

Zim said candidly, “Bloaty’s. What else?”

“If you don’t have money I’ll pay for it.” Gaz said back to Dib. Then the two of them returned to their game.

Dib groaned out loud and went over to the door with decreased excitement. The last thing he wanted was to answer the door for the weird, greasy, pizza delivery guy Bloaty’s always sent them. On his way to the door the bell rang again and with that Dib was convinced that it was the pizza guy at the door. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” He said irritated and dreaded the conversation he would have with him. Dib imagined he would struggle to make change for the money he gave him and worse, as they always seemed just barely above brain-dead. He opened door and almost said, “What do you want?” but was stopped by a familiar sight.

Tak was standing under the dim light of the front porch in her human disguise as she looked to the side off into the distance. She was caring a backpack and had on Gaz’s burgundy Game Station hoodie from earlier today, and the hood was pulled back showing her face. Her hair was in the style of a longer somewhat messy bob, and it was black instead of her usual dark purple. Her hands where placed in her front jean’s pockets, which were skinny and black. At her feet where her usual style of boots she wore and Mimi, who rubbed against her legs as she mewed hello to Dib. Tak turned away from whatever she was looking at towards Dib. She had a look of indifference and disinterest on her and only said the word, “Hey.” As a small grin grew across her face.

Dib replied similar with only the word, “Hey.” Then he stepped out the front door and went to hug her, and she followed his embrace. The two of them stayed there under the front porch light in the twilight of the sky that was drenched in orange with light pollution of the nearby city. The only sound between any of them was the soft and barely noticeably sound of Mimi purring as she rubbed against their legs. After a moment they stopped hugging and Dib brought her inside and closed the door behind them as he said, “I like your hair.”

Tak stepped into the house and startled slightly at his comment, then she turned to look at herself in a mirror on the wall. “Yeah I tried to match Zim’s wig, since Zita saw me.” She touched and readjusted her hair as she looked into the mirror. “I don’t know how long I’ll keep it. Probably not too long, I miss the purple.”

Dib joined her in the mirror and said, “Yeah, me too. Not that black doesn’t look good on you.” Dib added quickly, “The purple is just…” He rotated his hand in a circular motion as he tried to find the word he was looking for, “I don’t know. More you. I guess.” He turned from the mirror to face her and said, “Did you ever figure out what was wrong with your disguise?”

Tak responded, “No, I brought it home and did a full analysis and ran every troubleshoot I could think off. Part of the reason why it took me so long. Well, that and I was working on this.” She swung her backpack around from her and took out something. She extended her arm out with it to Dib, and in her open hand he saw what looked like a new phone. Dib took it from her and it activated on its own in his hand. When it turned on he saw Tak’s modified Irken insignia light up on the screen. “To replace your old one. I know you didn’t really lose it yet, and it’s probably just sitting at the office in School-” Tak fidgeted with her hair and spoke quickly as she gave her explanation. Then she calmed herself down and continued coolly, “But, considering what happened today I thought it was best that you and I had a better way to communicate in case something like this happened again…that and I know you wanted one.” She added in a tone that feigned to be unsentimental.

“Tak! This is really…” Dib started unsure what words to use to express his thanks. She rarely used her own insignia, as she was afraid someone would recognize it as Irken. So he took it as a sign it was unique in its abilities. He continued, “Just… thanks. It’s really cool.”

“You’re welcome. And you’re right if you think it’s more than just a phone that’s off the grid. It can do a whole lot more than anything on Earth, but I’ll leave what it can do up to you to figure out. Since I know you like that sort of thing.” She looked into her backpack and rummaged for something before she looked back up to Dib and said, “Did I get here first or did Zim-?”

Zim called to them from the living room and interrupted her as she spoke, “You okay back there Dib? Is the pizza guy still here?”

“-No. Of course he didn’t.” Tak said aggravated, lowly to herself.

Dib yelled back to the living room, “No it’s just Tak, she made it.”

“Oh. Okay.” Zim said from the living room and the two of them could sense some disappointment in his voice. They then heard Gir as he entered the living room and excitedly said, “Who wants breakfast!?”

“And he brought Gir?!” Tak almost yelled out loud in her shock, which surprised Dib. Mimi either didn’t notice or didn’t care, as she mewed in excitement and ran over to meet Gir in the living room. Tak called out shrilly to her to not interact with him to no avail. They heard Gir exclaim, “Kitty!” Then she groaned to herself as she went off into the side room opposite of the living room. Dib followed her and saw her lean against a window looking outward with an expression of disgruntlement. She said, “I thought you said you only invited Zim.”

“We did.” Dib started to say to her, “But him and Gir are kind of a package deal. You know, like you and Mimi?”

Tak brought her hand up to cover her eyes in exhaustion and said, “Tell me they’re at least wearing their disguises?”

“They are. But I don’t think they really need to. You’re all safe here, you could probably take off your disguise for the night if you want too.”

“I’ll keep it on.” Tak said flatly, “No offense, but considering your father’s the smartest member of your species I’d rather not have him see me without my disguise on. Even with his supposed respect for your privacy I can’t believe he doesn’t have any monitoring of his home.”

“He does. But only in and around the lab. The rest of the house is safe.”

“I’m sure it is.” She stopped leaning on the window, straited up, and exhaled deeply. “Even so. Considering the fiasco that was this afternoon I’d rather just keep it on.” She turned to Dib and said, “And please tell me you'll make sure they keep their disguises on too.”

“Yeah. Like I said, they already have their disguises on. And I don’t think they have a problem with them either.”

“Good.” Tak relaxed a bit and brought her hand to her face to brush her hair away. “The idiot’s finally smartening up.”

Dib exhaled in frustration as he brought his own hand up to his hair. He said, “Why do you treat him like this? He’s not an idiot you know.” Tak responded with a deadpan expression as she lowered her hand from her face to stare at Dib. “Okay he has plenty of lapses in judgement, I’ll give you that. But he’s hardly what I consider an idiot.”

“Sure. He’s brilliant.” Tak deadpan demeanor seeped into her tone as she spoke, and she looked away from him to the window as she crossed her arms over her chest.

As things were turning out Dib was worried that Gir’s worst case scenario was coming close to happening. He choose his words carefully before he spoke again, “He was a big help today at Skool.” Tak was unphased. “And he even offered to help you find Mimi when we didn’t know where she was.” Tak readjusted herself as she looked out the window. Finally she said,

“He can occasionally think of someone other than himself, but one good gesture hardly makes up for everything.”

“What does he have to make up for?” He reached out and touched her shoulder, but she shook him off and refused him as she stepped closer to the window.

“He’s a selfish, conceited, and annoying little brat.” She started to say, still looking away from him. “That, and combined with everything he’s done to ruin my life I think I’ve been exceptionally kind to him.”

“What, by insulting him and sometimes hurting him every chance you get?” Dib said angry and let his emotions show unguarded. Tak didn’t say anything to his question but he saw her posture visibly tighten and could make out a girted expression on her face in the faint reflection of the window. Dib brought his hand to his face as he looked away and tried to cool himself down. He didn’t want to start a fight with her and ruin the party. He also realized he hasn’t always been the best influence for her. Considering he’s ignored or even encouraged Tak’s pranks he knows he’s partially to blame for her actions. He began again calmer and said, “He’s not the same self-centered, annoying little green alien that came to this planet six years ago. He’s still pretty selfish and full of himself, but he’s getting better.” Tak was unmoved by what he said but he still continued, “And he is sorry. He’s told you multiple times now. The most recent was today actually.” Dib regretted his tone right after he finished. It wasn’t angry, but it certainly felt like he was accusing her. Tak’s posture seemed to loosen at his remark and she turned around to face him with an annoyed, mocking look on her face, and had one arm cradling the elbow of the other as she said,

“You know, one thing I could never get over about Earth is that you guys seem to think just saying ‘sorry’ is enough to make up for something. But I don’t think it could even be remotely close to makeup for what happened to me.” She ended her statement in anger.

“I don’t think saying ‘sorry’ is enough either, and I don’t think that’s all he’s done.” Dib began to say frustrated now, “He’s tried to make things better and he’s helped us out multiple times, again, he most recently helped you! Just…” Dib brought up his hands to his face to wipe it and tried to cool himself off before he continued, “Look, I know the four of us do hang out sometimes but when we do the two of you just kind of imagine the other doesn’t exist or worse. He’s doing a lot just by being here tonight, but he’s doing it because he likes me and Gaz, but so do you. Do you think maybe you could admit you two have something in common? Or at least tolerate him the same way he is you for us tonight?” Dib tried to end it there with Gir’s insight from earlier, and hoped it would put things into perspective for her. Instead, after he finished he was surprised to see an angry look wash over Tak as she brought up her hands and squeezed them in anger.

“You-Idiot! Don’t you think I realize this, and it’s the whole reason I agreed to this in the first place?”

“What?” Was all Dib could say in his confusion.

She went right up to his face and said still very angry, “I already know he likes you guys! I’m expecting him to behave because of it, if he didn’t I’d be furious with him!”

“Oh.” Was all Dib could say and he thought to himself, “Yeah idiot.” With that sudden outburst Tak seemed to cool off, or at least she tried to. She turned away from Dib and pulled at the back of her hair as she squinted in annoyance and pain. “Are your antennas hurting again?” He asked her concerned, she opened her eyes and stopped pulling at her hair and looked very self-conscious.

“They’re fine. Just sore.” She fixed her hair as she said this but would not look to Dib as she finished.

“Want to go upstairs and I’ll massage them for you?” He approached and reached out to her shoulder as he said this. She didn’t notice Dib, and was considering his offer but as she saw him she jumped back and said tensely while touching her hair,

“I said I’m fine. Can you stop doing this?”

“Doing what?” Dib said confused.

“This.” Tak gestured to all of him, “What you always do. You always try to be the ‘voice of reason’ or the mediator, but you’re not very good at it.”

“I don’t…” Dib was about to go on but as he thought about how he’s acted, particularly over the past few days, he realized he has definitely tried to be the mediator. “…Okay yes I do.” Tak didn’t say anything else but crossed her arms over her chest irritated, he continued “But I don’t really think that’s a bad thing, somebody has to.”

Tak unfolded her arms and brought them up at a loss for words. “No, you don’t, you don’t have to. Tonight would have been just fine if you hadn’t brought this up. Zim and I would have tolerated each other enough to be on the opposite ends of the room without making eye contact and then we would have all just gone to bed after tonight.”

“Yeah but-” Dib was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell as he started talking. Both him and Tak looked to the door the latter of which said,

“Who else did you invite?” She hissed as her eyes darted back to him.

“No one. That’s probably the pizza they order.”

Tak tensed up at Dib’s explanation and he could see her physically fight not to pull her hair, “Why did they order pizza? Are they trying to drive me insane?”

“Relax the pizza guy’s not going to notice anything.” Dib said trying to reassure her.

“I know that.” Tak said less stressed, “But it’s always the same weird one that likes to hang out as long as possible and is probably half brain dead.”

“Yeah, so we’ll just pay and shoo him off.” Dib went up to the door and opened it to the pizza guy.

He was tall but had horrible posture as he hunched over holding the pizzas in one arm. He had long greasy black hair and acne all over his face. His uniform was bright pink with a fat pig eating a pizza sewed onto his right chest and on his left side was an upside down name tag that read “CJ”. He let himself into the house past Dib and said, “I got a large cheese pizza, and a large half pepperoni, quarter anchovies, and quarter no cheese for a Mr.…Uh, I can I can never get this guy’s name right.” He said the last part to himself annoyed and read the name on the receipt phonetically, “In-va-der Zim?”

Tak jumped slightly at the pizza guy’s words but before she could say anything Dib went to him and said, “That’s us! He’s busy right now but we can pay you.”

The pizza guy looked up from the receipt, “Oh hey Dab.” He said with a smile, “How you doing man?”

“It’s Dib, and I’m fine uh…” Dib started to say dubiously.

“CJ. Did you forget my name man?” He said annoyed and crossed his free arm.

“No.” Dib lied, “Your name tag is upside down.”

CJ looked down to his name tag and saw that it was, “Oh, yeah it is.” He then tried to fix it and nearly dropped the pizzas doing so. Tak then came over and took them away from him. “Thanks,” He said uncaringly. She carried them off to a table in the side room as he continued, “It’s twenty six, sixty seven for the guy’s pizza. And is that really his name?” He asked regarding the name Zim used to order.

“Nope.” Said Tak flatly, “He’s just a child who likes to play pretend.”

“Oh…Really? What’s he pretending?”

Tak nearly slammed the pizzas on the table and said, “Dib, give the deliver drone his money so he can go.”

Dib reached for his pocket quickly but realized he didn’t have his wallet on him. He said he would be back as soon as he got some money.

“Don’t bother.” Tak said as she went over to her backpack on the ground and reached into it. She produced a wad of bills and presented a one hundred note to CJ and said, “This should cover it. You can go now.”

CJ looked at it and said slowly, “Uh…you’ll have to wait for me to get the change for this.”

“That’s not required, you may keep the rest.”

“Really?” CJ asked excitedly, “You like me that much?”

“No. Let me be perfectly clear.” Tak started to say slowly and deliberately, “I’m paying you one hundred dollars to fuck off. You should take it and leave before I remove you myself.” She then produced another one hundred note and gave it to him.

CJ accepted it but pondered over what she said with a quizzical look on his face and then said skeptically, “I don’t know how I should feel about this.”

“Decide later. Goodbye!” Tak said quickly as she turned him around and pushed him out of the doorway and slammed it shut behind him. She leaned on the door after it closed and let out a relieved sigh.

“Well that went better than expected.” Dib said, “I’d pay you back but I know you pretty much print money.”

“Your welcome.” Tak said as she brushed a hand through her hair while still leaning on the door. “Why did they order pizza? Didn’t Zim’s SIR unit say he made food or something?”

“Miscommunication. Gaz told Gir she wanted breakfast for dinner, and I guess Zim ordered pizza on the way here or something.”

“That sounds about right.” Tak said annoyed. She got off the door and went to her backpack and began rummaging through it.

Dib watched her and then went over to the side table where she left the pizzas to bring them to the rest of the party. As he did so he said, “And uh…Tak?”

“Please don’t start again.” She said flatly as she went through her backpack.

Dib grabbed the pizzas off the table and said, “I’m not, it’s just…Is everyone going to have a good time tonight?”

Tak stopped going through her backpack and turned around to look at him as she said, “I don’t know. I can’t speak for everyone but I actually wanted to be here. I find most of the party amicable so I just figured I’d have a good time if I just focused on them.” She stood up and crossed her arms over her chest, “I assume you think the party’s already off to a bad start.” There wasn’t any unrest in the way she spoke or even in her posture, she was simply stating what she observed.

“No, at least I don’t think so.” He said this more to himself than to her, “Look, I’m sorry we had a fight, maybe putting you and Zim in the same house for the night wasn’t the best idea.” He could see Tak tense up as he continued, “I’m not saying one of you should leave but…I don’t know, maybe I was just dumb to think we could all get along for the night.”

Tak took a deep breath, and relaxed slightly as she said, “Look: the night hasn’t even started and Zim and I haven’t even seen or spoken to each other. He is…something.” She looked off to the living room where everyone else was as she said that word. “But I wouldn’t have agreed to come tonight if I couldn’t handle him.” There was a small pause before she reluctantly finished, “And you might be right when you say he isn’t the same annoying little alien from six years ago.”

“Dammit Gaz! Just grab onto me and let me fly your fat ass!” The two of them heard Zim yell out from the living room. After hearing it Tak said annoyed,

“Or maybe not.”

“You’re not the same either. You’ve both changed a lot. For the better I think.” He went next to her with the pizzas in hand and nudged her side with his playfully, “I know you have a lot to get over, but try to get along with him tonight, at least a little bit more than usual. Okay?”

Tak breathed deeply again and then said, “Whenever I have to be around him you know I tolerate him. That’s the best you can hope for out of me.” She bent down to her backpack and took something out of it. “But maybe tonight I can tolerate him a bit more than usual. Maybe anyway.” Out of her backpack she took the wig and contacts Zim gave to her earlier today and showed it to Dib who gave a smile as he said cheerfully,

“That will probably be a good way to start.” He thought to himself for a moment before he asked, “You didn’t do anything to them, did you?”

“Apart from clean them, no.” Tak said as she crossed her arms slightly insulted, “I’m trying to behave myself tonight, at least as long as he does anyway.”

“Well, I guess that’s as good as I can hope for.” Dib said with mock cheer and then made his way into the living room with Tak beside him. When he stepped into the living room he could see Gaz and Zim on the couch playing their game and two partially eaten plates of pancakes on the coffee table. He also spied Gir playing with Mimi on the ground with what he assumed was some mess of string. He lifted the boxes above himself and said to the room, “Tak’s here, and so is the pizza!”

“We heard you guys in the other room.” Gaz said dryly from the couch, she looked away from the game for a moment to the two of them and said, “Hey Tak.”

“Hello Gaz.” She said simply, “I have the sweater you lent me earlier.” She then began to remove it from her person revealing a dark purple tee shirt she had on underneath. “Where do you want me to put it?”

“Just leave it anywhere, I’ll put it back in my room later.”

Tak then laid it down carefully over the armchair by the couch. “I also have your ridiculous disguise from earlier today.” Tak said playfully before she threw the disguise at Zim. It hit him in the side of the head, and even though it did not hurt him, when Zim was hit he let out a resounding, “Ow!” as he rubbed the side of his head that was hit and looked to the two of them. “Oh don’t be such a smeet.” She said as she collapsed onto the armchair slouching. “And you can thank me later for disinfecting them.”

Zim placed down his controller to inspect his wigs and contacts, he felt something was off with the texture of the wig and brought it to his nose to smell it, after which he gaged and said, “Aww, Tak! What did you do to this?”

“Nothing.” Tak said innocently, “I just put them through a cleaning solution to try and get some of the grime off. You should thank me for taking the time to clean it.” She ended her statement with satisfaction in her voice.

Zim was unimpressed and brought the wig an arm’s length away and covered his nose in the pit of his elbow as he said, “Well whatever you put it in, it’s making me nauseous! If you were expecting me to put them on tonight you’re out of luck.”

“I wasn’t!” Tak began saying annoyed, “And if you know what’s good for you you’ll keep your real disguise on.”

“Hey….” Dib interrupted entreatingly, “I’m bringing the pizzas into the kitchen and helping myself to them if anyone wants to join me.”

“I’ll have some pizza. Gir, cover for me.” Zim said as he stood up from the couch and went over to Gir.

Gir was still on the floor with Mimi, who was on her back as he dangled a piece of string above her to swipe at, “But Kitty!” He implored looking to Zim.

“He doesn’t have to play for you. You’re Tails.” Gaz said.

“But what if you need to fly over something?” Zim asked.

“I won’t. The whole game’s meant to be played without that.”

Zim was satisfied enough with Gaz’s explanation or at least eager to join Dib in the kitchen. As he went away he called out, “Well just don’t do anything exciting without me, I don’t want to miss anything!”

“No promises.” Gaz said playfully in her dull tone which earned a small gruff from Zim who none the less went off with Dib into the kitchen without another word.

With Zim and Dib in the kitchen, Gaz and Tak were left with each other in the living room. Gaz was focused on her game and Tak didn’t feel any need to distract her from it, so she fixed herself slightly up in the chair and watched Mimi. Gir was kneeling on the ground above her and dangling a mess of string for her to swat at as she laid on her back. Both of them had happy faces as they were completely focused on their game, and neither one of them noticed Tak as she glared daggers at the two of them. She had given Mimi explicit instructions not to interact with Gir both in the past and now just a moment ago, so she was very annoyed that Mimi decided to disobey her orders. She used her communicator and said to Mimi, “What do you think you’re doing?” Her tone was icy and did not portray any other type of emotion besides her annoyance which she could not hide in her thoughts.

Tak was satisfied and surprised that Mimi payed attention to her and slowed in her swatting as she adjusted her head slightly to turn to face her. Mimi communicated to Tak, “I’m fulfilling my disguise Ma’am.”

Mimi gave her response with disinterest, and her tone angered Tak slightly. She then said to her somewhat venomous and still icy, “Really…? Because it looks like you’re playing with the enemy.”

Mimi stopped her swatting completely at Tak’s statement and brought her front legs down to her belly and said to her, “If he’s the enemy Ma’am, then why are we here with him and his superior?”

Tak didn’t say anything to her question but couldn’t help herself from glancing from her to Gaz for a brief moment as she continued to glare daggers at her. Mimi noticed her eye movement and looked to Gaz and then back to Tak as an exasperated expression washed across her face. It was still there even as Gir noticed she stopped playing, and playfully pushed the mass of string into her head as he entreated saying, “Kitty?” gleefully unaware of the conversation she was having with her superior. She was still glaring at Tak as she complied with Gir and resumed her swatting.

Tak broke the silence as they glared at each other and said, “I gave you a direct order not to interact with him.” Some feelings of disloyalty were present in her tone as she spoke to Mimi.

She responded plainly, “I’m not in danger. And we’re not bothering you Ma’am. If anything, I’m keeping him from bothering you by occupying his time.”

Tak relented with a condition and said still annoyed with her, “Just behave yourself.”

Mimi was satisfied with that response but before she resumed her playing with Gir she said back to her, “I’ll only follow your lead Ma’am.” The way she said it equated to, ‘I will if you do’ which Tak didn’t like, but she had enough talking with her.

As far as she could tell all Gir was doing with Mimi was playing with her, so she didn’t feel too strong of a need to separate them. She brought her attention away from them and focused on the television screen as Gaz marched her blue character across the screen and got lost in her thoughts. She still felt very negatively about Gir, not only because he was a creation of Zim’s and she found him irritating, but because his interactions with Mimi had been very hazardous in the past. Since the first incident six years ago when Gir was able to remote access and control Mimi, Tak felt she had never fully reverted back to her old self. Tak had been able to correct the problem and reinstate her autonomy and old programming but she felt something in Mimi was off, not to say she was exactly the same then as she is now. She operated smoothly and never disobeyed or performed detrimentally to their mission, but over time she found Mimi’s personality had developed increasingly into something she had unanticipated. The phrase, ‘gone native’ went through Tak’s mind, and were Mimi’s own words when she described the state Tak was in. She said it back to her as a joke the other night, but when she thought back on it she found the description fits Mimi perfectly. The original parts she used to create her where unique in that her “brain” was designed to observe, learn, and in a sense grow over time. Due to this any and all information she took in, whether it was combative, technical, or even cultural, was assimilated and compiled into her inner processor. The entire design purpose behind a SIR unit like Mimi was to create a robot that could, ‘go native’ so as to assist an Invader in blending in on an enemy planet. Hence the reason why Mimi perfectly mimicked the habits of a domestic house cat, and preferred them over acting as a robot. Tak thought perhaps that was the reason she found her parts discarded on Dirt. All modern SIR units used by Invaders today could collect and analyzed data, but they couldn’t understand it the same way she or Mimi could, so their programming remained static throughout their existence. More than likely Tak thought this was a conscious choice by their designers to avoid any complications a constantly changing AI could bring. Tak almost felt the same way, she appreciated having Mimi as a companion for as long as she has, but she also found that sometimes she could be a bit of a nuisance. If only because of her uncalled for opinions she continued to provide without being asked to. Oddly, she briefly thought there was some similarity between Gir and Mimi. If only because it seemed to her that Gir seemed to change over the years similar to her. She thought perhaps Zim and herself had been rummaging through the same bunch of garbage when they made their SIR units, but she couldn’t even bare that similarity so instead she chalked it up to poor design choices and dumb luck of Zim on creating Gir.

In the middle of her thought she came back to reality at the sound of Gir squealing over something Mimi was doing. She turned quickly to face the two of them and saw Gir grab Mimi into a hug. She was about to say something but noticed Mimi didn’t look displeased, if anything she looked quite happy. She decided not to intervene since as far as she could see there was no danger to her, but she made a mental note to herself to analyze her when they returned home tomorrow night.

“How was your walk home earlier?” Gaz said to Tak suddenly, jumping her out of any other trail of thought she was in.

“Oh, thankfully nothing happened.” She started to say coolly, “But I’m also infuriated that nothing did.” She ended her statement gritting her teeth.

Gaz let out a small chuckle and said, “Didn’t I tell you everyone’s dumber than a sack of bricks?”

“You did, but this is just uncanny.” Tak said exasperated, “If I brought you or Dib anywhere in the Empire in an Irken costume twice as good as what I wore home, the two of us would be shot dead in seconds.”

“I doubt that.” Gaz said unimpressed.

“It’s a lot different in the Empire.” Tak retorted quickly, “Your planet doesn’t even believe in other planetary life, but we constantly have to be alert in case of infiltration.”

“Uh…maybe.” Gaz said still unconvinced. She hadn’t turned her head away from the game the whole time she spoke to Tak, and she was now focusing intently on beating a boss. Tak watched her as she played. The game didn’t interest her as much as the fighting games she’d gone against her in, if only because it seemed to lack depth compared to them, but she still found the motions of the main character mesmerizing. Tak thought the overall design of the game was lacking as she had difficulty decerning what some objects were supposed to be. She assumed the background of the level was meant to be water or a forcefield of some kind and the boss was some fat man riding a orb shaped hover craft. She watched Gaz hop the blue creature into the boss for a total of eight times all while avoiding shots from it. After she finished the level Gaz said, “So nothing happened at all?”

Tak brought one of her hands to her face again and rolled her eyes as she groaned, “Actually the most infuriating and insane thing of the day happened on my way back. Some weird-o, for some unbelievable reason, decided to cat-call me on my walk home.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy.” Gaz said disappointed, “That’s just whatever.”

“But I was green!” Tak said in disbelief of what she was telling her, “What-What on Irk kind of thing was he thinking?”

“Everyone’s dumb, but guys are dumber.” Gaz said to her plainly, “What did you do to him?” She asked, some excitement in her voice.

Tak blew air and sighed, “Nothing. Normally I would have but with everything happening I just wanted to get home in one piece without any attention.”

“That’s far.” Gaz said understanding. “You still got plenty of test subjects back home anyway.”

“More than I know what to do with.” Tak said and chuckled softly to herself. She then remembered who was in the room with her and turned to see Mimi and Gir still playing. She said a bit quitter to Gaz, “Do you think he heard us?”

Gaz responded unconcerned, “I don’t think they’re paying attention to us, and he won’t say anything.”

“Of course.” Tak said with some concern in her voice and looked over to Mimi and Gir. She had forgotten they were in the room with them as she chatted with Gaz, but they seemed to be distracted with whatever game they were playing. For a moment she wondered if her mind wiping technology would work on Gir, and whether she would be able to do so to him discreetly. She’s been experimenting on humans since she arrived on the planet, even after she became friends with Dib and Gaz. Her first experiment was with the owner of the Deelishus Weenie corporation as her surrogate father, but following ‘developments’ as Tak put it, she began other more involved experiments of human biology. Once Dib found out about her experiments, as well as her most recent project, he had her release all of the livings ones and the ones who could be repaired. She did release all her test subjects, with the exception of her father which she was able to convince Dib was necessary for her survival on the planet. But she still had further experiments to run, so not too long after releasing them she began collecting again. To her credit she only collected criminals and other undesirables afterwards and employed a catch and release policy for some of them in hopes that Dib would accept her interests. But she never told him she was still experimenting on humans. She figured what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, and what she was doing was done in hopes of better understanding herself, so Tak thought he would have to understand her if he wanted to be a good boyfriend.

“Oh, and speaking of freak experiments.” Gaz started to say absentmindedly in between her game, “Did you fix your phone? You know, since Keef probably has Dib’s?”

“Already taken care of.” Tak said assuredly, “And I gave Dib a new phone as a precaution.”

“You bought him one on your way here?” Gaz asked confused.

“No. I made him one.” She said proudly. Tak was well aware of her technological accomplishments, and wanted to be sure Gaz knew her work when she saw it.

“Cool, could you make me one?” Gaz said absentmindedly.

Tak didn’t respond immediately, as the request itself caught her off guard slightly. She remembered that she initially rejected Dib’s request to make him a phone when she first joined their friend group. That seemed ages ago to her, and she assumed it did to them as well. Even so, she had a small fear that Dib would find some grievances with her if she agreed to make one for Gaz so easily. She decided that it would be unfair to make one for Dib and not Gaz, so somewhat reluctantly she replied with, “I - Sure.”

“Sweet.” Gaz said pleased, leaving Tak to dwell on her thoughts. She was jostled from them by the sound of Zim and Dib laughing in the kitchen as she looked off into that direction. “Sounds like the idiots are having fun.” Gaz said to herself.

Tak didn’t say anything at first and only fixed herself in her chair to watch the television and sighed lightly before saying, “Yeah.”

Gaz looked to her from the corner of her eye and said, “Do you want to play?”

Tak came to attention at her question and said, “I’ve never played this game before, so it probably won’t be very exciting to watch.”

“Didn’t you wipe the floor at the arcade the other day on games you never played?” Gaz said opening an eye wide to her.

“Dib told you about that?” Tak asked somewhat surprised that Gaz knew about the particulars of her date.

Gaz replied simply, “Yeah.”

Tak was about to ask, ‘how much did he tell you?’ But thought better not to ask and said with a small amount of annoyance she couldn’t hide, “Well all those games were dumb.”

“Well this isn’t dumb, so play with me.”

“This game doesn’t look too interesting to me, and I don’t really want to play as the little orange thing following you around.” Tak said with her arms crossed.

“Play as Sonic then, and I’ll be Tails.”

She was about to say that she didn’t want to play as the blue thing either when she heard a call from Zim in the kitchen. “Gir your stuff is ready!” He yelled to the living room, and then repeated his name after he didn’t hear a response. Gir replied that he was busy. Tak let out an annoyed pout and was about to get up and yell back but Gaz stopped her and said,

“Don’t worry about it. They’re dumb but they can handle it. You playing or what?” Tak was running out of excuses, it was clear to her that Gaz wanted to play the game with her but she still wasn’t sold on it. She had been mesmerized by the way Gaz moved her character quickly across the screen, even in the slower pace of the water level she was finishing up. She watched her beat the boss in style after which the title “Hydro City Zone Act 2” lit up on the screen. Gaz paused the game and handed her controller towards her and said, “Well? Are you at least going to try it?”

Somewhat begrudgingly, Tak gave in and said, “Just to humor you. Sure I’ll try it, don’t expect me to like it.” She moved on to the couch next to Gaz and setup with their respective controllers. She un-paused the game and said, “So what’s the purpose of this game?”

“You gotta go fast.” Gaz said as a small smirk grew across her face.

“I can see that.” Tak said unimpressed. After the game was un-paused she saw the characters consumed in a vortex as they went behind geometry and appeared on a lower level. “Any other goal? I see this game has rudimentary combat with the bosses you fought. Does it get anything like that fighting game?”

“Tekken? No, you just hop on enemies until they die like Super Mario.” Gaz said as she demonstrated with her own character in the game.

“Which one is that? Not the one with the yellow disk eating ghosts or something?”

“Pacman? No, it’s the one with the Italian guy and giant mushrooms.”

“Ugh!” Tak let out a disgruntled moan as she continued, “What is with all these Earth games and their ridiculous settings?”

“Less talk more speed.” Gaz said as she nudged Tak back to the game.

Tak obeyed and began her process of analysis of the game as she played. She noted it had fairly limited physics based upon the speed and momentum of her character, that most enemies could damage her simply by touch, and that to prevent death she had to carry at least one golden ring. “Very simple in concept.” Tak thought to herself, “Not as graceful as Gaz yet, but in no time at all I should be able to master this little game.” With that thought in mind she brought all of her focus onto the game and began her conquest of it, as she knew any true Invader would achieve.

______________________________________________________________

Dib and Zim made their way into the kitchen. There was still a faint haze of smoke from Gir’s cooking that permeated the air. None of the dishes had been cleaned but there was still a tower of suds in the sink from when Gir was playing in it. The stove looked dirtier than Dib would have expected from bacon and pancakes, with grease and batter all over it in places where it shouldn’t be, but he assumed that was normal for Gir. Along with that it seemed he had helped himself to the rest of the kitchen. Cabinets where open with pots and pans everywhere; milk, eggs, and cookie mix were open out on the table, there was something cooking in the oven (he hoped cookies), and the fridge was left open.

As they entered and saw the state it was in Zim said apologetically, “Uh…Sorry about Gir wreaking your kitchen. I usually let him do whatever he wants at ours but I should probably tell him to be more considerate at your house. You have a cleaning robot right?” He ended looking to Dib.

“No, not really.” Dib started to say as he made an open spot on the table for the pizzas. “Since the whole Foodio-self-destruct thing dad’s kind of been turned off from domestic robots.”

“Oh yeah, ‘Destructio’” Zim said reminiscing to himself, “Your dad hasn’t made any robots since then?”

“You almost had it blow up our whole family Zim.” Dib said in a huffy as he went to the fridge door to close it, “That, and he still can’t get over the poached eggs it used to make.”

Zim sat down at the table and said callously, “Well sorry. It was only a few years ago.” He opened the box of cheese pizza and said, “I hope they didn’t ruin my order. I swear every time I think about how they could mess it up they end up doing that exact thing. They must have mind reading technology or something.” He then took out a slice and began eating, while doing so he said, “I’ll be sure to have Gir clean up everything before we leave.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Dib said as he sat down to join Zim. He took a slice of the cheese as well and said, “The stove should be able to clean itself. It’s just the dishes that need cleaning really.”

“Well I’ll have him clean it anyway. It’s good to keep him busy.” Zim placed his wig and contacts on the table between him and Dib while they were eating and said, “What do you think? Some skin burning chemicals or some stuff to make me itchy?”

“I don’t think Tak would sabotage your disguise while we’re all in the same house.” Dib said picking up both the lenses and wig. He worried Tak did do something to them, but he didn’t think they would notice immediately if Zim wore them, but he also didn’t share this with him. He felt the texture of the wig and even brought it to his face to smell it.

“So no sewage this time?” Zim asked slightly peeved.

“I told you, I didn’t know about it.” Dib asserted.

“But you assumed?”

“Yeah, I did.” He said flatly and went back to inspecting the disguise. The wig was ratty when he gave it to Tak and it still was, but any grime that it had before was gone. The only problem was that it smelled like she dipped it in a very harsh chemical solution. Besides that it looked fine. The contacts where noticeably cleaner now than they were when Zim gave them to her, but they seemed to have a slight gloss to them which he chalked up to them being cleaner than usual. He rubbed the wig over his hand, and while he did feel a slight irritation he chalked it up to the strength of the chemicals Tak used and not out of some malicious intent of hers. At any rate Tak didn’t expect Zim to wear it tonight so he would be fine without wearing it until later. “Your disguise is fine by the way. It smells like she put it through bleach or something but you should be fine. Maybe just rinse it before you decide to wear it out again.”

Dib slid the wig and contacts across the table to Zim who inspected it once more and said, “Maybe something ten times harsher than bleach. It smells like my skin would burn off if I wore it too long.”

“Well don’t. She’s not expecting you to, so just take it home and clean it yourself.”

Dib’s reasoning satisfied Zim enough, so he took the disguise in a pout. Dib saw him take the wig and contacts in hand and place it around his back where it disappeared into his invisible pak, the only flaw in his otherwise perfect disguise. “How’s the pizza?” He asked lightly after he put his disguise away.

“It’s okay. Bloaty’s is too greasy for me but it’s still pizza.”

As he said this Zim opened the other box of pizza and inspected it briefly as he said, “How much do I owe you for it?”

“You don’t. Tak paid for it.”

Zim slouched back in his chair and continued eating as he said, “So she doesn’t expect me to pay her back. Right?”

“I don’t see why we’d ever have to pay either of you back. Don’t you guys both print money?”

“Kind of.” Zim said as he finished his slice of pizza without the crust and picked another out of the box. “I don’t know what Tak does but I sometimes make Earth money. The Earth authorities sometimes get pissy if I make enough to be noticed, but if I need a lot I just sell some off my stuff on the internet.”

“You sell alien technology on the internet?” Dib said in a slight shock, and then wondered why he was surprised.

“I mean unless you want to buy some. I never post it as alien tech. Just stuff like ‘foreign blender’ or ‘butt scratcher’ or something. That usually sells.”

“I bet they do.” Dib said slightly miffed. He was reminded of the countless times he posted proof of aliens on the web, only for it to go unnoticed or ignored. “If Tak finds out about it you’re dead though.”

“I think we’re both dead once she finds out about what we do on Guy’s Night.” Zim said as the cheese to his pizza fell off, which he caught with his tongue and slurped up.

Dib brought his hand to the bridge of his nose and said embarrassed, “Please stop calling it ‘Guy’s Night.’”

Zim smiled wryly and said smugly, “Why not? Would you prefer it if I wore my feminine disguise more often?” He said as he fluttered his eyelashes.

“No.” Dib almost choked on his pizza as he laughed lightly. “Your wigs are great, but your makeup skills could use some work.”

Zim wasn’t satisfied enough with Dib’s reaction, so he said “I could dress up like Tak again if you want.”

“Hell no!” He said entirely at end with Zim as he let out a loud laugh. He brought his hand to his face, “Why did I bring you there?”

“Because it was hilarious! Wasn’t it hilarious” Zim said laughing to himself.

“Yeah it was.” Dib said unable to keep himself from chuckling, “But I’m pretty sure there were Swollen Eye Balls at the convention. And they’re…smarter, you know?”

“Not really. And besides” Zim started to say flamboyantly, “All my disguises are flawless.”

“Yeah well never dress up like Tak again. After today I’m worried someone there would have actually thought it was her and not someone dressed in a shitty costume.”

“That’s okay I’m still trying to perfect my Gaz disguise. I just can’t manage to capture the glare. Hhmp.” Zim closed his eyes and mimicked Gaz’s scowl as he ended.

Dib laughed at his impersonation of Gaz and said, “I don’t know who I’d rather have angry at us. Tak or Gaz?”

“Gaz probably.” Zim said almost instantly, “She doesn’t have death beams like Tak does.”

“That doesn’t stop her.” Dib said proudly. Years ago he would have been hesitant to admit the capabilities Gaz held, which at many times seemed to surpass his own abilities. Recently he’s come to terms with that fact, and appreciated her more as a result, though he still wished he could convince her to take an interest in his hobbies.

“Yeah, it doesn’t.” Zim said almost to himself as he also reminisced on Gaz’s past accomplishments. “Guess that’s why we all became friends in the first place. You guys really are exceptional humans.”

“I don’t really think so. Or at least that’s not all of it. You and Tak are pretty exceptional Irkens. Least out of all the Irkens I’ve ever meet.”

“Yeah…” Zim trailed off as his gaze left Dib and then ended somewhat arrogantly, “I am pretty amazing compared to most.” Dib was about to say something in response to Zim and his typical egotistical response, not to say he was upset by it. Over the years of their friendship he’s found his bombastic personality to be a charming quality of his, but he always liked to take him down a peg when he could. Before he could say anything, he was interrupted by the sound of the oven’s timer going off. After which, Zim yelled out to the living room, “Gir your stuff is ready!” He yelled out Gir’s name a second time after he failed to hear a response.

“I’m busy!” Gir yelled back to the kitchen in sing-song.

Zim was about to yell back at him, but Dib interrupted him as he yelled and said the two of them could take care of it themselves. They made their way to the oven and Dib opened the door while Zim crouched next to him, and inside was a full tray of cookies. It was also splattered with what they assumed to be batter all along the inside, and it smelled like it was starting to burn. “They look done enough.” Dib said, “And we should probably turn off the oven before whatever’s on it burns any worse. We just need some oven mitts.”

“Don’t worry, I got it.” Zim said as he gently pushed Dib out of the way. He backed up a bit and saw two of Zim’s pak legs extrude from his back, breaking his disguise again, and reach into the oven to pull out the tray and place it on top of the oven. “There we go.” Zim said happily as he retracted his pak legs and brushed off his hands, “I’ll have Gir clean everything else some time tonight or tomorrow before we leave.”

“Sure, but the oven should be able to clean itself.” Dib said as he went to activate the oven’s self-cleaning function and was surprised when it failed to work. He opened the oven and tried to activate it again before he called out annoyed, “Gir, what did you break?”

“Nothing!” Gir called out cheerily from the living room.

“Gir, get in here now!” Zim yelled to him, stating it as a command. The two of them heard a shuffle from the living room as Gir skipped into the kitchen and said hello to them.

“Did you do anything to the oven?” Dib asked concerned.

“Besides use it, no.” Gir said uncaringly

“Well whatever you did broke it.” Zim said disappointed with his arms folded to him.

Gir was surprised by Zim’s claim and walked over to the oven and said, “It was working fine a minute ago.” He turned the oven to its max setting and stuck his hand inside of it to feel the heat. He brought out his hand as it glowed with heat and said satisfied, “Yeah it’s still working.”

“No, not the heating part. The cleaning part.” Dib said worried as he shut off the oven and closed the door.

“Oh.” Gir said blankly as he stared for a moment at Dib, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Zim asked skeptically and Gir replied with affirmation. After which he continued, “I find it hard to believe that it just stopped working suddenly all on its own. Especially since you were the last one to use it.”

“Uh…” Gir trailed off as he rubbed the side of his arm and looked away at the ceiling. Dib was unsure of the exact reason for his reaction, he thought it was possible Gir was just afraid of the bad situation the oven being broken put him in. He wanted to subdue Zim from him so he said,

“It’s probably not him. Our stuff breaks all the time, even our dishwasher broke last week and we’re still trying to get it fixed.”

“Well whatever, I still want you to clean up this mess you made.”

“But the party’s just started.” Gir pleaded as he grabbed onto Zim who was unphased by his begging, “I’m still playing with Kitty. Please!” Gir wailed as he clung onto Zim, who was unphased as he crossed his arms disappointed with him.

“Let him go play with Kitty. Mimi – I mean Mimi.” Dib said as he corrected himself, “So long as he cleans up before you guys leave I’m okay with it.”

Zim let out an annoyed grunt before he relented and said, “I want you to clean this up tonight while we’re sleeping. We need a clean kitchen tomorrow for us at breakfast. That’s an order.”

“Yes Sir!” Gir said as his voice and demeanor morphed into duty mode, but as quickly as it came it faded away and they saw him hop away back to the living room, joyful and relieved to go back to his games.

Neither of them spoke for a moment as they watched him skip into the living room. A moment after he was out of sight Zim went back to the table and said disgruntled, “You were too easy on him.”

“You’re one to talk.” Dib jabbed at him as he went back to the table with him, “When have you ever not given into his begging?”

“I’ve been trying not to.” Zim defended quickly as grabbed another slice from the box, “You at least have to be hard on him when does something wrong. I don’t really like seeing him that way but it’s the only way he learns.”

“You sound like a parent when you talk about it like that.” Dib said absent mindedly as he helped himself to more pizza.

His comment gave Zim a moment of pause between his chewing before he replied, “I wouldn’t call our relationship a ‘parental’ one.” He said with a full mouth and then finished before he continued, “I’ve paid attention to human parents and their kids, apart from you guys and your dad. I don’t coddle Gir as much as they would, I think anyway. If I had to compare us to a human relationship for me and him I’d say friends but closer, maybe brothers?” Zim ended in a question. It was clear to Dib that’s he’s thought about this before, but he was still very unsure what they were exactly to each other. “We’re definitely not just coworkers, even if that’s what we were supposed to be.”

“But you’re still his superior? I mean military style, which I guess is how Irken society works.”

“Yeah that’s close enough.” Zim said absent mindedly, “I mean I still have him do stuff for me, but a lot of the time we just hang out if it’s just us two. So we’re kind of closer to equals but not quite.”

“That’s why you gave him the human disguise and bigger body?”

“Not really. You know he wouldn’t stop bothering me about making him taller after it started happening to me. The ‘brother’ disguise just seemed like the easiest way to take him out. That, or I’d make him into a Great-Dane, which I was thinking about for a while.”

Dib chuckled at Zim’s reveal, “Could you imagine it? He’d be walking on two legs all the time, bright green, and probably just as talkative if not more. Oh, Tak would have gone crazy when she upgraded your disguises.”

“She still goes crazy. I don’t get why, especially after today.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry too much about. Gir definitely likes his disguise, and you don’t hate yours. Do you?”

Zim was quiet for a moment as he brought up his arms to turn over and examine them. Taking note of his disguised skin, its texture, and his five fingers which sometimes made him forget he only had three. “It’s okay.” He finally said after his inspection. “You know we’ve been dealing with it since she joined our friend group, and I still like to wear my old one out every now and again. But being able to walk into Skool or down the street with Gir and not get weird looks everywhere I go…It’s pretty good. Not going to lie.”

They were both quiet for a moment after he finished, and Dib was nodding in quiet satisfaction. “Yeah, you two could get along if you really wanted to.”

Zim let out a huff of air as he looked off to the ceiling, “Don’t expect a miracle.” He said annoyed, “But if you want me to give her a peace offering tell her the pizza without cheese is for her. It’s supposed to be anyway. Since she has a problem with Earth cheese for some reason.”

“She likes cheese, she’s just kind of picky.” Dib said. He’s had some success with introducing her to Earth cuisine, but he wasn’t sure if her body had a sensitive reaction to some of the food here or if it was more of a mental thing. She’s been trying more Earth food lately, but it still had to be heavily processed, and even if it was it could still cause her problems like the nacho cheese the other night at the arcade. “But that’s really cool you did that for her. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.” Zim didn’t say anything but looked to him with an exhausted and skeptical expression. “She will.” Dib assured him, “She might not say it aloud or maybe even admit it to herself but she does. She likes when people think of her. We all do.”

“Yeah well…” Zim started but paused before he continued, “Don’t expect us interacting much tonight, if at all. At least if we don’t want a problem.”

“That’s fine. Tak wants the same thing.” Dib said but was worried for a moment that what he said may have insulted Zim a bit. He showed no signs of being upset so he continued, “Want to head back to the living room and see what everyone else is doing.”

“Sure. I don’t think you guys want to watch me and Gaz play Sonic, but I could go for a movie.”

The two of them made their way to the living room. Mimi was still playing with Gir, who was now cuddling and petting her where they sat. Then they were surprised to see Tak and Gaz sitting on the couch playing a video game together, and as they entered they were greeted by a frustrated grunt from Tak. After her grunt she turned to Gaz and said annoyed, “I thought you said the goal of this game is to obtain speed?”

“It is.” She said back smirking to her.

“Then why on Irk would they punish me for it?” Tak said brushing a hand through her hair as she gestured to the television. Dib went up to the back end of the couch and leaned on it while the two of them were talking. He asked them what happened, then Tak replied, “I just finished killing the boss, and I was running down this hill until I fell into this pit with jump pads and each side, so I used the momentum I got from them and jumped out. And immediately after doing that I run straight into this giant swinging ball with spikes! And I couldn’t react to it, or the controller couldn’t read my inputs in time, so I just ended up eating it!” She brushed her hand through her hair again still upset at what happened and said, “What is the point of this design?”

“It’s to keep you own your toes.” Gaz said teasingly to her. The game was paused now and she reclined back on the couch stretching.

“But even from an objective standpoint, there was no way I could have reacted to it in time unless I knew it was going to happen. The only point this is trying to say is preparatory memorization of an area before exploring is key.” She stated coldly and crossed her arms after she finished.

“There isn’t supposed to be a point. It’s a game.” Gaz replied to her. She had no further response and was silent for a moment until Zim chimed in,

“If it makes you feel better Sonic One has a worse trap. You just run down this hallway into a wall of spikes. I think I moaned about it for half hour when it happened. And I think it was on level with a similar name. Marble zone right?” Tak stared at the television the whole time with her arms crossed as he spoke. His last comment was to Gaz, but before she could have given a response Tak replied,

“It doesn’t matter.” She said as she raised her arms up, “It’s all stupid anyway.”

“Well if you’re all set, I think we can do something else.” Gaz as she started to grab up the controllers.

Tak snatched her own controller out of her lap away from Gaz and said tensely, “No. I’m not done.”

“What happened to us playing Sonic?” Zim said somewhat peeved raising an eyebrow to Gaz.

“You were taking too long in the kitchen. But honestly right now I could just go for watching a movie or something.”

“So we’re just done playing then?” Tak asked somewhat confused.

“I’m down for anything.” Dib said not reading Tak’s confusion as he left the back end of the couch and went over to the armchair. “What movies did you guys bring?”

“Nothing too crazy.” Zim started to say as he went to collect the plastic bag he brought the movies in, “Scary Movie, Spirited Away, Aliens, Star Wars. What are you guys feeling?”

“I haven’t seen Spirited Away in a while, I could go for that.” Gaz said.

“What’s that movie about?” Tak asked interested. She hadn’t seen too much Earth media besides what Gaz and Dib showed her. She found most of what they showed her to be unappealing, with her and Gaz’s taste having a bit more overlap than Dib’s. She knew part of the point of showing up tonight was to watch more Earth media, but besides Star Wars (a movie she found both boring and unrealistic) she was unfamiliar with the other titles.

“It’s good. You’ll like it.” Was all Dib said to her, which didn’t win her over but she felt better about her chances of liking it knowing that both Gaz and Dib liked it.

“That works for me. So are we watching it?” Zim asked, which caused Dib and Gaz to look to Tak, and at feeling the slight pressure from them she gave in. She sighed and said,

“Yeah, let’s watch it.”

“Nice.” Said Zim as he jumped onto the couch next to Gaz, opposite from Tak. This caused Gaz to be pushed to the side into her, which took up more of the couch. Tak was slightly annoyed by the decrease in room and noted Dib had the entire armchair all to himself, which she thought was really her chair as she claimed it when she arrived here first. She considered moving from the couching and sitting on top of Dib on the armchair, but she found she wasn’t brave or bold enough to act on her feelings in that way.

The party went smoothly for the rest of the night after they agreed to watch the movie. Tak found it interesting to say the least, it was her first time seeing it. At first she found the story and the main character annoying, unbelievable, and too fantastical for her taste, but by the end of the movie she wished it could have been longer. Zim provided his commentary throughout it, as per usual with any piece of media he took part in. Tak made her best effort to ignore him at first, but by the end of the movie when she was engrossed in it as she hugged a pillow and was actively shushing him. The rest of the night continued in similar fashion, as they all consumed movies and shows while talking with one another. Tak had even tried one of Gir’s cookies, which she was pleased to find (but also loathed to admit) was actually quite delicious. She was able to enjoy the company of Dib and Gaz, and ignore Zim and Gir, the latter of which having been of no concern or bother to her at all. So she found it somewhat acceptable that Mimi had occupied his attention, but she was still upset she disobeyed her orders. As the night went on Dib, Gaz, and even Zim had changed into their pajamas, so towards the latter half of the night Tak wanted to change into hers as well. She excused herself from the party and went to Gaz’s room to change, and brought Gaz’s hoodie for her as a favor.

She grabbed her backpack from the front door and made her way up the stairs of the Membrane’s house. She heard the mixed noise of the living room from the movie and everyone’s commentary on it as she made her way up. She’d been in their house multiple times now, both as an infiltrating enemy, which seemed so long ago to her, and now more recently as a visiting friend. The house itself was beginning to gain some sense of familiarity for her because of this, but she still found herself taking in the finer details of it from time to time. She found the primitivity of it rather quaint, yet she told herself she could never live like this. She’s use to her lab, with her experiments, her new ship which she flew out every now and again, and above her main base the expansive human mansion, empty save for robot servants and all the comforts Earth could provide. While she thought about her nearly empty home she examined the family photos littered across the wall of the stairs, as she was habit to do. Even though she found the photographs quaint she always wondered why their father, The Professor Membrane, would keep their home so relatively primitive. She thought something even as simple as a screen would be more efficient for displaying all their images, rather than still photos. She knew his underground lab was much more advanced than their above house, nowhere near as advanced as her own base, or maybe even Zim’s, but she thought it would be almost impossible to tell if she didn’t already know. “Maybe he’s just used to the way he used to live.” Tak thought to herself as she spied what looked to be a very old photo of who she assumed to be a young Professor Membrane. He was small but still wearing a lab coat with goggles, conflicting with the rural farm area in the background. She looked further up the wall and spied a more recent photo of the three Membranes together, posing for a family photo. Gaz looked to be much happier than she normally looks, same as Dib, while The Professor held the two of them in a hug on either side of him. “I’m sure he’s a good father.” Tak thought, “Even with all their slight misgivings they have with him.” She was distracted from her thoughts as she caught Mimi following her up the stairs from the corner of her eye. She was slightly surprised, since she had been spending nearly the entire night with Gir even at her initial forbidding. She was about to say something to her about her change in behavior, but thought there was no point to it. She continued up the stairs towards Gaz’s room without addressing her, and Mimi followed her in tow without a word.

She opened the door to Gaz’s room and saw Mimi scoot under her legs into it, then she hopped unto Gaz’s bed and sat down as she began grooming herself. Without speaking Tak let herself into the room, turned on a light switch, and closed the door behind her lethargically. Tak had been in Gaz’s room multiple times now and thought it wasn’t typically what a human girl’s room would look like, if what she had seen in Earth media was anything to go by. There were no bright colors, no posters of movie or rock stars on the wall, and it didn’t reek of perfume. Her bed was against a wall on one side of the room, on it was a plain blanket burgundy in color, and on the floor were two sleeping bags she assumed her and Gaz would be using tonight. The room itself had very dark colors, which was only exacerbated by the fact that the light in her room needed a bulb changed. The only thing on the wall was a photo of her family above her bed and a few posters of video games Gaz enjoyed. She saw a few other clothes littered on the ground by her closet, so she decided to add to the pile and throw Gaz’s Game station hoodie there. As she did she looked at her desk where she kept her video game equipment and spied a half-eaten sandwich with a drink. Every time Tak went into her room she was reminded how atypical Gaz was compared to other females of her species, and was delighted every time she was as it made her own isolation feel lessened.

She threw her backpack next to the desk and stood in front of the mirror on the closet door. Then she began changing into her pajamas she brought with her. She didn’t get much further than removing her t-shirt, after which she stood in front of the mirror and examined her disguised body. She made her human disguise as convincing as possible, but she also tried to create a human body that was similar in proportions to her Irken form, if only because she wanted to feel comfortable in her disguise. Her body had none of the curves a typical human female would have, because of this she had even been mocked by some of the more preppy school girls for being ‘flat’ as they called her. She considered altering her disguise to give her more pronounced curves that the other human females had. Both to potentially improve the validity of her disguise and because she thought perhaps Dib would prefer it, though she was very ashamed to admit it. She had even brought up the idea to Dib of potentially updating her disguise, but he told her that he liked the way her disguise looked, which did help to alleviate some reservations she had about it. Regardless, she still found herself looking at her half-naked torso in the mirror with some disfavor. She passed her hand over her body and sighed to herself as she looked in the mirror. As she did she saw in the background that Mimi had stopped grooming herself and was now staring at her from the bed.

Tak turned around, feeling oddly violated and said to her irritated, “Would you stop staring at me!?” She threw her shirt at Mimi in retaliation, which she was able to avoid. Tak then knelt down to her backpack and rummaged through it for her pajamas as she said still annoyed, “What on Irk are you doing that for anyway?”

Mimi didn’t respond immediately, as she seemed to be deciding what to say. Mimi then communicated to Tak in telepathy in a tone that feigned innocence, “Ma’am, Why do you wear human clothes on top of your disguise?”

Tak was taken slightly aback by her question, not so much at the question itself but at the fact that Mimi choose now to ask it. She didn’t wear human clothes all the time but she’s been doing it off and on over the past few months. She decided to do it one day on a whim after seeing clothes in a store that captured her interest, but instead of merely altering her disguise to match it she went in and bought the outfit. Mimi didn’t comment on the act immediately when it happened but she later gave a brief remark on her ‘going native’ after she was wearing them, which Tak laughed off at the time. She wasn’t entirely sure why she decided to wear human clothes with her disguise. Part of it was simply an impulsive decision, and part of it was the fact that she knew Zim’s been doing it for years, which put the idea into her head, but she would hate to admit that. She stopped for a moment in rummaging through her backpack to give her response and said, “It’s…to make my disguise more convincing.” She lied through her teeth, but she didn’t even know what the full truth was.

Mimi merely nodded her head slowly in agreement but said afterwards in the same tone as before, “Is that the reason why you’ve rendered human genitals and other body parts on your disguise as well?”

“Yes.” Was all Tak said in response. She was close to ignoring her as she brought out her pajama shirt and held it up to look at. It was a light gray t-shirt with the bottom cut short, and it would expose the naval of her disguise once it was on.

As she was dressing Mimi said, “May I ask what the point of doing that was Ma’am? Considering no one will ever see that?” The innocent tone she had was gone now, and she was now communicating in one that was clearly aggravated.

Tak pulled her shirt over her head and said with growing annoyance, “I don’t know. Isn’t that the point of all the human experiments we’ve been doing? To better understand their biology?” She ended spreading her arms out in question as she stood up.

“I thought our experiments were for something else Ma’am.” Mimi said matter-of-factly.

“They were, and still are.” Tak responded plainly and began going through her backpack again. The human experiments she’s been completing have become two-fold, but their primary goal still remained the same. It has always been to better understand human biology, but the main purpose behind it was to understand what has happened to her body, and if the planet or its residents could supply an answer. Relatively soon after arriving on this planet Tak began growing taller, but that was the tamest of things to happen. The chemical composition of her entire body has changed and developed into new ways that amazed and horrified her, mostly horrified. She found some similarity in the change that humans undergo when they mature and originally thought of ways to revert or at least stall her changes by experimenting on humans. The initial desire to revert the changes has mostly left her, but she still experiments in hopes of understanding them so that she won’t be completely caught off guard. Similarly, just as she wanted the silhouette of her human disguise to match her Irken form, she also found it fitting to match the intricacies of her disguise to her own body, to the best of her knowledge. She of course did not share this information with Mimi. Tak finished going through her backpack and found the bottoms to her pajamas, a pair of purple short-shorts with an elastic band.

She began removing her jeans to change into them as Mimi laid on the bed and said to her with some concern, “We haven’t made much progress on our original goal Ma’am.”

Tak wasn’t paying too much attention to her as she changed and said absent mindedly to her, “Well, that’s kind of taken a back seat now. If you haven’t noticed.”

Mimi didn’t say anything else to her after she replied. She merely laid on the bed and watched her superior change. She took note of her thin legs and feet that were now barefoot, and studied the plain black underwear she was wearing as she slipped on her pajamas. Mimi rolled on the bed for a moment agonizing over something until she sat up slightly and said accusingly to Tak, “Why are you pretending so hard to be human?”

Tak stopped changing for a moment in shock as she registered what her SIR unit said to her. She had already finished changing but she left her hands by her hips after she put on her bottoms. She turned around and said to Mimi, “I’m not pretending to be anything. It’s a disguise.” She emphasized the word as she gestured to herself while she spoke.

Mimi replied exasperated as she rolled on the bed, “A disguise that’s clearly more work than necessary. As we saw today all that’s needed is a wig and some contacts to pass for human.”

“Oh I’m sorry.” Tak said insulted, “Should I deactivate your disguise and just have you walk around in a rabbit suit all day? Like you said my disguises are more work than their worth.” Tak folded her arms over her chest and turned away from Mimi as she finished.

“Your disguises are wonderful, same as everything you do Ma’am.” Mimi said apologetically sitting up on the bed. “It’s just that…” Mimi started, trying to find the right words to use.

“I’m going native?” Tak finished for her turning around with a raised eyebrow.

“No.” Mimi started, “You’re deluding yourself Ma’am.”

Tak entire body tensed up at Mimi’s accusation, “I am not deluding myself.” She began to say enraged. She brought he hands to her hair and swept it back violently. As she finished she left her hands at the end of her hair where her antennas would be and pulled them. She hurt herself by doing so but it’s easier for her to focus on the pain than on how she felt. “Look.” She began again, “I know we’re a long ways from Irk and being the Invader we deserve to be, but we can’t do anything about it.” She picked up her clothes and violently stuffed them into her bag as she spoke, “The only thing we can do now is accept what happened and live our life in peace on this miserable planet.”

“Well you haven’t always been fighting back as hard as you could be.” Mimi communicated to her, it sounded like something she meant to think to herself. Even if it wasn’t she clearly regretted what she said when Tak turned around and glared holes into her.

Mimi shrank down in fear on the bed as Tak said mockingly, “Really? Cause I can recall you saying plenty of times, ‘you need to be more cautious Ma’am’ or ‘You’re taking these experiments too quickly,’ and ‘you’re only hurting yourself Ma’am.’ Why it seems to me that whether I’m just trying to live my life in peace or mutilating myself to try to resemble something close to what I was before all this you can’t help but find some fault in whatever it is I’m doing!” Tak stood up and walked over to the bed where Mimi laid down. She looked small, afraid, and very sorry. None of these things instilled any emotion in Tak as she picked up her shirt she threw at Mimi earlier. As she did and stuffed it into the bag she said still mockingly to Mimi, “I know what this is about by the way.” Mimi didn’t say anything but looked up at her from the bed confused. “You’re upset that I didn’t give you my permission to play with the defective little SIR unit.” Mimi’s ears pricked up at that and her expression changed to indignation, but she didn’t speak and let Tak finish. “Even though you disobeyed my orders and played with it anyway.” She picked up her shirt and violently stuffed it into her bag as she said, “That’s why you’re up here, being all pissy with me on changes you’ve embraced harder than I have. Ever thought about how hard you pretend to be a cat?” Tak ended her statement in harsh accusation as she glared at her SIR unit.

Mimi expression changed to one calm and obedient. She said to Tak, “I’m only following my programming Ma’am. What protocol would you prefer me to follow?”

Tak didn’t say anything for a moment and threw her bag to the side of the bed by her boots and then said sternly, “You are going to remain quiet, for the rest of the night, and for as long as we’re here.” She began walking towards the door and added before she opened it, “You are permitted to play with the defect.” She turned around and pointed at her as she added, “But any sign of interference from him on your design, whether purposeful or not, and I will take you back to the base and take you apart bit by bit and turn you into something less disrespectful and more obedient. Are we clear?”

Mimi didn’t respond via her communicator but nodded her head up and down in affirmation.

“Good.” Was all Tak said in response. She opened the door and said to her, “You are dismissed.” Mimi complied as she jumped off the bed and walked out of the room past Tak and down the hall to downstairs. Tak slammed the door as she herself stepped out and heard something fall and break inside the room after she did. She cringed in worry as she heard it and turned back to open the room and see what it is she broke. She looked inside the room for anything out of order. All of her posters where still on the wall, the mirror was untouched, the glass on her desk was fine and so was her gaming equipment. “That’s a relief.” She thought to herself. She would make a new setup for Gaz a hundred times better than anything she has now but would hate to have the conversation that she was the one who broke it. Being satisfied and relieved that nothing inside the room was wrong to her knowledge she closed the door and looked around the hallway. Nothing was out of sorts. She leaned against the door to Gaz’s room, let out a sigh of relief and said, “Stupid door. Why does The Professor keep this place so primitive?” As she said this she looked down at herself and the outfit she wore. She picked at her shirt in her hand and groaned to herself, “What on Irk am I doing?” After she said this she looked up at the pictures on the wall of the Membranes. Various pictures of Dib, Gaz, and even their father in various places, all of them happy and enjoying whatever the occasion was that called for a photograph. “I’m here to enjoy myself and have fun.” Tak thought to herself as she admired them. She thought Dib and Gaz would be on her for being so bummed out about something somebody said to her, even if the one who said it to her was Mimi. She decided to push all those feelings away, she’s been looking forward to tonight for weeks. She was going to enjoy it.

She walked down the hallway and downstairs back to the living room where everyone still was. Zim and Gaz took up the space of the entire couch, and Dib was in the chair. The show they watched was just about over and they talked to one another while they ignored whatever was on the television. She spied Mimi and Gir playing on the ground, with less enthusiasm than before, but everyone was still enjoying themselves, so she decided she would too.

“What’d I miss?” Tak said as she went to the back of the chair Dib was in.

“That took a bit longer than expected. Everything good?” Dib said to her from the chair, some concern in his voice.

She brushed his concern away and said, “Mimi and I were just talking for bit. Nothing to worry about.” After she gave her explanation she hopped onto the chair Dib was in and laid across the armrests of the chair over his lap. The hesitation she had that prevented her from doing it before was gone, or at least she wanted to distract herself and him from what was bothering her. “So, what are we doing?” She said cozily as she hugged the side of him.

“We were thinking of a Smash tournament in teams.” Gaz said.

“What is that again?” Tak asked.

“You played it with Gaz before.” Dib said, “It’s the fighting game with all the different characters.”

“Gaz, didn’t you call it Tekken earlier?”

“What? No.” Gaz said slightly disgusted with Tak’s confusion, “Smash is the one that’s a cross-over of a whole bunch of video games characters. They look like cartoons, you played as Samus. The girl in the orange robot suit.”

“Oh.” Tak said as she remembered being introduced to that game by her. Gaz had shown it to her after she played against her in Tekken for the first time and enjoyed it. Gaz had hoped that she’d enjoy it, since it was also a fighting game, but Tak found the depth of the video game somewhat lacking, and also said the art style did not appeal to her. “I vaguely remember you showing me that, yes. Has everyone already decided on playing it?”

“Yeah but we haven’t figured out teams yet.” Dib said, “I thought it could be me and you Vs. Gaz and Zim.”

Almost immediately after Dib finished Zim interjected, “Which I refused!” I’m still annoyed that Gaz decided to play Sonic without me, and with you all people. So I’m ready to carry Dib and enact my rightful vengeance against you!” He finished pointing to Gaz who merely brushed his hand away lazily and replied unimpressed,

“Which I’m more than fine with. I could go for boys Vs. girls.”

The idea delighted Tak. Partly because she knew she would win easily with Gaz and because she was interested with the idea of a battle of the sexes. The differences of male and female was not something acknowledge in the empire, apart from visual differences. She thought that was better than one side thinking that the other was inferior, but she liked the idea of belonging to a group. She said happily, “And I would be more than happy with winning. Sounds good to me.”

After they agreed the four of them began setting up to play their competition. Mimi and Gir were not included nor were they interested in playing. Gir was quietly sitting in their corner of the room while he played a small hand held video game and Mimi was resting on his lap as he did so. Zim and Dib won rock-paper-scissors for the couch, so they got to sit in it while Tak and Gaz had to sit on the floor. Tak had originally chosen Samus the first time she played, as she found its armor very neutral in appearance, so it was easy for her to relate to it. Once she was at the character select screen she noticed the blue character from the game she was playing with Gaz earlier was a choice. So she opted to play as it instead. Gaz choose Luigi, Dib choose Link, and Zim choose Mr. Game and Watch. Gaz had originally opted to play without items in their fight but Dib and Zim insisted they were aloud, she relented on the condition that friendly fire was turned on as a condition.

After the details of the competition was decided, the game finally began. Tak had to learn the particulars of her character as she played but found it rather easy, as most of the principles she learned in her first playing still applied to her knew character. She also noted that unless she was a total detriment to the team Gaz would be able to defeat Dib and Zim easily, but they were their own worst enemy. With friendly fire on the two of them caused damage to each other multiple times and by the time they were beginning to lose they were bickering with one another and completely ignored the game. Tak found the two of them bickering quiet amusing, and was also pleased that her victory was assured. She let out a light laugh as the two of them continued, but was surprised to hear a small groan come from Gaz beside her. “Your boyfriend is an idiot.” She said annoyed to her as she played.

Tak had to keep herself from laughing but still said very amused, “Hey, he’s your brother.”

“Don’t remind me.” Was all Gaz said. That was the end of their discussion and in very little time the two of them had achieved victory over the two of them. Zim had actually killed Dib at the last moment when his character was on his last bit of health, and Tak let out a laugh after seeing it. Once everything was done Zim had his arms crossed and sulked as he claimed Dib was responsible for their loss. Gaz didn’t say much to any of their bickering but Tak was quiet pleased with their accomplishments. She stretched her arms up and said, very please,

“Well that was fun. So, what’s our plan for the remainder of the night?”

“I don’t know.” Said Dib somewhat annoyed with Zim still, “We could watch another movie or just hang out for a bit.” He turned and looked to a clock on the wall that read 11:47 PM and said, “It’s not even midnight so…”

At the word ‘midnight’ he was interrupted by the sound of Gir repeating the word in shock. He got up from his place with Mimi and ran over to the back of the couch and grabbed lightly onto Zim as he said, “Master, we missed my walk! Can we go now please?” Zim only responded with an annoyed and drawn out, “Gir.” As he attempted to shake him off.

“Walk?” Tak asked confused.

“From back when he was a dog.” Zim began, “He got into this annoying habit of begging me to take him on one every other week for like two hours at night.”

“But the first one we did was so much fun!” Gir replied gleefully.

“Wandering around for two days looking for our base was not fun.” Zim said sternly.

“We don’t have to go that long. Maybe just around the neighborhood, or to our house and back, maybe we can stop at Taco-Shack on the way?” Gir began prattling on as he got lost in the places he wanted to go to tonight and Zim interrupted him by calling out his name again irritated. “Please! Please! Please!” Gir began begging incessantly after Zim spoke.

Tak snickered slightly to herself as she watched the scene unfold. While she found the two of them annoying and worried about Gir’s influence over Mimi, she couldn’t help but laugh at Zim’s inability to control his SIR unit and the rather childish way in which he acted.

“I thought you were having fun tonight?” Zim started to say, “Haven’t you been doing almost nothing but play with Mimi since we got here?”

“Can Kitty come too!?” Gir stopped his pleading immediately and beamed at the possibility of Mimi coming for their walk.

At that suggestion Tak’s smirk subsided and was replaced with a scowl. She had agreed to let Mimi interact with him but she wasn’t about to let her leave the property in their company. She found herself glaring up the couch at Zim and Gir but neither of them seemed to notice her. Zim expression changed at Gir’s suggestion and looked somewhat concerned. He said, “Uh, no. Mimi should stay.”

Gir whined quietly as he let up on Zim’s shirt. He looked down to the ground for a moment before he looked up to him with a sad expression and said, “We’re not going then?”

Zim still couldn’t handle an entreating stare from Gir, so rather reluctantly he conceded to him. He let out an exaggerated groan as he said, “We can go but we’re not staying out long.” At Zim’s agreement Gir let go of him and ran off to his spot to grab his belongings before they left.

“Are you guys really going on a walk for the rest of the night?” Gaz asked dubiously.

Zim got up from the couch and grabbed his sweatshirt and shoes to put on as he said, “No, we’re not. I’m just taking him around the neighborhood a few times until he’s satisfied.”

“How long are you guys going out?” Gaz asked.

Zim finished putting on his sweater and shoes and said shrugging, “I don’t know. Maybe ten, twenty, thirty minutes? Why, want to tag along?”

Gaz shrugged and stood up as she said, “Eh, I’ll pass. I need to take a shower.” She went to the stairs and called out from it, “I’ll be in my room afterwards, let me know if we’re doing anything else.”

Zim waved to Gaz as she went up and then looked to Dib, “You coming?”

“No. I think I’m good here.” Dib said as he tried to subtly place his hand on Tak’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything about it even though she noticed and was sure Zim did too. He shrugged and said nothing further if he did.

Gir walked up to him as they talked. He had on his dog backpack and green sweater, and a big smile on his face. “You ready?” Zim asked slightly annoyed. Gir gave the affirmative that he was and then they went on their way. “No running off this time. I don’t want the neighbors to have to see me walking you around with a leash on.” He said as they made it to the door.

“Can we hold hands then?” Gir asked hopefully.

“No Gir.” Zim said flatly and Gir responded with a disappointed moan. The last thing heard from them was the door slamming shut. As silence came to the room after the noise of the door faded away Tak stood up from her spot on the ground and sat back down on the couch next to Dib.

“I don’t understand why he tolerates that behavior from his SIR unit.” She began to say as she looked towards the door, “If Mimi acted that way I’d reprogram or maybe even disassemble her.”

Dib exhale a small breathe through his nose as laugh and smiled to her as he said, “I don’t think you would, and he isn’t always easy on Gir. He can be more than a handful, but I think he has his own way of dealing with him.” He made a small yawn and an exaggerated stretch as he brought his arms up and around the back of the couch. “Things went pretty well tonight, all things considered.” He said after he finished.

“Yeah.” Tak said somewhat nervously as she adjusted her hair, “I guess they did.” A small smile creeped up her face as she scooted a bit closer to him, but it left her as something caught her eyes. Mimi sat at the opposite end of the room and watched the two of them; Tak thought with mild judgment. Dib looked around after he noticed she was looking beyond him and also spied Mimi, but he didn’t seem too concerned with her, or at least didn’t say anything if he was. Tak gave her a stern look after Dib turned away, but she did not communicate anything to her. Even without doing so Mimi understood the order, she nodded and walked away, where Tak didn’t know, but she didn’t care so long as she had privacy.

After Mimi was gone Dib turned back around to Tak and noticed she still had a hard look on her face and said a bit concerned, “Everything good?”

She was startled out of her thoughts and replied dismissively, “Yeah, yeah. I just told her to give us some privacy and watch for us.”

“Oh.” Dib said, a little nervous. After she heard his tone the same feeling crept into Tak as well. She brought up her legs and hugged her knees to her chest as she sat on the couch. Dib patted the couch repeatedly and blew a small raspberry.

“Do you mind if I change into something more comfortable?” Tak said breaking the silence.

“Sure.” He said as his voice cracked slightly.

Tak did not notice and only let out a relieved, “Finally.” As she brought her hand to her forearm and turned off her disguise. Her disguise faded away and she was left on the couch as a tall Irkern in human pajamas. She brushed her hands through her antennas repeatedly and looked to Dib, who she thought gave her a more quizzical than normal look. A small panic came over her as she misinterpreted what his look could mean and she said very nervously, “You said your father doesn’t keep cameras in the house right?” She said as she frantically looked around the room for any signs of cameras she may have missed.

Dib laughed and brought down his hands from the back of the couch to his side. “It’s a bit late for that. But yeah, no cameras. That’s not why I’m staring though.” He pointed at Tak’s shirt which caused her to look down at herself to find what he was pointing at, still confused as to what it was. “You’re wearing human clothes.” He said.

The realization finally came to her, she fiddle with one of her antennas with her fingers as she trailed off looking away from him, “Yeah, I haven’t really been doing this very long. Just a few months, and I don’t even know why I’m doing this. It’s stupid.” She finished saying the last part under her breathe to herself.

“No.” Dib reassured her as he grabbed her free hand on the couch. “You look good.” He looked at her and their eyes meet each other’s. They did not say anything further and only stared, after what seemed like both an instant and an eternity the two of them found themselves moving their faces closer towards one another. Before their faces meet Tak broke the silence of the room and asked,

“Earlier today,” she attempted to speak smoothly, but she felt her entire body was laced with stress. “What did you think I called you to the closet for?” It was something that was bothering her mind the entire day, and he never gave an answer to her when she asked.

Dib retreated from her and a pained look came over his face as it turned slightly red, he did not realize she was nervous as well. He removed his hand from hers and rubbed the back of his neck with it as he struggle with what to say and admired the ceiling. “That…Oh that…I was just-really I was just…uh…”

Before he could stammer further he was interrupted as Tak placed her hand on him. He stopped immediately at her touch and looked at her. Their gaze meet each other’s again and Tak tried to find words for what to say. She was unable to find any and silence entered the room again, and in the silence and tenderness of the moment the two found themselves leaning towards each other again until they kissed each other. Tak wasn’t sure what Dib misinterpreted her messages as, but she had a few ideas. She decided whatever it was, was not important now, but if it was what she thought was most likely she was sure she was not ready for that level of intimacy. Not to say she didn’t want to be close to him, far from it.

As they kissed she found her arms around the back of his head and felt her antennas bend of the top of his head. The later was an involuntary reaction that would sometimes happen to her when she was more intimate with Dib, but the exact reason and purpose behind it eluded her, as many parts of her body still did. Their kiss grew more passionate and involved, and Tak felt her tongue and his explore each other’s mouth more heavily. Dib leaned into her as they kissed and caused her to lean back onto the couch, leaving Dib lying on top of her as they did. As she laid on her back one of her hands found itself leaving the back of his head and down his back. Then Tak felt the warm touch of one of his hand on her waist as it began going up her shirt and reached the bottom of her pak. She wondered that if things went any further whether she would have resisted or merely gone along with it, and experience what could happen. In that moment however, she was interrupt by a familiar voice in her head,

“Ma’am…? Ma’am…hear me?” Mimi was attempting to communicate with her and she sound very concerned, but for whatever reason her signal was coming through with interference. It could have been the problem from earlier today resurfacing, or it was caused by Tak’s mind being preoccupied. She did not care what the reason was, much less why Mimi was bothering her, as she had ordered her to be silent for the rest of the night, and was still upset with her. She ignored her but another message came, “…There’s a…We have to…”

“Then take care of it.” Tak communicated to her sternly in between her kisses, which she found difficult and annoying to do.

Her messages still continued, and from the little Tak could tell from them it seemed with increasing urgency, “I can’t! You n-…”

Tak meant to communicate ‘I’m busy’ to her, but she was too preoccupied to do even that. All she did was pull away from Dib for a moment as she mouthed, “Busy.” In a short of breath exhale that was barely more than a whisper. In the moment their lips where apart from each other Dib noticed that she said something but did not understand her, which caused him to reply with a brief “Huh?” After he did Tak pulled his face back into hers and they continued kissing. Mimi replied for the last time,

“Ma-… -‘re disg-…h-…door!”

Almost immediately after Tak registered her message, she heard the sound of the front door opening, and after that the boisterous sound of Professor Membrane’s voice, “Oh family, I’m home!”

After hearing that, the two of them stopped in their kissing and looked to one another as they laid on the couch together in a moment of collective shock. Dib looked her up and down and said in a hoarse whisper, “Tak! Your disguise!”

After she came to attention, and realized what was going on she immediately went to her system, only to find a similar issue with it from earlier. She swore under her breathe as she tried to fix it but before she could Professor Membrane had already entered the living room. “Hello, Dib? Are you in here?” He said as he entered, and after seeing Dib on top of an undisguised Tak he let out a shocked exclamation.

Dib sat back up instantly and leaned over the back end of the couch, he had his head cradled in one hand as he titled it slightly and said as cheerily as possible, “Oh dad, home already?” After Dib was off of her Tak slithered out from under him and rolled off the couch as she ran towards the door, still with her disguise off. She ran past the professor as he turned around to look at her in surprise. Dib exclaimed, “I can explain!” and fell off the couch face first into the floor.

His father spun around from Tak for a moment and said to him, “Explain what?” in shocked confusion. Tak made her way to the door and grabbed Dib’s trench coat that hanged on the wall while the two of them were distracted. She put on his coat to hide herself and went out the front door. She stood there leaning against the door as she fiddle with her system, she entreated and swore for it to work, but to no avail. She heard the sounds of dogs barking and car alarms going off which made her anxiety flare to the nth degree. It was one thing to walk through the city in a wig and contacts, but another thing to be seen in Dib’s neighborhood without anything at all. Finally, she was able to collect herself and managed to work part of her system and activated her cloaking device, just in time. The door she leaned on swung open behind her, and she stumbled forward and spun around to see Professor Membrane staring out of it. Although she knew he was not able to see her and that her best course of action should have been to run away, she was frozen in fear like a deer in headlights. The Professor had always been an intimidating figure for her, even when she first meet him in person. Dib was tall but The Professor towered above most humans, and he looked gigantic to Tak as she hunched over in fear under his front porch. In the dim light of the night the lab goggles he wore looked like the eyes of an Irken, and in many ways Tak had thought him similar to The Tallest. Skilled and experienced beyond belief, enigmatic and impossible to understand, and distant from the world and those who loved him most. In many ways she saw herself in a position she feared most, the weak and unworthy presented before The Tallest only to be shunned and discarded. And then, as quickly as this vision came, it ended. He removed his goggles from his face and Tak saw his eyes, they were human and like Dib’s, hazel in color. He looked through her and then extended his head out the door to look at either direction, once he was satisfied he closed the door behind him, and Tak could hear him say, “It looks like your little friend is gone.”

_______________________________________________________________

It felt like an eternity between the relief hitting her and the sound of the door clicking shut. When she came to, she ran a few housed down from the Membrane’s and dove into a bush to huddle in as she tried to fix her system. She turned down her cloaking device so she could see her system as she worked, and entreated with it again as she tried to get it to comply. Finally, after some minutes of fiddling she was able to reactivate her disguise. She felt her face and hair in her hard light disguise and felt she was in the clear. Then she wrapped Dib’s coat close around her and hugged her knees to her body as she buried her face into them. Later, how long Tak was unsure of, Mimi found her and poked her head through the bush with Tak’s boots in her mouth. She asked if she was okay, but Tak didn’t respond. Mimi continued,

“I was able to grab your boots but your backpack is still at the house. Their parental unit went to his lab, but I didn’t want to risk being caught.” Tak still did not respond and she continued now very concerned as she went to her, “Ma’am, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Tak said coldly with her voice muffled between her legs. Then she slowly raised her head up and Mimi saw sadness in her eyes as she said slowly, “I have never been more humiliated in my entire life.” There was a pause before either of them spoke. Then Mimi asked timidly,

“What are we going to do now?”

Tak sighed deeply and buried her face in her hands as she said defeated, “Let’s just go home.” Mimi hung her head at her statement and looked dejected as she watched her put her boots on in silence. Tak crawled out of the bush and shook it off as she stood up, then Mimi followed in suit behind her. Tak looked at her for a moment then turned away to begin their long walk home. As she did a thought came to her, which caused her to tighten her fist and clench her teeth. She turned around to her and said angrily, “Why didn’t you do anything!?”

“I did.” Mimi shot back offended. “I was trying to message you.”

“And why wasn’t it working?”

Mimi was slightly confused by her question and responded likewise, “I don’t Ma’am. I thought we fixed it.”

“I thought-” Tak began but stopped midsentence as she reflected and looked down at her hands as she squeezed them and said to herself, “I thought we fixed it too.” She looked up from them after she finished and said still angry, “Why didn’t you do anything else?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” She shot back also growing angry, “It’s not like you sent me to keep watch. I only left cause of the look you gave me. You’re lucky I said anything at all, considering you told me keep quiet for the rest of the night.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to be thanking you?” Tak said condescendingly, “For sending me a staticky message, and not doing anything to stop him?”

“What was I supposed to do to stop him?”

“I don’t know. Where on Irk were you that you could see him but not do anything?”

“I-I don’t know.” Mimi said panicking and deflected, “Why is it my fault you couldn’t pay attention to me while you were exchanging bodily fluids with your freak lab experiment!?”

At her comment Tak let out an enraged groan and yelled, “Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” Then in a fit of rage she went over and kicked Mimi. Her kick did no damage but the act itself frightened and shocked Mimi. She coward in fear as Tak approached, she bent down to her and said, “You are going to keep quiet. Forever! No more comments, no more advice, and no more making me feel more disgusted with myself than I already am! Do you understand?” Mimi tried to communicate with Tak, but she was too angry to register any communication from her. She yelled again at her, “Do you understand!?”

“Yes.” Mimi almost cried out her response. She had the ability to make vocal communications but Tak forbade her to normally unless they were within their base. She could have coded her response in the noise of a cat’s meow but she was worried Tak was too angry to even understand that. Tak breathed heavily as she stood over Mimi and without another word she turned around and once again began her walk to her base. Mimi followed in tow, crouching low and quietly. After a few minutes of walking Tak had mostly calmed down. She made it to a cross road near the border of Dib’s neighborhood and heard the voice of Zim who said,

“I don’t know Gir. We’re probably not going back tonight.” She turned up the road where the voice came from and saw Zim and Gir sitting on the side of the road as they ate popcorn and watched a small handheld screen in their hands. “You really should have washed those dishes when I told you to, and the suds in the sink didn’t help.”

“I was going to do it.” Gir said annoyed as he grabbed a handful of popcorn and ate it, Zim grabbed another handful and did likewise. Tak was completely bemused at what she was seeing and walked up to them without saying a word. Zim noticed Tak approach them and said unconcerned with a full mouth,

“Oh hey Tak.” He took out more popcorn and said still chewing, “You got kicked out?”

Tak looked at the screen they were watching and saw a live feed of the Membrane household. At the sight of the two of them on the road and everything that was happening she was beside herself with how to formulate any of the questions she had. So she asked the least important one. She brought her hand to her face and brushed her hair up as she asked, “Where did you get this popcorn?”

“I made it!” Gir said excitedly to her. Then the head portion of his disguise disappeared in a flash of light, which revealed his robotic face. The top of his head opened up to show cooking popcorn and he asked her if she wanted any.

Tak stood in front of him and extended the flaps of her coat to her sides to cover him from prying eyes as she said angrily and deliberately, “We are in hiding here. Put your disguise on!”

Zim interrupted her and said unconcerned, “Hey, he can do whatever he wants.” He then turned to him and said flatly, “Gir. Put your disguise back on.”

Gir replied, “Okay!” and in anther flash of light his disguise returned with a wide smile over his human face. Tak relaxed at seeing his disguise back and let out a relieved sigh as she stood over him for a moment. Then Gir playfully poked at her belly, commenting that it was squishy. She slapped his hand away and wrapped her coat around her tightly. Then she looked to Zim and asked,

“What are you two just doing here sitting on the side of the road? And how on Irk do you have a video feed of the Membranes? I thought they didn’t have cameras in the house.”

“They don’t. They’re my cameras.” Zim stated without even the slightest hesitation.

Tak was once again beside herself at his response and asked, “Where do you have the cameras? The whole house?”

“No.” Zim said firmly with a shake of his head. Then Gir added,

“I like to watch him using the bathroom.” He then grabbed the screen from Zim’s hands and showed it to Tak. He hit a button on it which showed an empty bathroom in the house. Then Zim grabbed it back from him hurriedly and said nervously,

“I uh, keep telling him not to do that.”

Tak didn’t say anything for a moment and stood crossing her arms. She glared and said annoyed but not angry to him, “Does Dib know you have cameras in his house? Does Gaz?”

“Dib does.” Zim replied as he gave the screen back to Gir and had a face off with Tak as he also crossed his arms. While the two of them were talking neither of them noticed Mimi had snuck up to the side of Gir as she curiously examined the screen herself. Gir excitedly but quietly exclaimed “Kitty!” as he petted her gently and offered her some popcorn, which she ate happily.

“Why is he okay that you have cameras all over his house?” Tak said with angry skepticism.

Zim unfolded his arms and raised them up in a shrug as he said, “I mean he has cameras in my house. It’s only fair.”

It seemed to Tak that more she prodded him for information the more outrageous the situation seemed. She knew Zim was eccentric, and that Dib was much more than a little obsessed with him in their early years, but their continuous surveillance of each other was too much for her. She shouted, “Why the fuck do you have cameras in each other’s houses!?”

Zim covered himself with his arms at Tak’s yelling but before either of them could continue Gir shushed them and said quietly as he pointed to the screen, “Dad’s back.”

Tak knew there could only be one “Dad” he was talking about. So she went behind them and joined in huddling around the screen to watch the events unfold in the membrane household. The video feed was the living room, Gaz sat on the couch with a towel on her head as she played on a handheld video game. Dib sat next to her hunched over with his hands folded, and their father had just entered and sat in the armchair.

“What is he going to do to them?” Tak said with hushed concern. She knew their lives weren’t at risk but some of her fears of The Professor were seeping back to her.

“Don’t know.” Zim said, absorbed in the feed, “After he caught you and Dib, he went over to the kitchen and saw the mess. Then got kind of angry and called for Gaz to come down before he went to check on things in his lab.” He spoke carelessly as he went over the events Tak missed, but as he finished he noticed Tak had placed an arm on his shoulder and began tightening it to an uncomfortable degree. He looked up at her and saw her face contorted in rage as she said dementedly between her teeth,

“You fucking saw that?” Tak was still very shy about letting others see her intimate with Dib. The idea that Zim was gawking at her as she exchanged spit with him made her want to drag Zim to her base and vivisect him.

“I got a silent alarm that somebody entered the house and checked the feed to make sure it wasn’t anything bad and when I saw it was just their dad I wanted to see what would happen. That’s it I swear.” Zim blurted out in a rushed panic as he turned to Tak.

She replied with building anger, “You watch Dib and Gaz go to the bathroom and expect me to believe that?” Before they could continue, they were again interrupted by Gir as he brought their attention to the feed as the Membrane family talked. They caught the professor in mid-sentence as he said:

[-completely and totally irresponsible. I leave the two of you home alone for the weekend and when I’m able to come home early - I see that you decided to host some, ‘wild party’.]

The Professor wave his hand up in exaggeration for his comment. Gaz replied from her game: [It wasn’t a ‘wild party’. We had three people over. Four if you count the cat.]

The Professor said eminently: [That mess in the kitchen does not look like ‘four people’. Maybe a dozen or twice that.]

Gaz said indifferently: [Well Gir can do that.]

The Professor said:[Gaz, would please shut off your game when we’re having a discussion?]

[I can hear you fine dad.]

[Gazlene, please.] Her father more ordered than entreated her. She begrudgingly obeyed and put her game down as she folded her arms in annoyance. Her father continued:

[And who was that with you on the couch when I walked in?]

He ended pointing to Dib who replied: [It was Tak.]

The Professor: [Then why was she green with antennas and bald?]

“Heh, he noticed that.” Zim said with slight surprise.

“No fucking shit he noticed it. Now be quiet.” Tak hissed out at him as she watched the screen. Dib replied:

[It was a costume.]

The Professor was completely bewildered and said: [Why was she in a full body costume?]

Dib trailed on “Because” as he tried to find an answer until Gaz blurted out: [She’s into roleplay.]

The Professor repeated the word “roleplay” in confusion and Dib brought his hand to his face to cover in embarrassment as he said, [Yeah… She’s into roleplay.]

“Oh my fucking…” Tak said in between her teeth as she brought her own hands to her face in embarrassment, but was interrupted by Zim who said assuredly,

“The good a cover. That’s a really good cover. I think you’re in the clear Tak.” He said pleased as he turned around to look at her.

“What’s roleplay?” Gir asked confused.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Zim replied quickly as he pushed the subject to the side.

“What do I care if it’s a good cover. He thinks I’m a weirdo!” Tak almost screamed her worried response at them.

“He’s not going to think you’re a weirdo.” Zim dismissed her concern and continued after he grabbed a fistful of popcorn and said confidently, “And he’s not going to think you’re an alien.” He chewed for a bit before he continued with a full mouth, “Honestly I’m proud of after tonight. You just need to admit you’re weird like the rest of us. That make-out session was a bold move for you. I thought you found that stuff gross.”

At Zim’s light hearted but ill timed jeer, Tak grew angry and kicked their bucket of popcorn into the street. They yelled out an annoyed “Hey!?” after which Tak stormed off as she yelled to them, “I’m going home! I am going home!” Snarling as Mimi followed in suit low to the ground without a word. Tak was beyond furious with the night, and everything that happened. She walked down the street for a moment until she said to Mimi in almost a growl, “We are going home. And I’m going down the first dark alley way I see, and whoever is ugly enough to want to try to attack or rape me is getting dragged to our base so I can fucking mutilate them.” More than likely, she would do that before the end of the night. There was still plenty of it left, and the weekend hadn’t even started.

#invader zim #tak #gaz #dib #datr #zim

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nazario-sayeed · 5 years

Text

Bare body, bare soul (Nik x F!MC; N*FW)

Author's note: Some of you are probably thinking "what? you already tagged me on this fic, are you going crazy?" or whatever. Here's the thing: I was stupid using my tags and tumblr took down my previous post as a punishment for me being a whore. Anyway, I noticed it yesterday and now I'm posting it again because I'm stubborn. How I always change some stuff when I edit on tumblr for the last time, this isn't exactly the same as my last one, but there aren't any major differences. English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes. I'm shitty at naming my fics, ignore that. Also I don't remember which gif I used last time, which is irrelevant so I don't know why I'm saying this.

Summary: In case there's someone new here, I wrote this fic after chapter 9 when we were cockblocked. It left me wanting more, so I decided to write what should've happened. The initial dialogue is basically the same. My mc's name is Brie.

WC: around 5,100 (sorry)

Rating: definitely +18 for explicit sexual content. Do not keep reading if you're not comfortable with this kind of writing.

I don't have the tag list for that fic so I'm basically using my Jaime one, I'm sorry if I got anyone wrong (please let me know if you don't wanna be tagged): @nazariortega @duchess-ash-flame @lahelalove @poeticscolt @donutsgirl36 @queenkaneko @msjpuddleduck @quinnskelly @flyawayboo @brightpinkpeppercorn @choicesarehard @jlpplays1 @desiree-0816 @sibella-plays-choices

When Nik starts stripping down to his underwear, Brie can't look away. She observes in awe the healed scars on his ripped torso, his muscular body under the soft candlelight... She feels her stomach do a funny flip inside of her, and a heat slowly spreads through her body despite of the cold air of the mansion.

"Uh... Nik? Explain?" she says, trying really hard not to bite her lip at the sight of him exposed like that.

"Vulnerability magic, rook. Some of the most powerful kind there is. You want to see The Fate, you've gotta bare your soul" he explains.

"By stripping down to your skivvies? You sure this is lore and not wishful thinking?" Katherine questions him, raising an eyebrow.

"Summoning is all about symbolic gestures, Katy. Get with the program"

"I've got nothing to hide" Brie chipper says, already reaching behind her back to unzip her dress. "One ceremonial nudity, coming right up!" she lets her dress drop to the floor.

"That's the spirit!" Nik encourages her, trying not to stare as she undresses. Brie blushes a little under his gaze as they smile at each other.

They small talk as the group follows Nik's lead and strips down to their underwear. Brie catches a glimpse of everyone else, almost naked, and feels her face heating up. They form an incredibly attractive group, she can't deny it. She lets her eyes find Nik's frame, and can't help but notices the way the candlelight dances on his skin, lighting up every inch of his sculptured body. He catches her eyes before she can look away, and smirks.

"Like what you see, rook?" he teases her; she feels her whole body flushes with his commentary and the way his eyes are watching her right now, but she tries to play it cool.

"Hm? I don't know what you're talking about" she looks him up and down once again, letting her gaze drop on the only piece of clothing on his body, noticing the nice volume there. She licks her lips, imagining what's inside...

"Sure you don't" he smirks, before slowly scanning her body from head to toes, letting his gaze lingers a little longer on her breasts before turning away. Brie looks away, face red, and her gaze lands on Cal's bare form. She has seen him like that before, but she can't help but observe his large, strong body under the flattering light. He catches her eye and smiles, before hungrily scanning her body in a way that makes her feel like she is his next prey- and right now she kind of wishes she was.

Next to them, Nik notices the way they are looking at each other and his pulse quickens, a unsettling feeling cursing through his veins as he scowls and clenches his fists. He clears his throat to catch everyone's attention to the ritual, but mostly to stop whatever was going on between Cal and Brie.

After exposing themselves in more than one way in order to get help from The Fate, each of them goes to their own guest bedroom in the mansion, trying to escape the thoughts and emotions that their confession brought up. Every one of them is feeling overwhelmed and more vulnerable than they can remember, and the creepy air of the mansion doesn't help at all.

Brie feels terrified even before closing the door. Even though Nik reassured her this is the safest place they could be in right now, she can't shake off the weird feeling. The shivers on her body are not from the insistent, loud wind, but from something that creeps her from the inside, and she knows she won't fall asleep. She is feeling too lonely, exposed and guilty to sleep.

Brie tries to think about anything other than the sounds that echo in her room, or that feeling on her spine that there's someone- or something- watching her even when she's alone. Absently, she lets her mind go back to the moment before they met The Fate.

She thinks about how that was the first time Nik ever looked vulnerable next to her, when he was talking about Elijah's death. How even though he is her bodyguard, in that moment she knew she would do anything to protect him. Her mind goes back to that brief moment when their eyes met after he had told the group about Elijah, and they both knew they were here for each other; one simple look could let her know- could let her feel- how deeply he cares about her- and she hoped he knew and felt it too.

Then, she reminisces about how his eyes went wild when she admitted she was in love with someone there. She didn't even know what she was going to say until the very moment when the words left her lips, and for the first time, she knew they were true. In so little time, she knew he had found a way into her heart- not easily entered after so many heartbreaks.

Tired of wishful thinking, Brie gets up in one movement and exits the room, letting her feet carry her to knock on Nik's door before she can think twice about what she's doing.

"Brie? Thought you were hitting the sack?" he seems surprised as he opens the door, but also amused; his lips curving up in a tiny smirk.

"Couldn't sleep. Looks like it's going around, huh?" she teases and he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. He can't help but think about the restless things he wants to do right now, and it doesn't help that she came to his door in the middle of the night.

"Sure does. Wanna come in for a nightcap? These digs are pretty swanky, I'll give the fate that" he invites her in, trying- and failing- to ignore all the inappropriate thoughts crossing his mind.

"I'd love that..." she says, and he can swear there are at least fifteen intentions on her tone.

Nik swings the door open, welcoming her in, and she slips by him, letting their arms brush lightly against each other, feeling her skin on fire with the brief touch.

"Home sweet home… for the moment, anyway. Can i get you a drink?" Nik asks.

"Yes, please! I'm dying to unwind a little"

"You can say that again. What a night, huh?" as he pours bourbon, he thinks about all the ways he wishes he could use to help her unwind right now. All of them involve her screaming his name.

He hands her the bourbon and electricity sparks where her fingers brush against his for a second. They clink their glasses, smiling, and they both take a sip, enjoying the warm feeling settling on their bellies.

Nik walks over to the window frame, leaning against it. He lets his gaze find Brie for a long moment and she feels her whole body warming up; she tells herself it's the drink, but she knows it's not. He notices the light blush on her cheeks, and interrupts her thoughts with a question.

"So what do you think, about all this? That was a lot to take in..."

"Honestly? I don't know. I'm glad we have a name, that's huge, but now… It just…" she trails off.

"Feels more real, right? Even more unnerving than before, somehow?" he finishes her thought.

"Yes! That's it exactly" she admits. "I know it sounds weird but when The Fate said 'Cassiopeia', all I could think was, hey, that's a pretty name." Niks snorts at her comment, looking amused, but she continues with a sigh "Too pretty for someone who makes bloodwraiths and zombies. Ridiculous, right?" she asks him, feeling a bit embarrassed but also glad to be sharing this with someone, especially him.

"Nah. I get it. The mind's a tricky beast, alright" he says, as Brie moves to his side by the window and leans on her forearms, taking another sip and letting the wind smooth over her face. Their bodies are close now, too close. She can feel his heat next to her as the wind swipes over them.

"What about you? That thrice-cursed son stuff… What do you think she meant?" she asks, trying to distract her own mind. He shakes his head, his face transforming into a scowl.

"I can't be sure- I mean, who knows what all goes on in her head- but I think it means that the three people who loves me most in the world are dead" he bitterly admits, finishing his drink.

Her first instinct is to think "But you have me". She manages to hold it back, bitting her lips shut.

"That's a terrible thing to call you" she thinks out loud.

"Not wrong though. I always make it out by the skin of my teeth, lucky me. The people who love me? Not so much" he furrows his brow and clenches his fist at the side of his body, letting the anger get to him.

"You make it sound like you're the curse…" she says, softly.

When he doesn't answer, she turns to Nik and cautiously wraps her arms around him. He stiffens for a moment, before pulling her closer.

"Sometimes... I feel like I'm as bad as the Reimonenq touch. And…" he admits, but she cuts him off.

"Don't say that, Nik. You've lost so much, and it's not your fault" she tells him, with a firm but gentle voice.

Nik sighs deeply, stirring Brie's hair, before he presses a warm kiss to the top of her head. She can feel her heart pounding inside her chest, and his too where her head lays on his chest.

She pulls back and looks at him, and he gives her a wry smile.

"...You promise?" he asks, his voice softer than she has ever heard him.

"Of course I do. I wouldn't even be standing here if it wasn't for you! And I bet I'm not the only one who owes you my life. You risk yourself every day, to keep other people safe. That's not a curse… That's a gift" Brie reassures him, trying to make him understand just how grateful she is and how deeply she cares about him.

The atmosphere between them becomes charged, electric with tension. Hesitantly, Nik reaches out and trails his knuckles gently down her cheek. She feels her breathing stop.

"I don't know what it is about you, Brie, I swear I don't, but you make me feel…" he trails off.

"What? What do I make you feel?" she insists. After gazing down at her for a few seconds, he continues:

"You make me feel like a real person"

She feels her chest bursting with affection and an indescribable need to protect him. In that moment, she doesn't care about anyone else. She's unable to look away from him, his face just inches from hers, the air between them charged with intensity.

Brie leans forward, her breath quickening. The time seems to stop while their lips come closer slowly, until the gravity is just too much and they crash against each other.

Nik sighs wordlessly against her lips, seeming overwhelmed at first, then he pulls Brie hard against him, one hand clutching the back of her neck.

"Nik..." she moans against him, feeling the desire taking over her body and pooling by her stomach.

"You taste so good, Brie" he breathes into her mouth, and she gasps.

He trails searing kisses down her neck, all the way to the hollow of her throat, and she shudders as he runs his tongue over the sensitive skin.

"I've been thinking about this for so long..." he admits.

"Me too… Please don't stop..." Brie begs him, as she remembers the kisses they've shared before this one. Neither of them came even close to the way their mouths fervidly explore each other now. Neither of them made her longing for more like this. The kiss, which began slow and soft, quickly heats up and they don't seem to be able to get enough of each other.

Nik tugs her clothes over her head, then pulls off his own. Brie runs her palms down his sculpted chest, now face to face with the scars she was admiring earlier. She wants to kiss each one of them, learn their stories, protect him from getting any new ones. He draws a ragged breath under her light touch and pulls back to look at her.

"You're gorgeous, Brie. So damn perfect" he breathes, before guiding her onto the huge bed and pulling her next to him. He captures her mouth in another long, lingering kiss as she drags her fingers through his hair...

"Nik… I-" she moans, but a furious, icy gale from the window washes over both of them, interrupting her.

"Oh, that is chilly" Brie says, a shiver running down her body. Nik quickly gets up from the bed and closes the window with more strength than necessary, making sure it won't open again. When he turns back to her, his expression is changed and it sends a tingle down her spine, almost like a warning.

“I don’t care what happens. Wind, rain… This whole goddamn place could go up in flames and I wouldn’t give a fuck. I need you, Brie. Ever since I saw you in your underwear earlier, I couldn’t stop thinking about ripping it off your body”. Her breath catches in her throat at his bold statement, and she can already feel her arousal pooling between her legs. She watches as he walks over to where she is laying on the bed, while he looks at her like he's about to devour her. She hopes he is.

He lays on top of her and pins her hands on each side of her face, looking down, his eyes darkened with hunger.

“Nik… I have wanted you since the moment I saw you. Take me. I’m yours.” she breathes, and he smirks almost wickedly. His faces lights up a fire inside of her, one that she hasn’t felt in a long time. Nik has never seemed so protective of her, and so ready to deliciously destroy her.

“You’re mine, rook? Then why the hell you kept looking at the wolfman today? Or do you think I didn’t see it?” he lets go of her wrists and sits up next to her, flipping her onto her stomach with one easy, swift movement, making her gasp. "You think I didn't notice the way he was practically eating you with his eyes? Like you were his next prey..." She doesn’t even have time time to answer as he pulls her to sit up on her knees in front of him, standing behind her, his chest to her back "You think I didn't notice that you were enjoying it?".

Nik runs one calloused hand up the front of her body, over her stomach, chest, stopping at her chin, as he strains her arms between them with the other. He lets go of her chin and grabs her hair, pulling her head back roughly. She lets out a moan while his mouth moves next to her ear.

“Tell me, rook. Are you thinking about the wolfman now?” he presses himself against her back, letting her feel how hard his desire for her is. She moans with need again and closes her eyes, incapable of thinking clearly, intoxicated by the feeling of him. She never thought Nik could be so animalistic, and she's loving it; her whole body needs him.

“I- I… Oh, Nik”

“That’s right, Brie. It’s my name you’ll be moaning- no, screaming tonight. When I’m done with you, you won’t even remember who the werewolf is” he says, and brutally pushes her on all fours on the bed, making her gasp with pleasure and surprise.

Nik runs his hand down her back, earning shivers from her body. She can feel the heat from his body behind her, and the thought of him taking control like that is driving her absolutely mad with lust.

He reaches her soaked panties and pushes them to the side, running his fingers along her sex. Brie is already grasping at the sheets, trying to get some kind of control over her own body. He plunges two fingers inside without warning, and she yelps. Nik lower his body so his mouth is against her ear.

"The way you're soaked right now… Whenever you're starring at shirtless Cal, I hope you remember I am the one who made you feel like that, rook." he bites her earlobe and increases his speed, hitting that spot with every plunge.

Brie is incapable of forming coherent words right now. She is so high on the pleasure he is giving her, and she prays she'll never feel low again. Brie can feel her legs shaking, getting closer and closer with every movement of his hands. When she is almost there, her whole body writhing with desire, he removes his fingers and she immediately misses them, letting out a groan of frustration that amuses Nik.

"Not yet, Brie. Be patient. I'm nowhere near done with you" he says, and flips her onto her back, hovering over her body. He leans in to kiss her passionately, his hands exploring the sides of her body as she pulls him impossibly close by the neck. Brie wraps her legs around his waist grinding on him, trying to feel any kind of friction between her legs, desperate for relieve.

Nik begins to descend his mouth on her body, sucking at her neck in a way they both know will leave a mark. That's what he wants: to let everyone else know she is his, that she spent the night giving herself to him and him only. Nik wants to wake up tomorrow and let the wolfman smell him all over Brie's body.

His mouth founds her chest and she arches her back as he reaches out behind her to unclasp her bra. He quickly takes it off her body and tosses it across the room, pulling back to admire her curves.

"God, Brie… You're breathtaking. No fucking wonder everyone else in that room couldn't take their eyes off you." her cheeks blush a little at the way he is devouring her with his eyes, and she can feel every inch of her body responding to him: her heart is pounding, her breath is quickened, and it feels like her skin is on fire.

"But I am here, Nik. I came to your room." Brie reaches out to touch his cheek gently and he once more crashes his lips into hers. He quickly moves his mouth to her neck and collarbone, nipping and not-so-gently biting his way down, until he is licking the valley between her breasts, while his hands run up her sides, stopping at the curve of her chest. He takes one nipple in his mouth, while works on the other with his fingers. His mouth and hand work together, licking, flicking, pinching until she is crying out, grasping his hair. He moves one hand inside her panties and she feels like she is going to pass out with pleasure as he nips the flesh of her sensitive nub with his teeth.

Nik lets go of her breasts and moves his head lower, trailing a path of kisses down her stomach, until he finally reaches the waistband of her underwear. Before taking it off, he kisses her above the damp fabric.

"God, Nik. Please, stop teasing… I need you" she moans, craving release. He smirks at her and pulls her underwear down her legs, leaving her completely naked on his bed.

"You have no idea of how long I've wanted to have you like that, Brie. No clothes, in my bed, at my mercy." he says, running his fingers through her body. His eyes are dark, full of yearning, lust at its most natural state.

"And now that you have me, what will you do?" she asks, almost daring him to answer.

He responds by lowering his mouth into her sex, making her moan instantly. She throws her head back and grabs his hair with one hand and the sheets with the other.

He's been teasing her for a while now, so when his mouth connects with her body, she's already close. He devours her expertly, like he has been starving and she is the most delicious meal in the world. At that moment, he can't think of anything that tastes better than her.

Nik works his mouth and tongue on her, and with every flick of his tongue he can sense the pleasure building inside her. He inserts a finger, then two into her core, making her moans grow louder. She bucks her hips against his mouth and fingers, trying to feel him closer as possible. He pulls back and she almost screams in irritation.

"You want more, rook?" he asks, still working his fingers, but slowly, barely enough to keep her on the edge.

"Yes, Nik. I want more- I need more" she whimpers, eyes closed with need.

"I wanna see you beg" his voice is a low growl, and it turns her on even more.

"Please, please, please… Nik, oh god, I need you..." the beg leaving her sinful lips is like music to his ears. He dives back in.

His mouth once again finds her center, and he wastes no time sucking her clit into his mouth, thrusting his fingers harder and faster. She cries out, arching her back, and it only takes one more flick of his tongue for her to fall apart around him in pure bliss, the feeling so strong she is sure she has reached heaven. She doesn't even notice she is screaming his name. He doesn't let go until every single drop of ecstasy has left her body, until she's ridden every wave of her orgasm. Her legs are shaking and she's covered in sweat, panting, trying to pull herself together, but never again wanting to come back down from the high.

His mouth finds its way back to her lips, capturing them in a passionate kiss while she recovers.

"Can you taste how delicious you are, rook?" he asks, pulling back with a smirk to admire her flushed face.

"Right now, I would rather taste you" she admits, and he growls. Nik captures her lips again, wrapping his arms around her and flipping their position, getting her to straddle his hips. His hands find her ass quickly, and he gives it a small slap before squeezing it. Brie begins to run her hands down his muscular torso, enjoying the feeling of his ripped abs underneath her fingertips. She reaches the waistband of his underwear, still kissing his mouth, and lets her hand drop lower, caressing him over the fabric. He bites her lower lip and digs his nails on the flesh of her hips as she squeezes him, making him moan into her mouth.

Brie lets go of his lips to kiss his stubble jaw, then his neck and the spot right below his ear. Nik reaches her hair and wraps it around his hand, applying a bit of pressure on his hold. She begins to trail kisses down his chest and abs, taking her time kissing his strong frame, covering every scar on his torso with her lips. Unlike him, she takes no time teasing him when she reaches his waistband, quickly rolling his underwear down his legs and off his body. She runs her fingers through his strong thighs, kissing it, licking it all the way up to his groin.

When she finally reaches his shaft, she gives it a few slow strokes and runs her thumb in circles on its tip, as Nik's breath quickens. She gives it a tiny kiss, still running her fingers up and down, before taking him into her mouth.

"Christ, Brie..." he moans, holding her hair while she expertly uses her mouth and tongue on him; kissing, sucking and licking the exact spots she knows will drive him mad. As she swirls her tongue around his head, he grips her hair tighter and pulls her up "Are you trying to make me lose my mind, rook?".

She smirks at him, but it quickly fades as he roughly pulls her by the hair to his mouth, kissing her hard. He moves his head to her neck and sucks it before releasing her.

"Get on all fours" he commands, and she is too turned on to deny him anything. She gets on her knees and forearms, facing away from him, and she looks over her shoulder to see him going through his pants and reaching its pocket for his wallet, pulling out a condom.

While he fumbles with his pants and catches her looking over her shoulder at him, Nik thinks about how lucky he is. Brie could knock on anyone's room today and they would happily let her in; they all wished to be in his place right now, and there she was: on all fours on his bed, her glistening core waiting and wanting him.

He positions himself behind her, between her legs after rolling down the condom, and guides himself until his tip is touching her folds. He gives her ass a playful smack, and the sound she lets out makes him even more turned on, so he does it again, harder this time, earning a louder moan from her lips. She holds her breath with anticipation while he runs his tip up and down her entrance, teasing her. She lets out a frustrated groan after a few seconds.

"God, Nik, aren't you tired of teasing me? Just fuck me alr- ohh!" her complain is interrupted by a moan as he enters her with one hasty movement.

"You were saying?" he teases, as he grabs her hips and thrusts hard into her, quickly creating a rhythm.

He doesn't hold back. He uses one hand to hold her hip as the other wraps around the hair on her neck and pulls her head back, making her moan loudly. He swears that the feeling of her walls around him is the most exquisite thing he has ever experienced.

Nik isn't one for second dates, he has never been jealous before, but Brie managed to wake feelings and sensations he never knew existed. He feels so protective of her, and it shows in his movements, as he tries to claim her as only his. He pulls her hip impossibly closer, hitting even deeper inside her, making an animalistic grunt leave her mouth.

"That's it, Brie. Louder. I wanna hear you scream my name so loud this whole damn fancy house knows I am the one making you lose control like that." he says, giving her all of him, driving deeper and harder with every slam of his hips, and she does exactly as he tells. The sensation of Nik filling her up is so overwhelming that she has no choice but to scream, trying to let out some of these feelings.

"Nik, oh god, harder!" she begs, not even realising what she is asking for, not even sure she can take more. Right now, he hits the perfect balance between pain and pleasure with every thrust. She has never felt so filled before, she has never been fucked like that before and she knows that now she has tried it, there’s no going back. He delivers harder, his nails so deep inside the flesh of her hips they are breaking the skin, but neither of them seem to notice or care. Tears of pleasure mixed with pain glisten in the corner of her eyes, and she is holding onto the sheets like it’s life itself. "Nik, I'm so close!" she moans, trying to breathe.

Hearing his name being screamed by her lustful lips makes Nik bucks his hips forward in a way that hits her most sensitive spot, and she comes apart around him, screaming his name so loud that he is sure she’s heard all across The Fate's mansion. Her walls clench around his length but he doesn't slow down, feeling his own release coming close. Brie is too worn out to react, so she just stays in front of him, moaning and crying out his name as he fucks her senseless. She squeezes him inside of her, and he feels the electricity beginning to rise in his body. "Brie, I'm close" he cries out, never stopping neither slowing down.

Catching him by surprise, Brie removes herself from his hold and quickly turns around, facing him. Nik is too surprised to react before she kneels in front of him, pulling the condom off him and taking him into her mouth once more. At the moment when she wraps her mouth around him, Nik’s head falls back and he lets out a groan. More gentle then he has been the whole night, he holds her hair back as she works on him. As he feels his ecstasy approaching, he tries to pull her head back, but she doesn't let him, working even harder. He has no other option but to spill inside her mouth as pleasure washes over him, and he moans her name for only her to hear.

Brie licks him clean and moves up, they both kneeling on the bed, facing each other. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and he thinks it's the sexiest thing he's ever seen. They lock eyes and smile before he pulls her by the waist for a delicate kiss.

Her body is covered in bruises, her hair is a mess, and they both are covered in sweat, but they also have that unique face of someone who has just reached the peak of pleasure and satisfaction.

“Do you think The Fate will me mad at us?” Brie teases, as they crawl under the covers. He snorts and pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her and letting she rest her head on his shoulder.

“I dunno, rook. And I don’t care” Nik says, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Me neither. Even if she does, it was worth it. Sooooo worth it” she says with a wide smile, kissing his chest. He absently runs his hand through her hair, smiling.

The way he’s feeling right now, not only completely satisfied but also safe, tells him he is in trouble. A lot of trouble. Looking down at Brie, comfortably snuggled with him, he feels his heart skips a beat and he can’t help but smile, but it quickly fades as he thinks about what usually happens to those who get close to him.

“Yeah, it was. Sleep tight, Brie”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I will…” she teases again, her eyes already closing as she drifts off to a peaceful sleep, and follows her, never wanting to let her go again.

What has she done to him?

#nightbound #nightbound fanfic #nb choices #choices fanfiction #fanfiction #ff #fanfic #nik x mc #nik ryder #nik x f!mc #n*fw #nik ryder fanfic

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