So, this is actually an AU I came up with last Mer-may that I rambled about in DMs and was then going to organize properly to post onto here! …And then uh. Never did that- So to get back in the swing of posting onto tumblr properly, I’ll just put what I had back then here!
This AU, as do all great AUs, came from a Bit in canon where Alejandro called the rest of Team CIRRRRH his little porpoises.
Naturally, I had to take this literally.
So feel free to take a gander at my AU! I will say there are warnings that this AU does involve casual mentions of death, technically not cannibalism, and violence.
Because why make a cutesy mer-may AU when you can instead explore the exploitative nature of capitalism, the brutality of nature and man, and how neither side is inherently ‘better’ than the other? While also sharing with the world how fucked up dolphins and orcas really are? (If you like these animals I am so sorry for the horrible real life things you’re about to discover about these creatures.)
While ALSO turning Owen into a marketable plushie?
So here’s the AU in one of a couple of parts, starting with the basic premise and some good old worldbuilding:
How Merfolk Work
Merfolk exist, ranging in size and type of sea creatures. They live happy and peaceful lives underwater. Not a care in the world. Humans are aware of them, though due to the delicate nature of merfolk they leave merfolk at least.
They are a friendly folk however, and do like chatting it up with humans. To facilitate more of these interactions and exchanges, humans established aquariums. These aquariums have tanks where merfolk provide information about their culture and show their prowess underwater in exchange for free food and human creature comforts.
It’s a beautiful little lie that aquariums sell to the public.
See, life in the ocean can be rather brutal. It’s very much a world where might makes right, and while merfolk will usually go for fish for food it’s not completely unheard of for them to go after each other if the food is tight, or if they just won a fight and want to prove a point.
For this reason, merfolk tend to stick in pods. It’s much safer being in a group after all. Those of the same species tend to group up naturally, though sometimes mixed pods do exist. They’re friendly and loyal to merfolk in their pod. But others? Not so much.
Pods aren’t always violent towards other pods. It’s possible for different pods to be friendly or leave each other be. Though some merfolk are more violent than others no matter what, and fights are always a looming threat.
How Aquariums Work
That’s where aquariums like Chris’ come in. Technically, it’s a hospital first and foremost. The aquarium has human staff that will venture out to find injured merfolk nearby. This is rather dangerous for the humans off searching given the whole ‘might makes right’ law of the sea. But they don’t need to know that until they’ve already signed a contract with Chris.
Merfolk can also drag themselves to the range or the hospital to seek treatment as well. Pods with some trust of humans drop off their injured in the hopes of seeing them recovered.
The aquarium takes in anyone that’s injured regardless of the circumstances. Including the violent types that were the one to cause the fight in the first place. The staff might even KNOW a merfolk has a kill count, but by law still have to treat them regardless.
This makes the aquarium protected in a sense. Despite being in one of the most active parts of the ocean where bullies absolutely would destroy the aquarium for shits and giggles, nobody dares. No hospital means no healing if you really need it.
There's this unspoken agreement of no attacking the aquarium or the zone around it. You can absolutely camp outside of the zone to strike if you want revenge on someone. But they’re allowed a fighting chance.
No one is allowed to live inside of this neutral zone because the more aggressive folk wouldn't be so willing to allow for that tentative neutral zone if they knew anyone could hide there. The official reason is to allow for there to be room in case there’s overflow of merfolk, which does happen on a few occasions.
So this means the aquarium is a force of good, right?
Well.
Once a merfolk has recovered (enough) from their injury, they’re expected to pay back the debt they now owe to the hospital. Humans don’t care for what merfolk consider valuable, so they’ve come up with an alternate way for merfolk to pay it back.
Entertainment.
Merfolk do these cultural exchanges and performances to pay off their medical debt. It’s sold to the public as merfolk doing this out of the goodness of their hearts because then people might start questioning why merfolk are getting injured all the time.
Peaceful exotic merfolk are a much easier sell than nuanced violent merfolk, so aquariums and other humans that wish to profit off merfolk do their best to suppress that reality and instill peace and love above merfolk.
How Team CIRRRH comes into the picture
Noah, Izzy, Owen, and Tyler are a pod of porpoises just trying their best to survive in this world. They’re joined by Eva, who is the odd one out as a dolphin. (How is someone like Eva a dolphin you might ask? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.)
Duncan is a mer-orca who lives in his own tank near their own given that he’s 20 feet from head to tail. He’s not part of their pod, but he does talk with them on occasion. Alejandro, meanwhile, is the sole human who gets the rather unfortunate job of being their caretaker given they have a tendency to cause havoc at the aquarium.
The main pod are often the victims of their own shenanigans…and merdolphins that see them as easy targets.
To understand why dolphins hate them, we’re going to sidetrack a little bit for real life horrifying dolphin facts. If you like dolphins, I’m sorry you’re going to learn what they’re capable of today.
While dolphins and poirpoises are usually used interchangeably, there are differences between the two of them.
This here is a dolphin:
And this here is a porpoise:
The main differences are in how dolphins have longer noses, bigger mouths, leaner bodies, and curvier fins.
There’s also the fact that dolphins are assholes.
They might love humans and be friendly with them, but that love and kindness does not extend to other sea life. Particularly porpoises. Dolphins will attack and kill porpoises for seemingly no reason at all. There’s even a term for it: porpicide. (None of the links are graphic, they’re just articles that talk about it without going into much detail to show I’m not making this up.)
Experts assume it’s probably got something to do with competing for food, but there’s been no exact evidence for it.
So of course, me being me, I had to not only include this real life fact in mermaid au but make it a pivotal plot element.
Mer-dolphins bully mer-porpoises with a passion for no reason other than that they can. Mer-dolphins aren't like this with humans at all. Got no problem with them! Humans are great! It's literally just porpoises that get the shit end of the stick.
All this leads to Team CIRRRH being frequent visitors in the aquarium. Leading to all sorts of nonsense and drama as they contend with the world they live in and now the human who’s trying to get more control over them.
There’s a lot more to this AU, from backstories on each of them to different events that happen in the aquarium proper, but for the sake of readability I’m going to split it into more parts. Good news is I already have said parts and just need to edit so I should (hopefully) get the next part out in a couple of days.
Until then, see you next time where I talk about the backstories of these porpoises, this reformed dolphin, and not reformed (yet) orca!
Plus their human caretaker who is absolutely just someone who really cares about merfolk and has no secrets about things his family may or may not have done whatsoever.
Alenoah Hypnosis Corruption AU, where after Alejandro hears Noah call him an 'eel dipped in grease', Alejandro makes a deal with Noah... If Noah lets Alejandro hypnotize him into not saying the truth about Alejandro to anyone again, then Noah won't get eliminated... However if Noah refuses to get hypnotized, then Alejandro will hypnotize Owen instead, after Noah's elimination... Noah hesitantly agrees to be placed in a trance by Alejandro... Alejandro tells the hypnotized Noah to be loyal to Alejandro! 🍥
So, funny story anon. I don't really have any more ideas I could add to this lovely idea you've presented...because you've accidentally (I hope) recreated the wheel.
You've also accidentally awoken the essayist that has realized she has the opportunity to share things she knows. So, with that in mind:
(I don't mean for Lisa to be mad. I am genuinely excited to share these things with people who potentially don't know them. I just couldn't find a better meme.)
Feel free to read under the read more for fanfic recs followed by my own personal thoughts about the Alenoah hypnosis corruption and why I love it so. I'm basing my knowledge on what I've seen on Tumblr and on Ao3. If you feel like I've missed anything, please let me know!
First the elephant in the room: the horny fics.
Yes, the earliest examples of Alejandro using hypnosis on Noah were smut. No, I'm not about to link them for what I would hope to be obvious reasons.
To be clear, I've got no problem with people who do have hypnosis as a kink. Everyone's allowed to have or not have a kink so long as it doesn't hurt anybody. To each their own so long as consent's involved.
The problem only starts when you do things like bringing minors into the mix. For what, again, I hope are obvious reasons.
Hypnosis is something that can be used as a great plot device when used for non-horny reasons too, and that's the context we're looking at them here.
So now onto the more palatable dark, horrible things you can do with hypnosis! /aff
The one who started the most recent trend was Creative_Creatures with their fic To Reach New Heights. It's a NoCo fic they started in November 2023 and was discontinued in April 2024.
Alejandro tricks Noah into letting himself get hypnotized, and Noah starts getting more and more corrupted as he grapples with his sense of self and the version of himself Alejandro is imposing on him. Cody starts noticing something's up, and Alien Cody also gets involved in the plot.
There are some moments of OOCness that the author has admitted to. They've also stated that they no longer like the work, hence the fic being discontinued. However, I still think it's worth checking out at the very least as a fic to learn from. It still deserves the credit for being the first to try tackling the subject, even if the result didn't end up as expected.
After Creative-Creatures came Total-drama-brainrot, aka Ophe. For Ophe there's actually a linear timeline for how their fic, Snap, Crackle, and Pop, came to be.
The seed started on January 14th, where Ophe made a stray comment about how the fandom doesn't really address the fact that Alejandro hypnotized Owen, and received a response regarding the negative side effects of hypnotism that Owen could have hypothetically dealt with: https://www.tumblr.com/total-drama-brainrot/739512421490835456/i-was-thinking-more-along-the-lines-of-how-messing
About a month later, Ophe made a seemingly random ask regarding how one would write hypnosis. I may or may not have a footnote in this history as I made a comment regarding To Reach New Heights: https://www.tumblr.com/total-drama-brainrot/741634477880754176/how-the-fuck-am-i-supposed-to-write-hypnosis
A day later they unleashed Snap, Crackle, and Pop, a fic where Alejandro convinces Noah to make a bet regarding hypnosis, and takes advantage of Noah's forced compliance from then on. Though Noah is by no means helpless and finds his own ways to fight back.
The fic only has three chapters written so far with no clear idea of when the next chapter will release. Still, I highly recommend it for the writing and the exploration of the concept.
About a week later, Ayawilliams came into the picture. For those of you who don't know who Ayawilliams is, I'm going to assume you're new to the fandom. In which case, hi! Glad to have you here! They've been shipping Alenoah as far back as 2016 on Fanfiction.net from what I can tell. This was way before it started taking over as the main ship in 2021. They're still consistently writing fic every few days, and through all of this have made a name for themselves on AO3.
If you look through the comments for the first chapter of Snap, Crackle, and Pop you can see that AyaWilliams definitely did take note of the hypnosis fic, and of To Reach New Heights. Almost a week later they delved into their first foray into hypnosis fic: Passive. (Though the main inspiration for the fic is credited to a role-reversal genderswapped fic called Hexxed by lonelybrachiobrute (triceratroops)).
Passive's a role reversal one-shot where Noah is actually the one hypnotizing Alejandro to be better at the competition for just a small, tiny price.
AyaWilliams liked the idea so much they made a sequel fic set in the same universe during the London episode called Unrecognized Yearnings.
The hypnosis trend of fic came full circule on March 5, 2024 when AyaWilliams wrote A little persuasion. After London, Alejandro threatens Noah into letting Alejandro hypnotize him or else he'd do it to Owen.
Since that fic, there haven't been any new additions to the hypnosis trend for Alenoah.
Which I think is a shame, because I do rather like hypnosis as a plot device. It's a branch of mind control that needs one party to trust the other in order for it to work. It's an exploration of power dynamics, and how they can be exploited and taken advantage of.
And although none of these fics explore it, I also like considering the other side of hypnosis. With the idea that the trust is warranted, and the hypnotizer uses a power that could so easily destroy and corrupt to instead help the hypnotizee achieve a state of calm and peace they didn't know was possible. Or to help them work past their own inner demons by detaching in a safe way, with the ability to ground themselves to come to a better understanding of themselves.
Or as another, more specific, certainly not something I have in mind for one of my own AUs example: Having Alejandro who starts off with using hypnosis merely to get what he wants from people, only to transition as he grows as a person to use it to do something like bring a certain cynic out of a dissociative state induced by personal trauma. And possibly becoming open to the idea of allowing said cynic that same amount of power over him, creating a more balanced relationship founded on trust between the two.
But you didn't hear that example from me.
Hypnosis can be used in multiple ways, and how specific characters use it and react to it speaks so much about who they are as a person. Every way is neat, and I hope to see more of it!
I'm not late to Noahvember. You're late to Noahvember. /j
Here's my one contribution for Day 7: Free Day
A Giant/Tiny AU! If you know me this should not come as a surprise to you. If you don't, welcome to my madness.
It's got Assistant Noah if you really squint at it, Alejandro in a robot suit, and Noah just being a little guy trying his best to live in a production lot.
Enjoy my 4.3K rambles I put under a read more so as to not flood your dash!
Noah is a Borrower. He's about the size of a mouse, which is pretty common for his kind. As are the pointed ears and the tail.
His kind tend to stay in small groups inside human-made structures. They don't let the larger folk know about them since. Well. They've seen how humans treat each other. Doesn't put much confidence in how they'd be treated.
To help with this, they would do maintenance on the houses they lived it. It was their house too, after all. Plus, when things went wrong, then maintenance people were called. They could open walls to find the source of the problem and instead find the evidence of Borrowers. If not Borrowers themselves.
It would be safer to hide themselves in the woods. However, that would open themselves up to attacks from the wildlife. A few groups try, and manage to make it work. But they are few and far in between.
Not Noah, though. He's trekking out on his own.
Not completely by choice, mind you. One of his older siblings had gotten sloppy with their 'borrowing'. (Noah had always thought borrowing was a stupid name for it. It was stealing. No amount of dressing it up would change it. It's not like any humans would even notice enough to care what they called themselves.)
Fortunately for them, the humans had thought it was just a rat problem. Unfortunately for them, when they were too smart for the rat traps the humans had called an exterminator. In the panic he'd gotten separated from the rest of his family.
So now, he was here. Living in the walls of a tv studio. You wouldn't think it'd be the best place to set up his home, but you'd be surprised.
The production lot he lived on was one that was used mainly for pilots thinking they were going to be the next big thing. With the rapid turnover of staff, actors, and producers, no one stayed long enough to notice when little things went missing.
There were plenty of rafters to run across with no one the wiser. The techies were usually more concerned with their screaming bosses than noticing movement out of the corner of their eyes.
Where he actually lived, the prop room, wasn't so bad either. He mainly stayed in the area where they dumped all the crap they were never actually going to use again, but still kept around 'just in case'. It left him perfect materials to steal from and craft with.
His favorite piece to take from was something they called the Drama Bot. It was something they'd used for some mindless talk show piece? It had been in another set, so he had. no clue. He just knew the thing was shut down and had enough wires and metal to make scrap from.
Though the part that made the set one of the objectively best places to be was one exclusive to sets alone: craft services.
Craft services were a godsend. Finger sandwiches, bite-sized brownies, etc. Most of the food was already in small portions for actors and set workers to eat on the go. It was all too easy to grab and take away. They even labelled ingredients for allergies.
You would think that the universe already hated him enough with making him small enough to be swatted at by a broom but no, it also had to give him life threatening allergies limiting his already small selection of food choices.
He just had to make sure he stole while they were filming. Which also meant a free show.
If only 'free' meant 'good'.
Most of the time he could tell when a show was going to be dead in the water. Whether it was from the way the actors and producers bickered when they thought no one was watching (the REAL show if anyone asked him), or if the script was just awful.
Noah wanted better entertainment, but books were his normal go to. The only books he could really find here were prop books, or scripts.
Particularly the scripts that found their way into the producer's room. There were always stacks from wannabe writers and so many of them were garbage. Those ones usually found their way into the garbage. They were good for when Noah wanted to laugh and tear something to shreds.
Though there was always the one script in there that really shouldn't be. Usually because of a producer's personal biases or it not being 'marketable' enough. And he'd also find scripts that made it to the table for further consideration that were utter garbage, but the kind of utter garbage that sold.
...If those two types of scripts had ever 'found themselves' switched, then no one else was really complaining about it. And they better not. They were hard they were to drag.
So all in all, life was pretty good. Things were chaotic, but in a routine way. One he could prepare and plan for. Important aspects for survival.
Then life decided to kick him in the shins with a pilot that actually took off.
This newest production was 'Total Drama Dirtbags'. It was reality TV, so far from the most intelligent thing. But it did involve assholes giving each other what they deserved by their sheer presence, so there was cathartic amusement to be had there. The formula must have worked for enough people because the concept was greenlit, and due to a shortage of production sets they decided to film it in this lot.
Most of the people living in 'the mansion' were vapid. They thought they were manipulative and outsmarting each other, when really it was just the clear script some writer had made working towards making sure certain storylines went through.
With one exception. One Alejandro Burromuerto.
He would come up with improv, except unlike the others attempts his were actually good. The host and producers would let him keep it in, despite him being a new face for as far as Noah could tell. He still kept up his act offset. Charming assistants just as much as his fellow contestants.
It was only when Alejandro was completely by himself that Noah saw the mask fully drop.
He'd expect Alejandro to just be a complete asshole like the others were when the cameras weren't rolling, but...no. He seemed more tired than anything else. He'd just scroll on his phone and put earphones in.
Noah dared to get close enough to see what Alejandro was doing. He wasn't sure why. It was incredibly stupid, as he could see how perceptive Alejandro could be. But...he was just curious. Even if he couldn't pinpoint why.
The reason why Alejandro read on his phone became clear with each time Noah checked. The Cask of Amontillado the first time, then a reality baking show, Tony Hawks, hell one time he saw the man watching an episode of Dinosaur Train.
It left Noah with so many questions. Given how Alejandro danced around others' questions, he doubted he would get any straight answer.
Not that he could even ask in the first place. Curiosity didn't make him suddenly stupid. He wasn't about to expose himself just because a mystery of a man showed up as one of the more interesting things in his short life.
It wasn't meant to be, anyways. Filming on set wrapped up quicker than Noah had realized it would.
They bothered to rent an actual mansion for the finale. No final day party or anything. No proper send off.
It was fine. Life goes on. Noah should have known better than to let himself get spoiled with an interesting enigma.
…He would have been as fine as he could be with it. If he wasn’t embroiled within a different enigma.
Someone came to take the drama bot away. Nearly caught Noah too, as he hadn't expected anyone to come that deep into the prop room. It wasn't completely unheard of for someone to need an old prop to repurpose into something else. But that hadn't quite explained the panic on the interns face as he came to remove it.
So there went another of Noah's sources of comfort. Sure, it was an unmoving hunk of metal, but it was still the closest thing to companionship that he was going to get.
A few days later, they brought the drama machine back. It looked different. Modified. Extra screws, polished metal. Small details others might have ignored. Glaringly obvious at Noah's size.
When the coast was clear, he approached the bucket of bolts. There might be something new to salvage if he could find a new way to dig in there.
Yellow and blue masks blinked to life as he got close. The thing started beeping loudly. Rolled away from him.
Reflected Noah's panic at this machine that was still powered on this time around. He was lucky his size meant his screams and scrambling backwards couldn't be picked up by anything other than this lumbering death machine.
Although the Drama Bot had no eyes to move, Noah had the distinct feeling he was being watched by this thing. He knew human technology was coming along fast, but he hadn't been expecting this.
The machine began to roll forward. Noah had no idea what kind of programming it had in mind for something like Noah, but he wasn't about to take any chances. He ran to the nearest hole in the wall and stayed there as he struggled to figure out what to do with the thing.
He could try to turn it off. It'd mean sneaking up on the thing. Failure of which would mean getting caught or crushed. He'd get the prop room back for himself.
Safer thing to do was leave it be. Accept the prop room as a lost cause and find somewhere else on the lot to live. Find somewhere that had more of a risk of being caught by human, but less of being rolled over by a robot.
There was a third option. This thing wasn't remote operated like Noah had assumed when he'd first seen it. It turned itself on because it saw Noah. Whether that's because it saw Noah as a rat or a human, he couldn't tell. Not without experimenting, which brought its own risks.
...He really hoped it didn't have any memories of him stealing pieces of it away for parts.
Noah poked his head out of his hiding hole. The bot was back where it had been left behind. Powered down once more. Good. He climbed up and out of sight. Based on its design, the thing couldn't tilt its head up. He'd be using that to his advantage.
He climbed onto one of the highest shelves he could manage. The more distance between him and the robot, the better. Only then did he strike up his nerve.
"Hey!"
The 'eyes' lit up again. The thing spun towards him, but as he suspected, didn't look up. It was making his way closer to his shelf.
Then...it stopped. Began to roll away from him. It didn't even turn around. It stopped a distance away from him. Now it'd be harder for his voice to carry through. It was a stupid choice on the robot's end, but it seemed very deliberate. The only thing backing up accomplished would be giving it distance...
Oh.
The robot was clever.
Noah couldn't quite pretend to be human anymore now that the thing could see him. Even if it was a much smaller version of him from a much wider field of view. Still, this had to work, or else he'd just put himself in danger for nothing.
"Blink once if you can understand me!" His voice was going to kill him tomorrow. At least he was rewarded with the robots masks flashing once.
"Good! You're not going to kill me or snitch, and I'm not going to take any parts out of you. Deal? One blink for yes, two for no."
Noah wouldn't be able to steal from it anyways now what it was active. He wasn't about to risk electrocution. But the robot didn't need to know that.
It blinked once.
Good. Noah was content for each of them to stay out of each other's way. He still grabbed his stuff and settled in for one of the higher shelves that the robot couldn't reach on his own. He wasn't about to completely trust the thing.
He could at least get space from it when he went to other parts of the studio.
That was a nice thought that lasted about a day or two until they pulled the Drama Bot out of the closet again.
He found it carrying loads of scripts for directors and TV hosts. Making coffee runs. Holding cue cards when the teleprompters were on the fritz. Used as a table. Occasionally fed some kind of slurry for god knows what.
The only difference between it and an intern was that an intern got paid with 'experience'. This robot's reward was getting shoved inside of a closet when it wasn't needed.
It was hard not to feel bad for the thing.
So fine, maybe he spoke to it when they were both in the prop room. He'd done it before the thing was kept online 24/7. There wasn't any reason to stop.
He'd talk about the gossip he'd overheard, the horrible scripts he read, and the rumors he'd heard about the bosses when the robot had a rough day. It was more satisfying when he could get a response this time around. Usually a series of beeps that Noah was sure was laughter.
When the thing got banged up after a day of being manhandled, Noah did his best with the smaller repairs. Couldn't have someone to talk shit with if it was going to break down due to an issue no one else bothered to fix.
He didn't do it for free, of course. If others were able to boss him around, Noah wasn't going to let that opportunity go to waste. Though he was nice enough to make most of his requests as simple as 'open the door for me'.
The Drama Bot would notice Noah around. It was a startling way to find out he wasn't as sneaky as he thought he was when the robot gave a small wave to crafts services when no one else was looking.
Being seen is a death sentence. Lesson number one is ingrained into a Borrower's head over and over again. It was the least desirable thing in the world.
So why did Noah feel more relaxed when he saw the Drama Bot acknowledge his existence outside of the prop room?
He hadn't realized how tense he always was until he had someone he could actually talk to. He'd been paranoid any time he had to pop out of walls. Now he was aware, but most of the fear left the second he saw the Drama Bot in the room with him, too. Maybe it was their mutual suffering from fate that put him at ease.
Noah was getting comfortable.
Too comfortable.
Comfortable enough to Borrow from craft services up until he heard the word 'cut', instead of in the middle of someone else's line.
Comfort that died as one of the actor's spotted his small form in the center of table and shrieked 'MOUSE!'
Everything became a flurry of movement. Noah running for the edge of the table. Humans running away from the table. Others towards. The fastest would be the one to determine his fate.
Squeaky wheels proved to be the victor as Noah was snatched up by a pair of pincers.
Noah had always taken great care not to get within grabbing distance of the Drama Bot, even when talking with it. The cold from its metal seeped into his clothes. He counteracted it with his instinctive thrashing around.
"KILL IT!" a human said, damning him.
"No, don't you dare-" he hissed to the robot. He knew it was futile. He'd seen this robot understand hierarchy of the set and Noah was nowhere on the map. He had to try.
The robot's grip tightened. Noah gasped for breath that was squeezed out of him, and began thrashing around. No care, no strategy. Just sheer panic at what he knew would come for him.
The robot's other arm pointed towards the door, and Noah could feel himself being moved. Great, he was going to be taken out back like a dog. He tried to reach for some kind of wiring, anything, but there was nothing except the rapidly approaching door. The robot barreled past others while holding Noah close to its icy plating.
Noah's squeaks of terror fell on deaf ears, or speakers, or whatever this thing had. There was just outside, and the back alley, and the dumpster, where-
Noah was set down on the lid. The robot was beeping rapidly, its eyes flickering quick enough to give someone a seizure. Noah clutched his ears and closed his eyes to this onslaught of stimulation after the harrowing experience of knowing his death was near. He just wanted this to be over quick.
Instead, he felt something carefully pat his head. He cracked an eye open to see one half of the bot's pincers. Moving up and down, oh so careful not to press down on Noah forcefully.
Was. Was this thing trying to comfort him?
The idea was enough to ground him into realizing that no, he had not been brought here to die. He'd been brought here for others to think he'd died.
"...Was there REALLY no way you could have warned me?!" he couldn't help but ask his savior.
The robot beeped in return.
From then on, any time he revealed he needed to go on a food run, the robot threw a fuss about making sure it went with him. It stationed itself right in front of craft services, blocking Noah from view while he took what he needed.
He'd be lying if he said he wasn't grateful. There was no way in hell it didn't have some form of sentience if it choose keeping Noah alive rather than follow orders. So he went as far as to thank the robot. It felt like the least he could do.
He was proven wrong when, as usual, the Drama Bot got screwed over by a job.
Ever since the Drama Bot became the resident butt monkey intern, any time there were extra props they didn't want anymore for a scene, they'd make the Drama Bot return them into the prop room to store.
The Drama Bot lift its arms as high as it wanted to, but it couldn't reach the higher shelves. So a lot of the props were instead placed on the lower ones. This made the shelves more bottom heavy than they should be. Which wouldn't be a problem if anyone else came in to redistribute the weight. But why do that when you could have a robot keep doing the work?
Noah saw the shelf collapse happen a mile away. He would always make sure that he wasn't standing on any shelves that the bot was actively working on. This saved Noah from a crushing death when the inevitable happened.
It did not save the Drama Bot that had things break even its hard shell, exposing wiring and something else that was harder to make out.
It was lucky enough that Noah saw it happen. Unfortunately, Noah couldn't exactly move things off to free the hunk of metal. They'd need a human for that, and all the humans were busy with filming. They wouldn't notice until they stopped for the day, and this robot was fritzing out.
The little meter went back and forth rapidly. It gave three short beeps, then three long ones, then three short, before devolving into one very long, loud beep in the hopes of getting someone's attention.
The thing was panicking, and Noah would be damned if he waited for the mercy of humans to stop it on its own accord.
He at least let the robot know that he was here. And that he'd get help. How he'd get help without getting caught was a mystery, but he would try.
He made his way back to the set. He needed an excuse for someone to go back to the prop room. Only way to do that was if a prop stopped working or went missing. Except they were filming, so all the props would be on set. Being watched with cameras. With humans moving about caring more about their lines than watching who they might be stepping on.
Easy peasy.
When he got back to set, he saw they were filming an action scene. Even more dangerous as movement was increased tenfold for those.
The plus side was that as it was an action scene, guns were involved. so long as one of those went missing, someone would have to go to the prop room for another.
Except, as to be expected, all the prop guns were already either with someone or in the scene. From what Noah could remember of reading this script, the protagonist's gun runs out of bullets, so he looks around to grab another.
The protagonist hadn't lost his gun yet, so there was still a chance for Noah to mess with that second gun.
It took pressing against the walls, scampering at just the right times to stay off camera, and the most stressful dragging in his life, but he managed to hide the gun away right as the protagonist went looking for it.
The director cut the scene in frustration and sent an intern to go get another prop gun. Noah held his breathe where he was hiding. Only letting go when the intern came rushing back screaming about the shelf collapse.
Due to his position with the hidden gun, Noah was forced to stay in position until they cut and he knew for sure the cameras were no longer rolling. He rushed his way back to the prop room, but they'd already mostly cleaned up the mess.
The Drama Bot was nowhere to be found.
They had to have taken it in for repairs somewhere. It had been looking rough. He hoped the repairs were only physical. He didn't want to think about what would happen if he lost the closest thing he had to a friend.
With luck, it would be back in a few days.
...Weeks. It was weeks without the Drama Bot. Noah cooped himself in the prop room more than ever before in the hopes of seeing the Drama Bot making a return. Nothing.
The only thing he got were rumors. Apparently the crew had seen something when they lifted all the crap off the poor robot. They were spooked. There was even something about lawsuits?
Noah didn't give a rat's ass about the gossip. He wanted his friend back.
It was two whole months of moping before something happened.
Someone came into the prop room. Noah heard footsteps but no wheels, so he just buried himself deep into his hiding hole. He wanted them gone so they could mope in peace.
The footsteps got closer. Great, they were going to re-use an old prop. His heart really needed an anxiety spike with them being closer than normal.
The spike became a stab in the heart as the footsteps stopped right in front of his hiding place.
"Little mouse? Are you in there?" The voice was quiet and raspy.
Noah's heart froze. They. They couldn't be referring to him. His worst nightmare couldn't be coming true, not as everything else had come crashing down around him.
The nightmare crouched down to reveal an emerald eye looking directly at Noah. Noah froze. There was nowhere to run. Hiding had done nothing. His brain was rapidly trying to figure out-
The human sighed in relief. "Thank god. I was worried you had been caught."
That was enough to give Noah pause. Because a random human, being worried? He acted as if he knew-
"Please come out," the human begged, "I have to know that you are real. I couldn't have just been driven mad inside of that robot suit."
That's when things clicked for Noah. There was only one robot he knew, and that robot had only gotten smarter when it had made its first return.
Noah dared to poke his head out to see Alejandro Burromuerto looking down at him.
It turned out that the season finale of Total Drama Dirtbags had resulted in a fire due to negligence. The rest of the cast had stuck true to their names and abandoned the burning building in an instant. Leaving Alejandro by himself, barely clinging onto life.
To avoid a lawsuit, the production company agreed to cover Alejandro's medical expenses. They just neglected to mention their version of 'medical expenses' was shoving a burned and battered body into a robot suit to allow him time to heal while still getting free labor out of him.
There was debate among executives about whether to actually bother letting him out of the suit given that no one else cared to come looking for him. Ironically enough, that falling shelf had saved him as it exposed parts of his body to multiple witnesses.
They had to let Alejandro out after that. The only reason he wasn't suing them to hell and back? He settled on a deal for an important acting job once he had PROPERLY healed.
"Why the fuck would you ever want to come back to work here?"
"It was the only way I could know for sure that I could come back to see you again. You kept me sane during everything. You saved my life. I could not abandon you."
...Oh. That was. That definitely made Noah feel something.
Alejandro had already signed a contract so he would be here for a while. And Noah had no reason to leave his home. Although it went against every shred of common sense.
They would just have to navigate this new friendship. Relationship? Situationship. As equals.
(I will continue to stand by this sloppily put together edit I made. It's indicative of the silly fun times they have that are definitely not covering up for tragic backstories.)
So, an actual masterpost for Alley Cats AU!
It's a high school AU where each member of Team CIRRRRH + Eva have been made into social outcasts in their own unique and special ways. Their one place of solace is a dumpster alley behind the school.
It's still being worked on, but for now here are all the posts for the AU in roughly chronological order:
Alright gang, this one’s going to be a bit different as this is what I’ve got the energy for right now. Rather than tell a narrative like I usually do, I’m just going to infodump the ideas I currently have about this AU.
The important thing to know is that this AU takes place parallel to most of the events happening in canon Magnus Archives. Though in this case the setting is actually The Usher Foundation, the sister organization in the Americas. Spoilers for The Magnus Archives because it’s going into it.
Everyone’s in their late 20’s here mainly because they need to have full time jobs for this to work. Also, please do check tags.
(It’s also got a very heavy focus on Alenoaheather as villains and I won’t apologize for this)
@total-drama-horror-week
Characters and their Roles
Usher Foundation
Gwen: Protagonist, pretty much takes up Jon's role except instead of recording tapes, she listens to tapes and makes forensic sketches so that the Foundation can actually be able to recognize what they're dealing with. Her sketches are hauntingly accurate. Becomes an avatar of the eye.
Courtney: The foundation's lawyer. Her main job is pretty much protecting the foundation from all the lawsuits about break ins that the investigator types just constantly do. Is a skeptic about all this and just took the job because she needed an in to the field and this is just what she found. Does start believing when she realizes her friend Bridgette is different even though everyone else claims she's still the same. And thus having to deal with Not-Bridgette.
The Antagonist Trio
Alejandro: Avatar of The Spiral. Comes from the Burromuerto family who have aligned themselves with The Buried. After…separating himself from family tradition, dedicates himself to The Spiral. Hypnotizes people into states of mind where they lose sense of self, direction, purpose, you name it. His hair is full of curls and his pupils fractalize when he’s hypnotizing someone, or when he’s feeling extreme emotion.
Heather: Avatar of The Web. Was once a regular spider that was gifted with ascension into avatarhood from the entity that spawned her. Now exists as a drider that tricks humans into coming enough to her so that she can paralyze, cocoon them, and eat them at her leisure.
Noah: Avatar of The Eye. Only surviving member of his family line in the event that saw him become an avatar. Feeds on learning and seeing others' traumas. Scrambles around trying to figure out avatarhood until he meets Alejandro, and later Heather. Works for the Usher Foundation to feed himself and feed his partners intel and vulnerable statement-givers to feast on. Peers into others’ worst traumas and can force them to relive it in their minds. He has an eye each on the backs of his hands.
Miscellaneous
Izzy: Avatar of The Hunt. She goes out of her way to encourage others to give in to predator/prey instincts. She enjoys watching the chaos go down between the Usher Foundation and the antagonist trio. She stays on the fence and would help either side if asked.
Eva: Avatar of The Slaughter. Or at least aligned with it. Offers herself as a mercenary so that she can satisfy her bloodlust. Works a lot with the Foundation but can be persuaded to work against them if someone else can offer her a better fight.
Backstories
Noah
Noah's part of a big human family with a lineage of being involved in supernatural things, from research to hunting to capturing to study etc. Basically a more localized version of the Institute/Foundation. They're more a neutral party rather than just for the side of humanity though, which somewhat puts them at odd with them.
The Mudaliars are one of the safer bets of information for those outside of the Usher Foundation. Of course there is usually a price in terms of exchange of information, corpses of what they kill (one of his sisters really likes dissecting things), just money, etc. Noah isn't the most sociable or the one who's normally 'customer' facing, but he's the one who stays at home the most while the others are out and about. They need to leave at least one person at home at all times to deal with clients that might come in, and that person was Noah once he was old enough to start getting into the family business.
The problem was their extralegal status ar semi-archivists led them vulnerable to those aligned with Entities. The large size of their family also made them a tantalizing target. Thus the family, Noah included, were kidnapped in an attempt at a Mass Ritual to bring forth all the Entities into the realm.
The ritual involves each Mudaliar being sacrificed in a different location for a different entity. Noah is meant to be a sacrifice for The Lonely, so he’s locked into solitary confinement, with his only interactions with the outside world being pictures slid under his door of the corpse of each family member as they get sacrificed for their entity.
He’s able to piece together what’s happening, though with dread realizes there’s little he can do to fix the situation. His one chance is to disrupt the ritual, though his options on that are very limited. Eventually he settles on the idea that he could devote himself to a different entity to disrupt it and save himself.
He knows he’s caught in a trap of the lonely, doomed to die a slow and agonizing death of dehydration and starvation being all by himself with nothing to eat or drink. Thus he turns his attention to attracting the attention of The Eye. His one idea for how to do this is to dedicate himself to keeping track of his own deterioration.
He commits energy he should be preserving writing down everything he’s learned, not sleeping until his body forces him to collapse in exhaustion and then just starting up again when he’s recovered. Running out of pen and paper and thus using whatever he can get his hands on, eventually resorting to his own blood in his commitment to make sure his knowledge doesn’t die with him.
Eventually, it works as he’s granted avatarhood. The downside is that he did this while still connected with his remaining family. Becoming an avatar of The Eye saved himself and the world, but it killed the rest of his family. Leaving him alone anyways.
He wanders around for a while trying to figure out what there even is to do about his life until he comes across Alejandro when he’s trying to feed himself with forbidden information.
Alejandro
The Burromuertos are a family that have served The Buried for generations (similar to the Lukas family). Serving The Buried has led them to getting riches untold from the ground. Their family always lives in prosperity.
However, this gift isn’t without sacrifice. Each generation, the Burromuertos have to sacrifice one of their own to The Buried. In the days of old this involved taking the sacrifice and shoving them inside of a special suit of armor. The person inside would still be kept alive, and slowly crushed to death over the course of their lifetime. The suit act independently of the will of the victim, following the orders of the Burromuertos outside. The victim would power that suit of armor that serves as a guardian.
By the time that victim is used up, they would have been crushed into a diamond. That diamond is then placed into a display room that only the heads of the household know about. It’s part of the guardian’s duty to protect this room, as well as the rest of the mansion and Burromuertos.
Over time, the suit of armor modernized to something more akin to a robot suit. Tradition made it so that the youngest would be the one sacrificed so that more time would last between replacements. It also had the head of the family sire children in threes: The first to inherit the family legacy, the second just in case anything happened to the first, and then the third to be the sacrifice.
Alejandro was led to believe that he was simply meant to inherit part of the family wealth. He knows of his family’s history with The Buried, but not exactly what the sacrifice entails. (Burromuertos are only allowed to know about the ritual once they’ve produced a potential heir since their use as a sacrifice becomes nonexistent.)
His time comes early, just before reaching adulthood, when the old sacrifice fully crystalizes. He’s shoved into a suit and discovers just how much value his family put into him.
He stayed like this for a few years. He learned to have only quick, shallow breaths, as anything longer would see his prison tighten around him. Although he had been conditioned to be loyal the The Buried even in this tortured state, he was always ambitious, and was never quite as loyal as his family would have liked.
Instead, he follows a descent towards The Spiral. With nothing else to do, there’s only trying to mentally escape his current reality of being crushed and trapped. He’d rather do that than acknowledge his family knows he’s alive, but will do nothing to save him because he wasn’t good enough for them to produce a younger child to spare him from this fate.
He’s somewhat aware of the things that happen outside of the suit, though he much prefers to stay inside with his hallucinations.
This is until Noah comes to free him. It wasn’t intentional. Truth be told on Noah’s end, he was just hungry for knowledge since The Eye was making it known he wasn’t feeding it properly. A rich family like the Burromuertos seemed like they’d have just the knowledge he needed. The robot at their beck and call was just another obstacle to deal with.
In trying to flee from and destroy the suit Noah accidentally ended up freeing Alejandro. Noah has a heart so he helps bring Alejandro back to reality. Alejandro has a heart full of hatred and pettiness so when he finds out why Noah’s there, he agrees to help steal from his own family.
Using what he’d learned from his time in the robot suit, he helps Noah steal some wealth, particularly the family diamonds.
Though when he touches one of them to put away he finds out they're still conscious thanks to inherited psychic link of having been trapped in the suit just like them.
The two of them bond through working with the diamonds. Noah uses Alejandro as a conduit to peer into the diamonds and feed off their traumas, while Alejandro gets the knowledge his family denied him without having to relive his own trauma inside the suit.
They stick together for a while, surviving using Noah’s knowledge about entities and Alejandro’s newfound hardiness. Experiencing the pressure of the suit has left him stronger and tougher than before as gravity now as nothing than the gravity he’s used to.
Though the whole time they’re doing so Alejandro still has nightmares from his time trapped in the suit. The terror always comes from The Buried, but then salvation comes in the lies he tells himself. The lies he tells to others to forget things. In fractals and spirals and other.
He gives in to The Spiral so that nothing else can ever claim him again. And life is pretty easy.
Up until they meet Heather.
Heather
Heather started off as a store-raised spider. As a spider she was naturally touched by The Web, enough to have a small form of sentience. Her dwelling was small and cramped, and meals didn't always come on time. She wasn't the happiest with it, but she also didn't really understand what happiness was. It was enough to survive so she lived with it, though the part of her that could think wanted more.
She thought she'd get this when she was bought by a teen. That teen provided her a much bigger terrarium, and went so far as to get her live food. She discovered what enjoyment was when she drained the life out of a fly. She was content. She actually grew to a healthier size for her species since she was malnourished before.
That teen seemed really excited to have her. Something about 'revenge', though Heather didn't know what that word meant. She figured it had something to do with that older sibling that constantly seemed to pick on them. Though that older sibling was squeamish around her, and thus she learned what fear was.
All this came to a head when it came to what her owner referred to as 'the big day'. Heather didn't know much of what was going on. All she knew was that she was placed into the smaller container her owner used when they wanted to carry her out of the house, and stuffed into their pocket. It was dark and cozy so while she didn't appreciate the jostling, it wasn't so bad.
The next thing she knew she was taken out of that container and placed onto something with a lot of pink frills. She was pretty confused, but was able to piece together that she'd just been placed onto the ballerina outfit of that older sibling. She was content to stay in place until the performance started and the older sister began to dance.
In order to not be flung off, Heather clung as tightly as she could. Until, eventually, she heard a familiar tune. It was a song she'd heard play every meal time. One she'd eventually learn was called Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy. So, as she took this to mean that despite these circumstances that food was here, she emerged from beneath the folds. This immediately got screams from the other performers and the audience. And eventually that older sister when she realized there was a spider on her during the performance of her lifetime.
Despite Heather's intelligence, she was barely able to process the speed at which she was flung off from that body. Before she could recover from the fall, someone else came and squashed her.
The curtains fell, and everyone was fleeing from her mangled, still living body. Twitching in agony. There was screaming all around. But there was also laughter. One she recognized.
It was from her human. Laughing at a prank pulled off. Uncaring for her agony now that her job was done. No attempt to rescue her despite the love and care she thought she'd understood. The only mercy she received was from the ballet teacher who came to finish the job just so he could salvage the disaster of a performance.
It was in her death that she was able to meet her mother. The Great Spider. She was offered the chance to become the manipulator. It was her birthright, after all. She took it without hesitation.
One by one those who attended that performance went missing.
One by one she perfected her craft of trickery and deceit.
She saved her owner for last.
The look on her face was satisfying.
Thus, Heather started to fully live her life in her new form as a half-human, half-spider. Her human half took inspiration from what the idea her previous owner wished for herself. She uses social media to trick her victims into coming closer, and then when meeting them in real life, webs them up to consume them.
She’s had hunters try to take her down, and other people stumble into her lair, but none of them were really of importance.
Not until Alejandro and Noah, who find their way into her lair in their attempts to get a break from other avatars/humans in between their feeding sessions.
Heather tried to trick them into thinking she was just another victim who needed to be helped to get them to come closer. Unfortunately for her, they were both smart enough to know something was wrong. Noah outright said as much, to Alejandro’s chagrin as he wanted to lure her into a false sense of security thinking that they’d fallen for it.
They have this conversation about how this should have been handled in front of Heather. Honestly, it was pretty hilarious seeing them seemingly not understand the danger they were in.
Still, Heather had a job to do, so she threw away the false pretenses and chased after them.
Despite their banter they do prove themselves rather competent in evading her. Alejandro tries to hypnotize her, though as an avatar of The Web she’s highly resistant to attempts to manipulate her. Still, she’s impressed. So much so that she agrees to let them go.
…And then proceeds to follow them around while disguised as a regular spider in order to see if her hunch about these two having more worth is right.
She starts realizing their potential, though is unaware of the fact that they know she’s watching them thanks to Noah’s connection to The Eye.
Though this time he's smart enough to sneak this information to Alejandro rather than outright say it considering what happened the last time he decided to out her. Alejandro gets the idea to put on more of a show of their capabilities since he can recognize that she's sizing them up.
When it eventually does get public that they’re sizing each other up, that’s when they agree to an alliance. They’ll work together to keep each other fed and make sure they each stay alive.
No matter what.
Domains and Avatars in a Changed World
The Change still happens as it does in canon. Nobody has a direct part in it, though Alenoaheather are a continuous threat to The Usher Foundation as a trio of avatars seeking to expand their influence and victims. They get into fights, though the conflicting parties end up surviving to see themselves Changed.
Gwen
Her sketches take on a life of their own. When she sketches something realistically enough, it’ll come to life. She isn’t guaranteed control of it, but it will be there. In addition, if she sketches an individual, she’ll be able to ask it about things that individual knows. If she touches that sketch up to the original, then that person/creature will be trapped within the drawing. If the drawing is destroyed, so are they. Unlike with other deaths in the changed world, this is permanent.
Her domain is Artist’s Alley. There are booths run by abstract figures that buy and sell art. These art pieces are in fact humans/animals trapped in pieces of art. It represents the fear of being put on display for others to gawk at and commodify. She’s vaguely aware it exists, and when she does find out about it avoids it like the plague.
Izzy
She can turn into prey animals that lure unsuspecting victims into an obsessive hunt that never ends until the person can hunt no more and collapses due to exhaustion, dehydration, or a combination. At which point, she then turns into a predator that rips them apart. She waits for them to reform so that she can start the process all over again.
Her domain is The Opened Season. In it humans are caught in a cycle where they are always hunting someone down, while they themselves are always being hunted. It’s based on the fear of not being at the top of the food chain despite being high up there. Izzy spends most of her time here.
Eva
She can take her own emotions and strengths and project them onto others. This is usually rage and results in others getting filled with the urge for violence. This prevents them from thinking straight, which makes them both easier and harder to fight off.
Her domain is The Battle Arena. Humans are made to fight in an continuous onslaught against each other and other beasts and foes. There are places for training that are still met with violence. Places of rest and relaxation are all potential fight pits. It represents the fear of peace not being an option.
Alejandro
Alejandro's domain is The Lulling Field. It looks peaceful, with nothing trying to attack you. The grass is soft. There is a standard cycle of day and night. During the day it's sunny, but there's always shade among the many trees. It's just warm enough to encourage rest without being overbearing. There are poppies with fractal designs that litter the ground. For those who prefer resting inside, there are cabins with the comfiest beds imaginable.
Those who aren't lured by the temptation to sleep find those strange, beautiful poppies start emitting pollen that forces them into slumber.
That's where the horror begins. Once they fall asleep, they are trapped within a non-euclidean dream that never ends. The dream logic is strange and unpredictable. A person loses their sense of attachment to their body as they grapple with viewing themselves in the third person perspective of their dreams.
There are many times where they're allowed to think they've figured out how to escape the dream and have woken up, back to a reality pre-change where nothing bad has happened.
It's always proven as a lie as each 'wake up' is actually them being driven deeper and deeper into their dream. Until they can't even remember what their original reality was like.
The many peaceful sleeping forms that inhabit the field forever hide the torment the dreaming soul is experiencing. They enhance the illusion that it must be safe if so many are comfortable enough to sleep exposed.
The real world is such a harsh place right now.
Don't you deserve the rest?
As its avatar, Alejandro has the ability to travel through and inhabit dreams. In this form his limbs are much longer than they should be, and he’s closer to 8 feet tall. His fingers curl in on themselves but are capable of slicing. His pupils are permanently fractals.
He'll carry poppies that he blows into the faces of those who are awake to knock them out. He'll often go into those of his victims and insert himself as their dearest, most trusted friend.
Sometimes he'll try to convince them that they're insane for thinking that their dream is anything but reality. Other times he'll help them 'discover' their unreality and help them 'escape'. Truly let them think they're the protagonist trying to free their people. only to laugh when they just go right into the next layer of dreaming thinking that they've finally won.
His realm represents the fear of falling asleep and never waking up.
Noah
Noah's domain is The Library. Which, as the name implies, is a giant library with books filled on every subject known and unknown to mankind. There are cameras watching every shelf.
There are reference desks centered at the entrances/exits with mechanical attendants. Those attendants can answer questions in regards to basic questions about the section they reside over, but anybody seeking specific questions, or who wishes to borrow a book, need to make their way to the main reference desk in the center, which is where Noah resides.
The directions and maps to get to that main desk are confounded by riddles that must be solved using intelligence. If solved properly it's a quick trek to the main desk. Otherwise, it takes ages to stumble to the right spot, though being smart enough to make one's own map that works for them will also get them there quicker, albeit still slower than if they'd solved the original riddle.
Anyone in The Library will want to make their way to that central desk fast, because it has regular hours, and closed time where the lights go dark. The attendants make their rounds at dark.
Any visitor caught by an attendant is dragged to the central reference desk, frozen and put On Hold on a large shelf until Noah can come to deal with them when The Library opens again. The same thing will happen if they're caught stealing a book or damaging anything in The Library, which is nigh impossible to get away with with all the cameras.
Those who have broken the rules have all their knowledge forcibly extracted from them by Noah. His fingers slip through their skull to pull out their brain and spread it into sheets as thin as paper. The grooves of the brain become lines of text as they're separated into neat sheets of paper. Their bodies are used as the leather needed to bind the new book together. They're still alive and conscious through this whole process as they get shelved away into the appropriate section. To stay there until someone feels like checking them out.
Anyone who does make their way willingly to Noah during business hours has the option to ask for a library card. Library card holders are allowed to stay in the library after hours (so long as they hold firm to the no stealing or destroying property rule).
They can stay in the library as long as they like without need to worry about Noah. However, his partners do like to come visit from time to time, and they're always eager for more victims. Noah won't do a thing to stop them. So any humans can stay at their own risk.
Library card holders are also able to borrow books from the library. Regular books can be borrowed without issue. However, more valuable books, such as books that would help them survive and understand the new world they live in or books that were once people that have all their valuable knowledge, require valuable knowledge to be given in return.
A person can either let Noah Behold them for a traumatic memory that they will then be forced to relive as he examines it and determines if it's a worthy trade for the book they want. Or they can give up a cherish memory for him to turn into a book. They'll never be able to remember that memory again.
This domain's fear is about getting caught breaking a rule you didn't know existed. Getting punished in a way that far outmatches the crime. The rules are nowhere to be found so you have to either ask for them and risk somehow breaking them that way, or stumble around and hope you don't break them.
It's a surveillance state with an apathetic watcher. He only care for his books, not people. He doesn't want to be here. If he's made to deal with it he takes it out on the person who interrupted his brief moments of peace before going back to his task.
Noah's also got the ability to peer into someone's immediate future based on their current thoughts. He doesn't pack much of a punch himself aside from his 'blast them with the PTSD' ability. But he can dodge attacks because he can See them coming.
Rather than just have the two extra eyes, he now has eyes covering every part of his body. If he touches a person, he can place one of his eyes onto them so he can see what they experience.
He also has at least a vague awareness of what's going on in each of those cameras at all times.
Heather
Her domain is called The Spider's Den. There are spiders and webbing everywhere. There's evidence that there was once remnants of humanity but it's all overtaken by webbing. Stepping on the webbing sends vibrations to other strands, which is how spiders get alerted to the presence of humans. Only baby spiders are the size of regular ones from Pre-change. Spiders now are on average the size of humans.
Once they paralyze and cocoon their victims, they drag them over to the central web to present them to their queen: Heather. She'll inflict her own venom on them, and only then will she unravel their cocoon. Not to free them, of course. She rips into a person to pull out their nerves.
She turns the webbing into strings and replaces the nerves with them. With the end of their strings attached to herself. She forces them to play along into a fascimile of normalcy where Heather is the main star. Everyone else is merely there to compliment her and revolve around her.
When she doesn't need somebody anymore, she'll cut their webbing. They'll collapse with nothing to hold them up, and stay there paralyzed thanks to her venom and their lack of nerves. They're left to just watch as life goes on without them. Occasionally being used by other spiders as new nests. If Heather does remember they exist and wants them again, then she'll reconnect their strings and start the show all over again.
The domain itself is more about the general fear of spiders, but Heather has also turned it into the fear of being an insignificant player in someone else's story.
Her avatar ability is that ability to connect people to herself via webbing, and then control them as she pleases. Her venom enacts a permanent paralysis. While in her previous drider form her human half was mostly human, now her top half is much more spider-like. She has eight eyes and she has mandibles. She’s also bigger, standing closer to 12 feet.
Endgame
So there’s no concrete endgame for this AU, as it’s more ideas and concepts than anything.
I will say that post-change, Alenoaheather perform an unholy wedding in order to marry their domains together. It involves many a sacrifice, and they ‘invite’ the few outside of themselves that they care about to it. Mind you, they do this with the intention of keeping them trapped forever, but still.
One of which being Carlos, who has to grapple with the fact that his little brother has now become this monster. Carlos is just a human caught in all of this. Despite Alejandro’s best efforts, his abilities do overtake Carlos just with his sheer presence and Carlos becomes closer to a vegetable than anything.
Alejandro refuses to acknowledge this and treats Carlos as if he isn’t talking to a shell of a man.
Gwen and Courtney are traveling about trying to fix the world in whatever way they can. Mostly by killing off other avatars.
Eventually, the change gets reverted, though I can’t decide whether Alenoaheather gets defeated by Gwourtney before the change gets reverted, or if they become normal after the change and get hunted down by everyone else.
Either way, that’s all I have for this AU for now! Don’t know if I’ll decide to expand upon it more but hope you guys enjoyed it!
Since you seem to be the expert, could you write a quick fic of Chris or Don putting tiny Topher in their wallet and then putting their wallet in their back pocket?
Topher would be so excited to be in the wallet in the back pocket of his favorite hosts.
It's been 500 years pocket Topher anon. And I'm so sorry I took this long. But I finally got around to it! Don't know if this is what you were expecting, but it's what came out of my brain.
Also it's like nearly 1000 words. I hope it makes up for the wait.
There are many advantages to being a tinyshifter. Others would argue that being able to shrink was more dangerous than it was worth. What with being stepped on, or being seen as prey by now much larger animals, or just how long it took to get from one place to another.
Those people didn't see the potential that Topher saw. Being small was perfect for a gossip like him. You could get into anywhere before any security detail noticed. He'd even snuck his way into the hottest party of the year once! Yeah he'd nearly gotten mauled to death by a fiesty purse dog. It had been worth it to actually spot the Chris Mcclean. For the 5 seconds it took for someone to see him unshrunken and kick him out.
So when his dad revealed that he was going to host a new show traveling the world, Topher was more than excited. He could sneak onto the most hyped up reality show AND get a free flight to wherever he wanted?! Sweet! Or, it would be if his dad had said yes to tagging along.
But he never listened to the word 'no', and he wasn't about to start now.
He waited until Don was about to leave. He always forgot something last minute. He always panicked, and it always made it easier to snatch his wallet.
Not that it was hard to steal his dad's wallet in the first place. Oh the things he'd charged on that credit card. And he WAS running low on hair products...
Wait, focus! eyes on the prize Topher!
He set the wallet down on the coffee table right by the front door. Perfect, now for the fun part.
He focused on making his body curl in on itself without actually moving. Just have to be as small as a mouse to slip into places and get the best gossip. Smaller, smaller...perfect! He was pocket sized now. Now to just slip himself inside of the wallet.
That was on the coffee table miles above him. Oh. Whoops. No problem, he just had to grow back to normal, sit on the table, and THEN shrink.
And he had to do it now because he could hear the thunderous creaks of his dad coming down the stair.
Crap crap crap! He thought of getting bigger as quick as he possibly could. The second he was able to reach the coffee table, he climbed onto it. The table creaked at his weight but that didn't matter now. He could hear Don's footsteps getting louder. It wasn't hard to shrink when he desperately wanted to hide. He dove into the folds of the wallet just as he heard Don stop in front of the table.
"Oh, there you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Topher could feel himself jostle as the wallet was being picked up. He couldn't see much of anything now that it was closed, but that didn't matter. He was so close to spoilers galore and worldwide shopping and why wasn't the wallet moving anymore?
He yelped when artificial light hit his face. He closed his eyes at the shock. When he opened them he could see Don's disappointed face staring at him.
"Topher, get out of my wallet." Don ordered.
"Aw, but the plan was so good and everything! How'd you know?" Topher whined. He crouched deeper so only his head was popping out of the wallet. If Don wanted Topher out, he'd have to grab him himself.
"You really thought I wouldn't notice my wallet being heavier?"
"Are you calling me fat? I can see the headlines now. 'Up and coming reality tv host Don Mallory gets cancelled for fatphobic comments. Public devastated!' Your career would be ruined. But if you were to, I don't know, make it up to me with a trip around the world-"
"Topher, you know I can't just bring you along! The network won't just let me bring a plus one."
"Then the network doesn't have to know! Let me hide in your wallet. We can call this father and son bonding!" Topher knew Don was always desperate for ways for them to connect, so maybe this would work?
"We've already done that in a way that won't get me in trouble with the network! Remember disco night?"
"Disco is dead and you killed it."
Topher knew he screwed up when he saw his father's face fall at that comment. Okay, maybe that one was a bit too far. Don had been really happy when he'd dragged Topher along. It wasn't his fault his dad was super embarrassing!
"Topher."
"Okay, fine, sorry! Just...please? Who knows when I'm going to get a chance like this again?" Don was still looking hurt so great, okay, fine, Topher would make it up to him. "...You can tell me all the history facts they make you cut for time?"
The smile began to return to Don's face and Topher knew he had him. Don still let out a light sigh. "Alright, BUT. You have to stay in my pocket the whole time we're airing. No trying to get on camera."
"Promise!" Topher lied. He wouldn't ever stop trying to do that, but he could stop himself from making it TOO obvious. "Now, don't you still have a flight to catch?"
"Right, right. Sorry, this is going to be a bit bumpy." Don moved his thumb and gently pushed Topher's head back all the way into his wallet. Topher immediately began trying to fix his hair from the safe confines of the wallet before being jostled as he was moved into complete darkness.
By the way he was now moving, he was in Don's pocket now, moving rapidly as Don moved to grab his luggage.
Luggage that Topher wouldn't have with sneaking himself on.
Alenoah Week Day 3: Role Swap / TDWT Ending Rewrite
I decided to use woah-i-am-here's roleswap Alenoah for my funky little AU for today. The personalities are based mostly on their AU, and most of Alejandro's backstory is as well. Noah's I took more creative liberties with. It was a bit hard to translate that one over with this being a naga AU.
Because this is me, I couldn't help but make this a tiny bit dark at the end. So I'm just going to put a content warning for murder here to be safe.
Alejandro and Noah are fine! ...Someone else, not so much.
Alejandro is forced to go on his family's annual hunting trip. It's a week-long 'bonding' activity. He really doesn't care for it. He knows it's just an excuse for his parents to brag about traveling the world and conquering nature. José always turns it into this big competition that no one asked for, gets their parents praise, and rubs it into Alejandro's face. It's predictable, it's annoying, and it's bound to drive Alejandro up a wall.
The instant they split up, Alejandro focuses on putting as much distance between himself and the rest of his family. He's not going to hunt a damn thing. He'l just have 'bad luck'. It's an excuse he's used before, but it's not like they can truly make him do anything. He turns off his walkie talkie, the only thing that works in these godforsaken woods, because otherwise he'll have to hear his brother incessantly praising himself for each kill he bags. He has a bag of supplies, GPS included, and a gun. He'll be fine.
As he walks through the woods, he starts to notice strange markings on the ground. He'd mistake them for signs of animals having passed by. Except this looks wider than something like a bear having pushed through some brush. He climbs up a tree to get a better vantage point. From here, he can notice that it looks more like something large was dragged through the woods. The concerning part is it was dragged continuously. As if whatever was doing the dragging was having no issue in doing so. Despite the thing being as wide as train tracks.
That's when he heard the rustling. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was getting louder.
Climbing down would attract too much attention. He could only cling against the tree as tightly as he could, and hope whatever it was didn't look up.
"Oh. You're new." said the voice that came from his right.
He dared to turn his head. He met the gaze of two slitted pupils.
Alejandro was over 12 meters off the ground and he was directly meeting the gaze of another.
He looked down to see the torso of the giant he was now looking at connected not to legs, but to a snake's tail.
He's grateful his instinct was to cling tighter to the tree, and not to loosen his grip.
After Alejandro successfully doesn't faint, the two get into proper greetings. Noah's incredibly polite, and is clearly doing everything in his power to make himself come off as careful about the height difference as possible. He's controlled in every action he takes.
...Too controlled for someone currently claiming that he's lived by himself in the woods his entire life. If he had, then he probably wouldn't know to control his volume or have anything resembling manners.
Alejandro calls him out on this, which shocks Noah for a bit. Not only that Alejandro found him out, but also that he'd have the courage despite Noah's size advantage. Alejandro realizes he might have screwed up hard, except Noah laughs and lets some of his mask slip.
He tells something closer to the truth this time. He's from the fae realm, and got cursed to look like this. He's trapped in these woods, serving as its guardian. Meaning he does need to know why Alejandro's trespassing.
Now it's Alejandro's turn to start lying his ass off. He knows about the fae thanks to reading, but he has no idea how much is true and how much isn't. He doesn't know what answer is acceptable, what answer will get him killed, and he doesn't know if Noah can read people.
He admits to being on a hunting trip, but he hadn't killed anything yet as his priority was finding somewhere to make camp. He didn't know he was trespassing, and wants to ask proper permission to stay in the woods for a week. He says nothing about the rest of his family because he knows that they've certainly killed animals by now.
Noah chooses to believe him. And because Alejandro did ask nicely (though with a bit of sarcasm since he couldn't help himself), Noah will let him stay. But he's only allowed to hunt what he needs to in order to survive. In return, Noah will promise not to hurt him. He'll even make a fae bargain, so both are bound to keep to their deal.
Alejandro doesn't really have much choice but to accept. Not that he planned to do any hunting anyways, but he has to go with this now or risk Noah catching wise. Noah lets him know that if Alejandro needs anything, Noah'll stay around here to make himself easier to find.
So Alejandro is allowed to leave to 'go find a place to make camp'. Which means returning to his family's camp and checking that Noah isn't following him. At least he's too loud to get away with sneaking up on the human.
Still, now Alejandro is going to have to convince his family not to go near the area Noah is in. He can't tell them Noah exists. They'll think he's finally lost it. Instead, he settles for committing to heading in that direction when his family splits apart to hunt each morning.
He doesn't have to actually go anywhere near Noah's slithering grounds. He just needs everyone else to think he's going there.
...Yet, Noah has been the most interesting thing that's happened to him in quite a while. The only other person who has proven to be an intellectual match to Alejandro is Jose. And he's insufferable. Noah is dangerous, certainly, but he isn't hard to be around. So long as Alejandro is careful about what he says. Besides, if he can keep Noah occupied, then he'll know that the rest of his family is safe.
This has absolutely nothing to do with how attractive Noah is or how his laugh made Alejandro melt like butter.
So he goes back to Noah the next day and says he wants to know more about Noah.
"Sure, I'm an open book." Noah replied.
"You're as open as a mouse trap." Alejandro retorted.
This gets another laugh out of Noah, and the two begin to bond.
Over time Noah reveals that he hates the outdoors. He misses being small enough to read in peace. Not that he even has any reading material on him. But Alejandro does since his original plan had been to find a spot in the forest to read the entire time. So he pulls out one of his books and offers to read it aloud to Noah.
"Is that the only one you have?"
"I thought you were desperate enough to read anything."
"I just want to know what my options are. I don't want to read anything trashy if you're holding out on me."
This would be enough to make Alejandro snicker at how spoiled Noah was acting. He might have been imagining things, but he swore he saw the tip of Noah's tail flicker in delight at the sound.
Alejandro found himself going from keeping a respectable distance from Noah to leaning against the naga's coils.
Alejandro would begin to open up about his family. How he tires of playing second fiddle to Jose, and how his parents do everything in their power to encourage him. They put on a show for the world to see that Alejandro is 'lucky' enough to be a part of. He tried to show Jose up, once upon a time. But loss after loss whittled away at him. Until there was nothing left but a bitter, snarky teenager who would rather stay in his room than deal with anybody. Still with the knowledge of how to charm and fight, but none of the motivation.
It would lead to Noah opening up about his own family. He came from a line of powerful fae. Having eight siblings in the fae realm meant they were constantly fighting for everything. He was last in line to inherit anything by birthright. If he wanted anything, he'd have to fight for it. As the youngest, Noah could never hope to win in a battle of strength. He adapted to winning battles of wit instead.
He didn't care that he had to fight dirty. He never got a fair chance in a fight with his siblings. Why should he return the favor? The only way he'd beat his siblings is if he performed just a minor coup, so he did. Or well, he tried. He underestimated his parents' ability to catch on to his tricks.
So they cursed him. "You'll live as you truly are in the wild until you learn the sanctity of a life." Rather shitty of them to exile their own child instead of acknowledging the environment they created in the first place. But, oh well. Noah's here now. ...and it feels surprisingly refreshing to let his guard down and tell someone else this.
Alejandro is reminded that he should in no way shape or form trust someone who tried 'a minor coup' on his own parents. ...But it is nice to have Noah agree that Alejandro's parents and brother are in fact terrible. He'd been around so many sycophants to the Burromuerto name, he thought he must be the mad one for thinking ill of them.
Sadly though, the week is up before they know it. Alejandro is going to have to go back home, and miss his new boyfriend. Alejandro finishes reading the last book he brought over so Noah can have a proper ending. At this point, he's grown so comfortable with Noah that he's nestled in between Noah's loose coils. Noah could kill him easily anyways, so why deny himself something so warm and cozy?
By the end, Noah gifts him the largest moose he can find. It'll be rations for the road, plus the antlers will make for a good hunting trophy. He knows it's gauche but his options for giving gifts as a giant snake thing are limited.
Alejandro suspects something's up by the look in Noah's eyes, but doesn't say anything. Rejecting Noah's gift would be a terrible idea if fae work how he thinks they work. He could just bury the gift when he's far enough away from Noah. He can't imagine anything good would come from bringing this to his family.
...Yet he's so tired of them. He feels more comfortable with a stranger he's only known for a week than with his own family sitting down for dinner. That stranger could squeeze him to death without a second thought and he'd still trust Noah more than he would trust Jose not to find an excuse to shoot him in the head when he's in a mood. So you know what? Whatever happens to his family will just have to happen to them.
He takes the gift back to his family so he can actually win at something for once. Jose tries to play it off, but it is the biggest thing hunted, so that's what the Burromuertos decide to eat as their final meal here before heading out.
Alejandro, not trusting Noah, wisely waits for everyone else to eat the food first. He gets away with it because the second they take a bite, they're hooked. They're scarfing the food down like animals. He pushes his portion into the fireplace. He's grateful he did when his mother starts coughing, then gasping, then choking for air and foaming at the mouth. Soon followed by his brother, then his father.
Noah said his new body reflected his true self. Alejandro isn't surprised that means he's a venomous snake.
Noah slithers quietly behind him. He's genuinely happy that Alejandro did survive this. Because if he didn't, Alejandro wasn't the type of person Noah thought he was.
"If you hadn't found a way around it, then you weren't worth all the time and effort I put into you. And that would have been such a pity, truly."
Noah knew Alejandro was lying about being by himself the whole time, and that it was probably because his family had been hunting without his permission. Fae rules said he had to do something about it, and from how Alejandro described them, there was absolutely no reason to let them live. Alejandro getting caught in the crossfire was a calculated risk. 'Noah' couldn't harm Alejandro, but that isn't to say one of his gifts couldn't.
However, he genuinely thought he had done a great job of gaining Alejandro's trust. He believed Alejandro had no idea the gift was a trap, or at least didn't realize it until later. To find that Alejandro actually did know that the gift was tainted from the beginning, and that he still chose to give it to his family? He's delighted. Especially when Alejandro admits he's not that worked up about their deaths as he feels he should be. And when Alejandro pulls one last contigency:
Noah never gave an end condition to when he could harm Alejandro. So as long as Alejandro only hunts for food and not for sport, Noah can't cause any direct harm to him, ever.
Noah could of course try to find another work around to get rid of a final loose end. But he's much happier to offer him a place in the woods for as long as Alejandro wants. And he wants to start dating Alejandro properly. Alejandro has nowhere else to go, and he's much happier here than he's ever been. So he agrees to the home, and to being Noah's boyfriend.
Noah takes care of Alejandro, and Alejandro works on a way to break Noah free from his curse. 'A life' could just mean one person specifically after all. So if Alejandro just makes sure that person is him, he'd be set for life.
I'm still getting a heehoo giddy feeling with all the interest for this AU! I haven't even properly written things yet and you're all being very welcoming! I'm seeing likes from people I've been following in the TD fandom! I got my first reblog from someone else who understands the joys of big monsters and monster x human tropes! Aaa! It sparks joy in me.
I promise to use this joy exclusively to give Noah a Bad Time. He's one of my favorites, so he must suffer. That's the rules. (Don't worry, Alejandro will get to suffer too, we just haven't gotten that far yet.)
I'm going to start with how the two meet and their relationship up until Alejandro decides to reveal his true colors. So no real content warnings for this part except for manipulation and intimidation, especially regarding size. Given the premise, and the fact that Alejandro is Alejandro, this is going to be true of most of this AU.
Now let's see if I can properly use the Read More button to get into the juicy deets.
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Noah lives in a small town on the coast of Lake Wawanawka. In days long past the town was a major shipping port. It was fighting with a rival city for dominance in the region. A massive storm set the town back, and now it only exists as a place to stay that's cheaper than the big city up the coast. The town government has been trying to revitalize the town by turning it into a tourist trap, but that's only resulted in tourists trashing the place at night while they spend most of their time and money in the big city. Still, money is money, so the townspeople have little choice but to put up with it.
Noah's recently been accepted to the one community college in town that's kind of helping to keep the town afloat. He plans to coast through an associate's degree with ridiculously easy classes. Then he's going to use his intelligence to get a scholarship to a private university and will never look back on this town. Only exception would be to come visit his family, though at this point only a few of his older sisters still live at home. Some have already left the nest just like he plans to.
Noah doesn't have many friends, so he tends to go off on his own. He's managed to find one spot on the beach that's inaccessible to most. It requires a tight squeeze through rocks. It's the one thing his wiry frame is good for. Tourists don't know about it so they can't ruin it. Townspeople who do know about it typically don't bother. He's taken measures to make it look as unappealing as possible. Can't have people taking away his best spot to get away from a rowdy house and read in peace.
That is, until a particularly bad storm hits. He returns to his reading cove, ready to complain as he has to either deal with or ignore the debris that's sure to be littering the place. It's while he's kicking away debris that his foot comes across something soft, small, and....tan? He moves the debris away to see something that would look like an eel if not for the top half being a human that looked around his age.
He reacts calmly when this thing groans and looks directly at him asking "¿Qué pasó?" He takes a second to breathe, and think rationally about what he's seeing in front of him.
He certainly doesn't scream like a bitch, fall on his ass, and attempt to crab walk away.
Once Noah actually calms down and accept the fact that this is not a psychotic break on his part, he and who he learns is Alejandro get to talking. Fortunately in English. Alejandro reveals that he swam too close to the surface and got swept in the storm. He doesn't know where he's ended up. He took a really nasty blow to the head too because he doesn't even quite remember where he came from. Alejandro would greatly appreciate if Noah could tell him where he is.
Noah's got some questions about all this. Ignoring the fact that merfolk apparently exist (a phrase he never thought he'd utter), Alejandro's an eel. Literally. Eels aren't native to Canada. So there's no possible way he could be from Lake Wawanakwa. Noah suspects he's an electric eel, which would place him somewhere in South America. When he points this out, he swears he sees a spark of electricity in Alejandro's tail. It confirms Noah's suspicions. It also confirms that Noah's not about to touch Alejandro with his bare hands. Alejandro commends him for being smart enough to help jog his memory. He remembers humans referring to the name 'Peru' in the waters he comes from.
He reveals that magic does exist in this world, as is evident by his very existence. There must have been magic in the storm that brought him here. Sadly, he doesn't know how he can use it to get himself back home. Not that it matters much, he can adapt to living here. Still, he begs for Noah not to tell anyone else that he's here. Noah has been so kind to him, but Alejandro isn't quite so sure how other humans will react to seeing him.
Noah's still quite suspicious about Alejandro. But the alternative is either A) a townsperson finds Alejandro, sees him as their ticket out of this town, and does who knows what to him for fame and money. Or B) a tourist finds Alejandro, and either does like the townsperson, or flips out and calls the cops, leading to who knows what kind of military experimentation assuming the cops don't just shoot him on sight.
So curse Noah's bleeding heart, he tells Alejandro that if he's going to stay in shallower waters, he'll be better off staying here. He warns him about the tourists and the townspeople. If he's going into deeper waters, then he's going to have to watch out for the fishermen, the cargo ships, and the ferries that go across the lake. Alejandro just grins and promises to repay Noah's hospitality in full one day.
And thus, Noah begins to meet Alejandro in secret. Mainly because he refuses to concede his favorite reading spot. Noah does some research on electric eels, and comes prepared with rubber gloves any time he wants to get close with Alejandro just in case. Alejandro isn't always there, but when he is he insists on interacting with Noah. He gets interested in the books he sees Noah reading and reveals that he doesn't know how to read. Noah can't just allow for that, so he teaches the Peruvian how to read English. He tries to teach him how to write too, but that's more difficult given the size difference and Alejandro constantly being wet. Noah will take to reading aloud to Alejandro, and when Alejandro learns how to read, he takes to slithering his way in between Noah and his book so he can read along, taking care not to touch Noah's skin.
Their relationship continues to grow as they talk about their respective lives. Noah tells him about humans, and Alejandro will tell him things about merfolk. When Alejandro goes to deeper waters, he comes back and describes the old shipwrecks he's found closer to the bottom of the lake with a certain wonder in his eyes. He'll even start to bring little treasures back from them, first for himself, but eventually for Noah as well. They get to make fun of tourists together and watch them from afar. Noah's dog Ark comes in at one point, and Ark loves Alejandro. Alejandro doesn't feel the same way about Ark and complains about the slobber. At a different point, a stray cat makes its way to the beach and Alejandro learns that he loves cats. And that cats don't feel the same way about him. To them he smells like a fish and looks like a snake, so they'll either try to claw at him or flee on sight. This saddens the Alejandro. He vows to one day successfully pet a cat.
Then, things take a turn seemingly out of the blue. Alejandro reveals that he has a surprise he wants to show Noah. It's a skill he'd lost for a while due to the nature of his arrival. He's been practicing it in private, but he thinks he's finally recovered it fully! He begs for Noah to indulge his theatrics by covering his eyes. It will be the last time he asks like this. He promises. Noah rolls his eyes, but begrudgingly agrees to do so.
Noah hears a lot of shifting. Of rocks. Of waves. He hears something scraping the ground around him. He feels the air around him grow charged. The hair all across his body is standing on its end. He can't help but remember those initial doubts he had about Alejandro.
"You may open them now." a familiar voice rumbles. The accent is as thick as ever. It's louder than a tiny body should be able to produce. It's coming from the wrong direction.
It had been so nice to be wrong. If he keeps his eyes closed, he can keep being wrong. Schrödinger's idyllic beach life. He's smart, and he has a friend with no strings attached. He's smart, and he knows patience is not one of Alejandro's virtues.
Noah opens his eyes to gaze at the massive beast staring down at him.
Were his teeth always so sharp? Alejandro spoke of hunting, which implied he needed teeth sharp enough to rip into flesh. Noah had never really paid attention until he was looking at a full set of teeth, each the size of his hand. They grinned in a facsimile of a warm and inviting smile he was accustomed to.
Noah forced his gaze further upward to check if Alejandro's smile met his eyes. He recognized those eyes. When Alejandro had first started bringing his treasures, he would talk about them nonstop. Noah had tried to grab one of them to get a closer look. Alejandro had immediately retreated to the water, holding onto his treasure as if his own life depended on it. He'd felt an odd sense of something he later recognized as jealousy. Which was strange because it was jealousy over an object. But it was an object that had commanded Alejandro's full attention, full protection, full possession.
What a fool he'd been to feel jealous of something he was now the target of.
"What do you think?" Alejandro asked like a dog that had just brought home a dead cat and was now begging for praise. He closed the distance between them by bending down and slithering back to meet closer to Noah's level.
Noah's throat closed. He felt his face betray him as his ears and cheeks began to flush red. This is fear and a confused and conflated mixture of adrenaline and oxytocin brought forward by an intense situation, nothing more.His feet remained loyal. He backpedaled, only to be stopped by a soft wall that hadn't been there a second ago. He pressed a hand against the wall while maintaining eye contact with Alejandro. That was what you did with wild animals wasn't it? Certain ones at least. He didn't if it would work with eels. An electric eel will wrap itself around its prey, ensuring that there are at least two points of contact for maximum effectiveness. Once established, it will send a shock to incapacitate its prey before consuming it. If he wheels through facts he picked up about eels to prepare himself for this situation, he doesn't have to acknowledge that the wall that dwarfed him from behind was a hand.
"Noah, por favor." Alejandro purred. "We're amigos. I haven't forgotten the times we've spent together. They've been delightful! And so very informative."
Noah had been too concerned about protecting Alejandro from humans. He taught him how to read. He warned him where the people frequented. He taught him how modern ships run on electricity. Alejandro shared that he wished he could have met the ships he'd visited before something else had sent them to the bottom of the lake. All of these red flags only served as the pins and needles holding Noah in place.
"And more importantly, I made a promise to you! A Burromuerto never breaks their promises. Not even to humans." Alejandro suddenly tilted his hand forward, forcing Noah to stumble backwards into a cupped palm. He pulled Noah closer until his face engulfed the entirety of Noah's vision. He let out a breathy sigh right onto Noah. "It truly is a shame that you're a human in my new hunting grounds. I could allow you to simply stay if you weren't. I have no doubt you would enjoy literally ripping apart los estúpidos turistos with me just as you enjoy verbally ripping them apart."
Noah felt an index finger ruffle the top of his hair. On instinct, he moved his hand up to smack it away. His eyes widened as he realized what he'd just done, but Alejandro only chuckled. "See what I mean?" he continued. "But, sadly for both of us, I can't let it be known that I let a human go without a fight. I have a reputation to uphold. However, I will reward your hospitality with something I will never offer to another human again. Porque eres tan precioso para mí."
Alejandro carefully placed a thumb under Noah's chin to keep his gaze focused on the former. His claw rested against Noah's right cheek. The sharp tip faced away from him, but that could change at a moment's notice. "You have the privilege of convincing me why you deserve to live."
And Noah knew he would have to choose his next words very carefully.
