#//WAUGH sorry it took so long for me to get to this!!!!

[cashclown]

hook, line, and sinker had the crowd fallen for fizzarolli's performance. their approval would ALWAYS be a good omen for mammon's clowny contestants ( they're the target audience, after all! ) especially against such stacked competition ;; many of whom had worked for the sin in the years prior, all blown out of the water by the fresh face. even mammon itself seemed more engaged with his ACT than the crowds reaction, laughing along to his jokes, clapping along to his song and dance. always a pleasant surprise to find a talent it actually ENJOYED watching.

❝ fizzy, my boy, ❞ whatever professional distance it'd been trying to keep in their prior interactions is promptly thrown out the windlw in favor of an overly-friendly demeanor, the sin throwing one of its arms around his shoulders and practically yanking him into a side-hug. damn near squeezing the LIFE out of him for a brief moment. ❝ after that performance, i don't think ANYTHING could make me regret my choice! you're a bloody legend, mate! ❞ it gives him a little shake, flashing a big, bright green smile.

❝ now obviously we've got some paperwork to get through, ❞ arm does not move from fizzarolli's shoulders as the sin begins walking, prompting him to follow, ❝ but let's save all the boring shit for when yer not all amped up, yeah? right now, i wanna know all about you. ❞

@cashclown liked for an excited starter ; ( MEME )

Since the confetti kissed his cheeks he had not stop crying. The world had changed and stripped away from reality into one where Mammon shouts his name ( His. Name! ) to the world introducing him as the new brand darling—

They had loved him from the first act and he gave it back with bows, waves, and kisses to their screams. He will never get tired of this feeling. Finally, he looked over at the clown itself and gave the last bow of the night to it, the bells of his hat kissing the stage.

It all started with Mammon and now his second chance at life was at its hands. It was always meant to be. It had all been worth it. After the show, in the quiet of the backstage he tells it brimming with the last of the adrenaline, " Thank you so much, I won't make you regret this. "

[loverboy-cc]

Our own starlight

A SFW Modern AU Halsin x Tav/Reader ficlet

“What’s something small you miss? From living in the forest I mean.”

“Starlight. It was one of the first things that really threw me off about this… place. Night is unbearably dark, yet somehow unpleasantly bright at the same time.”

TWs: Family death, grief, spoilers abt Halsins backstory.

Reader is gn and undefined besides working in a greenhouse.

AN: waugh this is just kinda word vomit following me having a really good idea. It’s entirely unedited so if you see any errors no you don’t <3

Also I am fighting for my life trying to find a voice for halsin bear with me please.

Halsin remembers being a kid in the cabin his family lived in. His mother teaching him how to cook alongside his younger siblings.

He too remembers sitting outside with his father, the chill of fall nipping at his face while he was taught how to pick good sticks for firewood; along with the promise that next year he’d be old enough to help split up logs with his father.

He remembers a thick book shared between him and his eldest sister while she taught him Druidic magic, and the terror on his mothers face when he gave himself fuzzy little bear ears (and his sister laughing because couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them.)

He remembers being sick, just a little sick. A stuffy nose and a sore throat he caught from falling into the stream in late November when the frost set into snow.

He remembers burying them all that spring.

He didn’t want to, but he knew that disease clings to corpses long after the flesh chilled. He thanked Silvanus that the illness came in December and not one of the warm months that would’ve forced him to bury them immediately lest he meet the same fate.

He remembers the following winter being warmer than usual, but little else of the year.

Halsin knows now that he had gotten lucky, unbelievably so. The gentle winter allowed him to live despite being unwilling to split his own firewood, it allowed him one year to prepare himself before he was truly forced to acknowledge the finality of it all.

He remembers finding his balance the following year. Their garden took quite of bit of work to recover after being abandoned for a year. But he managed it, along with making himself some traps based on some diagrams in an old book and the odds and ends he remembered learning about how to make them more effective from his mother.

“So… why are you here?”

They look up at him, visibly confused.

“Not that I don’t like talking to you- but it seems like you were managing fine past the first year.”

“The expansion of the city drove the animals away. Then men in suits appeared at my door asking for documents I didn’t have. Proof of ownership and deeds to the land our cabin was on. They threatened to arrest me for squatting if I didn’t leave.”

He sips his tea, it was brewed far too hot. Leaving it bitter even with sugar, but it was something he could afford, which seemed few and far between lately.

“I only recently learned what squatting actually is. They’d looked at me like I was a fool for asking”

“That’s… Gods I’m sorry. I can’t even fathom how shit that must’ve felt, I’ve always lived in the city so…”

“It isn’t all awful; being in the city. Living is a much more manageable kind of tiring.”

He was lucky to be as strong as he is, he’d manage to land a job as an unskilled labourer. As much as he resented the title he knew it wasn’t a slight, he didn’t have any of the certifications or diplomas required to hold any other station at the greenhouse he worked in. Even if he knew more about many of the plants they grew from his own personal experience working with them.

One thing of many he’d yet to get used to. Your experience doesn’t matter in the city unless you have a piece of paper proving it.

“That’s fair I suppose… I would give damn near anything to be able to be self-sufficient like that… Alas I’m doomed to forever be a slave to capitalism.”

Halsin wants to tell them that they’re not.

He wants to say that if enough people stopped thinking that they don’t have the option to rebel the entire system would fall apart.

He bites his tongue, figuratively and literally. Wincing as the sharp taste of iron settles in his mouth.

Well, it’s not like his tea could’ve gotten much worse.

“What’s something small you miss? From living in the forest I mean.”

“Starlight. It was one of the first things that really threw me off about this place. Night is unbearably dark, yet somehow unpleasantly bright at the same time.”

They nod, and ponder their tea for a beat.

“Do you have any plans tonight?”

“How forward.”

They scoff, but it lacks venom.

“Just answer me you dork.”

“No I do not.”

Their smile widens considerably.

“You do now, assuming you don’t mind coming over to my apartment.”

He nods in agreement, and they beam.

Another thing that’s definitely not awful about living in the city is them. He had met them through the greenhouse they both worked at, and had kept contact after they had quit.

The afternoon passes by as it usually does during their little dates. They would talk about their job and their cats, he would reply in kind. His tea went cold long before he finished it, and he’d thank the barista as he handed their mugs across the counter.

The walk to their apartment was nice. He realized as they spoke about the bus they missed how much he missed not being alone.

It was a long walk, he silently thanked Silvanus.

Their apartment was almost identical to his on the outside. Grey building, black doors, painfully sterile.

The inside however, was not. Almost every flat surface was plastered with posters and prints, the shelves full of knickknacks and candles more so than actual books.

“Okay so, I don’t have a couch obviously because I have a studio apartment but my bed doesn’t have the best view of the thing I want to show you.”

They push some things haphazardly out of the center of the room, before pulling a blanket off their bed and laying it out.

“Gods this is so sketchy I’m so sorry- Lay on this and close your eyes.”

“It’s alright. I trust you.”

The blanket is soft, but thin. The linoleum below digging into his shoulders as he lays down. There’s a soft click and the lights turn off, they settle beside him after a moment.

“Okay. Open your eyes.”

It takes him a second to put together what he’s looking at.

Stars. Painted on the walls and ceiling between the posters and tapestries, glowing in the dark of their apartment.

“It’s obviously not as pretty as real stars but… I dunno I’ve never been far enough out of town to see many real ones so I made my own starlight.

“It’s beautiful.”

He doesn’t need to be able to see them to know they’re smiling.

© cakeboxie •• 2023 •• Please do not translate/repost. reblogs are appreciated and requests are open!

Part of the @eveningatthrmoviesnetwork

~~

Taglist: @yarnnerdally • @starrry-angel • @yuelqnn • @yeonpm • @beardedladyqueen

Wanna be added? Send me an ask off anon and lmk if you want to be on the sfw only list!

[cainluvr69]

Surely, We Can Make Miracles Chapter 5

Previous Chapter

Nero: There ain't any point in eatin' it cold if it's supposed to be served hot! You don't even cook, and all you can do is fuckin' complain about it!

Originally, they'd been whispering to each other, but as Nero's anger mounted, his voice was getting louder. Even if Dianne couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, it was still perfectly obvious there was some kind of argument going on. Bradley leaned in, refusing to give in, audaciously trying to whisper into Nero's ear again even as Nero was glaring daggers at him.

Bradley: I can at least tell when the person makin' it actually has pride in what they're makin'. You ain't the one makin' this shit. Why are you tryin' to cover for 'em?

Nero: Now you're tryin' to preach at me about pride in your work? You're just pretendin' you know what the hell you're talkin' about when you're just flappin' your gums!

Figaro: (You know, now that I'm getting a good look at them…they're kind of obviously ex-partners, aren't they…) (I wouldn't have thought it'd be his friend in the kitchen. Really, preconceptions are never any good.)

Faust: (Nero… No matter how much he might say you're his friend in the kitchen, Bradley's still a Northern wizard.) (Thoughtlessly making him angry isn't going to end well.)

Lennox: (Goodness. Bradley's such a glutton.)

The tension in the air was only getting progressively more electric. And then Shino joined in, keeping his voice low.

Shino: I get what Bradley's saying. Let me be honest. First…

Heathcliff: Shino.

Heath said his servant's name sharply. He was every inch a noble right now, the look in his blue eyes cold and pointed. Shino flinched, and then took a deep breath and started shooting back.

Shino: I'm saying this for your sake. You don't need to do anything.

Heathcliff: You're being arrogant. And you're being ungrateful towards the noble Western Chenon House's Lady Dianne's hospitality, which she's put her heart and soul into… Any furthur critique is out of line. Your insolence is doing nothing but dragging the Blanchett name through the mud. Have some self-control.

Heathcliff's harsh words made Shino snap his mouth shut. He was trembling a bit, his gaze drifting away from him. After a moment, though, remorse showed on his face, and he deeply bowed his head. Heathcliff, too, bowed slightly to Dianne, and then elegantly returned to his meal.

Shino: (Heath's right… It wasn't all that long ago that I was hunting for scraps. Maybe I've gotten too used to living well.)

Heathcliff: (I'm sorry I was so forceful, Shino… But if I didn't say as much as I did, it could've turned into a diplomatic incident…) (She's smiling right now, but she must be furious in her heart… What if one day she says I need to give you up?) (It's possible I won't be able to save you from that, Shino… So…)

An unpleasant atmosphere settled into the silence as our meal continued. About when I felt confident no one else was going to start voicing their displeasure, Bradley leaned back and crossed his legs.

Bradley: But damn!

Nero: Woah! My hand's slippin' on the pepper…!

Bradley: Waugh…! Achoo!!

In the fight against <the Great Calamity>, Bradley had been afflicted with a bizarre injury that affected him when he sneezed--and, well, he vanished. Somewhere in the world, he was cursing Nero and his pepper.

Snow: Goodness gracious, I suppose there was no avoiding that.

White: We shall go to the market and retrieve Bradley.

Figaro: There's no way of knowing Bradley showed up at the market, is there? You two just want to go window shopping.

Snow & White: Gulp…

Figaro: Please don't do anything disrespectful. Rutile and Mitile are both sitting nice and politely…

Snow: You're so wrong! We're just going to go pick up our dear Bradley!

White: We have a duty to supervise him, you know! By the way, Owen dear, what's that cake called again?

Owen: Torta di cocco.

White: Thanks!

Figaro: Jeez.

The twins vanished like smoke.

Mithra: Hm? Is no one else eating? If you're not going to eat, I'll take it.

Owen: Here.

Owen pushed his food onto Mithra's plate, and then stood up from his seat and drained his cup of tea.

Owen: I want more of that cake, too.

And, having said that, he vanished, too. The ensuing silence was so heavy you could cut it with a knife.

Akira: (What should I do… Should I have said something…?) (I wonder what everyone's thinking…?)

Oz: … (Though this is not especially good…) (It still outclasses my own failures.)

Arthur: (I bet he's thinking this is better than his own mess-ups.)

Rutile: (I've made some pretty bad dishes too…)

Mithra: (Everyone's eating so lightly. That means I win.)

Mitile: (It's not very good, but saying that would be rude and wasteful.)

Riquet: (Expressing displeasure with one's meal is to embrace corruption. It is a terrible thing to do. I know that, and yet…) (I'd been wanting to eat something more delicious than this.)

Cain: (Owen's really going to go eat more…? I know that cake was delicious, but he already ate seven slices…)

Shylock: (My sincerest apologies, but I have no intention of putting anything that doesn't capture my heart into my body.)

Chloe: (I need to eat all of this, somehow… I've really gotten so used to eating Nero's food I've gotten spoiled…)

Rustica: (Chloe's ocean-inspired outfits look so good on everyone.)

Murr: (This rules! Watching everyone's reactions to having to keep their desires in check is so fun!)

Figaro: (For now I can just pretend to eat, and then get something from the market later.)

Lennox: (Lord Figaro isn't swallowing any of that, is he…? Is he making it disappear with magic…?)

Nero: (God… I can't do this… As a fellow chef, I can't pretend this is someone else's problem…) (What happened, Borda Castle head chef… Did you forget the seasoning to handle the smell or something?) (He seemed so meticulous in his work, too. Or maybe he got the cut wrong… Or is it someone else's work? Did they hire someone new?) (Maybe he got sick… He must've gotten sick. And now he can't taste things right anymore. That's gotta be it.) (Or maybe he injured his hands… How could things have ended up like this…) (What a disgrace… If it were me, I'd pack my bags and be gone by tomorrow…) (But what if he's got a family to support… Argh! I don't wanna even think about that.)

Faust: (Nero's making so many different faces right now…)

Dianne cleared her throat. She turned to face me and, bright as always, began to speak.

Dianne: By the way, Master Sage, I have a question for you.

Akira: Ah, yes. What is it?

Dianne: Lately, Borda Island has been facing a number of mysterious disappearances.

Akira: Disappearances…?

Dianne: Yes. Both the residents of the island and people visiting it are concerned by them. I'd like to ask your help in resolving them…

✦✧☾✧✦

Let me summarize what Dianne told me.

✦✧☾✧✦

Akira: Ever since Miss Dianne was appointed Borda Island's new lord, people have been disappearing. There's currently nine people missing, including both humans and wizards.

Chloe: Both humans and wizards…

Arthur: This island has its famous wizard market, after all.

Rustica: And this island is beautiful, so many humans come both to sightsee and to permanently settle down here.

Figaro: The development of magical technology has made it so much easier for humans to go where they like. If you look around, you'll see a lot of brand-new big homes.

Lennox: Meaning?

Figaro: There's more vacation homes. Hasn't land on Borda Island and in the City of Nectar gotten more pricy?

Shylock: I believe so.

Rutile: Isn't that odd? Are Southern Country's prairies going to be that pricy one day?

Murr: If there's more people living on them, yeah! The more demand there is, the more profit the suppliers make. Right now, Southern Country's pretty empty. But what if it got a population as big as Western Country's?!

Cain: Basically, Borda Island's a popular place to be for both wizards and humans.

Akira: Yes, exactly. According to Miss Dianne, the repeated disappearances are worsening the antagonism between wizards and humans.

Heathcliff: So they both think the other side is the culprit…?

Akira: It seems that way… The wizards in the market think it was the humans' doing… And the island humans think that it was the wizards' doing. And since Miss Dianne, who's open and friendly with wizards, just arrived…

Arthur: The island residents, already on edge, have been demanding that she leave. They think that a lord who's so close with wizards won't be similarly cordial with humans.

Akira: Exactly. You really understand what's going on, Arthur.

Arthur: It's like I always say. Though I may stand as Central Country's crown prince, I am also a wizard. The wizards think that I'll ally myself with humans. And the humans think that I'll ally myself with wizards. It takes a long time of open and patient conversation to stamp out any misunderstandings.

Shino: Why do you have to be the one to do it? They're the ones that are being stubborn.

Arthur: If you think the person you're talking to is being stubborn, you can never become friends with them. Both wizards and humans have decided that the other side is the one being stubborn. And so an endless cycle is born.

Shino: That's true… Actually, this is a good chance. You're a good guy, so let me give you some advice.

Arthur: You think I'm a good guy? I'm happy to hear that.

Shino: You're too good of a guy. You should let yourself get upset more often. If people don't wanna listen to you, they're not gonna listen. And then you're just wasting your time. There's not as many kind people in this world as you think. You should let up a little.

Arthur: Thank you. You're very kind, Shino.

Shino: Don't mock me.

Arthur: But don't worry. I wouldn't say I'm all that virtuous, either. I do have a goal in mind.

Shino: A goal?

Arthur: It takes time for people to see me not as a wizard, not as a human, not as a prince, but as myself. And for me to see the person I'm talking to properly, I need to take that much time as well. It's difficult to erase one's prejudices and preconceptions.

Shino: …I'm not willing to put that much work into other people. People who don't like me should just stay away from me. And I'll stay away from them, too. It's fine if we don't understand each other. It's enough to know what lines not to cross.

Arthur: I think that's fine, too. Boundaries exist so that you don't experience undue suffering.

Shino: …? Isn't that the complete opposite of what you said, though?

Arthur: I think it's the same. I probably just have much different boundaries from you. It's just about what we're good and not good with.

Shino: Meaning?

Arthur: If human society and wizard society stay separated, one day, they're going to collide messily with one another. I want to avoid that tragedy. I feel like that's the only thing I can leave in this world…

Oz: …

Arthur: What I'm trying to say, is… I'm good at having those kinds of patient conversations, and I have a personal interest in addressing the issue. So it's not something that's as difficult for me as you're worried about, Shino. But again, thank you.

Shino: Hmm… Well, if you say it's fine, then it's fine. Living just seems hard for you and Heath sometimes.

Heathcliff: …

Figaro: Things are getting pretty philosophical here. Both understanding something and misunderstanding something are important in a wizard's life. But for right now, let's just put that topic to the side.

Faust: You're just knocking that philosophical topic off the table like a cat.

Figaro: It'd be nice if it was the kind of topic that we could put on hold like that, right? So to sum it up, Master Sage, she wants us to find the true culprit behind these disappearances?

Akira: That's correct. The island residents are wary of the people in Miss Dianne's castle, so they can't do much at the moment…

Figaro: Got it. Then it's time to start collecting information on these disappearances. But first, Master Sage, can I have a second?

Figaro put his arm around my shoulder and led me away from the group. Once we were a bit of a ways away, he murmured something into my ear.

Figaro: …Master Sage. A lot of people are involved in these incidents.

Akira: The market wizards and the island residents, right?

Figaro: Yes. And there's also the possibility that these disappearances are actually serial murders.

Hearing that startled me. I looked up at him. He shrugged his shoulders with a bitter smile on his face.

Figaro: Wizards turn to stone when they die. Cleaning up the bodies is easy, so it's easy to cover up their deaths. Arthur is Oz's disciple, and Shino's been through a lot of direct combat. Heathcliff's also been taught how to protect his family. Chloe and Rustica have been traveling for years, and I imagine they've seen their fair share of fighting. But, my kids… The Southern brothers, Rutile and Mitile, aren't ready for this kind of thing. I don't think Riquet is, either. For the chance that humans have been killing wizards.

Akira: …How likely do you think the chance of that is?

Figaro: I'm not sure. They did say they're only disappearances, after all. Say you stabbed and killed me right now. All you'd have to do is wrap my stone in my clothes and bury them somewhere, and boom, I'm recorded as missing.

The bright sunlight was making my head spin.

Akira: (That's right. Wizards turn to stone…) (If something happened to any of them, I wouldn't even get to see them resting peacefully afterwards.)

Figaro: So I think it's better if the matter of information gathering is kept away from Rutile, Mitile, and Riquet… Oh, oh dear. Perhaps I should have kept it from you, too. You're looking a little off…

Shylock: Are you okay, Master Sage?

Suddenly Shylock was at my side, supporting my arm. He glared at Figaro, blaming him for my current state. Figaro raised both hands and shook his head.

Figaro: I didn't do anything.

The outline of the sun above glittered with all the colors of the rainbow. Just like the stone of a wizard.

Next Chapter

[kaitoujokerscans]

Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH7

<7> Traveling Joker Once Again

Back in the guise of Kaitou Joe, Joker returned gleefully with the Sigma Drive in one hand. When he entered the living room, Hosshi hopped over to him.

"Hosshiii! Hosshiii!"

"Waugh! What is it, pseudocat!?"

"Hosshihosshi hosshiii!" It was trying to tell him something, but Joker didn't have time for that right now. He had to use the Sigma Drive and travel to the past ASAP.

From what he could see, Hachi wasn't around. That made this the perfect chance.

"Hoshihoshihoshi!"

"Shush, will ya? I'll hear you out when I get back, so be patient for the moment, pseudocat!"

Joker pushed aside Hosshi, who was bouncing around him, and started to tinker with the Sigma Drive. "Okay... two days ago... it must've been around 9PM. All right, Sigma Drive, start up!" He entered the date and time, pushed the button, and then everything distorted around him. Soon his vision clouded over with a fuzzy haze, and he heard a loud VWOOM sound like a strong wind inside his head.

Right after, a harsh light flashed in front of him, and Joker reflexively shut his eyes...

Joker slowly opened his eyes. His mind was fuzzy. It felt like being woken up by a morning alarm without warning.

The scenery was exactly the same as he had just seen.

"...Did it work?"

Just then, he heard the pattering of footsteps from the other side of the door. Joker quickly hid himself behind the shelving.

Hachi came into the living room.

"I can't believe Joker-san! This time I'm not going to forgive him!" he grumbled as he started to clear the snacks off the table.

Evidently the time jump had worked. Joker had returned to the moment right after he and Hachi had fought and he left for his caper.

"Geez, Joker-san doesn't clean up after himself at all..." Even as he complained, Hachi diligently put away the game console. Joker was filled with an indescribable feeling as he watched him. He sorely missed hearing Hachi call him "Joker-san".

Once Hachi finished tidying up, he returned to the kitchen. Joker peered at him from the shadows and saw him slowly stirring the curry pot.

"...Then again, I might've gone too far..." Hachi murmured as he stirred. Hearing this, Joker felt a sting in his heart.

"I know! I'll finish up this delicious curry and apologize when Joker-san gets back! And I've got a special ingredient just for the occasion!" Forcing himself to cheer up, Hachi removed one of the wall tiles with a plunk. Apparently he'd created a secret compartment in the kitchen. He pulled out a small black bottle from within and sprinkled its powdery contents into the curry.

"Now it's perfect!" Hachi said with satisfaction after putting some of the curry into a saucer and taste-testing it.

As he watched from afar, another feeling welled up in Joker. Hachi had wanted to apologize to him. And yet I...

He wanted to jump out right now and tell Hachi he was sorry.

That's what I can do...! Joker had a sudden realization. If he jumped out and said "Hachi, I'm sorry! It was my fault!" right now, he might be able to restore Hachi's memories. He still didn't know how Hachi had gotten amnesia, but he figured he could at least clear away Hachi's hate for him. Yes, apologizing right away might be the best solution.

Joker's anger toward Hachi had long since cooled. Usually Joker wouldn't even consider apologizing immediately, but this was a special case. Hachi, I was wrong. Sorry for not apologizing to you right away... He practiced the words in his head and was about to step out from behind the shelving when...

"Okay, it's all ready! Now I can enjoy the Shuffle Sisters concert by myself without anything hanging over me!"

Eh...? Joker stopped in his tracks.

Hachi bustled over to the cabinet. He took out a DVD case from inside, swiftly popped the disc into the player, turned on the big TV, and cranked up the volume.

Magical♪ Magical♪ Let's dig in!♪"

The screen displayed the Shuffle Sisters dancing all around the stage of a huge venue in high definition. The Shuffle Sisters was an idol group composed of actual sisters: Ai, Rei, and Kira. They were a popular and widely-recognized group, and Hachi was a big fan of them. Ai, who was Dark Eye's true identity and the eldest sister of the bunch, was Hachi's favorite.

"YAHOOOOOOOOOOOO! AI-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

Hachi pulled a homemade fan out of nowhere and started to swing his arm around so wildly it seemed like it'd fly right off. His other hand held a large penlight with the Shuffle Sisters' name on it. It was of course lit up green to match Ai's costume.

In time with the Shuffle Sisters' song, Hachi perspired as he danced the choreography perfectly and bounced around on the large sofa. His expression was so blissful that it was hard to believe he'd been angry before this.

Is he seriously...!? Joker glared intently at Hachi from behind the shelving. His earlier feelings of remorse had vanished to the far end of the universe. Instead, Joker's heart was now stewing with anger toward Hachi, who was enthusiastically enjoying himself before his eyes. I was totally agonizing over this, but it turns out he was whooping it up while I was out! There's no way I'm apologizing! Joker swore to himself. He scowled back at Hosshi nearby, who was looking blankly at him. Unbothered, Hosshi was just going to munch on some konpeito. But as it turned out, Hosshi's konpeito bottle was empty.

"Hosshi," said Hosshi. It then scooped the empty bottle onto its head and approached Hachi, who was obsessively waving his penlight at the screen. Hachi noticed and turned around.

"What's up, Hosshi? Oh, you're out of konpeito."

Hachi went towards the cabinet, pulled the key out of his pocket, and opened up the sliding doors. Hosshi's konpeito was stored there, and it was normally kept locked so that it wouldn't sneak any extra. Hachi looked into the cabinet and pulled out the stockpile of konpeito.

But all of a sudden, he didn't see Hosshi.

"Huh? Where did Hosshi go?" He looked around and spotted Hosshi eyeing a pretty plate displayed atop the shelves. It was a valuable art piece which Joker had recently taken great pains to obtain. Hosshi ate konpeito, but its favorite food was treasure.

"Not that, Hosshi! Joker-san will be angry..." As he spoke, something crossed Hachi's mind. His expression turned mischievous and he scratched his head. He must've just remembered his fight with Joker. "...Well, you can have a little treat every so often."

What!? Listening from the safety of his hiding place, Joker's eyes bulged.

"Hosshi, I didn't see a thing. I'm sure Joker-san would say it's fine for you to eat it"

"It's not fine!" Joker screeched.

Hachi turned around with a start. There was Joker in front of the shelves, an enraged look on his face. He couldn't stand it anymore and had revealed himself.

"Joker-san! ...What's up with your clothes?"

Yes, Joker was still in his Kaitou Joe disguise. Hachi had no way of knowing that this Joker was from the future, so he asked out of puzzlement.

"Oh shut up, who cares! More importantly, don't just let that pseudocat gobble up my precious treasure!"

"W-Well, I...

"That doesn't matter! I came cause I was worried and turns out you were having fun! Waving around that penlight and having the time of your life!"

"Wh- you saw that!?" Hachi's face promptly turned red from embarrassment. "It's awful of you to spy on me! That's an invasion of my privacy!"

"This is my house! You don't get privacy here!"

"What!? So you're saying I can only act how I want to when I'm in my room!?"

"Yeah, you bet!"

"I live here too, you know! I'm your helper, Joker-san!"

"Heh! If you're my helper, then try doing something to help me out for once!"

"You're the one who left me behind, Joker-san!"

"Cause you're useless! I can handle a couple little capers easy without you there!"

"Mrrrghh... Well, you can't do anything by yourself, Joker-san! Just recently I saw you going to the bathroom in the middle of the night all spooked!"

"T-That was because I was playing a scary game before bed! That was an exception, not the norm!"

"I'm not so sure about that! I'm really angry now! Hosshi, go ahead and eat this!" Hachi grabbed a necklace on display next to him and tossed it toward Hosshi.

"Hosshi♪" Hosshi gladly leapt for the necklace and instantaneously gobbled it down.

"AAAAAAAAGH! You jerk!"

"There's plenty more to chow down on!" Hachi pushed a nearby switch, unlocking the display cases in the room with a slow clatter. The priceless collection pieces inside were exposed one after another.

"Hosshi!" Hosshi joyfully dashed around the room, eating treasures left and right.

"Stop it!" Panicked, Joker chased after Hosshi. Chairs fell down, the sofa was jolted, cups crashed down from the shelves; the whole room was thrown into disarray.

"Hold it right there, pseudocat!" Joker finally grabbed hold of Hosshi and squeezed it tight.

"Hoshi hoshi hoshi!" Hosshi slipped out of Joker's grasp and then gasped, the whites of its eyes showing.

"Agh, too late!"

"Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho... HOSSHIIIII!" Hosshi jumped up, leaving an egg with a star shell lying where it had been. When Hosshi ate treasure, it laid eggs. Strangely enough, whatever came out of the egg ended up being a useful item for people in the near future.

The egg cracked open and Joker looked to see what it was.

"The heck is this? Glue?" He picked up a small bottle of adhesive. It really didn't seem like this could come in handy at the moment.

I spent so much effort getting that treasure, and now it's reduced to this...

"Hey!" Joker turned angrily toward Hachi. "This is your fault, Hachi!"

"No, it's your fault, Joker-san! You're never nice to me or Hosshi, so this is karma!"

"Oh yeah!?" Still holding the glue, Joker rushed toward Hachi. Hachi ran away into the kitchen. "Get back here, you jerk!"

Just then, it happened. The konpeito bottle was rolling around at Hachi's feet, and Hachi accidentally put all his weight on it. "W-Whoa! Waaaahhh!"

Hachi lost his balance and instinctively tried to grab onto something, which happened to be a cloth hanging in front of him. The cloth was actually a large tapestry which Joker had stolen recently. There was a large skull sculpture resting above it. When Hachi pulled down on the tapestry, it came away from the wall, and with it came the skull sculpture as well.

"Hachi!?" yelled Joker. A moment later, Hachi was lying on the ground with the tapestry fluttering over him. The skull sculpture followed, dropping down right over his head...

Donk. A loud thud came from under the tapestry.

"Hachi!" Joker frantically rushed over and shoved the tapestry aside. Under it, Hachi was knocked out cold. A bump was starting to swell just above his brow — a familiar spot.

"Ohhhh, I messed up so bad..."

Just then, a buzzer sound came from Joker's pocket where the Sigma Drive was resting. He quickly checked it and saw on the display "10 seconds left". It was already counting down.

"Shoot, it's already time to go back! Wait, right! The secret ingredient for the curry!" Joker finally remembered the reason why he'd gone back in the first place and ran into the kitchen. The curry was stewing on low heat on the stove.

Joker removed the tile hiding the secret compartment and took the black bottle from within. "This is it!" The moment after Joker grabbed the bottle, everything around him warped, his vision clouded over, and then a harsh light flashed...

"Hm, so this is it..." Hyakkimaru picked up the small black bottle and examined it closely. Joker was seated in front of him. He'd come straight over to Hyakkimaru's hideout as soon as he'd gotten the bottle.

"Yeah, apparently that's the secret ingredient Hachi put in his curry."

Joker had promptly checked the contents of the bottle upon returning to his original time period. However, it was empty inside. Hachi must have used up the last of it in his latest batch. Joker had intended to have amnesiac-Hachi tell him what would've been inside, but he was gone for some reason. This was why Hosshi had been so frantic when Joker got back.

Having lost all leads, Joker visited Hyakkimaru again. At any rate... Joker felt even more responsible than before. If he'd simply apologized to Hachi when he returned to the past, Hachi might not have forgotten. But instead Hachi hit his head again and lost his memory. And by chasing him this time, Joker had contributed to the problem.

There's gotta be some way for me to get Hachi's memory back...

"Hm... I've seen this crest design before," said Hyakkimaru, spotting the small emblem printed on the bottom of the bottle. Joker took a look for himself. True enough, there was a crest with three rectangles. "This is the Iga Ninja crest."

"The Iga?"

"Indeed. I've heard tell of a wonder herb handed down through the Iga clan. Ninjas used it to season bland rations when they were on missions in enemy territory."

"That's it... that's gotta be it!"

"But the herb is the Iga's most closely-guarded secret. They won't easily permit you to learn about it."

"Who ever said I was gonna get their permission?" Joker stood up and exclaimed. "I'm a phantom thief. I don't bother with asking, I just steal things!"

"Yes... this is for Hachi's sake. I'll lend you my aid."

"Then let's get going!"

Then, just as the two were about to step out-

"!" Hyakkimaru's eyes glinted. A split second later, something hurtled their way at high speed. He caught it.

"This is..." A messenger arrow lay in his hands. There was a scrap of paper attached around the middle of the handmade arrow. "What does it mean?"

He unfolded the paper, revealing a message written in neat and mannerly letters.

"Letter of challenge!

To Kaitou Joe-san, better known as Phantom Thief Joker.

You're a terrible person for deceiving me!

I swear I'll get revenge for this, so you better watch out!

—Fuuma Hachi"

[eliotqueliot]

Puzzling It Out

For the May 31 prompt: Free Day! for @duckprintspress May Trope Mayhem

Fandom: The Magicians (TV); Relationship: Eliot Waugh/Quentin Coldwater

Warnings for canon-typical language and grief/regret; the "canonical character death" is Eliot's death in the Mosaic Timeline.

Summary: A story in verse. Eliot’s POV, reflecting on their lives at the Mosaic, as well as what happened in the throne room afterward. Yes, their hearts were broken then—but in the course of these reflections, Eliot realizes a few things. And makes plans. So—there's hope!

Also posted on AO3—link at the end.

Puzzling It Out

Each night I dream of that puzzle—

fruits of the orchard, often our child—

but always that puzzle with you on it.

Crawling the playing board or pacing with me;

standing by, or perched on the ladder,

perusing the journal to compare solutions, or design new ones.

But always you, you, standing there,

frowning or excited for some new possibility,

or on your hands and knees working the tiles,

gazing up at me with mischief from under that fall of long hair.

“We work”—our hearts in harmony, more often than we fight,

but I’ll take both: anything to get a glimpse of you while you’re still mine,

sharing peaches and plums, peaches and plums,

that sweet tang, the juice running down your chin,

all over your fingers—licking it off,

tasting your sweet lips, your tart bite, the witty sarcasm, the fond embrace,

throwing you over my shoulder or lifting you high like an airplane on my long legs.

Your snark, your wit, your kindness.

Your muscles rippling on a hot, shirtless day.

I want to continue that life with nothing but you:

no other place I ever felt at home or happy.

But you were my home, you and our son.

Our whole lives stretched out, and we lived each day fiercely

with love, even through the fights.

And then it all ended: not with my death,

though I’m sorry I grieved you—

but with your decision to start over—

without asking what I wanted.

(To be fair, I was dead and couldn’t answer.)

You arranged for a letter to reach High Queen Margo,

arriving in time, with all the information she needed

to stop our quest from ever happening.

She arrived holding the key it took us a lifetime to earn—

a lifetime of love, of happiness—

our lives together, just us. An adventure

there’s no need to go on, now—

we stopped before the clock, before we ever felt magic again

or tasted each other’s lips a second time,

our first time alone following the threesome.

Everything we know says it never happened:

everything we feel says it did.

Was it a dream? Was it real?

Why did you want to stop us?

Did you want to escape a life of toil? Me?

Did you think that we’d just start over, fresh,

even though I don’t know how to do this?

Even though you erased the one time we had enough time

for me to learn how to work past my fears, to believe it was possible,

to trust that someone could actually love me?

I love you so much that I’m fucking terrified,

and I don’t know how to get there,

how to get home from inside this tangled wood,

never having lived those lives I loved so much,

where I loved you so much (so many times)—

where the certainty of your love

was so much greater than all my fears.

I want so badly to touch your face, but this is the world

in which I have no framework, no certainty,

nothing but my love for you that was never returned,

not for years, not for flirting or threesomes,

not as far as I ever knew.

And my heart stutters trying to speak—

Even though all I want to do is go home—

home to you, to our peaceful lives of purpose, our child,

the beauty of all life

(it’s you, you, you)—

But I never can, because home doesn’t exist,

not anymore. Because I said “I love you, but.”

And you said, “Okay.”

And Okay, I’d give anything to take back what else I said,

all those lies and excuses, just me running away—

but I’ll be honest. I was happy. We were happy.

We loved each other. We lived good, beautiful lives.

And I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to die.

But I died loving you. Watching you, awed by your beauty even then,

even though you didn’t know it. I died knowing I was loved.

That we’d made it. I’d beat the odds. Lived a good life. Been a good dad.

Husband to the most wonderful man in the world. In any world.

A task so hard it seemed impossible in our lives before.

I never could have done it without you. Without that quest.

Our lives dedicated to endless combinations of art.

Focusing on something else

so I could pretend not to notice love sneaking up on me.

But I noticed. I noticed. I savored every minute.

I loved you so much. Long before I could say.

Long after I stopped being able to say, in this place we are now.

A quest so hard I’d have said it was impossible:

true love, happiness. A family.

We solved it together.

It was the miracle I never dared to hope for.

I died loving you. Being loved. Old. Home. Happy.

And now…it’s nothing but a memory.

A secret shared between us. But even we don’t dare to speak of it anymore.

If you’d asked me, love, before you sent that letter . . .

I didn’t want to come back. Not ever.

Not to be separated from you like this.

Not to have that hard uphill climb

that I might never achieve again, not with all these odds stacked against me—

two royal marriages to contend with, our fucked-up fairy overlords,

alcoholism, the burdens of the crown—

my inability to speak my heart.

(Your ongoing pull toward Alice Quinn.)

My paralyzing fear. Jealousy.

All the things, reasonable and un-,

that have separated us once again,

stranded on different worlds:

you on Earth, and I in Fillory.

But, love, I’ve been puzzling this out.

I’ve had time to think.

To sort out not what’s possible,

but what’s important—enough to make it happen.

I have a plan.

There are keys left on this quest.

And I’m not a king any longer.

Let’s find the next one together, shall we?

You know you want to.

I have a flying boat…

for that boat quest you always wanted to go on together?

This time, I promise you:

together, we’ll find one more key:

and on the way…

I’ll unlock my heart and say

Yes.

[shirogane-oushirou]

😘💕🎵 for regular!ren aaaand 💤💞☕️ for oushirou?? ^^/

WAUGH THANK YOU HAHNNNNN!!! 🥺 i'm so sorry this took so long... Things keep Happening KJNSDKJFN so i've been plugging at it here and there ksjnfdkj. ;;;;;;

for r!ren:

😘: What’s your f/o’s favorite thing about YOU?

first impression, it's my passion! we bond over a mutual interest in niche VNs and he respects how much of my brain is taken up by that shit.... but as we get to know each other i think he starts to appreciate my perseverance just as much. he's also had to persevere through rough situations, so he knows what it means (not to get too under/tale on this lmao) to push through NOT with active determination but as a matter of "the only choices are to stagnate or move forward, and so i choose to move forward."

💕: Who’s the clingier one in the relationship?

reeeeen :3 i'm the "i love when you ARE around, but i understand that you can't be around with me 24/7 just bc of my conditions, you have other things to do" type.... plus i have a low social battery KHJBJDHB. meanwhile, ren's like "heyyyy are u in bed today? when i get off work, can i be too? ^_^" and brings over food and snuggles in while asking if it's okay for him to stay the night bc he doesn't want to let go of me.

it's not like he's jealous or doesn't take no for an answer or anything, but if he's given the okay to just spend all day with me in bed (or watch the house if my family's out of town), he absolutely will.

🎵: What are some song lyrics that make you think of your f/o/your relationship with your f/o?

"Baby, you have changed me I can't escape it Drives me crazy Everything is easy Nothing matters You've got me bending Over backwards" -- "Back & Forth" by CRX (cw flashing video)

"Ooh, Jason, tell me what you're chasin' Because the night will never give you what you want Ooh, Jason, and if you can't escape it I hope you find whatever you've been looking for" -- "Jason" by The Midnight ft. Nikki Flores

for oushirou:

💤: Do you sleep together? If so, describe your sleeping positions and patterns (E.g. who steals the blankets, are either of you insomniacs, etc.)

OUGHHH we're both blanket hogs. FIGHT!!!!! i assume we'd have separate blankets tbh or else if/when we roll apart from each other we'll start fighting in our sleep skdjn. i'm an insomniac, but once i get to sleep, like... i've slept through the windows right next to my head getting powerwashed. NOTHING is waking my ass up. he's a workaholic so if he's working on a big story he might stay up late by choice, but if given the option he has a pretty regular schedule and wakes up easily when his alarm goes off.

he's also the type to leave for work early and slowly sneak out of the bed while un-wrapping himself from around me, get back late, and slowly get in bed and wrap himself back around me hdljfn. he jokes about using me as a dakimakura, which is funny until i remember how much comfort he finds in sleeping with me the few times during the year that he's actually able to, so he's taking as much advantage of it as he can. ;__;

💞: How do you both express affection?

oushirou's big on physical affection -- hand holding, snuggling, the cute "escort arm hold" thing -- but despite how flirty he is (or maybe because of it) he really appreciates more subtle forms of affection. giving someone a pretty rock or leaf... buying them a new coat just in time for winter... cooking food for the people you care about most... things that will stick with him and them when he's off traveling.

i personally appreciate those little things more than physical affection, and i'm very much about doing the same in return. i want to cook for him when i can (or maybe cook something with him), i'd spend time with him out and about, even if it's just window shopping, and i'd have a handmade scarf or sweater ready that he can take with him when he travels. simple things.

☕: How do you comfort each other on a bad day?

we're both the type to get supremely hurt by "this could have just been solved by talking" situations while also having difficulty communicating anything negative kJNADKJN so. that's become a cornerstone for working through things together: making a point of getting EVERYTHING out so we don't end up with misunderstandings.

so if either of us is upset about something, whether in the relationship or just from a Shitty Fucking Day, we'll sit down together to talk things through. working through everything thoroughly generally means when we're done, it's DONE (or we at least have a plan going forward), so we can switch gears to like... making a nice meal together... eating a dessert one of us picked up... cuddling and watching tv or reading... comfy things, all with little or no baggage.

[angelcloves]

[Plutonium Dust AU]

Interesting!

I've always been of the thinking that magic and radiation cancel each other out. You know, like how Collector magic and Titan magic did in the show itself?

So, basically, magic doesn't work like it should in an irradiated environment. It's ineffective. If you were to draw a spell circle, it would break apart immediately. [That being said, the air where you just drew the spell circle would now be free of radiation.]

Tough luck for Amity, Gus, and Willow, who are used to using magic as easily as breathing. But hey! Since they have bile sacs, meaning that magic literally flows through their veins, that means that they won't get cancer as a result of exposure to high levels of radioactive fallout!

Or suffer from radiation sickness in general, since the magic that their bodies constantly produce is also constantly neutralizing the effects radiation should have on their bodies.

Hunter and Luz, since neither of them have any inherent magic of their own, are not so lucky.

[Well, Hunter's status is a bit up in the air. You could make the argument that he is technically a magical being, given that he was created via a ritual. Therefore he's not a naturally born person, he's a magical construct. Although, whether or not that means his body exudes magic as a result of his origins is open for interpretation.]

So, Hunter... might be okay-ish? Luz would still be doomed no matter what, though. It would be paramount to get her out of Gravesfield if it's so now irradiated that life can not be sustained there any longer. [Which, uh, it would kind of have to be if Vee and Camila were frigging vaporized.] Barring that, limiting her exposure as much as possible would need to be a priority for the Hexsquad.

Of course, the kids themselves would have no way of knowing about any of this. They'd be lucky to discover if magic and radiation neutralize one another just from trial and error alone. I will confess though, that I love the sheer irony of Luz warning her friends of the dangers of exposure of radiation... when they're never actually the ones in danger, she is.

clearing out my inbox time sorry it took me so long to answer

OHHH IM EATING THIS UP

see personally i dont love going the 'hunter exudes magic' route so i think hes gonna end up pretty sick also but WAUGH i love this interpretation so much

[lixxen]

Look At All The Lonely People (Matt Murdock x Male!Reader)

This contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

This focuses on Reader and Matt figuring out who Peter is, so it focuses less on the relationship itself but Peter. Sorry guys. I wanted to write Matt's S/O realize something was wrong. I'm going to write a part two that dives into them basically adopting Peter and their relationship.

----

Y/n didn’t know what was going on, but something was wrong.

He stared at the calendar that held his and Matt’s schedules for the last month. It had Y/n’s neat handwriting almost each day, stating who Matt was having meetings with and if Y/n had a shift. Countless names that Y/n vaguely recognized and could be connected to case files that he had seen on the kitchen counter were written down. He knew almost every name on there simply because Matt had him explain pictures and details that he couldn’t see. Y/n had also read the case files for some of them. He was very nosey and learned braille in his free time so it was easy for him and Matt to share certain documents.

But one name in particular didn’t ring a bell to him.

Y/n lifted the coffee mug to his mouth, taking a long sip from it. The bitter and blistering hot coffee burned his tongue as he stared at the name.

Peter Parker.

It was a simple alliteration name, just like Matt. It wasn’t an uncommon name, but just unique enough that Y/n would have made some joke about it to Matt.

So why couldn’t he remember who Peter Parker was?

Y/n frowned as he turned away. He walked over to the kitchen counter, setting his mug onto it. He picked up his stack of sticky notes that he kept in a small bin next to the pen cup. He stared at the sticky notes before picking up a pen and uncapping it.

What cases has Matt worked recently?

Y/n hummed as he started to write down the ones that popped into his head.

A consultation to see if an old lady had any right to sue her neighbor.

No. That is Mrs. Jefferson. Scratch that.

An employee trying to get through worker’s comp and not be fucked over.

That was Elliot Waugh. Scratch that.

A kid who was being accused of murder.

Some head of security is stealing tech from a big name company.

A mother suing a doctor for malpra-

Y/n paused in the middle of writing. He frowned as he stared at the list.

“A kid who was being accused of murder?” Y/n mumbled. The others he could pull names from the list after a minute, but the kid being accused of murder.

Matt doesn’t take murder cases. Not since Fisk and Castle.

Y/n turned back to the calendar and stared at the name again.

Peter Parker. Peter Parker. Peter Parker. Peter Par-

The door opened in the next room and Y/n heard Matt walk through the door. Matt sighed as the sound of his cane folding and being placed onto the table next to the door could be heard. Footsteps followed as Matt walked into the kitchen. Matt must have sensed that Y/n was simply staring at something, as he had stopped and turned towards Y/n.

“Are you okay?” Matt’s voice sounded soft and concerned. Y/n looked over to Matt to see that he was wearing his charcoal suit today. His red glasses were slightly lower on his nose than usual.

“Do you remember meeting Peter Parker?” Y/n asked Matt. Matt frowned, his eyebrows crinkling as he tilted his head slightly.

“Peter Parker? No. I don’t think I have met one.” Matt responded. “Why do you ask?”

“There’s a Peter Parker on the calendar. I don’t remember him by name. It’s odd, because there's also a meeting I remember you going to. I never learned the person’s name. Just the fact that it was a murder trial that you cleared the charges.” Y/n slowly picked his mug back up and watched Matt’s face.

“I… never took a murder case. You know me and Foggy don’t take those.” Matt started.

“Not since Fisk and Castle, yeah.” Y/n finished and nodded, bringing the mug back up to his lips. “That’s why I asked.”

Matt was silent after that. He pursed his lips, the same expression that he had when he was thinking hard slowly came across his face. It was almost unsettling how neither of them remembered who this Peter Parker was. The fact that Matt didn’t remember overseeing a case where someone was being charged with murder. It almost felt like he was witnessing the Blip again.

Wait.

“Could… it be that… some type of magic or life altering thing happened that made us forget who this Peter is?” Y/n asked.

“I… It is possible.” Matt shrugged and leaned onto the counter by his hip. Matt crossed his arms and tilted his head as if he was looking down. “We know magic exists. If we look him up, we could figure this out.”

Y/n nodded and pulled out his phone. He opened his phone and went to google. He typed in Peter Parker and waited for the results to pull up. It took a minute of his phone slowly loading it up, but articles of Spider-Man killing Mysterio came up. The articles were brand new and debating on whether or not Mysterio was actually killed by Spider-Man. But nothing about Peter Parker, besides a few news outlets saying they had no idea why they had put a Peter Parker in their articles. Other than that, there was nothing in the news.

Y/n switched to social media and looked him up. The results pulled up quickly to show a teenager’s account that looked like someone had gone and deleted half of the posts and scrubbed it. It was almost bare, but the only posts were about a woman named May Parker. She was the only person, other than the Peter kid, to be in the images. Her account was the only account that he followed and followed him back.

Clicking in May Parker’s account, it brought up the account in a memorial mode.

“This is so weird.” Y/n mumbled as he looked through the account.

There were pictures of May at her job and with Happy Hogan, the head of security at Stark Industries. There were a few pictures of Peter on the pages, but they were group photos at her job.

“What are you finding?” Matt asked as he moved next to Y/n, bumping their hips together as he pressed into Y/n’s side.

“He’s some teenager who doesn’t have anything. A few news stations stated they do not know who he is or why they put his face across the Spider-Man case. Then there’s this woman with the same last name that is the only person on his social media.” Y/n frowned.

Y/n had decided that the page was going to get him nowhere, so he searched May Parker. Articles came up stating that she died during the fiasco a few days ago where Spider-Man was seen fighting a handful of villains. She was one of the people who died in a building collapsing. Y/n quickly found that her husband, Ben Parker, died in a shooting. They did not have any kids or alive family members, so there was no reason for Peter Parker to be connected.

Y/n clicked into an old article on Ben Parker and his death and stopped.

“Holy shit…” Y/n gasped.

Peter Parker was May Parker’s nephew, but there was no publication of him in any recent news dealing with her death.

“What?” Matt frowned and leaned into Y/n more.

“This kid is basically a ghost it seems. He just… doesn’t exist in society anymore. He is related to the lady who died in the Spider-Man related building collapse.” Y/n looked up to Matt. “What if… he’s connected to all of this. Matt, we have to find out. This is a kid.”

Matt chewed on his lip for a second before sighing. Y/n could tell that he knew that Y/n was right.

“Fine. We can go talk to him tomorrow.” Matt cracked his knuckles as he took a step away and towards the coffee maker.

“Sounds like a plan.” Y/n nodded.

-

Y/n stood next to Matt as they walked down an apartment hallway.

The apartment was older and seemed to be well loved, as it was relatively cleaned. Y/n knew that last night Matt had gone searching for this Peter Parker. He had tracked Peter down to this apartment and noted how the kid kept looking around, like he knew Matt was in the shadows. Matt said that it was eerie and pitched the idea that Peter could be Spider-Man. It wasn’t a far fetched idea. It made sense.

Y/n and Matt stopped in front of the last door in the hallway. Matt said earlier that he could hear Peter home, so they were in the clear. Y/n took a deep breath and reached his hand up. He hesitated before knocking.

There was a small stretch of silence before the door opened.

The door opened to reveal Peter Parker, who looked worse for wear compared to his pictures. He stared at Y/n and Matt as if he wasn’t processing who was in front of them. Then it suddenly seemed to register and his eyes widened.

“I- Mr. Murdock!” Peter seemed to panic. “I mean- hello sirs. How can I help you?”

“Hello, Peter. It is nice to meet you officially.” Matt started. “Well, for the second time, officially meet you.”

“I’m sorry… What do you mean by second time?” Peter seemed nervous and looked like he was obviously trying to hide that this was in fact the second time meeting. It was like he was trying to fake confusion.

“I’m sorry for Matt.” Y/n stuck his hand out. “I’m Y/n L/n. This is probably going to sound odd, but I believe that you have disappeared from society and no one remembers you now.”

“How did you figure that out?” Peter’s fake confusion dropped and Y/n watched as his face dropped. He must have tensed up because Y/n felt Matt tense up next to him, as if he was ready to fight.

Peter’s eyes looked to Matt as soon as he tensed up, as if he could sense it.

“I keep a calendar of who Matt goes to see and when.” Y/n put a hand on Matt’s arm, wrapping his arm around his bicep. He squeezed it, as if to tell Matt to calm down. “I realized I didn’t recognize who you were and looked into it. I remembered Matt talking about a murder case but I never knew who it was for. You must have been the suspect.”

Peter looked between Matt and Y/n, as if he was trying to gauge the situation.

“Peter, you can calm down. We aren’t going to attack you. I was worried once I looked you up.” Y/n frowned. “I know you just lost your life. I know about your aunt. I can only guess how upset and lonely you are.”

Peter stared at Y/n before his eyes started to water. Matt relaxed next to him and Y/n calmed down in turn. Peter nodded and started to sniffle.

“It has been hard.” Peter brought a hand up to his mouth.

“Can we come in and talk about it?” Y/n slid his arm to link with Matt’s as he waited for an answer.

Peter looked over to Matt, as if to gauge him again, then nodded.

Y/n smiled and guided Matt inside of the Apartment.

[mailboxmerchant]

winning!Ranmaru Kageyama x Reader: What Have You Done?!

a/n: i just finished the most recent installment in yttd andn holy fuck,,,,,,winner! ranmaru just. holy shit! i love him so much. (also i guess you sort of take saras place? like shes there but youre ranmarus buddy instead and uhh hc that she got joe’s doll for a partner because i love thme) hgnghgh)\

also please leave requests!!! please!!!! for almost any character from almst any fandom!!!!!! please!!!!!!

also this is....a long one. probably gonna be a two parter! <3

“I’ll hold him back, just go! Reko...she....she’s-” 

Watching with the others in the classroom as Kurumada held Ranmaru to the ground by his head, you looked down at Ranmaru’s pleading expression. 

Before you could reach for him though, you were quickly ushered out by your panicked friends and allies.

Ranmaru....what did you...

◤...three hours prior to this...◢

“Keiji! I’m here! Please come out, everyone is so worried!”

“y/n....”

“Are you...there Keiji?”

A hand that clamped around your shoulder sent you into shock as you sprawled forward to the ground. “Waugh!!! Wh-who!?!?” You whipped yourself around to face a concerned looking Ranmaru.

“Heya y/n.” He said with a smirk and a wave. “Gah! Ranmaru, you scared me...!”

“Clearly.” He smiled as he offered a hand out to you. You gave him a pleased smile as you took his hand. “So....Keiji was a no-show, huh?” 

“I mean, Sara was too worried to go alone so I offered to go in her place...but it looks like we should have followed Keiji’s instructions, huh?” You laughed dejectedly, as the missing friendly policeman’s absence was beginning to create a deep worry in the back of your mind. 

The expression on your face seemed to clearly resemble your disappointment of not finding him, as a pair of fingers snapped out in front of you. 

“Heeey? Earth to y/n, I asked you a question. You alright?” 

You gave a curt, polite nod. “Sorry, yeah, what did you say again?”

Ranmaru sighed as he patted your back, “Man, you’re a mess today, eh? I asked....ᶦᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ᵍᵃᵛᵉ ᵃⁿʸ ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰᵗ ᵗᵒ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᴹᵃᵖˡᵉ ˢᵃᶦᵈ....” The last part was quietly spoken, but you heard what he said, and you knew what he meant.

“What!? You mean about what she about....winning?” Ranmaru’s uneasy expression meant that was exactly what he was talking about. 

“We can’t! E-everyone has been...working so hard together, and with you all as our new allies-” “They’re not all your allies. We were made to get rid of you humans, but Maple told me something the rest of them don’t know. Why won’t you let me act on it?! I can save us, save you!”

“That’s enough! I can’t...hear you say that. Not you, Ranmaru, please.” 

“You wouldn’t have to do anything, y/n, I swore I’d protect you. Reko, Sara, Keiji, everyone! I’ll kill them, and I’ll get you out of this horrible game!”

As if the idea of winning crossing Ranmaru’s mind at all hadn’t hurt enough to hear about, here was your partner for this entire floor’s length of horrors telling you he’d kill all your allies to save the both of you.

Ranmaru wasn’t wrong. You were tired. You wanted to go home. You missed your friends, and your regular old life. You adored Ranmaru, and even without knowing what to do after this could end, you wanted to have him by your side.

What am I thinking?!

“Ranmaru! I don’t want you to protect me. I want us to all escape together, and I could never ask you to betray our allies!”

Something about the way you delivered that line stuck with Ranmaru though. You couldn’t ask him? Then you didn’t have to. He’d help you, and he’d take all the responsibility too. All the guilt, the hardships, the terror? He could handle it...if it was for you. You and him were going to win, and you were going to live. And after all his efforts, maybe, just maybe, you could be his.

And with the seeds sown, Ranmaru’s mind began racing with ways to get every single human and doll eliminated before they could realize what was going on. 

And that would begin with the lovely, unknowing Ms. Reko.

◤...present time...◢

“Oh...no....” Sara uttered, her breath entirely taken away from the sight before us.

The magnetic trap mechanism in the locker room had been activated while Reko was in it. “Reko, please, no...holy shit...” Q-taro mourned. Her grotesquely snapped neck was just barely holding her entirely hanging body to the ceiling by her collar.

Everyone was whispering their words of loss and grief. You couldn’t speak though. You instantly made the connection between Kuramada tackling Ranmaru and what he had said about getting here quickly. This was preventable. And actually....

This was your fault.

Ranmaru wanted you to win, and he wanted you to take him with you. You didn’t chastise him enough to stop this, and now Reko’s blood and tears were on your hands. 

The quiet stip-step of shoes tapping on the concrete floor sprung you from your remorseful daze. “y-y/n...I swear...I didn’t-” 

A louder, heavier pair of feet could be heard hitting the solid ground harshly. 

“Bastard! You’ll pay for what you’ve done!! My trust, their trust, you’ve ruined everything!” Kurumada went in for a swing as Ranmaru barely dodged him, bumping his backside into your front.

“NO! It wasn’t me! I wasn’t even anywhere near this room, I was with y/n!” 

“That was a whole goddamn hour ago, you lying piece a’ shit! You woulda been in the control room well after that!”

“Why would I kill Reko?! I had no motive to kill the humans, our tasks were erased and our connections were cut! I would never-”

“Bullshit. No motive? What was all that crap about winning for, then?”

Ranmaru fell silent.

“You...you thought I was dead. And you thought you could leave the transceiver on and cheer yourself on for winning the game, huh?!”

Ranmaru’s silence persisted, your stomach dropping further than you thought possible. 

He took a slow inhale...

“Yeah. I did think you were dead, but now I see you’re just as big of an obstacle as ever. All you damn dolls. I’ll get rid of you all, and y/n and I are gonna win.”

“Ranmaru...”

“I didn’t think I’d get caught on the first try, I mean geez! I really hoped it’d be easier than this, that I could be stealthy, but apparently not...” 

It was like his entire demeanor changed. His usual hesitance to speak, his more crouched and small frame, and his kind meekness were all completely stripped away, replaced by this malicious, devious darkness that seemed to emanate off his body.

“Well, well! Somethin’ fun’s happening in here, amirite?!”

“M-Midori!?” You cried out as his arm creepily slung around your shoulder. You backed away as Ranmaru stayed staring him down. “Ohh, what perfect timing. Midori...I have a deal for you, something to keep this game interesting.” Ranmaru sounded like a perfect copy of Midori, it was beginning to frighten you. Reko’s body still left all the survivors in shock, no one but the three dolls who were as lively as ever being able to speak.

“ ᴿᵃⁿᵐᵃʳᵘ...ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ, ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ...“ You finally uttered. 

“What might this deal be, my pathetic doll?” Scoffing at his comment, Ranmaru pleads with him, “If you could just please...kill the dolls. Leave me as the sole doll and I swear I’ll give you a show you’ll never forget.” You weren’t sure what made you sicker, the grin that was spread across both Ranmaru’s and Midori’s faces, or the dark tone Ranmaru suddenly took, his genuineness shining through. He would kill every survivor. You might really win, and you still didn’t know what to think about it. 

The tension in the room was so thick you could slice through it with a knife. Everyone's eyes were trained on you, Ranmaru, and Midori. You felt sick, the energy of the room suffocating you slowly.

"I think I could do something like that."

As if it couldn't drop any lower, your organs practically just disappeared from inside you. "H-hey, you're not...serious, are ya?" Q-taro finally spoke up, the first of the survivors to actually something.

"Why wouldn't I be? This deal is of great benefit to me....and y/n it seems." Midori's tucked in smile sent shivers down your spine as he stared at you with his widened eyes.

"First though...the banquet has to happen."

The reminder brought the most sincere relief you'd ever felt in your life. You still had time to convince Ranmaru not to go through with his ridiculous sabotage plan.

The room calmed as everyone slowly and hesitantly made their way back to the graveyard. How was anyone supposed to work together after something like that...?

◤...to be continued (eventually)...◢

I HAD TO END THIS BECAUSE I WAS SLOWLY FORGETTING WHERE I WAS GOING WITh thIS SO ILL START WITH THE BANQUET IN THE NEXT PART TY FOR READING PLEASE REQUESTS MWAH ILY BYE BYE<3

[rubickk7]

First Line Fic Meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

I’m a whore for fic memes, so here I go. I have 15 stories, so here they all are. Thank you for the tag, @lizardkingeliot!

The Only Exception (with the floppy hair)

“You need us to go where, now?” Eliot leans back in his chair, clasping his hands in his lap as he quirks an eyebrow at Margo. She’s been feisty since they started the high council meeting, more so than usual, and he’s not sure why.

“The Fillorian Fucking Festival.” She tosses down a paper in the middle of the table with a sigh, and Quentin reaches over to slide it his way.

Eliot glances at it before focusing back on Margo. “Why are you so unhappy about this festival?” he asks. Profanity flows out of Margo like breathing on her best day, but the downward tilt to her mouth tells Eliot there’s more going on here than just her colorful vocabulary. “Oh, is it one of those things where they require a representative from the court so we can approve their goat or cow sacrifice? Well, not it; I did the last one and you know the ruckus it caused when I snuck that goat away to sweet freedom.”

Surprise Dick Energy

Kady leaned heavily into Alice’s side, whispering into her ear. “He does realize that if he fucks this up, he’ll loose like, 25% of his liquor supply?”

“I won’t be fucking this up,” Eliot responded to her, his tongue peeking out between his lips, his fingers moving. A dozen or so liquor bottles, filled to various levels, hovered in front of the group, circulating in a lazy pattern a few feet above the table. The entire group appeared to be holding their breath as the bottles slowly descended and gently clinked back on the surface. There’s silence for a moment, and the group burst into applause.

Professor Coldwater: Social Maladjustment 101

“Quentin, please sit down.”

“I'm not going to fucking sit down, Henry. You have to let me go back, I need to see him.”

“No. You seeing him is what got you into this… mess in the first place.”

Quentin snorts, running his hands through his hair. He can feel Penny and Pearl’s eyes on him, and he glances at Penny. His eyes are tight, worried, his mouth set in a thin line. Pearl’s face is much the same, although she’s alternating between looking at Quentin and flat out glaring at Penny. With the way her arms are crossed and how she’s leaning away from him, it looks like Quentin’s relationship—and probably his career—aren’t the only things in tatters.

Relationship . What the fuck has he done.

No Job is Too Big

Quentin checks the text on his phone, making sure he’s at the right place. He’s already running late; hopefully the client won’t be too irritated.

“35, Margo Hanson,” he mutters under his breath, walking down the hall until he arrives at the blue door. It’s painted TARDIS blue, different from the other doors in the hall that are all a boring beige, which brings an immediate smile to his face. He shoves his phone in his pocket, adjusts his messenger bag over his shoulder, and knocks on the door.

He’s standing outside hardly five seconds when the door is yanked open by the most beautiful man he’s ever laid eyes on.

you said the words, and they altered the universe

“It’s beautiful out here.” Quentin closes his eyes and smiles, letting the breeze blow over his face. When he opens them, having to blink against the brightness of the afternoon sun glinting off the water, he looks to his right and sees Eliot eyeing him in that speculative way of his, just like he had when Quentin had stumbled onto the Sea with his hair mussed and mouth agape.

“It has its moments,” Eliot agrees, taking a final drag off his cigarette before tossing it in the blue water. “Come,” he says simply, striding away, and Quentin does, because what else is he to do?

Eliot leads him down a flight of wide stone steps that lead down to a handsome Victorian boathouse, right on the Hudson. The magically-influenced weather is warm, sunlight heating his skin in one fashion, and the presence of Eliot heating it in another.

craving is just another word for need

“No, there are no... Starbucks in Fillory.” Quentin rolls his eyes, sitting down on his throne. He kicks at a stray rock, sending it skittering across the floor. They’re scattered all over; the throne room had taken quite the beating when Quentin swept in and killed anyone that stood in his way.

“If there were, I would have destroyed them,” he adds, crossing his legs. He surveys Eliot—or the thing inhabiting Eliot’s body, anyway. There is no way any Eliot in any timeline would ever let his hair get that greasy or wear… that.

“Now who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you here?” He eyes him, the Eliot-that-isn’t, up and down, frowning. “In this body? You’re not… him,” he says, his lips thinning. He has memories of the Eliot he knew, memories that once were important… back when he was weak. He doesn’t need that shit anymore. He doesn’t need anyone or anything.

Jamba Juice

“There is no way that’s what it says.” Penny picks up the parchment, holding it close to his face, like that will make the fucking words change. “I mean, I’ve seen some fucked up magic, but this…”

so tell me 'bout your sins (and shock me with their luridness)

“When are we going to the beach?” Margo sits back in her chair, crossing her arms and fixing Eliot with that one-arched-eyebrow look that can only be perfected by months of wearing an eyepatch.

Flexible Office Hours

“You’re late, Mr. Waugh.” Professor Coldwater glances up from the paperwork on his desk, frowning slightly as Eliot strides into the classroom.

“Sorry,” he says, shrugging. “Lost track of time.” That’s a total lie, Eliot knows exactly what time it is.

Quentin sighs, standing up from behind his desk. “Shut the door,” he says. “So we won’t be disturbed.”

i might write you down (so i can watch you leap up off the page)

Eliot turns the book over in his hands. It’s longer than the first one, but not as long as the third. It had taken him a month to finish The World in the Walls, and he’s halfway through this one.

This is Me Trying

He’d never actually been in the building where faculty lived, the ‘teacher dorms’ (although he’d come close once with that Practical Applications professor his first year, who’d disappeared not too long after). As he climbs the stairs that lead to the individual bedrooms on the second floor, he understands why most teachers elect to not live here. He’s pretty sure he and the person he’s walking towards are the only ones in the entire building, and the blank walls and silence in the common areas don’t reflect much personality.

if I get burned (at least we were electrified)

Julia c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y steps into the cottage, her legs wobbling slightly. Julia wears heels almost daily, but six-inch stilettos are still a challenge. How she allowed herself to be talked into wearing these, she’ll never know. “They’ll make your legs look amazing,” Margo had promised as she’d shoved the shoes into Julia’s hands.

Quentin Coldwater and the Universal Truth (That a Slytherin as hot as Eliot Waugh would never be attracted to a Hufflepuff such as himself)

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.

The thought pulsed through Quentin’s brain as he stood in the back of the Great Hall, the eyes of a few hundred students in black robes looking his way. His dreams of being sorted at Hogwarts had included a lot of celebration, happiness, and magic. But no vomit.

French Toast

Eliot reclined back in his seat at the breakfast table, his eyes focused on the TV mounted on the wall across the little tiled area he referred to as ‘the breakfast nook.’ Some old rerun of ‘What Not to Wear’ was on, and he chuckled as the hosts commented on the unwitting contestant’s mom jeans. He took another bite of bacon as his roommate, Quentin, shifted in his seat across the table.

A Fillorian Knight's Tale

Quentin and Julia gazed down at Sir Mayakovsky, who was splayed against a nearby tree trunk. The greenery and life of the nearby forest made for a stark backdrop to the sight in front of them - Sir Mayakovsky was unmoving, with no response to their pleas for him to get up and make his way back to the lists. There was also the most horrible smell upon the air.

I tag @hoko-onchi-writes @stormscoming@mixtapestar

[ellewords]

hey again elle!! don’t worry, i’ve been doing my best to take care of myself and drinking a lot of water^^ i hope you are as well!

this is the self-indulgent request i was talking about in the last ask i sent you—how about during or post-timeskip oikawa, atsumu, and kageyama finding out that a friend from high school (even perhaps one that they secretly found cute and may or may not have had a crush on 👀) became an idol! as for what kind of idol they are, like kpop or jpop and stuff like that, is up to you, but for convenience here i’ll stick to the former^^ you can also do this in whatever format you feel fits best!

like for instance maybe he finds out when his friend’s name is trending on twitter and he checks it out out of curiosity only to be faced with pictures upon pictures of his friend onstage sporting a cute new hairstyle (they dyed their hair and he didn’t know they could rock that color); or a fellow teammate shows him a song they’ve been listening to recently and he realizes that one of the people in the music video looks familiar; or he comes across a billboard in the city featuring their friend as an advertisment for an upcoming song—it suddenly makes sense why their friend kinda fell off the face of the earth and didn’t talk to them much after graduation, they were busy pursing their own dream just as the boys were pursing theirs!

and after spending a late night going down the rabbit hole of his friend’s content he can’t help but think that his friend has really grown up and changed, in a good way (like him!). they’ve become more confident and charismatic since their high school days and yet they still act like the same goofy classmate he knew (as evidenced by the video compilations and twitter threads fans have made of funny things they’ve said and done). would the boys try and reach out, or simply support from afar? would they be the type to boast to his teammates and other friends about this?

i think that if the three of them did eventually reconnect with their friend at some point their friend would want to occasionally meet somewhere to catch up! but since they’re both public figures they’ll have to be especially careful so fans don’t get the wrong idea.....UNLESS.......

MAN the possibilities are honestly endless with this kind of au like hypothetically what if the friend gets asked to perform in a special stage with other idols for the closing ceremony for the tokyo olympics kinda like how exo got to perform during the closing ceremony two years ago at pyeongchang so the boys get to see them onstage WAUGH (i know i had mentioned kpop idols earlier but let me dream fjdjsns)

or what if his friend asks him to cameo in a music video for a future release like what you wrote for oikawa in my wgm ask (i was rereading it recently and it kinda inspired this ask lol).....or he surprises his friend by showing up to a fansign while he’s on a little vacation or break.....or watching those year-end award shows with their special stages and cheering when his friend/friend’s group wins an award....OR. OR EVEN PARTNERING UP FOR A CF OR ADVERTISEMENT FOR A BRAND THAT BOTH THEIR TEAM AND THE FRIEND’S GROUP IS ENDORSING......

I’M SO SORRY i ended up rambling so much not to mention i keep on mentioning idols and/or kpop in a lot of the asks i’ve sent to you oof

but i really hope this is a fun request to work on! you can honestly pop off and go crazy with this because no matter what i am going to Slurp Up This Content Like Ramen 👁👄👁 regardless, thank you so much!! —🌸

hi hi omg thank you sm for requesting !! you can find it over here <3

'm so sorry this took so long but aaaa I had so much fun working on this because honestly,,, the possibilities are so endless I had trouble trying to narrow down what I wanted for each character >_< anyways, I really hope you like it :))

[impala-dreamer]

A New Kind Of Magic

An SPN/Magicians Crossover Fic

~Dean and Sam have some company in the Bunker but Margo and Eliot are not there for a friendly visit. Somehow, their quest keys got screwed up and sent them to another universe. Chances of getting them home seem rather nonexistent until Eliot suggests they combine their magic...and a few other things...~

Sam Winchester x Margo Hanson x Eliot Waugh, Dean Winchester, Roger Rabbit, Unnamed Bunny

3,445 Words

Warnings: NSFW. Spells and Sex and Magic and Bunnies. All the good stuff.

AN: This is my very first crossover fic, combining some of my favorite people. I haven't ever written for Margo or Eliot before, so this was a lot of fun. This challenge piece is for, and the art and title are by @idabbleincrazy. I really hope you all enjoy! EDIT: TUMBLR TOOK DOWN THE ORIGINAL POST BC THE ART WAS TOO SEXY, THE WORDS WERE TOO SEXY, THEY WERE JEALOUS OF THIS POST. HOPE YOU LIKE IT ;)

My Masterlist ~ Become A Patreon 

It wasn’t as if no one had ever crossed into their universe before, or them into another as it were, but no matter how many times it happened, Dean was never going to be used to it. Just like the time their grandfather had walked through time and into their closet door, the last week had been super weird. It wasn’t right. But it kept on happening.

Margo was hot, that’s all Dean knew. She was like this tiny firecracker of sass and sex that would blow his hand apart if he tried to touch her. And try he did. For the first two days, he used his best pick up lines on her, flashed his most flirtatious smiles, but she was having none of it. Margo barely even looked at Dean except to fire back a snide comment, and her rejection just egged him on.

Eliot was...an interesting fellow. Dean wasn’t quite sure what to make of him but he certainly did his fair share of blushing around him. Twice, Eliot commented on the pert roundness of Dean’s ass and twice, Dean had nearly giggled himself into a frenzy. His cheeks would never stop burning around the strange, curly haired man, but give in, he would not.

While Dean was busy trying to keep his pants on around the strangers, Sam was busy trying to help them get home. He spent most of his time in the Library, pouring over books and his laptop, reading until his eyes were so out of focus that they welled with exhausted tears. He was getting nowhere. An entire universe of knowledge at his fingertips, and there was not a speck of information about Fillory or quests or Magic Keys opening random doors into other universes. He was at a loss.

Closing his computer for a moment, Sam leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed at his eyes. A kaleidoscope of static and color swirled on his eyelids and he sighed, feeling that familiar tug of sleep.

Boots rushing down the short steps knocked Sleep’s hand away.

“Still nothing?”

Sam opened his eyes to find his brother standing over him, arms crossing over his jacket.

“Not a thing. You?” Sam knew the answer, but he wanted to poke Dean with a tiny bit of guilt for not helping.

“Nope.” Dean pursed his lips. “Well… There’s a case up near Spokane,” he said, tilting his head. “Four coeds found with their hearts ripped out. Gonna go check it out with Cas unless…”

Sam lifted his eyebrows, waiting for the rest of Dean’s sentence. “Unless what?”

“Unless you wanna come with? Get out of the Bunker for a bit? Get some fresh air?”

“Dean, we’re kinda in the middle of something.” He’d long ago stopped wondering how far he could roll his eyes. He knew.

“Yeah and you got it all under control.” After a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, Dean leaned down a bit, resting a hand on the back of the chair next to Sam. “Listen, I gotta get outta here. That chick is super hot and ignores me every other word and the tall guy is…” Dean sucked his teeth as he searched for the right word, but couldn’t find anything good. “I just need like five minutes alone. OK?”

Sam breathed out a laugh and nodded. “OK.”

“OK!” Dean smiled and stood up, spinning on his heel towards the door. “Check ya later, Sammy. Be good. Don’t burn the house down!”

“Leaving so soon?” Margo appeared at the top of the stairs, long hair down and shining, one of Mary’s old shirts hanging off her shoulders.

Dean startled but caught himself. “Just making a milk run, milady, nothing to worry about.” He gave her his best smile, but she lifted a brow and looked towards Sam.

“Thanks for the conditioner,” she said with a smile. “This universe is killing my hair. Never thought I could miss magic so much.” She pushed passed Dean and sank into the chair next to Sam.

“OK then,” Dean mumbled to himself. “Have fun playing beauty parlor!” He waved as he hopped up the steps and disappeared around the corner.

Sam huffed and pushed his tongue between his teeth. “Sorry about my brother. He’s…”

Margo shrugged him off and adjusted herself in the chair, half lounging, one leg slung over the arm facing Sam. “He’s harmless.”

Sam laughed. “He’s really not…”

“I could take him.”

Deep red lips pulled into a smirk and Sam’s heart raced.

“I bet you could.”

Steps scuffled on the top stair as Eliot swaggered into the archway. “What are we betting?” He lifted a flask to his lips and giggled around the cap. “Strip poker, I hope.” Margo gave him a stern look and he floated into the room, taking the seat across from Sam. “Sorry.”

Sam managed to clear the lump from his throat with a gentle laugh. “Uh, no,” he answered awkwardly. “We were just talking about my brother’s-”

“Tight little ass,” Margo grinned, winking at Sam who’s cheeks turned fifthteen shades of pink.

Eliot laughed and kicked back in his seat, crossing his long legs at the ankles beneath the table. “I could bounce a quarter off that ass,” he said in playful agreement. “Or bite it.”

Sam’s expression twisted into something reminiscent of a firefighter smelling a burnt corpse for the first time, but was soon soothed by Margo’s sexy laugh.

“El, that’s too much,” she teased, swatting her hand through the air at him. “You’re embarrassing my boy here.”

Sam took a long moment to collect himself, to pull his eyes away from her perfect lips. When he was ready, he sat up and fiddled with his laptop, trying to give his hands something to do.

“So any luck getting us home?” Eliot asked, voice turning from sex to business.

“Sadly, no.” Sam sighed heavily and shook his head. “I just can’t find anything that would work. Since your magic doesn’t work here, I can figure that our magic wouldn’t work to get you there. I can’t see that a door like this has ever been opened between our worlds before.”

“But you told us about that rift thing,” Margo reminded him, sitting up and unhooking her leg from the chair. “Maybe we could open one of those?”

A bit of hair fell into Sam’s eyes as he shook his head again. “No. Everything points to your universe being on a totally different line that ours.”

Eliot laughed in confusion. “What?”

“If you think of the universes as we’re speaking of them,” Sam explained, gesticulating with big hands as he broke it all down for Eliot and Margo. “You could imagine an infinite number of Earths on a string, all lined up, all the same yet not. Now this string would keep our universe together and theoretically, you could use the string to jump from one world to the other.”

“Right…” Margo’s dark eyes blinked wildly as Sam rambled on.

“From what I’ve read,” he went on, “it looks as if your Earth is on a seperate string.”

“So no jumping back and forth?” she asked, painted lips in a deep frown.

“No jumping,” Sam echoed in agreement.

“It’s like the bunnies,” Eliot mused, staring at Sam but looking passed him at a memory.

“Bunnies?” Sam’s voice cracked as he questioned the odd comment.

“In Fillory, we have bunnies that can talk and we can send them to Earth with messages, and visa versa.” Margo tried to explain it better than that, but it was pretty simple, actually. It was what it was.

“Ah.” Sam smiled but his curiosity was far from sated. “So tell me again about the keys?”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “We are on a quest and the keys are all...magical as fuck.”

Sam laughed. “Right. And...opening doors to different places is normal for you guys?”

“It is, but we’ve never been stuck like this...powerless and trapped underground.” Margo exhaled sadly.

“You know we’re not...holding you here,” Sam offered kindly.

She turned to face him and smiled. “Honey, even if I wasn’t hiding out in tunnels under a mountain of dirt- this is Kansas. There’s nothing to do. I might as well be trapped.”

“Oh, come on, Bambi,” Eliot cooed, sneaking in, “we can always find something to do.” His eyes turned to Sam. “Or someone.”

Sam swallowed so hard it nearly echoed. He couldn’t deny the heat in his cheeks when Eliot stared at him, or the tightness of his jeans when Margo’s hand brushed his leg accidentally, but he really didn’t have time for all that. There was research to do.

“We really should get back to work,” Sam insisted, clearing his throat for the upteenth time. His shoulders were so tight he thought they’d snap, but he had to keep his head screwed on right.

“Yeah,” Margo snipped, sarcastically waving a finger at Eliot. “No time for sex. We need to focus.”

Eliot laughed so hard the table shook, and he pulled the flask back out of his vest. He tipped his head back, going for the last swallow, and suddenly had an idea. Margo could see the lightbulb illuminate behind his eyes and she leaned close.

“Oh…”

“What is it?”

Sam hummed in question.

Eliot grinned. “Sex.”

“You need to calm your tits, sir,” Margo sassed, rolling her eyes and sitting back. “I want to go home.”

“No,” he laughed, leaning over the table. “Sex Magic.”

Margo’s face lit up and she gave a half smile. “Oh…”

Confused, Sam looked back and forth between them. “Sex Magic?”

“It’s a rarely used ritual that can produce a large amount of magical energy,” Margo explained. “But our magic isn’t working here so what the fuck, El?” She shot him a glare but Eliot was undeterred.

“No, listen. What if we combine our magic with some of Sam’s magic and see what happens.”

“Why does it have to be the fucking type?”

Eliot grinned. “Because if it doesn’t work, we’re not out anything but a couple condoms.”

Margo seemed satisfied with that and looked to Sam whose jaw was nearly on the ground.

“You in, big boy?” she asked, dropping her hand to his knee.

“I, uh… what...” Sam struggled with the new plan, but suddenly remembered something he’d read a few days ago that seemed pointless until now. “Actually… I think that could work…”

Deep in Rowena’s journals was a spell for conjuring up a large amount of magical power. Sam had skimmed it but ultimately given up the idea; he hadn’t felt ready to attempt something so powerful, but with two actual magicians by his side, Sam decided it was worth a shot.

The trio stood in Sam’s bedroom, lights dimmed, candles lit around the perimeter. It was romantic and warm, but Sam’s hands were shaking.

Eliot noticed the tremor and handed Sam his flask. “Take the edge off,” he whispered gently.

“Thanks,” Sam smiled quickly and took a sip. He winced at the strong but smooth Scotch as it ran down his throat. “My brother’s gonna bite your head off if he finds out you’re in his good stash.”

“I can take him,” Eliot winked.

Sam stared at him in awe. “You two are so…”

“Sexy?” Eliot offered.

“Confident,” Sam finished.

“Well, that too.”

“Can we get this going?” Margo interrupted, ripping the shirt off her head. Her hair fell down in perfect waves behind her back and she offered the men a nice view of her breasts. “I’m getting bored.”

The spell was impossibly simple. A bit of blood from each of them was mixed with elm ash and cloves, then rubbed over each breastbone, right above their hearts. A few words of tongue-twisting Latin and a cache of energy should begin to charge over the bowl of remaining potion.

Sam finished enchanting the mixture and held the brass bowl out to Eliot. "I guess...we can get started."

Eliot smirked and dipped two long fingers into the bowl, his dark eyes locked on Sam's. "I can't wait."

Margo shivered as Eliot smeared the tincture over her heart, gently rubbing the brownish mess into her smooth skin. She looked up at him and smiled slyly. "Love it when you massage me."

"Oh, hush," he grinned, pulling his hand away. "Your turn." He nodded towards Sam and Margo slipped away.

"Gonna need you to strip."

Sam’s stomach flipped. “Uh...what?” His tongue felt dead in his mouth as he blushed every ounce of body heat through his cheeks.

Margo gave him a smug smile and moved closer, her naked breasts bouncing slightly as she took each step. “Strip.” She popped the P and Sam’s heart skipped too many beats. “Gonna need to take those clothes off if we’re gonna do this.” Her dark eyes fell down the length of Sam’s body and he shivered.

“Yeah.” His laugh was awkward and adorable.

“Awe, he’s shy,” Eliot cooed, dropping his pants by the bed, already half hard and ready to go.  

Sam chewed his lip as he pulled the old green flannel from his shoulders, held his breath as he tugged his undershirt up over his head, swallowed down a cannonball when his jeans hit the floor. He held his eyes shut, half expecting a teasing word from Eliot, but the room was oddly silent.

“Well, hot damn.”

Margo’s voice pulled Sam’s eyes open and he found both visitors staring at him with lust filled eyes. Their stares knocked away his nerves and Sam stepped forward, looking down at Margo and licking his lips.

“Go ahead,” he whispered; a wolfish grin growing upon his pink lips.

Her eyes blurred as a shudder traveled down her spine, but she snapped back quickly. “Let’s do this.”

Her touch was like fire on his chest, the potion even more so. Her fingers were so thin, so delicate, and Sam’s cock twitched as he imagined her tiny hands trying to hold on as he wrecked her against the wall.

By the time she was done, Sam was stiff and his head was swimming. Eliot came towards him, ready to be anointed. His chest was firm and warm beneath Sam’s fingers, and he lingered there, caught in the moment, marveling at how not strange it was anymore. There was something in the air, something in the spell that took away all the hesitation, flooding his brain with arousal and confidence.

Eliot smiled as Sam’s hand finally fell away. “You’re real pretty, Sam. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Hazel eyes glowed bright and his hand returned to Eliot’s chest, slowly rising to curl around the nape of his neck. “So are you.”

The same heat in the tincture was in their kiss; lips and breath on fire as Eliot kissed Sam back, pulling him closer with a firm hand on his ass. Hips pushing against hips, fingers tangling in hair. Sam’s ears were ringing by the time Eliot let him go and he whimpered under his breath, wanting the heat against his lips again.

Margo warmed him up, slipping easily between them, soft and hot, fitting herself in place. She reached up for Sam and pulled him down by some mysterious string tied around his throat, the same string that now lead him to the bed, pushed him down underneath her, held him captive as her lips traveled his body.

Eliot lit the candle by the bed and smoke filled the room. It was a mist, a thick fog of sweet perfume that rolled around and inside of them, stoked by tongues and fingers, fueled by the rolling of hips.

Sam breathed deeply as Margo lowered herself onto him, straddling his cock backwards as her lips fell to Eliot’s waiting cock. Sam cupped her ass as Eliot gathered up her hair, and they held her in place, each using the push and pull to keep her happy between them.

The louder she moaned, the brighter the mist glowed, swirling around them like something from a dream; a dorm room smoke out lit by neon, a fairy garden at midnight. Sam wasn’t sure anymore where their bodies began and ended, and after a while, he stopped trying to make sense of the moment. They lay in a heap on the bed; legs twisted together, lips never far from supple flesh, tongues always busy, hands kneading and probing.

As her pleasure crested, Margo let out a howl that cleared the fog, sending it straight up above their heads. It curled and spun into a rush of brightly colored wind that hovered over the key. It shot down inside the key as Sam came, growling loudly and digging his nails into Margo’s hips. The key glowed bright gold as Eliot followed, coating Sam’s thighs in hot white.

“Yo! Sam!” Dean turned the corner into the hall, limping a little on his left ankle. “Where you at?”

There was a loud rustle and then a slamming door. Sam emerged from his room, rushing towards Dean, his face bright pink, lips swollen, hair a mess. He fiddled with the buttons of his flannel, not realizing that, in his haste, he had miss matched the top set.

Dean eyed him suspiciously. “Everything OK?”

“What? Yeah.” Sam shook his head as if offended by such a question. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Green eyes fell downwards, zooming in on the crooked buttons. “You’re a mess. Look at you.”

Sam shrugged him off and pushed past him, walking purposefully towards the War Room as he rebuttoned his shirt. “It’s fine.”

Dean sniffed the air as Sam walked by and hobbled quickly behind him. “Did you fuck her?”

“What!” Sam skidded to a halt, pushing out a nervous laugh as he tried to ignore Dean’s darting eyes.

“You did, didn’t you! You fucked Margo!”

“That’s...just rude,” Sam snapped.

Dean gasped dramatically and covered his mouth. “You didn’t...did you fuck him too?”

Sam stood to full height, shocked. “You...what...I…”

Dean held his ground. “You stink like sex.”

“Shut up.”

“You did fuck them!”

“Just...stop it. OK?”

Dean shrugged but smirked as he turned away. “Fine.” Wincing, he shuffled to a chair by the glowing table and sat. “Where are they anyway? I’m due for a little rejection about now.”

Sam sat across the table and smiled. “They are gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yup. Found a spell in Rowena’s books, combined it with a little...magic from their world and…” He threw his hands up, empty, like the Bunker. “They’re home.”

Dean nodded thoughtfully and smiled. “Well. Good work.”

“Thank you.”

Silence fell for a bit but Dean’s head was buzzing. “What kind of magic was it?”

Sam picked at the cuff of his shirt. “It was...there...just...Some weird ritual of theirs.” He looked away, blushing at the thought and Dean caught every twitch of his face.

“You did fuck them!”

“Dude, enough, OK!”

“Fine.” Dean sat back in his seat and licked his lips smugly. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

There was a strange pressure in the air suddenly and a loud whooshing sound. Above the table, the air seemed to swirl into tiny hurricane, and the brothers looked up in awe as a small black hole opened up over their heads.

“What the fuck is that!” Dean yelped, tipping the chair back so far he almost fell.

Sam leaned in, squinting up into the darkness. “I don’t know!”

Beyond all comprehension and logic, from out of the mysterious black hole, dropped a fluffy gray rabbit. It fell to the table and took a step towards Sam.

“Thanks for the help,” it said.

Dean gawked. “Did that rabbit just talk to you?”

Sam nodded, just as shocked. “I believe it did.”

The air whirled again and another rabbit plopped down onto the table before the portal closed.

“And sex. Love, Eliot,” the second bunnie concluded.

Green eyes went huge and Dean’s smile was unstoppable. “You dirty boy! You did fuck them!”

Sam stammered. “It was a spell!”

Dean laughed, slapping the table gleefully with his hands. “You fucked ‘em! I knew it!”

Sam let him go on for a few minutes before clearing his throat. “You done?”

Dean giggled. “Yeah.”

The second rabbit wiggled its nose and hopped towards Dean who scooped him up gently. “Uh...what do we do with these?”

Sam shrugged and stood up. “No idea. But I already fixed one mess today. This one’s on you.”

Dean frowned but the bunny in his hands was too cute to ignore. As Sam walked away, he cuddled it close and whispered. “I’m gonna name you Roger.”

2020 Forever Tags: @67-chevy-baby @akhuna01 @amanda-teaches @autumnmoon @because-imma-lady-assface @blushingjared @broiderie @burningcoffeetimetravel @classic-rock-angel @coopercharlie16 @cosicas-cuquis @covered-byroses @crashdevlin @deansgirl215 @deans-baby-momma @deangirl7695 @deanwinchesterswitch @dolphincliffs @dontshootmespence @edge-oftonight @emoryhemsworth @eternal-elir @fandom-princess-forevermore @fangirlxwritesx67 @feelmyroarrrr @flamencodiva @focusonspn @herbologystudent252 @heycasbutt @hornyandsmol @ilovefanfic86 @i-love-superhero @ilsawasanacrobat @imjustadrummer @ivvitm1109 @joseyrw @justagirlinafandomworld @justcallmeasmodeus @katymacsupernatural @laxe-from-outer-space​ @leatherandfrackles​ @lessons-of-red​ @letsby​ @letsdisneythings​ @lonewolf471​ @maddiepants​ @mariekoukie6661​ @meganwinchester1999​ @melbelle45 @missjenniferb​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @our-jensen-ackles-love​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester​ @starboycas​ @stephaniecanfield96us​ @stoneyggirl​ @squirrelnotsam​ @thebookisbtr​ @the-chocolate-moose​ @thehardcoveraddict​ @thevelvetseries​ @veevm​ @winchestersister55​ @wendibird​ @winecatsandpizza​ @winterpoohbear​

[psychedelic-ink]

A dream of a memory(by lunna-star-8)

There was a girl running through the forest in blue shorts and an aqua t-shirt, black hair to the wind and tight grip on an old pipe as her feet took her expertly over the roots, the rocks and dead branches, almost like the wind carried her to the edge of their forest and into the sea of grey.

That girl was me.

“I win!” I call out as I throw my arms up in the air.

My oldest brother arrives soon after “When… Did you get so damn fast?” Ace breathes out as he rests his hands on his knees.

I shrug as I get my breath back “I’m like a ninja!”

He straightened up and chuckled “I’m just happy that Luffy didn’t think of rocketing his way here, that would’ve been a disaster.”

We both laughed and that was when my twin brother appeared winded out “I… Should’ve… Thought of that…” Luffy fell back as soon as he reached us.

“Oh no you don’t!” Ace argued with him “I’d like to not start the afternoon with my body smashed against the City Walls, thank you very much!”

Luffy sat up with a whine “That was one time!”

“I’m pretty sure our silhouettes are still marked on the walls, Luf.” I point out with my free hand on my hip.

“Don’t you pick on me too, Lu!” he complained but then his eyes widened and he pointed at me “Eh, your tail’s out again.”

Both my brothers look at me and I slowly look over my right shoulder to see the tip of my tail there again “Luna…?” Ace’s voice calls softly as I keep my eyes trained on the black and white tail attached to me.

“Oh!” Luffy pipes up in excitement “The ears now!”

“You’re not helping!” And I hear the unmistakeable sound of Ace hitting my twin over the head. I feel a growl climbing up my chest and onto my throat, Ace sighs and he’s pulling the tip of my tiger ear before I notice, pain goes up and down my body “And you, why are you growling at your own tail, you moron?!” I tried to get him to let go of the tip of my very sensitive ear but he wouldn’t have it “I mean, how many times do we have to have this conversation? It’s your tail.”

I pouted as I looked at my tail “It’s weird.”

“I wish I had a tail…” Luffy whined as he now stood leaning on his own pipe “And could turn into a giant raging tiger…”

“No!” me and Ace lectured at the same time but our brother only laughed, he was like that. Maybe he’d have mastered the full tiger form by now while I’m still scared of letting go…

Ace let go of my ear and crossed his arms over his chest “C’mon, weird? Have you met the rest of your family?” we both looked at Luffy that kept grinning and I tilted my head “’Weird’ is also known as ‘casual Tuesday’ with us.”

I laughed at that, it’s not like he was wrong. I took a deep breath and felt my ears shift back to their original human shape, when I looked back, the tail was gone too “Hurray!”

Ace nodded, moving to support his own pipe on his shoulders with his arms hanging from it “Ok, now, we were gonna get ourselves some decent weapons, right? Time to retire the old pipes.”

“I don’t need one.” Luffy spoke up as we all started walking through the Gray Terminal “My punches are like pistols!” he punched the air with the fist he was holding his staff with.

“Yeah? Maybe if you ever manage to hit your target.” Ace mocked and I laughed.

We kept our usually cheerful banter as we crossed the Terminal, things were just the same as they’d always been; with the Bluejam pirates gone, Sly and his ‘gang’ had taken over the position of King of the junkyard; the army never really walked outside the gates unless to dispose of the garbage that the nobles still dumped at the Terminal; the scavengers still raced to the ‘treasures’ hiding in the piles of trash that then in turn, they sell back to the city… I swear, sometimes it feels like we were the only ones that had lived through the fire, the only ones that had lost in the fire…

I shook my head as we reach the Great Gate and feel an arm wrap itself over my shoulders, I look over to see my oldest brother smile at me and I mirror his expression without thinking about it. I wrap my arm around his torso and he kisses my head as we continue on into Edge Town, the same low lives as there had always been, selling things that they wouldn’t dare try to sell in town like drugs and weapons. Like I said, nothing had changed really… Made me think why was it all for…? What was the point?

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet.” Ace pointed out and I looked up at him, I don’t think I ever told him how much I liked his freckles “Get out of your own head, shrimp.”

“I’m not a shrimp!” I argue puffing my cheeks out, he pinches my cheeks “I don swech wike Wuffy, ya no?” I pull my hand from his side and start to lightly brush the tip of my fingers where my hand had rested.

“LUNA!” Ace jumped like a scared cat and me and Luffy laughed to tears until I felt his eyes on me.

“You’re in trouble now.” Luffy said to me but his eyes remained on our brother.

I nod “Eh… Depends.”

“It depends, huh?” Ace glared over at me, he really didn’t like when I tickled him, that never stopped me though.

I grinned “If you catch me.” And turned back to run.

Ace chased me up and down the lower town, until I was laughing too much to be able to run anymore and he caught up with me, drowning me in an attack of tickles. Luffy jumped on us, helping out Ace with tickling me, I could barely breathe between laughs “I… Surrender!!!” I call out between laughs and they end up stopping, both laughing at this point as well. I grab Luffy’s cheek and pull as far as I felt like “And you…” I breathed out “What… eheh What made you think hehehehe he needed help tickling me?”

“I wike hearing you waugh.” He replied and it made me release his cheek that smacked back into his face “You’ve been too serious, Lu.”

I smile at him, ignoring the stares on us from the people that passed by “Sorry, I’ve been thinking—” what had I been thinking about…? Him? Ace leaving? It had been two years since one and it still was five years until the other. Why had I been thinking more about it lately?

“We know.” Ace had simply said in my silence, making me look back at him as he got up and swatted the dirt off his clothes, then held out his hand to me with a smile “We’re here though, Luna. And I promised, didn’t I?” I smiled up at him and took his hand to help myself up “Nothing for you to go all serious about.” Once I was up, he pulled Luffy by the scruff of his neck and we patted the dust off our clothes.

I’ve always felt more intensely than other people, I couldn’t just be happy I had to radiate it and it could happen with the smallest things – I touched my bracelet as I bring it to my chest – I had smiled for a whole month after Sabo got me my bracelet, I could never not smile when Ace braided my hair, smiling came as naturally as breathing when Luffy gave me piggyback rides… It was never hard to make me smile and it lasted for the longest of times. But this also applied for when I felt sad, for I couldn’t just be sad, I’d feel empty and dark and down a hole I could never really climb out of – not by myself at least, fortunately I still had two of my brothers to help me.

I smiled and looped my arms through theirs “Let’s go! I still have to kick both your asses in practice later!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not nice enough to let you beat me, you know?” Luffy pointed out from my left and I grinned at him.

“You don’t have to dear brother, I still win the majority of our duels.”

“You can’t say the same to me though.” I turned to my right to see Ace grinning down at me.

I puff out my cheeks “Logic dictates that I’m bound to beat you even once in our lives, you know?”

He scoffed “You keep telling yourself that, shrimp.”

“I’m beating Ace before you get a chance to, Lu!” Luffy perked up, making me turn to him again.

“You only get to claim that after you’ve beaten me more times than I’ve beaten you!”

His smile opened wider as he looked ahead “Just you wait until I control my powers better! You won’t beat me then!”

“Ha! By then I’ll control all my Zoan forms.” I reply to him, Luffy turns back to me and we both start laughing at each other.

We casually walked through the way too clean streets of Downtown, completely ignoring the stares of the people that thought us too grotesque for their perfect little town, they should know better than to stare at this point.

It doesn’t take us long to get to Zeke’s shop, he had the best weapons to sell in all the Goa Kingdom, it was right between Edge town and Downtown, hidden enough away to not be noticeable to those that didn’t know where it was but there nonetheless to everyone that tried to seek it out. It didn’t seem very big from the outside but Zeke had used the surrounding empty buildings to expand his business without anyone noticing, also the military approved of it, they had to get their weapons from somewhere.

“Oh no!” Zeke’s voice comes from the back of the shop as the three of us scatter through his corridors making me look up at him. The old man comes from behind the counter with his cain waving in the air looking at me, then looking around “Hey, you too!” he points his cain at Luffy that stops himself from grabbing a battle axe and Zeke looks around again as I see Ace walking up behind him.

“Hi old man.”

Zeke jumps in the air before turning to Ace with his cain still in the air “Oh no!” I can’t not smile to myself “No!” the man shakes his head as he keeps saying it “Out of my shop! All of you!”

Ace chuckled “C’mon Zeke, be nice, we’re here as actual customers this time.”

The old man’s eyes widened between me and my brothers “Is that supposed to make me feel better?! It doesn’t!” the old man is forced to put the cain on the floor as he takes a breath “You three—Brat, you touch that axe I’m throwing you over the damn wall!” he warns and I saw Luffy flinch before he whistles away from the weapon, like he’s discreet or something “You three are destructive enough with your little pipes! I’m not giving you anything that could kill someone!”

I shrug “A spoon could kill someone in the right hands.”

The old man turns to me and waves his cain again “That mindset, little witch, is exactly why I’m not selling you three anything!”

“Old man, c’mon.” Ace tried to reason with him as he pulled his backpack off to show the man the contents “It’s good business.” I tried not to laugh at the way Zeke’s old eyes basically jumped at the amount of gold in my brother’s bag “And I promise that we’re not getting Luffy a weapon.”

The man nodded trying to pull himself together as Ace slung the backpack over his shoulder again “That’s a relief…” but then he eyes me and Ace “You two aren’t that much better though!”

“We’re not that bad.” I waved off and the man waved his cain at me again.

“NOT THAT BAD?!” he took a deep breath and pointed his cain at a bit of his shop that had patchworks holding the ceiling together “Do you know, you little pest, who shot my ceiling into the air?”

I scratched the back of my neck as I looked away “Eh? Luna did that.”

I dropped my head at my twin’s voice “Thanks Luf…”

“Put that down!” the man warned Luffy again before rubbing his face “I’m gonna have a heart attack with you three in my shop…”

Ace laughed “Tell you what Zeke.” Both me and the man looked up at my oldest brother as Luffy moved along to another trinket “What about two of us wait outside? Would that make you feel better?”

“Much better!” the old man admitted taking his hand to his back as he walked back to the counter “It’ll also help me forget that I’m selling actual weapons to the three worst delinquents of Grey Terminal.”

“That’s not fair, you sell weapons to the military!” I grumble “And you used to sell to Bluejam and you now sell to Sly. We’re not that bad!”

The man turned to me half way with a chuckle “In my books? They’re small fries compared to you three.” He paused for a moment before continuing walking to the counter “It’s a compliment, little witch.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this ‘compliment’ but I shrugged it off as Ace rolled his eyes “Lu, take Luffy and wait outside, will you?”

I whined “But Ace…”

“I promise I’ll get you something cool.” He assured me as I crossed my arms and puffed my cheeks out “Don’t make that face, shrimp.” He pinched my cheek again “Now take Luffy and wait outside, c’mon.”

“Wat’s sho uffair!” I mumble before he releases my cheek and I stare at him as I rub my cheek “You’re cooking tonight then.”

He nodded “Deal. Now go on before the old man throws a mace at us or something.”

I laughed as I walked around to Luffy that was playing with a dagger, casually put it down and grabbed him by the hand “C’mon Luf, Zeke is an asshole.”

Me and Luffy ducked instinctively as an iron mace hit the wall where our heads were meant to me, didn’t faze us as we walked out back out the door. I sat on one of the boxes pilled on the entrance as Luffy kicked a rock “It’s not like we do that much damage.” He grumbled what only made me laugh.

“I destroyed his ceiling but you tend to nearly kill Zeke with whatever you grab.”

He turned to me with a finger over his chin as he seemed to think “I don’t remember that.”

I laughed more “I’m not surprised!”

We weren’t there for that long, I stayed sitting on my wooden box, flipping my pipe to pass the time as Luffy was clearly starting to hit his boredom mark, I didn’t know how to keep him entertained as I also wanted to go back inside and check out the cool weapons.

“He thinks he’s such a fucking hotshot.” My ears perked up as I heard a male voice from the inside the shop accompanied by more than one set of footsteps “Piece of fucking shit thinking he’s somebody around here.” I didn’t notice anyone in Zeke’s shop but it was certainly big enough for me to have missed them, five guys walk out of the shop adjusting clearly new daggers into their belts. I looked at Luffy that pointed at his own head as he tilted his head to me, I lifted my hand to touch my ears, only to notice that they had shifted again. I tried lowering my head to not call attention to myself, when I felt a familiar straw hat softly settling over my head, I looked up to see Luffy now standing by my side smiling at me, making me smile back at him. I touched my back to notice that my tail hadn’t made an appearance this time, breathed of relief and looked over my shoulder to notice that the men hadn’t paid us any attention, placing them almost at the corner of the short street “I’m telling you, someone should teach him a lesson!” despite their distance, I found that I could hear them just the same.

“And that someone’s you?” another one seemed to ask as I tried to shift my ears back into their human shape “Ha! I’d love to see you try to fight the kid.”

“I’m not saying me, but I certainly wouldn’t mind if someone killed him.”

Why can’t I shake their conversation? What does the tiger know that I don’t?

“Him and the other brats, all a fucking pain.”

“Lu, they’re not going away…” Luffy whispered near me and I nodded as I focused harder on making them go away.

“He’s the worst of the lot! I’m telling you, Ace’s a waste of life.”

I snapped my head in the direction the men had left. What the fuck did they just say…? I gave the straw hat back to my twin, gripped my pipe tightly and got off the pile of boxes before I ran off “Luna!”

I didn’t turn back to see Luffy running after me, I was too preoccupied with turning that corner and finding the group of men “Which one of you said that?”

The men turned to face me “It’s one of the brats.” Rushed footsteps stopped behind me and I glanced over my shoulder to see Luffy looking between me and the men “And another one. What do you two want?”

“Right now? Your head on a platter.” I said, keeping my eyes on them.

The men chuckled among themselves while I felt my brother’s hand on my elbow “Lu, what’s wrong?” he knew I wouldn’t just start a fight out of nowhere, I had met Shanks too after all and had learned that lesson as well, but there was no fucking way I was letting them walk away after I had heard what they said. But at the same time, I didn’t want to tell Luffy what I had heard, it’s silly, but it felt wrong to tell him.

“They’re talking shit.” I simply replied, keeping my eyes on them “And they’re losing their teeth for it at least.” There was something that was worrying me though, inside of me there was a roar that was trying to claw out and not quieting down but I couldn’t bring myself to back down “Keep back Luffy, I’ll handle these guys myself.” He let go of my arm and I heard him step back.

The men laughed but I narrowed my eyes on one of them and jumped him, smacking the bent edge of my pipe right on his face, sending him rolling back a couple of times as I turn to the other four that suddenly were taking me very seriously. They reached for their weapons but with their words ringing in my mind they were lucky if they got out of this with their lives, I was seeing red. They were the waste of life! How dare they?! They should wash their mouths before talking about our brother!

I hit one of them so hard with my staff that his blood splashed on my face. It was like a pulsation coursed through me – shit.

I stopped and glanced over at Luffy that had stayed back like I had asked. We didn’t need words, he knew what was happening, his eyes widened and that was it… That’s what I remember.

Everything else was fog. There was rage, a roar, a cry… I wasn’t enough myself to see Ace turning the corner with Luffy, worry evident all over his face. I don’t remember the feeling of my paws on the back of the men I had just beaten, I didn’t hear my brother’s exchange before Luffy took off running around the building, I wasn’t enough there to see Ace put his staff down and take off his backpack. I wasn’t in control when Luffy tangled his rubbery limbs around my body and Ace wrapped his arms around me. I wasn’t the one that struggled as the tiger thrashed against my brothers’ holds but there was only one thing that broke through the fog and the fear and the anger, clear like a bell came my oldest brother’s voice - “It’s alright Lu, we’re safe.”

With Ace’s voice came peace, the feeling of being home and not even the tiger could fight that. I remember being cradled in my brother’s arms as my body started to feel too heavy for me to hold, I remember feeling so small I could be a fairy, I remember the smell of my brother’s skin – warm like the sun, fresh like the wind that blows through the forest, bitter like oranges – I smiled weakly at the smell of home and then I was out.

I wasn’t awake to see my brothers share a sigh of relief, or to see Ace glare down at anybody that wasn’t unconscious – a silent threat to stay back or lose their lives – as he cradled me in his arms. No, when I woke up, I was leaning against a tree and the breeze of the forest caressed my skin, beside me to my left, Luffy was wrapped around me so quiet that you’d think he was asleep but the moment I moved, he looked up at me with bright eyes and a radiant smile “You’re back!”

I couldn’t help but smile too “I’m back.” I held him tight too as I looked around “Where’s Ace?”

“Hunting.” Luffy simply replied “He said he’d promised you that he’d cook tonight.” Then he frowned “I thought it was your turn to cook.”

“Yeah, but then Zeke wouldn’t let all of us be in the shop and Ace wanted to be the one to stay.” I explain “I bargained.”

We both laughed as we looked at each other, I was thankful to be back “I was worried, you know?” I didn’t say anything “What you heard must’ve been really bad, huh?”

“Piece of fucking shit.” “I certainly wouldn’t mind if someone killed him.” “Ace’s a waste of life.”

I nodded “It was worse than when we heard those Mountain Bandits talk about Shanks…”

“Oh…” was all my twin said, I knew he understood where my reaction had come from.

We sat there waiting for Ace to come back, I knew I ha scared Luffy by the way he stayed quietly by my side, arms wrapped twice around me as he pulled me close. I’m sorry Luffy…

Ace didn’t take long, showing up with a giant crocodile dragging behind him, he smiled tenderly at me “Good to see you awake.”

“Sorry…” I sheepishly said but he waved me off.

“Are you two gonna help me with this or am I carrying it and you all the way back to Dadan’s?”

Me and Luffy were quick to get up help our brother carry the beast, as we do this, I notice the dagger hanging from my brother’s belt “You got a blade!”

He looker over his shoulder and grinned “Oh, I got a set for you two.” I grinned so widely that if the tiger wasn’t so drained, it’s ears would’ve made an appearance, he looked back ahead “Hey Lu?” I hummed in acknowledgement “You never did say why you don’t like to shift.”

I didn’t reply, simply looking at his back as we walked “I think it’s cool that you can turn into a tiger.” I heard Luffy pipping up behind me.

“It’s scary…” I admit walking between them and adjusting my grip on the crocodile’s back “It’s always angry and I don’t know why…”

“Don’t you?” Ace’s voice made me look up at the back of his head “I think you do.” I thought about what he was trying to say, maybe I did know? But no, the tiger had always been hard to control, calling it had always been scary.

“Well… It’s still hard to control.”

“You’re not necessarily someone that likes to be controlled yourself.” Ace chuckled but it only made me frown at his back.

“Where are you getting at?”

He shrugged and the whole crocodile moved with his shoulders “I’m just saying, you’ve always referred to the tiger as ‘it’ or as something separate from you, and maybe that’s the problem?” I opened my mouth to speak but he was clearly not done “It’s not an ‘it’, it’s you. I think that the more you try to separate yourself from your tiger self, the harder it gets to control. Maybe, and I’m no expert, but just maybe if you learned to accept that the tiger is a part of you, then you’d control it better.”

“What if you’re wrong?” I spoke up “What if the only reason I’m able to come back is because I fight it? What if I invite it to take over and it turns on both of you and then—”

“I’m not dying!” Ace clearly enunciated the words as he looked over his shoulder at me, almost to drive it home “Didn’t I promise that?” I nodded at him, taken a bit aback by his tone “And, for as long as I’m around, I’m not letting anything hurt you or Luffy! I don’t care if it’s the military, the thugs of Gray Terminal, Sly or even if Bluejam himself showed his piece of shit face! This also goes for you hurting yourself, Luna. So no, your inner tiger can try going on all the rampages it wants, I’ll be there to bring you back, get it?” I nodded again, too stunned to find my voice “Do you get it, Luna?”

“Y-Yeah…” I nodded again, feeling my cheeks warm up, I smile “Thanks big brother.”

I notice Ace’s cheeks turn pink as he looks back ahead “A-ACE!!!” I look over my shoulder to find Luffy crying in what I can guess is happiness “A-ACE’S THE BEST!”

“SHUT UP, LUFFY!” Ace argues from the front making me laugh to myself. As long as I had them, I’d be alright.

I had a bath before going to bed that night, put on my pyjama and went back to our room to do something of my hair. Luffy was already snoring it up and I had to smile at the scene before I went to grab my brush, but a hand reached it before I did “Let me.”

“Go sleep Ace, I’m just giving it a quick brush so it’s not all tangled up tomorrow.” I hold out my hand to him but he doesn’t give it back.

“Sit, shrimp.”

I roll my eyes and puff my cheeks out but do as my brother tells me. With my legs crossed on the floor, I can’t help but remembering the first time that Ace had done my hair for me, it had been about two years before and it was messy and he pulled my hair a few times and it had come out full of knots, but I felt deeply loved… I can’t explain it properly, maybe it’s just silly, but it’s like when Luffy gives me those tight hugs that I never want to let go of, it makes me feel truly loved. I really hope that there’s something that I do that gives them that feeling too.

“Are you gonna tell me why you started that fight?” he asks as he brushes my hair but I don’t reply “You can imagine my scare when Luffy runs into the shop calling my name and saying that you’re shifting. When you passed out, he said you were fine and then you just went after those morons.” I still didn’t say anything “The both of us know that you wouldn’t just randomly start a fight, so I’m curious of what made you lose control so badly that you went full tiger on them.”

I sighed as I fiddled with my bracelet on my lap “They said something – that I’m not going to repeat – but it was bad, like… There was no way I was gonna let them leave with all their teeth, kind of bad.” He chuckled behind me “Nobody talks of my brothers like that…” I only realized I had said it aloud when he stopped brushing my hair, immediately I covered my mouth.

“Luna…” shit, there was the serious voice. He spun me on the floor so that I was facing his rather serious face “I don’t want you getting into fights just because some assholes bad mouth us.”

I crossed my arms over my chest “You’d have done worse if what they said had been about us instead.”

“So, worse, you got in a fight just because they bad mouthed me?” he lectured “C’mon Luna, you know better than that.”

“Just?! Oh…” I tried to keep my temper in check but keeping my eyes on his “Ace, the oceans of the world will run dry before I let anyone bad mouth my brothers. God help the world if your secret ever comes out and I hear anybody make comments I don’t like!” he rubbed his face, covering whatever expression he might be making but I saw his shoulders drop slightly as he breathed out.

“You can’t just fight the world, Lu.” He said, as he dropped his hands to the floor “Trust me, I’ve tried.”

I frowned and waved my finger in the air a bit “Oh, you watch me, brother!”

“I thought your pal Shanks had taught you that it’s stupid to pick fights over stupid things.” He tried again but I found myself standing up, my small height being just enough for him to have to tilt his head back a bit.

“It’s not stupid!” I protest “It’s my family! You’re my family! Luffy’s my family! Dadan is my family! Grandpa’s my family! I will not stand by as some jackass says bad things about any of you! I refuse to! What kind of woman would I be if I just allowed that?” he keeps staring at me and I just cross my arms over my chest again. In retrospective, saying that while wearing an oversized shirt that read ‘sunshine’ in the front, might’ve not been the best of moves, but it was done either way “And after what that guy said? He’s lucky if he’s still breathing.”

“What did he say?”

“I refuse to repeat it.” I reply “It was an absolute lie, like saying that we don’t need the sun in the sky! Like saying we don’t need air to breathe! It was ridiculous and I’ll never let anyone say such things and walk away laughing!”

He sighed but his features softened “You could’ve gotten hurt…”

I shrugged as I sat back down, facing him “It won’t stop me from fighting.”

He spun me back around and continued brushing my hair “What am I gonna do with you, shrimp?” there was silence for a moment as he put the brush down and started to wrap my hair up in a braid. I handed him a rubber band when he was done and he kissed the back of my head “Thank you, Lu.” I couldn’t help the small smile on my face as I traced my fingers through my freshly made braid. When I turned, he was already settling himself to sleep and I did the same, for the first time in a while, not scared to see the tiger in my dreams.

When I opened my eyes, there was no more forest, no more junkyard and I was no longer a child, I was wrapped in bandages in the Heart Pirates’ ship and it hadn’t been the tiger that roamed my dreams, but the past.

[cjjade]

Pick 5 Series or Fandoms you broke-up with. Example I used to be all about Sherlock, but their seasons took so long that I actually fell out of love with it.

Almost thought this came from my best friend lol Here are different types of breaks ups because I had trouble with this. I generally don't stop watching shows so made this one a little fun. Also did six...sorry.

1. First Breakup: Star War Fandom. I am still a lifelong fan; read the books, have all the movies, watch the series, follow the news but I avoid the fanbase. They are rude and crude. At 14 I had a 43 year old man call me horrible names because I disagreed with his theory. It only got worse until I cut myself off.

2. Betrayal. The Magicians. Quentin Coldwater deserved better. Eliot Waugh deserved better. Queliot deserved better. I will never be okay with this.

3. Tradition Breakup: The Walking Dead. I stayed through alot, read the graphic novels, defended Glenn dying...but after Carl I just couldn't do it anymore. We parted ways and I never looked back.

4. Toxic: Grey Anatomy; we break up and I always end up going back. Then realize they haven't changed and want to walk away but...damn you Nico and Levi lol

5. Fell Out of Love: Doctor Who. As the seasons went on I just fell numb. After Clara died I just stopped. But I do a rewatch to remember the good times. (Rose Tyler 💕) Been watching DW since I was a child thanks to PBS.

6. Broke up but giving a second chance: Shameless. Broke up after they treated Mickey's character like trash in season 6 but obviously giving them a second chance...let's hope I don't get burned lol Gallovich owns my heart.

Reminder that I do not own the photos I got them off of Google!

[mjihkaaaa]

Transcript: “Randy Writes a Novel” by Randy Feltface

I have transcribed this hour-or-so-long comedy piece. if I put the transcript on tumblr, it might pop up in the search results of some poor sod wondering whether it’s a thing that exists. fAiR uSe DiScLaiMEr or something, I’m making no money off of this and am posting it out of the goodwill of my heart, and also I sat down for two hours to make the transcript so it’s probably work. /original date of transcription, not that it makes a difference: 2019-07-16 /link: you can find the actual piece yourself or buy the dvd like a good consumer

||[Beard guy] Hey Randy? Yeah mate? ||[Beard guy] Ready to do this? (exhale) Yup! ||[Announcer] Please, without further ado... Welcome to the stage... The purple one... Randy! (Applause) YEEES! HELLO! THANK YOU! LOOK AT YOU ALL, MMMH! This is so EXCITING! This is my favourite bit of the show, this bit; The expectation - You don't know what to expect, I don't know what to expect. I've got high hopes for you people. I think you're gonna be fantastic. Some of you may have never seen me before, there's probably a couple of you wondering what the fuck is going on right now - couple of people up the back probably regretting smoking that spliff before they came in... "... ... ... the fuck is that?" it's alright, just relax. Throughout the show I'm probably gonna walk from about here, over to here. Any further than that, it's gonna ruin the magic, alright? And, um, this is pretty much what it's gonna look like for the next fifty-fix-and-a-half minutes, so just adjust your eyeballs to this shit accordingly. Looks pretty good, we did my tech rehearsal today, and we set this lighting stand and was like that looks good, that's good, and Stu, my lighting guy back there, said "iS tHaT iT?" and I was like ehh... eh... no, Stu, we can turn on the lamp as well, like this ... (lamp turns on). Yes. So we did that just to justify Stu's certificate for... in fucking... theatre production. GIVE IT UP FOR STU! UP THE BACK! (Applause) Who's having an alcoholic beverage this evening? (wooing) Ah-WOOO! I don't drink anymore, I used to SLAM that SHIT into my FACE like a WEAPON but I quit ... and nothing really changed, you know, I didn't notice too many differences between being sober and being a drinker ... UNTIL ... the first time I got pulled over by a cop, and had to do a random breath test sober. Because my physcial and emi-seeonal reaction was exactly the same as it had always been when I was a drinker. Which was ... - "OOOOH fuck I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked" - "wind down your window please sir" - "IIIII'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked" - "one long breath into the bag sir" - "NAAAAAAAAAA I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm- (blow) I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked" - "... you're free to go mate" - !!! ... oh yeah, I am, and the sense euphoria I felt was the closest feeling I've had to being drunk since I quit drinking. To the point where I now drive around on friday and saturday nights, LOOKING for cops. And if I get pulled over, I pretend I'm drunk just to get an extra rush... AHHH! Seriously, if you ever get pulled over, and you're sober, pretend you're wasted. Oh, the BUZZ! It's like shelving nine pills at once, it's fucking sick. Seriously, the next time the cop's walking towards the car, just be like - - "ohh, shush everyone he's COMING! act normal he's comin- put it down! put it down, he's coming! shush he's comi-!! he's here!" - "... ... ... Wind down your window please, sir." - "yeah, I'ma do that, I'ma do that, I'M DOING IT! ... Ah, it's electric. The button's in the middle 'cuz it's electric." - "... ... ... Have you had anything to drink tonight, sir?" - "NOOO ossifer [officer] not on a tuesday" - "It's a friday-" - "NO friday either mate!" - "One long breath into the bag please, sir." - "yes I will, you fucking champion ... y'know, people say youse are cunts but I don't reckon youse are, PBRRTT (blow) - WOOO! hahaaa..." (Cop checks bag, shocked.) - "Uh... You're free to go." - "FUCK YEAH! BRRRRRRRRR MEEPMEEP" (Applause) I took it so far once, I got down to the station for a blood test - ahhahaAA, gets addictive when you get to that stage... I've got track marks, it's out of control! and laDIES AND GENTLEMEN - you're very close, aren't you. Hello! (Shriek) Um... The reason we're here is because, didididii, didididi-didii, I wrote a book! Yes! Woo! Yeah, you can clap, but I'm concerned that it might be a bit shit. I don't know. It's weird - this is it here - I'm not sure if it's any good 'cuz I think I'm too close to it, y'know, I can't tell anymore. I'm concerned that it might be, like, an ugly baby that I'm looking at through the eyes of a loving mother? And it's not until I take it out for a walk in its little pram and people start screaming in horror and crossing the street to avoid me that I'll realize I've made a piece of shit baby? There's nothing worse than a piece of shit baby, is there... - "Ah, who's this little guy- WAUGH YOUR BABY'S A PIECE OF SHIT!" - "God... damn it..." But do I need to be told it's good to know that it's good? You know, that's how it goes with comedy; If I come up here and tell a shit joke, you tell me it's shit by not laughing, and I stop telling that joke. But with a BOOK I won't know it's shit until it's out there. Forever. Until I DON'T sell a million copies. Just wake up one morning, surrounded by towering boxes of unsold books, featuring on an episode of mentally deranged hoarders... We need to lay off hoarders, by the way. I think there's one too many television programmes "exposing the horrors" of people that like collecting shit. It's their house, let them do it! - "No we have to fix them!" No you don't, people are fucked up! If they wanna climb over a stack of cat shit stained national geographic magazines from the nineteen seventies to get to the kettle, fucking let 'em. THEY LIKE IT. - "Yeah but it's a mental illness-" Yeah, well, may be, but I would argue it's MORE insane to film them doing it, and then package it like a tacky microwave meal for one, so assholes can sit at home going "LOOK HOW SHIT THAT PERSON IS! They've got too many of the same thing..." ... Who's more insane in that sce-nario, I ponder... ANYWAY my book... My book is called "Walking to Skye", it's about a young man who walks from the southernmost borders of Scotland up to the Isle of Skye in the far north, retracing the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather and having a massive existential crisis along the way. It's a reeeeeeeeeeal HUMDINGER, and now that I've written it I'm terrified to let anybody read it, so what I've decided to dewwww, is; I'm gonna read bits of the book out, you're going to react, and then at the end we'll all collectively decide whether or not I should kill myself. Okay? Okay. Here we go. Hm-hm-hm. Ready? Everybody comfortable? No-one needs to go to the toilet, or get a drink, or anything? No? If you do, seriously, just go for it, because fucking... (waves hand in front of eyes). I'm not.. going.. to notice... Ahem, okay, ahem... Here we go. Alright. Here we go, here we go, okay. Khm. Blblbl. Okay. Phew. Alright. Here we go. Walking to Skye, chapter one. ... Phew. Okay. Khm. Blbl. Okay. Khm. Phew... (Sigh)... (Shivering) Read it... Just fucking read it... Come on man... Just... Son of a bitch... Pth... EHGgghhh... I'm too scared. (Audience goes "aww") No, fuck off. It's weird being scared for this, y'know, it's strange to be scared of something so intangible as JUDGEMENT. You know, I care what you people think, but taste is so subjective. Y'know, one man's "To Kill a Mockingbird" is another man's "Twilight" saga. Hello there, what's your name? (Matthew:) "Matthew." Matthew! N- where- right about there, mattie (adjusting line of sight)? Tell me, Matthew, what do you fear, what's your greatest fear, what are you scared of mate, we're all friends here, open up, unpack some shit, what are you-.. What's your biggest fear, Mattie? (Matthew:) "It must be rejection." Rejection? Same as me. <close> what do you know about my fear of rejection? </close> How old are you, man? (Matthew:) "Twenty-six" Twenty-six! The twenties are the time for rejection, my friend, it is the best time for rejection. Have you been rejected a few times? (Matthew:) "Quite a lot." Fucking rack it up, Mattie, rack it up mate, you just get- you wear those scars like a fucking warrior, mate! And then you get to thirty-six, my age, and you could not give a fuck, my friend. I'm telling you mate, rack up the rejection while you can, and then just.. fucking.. grab whatever's left. That's what you've got to look forward to. Let's hear it for Matthew! Yes! (Applause!) Rejection, eh? I think, actually, Mattie, Mattaroonie, Matterectomy, I think for me, Mattanoonles, I'm actually more scared of ... failure, in this case. I fear that I might've written a shit book, and as a result I'll fail, y'know. But I believe, Mattress, I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who put it best when he said "The first draft of everything is shit". And I often thought of that while I was writing my book, it's a great thing for young readers and young writers, sorry, to keep in mind, because it kind of lets you off the hook, y'know. And it makes you feel not so bad when you churn out something akin to Fifty Shades of Grey fanfiction. - "Every nerve ending in my body tingled as he boldly placed his swollen member directly onto my left shoulder ... and whispered into my ear ... 'tickets please' ... suffice to say, that won't be the last time I catch the bus to Broad Meadows." Khm. True story, true story. Okay, I'm gonna read the book - Broad Meadows, good suburb, Broad Meadows, good name! (Audience member goes WOOO!) Hahahaha, WEEEEEW! Has Broad Meadows ever had that reaction anywhere ever? How good is Broad Meadows- WOOOOOO! WOO! Wooing is one of few things you can do in a crowd. You can't woo when you're on your own, can you... You can't just be walking down the street like WOO! - "What's wrong with that person?" But if there's a group of you going "woo!" it's like, - "Naw, they're having a nice time, aren't they..." Wooing in- when you're in an audience is one of the few times you can get away with wooing. You can't, fucking- don't woo at the butcher's, y'know? - "I'll just have a ... 2 pounds of some sausages and uh, some pound of mince, and let me- six pound fifty WOOOOO!" - "I no longer wish for you to purchase my meat products." What was I talking about? Ah, Broadie? Yeah, Broad Meadows, it's a good name, Broad Meadow, like it makes sense, there was an expanse of just fucking... no stuff, there was some broad meadows, and they went "let's fucking build it here" and it was an honest name. All these new subdivisions now, they're all fucking, just... - "What are we gonna call this deserted swamp?" - "Um... Spring Valley Mountview Niceface." Fuck that! Name them honestly, y'know? - "Where are you living now?" - "Shitty water feature." - "Ah!" - "Where are you?" - "Stabbyville." - "Ah! ... How's that?" - "Yeah, it's good, it's close to schools, which is great, but um... We do get stabbed a lot though, it's a... You know, we knew the risks..." - "'Cuz it was in the name?" - "'Cuz it was in the name! yeEEeeAh." I like an honestly named place. I was Broken Hill recently, that's an honestly named place. - "We had a hill, we fucking broke it. Welcome to Broken Hill." Actually, Broken Hill have gone one further, they've named all the streets in the centre of town after elements. 'Cuz it's a mining town, they went thematic with that shit. So you're walking down Chloride, and you hit the corner of Bromide, or Oxide, I love that! That makes sense to me! I live in Collingwood - it'd be much easier to direct people to my house if I could send them to the corner of Soy Latte and Hipster Fuckwit. That'd take out all the guesswork ... When you're heading to Frankston, don't forget to check out the beautiful parklands on the corner of Bucket Bong and Pregnant Teenager. They are just enchanting. Alright. Gonna read the book. Blblblbl. You cool Matt? Sick. I'm gonna keep talking to you so you feel included. Therefore, not rejected. Khm, okay. Alrighty. Okay. Here we go. Alright. Shut up, I'm gonna read it. Okay. Phew. Walking to Skye, chapter one . . . Fascinating man, Ernest Hemingway. I didn't know a lot about him, but I kept thinking of that quote, "the first draft of everything is shit", while I was writing my book, and I started to think, "who are you to tell me my first draft is shit, Hemingway? What did you ever do that was sO fUckIng gOOd?" So I realized I didn't know anything about him, so I decided to do some research on him, and it proved to be an excellent means of putting off writing my book. And now I can tell you everything I know about him as an excellent means of putting off reading you my book, so... Swings and roundabouts, my friends, swoongs and rimbledibbledoodledoodoos, as they say in Scotland ... They don't say that. No-one has ever said that. Anyway, what I suggest we do, okay, is I'm just gonna tell you a little bit about Ernest Hemingway, bit about Hemmers, and then we'll just let the segway into reading the book develop organically. Like a runaway fungus at the bottom of a misplaced coffee cup. - "Aw, guys, how long has this been behind the couch? ... There's little people in it!" - "Save us! Save us from our porcelain prison!" - "wwWAAH!" (tosses cup) KSSSH - "We're free!" - (Running noise, tktktktktktk) - (Randy steps on the little people with an audible crunch) It's just for me, that bit, it's just for me!.. Okay. Okay, here we go, ladies and gentlemen, for the very first time I would wager in all of your living memories, I now am proud to present to you, the life and times of Ernest Miller Hemingway in approximately three and a half minutes. Go! (Background shifts) Born in Chicago in eighteen ninety-nine, son of a physician and a musician, reasonably uneventful childhood, decided to study journalism. Enlisted with the Red Cross during World War One, got blown up in Milan and spent six months in hospital with severe shrapnel wounds in both legs, fell in love with a nurse, they decided to get married. He came home to prepare, she stayed there and ditched him for an Italian soldier, which initiated a life-long pattern of him rejecting women before they had a chance to reject him. Take note, Mattie. Got a job as a foreign correspondent, fell in love with his roommate's sister, married her and moved to Paris. They hung out with Gertrude Stein, they kicked it with Pablo Picasso, he started writing in earnest, moved to Toronto, had a kid, moved back to Paris, published a couple of books, cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman, converted to catholicism ... ... ...  Cut his head open after pulling on a cord thinking he was flushing a toilet, and instead ripped a skylight from the roof and smashed it onto his face, moved to Kansas City, had another kid, his dad committed suicide, he shot a lot of bears for some reason, had a car accident, had another kid, went to Africa to kill some wild animals and got dysentery - Karma! -, published another book, moved to Cuba, shot himself in the leg whilst aiming at a shark! Cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman, published "For Who the Bell Tolls", sold half a million copies in a couple of months and got nominated for a Pulitzer prize, cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman, became the self-appointed leader of a band of village militia outside of Paris, and was subsequently brought up on charges for contravening the Geneva convention and got away with it like a FUCKING CHAMPION! Got pneumonia, moved back to Cuba, and spent most of his spare time on his boat, tracking nazi u-boats with a machine gun and a pile of hand grenades - I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP! Had a few more car accidents, three more concussions, got clawed while playing with a lion! ... Got depressed, drank, got fat, published a couple of more books, went back to Africa to shoot some more wild animals and barely survived two separate plane crashed in the space of twenty-four hours, winding up with a fractured skull, internal bleeding, cracked spine, ruptured liver, first degree burns, and a paralyzed sphincter muscle - Karma! -, won a Nobel prize, had a file opened on him by J. Edgar Hoover, left a bunch of shit in a safe in Cuba and moved to Idaho paranoid that the feds were following him, which they were, because he spent most of the nineteen fourties working for the KGB! AGAIN, NOT-MAKING-THIS-SHIT-UP! Suffered from hepatitis, nephritis, hypertension, hemochromatosis, anemia, and impotence - Karma! -, got committed, received way too much electroconvulsive therapy and came out all fucked up, started hinting at suicide so immediately got re-committed, received another couple of months worth of electroconvulsive therapy, got released, put both barrels of his favourite twelve gauge shotgun into his mouth, and BLEW HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF. WHAT A GUY!!! (Applause) Ah... That is all true! What a fucking unit! Hemingway is the quintessential anti-hero, the talented, charismatic, belligerent, suicidal, alcoholic genius that can't keep his dick in his trousers. And he still found time to write about fifteen books! I've written one, and it took me ages, because I procrastinate like a motherfucker! I only got this written by doing most of the work in my local public library, because it's very difficult to masturbate in the reference section without getting caught. It's... It's almost impossible, in fact ... Almost. I don't even enjoy masturbating anymore, I just do it to avoid other tasks. And if it's something I really don't wanna do, I can seriously just go back-to-back wanks, just AARGH, just 'till it's painful, like NAAAAAAAAH, like hurty cum, like MWOOOAAARGH, WOOOMMMHHH MHHHH MMHHMHMMM RMMMMMHHHHOOkay fine I'll do the fucking dishes. And you know the weird thing about books is that you only really need to write one to be considered to be a great writer. Until last year, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the only book that Harper Lee ever published. One book in eighty-nine years. To be fair that one book did win the Pulitzer prize and sold over fourty million copies, so she didn't really need to do another one, did she... - "Hey Harper, you gonna write another book?" - "Nope! Did you read the first one? FUCKING NAILED IT! FUCKING NAILED IT! I'm just doing the one. Just doing the one." Imagine if I did that. Came up here, told one joke, and then stared at you for fifty-eight minutes. - "You gonna tell another joke?" - "Nope! Did you hear the first one? FUCKING NAILED IT! I'm just doing the one." There's not many jobs where you can just do the one, is there... Just... Writers, and... Suicide bombers. Hard to do two of those... Or maybe UFC fighters that get punched in the head so hard in their first bout that cerebral fluid trickles out of their eye sockets. - "Ohhh, that's fucked Randy..." It happens. It's pretty much the perfect example of why we're sort of festering in this evolutionary cul-de-sac, isn't it? - "Welcome to planet earth, there's approximately seven billion of us, as you can see there's quite a few of us that don't have any clean drinking water, OH! Here's a large group of us that get paid millions of dollars to knee each other in the face! Obviously still... Ironing out a few of the kinks." Martial arts, mixed or otherwise, should not be the domain of fat-necked roughians trying to stomp on each other's ballsacks. Just as yoga should not be taught by twenty-two year old gym instructors that did a one week yoga retreat in Bali and now get around in low-slung fisherman pants with a bindy and a plat talking about mindfulness like they've ever had any fucking life experience at all. I'm sorry, you can tell me to relax and center myself when you spend maybe ten or fifteen years considering what that actually means. Until then, go back to taking photos of the froth on your coffee and shut the fuck up. And I'm torn! I'm torn because I do yoga! I buy oragnic vegetables. I blindly sign internet petitions without reading the fine print, give myself a good old pat on the back and go back to downloading hardcore pornography... I'm trying to be a good buddhist, I'm trying... But it's even difficult to identify as buddhist in the current climate without coming off as some sort of new-age pompous twat dipping his toe into the "What does it all mean?" kiddie pool while holding a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and staring lecherously across the back yard at your cousin's tits. - "Geez, Tamara's grown up since last Christmas, hasn't she..." And I mean, Buddha was just a dude who found enlightenment sometime around the fifth century, and he decided to stick around and talk about it, y'know. But he made it clear that everything's optional, I guess, y'know, "here's the thing I've discovered, I think it's pretty nifty, but you can find your own way through it". He was kind of like a benevolent woodwork teacher, just overseeing the workshop, but allowing his students to discover for themselves which machine is most likely to cut their fucking head off. - BRRRRRRRRRRR-WAUGH! - "It was that one, Gareth, well done. A plus, matey, A plus for you." And there's been loads of other buddhas since, right, but they haven't necessarily felt the calling to stick around and talk about it. I guess they just become enlightened and fuck off. I think that's fantastic. But ... Are you only enlightened if you're able to share it with people? Y'know? If I write a book and nobody reads it, is it still art? What is the collective noun for monkeys? ... ... ... Seriously, does anybody know what it is? I was trying to think of it all day. Anybody? (Inaudible audience response) What? (Audience member:) "Gang" Gang? Gang of monkeys? Coming through on my gang of monkeys, we're a little gang of monkeys, ooh-A-A-A! It's not gang! Anybody else? If you come up with something stupid, I'll sing a dumb song about it ..? What else? (Inaudible audience response) What is it? (Inaudible audience response) ... Oh you people are fucked. Does anybody know what it is? It's not barrel, by the way. It's troop. What, what did you say, uhh... Gang. Who-what, what's your name, who said gang? Where are you? (Victoria:) "Victoria." Victoria? How are you, Victoria? (Victoria:) "Great." Thanks for coming to my show. Hey, Victoria, riddle me this m'sister, have you read "Go Set a Watchman"? Harper Lee's new book? (Victoria:) "Naw." Naw. Has anybody read it? (Audience member:) "Half." Half. That is the best book review ever. - "I read half." Has anybody read "To Kill a Mockingbird"? (audience responds yes) yEES we reAD IT at scHOOL, fuck off. For those of you who haven't- for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, "Go Set a Watchman" was the Harper Lee book that came out last year, right, and if you don't know the backstory, alright, I'll just fill you in. Victoria, listen up. Um... Basically, Harper Lee, right? So, Harper Lee, she had a stroke in two thousand and seven, and until she died earlier this year, she was in like, assisted care, she was in a wheelchair, she was deaf and she was blind, and her sister Alice had been taking care of all of her affairs, until Alice died in twenty fourteen at the age of one hundred and three, like a fucking boss... Anyway before Alice died she was pretty much the last line of defence between Harper and this 'lawyer' that had just sort of been loitering in the wings, right. And when Alice died, this 'lawyer' just happened to discover the manuscript for "Go Set a Watchman" in the locked safety deposit box in an obscure vault in a random bank, where it had been busy minding its own business for the last fifty-six and a half years, and according to the 'lawyer', Harper was delighted that the manuscript had been discovered, and suddenly reversed her life-long vow to never ever ever publish another book ever ever again, particularly not "Go Set a Watchman" which she actually wrote before "To Kill a Mockingbird" and didn't think was very good. Other people think that maybe the 'lawyer' was attempting to get filthy rich by brutally fist-fucking an eighty-nine year old stroke victim, but the question is; ... ... ... The question is, if "To Kill a Mockingbird" had've stayed in that vault, alongside this newly discovered manuscript, would it still technically be a work of literary genius? Or is it only when something's been evaluated by the world and possibly someone's made some cash off it that it's considered to be valid artistic expression? Is art only art once it's been witnessed? Acknowledged? If I don't take a bow at the end of this show, does it devalue the performance? Will you feel unsatisfied? Or rejected? ... I recently read that book "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work" by Alaine de Button, and in it, he says; "we might consider art as anything which pushes our thoughts in important, yet neglected directions". Now, I'd like to consider what I do artistic expression, but that sort of poses the question - do people really need their thought pushed in the direction of old ladies being brutally fist-fucked? Is that my artistic legacy? Is that what I'm gonna leave behind? Y'know, "Randy... He was the old lady fisting guy, wasn't he? Eh. Very droll, very droll. Yeah." Because Ernest Hemingway is remembered more for his literary talents than for being an insufferable cunt with a penchant for killing shit and cheating on his multiple wives, does his artistic legacy outshine his tactless and unfortunate personal life? Is it better to be a mindful human that leaves no palpable remnants of artistry behind, or a violently unlikeable sexual deviant that shits handfuls of heart-breakingly beautiful sonnets and sonnatas out of his asshole before brunch? Because it's the image of the tortured, self-destructive artist that prevails nine times out of ten. Amy Winehouse was just a girl that wanted to sing some songs, do you know what I mean? So... Should I just keep my fucking mouth shut? And try to navigate towards enlightenment, leaving behind an intangible trail of good deeds? Or do I dive deeper and deeper into the inky, black ocean of self-destruction and self-indulgence until I nail my chosen art form, leaving an echo for the eternal wonderment of countless future generations that will just breeze over my asshole personality? ... it's what's keeping me up in the night times. Eh... (Pause) Y'know, from the moment we're born we become less than human? You know that? E-... E-hh... Eh... All the bacteria from our mother is passed onto us on the way out of the womb, and from then on, we just continue to collect shit, on the inside and the outside, until the day we expire. Occasionally, you get to choose what that shit is, but most of the time you have very little say in where it comes from or when. You just have to duck and weave your way through the shit for as long as you can, until the chunk of shit with your name on it finally-AAARGH! cleans you up. Look, I know this was billed as a comedy, but a-ha-ha-HAA! LET'S TALK ABOUT DEATH! Woo! There are some pretty fucking ridiculous ways to die, though- OH, like that guy, that scuba diver they found when they put out the bush fire! *oh my go-od have you heard this fucking sto-ory?* They put out, like, a bush fire, and they found a dude in full scuba gear, and they figured out that the water bomber plane or helicopter that scoops up the water to put out the fire accidentally picked up a diver and dumped him into the flames! What a fucked up way to go! It's pretty much the polar opposite of "He died peacefully in his sleep", isn't it? Just dumped out of a plane into a blazing inferno... with a highly flammable gas tank instead of a parachute strapped to your back? - "NOOoo!" (Explosion noice) "I just wanted to look at the fish..." What do you say to his family? - "Uhh... At least he died doing what he loved." Well, he was a firefighter that enjoyed skydiving and water sports, but I'm not sure he ever wanted to combine the three... That's better, isn't it? - "Tell more jokes you little purple fucker." I had a good joke the other day - How do you know if a hippie has been to your house? ... They're still there. Haa... How do you know if someone's vegan? ... They'll tell you, yes, ahaHAHAA! Hahahaha, I'm vegan. Um... I initially became vegan for environmental and ethical reasons, and now I just do it to give people the shits at dinner parties. Like, - "Get it away, I can't eat that, meat is murder, STOP HAVING FUN EVERYONE!" It's a funny conversation, the vegan one, you bring it up, people just go - "... shut up fuckhead" But it's funny, 'cuz you know you don't actually need to eat meat. You don't NEED it. Nobody actually needs it. Unless you're on hemodialasys and you have to inhale a rare porterhouse steak every three hours to stop your kidneys backing in, you don't actually need it. That makes it a choice, and it's your choice. As long as you understand that that choice is born from belief and that particular belief is called "carnism". It's an inherited belief system that sort of conditions us to eat meat, and the notion is so... pervasive, I guess, it's viewed as a given rather than a choice. But it's totally a choice. - "Where do you get your proteins from then you little poofter!?" PEAS! (Gasp) It's crazy. And I know it's easy to just lump veganism in with all the other food allergies and just go - "They're the annoying fuckheads that don't eat the good stuff" which I get, I totally get... We're having Christmas at my house this year, right? Three months out, my cousin calls me to discuss her son, my cousin's son, which makes him... Someone I couldn't give a fuck about, anyway; She calls me up, the first thing she says - she doesn't even say hello - the first thing she says is "Brayden can't have blue." - "What the fuck? - "BRAYDEN can't eat BLUE FOODS." Apparently this kid, if he eats anything with a blue food preservative in it, he just KLKH (imitates death) just taps out. That is bullshit! Firstly, don't call your kid Brayden. Secondly... secondly, blue is not even a natural colour for foodstuffs. It occurs very rarely in nature- name me one blue food. (Audience member:) "Blueberry." BLUEBERRIES ARE FUCKING PURPLE! I'm talking about mentos blue, like seven eleven slushie blue, what flavour is that? Fucking highlighter? - "Ah no Randy, blue means mint-" MINT IS GREEN- if you planted mint and it came up blue, you would SET that SHIT on FIRE. - "And that's cool! It's cool! it's like ice, it's like water!" Water is clear. The only time water is blue, is when there's billions of tonnes of it and it's all in the one spot. And then it's got all sorts of shit in it, like salt, and SHARKS ... BLUE MEANS SHARKS IN IT! don't eAt iT it'S gOT SHARKS IN IT! You know, when sharks eat people, it's fucked, but it shits me how they immmediately go out and kill the shark like - "awrH it's gONe roGUe. iT's gOnE rOgUE!" No it hasn't, it's just doing what millions of years of evolution have programmed it to do, fucking swim around eating shit. - "yeeeeeeeah but ... ... ... it came into our bit. thIs bit's oUR bit oF tHe ocEAn." No-see that bit there? That big fucking wet bit? That's its bit. This bit here, all of this dry bit here, that you're standing on with your legs, your legs that have evolved to stand on the dry bit, that's your bit. You go into its bit, you're going to get bit. That's the lesson. ... Paddle out next to a seal colony and wiggle your ass around like a slutty little ol' dove, complaining when you get munched. It's that weird disconnect, y'know, it's the same thing as carnism, it's like if I imagine a pig is just a pig, and all pigs are the same, then I can detach what is on my plate from how it got there. It's just how most of us are brought up, y'know. But if you saw someone slit the throat of a Labrador, and then string it upside down to die an excrutiating death just squirming and bleeding out at the end of a steel hook, you'd think it was a bit fucked. How is a pig any different? It's not. It's actually not ... I said that on stage in Rock Hampton, in Queensland about four months ago. I was like, "how is a pig any different?", and a man in the audience yelled out "BACON!". Touché, sir. You win this round. He actually came up to me after the show - I was standing at the merch desk not selling anything - and he-.. I saw him coming from the other side of the room, just this massive dude, like - (stomping noises) - "Ah, you're a large man" and he said - "I was the one that said bacon" - "fucking don't kill me" and he goes - "nah, you alright mate, you alright mate, you alr-" It's the most passive-aggressive Aussie male thing you can say to another- - "naah, you alright mate, you-" It basically means "I wanna punch your fucking head in, but I don't wanna upset me misses. You alright mate." Anyway, he goes to me, - "Mate, you're not gonna make any friends in rock hampton being vegan. Did you know that Rocky is actually the beef capital of Australia-" - "ah fuck I didn't know that" - "-with over two and a half million head of cattle within a two point five k radius of the town centre?" - "fuck I didn't know that either" - "And that is a fair wack of the thirteen million head of cattle in Queensland alone, seventy percent of which is bred purely for export. Few fun facts for ya matey, few fun facts." I said - "thank you sir I did not know any of that" Did you know that, globally, cows produce thirty-eight percent more greenhouse gas than every single car, truck, bus, boat, train, and plane combined each year? That breeding animals for food uses up one third of the planet's fresh water? Takes up fourty-five percent of the earth's surface, and is responsible for a whopping ninety-one percent of amazon destruction, making it the number one leading cause of species extionction, resource consumption, and environmental degradation destroying the planet on a daily basis? FEW FUN FACTS FOR YA MATEY, FEW FUN FACTS FOR YA! Now, I'm aware this is in danger of becoming a TED talk at this point... - "jesus, a lot of statistics, is there gonna be a test?" It's alright, it's fine, I'll read the book, alright? I'll read the book. Not forcing my opinions on you, I'm merely saying them with a microphone, and you're paying for it. LOCK THE DOORS-no, seriously, okay, here we go. Khm. I'm gonna read the book. Y'know we've got McDonald's home delivery now? Does anyone do that? (Audience responds) You... You do? You know you can already get it in your car? You can get it without getting out of your car, but what McDonald's have now done is they've removed the gruelling walk from the front door to the car, so you no longer have to do that humiliating - "BWAAAAAARGGGGGHHHHH- WUUUUUUUUUAHHHH! OOOOOOOAAAAARGGHHHH! Now I have to reverend carpool! Oh, God damn you, God damn you -click- MRRRRRRGHHHH! HMMMMMRGHH! MMMMOOUUHHH WHY CANNOT THEY JUST BRING IT TO MEIN HAUS?" Well now they can. I think it's a good thing. Keep the fatties off the streets, STOP 'EM HOGGING UP THE FOOT PATHS, if they wanna eat shit, let them do it in their own home- WHO'S WITH ME? (Audience starts applauding) Don't clap that, it's a horrible thing to say. yoU'RE moNSTerS! ... Okay. You all good Mattie? Sweet. Okay, here we go. Blblblblbl, okay, kh-hm, alright, here we go, buggedabuggedabuggeda, okay. Stop it! Okay ... Do you like my typewriter, by the way? Isn't it beautiful? It's basically here just as a prop, but occasionally I am always tempted to just go ... (humming). Eh? A few "Murder She Wrote" fans in the house? Heyo? Everyone else going - "What? What is that? Sounds like an old person's joke." ... it is! It is! It totally is! Alright. Here we go. Okay, fuck, here we go. Blblblblbl. Walking to Skye, chapter one ... I bought a bookshelf on Gumtree recently, um, it was an amazing experience, I'll quickly tell you about it and then I'll read the book, but- I found it strange, becasue it made me start to think about the way our, like, methods of communication have sort of changed over the years, y'know? In the old days, if you wanted a bookshelf, you'd just go see Gareth the Bookshelf Guy, 'cuz he was the dude in your tribe that made the bookshelves, he had a little bookshelf cave, he was REPUTABLE. Now any mad bastard can sell their shit on Gumtree, you know what I mean? As a species, we're sort of able to cope with knowing and gossiping around like a hundred, or a hundred and fifty people. That's like the limit of our tribe. Any more than that, it starts to get confusing, which is why we created abstract constructs like territories and deities to unite larger groups of people under an imaginary common factor. And it works the trick, because we only really gather en masse on special occasions, but I think like social media and mmmh... It's fucking all that up, y'know? I think we're able to deal with the thousands of people we're connected to on a daily basis, and as a result we neglect our immediate one fifty, y'know? That's why I never get invited to parties anymore. It's not 'cuz I ramble on about veganism and fisting old ladies, it's because I'm not on facebook and everybody just assumes you are. I am so behind on the births, deaths, and marriages of my friends that I feel like the time traveller's wife every time I go to a party, I'm like... - "This is Tim, he's our son, he's six now-" - "Fucking... Didn't even know you were pregnant." Anyway, you know smartphones, aren't they great? You know that, right, they're not, they're not that great, you don't need the internet in your pocket, you work at Cole's, okay? You're not working for the president, you don't need it, you don't need that much information. And also, what was the point of developing opposable thumbs for you to take a photo of your head, post it on the internet, and then just stand by for validation. No-one gives a fuck about your head! They'll only validate it in order to gain permission to post a photo of their own head on the internet and stand by for validation. The people who give a fuck about your head will at some point see it in real life. Fuck your head and the neck it rode in on. Your vanity is sucking up my bandwidth ... Anyway this is what's going through my head as I'm on Gumtree looking for a bookshelf, because- you know when you put something on the... on the... in like... in the search in booktree- in booktree? what the fuck- When you put something in the search on Gumtree - I'm having a stroke up here - When you put something in the search, right, and like, there's always a couple of things that come up in the list that are like the polar opposite of what you searched for, and like "get out of my head gumtree algorithms, CONSPIRACY!"? No but seriously, it's all you type, it's like "bookshelf", and it's all bookshelf, bookshelf, bookshelf, grammophone? Huh. Bookshelf, bookshelf, bookshelf, combine harvester? What the fuck? ... Huh, that's actually a pretty good price. Anyway, on this particular day, I found two bookshelves that worked for me, in terms of cost, and more importantly, geographical convenience, 'cuz I'd be fucked if I'm driving to Broad Meadows to pick up a bookshelf, right? So I type in bookshelf, and I see the two things, and I'm like okay, one seller is Cathy, the other is Morgan. I send them both the same text message, "Hello! I saw your bookshelf on gumtree, is it still available?". Cathy texts back straight away, saying - "sorRRY iT wENt thIS MorNING!" - "That's cool, Cathy, I'm sorry I gave you an annoying voice in the retelling of this story." Morgan's response came through a couple of minutes later, and simply read, - "It was my wife's bookshelf." ... HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT? Aside from the fact that it doesn't answer my fucking question... His use of past tense in that sentence unnerved me slightly. I'm like, aahhh, I should probably just find another bookshelf... And then I noticed he lived in the suburb next to me, so I replied; - "Is it still available?" He responded with the letter Y. Just a Y. Is he asking me why I wanna know if it's still available? Or is it a Y for "yes", and he's so in the throws of grief that he can't manage the E and the S? I assume it's a Y for "yes" and respond, - "Cool! I'll take it. When's a good time to come and pick it up?" No reply for fifteen minutes, I'm like... ah he's forgotten about it, fuck it, I'll find another bookshelf, and then when his reply actually does come through I realize he spent those fifteen minutes crafting his response, because it's a FUCKING THESIS. He must've felt so bad about only using a single consonant in his previous text that he just massively overcompensated with this one. Also, for some reason, felt that the use of punctuation? Entirely unnecessary. So it's just one obscenely long sentence, which reads; - "You must come and pick up now I only have short time here at house and also it wide so bring van or trailer and there's stair but I can help you carry it down stair if you come park out front walk up path ring bell and I will help you carry it to trailer or van I only accept cash and if you do not come now I will sell it someone else" (Shriek) Again I'm thinking, ahhh, I should just find another bookshelf at this point, but now I am FASCINATED by Morgan, and I simply must meet the man. So I drive over to his house- before I left, I sent him a message saying - "Cool, I'll be there in ten minutes" and he replied "ok", but spelled it OK-A-Y which just fascinated me more, that he'll use four letters to spell a two letter word, but only one letter to spell a three letter word, MORGAN IS OFF THE FUCKING CHAIN! And as I'm driving over to his house, I'm trying to picture what he's gonna be like, y'know... His pidgin English might suggest ethnicity of some sort, but I don't wanna racially profile him; Maybe he's an old man who recently lost his wife and is not that very good at texting, or maybe, and I'm really hoping this is the case, Morgan is just batshit crazy. So I get to his house, and I go up to the- ehe, I park out front walk up path ring bell, and I... I brace myself for the door to be opened by like, an old man in a smoking jacket, wearing fishnet stockings and suspenders, just puffing on an opium pipe while a butler just creepily polishes a goldfish in the background, and then a tiny pugdog wearing a fez hat just trots up the hallway, sits on the mat, looks up at me and says "RELCOME TO OUR ROVERY ROME!"... And then the door opens, and I am thoroughly disappointed. Before me stands an average caucasian male in his mid-thirties, dressed casually, hipster sheek, stubble, glasses with designer frames, expensive watch - I immediately think "architect?" but the house is too cheesy for that - it's like a double story doll's house with bay windows - but definitely a designer of some kind? Maybe a graphic designer? He's too skinny for manual labour, but he's too hip for the public sector, BUT THIS CAN'T BE MORGAN. Because Morgan's text messages would suggest that he's not that technically savvy, and then the man standing in front of me says - "Hello my name is Morgan" AND THE PLOT THICKENS! He invites me in, shakes my hand, closes the door, and twenty minutes later, I will be witnessing Morgan perform some of the most aggressive acts of violence I've ever seen in my life, and I will be speeding away in my car bleeding from the face. Here's how this shit went down... I go into the house, and I notice two things immediately; One, this is a house in the throws of renovation. Nothing too extreme, but there's like drop sheets on all the furniture, there's freshly painted walls, there's a bathtub wrapped in plastic in the hallway, awaiting installation- someone's doing some work on this house. The second thing I notice, on the way up the stairs to the second floor, on the first floor landing, is a wedding photograph featuring a very cleanly shaven Morgan with a very beautiful bride. Very much in love! The photograph is very much on the floor, and the glass in the frame is very much smashed. She's not dead, she's left him, and THE PLOT THICKENS A BIT MORE FOR MORGAN! And as Morgan unceremoniously like, kicks the photo frame to one side on the way up the stairs, I really wanted to pry into Morgan's life and ask heaps of inappropriate questions... But he was clearly a broken man. He had this terrible air of sadness around him, so I didn't wanna intrude. Luckily for me, though, I didn't have to, because Morgan immediately began oversharing and told me the whole fucking story aaAAAH! Thank you Morgan! I shall hang off your every word and then retell your tale to two hundred strangers and record it for a fucking DVD! He IS a graphic designer -YES!- and he's really good at it. He does like massive rebranding campaigns for large corporations, he gets flown all over the world doing this shit, right? About four years ago, a woman hired Morgan to rebrand her florist business, and he did such a great job she married him. And he thought everything was just fine, until about three months ago. Morgan had to do a presentation in Sydney, right? But he was on his way home from overseas and got stuck in Dubai due to a flight cancellation, so rather than cancel the meeting, Morgan suggested to these businessmen in Sydney that they do a Skype chat, because he's so technologically savvy, despite his fucking baffling text message style. So Morgan checks into a hotel, cracks open his laptop, and starts skyping with this room full of businessmen in Sydney, who are all watching Morgan on a massive screen on their boardroom wall, right? And everything's going great, Morgan is totally nailing it, until about halfway through; He realizes that a file he wants to show these dudes is on the desktop of his home computer back in his home office in Melbourne. And he decides to live share the desktop of his home computer on the Skype chat. He knows how to do that, he can remote control his computer from anywhere in the world, it's not particularly new technology, but Morgan makes it sound so impressive. So this room full of businessmen are all watching keenly, like - "OOAHP! MARGARET, BRING IN SOME BISCUITS, THERE'S SOME NEW-FANGLED SHIT GOING ON IN HERE!!!" as Morgan clicks a few buttons and (click) brings up the desktop of his home computer on the Skype chat. Now, what Morgan doesn't realize is that his wife has been using the "Photobooth" app on that particular computer to take pictures of herself. To take naked pictures of herself. To take naked pictures of herself... doing some pretty fucked up shit. It's embarassing, to say the least, just as Margaret came back in with the biscuits- - "I've got you the b-WHUIEAAAAURRRHHH!!!" Now, those of you who are familiar with the Photobooth app will know that how it works, is it accesses the built-in camera in your computer and with the click of a button, (click) takes a photo of you when you're standing in front of your screen. And if you know that, you also know that if you leave that application open, the camera also stays open, witnessing whatever may be happening in front of the computer, in real time. Such as your wife, in your home office, fucking your best mate. OOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOO MOOOOOOOORGANNNN... Nooooo... Morgan then goes on to tell me she's keeping the house, his former best mate is moving in, and while they're out for the day shopping for fittings, Morgan must suffer the indignity of moving his shit out, and selling the stuff they don't want on Gumtree to this guy. Ahhh... It's at this point of the story that Morgan starts crying, he breaks down, and I do not blame the man, it's fucking horrible and I just wanna give him a big hug and say "Everything's gonna be alright, Morgan", but I am holding the full weight of a BOOKSHELF halfway down a set of STAIRS and Morgan is the only thing stopping that bookshelf from caving my face in- I was like, MORGAN! MMMMORGAN! And Morgan managed to pull himself together ... for about eight seconds? And then just went BAHHH and let the bookshelf go. I fell backwards, it literally rolled over me, and took out the light hanging above the staircase, I'm now lying on my back getting showered in broken glass, as the bookshelf turned end over end and just went FONK right through a freshly painted wall at the bottom of the stairs. I'm like, AAH. aaAAAh. aaAAAAAAhhh. aaAAAAAHHH. I've got a tiny cut on my forehead which is just pissing blood, for some reason - apart from that, I'm fine. Morgan, however - he's not fine! Morgan is the opposite of fine. Something happened when the bookshelf lodged itself in the wall and his sadness just (click) went away in a second, and he started PISSING HIMSELF laughing. Hysterical. And he had the creepiest laugh I've ever heard in my life- I'm standing there like "this is weird" and he's like "mwhueHUEUEEUEUEUE! mhhwuEUEUEUE!" like some sort of demonically possessed baritone cookaburra, - "mwhueEUUEUEE, a-HOGUGUGUGAGAGAGA!" - "Um... Uh..." - "mwueEUEUUEUEUE" - "can I still have the bookshelf?" - "yuuEEEEAAH" We extract it from the wall - the bookshelf, incidentally, showing no sign of having just rolled down a staircase and smashed through a wall. We carry it out to my car- we had to stop about six times, 'cuz Morgan was like - "Hang on a minute, mwueHUEUEUEUEUEE" We got it to my car, put it on the trailer, and Morgan was in such a great mood he let me have the bookshelf for free. Ohh! Hahaha... Mm... And that's where the story SHOULD end. But there was something about the bookshelf going through the wall that flipped a fucking switch in Morgan's head, and he is now hungry for more destruction. So as I started tying the bookshelf down to my trailer, Morgan just strolls over to like an upright mailbox on the front lawn and just starts trying to wrench it out of the ground. Really putting his back into it. I'm like, "are you okay buddy" and he's like "YEAP" (struggling) HUAH! He pulls it out of the ground whereupon he wields it like a fucking battleaxe and just starts smashing up the front garden, just beheading the daisies, fucking up the lavender... I'm like, "uhh, hey Morgan, maybe you wanna stop and think about that" and he whirled around and looked at me like Jack Nicolson chasing Shelly Duvalle up the stairs in the shining and said - "WHY DON'T YOU MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS?" ... yep, yep, cool, man, yep, yep... Now, I like tying knots. I'm quite good at tying knots if I tie something down I take my time because I want it to stay there... But as Morgan nonchalantly strolled up the driveway, rolled up the garage door, and put the mailbox through the windscreen of an Audi!? I must admit, I kind of rushed my knot tying job. I got in my car, I'm about to drive off, I'm like, looking at the house going "ah, I'm sure he'll be fine" and then an armchair smashed out of an upstairs window and just went DOINK DOINK DOINK DOINK down the front lawn. I was like "... what's my duty of care in this situation?". I didn't want to call the cops on him, I didn't want him to trash the house, I'm like - "daw fuck I'm gonna have to talk to Morgan" So I got out, I walked up the driveway shitting myself- you know when someone does something really violent and you're just like "ah, fuck, we're not supposed to do shit like that!"? Yucky, just yucky feeling in my tum-tum- and I'm standing there, standing there in the garage and there's like an adjoining door in the garage that leads into the house. I can see in through the door into the house, up the staircase, it's like a wooden staircase, and I'm standing in the garage just going - "ah fuck..." (gulp) "morgaaaan. Morgaaaan!" Like I was calling a cat for its dinner? "Morgan! Moggie-moggie-moggie-moggie-moggie!" And then I notice a small trickle of water start to come from the top step. And then a little bit more water, and then QUITE A LOT OF WATER, just pissing down the stairs like shitty water feature, I'm like "aw that can't be right" and then Morgan appeared on the top step holding a hammer like this: - "BAAAH!" (jumps out) I was like - "WOAH!" and he's like - "mwhuEUEUEUE" Starts running at me wielding the hammer, like "UEUEUEUE", I'm like "aw no no I just wanted to buy a bookshelf..." he's like "UEUEUEUEUEUE-.. RRAH!" runs straight past me, I'm like - "Where are you going?" he's like - "UEEEH!" made a beeline for my car, I'm like - "NO, MAN! STOP!" he's like - "UEUEUEUEUUEUE" - "STOP IT! JUST STOP!" He spins around and goes - "I just checked my phone, she texted me fifteen minutes ago saying she'll be here in fifteen minutes, WE'RE GONNA GO!" and gets into my car! - "fucking... jesus... fuck me" I run down the lawn, get in the driver's seat, I'm like - "What was with the water?" he goes - "Ah, I put plugs in all of the sinks and turned all the taps on!" I'm like - "Oh that's fucked" He's like - "JUST DRIVE!" I was like - "AAH!" I took off so quick, rounded the corner of his street, and the bookshelf just went "mrrreeUUWh-BOOSH" and exploded against the guard rail, just exploded in a shower of badly tied knots and broken dreams... So me and Morgan just fucking left it there, like a little breadcrumb for his ex wife to find on the way home to her destroyed gingerbread house. I dropped Morgan at a train station. I have never seen him again. And that, my friends, is why I no longer shop on Gumtree. Thank you very much! Thank you very much. (Applause) Haha, ah, fuck... You know my favourite bit of that story? I just made it up. Yes, not true. There is no Morgan. MMMH! It's very unsatisfying, isn't it? - "But I saw him in my head. I saw Morgan in my head." ... ... ... Why is it we can feel so robbed when someone tells us a story we just heard isn't true, and yet so satisfied at the end of a fictional novel? Y'know? You know that? ... You know the other great thing about that story? First draft. FUCK YOU HEMINGWAY! ... (sigh) Can't end on that, can I? - "Those LIES? WE DID NOT COME HERE TO BE HOODWINKED, SIR!" The truth, eh? ... The truth is, I'm... I'm not an exceptional person, y'know? Nothing interesting really ever happens to me, I'm massively flawed, and I think I'm quite forgettable, if I'm being a hundred percent honest. And this isn't the shit bit at the end of the show where I get on the cross, I'm like "lOve mE on the wAY OUt thE doOr". It's not that, it's just that I don't think- on a scale from one to memorable, I'm not that memorable. Not on like the Morgan sort of scale, not on the Ernest Hemingway scale, certainly, y'know... But if I tell a great story, maybe people will remember that instead. Remember the card trick and just... pretend that they don't know how it's done, y'know? ... But must we leave a legacy? MUST we make an impact? Do we HAVE TO leave a footprint? Is it okay to just settle, seek safety, nest, y'know? Or must we constantly shake our lives up, or suffer the indiscriminate cruelty of having it shaken against our will? Must we try to carve a path through the tall grass, feeling as though no-one has ever felt how we feel? Terrified at what may be lurking low in the grass on either side of us, but just pressing ever on with that paleolithic instinct deep within our chromosomes that the only way is forward, that you HAVE TO keep going? That eventually you'll stumble upon the edge of the field, hitch a ride from a passing car, and meet up with the rest of the gang for tea and sandwiches at the old town hall? ... (deep breath) Do we feel like the path that we are carving through the grass is all our own? Only to finally float above the field with the sweet relief of expiration and realize that the field is insignificantly miniscule in size, and that there's only one path through the grass - the exact same one that every human has trod before us will ever after, just stumbling blindly along a tiny hyphen between the words "birth" and "death". And when reduced to that level of crisp simplicity, fear cannot exist ... So. (pausing, readying) Phew. Walking to Skye, chapter one: (Blackout) (Applause and credits)

[official-mermaid]

And 70 Margo & Eliot (also platonic. duuh) Please

Let me just first say that I’m sorry this took so long. Also I’m sorry the fic that came out of it ended up being canon compliant. 

70.  “It’s three a.m.Why are you making soup?”

Let’s Be Honest (on AO3)

“It’s three a. m. Why are you making soup?”

Eliot paused. “I truly don’t have a good answer to that.”

Margo walked into the kitchen, flicking the light on. “Andwhy were you making soup in the dark?”

He glanced at her, a slight smile on his face. “I don’t havea good answer to that either.”

“El—”

“Look, you don’t have to say it.” Eliot angled himselftowards the pot, focusing intently on stirring the wooden spoon. “I know.”

“Oh, well shit, as long as you know.”

Margo’s tone was sardonic, but Eliot knew her well enough tohear the note of concern lurking underneath. She wasn’t wrong to worry, whichwas, truly, the very worst part. Eliot wished he could claim to be fine. Hewished he could claim to not need anyone’s concern.

The fact of the matter was that he didn’t have much of adefense for himself.

He wasn’t even sure how he was standing. Every moment hewasn’t in pieces was a small miracle.

“Would you like some?” Eliot offered, as though this was allnormal.

“I mean, yeah, duh,” Margo replied, settling down ona stool at the counter. “I’ve missed your cooking.”

Eliot’s throat tightened at that. For him, it hadn’t feltlike all that long. The time he spent in the Happy Place was so… unreal. It wasdreamlike. There was no end or beginning to any of it. Time wasn’t a factor. Hewas just sort of floating in the space of memory without much awareness.

Even after he knew it wasn’t real, he couldn’t feel time.

Meanwhile, time was passing normally out here in the realworld. He’d been gone for the better part of a year, so they said. He’d missed Valentine’sday. He’d missed his birthday. He’d missed Margo’s birthday.

He’d missed Quentin’s birthday, too.

“Sorry,” Margo’s voice cut in suddenly. “Didn’t mean to wreckthe cheery mood.”

Eliot noticed how his hand had stilled. He cleared his throat,getting back to stirring, a little too briskly. He had to drop the spoon andflex his hand before he could get back to a gentle pace.

The cheery mood. What a concept. “Oh, no, of course.Must maintain the cheery mood. Whatever would we do without it?”

Margo let out a short, humorless chuckle. “Best to keep upappearances.” She sighed. “How are you? You’re not really supposed to be up.”

The sincerity in her tone was nearly startling. Eliot and Margohad never been the type of friends who asked each other how they were. Theundercurrent was always there: they were fucked up, they’d always be fucked up,at the very least they could be a fun kind of fucked up, who wants amartini?

They’d never talked much about how they were doing. Theywere there for each other, sure, but honesty was never either of their strongsuits. Eliot always thought that was why Quentin worked so well with them—his earnestnesskept them grounded in what mattered. He kept them from floating away into thefalsity of their personas.

Eliot guessed if there was ever a time for his and Margo’sdynamic to shift, now would be it.

There had been, after all, quite a lot of things going on. Andthey didn’t have anything left to ground them.

He was not exactly eager to discuss any of it, though. How washe doing? Oh, just peachy.

“Well, I don’t know who’s been doing the grocery shoppingaround here, but I’ll be honest, I had to get quite creative with myrecipe. Honestly, what were you people eating? I thought Josh cooked.”

“Josh bakes, mostly,” she replied. “And nice try, Waugh, butI’m not letting you off the hook that easy. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Well, I’m wonderful, my dear friend. Aren’t you?”

“You’re very convincing.”

“Hm. Thanks.” Eliot glanced over his shoulder to shoot her abright, facetious smile.

“C’mon, El. Everything is fucked. It’d be weird if you werefine.”

She really did sound like she wanted to help.

“So what if I’m not fine? Not like there’s anything we cando about it.” His voice got more bitter with each word. He was quick to angerthese days—something about whatever had happened to him while he was possessed,maybe. Or maybe it was the stage of grief he was lingering in. Either way, healways felt like he was one step away from snapping.

“I’m not fine either. Who says we need to fucking doanything about it?” Margo sighed heavily. “We could just, y’know… Be not finetogether.”

Right. Of course. Like they used to, right? Just gloss overhow fucked up they were, gloss over whatever trauma or pain or grief they werein the midst of, cover it up with affectations and margaritas. It was what theydid, right? It was who they were.

“I don’t think we know how to do that anymore,” Eliot said quietly.

The soup was still simmering. He didn’t really want to eatit. Making soup just felt like something you did when everything was awful. Asthough it was as simple as having a cold.

“Eliot—”

“I love you, Margo, but honestly—” His voice was starting toshake and he hated himself for it.  “Whoare we kidding?”

Margo let out a quiet scoff. “Sure, yeah, making soup atthree in the morning is much healthier way to cope.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I miss the part where we got good a healthycoping?” Eliot turned a little and offered a smile, as sincerely as hecould manage. “Why don’t we have a drink to celebrate? Or, you know, severaldrinks to celebrate. Who’s counting?”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Margo replied. She leanedforward against the counter, tapping her fingers lightly.

“I appreciate what you’re doing here, Bambi, but there’sreally nothing that can make any of this better.”

“What, you think this is all just for you?” Margoretorted. “Yeah, maybe I think you need some help. A lot of fucking help, if we’rebeing honest. But you know what, so do I. I need you, too, Eliot.”

Eliot wanted to scream. How could anyone need him rightnow? What good could he be to anyone? He was barely holding on, how could he possiblyhelp anyone else? He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t be anyone. Whateverversion of himself anyone needed him to be, he couldn’t do it.

He turned off the flame, moving the pot to an unused burner.From behind him, he heard Margo’s chair scrape back. He watched her reach forthe bowls out of the corner of his eye. Neither of them reacted fast enough tocatch the one that crashed to the ground, breaking into pieces.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Margosnapped at the broken bowl, gesturing at it emphatically. She let out a halfhysterical laughter, rubbing a hand down her face. “You’ve got to bekidding me.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Eliot murmured. He didn’t meet hergaze as he reached down, delicately gathering the pieces together.

“No, it’s just—it’s—” Margo huffed. “Fucking hell, Eliot. Wecan’t—”

“Relax, Bambi,” Eliot said coolly. He avoided looking at her.He swallowed hard, straightening back up and ignoring the pain in his abdomen.He put the pieces down gently.

“El—”

He cleared his throat loudly, reaching for the drawer that seemedto be where people shoved things in at random. He was still getting the hang ofwhere everything was in Kady’s apartment. “There’s got to be some superglue inhere somewhere.”

Margo fell silent. The only noise in the room was Eliot rummagingthrough the drawer. It was—well. It was loud.

Eliot’s hands started shaking.

“Where’s the fucking superglue?” he bit out through grittedteeth.

“Eliot,” Margo said, her voice softer.

“God, fuck, do Magicians just not bother buying thebasics? Are we all that dependent on magic? So fucking useless. Christ.”

“El—”

“I mean, honestly—”

“I can do it, it’s okay,” Margo said, putting a hand on Eliot’sarm.

Eliot flinched away. “Fine,” he said, his tone clipped. “Fine.Whatever.”

He grabbed two more bowls down from the cupboard, carefully.He didn’t look as she performed the minor mending spell.

He heard Margo let out a shaky breath as she put the newlyfixed bowl away.

She was right, and he knew she was right. Neither of them wasfine. And really, the only thing they could do was be not fine together.

Eliot braced himself on the counter with both hands, hanginghis head.

“Can I be honest?” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Margo replied.

He gestured theatrically at the pot, sighing with severallayers of affectations attached. “I’m not even hungry.”

There was a beat of silence before Margo started laughing.

“Screw you, Eliot,” she said though her giggles, coveringher mouth with her hand. “God, we really are fucked, aren’t we?”

Eliot sighed, offering her a shrug and a smile. “Let’s behonest. We weren’t built for this.”

Margo managed to pull herself together, shaking her head. Hewatched her squeeze her eyes closed and take an unsteady breath. “Quentin wouldknow how to handle it.”

Eliot’s smile got a little more genuine. He cast his eyesdownward, staring at the kitchen tiles through the blur of his tears. Heremembered how Quentin had fallen apart after Arielle had left—how he’d torn herfavorite shawl when it became clear she wasn’t coming back, how he’d cried intoEliot’s shoulder for hours, how he would shift erratically between moody and inconsolable.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Eliot said softly.