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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 3 years

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It’s The Avengers (03x13)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 13: That One Stranger

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: eep sorry

Word Count: last weekend was a blast!! My cousins, my brother’s best friend, all of us gathered and karaoked while drunk. Bro’s bestie even brought dad in for a song and two and broke a few glasses coz he was THAT drunk. Poor dude even apologised for that.

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

The camera was coloured in darkness when it heard a troubled and tired whine. It took a second or two to come out of someone's backpack- quite possibly Javier's- to record you nearly lying over a rhino-like alien with a dinosaur-like tail. Your eyes looked sad and frustrated, your limbs tired- hanging on either side of the slow creature carrying on its own pace. A scarf was thrown over your head that ended up covering your face, making the camera shift towards the tall figure of Loki walking beside the new transportation service. His figure- with the usual black jeans and equally black shirt- was covered in a cloak that protected him from the harsh rays of the neighbouring star. "They're gone. Stop whining," he ordered without even looking at you. "The only breathing insane person you need is me."

Lulu, who was sitting over your back now, was enjoying the languid bumpy ride through the desert that was filled with little crowds around the oasis -found around every two kilometres- while his camera recorded Javier sitting on his rhino facing you guys. You pulled the scarf away from your face and pouted, letting your face rest in your palms. "But they are all so cute." A blink later you turned your eyes towards Loki and smirked. "OoooOoooh!-" you deepened your voice- "'The only breathing insane person you need is me'-" and then squirmed out loud- "you naughty-naughty. You teasing me. You naughty-naughty!" Loki turned to face you, his steps so in sync that he was right next to your face the whole time his eyes kept yours captured. "What exactly is it that made my words tease you, darling?" All the playful giggle vanished as soon as it had come. You felt your body straighten at that smirk running wild over his lips while Javier's camera caught the change in the shade of your face.

You: *annoyed* You have to be really careful how you go about joking around with Loki 'cause that son of a bitch can turn anything into something sexual. *looks at the camera* *feels a shiver go down your body*

Loki: It is *stresses* so easy to make Y/N uncomfortable. All I have to do is make her think I am thinking something impermissible and then sit back to watch her fumble. *chuckles* It's one of my many talents. *feels a confidence boost*

"You are so annoying sometimes," you muttered under your breath while scratching an itch on the back of your neck. "Sometimes I forget you get a high out of making people miserable." "Oh, no. The high is solely out of annoying you," Loki pointed out innocently. Grabbing one end of the scarf, you flipped it in the air to smack Loki's back with it. "You do not deserve any of the lava cakes I make in the future!" "Thank the Norns. They kept giving me the worst pains." "You sonova-" Another flick of your scarf was easily caught by the God to pull you towards him. You nearly fell on his chest if not for your hands landing on those pecs first.

You: *mouth opened in an 'o'* *blinks slowly* I think I grabbed his boobies. *purses lips* *thinks for a long moment* *camera pans in* *raises brows* those are some really hard boobies.

"What." Even when you were sitting on the rhino- who came to a standstill on its own at the moment, clearly sensing some heat in the moment- Loki did not have to bend his beck even a smidge to stare right into your soul. "What," you spat back a bit hesitantly, trying your best to fume, taking your hands away from his body to hide them somewhere before they were executed for their crimes. "You are being quite bold these days," he commented while wrapping the scarf around his hand, never letting his gaze falter. "I was always bold-" you shrugged- "especially when it came to anything that had to do with you." Loki chuckled. And licked his lips. The camera caught the one strong inhale you took in. "What did you expect would happen in the long run? That I would go all soft and mushy on you like those fangirls you have on earth? Stand outside your home and shout-" "Loki?" The voice wasn't yours. You could never carry that kind of sultry weight in your throat even if you wanted to. It felt like it had come with the wind. Or maybe an echo? It wasn't until you looked at Javier's camera that you looked behind you and found a woman dressed in red standing within inches of you, giving you a mini heart attack, leading to one great fall. Loki could have broken your fall if he wanted to but from the look in his eyes, he was stuck on the woman he was seeing standing a few feet away from him. Lulu's camera caught this woman perfectly. From every angle, she looked human. Her pale skin was akin to a glass moulded in the shape of a Goddess. Her thin lips were coloured a shade of purple. Her eyes a shade of blue that was darker than usual. They were less of an ocean and more of a pool hidden in the caverns that were bottomless and unexplorable. A red cloak covered her head- except for a few strands of silver hair- and the rest of her body. It was not hard to miss for the cameras recording a couple of things that happened in a little span of time; like the slipping of your scarf from Loki's hands, the rhinos excusing themselves from the scene, the nervous fluffing up of Lulu at the sight of this stranger, the sudden chill in the air in the middle of the desert making the animals- and you- shiver. On top of that, the piercing rays of the nearest star seemed to get dull by the second till the camera realised there were clouds gathering above them out of bloody nowhere.

"Is that really you? Loki...son of Odin...and son of Laufey?" "It's Freya," you whispered, internally correcting this stranger who was visibly making you quite uncomfortable. "It has been a while." She completely ignored you if she heard that. Her smile seemed to stretch from one ear to another at the sight of the God- who was evidently the only thing she wanted to see. "Aellae." It was not the name itself that produced the moment but the way it came out to make you turn towards Loki.

You: *frown at the void* It was almost like he was recalling something he had...lost. Like that one book that you repeatedly read and then it just disappeared one day only for you to find out that you had yourself kept it in an ultimate secret place that you yourself forgot about. So, when you find it you feel guilty for facing it again. *breathless* *camera pans in* *looks at Javier* does this make sense? *blinks at Javier who is signing something* *frowns harder* What do you mean why it's gotten me all worked up? I mean *stutters and points in the distance* *camera pans in Loki and Aellae standing in the distance looking at each other and not really talking much* W-who knows what's the history there. Like is she a friend or foe? Or a fr-o. *camera pans back on your face* *tsks* of course, this doesn't make sense. None of this does. *looks at the pair and crosses her arms* *fumes at no one in particular*

"I thought I-" "Lost me?" Aellae simply smiled. "You should know better than that. After all, it is me, my love." There was no hesitation in the movement of your eyes when you looked at Loki for an answer to that statement. If it wasn't for the brilliant observation of this talented boy named Javier, one would not have caught the slight movement of his eyes when he wanted to glance at you from his peripheral vision while taking in a lungful. "My love," you stressed that last word to make sure Loki understood the question scratching beneath the sarcasm. There was a slight roll of his eyes followed by him completely closing them for one elongated moment. "I have been waiting for this day," Aellae continued, making a part of you itch for completely ignoring your presence, "when I finally found you again." The tilt of her head and that hollow gaze that tried to be soft gave her an eerie touch. "And to think I was only living on your memories till now." Aellae took a step forward and stopped when she found the God taking the lead with this one. In this situation, the angle mattered a lot. Because from where Lulu stood- right on your shoulder- it looked as if this stranger had taken a step where could she step right where the distance between her and you two was the same. From where Javier stood, his camera saw Loki step towards Aellae while completely blocking you from the boy's view. But what he did record was Loki bringing forward his hands for her. That hollowness in her eyes suddenly swirled into an ounce of mild ecstasy. when she put her hands in his and felt his thumbs rest on top of the back of her palms. "It has been one long while," he concluded, forcing Javier to walk- with quite the struggle- in the sand to pan in on this confusion fused with this piercing hint of disappointment on your face.

"I'm sorry," you sputtered, "come again?" "Title of your sex tape," he muttered under his breath. "Hm?" Aellae turned in question. "Nothing, my dearest," the God assured her before turning to answer your question. "I said you are on your own now. Look for a cavern at one of the oasis and they will drop you at a shelter. Hopefully." Your head did feel the just of surprise even though the last twenty seconds of their hand-holding had you all ready for a surprise. Words were being a stubborn bitch in your lungs- never escaping your mouth right this moment and all your could do was exhale and mock a burst of laughter at those words. "And then? And then what?" Your heated brain really could not think of anything else. Loki shrugged.

You: *shouting* THAT SON OF A BITCH SHRUGGED!!! *pointing at yourself* AT ME!!!

"I don't know. Look for a rainbow." Without another word, he turned back towards the woman. Just like that. The only sound was that of the wind running through the desert as you, Javier and Lulu watched Loki walk away with this strange creature. It took a minute for the little one figure out, for when he did, he pressed his stomach and stood up on your shoulder, his heart beating faster than it usually did. And when the realisation dawned on him, Lulu jumped to the ground to take a few steps in Loki's direction and yell for him to come back.

'Member the way You used to say I was your meaning? You'd always need me

You just stood there, dried lips parted, eyes shrinking under the gaze of the star, arms dangling with nearly no life in them. For a second there, Javier felt you were about to fall, for Lulu's camera caught the boy come to your side, ready for anything that was bound to happen.

Did you forget What that shit meant? You were my answer You were what mattered

But all you did was stand there with disappearing emotions just like those two disappeared with the last sand dune in front of you. With the last silhouette of Loki gone in sand, you closed your eyes, worrying your companions for that stretched moment.

Lived at your place Know the way that I taste Yeah, you know things Yeah, you know things

"He knows," you whispered to yourself, your brows furrowing together, your fingers curling into fists.

I met your mom Even got us a dog That ain't nothing, oh

A piercing scream came out of your lungs making the little floof jump five feet into the air to land away from you while Javier's camera recorded his three-second jolts before falling straight down from his hands.

Say you know me Say you know me Say you know me, know Say you know me Say you know me Say you know me

"HE FUCKING KNOWS!!!!" Your voice was at the edge of a massive breakdown, shaking while your eyes blurred themselves in this uncontrollable rage.

You always will

"That son of a bitch knows how bad it is for me alone in a strange land," you croaked, trying to kick some sand with your boots. Javier signed something from outside the frame to you. "Hey, you're not alone. I'm here too," Lulu's camera caught his words. You looked at him for five seconds. "You lost your socks while sleeping on your first day. You were wearing those bloody socks." Javier- clearly offended but also guilty- mocked a gasp as he took a few steps away from you. The soft strings of guitar added to the air around you looking in the distance where nothing could be seen now. No one. Sand for infinity and a few oases that did not lead to him.

Feet were dragged through the stubborn sand that let won't you walk straight. All the effort that was going into being angry was now running down towards your legs. But that did not stop you from fuming so hard that the camera could catch the difference in your features.

See, I know What it is, what it is, what it is, babe

But as the camera panned over your face, it seemed more of a sullen sulk and less of that rage you had just shown.

See, I know What it is, what it is

And were those tears in your eyes that you were trying to blink away? That you were trying to hide from Javier as much as possible?

Let me miss What it is, what it is, what it isn't Let me miss it Let me miss it

Giving up, you walked towards the first oasis in your way, populated generously by desert animals and a few nomads. The tents seemed somewhat similar to those you found on earth except for the spherical air pockets surrounding them to keep them cool. One of the nomads was kind enough to open the doorway for you and bow down in their own way, making the rainbow stone in his necklace reflect the starlight right into your eyes as you entered the place. "Did some order a seven-spice rainbow with a generous dash of sexy on the side?" The light that has just left your eyes came back with a sweet gasp. "My White Knight!" you nearly choked on your own joy. .

The camera felt itself shake when the rainbow drink was kept on the table. Thanking White, you dragged the sparkly fizzy thing towards you to get a taste. "So-" White furrowed his brows licked his lips in a thought- "you're saying Loki did leave you but he did not leave you." You just nodded, your lips not ready to leave the straw. "Easy," White ordered with a serious face, receiving a pinch from Green and Orange sitting next to him without looking away from you. Both of them seemed to be caught in a sweet trance that was clearly you. And when you finally did leave the straw, the elated sigh of a content throat made both of them close their eyes and smile. "Oh, God! This is so goooood," you exclaimed as no voice came out of you. "Y/N," your White Knight called out to you, "focus." You set the drink down and straighten yourself. "Yes, sir," you whispered. "Not that much of focus," he muttered while clearing his throat, adjusting himself where he sat. Violet rolled his eyes and sighed. "What do you mean when you say he did not leave you?" You looked at Violet and put your hands on the table. "I mean that I don't think he went with that woman....goddess...witch...whatever...on his own. I think he was kinda kidnapped." All the boys- except Orange- shared a look with each other. Orange was just too engrossed in you at this point. "Are you sure he just didn't go on his own?" Green stressed. "He would be one dumb bitch to leave me alone like that," you nearly shouted before going for that unicorn juice again. "There must've been a reason." Orange nodded vigorously in agreement. "Very dumb bitch," he tsked. "Because he knows I will kill him if he did-" you sipped the cold fizz- "and if I didn't, our family definitely will." The camera panned in the emotion of slight disbelief White felt as his eyes remained hollow while that smile was still stuck on his face. It took him a few seconds to bring himself to mutter, "our...family," and scratch an itch on his neck. "So," you burped and excused yourself, "before anyone from my home flies here just to kill him, I am going to rescue him." "Whaaa-at?" Sky mutters from behind the bar counter. "Help you go after some strange and powerful witch that we have absolutely no idea about?" Javier's camera- which Javier had in his hand as he stood right behind Sky- recorded the endless stash of weapons and potions kept behind the bar right there within Sky's reach. The camera especially zoomed in on the one bundle of spears marked 'Witch skewers: Do not wash, Do not touch. Poisonous'. "And that too on such a short notice?" Sky faked a laugh.

Sky: *tired* Of course we know Loki's been kidnapped. White: *casually* Of course, we'll help Y/N. Violet: *stone face* I'm down to hunt some bad girls any day. White: *sighs* I really wish we could leave him with his kidnapper though. *pause* *everyone mumbles in agreement* *silence resumes around the table* Orange: *thinking while looking at the void* but that would make Y/N sad. *nods and pouts around the table* Red: Once we rescue him, let's kidnap Y/N. *hums of agreement around the table*

"Okay-" you place the empty glass on the table and get up to look around the table before looking into Javier's camera, "let's go save a God today."

#loki x reader #loki x y/n #loki fanfic #loki series #loki imagine #loki fluff #loki smut #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel smut #marvel fluff #loki #It's The Avengers #fluff #smut #fanfic #fanfiction

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alolowrites · 4 years

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Cuddling Through the Seasons

Summary: Fatgum’s cuddles never go out of season

Author’s Note: This is my third story for the @bnhabookclub’s Hero Camp Bingo event. This was also a request from @bnha-homeroom (sorry it took so long!)

The prompt used was Cuddles and this is my first story for Fatgum. Hopefully I’ll do more stories for this guy because he’s deserves the best.

Enjoy!

Word Count: 1.6K+

Spring

High in the sky rests the glorious bright sun. It’s golden rays shine through the vibrant pink flowers blooming on every tree, emphasizing their natural beauty. Two birds playfully chase each other in between the branches, their lovely chirps in harmony with the soothing sounds of the gentle stream below—Mother Nature is simply a lady with many hidden talents.

Although the grass maintains a healthy green coat, it too is covered by fresh cherry blossom petals blown off the trees—it adds a beautiful pop to the land. Few people arrive and wander through the peaceful park. Some snap a couple of pictures on their phones, their bodies bent in odd angles to capture that perfect Instagram-worthy shot. Others silently take in the whole scenery with their eyes and save the mental image deep in their memory jar—that’s how you are enjoying today with Taishiro.

Both of you sit under a tree that is different from the others; it’s branches are abundant, and some hang charmingly over the water. A quick wind blows through the park, tugging the delicate petals until one slowly falls to the stream. Everything is serene, almost like an abstract landscape painting on display at an art museum.

Closing your eyes, you sink in deeper into Taishiro��s plump chest. A relaxed sigh escapes his lips as you enjoy your massive pillow. His large arms wrap around you like a snuggly safety belt—they are protective and warm. Your fingers affectionately glide up and down his sweater to the beat of the stream. You hum, “Everything is so beautiful.”

Taishiro leans back on the thick tree trunk and glances at you; he cheekily grins, “That’s ‘cause you’re here, darlin’. The cherry blossoms are a nice touch, though.”

You roll your eyes, “You’re such a cheesy guy, you know that?”

“Yeah, but that’s what you love ‘bout me.”

“That is very true,” you playfully tap his arm, smirking up at him. Another cherry blossom falls and lands on top of your head. Taishiro raises on hand to carefully pluck it off your hair and holds it high against the sunlight. The flower is so soft and just the right shade of pink. He thinks it’s perfect, just like you.

Taishiro shows the sakura petal to you, “Here’s a little present.”

Your heart swells, a tiny blush dusting your cheeks as you reach for the flower. You take a whiff of the sweet aroma and lean back against your living pillow. Squeezing the hero’s hand, you look up to flash him a faint smile, “Thank you.”

You never let go of the cherry blossom petal.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

Summer

Far in the distance lies the vast calm sea. Ocean waves creep steadily toward the fine white sand, kissing the land hello before returning outward. Light puffy clouds float along the peaceful cerulean sky, morphing into different images at the hands of your wild imagination. It’s a fun way to pass the time and relax the mind.

You inhale the fresh, natural air—it smells like freedom. The city’s chaotic and bustling streets are an afterthought. The prying eyes of paparazzi and other media hounds are thousands of miles away from your paradise home. The avalanche stress tied with Taishiro’s hero lifestyle vanishes when the two of you step on the warm sand.

“Whatcha’ thinkin’ about, darlin’?” His voice is loud but soothing at the same time. You feel the gigantic teddy bear stand behind you. It wasn’t long until Taishiro traps you into his loving embrace, giving you a quick squeeze. Your toes wiggle into the smooth sand as a sharp wind whistles by; the waves hear it and crash against the shoreline.

“How a place like this,” you nod toward the dancing water, “somehow exists. It’s almost as if I’m dreaming—” You yelp at the slight pinch, and Taishiro roars with laughter. You crane your neck up to glare at him, “What was that for?”

“Well you’re not dreamin’, that’s for sure.” You elbow into his stomach knowing entirely well it did not phase him at all. Taishiro retaliates by hugging you harder, enjoying the delightful squeals ringing into the semi-deserted beach. Other tourists linger around, but the land is so spacious that you barely see them. It’s easy to think you two are alone with all the privacy in the world, an idea that doesn’t exist back at home—a small price to pay while being a pro hero.

In a way, Taishiro is glad this moment is not a dream. It won’t fade away once he wakes up, but will stay in his memory for a long time. Just as you calm down, a mischievous grin crosses the hero’s lips, and his grip tightens around your waist. You had a bad feeling about this and clenched his hands, “Hey…what are you doing—”

“Hold on!”

“Don’t you dare!”

Your words fall on deaf ears as he effortlessly carries you in his arms and charges toward the sea that is waiting to greet you both.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

Autumn

Bright yellow lanterns glow above the narrow streets, gently swaying back and forth without a care in the world. Luscious pampas grass decorate the roofs, the creamy-white feathery plumes waving hello to everyone passing through the area. A chubby hand reaches upward; the baby is determined to grab the mesmerizing fluffy grass until something else catches their eye.

An elegant pyramid of tsukimi dango neatly sits on a black plate. There are fifteen white dumplings, each perfectly round and white as the precious moon gleaming tonight. A crowd grows around the delicious display, making it nearly impossible to squeeze through the sardine bodies. Fortunately, the group departs when they see Fatgum approaching with his hearty smile, and you follow closely behind—sometimes being a hero has its perks.

Taishiro greets everyone until a middle-aged man freaks out from his stall, “It’s an honor to meet you, Fatgum! Thank you for keeping our streets safe!”

“It’s no problem really—”

“Please take these dumplings! They’re on the house!”

Taishiro gives you a side-glance, and you shrug. Who were you to deny some free food, especially if they are those moon-like dumplings? You grab the plate from the man’s trembling hands and bow. The hero safely guides you away from the crowd and spots an empty grass field. Plopping down, you dramatically groan, “That was so much walking!”

“Sorry, darlin’! Guess I got a lil carried away,” he chuckles while scratching his forehead. Taishiro takes a seat behind you.

“I think that’s an understatement, but,” you gleefully raise the plate that barely reached his eyes, “we got free dumplings!”

“They do look good,” Taishiro hums and takes one round treat. You plop the tsukimi dango in your mouth, the rice flavor surprisingly strong, yet pleasing to your tastebuds—it’s a chewy delight. The pyramid crumbles in seconds, and you scoot back to rest your head against the gentle giant; out of instinct, he cradles you in his arms.

A chilly air blows by and makes you shiver despite wearing a cashmere sweater. Taishiro notices and shifts his posture to shield you from the cold—a small act that melts your heart every time. You gaze at the luminous moon until your eyes struggle to stay awake; it doesn’t help that Taishiro feels like all toasty like a fleece blanket.

It definitely was all that walking, and you yawn before dozing off in his arms.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

Winter

Snow showers rain down on your quiet neighborhood. The bare tree branches scoff at the fluffy cotton balls falling from the sky; they barely weighed more than a feather. An hour later, the branches are slouching under the heavyweight and weeping for mercy—but the snow never stops.

A thin white blanket hides the dull, gray streets and vibrant decorations flourish to their heart’s content. Tiny bells chime once Jack Frost blows a chilly wind down the sidewalks. Thick garlands covered in elegant ribbons stretch for miles on some apartment balconies. And others hung colorful Christmas lights that flicker to a very jolly tune.

In a way, the snow ties everything together to bring out the pleasant holiday mood—it’s simply magical. Two pairs of footsteps, one small like a mouse and the other the size of a giant, imprint themselves on the powdery sidewalk. You waddle toward the apartment with arms bundled around yourself; you’re craving for something warm. Any minute longer outside and your legs will permanently turn into icicles.

“O-open t-the do-or, p-please,” you chatter through your teeth while bouncing nonstop. Taishiro chuckles and you glare at him, making his grin widen more. You barge in once he unlocks the door and dust off the snow on your coat. Hasty footsteps rush to the kitchen so you could warm the teapot as quickly as possible.

Taishiro shakes his head—you quickly get cold. He relaxes on the couch, not bothering to change out of his Santa costume; if anything, the clothes are comfortable and roomy. You wander into the living room and shiver up a storm. A gloved hand beckons for you, “Come over here, darlin’.”

Shuffling toward the mellow hero, he pulls you on top of him. Without hesitation, his arm wraps around you to keep you steady. One ear sits above his chest, and you focus on the faint sound of his heartbeat. Not even the Santa costume could mask Taishiro’s alluring honeydew scent, which drives you crazy. You contently sigh, “You made so many kids smile today, hun.”

“I’m glad,” he answers while stroking your hair, “Those kids at the hospital deserve all the happiness in the world, ya’ know?”

“Yeah…” A finger lazily draws out imaginary lines along Taishiro’s red velvet coat. An involuntary shiver runs down his spine. Only your charming touches could make him react like this, and he savors them all. You raise your head and squirm closer to the hero’s face. With loving eyes, you whisper, “You make a fantastic Santa Claus.”

“Fantastic enough to get a kiss from Mrs. Claus?”

“Sure,” you giggle and pull down his fake white beard. As you plant a sweet kiss on his lips, you decide that you no longer needed that nice hot cup of tea.

Third prompt is crossed off. Which one will be next? Stay tune! Thank you for reading!

Previous prompt: Betrayal

Hero Camp Bingo Masterlist

#fatgum x reader #fat gum x reader #taishiro toyomitsu #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #bnhabookclub #hero camp bingo #cuddles #fluff

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punkrock-writer · 3 years

Text

Space Cowboy- part 4

Roasting the Shit Out of Toro Because He Deserves It

Pairing- Din Djarin x F!OC

Warnings- Mentions blood, fighting, swearing, Canon Typical Violence. Spoilers for The Mandalorian

A/N- WOAH It is here. 5.3k words. The longest chapter so far. Let me know what you guys think, is it still too short or too long, lemme know. And yeah, the end IS cheesy. I am the Mayor of Cheeseville it should be expected.

And a reminder Din is de-aged a bit, he's around mid to late 20′s here, just for a little more ~spice~

Let me know what you think! I love hearing from ya’ll it helps me a lot :D

Masterlist AO3

She honestly didn't know how he was so quiet. That collection of Ironman armor should make much more noise than it does. Or he could have at least woken her up before screaming.

"HEY" Sedona jumped violently. Her eyes springing open in panic, he wasn't in the ship, but his voice echoed throughout it. She heard the panicked voice of Peli yelling outside. She scooted further into the middle of the hull to peer out of the open door. Din looked as intimidating as he could, shoulders raised and feet wide. Peli marched from her office up to him, cradling a wailing Grogu.

"Give him to me" she wanted to laugh. The paternal instincts kicked in so fast, albeit a bit misplaced and underdeveloped. But he tried his best.

"Not so fast! You can't just leave a child all alone like that." Peli cried out, though not entirely alone, she was right. "You know, you have an awful lot to learn about raisin' a young one."

And then much to Sedona's discomfort, Peli's eyes met hers.

"AND leaving an injured lady! No water or bandages, that isn't very kind. Prisoner or not." She scowled up at the towering Mandalorian, whose head slowly turned to meet hers. She quickly scooted herself back against the crate. She wasn't ready for that kind of attention, she needed to get her thoughts in order.

"Anyway-" she racked her brain as she heard Peli continue to talk about the ship. She had gotten this far in the episode, and Din had obviously made the deal with... that motherfucker whom she cannot remember the name of. She was so focused on trying to remember she didn't even notice Din had walked back onto the ship.

"I thought I told you not to talk to anyone." His voice made her jump once again, it was rough, a warning. Her wide eyes met his visor, and suddenly the right words met her tongue.

"Don't leave him alone with the bounty" they were rushed, she probably looked crazier than Peli's wild curls. "Y-you can't trust him, something bad is going to happen."

She watched as he turned with a bag in his hand. He looked like he was going to speak, or step closer to her, his body seizing up. Instead, his gloved hand curled into a fist at his side, and he spun quickly on his heel and exited her line of sight. She heard the pair talk a bit more, mostly Peli talking at Din's retreating back. Then she was alone again. And her ass hurts.

Standing up was much easier now that the magic space goo had somehow healed her knees. Though she had extreme doubts, she sincerely hoped Din might heed her warning. She really did not wan't to be caught in the crossfire of their shoot out that was soon to come. Maybe that was the worst part about being plunked into this universe. The constant dread of knowing what's going to happen, and having no power to change it, was going to destroy her. She could already feel the way her body sagged with exhaustion. The ever-present headache was taking a toll on her mind, and her fight or flight response was kicked into high gear. She hadn't felt like this in years.

Trying to keep her mind from straying too far into the darkness. She decided to do some light exploration of the Razor Crest. She wouldn't touch anything, as Din so kindly instructed. But she was definitely going to touch all over with her eyes. First, she was going to figure out if that man had a shower. She turned opposite the open door and headed in the direction of what looked like an airplane toilet. She was pleased to find a small door stationed adjacent to the weird space toilet. Obviously hidden from view on the show, it was a rickety metal sheet. Actually, everything on the ship was a metal sheet, but she wasn't going to roast it too harshly. Opening it, the oval-shaped door created an edge that she had to step over to enter the small room. The floor and walls were tiled, and there was a small drain in the middle. A large ledge jutted out from the wall at about knee height, above it was what looked like a sink, and a small foggy mirror. Avoiding its reflection, she ventured back further. There was a curtain, pulling it back revealed a showerhead and a series of ledges cut into the wall. She tried to keep her heart from fluttering at the sight of soap bars, and a razor. Then heat began to creep up her spine, embarrassment making its way to her cheeks.

How fucking old are you 13? Get a hold of yourself.

She spun quickly not wanting to be caught snooping. She felt like a high school girl who had just seen her crush's room for the first time. She was 26 for fucks sake, and it was a bathroom.

On a space ship.

On an unknown planet.

In a universe that had once only existed in media form.

She wasn't able to wallow in her embarrassment much longer, through the open door she saw Peli return from wherever she had followed Din. She walked with determination, coming up to some kind of machine that was attached to the ship. Sedona didn't really know what to do, she stood awkwardly in the hull of the ship. Listening to Peli mutter to herself, she hated feeling like this. She liked to be moving or at least distracting her brain in some way. Now there was only the unfamiliar ship, her bags were already organized neatly- and then it hit her.

She still had her phone in her purse.

Springing into action she darted for her bag, rummaging through it until she finally found it. It was an iPhone and she still had her headphones attached to it. Her heart soared in her body, unable to contain her smile at the sight, relieved to find at least this thing hadn't magically transformed into a space object. But clicking it on she was met with slight disappointment. Only 32% charged, and the fact that her phone was wicked old and functioned at about 60% of its normal battery life, it would be dying soon. There are no outlets in space. She thought angrily. So she sighed and set it back into her purse, deciding to save it for when she truly needed a mental escape. For now, she could maybe go and see what Peli was up to.

And that's how she spent her first evening in space. She sat at the table, watching Peli fix the Crest. Or making sure the child didn't eat sand or some shit. Peli didn't talk much while she worked, which she was secretly grateful for. Only asking occasional questions, or pausing to complain about the old ship. Sedona didn't offer much, vague answers, allowing the older woman to speak more than herself. She really didn't feel like having to convince someone else she's from an alternate universe. Especially someone who was very much capable of throwing her into the endless Tatooine desert.

In time it grew darker in the hangar. Peli wiped her hands off on her jumpsuit, leaving grease marks in her wake. Sedona held a sleeping Grogu in her arms, he had been quite a hassle for her to wrangle with her hands still cuffed together. He was quick, and incredibly sneaky when he wanted to be. He currently held some kind of bolt in his little clawed hands, one of the braver droids had given it to him when he was fussing in her lap.

"How about another round of some bone broth, and then we get some rest." She snapped her fingers at a droid, who scurried off to the back of the hangar quickly. "It looks like that little stinker has the right idea." Peli sat, the smell of oil and metal rolling off her. She grabbed the cup of water she had sipping out of periodically and drank. Then she turned to Sedona, who up until this moment had been zoned out, staring at the shadows cast on the ground.

"You look like you've seen some shit." Sedona's heart nearly stopped at that, but when she met Peli's eyes they glittered with amusement in the dim light of the hangar.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," she said with a laugh and a shrug. Then a droid appeared next to her, carrying more bowls of broth. She accepted it, thanking the droid once again. The liquid warmed her, she didn't consider how cold a desert got a night, and her shorts and men's t-shirt didn't exactly hold much warmth. But the broth helped, and she tried not to let Peli notice her shivers.

"Listen, I wanted to ask you something" Sedona almost choked on her broth. "I heard what you said to the Mandalorian, why do you think he can't trust that other bounty hunter?" Peli's gaze was quizzical, genuine curiosity, not suspicion. It gave Sedona confidence, but not enough to tell her the full truth.

"I guess I just have a really bad feeling, I think there's something off about the deal." She said after swallowing, and Peli was silent for a moment. Searching her gaze before suddenly leaning forward.

"You know I was thinking the exact same thing." She said it like it was the juiciest secret in school. "There was just something off in his eyes." She finished with a nod. Sedona couldn't stop her smile. She felt the beginnings of a friendship blossoming there in the cool evening. She hoped it wouldn't be ripped away from her too soon.

They finished their broth in comfortable silence. Then Peli rose, a mischievous smile on her face.

"Well, I'm going to take this little womprat to the back with me, if you need anything just holler," she said, reaching down to scoop the sleeping bundle from her lap. "You sure you'll be all right in that ship by yourself?"

"I'll be okay," she said with a smile, trying to look convincing "but Peli, if you see anything happening, take the child and run."

Her face turned serious, and she gave a curt nod.

"I'll make sure the droids stay awake, they'll give us a good warning" and with another nod, and a pointed look at the group of droids, she turned to the back of the hangar.

Sedona was alone again, and fear was beginning to crawl up her spine. She had to prepare herself. Somehow, she wasn't going to let that fucker touch baby Grogu.

~o~o~o~

Night came and went, Sedona spent it pacing. Somehow, that sneaky tin can had taken her taser, and her Swiss army knife. Leaving her with only pepper spray from her keychain to defend herself. She held it tightly in 2 hands, having finally sat down when she saw the hangar becoming light again. She heard Peli out in the open area, talking to the droids and the child.

"Here's a ration bar, I'm going to try to finish these repairs before the Mandalorian gets back." Peli had walked into the ship quietly, giving her the foil-wrapped bar, the child gurgling on her hip. The tension was thick between them, both women could sense something wrong. But if Peli wanted to say anything more she didn't, instead turning her attention to the ship, the child held tightly to her. Sedona honestly didn't feel like eating, her head was pounding again. The effort of trying to figure out the plot was scrambling her brain.

She didn't know how exactly to define it, but it felt like the memories of the show were drifting away from her. Scenes she had remembered and re-watched multiple times now were faint memories. It felt like she was losing her mind, literally the only information she needed right now was dissolving like snow in her fingers. So she settled for clutching her pepper spray and hoping the droids gave her a good warning like Peli said.

The droids held up their end well.

It was maybe 3 or 4 hours later, Peli had miraculously just taken Grogu to the back for some food and a nap. When suddenly the droids went absolutely batshit crazy.

Sedona sprung from her spot on the floor, her headache was instantly forgotten as she squeezed herself against an indent in the wall of the ship. Hoping to spring on the hunter. She heard his blaster fire, then it was eerily quiet.

God, I hope they can get out of here.

Sedona tried to keep her mind from straying from the task at hand. She tried to keep her breathing quiet, straining her ears for any sounds.

Those shitty self-defense classes are going to have to work today.

There were footsteps on the ramp. Slow, but heavy, he really was a pretty shitty bounty hunter. She switched the safety off on her pepper spray, trying to judge where he was on the ship by the sound of his footsteps. Then the barrel of a gun crept into her line of sight, and she didn't hesitate.

Springing from her hiding spot she sprayed upwards, toward what she hoped were his eyes. Based on the shouting she was successful. She did her best to ignore the burn in her own eyes as the fumes carried toward her. Taking his surprise as an advantage she attempted to kick him in the balls.

Keyword- attempted.

Sedona did not consider the fact, that he might be wearing goggles. And that he might catch her leg. With a shove, she was sent sprawling onto the floor, with no way to catch herself. Her butt hit the ground hard, knocking the breath out of her. She looked up to meet a gut-churning smile.

What a fucking dick.

"That tasted awful, but I don't think it did what you wanted it to." He said with a smug smirk, he was so incredibly proud of himself. "Look at this! A third bounty, I'm going to be the king of the Guild!"

Well, if Sedona couldn't beat him physically. She was going to try to demolish his ego.

"Fuck you, Toro, this is why your mom doesn't FUCKING love you" the words were filled with rage as they flew out of her mouth, she lunged toward him. Her mind suddenly supplying the correct name when she needed it most. His face immediately fell, twisting into shock and confusion.

"What do you know about my mother?" he sneered, taking a few steps forward to tower over her on the ground. But his intimidating stance did nothing to stop the pure hatred Sedona felt in her heart.

"You look like you watch Big Bang Theory on purpose." It was one of her more creative insults, her new goal was distraction. Try and confuse him as much as she could, so that hopefully Peli could escape with the child. It seemed to work so far.

"I don't know what that means, but I would shut the hell up if I were you" he leaned down and sneered at her. She grit her teeth, the insults flowing fast.

"Your earring looks like shit"

"I said shut up!" He raised his blaster to her head, a position she had just recently became familiar with. She met his eyes, and with as much bitterness as she could muster, she put the nail in her coffin.

"I know how you die, and you die like a bitch."

That was the last thing she could say. Toro reacted very poorly, to say the least.

And for the first time in her life, Sedona was pistol-whipped across the head. Toro stalked away from her body that laid slumped on the ship floor. Continuing on his original journey, much more confused and irritated.

~o~o~o~

The Mandalorian could not shake the sick feeling in his gut as he tied the dewback to the hitch outside of Hangar 3-5. One look at the speeder outside had the mysterious woman's words repeating in his head.

You can't trust him, something bad is going to happen.

It really didn't help that she was right. In fact, he hated that she was right. It was making his decision on what to do with her much harder. He unclipped his blaster, drawing it ahead of him as he made his way down the stairs. The hangar was quiet, aside from the annoying droid that startled him. He slowly made his way through the sand toward his ship.

"Took you long enough Mando" there he was. He stalked forward raising his blaster up into the dark ship. Calican emerged; somehow he got angrier at the sight of the child in his arm, and the scared woman who had been kind to him caught in this mess. "Looks like I'm calling the shots now. Huh, partner?"

Din wanted to roll his eyes and shoot him right then.

"Drop your blaster and raise 'em." This time he couldn't stop the eye roll, instead having to suppress an annoyed sigh as he carelessly flung his blaster to the ground. Twisting his body in a way that let him quickly grab a flash charge. He truly was a pretty shitty bounty hunter, this would be his final mistake. Din was irritated, just waiting for the right moment to strike. Calican handed it to him on a silver platter.

"Cuff him." After that, Din really didn't give a shit about what this guy said. Instead watching as the woman approached him with the bindings. He rolled the flash charge in-between his fingers. Waiting.

"You're smarter than you look" the woman whispered in his ear. Obviously not, if only he had listened to the woman she left in his ship. He wouldn't be in this mess.

The right moment came as Calican raised his blaster higher. The flash brightening the entire hangar for just long enough, Din slipped behind some of the junk lying around. Coming around the side before Calican even knew he had disappeared. It was over quickly, his body tumbled off the ramp, taking the child with it.

"Stay back." He tried to tell the woman, who scrambled quickly over to him as he went to inspect the body. He didn't like the way she fumbled around him, grabbing his cape as he tried to make sure the man was actually dead. Then he heard the babbles of the child. He didn't really register what she was saying to him, just thankful she was calming him down. Inspecting the body he found what he was looking for, the bag of credits was heavy in his hand.

Turning to the woman holding the child, he prepared to pay and leave.

"Be careful with him." She said, the child simply snorting as he was placed back in his arms. She then tried to break some of the tension, bringing up the question that Din knew she would ask. "So I take it you didn't get paid."

Din didn't really feel the need to say anything. Instead pouring the contents of the pouch into her outstretched hands. But he decided to make sure.

"That cover me?" The woman sputtered in response, giving a shocked form of Yes. Din then turned, making his way back to his ship, babbling baby in tow. Until he was stopped.

"Listen, I don't know what you plan on doing with that girl, but she fought to distract him. She tried to make sure I could get away with the baby." Din turned back to the woman, his curiosity peaking. "She told him she knew how he died, and something tells me she did. Sh-she was very nice and helpful. I think you should give her a chance."

Din thought about it for a moment. It seems she was truthful about yet another thing she said to him.

"I would protect the child with my life."

Internally he was glad it hadn't come to that, or so the woman who stared up at him made it seem. He nodded at her, hoping he conveyed his understanding and turned back to enter his darkened ship. He heard her yelling at her droids, but he was more concerned with finding out what state his ship was in. As the ramp closed, he flipped back on the lights. With a heavy sigh, he observed the way her body was crumpled on the floor once again.

There was a large, bloodied scrape on her temple, the area already beginning to bruise. The child was struggling in his arms again, letting out indignant cries as he reached for the girl on the floor. He set him down next to her and reached to grab her under the shoulders and knees. Deciding to move her much gentler than he had the first time. He didn't really know where to put her though; he spun in his ship, her body limp in his arms, the child followed him in circles crying out in frustration.

His eyes landed on his sleeping compartment, figuring that was better than nothing. He quickly set her into it. Taking a moment to remove the cuffs still on her wrists, he internally cringed at the redness. Another thing he should apologize for. He didn't feel comfortable sitting in the hangar for much longer. He scooped up the child, who was trying in vain to climb into the compartment with her.

"Come on we have to get outta here" he grumbled to the child, who was squirming in his arm. He paused to look up at him, angrily babbling at him before resorting to pouting as he was hauled into the cockpit. Din started the ship quickly, not entirely certain where he was going. He only knew he needed to sit down with the woman in the hull, and really figure out what the hell she was talking about.

~o~o~o~

Sedona really didn't want to wake up. In her dream, she was warm and comfortable, and definitely not about to get crazy-murdered by a space villain. Whatever she was laying on was slightly squishier than the floor, but only slightly. It felt like if you were to lay a thin yoga mat onto a wood floor and then tried to take a nap on it. But she kept her eyes closed, trying to stay in her comfortable bubble just a few moments longer. Whoever was shaking her leg did not get the message.

"Please, just let me pretend this isn't happening for a little while longer" she grumbled, not yet opening her eyes. She tried to imagine her bed again, her soft blankets, and a cup of her favorite tea. She could pretend her head didn't hurt, and her body didn't hurt, and her brain didn't hurt. She could pretend she didn't have to open her eyes and face more confusion and struggle.

"Please, I'd like to talk." A soft modulated voice was not what she expected. She slowly opened her eyes, taking in the metal ceiling above her. With a deep breath, she slowly sat up, taking in the sight before her. At some point, after she had been knocked out, she had been placed in Din's sleeping compartment. At the end of the 'bed' (she didn't really want to call it a bed this was awful) stood the Mandalorian himself, and Grogu was vigorously shaking her leg with 2 hands. He babbled excitedly when she sat up, looking up at her and giving a wide smile. "How is your head?"

The new gentle tone was mind-boggling. She could only stare at him, mouth open like a fish. Her head was bad actually, feeling very bad. She just got smacked across the head with a gun, she couldn't imagine how she looked. But the sudden shift in mood was what confused her most; there was a stumbling, awkward, sort of kindness in the way he stood and spoke to her. She searched the visor a bit more, not really sure what she was looking for. A particularly loud coo broke her from her distraction.

"It... could be better I suppose." She licked her lips, mind suddenly wandering in fear. "Where are we? Are we stopped?" The Mandalorian couldn't afford to just stop, so they had to be in hyperspace or he wouldn't be down here. Why was he down here exactly? When did the cuffs come off?

"Yes, we're still on Tatooine, I— I wanted to talk to you," he cleared his throat. "I had some things to say, and to ask." He turned and walked further into the ship, she just now noticed the door was open. Showing the dark Tatooine desert.

Oh!

She was going to be dropped off here. Left to wander the space desert. It was a short run of things, but at least it was horrible while it lasted. She slowly got up, moving around the child to set her feet on the cold ground. The child babbled up at her, raising his arms, and for a brief moment, she considered picking him up. Her mind flirted with the idea of carrying him over to the metal man who leaned against the hatch door. Looking out to the rolling sands together, in peace. But instead, she grabbed her purse and prepared for the worst.

"So I guess this is it?" She paused next to Din, nervously looking up at him as she twirled her purse strap in her hands. His helmet snapped to her, quickly his body followed, straightening out to face her completely. He looked down at her for a long time, his body tense. Her body heated up under his gaze, feeling even more nervous under the scrutiny.

"Do you think I'm leaving you out here?" He tilted his head at her, it was almost condescending. If she was able to re-wind it and analyze the tone of his voice, she would've caught the amusement.

"Well I mean you did leave me handcuffed on the ship for like 3 days, and then brought the Crest out to the desert. Which you would never do if you weren't going to...leave me here" she rambled. Her eyes searched the area around them, not meeting his visor. He was silent once again, just watching her squirm under his gaze. She didn't know how to read him in real life, he was so much taller, and without the fan analysis she could skim through, a lot of his body language was lost.

"I was going to apologize..." he paused, his voice soft but gravely. Her mouth dropped open, slowly looking up to his helmet. "I'm sorry for leaving you cuffed in the ship, but you have to admit, you sounded pretty crazy."

The humor was detectable now, and after a long moment Sedona smiled, and as the words penetrated her brain a little deeper. A chuckle bubbled into her throat, and before she knew it she was laughing. It wasn't that funny honestly, but this was the first display of emotional release her body had experienced in a while, so it kind of went overboard. When she finally calmed down she was breathless, tears gathered in her eyes. Mando just looked at her, head tilted in confusion, and when he folded his arms over his chest, she knew he was irritated.

"I'm sorry... that wasn't that funny, but I think I need to cry and that's as close as I'm going to get." She wiped a tear from her eye, looking back at the still Mandalorian. She quickly dropped her face when she saw the way he was standing, straightened her shoulders. "W-what else did you want from me?" She should know better to think she was off the hook, he could still freeze her in carbonite. He would probably be able to get some sort of profit from her. The thought had her shrinking, she suddenly felt small again.

With a hefty sigh, he readjusted, facing back toward the endless desert. His trend of silence was much for daunting when it wasn't happening on a tv screen. Suddenly something grabbed her ankle. Of course, how could she forget the 3rd passenger? With an incredibly grumpy face and some mighty grump squeals, he reached his arms up to her as hard as he could. She smiled in pity at him, it didn't feel right to pick him up in front of Din. It wasn't her place, and she really didn't want to upset him when he was deciding his fate.

"You can pick him up." His voice was soft again, though he hadn't turned to look at them. "He seems to like you a lot" Her eyes glowed, and with free hands, she bent down and picked up the little one. Finally being able to hold him properly was wonderful, he was a comfortable weight in the crook of her arm. His little dish towel onesie soft on her skin, she smiled at him, and he cooed happily. Looking up she found Din had turned around, looking on with a tilted gaze.

"I want to know... do things work out well for him." It was almost a whisper, true concern laced in his modulated voice. She had to think about it for longer than she wanted. Yes, as far as she knew things went relatively well for the child, as for the man protecting him that was different.

"You have lots of adventures, but he makes it out okay." She gave him a small closed-mouth smile. Thinking further filled her with hope. "D-does... this mean you trust me?" She searched his visor, hoping she met his eyes.

"I..." He cut off, his head shaking. "I don't know for sure what to think, I know you're not a threat, but I can't...comprehend the things you've told me." He inhaled deeply, letting out a long sigh. A gloved hand reached out to stroke the ear of the child. "But I can't shake the feeling that I need you with me, so I suppose you should stick around for a while."

As if he understood Grogu chirped happily up at you. His head turning back and forth between the two of you. Sedona's heart soared. She couldn't stop the smile that crept its way onto her cheeks. She felt like jumping, but she resorted to squeezing the little guy tighter to her chest.

"Thank you." It came out in a whisper, she hoped he could register her gratefulness through his helmet. Grogu gave a little cheer, reaching up one clawed hand to tap her cheek.

"Well...don't get too comfortable, I'll need your help." There was the familiar grumble. She dropped her smile quickly.

"You got it. I used to be a babysitter, I'll earn my keep." She gave a sharp nod, determination overtaking her face. But another tap to her cheek had her cracking a smile once again.

"Can you fight?" That question was a bit trickier to answer. While she had a knife and a taser, there was no formal training to back them.

"I... had to take a few self-defense classes, but I didn't have many options in my city." She answered with a shrug. "But I'm willing to learn." She said, determined. No, she wasn't a gifted fighter yet, but if that's how she would be able to survive here, then she was going to become the best damn fighter this galaxy had seen.

"Good." He said, seemingly satisfied, and gave her a nod before abruptly turning back to the ship. "Then I'll train you when we're able to stop, but for now, we keep going." With that he brushed past her, the hatch closing behind him. She watched as he made his way up the ladder, she heard the hiss of the cockpit doors opening. She looked down at the gremlin in her arms, and his big eyes looked back at her. A smile showing off his nubby teeth on his little face. With a shrug, she walked back over to the sleeping compartment.

Now as she looked over her belongings, 2 bags, and a fucking hotel towel. It didn't seem so bad.

She should really put on a bra now.

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the-ace-with-spades · 3 years

Text

(3/6) the best is yet to be

five times someone realized Ronan and Adam were basically married and one time they actually were

Part 1 │Part 2 │Part 4 │Part 5 │Part 6

Read on ao3

Tad had been living on his own since his parents sent him to a boarding school when he was twelve. But being in high school now had its perks — he had his own credit card that he could buy whatever he wanted and never had to eat that awful cafeteria food they served in the dorms.

He usually ate out because it was the fastest and the most sociable but he tried to keep the dorm room and communal kitchen stored with pre-made meals and snacks in case he didn't want to socialize. Eating out alone wasn't really an option when someone has so many friends that go eat in the same places.

The frozen meals didn't always work and he had burned two pans already. The stuff you just have to put in the microwave was far easier.

Henrietta was a crappy small town and there were only two actually big supermarkets near the school. It was already quite late when he decided he wanted onion rings with chilli sauce so he drove a couple of streets and stared around the frozen goods alley, realizing it was probably too late and most of the good stuff was gone.

It was also unbearably hot, since the first heat waves just started to settle in for the summer, and the crappy supermarket AC wasn't working, so standing in the frozen goods alley was the only option, now that he was there and didn't have the energy to leave.

"Come on, we don't need a list," some guy said, way too loud. The voice seemed almost familiar in a sense that Tad had heard it before but he couldn't place where because it reminded him of someone but didn't sound exactly like someone.

It came from behind the alley with toilet paper and Tad couldn't see exactly who it was and wasn't exactly in the mood to go back into the non-heated area.

Maybe it was better. Next, he heard another voice but it was quiet to the point that Tad could only recognize that this someone was speaking something sharp and judgemental.

"I didn't forget it, I just think we could use going wild once in a while."

There was more hashed words in answer to that and if Tad had to guess, it was the wife. In his experience, wives had a tendency to be hysterical about the slightest misbehaviours — his dad had had four of them and every single one of them would argue with him about stupid stuff like why they didn't have a jacuzzi in the house, or why the pool wasn't cleaned twice a week instead of one, or why there was no grill in the kitchen. In Tad's experience, a wife wasn't worth the trouble. Not that Tad even wanted to have one.

"I could pay, I'm going to use up most of the stuff anyway," the man said, obviously fed up now.

He was met with even more sharp words. Tad knew how it worked — his dad often used quiet but pointed words and silent looks and it always felt even worse than being yelled at.

"Babe," the man said, trying for a softer but still frustrated tone.

There was no answer so that was the moment for silent, disappointed looks. If he didn't know that the guy chose to be with — or probably get married to — whoever he was talking to, Tad could almost pity him.

"Fuck, okay, just wait here, I'll go for the shitty list to the car."

And there was back again that annoyed tone with no fake sweetness. It definitely sounded more familiar now.

Tad hated married couples. They would always argue in the middle of the store — or any other place, to be honest — and were always loud and spend weekends in supermarkets or Home Depot like they were their regular date spots and take way too much time to decide about basic stuff like which color of a carpet they should use. He had yet to see a married couple that wouldn't argue about everything that should be casual in life.

This was exactly why he was never getting married.

The stamping sound went away with the guy leaving the store, hidden by the shelves and drawing away, further to the entrance. He was most likely pissed off, even though this was probably some stupid reason to be pissed off and grumbling to himself about his stupid wife. Tad knew the type — rural town couples that hated each other but pretended otherwise because they already spent the money on the wedding or already had a kid together.

Tad heard a deep sigh behind the shelves.

Married. Couples.

Maybe there was enough cool air in the milk and yoghurt fridges alley.

The store was mostly deserted, except for him and that married couple he still hadn't seen, he noticed only a small group of teens from Mountain View next to the chips and a woman with a sleeping baby at the checkout.

The fridges with milk were warm. Henrietta was a crappy town, and this no-name, locally owned supermarket was even crappier. The AC didn't work and the fridges felt like someone was turning them off and on every couple of hours.

The noisy sliding door opened again when he was contemplating buying vanilla milk, and the angry stamping could be heard, becoming louder and stopping in the cereal alley nearby. Tad was ready for the next argument, really, it was like the cheap version of reality tv. At least the baby at the checkout wasn't crying.

"I got the fucking list."

And the next quarrel was there.

There was silence and the cart in that alley moved — it was just a couple of seconds before it stopped again with a horrendous screech.

"Come on," the guy said. "Don't give me the silent treatment, it was just a stupid list."

There was a longer, even quieter monologue that was just as exasperated.

"Fuck, I know," the guy said, now giving in. "I'm sorry."

Tad didn't hear anything at all but there had to be an answer because the guy said, "You asshole."

This didn't exactly sound like something you should call your significant other just after a fight but Tad wasn't one to judge.

The cart moved again and Tad pretended he was busy choosing between vanilla and chocolate milk and not at all eavesdropping.

From around the corner of the shelves, Adam Parrish, leaning heavily on the handlebar, pushed the cart closer to the wall with the fridges. What made Tad freeze at once was Ronan Lynch, with his chin hooked over Parrish's shoulder and arms wound around his waist, hanging onto him like a leech. Really, this just ensured that his opinion on Lynch was right and Lynch was a parasite that fed on people who would otherwise make great friends, like Parrish or Gansey.

There had been different rumours about Lynch in school. Some said he was dead in a ditch. Some said he was in rehab in some private clinic in Florida. Some said he left with his brothers for DC. Some said he fucked off and became a farmer. None of those ideas seemed realistic but Gansey was adamant about not answering any questions and no one had seen Lynch in almost two months so the imagination was flowing wild. Personally, if he had to choose, Tad would bet for the second option.

"Parrish," he said, because he really didn’t know what else he could.

His eyes were still going up and down the weird fixture that was both of them, practically glued to each other, when Adam answered.

"Carruthers."

Parrish was wearing a black jean jacket full of tears and patches and pins and with slightly too long sleeves — too expensive to be his — and it looked completely out of place on him, Tad had only ever seen him in that crappy secondhand school uniform. Underneath he had the coveralls, tied low on his hips, faded out and stained with oil. If anything, Tad felt hot just looking at him.

The brightness of Lynch's shirt was almost as unexpected, because he had never seen him in anything but the school uniform, or black clothes — it was a red Coca Cola t-shirt, a little too small on him.

Tad made a step closer, reaching his hand for that weird handshake-high-five that Gansey and Parrish often did. Parrish took a step back and that step meant he was hips-to-hips with Lynch who was clinging to him. Instead of moving out of the way or yelling at Lynch to move out of the way, Parrish just stood there, ignoring it completely, like this was something normal.

"So," he began, pointedly ignoring Lynch. "What are you doing here?"

"Grocery," Parrish said and when Tad didn't find anything to reply with for a minute, he added. "We ran out of toothpaste. And some other stuff."

The we there was very explicit.

"You want something, shithead, or can we do our thing without your stalker eyes on us?"

Lynch was pleasant as always.

Maybe Tad should ask Parrish if he was blackmailed into, well, whatever that was. Maybe Parrish would finally realize all the hints Tad had been giving him and realize that he had options other than Lynch.

But then he realized — it had been Lynch's voice, back in the toilet paper alley, just unbelievably calm.

#trc #outsider pov #pynch #the raven cycle #my fics #my writing #TRC #Tad Carruthers

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witchesoz · 3 years

Text

What we know of Oz: Book 1, Good Ol’ South

We did the East, we did the West, as well as bits of the North… Next direction is of course the South! And I will begin immediately with its Witch, for once. # Glinda. The Witch of the South, or the Good Witch of the South.

The heroes decide to go see her after the Wizard fails to carry away Dorothy with him. Even though at first they don’t think about her – for Dorothy it is understandable given that she only heard her name mentioned briefly at the beginning of her adventure. The Scarecrow can’t possibly know her. As for the Lion and the Tin Woodman, it is unknown why they don’t think of her… the Tin Woodman in particular knows very well about the Wicked Witch of the West, and that since the beginning of the adventure. She is probably not the most well-known public figure in Oz at the time… Anyway, it is the soldier with a green beard in the Emerald City that informs them of her existence. He mentions that she can help because she is “the most powerful of all Witches”. He also mentions that she rules over the Quadlings (clearly, she is the queen of the South) and that she lives in a castle built at the edge of the desert (which leads him to assume that she may know a way to cross it). And when asked if Glinda is good, interestingly the soldier doesn’t answer right away, he merely says that the Quadlings “think” she is good, and that she is kind to everyone. So he doesn’t say that she is a Good witch, but that she apparently looks like one (even though we know that she is a Good Witch thanks to the Witch of the North description of her). He also adds that Glinda is a beautiful woman that looks young, but in reality is old if not ancient, and that she merely knows how to “keep young despite the many years she has lived”. Once they arrive in the Quadling Country, our heroes go to the castle of Glinda, located at the most southern part of the country. Her castle is said to be very beautiful, and guarded by “three young girls in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braids”. Glinda herself is found in a big throne room, sitting on a throne of rubies. She is described, as said previously, “both beautiful and young”. Her hair is a rich red in color, falling in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her eyes are blue and kind, and her dress is pure white (because remember, white is the color of the Witches). Glinda is indeed kind and benevolent, making sure that Dorothy’s companions go home, revealing to Dorothy that her shoes are her ticket back (Glinda seems to have the most knowledge about magic, along with the Wicked Witch of the West), and even kissing gently Dorothy upon first meeting her. However, when you look at her dialogue with adult eyes, you realize that Glinda is actually deeply ironic. Snarky one would say nowadays. She keeps making subtle jokes. Speaking of the Scarecrow she says that “It would be a shame to deprive the Emerald City of such a wonderful ruler” and when he asks if he is really wonderful, she says “You are unusual” ; and to the Tin Woodman she says “You are brighter than him (when polished)”. Small jokes that fly over the characters’ heads, but that are certainly not cruel or wicked. But yeah, Glinda apparently always dreamed secretly to be a stand-up comedian Xp # As for the South in itself… The land of the Quadlings, the red country, the South of Oz. Interestingly, the characters only take three days to arrive there, contrary to the longer travels they previously had (it was probably a way to shorten the book at this point, because this is actually their fourth travel). The soldier mentioned that the road to Glinda is very easy, it is a straight road to the South – but it is “full of dangers to the travelers”, which is the reason why none of the Quadlings ever come to the Emerald City. It is quite weird given that the soldier previously said that he knew what the Quadlings thought of Glinda… maybe people from the Emerald City went to the South? Among these dangers on the road he mentions “wild beasts in the woods” and “a race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country”. Of course, we will meet both. I personally think the land of the South begins at the episode of the “fighting trees”, because previously it was just the Emerald City territory, so I’ll begin here. The first obstacle our heroes meet is a thick wood with “no way around it” because it extends as far as can see, and when they try to enter it the trees actually move their branches – they bend down, twine around them and fling them back, tossing away whenever they try to pass. These are the trees that are remembered in Oz lore as “the fighting trees”. However, the Woodman manages to pass under one after cutting one of its branches – the tree “shakes as if in pain” but it can’t prevent anymore the heroes from passing underneath. Behind these fighting trees, the rest of the forest is actually absolutely normal. As a result they deduce that only the “first row” of trees can bend their branches like that, and that they were given wonderful powers to act as the “policemen” of the forest, keeping strangers out of it.

At the edge of this wood, they find the China Country. (As a small note, many people think that the episode of the China Country was added later, once the book was finished, due to how out of place it seems, and due to a slightly different writing style which really denotes this part). The China Country is a “stretch of country” with a floor as smooth, shining and white as the bottom of a big platter, and surrounded by a high wall of white china, smooth and higher than the heroes’ heads. This time the heroes could go around it, but they try not to, out of fear of losing their direction. This country is actually populated by people made of china, or precisely by the china figures used in “our” world as ornaments and decorations – small china houses in the brightest colors, china barns and animals, and even a china church, all populated by milkmaids, shepherdess, princesses, shepherds, princes and clowns. We actually know they are THE china figures we collect because, as a princess explains, whenever one of them leaves China Country, they lose the ability to speak and move and can only “stand around and look pretty”, ending up on mantels and cabinets, paralyzed but apparently alive (yeah, that’s creepy). It also shows that the China Country seems to be an enchanted place (or a cursed one) giving them life. Due to being made of China these people tend to be very fragile, and break easily (this is why they don’t like having non-china beings walk around us, and also probably why the wall was built – there is a strong sense of “secluded and protected communities” in the South of Oz). However they can be mended (there is a “mender’s shop” somewhere in town) but in general they dislike being mended because it is “not pretty”, and apparently being mended too much in the head leaves one “foolish”. We also know that to cross this country, one needs roughly an hour. Right on the other side of the China Country there is a “disagreeable country” filled with bog and marshes, and covered in a tall grass and thick underbrushes that actually hide muddy holes. Right after this country, solid ground comes back and we enter in another forest – with trees bigger and older than anything our heroes saw previously (which means the Munchkin forest and the Fighting trees one). Our characters think that the forest is gloomy and “wilder than ever”, all except the Lion that absolutely adores this forest, especially the softness of the dried leaves and the “richness and greenness” of the moss – this is the forest he will want to live in. This is actually the forest of the wild beasts the soldier mentioned before, and we see them in the middle of a council, terrified because a monster installed itself in the forest, devouring them. I will jump a bit the animal descriptions, keep them for another talk about animals in Oz, but I will stay a bit on this monster, probably of the same nature as the Kalidahs since animals don’t often refer to other beasts as abominations. This one is said to be a “tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and eight legs as long as tree trunks” (note that while this monster is referred to as the “great spider”, in its description it is always said to be a monster “like” a great spider). Its body is covered in coarse black hair, it has a great mouth with sharp teeth a foot long, but its main weakness is its neck: between its head and its “pudgy” body (it has been noted that the beast feasted on numerous animals ever since its arrival, hence why it may look quite fat), its neck is actually as thin as a “wasp’s waist” and this is how the Lion kills it, but cutting off its head (while it sleeps). We also know that this beast arrived quite recently in the forest, so it is not some sort of ancient evil dwelling there for a long time. And, next to the forest, is the ultimate obstacle of the South: the hill of the Hammer-Heads. It is a steep hill, covered from top to bottom with hundreds of great pieces of rock, and behind each rock is hidden (or lives) a Hammer-Head, the “queer men” the soldier talked about. The Hammer-Heads are short and stout men, with big heads flat at the top supported by a thick neck full of wrinkles. No female is mentioned and they also lack arms. Their danger is that their neck can stretch out extremely fast, “as quick as lightning” and thus they can throw their heads flat-side first to hit people with a great strength and send them tumbling down the cliff. And they do that with “boisterous laugh” to anyone that tries to cross their hill because, as they say, “this hill belongs to us and we don’t allow anyone to cross it”. They are not even afraid of the Lion’s roar, which says a lot. The characters again don’t want to go around the hill out of fear of losing their way, and only can cross thanks to the Winged Monkeys intervention. # Now… a big question: what is exactly Quadling Country? This is a big one, especially in this book… In later Oz books, it is considered that each of the four regions make up all of Oz. Aka, everything in the West is Winkie Country, everything in the South is Quadling Country, everything in the East is Munchkin land… However in this book, while at first we believe that the fighting trees, china country and hammer-heads hill are all part of the Quadling Country, Dorothy and the narration keep repeating that the Quadling Country actually begins behind the Hammer-Heads hill, and that everything before that is not Quadling land but… something else. Which is quite interesting, especially when compared to the other regions: as soon as the heroes set out to the West they immediately entered the Winkie lands, and in the East, while the great forest is at first implied to be part of the Munchkin country, at the end of the travel there is a distinction made between the Munchkin land and the forest… So yes, you can either chose to consider that the South Land is indeed all of the South of Oz, but that the Quadlings Country is merely the most southern part where the Quadlings live proper, a region of the South Land, or you can consider the Quadling Country to be the name of all of the South of Oz. Anything is possible. The Quadling Country proper is described as beautiful, rich and happy, “field upon field of ripening grain, well-paved roads running between, pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges” (note that this is the only country with the mention of bridges, you can find them nowhere else in Oz). The favorite color of the Quadlings is red, and thus the fences, houses, bridges and clothes are all red, “bright against the yellow grain and the green grass”. The Quadlings themselves also appear mostly as farmers. Like the rest of Oz they are described as short and “good-natured”, but they also have a specific trait: they are all “fat” or “chubby”. (This lead to some artists interpreting the Ozian races as all having a different body type, the Munchkins being small, the Quadlings fat, the Winkies muscular, etc… an idea that I personally quite like). There also seems to be an explanation for the Quadlings’ fatness hidden in the text: when they are welcomed inside a Quadling house and share their supper, it is mentioned that the Quadling family serves the protagonists “three kinds of cakes and four kinds of cookies”: it seems that the Quadling diet involves a lot of desserts, candies, treats and other sugary things. No wonder they all end up with some extra-padding on their body...

#oz #the wonderful wizard of oz #what we know of oz #quadling country #south #quadlings #hammer-heads #china country #fighting trees #glinda #good witch of the south #great spider #forest

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spookyspaghettisundae · 3 years

Text

And Awaken in a New One

Kim broke out of her trance when the car door slammed shut. She blinked and knew they had passed into the otherworld already. On the surface, it almost looked the same as the world they hailed from. But it had changed.

The blue covering the canvas of the sky around the horizon rippled gently, like a heavenly pond into which stones had been cast. The Hidden Deserts That Had No Name reflected bright light from everywhere and nowhere, with no sun to be seen, wherever she looked. The mountains in the distance refused to stand still and moved—ever so slightly, like the ebb and flow of an ocean lapping lazily at the shoreline of a beach.

The clouds drifting through the air coiled and began moving in the direction of where their car was parked. Like snakes, those clouds crawled towards them.

Although they moved slowly, their steady creeping told Kim to limit her time here.

The car slumped forward a tiny bit when the weight of Javi sitting on its hood depressed it. He was the one who had slammed the door shut and now he lit up a cigarette with a stainless steel lighter, flicking the little silvery thing shut in a fluid and practiced motion right when a puff of white smoke arose from his face.

Strange bushes topped the sands. Unlike the ones native to the Nevada desert from where they had crossed over into here, these plants featured purple color and shivered out of sync with the warm breeze sweeping over these rocky plains.

Javi took a drag from his cigarette, puffed it out with haste and pointed at the clouds. The car’s windows muffled his words, “Only a matter o’ time till those—whatever those are—till those things get to us.”

Kim got out of the car as well. Letting her gaze sweep across the sky above them made her dizzy and almost a bit sick to her stomach. The watery nature of the above offered no solid point to focus on and the unsteady mountains, too, refused to help.

The only thing that looked the same from their last visit: the old black tour bus of the band once known as The Lost Number, standing lonesome in the middle of this desert, caked in sand and beached like a steel whale. Like one of those anchors that existed in different timelines and dimensions, all tenuously connected by such rare universal constants.

She sat herself onto the hood next to Javi and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, then took a long drag from it. The words escaped her lungs like the smoke—scratchy and labored—when she said, “How long have you been a smoker?”

In the previous world, Javi had never smoked. One of many small details that had shifted, ever so slightly, when she returned from the House of Change—when the world was reborn.

“I started when I was, uh, like, eleven, I think?” he said with a shrugging twitch of his left shoulder.

“You not worried about cancer?” she asked while handing him back the cigarette and studying every inch of his face.

The messy black hair on his head and a burly stubble lining his sharp jaw framed a face as handsome as ever—that much had not changed. Plenty of reality’s details had stayed the same, at least on the surface. The eerie light of this otherworld sparkled in his dark eyes as he studied Kim with a curiosity to match her own.

His shoulder twitched again, accompanied by a tilt of his head as he replied, “Lotta things can kill me, and statistically speaking, I think one o’ these hunka-junks is gonna do me in first.”

Javi thrust out a thumb to the sports car they were sitting on. Although dirt and dried mud clung to its every surface, the fast vehicle standing still underneath them looked way too fancy for their budget.

“Look, not to be a pain in the—” he started, the thought trailing off. “You might wanna—”

His sentences kept dying halfway out of his mouth. She knew what he was getting at, his eyes darted up, towards sky, to underline that.

The clouds kept creeping. Ever closer. Like snakes in the water, homing in on them. On prey.

She nodded to him and peeled her eyes off of the living clouds, meeting his gaze again. Lingering there for a longing amount of time.

Kim wondered if she should ever tell him about all the things she noticed that had changed with the world. So many subtleties, so many curious details—so fascinating. And the more often she slept and the more she dreamt, the more the last world felt like a distant, fading memory. Javi would understand, she thought. But what was the point?

She wished none of the previous world back. Precious to some, meaningless to her. Some of the key differences to this one were all that mattered to her.

She pushed herself off the hood of the car and started walking towards the stranded tour bus. Mystified by how it had been taking less years to decay in this secret desert than would be natural.

“You want me to, uh?” he started muttering behind her.

“No, s'all good,” she breathed.

The closer she strayed towards the bleached black body of bus, the more her chest tightened.

It represented a cornerstone—or a pillar—the things that held the fabric of reality together despite any transitions from one world to the next. A bridge through space and time and likely the only reason that an invisible pocket of void connected our reborn world to this one, here. Now. And never.

Gunshot holes still pockmarked the walls of the bus, having been torn from the inside out. Other holes had been punched into it by long, dagger-like claws of an unspeakable creature.

The memory of Michael’s screams echoed in her mind. She stuffed back down whatever guilt that brought bubbling up, shoving it into the cellar of repressed memories and slamming the door shut.

Something else—something physical—slammed shut behind her, prompting her to pause and look back. Javi had removed a beaten up backpack from the trunk, sagging from his one hand, the cigarette in the other. He had started dragging his heel over the ground, drawing a crude circle into the sand around his car. The first step in crafting a ritual ward to keep otherworldly entities like ghosts and demons at bay.

He stopped for a second, looked up at her, and waggled his eyebrows with a twitch about the corners of his lips. As if to politely remind her to hurry things up.

She flashed a smile back at him and returned her attention to the abandoned tour bus. Only with delay did she notice how she had sucked in a good amount of air and was now holding her breath. Her whole body had tensed up.

Kim produced the revolver whose weight had been burning an imaginary hole into her leather jacket’s pocket, and gripped it tightly. She pulled the ajar door fully open and ascended the small stairs, entering the bowels of the steel husk. The door did not want to stand still and swayed in the wind, emitting high-pitched squeaks as its hinges creaked.

She raised her weapon and pointed it wherever she looked, wary of any threat that might be lurking in here.

But nothing awaited. Nothing hungry, and nothing alive, at the very least.

It all looked the same. A painful reminder of a recent past and distant memories alike.

Time had chewed up the dark red leather on the seats everywhere. Heaps of trash still littered the bus’ interior, matching the cliche of a rock star’s devastated hotel room.

Nails still pinned newspaper clippings to one wall, though some of them had fallen out and joined the junk on the floor. Reports of two men who had mysteriously gone missing—a Brent Carver and a Rick Sutton—members of the defunct indie rock band named “The Lost Number.” According to the jumble of clippings, only one band member had not vanished without a trace: Kevin Spilner.

Yet he only existed in the past now, and as far as Kim was concerned, would stay there.

Forever.

His mugshot, painfully familiar to her, still clung to one of the cut-out articles despite the ink’s slow process of fading. She did not like looking into the mirror and seeing that face anymore.

Although the rebirth of the world rendered memories of the previous one blurrier and fuzzier with the passage of time, flashes of that past life haunted her, flashing through her mind like the flashes atop old analog cameras.

How Brent and Rick disappeared out here in the desert, how no bodies were ever found, and how the police eventually released Kevin into the wild where he started a new life. And eventually found Kim.

The plastic of a broken CD case crunched underneath Kim’s shoe as she stepped over a pile of crumpled cans and walked deeper into the hopeless bus.

Nobody and nothing worthwhile here. As if she had been holding her breath all this time, she exhaled a deep sigh and lowered her gun, though her muscles refrained from relaxing. The tension remained.

She lifted her shoe and inspected the jewel case that had splintered underneath her step: an autographed copy of the EP, Sexy Vampire in the Basement by The Lost Number. The stylized photo of the three band members adorning its artwork, dressed like douchebags, replete with their faux hawk hairdos that had been the fashion du jour of any grunge band at the time.

It took her a second to realize the sharp sting of pain that began throbbing from her left palm. Inspecting it showed only that she had dug her fingernails deep into it from the sheer tension gripping her all the while. She sighed again.

Looked up. Followed the rest of the line of articles plastering the wall. The rest of Kevin’s career trajectory.

Either the rebirth of the world had changed nothing of it, or this pocket dimension had preserved this glimpse into a different age and existence. The flamboyant, cross-dressing bass player of the critically panned rock band had transformed into a successful stage magician on the Strip over the years that followed, drawing a small cult following. A snippet from a Rolling Stone interview book-ended the assortment of notes.

In red color, years ago, Kevin had spray-painted over the tail end of this creepy collage:

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Kim sighed again and let her gaze sweep over the sad past, just one more time. The pile of discarded cans of beans and bacon and empty lighter fluid, the ridiculous number of empty cigarette boxes stacked up on the table.

What a pathetic mess.

Struggling to grasp how long she had lived here, hiding out in this pocket space—it disgusted her. She had hid from the world for too long, in a place where mundane folk never wandered, where only demons and ghosts and rejects found comfort in dwelling.

She swallowed the lump of nothingness that had gotten itself stuck in her throat and had one last thing she wanted to look at.

The thing sitting in the back of the safe, sitting in the back of the tour bus. It was what she had come for.

Blood and gore had been sprayed and splattered along the narrow, almost claustrophobic walls leading ever deeper inside, long dried and flaking off. A strange substance, black like pitch and now with the consistency of caked, cracked mud now covered the area. Kim’s mind reeled with the imagination of how a creature native to this world had dissolved into goo there.

To get to that safe, to get to that thing she sought, she would have to walk this narrow corridor. Through the refuse and the haunting clues of past violence.

The only reason to brave this wretched place.

After taking the first steps, registering the taste of grit on her tongue, and finding that her knuckles had whitened as a result of how tightly she gripped the gun in her hand, she realized how fast her heart was racing. Pounding away.

Crunching and thumping noises behind her caused her to spin around and point the gun—at Javi, who stumbled up the stairs into the bus. She lowered her gun but the tension only grew, for panic marred his pretty face.

And terror made his voice tremble in an unsettling contrast to the words he said next, “Okay, time’s up. We got a problem, baby girl.”

Through gritted teeth, she asked, “What?”

Her gun rose, following suit as he raised the sawed-off shotgun in his hands, backing away from the entrance as if to back away from an invisible threat, twitching at every sound of the breeze pouring in through the bullet holes in the body of the bus.

The wind picked up and shook the world around them, like an earthquake. A chorus of whispers engulfed them. But not like wind should. Gibbering and incomprehensible but clearly words. Alien.

She stepped forward, some of the cans and plastic trash clattered and rustled underfoot as Javi and Kim ducked closer to one another, guns pointing away from each other, backing up until their backs touched.

“Ritual ward ain’t workin’ no more,” he said, voice still shaking. Before she could answer that, he added, “And no, I didn’t make no mistake. Somethin’s wrong.”

Something big moved, obscuring the otherworld’s diffuse light and making it flicker as the body of a huge serpent-like shape coiled around the bus, suffocating the light. It howled. Then whispered again.

“No, I don’t think it was you,” Kim breathed. “Shit, I shoulda known bett—"

The bus shook violently and the steel groaned. Screeched in pain. The metal twisted, bent. The walls slumped inwards, gripped and deformed by tremendous force. And that deafening howl resounded again, carrying with it a chorus of furious whispers, only intervals in the rising storm of howls and screeches.

“Let’s hope bullets work,” Javi shouted over the cacophony.

The muzzle flare made Kim see stars for a second, accompanied by black spots in her field of vision. Making the presence of the thick white clouds wrapping and coiling around the bus all the more menacing. And a sharp ringing in her ears followed the thunderclap of Javi’s shot. And then the next.

The howling turned to screeching, fluid and somehow alive, unlike the metal being rent apart.

She squinted and took a shot at something that appeared more solid than the rest, and the unnatural howls that followed suggested that bullets might be working after all.

Bright light flooded the inside of the bus, spreading to the tune of more metal being peeled back like an onion’s skins. The hungry cloud ripped away the entire ceiling and a roiling mass of living white smoke loomed over them.

Javi’s next shot made it recoil. It moved like a dragon with dozens of short limbs, more like a centipede. Its form defied definition. Kim could almost make out something resembling a neck. That neck ended in something resembling a hungry maw, consisting of thousands of teeth that were not teeth, struggling to take shape and just flowing like water and solidifying and back and forth.

She shot into the center of whatever this thing was and it screeched again, dispersing just like any cloud should but reshaping at the edges of the torn metal ceiling and taking cover from their shots. Looming, like a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce.

The string of profanities Javi eked out behind her only underlined his panicked attempts at reloading his gun and fumbling with the ammunition. But the world had grown strangely quieter, through a screen of the deafened ringing in her ears from the many loud shots. Gun smoke stung as it filled Kim’s nostrils.

Her pistol punched another hole through the side of the bus as she took a potshot at the hungry cloud. The angry howls that followed were only a prelude to the thing grabbing and shaking the whole bus with violent force. The world nearly spun around as the bus nearly toppled over.

Two more blind shots made it stop and another hungry cloud darted across the hole in the ceiling, coiling around the bus and crisscrossing with the first one. The bus rumbled and shook, falling back into its upright position, making her stomach churn.

They had no eyes but Kim felt watched. Felt the hatred radiating from these things like heat.

A raging inferno.

The blue water of the sky began to swirl like a vortex, like a whirlpool was beginning to form in it. But she had no time to ponder it, for tendrils of the hungry cloud formed claws, prying at the hole and trying to force its way deeper inside. The maw closed in.

She took another shot that caused it to recoil, backing away and then flowing back outside. She continued pulling the trigger, but the weapon just clicked away with empty chambers.

Click, click, click, click.

Another deafening shot from Javi’s shotgun behind her maintained the numbing screen of ringing in her ears. More angry howls. The presence of the clouds disrupted the flow of air, and a violent gust of wind heralded a sudden change.

The giant forces shaking and crushing and tearing up the old tour bus let go of it. Distanced themselves.

Even at a growing range, Kim could feel the flaming despise emanating from these unnatural entities. Although they possessed no facial features, she sensed one of them catching a glimpse of her as something distantly resembling a head flowed past the hole in the ceiling, joining the other cloud-dragons.

Even as the distance between the bus and the hungry clouds grew, the adrenaline still pumped. Kim’s heart continued pounding like a drum, underscored by that painful ringing in her ears. She continued to point her empty gun at the intangible things while the unspeakable entities backed farther and farther away from the bus, melting into wisps of other clouds adrift in the rippling skies.

Where they recovered. Re-channeled. Readied themselves for their next assault.

With a trembling hand, she pawed around in her other jacket pocket for spare bullets but found none.

“You got what you came for?” Javi asked. His voice quaked.

They had both ducked down and cowered, glued to the old demolished furnishings inside the bus. Things that offered comfort in the illusion of providing cover, but provided none against entities that moved like mist and possessed the power of giants.

“No,” Kim breathed.

“Then fuckin’ get it. They might be coming back,” he said.

She glared at him.

He grimaced and said, “Sorry.”

Staying low and moving while staying crouched, she sidled along the length of the corridor into the back of the bus. Javi stayed behind, keeping his gun trained on one of the gaping holes that the fog-things had ripped open in the chassis of this steel carcass.

Kim paused when something metal clanked. A shard of scrap metal had fallen down and Javi’s gaze met hers. He shook his head and she turned, continuing on.

The pounding of that drum that was the heart of fury and adrenaline, it calmed. Slowly. Although it felt longer than it was, a minute had passed since the retreat of the roiling cloud-monsters.

She dared to stand up straight and look around in the room with the ratty bunk beds. For a moment, she expected to see Michael sitting there. But all she saw was her own shadow, her silhouette cast into a humanoid shape where she had seen him sitting last. A reminder of the demon that had taken him—taken him over, ascended as the Glass King. A wide smile, too wide to look natural, baring bright white, clean teeth. Underlining a set of piercing steel blue eyes, and that flash of silver in them.

That evil. That ambition.

None of it here, now. Nobody was here. Nobody but Javi waiting near the exit, and nobody else but Kim.

She turned and her eyes came to rest on the small black safe set into the wall. Still intact.

The door of the safe stood open. First and foremost, dust and grit filled its insides. That, and a small mirror standing at the back wall, inside the safe.

Kim stared at herself, lost in the sinuous vision. Not vanity enthralled her, but fascination over every curve of her own face, so unexpected and yet so true to what she had imagined. So right.

So her.

Most of all, she felt content. So content that everything was a million miles away. The memories of demons and Michael, the cloud creatures, the weight of the revolver in her hand, the perils of the House of Change, the oblivion that swallowed people whole in the otherworlds, the laws of magick, the constant paradox, the dreams that blended with reality, even Javi—they all faded away. Peeled back like layers of reality unfurling like flower petals, like a rose blossoming and blooming in a time lapse.

All that remained—all that remained was this mirror.

She reached inside the safe and took it. First, Kevin had seen it here, mystified by its meaning and terrified by what it might represent. Michael had left it here, to see through it from beyond any veil, and to control his potential thrall. Now, Kim took it. She would make it her own.

Held up close, she looked into her own eyes, the rest of her appearance and this bright otherworld around her all cropped out by the angle.

Infinity churned in those black holes, framed by vibrant colors, scintillating with fire and metal in the color of her irises. Life, vibrant, and yearning.

Her fingers curled around the small reflective object as she closed her eyes and breathed. The adrenaline, the rushing of blood in her ears all distant and subdued.

Content, finally.

Kim shoved the mirror into her jacket’s pocket and left.

Nervousness still marked Javi’s face when he looked up at her from his hiding spot. His brow shot up into a high arch of confusion. Kim knew how serene she must have looked now, felt the thrum of this powerful calm from the core of her body and emanating outwards like a bright aura.

“Done. Let’s go,” she breathed at him.

He stumbled a bit as he got to his feet and took the lead. Paused at the bottom of the stairs leaving the old tour bus, pointing his gun from one side to the other and then poking it outside. The fright of the cloud-creatures still haunted him and showed itself in his every abrupt motion, but Kim followed behind him in a trance of almost unnatural tranquil.

With nothing in sight, he began making his hasty return to the sports car outside, kicking up dust as he jogged up to it.

Kim followed and only now registered the heavy pull of the emptied gun in her hand. She stared at it and remembered all the times she had used it in the past, savoring the idea of tossing it. Then she changed her mind and shoved it into the other pocket of her leather jacket.

Javi swung his weight to plop back down into the driver’s seat, causing the small lithe vehicle to bounce a few inches under the sudden impact of his weight.

Kim clicked her tongue and smiled through her speaking, “Let me.”

Javi peeled his eyes off the sky where the cloud monsters dwelt. Stared at her in disbelief, realizing how she had stopped paying attention to those potential threats. Kim took twice the time to walk towards the car, not speeding up her pace at all.

He shook his head and climbed back out of the driver’s seat. Tossed the keys to her which she caught with precision that surprised even herself. They took their seats in the car, slammed the doors shut, and within seconds, the engine’s motor roared back to life.

Wheels kicked up dirt as the Dodge spun on the spot and circled around, then sped off towards the cracked and pothole-riddle strip of forgotten asphalt. Metal screeched and sparks flew as the vehicle scraped over tarred grounds and found proper traction on the broken road.

All the while, Javi kept rubbernecking around, peering out of the windows to see if he could spot the things nearing. Kim just kept her focus on the road in front of them. Unconcerned of what lurked in the bright sunless sky.

A gust of wind carried a tempest of sand, engulfing the car. When it passed, the Dodge was driving down a different road. It looked almost the same, but it was more intact than the otherworld’s imitation of one.

This was the natural world they came from.

The sun set to their right. A yellow fireball in the sky, scorching hot and a reminder of them having returned to our world. Or what our world had become.

The car thundered past a weathered sign by the roadside.

SOUTH

306

NEVADA

“Any ideas why the ritual ward didn’t work? Was it those things?” Javi asked after a long bout of silence and a subsequent deep sigh that conveyed a sense of relief.

After all, those cloud-beasts could only exist in that otherworld, or by taking possession of a body from our world.

“Got a hunch,” she replied. Nothing else. That calm drowned out the desire to over-explain.

She could feel his gaze resting on her but she did not meet it, keeping her eyes on the road still. Only shooting a glance at the speedometer. Needle climbing, going fast. The hum and vibration of the vehicle felt good and she savored the pressure of the sheer velocity.

Without looking at him, she could sense the gears churning behind his forehead.

“Got a feeling that all of the old magick doesn’t work anymore. I remember reading some old book. Like, all the old spells from the late medieval period? This one monk said they stopped working at some point. A later occultist wrote some babble about magick only working because you believe in it despite the paradox of it not existing, evidenced by all the old rituals that never worked. But I think that guy had no clue.”

Javi scratched the stubble on his chin, sounding like sandpaper on wood.

“And you think that’s what happened in the House o’ Change? Because o’ what you did in there?” he asked, the pitch of his voice rising with each question. “Does that mean you're—”

“Yes,” she said, interrupting him.

Smiled.

“What if someone else makes it to the Heart of the House? If they birth the next world, does that mean you—”

“No,” she said. The smile solidified on her face, yet softened. Like molten steel. “Nobody can change me—nobody change my metal soul. Nobody.”

Her words trailed off with her thoughts. The road to Vegas would be long and something sinister still awaited them there: the Glass King and his flock.

Kim swallowed the lump in her throat, pushing that thought back down. She felt something more powerful that trumped it.

Hope.

Then she added, “I will now always be me, no matter what becomes of this world, or the next, or any that follow.”

Silence draped itself over them again, filled only with the constant sounds of the engine and the tires rolling down the road at high speed.

Kim removed her hand from the stick and held it out to Javi. An open, empty palm. Yet, invisible to the naked eye, she held her heart out on display for him.

He looked into the hollow of her palm, then let his gaze wander up the length of her arm till their eyes met again. Just before she could feel uncomfortable about it, he seized her hand.

She smiled again.

Squeezed.

—Submitted by Wratts

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jinmukangwrites · 5 years

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Caged Bird

Prompt

Summary: The desert is a heartless place, and traveling unprepared is about the worst thing you can do. Good thing Wild has some friends.

Warnings: mentions of non consensual drug use. Not much else. It's not even that angsty. What a rarity!!!

Notes: once again I stuff a hc into a prompt it has no business being in. Oh well. This one is a popular hc, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I've been wanting to write a fic about it for awhile.

-o-o-o-o-

Twilight is missing. It's been twenty-four hours, Twilight is missing, and Time is losing his mind. A lot can get done in a day, especially in the hands of Wild's Hylia forsaken Yiga Clan. He can't stop thinking about it as they search for Twilight, for the Yiga hideout, what can be done to Twilight. Even the slowest of tortures only need a few hours to begin showing effects. Wild insists that the Yiga aren't interested in torture and killing, there is only one person who they want to do that to and he's not the one who's been taken. They'll just keep Twilight locked away, as a trap to get to Wild. He won't be harmed.

Time has a hard time believing it, especially since Wild seems to be saying these things to convince himself more than the others. Time will admit he's also a worry wart and will worry about Twilight whether or not there's proof that he's okay.

When Twilight was first captured, it was after an ambush. They had been attacked by monsters on the way through the canyons to Gerudo Desert and Twilight got injured. The were low on healing supplies so when a man offered to help them they didn't question too much. Time knew he should have listened to that gut feeling he had that the man wasn't all the he seemed, especially when he insisted he needed privacy to tend to Twilight's wound. Even Wild looks a bit apprehensive about it, but Twilight, bleeding out yet still somehow hopeful, said he'll be fine and not to worry.

Then hours passed and Time couldn't take the waiting with no word anymore. He marched up to the cart the man had taken Twilight inside and found it bare, a note with the simple words "You know what we want, Hero" and the drawing of a distorted Sheikah symbol drawn on to it sat in the middle of the floor.

When he told the group, Wild looked like he had been about to grab the slate and teleport to wherever the Yiga hideout was and offer himself as trade at that second, but he thankfully listened to Time when he said they needed to stay together to have a better chance of taking these guys down. Unfortunately, the slate only worked to teleport one person, so they all had to walk as quickly as they could into the desert as the moon reaches its highest point.

There is not a single member of their group not shivering by the time they reach the canyon leading into enemy territory. With most of the group used to warm weather, only Wild, Sky, and Legend ended up prepared for the chill that pierced through skin and bones. Wild thankfully had an extra tunic and lended it to Four, whose small body was shivering within seconds. The rest were forced to wear multiple layers of clothes.

"A small group of us can go in," Wild says as he glares at the surrounding cliff walls, looking for any kind of movement, "sneak in and grab Twilight. The holding cell isn't far from the front door."

"How much experience do you have with this place?" Time asks. Wild looks down from the cliffs and at the ground.

"Too much."

It is decided Wild, Hyrule, and Time would be the ones to sneak into the hideout, with them being the stealthiest in the group. That left Four, Sky, Warrior, Wind, and Legend to stay behind as backup, ready to leap the moment Wild gives Wind the signal through the Sheikah Slate to the necklace Wind wears around his neck. A very useful tool of communication.

They head off, nothing but the sound of their footsteps on the loose, gravelly sand to accompany them. The moon is starting to lower and the temperature rises dramatically, a bad omen of what's to come when the sun rises.

"They don't have many people on watch," Wild whispers, yet in the secluded canyon with an endless amount of ambush opportunities awaiting them, his voice seemed too loud. "We may have to fight one or two of them, but they won't alert the rest until we're actually inside."

"It would still be best not to be spotted," Time says and Wild nods. Hyrule walks besides them with his jaw set in determination.

They chose to walk in silence from then on, to lessen the chances of being spotted, but Time knows better. The Yiga know they're coming. The know Wild is coming. They'll be prepared, if they're smart of course. Time would have soldiers waiting in every nook and cranny, he'd have the hostage where he could see them, he'd make sure he gets what he wants.

Images of Twilight bloodied and tortured flashed in his mind and Time has to physically shake his head to be rid of them. Wild says the Yiga aren't interested in hurting anyone other than Wild. He has to believe that, or at least consider that the first possibility else he will completely break down. Twilight is fine. He's probably in a cell sitting back and waiting for rescue. Not a single scratch on him.

He tries not to think about the previous wound Twilight has gotten and if it has been treated or not.

Wild takes the lead the closer they get to the hideout. He crouches down and silently moves to a large boulder by the cliff wall and takes out his Sheikah slate. There's a faint blue glow as strange pixels and characters surround his body and in the blink on an eye, Wild is wearing something very similar to what the Sheikah wear. To what Sheik wore.

Except... It is pink.

In his hands are two bottles filled with a thick purple looking substance. Time gets a bad feeling that Wild expects them to drink it.

"Unless you have something of your own that makes you stealthier, you should drink this," Wild whispers, confirming Time's fear.

Hyrule wrinkles his nose and is the first to reach towards the potion. He opens his mouth but Wild quickly cuts him off.

"You don't want to know what it's made of."

Time has to remind himself that Twilight is in danger before he reaches towards the potion. When he opens the lid a stench that smells as bad as the potion looks wafts up towards his nose and he almost gags. Besides him, Hyrule pinches his nose and takes the contents down in one swallow, like a shot. He blinks a couple times and then grins. "That doesn't taste half bad."

"Right?"

Time rolls his eyes and takes his share. He almost throws up, yet he also feels more… sneaky. When they begin to creep towards the hideout once again, Time realizes he can barely even hear his own breathing. Both Wild and Hyrule seem to blend into the surroundings despite Hyrule's green tunic and Wild's bright pink, he only knows they're there because he's seen them just a few seconds ago. Granted, they're not invisible, just… it seems the suit and the potions make it a bit harder for them to be noticed. They're more easily slipped over by the eye. Time wishes he had this when he was going through the Gerudo fortress so long ago. Really would have helped…

Wild grabs both Time and Hyrule by the upper arms to get their attention, and when he sees both pairs of eyes on him he points forward to the approaching end of the canyon. Time can see strange statues lining the jutting cliffs with the warped Sheikah design drawn on talismans and hung around the faces. Ropes hung high and low like a system of clothing lines with red papers draping down. Time doesn't have to ask, he knows that now it gets hard.

Wild leads them forward and they follow carefully, hugging the face of the wall. It's clear that Wild has, in fact, snuck around here multiple times if by the way he moves is any indication. He knows exactly where to step and what areas have the smallest chances of allowing them to be seen. In a few minutes time, they are right at the doorstep of the hideout without having met a single enemy.

Time doesn't know whether that's because Wild knows exactly what he's doing or if it's because there's something awaiting them inside. Judging by the way Wild's eyebrows are slightly pulled together, Time won't place his bet on the former.

They walk inside, the walls tower over them and Time can't help but marvel at the architecture, but his anxiety sparks when they reach a large, circular room. A dead end.

"What now?" Hyrule asks, he's showing no effort at hiding his panic and confusion. Wild ignores them and walks towards one of the sections of walls hidden behind a large tapestry.

"On the other side of this," he says as he pulls out an arrow and sets it alight, "could be an army."

"Doesn't matter," Time finds himself saying. "Twilight's there."

Probably hurt. Probably confused. Probably in pain. If the way Hyrule nods and pulls out his sword or the way Wild takes a deep breath is anything to go by, they're thinking the exact same thing.

"The cell is straight up the staircase. If we're lucky, that's where Twilight is." Wild gives them a half smile, as if trying to give them a bit more moral.

"And if he's not?" Hyrule asks.

Wild is silent for a second before he touches the arrow to the tapestry. The flames instantly clutch to the fibers and travel up silent and efficient. "If he's not, I have some bananas."

Time doesn't ask what that means.

Time almost passes out from the sheer amount of relief that courses through his body the moment they get up the staircase. Twilight is there. Time can see him lying there on his side, face turned towards the hard stone floor, halfway obscured by the wooden bars of the cell. It's too far to tell, but he looks unharmed. There's no red. There's nothing indicating injury. If fact, it looks like the Yiga has actually wrapped up Twilight's wound. It seems that the Yiga really are just interested in killing one person.

There's no guards, no anything. It's a clear shot to the cell and even Wind, the most reckless of their group, could tell that that doesn't bode well at all, if he were here of course. Time and the others stand still across the short expanse of room, it's agonizing. He can see Twilight, they've found him, but something is wrong, or well, he knows what's wrong just not why.

The lack of guards is at the top of the "something's wrong" list, how Twilight isn't moving is number two.

Hyrule shuffled over to the ledge to their left and looks over. He shakes his head and shrugs. No guards down there either.

Time can see Wild visibility swallow before he sneaks forward. He holds a hand back, telling Time and Hyrule to stay there. Time almost argues, but he also knows that Wild has done this before. Wild knows the entire layout and most of what can go wrong. He's the most experienced, and just because Time is yearning towards grabbing Twilight himself and getting the hell out of there doesn't give him the right to step on Wild's toes and potentially mess everything up.

It's probably a good thing Time and Hyrule stayed behind, because right when Wild gets a few feet from the cell, a swirl of tailesmens and an excited laugh announces the arrival of one of the dreaded assassins. Wild jumps backwards and instantly has a sword pulled out as a Yiga Clan assassin appears right between him and the cell.

He's tall, Time thinks. Big, muscular, and weilding a pretty wicked looking sword. Time tenses and is about to sprint out, but Hyrule stops him. His lips open, mouthing words.

They haven't noticed us.

More Yiga appear, there are two hanging out in the cell, dangerously close to Twilight, and another three outside the cell, standing in front of Wild, pointing arrows and raising scythe-esque weapons threateningly.

"Welcome, hero," the tall one says. His voice is deep, surprisingly deep. The other Yiga are all smaller, yet their laughs at those two words are just as intimidating as the big one. "I take it you're willing to trade?"

"I want proof he's okay," Wild says. His voice is calm. Dangerously calm. Like there's a storm about to hit.

One of the enemies inside the cell chuckles and roughly kicks Twilight in the gut. Twilight lets out a groan and curls in on himself. Wild seems to visibly relax while Time tenses up more. Just wait until these guys get a taste of his mind. Oh they'll be sorry.

He doesn't realize he's verbally growling until Hyrule slaps his shoulder, thankfully both noises are hidden by the laughter that sounds in the room.

Wild drops his sword and lifts his hands up in surrender. "You promise you'll let him go if I give myself up?" Wild asks.

Time's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What is he doing?"

"Watch," Hyrule whispers, grinning.

So Time does.

The faces of the assassins are obscured by masks, but the grin on the big ones face can be heard as he steps forward, hands twitching with excitement. "Of course."

The others approach too, to do what Time doesn't know. And he will never know, because the moment they get close enough, Wild snaps.

Lightning surges from out of nowhere, Time can feel it run up his spine to the base of his skull, filling the very air with electricity. The Yiga scream as green bolts of pure fury rain down upon them. It only lasts a few seconds, but it's enough for Wild to pick up his sword and slice at the leader across their chest as they're still dazed. Wild drops down when an arrow flies past his head. Wild is outnumbered and he's probably majorly pissed off every Yiga assassin in the room, but his also grinning wide enough to crinkle his eyes. He turns before anyone else can make an offensive move against him and launches himself off the platform onto the ground below. He sprints off with a sarcastic solute.

"Get him!" The big Yiga screams, his chest is bleeding but he seems too angry to care.

With the rustling of paper and laughs that can only be described as a hound dogs call, Time and Hyrule are left alone.

Time rushes forward with Hyrule following close behind not even a heartbeat later. He doesn't know what Wild's just done with the lighting or whatever, but he does know that that's not important right now. What's important is that Wild looked confident enough to take on the whole base, and he's left the path to the holding cell wide open.

There's an explosion deep inside the building that shakes the floor as Time grabs onto the wooden bars and forces the cell open. Twilight is still, not reacting at all, which is not a good sign. Time lowers himself down and cuts the rope holding Twilight's hands together behind his back and then lifts him up so he's somewhat sitting against Time. His body is like a ragdoll, limp.

Twilight blinks lazily, his eyes not quite focusing. Time can feel his heart painfully tug because something is not right. He puts a hand against Twilight's cheek and Twilight seems to lean into it.

"Pup?" Time asks. Hyrule bends down and he instantly goes to the bandages wrapping around Twilight's chest.

"Hmmm?" Twilight asks. He blinks more and it takes a few seconds for his eyes to finally somewhat focus. He opens his mouth and says a word, it sounds close to Time's name but it's all slurred and mumbled with groggy vocal chords. His pupils are dialating.

"Hey, pup," Time says again. Besides them, Hyrule is now checking the wound, it's surprisingly stitched up and looking good. Something else is making Twilight woozy.

The sound of another explosion meets their ears. Wild must be having a field day, and while Time has complete faith in Wild's abilities as a hero, he knows that the longer they stay in the cell the bigger chance they have of getting caught.

"Okay, up we go," he grunts and slings Twilight's limp arm around his shoulders. Twilight is forced to his feet as Time struggles to lift his dead weight, Hyrule quickly takes the other arm and lessen the load.

Twilight doesn't even bother to get his legs working beneath him, and if the way his head is lolling like a bobble head says anything, he probably wouldn't be able to help them walk even if he were coherent enough to. Hyrule shoots Time a worried look and Time sets his face in grim determination. Get to safety first, then check what's wrong with his charge.

The walking goes by slowly, too slowly. Time feels like he's barely managing to go a snail's pace. All he wants to do is more thoroughly check over the pup and then return to the hideout to help Wild burn it down, but at this rate Wild is going to burn it down himself and come out the help them before they can reach the others. Time readjusts his grip on Twilight's arm and pushes himself forward. Hyrule is panting, and Time realizes he is too. The back of his neck is burning with the rising sun, he's almost surprised with how much time has passed.

He pushes forward.

Finally, finally, they reach the others, and thankfully they all run up to help take the weight of Twilight's limp body. Time thinks Twilight fell asleep, he's not sure, he's too busy grabbing at the straps of his armor and letting them drop to the ground before he lifts the undershirt above his head.

He's hot. He's so hot, the sun is smoldering and the shade by the cliffs hardly do anything to help. The rest have also stripped their clothes and have moved closer to the shade, dragging Twilight along with them. He leaves his armor where it is, the thought of going back is forgotten when he sees Twilight isn't responding to the slight slaps to the face from Warrior. Time stumbles forward and drops down into the sand and sees that Twilight is just staring, nothing else, just looking at the sky or something further away with no reaction towards his comrades.

"What's wrong with him?" Legend asks.

"He looks drunk," Wind replies. Time is too worried to ask Wind how he knows what drunk looks like.

"He's not drunk," Warrior says and sits back onto his legs. His face is grim. "He's drugged."

"What kind of drug?" Time asks. He ignores the way his stomach seems to tie itself into a knot. Drugs… drugs are dangerous, and judging by the way Twilight is completely uninterested in the land of the awake, he's as high as a cloud.

Warrior shrugs. "It's Wild's Hyrule, it can be anything. I don't recognize it."

Time looks away towards a city in the distance, dancing like an illusion from the heat of the rising sun. That's their best bet for help, but it's so far away and the heat of the desert alone will kill them before they make it, nevermind any possible monsters.

Yet, a miracle happens right then. In the distance, Time sees sand being kicked up by a small creature swimming through the sand as if it were water. There are multiple of them, and behind each are taller figures with flaming red hair. The Gerudo warriors skid to a halt next to the group and dismount the strange seal creatures. Time stands up and walks forward to greet them.

"Look what we have here," one of the Gerudo women says. Her skin is as dark as chocolate and her eyes blaze gold. She looks weary of them, but also confident, wearing an easy going smirk.

"Our friend," Time explains, he moves so the can get a clear shot of Twilight, "he was taken from us by the Yiga Clan, we came here to rescue him."

Another Gerudo snorts. "You aren't dressed for the desert," she says, "you're lucky we were told you'd be here."

The third Gerudo drops a heavy looking bag onto the sand, bringing up a small cloud. Time remains where he is, confused. He looks towards the others and they're just as lost as he is, so he turns back to the warriors and clears his throat.

"Told... we'd be here?" He asks.

"Yes," the first one says. "By our little Hylian Vai. Ah, There she is now."

She looks past the group and Time follows her gaze towards where a figure dressed in blue silk is running down the canyon towards them. Time recognizes the scars on her body, her long hair, her blue eyes. The outfit she wears also sparks a vague memory in the back of Times head.

"Sav'otta, friend!" The Gerudo calls.

The girl… it has to be Wild… waves and calls back. "Sav'aaq."

His voice is surprisingly feminine, and Time would love to go and get more information, but Twilight is a matter of more importance. Wild seems to think so too judging by the way he stills when he sees the pup.

Time turns to the Gerudo, knowing now that Wild has somehow called them over and has decided to trust them completely. "He's mostly unharmed, we think he's drugged."

One of the Gerudo nods and hefts a bag over her shoulder before she strides over to Twilight. The others scoot slightly away to give her room to work, but not enough that she can do whatever she wanted without them watching. It seems Time isn't the only one a tad bit weary to let Twilight of their sight.

"There's heat proof clothes in the bag," the third Gerudo says and Time turns towards where the bag is discarded on the ground. "If you want to travel the desert, you'll need them. Don't worry about paying us back, it's the least we can do for our little bird. We also have way too much Voe clothes to handle, so really you're doing us a favor."

While the Gerudo tend to Twilight, Time and Wild both step forward to dig through the pile of clothes. "Got into Gerudo Town the same way I did, huh?" Time says, grinning slightly. Wild shoots him a glare, but Time can see the small blush forming on his cheeks.

They pass out the clothes to the others and quickly change. The heat of the sun instantly seems to go away, allowing their skin to feel the surprising cool breeze.

The Gerudo tending to Twilight identifies the drug as a pretty tame one, the only side effects Twilight has to look forward to is some natural nausea and shakiness when it starts to wear off. For now, all they can do is make sure he doesn't overheat.

"We can escort you to the Kara Kara Bazaar. Since you are Voe, we cannot allow you into our city."

"That's alright," Time says, "you've already helped us a lot. We do not wish to impose more than what we already are."

"It's not problem," one Gerudo says. She steps forward and slings her arm over Wild's small body. "For our little bird? Almost anything."

-o-o-o-o-

The cold air running through the in at the Kara Kara Bazaar is a blessing on so many levels. Even with the Voe armor, the heat of the sun still eventually managed to latch it's scalding fingers onto their skin. There's not a single member of the group that's not sunburned in some way, but Wild thankfully manages to make some potions to chase away the worst of it. They thank they three Gerudo women and they reassure them that it's no issue to help the friends of their little bird, and then they ride off before the other men at the Bazaar can try to mob them.

Twilight is laid down on one of the inn beds and Time sits besides him on a chair he has pulled up, he's sleeping somewhat peacefully. He woken up in the middle of their journey spilling the contents of his stomach everywhere as his body slowly cleansed out the drug. He's been given a small dosage of a health potion a Gerudo warrior had with her and then passed out not long after. He should wake up with a hell of a hangover, but he'll be clean of the drugs. Time can't be more thankful for that, it could have been worse.

Time sighs and brushes at the hair sticking to Twilight's forehead from the sweat. It could have been so much worse.

"I'm chopped some melon," Wild's voice says. Time pulls his hand away from Twilight to see Wild approaching, still dressed in the beautiful blue silk, in his hands is a tray of cut fruit. "Was wondering if you wanted some, it'll cool you down."

"Sure, and while I eat, you can explain some things."

Wild blushes slightly but hands Time a melon anyway. Time takes a bite into the surprisingly cold fruit as Wild pulls up his own chair.

"After I fought the Yiga, I used my slate to go back to Gerudo Town to ask for help. Then I came back to make sure you guys were out. Simple as that," Wild says. His hands are wringing around each other in his lap, and he's looking down, not making eye contact.

While Time was wondering about that, both he and Wild know that's not what he meant. He gives Wild a look and Wild sighs.

"It feels… natural," he... she says, her breath barely above a whisper. "Better... Right. Especially here."

Time smiles and places his hand on Wild's shoulder. "It's alright. You look comfortable in your own skin."

Wild gives a half relieved, half nervous laugh before she turns to where Twilight still lays. "I didn't know if you guys would… how you would react, so I've kept it hidden. But, back at the hideout, I knew that your opinion of me wouldn't matter at all if you all died in the sun. It feels good, though. Everyone has said they're okay with it besides…"

Time smiles and looks back towards his charge. "He'll always accept you, no matter what. We all will."

"I know, it's still… a bit…"

"Nerve wracking?"

"Yeah."

"He will always accept you, and if he doesn't, he has me to answer to."

#jin writes #fan fiction #linked universe #hero of the wild #hero of time #fan fic #hero of twilight #hero of warriors #legend of zelda #hero of legend #hero of the four sword #hero of the wind #hero of hyrule #hero of the sky #we all know twi accepts her #gender fluid wild

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sirjustice1072 · 3 years

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPFEWXhDSDk

Groundnuts in maize if u chop wood socked in maize soup in slanting factory basement towards the lake while if u chop feces gives ya mandazi or hot rubber immersed in water while ground nuts in waru chop cooked cassava gives ya mkate/bread in lands sloping towards the brown river, while with chapati u place groundnuts in maize then chop cooked yam while the yam outer peel gives ya coin monies if chopped and with kebab u chop wood placed in sewer water 4 long when heap is maize placed in kale in slanting lands towards the sea dude as try with other topographies 4 something new dude.

Crocodile in in raw maize then chop avocado seed makes jets in sloping lands towards the road same as when u chop refrigerated planted grass or natural 1 and many veggies as kale, onion, hoho and fruits gives u another thing like missiles and choppers or drones dude while monitor lizard in heap of iced grass then chop wood which has been in water for long or sand soaked in water or euphorbia tree trunk gives ya Airplane and knifes respectively and try chopping all veggies, fruits, leaves or berries both iced, rotten, cooked or raw and with their seeds as well

Even a big plane can stand on air when the air blown on the hot siren or oxygen gas cylinder from behind stopped only from below pump and as u reduce the motor velocity to reduce on cold air magnitude reaching the cylinder it gets down like chopper do or maintaining the pump speed and reducing the temperature of the circulating air using the AC

The metal sensor in the link below can be well incorporated in drones but with many mouths in a 360 degree way but 2 in a cross way to identify foreign particles as missile drones, jets and missiles itself so it detects and can be automatically released to attack the particles or blinks on your radar screen on the control tower b4 u locate the same and release the mini-missiles attached to it by yourself dude cause can be your next drone in that linear pattern detected to detonate it amounting to absolute nothing lest radar detect it and u watch it on camera b4 releasing it ya self to hit the foreign missile not ya own security drones placed in a linear way maybe in ya shore or border line dude

If now contented with life and fears nothing, kinda, your back became like a cross and on the horizontal up 1 kinda rotates in a dreamy picture to cement the truth of the former case while if u can live long on ya back head another 1 like the mouth of the drill rotates to indicate you can live long as people have accepted ya in way humble ways and u like not good life without others having the same, u want others to have what u got even on credit dude to have it 1st and foremost u love humanity and oppose white people myths of school which were made to take kids to to get monies and even with churches dude. So u trim on such spending to up ya lifestyle dude

Some of the a must apps in ya phone that u should have as in the links below

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/11-Credit-Card-Apps-Swipers-for-iPhone-Android-and-BlackBerry

https://www.timeanddate.com/android/worldclock/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/driving-for-less/must-have-driving-apps/

Down the road to be placed on this side or the other as well can be a morgue, slaughter house, market or grocery store and detergents can be mixed with acidified water or veggies, berries, leaves and fruits deepen in the same whether ripe, rotten, cooked or raw bro 4 must results outcome

How sure me will know if u will be a professional footballer, be 1 1st kid, then if i have money at that time even just 4 local team come to me and i will applaud ya or give u my estate like half if i happen to have cash, not early cause is many people dream not yet achieved so how u under the sun dare same b4 us yet with us the same dream has been buried. And if to advice your kids, get cash and get to a paid advisor not free lessons u pay so also them afford to put food on table not just wanting free and with College should be paid not free, as u can save via your and your parents phone on each credit they place like 2 - 5 % is deducted from the same to cater 4 your later education not to disturb people your kid will be this and that early dude. U got the solving mechanisms but playing as others u want will enjoy the same, same to placing gadgets and machines u want and even grocery and clothing on credit even payable per day 4 every1 to be the same, to have what u can have in cash in credit to bring around equity but not equality as yours can be repossessed in failure of paying your premiums but mine not dude, other people waiting the same cause same sold to them at the remainder of what u got on such total costs u bought the machine

If u be a lawyer or doctor at that time i will be your client and bring much clients to ya and if teacher my kids will attend ya school. Life yours not mine dude. People who only are good when law tough are not wanted in the society as well but such gimmicks are investigated under hidden camera on with ya wife or in violence dude, so take heed or only good cause they got crib or some free cash which if they got not becomes of burden to others or lazy to work if cant get into crime. Such must be eliminated as not bare kids to continue next generation and with law officers as well as the govt play dice to investigate them, if u got some online cash leave employment 4 others as this is a plus and being investigated in many officers if their offspring can continue in the next future in a world of machines where such will be hard to identify dude

Covid medication is Ginger and now we are heading to the same way and if u got kikuyu blood, the capsize method is the most sure way and many a nations have test the same and unless u got the covid is when u can be arrested if u dont ware a mask and be fined not when u r safe bro and the authorities ought to get the same lest dictators dude

Universities should ban much university police as can only have like 4, 2 works during the day and 2 during the night to cut ob such payments which are liability to school heaping some percentage on students fees as we got spies drones with speakers, camera and gun to cruise the school compound looking 4 the vices and intruders and even the same job can be allotted to the college president only sending corpse on scenes of captured crimes as in the link below we got 24 hr battery or solar powered drones

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/JMRRC-X850-Most-Professional-Drone-With_62238593089.html

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=solar+powered+surveillance+drones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aukvVIepqws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8wYCt9rTcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSowwfKurCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgIiKLA-cdg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmvFC07pCbc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTZFs34eOOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rx6xl8H9Ow

https://www.propublica.org/article/digital-jail-how-electronic-monitoring-drives-defendants-into-debt

Bracelet tells ya position on the location then the police on radar sees the blink to get there to identify whats u with ya or what u r doing dude as it tells your bearing and next to named streets and buildings or inside a specific locality, so cant escape a crime as can record all who were there to stop lame blame games on people who have triumph more than others

With life u get back on it not ahead, locating loopholes as above, if u wanna get with it as wants to have what u desire 1st and in cash u end up with a broken heart wild or a thug to get money to have the same. Locate loopholes as stated above as paying per day method option even if it means 4 longs just like seducing a woman u want who wants u not, u became like long time seekers not minding the hurts if u wanna dude

Towels made when 1 sample placed like in sewer water then u chop iced ripe paw paw or passion fruit or hammer those seeds when heap placed in company house basement sloping towards the road or desert roads with scorpions or cactus growing while bicycle sparks made when placed in the same the chop iced guava while if u chop iced kale and place photo gives u the whole bicycle while with motor bikes u chop iced cooked yam, cars with iced cooked waru while the peel gives ya trucks and with any machine try with cooked anything chopping. With bicycle photo lies straight in the middle of the heap while motor bike curved looking sideways of the heap, like 2 wheels of the same as 1 photo cut into 2 halves and try the same with any other machine, like with alternator and solar generator curved upside not horizontal to where the boom process of dropping is done but the other side against dude

If 1 wants to impregnate just women as see him 1st as hardworking as his kids who can only control the future then u got it wrong, this u make can be made in boom process and if u dont relent u got to be finished. Let 1 man 1 kid surface to avert the same dude as is seen when u want to do the above an imaginary woman next to ya pregnant or 1 walking on ya path and if u wanna just sleep with them u see unrolled but already opened Condom and u r left to do what u want lest u know how to behave dude and if u wanna infect them its know by ya current status and dislike of earthly things and ya not all that empty talks of holding grudges and loving the city most than hinterlands.

Planes can be made to negotiate instant sharp corners even in high speed in the air not the normal way, but placing a armored glass siren or oxygen gas cylinder across where from both sides air blow via a water pump or air pump which when the glass heated by bulb lights if air blows on 1 side if switched from the plane dashboard pushes the plane towards the pump air side and vice versa to rotate the air plane to negotiate corners and u can draw the same process and place in already built plane without same or make new ones with the same protocol dude. Where is moon sideways as in books or above the earth directly, now we got the answer as Rwanda, Nigerians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Ethiopians have payed visit to the same, so correct book lies dude and heaping such indignities on 1 as with airplane using linear motion yet siren gas to affirm to us the harsh and bad characters of many a white man to stop being with them as can destroy the world

All the displayed above happens so u know if u are all alone most time u can make it more than being in groups as groups sway u so u not make it as this rich than that, so u breed jealousy so help not reach ya. Try to be a loner dude to make it with few consultations from group, if u r warned of such then how can that warning put large life in-front of ya, see impossible dude. I will not go slow on ya, want to carry middle size women u big bodied men, so want a deal, no no no dude, u aint the law to get slow on so u get on the bad side to get to jail, u like me to respect the law bro, so stop dude. The crazy thing going all around dude or wanna grab my manhood in pretense bro, got gun then shoot out my brains and see if u make it, cause the same on making gadgets and foods have sent to every nation on Instagram like on 30 a/c and have given 1 of ya my pass-code to affirm the same dude and links on same tumblr following a/c to directs ya or affirm the same. Hustle 4 the woman u want dude and let people see u with them, dont resort to jealousy as u want the same and will be public to rob ya your dignity or self-hood dude now that u know the international 1 out of your bound or rich dude or u aint that log of wood or tree that should be preserved in that if u cut it against the law and will take ya to prison of hell fire as God wants not such decadence to the environment. If dried in the forest needs to be cut to be used or if need arises to sell to get cash yet plants another 1 or if too much as many trees to suffocate or disturb others cut 4 others to survive well rather than many wilt which is bad to many a eyes as they will talk ill or bad dude and that's it dude

Even rails made when 1 piece placed in sewer water in the basement slanting to the road placed on the roadside guava in acid or aluminum ware or cat family feces b4 u chop ice veggies, fruits or leaves as try with any1 which is iced and even with cereals and seeds or place on the road the dark gravel or beans or dark fruits on like sewer water on concrete

Plug-less smartphone in the link below as everything wireless from charging, in built sim and WiFi earphones and same can happen to our electricity just the pole reaches your home but connected in a WiFi way to ya house without wire crossing to the roof dude, it has no screw and every electronic will follow suit to harbor theft completely and water proof. Track 1 in another phone or ya phone using the bracelet watch as below dude

https://sea.mashable.com/tech/2041/vivo-is-the-next-company-to-unveil-a-buttonless-and-portless-phone-and-were-getting-really-worried

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBNCxu2w1yo

https://newatlas.com/energy/long-range-wireless-power-transmission-new-zealand-emrod/

https://www.jumia.co.ke/generic-car-vehicle-radar-detector-speed-control-detector-v7-speed-26556945.html

https://www.jumia.co.ke/m3-smart-sport-fitness-bracelet-tracker-smart-watch-generic-mpg209867.html

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-google-coop&q=smartphone+bracelet+watch+app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jaga.ibraceletplus.smartwristband&hl=en&gl=US

https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Gold-Bug-2-Detector-Elliptical/dp/B000K3EIPU

Missiles detectors got the same to detect plastic, rubber or metal to go for them automatically without being monitored to detonated and even with glass and smoke from specified radius

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32882471805.html

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sirjustice1071 · 3 years

Photo

Some of the a must apps in ya phone that u should have as in the links below

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/11-Credit-Card-Apps-Swipers-for-iPhone-Android-and-BlackBerry

https://www.timeanddate.com/android/worldclock/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/driving-for-less/must-have-driving-apps/

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/JMRRC-X850-Most-Professional-Drone-With_62238593089.html

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=solar+powered+surveillance+drones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aukvVIepqws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8wYCt9rTcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSowwfKurCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgIiKLA-cdg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmvFC07pCbc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTZFs34eOOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rx6xl8H9Ow

https://www.propublica.org/article/digital-jail-how-electronic-monitoring-drives-defendants-into-debt

https://sea.mashable.com/tech/2041/vivo-is-the-next-company-to-unveil-a-buttonless-and-portless-phone-and-were-getting-really-worried

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBNCxu2w1yo

https://newatlas.com/energy/long-range-wireless-power-transmission-new-zealand-emrod/

https://www.jumia.co.ke/generic-car-vehicle-radar-detector-speed-control-detector-v7-speed-26556945.html

https://www.jumia.co.ke/m3-smart-sport-fitness-bracelet-tracker-smart-watch-generic-mpg209867.html

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-google-coop&q=smartphone+bracelet+watch+app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jaga.ibraceletplus.smartwristband&hl=en&gl=US

https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Gold-Bug-2-Detector-Elliptical/dp/B000K3EIPU

Missiles detectors got the same to detect plastic, rubber or metal to go for them automatically without being monitored to detonated and even with glass and smoke from specified radius

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32882471805.html

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sirjustice1069 · 3 years

Photo

Some of the a must apps in ya phone that u should have as in the links below

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/11-Credit-Card-Apps-Swipers-for-iPhone-Android-and-BlackBerry

https://www.timeanddate.com/android/worldclock/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/driving-for-less/must-have-driving-apps/

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/JMRRC-X850-Most-Professional-Drone-With_62238593089.html

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=solar+powered+surveillance+drones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aukvVIepqws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8wYCt9rTcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSowwfKurCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgIiKLA-cdg

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sirjustice1068 · 3 years

Photo

Some of the a must apps in ya phone that u should have as in the links below

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/11-Credit-Card-Apps-Swipers-for-iPhone-Android-and-BlackBerry

https://www.timeanddate.com/android/worldclock/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/driving-for-less/must-have-driving-apps/

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/JMRRC-X850-Most-Professional-Drone-With_62238593089.html

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=solar+powered+surveillance+drones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aukvVIepqws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8wYCt9rTcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSowwfKurCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgIiKLA-cdg

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sasorikigai · 4 years

Note

Can I have like... the whole relationships building meme for Hanryou plz?

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING || @sonxflight || accepting (part 2)

Send 🌀 for my muse’s reaction to getting stuck in a storm with yours.

Hanzo’s love is a hurricane with its wild arms of passion unleashed, and the tender serenity of peace at its center. As the tapestry of sky renders the technicolor of the world to somber hues as each contrasting passion of his own rise and fly, strip them bare and consume them whole, Hanzo then would cradle Ryou down to rest in the center of his own heart of storms, as the permeating warmth of his being encompasses as he finds a peculiar peace in the rushing streaks of thunder above.

Send 🍺 for my muses drunk reaction around yours.

The two of them are linked together by the heavy bonds of silence that pass through the wall separating their two indistinguishable worlds. They need each other more than anything, I feel without a doubt. Hanzo staggers, the warmth turned to inferno and the architecture of his being turned into bursting flames. There is nothing like the way Ryou walks through his dreams; a fire blazing through a dead forest. A required destruction in order to blossom life again, just as his beloved had in his barren heart. Hanzo’s own breath turns heated, his eyes a constellation whispering the warmth of the absent sun. “Love has a way to make us remember, it has a way to make us cry, but love has never stopped making me smile. I can only fucking hope that you continue to scour the depths of my heart and mind for blind spots and discard all the barbwire fences encircling things I have hidden from the world, because you deserve to see the better of me. The entire sincerity, integrity, and tender spirit.”

Send 💰 for your muse to ask mine for money.

Hanzo technically wouldn’t have to, considering that they both are more than well off and affluent when it comes to monetary situations, but since they live under the same roof and doesn’t mind paying off each other’s fare, he wouldn’t mind occasionally to pay for Ryou’s fare or even lend him money if he asked him to. But not after giving him an inquisitive stare and finding out why.

Send ✔️ for a daydream my muse has had about/involving yours.

We lie in bed clothed by the warm sunlight, content to let the moment slowly recede until we’re left nothing, but each other. We are no more than the memories we hold and the stories that we leave behind. Lungs riddled with frantic breaths, mine would tell of secrets I’ve long tried to hold inside, but it’s all just background noise in a space meant for silence. For we are meant for each other and maybe that was never the problem. And as you listen to the sonorous beat of my heart, you would feel every high and low, every key and note, every word and tune as our boundaries merge and disintegrate.

Send 👀 for my muse to compliment yours.

You always have accepted my experiences, memories, and emotions as your own, and all the emotional landscapes, with all its encompassing range and features; whether it be the soft pillowy valleys of my peace, the marsh, where treading is slow and painful, rotted, yet preserved, as things become so much so distorted that I can still fish up and look at from time to time. You helped to sculpt the elated mountains where things so peacefully breathe the full breadth of my life. You have always been the constant of my dreams where life grows, and where splendid things hide. Once unattainable love became seeming regularity and I have you to be grateful for with the rest of my life.

Send 💋 for how my muse would seduce/flirt with yours.

All he has to do is to get butt naked and wear that long apron in the morning to cook Ryou breakfast in bed. Hanzo doesn’t get to flaunt his cooking skills as much as Ryou does (I imagine them both packing lunches, despite Hanzo’s wanting to occasionally eat junk as he doesn’t get to eat as nearly as frequent as he would like), and Ryou wakes up earlier than Hanzo most often.

Send 👏 and what your muse will do to fluster mine.

Hanzo would either sneak into Ryou’s office or show up unannounced during his break hours and possibly attempt to have a quickie. It may be simply because his unsatisfied lust driving him as the hustle of morning hours didn’t give them enough time to get him to release. Also, there is also a slight risk of being seen, and despite them being married for a while now, their personal lives are still relatively wrapped under the veil.

Send 😙 for my muse’s reaction to yours being super affectionate.

Their love is so many combinations of feelings; it’s not always about the butterflies, it’s not as simple as the racing heartbeat, low-pitched laughters or sweaty palms. It’s not really about their poetic words of declaration or love songs they play every time they entangle themselves under the basking moonlight. Not even the sensual touch, lingering kisses, or the maps they create on each other’s skin. It’s little bit of everything and the sensation of feeling at home. As Ryou’s head curls into the dip of his pectorals, Hanzo finds himself releasing the heaviest sigh after the most tiring day. With his arm curled over Ryou’s back in peace and contentment, his lips melt as the petals of his lips kiss his beloved’s crown. He must confess, that Ryou Sakai is his sincerity and internal reference. And the posture of his gaze lingers onto his husband’s handsome features, and his bare form leans, into the familiar mold of the pillow, as he lets his spine ease and melt off all the tension of a busy day.

Send 🍵 and my muse will reveal one of their biggest regrets involving yours.

I would find myself in an unfamiliar place, standing frozen and feeling you standing behind me all along, in the middle of a desert or on a cloud, inside a long tunnel, and in thousands of other places. I’ve always felt and knew that you were standing behind me, and each time, I would turn toward you, slowly, with enormous difficulty, as if I was a herd of racing horses would trying to stop the sinking world from plunging me towards the inevitable, and finally discovered that no matter how much I tried to disappear and destroy myself, you would always refuse to disappear and make your solidarity and presence clear. You have always been so honest, despite your reticence, and I don’t think I have been that honest when you and I were getting to know each other.

Send 😶 and my muse will confess to something they wish they didn’t do that affected your muse.

My scar may pale with each year that passes; the red draining slowly to white. It’s a small reminder that the pain is there, and maybe one day, they will anesthetized enough to be numbed. Yet, how they pound at the glass, cascading off overcast clouds as the white purity of its color would taint and become impure.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ ugly syllables of conjured vindictive crimson (modern au)#(nsfw)#(relationships; samurai jack)#sonxflight

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