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grape-writes · 4 months

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Trapped in a Net

A/N: A lil somethin ive had rotating around in my brain for a while! Me and one of my friends have been brainstorming this one!!! Inspired by Subnautica and a few others fnaf fics floating around that really stuck to my brain

It's a bit rambly, but I'm happy with it :D

Masterlist

Ao3 link

Warnings: Oceans mentioned and shown/described, isolation, blood mentioned, violence implied, [to be added to]

[Day One]

Fazbear Technologies, or FazTech, was a rather well-known company across the galaxy, known for starting as a simple pizza diner and later becoming a conglomerate big enough to have its own space program. Weird? Absolutely, but it was profitable for the company to move with the times, especially as humanity began to search the stars for new places and homes to inhabit.

One such place was a planet several dozen light-years away from earth with a mostly water surface. One of FazTech’s scientists had found it while searching for another planet. From the pictures, it was a gorgeous giant planet covered in different shades of blue, dotted with islands (the biggest being about the same size as Australia) and vast deep oceans. It had two moons, one far larger than the other.

And so, FazTech decided to try and send squads of people down to the new discovery, claiming it to be a mission for humanity. Yet they kept sending people down... and no one ever came back... not a word ever came back from the planet's watery depths. It was effectively radio silence on the planet's surface since they’d been sent down.

That was, until the twentieth or so squad, a desperate little team made of five or so recent college graduates that applied for the mission to prove themselves. They'd sent out a distress signal, finally. And for the first time, was FazTech made aware of what was happening in the ocean planets waters. Just FazTech, not the public, or even any of humanities governments were made aware of it as they tried to keep it under wraps.

So FazTech decided to send out one final squad.

Well, sort of; it was just going to be a small group of scouts to get a confirmed status of the survivors then leave with however many of them they could. The mission was canceled after the company board reviewed the situation and decided it wasn’t worth the time, resources, or money. Unfortunately for one of the members of the squad, they had yet to inform any of them or the robot in charge of the ship to the planet.

Thus, the singular member who arrived early, Yvette North, was sent to the ocean planet alone. And she was fucking pissed about it. Or she was, when she was awoken from cryo sleep days before they landed on the planet and found out about what had happened. She stood on the ship with just the robotic pilot keeping them on course.

Yvette was a diver who’d been hired by FazTech for previous missions (all on Earth), had accepted this one mostly out of a desire to see the stars. It seemed perfect, being on a planet made mostly of water, searching for a group of survivors while exploring new aquatic places. Maybe she was just fascinated by the ocean, but it sounded like a breathtaking experience.

Until Yvette was stuck on the planet, alone, anyway. Because no, they were not sending anyone out to get them after this. This was FazTech we’re talking about, they swept things under the rug all the time. FazTech had been doing this all the way back when they first started and got into controversy with one of their cofounders being accused of something bad (Yve genuinely forgot what, too busy to really do any meaningful research) and they had tried everything to cover that up.

Yvette was pulled from her thoughts by the ship shuddering, almost falling from her chair in the cockpit as they approached the planet's surface. She straightened, tugging her luggage closer to herself so it wouldn’t go flying, and clutched onto the arm of her chair.

The landing was a bit rocky, especially entering the atmosphere, but as soon as they entered it was smooth sailing to the coordinates of the distress signal. A scan from before they arrived told her that it was on an island, not The Big One, but a decently sized island. It must've been around the same size as – maybe – the United Kingdom? No, maybe a bit bigger. It was difficult to tell without having them side by side.

The distress signal was made a few weeks before they set out to the planet; which would’ve been impossible to get there within a quick timeframe. Even with warp technology, the nearest warp is months away from the planet's system, much less the planet itself. But the group knew that going into this, so hopefully they stayed put.

Hopefully.

The ship slowed to a halt overtop the island itself, landing carefully on a clearing made into a cliffside, the ship's front window providing a decent view of the foliage of the island, the ship lights illuminating the forest in the dark of early morning. It was lush and green, even atop the rocky cliff, with trees and bushes filling the land to near capacity. The clearing was obviously cleared away by one of the squads to make way for new arrivals or provide a space to escape from the ocean blue around them.

Once they landed on the cliffs edge, the robot, a typical Pilot Bot with a vaguely humanoid upper half and a wheel for a lower half, turned on its wheel and rolled out of the cockpit. Pilot Bots were modeled closely after the old Staff Bots FazTech used to use in some of their facilities. The only major difference between the two is a hat and programing.

Yvette sighed and got up to follow, luggage rolling behind her. She’d only really packed a suitcase and a carry-on bag, believing this mission wouldn’t take more than a month at most. She had a feeling she was under packed.

Time to check the signal out, she supposed.

The planet, despite being much larger than earth, had a breathable atmosphere. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent anyone down, obviously. But it was a comfort to say the least, being able to take a deep breath of almost familiar air. It had this heaviness to it that seemed to stabilize her, if not drag her down. It was also warm, indicating the more tropical climate of the area, if not most of the planet itself.

The robot led Yvette into the foliage and down a little path, stopping at a hatch in the ground at her feet. It was large and rectangular, with a panel stuck up from one of the corners nearest her. The panel was just a keypad, and a larger set of buttons lower on the panel.

Oh, that’s how she gets in.

“Thank- ah.” Yvette watched the robot roll its way back to the ship and away from her. She sighed when it closed the door to the ship and began to take off. “Okay, that’s fine.”

A part of her felt like she should’ve run back after the stupid thing or stayed on the ship. But she knew she couldn’t, not without seeing this through. The last squad sent a distress signal and could be in trouble, and alone or not it was her job to help. Though she wished she wasn’t alone in this endeavor.

With an annoyed huff, Yvette pressed one of the buttons; the door opened with a harsh hiss, allowing the stairs down to be visible. With a tug to pull her suitcase along, she made her way down into the depths of base beneath the earth. At the bottom of the stairs was an elevator door.

When Yvette stepped down to the elevator door, the doors to the stairs slammed shut. With a jolt, she cursed under her breath. A glance around the space told her there wasn’t an obvious way to open that back up, so she’d probably have to go around. Annoying.

The elevator trip was short, leading into the cave the base resided in. The cave was easily three stories tall, human construction cutting into natural rock formation to create a usable space. This was how they typically made bases for exo-planets in the past, apparently, using natural formations to use as a foundation rather than building directly on their own. Not that they never started from scratch, but this was more efficient in terms of time and resources.

The room the elevator exited to was massive, it was the main dock, framed by the giant curved window where the cave would have opened out and into the water. The cave was under the water itself, the window and metal flooring by its entrance being the only things keeping the cave free of water. The floor just by the elevator was just stone from the cave, cut around the metal docking area. Said dock was just a railed off opening into the water covered by a metallic door.

The wall deeper into the cave was a mix of rock, doors, and windows. They’d managed to build a second story to the base, install a catwalk above, and make it look nice. To the immediate left of the elevator was a set of doors with the words ‘Meeting Room’ plastered above them. The next set of doors appeared to be just to the main space of the base. The second story had a few windows looking into some of the rooms, but with the angle she stood at made it nearly impossible to catch a glimpse of what was within. That was probably by design.

The place looked and felt... abandoned. The whole building was entirely silence, equipment around the docking bay was scattered about, a couple of the doors looked like they’d been left open, vines from the surface seemed to have been growing through the ceiling and into the rocks. It was as if they’d all run, or potentially worse, and left the base abandoned and empty of life. Despite sending the distress signal.

Yvette just hoped she wasn’t too late.

“Okay... distress signal...” Turning on her heel, she pulled the sliding door to the meeting room open. “There's gotta be a terminal in here somewhere...”

The room was, unsurprisingly, in tatters; the table was knocked over, chairs scattered about, papers torn and tossed about, A pool of blood dried on the floor by the desk. Evidence of a scuffle clear as day. The pin board on the far end of the room contained a map of areas the group had scouted out, beautifully drawn by the previous squad's resident navigator, and on it was a string.

The blood was… concerning. Especially considering it was splattered on the wall by the pool, followed by bloodied footprints moving from the pool towards the door.

On the desk, thankfully, was a terminal; turning it on allowed her to turn the distress signal off and scan the computers files for information. Most of it was mundane updates on the base's workings; they had quite a few issues getting the solar panels to work, and sometimes the dock bay doors would get jammed. Typical issues for a base of this size.

There was also a slew of strange happenings in the waters around them. Strange lights moving in the dark of night, alerts on the security systems that vanish in a second, something making noise by the secondary doc when everyone was trying to sleep.

Brushing those off, she clicked into the final message left on the terminal, labeled ‘signal’.

To whoever finds this message,

If you're reading this, we left. And we’re either dead or going to.

This was a suicide mission. There are things in the water, and I don’t mean the monsters who live here. This planet... changes you, and if you don’t go along with it, you die in the process. We’ve already tossed so many to it. Our captain, Fritz, didn’t make it...

I didn’t want to send the distress signal, but Dave was insistent. So here is my warning, get the hell off this world, warn whoever you can, I don't care. Just leave. The discoveries are not worth the risk The Change entails.

FazTech should never have found this god forsaken planet.

Signed, Jeremy

Well... shit. Now she was really regretting not running back with the stupid Pilot Bot back to the ship home. And now, not only was she stuck, but she knew no one was going to send a squad down to help. They sent their rescue ship and that was all they would do; less people to pay when they're stuck on an alien planet. Or dead.

God, she should’ve quit working for FazTech years ago.

The file was helpful, she supposed, but mostly confusing. Where did they go? Were they all alive? Most worrying of all for her was the mention of monsters; fear can drive people to do irrational things, but what was frightening enough to drive a group of grown adults out of their generally well-defended base? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

But, since she had nowhere else to go, she had to stay in said well-defended base.

Alone.

Because a squad couldn’t stay in one place until the rescue team arrived. And while she sympathized, and somewhat understood, she couldn’t help but be annoyed by this. It was not a good idea to leave after asking for help, foolish even.

The silence in the base made her skin crawl, knowing something had happened within its walls. The mess of blood on the floor, the implication of it seemed to make the feeling of isolation it presented worse. And it only made her question why they left even more.

Sighing, Yvette made her way back to the docking bay to collect her luggage, grabbing the handle of her suitcase to drag it away from the mess that was the meeting room.

It was probably best to find the rooms, so she made her way towards the other set of double doors.

The new room was large and open, giving way to a lounge area, dining area and kitchen, a large wall to ceiling window was set against the far wall, a glass door was set into said window and into the secondary docking bay. A spiral staircase by the window led her to the second story, which gave way to the living quarters.

There were a handful of rooms, the ones that weren’t locked were left in tatters like the Meeting Room. Furniture knocked over, blankets and clothes tossed about. Personal items appeared to still be in the rooms, left scattered and abandoned by their owners.

The dread in her stomach twisted.

Yvette chose one of the few rooms that weren’t locked, the one off to the side with the captain's quarters. It was one of the smaller rooms, and only had a few scattered clothing at the most. That and it had a floor to ceiling window out into the ravine the base was partially built into.

Her scanning through the files earlier told her that a lot of the life on the planet was bioluminescent and would provide a light show at night. And while she wasn’t the type to be able to sleep with light, there were thankfully curtains the previous owner had set up to block out the glow.

Setting her luggage down on the floor, she made quick work of the mess in her new space; putting clothes into a laundry basket and collecting personal items she found into a box. She decided she was going to leave the previous squad's personal items in storage.

Day one here, and Yvette was cleaning up a mess. She ended up cleaning up a lot of messes day one; reorienting furniture in her new bedroom and picking up some of the fallen papers in the meeting room, picking up laundry to do later (if she ever found the laundry room), cleaning out the fridge. It was all a good distraction for her mind, something to focus on that wasn’t her current situation.

At around noon, she found herself in the secondary docking bay, rummaging through crates of supplies for swimming gear. Of course, there was, as FazTech would’ve been in trouble if they didn’t provide their squads with the basic necessities when sending them on missions to water worlds.

Typically, the swim gear was supposed to be a full body swimsuit with flippers and a rebreather. FazTech almost never supplied those, instead offering (at least for women) a one-piece swimsuit with optional leg and arm pieces. Supposedly it was to allow better movement in the water, keeping joints clear of restrictive fabric. But anyone with half a mind could see it wasn’t very appropriate in a workplace environment.

Regardless, Yvette didn’t care whether it was appropriate or not, considering she was obviously alone. She was a diver and was originally assigned to this mission because of that fact, and she wanted to swim. She wanted to get a feel for the ocean around her, familiar yet so foreign compared to home.

Once she found the new swimsuit, she held it up to get a good look at it. It was not actually a one-piece swimsuit, but a two-piece swimsuit; the two parts were just clipped together with cheap, light weight, metal clips along the place where the two pieces met. Finding the leg and arm pieces wasn't a difficult task, they were right next to the suit itself.

Altogether, the swimsuit was a deep green, with lighter green along the center of it and under the limbs. It was lined with purple rings down the limbs and center piece. She remembered reading a manual on these, the rings lit up to ward away dangerous creatures on foreign planets, modeled after an octopus.

Slipping into the swimsuit was rather easy, as was getting the flippers and rebreather on and adjusted. All of it fit like a glove, the material was lightweight and comfortable, though a little snug. But that was better than it being too loose fitting. It would do for now. After a bit of stretching, she decided it was time to go.

The secondary docking bay was a lot smaller than the primary one, but it was easier to cover from the other side. It was simply a hatch she could lock shut with a bit of effort. The primary docking bay was for transporting items or loading aquatic vehicles, while the secondary bay was for human only entrance.

Tugging the valve to the side, she pushed the hatch open, dipping her feet into the water below. After a moment, she slipped out fully, allowing the cool water to surround her entire being.

The water felt... tingly on her skin, like invisible needles were pressing into every inch of her exposed flesh; it wasn’t painful, but mildly uncomfortable. It almost made her want to leave the water at the sudden sensation, but she was determined to stay put and acclimate herself to the blue.

She floated there for a moment, slowly getting used to the sudden pressure of the waves, it was heavier than Earth's oceans. After a moment of floating, she pushed herself up and pulled the valve back down. She probably didn’t need to do this, but it made her more comfortable to know it was properly closed.

With a deep breath from behind her mask, she began her swim.

Yvette kept mostly to the rocky wall of the island, decided it best to be cautious in new waters. The plant life of this new planet was gorgeous, faintly familiar yet alien all the same. Vibrant corals in shapes she’d never seen coral grow into, anemones and kelp, underwater flowers. Not to mention the fish that lazily floated past her, each strange and unique compared to fish from Earth. It was all so calm, she had to pause to take it all in, leaning onto a rock by the cliff to simply observe her surroundings.

Only that calm did not last.

A flash of yellow and red darted amongst the rocks directly below her caught her eye, moving far too fast to be like the rest of the fish above it. Whatever it was, it was quick in the water and probably hunting. Though its movement only seemed to startle some of the smaller fish, it obviously wasn’t very good at hunting yet. She followed the flash of yellow until it moved too fast for her to see where it had gone off to, darting between rocks and plants beneath her in the ravine.

She leaned over the edge of the rock she was leaning against to try and get a glimpse of whatever it was. Nothing, it must’ve swum off, weird. With a shrug, she turned and pushed herself off the rock to continue her route around the base. The primary docking bay should’ve been relatively close.

Yvette yelped when something grabbed ahold of her ankle, tugging harshly. As she was pulled down, she kicked at whatever had grabbed her ankle as best she could in the water, flipper coming into contact with a solid mass. It took a few clumsy kicks for the grip to lessen and for her to be able to tug her ankle away.

Now she could see what grabbed her-

Her vision was fuzzy for a moment, tears stinging her eyes in her panic. This made whatever she was looking at look like a blob of yellows, golds, and reds, but a few blinks allowed her to get a good look at it.

It – they? - were a vaguely humanoid creature with a fish's tail, like an alien's depiction of what a mermaid should look like. Above the waist they were a lanky thing, with long arms and large webbed hands; their head was also notably larger than Yve’s, framed with frills that made them look like a sunflower or a child's drawing of a sun. Notably was the fact those frills surrounded red spikes that stuck up from behind some frills that hung in front of their face like bangs. Their upper half was a pale yellow, spotted with an even paler tone across their flesh; it covered their face in a crescent moon pattern. Below the waist was their tail, the same yellow their upper half that faded into a shade of gold that could only be described as sunset gold. Their body was dotted with small red frills, lighter in color than their tail.

What in the goddamn...

The creature (Yve was going to call it a mermaid) had swam back to rub their face, expression scrunched up for a moment, then they blinked at her with wide pale blue eyes. And in a moment, they shrunk in on themselves, their brows furrowing nervously, and frills twitching atop their head.

The two of them seemed to stare at each other for a while, before the yellow mermaid let out a series of chirps and chitters that she could just barely hear under the water. The mermaid swam closer to chirp and chitter at her, large hands reaching forward.

Yvette froze in place as the massive palms cupped around her face and breathing mask, clawed fingers tapping against her mask’s protective layer. After a moment, it moved to pick at her hair, swimming about around her. It was a surprisingly gentle creature, barely tugging at her braided hair before it moved on to mess with her hands. Once curiosity there was satisfied, it moved to grab her flipper, wiggling the end in fascination.

A part of Yvette was cursing at herself for freezing up. But really, what was she supposed to do? The thing could clearly chase after her, and who knows, it probably only hunted things that ran- er swam off. Some speed predators did that, cheetahs were a great example that came to mind.

The mer chirped at Yvette again, finished in their prodding, and swam back to give her some space. It seemed to be content and mostly just curious about her. So, free from the prodding, she just... swam off. The mermaid hadn’t really given her any indication that it wanted anything, and she had a job to do.

So off Yvette went, heading around the curve of the rock towards where she gathered where the cave was. She swam around a bend of rock, eyes trailing from the rock to the life all around her. So much was going on that she so easily got distracted; it reminded of her diving in a coral reef on Earth, breathtaking.

Much to Yvette’s surprise, the sun-finned mer swam after her leisurely, almost lazily. She only really noticed when she’d briefly turned back to watch a fish swim past her, only to spot the yellow being following her. It chirped when she made eye contact with it, speeding up to meet with her again.

In a mild panic, Yvette chose to swim faster, to get away from the beast following her. Yet they didn’t seem dissuaded. In fact, they seemed to take it as a challenge, propelling themselves after her with their strong tail. They followed her as she carved around the bend of rock.

Ahead of Yvette was a break in the wall, the entrance to the cave. Bingo! Picking up speed, she darted around the break in the rock. She was right, as a quick glance proved the mer had simply swam past. She let herself relax behind a rock wall, the grips of her gloves keeping her from floating away from its surface.

The yellow mer came to a skidding halt in the water, arms flailing to keep themselves from swimming too far. The expression on their face, from Yvette’s angle at least, seemed startled. A nervous warble came from the mer’s throat as they frantically looked about for the suddenly missing human. Almost like a dog with separation anxiety yowling for their human to return.

Yvette snorted to herself at the comparison.

Yvette took this as a chance to head for the docking bay, leaving the strange yellow mer to their own devices. The cave leading to the docking bay was shallow, but deep enough that the shadows hid her from prying eyes. The window in the base had been built above the cave, a few feet of rock hiding the secret entrance.

The docking bay, unsurprisingly, was closed. Yvette hadn’t opened it on the other side before she left. Cursing to herself, she swam up to the small control panel beside the massive door, gently pressing at the buttons. It was a number pad, simple enough; she just pressed the enter button, hoping that it would just kick start into opening.

No dice.

All Yvette got in return was a beep and a red light blinking at her. Fuck, there was a code. Why was there a code for opening the door into their base??? What on this planet could even open this door? Regardless, none of the aquatic species could even do anything once inside, no legs and all that.

After a few minutes of guessing, she growled under her breath in frustration. Great, now she’d have to swim all the way back and that fish was still outside the cave.

Today was not her day.

The warm presence of something behind her made her jump. A familiar yellow hand came up behind her and reached up, pressing in a four-digit code and hitting enter. 0742. She registered the code and stored it away in her mind for later, to not forget it later. She would have startled more had the door into the base not opened seconds later.

Yvette didn’t waste any time, pushing herself onto the metal platform. Once mostly above water, she tugged her mask up and off her face, gasping in a breath of cold air. The base was frigid after her swim, air biting at her exposed shoulders and thighs. Her wet hair seemed to stick to her back in its braid

She probably should see if one of the other suits in storage that don’t leave her skin exposed would fit. Probably not, considering most of the men on the previous squads were far taller or bigger built than she was. Maybe she could modify it...

Modifying FazTech suits was technically worthy of an infraction, or even firing if the higher up it was reported to was particularly stingy. But considering they sent her off and left her here, she didn’t really care what FazTech thought. They sucked as a company anyway, from their attempts to cover up rumors back when they were still just a pizza restaurant, to recent rumors about their android program.

Apparently, the rumor was that they were trying to replace their staff with android copies, but Yvette didn’t really believe in any of that.

A chirp from the pool broke her from her thoughts, the yellow mer had swum to the edge, rayed head sticking up from the waters. They seemed curious, as well as concerned. Not that Yvette was very good at reading people's expressions, but the furrowing of their brow helped a little.

Up close, Yvette could see how blue their eyes were, a sharp contrast to the yellows, golds, and reds of the rest of them. Their pupils also seemed to grow from slits into white circular dots at her, like a cats or snakes. Thinking it over, snakes were probably the more apt comparison, seeing as they were scaley.

She could also see slits in the middle of his face, like a human nose; though she doubted they served the same purpose. On the Mer’s neck and around where his ribcage ended were slits decorated in red frills, where his gills must have been.

“Can I help you?” Yvette found herself asking the beast without really thinking about it. She shifted on the metal to get her legs out of the water to pull her leg guards and flippers off.

The mer went still, a strange warble leaving their throat, nervous leaning on wonder. They watched her remove her leg guards as they rested their claws on the metal by her feet, tapping against it. “...Help? No...?”

Yvette all but froze at the rasp, eyes darting to the yellow mer’s face, “Did you just talk?”

Their fins bobbed up and down as they nodded, the air making them flatten against their head. “...Yes? Yes!!”

The voice was strange, alien as the being who it belonged to. The mer knew English, if just barely. Which meant the previous squads communicated with the local wildlife.

Gods, she needed to read their logs as soon as possible.

“Holy fuck.” Yvette didn’t stop the words from falling from her mouth, staring at the mer- merman? - like they’d grown a second head, “Holy fuck.”

The mer’s nose (or what was where a human nose was) scrunched up at her cursing, “No... bad.”

...And she was being scolded for cursing by an alien mermaid.

“I’m sorry, but this is bizarre!” Yvette leaned closer to peer at the beast in front of her, “Do you have a name? Are there more of you? Can all of you talk?”

The mer chittered softly to themselves, whistling in the air. When she tilted her head at the noise, they huffed, tapping the metal beneath their claws, “…Uh!! Sun! Mm… yes! Maybe?”

Curious answers.

Of course, his name was Sun, looking back to when he was chasing her, his fins reminded her of the sun's rays. Though now they were in the air and flopped uselessly against his skull. Like a wet sunflower.

His other answers were especially curious. There was more of him, and they could maybe talk. If they could talk, that meant there could’ve been an entire society on this planet covered by ocean. And that by itself was both a fascinating and terrifying possibility.

“Huh… very fitting.” Yvette offered a half smile, “I’m Yvette.”

Suns face scrunched, mouth moving to try and sound the new word out. He sighed when he couldn’t, “…Not good at… words...”

“That’s okay. It happens all the time.” Yvette laughed softly, offering a hand to the mer, “you can give me a nickname instead?”

Yvette wasn’t sure why she was inclined to befriend this strange creature, but she wasn’t opposed. It may have just been because he didn’t try and kill her earlier. Or because of how friendly he was right now.

He perked up curiously, taking her outstretched hand, a chitter sounding excitedly, “I see!!! Nickname?”

“Another name for people?” she offered, letting the mer mess with her gloved palm, “Like, growing up, my family would call me Yve instead of Yvette.”

The yellow mer made an ‘oh’ sound, “Oh! Yes!! Other-You's called me Sunny!”

That confirmed her previous suspicions. Humans will see a creature and ask, ‘anyone gonna pack bond with that?’, and not wait for an answer. That thought made her snort.

“Well, Sunny is very fitting! You look like the sun at sunset, very pretty.” Yvette offered a small smile. She kept her tone light, mostly to help the mer before her understand it was a compliment.

Sun seemed to understand, lighting up at the praise with a chitter between his teeth, “Pretty... like you?”

Oh my.

A flustered smile broke out on Yvette’s face, rubbing the webbing on her gloves between her thumb and index finger, “You think I’m pretty?”

“Yes! Yes! Like... when the...” the mer waved a hand towards the top of the window behind him, clearly trying to get a word.

This only severed to distract her momentarily on his hands, webbing formed between each finger. The ends of Suns hands were the same pale yellow as half his face. The color bled into the webbing between each finger, partially transparent compared to the skin besides it.

“Water?” Yvette offered, forcing herself to focus on the conversation at hand, squinting at the window when he shook his head rapidly, “uh... glass? Air?”

Sun frowns, gesturing again, focusing more upwards than he was previously, “...No... above? With the... white poofs?”

Oh! He was talking about the sky. Where was this going...

“The sky?” Yvette concluded, running a hand through her slowly drying hair.

The mer lit up like a firework, nodding rapidly, “yes! That word! Sky! Like when the sky- uh... is dark? And the lights fall?”

With a laugh under her breath, Yvette rung water out of her hair, “Oh, shooting stars.”

“Yes!!!!” Sun chirped, his tail swishing wildly in the water behind him. “Pretty like shooting stars.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet. But I must insist you are prettier.” Yvette teased, poking his nose.

The flesh above it scrunched in Suns surprise, the spines along his scale twitching upwards. His pupils had slit at the sudden movement.

Yvette retracted her hand quickly, “Oh, sorry. Habit. Used to do that with my siblings.”

Sun tilted his eyes, pupils returning to the size before, “is... okay? Sudden...”

Yvette tugged at her arm guards to pull her gloves off, “Right, I’ll warn ya next time, okay?”

If there was a next time... oh what the hell, there definitely was going to be a next time. Where else was she supposed to go? The only ways out of the base were the water exits and the surface exit. And the surface exit was most definitely locked tight, if it slamming shut on her earlier said anything about it.

Sun hummed, nodding. He tapped his claws against the metal again, thinking for a long moment, “Are... you? Staying here?”

Yvette shifted, pulling one of her gloves off as she thought about the question, “Well... yeah? Nowhere else to go, really. I need to find the others... who stayed here, and- I don’t know...”

Sun’s face shifted into a frown, frills drooping, “...You will... come back? And... be careful?”

“Yeah, okay...?” Yvette’s brows furrowed at the questions.

He seemed to accept that was a hopeful expression.

The two talked for a while more after this; it was mostly Yvette trying to explain her gear and teach the mer a few more words in English. She ended up learning that the previous squads had interacted with Sun a great deal, even letting him watch a few ‘guppies’ they had, as Sun put it.

Guppies… there were children in the base? Why the hell were their children??? And they trusted a mermaid - merman? - with them?? Sure, when she looked at their files before going on the mission, it said two of them were married, but FazTech wouldn’t be so irresponsible to allow children on missions like these.

Would they?

The conversation after that became stilted, as Yvette forced herself not to explode with frustration at not only her situation, but also the events surrounding it.

The setting sun painted the window a brilliant gradient of red and purple, tainting the water to darken with it. She watched it for a long moment, Suns own form leaning against the metal to get a look at it through the railing.

Yvette collected her gloves and leg guards into one hand, pressing her other hand onto the metal beneath her and using it to stand, “Well, it’s getting late... I should go, sorry bud. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Sun’s face perked up, hand lifting to wave Yvette off, “Oh!!! Okay! Bye bye, Shooting Star!”

And then, the sun disappeared below the darkened waters. The darkness leaving barely a trace of him behind. There were spots along his frills and spine that faintly glowed under the cover of dark.

Okay that was cute.

Yvette waved him off, closing the door to the docking bay behind him. It closed with a harsh shudder.

Turning away from the docking bay and into the rest of the base, she left her gear by the door. She would need it for later, as she promised Sun she’d be back in the waters.

Once she made it to her newly acquired room, she took a shower. Her hair had mostly dried since her swim, but the sea left a sensation on her skin she wanted off. Thankfully the water in the base was filtered.

Yet that didn’t stop the prickle along her skin that occurred while under the rain of water.

Yvette chose to dress into a tank top and shorts for the night, paired with an oversized jacket she wore everywhere when she wasn’t swimming. It was a random find at a thrift store, oversized so it’d cover everything when she wore it properly.

Slumping into the beanbag by the window, she let herself relax for the first time since she’d arrived.

She’d gotten stuck on this ocean planet… because she arrived early to work; which was a normal occurrence for her. She was too anxious about being late to not be early, plus it helped get her ready and in a cryo pod quicker.

Common procedure, to cryogenically freeze squad members as they arrive rather than at a certain time. It was so no one would complain about others being late, or something. So that everyone was prepared and ready to go before they took off.

And she arrived an hour or two before they decided to cut the human part of the mission. No higher ups knew she was there and didn’t tell the robot in charge of the ship to remove her from the ship. The last ship they were going to send.

The robot probably took off so quickly because the people it was assigned to ‘rescue’ were not in the place they landed. FazTech wasn’t one to wait around.

And now she was stuck.

It was partially her own fault for getting off the ship in the first place. She’ll admit that. That was fucking stupid.

But she… couldn’t help it. It was a giant ocean planet, and she was a diver who adored the oceans of earth. Only this one… was free of the pollution that plagued Earth’s oceans. Even her brief dive earlier proved that much, the water was so clean. Free of mankind’s waste.

Yvette scowled to herself, resting her forehead against the cold window. She was still stuck, trapped literal light-years away from any family or friends she did have on earth.

Because FazTech was fucking stupid. And greedy, and negligent, and had no respect for their employees. This hadn't even been the first time they’d lost squads sent on interstellar missions. It was a desert planet last time. Squads either dried out, starved, or were eaten by the weird alien life on it. Only a few survived long enough to get rescued, spewing tales of all that occurred.

Of course, they’d do it again, waiting at least a decade since the last time. This time it was an ocean planet, they probably thought it’d be fine. It wasn’t. So, they’ll probably give up on it and try to cover it up. Claim there were complications with the alien life.

Stupid fucking FazTech-

Her mental ranting was silenced by a ‘tap tap tap’ next to her ear. It came from the other side of the glass, sharp, like it was from a clawed nail.

Something about it made her veins fill with ice. Maybe it was how slow and methodical it was, a sharp contrast from how quick Suns tapping against the docking bay was earlier.

Yvette jerked up in the bean bag, almost falling to the floor to get away from the glass. The little light from the LEDs around the bed allowed her to see the general silhouette of the being on the other side of the glass.

It was another mer, their lithe form longer than Suns, with less frills and more spiked fins. Their eyed pools of black, dots of red narrowed into slits on her face as they grinned. Their coloration was a dark blue, with similar splotches of paler scales formed a crescent shape on half their face, like Suns. Behind their head was an appendage that ended with a bulb, like an angler fish; though its shape reminded her of those old timey sleeping caps. Dots of bioluminescence trailed across it and their tails were like stars in the night sky.

Their grin widened when she finally fell to the floor, razor sharp teeth breaking as they opened their lower jaw. It was almost as if they were laughing at her, bubbles floating from their open maw. She could almost hear the cackling through the glass.

Yvette wasn’t sure how long she laid half ways on the floor, but when she got the courage to stand and pull the curtain closed on the mer, she could still almost hear the bubbling cackles on the other side.

It was decided, the curtain stayed closed at night.

Word count: 7,111

Bonus! Concept art <3

#Become One with the Sea of Stars #fnaf au #fnaf fic #fnaf oc #fnaf dca #idk if i warned anything properly i am so sorry JFEOFOEO #hehe the art go brrr :]#cover art ig?#probably wont use all the time #id love to make art for each chapter but i dont have it in me #Eden Writes #yvette north

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edendaphne · 2 years

Text

“Discordant Sonata” Ch. 26

>>Click here to read on Ao3<<

>>Click here to read on Wattpad<<

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A/N: Thank you all for your patience in waiting for this chapter. Those of you who follow me here and on my other social media know of my life situation and I appreciate your support immensely.

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CHAPTER 26: PRIMA DONNA

Music glossary Prima Donna: (Italian definition: “First/leading lady”) the main female singer or actor in an opera or theatrical play

Glossary: Glacier: Ice cream vendor

Reminder: Chat can remain transformed for two hours after using Cataclysm/Black Hole, or for 5 minutes if he uses his powers twice.

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(Mood Music: "Indignation" - Michele McLaughlin)

Marinette peeked out from behind a bathroom stall door after transforming back, making sure the coast was clear. She wasn’t sure whether Adrien had gone back to his hiding spot or whether he’d gone elsewhere after his own detransformation, so she brought out her phone to text him. Knowing his identity did have its perks, she conceded.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that he’d already messaged her to let her know of his new whereabouts. Stashing her phone back into her purse, she stepped out of the restroom to rejoin him and their friends outside the school.

Halfway to the exit, she felt a brief, sharp pain on her upper arm.

“Ouch!” she yelped, then whipped around to face the source of the attack. What the hell?!

Her face soured like a lemon and she gasped. “Lila!? Did you just… pinch me?? What are we, preschoolers?!”

“Says the girl who shoved me while I was trying to save Adrien!” Lila retorted with a sneer of her own, hands placed on her hips in indignation.

Marinette pouted, rubbing the sore spot on her arm. She wanted to argue back, but Lila did have a point.

“I-I can explain! It’s just that–”

“Do you really feel that threatened by me and Adrien’s relationship?” Lila interrupted, crossing her arms.

Marinette held back a scoff as she frowned. “What?! Of course not!”

“Then why’d you do it? I was just trying to help,” she whined. “The most important thing should be to save Adrien, right? Why should it matter who did it first?”

“I…” Marinette began with a grimace. She couldn’t very well explain to Lila that she was Adrien’s secret superhero girlfriend. Especially when Adrien himself wasn’t aware of that fact.

“I just knew he doesn’t like you like that, so your kiss wouldn’t have worked.”

Lila bristled, then snapped back, “But it did work! Our lips touched first! That counts as a kiss! It was ME who broke the spell! You’re just in denial!”

“Oh, I’m in denial?!”

“You really think he prefers you?” Lila sneered.

Marinette glowered back. There just had to be a way to get Lila off her back.

She decided to be bold and take a risk.

“Can you prove that he doesn’t?”

Lila let out a condescending chuckle. “Don’t you remember? Adrien himself said it before. He’s in love with someone else. Someone that isn’t you.”

“W-well…” Marinette trailed off. Dang it. She’d forgotten all about what happened on the first day of school a few months ago, when Lila got Adrien to admit he loved someone else. Not being able to disclose that she and Adrien were in a secret relationship was more difficult than she’d anticipated.

“I thought you’d all but given up on him after that,” Lila continued. “That is, until this week, when you suddenly attached yourself to him, like some parasitic little worm. Why is that, Marinette? Do you actually still like him, or are you just trying to get into his good graces now that we’re about to graduate so you can get close to his father?”

Marinette scowled and practically hissed, “Don’t assume what my intentions are. And I don’t have to justify myself to you. Just mind your own business so we can coexist peacefully until we graduate and then we won’t have to see each other ever again.”

Lila crossed her arms. “You can’t fool me, Marinette. I can see behind that Goodie-Two-Shoes, Little-Miss-Perfect, Class-President façade. Most people can’t; especially innocent, pure-hearted ones like Adrien. But I know there’s more to you than you let on. You’re a two-faced phony. And I don’t know what you’re up to, but I won’t let you get away with it.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. I’m the two-faced phony??

She could see that arguing was useless. It would be like talking to a wall.

“Whatever, Lila,” she dismissed as she began to walk past the brunette to continue her trek down the hall.

However, Lila extended her arm, blocking the way. Marinette narrowed her eyes, then stepped across to the other side; but Lila pressed on her shoulder, pushing her backwards so she bumped into the wall behind her.

Marinette glared at her. “Let me go,” she demanded.

Lila ignored her. “I’m only going to tell you this once, Dupain-Cheng. Stay away from Adrien. You don’t want me as your enemy, Marinette. I’m sure Mr. Agreste would agree with me… if I were to explain to him that you were being a negative influence.”

Marinette glowered, a roaring fire burning within her chest. How dare she?! After all that Adrien had been through, everything he had suffered because of that man, Lila was threatening to drag Gabriel into this because of some petty love quarrel??

Marinette was aware that Lila was trying to get her to lose her composure. She couldn’t give her that satisfaction. So she did her best to conceal her rage and replied, “I refuse to argue over a boy, Lila. We’re too old for this. Let me explain something to you: You can’t control Adrien, and neither can his father. Not anymore. He can be friends with whoever he wants, and Mr. Agreste can’t stop him. And if you actually care about him, you won’t try to either.”

“I’m just trying to protect him,” Lila insisted.

“He doesn’t need your ‘protection’,” Marinette hissed, adding air quotes with her fingers. “Adrien’s not some helpless little rich boy. He’s an adult now, and perfectly capable of taking care of himself and making his own decisions.”

Lila narrowed her eyes at her.

Marinette narrowed hers back.

“Umm…” a baritone voice interrupted hesitantly.

Both girls whipped their heads towards the sound, their faces looking like they’d been caught shoplifting.

Adrien.

How much had he heard??

“Excuse me,” he continued. “Marinette was taking a while to meet up with us, so I got worri— uhh, we got worried, and– I mean… I wanted to make sure everything was alright.” He eyed them cautiously. “So… is everything alright?”

Marinette took hold of Lila’s forearm and removed it from her shoulder. “ Peachy . Me and Lila we’re just having a little heart-to-heart and clearing up some things. Isn’t that right, Lila?”

Lila grinned widely and replied while she straightened out some invisible wrinkles on Marinette’s sweater, “Oh, yes. I think we understand each other a lot better now.”

Adrien looked unconvinced, but before he could chime in, Marinette walked up to him and took his hand, making sure Lila could see their fingers interlocking. She knew it was petty, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Let’s go,” she said curtly, guiding them towards the exit, secretly relishing in the icy scowl that Lila threw their way as they walked.

(Mood Music: "Last Carnival" - Norihiro Tsuru)

~~The next day, Saturday afternoon~~

One week, that’s what Marinette had told herself seven days ago. That in one week’s time, she would accept Chat’s offer and let him confess his identity to her as Marinette.

Marinette twisted the hem of her dress, mentally rehearsing what she wanted to say, pacing back and forth in her bedroom as she did her best to not fall into a downward spiral of anxiety. She took several deep cleansing breaths, pausing for a few moments to look out her window, centering herself.

Tikki hovered dutifully nearby, occasionally chiming in with her usual reassuring phrases and mantras, but regretting not being able to do more for her ward.

Glancing into the mirror for one last check, Marinette decided it was time. She picked up her purse and called her kwami over, then made her way downstairs to Chat Noir’s bedroom.

She raised her fist to rap on the door once she reached her destination; but then she just… froze. Her hand hovered there, noiselessly. Coward. She glared at it, twisting her mouth in displeasure, urging it to perform its task.

Just knock, damn it!! Why is it so hard??

In the midst of her argument with her own hand, the door jerked outwards, narrowly missing her, and she let out a surprised yelp as she hopped back.

Chat’s eyes popped open in surprise and he gasped.

He began to apologize, but Marinette interrupted, “HelloChatNoirIneedtotalktoyou!!!”

Chat’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion at her incoherent outburst. “Uh… come again?”

Marinette inhaled then tried again, more slowly this time, “Good afternoon, Chat! There is something important I would like to discuss with you. Can we go somewhere more private?”

Chat Noir let out a small chuckle at her forced, almost robotic tone, then nodded. “Sure. I think I know just the place.”

The pair went back upstairs and exited the house via Marinette’s balcony. Then Chat picked her up and leaped towards his chosen destination.

Marinette fought to keep her breathing even, wishing with all her might that Chat wouldn’t be able to hear her heart pounding as he carried her. She tried her hardest to ignore the way his broad chest felt against her side, the way she could feel his muscles flex with every leap, the way his cologne smelled when combined with the scent of his leather suit. The way his lips looked so impossibly moisturized and utterly kissable. The elegant way his hair and cape flowed while in mid-air. The way his grip changed ever so slightly whenever he landed, ever the considerate gentleman, to diminish any potential discomfort on her part every time he jumped.

She squeezed her eyes shut to try to concentrate.

Focus, Marinette! It's happening. It’s really happening!! I’m about to tell Chat that I’m ready for him to reveal his identity. And it’s going to be totally fine! He’s going to tell me that he’s Adrien Agreste, and I will act very surprised. And I will be very supportive. I will reassure him that I will keep his identity a secret, no matter what. He’s going to be safe. Everything is going to be fine. Adrien is going to be fine. Sooo fine. Adrien is sooo fine. Wait, no, that’s not what I—

Sooner than she would’ve hoped, the two of them arrived at their destination a few blocks away. Chat stopped on the rooftop of a building facing a park, deeming it tall enough (and private enough) to converse at.

Chat set Marinette down, but as her feet touched the ground, she heard a loud, rumbling sound emerge from Chat’s torso.

He chuckled awkwardly, but brushed it off as he took a seat. She joined him in sitting down, when his stomach grumbled again even louder.

Her head swiveled around to meet his gaze. “Minou, I have to ask. Are you hungry?”

Chat blurted, “Yes. I mean, no! Well, I mean, sort of… ” He winced in embarrassment, then confessed sheepishly, “Actually, I haven’t eaten yet today. I’ve been pretty… preoccupied with something. But it’s okay, I can eat after this.”

Marinette shook her head adamantly. “No way! You shouldn’t have to go hungry when we’re surrounded by a bunch of amazing cafés and restaurants! Let’s just get something to eat real quick, I’m not in any hurry. How about you? Any plans that you need to rush for?”

“Well, no…”

“Are you wearing a zip-up hoodie under your suit?”

“Y-yeah…”

“Good. I’ve got some emergency sunglasses and a mask in my purse that you can wear. Always be prepared, I always say!”

“‘Always be prepared?’ What are you, a girl scout?” Chat said, suddenly flooded with a sense of déjà vu.

Marinette let out a nervous laugh, feeling the same way, then replied, “Never mind that, let’s just go somewhere and eat.”

Chat Noir knew better than to argue with Marinette once she’d made up her mind. He picked her back up, then climbed down the side of the building that he thought would attract the least amount of attention from any passers-by.

After finding an appropriate hiding spot to detransform, Marinette handed Chat the accessories and turned around, closing her eyes to give him privacy. After detransforming, he pulled the hood over his head, then put on the sunglasses and face mask. Now ready, the two embarked on their new side quest of finding some lunch.

After a cozy meal at an outdoor café, Marinette spotted none other than the cart of André the glacier . Thrilled with this lucky happenstance, she took Chat’s hand and practically dragged him to it, saying that it had been “for EVER” since she’d had any of André’s ice cream. He shrugged and relented, letting himself be dragged to the cart. Marinette insisted on paying since Chat had paid for their lunches while she wasn’t paying attention, all the while denying any romantic involvement to a skeptical André.

Once they had purchased their ice cream, the two headed back to the hiding spot from before. Marinette held onto the ice cream while Chat lifted them both up to the rooftop again with his staff, and then they found a spot to sit and converse while they ate.

Back on the roof, the conversation was… awkward, to say the least. Small talk at best. Neither could think of anything to say, so it was mostly silent. They licked away at their spoons, opting to people-watch from the rooftop as they ate.

Chat looked over at Marinette, the sunlight making the blues in her beautiful raven hair stand out more than usual. Her nose was a little pink from the cold, but she didn’t seem to mind. He watched her tongue flick in and out as she ate her dessert, following it as it licked the corner of her lips to lap up some wayward cream.

Why did he suddenly feel so warm?

He tore his eyes away, realizing he’d been staring. His mind and his heart still swirled in an ocean of confusion and dismay, as he found himself torn between the two most important women in his life.

His Lady would always hold his heart in the palm of her hand, of course. He had always been naturally drawn to her since the start. No matter how hard he’d tried back when they were enemies, he couldn’t help but gravitate towards her; to try to learn more about her, try to spend time with her, to crack jokes on the off-chance that he’d get to hear her laughter that day.

And then somehow, miraculously, they fell in love. And how wouldn’t he fall for her? She was incredible. Being with her made him happier than he’d ever thought possible.

However, in spite of everything, he couldn’t deny the presence of… something , with Marinette. A flicker that had grown into a flame. One that he’d tried to extinguish time and time again. There was an attraction, one that confounded him more than he cared to admit or even acknowledge. Especially after…

After that kiss.

He looked over at Marinette again as she licked a drop of ice cream that trickled down her hand, making an acute realization about where else her tongue had been the day before. He whipped his head away again, blushing hotly.

He recalled the video from the Dark Cupid akuma attack the day before, the one Alya took with the tiny camera that had been mounted on her glasses. He bit his lip and suppressed a groan as he recalled the way he saw himself kissing Marinette as Adrien. Hungrily. Ravenously. Had that been his subconscious emerging, acting on these hidden, forbidden feelings? Feelings he’d been unknowingly suppressing because of his loyalty to Ladybug?

Well… maybe not unknowingly suppressing. He’d always known Marinette was cute… More than cute, in fact; Marinette was beautiful. And he was most certainly aware of this, especially now, after having spent so much time together these past few months.

Having spent a large part of his childhood and adolescence as a model meant that Adrien had spent a lot of time around good-looking people; physical beauty was not something he was unaccustomed to. But there was something different, something innately special about both Ladybug and Marinette. Something so unique that, if he didn’t know better, he could swear they were one and the same. A beauty so thorough and pure, it permeated from the inside, encapsulated everything that they stood for and believed, and it shone.

But he knew it was impossible. To even consider or fantasize about it would be selfish, and unfair to them both.

His musings were interrupted by Marinette’s musical giggling at the silly antics of some pedestrians below on the street. Apparently some pigeons had stolen Officer Raincomprix’s hat and he was chasing them around with a megaphone threatening to arrest them, with little Auguste (who was now a kindergartener) pointing and cackling mischievously.

“Funny how some things never change, huh?” Marinette remarked, snapping the emptied champagne glass-shaped sugar cone in half so they could share.

Chat agreed with a hum, eating his half of the edible cup with a chomp. He wiped off some excess bits of ice cream that had dripped onto his chin with a napkin, which he then stuck in his pocket to throw away later.

Moments later, Marinette scooted a bit closer, then cleared her throat. “So, um… I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Chat could swear he felt his heart seize up, lightning shooting through his veins as the nervousness he’d had all day came back full force; the anxiety that had kept him from eating breakfast twisting his stomach into knots. He now regretted having eaten all that ice cream, as he suddenly felt rather queasy, and he could feel his hands getting clammy under his suit.

“O-oh yeah? Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about too,” he replied.

“R-really??” Marinette replied. “Oh!! Please, you go ahead! You go first!!” she added quickly.

“Huh? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, totally! Please, go right ahead,” she said, her voice carrying a slight undertone of relief.

He held in a large sigh, unsure of how this conversation would go, the knots in his stomach multiplying tenfold.

“Well, okay,” he began. “It’s about last week…”

~~Elsewhere~~

Lila Rossi lay on her bed, idly scrolling down various social media platforms, scowling at photos of smiling people and downvoting videos that she deemed too boring to hold her interest. With a frustrated sigh, she tossed her phone on the mattress and stood up to open her window and get some fresh air into the bedroom. She looked outside, still surly from the previous day’s events, placing her hands under her chin as she sulked.

A few seconds later she did a double take, thinking that she saw someone on a rooftop a few buildings away. She squinted and stared.

What in the world…?

She darted to her nightstand to fetch her retractable spyglass, which she used for her daily… observations of the outside world, then looked again.

No. It couldn’t be.

Marinette??

It sure looked like her, although she couldn’t be sure. Why would Marinette be on a roof? And she wasn’t alone. Was that…?

Peering through the spyglass and adjusting the lens, she confirmed her suspicions: it was Marinette with none other than superhero Chat Noir, sharing an ice cream cone, of all things.

She watched them for a few tense minutes, as they moved on from eating ice cream to just talking. They were facing the opposite direction so she couldn’t see their faces well, but everything was made clear when they entered into a loving embrace.

Lila’s fists gripped her spyglass and her lips curled, a low growl escaping her throat as she glared through the glass. That dirty, two-timing hussy! How dare she play with both her and Adrien’s feelings, screwing around with Chat Noir all along?!

Marinette, Marinette, it was always all about that damn Marinette!

As she screeched at the sight of Chat Noir giving that girl a kiss on the hand, she didn’t notice the blackened butterfly that slipped in through her open window.

~~Back at the Rooftop~~

“—which is why I’d rather wait a little longer. I hope that makes sense. Is that okay with you?” Chat added meekly.

Still inwardly reeling, Marinette stammered, waving her hands wildly, “N-no, that’s fine! I understand. It is your secret identity, after all. If you’d rather wait, it’s perfectly fine with me!” She forced a wide grin, despite her inner desire to scream and cry in frustration.

Chat let out a relieved sigh. “You’re the best, Mari. I truly don’t know what I’d do without you. I thought you might be mad or upset, especially after I’d already offered to tell you.”

“Of course not!” she said with an almost excessive forced cheerfulness. “We’ll always be the best of pals no matter what!”

Chat let out a small laugh. “Thank you for always being so understanding. And I don’t want you to think that I don’t trust you, because it’s actually the opposite. It’s just… some stuff happened lately and I need more time to process it all. I’m just so–” he let out a distressed groan, “–I’m so confused right now. And I’m afraid I’ll end up hurting people’s feelings if the timing isn’t right.”

Marinette’s expression softened, and she held in a sigh as she reached for him and brought him into a tight hug. “You don’t have to explain, Minou,” Marinette said softly, rubbing his back. “I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”

Chat squeezed back and laid his head on her shoulder. “Maybe once things calm down a bit… I don’t know. I just don’t want things to change between us, or for you to treat me differently if you know who I am. I don’t want my secret to harm our relationship.”

“It wouldn’t!” she insisted. “Don’t worry.”

Chat didn’t reply, but he didn’t seem convinced.

The two separated, but not quite letting go of each other.

“Anyway, I’ve talked enough. It’s your turn. What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked.

Marinette stiffened, then stammered, “Umm! Uhhh, it’s nothing! F-forget about it.”

Chat looked confused. “Huh? Are you sure? It sounded pretty urgent.”

“Y-yeah, it-it’s not important.”

“Come on, Mari, I know you better than that,” he coaxed. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She glanced up at him through her lashes, the young man looking unfairly gorgeous considering all the grief he’d unknowingly put her through during this entire conversation.

With a small smile, she replied, “It really doesn’t matter now. It can wait until later, too.”

Despite his puzzlement, Chat didn’t press the issue. He picked up her hand and gave it a small peck, then said softly, “Don’t forget, I’m always here for you, too.”

Marinette did her best to chase away the butterflies in her stomach, trying to keep herself from getting flustered enough to visibly blush. “I know you are.”

Before either of them could say more, the entire sky suddenly went dark.

Marinette gasped and Chat instinctively wrapped his arm around her to prevent her from falling off the roof in the darkness. His glowing eyes surveyed their surroundings, tail swishing in alert.

“What’s going on?” she muttered indistinctly.

(Mood Music: "Masquerade Suite" - Aram Khachaturian)

Almost as if to answer her question, a blindingly white spotlight appeared from the sky, illuminating an open plaza with a raised platform that resembled a stage. At its center, a young woman in a flamboyant magician’s outfit with orange and white accents appeared in a puff of smoke, posing dramatically.

Crowds began to gather around this spectacle, murmuring among themselves as invisible trumpets played victoriously.

“Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, step right up!” the performer declared. “May I have your attention, please? I have a momentous announcement to make! The true protagonist of the city of love has finally come to grace your boring, humdrum lives! Allow me to introduce myself!”

A drumroll sound emerged from the odd machine where the spotlight originated. It looked like a giant fox head with speakers where the ears would be and lights coming from its eyes.

“I am Prima Donna! The world’s most beautiful and powerful magician!”

Raucous applause emerged from the fox-head machine, along with dramatic fog and colorful lights, and calliope music so loud it could be heard from miles away. The people below murmured and some clapped hesitantly along.

“But don’t take my word for it. Allow me to demonstrate!” Prima Donna added, extending her arm towards the heavens. “An unprecedented asteroid is on its way to earth, and Paris is directly in its path. The entire country will be destroyed, and possibly all of Europe.”

The multitude murmured skeptically, some bringing out their phones to check the news.

“Don’t believe me? I’ll show it to you,” she added, retrieving a spyglass that hung from a holster at her hip. She extended it to its full length and swished it like a magic wand, pointing it at the sky. The dark clouds parted to show a giant meteor about to break through the atmosphere.

Crowds began to panic, shouting amongst themselves, pushing each other to get out of the way.

Chat gasped, squeezing Marinette’s shoulder involuntarily. “Mari!” he shouted, “Is this really happening?! I-I don’t know if Cataclysm is strong enough to stop this thing!”

Marinette stood up, and he stood alongside her. “You need to go!”

“What about you? I can’t just leave you!” He looked at her helplessly.

“Just set me down on the street, I’ll run home as fast as I can.”

“But—“

“Saving Paris always comes first,” she interrupted. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Chat bit down on his lip, then with a small nod, reluctantly agreed. He jumped down with Marinette in his arms, then set her down so she could run away.

Not that any of that mattered if he couldn’t stop a literal asteroid from hitting the Earth.

He vaulted to the top of a nearby building with his staff, head whipping back and forth to see if Ladybug was nearby. She landed next to him a moment later, tapping him on the shoulder to beckon him to follow, and the two ran across several rooftops towards the stage a few blocks away. They stopped at the edge of the building in front of it.

“Plan??” Chat asked her desperately.

Ladybug bit her lip, uncertain. Her eyes darted around, looking for anything she could use, anything at all. There was nothing.

“Lucky Ch-“ she began to call.

“OH!!” the mystery woman interrupted, voice amplified by the floating speakers. “But what manner of magician would I be if I didn’t demonstrate my power for you all? After this magnificent feat, you will all be singing my praises for eons to come! Behold, the incredible Prima Donna’s magical prowess! Vixie, I’m ready for my close-up!”

With that, Prima Donna flew into the sky, higher and higher until she was almost a speck. The mechanical fox assistant, “Vixie”, showed footage of Prima Donna onto a giant projection in the sky, and onto all televisions, tablets, phones, and any other screens in the city so all could witness what was about to occur.

The lady magician did a flamboyant twirl of her wand, then extended it towards the asteroid. She held the heroic pose and waited for the giant rock, and once the two collided, the heavenly body exploded into a thousand pieces. Before they could hurl towards the earth, however, Prima Donna spun her wand around in a circle shape, until the wind around it formed a funnel. All the pieces and debris collected neatly into a tornado, which she struck again with her wand, and the entire conglomerated mass was thrown out into space.

Upon seeing this, the crowds began to cheer and clap, hopping up and down in glee, giving each other relieved hugs. Some began to chant, “PRIMA DONNA! PRIMA DONNA!”

Chat Noir and Ladybug let out their own furtive sighs of relief, then looked at each other in puzzlement.

“Did that really just happen?” she asked indistinctly, noting how… enthusiastic many of the crowd members were behaving.

“Who is she? Could it be a new miraculous holder?” Chat wondered.

Ladybug crossed her arms. “None of the descriptions of the miraculouses in the Grimoire fit her abilities. At least, none of the ones we know about. And she’s definitely not as… discreet as a miraculous holder is supposed to be.”

“Akuma?” he asked.

Ladybug shrugged. “Maybe. She’s very theatrical though; usually akumas have a very specific purpose. Plus there’s that weird fox… robot-thing. Her sentimonster, maybe? We should go talk to her and see what she wants. But let’s be careful.”

Chat Noir nodded, then the two cautiously approached the stage.

Prima Donna noticed them as she descended, her face becoming bright and cheerful. “Ah, how wonderful! Ladybug and Chat Noir have come to thank me in person and welcome me to Paris! Isn’t that right?” She looked at them expectantly.

Ladybug and Chat Noir looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed.

Before they could come up with a reply, Prima Donna filled the silence on their behalf. “I’m sure they’ll have lots of confidential information to tell me too, since they’ve asked me to come to Paris to be their new crime-fighting partner. Now that I’m here, this so-called ‘Shadowmoth’ stands no chance, as you can clearly see!” she said as she extended her hand towards where the asteroid had been. “But while we’re away, why don’t we bring out our special guest to entertain you!”

With a wave of her wand, a colorful explosion detonated behind her. As it cleared, a familiar shock of purple and black locks and tailored expensive suit became visible as the smoke cleared, and the crowds gasped in excitement.

“Is that Jagged Stone?!”

“Oh my gosh! It’s Jagged!!”

“Jagged Stone’s gonna perform!”

A dramatic strum from the famed musician’s electric guitar ignited the masses. They erupted into applause and cheering as an elaborate setup became visible beneath the rainbow-colored smoke. A few more well-timed explosions of confetti and fireworks from Vixie marked the start of this impromptu concert, and the crowd went feral.

Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Prima Donna withdrew to the rooftops, away from reporters and curious onlookers.

“So, Prima Donna …” Ladybug began. “What’s your deal? Who are you? Where did you come from? What do you want?”

“Ladybug,” Chat admonished gently. He understood her mistrust, since she’d been in charge of the city’s safety practically single-handedly for years. But given his own past, Chat Noir wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, mysterious origins notwithstanding.

The newcomer ran her fingers across her magic wand with a coquettish sashay of her hips. “What, you think you’re the only ones in the world who want to protect people simply out of the goodness of your hearts? Do you really have that little hope in humanity?”

“My mother always taught me to always be wary of strangers,” Ladybug retorted. She crossed her arms, lips quirking into a suspicious frown.

“Do you go to work or school as ‘Ladybug’, or do you have a secret identity?” Prima Donna sassed back.

Chat Noir fiddled with his tail nervously, looking back and forth between the two women with bated breath.

Prima Donna’s grin widened. “Actually, Ladybug, you are correct about one thing. Allow me to explain. I will defeat Shadowmoth for you... but I won’t be doing it for free. You see, fighting crime is hard work, and hard work requires proper recompense. It’s as simple as that.”

Ladybug quirked an eyebrow. “Hold up. Before we start talking about any hypothetical ‘payments’… How will you defeat Shadowmoth? You don’t even know where he is. He’s been at large for years and no one’s been able to stop him yet; not the authorities nor us.”

“Did my demonstration not impress you enough? I’d like to see you save the earth from an asteroid,” the magician remarked.

Ladybug frowned, unsure of how to respond. She still found that so-called “display of power” extremely suspicious.

“Why don’t we just hear her out, Bugaboo?” Chat suggested.

Ladybug hesitated, but relented, “Okay, I’ll bite. What kind of reward are we talking about here?”

Prima Donna grinned broadly. “For performing this magnanimous feat, I expect to be rewarded handsomely. And I really do mean ‘handsomely’.”

She paused dramatically. Ladybug and Chat Noir raised their brows in question.

“Adrien Agreste shall become my boyfriend.”

It was hard to tell which of the two heroes broke down into laughter first.

“Him?? Why?!” Chat sputtered out in between snorts.

“You know you can’t just force your celebrity crush to love you, right?” Ladybug replied with amusement, attempting (in vain) to hide her smile.

“But we do love each other! In fact, Adrien and I shared a kiss yesterday at school! Or rather—” her voice soured, her dreamy tone turning bitter, “—we sorta did, except a certain jealous busybody got in the way.”

The memory of the previous day jolted Ladybug and Chat Noir back to their current situation full force, and their tone became serious again.

“Li— Prima Donna…” Ladybug pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m afraid we can’t just ‘reward’ you with a human being. Especially when we don’t know if he’d even be interested in becoming your boyfriend.”

“Oh, but I just know Adrien would love to be my boyfriend once he knows how powerful and important I’ve become. I can give him anything he could ever want. He could do anything and go anywhere, anytime he wants if he’s with me. And this time, no one will interfere.”

“And if he says no?” Chat Noir chimed in.

Prima Donna threw him an icy glare. “He won’t.”

Ladybug felt a trickle of ice flow down her spine at the girl’s murderous tone, and she had to stop herself from giving her partner a reassuring shoulder squeeze.

“You still have yet to prove that you can defeat Shadowmoth, anyway,” she replied. “And I’m not about to make a decision on behalf of someone who isn’t present. No deal.”

The magician gave her a poisonous glare. “You can’t stop true love,” she sneered.

“This isn’t true love,” Chat insisted.

Prima Donna’s hands curled into fists and she gritted her teeth. “We’ll see about that.”

With that, she leaped away.

Ladybug and Chat Noir threw each other a puzzled glance, then chased after her. As they left, the spontaneous Jagged Stone mini-concert wrapped up as suddenly as it had begun, in a big puff of colorful smoke.

As the two heroes continued their pursuit, it became apparent that Prima Donna and Vixie were headed towards the Agreste mansion.

Upon arriving, the magician swung her wand at the windows that led to Adrien Agreste’s mansion bedroom, shattering them easily. Vixie shone a giant spotlight into the room, searching every corner.

Anger mounting, Prima Donna sprinted deeper into the mansion, searching all the halls and corridors, dining areas and living rooms, until there was no further doubt that Adrien wasn’t there. She let out a scream of frustration, stomping her foot and leaving a small crater on the tiled floor.

To Ladybug and Chat, who had followed throughout her search, it had become clear from her erratic behavior and volatile temper that Prima Donna was indeed an akuma. She circled back to Adrien’s room, with a last-ditch hope that maybe there was a spot she’d missed while searching.

Ladybug tentatively addressed her, “See? He’s not even here. What’s the point? Just hand over the akuma and this can be all over. You’re outnumbered anyway,” she added, pointing at herself and Chat Noir.

At that, Prima Donna extended her spyglass-wand and conjured another large puff of smoke. Ladybug and Chat twirled their weapons around to fan away the smoke; but when it cleared, there were two Prima Donnas.

“Outnumbered, you say?” both of them said. “Just try and get your stupid akuma.”

Chat Noir and Ladybug gaped in confusion as the two identical magicians leaped out of the broken window in opposite directions.

The heroes split up and pursued them, racing after them on the rooftops. Ladybug threw one last glance at Chat before he disappeared from her sight.

Prima Donna could fly, but Ladybug managed to keep up with her; but just barely. There were a few times when Prima Donna appeared to slow down, only to speed up again when Ladybug got near.

The chase lasted several long minutes, until they approached the city’s outer boundaries and Prima Donna stopped in the middle of a bridge.

Ladybug practically tripped over her feet from the abrupt halt, and she panted as she brought her yo-yo back out. Her lungs burned from the exertion, but she kept her face impassive.

“Now that your pet cat isn’t with you, you and I can make a deal,” the akumatized girl said.

Ladybug sighed. “Let me guess. You want me to hand over my miraculous,” she quipped, voice full of sarcasm.

“Smart girl,” the magician replied. “Surely you’re smart enough to know that there will be consequences if you refuse.”

“Is that so?” asked a dubious Ladybug.

Prima Donna sneered. “While you were busy chasing me, my assistant Vixie was out and about, working very hard throughout Paris. She’s brought me a present, you see.”

Vixie appeared from behind a large pillar, and Ladybug brought her hand to her mouth as she gasped.

It was Adrien, trapped inside a cage that hung below Vixie.

“Ladybug! Help!” Adrien called.

“What?! How did you—?“ Ladybug stammered. “But he was—”

“If you don’t give me your miraculous-” Prima Donna interrupted, “-something rather unfortunate might befall him. Like, say… an actual fall into the Seine river,” she added as she pointed to the water.

“Why would you do that?! I thought you cared about him!” Ladybug exclaimed in puzzlement. “Now you want to kill him??”

“Oh, I won’t have to. I can still get both of the things I want, because I just know that our heroic Ladybug just wouldn’t dare let an innocent person die. That’s how much faith I have in you. I really am a big fan of yours.”

Prima Donna approached Vixie, who hovered over the edge of the bridge, pointing her wand at the chain that held up the cage.

“You wouldn’t wanna prove me wrong, would you? I think Paris would be really upset if their beloved Adrien Agreste were to die when you could’ve prevented it.”

Ladybug hesitated, unsure of what to do, eyes darting around for anything that she could use to her advantage.

“And if you’re thinking about letting him fall into the water and getting him out of the cage after, don’t bother,” the girl added. “The metal is indestructible and only I have the key to open the lock. If he even survives the fall, that is, since we’re a few stories above the water. But… I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

At this, Vixie played a rimshot over its speakers.

“Please, don’t kill me!” Adrien begged Prima Donna, then turned to address the heroine, voice shaky. “Ladybug, please! I don’t wanna die!”

“Everything is gonna be fine, Adrien,” Ladybug reassured him.

“Tick-tock, time’s ticking!” Prima Donna said as a digital timer appeared on Vixie’s eyes, counting down from fifteen seconds.

Ladybug cursed under her breath. She gripped her yo-yo almost painfully, biting her lip as she tried to come up with an idea. But nothing was coming to mind. She thumbed one of her earlobes as the countdown almost reached zero, not wanting to resign herself to the fact that she was out of time, and out of options.

But Prima Donna was right; she couldn’t let Adrien die.

“Alright, alright! Fine, I’ll do it!” she yelled. “I’ll give you my miraculous. Just let him go.”

Prima Donna grinned smugly, walking towards Ladybug with her hand open to accept the earrings. “Good choice.”

Ladybug lifted her hand up to her ear, twisting the back of her earring to remove it.

“Oh, thank you, Ladybug!” the young man cried off to the side with a huge smile on his face. “I just know my father will give you a reward once he finds out that you rescued me!”

Ladybug halted her movements as her eyes popped wide open in shock. The real Adrien would never say such a thing.

But Lila wouldn’t know that.

“What did you say?” Ladybug gaped at him.

“Adrien” kept smiling that perfect magazine smile as he answered, “My father will be so grateful when he hears that you saved my life. He’ll give you anything you ask, I’m sure of it!”

Ladybug took a leap back, then lobbed her yo-yo between the cage’s bars at his head.

The yo-yo went through the doppelgänger’s face, and both he and the metal cage vanished in a puff of smoke.

Prima Donna stomped her foot and screamed in rage. “You stupid pest!! How did you know it wasn’t him?!”

Ladybug put her hand on her hip. “Looks like you don’t know Adrien as well as you think you do.”

Prima Donna let out a growl and lunged at Ladybug with a frenzied punch, which she managed to dodge. She followed up with a swing of her wand, then a kick, as Vixie shot out fiery lasers from its eyes.

The villain delivered a quick succession of strikes in conjunction with Vixie’s arsenal of hidden weapons. Ladybug miscalculated while trying to block, and Prima Donna managed to trip her face-first. Vixie launched itself at her and plopped down onto Ladybug’s back to keep her from getting up. Several mechanical arms emerged from various almost invisible metal openings to hold Ladybug in place, and they lifted her up off the ground for Prima Donna to inspect.

Ladybug grunted and struggled to break free, but Vixie’s metal arms were too strong. As Prima Donna approached, Ladybug tried to strike her with her head, but another of Vixie’s metal arms wrapped itself around it, holding it still.

A scream of frustration made its way out of Ladybug’s throat as she struggled uselessly while Prima Donna reached towards the first earring.

“I bet Shadowmoth will reward me for bringing you to him as well. I’m sure he’d have a lot to say to you for brainwashing Chat Noir and making him join you. I wonder if he’d let you live after all that,” she mused aloud.

Ladybug’s face remained stoic despite the unbearable tightness in her chest. She would never give Lila the satisfaction of seeing her cower or weaken at her words.

Prima Donna began to pull the back of the earring and Ladybug squeezed her eyes shut, letting out one last desperate yell.

“STOP!!!”

Ladybug didn’t see most of what happened next.

A heavy-sounding blow knocked Prima Donna away and she let out a grunt as she fell towards the Seine, landing with a splash. A shout of “Cataclysm!” followed by a well-placed strike at Vixie caused the metal arms to release Ladybug. Vixie fell towards the bridge, writhing wildly and making a loud metallic grinding sound.

The heroine opened her eyes as she, too, hurtled downwards, only to find herself falling into her partner’s arms. He scooped her up and led them back onto solid land with his staff, landing gracefully along the walkway.

Vixie’s enormous machine body crashed through the bridge, the middle collapsing from the substantial impact. The large sentimonster became submerged and was crushed under the debris that followed, and the mass plunged to the bottom of the river.

Once they were safe, Ladybug couldn’t help herself; she threw her arms around Chat Noir and let out a choked whimper.

“Chat! I can’t believe it… Thank you,” she whispered, relief pouring out of her being. “I’m so glad you’re okay. What happened?”

Chad cradled the back of her head and held her shaking body close. “I was chasing the other copy and I managed to hit her with my staff; but when it hit, she turned into a bunch of smoke. I realized she was a fake, so I used my communicator’s GPS to find you. Looks like I got here just in time.”

Ladybug smiled and let out a weak laugh. “You sure did. I owe you one. Again.”

The pair whipped their heads around and came apart as they heard Prima Donna approach them, dripping onto the concrete and looking absolutely livid.

“You’ll pay for that!” she bellowed, gripping her wand as she went back into a fighting stance.

Chat attempted to be diplomatic, hoping that Prima Donna might be more willing to listen now that she'd lost Vixie, her main tool. “Miss Prima Donna, why don’t we have a talk? We want to help you.”

“Like hell you do!” the girl seethed. “You don’t give a damn about me! You just want to be the only heroes in Paris and get accolades from your hordes of fans without having to share. You have no idea what it’s like to be a normal person, you two don’t have to do anything to get praise! All you have to do is exist and everyone throws themselves at you! Just like her!! Always needing to be the center of attention, everyone always fawning at her goddamn feet!”

Something seemed to occur to Prima Donna as soon as she said this. After a last scowl at the heroes, she threw a heavy smoke grenade that covered the entire block and made her escape.

The pair coughed as they dispersed the dense smoke with their respective weapons.

Chat scrunched his face in puzzlement. “‘Her?’ Who could she be talking ab-“ he stopped and his face paled as he made a realization. “No…” he said under his breath. “She wouldn’t…”

He leaped away without saying another word.

Ladybug followed, but as they landed on the nearest rooftop, Prima Donna was nowhere to be seen.

Chat darted off, seeming to know exactly where he was headed.

Ladybug frowned. Could it be…?

A short while later, they stood a few buildings away from the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie.

…Where they got a clear view of Prima Donna kicking down the residential front door.

Chat gasped in horror and jumped down, sprinting towards the building. Ladybug followed. While Chat rushed up towards the topmost bedroom of the house, Ladybug quickly checked the rest of the house on the way up, just in case Prima Donna had left behind any unexpected traps.

She made her way to her own bedroom, head swimming with possibilities. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw next.

Chat stood a short distance away, skin pale and looking like he’d seen a ghost.

Ladybug turned around.

On the opposite side of the room, Prima Donna stood, holding someone by the hair. At her feet, dressed in a proper magician’s assistant outfit complete with a rabbit-eared headband and bound in bright pink ribbons, was none other than Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

(Mood Music: "Gretchen am Spinnrade, D. 118" - Franz Schubert, performed by Camille Thomas)

Ladybug gaped. Oh, hell, she groaned internally.

“Chat Noir!” cried ‘Marinette’, sounding utterly alien to Ladybug's own ears. The look-alike hissed in pain as Prima Donna yanked sharply on her hair.

Chat seemed to come to his senses at her pained voice. “Let her go!” he demanded.

Prima Donna sneered at them, placing her magic wand under the girl’s chin, the latter letting out a small whimper.

“I believe you’re acquainted with my new assistant. She’s going to help me with my next magic trick of getting your miraculouses.”

Ladybug took a step forward. “It’s not Marinette. She’s an illusion. Prima Donna almost tricked me with one earlier.”

“What?? How do you know this one’s an illusion too?” Chat Noir asked.

“I just do,” she replied. “Try asking her a question only the real Marinette would know the answer to.”

Prima Donna frowned at them as Chat Noir considered her words.

“Okay… What were you doing earlier, before Prima Donna showed up?”

Marinette’s eyes turned pleading, and she answered, “I was… eating ice cream… with you… ”

Chat gasped and Ladybug’s jaw dropped in shock.

“She’s right! It’s really her!” he said, horrified.

“NO!! I know she’s not the real Marinette!” Ladybug insisted. “Ask her something else!”

Prima Donna glared at her. “No more questions!” she barked, waving her wand and pointing it at Marinette’s mouth, and her lips turned into a zipper that slid itself shut. The girl tried to cry out in distress, which only served to agitate Chat Noir even more.

“Leave her alone!!”

“Just for that, I’m changing the terms of our deal,” she added, then hefted Marinette over her shoulder and exited through the balcony door.

“STOP!!” Chat yelled as he chased after her.

Ladybug groaned loudly in exasperation as she followed them. The sight of herself being used as bait made her feel sick to her stomach.

Prima Donna made her way to the Eiffel Tower, and once Chat Noir and Ladybug caught up, she proceeded to dangle “Marinette” from the very top, holding on to the ribbons with one hand.

“Please!!” Chat Noir cried. “Don’t hurt her! She’s just an innocent civilian!”

“Innocent?? As if!!” the magician scoffed. “If only you knew the truth. She’s a cheater and a liar! She’s just using you, just like she does with everyone else! But now she’s gonna make herself actually useful as my assistant, by helping me with my next magic trick.”

The two waited in silence as Prima Donna paused dramatically.

“Not only will you give me your miraculouses; you will also bring me Adrien Agreste. Then, and only then, will I release her. Simple as that.”

“Just what is your obsession with Adrien?!” Ladybug snarled.

“And why are you trying to keep him away from me?!” Prima Donna countered. “ You’re the true villains, trying to stop true love! You don’t deserve your miraculouses!”

Ladybug looked over at Chat, his eyes full of fear, weighing his options, trying desperately to figure out what to do.

Prima Donna’s grip on the ribbon changed, shifting her grip from holding it with all five fingers to only four.

“Oh… by the way, there’s a time limit again. Better tell me your answer before I let go!”

“Marinette” fearfully let out some muffled screams and desperately squirmed as she dangled from the ribbon.

“Mari, no!! Hold still, you might fall!!”

Ladybug furrowed her brows, then called, “Lucky Charm!”

A drinking straw.

Great .

Prima Donna glowered at her. “Just for that—“ she said, letting go of two more fingers until only one remained. “Marinette” cried in terror as her watery eyes met Chat Noir’s, silently pleading for him to save her.

“WAIT!!” he yelled, reaching for his ring, and with a shaky hand, began to twist it off.

Eyes widening in horror, Ladybug reached over and grabbed his hand, halting his movements. “Chat, no!!”

Chat’s terrified eyes became misty, and they wordlessly implored her to let him save Marinette.

An idea formed in Ladybug’s head.

She shook her head, then whispered to him, pouring her soul into each word, “Trust me.”

He was close to hyperventilating and at the verge of tears, but to Ladybug’s surprise, he stopped.

She whispered into his ear, “Hand me the napkin in your pocket. Then put your hands behind your back and make a small Black Hole appear behind Marinette.”

Chat Noir looked at her in what could only be utter bewilderment. He squeezed his eyes shut as he let out a shaky sigh, then opened them again as he gave her a tiny nod. He reached into his pocket, finding the napkin from earlier that he’d forgotten all about, then covertly handed it to her.

“Okay Prima Donna, you win,” said Ladybug, making a show of wiping fake tears with the napkin.

As she did that, Chat put his hands behind his back, almost inaudibly muttering, “Black Hole.” The magical hole materialized behind him, smaller than he usually made them, and its matching passage appeared behind “Marinette” without Prima Donna noticing.

Ladybug tore off a small piece of the napkin and chewed on it, then quickly bent down as she put the straw in her mouth. She blew hard into the Black Hole behind Chat’s back—

—then to Prima Donna’s horror, the spitball went through the fake Marinette’s body and she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Chat’s entire form exuded relief, quickly followed by rage. He clenched his fists and lunged at Prima Donna while she was distracted, managing to knock her down. Ladybug used her yo-yo to snatch away the magic wand, then broke it into two. She purified the freed corrupted butterfly, then used her Miraculous Cure to set everything back to normal.

Darting towards the edge of the tower, Chat quickly said, “I have to go.”

“Wait!” Ladybug called after him, having an inkling of what his next destination would be. “Uh… you’re about to transform back! You should recharge before you start hopping around on rooftops. I-it’s dangerous!”

Chat clenched his jaw, but nodded, then took off.

Ladybug gave Lila a glare as the latter looked around in confusion, then swiftly picked her up and transported her from the top of the Eiffel Tower onto the sidewalk.

Without a word, she sprinted away, rushing home before Chat could get there first. After what had just occurred, he might freak out if Marinette wasn’t there.

Peeking in through the balcony door, she was relieved to see Chat hadn’t arrived yet. She dropped her transformation and nervously paced across the room, knowing that Chat would arrive soon.

Not bothering (or remembering?) to knock, Chat burst into the room. He lifted his head to search, and found Marinette at the far end by one of the windows. Dropping down to the wooden floor, he rushed to her side and took her into his arms, choking back a sob.

“Chat!” Marinette gasped, wrapping her arms around him. “A-are you okay? What happened?”

Chat inhaled sharply as he clutched her even harder, so firmly that it almost hurt, almost like she would disappear if he were to let go. “I’m fine, I was just… so scared, “he shuddered, unable to hold back tears any longer. “I was really, really scared.”

Marinette cradled the back of his head as he cried, shocked at the amount of fear he’d been hiding from Ladybug. The love in her heart swelled as she realized the incredible amount of trust he’d put in her in spite of everything.

“Everything’s okay,” she reassured him. “It’s safe now.”

Upon saying this, however, she saw it: a black butterfly fluttering into the room through the opened balcony trapdoor.

-----

Sorry for the cliffhanger!!! The chapter was already getting super long 😫

In the meantime, here's some beautiful concept art of Prima Donna by @ballerinacorgi !!

#Discordant Sonata #fanfiction #enemies AU #miraculous ladybug #Ladynoir #art by others #ML AU #aged up #Eden writes

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horang-07 · 2 years

Text

body double: chapter one

a re-write of season one of DHMIS, re-ordered into a slightly different (and more painful) narrative, inspired by a conversation with @meerlichtz in the mulhoven discord server

chapter one: electricity

“No stop it! That’s not what you say! It’s you who’s gone wrong!”

The green one squawked, shrill panic tainting the edges of his speech. His wide eyes focused onto the yellow one in front of him, some kind of sick feeling settling in his stomach. He doesn’t know quite why the prospect of something being... wrong unsettles him so deeply, but the alarm bells are already blaring in his mind, and he has no time to stop and think.

“Look let’s just... get back on track, okay?” The red one offers, craning his head down nearer to the duck, trying to catch his eyes or distract him or anything to get that scared look off his face. He of all people knew that this was very, very wrong, but the shortest’s panic wasn’t helping, he could practically feel the waves of anxiety pouring off the little avian.

“But he’s- He’s gone wrong!” The duck answers back, making eye contact this time, feathers puffed up in some kind of instinct. The yellow one slips quietly down the hall. Red shuffles his chair slightly closer to the duck, barely even a noticeable amount, but the gesture makes his breath hitch slightly, before his mind is overtaken by panic once more.

Red doesn’t comfort. He doesn’t talk in the soft, hushed tone he’s currently using, not to the duck anyway. He’s seen him act this way before with the little one, awkward comfort and a calming voice, petting his hair with his comically large paw when something sets him off or he has a nightmare.

But now Red held his gaze with that same look in his eyes, his hand resting near the duck’s on the table, a friend trying to help. The relaxing, low tone of Red’s droning voice slowly dissolved the panic clouding the duck’s mind, but the proximity between the two was enough to put him back on edge.

It must be bad this time. Red doesn’t do this. He doesn’t speak like this to you. He doesn’t look after you. The other one has gone wrong.

“It’s fine, just ignore him. Now, what about- “

Red’s voice fills his mind as he rambles about something unimportant, catching the bird’s eye every so often to make sure he’s still present, still distracted. Eventually the yellow one walks back through the kitchen and up the stairs, stealing a glance at the two sitting at the table. The avian stares back, a slight look of horror returning to his face as he watches the yellow one disappear up the shadowy staircase that he’d never quite noticed before. How hadn’t he noticed?

Red compensates for this by sneaking even closer, still inches from the duck’s side but somehow too close at the same time, almost reaching for his hand but hesitating. The duck seems to calm again, or at least stops looking so petrified for a second, and Red continues to drone on about electricity and lessons and insurance. Anything to distract the roommate he swore he didn’t care about at all. And maybe to distract himself too.

He's gone wrong!

Wrong!

Wrong. Duck knew something was wrong. Had he always? Had Red just not paid enough attention? If he was honest, he’d always written the smallest of their trio off as a lost cause in his head. Sure, sometimes he seemed to have moments of clarity, but most of the time he just went along with the absurdity of the... whatever it is they were all in, directing his attention towards how to get a rise out of Red rather than wondering why the fuck is my smart meter singing to me? The annoying little smirk that adorned the bird’s face every time he managed to get Red to raise his voice seemed solid enough proof that he was not an ally in this situation, but now? He knew something was wrong. And he knew that meant something very bad.

Red shakes away a thought at the back of his mind, a memory itching for his attention, the panic in the bird’s voice seeming far too recognisable. For a split second, a ghostly memory, faded and blurred like an old photo, before it slips away again, and Red loses his train of thought.

“No!”

“Enough!”

“I don’t wanna do this anymore!”

+++

Its dark. They can’t see.

Normally the dark is suffocating. Claustrophobic. The black of their shared bedroom. Shadows thick as tar. Staring at the ceiling. Knowing that the sooner you sleep, the sooner the next day comes, the sooner the cycle restarts. This dark was different, though.

Duck can’t quite put his finger on what he feels. Free? Not really, he’s still inside the house and if anything, he can’t see the door even if he wanted to leave. He feels... like he can breathe a little better. He can’t feel the creeping paranoia, the constant sense that someone’s watching. His head hasn’t felt this clear since... maybe forever. It’s like he can properly see for the first time, ironic seeing as he’s in pitch darkness.

He uses his hand (Wing? Feathers?) to tentatively feel behind him, sinking against the smooth surface of their fridge, tipped on its side for some reason. He hits the cool tiled floor, adjusting to steal a glance, or rather a squint considering the lack of light, at his housemate assuming a similar position next to him. It was almost nice like this. No sound other than quiet breathing, no fluorescent lights or loud teachers or eyes watching. Of course, it couldn’t stay that nice for very long.

“Hey, what happened to your phone?” The tall one breaks the silence, of course he does, and with such a silly question too. He turns to the duck slightly as he speaks, once again far away and yet all too close at the same time.

“I’m saving the battery.”

“Saving the battery for what?”

“Well, I might want to use the calculator.

The man next to him sighs. It’s barely an argument, not even a bicker, but it feels a lot more normal. The bird thinks he quite likes this, just him and the other one, two people alone in the dark. Some shameful part of his brain suggests it might feel even nicer if he was closer. If he could see the other better.

“Anyway, we may as well get used to living in the dark.”

The dark is comforting. The dark lets him hide. There’s no role to play in the dark, it’s just him, just-

“Yeah...”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just not that great is it?”

The bird has to disagree with that. Isn’t the dark a million times better than the alternative? They’re safe here. He’s safe here. At least with the lights out, he can look at Red without being seen, or at least the vague man-like shape that he thinks is Red. He never quite figured out why he likes to do that. I mean, he’s not the most interesting thing to look at in the world. He’s just a bit red.

“I wouldn’t mind looking at the house again,”

There’s a pause before the sentence continues. A slight shake in the tall one’s voice, like he’s uncertain. Nervous. So tiny you can barely hear it, but the dim echo of the kitchen amplifies it. The bird can’t fathom what he could possibly be nervous about. I mean, there’s no-one here! Except him of course, but Red seems to have no trouble saying all manner of ridiculous or insulting things to him on a daily basis.

“And maybe,”

“Looking at you too.”

Seconds feel like days. A shuffle of felt can be heard as Red looks away. The duck searches gently with his hands, gauging how far away the tall one is from him. Too far.

An hour ago, the bird couldn’t have even told you if he considered the tall one to be an acquaintance, never mind a friend, and definitely never mind whatever this is. Those four words make his head spin slightly, he feels clammy all of a sudden, cold and hot and wrong and right all simultaneously. Thoughts bounce around his mind like pinballs, faster and faster until one voice speaks louder than the others.

“Really? You like looking at me?”

You just said that out loud you dimwit.

Where on earth did that come from? He said he wouldn’t mind! Not that he liked it!

Despite the crushing embarrassment threatening to pull the avian deep into some sort of inescapable pit of shame, he keeps his eyes on the shadow of his housemate. The other doesn’t quite look back at him, but he raises his eyes from the floor, clearing his throat slightly.

“Uh. Yeah. I suppose I do.”

It’s short. And pretty non-committal. But it’s enough to involuntarily puff up every feather on the bird’s body, nerves tingling with electricity, a different kind this time, something loud and scary but somehow right. He’s so overcome by the questions in his mind and the warmth somehow collecting on his cheeks that he almost forgets to answer.

“Well, I like looking at you, too.”

That sentence finally leads Red to look up, leaning slightly closer to his companion. Glass eyes meeting felt, scanning and staring as if to make sure the duck is telling the truth. That this isn’t some dumb joke.

“Hm, yeah?”

It comes out almost teasing, and for a second the bird’s heart drops, expecting some biting punchline to fall from Red’s mouth, but it doesn’t come.

“Thanks. For that.”

It’s simple. Almost too simple but perfect at the same time. Why weren’t things always this simple?

They both sit motionless in the afterglow, letting the moment simmer. The duck feels like his insides are on show. Like his ribcage has been inexplicably split open. Like his heart is held in his hands, the butterflies in his stomach soaring around his room, every part of him suddenly seen. Faint memories of a hospital table, fear, horrible vulnerability. Only this time, it isn’t so horrible. This isn’t so scary.

A shuffle. The tall one scoots across black and white tile as casually as he can, red felt brushing against green feather. Leg touching leg, hands inches apart. All the duck would have to do is reach out. The tall one clears his throat again, and the duck can hear his slightly shaky breaths, yarn drifting gently in front of his mouth. He’s easier to look at now, and somehow nicer to stare at than ever before. Perhaps now because he’s allowed to.

The bird tentatively stretches his fingers towards the warmth of the other one’s hand, and as he makes contact, feathered pinky finger wrapping around the other’s, he decides he can’t stand to call him “the other one” any longer.

“Robin.”

“What?”

“My name. It’s Robin.”

He looks to the other for a response, only finding shock in his eyes. He seems to lose his focus for a moment, coughing slightly like he didn't expect his housemate to have a name at all, before he meets Robin’s eyes again.

“It’s a nice name. Bit ironic though.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Well, y’know. Robin. Those tiny, pretty little birds. I don’t know much about birds, but I know you definitely aren’t a Robin.”

“I thought you said you liked looking at me”

That seems to catch the other off guard, his breath hitching, turning into a half-wheeze when he sees Robin’s offended expression. He backtracks, it is a nice name, really! It suits the other well, he was just teasing!

“Sure…” Robin seems unimpressed by the other one’s attempt. “Well go on, what’s yours then? I don’t give out my personal information for free you know.”

The other one meets his eyes again, staring for a moment. Understanding. Mutual. Unspoken.

“It’s Harry. Boring, I know.”

“No, it isn’t boring!” Robin squawks, feeling immediately shameful as the other o- Harry. As Harry quirks his brow at him, amused. He wasn’t sure why he was so defensive over the other’s name. It’s just a name. “I mean, it suits you. It’s very you. It’s nice I think”

“Thanks. Again.”

Robin lets a breath out, head resting against the appliance behind him, suddenly feeling tired after whatever… that was. Harry seems to mirror this, leaning his head down to stare into Robin’s eyes. No words, no teasing, no confession. Just a look. It’s enough to make Robin feel dizzy again.

Harry wraps more of his hand around Robin’s, until their fingers are almost interlocked, stealing a glance at their conjoined fingers. This is different. But for the first time, a good different. He wants it to stay like this. He doesn’t really know what this is, but he knows it's good. Fingers clutching eachother, legs pressed against the other, no questions or answers, just them.

The door creaks open, light intrudes into the room. A short figure stands at the door. Two hands pull apart.

#dhmis #dhmis red guy #red guy #fluffybird #dhmis duck #duck #dont hug me im scared #oneshot #red guy/duck #red guy x duck #eden writes

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cloudofdarkness · 1 year

Text

Pragma

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: M/M

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV

Relationship: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light

Characters:

G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch

Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)

Ryne | Minfilia

Thancred Waters

Additional Tags:

Shadowbringers Spoilers

Angst

Healing

wound depictions

Language: English

Words:2,576

ao3 link

Summary: Through the hurt and the rush of battle, the lies and years of waiting, you still find that ever familiar, ever known comfort; that poetically correct love.

The waves on Kholusia’s shore were so much calmer than the ones washing up on the Ruby Tithe. The warrior noted this as the water just barely brushed his sea soaked boots. He smelled of salt, his undone hair sticking to his face unceremoniously from the unkind current. The Scions had swam all the way back, and it was pretty well as tiring as Alphinaud had made it out to be. He didn’t blame him for collapsing in contact with land. This was simply one of the few things he tuned in to however, as his thoughts were colliding against each other in his brain; feelings like confusion and stress and fear ever pulled at every thought.

He was exhausted.

Watching the waves was all he could do, though even still, this had proved difficult. The last time he’d done this wasn’t long after the calamity. After he’d lost his family. He couldn’t save anything, couldn’t change anything, had nothing left. So he just watched the waves.

He had more now than he did then, but for some reason, he still felt...scared. Unsure.

He had had a feeling for the longest time that the Exarch was truly G’raha. He wanted to believe his gut feeling, that he knew that voice, those lips, that smile, but his self doubt would always be the worst part of him. He had known that small moment before they scaled Mt Gulg, and yet he still said nothing. He didn’t believe he could have something that felt so right to him come true. Of course fate would only reward him with such a reassurance while he was giving his life.

And even still, they had both lived another day. His pale eyes flickered over to the Exarch, sitting himself back on the sand and seeming to be lost in thought himself, or perhaps that was a side effect from being away from the tower for far too long. They probably felt just about the same in that moment. He could tell as soon as they’d reached the edge of the Tempest. The warrior had had to carry him on his back, and even if his fatigue hadn’t gotten the best of him, he would have done it anyways. He’d never seen a man aside from himself walk his injuries off as well as he did.

He was jolted from his thoughts as a hand gently placed itself on his shoulder, turning curiously to see Ryne staring down at him, her hands clasped over her chest, azure eyes full of worry.

“Are you feeling well, A’tali? I sensed something...off.” She observed, a hand coming to her chin in thought. So she could sense his unease now. He supposed that was only fair, considering the light no longer burned inside of him. Though realizing she might’ve been intruding on his seclusion, her eyes were quick to soften in apology. “W-which is obviously why you’re taking a moment for yourself! I apologize, I was just worried-“

The Oracle was halted as the warrior took her hand, a tired, but gentle smile forming on his lips as he met her gaze. It was as if everyone knew but her that she was merely a child still. She was allowed to have childlike behaviors, and even still, this was hardly one of them. She was ever kind and empathetic, all heroes tended to be. “No need for apologies. That was quite thoughtful of you to check in on me. Though I’ll be alright, there’s just...a bit to think about. I promise I’ll be settled in a moment.”

This seemed to calm her, that childlike worry in her eyes softening as she placed her other hand over his; a simple last reassurance. He appreciated her presence more than she knew.

It was then that Thancred had called her over, and he could hear talk of them arranging a ride back, as there was no way they were carrying Alphinaud all the way to the Crystarium. He managed a laugh, and nodded in assurance to take her leave. Ever spritely as she was, she hurried herself back over to her found guardian, presumably letting him know that he was alright. He knew Thancred worried about him behind all of his newfound stoic demeanor. They had always been close.

The warrior decided then that if they were to be heading back soon, he would do one last thing, privately. Through his ringing head and burning chest, he managed the small walk over to where Thancred, Y’shtola and G’raha were conversing, holding himself more than he figured, as the two older Scions looked to him in concern.

“Should we be going then? You look awful.” Ever the honest one, Thancred was, and it near brought a smile to A’tali’s face. At least he could always count on him not to pity his condition. Perhaps that was why he liked him so much. In truth, he absolutely felt like shit, but he had to save his energy for now. “In a moment. If you all would make the arrangements and assure the poor Chais of our triumphant return, I would speak with our friend here ere I do much more.”

He almost noticed the miqo'te sitting on the shore perk up at the slight mention, as if he knew he was to be confronted by the other. Even through his mass drain of energy did he stumble when the warrior spoke of him.

Before he did anything, however, he watched the Scions take their leave, Thancred having to hoist Alphinaud over his shoulder, as the boy remained unconscious. Oh the stories that would elicit upon his awakening…

They were alone then, and he hardly knew where to start. G’raha had averted his gaze, his eyes lazily watching the sunrise reflecting off of the waves.

“Exarch, May I?”

It was spoken with uncertainty, as he had no idea where they currently stood with each other. Did he want to welcome him as an old friend, or had he wished to keep his identity a secret? Did he no longer wish to burden him with his friendship any longer? The warrior would respect whatever he wanted, but he was to tread carefully.

And on the other hand, the casually spoken title was enough to worry the Exarch. It was much different than the heartfelt cry of “Good Morning, Raha” that he’d received earlier. Perhaps that short moment had passed, just as everything else might have for them. He gave a simple nod in return, watching the warrior seemingly collapse on the sand out of the corner of his eye.

“...you’ve been away from the tower for some time now. Will you be able to make the trek back to the Crystarium?”

By the look on his face, A’tali knew he couldn’t, but he wasn’t much one to admit that. He was recovering from a bullet wound and still he would walk on. How he did it, the warrior never knew.

“I shall be fine. Whatever I cannot carry, my staff can support. I assure you, I can handle most things.” It was a lie, but only one to lift a weight off his shoulders. Sure, just like everything else he’d fed the warrior for the past month. It was getting easier, wasn't it?

There was silence for a long moment, only the movement of A’tali’s knees being pulled to his chest was heard, and they simply sat there, taking in the moment, that they wouldn’t have something like this for who knew how long.

“...I understand if you would choose to be upset with me. I have not been the most honest or open person…” the Exarch began, but he quickly stopped himself as the warrior shifted against the sands, a seemingly long inhale lifting his chest.

“I understand why you did what you did. It takes courage to hide such a delicate plan from someone such as I, and you sought it out to near perfection. I could not be upset with the choices you made, as you’ve always decided the right path for yourself, as I told you to do so all those years ago. If that was what you chose then...I would accept it.” There was a brief pause, a small jolt in his chest, and G’raha worried for a moment that his affliction from the light had returned. He learned only soon after what had caused it.

He had been weeping.

His pale eyes shone brightly against the sunrise and he could see those silent tears trickling down his cheeks. How many times had he cried so silently like this? That the rest of the world wouldn’t hear their warrior break?

“...Tali…” he probably hadn’t the slightest permission to refer to him as such, but he barely cared in that moment. They were both so exhausted.

That was all it took though, as the warrior turned to wrap his arms around the Exarch’s shoulders, his face buried against the crystal cuffing his neck. Despite the cold, saltiness of the sea still invading their every senses, A’Tali merely wished to be near him, to hold him. “...I respect your choices...but gods I’ve missed you...and you can call me whatever you’d like; selfish, stubborn, idiotic...but I’ve missed you all the same and I would only wish to see you standing here, by my side.”

He hardly knew how to react, what to say. His brain was buzzing with the reminder from the tower that he’d strayed too far, he could hardly focus on his words had it not been for his stubborn want to hear him. All he could do in that moment was gently clutch the fabric of his shirt with his non crystal hand, tears of his own trailing down his cheeks. “..then if that is what you wish, I shall remain by your side, that I owe you much and more…”

His voice was hoarse now, barely a whisper as they sat on the shore, simply holding one another. It had been so long...so very long since they could just exist near each other. They would have this moment, as they both were prepared for it to not last much longer. — The warrior of darkness and the Exarch were never spotted at the Crystarium’s festivities later that night. In fact, the last time anyone had seen them, they had been walking along with the Captain of the guard, hastily escorting them inside the tower. The Scions had assured them not to worry, as the time for worrying had come to pass, the Captain was merely concerned for their health. In the end, they were simply pleased to know that the warrior had kept his promise, and returned their leader home safely. If only he knew how deeply important he was to them, that they would be thrown into such discomfort at his absence.

Crossing the threshold to his private chambers, they had been left alone, Lyna respectfully smiling to the warrior as she took her leave. A’Tali liked her; always keeping guard, always loyal to her duty, but there was also something playful and caring underneath that he would see be brought to light one of these days. Perhaps that was possible now.

He thought of this, as he carefully set the Exarch down against his bed. He was hardly conscious, though he still held onto that last bit -like a child waiting up during Starlight- so that he wouldn’t miss a moment next to his inspiration.

Lazily did he watch A’tali pull a now dried handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing it with some form of liquid dripping from a bottle from his side pouch. He would heal him properly, but there was no point in doing so if he still remained dirty.

He kicked off his boots then, sitting himself on the bed and leaning over the exarch. There was hardly a wince as the cloth was pressed to the corner of his lips; he was seemingly too drained to care. He supposed it wouldn’t make this too hard then. The blood cleaned away easily, and the warrior’s hand brushed back his bangs to get a better look at the wound cut into his forehead. It was deeper than the one below, and he wondered how in the seven hells he’d walked this off when it was fresh. He truly was a wonder…

Cautiously, he cleaned around the gash, feeling a bit of tension as he noticed G’raha’s grip on the bedsheets. So he had been feeling this. He almost felt bad now, but he knew it had to be done. There wouldn’t be any risk of infection before they could see someone about it.

When he finished, he set the cloth aside, removing the sleeve on his left hand and holding it focused over the wound. It had been quite some time since he’d healed anyone but himself, but he was determined to ease the other man’s mind. If it meant he could wake up without the pain of a few injuries, it would put him at ease. He could feel the familiar pull of aether at the palm of his hand, spinning him lightheaded in his already drained state. He could feel the wound closing, and he knew he was never ready for how that felt. Mayhap that was why he took to the sword instead, the feeling of torn flesh at his fingertips always had him nauseous.

When his hand fell away, he chanced a look to the Exarch, who was seemingly asleep below him, and he smiled. It was all over now. They could both properly rest.

Yet his hand worriedly found its way to his chest, gracing the crystal that supposedly lined it under the fabric of his robes. He wondered how durable it was, whether it could withstand a bullet or if it would tear right through, as it would any other body.

“M’alright...it...protects…” the Exarch mumbled softly, as if he knew his exact thoughts in that moment. He couldn’t blame him for worrying, he knew of his friend who had fallen to a similar wound. That tale had always pained him, written by a grieving father who remained hopeful in the shadow of his late son. No, he would not allow himself to fall to such a thing, but A’tali didn’t know this. He hardly knew anything about him now.

He had stopped his tracing then, figuring if he’d even located the chipped crystal, he would have worried himself further into a fit trying to fix it. The tower would probably heal him anyways.

Giving in to his fatigue, he removed his other sleeve, laying himself back against the plush mattress and pulling the Exarch to his chest. He could hardly protest, whether it was due to his drain or otherwise, he needn’t care. A hand came up to brush back his hair, undoing his pesky braid before moving to massage his ears; how poorly they must’ve been treated over the years, pressed against his head so tightly. He wouldn’t have that anymore. He could tell that the Exarch enjoyed this, a faint purr emanating from his chest as he barely nuzzled closer. He was calm. They were calm.

They slept like so for nearly three days, hardly caring to wake one another in their blissful rest.

The First would finally know peace. Our heroes spared no shortage of it.

#ffxiv #ff14 #eden writes #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #crystal exarch #g'raha tia #swan sirenia #ryne #thancred waters #warrior of light #warrior of darkness #wolexarch #wolgraha

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danhjngs · 7 months

Text

renheng in which dan heng is a gamer that streams and blade is about to have his make up guru awakening.

silver wolf was sitting on the couch, her legs kicked up on the arm as she blew her bubble gum. she heard footsteps and moved her phone from her view to peek at the door, waiting for the person to walk through it.

"hey, blade." she said before he closed the door. "i found something you may want to check out."

"if it's another one of those gaming tutorials, silver wolf, then i'm not interested." he said with a tired voice, yawning before he walked over to where silver was. "...what is it?"

silver wolf grinned and held out her phone. on the screen it displayed a screenshot of a youtube video. it was at the part where the make up guru showed off the look she created. blade stared at it for a while before silver wolf pulled her phone back.

"for some reason, i feel like you can pull this look off or even, do better."

"i've never–"

"you said you wanted to surprised dan heng with something, right? the colors are fit for his maple leaf theme, why not go with something like that?"

blade was quiet, letting silver wolf's suggestions sink into his mind, and perhaps it wasn't that bad of an idea. before he straightened himself up and turned away, he stopped in this tracks, peering briefly over his shoulder once he reached the kitchen.

"send me the video.." he mumbled, but he knew that silver wolf would hear him.

silver wolf beamed, and she didn't have to be told twice as she instantly sent the link to the full video.

little did blade knew that this would be his awakening as an aspiring make up guru. which, can be hilarious to think of, considering his boyfriend is a well-known youtube gamer.

#eden writes #blade #silverwolf #renheng #honkaistarrail #edenWIP

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edensxgarden · 4 months

Text

Sweet Moans | LN04

That stream did something to me and I knew I just needed to write about it. I hope you enjoy! 18+ minors dni please <3

Word count: 1,027

Just imagine your Lando's sweet girlfriend, and you're at work, and you get a notification that he's streaming!! And you're so excited because you love watching and supporting your boyfriend's streams <3

And you just absentmindedly have it on while you're typing away, and you're just letting your subconscious take over while you work, and you're letting Lando's voice relax you.

Then all of a sudden you hear a noise, and you gasp, and your eye twitches, and you're just like, What the fuck!!! Because did lando just moan?????

You immediately log off the stream and focus back on your work, but now you have a pout on your face and annoyance hindering your productivity :(

And your day drags on, and usually you'd be so excited to get home and sprawl out on the couch and cuddle with your boyfriend, but not today! So you walk in with a groan and head to your room, ignoring Lando's grabby hands and pleas for attention.

You slam the door behind you in Lando's face and make your way to the bed, crawling under the covers and scrolling on Instagram. But for some reason, God decided to test you and put a video of Lando's out-of-pocket stream on your timeline, and you may have thrown your phone and screamed in frustration :(

And lando, being the sweet boyfriend he is, ran into the room when he heard you scream, but that just made you even angrier; you thought you could literally combust!

And lando sensed your anger and hugged you and begged you to tell him what was wrong in such a sweet way that it made you almost feel bad about being so mean. Almost.

But with a huff, you explained to Lando that you saw him stream, and it's so unfair!!! Because those noises are for you and you only, not the tens of thousands of people who watch his streams.

And lando has the audacity to laugh at you!!! :(

So you make up your mind and decide to show Lando exactly who his pretty moans belong to <3

You shut up his stupid, mocking laugh with a rough press of your lips against his as you yank his face towards yours by his curls.

And the weak little whimper he makes into your mouth has smugness and confidence coursing through your veins. So you harness all of that confidence and crawl onto Lando's lap, and you begin to gently palm his covered bulge.

You carefully caressed the growing tent in his pants with your polished fingertips, teasing the head with featherlight touches until his sweats were stained wet with the pearly shine of his pre-cum.

And your little slut of a boyfriend was just prancing around the house in sweats and no boxers, so his pretty dick springs out from under the fabric and smacks his torso with a little pat.

And it's all flushed and leaking, and the veins that wrap so beautifully around his sensitive pink tip were practically throbbing, and you could tell you had him right where you wanted him :)

So you pulled away your hands teasingly, leaving him all hard and needy on the bed, and before you knew it, he was pleading and begging you to touch him again. Those were noises only you could hear, and you couldn't help your smug smile.

But when he looked so pretty and sounded so good, you couldn't deny him for long, so you walked back over to the bed. And just to add fuel to the fire, you lifted your work skirt, and upon seeing you weren't wearing panties, Lando let out a needy moan <3

Your goal for the night was to hear that sound as much as humanly possible.

You crawled over to Lando on the bed and positioned yourself above him, grabbing a hold of his aching cock and pressing the leaky tip against your clit a few times before positioning it under your drooling hole

And rather than just pushing the hole thing in at once, you torture Lando by slipping it in slowly, inch by inch, and he's just whimpering and begging under you because the feeling and the sight of your cunt slowly swallowing his dick were nearly enough to make him cum on the spot :(

Once he's finally balls deep inside of you, you begin grinding on his lap, fucking yourself on his cock like he's your own personal dildo. The feeling of his fat tip hitting so deep inside you made you see stars, and as much as you tried to focus on his moans, you began to lose yourself in pleasure.

Your vision began to blur, your thighs ached, and you couldn't help but slow your movements, but this was not well received by Lando. Needy whines were ripped from his quivering lips, and you gave in and gave him the go-ahead to fuck you <3

He flipped the two of you over and folded your aching legs, shoving his pulsing cock back into your cunt before fucking you at a speed that made your head spin.

He was so deep inside, you felt his pretty mushroomy tip brush the special spot that had you screaming, and the veins that beautifully decorated his dick caressed your walls so deliciously, you found yourself instantly falling over the edge.

Your body twitched with the white-hot pleasure you felt as lando continued to fuck you through your orgasm. Your cunt fluttered around his dick until it was squeezing the milky white cum out of his heavy balls.

He came hard and fast, the milky ropes burying deep inside your cunt, letting out a lewd moan of your name that you wish you could tattoo into your brain forever.

Lando was spent and fucked out, his body covered in a shiny layer of sweat and his eyes glassy but you weren't finished. You crawled back on top of him, pressing sweet kisses to his neck as you began grinding on him once more.

You were drunk on his moans, and you weren't planning on stopping until he knew exactly who his noises belonged to.

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unendingwanderlust · 1 month

Text

TITLE: To Lose Oneself In Elven Song RATING: E WARNINGS: Chose Not To Warn RELATIONSHIPS: Gimli/Legolas, Gimli & Legolas, Background Bilbo/Thorin SERIES: A World Of Our Own

SUMMARY: A dwarf recognizing his One and feeling the first stirrings of love in his heart is such a grand, joyous event, worthy of celebration! Meanwhile, Gimli’s One is none other than the son of his father’s jailer and the Mad Elvenqueen of Mirkwood.

Perhaps Mahal hates one of his children after all…

READ ON AO3

#eden writes #eden's moodboards #gigolas #gimleaf #legolas #gimli #series: a world of our own

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gently-decaying-flowers · 4 months

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i finally let my mom read one of my stories and she was like gushing about how cool the details were and how she would read a whole novel about the story

*sobs and cries and positively wails*

#eden writes #i love my mom

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piecesofeden11 · 6 months

Text

Me, writing, thinking: Oh! This'll be a lovely slow-burn, really, so much time to bring up the tension, to make them yearn for each other, to make them pine! Obikin, as I'm writing: Yeah, no ... we bone now! Me: You know each other for like a week! Obikin: So?!

#eden rambles #eden writes #my writing #my wips

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grape-writes · 4 months

Text

Adjusting to Frustrating Realities

A/N: Ah!!! I'm not as happy with how this pne turned out as i was the first chapter, but it's kind of a filler chapter, sorry

Masterlist

Warnings: Ocean content, there's a chase scene, cursing. [To be added to]

[Day 12]

Yvette was beginning to hate the previous squads with a burning passion. Not only did they leave the place a god's damn mess, but they locked just about every door. Even the door to the reactor! Why would you lock the door to the main power source in the entire base!!!

It took her a full week of scavenging through messy rooms, forcing doors open with a crowbar she found in the storage room, just to find the key to the reactor and laboratory. Only to then realize she could have just pried the door open with said crowbar in the first place.

Speaking of, they left their rooms horribly kept, furniture tossed around, scattered clothes out of their drawers. They were in a hurry and did not care how they left the place. At least the kitchen and the bathrooms were clean, mostly; the messiest was mirrors that had been left open and items within the cabinets tossed about as they searched for supplies.

And don’t get her started on their lack of care when setting up the underwater cameras connected to the base.

Not only were those flimsily installed (and she's not even a mechanic, it's just obvious), but they were exposed! On an alien planet with obviously sentient, and clearly very intelligent, life! That’s just asking for them to be tampered with! And they were! Several times! At least, according to the various files Yvette was able to download from the terminal and uploaded onto one of the data pads.

Well, 'pad' was a stretch; it was a band that wrapped around the forearm and locked in place with a latch. FazTech had made it usable regardless of dominant arm, with the screen on the center turning depending on how you set it up. There were no buttons attached to the outer edge of the device, it was purely a touch pad; this made it easy to wear on either arm, but it was still a loss for when the thing inevitably doesn’t turn on by touching it.

And goodness did the previous squads leave dozens upon dozens of files to sift through.

Most of the camera feed had been tampered with; an animal hitting one offline (both purposeful and accidental), and by someone… deleting the files. The records connected to various files show a, 'David Miller' as the one responsible. It seemed he quickly deleted as much camera feed as he could about the same time they received the distress signal.

That name again… something about it made her stomach churn.

The other files were field work from the marine biologist and engineers; loose photos of the strange creatures that inhabited the planet, broken equipment, the other members of the squads interacting with various marine life, weird plants. There were even a few photos of Sun sprinkled in, often physically interacting with the members; it kind of reminded her of those photos of sharks cuddling with divers.

There were even photos of Sun playing with... children. Two of them, a dark-haired little girl with the brightest green eyes and a dark-haired girl with pigtails and blue eyes; the files only named one, Charlotte, but never specified which one that was. There weren’t many photos, mostly of an adult monitoring Sun as he interacted with the two, a few of the images came with notes from the photographer about how the playdates went.

And hey, Sun scored well in the eyes of the adults, good for him.

What weren't photos were text files of information the group had gathered from their time in the area. Most of it was firsthand accounts of experiences and how they survived. Often it was an experiment, testing what could and could not be eaten or touched safely. Though the most concerning part was the various members of the squads getting a strange skin itch. The files on it were... hauntingly deleted.

The text files provided a great deal of help when she would eventually have to leave the base to get food or supplies.

Plus, it also informed her that Sun was venomous. Apparently one of the members, the navigator, had accidentally startled the Mer. They ended up pricking their hand on one of his spines, one along his back (that he apparently had?), and whatever was in the venom made them… euphoric? Giggling at everything, running around in sudden bursts of energy.

Whatever it was, had made Sun so startled, he disappeared for a week and returned with a shell as an apology; he refused to elaborate and avoided the navigator if he could. Poor bud.

A part of Yvette was glad they documented almost everything around them, but she was mostly annoyed at the sheer magnitude of what she had to look through. At the very least they organized everything into folders she could just press on at the top of the data pads screen.

A surprising find amongst the scores of files, was in the same folder Sun was in, multiple other Mer listed right alongside the bright yellow Merman. Siren? It seemed not even the previous squads knew what to call them, simply titling the folder ‘mermaids’ and calling it a day.

The most notable of the other Mer, was a deep blue beast of a creature, with lighter coloring around half their face and torso. They were lankier than Sun, tail ending with a fin reminiscent of a shark's tailfin, and clearly nocturnal. Their eyes were often dark pools with a red pinprick for a pupil, though on rare occasions they caught them as pure red with a white pupil instead.

On the back of its head appeared to be a lure-like appendage that ended in a bulb, it was speckled with bioluminescent dots, as was their tail. When it was photographed from a distance, it was often in some underwater cavern, where the Mer glew beautifully in the dark. Though other photos didn’t include this glow, which could mean they had a level of control over their bioluminescence.

Yvette had seen this Mer before, stalking her outside of her window at night. They weren’t very brightly lit, glow toned down to a simmer; possibly as to not startle her further than they had... Wait, no. They were trying to scare her regardless, especially considering their cackling and grin.

Regardless, most of the photos of this Mer were either partial pictures, blurry, or photos taken with the flash to catch the poor thing off guard. There weren’t many photos, but the ones they had in the files were mostly dark, with only two or three where flash was used to capture the Mer’s image.

Within the text files, there were a few encounters with the Mer, dubbed ‘Moon’ by the captain's right-hand man, mostly involving said right-hand man. Apparently, the Mer would stalk the windows at night, specifically the one that became Yvette’s room, and he wouldn’t leave until either a curtain was closed or the person within went to bed.

There was only one other Mer in the folder, no photos and only one encounter, and by the physical description, this one was bigger than the other two. One of the squad members had gone too deep into an underwater cave and the beast jumped at them. The account was vague, something about a haunting song in the dark and flickering lights; then they were being pulled up into the base by a confused engineer and concerned medic. The file was partially scrubbed and didn’t provide much of a description beyond ‘big’ and ‘toothy’.

Most of the files related to this other Mer had been scrubbed, with a note on the folder that it had been ‘deleted by admin’. Which was honestly bizarre coming from a place like this, where no FazTech higher ups would dare step foot.

Looking through files was... exhausting.

The door to the docking bay opening broke Yvette from her mental debate on what she should focus on first, followed by a familiar chirp. Sun had opened the door, again. He'd realized she would get up to investigate when the door would loudly slide open and would do it occasionally when she hadn’t seen him that day yet.

Or even when he had, but he decided she was spending too much time inside.

This instance was a case of the former, she’d ended up spending all morning going through files in the lounge, casually laying against the couch as she ate a ration bar. And clearly the yellow Mer was feeling left out, must’ve been waiting by the entrance of the cave for her to swim down.

With a lazy huff, Yvette pushed herself off the couch and hurried towards the docking bay. She was suddenly glad she’d put on most of her gear before she decided to go through file after file, so all she had to do was slip the flippers onto her feet and mask over her face.

Sun was where she thought he’d be, claws nervously tapping at the metal platform as he waited for her to arrive and pay attention to him. At least, that was what she could only assume he did this for, attention. He was like a dog at times, a gold retriever in fish form. She was far too endeared to really be annoyed for very long.

The sound of her walking along the metal platform, flippers in hand, made Sun perk up. His chirp of greeting as loud as he could make it, “Shooting Star!!”

With a lighthearted eye roll, she sat onto the platform to fix her flippers onto her feet, form well within arm's reach for the much larger Sun, “Sunny, mornin’.”

The Mer watched her slip the fins on with an awed look, “What... were you doing? Been here all morning.”

Yvette softly groaned, adjusting the mask tighter onto her face, “Looking through what they left me.”

“Bad?” Sun offered both the word and his hand to help her into the water, which she happily took.

“...No, just... incomplete. Someone removed some of it before they left.” Yvette scowled as the water consumed her form. The water was becoming less and less... tingly every time she entered it. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but it felt less uncomfortable to swim in.

Yvette wasn’t worried about not being able to hear Sun under the water; her mask was equipped with ear coverings that could (somehow) detect sounds beneath the waves. That, and there was a little speaker to allow Sun to hear her. These were typically used by groups of divers to communicate with each other back on Earth, but it’d do here.

The corners of Suns mouth shifted downwards into a frown, opening briefly to reveal his teeth before he spoke, “That... does not sound like them... most of them...”

“It was done by a man named David apparently, or his profile was used to clear everything.” Yvette offered as they slipped out of the cave and into the open water, schools of fish scattering when they swam into them.

Sun’s nose crinkled at the name. “Dave? Is that what... they called?”

“Yes, Dave is a nickname for David.” Yvette confirmed, sighing, “Sounds like a real piece of work, if you ask me.”

The two slipped down into the ravine, idly swimming amongst the brightly colored plants and scattering fish. Yvette didn’t really have much of a goal for the day, maybe trying to fix some of the cameras, but most of that was out of her expertise. This conversation was good for stalling until she had to work on fixing the mess left for her.

“Dave... was not nice.” Sun confirmed, gliding in the water over Yvette to direct their path ahead, “Said... mean things to me and the guppies. Big-one's never... believed us when we told them.”

“Weird... But not surprising. Adults tend to disregard things kids say a lot of the time, especially when they say an adult is acting weird.” Yvette began to ramble, tapping at her data pads screen with a huff, “because oh, ‘what do kids know’ and ‘they could be lying’. Morons.”

Suns bubble of laughter at Yvette’s mockery of the adults she was upset with broke her from her anger. It was light, backed by a chirping sound, and it was loud on her ears; fitting for a colorful, friendly, being such as himself. It made the fire in her chest simmer into a comforting warmth.

“Silly.” Was Suns only response to her rant, flicking a claw at her mask. It bounced off the protected layer, much to his disappointment.

It seemed Sun liked being able to poke at her skin; the number of times he’d play with Yvette’s bare hands or poke and prod at her face when she’d remove her mask, was already more than she could count. The previous squads probably didn’t let him get this close often, safety concerns; that or he was just endlessly fascinated by humans. Or maybe he was just physically affectionate, like a dog?

Gah, she should really stop comparing him to a dog.

With an amused eye roll, Yvette swam ahead to match his stride, “I’m silly, or the adults are? Wait, I am an adult. Fu- ahem, Frick.”

Sun’s grin widened, and his laughter can be heard in his voice as he spoke, “You! Silly words!”

“What? You mean me doing the ‘dumb adult voice’?” Yvette did the voice for affect, chuckling to herself at it. Or maybe Suns laughter was just contagious.

“Yes!! Did not know... you could do that to!” Sun chittered with his teeth.

“To? You can change your voice then? That’s cool!” Yvette turned with the curve of the ravine, running a gloved hand along the rock. “Some people do it to entertain or mess with people.”

“Yes! Most of... us? Can! Used to catch prey!” Sun beamed at the praise.

“Oooh, that makes more sense. Some birds back home can mimic sounds, not for hunting, I think, but it's really cool.”

Just ahead of them was one of the cameras, its lenses tilted downwards, and various wires ripped open and the rock above it was clawed at. Another one some creature broke intentionally, it seemed. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to come out and try to fix one of them, annoyed that her method of monitoring the area was taken from her.

Though approaching said cameras afterwards was always nerve-wracking, especially when there were clear signs whatever had attacked the camera was doing it intentionally. Something wanted her attention, probably to kill her, and it was intelligent enough to understand what destroying the cameras does.

And judging by the claw marks, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was.

Sun frowned at the sight of the destroyed device, chirping something to himself, “Ah... again?”

Yvette sighed, tugging at a tool on her belt, she began fixing the destroyed wires, “Yeah... something out here is really out to get me, huh?”

Yvette could see Sun in her peripheral, frowning as he scanned the water and kelp around them. It was smart of him to keep an eye out for dangerous creatures in the water when something was clearly trying to get her, especially when she was joking about it. Plus, he most likely knew the area far better than she did and would know if something dangerous was nearby.

The previous squads' files were rather extensive about flora and fauna in the area, but she hadn’t yet read everything. Granted she was more focused on information about the obviously intelligent mermaid (merman? Siren??? What did she refer to Sun as??) that could easily open the docking bay.

It was fortunate that he was both friendly and nervous about harming her; constantly pulling her hands away from his spikes or spines, careful not to accidentally nick her skin with his claws. She noticed that he’d even try to corral her away from areas that seemed innocuous enough, only to learn something was dangerous about the environment.

This almost happened with one of the caves along the edge of the ravine; she was just exploring, and Sun pulled her up suddenly from her position by one of the caves in the ravine. But before she could yell at him, a snake-like creature struck at where she had been floating previously. The thing must’ve been twice her size, scaled with sharpened teeth that gnawed at the open water.

Sun had tried to tell her what it was called, but she decided to just call it an ocean adder for now. It vaguely reminded her of an ambush snake back on earth that would hide in the sand and strike when prey got close enough. She just hoped it didn’t have the same deadly venom.

It took longer than she would’ve liked to reattach the wires, nearly zapping herself a few times in the process. Once it was finished, she set to setting the camera back to its natural position, as well as briefly checking its connection to her data pad. This took a few moments of silence and loading screens.

“See anything?” Yvette offered after confirming it was connected, glancing at Sun. She was both curious, and anxious about the answer.

Sun seemed to get more and more anxious as time went on. He was rubbing his webbing on one hand with the other, tail flicking under him. His eyes darted amongst the foliage behind her, pupils slitted and small.

Sun made a grumble, clawed hand slowly resting onto into her arm, gaining a tight grip against her gloved arm. His voice came out quiet, barely above a whisper, “...yes.”

A turn back provided him correct, eyes glared at the two of them from the cover of the flora in the area, red and malicious. Yve couldn’t tell with the distance, but whatever it was couldn’t have been much smaller than Sun in size. And there were multiple of them, all watching from the shadows.

Ah, shit.

A lot of creatures here seemed to have red eyes, often the more dangerous ones. It was like a black widow spider with her red hourglass mark or those brightly colored frogs. A sign of danger. This thought wasn’t comforting, considering Sun had red frills all over, but at least his eyes were a calm blue.

At least he didn’t seem to want to kill her.

Yvette slowly put her tools back onto her belt, lowering her own voice to a whisper, “We go?”

Sun merely nodded, hands latching onto her shoulders to push her further along the rock. His grip turned into a full carry as the sounds of other creatures came from behind them, pulling the two quickly down into the ravine to slip between the foliage and rock formations.

Instinctively, Yvette curled around Sun as they swam off, twisting in his hold to latch her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle. Not the hold she would’ve gone for, but there wasn’t really any time for anything else. It at least made it easier on Sun to carry her with her latched on like a koala.

From her new position, she could almost see the beasts following them; flashes of a deep red paired with lighter shades of red frills and fins and pitch-black scales following after their intended prey with such malicious intent it made her skin crawl.

Suns frills made it difficult to really get a good look at whatever they were, just that they felt... out of place in the rest of the brightly colored fauna around the base. Of all the creatures Yvette had seen so far (that had red) most of them had the coloration as frills or accents, not a primary coloration. But these beasts were almost fully red, with black being their main accent color.

It almost reminded her of deep-sea fish back home; having heard that many of them were red in color to blend into the darkness of the water. She'd heard that red was the first color to disappear completely while underwater.

Had something from below decided to venture to the surface?

Sun made a sharp turn into a cave as they rounded a corner within the ravine, swimming them deeper inside encase the beasts following them continued their chase into it. After a moment of them catching their breaths, flashes of red darted past the cave entrance at such a fast speed Yvette couldn’t even tell what the creature's silhouette was, much less if it was a Mer like sun.

Sun glared at the cave entrance for a while, waiting to see if it was a trick, and the beasts were just outside. His fury presented itself as the spikes along his head slicking back against his scalp, twitching and flickering as he growled.

Yvette hadn’t seen Sun this upset before; sure, he’d growled at things when they got too close for comfort, but never this bad. It was a deep rumble so close to her ear from her position clinging onto him, it almost made her want to shiver in fear at the proximity.

Yvette had to crane her neck to watch the entrance of the cave they were tucked into; tall stalks of kelp set just outside of it, acting as an almost curtain for them. There didn’t seem to be any sign of their stalkers against the gently sway of the plants and the bobbing of the fish that passed the cave entrance.

It was only then, that Yvette let out a sigh of relief, muscles relaxing in Suns hold. When she did break their tense silence, it was barely above a whisper, “Safe?”

Sun flinched at the sudden noise, slitted eyes darting down to make eye contact with her, his muscles also relaxed. His own voice a bit louder than hers, but still a whisper, “Should be... but careful.”

Yvette nodded slowly, pulling herself off Sun, “Got it. Let's go.”

Sun helped her stabilize in the water, taking her by the hand to lead them back out of the cave and into the rest of the ravine. There didn’t seem to be any sign of their pursuers, not even a red fin poking through the kelp. Just small fish darting to and from and the occasional predator snapping at the easy prey all around them.

It was a tense peace, but a tense peace was far preferable to the adrenaline rush that accompanied a chase.

It didn’t take long for them to return to the camera, untouched and still repaired as they’d left it. A quick glance around proved that they were almost completely alone amongst the kelp and other plant life in the area. Honestly, the previous squads should have realized this was a poor spot to leave a camera, especially one so exposed on the rock.

“Next time, I'm gonna just let the camera over here stay dead.” She muttered to herself, narrowing her gaze back to where they’d spotted their stalkers prior.

Empty.

Sun hummed along with her words but said nothing in response. Instead, he led them back the way they came along the edge of the ravine, cautious as they went. The water was still bright in the light of day, so they weren’t swimming back in the dark.

Thankfully days on this planet were longer than they were on earth, as the planet was far larger than earth was. This completely threw off Yvettes sleeping schedule, often waking up to darkness outside or falling asleep while it was still bright out. It was one of the many things that changed how she went about things on the planet's surface.

Gravity was stronger, meaning she had to put more effort into lifting things that would be easy to carry back home. The waters pressure was stronger, so she’d have to be careful going deeper, and take breaks more when traveling back up; wouldn’t want to get decompression sickness while all the way out here by herself. She wasn’t sure if the medbay had anything to even help with that, or what she could even do to help with it.

Yvette was a reef diver for god's sake! Not a deep-water diver!

While the vehicles in the base could help with that, acting as a decompression chamber, she wasn’t even sure if any of them worked anyway. Many spots where there should have been a vehicle were empty, meaning the previous teams likely took them to run off. That wasn’t the issue, of course, the real issue was whether or not they took the fuel with them from the remaining vehicles.

Because of course they would take the fuel, they weren’t totally incompetent.

Morons.

Yvette almost missed the cave entrance to the base, had Sun not stopped her, pulling her along by the arm. Entering the number code to open the door and letting it pull open, she pushed herself onto the platform with a huff, falling onto her back.

“Fuck, man.” she breathed, hands pulling her mask off her face to toss it somewhere by the stone platform, “We just out ra- swam a couple murderous fish.”

Sun chittered out a quiet laugh, pushing himself top sick next to her, “We did. You did very well.”

“I clung to you like a child, Sun.” Yvette turned her head to stare up at him, hand limply tugging at her braided hair to remove the band, “I hardly did anything.”

“And we... escaped! Very fast!” Sun chirped, falling into his back to lay next to Yvette properly, “I swim better than you, you did the smart thing.”

“You’re doing it again.” Yvette said with a deadpan, though endearment underlined her tone.

“Doing what?” Sun asked, tone carrying genuine confusion.

“Complimenting me when I say I did something bad.” Yvette couldn’t hold the deadpan, a teasing smile forming along her lips, “Might think you’re attached to me already.”

Sun’s face shifted from confusion to a teasing grin of his own, “Well... maybe I am! What are you going to do about it?”

“I... did not plan that far ahead.” Yvette admitted, cheeks dusting with pink, laughter bubbling in her chest.

It seemed her laughter was contagious, as Sun began laughing too. The sound of it startled her, and she couldn’t help but stare at him. He’d lifted a clawed hand to cover his mouth, eyes shut.

...Maybe being stuck on this planet wasn’t so bad.

“Hey, it wasn’t that funny!”

“It was!”

#Become One with the Sea of Stars #fnaf au #fnaf fic #fnaf oc #fnaf dca #Yvette North #Eden Writes #i dont have much else to add NFEIFIE #kinda rushed the end and did not have anyone beta read this for me #so... sorry!

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eden166 · 2 years

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so alone so alone :-) … haha! lonely girl

#eden writes

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horang-07 · 2 years

Text

body double: chapter three

“This felt right. For the first time in a long time, Harry could feel something shining in his chest, lifting his spirit, like the sun rising through the clouds after rain, something that felt like happiness and excitement and the feeling when his eyes met Robin’s. Hope, his heart answers.”

chapter three: death

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42129702/chapters/106012689

“Well. I’m dead!”

Robin’s voice breaks the tense silence in the living room. Since the night before, the tension has been palpable, thickening the air almost suffocatingly. Harry didn’t go to bed the night before, sitting motionlessly at the kitchen table until the morning sun beamed through the window, felted sun rising in the false sky as if to mock him. Robin had been silent all morning, barely even looking in Harry’s direction other than to ask for the butter at breakfast.

The silence was getting under Harry’s skin.

It wasn’t his fault he forgot Robin! The duck knew just as well as him what their situation was, how hard it was to keep your head screwed on right sometimes. He was just being unfair. Harry wasn’t going to apologise again.

So he played Robin at his own game. Ignoring him in turn, not making any effort to clear the air, ignoring the duck just as hard as he ignored Harry.

Well he tried to.

It’s not his fault that his gaze kept wandering to the bird, and it’s certainly not his fault that Robin somehow kept catching him staring every time. He used to be far better at being a petty bastard. He must have gone soft.

“Hm?”

“What?”

That, though, drew his attention. Dead? Harry can’t say he’s exactly an expert on the subject, but the fluffy, green, lively bird next to him looks far from dead.

“I’m dead! Says here, I’m definitely dead.”

Harry leans over slightly, peeking at the newspaper in Robin’s hand to find that strangely, it does say exactly that.

“What else does it say-“

“How did you die?”

Robin ignores Harry’s question, head turning to the small yellow one instead. The yellow one didn’t seem to pick up on the strange energy in the air, not that he ever picked up on anything, and just chose to quietly keep to himself as he often did in the mornings, munching on his toast while lost in his own mind.

“It says here I forgot to drink water. Ha!”

“Well what about us? What does it say about me, am I dead-“

“Nope. Just me.”

“Why do you get to- That’s.. there must be, that’s a mistake”

“Somebody’s jealous…” Robin teases, slight smirk coming to his beak while he watches Harry flip through the paper, agitated.

“Pff, jealous-“

“Jealous of me being dead!”

“Yeah, well, you don’t even know what it is. So.”

“You’re jealous!” Great. Now the stupid yellow one was joining in. This morning couldn’t get physically worse.

“Well, I’d better go get changed into my Sunday best!” Robin beamed, standing up with an oddly excited energy considering the occasion. That excitement quickly died (just like it’s creator) when a wet chunk of… something hit the ground beneath Robin.

A…heart? Raw, fleshy pink, glistening with blood. The trio stared at it as it just… sat there. Unmoving. Robin supposes it makes sense, considering he’s dead and all, but this just seems a little dramatic. Looking down at it, Robin suddenly feels slightly colder, slightly number.

He can hear Harry’s breathing quicken slightly at the sight of the organ, before evening back out.

“Eurgh, did that just fall out of your anu-“

“You laid an egg! Make a wish!”

Robin was truly surrounded by idiots.

He moves to answer but falls silent when his severed organ crawls into the corner, melting into the floorboards with a horrible squelching sound. He hears Harry say something in his peripheral, but he’s far too engrossed in the rumbling of their floor as the boards crack and splinter, morphing together with his remains into some kind of figure. Oh. So it was going to be one of those days after all.

+++

Harry pulls the chef’s hat off the yellow one’s head as they hurry up the hill towards where this... celebration thing was taking place. The boy looked so out of place in his little suit, slightly too big in the shoulders and leg, emphasizing how skinny he really was. He uses one hand to smooth down the soft blue hair on the little one’s head, trying to make him look presentable, ignoring how they’d gotten side-tracked while preparing for Robin’s funeral. Something in his stomach was telling him not to delve into why the idea of the yellow one associating Robin’s death with food sickened him so deeply, and he was inclined to listen.

As they reach the top of the grassy hill, Harry catches sight of Robin. He seemed to be laying… inside the wooden man? He greets them happily, seeming very excited for his death-party-thing. Harry still wasn’t entirely sure what this whole thing would entail, but he felt uneasy at the sight of Robin and the wooden box hovering over a deep hole.

“Thanks for coming! Look, I had my insides removed!”

Robin moves his blazer, showing off the ugly incision stretching down his abdomen, flesh exposed where feather had been cut away, haphazard stitches holding the meat together. Harry’s stomach turns. Robin was meant to be soft, all feather and plush, alive. Not laying stiffly in some dull wooden box, deep gash exposing how mortal he really was, how fragile he really was. How easily taken away he was. He wants to go home.

Harry doesn’t realise he’s zoned out until the creepy box makes eye contact with him, staring expectantly as he asks for some “lovely remarks” from the best friend.

Best… friend?

Harry looks around incredulously, as if there will be a mystery fourth person behind him.

“What? I’m not the best friend?”

He doesn’t like that phrase. Last time he checked, he and Robin weren’t friends at all. Not after the previous day. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Somehow it seems too much and too little. Best friends don’t insult each other, forget each other’s existence, abandon each other in kitchens and drive verbal knives into each other’s chests.

But best friends also don’t sit side by side in the dark. Holding hands. Wanting more. Best friends don’t make each other burn the way Robin sets Harry alight with just one glance.

“Yes you are?”

“I’m your best friend?”

“Yeah. We’re close.”

Robin seems so innocently confused by Harry’s reluctance. Declaring Harry his best friend so easily, like it wasn’t even a question to begin with. Harry doesn’t know how to take this information, the situation too off-putting, brain defaulting to the only response he can think of.

“I mean, I know you. I know which one you are.”

Oh my god what is he saying.

The duck furrows his eyebrows, bickering back at the felted man, who responds in turn. Harry doesn’t know why he’s being mean again, he said he wouldn’t be, but once again he can’t seem to stop his huge mouth from digging a hole deeper than the one Robin is dangling over. The yellow one clearly picks up the energy clouding the air this time, trying to diffuse by offering his own lovely remarks, but Robin’s snap of “I don’t want you, I want my best friend!” seems to deflate him.

“I’m not your best friend!”

“Hey look, just speak from the heart!” The sickeningly patronising voice of the box interrupts, almost inaudible frustration tainting the edges of its speech as it wills a podium to appear in front of Harry, the mic screeching painfully.

Harry begs his mind to just think, say something short and sweet and then they can all go home, coming up blank as the mic feedback makes him wince.

“He’s uh.. nice guy- the smallest one… uh-“

“Tell them about the tournament!”

“…I don’t know about a tournament!”

The box once again cuts them off, sarcastically calling Harry’s mess of a speech “moving” as he tries to avoid another argument. To say he destroyed the trio’s floor in order to bring himself into existence, he seems to have an incredibly low tolerance for them. He shouldn’t have shown up to begin with, at least that way they’d have a working floor and he wouldn’t have to put up with them. Seems more logical than whatever this bizarre lesson is meant to be.

“Now, before we say goodbye forever there’s one last thing!”

Finally, they can leave soon. Harry isn’t sure how much more of that weird floorboard man’s tone he can take.

“If anyone knows any reason why this person should not be dead, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Harry just sort of stands there, not really sure what to say to that. I mean sure, he could think of a few horribly selfish reasons why Robin shouldn’t be dead, but the duck seemed so awfully excited about the whole event that he couldn’t bear to ruin it for him. He’d always liked being the centre of attention.

He feels a tug on his sleeve, and looks down to see the yellow one, eyes wide with distress and confusion, murmuring something Harry couldn’t understand. His eyes dart between his tallest housemate and the box, as if expecting one of them to say something, but not quite sure how to vocalise it himself.

“Uh… but- isn’t he…?”

He pulls slightly harder on Harry’s sleeve, looking to him for some kind of reassurance, not understanding why the tall man wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t offering any kind of rebuttal.

“I think… he, uh-“

“Great! Now, to play us out-“

The little one’s eyes fall to the ground, dropping his grip on Harry’s sleeve. He seems lost in thought again, eyebrows bunched together in confusion, staring at a particularly interesting rock until he hears the creepy wooden man wrap up the ceremony, and Robin re-appears next to them, ready to go home.

“Well, that was a lot of fun. See you, floorboard person!” Robin waved, turning to go back home. At least today’s lesson seemed fairly painless, they might even make it home in time for dinner!

“Not you, cheeky! You’re dead! Now, get back in here!”

“Oh yes, silly me!”

Harry and the yellow one stopped in their tracks as Robin stepped back into the box. The two watched as the box lowered clunkily into the earth, lid creaking shut and obscuring their friend’s smiling face as they hesitantly say their goodbyes. The box sinks deeper, disappearing into the darkness of the soil as it slams shut, leaving two of the trio standing in silence, gazing into a pit that seems endless., waiting for something that never quite comes.

+++

“I guess it’s just gonna be me and you now.”

The living room seems barren. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not like anything more than a single person isn’t there, but somehow the gap between the two remaining housemates feels like a rift, miles apart from one another on the hardwood floor.

“…Huh?”

The yellow one has been out of it since they got back. He didn’t say anything when he walked back through the door, despite Harry’s attempts to get him to speak, or to make him a snack, or to do anything, please god anything, to fill that horrible silence. He just wandered back to the living room, slumping down on his chair, staring at his lightly dangling feet and hands placed on his knees.

“I said, it’s gonna be just me and you from here.”

As Harry speaks, his voice almost echoes, the room feeling a hundred times bigger than it was before. The corners seemed darker, the draft colder, the incessant ticking of the clock louder than it’s ever been before, embellishing the silences between the two with a constant reminder of the snail’s pace of time.

“…Yeah…until the other guy… comes back”

Harry hates it, the defeated sound of the younger one’s voice. The pauses in-between his words, empty and stretching, the drawl of his childish accent extending his phrases into infinity. Like even speaking is too much energy. It’s too abnormal, draws attention to the elephant in the room, it’s too much change and Harry just wants him to say something stupid again so he can laugh and move on. His subconscious whispers that laughing at the youngest wouldn’t be as fun without Robin. He chokes the thought down.

“Yeah...”

He clears his throat. He doesn’t know how to explain this without sending the younger into a panic, hell he doesn’t know how to rationalise it himself.

“Actually I don’t know if he is gonna come back, I think he just, sort of, stays in the hole”

“Huh?”

The yellow one’s reaction is delayed, as if his brain can’t take in the information right. His expression doesn’t change, empty stare still pointed at his shoes. Harry was expecting something more, tears, screaming, distress, something loud and childish that would no doubt be a pain to calm down and irritate Harry to no end. Something familiar. He would take that a thousand times over the catatonic child in front of him, shellshocked and absent.

“I think he just stays in the hole… now”

“He stays in the hole… now… yeah.”

He repeats Harry’s words, slow and careful, testing how they feel coming from his mouth. Considers them quietly, hmm-ing as an affirmative, showing he understands, somewhat.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad! We didn’t really like him anyway!” Harry tries to lighten the mood, but is met with a blank stare. Part of him is glad that the younger one doesn’t speak up in response to that statement.

He can feel in the bitter taste that fills his mouth, in the way the yellow one eyes him in doubt, in the way his own gaze fights against his mind to stare at the empty rocking chair, how much of a terrible, terrible lie that is.

+++

“Look guys, I’m getting my core values!”

If Harry was being honest, this whole blob idea wasn’t one of his finest. The little thing was getting on his nerves. He figured the best thing would be to just… move on, fill the empty space in the trio, get them back on track, but seeing the little pink thing in Robin’s chair just made it more obvious how… not-Robin they are.

“Honesty! A sense of adventure! Finan-“

“Stop it!”

“Yeah, that’s not really… the kind of thing we do”

The blob seems depressed by the rejection. At least that makes three of them now.

“Hey, what happened over there?” Stain points to the corner, the ugly, splintered hole in the floor, wood stained burgundy around the edges with his blood. If Harry was in more of a joking mood, he’d point out the absurdity of it. Normally their house just… went back to normal overnight. Not this time though. The gaping hole where a friend once was, darkness as deep and consuming as the grave, a terrible reminder of how easily things can be taken away, a warning.

“We don’t talk about that… area.”

“Yeah, don’t… don’t look at that.”

“I can’t help it. It’s beautiful!”

The youngest seems distressed, face creased up into worry and upset. He brings his hands up to the ears, trying to block out the awful sense of wonder and happiness in Stain’s voice. It isn’t right, he doesn’t want this weird replacement for his friend, even if they were nicer and didn’t bite him or call him stupid. He didn’t want that. He wanted his friend, even with his scratchy voice and short temper, even with his constant complaints and arguments.

“No! Why is it looking at it!”

“I can’t help it, it’s kind of terrible and wonderful at the same time!”

“Stop saying stuff like that! That’s not what you’re meant to say!”

“Hey, it’s okay-“ Harry tries to comfort him, hearing the other’s voice grow louder, more volatile. The young boy had become angrier since it happened, lashing out at anyone and anything that overwhelmed him, or shutting himself in his room for hours at a time. Harry was always the one best at calming the boy down, but Robin was the one who could talk sense into the boy, his words coming off harsh at times but helping the youngest of their trio rationalise hard truths when he had to. Red had never been good at the balance between harshness and comfort. The youngest seemed to look up to Robin in a way Harry never quite understood.

“You’re supposed to say that the… floor is too loud, or the window is disrespecting you!”

“Why would I say that when the world is so full of wonder?”

“No, it’s not! It’s all wrong without…”

The rest of the sentence went unfinished, the youngest trailing off as he catches sight of one of the many photos of Robin placed around the room. And then the tears come.

He sinks his head into his hands, hiding his face from the sight of the other two. His wails sound tortured, panicky, as if he’s been holding it in for as long as he could, until the dam finally broke. His breath heaves, pulling oxygen into his body frantically, body trying to compensate for his hyperventilation.

He hears speaking from the other side of the room, but his brain can’t take in the information, overwhelmed and stretched to its limit already, melting down like a nuclear reactor. He thinks the other two leave, he isn’t sure, he hopes they do. He doesn’t like being watched, or touched, or pitied in this state.

By the time his breathing is calm, Harry has returned to the room alone, kneeling down next to him silently. He takes in the sight of the youngest, tearstained cheeks and messed up hair, exhausted expression and pounding heart. He tests the water, gently reaching for his hand, tiny in comparison to Harry’s giant paw. The boy doesn’t protest, letting Harry lead him back to the bedroom, watching as he pulls back the cover and gestures to get in, tucking him in like he used to. Before the youngest could sleep without nightmares, when things were worse, before they had all managed to somewhat keep their heads above water. The little one can’t remember when the shift happened, but one day it became easier to breathe, easier to laugh in the faces of their tormentors, easier to cling to the two older housemates.

He tries to resist his drooping eyelids, but he can’t fight it for long. He drifts to sleep, a memory playing in his mind as he dozes off. He’s there, voice harsh and loud but warm in a way only he could muster, the three of them sitting side by side outside, sharing a picnic.

+++

The youngest housemate climbs out of bed with a purpose. He pulls on his boots, the ones the duck got him for when they go outside, slightly too big but warm and wonderfully comfortable, and the overcoat Robin used to wear. On his way out of the bedroom, he doesn’t notice the closet door slightly open, brown blazers scattered messily across the floor, Harry’s bed still neatly made from the morning before, cold and unslept in.

+++

It was such a simple solution; Harry can’t believe it took him so long to think of it.

Robin wasn’t coming back, that was clear, but replacing him didn’t feel right either. Harry wasn’t stupid, he knows what happens when one of them gets a little too hurt, or a little too smart. He knew what it meant when they woke up the day after, stares slightly blank and memory worse for wear. What he didn’t know was why it didn’t happen this time. Why three seemed to turn into two.

If whatever was keeping them stuck in here wouldn’t bring Robin back, then he would.

Stain- no, Robin looked slightly uncomfortable as Harry shakily buttoned up the front of the blazer, his eyes unblinking and intense as he scanned over the bird, searching for any imperfection in his creation. There was none, every feather in place, a carbon copy of the third of the trio.

Harry avoids his eyes. He tried, he really did, but he couldn’t get Robin’s gaze right. The eyes looked identical, but the expression was just…wrong. Cold. Confused. The warm familiarity of Robin’s gaze was absent from the replica, looking at him didn’t make Harry’s heart thrum faster like it used to. It still felt like staring at a stranger.

He shakes his head, trying to ignore that thought, blocking out the protests of the clone as he forces a newspaper into his hand. It would be fine, he just had to finish his work, and everything would be okay.

His racing thoughts are interrupted by the door creaking open. The sound brings him back somewhat to reality, shame suddenly rushing to his cheeks. He stumbles to his feet, using his large frame to hide not-Robin, hands held behind his back like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He turns, ready to meet the yellow one with some kind of explanation, a justification for-

“Hello!”

Harry feels like he has vertigo. His head spins, eyes tunnel-visioning onto the figure in front of him, feathers slightly dirty and crumpled. He looked like… well he looked like he’d been buried in the ground for a few days. He was dusty, blazer creased and torn in places, the furthest thing from the perfect clone behind Harry. But somehow, that’s exactly what harry couldn’t replicate. They met eyes.

“Oh, hi.”

“I dug the old one back!” The yellow one stated the obvious as per usual. At least he seemed to be in a good mood again, Harry wasn’t sure how much longer he could take of that one’s moping.

“But.. how? I thought you were supposed to, you know, stay in the ground?” Harry offers, voice coming out more nervous than he intended it to, praying that their silly spat was over. He wasn’t sure if he could take any more silence. For once there was nothing he wanted more than Robin’s pitchy voice filling the air between them.

“Oh that, it was all a bit nothing-y, not really for me.” Robin replies, warmth in his eyes. He gives a small smile, and it seems like for a second he understands, his gaze telling Harry that he wasn’t going away again any time soon. Harry could deal with the embarrassment of how reassured that smile made him later, for now he lets it slow his pounding heart, melting away the stress of the past few days. His Robin was back.

He doesn’t know when that word wormed its way in front of the bird’s name, but it made his heart flutter ever so slightly.

“Now, I want to sit in my area!” Robin sighs contentedly, walking around Harry before the taller man can come to his senses and stop him. Harry darts, trying to reach out and stop the duck from looking, but he’s too late.

“Who’s this?” He slowly asks, voice not seeming as… angry as Harry expected.

“Well- I mean we didn’t… we didn’t think you were coming back…so-“ Harry trips over his words, feeling so incredibly stupid for trying to pass off this mockery as his housemate. They were identical, a mirror reflection, but Robin was so much more.

“So. You replaced me with this thing.” There’s an ominous tone in Robin’s voice, but below that, a hint of humour. Harry is lucky his entire body is read, if not for that saving grace the shame and embarrassment of being caught creating an entire replica of his “not even a friend” would have lit his face up like a Christmas light.

Robin approaches the copy, towering over the not-Robin in the chair, before conceding that maybe four of them works just fine. Typical. Of course, the only 4th housemate Robin would accept is himself. Cheeky bastard.

Harry relaxes, his mind able to freely wander for the first time in days without drifting to thoughts of dirt and decay, willingly waving goodbye to his friend as he descended into the depths of the earth, broken floorboards and a broken heart. Things are okay again. Robin came back, he wasn’t upset anymore. The yellow one shugs off his coat, crossing over to his usual place in the room. Other-Robin stands from the chair, caught in animated conversation with Genuine Robin.

Harry falls deeper into his thoughts, self-indulgent fantasies that he hadn’t let himself delve into since the funeral. He doesn’t want Robin to drift away again. This proved it to him, he came back to Harry, the same as he was before, with the same memories and feelings. The one who told him his name, the one who held his hand, the one who called Harry his best friend, the one who wanted Harry to do his obituary, words Harry couldn’t even bear to say.

They had made progress, they were moving for the first time in a long time, no longer frozen in place in an infinite loop of days, weeks, months.

He knew Harry’s name. He liked Harry. Maybe he could tell him he liked him too. Maybe they could learn the yellow one’s name too, if he had one, they could be like a little… group or something. Harry couldn’t quite find the word he was looking for.

This felt right. For the first time in a long time, Harry could feel something shining in his chest, lifting his spirit, like the sun rising through the clouds after rain, something that felt like happiness and excitement and the feeling when his eyes met Robin’s. Hope, his heart answers.

A feathered hand grabs a shovel. Harry sees the movement but doesn’t react, mind too unfocused.

There’s a blur of motion, and then a horrible sound. A dull slice, metal hacking through bone, visceral and raw. Something wets the felt of Harry’s arm, and his eyes are too scared to look. Something hits the ground with a sickening thud.

Harry braces, turning to see the scene, one body on the ground and one gripping a shovel, splattered with gore. Two identical faces, like twins, one pair of eyes rolled back into its skull and the other pair fixed straight at Harry.

“No, four doesn’t work. There’s three of us.”

The yellow one seems pleased enough by this explanation, toddling back over into the kitchen and losing interest. Harry’s mind races.

But Robin was on the right- No, he moved, he was on the left… but he could have moved again- Why didn’t Harry ever pay attention!

Harry forces his eyes to meet the intense gaze of… whatever stood on the other side of the room. It stared back, watching Harry’s reaction, head tilting slightly. It takes a horrible, horrible minute for Harry to realise that he can’t tell who he’s looking at. The eyes seem so warm, familiar, comforting, but underneath that, there’s a blankness. The unfamiliar fear of gazing into the soul of a stranger. Something unknown and terrifying wrapped in the façade of a friend. Eyes more familiar and distant and real and fake than ever before.

The duck breaks first, blinking and looking down at the body. He shrugs for a moment, meeting the other one in the kitchen. Harry forces his eyes to take in the body below him, but when he looks down, it’s gone. Vanished as if it never happened. Chatter comes from the kitchen, the duck and the other one somehow already arguing over something pointless.

He forces his feet to move. Shaking hands gripped into fists. Eyes glazed and shellshocked. He walks into the kitchen, shutting the door on the room behind him. The felted sun rises on another day, lighting up the false sky.

#dhmis #dhmis red guy #fluffybird #dhmis duck #dhmis yellow guy #dont hug me im scared #eden writes

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