Being on Orn.stein's blog made me want a plot where this guy has to take on the role of a knight for someone... which is gonna be a mess no matter what cause he's so incapable of true loyalty it's not even funny. But still.... hhhmmmm 👀
A great alternative for knight!Crow (particularly on his fantasy verse) is making a pact with him.
Now, the cost has to be paid in life. The lives of others given to him for his consumption. Or the life of the person themselves, if they're willing to let him consume them after their pact is completed.
Yes. He consumes living beings — their life force. So it could work for him. Especially if it's someone with a long lifespan (even immortal) or of some kind of powerful nature.
OR!!!
Knightly or fighter muses could serve him on his prince verse... even work for him on human verse.
This guy? A DELIGHTFUL LORD/BOSS! Super empathetic, down to earth, will listen to people, will try to help them, will fight alongside them. AND THE FACT THAT DESPICABLE ATROCITIES WILL BE COMMITTED IN HIS NAME IS HONESTLY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT (oop). Seriously... it gets easier overtime, if not outright pleasant. (Bigger oop).
You want a corruption arc for your muse? This is it!
{ I feel like people keep forgetting that Team Rocket is nothing like how Jessie, James, and Meowth are portrayed in the show. They’re the comic relief. However, Team Rocket itself is not. Team Rocket is to supposed to represent an Italian Mafia. Which means, they are supposed to be bad. I think, out of all the teams, this one is the most realistic because of this fact. If the boss wants someone taken down, they get taken without question. Even cops wouldn’t be able to stop it. People know not to cross these sort of people. The boss would be respected out of fear. The only person the boss feared would be a rival mafia, but since Team Rocket has no rivals, except maybe other teams, there really i no else for Team Rocket to fear.
Families could be gone overnight because of mafias like these. And there would be no arrest. Businesses would be taken over without much of a hassle. Whatever the boss would order, it got done. You guys remember Al Capone in history class? That’s sort of what you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with Team Rocket during its time of glory.
Team Rocket necessarily ruled the world by the means of other teams tried to, but they ruled by fear and money. Their goal wasn’t to destroy the world, but to own it. So, yes. If hurting, killing a child happens, then that’s business. After all, it was a child who brought down Team Rocket. Twice. }
I get the impression that Gladio and Aeon will bond over just how Utterly Hopeless the other members of their cohort are.
Oh, totally. That’s a thing that happens, because Gladio may be reckless, but he’s cautiously reckless and only reckless when needed or when his temper gets the best of him. But the others, the others are just reckless.
Also when Aeon does do something reckless, it’s completely off the walls reckless, it’s so reckless that Gladio at one point probably has to sit Aeon down and lecture him about how there are people that care for him and what do you think we would do without you?
Tbh I just really want an angsty episode where Kara kinda just breaks down in the office Maybe later when most of the other employees, if all of them, have gone home And Cats has to comfort her I mean it doesn't even have to be a long scene Just something to break this "professional relationship"
Written for my incredible friend, Marcella, who always tells me I’m fabulous even when I haven’t earned it, and sends me the most adorable pictures of her dogs. If anyone deserves cute high school/best friends Everlark, it’s you, girl.
Summary: Something about being caught in a tornado warning bring Katniss Everdeen to look at Peeta Mellark, her best friend since diaper-dom, in a different light.
“We should probably go inside,” Peeta said.
Katniss frowned, glaring at him from the other side of the porch swing. His wary eyes were focused out on the western sky, which was spiraling and darkening with storm clouds. His fingers curled around his mug of tea.
She could physically feel the temperature dropping, so she knew the looming storm wasn’t entirely harmless, but she still considered Peeta to be overreacting.
“Nah, I think we’ll be fine,” she replied, leaning back to rock the swing.
“Katniss, we’re in a tornado watch—”
“And I’m an adrenaline junkie. C’mon, let’s stay out a while longer.”
Peeta groaned, but he wasn’t about to argue. As her best friend and resident doormat, he was powerless against her. Usually, blissfully so. His type-beta personality meshed almost too well with her natural governance – it was why they’d been inseparable since diaper-dom, when she stole his pacifier in daycare, and he didn’t even shed a tear.
They were indivisible.
She sighed, tipping against him to lean her cheek on his shoulder. She loved watching the storms roll in with him at her side, which is why she always bribed him with tea and help on his Biology homework whenever the forecast turned dark. There was something about being with him that, when combined with the air’s static, the hollow wind, and the sky’s coppery scent, always set her nerves alight.
She knew his nerves were set alight, too, but in an entirely different way. While she was thrilled by these storms, they made him want to hide in a basement.
She felt his arm – the one that wasn’t holding his tea – curl around her shoulder, tucking her against him. Even though she was sweaty from the humidity, he felt nice. He always felt nice.
A cylinder of turquoise sky gleamed in between the quickly-advancing clouds, and Katniss could feel her pulse racing as she watched the colors warp and fade. The wind palmed her face, and Peeta palmed her back, and her heart went even more wild.
And then, the sirens started blaring.
Peeta popped straight in the air like a hyperactive jack-in-the-box. “That’s it,” he said, slipping from the swing, almost letting Katniss fall against the armrest. “We’re going inside. Now.”
“Aw, Peeta—”
“You’re not dying on my watch.”
“No one’s dying,” she laughed, thoroughly amused by his wide-eyed concern. He was essentially the human manifestation of a puppy: cute, excitable, and terrified of bad weather.
She stood to scuffle up his curls. She shouldn’t have done this, however, because it left her waist vulnerable; Peeta took the opportunity to swoop in, his arm curling around her hips and urging her inside.
Really, Peeta did have a type-beta personality… unless it came to bad storms, or Katniss’s safety, or both simultaneously. That’s when he went into full mama-lion mode.
He yanked her inside the house, shutting the screen but leaving the front door open. This let the wind filter through her empty house, the now-cool air haunting the dark. Everything was coated in a slightly green film as the sirens blared, and Peeta corralled her into the small basement, which was really no more than a laundry room and a graveyard for oversized insects.
Peeta flipped the light switch. “We should sit against the wall.”
“Not a chance.” She was shaking her head rapidly. “There’s spiders down here. All over. No.”
He smirked at her. “Wimp.”
“Wimp?” Who’s he calling a wimp? “You’re the one who’s scared of rain.”
He rolled his eyes, refusing to entertain her, and pulled her toward the opposite edge of the laundry room. “I’ll kill the spiders for you, okay?”
She stuck her tongue out at him, but conceded, sitting on the cool floor. Still, she remained a foot from the wall to avoid any cobwebs. They sometimes got spiders the size of golf balls down here. She had a high tolerance for a lot of things, but monster arachnids were not among them.
The blare of the tornado siren seemed to hang from the ceiling, and Peeta said it was giving him a headache. So, she snaked her arm around him, pulling his head against her shoulder, absentmindedly brushing his curls with her fingers.
She felt his voice vibrate against her arm. “We could be here a while, if the storm doesn’t pass.”
She checked her weather app on her phone; it said that the tornado watch had been extended into the early hours of the morning. Even if she was heartless enough to send Peeta home in the storm, she knew his delicate, little heart couldn’t possibly bear the thought of going out into that, even after the sirens had stopped.
“You can stay the night, since Mom’s working the graveyard shift at the hospital,” she offered, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, even though the idea sent a volt of electricity. And then, for good measure, she tacked on an unenthusiastic, “I suppose.”
He drew back, his blue eyes so close that they made her throat constrict. She’d always been well aware of how attractive he was, but with the adrenaline from the storm pumping through her arteries, and the smell of him filling her lungs, something about this felt… different.
Their gazes were locked so long that time slowed down, and her tongue began to tingle. Her eyelids felt like butterfly wings.
And then, without warning, he started chuckling.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
She immediately broke away, her cheeks flushing. “Like what?” Damn. Damn.
“Like you’re high or something,” he laughed.
“W-well,” she stammered, refusing to make eye contact with him ever again in her entire existence. “You know how I feel… about… storms.”
His glorious dimples poked into his cheeks as he chuckled. “You’re a wonder, Katniss Everdeen.”
Still, embarrassment colored her cheeks, and she stared down at her hands in humiliation. She could hear his laughter die at her side; he must’ve realized she was uncomfortable, and since Peeta would rather sever his own leg than make Katniss uncomfortable, he rapidly changed the subject.
“So. In the very real possibility of us being killed by this tornado tonight—”
“You’re ridiculous, Mellark.”
“—what would you do with your last few hours on earth?”
She finally spared a glance his way, cursing herself for being so weak, and also for the butterflies in her stomach. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t like she’d never seen him before. She’d seen him every damn day of her life; he was like that pasta sauce stain that wouldn’t wash out of a white shirt.
Except, he was a pasta sauce stain that she adored with every fiber of her being.
She glared at him for a few moments, praying she wasn’t blushing as deeply as she felt she was.
“Are you asking me to get sentimental with you?”
He shrugged, chuckling. “Your answer can be as impersonal as your little heart desires.”
She tucked her knees into her chest, pressing her palms against the cold plane of the floor. “I think if I knew I was going to die in a few hours,” she began, “I’d go get all the Twinkies from the pantry and see how many I could down in a minute. That sounds like a great way to spend my last night.”
She knew this would bother him, and was therefore ridiculously proud of herself when this elicited his tortured grimace.
“Twinkies?”
“Yes.”
“Twinkies?”
“Why not?”
“I’m a baker, for God’s sake—eating Twinkies is like the eighth deadly sin!”
“Well, good thing you’re not the one who’ll be eating them.”
He groaned, as if he was in physical pain, and leaned backward against the cobweb-laced wall. “My ancestors are turning over in their graves from knowing I’m associating with you.”
“You love me,” she said, but the moment the words were hanging in the air, she felt them grow thorns, and her breath caught in her throat.
But he didn’t notice. “I do,” he continued as casually as ever, making her heart kink. “And that’s why I could never let you do that. Even if you were going to die, I wouldn’t want your last act on earth to be a crime against humanity.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Her chest was still aching, but she playfully nudged him with her elbow anyway. “So, Mr. High-And-Mighty. What would you do with your last few hours?”
He pulled himself upright, his face knit with genuine consideration.
After several seconds of thought: “What are you up for? My lighthearted answer, or blatant sentimentality? Because I can do either.” He waggled his eyebrows.
She made a gagging sound in the back of her throat. “Sentiment’s gross.” And then, she smiled. “Give me both.”
He laughed at this, knocking her shoulder with his own.
“Okay. So, first, I’d probably burn all your Twinkies.”
“Not that creative, or worthwhile, but I’ll give it to you.”
He opened his mouth to continue, but suddenly, an angry burst of thunder shook the house, making the walls shudder. Peeta started a little, his hand instinctively slipping over Katniss’s; she’d laugh at him, but the poor kid was genuinely scared of storms. It was something she was often amused by, but she’d never peg him with more than a little harmless teasing because of it. He always went out of his way to respect her ego; she owed him the same treatment in return.
“Jesus,” he whispered. Then, he shook his head, as if that’d loosen the panic clinging to the inside of his skull. But his palm didn’t move from her hand, and although she wanted to be uncomfortable with it, she wasn’t. Not in the slightest. “Anyway,” he coughed. “The sentimentality.”
“Lord, help us all.”
His crooked smile slid over his lips. “You want to hear this or not?”
She gulped when his finger’s tightened slightly around her hand. Still, she kept her face straight.
“Lay it on me, Mellark.”
He laughed. “Alright. If I knew I was going to die at the hand of Mother Nature, and only have a few hours left, I’d probably…” He swallowed. “Well, I don’t know how to say it, honestly. I guess I’d be okay with just spending it here.”
“In my spider-infested laundry room? That smells like Cheez Whiz?”
She turned to look at him, finding his gaze fixed marginally below hers, as if he was counting the freckles on her nose.
And then, his eyes flickered up, his pupils wide and serious. “With you,” he said gently, which was quickly followed by a small smile.
Her throat felt like it was corded in steel cables.
“Oh, now. Don’t look too disgusted,” he teased. He could’ve been discouraged by her silence, but he knew her well enough to remain unfazed, releasing an easy chuckle. “I mean, you’re my best friend. You’ve been in my life since before I can remember, so if I had to die in a laundry room with somebody…”
“I used to steal your pacifier,” was all she could say.
“And I think I threw up on you once in pre-K, so we’re even.”
His palm burned on her fingertips. Nothing had ever felt so exhilarating.
His gaze, which was framed by his puppy-ish smile, made her feel oddly satiated; her chest hurt beautifully. “I guess I’d rather spend my last few hours with you than a mouthful of Twinkies,” she offered.
With the hand that wasn’t over hers, he flattened his palm on the left side of his chest, feigning heartened gratitude. “I’m touched, Everdeen. Genuinely touched.”
She couldn’t help the smile of hers that his own elicited. He always had this effect on her; never was he unable to make her happy. All she wanted, suddenly, was for him to know this. Now.
But she wasn’t good with words. If anyone had a silver tongue, it was Peeta, who was far more in touch with his own emotions than she was – maybe she needed to dig deep, searching for how she truly felt about Peeta, and then the words would come.
So, she closed her eyes, her mind whizzing back through as much as it could muster, and she could see his eyes, hear his laugh, sense his heartbeat, feel his hand on hers, on her, and suddenly that was all that mattered, was him, and her, and him with her, and them.
Them.
Her lips found his before she could convince them otherwise.
His mouth was soft, but she could taste the hesitation holding against her own. He was unyielding, unsure, and it made her chest gape. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
She pulled back, humiliated grey meeting startled blue.
Oh. No.
“I’m—” she stammered, unsure of how she could possibly phrase her apology.
But he just blinked.
And then his hand was leaving hers, skimming up her arm. The other followed suit, and soon, both were cupping the sides of her face. His eyes were bright and excited.
“Come here,” he growled hungrily, and this time, it was his mouth that claimed hers.
His kiss was a spiritual awakening, his hands caressing her face in the most beautiful, most desperate way imaginable, and she scooted closer to him, her fingers twisting in his shirt. Her heart leapt as she felt his own thrumming wildly against his chest; he wanted this, too. He wanted her, just like she wanted him.
Finally, they were thrilled by the same thing.
She let out a soft moan as his lips gently pried hers apart, his taste filling her mouth and giving her wings. He kissed her like this really was their final night, as if he’d never have time to do so again; she couldn’t imagine not coming back to this, coming back to him. She’d always come back to him, she decided. And she could taste his agreement.
After an indefinite amount of time, the sirens stopped. But she and Peeta didn’t.
