#(think there was a post like that a while ago but im always rotating it in my mind)

[dykepaldi]

not enough posts/art/fic about post hell bent clara being a straight up nightmare creature. like. she’d already turned into something a bit horrific its not like immortality + access to all of time and space was gonna help that. and ashildr isnt exactly a companion who’s gonna make her better lmao

[weirdmageddon]

ok. let's finally talk about this thing i've been wanting to go public with for ages

so i am not a fan of needing THC to help me curb the embarrassment i have in being happy talking about my real realll special interests, because perceived rejection of my interests feels like rejection of myself since i put so much of myself (my time) into them. i anticipate rejection from others because the stuff i find myself occupied with is detached, abstract, highly technical, or niche, and i'm aware of the surrounding cultural assumptions. some of them, and the level at which i am in involved in understanding them, are really specialized or esoteric, so even opening up about them is like "fuuuck im gonna be made fun of or it’s gonna be too technical that they zone out and dont understand why this is so meaningful to me" ive even posted about that feeling before.

see if i start accumulating too much self-context made in my own mind without sharing it i start to feel more and more isolated from other people around me, that they’re not seeing the full extent of what im seeing myself. i don’t share it, because i fear rejection or superficial judgments in other people’s eyes (probably because it’s happened to me and i’ve seen it happen to others). but at the same time it has to be shared with more people around me or else i feel like i have an intestinal blockage in my mind. what happens is my mental colon explodes from all the shit accumulated over time and vou get a post like this. i’m sorry for that mental image btw. anyway back the point of this post

anything where i can systematize archetypes in real, everyday situations has always been my strong suit. so when people ask me my hobbies im like ... uhhh what am i supposed to say? i analyze stuff about the world and rotate it in my mind. when carl jung wrote there are “as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life” i know exactly what he was talking about.

i’ve been toeing the line to really talk about this thing for two years, so let me tell you about socionics. if you already know what im talking about i love you. if you don’t (or even if you do, keep reading there’s probably stuff you don’t know in here), it is part abstract cybernetic model, part jungian concepts, part philosophy of information exchange. it classifies how people communicate and exchange information. it was created in eastern europe in the late 70s, developed primarily in the 80s-90s by other authors and it’s been an endlessly fascinating, elegant, and reliable tool for me.

usually people dismiss personality typology systems because the mbti became so watered down and pop-culturally saturated that people seemed to collectively take a stance of not taking anyone that genuinely cares about it seriously, or at least that’s the impression i got.

(btw — i need to go on this brief rant — i will never forgive 16personalities for being the big five rebranded and people thinking it's mbti. 16personalities gives you your big five type. they explicitly state on their website that they don’t borrow any concepts from jung. -A and -T don’t exist in the mbti and correspond directly to low and high neuroticism respectively. i figured out myself they mapped each letter dichotomy to the other four measures on the big five: extraversion (I/E), conscientiousness (P/J), agreeableness (T/F), openness to experience (S/N). which is stupid and it’s false advertising. take 16p and a big five test see for yourself how they match up. your personal mbti type can be different from its correlated big five type. the actual mbti using jungian concepts as a base is alright though. oh, and the best neo-jungian mbti stuff is by far michael pierce’d takes on it. if you actually fw that heres a carrd i created a few years ago about the cognitive function axes.)

but i always end up going to the bottom of the iceberg in anything i get really into, and i basically integrate it into my own understanding of the world around me for a while. maybe it was because i had a bad experience genuinely talking about it a few years ago from some people who made superficial judgments about it that made me sort of quiet about my interest in typology systems. i assume it’s because myers and briggs used the tool towards racist ends; it acquired negative connotations, bullshit intuition supremacy, and left the study of psychological types tainted in the united states. even if the individual’s study of the system is neutral, unbiased, out of pure curiosity as a way to classify and relate different personality structures to each other, as was the case with me. in addition to 16personalities being an invalid “mbti” test that bought their way to the front page of google, and rampant superficial information at all levels of study, finding anyone who was into it like me was basically impossible. the reason i have a preferred interpretation of jungian + mbti concepts is because i’ve tried different ones on and sensed how well they conform to reality as a way of describing phenomenon, ditching old ones that werent as clear. michael pierce’s i’ve found are the closest to what i sense jung's intentions were. (actually quite likely this is something i would attribute to being because all three of us are types LIl (and also all infj too, how about that?) brain-to-brain communication LII (carl jung) to LII (michael pierce) to LII (me)). so i felt like michael pierce kept the things that worked in real life and ditched the things that didn’t, leaving behind his elegant integration of the concepts.

anyway, i was under the assumption that anything that could be mistaken for it—which socionics often is at a glance—would be dismissed out of hand, even though it’s entirely different. plus, there’s all the context i’d need to clarify about how “it’s different from the “fun” unserious pop-psych mbti and also absurdly more technical” and what's the point in doing that if they don't respect you enough to hear you out anyway? so it just made me closed off.

they share a common ancestor though. the concepts are still based on carl jung’s book ‘psychological types’ which is why there is some shallow overlap, but the scope, structure, and application of it is different. i feel like this system is a lot more “living” and relevant to real interactions and communication between people in our everyday lives. i am always seeing specific examples of these concepts in play in real life and in characters depicted in media. it’s also been more empirically studied and successfully implemented over in eastern europe, and has gone under constant development and contribution. while since the 50s, mbti had crystalized and become stagnant with diverging interpretations to the point where it’s become basically meaningless to try to talk about because nobody can agree on concepts or semantics; there are virtually no distinctions between “schools” or “models” to differentiate interpretations — (although i have my preference for what i think are the most meaningful and reasonable one; as i said, that goes to michael pierce.) eastern (not so much western) socionics is incredibly more well put-together than mbti or kiersey for squeezing the potential from jung’s original ideas, and goes much deeper. that said, i will ALWAYS advise self-studying typlogy concepts over taking a test. the algorithm of a test can never possibly know you and your individual biases in interpreting the meaning of the words better than the knowledge you just have about yourself. if you learn the theory underlying it you will actually learn about yourself and others and it will actually mean something to you instead of a being an empty decoration for your profile.

here is a comparison chart i translated into english so you can get some idea of where these systems actually differ.

Букалов, А. (2019). On the advantages of socionics over other post-Jungian typologies. Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology, (6), 5–7. Retrieved from https://publishing.socionic.info/index.php/socionics/article/view/2603

for me it’s been super insightful applied to real life. it is like a toolkit for interpreting why some people just rub me the wrong way and our communication feels disjointed. or why some people pass my vibe check to enter my personal inner circle and i feel like talking with them is easier and not an uphill battle. who i feel drawn to and want to get to know better. to deconstruct why i and other people interpret information in the world the way they do, and how that explains the kind of people i end up curating in my life. it has put into words the concepts i haven’t been able to find the words for beforehand, and thus enables me to retrospectively pinpoint exactly what unconsciously makes people feel more at ease or why communication is just easier with some and why it’s harder with others, regardless of any other factors. there are other factors of course, that are the result of unique circumstances—nurture, culture, and upbringing—and i of course account for those, it’s not as pertinent to me as the framework that provides the skeletal structure regardless of those individual variations that are simply already a given for me. that was actually the whole point of its creation.

the system gives me a common language to communicate these ideas with, at least to the few people i talk to who have learned it, but i can adapt the concepts in how they relate to specific circumstances and convey it to a lay audience. i’ve been doing just that to explain why, of the people who have been made aware of the hs rarepair john-aradia, i have seen no one object to it, and instead, everyone i saw found it intriguing the more they thought about it, even when they initally thought was “so random”. and i realized, “hey wait! i know how to explain that!”, but that's in another post i've been working on.

[i was actually originally writing this post in the middle of said aradia and john analysis but i felt like there was way too much i wanted to talk about as its own thing. i figured people are going to be reading that post for john-aradia explanation, not public updates about my mind. i just didn’t want to rewrite this to account for the context because the point i made was still relevant]:

but now i’m thinking okay… i’m talking to a bunch of homestucks. why am i prostrating myself here? why am i so defensive? they’re probably creaming their pants at the idea of another symmetrically divisible system of classification to get their hands on. homestuck itself is founded upon a bunch of ideas with symmetrical divisions and classifications (divisible products of 2). aspect dichotomies, quadrants, cards, black-white, yin/yang and literally countless other abstract systems. if there is a common word to refer to these sorts of things, please let me know.

but in socionics terms, all of this sort of stuff i’m refering to would be within the domain of extraverted/black intuition (Ne) information, and classifying or positioning someone within those frameworks would be introverted/white logic (Ti). you can read more about these “elements” here. homestuck has familiarized you with notionally irreducible aspects present in everything, dual yin/yang forces permeating everything, so if you understand all of the sorts of abstract classification systems in homestuck you’re basically already 75% the way to fundamentally grasping model A socionics. it is way more structured and stable than the typologies in homestuck though. but you will perceive there to be similarities in the need for archetypal/thematic sense skills.

if you want to learn socionics, for the love of god start here. there are many weak places out there to start out with that will set you up with a faulty and loose understanding, but school of classic socionics is the best foundation to start with. i saw it emerge from the beginning when it was founded, having been part of it since late 2022.

this is an introduction to SCS, what makes it special, and and how differs from other socionics schools. i find SCS to be the most comprehensive, and i’m active within a side discord to discuss theoretical constructs related to model A. i’ve helped find the links between some concepts in model A that weren’t fully substantiated in augusta’s original works, specifically the importance of the asking/declaring reinin dichotomy, how it fits with regard to the rest of model A’s structure, how it underpins the ring of social benefit (which was missing from her writing), and how it can be used as an information element charge just like positivist/negativist can (i.e. all process types have positive asking Ne (+Ne? and all result types have negative declaring Ne (-Ne!). i’m still working on transfering my essay on that to a document.)

i know the intricacies of this system like the back of my hand but yeah i never post much about it because it’s so niche and i dont know who would even want to hear it besides people who i already know would, like in that small specialist group, but they actually been quiet lately even though i’m still active in there sharing things i realized. and i even feel alienated in most casual socionics discussion groups, especially larger ones. i need people who can match my freak about it.

because i have nowhere else to talk about it i’m starting to feel guilty yapping my friends’ ears off about it when i deconstruct everything i come across in light of this system like i’m being annoying about it. but at the same time when im doing that i am constantly reinforcing the merit of the system in successfully finding some dynamic i see in the drama of real life in connection to some idea from the model. i can immediately lock on to the core principles that are at play in any situation, validating the patterns that have been observed by others. by what measure do these people / characters / groups relate to each other, how do we define the specific “feeling” of the energy between them together? i could do a socionical analysis for anything that captures my interest.

it’s also been incredible for self-insight. i can now accurately explain my thought process.

i can change my perspective of the scope of my thinking on different levels. depending on the urgency of a situation developing around me and my respect for other people’s time, i can expand my reasoning from splitting hairs at the smallest pedantic specifics—although i prefer not to, to the most holistic global hard binary 0/1 (no/yes) judgment.

it’s fractal-like; once i know how to classify and compare the features of something to another, everything else with overlapping logical relationships instantly rises up in the same way, which of course is what leads to me having insights that reinforce the potential inherent in the things around me, because my way of thinking is isomorphic. i also experience strong animated mental imagery accompanying my conscious thoughts about these systems, minimalist shapes or lines of the barebones motion happening. i feel like my mental activity and what i actually write down is trying to capture what im seeing in my head.

i prefer to be brief, but that requires sharing contexts with someone. once i've established similar ways of talking about the same thing with someone so that we’re on the same page, our messages basically become exchanging code words with each other. all of the potential densely packed into these efficient little terms.

the effect is that i am reducing the amount of time and energy i have to spend trying to explain things to someone. i just want to communicate easily and be understood by the people i talk to so that i can enjoy my time with them. this is why i felt like such a long, clarifying, in-depth post was necessary, which would rip the bandaid off and pull it all up at once, instead of on a private, individual-to-individual level. i had to have it engraved somewhere i could just point someone to instead of repeatedly having to explain the same thing over and over cause that’s a waste of time and energy.

in fact, that revelation i had about myself just now can be explained by model A too! my own type is LIl and this type’s id block houses the information elements +Te! → +Ni?, which aushra describes as “The quality of deeds and actions and the efficient expenditure of energy in work—only performing for what is truly necessary—leads to peace of mind in the future.”

or, for example, coming at it from another angle, here is an older post i made before i was even aware of socionics. i was already talking about my experiences, patterns of thinking and self-awareness in a way that was so on the nose for a socionics analysis.

is that not the clearest example of phase 2’s sensitivity (for me it is information about sensorics)? -Fi? → -Se! superego block, anyone? and did you see how much i gave attention to the time i spend working; +Te! -> +Ni? id block? [information element descriptions here]. you could also derive the progression of the information metabolism stages in my own psyche (phase 1: Ethics -> phase 2: Sensorics -> phase 3: Logic -> phase 4: Intuition).

(from The Characteristic of SLI)

so through socionics it’s like i can find an explanation for just about everything i observe in others and myself just because i’ve extrapolated the logical relationships from that system and can isomorphically apply them to anything.

and i don't say that lightly! i'm not saying anything in this post lightly. like i have a degree in biopsychology from an honors college (ncf; yes, the liberal arts college desantis got his soulless hands on because it was “too woke"). having taken courses in statistics, research methods in psychology, and others, i know all about proper research design (and designing them myself). and of course i ended my four years there with my undergrad thesis, examining temporoparietal synchrony in autistic individuals when working alone and together, where for months on end i was doing nothing but reading and interpreting the validity of research papers. i even deconstructed poorly designed psychological constructs commonly used in autistic research in mine.

i also took personality psychology as a course during my time there. i got a birds eye view of most of the popular paradigms and still felt like i was more knowledgeable in the discourse behind some of the topics we glossed over since the course material was more of a broad comprehensive thing than an in-depth one for anything specific. in totality, all of the models i read about in relation to each other seemed so fragmented into different cuts and perspectives in trying to understand and find the patterns in people’s mental life. and yet none of the models i read about hold as as great of an everyday explanatory power as socionics does for explaining ways of thinking, people's proneness to certain tendencies, and the energetic tension that happens between certain people.

people can say otherwise that it’s pseudoscience. even though there are numerous studies built on real-world observations, the large-scale statistical data like from victor talanov. there's school of system socionics who emphasize its practice. it would be impossible to add all the evidence i can to support my claims to this post but you can see for youself - there are still countless new articles being published from different authors. regardless of that, even if it isn't accepted within the rigors of “scientific canon” i really dont give a fuck since it absolutely does indeed have explanatory and predictive power, and that’s all i care about. i’m confident in this not only through firsthand experience, the ability to frame what i know to be true about the real world within it and have it successfully describe those things, as well as talking to other people about my observations.

additionally, i see people make conclusions about interpersonal dynamics where they unknowingly repeat information that can be derived from socionics concepts.

something i noticed a LOT and ive repeatedly thought about and come to the same conclusion multiple times is that i think i naturally might "embody" the most optimal ways of interacting with other people for myself. it gives me insight into the nature of the personal relationships that i already procure in my life, but it’s not really a self-fulfilling prophecy because i dont use socionics to prescribe who i "should" be friends with. that's silly. thats a silly thing to do because people do have idiosyncracies that don't perfectly align with a system if you rigidly adhere to it, so you're bound to be set up for failure if you try to force that and you will be disappointed. it's better to let these feelings happen naturally without pretense, because that's where the observations that fuel my insight comes from.

i have a subconscious sense for who i will be able to get along with in the long term almost instantly without the need for any kind of system, just based on their actual mannerisms and “vibes”, but that alone is not good enough for me, i want to know why. socionics just gives me tools to figure out why so that i know what im dealing with and its not just ineffable energies, but i can put a name to those energies to think and talk about it and compare and discover patterns in what ive curated in my inner circle over my life, what i feel drawn towards. and indeed i do find plentiful amounts of recurring patterns. the simplification and abstraction is not to destroy the soul and expression of individuals but to wrap my head around them and understand them deeper in relation to everything else, including myself.

i am aware it can be confusing for many people which turns them away. but if theres any questions you have or youre confused about any concepts i can answer them

but yeah um, i’ve really only scratched the surface of this cognitive cybernetic tool. if you are genuinely interested in what i have to say and want me to talk more about it please openly tell me since i’m not a mind reader! i assume disinterest by default.

anyway if you got to this point thanks for reading. i wanted to just put it out there for context about any posts i make in the future. just stating my honest thoughts and whats been occupying my mind for the past two years.

be on the lookout for the john and aradia analysis soon where i’ll use it in practice to deconstruct some things about those characters. and if you’re coming to this post from that analysis after ive posted it, i’m sorry this post is so long in the middle of an already long-ish post. i just thought the context was important.

[cathalbravecog]

GOOOOOOOOOOOOD EVENING TOONTOWN!!!!

[High Roller dressed as Sardonyx to let my autisms (corporate) clash !!]

LISTE N TO ME TH.RERES NO WAY WHO DESIGNED HIGH ROLLER DID NOT TAKE INSPO FROM SARDONYX I KNOW THEY POSSIBLY PULLED FROM SIMILAR INSPO TOO AND TV SHOW HOST CHARACTER TROPES BUT OH MY GOD IM GONNA END IT ALL THEY HAVE SO MANY SIMILARITIES AND I HFGRGHGHGHGHG IM SORRY SARDONYX WAS ALWAYS MY FAV FUSION SO REWATCHING SU AND SEEING THESE GUYS SIMILARITIES MAKES ME EXPLODE. GOOFY "GOOOOOOD ____ _____" ENTRANCE. ARE FUSIONS. TV SHOW HOSTS. CAN ROTATE SPINNY SPINNY PARTS OF BODIES. ICONIC LAUGH. THE MOST SLAYING SUITS EVER. they both got it all. ok sorry for being tism

thisd rawing took me too long and i think im ready to die. im free.i can draw other things freely (TFW THIS WAS A DERAIL AS WELL)

also yeah that... empty space there KINDA sucks but..! im not doin shit abt it. so i hope you Fellas like it. will draw simpler hr art after this i needed to drop a banker after a while

if you read all of this uhmm ur swag . have these secret hr stamps i made months ago that i was too scared to post. My Treat.

also fun fact the font i always use for watermarks is the crewniverse font lol

[mrghostrat]

Omg hi!!! I found your ineffable streamer au like 20 minutes ago and have been BINGING it all. I literally love it so much. And I was wondering, what do other characters do in this au? Are they also streamers? I have been obsessed with beelzebub and Gabriel recently and am still not over them.

Sorry for bothering!!

yessssss. so. i'm not sure if all of these will be mentioned in my fic, but i've planned them out just in case. this got long, so im folding it up to save the dash

quick precursor for everyone less familiar with twitch culture, a Stream Team is just as it sounds: a group of streamers on the same "team", usually for promotional purposes (your team is listed on your channel, and shows all the other channels in that team). sometimes it's just a group of friends who want to have a name and banner, sometimes they're more professionally put together, with collaborations and promotional opportunities for their members.

crowley used to be a member of The Demons, a casual stream team of chaotic, slightly toxic friends. current Demons include beelzebub, shax, and furfur (amongst others). aside from beelzebub, crowley can't stand any of them now and does his best to ignore/avoid them. he'd much rather stream independently than tie himself to a team and all its inevitable politics and drama.

a team that's more explicitly mentioned in my fic is The Dark Council, a professional-level team of variety streamers. socials are run by dagon, and fufur is ITCHING to be noticed by them.

gabriel is a bit of a work in progress for me. i think he's aziraphale and crowley's partner manager (basically twitch staff, managers are liasons between the company and the contracted streamers, who will answer questions and assist them with promotion, account issues, taxes, irl events etc).

i'm toying with the idea of his dual identities being tied to his twitch account: IRL he is Jim, a chill guy who is new to the whole world of streaming, but has years of excellent pr/marketing experience. he doesn't really know anyone yet and is still trying to prove himself as a new staff member, so he slips into a bit of a fake-it-till-you-make-it mask of confidence when he's working, speaking more brashly, typing more professionally differently in work emails, getting right to business. aziraphale likes him because he knows he's sweet enough underneath it all, while crowley calls him gabriel as a joke because his username is SupremeArchangel -- so it takes forever for anyone to click that he and aziraphale have the same manager.

ooh and they've been mentioned in other posts here and there, but to keep it all in one place: nina and anathema are crowley's mods, and i think anathema streams games and tarot readings for fun here and there. newt and maggie are aziraphale's mods-- newt yearns to be a streamer and he tries often enough, but always runs into some kind of issue where he locks himself out of his vods or his audio desyncs halfway through. i like to imagine that aziraphale has many mods like tracy as well, just a big rotation of people who pop in to help whenever they can.

[thursdaysrain]

im going to try posting here every day for . i dont know. a while. and see if i get a feel for it. just whatever off the cuff no editing

recently i watched adventure time front to back (having seen maybe 30% of it forever ago), and i feel kind of goofy for being one of those like 'woah this kid show is so deep and good' converts but there's just a lot of meat on those bones, i guess. it takes itself seriously thematically!

as always consuming very good fiction over such a dense period (i worked through like everything - 10 seasons, distant lands, and fionna and cake - within a few weeks) my brain is rewired and i feel bonkers.

unfortunately i have intense shipping urges but to my dismay (although not unexpected) it is not even one of the top ten ships on AO3 (63 out of 4k works). of course this aired during an era tumblr i'm not so familiar with but i know things were much darker on here 5-10 years ago for Problematic Fanwork.

finn/pb seems to be a radioactive ship. anything i see about it always has all these caveats or is like trying to thread the needle of not specifically being about a manipulative functionally-immortal queen grooming (in both connotations of the word, really) a young teenage boy to be Her knight. not to mention it loses out to pb/marceline, which is 1. gay 2. baited from early in the show and 3. ended up 'winning' and maybe most importantly, unfortunately, 4. is Not Problematic

dont get me wrong i like them together a lot. and i am very happy that it was canonized, or whatever. but there's just so much insanity inducing material w/ finn and princess bubblegum. the show regularly points out how fixated on her he is while also showing again and again how much of a possessive control freak pb is.

there's a lot that keeps running through my brain bc of AT, some things more interesting/useful than others (such as a specific perspective on like, disaster, time, and life going on despite everything that resonates strongly). but no i keep coming back to this weird thing. i blame my chldhood exposure to tenchi muyo for why i am the way i am. this is just my washu/tenchi thing all over again. that's literally what it is what the fuck

i dont think i could get into writing fanfic. im too obsessed w/ worldbuilding, like, over planning things, i cant just slap out a short story. maybe it's worth forcing myself sometime. the closest i ever got (except a couple pieces i wrote in elementary school and lots of fan chatroom RP) was i was planning for a 2hr renpy fanfic vn about manbagi from komi san (maybe my most rabid fixation on a character and a huge outlier) getting together with tadano. komi san kind of lost its momentum for me though, especially with manbagi rotated out of the main cast after her devastating (but inevitable) loss in the main ship war.

all this to say my only recourse is to rotate these cubes in my brain over and over until they shatter into countless pieces and leave their marks on my other works. there's a luxury a long running serial work has, and it's time to really ferment, and i regret i have no such luxury. i suppose that's another benefit of fanfic, though, being able to lean on that.

[austinsastrology8991]

> Issues I have with you/occult / world < *long post* do not read if you don't want to waste your time < a subjective analysis of Astrology, numerology, manifestation, and a subtle exposé of my life

I got issues... but more importantly i got issues with you. I do a lot of research n i hate being told what to do/ and the occult gotta habit of telling me who tf i am.

and Im better at telling myself who tf I am.

THIs is who i am. <^> stop googly eyin me; foo

This is a fkn mess of a post > try your best to read; it was meant to be a story but im incapable > I just want you to have headache (me after reading this shit 20 times or whatever it is) i;m tired. now go away. or read. or die in a hole. all the same to me. astrology is a subjective subject. IDGAF how many books youve read or how many people you speak too; we are literally looking at a planet in space and are saying shit liek " oh im dat type of pretty (venus), im dominant over here (mars), and thats why my life sux (saturn) " meanwhile, the planet still just rotating and we like acting like we apart of its orbit. Its objectively a subjective subject... > its objective only in your natal chart - where the planets are etc.... but interpretations > subjective Sidenote- Im obsessed with astrology.... because my life sucks. and i need to like feel productive somehow - stfu i know this isnt productive, but tell me what you doing? don't act all jiminy cricket on me, when your soundtrack is that of a cricket beginning of rant Also: the mythology and practise of intepretating planets and asteroids, and well the complicated drama that is greek/roman mythology. while there is plenty of overlap, the sheer concept of 2 different intepretations created upon from, 2 seperate cultures, creates different texts and slight differences inherent within each story. this initself creates a subjective intepretation of aforementioned stories > not to mention other cultures who likely put their own narrative of these mythos > it allows us to also intepret it in our own way > it is all just imagination at the end of the day. Whilst the themes are uncannily similar, the form is always different, and thats why I like to intepret it in my own way, and i recommend you do tooo (Alike everything in this subject) ; however we need some clear rules, and guidelines, to make this subject actually palatable, but i fear this community would rather keep it confusing so we can treasure the secrets of the occult on our own. and to that I do understsnd, however, anyone reading tumblr astrology, I believe to already be taking that leap into the occult and should be granted at least some introductory access. and here is (1) problem

Astrology signs are the how, and the houses are the where, > yet you all describe 2nd house a whole lot like tuarus, 10th house lot like capricorn. I mean Ik its similar but yall acting like its different yet your intepretations aint all dat different from each other..... but if the how for you is the where for me, then how tf is it so hard for me to see the differences?… if there is such a startling difference like yall always claim.. to me the themes are so fkn similar whereby > i think its the same > degree, house, sign; same shit diff smell

This however made 4 years ago me, very insecure.:.. 😢I couldn’t figure out the difference and I felt dumb 🤧 but That was 4 years ago - I was noob…. made me realize things like: we got an attitude problem today - we youngins always apologizing, trying to make others comfortable about our bullshit (Anxiety skill issue), yet the old fucks are hella comfortable telling us what to do (authority skill issue), like bro. you dont even know me, and im supposed to bow to you, just so your gonna bread crumb me with some bs self professed 'useful' advice??? if you talked to each other youd realize you all have the same advice... and you too old to keep up with my problems, so stop acting like you know.....

and so like uh, its not bold of me to say that; if your a legit astrologer you know you can just read people. yes everyone has free will, and other explanations to undermine the importance of astrology, but we know whats going on > try me > *sales pitch noise*<

Tumblr astrology is good but not proffesional, just: posts about random asteroids, random observations, random sexytime, and the occasional ‘official’ astrologers bread crumbing us to incentivize us to pay for a reading…. Now I got nothing better to do with my life (nor do you clearly) so we all on here fucking around> but I made da sacrifice > I spent real money

And these 'readings' > dog shit I tell ya > oh don’t worry none of them were from tumblr people. But people in my city and they knew less than what I knew (from reading your tumblr shits)

So it turns out you guys lowkey experts - we done a million random astrology observations - and if your a lurker, you lowkey know more than some pros; and da concept of analyzing people in your life with astrology has made you a *drum roll* > an average astrologer. your not average, if the experts are only 20% better than you (lets say). so with this in mind your not that far off their expertise.. oh you cant measure it? tell me what i dont know < (tell me more) IM HUNGRY, MORE POSTS, MY FEED IS FUCKInG HUNGRY

Now however wasting my money > pissed me off… but its a blessing, becasuse i became >.....> not depressed!!! Finally I got my energy back >>> legs go...

So I learned to read astrology. I just kept reading these websites and interpreting them and well.. I think they overcomplicate a lot of things, and they say it like a report card, when obviously you and I are multiple planets, aspects, houses, degrees, house lords, persona charts, midpoints, asteroids, not to mention composite, synastry, transits solar return , and all da other fkn ones that I cannot be bothered mentioning. Yet there’s a whole fucking essay about one aspect… like bro you couldn’t make a summary? and im supposed to read each of my other aspects? (ofc i did) but like this is just trying to make me spend money (too much reading) and well Im a greedy little fuck so imma drain your resources and not give you a dime >t > SWIPER NO SWIPING <

and i hate watching people trynna act like they know shit yet eat their own words n adjectives like you aint a professional; you just labeled yourself one > wheres your doctorate at bitch? Had enough shitty readings to not trust another 'tarot reader', but its cool the 'psychologists' aint did much better > thank you mother for the birth of my existence but shi dis place a fkn willy wonkin fsctory - and its foul - most places that try to help you that is.... ' you need to be able to receive help' bitch stfu yall underestimsting my problems and overestimating your ability to make me feel better; BITCH I STFG you dont know shiiiiitiittttttttttt > and yall look happy dont you > "dont trust a bartender who dont drink bitch" - KanYe. Numeroloy 'master numbers' > So many sites only use master numbers from 11 > 22 > 33... but wheres the 44? the 55? the 66?????? dont tell me yall didnt realize that every 'master number' still reverts back to each number (9). > 11 =2, 22 = 4, 33=6, 55 = 1, 66 = 3, 77=5..... bro god stsyed outta this mess clearly..... and its always the ones that be inventing new gods that fuck everything too 🤫 furthermore annoyances of numerofuckology - because they reduce the number back down.. .e.g. you have life path 89 > which is simplified to 17 > then to 8.... why not use 89? why we dissin 9 ????? let alone the complete number??? why not intepret both numbers together???? yall just wanna do 1 because your simple with it. and 9 getting left out fr... and yall always celebrating how special 9 is yet he always left out (magic of math - adding 9 - always reverts back to original) honestly - sometiems its so obvious why yall became numerologists sometimes...... Dont even get me started on ANGEL NUMBERS i could neva stfu

i mean yall still trying to test how true it all is, but if you throw a fish at a pisces they gonna go all googly eye on you. tell a scorpio that you intimidated and now your their favourite informant... read their life path number, and you know what they wanna be doing with their life.... i mean it really is a key, and yall locks are looser than you think... watch yo back.. i wouldnt trust someone who can help me (what do they even want), let alone get help from someone who is useless; why would you? dont act like you dont have trust issues, its like our way of relating to each other at this point. your good at sex if you have.... what about the other person? i mean if you masterbate to yoself maybe.... but if a composite chart / synastry have say - chiron eros? pluto saturn? mars dejanira.... how much are you gonna be fucking yourself when you fucked a dirty fucka..... rip virginity - and rip yo self esteem - dangerous game to value your sex appeal as much as you do...... or maybe your living a fantasy on the internet, and that is healthier, but thoughts are manifestations.... oh shit what da fuck have i manifested oh shitttttttttt IM BEING SUCKED IN A VORTEX OF MY OWN SHIT, SOMONE CALL A MANIFESTOR AGHJH AGJJGH please dont be offended, i do like this community; im just a devils advocate... sometimes 👹

you guys put too muhc importance on manifeststion, and i mean if you think its facts, look at what the people around you are manifesting.... OH thats why you isolate so much. so your manifesting loneliness.... oh you try to help people, so your just a trash can for a rubish person.... you see what i mean, manifestation aint so clear cut as you seem to believe. I believe in it, but Im so used to receiving crap, I learned to enjoy eating shit (we all did) and what is "one mans trash is another mans soap" - fight club Oh and Pluto my favourite - every curse a blessing and every blessing a curse.... stop complaining > he gave you the sauce and the only way to show you was to make you cry > lil bitch > pluto profile pic winking at you rn natal > persona > midpoint > composite > synastry > transit > return charts this is the offical order governed by me- so much more imporatnt to understand yourself over what the world got installed / what your partner doing - work on yo insecurities rather than be worried about something you have no control ova

hmmm thats all the issues i have for now.... just look at me as the boy who cried wolf. they aint a wolf here yet; but they gonna be, and im warning yall > why people dont get it...its because there are too many contradictions > but i fully believe, ive had so many spiritual experiences where if i denied them, id be drinking alcohol and pretending i aint a alcoholic. and i do love yall, but sometimes your an eye roll 29th post requires. 29 degree typa energy - YOlo MOfo

[orangekingfisher]

Hello! Sorry for sending an anonymous ask, but i'm figuring myself out still and i don't want my followers to know i might be aromantic. I see you post about your boyfriend every once in a while and i thought i should ask... what does it mean to be in love? Have a happy hallowe'en!

hello hello! and don't worry about the anon it's fine!!

what is not fine is this ask (/hj). do you have any idea of how difficult it is to understand something you have never experienced? it's hell. (i would know - i still have zero clue about what gender is all about. like people feel that shit? incredible)

I'll try my best to explain, anon, but i don't promise anything.

first of all, love is a feeling/emotion. it's always different, i might feel one way but someone else might say "THAT'S SOME BULLSHIT". it's fine. it's also different in regards of who's directed at. (it's worth nothing that im the kind of person who believes that love - like art - is everywhere and in everything. some people disagree. it's okay). the love i feel for my best friend is different to the one i feel for rpbg. how? idk. it's different though, and i don't mean that in terms of intensity - the way i feel (in my head in my body etc) is different. try and think about happiness and how knowing you've done a good job st school/uni/work is different from the happiness you feel when you're, idk, petting a cat or listening to your favourite song. you kinda get it?

love itself does make you feel a bit sick, yes. you feel like you're having a cold and your stomach shrinks and your legs shake and when the other person is away your heart ACHES. when he kissed me the first time i thought i was going to pass out. love is painful and it's beautiful because the amount of happiness i feel when im in love it's unparalleled. and being loved back it's the cure to the sickness above. it's all chemicals in your brain and it is a fucking drug

regarding the love i feel for rpbg, it is a mix. it's affection for sure, but there's also a romantic factor to it. like there's something else that's added to the affection. the word attraction is correct - i feel attracted to, towards, him. i wanna be close to him, touch him, hug him, cuddle him, etc. there is also this hopefulness of dreaming a life together - now in most of my thoughts he's there, he's present. it's a really nice thing. i also find myself thinking stuff along the lines of "oh we didn't do [thing]! ah, well, we have so much time in our life to do that", which, for someone who was highly suicidal up until not long ago it's just. AH. it makes me go crazy

also i trust him and he's funny as shit and when he starts talking i just!! want to listen!!! to him!!! he has Stuff To Say. also he's so fucking pretty (<- not really relevant but he's like a blorbo to me at this point and im rotating him in my mind and He.)

hopefully you figure yourself out anon! maybe you'll find love maybe not. either way it's fine, live your life and have fun!!! have a nice night!

[fullbusterfantasmic]

Love Potion ♋️ Chapter 4.7

Rated M

It’s all NSFW (As it should be)

1,933 words

A/N: The first position mentioned is called the butterfly or some shit (maybe?) idfk but I like it, & the second is the reverse cowgirl. Formatting is wonky, I know please look past it.

🌬Gray’s POV

The shine her eyes had held has begun to rapidly be overtaken as the (e/c) darkens, while she beckons me closer.

Her mouth is right beside my ear as she says;

“Ravish me...lay your claim on me...let every touch from you send me reeling, and begging for more...show me everything you’ve imagined doing to me and lastly...share every feeling you’ve kept hidden from me”.

The intense requests she made ignites a fire somewhere within me. Flames are rapidly consuming the protective layers of ice I’d long ago placed over my heart. Barriers erected after Deliora’s first attack, reinforced following the death of Ur...gone in an instant. Her tongue runs along the outer shell of my ear, lips placing a kiss to my temple. Pulling away, she then collapses back onto the pillows behind her, now surveying me through darkened, heavily lidded eyes.

My teeth clench as the familiar darkness begins to surface and my internal struggle begins. She asked for it....so why not give it to her? I shouldn’t...I....I’m ready to...no I NEED to let her in that now open space within my heart, within my very barren soul.

You don’t know what you do to me...

✨Your Pov

Im nervous...

I may have asked too much, it was too soon for me to come on so strongly! He still has yet to look at me, and his long bangs obscure his eyes from view.

“Gray I-“

I began to try and retract my previous statement but he interupts me. “From the very first moment I laid eyes on you I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen....and the most dangerous...” he moves out from between my legs, motioning for me to lay on my side. “ I knew if I got close to you I’d end up falling for you and that would put you at risk...”. One of his legs now rest underneath mine and my other rests over the top of his.

“Try as I might, I couldn’t force myself to get or stay away from you; somehow we always end up spending time together” he pauses, pressing a kiss to my temple before continuing; “ -and now we’re here...”.

The room is growing colder once more, goosebumps cover my exposed flesh and I lightly begin to shiver. My entire body is shaking by the time his voice reaches my ear; “With all that being said...I’m done explaining myself, and I’m done talking”.

“Now I’m going to fuck you senseless, this entire town will know you’re mine by sunrise” The vow is whispered to me in such an intimate way, it has my internal walls fluttering, before clenching around nothing. That is soon remedied; A surprised turned pleasurable cry slips out from between my lips as Gray effortlessly slides into me.

This position is a first for me, and experiencing it with this god like man...Said position has quickly become a “10 out of 10, must do again”. He holds my body so closely against his, and somehow those skilled fingers are still roaming up and down my sides. Occasionally pausing their ministrations to ghost across my chest or rub tantalizing circles Into my clit. The angle in which he thrusts into me puts the head of his cock in the perfect position to hit my G-spot each and every time he bottoms out.

The whole “I’m finished talking now” line was absolute bullshit! As soon the smug Ice mage was balls deep inside me, did the sinful whispers begin. Dear God! That deep husky voice alternating between uttering the most endearing things, having my eyes growing wet with tears. Only to make a flawless transition into speaking the most obscene and sensual promises (or threats), have my face continuing to burn red.

I was an absolute wreck.

“You should see yourself right now...Completely fucked out of your mind, slobbering all over, and tear stains coating your cheeks...yet still so breathtaking”. My enthralled lover may no longer be whispering, but the chill of his breath on my neck is still ever present. I don’t speak, I knew my ability of coherent speech had vanished long ago.

Gray doesn’t need my words to go off of now, not when my breath hitches and my body jerks involuntarily. “This one will be....number four right?” He sounds so proud. That wasn’t really a question, and I wouldn’t of answered it even if I could have.

As much as I craved release, my pride urged me to deny it. A small voice inside my head is saying; “Ignore the relentless tingling of your clit, the tight wound knot in your stomach, the pressure from that magnificent cock sinking itself into your deepest depths...”.

Dammit ___________, get it together!

You are a proud Fairy Tail mage; A living embodiment of strength, determination, and destroyer of adversity! You’ve let this man turn you into putty within his hands, he thinks he owns you! Now it’s time for you to reclaim your pride and turn the tables on him!

Who am I kidding?

🌬Grays POV

“Holding back now are we?”

I can’t help but tease her when she’s trying so hard to hide the fact that I have her teetering on the edge of bliss. She lets out and annoyed huff and I poke one of her inflated cheeks, making sure my cock is buried inside of her as far as it can go.

“You take my cock so well baby, you’re already starting to shape to me on the inside...you’ll be my perfect little cock sleeve in no time” I murmured before giving her another nice dark love bite to match the one on the other side of her neck. “I know you want to drench my cock some more” my ice coated finger flicks against her clit before circling over it.

“Hah!” she shrieks at the frozen contact to her bundle of nerves, involuntarily jerking and in turn slamming her hips backwards, burying my dick inside her once more. The tip of my head just barely makes contact with her cervix, and then her walls suddenly contract, clamping down around me. I have to give every effort to not paint them white as not only her ecstatic wail reaches my ears, but I look down just in time to see her lightly spritz the hand id been using to play with her clit.

For a moment my brain begins to short circuit, and then it just shuts down completely.

✨ Your POV

That was....incredible.

Several minutes pass with my mind reeling from the intense orgasm I’d just experienced. It’s like I’m drunk, but not from the alcohol I’d consumed earlier. Drunk from the dopamine flooding my brain, and my heart swelling with overwhelming feelings of love. Love....love for the man currently sharing my bed.  Before I can turn to Gray and embarrass myself with a bunch of post orgasm love drunk rambling, I remember something....oh my god.

I sober up and am slammed back into reality almost instantly. My face begins to burn and I Stifle a cry of humiliation as I realize; I’d just squirted all over his hand! That’s never happened to me before! Gray hasn’t said one word...he’s been silent since it happened! He probably has a look of disgust on his face, I can’t bring myself to look and see.

I try to move,, intent on getting away to take refuge on the other side of the bed. His arms immediately constrict around me, “Oh no you don’t, you aren’t going anywhere!”.  Suddenly he’s flat on his back keeping a firm grip on my hips as I’m forced to straddle him. Glancing over my shoulder I see the proud smirk he’s wearing, then he speaks; “Never had a girl do that before...I like it” giving me a wink afterwards. “Sh-Shut u-up” I mumble as I return my gaze to the wall in front of me, breathing deeply in attempt to calm my palpitating heart.

“Y’know normally I’d give you a little break but... I can’t...not after seeing you do that” he pauses, and I can’t see his eyes roaming over my back side, but I feel his hands slide down from my hips. Then a sharp SMACK resounds around the room, followed by my startled gasp. “Ride me...now!” a fierce growl preludes another sharp smack to my other ass cheek.

I don’t even bother to stop the excited shake that over takes my body, the sudden change into this demanding demeanor is thrilling! Keeping my back to him, I’m quick to position myself over his length and begin to sink down on it. The soft mewl I emit is drowned out by a hiss as the tip of his dick slips between my lips. “That’s it...good girl” he praises as he begins to rub out the red marks on my ass.

Eager to please I get straight to work.

Albeit a bit awkward at first, but Im able to get a steady rhythm going in no time. “So much better than in my dreams...fuckin’ hell __________ your ass is perfect! Yeah that’s it babe, bounce it just like that” Gray mumbles appreciatively, completely enamored with the sight in front of him. “Dream about me often do you?” I tease, throwing him a smug glance over my shoulder. “More often than I’d ever care to admit, now turn around and face me would you?.

I do as he asked, rotating my body to face him. He gently pulls me down towards him and I stop short, my face now inches above his own. My stomach feels like it’s filled with butterflies at the sudden closeness. Unsure of what to do I quietly whisper an awkward sounding “Hi”. A wide grin appears on his face as he responds; “Hi” followed quickly by a chuckle at my sudden awkwardness.

Now we’re both smiling at each other like complete dorks, and I’m compelled to lean forward and kiss him. I resume my ride as his tongue curls around mine, quickly losing myself in the passion of this moment. Gray is quick to pick up the slack, thrusting his hips upward each time mine sink down. The atmosphere in the bedroom has changed, we both feel it. When I say his name again it comes out in a breathy whine.

His eyes reflect an emotion I’ve never seen in them before and his tone is gentle when he says “I know baby, hold on just a little longer for me”. Strong arms wind themselves tighter around me, drawing my body in as close as possible as he speeds up the pace of his thrusts. “I want to feel you gush all over my cock when I finally get to cum inside you” his lips are on mine again, kissing me passionately while bouncing me up and down on his cock.“That okay with you baby? Do you want me to fill up this tight little cunt?”

My confession comes out quick and shameless; “Yes! God there’s nothing I want more right now, I’ve wanted that for ages!”.

“Tell me, who do you belong to now snowflake?”

“YOU! I belong to you now Gray”

“Tell me you need me”

“I need you, I never want to be without you, so please just-“

“Tell me...” he pauses, placing a hand on my cheek and staring into my eyes.

“Tell me you love me”.

[samingtonwilson]

Mac and Cheese

Summary: Bucky takes the last box of frozen mac and cheese, takes your phone, and makes you fall in love with him. The audacity of that man.

Prompt: “This has been a very bad week and you just grabbed the last box of my favorite comfort food at the supermarket” 

Pairing: bucky x reader

a/n: i wrote this and was fully done formatting it and everything, like, 6 months ago. i didn’t post it because it’s approx. 82% nonsense but i figured why not post it now when it’s still 82% nonsense but im struggling to finish everything else. so taal, long time vegan, writes a story about mac and cheese and, listen, idk what this fic is either. can i write a fic without adding sam to it? no.

Mac and cheese. That’s all you want. Disgusting, frozen, usually-quite-mushy-if-not-microwaved-correctly mac and fucking cheese. 

The kind with the layer of cheese on top. The kind with that real elbow pasta, not rotini or penne or seashell pasta— real macaroni. The kind you try to only eat one serving size of before you eat everything in the package. The kind you always gravitate to when your eyes are stained red, swollen, and too proud to be anything other than dry.

You take the subway. You switch lines. You endure the smell of the F train during rush hour when you aren’t sure where your thigh ends and the thigh of the woman sitting beside you begins. All for that one Trader Joe’s, out of many, in Brooklyn the hipsters abandon before six because the coffee shop next door closes at five.

Your feet ache in your boots and you’re pretty sure a rock has somehow lodged itself between your toes, it’s starting to rain and you have no umbrella, you don’t think your throat has ever felt so parched. 

But you tuck your phone into your back pocket and march into that store with the hideous overhead lighting that makes your skin look like it hasn’t seen a bottle of toner in days like you’re Hades, the box of mac and cheese is Persephone, and Trader Joe’s is Mount Olympus.

You aren’t planning on smiling at anyone in greeting. You aren’t planning on making eye contact with anyone. You aren’t even planning on waiting politely behind whoever is inevitably idly standing in front of the pasta section of the frozen aisle— you’re going to say, “Excuse me.” Like the badass, New Yorker, on-the-verge-of-tears bitch you are and you’re going to toss that mac and cheese into your basket like you’re Steph Curry at the NBA Finals.

Lines are long when you walk in, cashiers bored-looking and tired. The produce section is a jungle of stay at home fathers and people who make their own pressed juice, the salad display a mess of college students trying to eat healthy. 

Your eyes accidentally meet those of a toddler who is slyly plucking a grape from a bag he had no intention of spending his allowance on and you smile.

You hold your basket like a designer handbag and dilly-dally only for a moment to pick up some yogurt for breakfast tomorrow. 

And some inauthentic babka because there’s no way in hell you’re going to endure Zabar’s after this. 

And a package of olive oil popcorn, a bottle of three dollar chardonnay, and string cheese. 

But that’s it. Self-control.

You feel the chill of the frozen aisle before you step into it. You feel the magnetic pull of that box with only one step in its direction. You stop for just a second to grab the mini mango and cream pops.

You almost roll your eyes to yourself when you see that someone is indeed standing right in front of the frozen selection of pasta. He’s staring at two boxes— a red one in his gloved left hand and the one in his right hand green.

As you grow closer you notice behind his curtain of dark hair that his eyebrows are knit together and he’s frowning at a decision he must be forcing himself to make. 

Sophie’s Choice, but involving mediocre excuses for Italian food and no Nazis— hopefully. Because who really knows these days?

He wears a forest green hoodie under a black leather jacket, black jeans tight around thick thighs. Boots, too. You think you might swoon.

And you wait behind him. You tap your foot, shift your weight, and chew on your bottom lip. You don’t say anything.

He looks over his shoulder when you curse under your breath and set the heavy basket at your feet. He’s apologetic— and handsome— by the looks of it, blue eyes slightly widened and lips downturned. “Shit,” he says as he takes a few steps to the right. “I’m sorry.”

You shrug. You kick your basket with the toe of your boot until it lightly smacks against the bottom of the freezer. “No problem. It’s a big decision.”

His eyes lift from the boxes and he smiles. “Biggest one I’ve gotten to make in a while.”

Setting your hands atop the cold metal railing, you stare down into the freezer. You see farfalle with roasted tomatoes, rigatoni with pesto, ricotta and spinach ravioli, roasted vegetable lasagna, cauliflower gnocchi, chicken parm, and… an empty space. 

You tilt your head.

You lean away and crouch to read the description cards, looking for the bubble letters to tell you where on Earth your saving grace is. When you spot the card, you stand again. The indicated space is empty, your heart is empty, your will to live is—

A box of organic pesto tortellini is tossed back into the freezer and you look up. Your eyes might lose their prideful dryness at any moment, even in public next to that handsome stranger with the nice jacket and,

the box of mac and cheese.

You gasp audibly and leap backwards. You point at the box in his left hand.

With an expression of panic, he holds his hands— and the box— up in innocence. “It’s okay. I’m not—”

“What the fuck is that?” you shout to gain the attention of customers you don’t even perceive, waggling your finger at the box. Your wide-eyed stare, and bared teeth, and messy hair must be terrifying. You hope they are.

He looks down at his hand. An eyebrow lifts. And, confusedly, he asks, “The box?”

“Yes, the fucking box!”

“It’s mac and—” he meets your gaze again. You’re wearing your anger like armor. But you aren’t scared. Bucky thinks he might never have felt such relief at a woman’s anger. “It’s mac and cheese.”

You shake your head. Wildly. Your neck hurts. “It’s the last box of mac and cheese!”

He glances at the box, then back at you. He jabs his thumb over his shoulder. “They might have some in the back—”

You shake your head again. A hint of devastation cracks your voice as you say, “It’s Monday night. Trader Joe’s restocks Tuesday night. This is usually all they have left.”

“I—” He pauses. “Is this shit really that good—”

“No, it’s not but that’s not the point!” you’re shouting again. And crying. Oh, God, you’re crying. In public. “The point is my building is going co-op!”

He tilts his head. “Your building is—”

“And I have to buy my apartment if I want to keep it! And they don’t give raises at my job to women unless they’re willing to suck something I won’t say in front of that kid right there,” you nod toward a little girl in a pink raincoat with her pin straight black hair in pigtails who stares at you in bewilderment. You sniffle. “So I quit. And I’m proud of myself for it. Because I have integrity, and I have self-respect, and I have no gag reflex, so the rejection should kill my boss dead.”

He cracks a small smile when you let out a short, watery, pathetic laugh. Easily, he holds the box out to you. “I hope your boss is dead, too.”

You laugh again and don’t hesitate before taking the box. You wipe your cheeks with your sleeve. “Thank you. You’re nice.”

“Not a popular opinion, but one I’ll certainly take.” He’s smiling and it’s warm. “Sorry— about all that.”

“You’re apologizing to me? I just screamed at you in the Trader Joe’s freezer aisle over mac and cheese.”

He shakes his head and picks up his own basket when you grab yours. “Your building’s going co-op and your boss deserves to burn in hell. You should get all the mac and cheese you want.”

You reach into the freezer for that green box of tortellini he’d thrown in, tossing it into his basket with a smile. Steph Curry at the NBA Finals. “Still. I’m sorry for yelling and I hope the tortellini doesn’t suck too bad.”

“It’s frozen pasta. My expectations are low.”

You hum a laugh and walk past him to the crowded lines at the registers. “As they should be.”

It’s when you’re lost in the sea of customers and Bucky is deciding between frozen palak paneer and frozen lamb vindaloo with basmati rice that he feels a tug at the hem of his jacket. 

He looks away from the green and orange boxes, lowering his gaze to meet curious almond-shaped eyes beneath blunt black bangs. He smiles and she returns it. “Yes?”

She reveals her right hand, which she had hidden behind her pink raincoat, and holds a phone up to Bucky as far as her arm will let her.

“Is that your phone?”

She shakes her head and giggles. Loud, happy, and squeaky. “Yelling lady dropped her phone.”

Bucky’s eyebrows knit together until a woman, much closer to his height, steps behind the little girl. She takes the phone the girl holds out and offers it to Bucky when he straightens his posture. Her smile looks like the little girl’s. “We figured you would have a good chance at getting it back to her.”

He takes the phone and nods his thanks. Pressing the power button reveals a picture of you and a dog, a large, fluffy dog with its pink tongue hanging low. You’re smiling brightly and, oddly, it seems like the dog is, too.

—

“So you just took her phone? Didn’t even ask an employee to keep it there in case she came back for it?”

Bucky, watching the tray of pasta rotate in the microwave, scowls. “I would’ve if I’d known that was an option. And stop eating my fuckin’ chips.”

Sam tosses back another handful of kettle-cooked barbecue potato chips in defiance so the obnoxious crunching echoes through the kitchen. He smiles sarcastically when Bucky snatches the bag and rolls it up. Half is already gone. “You come up with how you’re gonna get it back to her?”

“Thinkin’ about asking Pepper to post a picture of it like it’s a missing child to that ‘Tweeter’ nonsense,” Bucky replies dryly. He’s glaring at Sam as he leans his hip against the counter. “You and I both know I haven’t come up with shit.”

Sam snorts and is smiling in amusement, deep brown eyes alight. Bucky hates the sight. “Tweeter. You’re so fuckin’ old.”

It’s been hours since Bucky took the phone from who he learned is little Vivienne and her mother, and he is no closer to getting it back to you. 

He’d tried looking for you at the store but there were too many people for a Trader Joe’s that Yelp claimed was the least busy in New York for that to yield results. So he returned to the Tower. He thought about asking Tony to look into the doohickey but figured an invasion of privacy should be the last resort.

He pulls the tray from the microwave with nimble vibranium fingers and sniffs the pasta before setting it down on the counter. He removes a bowl from one of the cabinets and dumps the steaming pasta in it, a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan from a tub he’d bought— also at Trader Joe’s— a finishing touch.

“She’s cute,” Sam says when the screen lights up with an incoming text notification.

Bucky spins his fork between his fingers as he walks around the counter to sit on the barstool beside Sam’s. He glances at the phone as well. “Very cute,” he agrees. “She had a shitty day. Something about her apartment goin’ co-op. Whatever the hell that means.”

Sam frowns. “Means she’s gotta buy the place. And with New York real estate prices right now,” he shakes his head with a sigh. “She better have a well-paying job.”

“Quit that today, too.” Bucky takes a bite of the pasta and hisses as it burns his tongue. “Boss is a creep that asked for some action in exchange for a raise.”

“Jesus. Poor girl.”

The tortellini isn’t great. It’s a little bland, a bit too dry, and there isn’t enough filling— but it’s better than Bucky had expected. He takes another bite. “Yeah. And I took the last box of mac and cheese. Which is what she went to the store for.”

“I’m surprised your head wasn’t chopped off.”

Bucky smiles. “She yelled— a lot. Was crying, too, ‘til she said something and made herself laugh.”

Sam then begins teasing Bucky juvenilely for having a crush until both men are laughing and shoving one another to see who falls off their stool first, Sam only relenting when Bucky hands the potato chips to him again as a peace offering.

The bowl is in the sink and the chips are down to just crumbs when a loud ringtone— an instrumental version of an R&B song Bucky recognizes from Sam’s many plays of the original— shocks the two of them.

It’s from an unknown number and Bucky is unsure if he should pick up until Sam swipes answer and puts the call on speakerphone. “Hello?”

A sigh. Bucky doesn’t know if it’s one of relief or frustration. “I’m hoping whoever this is found my phone and didn’t steal it.”  

Sam shoves Bucky’s shoulder with a toothy grin and Bucky rolls his eyes. “The little girl you almost traumatized in the freezer aisle found it and gave it to me.”

Another sigh— the relief in this one is obvious— and you’re laughing. “It’s you— tortellini dude. Must’ve fallen when I crouched down.”

“Seems like it, yeah.”

“So are you gonna ask for my address or do I have to schlep over to Avengers Tower?”

Bucky and Sam exchange a look. “Avengers Tower?”

“You weren’t exactly in disguise— I realized who you are the minute I left the store. Would’ve recognized you right away but I was in my own head and you aren’t my favorite Avenger.”

Bucky smiles. “Yeah? And who is?”

“Falcon.”

Immediately, the phone is taken from Bucky’s hand. “Hi, baby, you’ve got Falcon.”

A gasp, a pause, then you laugh. Audibly stunned laughter. “You guys actually hang out with each other? That’s cute.”

Before Sam can reply, Bucky flicks his forehead— in reply to which Sam elbows Bucky’s ribs— and takes the phone back. “I can bring your phone to you whenever you’re free.”

“Awesome. I’m unemployed now so any time tomorrow is fine.”

You tell him your address before hanging up and he wishes you a good night. Your laughter is the last thing he hears before three beeps signify the end of the call.

—

Bucky takes the subway. He switches lines to the F train. He tries not to mind the overpowering smell of stale B.O. and deli meat leftover from rush hour, the skittering steps of a rat across the floor in the adjacent empty car. He ignores those who stare at him intensely enough to burn the fabric right off his skin. All for that one apartment in SoHo.

He thinks the gash below his ribs might still be leaking as the warm, moist subway station air blows past him. He can feel that cluster of bruises above his knee— the one from the pipe the hostile operative had ripped off the rickety walls of a nearly destroyed Hydra base— every time he takes a step, more so as he climbs the stairs.

He knows he must be quite a sight with combat boots and tac pants worn and dusty, a simple bomber jacket thrown over a ripped, sliced, stained compression tank. His mind is blank, his eyes shadowy, the ghost of something terrible lurking behind blue and grey. 

Posture stiff and muscles cold, steps crisp despite the ache, he follows the familiar path and manages to form the thought of turning around. Not bringing this all to a threshold— or, more accurately, a windowsill— he’s only crossed three or four times. He’s too weak, though.

It takes one rap of his knuckles against the third-story window for a lamp to flicker on, gauzy drapes pushed aside. You smile as he lifts the window open, stepping aside as he enters the apartment with careful grace. He feels less guilty when he sees that your bed is still made and your hair isn’t the tangled mess it usually is when he bursts in at a late hour.

“I have a door.”

“Okay, show-off.”

It’s when he steps into the light of the standing lamp in the room’s corner that your quiet laughter gives way to a soft gasp. 

He doesn’t like the widening of your eyes or the way you gently lift the right side of his jacket, fingers light against the torn fabric. But you laugh again, and it shakes in nervousness. “You know I’m not a doctor, right? Or a nurse? Or even a pharmacist with high self-efficacy?”

He nods and, despite himself, there’s a smile pulling at a corner of his lips. His eyes brighten a little. “It’ll heal itself.”

“Confidence. I like that in a burglar.”

Before he can take a step further into your bedroom, you click your tongue against the roof of your mouth and point at his feet. “Boots.”

He kicks them off with a sigh and a groan when the shifting of his knee sends a tremor up his leg. His jacket is tossed aside as well, and he catches the black t-shirt you throw to him. You’d washed it, folded it, and put it in your closet. 

Just a little more brightness. “You owe me mac and cheese.”

“Oh, I owe you mac and cheese? We’re really holding onto shit from four months ago?”

He nods again and pulls his tank off, withholding a wince.

Eyebrow raised, you cross your arms over your chest. You’re giving him a narrow look but, because you’re clearly struggling against a smile, it’s one of his favorites of the expressions you’ve ever offered him. 

You give him a towel next— pastel blue. “Shower and then we’ll see about me owing you something.”

He wants to say thank you, do more than smile. 

But he knows if he so much as opens his mouth while you’re looking at him the way you are, he’ll tell you he’s fallen in love with you over the last four months, that maybe he’s been in love since you screamed at him in the freezer section of Trade Joe’s. 

He’ll go to say thank you, but the words of a Byron poem he’d learned to impress a girl in his English class more than eighty years ago will come pouring out or he’ll simply kiss you like he wishes he could on the nights he can’t sleep or during the missions he can just barely endure. 

He’ll go to say thank you, and then tell you with no clarity whatsoever that you’re what he finds comfort in when he’s had a hard day. That the disgusting, mushy, nothing-compared-to-fresh mac and cheese is just an excuse.

But he just smiles. And nods. And takes a shower.

His hair is still wet as he stands across from you at the kitchen counter. There’s a bowl of steaming pasta between you, a spoon in his hand and a fork in yours. “You’re dripping onto the counter.”

With a cocking of his eyebrow, he shakes his head and you sputter a laugh, shoving his shoulder. “Bucky!”

He laughs then, fully and happily, as he reaches over to wipe the drops from your cheeks and forehead. You only smile back, the gleaming of your eyes making him feel warm all over.

“This shit’s terrible, by the way,” he says after a minute of staring.

You shrug a shoulder. “Told you.”

“And you fought me for it. Publicly.”

You shrug again and laugh. You lean your elbows atop the counter to match his relaxed posture, dragging a noodle through a particularly large puddle of melted cheese. 

Looking up, your nose nearly bumps Bucky’s and you hope he doesn’t hear your breath stall. You try to smile. “Makes me feel better when I need to fill that hole in my heart.”

“With cholesterol?” he jokes.

“Yes. It’s excellent. It’s like spackle.” As he laughs and you roll your eyes, you push off the counter to stand straight. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah?”

You hum. “I’m seeing an apartment I want tomorrow and need the rent lowered. And you’re the Winter Soldier.”

He considers that for a moment and you burst into laughter just as his eyes narrow into a fond glare. “You want me to scare them into lowering the rent?”

“Don’t think of it as you scaring them,” you begin, rounding the counter to stand next to him, hip leant against the marble, “think of it as you being an amazing friend and helping me.” A moment later you add, “By scaring them.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. He glances at the bowl to avoid the risk of staring at you for too long. “Fine.”

You grin. “You really take no convincing.”

A snort and he meets your gaze. “Only when it comes to you. I’m afraid you’ll start crying again.”

“So I could ask you for anything and you’d probably say yes?”

He shrugs a bit, then nods. Who is he kidding? You could ask for his right arm and he’d give it to you.

“Okay. Go on a date with me then.”

There’s a pause— in the conversation, in his chest. “A what?”

“A date. It’s like dinner, or coffee, or a movie, or something.” You grin when he takes half a step in your direction and his hands grip onto the counter at either side of you. “It’s this thing people do when they like each other.”

Something much more than like is in the sparkling of your eyes and the tilt of your head. Something that might match exactly what’s in his eyes whenever he’s around you. His insides burn at the thought.

“I know what a date is.”

“They had those back in your day?”

He nods and leans forward. “Not from the Stone Ages.”

Your lips brush lightly against his, hand set on his chest to feel the rapid beating beneath. You smile and he thinks he might melt. “Could’ve fooled me with that hair.”

Laughing, he presses his lips to yours a little harder.

—

Apartment littered with unpacked boxes, misplaced books, and askew furniture, you sit on top of the counter where Bucky works. He’s twirling a knife through his metal fingers, arranging sprigs of chives on the cutting board with the flesh ones. 

He smiles when he catches you staring at the pan cooling on the stove. “S’not done yet.”

You sigh. Loudly, heavily. “You took it out of the oven. That means it’s done.”

“It needs to cool for a few minutes or you’ll burn off your taste buds. You want to burn off your taste buds?”

“You want to burn off your taste buds?” you repeat in a high-pitched, taunting voice. You’re scowling and, somehow, look to be on the verge of snatching the knife from him to stab it through his chest. “Maybe I do.”

Less than a minute later, you groan and add, “I don’t care how good you are in bed. I’m about ten seconds from dumping you.”

Swiftly, he chops the chives and turns around to sprinkle a bit into the baking dish. “You know, most people would say thank you.”

“Most people don’t have to wait an hour while their boyfriend attempts to make mac and cheese when there’s a perfectly good box in the freezer that would take four minutes.”

“It’s worth it.”

In all honesty, he doesn’t know if it’s worth it. 

He’d asked Sam for a recipe and did his best to follow it despite the autocorrect which had changed “gruyere” to “grape year.” But he trusts it since Sam generally knows what he’s doing in the kitchen. Unlike Steve who had continuously attempted to chime in with useless suggestions such as, “Maybe don’t add the paprika.”

“Just trust me,” he urges as if replying to the growling of your stomach which has interrupted his search for the plates he could’ve sworn he’d unpacked. He’s crouched and searching the lower cabinets as he adds, “You’ll fall in love with me after you try it.” 

“Who says I haven’t already?” 

He stops searching.

He peeks his head above the edge of the counter and, his eyes wide, he sees you pulling two plates from a box placed on the small nook table. Your smile is small and a bit sheepish— the latter something he’d never seen from you. 

“You never took them out,” you tell him, the clatter of ceramic on the wooden surface loud when you set the plates down. As you approach and he stands to his full height, you sigh and roll your eyes at the look he gives you. “Yes, I love you. It can’t be that shocking.”

“It isn’t.” 

“Someone should tell your face that.”

Chuckling over the heavy thumps in his chest, he leans forward to kiss you but pauses just to say, “I love you, too, by the way.” 

When an empty dish sits between the two of you, Bucky’s stomach warm and full of over three-quarters of it, you stand from the table and walk to the freezer. 

Shooting a smile over your shoulder, you grab the familiar red box and toss it into the stainless steel trash can. Steph Curry at the NBA Finals. “I’m never eating that shit again.”

[hamburgerhelpersotherhand]

Infatuation P1

Joe Goldberg x Reader x Love Quinn

Warnings: Casual Joe thoughts and stalking/watching from afar

Notes: Baby’s first fanfic... and I chose Netflix’s YOU of all things. This doesn’t specifically take place anywhere on any timeline, but know that Joe and Love are together. I don’t know if I should continue this but I felt like it needed to be posted.

There you were.

You are currently Love’s favourite customer and, as I watch you, I can’t begin to see why.

You’re not really interested in what’s on display, are you? You come in every day, glance around as if you’ve never seen the place, and slowly make your way to the front counter.

You don’t even say anything when you find yourself waiting alone, but you do toy with the bell charm on your bag. It’s almost like a replacement for your own voice.

You know, by the way you’re looking around, it almost seems like you’re searching for something... or someone. Should I feel threatened? You come in three times a week and hog Love’s attention like a spoiled kid.

Now you’re checking the time on your phone. Do you have somewhere else you have to be? Relax, Y/N, you’re just in Anavrin.

“Y/N, can you proof read this for me?” Forty walks into frame with his phone in hand, saving you from your awkward wait.

I click my pen and pretend to be taking inventory.

“I don’t know, I’m waiting for Love.” You say quietly. I almost didn’t catch that.

The conversation seemed to stop and I glance up to see Forty’s lips puckered. He’s thinking.

“Well, I don’t see her anywhere and it’ll only take a minute.” He continued suddenly. “Please, please, please?”

A little annoying, I will admit. But his request doesn’t feel like something you’d turn down-and I already spot you nodding your head. He hands you his phone and you begin to read.

Your lips are pursed and your eyes are moving back and forth. Either you’re a fast reader or Forty used a very large font size. Do you read often? Your bag looks big enough to hold a couple books.

You’re very petite, reserved and seem like just the type to secretly enjoy a steamy romance novel. As they say, It’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for.

“Sorry for the wait, someone left one of the spice caps loose and I had to clean the mess.” Love steals your attention away from Forty’s phone. He’s quick to take the device back from you. He looks frustrated.

“Oh, it’s alright! Forty was keeping me company.” You say, but Forty is already walking away- more specifically, walking towards me.

My attention is momentarily taken away from you while I look down and pretend to examine the books that came in this morning.

“Hey old sport, can you proof read this?”

I look at him, his phone, and then glance towards Love. He seems to notice and also glances back.

“Hey, Love has her friends and I have mine.” He snaps his fingers infront of my face and I look at him. “Right now is friend time and your creepy silence is not allowed.”

“I-“ before I can even get two words out, he’s got his phone in my face and an expectant look in his eye.

~

It had been a long day of enduring an earful from Forty. He’s passionate for his craft of the week, I’ll give him that.

But you... you left hours ago, yet you were still on my mind.

Love and you were in the back kitchen and I knew. Love doesn’t just take anyone into the kitchen, especially not a customer... no. You’re much more than that. Aren’t you, Y/N?

You two prepared a lunch together, as you did every time you found yourself at Anavrin.

“Will, I’m planning a ‘get together’ on Friday.” Love snapped me out of my expressionless daze. “In all seriousness, I just want to relax with some friends at home. Will you be there?”

“That depends, am I invited?” I reply with a quirked smile and an innocent look in my eye.

“Of course you are! Come over around 3, I’ll need help with dinner.” She doesn’t actually need help with preparing dinner, but I can tell she’d prefer the extra set of hands.

“I’ll be there.” I smile, a real genuine one too.

This is a nice conversation and all, but I want to find out more about you, Y/N. “While dinner is on the table, I was wondering if you wanted to go out and grab lunch with me tomorrow?” Im asking this because I know you’re coming in for your secret lunch dates with Love. This question is just the bait I need to get a conversation going.

“Oh. I don’t know about that. I kind of have plans with Y/N during my lunch break.” Bingo. Just what I wanted to hear. Well, not really but you get the point.

“Y/N... Is that... the...uhh...” This is all an act. I’m pretending to search for the name, but she’s never actually mentioned you to me directly before.

“She’s a customer.” Love says. Downplaying the meaning behind your relationship and keeping it professional? Are you two hiding something or am I just losing it?

“Is she the girl with the bell on her bag? There was a girl jingling something on her bag around noon.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely her.” Love nods. I like how reserved she’s being, despite feeling a bit frustrated that I couldn’t find out more. It’s almost like Love is tempting me to find you on my own.

“I guess lunch can wait then. I’ll be looking forward to dinner on Friday.”

Love leans forward and gives me one of her softest kisses. I return the action and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

My thoughts almost naturally start to drift to you again.

~

It’s another day at Anavrin, but I don’t see you anywhere.

Love is in the back kitchen, lost in her own cooking trance as per usual. She looks very beautiful with that focused look on her face.

But where are you? You were supposed to be here half an hour ago and yet, there’s no sign of you.

At least, not until I start to hear that little chime on your bag.

“Thank you for the input. I might not do anything with what you said, but I’ll definitely consider it.” That’s right... Forty knows you too. He’s talking about his story again and you seem interested. I can’t tell if you’re genuinely into it or just being nice.

When you come into view, Love looks up and spots you. You don’t notice her right away, but she smiles in your direction.

I spot your lips moving but I can’t make out what you’re saying. Damn it, Y/N. You have to get out of that mumbling habit.

Forty takes a sip of his drink and nods in response. Before I know it, you’re both going your separate ways: Forty hovers around some books while you go towards the back kitchen.

I look back to Love and see her eyes staring right at me. She’s looking with an unreadable expression... then she smiles, waves, and I wave back with a smile of my own.

I remember Forty and turn around.

“I kind of don’t like the placement of these.” Forty rotates a finger around the display. I ignore his statement.

“Who’s that girl?” I look towards the back kitchen. “I see her come in like every day but she doesn’t say a word.”

He seems to think for a bit as he spins whatever remains of his drink with his reusable straw.

“That’s Y/N.” I wait for him to continue. “She’s an old friend of Love’s. Y/N is back in LA and I guess Love just wants to spend time with her.”

“Who is she to you?” It only feels natural that I ask this. Forty seems to trail behind you, but it could be because you’re a recognizable face.

“I took her out on a date once.” He sips his drink. “Then she pretty much ghosted everyone when she moved.”

Now that... that makes me curious... I now want to dive deeper than I would have, if just to find out why you ghosted Love of all people. She’s good for you, she’s good for everyone.

There’s always the possibility you moved away with family, but I’d like to believe there’s a better story in there somewhere.

I think it’s time to see how reserved you really are, Y/N.

[criesinmultifandommess]

DSMP Model AU

something different from what I usually post :)

I don't really know much about modelling and fashion, so apologies if some of this is wrong or I'm missing something

lotsa words under the cut, you've been warned <3

Dream wants to create a fashion show :D

there's Dream's company known as Smile, the L'Manberg company, and a few freelancers that caught Dream's eye

Smile: Dream, Sapnap, Punz, Bad, Ant, Sam, Skeppy, Callahan, Purpled

L'Manberg: Wilbur, Niki, Eret, Fundy, Jack, Tommy, Tubbo, Ranboo

Freelance: George, Hannah, Schlatt, Quackity, Foolish, Puffy, Ponk, Techno, Phil

spans about 4-6 months in planning

something something scandal about Dream hiring Eret, Niki, Karl, Ant, and Puffy for LGBTQ+ brownie points uhh yeah American media is an absolute shitshow anyways all of them defend and support Dream (some nicely, some not-so-nicely, some very passive-aggressively)

the show itself takes less than an hour to do; 75 thousand people attend, even more watch it live

after party gets wild. almost no one remembers what happened that night, but it was wild (the interns were sent home early, dw)

they all trade numbers at the end to keep in contact, as they should

just a lot of forced friendship, screams, and chaos, nothing new

Models

George: an up-and-coming model; has an Instagram account that almost that a lot of people follow but he rarely posts; freelance

Sapnap: Dream's first model and followed him into the fashion world; likes to credit himself for getting Dream to where he is now

Wilbur: is a model for fun; works as a freelance musician but also accidentally created the L'Manberg company so yeah

Niki: also a model for fun; works at a flower shop in her downtime; part of the L'Manberg company

Eret: has been modelling for a while; was freelance for a while before getting picked up by the L'Manberg company; Wil likes to threaten to kick them out because they were the first one to agree to model in Dream's show but it's all lighthearted

Fundy: modelling is alright but playing pranks on the other models/photographers and recording them is much better; doesn't play pranks on any hair/makeup artists anymore tho bc one artist got so fed up they switched his outfit with a maid one and posted pictures; he still gets a lil nervous when he's getting his makeup done; accidentally called Wilbur his dad once and no one lets him live it down; part of the L'Manberg company

Hannah: likes to wear eco-friendly clothing; went through a phase of weaving roses into her hair regardless of what she was wearing; she still does that but dialed it down to only one rose and color coordinates the rose with her outfit; freelance

Designers

Dream: head designer, obviously; Sapnap dared him to wear a paper plate with a smiley face on it at a show/interview but it backfired because Dream's popularity skyrocketed and he made it his brand; parents passed down their company to him

Punz: does not care about dressing himself but will judge others; part of Dream's company

Schlatt: close to the L'Manberg company, but isn't a part of them; flirts with just about anyone; has several hidden stashes of alcohol scattered around the set that no one has discovered yet

Quackity: yes, he still wears the beanie; in a constant rotation of make chaotic clothing, flirt with pretty people, be depressed over pretty people, get angry for being depressed. rinse, wash, repeat forever; very afraid of Techno because he took an unflattering photo of him and is scared of it being used as blackmail; freelance

Foolish: likes to use gold and green/emeralds. a lot. very inspired by Egyptian clothing; has a little totem charm for luck; freelance

Hair and Makeup artists

Puffy: tends to dote on the interns; hangs around Niki, Sam, and Foolish; has styled hair for both companies before

Karl: works under Mr. Beast but close friends with Quackity and Sapnap who begged Dream put in a good word for him

Photographers

Ponk: when not working, likes to flirt with Sam; always has a lemon in his pocket and won't tell anyone why; freelance

Techno: technically freelance, but works closely with the L'Manberg company; very close to Phil; used to be a designer and clashed with Dream a lot, but he found he liked photography more; this doesn't mean Dream and Techno don't bicker when they see each other, oh no, their conversation is filled with insults

Agents/Managers

Bad: used to work under Dream's parents before Dream took over; more like an assistant for Dream himself rather than a manager, what with all the things Dream asks him to do

Ant: agent for Dream's company

Phil: technically a freelance agent/manager, but works closely with the L'Manberg company; very close to Techno

Technicians

Sam: unofficial head technician; part of Dream's company

Skeppy: manages the camera footage: part of Dream's company

Callahan: doesn't say anything, which is why Dream likes him (jk); fixes problems quickly and silently tho; part of Dream's company

Jack: can normally be seen wearing headphones; somehow is the dad friend and chaotic friend at the same time; part of the L'Manberg company

Interns

Tommy: joined the L'Manberg company because he looks up to the members and their associates (but he won't tell them that)

Tubbo: joined the L'Manberg company to follow Tommy; jokingly starts a new company called Snowchester with Ranboo and a pig plush they named Michael

Ranboo: technically working under the L'Manberg company, but then again, Dream has also offered for Ranboo to work for him... but does he abandon them or give up on an opportunity hmm

Purpled: is he working for money? is he held against his will? who knows: seems to appear and disappear without a trace; intern for Dream's company

Excerpts

George Davidson, more widely known as GeorgeNotFound, is a handsome British model that's been taking the world by storm. A magazine once described him as "you're either in love with him or want to be him", and, quite frankly, it's true.

Clay Craft, also known as Dream. The charming CEO of his parents' company, Smile, and starting up his very own fashion show. Rumor has it that the show will not only feature his own employees, but will also include some showstopping names from L'Manberg, as well as some very talented freelancers.

Wilbur Soot, the leading model and creator of L'Manberg. Though his company may have been started on a whim, no one can say that L'Manberg is unsuccessful, as it quickly rose in popularity, much like the man himself.

Smile is one of the best fashion brands out there, if not the best. With their wide range of products and people, Smile makes sure that every customer leaves with a smile.

"L'manberg?" Dream chuckles. "What a stupid name. L'manchildberg is a much better fit." "At least our brand isn't just a smiley face one of my friends drew on a paper plate." Wil snarks back.

You know, when Schlatt first asked Wilbur to model for him all those years ago, neither knew that their popularity would pick up, Wil would open his own company, and they would catch the eye of Dream himself.

George didn't know what to expect when his agent told him that Dream was interested in having him in his show, but watching one of the most famous designers fall to the floor, dying of laughter over a deez nuts joke was nowhere near what he could've imagined.

Celeb News @/CelebNews L'Manberg technician Jack Manifold leaks that his company will be participating in Dream's fashion show! The question on everybody's mind is: who will be in it? Mack Janifold @/JackManifold NO NO NO I DIDNT LEAK SHIT @/JackManifold https://www.youtube.com/thislinkaintreallmao YOU IDIOT Jack Manifold @/JackManifold OKAY MAYBE I LEAKED SOMETHING Wilbur Soot @/WilburSoot GODDAMNIT JACK

Celeb News @/CelebNews Dream goes in depth about his vision for his show and drops a few names you might recognize! https://www.youtube.com/ihavenoideahowtwitterworks Dream @/designerDream Replying to @/ :)

Celeb News @/CelebNews Has one of the most famous designers cut his fame short? According to an anonymous source, Dream may have hired some of the people on his show for "representation" instead of talent. Technoblade @/Technoblade bruhhh Sapnap @/Sapnap and you know this how? Are you Dream? Didn't think so

Dream @/designerDream None of the people in my show have been chosen for "representation". All of them are very talented and amazing in their own right, and they are more than just their sexuality or their job. Karl Jacobs @/KarlJacobs Replying to @/ am i just a person who does makeup to you D: Antfrost @/Frosty_Ant if i say im straight will i be kicked out of the show Red Velvet @/Velvet_Cake @/Frosty_Ant we were never dating, we're just really close best friends :) Eret @/The_Eret can't believe I got into the famous Dream's fashion show because I like all genders! Puffy @/CapnPuffy lmao same! Niki @/nikinihachu lmao same!

[dontshootmespence]

Through It All

Part 25

Summary: Now married, Spencer & Y/N navigate the D/s lifestyle. How will their relationship change?

Words: 1,362

Warnings: Face-sitting, anal sex.

A/N: My first entry for @cm-kinkbingo​​ run by my beautiful girlfriend @heycasbutt. This fills my anal sex square.

Eighteen months must mean some kind of a growth spurt, because Charlotte is all over the apartment now. Any chance she gets, she follows you and Spencer around, knocking things over and pulling out plugs from walls just because she’s discovered she can. Not that there aren’t wonderful things to go along with the crazy, but she’s much more active now.

Between her growing into the tiny little human she is, work and finishing up adoption classes, you and Spencer haven’t had a ton of time for each other and it’s starting to wear on you both. On top of that, an expecting mother had chosen to meet with you and picked you for adoption only to back out two weeks later, which left you both feeling on edge. Every adoption agent says “don’t get attached,” but it’s practically an inevitability and having her back hit you hard.

But you plow forward. After miraculously getting Charlotte to bed, you and Spencer decide to snuggle on the couch. He’s wearing a pair of gray sweatpants sitting snugly on his hips. Slipping one of his oversized t-shirts over your head you follow him outside and nestle yourself underneath his arm, resting your head against the broad expanse of his chest.

“Spence?”

He shudders and you look up to see him staring off into his own little world.

You call him again.

“Yea?”

“You okay?” You ask. “I just called your name and you got all spacey.”

“Sorry, just- this. It’s hard. I wanted that baby.”

Heat builds up behind your eyes. “Me too. I just keep telling myself that that baby wasn’t meant to be ours. Another one is.”

“I want Charlie to have a brother or sister.” This time when his mind began to wander, you could tell he was thinking of Charlie playing around with a younger sibling. “Sooner rather than later.”

“She will.” You place your hand against his chest and slowly begin to maneuver yourself into his lap, your knees coming to rest on either side of his legs. “Is there anything I can help you with in the meantime?” His smirk mirrors your own as his hands slip up your thighs. “Maybe we can try something we haven’t before.” You trail off and watch him think it over. There isn’t a whole lot that you haven’t tried that you still want to, but then it clicks.

You lean into him and grind ever so softly against his straining erection, whimpering when his fingers skirt the edge of your panties and slip around the curves of your ass. One hand slides up the small of your back as he kisses you, his teeth tugging gently on your bottom lip. “Let’s go inside. I have an idea.”

Chuckling, you follow behind him, jump on the bed and make quick work of your panties, throwing them to the side just as Spencer finds what he’s looking for - the dildo you attached to the wall a while ago. “Wouldn’t want my little girl to go without an empty hole now would we?”

“No, Sir.” Two fingers swipe against your slick entrance, pushing inside without any resistance. “Want a taste?”

Spencer moves faster than you’ve ever seen him before. It makes you laugh so loud you’re afraid you’ll wake Charlotte. “Don’t make me scream. We don’t wanna wake her.”

“That’s on you not to be noisy,” he teased, wrapping his hands around your thighs to bring your pussy toward his eager, hungry mouth. “Rest your legs on my shoulders.”

In this position, your legs are wrapped fairly tightly around his head and although it’s ridiculous you’re always afraid of suffocating him. But in his words, “if that’s how I die so be it.” Before you can say anything, he licks all the way from your ass to your clit, flicking his tongue against it to send you bucking into his mouth. “Let go, if I die here. I die here. Just don’t tell anyone how I went,” he laughs.

Your snort turns into a whine as his thumb and forefinger and spread your pussy open for him. In preparation, you reach into the nightstand and grab the lube, laying it down near your ass.

He groans into you. “Someone’s eager.”

“Need all my little holes filled.” Spencer’s pupils blow wide and it’s all the high you need. “Wanna fuck my ass, Sir?”

Without a word, he grabs your hand and pulls it down to your pussy, motioning for you to touch yourself while he reaches for the lube. He applies a generous amount in his hands and begins massaging around the tight ring of muscle. You’ve prepared for this with other instruments. Especially your favorite plug. But this is the first time you’ll be doing it without toys. As his other hand strokes up and down his cock, he sees you tense. “What’s our word?”

“Red, Sir.”

“I’ll go slow.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

When he nudges the head of his cock against your ass you grab the sheets and still yourself. For a moment, there’s pressure, and then the slightest hint of pain, but it’s nothing you can’t handle or haven’t handled before. And then he’s inside you, slow and gentle thrusts allowing further and further in each time.

Reaching back, you grab the headboard and open your eyes, watching as Spencer’s mouth drops open. “Fuck, your ass is so tight.” Without looking, he reaches for the dildo and slips it between you. “Once I slip this inside you, you’ll be even tighter. I might lose my mind.”

“But what a way to go, right?”

You whimper as the dildo slips inside you, building up the pressure you feel. The mixture of pleasure and pain is eye-watering. Spencer teases you - your dripping pussy providing more lube as he picks up the pace of his thrusts. “How’s it feel, baby?”

“So tight, Sir. I-I-” The words won’t form as he thrusts again, almost to the hilt this time. “Just...fuck my ass. Please. I need it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a slut that needs to have my holes filled, Sir.” You push up with your palms and use it as leverage to fuck yourself onto him. “Feels so big. So tight.”

Spencer grunts, watching himself slide in and out of you before bending down to kiss you. With his body almost flush against yours and his cock in your ass, his body presses the dildo deeper and deeper inside your sodden pussy. “God, Y/N, you’re so tight,” he breathes against your neck.

Each movement made your body tighten, coil in anticipation of your nearing release. His fingers scraped up and down your arms and across your chest and stomach, leaving no part of you untouched. “Not gonna last,” he breathes.

“Come for me, Sir. Please. Fuck me harder.”

Spencer reaches up with one hand and clasps yours, white-knuckling the headboard with the other as he picks up speed. Mouth agape, you whine and beg him over and over again to come for you. When he finally cries out and shudders above you, you feel your body seize and your eyes roll back in ecstasy. “Fuck!”

His lips crash into yours, silencing your cries as he slowly pumps into your ass. “Fucking hell, Y/N,” he laughs, carefully pulling out and turning to grab a towel. With his free hand, he wipes the hair out of his eyes and turns to see your cheeks flushed red. “You okay?”

“More than. That was. Mmm. Yea. I could put that into the rotation if you know what I mean. Little messy though.”

Pulling you close by the small of your back, he kisses down the side of your neck. “How about we go shower it off? Get all sudsy.”

“Fantastic idea. We’ll only do this when Charlie’s asleep.”

With a few strides of his long legs, he gets up and picks you up bridal style to carry you to the shower. In the bathroom, a lightbulb goes off in his head. “Wait, maybe we can do this in the shower! Two for one?”

“Sexy times and no mess?” You exclaim. “You’re such a genius.”

He snorts. “I know.”

@heycasbutt @ultrarebelheart @katherineisagubler @proud-slytherin-ghost @randomwriter23 @fandom-queen67 @sixx-sic-sixx @xqueenofthecraziesx @aofay02 @groovyreid @criesinreid @jdougl-love @xreider @cringeemospntrashassbutt @prettyboyeffect @prettyboyreid @themanip @spencerreidsthings @augustgraceful @whollytaciturn @prisonreid @factualfic @jasmine-negron @snitchthewitch @ellabobella051419 @crazyforsstuff @kaatelyyynn​ @jane-dough @dreatine @bitter-post-millennial @adlerorzel-blog @hallieedrew @psychedelephantt @krisymccall996 @4ueijos @mclaujac @ray-likes-starwars @nurseemilyblog @slightlyvicked @she4567 @guesswhosback129 @princessdolan @happycreatorfangirl @fallwhisper @nyemadowell @sammy-jo1977 @sin-bin-and-tragedies @imsuperawkward @ahhahahaheehee @crispygiantsaladgarden @reputay-swift @pizzarollsfordayz @andiebeaword @timey-wimey-lovi @garbagecanfics @friedparadisetale @dereksbetaa @idontevenknow2 @holyfishloverfarm @nohemi2500 @typeshitbih @sadgirlhan @kmc217 @bigbuttsowhatuniverse @charmedfandomgal @im--blushing @dangerouspersonllamabagel @fichoe21 @yes-sir-hotchner @thefandomallrounder @mrsenos08 @walkerchick007 @letsdisneythings @winchesterqueenie @specialagentleigh @spn-wheresthepie @haileymew @bitchyoulied @geniusgub @urdicksmol @6lack6erry @slutlanna976 @downondilaudid​ @baileysb1tch @la-vie-en-amour1​ @letsdoit-tomorrow @eideticprettyboydrreid​ @lazynoodledragon​ @shybaby231 @aimzonicles97​ @grace-superpowers​ @softestlavender​ @ssa-dr-ladylock​ @drprettyboy​ @patricks-fabulous-face​ @tearosaria​ @shxdowofdarkness​ @marvels-gurl​ @gublergirls​

[meow-bebe]

stellatus

Pairing: Lee Felix x artist!reader

Genre: fluffffff

Warnings: literally nothing. this is so sweet asghk we’re channeling the cute here. like honestly not even my usual cussing

Word count: 3614 (!!!)

A/n: remember that idea I posted a while ago? well heres the fic! Im suuuper proud of this one because its the longest thing ive written for this blog (3k! more than 3k! that makes me so happy ahhhh!) and also I just really love it! usually I don't particularly like my own writing but this one I feel like is my best work. also about half way through writing this I found this amazing drawing by @panini-byanyothername​ which gave me the encouragement to finish this and also deserves all of the love because its an amazing piece of art! it was drawn based on another fanfic but its super pretty and is very close to what my story is about so I thought it would be appropriate to include a link

~~~

stēllātus; first/second-declension adjective starry, stellate, starred

“I have an idea,” you announced, bouncing with excitement as you ran into the room where Felix was currently sat at your desk on his computer. Latching your arms around Felix’s neck from behind, you rested your chin gently on his shoulder. 

“And what would that be?”he asked, spinning the office chair he sat in and successfully rotating within your arms. 

“I want to paint on you!” you said brightly as Felix’s hands came to rest on your waist as you snuggled closer, plopping down into his lap. 

“What?” Felix asked, slightly startled by your bold proposition. 

“I want to paint on you,” you repeated, “like, kind of use you as a human canvas?” It came out more as a question than a statement, and you grinned awkwardly, the incredulous tone of his voice making you shy. 

“I’m not opposed,” Felix mused, and you immediately brightened back up again. “Why though?”

“Well,” you said, fingers playing with the strings of his hoodie, “first of all you’re the only person I have on hand at the moment.” You giggled, and Felix raised a hand to his chest in mock offense. “But I’ve always loved painting on skin. There’s some strange appeal that comes with turning another human being into art. Unfortunately, I’ve only ever done it on myself before, but I had this really amazing idea a while ago and have held onto it forever and you are absolutely perfect for it.” You finished by pressing a sweet kiss to his nose. “So?” you asked eagerly, “what do you say? Let me paint on you?”

Felix chuckled lightly, and you could feel the deep vibrations where your hands were set on his chest. “Aren’t you going to tell me what your amazing idea is?” 

“Nope!” you said cheerfully, popping the ‘p’ as you smiled happily, “You’ll just have to say yes and see what I do. It will be beautiful, I promise.” 

Felix playfully narrowed his eyes at you. “You won’t do something stupid or make me look weird?”

“I would never,” you said, sticking out your littlest finger, “pinky swear. And anyway, nothing could ever make you look weird, pretty boy.” Felix’s eyes widened at your compliment, a light shade of red creeping across his cheeks as he wrapped his pinky around yours. No matter how often you complimented him he always had the sweetest flustered reactions. 

“What are we waiting for then?” you practically vaulted out of his lap, tangling your fingers together and tugging on his hand to try and get him to follow you. 

“What, now?” he asked, a bewildered look on his face.

“Yes, now,” you said, pulling on his hand again, “I can’t wait any longer, I’m dying to finally do this.”

“Alright,” Felix said, laughing as he stood up from the desk, whatever he was working on earlier abandoned as you enthusiastically pulled him along to the spare bedroom turned art studio. 

“Here,” you said, tossing one of the already paint-stained cushions you often put to use out of the closet, “sit down while I find what I need.” 

Felix grabbed the cushion and set it on the large, clear plastic mat you always kept set out over the hardwood floors. There were several places you had set up for painting, laying on the floor and the easel by the window being two of your favorites, and you rotated between them depending on how you were feeling that day. It seemed like today was a sprawled across the floor day, although that made sense, Felix reasoned, if you were going to be painting on him. He sat down and watched as you zipped back and forth across the room, picking through your jars of brushes and bins of paints to find the supplies you would be using. 

Thrusting one of the mason jar mugs you used to wash out your brushes at Felix, you asked, “Could you go fill this up with water for me?” He nodded compliantly, pulling himself up off the floor and traipsing across the hall to the bathroom to fill the glass mug with water. When he came back into the room, you had set up a jar of brushes to pick through, tossed a few tubes of paint to the floor next to the two cushions, and were currently spread across a decent portion of the floor with one of the large folders you had labeled as “inspiration and references.” These were collections of anything you could possibly want to give you ideas or utilize in your art, ranging from newspaper clippings, old photographs, passages from books and poems scrawled on torn notebook paper (or on the more rare occasion, printed out), and absolutely filled to the brim with doodles and practice drawings. You were a firm believer in the idea that anything could be reused or help inspire you in the future, which ultimately lead to your large collection. Usually you tried to date the bits of paper you tucked away, but it didn’t help with your chronic lack of organization. 

“What are you searching for?” Felix questioned, assuming that you wouldn’t answer but asking anyway. 

“Can’t tell,” you said, eyes twinkling with a spark of mischief, “it’s supposed to be a surprise, remember?” 

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop asking. What do you want me to do then?” he asked, looking around the room and wondering what you had planned for him. 

“Just sit, I’ll find it in a moment.” Felix settled himself back down on the floor as you continued to rifle through the folder barely containing the papers inside it. He watched as you carefully separated a few glossy photos that had stuck together and shuffled through a stack of what appeared to be old school work. “Aha!” you shouted victoriously, startling Felix and holding a few taped together pieces of paper in the air. 

“What’s that?” he asked, his curiosity over both the project itself and the haphazardly folded but carefully assembled papers in your grasp too much to handle. 

To his surprise, you gave in this time. “Star chart!” you chirped, obviously too pleased with yourself to continue hiding your intentions. “I’ve always loved space, specifically stars, and I took an astronomy class in high school but never got rid of the papers that weren’t just worksheets. I always hoped that someday I would be able to use them for painting. And here we are!” Felix smiled at the happy grin lighting up your whole face, your excitement too endearing to not acknowledge. 

“Cute.” Felix grinned happily as you shuffled over to where you had set up all of your supplies. All of a sudden his smile turned bashful, stammering slightly as he asked, “Should I like, take my shirt off or something then?” 

You giggled, setting down the star chart and plucking a thin marker from amongst the plethora of materials. “Not this time. I want to do your face!” 

“What?” Felix gasped, eyes widened in surprise. 

“I want to paint on your face!” you repeated, excitement fading as you rolled the marker between your hands, suddenly nervous. “Your freckles, specifically. Only if you’ll let me though.” You fidgeted slightly, focused on the marker before looking up at Felix who still wore a slightly startled expression. 

“My - my freckles?” he asked, and you nodded. 

“Yeah. Finding patterns that match my constellations-” you patted the papers sitting beside you - “and then turning your face into a little galaxy.” 

“Y/n,” he said softly, and you braced yourself to be turned down, “I think that’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever come up with. Why would I ever say no?” 

Your eyes shot up to find Felix’s, and you could see all of the adoration that he held for you in their depths. “Really?” you asked, pulling yourself into his lap and tucking your arms around his waist.

“Really,” he confirmed, sealing a gentle kiss against your mouth. “Now, how do you want to go about this?” 

You clamored off of Felix, grabbing the marker from where you had dropped it at his side and snatching the star chart into your hands before thrusting it at Felix. “Pick a few that you like, and I’ll see if what I can do to weave them out of your freckles,” you said, placing the folded chart into his hands and backing off to begin rifling through the paint tubes you had chosen. “Try not to do anything too difficult, I think the simpler ones would look better for this.” 

Leaving him to pour over the constellations, you realized that you had overlooked finding a palette earlier in your scramble to find paints, so you pulled yourself up off the floor to move to the closet once again. Shoving a few bins of paints and stacks of assorted canvases to the side, you finally found the collection of palettes stored near the back of the shelf. Just barely managing to get your finger under the one on the bottom (the shelf was slightly too high, not enough to really bother you, but it could be a minor inconvenience sometimes), you dragged the precariously balanced stack towards yourself. 

“What about Lyra?” Felix called from behind you. 

“That would work,” you mused, shuffling through the pile in search of one not too caked in dried paint. 

“Or Aquila?”

“Also fine,” you responded, selecting a mostly clean palette. “I really want to try Draco, so we’ll do that one first and then fit the others on after that. Sound good?” 

"Anything you want to do is good with me," he replied, and you turned to see the pretty blush staining his cheeks.

"But you're the one making this project come to life," you said, crossing the room in a few steps and settling down in front of him. "You should have some input."

"I'm merely the final product in this situation. You, y/n, are the one bringing it to life." Now it was your turn to grow flustered by his compliments. 

"Oh hush," you said, searching on the floor for the marker you had set down.

Finding your marker, you uncapped it and scooted closer to Felix. "Ready?" you asked.

He looked at the marker warily. "I thought you were painting."

"I am painting, but I have to sketch it out first," you laughed. "I always do."

"Oh," he said, looking down shyly. He always loved to watch you paint, however paying attention to the process was something else entirely. "Well go on then."

Studying his face carefully, you placed a small dot on top of a freckle close to the top of his cheek. Glancing back at the star chart, you drew another right under it, and awkwardly angled your pen to try and reach better. Pulling the papers mapping out your reference closer, you shuffled to the side and drew another dot.

"This isn't working very well," you said, taking Felix's chin in your hand and tilting his head to the side to try and reach better. "I might move you again, so try not to move and tell me if it's too uncomfortable."

Felix nodded in response just as you set the tip of the marker against his cheek, leaving a small inky streak down his face. You sighed. "Next time just say you heard me. I'm going to get the rubbing alcohol.” You stood up and headed to the bathroom, opening the cabinet and rummaging around to find the necessary bottle. Finding what you needed, you stood up and crossed the hallway once again to rejoin Felix.

"Here." Felix held out a cotton ball that he had no doubt found in the depths of one of your many bins of random art supplies.

"Thanks," you said quietly, already flipping the top of the rubbing alcohol open and soaking the cotton in liquid before scrubbing it gently across Felix's cheek. He held still for the moment, letting you remove the ink from his face and watching your movements carefully.

"Done?" he asked as you tossed the now somewhat grey cotton ball to the floor.

"Yep." you picked up your marker again. "Good to go?" He nodded again, this time making sure that the marker was nowhere near his skin.

You set back to work, switching between analyzing the star chart and making small dots where you could connect the freckles strewn across Felix's face to resemble the constellation you had picked.

After readjusting Felix's face for the nth time, you sighed. “This isn’t working,” you complained, capping your marker and letting your hand fall into your lap. 

“I can tell,” Felix mused. “Any ideas?”

You tilted your head, scanning over his face, and Felix could see the imaginary lightbulb pop up above your head as a grin spread across your face. “Maybe,” you said cheekily, crawling into his lap and once again uncapping your marker. Placing the non inky end into your mouth, you cupped your hands around Felix’s cheeks, gently moving his head around until you think you’ve found the perfect angle. “Don’t move.” 

Finding that your new vantage point gave you perfect access to the soft skin of your boyfriend’s cheeks, you steadily set back to work, sketching light lines between the makeshift “stars” that quickly began to fill the freckles dotted across Felix’s face. 

“Alright! I’m all done.” You leaned back a bit to admire your work, already extremely happy with the way that everything was turning out. “And now -” you clambered off Felix’s lap to let him stretch while you gathered the scattered supplies necessary for the next step of your project - “we paint!” 

Felix giggled at the enthusiasm spreading a happy brightness across your face, bringing you closer for a chaste kiss as soon as you had settled yourself back across him. Clasping the brush you had picked up between your teeth as you seemed prone to do, you grabbed two of the few tubes of paint selected from a small box of metallics Felix wasn’t aware you had and unscrewed the one containing silver paint. Squeezing a small amount onto the palette in your other hand, you replaced the cap and set it to the side. 

You pulled the paintbrush from your mouth, and said, “This is it. No going back after I start painting,” you warned, absolutely failing to hide the playful tone in your voice. 

“I have sharpie all over my face,” Felix laughed, “I’m pretty sure we reached that point a while ago.” 

“Right,” you said, ducking your face a little, trying to hide your embarrassed expression. “Well then, let the painting begin!” Placing a sweet kiss to the tip of Felix’s nose, you swirled your brush through the silver paint and hesitantly hovered over the inked lines connecting his freckles. 

“You’re not going to mess this up,” Felix reassured, almost as if he could immediately pick up on your thoughts, “anything you paint is always beautiful and I have complete confidence in you.” 

The compliments flustered you even more, and muttering a soft, “Oh, be quiet,” you set your brush down, dragging the bristles across the lines you had laid down earlier. 

Felix shuddered under the cool touch of paint stroked across his face, and you backed off for a moment, letting him adjust to the foreign feeling. “Try not to move,” you said, setting down your palette and cupping his jaw sweetly. 

You painted thin, careful lines over all of the drawn out constellations, painstakingly smoothing the edges and adding a second layer to those where the black ink was still visible. While you kept all of your focus on the paintbrush in your hand, Felix lost himself in the way that you concentrated on the task you had set yourself to. He loved to watch you paint, and the experience was ten times better when you were right up close. Felix watched your expressions as you immersed yourself in your work, noticing every little forehead scrunch, loving the cute way that you would chew on your lip or poke your tongue out when you got to a particularly tricky spot. There wasn’t enough focus left to be self conscious when you truly absorbed yourself in your art, and it was times like these that Felix thought you were most true to yourself, which lead to it also being when he found you most beautiful. Not that you weren’t other times, certainly, but there was something enchanting about your little expressions and the way your hair would stick up from running your fingers through it. You would always have paint all over your hands, no matter how careful you had been, and when it was still wet the pigment often transferred to your face or hair. Of course you never noticed, and so Felix would let you know you should probably look in a mirror, but only after silently appreciating the way that the smudged paint on your forehead somehow only enhanced the glow of beauty that truly being in your element brought out.

“There we go!” you suddenly exclaimed, startling Felix out of his reverie. “I’m finished with the lines,” you told him, dropping your paintbrush into the cup of water and swishing it around a little. “Now I just have to do the stars.”

You leaned to the side and reached around Felix to grab the other tube of paint you had taken out and added some of the gold to the palette before screwing the cap back on and tossing it next to you. Balancing the palette on your knee, you grabbed the cup containing your brush and dragged it toward you. Quickly and thoroughly rinsing the paint from the bristles, you wiped off the excess water and took Felix’s face into your hand once again, gently maneuvering him back into a position where you could easily paint. 

Now used to the feeling, Felix didn’t startle when you began painting again, the cool touch of the paint to his cheek calming. You worked steadily, crossing tiny strokes to form the stars connecting the constellations created by his freckles. Every now and then you would shift in his lap, or make sure that the angle his head was at wasn’t making his neck ache, but for the most part you worked silent and still. 

You smoothed tiny lines into shapes, keeping them tidy and occasionally layering more paint on where it had smudged or the first coat had been too thin. After finishing one of the stars higher on his cheek, you leaned back to admire your work. 

“I think I’m done,” you said softly, wiping a bit of golden paint off Felix’s forehead. 

“Can I see?” he asked, plucking the paint brush out of your fingers and placing it in the paint water. 

You nodded, climbing out of his lap and gesturing towards the messy desk in the corner of the room. “There should be a mirror up there. I’m going to go get my Polaroid camera.” You loved that camera, it had been a gift from a friend years ago, and you only pulled it out for special occasions. Felix knew how much it meant to you, and the fact that you wanted to capture this moment with it warmed his heart. 

When you returned to the room, Felix was sitting back on the cushions you had pulled out, the small hand mirror next to him on the floor. “It’s beautiful, y/n,” he said, and you smiled at the compliment, whispering a quiet “Thanks.” 

“Where do you want me?” Felix asked, nodding towards the camera in your hands. 

“By the window, probably,” you said, “I think backlighting would look good for this.” It was reaching late afternoon now, and the sun was beginning to sink to the horizon quickly. The golden light would shine through his hair beautifully, and Felix always glowed in the sunlight. 

The two of you moved to the other side of the room, and Felix quickly set himself up in front of the window. 

“Should I pose or something?” Felix asked, and you shook your head in response. 

“Just do what feels natural,” you said, squinting at him through the viewfinder on your Polaroid before lowering it to watch him adjust for the photo. He seemed to relax under your gaze, and turned his head to the side so he was looking straight into the lens as the light washed over the paint trailed across his face, illuminating the shine of the metallics you used. He stilled after a moment, and after you were sure he wasn’t going to move, you pressed the shutter. The camera began printing your photo, and after a moment you plucked it from the slot, pressing it between your lips and bringing the camera back up to your eye. 

“I want to take one more,” you mumbled around the developing photo in your mouth, “close your eyes for me?” Felix complied, letting his lashes flutter against the top of his cheeks as a small smile settled across his face. You snapped your second photo, bringing the camera down and tucking the earlier in between your fingers as you waited for the second to print. Felix came to stand next to you, taking the second photo and looking over your shoulder to see how the first one turned out. 

As you watched the color seep onto the glossy paper you knew that the stars across his cheeks, no matter how pretty they were, could never compare to the stars that shone in his eyes. He was truly beautiful, and standing there with your camera in hand, his hair brushing against your cheek, you were never more aware.

[oswildin]

Don’t You See? {Part One} ~ Dhawan!Master x F!Raeder

~ I KNOW IM BEING REALLY BAD AND WRITING IMAGINES THAT I HAVE STUCK IN MY HEAD BEFORE POSTING THE REQUESTS YA’LL HAVE MADE, I PROMISE ONE IS COMING TODAY! ~

Summary: You’ve known the Master for years. You’ve fought him with the Doctor time and time again, yet he always comes back.

Warnings: Some crude implications hahahaha

Part Two - https://oswildin.tumblr.com/post/610934402369880064/dont-you-see-part-two-dhawanmaster-x

You had known the Doctor a long time. She was your best friend. You were always the one that stood by her. You watched her as she lost her companions one by one. You would feel her pain every time she showed up to your door, defeated once more. It was the curse of living such a long and reckless life.

You’d met her in her tenth form. She’d just lost Rose back then, and was quite withdrawn and lonely. You were there ensuring she was ok. Although you didn’t know it at the time, you would be one of the lucky ones that stuck around. Many died or left the Doctor. You on the other hand decided to keep a healthy balance between life on Earth and life with the Doctor. Maybe that’s how you survived for so long with her.

You also knew the Master. You’d met him when he was Harold Saxon, trying to destroy the Earth. He’d kept tabs on you, knowing you were on the Doctor’s loyalist friends. You were aboard the valiant as Martha travelled the planet below. You had hated the Master, hated what he had done. He was selfish, cruel and most of all cowardly, everything the Doctor taught you not to be.

Of course, he would never admit he was cowardly. But you saw behind the mask, the hard cold exterior. You knew deep down he was just a scared little boy who went mad. You saw what the Doctor could see. Not many humans were able to do that. It interested him, but most of all frustrated him endlessly.

You watched him die in the Doctor’s arms. You watched the Doctor burn his body as you stayed with the Doctor, comforting them as they mourned for their oldest friend. Life was never simple, and neither were the people in it.

You saw the Master again as Gallifrey tried to return into the universe, crushing Earth with it. You watched as the Master finally stood beside the Doctor, sending the Timelords back into the Timelock. You were also there when Missy showed up, trying to stand with the Doctor, but ending up being abandoned. You couldn’t help but somewhat feel for the Timelord. All that torment they had endured, and really all they wanted was their friend back, in their own twisted way of course.

When you were offered a job at MI6 due to your previous work with U.N.I.T, you were shocked, confused and wondered how on Earth they’d even considered you for a job. You weren’t an agent, nor a specialist in any field of any kind, you were a regular person, just with experience of alien life; not that MI6 even believed in any of that. You reluctantly took the position, deciding perhaps it was time for a change within the world of MI6. Perhaps this was a change to reform U.N.I.T or maybe even Torchwood.

Your first day was not what you had expected. You were sat behind a desk, filing paperwork and getting agents their coffees. One small step for mankind, you suppose. You sighed to yourself as you tapped your pen against the paperwork in front of you.

“Hey-“

You jumped slightly at the new voice as you peered up, pretending to look somewhat busy as you saw who the voice belonged to. It was a darker skinned man, with brown eyes and dark hair with slight stubble. He was quite attractive you noted as you gazed up at him. Not quite. Scrap that. Very attractive. What? You were allowed to look weren’t you?

“Sorry! Didn’t mean to make you jump.” He commented as you shrugged, slowly picking your jaw off the floor as you shook your head, waving him off.

“My fault. Daydreaming.” You told him, a small smile on your lips. “Bad habit of mine. I don’t always pay attention to my surroundings.” You muttered as you began to idly move the paper work in front of you about.

“Guessing you’re the newbie?” He asked as you noted he also had a file of paper work in his hands.

“I prefer the term sucker.” You teased as you realised how it had sounded, face palming. “I mean, sucker because I’m getting dumped with the paper work, not because I didn’t anything- You know- To get here.” You awkwardly cleared your throat as you mentally cursed yourself. The man wore a small smile as he stared down at you. “Sorry.” You coughed as you felt your cheeks warm up.

“I understood what you meant.” He laughed lightly, before handing you the file that he was holding. “Sorry. If it helps, I was you a few months ago.” He told you. “Fetching the drinks, doing the work no one wanted to do...” He trailed off as you took the file from him, standing from your desk.

“And now look at you.” You raised a brow. “Giving your unwanted paperwork to the new you.” You joked as he almost awkwardly began to apologise as you waved it off. “I’m joking. Don’t worry.” He instantly relaxed as you gave him a comforting smile. “I’m K.” You held out your free hand for him to shake.

“O.” He told you as he shook your hand.

“Unlucky.” You commented at his name. “So every time something goes wrong, and someone mutters ‘oh for gods sake’, do you think they’re talking to you?” You joked as he almost rolled his eyes at your comment. “Sorry, needed to get it out my system.”

“K.” He nodded sharply as you smirked at him.

“Nicely done.” You laughed lightly at his retort.

You didn’t know why, but something about this man felt oddly familiar, but you couldn’t place it. You would often find yourself glancing at him from across the office as you zoned out. You would have to snap yourself out of it as you tried to press on with your duties.

“K-“ You looked up seeing one of your colleagues staring down at you. Ugh, M. You hated M with a passion. He was cocky, arrogant and just downright irritating. How you wished you could wipe that smile off his face... “I need you to get me a coffee. Black, two sugars.” He went to turn away before turning back. “Oh, and be a doll and grab us a sandwich whilst you’re there. Preferably a BLT.” He added as you forced a tight smile. “Pronto.” You groaned to yourself as the man walked away. He was always sending you on stupid errands. The worst part was, he didn’t even do anything that important. He would just sit there and flirt with as many women around the office as possible, and there wasn’t many women around either, so it was a quick rotation every few hours of rejection.

O watched you closely as you grabbed your coat and bag, seeing the irritation on your features as you huffed to yourself. You’d been there a month and still hadn’t been given anything good to work on. Why bother hiring you if they just wanted a coffee girl? You missed O’s stare as you exited the office.

You returned as quickly as you could, almost out of breath by the time you had reached the office. You walked up to M’s desk as you placed down the coffee and sandwich on his desk. He peered up from his paper work as he looked down in front of him. He sighed as he picked up the sandwich packet.

“I said BLT.” He muttered out as you fought the urge to roll your eyes.

“They didn’t have any left. This was all they had.” You told him sternly as he went to grab the cup, feeling the luke warm coffee through the paper cup.

“Why isn’t this piping hot?” He raised a brow as you bit your tongue. By this point, O had peered up from his desk, watching the interaction.

“Because I had to walk 5 minutes back with it, then up the stairs because the lift is out of order. Plus it’s not exactly summer outside if you hadn’t noticed.” You told him, folding your arms over your chest. You turned away from him, feeling your anger rising.

“No wonder they haven’t given you any assignments yet. You can’t even get a lunch order correct.” M muttered as you stopped in your tracks. That was it. You had had enough. You turned back on your heel, marching up to his desk as you grabbed his coffee from off it, opening the lid as you threw it all over his expensive suit. You crushed the cup, slamming it down on his desk. He looked up in shock, swearing at you as you walked away. By this point, everyone in the room had been watching. The women were smirking as the others looked shocked. O tried to suppress his smile as you took your seat back down at your desk. He liked the fire inside of you.

After that, M never asked you for lunch orders again. You began getting real assignments, and was slowly making your way up the ranks. You hadn’t seen the Doctor for a while. You felt bad, but knew she was with the fam, as she liked to call them. You would occasionally get a WhatsApp message from the traveller, usually a very bad selfie with her wearing a stupid hat. You had to laugh at that. You and O had began to work on assignments together. You didn’t know why they paired you with him. He wasn’t exactly a very experienced agent, no offence to him. Either way, you were thankful. O was lovely. He was kind, funny and even a little bit sexy.

You weren’t field agents, but that was something you wanted to work up to. That adrenaline and adventure, the same things you experienced with the Doctor. You couldn’t stay away from that life forever, normal life was boring.

So when you received a voice note from the Doctor saying there was a crisis, you were happy to drop everything and help. But what you didn’t realise was, O had received a very similar voice note.

“Wait-“ You looked at him confused, hearing him play the voice memo aloud at his desk. “How did you get that?” You inquired, raising a brow.

“It’s from a friend.” He furrowed his brows, looking confused at you.

“Yeah I know. My friend.” You narrowed your eyes.

“What? You know the Doctor?!” He whisper shouted as you widened your eyes in surprise.

“You know the Doctor?!” You asked in return, pointing at him. He quickly stood from his desk as he took you into the corridor, away from all the prying eyes. “How do you know her?”

“I met her once years ago. Never mind that, how do you know her?” He asked, raising a brow. You sighed, rubbing your forehead with your hand.

“I travel with her.” You told him truthfully. No point in hiding it now.

“You what?!” He asked, excitement evident in his eyes as you hushed him, people walking past, giving you both strange looks.

“Yes! I travel with her in her blue box. Have done for years.” You folded your arms. “Why is she messaging you?”

“I don’t know. Something about a crisis and she needs my help?” He shrugged, seemingly as clueless as you. “All I know is, we need to go to Australia.” You furrowed your brows in confusion.

“How does that come into the equation?” You asked quietly.

“I’ve been doing some work on the side... C told me to drop it, but I knew there was something up with it!” You’d never seen him so ecstatic. “I knew it was alien.” He smiled widely as you couldn’t help but smile with him.

“Welcome to my life.” You breathed out. “Right. Come on then. Show me these findings of yours.”

The next thing you knew, you were in the outback. Good old Australia. Luckily O had more tricks up his sleeve. He had told you he’d been on the case for years, even living in the outback, taking trips there to further his research. You were impressed at his commitment to say the least. He was determined.

Then, before you knew it, the Doctor showed up, Graham following behind. The Doctor looked confused as she spotted you behind O, furrowing her brows and scrunching up her face in thought.

“Yeah, so... I kinda work for MI6 now.” You told her shortly as Graham whistled in shock.

“Not bad, eh Doc?” He commented as he grinned at you. “Hey, I bet the pays good ennit?” He joked as you smiled at him. It had been a while since you’d seen her and the fam. It was nice to see them again.

You sat at the computers, trying to trace the signal of the creatures somehow. After your close encounter with multiple of them, you wanted to get to the bottom of where they had come from. But nothing. There was no trace whatsoever. The Doctor was having the same trouble.

“How’s it going?” O asked as you peered up at him, looking somewhat defeated.

“Great. That’s why I’m bouncing off the walls with excitement.” You sarcastically commented as he gave you a small comforting smile.

“So... the Doctor...” He folded his arms, leaning against the table. “How much do you know about her?” He inquired as you raised a brow at his question.

“Enough.” You told him shortly. “More than what those guys do at least.” You nodded to the fam as they chatted with their alien friend. “And I don’t mean that in a ‘I was here first’ kind of way either.” You reassured him as he nodded.

“I may have lied to you... a little bit.” He told you as you looked confused. “See that shelf over there.” You turned to where he was pointing, seeing a shelf stacked full of files. “That’s information, all about the Doctor...” He told you. “Been collecting it for years.” He said as you slowly realised what he was getting at.

“You know who I am.” You told him quietly, turning back to him. “All along, you’ve known who I am.” You looked confused, and somewhat upset.

“It was just coincidence you joined MI6 after I did. You know what they say about a small world...” He told you as you slowly relaxed, laughing slightly.

“Yeah, I suppose.” You hummed. “Or something else is going on...” You thought aloud. “I’ve learnt that people don’t just meet each other without reason... Especially in the situation we met...” You trailed off as he watched you intently. “Oh well!” You exclaimed, getting up from your seat. “Guess we’ll find out eventually!” You forced a smile as you walked back towards the others, missing the dark expression that had made its way onto O’s face.

“Come on, son!” Graham exclaimed as O ran towards the plane that was about to take off. You were just in front as you managed to board the plane, holding your hand out for O. Luckily for you all, he made it in time, being helped up by you and Graham as the Doctor closed the door.

“Sorry. I've never been good at sprinting.” O breathed out, trying to regain his composure as the Doctor furrowed, looking confused.

“What?” She asked as everyone ignored her, trying to move away from the back end of the plane.

“Come on, Doctor. We're about to take off.” Ryan exclaimed as everyone tried to catch their breath.

“In the main cabin!” The Doctor told them all as they made their way through all the seats. You sighed as you threw yourself down on one of the front seats, feeling your chest hurt from your heavy breathing. God, you didn’t realise how long it had been since you had been running into danger.

“Never been good at sprinting?” The Doctor looked over at O as he leant on the seats. He shook his head.

“I was the last one in every race at school.” He huffed out, causing the Doctor to scrunch her face in confusion.

“No, no, no. I read your file. You were a champion sprinter.” She commented as you peered over at the pair, seeing O zone out for a brief moment, before a darker expression replaced his once soft features.

“Mmm. Got me. Well done.” He almost smirked, as his voice even changed, turning darker, more confident.

“What’s going on, Doc?” Graham asked, confused as everyone else. You narrowed your eyes, seeing the utter confusion on the Doctor’s face, something that often happened, but this time it was different. It was like she had a feeling about it all.

“You'd best take a look out of the window.” O said as you gazed at him, before turning towards the window on your left, looking out as you saw the shelter you had called home for the last month or so.

“How's your house out there?” Graham furrowed his brows, turning to look at O for an explantation. Yaz and Ryan stayed quiet as they tried to understand what was happening.

“Bit Wicked Witch of the West, but you get the gist. Maybe. Maybe not.” O said casually, placing a hand on his hip dramatically as he twirled back round to face the humans. You looked over at the Doctor as she shook her head. There it was again. That feeling of familiarity around the man in question. “Oh, come on, Doctor, catch up.” O encouraged, snapping his fingers. “You can do it. Come on.”

“Oh!” The Doctor gasped, her mouth agape as she held onto the seats beside her for balance.

“That's...that's my name, and that is why I chose it.” O grinned, taking a breath. “Oh, so satisfying.” He raised his brows. “Doctor, I did say look for the spymaster. Or should I say spy...” He paused, his smirk falling. “Master?” You felt fear creep up inside of you. It couldn’t be. Could it? “Hi.” He waved at the gang as you furrowed your brows. O was a lie. It was a mask... You had fallen for it... and him. You felt your heart shatter as you tried to clear your mind, but thoughts proceeded to race through it.

“You can't be.” The Doctor said quietly, looking almost annoyed at the fact he had come back into her life.

“Oh, I can be. I very much am.” The Master stepped forwards as you felt fear being in such close proximity of the Timelord. You almost shuffled further away, as far as you could.

“But I met O!” The Doctor exclaimed. “Years ago.” She narrowed her eyes, trying to wrap her head around everything.

“I know!” The Master cried, before manically laughing. There it was, that sound that had haunted you for years. You shivered are the sound. But it was all starting to make sense... Why you were employed by MI6... Assigned to cases with O... or the Master you should say. You held your head in your hands. “And I had so much fun playing O! So much!” He exclaimed, grinning. “Had a helping hand with (Y/N) getting her little job there.” He commented as the Doctor glanced over at you. “Playing the supportive friend.” He continued as you looked up at him, eyes sad. “The nerdy heartthrob.” He smirked, sending you a wink as you shook your head at him in disbelief.

“Why?” The Doctor narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t need to drag her into it!” She exclaimed, feeling protective over her friend.

“Oh but I did Doctor...” He stalked towards the fellow Timelord. “To get to you of course... The easiest way.”

“I need to warn Barton.” The Doctor realised, pushing her way past the Master as he balanced himself on the seats behind him. “He’s not here!” She called back to the others. “Where’s Barton?!” She exclaimed, popping her head back into the main cabin as the Master faked panic, twirling around as he muttered to himself, before throwing himself down next to you.

“Who’s flying the plane?!” Graham asked, furrowed brows.

“Wrong question.” The Master told him, as you looked at him as he sat beside you. “Check the seat.” He told the Doctor as she quickly turned, seeing the bomb that was sat once where Barton was. He looked over at you as you felt your body freeze under his intense stare.

“What have you done?” You asked him quietly, shaking your head. He smirked at you before pushing himself off the seat.

“Cockpit bomb. Short fuse. I can relate to that.” He smiled as the others watched from afar. The Doctor tried to sonic the bomb, much to the Master’s annoyance as he flipped instantly. “Now, do you really think that I would not make that sonic-proof, Doctor?” He exclaimed. “Come on!” He body shook as he shouted, causing your eyes to widen. “Deadlock sealed. And I made sure - no parachutes on board.” He smirked, leaning against the overhead storage.

“But where’s Barton?!” Yaz asked, growing impatient with the Master’s game.

“Called away before takeoff. By me!” He grinned, glancing over his shoulder at the girl. He then turned to look at you as you looked at him from around the seats. “Stick with me (Y/N), cos I control... everything.” He breathed out, relaxing his body. “Even these guys.” He whistled, clicking his fingers as he twirled around, two of the creatures appearing behind him as he smiled madly.

“I can't do it! Get away!” The Doctor’s voice called as she ran back into the main cabin, closing the door behind her as she used her body to shield as much of the blast as possible. She flew forward as it exploded, landing on the ground beside you as you also flew down, with the others.

“Ha!” The Master cried, the chaos around him thrilling him. He looked down at the Doctor, standing over her threateningly. “One last thing. Something you should know in the seconds before you die.” He leaned down to the Doctor, looking her in the eye. “Everything that you think you know... is a lie.” He breathed out, his expression looking tired and saddened for a second before returning to his hard gaze. “Got you, finally.” He smirked, before vanishing, the creatures rushing at the Doctor, leaving the four humans alone on the crashing plane.

~

Taglist: @drapetxmaniia @dannighost @imagine-whatever @yourlocalspacebisexual @the-sweet-space-bi @a--1--1--3 @blamerogertaylor @koschei-taylor @koschei-studies @lostshadow12 @hannahlilyyx @wonders-of-the-multiverse @ettorah @nikey-no-likey @imthedoctorlove @twentysomethingloser92 @startrekkingaroundasgard @sometimes-i-feel-like-falling @hellothedoctorisreal @tragic-and-tried @kind-sober-fullydressed @ateliefloresdaprimavera @chiswicknoble

[halorocks1214]

the law of relativity

AO3 Link

Word Count: 9963

Summary: The Law of Relativity states that each person will receive a series of problems (‘tests of initiation’) for the purpose of strengthening the ‘light’ within. We must consider each of these tests to be a challenge and remain connected to our hearts when proceeding to solve the problems. This law also teaches us to compare our problems to others’ problems and put everything into its proper perspective. No matter how bad we perceive our situation to be, there is always someone who is in a worse position. It is all relative

Previous Parts (in order): Alan | Virgil | You are here! | Gordon

WHY 👏🏼 CANT 👏🏼 I 👏🏼 WRITE 👏🏼 FICS 👏🏼 IN 👏🏼 MO 👏🏼 DER 👏🏼 RATION 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 also just bluuuergh. dont ask about this fic. part of it was written in a dark auditorium, another was written in a different state, another was written on a frickin bus, this fic has been places ill tell you what. half the time i think this is hot garbage and the other half i think its actually decent so im posting this while my head is in a good headspace and then promptly yeeting myself off the internet for a few hours to wait and see what happens. this series is becoming less of a canon divergence AU and more of a straight-up AU because of certain details im trying to worm in there buT IM TRYING MY BEST

thanks once more to @gumnut-logic, because of the length, this time i used three prompts, them being "What do you mean?", crease, and dream (and they werent even used that much sksksksk)

Warnings for both graphic and non-graphic depictions of violence, as well as mentions of torture and other PTSD/panic attack related stuff. I went deep with this one fellas

Orphan.

The word tasted dirty in his mouth.

He can still see the footage in the backs of his eyelids from when he watched it exactly one year ago. He was the only other (living) adult at the time in the family outside of Grandma, so he was permitted to see it. He remembered they originally didn’t want to show him, mainly because of his age, but Grandma was fierce, and she put one hell of an argument on the table.

One Scott refused to let fall through the cracks by breaking down. If only Grandma knew how he cried his eyes out and screamed to high heaven that night in the hotel room after essentially watching his father be blown to bloody smithereens then she was a goddamn saint for keeping it a secret. It made sense, she was the mother to his father. She had quite the line up of stories from Jeff’s childhood. Scott sensed the early-greying of his hair came from her, heh.

The rest of his family eventually saw it, of course, they did. Scott couldn’t shield them forever. What he will protect, selfishly he might add, was how angry he was at how much better they took it than he did. They cried, yes they did, but they never fully broke down like Scott did. Later in life, he wondered if it was jealousy: jealousy at not truly being able to let go. Whatever it was, he made sure to swallow it along with whatever alcohol he chose for the weekend.

Just add it to the ever-growing pile of shit he had to deal with. Nothing new.

Suddenly he’s 20 again and seated in a plane to be taken to his first stint in the Air Force. He said his goodbyes to Virgil, Gordon, and Alan back at home while Grandma and John metaphorically held his hand all the way to the airport. John was… quiet, more so than usual, but Grandma was stuck right in the middle between being a sobbing mess and ecstatic at the fine young man he’s become.

You’re just like your father. He would be proud.

Scott was secretly glad she never physically said it. It gave him plausible deniability in thinking that those words weren’t laced behind her big, bright, prideful eyes.

The first time went well, maybe even great. He stayed for a couple of months, did some flight tests, and while the training was brutal, boy did he learn a lot. When he came back home it was to a family slowly stitching itself back together. Grandma was a full-time house member, Virgil had taken up painting, Gordon talked about potentially going back to his swim meets, and while Alan was still as silent as ever, he was perkier than when Scott last saw him.

It would be on and off for the next few years: a couple of months at home, slowly and painfully taking over the role their father had (he can’t remember when he essentially received joint custody of his younger siblings with Grandma, but hey, he’s not complaining), then a couple of months out at the Air Force base where he slowly climbed up the ranking platform. He became skillful, perhaps too skillful. When he got his rank of Captain he felt it was less of an honor and more of something they owed him.

He was getting cocky. Never enough to be a danger to his fellow men, but enough to be somewhat of an occasional annoyance. Charles smacked him upside the head more than once. It felt like the world was right-side-up for once. Scott made many-a-calls to John and Virgil, the former enjoying his first few rotations up in space and the latter squarely in the middle of college. Gordon was being offered sponsorships to hell and back, and Alan was quietly getting along with the other kids at his school. Grandma was on welcoming duty for Kayo, who was taking her slot in the Tracy family with grace, though, a warning that their family would take custody of her if something were to happen to her parents would have been nice, Dad.

Of course, nothing ever goes right for their family for too long.

Orphan.

Age 24, it was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission of civilians. Scott was put in charge of his squad and then some. At night, they rolled-- well, flew out to get the job done. Scott can’t even remember the country anymore when minding his own business. Australia? Finland? Perhaps Bangladesh? There was a place John was insistent Scott never do rescues in, Virgil tended to agree, and the eldest unhealthily let them banish him from ever stepping foot there without argument. He could never remember the name off the top of his head until John’s familiar International Rescue, we have a situation rung out in the living room followed by the name of the country.

He would immediately forget it later, trauma too strong, too volatile, but the way his heart stopped and his head shattered and the way he felt ice water rush down his back was a good enough reason to quietly leave the room and let John delegate the job to one of his brothers. Sometimes John found him retching in the toilet halfway through the mission. He made sure to always mute Scott’s wrist communicator, even if it was never turned on in the first place.

The plane touched down. Orders sent the ground team out. But then the ground team took longer than estimated. Scott tensely waited where he was told to. It wasn’t the first mission that took a little longer than predicted and knowing humans, it surely wouldn’t be the last. Then, words mixed with heavy static came over the radio. H--p. Co-- ---7--. --nd ba---p --me--at--y.

Scott sat tensely in his seat, remembering his orders and suddenly hating them. Radio back to home if the mission goes south. Well, it didn’t look like they had the radio anymore. Still didn’t hurt to try at least. Scott spoke the familiar protocol that was ingrained into him when trying to call base. Dammit. Nothing. Probably some kind of blocker of sorts. Sitting up straight as a board, Scott looked through his options.

… He was in charge here. If something happened to his team the fault would lie squarely on his shoulders. Going against everything but his gut, he went out to help his squad. He can’t really remember what he exactly did anymore, but he does remember that it made a noise. Like a Looney Tunes scene: he flinched, froze, waited to see if anything or one heard, breathed a sigh of relief, and continued.

He eventually stumbled across one of his closest comrades, Arnold Brigeets. Yes, the name was ironic and half the reason he joined the force in the first place. The guy was one of the people that actually trained Scott and also seemed to be one of the few that was genuinely proud when Scott became a higher rank. It’s why Scott was more appreciative of Arnold than others, that, and well… Scott thought his fatherly abilities were good. The guy did have three kids back home.

Orphan.

Ducking down behind the cover his older friend was semi-situated behind, Scott watched as Arnold jumped at the intrusion before sighing. Scott had run into some enemies that he swiftly took down-- nothing too serious, he didn’t have the time or weapons for such an act, but they definitely would be out of it for a while-- so Arnold must have too on his way to find cover as well, hence why he was so on edge.

“Thank God,” Arnold wiped his forehead, “Glad to see you join us, kid.”

Scott was breathing heavily, but the grin he attempted was still there, “Y-Yeah, so what happened? More threats than we thought?”

Arnold shook his head, “Yes and no. There were a lot more baddies than we thought, but that’s because the civilians weren’t civilians. It’s a tr--”

Boom. The familiar sound of a gunshot.

Arnold fell over. Never got back up. Dropped like a rock in a lake, never to come up to the surface again.

Scott was so caught off guard he couldn’t react to the gun that swiftly beat him over the head, knocking him out cold. The only thing on his mind was oh fuck oh fuck I messed up I shouldn’t have come I wouldn’t have made any noise that way why did I--

They had him for roughly two weeks. Scott always thought the plotline in movies where the villain vehemently denied knowing any important information was dumb as hell. We’re not stupid. We wouldn’t go after someone if they didn’t know something.

The things they did hurt and no amount of I don’t fucking know anything! would help. Those two weeks were lost to Scott in a sea of pain and torment. The only thing he remembered was being captured, then waking up in a hospital drugged up to his gills with his superiors staring at him like he cured cancer.

“You saved the rest of your squad from sharing the same fate as the first half.”

“I-I did?”

“You betcha, son. I only wish I was there to see it! People be saying you were like an animal in how you took ‘em all down.”

Scott’s never remembered, and he wanted to keep it that way.

He was given the highest honors, even the chance to skip a couple of ranks to be at the same level as the big boys, but the night they were going to share the news to the golden boy himself, they found him in one of the bathrooms with a bloody hand and a mirror shattered with no hope of fixing it.

He was honorably discharged to a family that was so thankful he was home. Words like missing in action and POA never stopped haunting their nightmares. Scott was too, God, of course, he was, but sitting around and doing nothing was the last thing his traumatized mind wanted or maybe even needed. After doing what he considered to be the biggest fuck-up of his life, he needed to feel important.

This isn’t the first time he’ll say this and it surely won’t be the last: thank Christ for Grandma.

“You want me to take over?...”

“Yep, it’s about time Tracy Industries received a new pair of eyes. The Board certainly thinks so.”

“But… they’d rather have a crazy, PTSD-infected veteran over you?”

A rough pinch to his ear, “Hey now, don’t call yourself that,” the gentle motherly tone was back as soon as it left, “Besides, that crazy might exactly be what they want. Half of their argument is that I “don’t take enough risks.” They’re getting tired of listening to an old fart like me.”

A moment of contemplation, followed by the cheeky raise of an eyebrow, “So you’re saying you want me to take so many risks they have no choice but to take you back?”

A bark of laughter, “Damn straight.”

He learned the ropes faster than normal (healthy, is probably the correct term), and he immediately won the hearts of both young and old in the company. Instead of flying planes every few months, he worked on business reports and vetoed new ideas every couple of weeks. It felt satisfying for the most part, and his family was just happy he was still alive to enjoy it.

However, there was a slight roadblock on his way to becoming a somewhat stable person.

He became prone to violent blackouts. It had to have started when he blacked out and saved himself from those two weeks of hell, which made the most sense. Something was always destroyed when he came back to life. John was the best at calming him down due to his own experience with panic attacks, however, John couldn’t always be there, and the next rotation for NASA was coming swiftly. Scott swore up and down he would be fine, he could figure something out. John went back into space with an eyebrow permanently raised.

It was just him and Virgil home (Grandma had taken Alan and Kayo to watch Gordon swim) when he, unfortunately, proved John right. Scott wasn’t sure what triggered it, but he vividly remembered coming back in Virgil’s extremely tight hold. The first thing Scott thought to say was damn, beanstalk, when did you get so strong? but then he laid his eyes upon the forming bruise on his younger bro’s face and hasn’t recovered since.

Virgil swore he never held it against Scott. Scott definitely thought he should have.

That night brought sudden clarity to Scott that he was doing this horribly wrong. He was a ticking time bomb, and it wouldn’t be long before something was damaged in a way that couldn’t be fixed. Scott needed an anchor. Something to ground him before he took it too far. John wasn’t going to be earthside forever, Grandma was busy with Kayo, Alan was just a kid, and Gordon was living the dream. None of them were viable.

Then, as he was thinking, he was suddenly aware of how calming Virgil’s arms were around him, how they were preventing the growing panic attack in his chest from getting even bigger.

It was easy.

For once in Scott’s life, his eyes were big and young as he asked Virgil, “Help me, please.”

After a few brief seconds, Virgil gulped, “Okay.”

From then on, Virgil was Stone Number One. Scott’s admiration for Virgil outweighed the guilt of putting the black-haired man in that position in the first place. Virgil was glad to follow his older brother’s leadership, but just as qualified to bring him the hell back when he went too far. From getting too sacrificial to preventing a good punching-out some of the idiots they dealt with, Virgil made sure Scott knocked that shit off.

Time went on, Scott was a top-notch CEO at Tracy Industries, John was having one hell of a time up in space, Virgil was graduated and had so many life opportunities to pick from, Alan was thriving at being a (mostly) stable kid, Kayo was 100% acclimated to the family, and Gordon--

Scott found himself gripping the wooden desk very abruptly. He was shocked he didn’t snap a chunk off in the process. Why was he thinking about this right after a giant business conference? Who knows at this point. If this giant origin story seemed jagged and jumpy, maybe even somewhat vague, good, that’s how it fucking felt.

Back to said story.

Scott always thought he and Gordon would have the least amount in common.

They do, but out of all the things they could have picked to be similar, why did it have to be the PTSD caused by military-related jobs? Scott was 24 when he got his, Gordon was just under 20. It may have been a few years since their respective accidents, but they’re never going to go another day without it feeling like it was just yesterday.

At this point, Gordon was up and walking again, mainly thanks to John and Alan while Virgil and Scott helped in their own ways. Grandma’s cooking was what probably motivated him the most though, ha, the need to get away from it… Scott smiled. Grandma was always a constant. Honestly, if it weren’t for her, the family might have fallen apart. Literally.

What has he been saying throughout this whole shindig? Thank Christ for Grandma.

One day out of the blue, Grandma reserved the entire family (yes, even Kayo and Alan) private plane tickets so they could spend some time on the mainland for a few days. Honestly, even if the island wasn’t getting major renovations, you hooligans need to get out more. Have some fun. Try not to kill anything, especially each other, she all told them while creepily grinning. John and Virgil smacked Gordon more than once on the plane for insisting that she finally snapped, dudes, she’s gonna kill us.

Most of the time during their little vacation, Scott heavily focused on his breathing. He was pretty sure he knew what she was doing. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, but the same went for his excitement.

Dad showed him these plans the day after his 18th birthday. You’re a man now, Scotty, I need your help making this big boy decision with me.

As soon as they reset foot down on the island, Scott took a deep breath and felt relaxed at the salty taste in the air. It was weird, nothing on the outside was changed, and yet… it still felt different.

“Guys!” Virgil yelled out, “Stop playing in the water! We just got back, aren’t you two tired?!”

Blinking back to reality, Scott looked over to see his two youngest brothers doing exactly what Virgil was yelling at them for. Poor Johnny was a little damp too, which is what probably caused Virgil to shout at them in the first place. The blondes didn’t care. They continued to prance around in the shallow waves with their pants legs rolled up, acting as if they didn’t hear anything outside of their laughter. Gordon shoved his hands down into the liquid and threw some directly at Alan, nailing him right in the face.

Scott exhaled slowly. He couldn’t imagine them doing this 8 years ago.

Regardless, the artist was right, and they couldn’t waste too much time. Kayo was swift in grabbing both gentlemen by the ears and dragging them onto dry land. They all painstakingly trekked their way up to the-- what would you call Tracy Island? Mansion? Over-blown cabin? Well, whatever it was, Scott would always be willing to call it home.

Stepping inside, each brother took in the view, which was underwhelmingly not that much different, except for one tiny thing. John suddenly noticed a figure already standing in the living room and blinked, “No way… it’s--”

Gordon jumped in, both with his body and his words, “Brains?! Dude, how’s it hanging?!”

The scientist in question jumped at the voices before clearing his throat and readjusting his glasses, “O-Oh, hello again, T-Tracys. It’s good to see you all once more.”

Virgil slung an arm around his shoulder, ignoring the blatant squawk, “Man, how long has it been?! What made you finally decide to crawl out of your hole?”

Snickers came from all corners of the house. Brains stood up straighter, “W-Well, I was contacted b-by Mrs. Tracy over here with an offer I c-couldn’t turn down.”

Eyebrows tilted in all shapes and sizes. Someone cleared their throat. Everyone turned to look at Grandma once again, “I think if you all follow me, you’ll swiftly understand what I’m talking about.”

I already do, Scott thought matter-of-factly. John seemed to be understanding it now, Virgil was on the cusp of remembering what his father was hinting at for him, and Gordon was just as lost as Alan. It made sense, Jeff talked to all of them about it, but the oldest had seniority. The two youngest not remembering just by words was expected, especially since that was going to be rectified very quickly.

The hangar under the island was beautiful. Point blank. It smelt of iron and steel and grease and engine and that was the first time since Scott had been in the Air Force that he didn’t gag or flinch at the thought of flying something again. Scott had seen the plans his father drew. He assumed Jeff finished building it, but he never got to physically see it since…

In some ways, he was glad he didn’t. Now he got to experience it with (most of) his family, and that made it ten times better.

After letting them absorb the scenery, Grandma slowly turned around to look at them all, “You remember that dream your father had?”

The four oldest blinked, Kayo simply raised her eyebrows, meanwhile, Alan, being the teenager he was, didn’t read the emotion in the room, “Oh, yeah! Aunt Casey always talked about how he was going to “change the world” and stuff. What did he call it again?”

Scott felt way more confident than he had in a while, “International Rescue.”

Grandma nodded, gleeful at the happy look on her oldest and youngest grandsons’ faces, “Well, I’ve been thinking about some things. I know we don’t exactly worry about money, but after everything your father put into these girls… I’d hate for them to go to waste.”

The Tracy family jumped at that. John’s mouth was wide open in shock, yes, shock, “That station is still up there?”

Grandma sighed, “You mean ‘Five? Not for long. Not if we don’t send someone up there within the next few days.”

John blushed at the grin Grandma gave him. Clearing his throat, his big brain came to a startling conclusion, “Wait… you brought Alan along?”

The other big brothers in the room jumped at that. Kayo was the only one with enough balls to say the truth out loud, “Mrs. Tracy, I mean no offense, but he’s--”

“Just a kid?” Grandma smirked, “A kid that’s topped the VR charts for Intergalactic Fury for weeks straight while simultaneously getting nothing but A’s in his classes?”

Scott nodded slowly in comprehension. He remembered Alan talking about that game for a while. It was some kind of online racing simulator of sorts. Scott caught the prettiest string of words from Alan when going to bed one night. Nearly made him shit his pants. He made the kid promise to keep it PG-13 if he wanted to keep playing.

Still, the elders in the family slowly turned to look at the freckled boy with both shock and pride. Alan blinked with wide-eyed innocence, “But my English class is only at a B--”

“Shh, kiddo, I’m making a point,” Grandma rolled her eyes. The other brothers snickered. Yep, still Alan. Grandma sighed, “Now before you point out that video games are different, I know, but the difference between them and this is that video games don’t have some of the most talented older brothers in the world to guide him.”

Said older brothers jumped at the idea. Before any objection could be made, Grandma continued, “Besides, the GDF seemed to be okay with it. The Colonel was willing to oversee some of his training too.”

John flinched at that, “But IR is supposed to be independent!”

Grandma slightly frowned. She didn’t exactly like it either, “It still is, but in the world of business, compromises have to be made.”

Virgil huffed and crossed his arms, “Well, that’s… rough. Here I thought only Scott would have to deal with the bullshit of business.”

Grandma chuckled at the somewhat un-Virgil-like behavior, “It really is, Virgil. But about that Scott part,” she slowly turned to look at him and him only, “I hate to give you more work to do, but if you want to work within their restrictions?”

Suddenly every pair of eyes in the room was on the head of the family. Gulping, Scott looked down at his feet to think. It was a tense few moments, nobody sure what he was going to decide, least of all him, before the brunette cleared his throat and brought his face back up with a grin.

“Well then,” Scott turned to look at the bright tip of ‘One, chest fluttering with a feeling that became unfamiliar to him over the past few years, “I guess now it’s time to state the obvious.”

From then on, every time he loaded into that cockpit of his girl, he felt lighter than air.

“Thunderbirds are GO!”

Everything was okay again.

Mostly.

Orphan.

Scott took another sip of his whiskey and refocused on his reports.

---

Scott was in some kind of dissociative state the whole way home.

Alan doesn’t deserve this. He’s still a kid, barely an adult, and he’s going to go through utter hell because you screwed up. You were 24, Gordon was just under 20, Alan was barely 18. Alan’s going to get fucked up like you and it’s all your fault.

His movements were robotic and rigid. Anyone with a working eye could tell he was deep in shock and running on autopilot. Mostly Jeff. Especially Jeff. The rest of the brothers all noticed too, but they were also running on their own empty fuel tanks, so the only thing they could do was guilty send their older brother the occasional glance of pity and concern.

Jeff was going to need to talk to them about that. Somehow. Maybe he shouldn’t be the one to point it out since he feels just as bad. His sons were too much like him, sometimes, and that made his guilt burn all the same. He should’ve been there to warn his sons about the dangers of unnecessary guilt. Having that kind of guilt was a parent’s job, dammit, and maybe grandparents only occasionally.

But then he remembered where he’s been for the past 8 years and… who really was Alan’s parents anymore? His gut was screaming it sure as hell isn’t you, but he knew his sons would want him to step back into the role as soon as he was physically fit to do so, not just for Alan, but for themselves as well. They would deny it, but they probably just wanted to be kids again too, even if it was only brief, fleeting moments.

Who was to tell the protective, fatherly side of Jeff no to that? No better time to fix things like the present after all.

He saw Scott go up the stairs when they first stepped into the living room, so that’s where Jeff was going to go too. Footsteps light, Jeff retraced his eldest’s pathway to his bedroom. Only, he stopped before said bedroom. Unfavorable noises were coming from the closed bathroom door, and Jeff could only swallow whatever emotion it made him feel. Taking a deep breath, he slowly opened the (unlocked) door to the bathroom and laid his eyes upon the incriminating scene.

Jeff was met with the sight of Scott retching his entire stomach into the toilet, hands aggressively grabbing his sticky, hair-gelled hair and trying to make himself bald from the strain.

Jeff’s reaction was always based on autopilot, and it will never stop being so.

Ignoring his protesting body, Jeff kneeled and placed a hand on his son’s back, only to abruptly pull back like he touched a hot stove when Scott only got more hysterical at the contact. The brunette clenched his eyes shut even more (and they were already shut as much as possible) while his head became a special kind of crease. Like he was in pain, “God, I wanna go home. Why won’t they listen I swear I’m telling the truth! Please, I just want Dad--”

Jeff was frozen on the spot, heart stopping in the process. His brain shut down while he watched his son continue to mindlessly ramble and panic. His freaked-out mind barely registered footsteps from behind in the hallway, followed by a voice going what’s going-- holy--

Something thundered past him. Blinking once, Jeff guiltily watched as Virgil kneeled behind the eldest and wrapped his arms around the thin man’s shoulders while taking Scott’s hands in his in a protective blanket, “Scott! Jesus-- we’re at home, you’re safe and it’s June 14th, 2--”

Scott only struggled more, panicking at the fact he could no longer yank his hair out. Dammit, it was the only way he could feel in control, don’t take that away too! “No! I swear I’ve said everything! Please--”

Virgil immediately knew that this was one of those attacks that Scott wasn’t coming back down from with pure human intervention. Add-on the sight of his father’s big eyes signifying the man was at a loss at what to do, Virgil had no choice. He snapped loudly, remembering the comms were still on and only feeling slightly bad at the way Scott flinched in his arms, “Shit-- John! It’s Scott! Get the stuff! We’re in the upstairs bathroom!”

Muffled footsteps through a few walls in the house could be heard. Jeff’s mind was only starting to catch up when the brother Virgil called for came rushing into the bathroom (Jeff never remembered it being big enough to hold four of them) and ignoring Jeff (practically shoving him out of the way too, man, this was bad) on his way to the main problem at hand. Landing on his knees in a way that made Jeff wince, John gently grabbed one of Scott’s arms from Virgil’s hold and subsequently pulled a needle from nowhere and injected something into Scott.

The response was instantaneous.

Scott’s breathing, while still labored, got slower. He stopped struggling as well, and the way he sagged reminded Jeff of ice melting into a puddle. The two other brothers’ shoulders also sagged, relieved at the crisis averted. John stood up, knees cracking as he rubbed the back of his neck. Then, he froze at the sight of something in the doorway, “G-Gordon…”

Virgil snapped his head up from where he was looking at Scott. Jeff did something similar. Yup, in the doorway was the strawberry blonde, eyes wide, making him younger by about 10 years. The ex-Olympian in question inhaled, closed his eyes, and soon speed-walked his way out of the entrance to the bathroom. Dammit, neither Gordon or Alan have seen something like that and it probably spooked him more than anything. He’d understand with his own PTSD-related issues, but still, seeing the “never weak” big brother freak out in such a scary way...

John combed a hand through his hair, shaking his head. As he started walking out of the room, he whispered to himself, probably hoping no one heard him, “Dammit, this is all so fucked…”

Unfortunately, Jeff did hear, and the dirty language made the father flinch. John was always the best about making sure Grandma didn’t wash his mouth out with soap, and the fact that he so willingly didn’t care meant that everyone was at the end of their rope. Still reeling at the sight, Jeff couldn’t react to the gentle arms that picked him up off the floor and slowly led him out of the suddenly stuffy room.

With the click of the door shutting, Jeff realized what Virgil did, “W-Wait, Scott--”

“Will be okay for a few seconds,” Virgil finished for his dad, “I know it’s nearly been a decade, but the one part of you I definitely know hasn’t changed is the need to comfort us, just like we hoped.” The small grin that fell over the middle child’s face put Jeff a little bit at ease, but Virgil wasn’t completely done, “So, I’m going to let you take care of this, but I just want to make sure you’ll handle it with grace. Take this slowly, okay? Scott might be doped up, but he’s still… volatile, in a sense.”

Jeff cleared his throat, suddenly choking on the unneeded tension, “Okay, Virgil, I promise, just… what happened? That was… bad, and really bad at that too. I know Scott would never let something that severe willingly come out in front of his family.”

Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, clearly not ready for this conversation, “Listen, Dad,” he inhaled sharply, cutting himself off before sighing in a way that said fuck it, might as well get this over with, “As much as it felt like it did, the world didn’t stop spinning because you… well, we had lives we somehow wanted to continue living. We all have lives and stories now, and this is Scott’s story to tell.”

Jeff was getting misty-eyed again. Back when he was just a kid, Virgil couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, mainly in part due to his insomnia-related issues (Jeff has to wonder if he still has them, more problems for the future) and general lack of filter because of sleep-deprivation. Now Jeff knew there was a starch difference between a kid who couldn’t keep his mouth shut and a man who genuinely knew how to respect another man’s privacy, but…

It just hammers home how much he’s missed with his boys. Gulping, Jeff made a mental note to talk with his mom about certain things he’s missed. She’ll know a lot more than he would, “Okay, Virge. Thank you, for stepping up there.”

Virgil’s shoulders relaxed at Jeff’s words, as well as his father’s hand patting him on the shoulder, “Thanks, Dad. Just… go easy on him. I know it’s a little late for this but none of us ever properly talked about things. It was very unhealthy, deep down we all knew that, but…”

“You just couldn’t get the proper emotions out?” Jeff finished for his son. At Virgil’s soft nod, Jeff exhaled, “I’m not going to say that it was a smart decision, but we’re all here now. We can move forward with this.” Jeff squeezed where his hand laid.

Virgil blinked before curtly going, “Yeah. Goodnight, Dad. Take care of Scott.”

Virgil stepped around his father and walked to where his bedroom most definitely was not, but Jeff could deal with that in a little bit. He had another son who he was pretty sure just had a violent PTSD attack of some kind, plus, Virgil seemed to sour at something Jeff said. The ex-astronaut wasn’t sure what it was, so he didn’t chase after him out of worry that--

Wait.

We’re all here now.

Dammit, Jeff. Out of all the sentences you could’ve picked...

Alrighty, just add that to the ever-growing pile of things that need to be talked about later. No biggie. Jeff found himself sighing and rubbing the back of his neck much like Virgil did a few minutes ago. Turning around, he was met with the bathroom door once more. Shaking his head, Jeff slowly crept into the room and saw that not much was different, especially with Scott.

His heart softly cracked, but, again, he can deal with it later.

Sitting down on the ground and grimacing at the way his body ached (was gravity always this rough?), Jeff leaned against the floor cabinets about 2-3 feet away from Scott, who made himself into a nice comfortable ball in the corner next to the toilet, his palm smushed against his forehead. Jeff waited a few seconds. Then minutes. Then he realized he would have to be the one to initiate the conversation. He probably should’ve realized that right when he came back in. He opened his mouth, but his wasn’t the one that words came out of.

“It was… Zambia.”

Jeff’s heart stopped and his mouth snapped shut. He couldn’t stop the way his eyes clearly showed his panic, but hopefully, he guiltily thought, Scott was a little too doped up to not realize it, “Scotty, what do you mean?”

Scott shrugged in a way that spoke he thought what he was admitting wasn’t a big deal. Yep, clearly not with it, “Mission went bad… caught for a couple of weeks.”

Jeff was hoping his first fuck back on Earth, spoken to himself like right now or otherwise, would have been a comedic thing, but the way nausea rose in his throat said this was anything but funny.

Scott wanted to be in the Air Force. Badly. Who was a father to deny his son’s want to be part of such a noble cause? He gave him tips, took him to meet friends in high places, sometimes even sparred with him when he turned 18, but then Jeff was suddenly thousands of miles away with no hope of ever having the chance of sparring with his eldest again. Despite it, Jeff hoped Scott went on to become the best pilot the world has ever seen.

Part of this looks like he did, but at what cost?

As much as it felt like it did, the world didn’t stop spinning because you… well, we had lives we somehow wanted to continue living.

Aw hell, “Jesus, Scott…” Jeff couldn’t tell if it was the brashness or the lack of a nickname that made Scott flinch and he hated it. He immediately softened his tone and brought his 27-year-old child into his arms, “Shh, shh, we’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

Like father like son, old habits die hard, and as easy as it was to still be able to comfort his children, Scott seemed to just as easily take it as he used to 8 years ago, “Alan doesn’t deserve this kind of hell, God, he’s barely not a kid anymore! Why--”

Jeff tightened his hold to keep his son in reality, and because he didn’t like the tone behind those words, “Hey, you didn’t either--”

Scott somehow managed to fling himself out of the hug, focus incredibly on point for someone who was doped up to his eyelids five seconds ago, “But I fucked up! I made the wrong call and then suddenly Arnold was dead and he had a wife and kids-- shit, what the hell did I do?”

Okay.

First of all: way to put him back in that headspace when that’s the exact opposite you were going for, Jeff, father of the year. Second: dammit. Just… dammit. This was a big fat hand grenade in a giant handbasket that they didn’t have time to gently get out while simultaneously not yanking the pin clean off with the grace of a drunk elephant. Jeff was no stranger to Survivor’s Guilt, but there was a whole untapped pile of metaphorical C4 within his son’s head that was ready for someone to push the goddamn button.

He wanted it to be him, desperately, because it sounded like he already failed his family enough, it was all he could do at this point, but he absolutely hated that he couldn’t do it right now. This was going to take a lot of time, which they didn’t have, plus, Jeff thought he had a pretty good understanding of this new Scott and the rest of his kids. Jeff was aware that if he didn’t help his sons find their baby as fast as possible over everything else it’ll lead to a fate nobody wanted.

A shaky sigh, “Okay, Scotty, let’s get you to bed. We’ll talk strategy in the morning.”

Scott simply nodded as his father flung Scott’s arm around his broader shoulders and picked him up. Slowly and painfully but surely, father and son meandered their way to Scott’s room. With a thump a little harder than Jeff wanted, Scott flopped down on top of his sheets and immediately started snoring. Despite everything that just happened, the father couldn’t help but grin at the sight. Well, there was another thing Jeff gracefully passed onto his son.

Jeff only took Scott’s shoes off. He would’ve loved to pull the sheets up around him too, but the father didn’t want to take any chances at waking him up. Slowly tip-toeing out of the room, Jeff gave one last glance back at his son before finally letting him be and gently shutting the door. He had three other sons he needed to console, but his tired joints told him to selfishly take a moment for himself for right now unless he wanted to collapse and give his family more to deal with.

Jeff eventually made his way to his room-- which was sadly unkempt, he noticed-- and sat down on the edge of his unfamiliar bed to think.

He’ll figure something out. If he had to crawl through images of his son being brutally and bloodily tortured then by God he would with the fury of a thousand suns.

He was back and he wasn’t going to throw away any second or even third chance he was given.

---

“I got him.”

Virgil turned his comms back on, and with it, Scott’s heart restarted for the first time in a few weeks. Taking a moment for a breather, Scott leaned against the wall while practically wheezing. They have him back, holy shit, they have him back. Scott vaguely heard Gordon cry in pure relief and joy. He saw John’s side of the comms flutter for a bit before a bright flash happened. Blinking away the white spots, Scott looked at his wrist to see a fully detailed map of the compound.

Gordon spoke what they were all thinking, “Woohoo! First Allie comes back, then Johnny-boy gets us a free ticket out of here! We’re winning this race, baby!”

A very loud moment of silence. John cleared his throat, “Actually, I was going to say glad to see you in one piece, you little shit,” a playful gasp came from Virgil’s side. It was too high pitched to be from the pianist’s mouth. Scott chuckled, but the paranoid part of his brain said John wasn’t done. His brain was right, ‘“But guys… that wasn’t me. Or EOS. We still haven’t found a way to get past the metal they made these walls out of.”

That silence was even more deafening than the last, and before Virgil could utter out his typical what the fuck, a small logo appeared at the corner of their new map. One that was all too familiar. The Chaos Crew wasn’t the only one who could brand their awful deeds.

Son of a bitch.

Virgil’s order over the radio was meant for Alan, but Scott couldn’t help but listen to it too.

“Shit, Alan, you need to run.”

Making quick work of the compound once more, Scott, while booking it even quicker than last time, opened a private line between him and Gordon, “Hey, how would you feel if I said go help Virgil while I cover Alan?”

The first response was stuttering, which Scott expected, but then it was followed up by something completely out of left field for Gordon, “... Okay, just as long as you promise to bring Alan back in one piece.”

Part of Scott wanted to console Gordon, another was questioning why Gordon was so quick to give up, another wanted to say of course, I will, idiot, but the first part that made itself verbal was easy, “You know I will, buddy.”

Scott could physically picture Gordon’s tiny, little, somber nod clear as day, “Sounds good, captain. See you on the other side.”

With a click, Scott was back on the group comm. Suddenly remembering what exactly his job was, he pulled out the map so graciously given to them by The Hood. Looking at all the dots, one was heading towards a prone one (oh if that asshole did anything to Virgil…) while another one was heading right for Scott himself. Actually, in just a few seconds, right as Scott rounded the corner he would--

“Woah, look out there, Tigger!”

Yes, you heard that correctly: not tiger, Tigger. Tigger hadn’t been used since Alan was itty bitty. It always seemed like the kid had endless energy with the way he wouldn’t stop bounding off the walls and furniture. Even as a baby, Lucy had to sit with him for a few hours while he slept in his crib to make sure he would stay there. In fact, their mother gave Alan that nickname herself. She was quite the Winnie the Pooh fan, and the rest of the family figured it would be one of the ways they could keep her legacy alive for the tiny potato.

Wrapping his arms around said flailing potato, albeit much bigger than a baby, Scott thought he would collapse then and there. Alan was here, in his arms, and yeah, the sight of his dirty and somewhat ripped up IR uniform made him mad, but Scott, for once in his life, decided to focus on the here-and-now, aka his precious, alive little brother, who finally stopped struggling at the realization that hey, the person holding you is a good guy, time to turn off fight mode.

Smushing their foreheads together as much as possible, Scott desperately fought to keep the waterworks back, a smile from ear to ear hopefully taking whatever energy his tear ducts had, “You are getting such an ass beating when we get home, little bro.”

Alan jumped back with a look of What the hell?! What did I do now?!

Scott simply rolled his eyes, “Really? “Not important”? You graduated high school, tiny dude! That’s huge! You remember Gordon’s party, right?”

Alan’s mouth gaped before he closed it with slightly puffy cheeks. Those same cheeks tinged with a small blush. Alan wasn’t exactly expecting to be smothered so soon (well, he did cry his eyes out on Virgil’s shoulder, but that was different!). Shaking it off, Alan moved his hands rhythmically and rapidly, To be fair, we weren’t sure he was going to get one for a while.

Scott faltered a little bit at the ASL. Darn, he should’ve seen Alan’s lack of talking from a mile away. Scott carefully hid his disappointment from Alan. Lord knew what the kid would take it as, “Yeah, that’s what he got for barely making it. Imagine what you’re going to get!”

Scott assumed his semi-fake charm worked, as Alan seemed to play along without any kind of suspicion, Oh yeah. Fair enough.

This kid, man.

Then, slow clapping came from a dark corner, making Scott’s heart leap out of his throat as well as push Alan behind himself. Glaring as much as he could towards the invisible evil-doer, Scott didn’t have to think twice, “Alan, take my map and find Virgil and Gordon.”

The youngest looked like he was going to object.

“Go.”

He no longer did. Good.

Listening to the field commander’s orders, Scott felt his wristband slip off his wrist and a warm body leave his vicinity. An inhale. Also good. An exhale, followed by an even darker glare, “What more do you want?”

Short and straight-to-the-point and angry, two things Scott typically wasn’t. Regardless, like a cold gust of wind, footsteps started approaching him from the shadow. Once Scott saw the outline of a body, he tensed even more. Virgil would snap at him for clenching his jaw so much.

A dark chuckle reminded him of what was important. The voice that spoke reminded him of something completely different, “Now then, brother, let’s not be rude to each other!”

Scott’s pupils shrunk at the familiar sight of Gordon stepping towards him. Except it wasn’t Gordon, because Scott knew that Gordon knew better. He also knew Gordon didn’t cheekily smile like that, even after a prank, nor did he walk that straight. He always had a funny walk after WASP, and Gordon wore that fact like a badge of honor.

Oh no, Scott definitely knew who this was, “What the hell are you playing at?”

Fake-Gordon rolled his eyes, like it wasn’t obvious, “I mean if we want to go that route, why did kid insist you being in the military was the coolest thing he’d ever heard you do? Maybe I wouldn’t have been pressured into joining a branch myself in the end.”

Scott’s nostrils flared, and by God, his pupils might have actually slitted like a snake’s, or possibly even a dragon’s, “Excuse me?”

Scott blinked, and suddenly he was met by not-Virgil, “Plus, why was our conclusion after hearing a three-year-old wanting to see snow to go to a ski resort? It had to have been those big, selfish, beady eyes, right?”

“C’mon, Scotty, we gotta give you some kind of calming exercise. There’s going to come a time when neither me or John are going to be there.”

“Hmm… does yoga work?”

A snort, “Well, that’s not too bad of an idea. Maybe the person pissing you off will stop whatever they’re doing at the sight of you spontaneously doing downward dog.”

Laughter, an unfamiliar action, “Yeah, okay, but for real, those breathing exercises I’ve seen you do look okay. Let’s start there.”

Scott was not a liar by heart. He had to admit that those exercises were doing jack shit right about now.

Another blink, another brother. Familiar ginger hair was all Scott could see, “To continue that previous point, why did Dad start International Rescue again? And what led to his demise?”

“Sounds like a piece of work. Why do you keep dealing with these people again?”

“Someone has to pay the bills, Johnny. Grandma’s too focused on making the perfect poison for us.”

A roll of eyes, “Right, because the billions we have saved wouldn’t be enough to last a couple of families a few lifetimes. Glad to see your calming exercises are working at least. How’s that going for you, by the way?”

A pause. A flicker of vision around the room. Someone cleared their throat, probably himself, “It’s probably not as bad as whatever space is throwing at you. You handling it okay up there?”

Another pause, followed by a sigh, “Well, since you asked so nicely…”

Scott wanted to deflect the truth so badly right now more than anything else. Telling him he couldn’t pilot ‘One anymore would be a much more enticing option than what he was hearing.

Suddenly, Scott was looking in a mirror, “Besides, I know more than anybody that he wasn’t wanted. A mistake. I thought we Tracys hated being imperfect?”

The Hood must have known their backstories from internet articles, and being the mastermind he was, it probably took him all of three seconds to see Alan had some hidden self-worth issues. By playing the biggest Guess Who? game of all time, The Hood was most likely able to figure out some less-than-positive ideals Alan thought about himself throughout his childhood and danced circles around his already weakened mind to string together some spineless blame to put on the kid by sheer evilness alone.

Knowing his kid brother, it worked.

Scott wasn’t thinking straight-- maybe even at all when the first punch was thrown.

Just like that, Scott blacked out and was running on terminator mode. John would be disappointed. Virgil would be horrified. Gordon might find it funny. Alan wasn’t here, and thank God for that. Scott wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. All his mind was telling him was make lots of pain hard and fast. His brain also blocked out any hit The Hood was giving him in return. Pain flared for a few seconds, then it was swept away in the puddle of rage his mind was currently being consumed in.

Soon, his out-of-it mind found its target and gripped his-- The Hood’s arm, no disguise would make him have an identity crisis, thank you very much-- nice and rough.

Scott heard the familiar snap of cartilage and felt only partially bad. If he was thinking more clearly, he would be disgusted with himself. Yes, even The Hood didn’t deserve this level of Scott’s fury. Oh, he definitely deserved to be hit by a truck, but not by Scott. It was mostly due to Scott’s sanity. If he could be this graphic and violent at all, even to the worse possible criminals, that meant he could be that way during other moments, and that was not a territory he wanted to cross into.

Welp, he was here now, and he’ll hate to admit it in the future, but the only thing that brought him out of it was a tiny gasp from a few feet away. Snapping his head up, Scott’s eyes landed squarely on a smaller-than-normal Alan, who was currently clutching his arm to his chest in an emotion Scott didn’t want to figure out at the moment. So much for going and finding Virgil and Gordon.

“Allie, help…” fake him grunted out, only making real Scott growl and tighten his hold (and probably making his case worse). Looking up from the person in his arms, Scott felt his heart split in two at the sight. There was fear and uncertainty in Alan’s blue eyes and boy did it hurt. Scott couldn’t tell if it was because even seeing a potentially-fake Scott being beaten up was bad or if it was because he’d never seen big brother be this brutal, even towards their enemies. Whatever the reason, it involved Scott being the main root of the problem.

Wait, that was The Hood’s plan. Shit… make Scott act past the point of no return in a way that was unfamiliar to Alan so the kid couldn’t be fully sure who was who, and Scott fell right into his trap, hook, line, and sinker.

Fuck.

Bloody well done, Scott, you absolute moron.

Scott faltered a little bit, “A-Alan, I--”

That falter was enough for The Hood to break an arm out of his grip and elbow him in the face. In the brief second of freedom he had, he tried dashing towards Alan, but Scott was too quick for everyone’s good and soon had the imposter back in his arms, both of them struggling in a way that made them look like they were tied into the weirdest knot in existence.

Then, an earthquake struck.

No, literally.

A big shake of the abandoned compound threw the look-a-likes about and subsequently off the platform they were on. The place was old; it didn’t take a lot of weight for that guard rail they made their way over towards while fighting to snap right off. With a yelp, the two of them gripped the edge as much as they could and held on. Crap, I know we talked with Fuse about potentially setting some stuff off, but--

Blinking, Scott saw a familiar mop of blonde hair come into view. Alan was rather panicked, clearly not sure which Scott was the real Scott. Not only that, he had little time to decide which one to save. Goodie, another reason to despise The Hood: not only has he put Alan through weeks of torment, now he’s forcing the kid to decide to either save his oldest brother and biggest hero or his personal torturer.

And Alan won’t know until he picks.

Holy hell, this was getting worse by the second. Hopefully, big brother charm can work its magic and get them the hell out of there.

“Alan, quickly, over here!”

“I can’t hold on for much longer, Alan, hurry!”

The two Scotts glared at one another in the exact same way, not making Alan’s job much easier. Another shake, another slip down the metal cliff, more screams, and Alan looked ready to tear his hair out. Scott watched as the kid looked around rapidly, probably praying for a miracle in the process. Suddenly, the kid jumped when he must have spotted something important. Within the blink of an eye, he was gone and out of their range of visions to retrieve it.

Whatever the hell he noticed better be important, because if just ended up wasting precious time then--

Another shake, probably the last one. Still, it was enough.

Both their grips gave away at the same time, screams identical (God, did he always sound that wimpy?) as they plummeted to their demises. Scott was briefly able to look up to see his brother pop his head over the cliff like a chipmunk again and grab the (albeit broken) arm of The Hood and save him. Dammit, Scott should have expected that, though, that display of anger was uncharacteristic to Alan. Probably terrified him even more than he already was. Fuck, Scott deser--

Suddenly, a rope wrapped itself around Scott’s left arm and stopped his descent. Hard. Hopefully, it was only torn stuff, they didn’t have time to deal with dislocation--

Wait.

Scott wasn’t dead if he could think about these kinds of things.

Blinking, he looked at his arm to see the familiar rope of his grappling hook around his forearm. Moving his eyesight to look past that, he saw the wide, blue eyes of his baby brother struggling to stay on top. The Hood was using his non-broken side to try and climb his way back up to safety. Huh, that’s weird. When did Alan get ahold of that? Scott must have dropped it during his scuffle with--

That’s when it hit Scott.

Alan saved them both.

Alan saved them both.

And it would be all for jack shit if Scott didn’t get his ass up there to help.

Panicking, Scott gripped the rope and started to ascend. He had two working arms and a smother complex to boot; it wasn’t long before he overtook a struggling Hood, who could only use one arm and a weakened brother (that bastard was so lucky Alan had a literal heart of gold).

Flinging his arms over the edge and pulling himself up-- and shrugging off the extra help Alan offered. Save your strength, baby bro-- Scott was in a much calmer search-and-destroy mode. He yanked his evil look-a-like up, turned him on his stomach, pinned him down, and before he could even watch Alan blink, “Sign something.”

There, now he watched Alan blink.

Scott pulled out one of his best ‘big brother’ smiles ever, “Tell me something in ASL. I don’t think The Hood learned that kind of etiquette.”

The body beneath him growled, making Alan jump and Scott tighten not only his hold but his glare. Further prove big brother’s point, why don’t cha? He lost the angry look immediately to grin at Alan once more, who seemed to be slowly getting the picture. With a gulp, the blonde slowly strung together a sentence that Scott had to laugh at, just a little bit.

Damn, could you teach me to fight like that, Scooter?

Nodding his head, Scott had to concede, “Sure. Consider it a graduation present.”

Alan blinked again, and the immense relief that washed over the boy’s shoulders would be enough to banish nightmares for at least a couple of days. Suddenly, The Hood’s disguise blinked out of existence, making both brothers jump that time. Scott didn’t falter in his grip, however. This man was going down right here and now, Scott thought darkly, staring at the prone body beneath his.

Scott saw Alan continue to sign out of the corner of his eye, You know you look like shit, right?

Scott chuckled. Alan was always able to put a smile on his face no matter the circumstances, “Yeah, well, kindred spirits, little bro.”

Scott was probably as pale as Alan was with such lack of sleep and food. Running on what was essentially a prolonged PTSD attack wasn’t healthy in the slightest, and no doubt whatever kind of bruises and scratches The Hood gave him didn’t help, however, seeing hope fill those deep-blue eyes when Alan learned he was truly being saved drowned everything out, including the way those freckles were getting lost in those eye bags.

Yeah, their entire family probably looked like shit, and the recovery process was going to be even shittier, but they were going to suffer through it together as a family would.

That made it all worth it.

Shuffling himself so one arm was free while the other kept The Hood pinned, Scott held it out towards Alan. The flinch the youngest made tore a hole in Scott’s heart that was only slightly patched when Alan leaned into the warmth and safety of his biggest bro. Long recovery process, remember? Regardless, Alan still took to the hug like a dehydrated zebra did a pond, and that was good enough for Scott.

The Hood groaned underneath them.

Yep, good enough.

[hudush]

time after time

song: time after time by the wind + the wave

book: open heart

pairing: bryce lahela x mc (kimberly wadsworth)

word count ~ 1 140

a/n: “short drabble”  🤡 this is my first time writing something like that in english which isn’t my first language so i’m really sorry for any misspellings and grammar errors! please point them out so i can edit this trainwreck eye--. also, the next one will have some angst in it?? ofc it is if i write it  🤡

❝ stop moving, i’m almost done ❞ prompt from this post

          The sharp hospital fluorescent lights most certainly did not help Kim’s dull headache. A chilly air blast from the AC swept under Her scrubs and made her shiver, despite the white coat thrown over her shoulders.

           She always got cold fast and not moving for a while just made it worse. Sighing, she rubbed her arms and got back to counting drops falling from her banana bag.

           The truth was – she knew she shouldn’t have agreed to cover her colleague’s shift, already being exhausted and not having eaten for the whole day (Ethan Ramsey was a rather demanding boss and even thought he told her to take a break, Kim wanted to stay with her patient), but she needed extra money, now more than ever.

           She winced. Just thinking about her brother’s debt made her feel both angry and downcasted at the same time. She could send him some extra cash but if he got back into gambling–

           ‘Stop moving, I’m almost done.’

           Kim looked up, concentrating on Bryce’s focused face – the furrowed brows and a Little crease between them, faded freckles dusted over his nose and cheeks, strands of hair falling into his eyes. Can he even see anything?

           ‘I still think,’ she started, ‘it would be better if someone from plastics would look at it.’

           Bryce smirked, glancing at her for a second.

           ‘Who is the surgeon here, me or you?’ She could hear the humor in his voice. ‘Besides, maybe I’ll get into plastics?’

           Kim narrowed her eyes at him, remembering how he complained about being on plastics rotation last week – while Bryce was excited for any surgery he could assist, both of them knew he lived on adrenaline, the rush of blood when a new car crush victim was admitted, making decisions in a split of second. The excitement and thrill of someone’s life depending on your sharpness.

           He would also rewatch the most intense episodes of Grey’s Anatomy during their monthly marathon.

           Everyone knew Bryce Lahela would choose trauma. It was just a matter of when.

           He caught her staring and flashed her a smile that made her blush.

           It wasn’t like her to be intimidated, especially not by Bryce. But after the ethics hearing, after the party, after the night spent with Bryce, something changed between them. During his break, Bryce would seek her out even more. Staying at each others apartments after long and tiresome shifts just to spend more time together, cuddled under the sheets. It’s just easier, they would tell their roommates. Kim’s apartament was closer to the hospital, and Bryce drove a car. She would come up with excuses, noticing Jackie shooting her knowing glances, seeing Bryce coming out of their bathroom in the mornings. He would just smile when his roommates would ask about Kim’s coat hanged on a hook in the hall of their apartment.

           But despite the warm tones of their voices, the quiet whispers in the dead of the night which made them slowly discover each other piece by piece, despite the light teasing touches making her heart flutter and the ones that made them pant, wanting more and more, despite everything – they didn’t talk about it.

           She knew that the pace of their lives, sometimes not seeing each other for days just to steal a few moments in the on-call room, not being able to plan something just because there’s incoming trauma from a car crash, someone had to stay with the patient, or they simply didn’t have time for one another–

           Maybe he didn’t need more. Didn’t want more. Maybe that’s all they were – friends who stole hushed secrets and passionate touches leaving them both lighthearted and content in each other’s embrace.

           And maybe, just maybe, Kim once thought that they may be something more.

           But she stayed silent, taking what he was willing to give.

           She squirmed, sitting on a hospital cot, moving her legs back and forth, her shoes squeaking on the floor. There was no point in thinking about it, at least not when Bryce was just inches from her, stitching a cut on her forehead.

           Just an hour ago she found out how dangerous are hospital beds if you just got off from your 48 hours shift, heavy-eyed and most certainly dehydrated.

           After getting her almost killed by the bed, Sienna wouldn’t stop apologizing and Kim was pretty sure her roommate, when she saw the cut, would look for the head of plastics if Bryce didn’t show up and reassured her he would be more than happy to help.

           ‘I need to practice anyway’, were his exact words at which Kim started to protest.

           ‘There you are’, said Bryce, finishing stitching her up. She felt his touch lingering on her face for a second just to disappear like it was nothing in another. ‘Good God, I’m so good at this, you won’t even have a scar.’

           Kim rolled her eyes and hopped of the cot, inspecting the cut in the mirror. He really did a good job but just because of the smug smile on his face, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, admitting it.

           After putting a small bandage on the cut, she turned to Bryce, suddenly nervous, not knowing what to say. He glanced at her from putting away the instruments.

           Aware of his stare, Kim shifted from foot to foot, feeling her cheeks going red. She coughed, clearing her throat and wiped her cold hands on her blue scrubs.

           The scalpel jockey would not make her anxious, and especially the way he looked at her right now, as he was thinking about the way they clung to each other two nights ago, how their bodies would fit together–

           ‘Thanks for…’, said Kim sheepishly, pointing at her forehead.

           Bryce just smiled and nodded. ‘Are you free tomorrow night?’

           She stopped with her hand on the door handle, looping back at him, going over the Schedule in her head.

           ‘Why?’ He could hear suspicion in her voice that made him chuckle.

           ‘It’s Nico’s birthday. We’re going out to Donahue’s for some drinks.’

           ‘So now you’re hanging out with the vagina squad?’ Kim raised her brows thinking about Nico, an obstetrics and gynecology resident she worked with on a few cases.

           Bryce sighed, slouching his arms. ‘I already hang out with IM residents, I have lost my dignity a long time ago.’

           Narrowing her eyes at Bryce, Kim raised her middle finger, receiving a wide, playful grin from him.

           ‘I’m changing my Netflix password. You can pay for your own’, she turned away, hiding her smile.

           ‘So?’, he asked stopping her from walking out.

           Kim hesitated for a second. Tomorrow was one of the rare nights, when she would be free. But she promised her brother…

           She sighed, shaking her head at herself. He’s not a child anymore.

           ‘I’ll try to be there.’