#it's not often you find a pretty fairy like cross
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Any info on how Dream and Cross met? Or how Cross ended up courting Dream? I dont think that was explained- Or is that part of the au not flushed out yet?
Dancing in the valley of summer and light, Dream let his wings and body guide the arrival of the sunlight and warmer winds, calling in the new season, as he’s done so many times before. His fairies sang their songs of green trees and blooming flowers, and they danced around him as their joy filled his soul with renewed energy. No matter how many times he performed this ritual, he could never tire of seeing and hearing his fairies grow full of mirth as their bodies filled with sunlight and warmth. Should he do well for another season, then they all will carry that warmth well into next spring, allowing them another chance to avoid the biting chill penetrating through their bones.
As Dream slowly descended toward the green grass below, he came to a slow halt as he took notice of an unfamiliar figure nearby. This one, which he could only vaguely recognise as part of his own fairies – his wings bore the distinct form of a butterfly, though they were different; somewhat – sat atop a rock near the water’s edge, looking down upon his reflection with silent concentration. Feeling intrigued, Dream slowly approached to get a closer look, his wings fluttering silently behind him.
“Hello.”
The black and white fairy jumped, and he turned quickly to lock eyes with Dream, his wings unconsciously unfurling and opening wide as he did so. Dream’s cheeks bloomed with gold as he couldn’t help but look them over, their uniqueness captivating him. A fairy never unfurled their wings for another unless they wished to show that they were interested in them, though Dream chose to take it that he’d merely surprised the other fairy and that he would furl his wings close again; once he realised that they were on display, that is. As for now, he was staring at Dream; mesmerized.
“Hello,” Dream said again, his voice soft and warm. “I haven’t seen you here before. Are you a hybrid, by any chance?” he asked, though he slightly cringed at himself once he realised what words had left him. It was an intrusive question, one that he wasn’t expecting to be answered. Fairies usually kept it to themselves if they were hybrids, being that they often felt excluded by pure season-born fairies for being mixed, and so they tended to want to hide it.
“… Yes,” the other fairy replied, his eye-lights becoming suspicious, though they didn’t stop staring at him. His wings remained on display.
“Oh!” He exclaimed, making the other fairy jump again. “That’s so interesting! I’ve always found hybrids to be so lovely and sweet, and they sure have an advantage by being able to withstand and take energy from more than one season!” he happily chirped, trying to lighten the mood a little. The other fairy frowned and finally turned his eye lights away, choosing instead to stare at the ground.
“Or it makes you struggle no matter what season it is, with summer being too hot, and winter being too cold,” he said, and his frown deepened.
Dream slightly withdrew as he started to feel terrible for bringing up something he shouldn’t have in the first place. He gently brought himself down to the ground, and he kept his wings open as he now stood on the grass, trying to make the other fairy feel more comfortable.
“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t really mean to bring it up. I just… I just thought you were pretty. The touch of summer and winter really suits you,” he said, smiling nervously. The compliment seemed to work, for the other fairy’s cheeks lit up in a gorgeous display of purple hues, and his mouth formed into an embarrassed frown, replacing the mournful one.
“I’m not pretty,” he mumbled.
“Oh, I’m sorry you think so, but I think you are.”
“…” The fairy said nothing, but his blush deepened.
“May I ask what your name is?”
“… it’s Cross.”
Dream smiled and took a few steps closer to him, making it so Cross couldn’t resist but look up at him again. He didn’t know it, but Cross’ soul had begun to beat wildly within his chest.
“Hello, Cross. I am Dream, the Firstborn fairy of summer. I am delighted to meet such a lovely fairy such as yourself,” he greeted and held out his hand. “I hope we may become good friends; with time.” Dream expected Cross to take his hand and lightly grasp it in greeting, but instead, it was delicately held before a tender kiss was placed upon its knuckles. Dream’s wings lightly shook with surprise, and he watched Cross with wide sockets. Gone was the shy demeanour, and instead, there was a determined gaze of admiration, and… and something else.
“I am glad to have met you. I only came here to have a moment to think, and… and I hadn’t expected to meet with another Firstborn, but… I am happy that it was you,” Cross said, his voice betraying the nervousness he was feeling. His wings stretched out behind him, nearly obscuring the sun, and forcing Dream to glance their way again. Now, as sunlight embraced their surface, Dream could distinctly see specks of purple decorate the white and black pattern, giving them a distinct appearance.
They are so beautiful, he thought.
Dream’s own wings unconsciously stretched a little further, and Cross’ eye-lights immediately brightened at the sight of it, though his face remained unchanged.
“O- oh, you charm me,” Dream said, unable to hold back a flattered giggle. Cross still held his hand atop his own. Dream couldn’t help but take notice, though he chose to not comment on it. Cross’ larger hand felt… It felt nice, strong, and secure.
Whilst Dream was busy thinking of how he felt about Cross’ current presence, the hybrid in question couldn’t quite help but let his eye lights roam over the Firstborn fairy of summer. Petite body with soft hips and small breasts. The sight of it made his blush deepen. Dream did apparently favour transparent dresses, for nothing was left up to the imagination. It wasn’t quite as common with the winter fairies, who instead favoured sturdy armour and warm clothes they’d forged, built, and knitted with their immaculate skill; he himself even brandished a supportive corset with armour and a soft cloak to complete the outfit – though with the arrival of the summer heat, it was beginning to almost feel sweltering, or was that something else? Either way, Cross had been raised to be more like the fairies under Error’s care, but he’s always felt a small pull towards the valley of the summer fairies, and now as he looked upon Dream, with his transparent silken dress, golden diadem, and delicate wings, he found himself feeling… pleasantly warm, as though a fire not unlike the one in his forge had kindled within him. It was either the high sun that caused it, or it was the way Dream smiled so beautifully at him. He thought himself unsure of the correct answer, but a part of him knew what he was feeling, and how much his wings refused to relax and furl down again.
Cross released Dream’s hand and stood up, noticing how he stood taller than the firstborn fairy of summer. He couldn’t help but feel his cheeks bloom with heat once again.
“I must go,” he said, looking down as Dream’s eye lights connected with his own. They were unlike any other he had ever seen before. “I… I hope I may have the pleasure to meet you again.”
Dream’s smile grew bright, and he took both of Cross’ hands into his own, leaning closer.
“Of course! I’d love nothing more!”
Music: ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚｡⋆
#aufairyverse#utmv#ask for the fairy#fairy!dream#fairy!cross#dream sans#cross sans#should i just let these longer answers be in a small text?#i think it looks good but i want to know if it's difficult to read it or not#anyway these two are rotting my brain#i love them dearly#dream is the one who ended up courting cross#because cross is a nervous wreck and dream wanted to ensure no one else took him first#it's not often you find a pretty fairy like cross#and dream was quite smitten when he first laid eye lights upon him
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SHERIFF! BIGBY WOLF!? X fem! Reader!
A/n: “So literally just finished my own interpretation of the telltales game, “The wolf among us” and I swear. I am Inlove with this man/hybrid, thingy.” So I figured why not write about it?
Here’s what it would be like for the one and only sheriff of Fable town to meet you..
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Arightly, we ALL know. This is pretty much basic information if you know anything about this man.
He doesn’t give a shit. Honest.
I mean, he cares. But especially with his “friendship” with snow in the series we all can already tell that this man has some serious authority issues.
He’s not used to people telling him what to do, and what to say or how to act. Bigby gets very offended in the series when one of the options for a response when beginning to talk to TJ about what he saw when Lilly died, snow asks bigby to be more “less like himself” he did not respond well..
He came from being the “big bad wolf” once upon a time. Nobody trusts him, and honestly, I think he prefers it that way.
All he’s ever done, or known for that matter is hurt. Pain. Being the one to always inflict it.
And because of this power of control, he was elected sheriff of fable town. Perhaps others in the higher power thought that it would be beneficial to work some of that natural rage out.
To wrap up, he’ll do things his way.. pretty often.
Depending on the circumstances always. Now if his way would put anyone in danger that he “cared” about on some kind of level, he’d avoid all conflict. He wants to change..
He just doesn’t know how. And he won’t trust anyone enough to show him.
Though.. when YOU came along..
You weren’t a fable, you weren’t rich.. you weren’t special.. you couldn’t turn into a troll or a fairy or even a wolf.
You were a mundy. A normie.
Ofcourse growing up in the “real” world your entire life, fairy tales were strictly “fairy tales” and that’s all there was to it.
On the way home one night from driving home, you drove into an unrecognizable neighborhood. But something about this place felt strange, almost like de ja vu..
Had you been here before..?
You saw a sign for the only sheriffs office in town and decided to stop their for directions.
The place was like a fucking motel..?
On the way to the elevator to find this office yourself, (since the fucking security guard was passed out cold) you bumped into a strong figure on the way in the elevator as he was coming out.
“Shit.. that was my last one,” the figure mumbled, his voice scratchy yet light.. familiar. The man took a step back and crossed his arms. His stair formed into one of disgust and annoyance.
The stranger took a step back and even.. EXAMINED you. He was tall.. stone cold even just by looking at him could you tell. His sniffed lightly, his nostrils expanding a little bit, with a wince, he finally spoke.
“A mundy huh?” He coughed out some smoke. A annoyed look on his face.
I stared at the man, confused and desperate for some sleep.. ‘did he say mundy? Or did I miss my medication today?.’ I questioned myself silently.
“Sir.. can you please repeat that?” I asked kindly, (or tried) I kept a smile on my face but even a dumbass like the tweedle twins could tell it was fake.
“Hm.” He scoffed a little. He pulled his hand up to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “What can I help you with?” He grumbled, finally releasing his nose and crossing his arms once more. Trying to keep a smile, his was tense like my own.
Just two strangers staring at one-another, both tired and annoyed— trying to be polite.
I finally put my fake smile down and realized why I was even here to begin with. I tried to smile genuinely this time, “yes! Please I need to see the sheriff, or anyone honesty who can tell me where I am and why these roads are so confusing” I said that last part with a laugh, a shitty joke erupted from my nervousness. I mentally smacked myself.
This guy doesn’t wanna hear my shitty jokes.
The man tilted his head slightly and let out a loud sigh, “that’s me.. sheriff wolf.” I reached out my hand instantly for manners and mutual respect for the fact that we both obviously needed some good sleep and quiet.
He hesitantly shook my hand with a firm grip. His bottom lip puckered slightly, his jaw tense, though he didn’t let go my hand, just held it with quite the grip.
I stared at him and then down at our hands intertwined with eachothers. I let out a nervous laugh.. “hey Uhm—“
He cut me off, “well? Eh? You gonna tell me your fucking name or not.” His voice got stern, I felt myself shrinking under his gaze.
“Y/n” I laughed, but I felt a surge of sudden confidence take over me, my gaze locked on his, I squeezed his hand back just as hard, something about this seemed right.. our hands together.
“What’s your name sheriff?” I smiled,
The man stared me down, his eyes went to our hands then back to my eyes. I felt him shake in my grasp, whether with anger or fear, I didn’t know.. but I wasn’t some cute little girl.
“Bigby— sheriff bigby.” And he ripped his hand out of mine. His hands tensed, curling up into fists at his sides. “You’re in fable town, you must have taken a wrong turn missy. Cause this is NOT where you’re supposed to be.”
He warned, I laughed.
“I’d love an escort sheriff.”
“I don’t have a car”
“Big guy like you walks around eh?”
He growled, obviously not finding me amusing whatsoever. “Here” he took out a little note pad, he gave me the address for somewhere else.
“Follow the signs sweetheart” and with that, he walked away. The crumbled up piece of paper laid on the ground near my feet, I snatched it up with a scowl on my face.
“Fucking asshole.”
You didn’t know what to think of this guy, and that bothered you because you were the typa girl to always have a plan and analyze everything and everyone. You couldn’t read this guy, something about him.. felt so primal.. so inhuman.
His eyes, his canines, the facial hair even. The way he smelled for jimminy Christmas. He wasn’t normal,
Then again who was nowadays?
He was an asshole, stubborn and irritable over the smallest thing.. but.. why ..
Why couldn’t you stay away from him…?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
You were annoyingly pretty. Almost suspicious.
Faith was dead, now Lilly, fables running around town causing shit with nothing better to do.. and now you?
He wouldn’t buy that ‘just got lost’ bullshit. Something was weird about this girl.. too eye catchy and doll like. Fragile and confident all the more. He needed to find out more about you.
You owed him a new pack of smokes too.
#funny story#funny content#bigby wolf#twau bigby#sheriff bigby#the wolf among us bigby#bigby x reader#twau#twau 2#twau oc#twau snow white#x reader
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Anonymous Asks: "Ooh micro/macro with Jack sounds good actually!"
Anonymous Asks: "Jack meets a fairy companion whose body often glows with a soothing light like the sun. Their personal sunshine, there only light of this forsaken world. That can never ever be tainted by the bad people of the world. Thus he must keep them safe. Even if it means putting them in a pretty bird cage or in a place they can never leave from. Dress them in nice clothes that he finds or sews himself. Give them soft kisses and eat them out to show how much they mean to him when they sleep on a pretty flower or on a small doll bed or on his hand. (Bonus points if he attempts to see if they can make a child together)."
Content: micro/macro, implied manipulation, implied stockholm syndrome, implied kidnapping, cum eating, oral sex, multiple orgasms, belly bulge
Jack had always believed in fairies. No matter where the circus went, Jack could be found crawling through fields and searching through forests for a tiny friend to call his own. His parents thought it was sweet, and his siblings thought it was silly, but no one ever stopped him from trying so long as he was back in time to perform.
Everyone stopped laughing, the day he came back with a fairy of his very own. You don’t remember whether or not you went willingly. Honestly, you don’t remember much about those first few years with him at all. You were a young fairy, and he was a young boy, and all that matters is that you two became best friends.
Even now, as adults, you two are best friends. He’s settled in Cloudy Town now, teaching in the school house. And you sit pretty in the gilded cage he so lovingly built and furnished for you, waiting for him to come home from work each day. It’s a boring existence to be sure. The cage is lovely, but you grow lonely without Jack. And the only time you’re allowed out is when he’s around. To keep you from getting lost, of course.
Your pointed ears pick up on the sound of the door unlocking, hopping up from your leaf hammock with a little flutter. Your hands wrap around the thin bars of your cage. Jack is home! He hadn’t gotten the time to come back during lunch, so you haven’t managed to eat since breakfast. But you know the moment he comes in, he’ll feed you!
“Sunshine, I’m home!” Jack’s beaming face pokes around the door as he enters, holding something behind his back. “And I brought you something special for dinner. To apologise for not being here for lunch.”
Your cage door opens and his large hand settles on the bottom of it, palm up. You happily fly into his palm, sitting cross-legged and clapping your hands with excitement as he pulls out a raspberry. It’s huge in your tiny hands, and he pulls you up close to his face to watch you eat it. It’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever tasted!
“Thank you, Jack!” You beam at him, glowing brightly in his hand.
“Ah, you’ve got a little something…” Jack licks his thumb, gently wiping your face with the tip of it.
“Jack, Jack please!” He ignores your giggling protests until your face is clean of juice. You hold his thumb for a moment and kiss the pad. “You’re so silly.”
“I just want to take care of my little Sunshine, is that so wrong?” He carries you over to the bed, setting you on his chest as he lays down.
You sigh softly, leaning against his chest and pressing a tingly kiss to his skin. “Thank you. You always take care of me.”
“You’re my precious little ray of Sunshine! How could I do anything but take care of you?” His eyes soften, finger petting you gently. “I love you.”
Your heart skips a beat, glowing a little brighter as you do every time he says it. “I love you too, Jack.”
“Oh Sunshine,” he beams at you. “That makes me so happy to hear! Ah, but you must be stressed from being home alone all day. Let me help you relax…”
His fingers wrap around your waist, pulling you up to settle against his lips. He kisses between your thighs, chuckling as you gasp and grip his fingers as tight as your little hands can manage. He’s always so slow about it, so gentle and teasing. His tongue comes out to lap at you, the tip of it licking and prodding gently at your hole. You can hear him sigh contently under you, no doubt thinking about how good you taste. He’s always going on and on about it…
He takes his time working his tongue into you. Your hole is so small and tight compared to his large, wet tongue. But you’re more magic than anything, so your body simply stretches to accommodate. And soon enough your stomach is bulging obscenely as he tonguefucks you. You’re lucky his fingers are still holding you up, your body limp in his grip as you ride out orgasm after orgasm.
He can’t get enough of your taste. The cum dripping down his tongue that he drinks like nectar. He promises one day he’ll fuck you properly. But it never happens. He never manages to get any further than eating you out like his life depends on it. His hand around his cock, stroking himself to the sound of your bell-like moans and the taste of your honeyed cum on his lips.
He only stops when he finally cums with a groan. His tongue pulls out of you, giving one final lick to make sure he got every last drop of you. He lowers you to his stomach where his cum is pooled. Finally, you get to have your taste, licking his abdomen clean with dedication. It’s so filling, but always worth it. His sweet cum and salty skin, slick with sweat and his own release.
Your eyes can’t help but be drawn to his softening cock, still so many times bigger than yourself. It looks soft and warm and intimidatingly huge. One day he’ll put it inside of you. And you don’t know whether that thought thrills you or terrifies you. But you’d never deny your best friend anything.
He’s built your whole life for you, after all!
#swwsdj#something's wrong with sunny day jack#sdj jack#sunny day jack x reader#gn!reader#18+ only#sunshine
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Question question, Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite stories/series, and though it was written to be a "modern fairy tale", it's quite different from the tales you talk about here, so I was wondering about your feelings and thoughts on it
My feelings on the Wizard of Oz are a little complicated, so it's probably fair to start with saying that I've only read a Dutch translation of Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that was probably somewhat shortened. And I've never read the other books in the series. With that said:
I like the Wizard of Oz! It has fun fantasy logic, a plucky heroine, melting witches, fantastic magic shoes, flying monkeys, a mix of 'real magic' and the power of belief, and you can kiss protective stars onto foreheads.
What I don't like, is that it keeps showing up on lists of "most beloved fairy tales", while it really isn't - in my personal opinion - a fairy tale. (Just like Peter Pan, Pinnochio and Alice in Wonderland, but I digress.) I think it's a great example of being inspired by fairy tale elements, but giving them your own spin.
The magical silver shoes, for example, are very like the kind of object you'd find in a fairy tale. They'll remind people of Cinderella's slippers and the Seven League Boots, but also of the gifts (magic nuts, protective necklace, blessed weapon) that fairy tale heroes often get. Letting them be stolen from a witch, however, and making their magic unclear at first and then having them do full teleportation, is much more fantasy than fairy tale.
Another fun twist is Dorothy melting the Wicked Witch with water. This does not come from folklore, but it's such a striking visual that it is pretty much part of American folklore by now. Which in my opinion is a testament to how good of an idea that was! Because it sounds like something that makes sense to defeat an evil witch with. There is folklore scattered about that states witches can't cross running water (like some vampires) and water as a purifying, cleansing thing is deeply routed in all kinds of traditional beliefs.
But at its core The Wonderful Wizard of Oz feels much more like a fantasy travel adventure to me, than like a fairy tale. Most fairy tale characters are archetypal, and their motivations are simple. The story focuses on what happens to them and how they act, but rarely on their inner experiences. This works well for a short tale, because you don't get bogged down in details, but usually starts to drag in a longer format. It's not strange to me that Anderson's The Snow Queen usually gets shortened in retellings, it makes it a full fairy tale instead of a fairy tale-ish saga. Nor that De Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast only ended up in oral tradition after De Beaumont cut out half the plot. (Elaborate dream sequences are hard to remember when telling stories around the fire).
I feel like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has far more to say than would have ever fit in a fairy tale. Not just because of the length, but also because of the kind of story it wants to tell. So I personally wouldn't call it a fairy tale, but I do think it added wonderful imagery to our fairy tale telling vocabulary ^^
Also, in my Dutch translation there was a beautiful illustration of Glinda's female guards, dressed in what I now realise must have been inspired by Canadian mounted police uniforms. Child-me thought they were the absolute best <3
#laura babbles#al-pomegranate-seeds#I don't think “old folklore” is more “real” than new folklore#if “everyone knows water melts witches” without remembering how they learned this or why this is the case that's folklore right there#tracing folklore back to its origins is a fun research project or academic endeavor#but the stories do not mind where they come from just as long as they keep getting told
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domestic/relationship situations with steven/marc headcanons part two
find part one here
masterlist
word count: 900w
a/n: i will happily write a full length fic for any of these if you guys send me one of the prompts, or any different ones<3
Steven loves to cook and is usually home by the late afternoon, but sometimes when he has more work to do when he gets home and you have to work late, you end up ordering takeout. You guys have a hat with all the different takeouts written on pieces of paper inside for when you can’t decide, which is often.
On weekends you love nothing more than holing up in the flat to binge whole seasons of tv shows. Steven is all over this, making the sofa as cosy as possibly, collecting blankets and snacks and content to sit for hours with your feet in his lap or your head on his shoulder, his arm around you. Marc usually lasts about two episodes before complaining that he’s bored.
You suggest reorganising the bookshelves. This takes weeks. Steven is so meticulous about where his books go, even though it looks like a mess to anyone else, he can find the book he’s looking for in seconds when he needs to. You have your bookshelf, but your books have started spilling over, which is fine as long as they’re in the right section.
Honestly I could write an essay about this. Steven sat cross legged on the floor surrounded by books, stacking them into piles and trying to work out how best to organise them, brow furrowed. You giving up trying to help after a while, realising he has his own, very complicated system. Rearranging the plants and fairy lights around everything when it’s finally done. Smiling whenever he looks at it for the next few days.
Both of the boys like to rant when they’re worked up about something, but the topics on which they tend to get so upset about vary drastically. If Steven is upset about a new display at the museum, or Donna getting his name wrong yet again, Marc will be angry about something going wrong on a mission, stomping and swearing around the flat injured and covered in blood.
Similarly, you have to learn that they can’t be calmed down in the same way. Steven can usually be placated pretty easily by a cup of tea or a shoulder massage, whereas with Marc you have to let him burn out by himself. When he finally collapses into a chair and goes silent, then you can move in and start patching him up best you can, dropping kisses onto his skin at regular intervals until he’s fully relaxed.
Baths. Steven doesn’t usually have a bath, and if he does you’re in there with him. Marc, on the other hand, would live in the bath if you let him. He’ll soak until the water’s cold and all the bubbles are gone, half asleep with a contented half smile on his face. He’d never admit it, but he loves coming home to a bubble bath.
Sometimes when you wake up you find Marc asleep on the sofa, not wanting to have woken you up when he got in from a mission the night before. Despite your protests he continues to do this if he knows you have to be up early the next morning, even though you’d rather be tired and know that he’s come home safe that night.
Similarly to the laundry, you can tell who’s been shopping while you’ve been at work by the contents of the cupboards and fridge and how they’ve been organised. Steven will have a meal plan on the wall and all of the (mostly fresh) ingredients neatly stowed away. Marc will have filled the freezer up, and maybe bought some fruit and veg, if you’re lucky.
Steven one hundred percent gets distracted and dances with you in the kitchen when you cook together. Enough said.
Sometimes you’ll catch Steven before he rushes out the door, ever late, for work to fix his tie or his hair. This isn’t necessarily because it looks bad, you’re just after one more kiss before he leaves. If he’s caught on, he doesn’t say. If you’re fixing Marc’s hair or clothes before he rushes out the door it’s most likely because he’d lost track of time with you in bed that morning. You’ve been late countless times for similar reasons.
‘Laughter is infectious,’ sure, but Steven’s laugh is actually infectious. If he’s laughing, you’re laughing, it doesn’t matter what he’s laughing at or where you are. Similarly, Marc laughs so little that when he does you find yourself smiling regardless, relishing in the sound, trying to memorise it.
Steven is annoyingly good at presents, and you struggle to match the thoughtfulness of his gifts. Marc has a strict no present policy, which you happily disregard during every holiday, knowing that he’ll complain and then smile secretly afterwards, when he thinks you can’t see.
You try to eat breakfast and brush your teeth with whoever it is you wake up to every morning, schedules allowing. It puts you in a good mood in the mornings, and prepares you for the rest of the day. If you get frustrated at work you think about breakfast, or how you get to go home to such a loving environment that night. It usually makes you feel better.
tag list💌 @propertyofkingvalkyriealkyrie @later-gators12
comment to be added ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
#moonknight#moonknight fanfic#moonknight fanfiction#moon knight x reader#moonknight imagine#steven grant#steven grant fanfic#steven grant x reader insert#steven grant fanfiction#steven grant x reader#marc spector x reader#marc spector imagine#marc spector#marc spector fanfic#fluff#steven grant fluff#marc spector fluff#moonknight fluff#headcanons
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Transformation time! How many alternate forms do the Links have, and how many of them can be squeezed into one story?
Suggestions:
- Legend as Hyrule (First Gen. Ring) or a monster (moblin, bokoblin, and octorok iirc)
- fairy Hyrule (but more classic fae, perhaps?)
- Deku Scrub Time
- actual-Minish Four
- Wolfie of course
- Malayna Malon
For one snippet? I fit in three! This was fun, but if I tried to fit more it would have turned into a full blown fic. Maybe another time!
(If you read this and would like to request a short snippet, see this post!)
After weeks on the road with all nine heroes, all of them were ready to be alone for a while. Even the more extroverted among them were starting to get on each other’s nerves. It was only natural after being in close quarters for so long, and Twilight, for one, was glad that they were able to split up in a safe place before someone snapped.
A few of them elected to stay at camp. Warriors was doing some sewing. Wild and Wind were going to start some cooking. Ever since he’d helped Wild recreate his grandma’s soup, he’d been eager to keep helping. As much as Wild liked to cook, it was good to have helping hands since he cooked the most often.
Twilight left before everyone else decided what to do. He was more than ready for a break, and they’d already checked that the area was safe. As far as they could tell, there were no monsters in miles.
Once he was out of sight, Twilight grabbed the crystal around his neck. The familiar shadows surrounded him, and he sighed as he finally transformed into his wolf form. He shook, letting his fur fluff out, before taking off in a loping run.
He didn’t stray too far away from camp, but he allowed himself to move out of earshot. There was a creek they’d passed an hour ago that would make a nice spot to rest for a while, with a few flat stones on the bank.
When he reached the spot, he settled on one of the stones, still warm from the afternoon sunlight. He rested his head on his paws and just watched the creek, spotting fishing and frogs in the water as the birds around him took up their songs.
Twilight wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, but he woke slowly, the sound of quiet chiming laughter interrupting the background sounds. He opened his eyes, watching as a fairy floated towards him and alighted on his nose. Twilight could feel his eyes crossing as he looked at fairy. It came into focus, the fluffy brown hair and green tunic — wait, that wasn’t a normal fairy.
Traveler?
Hyrule must have noticed the recognition. He sat cross legged on Twilight’s snout. “Hey, Rancher. I hope it’s okay if I join you. It just seems so peaceful here, and, well, the markings on your head are pretty distinctive.”
Hyrule’s voice was quiet and high-pitched, but Twilight understood. He had no way of speaking like this, so he blinked, slowly. Hyrule patted his snout before turning to face the creek. Twilight let his eyes fall shut once more. Hyrule continued to surprise them.
It was only a few minutes later when there was a quiet squeaking from behind him. Twilight’s ears twitched, and he felt Hyrule crawling up his snout to stand on his head. Twilight didn’t mind. He was too comfortable to move.
The squeaking got louder, and then there was a gentle tugging as something pulled at the fur on his side. Hyrule laughed again and took off from his perch. Twilight picked his head up to look at what was crawling up his side. It was a tiny, mouse-like creature with a feather for a tail. A minish! Four had shown one to him when he was in his wolf form and Wind a few weeks ago. But this one was wearing a familiar hat…
“Smith! How’d you find us?”
Twilight couldn’t understand Four’s squeaking, but Hyrule was nodding along. “This is a good place to rest. Rancher found a nice spot.”
More squeaks.
“As long as we’re quiet!”
Twilight huffed out a breath as he settled back down. The sun was warm on his fur and Four and Hyrule settled on his back. Their conversation got quieter, and Twilight was content to go back to his nap. He had questions, but they could wait.
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for @eilinelsghost. dear frankie, you are such a genuinely wonderful, talented, amazingly intelligent and kind presence on this hellsite and the world at last, and deserve all things lovely. have some balan/finrod as a humble offering among with all the rest! <33
--
“Very pretty it is, to be sure,” Bëor said, voice rasping low, painfully low in throat eve as his face creased with mirth. “But I am sure I do not know what I would do with a handful of your hair, Felagund! Strange creatures the Eldar be indeed, to so long for that exchange.”
Finrod's eyes widened. His mouth was less dire than it had been for days, but there was something somber still about the tilt of his brows.
Balan would feel rather like a fiend to prickle him for his entreaty, if he were not being half-cheated by its terms.
“It is a perfectly common sharing of tokens among my people.”
“Among my people the throwing of leaves and pointing of fingers is a perfectly common exchange of tokens when one is being a daft liar, too, and I do not think you so eager for that! You fairies are dreadfully jealous of your braids, one and all.”
Finrod was not bold enough to deny it. Perhaps he was in earnest - the notion only made Balan ache more fiercely.
They were very careful about their gifts, the two of them, since their first exchanges had ended in mild poisoning, and Finrod finding how very much his constitution disagreed with the smoking pipes the Edain favoured.
Finrod had been almost diffident in his offer, as he had not been for years. He looked down now at Balan now, palms pressed together in the way Balan had learned he did when he was uncertain of which question to request.
“It does happen rarely, and I do not say It is not a tremendous honour. I ask much from one who is dear to me; too much for a whim; and I am sorry for it.”
Balan sighed. His bones felt too tight. His mouth was parched, but he did not wish to ask for a glass of water, and he was not certain he would be able to cross the room easily; and he was not certain Finrod would be able to withstand it easily.
Finrod seemed not less brittle to his eyes. Singing too long left the line of his cheeks sharper, his eyes dangerous as wisps of light over bog waters. His dear lord, who had not slept in many nights to keep him from the edge of mortal harm.
He clasped Finrod’s hand warmly. The fine, long bones stilled for a moment, and then wound between his with accustomed gentleness.
“It is that must apologize,” Balan said. “Ask what thou wilt as a gift, and never doubt it be thine. Art not not my lord, and my dear friend? It would be a honour to have such a token, for even a meager hair would be a treasure given from thy hands. But I suspect it is not thy people’s way to be light about such thing; and I think fear moves thee in this more than a mere whim. If it is so, I would not have it not be kept silent, and take insidious root.”
Finrod’s fingers tightened around his. He strove for lightness of tone, and failed as he rarely did when he attempted it. “Thou canst not wonder that I fear! Warm as coal was thy brow, and heard not what I said when I spoke.”
Balan tilting his head to meet Finrod’s eyes, smiling almost despite himself at the light of love on the king’s face. He bent, and kissed the fine knuckles; and at last Finrod smiled as well.
Only then when he knew he was heard entirely did he say, “Felagund, dear lord. I am not dying; nay, not yet, and not soon either I judge. This is but a spring cold, from the changing of the wind and the cold air. Dangerous if uncared for; but thou hast cared for me better than ever my people were loved. It shall pass. Indeed, after the songs and pastes and infusions, it is nearly gone already. I would say if it grew worse, be not afraid of that.”
Balan was struck once again - as he often was - by how real Finrod was, for all his strangeness. This cheekbone was very like his own; the eyes that shone and saw the world in different shades, the quick mind that guessed at the unknowable and predicted past and future. They had made a friendship out of generous wonder in each other and for each other. The last thing he wished was to make Finrod doubt it.
He found the strands of his head strange tokens to exchange, but it seemed discourteous to refuse the trade outright, when Felagund was so plainly well-meaning.
And so peculiarly covetous, too. Balan was not blind to the way Finrod stood raptly with held breath, whenever he saw him brushing back his hair after swimming, or oiling the strands and redoing the braids by the fire in the evenings.
He could not say he disliked the attention, that he had not met Finrod’s glances a hundred times.
He could not say the offer was not to him what he knew to be to Finrod - he had seen too many elvish warriors with the braids of their betrotheds carried in medallions about their necks, or kinsmen wound in goldwire and silver, set with amber and pearls around their wrists.
Solemnly, Finrod brought out one of his many knives. A swift stroke, and one of his impossibly bright braids fell into Balan’s palm; and his own closed around Balan’s own gift.
Finrod studied it with such care, Bëor's spindly, bristling braid, the gray threaded with the fading fairness of his hair.
Balan looked at his hand, a little disbelieving. More beautiful than gold was that slender braid, enthralling as the stars, thin and fine as spidersilk - Balan had stared at it as often as Finrod looked at him in admiration.
It was not less lovely for being in his hand, and seemed all the more startling in its beauty; but Balan’s eyes were still, always, for the curling strands that framed Finrod’s temples, the fine lashes that kissed his cheeks.
How strange it was, that all the brightness in him should be turned to him, bent like a candlewick under the weight of its own flame. All the time he had known Finrod he had seen him lonesome among his people, lordly and unwed, brushing his own hair alone; and it had wounded him from the first.
For all the differences between them, that particular loneliness was something Balan recognized so well.
His hand fit so well in Balan's, all the same. He had held him for days and day, without letting go: whenever Balan was strong enough to open his eyes, he had seen him - his golden braids fraying, unattended, as he willed Balan to live.
In the delirium of his fever Balan had dreamed foul dreams. It had felt to him as if a great darkness had descended upon Finrod, as if great walls of stone parted them; crushed, limbs heavy, he had cried out. Reached for him, as if were being chased by a prowling thing, and growing ever more distant; and now he saw, clear as grass, a mirrored anguish in the way Finrod held Balan's cut braid as if it were half an heirloom already.
"Thank thee," Finrod said, grave as if it were a rite.
“I am very generous,” Balan agreed, teasing as well as he could. His heart pressing painfully against his ribs. He felt feverish still, with fear and boldness now; but he had to speak, say this much at least. “But I fear I am about to be more outrageous still; for there is beauty greater still I would have, still. Among my people, embraces are also exchanged as tokens, between friends who hold each other dear.”
Finrod's breathing hitched and ceased again.
He did not say he had heard the words unspoken. He did not speak of death; or love. The gift his people gave and traded as promises unspooled itself in Balan’s hand, and nothing like an oath came with it; but Balan needed nothing of the like tonight.
If it was greedy to ask for more, it would be cruel to give less, when even his ageless face was dimned with the weariness of the vigil he had kept by Balan's side, his shoulders tight with fear.
“So it is, among my people as well,” said Finrod, and stopped, until Balan thought he would turn his face away, and rise, and hide the dark rope of Balan’s hair away forever to be wept over in days and years to come.
But the grip between Balan’s fingers eased, then grew stronger again. Finrod bent down over the bedside; until Balan touched the living strands of his hair, entwined his fingers about it.
That was too much. The dark braid was set aside carefully; and then, swiftly, with a surge of urgency, Finrod held him. Laid his hands over his back, feeling the movement of his heart and lungs; and Balan stroked his head with its wisps of shorn hair, eased his fear as well as he could.
Tomorrow, the cedarwod casket that held Balan's pins and rings, Belen's childhood gifts of bone-whistles and Baran's prettiest pebbles would receive a new, no less beloved treasure. Tomorrow, Finrod would hide the stands of Beren's hair away in truth, somewhere secret and well-kept where tokens of love could be held without marring for many centuries.
For tonight they could give each other this gift - grasp tight, and not let go until the sun rose over the mountain.
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Winter Whumperland 3
((content warnings: homophobia))
promptspiration: @amonthofwhump Winter Whumperland Day 3: Disowned
Whumper: parents
Whumpee: Draco Malfoy
whump type: angst
fic type: post-Hogwarts AU
words: ~1000
-------------------
Once upon a time, Death Eaters had been Draco's biggest problem.
He supposed, in a way, they still were. He wouldn't have this problem right now if Bellatrix and the Dark Lord hadn't been rifling through his mind, taking whatever they wanted and using it against him.
During Occlumency training, Bellatrix had figured out that, inasmuch as he had any interest for anybody in that kind of way, which frankly wasn't all that much, it was for other wizards, not witches like he was supposed to. She more or less kept it to herself for that year, but as soon as he failed to kill Dumbledore, once it was clear that he was disgraced and fair game, it was open season on all his secrets and insecurities, and everyone knew.
The Death Eaters called him a girl, called him a fairy — those pretty but vain and useless little creatures, good for nothing but decoration. It was a lot to constantly be hearing, but it was… whatever, Death Eaters were awful, it was nothing new. He could live with it.
But it didn't end when the Death Eaters were gone, because his parents knew. And he couldn't deny it.
And now he was sitting on a bench in the Hogsmeade garden, looking at the valley, literally without a knut to his name.
His thumb ran over his bare finger. That motion would normally be spinning around the signet ring he'd worn since he was thirteen; he hadn't even realised how often he did that until it became this constant reminder that he didn't have it anymore. He looked down at his hand, then crossed his arms to try to stop himself from doing that.
His father wasn't really the problem… He was a problem, but they could have worked something out. His father was mostly concerned with not having the family embarrassed, and having an heir. As long as he kept up appearances, it could have worked. His father wouldn't have respected him, but… he was used to that.
But his mother… that look of utter disgust…
He roughly wiped his cheek to pretend there was nothing there and tried not to remember it.
He had more pressing problems, and he tried to focus on those. Like where he was going to sleep, for one. Or how he was going to eat. Magic could do a lot; if he absolutely had to, he supposed he could go transfigure himself a shelter out of a tree, as vile as that sounded. But it couldn't make food that would keep a person alive.
If he had even one person he could go to…
But he didn't. Snape was… gone. Crabbe was dead and Goyle was in prison. Pansy hadn't had a kind word for him since Dumbledore died, and Theo literally hadn't spoken to him since that time. He didn't have any extended family closer than about fourth cousins, and at that point you could just show up at any Pureblood family's house and claim relation, and that wasn't going to get him anywhere. He didn't even have a loyal house elf. It was just him.
Society wouldn't want anything to do with him. He was a disgraced Death Eater, pardoned but not forgiven. He had only to see the way people looked at him to know that. The most charitable expression he got from anyone was pity, and that was almost as bad as the disdain. He couldn't look for any help or charity — again, as vile as that sounded — or even a break. There were no opportunities for him unless he found a way to make one.
He'd have to find work, but… he didn't know how. He'd never thought about it. No one with his surname had been employed in over five hundred years, and even then, it was by choice. He'd put no thought into it in school; school for him was meant to be a place to make connections, and that clearly hadn't worked out. He didn't even have the exam scores to go look for decent jobs cold; he hadn't gotten his N.E.W.T.s, more occupied with trials and Death Eaters after the Battle at Hogwarts. And honestly… he probably wouldn't have gotten any if he'd sat the exams. He'd stopped caring about schoolwork the moment his father was arrested and 'real life' began. He'd dropped most of his electives so he could focus on trying to kill Dumbledore, done the minimum for work, and even entirely stopped attending the classes he could get away with in seventh year, while the school was occupied. It was too late in the year to try to register to go back for another year to get them… and even if he could, he wasn't sure he could tolerate another year trapped in that school, where everyone hated him and everything had been terrible for years. And he didn't think they'd allow him back anyway.
He could see the school from where he sat, on the other side of the lake, looming over the valley. It only looked forbidding.
His finger tried turning his ring again, and he closed his eyes.
This was too much. Everywhere he turned was another wall turning him away. If he just had one opening, one chance… But no, it was all just piling on top of him. He couldn't handle it all. He wished he had some Draught of the Living Death so he could just sleep and it wouldn't matter anymore.
He wished there was a spell to fix himself. Make him right, so he could go home, and his mother wouldn't look at him that way…
--tbc?--
#whump writing#winter whumperland#amow winter whumperland 2023#day3#disowned#not a prompt whumpitlikeyoumeanit#whumpitlikeyoumeanit wrote it
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Summer get together with all the Gasly family and Pierre in awe at how well you fit into his family: his mum pretty much adopted you, his papa loves to talk about your work with you, you're friends with all his sisters in law, you're aways bantering with his brothers and the kids think you're the most fun auntie ever 😊
When Pierre suggested that you spent the weekend at his parents, a whole Gasly family meeting planned, you were excited to finally see all of them in one place, between the race calendar and your own job's, you hadn't seen them much.
Arriving at their backyard, you smelled the meat from the grill before you even saw Jean, crossing the corner around a big flower pot before he noticed you and his son, "Pierre, Y/N, you're just on time!", he said as Pierre offered to go and put the dessert you had made in the fridge after you engaged in conversation with his father, "so, how is your project going?", he asked as he flipped some meat on the grill, "it's been good, very tieing but finally things are coming together! You remember that idea about the lighting being in a different way?", you questioned and he nodded, "we tried that out and so far it's been quite good so far", you explained, your boyfriend's father smiling at you at the memory of having discussed it with you, "See? I told you it was really good, I'm very happy that you finally told your boss about it", he said as he saw his daughters in law approach along with Paul and Philippe, Leonard sleeping in the buggy as his older cousin ran to your legs, "Auntie Y/N, you're here!", she said as she hugged your legs, "everytime I see you you get even prettier", you said as you brushed her hair with your fingers, greeting everyone that had arrived when you heard Pascale calling for you, "Y/N, dear, I'm so happy you could make it!", she said as she hugged you, "Hi mama, how are you? We had a good trip up here, thanks!", Philippe joked as you removed yourself from her embrace to nudge his side, "Mama Gasly has had enough of you boys, she's enjoying the daughters she never had", you teased him back before you noticed Leonard starting to wake up from his nap, crouching down to tickle the little boy.
Pierre's sister in law, Charlotte, and you were sitting in the outside furniture while you watched the kids, his nieces and nephews often coming to show you some flower or bug they found while you shared some light conversations until Pierre sat next to you and making you rest sideways against him, "Auntie Y/N, Auntie Y/N! You have to come and see this! I think it's something magical", the young girl said as you got up, not hearing Pierre groan as you went with the little girl to find the 'fairy dust' her and her cousins had found, "she's a hit with them, you know? Your niece keeps asking when she'll see her next and Leonard keeps grabbing a frame of a picture we have together and kissing her face", Charlotte said as she noticed Pierre's eyes sparkling while he looked at you before her kids called for her, "and we women enjoy having her here to, you and your brothers have dominated enough over the years", she teased him before she went to see you and the kids.
"Mama wanted to know if you were okay and if you wanted another blanket or some tea", Pierre said as he walked into the room you'd stay in for the weekend, "can you say "no, thank you" please?, I'm going to have a quick shower now if that's okay", you said as you passed through him to get to the bathroom, him giving the information to his mother before everyone headed to their rooms for the night, "I really like seeing you with my family, you fit like a glove", he said once you were both in bed, "they make me feel very welcomed, they always have, even when your brother tried to scare me away with your childhood stories", you snickered, "but everyone is so welcoming, it's only natural, and Leonard gave me a kiss today without me having to ask, all in all I already won it for the week", you said, "Oh really? Little man gives you a kiss and that's your week done?", he tickled you slightly, "I see how it is", he said as he tried to appear mad, his heart fluttering at everyone's easiness around you and viceversa, "He's cute, but you're handsome too mon amour, come here", you said as you grabbed his face to kiss his lips.
You got to the kitchen the next day, Paul offering you a coffee as you sat and ate breakfast together, Leonard sitting on your lap while you ate, "you know you can put him in his highchair", Pierre's brother reasoned, "I know, but he's so cute, I don't mind", you said as you offered him some of your bread, "you really have a way of having young Gaslys wrapped around your fingers", he commented, definitely not expecting your reply, "Do I have you wrapped around my finger too?", you joked, "me? No, I never said it was me", he said honestly, "Pierre is the whipped one", he smiled, "Well, so you're admitting you're old then?", you smiled back, catching him off-guard, "That's not what I meant and you know it", he pointed his mug at you as Pierre walked into the kitchen, "Bonjour, bonjour, mon amour", he said before he kissed your head, his fingers coming to tickle Leonard's cheek, "Scratch what I said yesterday, your brother admitting he is old has made my entire month", you said, leaving Pierre smiling as he drank his coffee. Yeah, the ring on his bag was definitely ending up on your finger before the end of the weekend.
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Draco Malfoy vs. the POP
You start out a prince, a once-upon-a-time, coddled and treasured and held. Wrapped ever-so tight in bubble wrap—a material you’ve never heard of, won’t for a long time. It distorts your vision. You think everyone, everywhere is just like you. But worse. Pop: a year goes by, and another. You’re supposed to have learned something, but you never do. You blame the wrapping, the coddling, the fairy-tale-esq to it. It takes too long to see yourself in the mirror, to actually see. And then it’s too late, or so you tell yourself.
It's rather an inconvenience, realising other people exist. Outside your head and your dreams and your tooth-fairy wishes. That they’re real, flesh and blood and gods, so much blood, and rage, all this rage you couldn’t understand if you tried. And hardness where you seem to be soft. Too soft and too open and too out, of it, of your mind. You fall.
And land, because that’s what physics apparently dictate. You learn about physics in your mandatory class in a damp basement in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere’s nowhere, to you. You’re stuck, dreaming of bubble wrap. Missing the reassurance of the pop. So you pout a lot, but don’t sneer. And turn in the mandatory homework, but spend all night on it anyway. You struggle with Newton’s third law: every action has a reaction. That’s just funny, isn’t it? Talk about things you already know.
You eat noodles. You eat peanut butter out the jar with sticky fingers licked clean. Once you eat a block of cheese for dinner. You buy everything from the shop with the funny name, the far away one that’s cheap. It takes longer than is should. Crossing a road is terrifying, and not only because of the automobiles—it’s the looking left, looking right. So much looking, and you can’t quite tell what you see. But from the shop you can go to the little fountain, and you like the little fountain. Don’t know why. It’s strange and out of place in this city, oddly delicate and sharp. You think one day you’ll stop comparing everything to you, but it’s not come yet.
Class is over in June, happy birthday, idiot. What did you learn? You don’t know what to do, how to spend your time on anything else without killing it. You. It. You sit on the windowsill a lot, pretend to breathe. Don’t remember how to… don’t think you ever actually knew. Your teacher offers you a job, you take it without meaning. It’s how he says he sees something in you, you’re too startled to refuse. You think you’d give him an arm if he asked, give him your heart. He doesn’t want it. The job’s at a café his wife runs, and you burn yourself on the machine without touching it, break three cups and drop a sandwich on the floor. Serve it still. You never go back, and you don’t pick up the phone.
It gets boring. It was, already, so boring, but it gets even more boring, and your blood runs fizzy, crackling in your veins. You’re tired and you can’t sleep. You’re nauseous so you don’t eat. You walk around and around but can’t find your fountain anymore. Did they take it? Who takes a fountain? Who’d take something so—useless and so pretty, so wasteful and so delicate. Where would they take it? Is there such thing as fountain heaven? Would you go there too when you die? Fountain hell? Found-in-hell. You can’t find the fountain, but you come across a statue. In some park, a violin, another frivolous, useless contribution from a city that doesn’t want you. You like it. Feels weird, but you do.
You think of music. You think of dying. You think about grapes and giraffes and gardens, about Pluto and Plato and Poland, you’re losing your fucking mind, that’s for sure. You go to the statue and start cursing, shouting, aimless vitriol shooting out of you like those terrifying machine guns, rut-tut-tut, rut-tut-tut. You fall. The ground is soft. Why’d you always have to land?
The ground is soft. You take comfort in that. The ground is soft, and out of it shoots a teeny, tiny sprout.
You don’t think about it often, but it stays somewhere in your heart. The sprout. A weed. The waitress from the café where you dropped the sandwich chases you down the street. But she doesn’t want to hit you, she wants you to come back. You say no. She invites you to a party. You say no. It’s weird, using your voice in an actual conversation. How people are real, real, what an inconvenience. You’ve forgotten. She smiles, and you forget how to say no.
It’s the kindness of strangers, always the kindness of strangers. It kills you very very slowly, almost too slowly to tell. You don’t go to the party but you meet her at a café, not the same one, and laughter seems to have hidden somewhere in your throat, in your belly, all this time. She’s funny. Or life is. You… keep doing it. Laughing. Feels weird.
She has a friend, a pretty boy who always smiles too bright. He tries to kiss you one night behind the bins outside her flat. She has another friend, not so pretty, not so smiley. He gives you a book you don’t dare read. Holds your hand, and it’s so grave, you think you love him. Another friend, pretty but not smiley, who teaches you about plants. You’re so eager to learn, you drink the words right out of her mouth: you were never so willing in all of your life, and it’s all coming now, it’s all coming out. You take them to the violin, but not to where the fountain once was. It’s buried too deep, and as much as you want to give them everything—everything—you can’t reach it yet. You eat peanut butter from the jar but use a spoon. You’re never full, but it’s getting easier to bear.
You come out of your peanut-shell in bits and pieces, in starts and stalls. So scared, all the time, and of everything, scared scared scared. You come out of it anyway. Can’t be helped. You get a job in a shop that sells plants. You love it, but you’re no good. You lose it. You get another, at a different shop down the same road. You’re still no good, but they keep you. You learn how to make lentil soup and how to use your oven, how to clean the black mold in the bathroom ceiling, how to go on ‘gum tree’ and find an actual dining table. How to pet a cat without dying, how to give a small, tentative grin. It’s not easy. You don’t think things will be, anymore. Life continues to surprise you.
You meet a man you once knew. He’s all but a surprise, and you don’t know where to even begin unravelling it, him. Have to learn, slowly. How to take things when offered. You go to smiley-pretty’s birthday party and don’t melt down the cracks. You start dreaming again, but you don’t bother with bubble wrap, with bed time stories. You think you might not be a child anymore. It’s still so hard to tell.
Loud noises startle you. You don’t like them from the telly-vision, you don’t like them in the street. Not-smiley-not-pretty has a dog that’s also like that, a scaredy-cat-dog like you. Embarrassing, but it makes you feel better. He’s a good dog, and you wonder—never mind. The manager at the shop where you work says it’s not even a shop, it’s a nursery. It makes you uncomfortable, but only for a moment. You hope… you hope. It’s new, and even more startling.
The man you knew comes back, often enough that your co-workers call him by his first name (you don’t) and invite him out to the pub (you don’t) and joke that there’s something between you, everyone can see (you don’t). You want to ask him why, but you’ve never been brave. So you shut your mouth and he keeps coming. Brings you little gifts, a box of chocolates, a fancy kind of tea you haven’t seen in years. You think, maybe he knows you. Maybe he knows you better than you should be known. It startles you so much that you run, and run, and run, and—run.
Always been a coward, always been a coward. You stop running only when you have no air left, when you’re choking on it, breaking in half, when you reach something familiar. Your fountain? Can’t—but it’s not. It’s something else, something stupid. Something frilly and delicate and flowery and sweet. You want to throw up—you want to scream, because this isn’t it, isn’t it, should have been, would be—your fountain, they took, as they always take, and they never bring back, never. You cry and you cry and you cry. You don’t know how to get back home, have no idea where you are. Alone. Alone. Why does it feel so strange? You should know the feeling like the back of your hand. Yes, this hand, the one that was refused and that hurt and that bathed in blood. So much blood—you fall to the ground, and you land, and it’s muddy, and it’s soft.
It’s soft. Not so much a comfort, but it’s enough to save you. You cry. And walk and walk and take a bus and walk. You’re scared, but you make it. All the time, so scared. And he’s there, the man you knew, waiting in your flat. He was worried, he says. Seems it. Worried, and also something else. He’s been looking through your things, did you know you have a lot of noodles? A lot of books about gardening? A lot of blankets but no pillows? Did you know you live a little strange, a little off? Did you know he likes it? Likes you?
You had no idea. Surprise is dry, sharp down your throat, but he’s never been a surprise after all. So you take his hand and sit him down, and you say:
I started out a prince, a once-upon-a-time, coddled and treasured and held.
And he laughs. I knew you then. Know you now. I see you, you know.
It’s still startling. You take comfort in that.
Soon it’ll be waitress’s birthday, you’re making a gift. Knitting—socks, she’s always so cold. You hoped it’d be easier, but it’s a little bit nice, that it takes time. Requires work. That you make it with your hands, yes, these hands, right here. You let him kiss them, each knuckle at a time, slowly, carefully, like he does anything. You show him how out of it you are, how open, how soft where others may or may not be hard. You show him the place where the fountain once was, you tell him with that same dreamy tone how you once dropped a sandwich on the floor and served it anyway. No one’s seen, you’ve never said it out loud. He laughs. You think—you hope one day you might be good, like the scaredy dog, like his laughter.
The birthday present requires wrapping. You used to wrap yourself in all the blankets, to dream and dream and dream and cry and cry and cry. But it’s here, two little lumps in no colour that don’t at all resemble socks, and you think she’d like them. You kind of do. Perhaps your next project will be a gift for yourself. A startling thought.
When you pick up wrapping paper at the shop, you see a roll of it too. Bubble wrap. You buy it with money you’ve worked for, take it to a flat you call home.
And pop every single one of the bubbles.
There. It’s your life now. Live it.
#drarry fic#2k#angst and comfort?#coming into one's own#trying to - become braver?#growing strangely sentimental towards inanimate objects?#seeing himself in every corner but never really looking?#anyway#rockingrobin69
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Elliot SFW Alphabet
Requests open until 4/18/23
Bold = complete
Italicized = available
crossed out = in progress
Snail’s Directory
A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)
Elliot is affectionate but he shows it through gift giving and words of affirmation. He sure knows a lot of words. Gifts are usually things he has found for his partner (he’d forage on his walks knowing that’s something the farmer does and has use for). The farmer will find little notes and poems hidden everywhere—how Elliot got out to the coop to leave one in the clutch of eggs before they even got up, the farmer will never know. He’s also SUPER sentimental and will keep every ticket/confetti/wristband from everything he does with his partner.
B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)
C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)
Elliot cuddles a bit like a snake. Maybe like a koala? A koala is probably cuter, let’s go with that. Either way he’s got his long limbs fully wrapped around his partner and is using them for warmth. He’s the one with cold feet in the relationship and they will be pressed on his partner’s legs every night.
D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)
E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)
He would sit his partner down privately, and deliver his decision with sincerity and tact. He’d probably explain a bit too much–the whole thing would probably go on for a little too long) (Especially depending on how much prep time Elliot gave himself.)
F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)
G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)
H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)
I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?
Elliot says it pretty quickly but it’s well planned—he’ll take his partner out for a special evening and give a totally casual and on the fly speech (that he didn’t make Leah listen to him rehearse) (you don’t just publish your first draft yknow)
J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)
Elliot isn’t the jealous type—he wouldn’t pick a partner he didn’t trust. That being said, he is the type to get annoyed at somebody not taking the hint that his partner isn’t interested. When that happens he is coming IN with the pda. Hand in their back pocket, kisses to the neck and cheek—definitely enough to get the point across and has the added perk of distracting his partner.
K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)
Elliot’s kisses are slow and romantic, he loves to kiss his partner’s lips of course but he’s also big on kissing the back of their hands. Either while holding hands he’ll just bring their knuckles to his lips or he’ll kiss their hand as a greeting like a prince in a fairy tale. He loves surprise kisses—his partner giving him a drive by peck in the cheek has him all blushy and mushy.
L = Little ones (How are they around children?)
M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)
Quite frankly it’s a skill to escape Elliot’s grasp in the morning could be an olympic sport. He’s either up before the sun or wants to stay in beds with his partner all day, with very little in between. Regardless of what kind of morning it is, he always gets up to make his partner coffee and bring them a mug fixed exactly how they like it.
N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)
Since his sleep is irregular he’ll spend the evenings with his partner until they’re ready to go to bed. Sometimes he’ll join them, sometimes he’ll move on to write. Fortunately he’s mastered the art of scuttling sliding into bed without waking up his partner.
O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)
P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)
Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)
R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)
S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)
Indulge me with this one because it factors into a couple of Elliot hcs I have (and should probably make a post of) but in Snail-land Elliot had a wild time in his youth (like, all the way through his MA) and was super involved in various college and community theater and performances and all sorts of Art™ and being drunk and passionate and what I’m trying to say is at some point Elliot, dressed as Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror, beat the shit out of another guy for being creepy. Do you know how tall Elliot is in heels? Tall.
The point of all this is that Elliot can be fucking terrifying, and he’s got the heft to back it up. He’s very physically protective and can turn the intimidation on whenever he wants (theater, so much theater). Scary dog privileges for his partner.
What he could never do, however, is tell the waiter he asked for no pickles. His partner sticking up for him in little ways makes him feel loved and safe. Like someone always has his back to make sure he’s treated well.
Elliot is very protective. He’s a big guy and he ran with some wild crowds back in the day and he knows exactly how intimidating he can be. He looks a little…off kilter when he’s pissed off and I think that plays into it.
T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)
U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)
V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)
W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)
Yes. Elliot wants to be with his partner all the time, but he finds a certain romance in the pining he and his partner endure when he has to travel for his book tours and signings. His partner will leave little notes in the pockets of the clothes he packs and he’ll hide notes in between the plates–cute little things to remind each other they love each other. It’s another part of the relationship.
X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)
Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)
His biggest turn off is excessive negativity and also holding a fork like, clenched in your fist. You know what I’m talking about? Idk I think he’s one of those people that would really bother.
Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)
Elliot has a very irregular sleep schedule due to bouts of insomnia or creative drive. He can often be seen wandering the beach in the wee hours of the morning (scaring the ever loving fuck out of Willy)
#sdv#stardew valley#sdv elliot#sdv elliot headcanons#stardew elliot#sdv sfw alphabet#snailwrites#sfw alphabetm
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You mentioned before that rapunzel was a walking plot device and I was wondering which scenes were you referring to. I was going to see the movie again to see if it’s as bad as I remembered and I wanted to know which scenes to look out for.
Hi, sorry for the late response, holidays were really busy.
I think when it comes to “Rapunzel is a walking plot device,” I think of it as not always a culmination of scenes, but the story itself and what it chooses to focus on:
Rapunzel’s story is centered around Eugene/Flynn Rider. The main plot kicks off on him stealing her crown, he is the one being chased by guards, he chooses to double cross his teammates, which leads to trouble down the line and his arc of change is the driving force of the plot. It’s what gets it moving. Many of the most important plot scenes have a certain formula.
“Flynn drives the plot, Rapunzel either gets a certain consequence of it, or turns it around by just being likeable”, examples below:
He steals the crown, which leads to Rapunzel finding it. She uses it against him as blackmail, but he figures her out pretty quickly.
He backstabs the Stabbington brothers, which puts Rapunzel in trouble later on.
He takes Rapunzel to the bar to try and talk her out of going to the lights. Rapunzel is the one who made friends with them
Maximus is after Flynn Rider, Rapunzel bargains with him and calms him down
Flynn Rider goes to prison and is sentenced to be executed. He is broken out by people from the bar that he insisted on going to. Rapunzel’s ability to make friends by being childlike and enthusiatic is what creates those bonds.
All of this could’ve worked, as long as Rapunzel also moved the plot forward due to her own actions.
It was her idea to go to see the lanterns, that is good! Mother gothel is a major villain, so the consequences of her defying her are paramount.
She needed Flynn Rider to take her there and to get her out of the tower, even though she probably could’ve memorized where the lanterns came from direction wise. That’s fine, I suppose. Would’ve been better if she left on her own and at least tried to find them herself since she is proven to be smart.
Flynn Rider’s actions drive most of the problems in the plot, he is wanted for stealing the crown, thus having not only the entire Imperial Guards after him but multiple major conflicts come back to him as a result of his action. Not so good. Who’s fairy tale is this again?
But despite blackmailing Flynn Rider, in another point of view it comes off as him being more or less just going along with Rapunzel out of the goodness of his heart. He clearly is the more experienced of the two, and he could’ve figured out the location since she’s just carrying a single bag with her.
The problem with Rapunzel is that she is reactive. Rapunzel is simply reacting instead of acting. She is taken out of heavy action scenes (example, the guards chasing them and the pan fight with Maximus, Rapunzel swings offscreen and watches. She later gets him out of trouble when she’s safely out of danger.) and her inability to fend for herself is often highlighted, mostly due to the conditioning of mother gothel and her own insecurities.
But still, sometimes the movie portrays these sort of insecurities as “cute” or endearing, even though it causes her emotional turmoil. The juxtaposition of her emotional highs and lows when she is finally out of the tower is played for laughs.
Her naivete and “having a dream”, is vague and childlike. Her mannerisms when singing also highlight this.
This is what would be referred to as a positive feminine trait that increases her likability by playing into the idealized stereotypes imposed upon women and girls. Not to say that having such traits makes you bad, but it does seem like she is embodying these traits as a way to convey that they are the feminine ideal.
The movie is very good at making it seem like Rapunzel is assertive because her actions are very energetic visually. She is swinging, jumping around, and carrys a frying pan.
But there is a problem: A lot of the story hinges on her status, and what her hair can do.
Rapunzel is often reduced to what she is. Her status as a princess inherently makes her valuable, her hair is magic and can give healing powers that mother Gothel seeks. And in turn, her very existence is due to the influence of the magic flower that her parents took. All things that were decided before she was born and the ones she does control, she has been conditioned to think she has very little control over.
When she does put her foot down with Mother Gothel, and tries to take back control of her magic hair, she is put in chains.
Here comes the reverse order of “Flynn Rider does something, Rapunzel reacts to it and tries to fix it.” Rapunzel uses her people skills to convince Mother Gothel to let her go temporarily so she can heal Flynn Rider.
Then, he cuts her hair to free her. Without Flynn, she would’ve kept her promise and stayed with Mother Gothel in exchange for healing him. It took Flynn Rider’s actions to free her.
There are people who say that Rapunzel could’ve left the tower on her own, that she wouldn’t have needed Flynn Rider. That she could’ve fought in the action scenes, that she could’ve even cut her own hair and freed herself.
But despite this being her story, she doesn’t. It’s all given to Flynn Rider.
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No Way Home
Words: 10,093
Desc.: Daniel messes up a spell (Kevin is shocked -- aghast, even) and pulls in four different Daniels from across the multiverse into his living room. Now the issue is putting them all back.
TW: minor panic/anxiety attacks
(lmao two of these Dans are from fics I haven’t published yet so there’s some massive spoilers in here. I just found this concept too entertaining to leave it waiting)
///
“What is it that you’re planning to do exactly?”
Daniel lifted his eyes from the page to look at Kevin’s quizzical expression. He did have to admit his ingredients were... unorthodox. A piece of a mushroom from a fairy ring Sean collected, water from a very specific lake in California bottled under the full moon, a raw cut of azurite, and a lot of other seemingly random crap.
“I’m trying to look into my timeline,” he answered.
“Divination? I can do that for you without all this junk.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the coffee table.
“I’m aware.” He turned back to the spell book. “But I’m trying to do something a little more complicated.”
“More complicated than that one time?”
“A bit more, yeah.”
Kevin leaned over the back of the couch. “Don’t leave me in suspense -- what is it?”
“I want to look through possible timelines. What sort of choices I could have made that could have led to something different. Things like that.”
Kevin frowned, his eyes scanning Daniel’s face for some hidden answer. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He gave a small smile. “Yeah, that does sound pretty complicated.” He pushed himself away. “Well have fun. Don’t forget to call your local divination expert for help if you need it. That’s me, by the way.”
Daniel scoffed. “Yeah, I know. You bring it up as often as you can.” He shooed Kevin away with his hand. “Now, come on, I gotta focus.”
Kevin said nothing, leaving Daniel alone.
Daniel studied the words and steps carefully. Not only was this a branch of magic he didn’t often use, but it was also a style he was unfamiliar with. Traditional French, according to the book. Traditional magic styles were always fascinating to study, but putting them into practice was a bit more complex. And Daniel knew firsthand that one wrong step could lead to unforeseen consequences. So he had to get it right. He didn’t want to find out what could happen if he fucked up a timeline spell.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No time like the present.
Moving to sit cross-legged on the floor, he propped up the book on the coffee table so he could still refer to it. To start, he filled a small plastic tub with the lake water and set a wooden bowl on top. Next, he reached up and pulled out a strand of hair. He couldn’t help but flinch a little, but he dropped it in the bowl without issue. And then he made his first mistake.
As he grabbed the mushroom piece, it slipped out of his fingers and rolled onto the floor. Cursing under his breath, he leaned over to search for it. He picked it up, noticing it had who-knew-what sticking to it from falling under the couch. He dusted it off and blew on it. But he had no way of knowing he did anything wrong. The true nature of fairy ring mushrooms was a secret the fae kept tight. Not even a half-fae like Sean was allowed to know the full details.
Fairy ring mushrooms on their own weren’t magical. They were a conduit like so many witches’ wands. A dormant element of nature to use magic through. But Daniel wasn’t a witch. He had magic at his fingertips -- something rare and dangerous and powerful -- that oftentimes ended up exploding wands doing mundane spells. And as such, the fae didn’t want people like Daniel to understand their mushrooms’ true nature. Because the mushrooms remembered. Something as simple as a breath could trap magic inside. For a witch, this did nothing. But for a sorcerer -- for Daniel -- it meant the mushroom was alive.
He dropped it into the bowl.
Referring back to the book, he followed the next steps with meticulous detail. Yet, he made a second mistake.
He lit a match and dropped it into the bowl. The dried-up plants caught fire in an instant, which meant the last step he had to do was drop in the azurite. But he hesitated. Just for a moment, but it was a moment too long. The spell book warned against stopping during this stage. Once the fire was lit, the spell needed to be completed as fast as possible.
Fearing the consequences of not finishing the ritual at all, he dropped the azurite into the bowl. The bowl crashed to the bottom of the tub and thick white smoke billowed out, engulfing the room. Oddly, it smelled like cinnamon.
As Daniel coughed and waved the smoke away from his face, he heard other people coughing as well. Thinking it was the other lads, he started coming up with the best explanation to justify the mess, but all his words shriveled up and died the moment the smoke cleared.
He saw himself. Well, four of them.
They stood on the other side of the coffee table with similar expressions of shock and confusion. Daniel wasn't sure how to feel about knowing what he looked like when he made that face, so instead he focused on their other aspects.
The first one wore a purple sweater with the sleeves rolled up. His jeans had grass stains on the knees with a hole accompanying the right side. Faint paint stains popped out in random spots. He looked the most tired out of all of them.
The second one mirrored Daniel the most. Thin glasses perched on his nose. He had a light blue hoodie with an embroidered patch over his heart. Headphones sat on top of his head and he had something clutched in his hand. He wasn’t wearing shoes.
The third one held himself like he wanted to fade into the background unnoticed. He also had on a hoodie, but this one was light gray and much too big for him. A colorful scarf wrapped around his neck and a bright red beanie hid his waves. The snow on top of his boots was starting to melt.
The fourth and final one had to be the most bizarre. His hair was the longest of the group and much wilder, but that was tame in comparison to the rest of him. With a cloak draped over his left side, he looked plucked from a completely different time. His face differed the most as well. He had a few fading scars running in different directions along his cheeks and nose. It would have been hard to call him a Daniel if it wasn’t for the wide blue eyes and sharp jawline.
After a long time of no one saying anything, the one in the headphones exclaimed, “what the fuck is happening?”
Uh oh.
“I was in the middle of shopping,” the one in the purple sweater put his hands to his temples like a terrible headache appeared, “and now I’m standing in a living room with four other people that look like me.”
“What sort of magic is this?” The one in the cloak eyed Daniel curiously. His accent was slightly off from the others.
“Magic?” the first two echoed, perplexed.
The one in gray didn’t say anything, but he looked right at Daniel like he knew the answer already. It was a little unnerving.
“Okay!” Daniel stood up. “I have to admit, this is really fucking weird -- even by my standards -- so how ‘bout we all just, just chill for a second.” He could feel his anxiety spiking and for fuck’s sake he didn’t need that right now. If he got too stressed it would make everyone panic more and then he would panic more and it would make a bigger mess of things. Not for the first time, he cursed Kevin for giving him this damn ailment.
Purple Sweater crossed his arms and glared at him, yet his mouth remained shut.
“Chill?!” Headphones waved his hands around manically. Daniel could see he held onto a Switch controller with white knuckles. “How are we supposed to be chill about any of this?”
“I don’t understand what that means,” Cloak said with a furrowed brow.
“It means ‘relax’,” Gray explained softly.
“Ah. Then I agree with that one.” He pointed at Headphones. “I don’t understand how we’re meant to be ‘chill’ about appearing in this... place.” He looked around with a small frown.
Daniel wasn’t sure if he should take that as an offense to his interior decorating.
“Well, he can’t tell us what’s going on if we don’t stop yelling at him,” Purple Sweater said calmly. He gave a pointed look to Headphones, who grumbled and shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket, keeping his mouth shut. Then he looked at Daniel and Daniel felt like he was disappointing his dad all over again. “Why did you bring us here?”
“It was an accident. I only wanted to look into my timeline but I guess I... messed up.” He scrunched his face. Understatement of the century.
“Yeah, no shit,” Headphones griped.
“Language,” Purple Sweater chided. Then seemed confused about why he even bothered. “Sorry, that -- that’s just a habit.”
Headphones looked at him weirdly.
“The magic in this place feels off.” Cloak frowned further as he continued to scrutinize the room. “It’s not... I don’t feel the same presence like at home. How can you have such powerful magic if it isn’t in the world around you?”
“It’s more prominent here,” Gray chimed in. Quiet. As if he didn't want to be heard at all. “Magic in my world is rare but completely mundane.”
“Your world?” Purple Sweater noted curiously.
“Why the hell do you guys keep talking about magic?” Headphones pushed down his headphones and grabbed at his hair.
“It’s how I brought you all here.” Daniel sighed like it was obvious.
“But magic isn’t real!”
“How else would you explain this, then?” He threw his arms out to emphasize their situation.
Headphones shook his head and shut his eyes tight. “I don’t know! This can’t be real! None of this is happening! I’m -- I’m dreaming or something. I fell asleep before I went live and now chat is waiting for me.” He started lightly tugging on his hair. “I just have to wake up and start the stream. This’ll just be a weird crazy thing we talk about.”
Daniel chucked a couch pillow at his face. “Stop it! You’re not dreaming.”
A loud crash startled them all. They turned to see Kevin staring at them with wide eyes, his hand floating mid-air. Pieces of a mug scattered across the ground.
“Kevin!” Four Daniels shouted in surprised relief. One of them muttered it like a guilty confession.
Kevin continued to gape at them until he was snapped out of it by Daniel awkwardly fixing his hair. “Dan, can I, uh, can I talk to you for a second?”
The Daniels glanced at each other.
“My -- My Dan.” He shook his head and pointed at Daniel, giving him one of his rare serious looks. “You. Get over here.”
Daniel hesitated but complied anyway. He stepped over the ceramic pieces, making a mental note to tell Kevin to clean it up with a broom rather than magic it away.
“The rest of you... Dans... just, uh, just sit wherever.” He grabbed Daniel’s arm and dragged him into the nearest empty room. Unfortunately, that happened to be the bathroom. “Dan, what the fuck --?”
“I know!” Daniel dragged his hands down his face. “I fucked up. I don’t know what I did to bring them all here.”
“What even are they?”
He tapped his bottom lip. “At first I thought they were different me’s from across my timeline, but then there was that weird one with the long hair. And two of them don’t even have magic. So I think... I think they might be from different universes.”
Kevin stared at him like he was crazy, but it was a look that only lasted a moment. He groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “Dude, how do you mess up a spell that bad?”
“I don’t know!” He whined, sounding far too much like a child for his liking. “Please help me fix it. I don’t know what to do and if I tell them that they'll get mad at me and then I'll freak out, and you know what happens when I freak out --"
"Stop." Kevin put his hands on Daniel's shoulders. “I'll help." He frowned. "Jeez, you must be in really deep shit if you’re asking me for help.”
He shrugged. “You are the local divination expert after all.”
“Oh, no. We’re way past divination at this point. And flattery will get you nowhere.” He grinned. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing it anyway.”
Daniel rolled his eyes.
They walked out to see all the Daniels sitting far apart as they avoided looking at one another.
Kevin clapped his hands to get their attention. “Okay, Dans, so here’s the thing -- you don’t want to be here, and we don’t want you here so we’re going to do whatever we can to get you guys back.” Ever since The Incident, he had gotten better at taking charge.
“How long will that take?” Gray asked quietly.
“Uh, what spell did you use, Dan?” He motioned to the book on the table. Kevin scooped it up and skimmed the page. He didn’t look too confident anymore. “Okay, um, maybe a few days?”
"What?!” The four Dans yelled at the same time.
“Days?!” Purple Sweater shot up from his spot on the couch. Up until this point, he had been the most calm and collected of the bunch so it shocked Daniel to see him so livid. “I can’t wait days -- I have a daughter to get back to!”
Headphones’ head snapped to him with wide eyes.
“I was hiking down to meet my friends,” Gray said, for the first time speaking above a murmur. “What’re they gonna do when I never meet up with them?”
“And I was in the middle of rebuilding a library.” Cloak crossed his arms with a scowl. Daniel caught sight of a flash of silver. “Imbuing books with magic isn’t shit you can just stop.”
Kevin held up a hand placatingly. “It takes time to deconstruct a spell, and this one is super complicated. We’ve never worked with anything like this before.”
“Then why the fuck did you even attempt it?” Purple Sweater snapped.
Daniel took a deep breath and counted.
Kevin took a step forward so the attention would be on him. “Look, you’re all Dan -- you should know better than me how he thinks. Are you telling me none of you have taken a dumb risk before?”
They fell silent.
“We just need to find out what went wrong and go from there.”
“How do we do that?” Cloak raised a brow.
Kevin tapped the book cover. “Well... you have magic, too, right? Maybe you can help.” He sat on the armrest of the chair and handed the book over.
Daniel and Gray shuffled closer as well.
As Cloak unfurled his arms to take the book, everyone in the room sucked in a breath. “Huh?” He glanced at them all in confusion before seeming to click the ideas in place. “Oh.” He chuckled, not at all bothered as he held up his left arm. It was pure metal. “I lost it a while ago. Doesn’t bother me much anymore, but I guess it’s probably weird for different me's.”
“How’d you lose it?” Gray asked, voice nothing but a whisper.
Cloak cleared his throat, eyes firmly on the spell book. “So what’s a France?”
As the three Daniels and Kevin poured over the book, the remaining two Daniels were left to themselves. Magic wasn’t real in their worlds so they wouldn’t be much help. Purple Sweater sat back down on the couch with a sigh.
Headphones sat stiffly at the other end of the couch.
He tried to pay attention to what was being said in case it was important, but every other word flew over his head. Besides, if he was being honest, he was more interested in the other Daniel on the couch.
“So,” he started. The other Daniel cocked his head at him, “you have a daughter?”
He smiled. “I do.”
He scooted a little closer. “Do you have a picture?”
Instead of bringing out a phone as Headphones expected, he pulled out his wallet. He took out a little photograph and handed it over.
Headphones found himself smiling down at the picture. A little girl with dark hair pulled into pigtails grinned back at him. Her smile was so big he could barely see her bright blue eyes. She was sitting cross-legged in the grass. Green stained her exposed knees and even her socks. She had on overalls shorts with a pink striped shirt underneath. Her hands were stretched out towards him as if she wanted to catch the camera. Or maybe she wanted who was behind it.
“She looks a lot like you,” he said and handed the photo back. He hoped his hand trembling wasn’t too obvious. “What’s her name?”
“Elizabeth.” He stared at the photo in adoration. “But we just call her Cupcake.”
Headphones swallowed down a shaky breath. His fingers brushed the edges of the patch on his chest tentatively. “Who... who’s the mother?”
Purple Sweater scowled as he put the photo away. “Doesn’t matter.” He placed the wallet back in his pocket.
Sensing he struck a nerve, he apologized softly.
Purple Sweater didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he looked at him as if he solved a puzzle. “I’m --” his lips quirked up in a sad smile -- “I’m not your future. We’re from two different worlds. Whatever you’re hoping you’ll get... I’m not it.”
Headphones' eyes darted to the floor and he retreated into his hoodie. He should have known an alternate version of himself would be able to read his true intentions. “This is some real Multiverse of Madness shit,” he grumbled. As if making a shitty joke would make him feel better.
Purple Sweater gave him a confused face.
One of the other Daniels cried out in annoyance. They turned to see Cloak with his hands buried in his face. “I don’t understand your magic,” he whined. “Why does it have so many rules?”
“Well, how does it work in your world?” Daniel crossed his arms and looked at him like an annoyed older brother.
“You just ask for it!” He threw his hands out in front of him and colorful flower petals exploded from his palms. His irises flashed gold. “It’s a far superior system.”
Daniel scoffed in offense. “Superior --?”
“If your magic works here, why can’t you magic everyone back to their own universes?” Kevin asked before Daniel could get all huffy.
Cloak suddenly became very shy. “I’m strong, but I don’t know if I’m that strong. I don’t know if it’ll reach into universes that don’t have magic at all.”
“Oh, so now whose magic system is superior?” Daniel smirked.
Cloak glared at him.
“Don’t you guys have internet here?” Headphones asked. “Can’t you look up what to do on some bullshit magic website?”
“That’s not really how this works.” Kevin frowned.
“What’s an intern-net?” Cloak furrowed his brows.
“No, you know what?” Daniel took out his phone and tossed it to Headphones, who almost didn’t catch it. “Why don’t you try to look something up and see how well that works out for you.”
Headphones scowled. As he looked down at the phone he muttered, “God, am I really this annoying?”
Kevin chuckled. “Now you know what it feels like to be everyone else.”
Purple Sweater peered at the phone curiously. “What is that?”
“A phone?” Headphones glanced at him in confusion. It was a normal Samsung. The exact same model and color as his own. He turned it on and nearly laughed. Of course their lock screens were almost identical things.
“That’s not like any phone I’ve ever seen.” He continued to look at it like its mere existence made no sense.
“What? What does your phone look like?”
Purple Sweater fished something out of his pocket, revealing an old flip phone.
Headphones stared at it with wide eyes. “Oh my God.” he hadn’t seen one of those since he was a kid. “What year is it for you?”
“Uh, 2005. Why? What year is it for you?”
“2022.”
They looked each other up and down, suddenly way more uncomfortable than they had been before. It was one thing to be pulled into another universe. Having one of your alternate universe selves (one that appeared normal by comparison) be from a different time was another.
“Umm.” Headphones shifted in his seat. He waved the phone at him with an awkward smile. “Wanna know how it works?”
While the two Daniels were distracted by that, the other Daniels and Kevin were still stumped on what to do.
“What about you?” Kevin asked Gray. “Could your magic do it?”
Gray fiddled with his beanie. He had to take it off along with his scarf since it got far too hot for him. He even had to roll up his sleeves. “I don’t really have magic like that. All I can do is See into the future.”
Kevin grinned. “That’s great! You can See how we get out of this and tell us what to do.”
“Not... not really.” He kept his eyes on his beanie. “I’m cursed. No one ever believes what I say.”
There was an uncomfortable beat where no one said anything. The Daniels on the couch laughed together. It sounded the same.
“Do you believe yourself?” Cloak questioned gently.
He nodded.
“Well... maybe you could tell us?” He motioned to himself and Daniel. “We’re technically you.”
He looked hesitant. “I-I don’t know. Would that work?” He messed with his beanie some more. “I don’t really like looking into my own future.”
“That sounds like a good loophole if I ever heard one.” Daniel shrugged.
“It’s up to you,” Kevin added.
He looked around at everyone. “I guess there’s no harm in trying.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It didn’t take long for him to wince. He rubbed the center of his forehead with his finger, but it didn’t do anything to dissuade his pinched expression. “Th-there’s --” he gasped sharply, his eyes blowing wide -- “there’s... there’s...” his breathing quickened.
Kevin was at his side in a flash. Apparently, it didn’t matter the Daniel, his mother-hen instincts were ready to go at any sign of distress. “Hey, I’m right here. What happened?”
Gray clutched the front of Kevin’s shirt like a lifeline. It sounded like he was choking. “T-too, too many. There’s too many.”
“Breathe. It’s okay.” With little deliberation, he placed his hands on Gray’s arms. If these Daniels thought similarly, they probably responded to anxiety similarly as well. And if there was one thing Kevin was quick to learn, it was that Daniel relied on touch to help him feel better. He would have preferred to wrap him in a tight hug, but he didn’t want to make him feel like he couldn’t breathe. “What’s too many? What did you See?”
“Futures. M-my future. His. Ours.” He shut his eyes and gasped for air. “E-every, every Daniel in here. I-I See them all. They’re all -- they’re all mixing together in my head.”
“Okay. You’re okay. Let’s just focus on something easier. How ‘bout mine? Can you tell me my future?”
Gray opened his eyes and looked into Kevin’s. His breathing began to slow and his grip loosened little by little. “Once you ask Daniel that thing you want to,” he mumbled. His eyes glanced over to Daniel, “everything will turn out fine.”
Kevin snorted, a half smile on his face. “I don’t know about that.” then he frowned. “Sorry.”
Gray shook his head. “I’m used to it.” but he sounded sad. He noticed Purple Sweater staring at them. His expression seemed almost pained with longing. He recalled a future -- a brief flash in his mind -- with Kevin, Anna, and a little girl. A tight-knit family with a chance he’d never see them again. He took a step back. “I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s alright. Happens to the best of us.” He gave him a small smile.
Daniel sighed. “Now what do we do?”
“I... may have an idea,” Cloak interjected hesitantly. “I just thought of it. I don’t know if it’ll work.”
“I think at this point anything is worth a shot,” Purple Sweater said.
Everyone else seemed to be in agreeance.
Cloak sighed. “Okay.” He scanned the page once more before standing up. He waved a hand over the coffee table and all the ingredients appeared. Purple Sweater and Headphones somehow appeared weary and impressed at the same time. Cloak grabbed the azurite with both hands, clasping it tightly. His eyes shined gold. When he opened his hands, the azurite shimmered with that same gold color. “Do the ritual the same way you did it before.” He handed the azurite to Daniel. “This should be able to reverse the effects. I hope.”
Daniel stared at the gold streaks swirling around the deep blue of the azurite. Then he looked up at Kevin, who gave him an encouraging smile. Then he looked at the Daniels. They were staring at him expectantly. Well, if anything was worth a shot...
He sat on the floor and repeated the steps. It was hard to ignore all the eyes watching his every move. Not that he could blame them for being so intense about it. Their fate rested on his shoulders. No pressure or anything.
Much like before, when he dropped the azurite in, smoke billowed out of the container, except this time gold glistened within it like flakes of glitter.
“Did it work?” Kevin asked as he waved away the smoke.
He looked around and only saw one Daniel.
~~~
A shiver ran down his spine as his feet connected with the ground. He stumbled forward but managed to keep himself from crashing onto the... hardwood... floor...
Wait a minute.
His apartment had hardwood floors, but it wasn’t this color. He lifted his eyes and horror hovered over his shoulders, threatening to sink its claws into him at any moment. The foyer he stood in was foreign to him. The front door didn’t match his apartment’s at all, and the neighboring key hook had a set of car keys hanging on it. He didn’t know how to drive and he certainly didn’t live with anyone who knew how to.
The horror slashed down his back when he heard the quick padding of feet behind him.
“Daddy!”
His entire body stiffened. Several daunting things became evident all at once. The first, and most prominent, one being this was not his universe. How would he get back without the help of any other Daniels? God, he would much prefer to be back with all of them in that weird place than wherever he was now. He’d rather live there forever than be trapped here with... with...
He slowly turned around. A little girl with dark hair and bright blue eyes smiled up at him.
She launched herself at him. “Where are the snacks?” she peeked up with a mischievous smile.
“I-I, uh --”
Her smile turned into a curious frown. “When did you start wearing glasses?” she frowned further and reached into his hoodie pocket before he could be affronted by her audacity. “What’s this?” she pulled out the Switch controller, giving it a scrutinizing once over.
He resisted the urge to yank it out of her hands and instead gently pried it away from her. He had a feeling the other Dan wouldn’t be too happy if he upset his daughter. “I-it’s, uh, it’s something for later.” he shoved it back into his pocket with a nervous smile. He hoped that he wasn’t messing up time-space by being here with things that shouldn’t exist yet. If all his years of watching Doctor Who was anything to go by, it wasn’t that big a deal, but he wasn’t too sure about it now.
Her eyes lit up. “Is it a game?”
“It’s -- yes. It’s a game.” Jesus Christ, he had no idea how to talk to children. He couldn’t comprehend how he was a dad in this universe. He thought about being a dad one day, but faced with the reality of it, he was feeling all sorts of anxieties and fears he didn’t know were possible.
“I wanna play!” she bounced on the balls of her feet.
“Uh, not yet.” he stepped around her to start a search for a secluded spot in the house. “It’s... it’s a surprise. For later. Much later.”
She pouted, dragging her feet as she trailed after him. “Aw, but I wanna play now.”
“J-just, uh, just give it some time, dear.”
This gave her pause. “You don’t call me that,” she said matter-of-factly. “Only Gramma calls me that.”
Oh, shit. He only said it because that’s what his mom called him and his brother. Of course he would let it continue to be her thing. That sounded like something he would do.
She looked him over again. “Why do you look funny?”
“I...” he had half a mind to make a bad joke but realized that would probably be the worst thing he could do. Instead, he panicked about what would be the best thing to do. He couldn’t say he wasn’t her dad; that would lead to more confusion. “I will answer that... in just a second.” he started trailing down the hall to what he hoped was the bathroom. Unfortunately, Cupcake continued to follow him.
To make matters worse, as soon as he approached the door, it swung open. He yelped in surprise. “Kevin?!”
Kevin stared back at him with wide eyes. “Dan?” he looked him up and down. “When did you get back? Where’s Anna?”
“Anna?” why was he supposed to know where Anna was?
That appeared to be the worst response he could have made. Kevin frowned. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Ask him why he’s wearing funny things.” Cupcake pointed up at him as she peered around his body to give Kevin a serious pout.
Kevin looked him up and down again. “Yeah, that was going to be my next question.”
He noticed two doors to his left. He hoped one of them was his bedroom in this universe. “It’s -- this is hard to explain.” he started inching to the closest door. “Just give me a minute.” He shut the door in their faces. He felt a little bad about it.
“Is Daddy okay?” Cupcake whispered.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Kevin answered, sounding like a plain lie to Dan. “Let’s go call Anna.”
Dan sighed and thumped his head lightly against the door. How the hell was he going to explain this? God, he just wanted to go home. He couldn’t be a dad! He especially couldn’t be Cupcake’s dad. He didn’t know her favorite food or her bedtime routine or what movies she liked to watch.
She wasn’t his daughter.
And her real dad was in some other universe trapped the same way he was.
He couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. Thinking he’d see his daughter again only to wind up in another alien place. No one won in this scenario, and he was starting to feel worse about it by the second.
Sighing again, he pushed himself away from the door and looked around the room. It appeared he made the right choice. This room was set up in an eerily similar way to his own bedroom back at home. There were differences here and there, but he could still tell this was his bedroom. If this wasn’t at the bottom of his list of Weird Things That Happened Today, he’d find more care to be creeped out by it.
He noticed some pictures on the dresser across from him and decided to take a closer look. At home, this dresser was smaller and had a lot more random crap stacked on top of it. There was still random crap on this one, but he didn’t care about that as much.
He picked up one of the frames. It was of this universe’s Dan, Anna, and Kevin. They looked young -- still teenagers. It was hard to discern their location, but there was a rocky cliffside in the back, and wispy green plants moved in a captured breeze at their feet. Dan was at the front, leaning against a railing, looking toward the camera with a crooked grin. He had a hand up to stop his hair from flying in his face. Anna sat on top of the railing beside him. She leaned forward so the camera could see her sticking her tongue out. She didn’t seem to mind her hair being in the way. Kevin stood as if he was prepared to jump over the rail, but stopped only to take the picture. He had his typical faux innocent smile.
The next photo was of a baby. This one appeared to be done by a professional. The background was a soft peach color. Fine, dark hair poked around a white floral headband. Her eyes seemed brighter and bluer than they did in person. She gave the camera a wide, toothless smile.
The other photo was also of Cupcake. About toddler age this time, wearing a t-shirt with a cute animal on it. She had her hand out to a sheep eating out of her palm. She watched it with an excited beam.
He set down the frame. Frowning, he took a step back. Then immediately hissed out a curse and jumped away. As he rubbed his foot, he looked down at the floor and saw a lone Lego piece. Near the bed sat a tipped-over tub of Legos. Even with the annoyance of stepping on a damn piece, he couldn’t help but smile.
He knelt beside the tub and noticed a lot of things happening at once.
There were dolls sitting on crudely constructed chairs, and different structures made of mismatched bricks. He noticed a few Lego figures assembled into horrific monsters. That was definitely something he’d do. He frowned.
They were playing together.
He could see it happening. The tub of Legos was kept under the bed -- a secret at first to keep Cupcake out of them and stop her from making a mess. But she figured it out. Then, perhaps today, she dumped them onto the floor and insisted Dan play with her. She brought her dolls to have them interact with their new Lego world. Dan showed her how to make abominations, which she promptly built a jail for.
It seemed like fun. And even despite the horrible reality of being here, he smiled a little at the thought. A father and daughter enjoying each other’s company. As if nothing else in the world mattered besides the havoc they created.
Then he frowned again.
He was hit with the stark realization that the only way he’d get to experience this was if he stole it from someone else. He could only have a sweet, domestic life if he replaced this other Dan.
And, for a moment, it was tempting. Why wouldn't it be? It all seemed so uncomplicated. So easy. But he knew deep down he couldn’t ever live with that. He would rather have this be an unattainable dream than rob someone else of it.
He had to find a way back. This little girl needed her dad. Her real dad. Not someone who entertained the idea of being one.
He stood up, determined but also lost. He didn’t know how to get back, exactly, but he wouldn’t stop until he found a way. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Maybe he needed to retrace his steps from before this whole thing happened.
Except he noticed a few glaring problems with that almost immediately.
He was in 2005. Twitch wouldn’t be around for at least another six years. And as he looked around, he could see this Dan had no intentions of becoming a streamer. There wasn’t even a computer in here.
Dan thought back to 2005. It was almost twenty years ago by now. Jesus Christ, he was getting old. Gah! That wasn’t the point! Focus, Daniel, focus.
Okay. 2005. If there was a computer, it would be somewhere everyone could access it. However, it would also be where Kevin and Cupcake were. Dan wasn’t sure he was ready to talk to them yet, so leaving this room was a big no-no.
What else could he do? What happened the exact moment he was transported into another universe? He sat at his computer, he started setting up the stream, and then... he was looking at himself in a completely different room.
That wasn’t very helpful. Would he really have to wait six years to retrace his steps the right way? Six years was a long time -- it was an especially long time for a father to be without his daughter. He would miss so much by then.
No, there had to be another way. There had to be. He couldn’t be stuck here! There had to be something he was missing or something he needed to say or do or... or...
He stood there in silence for a moment that felt like an eternity, half expecting -- hoping -- to get dropped into the right universe. But nothing happened.
He heard Cupcake and Kevin whispering right outside the door.
~~~
He took a breath so deep it hurt his chest.
His lungs filled with smoke, but by the time he exhaled, it was already gone.
He found himself looking into the surprised faces of Daniel and Kevin in a rather familiar living room.
He patted his pockets and found his phone and his Switch controller. He could feel headphones over his ears. He brought up a trembling hand to his chest. There was an embroidered patch beneath his fingertips.
Oh.
Before any of the other Daniels could say anything, the Daniel sitting beside Kevin disappeared in a jarringly cartoonish poof! only to be replaced with a toddler in clothes far too big for him.
Once again, before anyone could react, the toddler screamed, “fuck!” as loud as he could, startling everyone. He buried his face in his little hands.
“Whoops!” Kevin hurried in and scooped him up. “Don’t worry about this -- happens all the time.” He flashed the rest of the Daniels a nervous smile as he began to back out of the room. “Just give us a second.” then he ran down the hall.
A long, heavy silence stifled the room.
“I didn’t think today could get any weirder,” Cloak mumbled under his breath.
Purple Sweater opened his mouth to comment but closed it when he caught Headphones sitting down out of the corner of his eye. He looked way more exhausted than the first time they saw each other. His shoulders were more hunched and a tight frown stayed on his face as his eyes gazed at nothing in particular. “Are you feeling okay?”
His eyes flicked up then immediately turned in another direction. “I’m fine.”
Purple Sweater frowned. Now he understood why Kevin and Anna always tried so hard to help him. He kept quiet for a moment. The other two Daniels started their own conversation. “I’m pretty sure I was in your universe.” Headphones said nothing. “I found myself sitting in front of this crazy-looking computer with a bunch of different things happening. I don’t understand how you can read what all those people say.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “You get used to it.”
“I turned it off, I think.” He wasn’t sure which monitor he needed to pay attention to. They all had something on their screens, but he was pretty sure he shut down the stream at least. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a dad than I did fumbling around with your computer.”
He laughed lightly, but the smile didn’t stay there for long.
That didn’t work. He needed to come up with something else. “I liked your Lego collection. I haven’t seen any of those sets before.”
At last, Headphones looked up at him.
Across the living room, the Daniels there were having a similar conversation.
“Are the animals in your house supposed to be there?” Cloak asked with a bit of genuine concern. He had never seen anything like it before. He heard of people keeping cats and canines, though they tended to stay outside. But this man had a whole menagerie in his tiny cabin. He even had a rat. Who willingly kept rats in their house?
Gray smiled, the first time he had done so. “Yeah. They’re my pets.”
“Even the sheep?”
His smile widened. “She’s spoiled. She gets offended if I leave her outside for too long.” His smile shrunk a bit. “Are they doing okay?”
“I believe so. The cat didn’t seem to like me very much.”
“Yeah, he’s not a big fan of Daniels.”
“A big... fan?”
Gray couldn’t help but chuckle at Cloak’s confused expression. “It’s just a saying. He doesn’t like me very much, either.”
“Ah.” These people had such weird words and phrases.
“So I guess I was in your universe,” Gray said after a moment. He returned to his meek posture and tone. “Your friends told me what happened. I’m sorry about your library.”
The library. Burnt to a crisp and destroyed along with most of The Castle. Even now his heart ached thinking about it. He spent his entire childhood in that library. Against his will, mind you, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see it destroyed. “Oh, it’s alright.” he tried to smile. “Hard for things to stay gone when you have magic.”
Just then, Daniel -- back to an adult -- and Kevin returned to the room. Daniel’s entire face was red down to his neck. He held up a finger to stop anyone from speaking. “We are not going to talk about it. No one is going to ask me any questions about it. We’re just going to ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen.”
The other Daniels acquiesced.
Daniel smoothed out his shirt and sighed. Then the calm was broken. “How the hell did you guys get back here?!”
“I retraced my steps,” all four Daniels answered at the same time.
“None of us were in the right universe,” Purple Sweater explained.
“But you were gone for, like, thirty seconds. There’s no way any of you are that fast.”
“What?” Cloak’s brows pinched together. “It was at least twenty minutes.”
“A few days for me,” Gray added.
“I had to wait until morning.” Purple Sweater frowned.
Daniel looked at Headphones, expecting him to follow the trend. When their eyes met, it was like looking at a completely different person.
“Six years,” he said, voice hollow.
“What?” Purple Sweater stared at him with huge eyes.
“I had to wait until it was 2011,” he didn’t look up at anyone, “once Twitch went live I made my account and wound up back here.”
“You went back in time?” Kevin asked.
“He’s from 2005.” He motioned vaguely to Purple Sweater who was starting to look like the world was falling apart around him.
“Does that mean,” he started softly, “if I go back now, I would I have missed six years of my daughter’s life?”
Kevin gave Daniel a worried glance.
Daniel tried not to start panicking. This complicated things. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ll... Okay, uh, I’ll just send you all back to right before you fell into this universe. It might take a little bit of extra time to figure it out but it could work. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”
Headphones looked up at him. “Like nothing ever happened?” His expression changed to one people rarely saw on any Daniels’ face. Fury. “I spent six years raising a daughter that wasn’t my own, and you expect me to act like it didn’t happen?”
“W-well...”
“I just lived a life I never thought I could have and... dammit, I liked it!” He tore off his headphones. “I liked teaching little kids how to write. I liked having a daughter. I liked living with my friends and being one big family. And you’re telling me I have to go back to my lonely apartment and -- and just forget about it?” His face was wild and desperate. Like he was fighting a losing battle.
Daniel opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find anything to say. Was there anything even to say? He could promise to fix it, but would any of them believe him? He messed everything up in the first place. And then things went wrong a second time. It didn’t matter what he said. It would sound like an empty promise. He closed his mouth.
Headphones huffed and stood up. He marched toward the front door without a word.
“Hey --” Kevin started, but Daniel put a hand on his arm.
“He’s not going anywhere.”
Once the door slammed shut, a tense silence fell over them. Purple Sweater quietly excused himself and followed Headphones.
He found him standing on the front porch, his arms resting on top of the banister. He stared down at the headphones in his hands like they were trying to start a fight.
“Hey,” he greeted softly.
“Hi,” he muttered.
Purple Sweater propped his arms against the banister and looked out into the front lawn. It was small. Kind of overrun. Tall bushes on either side separated them from the neighbors. They were in their own little world out here.
“When I found out I was going to be stuck there,” Headphones started, “I hid all my stuff in the bottom of a drawer."
“Smart,” was all he could think to say.
Headphones sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m talking like I’m the only one affected here.” he put his headphones around his neck. “I’m just... a little jealous, I guess. Your life was so simple. I appreciate my life don’t get me wrong -- I love that I get to play games for a living and I’m very thankful for what I have -- but seeing your universe...” he sighed again. “It just makes me feel like I missed out.”
A breeze rolled past before Purple Sweater decided to say anything. “My life wasn’t always that simple, you know.” his eyes stayed on the silent street as he recalled his messy past. “I tried to get married too young, I had a kid too soon, and my fiancée left me because she got tired of pretending to love me. I barely saw Cupcake for the first four years of her life. I was always working. Then I got my head out of my ass and asked for help. Anna and Kevin started living with me, I went back to school, and that’s where you picked everything up.”
He smiled at Headphones as best as he could. “Basically, what I’m trying to say is, you can still have that life. Mine only seems so perfect because you didn’t see what I went through to get it.”
“I guess you’re right.” He looked down guiltily. “It was just easier to pretend to be you for a little bit.”
Purple Sweater recalled the quiet apartment he found himself in. He hadn’t known quiet since before Cupcake was born. It turned out he didn’t miss it as much as he thought he did. “What’s stopping you from having one of your friends move in?”
“They have their own lives. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”
“You never know. One of them might be willing.”
Headphones didn’t respond. He brushed his hair back as another breeze went by. He tilted his head to look at Purple Sweater with new consideration. “Did you ever think about trying to get married again?”
Purple Sweater laughed. The type of shocked chuckle one does at a surprise. “Man, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that...” He shook his head. “I never wanted to get married in the first place. I like the way things are now. Why ruin a good thing?”
Wow. Headphones wished he could be this confident and secure about any of his decisions. “Your daughter is really lucky to have you.”
His smile turned small and brittle. “How is she?”
“She’s doing well. She started playing football and she’s really good at it. Like really good -- that’s not me being biased or anything --” they both chuckled -- “but she’s already decided she wants to be a veterinarian. She started getting into wildlife conservation by the time I was getting ready to leave.” He could have gone on for a while longer -- now he understood why parents talked about their kids so much -- but he saw the look on Purple Sweater’s face. It would have been cruel to keep going. “I, uh, I tried my best to act like you but I think she could always tell there was something off.”
“She’s too observant for her own good.” it almost sounded like he didn’t believe him.
Just then, a strong sensation raked down their backs, cutting their conversation short. They looked at each other.
“I think I’ve seen Into the Spider-Verse enough times to know that wasn’t a good thing,” Headphones said.
Purple Sweater stepped away from the banister. “Come on.” He opened the door.
Inside, the other two Daniels appeared to have felt the same thing. Cloak’s metal arm was on the floor.
He bent down cautiously to pick it up. “I’m losing connection to my magic.” He pulled it underneath his cloak and his eyes burned gold.
“Me too,” Gray muttered, his own eyes closed. He started to play with the end of his scarf so hard it looked like he began to unravel it. “I-it’s like something just snapped inside of me.” He opened his eyes. “I can’t See the future.”
Cloak blinked and the gold vanished from his eyes. He wiggled his metal fingers around experimentally. Rather than the fluid movement they were more than capable of before, they were frigid and clumsy. “Ugh, I can’t believe this is happening to me again.” He dropped his arm with a scowl. “We need to get home.”
“We still don’t know how to do that,” Kevin piped up.
“It doesn’t seem like we have much time to figure it out.” Headphones crossed his arms.
“What happens to us if we run out of time?” Gray asked.
No one responded right away. All eyes were on Daniel once again. He took a breath and started counting. “I don’t know, but we’re not going to run out of time. We almost had it right -- we just have to figure out what to tweak.”
“How do we figure that out?” Kevin asked. “We just keep sending them away until we find the right combination?”
“No!” Purple Sweater and Headphones shouted in alarm.
Daniel held up his hands in defense. “That’s not what I’m suggesting! I’m just saying there must have been something we missed. Something small.”
“Like... our hair?”
Everyone turned to look at Gray. He flipped the spell book around and pointed to one of the lines of ingredients. “When you did the spell again you only used your hair. But what if you need hair from all of us?”
“It can’t be that easy, can it?” Cloak looked at Daniel with disbelief. He hated this magic system so much.
“It might be.” Daniel took the book and looked it over again. “Decoding magic is complex. The closer you get to the right answer, the smaller the changes are going to be.”
“We’re technically hacking the system because of you.” Kevin grinned. “There’s usually a lot more failed attempts than this.”
He didn’t know what that meant, but he’d take it as a compliment.
Headphones groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Please don’t talk about failure right now. I don’t want to think about how much universe hopping I could have done.”
“Well, if things go right, this last hop will be to your homes.” He looked at Cloak. “Do you think you could get us those ingredients again?”
Cloak rubbed his forearm awkwardly. “You don’t have any extras laying around?”
“Believe it or not, we don’t have dirt from a primeval forest collected under a blood moon tucked away in a drawer somewhere.”
He pouted. “Okay, I get it.” He walked up to the coffee table. He put his hands on it and closed his eyes. “I ask to bring back what was used.” Nothing happened. “I ask for what we need.” Tiny sparks of gold swirled over the table but nothing appeared. He sighed harshly and shook out his hands, glaring down at the emptiness.
“Hey,” Kevin said gently, “it’s okay. We’ll find something else.”
“No, I can do this.” He placed his hands back on the table. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Phexas, if you can still hear me, please help. I need these things to get back home. I ask you to help me. Please help me.”
Daniel, starting to feel a little bad, opened his mouth to tell Cloak to stop, but as soon as he did so, everything they needed laid neatly out across the table in a bright flash.
Cloak took a step back, panting as if he ran a marathon. “Holy goddess above, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” he collapsed into the nearest armchair. “And I’ve fought a giant beast made of pure magic once.”
Purple Sweater blinked at him owlishly. “You did what?”
“Let’s see if this works.” Daniel sat down in front of the coffee table.
As Daniel prepared to redo the spell once again, Kevin looked at the other Daniels. They seemed nervous. “I would say it’s been fun,” he started, “but I think this was more stressful than having to take care of toddler you.”
“Hey -- watch it. I said we weren’t going to talk about it.” Daniel began to crush the aspen leaves.
“But it’s true. I had to literally fight your fears, I had to rescue you from your crazy boss -- worst of all, I had to act like a parent. Do you know how hard that is?”
Purple Sweater giggled behind his hand.
“And I would say this was harder than all of that. I never thought I’d live to see the day when you mess up something more than I did.”
Daniel glared at him as he dropped the mushroom piece into the bowl.
Kevin grinned back. “This can stay between us, though, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” He caught sight of Gray giving him a peculiar look. Upon close inspection, it seemed something close to... adoration? “What?”
Gray smiled. “You don’t change much in any universe, do you?”
He paused for a moment to process that. He looked around at these four different Daniels from four different universes. They looked and talked to him like they knew who he was. Like they knew what to expect. In every universe, Daniel and Kevin knew each other. No matter how much things changed, the thing that stayed the same was their friendship.
“Okay, final step.” Daniel held the matchbox. “Hopefully, this’ll be the last we see of each other.”
“If it’s not,” Headphones pointed at him, “I know you don’t fear death, and I’m not afraid to kill you.”
Despite the threat, Daniel smiled. “Noted.” he lit a match. “Here goes nothing.” He completed the spell a third time. And much like the first two times, smoke billowed out of the container. It smelled like fresh, clean air.
Daniel and Kevin waited in taut silence in an empty room. They were afraid to celebrate too early again. A minute passed. And then another. Daniel allowed himself to breathe when five minutes passed and no other Daniel reappeared.
“I think you did it,” Kevin said a little cautiously.
“I think I did.” He leaned against the couch. God, he wanted to sleep for two days straight again. What a horrible fucking mistake.
Kevin sat on the couch once it was beyond clear that the chaos was well and truly over. His leg bumped into Daniel’s arm.
Daniel looked at it, then up at him. “So you had something you wanted to ask me?”
Kevin stared at him for a long time. It was probably the most thoughtful and serious Daniel had ever seen him. He took a small breath, his mouth parting to speak --
The door swung open so hard and so fast that it smacked off the wall behind it. Sean shoved his way forward, holding several grocery bags with each arm as he yelled obscenities over his shoulder. Daithi yelled right back at him, holding significantly fewer bags.
“Get up, you lazy assholes,” Brian stuck his head through the doorway, “we share the suffering in this household.”
Daniel rolled his eyes.
Kevin grinned and stood up. He knew how to make this worse.
~~~
Dan blinked.
Wasn’t he just inside?
He was... what was he doing?
He breathed in the cool, crisp air. Oh, right! He just walked outside. He was supposed to see a movie with everyone today. He pulled his beanie further down his head and continued his trek down the mountain.
“There you are,” Spiff greeted once he got to the bottom. Mango looked up from her phone to give him a smile. “I was starting to think you got lost.”
Dan smiled. “Lost in thought, maybe.”
“Well, come on. If we’re late then Kiwo is never going to trust me to pick you up again.” He motioned with his hand for them to hurry up.
“I’m surprised she even trusted you in the first place,” Mango quipped.
“It’s because I’m responsible.”
Dan snorted. He didn’t believe that for a second, but Kiwo would have both their heads if they stayed here and argued about it. “Yeah, okay, let’s go.”
~~~
Wait, what?
The book in Dan’s hands slowly returned to ash as his concentration broke. He watched it fall between his fingers, where it got lost in all the other mess.
Damn. He must have started drifting off. Combing through ash and charcoal to recreate burnt books was hard. His brain was tired.
Kevin poked his head through the doorway with a large grin. “Hey, how’s --” the grin flopped into a frown. “Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” He looked around at all the ash he was sitting in. He was able to recreate the science part of the library (which had the most books and shelves intact) but he still had a long way to go.
“Looks like you need a break.” Kevin’s smile returned. “Come on. Sean made lunch.”
“Sean made lunch?” Dan’s smile grew at Kevin’s excited nod. “I have to see this.”
He hopped to his feet and raced Kevin down the hall.
~~~
“Dan?”
A box of mac and cheese slipped out of Dan’s hand and crashed into the cart. “Whoa, shit,” he hissed, startled. When did he pick that up?
“Swear jar,” Anna said without missing a beat.
Dan tried not to roll his eyes. “We’re not even home.”
“The swear jar must always be honored.” She gently elbowed him in the side. “Are you back on Earth now?”
“Yeah, sorry.” He brushed his hair back and took in the scene around him. They were in the pasta aisle, and the cart was getting fuller than they intended. It was meant to be a short trip to the store, but the longer they spent in there the more stuff they picked out. “I was having a really intense daydream, I guess.”
“I could tell.” she began to push the cart down the aisle. “But we have to get going. I don’t want your daughter to eat Kevin because we didn’t bring her snacks in time.”
Dan laughed. That didn’t seem like such a bad thing, in his opinion.
~~~
Dan stared down at the controller in his hand. It felt odd for a moment -- like he was meant to be doing something else. Wasn't he doing something else? He shook his head to clear it of all thoughts. No, that didn’t make sense. He must have nodded off or something. How unprofessional.
“Hey, guys, how’s it going? Can everyone hear me okay?”
What a strange, little dream.
#listen#you need a little nonsense sometimes#i was originally going to include daniels that werent mine as well#but 1)#five daniels was already too many#and 2)#there are a lot of rt AUs#like a lot#rtgame#callmekevin#you have no idea how long this stayed in my drafts#sonic writes sometimes
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IM IN LOVE WITH UR IDEA OF VAMPY LITTLE MC?? ITS SO SWEET AND HNNGNGNG 😭
i dont want to seem demanding bc ik rushing authors is impolite, and i dont want to cross boundaries. but could you write some hcs abt little mc nd her vampy daddies <3 have a good day!!
THANK YOU!!!
of course! also, you can find more under the fairy and cryptid mc tags, so I tagged them on this post for you :)
the boys work in the mafia, as it's the only way to let them stay in the same place for any long semblance of time without changing their identites.
when they first start courting mc, they try to learn to make human food and fail horribly. the only one who remembers how to cook is Seokjin, so he gives them lessons on the prep of her fav foods.
they would be very careful for the talk of turning mc, as they're all so so scared of losing her. She's so incrediblly fragile compared to them and others of their species, she bruises and breaks and hurts so much that it breaks their hearts. They want to turn her, but time the discussion very carefully so as to not lose her.
she figured out that they were vampires comically fast. the blood bags in the fridge and discomfort in the sun didi nothing to help hide that.
when mc is finally turned, it hurts like a motherfucker. The process of becoming a vampire is long and painful, and can only be sustained by the blood of the vampire that turned the person. MC regresses to deal with the trauma and pain of the transition. She teethes on their thick skin while her teeth grow in, is bottle fed the blood she needs to survive, and held tightly to their chests as she wails at the pain of her muscle tearing and rebuilding themselves.
they all "dress up" as vampires together on halloween to make MC happy, and let her "trick or treat" at all of the building around their estate. Each boy themes their building and compliments with her pretty oufit before sending her off with candy and a kiss. (she likes to go as draculara for halloween, her fav doll.)
the boys absolutely use their connections to buy her sample and unsold versions of the draculara dolls. they think it's th ecutest thing that she loves a cartton vampire so much.
she often sits in their laps while they do "business deals," either asleep or fiddling with a toy.
The memeber holding her is almost always more focused on her than their business. They're bouncing her, asking her questions about the doll she's playing with, petting her cheeks as she sleeps, etc. the only two who can focus more on their work than her are Namjoon and Yoongi.
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1- How good and dilfy is briar's dad to have so much fae pussy?
2- How often does she write to her siblings, and how is she able to send the letters?
3- Whats going on with Briar having clipped wings?
4-did Briar ever use that advice from Sabine? Is that how she earned so many pups?
5- headcanons for briarett as first time parents
HELL YEAH HOMIEEEE ty I'm gonna write so much shit
And please y'all: go show Rotten @rotten-hearts-sharp-teeth some love for Barrett because he needs his time to shine.
1. Briar actually has 2 dads and 2 moms. Polyamory isn't all that weird in fae circles (primarily elven and fairy) because they're tasty little morsels and if one parent is snapped up like the snack they are, you gotta hope for some additional stability. If anything, it's the norm.
That said, out of Briar's fathers (tentatively named Georgiy and Roman), Georgiy is definitely DILFy. Her folks were all part of a flood of fae that fled Eastern Europe in the human world around 1917 in the upheaval of WWI and the Russian Revolution. They were kids at the time, but they settled in a pocket of fae in what was largely predator territory. Georgiy may only have about average human strength, but he's a tough old man and carries it with him well after the parent poly unit moves much closer to the fairy capital in fae Scotland, a much safer place.
2. Briar wants to be where the people are. And as a result, she's gotta deal with writing to a world with a much lower state of technology but much greater magic. (Really, the difference is large in part to being unable to handle raw iron.)
To send it, she describes it as "sealing it with a kiss" because the letter will always find its recipient. In reality, there are little gremlin creatures that live in the machines at post offices and steal anything that smells like a fae letter. They move back and forth between worlds with ease and all they want in pay are paper scraps to eat. Before post office sorting machines, the critters would dig through piles of mail by hand.
3. Most fairies are not born winged as they cannot actually fly. That would be pixies, the much smaller variant. But when a fairy does have wings, it has been historically tracked to the ability to bear children for creatures outside the fae race.
It's a bit of a showy defense mechanism like "if you can't beat them-- breed them." Tooth faries, for example, are crosses between fairies and goblins. Orc and troll crosses would be the most common and would usually result in political marriages and children that keep some level of peace and prevent too many fae snacks. When a fairy does breed, the children often take most of the non-fairy genetics as dominant. There's a prevailing theory in the fae world that most lost their wings following excessive breeding with humans.
Now that said! Being born with wings puts a proverbial target on your back. "The winged are destined to leave" and "The winged will be cursed with love for other species." All good and fair things to be wary of, but the fae court can and will take winged fairies to raise if they want to marry them off in the future.
So when Briar was born, her parents panicked and immediately docked her wings to save her some the same fate. But then she went to the human world and decided to shack up with a werewolf, so there's that.
4. Lmao folks will only learn about Sabine's not so motherly advice on how to blow your werewolf when Rotten finishes her stories and I can publish. The short answer, though, is yes. And Briar does get pretty good at sucking Barrett's soul clean out.
5. Ohhh ty for this one. The first baby is a learning curve for both of them! Fortunately Briar's mothers and her younger sister come by to help Briar recover from a werepup birth. Barrett may be feeling awfully cramped in his home, but Briar needs it because the baby was MASSIVE. Takes after dad.
They're both really good parents though. The baby is almost always in somebody's hold and baby wearing is common in the house.
The most tender moments are feeding baby. Barrett takes a centuries old watch position and Briar gets to relax during the process. Since Barrett is very instinctually guided, the learning curve isn't that hard to master. Sometimes, if he's in charge of getting the baby settled after a feeding, he will joke "you're welcome" to the baby after a big burp.
He's also extremely good at taking care of both her and baby. The most tender of holds for bathtime. No request is too far. Is always ready to cuddle up.
Thinks everything is going great until baby #2 comes right on the heels of the first. Breeding kink went a little too hard. And no, Briar may know better on the timing as a Dr but can't really help herself either.
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Yall wanna see some cringe?
I decided to try creating pokemon variants or similar that one might find in my home state of Ms. I'm still working on more but it's a fun thought and doodle experiment
Blurb under cut. Please try not to take it all too seriously lol, this was just for funsies.
I'm also indulging my younger self. See a long, long time ago when I was a kid, I used to see my home as a place you could easily find pokemon around the corner. Tauros in the fields, Noctowl in the trees, the wasps were angry Beedrill, you get the idea
It was magical, a time before greed and capitalism caused rushed and unfinished games with questionable decisions by game freak higher ups. A time where I could just kinda look at the tall grass or the woods and see pokemon just living naturally without feeling a ton of responsibility or guilt for existing.
Recently I've decided to try exploring that AU, where states and such have their own dexes. Obviously some would overlap, like I'm very sure the Gulf Coast would have very similar dexes, but my idea would be that could start out with different starters that have different variant evolutions- and heck, you could even cross state borders to get theirs if that's what you wanted.
But for now, without getting way too deep, I decided to make variants based on critters that either exist here or have some sort of cultural tie in.
Let's go:
Typhlosion, Fire/Ground, low temp fires but also used for welding and construction, trusted with kids because they don't tend to start fires they don't quickly put out. The original line is already kinda mixed of badgers, weasels, moles, etc, but I think there's plenty of those here, and if nothing else Cyndaquil IS the fire mouse pokemon, and by God we got mice. Favoritism put it here admittedly since Cyndaquil was my very first pokemon in the games, and I'd want the same irl.
Blastoise, Water/Rock, basically more of a mobile tank people ride on. Uses the bubbles around its legs as wheels. Based on box turtles that live here
Chesnaught, Grass/Steel, based on various loggers and blue collar workers from here, helps with those sort of jobs and is pretty intelligent. It can form shields or slice up trees easily with its arm saws.
Yanma, Bug/Flying, based on dragonflies I see around the house
Yanmega, Bug/Steel, evolves while knowing Steel Wing. Tends to eat rusted metal from old farms and junk yards, very quick
Salandit, Ice/Electric, based on blue tailed skinks I see around my house often
Freezard, Ice/Electric, evolves from male ms Salandit. They take things by force if they want and their tails can be used as whips. Usually the females keep them in line though.
Corvilich, Flying/Rock- actually a cross over from a fan region I dabble in during my spare time. Lots of crows and corvids here, so naturally I think they'd be here too. Evolves from Corvisquire. They fight each other over nice bones and are great fliers, and are very intelligent, may or may not have good and bad omens associated
Miltank, Water/Normal, based on cows I see often taking dips in local ponds. Ms is a very farm heavy state, so I could see us having our own moomoo milk market. The arms and legs act like floaties.
Dragonite, Dragon/Fairy, evolves from Dragonair with high friendship. I wanted a psuedo legend, and then I found out Ms has its own dragon stories (even a town). I also thought it'd be neat to make a friend you'd maybe see in a forest, so I also added butterfly elements to it from the Great Purple Hairstreak.
I'm still making more, I'm progressing and getting a little better as I go, but I don't wanna get too crazy making a bunch. I'm thinking maybe about the same amount as Legends Arceus introduced. I do want to try making a full, balanced team, though, so I'll probably make more for that. So far though I could see myself with Typhlosion, Corvilich, Freezard, and Dragonite. Looking for a water type and maybe a doggo.
#pokemon#fakemon#arts and crafts with doubled#Typhlosion#Blastoise#chesnaught#yanma#yanmega#salandit#Corviknight#miltank#dragonite#regional variants#just for fun. please remember that
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