#big cuddle pile in the evening with the entire camp | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alltooreid · 3 years

Text

Call It What You Want

Everyone around them is trying to discover the true nature of Y/N and Spencer’s relationship. Little do they know Y/N is trying to figure out the exact same thing.

A/N: Sorry this took a lot longer than I wanted it to.... Mental health is hard but here it is!! I hope you guys love it :)) Additionally I added a lil garvez to this... but for it to work with the timeline we’re all just gonna pretend Lisa doesn’t exist... ok great!

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader (with a little splash of implied Garvez content for my personal joy)

Requested?: Yes!! :)) “can you do a one shot based off call it what you want??”

Type: Fluffiest Fluff

Word Count: 3K

Content Warnings: None!

“My baby's fly like a jet stream High above the whole scene Loves me like I'm brand new So call it what you want, yeah, call it what you want to”

The team was sure something was going on between Y/N and Spencer, they just weren’t sure how to prove it.

Every sign pointed to the two dating, but the pair hadn’t said anything about it. Maybe they were trying to keep it a secret, but at the same time they didn’t appear to be being very secretive about it.

So ever since Penelope saw Y/N giving Spencer a ride home a week ago, she has been determined to uncover the truth, and hopefully the truth was her two best friends were in the world’s cutest, most perfect relationship.

She was using her technical brilliance to gather data when she was caught by none other than Luke Alvez.

“What are you doing in here?”

“This is my job Luke, I have to be in here,” she rolled her eyes.

“Well, I know that! I mean what are you doing right now, we don’t have a case.” he smirked “Are you committing any cyber crimes? You know you could get in a lot of trouble for those, the FBI won’t help you. You should let me help.”

She smiled, “You do know I got my job here from committing cyber crimes right? I don’t think I would need your help. Besides, I’m working on a personal project.” After some thought she decided Luke might actually be helpful “I’m trying to find out if Spencer and Y/N are dating.”

“I swear I saw them leaving together yesterday, that seems like pretty good evidence! I could be very helpful to you.”

“I’m way ahead of you, but I guess you can help,” she pulled up a new tab, quickly constructing a timeline while Luke pulled a chair next to her. “So our favorite pair’s relationship would, based on my intense experimentation and surveying, begin here,” she traced a circle around the start of the timeline with her cursor, “on that night we went out after the case and then wouldn’t stop talking to each other.”

Luke and Penelope discussed all the things they saw that led them to believe that Y/N and Spencer were more than just friends, from how keen Y/N was to listen to anything that came out of Spencer’s mouth no matter how difficult to follow, to Spencer’s willingness to touch her. After about 15 minutes however they were interrupted by none other than Y/N herself. Penelope quickly switched tabs, so that it now appeared she was just showing Luke a funny kitten video.

“Hey guys! What are you doing in here?” “Oh you know, just wasting time. . . What’s up?” said Luke.

“I was just checking to see if you wanted to go to lunch! If you have any opinions as to where that would be great too because no one out there can make a decision . . .”

“Of course I want lunch! I’ll be out there in just a sec,” Penelope smiled and started closing her work done as soon as Y/N left, almost forgetting Luke’s presence.

“Um, Penelope?”

“What is it Luke?”

“Do you think you’d ever do anything like what Y/N and Spencer are doing?” he asked.

“Like what? Keep a secret? You know I’m terrible at that stuff.”

“No, no I mean like . . .” he took a deep breath, “You know, like dating a coworker?”

“What does that have to do with anything? Now hurry up and come to lunch, we can keep working afterwards,” she replied.

Luke awkwardly smiled, and they both left.

Little did Luke and Penelope know that as they debated and pieced together aspects of Y/N and Spencer’s relationship, trying to uncover if they were dating, Y/N was doing the exact same thing.

Her and Spencer had been on three dates, each more boyfriend and girlfriend than the last. They got coffee one day, then went to a movie, then a nice restaurant for dinner. Tonight Spencer wanted to keep it a surprise, but that just made her even more confused.

Sometimes her and Spencer would sit next to each other at the round table, and now when they did that he would reach over, not to hold her hand, but just to link their pinkies together.

She didn’t know what that meant.

Sometimes Y/N would go on a tangent and realize she had been talking for almost an hour about nothing in particular, and when she realized Spencer was the only one still listening would apologize for wasting his time. To which he would reply, “Why would I be upset about spending time with you?” She didn’t know what that meant.

And one time, on her and Spencer’s first “date” they were about to part their separate directions, and Y/N had no idea what to do with her body or her hands, Spencer wrapped her into a hug, and she swore she felt his lips brushing against the top of her head.

She really didn’t know what that meant.

Which is why she continued to let Penelope and Luke have their fun trying to decipher her and Spencer’s social cues. She knew as soon as she was about to enter to ask about lunch, Penelope was not exactly quiet and Luke wasn’t any better, but she let them believe they were being sneaky.

Besides, maybe if they found the answer they could let her know.

When the team returned from lunch she couldn’t help but continue to contemplate this issue further, Spencer hadn’t really said anything to her at lunch. Were they still just friends? Were they dating but not telling anyone? Were they going to tell anyone?

“Y/N! Are you excited to hang out tonight?” Spencer asked.

Hang out. So it definitely was not a date. . .

“Of course! Right after work right? Your place?”

“Yep! It’s a date,” he smiled and walked away, leaving Y/N in a state of confused panic. What was this? For someone so logical and scientific, Y/N wished that Spencer Reid would just tell her the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, and genus of their relationship.

Maybe then she could stop dissecting it to try and figure it out.

　♡　　♡　　♡　　♡　　♡　

As Y/N stood outside Spencer’s apartment building, she struggled to muster up courage to go inside. It’s not that she was nervous to hang out with Spencer, it was just Y/N knew she needed to have the “what are we” talk with him for her own personal sanity. And she just wasn’t sure yet what his answer would be.

She had made her way into the building and gotten to Spencer’s floor when she ran into the man of the hour himself.

“Oh there you are! I was about to come down and get you,” he said.

Y/N glanced at her phone, “I’m sorry, am I late?”

“No, no, no. You’re perfect, I just got excited.”

That confused Y/N even more, she couldn’t decide if that leaned more towards friend or date territory. However all of her anxieties were forgotten for a moment as soon as she entered Spencer’s apartment.

Almost all the lights were off, except for several strings of lights shaped like stars, strung in different directions across the room. In the corner were several folded up blankets and sheets, and pillows were spread out across the room.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it, although if I’m being honest I don’t really know what it is . . .”

“13 months ago we were on a case, the one were the unsub was killing couples when they went out camping so that no one would look for them for days, and you said that you used to go camping all the time but you didn’t think you could go anymore. So I bought stuff so we could go camping together, right here.”

Y/N was left almost speechless, “I- I don’t even know what to say, Spencer this is incredible.”

He beamed, instantly satisfied with that answer. “I tried to find a tent, but all of the stores I went to said I should order one online . . . I figured it would be more fun to build a fort instead.”

Spencer brought over the supplies he had bought and gathered, various sheets and comforters, pillows, his leather couch cushions, sleeping bags, a large collection of clothes pins, and some more lights. Except Spencer left a single bag in the pile, the only one from a craft store.

“Do you want me to grab that one?” Y/N asked.

“Oh um, no don’t worry about that one. I saw something stupid on that site JJ and Garcia really like while I was passing JJ’s desk. . . Pinterest? Yes that’s it. And I tried to make it but even though I memorized the instructions I couldn’t get it to work. . . I kind of just gave up and threw everything in there.”

“Can I try it?”

He nodded, and Y/N got up and glanced into the bag, in it was a push light, warm toned tissue paper and a couple empty paper towel rolls, all stuck together, but also somehow falling apart. Y/N couldn’t help but smile, “Were you trying to build me a campfire Dr. Reid?”

“Well you said that your family used to have this big bonfire every year, and that it used to be one of your favorite traditions until you couldn’t handle going anymore, so I thought I could make one that would be a little safer for you. Turns out that you actually need four PHDs to be good at crafts though.”

“Spencer this whole date is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me . . . Thank you.”

“Of course, I really want you to enjoy yourself when you're around me Y/N.”

“Spencer, I’ve never not enjoyed myself when I’m around you, and you were with me when I got shot. You’re my favorite person, you do know that right?”

He blushed, “You’re my favorite person too Y/N.”

So the two lovers built a blanket fort, draping sheets over string lights and shoving the inside full of pillows and blankets, giggling the entire time. Y/N taught Spencer the simplicity of DIY projects, and how sometimes the directions needed to be adjusted slightly based on personal preferences and ability. Soon the pair were cuddled up together on the ground, no other space to be except for right next to each other, as the rest of the fort was covered by snacks, pillows, their homemade campfire, and Spencer’s vinyl record player.

“Did you do this on purpose? Making me be so close to you?”

“No, I would never, it’s not my fault this area is so small . . . “

“Mhm, although I’m sure a genius like you could figure out how to make an adult sized fort, I’m very glad you didn’t,” she said, giggling and squishing herself closer to him. They smiled and kissed each other, before Spencer spoke.

“You make me so, unbelievably, happy. I never thought I could feel like this until we met Y/N.”

Y/N smiled even bigger, “Spencer I really, really like you,” she paused, it was now or never, “but um, what do you want to call this, like what we’re doing.”

“Well what do you want this to be? Because I want you to be my girlfriend.”

She smiled, “I want you to be my boyfriend.”

“Well then that’s what we’ll be,” he said, kissing her on the forehead.

“Well you do know the team, particularly Penelope and Luke have the exact same question.”

“Well I think more than Luke wondering if we’re dating, I think he’s just wondering if Penelope will date him. . . So I say let them have their fun for a little while, before we tell everyone.”

She smiled, “Perfect. They’re profilers, they’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Well, I think we should watch a movie. . . Although I mostly enjoy my cinema in Russian, tonight is about you and I don’t want to give you a headache. What’s your favorite?”

“You’re going to laugh at me.”

“I promise I will not laugh at you darling.”

“High School Musical 3.”

　♡　　♡　　♡　　♡　　♡　

So Y/N spent the rest of that night explaining the plot of the first two High School Musical movies, then explaining why the third one was the clear winner, and then finally showing Spencer the third one off of her phone, where she had it saved to her cloud for emergencies.

And although singing and dancing adults pretending to be teenagers was not exactly Spencer’s favorite genre, he loved how happy the series as a whole made Y/N. So he latched onto it, and learned as much as he could about it.

One particular scene however, in one of the earlier films, seemed to make Y/N extra excited, as she spent the longest amount of time talking about it. So Spencer decided he knew exactly what to do to prove to her he was in this relationship for the long haul.

Spencer could tell she was anxious before their date, and it didn’t take him long to guess that it was because she didn’t know how serious everything was to him. Yet, he didn’t want to be too obvious that he wanted her to be his, because if he had assessed wrong he would make a complete fool out of himself.

But when she asked him, she seemed so nervous, so small, he knew he had made a mistake in waiting, and now he wanted to make it up to her.

So as she was walking in the next day he caught her. “Y/N!”

“Hi Spencer! What’s up?”

“I have a present for you. . .” he said, handing her a small box wrapped in shiny gold paper.

“For me? Why?”

“Oh you know, just because. . .”

As Y/N unwrapped the box, Spencer got more and more nervous… What if she hated it? What if she thought it was stupid or too soon or didn’t get it or-

“Oh my god Spencer I-”

“You know what it’s stupid, I don’t even know why I got it for you. I can return it and find you something you’ll actually like-”

“I love it Spencer, it’s perfect. Will you put it on me?”

Spencer hooked the chain around his new girlfriend’s neck, the small “S” pendant shining in the light.

“It’s like Gabriella’s. . . I love it. I can’t believe you would care to remember something like that…”

“Of course I would remember that. I have an eidetic memory. Did you know that although the original purpose and origin of initial jewelry was largely unknown, they date back to the 14th century?”

“No, I just mean… It’s very thoughtful Spencer.”

He smiled, “Well I’m sorry to kill the mood, but I really have to go to the bathroom. I drank 3 cups of coffee this morning and I was standing here waiting for you for 18 minutes and 4 seconds before you came in.”

She laughed, and then hugged him, “Well don’t just stand here! Go!”

Spencer ran off, leaving Y/N to walk into the bullpen alone. As Y/N was making her way to her desk, she was stopped by none other than Penelope Garcia and Luke Alvez, Penelope up front, Luke standing a foot or so behind her, ready to back her up.

“Y/N! We know your secret, you and Spencer are secretly dating. . . We figured it out this morning. You can’t hide from us anymore,” Penelope said, Luke nodding behind her.

“Well yeah we’re dating, but it’s not a secret.”

“What? Excuse me? You haven’t told anyone!”

“Yeah but we haven’t really made any effort to hide it? We told everyone about the time we went to the movies?”

“Yeah but- Um, we just thought we were being sneaky. . .” Penelope said.

“You might wanna get a little better at that guys, the Bat Cave is not soundproof.”

“Dang it, I really need to work on that…” Penelope said. “Well Luke Alvez, I suppose our quest has been conquered.”

“See! We were right, I told you I’m great help,” Luke said.

“Oh don’t get it too twisted, this was almost all me.”

After a moment of playful banter, Y/N stopped them “So when are you two going to start “secretly” dating huh?”

“Uh hmph, I don’t know what you talking about. I would never,” Penelope said.

At that moment, Spencer returned from the bathroom, and came up upon Y/N hugging her from behind and leaning to rest his head on her shoulder. “What are we talking about?”

Penelope threw her head back in defeat, “Nothing, 187, we were just talking. . .”

“Don’t you think Luke and Penelope would make the cutest couple Spencer?” Y/N smirked.

“You know what? Yeah I do!” Spencer played along, “Have you guys ever thought about that?

Luke was beaming behind Penelope, while she looked like she was trying to hide her enthusiasm. “No actually I haven’t,” she said.

“Well you definitely should,” Y/N said, giggling as her and Spencer walked to his desk.

“Hey, wait come back here! What does your necklace have on it?” Penelope asked, half running after them, Luke closely behind her.

“Whatever you want Penelope, whatever you want.”

“I want to wear his initial On a chain round my neck, chain round my neck Not because he owns me But 'cause he really knows me”

Thank you so much for reading!! Please reblog and let me know what you think :)))

holly’s tiny taglist: @reidingmelodies @hercleverboy @rigatonireid @muffin-cup @takeyourleap-of-faith @wheelsup @s1utformgg @averyhotchner @widow-cevans @rotinireid

please let me know if you would like to be added or removed :))

487 notes · View notes

kozu-chan · 2 years

Text

okay soooooo here. i said i'd write this a while ago so here it is!!

v polyam! sakuatsu x reader qpr!!

this is a pretty self-indulgent series of headcanons so i won't be very inclusive for this one.

content warnings: fem!reader, this is literally all over the place bc idk what timelines are lol.

disclaimer: sakusa is gay, atsumu is bi, you're aro/ace

♥ so you and atsumu practically grew up together. the two of you were practically inseparable and samu was almost always a third wheel.

♥ once you three were a little older, you would usually chat with suna while the twins fought.

♥ sometimes you even helped him film!!

♥ what i'm trying to say is that even though you and tsumu are the closest out of everyone, the four of you are very close.

♥ back to what i was saying lol

♥ you and tsumu grew up together so you're both very comfortable with each other.

♥ i'm talking constant hugs, touches, kisses on the cheek, inside jokes, and even flirting (in a joking way).

♥ so it's no wonder that the entire school thought that the two of you are dating

♥ ... until you both clear it up and tell them you're just really close friends and you're just comfortable with each other.

♥ it took a while, but the both of you realized you were on opposite ends of the sexuality spectrum: he's attracted to multiple genders and you're attracted to none.

♥ but don't get me wrong, you still love love!! you see nothing wrong with it and you wouldn't mind having a partner of your own. you're a romance-positive (and favorable) aromantic and proud!!

♥ tsumu has a preference for men, but he still gets crushes on people of other genders.

♥ you still tease him about his behavior towards hinata during the karasuno vs. inarizaki match bc that was a little fruity ngl

♥ something you both discovered you have in common is polyamory!!

♥ but that's something you discovered in your second year, which i'll get back to later.

♥ it was around the end of your first year at inarizaki when the two of you decided that you would be in a queerplatonic relationship with each other. (i linked the lgbt wiki page for qpr's at the top!!)

♥ but honestly, it's so much work to constantly explain what that is to everyone else so y'all just say you're dating lol

♥ now onto second year and the polyam realization!!

♥ two words. sakusa kiyoomi.

♥ once tsumu went to that all-japan youth intensive training camp and met sakusa, mans was in l o v e. literal heart eyes.

♥ whenever tsumu was able to get his hands on his phone, you would get messages upon messages about sakusa and how cool he is or how pretty he is or how good he is.

♥ you thought it was cute of tsumu to just gush about his crush like that and you acknowledge that yeah, your partner isn't wrong.

♥ and that's how you both realized that you're both open to polyamory.

♥ and with enough convincing, the two of you were able to convince one sakusa kiyoomi to form a v polyamorous relationship!!

♥ essentially, you and sakusa were tsumu's partners but not each other's partners.

♥ even though you and tsumu love each other in a way that is best described as alterous or queerplatonic, him and sakusa love each other romantically and you and sakusa are just friends.

♥ since sakusa isn't someone who's big on touch, it took a while for the three of you to adjust and for him to get used to all the affection.

♥ like when he visits, he watches the two of you cuddle on the couch and after a while he tries to build up the courage to ask if he can join.

♥ of course, you and atsumu agree and the three of you are very content with your cuddle pile <3

62 notes · View notes

secret-engima · 3 years

Note

I’m kinda curious what oz and team strq’s relationship is like in your ‘always i dreamed’ verse is like. got any headcanons to share?

ABSOLUTELY. :DDD

Now I could make this very angsty but I’m in a fluff mood so all aboard the (mostly) fluff train.

-Oz 100% becomes Team STRQ’s exasperated sibling figure and an adopted member of the team. They now refer to themselves only as Team STORQ (stork) because this is their Sad Headmaster Man. Ozpin is wary at first, but there is no stopping Raven once she decides to adopt and the others follow her lead.

-They have successfully moved into his apartment by the time they are fourth years, even if they hide this fact so Oz won’t get in any trouble for it. Just- this team of semi-feral and totally feral teens moving in and setting up shop in his too big apartment/could practically be a house inside another building that he inherited from the previous Oz. Taiyang is now the group cook, Qrow keeps flopping on the couch to play video games with the console he brought home from SOMEWHERE, Summer likes to maintain their weapons on the kitchen table and Raven is always down for sidling up next to his armchair to listen to him read aloud from whatever book he’s reading.

-Note that this is all the far side of a slippery slope for these kids, and it wasn’t an entirely fast process with Ozpin being stubbornly aloof afraid to make personal connections and Team STRQ being wary of their mysterious “only a few years older” Headmaster. But after Raven gets attached (read: breaks into his apartment at one point by accident because she had come to the conclusion someone had kidnapped him and discovered to her surprise that she could portal to him, which meant she was more attached than she thought) there is no escape. The adoption of Sad Wizard Man was inevitable.

-Team STRQ manages to hold a veneer of propriety in public right up until they graduate. Then they give it two weeks and promptly stop caring what the public will think and start openly hanging out with Ozpin. Qrow and Tai will drag him off on “guy hangouts” that USUALLY end in a narrow escape from trouble or even the police (Qrow’s luck at work), Summer will lure him into taking the day off to go book shopping with her, and if he stays in his office for too long doing paperwork when he should be clocking out and eating dinner/sleeping, Raven with calmly open a portal, march through, and then potato sack him back through the portal. No she doesn’t care if anyone is in the room to witness, Ozpin is terrible at self care and Raven is here to ensure he takes care of himself. Even if she has to force him to take breaks.

-All of Vale knows the rumors that Ozpin is in a relationship with all of Team STRQ by like- the end of the year after they’ve graduated, but these disaster children are 1000% platonic. They’re just like cats rather than conventional people. Sibling shenanigans and cuddle piles on the couch are all part of how they express affection and Raven and Qrow don’t care what society says and Tai and Summer have learned not to care either.

-Ozpin teaches all of them how to dance. Being a quasi-immortal means you know a lot of different dancing styles, and after Team STRQ gets curious he’s happy to teach them. His favorite is swing dancing but shhh.

-Ozpin is a school Headmaster and has memories stretching back thousands of years and many, many lifetimes. He knows how to comport himself with dignity and reserve, how to sit back and strategize rather than leaping into a situation before looking. He is unquestionably the Braincell of the group.

-Until he’s not.

-Qrow and Raven take far too much glee in coaxing Oz to act his *physical* age rather than the layers of mental age he has going on. And since he’s only in his twenties still when they graduate, that means they manage to talk him into doing some Really Stupid Stuff. Luckily, being a quasi-immortal and two ex-bandits means they are very good at escaping without being caught.

-Of course Team STRQ are involved in the Salem Thing, and so they do take orders from him, but off the clock they’re his gremlin siblings and he loves them fiercely. He honestly expects them to treat him differently after he tells them about Salem and the curse thing (they set up shop in his apartment back when they thought he was just a sad, too-young Headmaster who needed a Team of his own), but other than Summer acting weird and thoughtful for a few days to process and Tai stress baking to wrap his head around the “immortal queen of grimm exists” thing they go right back to treating him like they always have. So what if he’s a tangled ball of memories and magic limping around in a green scarf? He’s *always* been like that, now they just know why he can curse fluently in long dead languages.

-Ozpin still gives Raven and Qrow birb powers, Raven and Qrow proceed to take turns, when not on mission or otherwise busy, to perch on Ozpin’s shoulder for the day. All of Beacon knows about Ozpin’s “pet birds” by now and there are a lot of urban legends about it, but no one realizes that these birbs are his feral Branwen siblings keeping an eye on him and making sure he takes a lunch break while working.

-Because, as previously established, Ozpin kinda sucks at self care. Comes from having too many lifetimes worth of self-sacrificing mentality all blended around in one’s head.

-Raven fully abuses her portal powers to keep her family together. She and Tai have a nice place on Patch and Oz missed the flight over for the night when he was planning (read: ordered by Summer) to take the weekend off? No problem. Ozpin forgot something back at his apartment? Hi Glynda don’t mind her. Nice apartment by the way but Raven’s just passing through. (Glynda: sighs in annoyance but this has been happening for years and she doesn’t bother to care anymore)

-The Branwen twins were raised in a bandit camp, which means groups sharing economically sized (small) tents, which means sharing sleeping space. This means these two birbs have no concept of “propriety” when it comes to snoozing when there are loved ones around. It took a long time, but they slowly infected Tai and Summer with this lack of care too, and so when they got attached to Ozpin and discovered that this boy had possibly the largest bed ever (also inherited from his predecessor for reasons lost on Oz, since heaven knows Osamu had no interest in intimate relations), the result was inevitable. More than once Ozpin has woken up to discover that all of Team STRQ had migrated over to his bed at some point in the night and were passed out in varying positions and proximities on it. There is in fact enough room for them to all sleep without touching, but by morning Ozpin usually finds himself in the center of a tangled cuddle pile anyway with Taiyang serving as the space heater center and the others all clinging to one limb or another, either each other’s or Oz’s.

-It’s ... nice. It reminds him of lifetimes *lonng* ago when families all tended to live in one or two room houses. Or lifetimes when he had blood siblings who did this.

-Even though he knows this is flirting with death for them, because Salem would love to ruin this happiness he has, but he knows he cannot convince them to stay away, and he’s been starved for positive touch for lifetimes and he is ultimately a weak man who makes mistakes. And even knowing this will likely be one of them, he cannot bring himself to escape the pile.

-It just ... feels so good to not be alone. At least for one lifetime.

#SE asks #anon asks #Always I Dreamed verse #Secret Engima Rambles #Look i just want all the team storq fluff okay #all the platonic cuddles #and pranks #and just-#LET SAD WIZARD MAN BE HAPPY #thank you for coming to my ted talk

56 notes · View notes

doorsclosingslowly · 3 years

Text

This Is the Time of Our Great Undoing

“Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?” Jesper whispers, more to distract Inej from what’s on the screen than anything else, but still—the idea won’t leave Kaz alone.

5.8k | modern AU | Kaz[/&]Jesper, part of a polycule

content note: despite the premise this is about cuddling, gambling addiction and existing during climate change

It starts the way most things used to start: with all of them piled onto ancient couches on the fifth floor of an otherwise empty building on the edge of Amsterdam, also called the Slat. These days, it’s harder and harder to get everyone together. Nina and Matthias are both in Rotterdam now, doing associate degrees that Kaz doesn’t care about. Wylan’s got room and board and a plan for the future and a social worker, and she already disapproves of Jesper as a bad influence so it’s not worth it, generally, for Wylan to come back to his old squat and hang out with the whole gang of ex- and current reprobates.

And Inej—fuck, Kaz wishes she was just a little less righteous, less concerned with how the world’s going to shit. She’s faced off against more cops now than he has, probably. Water cannons and charging horses and riot shields. She knows criminals all over the country, Europe, probably the world—but they’re the kind of criminals with morals and worthless targets, with bandanas and badly sewn patches, who will talk about Federici and sea levels and the Invisible Committee and use value if you don’t leave quickly enough. The kind that live on trees, as Inej’s going to do in a few days. The kind that don’t make any money. The kind that have even less of a chance of making it out of a job alive and free than Kaz does—and with the enemies she’s talking about, politicians, banks, Shell, he doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to extort her out of jail next time.

For now, though, they’re all together in the big room, watching some ancient movie on the massive 8k screen with mood lighting, etc, the works, that’s in the Slat courtesy of some MediaMarkt manager desperate enough to save her marriage to bribe Kaz into silence, but not so desperate she wouldn’t fuck two other women in the breakroom.

It’s impossible to know whose fault it is that they’re currently watching Pulp Fiction.

Kaz is inclined to blame Jesper, because most things are his fault in some way or another, and he’s supplying the login data for an old uni flatmate’s streaming accounts, which is where they found that film, front and centre, paid to rent until tomorrow. Who even pays for films? If that’s the calibre of people they send to university these days, it’s no wonder the planet’s going to the dogs. Jesper, though, swears he wanted to watch some goofy horror flick, so he’s splitting the blame with Nina and Matthias: Matthias, for growing up in a cult and having never heard of what’s apparently a film classic and mentioning that to Nina, who of course cooed over her boyfriend and insisted on it, even though actually none of them have watched it before either so it’s not like it’s an important cinematic milestone. Or just not b horror, crime, some weird arthouse thing with complicated morality… It’s weird and has crime but there is nothing to figure out, so Kaz is bored. It’s Inej’s fault, because instead of vetoing it she said yes, just because she has a heart-shaped soft spot for Nina. Wylan could have done his oh I’m still an innocent barely-two-years not a minor this looks bloody thing, and Kaz might not even have mocked him this time if he'd insisted on Jesper’s pick instead just so he could hide in Jesper’s arms for the most minor decapitations.

Jesper’s been talking through the whole film. Kaz got used to that a long time ago: the landing and failing of small non-sequitur jokes like rain against the window, whispered to Wylan who’s cuddled into his side on the left, or to Inej who’s burrowing under Jesper’s outstretched right arm. Sometimes Jesper thinks a quip will land better with Nina, so he shouts it over to the futon where she and Matthias are always just shy of engaging in heavy petting, and the really mean and bleak jokes he saves for when he’s made eye contact with Kaz.

Now, though: in this scene Mr Motorcycle and the gang boss are captured in a pawnshop and dragged into the basement, and Gang Boss gets raped. Inej’s hand is white-knuckled on Jesper’s arm, and Jesper’s talking non-stop. He’s talking about the flooding, and asking whether Inej thinks Doggerland will happen again but here, soon, you can never know when the scientists are so wrong about the speed of climate change, and apparently it all flooded in a day because something broke off Norway, and then he abruptly pivots to some demo where he bashed in a shop window and got new shoes, and then if she’s got dates for more street fights because then he’s in but please, don’t trick me into another book club, I don’t care about why the cops are bad I already know I just want to hit them—not topics Kaz would have chosen, exactly, but he’s rooted in his red leather armchair off to the side, not even able to hold her for comfort, not like Jes does now, and why didn’t they think to look up the content beforehand, why did they assume it was tame just because it’s an old film—and then, long after it’s over, Jesper idly asks, “Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?”

Wylan groans. Kaz wishes a sound existed that could express his own current emotion.

“You saw the guy, right?” Jesper turns over to Wylan, while still stroking Inej’s hair. “There was no skin on him. All leather. And that’s the trigger, so—might solve all our problems. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

“I don’t see a huge difference,” Nina snipes. “Kaz is already in all-black, with gloves. Though I guess, that hood would hide his atrocious haircut…”

“Stop being so mean to Kaz, Jesper,” Matthias mumbles. “Although he does deserve it.”

Kaz downs his entire glass of vodka. When he tops his drink up for the second time—he exed the first refill right in the kitchen—he brings the bottle and some maracuja juice over and refills Jesper’s, too, because Jesper’s been anxiously glancing over at him, every moment he thinks Kaz has turned his head away, since he shot his stupid mouth off and actually, it’s—Kaz isn’t thinking about it now but it just might—maybe it could work—well, he fills up the glass to stop Jesper from worrying himself into yet another mental crisis and also so he can bend over Jesper’s ear and whisper lovingly, “I’m going to make the leather for the suit out of your skin.”

“We should look for an Ed Gein film next!” Jesper laughs, much more brightly than the joke warrants, and Kaz refuses to interpret the look on his face.

By the time Kaz gets back to the Slat, on a day roughly three months later, it’s long past two in the morning. He’s in a foul mood: of course Haskell won’t even reimburse him for the taxi he had to take because he missed the last metro. Of course he just told Kaz to take a night bus. Haskell won’t even apologize for the last minute details he wants included in his casino’s tax returns. The old man’s not even mentally capable of understanding the extra work he caused. Yes, Kaz is good at filing taxes creatively, exactly tailored for the business to pay nothing whatsoever and meticulous enough to never arouse any suspicion, but that takes work. Things have to balance. Haskell thinks Kaz just has to press a button, and that he’s paying Kaz so he doesn’t have to press the button himself, and that it’s only worth it because he doesn’t want to sully his mind with ‘the Spreadsheet Program’. Which is also why he’s loaning Kaz out to a friend of his, which he just remembered to mention today, for that guy’s mattress store slash money laundering business, so that’s even more work for nowhere near enough money.

Sometimes, Kaz amuses himself with the idea of sneaking in small ‘mistakes’. Enough for even the stupidest tax official to unravel the whole sordid scheme and land Haskell in prison for tax fraud, whereupon he’ll also be discovered to be involved with drug smuggling, blackmail, murder, … none of which will ever trace back to Kaz. But the one time he was livid enough to try, nothing happened. He’ll never manage to plunge the true depths of stupidity of an average bureaucrat, apparently, and is thus doomed to failure.

And anyway, it’s good regular money for little work. Usually. He can’t really complain. Especially not to his friends, because three are going legit, Inej will just rant about the uselessness of defrauding the Belastingdienst for a few measly million euros a year when the world’s being set on fire every day, and Jesper’ll tell him to quit, again, because they live in a squat after all. It’s not like they’re paying rent. Jesper’s never heard of forethought, or gratitude. He doesn’t know how many of his bills Kaz has paid off.

Kaz’s leg aches after the climb to the third story. Two more to go. As usual, right at this point he remembers the joke Jesper made eight months ago about fooling someone into installing a stair lift, and as usual, he dismisses it in disgust after two more steps. Stomps harder on the next flight of stairs, with grim satisfaction at the shooting pains in his knee. He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to move to a house with a working lift, and he doesn’t need a stair lift, either. Fuck you, Jesper. I’m the actual functional adult with a job in this household. I don’t need a stair lift.

That’s what he would throw at Jesper’s head, but it’s nearly three o’clock, and Jesper’s probably out. Over at Wylan’s, if he knows what’s good for him, but given how evasive he’s been all week, how manic… Inej’s still camping high up in some forest to save the frogs or something, but no news there is supposed to be good news. If the cops had chucked her off a tree house, it would have been on tv. About everything else, he can worry after he’s slept.

He doesn’t bother with the lights in his room. The streetlight coming in through his open curtains is more than enough, and anyway, he found the empty tenement he turned into the Slat five years ago, fully moved down here three years ago when he met Jesper, and he knows every single thing in his room by heart. The antique dresser he made Jesper and Matthias carry up with the threat of cutting off a finger for every scratch it received is next to the door, the place where he leaves his gloves and wallet and phone and cane. The coat rack beside it, where the hangers for his suit are, then the hamper, and at the foot of his bed the long black linen nightgown that Jesper’s never, ever allowed to see, and—

There’s a black shape on top of his bedcovers, Kaz realizes when he’s pulled on his nightgown.

Kaz takes his cane back. He hasn’t made any new enemies recently as far as he’s aware—none who know his name—but he was careless, brutal, desperate when he was a lone kid getting by on the streets, and those victims had gangs, families, business partners. Just because no-one’s ever traced little Kazzie the bastard rabid dog back to the Slat-that-wasn’t-then doesn’t mean a thing. The fact that the friends he started collecting press-ganged him into doing more behind-the-scenes embezzlement and fewer turf wars because ‘they’re watching us, they have all our faces and fingers and DNA on file and cameras everywhere and did you hear about that informer having kids with the activist he spied on?’ or the more pragmatic, ‘If you don’t stop fucking up your leg on purpose I’m going to send you to a kink party you fucking masochist’…

None of it means safety, not really, and Kaz is glad he’s alone now. They’ve all moved on, and even Jes… well, if he’d been here tonight then the whole squat would be trashed because Jesper doesn’t come quietly. And now, if he comes back to find Kaz gone or his throat slit… Jesper’s going to fucking collapse. He’s been one phone call away from going hysteric all week. Who knows, though—he has Wylan now, and maybe it’ll be the push he needed, the path none of them could ever find, to get his life back on a solid track.

All of that is presupposing that Kaz loses, of course.

And he does not intend to.

The weird black ninja on Kaz’ bed hasn’t reacted yet. They’re curled into a foetal position and they’re snuffling, quietly, because they’re asleep.

Not even assassins dressed up as b movie henchmen expect the toll taken by Per Haskell’s technical naïveté and utter disrespect for Kaz’ work-life balance, apparently. He got back home so late he missed his own murder. Well, then. Kaz hasn’t tortured anyone in two years and he may be out of practice, but the films he’s been forced to watch in the meantime have, if anything, made him more creative. He’ll teach them not to underestimate the brutality of Kaz Brekker, even when he’s moved up a few rungs in the ladder of Amsterdam’s underworld and landed a desk job.

He’ll—but Kaz hasn’t had to stalk silently towards his prey in two years, either. He’s underestimated the extent to which his lame leg’s gotten worse.

Also, someone’s pulled a box out from under his bed.

Kaz stumbles, and in the split-second before he catches himself on the edge of the mattress he wonders—will they have a gun? I can still bash them in the head before they fire, I haven’t gone that soft—and then the would-be assassin stretches out their lanky body as they wake up.

With their arms raised over their head, Kaz can see the bright white light of the street lanterns outside reflect off the gleaming black PVC fabric they’re wearing. Sleek and skin-tight, no ornamentation except a few steel buttons glinting at the crotch, and a full-cover leather hood over their face adorned with one-euro-sized rivets at the jaw, the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the large buckle around the neck. More buckles, at the back of the head and hanging off the right side at eye-height. The open silver zipper at the mouth reflects the streetlight, too, as does the padlock that hangs off it.

Oh no. Kaz knows that mask. Not even shoving it all the way back to the furthest corner under his bed allowed him to forget the way it looks.

Oh no.

Jesper yawns loudly. “Morning, boss. Evening. One of those. I thought you were finishing work early?”

“Haskell had some last-minute revisions to his tax returns.” Kaz sighs. “Don’t cook tomorrow. I’ll be out late for the whole next week—don’t expect me before three am. New client. I need to create a whole year’s documentations from scratch.”

“Just fuck him over, boss. He doesn’t appreciate you, and you don’t need the money. We live in a fucking squat.”

Sweet, financially illiterate nuisance Jesper, who probably doesn’t even know what that awful mistake he’s dressed in right now cost. The thing he’s dressed in. Which was hidden under Kaz’ bed. In Kaz’ room. Which they are inside right now. “You broke into my room,” Kaz rasps. “Again.”

“You know, Kaz,” Jesper replies with poorly feigned innocence, ”this thing is a little big for you. Fits me pretty well, though.”

“I told you I don’t keep cash under my bed. I told you that, the last time you tried to steal from me to pay off your gambling debts. I like my room organized as it is, and so I don’t keep any money here. Not under the bed, not in the wardrobe. And you won’t find any of my actual caches, because I’m smarter than you.”

“You’ve lied to me before.”

“You’ve stolen from me before. Remember last year? Remember you made Inej cry? I though you were clean. I thought you promised Wylan, when you asked him out, that you were done gambling. Maybe we all had too much trust in you.”

Jesper pulls his PVC-clad shoulders up to his en-leathered ears: a ridiculous sight, and Kaz doesn’t know what’s worse. That a bondage sex slave could actually look this dejected and humiliated and alone, or that Jesper does. He’s almost ready to call off the assault. It took a while to figure out, but as usual Inej was probably right, because she’s been researching and discussing the mental health industrial complex in general, and the traumatizing nature of modern life, with her comrades. Even though Kaz is neither the kind of person to touch people with kid gloves, and nor does he like thinking of Jesper as someone who needs that kind of handling—when Jesper’s in a shame spiral this deep then any criticism will drive him even deeper into the arms of the next casino. So the adrenaline and dopamine can wipe out everything else, or to feed his self-loathing even more by being exactly the person he’s terrified people think he is—Jes couldn’t quite explain it himself during the Intervention, except that everything is too much sometimes, even more too much and faster than usual.

He’s a pitiful creature. Kaz almost has pity. Then, though—

“It’s not working, boss. I know why you’re reminding me I fucking relapsed, again, and tried to steal from my best friend, again, and that I’m going to beg you to lie to Wy, again, but I still haven’t forgotten I’m wearing a bondage suit that you’ve been keeping under your bed for—two months now, is it?”

It’s just one month, actually. The manufacture and shipping took six whole weeks.

Two can play that game. Kaz might be very slightly embarrassed, but Jesper’s relapsed into the combination of addiction, theft and deceit that destroyed his life three years ago, and nearly did so again, two-and-a-half years ago and one year ago. “Careful. I haven’t even yet agreed to lie to Wylan, Jesper. About your problem. That you promised you’d tell him about.”

“Also, I notice it fits me, not Inej. Not Nina. Not Matthias. Not even Haskell, I bet. Me. Almost like it was made for me.”

Kaz ignores his insinuations. The answer’s obvious, anyway: yes, he did take clothes from the main washing pile in Jesper’s room and measured them. Yes, he used the measurements when he ordered a bondage suit. Yes, that’s creepy. Yes, a decent person would have asked. No, he’s not sorry. Jesper knew who Kaz was when he moved in with him. And it’s not like Kaz is the one who’s really at fault here. If Jesper just stopped gambling, he’d never have found out.

“Even attempted theft is illegal, Jesper. Completed robbery is worse. I cover my tracks, but you… you should be careful what you say now. They’re still looking for whoever robbed that jeweller last year.”

“Inej’s gonna cut off your head if you try. It’s like you never read her hoodies. All cats are beautiful, et cetera, Kaz. Thirteen-twelve. Keep up.”

Sometimes, the only thing that keeps Kaz from tossing Jesper out of the Slat is that Inej hates landlords and landlord-adjacents just as much as the pigs. If only he’d known back when he let the drunk penniless fancy uni boy who jumped into a fight to defend Kaz from some thugs—a fight Kaz would have won regardless—if only he’d known, before he let Jesper crash on his floor for a night or two, where all of this would end. “I’ll never mention anything about tonight again if you don’t either. Forget it. It was a bad idea. A failed plan. That’s all.”

“Without even trying it?”

“I will zip your mouth shut,” Kaz rasps. “I’ll lock it. I’ll throw the key into the harbour. Fuck you.”

Jesper, though, somehow got even mouthier when he put the bondage suit on. Less respectful. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. “Come on, Kaz,” he wheedles. “I put it on, right? So I’m fine with it, if you’re worried. Aren’t you curious? If our places had been reversed—well, if you’d found it in my room you’d have murdered me, so we’re not exactly identical, but still. Come on, sit down next to me. This is—PVC right? Good job choosing me. Inej would hate it. So much plastic.”

“It’s less like skin than leather.”

“Not complaining, Kaz. I have some juice with a straw over there to keep me hydrated in case I sweat like a pig, but I haven’t, yet. I can probably camp out in this for a few more hours.” He tries a patented Jesper I’m flirting in an over the top way to make you laugh which is my flirting style for when I’m genuinely worried about the reaction because this way I can pass off exasperation and mockery as the response I intended look, probably with fluttering eyes, but since Kaz can barely make them out through those open zippers and the rest of his face is a complete mystery, it falls flat. It looks ridiculous, though, so it also works, and Jesper has the nerve of complaining about Kaz’ eight-dimensional chess plans. He’s worse. He’s worse, and animated by Jesper’s ridiculous, familiar movements the bondage suit doesn’t look like a pathetic attempt anymore. Not like the desperation of an emotional cripple. It just looks like Jesper, with an extra layer on his skin. Jesper, probably making a duckface, purring, “Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

Kaz looks away. “Are you serious right now?”

“Of course,” Jesper replies instantly, as if there was never any reason to doubt him. As if he doesn’t blame Kaz for doubting, simultaneously. As if Kaz is allowed to try. To fail. To fuck up, risk hurting him. There is a reason why Kaz never even considered someone else for the suit. “Come on, get on the bed.”

“We have to talk with Inej first. And with Wylan.”

“One-track mind,” Jesper replies, and just like that Kaz is ready to murder him again. “We’re not fucking. We’re not doing more than normal, except maybe touch. We don’t even know yet whether this helps you. I’m not risking it. We’ll just try touching, and if you think it’s triggering, we stop. We’ve got all the time in the world to work up to more. Until this city sinks into the ocean and the grid collapses from heat, which might be tomorrow, so. Or the fascists win.”

“You’ve been listening to Inej.”

“I do try to keep up.”

“Well, stop. Or listen more carefully, until the end, when she gets to the doomerism is the opiate of the masses part.”

“Just get on the bed, Kaz.”

Kaz puts his bent good knee onto the mattress and pulls himself over to Jesper. The fabric of his linen smock rubs against his heated skin: not like corpses, not like that, not like Jordie and he won’t even think about him or this will be over but—it just feels like his own familiar coarse age-softened nightgown that Jesper hasn’t even made fun of yet, his thin nightgown that in a second will be one of only two layers between him and Jesper.

He rolls over so he can sit down next to Jesper, at first. Daringly, he leans an arm against his best—well, they’ll figure that out later.

“Okay?” Jesper asks. He has to crane his head a lot to look through the thin eye slits of his bondage mask at Kaz’ face, and even then he’s probably mostly seeing the gleaming teeth of the eyehole zippers. And still he leans forward forty-five degrees and twists his torso and neck so he can look up into Kaz’ face, carefully keeping the arm that’s touching Kaz as motionless as possible, because he’s being careful with Kaz. Kaz has told him a thousand times he hates being coddled. He’s not a poor little abused dog, he’s a vicious murderer who destroyed his leg and his ability to be close to people while he was murdering, that’s all he ever told Jesper. That lie. And yet—even if he’s only fooling himself because this scene is so patently ridiculous, and the psych ward he got sent to once for the crime of rough sleeping while underage would stamp every single thing about what they’re doing as deeply unhealthy, and he can’t see Jesper’s soft concerned expression under the hood… Whatever it is, Kaz feels warm all over. He feels good. Safe.

Jesper can tell, apparently. “Want to touch my chest? Or climb into my lap?”

Kaz moves over, carefully smoothing down his nightgown before he sits down on Jesper, angled so he can lean with his left arm pressed against Jesper’s chest. It’s safer, somehow, than giving him the back, but perhaps someday…

Jesper loosely wraps his arms around Kaz. They’re just there, barely touching, the hands lax on top of Kaz’ right knee. You can leave at any time, they say, I’ll let go as soon as you’re uncomfortable, and Kaz would have known that regardless. Jesper’s never usually this still, unless he’s lost in concentration: and Kaz, who’s seen how gambling can destroy someone’s life, how it is currently destroying someone’s life, would still bet everything he has ever owned that Jesper’s concentrating on every single aspect of Kaz’ body language right now.

It’s not necessary, though. Those hands are gleaming black PVC. They don’t look or feel anything like Kaz’ memories.

He drops his own naked right hand onto Jesper’s gloved one. Joins them. Anchors Jesper. “How much do you owe this time, Jes?”

A beat. Jesper’s face drops down towards Kaz’ lap. Trying to hide his shame, and he’s forgotten that he’s wearing a full bondage mask, that Kaz can barely make out his eyes through the slits of the zippers. If he’s trying to deny everything, Kaz will just beat it out of him. He’s done it before. A year ago, when it was bad, but Jesper promised he got it under control. But Jesper’s promises were never worth much, not for this. If they were, they’d never have met.

“Four grand.”

“To?”

“Tom Geels. One of Big Bol’s old friends—”

“So he put you up to—”

“I was already playing when he walked up to me, Kaz,” Jesper grinds out. Aware that he could save himself from at least a little of Kaz’ disappointment by casting Bollinger as the tempter. Simultaneously aware that Kaz promised to feed Bollinger to a marine propeller last year if he ever took Jesper gambling again. Noble, to try and save Bollinger’s life—or to save Kaz from committing another murder—not that either of them deserves his loyalty. “I’ll pay you back, Kaz. I’ll have the money. Give me—give me half a year, Da’s still sending me—sending me rent money, Christ, he’s—I’ll save it. No, you’ll get it straight as soon as I get it, and in six months, you’re paid back in full. I promise.”

“We’ll figure it out. I have some jobs I could use you on. Nothing big. Intimidation, mostly. Some breaking, some entering. Boring stuff, not even worth mentioning to Wylan I should think.”

“Thank you.” Jesper’s forgotten all his restraint. He’s kissing Kaz’ forehead, or rather kissing the inside of his mask that’s pressed against Kaz’ forehead. He’s wrapped Kaz tightly in his long bondage arms too, painfully twisting Kaz’ shoulder and elbow and wrist because Kaz is still holding onto his hand. It’s that welcome pain, and the texture of the bondage suit that Kaz still isn’t completely used to, that keeps him from breaking Jesper’s nose. Keeps him—he isn’t back in the North Sea. He isn’t with Jordie. He should be, but he isn’t, and even if it comes…

Inej taught him about grounding. None of them trust the system as far as they can throw it, so she didn’t send him to a shrink when they started dating, unlike he feared, but—she said they helped her, those grounding exercises she found on the internet, and so Kaz has been diligently practicing breathing techniques and focusing his awareness on details of the present moment. Five things he can see: well, it’s dark, but the way what little streetlight gets through reflects off the folds of the suit on Jesper’s bowed stomach is quite interesting. His own knees. His hand, still clutching Jesper’s. The cane, on the floor. The floor. Five things he can hear: early morning traffic, Jesper’s breath, Jesper trying not to sob out loud in relief or shame or a mixture of both, the rustling of fabric, the squeaking of fabric. Five things he can feel: The old ache of his leg, always. Jesper’s hand. Jesper’s thighs. The hard buttons at the flap over Jesper’s crotch, digging into his side.

Somehow, Jesper’s noticed his shift in focus. At least he’s stopped crying now. “You know, you could have just asked how big I am if you wanted a suit with a dick pouch,” he teases in a voice that almost manages to sound happy. “I wouldn’t even have been suspicious.”

“Just because you have no boundaries, Jes, doesn’t mean I have to sink down to meet you at your level.”

Jesper takes a big breath. To forestall the whole Who bought this bondage suit argument Kaz elbows him in the stomach, hard. Once Jesper’s done coughing—a wriggling movement against Kaz’ side that he’s never even felt before—he mumbles something else, though. “I texted Da my new number. He called last week. Wanted to know how I was doing,” and oh. That makes sense. That’s what did it. “Apparently I’m graduating in seven months, according to that fake schedule you made me so I could keep my lies straight. He wants to come to the graduation. He asked me whether I have a job lined up.”

“I could hire somebody to fake you a degree,” Kaz offers. This should be Inej’s job. She shouldn’t be off somewhere, saving grasshoppers. She should be here. She’s the one who tried to talk Jesper into coming clean to his father, last year. All Kaz knows, all he has ever done, is to keep digging, and it’s worked for him. So far. “It’s all the rage now I hear. Cheap, too. No-one will find out. Just don’t become a politician in Germany.”

Jesper sighs. The air kisses the back of Kaz’ neck. “I don’t even care anymore. I could have a degree, or not, it all doesn’t matter. Universities are a scam to regulate economic class relations anyway. I don’t know that I can keep lying forever, or get a job, just so I don’t have to tell Da I betrayed him. Because nothing matters anyway. We’re collectively throwing the future down the drain. It’s not like anyone needs another mechanical engineer when we hit four degrees. I don’t know what we need. I just know everything I know is pointless.”

“I’m sure Inej can hook you up, if you want to blow up a coal power plant.”

“But what about you, then? What would you do?”

“I could have you kidnapped,” Kaz says. That’s not what Jesper meant. Kaz refuses to think about what Jesper meant. “Fake your death. Colm will be so relieved when they find you that he won’t even care you failed all your studies so you could become a live-in human blow-up doll.”

“That’ll only keep Da happy for a year at most and you know it.”

“Well, then Colm’s just going to have to get used to it. Get used to you, like we did. Real, annoying, good-for-nothing directionless screw-up Jesper.”

Jesper rubs his leathered cheek against the crown of Kaz’ head. “Fuck you. Thanks.”

Kaz runs his fingers over the squeaky PVC on Jesper’s forearms, steeling himself before he whispers idly against Jesper’s neck, “If Inej’s right about the warming and the sea level over the next decades, it won’t just be refugees from the south we’re letting drown, people it’s easy to lock out. Maybe you’re right about the Doggerland thing, and we all get flooded.” He swallows. The words are high up in his throat, trying to spew out. “Then it won’t just be one stupid child with a stupid family going out boating in the North Sea when there’s a storm coming. Not just that one kid thrown out of a sinking boat nearly drowning and clinging to his brother’s corpse. Your blow-up doll skills will be in high demand if everyone else gets triggered by skin contact too.”

Jesper, miraculously, reveals a talent Kaz didn’t even know he possessed: he shuts up. He ghosts his gloved hands over Kaz’ shoulders, and then he starts carding his fingers through Kaz’ hair. Kaz can feel the static electricity building up, the crackles and the safety, and then he realizes his eyes have drifted shut. He realizes he doesn’t know how long Jesper’s been petting him.

“Take off your hood,” he mumbles.

“Kaz?”

“Take it off. Scuttle over so your head’s on the pillow.”

Jesper obeys, like Kaz always knew he would. He looks up at Kaz with something that might be confusion but might also be—trust and deep joy and more, something Kaz can’t quite admit anymore now he’s in his bed, and Kaz puts his head down on his chest. His legs will still fit, and this way, he has the squeaky PVC right where he needs it. Squeaky, rhythmically rising warm dry plastic under him. The exact opposite of a waterlogged corpse.

“I don’t have time to call you an ambulance when you get into a bondage suit erotic asphyxiation incident, just so you know. I have a full schedule for today, remember. I’ll be at Haskell’s until after midnight. I have to break Bollinger’s thumbs. My alarm is at seven. Turn it off and I’ll send you to Colm in bite-sized pieces,” Kaz rasps, and then, with a movement that no-one would call timid if they wanted to keep their tongue attached, wraps his arms around Jesper. “You’ve kept me awake for two hours, so be a good pillow. If I kick you off the bed while I’m dozing, remember. This is your fault.”

#jesper fahey #kaz brekker #kaz x jesper #dimtraces makes things #shadow and bone #shadow & bone

10 notes · View notes

childishfluff · 3 years

Note

Hewwo, would it be okay to request some fluff about Tommy slipping into littlespace during his exile, and caregiver Dream being kinder to him because he has limits to being evil when it comes to little Tommy? I really like the way you write this sort of stuff ~

hello anon, I did not write fluff, sorry about that. I did take this prompt and write it- it’s just not...fluffy. It’s light angst, at best. I’m sorry, I just don’t like the idea of cg!dream/little!tommy due to my dislike of how c!dream acts towards tommy. I didn’t wanna deny this request though, because it was still interesting. Feel free to request something else, I just couldn’t figure out how to write this in a fluffier way, y’know?

The Unfinished Story Starts On The Hill [Little!Tommy/Big!Dream Oneshot]

There was once a time when Dream felt bad for all he had done to Tommy, and he has a short-lived desire to fix things. He only reaches this point when the boy breaks down in tears at the idea that his favorite toys and comfort items could be destroyed. But all hope of fixing things is destroyed as the toddler-minded teenager tells him that he hurt him, and that he didn't want him there. Here's a chapter in an unfinished story that could've ended in friendship, if Tommy had been more forgiving, or Dream had voiced his guilt and gave a real apology. Sadly, there's a reason this story was left unfinished. It all started on the side of the hill.

TW for cursing, emotions, and Dream being a d*ckhead. AO3 Link

Tommy couldn't tell you how he got this far without Dream blowing up his littlegear.

At some point during his exile, he had managed to sneak back to his home, just to grab the things he used to comfort himself and hid them back in Logstedshire. But now, while Dream was making his daily rounds to blow up his stuff, he had managed to find the chest, hidden and buried on the side of a hill.

Tommy had taken to the habit of regressing under the stars, sitting on the hill and playing and just for a while, forgetting his worries. Sometimes, Ghostbur would show up and entertain him for a while. The whole thing, this 'weird' but sweet coping skill, was something he had kept hidden from Dream.

Until now, when Dream had the great idea of searching the entire premises for hidden supplies.

Tommy was panicking. He didn't think Dream would take a walk around the whole place, and him finding his hidden chest wouldn't only mean that all his stuffies and toys were gone forever, but Dream would know his secret.

"Really, Tommy? Chest in the side of a hill? I'd think that after the disk incident you'd know not to pull that again," he tsked. Tommy closed in on himself, his breaths quickening as he tried to think of what he could do. . He could lie, or try to find a way around this. But that'd be nearly impossible.

His best bet was to try and get him to blow up the stuff without looking at it. He wanted to keep his secret, and he'd sacrifice so much to do. Tommy was still panicking, tears springing to his eyes as he tried to focus on the current situation.

Tommy was crying, not realizing how quickly he had slipped until he was already small. "What's up? I know you don't like me being a dick or whatever, but you've never cried before." Dream's voice sounded so menacing and scary to him. So scary and mean.

Dream was seconds away from killing all of his stuffed animals and he really, really didn't want that. But there wasn't much the mentally toddler-aged boy could do at this point.

Tommy backed away from him, just a bit, rocking on his feet in an attempt to calm himself. He knew that Wilbur would give him some blue, he'd tell him to hold the crystal and fiddle with it as he talked out how he felt. And if he couldn't talk, then it'd provide a distraction, something to focus on to pull him away from whatever upset him.

But Wilbur wasn't here, and there wasn't any blue. There was just a scary man in a white mask, and no heart.

"Tommy?" Dream's voice spoke up again suddenly, snapping him out of his anxious thoughts for just a second. "Look at me." he ordered.

Tommy forced his head up, facing the masked-face with teary eyes. He sniffed. Dream's face softened behind the mask, though Tommy didn't know that. Dream suddenly dropped to his knees, moving to open the chest. Tommy immediately protested, trying to push and pull him away. He jumped to move and stop him.

He successfully rendered Dream's ability to get to the chest, almost causing him to tumble down the hill at one point. For some reason, Dream didn't fight back, not wanting to hurt him. Instead, he settled on rendering his ability to stop him.

"Don't touch me, Tommy," Dream snapped, grabbing his wrists the first chance he got and restricting his movement. Tommy's eyes were full of fear, his weak and now-childlike voice mumbled..

"m' sorry."

"I just wanna see what's in here, Toms," Dream spoke more softly. He had a feeling he knew what was going on, and he was sure of what he'd find in the chest. The boy collapsed to the ground, crying harsher and harsher by the second. He felt helpless.

He couldn't do anything now. He heard Dream click open the chest, and take only a moment to look inside before a soft "Oh." left his mouth.

Tommy didn't want to see what he was doing, looking to his lap and closing his eyes tightly. He assumed that Dream was lighting TNT, and that his coloring books and pacifiers would all be gone in just a second.

He was confused when he didn't hear the sounds of a quick, crackling flame and a 'boom' though. Instead, he heard some footsteps, and some shuffling right in front of him. Then, he felt a few soft items being dumped into his lap. "Open your eyes, Tommy." Dream's voice spoke up.

"Stuffies!" he cheered at first, hugging all of them close to his chest at once, the soft toys completely filling his arms. Then he looked up to Dream, tilting his head like a confused puppy. "W-why-....no gone?" he tried his best to convey his thinking, though that was hard with how small he felt. Exile was stressful, this was all to much.

All the time, everything was emotionally overwhelming. If he had the option, he'd probably stay little all the time. But he didn't have that option, so it always felt like he was holding back the childish part of him that was forced to grow up way to quickly.

Dream chuckled a bit at his lack of correct grammar, but didn't comment on it. "You're just a baby, aren't you? I know I may be the villain of this story, but it'd be truly evil if I became a stuffie murderer."

Tommy giggled at that, snuggling the toys in his arms as if they'd be taken away at any moment. "jus' a baba," he repeated, mumbling to himself.

"Let's just pretend I never found any of this, okay? I won't destroy your toys or anything. And if you're feeling like a kid when I show up, I'll just leave and come back later, yeah?"

Tommy nodded a bit, not replying verbally. For a minute or two, he sat there, cuddling the toys while Dream simply watched him, keeping his softer demeanor and a promise to himself to be kinder to the boy. At least when he was like this.

For those few minutes, Dream thought that maybe things could stay like this. He could be nice to Little Tommy, and play around with him, while continuing the conflicts he had with Big Tommy. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked. There was picking and choosing when you want to not be an asshole, it's manipulative and confusing.

"Bye bye? Wan' be lone now," he requested, setting the toys down and standing up and stumbling over to the chest, digging through it before Dream even replied. Now that he was done crying, he didn't want Dream here.

"Are you sure you wanna be by yourself? Y-you're so little, I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"You hurt me, don' wan' you here," Tommy's voice was still high pitched, but a little clearer, like he was just a bit bigger now. He set some things from the chest in a pile next to it. He was blatantly honest. Dream wasn't good to him, and he wasn't going to treat him like a friend just because he had the basic decency to not blow up his stuff.

You hurt me

For the first time in a long time, Dream felt guilty.

"O-okay," Dream stuttered, finally standing up from his spot. "Um, I'm sorry," he said, running his hand through his hair. That's not the response he expected from him, not at all. "I'll leave." His voice reduced to a mumble as he turned to walk away and back to the nether portal, leaving the little by himself.

Tommy didn't turn around, or say goodbye in any way, closing the chest and moving on with setting up his play area as if Dream didn't exist. He laid out a blanket on the side of the non-steep hill, setting and organizing toys on it. He was being his own caregiver, because the only one he had at the moment was a very unreliable and unpredictable ghost.

He just didn't want someone who hurt him to try and play buddy-buddy. Dream wasn't nice. Ghostbur was nice, Tubbo was nice. But not Dream.

And Dream was gone, just like that. Being rejected hurt a lot, but being reject by a kid? A baby?

That hurt oh so much more.

Because that meant that even someone on the mental level of a child was able to resent you. He was so bad that a child hated him. Of course, this guilt and shock wouldn't last long, and he'd go right back to being an asshole to Tommy the moment he was big.

But as promised, if he was small, he'd just walk away, and point Ghostbur in his direction on his way back to where ever he was going instead. Sometimes, he'd set up camp nearby, just to watch him for a while and make sure he was safe. From a distance though, because the kid strongly disliked him, big or little.

And though they had a silent agreement not to talk about what happened that day, neither of them would ever forget it. Tommy would always wonder why he had mercy when he was 'just a baby' even though he was 'just a kid' all the time.

Dream would always wonder, just in the back of his head and never out loud, if there was a way to fix things with the little. There's really wasn't much hope for him, though. War and power were much more important to him.

Eventually, through the battles and the end of his exile, the day at the hill would be a faded memory that they never spoke of. An issue to never be resolved.

An unfinished story of what could've been a sweet friendship with just an apology and some forgiveness.

An unfinished story that would always remain unfinished and uncertain.

A/N: So....what did you think? Is tommy in the right here, do you feel bad for Dream? Do you wish this played out differently? Please reblog/reply/send an ask, and lmk!

#agere #age regression #dsmp #dream smp #dream smp agere #little!tommyinnit #big!dream #cg!dream #TommyInnit #Dream #ghostbur #wilbursoot

58 notes · View notes

tired-fandom-ndn · 3 years

Note

hey - i hope you're going okay. i ended up falling into that endless scroll on your mechs tag, and i saw you shipped nastya with the rest of the mechs - i was wondering if you had anymore thoughts on her interactions with them in the polycule?

Thank you for this ask, anon, I LOVE talking about Nastya.

Warning for some nsft stuff. Nothing graphic though.

The easiest way I can describe my personal headcanons for her relationships with the other Mechs is. . . . distant. Or maybe cautious. She’s not really shy, but she was the youngest when she was mechanized (not by much, but enough) and also the most sheltered by far. She has a hard time reaching out to the others, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love them.

I also headcanon her as autistic, because I like to project, so she has sensory issues and trouble verbalizing herself and that makes it even harder for her to connect to other people. Her connection to the Aurora also ramps up her sensory issues even more, with input coming not just from her own body but also from the ship, so she feels the most comfortable in the quieter parts of the ship, where all she can hear is the humming of the machinery and all she can feel is the cool metal against her skin.

She does do her best to reach out to the other Mechs though. Jonny is the one she’s usually with, because they’ve been together the longest and he Gets her in ways that no one else does, and he usually acts as a buffer to keep her from getting overwhelmed.

From what I can recall, Nastya canonly doesn’t like The Toy Soldier, but I’m calling bullshit on that, sorry. I feel like they’d enjoy just spending time together, Nastya working on its gears or the both of them brushing each other’s hair, TS’s wooden fingers not setting off her touch repulsion for whatever reason. Talking with TS also comes with less pressure than the others, because it can ramble on for hours and not mind at all when Nastya doesn’t respond. I think she would also find the reliable cadence of its voice soothing, its speech patterns always consistent and steady.

I’ve talked about Jonny curling up against Nastya’s back while she works, but sometimes she wants to do that to someone too and Jonny doesn’t sit still long enough for her to get comfortable. Instead, when she’s feeling cuddly and can’t pin Jonny down for a nap, she usually tracks down Ivy. Ivy is calm and quiet and not judgemental, and she doesn’t mind at all if Nastya wants to cuddle her from behind. Sometimes Nastya will lay her head on Ivy’s lap and Ivy will just run her fingers through her hair and read whatever she has aloud. They don’t kiss often, but when they do, it’s long and lazy.

Raphaella is, of course, her favorite work buddy. They have SO MANY projects together, mixing Nastya’s mechanical expertise with Raph’s biomedical knowledge for truly interesting and often horrific results. There is a cyborg octokitten loose in the ship and no one can stop it. Raph is louder than Ivy and TS, more enthusiastic, but she’s also good at not directing too much intensity at Nastya specifically. Her lab is one of the places where Nastya really relaxes, and the two of them laugh and conspire a lot together. They also have A LOT of sex, filled with giggling and jokes and a frankly terrifying assortment of toys from Raph’s personal collection.

Marius, like Raphaella, is enthusiastic and intense but without Raph’s self-control. He can be really overwhelming for Nastya sometimes, but the flip side is that he’s also one of the most thoughtful and observant members of the crew. He recognizes when he pushes too far and when she’s getting stressed and upset, and he takes steps to fix it. One of their favorite bonding activities is actually massages; Marius is amazing with his hands and helps soothes the near-constant aches that Nastya lives with, and while he’s doing that, they both talk to each other about mechanics and giant robots and fun shit like that. When they have sex, it’s usually just playful teasing, a lot of nipping at each other and pushing. Alas, they are both bottoms.

Brian is in Nastya’s top three favorite crewmates, right next to Jonny and the Aurora, and he’s the most regular third when she’s with Jonny. Nastya absolutely adores cuddling with him, because he’s big enough that he can just wrap around her and the warmth of his body feels amazing against the cold of the metal in her veins, and sometimes they’ll just spend hours quietly cuddling or spooning or napping together. He’s the steadiest member of the crew, not as nice as other people think he is but not likely to start throwing grenades randomly, and she feels safe when she’s in his arms. He’s also a very good dom, gentle when she just needs a lap to rock on and rough when she wants to feel her life flash before her eyes.

Ashes and Gunpowder Tim are in the same camp of JUST GENERALLY A LOT and they’re usually just way too much for Nastya to handle without a buffer. She gets overwhelmed so easily around them, feeling like she’s drowning in the scent of gasoline and gunpowder and smoke and cigarettes, but she really does love them both. She just. . . . needs to be around them in very small quantities, and they get that. In terms of sex, things with both of them are complicated and they’re both too much for her on their own. Ashes is, as I’ve said before, the ultimate dom and they go hard and intense. Tim also likes things rough but in an entirely different direction, to the point where sex with him is violently animalistic. Together though, Ashes and Tim will focus on going after each other and that’s enough for Nastya to feel very happy and comfortable between them.

In general, Nastya really does adore the crew, she just needs space. On nights when they’re all cuddled up in a pile in the main common room, watching a movie from whatever planet just ceased existing, there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

It’s late and I’m running out of steam, but I hope this makes you happy, anon!

#nsft #polymechs #the mechanisms #nastya rasputina #Anonymous

24 notes · View notes

kaleidoscopek9 · 3 years

Text

ALRIGHT-

I've had this list of headcannons just sitting in my notes app of my phone and I wanna put it somewhere so 👀

(These are heavily inspired by what I could gather from the skele boys in @bonelyheartsclub! I just threw in a few of my own.)

-----------*

Sans

- Does a LOT of stargazing and has quite a few space-themed knicknacks and clothes in his room. He's got a telescope too!

- Dad jokes. Any time is prime dad joke time. He's never let an opportunity slip past him.

- He's an absolute prank master. You're considered lucky if you happen to avoid the ones he's planted around the house like bombs waiting to go off.

- He's cryptic as fuck. Always giving half-true answers to every question. Occasionally he may slip up and give you a brutally honest response, but that's only with the people he trusts most, and he finds being open to be very difficult.

- He's constantly referencing memes and vine quotes from days of yore. He practically has a database of every meme ever in his head, and he doesnt let it go to waste.

- Cuddling with him is basically a one way ticket to nap-town, and you constantly find yourself waking up to him smooshed against you on the couch after dozing off. For being a skeleton, he is a surprisingly comfortable snuggler.

-----------*

Papyrus

-So much baking and cooking. It's his favorite past time, and the kitchen never smells the same when he's done making whatever he's making in there (it's 12 times out of 10 pasta) And while his cooking may be sub-par, you never say no when he asks you to try his latest dish.

- He's always up to go shopping with you. It never matters where. Malls are his favorite, especially the big grand ones with fountains and huge windows. He makes it a point to bring spare cash because you KNOW he's going to ride the mini marry-go-round even if he can barely fit in the seats.

- You two love to binge watch cooking channels. Always discussing which foods would be the most fun to make, writing down recipies, and having a hell of a time trying to pause the show at the right points to get all the information down.

- Papyrus is notorious for game nights. He's always pulling out boards and cards that you've never heard of before and never starts a game until he's absolutely certain you know the rules. Winning of course, is always his prime goal when it comes to games, but if he senses you're on a particularly rough losing streak, he MAY slip up. Occasionally. Just enough so you can win a game or two. Or five.

-----------*

Blue

- Hyper as all hell. You give him a reasonable dose of sugar or caffeine and he could power an entire city for a few hours without breaking a sweat.

- If he had been in high school, Blue would have been a theater kid. He's always humming a tune from a Broadway show or Disney movie, and he's got a pretty good collection of songs on his brother's Spotify playlist.

- This guy will blast Steven Universe music at full volume he has no shame.

- If you are ever driving somewhere with him, an aux cord is a MUST. Singing in the car is a very frequent thing with you two, and you'll only get out after the song is over.

- He likes cryptids! Mothman is his favorite and he firmly believes he exists somewhere.

- He's your workout buddy. If he manages to drag you to the gym with him, that is.

- Blue hates seeing you down in the dumps, and is always trying to cheer you up with his quirky puns and jokes to get you smiling again.

- He'd be the best motivational poster ever. Whenever he picks up that you're going through a rough spot and falling behind on self-care, he knows just what to say to put the spark back in you again.

-----------*

Stretch

- Radiates goblin energy.

- A goddamn meme lord.

- He's made two or three widely known viral videos and nobody knows it was him.

- You need someone to go to an anime convention with? Stretch is your guy. He's god awful at planning stuff out, but he'll make sure you both have a good time, no matter what happens.

- He's really big into nerd culture, and he DMs for a dungeons and dragons game every week.

- He'll occasionally smoke, but he doesnt have lungs, so he does it more for shits and giggles than anything else.

- As lazy as he seems, he is very reliable. If he knows it's something important to you, he'll get it done. Chores though, he's a lot more iffy with.

- He really likes bees.

-----------*

Red

- Talks big talk, but he's actually a huge softie.

- He's basically a big pillow with sharp teeth that can curse.

- A nervous wreck.

- His brother shops at Hot Topic. He shops at Spencer's. Very convenient.

- He's a pretty big flirt and throws out little compliments and things to butter you up from time to time.

- If you take Red into a Dave and Busters he will win the most expensive prize at the booth in about 2 hours. (He knows how to cheat at every single game)

- He's a competitive gamer, and has a pretty impressive following on Twitch.

- He can go from loud and brash to quiet and insecure in a matter of moments, depending on the situation.

- He loves to bake, although it's something he will never be caught dead doing.

- Comfort is not his strong suit, but he will defend you without a second thought.

- He can be a little clingy and will text you now and again to ask what you're up to, just to ease his mind.

-----------*

Boss

- Professionalism is his game.

- The walking embodiment of Hot Topic.

- He loves to listen to rock and screamo music. He's also got a thing for Disney villain songs.

- You need some punk biker or vampiric goth fashion advice? Boss got ya.

- Skellator Man.

- Out of all the skeletons, Boss has the biggest ego.

- He hates admitting he's wrong. He would rather DIE than admit he's fucked up something.

- "I am not nice-"

- He could kill a man with his high heels.

- If it's got spikes he'll probably wear it.

- Tsundere. Tsundere. Tsundere. Tsundere. Tsu

- Did I mention he's a cold blooded tsundere.

-----------*

Nox

- Small angery man.

- He listens to a lot of classic and instrumental music. He finds it very sophisticated.

- Wakes up obscenely early in the morning. Always followed by a cup of the most bitter coffee on the planet.

- Comes up with the best insults. He could roast someone so hard that they'd dissolve into a pile of soot. He could glare at you and you'd cease to exist. He's that good.

- WILL step on you without remorse.

- Threatens to kill someone on a daily basis.

- Very rarely has spare time for himself. He's always keeping busy doing something.

- Loves dark, dry humor. A child falling off a swing will have him laughing for a good five minutes.

- Has a stone cold poker face.

- He might have a softer side to him. You may never know because of the walls he's built up around him.

-----------*

Rus

- He absolutely adores animals. He volunteers at the local animal shelter and plans on adopting every single dog there.

- Rus has a massive sweet tooth. Donuts are his favorite, and you can easily bribe him with anything sugar coated.

- A road trip master. You put him in a camper and he knows exactly where he's going and what he's doing.

- "Going off grid, fuck yeah- I pull out my credit cards and shred 'em."

- Hiking, camping and geocaching are some of his favorite things to do. He loves to explore the wilderness and it's like he has a built-in compass for finding his way.

- His ideal date is going to a Wal-Mart and causing absolute chaos by riding bikes around and tossing all of the inflatable balls from their displays.

- Cryptidcore energy.

- Rus loves watching Buzzfeed Unsolved and ghost huntings. He's a big fan of Supernatural and Stranger Things, too.

- Stutters and slurs his words a lot. He's got some speech impediments from the gold canines in his mouth.

- A bit lacking when it comes to social skills, but he can be extremely caring and sweet.

-----------*

Ash

- Very soft-spoken and awkward. He doesn't get much social interaction and is still figuring some things out.

- He's very self-aware of the wound in his head. Whenever he has to leave the house he wears some sort of hat to cover it up.

- Practically lives in his garden. He understands plants more than he does human beings, and he spends time daily tending to whatever he's growing.

- Him and his brother are both vegetarians, and the smell or sight of meat makes them both feel sick to themselves.

- Has trouble sleeping due to his reoccurring nightmares. He will often sit in his garden late at night to help calm himself.

- Radiates soft energy. He would absolutely give the best hugs out of all the skeletons.

- Very touch-starved. Physical affection is something he rarely recieves, and he probably lingers with touches a lot longer than he should.

- Unintentionally makes God-teir jokes without realizing it.

----------*

Poplar

- Very well-educated in a lot of things. He really likes stocking up on useless factoids and making up his own just to mess with people.

- He answers Jeopardy questions with concerning accuracy.

- He enjoys going out to eat, and he's always up to try fancy foods.

- He likes photography and reading. He is well into the Harry Potter series.

- Poplar is prepared for anything at any time. A lot of stuff doesnt phase him at all, and it's difficult to catch him off-guard.

- He's willing to try anything new, once.

- Always willing to help out with schoolwork if he thinks you're seriously struggling with it.

- He's always carrying around small planners and notebooks to write in so he can keep track of things.

#long post #headcannons #hc #bhc #bhc headcannons #bonely hearts club #like i said #most of these are from the game #i just have a very specific image of these guys in my head and i wanted to put it down somewhere

38 notes · View notes

dweetwise · 4 years

Note

Hello, can I request a headcannon with the killers that has s/o that has a German Shepard as a pet and would take to trail as to protect and guard s/o.

[yes you can i love dogs asdfdg this made me so happy ;w;]

sort of crack what else is new

Killers X reader with German Shepherd

Evan will pretend to be disgusted by doggo and avoid you two. “Real men don’t care about animals,” his father’s words echo in his head. Still, he won’t place any bear traps the entire trial out of concern for puppy’s safety. Please take the dog to meet him properly after the trial, he’ll warm up to the idea of pets in no time.

Philip loves animals. When he rings his bell and uncloaks to approach you, puppy is spooked and he’ll be so disappointed! He’ll throw the entire trial to hang out with you two, trying to build trust with the dog, and is so happy when it finally lets him pet it!

Max is, um... ABORT MISSION OK. He has some unresolved issues with animals (see: cow tree incident) and you’ll need to hide puppy and give Max a very stern talking to before introducing them. Once Max realizes animal = fren, he’ll become instant besties with puppy!

Sally won’t be overjoyed but is willing to put up with the dog for your sake. “Can you stop barking, I’m trying to have a conversation with my partner,” she’ll scold the dog when it, understandably, is confused by a floating ghost lady approaching its master.

Michael ignores the dog entirely. It could chomp down on his leg and he’d just keep walking. One time, you were whisked away to a trial while you were visiting Haddonfield with your dog, only to return after to find Michael laying motionless on the floor with the dog sprawled out on his face, Michael refusing to move to acknowledge the animal.

Lisa immediately lunges for the dog upon seeing it. “LISA NO DON’T EAT —” you start, when you see she’s just hugging the puppy tightly, while it’s frozen in place and very confused why there’s a tiny person covered in mud clinging to it. “I used to have a dog when I was a child!” she’ll excitedly tell you while giving head pats to the dog with her non-taloned hand.

Anna will look at puppy, cocking her head while humming, with the dog mirroring the action to listen to her lullaby. “You bring food?” she finally asks you, pointing at the animal with her axe. “NO! He’s my friend!” you’re quick to explain. Anna ends up training the dog to locate survivors in trials, and now neither of you are allowed to bring it into trials with you anymore.

Herman... oh lord have mercy. Herman giggles maniacally while approaching the animal, shock charging in his hand. “DON’T,” you warn sternly, protectively stepping in front of the growling doggo. He huffs in disappointment, before shocking you instead. Your scream is more from frustration than pain, but puppy launches himself at Herman, biting into the killer’s arm. “Hmm... interesting reaction,” Herman muses to himself, lifting his bloodied arm (dog still hanging on) and not seeming to care about the pain.

Bubba is terrified of the dog. Even when you manage to get him to pet it after gently coaxing both him and the dog, his hand is shaking. It’s going to take a lot of work to get him to trust such a ‘scary-looking’ animal.

Frank thinks German Shepherds are cool as fuck and fit his ‘badass’ image. He’ll often sneak puppy away from you, prancing around with it in the killers’ camp or trials to try to look tough. That being said, he’s secretly a huge softie and you’ll often find him cuddling the dog in his sleep when he thinks no one will see.

Joey just wants to chill with you and puppy. He’ll let the dog climb all over him and give him sloppy puppy kisses, and he’ll carry the dog around in his lap like a chihuahua. If your dog didn’t sleep in your bed before, too bad it does now because “He’s a family member and is not sleeping on the floor!” according to your boyfriend.

Julie is more of a cat person, but she’s more than happy to play with the dog. When she’s trowing the same stick for the 35th time in their game of fetch, you sneak off to repair a generator and neither of them notice.

Susie... well. “Who’s a good boy? A-who’s a good boy!? You are! Yes you are!” She loves the dog almost as much as she does you and will be extremely sad if you ever visit her without bringing your furry companion with you.

Danny won’t notice the dog at first, sneaking up to you in a trial and smacking your ass playfully. When you yelp in surprise, puppy growls and pounces on the killer, tacking him to the ground. Danny is screaming bloody murder while thrashing under the animal, while the dog is not even doing anything, just looking at him like ‘wtf is wrong with this dude’. It takes you a while to get puppy off of him because you’re laughing so hard.

Caleb is pretty cool with the concept of you having a dog. He doesn’t particularly like pets, but is willing to put up with it. Though he will snark at you to get the dog under control every time it starts growling when he kisses you or if, god forbid, it dares to jump on the bed with you.

Adiris will be like “Ah, a creature made to serve me”. She takes its leash and just... prances around in the trial, puppy following obediently behind her. When she gives the dog back, she’ll praise you for training it so well and give you a big smooch.

Kazan will be surprisingly accepting of the dog, as the most honorable samurai of his time had canine companions. It’s not the same breed, but hey, can’t be picky in the fog. Prepare for a couple of arguments when he wants to teach the dog to maul survivors and you just want it to be a cuddly friend.

Rin is wary of puppy and the feeling is mutual. She's pretty misinformed about the breed, but will be reassured when she sees how well-trained puppy is. Some mischief ensues when puppy once mistakes her floating leg as a new toy and takes off with it, causing an angry Rin to phase after it to catch up.

Pyramid Head will just stare at the dog, then tilt his headpiece in an unimpressed manner as if to say “Really?”. He’ll come around once he realizes puppy makes a fantastic guard dog, and he’ll let it roam the halls of the school outside of trials to look for intruders while he focuses on spending more time with you.

Amanda vibes with the breed being misunderstood and instantly wants to be a puppy mom. She’ll make a spiked collar for the dog, despite your protests. Will make a very pretty picture laying on the couch chilling with the dog, wearing her leather jacket and puppy wearing his new studded leather collar.

(Bonus: Clown running as fast as his chubby legs will carry him while Freddy is getting mauled by the dog into a bloody pile next to him. Clown slips on a pile of dog poop and the animal catches up to him, lunging for his throat. A small distance away, you’re watching the spectacle unfold with Quentin who high-fives you with a smug grin.)

(Bonus 2: The Demogorgon finds you in a trial, but puppy jumps in front of you and growls at the killer. Demo screeches, opening his maw wide and causing puppy to slink down in submission and whimper pathetically. Demo closes his mouth and cocks his head. Puppy starts wagging his tail and curious butt sniffing ensues between the dog and the killer.)

233 notes · View notes

halo-jpeg · 4 years

Note

And for my second late night question! For billy+Stu, Michael, bubba, Jason, and pyramid head. How would they feel if their s/o worked constantly, like 2-3 jobs and seemed to always be working, they just don’t like being taken care of and they work for all they want. Would it be an issue for them? Or would they Accept Their very independent S/O

Omg y e S

Billy & Stu, Michael Myers, Bubba Sawyer, Jason Voorhees and Pyramid Head with an Independent Workaholic S/O

Billy & Stu

Billy and Stu don’t have a lot of free time since they’re usually busy with their hunting, so they aren’t very happy that you’re always working when they finally have time to spend with you.

They try to support you and your goals, but cuddle piles aren’t cuddle piles with only two sad boys :(

Sometimes they’ll come and visit you while at work, asking if there was any way you could possibly take the rest of the day off, though they know the answer will almost always be a no.

They would do their very very best to line their schedules up with yours so they can see you as often as possible. Again, they visit you at work whenever they can, and though that isn’t the same as a dinner date or movie night, it’s enough.

They aren’t 100% okay with how busy you are, but they accept it because they understand that you’re fighting towards your life goals, and need money to do that.

Michael Myers

Michael either has 0 free time or infinite free time depending on the day. He has no schedule, but the Shape living inside of him sure does, and it’s very unpredictable.

In other words, he’s usually around when you’re finally off of work, but some days you’ll come home and he’ll have vanished, taking your sharpest, largest kitchen knife as well.

When he gets really needy and clingy (rare, but possible) he’ll show up behind your work building, waiting for someone to leave a door open. Then, he’ll sneak silently inside, unnoticed by everyone except for you, who’s always subconsciously looking out for him.

He always finds some way to get enough time with you, whether you know he’s there or not. Some days, just watching you work is enough quality time for him.

Overall, he doesn’t mind how much you work. He understands entirely, and he’s busy too.

Bubba Sawyer

Bubba has quite a few chores to do at home, but he’s grown so used to them that he can finish them perfectly in an hour or two, leaving the entire rest of the day for him to enjoy.

He loves you with his entire heart, so it breaks that heart when you’re gone for the large majority of the day.

It hurts him even more when you come home too exhausted to spend some time with him, heading right to bed with little words and little affection.

You can make up for the lack of time with simple cuddles on the days where you aren’t drop-dead-exhausted. Any affection from you is enough, as long as he knows you still love him. He’s waiting and waiting for the day that you finally come home saying you didn’t need to work so much anymore.

He isn’t okay with you being gone all day every day. It breaks his poor big heart and he misses you always, but he sets his own needs aside for your sake.

Jason Voorhees

Jason is always terrified for your well being when you aren’t right there with him, so you being at work has him constantly worried. Because of this, he is often more sloppy with his hunting, a large chunk of his mind sitting worried about you and not the teenagers.

In the cold seasons when no one comes to camp, he’s alone all day, and he hates it. He’s always been alone, why is he sad now? He misses you all the time, waiting like a puppy for your return.

When you do come back, even if you aren’t tired, he’ll take the best care of you, having a meal ready (after you teach him to cook) and a bath prepared, so you can get in bed as soon as you need.

During the days when you’re away and he isn’t hunting, he’ll make you gifts, whittling stuff out of wood or gathering flowers for bouquets to make up for you absence and assure you that he still loves you.

He deals with your absence like the big baby he is, but he deals with it nonetheless because you deserve it. He wishes you could stay home more, but that just makes the times when you are home much more special.

Pyramid Head

In Silent Hill, there obviously isn’t paying jobs, but instead you spend your days endlessly gathering supplies. P.H. follows you around wherever you go, helping you carry things and keeping you safe.

Since you don’t have a workplace where huge, murdering pyramid-headed beasts aren’t allowed, he spends all of his time with you despite how much you’re out ‘working’.

The one thing that gets in his way is your independence. He wants someone to care for, and finally he has someone he feels the crippling need to protect, but you claim you don’t need his constant mothering. He’s almost tempted to give you a day unguarded so you can see how dangerous this place really is when everything isn’t cowering away from him.

He’d never let that happen though, it would be much too risky. He ignores your annoyance and insists that he stays with you, at least to help you with your supplies searching.

He learns to deal with your resistance to his protecting, and soon you stop insisting you don’t need him. After one cocky beast who thinks he has a chance against P.H. you realize that you would actually die without him.

#Michael Myers #michael myers headcanons #jason voorhees #jason voorhees headcanons #bubba sawyer #bubba sawyer headcanons #billy and stu #billy & stu #billy loomis headcanons #stu macher headcanons #pyramid head #pyramid head heacanons #billy loomis #stu macher #slasher #slashers #slashers headcanons #slasher headcanons

81 notes · View notes

jason-the-mommas-boy · 4 years

Text

Ignore (Jason Voorhees x Reader)

Prompt / Summary - Jason’s a dog. That’s it. Your boyfriend is a dog. / Prompt from the 2020 February prompt list made by @ / hiddendreamer67 (yes ill be doing all of them eventually!!)

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: I just wanted to write fluff and get this done before I worked on anymore requests. now i sleep

Jason doesn’t like being ignored.

He can only assume the reason why is because he rarely accepted those into his life...and maybe it was because he was constantly ignored and bullied as a kid by his peers. It always put him in a bad mood, but honestly, anything that reminded him of his childhood made him upset. Besides his mommy, of course.

What makes him upset this afternoon is that he knows you, his sweet sweet s/o, wasn’t ignoring him. You were just busy with your life, your actual outside life. The life outside of these woods. You couldn’t be around all the time, like how he couldn’t be home at the cabin all the time. You and him had responsibilities.

He knows this.

Jason just misses you so much. All he really wants is to have you here, in his arms, and listen to you talk for hours. He wants you by his side, feeding his attention-starved heart. Oh, and obviously, give you the attention you desire as well. He loves you and would do just about anything you asked of him. Sometimes you didn’t need to ask, just saying that you would like this certain thing would get him going on a hunt for it, whether from a camper or from his piles of stuff he’s taken from his victims. Surely, he has it somewhere.

It’s been a week and it feels like it’s been years. A week without you. Without your voice, soft touch, praises, and hugs!! That’s so hard for him to deal with and he has to deal with it anyways. Yes, he has been sulking every single day for seven days. In between the consistent checks for intruders, he’d just go back to sitting on the couch, longingly looking at the fireplace, wondering if he were to start a fire, would he feel better? You liked the fireplace and only lit it up for you, maybe it would fill your missing presence? He decided against it in the end, figuring it would be a waste of wood. Mind over matter. He can wait.

Oh, but he misses you!!! Your warmth!! Your beating heart when he would cuddle up with you! How small your hands were compared to his! No, actually, how small you were in general compared to him. You were so cute? He was sure if he had a beating heart, you would be able to hear it from across the lake.

Gosh, he’s embarrassed of himself, how did he ever get anything done before you came along and stumbled into his life? Actually, how has he gotten anything done this week? A mystery that he can’t even solve.

So, here he was. Pouting and sulking on his bed like a dog waiting for their owner to come back home. It’s colder without you here, he notices, and he sighs. Were you going to come back at all? You’ve never been gone for this long before. Maybe he was just getting clingy...maybe. Can you blame him though? The only other person in his life to show him love and show that they cared was his mommy, but she isn’t here anymore.

Ringring--ring--ringring--ringring-ring.

He perks up. The bells along the roof of his underground path were chiming in unison to signify someone was walking about above. But they had gone off in a particular pattern, your pattern! It was agreed that you should start to use his contraptions around the camp to signify that you were on your way, but use a certain pattern so he knew it was you and he wouldn’t have to be stalking around with a machete in hand.

Jason stands up, only crouching slightly to not hit his head against the roof, and hurried quickly out of his tunnels. Peaking out of the main entrance from the little trapdoor in his house for just a moment, he pushes himself up and out of the hole in the floor before shutting it off. He notices the stars glistening against the dark night through the windows.

Okay, okay, he was going to need to start a fire in the fireplace. You were probably freezing and were going to need to be kept warm for your entire stay. He wasn’t going to have it any other way, of course. Basically throwing logs into the fireplace, he starts up a fire and making sure there was enough wood to last for a little bit. The sudden warmth burning on his decaying skin only reminds him of you! Oh, he was so excited to see your cute little face again.

After he was happy with the fire roaring to life, he took his spot on the couch, patiently waiting. He waited all this time, he can wait a few more minutes for your arrival.

He stares back down at the fire, watching the way the flames danced with one another.

He can wait.

He huffs, growing impatient.

Just as he was about to poke at the fire with a stick to cease his boredom, he hears a knock on the front door.

He practically raced to the door with long strides in his walk, waiting just one moment longer before opening up the door to reveal you!! You in all of your cute glory!!

Before he could wave you a little hello as his usual greeting, you jumped up to wrap your arms around his neck, hugging him. Oh, you missed him a lot this week, but you were just so busy. By the time you had gotten home each night, you were just so exhausted that you couldn’t bring yourself to drive to the camp and walk your way around the traps littered about.

Jason, obviously, welcomed your hug with welcome arms! Happily hugging you back, making sure to not squeeze you too hard but just enough to let you know that was just as happy to see you.

“Oh, Jason. I’m sorry I was gone for so long!” Though your voice was mostly muffled against his chest, he understood every word. He pats your back, you didn’t need to explain anything to him. You were here now. “I missed you so much! To make up for my absence, I got you something!”

You let the hug last a few more seconds before pulling away, not allowing Jason to stand there in confusion. You presented to him a somewhat big teddy bear for him to take, gesturing it towards him.

“And...y’know, you’re always getting stuff for me so I thought what if I got you something too!”

Oh no. Jason felt like his chest was going to implode. This was so adorable and thoughtful? He can’t help himself and you’re brought into another hug, lifting you up off the ground and squishing the teddy bear between the both of you. He loves you so much, did you know that? Of course you did, he showed it in every single way he could.

He puts you back down gently after a second and tenderly grabs the teddy bear from your grasp, taking a closer look at it. Nothing special, a cuddle buddy that was just about the size of his torso. Oh my god, he loves it.

“I noticed that you keep a really old teddy bear on your bed and, don’t take this in the wrong way! I just thought maybe you would like a new one? They could be friends!” You explain, stifling your giggles in between your words as you spoke. The way your boyfriend was absolutely fawning over the stuffie was just so cute.

There’s just something so absolutely adorable seeing this giant of a man, this incredible monster that could crack someone’s head with his bare hands, gush over a teddy bear that had no chance in winning the height contest.

Jason takes a mental note to get you something just as wonderful by the next time you visit. It didn’t even occur to him to get you anything before this, all he seriously wanted was you by his side and now he got this? There was no way he was going to lose this gifting battle!

With the teddy bear in one hand, he uses the other to tilt your head up and he squats down just a little to give a mock kiss to your forehead. The hockey mask was the only thing stopping it from being a real kiss. You don’t mind though, you are more than happy to respect his wishes and privacy. Well, until you wanted some actual kisses.

You nuzzle up against his mask in response and step back and close the door behind you. You gently grab his hand, intertwining his fingers with yours and lead him to the couch. You’re thankful for the warm fire that sat so close to the comfortable resting place.

You smile, sitting down on a cushion and, just before Jason could take his spot next to you, you stop him. “Can you get us a blanket to share, please?”

He nods, running a thumb over your knuckles before letting your hand go, placing the lil teddy bear beside you, and heads off to another room in the cabin, the loud thump thump of his boots following him.

Just as quick as he left, he was back in mere seconds with a throw blanket, happily placing it over you before he finally(!!) sat down next to you. Per usual, you initiated any contact, moving yourself to sit in his lap so the blanket covered the both of you better.

“Thank you~!” You purred, wrapping your arms around his torso in an attempt for a hug.

Jason smiled down at you, being careful when he hugs you back (to make sure to not break any bones!!) and patting your head in response. Anything for you!

Hugs with your boyfriend were always the best. They were just so soothing and comforting, and even if the gentle giant didn’t produce any body heat, they were warm in their own special way. It was the best way for the both of you to bond without needing to communicate anything. Jason was a touch-starved baby, but he was your touch-starved baby and would do absolutely anything to get positive attention from you.

You smile, sitting up in his lap and moving your hands to rest on his shoulders. “I missed my sweet, handsome man so much...did you miss lil ‘ole me?”

Jason nods, of course he missed you! You were all he could think about the moment you left! He doesn’t know how to properly state this, a little frustrated that he could not speak about his feelings. Instead, to better express his emotions, he places his hand over where his heart is and moves his hand to the same spot on your chest.

The gesture still didn’t hide the fact that he was a flustered mess, any praise or compliment from you would leave him feeling embarrassed.

“Awe...I love you too, sweetie.” You place your hands over his, gently squeezing it and idly playing with his sleeves.

How many times was he going to find himself thinking you’re the cutest thing his eyes have ever laid on this evening? Too many times, though he won’t complain.

You bite your lip, tilting your head up at your boyfriend. “Take the mask off? Juuuust a little? For me?”

Jason stiffens at the question. Oh, he loves you so so so much, he would do practically anything for you without question. But showing his disfigured face? Absolutely not-

“How am I supposed to give the man I love the kisses and attention he deserves?” You push yourself up to be closer to his face, planting a few soft smooches on the mask to help coax his growing anxiety. “Please? We can start off slow, you don’t even have to take it off completely if you prefer! Just enough for me to kiss you!”

He hesitates, unsure of how to answer. He doesn’t want to disappoint you!! That’s the last thing he wants to do, but...As long as he doesn’t have to show his entire face tonight, he guesses it’s okay.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” You smile, patting his shoulder to reassure him. You didn’t want to pressure him at all! If anything, you want to raise his self-esteem! Who cares if he has an ‘ugly’ face when he has a heart of gold?

The masked killer only shakes his head in response, giving a light pat to your head. He pushes the hockey mask up a little bit, enough to show his lips, but not far enough to fall off his head or show anything else. It obscured his view a little bit, but that was okay as long as it his flustered face was still hidden.

Oh gosh, he was really nervous. Completely prepared (but not really) for a disgusted reaction and for you to leave. He just got you back and didn’t want you gone so soon! He was scared beyond belief of the idea that you wouldn’t like the small part you saw and consider your relationship with him over.

He knows you’re not that vain but the paranoia is eating at him.

This complete dorkus. Absolute cutie-pie. Always worrying over nothing. From what you can see, he looks just fine. Sure, decaying skin isn’t optimal but who cares!

Jason really couldn’t see you, not really sure to what you were up to as he felt you move around in his lap. He jumps at a new sensation he never had the benefit of feeling before, your lips on his!

The kiss only lasted maybe for a second or so before you pull away, laughing softly at your dazed boyfriend. “Was that so bad, handsome?” Another kiss, on the corner of his lips this time.

He smiles, tilting his head slightly. The feeling was very nice, he couldn’t deny that. It made his chest feel all fuzzy, erasing the anxieties he was having with himself before. Would this be a regular occurance if he didn’t wear his mask all the time?

Testing the new waters, he leans down and mimics what you did, pressing his lips against your own. He tenses up when you kiss him back! This was a totally new thing for him, the kisses he got from his mommy back then were only on the forehead.

You break the kiss, smiling at how flustered and dazzled the gentle giant was acting. You were a little frazzled yourself. “I’m glad you like it.” You coo, “Thank you for that.”

He nods, more than happy to have pleased you! With a smile, he scoops you up in his arms and keeps you close, close enough for you to keep smothering his lower face with kisses and attention. It’s what he deserves after all!

If it was up to him, he’d stay like this for the rest of his life, holding you close so he can hear your heartbeat and take in all of the attention you were giving him like a puppy.

If it was up to you, you would show every last inch of him how much you love him. That could wait for another day, though.

#jason voorhees #jason voorhees x reader #friday the 13th #slashers #slashers x reader #slasher x reader #slashers fandom #fanfiction #jason voorhees imagines #feb prompts #500+#1000+#1500+#2000+#2500+#ignore #narrator's writing

221 notes · View notes

magic5ball · 3 years

Text

Nature Trail to Hell Arc V: Back into Hell (XI)

Chapter 11: The Super Awesome Epic Final Battle Of ULTIMATE DESTINY VS. Against Bob-Sardoth!

Take a moment to imagine an episode of Spongebob. No not one of the crappy modern episodes- an old one, the sort where you only ever saw half the episode you were so busy laughing your lungs out. Went by pretty fast, didn’t it? Now imagine a single still frame of that cartoon, flying past your screen.

It took Bob-Sardoth less than half that time to bury us five feet into a wall.

(Seriously, how well did you expect kids to do against a millennia old elder god? Well, one that isn’t an evil clown, at least.)

Anyways, Bob was laughing maniacally, surrounded by darkness as we were lodged in a wall like some crappy Egyptian hieroglyphics. Still, like my Mom always says, no matter how rough things get, there’s no reason you can’t end on a high note. So that’s exactly what I planned to do.

“Hilda, I’m sorry I ditched you at this camp with your evil Mom so I could play video games.”

And do you know what Hilda said?

She told me “Wonky Watt, I have a confession: as a space fart, I can see all things at once. Basically, I saw everything you went through, just to get back to camp. And you’re… alright, as far as boys go.”

It was the single nicest thing anyone outside of Mom had ever said to me!

Slowly, I tried to put my hand in hers. She withdrew like it was made of maggots.

“Sorry, but I can also see it’s been over a week since you last washed your hands. No way that’s happening.”

And that’s how it would have ended, with us being crushed to death by Bob Sardoth’s tendrils of darkness…

If a certain someone hadn’t chosen that particular moment to crash the archdemon’s apocalyptic party.

Light poured into the room from the massive crater that had formed in the roof. Plumes of sawdust blocked our vision. When it finally cleared, Bob lay beneath a pile of rubble. And who would be on top of this pile but

Shel. MOTHERFORKING. Silverstein!

“That’s right, Motherforkers!” Shel cried, flexing atop the rubble so hard his puffy magical girl sleeves exploded, leaving the lingering scent of smoke on his biceps.

Then he pointed a big, fat middle finger at me.

“And YOU, Watterson Tostig, are going back to Hell, and you are going to forking like it!”

I rolled my eyes. The guy was starting to sound like my Dad! (At least, what my Dad would have sounded like if he actually paid attention to me. Though little me assumed if he ever did, he would be like the ones on TV.)

And to put the moldy cherry on top of this crappy camp sundae, I couldn’t even move proper! Every time I commanded a limb, it would just shrug and go back to sleep, or whatever it is limbs do.

All I could do was wait as Shel walked over my dying body…

And pull me right out of the wall!

Next thing I knew there was only a Watt shaped hole in the wall where I’d been, my head now under Shel’s boot. It took him a bit of time to make heads or tails of why I was alive, but when he did, boy did he have a fit!

“Great! Just forking great! I track you all the way here, have you right where I want you, but now you suddenly decide to become alive again?! Now how am I supposed to get promoted back to archangel?!”

The old poet looked to his left, then to his right. He started rubbing his magical little hands together like he had an evil plan. Or was just cold.

I tried to run, only to find my malnourished, body couldn’t even do that right!

Now Shel was grinning, an ugly half-moon that could have put the devil himself to shame. “Of course, I could just kill you now, and nobody would know the difference!”

“No you can’t! In case you didn’t notice, I’ve got a friend now. And if she watches you kill me, she’ll tell all of heaven of wherever you Angelinos come from!” I bluffed.

“Nice try, Watterson Tostig, but you know adults never trust a goth girl! Especially angel adults. Which is all of them!”

“Actually, I didn’t know that.”

“Too bad, you f*cking loser. Now prepare to-“

“WAIT!”

Both of us turned to see Hilda, now dislodged from the wall, coughing up sawdust.

“Mr. Silverstein, this might surprise you, but right beneath us is none other than the notorious arch demon BOB-SARDOTH! One of the most wanted hellspawn on the planet!”

Shel spat right into my mouth. I learned a valuable lesson that moment: no matter how famous you are or how many kids books you’ve written, no matter how many planes of existence you’ve ascended or how many great battles you’ve fought, your spit will always taste like the spit of a weenie, and nothing will ever change that.

“As if that will distract me from the call of justice!” he laughed the way my Mom does after she’s pulled five all-nighters in a row.

Hilda got real stern after that. “Mr. Silverstein, I’m a big fan of yours. Read every single book you’ve written. So I know that despite your stupid pious veneer, you crave fame, just like everyone else. And imagine how famous you’ll get after everyone discovers you’ve captured the notorious BOB-SARDOTH! So don’t beat around the bush and start helping me dig!”

Shel tried to stab me, but in the end the lure of notoriety was too great for him. He flung rubble like it was Styrofoam, reaching Ms. Hoebag’s body in record time.

With one mighty fist he pushed his entire fist down the helpless counselor’s throat, yanking out what could only be described as an unholy mix of Furby and Donald Trump’s hair. Thankfully, Shel used his magical staff to exorcise the demon before its’ sheer ugliness drove me insane.

Then that same staff was lodged into my chest again.

“Now, prepare to DIE!”

“But we got BOB!” screamed Hilda, “What more do you want with him?!”

“Silence, fool! This little forking turd has been a pin up my butt all summer, and now, he’s gonna get his comeuppance! Karma’s a b!tch, a$$holes!”

Unfortunately for Shel, he was right on the money.

Because at that moment, a hideous pink mass from outer space referred to simply as ‘Salisbury Steak’ burst in, drawn by the scent of immortal poet flesh. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t have time to warn Shel as the ooze absorbed him, and in a scene that will be scarred into my retinas until the day I die, consumed his soul! The only reason I was spared I think, is because my bony was just too bony for anybody to find appetizing, not even that slimy abomination.

Hilda stood stock still right next to me, just as mind blown as I was.

But before I could do anymore internal introspection on the whole incident, there was a thunderclap of hands. A large, meaty palm gripped my shoulder.

“SALISBURY STEAK! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!”

I didn’t even need to turn around to see who it was.

“I can’t believe it! Eating without saying grace! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

First time I’d ever heard her angry. I mean, I always figured she had some pent up frustration, but thinking it in your head and seeing it in the flesh were totally different things. Somehow, the Steak took it worse. It morphed its’ gelatinous flesh into a hand, index finger pointed at yours truly!

“Why, thank you for pointing out the problem, Mr. Cuddles! I’ll have some special scented cinnamon roll stickers for you as soon as you clean up this mess.”

Before she finished, the Steak (Mr. Cuddles, apparently) was already dissolving rubble in his gelatinous body.

“As for YOU TWO, I’ll be seeing you in my office!”

#My writing #Nature Trail To Hell #salisbury steak #shel silverstein #summer camp

1 note · View note