#(okay well its not brand new really i got it a few years ago but im so careful with it that its still in like new condition)

[sonknuxadow]

i want more physical copies of archie sonic issues that have werehog/unleashed related covers because the art always goes so hard but i dont feel like spending 20+ dollars on a single comic issue and some of these are going for like 50 or more because theyre rare variants or something. whatever man

[eponymous-rose]

OKAY, I have a lot going on over the next few weeks, and I desperately need to get my thoughts in order, so allow me to yell into the void about the research proposals I absolutely need to be working on over the next week:

Resubmission of a $600k grant proposal written with my colleague. This one technically doesn't have a deadline, but if we get it in quickly enough, we can fund an incoming grad student on it! The project is quite well-defined and we had a sit-down with the program manager, who both encouraged resubmission and went line-by-line through the last set of reviews to tell us which to follow and which to ignore. I've got a to-do list of changes, and thankfully no logistical stuff to worry about since we're submitting to the same call. I would estimate only about 5 hours needed to get this one ready to go for the first round of comments from my colleague/co-PI, and it'll just be going through the first version line-by-line with my notes and the reviews in front of me, changing as I go. My goal by Friday of next week: complete draft to send to my co-PI.

Resubmission of a $700k grant proposal written with a friend at a different university. This one's a bit trickier, since it was rejected by one federal agency and we want to submit it to a completely different one, so it'll require a complete rewrite and a fair amount of logistical juggling. We have the revised budget ready to go, and my co-PI met with the program manager and got the good dirt on what they're looking for. So content is yes, but focus and logistics (page length, format, etc.) are way up in the air. I would guess about 15 hours to get a complete draft done, and ideally we want the whole thing done by the end of the month. I'll have to sit down with the old proposal, notes from my co-PI's meeting, and the new proposal call in front of me and do a fresh document. My goal by Friday of next week: At least one of the three main sections complete to send to my co-PI.

Brand-new $800k grant proposal written with a computer scientist at my university. We met at a talk I gave last quarter and just got along really well and figured we should work together, and then this call came out looking to fund work bridging the gap between EXACTLY our two disciplines, so we couldn't resist. We have a budget and a very, very loose idea of what we want to study, but the details are vague and we also need to have this in by approximately the end of the month. We've loosely structured it so that its three sections are my specialty, his specialty, and then a combo of the two, so my role initially here is going to be creating a framing narrative into which we can each independently drop our sections of the work. I'm guessing my total contribution will be around 20 hours on this one. My goal by Friday of next week: A detailed summary with point-form bullets in every single subsection.

Brand-new $???? grant written with a friend at a different university. We literally just saw this call two days ago and went "YES", so now it's a matter of figuring out if we can actually get things done. This is a totally new area for both of us (wildfire science!) but it would involve the experimental radars that he builds and the fluid dynamics expertise I have. This was kind of me going "yes, let's do it!" so I feel some responsibility here to come up with some big ideas. I need to clarify, but I think we need to have this done by the first week of March or so, and we need to talk to the program manager to see if they're interested. We can talk budget at our meeting next week (or via e-mail), so I think initially here I just need to put some ideas on paper, similar to #3 above. No idea how much time to expect to put into this one. My goal by Friday of next week: A detailed summary with point-form bullets in every single subsection.

Grant co-written with a postdoc from Zurich who wants to come work with me! She's applying for two years of funding, but the deadline isn't until August so honestly I just need to brainstorm a small idea or two that I can contribute to the conversation.

Phew. Okay. Let's get started on some of this.

[secretswiftymarvelfan]

The Demigod From Asgard - Steve Rogers x Reader (Part 88)

Summary: Sometimes when you mess with time, it messes back

Word Count: 9.4k

Warnings: Its the final battle so HEAVY ANGST! Canon Typical Violence! Vomiting! Description of Injury! Major Character Death (I’m sorry)! 

Dividers by @firefly-graphics​

Series Masterlist / Masterlist

Chapter 88: Time Messed Back

The next morning after dropping JJ and scout around at Roberta’s, making sure to give JJ a big hug and a promise that he’d be right back, Steve made his way back to the compound. Opting to take his bike which rarely got used nowadays, but would be handy in beating any traffic that stood between him and the compound.

Walking inside he instantly bumped into Tony “hey cap, how you doing?” he asked patting Steve on the shoulder.

Steve let out a long sigh “last night was rough… JJ was devasted” he muttered shaking his head, Tony gave him a small sympathetic hum “but I’m ready for today, to get everyone back” Steve says with a determined nod.

“Good, we have a few small adjustments to make on the gauntlet but we should be ready by midday, maybe just before,” Tony says as the two of them walk through the compound corridors.

“good is everyone here?” Steve asks glancing around.

“yeah except for nebula, I think yesterday dragged up a lot about her sister” Tony hummed pushing his hands deep in his pockets.

“understandable… I’ll uh go see the others, make sure they’re okay,” Steve says nodding in the direction of the common room.

“before you go, I have something to show you,” Tony says gesturing for Steve to follow.

Steve follows Tony into one of the smaller labs, watching as Tony walked over to one of the large cabinets opening it up to reveal a brand new Captain America suit inside. Steve’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he took in the new suit. The colouring was darker than his previous suit and he could see how reinforced the Kevlar elements were, especially the fish scale sections across his chest and shoulders.

“I’d started working on it a few years ago, before… you know” Tony says clearing his throat “and I know you’ve retired and everything but this gauntlet we’re making is gonna be different to the one Thanos used and I don’t really know how it’ll handle the power of the stones, so I wanted you to have this just in case… help protect you in case it goes south” he explained.

Steve nodded “thank you Tony, it looks impressive and very protective,” Steve says reaching out to run his fingers over the seams.

“yeah well here’s hoping you won’t need it more than for a Halloween costume” Tony shrugs “I better get back to work, I’ll see you later,” he says giving Steve a small salute before stepping back out of the labs.

Once Steve was alone he pulled the suit out of the cabinet so he could take a closer look. He had to admit it might be his favourite out of them all, with the exception of his stealth suit, he’d always preferred the dark more muted look. It was the necessary step away from his USO show monkey costume he was forced to wear.

Reaching back into the cabinet to grab the helmet something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Opening up the next cabinet door along his breath caught when he saw the new suit Tony must have been working on for you. Like all your previous suits the colour matched Steve’s, despite being sleek in design it was clearly built for battle, with multiple guards and reinforced plates over the suit. What Steve knew you’d love the most was the intricate design etched into the material, all up the arms and legs were Asgardian knots and swirls, all grouping together to create an intricate knot right over your heart.

Steve couldn’t help but trace his fingers over the patterns, you had confided in him that you felt that you’d stepped away from your Asgardian heritage and the guilt you felt because of that. This suit would have been perfect, it was the best amalgamation between the two worlds possible. He felt a lump growing in his throat as he blinked back the tears, he knew even if this last mission was a success you’d never wear this suit, but maybe it would be enough to show you that you were never far from your heritage.

Taking a step back from the cabinet, steve collected his suit from the side ready to put on “I’ll see you soon Princess” he whispers looking back at your suit before stepping out of the lab.

Just like he promised the gauntlet was ready just before midday, Rocket and Tony put the finishing touches on as everyone bar Nebula gathered in the labs.

“all right, the glove’s ready” Rocket sighs “question is, who’s gonna snap their freakin’ fingers?” he asks glancing up at everyone.

Thor raises his hand and starts walking over “I’ll do it” he mutters.

“excuse me?” Tony asks turning to face him.

“It's okay,” Thor says waving Tony off.

“whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve says putting his hand out to stop thor.

“stop, stop slow down,” Tony tells him, putting his hand on Thor’s chest.

“Thor just wait,” Steve said calmly, hoping their recent reconciliation wasn’t about to be ruined “we haven’t decided who’s gonna put that on yet”

Thor scoffs lightly “I’m sorry, what, we’re all just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?”

“we should at least discuss it” Scott reasons.

“look sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everyone back,” Thor says looking around at everyone “I’m the strongest avenger, so this responsibility falls upon me”

“Normally you’re right” Tony reasons.

“it's my duty” Thor states.

“It's not about that, it's not that” Tony shushes him gently.

“stop it! just let me-“ Thor argues pressing back against Tony.

“Thor please” Steve sighs trying to reason with him.

Thor stops his fighting, tears in his eyes as he glances over at Steve and begs “just let me do it… just let me do something good, something right”

“you’ve done that already thor,” Steve tells him gently.

“look it's not just the fact that that glove is channelling enough energy to light up a continent, I’m telling you, you’re in no condition,” Tony says.

“what do you think is coursing through my veins right now?” Thor questions looking back at Tony.

“cheez whiz?” Rhodey offers flatly, making Thor point over at him and Steve give him an unimpressed ‘not helpful’ look.

“lightning” Thor finishes.

“lightning won’t help you pal,” Bruce says from across the lab “it’s gotta be me,” he says, thor shaking his head as he stepped away from Tony “you saw what those stones did to Thanos, they almost killed him… none of you could survive,” Bruce says walking over towards the gauntlet.

“how do we know you will?” Steve questions, watching Bruce carefully.

“we don’t… but the radiations mostly gamma… it’s like… like I was made for this” Bruce mutters.

Steve nods gently “as long as you’re 100% sure you’re okay to do this” he presses.

“I’m sure Steve, there’s no doubt in my mind what I need to do,” Bruce says picking up the gauntlet.

“good to go yeah?” Tony asks walking behind Bruce.

Bruce nods “let's do it”

“Okay remember, everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago you’re just bringing them back to now, today. Don’t change anything in the last five years” Tony says glancing over to Steve as he said the last bit.

“got it” Bruce confirms.

Steve grabs his helmet from the side, pulling it on before tightening the straps on his shield. Everyone else got themselves ready, suiting up and calling on any protection they had.

“Friday do me a favour and activate barn door protocol will ya?” Tony asks as he summons a shield to protect him and Clint.

Steve looked up as large metal covering closed off the entire lab, shutting them in from the outside world.

“Everyone comes home” Bruce mutters as he slowly slides on the gauntlet, the metal expanding to accommodate his large hand.

There was a hum of energy before Bruce crumpled to his knees groaning in pain as electricity shot up his arm.

“take it off! Take it off!” Thor says panicking.

Steve held up his hand to stop Thor, they’d gotten so close they couldn’t just stop now “no wait! Bruce are you okay?” he asked only getting a groan in response.

“talk to me banner” Tony called out.

“I’m okay” Bruce grunted through the pain, his yelling intensifying before he finally managed to snap his fingers, collapsing on the floor soon after.

“Bruce!” Steve shouted rushing over and crouching by his side.

“don’t move him” Tony ordered before spraying cooling gel on Bruce’s arm.

Bruce grips hold of Steve's arm as Tony applies the gel, Steve trying not to wince at the tight grip Bruce had on him.

“did it work” Bruce muttered through the pain.

“we’re not sure, it's okay” Thor reassured him.

Steve continued to make sure Bruce was okay but he was acutely aware of his surrounding, the noise of birds outside suddenly louder, Clint walking over to his vibrating phone. It was all an indication that they’d done it, the confirmation coming though when Clint answered the phone to Laura.

They’d done it.

You were back.

Steve had to go find you. He had to get to Wakanda. You were going to be disorientated and confused. He needed to be there beside you, hold you, tell you it was all okay, everything was okay.

Steve was just making a move to stand up when the room exploded around him and everything went black.

You woke gasping for air, your lungs burnt as if they hadn’t received oxygen in years. Your mouth was dry and it felt like you’d swallowed sand and ash. You pushed yourself up onto all fours and suddenly you started coughing before your stomach flipped and you began retching. It felt like you were suffocating, barely able to breathe, your head screaming in agony.

Through the pain you felt someone put their hand on your back, glancing up you expected to see Steve but you saw Bucky instead, looking down at you in concern. He held back your hair as you emptied the last of your stomach contents, wiping the back of your hand across your mouth as you sat back on your ankles.

“you okay?” Bucky asked gently rubbing your back.

“I dunno” you mutter glancing around “what happened?”

“i-I don’t know… I just remember falling and then I woke back up…” Bucky says shaking his head as he swallowed nervously.

You took a couple of deep breaths as you tried to recall what happened “it was all a blur… I felt strange… and weak… I found- I found Steve and-“ you say glancing around, Steve had been right in front of you, holding you, but now he was gone “where’s steve? where is he?” you mutter beginning to panic.

“I don’t know…” Bucky muttered wrapping his arm around you and pulling you close.

Your chest was heaving as you tried to piece together what happened, only one thing made sense no matter how terrifying it was “he did it… Thanos did it…” you muttered looking up at Bucky, the look on his face telling you that he’d come to the same conclusion to “he snapped us away…”

“How are we back then?” Bucky asks shaking his head.

“i- I don’t know” you whisper.

“Buck! Y/N! there you are!” Sam shouts as he runs through the trees towards you “what happened?”

“We don’t know,” Bucky says as he helps you stand up.

“We need to find everyone, I need to find Steve and- and JJ” you mutter your voice catching as you thought of your tiny baby boy, praying that he was safe wherever Steve was.

You glanced around as you spotted everyone slowly gathering nearby, everyone looking just as lost and disorientated as you. The sound of horns in the distance caught everyone’s attention, turning to look towards the fields where the sound of people approaching increased.

A large group of Wakandan warriors burst through the trees led by Okoye who had a look of shock on her face as she looked at everyone. Her eyes fell on T’Challa and she rushed forward hugging him tightly.

“my king you are back” she wept.

“yes, we are, but we don’t know what happened,” T’challa tells her.

She takes a step back as she looks around at everyone “they managed it, they brought you all back, reversed the snap” she mutters.

“Thanos won then? He snapped half the universe away” Sam says shaking his head.

“yes… the Avengers they’ve been working to undo it all, I wanted to help but I could not leave Wakanda,” Okoye says shaking her head as she looked over at T’Challa.

“where are they?” Bucky asks.

“back in New York” Okoye answers.

“what about JJ?” you ask your voice hoarse.

“he is safe, with his father” Okoye nods letting you breathe out a sigh of relief as you leant back against a nearby tree.

JJ was safe, he hadn’t been one of the ones snapped away, he was safe with Steve back in New York.

“my king it has been so long, we have missed you dearly,” Okoye says turning back to T’challa.

Her phrasing made you frown slightly, looking up and over you could tell how much pure happiness she felt as if she’d been reunited with someone gone for a long time. You felt your stomach churning once more, but you swallowed it down needing confirmation first.

“how long?” you whisper “how long were we gone?” you were praying it was no more than a few weeks, a couple of months at most. Steve wouldn’t have stopped until he got you back, it couldn’t have taken them too long to bring everyone back.

Okoye glances over at you and you see the nervous expression on her face “over five years” she finally said “it's October 2023”

If you hadn’t already been leaning against a tree you would have simply collapsed, you just about held yourself steady as you turned and began to retch once more. You had been gone 5 years, you’d been gone for 5 years of JJ’s life, you’d missed so much. He wouldn’t be your little boy anymore he’d- he’d be 6 by now, at school, running around with his friends.

Bucky was by your side once more holding onto you as you completely broke down. Grieving the years you’d lost, the years that had been cruelly taken away from you by Thanos.

“hey it’s okay, we’re back and everyone’s safe that’s all that matters,” Bucky tells you quietly, letting you weep into his chest.

“but- but- it’s been- I’ve missed-“ you stutter unable to even bring yourself to say it.

“I know, I know and I’m so sorry,” Bucky says with a small sniffle as he pressed a small comforting kiss to the top of your head “I wish I could change it but I can’t and I’m sorry”

You shake your head as you look back up at him, despite the intense anguish you felt you know you couldn’t let Bucky harbour any of the blame for this “no Buck, you have nothing to apologise for”

“I know but-“ he starts but you hold your hand up to stop him.

“nothing” you repeat before taking a deep breath “we need to get home, I need to see JJ and Steve” you breathe out shaking your head, Bucky nodding in agreement “and I swear to god if that big purple bastard isn’t already dead I’ll rip him to shreds” you add with a quiet growl.

Bucky smirks slightly, squeezing your shoulder “there’s the Y/N I know and love”

Bucky helps you back up to your feet, keeping his arm around your waist to keep you steady since your legs still felt like they could give out at any moment. Turning to Okoye you wiped away your tears and held your head as high as you could, even if you wanted to crumble at the sympathetic look on her face.

“will you be able to organise a jet to New York for us?” you ask her your voice still thick with emotion.

“of course, we’ll have one immediately I can-“ Okoye nods before she is interrupted by sparks flying nearby.

Instantly everyone went on guard, weapons raised, you had a fireball ready to go as the circular sparks grew wider. A man you didn’t recognise came into view, stepping through the portal.

“Good I found you, I hope you’ve all had a happy reunion but we need to go,” the man said glancing around at everyone.

“Who are you? what do you want?” Bucky demanded his gun trained on the guy.

The man rolls his eyes with a groan “urgh not this again, I’m Dr Strange”

“yeah we ain’t a phone book, we’re gonna need more than that” Sam states, his two guns also pointed at the stranger.

“hey wait I know them!” you then hear a familiar voice call out behind the stranger.

You frown in confusion before your jaw drops as you watch Peter appear from behind Dr Strange.

“Peter? What the hell are you doing?” you gasp in surprise.

“it’s um- it’s a long story, these aliens appear in New York and um Mr Stark told me to stay on earth but I didn’t so we all ended up fighting Thanos on his home planet” Peter explains gesturing to the others who were slowly walking through the portal to join everyone.

“I am Groot!” Groot calls out quickly running over to the others who seemed equally happy to see the living tree.

With the confirmation that Dr Strange and the others were friendlies, everyone dropped their weapons and fighting stances.

“so what’s happening? You said we needed to go?” Sam asks crossing his arms over his chest.

“yes, the remaining Avengers need our help, they’re currently facing Thanos as we speak, we need to gather reinforcements immediately and join them so they have a chance of winning this battle” Dr Strange explains.

Your stomach dropped at the thought of Steve facing Thanos, not knowing how many reinforcements they already had, or if it was just him and a few others. Your mind then went to JJ wondering whether he was safe and away from harm, or if he was potentially caught in the crossfire.

“They will have every Wakandan warrior fighting beside them” T’Challa agrees, Okoye nodding along with him before calling out to others to organise troops.

“Good I already have Wong gathering all the sorcerors, are there any more allies we could call on?” Dr Strange asks glancing around at everyone.

“Asgardians, I don’t know how many remain but they never shy away from a fight,” you say thinking out loud.

“I believe they have a small army in New Asgard, Norway” Okoye says looking over at you.

“Good I can create a portal to transport you there to rally the troops,” Dr Strange says instantly creating a portal.

As it opens you see a small fishing town ahead of you, a town full of life and you feel a lump in your throat form as you watched your people go about their day.

“do you want me to come with you?” Bucky asks you quietly.

You look back at him, gently shaking your head “no” you say before clearing your throat “I’m okay, I can do this” you nod recalling all the battles of faced with these people before you even arrived on earth, a smile tugging at your lips “it’ll be like old times”

Bucky nods giving you a subtle smile as he steps back away from you to allow you to walk towards the portal. Once you reached it you paused turning back to face your friends, knowing the next time you saw them again it would be on the battlefield, one where maybe not everyone got out of alive.

“see you on the battlefield,” you say before stepping through the portal.

Taking a deep breath your surveyed your surroundings hoping to spot someone you instantly recognised, even if it was just an old guard or warrior you fought beside, but you were coming up empty. Spotting a lady walking out of a nearby store you jog over to ask her where to find Thor.

“excuse me can you tell me where Thor is?” you ask her, not missing the shock on her face as she saw you as if she’d seen a ghost, and you guessed in some way she was.

“he-he- he’s away, I- I thought you were dead” the lady stutters still in shock.

You mutter a curse under your breath “Okay, who else is in charge?” you question.

“Valkyrie, she’s probably in a tavern by now” she explains pointing over to the tavern across the street.

“thank you,” you tell her quickly before running across the street.

As you burst into the tavern, conversations fall silent as everybody turned to look at you. you guessed in normal situations it would be quiet a shock, since you were still dirty and bloodied from battle, your Asgardian armour in place. But you knew that these people believed you to be dead, so the shock was at least doubled.

“This better not be a cruel joke, Thor has gone through enough hell the past years, he does not need a shapeshifting elf causing havoc” a woman growls walking over to you, a long blade appearing in her hand which she promptly pointed at you.

“I promise this is no joke, I truly am Y/N, Daughter of Odin,” you say holding your hands up in surrender.

“I don’t believe you” the woman growls the blade inching towards your neck.

“brother forgive me” you mutter under your breath looking upwards before returning your sights back on the woman in front of you “you need proof, fine… once Loki transformed himself into a snake for Thor to admire before promptly returning back and stabbing Thor” you recount.

The woman blinks a couple of times in shock, taking a small step back, the crowd murmuring around you “you are her… how- how are you alive?” she mutters.

“that is an answer I don’t currently possess, but my brother, my husband and the rest of the Avengers are in danger and they need our help, I need to find Valkyrie and ask her to gather anyone who can fight” you explain looking around.

“I am her,” the Valkyrie says shaking your hand “and I promise you’ll have all of Asgard fighting beside you”

“thank you, I don’t know how long we have to prepare but gather as many as you can,” you tell her glancing around at everyone.

“Korg, start spreading the word, anyone we can spare is to meet us in the town centre,” Valkyrie says to the large rock man behind the bar.

“of course, come on Miek,” Korg says grabbing a worm-like creature and walking out from behind the bar, he pauses by you on his way out “it’s an honour to meet you Y/N, Thor mentioned you a lot,” he says before making his way outside.

You swallow the lump in your throat as you look back over at Valkyrie “how is Thor?” you ask her.

“he’s struggled, losing everyone close to him… he blamed himself for it all” she sighed “but hopefully things are looking up now that you’re back”

You only nodded stiffly swallowing the lump in your throat “let's get ready for battle” you muttered quickly turning and leaving the tavern.

In only a short period of time, an overwhelming number of Asgardians were ready for battle, all gathered in the town centre ready to be transported to New York. You were close to tears as you looked out at the troops, some of which were old retired guards who dug out their old armour. You couldn’t quite believe how many had come out to support and fight beside you against Thanos.

“the troops are ready for your orders,” Valkyrie says from her Pegasus.

You blink a couple of times looking up at her in surprise “they’re your army, not mine” you mutter.

Valkyrie gives you a lopsided smile “I’m merely a general, you, Princess of Asgard, are our leader, we’re all here fighting for you, you can leave Asgard, but Asgard never leaves you”

You take a shaky breath before turning to face your small army “I wish I could tell you what lies ahead, I can’t tell you the number of enemies we shall face, but I can tell you that this is the worst battle you shall every face, but it’s a worthy battle and Valhalla will welcome our fallen with open arms” you tell them, working hard to keep your voice level “however I will not blame anyone who wishes to step away now”

You wait a moment expecting people to disband but they don’t, every single warrior remains, steady as a rock.

“We charge on my mark, and send our enemies to hell” you finish, the army letting out a cheer in response making a smile grow on your face.

You turn, holding your chin high, hand resting on the sword you’d borrowed from the armoury. Preparing yourself for battle as you see the sparks of a portal appear in front of you.

Steve could only hear a loud ringing in his ears as he woke back up with a loud gasp, his eyes wide as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. The ache in his body told him he was still alive, but he didn’t know how long he’d been out or what had even knocked him out.

“that’s my man” he hears Tony say above him.

Blinking a couple of times his vision cleared to see Tony standing above him, before crouching down beside him and holding his shield “you lose this again, I’m keeping it” he states.

Steve groans quickly as he looks around and sees the destruction around him, he couldn’t even recognise where he was, it was all just rubble “what happened?” he pants.

“you mess with time it tends to mess back” Tony states with a grave tone, “you’ll see” he mutters as he helps Steve to his feet

Steve swallows nervously, instantly understanding what Tony meant. Thanos was here, he didn’t know how or why, but he was here. Steve swallowed nervously as he took back his shield and strapped it onto his arm. Glancing around he didn’t know where everybody else was, or if they were even okay.

He slowly followed Tony through the rubble knowing that he was about to face off with Thanos once again, this time there were no reinforcements, it was just them. They had to stop Thanos, prevent him from getting the stones and undoing their hard work. This was going to be the last battle Steve ever fought, and he knew deep down he probably wasn’t going to make it home.

He could only pray to every god out there that he could do enough to stop Thanos so that JJ would still be around, and he’d have you, his mom back. Even if it meant losing his father.

Stepping out from the rubble he saw Thor standing there staring off into the distance, following his gaze Steve spotted Thanos in the distance. Sat there, just waiting for him. He was alone but Steve knew the spaceship above was full of his army just waiting to strike.

“what’s he been doing?” Tony asks.

“absolutely nothing” Thor mutters with a small shake of his head.

“Where are the stones?” Steve questions not taking his eyes off Thanos.

“somewhere under all this” Tony sighs gesturing to the destruction all around “all I know is he doesn’t have ‘em”

Steve gives a small nod of the head “so we keep it that way” he states in determination.

“you know it’s a trap right?” Thor mutters.

“yeah…” Tony sighs “I don’t much care”

Thor nods, swallowing nervously “good… just as long as we’re all in agreement”

Thunder and lightning cracked in the sky above, the dark clouds and smoke blocking out the sunlight to the point it seemed like it was nighttime. Steve glances down at thor as lightning travels over his body, Thor’s Asgardian armour appearing alongside his hammer and axe.

“let’s kill him properly this time” Thor states in determination.

The three of them nod in agreement before making their way down towards Thanos. Steve ignored the feeling of dread that settled in his gut as they walked towards Thanos. All he could do was remind himself that currently, you were alive, you were safe, so was JJ. All Steve had to do was kill this Titan and maybe he’d be alive to see you again, but if he died trying then at least he’d die knowing you were safe.

“you could not live with your own failure,” Thanos said as they rounded the corner and faced him “where did that bring you? back to me”

Steve glared at the titan as he approached him face-on, Thor and Tony moving to the side aiming to surround Thanos hoping that attacking him from all angles would give them a better chance.

“I thought that eliminating half of life, the other half would thrive… but you’ve shown me that’s impossible and as long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be… they will resist” Thanos states, staring down each avenger.

“yep, we’re all kinds of stubborn” Tony chimes back.

“I’m thankful because now I know what I must do,” Thanos says before standing up and grabbing his helmet from his blade “I will shred this universe down to its last atom, and then with the stones you’ve collected for me, create a new one teeming with life that knows not what it has lost but only what it has been given”

Steve bit back a growl as he gritted his teeth in determination. That was not going to happen. Steve would not let it. He would not stand for countless of innocent lives to be taken away, especially not his son’s. Thor reflected Steve’s thoughts in a hard stare of his own, his weapons teeming with lightning ready to strike.

“a grateful universe” Thanos continues.

“born out of blood” Steve states, fist clenched ready to throw the first punch.

“they’ll never know it… because you won’t be alive to tell them” Thanos states with an evil smirk.

Thor bellows as they all charge, Thor blasts Thanos with lightning and Tony creates a blade with his suit striking downwards at Thanos. Steve throws his shield at Thanos’s head hoping to catch him off guard and allow the others to make a hit. Thanos manages to hit Steve’s shield back towards him, and as Steve runs to grab it he gets hit with the flat of Thanos’ blade sending him crashing back into a pile of rubble.

Steve groaned in pain as he pushes himself back up, it had been years since he’d been in a fight, he was older and more tired and severely out of practice. He just hoped it was enough to stop Thanos. As he stands he watches as Thanos grabs Tony and uses him as a human shield against Thor’s hammer. Running over he flips and manages to kick Thanos in the face, landing back on his feet he raised his shield to deflect the punch that was coming but it wasn’t enough to stop him from flying back once more.

“fuck” Steve muttered under his breath wiping away the blood from his chin before pushing himself back to his feet.

Turning back towards the fight he first spotted Tony unconscious on the ground before spotting Thor pinned down by Thanos. Thanos held Thor’s axe trying to push it into Thor’s chest. Thor was pushing back with all his might but Steve knew it wouldn’t be enough. He considered throwing his shield but he needed something more powerful, it was then that he spotted Thor’s hammer on the ground between him and Thanos.

“time to let the cat out of the bag” Steve muttered thrusting out his hand to summon the hammer.

At first nothing happened, making Steve doubt what he felt all those years ago, but then he felt the tingling in his fingers that spread through the rest of his body like electricity. The hammer then flew straight into Steve’s hand and he wasted no time by immediately throwing it at the back of Thanos’ head, hard enough to knock the Titan off thor. Steve recalled the hammer easily catching and stepping into a fighting stance.

A surge of confidence was felt deep in his bones, the hammer deemed him worthy, he could possess the power of Thor, and he could defeat Thanos and keep his family safe.

Steve started swinging the hammer like he’d seen Thor do many times in the past and ran towards Thanos, swinging the hammer upwards and using it to land an uppercut that sent the titan sprawling. Steve barely waited for Thanos to get to his feet before throwing his shield, Thanos easily hit that away but Steve used that to his advantage, throwing the hammer at the shield to create shockwaves that cause Thanos to stumble. Steve recalled both the hammer and his shield as he launched at Thanos, his knee crashing into the titan's chest pushing him back. Without hesitation steve used both the shield and hammer to land blow after blow against Thanos, not giving Thanos the opportunity to fight back.

He then called on one last trick, summoning lighting and blasting it straight at Thanos, pushing his down and to the floor. He then leapt over, hoping to land the killing blow to Thanos’ head but the titan rolls away in time, grabbing steve around the neck and throwing him to the floor.

Steve gets to his feet in time to dodge out of the way of Thanos’ blade, but he was backed into a corner with no way to escape. He managed to hit Thanos with his shield but was unable to block the next strike, the blade slicing through Steve’s thigh. Steve retaliated by swinging the hammer but Thanos’ blocked the punch sending the hammer flying out of Steve’s hand while also knocking Steve back.

Pushing himself back up he raises his shield as Thanos brings down his blade, which slices into Steve’s shield. Steve’s eyes go wide in shock, something he thought was impossible happened right before his eyes and he suddenly felt more vulnerable. He twists his shield free but Thanos continues to strike, each blow breaking more of steve’s weaked shield away, one blow knocking Steve to his knees. Steve looked down in horror at his broken shield, praying it wasn’t an omen for his future.

He looks back up at Thanos, only barely blocking the next strike which sliced into his arm and sent him crashing back, hitting trees and rubble as he went. Steve tried to push himself up but he couldn’t, he felt weak and like his limbs were made of lead. He just lay there battered and bruise staring up at the sky.

It was at that moment his mind began playing tricks as he could have sworn he heard JJ’s laughter. But it didn’t matter because it gave Steve the strength to carry on, he may be down but he wasn’t out and he wasn’t going to stop now.

Rolling onto his front with a loud groan, he pushed himself slowly to his knees “in all my hears of conquest… violence… slaughter it was never personal… but I’ll tell you now what I’m about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet… I’m going to enjoy it, very, very much” Thanos says, fueling Steve's determination.

Steve watched as Thanos’ army was beamed down from the ship above, it was much larger than the army they faced in Wakanda, with more terrifying beasts. Steve knew then that he wasn’t going to make it out of here, he’d die on this battlefield. He just hoped that the others, wherever they were, were getting the stones the hell out of here. Steve’s only role to play now was to delay Thanos as long as possible.

So he pushes himself to his feet, gazing down at the large gash on his arm, blood oozing out. With shaking hands he tightened the straps to his shield to keep the wound closed and keep his shield close. It was broken but it would offer some protection. He held his head high as he limped towards the army ready to make his last stand.

The sound of static and a broken voice made him freeze, his heart hammering in his chest as he heard Sam once more “cap, it's Sam. Can you hear me?” Steve raised his hand to his ear to try and get a clearer connection “on your left”

Steve swallowed as he turned around to see sparks behind him which quickly turned into a portal, the kind he’d seen Wong use. Sun streamed in from the portal making it seem like a heavenly glow. Silence fell on the battlefield as three people stepped through the portal, Steve instantly recognised them as T’Challa, Shuri and Okoye. Steve could hardly catch his breath as he saw the T’Challa and asked a silent question ‘were you okay?’ he got his answer from the subtle nod the king gave him.

Sam then soared through the portal and over steve’s head, a laugh escaping Steve’s lips as he saw his friend. Steve watched as more and more portals appeared, allies streaming through all of them. He saw Wakandans, he saw sorcerors, but his breath caught when he saw the Asgardians being led onto the battlefield by you. He bit his lips hard to stop himself from crying as he watched you say something to Valkyrie before walking over towards him.

He wanted to break down, scoop you into his arms and never let you go but he held himself back, now wasn’t the time. Instead, he stood there watching as you stood by his side, hoping all he was feeling was being conveyed in his eyes. Going by the look in your eyes he could tell you heard the message loud and clear, your own feelings echoing back to him. Looking out he surveyed the growing army of allies, his friends and family standing by his side ready to fight against Thanos.

And for the first time in this entire battle, Steve felt hope.

Tony and Thor joined Steve at his side, despite the seriousness of the battle a small smile tugged at Steve’s lips when he saw your eyes widen slightly at Thor’s new appearance, your nose scrunching as you caught a whiff of booze.

Looking back over towards Thanos confidence surged through him as he noticed the wary look on Thanos’ face “Avengers!” Steve called out before summoning Thor’s hammer, sending a wink down towards you as he caught it “assemble”

Upon hearing that you raised your sword and both you and Thor let out a battle cry before everyone charged into battle ready to take Thanos out for good.

The clash of weapons echoed through the battlefield as the two armies met and the true battle commenced. Despite it being years since he fought by your side, you and Steve easily found your rhythm, fighting back to back, your movements in tune with each other as if you were one being.

You’d just frozen one alien before slicing him in half with your sword when Thor landed beside you, swinging his axe. Steve at the same time threw the hammer in a circle knocking down multiple aliens in one go, and you used your powers to create roots that dragged them down into the earth. As the hammer continued its path back to Steve you reached out your free hand and caught it, your eyes met Steve’s a smirk growing on his face when the axe landed in his hand a few seconds later.

“you too?” Thor gasped making both you and Steve look over at him.

You just gave him an innocent shrug of the shoulders, tossing the hammer into the air and catching it. Thor just scowled at you before his attention shifted to Steve, spotting his axe in his hands.

“no, no give me that,” Thor says holding out his hand “you can have the little one” he adds pointing to the hammer in your hand.

Steve arched a brow, while you just rolled your eyes, tossing Steve the hammer once he’d given Thor his axe back. Once thor had his axe back he leapt away to go join the fight elsewhere.

“I see he’s still the same despite the appearance then?” you mutter glancing over at Steve.

Despite the grave battle that raged around Steve laughed and nodded his head “wanna give me a lift?” he asks holding out his hand.

You bite back a smile placing your hand in his, as soon as his fingers wrapped around yours you took off barely giving him a chance to prepare himself. You flew a short distance to where you saw a large group of aliens approaching, Steve squeezing your hand to signal to drop him. You let go of his hand and watched as he landed, bringing the hammer down to the ground, lighting and shockwaves flying and taking out an entire portion of the alien army.

As you flew you spotted Thanos in the distance and your blood instantly boiled. You didn’t even think for a second before you created a giant icicle and sent it hurtling towards him. To your annoyance, he swiped it away with his blade before it could kill him. Landing just a few feet away, you felt your rage coursing through your body, flames dancing between your fingers as you stared him down.

“you took me from my son” you growl, your eyes blazing with fury.

Thanos just studied you “I did what had to be done” he states.

You felt your anger get the better of you letting out a loud bellow of rage as you began pelting him with fireballs. The first few he dodged but when you made the earth grow around his feet he began to struggle. You saw the flicker of fear in his eyes as your fireballs burnt his skin. You were preparing yourself for the killer blow when he raised his arm and pointed it towards you. you heard a bellow as a hoard of aliens swarmed before you, forcing you to retreat.

Steve was closer to the front lines when he heard the loud bellow from the aliens, looking in the direction it came from he spotted you shooting into the sky. He saw you land a short distance away and watched in awe as you slayed enemy after enemy. He’d seen you fight in battles before but this was different, you had an aura around you as you cut down aliens, froze them, burnt them and ripped them to shreds. You looked like the goddess of war.

He watched as a whole legion approached you but they didn’t even get close as you caused a massive sinkhole to appear, swallowing all of them. The screams of the aliens echoed through the battlefield as you suffocated them all. Your chest was heaving as you turned to look over your shoulder at Steve, an unreadable expression on your face.

Steve cleared his throat, blinking away his stupor, raising his shield in time to block an attack. Once he kicked the alien away he looked back to where you stood but you were gone. Steve fought back the intrusive thoughts in his head, trying not to read too much into what that expression on your face could have meant.

“cap!” Clint called into the comms grabbing Steve’s attention “what do you want me to do with this damn thing?”

“get those stones as far away as possible!” Steve shouted as he blocked another attack, using the hammer to hit the alien away.

“No!” Bruce shouted from a short distance away “we need to get ‘em back where they came from”

“no way to get ‘em back, Thanos destroyed the quantum tunnel,” Tony said with a grave tone.

“hold on!” Scott shouted “that wasn’t our only time machine”

Steve turns as he hears the sound of La Cucaracha blasting through the battlefield, he runs to higher ground hoping to spot it “anyone see an ugly brown van out there?” he calls out.

“rude” he hears you mutter behind him.

He quickly turns to see you standing there, his eyes scanning your face as he searched for injuries or for any sign of what was wrong. All he could see was that strange look in your eyes as they darted around surveying the battle, barely looking anywhere for long.

“Are you alright?” he asks quietly, reaching out to take your hand.

Your eyes meet his and he watches you swallow before nodding “yeah” you mutter your voice hoarse but Steve spotted the streak of dried tears through the ash and dust on your face.

“I see it! but you’re not gonna like where it’s parked!” Steve hears Valkyrie call out, stopping him from questioning your further.

“Scott, how long do you need to get that thing working?” Tony asks.

“uh, maybe 10 minutes?” Scott answers.

“get it started, we’ll get the stones to you” Steve orders, glancing back at you and squeezing your hand.

The two of you run back into battle together, you running a couple of steps behind Steve. it wasn’t long until aliens found and attacked you. One hellhound-like creature leapt at you but you used the wind to blow it away, impaling it on a shaft of metal sticking out from the debris. As you continued to fight your sword felt heavier and heavier in your arms with each strike, one alien even managing to knock it out of your hands.

You managed to push the alien back with the wind when blasts from the spaceship above rained down around you. The ground shook making you stumble as you tried to avoid the blasts. Steve was by your side in an instant, his arm wrapped around your waist as he held up his broken shield. You knew it wouldn’t be enough, you needed something bigger, something like the shield you’d created at Camp Leigh all those years ago. You still weren’t entirely sure how you did that but you took a deep breath and held up your hands, the air thickening around you.

“help somebody help!” you heard Peter scream through the comms.

You and Steve exchanged a glance, nodding in agreement as you lowered the shield enough for him to throw the hammer “hey queens heads up!” he shouted.

You rethickened the shields around you as the blasts got more intense, the ground shaking beneath you, making you stumble to keep your footing. You were straining under the intensity of the blasts, a groan escaping as your knees began to buckle. Just as you were about to crumble everything stopped and the battlefield fell silent. You dropped the shield, falling to your knees in exhaustion.

Steve knelt beside you, his arm around your shoulder “are you okay?” he asks.

You take a couple of deep breaths, nodding slowly “yeah… what- what’s going on?” you ask sitting back on your ankles.

Steve helps you to your feet as you both look up to see the spaceship now blasting up into the sky. You both watch in confusion until what appears to be a meteor strike appears through the clouds, blasting straight into the spaceship. You watch as it goes for another pass, completely destroying the ship.

“Who is that?” you mutter in disbelief.

“Carol Danvers, Fury knew her back in the 90s” Steve explains glancing down at you before looking back up at the sky “hey Danvers we need an assist here”

“on it” you hear Carol respond.

“go, they’re gonna need you for backup,” Steve says turning to you, he watches as you swallow nervously before nodding, taking off before he has a chance to say anything about it.

You landed just by Carol and peter as he was handing her the gauntlet “I don’t know how you’re gonna get through all that” he says.

“don’t worry,” Wanda says as she lands next to Carol.

“she’s got help,” Okoye says swinging her spear.

You watch as the rest of the female avengers join you, a small smile playing on your lips when you remember a similar scene from Wakanda. You glance around trying to spot Nat to see if she was thinking the same but you don’t see her, you realise with a start you hadn’t seen her at all yet. Despite desperately wishing differently, you knew deep down in your gut what the reason for her absence was. You swallowed back the wave of emotion trying to turn it into anger, using it to make Thanos pay.

You help blast a path through the army for Carol to fly through, even going as far as creating a large fireball explosion that wiped out a large section in one go. When you saw Thanos running towards Carol you leapt forward, joined by Pepper, Shuri and Hope, the four of you using your powers and weapons to blast Thanos back. The four of you manage to blast him to the ground but he throws his blade towards the time machine causing it to explode the blast throwing you back across the battlefield.

You land with a heavy thud, groaning in pain, Steve was by your side in a flash but you waved him away “no, go after the stones” you tell him “go!” you shout pushing him back with a blast of wind when he hesitated.

You push yourself to your feet, your hand clutching your side. When you pulled it away you saw blood on your hand, glancing down you saw the large gash in your side through your armour. It wasn’t bad enough to kill you but you were weakened, already exhausted from the fight in Wakanda.

Wincing you get to your feet just as you see Thor and Steve working together to try and kill Thanos. They were nearly there when Thanos managed to punch the axe away, head-butting Thor. You watched as he threw Steve over his shoulder and to the ground followed by a direct punch to the face.

“Steve!” you screamed before you could stop yourself, Thanos turned towards you but he didn’t get the chance to attack as Carol swooped in.

Using the distraction you ran over to Steve, falling to your knees beside him, your shaking hands moving to cup his cheeks “no, no, no” you muttered when he lay just a little too limp in your arms.

You pressed your fingers to his pulse, letting out a shaky sigh of relief when you felt his pulse. He was alive, he was okay.

“Steve c’mon sweetheart wake up,” you say trying to rouse him.

After what felt like an eternity his eyes snapped open, wild and panicked before they finally settled on you “oh thank the gods” you muttered crashing your lips down onto his.

“Hey, hey it's okay, I’m okay” Steve mutters wrapping his arms around you, and cradling the back of your head with his hands “what happened? Where- where are the stones?” he asks.

The both of you turn to look towards where Thanos stood, watching on in horror as he raised his hand to click his fingers. There was nothing you could do, the both of you were too weak to get up, you didn’t even think you could summon a fireball. You’d lost, he was about to wipe you all out.

You looked back at each other, tears in your eyes as you held onto each other tightly, whispering I love you’s back and forth to each other. You both flinched as you heard the snap of metal, seconds ticked by and nothing happened.

You look at each other in confusion before glancing back over at Thanos, only now seeing he didn’t have the stones… Tony did.

“no” Steve muttered under his breath.

“And I am Iron Man” Tony gritted through his tears as he snapped his fingers.

You heard a sharp ringing in your ears that made you wince, followed by the sounds of screams echoing in your head before it went silent. Steve helped you to your feet as you both looked around to see your enemy turning into ash around you. You felt a sudden wave of nausea as you watched, knowing this is what happened to you.

Your knees were about to buckle when Steve’s arm wrapped around your waist holding you steady. You glanced up at him, your vision blurry with tears. He pulled you closer, cupping your cheek as he kissed your forehead.

“you’re okay, it’s over we won” he whispered against your skin.

You clung onto his wrist, his forehead pressed against yours as you nodded letting out a choked sob. Hearing someone shift to your side you both looked to see Thanos sitting down before finally turning to dust.

Once he was gone you spotted Tony stumbling before falling to the ground, you patted Steve on the chest to get his attention and nodded in the direction of Tony. You hear Steve mutter under his breath. The both of you limped over towards Tony, the closer you got the more you realised there was nothing that could be done to save him.

Thor came to stand beside you, putting a hand on your shoulder as you watch Pepper talking to Tony, her hand over his arc reactor. Any tears you were holding back broke free when you watched Tony take his last breath and the arc reactor dim. Steve held onto you as you sobbed into his chest, which was shuddering as he failed to hold back his own tears.

The battlefield was silent as everyone slowly began to take the knee to honour Tony, the man that when you first met him was arrogant and snarky, had made plenty of mistakes in the years you have known him, but at the end of the day was the one to save the whole universe.

You weren’t sure how many minutes had passed when everyone slowly got back to their feet. Steve sniffled back some tears, wiping some away as he looked around seeing all the injured and fallen. He looked back down at you, there was nothing he wanted more than to go home and just hold you and JJ, but there was still work to be done.

“We uh-“ he says clearing his throat before trying to speak again “we need to set up a triage, treat any wounded, bring the…” he says unable to find the right word as he glanced at Tony “bring the others home for a proper funeral and ah-“ he tries to continue but he couldn’t, in all the years of fighting he’d never felt so lost.

“Cap” Sam says putting a hand on his shoulder “it's okay, we’ve got this,” he tells him.

“but-“ Steve says going to argue.

“you’ve done enough, we can take over,” Bucky says walking over “both of you go get patched up and get home”

Steve bits his lip nodding, feeling a wave of relief crash over him and a massive weight off his shoulder. Looking back towards Tony he watched as Rhodey helped Pepper to her feet, holding onto her as she took a few steps back and looked over at Steve.

“could- could you take him please Steve?” Pepper choked out.

Steve could only nod, he glanced down at you pressing a shaky kiss to your forehead before leaving you to stand with Thor. Your brother put an arm around your shoulder as you held onto him for support. Steve approached Tony, taking a deep steadying breath as he bent down and lifted Tony.

He kept his focus on putting one foot in front of the other, he tried to keep his face stoic as he carried his fallen friend off the battlefield but he couldn’t stop the tears that slipped down his cheek.

It was over he reminded himself, they’d won but also lost so much.

He spared a glance over his shoulder, seeing you and thor following only a few steps behind him. He’d regained his future with you, and there wouldn’t be a day that he’d be eternally grateful to Tony for giving that to him.

The emotion support group will be taking place in my ask box.

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Series Masterlist / Masterlist

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[apureniallsource]

When you’ve been in one of the biggest boybands in the world, figuring out what life looks like afterwards is no easy feat, especially when it encompassed some of your most formative years. For Niall Horan, though, it seems all too easy. He still lives the pop star life with a sold-out set of shows coming up next year, a whole host of festival performances lined up this summer, and an album that hit number one in the UK just a few weeks ago. Yet off-stage, he’s calm, carefree and so down to Earth that you might not even realise what he does for a living.

If Niall’s work life is about the biggest stages, biggest shows and biggest songs, Niall’s life at home is all about indulging in simple pleasures. Whether it’s bingeing a Netflix true crime series, lighting candles to make hotel rooms feel a bit more like home, or hopping from the gym to the golf course, he keeps himself grounded with a balanced routine and a low-maintenance lifestyle. It’s the perfect antithesis to celebrity life, and it’s helped him maintain the chilled-out vibe that he’s been known for since he was 16.

He might have just been about to fly to LA, but when we speak to Niall he’s as relaxed as they come. He’s still got yesterday’s hair (he proudly shows us how it’s still holding its volume), and he’s lounging in his living room in his gym clothes…

Let’s start with your dressing room. At this point in your career you’re used to being dressed, but how would you describe your own style when you’re at home?

I’d say I’ve got two different styles. One is very casual — I love street and sportswear — and then the other is very influenced by the 1950s and Sinatra. There’s a lot of collars, pressed trousers, penny loafers and that kind of thing. I like putting a modern twist on those old styles, whether that’s adding a more utilitarian jacket or whatever it might be. There’s a touch of ‘90s in there as well.

What about hero pieces?

I just got this vintage army green Gucci coat that’s very militaristic. I’m saving that for something good - can’t just walk to the shop in vintage Gucci, can you? I’m wearing this other, more casual coat at the moment, it’s a big green oversized bomber from Second/Layer. That’s been my go-to. Green goes with most things, so I’ve been wearing that a lot. I try and lean away from it, being Irish, but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

I’m big on Reebok Classics. I buy like three or four pairs at a time and just wear them until they get destroyed. They look better the worse they get but there’s a point where it’s like, okay, you might just need to get a new pair of shoes now…

Vintage Levi’s jeans are a big one. I get them online from a place called the 13 Club. Lots of straight-leg denim going on for me at the moment, 505s or 501s. I'm also big into — whether people agree with it or not — double denim. I have this vintage Ralph Lauren denim shirt and I like that with a white T-shirt and some matching jeans. The Canadian tuxedo! I’ve been doing a lot of that.

You’re very into golf. What does your golfwear looking like?

I’ve been trying to '50s up that a little bit too, wearing a slack rather than a golf trouser and a shirt with a bit of that old-school two-tone to it. I say that…I also have a lot of the classic gear that I just throw on because no one’s going to see me on the golf course. I often think that, I overthink what I’m going to wear and then I don’t see anyone for four hours.

For general workouts, I’m obviously a brand advisor and investor for the Irish brand Gym+Coffee. I’m a big fan of all their workout tops, I’m not good on materials but they’re easy to wear and nice and light. They just go with everything. All their shorts are really comfy too, really lightweight stuff that’s easy to wear in the gym. Nothing worse than some of that heavier stuff where you’re sweating out and it’s definitely not pleasant to feel in or to look at.

Moving onto the bathroom and grooming… what’s your routine there?

Yes! My forté! Firstly, I came across these things on Amazon. My groomer showed me them. The orbs that you put in the freezer and use with serum. I just love them! Genetically, I get dark [under]eyes and it’s crazy how good they are. I’ve never had anything work but ice is the answer, it turns out.

Sarah Chapman is the brand I’ve been buzzing about for a couple of years. I do an eye cream, a spray, an intense hydrating serum, moisturiser and SPF — the old Irish skin can’t handle any kind of ray, so that’s a must. I’ve got to watch myself even in the winter. For the evening I’m doing retinol, moisturiser and then a face oil. That keeps me glowing. I do a lot of face masks, I don’t even know if any of this stuff works I just love doing it.

Shampoo is Philip Kingsley. I’ve stopped using conditioner as much but I use a Redken clay to style and a matte paste. I use the Dyson hairdryer — make sure you put that in block capitals and tell them they can send me whatever they want — I absolutely love it. And for aftershaves, it’s Le Labo.

Moving into the kitchen, do you cook much when you’re at home. Do you have a go-to gadget?

I have a Nespresso coffee machine. I kick things off in the morning with an espresso, then the late afternoon coffee is an oat latte or an Americano, it depends on what buzz I need. I don’t get too LA on it. Out there you hear all sorts of stuff…“choco-loco-choco-mocho”. Just drink it, will you?

I do cook a lot. When I’m at home I try and cook for myself but keep it relatively healthy, so I end up doing a lot of Mediterranean-style stuff — salads, chicken, couscous, all that kind of stuff — nothing too complicated until the weekend. I’m no Stanley Tucci.

On a Sunday we’re always doing a Sunday roast. Roast chicken, parsnips, cheesy leeks, cauliflower cheese, potatoes. Love a Sunday roast, it’s my favourite thing. I also make this really simple Italian dish that’s just so good. It’s fried garlic, chilli, onion, squashed tomatoes, spaghetti, smoked bacon and a whole block of parmesan cheese. I don’t even know what it’s called but it’s just magic, it’s just what you want. If I’m in on a Saturday night, that’s what I’m making.

Let’s think about unwinding before bed. What helps you out there?

Candles, always. I always have a candle with me, particularly Diptyque Fig and Oud. I usually like softer fragrances: Le Labo Santal is also a favourite. I actually travel with candles - hotel rooms, dressing rooms, just to give them a homely feel. The only problem with that being that once you blow it out you have to sit around and wait for it to dry before shoving it back in your bag.

I always listen to green noise before bed. When I concentrate on that I can just doze right off, and I do a pre-bed face mask every two or three nights. And I do watch a lot of TV in bed… which is not good. It’s always ‘oh just one more episode’ and then before you know it it’s half one in the morning. I love ‘24 Hours in Police Custody’. We watch a lot of true crime and all those American Netflix series. Name it, we’ve seen it.

Thinking about your living room, what do you do to unwind there of an evening or afternoon?

There’s a piano in the living room and I spend a lot of time with that. That’s where I do a lot of writing. I wrote probably a third of my new album on that piano, sat at home during the lockdown. There’s a guitar on a stand next to it and sometimes I’ll wander over there when I’m half watching TV. I’ve got a Fender Telecaster and a Gibson 335 that I play a lot, a big old red thing. My acoustic is from an Irish brand called Lowden, myself and Lewis [Capaldi] went to their factory on our Amazon show, and I’ve been into them for eight or nine years. Maybe I need a green one…I’ll be a walking leprechaun in no time.

I listen to a lot of music; I’ve got this big JBL boombox, it’s class. It’s got a big handle on it and I take it everywhere. I’ve also got a vinyl player, I listen to a lot of vinyl. People are always asking me what I’m listening to at the moment and it’s never anything new. It’s always the old stuff that I just love…in fact, I just rotate the same fifteen or so vinyls. Old head, young shoulders, I suppose.

[thisaintascenereviews]

Twenty One Pilots - Clancy

After the rise and subsequent fall of emo from the mainstream by the early 2010s, there weren’t many bands that came to replace these bands, or complement them. A few of the “neon” bands were popular, but nothing that stuck around. The closest band that became a poster child for the new wave of emo, at least to kids who grew up after I did in the late 00s and early 2010s was Twenty One Pilots. These guys have been around for the last 15 years, but they didn’t really blow up until 2013’s Vessel. They weren’t household names yet, but they quickly got a cult following in the emo scene. That solidified with 2015’s Blurryface, where the band blew up in the mainstream, and they’ve been a pop band ever since. Their albums have had diminishing returns since 2018, and I’m not sure if people even care about them as much as people once did a decade ago, but their new album, Clancy, is upon us.

Before I talk about it, how do I feel about this band? I’ve got mixed feelings on this band, because their early albums are unique, and interesting for the time, but I don’t think they’ve aged well. I used to find their brand of pop meets alternative meets rap kind of endearing, but now I find it cringing. TOP is the kind of rap white people say they listen to, and/or white people say they don’t listen to rap but they like TOP. I just haven’t cared about these guys in years, but something told me to check out Clancy. I don’t know why, maybe it was because this week was a bit slow for new releases, but I was curious about it. I didn’t know what to expect, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they came through with one of the worst albums of the year.

Okay, that’s pushing it, but this album isn’t good. I really did not like this album, whether it was for its sound that does so much and so little at the same time, vocalist Tyler Joseph sounding the worst he ever has, or its pretty bad lyrics that attempt to explain some “lore” for the band, but I don’t get any of that. This album is just a mess all around, but its sound is the biggest culprit. This album has some slightly interesting moments here and there, but for the most part, this record is so bland and uninspired, it hurts. The interesting moments are buried beneath the generic sounds that they emphasize, and Joseph barely raps on this album, which you think I’d like a lot because I always found his rapping cringy, but I actually miss it here. At least his rapped vocals were interesting. His clean singing isn’t very good, and he just has one tone that he uses throughout the album.

Speaking of which, boy, is this album a slog. It’s 47 minutes, and I could not wait for it to end. That’s never a good sign, but they strangely did so little yet so much, and in that result, the album falls short. I wish I liked it more, because I haven’t really listened to these guys since 2015, and that was almost a decade ago, so I’m a lot older now and have a different look on music (as well as a somewhat different taste), but this album just didn’t work for me. I figured this band would have gotten better with time, but if this album is any indication, they’ve only gotten worse and more forgettable. I’m sure they have their fans still, but there’s a reason you don’t hear them in the mainstream anymore. I didn’t want to say that about this record, but man, this album is one of the worst of the year.

[sunwarmed-ash]

Sinful Sunday: On deck- Figure You Out

okay so really the backstory of this whole fic was I got stoned and was starting to try to write and Figure You Out by VIOLA came on spotify. Less than 12 seconds into the song the angsty Steddiegrove story started forming in my brain.

Then I started thinking about how it would be cooler if Eddie performed this modified version of the song post breakup with Billy. and THEN I started thinking about who would be on tour with Corroded Coffin and because this is my fic and my obsessions I chose OG Panic! At The Disco :D

thus the steddiegrove, rydon, eddie/brendon 2000s band au fic was born

i also didn't expect to write more than the song fic haha so thats why theres only one chapter. Maybe if yall like it enough ill write more 👿

CHAPTER DROPPING THIS SUNDAY!!

in the meantime, here's a little teaser

Chicago: Punk Never Dies Tour 2005

Panic! At The Disco has just cleared the stage and their stage crew is busy setting up Corroded Coffins gear while the crowd demands a second encore. It's been a few days, since his break up with Billy, but it's still eating at Eddie. He hates that he's in such a bad mood. He loves the stage. He loves performing. But his personal life can’t get its fucking shit together and its bleeding all over his stage persona. Even two weeks later. 

He's far enough into his head he doesn't even notice there's someone in front of him until they make physical contact. 

“Eds? You good man?” 

It's Gareth. 15 years his band mate and he knows Eddie and his moods like the back of his hand. Eddie gives him a tight lipped smile. He's not. Not even a little.

“Yeah man, sorry. Didn't sleep great last night.”

Gareth smirks and rolls his eyes. 

“So I guess I should be blaming Billy then.” 

Any other day, Eddie would laugh it off. Maybe agree, flirt, or make an over the top sexual remark. But not today. Not after Billy yanked out his heart, crushed it with his boot and then pissed on it. 

“We’re done.” 

Gareth's playful face drops and he looks a little queasy. 

“S-Shit, man, I-I’m so sorry.”

“You didn't know,” Eddie says, shaking his head and slapping the back of his bandmates shoulder to indicate the end of that conversation. “Come on, gotta get warmed up.”

-

Billy is practically vibrating out of his skin. He looks like he's either going to pass out or throw up. 

“I don't wanna be here Steve,” he says for the 7th time since they arrived at the small venue, but based on the never ending mood swings and constant name dropping of his ex, it's more than obvious to Steve Billy does want to be here. Needs it actually. Steve knows Billy never should of broken up with Eddie. Even if the blonde convinces himself, poorly, he's better off without him. 

“Yes, you do. Come on, I’m right here. I’ll be right here, the whole time.”

-

The stage lights change and Eddie turns to face the crowd, still high off that last long. Evidently so are they, because the pit is still active and Eddie watches with glee as the security guards try and fail to stop it. He's arguably feeling a little bit better. Their first few songs have turned an already wild crowd feral. He makes a risky decision, and hopes it's the right one.  

“Okay so this next song is brand new. LIke, I wrote it a week ago new. And, well, it's drastically different than anything we've ever written or performed, but I don't know, what do you think guys? Think this is a good crowd for it?”

The crowd explodes and Eddie laughs, high off their approval. 

“Alright alright, ya convinced us,” he says before nodding to the band to start setting up for their new song. Gareth changes his black bass for an electric-red one, Jeff swaps his bass for the electric violin, and Mike starts up the simple, repetitive drumline with a bass boosted modification. Eddie switches his handheld microphone for a headset, eagerly waiting for his tour mate to return to the side stage.

The song starts off starts off slow, with a deep base undertone accentuated by an electric violin that Eddie thought feels so sexy once they get to the chorus. He's never performed it live before, only twice at practice before the concert tonight, but in his head it's going to be sexy. Mostly, he just had alot of feelings about one resident asshole Billy Hargrove that he needs to get out. The stage is where he healed.

[imiren-kul]

Okay I'm gonna start using my blog for like, actual blogging. I was telling some friends about the antics I get up to at work and they were saying I should write it down and share it so I guess that's what I'm going to do.

For some backstory/context, I currently work as a driver/salesperson for BlueBell Creameries. If you don't know, it's an ice cream brand that only sells in the American South and has a cult following here in Texas since its original factory was based in Brenham, TX. It's really good ice cream, arguably one of the top three options you can find in most grocery stores.

I also used to work for a flatbed company for a while about a year ago or so. That may come up in the future but I'll elaborate as I need to. All you need to know is that is was a nightmare job where every day was a new calamity.

I'll try and update art least twice a week if not daily. It would probably be fun and cathartic to share some of the wacky shit that happens. I'm also told I'm a good story teller but the jury's still out on that.

So I'm gonna update yall on the latest happenings before I start the week.

I've had no less than 4 freezers go down on me this month and one freezer is on its way out. The first one seems to have been a one-off weird malfunction. It's working and I haven't had ice cream go bad in a few weeks. I'll check back in on that tomorrow. Another one that went bad is on Mondays route as well. (I hit different stores on different days of the week. So Monday stops are different from Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday stops with the exception of major grocery stores that I hit every day.) The second convenience store that went down, I lost like 40 some pints of ice cream. I left them with a minimum of ice cream and I'm not gonna go back until my territory manager gives me the okay.

The third one was actual at a grocery store, one I call the Cursed Randall's™. It's very gross. The back rooms are a disaster and the frozen manager is disgusting. There's a river of slime in the back lot where I park I have to step over. Anyway their freezers suck. They go down more often than they should and the ice cream is always slightly soft in the doors. They got fixed and I refilled the freezers so it's back to the status quo for me.

My latest store that had a freezer go down has been a problem child for a long time. The freezer has failed several times before and has melted ice cream in the past. They fairly recently got a new freezer unit but they put it in the back corner of the store next to the cleaning supplies so they never sell much or any ice cream. I deliver there maybe once a month. Anyway, they lost all their ice cream recently because of some kind of failure. I chunked like 50 pints, 5 ½ gallons, and dozens of snacks. I told the manager on duty that I couldn't guarantee they'd get a credit on the ice cream since this has been happening so much. I'm not gonna go back there either until I get the green light from my TM.

There's more lore but I'll fill you in as time goes on. Hopefully I'm able to keep this going and that yall enjoy my stories. I also have a dashcam so I can share videos of the idiots I encounter on the road as well!

[icharchivist]

Sorry, drama again, just remove ask if you are tired/don't want to talk about it anymore and take care <3

I feel bad, but also I am kind of sipping tea, because when I was able to recognize his voice easily, because Lucifer, but... Welp... Somehow his voice never fitted Lucifer for me, both in gbf and rage of bahamut anime (didn't played the game) and generally when I head him I felt like I would like to punch him. No idea why, just his voice alone was pissing me off, the more I was able to recognize him in anime or game from sigh alone, like "it's you again, Sakurai". I have no idea why, seriously, it was few years ago and now I think it's kind of hilarious.

Tbf, I wouldn't mind recast or something, especially if it would help get Lucifer faster or something. *Sips tea* i feel so unable of emotions, like I should feel sorry and bad for those he cheated, but on the other hand... Will it change anything? My brain is rewired too much around Lucifer to really care... Oh welp, I will deal with it some day

I must say I am pretty excited for next stream. I think gbf mentioned earlier evokers 5* around this time and curious about Vikala uncap. Oh, don't they show trailer for anniversary around this time? Also I am finally getting close to my first transcend eternal and right now I am blocked by... Whorls and orbs, damnit. I think have most/can easily get most of materials for 150lvl and here I am... With not enough whorls and orbs, damnit *angy* Super Ultimate Angel Halo when with Super Ultimate Rewards, hmphf

Remember to drink water, but not too much!

ahah it's okay

I can't relate at all to how you feel about it since Sakurai was legit one of the first seiyuu i really obsessed over (he played two formative characters from my childhood that i was obsessing over when i was 13, ironically also paired with Suzuken, so i've had a lot of affection for his voice ever since, and seeing him paired with Suzuken in gbf again felt really on brand. All the more reasons for me to be sad), so personally i could never find he was out of place anywhere, it was just, ah, funny Sakurai following me around and giving me characters with similar thematic to haunt me!

I guess now you have justifications to your kneejerks reaction lmao

of course i feel bad for the victims of it all first and formost, especially since both mistresses came forward with a lot of health issues due to the stress the whole situation put them through it's just. another layer of horrible. I don't think it's fair to think about the outrage in the sense of "will it change anything?" i think just having compassion for the people involved is enough. We don't even have to address it per se, it's not like our voice matters, but i think it's at least the minimum before talking about our grieves for fictional matters that don't matter as much.

When it comes to his roles, it's so tricky because it's not just GBF to take into account. None of the big franchise that relies on Sakurai's name has done anything to distance himself from him, hell, between those two scandals ff7 released a new game where Sakurai took back his iconic role, and mp100 got its new season where Sakurai's character is just as beloved as ever. And we know GBF brought him back for the NY's intro with Lucio as well. And i also saw a recent anime announcement of a brand new IP hiring Sakurai, while they don't even have the excuse of trying to stay consistant with legendary characters he played.

It's like everyone is agreeing it's a very fucked up things he's done but he's too associated to their brands for them to do anything about it. It's so wild and confusing and hard to really predict where it's going to go from here.

GBF alrready announced 5* Lucifer and i don't see them announcing a recast so far, so it's really difficult to know if they even can terminate their countract with Sakurai at this point.

(To this day the only efficient seiyuu scandal solving i saw was with a3 when one of the seiyuu came out as rancid and a3 and his company literally dumped him the day after everything about him came to light, and they replaced him in the following week by the actor who played his character in the stage adaptation of the game. Then in the month that followed his voicelines were completely muted from the game and they revoiced the whole thing with the new VA in the following year. It was so swift and efficient that now when i just see them all go silent and wait for it to get quiet again, i just think they don't think it's worth addressing to start with lmao. Tho we are talking vastly different level of crimes so it is probably not the best scale for me to judge that with).

Next stream should mention things about Evokers's 5* yes, and we're all waiting for Vikala's 5* announcement. They should also show a trailer for the new anni event there, so we gotta stay tuned.

Congratz on the soon transcendance! Whorls and orbs are the worst, sorry you have to deal with it o7 this is such an Eternal grinding thing to happen lmao. More Halo jail for you rip.

Thanks for the reminder, and same goes to you! take care!

[kaoarika]

My drama with my 3DS battery.

Long story short - I bought a battery from a very dubious origin that surely looked a little damaged? It may have some electricity/connection issues because... well... it's a very dubious "original" battery :/

So. The past three months and some weeks it has been... okay. It DID have some electricity/plugging issues at the VERY start, but it was smth I easily resolved by putting the battery on the console again. It has been charging okay since.

Honestly, the battery lasts around 3 or 4 hours (tested at full when I was with the whole 3DS eshop closing, around March 26th and 27th) if it isn't plugged in and charging... but I am trying to take it slow and not turning it on or plugging it on too hot days... which unluckily it has been like that since a few weeks ago, and we haven't started the midsummer hot days YET... I already took my lesson in the hardest way possible.

But, I don't really discard the battery may have more electiricty issues between it and the console in the close future... and perhaps today was one of those days? Lol... It was cool this morning and I decided to charge my 3DS because yesterday I had an overlong 2 hours session with SMT: Devil Survivor and I know for a fact that the battery discharges around the middle when I do these playtime sessions. So, I put it, leave it around the hour or two hours and smth until I remembered that I was charging it, and I realized that it may have been fully as the light wasn't charging anymore. Huh. But I didn't turn it on to check and back up this statement. To my surprise, a few hours ago went to play some ACNL... and it wasn't charged. Still in the middle of the battery's charge. OKAY.

So. What happened here? I'm... not sure, lmao. Maybe it's that. Maybe I didn't plugged the charger right? Maybe my cat moved some cables this morning (she does it a lot, lol... especially now it's becoming a potential problem because I have my electric fan at my desk's side). The other thing is that I put the console on an area that I don't see it easily (it's the place I normally put my phone when charging it, however, lol) so I didn't really see to check it was charging.

If it charged, I am not entirely sure HOW it got drained if I didn't opened or played with it during the day, until a few hours ago.

I might probably? get a Chinese battery. Like I said, the battery I bought months ago (in person) is truly dubious. It looked like it was sorta damaged, but I was too aware of the potential issues from the future and that probability it might not last three or five years (at best) like the original 3DS battery. And it had a warranty of two weeks, lol. It wasn't THAT expensive either (still... depends on how you take 450 pesos as expensive, it's still over 20 USD considering how long it may last, too...)? But... I also know they are a little too "popular" and, considering I got it juuuust before the 3DS eshop closed? OOF (I hate the 2nd hand market for physical retro games as it is in the past few years).

I also do not trust the Chinese lithium batteries for the 3DS based on what I have seen in Reddit recommendation threads and Amazon itself :'D. And the only chance to get a brand new original is either living in the US or Canada because Nintendo being Nintendo :))) But what else I can do when I really do not have any relatives or friends living in the States -we do have an acquaintance living in Canada... but Nintendo ALSO made it DIFFICULT to get some stuff through their online store, like, FUCK?)

I decided to be checking if the battery drains its energy in the rest of the night... because it is a very isolated incident? And I really cannot explain what happened??? It's not like my phone (which is another whole can of worms altogether, but I KNOW it drains the battery because second-plain processes)... so I'm so confused... because today feels like a blur, really.

(I'm also thinking it may have been my charger? I have been using my old DSi one for a while already... but it doesn't make full sense, either? The thing of me not plugging it right, or maybe it was my cat's fault are more plausible... but I cannot dismiss the fact it COULD be a battery thing either...)

[bleutectic]

im gonna rant about wanting a cat in the tags so theres that

[afishtrap]

I was doing okay with all of the above until I got to the “if you thought about it for even just a few seconds you would realize that both are brand new cuts of wood and it makes no sense that one of them would be from 1918 yet look so freshly cut” -- my sibling in carpentry, do you not realize I can take a 100-yr old piece of wood, cut it with my 3-yr old circular saw, and get a fresh-looking cut like it was sawn, oh, thirty seconds ago? It’s not fakery to make a new cut for the purpose of comparing end-grain clearly.

(It also seems rather obvious that the year must be “year it was cut down” because you’d need a tree ~15-20 yrs old, at least, to get the 2018 cut.)

Anyway. While I’m not a botanist, I’d say it’s legit that both could be pine, and I say that because I have both old and new in my wood pile and that is exactly how different the two woodgrains look. (The change in color is because wood oxidizes, and the really good old pine often ages to a pumpkin-red hue.)

Assuming western US, the bottom one could be 1918; if we’re actually talking eastern US, it’d be more like 1880, since by 1900 we’d pretty much deforested the vast majority of the eastern seaboard. The real difference lies in the age when cut: the top could be marked 1995, while the bottom one could be 1818, 1718, possibly even 1650.

The top one is a modern 2x4, you can pick plenty up from any local hardware store for a couple bucks. The wood will have wide, expansive rings, probably a fair bit of knots, and it’ll warp like a crazy dog if you look at it sideways. The bottom one is what happens when you let the tree grow for several hundred years: the grain is tight, straight, narrow, and DENSE.

In my workshop, I have modern kiln-dried southern white pine, and I also have pine stair treads from a Macon, Georgia hotel (built in 1880, torn down in 1967). Excuse me while I get out the household scale, adjust for size (both are 5/4 boards), and do some math. Looks like the modern clocks in at 1.8lbs per board foot while the old is 3.1lbs per board foot. 

That’s not an insignificant difference, from a modern slab 8′ long of around 14lbs, then I pick up an older piece that’s only 5′ long and it’s a hefty 17lbs.

Yes, it’s true there are different species of pine, but modern construction uses a lot of ‘southern longleaf pine’ because it’s denser and stronger than lightweight pines like the western and northern white pines. Given its origin, the older wood is either longleaf, slash, or loblolly, and all three are generally among the heavier/denser pines -- and yet the difference between the heart of a well-aged likely150+ year old tree versus the tenderness of a tree maybe 20-30 years old, at most? Just as night and day as that picture.

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Graveyard Siblings (4)

I am sorry for not posting in a while. School is a total bitch. Here is part 4 of a fic that is not a fic.

[Masterlist]

(Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 3)

-------

Tall Marinette.(I admit I might be projecting a little here.)

One day, she took out something from someplace high and the whole family realized that ‘holy shit when did you get so tall?’

Bonus if Jason comes back from a long mission and had a wtf moment because she was wearing 6-inch-heels and met his eyes with them on.

“Pixie?!”

------

You know how Bruce has the identity of Matches Malone to infiltrate the Gotham Underground.

While Jason does the drug deals more street crime stuff, Maria uses an excuse of being the representative for Red Hood excuse to mingle with the rich people who does crime on the side (Penguin), she uses it to go to black market auctions and buy some of the lost miraculouses which got into the hands of black market dealers.

Jason knows about it and acts as her ‘bodyguard’ anytime he can or sends one of his henchmen to be one with a death threat if she gets a single scratch on her.

Bruce is unaware of this. Or is he?

------

Mari helps with running WE since she is a little less busy with the vigilante side of things.

It started with Tim panicking about deadlines and Mari offering to help, to Bruce and Tim bullying the board to have her as co-CEO.

She has to be that and head of Afterlife. So she is very busy. Doesn’t know about what comes next….

------

Somehow the class comes to Gotham for a trip. It has been 3 years since her death.

Mari has changed her appearance since the day she left Paris. She has highlights in her hair after a ‘sibling bonding day’ with Jason. Her hair is kept short for convenience and not in pigtails. Along with her tall height and more confident aura, she is almost unrecognizable.

She rides a motorcycle too.

The class waits in the lobby for the tour and in walks this badass woman with aviator sunglasses, leather jacket and designer clothes which was all MT brand, making a lot of people swoon.

She takes off her glasses and walks past the class. Checking stuff on her phone and sipping coffee in her other hand.

She seems familiar but they couldn’t figure out why. (All except Chloe, Alix and Felix who are snickering in the background.)

Lila sees her and comments on how she must be a criminal with the way she dresses. (Lila internally freaks out because were her eyes messing with her? Because she looked a little like Marinette. Also jealous of the new arrival for stealing all the attention.) Alya takes the bait and calls security to ‘arrest’ her.

They just laugh. The class doesn’t understand, speaking in confused French.

-------------

“I am Maria Todd-Wayne, also known as designer MT. CEO of Afterlife and co-CEO of the very company you are in. I am allowed in here. Don’t judge a book by its cover.” she said in perfect French.

“But Lila told us you can’t speak French.”

“Who?”

“Lila Rossi, your friend. She told us that you and MT were dating.”

“Me dating myself. Okay I love myself because self-love is a thing but that is a whole other level. MT are my initials. Anyone who has a brain could have figured that out or at the very least do a Google search. I am not sure where your friend got that notion.”

“Hey, Bean, come on. We have a long day ahead of us.” Tim reminded her.

“Goodbye but cease the rumours or you would be escorted off the premises.”

As they rode up the elevator, “Tim, why are they here?”

“They are the lucky winners of the Wayne Enterprise Young Prodigies Contest. Why, Maria?”

“Lucky, huh.” She muttered under her breath. She might as well tell him. They are the Bats and they will find out anyway. “They are from my old class, the one you know…”

“Oh. Want me to send them back? I can do that if they are making you uncomfortable.”

“Nah. Too much to deal with. And it is unfair to send them back over a petty grudge. Besides, I could have some fun.”

“Anything that Bruce and I should be worried about?”

“I swear no killing. Just because Jason came back from the dead, hell-bent on killing. Doesn’t mean I am too.”

“Cool, just don’t do any property damage or traumatize our employees.”

“I might need you to erase some footage later and tell Bruce about this.”

“Some brownies, my favourite coffee cake, the ‘special’ brew and you have yourself a deal.”

-----

So basically she just showed up around where the class was ‘by coincidence’.

Talk to a few people and take them out of earshot of the rest of the class.

End the conversation by saying a few things only they and her would know. Insides jokes and secrets. (I pick her old childhood friends like, Nino, Kim and maybe Sabrina)

Uses Trixx to turn into a walking dead version of her 15-year old self and disappears as they freak out about how she knew that secret/story.

Freaks them out further by appearing again in front of the whole class and pretending not to know their previous conversation.

Mari manages to get Lila alone.

I should also say that Lila thought that her curse was making her see MT as Marinette.

It terrifies Lila when she finds out that MT is actually Marinette, not dead but alive after all this time and apparently living the high life she wanted. This fact made the Italian swell up with jealousy.

“I hope you are not lying about me again, Lila Rossi. Like you always do.”

“What do you want with me? I swear I didn’t say anything else about you.”

“Aw, Lila. Don’t recognize me?”

Maria flickers and Ladybug is in her place and later, the Marinette that appeared in her bedroom and back to normal.

“You! How? Why are you here? Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Why not? I mean you did take away nearly all my friends, my parents and made my life a living hell. If you think about it, I am just repaying you the same favor. How are the others? Treating you well?”

“What did you do to me, you bitch?”

“I just put a curse on you. The ghosts of your past will haunt you until you stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop Lying, Liar. They all feed and grow in power from your lies. I wonder what would happen in a few years if you kept this up.”

“You think you can get away with this. This is war and I have already beaten you once.”

“Oh Rossi. This isn’t a war. It’s a death sentence.” With that she disappears.

Lila tries to tell her class that MT is actually Marinette. She is met with crazy looks. Some of them look like they want to believe her but don't because they don’t want to look crazy too.

Oh. Adrien wasn’t on the trip because his mother didn’t want him to go to the crime capital of America although the crime rate has gone down a little due to Hellbat curing some of the city’s bad energy..

Right after Lila told the class about MT, Scarecrow came to steal some Wayne tech and the class got caught in the crossfire. So later, it was brushed off as Lila seeing things due to the fear toxins.

-----

Joker made the mistake of kidnapping her. Once was enough to never try that again.

(It involved the use of nearly all of the Miraculouses, old and new. He was thoroughly humiliated at the end of it and his picture by the time Hellbat was done with him was on the Batfam’s Christmas Card. Like I said she doesn’t kill but making them beg for death was okay.)

It coincided with Jason’s Birthday and the video of the incident was ‘the best birthday present ever.’ The uncensored version was watched at the next undead siblings bonding day. Damian included.

After hearing a few rumours about what happened, most criminals were glad for Hellbat’s rare appearances. (which happens once a month and during really busy time of the year)

There was a time where Penguin was carrying out one of their plans and when Hellbat showed up, all of their thugs surrendered instantly. (No Batman did not pout at the fact that this French girl was more imitating than him.)

Scarecrow used his newest batch of fear toxin on her during the first year after she died.

He was astounded to see her still standing and she later proceeded to beat the crap out of him while being under the toxin’s influences.

He has tried to stay out of her way since then.

She saw Scarecrow as Hawkmoth and said a lot of things in French which scared everyone because she said it with so much hate, anger and in a very menacing tone that everyone is like ‘I am not touching this.’

It took Red Hood and Nightwing to restrain her from further beating Scarecrow up.

He was one of the people who sympathised with the Joker after the Incident.

The next was Riddler being so arrogant in his plans and managed to get Hellbat and Spoiler into a death trap.

“You know I have a few regrets in life. And my final one is that I got captured and am now going to get killed by a walking fashion disaster.”

“Hey! I made this myself. I will have, you know.”

“You have a brilliant mind but no sense of fashion at all. When I get out of here, I am going to burn that thing with you in it, for your crimes against fashion.”

“What is wrong with it?”

Cue a lot of roasting of Riddler’s costume and Spoiler adding more fuel to the fire.

They manage to escape while Riddler is crying on the floor, having an existential crisis.

The thing was no one knows why Riddler was silent the entire week after encountering Hellbat and crying when anyone mentions it.

They now think Hellbat is the scariest one in the Batfamily, second to Batman and tied with Black Bat/Orphan.

The few who find out what really happened in the warehouse that night. Blackmail material on the Riddler.

Three ( four if you count Penguin) of Gotham’s biggest villains of the Rogues Gallery scared of Bats’ newest addition. Hellbat was not someone they wanted to mess with.

---------

Magic crisis stuff. Like a world ending event thing. Dr. Fate says they need the Miraculous jewels but the last mention of them had been in Paris a few years ago and had vanished since then.

Costantine looked at Batman. “You know who you have to call.”

Batman calls Hellbat. Who hasn’t been introduced yet to the JL.

“Ah. Bats. Not that I question your authority or anything but how can your newest ‘ward’ help us?”

She takes off her helmet and reveals her face and more importantly, her earrings.

Tikki comes out of her hiding place.

“I am the current Guardian of the Miracle Box and wielder of the Ladybug miraculous during Hawkmoth’s reign in Paris a few years ago. Any other Questions?”

“Oh great Guardian. Tikki. It is an honour to meet you.”-Wonder Woman, who else.

“You too, Princess Diana. Pass on my regards to your mother.”-Tikki

A huge face-off and the big evil is defeated.

WW asks abt HM and gives a horrified face at the end of her story. Nearly everyone who eavesdropped on the conversation was.

"Forgive me, Guardian for not aiding you in your hour of need.”

“It’s okay. I understand that there are other crises, world-ending ones that JL have to take care of. I am better now. Mostly.”

“I doubt it with those revenge schemes I found lying around. But she is getting there with her therapist.”-Batman

“I hate you, Dad.”

“Did you just call him Dad?”

“No….”

“Do you see me as a father figure?”

“I see you as a nuisance with how nosy you are with my personal business. So you are more of a bother figure.”

“I see you as part of the family too, Daughter.” (Got that reference anyone?)

“Jason was the one who adopted me.”

“Legally you are adopted by me.”

Maria with Pikachu surprised face because nobody told her that. “My life is a lie.”

-------

(Part 5)

[nationalharryleague]

Saturday Morning

Summary: Y/N and Harry spend a lovely Saturday in bed. 

Genre: FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF and a “Two for the Show” extra!! 

Word Count: 2.5K!

A/N: Two for the Show is by far my favorite and the most popular fic I’ve ever written and I just missed my babies so much I had to write an extra for them!! I owe my heart to my loves S @tobesolonely​ and Nat @harrystylescherry​ for reading this for me and reassuring me when I needed it!! I am very rusty so please be nice! You can find more of my writing in my masterlist and I really want to hear what you have to say about this one!!! Also hi soph <3 @theharriediaries

**Read Two for the Show first**

***

Saturday mornings had always been Y/N’s favorite.

When she was little, she always woke up to the smell of eggs and bacon coming from the kitchen up the hall (courtesy of her father being an early riser who always got a bit bored in the mornings). As she got older, she spent them sleeping in and trying to recharge from long days at school, basking in whatever peace she could get before exiting her room into the chaos of her loving--but crowded--household. When she got to college, Saturday mornings were reserved for dealing with hangovers, and once she moved to LA and her career began to take off, it was the only time she had for herself in her busy schedule.

Her love for Saturdays had only grown since she had moved in with Harry.

They always woke up slowly, basking in the quiet of their bedroom and the soft glow created by the light that streamed through the small crack in their blackout curtains. The pair were often a tangle of limbs by the morning, pressed together as close as they possibly could get, both of them feeling at their most relaxed when they could feel their partner’s heartbeat against their own. Sometimes someone woke up with an elbow to the ribs, but most of the time Y/N’s cheek was pressed up against Harry’s shoulder, her face buried into his neck, with his arm draped around her waist and tightly holding her to him like she might roll away in the middle of the night.

That morning she woke up to Harry’s curls tickling her nose. He had been growing them out slightly, letting them fall to a middle part that gently flicked out at the bottom. It reminded her of when he had hosted SNL a few years prior and she adored it. It was just the right length to sink her fingers into and hold on to him. But she did not appreciate it pulling her out of her beauty sleep.

She had wiggled away from the wispy hairs, trying to get her face away from the tickling strands when she felt Harry’s hands clamp down on her waist, refusing to let his girl slip away from his grasp.

“Stay,” he rasped, clearly still half asleep and mumbling in a way she knew no one else could have understood. “You’re warm.”

“I’m not leaving,” she murmured, maneuvering her way onto her other side and pressing her back against his chest. “Just adjusting.”

“But I like holding you that way.”

“Hold me this way.”

“Yes, sir,” he smirked against the back of her neck, delicately placing a few kisses to her skin while he was there. “You just wanted to be the little spoon.”

A sleepy but mischievous smile crawled onto her lips as she snuggled further into her pillow, eyes still closed in hopes of keeping the day away just a little bit longer. “Maybe I did. What are you going to do about it?”

The second his hands moved to her waist she knew what was about to happen. A squeal left her lips as his fingers began to move rapidly at her sides, pulling loud and boisterous laughter from her chest. Sleep was a dream of the past now, but she was sure she wouldn’t trade this moment for the world.

When Harry was gone--either on tour, work trips, or the occasional solo visit to see his family--she missed him like crazy. She still remembers the empty heartache she felt when he had gone on the next leg of the tour without her when they were still brand new. She had to be in LA for her now exploding career (thanks Harry), but daily phone calls and incessant texting could only do so much when the person she was quickly falling in love with--for real this time--was on another continent. By some miracle, she had made him feel the same way about her as she did him through a screen.

She always felt like he had taken a piece of her with him when he was gone. He did if you counted the small hidden tattoo of her first initial that had found its way onto his ribs after their (actual) two year anniversary.

The feeling of missing him never left when he was gone. She imagined he felt the same whenever she was on tours or work trips of her own.

While her body fought against his tickling touch, her heart melted into it. These moments, on (usually) quiet saturday mornings, meant the world to her. This was a time that was just theirs, belonging to no one else but them. Their joy and love took place in private, as privacy became something the couple had been increasingly possessive of as of late.

Harry’s loud and giddy laughter behind her sounded like a perfect melody and she could feel his chest heaving against her back as he rolled onto his back and brought her with him. Their comforter was now tangled around them, wrapping the pair together in a way neither of them could move with Y/N’s thrashing. He finally ended his torture when she whezed out between giggles that she was going to pee herself.

“Okay, I’ll stop,” he relented, letting his hands leave her sides to reach them across his stomach and hold her body tightly on top of his. “We both know how you pee your pants.”

“Harry Edward Styles, it happened one time three years ago after nearly an entire bottle of tequila! How long are you going to hold onto that and bring it up?”

“Until it’s not funny anymore,” he snickered.

“You know what’s also funny? When you got so sloshed you were crawling under tables at the BRITs. Or that time that you got so drunk that you sent  Jeff a dick pic by accident because you thought you were sending it to me. Or that other time-”

“That’s enough!” he announced, playfully clamping a hand down over her mouth, and releasing her mouth and a disgusted ‘blegh’ when she ran her tongue up his palm.

“Behave Styles,” she teased as she inched her way up his body, resting her head on his shoulder and snaking her fingers up into his hair, giving it a gentle tug as a warning.

“You know I like it when you pull my hair like that, so how about you behave, Styles?”

“That’s Y/L/N-Styles to you,” she teased, but she couldn’t fend off the giant grin that found its way to her lips at the mention of their still very recent nuptials.

The wedding had been small, very small, with only their immediate families and best friends in attendance. While their relationship had started in (and for) the focus of the public eye, they both decided their wedding was going to be just between them and those that mattered most. They didn’t wear their rings in public and no magazines had leaked or published that they were married yet. The day that it became public information was inevitable, but at the moment, the two relished in their little secret.

She felt a swell of love within her as she thought about her husband, sliding out of his grip and onto the bed beside him so she could finally see his face. His eyes were always a little puffy in the morning, a sight shadow of stubble decorating his cheeks if he had shaved the morning prior, but his tired smile was always the same. His pink lips lazily perked up to the left, his deep dimple appearing as if to say ‘good morning,’ and his two front teeth that always reminded her of an adorable bunny made their first appearance of the day. His smile usually disappeared quickly though, morphing into a pout and asking for a kiss.

How could she ever say no?

She settled a hand onto his bare chest and propped herself up to reach her lips to his. Their mouths moved with a well practiced gentle love and passion for each other, Harry’s hands coming to rest on her heating cheeks. She moved herself over him, settling her knees on either side of hips, never breaking their lips apart.

Kissing him was her favorite activity and with five years of practice, they were really good at it by now, but the swirling electricity that always appeared never failed to bring a flush to her cheeks. She could never get used to him. He was intoxicating and she never wanted to sober up.

Their moment was interrupted by a loud grumble coming from Harry’s stomach and Y/N pulled her lips from his and threw her head back with a loud belly laugh she just couldn’t contain.

“You good?” she teased down at him, lightly poking at his bare stomach right below her favorite butterfly.

His cheeks flushed slightly as he dramatically hung his head and flashed his best puppy-dog eyes at her with a silent plea to feed him. “I think I’m hungry.”

“You can be hungry but I’m not getting out of bed to make you breakfast.”

“Well, I’m not getting out of bed either,” his eyebrow quirked. “Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you want your morning coffee that you say I don’t make right?”

She pretended to think about it for a moment. “I’m willing to risk shitty coffee if I get to stay in this bed.”

“I will do anything you want other than getting out of this bed right now.”

“Anything?” she questioned with a raised eyebrow and a curious lilt in her voice. She was quickly answered with an eager knod. He obviously thought this was some sort of sexual request by the smirk that rose to his face. “You have to clean the litter box until I decide I’ve been properly paid back for your veggie omelet and tea.” His face fell.

“That’s your job!”

“Exactly why I don’t want to do it.”

“I’ll do literally anything else.”

“My one offer. Take it or leave it?”

“Leave it,” he said with a theatrical pout and crossed his arms over his chest. She was momentarily distracted by the way his tattoos moved over his muscular and tan arms for a moment, but shook herself from the thought and steeled herself in her stubbornness.

The two shared an intense look for a moment, both of them deciding whether or not they would press the issue further. With a sigh and slight roll of her eyes, she stuck out her hand towards him.

“We go on ‘shoot’ and none of your ‘best two out of three’ bullshit.”

As childish as it felt, Rock, Paper, Scissors had become their way of negotiating most of their disagreements over the years. It was a lighthearted game of chance, and while it sometimes led to a few minutes of frustration for the losing party, it worked for them and stopped arguments before they could happen. Interviewers often thought it was a joke when they answered the usual “secrets to a happy relationship” question, but it couldn’t be more truthful.

“Fine, we play by your rules.”

Their fists dropped down to their opposite palms three times, before both called “shoot.” She had gone for rock. Harry had gone for paper.

A loud combination of a whine and a groan left her lips and she dramatically let her body fall off of his and back onto her side of the bed.

“Fair is fair, my love,” he playfully taunted. “I would like my veggie omelette and I’m thinking I could go for some green tea this morning.”

“I will be getting you back for this,” she grumbled as she began to drag herself off the bed and away from it’s cozy warmth. She slipped his go to Columbia black hoodie over her head and took a pouty deep breath. It would have been more dramatic but she was distracted by how good the sweatshirt smelled. It smelled like home.

“I love you so so much,” he defended, opening his arms wide to grab her for one last kiss before she ventured down to the kitchen.

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled against his lips. “I love you too.”

She sulked out of their bedroom towards their kitchen (not before Harry swatted at her butt that was barely covered by the sweatshirt) and began to hold up her end of their deal. The cold tile nipped at her toes as she made them both omelettes and bopped along to the music she had instructed their Alexa to play. She fixed herself a morning coffee (that Harry really did always screw up somehow) and rummaged through their cabinet until she found her husband’s special order of green tea.

“Come get your breakfast, princess,” she shouted up the stairs when she was finished and after pausing her music.

“No breakfast in bed?”

“You are not getting eggs on our new--very expensive--sheets. Come down here and give me another kiss.”

She heard a whine of “fine” come from their bedroom followed by the padding of feet. Harry appeared at the top of the stairs moments later, rubbing at his eyes like a sleepy child and she just wanted to pull him into her arms and run her fingers through his hair until he fell back asleep. He pecked her lips softly when he reached the bottom of the stairs, but killed it when he called her a “breakfast tyrant.”

Y/N followed him back into the kitchen and watched him plop his still sleepy body into one of the high chairs at their kitchen island in front of his plate and his favorite mug that read “Coffee has a rough time in our house. It gets mugged every single morning!” She hooked an arm around his shoulders and slid herself onto his lap, sipping on her coffee as she waited for his opinion on his breakfast.

“It’s always better when you make it,” he smiled at her and pressed an eggy kiss to her cheek.

“You always say that,” she smirked back at him, only causing his smile to grow. “Oh, I almost forgot. Alexa, resume music.” He gave her a faux frustrated stare as he recognized what song she had been playing.

“And when we go crashing down, we come back every time, 'cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style!” rang out from the small speaker on their counter and she laughed so hard she would have slipped off his lap if his arm wasn’t wrapped firmly around her waist.

“How long are you going to hold onto that and bring it up?”

“Until it’s not funny anymore,” she used his own words from this morning against him with a cheeky smile.

“You are so lucky I love you so much.”

“And I love you more,” she mumbled against his lips, bringing her smirk with her into their kiss.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!! REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK MEAN THE WORLD!!!! If you enjoyed this you can support a broke college kid here :)

[theringers]

watch me burn - pierre gasly

illicit affairs, part seven

summary: “oh baby, I've been thinking about it, you know that I've been dreaming about it” watch me burn / michele morrone

a/n: hi:) still a few more parts to go but i went a few chapters without smut and this was needed so enjoy:) also if u listen to the title song while u read its a whole new experience lmfao

warnings: 18+, nsfw, smut, semi public sex

2 months ago, to the day

Your eyes met his piercing blue eyes in the garage once again. It had been a month since you slept with Pierre and you haven’t stopped thinking about it. The way he stared at you as he fucked you was the exact same way he was glaring at you across the paddock. Needy and desperate.

You shook yourself back into focus and listened as Max’s strategist reiterated today’s race strategy but you couldn’t help daydreaming about what that man could do in bed.

You drowned out the conversation about tyres and looked over to Alpha Tauri at the perfect time. Pierre had his bottom lip between his teeth while he examined his car. He ran his hand slowly over the chassis seductively like he knew you were watching. His fingers grazed the metal in painstakingly slow circles. After he removed his hand from the car was when he caught your eyes. He gave you a smirk, not even a smile, and turned away. It was good to know that you weren’t the only one thinking about what happened.

The race started and you were in the garage, cheering on Max. He had started second on the grid but due to a first lap incident, he was fifth. He was not going to be happy after the race. He can tolerate if he fucks up but having other people interfere with his race is something he takes particularly hard.

Pierre’s car came up behind Max’s around a corner and got too close for comfort. Max jerked his steering wheel too much as he tried to turn, sending Pierre’s car straight into the barriers.

You stood up out of your seat and gasped. Everyone in the garage was relieved to see Max still racing and no one seemed to be concerned about Pierre. You took off your Red Bull Racing branded headphones and slammed them on the table before rushing over to the Alpha Tauri garage.

Anna was seated in her chair, looking worried, but not enough for you. She should be close to tears like you were.

“Have you heard anything from him?” You asked and Anna looked up, almost annoyed.

“He’s conscious,” his race engineer said, “but hurting.” You heard the groan come through followed by a bunch of curse words. He apologized profusely for his move but it was all Max’s fault.

You watched on Alpha Tauri’s monitors as the race was red flagged and decided to head back to Red Bull’s garage. “Let me know when you hear something,” you said to Anna. She nodded and looked back down to her phone. Fucking bitch. Her attitude made you not even feel bad about sleeping with her husband. She didn’t deserve him.

Max walked back to the garage looking like a life size bobble head with his heavy helmet swinging around. “Is Pierre okay?” He asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“He’s conscious. He took a nasty hit.”

“I know, I feel bad. I didn’t mean to, the steering wheel just got away from me. I saw him crash in my rear view mirror.”

You were visibly shaken and Max always knew the right things to say when you weren’t feeling okay.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Max said, rubbing your back.

You nodded in agreement. “I know he will. I’m going to check on him at the medical center once the race starts again.”

Max smiled at you. “That would be good. Make sure you tell him I’m sorry.”

An engineer put his hand on Max’s shoulder and shoved a spreadsheet full of data in his face. He shrugged his shoulders and walked with the engineer to the monitors.

It wasn’t long before the race got underway again. Max made it up to third, podium position, but there were still at least 30 laps left. You started the trek through the paddock and over to the medical center. You were just a bit too late as you saw Pierre walking out down the ramp. He smiled when he saw you approach him.

“How ya feeling champ?” You asked him.

“I’m a bit sore thanks to your husband.”

Your face fell. “He sends his apologies. I promise he was actually remorseful.”

“Max? Remorseful? What did you do to him?”

You laughed. Max did have a temper and tended to be extra competitive but he had formed a special bond with Pierre these last few years. They weren’t friends by any means but they helped each other out whenever possible. This was one of the times that it wasn’t possible.

“He does genuinely feel bad, Pierre.”

“I know he does, it was a racing incident. I saw the footage.” He limped slightly through the paddock and winced when he put pressure on his left leg. “I think I should go lay down for a bit.” He took another step and lost his balance. You grabbed his arm and held him, making sure he stayed steady.

“This is it right here,” he pointed to his motor home.

“Do you want me to help you up there? I don’t want you to fall.” You said with a soft smile on your face. How could he resist your offer of help?

“Sure,” he limped over to the door and you aided him up a few stairs. “Shouldn’t you be watching the rest of the race? Last I checked, Max was doing really well.”

He sat down on the luxe white leather couch in exhaustion and you sat at the table across from him. “He wanted to make sure you’re okay. He’ll be fine.” You looked around the motorhome, observing your surroundings to seem busy. “So Anna’s nice…” you said, followed by a laugh. You had known Anna for a few months now. Their wedding was right before the season started and you really hadn’t known her much before then either. She tended to keep to herself and you wanted to respect that.

“She can be a bit…”

“Yeah, I know. I went to check on you after the crash and she looked like she wanted me dead.”

“In her defense, she caught me checking out your ass this morning. She was not very happy with me after that.”

You leaned forward to give him a light smack. “Pierre!” You shook your head in disappointment. “What did she think of the way you were practically fingering your car this morning?”

He played fake shy. “Oh, you saw that?”

“You make my heart beat crazy fast.” You admitted, putting your hand to your chest. “That didn’t help.”

“Well, as long as you enjoyed yourself.”

Enjoy yourself you did. He was in his same fireproofs from earlier and you were sure he didn’t know how turned on they made you. They were pulled down to his waist, the sleeves hanging low off his hips. His white undershirt was tight to his body, putting his abs on full display. His legs were spread wide, inviting you in. Was it hot in there? Was the air conditioning on?

He ran his hands over his abdomen and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. He groaned, sounding like he was in pain, frustrated, and horny at the same time.

Why did he have to be so unbelievably irresistible to you? When you were around him it was almost impossible to contain yourself. There was a magnetic force dragging you to him constantly. You moved yourself to sit next to him, earning his attention and popping his head up.

“You look really hot right now,” you giggled to yourself. He made you feel like a teenager experiencing her first love. The nerves were through the roof.

“Well, I feel hot.” He looked around the walls of the motorhome. “Where the hell is the air conditioning and who turned it off?”

You let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god it’s not just me.” He looked over at you examined your face. He placed his hand on your red cheeks. “You’re flushed.”

When he touched you, a chill ran through your body. Your body felt on fire and he had the power to send a freezing cold chill through it all.

“My cheeks get really red when I get nervous.” You blushed even more having to admit that. It was your least favorite characteristic of yourself. Everyone always knew flat out when you were nervous.

“I can’t tell if it makes you look cute, like I want to hug you, or if I want to fuck you.” His hand still rested on your cheek as he looked back and forth between your eyes and lips. “You look so god damn innocent. Like I could totally ruin you with just a few minutes alone.” His thumb ran over your lower lip and you instinctively stuck your tongue out to meet his thumb. He took the opportunity to put his thumb in your mouth and you suctioned around it, keeping eye contact with him. “Y/n,” he breathlessly begged, “please.”

His lips crashed to yours, feeling warm and secure the moment they touched. His hands held your neck and you moaned into his mouth, forgetting what it felt like to be touched by him.

He hoisted you onto his lap, wincing a bit when you grazed his knee. His hands fit perfectly in the curves of your waist as he pulled you closer to him, grinding your hips. “Don’t do this to me,” he said into your neck.

“Why not?” You said cheekily.

“We don’t have much time.” You almost forgot that there was a race going on right now.

“I can be quick.” You hopped off of him and locked the motorhome door as he undressed out of his fireproofs. He looked so good in his white suit but he looked even better naked. You slipped off your underwear and hoisted your sundress up to your waist before going back to his lap.

He guided your body on top of his, settling you down as you took all of him in, deep. “Shit. A condom.” You said, after the bare feeling of him inside of you set in. God did it feel good but it wasn’t right.

“I don’t think I have any in here.” He said. “I promise I’ll pull out. I need you so bad.” He lightly bit your nipple through your sundress.

“I will kill you if you’re lying to me.” You started to move your hips and moaned at the sensation. He felt so good filling you up all the way.

He took your ass in his hands and started to bounce you up and down on his cock. “That’s it baby, just like that.” He said, admiring your movements. “Fuck me like a good girl.”

Your head fell forward, the feeling running through your body getting almost unbearable to handle.

“Jesus, Pierre, you feel so good.” You pulled your hair into a makeshift ponytail and arched your back, feeling like all eyes were on you in the best way possible.

He watched you in awe as you rode his cock without a care in the world. “Your pussy is so tight baby. So tight for me.” A breathy moan escaped his lips and his face looked like he was in pure bliss. There’s nowhere else he would rather be.

“Shit, shit, I’m gonna come.” He said, panicking. You rushed to get off of him as you saw the liquid pool on his abs.

“Did you…?”

“I don’t think I got any inside of you.”

You took a deep breath to collect your thoughts. God, you hoped not.

next part

[nicegaai]

Ch 8: 

I get so nervous every time I start — did I ever tell y’all I got a killer migraine after I started this reread and it lasted like 4 days? there’s no need for that level of stress but here I am all tensed up again. whateverrrrrr. exposure therapy. 

(Paragraph like 3) YUUUUP I already want to go in and tweak the dialogue. this is not quite it. Im itchy im itching to do it but I won’t yet. editing is a trap that will stop me from moving forward…

WHAT. Holy fucking jjjjhjjjhh you would not believe the sitcom level of reaction I just had to realizing I left in actual genuine Editors Notes. This is my worst offense by far this is the worst thing thats ever happened to me in my whole life (lie) I can’t go on  … Im gonna take a break

(2 and a half months later)

Hiiiiiii…where did I leave off… jk im starting over

Chapter 8 the final published chapter huhhh! I don’t remember what kind of cliffhanger I left u guys on but im looking forward to finding out

Wowow I like the beginning dialogue again!!! this is cute and I love them I love dennor when im doing it the way I like them!!!!!!!!!! Thank god im back on my meds ive been so neurotic over little things for like years and for what… I luv my story, I don’t need 2 be afraid…

Llmaoooooo im genuinely enjoying this reread how is that possible!!! This is fun im having fun!

Wtffff Im feeling like a genius for coming up with this and not like I need to kms for once. Brand new emotions for me. Chat did you know life can be beautiful?

LSKDAJKLSLDK I FOUND AN AUTHORS NOTE IS THIS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT 2.5 MONTHS AGO? That I almost cried over? I laughed at my own bad joke but it is NOT that serious … I do want to take it out later. but girllll

I wonder if stabilizing emotionally will ruin the quality of my writing x_x oh well!

I DON THAVE A LOT OF COMMENTARY THIS CHAPTER BCZ I DONT REMEMBER WRITING MOST OF THIS TBH AND IM GETTING SUCKED IN  BY THE PLOT WTF WTF. Again this is a new experience for me ive been so miserable rereading this up til now

Went “NOOOOOOOOOO” out loud when I realized I established a specific timeline. Its already June 15th???????? Fuck me man I was gonna space this out more than that . it was supposed to be like June 3rd at best, in my head …

Changed my mind—The quality of writing is guaranteed to go up if im not dry heaving at the thought of rereading my own drafts. It’s going to be FINE !!!!!!!! Its going to get better!! I may even be able to respond to all the nice comments soon … Ive been scared of ao3 comments I can’t explain why I don’t know myself

UGH THE WRITING IS GETTING CHOPPYYY this could have been avoided surely but it is too late now. I can sense I struggled with beginning the scene and wrote very Point A To Point B just to skip around to the parts I wanted to write. I mean it functions.. but not well.  Ick

Okay... more author’s notes. I messed up stylistically when I decided to leave in so many parentheses bc then I lost the authors notes in the mix. Nasty. Ech. Im annoyed

OH. THAT REALLY WAS A CLIFHFANGER HUH. NO WONDER PPL KEEP ASKING IF IM COMING BACK. OH H H H. IM SO SORRY I SHOULD BE JAILED FOR THIS X_______X

I HAVE THE NEXT SEVERAL CHAPTERS PLOTTED OUT MORE OR LESS AND THE REST OF THE STORY'S EVENTS ARE ON PAPER I PROMIS E I AM TRYING I WILL NEVER GIVE UP

kind of insane ive left u guys off on that for like 6 months. bc ive been obsessed with the events of the next few chapters just like turning them over in my head,.. . and no one has even seen them yet. this needs to be fixed

im attempting my fic reread today. im announcing this bc i will be liveblogging to keep my morale up, NOT THAT anyone cares but i personally need this, like ill only commit to do the thing if theres an imaginary audience holding me accountable. & i like to have fun :3

anyway. captains log, its a beautiful sunny july weekend. i just finished my morning coffee, and, i am dreading this so much. i dont like rereading my own writing but i shall get over it. ok here we go.

Þetta Reddast vagueblogged directors commentary edition

Ch 1:

*opens fic and starts convulsing immediately* god i wish i smoked weed rn. i cannot chill out ever for the life of me

My Mission For Today Is: to remember what plot threads I’ve left hanging so I can resolve this story properly. And also try n remember where the flow is going. I have the end plotted out, I just am a little lost … it’s been a while :-(

------------

Abrupt beginning!!!! I’m not mad because I have . I HAD. Almost no writing experience when I started this. it isn’t ideal but I refuse to be one of those fanfic writers that starts rewriting early chapters without finishing the last ones. Ive never seen one of those types actually finish a longfic. …I’d already rather yap than actually read LMAO AHH

Oh this is worse than I remember. thats cool that s great ok alright *coughs up blood*

"20 somethings" WOW I really did not know where I was going with this when I started huh

LKJSDLKSJDLGKGDJSLDGJK ??? Who authorized this. Who let me cook. What the hell

I could write this better now. I could edit this into something beautiful. <- devil on my shoulder

FORGOT I WAS MAKING RICE BRB

"generously offered nothing to the exchange." wait STOPPPP. I’m so funny

GRAMMAR ERROR DETECTED why is there two periods. I’ll be coming back to fix that …………………. :-(((

Fuck. This is a lot. Marge Simpson Hiding Her Face dot Png

Oh this is stupid this is gayyy this is fukcinnn . Who fucking did t his. What was wrong with me,. This is so good actually. what was i ONNNN. 

Im gonna throw up and I don’t know if thats like/. A complimentary thing or if im just cringing that hard . Im feeling emotions. I love my OTPs..OT3~5? I love them so so much

Ok as much as im like “eww bad writing” this is .. dare I say, rly good in places. Not to suck my own dick but maybe all hope isnt lost and imposter syndrome is an illusion

Grammar mistake #2. Goddddddd. they should ban me from the archive for this

EMILLLLL EMIL EMIL EMIL HIIIIII BABYYYY EMILLL I LOVE UUUU AWWHUUGHH everyone clap for my bewoved baby bruvver right FUCKING now

Urghhh gritting my teeth… Im fully expecting the flow of events to start not making any gd sense. There’s no way this came together the way I hoped in my head and .... For real I was never able to read this all the way thru. this is my first time, lol. and it was all disjointed on the authorial end to say the least. Im scared T-T

Jlxjvklsdkjfsjlkdkjlsjklkljzsdkjlgaskljdgjklasljkgdljkasljkdgjklasjlkdgljkaskljdgjakl?????????? 

Im not liking the ratio of dialogue to whatever the other stuff is. scene-setting I guess. prose maybe. i could have dragged this out way longer... By which I mean made it a more satisfying read. But WHATEVER !!!! 

TIMO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TIMOOOOOOOOOO NUMERO UNOOOO DO MUNDOOOOOO I really need to utilize him more. As soon as I finish this fic I need to write a Timo POV spinoff where he gets cancelled on furry twitter for proshipping in real life

Hmmmm chapter ending didn’t hit as hard in practice as it did in drafts. Oh well. God damn that was a lot to happen in one chapter LMAOO???

OH SHIT MY RICE IS STILL COOKING —— 

[eyndr-stories]

The Stranger The Better (FNAF SB fanfic) C12 - ...Okay Maybe It's An Addiction

Read the intro to Chapter 1 (Enter A Sleepy Bitchard) for more details! I'd start reading there anyways else things won't make a whole lot of sense lol

In Summary: Reader is a forever exhausted young adult who has social difficulties doing their best to pay the bills, so when they get hired at the well-paying, almost entirely automated Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizza-Plex, they don't really hesitate to think things through before stumbling headfirst into a horror mystery surrounding this company and its crew of quirky (and surprisingly kind) animatronics.

Things To Know (lmk if I should add anything, also check the tags for more stuff):

There are some horror elements in several chapters! This chapter is not particularly spooky, there's just a lot of exposition and important plot stuff and some nice character interactions.

Eventual romance, minorly important to the plot.

Reader has paranoia.

There is much swearing.

Reader is also addicted to energy drinks, and not fantastic at self care.

Reader is nonbinary (and also trans masc) though it's not vital to the plot and only comes up once or twice.

Reader is from the south, is protective of their friends, and if you threaten their friends then I'm afraid you've yee'd your last haw and yes that is important to the plot

Previous Chapter | Chapter 12 | Next Chapter

C12 - ...Okay Maybe It's An Addiction

     This new schedule was throwing you off. You were setting all kinds of alarms and reminders to make sure you were where you needed to be when you needed to be there. There wasn't much time for your research, which you'd thrown yourself into headfirst in order to help distract from your feelings until they went away.

     You hated the management at the pizza-plex, for many reasons. It felt personal to you, now that you'd gotten to know all the animatronics. You didn't want to just let management use and abuse the animatronics how they saw fit. Besides, if you didn't figure out how to bring management down, who would?

     You weren't very good at research. All you really got were adds for the pizza-plex and its line of merch, and a bunch of old advertisements from when the place had its grand re-opening three years ago. You sighed and considered making plans to check out the public library for information.

     If you ever had the time, that is.

     Luckily, you didn't have as many days or hours at the deli coming up. Today was not one of those days, however. You had a short shift at the deli, followed by two hours at the plex, followed by a longer closing shift back at the deli, and then a night shift at the plex. You also had a tummy ache, but you were being very brave about it. You downed an energy drink on the way to work at the deli.

     At the plex, there was some trouble as a few kids got very upset during snack time when Moon ran out of the popular cracker snacks shaped like the glamrocks. The kids were inconsolable, in tears, and one was even screaming. Sun came to the rescue and consoled the children with candy, if the kids agreed to settle for a different snack. You asked to try one of the candies, since it looked special. It wasn't for sale in any of the gift shops, and didn't have a brand name or anything on its wrapper, just a little sun icon. You recalled a box of candy among Moon's belongings, which you remembered matched his theme. Sun hesitantly told you that the candy was just for the kids, and you shouldn't have any. You, now even more curious, made plans to steal some later.

     Another energy drink on your way back to the deli. A customer berated you for putting an obscene amount of black olives (a regular amount of black olives) on her sub. Another customer came up to the counter five minutes before closing and simply could not figure out what she wanted, but boy did she sure want a lot of it. You opened, sliced a sample of, and re-wrapped and put away nearly every meat and cheese in the case before the customer realized there was a fresh slice case, full of the pre-sliced packs of meats and cheeses you'd been working on for the past two hours. She took every pack of cheese in the case, so you had to slice more to restock it before you could get to cleaning. One of your coworkers, the one who was always complaining about one thing or another (what was her name?? You could never remember) did your dishes without you asking and then complained about having to do everything herself. You ignored her and exchanged riddles with your manager until everything was done and you could finally leave.

     You clocked into the plex for the second time, snatching another energy drink from the fridge. You turned around and nearly leapt out of your skin when you saw someone else in the room with you.

     "Fucking shit. Sorry. Hi, Vanessa. Sorry, I didn't hear you come in." You took a few breaths to calm down. You weren't sure when you'd gotten so jumpy.

     "What are you doing here?" Vanessa asked. She punched in, then turned back around to scrutinize you.

     "…I work here? I'm Y/N, the other security guard. We met once in the parking lot," you said.

     Vanessa gave you a tired look. "I mean why are you here right now? I'm scheduled to be here till one. You don't need to be here till then."

     "Oh. I guess management accidentally scheduled us both." You checked your email and re-read your schedule just to be certain. "They just re-worked my schedule so I could supervise Moon, it's probably just a small error they made when changing stuff around."

     Vanessa sighed. "Whatever." She breezed past you and started fixing herself a cup of coffee. The keys hanging on her hip jangled lightly as she went. You noticed a little bunny charm hanging off a keychain, and noted subconsciously that Vanessa seemed to like bunnies.

     You were about to leave and start your rounds, but… you didn't get much opportunity to talk to Vanessa. Not only did you want to form your own opinions of her, but you knew she'd been working here since the place opened. She was bound to know something or other about management, right?

     You took a very casual sip of your energy drink. "…Leave it to management to make a fuck up like this, huh?"

     "Right." Vanessa rolled her eyes. "Those dumbasses don't know a damn thing about what goes on around here. They don't care. All they want is money."

     "Greedy bastards," you agreed.

     "They don't care if people get hurt. They're selfish. Thoughtless."

     You took this as a good sign. She was not only willing to talk to you, but she had to have a reason or two for dissing management. You went on, hoping to encourage her to keep talking. "Right?? Like, they were considering getting rid of Moon because they couldn't figure out the issue with his weird bug. Like legit get rid of him."

     Vanessa scoffed. "Who gives a shit about the animatronics?"

     You were momentarily speechless, somewhat startled by her incredible lack of compassion. There was no way after three years she didn't know the animatronics were just as sentient as anyone else.

     Vanessa went on, glaring down at the coffee pot as it slowly churned out her coffee, filling the styrofoam cup. "They'll just sweep it all under the rug, rebrand, claim it'll be different this time around. Can't have a high employee turnover rate if there's barely any employees to begin with."

     You weren't sure what to say. You wanted to yell at her, you'd told her management wanted to off Moon and her response was to demean the animatronics and then avoid the topic altogether. But… what the hell was she talking about??

     "What do you mean? High employee turnover rate?" you questioned.

     "Back before they closed, when they didn't have security bots and staff bots, they had people. Good, honest, hard working, flesh and blood people. Animatronics like these were so new… still are, for the most part. Not a lot of regulations around them. Not many people who's job it is to make sure they're running right. Make sure they're safe." Vanessa glared at her coffee. It was done pouring, but she didn't move to take it.

     "…What are you saying? The turnover rate was high because…?"

     "No reason I can prove." Vanessa snatched up her coffee, chugged it all, then tossed the cup in the trash. "Hope I don't see you again anytime soon." She left the room.

     You stood there for a long moment, processing and reeling from the conversation. You took a long drink from your can, then started your rounds.

     You came to the conclusion that there was maybe more going on here than you'd thought. According to Vanessa, there'd been some issues with the classic animatronics, leading to people getting hurt, or… worse. Which the company seems to have covered up quite well. Of course, enough money will do that, and this was a very lucrative entertainment business. You weren't sure how to go about validating any of these claims. Maybe Vanessa was messing with you, trying to get you to quit or something. She didn't seem to like you very much. But she had seemed so… passionate. So angry. It was hard for you to believe she was lying.

     So then, in the case it was true, a sane person would likely cease all investigation, probably start looking for a new job, keep their nose out of it. But you were not sane. You were insatiably curious. You also held a deep hatred for management, and didn't care much for your own safety or well-being.

     You opened your writing app and tapped out some notes, recounting what Vanessa had said while it was still fresh in your mind. You got back to your rounds, planning to keep your ear to the ground and your nose as far into this business as you could get it. You finished off your energy drink and tossed the can into the garbage.

     "Those are bad for you."

     You were started out of your thoughts by Moon, who had come up behind you, and oh shit you were supposed to meet him at the daycare before starting your rounds-

     "Ahhhh, man! I'm sorry, Moon. I totally spaced. It's been a long day," you said sheepishly.

     Moon pouted. "I can't believe you forgot all about me. You must hate me."

     You rolled your eyes. "I don't hate you."

     "Ohh, woe is me. Forgotten, left behind, tossed to the wayside." Moon swooned dramatically.

     "I would never!"

     "Abandoned… betrayed…" Moon pretended to weep.

     "Alright, I'm leaving." You rolled your eyes and continued walking.

     Moon walked next to you. "How was your day?"

     "Ugh. It was whatever. How was yours?"

     Moon looked at you for a long moment. "It was alright. After you left Sun had a tea party with the kids. I took a rest. Chica came to say hi around closing time." Moon flipped the hood of your hoodie up.

     You pulled the hood back down and readjusted your hat. "Chica's nice, I like her."

     "What did you do at the deli today? You aren't disgusting so you must not have been in the kitchen," Moon said.

     You rolled your eyes. "Dealt with some irritating people, sliced a lot of meat and cheese, made subs, packed and served hot food. The usual."

     "You seem tense." Moon poked your shoulder.

     "That's just how I am normally. I'm a stiff person, I don't sleep well."

     Moon poked your shoulder again. "You should sleep more."

     "No time. Not to mention, it's never really restful."

     "Tell me about these bad dreams of yours," Moon said.

     "You don't wanna know."

     "If I didn't want to know, I wouldn't have asked." Moon poked you again.

     "Alright, alright." You swatted his hand away and huffed. "Usually there's a lot of fear and stress and… well, I'm hunted down and brutally murdered frequently. For the past couple months, every now and then I'll get a really vivid dream, and there's always this anthropomorphic rabbit. In the last one I had, I was in the arctic with this dog, and I loved the dog, but then the dog turned into the rabbit and started chasing me. And there was nowhere to hide in the void of snow, nowhere to run when your tracks always lead right to you… Actually, that's part of why I wasn't so psyched about you animatronics when I first started. But there doesn't seem to be any bunny animatronics here, so that's good news for me."

     "There… used to be. Until a year ago."

     "Bonnie, right? The bear guy got really upset when I asked him about Bonnie," you prompted.

     "I don't doubt it." Moon looked away. He looked sad himself, but not sad like the bear bot. Moon almost looked guilty. Moon noticed your attention on him, and his face quickly snapped into neutrality. "I'm sorry to hear about the nightmares. They sound awful. Have you spoken to a healthcare professional?"

     You laughed. "In this economy?? No way. I'm too busy anyways." You studied Moon, who still appeared neutral. "You seem tense," you said, copying what Moon had said earlier.

     Moon rolled his eyes. "I'm fine."

     You 'tsk'ed at him and stopped walking so you could give him your full attention. "Should have never told me you could lie. I might have believed that."

     "Is it too late to convince you that I am actually possessed by the souls of a hundred spiders and therefor cannot lie?" Moon started to crouch down.

     "Yes, far too late, don't you dare," you said quickly.

     Moon chuckled and straightened back up. He looked away. "…Pass."

     "Oh. Alright." If Moon didn't want to talk about it, you weren't about to make him. "Wanna go say hi to Mister Music?"

     Moon smiled. "I'd love to."

~~~

     Moon only joined you on the rounds for half the night, staying in the daycare with Sun after a short relaxing break. Moon attempted to convince you it was because he didn't want Sun to be lonely, but it was fairly obvious that he missed being with Sun just as much as Sun missed him.

     You weren't too upset, it gave you more time to think and process. What you needed was more information, preferably from some different and more reliable sources.

     As they say, however, beggars can't be choosers.

     It wasn't too surprising that you wound up getting more information from Chica. Every other conversation you had with her, she was filling you in on all the juicy gossip the pizza-plex had to offer. You weren't sure how she knew as much as she did, but she sure did know a lot.

     You'd been investigating some noise in the backroom of a gift shop (just Chica doing her thing, of course) when you'd actually found an old box full of plushies sharing the likeliness of an animatronic you hadn't met before. It was the fox guy, who was dressed like a pirate with an eyepatch and a cutlass and a long bright blue jacket. He had a clever grin and a cute little pirate hat.

     "That's Foxy! Or… it was supposed to be," Chica said. She had this look in her eye, and you knew you were in for it. Garbage forgotten, she lifted one of the plushies and turned it over in her hands.

     "Oh yeah?" you prompted eagerly.

     "So, the story is that Foxy was supposed to cover pirate cove, right? That was originally his area. But then the budget got reworked, and they couldn't afford to finish him, even though they had the area all ready to go. But a few things don't add up, right?" Chica paused.

     You were listening with rapt attention, which Chica seemed pleased with.

     Chica leaned in close and whispered. "Well, rumor has it… Foxy was already completed when they supposedly 'reworked the budget'. But he went missing, and no one knows where or how. Moon got in a lot of trouble with management, since it happened sometime in the night, on his watch. That's when they promoted Vanessa, to help with security. And then he got that bug a couple months later, and then Bonnie went missing a year ago… Moon's been on temporary dismissal since then. I was a little worried that when management hired you, they'd finally decided to permanently dismiss him, and you were his replacement… but it looks like they just had that whole separation project in the works. I'm really glad things worked out."

     "Yeah… right." You weren't sure how much weight to put in this rumor. Chica had once told you that Vanessa absolutely despised bunnies, so you weren't sure whether to trust in the accuracy of this information. You decided to take notes later anyways, just to be safe.

"Say, you sure do spend a lot of time with Sun and Moon. You hang out with them every night, right?" Chica asked.

"Maybe. Why??" You squinted at her.

"No reason~!" Chica giggled.

She got back to her trash, and you got back to your rounds.

     At the end of your shift, you clocked out and set your map on top of the minifridge, where you usually left it so you wouldn't loose it. You made it to your car, head buzzing with all sorts of disorganized thoughts and clutter and feelings. The moment you sat down, the exhaustion hit, and you took a long moment to just… sit.

     You knew it was dangerous to just sit. To be idle, to let your mind wander. Naturally, you found yourself thinking about Sun and Moon. Those ridiculous jesters… when had you gotten so attached to them? And… why?

     Maybe it was because of the way they treated you. With care and respect, like they thought you were worth something. They seemed so attached to you, and damn was the attention addicting. You felt a little pitiful, realizing just how lonely you'd been before coming to work here. Sun and Moon were so concerned with your health and your safety, the last thing either of them wanted was to hurt you.

     All things you'd been missing, longing for without realizing it.

     You thought again about how lonely you were, and why exactly that was. Could you even trust yourself? Trust your own feelings, trust that you actually did have crushes on Sun and Moon, when maybe, actually, you were just lonely and they'd given you a bit of positive attention, and now here you were, falling apart in your car in a lonely parking lot, unsure of what was real, and what was just in your head.

     You jumped at a soft knocking sound on your passenger window. You looked up through blurry twilight shadows -when had you started crying??- to see the bear bot standing just outside. You quickly wiped your face and rolled down the window.

     "Hey, superstar. Is everything alright?" the bear asked softly. He looked concerned.

     "Peachy keen." You used your sleeve to dry your eyes, doing your damndest to stop crying and relax.

     "…Would you like some company?" the bear offered.

     You hesitated for a long moment. You hated the loneliness, the horrible weight of it. You were ashamed to be crying, but… you really did not want to be alone.

     You nodded, and unlocked the door.

     The bear climbed inside, awkwardly adjusting the seat to better fit his massive bulky frame. He carefully closed the door behind him and set his hands on his knees, which were nearly touching his chest.

     "What are you doing out here anyways?" you asked.

     The bear glanced out at the shadowed building beyond the windshield, lit faintly by sparse yellow lights lining the parking lot. "Well, sometimes it can get a little… stifling. In the plex. It helps me at times to step outside and look at the stars and listen to the crickets. I technically never leave the property, so no one can complain. You walked right past me on your way to your car, and you seemed so deep in thought, I did not want to disturb you. But then you did not drive away, and I saw you were crying..."

     "I just… I dunno. I'm just tired." You folded your arms over the wheel and set your chin in your arms, partially hiding your face.

     "People usually do not cry from tiredness alone," the bear said.

     You sighed. "Why do you want to know?"

     The bear looked at you. "Because I care about you, superstar," he said sincerely.

     That did it for you. You started crying again. You started talking, and once you started, you just couldn't stop. You told the bear everything. A part of you was horribly reluctant to confide in him, to let him know things he could easily use to hurt you, but a much bigger part of you was just too tired to care. Maybe it was something about how kind and supportive the bear seemed. There was something about him that made him seem trustworthy.

     You told him about what had happened to you almost a year ago now, the events that had led you here, in need of money to stay afloat. Your fiancé had cheated on you with your friend and roommate. Your now ex-fiancé decided they didn't want to be with you anymore, even though they'd accepted your proposal, even though they'd been the one to tease and ask about when you were going to propose already, even though they'd been the one to say 'I love you' first. They hadn't even told you why, after all that time, they just suddenly didn't want you anymore. They'd lied to you about a lot of things. They weren't the person you thought they were, the person you trusted most to not hurt you. They ran off with your roommate, and you could no longer afford the place you'd been renting. Living alone was alright some days, but the days when you couldn't shake the loneliness, the empty bed, the quiet walls… some days just hit a little too hard.

     When you finally stopped and looked up at the bear, you realized with shock that he'd started crying at some point as well. Animatronics could cry, apparently.

     "Oh, Y/N. I am so truly sorry," the bear whispered.

     You weren't sure how to decipher the heavy emotion in the bear's tone. "…I don't want pity. That's the last fucking thing I need."

     "I do not feel pity for you. I feel empathy. I do not cry for you. I cry with you," the bear said.

     "Oh." You took a moment to study the bear. You saw that familiar sadness on his face, the sadness that had taken you by surprise that night he'd introduced you to DJMM and accompanied you on your rounds. "Oh. I see."

     The bear nodded. "I understand what it feels like to suddenly loose someone you love very much. It is jarring, when they are simply just… gone. There one night and gone the next, and you just do not know why, and no one has the answer. No one knows what happened to Bonnie. He just… disappeared."

     You understood, and your heart hurt. "I'm so sorry."

     The bear closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh. "It is important to remember that you are not alone. You and I, we have friends to help support us and give us company when we need it. It is also important to remember that the events and decisions of others is beyond our control. All we can control is ourselves. So long as we do our best to be our best, we will make it through okay."

     You wrapped your arms around yourself. "But… what if being my best isn't good enough? It wasn't good enough for them."

     "That is their loss, superstar. I mean it. You are a positive light in this world and I for one am lucky to know you." The bear set a hand on your shoulder.

     You smiled. "I'm gonna start crying again."

     "That is okay. Crying is a natural release of large amounts of emotion." The bear rubbed your arm comfortingly. "You do not ever need to cry alone in your car. You can always come to me if you need to, I will listen and do my best to help."

     You hesitated to accept help, but damn this bear was so fucking comforting. "…Thanks. I appreciate it. I… I feel like I shouldn't need help. Like, I should be able to take care of myself."

     "I do not doubt that you can take care of yourself. It is not difficult to tell that you are very strong and independent and resilient. I am very proud of you, superstar. You should know, things do not have to be as hard as they are. A burden becomes much lighter when you have friends to help you carry it."

     "That’s… yeah. Yeah, that makes sense." You took a deep breath and let it out. "Man. I think I really needed that. Just like, talking about it made me feel better. That's so weird."

     The bear smiled. "I am very happy to be of help. If I may offer you some more advice?"

     "Anytime."

     "Try to get some sleep. I know you work very hard, and it is important to get enough rest as well. You could wind up getting sick."

     "You sound like Moon." You rolled your eyes. "I'll try. No promises, but I'll try."

     "Thank you. I will let you get home so you can do just that. Will you be alright?" the bear asked.

     "Yeah, you know me. I'll be fine." You smiled. "Thanks."

     "Okay." The bear carefully climbed back out of the car. He paused before closing the door behind him. "Know that I think you are doing amazing, and I am very proud of you."

     "Thank you. That makes me feel nice." You did indeed feel very nice and special inside. It was so validating to be told that you were doing a good job, after all your hard work, your long days, your even longer nights.

     You waved goodbye to the bear bot and drove yourself home down familiar quiet roads. You slept a little easier that night.

~~~

     Over the next three weeks, you enjoyed shorter and fewer shifts at the deli.

     You spent your free time attempting research, but you couldn’t find anything about the old pizzeria, save for marketing campaigns and collectables and old merchandise for sale.

     You didn’t run into Vanessa, and you were starting to get the feeling she was avoiding you. Even if you came in early to your shorter shifts, Vanessa’s car was already gone. Maybe she was parking around back or down the road? You weren’t sure, and you weren’t complaining.

     The bear, on the other hand, came to check on you at least once a night. He would let you talk about how you’d been feeling and lament with you and give you advice on managing loneliness and sadness. Most of his advice was just to spend more quality time with friends and loved ones and make time to do the things you enjoy, which you supposed was still good advice, if only you had the time or energy.

     Chica came to visit the daycare often, stating how convenient it was to check in on three pals at once. Sun roped her into a tea party one night, where she gossiped about how Roxy had accidentally broken her race car, snapping the wheel clean off. Several kids had seen her do this, as she'd been in the middle of a race, and while she and everyone else was fine and uninjured, she lost the race and was extremely upset. Chica said it was nowhere near as embarrassing as when she herself had gotten a little too into the music a few days ago and had broken her guitar in the middle of a show. Luckily, the crowd had assumed it was on purpose and went wild.

     You went to Roxy’s room afterwards to check on her, but she was an inconsolable mess, so you sat with her and kept her company until she calmed down.

     Mister Music introduced you to a weird little robot he called ‘Lil Music Man’ who you got the feeling was not really management approved. He looked like a miniature version of DJMM, and was roughly the size of a cat. The little guy hid in the vents, as Mister Music explained to you. He wanted you to know, in case you ever spotted Lil Music Man on your rounds, though apparently the little guy had been crafty enough to avoid you so far. You dubbed the tiny robot Mini Man and swore to keep him a secret. He was a little creepy, but you couldn’t help but love the little guy. He was just a tiny version of DJMM, like his little brother or something. You thought it was adorable, how the DJ would dote over the little guy.

     To your pleasant surprise, Monty actually seemed to regard you as a close friend now, and was always delighted to see you. He would always tease you or, as he’d gotten into the habit of lately, would pretend to square off with you, and then before leaving he’d assure you that the next time he saw you it was on sight.

     One night, after a round of pretend fighting, you asked him if he’d run out of lightbulbs yet.

     “Not yet. Why?” Monty asked.

     “Look at me, man. I’m so fuckin small. I can only bottle up so much rage in this tiny frame, ya know?”

     Monty laughed, and the two of you ended up down in the warehouse for another round of cathartic lightbulb smashing.

     Monty told you that the journaling had been helping with his stress, but not the memory problems. He explained that he’d figured out what was causing the problems, though. He was overheating too much, and it was likely causing some internal damage. He told you he hadn’t been able to complete a recharge cycle in a long time, and his systems were suffering. You could see it yourself in the way he moved, not as fluid and confidant as he was when you’d first met him.

     “I’ve got a complete routine maintenance exam coming up in a week, though, so I’ll tell the tech and have them figure out what’s up with my sleep cycle,” Monty said.

     “That sounds good. I hope they fix the problem,” you said.

     “Me too,” Monty agreed.

     You were actually wondering how Monty was holding up, entirely lost in thought, when you felt your hat leave your head.

     Confused, you looked up from the daycare’s security desk to see Sun had set the hat on one of the rays at the top of his head. You rolled your eyes, barely containing a smile. Both Sun and Moon loved to steal your hat. You had begrudgingly come to accept this fact.

     “Howdy sunflower,” you greeted quietly.

     Moon was in the middle of a story, though it was one you’d already heard before. Today’s small bundle of kids were listening with rapt attention as Moon flawlessly transitioned from different character voices as the cast of adventurers made their plans to thwart the evil wizard’s plots.

     “Hello, dear. Watcha thinking about?” Sun leaned on the other side of the desk and smiled at you.

     “I’m not sure… my thinking cap seems to have vanished. Not a single thought in this brain,” you said.

     “Oh goodness, wherever could it have gone??” Sun put a hand up to his forehead, shielding his eyes as he looked all around for the hat, which was not only already shielding his eyes, but located atop his own head.

     “Not a clue.” You laughed.

     “Hm. I believe I recall a magic spell to make lost security hats reappear…” Sun tapped his chin thoughtfully.

     “What a convenient and specific spell,” you remarked.

     “Indeed! Now close your eyes, or the magic won’t work!”

     You gave Sun a curious look, but indulged him and closed your eyes.

     “No peeking!” Sun warned.

     You smiled and put your hands over your eyes, ensuring that you were not peeking.

     “Zip zippity… hat zaloo!” Sun exclaimed. “Here we are! You can look now.”

     You uncovered your eyes to see your hat sitting atop the monitor, Sun’s beaming face just behind it. You had an eyebrow raised and were about to make a comment on ‘hat zaloo’ when you realized there were now pins on the hat. Two of them, made of cardboard and paint and safety pins and no small amount of glitter glue. One was a simple little scene in a circular boundary, featuring a beach and an ocean and a big bright sun hanging high in the sky. The other was also in a circular boundary, but contained a crescent moon instead, with a little sheriff badge at its center.

     “Oh, what…?” You lifted the hat and studied the pins closely. “Where did these come from??”

     Sun was bouncing up and down with excitement. “Moon and I made them for you!”

     You gasped. “Wait, really?? These are for me?” You looked at the pins again. You could clearly see which pin was from who. “Aw, you didn’t have to do that!”

     “Sun! You were supposed to wait till nap time.” Moon quietly stalked over, leaving a pile of napping kids behind him.

     “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t wait.” Sun smiled sheepishly. “We’ve been waiting to give them to you all day, Y/N.”

     “Yes. We made them this morning and apparently a few hours was too much to ask of Sun.” Moon rolled his eyes.

     “You’re the one who gave them both to me for safekeeping! You know how impatient I am,” Sun said.

     You interrupted their squabbling. “Guys… I love these. They’re so nice. I cant believe you made these for me… thank you.” You beamed at Sun and Moon.

     Sun and Moon both smiled.

     “Of course, sunshine! I know they’re sort of poor quality, but they’ve got a lot of love in them!”

     “Sorry they’re not better. We wanted to make actual nice glossy pins, but we don’t have the right materials for that,” Moon fidgeted and glanced at Sun.

     You stood up and took a hand each, one of Sun’s, and one of Moon’s. “These are the sweetest gifts I've ever received. I will treasure them dearly. Than you so much.”

     Sun swayed happily while Moon tugged his nightcap over his eyes.

     You sneezed, with enough sudden force to send you backwards into your chair. Moon and Sun glanced back at the kids, but luckily the noise hadn’t woken any of them.

     “Ugh! That’s it, i’m cleaning this desk.” You stepped out from behind the desk and headed to the supply closet.

     “Oh thank goodness,” Sun whispered. “What did we ever do to deserve you, Y/N?”

     You put your fists on your hips and assumed a heroic stance. “Just doing my duty, citizen.”

     “Heh… duty.” Moon grinned at you.

     “Oh so that’s funny but actual jokes with clever puns aren’t?” You made it back to the desk, cleaning supplies in hand.

     "We hang out with kids all day, what do you expect? Also, puns are not funny, they're annoying." Moon folded his arms.

     "You're annoying," Sun shot back.

     The two continued to bicker as you wiped down the desk and started sorting through the drawers, putting away loose papers and random office supplies.

     "Hey, it's bear guy!" You pulled a replica of the bear bot's head out of one of the drawers. It was small enough to fit in your hand. "What is this, a paperweight?"

     Sun leaned over the desk to see what you were holding. "Oh, boop the nose!"

     You did so, and were rewarded with a fun little congratulatory sound effect as the tiny bear's mouth opened, revealing a shiny card inside. 'Security Clearance Level 3' was printed on the card's surface.

     "Before they came out with those fancy new watches, they used to have these cards that would unlock doors and such. Staff were required to carry around cards up to their approved security clearance level in order to access different areas of the building. It was very cumbersome, and people kept loosing cards, so they came out with the watches and stored the cards in the security desks around the plex instead, as a backup in case the watches malfunctioned," Sun explained.

     "So wait. Different doors needed different level cards to unlock them?" you questioned.

     Sun nodded. "That's right!"

     "That's so inconvenient. Why not just have one card that unlocks all the doors?" You scowled down at the card.

     "Probably to keep certain employees from accessing certain areas." Sun shrugged.

     You closed the card back in its bear bot head holder and set it on the desk after a moment of consideration. It was kinda cute.

"Wait... you keep calling him 'bear guy'. Y/N... do you not know his name??" Moon questioned.

Fuck. Shit. You'd been found out. "Uh. I know it! It's just. Um. 'Bear guy' is just like a nickname."

Moon and sun both shared a disbelieving look. Curse your horrible lying skills.

"Then what's his name?" Sun asked.

"Uh..... Frank?" You winced. You knew that wasn't right.

Sun giggled, and Moon put a hand over his enormous grin. Your face felt hot, and you crossed your arms.

"Well, what is it?? I can't just ask him. I've known him for months now!" You huffed.

Sun and Moon shared another look.

"...You're not gonna tell me, are you." You sighed.

"It's more fun this way." Moon snickered.

"Whatever." You stuck your tongue out at them and busied yourself with finishing up the cleaning. There wasn't much cleaning left to do, but luckily Sun offered a change of topic.

     "Wanna see a trick I can do with your watch?" Sun asked.

     "Sure?" You looked at your watch curiously.

     A smiling sun emoticon popped up on the screen, spun around, then vanished.

     "How'd you do that??" you asked.

     Sun smiled. "A magician never reveals his secrets!"

     "Since he's not in safe mode he's on the system, which means he can connect to your watch, since it's also on the system," Moon explained.

     Sun gave Moon a sour look.

     "What is… the system?" You asked carefully, feeling like the question was dumb. You could only handle so much embarrassment in a day.

     "The system is what everything here runs on. Every machine and animatronic and bot is linked to it, so everything runs as smoothly as possible," Sun said patiently.

     Moon chimed in. "It's sort of like wifi, or the radio. Signals are transmitted through the air that tell the security bots where to patrol, receive updates, send information back to management in their offices. It’s a very small and secure radius, it covers the plex and nothing more. We can connect to the internet if we want to, but usually we don't want to. The ads are annoying."

     "Speaking of that, I've been doing a little bit of research!" Sun straightened up and looked at you.

     "Uh oh. What's that look?" You squinted suspiciously.

     Sun lifted a finger in the air, as if he were about to give a lecture. "Did you know that its recommended that you should consume no more than four hundred milligrams of caffeine a day? Are you aware that each one of your energy drinks contains three hundred and fifty milligrams of caffeine?"

     You glanced at the empty energy drink on the desk. You'd finished it earlier. These days, you were downing at least three a day.

     Sun continued. "Side effects of drinking energy drinks can include and are not limited to upset stomach, leg weakness, heart palpitations, being jittery, nervousness, agitation, difficulty concentrating, hyperactivity, problems sleeping, nausea, and can affect your blood pressure."

     "Huh." You picked up the empty can and studied it. Sure enough, you found a little line of text near the bottom reading 'contains 350 mg of caffeine'. "Well. Thanks for telling me."

     Sun gasped. "So you'll stop drinking those??"

     You smiled sheepishly. "…Thanks for telling me so I can make informed bad decisions."

     Sun sighed heavily and set his faceplate down on the desk.

     "Dove, listen. We only bug you about this because we care about you. We want you to be healthy and happy," Moon said.

Sun lifted his head and nodded in agreement.

     You looked at them. The care in their eyes was apparent, you could feel it yourself for them. Your heart felt funny.

"I didn't want to have to do this… but I'm cashing in my favor," Sun said firmly.

     "Huh??"

     "I did you a favor a long while ago, and you promised that you would owe me one. Y/N, you have to try to quit drinking energy drinks," Sun said, folding his arms.

     Well, you did owe him one. You weren't about to go back on your word. Besides, Sun and Moon were both looking at you, and it was still making your heart feel funny. You sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll try to quit."

     Sun and Moon shared a delighted expression.

     "That's wonderful! I'm so proud of you, Y/N." Sun swayed happily.

     "We'll help you any way we can," Moon said.

     "Thanks, guys." You tossed the can in the trash.

     This wouldn't be too hard. Its not like you needed the energy drinks, they just helped you stay on top of your game. You'd be fine. Besides, it was important to Sun and Moon, and you were starting to realize that you'd do just about anything for them.

~~~

     "This is the worst. I'm in hell. Pain and suffering and misery." You set your head against the wall. The drowsiness instantly began to set in, so you quickly lifted your head.

     "You're doing great," Moon said. He looked amused.

"I am in misery," you sang, tiredly kicking at the wall for good measure.

"Oh, it's not so bad, you pitiful canary." Moon lightly pulled at your sleeve.

     You turned to face Moon, leaning sideways against the wall. "I can't believe you stole all my energy drinks from the mini fridge. Where'd you put em, huh?" you demanded.

     "Trash."

     You gaped at Moon. "Trash???"

     "Trash." Moon nodded. "They're gone forever."

     "…I mean, not really. I've still got some at home," you said.

     "I know where you live," Moon stated casually.

     "I'll just buy more from the store!"

     "I'll steal all of them from the store," Moon said.

     "I thought yall didn't like stealing?" You raised an eyebrow.

     "Stealing is prohibited in the daycare. The store is not in the daycare." Moon gave you a cheeky smile.

     "Ugh, this is ridiculous. I'm gonna pass out, man. I'm so tired." You trudged on through the plex, doing your best to make it through the rounds. This was your third night energy drink free, and the withdrawal was slowly killing you, although it was admittedly better than yesterday.

     "Take a nap."

     "I'm at work!"

     "You don't get enough sleep," Moon said.

     "I don't like sleeping," you grumbled. "Moon, I've got the worst headache and I'm so tiiiiiiired."

     "I'll finish the rounds. You take a nap," Moon offered.

     "I'm supposed to be supervising you. You're still a deputy for another two days." You stuck your tongue out at Moon.

     "I feel fine. Omari was right, the problem vanished as soon as Sun and I were separated," Moon argued.

     "Well I still don't wanna loose my job." You fiddled with your watch, checking the cameras. You paused as you realized something. "Hey… there's still coffee in the breakroom, right?"

     "…No," Moon lied.

     You casually and quickly altered course, making a beeline for the breakroom. You got five steps before Moon caught you, lifting you up off the ground.

     "Moon, common," you whined. "I'm dyinggg!"

     "Stop being so dramatic. You're fine." Moon rolled his eyes. "You're going through withdrawal."

     "I know and it sucks."

     Moon turned around and set you down, standing between you and the hall to the breakroom.

     "You can do this, dove. Let's finish the rounds," Moon said.

     You sighed heavily but complied, dragging your feet.

     When you made it back to the daycare, you decided to try your luck with Sun instead.

     "Sunflower!" you called cheerfully as you entered with Moon.

     Sun jumped, snapping the pen he was drawing with. "Oh dear." He scowled at the mess of ink on his hand and the paper.

     "Sorry, didn't mean to spook you," you said, patting Sun's shoulder. "Here, I'll help you clean." You went to retrieve the wipes from the supply closet.

     "It's alright dear. I've been a little extra reactive lately." Sun sighed and studied his ruined drawing.

     "Looks like a flock of birds," Moon said, tilting his head as he studied the paper.

     "It was supposed to be a lighthouse by the ocean," Sun whined.

     "Maybe the birds can be seagulls?" you offered, sitting down next to Sun. You took his hand, then frowned as you realized the metal was a lot warmer than usual. "Sun, do you need to get to a recharge station?"

     "No, I took a rest earlier when you first left with Moon," Sun said.

     You put a hand to Sun's faceplate. Sun smiled and leaned into your hand, but you were too concerned to really notice.

     "You're pretty warm," you said.

     "Of course I am! I'm a sun, after all." Sun giggled.

     "Hmm." You took Sun's hand again and started wiping off the ink.

     Moon studied Sun suspiciously. "How long did your rest cycle last?"

     "…Fifteen minutes," Sun answered. He sighed. "I haven't been able to finish a cycle in a while. I think there was a minor bug in one of the latest updates. It'll get patched out in no time, I'm sure!"

     "Monty's been having some trouble with that as well. Maybe it is an update bug. Yall said you all get updates together through the system right?" you asked.

     "Yes, but I've been getting updates same as everyone else and I've been feeling fine," Moon said. "No issues whatsoever."

     "Hmm. Maybe it was something that happened during the separation?" you wondered.

     "Maybe. I'm sure it'll get patched soon," Sun assured.

     You finished cleaning the ink off of Sun's hand. "There you are. Good as new!"

     Sun wiggled his fingers, then booped your nose. "Thank you, sunshine."

     You smiled. You looked at Sun, then at the ink stained wipe in your hands. You thought about what these two had come to mean to you. You were honestly happier than you'd been in ages. You were also terrified of loosing them, but you put that thought out of mind for now.

     "What are you thinking about, dear?" Sun asked, tilting his head to the left.

     Moon also tilted his head, tilting to the right instead of the left. The pair of them looked adorable, and you smiled.

     "Just uh… ya know. How nice things are for me right now. How horrible things were a while ago. Loss, and… gain," you said.

     "Mm yes. That makes a lot of sense. Not mysterious at all," Moon said.

     You rolled your eyes. "It's complicated." Also, elaborating would require you to admit some things to them that you were not at all ready to admit yet. You weren't sure if you would ever be. "Just, like… maybe I haven't moved on from loss yet, but maybe I'm… moving forward. Taking steps in the right direction. I dunno, I'm feeling and doing better, and yall are to blame."

     "Thank you?" Sun laughed. "I'm glad we can be of help."

     "Let us know if there's anything else we can do. Anything you want from us," Moon said.

     "…I sure would love an energy drink," you said.

     "No," both Sun and Moon said simultaneously.

     You groaned and set your head down on the table. "Ain't no rest for the wicked."