#AND i can’t even ask him to switch it because the entries have been in FOR A WEEK

[thievinghippo]

So I promised a postmortem and it’s finally time! Here’s the TL:DR. I loved it. I can already tell I’ll probably have more played hours in this game than Inquisition, and I fucking loved Inquisition! Good, bad, and ugly beneath the cut and there will be heavy spoilers for the entire game, so read at your own risk. (This is also long, because I have a lot to say!)

THE GOOD

Rook. Once I let go of my preconceived notion of how Rook was (mid-40s and serious but kind) and accepted Rook for the young, sarcastic character they are, I fell in love. Edda is going to be an A possibly even S tier OC for me

The dwarves. We were fed so well, y’all. So much lore and dialogue choices. There was even a Grey Warden dwarf specific dialogue choice. I love the confirmation of what we all suspected with the Titans. I just wish that a dwarf Rook had the opportunity to confront Solas. He apparently apologizes to Harding. But what about a dwarf Rook?

Exploration. I’m an idiot when it comes to figuring out in-game puzzles and such. I’ve read some complaints that everything was far too easy, but for one of the first times I remember, I could do a vast majority of puzzles and finding treasures without consulting a game guide. And I was actually proud when I figured things out. When I play Edda again, I’m going to 100% the world and I cannot wait

The Companions. Bonus points for Emmrich Volkarin. I ended up loving all of them. Even the ones I was very ‘meh’ on before playing the game. Like Bellara. She was on my list to romance second to last. And she has moved up to third, after Emmrich and Davrin. 

Emmrich Volkarin. Yes, he gets his own special mention. I love him so much that I created a second Rook to romance him. That way I have one Emmrich that is not a lich (Edda’s choices) and one Emmrich that is a lich (Sonnet’s choice). I love his compassion, his kindness, his reverence of the dead. I adore his romance and how clear it is that Rook has bewitched him, body and soul. The fact that they lean into the age gap and it becomes entwined with his own fears of death. He has my favorite personal quest. I loved the music, the atmosphere. How it pertains to his own journey, facing his mortality (plus Johanna Hezenkoss can get it). Plus it has the banger line of ‘Show them what a real necromancer can do!’ I even can’t wait not to romance him and see what the friendship is like and encourage him to hook up with Strife

The backgrounds. Granted, I’ve only played through the game 1.5 times, but there have been so many background mentions. Especially for the Grey Wardens. Mourn Watch has some great ones too. I mean, there was Grey Warden romance banter during a fight. In a side quest! I can’t wait to discover more

The character creator. I love how inclusive it is, especially when you compare it to previous Dragon Age games. The hair is beautiful (but where is my braid crown! my kingdom for a braid crown!) and I have overweight OCs, which make me very happy. Varric's shaving mirror is also amazing, and because I want EA to know that people are using these options, Sonnet is a trans woman who will save Thedas

THE BAD

Weird tonal switches. Emmrich and Harding are going to Ferelden so she can show him around but the South is being razed by darkspawn. Harding’s mom sends her back with pie and gives great hugs. How in the world are they getting to Ferelden? Rook was amazed to see the Inquisitor in the North so why would the members of the Veilguard be able to go to the South? Some of the codex entries are so dark and yet everyone is happy in the Lighthouse 

Give Rook a problem, please! I kept waiting for Rook’s LI to go up to her and ask if there’s anything distracting her. If there’s any problem they could solve together. But that never came and Rook is apparently the only person on the team that can’t be distracted by their own problems. How amazing would it have been if Rook had some sort of personal quest. Maybe based on lineage. Or background. Something that shows that she matters as much to her companions and they mean to her

The Act One Choice. Still mad about it. Are you telling me that two extra people would have saved Minrathous? That a city full of the most powerful mages in the known world couldn’t take down a fucking dragon? It didn’t feel earned and it did annoy me a great deal

Let. Rook. Mourn. While I appreciate that Rook was able to mourn Varric and Davrin (in my playthrough) privately, the fact that it immediately jumps to a sex scene sort of bothered me. Especially Emmrich’s taking them to the Necropolis so they can bang in a coffin. This was not the time to leave the Lighthouse, Emmrich! The rest of the team got to mourn Davrin and worry about Neve together. I wish Rook could have been a part of that too. 

Let’s talk Varric’s death. I didn’t see it coming. I actually ranted to a friend before I knew what happened that they should have killed him in the prologue if this was how they were going to use him. Oops. I hate how callous the truth about his death makes Rook look. I hate that Harding and Neve didn’t even really seem to mourn. Hate how the Inquisitor or Dorian or Isabela don’t mention him at all. I hate how obvious his death is in my second playthrough. I will have to fix this all in fanfic

THE UGLY

Assuming there is another DA game, where do we go from here? I really dislike the concept of the Executors in the secret ending. One thing I’m optimistic about is that by basically wiping the south off the map, we might be able to have more games there. Because everything will have been reset, so to speak. How does the South deal with the mages when they’ve all been fighting darkspawn for their lives? Put them back into Circles? I think not

I’m also not sure about what choices would move forward into a new DA game. Not talking companion choices, but choices that actually affect the world. No matter what we do, the Blight is over and the Veil is safe. If BioWare couldn’t be bothered to have the Well of Sorrows choice matter, I can’t imagine they’ll care how Solas was bound to the Veil, whether it be by choice, trickery, or force. Minrathous or Treviso is the only other non-companion choice I can think of that might possibly matter

But honestly, it doesn’t matter, because who knows if we’ll ever get another Dragon Age game? I know I would love one, but I have this sinking feeling there won’t be (please let me be wrong!)

So there you have it. I really love this game, good, bad, and ugly. And I found so much more to love than to dislike. I have a feeling I will be yelling about this game (and Emmrich!) for a long, long time

[aromanticmara]

guys i’m genuinely not okay 😍 my coach is making me swim the 200free and the 500free tomorrow. fucking asshole knows i’ve been out bc i was sick and injured and still is making me swim it. he ALSO knows those are my 2 least favorite events 💕

[occamstfs]

Diet Diaries

Hi all! Thank you so much for 500 followers! Here's a little style switch up to celebrate, got a lotta refs in this one and I quite leaned into the diary entries so I hope it's not too much! Hope y'all enjoy this stereotype reversal and as always, best! -Occam

Monday March 21st-

Andy:

I am beyond sick of Steve. Moving in together was a mistake, I don’t care how cheap the rent is, he is a narcissistic slob and I am eager to never see him again. Well no, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Our R.A. had this idea to try and walk in each other's shoes, which I don’t know? It might not be the worst thing? My big idea was switching diets actually- honestly I’m just hoping if he ate more like me he’ll stop stinking up the dorm. I can dream at least. Literally though he just can’t go to the gym as often if he eats like me. If I'm lucky at the very least his deodorant will last longer, I cannot take another day of his b.o. seeping through the walls, ugh! Anyway, wish me luck! I’m sure this will be a breeze for me, he usually just eats junk anyway, hope he enjoys my salads~

Steve:

Andy that little fucker. He was being such a little bitch to James and now I’ve gotta eat his rabbit food for a week or lose this bet or whatever. Steve don’t lose tho. Lil twink’s gotta eat whatever I make him too and you can bet your ass I’m gonna make him match my macros if I’ve gotta starve myself like he wants. Fuck! This shit is going to absolutely tank my routine! I’ve gotta make Andy give up. I’m gonna go so hard on him he’ll have to hit weights if he doesn't want to blow up like a pig. Maybe then he’ll stop bitching any time I don’t fucking shower every time I get back home. 

Tuesday March 22nd-

Andy:

My Lord! He is trying to kill me! I don’t know how anyone could consistently eat as much as he’s telling me to. I’m so bloated from all this food.. He looks so smug every time he tells me to keep eating, I’m sure he doesn’t eat like this. He’s just trying to break me but I’m not going to let him win this easy.

Ugh, I feel so bloated my pants are so tight on my waist. I didn’t think meat sweats were a thing but man I am needing to put on deodorant like twice a day now and I’m not even exercising. I will say that now that I’m eating so much, I don’t hate the idea of going to the gym. It’s been a while since I went but I should probably at least hit up the treadmill lest I get even more of a gut- maybe I’ll see if he wants to go tomorrow. This is all just an exercise to understand each other more after all, no need to make it a stupid competition like he wants eh~

Steve:

Fuck! I am so tired of Andy’s pussy-ass diet. I had absolutely no energy at the gym today, I told all my bros that I was just gonna take it easy but fuck! I really was working my ass off and I struggled to even meet a PR I set last week. It was supposed to be a push day and I didn’t even get a chest pump! Why the fuck am I still going. I’m abso-fucking-lutely not getting gains on his fuckin’ bitch-ass salads and oats.

Eatin’ like a fucking twink and the fucker has the nerve to ask to go to the gym with me tomorrow. I’ll make sure he regrets that >:) Gonna work him like a horse so he’ll throw in the towel! After feeling how sore actually working on yourself makes ya, he might actually learn something. I’ll turn in early so I can go all out and show him what a real man looks like.

Wednesday March 23rd-

Andrew:

Man! I totally get why Steven eats so much now~ I am absolutely raring to go and get this; He said I could go to the gym with him today! He even seemed like he wanted me to go with him! I feel like I have more energy than I’ve ever had before, I might even try some weights!! I don’t know but I’m so excited! It’s like I can feel my chest and biceps begging me to go and hit some iron haha! Or whatever those “bros” say~ I hope he’s got something good planned for lunch because I fuck Sorry! I just want to show him that I can do all this dude stuff too! I’m a man right? I guess all this protein is making me feel more like a man than usual idk. Either way though I’m ready to go! Hope we have some fun!

Steven:

That bitch’s fuckin’ fru fru salads are ruining my PR’s for sure! I bet he knew that when he begged me to take him to the gym today, knew it was the only time he could show off to me was when I’m so out of it. And he didn't! Just to be clear I could still wipe the floor with  him even if I’m not at my A-game. Ugh, I do gotta hand it to the little fucker though. I KNOW he hasn’t even really set foot in a gym before but man. Beginners luck my ass, as soon as I showed him a technique he lifted like he’s been doing it his whole life! It’s like I could see his pecs and tris swelling up with each lift. Not that I was staring at the bitch or anything but he’s just I just need this fuckin’ diet thing to end so I can get back to my grind, I guess I wouldn’t hate taking him to the gym more often, would be hot to make a bitch into a bro Fuck! What am I writing, I just need to lift again.

Thursday March 24th-

Andrew: 

Bro! Weird? Whatever, I am absolutely on fire! Steven’s diet is absolutely killer! I don’t know how it’s working so well but man I couldn’t care less, I felt like a pro in there! My coaches in school would always shit on me for not trying but man! I was barely trying yesterday but I could tell from the look on Steven’s face that I was acing it! I guess I’ll have to admit to him that he is definitely onto something with his macros but man, not until he gives up haha! Man, I need to chill haha, it’s not like I’m any stronger than I was Monday but man, looking at myself in the mirror it just seems like my clothes are just fitting better. Catching on my chest rather than my stomach y’know? I’ve never noticed that there is muscle on my arms before but man the way my sleeves are kinda hugging my biceps mm. I need to chill haha! Can’t use all my energy before hitting the gym again today!

OH! Also totally weird, I’ve had to shave twice this week! Once last night and then again this morning which is so weird! I’m not complaining though, it’s not like I wouldnt look hot with a beard right? Although my face is a little itchy already, my chest too? Whatever though haha! Time to head back to the grind lol!

Steven:

God!! Andy Andrew is being such an asshole! He’s clogging the sink shaving which I know he would so be on my ass if I had done that. Wait, he did get on my ass for shaving! But it hasn’t been a problem this week, it’s like I’m not even growing stubble for some reason? Probably from not working so hard at the gym, is that how that works? Whatever it’ll be over as soon as this stupid diet thing is. We’re halfway through now. Thank God! Because that fucking twink is starting to stink up the dorm which again!! He was such a little bitch all the time to me about that! It’s like he’s literally stopped using deodorant as soon as he started needing it! He’s never exerted himself in his life and now that his pits are sweating at all he’s suddenly allergic to hygiene, ugh! I saw last night too the fucker fell asleep with his head in his pit too so it’s not like he doesn’t know it. 

It was a little surprising actually, cause I would’ve sworn he was hairless like one of those freak cats but man his pit was as thick as my pubes! Thicker maybe, uh? Man I wish I could get that image out of my head, it’s like the tuft was pushing out further each time he inhaled, man that’s kinda hot? Fuck! I swear this twink-ass diet is making me think like him too. I need to sneak to the gym later, without him. I cannot have him getting ahead even while I’m still on his chickenshit diet.

Friday March 25th-

Steven:

Ah!! That Little bitch! He was already at the gym when I got there! Ugh! It makes me want to punch a wall, or fight him. Or something I dont know! It’s just, he was lifting my body weight on the bench when he saw me, it was so ho ugh! It doesn’t matter what it was, I can’t stop thinking of that smug look on his face- what I would give to wipe it off… That absolute prick knew what he was doing. Ugh, speaking of pricks! He may as well have not been wearing shorts at all by how much his cock was showing through them.

I knew my meal prepping was fucking tight but man, I can’t believe hot its made him. It just really fucking turns me on, or no its such a turn on for chicks. Yeah. Whatever. I need this bet to end already. Clearly he’s totally obsessed with my lifestyle so he should just admit it already! Also, hate to say it, but to Andrew’s credit his diet ain't too bad either. I’d never tell him this, and it is all a little emasculating but my skin has never looked this good. I’m not even doing skincare or anything but it’s like I’ve been on a routine for years, it’s crazy! It’s still ruining my upper gains but man, my ass looks so good it's crazy..

Oh also re: facial hair, I woke up this morning and could’ve sworn I used to have chest hair but now it looks like I’ve got just a little left around my nipples and leading up from my pubes? I might go ahead and shave those too, might as well be totally smooth like a chick right haha, I wonder what Andrew would think? I need to chill haha, maybe I’ll go see if he’s still at the gym~

Andrew:

Fuuuuck dude lol. I should’ve started hitting up the gym ages ago. Don’t know what I was even wasting time on before I started doing twice-a-days? Studying I guess but I can figure that shit stuff out hm. Fuck it is so much better to be strong than a dweeb. Every set it feels like I’m just busting out new PR’s! Gonna need to buy new clothes though cause I am absolutely tearing up my crop tops, my twinky little wardrobe just isn’t cutting it anymore. Maybe Steven’d be down for a clothes swap, I’ve seen him eying up my fits all week, god knows he’ll fit them better lol. Oh haha, and speaking of him eying things up >:) You should’ve seen his little face blush when he walked into the gym this morning! He looked so pissed at me lol, but I’m not gonna grab him to come along every time I need to get some sets in right? It was pretty embarrassing for him yesterday anyway, the way I showed him up lol. I’m not just gonna sit around and watch him not lift weights when I can figure this shit out myself, thought it was supposed to be his thing though lol.

Mm, saying that though, I def didn’t hate having a little audience from his treadmill. God, his blushing face as he stared directly at my work-out chub. Fuck, it really got me going. It really helped my sets too haha. Maybe I should hit him up lol, I can tell how bad he wants me >:)

Saturday March 26th-

Stevie:

Ugh! That douche is walking around the dorm completely shirtless! Do you know what it’s like to have an oaf flexing away across the room from you 24/7! He knows what he’s doing, and thank god my dick isn’t showing through my shorts like I thought it usually does because he might literally pounce on me then-

Ugh! I didn’t even mention this morning. I literally woke up to him jacking off his morning wood! Do you know what a bitch-fit he would have thrown if I did that! He would’ve filed a police report, probably the dweeb, or. I guess I could too?? But it was just so fucking hot. I tried to pretend I was asleep, but he totally caught me. He literally smirked and made eye contact as he finished too- thank god he didn’t see my boner as he asked if I wanted to clean up his mess. He’s such an ass! 

I still have a boner now actually, it’s his B.O. driving me actually crazy! It’s like I can’t think near him if he’s going to stink this bad god.. Oh, he’s doing pullups on the door frame fuck. He’s supposed to be hairless but I see sweat dripping from his pits god I can't. God with each pull up his chest looks even more powerful. His cock is bobbing up and down in his pants and I can not look away. Fuck it’s getting even bigger. I’m supposed to be the strong one right? It’s not, fuck. This isn’t right. He just so fucking, god that body, I need him-

And Drew:

Heh. I knew that fucking twink couldn’t resist me. Every little thing I do wraps him even tighter around my finger. Every flex and smirk turns him on even more I bet he can’t even think straight the way his little dick is losing it in his briefs- I took all his jocks since I’m sure he would need them anymore. Bet the little bitch didn’t even remember they were his.  

Might as well have been drooling when he saw me jacking my cock this morning lol, surprised he didn’t take me up on the offer to lick up the mess. I know he wanted to lol. He’ll get the chance soon enough though >:) God it’s a two-way street though. That fucking twink is so fuckable now, thank god he doesn’t need to shave anymore, don’t want his peachfuzz scratching my cock cause god that mouth is so fuckable now.. To say nothing of his fucking juicy ass, god! I’ve been working out in the room all morning waiting for him to give in and ask me to fuck him, idk if I can hold it in much longer. I might need to jack it again, my balls are bluer than I ever thought they could be, fuck. It’s like they're sore. Ugh I feel them getting heavier, heh, that little fucker cant resist though. God I feel precum starting to pool in my jock. If I put my pit within a foot of his face I give him five before he can’t help but shove his face in. I need to fuck him, but as if I’m going to let him see how desperate I am. Stevie that little fucker. He’ll be riding my cock any second now.

Sunday March 27th-

Stevie:

Fuck <3 !! He finally fucked me!! God, it was like nothing I’ve experienced before~ His cock was like a beer can and goddd the scratch of his beard as we were making out.. Hehe if I keep thinking about him I might just cum again right now! He can fully toss my body like a ragdoll and I’d thank him ugh! He’s just so hot, and to think he wants to fuck me!! Ah~ I’ll need to keep myself pretty so he won’t get tired of me hehe! Not that it’ll be a problem, I just need to keep on his diet, God who knew it would be this good! I don’t even remember whatever problems we had before all this and I can’t imagine anything better than getting fucked by him <3 Ah! He he~ He’s staring at my ass right now so I guess it’s time for another round! Can’t thank our R.A. enough for this idea, well he he I’ve got an idea for how to thank him, oh! Drew’s ripped off his jock! Wish me luck he he~

Drew:

My little bitch is so tight, fuck. I’m surprised he can even take my cock but god can he ride it. Gonna have a hard time taking a break from fucking him to even hit the gym. Need to make sure the twink keeps up the diet tho or we’ll have an issue. Be sure to make him come to the gym whenever I do, if not to tighten up then to watch me heh. Won’t hate fucking him in the locker room too. Mm, God his fucking tiny body makes me feel so powerful. And I fucking am. God my bis are the size of his thick thighs, fuck his ass. My cock is straining my jock just thinking about it. His tiny waist ugh, I need my sweaty body over him now. Not like he’ll mind, the horny fucker. Mmm hope he’s ready to take my cock, bet his mouth is already watering heh. Pop my pecs at him and he’ll struggle not to cum on the spot, he better keep it together until I let him though. Can’t be having my bitch blow his load that fast. Thank fuck he’s chilled out finally, though I guess my cock’ll work wonders on anyone >:) speaking of it’s about that time again. Hope he’s ready for some more action, hate to have to find another hole.

[honest-moth-of-silver-grove]

Hi thank u for opening asks! Can I request headcanons for the male companions (and or gortash Raphael and the emperor) having a mute s/o either because they can’t talk or they’re very shy

A/N: Here ya go! Managed to get everyone to stay mostly in character. Please be warned there are hints of nsfw for each character, although nothing graphic in nature. And that the entries for Gortash and Raphael describe abusive relationships, so heed the trigger warnings below. 

🔇 Mute!Reader HC x BG3 Males: 🔇

TW: Domestic Abuse & Vaguely NSFW Content

(Abuse and Manipulation for the Gortash & Raphael ones. Also allusions to sex throughout each entry.)

Astarion: 

He’s suspicious of you at first. Even more so that you don’t talk. But if you prove you’re  not a threat in other ways, he doesn’t actually mind it all that much. He talks to you about the same. A good amount of what he says is either posturing or complaining- and that doesn't change just because you can’t talk back. If anything, he complains even more, knowing you wont tell him to shove off like the others. He greatly enjoys how dramatic he gets to be around you. He’ll lean against a city wall and dramatically lay the back of his hand over his face: ‘I tell you Darling, it’s like these people don’t notice me at all!’ You blink at his outburst, your expression unchanged, clearly unamused. 

Still says lots of witty comments under his breath, and subtly looks over at you to see if you’ve smirked or blushed in response. Gets really good at reading all the little reactions you make. He makes a mental catalog of every half smirk, every eye twitch, every shoulder shrug, so that he knows how you feel about something he or another has said.

Appreciates the fact that you’re unlikely to repeat anything he says to you, which makes him feel all the safer confiding in you about his condition and his past, knowing you can’t go sounding the alarm. 

Ends up going on tangents or rants about the others while you just sit there and kind of grimace, empathetically. He knows it can get annoying to just have to listen, but he’s extremely grateful for the outlet. Cazador certainly never cared what he was feeling. Nor did any of his ‘siblings’. But with you, he can bitch about his day only to turn around and find you still there, listening intently. 

Becomes a lot touchier. Like a lot. He switches from checking to verbal confirmation to physical confirmation. Takes your hand, or pulls you close, squeezes your shoulder- those sorts of things. 

Personally takes it as a challenge to see how loud he can get you to be when you’re intimate together ;) 

Gale: 

Doesn’t notice immediately lol. He’s too busy being overjoyed at the fact you don’t interrupt his long winded, pun-filled speeches to even consider it’s due to a disability or something similar on your part. He just thinks you’re the most wonderful listener. And of course, this makes him fall head over heels for you lol.

Once he does get it, he just sort of goes, ‘Oh.’ And lets that sit in the air. (He’s a bit awkward around you for a while, unsure of how to apologize, so you’d probably need to approach him and make your forgiveness known.) 

Once that misunderstanding is over, he immediately becomes occupied with finding spells to help you talk. If that’s something you want, you appreciate the effort, and let him know you’re in no rush. If that’s something you’re not interested in, you tell him as much. He’s a little disappointed and taken off guard. He explains he’s always used magic to solve his problems. You raise your brow and give him a look that says ‘And that’s been working well for you, has it?’ He relents after that. 

The two of you get really good at reading each other’s faces. And Gale takes it upon himself to talk less as well, even though you explain he doesn’t have to. He insists, saying he wants to understand what your life is like. He lasts like two days lol. 

Becomes mostly competent at understanding what you’re saying either via sign or body language, but occasionally Tera has to translate for you. Thank the gods for tressyms.

Wyll: 

Is momentarily taken aback, embarrassed by his concern he was being rude to you before, assuming you could talk to him but were choosing not to. Apologizes, profusely, for the misunderstanding on his part. 

Learns to communicate with you through other means, be it writing, or by whatever the Faerun equivalent of sign language is. He’s not the best at it, but he tries really hard to learn. Picks up basic phrases like greetings, and moods. Does request that you slow down if you’re fluent, to give his brain time to catch up. 

Doesn’t let anyone in the group make petty or passive aggressive comments while giving them a look or chewing them out. He’s very serious about it. The next time Astarion says something off the cuff, Wyll responds with, ‘Well, Astarion, I’d assume you of all people would be used to it being quiet. Having only the other rats of Baldurs Gate as friends for years.’ He’ll go for the jugular- he doesn't give af! No one gets to make you feel bad about it.

Considers going to Shadowheart or Halsin, or even Gale and asking them if there’s something they can do to help you/your condition, but that’s only with your blessing of course. He wants to help you, but doesn’t want to overstep. 

Comes to appreciate how honest you are in your other reactions- your eyes and your body language. Wyll is used to being deceived- by demons, humans, and the like- so he thinks it’s so special he can read you like a book. Whether you’re strolling through Baldur’s Gate, or enjoying your marital bed, it matters greatly to him how you truly feel and think. He’s glad he’s able to share your truth with him. 

Halsin: 

Catches on fairly quickly, although he doesn’t bring it up to you directly. He figures you will bring it up when you are ready to discuss it, and in the meantime, he would not want to pry. Listens intently when you tell him by checking in with your facial expression as he reads your writing. 

Tries to find ways to help you with what you can do. Suggests maybe enchanting a feather pen and scroll or some chalk and a small board to write out what you’re thinking so others can understand how it is you feel in real time. He offers his druid magic to do whatever you need. Hell, he even considers mentoring you to see if you feel nature’s calling. If you were a druid, perhaps you could develop a relationship with an animal companion, say a bird, or an awakened rat, or a giant eagle and get them to speak for you. 

Similar to Wyll, Halsin will try to learn sign language if that’s something you speak. However he isn’t the most adept at it. He’s very used to spellcasting, which requires at least one free hand, often his dominant hand. So he tries learning sign with his nondominant hand, but that makes it all the more difficult. He knows the alphabet, but that’s about it. You will have to slowly spell out your sentences word by word in order for him to get the gist. 

Makes sure you’re either safely hidden away at camp, or stay within his sight during a battle. He knows you cannot cry out for help, so he wants to make sure he can keep an eye on you throughout any conflict. 

Loves just being close to you. Swears he can hear the intention of your heart when the two of you are so close. He wants to assure you, your difference doesn’t make him love you any less. If anything, he is impressed with how much you continue to adapt to and overcome. He’ll say, ‘You need not speak for me to know your voice, my heart. One look in your eyes, and I know, it is an internal melody so beautiful, all of nature could not compare.’ He’ll place soft touches to your skin and face, and check your reaction before progressing any further. He thinks being intimate with you is the best way to express your emotions as a couple. After all, sex is the most ancient language of all.

Minsc: 

He doesn’t get it until Boo points it out to him lol. And even after being told, he still forgets from time to time. 

Minsc loves to talk. Well brag. And boast. And speak in the third-person. So he’s not thrown off by you having to refer to yourself with body language or with possessive pronouns in Common writings. 

He will ask you lots of questions, all throughout the day. Some are obvious and others are seemingly random, and difficult to explain with your words limited to being written down as fast as you can before Minsc’s mind wanders and changes the subject. It’s a workout for your wrists honestly. 

He will loudly announce that you’re mute every time you meet new people. ‘This is (Y/N), my dear love, she cannot speak. So (Y/N) will write her answers for Boo. And Boo will tell me. Then Minsc may tell you.’ You keep trying to tell him, the system doesn’t need Boo and him to interpret for you, especially if you’re already recording your answers in Common for others to read. 

He will never let you apologize for not being able to speak. He refuses to see it as a problem. ‘Minsc speaks loud enough for both of us, no?’ He thinks you’re the most wonderful person around. He could have his pick of the crop, and yet he chose you. Trust him, you’re the person he wants to be with more than anything. 

Gortash:

Actually kind of prefers lovers who don’t talk back, lol. He’s a very insecure man when it comes to his character. He’s cunning and wise, but clawed his way out of hell (quite literally) and the self-critical voice in his head never silences. So he’s oddly comforted that you can’t demean his temperament. 

He won’t try to fix it, nor will he allow you to try and change it in any sort of way. He doesn’t want you to go babbling on about his plans or how he is behind closed doors. That information cannot be getting out. So no, you will not be allowed any magic or spells to help you communicate. 

He will open up to you on occasion in private. The longer you’re together, the more safe he feels like confiding in you. If you feign sympathy, or if you are in fact sympathetic to his backstory, he’ll feel something akin to love for you. It’s not quite love. It’s much more logical, more calculating and pragmatic than that. But it’s about as close as you’d get with him. 

Likes how you have little to no choice other than to stay at his side and listen to him intently. He loves watching all your little apprehensive reactions when beckons you closer and pulls you into his lap. How your pulse races, how your breath quickens, he knows how his proximity makes you feel, even if you can’t open your mouth to speak the words. Besides, he’s very sure your mouth will be good for, let’s just say, other things. 

He will allow you to write him little notes here and there, but only in his office, and only when no one else is around. He’s rather paranoid that way. But he’s also rather pleased how it means you must keep seeking him out during his working hours. He’s under no false impression that he's the kindest lover. But you can’t leave him. You need him. He’s the only one who’s allowed to understand you. And he intends to keep it that way. 

Raphael: 

Like Gortash, Raphael feels a sort of sick satisfaction over the fact you can’t talk back to him. But then on the other hand, he feels a sort of sick disappointment that he can’t torture you into making all those sweet pathetic noises for him. So it’s 50/50 with him. 

He will consider giving you a voice via deviant magic if it means he can hear you beg. It drives him absolutely wild, and he refuses to go completely without it. Takes said voice away if you venture too far into brat territory, or you directly insult him. It’s a privilege for you to even look upon him, how dare you use the gift he gave you against him?

Has Harleep babysit you when he isn’t there. You can’t exactly call for help, and Raphael’s house isn’t safe for you to be wandering about unsupervised. 

Enjoys the look of pure frustration on your face when you try learning to write in Infernal, only to fail miserably. He thinks you’re adorable all revved up. He will read the notes you write in Common, he just doesn’t always respond to them. Despite his refusal to acknowledge most of them, you can tell he understands them, based on how large that vein on his forehead gets lol.

He will let you choose whether or not to have a voice during certain moments of pleasure; well, mostly pleasure. He loves the little gasps and moans you make, it fuels his lust for you even more. Then again, he doesn’t need to hear the sweet cries of your pretty voice to know whether he’s on the right track. ‘I can sense your heartbeat, little mouse,’ he'll whisper to you. Your body reveals to Raphael all there is to know, whether you want it to or not. 

The Emperor: 

It literally doesn’t matter. Dude’s telepathic lol. 

Wishes you’d become an illithid so you’d be telepathic too. Almost doesn’t take no for an answer on that one. 

Ultimately ends up relishing in the fact he alone can understand you- your wants, your needs, your dreams, and hopes. It makes him feel all the more powerful. 

Will give you the play-by-play about the Nether Brain and the Chosen Three because he’s been dying to tell someone, and he knows you can’t go running in the streets telling everyone and ruining his hopes of manipulation. Mainly because you don’t talk but also because he’s not letting you leave his realm lol, no way in hell. 

If you really don’t feel at home here, ‘You could always,’ he’ll suggest coyly, ‘Become one of us.’ You don’t even have to shake your head to tell him ‘no’. Your facial expression does all the talking for that one. 

[fluentmoviequoter]

Let Me Help

Requested Here!

Pairing: Dominique Luca x fostered!SWAT!fem!reader

Summary: When Los Angeles is hit with a freak cold front and your apartment loses heat, you don't ask for help. Luca sees how sick you are and pays you a visit which ends with him taking you back to his house to heal.

Warnings: reader was a foster kid, angst, sickness (pneumonia), fluff and comfort! there's also several Batman references. oops.

Word Count: 2.6k+ words

Masterlist Directory | Luca Masterlist | Request Info\Fandom List

In hindsight, becoming a member of S.W.A.T. may have been a mistake. Not because you don’t enjoy the work or get along with your team but because your past makes certain things hard for you. Growing up in the foster system is a lot of things, and it caused you to be incredibly self-reliant. You learned to be responsible and take care of yourself at a very early age. More than that, you were led to believe that no one would ever want to help you. So, now that you are an adult, you find it hard to ask for help. No matter who it is, asking for assistance or backup is not easy, which makes it hard to be a member of 20-David sometimes.

When you’re in the field, you can switch that part of your brain off, and become a S.W.A.T. officer rather than a foster kid. But the moment you get back to HQ and need your teammates’ help, the words seem to disappear, and you forget how to ask people to be there for you, even those closest to you.

Joining 20-David, however, saved your life. Before S.W.A.T., you were, for the most part, alone and lost. They gave you a home, a family, and everything else you never had before. While every team member cares about you, Luca shows you what it is like to be loved and appreciated.

✯✯✯✯✯

���It’s freezing out there,” Hondo complains as he enters HQ.

“Coldest winter in history according to the news,” Street replies. “Which means desperate, cold people and more calls for us. Any chance this is like Batman, and Alfred can make us special winter uniforms before the first one?”

“Sure,” you answer. “I’m sure that’s precisely what Hicks is doing right now.”

“What am I doing?” he asks as he rounds a corner.

“Nothing,” you and Street answer together.

“Alfred,” Street whispers to you.

You press your lips together to keep yourself from laughing while suppressing a shiver. It is certainly cold, and the heat in your apartment complex went out in the middle of the night. Most people then left and found somewhere else to stay, but hotels are booked, and you can’t find the right time or words to ask your team to lend you a hand or a place to stay.

“Sorry I’m late,” Luca says as he joins your side.

He rubs his hands together to warm up and smiles at you. Hicks gives you information on a fugitive warrant and pulls up a blueprint of the man’s house. There are several points of entry, but the man knows how to barricade all of them, so your team will have to take a unique approach.

“Cut the power and wait for him to get cold,” Deacon suggests.

“Man, what do you have to complain about?” Hondo asks. “You’ve got a wife and four kids to keep you warm.”

“Really?” Hicks asks. “You wanna bring up body heat, playboy?”

You chuckle and stick your hands farther into your pockets. Luca shakes his head beside you before lowering his voice to ask how you are.

“I’m alright. Ready for sunny Los Angeles to get sunny again,” you answer. “What about you?”

“I’d have to say the same. If you want to come over for my world-famous hot chocolate tonight, feel free,” Luca offers.

“Hot chocolate?” Street asks.

“That got his attention better than I ever have,” Hicks grumbles.

“Luca’s hot chocolate is like Christmas and happiness and pure warmth in a cup. And I do pay attention to you, Commander, but my eyelids are frozen shut.”

“Just, go execute the warrant and get back. It’s going to be a long week with this cold front,” Hicks interjects.

“Yes, sir,” Hondo replies. “Let’s roll.”

When you open your locker and realize you forgot your second long-sleeved t-shirt at home, you lean your head against the locker door.

“Here,” Luca says as he extends a jacket to you. “It’s an old one, but I accidentally picked up both.”

“I can’t accept that,” you begin.

“I don’t need it. Seriously, I’ll feel better knowing you’re warm. Work with me?”

Luca smiles, and you accept the jacket with a smile. It’s warm and smells like Luca’s cologne, so, once it’s on, you regret arguing against it. If you could live in this jacket, you would.

“We got this,” Luca reminds you as he walks by your side to Black Betty.

✯✯✯✯✯

The following morning, when your alarm goes off, you feel like you can’t wake up. Your apartment is still without heat, and the permeating cold sucks the energy out of you. When you finally pry your eyes open, you remember that you are still wearing Luca’s jacket, and that gives you the surge of energy you need to get out of bed and get ready. You’ve been sleeping in too many layers, and with each one you strip off, you feel the cold settle further into you. Your joints are stiff, your nose is runny, and you can’t shake the tiredness caused by the dropping temperature. Something needs to change, but you don’t know how to fix it. There has to be a trick to surviving this without help… if only you knew what it was.

In the warm locker room, you scroll through your phone in a sad attempt to find a hotel or rental house you can afford. They’re all booked through the end of the week or ridiculously overpriced, so you turn the phone off and lean back against the bench.

“How are you?” Luca asks when he enters. “The jacket looks good on you.”

“Oh, do you need it back?” You sit up as you ask, but Luca smiles and waves you off.

“No, keep it as long as you want. Can’t remember the last time I wore it. Everything okay on your side of town? Some of the buildings in my neighborhood lost heat during the night.”

You shake your head as you prepare to lie. “Everything’s good.”

Luca nods but glances over when you sniff. The cold can be blamed for some of what is happening in Los Angeles right now, but Luca suspects there is something that you aren’t telling him. He’s repeatedly told you he’s here for you, but Street explained that foster kids aren’t great at reaching out, no matter how close someone is. So, Luca will wait for you to come to him, and his arms will be open when you do.

✯✯✯✯✯

By the end of the week, you are miserable. The cold front has stalled, so meteorologists have little idea about when it will warm up again, and your apartment is getting colder every day. You’ve been able to sleep despite the conditions, but each morning, waking up is harder than the day before. You’re constantly tired, and your sniffles worsen, becoming an ache in your chest. The joint pain has worsened, and while it eases at work, it only intensifies each night you return home.

Luca keeps a close eye on you and can tell you’re tired, but he doesn’t want to push you to talk. If he could convince you to tell Street what's up, maybe you’d be more open, he thinks. You interrupt his internal debate with a deep cough. It rattles your chest and hurts your body as it escapes.

“That does not sound good,” Luca says as he turns toward you.

You’re shivering and can barely keep your eyes open, but you shake your head and reply, “I’m good. The cold is just bothering my allergies, I think.”

Hondo yells for you, and you stand quickly, ignoring the pain as you do so. Luca watches you go and grows more concerned for you. He asks Deacon if he’s noticed you acting differently and Deacon immediately answers that he is nearly certain you are getting sick. They both know you won’t tell anyone, preferring to risk your safety at work rather than asking for assistance. It’s part of your personality, even if it worries them.

Out of stubbornness and not recognizing that your team is worried about your well-being, you brush off their questions and concerns about your health. You’ve been living in the cold for nearly a week now, and you are sure the heat will be fixed soon (even if you have to figure out how to repair it yourself). So, you return home to a freezing apartment and silently hope you wake up in the morning.

✯✯✯✯✯

Not only do you wake up, but you wake up while it’s still dark out because you’re coughing and shaking. You’re burning up, which is the first of many clues that you are not okay. After picking up your phone, you find Luca’s contact and sit with your finger positioned over the call button. He would happily come to get you and let you rest in his heated house, but when you imagine him answering, you no longer want to admit you need help. So, you get up and slowly get ready before driving to S.W.A.T. HQ. At the least, you can sit in a warm room before your shift starts.

When you enter, Rocker’s team is about to start a training exercise and invite you to join. You have an hour before you have to be in uniform, so you agree, mostly so they don’t get as suspicious as 20-David already is.

At the end of the exercise, you are holding your coughs in and fighting to hide how hard your arms and hands are shaking. You feel terrible, and anyone who looks at your target from the shooting range will be able to see that it’s affecting your work.

You don’t notice Luca standing at the edge of the rink, and when Rocker knocks you to the mat with a single hit, he jumps onto the mat beside you.

“Hey,” he calls as he gestures for Rocker to step back.

His words don’t reach your ears over your coughing, but you see him and force yourself to calm down. Luca and Rocker stand over you, clearly concerned, and you smile as you accept their help.

“I’m fine,” you promise. “Just wanted to see if Rocker would pull his punches for a girl.”

“The fist of justice is unisex,” Rocker replies sarcastically.

“You and Street should have a Batman marathon,” you reply as you follow Luca to the locker room.

“I’m just going to be direct,” Luca begins once you’re alone. “I’m really worried about you.”

“Luca, I’m just not doing well with the cold. I’ll be fine, though. I appreciate the concern, but it’s unnecessary.”

You stand, and Luca says your name. Stopping, you can’t decide if you want to let go and tell him everything or push him away like you normally do.

“Luca, I am fine.”

“You clearly are not.”

“I know that you care, but leave it alone, Luca.”

You walk away before he responds. As you pass Deacon, you realize that Luca touched your skin, so he probably suspects you have a fever. However, your conversation with Luca makes you feel worse, so you decide to power through the day and then call your landlord about your heater. Again.

✯✯✯✯✯

Luca watches you leave the minute your shift is over. You don’t change or wash up, and he decides that he can’t leave it, or you, alone any longer. As he drives to your apartment, Luca plans to remind you that you need to rest and take care of yourself, especially in this weather. He sees a drugstore and stops quickly to gather a few things he thinks may help you feel better. Maybe you’ll surprise him by accepting his offer to help you care for yourself.

When Luca pulls into the parking lot of your apartment, he’s surprised to find it nearly empty. He parks behind your car and rushes to your door. His concern grows with each moment he waits for your answer.

✯✯✯✯✯

You continue to shiver painfully despite being dressed in your tactical uniform, plus several sweatshirts, Luca’s jacket, and a blanket around your shoulders. Someone knocks on your door, and the only reason you force yourself off the bed is out of hope that it is the heat repair guy. When you open the door, you can’t decide to be happy or disappointed that it’s Luca.

Your voice is broken up by your harsh shivers as you ask what he’s doing there. Luca immediately feels how cold your apartment is and pushes inside. He sets a plastic bag on your counter before walking into your bedroom. He moves silently around your home like he belongs there and gathers your things as he goes.

“What are you doing?” you ask quietly.

“Are you out of your mind?” Luca replies. Despite the harshness of his question, his voice is soft, if a little annoyed. “How long has your heat been out? You said the cold was getting to you – because you let it in. Living like this is the reason you are sick! You should have told me, any one of us, so that we could help you. My house is always open to you, you know that.”

You get confused watching Luca gather your things while ranting about how you should have told him something. He reprimands you and helps you at the same time, it seems.

“Let’s go,” he says as he puts the bag he brought in your stuffed backpack.

“Where?” you inquire as you pull the blanket tighter around you.

“My house. Someone has to help you overcome the pneumonia you probably have.”

“But-“

“No more buts,” Luca declares. “I’m not asking, babe.”

The pet name catches you off guard, but you take Luca’s offered hand without question. You didn’t ask for help, but accepting it isn’t necessarily easier than asking for it. Once you’re at his house, he makes you comfortable on the couch before bringing you a warm drink and some medicine. His requests are soft-spoken, and you obey wordlessly.

“Thank you,” you murmur when he finally sits beside you.

Luca shakes his head and clenches his jaw quickly. “I’ll always be here to help you. I enjoy protecting you, caring for you, all of it. But you have to stop acting like it’s an imposition.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sappy or are just really annoyed with me.”

“Both!” Luca exclaims. “Look, I can understand being independent to a degree, but living like that could have been so much worse than this, and this is bad.”

You nod and look down at the blanket. “I have trouble asking for help,” you admit. “Growing up, I didn’t have people I could ask for help. The few that I did ask wouldn’t help me, so I just learned to do everything by myself. Finding the words, the opportunity to ask… it’s hard.”

Luca’s eyes soften as he lays his hands over yours. “I promise that I will always be here. I will always be ready, able, and willing to help you. I want to help you because I care about you.”

“Why am I so important?” you whisper as you look into his eyes.

Luca licks his lips before deciding to tell you a version of the truth. “Because I care about you. More than I’ve ever cared about anyone before.”

He says care, but he thinks love. Maybe after he’s gotten you healthy again, you can have an open and honest conversation with one another. For now, though, you close your eyes and lean against his shoulder, warm and happy. 

“I care about you, too. More than I should,” you mumble against Luca's shirt before falling asleep.

Luca smiles and tugs the blanket tighter around your shoulders before kissing your forehead. He will help you until he can’t help you anymore and love every moment of it, he thinks.

[bigtreefest]

Chapter 6: Storm Warning

From: The Rainmaker Series

Pairing: Mob! Steve x Forensic Scientist! Reader

Summary: You have the suspicions you tried to push down for so long, confirmed.

Word count: 4,446

Content/warnings: heavy drinking, kissing, flirting, nervousness, fighting, yelling, Sam Wilson, a switch flip, swears, ANGSTTT, betrayal?

Author’s Note: You guys know that vine where the surfer is making all those sounds talking about the crazy waves? That’s how I felt writing this. *wapahh*

Anyway, can’t wait for your feedback on this one. I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say. Feel free to drop and ask, or a comment, or a reblog!! Those are my life source.

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

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On Tuesday afternoon after work, you were excited to see Steve. And honestly, you hadn’t been this excited for anything in a long time. Giddy, almost, and it felt completely out of character. You were so used to your schedule and your normal obligations, that the things out of the ordinary seemed like such a burden, but this was anything but. You weren’t sure how everything felt like it changed so quickly.

You pulled up to a modern townhouse on the edge of the city in an unbelievably nice area. Sure, it was gorgeous, and evidently expensive, but its inconvenience led you to believe that this wasn’t Steve’s only place. He probably had a country home, and an apartment in the heart of town in addition to this. This place seemed too relaxed to be where someone who had such an insane schedule, from what you could draw, would live. And that’s the thing, it didn’t seem very lived-in from what you could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows that flanked the front door.

As you rang the bell, you almost expected a house cleaner, or a butler to come greet you, but instead, you saw Steve emerge from some distant hallway. He was in a leather jacket, with a deep blue collared shirt underneath, not dressed down, but not dressed up at all compared to what you’d usually seen him wear to work.

As he saw you though the glass, though, and smiled brightly, you weren’t able to return it, feeling something shift in the air behind you. You whipped around to see if anything was there, but you were just met with an empty street, filled only by cars on the quiet block. It was similar to how you’d been feeling for the past week or so, but every time you turned around, nothing was there, so you tried to brush it off.

By the time you went to face forward again, Steve was at the door, looking down to where you stood on the steps. You nervously smiled up at him as he gestured for you to come in.

He grabbed your bag from you, giving a side hug that squeezed your shoulders, along with a greeting of a kiss on the top of your head. “Welcome, sweetheart. I’d give you a tour, but there’s not really much on this level. All the good stuff is downstairs. I’ll show you where you can get changed if you want.

You nodded along, still in your pantsuit, the product of sitting in the courthouse for another case today. But it wasn’t all bad, because you got to briefly hang out with DA Barber. He let you walk around his office during breaks, looking through his knick knacks. You spoke to his admin, who for some reason had dozens of pens on hand, offering you as many as you wanted. Of course you took a bunch, picking out a particularly nice one for Steve and tucking it in your jacket pocket to give to him this evening.

You walked through the house with its tall ceilings, awe-struck at its simple beauty, despite how barren it seemed. That was only the front entry way, though, because Steve led you down a set of steps to a basement which he had finished and turned into what you assumed was his man cave. The walls were lined with art, interesting and intricate, yet surprisingly complementary to the dark tones that filled the space. In the middle, near a fully stocked bar, sat a pool table. It really was a nice little setup.

Steve stopped just before you got there, though, turning around and showing you where the bathroom was and leaving you to it.

It was a relief to be out of that blazer, and when you emerged from the restroom, you could see Steve had laid out a set of hangers for you so it didn’t get wrinkled. He was leaning up against the bar, ankles crossed across each other, sipping a glass of water.

“So can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? A cocktail? Dinner?”

You smiled and your eyes lit up. “Dinner?” He laughed and nodded, sauntering over to you and wrapping his arms around your waist as yours gravitated to his shoulders.

“Yeah, dinner. I’d say your favorite is already on the way, but I wanted to make sure you don’t get sick of it, so I figured I’d let you choose. Anything you want.”

He leaned in to press a quick peck to your lips that left you chasing for more, to which he happily obliged. You pulled away for breath, putting your forehead against his chest for a second to think. “Why don’t you surprise me. Something good. We’ll save the pasta for later this week. Maybe it can be road-trip food to take down to the farm. Bee will love it, too, I’m sure.”

He nodded, pulling out his phone to send in your surprise order, before walking back over to the bar and grabbing his beer, taking a sip and wordlessly offering you one, which you accepted. Before you took a sip, though, you remembered what you had brought him.

“Oh! By the way, I have something for you!” You went over to your bag, missing Steve’s surprised expression, but hearing a faint “oh?” followed by his footsteps in your direction.

You fished around, speaking over your shoulder intermittently. “It’s not much, but I figured since you sent me all those nice things the other week, that I should return the favor. Plus, I felt kinda bad for kicking you out of my apartment on Saturday.”

Steve set down his bottle, walking to your side when you finally found what you were looking for. “Ah! Here it is.”

When you stood, your face was almost right next to his, so you took half a step back, awkwardly shoving your hand between the two of you. “I got you a pen-But it’s uh… a really nice pen. One of those ones people use to sign official documents and stuff. I stole it from the DA’s office, so I guess it’s not an official gift, but I thought you would like it and I figured you do that kind of stuff a lot in day-to-day life, although I’m not really sure-“

You were cut off from your rambling by his hand over yours, accepting the present, and engulfing your digits in his. You took in a sharp gasp, looking between where the two of you met and his warm gaze.

“Thank you, Sweetheart. I really appreciate it. No matter where you got it.”

You tried to force yourself to swallow, your mouth growing dry at the contact. Even though you had kissed, something about this moment had seemed more intimate than before. You raised your other hand, bracing it against his chest because you were worried that if you didn’t, your jello arm would drop, pulling the rest of your body along with it. “And, um. A deck of cards. I got you a really nice deck of cards. Professional grade.”

You could feel the puff of air that came from his breathy laugh as his other hand came up to meet yours. “Thank you. This really wasn’t necessary, but I love it.” You simply nodded and pushed yourself away from him, trying to break the moment. Sure, you loved being that close, and you couldn’t have gotten a better response, but it was a lot to take in.

You turned around to get out of your own head and attempt to regain some logic since your mind had almost gone empty right there. “So…um..pool, right? You think you can beat me?”

You had pulled in on yourself, arms close to your chest, but pointing toward the table, as you finally brought your body to turn around again and face Steve. You were met with a view of his broad back, carefully setting your gifts on a shelf and reaching for the cues.

“You know, now that I know what your nickname means, I’m not sure. It’s my understanding that you’re far better than you let on and you were keeping it a secret.”

Somehow he had already put you at ease again. He walked past you, towards a brick pillar off to the side of the room to grab the rest of the equipment you needed to start. You rolled your eyes, shifting your feet so you continued to face him. “I wasn’t keeping anything a secret. I just don’t blab about that stuff. And to be fair, you never asked me.”

Steve shrugged as he handed you the cue. “I guess you’re right. And you wouldn’t be mad at me either, for not telling you something you didn’t ask specifically, right?”

That was weird. Was there something he wasn’t telling you? Your eyebrows went from relaxed, to drawn inward with suspicion. “Well, it depends on the thing, I guess…”

You tried to brush it off, and it helped that Steve did, too. Maybe he was just curious and had some sort of surprise planned. Or maybe it was something else, but the way he quickly moved onto the next subject helped you to do the same, as you started the first round.

Steve had let you break to start out, which led to your immediate win. He had a smile laced with several emotions all at once as he watched you move with grace, confidence, and ease around the table. By the time you were starting the second game, Steve breaking this time, you heard someone walking down the stairs. It would’ve concerned you that someone random was in his home if Steve wasn’t acting so casual about it.

“Ah, that must be Sam with dinner. Bar food for the bar mood. I hope you like fries.”

Just then, the figure emerged from the staircase, wearing a suit. Figures. He made a beeline for you, reaching out your hand and shaking it. “Hi, you must be Decks. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Sam. I was at the farm all those weeks ago, but I’m sorry we didn’t get to cross paths.”

You shook his hand happily before he asked to pull Steve aside for a moment. He seemed really nice, and who could complain about someone who appeared to be a friend, bearing food?

You took the opportunity to open the paper bag, setting everything out on the bar, fries packaged separately from a plethora of toppings to stay crispy. How thoughtful. You began your snacking before Steve came back.

He returned with a feigned offended look on his face. “So, what? I leave for a second and you’ve already started without me? How’s that fair?”

You laughed and looked at him, fry sticking out of your mouth like a cigarette, simply shrugging until he surprised you by jumping forward and chomping off the other end of the fry, cutting it short.

If you weren’t so focused on not losing what bit was left in your mouth, your jaw would’ve dropped in shock. Steve carried on like almost nothing had happened and picked up his cue again, speaking with his mouth half full. “So it’s my turn still, right?”

The games continued on like that, you and Steve going back and forth on who started, taking shots with fries hanging out of your mouths, and you still winning effortlessly. But as the night went on, though, Steve seemed to be getting more focused on the game. He paid more attention to the angle of your shots, and was almost rooting for you to be better than him with a weird seriousness to it. It wasn’t really fun anymore, or at least the excitement seemed like it was starting to fade for some odd reason. He didn’t try to make any more moves on you, instead letting you be in your zone, making you feel like this was hardly a date anymore. It got to the point where he, rejoined by Sam, was just watching, beer long abandoned to sober up and focus. You’d just about had enough of it. Something wasn’t being spoken out into the open air. After this evaluation, you decided to run an experiment. To see if your hunch was right. On what should’ve been an easy shot, you instead moved an inch to the side, and sunk the 8 ball into the pocket before you were supposed to do. The tension in the room got worse and you could audibly hear Steve wince with a soft “shit.”

You turned around at that. You were right. Something was off about this whole thing.

“Okay, what is going on? Ever since I got here, you’ve been going through waves of being so serious, but that was the last nail in the coffin. I thought it was just because we were both nervous for my first time being at your place, but this is much more than that. I’m sure of it. So tell me what it is. Why are you pushing so hard for me to win?”

Steve couldn’t take his eyes off the ground, rubbing the back of his neck. Sam straightened in a bar stool next to him, his eyes roaming everywhere, not wanting to linger on you and the fire raising in your expression. This isn’t how Steve wanted this to go, but you knew too well something was up. He still stayed silent.

“Steve, why do we have to go back to the farm this weekend and why do I have to practice? Why is Bee not returning my calls, either? What’s riding on this game? Why is it such a big deal? And what do you have to do with this? Why are you so personally invested?”

Steve still didn’t say anything, finally daring himself to look up and into your eyes through his lashes. His expression was troubled. He started to open his mouth, but nothing came out. Suddenly it was all dry from your rage. This was his worst fear, well, besides the unspeakable things Lloyd might have planned if you lost. You were getting impatient, though. Even when Steve wasn’t smooth, he would still talk to you. Talking was something you thought the two of you did pretty well, but apparently not right now.

“Steven. Words!”

Steve let out a sigh, signaling for Sam to give the two of you the room. There was no escaping this now. He’d pushed the limit on the timeframe he had to tell you the truth. “Listen, Sweetheart. You’re right. There’s… a lot… you should know, that I haven’t told you, so let me start at the beginning.”

You didn’t have time for him to try and sugarcoat this. You wanted the whole truth and you wanted it now. And so help you if there was something going on that you weren’t aware about, that was causing you issues you could’ve prevented, someone was getting the brunt of it.

You dropped your cue on the table, stomping over to the beer fridge and grabbing another bottle, hell, why not two, and storming towards a comfy leather chair, throwing yourself down and crossing your legs. “Go on, Stevie. Speak.”

Normally, he would’ve been elated to hear you call him that, but it was nowhere near the tender manner he was hoping you’d use the first time. It was bitter, and biting, and he hadn’t even said anything yet. This was not going to go well.

He sighed and started, eyes on you as if he was trying not to spook a wounded animal, but you were already worse than spooked, you were angry. And no physical wound could hurt more than the distrust you were feeling right now.

“I guess I’ll start with what you already know. You know Bucky and I work with and own a lot of businesses. And you know that Bee’s farm is one of the ones we’re working with, and Bee’s been facing a lot of pressure from Cole lately to sell the farm.”

You nodded along, chugging down your beer and slamming it on the coffee table next to you, ditching the second bottle in favor of something stronger. You walked back over to the bar, not sparing Steve a glance, as you pulled the rolling ladder over to grab the bottle of Macallan off the shelf. You didn’t care what year it was. You just knew it was expensive, and he owed you at least this much after lying.

You stepped back down, deciding to forego a glass, and walked to your seat again, finally looking into his eyes. “Okay, now tell me what I don’t know.”

He hated how hard your eyes had become. How they’d grown dull already where they used to have a sparkle when they reflected his face. “The businesses that Bucky and I run… not all of them are legal. A few of them run outside the law, and at first, it was just because that’s how we were brought up, but we realized that we could change things, so we did.”

You took a swig from the bottle. You did not like where this was going. Steve fidgeted with the pool cue still standing in his hands.

“We were raised in a certain way, to be cutthroat, and unrelenting, and aggressive. Ready to serve our superiors, because that’s what we had to do to survive. To provide for our struggling families. And we were good at it. We were good at following orders, and playing the system, so it put us in leadership at a pretty young age. It seemed like the right thing, especially once both our parents were gone. But as time went on, we saw how damaging what we did could be, and wanted to fix it. Except there were some people who didn’t feel the same way. Some people who were simply power and money hungry and didn’t care who they were hurting. In specific, this one guy named Lloyd.”

You kept nodding along, getting slightly dizzy from the straight alcohol hitting you, and not expecting the lore to go this deep. You thought it could’ve been something more minor. Maybe Steve was in the witness protection program or something, because that could’ve been better than this trip of an explanation.

“Lloyd was a friend of ours, along with his sister. And Bucky was especially close with her. But they both left to go off to college, and we were really proud of them, but when they came back, they were different. Aggressive, uncaring for quality of goods, money hungry. Lillian, Lloyd’s sister became a huge lawyer, used to do his dirty business bidding, and Lloyd tried to start from the ground up, stepping on the territory Bucky and I fixed and taking advantage of people already in terrible positions. We don’t do what he does. We regulate things so people like him don’t take over. And we collected a lot of allies and truly good businesses along the way to help out with keeping the other side under wraps.”

You rolled your eyes waving your hand signaling that he was going on and on and on. “Okay, so you’re a criminal. What does this have to do with my best friend’s farm? And why I’m here right now, evidently practicing pool like my life depends on it?”

He rubbed a hand down his face, looking past you, over your shoulder, and out the window at the far end of the room. “Our business with Bee isn’t on the legal side. It’s on the other one. And it wasn’t until a few weeks in or so that we saw Lloyd was connected with Cole. So we were getting harassed from both ends. From Lloyd on our end, and Cole on hers. I assume she hasn’t been telling you this, but Cole’s been on her ass since Bucky left, and Lloyd has been on ours for months. Bee made a bet to end it for once and for all. A single game of pool. Winner takes all. Friends and family only, no pros, and she wants you to play for her side. She hasn’t been picking up your calls because I told her not to. I wanted the chance to lay this all out on the table for you. So you’d hear it from me. I know you’re a woman of the law, and I work outside it a lot, so I understand if you’re upset about that.”

You clenched your jaw, and if you did it any harder, your teeth might’ve broken. Your breaths were heaving out of flared nostrils. You took another sip, trying to find the proper way to reply to all of this, but your brain was too fuzzed for that. And it’s not like you would’ve wanted to do the right thing even if you were thinking clearly. Yelling seemed like a good option right now.

“Are you fucking kidding me!? She bet the farm on this game!? And you’re what? A crime lord!? But that’s not even what I’m the most mad about. You lied to me Steve. I trusted you and I gave you my time and I let you in easily to see things no one else does, and you lied.”

You tried to stand up, but were becoming too dizzy to do so. You were humbled, only briefly, so you asked another, softer question. “So what really is even your job then? Who are you and Bucky exactly?”

Steve put his pool cue back. “Bucky’s the boss.”

“And you?”

“Second in command.”

“And what’s Sam?”

“Number three.”

You nodded, yelling to Sam who you could still see standing on the staircase, listening to the whole thing.

“Hey! Number three! Can you bring me more fries from over there?”

Sam looked between you and Steve and Steve nodded, a solemn look on his face, letting Sam run over to the bar, and bring you the rest of the basket of fries. Once you’d had your fill, and the carbs soaked up some of the alcohol, you stood up, staring Steve down.

“Okay, fine. Since everyone thought they were best to make decisions regarding my own life, and make stupid ones in theirs without consulting me, I’ll give. You want me to practice more pool? I’ll practice. Rack ‘em.”

Steve wanted to tell you this wasn’t necessary. That he’d made a mistake. That you’ve proven yourself enough and that he was sorry, but his mouth was paralyzed. He believed that the best thing right now was just to give into whatever you needed to stay sane.

You broke the balls with more force than necessary, already getting a striped ball in a pocket, then kept making shots, not missing a single one. You called the eight ball to the far corner pocket before sinking it easily, even drunk off your ass.

“There. Happy? I won’t screw this up. So you can see I’ll do my best to make sure our friend keeps her farm and you get your little business deals to stay protected. I’ll see you on Saturday, tell Gio I’ll be waiting for him outside my apartment, and then hopefully, after I do my job, you and I won’t need to see each other… never again.”

Steve stood with his eyes focusing on you, yet he was zoned out. He should’ve told you sooner. He should’ve seen this all coming from waiting too long. What was worse than you finding out? You getting hurt. And he did that. He hurt you. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to you because your guard was down because you didn’t know your true proximity to everything, but now that you did, he could see a thousand ways that it would’ve all gone smoother if he would’ve just been honest from the beginning.

You stormed across the basement, back towards where Sam was, and tossed him your keys. “You’re driving me home, Three.”

He followed you out the door, and you didn’t even care that you left your work clothes, and Steve, behind.

Sam drove you home like a chauffeur, after you insisted on getting on the back seat so you could lay down. Now was as good of a time as ever to try calling Bee again, and this time, she finally picked up.

“Hey, Decks. How did your date with Steve go? He told me you were coming over tonight.” Even in your state, you could sense the caution in her tone.

“It was fucking awful, but I think you know that. I can’t believe you lied to me, too. Some guy I just met is one thing, but my best friend is another. And on top of that, I can’t believe you were stupid enough to make this big of a bet and put it on my shoulders.”

She simply hummed. She could probably tell you were drunk, she was one of the few to have seen it this bad before. She sighed before giving her response. “You know me. And you know I wouldn’t have made this sort of a deal if it wasn’t necessary. If I wasn’t desperate. But I’m not worried.”

She was silent for a second, but you let her be. She was gathering the right thing to say, and anything you wanted to throw in that free space would’ve made things worse.

“Decks, no one I know is better than you. When it comes to you as a person and you playing pool. And plus, it’s not like he can bring a pro or even semi-pro to come beat you. You’ve got this in the bag, knock on wood, and I hoped you would understand. The bet and the business.”

You sighed. You wanted to be snarky and mean, but she was just so logical, and you knew how grounded she was with that heart of gold and shit. She was the one who always shared reason with you. But it still didn’t excuse how reckless this all felt.

“Bee, using this skill to swindle people out of a couple bucks hardly counts as being good enough to save your legacy. That farm is your life. I have no quantification of the probability of my win, but I’ll do my best, I guess. I’m getting really tired, now, so I’m gonna let you go, and you and I can talk about your poor taste in men and this little lying streak of yours later.”

And with that, you hung up the phone and the world went black.

Next >

Bonus A/N: Another vine reference: Did you guys [read] that? I’m really scared.

Taglist: @evie-119 @hawkeyes-queen @ronearoundblindly @thedonswife13

[nexilu]

Okay, so I’m currently reading the script for the pilot of the first version of what Supernatural could have been and wtf is that ??

Okay, so meet Sam Harrison. After the death of his mother when he was 9 and then his dad going missing, he grew up in L.A. being raised by his uncle Tommy and his aunt Cherryl who are both very caring and supportive being the most perfect parents ever. He had a stable home, a not so bad childhood, he is the smarter in his school, got a best friend, a girlfriend (btw in this version I find Jessica very annoying) and STILL he gets to act all emo and complain about his life not being as perfect as people think it is bcz his mom randomly died in a car accident or something and he is livid at his dad for living him and Dean behind when the man was having a really hard time to cope with his wife death and people were just screaming at him and so bcz of that Sam thinks that his life is dark or something and like BRO. Go ask Sam Winchester what’s it’s like to grew up without a home, friends or family, with just having an absent father without loving uncle and aunt to take care of you, to not being supported by your family and you’re gonna ask yourself if you’re life is still as awful as you think it is, because I don’t think so.

So, no one got any news of Dean since 2 yrs and somehow people are just being angry at him instead of worrying ?? Then Sam is being all grumpy bcz his brother that didn’t show any sign of life in the past 2 yrs didn’t randomly show up at his graduation. But then, when he actually gets to show up, (Dean got the same entry as a vilain it was so funny lmao 💀) Sam is being mad at Dean for being here and he wants him to leave ??

Dean actually feels bad for missing Sam graduation and not being here for 2 yrs, but when he tries to apologize Sam swears to him that he is not mad at him when literally 2 hours ago he pouted at him for that exact reason.

Then Dean kidnaps Sam.

Sam thinks that Dean is crazy just like their dad used to be, that he killed their dad and that now he wants to kill him and Dean is just like wtf no ?? I would never hurt you or dad, ever.

And Sam is like, yeah…I’m not very sure about that…

And Dean used to be a bully when he was younger 💀, aunt Cherryl and uncle whatever-his-name-is totally favorised Sam over Dean (you can’t convince me otherwise), Jessica always asks to be the center of attention and she didn’t reject Dean when he flirted with her in front of Sam.

Also I feel like they just switched the roles of Sam and Dean with Dean being the most emotional one who tries to talk and Sam being the one keeping his emotions in the inside and refuse to communicate. In the childhood flashback we can see 13 y/o Dean openly being scared and crying and 9 y/o Sam not showing any emotions.

If I had to resume this, I would say that it’s an even worst version of the universe of 2x20.

[maybankswife]

Falling for him part 3

JJ Maybank x fem Kook Reader

Summary-

You and Sarah have been best friends since you could walk, and now it has all started to change. and fast.

*This uses scenes from Obx Season 1, but modified to fit Y/N into the storyline.*

Warnings:

mentions of weed, slight panic attack, cannibals (not a part of the story just mentioned), switching between POVs at the start, swearing, gun shots, gun, the word "sex", mention of the reader being naked, a long shower routine, stalking JJ's Instagram account.

JJ’s Pov:

The light switched off, she did it.

“They did it. Go time” John B whispered, looking at me and Pope. I slid the ski mask up my neck and over my nose, to somehow disguise myself if we got caught. Pope and John B did the same, pulling it up and over their noses. I’m worried about Y/N I need to get inside and check on her.

“Three, two…” John B counted down. I couldn’t wait for one, I need to be as close to Y/N as I can be right now. I stood up before John B could reach one, and I made my way to the entry to get underneath the house. I turned my flash on, navigating my way through the basement, or cellar thing that this old lady has under her house. I got to the where the well is, it is on a completely different level, its further down so I have to jump to get to it.

“Holy crap, you know what this is?” I question JB and Pope as I start unravelling the rope I was tasked to carry. “It just hit me” I continue, “Pope look” I tug the ski mask off my face, the air here is super thick and it’s even harder to breath when I have the mask on. I let out a breathy laugh “This is C.H.U.D. Full C.H.U.D” I smile, looking at JB to see his reaction. He looks almost stunned and turns to Pope.

“What is he talking about?” JB asks Pope, his expression is unreadable. I can’t tell if he is making fun of me or not, he usually is tho. I swing my head around to look at Pope, is it not obvious what I’m referencing?

“Cannibalistic, humanoid, underground, dwellers?” I say, how the fuck do they not know what I’m talking about? “Have you guys not seen that film” Pope steps towards me, giving me a funny look before responding.

“Can’t say I have, no” The sarcasm in his voice annoys me, I don’t understand why they always talk to me like I’m stupid. They’re the ones who are uncultured.

I continue setting up the pulley system, “It’s actually a good film. It’s about cannibals that live in the sewers, and under New York City, and it’s like--”I get cut off by John B,

“Shut up! Shut up!” He whisper yells at me, I stop talking because I can tell he’s getting annoyed at me. “All right. How deep do you think this is, pope?” John B asks, his voice is trembling and uneasy.

Pope sighs loudly before responding “I don’t know” The look on JB’s face is full of fear, he needs to stop looking down the well.

Y/N’s Pov:

We are still standing up against the wall, trying to keep quiet. A loud electrical noise seizes through the air, making us all take a step back, and a loud gasp escaping Sarah. you put my hand up to your mouth, trying to limit the sound of my heavy breathing. A loud clock rings out, it’s going to wake up Mrs Crane, you know it will.

your whole body is shaking underneath you.

“Shit” Sarah breathed out, Kiara is standing next to you, her head hits the wall as she keeps trying to go further back than what she actually can.

“Ow Fu-” You slapped your hand across her mouth and looked at her, warning her to shut up.

All you could hear was the loud ringing of the clock, and each other’s hitched breath. Sarah looked at you she looked terrified, all you could do was stand there and be quiet.

JJ’s Pov:

We had finally set up the pulley system and had started lowering John B down into the well. I grunt as the rope starts to get heavier.

John Bs voice cuts through the air “hey, boys. I have one request” Me and Pope continued lowering him.

“Yeah?” I struggle through my words.

“Yeah?” Pope said at the same time as me

“Don’t drop me” As soon as the words fell out of John B’s mouth, both me and pope let go of the rope slightly, letting John B fall down for a few seconds.

“Whoa!” I yell out, with the intent of scaring the shit out of John B. we grab hold of the rope again.

“O…kay, you’re gonna die first, for sure” he yelled out at me and Pope.

“Gotcha” I say in a weird voice, one of my many accents I do.

“All right, just keep payin’ it out nice and slow like that” Pope said to me, as we kept lowering JB further down into the well. John B directed us to keep going, my hands are already getting rope burn.

“Keep going” his voice echoed through the well.

My hands are hurting so bad, I can’t do this for the whole time that John B is going to be down there I need to readjust.

“Wait, hold on one second. I’m gonna get situated” The rope is behind my back, Fuck! I slipped and fell, the rope falling out of my hands.

“Oh, Shit!”

“WHOA!”

“John, Shit!”

I stood up so fast, grabbing the rope and tightening it.

“Jesus!” I yell out. I’m on the floor again, trying to pull John B up, I’m using every single muscle in my body. I can feel my abs tightening already, at least I won’t have to work out tomorrow.

“John B!” Pope yells down the well, making sure that he is still alive.

“I told you not to drop me!” John B’s voice yelled out, hard and bitter.

Y/N’s Pov:

Fuck! What the hell are they doing down there, they are so loud.

Shit, you can hear Mrs Cranes walking stick hit the floor as she waddles around the top floor. You can hear her wheezing and coughing. Kiara and Sarah hear it too, they both look over to you. you shake your head at them, hoping they don’t make a sound. Mrs Crane walks down the stairs, her walking stick thumping down each step. The thuds of her steps are getting closer, your hand is still covering your mouth.

“It’s—Its late, Leon” Mrs Cranes voice echoed through the house. Leon?? Like her dead husband Leon?? We are so dead. You stand up against the wall with Kiara and Sarah, hoping to God the old lady doesn’t find you. “Too late” she croaks out, coughing. You could her John B’s muffled yells, what the fuck is going on?

The old lady turned around the corner, she doesn’t seem to see you guys. She walks right past the three of you,

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

“I can hear you Leon” She yells out, “I’ve been waiting all night!” She screams, turning around to face you.

Screams and the word “go” is repeated, you all run out of the room, you run with Sarah through a door in hopes it leads you out of the house. Kiara runs in the opposite direction, it takes her to the foyer of the house, where the front door is. But it’s been barricaded with wood planks. Sarah leads you to where Kiara is, you have to stop in your tracks because Mrs Crane has beaten you there, slamming what you thought was her walking stick, but it was in fact a metal fire stick. You watched in horror as Kiara dodges her hits, you pray that this is all worth it in the end. Sarah ran up behind Mrs Crane, pulling the stick out of her hand and throwing it across the room, allowing Kiara to get up and run. You ran over to her, grabbing her hand and ran.

“Here, come on, come on this way!” you lead Kiara and Sarah through the house till you got to the door that goes underneath the house. Sarah had slammed the door behind her, but Mrs crane was on the other side, hitting it with the fire stick, putting holes in the door. You ran down the stairs,

“Guys!”

“Guys!”

“Guys!” the three of you yelled out, you ran through the basement until you got to the well.

“Whoa, Whoa! What’s going on?” JJ yelled out, his eyes on you. you took a second to catch your breath,

“Its Mrs Crane, she’s up there!” you forced yourself to talk, even though you could barely breathe.

“She tried to kill us with a fire poker we gotta get the fuck outta here” Kiara rushed through her words. Wiping sweat away from her forehead.

“We locked her in the Parlor” Sarah breathed out, hunched over with her hands on her knees.

You zoned out, your vision is going blurry. All the yelling and screaming that was around you turned it to muffled noises. You stood there in a trance, unable to move. You wrapped your arms around your body, trying to ground yourself but nothing was working.

BANG!

A gunshot went off in your direction. You blinked out of your state, aware of what was going on around you. The pogues where trying to pull John B out of the well and they let go when the gunshot went off, JJ ran up next to you, wrapping his arm around your waist and running towards a pile of old furniture.

“We gotta hide” he drags you to the floor, you sat in front of him, between his legs with his arms wrapped tightly around your body. This was your breaking point, the hot tears streamed down your face, your breathing was rapid and heavy, your hands shake as your wrapped them around JJs arms.

BANG!

A second gunshot went, everyone immediately got up. But JJ practically had to pick you up, your body was too heavy for you, but you have to keep going. You sprinted out of the house, and with JJs help you managed to jump the wall. Pope slid into the driver’s seat whilst the rest of you jumped into the back. You started driving slowly, so John B could catch up. You sat in the back of the twinkie with JJ next to you, Sarah, and Kiara wat next to each other. You had no time to breathe, you sat there, furiously blinking back tears, and trying to catch your breath.

John B was running towards the twinkie, the door was open. Kiara pulled him in, he was covered in what looked like shit. He sat on the floor of the van, catching his breath.

“Oh shit!”

“Oh my god!”

“Pope, Drive!”

“Oh my god! Dude” JJ said, sitting next to you practically levitating out of his seat.

“John B did you get shot?” You called out, he shook his head.

“You good?” Sarah asked him, double checking he was okay.

“I think I’d know if I was shot, right?” Kiara blurted out.

“You-look-disgusting” JJ breathed out,

“God, you smell like ass” Sarah exclaimed

The group continued talking about how Mrs Crane was possessed and what not, put you were paying attention to John B pulling something out of his pocket. It was covered in mud, and you watched as he used his thumb to swipe away some of it.

“What is that?” you questioned John B, in disbelief in what he was holding out in front of him.

“No, you didn’t!” Sarah gasped

“We did it baby!” John B howled

“No, you didn’t!” Sarah repeated herself

“I did it!” John B bellowed, laughing at his success.

Everyone went into a large roar of cheers, and “Oh my gods” Screaming, hitting the roof of the van, and hugging the people around them. This turned into a chant of “Full kook, full kook, full kook!” you joined in, it felt wrong to celebrate the winning of money especially because your considered kook princess of Kildare. But you joined in and celebrated the success for everyone else.

Once it had calmed down, you asked Pope to drop your home. He complied and drove the twinkie through the kook side of the island. He pulled up in front of your house and stopping the van.

“Thank you, guys, I had so much fun. I will see you guys tomorrow” you were lying through your teeth, the back of your throat was still tight, all you wanted to do was cry. You waved them goodbye and jumped out of the van, you made your way to your front door pulling the keys out of your pocket. You felt a heavy hand on your shoulder, JJ.

“Hey, are you okay?” his words muttered and soft, you turned around to look at him. The question threatening to make you break down right here.

“Yeah, I’m okay” you nod your head, tucking your hair behind your ear. JJ smiles at you,

 His hand hits your upper arm, “Okay, see you tomorrow?” he nods at you, his finger pointed towards you.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow” you sighed, watching as JJ jogged back to the van, slamming the door behind him. You pushed the key into the hole, twisting till you heard the lock click open. You pushed down the handle and walked in. you took of your shoes and put them on the shoe rack, you pulled off your jumper. You were forced to wear it because that’s the only black clothing item you own. You were left in your bra, you saw that the kitchen lights were still on. You walked down the hall, you see your mum sitting at the kitchen island reading something on her phone. You drag your feet, walking towards your mum. She looks up at you, wide smile on her face.

“Hey bubba, have fun with Sarah?” She asks, putting her phone down and fixing her clear glasses. You sit down on the barstool next to her.

“Yeah, it was good, I’m really tired” you yawned, stretching, and falling onto your mum’s lap. She strokes your hair, tucking it behind your ears.

“That’s good, are you gonna go for a shower? I think Oakley is in your bed” she chuckles, kissing the back of your head. You sit up, your eyes heavy.

“Yeah, I’ll go for a shower” You stood up, walking down the hallway to your bedroom. You twisted the door handle open, wafted with the smell of salt, fresh air, your perfume, and various sex wax air fresheners. Your mum had opened up your windows when you weren’t home, and you were grateful. You loved the smell of fresh air and linen sheets. You shut the door behind you gently, you saw Oakley sleeping on her bed that’s in your room. You bent down, placing a small kiss on her head.

Standing back up you walked into your ensuite bathroom, switching on the lights and the heater. It was hair wash day, so you brushed out the knots in your hair. You stripped from your clothes, feeling the warm air from the bathroom heater on you. You located your speaker and connected it to your phone, you shuffled your playlist and the song “Sky Walker” by Miguel started playing. Making your way over to your shower, you pulled the glass door open. You have to walk into the shower to get to the handles. You turn the water to hot, and in a couple of seconds the water is already at the perfect temperature.

You take your time in the shower, shampooing your roots once with you Olaplex shampoo, rinsing it and then doing your second shampoo with you Ouai shampoo, rinsing it till all the bubbles are gone. Then, you apply Ouai hair mask to your ends, as well as conditioning it with Native coconut and vanilla conditioner. Once you applied the conditioner, you put your hair up into a claw clip, so it stays out the way whilst you let the conditioner soak in. For your body, you start by washing your face with Laroche-Posay hydrating gentle cleanser, gently rubbing it into your face in circles before rinsing it off. Next, you put on some exfoliating gloves. You squeeze some of you Philosophy vanilla coconut body wash and rubbing it between the exfoliating gloves until it emulsifies, and then exfoliating your body with it. You rinse off the soap before sitting down on the shower bench, you grab your razor and put it on the bench next to you. You prefer using soap to shave your legs, so you grab your Dove irritation free, fragrance-free body wash, lathering it on your legs. You carefully shave your legs, making sure to get everywhere. You shave your legs twice to make sure you got every little hair. Same with your under-arms. After shaving you exfoliate again using Tree hut ocean glow sugar scrub. Now that you skin is smoother than a baby’s, you rinse your body again with cold water. You take your hair out of the claw clip, and brush through it with a comb. You rinse the conditioner out, the best feeling ever is having seaweed hair when you rinse your hair.

You turn the shower off and walk out of it. Grabbing your towel off the towel rack, you wrap the fluffy white towel around your figure, twisting it so it can stay in place without you having to hold it. You walk over to your sink, pulling open the drawer that’s under it. This holds all of your skincare, haircare, body care things etc.

you start off with a toner, specifically Laneige cream skin toner, you gently rub it in, also patting it in. secondly you use the Laroche-Posay eye cream, applying it with the metal applicator. Thirdly, Laroche-Posay tolerain, double repair face moisturizer, rubbing it into your face in careful circles. Lastly using Laroche-Posay acne treatment on the hotspot areas for pimples on your face.  Now that your routine is finished, you turn off the speaker and walk back into your room. You walk over to your dresser to get some pyjamas. You find you Brandy Melville matching set, it’s a white cropped tank top, with short bottoms that have small blue flowers scattered on it. You set it down on your bed, but before you get changed you go to your windows, shutting them and closing the electrical shutters with the control panel. You walk back over to your bed, dropping your towel to the floor. You pull the tank over your head and pull up the shorts. You bend over, picking the towel up off the floor, as well as retrieving the clothes you were wearing today and putting them into your laundry basket.

You turn on your bedside lamp, and the fairy lights that dangle loosely behind your bed. You pull back your duvet and sitting down letting your body sink into the soft mattress. You grab your phone, scrolling through it and checking notifications. A notification pops up on your screen from Instagram, “Follow request from JJ_Maybank.” You smile widely when you see it. You click on it and your phone opens the Instagram app, you accept his request and immediately go to his account. Its public, he obvious isn’t worried about cyber safety. You hesitate, your finger hovering over the follow back button. You close your eyes and quickly press it, opening them again you start scrolling through his posts.

A lot of photos of him on a boat with the Pogues, drinking beer, smoking weed, the dream. You search his account for any signs of a girlfriend, and to your relief the only girl he’s really posted is Kiara. Your mind circles through the thoughts of what if him and Kiara are talking, and that’s why Kiara is still acting so cold, you continue looking through his posts. They are silly, some stupid photos of him, and of some memes. Videos of him at parties, but on one particular video you need to rewatch it a few times. You can see yourself in the background, partying, and dancing with your friends. You laugh at it, unable to remember that exact moment but grateful he had somehow managed to film it. Once you had looked through all of his posts, read all of his captions, you started to look through his highlights. Photos that someone had taken of him surfing, swimming, watching the sunset. You assumed one of the pogues had probably taken it, another highlight filled with photos of him and the pogues hanging out, this highlight had hundreds of photos in it, and you looked through everyone of them. another highlight, this one had photos of random things, like his surfboard, his motor bike, what wax he uses for his board etc. you clicked out of his account and went to Sarah's, opening the chat box.

“Hey, dyk if JJ is talking to Kiara? Like dating her?” sent.

“No, the last thing I heard is that Kie has a thing for Pope, and Pope apparently likes her back” Sarah replies.

“Hmm okay” sent.

“y you asking? She replies, you can hear her voice in your head, and you can see the smirk on her face.

“Just bc Kie is still acting cold towards me, I wanted tk if it was bc she had a thing for JJ and didn’t like that I was hanging out wit him” sent.

“Ahh I see, I heard from Kie that she likes Pope, but heard form JB that Pope likes her. Idt that shes acting cold bc of you n JJ, but idk y she is” you read through Sarah’s message over and over again.

“Thx Sarah cya tmmrw” you reply, going back to your main Instagram feed. You decide to friend the other Pogues, so your go through search through Sarahs following list to find their accounts.

“Kie.Carrera..”

“Popehey.ward”

“Routledge_kid”

You request all of their accounts, before putting your phone onto sleep mode and turning it off. You reach to your floor for your phone charger, once you find it you plug it into your phone and put it down on your bedside table. You switch off the lamp but leave the fairy lights on incase you or your dog wakes up in the middle of the night. You put one of your pillows on the other side of your bed because you only like sleeping with one, and you get into your favorite sleeping position and fell to sleep straight away.

[quinloki]

𝐵𝓊𝑔𝑔𝓎'𝓈 𝒮𝓅𝑜𝑜𝓀𝓉𝒶𝒸𝓊𝓁𝒶𝓇 𝒮𝓅𝑒𝒸𝒾𝒶𝓁!

This is my second costume contest entry for @swampstew's costume contest event \o/

Characters: Buggy the Clown Warnings: None Notes: This is Buggy's event?!? What's he doing trying to JOIN it??

Word count: 689

“Are you sure?” Buggy asks, disappearing into the costume you’re holding open for him. It’s one of those horse style costumes meant for two people. Not that this one looks like a horse.

“I’m positive.” You insist. “You wanted to enter the contest, you thief, and so you have to do it undercover.”

“There’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t participate.” He insists, moving around inside the costume with your help.

“Rules you wrote.” You point out. “No, not that way, put your left foot there, left hand here.”

“Why would I-?”

“Because you lift left and left and then right and right and it’ll look more natural for the costume.” You explain. “You’re holding up more parts by yourself than you’re used to with this, so don’t make it harder.”

“Hmph.” He grumbles, but does as you say. “What is this a costume of again? You said it was flashy.”

“It’s a mythological creature from one of the best stories of the winter season.” You answer, dodging the actual name of character on purpose.

“This is an Autumn event!” He nearly screeches.

“Ah stuff it, it’s an autumn event, but this is a flashy costume, and it suits you perfectly.” You insist, affixing a little reindeer tail to the backside of the costume. “Besides, you sprung this on me a little last minute, buster, you’re lucky I could pull anything together in the first place.”

You grumble the words from behind a row of pins in your mouth. Buggy looks over at you as you’re affixing the last few details into place. He smiles, even though you miss it, forever grateful that you put up with him so much. Putting the head piece on he settles into the costume a little better, but after a few minutes realizes there’s a small issues.

“(Y/N).”

“Yeah, Bugs?” You say to let him know you heard him.

“It’s really stuffy in here.”

“… Hard to breathe?”

“A bit.” He says. You smile, he’s trying to not make your job harder, and you appreciate that, but you’d not only hoped for this outcome, you’d bet on it.

“Lemme pop the nose off the head piece and you can put yours in its place.” You say, moving around to the front of the costume, taking the head piece as he hands it over. A seam ripper and a tug removes the little plastic black nose, and lets you quick stitch the fabric down before handing it back. “There.”

“… It’s not going to ruin the costume?” He questions. You look up at him and see he’s legitimately concerned. Poor guy, always so self-conscious of his nose.

“Not at all, Bugs. Gonna make it more accurate, honestly.” You say reassuringly. “This mythological creature very naturally, just like you, had a red nose.” You’d long since learned a way to mention his nose and its attributes without throwing him into a frenzy. Your voice took on a specific, almost professor-style tone, and it seemed to flip a switch in Buggy’s brain that assured him you were just stating a fact, and not picking on him.

“He’d been unfairly teased for his nose too, but managed to win over those around him and save the winter festival of the time.” You finish your explanation and give Buggy a smile. “Kind of like you and how you’ve won over your crew so much.”

Buggy’s eyes start to water, and you put your hands up. “Don’t cry! I don’t have time to clean tear stains out of the fur! You’ve got to be out on stage in twenty minutes at the most, keep it together for me, okay?”

Buggy sniffles hard, looking up for a moment and taking some deep breaths as he nods a little. You give him a couple minutes and he gives you a small “thanks” as you go back to working on the costume. You don’t have much time, but you’re going to make the best Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that you can.

And as luck would have it, you didn’t have to go about finding a red nose for the costume.

[lumosinlove]

Day Ten:

On the tenth day of Winterfic, Hazel gave to you, a bit of Oh My Heart (Zombie!au)

(cw: mention of death and injury, but nothing very gory, or graphic)

“Anything?”

Natalie shook her head, blond hair braided back in two. She flipped the switch on the radio she’d been working on for the last month. “If you’re asking me if I’ve done my job, then the answer is yes. But no, nothing.”

Logan, standing beside Remus, cursed. Remus rubbed at his eyes. He adjusted his bow over his shoulder and stared at the contraption. He felt like he was in outer-space, trying to reach home, and their orbit was somehow off.

Natalie shrugged. “If there’s a problem, it’s on their side. Sorry, Doc.”

Logan pressed his hands flat against the table, eyes hard. “How’re we suppose to find anyone if we can’t talk to each other?”

Natalie narrowed her eyes, hand resting on her ax that had a constant presence beside her. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Tremblay. We’re all looking for someone.”

“Are you looking hard enough?”

“Watch it there, honey,” Natalie said slowly. “Just because we’re scout partners, doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you.” 

Logan stared at her for a long moment before giving the table a small, frustrated shove and turning away.

“Logan,” Natalie sighed. “A radio won’t solve our problems. The dead are still dead.”

“He’s not dead.”

“I’m not saying he is. But stop putting all of your hopes into one thing.” She looked down. “It’ll just hurt you.”

Remus glanced at Logan. He knew his list well. His only remaining family member, his older sister, Noelle, and a boy called Finn. Newcomers were rare this far out of the city, but on the rare occasion they did get one, Logan was ruthless with his questioning. He had a photograph that he showed. It had been taken at a party. Logan looked younger, in college. Maybe that was where he and Finn had met. Remus had never asked. They were standing in a backyard somewhere, picket fence, open grill, string lights. Logan was standing, laughing at something off camera, and Finn was there, too, pressed up behind him, arm wrapped around his chest.

Remus, honestly, didn’t like seeing that photo. It looked too much like the old-normal. Like before. Times like those, of parties and buying packs of beer from the corner store, of finding someone to spend the rest of your life with—a life that would keep growing and turning out new adventures, new loves—were over. Remus would rather forget them than long for them.

God help one woman, May, who had given Logan a hesitant maybe when she’d first arrived and he’d shown her the picture. Logan had all but killed her with his questions. Where? When was this? It’s yes or no, have you seen him? Is he alive? Answer me now.

Logan seemed to think there was a good chance that Finn was in the city. Remus would have been jealous, he wished he had an idea where his family could be—if they were anywhere at all. But to be in the city seemed like a fate worse than death.

“What can I do, is there anything?” Remus asked. “What about Celeste, she’s got scrap medal and…I don’t know, what do you need?”

Natalie gave a sad shake of her head. “Like I said. It’s them, not us.”

“They have got to want to be contacted,” Remus said. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“Beats me. They might just not have the equipment.” She smiled and tapped her temple. “Or any brains to use it.”

It was true. Remus counted them lucky to have Natalie’s skill at hand. She’d even managed to rig up an old DVD player and a projector in the canteen some nights. The amount of smiles and laughter had been jarring.

Remus gave a short nod of thanks before pushing his way out of the tent. The winds were picking up and the entry flaps would have to be tied down. It looked like a storm.

Logan pushed after him, glancing up at the sky. “We should send another party to the city.”

“No.”

“But we haven’t been able to get into any buildings. And if the Walkers are coming out in the day now, maybe night’s the better option. We will have darkness.”

“The Walkers don’t see well at any time of day.” Remus returned the smiles he received as they walked down through the trades. He could smell fire and leather, hear people working. “It’s scent and sound, Logan. I know you have people you’re looking for, but you’ll have to be sensible about it.”

Logan scoffed. “There is nothing sensible about any of this.”

Remus sighed and turned into a stall. “Can’t argue with you there. Thomas?”

“Here,” came a voice from behind many shelves before a man pushed through the flap separating the counter from the back. He had dark brown skin and kind eyes, and he grinned widely. “What’s up, Doc?”

Remus leaned on the counter. “Does everyone here know I never actually graduated?”

Logan laughed. “Pretty sure an apocalypse counts as a diploma.”

“Let’s hope I can live up to the name.”

“Look at it this way,” Thomas said. “Your last name isn’t Walker, like mine.”

Remus winced. “You got me there. Sorry.”

“Re.” Thomas arched a brow. “You already do live up to the name. You always have.”

“You haven’t known me always.”

“I have in this always.” Thomas flashed another smile. “Now, what’s up, Doc?”

“Think its going to storm. We’ll need—”

“Buckets are already out,” Thomas said. “Shower tubs open. By Nat’s radar, we’ll have hot showers for, oh, two days.”

“That’s a record,” Logan sighed.

Thomas spread his hands. “Unless you wanna volunteer to hike to the river…”

A crackling of thunder seemed to accentuate his words from above and Thomas threw his head back and laughed when Logan flinched.

Just as suddenly, a familiar, dreaded four clicks sounded from all three of their radios. A signal from the patrol line. Logan’s head snapped up, his hand going behind his shoulders, to the hilt of the long blade slung across his back. Thomas, wordlessly, jumped the makeshift counter and followed Remus beside Logan back down the trade alley. The rain had started. Someone had seen a Walker near camp. The signal came again, then once more—it was a hard thing, sounding an alarm that needed to be as quiet as possible.

“Mon Dieu,” Remus heard Logan whisper under his breath. “Je vous en supplie…”

Remus recognized the prayer, though Logan had never shown signs of being religious. My God, I beg you…

Remus didn’t hear the end of it, but he could guess. Reunions, finding each other was all anyone sought…but not like this.

Remus wouldn’t beg for anyone. Not when it could end like this.

They joined the crowd running towards the perimeter, arrows knocking against his back, but soundless thanks to the felt that Celeste had wrapped them in for him. The alarm only told them there was a Walker, not how many—and not at what stage of the transition they were in. The tall grasses on the outskirts of the camp brushed up to Remus knees and, maybe, in some form or way, he prayed, too.

There were four stages. The first was numbness. It’s what allowed the infection to spread. Blood on the clothes but no pain? Most people assumed the blood was someone else’s and that they were fine. It was only when the pain crept in that they realized, but, even then, there was only about an hour until stage two set in—the headache. The bite went strange to the mind. Remus had heard it described as an intense burning, and he’d tried to rack his brain for what exactly the burning was, but all he could think of was some sort of brain fever setting in, or perhaps the infected bite then acted as some sort of venom, altering its victim. There were very small windows to find out more, and very rare opportunities. He’d seen more bites than he could count, but never, never would he ask anyone to go through the four stages for something like observation. The world was cruel and inhumane enough. Remus only knew about the stages from  word of mouth—as good as rumor and not helpful—or his own accidental stumbling upon victims far enough along. At that point, they merely begged for death—if they even could do anything that sensible at all.

Stage three was the delirium. It sent most people back to the old world, to their old lives. Rambles about dinner reservations or running to the store for milk. Talking to people who weren’t there. The mind, offering one last defense, one final strand of relief to the human conscience. Remus had never seen the delirium be painful, or terrifying. It was like a small, flash of peace for the victim, a happy memory, before everything was lost.

Stage four, they knew the most about of course. One’s self was undone. The Walker. The Dead. Corpsie. Chomper. Gnawer. Brainer. Zombie. More lore than science, stuffed with nicknames as a buffer against what it actually was. The last thing Remus remembered seeing on TV before the world fell apart were frantic questions that were still unanswered. Where did this come from? How did this happen? What is it?

“There!” someone called out, and Remus dropped down from a run to a walk with the rest of them. It was in the trees—the figure of perhaps a young girl. A body with a loose, ragged dress hanging off of it, long blond hair that looked oily in the wind. She was turned away from them, but Remus was glad. He didn’t want to see her face, her walk was enough. The uneven, strangely smooth gait of the Dead.

Remus touched his radio at his hips and clicked it twice, two long beats of silence, then once more. I’ve got it, the signal read.

Painless. Remus would make it painless. Clean. No one deserved to see any of this. He didn’t care how close he had to get. He walked in his soundless, endlessly practiced way, drawing in closer and closer to the Walker’s back, it’s slowly dragging feet. His own breathing was loud in his ears as he used a tree as partial cover, reaching the edge of the woods. He let the trunk support some of his weight—he always felt weak, just before a kill.

Remus raised the bow, and at the creak of the string, the Walker snapped around. Unnaturally. Too jerking, too quick, eyes too wide. They were hazel, yellows and greens, and young. They reminded Remus too much of—of his—

He let the arrow fly. It lodged in her chest, making her sway. There was a horrible moment of complete silence.

And she dropped.

God, did Remus wish that, if this virus refused to take life in its entirety, it would at least have taken the resemblance to humankind out of its victims. To an unaware onlooker, it looked as though he had done nothing more than kill an innocent human.

[vulgarvixxen]

I kinda want Thomas to have his pussy lessons put to use, yknow?

Hey! I got the goods! This was a blast, I got to use an OC and it was a lot longer than I expected but hopefully worth it!

Callbacks 2.0

Tw: mature/no minors, some negative self talk at the beginning, spontaneous kiss, mention of body dysphoria, vaginal penetration, lmk if I missed any

There was a big call back tomorrow, a Professor What needed several new actors for the upcoming movie being filmed in America. Thomas had been lucky enough to get through the first two tryouts but now he was unbelievably nervous, Roman and Virgil were both running around screaming. And that’s what led him to knock on his neighbor’s door, pleading with sky daddy that they were awake this early in the day.

Sky daddy must have been listening because Riley-works nights-Honeycomb answered the door in just their boxers, a tank top, and hair wrestled into a bun. “Hey, Tommy, what’s up?” Their voice was deepened by sleep and their glasses perched on their nose, having skipped contacts to rush to the door. Thomas felt bad but it was an emergency.

“Hi, Rie, I know this is probably a bad time but I have a call back tomorrow and no one to help me read lines. Um, would you mind reading with me and giving some feedback?” Saying it out loud made him cringe, he seriously woke his neighbor just because he couldn’t stop second guessing himself. How embarrassing!

You could see the gears turning in Riley’s mind as they both stood there in the doorway, after a minute they nodded, “Yeah, let me grab some pants and a coffee then I’ll be right over.” Thomas nearly dropped from the relief, “Thank you so much, I owe you one!” He says quickly before he rushes back into his apartment to get stuff ready. Mostly grabbing clothes and throwing them into a basket and putting the trash in a bag so it wasn’t just laying around, Logan was reluctantly pleased to see this get done.

Riley rushed to chug a can of coffee, switch into some clean clothes, and tame their hair half heartedly. In about 15 minutes they decided they were good enough for a mock table reading and headed next door, knocking to announce their entry. “Sorry I took so long, long hair can be such a pain.” They laugh as they shut the door behind them and walk into the living room. Thomas looked up and laughed too, his short hair was annoying sometimes so he can’t imagine how Riley managed with hair past their shoulders.

“No problem, I was getting my place presentable. Want to do this at the table or the couch?” Somehow he is not outwardly panicking and actually acting like a normal person, awesome! “You’re all stiff, let’s go chill on your couch and ease into this.” Riley walks past him and sits down, patting the cushion beside them, with cheeks warm Thomas sits down grabbing the script from the coffee table.

He’s about to ask if Riley wants him to make a quick copy of the section he was planning on reciting when he felt a weight on his shoulder, Riley had scooted closer and their head on his shoulder. “Oh, that’s the new Profesor What. Cool, which scene are you doing?” They pull out their phone and searching through it for something, “I’m one of the last choices for the Glorpian crystal tinkerer, and there’s the weird bit where he and the Slythergast merchant are haggling and it feels like a mix of veiled threats and flirting. But we can pick a different one if that makes you uncomfortable!” He hadn’t thought about that before asking for their help, ugh he should have known that he would end up being awkward.

“Let me snap a pic of that and then we won’t have to keep handing back and forth.” He let’s them and all too suddenly their warmth is removed from his side as they settle back on the other cushion. Why did he miss the closeness? He didn’t even know them that well! Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Thomas took a deep breath and as confident as he could muster said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

It was their fifth run through and this one was purposely bad, supposedly to help Thomas to get past the the jitters that had him slipping up at least once every go before, Riley was using a ridiculously high voice for the merchant and Thomas was using a lisp to butcher the fake alien language. They were laughing loudly by the end but Thomas hadn’t slipped up once! “Alright, we’ve done this flat, seriously, and silly. Let’s try it but lean into the flirty undertones!” Riley says as they wipe away tears from laughing. He takes a second to let out a few last giggles, “Yeah, that sounds like it could be fun. Should we try it without the scripts?” He thinks he has the lines down now that he’s less nervous. Riley smiles and nods, “Heck yes, we got this!”

They had only gotten a few lines in and Thomas could feel the atmosphere of the room change, Riley’s delivery of the first double entendre made his heart skip a beat and he almost missed his response. Through the back and forth they had gotten closer, their knees brushing, he kept getting fluttery feelings in his chest. So when Riley gave him a sultry look as they caressed his cheek on their last line instead of giving the cheesy line he was supposed to say, Thomas leans forward and kisses them. It’s slow and warm, they taste like the coffee they drank earlier, but it doesn’t last long because Thomas remembers all too suddenly that this is his neighbor and that they weren’t really flirting with each other.

“I-I am so so sorry, I think I just got caught up in the mome-“ Riley covers his mouth with their hand. “It’s alright, Thomas, just means you got really into the role. And that was a nice kiss, too many people start with tongue and it’s gross.” They laugh and wave it off like a simple mistake. For some reason that makes his heart skip another beat, taking their hand away and holding it in his, he takes a chance. “We could keep kissing, if you want.” As a result he and Riley both blushed but they didn’t pull their hand away, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

➽──────────────❥

They were laying on the couch, Thomas on top, sucking hickey onto each other and grinding like a pair of horny teenagers. Thomas had Riley’s shirt pushed up but he hadn’t taken it off yet, his own shirt was hanging over the back of the couch where a green trash man was likely to snatch it, “Rie, need you to straighten your arms” he stops to tug on the collar of their shirt, “so I can get this off.” They let go of his shoulders and help him get the fabric out of the way…only there’s more, it’s like an a-shirt and a fancy sports bra had a fashion baby. He has to pause a moment before he can place what it is, “You wear a binder?”

Which was kind of obvious but the question made Riley freeze, looking small and scared. Wh-oh, “No, it’s fine, I just want to take it off if you don’t want me to. My best friends are trans, dysphoria is awful.” They searched his face as he rambled and backtracked, “Dysphoria is a bitch, yeah. I want it on, please.” He hated how nervous they sounded, “Of course, but let me know if it starts getting tight or you need a break.” And boy did his heart melt when they relaxed again, he couldn’t help but want to kiss a smile back on their face so that’s what he did.

The kissing got more heated and soon enough their pants were thrown away so they could get even closer. Thomas had his hand on the waistband on Riley’s boxers, teasing them down off their hips and eventually down to their knees. With some gentle pushing he gets their knees up and the boxers land on the floor, that’s when he gets to see all of Riley and how worked they are for him. He wants to do everything he knows, oral, fingering, and penetration but he has no idea what they like. What would Logan do? Or Remus? What would they agree on?

“Riley, babe, how do you want me?” Communication was definitely what the two sides would agree on, Thomas just hoped it was right. “Tommy, wrap up and fuck me, please. Please, I need you!” They whine, how can he say no when they asked so politely! “Okay, babe, just wait a minute. Gotta grab a- ah! There it is” he had leaned over them and rummaged into a side table he knew one of the sides kept supplies in, he grabbed a condom and a packet of lube. It was just a matter of rolling it on and smearing the lube on before he was lining up. “Say red anytime and I’ll stop immediately, no question.” He assures before he pushes in the tip.

Fuck, Riley is so much warmer than Princess has ever been, slicker too. The squishing slap of their bodies connecting every thrust is a sound he could get used to, their mewing moans too. Riley’s grip on his shoulders had tightened a few times and he was sure that he was going to have bruises there, hot. Both their breaths had started to pick up and he could tell he was getting close so they probably were too, he decided to give them some extra stimulation and started circling his thumb over their clit. The effects were magical, Riley bucked into his hand and gave a strangled cry that sounded like a feral version of their mews. Thomas couldn’t hold back now, his thrusts got more frantic and his rubbing became erratic. They became a feedback loop of sound and motion until Thomas felt his balls draw up and one of the best orgasms he’d ever had rocketed from him, he could hear both of their screams mixing together but it was like white noise as all his tightened muscles snapped into jelly.

Not so gracefully he fell on them with a grunt, Riley caught him enough to avoid a painful bumping of faces. They laughed at him, “You good?” Instead of answering Thomas snuggled into the crook of their neck to hide his dark blush. That was okay because Riley took the opportunity to play with his hair and add some more hickies behind his ears and on his shoulders. “Take that kind of energy to the callback tomorrow and you’re sure to get the part.” They whisper after a final love bite. The two of them lay there for a bit longer before cleaning up, Thomas chuckled when Riley’s legs were too wobbly and he had to help them get their boxers back on. By the time they parted ways Thomas felt like they really had a connection.

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

A week later Thomas is celebrating his acceptance on the Professor What movie with a small party, his best friends and family are all congratulating him while they all wondered if this was his big break. There’s a knock on his door which was weird since everyone he had invited was already here, he’s surprised when he sees Riley standing there with a bottle of something fancy looking, “Hey! I’m glad you stopped by, I was planning on coming over tonight to tell you the big news. I got the role!” Riley smiles and hands him the bottle, “That’s great, I grabbed this sparkling juice hoping it would be for celebrating. I also got some ice cream if you needed comfort food.” Thomas laughs at that, and waves them farther into the apartment where the rest of the important people in his life were.

[justafrogandherumbrella]

Welcome to Nowhere: Entry Number One

Unfortunately,  you’ll have to wait until lunch to kidnap your friends. 

You’ll raise suspicion if you just barge into their classrooms- especially since you don’t work here anymore. While you’re waiting, Emerson leads you through one of the five doors in the Dispassion High hall. You’re brought into a dark, and extremely warm room. You can’t see anything but somehow, even this darkness seems familiar. Have you been here before? Given your track record with amnesia, you wouldn’t be surprised if you had.

The familiar darkness doesn’t last very long before Emerson flicks a switch, and a dim light bulb flickers on, making your surroundings just barely visible. You’re in a library. 

“While we’re waiting,” Emerson says, taking a seat on a dust-covered bean bag. “I should probably catch you up. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Uhm,” you hesitate, trying to think. Your brain feels like mesh, and you’re having a difficult time putting any kind of pieces together. “I remember… working?” But do you? You know that you have been working. You know that you’ve been going back and forth between the school and the office, but do you remember actually working? You remember the clicking keys beneath your fingers, the headaches, and the tears, but do you have any idea what you’ve been doing all these… how long has it been?

“Great,” Emerson sighs, burying their head in their hands. “Just great. Well, at the very least, you remember who I am, so, do you remember everyone else?”

“Like Gia and Aderyn- oh, and Gia’s dog, Bea.”

“Yup, and you remember Bianca too, right?” 

“Well, I remember who she is,” you explain. “But I can’t recall any interactions I’ve ever had with her.”

“Okay, so I guess I’ll have to explain everything that's happened since we came to Dispassion,” he said with an irritated huff. Some of what Emerson says sounds familiar to you, but there’s also large gaps that they don’t know either. He explains to you what Aderyn has told him about you finding her in some sort of maze, but even then, there is still missing information. 

“So, given what I’ve told you, do you see why we need to get out as soon as we can?”

“Yeah,” you say, scratching your head. “But I can’t.”

“What do you mean?” they ask, looking concerned. 

“Because,” you explain, still feeling… clouded. “I need to work.”

“No!” Emerson snaps, startling you. “No, you don’t!” they shout, standing up before sitting back down again. They let out a long winded sigh. After a moment of silence, he finally speaks again. “Rue, why do you think you have to work?” 

“Because-” you stop, unable to find an answer. “Because I… I…”

“Exactly,” they sigh, grabbing your hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. “You don’t need to be here, you’ve just been,” they pause, making a gesture with their hands, dripping goo onto the floor. You can’t even tell what they’re supposed to be gesturing. “Your brain has been like, mushed, melded, even,” they finally explain. “Brainwashed, I guess. Think about it, how are you supposed to know what you really want, if all you're allowed to do is work?”

You don’t have an answer for that. 

Before you can think too much about it, a loud squelching sound comes from the speaker in the hall, signaling it’s time to do… whatever it is you're about to do.  Except, Emerson tells you to stay put.

“Since you’re under Mr. Rotary’s contract,” they explain. “We can’t let anyone see you acting suspiciously, or else you’ll all be reset again. I don’t think a reset will occur if someone sees me though, not with all the… progress,” they spit out the word, disgusted. “That’s been made with Bianca’s clique. I’ll be right back.” 

You don’t have to wait very long before a very confused Bianca, along with Jenny, are dragged into the room.

“Uhm,” Bianca asks, “Not that I don’t appreciate you holding my hand, but why are we here?”

“Because,” Emerson says, before immediately leaving.

“Sorry,” you say with a shrug. “They should have answered your question.”

“Do you know what we’re doing here?” she asks.

You shrug again. “From what I know it’s cuz your dad is kinda creepy,”

“Tell me something I don’t know…” she mutters.

“-and that we’ve actually been repeating ourselves over and over again, because you're creepy dad keeps ‘resetting’ us, making us forget what happened and slowly making us weird, mindless puppets- oh Emerson likes puppets. I don’t think he likes living puppets though. I think he prefers sock ones.”

There's a small pause before Jenny decides to speak up- though she doesn’t say much.

“...What?”

“Oh, yeah, so Mr. Rotary can reset us and make us into mindless puppets cuz we all signed some kind of creepy contract thing. The only people I know who didn’t sign it are Aderyn and Emerson, and from what I’ve seen, Emerson is really stressed out, so we need to be concerned. They yelled at me earlier, and they are an extremely mild-mannered person y’know. Oh, and also there’s some weirdo running around named Jerrell who-”

“Wait, stop,” Bianca interrupts, adjusting one of her tv-antenna things. “This is too much at once. Also, did you say Jerrell?”

“Okay, I’m back,” Emerson says, dragging in three more people. You recognize all three. There’s Caitlyn, the rabbit girl, Lucas, the boy with the daisy head, and Ollie. Ollie with… the floating eye head.

Something about that reminds you of something. It… It reminds you of…

“Please stay here everyone,” Emerson pleads, “I just need to grab like, two more people and then I’ll be back, ok?”

It reminds you of…

A mirror. Cracks. Scribbles. Red. Fractures-

Your head hurts.

“Does anyone have a mirror?” you ask. You just need to check, that’s all. 

“Yeah,” Bianca says, digging into her purse. “I’ve got one, here.” She passes you a small, round hand mirror. 

Shaking a little, you take it from her. You open it cautiously, worried about what you’ll see. Sure enough, the moment you open it, you see the flickering mass of scribbles, ever-changing, and the giant, floating red eye in the center. 

You shut the mirror immediately, just barely holding yourself back from flinging it across the room. “Here,” you say in a strained voice, handing it back to Bianca. “Take it.”

“Are you-”

The door swings open, and yet another person you recognize waltzes through. Felicity. 

“Finally,” she huffs. “Someone shows up to help me out. Jerrell caught me up to speed of course, but then had to go and tell me to ‘lay low’ and that ‘someone will help you later,’ and when he said later, he meant later! Do you know how infuriating it has been to just sit around, knowing what I know?”

“Look,” Emerson sighs, dragging a much more anxious looking girl behind him. A petite girl with a rosebush blooming from her neck. Ava. 

“I’m just as surprised as you are. Is there anyone else I’m supposed to kidnap?” Emerson asks, exasperated. 

“Uhm,” Ava says nervously. “We’re not really supposed to leave the cafeteria, and we need to get back to class soon, right guys?” she asks, and everyone in the room sort of nods.

“Yeah,” Lucas agrees. “We can’t miss class,”

“Exactly,” Bianca says, nodding along. “We’re really not supposed to… wait, actually, no. Shut up.”

“W-what?” Ava says, the tips of her petals becoming more pale. “What do you mean? We really can’t-”

“Why though?” Bianca asks.

Emerson nods, shooting her a grateful look from across the room. 

“Why are we doing any of this?” Bianca asks- though at this point you’re pretty sure she’s just musing to herself. “It doesn’t feel right. And this,” she says, pointing her hands at everyone in the room. “This not only feels familiar it feels…” she pauses for a moment, her demeanor changing from dead and soulless to something just a little more right feeling.  “... Alive,” she finishes. 

“Besides,” Jenny says, her cloud-head swirling around. You think that means she’s confused- or just thinking really hard about something. “I feel like… I dunno,” she sighs. “I feel like I’m supposed to be angry about something. And I…” she pauses, her voice breaking as the realization hits her. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to work at Dispassion Offices.”

You don’t want to either. You don’t want to work for Mr. Rotary, and you never have. You want to leave. You don’t want to be a part of this anymore. The realization hurts. It hurts to think about, and something keeps telling you to stop- but you don’t. And it hurts so badly. It almost feels like… like… choking. 

“Look,” Emerson says with a sigh. “I can explain everything I know, and I think Felicity will help me out with that.”

Felicity rolls her eyes, but nods as well. 

“And when we get there, I think Aderyn, and maybe Jerrell will help fill in the gaps too.”

“What does Mr. Rotary’s side-piece have to do with any of this?” Ollie asks.

“Yeah, and more importantly,” Caitlyn, the rabbit girl, adds. “Where are you taking us?”

“I barely even know, and elevator,” Emerson says simply, walking over to one of the many shelves in the library, pushing a heart shaped button. 

“Also,” Lucas asks while in the midst of trying to comfort his twin, Ava. “Who’s Aderyn?”

Emerson doesn’t answer that one. 

To your surprise, it’s only a few moments later when there’s a loud rumbling sound, and a giant, silver elevator emerges from the ground.

Ding.

“Okay everyone,” Emerson says as the doors open. “Please get inside,”

“But we don’t even know where it’s going!” Ava cries out in distress, but gets in anyway when she sees that everyone else is doing so. 

As the elevator travels upward, Emerson does their best to recount what he knows to the others. You tune out, thinking. It feels a little weird to truly think after such a long time, and you just have to wonder how much has been taken from you. Clearly, many of your memories have been stolen, but hasn’t that always been an issue. With all this talk of “resets” going on around you on top of what you already have experienced, you can’t help but wonder: is Mr. Rotary the one responsible for all of this? Is he responsible for everything you’ve ever forgotten? On one hand, you don’t feel like that makes much sense, because you’re pretty sure there was a time before you came to Dispassion, and why would he steal your memories then? On the other hand, it’s not like you can remember anything from before…

Ding.

That dinging sound is eerily familiar to you. 

Cautiously, you step outside the elevator after Emerson, and you find yourself standing in a completely unfamiliar environment. While the air is still as arid as everywhere else in Dispassion, just about everything else is different. There isn’t any chipped yellow, blue, or pink paint in sight for one thing. It’s also night here, and there aren’t any buildings, except for one. A gas station. There isn’t any dry grass, just cracked, parking-lot pavement as far as the eye can see- which isn’t very far, considering the only light is some overhead lights by the gas pumps, and the light from inside the gas station itself. 

You feel… far away, which you think is a good thing. 

“Okay everyone,” Emerson says. "Follow me inside, and we’ll do our best to explain everything.”

You all do as he says, filing into the building one by one. There’s a bell by the door that rings a little every time someone pushes it open.

Aderyn stumbles out from behind the counter, limping over to you. She looks… sick. What happened to her?

“Quick,” she huffs, pulling a large stack of notebooks out from a crate near the door. “Everyone take one,”

A little afraid- not to mention confused- each member of the group picks out a notebook.

“Good,” Aderyn huffs. “Now before we do anything else, I need everyone to write down everything that’s happened to you recently, and hell, write down everything you remember before that too.”

The notebook you’ve selected is a small, but thick leather notebook. It reminds you of something a little. The things you gave to Mr. Rotary, you think. The things you shouldn’t have given him. 

You decide that you’d better listen to Aderyn. She knows more than you do. You title the first page:

“Rue’s Journal: Entry Number One”

[watchtowerindistress]

we are not our demons - (23/24) - bruce wayne x batmom

Author’s note: Could be labelled a filler chapter since this basically preludes to the epilogue of our story. I deeply apologize for the direct quotes from DC Universe Online and Arkham City - I needed inspiration for a very specific character. Last chapter coming on New Year’s Eve to finish off the year. Love you, guys! [See you at the end.]

Beta-read by Heidi.

Words: 3.6k

Warning: mentioned animal abuse, mentioned death, scar tissues

Please reblog/leave a comment.

Series Masterlist | Want to be tagged? | Read on AO3

Now don’t you ever be sad

Lean on me when times are bad

When the day comes and you’re down

In a river of trouble, about to drown

- Hold On, I’m Comin’ by Sam & Dave -

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ellie heard herself asking with a concerned voice when she was facing Dick in the Batcave. Bruce was in his Batsuit sitting on the reclining chair on her right while she was in a standing position.

With his arms crossed over his chest, Dick turned away from the Blüdhaven news on the big screen, and confronted Ellie again. Despite the terror alert not being news exactly, the situation still felt tense and truly harrowing. The blue stripes of the Nightwing suit bulged with his muscles tensing. “Why? Because there’s a terror warning?”

Waving a hand at the obvious reason, Ellie lifted her eyebrows. “It’s one of the reasons? Only you wouldn’t let that deter you.”

Dick shrugged his shoulders like that issue didn’t even cross his mind. “What can I say? I like living dangerously.”

“And the military will allow you entry?” Bruce inquired; his palm covered his cheek in contemplation.

“Our vigilante allegiance with the city has been pretty fragile as of late, but Blüdhaven has requested the assistance of Nightwing. I’m not going to blow it,” Dick worded carefully.

Ellie shook her head to clear her mind. This family and their strange use of the third person.

“Do you know who you’re dealing with yet?” Bruce—ever the pragmatist—asked.

Dick sighed before finally admitting, “It’s the Society.”

For the first time, Damian let his presence known standing next to a quiet Tim, when he huffed at the nefarious mention.

Dick faced the younger Wayne and consented with a sympathetic voice, “I get it. I know how much you’re itching to have a go at them.”

An apprehensive frown painted on his facial expression at his brother’s well-being as Tim’s fingers clenched. “If the Society’s involved, … be careful.”

Dick smiled gratefully at hearing him say that. “I’ll be back before you know it, Tim.”

Just the reference of the organization let a chill roll down her spine while her heart was beating nervously in her chest. The déjà vu suddenly hit Ellie. For some reason Joker’s warning sounded far more menacing now.

“I have a whole society of people just like me who will follow in my footsteps. You can’t stop this madness.”

Ellie hoped her hidden agenda wasn’t that apparent when she switched her gaze between Bruce and Dick in scrutiny. “Wait, the Society is who?”

Bruce was staring at Ellie with a blank expression after he turned his head while Dick explained, “They’re the bad guys. They actually call themselves The Secret Society of Super Villains.”

Yep, that didn’t sound ominous at all.

Ellie felt truly speechless at that and raised her eyebrows. “Wow, okay. I didn’t need to know that,” she spoke quietly to herself.

Bruce chose that moment to stand up from his seat and walk towards Ellie. “I need your eyes and ears out there as soon as I’m out on patrol.” His voice switched into a whisper. “Keep an eye on Damian for me, please, will you?”

“I’m not a child, father,” Damian grumbled as his facial expression resembled that of a grouch.

“Your birth certificate begs to differ,” Dick joked before his blue eyes met Ellie’s and—pretending that Damian didn’t hear him—spoke under his breath, “I think he’s starting to hate the feeling of not going outside as long as he needs to heal that arm.”

Ellie glanced at Bruce after her chuckles hushed. The promise clear on her face. “I’ll keep him close. What happened to not keep the boys awake so long though?”

“It’s not going to take as long. I just need to look into Riddler’s games in the East End.”

Dick furrowed his eyebrows. “What’s his issue now?”

Bruce crossed his arms in reflection before sighing. “Ever since Joker was sent to Arkham, Nygma and his crew have been in some sort of budding turf war with the remnants of Joker’s goons. I’ll check the city district, see if I can find some mystery boxes.”

“Tim could be a clear advantage then. Make it a game night, you know?” Ellie smiled, seeing the challenge to Riddler’s games.

The second-youngest boy had been looking at the floor before his name was mentioned and gazed up at Ellie with a small smile on the corners of his lips at the compliment.

Dick tilted his head with pursing lips as he hummed in agreement. “Sounds legit. Wish I could stay, guys.” He let his arms spread at his side when he continued with a rueful sigh, “So, this is me taking my leave now.”

Ellie advanced on Dick in farewell. “Stay safe then, okay?” She said imploringly before she was hugging him tightly and felt him squeeze her for a few seconds.

The tall raven-haired man nodded somberly in a teasing manner. “Objective granted.” Before letting go, Ellie felt him press a friendly peck on the side of her temple. She watched him turn to his younger brothers. Dick knelt down and spoke in such a low voice that he couldn’t be heard any longer.

Giving them some needed privacy, Ellie wandered over to Bruce. “How come I’ve never heard of the Society before?”

Bruce shook his head with a snort. “They don’t really operate like that. Their anonymity is part of their magic trick.”

Ellie felt herself shudder at the thought. “Sounds like the League of Assassins.”

Despite seeing the reason behind her concern, Bruce assured her with a smile. “Dick can take care of himself.”

“Don’t remind me.” Ellie rolled her eyes. Like a magnet, her body was moving closer to his until barely a breath was separating them. Warmth settled in her chest from their intimacy. Her fingers touched his biceps. “Time for you to clean up these streets. Search for some mystery boxes for me without getting caught in that war, alright, Bruce?”

Those molten dark pools no longer resembled hazel-brown eyes before a crooked smile was sent at her. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried about me.”

Ellie exhaled a long breath that ghosted over his neck and pressed her fingers together in front of Bruce’s eyes without the digits touching. She tilted her head while wrinkling her nose and letting laughter lines form around the corners of her eyes. “Maybe just a smidge.”

Bruce chuckled with a gravelly sound. “Whatever you say,” he murmured playfully. He tipped his head down until his mouth was aligned with her cheek.

For some inexplicable reason, Ellie was lulled by the familiar routine they were in when she brushed her hand around the sensitive spot under Bruce’s ribs. All of a sudden, time was no longer essential, and she felt the trip down memory lane. Ellie stood on her tiptoes and almost out of reflex, pressed her lips against his mouth.

She didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary until she pulled back from him. That stunned expression on Bruce’s face made her pull back with bewilderment crossing over her features. Until Ellie realized what she just did.

She felt speechless and let her hand hover over her mouth while Bruce was staring at her with wide eyes and mouth open in astonishment.

Heated embarrassment spread in Ellie’s cheeks that twinged right to her stomach. “Uh, that was not—That was some weird reflex.”

Please let this world swallow me whole.

Bruce’s eyebrows were high on his forehead. Before he could react, Dick spoke from behind with teasing words, “You kiss all your exes like that?”

Aggravation welled up deep in her belly as Ellie turned her head to glare at Dick. A strained smile was on her lips. “It was just the routine which was hitting me.”

Raising his eyebrows in skepticism, Dick lifted his hands in capitulation and spoke slowly, “If you’re sure.”

Bruce opened and closed his mouth while he was struggling for words, blinking profusely. “Let’s just … we’ll talk about that later.”

Wishing for anything but that conversation, Ellie pressed her lips together. She hummed under her breath without saying anything instead. “Hmm-hmm.”

A childish part of her believed she could run for the hills before Bruce arrived.

Ellie cleared her throat once she opened the communication link. She felt nervous as all hell while her cheeks regained their red-hot shame. “Your satellite has picked up on something in Gotham. I’ve sent you the coordinates of some suspicious box on a roof in the East End.”

“I see it. I’ll send you more details along the way. Stand by,” Batman confirmed tersely.

Ellie leaned back in her chair and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. The presence of Damian on her right and Tim on her left felt slightly calming, albeit knowing that both had seen her mishap didn’t really help matters.

God, why did she have to kiss him?

Ellie’s attention shifted over to Damian who was visibly struggling with opening a box of biscuits. Without uttering a word or turning her head away from the screen, Ellie supported him by holding the edges down.

“Thanks,” Damian grunted lowly before he was able to lift the cover and dropped it with a clang on the desk above his knees. Trying not to appear too obvious, the cookie addict slightly leaned his head down to smell the pastry contents.

Ellie’s eyes narrowed in interest and turned her head towards him. “You willing to share? I’m getting the feeling that we’re going to need some food for the nerves.”

Damian needed a few seconds to let that thought cross his mind. At long last, his shoulders jerked, and Damian muttered quietly, “You made them anyway.” After some hesitation, he lifted the cookie tin into her waiting hands and watched Ellie place it on the desk in the middle between them.

Ellie’s eyes were already focusing on the screen of the Batcomputer and promised, “I’ll make you more next weekend.” She gingerly bit into one small biscuit. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tim follow her example after sending her a probing glance and took one for himself.

“Aether, do you see this?”

Before Ellie could react, Batman turned on the small camera in the middle of his chest and revealed one of Riddler’s green-purple boxes which was peppered with question marks on every surface.

After activating the night vision from her perspective to see the object better in the dark, Ellie confirmed, “Affirmative. Try to activate it.” The thick purple button on top which was the size of a game show buzzer should do the trick, she thought.

The dark knight stepped close enough until he was able to push the button.

A playful voice reverberated in the Batcave that seemed strangely familiar, “Why hello, Batman. As you’ve no doubt guessed, this is the Riddler. Wondering what the Joker’s goons are up to? Riddle me this! ‘Six legs went in and only two came out. Where am I?’”

Batman remained silent on comms. Only his heavy breathing could be heard.

Ellie was thinking long and hard about the solution when a dark foreboding feeling settled low in her belly. “Wait—”

Tim frowned intensely. “It’s Crime Alley.”

Before Ellie could reassign his new coordinates, Batman’s gruff voice interrupted, “I know where the Monarch Theatre is.”

Ellie leaned back with a heavy sigh before she shut off her microphone link. “That’s just messed up. Even for Riddler.”

Damian nodded to himself. “He wants father’s attention.”

Ellie’s eyebrows twitched at that very fitting description. “Well, he’s certainly got it now.” She was eyeing the blinking dot accelerating over the Park Row District before his figure dropped on the roof for the next riddle, yet this time he wasn’t alone.

“They’re only five, you can take them,” Ellie assured him after checking the heat signature.

“Your perception of ‘easy’ truly changed over time,” Batman teased between heavy grunts. He didn’t even hesitate and kept on moving as soon as he thrust the last clown’s face onto the roof’s floor. He stood up from his kneeling position and let his cape swing behind him.

With a grunt he pushed the next button. “So, you did it. Well done. I would have expected a child to work that one out, let alone the world’s greatest detective. But you can only find the answer to my puzzle if you solve all my riddles. Diddle diddle diddle, time for a riddle. ‘When you’ve been dealt a bum hand, where is the deck stacked against you?’”

The connection was right in front of Ellie’s eyes. “Cards. The next clue is at the Monarch Playing Card Company. Updating the next location on your map.”

The tips of her fingers moved over the keyboard so their scavenger hunt could proceed. Ellie felt truly perplexed once she studied the next spot on their map and the intricate ways the Riddler was taking Bruce.

“Where is he leading him, for God’s sake?”

Behind his biscuit, Tim mumbled, “The Riddler always has a plan. He just can’t help himself in talking in conundrums.”

That specific word coming from Tim’s mouth prompted Ellie to turn her head and face him with perplexed eyes. “Conundrum? Do 9-year-olds learn that word at Brentwood now? And how do you know so much about super villains?”

“I think I’ve heard it before in one of those shows Alfred watches. Downton Abbot, or something like that.” Tim shrugged his shoulders. “And vigilantes and villains have always interested me. I’ve collected extensive knowledge about them over the years.” Tim’s cheeks warmed when something else crossed his mind. “As soon as Bruce Wayne adopted me, I knew of his other identity.”

Ellie tilted her head in fascination.

This one would prove to be dangerous.

For some reason, Damian was gazing at Tim in a new light—like his brother’s intelligence was something truly powerful.

“You know what I think?” Ellie swallowed thickly and tried to find the right words running rampant through her head. “I believe you have a great future on this team.”

“You think so?” Tim’s eyes were lighting up with something akin to hope.

“We could always use some knowledge around here,” Damian admitted quietly.

Ellie’s shoulders jerked at him. “What he said.”

As soon as that logo consisting of two cards was seen from afar, Ellie saw the caped crusader drop down again.

Nygma’s voice scoffed briefly. “Another one of the easy ones. Don’t feel too proud, Batman. How about some poetry to my last key, Batman? ‘The Joker used to be king, but slave to a tool—thinking he’s a master, but he is a fool. When his toxin is in play, you’ll know tomorrow what you should know today.”’

Ellie frowned with mounting suspicion when the heat signature threw her for a loop. “Something’s off. A number of hostiles are supposed to be on that roof with you.”

Out of nowhere, a bunch of Joker goons appeared and attacked him from different sides.

Tension took over her body, prompting her to hold her breath.

“This might take a bit,” Batman grunted with an aggravated tone.

Nodding mutely while nibbling on a biscuit, she monotonously replied, “Take your time.” Her fingers already dashed over the keyboard to scan the vigilante’s surrounding area before she tilted her head once something caught her eye.

“Wait, is that a robot? We got androids now?”

Batman’s armored forearm shielded his head from vicious blows aimed at it while a red-painted robot with a yellow circle on his chest flew above him and let his flowing cape flutter in the wind behind him. Batman was forced to keep his momentum as tornado-like winds were blasted towards him.

Seeing that POV shot from Batman’s perspective looked pretty scary, seeing him take the blows like that.

“It’s a J1N1.” Trying to get out of the chokehold he was suddenly in, Batman swiped their legs and did a simultaneous melee assault, dropping them on the ground without a care before he turned to his tougher assailant. Batman managed to subdue the android by squeezing its head.

“Similar abilities like Red Tornado,” Bruce grunted through gritted teeth.

Using the J1N1’s pressure points to his advantage, Batman thrust its head against the brick wall and let it crumple like a lifeless body. “Designed by … T.O. Morrow.” He sighed in frustration at Nygma’s riddles between huffing breaths once the adrenaline came after the exertion. Bruce mumbled under his breath, “You’ll know T.O. Morrow—very clever, Riddler.”

The name ‘Morrow’ sounded kinda familiar but judging by the fact that this tech genius just created a killer robot, it was pretty obvious that a certain someone was after some world domination.

“Joker was king but he’s a fool. Morrow must have betrayed him. Not the best of ideas. I’m guessing you know where that evil mad genius has his hidden lair.”

“Ace Chemicals,” Bruce supplied helpfully. “He took over after Scarecrow was sent to Arkham. Send me the location, Aether.”

“Just updated your map.”

~ Bruce POV ~

Bruce had given Ellie permission to sign off the comms since there seemed to be only a few hostiles left on the premises of Ace Chemicals. He had promised he’d be fine and that he would let her know in case of a serious emergency.

If anything, that peace and quiet was something he desperately needed right now. Ever since Ellie had kissed him—and it wasn’t even a small peck, it was pretty much a kiss she would have given him when they were still together—Bruce gave it his best shot not to think about it.

It was ironic, with her voice no longer echoing in his ear like his moral conscience, their kiss was all that was left on his mind. During that moment, Bruce was far too stunned to even react when Ellie’s soft lips brushed against his.

Quietly clearing his throat, Bruce wandered through the almost abandoned facility and heard voices from a distance.

“Just push it inside.” A giggle resounded a few corners away. “Like we did the others.”

“I don’t know, he’s pretty big. Looks kinda heavy though.”

A growling noise made Bruce frown due to the nature of the sound. It sounded almost animalistic. Although this place could harbor lots of different kinds of creatures and was mostly used for very insidious reasons.

Impatience was laced in the first goon’s voice. “Just do it before it’s starting to bite us again.”

Having heard enough of whatever mistreatment they wanted to inflict, Bruce’s hulking figure stepped around a vat which was filled with an illuminated green mixture. What he saw next, stopped him in his tracks. Two clowns struggled with shoving a black-furred dog into a bubbling green tank.

Bruce felt his fingers twitch at his side, no longer able to hold in this fury. The canine’s paws clawed against the floor, visibly fighting tooth and nail against them, snapping mouth included.

Bruce grunted lowly, “I really hope, for your sake, you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

Caught in the act, both jesters turned their heads and froze in shock. The only thing distinguishing them were the divergences of their masks. One was wearing a clown mask with pink lips painted on it while the other had red and with soiled markings over his face.

The pink clown instantly raised his hands in surrender once he realized who they were facing.

The red clown was a whole different matter who giggled with such a high note that the animal whined after looking up at him.

“What do you think we’re doing?” he asked with a mixture of innocence. Like their actions seemed truly hilarious in his eyes.

A threatening growl left Bruce. He had seen those Joker dogs up close, but not once had he seen the experimentation inflicted upon them.

“Step away from the dog or I’ll make you.”

Nervous tension rolled off in waves down the red-faced clown while he debated his available options, with his gaze sweeping over to the dog in question.

Seeing their physical reaction as sufficient, Bruce stated, “As you wish,” before he used the Stungun at his holster on clown #1, letting his body fall unconscious to the ground. Bruce’s eye caught the pink jester who had the good sense to step away.

“Are there more animals at Ace you wanted to torture?”

The clown shook his head. “Most of the Joker dogs went unpredictable and died over time. They were gonna let him fight in a dog fighting ring, the more vicious the better.”

Bruce forced himself to take deep breaths. Joker might have been in Arkham, but his infecting madness still remained.

“Where is Morrow?”

The pink clown shrugged. “Don’t know. He ditched the place as soon as Joker was brought to Arkham.”

This might have felt like a dead end, but at least this way he had some leads to chase after. Bruce promised, “If you don’t make a fuss, I’ll get you to Arkham. But unlike your friend over there, you’ll be conscious for the drive.”

The criminal mulled it over before he nodded barely.

Accepting the gesture as consent, Bruce stalked over to the Great Dane with a heavy sigh. He tilted his head in speculation as his eyes lingered over the canine.

Despite the curious expression of the onyx-furred animal, his torso remained tense and anxious. A few scars which had healed badly were on his nose and what appeared to be an open gash at his side.

Behind his mask, Bruce frowned with remorse at the distress the animal was in. Keeping the clown in the corner of his eye, he knelt down and let his hand hover over his snout. Bruce offered him enough time to acclimate towards him until the dog carefully sniffed his gloved hand.

“It’s okay,” Bruce whispered comfortingly. His snout snuggled into his palm. “Let’s bring you home.”

A/N: Only one last chapter! I can't take this, guys. You know what's funny? As I was writing this, I totally forgot that Bruce and Ellie already kissed in like Chapter 13 (?). Jesus, my brain.

Tagging: @mellowstatesmanhandsempath​ @ravenmoore14​ @alwayshave-faith​ @ikranfuad​ @daydreaming-gemini​ @bluegalaxyprime​ @liadamerondjarin​ @steph21369 @andrewswifes-blog​  @yanna-banana​  @blackmagicwoman

[gorbalsvampire]

The Longest Night

The nights are drawing in. Which has its drawbacks, like only seeing daylight through a window and freezing my tits off unless I get a lift home after class, but it has its advantages. Like overlapping sleep schedules finally getting to meet in the middle.

Dorian’s up when I come home, and with a student — last one of the year, I hope. I can hear them as I come up the stairs, some notes falling pretty-OK-by-my-old-standards, which is why I know it’s a student, because by my new standards, it’s not flawless and I know it’s not Dorian.

So I walk down the hall and take off my shoes by undoing the laces, like a civilised human being, and don’t just kick ‘em off and punt ‘em ahead of me like usual, and I let myself into the kitchenette through the other door, and I fix myself a cold drink even though I’m dying for something hot. Cohabitation is a million little sacrifices, day by day. But I sit there and I drink my juice and I can’t help but smile as they play on together, more familiar and confident fingers taking the lead, sketching the shape of the song with ninety years of practiced confidence, then backing off to let their student try and fill in the colour.

It’s still late. I zone out a little, and I don’t hear the doors click and swing, and I never hear Dorian walking unless they want to be heard. The next thing I know, D’s arms are burrowed under mine and they’re hugging me from the back.

“Thank you,” they say, and I wriggle around and take advantage of dating a shortass, planting a kiss on their forehead, just under their hairline. It’s cold, but after a walk in the dark at the ass end of December, so am I. “Rough day at the office?”

“’Tis the season of goodwill to all men,” I say back, “which does not extend to the girl behind the counter, apparently.”

“People can be so awful,” they tell me, giving a little tch of a breath. I must look worse than I think I do, because they squint up at me through those round dorky frames and say: “Sit thee down and tell me all thy troubles, darling.”

I flop down on the armchair facing the window and, while they fuss about in the kitchen, clattering about looking for the samovar and making everything just so, I let out the top twenty per cent of what’s hacking me off, starting with the racist sack of shit who’d insisted I’d bitched her out in ‘Paki’ — and it’s the laziness that really hurts, like she didn’t care enough to tell brown people apart — and working down my naughty list.

By the fourth entry, D’s sitting in my lap and stroking my hair and nodding at every “and another thing”, and when I’m done with the guy who spent ten minutes asking who owned the people who made everything on the shelves and didn’t even spend folding money, they nuzzle into my neck, just under the jaw on the left hand side, which is like an invisible switch that makes me lose all motor control, power of speech and basic dignity in one go.

“Better?” asks D, and I say something like “magurglesnorf” and then “you bastard” and then “a bit.” And then, because I am a good girlfriend, despite the rumours, I realise what’s going on here.

“You’ve not had breakfast, have you?”

“Stefan’s been for his jabs, so I told him cash was fine.”

“You’re a beastly little parasite,” I say, trying to pitch it like they do, that airy-fairy old-young lilt.

“I’ll make you dinner. Poulet yassa. Cross my heart.” Their tongue flickers across their lips, their front teeth, and my neck’s still tingling from a moment ago and I’m not quite as tired as I thought I was, not any more.

“… I stand by what I just said,” I say, “but I love you for it.”

And Dorian nuzzles into my neck again, meticulously kissing back and forth, two little pinpricks probing for a safe spot, and I shut my eyes and brace myself for a cool sharp scratch that makes me shiver right down to my bones.

They don’t take much. A juice box or so’s worth. A love bite that leaves a bruise — I’ll have to wear a high collar tomorrow — and a little cut that’ll be closed by midnight. Dorian rocks back and forth on my lap, kisses my throat again, and whispers another “thank you” into my ear.

Like I said. A million little sacrifices. But it’s worth it.

it's PWYW and my rent's due in a week. just sayin'.

[ladycatofwinterfell]

Thoughts on the episode, as is tradition

This episode could have been the most insane yet if it hadn’t been for last week’s entry for the competition. I’m still recovering from episode 5 because what the hell. But now i can bury myself in new fun insanity so thanks for that episode 6

The opening scene was so unbelievably funny. Pure comedy. I love Real Rashid. I love Daniel and Real Rashid. The blank stare while Daniel is just desperately trying to come up with a way to get out of there alive. And Real Rashid being like well if you didn’t want to die why did you enter the vampire’s lair? Which is fair and what I was also thinking, thanks Real Rashid. Best character in the show and there’s competition. But also Raglan James talking about body switching… I know what you’re doing Mr. James, I’ve read the tale of the body thief (even tho i kinda wish i hadn’t), you’re not fooling me.

But now to the important things. Claudia bi????? Claudia wlw?????? Claudia sapphic???? I was well aware what the promotional material implied with her and Madeleine but I didn’t want to get my hopes up just in case. but let's gooooo. Claudia’s sweater vest outfit was real fucking gay and I say this as a lesbian who loves wearing sweater vests. I felt very seen. “Is it romantic?” “Not yet” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m obsessed. Going into this two months ago I didn’t see myself a Claudia/Madeleine shipper but sign me the fuck up. And dare I say they’re even better when you know what’s gonna happen to them. Armand asking how Madeleine’s gonna face immortality and I’m sitting there like a sicko wringing my hands together and going oh don’t worry there’s no need to plan for eternity. But also can we talk about how “the fantasy of happiness” played when Madeleine was walking into the shop and saw that Claudia had killed her attackers? Had to take a moment there. The same theme as when after she killed Charlie and when she finally gets a companion. Love that for her. My horrible little gremlin that commits atrocities and also has done nothing wrong ever actually <33 too bad Armand and everyone else believes she’s done something very wrong. And that there will be consequences to that. But for a second there she finally had someone who didn’t disappoint her and that loved her for her, not for what she symbolised to them.

So what was Louis and Armand up to this episode? Well in Dubai they’re going through a divorce, that’s fun for them. Them sitting with their legs crossed away from one another with Daniel opposite of them like they’re in couple’s therapy is also unfortunately very funny. They’re so dramatic, I love them. So the thing about Armand saying that Louis asked to have his memories removed is that 1. it could very well be true as Louis is known to avoid difficult things if possible and 2. it could very well be a lie as Armand is a known liar who lies, even if it’s sometimes lies by omission. I kinda have a hard time seeing why Louis would want to erase what he in San Fransisco claimed Daniel meant to them. He wanted Daniel alive as a testament to their companionship and then he wanted to forget it? Hmmmmmmm I don’t know. And we only have Armand’s word on it and Armand has something to gain with portraying it this way. And is also a liar. Telling Daniel drugs did more damage to his mind than the nights in San Fransisco as if he didn’t physically and psychologically torture him for almost a week. And then being like fine i’m sorry, stop being mad at me i was just doing what was best for everyone :( hahahahaha I love him. Also obsessed with him saying they can’t play games at this point in the story because it’s too important, as if he didn’t invent the game and played it all through the part of Louis’ story he wasn’t part of. So now, when we reach something that heavily concerns you and could make you look very very bad, we can’t play the game? Is that it, Armand? Truly?

So what was Louis and Armand up to in Paris this episode? A very very good question. Well Louis is domming the hell out of Armand while Armand just looks at him with the largest, saddest, most pathetic eyes ever. I’m going to take this opportunity and once again say that Assad Zaman is so incredibly beautiful and that I’m entranced by him. Can’t believe they teased us with a loumand sex scene and then we didn’t get it. I saw Lestat’s entire ass in episode 1. But then we did get Louis telling Armand to lie face down in the coffin so he could fuck him while he read a script. So that’s not nothing. Armand refusing to turn Madeleine, forcing Louis to do it instead was also not nothing. And knowing how it went down in the books I also feel like there are edits to how it actually was here too. It’s been clear the whole time we can’t trust everything in this story and after episode 5 it’s even more clear. Armand wanted Claudia gone and through the turning of Madeleine she would leave Paris. Through the entire episode Armand portrays himself as timid and without power but like… he does have power. Just because he puts himself in a submissive role doesn’t mean he’s not also the one in charge. He knew what the coven planned, he didn’t try to put a stop to it himself and he didn’t warn Louis about it. And we already know he doesn’t like Claudia so this all lines up a little too perfectly for him for it not to be at least a little intentional. And if they go with Lestat’s book version of events in some version of the trial (I believe I read somewhere that there will be more than one version) Armand kept Lestat in a dungeon until he was on the brink of losing his mind and told him what to say at the trial and orchestrated it so that Claudia would be declared guilty and executed.

I can’t not talk about the ending, as well. Because that certainly was an ending and knowing I have to wait another week for the next episode is actual fucking torture. But then I love episodes releasing weekly so I can think on them real hard and contemplate before the next. Anyway LESTAT!!!!!! He’s there!!!! Sitting in front of a mirror, preparing to enter the stage once more. Listen. Listen I know he’s going to be the villain again, as is his role in the story (as of now, at least. maybe it will change in the fiuture as it changed in the books idk), but it’s so good to see him. Let’s turn the tragedy for our main characters up to 11 babey. Let there be drama and betrayal and pain and let it be theatrical. Claudia and Lestat are both actors, after all. Like father, like daughter and they were in the same theatre company. Claudia de Lioncourt etc etc.

For a short second here I’m just going to operate on the assumption that Armand was the one who kept Lestat in the dungeon shown in some promotional material before the trial, like in the books. Did the coven figure out what they believed became of Lestat (that he died by Louis’ and Claudia’s hands) and then went to Armand with their demands, and Armand was just like yeah about that he survived the attempted murder and I actually have him in the basement. Or did they know the whole time? Or is it the coven that’s keeping him in the dungeon? Or since the timeline is changed in the show maybe he hasn’t been in the dungeon for very long. Because in the books he comes to Paris before Louis and Claudia and Armand keeps him locked up their entire stay there, which doesn’t end up being very long. So in the show he would have been down there for years. Which is enough to make anyone a little crazy. But considering the changes made in the show it might be that Lestat has more intention and then afterwards realises what he’s done.

The conclusion is that I don’t know exactly what will happen in the last two episodes despite having read the books and I’m very much looking forward to watching them no matter what they end up doing with this plot because it’s a genius show and I have faith in that it will be just as good as what I’ve seen so far

[thearchivistsjournal]

Day 328,

Morning thought: On the one hand I still have the urge to go visit Ka’eo as Archivist and record anything he wishes to leave behind.  It’s funny how I only ever really met him the one time but that’s enough for me to actually care about his death (assuming Lin’s prediction is correct) in a way that I didn’t for Bartolome or Miranda.  I didn’t don’t really know him, but seeing into his life for that one day was enough of a connection to kindle a spark of empathy.  Or if not empathy, then at least interest.

On the other hand, deciding to go visit him just because he’s likely to die soon feels terribly ghoulish and inconsiderate.  It brings up that nagging question of “Do I really care, or am I simply a scavenger circling in wait to steal the stories off his dying breath?”  Is he a person I’m trying to memorialize or a resource I’m trying to harvest an archive entry from before it’s gone?  Would there be meaning behind my visit or would I be recording just for the sake of recording?  Or worse, for the sake of my own entertainment at the expense of him and his loved ones who have to deal with yet another reminder that he’ll be gone soon?

I wonder if something like this is part of the reason Lin drifted apart from most of her other friends?  Sure, as a doctor she heals people, but in this place she’s just as much a psychopomp, her arrival and lingering a sign of death to come.  Not that I’d ever describe her that way aloud.

*******

The nature sprite walked alongside me on my way back to the house today.  It hasn’t done that in a while.  Did it know I told those two about it yesterday?  Or is it concerned about my descent into the Catacomb Depths as well?  Now that I think about it, it hasn’t pulled one of its pranks since its initial stunt with the wax tablet.  Is it finally getting bored with that or is it just temporarily switching into a protective mode to keep its plaything safe again?

Infuriatingly impossible to tell.  And even if it physically can’t speak, I’m almost certain these days it could write if it wanted to but simply chooses not to.  As we walked I asked it if there was something special about the spring, but as usual it gave no response.  At times I find myself questioning if the sprites truly are alien and fundamentally unknowable or if they’re just deliberately obtuse for their own entertainment.

Maiko was still home when I arrived.  She’d even caught dinner for the night in advance.  As I cooked the fish it occurred to me that she hadn’t come over and plucked up the inedible-to-me parts I’d set aside for her during preparation like she used to.

I asked if she’d already eaten.

She expressed confusion at the question.

I gestured to the assorted bones and innards.

She said she just wasn’t that hungry tonight.  The words came out in one breath, a quicker tempo than her norm.

I didn’t push the matter and went back to cooking.

Dinner conversation was our usual level of sparsely exchanged words.  A few sentences about our respective weeks.  A comment on the reading material I’d brought from the archive for her.  An indication that she’d been out to check on the island of lizards and fruit.  Quiet by most people’s standards, but comfortable for us.

Well, perhaps slightly less comfortable than old times for Maiko.  She finished her portion before I did, which wasn’t unusual in and of itself, but more than once afterward I caught her gaze wandering to where I’d left the rest of the fish parts on the counter.

As I was cleaning up after I asked her what she wanted me to do with the leftovers.

She began to say something and then cut herself off.

A pause to redirect the aborted reflex.

She looked away and said to do whatever.

Even I’m not oblivious enough to miss that something was amiss.  But I was tired enough from/of everything lately to ask directly what was wrong, without subtlety or gentle lead-ins.

Silence, save for the soft rain outside.

She said she was fine.

I asked if she was sure.

She nodded and went to the couch with one of the books I’d brought home with me today.

I finished cleaning the dishes.  Left the leftovers out, but covered with a washcloth.  Went to bathe.  Rejoined her in the living room with a book of my own.  Read for a time.  Started writing this entry.  Think I’ll announce my intent to retire for the night shortly.

*******

Maiko spoke up as I was about to head to bed.  It was an impulse I recognized: wanting to say something but being afraid to so you procrastinate until the prospect of losing the opportunity forces you to speak up at the last possible moment.

Without preamble she said if she was going to join the Village she should start trying to act like everyone else to fit in and not scare anyone.

A pause for my tired brain to draw the connections and process the implications.

My guess as to the things Lin had said to her that neither could bring themselves to repeat strengthened.  For a moment I silently lamented not being the type of person to curse.  Instead, I closed my eyes, rubbed the bridge of my nose, sighed, and sat back down next to her.

I’m no good at this sort of thing.  Vernon, Cass, Pat, any of them could have done it better.  Even Lin probably if she weren’t so tangled in the mess herself.  But they’re not here tonight so I did what I could and hoped none of it came out as platitudes or condescension.  Told her that she doesn’t need to change anything about herself except maybe not being so afraid of how others might react to her, reasonably grounded as that fear may be.  That she’s good the way she is and there’s nothing to be ashamed of.  That if anyone ever takes issue with her that’s their failing, not hers, and if they ever try to make a problem out of it we’ve got her back.  That she should never have to feel like she needs to hide or change who she is for others’ comfort.

That sort of thing.

Hopefully my tone and emotion made up for my failing words and stumbling tongue.  Not that either of those have been a great help in expressing myself either in the past.  But then again, Maiko’s similar in that regard; perhaps she could tell.

At any rate, her own face was a shade more expressive than usual by the time I finished.

She said thank you.

I said it’s what I’m here for.

We said little more before retiring for the night.

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