#2 extra doodles cause i felt like it

[metalbeetal]

hi can i get a uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh transfem maxwell

estrogen would save her

[cwpiqwons-archive]

Lazy human

summary: what happens when a demon accidentally manages to mess up her paperwork,get summoned by her human, and ends up falling for the said human?

or

you manage to summon a pretty demon through a doodle during chemistry lecture but she's too noisy and all you want to do is sleep.

warnings: mention of killing, Irene being a brat with a capital B, the human sleeps a lot. not proofread.

Irene was not the best cook, nor was she the best writer but one thing she prided herself on was her patience.

it was one of the only benefits she reaped from the long hours filled with boring paperwork and assigning work to the new residents of hell.

the female demon had the patience of a saint , or so she thought. the huge and thick castle of self control and patience Irene had trapped herself in, came crashing the moment a mere human entered her life.

or more like the mere human forced Irene to enter her life because the human is too dumb to know the difference between a doodle and an ancient symbol used to call upon creatures from hell.

Irene hated everything about the situation caused by the human. from the amount of extra hours to fix this loophole to the interrogation she would have to face on her return to hell, Irene hated it all.

but what she hated even more was the dumb human's nonchalance. the female human had the nerve to 1). accidentally summon Irene 2). NOT PAY ATTENTION TO HER AND 3). SLEEP FOR 6 HOURS STRAIGHT AND CALL IT A NAP!

the demon was beyond angry. she was fuming. ready to burst with anger and she would gladly take it all out on the human.

another strange emotion that made the demon even more frustrated was worry. she knew it was stupid but she couldn't help but worry about the stupid human. her stupid human.

her internal struggle was visible as she paced around, waiting for the human to wake up. dark and ugly fear was clouding her head and leeching to her body as she thought of each and every possible scenario that had made her human sleep for so long.

as the demon kept pacing while cursing the human out, she failed to notice the object of her fear, worry, annoyance and the reason she was stuck on this awful planet, finally enter the living room.

it took the human to clear her throat rather dramatically for the demon to finally stop her musing and notice her.

Irene was quick to send the most terrifying glare (which was quite adorable honestly) the human's way as she scanned her head to toe to ease her worry.

her eyes softened as they landed on the eyebags and dark circles the human was sporting. it was visible to the demon that the dumb human couldn't even do something as simple as following a sleep schedule properly.

"You stayed?" a scoff left the demon's lips as the glare returned to her face.

"it's not like I could just swirl my pretty magical wand and leave after being accidentally summoned from the deepest pit of hell and because someone felt artsy!"

Irene's heavy breathing was all that could be heard as the human stared at the demon in complete astonishment, still too sleepy to actually understand what just happened.

"for someone so short, you talk a lot. maybe i should just call you the 'talkative demon' "

y/n wasn't sure what possessed her to utter those words but she regretted them right as they left her mouth.

the demon just stood there silently, looking as if she had been stabbed in the heart. the demon glanced at the human, eyes filled with betrayal and heart filled with sorrow.

"I thought I was 'pretty demon'"

y/n had expected the demon to throw a tantrum, scream at her, curse her or even threaten her but when she saw the downcast eyes and the lips curled into a sad pout, she could feel her heart squeezing inside her chest. as if punishing her for making the demon sad.

she was quick to jump into action, walking up to demon and holding her by the shoulders as she moved a finger under the demon's chin to meet her eyes.

the look of betrayal in the eyes of the short demon who had just been cursing the human's entire bloodline less that an hour ago made the human want to punch herself in the face.

"hey...I didn't mean it like that. I mean I kinda did but...forget it. what I mean is, you talk a lot. like a loottt! but I'm not complaining. you wanna know why? because you may be a talkative demon but you're my talkative demon. my pretty and short and talkative and angry demon."

Irene was sure that the human was some sort of sorceress because how else did she manage to manipulate Irene's emotions so quickly with just a few words.

the redness on her cheeks and the sweat building up on her forehead as a result of the human's words were more than enough to prove that the human had done something to Irene.

"You think you're smart, huh? you really thought your secret will go unnoticed by me, didn't you? I know who you are!"

the human blinked slowly, trying to keep up with the demon's rants. the sight of the demon throwing the hands around wildly while throwing accusations was more amusing than scary for the human.

she couldn't help but let out a smile at the demon's constant mood swings. the lone smile turned to a chuckle which soon turned into a giggle which made the demon stop her rant and stare at her.

clouds of smoke could be seen coming out of the demon's ears as her icy glare settled onto to human who was still laughing at the demon.

had it been someone else, Irene would've killed them with her bare hands for laughing at her but since she couldn't really bring herself to harm her human, she just settled for stomping her foot before walking away and locking herself in the room which had been previously occupied by the human.

the human cracked another smile at her demon's frustration before she lazily got up from the floor she had occupied during the demon's outburst. she looked around fir a while before looking fir something to help lure the demon out of her room.

"aish, she's such a brat." the human mused while trying to coax the angry demon out.

"guess I'll just have to call some other demon from hell since my pretty demon refuses to talk to me" the human knew what she did was nothing short of evil but atleast it got the demon to talk.

"would you really do it?" the pout in her voice was evident even from the other side of the door. it almost made the human feel a bit guilty.

"mhmm, what other choice do I have?" the human who was previously leaning against the closed door fell forward and into the demon's arms as the door suddenly opened.

"I don't hate you, really! I was just...angry. you weren't even paying attention to me and then you seemed so shocked that I stayed it's like you wanted me to leave. it made me sad..."

the human could feel her heart melt and break and squeeze all at the same time as the demon looked up to her with glassy eyes and an adorable pout.

the human broke out of her trance once the demon's gaze left hers to stare at the floor instead.

she moved a finger under the demon's chin and gently raised her face up tell they were looking into each other's eyes again.

the finger was replaced by her whole hand as she cupped her face and gave it a gentle squeeze. her arms moved down to the demon's neck before she let them fall and simply stared at the demon instead.

"You thought I wanted you to leave? well guess what princess? you were wrong. I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around you and hold you close. to hold on to you and to beg you to stay forever. to call you my pretty demon and hide you from the whole world. I want a lot of things love, but you leaving me isn't one of them."

the demon stood there stiff before walking towards the bed. she sat down and made herself comfortable before looking up to the human once again.

"You look tired. you eyes seem a bit dull too. you should sleep more. maybe if you got proper sleep you won't be so lazy and stupid. I read somewhere that cuddling with someone who likes you can induce better sleep. it's not like I care or anything but I'd rather have this conversation when you aren't looking half dead. so...you can...you know...join me on the bed? it's not like I like you anything though. you're just my lazy human that's why I am asking. don't fool yourself into thinking I'm in love with you or anything"

the demon kept rambling as the human just stared at her. gazing at her with the eyes of a lover. she let the demon go on and on before making her way toward the bed and taking a seat beside her.

"lazy human, huh? pretty demon and lazy human. seems like a couple to me. bit I could be wrong since you don't love me"

Irene hated getting teased but maybe, just maybe, she'd let her human tease her all the time if that meant she'd get to see her smile.

[mythica0]

(Probably) last post for today!

I did a doodle page of Ray and her Anti-fairy, Yar! (I also did a quick comic of Ray and Emma meeting.)

Pictures and also a Rant(tm) below the line

I know I’m biased cause I made it, but I love the relationship between Ray and Yar, so here’s thoughts on it;

Ray is super friendly towards Yar, and constantly tries to spend time with her. She also often tries to cheer her up. She shoves all her love and friendship down Yar’s throat, much to her dismay.

Yar keeps pushing her away, telling her to go away and leave her alone, but it never works to make her give up.

Sometimes she’ll give up and just let Ray drag her out of the house to the coffee shop or something. Scenario;

“I’ll take a hot chocolate! Extra whipped cream!” *elbows* “what do you want?”

“Sigh. I’ll take a coffee. Black.” *mutter* “like my soul..”

“Alright! Will that be together or separate!”

“Together! I’m paying!” *looks over at Yar* “told ya you’d enjoy yourself! Your pout is smaller than normal! :D”

——

Other stuff!!

Ray is almost impossible to make sad. The only thing that makes her genuinely sad is not being able to make someone feel happy/better.

She also is incapable of hating anyone. She doesn’t even hate purely evil people, with no sympathetic backstory. She’s just like “oh, I feel bad for them! They never saw all the good in the world or accepted to power of friendship and kindness and love!” 💕

She believes that anything is possible with enough love and kindness. (Accurate)

Ray is also an absolute yapper. She also encourages everyone to find the good in the world, the joy in any situation, and the silver lining to any conflict.

She dislikes it when people fight and will try to break it up, make a compromise and make everyone happy. She’s a massive people pleaser, which makes her a great fairy godparent! But this also means that some anti fairies abuse her kindness, but she stays happy through it all.

Speaking of anti-fairies, because she likes to push her overwhelming kindness on Yar, she often visits Anti-fairy world. She’s infamous there, and most anti fairies will make her do favors for them any time they can.

Yar, despite all her grumbling, actually quite cares about Ray, and if she’s people doing that she gets mad at them. She’s very protective of her opposite. Yar and Ray have the best relationship between Fairy and Anti-fairy ever recorded. Ray hates no one, and Yar can’t bring herself to hate such a ball of sunshine.

Also: sometimes Yar will come to fairy world to visit Ray. Ray is Ecstatic whenever she does this. Jorgen allows it for two reasons, 1- The two have a close relationship, and 2- Yar doesn’t really have the motivation or energy to take over fairy world. Can’t be bothered.

Moving on, Ray has a sort of aura around her, that makes it so anyone near her immediately has more energy and happiness. It’s magical in nature. But even if it wasn’t there, most would find her joy infectious.

On the flip side, Yar has a magical aura of the same variety, but it heightens negative thoughts/ sad feelings and lowers energy levels. Their auras cancel eachother out aka don’t work on eachother.

Knowing all that, Scenario time! (Real writing this one tho):

Ray, Cosmo, Wanda, Peri and their respective godkids were hanging out at the married couple’s apartment. Hey we’re having fun and laughing, all infected by Ray’s Joyous aura. When suddenly it was interrupted by a wave of sadness. Everyone but Ray all felt.. tired. “Why do I feel so sad all of a sudden?” Hazel said, looking confused. Everyone else but Ray replied, “you too?” Hazel looked even more confused. “It’s all of us? What is-“

She was interrupted by a gasp from Ray. “YAY! my sister-not-sister bestie is here!” She shouts, running to open the door. Before Yar can even knock, she’s tackled into a tight hug by her counterpart. “YAR! I’m so glad you came!”

The anti-fairy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Hello to you, too, Ray.” The two fairies auras mixed, balancing out and making everyone in the room feel normal.

“Uh, who’s that?” Emma spoke, with everyone else seeming to agree on the question.

“Oh! You guys haven’t met Yar! Everyone, Yar, Yar, Everyone! Why don’t you introduce yourself!” She nodded towards the bat-winged woman, who seemed to agree but without any sort of enthusiasm.

“Hey. Name’s Yar, I’m Ray’s anti-fairy and,” she sighed heavily, “..friend. I guess.”

“Works for me!” Ray exclaimed, chipper as ever.

The night continued, and it was just as fun as before. Even with a Debbie downer at the table.

———

Another, shorter, scenario of the two on an adventure! (Incorrect quotes style but I made it so it’s a correct quote)

“This isn’t gonna work.”

“Come on, be positive!”

*sigh* “Fine. I’m positive this isn’t gonna work.”

——

Can you tell I love them.

I HC that bc most fairies are right handed like humans, most anti-fairies are left handed. But, Ray is Left handed, so Yar is Right handed.

Lastly, tword stuff!

Ray has a very happy, loud laugh. Her worst spot is her sides. She loves to use twords as a way to try and cheer people up, and is a very silly ler. She will often tell jokes (usually dad jokes/puns) while twording someone. And when not twording someone, actually. She loves puns. Not ashamed that she loves being tworded. Will straight up ask for them.

Yar has a quiet, almost whisper of a laugh. It never gets louder than that. Ever. They share a death spot. She is very shy about twords because she never smiles, often making a point of it, and it forces her to do so. This means that, although she doesn’t mind the feeling, she is often opposed to being tworded, and Ray respects that. She will tword people, but she’s very bad at it. Mostly because of her low energy.

That’s all I have for today! Hope you enjoyed my OC rants :3

[seiwas]

sel I wanna hear the deets of how u and ur bf developed feelings!!!!

niku!! 🥺 welcome to the sleepover!! ✨ omg thank u for asking 🥹 im surprised i haven't told you yet tbh but!!! here goes!!!

let's have a sleepover!! 💗 send me any questions/stories you wanna share!!!

the summer before our senior year of hs we attended this extra study thing to prep us for college admissions!! at this point we were really good friends!! went to junior prom together and everything!! and we were talking almost everyday, but it was rlly just friends!! we didn't coordinate the schedule or anything bc we were both busy with our own stuff apart from the classes but we literally ended up being classmates 😭 like out of all the timeslots we coincidentally ended up in the same one & we were seatmates too!!

the teachers in those classes would tease us a lot cos we sat together in the corner at the front, i'd draw random doodles on his book for him to find later on 😭, and he and his family would drop me home every time they came to fetch him!! because i lived really nearby.

i developed feelings for him that summer, but honestly i think i was denying it for a long time and just admitted it to myself then 😭 a lot of girls found him cute (i did too, when i first met him! but didn't entertain it then bc i had a thing with another guy for a bit (who i'm also still friends with today omg this is another story...)) but!! bc lots of girls were trying to talk to him, i wanted to make sure that i was talking to him out of genuine intent of wanting to be his friend!!

anyway! so i developed feelings the summer before our senior year of hs and tried so hard to make it go away because i didn't want to ruin the friendship 😭 so we spent that year getting closer, talking everyday, going out just the two of us, doing each other's snapchat streaks if the other would be away (if you know that omg) + we were eachother's top snapchat streaks lmao and i thought i was over it!! until i found out that he was considering college abroad.

honestly i think my heart sunk a bit, but also! it was kind of the closure i needed? like. i was set on letting my feelings die along with him leaving for college, y'know? and we could still be friends. but we got together before the year ended so i guess! no need for feelings to die? (then we did ldr for 4 years!)

whenever i ask him how his feelings developed, he can never give me an answer!! but his brother told me recently that i was the only one he was chatting with constantly back then 😭 like he was notoriously bad at replying, as in 2 days delayed shdbfhgs but his brother said that he'd leave others on delivered and just talk to me (still delayed... like a day but HAHAHA better than nothing!!!) & whenever i ask my bf what caused the shift from just friendship to smth more, he always says it's bc he felt & saw a love/care that was different with me (?), like... one that he wouldn't be able to find anywhere else? (sounds sooooo funny now when you think about it, him at 18 thinking that when he's literally never been romantic ever but! maybe he was onto smth bc we're here now 5 years later...)

[alexandria-is-my-firstname]

@mushroomwithsomeink

After years of searching Rose and Mia's location, I think Ethan would rather hide himself and watch over Rose and Mia from the distance so he wouldn't ruin their peace, til' one fateful day,,,

Ethan caught Rose's attention, and luckily, no one was around. To make it extra, Rose was always aware of Ethan watching her and Mia all this time though not aware of Ethan being her dad yet knew he's no threat. The silly idea of Rose calling Ethan Fairy-Godmother kinda felt right in a way, referencing Aurora calling Maleficent her Fairy-Godmother from Maleficent 2014,,,

And so, Ethan embraces the title of Fairy-Godmother and Rose would secretly visit Ethan to learn about the mold and have daughter-and-father bonding (Rose being Ethan's Beasty, replaced by Jellybean, and Ethan being Rose's Fairy-Godmother). Ethan trains Rose on her mold abilities and show non-threatening simple things she could do, like growing a rose for example. In a whim, Rose created a mold rose crown for Ethan,,,

Ethan with tentacles on his head is his boss form, here's the link to the sketch(s):

Rose would later on doodle her adventures of her and Ethan, catching Mia's attention. At first, Mia feels uncomfortable about Rose's Fairy-Godmother doodles knowing from the event of RE8 (Mother Miranda & co.) but soon isn't bothered by it knowing Rose is still a kid and might as well have wild imaginations and created an imaginary friend. Dunno about Chris, perhaps he also saw Rose's doodles and felt a disturbance in the force, causing him to question the mold child and increasing reinforcements but I think he'd think that Rose's Fairy-Godmother isn't just an imaginary friend, it's Rose communicating with whoever's mind was stuck in the mold's hivemind. To prevent Rose from turning into a horror movie little girl, Chris makes sure Rose isn't effected by the hivemind's influence by mentoring her and be dad number 2.

How Ethan avoided Chris' men is by using each abilities of the 4 Lords, specifically Donna Beneviento and Heisenburger; Ethan uses Donna's hallucination spores to hide himself when roaming near Chris' men and jack their weapons and camera by using Heisenburger's magneto abilities. As Rose grows up, she eventually learns about her Fairy-Godmother - Ethan - being her dad but she as well would visit Ethan less due to her tests.

The part where Rose choked the driver dude and said she'd show whatever Chris doesn't know, she's referring to her old training with Ethan (it wasn't much dangerous but I think the true danger is Rose's creativity on how she uses her mold abilities, ain't explaining, just imagine her reconstructing weapons to her own liking),,,

Some plotful events later,,,

Either Ethan was found by the Connection, a new infection relative or the BSAA themselves, this resulted Ethan to go on a wild goose chase,,,

Rose would find a weaken Ethan and bring him to her safe haven, her and Mia's home, resulting the awaited renunion between Mia and Ethan,,,

Mia's reaction of Ethan being alive indeed emotionally horrified her, but for Ethan's monstrous form, I think she feels very guilty knowing by her experience of being infected by Evelyne from the event of RE7 - feeling and thinking that Ethan must've felt so much pain enduring the infection. Both Mia and Ethan would sob in their renunion and I guess also embrace Rose in a hug knowing the three are together again,,,

Damn,,, I dumped alot of shoob here, never knew one question would result me dumping a sort of headcanon continuation of the Father's story. I honestly wanted to draw more of Ethan and Rose's adventures but the cuteness would give me diabetes and kill me. I guess that's it for now.

[victory-duo]

BDSP came out a while ago! What do you think of it?

Heya! Still trying to do the legendary mon hunt postgame, but I have mixed thoughts about it being such a strict remake yet removing some things, but honestly, BDSP's been a fun revisit to Sinnoh as a game, personally!

Naturally, I treated this run as a revisit of Oliver's run but just in another timeline. :D

I'll put out my cons first:

- I was disappointed in the watering down of contests 'cause they were one of my favorite side activities. The rhythm game would have been nice if they didn't remove the dress up and move appeals completely :(

- I also didn't like that the Underground lost the traditional secret bases and traps, as I was so excited to play with my sister and friends. That said, honestly, the main reason I wanted BDSP was to be able to play Sinnoh with others (I missed out on the DS wifi), so the lack of features to connect and play with others even as simple as poffin-making made me disappointed.

- I am so polarized with the topic of difficulty and balance in this game. This mainly impacted my personal way to go about my journey with my team in Pokemon games, so two things:

1) I did not appreciate affection mechanics being merged with friendship, keeping it separate like in SWSH camp at the least would make me feel less bad that I have high friendship with them but not triggering the OP affection mechanics lol. I didn't like using herbs to lower friendship just to lessen affection so I just lived with it. I don't like battling online so I'd have preferred to experience the competitively-adjusted trainers in the main game with fair battles.

2) The EXP Share topic is a hot one, but it was weirdly balanced yet not in this game? Gen 4 games were not built around it at all, and it was so apparent with the Gym levels after Gardenia that I had to make a backup team to soak up the extra levels. I'm personally in the "make it optional" camp because I liked keeping my team up to speed and turning it off once I feel they're strong enough, but it saved some time pre-Cynthia for me not to be TOO underleveled lol.

And for the pros!

- Playing through it reminded me that there's something I really liked about the older game designs that incentivized backtracking and getting lost out of the way, and I wish future gens moving forward will get that charm of adventuring back. (SWSH dlc felt like that in a good way!)

- The new stuff they can get away with were nice!! I loved having such a tough time with the E4 and Gym rematches.

- I LOVE how they were serious making the trainers competitive and tough. I went in a deliberately underleveled run with the E4 and I like... spent the whole afternoon genuinely struggling with the levels AND their strategies. And Cynthia's Milotic???? MY NIGHTMARE

- I've rambled about it a bit in my twitter once in a while, but the DPPt soundtrack is my favorite from all of the others, and I am so happy to hear how it was approached!

My personal favorites---those I prefer much more now than the ogs, were Trainer battle (I already was obsessed with it before), Eterna, Route 209, Canalave, and the Ending theme.

- And did I mention how much I love the DPPt credits theme?? And BDSP ambushed me in the best way possible once I finished it, wow, I did not expect them to actually base the whole thing mainly from Platinum and add DP elements?!?! It's probably one of my favorite credits sequences as a whole now because of everything they did there, I was so emotional by the end!!!

- My personal favorite part? My sister and I were especially adoring all the new outfits for the O-sibs---they may be few, but I can feel that someone in the new dev team really likes fashion design, and I thought they did such a good job matching the outfits to them as existing characters!!

I wanna doodle all of them sometime, but for now I'll end this post with some of the ones I did while playing:

(I will compile these in a separate post once I complete the outfits!)

All in all, I enjoyed my time while it lasted despite my gripes! I do hope they update the game more 'cause I love Sinnoh, but atm I'm slowly focusing more on Legends. I'm really excited for it and hoping we learn more of it soon!!!

[voiceless-terror]

And Many Happy Returns

a sequel (or companion piece) to Inseparable, my childhood friends AU. chapter 1 of 2.

“Next week?” Jon shrieks, slamming a hand down on his desk and startling the nearby students. “That’s not nearly enough time to prepare!”

Martin does that blinky-eye thing that means Jon’s being too loud, but he can’t help it! Martin’s turning eight in six days (less than a week!) and didn’t think to tell him. They’re best friends, he should know these things. He curses himself for not asking about this at the beginning of their relationship, when he was collecting Martin facts. Favorite color and book seemed more important at the time. 

And while Jon doesn’t think birthdays are that important, it’s still a fact he ought to have known. Well, his Nan doesn’t consider birthdays important. These past two birthdays he’s gotten one new (!) book and a dessert after dinner, but that’s about it. Nan doesn’t have money to spend on frivolous things, and Jon’s never needed much, but he wouldn’t mind a bit of fanfare. His mum always made sure he felt very loved- he got plenty of hugs, a fun cake, an outing where they would do his favorite things. But maybe that’s something only mums do. Nan, with her rare, stiff hugs and general stand-offishness was never one to put up much of a fuss.

“It’s not that big a deal,” Martin mutters, his pencil twitching in his hand as he refuses to meet Jon’s eyes. He doesn’t like it when Jon starts fretting about him. “We never do anything for it, anyway.”

Martin’s mum isn’t anything like Jon’s, that’s for sure. It’s not every day you turn eight. It’s a nice number, very even and divisible. Much better than boring old seven. When Jon turns eight, he’s going to get fifteen extra minutes added to his curfew, and he’ll be able to walk to the corner store all by himself. He’s already walked there several times, but it’ll be nice to have permission. That’s the real treat.

“So you’re not going to bring in cupcakes for the class?” he asks, remembering the last birthday they celebrated- it was Lydia’s, a quiet, unassuming girl that Jon doesn’t mind but also doesn’t think much about. As soon as Jon asks it, Martin gets that sad look in his eyes again, the kind that’s always followed by an “I’m sorry” or something equally nonsensical. Jon hates that he’s the cause of it, him and his stupid mouth. Think before you speak, that’s what Nan always says. She says that for most anything he talks about, though, so he takes her advice with a grain of salt.

He reaches out to pat Martin’s arm consolingly, giving him his best sympathetic head tilt. “It’s alright. I’ve never brought any in either. Just thought I’d check in case you needed help bringing them to school.” Jon’s not very good at carrying things, but for Martin he would make an attempt.

“That’s nice of you,” Martin replies, though it’s not really nice, it’s just a normal thing a friend would do. Jon’s read books about it, he ought to know. “But yeah. I don’t think Mum’s planning anything, much less making cupcakes. She’s really busy.” Martin’s always saying how busy his Mum is, but Jon’s pretty sure she doesn’t do half the things around the house that she’s supposed to. Martin already knows how to cook and make tea and do the laundry without hurting himself. It’s very admirable. The last time Jon attempted to do laundry, he flooded the cellar.

“Do you like cupcakes, though?” Jon asks, scooching closer to Martin’s desk. “Lydia’s mum brought some for her birthday, but they were all carrot cake. Blegh.” He makes an exaggerated face to get Martin to laugh. It works.

“Carrot cake’s not so bad,” Martin says, poking lightly at Jon’s hand with the eraser of his pencil. Jon flinches back dramatically, putting on his most wounded look. “You just don’t like it cause it has the word carrot in it.”

“I don’t like it cause it has actual carrots in it,” Jon sniffs, turning away from Martin to show his displeasure. He decides not to talk to him for the rest of the day, or at least until he has something else to say to him. He’s got a lot on his mind now, and he needs to be left alone with his thoughts. Besides, Martin will poke him again once he gets bored enough. 

Jon flips open the school planner that he’s never used for actual school work and starts to write. He’s got a birthday to plan, and he’s going to give Martin a Mrs. Sims birthday special.

______

It’s a Thursday, which means Martin can’t play on account of his many, many chores. Jon hates Thursdays.

But this time it works in his favor, as he’ll actually have time to plan without Martin thinking something’s up. Jon very rarely cancels on Martin; he’s his most important (and only) friend. But he does on occasion get a little mixed up. One time, he thought it was a Wednesday instead of Thursday, and wound up at Martin’s flat when he didn’t show up at the park. Martin was very nice about it, though, and gave him a cup of tea to ‘calm down’ to drink in the hallway, before he went home. Martin thinks a cup of tea is calming. It doesn’t really do much for Jon, but it is tasty, and Martin gives him extra sugar just the way he likes.

But today is most definitely a Thursday so he scurries on home, slamming the door open and screaming a greeting to Nan that goes unanswered.  She must be off at the shops, otherwise she’d be giving Jon an earful for being too loud. He kicks off his shoes and gazes at the picture of him and his mum on the wall. If his mum were here, she would know exactly what to do to make Martin’s birthday extra-special. But she’s not, and Martin’s mum seems like kind of a jerk, so it’s Jon’s responsibility. “I won’t let you down,” he solemnly tells her smiling face, and turns to take the steps two at a time.

After grabbing his planner and throwing his backpack into the corner,  he pulls out the chair to his messy homework desk, which is usually only used for doodling or writing stories or reading when he wants the activity to feel more official. He flips open his planner to next Wednesday, Martin’s birthday (!!!) and taps his pen impatiently against the page. 

What do birthdays need? Food. Presents. Happiness. The first two might be a bit difficult to pull off, considering his lack of money and cooking skills. Martin deserves a lot more than stale discount biscuits from the grocery. He can get those any day.

But a whole cake is going to be hard. If Nan won’t make one for Jon on his birthday, she most certainly won’t do it for ‘his little friend,’ even if she thinks he’s a good influence. Martin is always very quiet and polite when he sees her, and Nan always gives him a smile in return for his good manners. She doesn’t smile at Jon like that. He tamps down his jealousy and gets back to birthday thoughts.

He thinks he had a purple- or was it pink? - cake on his fifth. It saddens him that he can’t remember. He thinks he’d forget his own mother’s face if he didn’t look at it every morning and night. Memory’s fickle like that, as his Nan likes to say.

Maybe, if he’s very nice and good tonight, Nan will take him with her on the weekly shop and he can convince her to get Martin a cupcake, a good one. One that doesn’t have any carrots in it, even if Martin says they’re alright. He must like them so much because they’re orange, like his hair. Unsurprising. 

He stops wiggling in his chair and straightens his back, as if Nan can see him in his room right now. It’s good to practice, he thinks. If he can sit still all through dinner and not make a mess, she’ll come round. 

Next, an essential part of any birthday: a good present.

His mum never really showered him with gifts, but she always gave him something good, something from the heart. The last present he received - Augustus, an orange cat plushie- still sits on his bed. It’s kind of babyish to sleep with a stuffed animal at his age (or so Marcus declared during recess one day) but Jon doesn’t really care. It helps him sleep.

Unfortunately, Jon can’t buy Martin a stuffed cat. He doesn’t have much money except for what he’s found on the ground and in sofa cushions. And he’s supposed to give that to Nan if he finds it (which he does, mostly).

He could be creative. Make him something. Jon’s not very good at crafts, though. And he doesn’t have a lot of supplies. But he has almost a week to figure something out, minus the times he’s playing with Martin. Well, even then he can stare at him and hope it jogs a good idea.

Lastly, he’s got to make it the happiest, most special day he can. Martin should feel special all the time, but Jon knows how hard that is, especially when you go home and you’re lonely and it seems like you’re the least special person there is. But if Jon is very nice to him and makes the day as fun as possible, maybe he’ll be able to keep that happiness all night, even when Jon leaves. 

That’ll be the hardest part, Jon thinks. He’s not the type of person to make someone happy. Sigh in aggravation, maybe. Roll their eyes. But Martin does neither of those things, so Jon might have a chance. He’ll try and ‘tone it down,’ though. His Jon-ness can be too much at times, and he doesn’t want that to get in the way of what should be Martin’s day.

Everything’s going to be perfect. 

________

And then it’s Saturday, and Jon still doesn’t have a present for Martin. 

He somehow managed to get Nan to agree to the cupcake bit- he’d asked very politely, ate all of his dinner and didn’t spill a thing. Though he thinks it has more to do with her liking Martin. She always acts surprised when she sees him over, like she’s shocked Jon kept a friend for longer than a week. He’s not that bad. But Tuesday she promised to take him to the grocery with her, so it’s fine. One part of his plan is done.

But the present. 

Actually buying something is clearly out of the question- he already exhausted his Nan’s good will in that department. And Jon, for all his usual creativity, is plum out of ideas. He could give him one of his books, but he does that already without prompting. He doesn’t have any good toys, and Martin certainly isn’t getting his best pen, the one that glides real smoothly on the page.

“Are you alright?”

He’s been staring at Martin too long. “Of course,” Jon snaps. “I just like your shirt today, that’s all.”

Martin looks down at his worn t-shirt. It’s not Jon’s favorite, but it’s Martin’s, so he likes it. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”

They’re out in the woods behind Mr. Fletchley’s house to investigate what Jon thought was an ancient ruin but just turned out to be a couple of crumbling cinder blocks. It was an incredibly disappointing find, but Martin wasn’t discouraged.

“We don’t know where they came from, or why someone dumped them here,” he reasoned, a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “What if they were stolen? What if they’re part of a...a crime, or something?”

Jon doesn’t know what crime would need a cinder block, but he intends to find out. They’ve been walking down the relatively short path (it’s not so much woods as it is a cluster of trees) and haven’t seen anything suspicious, besides a few empty wrappers and a particularly sharp stick that Jon’s been whacking against the ground. He thinks it could’ve been used as a weapon.

“What are you going to do when you’re eight?” he asks, nudging Martin in the side. He hasn’t mentioned his birthday since the first time, so he’ll be in for a real treat come Wednesday. Jon just hopes he can think of something good in time.

“Mm, I don’t know.” Martin slows down to a mosey, and Jon tries to match his strides no matter how much he wants to jump ahead. Martin’s a real ‘slow down and sniff the flowers’ type of guy. Jon’s more of a ‘run ahead and accidentally trample them’ type. “Probably the same as I’m doing now. It’s not like it’s an important age. I can’t drive or anything like that.”

“It’s a very important age!” Jon insists, though he doesn’t have much to back that up. He’s mostly just excited because it’s Martin’s very first birthday with him. “You should look forward to something.”

“I dunno, I don’t want anything to change,” Martin says, his face going a little red as he stares at the ground. “I’d just like to spend more time with you. Have fun. That kind of stuff.”

Jon blinks. “We do that now, though.”

“Yeah. It’s the best.” Martin gives him a toothy grin, the kind that Jon puts away and thinks about later when he’s at dinner with Nan or getting ready in the morning. People don’t smile at him like that, only Martin. He does it all the time when Jon tells him a good joke, or shares his food, or passes him a particularly funny doodle.

And now Jon’s got the perfect idea for a present.

part 2

[buglife]

Shh I got inspired by those doodles I did of Monomon and sick bby Quirrel so I wrote a ficlet.

----

It had been a few months since Monomon found a tiny pip rolling around the trash in the City of Tears. She thought at first that it was some sort of ball that some child had lost. Then it sneezed, which scared the hell out of her. She had looked closer and she was surprised to see a nearly transparent pip crawling around the garbage. The poor thing was dented up and was attempting to eat a discarded cloak. When he saw her, he hissed and curled up into a ball, thinking that if he couldn’t see her, than she couldn’t see him. She had picked him up, this little shivering ball of tenacity, and took him with her.

One thing lead to another and she had found herself as an adoptive mother to a baby isopod. The doctor she took him too told her that he shouldn’t even be out of the pouch, let alone being all by himself. Either he was abandoned or something unfortunate happened to his mother, and having the guard investigate gave her no answers. She decided that it was probably going to be a mystery forever, and decided to focus her energy on raising her newly acquired son.

She had named him Quirrel, after an old philosopher who often wrote about the beauty of the world. She somehow knew he’d be able to see the world for the beautiful thing as it is and not be focused on the doom and gloom of it all. She was a scientist, so of course she could find beauty in even the smallest micro-organism and all the way to the desolate wastes. Something told her he’d see it too.

Her high hopes proved to be true, as he turned out to be a rather clever little pip. He was still far too young for speech, or even to be roaming about by himself, so she decided to conduct a little experiment. Sign language wasn’t uncommon in Hallownest, but most non-hindered bugs tended to learn it after they have mastered speech and not before. What if she taught Quirrel, a little pip, some sign language now?

Her experiment bore fruit, and he learned some signs quickly. It was only a few words now that were simple to sign. He was still a baby and lacked the fine motor control for the more complex signs, but he could at least tell her when he was hungry or if he wanted something. She imagined that this experiment could do a lot of good in the end.

What concerned her however, was the lack of actual noise he made.

Quirrel was an incredibly quiet baby at he beginning. He simply refused to make much noise at all, and when he did, he flinched as though expecting to be punished for it. It had taken weeks of positive reinforcement before he started making the noises a little pip was expected to be making. It was very endearing to see him babbling and having her students babble back at him. His tiny eyes would light up and he’d wiggle in excitement before continuing the ‘conversation’. Even with all the encouragements from both her and her students, he still preferred to be quiet, napping through most of the day whilst in her pip pocket. That was normal for an isopod this young, but it was still concerning that he felt that he had to stay quiet.

That changed early one morning when he started to audibly fuss. Usually he’d just try to escape when bored, writhing about and trying to climb out of the pocket. But today, at the most ungodly early hour, he was making noises, squeaking and hissing in what seemed to be discomfort. Monomon had at first though he was hungry, but he outright refused his usual leaf paste. She tried tiktik bits, sliced fruit, and even a cookie, but he refused it all and grew increasingly more frustrated with each rejected food item.

She had tried asking him to tell her what was wrong through sign language, but he was either unwilling or unable to bother with it.

Finally he had enough, and began to wail, loudly. She had never heard him make a noise that loud before and it startled her enough to spill the juice she was trying to tempt him with all over herself. He only stopped loud enough to take a breath before belting out another heaving cry, little eyes overflowing with tears as he made his discomfort known.

“Shhhh….shhhh...it’s okay, my little one.” She attempted to try and comfort him, but he just wailed louder.

Concerned, she picked him up and tucked him under her chin, trying to soothe the sobbing pillbug, when she noticed what could be causing all this pain. His forehead was burning hot, and he was faintly shivering as he bawled into her veil. It wasn’t hard to figure out that her pip was ill and she plucked him out from her embrace to take a better look at him.

There were bags under his eyes and his face was tinged blue with heat. He had his mandibles open wide enough when crying that she can see some swelling in the back of his throat. She gently palpitated his belly and could feel the organs within twist and with every movement he cried harder. So, he was nauseous, which made sense on why he would refuse a cookie. Fever, chills, sore throat, most likely he picked something up from one of the students. She mentally kicked herself, she should have made her students wash up before picking him up as they liked to do. She should have not allowed them to give him little smooches and hugs. She should have not brought him with her at all when among the masses of students and archivists that swarmed about her. But she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him all alone, not after what he’d been through.

The fact of the matter is that no amount of hindsight was going to change the fact that Quirrel caught something and was currently not having a very good time about it. His wails were starting to sound raspy and wet, no doubt that his sinuses were starting to be affected too. The sheer amount of screaming wasn’t helping matters and her thoughts raced on what she should do.

“Modern Manca Medicine, Chapter Seven, pages nine through ten,” She recited out loud as she recalled one of the many books she absorbed after taking Quirrel in, “Common treatment options for sickly manca and juvenile pillbugs include swaddling and standard fever reduction tactics for most invertebrates. Hrm... Grubs and You: A New Mother’s Guide, Chapter Nine, page twelve. When a child refuses to eat, honey is a suitable way to provide needed nutrition and slip in medication without upsetting the stomach. Hrm... that would work, wouldn’t it?”

Quirrel continued his crying, rapidly losing his voice, and she brushed a kiss on the top of his head to comfort him. His antenna twitched and his sobbing died down just a teensy bit, but it was enough for her to notice. He must have smelled her and realized she was going to help him, his eyes were too full of tears to be much use to him at the moment. She grabbed a spare blanket and wrapped him up tightly to deal with the shivers. He instantly stopped wriggling so hard and she managed to slip him back into the pip pocket without much incident.

Next, a cool cloth was needed. She needed to bring down his fever so he could rest. That wasn’t too hard to find. She ended up tying the wet cloth on his head like you would a kerchief, pinning down his antenna so they can cool down as well. She was quite happy to find that after she did that, he had stopped his wailing. He was still making noises of discomfort, squeaking and hiccupping, but he wasn’t outright screaming anymore. Her auditory organs was most happy with that turn of events for sure.

“Herbal Remedies for the Modern Bug, Chapter two, pages one through twenty.” She floated quickly to her herb cabinet, selecting dried bundles here and there. Lemon balm for fever, mint and ginger for his stomach, marshmallow root for his throat, maybe licorice root too? Lavender and Chamomile to help him sleep so he can focus on getting better, yes, that should do it. She mentally ran through the list, using a free set of tentacles to rock Quirrel gently. For now he seemed content to stay in his pocket, squeaking here and there as he braved through his illness. Poor little pip...she resolved to give him extra cookies once he felt well enough to eat them.

She put a kettle to boil and threw her selected herbs inside to seep and condense. She would have used her alchemical equipment to do this faster, but she didn’t feel like taking him downstairs where there would be students and workers showing up. When Quirrel started fussing again, she replaced his now warm cloth with a freshly cooled one, and he quieted down again.

Finally, the kettle had boiled enough and she strained the liquid into a bowl. Next, she took out a jar of honey and began the delicate procedure of making medicine that won’t be instantly spat out by a fussy grub. She calculated that a 2:1 ratio should work the best as he would be less likely to spit up something that tasted relatively good. Eventually, she mixed up a small cup full of her makeshift medicine and retrieved a clean eyedropper. Calculating body weight, she drew up half a measure, and with that finished she went to attempt to give it to Quirrel.

He, of course, put up a fuss, and began screaming again. She understood why, he wasn’t feeling well and his belly was hurting. The last thing he would want right now was something to go down into said hurting belly and she was not surprised when he tried to bite her a few times. Unfortunately for him, Isopods are not known for being able to do much more than nibble. Using that to her advantage, she let him latch on to the end of one of her tentacles, letting him get nice and occupied, and then shoved the end of the eyedropper into the corner of his mouth. The medicine was squirted down his throat before he could do anything to stop it and for that he bit her harder. He even hissed a little and it would be adorable if he wasn’t feeling so poorly.

He let go to scream again, but then stopped and stuck out his tongue. He was obviously tasting the honey now, and he loved honey. Monomon sighed in relief, at least next time she gave him a dose she wouldn’t get bit for her troubles. He opened his mouth a couple times and blinked, looking up at her face. He lifted up his hands and wiggled them.

“Abah?” He sniffled, trying to clear his throat and sinus.

“Hrm, what do you want, my little scholar?” She was pleased to not longer see him screaming. “Use your hand words.”

He made two fists and bumped them together. <”more,”> he signed.

“Of course, you can have more honey. I think you deserve it, after putting up with all that.”

He seemed happy with the idea, and she was able to give him another teaspoon of honey before he signed ‘done’ at her. His little belly could only take so much now and she took the time to wipe his face clean. He fussed at the cleaning, but yawned once she finished. Clearly the medicine was starting to work, his breathing was better and feeling his gut showed that it was settling down. She gave him a nuzzle and a kiss and tucked him back into his pip pocket. He was asleep nearly instantly and she gently strapped the pocket to herself once more.

Once he was secure she floated downstairs and was once again, swept up into the chaos of the Archives. Someone had accidentally released the charged lumaflies and they were setting books on fire.

Thankfully, Quirrel slept through the whole thing.

[eyeofthedrgn]

A Heavy Battle Symphony - Chapter 4

New chapter! This chapter is slightly fluffy, still angsty, but much less than previous chapters.

Catch up here: Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3

TW: language, mental abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, violence, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, self harm, self-esteem issues, sexual abuse (only alluded to briefly in future chapters), just a lot of trauma, angst, smut - lots of lovely gay smut

Word count: 1685

Chapter 4 - Forgotten

A little piece of paper with a picture drawn

Floats on down the street 'til the wind is gone

And the memory now is like the picture was then

When the paper's crumpled up it can't be perfect again

It was Monday, and he was healed enough that Maeve let him go to school. After a normal morning routine, Lorcan made sure he wore a hoodie that would do a decent job covering his neck. Hood up, hands in his hoodie pocket, head down, he headed to school.

He missed a lot of schoolwork. It was going to be a late night. Luckily, most of the teachers gave him until the end of the week to turn it in.

When P.E. came around, he went straight to the gym rather than the locker room. He found his teacher and handed him his doctor's note. Mr. Brullo sent Lorcan to the library to study. Lorcan was happy about that. He was able to catch up on some of his homework.

Lorcan's handwriting, luckily, wasn't hindered by his cast. Perrington at least broke his right arm, his non-dominant arm. That he was thankful for, if he could be thankful for anything that happened to him.

He was getting a headache from his pre-calc homework. Lorcan rubbed his face with his hand and sighed.

"Lorcan?"

Lorcan grunted and slowly turned to see Elide, who looked relieved to see him. That was interesting. "Oh, uh, hi."

"Aren't you supposed to be in gym?" Lorcan lifted his casted arm. Elide's eyes widened and her lips parted. "Oh." She swallowed. Fuck, here comes the pity. "How-" she closed her mouth. "How'd that happen? We thought you were sick." Why were they concerned?

He told the same story Maeve told the doctor. Something about getting in a fight and falling down stairs, and "you should see the other guy". She didn't seem to believe him, neither did the doctor.

"Can I sit with you?" Lorcan shrugged. She sat down and then proceeded to talk to him about what he missed in creative writing. He didn't realize her voice was so soothing.

"Has anyone signed your cast yet?" She was eyeing the black cast. "I have a silver Sharpie!" She pulled it out of her bag and held it up with a smile.

Lorcan huffed a small laugh. Not being able to say no to that smile, knowing he was going to get in trouble, well, what could really do to him anyway? So, Lorcan carefully pushed up his hoodie sleeve. She smiled brightly at him. He propped his head up on his hand, eyes closed and listened to her hum as she put ink to the black cast.

++++

It was hard to keep from asking Lorcan questions. Elide saw the handprint bruise on his neck, the exhaustion lining his body, and of course, the full arm cast. She thought about how his injuries were formed. Obviously, someone put their hands on him, but who?

She didn't know who he lived with besides his aunt. It was doubtful that a woman had done this sort of damage, but one never knows for sure.

As she put pen to plaster, she kept looking up at his face between strokes of ink. He had drifted off to sleep. His face was slack, a slight snore every time he breathed out. Lorcan looked so innocent like that and dare she say, gorgeous.

Having finished her artwork, she just watched him until the bell rang. She gently brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, delicately tucking it behind his ear. He didn't stir.

Elide wished there was something she could do to get him away from his more than shitty situation. Calling the police was probably out of the question, but that was really the only thing she could think of.

The bell rang.

---

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he felt his textbook being pulled from under his elbow. "Oh, shit. Sorry," Lorcan furrowed his brow as he started cleaning up his stuff.

"You looked tired, I didn't want to wake you, but it is lunch time." Elide smiled, "and you have to look at your cast!" She seemed so excited about it.

Expecting some nonsense, he was pleasantly surprised to find a nice line drawing from his elbow to his wrist. It was a row of detailed trees with her name under it. Lorcan looked at it with awe. He looked back at Elide, "You did that?" Obviously, she did that. Don't be stupid, Lorcan, he thought to himself.

She giggled. He thought her laugh was adorable. "Obviously." Lorcan's cheeks flushed while he finished packing up before they walked together to lunch in a comfortable silence.

---

He followed Elide through the lunch line, the lunch lady gave him an extra serving. He was probably looking a little gaunt these days having barely eaten for the past week. Lorcan started towards the empty table in the corner.

Apparently, Elide wasn't having any of that as she pulled him to the group table before he could go be alone. Everyone seemed excited to see him. His name was shouted amongst several other greetings. Lorcan felt a tug in his chest as he looked around at the friendly faces. Why were they always trying to be nice to him? And then his eyes fell on the silver haired boy, he instantly forgot what he was thinking. He stared at the green eyed beauty a fraction longer than he should have as he sat down.

Elide introduced everyone. Aelin, Lysandra, Manon, Dorian, Chaol, Fenrys, Connall, Rowan - the silver haired boy - and then Vaughn, who was the last one to join the table.

He was sitting between Elide and Fenrys. Lorcan kept his head down while he ate, feeling very out of place. Everyone was chatting around him, over him, leaning around him. It was a lot. He wished he was alone at the table in the corner.

Rowan spoke up, "Can I sign your cast?" Lorcan jerked his head up. The sleeve of Lorcan's hoodie was still pushed up, he had forgotten to pull it back down which was unusual, but under the current circumstances, it made sense.

Lorcan's heart sped and he suddenly felt warmth spread up his neck. It drove him crazy how much his body reacted of its own accord around Rowan. He wished it would stop.

There was no reason to deny him when the punishment was coming now anyway since Elide's Sharpie touched the cast in the library, so he just shrugged and moved his arm towards the center of the table, towards Rowan.

"Elide, can I borrow your Sharpie?" She handed it over with a nod and went back to animatedly talking to the other girls about something.

Lorcan was careful not to press into the edge of the table, as he adjusted his arm. "I don't think mine will be as pretty as Elide's. Sorry in advance." Lorcan just shrugged a shoulder. He watched Rowan do his little doodle.

Then Rowan grabbed Lorcan's hand to carefully twist his arm to get to a different part of the cast easier causing electricity to shoot through his skin. His breath hitched. The soft fingers lingering on his skin, he never wanted the other boy's hand to move. Lorcan's eyes darted to Rowan's face to see if he noticed anything weird. All he saw was intense concentration, the way his tongue stuck out just a tad and his brows stitched together. Suddenly he was too warm, chest tight, heart pounding. Hellas below.

"There!" Rowan smiled at his silly nonsensical line doodle signed with his name. "All done." That smile did weird things to his stomach and the absence of those warm fingers made all the heat he had just been feeling disappear. A shiver ran down his spine.

Rowan capped the Sharpie and went to hand it back to Elide when Fenrys grabbed it.

"Can I?"

"Yeah." He was screwed anyway.

By the end of lunch, his cast was covered in names and doodles by his... Friends? They couldn't be friends, could they?

As he walked to his next class, he started panicking. His chest tightening for a whole other reason than being in close proximity to a certain boy. A tightness that was only reminiscent of growing anxiety. He shouldn't have let anyone sign it. What was he thinking?

Fuck.

++++

"Lorcan," Rowan breathed as he saw the dark haired boy basically being dragged by Elide to their table. Everyone perked up at that and welcomed him back.

Rowan saw his pained expression. Then, he saw the cast and the light purples, greens, and yellows on his neck that Lorcan was obviously trying to hide with the hood of his hoodie. It looked like a handprint. A fucking handprint. His gut roiled at the thought.

But then Lorcan looked at him, and oh boy, those eyes were going to be the end of him. They were an amazing onyx, almost like pools of night. His cheeks heated and he hoped no one noticed.

He finally got the courage to ask to sign his cast. And when Lorcan leaned over to get his arm closer to Rowan, he noted the stiffness and slight discomfort that flitted over his face. There was so much damage to Lorcan's body that they couldn't see. It made him unbearably sad thinking about it.

For the rest of lunch, while everyone signed Lorcan's cast, Rowan just sat there silently, observing the beautiful dark haired boy. He'd catch his eye every now and then give him a small smile, which was never returned. His eyes just quickly flitted away. Lorcan, he learned was very hard to read.

Rowan wished they could hang out, just the two of them. He wanted to get to know him and help him. And know what those lips felt like, tasted like. How it would feel to thread his fingers through his long dark hair that was usually in a messy bun. Or just to hold his hand. Fuck, he had it bad.

____

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you would like to be tagged.

@thenerdandfandoms @starlightorstarfire

[squarefriend]

1 with Alphys or Toriel with 15? ^^

Once again, we’re doin’ both >:)

Ok so!! First off, Alphys:

At first she hated getting sick. It makes her feel miserable and achy and all that bad stuff. Worse, she gets sick rather often since she’s so sensitive to things like cold weather. So it’s at least a yearly thing that she catches a case of the sniffles.

Back then, she would normally just lock herself in her lab, feeling miserable until things got better. Luckily, Mettaton roomed with her for a bit and was there to lend a helping hand. He cleaned up and got her soup and all that good stuff. But, when he moved out....

She hated getting sick even more cause now no one was here. And now she felt even lonelier. And now she felt even more miserable.

This loathing kept up until the first time she got sick on the surface. I like to think winter hit pretty hard since there was no way to actually escape it like in the Underground. The quickly decreasing temperature meant Alphys was due for anouther bought of flu, so when the symptoms hit she was already holed up in her and Undyne’s appartment. She was all ready to have a long, miserable, cold season....

....But as it turns out Alphys actually enjoys being sick.

Well, less of actually being sick. She’d never admit how much she adores to be pampered and taken care of by her girlfriend. They snuggle up and watch anime, eat ramen, and just take a lot of time to love on eachother. Even if it’s certain that Undyne’s gonna get sick too, nobody can separate these dorks all winter. I mean, it’s just like in Alphys’s favourite fan fictions!!

Onto prompt 2, Toriel’s vacation habits!!

Ok so, admittedly a lot of my head cannons for Toriel are based off my own mother. Hell, even this doodle I was working on reminded me starkly of my mum. She loves traveling, and kinda shaped a lot of my views on how to do a good ass vacation. Also nastolgia.

Anyway!!! I like to think Toriel likes a nice, laid back vacation. She asks each person in thier little vacay group what they wanna do, then plans accordingly. Her favorite spots are usually old architecture, national parks, or good restraunts. Though, if it has a nice, warm spot to read, she’ll be happy.

Tori actually takes Frisk on a vacation every summer! They pack up the car and go to a new spot every time, mostly just sightseeing and other touristy things. Frisk’s chosen activities can be a little fast paced for her, but she manages well enough.

The one exception to the laid back, very pg vacation is when her and Sans decided to go to Las Vegas.

They’d been wanting to go on a best buddies road trip for a while, it was Summer, everything just worked out perfectly. Originally, it was going to be a normal, chilled out weekend with lots of sightseeing..... But they ended up going to a Casino and things got fucking intense.

Niether can actually remember what happened, aside from the fact that Toriel won too many drinking contests and Sans discovered he was really good at gambling. Kinda helps when you have loaded dice though.

They woke up at an entirely different hotel with a couple hundred extra bucks, 2 sets of party sunglasses, and absolutely no memory of the night before. So, they both decided to pack up and pretend that such an insane night never happened. It’s never been spoken of since

Mostly, Toriel just takes really chill, fun vacations.

[myhopelessromanticworld]

magnetic fields pt.1 | katsuki b.

bakugou didn’t have time for love. i mean how could he when the only thing on his mind was surpassing all might and deku and becoming the number one hero. love was a distraction, something only extras took the time to care about. so why did he find it so hard to look away from you?

hey! so slight change of plans, this fic is going to be split into 2 parts! if you like this fic please let me know and please enjoy! (italicized bit is a memory!)

word count: 1,652

friday

bakugou’s leg bounced restlessly underneath his desk as his eyes flitted around the room, never staying focused on one point for longer than a few seconds before his simmering red gaze shifted off again to another random object in the room. present mic had given class 1-A a work period so the students could get help while writing essays and bakugou, being the responsible student he is, had finished the essay last week when it was assigned so he was forced to put his headphones in and zone out all period. present mic had wanted to send bakugou back to the dorms as this was class 1-A’s last lesson of the day and the weekend would start as soon as the bell rang, but he decided against it knowing aizawa would give him shit for it if he found out.

as the explosive boy quickly grew bored of examining the room around him, he found his eyes drifting to the one area of the class he was avoiding. as much as bakugou tried to desperately search for a way to occupy his attention, he couldn’t ignore the pull he felt towards her, and like a moth to a flame his fiery eyes finally laid upon her. the one who’s plagued his every waking thought for the last few weeks, the one that caused him so much anger and confusion, the epitome of distractions, y/n. he didn’t know how it started or when it started but he did know that his infatuation for the girl was pissing him off. he had first noticed it a few weeks earlier during class sparring sessions with mr. aizawa.

bakugou had just finished sparring with todoroki and was sitting near him and some other classmates on the sidelines of the gym, waiting for the others to finish their fights. the gym floor was cleared of all equipment and 10 large circles were chalked out on the concrete floor. the training exercise was easy enough; get your opponent out of the circle without relying on a quirk using only hand-to-hand combat. mr. aizawa walked around the circles analyzing each student’s combat skills and body movements, searching for any weakness in their stance or defense. the pairs were chosen at random which lead to some odd sparring matches. so far everyone seemed to be doing relatively well for a bunch of extras. one of the oddest pairings was y/n and kirishima. kirishima towered over the tallest of his classmates and was strong even if he couldn’t use his quirk. of course that didn’t mean y/n couldn’t beat him and she was going to prove that to everyone in class 1-A. their fight had been going on much longer than everyone else’s and soon enough kiri and y/n were the only ones left standing. the melody of grunts and groans and the sounds of punches landing drew the eyes of the class and soon everyone was watching the intense fight. a couple of male students had made their concern for y/n’s well-being known when her and kiri had been matched up, but y/n and mr. aizawa had both been adamant that she would be fine. y/n didn’t say anything, but it pissed her off that her fellow students thought she wouldn’t be able to handle herself against kirishima, sure she couldn’t best kiri using pure physical strength, but she had seen him fight countless times and knew what tells and habits to look out for in order to beat him. kirishima was a big dude so he was a lot slower than y/n, taking advantage of this she stepped quickly in a circle around kiri throwing out hard jabs whenever she saw an open spot. after getting a few jabs in y/n would back off and keep herself out of kirishima’s reach until she’d regained some energy and went back in to cause more damage.

bakugou watched with a limited interest as y/n attempted to rush kirishima yet again. he was honestly kind of surprised she was doing so well, her strategy really seems to be workin- a small gasp left bakugou’s mouth as he watched his best friend grab y/n’s wrist mid-punch and before he could blink kirishima threw the girl down to the mat. it seemed kirishima had either figured out her strategy or had grown frustrated with her quick fists, bakugou guessed both. kirishima leaned down to grab y/n’s ankle and in a complete act of panic, her right foot shot out and slammed into kirishima’s forehead. y/n knew she would eventually have to give up her strategy and go all out, so as kirishima stumbled back, she popped up on her feet, turned her back to his chest, hauled one of his arms over her shoulder and used her hips and his weight to toss him over her shoulder and over the boundary. bakugou’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at y/n’s powerful figure. her skin glistened with sweat as her chest rose and fell in deep waves under her blue school uniform, her cheeks were flushed red from over-exertion and stray hairs plastered themselves to the side of her face and her forehead. her stance was wide, her shoulders were squared and set, and her head was held high, her form exuding strength and power.

seeing her in such a strong, sure state flipped a switch somewhere inside bakugou, and as he watched her take a few deep breaths and bask in the afterglow of her win he felt a fluttering in his stomach. it knocked the breath out of his chest with how overwhelming the feeling was and as he continued watching her the feelings only grew. his breathing picked up and there was an odd sensation in his chest, it felt like a heart attack but pleasant, he felt at peace, almost hypnotized by the way his heart soared in his chest. he mindlessly basked in his feelings until he began to feel his cheeks heat up, as that familiar heat crawled up his pale cheeks he tore himself out of thoughts about the way y/n’s hair shined under the gym lights he began to berate himself. katsuki shook his head, ‘what the hell are you thinking man? extras like her are competition, that’s it! she’s not worth another second’. as bakugou yelled at himself internally the school bell rang, signaling the end of the day, and he left the gym with the rest of his class, desperately trying to think of anything other than y/n’s muscular arms peeking out of her uniform.

and ever since that day bakugou found his eyes drifting to her more often, he noticed more about her and her little actions throughout the day. when she read her eyebrows furrowed and she frowned lightly as her eyes scanned the page, giving her a cute little pout that bakugou came to realize was her concentration face. he noticed how her hands were constantly in her hair, smoothing over the strands and running her fingertips soothingly over her scalp. he saw the way her eyes lit up when she ate dinner after a particularly rough training day, and he never missed the sweet sound of her voice as she hummed to herself while doing mundane tasks like the dishes, or tying her shoes. to put it bluntly - he was smitten. and that pissed him off! how dare she body slam her way into his life and occupy his mind like she had! he was going to be the number one hero and he couldn’t be distracted by some extra who would be lucky to be ranked in the top 100. bakugou shook his head lightly to himself and reached down to dig through his backpack for some paper and a pencil. he let himself get lost in his music as he began to doodle thoughtlessly on the paper, a poor attempt at distraction from the magnetic girl across the room. there was nothing that special about her. glance. she talked too loudly when she got excited and it hurt his already sensitive, damaged ears. glance. she got snarky in the mornings. glance. when she gets really mad her cheeks puff up. glance. when she’s talking about a passion of hers, her hands swing about. glance. on weekends she stumbles out of her dorm for breakfast, skin pink and warm from sleep, and a blanket wrapped tightly around her body. glance. when things in class or in life get too intense for her liking, she laughs. laughs until her face turns red - though bakugou has a theory that her face turns red because she’s embarrassed for acting out of place. glance-.

he knew this day would come, knew she would catch him looking at her. but as their gazes connected across the classroom, bakugou couldn't even find it in himself to be embarrassed, instead it felt like thousands of lightning bolts slammed through his body. his heart began pounding, his head felt foggy, his palms started sweating, a mix of chills and fluttering filled his stomach and in that moment all he wanted to do was hold her face in his hands and pour his heart out to her. but he can’t. and won’t. so instead he sends y/n a vicious snarl and forces his eyes back to his paper. he continued his drawing of kirishima, desperately trying to forget the look of confusion and hurt that crossed y/n’s face at his aggressive expression. bakugou spent the last few minutes of class thinking about the weekend ahead, and when the final bell for the day rang he collected his things and rushed out of the classroom before he could look at her again. bakugou only had two objectives for the upcoming weekend; train and get y/n out of his head.

[expired-monster-craft-smp]

Vibes Dream SMP members give off (in my opinion)

Dream

Barked at people in high school ironically but it became unironic real quick

Can’t cook very well but is good with a knife, especially at a fast pace

One of those kids who either purposely spells the first word wrong in a spelling bee to just be done with it right away or tries the hardest and manages to win (there is no inbetween for this heathen)

Bites ice cream with his teeth

Has snorted pixie stix far too many times and sneezed blue after each time

Eats bananas with the peels

Wears mismatched socks

Has taken a bite out of a pool noodle because he liked the texture and impulsively bit it (ADHD things✨😌)

Walks around looking extremely high but he’s just spacin out and stuck in his head

Dreams (lmao) in Minecraft and video games in general

Will flirt with anything that moves but has no idea how to respond to compliments

Makes fun of himself first before anyone else can

Has eaten an orange peel and it wasn’t that bad in his humble opinion

Wears khaki shorts

Eats the wax part of the baby bell cheese

Doesn’t actually know what genre his music taste is cause he vibes to everything

Georgenotfound

Picks at the skin on his lip when it’s dry so it bleeds and he tries not to give in by licking his lips often enough to the point where it became a habit

Wears velcro shoes because he doesn’t feel like tying them (he knows how, he just doesn’t wanna do it)

Eats peanut butter straight from the jar

Makes that disgusting “ants on a log” thing (celery stick filled with peanut butter topped with a row of raisins)

Can’t drink milk plain, it’s gotta have some sort of flavour

Can draw a perfect straight line but his circles look Terrible

Eats cheez-its like cereal without milk

Loves making little noises so much like he walks around his house doin chores and he’s just goin “memememenownownwnkwkshskshkshskhs”

Hates wearing socks

Coloured his tongue with highlighters because they’re non-toxic

Constantly tapping his feet and hands to a song/beat playing in his head

I can’t imagine this man using a bike of any sort, so Imma say he doesn’t know how

Can’t be licked by dogs because he’s used to being licked by his cat so it makes him uncomfortable

Can actually sing pretty well but gets real nervous in front of people so he fucks it up

Sapnap

No idea how to cook anything other than Mac and cheese please help this man

Meows at cats because he wants to confuse them and laughs Way too hard when he does (his laugh is like sunshine so I’ll allow it)

Would be fantastic at braiding hair Idk why

Gives the BEST fuckin hugs EVER

When singing, he makes noises for the instrumental parts too

Wanted to play the drums at one point

Really likes pit bulls but he’s more of a cat person so he loves them from afar

Only vaguely knows how to shave his face properly without hurting himself

Opportunities for him come up out of pure luck but mans is skilled for them so it works out well almost Always

Used to or currently has a skateboard and isn’t too bad

ALWAYS has bruises appearing everywhere for no reason, he doesn’t even know where 90% of them are from

Calls his friends twinks to jokingly bully them and gets away with it because he himself is not a twink

Gets sudden bursts of energy in the middle of the night and just shimmies around a bit to try and deal with it

Favours spearmint over peppermint

Arsonist

Banned from three (3) Dave & Busters in Texas

Badboyhalo

Washes his hands after doing literally anything

Likes the bird exhibits at the zoo (specifically the penguins)

Very good at cooking, best at soups and stews

If he painted his nails they would definitely be a baby blue

Overthinks very simple things and it makes him look less smart than he actually is

Drinks tap water

Probably prefers whiskey over beer

Knows how to tap dance a bit

Surprisingly good at taking and handling shots

Steady hands

Adds extra chocolate to hot chocolate

Plays sudoku and is really really good at it (only uses pen when he plays)

Everytime he sees a Himalayan salt lamp he NEEDS to lick it despite knowing it’s very salty and he’ll pull a face afterwards

Not great at Rock Paper Scissors

Wears sunglasses inside for no reason at all, he just,,,Does

Still has a stuffed animal from childhood perched on his bed

Probably tried his hand at archery

Tommyinnit

He has no idea how to use a baby voice on children or animals, so he just talks to them normally

Wears socks to bed

His fingers are double jointed

Always starts twitching if he stays still for too long because he’s gotta move around

His shoes and have different laces and it bothers everyone but himself

Doodles on himself in class when he’s bored or not paying attention

Has really good hearing, both with pitch and volume

Can’t eat tomato’s by themselves, it’s either gotta be in sauce form or with something else

FUCKING LOVES STRING CHEESE

Terrible handwriting

Favourite part of a slice of bread is the crust

Wants to paint his nails black to be cool and edgy but his hands are far from steady and he has no clue how to paint nails

Pretty affectionate with close friends (like Tubbo and Wilbur) off stream/camera

He likes pears for some reason

Wilbur Soot

Is constantly having to decide between leaving his hair as is or shaving all of it off

He also thinks about adding some colour but never actually does

Most tea is gross to him

Everytime he puts a breath mint thats circular in his mouth, he pretends it’s a pill and he’s taking drugs because he thinks that’s funny

He does that vacant state as a joke but that really what he looks like when he’s spacing out

Likes to aggressively flirt with his male friends but if his female friends flirt with him, he gets a bit flustered

Has probably accidentally swallowed a guitar pick

Once drank two entire jars of pickle juice

Bonks his head on anything and everything

He has broken a pair of glasses by walking face first into a pole outside

Thinks kinetic sand is fun

Has passionate arguments with others about trivial and random topics like chicken feet

Can open a beer bottle with his teeth

Would accidentally pop and swallow a bracket if he had braces

Tubbo

Hates sharp cheddar cheese

Everytime he learns a new word it’s in every sentence he says for the next week or so

Ate candle wax for a dare once

Doesn’t know how to tie a tie and will probably never learn

Wanted to do ballet at one point but decided not to

He has eaten multiple flowers for absolutely no reason other than wanting to know how they taste

Starts vibrating if he’s too excited

Used to bite his nails

ABSOLUTELY DESPISES MUSTARD

Has eaten paper and says it doesn’t taste that bad

Enjoys telling his friends how much they mean to him (this has resulted in Tommy and Wilbur crying on a few seperate occasions)

Spaces out a lot and doesn’t often pay attention to his surroundings

Gets lost inside of Best Buy’s

Likes s’mores but doesn’t properly understand how to make them

Technoblade

Learned to cook purely out of spite and found it’s actually pretty fun

Constantly getting smacked in the face by trees when walking outside

Really likes apple pie

Everytime he looks at potatoes he thinks of all the hours he spent trying to win the potato war

Starts things as a joke and gets too into it

Doesn’t like the taste of most energy drinks

Has rubbed salt and lemon juice into an open wound to just,,see how it felt (he did it once and Hated it but did it again because he forgot what it felt like)

Sometimes hates how quiet he is because everyone he knows is loud and talks over him

Despite how he is portrayed in the Dream SMP, he is extremely loyal to his friends and would kill for them

Over seasons his food because he can’t taste it otherwise

Really good balance

Doesn’t like to wear bright colours, but still enjoys wearing colours

Good at knitting

Quackity

Actually fairly quiet when off camera

Will accidentally use Spanish grammar while speaking English sometimes

Country music confuses him

Doesn’t really like kids but they really like him

Can’t dance

Hardest drugs he’s ever done is second hand smoke from a cigarette and children’s Tylenol

His favourite jolly ranchers are the red and blue ones

He uses lighters as fidget toys basically

Will have a breakdown, take a bubble bath, and call himself the self care king

Dehydrated

Wants a pet rat but he already has a cat and doesn’t wanna risk anything

Constantly questions why his main source of income is playing Minecraft with two 16 year olds

Karl Jacobs

Probably ate a spider once

Would wear those socks that are like gloves for you feet where it separates all the toes

Eats ravioli straight from the can, cold

Can answer an incredibly complex math equation fairly easily but will stumble over 12x11

Loves kids so much and speaks to them in a soft voice

Tried making ramen in a coffee pot and broke it

Drinks 2 monster energy drinks a day on average

Likes to open walnuts with his teeth but doesn’t actually eat them

The embodiment of that one John Maulany joke where he says you could spill soup in his lap and HE’D apologize to YOU

Loves physical affection so so much!!!!

If he moves his wrists in a certain way, they pop Really Loudly

Fantastic at making cookies

Fundy

Lowkey actually a furry but more on like, a cat boy level than fursuit level

Drives a Honda Civic

Likes ABBA

Adds parsley to almost anything he makes food-wise

Loves garlic bread so much, he’d commit a federal crime for it

Middle child vibes

Decent at skiing

Good at singing but isn’t terribly confident

Seems responsible at first glance but in reality he’s pretty chaotic and childish

Bad at spelling

Always cuts his nails way too short so they always feel weird/hurt

Likes bracelets and rings

Thinks pastel colours slap

JSchlatt

Despite the character he plays, he’s actually really sweet

He’s genuinely that cryptic off camera as he is on camera

Can cook but chooses not to most of the time

Would probably say “what pussy size you wear” to anyone who asks him to buy pads

Not actually as intimidating as he appears to be

Lowkey would fight a child

Shuts down when someone compliments him, often using aggression as a front because holy shit they just called him handsome and kind what the Fuck-

Jokingly says his license is suspended but in all actuality he never got his license in the first place

He has two (2) extra teeth but they don’t need to be removed so he kept them

Has a stick n poke of a stickman on his ankle he got in high school

Likes physics

This is already very long, and I still plan on adding more.

[e-of-west-glendia]

Happy birthday to the wonderful @sirrriusblack!! You’re one of the most amazing people I know and I’m so, so glad that I decided to message you wayyy back in December.

I love you to death and again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎉

All I Want For Christmas Is You

(Yes I know it’s May. So shhhhhhhhh. Blame Mariah Carey and her song for shuffling on my playlist and putting me in a Christmas mood) (also tumblr is mean so I have to post this in three parts) Part 2 & Part 3

James (8:59 am): Are you here yet??

Sirius (9:05 am): Yep just landed

James (9:05 am): Cool cool

James (9:10 am): You outside yet?

Sirius (9:13 am): Jesus shit no. I literally said I landed like 5 minutes ago

James (9:14 am): 8 minutes* and so?

Sirius (9:16 am): Soooooo I have to get through security and shit. Do you know how airports work Prongs?

James (9:19 am): Of course I do. You just yell at terminal until you get to your destination quicker

Sirius (9:22 am): Lolll ok sure. I’ll try screaming at it

James (9:22 am) sounds like a plan padfoot

Sirius (9:30 am): Ok I’m out where are you?

Sirius (9:34 am): James?

Sirius (9:35 am): Jaaaammeeeessssss

Sirius (9:37 am): Prongssss where are youuu. It’s cooollldddd

James (9:38 am): sorry sorry I had to find the gate

Sirius (9:39 am): you mean to tell me you badgered me about getting off the plane and you didn’t even know where to pick me up???

James (9:39 am): ….maybe….

Sirius (9:40 am): dumbass

James (9:41 am): stfu and get in the car

Sirius (9:41 am): (:

~~~~~~~~~

Sirius looked up from his phone, grinning as a loud horn sounded from the curb. James was leaning out the window and sending him an equally large grin.

James pressed on the horn again, causing several people to look up in alarm and annoyance.

Sirius made his way to the back of the car, tapping on the back of it for James to pop the trunk. A moment later there was a faint click and the trunk had sprung open. Sirius quickly shoved his bags in and then closed the trunk probably a lot harder than he should’ve.

He winced at the sound it made as it came down.

“Trying to kill my car, are you?” James shouted from the front.

“Not on purpose,” Sirius called back, walking around to the passenger side.

James reached over and unlocked the door, throwing it open and waving his arm as if to say well what are you waiting for?

“Get in loser, we’re going shopping.”

Sirius laughed at the quote before clambering into the car.

“Good to see you, too, James. Where we headed.”

James clicked on the radio, Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now blaring to life on the audio.

James’ resulting grin would’ve been enough to make most people worried.

“Macy’s,” he said, and then he sped off towards the exit.

~~~~~~

Remus would’ve winced at Lily’s crushing hug if he hadn’t been hugging her with the same amount of force.

“You’re back!!” She shrieked.

“Yeah, yeah I am,” Remus said laughing.

It had been months since he’d been back in San Francisco and he was definitely glad to be home. He’d been away for nearly a year for a work trip — as great as it was, there was something really special about coming home, and seeing his friends again was making him almost giddy with excitement.

“When did you get in?” Lily asked, her words slurred a bit from excitement so it sounded more like one large word.

Remus shrugged,”A couple hours ago— hey! Jesus, what was that for?!”

Remus jerked away from redhead, glaring at the spot where she’d punched him in the arm.

“You should’ve told me when you landed! I could’ve come to pick you up!!”

Remus rubbed his shoulder. “I didn’t want to bother you with it, I can get back to my own house perfectly fine.”

“I know you can,” Lily said, rolling her eyes. “But James went to pick up Sirius hours ago and he could’ve got you too!”

“Oh,” Remus said. “Right.”

Lily frowned at his less than enthusiastic response. “All good there Remus?”

Remus blinked at her for a second, brain having trouble keeping up with what was going on.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, yeah I’m good.”

“Riiiight”

“I swear,” Remus said, raising his palms in the air. “I’m absolutely, one hundred percent, fine.”

Lily’s eyebrows looked like they were trying to leave her face but she nodded. “Yeah, yeah alright. Let’s go.”

“Go?” Remus asked. “Go where?”

Lily’s eyebrows dropped as she rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered how such smart people could be the biggest idiots.

“To the Potters. Christmas party, remember?”

“How could I forget.”

The Potter’s were absolutely legendary for their parties. Large events thrown in their Noe Valley house filled to the brim with friends, family, and other people who just happened to be invited. While it was true that Euphemia and Fleamont Potter we’re getting up there in age, they still knew how to throw a party. It also might’ve helped that their son and his friends were renowned for their own parties at boarding school and penchant for getting into trouble.

“Mm of course not,” Lily said. “But did you remember you were supposed to help me set up?”

“Err…” Remus trialed off. Well, no, he hadn’t remembered.

“Uh huh just what I thought. C’mon Remus, wouldn’t want to be responsible for a less than awesome Potter Christmas party, would we?”

~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t that Remus hadn’t known that James was picking up Sirius. No, he’d known all right— it was on the group chat after all. He’d known and he had deliberately planned his flight schedule around it.

Things hadn’t exactly been normal last time Remus had seen Sirius. And he’d decided that he’d much rather take an Uber home than hitch a ride with Padfoot and James. “I-Can-Sense-A-Conflict-Between-My-Friends-In-Under-A-Minute” Potter.

The thing with Sirius was that he’d gotten so good at covering up emotions it was hard to tell which ones were real. Such was the case last year.

Remus had been in love with his best friend for longer than he could remember. It had started small, noticing things, like his laugh. Then it slowly got worse and Remus started noticing finer details. Like the way his hair shimmered when it caught the light, or how the corners of his eyes would crease when he laughed. Or how—

“Remus. Earth to Remus Lupin, are you still with me?”

Remus looked up from the car window. He’d been doodling small stars on the parts that had turned foggy from the contrast of the warm car on the cold exterior.

“Yes?”

“We’re here.”

Remus started around their surroundings. “Oh”

“Mhm,” Lily said, pulling her key out of ignition. “What were you even doing?”

Remus looked back to the window, blushing slightly at the doodles. “Erm...stars?”

A grin split across Lily’s face. “Stars, huh?”

“What?” Remus complained, he absolutely did not need her to tease him about this. Or tell the other Marauders, it’s definitely be best if she didn’t tell the other’s.

Lily was practically glowing now. Brimming with some hidden information.

“Oh, nothing. C’mon let’s head in.” Without another word she pushed open the car door, sending a gust of cold air into the car and making Remus shiver.

Remus sat in his seat for an extra thirty seconds or so, trying to come up with what on earth Lily was talking about. Finally, muttering something about girls being confusing, Remus stepped out of the car and trudged towards the Potter house.

~~~~~~~~~

San Francisco was known for many things, but being warm was not one of them. Especially not during the month of December.

Sirius shivered slightly, cursing himself for not wearing a warmer coat. He knew how cold this god forsaken city got. So why on earth had he not packed for the weather. Oh, right, because he was in Australia where the seasons were flipped upside down. Well at least it was warm there.

It might’ve been better if it was the type of cold for snow, but alas it wasn’t. San Francisco was the type of cold with frigid winds that chilled you to the bone and a freezing atmosphere that made your teeth chatter.

Sirius wasn’t generally a warm person. In fact he’d once made Lily drop a cup of coffee when he’d startled her by touching her with a severely cold hand. So he’d made his peace with being a cold blooded lizard. But even he had his limits on cold.

Now James on the other hand looked ecstatic. Bouncing up Powell street towards Macy’s with poorly contained excitement.

“How the fuck are you so happy right now?” Sirius grumbled at his friend.

“Because it’s Christmas and you’re back.”

“I’m all for the Christmas spirit but it’s freezing outside.”

“Don’t you always say you’re cold-blooded?”

“Oh, ha ha. Cold-blooded creatures want to be warm you dumbass.”

James chuckled at his irritation. “We’ll be inside soon enough.”

Soon enough couldn’t have come faster. Sirius could’ve hugged whatever person was in charge of the heater in Macy’s. Stepping through the doors to the department store had felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

“Finally,” Sirius groaned when they’d gotten in. “A normal temperature.”

James had only laughed before tugging him further into the store in search of gifts.

~~~~~~~~~

“Alright, out with it Lupin. What’s going on between you and Black?”

Remus had almost taken Lily to her word. He’d been drinking tea when Lily asked her question, catching him off guard and causing him to choke.

“Pardon,” he spluttered.

Lily’s hands were on her hips, red hair falling around her face in waves. “Don’t you ‘Pardon’ me, Remus Lupin. I’m not an idiot. There’s been something off about you and Sirius since last fall.”

Remus had recovered slightly and took another swallow of his drink before saying: “Lily, I don’t know what you—“

“Oh my god,” Lily said suddenly, cutting him off. “You two finally worked it out!”

“Worked what out?”

Lily pushed herself up onto the counter, leaning in close to Remus.

“You two finally figured out that you’re head over heels for each other.”

Remus nearly fell off his seat in shock. Shit, he’d been discovered.

Lily snorted, not missing the flash of panic cross his face.

“Relax, I’ve known for a while. Hell, we all have.”

“You all know I like Sirius?” Remus asked, recovering his wits slightly.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Yes, duh. You two weren’t exactly discreet about it.”

“Two?”

“Yes, Remus. You and Sirius? Y’know Sirius Black? Rich, playboy supreme who you’ve had a crush on since you were like 14?”

“I know who he is,” Remus snapped, and then winced at the cool it buddy look that Lily was giving him. “What I meant was, you think Sirius likes me of all people.”

“Mhm”

“How? Why? Where?”

Lily sighed. “God Remus, you are so blind.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Daniel Michaelson: He Belongs to Himself

(for @whumptober2019, prompt: Recovery, I wrote a piece set during the trial/post-captivity - this is our second Ryan POV. Thanks to @orchidscript for a couple of lines I borrowed from our convo on the fandom version of this universe and to @pinkcupboardwitch for helping me pick my scenario)

TW: Brief reference to suicidal ideation, violence/torture/abuse (none depicted, but referenced)

Ryan Michaelson falls asleep on the couch with the impact statement he’s been working on a flutter of loose papers on the floor, scratched-out starting sentences and half-written paragraphs, occasional little nonsense doodles in the margins where he tried to think his way through this.

They want him to give some kind of speech, before sentencing. His parents provided a couple of videos and photos of Danny before it all happened, but they haven’t come to the trial since the first week and they’re not interested in speaking on Danny’s behalf.

No, just like the rest of his life, their parents will do the bare minimum for Danny and Ryan will step in to try and fill the gaps, to be brother and parents both. It’s so much harder with so little of Danny left.

How do you even explain what it means to have your brother disappear and then return, only it’s not your brother any longer?

He’s been working on figuring out where to even start with the impact statement since before the trial began, since the initial preparation with the lawyers. He writes a draft and discards it - writes another one and tears that one up, too. Cries for a couple of hours whenever he’s alone in his room, then starts again.

They want him to explain what it was like to lose Danny, and Ryan’s got no fucking clue where to begin.

Does he open with the night Danny didn’t come back to the apartment they shared, wasn’t answering his phone? Does he start with the increasingly frantic calls to all of his friends, to the single thread that ran through them - he said he was going to see that guy he’s been talking to - to the realization that no one could get ahold of Nathaniel Vandrum either?

Does he begin with what it felt like when the cops called to tell Mom they’d found Danny’s car with his cell phone in a puddle of blood on the backseat, abandoned in a ditch in Oregon next to the dead body of the owner of the next car the abductor had stolen? Or when the cops explained to Ryan that the phone had been charged and on for nearly a full day - meaning that whoever had taken him had watched Danny’s phone light up with call after call after call, had kept the phone charged just to see it?

Maybe he could explain, in stomach-churning detail, what happened in his mind when a police officer had sat across the table from him and told him that local law enforcement and the FBI had begun thinking in terms of recovery rather than rescue.

He has no idea. All he knows is that there isn’t any way, not really, to explain what it felt like to be told his brother was missing - presumed abducted - presumed the target of foul play - presumed dead - never coming home.

The weird insanity he’d gone through, thinking his brother was dead. Going from a college sophomore with a 4.0 to a junior who nearly had to drop out when his grades tanked and he spent a year trying to drink himself to death, thinking if he did at least he’d see his brother again.

He couldn’t begin to explain his parents strong-arming him into therapy, telling the therapist all his awful thoughts, sharing emotions with someone when he came from a family where you never did any such thing, and the revelation of the therapist just… giving him permission to grieve, when his parents never did, when he felt like a burden, when he didn’t know how to keep going without the older brother that had always been the surest, most concrete foundation of his world.

Maybe he should start with how it felt to get the call that Danny was alive, that Nathaniel Vandrum had simply driven a truck out of the woods in Western Canada like a goddamn soot-smeared pissed-off Wendigo with his frightened brother, a bag of his favorite books, and one hell of a fucked-up story about the last four years.

Did Wendigos even come from Western Canada? Ryan can’t really remember, his Native North American Folklore & Mythology class was during the drinking-to-death time and he doesn’t remember most of it.

It doesn’t matter.

He could start with the way he’d been elated and scared, the way his stomach had dropped when they’d told him that before he could see Danny, he’d have to talk to some kind of expert about what to expect, so he wouldn’t cause extra anxiety during a stressful reintegration.

He could start with the way the trauma expert had held his hand and told him Danny was severely dissociated - a word he’d never heard before that day - and might not even know who he was right away. The expert had tried to make him understand that Danny had been held in captivity by someone who insisted he was a pet and not a person, had undergone something called extreme dehumanization, more words Ryan hadn’t known before that day and knew all too much about, now.

He could tell them what it was like to see Danny sitting at the table, hunched over and looking at everyone from behind wavy red hair grown out a little longer than when he’d left, blue eyes wide and scared that he’d be in trouble for using a chair and not sitting on the floor, begging someone to tell him where Nate was, to bring him back into the room, could someone find Nate?

He could talk about the way Danny flinched away from his touch but ran to Nathaniel Vandrum.

Maybe he could just talk about how fucking weird it was to have your brother’s sort-of-possibly-a-boyfriend be the fellow captive who freed him, who tried to kill a man to save Danny, and who sleeps in Danny’s bed but as far as Ryan can tell does nothing more than kiss his forehead or his face now and then and hold him through his nightmares.

Maybe he could talk about wanting to shout in Nate Vandrum’s empty fucking face that he should have done something sooner, that he should have saved Danny when more of Danny was left to save, just wanting to grab Nate by the shoulders and shake him and scream why couldn’t you have been stronger for him?

He could talk about how it feels to find yourself snapping at a traumatized man because he has the audacity to be very slightly less traumatized than your brother, and because he’s something to take all of his grief and hurt out on.

Because no matter how hard Nate Vandrum’s jawline gets, no matter how cold and flinty his green eyes go, he never, ever fights back against Ryan’s deep well of unresolved anger.

He just stands there, taking all of Ryan’s yelling, like he’s earned it. And maybe he fucking has. Ryan could tell them all about how looking at Danny’s frightened shattered life makes him want to cut Nathaniel Vandrum’s composure apart, because… because how dare he be so calm and collected, when Danny hides in a closet after breaking a glass, begs to be punished, to be fixed?

He’d been up all night trying to figure it out, and he just can’t think any longer. He’s written line after line after line trying to start and the day they wanted him to give the statement was just a few days away now. What would he say? Anything he said, that asshole Denner would be sitting right there listening to it, probably getting off on how he’d wrecked Ryan’s life by stealing his brother, enjoying getting to learn about Ryan’s halting, grudging work alongside Nate to teach Danny how to be human again.

He’ll probably sit there and laugh through the speech, no matter what Ryan says. He doesn’t want to bare his broken heart to that sadistic psychopath.

He doesn’t want to admit that Danny is so supremely, thoroughly broken.

He doesn’t want to admit that sometimes he wonders if recovery is even possible, or if he would spend the rest of his life managing a man two years older than him who can’t remember his own age or that bills are due or the names of the people who used to be his best friends - but who can explain in exacting, excruciating detail the way Abraham fucking Denner made him step in a trap and nearly break his own leg, just to see him do it?

Ryan’s eyes blur, with tears or exhaustion - he’s not sure which - and finally he falls asleep on the couch with Netflix still playing, lets the papers drop to the floor, allows his eyes to close and force him out of his fears and all-consuming rage on behalf of a brother who seems no longer able to access the feelings that boil Ryan alive.

Ryan wakes up sometime later to the gentle sensation of a soft fuzzy blanket being placed carefully over him. 

He shifts around, mumbling thanks and starting to drift back away, and for a second it’s like nothing had ever happened, really - like maybe he’s just fallen asleep studying, and Danny will be right there to laugh at him in the morning for not even making it back to bed.

The sound of the papers being shuffled back together wakes him the rest of the way and he groans, feeling the muscles of his back shifting around as he pushes himself up, rubbing at one eye. “Fuck, what time is it?”

If Nate Vandrum just put a blanket on him - if that passive asshole is reading Ryan’s halting attempts to explain the pain and grief he’s spent four years buried in - he might just punch him in the face. We’re not friends, motherfucker - you’re just the only person he’ll willingly touch, and I can’t bear to take anything away from him ever again, he’s already lost so much.

“2:45 in the morning, you fell asleep with Netflix still going,” Danny’s voice says calmly, and Ryan nearly jolts totally upright on the couch in shock.

Danny doesn’t look up, kneeling on the floor by the coffee table with his red hair falling over his face looking nearly auburn in the dark, carefully setting the pile of papers on the table before flicking at a miniscule, invisible speck of dust there. He’s shirtless, just wearing the warm, heavy flannel pajama pants that he’d asked Ryan to buy him, shyly, like Ryan could ever deny him anything he actually expressed a want for.

You were dead for four years, Ryan had said, wanting so badly to hug him, knowing at the same time that Danny would only go stiff in his arms and then suddenly go boneless and relaxed all at once in the awful way he’d been trained to accept any and every touch without complaint. You were dead and came back to life, Danny, I’ll give you anything you want for forever, man, just ask for it and it’s yours.

My name is Red. I-I just want some pajama pants that are really, um, warm and maybe with, uh, fleece on the, the inside-

Of course, of course I’ll get those, I’ll buy you a pair for every fucking day of the week.

Th-thank you for that. I get, um, I get cold a lot  now. Thank you for listening to my request, Ryan. Thank you for being kind enough to give me-

Hey, this is just doing something nice. Don’t thank me, Danny.

Red, my name is Red, please, um, don’t call me the other name. When someone does something nice for you, you say thank you. Be grateful for every gift you are given, Danny had recited, he’s tilted, eyes distant. And every breath is a gift Abraham chooses to give.

Even in the darkness, Ryan can see the lines of scarring that run down his brother’s back and wrap up his arms, the oddly muscled shoulders (chopping firewood for hours is a good shoulder workout but I skipped a lot of leg days, Danny had joked one day, and Ryan had been so shocked by his brother showing a hint of a sense of humor that he hadn’t even remembered how to laugh), the ribs that stand out too much and the sharp hipbones showing above the waistband of his pants.

When Danny turns to look at him, the blue eyes are quiet for once, warm and focused right on him instead of fogged-over and frightened. The ring of scarring across his face is less obvious, with only the moon for light.

In those unexpectedly clear eyes he can see Danny, his big brother, and Ryan can’t do anything but stare. Are you still in there somewhere after all?

“What are you, uh, doing up, man?” Ryan rubs at his eyes again, but hesitantly, like Danny might disappear if he does. On the TV screen, Netflix is asking if he’s still watching and Ryan feels immensely, supremely judged by it.

Of course the fuck not, I wasn’t even watching -before- I fell asleep at midnight.

“Dreaming,” Danny says casually, off-handedly, as if ‘dream’ isn’t just a code word for ‘nightmare’ now, because it’s not like Danny has any other kind of dream. “Came out for water and found you on the couch. You look, um, you look cold, Ryan. Is… is it okay? To put the blanket on?”

“Yeah… yeah, of course it was. Thanks for that. I don’t even have the energy to get up and go to bed, I feel totally wiped.”

Danny nods, watching him carefully still. Then he drops his eyes back to the sheaf of papers on the coffee table. “Is that what you’re, um, you’re going to read about me?”

Ryan swallows hard against the lump in his throat and a deep instinctive urge to pull the papers away. Please don’t look at how hurt and scared I was, things were so much worse for you. I don’t want you to feel guilty for this. “Yeah. I suck at this, though, I barely have anything written.“

“You’ll, um, you’ll do good, I know you will.” Danny shifts around on his knees, looking up at Ryan, and it’s just such a welcome change to see him with clear eyes. “You’re not going to do a recording? You’re going to, um, to stand up in the, in the court?”

“Yeah.” Ryan drops his head back, staring up at the ceiling in thought. “I have my suit picked out already - the red one? Looks good with my skin. Funny that I know what suit I’m going to read in but no fucking clue what to actually say.”

“You’ll know when you stand up, you’re always good at speaking to people. Or you used to be.” Danny hesitates, and Ryan thinks again how young he looks, something about the uncertainty in his posture, the wide blue eyes, the mop of wavy red hair that hangs over one eye. “I think you probably still are - I guess I don’t, um, I don’t know any longer.”

If you met Danny and Ryan on the street, you’d never guess Danny was two years older… but you might guess, just by looking, that Danny is profoundly, deeply fucked up - and that Ryan is profoundly exhausted.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m probably the same. I don’t want to do it, but I do at the same time, you know?” Ryan flings an arm over his eyes, wondering why he’s so awake when he’s only even been asleep for a couple of hours, really. “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? He doesn’t even want to be found Not Guilty. He doesn’t care.”

“Maybe not. But you should do it anyway, for you.” Danny hesitates, and then Ryan blinks and lowers his arm to stare as he feels the barest, nervous brush of Danny’s hand against his shoulder.

He turns to look down into wide blue eyes and a tense half-smile, Danny’s shoulders hunched a little, up near his chin, the curve of the scar along his cheekbone traveling down the side of his face and cutting into his jaw, lit by dim moonlight and nothing else until the red seems paler, more faded.

Danny is more than six feet tall but ever since he came back, he seems so, so much smaller. Something about the way he folds into himself, makes himself less visible and less of a presence in the world.

“… Hey, you, you haven’t, um-” Ryan cuts himself off, afraid speaking it out loud will break the spell. 

You haven’t touched me since the night before you disappeared.

“I want you to speak. You’ll do really well,” Danny says with pure certainty in his voice - and it’s his voice, the voice Ryan remembers as the basic building block of his entire life. Danny had been a kid when he was adopted, but Ryan was still a toddler - and he had no memories Danny wasn’t a part of.

Not until four and a half years ago.

There’s a moment where Ryan doesn’t move, just feels the soft weight of the hand on his shoulder - Danny’s hands are sort of ruined, scarred and numb to temperature changes, but the weight of his touch is the same.

The same and so much more, all at once.

“Okay. I will, I promise. I’ll figure it out. You should head back to bed. If Nate wakes up, he’ll freak out if you’re not there.”

“He’ll come out and see I’m right here.” Danny shrugs, looking at him for a moment longer with those calm, thoughtful eyes - the opposite of how he’d looked since they brought back what was left of Daniel Michaelson for Ryan to try and put back together - but it wasn’t really an expression he’d ever worn before, either. “I don’t mind being awake. I don’t need much sleep now. I’ll nap while you’re in court, anyway.”

I know, Ryan thinks with a dip of despair. You sleep in the closet when we’re gone and you think we don’t know.

He fights it back and smiles, a little, reaching up carefully to lay his hand over Danny’s, sure he’ll pull away - but he doesn’t.

It feels like a goddamn miracle, but his brother doesn’t pull away from his touch.

Danny’s hand is cold, under his, and Ryan can feel the bumpy silk-soft ridges of scarring where that fucking bastard had sliced along over the tops of his veins, over and over again, creating a raised roadmap of the torture he’d put Danny through for his own sick entertainment.

“You should tell them about when we got super drunk at the company Christmas party and Mom and Dad caught us playing literal music videos off YouTube in the conference room and laughing at the Meatloaf one.“ Danny’s voice is a little dreamy, wistful.

"Y-you remember that?” Ryan’s voice goes soft. There were rules, Danny has explained again and again. One rule was to never think about Danny’s life before - to forget there had ever been anything else.

Danny’s memory is shot to hell from all the blows to the head and four years of nonstop panic and fear and being trained like an animal, kept like a pet. He barely remembers his own birthday.

But… but he remembers this.

“That was a couple months before I… um, left. I used to think about it all the time.” Danny looked away from him, briefly, and the line of his face, the profile, strikes Ryan all over again.

He took it for granted for so, so long before the morning Danny hadn’t come home and didn’t answer the phone.

Ryan was never going to take it for granted again.

“You never talk this much anymore,” Ryan says softly, marveling at the simple sound of his brother’s voice devoid of pleading or begging or reciting the parade of awful rules Abraham Denner forced him to memorize and live by. “I miss your voice.”

Danny just looks at him, and it’s silent in the middle of the night, the darkest hours. No birds outside, the apartment complex is quiet.

“That’s what you can do.” Danny’s voice is caught, thin and oddly strained.

“What?”

“Tell them you missed my voice.” He is still, so still, and then he seems to propel himself up off the floor to wrap his arms around Ryan, burying his head against his shoulder.

It has been four and a half years since Danny hugged him.

Ryan’s arms are up and around him too, feeling his brother’s chill skin, Danny’s hair brushing his forearm where his arms go around his neck. He can feel the raised bumps of scarring at the top of his back above his shoulder blades, the spots around his neck where Denner made him wear a barbed wire collar for days at a time, the way Danny’s shoulders are heavy muscle with skin stretched over it, without even an ounce of excess.

Danny starts to shake, and it’s only when Ryan hears the softest hissed intake of breath and feels dampness along the neckline of his T-shirt that Ryan realizes his big brother is crying.

“I’m so sorry,” Danny whispers in a broken, cracking voice, and Ryan feels Danny twisting his fingers into the fabric of his shirt just over his spine. The soft blanket slides down and away until it puddles around his waist where he still sits on the couch, holding onto the tall, lanky older brother who once used to hold him like this after his nightmares.

But God, Danny’s nightmare had lasted so much longer.

“I’m sorry,” Danny repeats, his voice shaking and thick with the tears that fall despite his best efforts to hold them back. “I’m so sorry, Ryan, I’m so sorry, I missed you so much… I, I’m sorry that I’m not the same person, that I came back the puppy, I’m so sorry that this is all that’s left, I know it’s not enough-… I’m s-s-so fucking sorry-”

“Sssshhhh,” Ryan says with his arms as tight as he can make them, as though Danny might disappear again if he doesn’t keep him firmly attached to the earth. “Ssshhh, don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault, it’s never been your fault, I love you. You’re my big brother, still, okay?” He pulls back, gently extricating himself from Danny, putting a hand on either side of his face to look right into the blue eyes, still bright with more tears unshed, tear tracks following the line of his scars down his face.

Ryan’s own eyes start to glitter in the darkness, and he tries to blink back the tears but when he speaks, his voice has all his emotion laid bare in it, too. “I never stopped looking for you, not ever. I looked every day. I’d still look every day. I would never have stopped looking for you, for the rest of my life.”

“I never stopped thinking about you,” Danny says tremulously, putting his hands up over Ryan’s. "He, he made me stop thinking about anything but him but he couldn’t hurt me enough to make me stop thinking about you-”

Then they’re hugging again and it’s so quiet in the apartment, so quiet except for the sound of two grown men crying on each other’s shoulders.

“This is enough,” Ryan whispers against the top of Danny’s hair. “It’s enough that any of you came back to me, okay? We c-c-can find the rest, I can help you remember, I can help. This is enough. You’re enough, Danny-” He catches himself and winces. “Sorry. I mean Red.”

There’s a pause, and Ryan can feel his brother’s heart pounding. When Danny pulls back Ryan’s heart drops, but his brother just looks into his eyes and smiles, the barest little hint of one, and says softly, “Danny is, is okay, for now.”

Ryan’s breath is caught somewhere in his throat, and he pulls his older brother back into his arms. “Danny, then,” Ryan says with half-sobbed laughter. “Danny. Danny Danny Danny Danny.”

“Daniel,” Danny says with a shaking voice, as though Denner might simply appear out of thin air to punish him. Then, when nothing happens, Danny repeats it. “Danny. Daniel. My name is Danny. My name is Daniel M-Michaelson and I, I d-don't…be, belong to…”

“You got this, Danny, come on,” Ryan urges. “You can do this. Come on, Dan, we can do this together.”

“M-My name is Daniel Michaelson and I don’t belong to him, I don’t-… I don’t belong to anyone b-b-b-but myself,” Danny says softly, and then he starts to cry again.

Ryan holds him but it’s different this time - his shoulders are back and his back is straight and every sob sounds not like fear or sadness but like pure, unbridled relief.

It probably won’t last - the trauma expert and the therapist both said to expect every two forward steps to come with a step back. He might wake up and want to be Red again tomorrow. He’ll probably go back to not wanting to be touched by anyone but Nate.

But right here and now, in this moment in the middle of the night in the safest place there is for him, Danny remembers who he used to be, and it’s eough.

Suddenly, Ryan Michaelson knows exactly how he wants to start the statement he’s going to read while staring right at Abraham Denner.

A few days ago, my brother hugged me for the first time since 2015. My brother, who was subjected to every kind of twisted violence until he believed that it was too dangerous to even think of himself as human, answered to his own name.

I want to tell you how it feels to be told someone you love has been abducted. I want to tell you how it feels to look and look every single day for four years and find nothing - and be told that you should prepare for him to return in a body bag.

I want to tell you how it felt to learn that, due to the violence, abuse, brainwashing, and trauma he was subjected to, my own brother might not recognize me.

I want to tell you how it felt when they told me Daniel Michaelson was gone.

Then, I want to tell you how it felt when, despite all the odds and every statistic and the efforts of Abraham Denner to destroy my brother down to his very core, I was given the gift of looking him right in the eyes as he came back.

My brother’s name is Daniel Michaelson, and he belongs only to himself.

That might not seem like much of a revelation to many of the people here in this courtroom today - but for my brother, it takes immense bravery simply to believe he is his own.

I have been asked to speak about the impact the last four years has had on my family, and I will. I will speak about every day I combed missing persons’ reports throughout the Northwest Coast for similarities to Danny. I will tell you what it was like to lose him.

First I want to tell you what it meant to me to get him back.

[klaushargreevesofficial]

call my bluff, call you “babe”

steve harrington x robin’s best friend!reader

requests: heeey could you write steve harrington x fem! reader where she is robin’s best friend and she had a crush on steve during high school but he never notified her but one day she went visiting robin during her work and steve falls in love with at first sight (like she has a different personality from robin, she has like a bubbly personality) ijkohghjjkk thank you so much !!

Steve falling for robin’s best friend and her being skeptical bc she liked Steve in high school

title from taylor swift’s “it’s nice to have a friend”

word count: 4,381 (!!)

warning for cursing because i have the vocabulary of a 12 year old boy

“so you don’t care about me, is what I'm hearing.”

“god, you’re dramatic, y/n,” robin laughed, trying to pull on her shoes while navigating around her room. she was failing to maintain her balance, and every clumsy hop around her room served as punctuation of your premature loneliness. Robin was heading to work, an early morning after your late night sleepover. curled up to your ears in her sheets, your eyes followed her around the room. 

“I can't believe you’re leaving me to go hang out with steve harrington.” you punctuated your statement with a faux gag. Robin replied with a noncommittal hum and leveled her eyes with yours, serving to agitate you more. 

“I'm not hanging out with him. I'm trying to make money so I can afford all of the expensive candy you like for movie nights.” finally dressed and ready for work, robin sat on the edge of her bed. “and you,” she poked your head, “would like him, he’s not that bad anymore! annoying? yes! but an asshole? not at all.” 

listening to her lift steve up made you uneasy. all through high school, steve had been your dream boy. hadn’t he been everyone’s? with the hair, the eyes, the swagger in his step as he walked past you in the hallway...you just about died thinking about it. how embarrassing, you thought. having a crush on steve, the untouchable asshole of your formative years, was about as out of character and cringey as you could have gotten. he never spoke a word to you except to ask to copy off of your homework, and even then, he called you by the wrong name. but god, that boy was pretty. 

after graduation, you did your best to avoid steve at all costs. not that he would notice or care, but rather for your sake. it was embarrassing to recall the amount of times you had imagined him choosing staying at your house over a party, or fantasized about running your fingers through his hair. it was your character flaw that you decided to ignore and actively suppress. steve was an asshole, and you recognized that. thus, the active forgetting of steve harrington.

 the plan to gradually forget about your schoolgirl feelings for steve had been working, working really well. you’d stopped obsessing over that one time he had accidentally bumped your shoulder in the hallway (and walked away without apologizing, thank you very much), and you couldn’t even remember what color his eyes were. then robin sauntered into your house with her spare key and an unperturbed way about her, proclaiming she landed the mall job and “y/n, you’d never believe who my co-worker is.” and then the humiliation that came with liking steve came rushing back.

 did you resent steve? not at all. but at certain points, when you were at your lowest, you wished he could feel as lowly and unimportant as him and his adolescent goons had made you feel. sometimes, though you would never admit it, you wished steve harrington would pine after you, simply so you could brush him off and crush his pretty boy heart as he had crushed yours in high school. but thoughts like that made you feel bad, and were definitely not feasible. the only time nowadays that you had a vague hatred towards steve was when robin went to work. screw him for winning over your best friend too. 

“go to work, buckley. when you come home, i’ll be here, in this spot, borderline comatose. wake me up then.” you turned to your side and closed your eyes.

“maybe you could come see me at work, y/n! i’m sure my parents would much prefer that, rather than you lounging in my house all day.”

 “mmm, they love me,” you replied, already slipping back into a half-asleep state.

 ------------------------

“y/n!” robin exclaimed. “wait, is that my shirt?” you stalked into scoops ahoy, dark circles under your eyes. you had awoken after another 3 hours of sleep, and after 30 another minutes of being alone in robin’s house, you decided to finally bite the bullet and visit her at work. there was no motivation besides boredom, loneliness, and the hope that robin’s offers of free ice cream when trying to coax you to come still stood. 

“i’m exhausted. can i get a vanilla cone?”

 “i don’t see you opening your wallet to pay, y/n,” she said, her motions towards the freezer contradicting her words. she scooped a cone for you and one for herself, and you guys chuckled at how quick robin was to shell out ice cream that would probably come from her paycheck. leaning against the counter, you reveled in the silence that settled as you ate your ice cream. you cherished these moments with robin, where you guys could just enjoy each other’s presence, words unnecessary. for as much as the two of you talked, they didn’t occur often, but when they did, they were peaceful. 

robin and you both were enjoying the serenity of the moment, and then there was steve. loud, doors swinging, calling (or shouting, rather) for robin. instantly, you were on edge, and robin sensed it. she was aware of your past feelings towards steve, but unaware of how vast and intensely they spread. she was there when you’d comment quietly to her how nice he looked in his jeans, but absent for the doodling of “harrington” in hearts on the margins of your papers. 

seeing steve was a gust of wind in your hair and a suckerpunch to your gut, simultaneously. rigid, ice cream dripping down your hand, you turned to robin, who, despite being engaged in a conversation with steve about their break schedules, was subtly keeping an eye on you, making sure you were okay. “uh, robin?” both heads turned towards you, the first time steve had acknowledged you. the “ahoy” on their sailor hats was so aggressively there and ugly, it only served to make you more anxious. 

“is this…?” steve gave robin a look as if to communicate something to her, something secret, and you knew immediately what---or who, rather---he was referencing. stacey.  he thought you were stacey. stacey was robin’s beau, who you had listened robin talk about, cry about, gush about, for weeks. you felt blessed, as robin’s best friend, to be able to coach her through her first relationship, which you understood must be extra difficult as a closeted gay woman. robin never had any shortage of stacey related topics to talk about, and you were glad to serve as a sounding board. you’d always just assumed you were the only one robin could bounce her thoughts off of, especially because of her sexuality.

 steve thought you were stacey. which means...steve knew robin’s best kept secret. of course steve knew. robin had been preaching about how great and un-assholey he’d become since graduation, something that would only be tested and tried by robin’s candid confession of who she loved. you felt stupid for not having figured it out earlier. steve knew.

 “no, harrington,” you piped up, finally regaining your ability to speak for the first time since steve had kicked open the door to the Scoops backroom. “my name’s y/n, and we actually went to high school together. i’d say i’m surprised you don’t remember me, but you were an asshole back then, so….” you let your voice trail off, expecting a snarky remark back from the boy in front of you. steve knew. 

the only person behind the counter to pipe up was robin. “steve, this is y/n, my best friend, who is acting, surprisingly, much like one of those assholes she constantly proclaims to hate.” although she was addressing steve, her eyes were locked with yours. there was a jovial tone to her voice, she was clearly not upset with you, but you tilted your chin out in defiance, and tossed the remainder of the ice cream cone away. steve knew. he was quiet. “y/n,” robin began, her voice calm, “i’ll meet you at the Gap on my break. 2:45. go cool off, please?” you took a peek at your casio calculator watch. you had 45 minutes to kill. you gave her a curt nod, and completely disregarded silent steve as you walked out of the ice cream parlor. what had just happened? 

no, you didn’t mean to completely be a dick. it was hard to dissect your feelings. it certainly wasn’t fair for you to be upset that robin told steve her secret. you were proud she felt safe enough to share that important part of herself with him. if anything, you were more upset that of all the people in Hawkins, she chose your self-proclaimed, one-sided enemy.  but still, unfair. and...you sighed. steve hadn’t even said anything to you. could you blame him? he didn’t remember you, y/n, get over it, you thought. how long were you going to let your internal struggle with steve dictate your actions? especially now that there was a chance at a...mutual friendship of sorts, through robin. had you not fucked that up by the scene you’d just caused.

 seeing steve dredged up a lot of negative emotions, you realized. it was embarrassing, especially because everything you and steve “had” was fabricated in your brain. one sided, imaginary, call it what you want. and yet, here you were, harboring real, genuine hurt. at what point does an adult let go of these childish fantasies and quit playing the victim? had you only hurt steve’s feelings (which you weren’t entirely sure you did, seeing as he was just so quiet), maybe you wouldn’t have had the mindset shift, but you could tell robin was upset with your petulant behavior. and quite frankly, you were tired of holding on to high school. you turned on your heel, chuck taylors squeaking against the shiny mall floor, and walked back to scoops ahoy.

 the parlor was empty. no one lounging at the tables, cheerily eating a sundae. you assumed this was why steve and robin were huddled in the back room, having a hushed conversation that you could only hear remnants of. you chose to ignore steve yet again, but this time simply to give you the guts to ring the service bell repeatedly. if you pretended only robin could answer, it was easier to be annoying. she was used to you. so, with a heavy hand, you rang the bell. ding. ding. ding. ding. as you poised to ring it once more, steve opened the backroom door, scooper in hand.

 he let out a breath of what you marked as relief. maybe he’s just glad you wouldn’t actually be ordering ice cream, you thought, until he said, “i was hoping it was you.” 

“oh?” you spluttered, forgetting your whole purpose for returning to the ice cream shoppe. 

“yeah, y/n, i just,” he sighed as if to organize his thoughts. “you were right when you said that i didn’t remember you from high school because i was a pompous dick.” 

“i didn’t say those words!” you defended, then gestured for him to continue. 

“well, you might as well have. i just wanted to apologize, because i really sucked back then. i’m working on it.”

 were you ever expecting an apology from steve? no. maybe a few months ago you would have revelled in this, would have eaten it up and made him beg for forgiveness. but at this point, you had changed, and you felt that he didn’t even have to apologize. well, for much, at least.

 “you’re good, steve. i’m sorry for caring so much about social hierarchy. it probably isn’t even fair for you to apologize to me.” you shrugged.

steve leaned his elbows on the counter, next to the register, and thought for a moment. “fairness is subjective though, isn’t it? like, what’s fair to you might not be fair to me, or vice versa.” 

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

after you and steve had apologized to each other in the parlor of Scoops Ahoy, you, him, and robin had been inseparable. no outsiders would ever be able to tell that there was ever a time when you and steve weren’t on good terms...or on any terms for that matter.  as time progressed, you’d now easily call steve one of your best friends. you rarely were not at scoops ahoy, hanging out in the backroom and avoiding their managers. steve had an open invitation to your movie nights, now, although he wasn’t yet granted key privileges like robin was. (you were sure your parents would kill you if you ever gave steve harrington a key to your house.) you’d sat backseat in steve’s car as he and robin scream-sang songs you didn’t know the words to. steve and robin had a bond that you could never begin to understand, and you and robin had one steve could never understand.

 where did that leave you and steve? working on it, for sure. he was funny, intelligent, and quite personable. he was a great friend to robin, and a great friend to you. you felt bad for writing him off so soon. nothing was difficult with steve. you guys had split and shared plenty of burgers at the local diners, and often the two of you would go to the video store, where you educated steve about movies and their importance. steve was clingy, more so onto you than robin. he always wanted to come over, or wanted you to come hang out, or begged for you to tag along when him and robin went on an adventure. 

once, steve had sat you down with a very serious look in his eye, visibly nervous, and declared that you were his best friend. he didn’t know what a best friend felt like, he said, but since you were the person he liked to spend time with the most, it must be you. before you could reply with a similar sentiment, he had added “and robin. but she knew that.” 

so, yeah, things were good. and they remained good for months.

and then the switch flipped, and steve started skipping trio adventures, and calling off of work on days robin worked. calls were fielded, and whenever you caught him in the streets, he brushed you off with a “hey y/n” and a “gotta go.” you were worried, because he was isolating himself with no explanation. there was hardly a ghost of him in the spots the three of you frequented “what’s wrong with steve?” you had asked robin when you first noticed his prolonged absence. robin hadn’t brought steve up for a week, which was odd. normally conversations were peppered with his name, although you and robin had always tried your hardest to pass the in real life bechdel test. 

robin’s response of “i don’t want to talk about him,” confirmed your sneaking suspicion that something had occurred for steve to become so cold. robin and steve were two of the most easy going people you had ever met, so for them to have had an argument seemed far fetched. robin’s stoney features after you had mentioned his name, however, made it obvious to you that an altercation had happened. 

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

“what are you doing here?” steve stood behind his door, keeping it open only a hair so you couldn’t wedge yourself inside. 

“what is going on with you?” you asked coldly. the time for reaching out gently had passed.  “you’ve been absolutely ignoring robin & i, and for what, you asshole?”

 “oh shit, is she here?” his eyes scanned his front lawn frantically, in search for robin. “you shouldn’t be here, y/n.”

 “good thing you aren’t in charge of telling me what i should and shouldn’t do, dad. if you don’t talk to me...i’ll..i’ll scream!” 

“go away.” he motioned to shut the door. 

surprising him by how compliant you were, you turned on your heel and trotted down off of his front porch into the lawn. pleased with himself for getting you away so easily, he closed the door and turned the lock. as soon as you heard the lock click, and watched steve skate away through the window, you planted your feet and took a deep breath. 

and then you were screaming. god, you hoped his parents and neighbors weren’t home, because here you were, in steve harrington’s front yard, wailing. you were screaming bloody murder, pausing to catch your breath with all of the cadence of a baby’s cry. you started from a yell and transitioned into a scream. you screamed in every musical scale known to man. you screamed loudly, and you screamed even louder than loudly. your voice box was your portable “ring for service” bell. so, you exercised it.

it felt like years, although it was only 30 seconds of sound until steve came running out into his front yard. he was trying his best to be angry, asking you “what the actual fuck, y/n,” but he was stifling laughter. 

“i told you i would, steve.”“you’re so infuriating!” he let out a frustrated chuckle, and carded his hands through his hair, tugging. “and i’m,” he sighed, facing you with a hollow look in his eye. “i’m in love with you. god, i’m in love with you, and robin’s pissed. so i took a step away for her to cool off, and for me to,” he shrugged,”i don’t know, for me to get over it i guess.” 

for all of that screaming you had done earlier, you were now speechless. moments and moments, it felt like a million moments passed and there was nothing but silence. what were you to say? how do you respond to such a candid confession? finally, after what felt like three years of silence, steve cut his sad and unwavering eye contact and headed back into his house, leaving you there, feet planted, stunned into silence and stagnance.

 you waited a beat in his lawn, processing. then the only thing on your mind was robin. you made a mad dash to your car, shaking your key ring in an effort to start the engine faster. after speeding an ungodly amount, you reached robin’s house. you parked haphazardly in her driveway, shifting into park before you even braked to a stop.

 as you unlocked robin’s door, with your key labeled “robin’s” in big bold letters, she heard the lock jingling and came to the door. “y/n, i was just about to leave and come to your house! i want to go to a movie, is there anything good out?” 

“steve’s in love with me?” you spoke silently, feeling small, the gravity of the confession finally hitting you.

 “well, that’s not exactly a movie,” she tried to joke, but noticing the sullen look in your eyes, she sighed and took a seat on the couch. “yeah, he is.” 

“what the hell, robin?”  you took your usual seat to the left of her, sprawling your limbs out. “he told me you were pissed off.” 

“well, yeah! you broke your own heart in high school over him, and you were sick for years. imagine if he actually broke your heart? you’d be inconsolable.”

 “for him to break my heart, i’d have to feel the same way, dingus.” you poked her arm. 

“are you stupid?” she deadpanned, causing you to let out a shocked laugh and sit up straight.

 “robin!” you gaped. “i am not in love with steve!” 

“okay, you’re stupid,” robin said again, sending the two of you into a fit of giggles. you loved robin so much, that sitting there, laughing and talking about boys was enjoyable, and you almost forgot the two of you were talking about steve. your best friend steve. robin always knew you better than yourself, though, so her implications about your feelings for steve made you think. were you in love with steve? every memory the two of you had shared flashed through your brain like a movie montage. you and steve ordering two different entrees, and then splitting them. steve sneaking you into his house, past his parents, so you could lay in bed and read comics. steve letting you cling onto him during scary movie night, robin calling the both of you pansies in the background. that one time steve called himself daddy and your stomach did a little flip. 

“oh fuck, robin, i think i’m in love with steve,” you groaned, burying her head into her shoulder. everything was made complicated by this realization, you knew. robin and steve weren’t even on speaking terms because of this, and you hadn’t even been involved at that point. and you didn’t even respond to steve when he told you. he was probably so upset. further than that, what would robin think if you and steve were to like...try and get together? would she be mad? what would that mean for the three of you as a unit?

you relayed all of these feelings, thoughts, and questions to robin. although she was close to the situation and probably biased, you still trusted her the most to give you accurate and smart advice. her answers always were right, because she knew you better than you knew yourself. robin assured you that her and steve hadn’t explicitly fought, per se, but she had let him know how she felt about the situation and advised him to step away and sort himself out. but no argument had occurred, contrary to your imagined idea. there were no “bad terms” between the two of them, and robin said she felt like if she saw steve this weekend, they’d fall back into their normal relationship and banter. this soothed you. 

“but if...if steve doesn’t hate me, and something like, happens, how would you feel?” 

“first of all, y/n, you’re dramatic,” you nod in agreement. “as long as he’s not an idiot, and you’re not an idiot...i suppose i will be okay. as long as you’re not, like, gross or anything. but i trust both of you.” 

and that, honestly, was all you needed to hear. after pinky promising you would come back to robin’s house later and tell her everything, you left as quickly as you had come, whipping out of the driveway and going back to where your day’s adventure had first started: steve’s place.

 you felt like you were walking on eggshells around steve, and although you were so excited you wanted to scream (again) and bang on his door, you channeled all of your nervous energy into a doorbell ring and rocking back and forth on your heels. when steve came to the door, he looked sadder than you left him. his hair was wild, his eyes red.

“i love you,” you stated simply, but you felt like your words fell short. how do you put so much emotion into 3 words? there was no way that this could encompass what you felt for steve. you paused. “there’s no way that those words can encompass what i feel for you.”

 ------------

“you’re fucking annoying, steve,” robin stated, tossing a piece of popcorn at him as she stood up to leave. it was movie night at his house, and although he wasn’t really doing anything, him and robin were engaged in some playful banter. steve had made some comments about the poor cinematography of the movie robin had chosen, and she was displeased. you were situated snugly in steve’s lap, his arms wrapped around your waist. you vocally agreed with robin because, yeah, steve was annoying, and he gave your hip a pinch, making you jump.

 “asshole!” you yelped, peeling yourself off of him. 

“you love me,” he commented, not incorrect. 

“yeah, but you’re annoying.” you and robin were a united front, always, despite what you and steve’s relationship status was. you wrapped your arms around her tightly. “drive home safely, please.” she nodded and tipped an invisible hat. 

“i always do, y/n. you two lovebirds have fun, but not too much fun, because we have work tomorrow morning, steve!” she made a hand motion indicating that she was watching him, moving two fingers from her eyes to point at him. 

“aye aye, captain! get some rest, you’ve got a lot of ice cream slinging to do tomorrow. i’m thinking i’m going to hang in the backroom for a little bit.” he grinned as robin groaned, letting herself out of the front door with a sing-songy “goodbye.” 

“c’mere, love,” steve said, looking up at you from the couch. you gave him a big smile and returned to your seat in his lap, straddling him. 

this was the only thing that was different about movie nights now. you and steve would spend the night together afterwards. steve was your boyfriend now. could high school you believe it? you ran your fingers through his hair, giving him a soft kiss on his forehead. “i know you have work tomorrow, and i wanna spend as much time as possible with you, but i’m really tired,” you mumbled, laying your head on his shoulder.

 he nodded with a smile. “that’s okay, baby. let’s lay in bed, we’ll kiss a little, and i’ll let you sleep.” he pressed a kiss to the side of your head.

 as soon as the two of you were situated, face washed, pajamas on, covers pulled up to your chins, steve turned to you and pushed a piece of hair out of your face. “i can’t believe i have the coolest girlfriend ever.” “i can’t believe you’re this cheesy, harrington,” you replied, but his words made your chest warm. you were the farthest thing from cool, and all you had ever wanted was steve to think you were cool. although he was, at this point, not a very good judge of being “cool,” because he had evolved into less of a high school king and more of a loveable dork, you were still elated to hear this from him. steve thought you were cool. and you weren’t, clearly, but he wasn’t either. you pressed a kiss to his lips gently, a smile permanently etched onto your face. “i love you, dingus.” 

[devinsfm]

joe keery. cis male. he/him.  ／  jack devin just pulled up blasting video killed the radio star by the buggles — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - four year old radio show host, i’ve heard they’re really impulsive, but that they make up for it by being so captivating. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say obscure vintage horror comics, blurry photographs of mysterious figures in the woods, and vivid descriptions of spine - chilling tales  . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( sam, 23, est, she/her )

hey there, demons ! *ba tum tss* i’m sam and i never do this, but i really felt like it was time for a change, so i drew lots of inspiration from some of my favorite ocs and i love what i’ve come up with ! character info is under the cut and please feel free to message me if you would like to plot !

i. stats

𝔣𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢: jackson willard devin

𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔰: jack, spooky guy, the night watchman 

𝔥𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔬𝔴𝔫: salem, massachusetts

𝔡𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔟𝔦𝔯𝔱𝔥: ocotber 31st, 1995

𝔷𝔬𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔠: scorpio

𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫: demisexual

𝔬𝔠𝔠𝔲𝔭𝔞����𝔦𝔬𝔫: host of the graveyard shift, a radio program airing every weeknight from 12am to 5am

𝔭𝔬𝔰. 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔰: captivating, witty, resolute. 

𝔫𝔢𝔤. 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔰: impulsive, gauche, naive.

ii. history

jackson willard “jack” devin was born on halloween day ( yes, really ) in salem massachusetts ( yes, really ). his mother stayed home with him as he was growing up while his father is a boston cop turned sheriff of the county and he’s an only child.

outside of the popular tourist spots, his hometown has a very close - knit, stuck in the 80s vibe. it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone for their entire lives because no one ever leaves and no one new ever moves in. phone and internet signals are nearly impossible to come by, so the local arcade and the video store still have quite a booming business in the year 2020. jack grew up in a not - so - typical small town suburban gothic environment, his dad’s income being just enough for them to get by every month.

he was an energetic kid who cycled through all sorts of interests, trying out everything from little league ( disaster ) to music lessons ( not as much of a disaster, but he wound up getting bored of it ). nothing seemed to really stick until he got his first horror comic : a vintage issue of tales from the crypt with tattered, yellowing pages. he was five years old and paid five cents for it at an elderly neighbor’s yard sale and from that moment on he was hooked. it started with the comics, but he quickly expanded his horizons to movies, books, and television in the genre of horror.

he got intro drawing and that was the only thing besides his newfound interest in horror that he could sit still for. at first he would just try to re - draw the panels in his comic books, but soon he was drawing anything and everything that caught his interest and he was getting good. he was being homeschooled by his mother at the time, but once friends and family and, well, everyone took notice of his skill, they were encouraging his parents to nurture his talent.

his parents fought about it. his dad didn’t see the value in his skill and wanted him to instead focus on academics, aspiring towards his son one day becoming a lawyer or a businessman or even following in his footsteps. jack never wanted that for himself. he was homeschooled by his mom up until then and she believed in him. it was with her blessing that he would go to a real school for the first time at the age of fourteen, starting off his freshman year at a high school that was a thirty minute train ride away in boston and catered exclusively to youth who demonstrated an exceptional talent in some area of the fine arts.

jack did well in school, but his grades probably would have been a lot better still if he didn’t start purposely acting out as his relationship with his dad got worse and worse. he started skipping classes, getting caught trespassing in cemeteries at 2am, and smoking a lot of weed. 

when it came time for college, jack planned to attend art school. he swears he did. he looked a few schools on the west coast to get away from his dad for a few years yikes and planned to apply, but on the deadline date he got so high that he forgot to submit his portfolios. yes, really.

he loaded up his van ( a turquiose monstrosity he painted to look like the mystery machine ) and headed out to california anyway after telling his parents that he would be attending UCLA. of course, they quickly found it that it was a lie and his dad was furious. the two got into a huge fight over the phone and things were said. the result is that jack and his father haven’t spoken to each other ever since. 

he did lots of odd jobs while he was on the road and basically lived in his van, which didn’t change right away when he decided to settle in LA, but he eventually got a job fetching coffee for the late night employees at a local radio station.

it was the typical, cliché story : the regular late night host called out of work at the last minute, there was no one else around and they were going to be on air in ten seconds. jack was thrown in front of the microphone and told to think fast !

he did, and the listeners loved him for it. whether it was his ramblings about horror movies or his thick boston accent or his reckless use of swear words on live radio, he turned out to be a massive hit. the successful night earned him a gig as an occasional substitute deejay, and with each broadcast he grew more and more popular, and about two years ago he was finally given his own program.

the graveyard shift is a radio program that airs every weeknight from 12am - 5am in the los angeles area and on apps such as iheartradio. jack hosts the show as his ( thinly veiled ) alter ego the night watchmen and discusses topics such as the paranormal, conspiracy theories, and all things horror. it’s one of the most popular programs of the time slot in the country.

it’s something that he never expected or picturing himself doing, but now he can’t imagine doing anything else. he’s become really passionate about revitalizing the field and bringing radio into the 21st century. he signed a HUGE contract with the studio when his show first started and now he’s a quite well known radio personality in the area and across the country.

iii. extras

huge stoner. high as fuck 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time he’s probably still high, just not as fuck. 

well known for his on air antics. he’ll light a joint in the middle of his radio show, he’ll prank call a friend and broadcast it to the entire city, he’ll curse in every single sentence and skate by on the after hours excuse when he’s reprimanded for it. he’s so outlandish and bizarre and like nothing that’s ever been heard on the radio before, and it just draws people in.

he often seems shy in person, but it’s more like he’s just a little socially awkward, something which also shines through in occasional non - malicious but blunt remarks and general lack of regard for what people think of him. he really just...doesn’t care.

genuinely seems to believe it’s either halloween day and / or the year 1986 at any given moment as that’s about as recent as his pop culture references get. he’s never heard of the k*rdashians, he doesn’t know what the mcu is, and the phrase yeet means absolutely nothing to him. mention any of it to him and he’ll just stare blankly bc he honestly doesn’t have a clue.

HOWEVER, he did start the area 51 meme from last summer.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

still draws. especially if he has to still for a stretch of time, then he’ll take out his latest sketchbook ( he goes through a lot of them ) and start doodling. he’s still quite good, mostly in his favored comic - esque style.

BIG CHAOTIC ENERGY and ZERO IMPULSE CONTROL

a chatterbox with friends but don’t be fooled...he’s been giving his own dad the silent treatment for almost seven ( 7 ) years now. it’s his preferred method of expressing anger towards someone because he isn’t really a fan of confrontation, but he’s maybe a liiiittle bit stubborn.

most of the time he’s a really easygoing person, a good friend and very loyal to the people he cares about. well - meaning, not the best at advice but he’s more likely to try and cheer a person up anyway. 

he has a pet pied ball python named the crypt keeper ( tkc for short ) who he sometimes just carries with him because he likes to just chill wrapped around jack’s hand and arm. 

iv. wanted connections

maternal or paternal cousins ( their grandparents probably live in boston or new england but otherwise anything goes for this )

close friends

friends

guests on his radio show 

fans / haters of his radio show

people who don’t like him / find him annoying

exes ( 1 - 2, can be on good or bad terms )

“casually dating” but it might get real complicated soon - allie james

( these are just ideas and i’m trash at coming up with stuff, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here. )