#AND LITERALLY ALL JOEY DOES TO ACHIEVE THAT IS MOVE HIS EYES!!!!!

[isogenderskitty]

:((((( sad about ted spankoffski again what else is fuckin new

[atlafan]

Burning Love - Part Three

a/n: the third and final part of this little series is here! I hope you enjoy! Feedback and reblogs are helpful! Support me here if you’re able! (not proofread)

Warnings: cocky!Harry flirting, a tiny bit of angst, fluff, and smut!

Words: 8K

Pairing: Harry x OC (kindergarten teacher Danielle Robinson)

Masterpost

Having a firefighter as a boyfriend was anything but boring. Sometimes Harry was called away in the middle of the night for backup, sometimes he had to straight up sleep at the fire house if someone was on vacation, and sometimes he was cooking up a storm so the guys coming back from a fire had plenty to eat. Danielle would sometimes help cook as well. The guys really liked her turkey chili.

Danielle’s classroom knew who her boyfriend was too, and they loved it when Harry would come by for a visit. He’d bring them little coloring books, or sometimes he’d get Doodle to come for an even better surprise visit.

When they were together three months, Harry made sure no one was in the fire house so she could come to his office, and he gave her a little strip tease. She had practically been begging him to play the part of the sexy fire fighter and he was finally doing it for her. The only condition was that he got to bend her over his desk and fuck her. She even let him hit it raw, it was the greatest mutual gift in the world. Also hearing her moan out, “You’re hitting it so good, don’t stop, Harry!” over and over was pretty nice too.

Yup, things had been going pretty well for the new couple. Even though they were still in the puppy-love phase, it wasn’t all sex all the time. Harry would sometimes come over and help her late into the night as she was crafting activities for her class the next day, or he’d go to the art supply store with her because Danielle never made a list and she would often forget at least one thing she needed for class. Harry always remembered what she’d forget. Danielle was also a big help with the fire department’s fundraising efforts. She made the best hash browns anyone had ever had at the monthly pancake breakfasts. The deputy fire chief even got them a matching set of aprons. Things were going so well that she even started to let him call her Dani.

One Sunday afternoon they were walking through the grocery store together. Harry liked pushing the cart for Danielle as she mumbled to herself about what she needed for the week. She liked that he joined her because he could pick out the snacks he wanted to leave at her place, and vice versa. They were walking down the coffee aisle, Harry liked Hazelnut and Danielle liked French Vanilla.

“Dani?”

Danielle looks over in the direction of the deep voice that said her name. Her eyes widen when she realizes it’s her ex, Oliver.

“O-Oliver?”

“Oh my god, it’s so good to see you!” He exclaims, throwing his arms around her. She doesn’t reciprocate. “It’s been what, three years?”

“Something like that.” She swallows, and hooks her arm around Harry’s waist. “This is my boyfriend, Harry.”

“Hi.” Oliver shakes Harry’s hand. “You shop here a lot?”

“Yeah…this is the grocery store closest to my apartment, why?”

“This is my first time as this specific store. My fiancé lives in the area, and we’re choosing to buy a house here so her son won’t have to switch elementary schools.”

“Her…her son?” Danielle wanted to smack him.

“Yeah, guess he’s like my son now too.”

“Olly? Did you find the decaf tea?” A woman long blond hair, and a slightly swollen belly comes rolling her cart down the aisle with a little boy sitting in it. “Oh…Danielle…hi.”

“Hi, Rory.”

“Miss Robinson!” The boy exclaims.

“Hello, Joey.” She tries to say with a smile. Danielle wasn’t sure how she could have been so stupid. Joey took the bus to and from school, and she had only ever spoken with his father. She also didn’t make a second glance at his mother’s name on his contact list since it was under Lorelei.

“Joey raves about you all the time.” Rory says, trying to cut some of the tension.

“Mumma, it’s Chief Harry!”

“Aw, nice of you to remember me, buddy.” Harry says. “Um, we’ve got frozen stuff in the cart, so we should probably get going, right, darling?” He says, looking at Danielle, and she feels thankful for him finding a way out of all this.

“He’s right, we should really get going.”

“Guess we’ll be seeing more of each other, huh, Dani?” Oliver says with a soft smile.

“So it would seem.” She looks at Joey. “See you tomorrow morning in class, Joey.”

Harry pushes the cart as they walk away. She was beyond mortified. They get in line and pay for their things. She had driven there, but she has Harry drive back to her place. She was quiet until they got inside her apartment to put the food away.

“He, uh, seemed a little delusional there, no?” Harry says.

“He’s always lived with his head in the sand.” She scoffs. “Rose colored glasses, you know?”

“Did you not know that-“

“No, I didn’t realize that Rory, the person he cheated on me with, had a son. I knew that she was a married woman. They got divorced because of Oliver.” She shakes her head. “Joey’s father is such a sweet man, I can’t believe I never put the pieces together.”

“How exactly did they meet?”

“The first school I worked at was a K-5 a few towns over. Rory was the principal’s secretary, she still is, I think. I brought Oliver with me to a holiday party, and they got to talking. She’s a couple of years older than he and I are. I don’t exactly know how things progressed from there, but apparently she’s pregnant with his kid, they’re engaged, and they’ve bought a house! Isn’t that just kick you in the crotch, spit on your neck fantastic?”

“Remind me to never watch Friends reruns with you again.” He chuckles.  “I can’t believe he had the nerve to hug you like that?”

“He hugged me like that because he’s still in love with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Until I blocked him on literally every platform that I could, he would send me these messages about how he fucked up and that he’d do anything to win me back. He’s in a loveless relationship. He’s made his bed and now he has to lay in it.”

“Does Rory know it’s a loveless relationship?”

“I doubt it. If I had to guess they probably got engaged after they found out she was pregnant. It was probably her way of trapping him.” Danielle rolls her eyes. “You know what they say, once a cheater, always a cheater.”

“Well,” he comes around her to hold her from behind, kissing her cheek, “you don’t have to worry about that or pay it any more thoughts, alright?”

“Yeah.” She smiles and turns to kiss him. “I just hope I don’t start running into them all the time now.”

“We could always go to the market near my place, or we could do the online order thing.” He shrugs. “Whatever you wanna do. I just don’t want that idiot making my baby upset.” He pouts at her and she pouts back.

“I love that I get to be your baby.” She sighs as she nuzzles into his chest.

“Me too…I…I love you, Dani.” He kisses her forehead before she looks up at him.

“You do?”

“Mhm.” He smiles. “Guess there’s no perfect time to really say it, but that’s how I feel.”

“Oh, Harry, I love you too.” She kisses him, and blinks some tears away. “Like, a lot.”

“Let’s get these groceries put away, hm? Then I’ll fuck you on the counter. Would you like that, sweetheart?”

“I would, very much so.” She chuckles.

//

It was the last day of school, so Danielle had both of her groups in the morning. There was a small ceremony for the kindergarteners to commemorate them being able to move on to the first grade. They each got a personalized certificate with some type of achievement they earned in Miss Robinson’s class. She spent two weeks working on them. Once it was over, Danielle had to clean up her classroom for the summer.

“Happy last day of school, babe.” Harry says as he walks in, holding a small bouquet of flowers.

“I think you should ask for a separate office here with how often you come to visit.” She jokes as she takes the flowers. “Not that I’m upset, but what are these for?” She smiles.

“You made it through another year with a group of five-year-olds, thought you should have something nice for it.”

“Well, that’s very thoughtful, thank you.” She kisses his cheek. “I’m just finishing up here and then we can grab lunch.”

Harry nods as he waits for her, helping her take a few boxes out to her car. He thought she looked gorgeous today in her light blue sundress. They enjoy their lunch together before Harry has to go back to work.

“Wanna come to my place tonight?” She asks before they part ways.

“Sure.” He pecks her lips. “Want me to bring dinner?”

“No, I can cook. I’ve got stuff to make a taco salad.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later.” They kiss again and off they go.

Things had gotten quite domestic with one another, and Harry was really starting to like it. He also really liked that she was about to be off for the entire summer. Sure, Harry had bonfires, lawn mowers, grills, and other things of that nature to worry about, but his group of volunteer fire fighters would be coming on once again, so it freed up a little more time for himself. He’d be able to take a vacation with Danielle if she wanted. Or he could just take a ton of long weekends so he could spend some time with her. He wasn’t exactly sure what she did over the summer, but he figures they’ll talk about it soon.

When Harry gets to her apartment later that night, he realizes soon means tonight. Danielle was running around her apartment in a tank top and shorts boxing things up and packing.

“Hey, uh, what are you doing?” He says, startling her.

“Oh! I didn’t even hear you come in!” She gasps and clutches at her chest. “Sorry, I’m just trying to get my shit together. I always save this stuff for the last minute.”

“Are you moving?” He asks, almost frantic.

“What? No.” She chuckles. “But I do need a lot of my things with me for when I go up to Seabrook.”

“Seabrook?”

“To my parents’ summer house. I told you they had one, they’re snowbirds, remember?”

“Yeah, you mentioned that…” He swallows. “Are you going for a long weekend?”

“No, I’m going for the majority of the summer. I was actually sort of hoping you’d be able to water some of my plants, but if you can’t I can ask the neighbor again.” She goes over to him and gives him a kiss. “Come on, I set dinner up in the kitchen for us.”

They both go into the kitchen and sit down with their taco salads.

“You’re sort of blindsiding me a bit, babe. I mean, you’ve known you were going to New Hampshire all this time and didn’t think to tell me?”

“I figured I’d come back on weekends.” She shrugs. “You’re going to be working all day, so I figured you wouldn’t really mind if I wasn’t around as much.” She takes a bite of her food. “I also thought maybe you could come up and visit…you know, meet my family.”

“It’s gonna be torturing not being able to come over and see you after work.” He pouts. “But of course I’d love to meet your family.”

“I know…that’s sort of why I was keeping it to myself. I’ll miss you just the same, I hope you know that. This is just really precious family time that I wait all year for.”

“I get it.” He sighs. “What weekend would you want me to come meet them?”

“I’ll have to ask my parents what weekend would work best for them. The first couple of weeks are spent catching up with their friends, and whatnot. The house is in a fifty-five and over community.”

“And you won’t mind driving back on weekends?”

“Not at all.” She shakes her head. “All of the traffic will be going the other way, and the beaches are always so crowded on the weekends. It’ll be perfect.” She smiles at him and leans in a bit. “Plus, I’ll be coming back to you with sun kissed skin. I’ll have lots of tan lines to show you.” She winks and it makes him chuckle.

“Alright, alright. I get to use more time off in the summer, so I’ll be able to take lots of long weekends. We have more of a crew because a lot of our volunteers are teachers, so they have more time to help out.”

“That’s good! I’m so happy the school year is over with. Did you see I put the flowers you got me in a vase?” She points over to the vase in her kitchen window.

“I did.” He nods, a smile growing on his lips. “M’glad you liked them.”

“I loved them.” She kisses his cheek. “You’re so sweet to me, Harry.”

“You’ve turned me into a total mush ball.” He sighs. “But I suppose that’s not a bad thing.”

“You were a mush ball the second you walked into my classroom for the first time.” She smirks.

“And you were a flustered little thing.” He smirks as her face falls. “Ah, she can dish it out, but she can’t take it.” He kisses her temple and takes their now empty plates to the sink. “When are you heading up?”

“A couple of days.” She sighs. “I hate packing so much, it’s the worst.” She groans. “I just keep telling myself I’ll be relaxing on a screened in porch soaking in the ocean breeze with a book in my hand before I know it.” She flops down onto her sofa and Harry sits next to her, rubbing her back. “At least I’ll see my niece and nephew soon too. I love getting to spend so much time with them.”

“Tell me about them, I wanna know as much about your family as I can before I meet them.”

“Really?” She sits up to look at them.

“Mhm.” He puts a pillow on his lap. “Come lay one me. I’ll play with your hair while you talk.”

“If I didn’t love you before.” She giggles, and rests her head in his lap. He starts scratching at her scalp and she sighs. “Okay, so, my dad…”

They both fell asleep on the couch that night talking. Harry told Danielle a lot about his family as well. In the wee hours of the morning, Harry carried her to the bed, and they both snuggled up while they got a few more hours of sleep.

//

“Danielle, it’s the middle of the night! Where are you going?!” Her brother Clark asks her in a panic. “Shit, are you crying?”

“I…I just got a call.” She sniffles as she throws her hoody on. “I have to get home.”

“Why, what’s happening.”

“H-Harry’s deputy chief called me…there was a really big fire a few hours ago, and a wall collapsed on him, and now he’s in the hospital.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I have to get home to him, Clark, I need to be there when he wakes up.”

“You’re in no condition to drive, especially not for two hours. I’ll go with you. Let me just go to Isabelle.”

“You don’t have to do that, I’m fine.” She wipes her eyes. “I’ll let you know when I get there. I’ll be back in a few days, I’m sure of it.”

She rushes out of the house and gets into the car. She had the radio practically silent, and she was sucking down an iced coffee. Caffeine put her anxiety into hyper drive, but she needed to stay awake somehow. Harry wasn’t even supposed to be at that fire. He got called in as backup, but he wasn’t supposed to go inside. He went in looking for the family’s new puppy.

Once she gets to the hospital, probably looking like a mad woman in her pajama pants and oversized hoody, she checks in and asks where Harry’s being kept.

“Please, I’m his girlfriend, I need to-“

“Dani!” The deputy chief, Ralph, comes rushing towards her. “He just woke up, come with me.” He yanks her by the wrist before the nurse at the desk can say anything.

“Is he okay?”

“He will be.” Ralph nods. “Here we are, go ahead in. Take your time with him.” Ralph smiles, and Danielle returns it.

“Harry?” She says just above a whisper.

“Hey, baby.” He gives her a soft smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I hopped in my car a second after Ralph called me. I was so worried.” She sits on the edge of his hospital bed.

“I’m okay, sweetheart, just a few scrapes and bruises.”

“Harry…your arm’s in a sling.”

“Just a sprained wrist, it’ll heal up real soon.”

“How can you be so calm about this?” She asks as she curls up next to him. He throws his arm around her and sighs.

“Because if I let every little accident scare me, I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly. This is what I signed up for, babe.”

“Did you at least find the puppy?”

“I did, shielded the poor thing from the wall that collapsed on me. M’gonna have to go on light duty for a while.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“Lots of administrative work…that I can do remotely. So, I was thinking…maybe I could come up to Seabrook with you for a little longer than a weekend.”

“I’d love that! We can drive back up together. Everyone’s excited to meet you.”

“I’m excited to meet them too.”

//

After Harry rested up for a few days at home, with Danielle doting on him even though he told her she didn’t need to, the two drive up north together.

“Auntie Dani’s back!” Sarah exclaims as she bursts out of the porch.

“Sarah!” Isabelle yells after her. “We don’t run out of the house, no matter how excited we are to see Auntie.” She picks her daughter up. “Sorry, Dani.” Isabelle chuckles.

“No worries.” Danielle laughs. “This is my boyfriend, Harry. Harry, this is my sister-in-law Isabelle.”

“Hi.” Harry says, and Isabelle gasps when she sees his arm in a sling. “Just a sprained wrist, m’fine.” “It’s nice to meet you. This must be Sarah, yeah?”

“Hello.” The little girl smiles.

“Come on, everyone’s inside getting ready to head down to the beach.” Isabelle says.

Harry and Danielle follow inside. She takes him into the kitchen where her parents, Robert and Donna were finishing up their coffee.

“Dani!” Donna smiles. “How was the ride back up?”

“Fine, not a lot of traffic once we were out of the city.” She smiles. “This is Harry.”

“The hero that saved the puppy!” Robert says.

“I’m no hero, just did my job. It’s nice to meet you both. Thank you for inviting me to your home.” He shakes both of their hands.

“Are you kidding? We were over the moon when Dani said she’d be bringing a boyfriend with her.” Donna says. “Honey, why don’t you help Harry get settled and then meet us down at the beach?”

“Okay.” Danielle nods.

The two bring their things inside while everyone else makes their way to the beach. Danielle helps Harry put his clothes away in the dresser.

“So…are we alone right now?” Harry asks casually after putting his things away in the bathroom.

“Um, yeah. Everyone went down to set up at the beach, why?”

“Well…” He sits down on the bed and tugs her to sit on his lap, straddling her. “I haven’t been able to do much the last few days, and I’d like to make up for it.”

“Harry.” Her face flushes. “I can’t just fuck you here.”

“In the privacy of a bedroom? Here I was thinking this would be the perfect place.” He rolls his eyes.

“I just…” She bites her bottom lip. Before she can say anything when she opens her mouth again, he’s kissing her. “Fuck, okay, but we have to be quick. And no leaving marks, I don’t need to feel like a teenager at the age of twenty-seven.”

“How about no marks in any visible places?”

“Harry, I’m gonna be wearing a two piece, a lot is going to be visible.”

“Your ass?”

She whimpers softly and kisses him again. They both fall back on the bed, careful not to hurt his wrist. Danielle ended up riding his dick since he couldn’t really prop himself up with hands at the moment, but neither of them minded. It was a much-needed release for the both of them. Once they’re both cleaned up, they change into their bathing suits and go down to the beach to join her family.

“Auntie Dani, do you wanna dig a moat with me?” Ryan asks her the second she sets her things down.

“Sure! Just let me get some sunscreen on, okay?”

“You’re already looking a little red.” Clark remarks, and she glares at him. “Nice to meet you, Harry.”

“Same to you.” Harry says as he sits down in his beach chair.

Danielle peels her coverup off, and lathers up in sunscreen before grabbing a sand toy to help Ryan dig a moat. Isabelle was down by the water with Sarah.

“Harry, do you like seafood?” Donna asks him.

“I do.” He nods.

“Wonderful, I thought it would be nice to go out to eat since you’re here with us now. Celebrate having a full house and whatnot.”

“Oh, well…that sounds nice, thanks.” Harry smiles at her.

“I hope you won’t be too miserable working from inside the house…there’s no central air or anything.” Robert says.

“Oh, it’s not a problem. Heat doesn’t exactly bother me.” He smirks, and Danielle flicks some sand at him. “Oi, what was that for?!”

“No fire fighter jokes or puns.” She points a finger at him warningly. “We’re on vacation.”

“Come on, that was a good one, admit it.”

“I will do no such thing.” She looks at her parents who were chuckling at the exchange. “Don’t encourage him, it’ll only make it worse.”

“Anyways,” he side eyes her and then looks back at her parents, “I’ll probably just set up on the porch when I need to hop onto email. My deputy chief is taking on a bit more for me for the next couple of weeks.”

Harry never really saw himself being a dad someday, but as the day went on, and he watched Danielle interact with Sarah and Ryan, he suddenly understood why women would get baby fever seeing a man hold a baby. He may have only been with Danielle for five months, but fuck…he wanted to be the father of her kids. Yes, he got to spend an entire week with her and her classroom, but it’s not like he got to witness her loving on any of the kids. The way she cradled four-year-old Sarah to her chest as she napped, or splashed around in the water with Ryan, well, if he had ovaries they’d be bursting.

Seeing her help them at dinner was just as cute too. Sarah insisted that her booster chair be places next to Danielle, and Danielle ended up helping cut up Sarah’s chicken fingers. Then Harry got to witness Danielle tucking Sarah and Ryan in for the night to give Clark and Isabelle a break.

The two decide to turn in a bit early since it had been a long day. Danielle was sitting up in bed reading her romance novel. Harry was reading the same one. They had formed a little book club with another once they found out they liked the same genre of fiction.

“Dani?” He says to her.

“Hm?” She says without looking at him.

“Do you think you wanna have kids of your own one day? Or are your kindergartners enough kids for you?”

She immediately closes her book and looks at him. She was a little shocked.

“I…I always thought if I met the right person then I’d want to have kids. Like, turning that love into something physical, you know? What’s got you asking me about kids all of a sudden?”

“In all honesty…watching you with Ryan and Sarah today sort of sparked my interest. You’re so good with them in so many different ways. I…I mean I never really thought twice about having kids, but if you and I decide this is a long term thing…I’d love to be the person you have kids with.”

“Thought you didn’t like playing the what if game.” She leans in and pecks his lips.

“I don’t.”

“Okay, so, it’s not an if with us, Harry, it’s a when.”

He smiles and kisses her tenderly.

“You’re the love of my life, you know that?” He says against her lips before kissing her again.

//

The school year was just about to start again. Classes would begin just after Labor Day. How were Harry and Danielle spending their long weekend? Well, she was currently bouncing up and down on his dick reverse-cowgirl on her couch while he sucked a nasty bruise into her neck, rubbing her clit with one hand, and kneading one of her breasts with the other. She felt like she was drooling from how good everything felt. The two of them had both tanned nicely over the summer, and now they Danielle was fully back in her apartment, Harry was taking full advantage.

“Fuck, fuck!” She pants. Harry was thrusting up into her, pounding against her g-spot.

It was how she liked it, she didn’t care if she was sore later, and he was happy to give it to her like this. She turns her head slightly and she licks into his mouth to suck on his tongue. He replaces his tongue in her mouth with two of his fingers, which she was happy to suck on while his fingers continued to work her clit. They had been together for a while now, and sometimes when you were a little older, time didn’t make much of a difference when you were trying to check off certain boxes with the person you loved most. So, Harry just blurts out what he’s thinking.

“I think we should move in together.” He grunts, and she gasps around his fingers.

“Wh-what?” She says, whining because she’s so very close. This wasn’t the type of talk she enjoyed during sex. “Harry, please, I’m almost there, can we talk about this after?” She tugs at his hair, making him groan.

He grips her hips, helping her rock faster on him, and she goes to rub her own clit. He was fucking so hard and deep that she thought her spine was going to crack in half, but she didn’t fucking care. She wanted it. He hits it just right again, and her eyes roll into the back of her head as her back arches, her body molding into his as she rides it out. His come shoots up inside her a moment after, and he presses his lips to her temple. She tries to move off him, but he wraps his arms around her tummy to keep here there.

“Can we talk now?” He breathes, his breath hot on the shell of her ear and she whimpers. “I really think we should live together.”

“And whose place do you want to live at, hm? We’re both pack rats, Har. We both need home offices, we both-“

“Just answer the question: do you want to live together?”

“Yes.” She looks over her shoulder at him. “I do.”

“Okay, then.” He smiles and gently lifts her off of him. “Right when we started dating, I got pre-approved for a home loan.” He wraps her up in the blanket she has on the couch and carries her into the bedroom so they can both lay down before cleaning themselves up. “I put the house hunting on hold, obviously…I’d need to get pre-approved again since the three-month window they gave me lapsed, but…I can afford a pretty decent house.” He smiles fondly at Danielle. She had that after sex glow to her, and it always made him melt.

“You…you can afford a house?”

“I can.” He nods. “Been saving up for a while. I was sort of hoping…well…we could look at houses together. I could buy it, and then we could split the mortgage payments, or I could just pay the mortgage and you could take care of the utilities and other bills. Whatever makes more sense.” He shrugs. She blinks a few times and then licks her lips.

“I just…wow, I can’t believe you wanna do something so huge with me. Buying a house with someone is a pretty big deal.”

“I feel like it makes more sense to buy the house first, and then save back up for a wedding later, but that’s just me.” He gives her a smug look and her eyes widen. “I think that’s why the divorce rate is too high, not enough people live together before they get married.” A grin starts to form on her lips. “Don’t look at me like that, we’ve talked about long-term stuff before.”

“We’ve talked about hypothetical babies, not buying a house. Do you already have a realtor?”

“No, and we don’t really need one. We can just look up the houses we wanna see and contact the realtor that’s selling the home. A friend of mine did that and they said it was a way better experience.”

“I can’t believe this.” She shakes her and then giggles, throwing her arms around his neck. “You wanna be us a house! I wish I could help with the down payment, but my student loans have prevented me from putting a lot into my savings…”

“It’s no problem. You’re able to afford this place on your own, so I figured you’d be able to help with bills and stuff.”

“I definitely will be able to.” She kisses his cheek. “Let’s go take a shower and then we can start looking on realtor.”

“Eager.” He smirks as she tugs him up from the bed.

“Now’s the time to buy! All of the snowbirds who are looking to make the big plunge to warm weather full time will be looking to get rid of their houses, and with the school year starting we don’t really have to worry about competing with families. It’s perfect, Harry!”

It was, it really was.

//

By the beginning of October, the two were moved into a stunning home with four bedrooms, and four baths. They got just about everything on their wish list, and anything they didn’t, Harry said he could make happen. Danielle was able to pass out candy for Halloween to the kids in the neighborhood, which delighted her to no end because a few of her new and previous students stopped by. And when it came time for Thanksgiving, even though they weren’t full unpacked, Danielle was able to host a fabulous dinner for her family.

It wasn’t always perfect, they disagreed on paint colors, furniture, curtains, and rugs. They usually found some way to compromise, though. Sometimes Danielle had trouble checking her attitude at the door. There was one evening she got home a little later than usual, so Harry got dinner started. A nice gesture on his part, which she thanked him for. However, when it came time to clean up, she wouldn’t stop huffing while she loaded the dishwasher.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” He finally asks. “Why are you reorganizing everything?”

“Because you never put anything in here right.” She snaps. “Bowls and cups go on the top rack. Look at this! You put one of the little plates up here, how the fuck is that supposed to get cleaned properly?” She says as she moves the small plate to the bottom rack. “You also don’t load the silverware correctly. Did you want me to stab myself?! I’m usually the one that has to unload it.” She huffs again after throwing a pod in and turning the dishwasher on. She crosses her arms and looks at him. “I’m your girlfriend, not your mother.”

“I never said you were.” He crosses his arms as well, astonished at her tone.

“Yeah? So, did you think that your dirty socks and underwear just magically picked themselves up and put themselves into your hamper? Did you think that the bed magically gets made? Did you think that the broom and dustpan do a little fucking dance and that’s how the shmutz on the floor gets cleaned up?!”

“You’re making it seem like I don’t do anything to help out around here. I’m the one that rakes the leaves and mows the lawn, I’m the one that has to stop what I’m doing to come kill a bug every time you yelp, I’m the one that takes care of all the trash in the house-“

“Only when I say something about it overflowing. I have to tell you to do everything!”

“Look, I’m sorry I don’t load the dishwasher in the way that you’d prefer, but the dishes get clean, so-“

“No, they don’t. I either have to run it again, or I wash the stuff by hand. We’re gonna have kids someday, Harry, I don’t want them picking up on your bad habits.”

“My bad habits?!” Okay, now he was getting angry. “I have to ask you to clean your hair out of the shower drain. In fact, your hair is fucking everywhere! You never wipe off the mirror after you pop a pimple, which you know you shouldn’t be doing anyway.” He rolls his eyes. Her face falls into a deep frown. “Not so much fun when someone’s pointing out your flaws, is it?”

“Fuck off.” She turns on her heel and makes her way out of the kitchen.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. You’re going to start an argument with me, but you’re not going to finish it?” He says as he follows her out to the staircase.

“You asked me what was wrong, and I told you.” She states.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.” Her eyes widen with anger at that, and her nails press into her palms. She starts stomping her way upstairs. “Dani.” He sighs. “Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.” He follows her up the stairs.

“But you did.” She goes into the bedroom and almost shuts the door in his face, but he catches it, making his way in. “You men are all the same, you know that? Any time a woman calls you out on some crap, she’s a bitch.”

“You got upset over something as insignificant as loading a dishwasher. You know we’re lucky to even have one? There are people who don’t have the luxury.”

“Yeah, I know! And I’d probably be the one to always be washing the dishes.”

“If it bothered you that much, then why didn’t you say something to me before?”

“Because I didn’t want to come off as naggy! I don’t want to be one of those women that’s always telling their partner what to do and how to do it, but holy fuck, who actually raised you?! I mean, some of the things you do, I just don’t understand.” She shakes her head.

“We were obviously raised differently.” He sighs. “You know if you just told me-“

“But I don’t want to have to tell you! I don’t want to have to ask because I shouldn’t have to.”

“I’m not a mind reader, Dani!”

“I’m not asking you to be! But when the sink is full of dishes, do you think you could take care of it without me having to mention it? Do you think that when the trash is full you could just bag it up and take it and put a new bag in? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally thrown something out without a bag being in the barrel. It drives me bananas!”

“Okay, I’ll…I’ll try to be better about those things. I don’t want you to feel like you’re having to pick up after me.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“And…I’ll try to not just explode on you when something’s been bothering me.” She sits on the bed and lays back. “Ugh, I just had a long day. Kids are starting to get colds, and the meeting I had after school just wouldn’t end, I’m supposed to get my period in a couple of days so I feel bloated and gross.” Harry sits down next to her and rubs her thigh. He looks down at her with a soft smile. “Listen to me.” She sighs. “Here I am complaining about stupid things when you literally put your life at risk every time you go to work.”

“Don’t compare us, babe. You’re allowed to feel annoyed and stressed.”

“How do you always stay so calm?” She tugs him down to lay with her.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to stay upset when I have such a cute girlfriend.” He kisses her cheek and she giggles.

“I’m sorry I got so mad.”

“It’s okay, baby.” He kisses her cheek again. “We’re bound to have an argument once in a while. The most important thing is that we always make up afterwards.”  He starts kissing on her neck and she bites her bottom lip.

“Harry, I just told you that I feel bloated and gross, and-“

“So, let me make you feel not gross.” He says as he moves on top of her. “Let me love on you, darling, it’ll help you destress.” He moves her up the bed until he’s situated between her legs. He undoes her pants and drags them down her legs. “Are you wearing boxer-briefs?” He questions.

“Y-yeah? I started buying them a little while ago. They’re more comfortable, and they breathe better. Plus, no panty lines.”

“How did I not notice this?” He blinks.

“Because I usually change when I get home into something a little sexier.” She chuckles.

“Actually…” He tugs on the band and lets it snap back against her skin. “You look pretty sexy in these.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He tugs them off of her and kisses on her tummy. He parts he legs and licks around her folds. She sighs and lets her body rest into the mattress.

“I really feel like I don’t deserve this since I was so nasty to you.” She says as she cards her finger through his hair.

“You can make it up to me by letting me fuck your mouth afterwards. Seems like you could use a break from running it, hm?” He sucks on her clit, making her groan, and she nods.

“Yeah, seems fair to me.” She gasps as he licks into her warm center, and uses his thumb on her clit. “Would you make me come a few times, though, at least?”

Her gives her a devilish smirk, which she takes as a yes while he continues to work his tongue in and out of her. He gave her four orgasms before crawling up her body and stuffing his throbbing down her throat. Feeling her nails dig into his hips as he thrusted in and out of her was everything he needed. They didn’t do stuff like this often. He didn’t want to be one of those couples where certain types of sex or positions were used as punishments. But he knew Danielle genuinely enjoyed feeling a little bit of pain, not that they’d ever talked about it. He didn’t want to embarrass her by bringing up one of her very obvious kinks. Whenever he did fuck her throat, though, she always moaned around him, and she’d end up drenched between her legs all over again, so he knew she enjoyed it. He also made sure to love on her right afterwards, praising her, telling her how good she did for him, and he’d get a glass of water for her to sip on while he cleaned her up. They had good, healthy relationship in many aspects. He loved her, he really fucking loved her, and he never wanted to be without her.

“Dani, fuck, I love you, I love you so much, shit!” He cries out as he comes down her throat. He pulls away from her carefully and she smiles up at him after swallowing. He wipes a few stray tears away from her cheek.

“I love you too.” She says, voice hoarse, but still there.

“Do you feel like taking a bath tonight? I could rub your shoulders for you.”

“I’d like that, yeah, thanks.”

//

A couple of months later, and it was fire safety week once again. They made it through their first holiday season together, and his thirty-third birthday. Now they had been together an entire year, owned a home together, and were looking into potentially getting a dog. Harry had told her all about the senior dogs at the shelter, and Danielle sort of liked the idea of not having to train a puppy, even if they were undeniably cute.

All of the kids in both of Danielle’s groups knew that Chief Styles was Miss Robinson’s very special friend because she had a picture of the two of them on her desk, and one of him as her desktop wallpaper. It was no surprise that some of the kids teased them a bit, and asked some personal questions, but other than that the week was going well as it usually did. When Friday rolled around, it was time for the kids to put on their performance for the fire department. It was an assembly all of the grades came to, along with the other teachers. Once the four songs, and a skit, are over, Harry goes up to give his thanks just as he did last year.

“Thank you all so much for another fantastic week. Fire safety is extremely important to learn at a young age. I know we had a lot of fun together, but remember, when you’re missing Chief Styles, don’t call 911 to talk to him. Have your parent or guardian come down to the fire house, and we can say hello there, alright?” That was usually where the assembly would end, but today things were going to go a little differently. “If I could have all of the kids back up on stage for a moment? Parents, I promise this won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

Danielle was visibly confused because she hadn’t planned anything else with the students, and Harry hadn’t mentioned adding anything special today. So, she sat in her seat in the front row and watched. She leaned over next to one of her colleagues.

“Do you know what’s going on?” She asks.

“Just watch, Dani.” Her colleague says, and Danielle sits up straight in her seat again.

All of the kids were holding a piece of paper in their hands. It was facing blank towards the audience. Some of them were giggling as Harry and the other fire fighters placed them in certain spots. Ralph gives Harry a thumbs up, and he starts speaking into the microphone again.

“Not a lot of people know this, or maybe they do, I don’t really know, but last year was my first year getting to host fire safety week with the lovely Miss Robinson, and over this last year she’s managed to steal my heart, giving me the great privilege of calling her my girlfriend.” The kids behind him snicker and giggle. “You said you’d all be cool, come on.” He looks over at Danielle, who still really had no idea what the fuck was going on. “Miss Robinson, could you come here for a moment?”

She nods, and gets up slowly, walking over to him. He takes one of his hands in hers.

“What are you doing?” She whispers.

“You’ll see.” He winks. “Miss Robinson has taught her kids how to spell lots of interesting words already this year. She teaches them how to sound things out, and all that good stuff. I had a chance to teach them something this week and they’ve been dying to show you.” He tugs her to the side so the whole audience will be able to see. “Alright, kids, flip your papers over to show Miss Robinson.”

She gasps when she sees it, cupping a hand over her mouth as her eyes start to well up. All of the papers spelled out: M I S S – R O B I N S O N – W I L L – Y O U – M A R R Y – M E ? She looks at Harry, who was now down on one knee, holding up a gorgeous ring in a little black, velvet box.

“It says, Miss Robinson, will you marry me?” He says to her with a beaming smile.

“I can see that.” She says, wiping some tears from her cheeks.

“Will you?”

“Yes! Oh my god, yes.” Everyone in the room cheers as Harry slips the ring on her finger. He stands up, and kisses her, not to vulgarly because there were kids around, but enough to show how happy he was that she said yes. “When did you have the time to plan all of this with them?”

“Got their parents’ emails from one of the other teachers.” He smirks. “Are you surprised?”

“I’m shocked!” She turns to her students. “You all kept such a big secret from me!” They crowd around her to hug her as she opens her arms for them.

A ton of the teachers, parents, and fire fighters all come up to the congratulate the pair. Once all of the fuss is over, and the cafeteria is cleared, Harry and Danielle go back to her classroom so she can pack up her things for the day.

“Do you like the ring?” He asks nervously.

“Are you kidding, I love it! It’s so beautiful, baby.” She pecks his lips. “I can’t wait to call my parents, I’m buzzing! Think of how cute Sarah’s going to be as a flower girl. Oh, and they’ll start calling you Uncle Harry, how sweet!”

“Gonna have to let Ryan be a groomsman, or I think he’ll try to kill me.” Harry chuckles. “He’s quite protective over his Auntie Dani.”

“And don’t you forget it.” She presses her finger to his chest. He leans in and kisses her tenderly. Normally, Danielle didn’t like getting so lovey dovey in her classroom, but she figured she had a good excuse in case anyone walked in. “I still can’t believe you planned all of that and pulled it off. Those kids usually can’t keep a secret.”

“I promised them all a ride in one of the fire trucks if they kept their mouths shut.”

“Damn, that was really smart.” She chuckles.

“I’d say so.” He smirks. “Do you feel like going out to eat tonight to celebrate? Ralph and his husband were hoping to treat us.”

“Sure.” She nods. “I’ll just need to cancel my yoga classes really quick.”

“You can still teach your classes if you want. I can just tell him we won’t be ready until later.”

“No, see, I wanna go home, and stay there for a bit.” She tugs on the suspenders that were keeping his fire pants up. “I’d like to celebrate with you privately first, Chief Styles.” She takes his hat off and puts it on her own head before catching his bottom lip between her teeth and sucking on it. He groans into the kiss, and she lets his lip snap back. He had inadvertently put her into one of her ‘Chief Styles/Miss Robinson’ moods, which he wasn’t upset about in the least. “How’s that sound?”

“Well, Miss Robinson, I’d say it sounds like you’re trying to seduce me.” He smirks, and she rolls her eyes. It was her least favorite joke.

“I can’t wait to be Danielle Robinson Styles so that you can’t make that stupid fucking joke anymore. I’m not a forty-year-old woman seducing a recent college grad!” His face softens immensely. “What?”

“Nothing.” He puts his hands on her hips and gives her a squeeze. “I just…I didn’t think you’d want to change your name, is all.”

“Harry, I’d be proud to be called Mrs. Styles. Think of how cute it’ll be after we get married and I have a new class, and then when you come in for fire safety week, I’ll be able to say my husband, Chief Styles.” She pouts at him.

“Alright, it’s time we get you home before my stiffy pops through my pants.”

She giggles as she grabs her bag, and they both rush out of her classroom, and out to the car. They held hands the while way home, not wanting to be apart from one another’s touch for even a second.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Batim god au idea that came to me in a dream.

A large handful of the cast are literal gods, while some of them are still mortals who happen to come across them. Shenanigans ensue. Roles listed below.

Henry: Mortal, stumbled into the realm of gods by sheer accident and is sticking around because they like his company and their antics are a great well of inspiration for him to work with. So it’s a win-win.

Linda: Mortal, came into the realm of gods because she was looking for her missing husband and was relieved to learn that he was not dead.

Norman: (underworld god) God of knowledge, darkness, and the king of the underworld. Mostly keeps to himself as most of the other gods are intimidated by his titles, but doesn’t mind if others seek him out for his guidance. Does mind a lot if you try to steal from him.

Wally: (underworld god) God of death and the younger brother to the God of sleep. His job is basically to be the grim reaper but he is chipper about it because he is fascinated by the mortal world and will chat up both any mortals in the god realm and his clients when he brings them to Norman’s realm whenever he sees the chance.

Sammy: (underworld god) God of sleep and all it entails; dreams, nightmares, sleep-related conditions, you get the picture. (also the god of sheep, according to a handful of other gods, but he’s never to confirmed or denied it.), as well as the older brother of death. As he can and does sleepwalk, sleep talk, sleep with his eyes open, etc. The only reliable sign to tell if he’s awake or asleep is how he behaves as his awake self and sleeping self have very different personalities.

Lacie: (underworld god) Goddess of justice and revenge. Is in charge of designing and constructing the punishments for sinners as she sees fit but does not take pleasure in the suffering of the sinful souls.

Joey: Mortal, intentionally sought them out with the intentions to become a god himself. The gods keep him around because they’re morbidly curious about what would happen if he achieved his goal, but do not help him as enough of them kinda fear the outcome of that.

Susie: (heavens god) Goddess of music, light, and the queen of the heavens. A very chipper goddess who enjoys and seeks out the company of others, including the underworld gods who are used to being feared by everyone and don’t know how to deal with someone actively trying to befriend them.

Shawn: (heavens god) God of festivities and alcohol. A very loud and jolly god who causes the most chaos in the mortal world, but in a good way. The hands down worst god to go for for important advice.

Emma: (heavens god) Goddess of theater and dance, an aloof artist of a goddess who takes her job very seriously and disdains how the other heavenly gods handle their own work.

Jack: (heavens god) God of hope, patience, and endurance. Often heads down to the underworld to inspire the not-yet redeemed sinners and check on how the redeemed sinners are doing. He does not seek out the company of the underworld gods like Susie does but he doesn’t mind them, they’re just doing the jobs that need to be done whether people like it or not.

Grant: Mortal, has no idea how he managed to befriend two gods on accident but in hindsight, a lot of their advice makes a lot more sense now.

Bertrum: (deceased) Mortal, died due to a bad accident involving one of his rides and now lingers in the underworld trying to make the most of his afterlife. He gets along with the underworld gods just fine, but finds most of them to be bizarre.

Johnny: (deceased) Mortal, died due to a heart attack and secretly pines over some of the gods but doesn’t dare make the first move. Mostly hangs around Sammy and tends to his sheep.

Thomas: (underworld god) A god of machinery, used to be a heavens god before being banished to the underworld for not punishing his followers who sacrificed children to him. Does not get along with the other underworld gods for different reasons.

Allison: Mortal, is fascinated by the underworld and goes down there to explore it.

Dot: (heavens god) A goddess of truth and discovery who likes to get to the bottom of mysteries. She’s the one who travels to the underworld and human realm the most often out of the heavens gods.

Buddy: (???? god) A former mortal who achieved godhood through strange means, does not know what he’s the god of as he’s new to this. Misses his human life and often follows other gods around like a lost puppy.

[marvus-xoloto]

Okay so. Someone asked me why I thought Marvus was a prince of time and I decided maybe to write a post about it! To be completely honest, this whole ‘theory’ started because I simply enjoy the thought of Marvus in the princely pantaloons lol. 

I want to start this post off with: everyone interprets characters and classes a little differently and classpects are more about personal growth, and I can only present my thoughts based on my own perspective of Marvus. In fact, I do think that you could make strong arguments towards other classes (mage being a strong contender, but I can see witch and bard, for example.... we’ll get to those later), but I feel personally that prince suits him best.

Also I am not a classpecting blog just for the record, nor am I trying to impart some big truth or my own views upon the fandom. This was purely speculation for fun’s sake, and because someone asked :) !!

So let’s start with what it means to be time bound! Very simply put, the time bound are goal oriented, chaos minded, in tune with rhythms and death, and are generally more focused on “the ends justify the means.” This absolutely suits Marvus: he is clearly working towards his own goal (or, my personal opinion, several of his own parallel goals), he definitely wants to “shake things up,” he’s a musician (see his friendsim route, people die to his music), and, well, just look at the end of act 2- he’s definitely justifying his treatment of Joey as end > means. So he’s pretty strongly connected to his aspect right away and takes control of it, which in my opinion rules out page and heir.

Let’s move on to classes to really narrow it down. 

Lord/Muse are reserved for two player sessions, and my personal headcanon is that these are cherub exclusive, so I won’t be looking into or considering those.

Witches take control and change through their aspect: this could definitely suit him! Marvus is all about control and he’s definitely patient enough, but to my understanding witch is that they are very inclined to take command and manipulate their object. Witches in canon tend to be very detached from people (Jade, Damara, Feferi), and Marvus is a people person, so I think we can rule this one out. You could argue that he’s rather detached emotionally, but I’m not going to. Doesn’t vibe with me.

Heirs are served a lot of their aspect without much control over it. Doesn’t sound like Marvus to me, plus I don’t see him as a passive player.

Seer.... I understand why this one is a popular headcanon- it’s all about influencing from behind the scenes, and Marvus definitely does do that- but seers focus their intents almost entirely though others. Marvus definitely inserts himself where he needs to be, and he’s capable of manipulating his aspect on his own when it suits him. And again, I personally don’t see him as a passive player, for all that he’d like to appear passive. He has big goals and he wants to- or, in his eyes, he will achieve them.

Mage is almost right: tbh I don’t quite understand mages, but my interpretation is “understand first, act second.” Suits Marvus, but I think he does have an inclination to want to act as quickly as possible. Plus, it’s implied that mages suffer through their aspect; Marvus is definitely not suffering. Other people certainly are, though, so I can see an argument in favor of Mage of Time Marvus for sure! Again, it simply doesn’t have quite the right vibe to me.

Maids and Sylphs lean more towards being healer classes.... no <3.

Thief and rogue have small themes of justice and stealing, and I don’t see that fitting Marvus.

Now bard.... bard is similar to prince! I only say no to this one because Marvus reads to me as an active class. I do like to imagine him in the bardly god hood, though. I wonder if it would be blasphemy, since those are the robes of the messiahs...? Anyway not relevant kjadslaskdj

So let’s move on to prince, and why I think it suits him.

Princes are destruction classes, and Marvus does have themes of destruction through time throughout his friendsim route and act 2. In friendsim, he did his best to delay (or destroy) the bad time line for MSPAR, and he’s actively helping Joey along the path of... not quite least resistance. It’s fair to say he’s working towards a timeline that suits his needs. Princes are fueled by their aspects, and Marvus definitely shines as a timebound. The strongest and most elegant arguement for Prince of Time; he’s an incredibly successful musician. and themes of prince of time can be found especially prevalent here: people are literally destroyed by his rhythm.

Princes also act as leaders working under an authority. I don’t really want to argue who he’s working for specifically- scratch and the clurch are definitely tied, but Marvus does seem to have his own agenda. This point can only be elaborated on the more we get to understand Marvus as a character, so I’m not going to argue it super deeply just yet.

Lastly, all princes need subjects. For Dirk, he had the carapacians and then later I guess the audience? Idk, i don’t read current homestuck, i don’t know her. Eridan had his angels. Marvus has his adoring crowds.

And on a more personal level, I can see a large personality trait of princes as feeling disdainful or having a complicated relationship with their aspect. Marvus definitely does not like when things stagnate; see how in act two he actively pushes Joey forward, and even pushes her into understanding Alternia so she can grow. 

So yeah those are my thoughts! I can talk about Marvus for hours, but I’d like to reiterate again that this is only my personal point of view and we very likely won’t ever get canon classpects for the fs/act2 trolls, so please have fun and do whatever suits you best! 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 9: So Tristan Died

Been resisting that springtime urge to buy a house plant and watch it slowly die while everyone else on my timeline posts beautiful terrariums and wallscapes. I have murdered nearly every plant I own, I have no idea why, I have killed several cacti. But I just found out about logees.com and y’all. Have you seen a rock fig? I want it so bad.

So, instead of wasting my money, I will write here and...not click buy on that rock fig. That beautiful beautiful rock shaped plant. That incredible and glorious miniature Deku Tree.

Also, this week Tumblr said that they’re extending the post limit size for text posts and like...there was a text post limit? Y’all I assumed these posts were hella long, (and in fact way, way, way too long) but like, I never capped a text post limit so...I guess I do all right.

So, switching over to Yugioh, we’re back with the Tristan-Duke-Serenity trio, who are still fighting over Serenity, the world’s most oblivious child. I haven’t gone over too much what their high and low points have been over these past like 5ish episodes but here’s what they’ve been up to, a refresher course of what they’ve been doing since Tristan drowned a Rhinoceros turtle in the lake.

1.) Serenity sneezed once and the Tristan and Duke had a big fight over who gave Serenity a cold

2.)

Sorry that’s all they’ve done. I really thought this would be a list when I started.

It’s been so boring that Serenity has decided this has been the best part of her tourney vacation (she is not wrong). And I just realized--she went to great lengths to get her eyes fixed and now she’s trapped in the VR zone and she doesn’t even need eyes to be here. Hell, if she gets trapped here, she’ll never need eyes again, she’ll have permanent perfect vision 24/7. We keep finding new alternatives instead of spending millions of dollars on Serenity’s eyes and the show kind of glazes over it.

Anyways, we learn a lot about Serenity this episode, mainly that Serenity is a little bit of a space cadet.

(Every episode Duke’s necklace is a little bit more simplified and today it is...almost just a cross. I look forward to seeing what necklace’s final form will be.)

Duke is supposed to be the antagonist of the three, but it really comes off that Tristan and Serenity have goldfish memories and somehow do not recall being launched down a hyperspace tube by five insane computer ghosts trying to consume their bodies. Most people would not forget that happening so like...it’s kinda hard not to side with Duke. Weird that the guy with such ridiculous hair is actually the most level headed person here.

And honestly, if Yugi had been speaking, then Joey and Serenity would have sobered up. Kind of a bummer that Duke doesn’t have the card cred, although Tristan was there when Duke beat Joey.

Like this episode was somewhat frustrating because Duke Devlin really is supposed to be incredibly good at cards, a kid who has only been beaten by the Pharaoh himself, and Tristan and Serenity sort of don’t believe him for some reason. Duke owns a version of the game they are playing. Like, he has ownership over Dungeon Dice and they don’t...care? It’s really weird, but it’s not like Duke has really done anything for an entire season so maybe he deserved this?

But considering that he’s been running for his life/kidnapped since they met up again 2 days ago during Kaiba’s tourney, maybe Duke just has no choice but to hang out with these people who do not respect him at all.

(read more under the cut)

Also, they’re still keeping it a secret that Duke beat Joey because...they’re still lying out of their ass for Serenity’s self esteem. It’s Season 3 and we’re still very concerned that Serenity cannot handle the truth. This girl was in a hospital for weeks and completely blind, I’m pretty sure if anyone can handle hard truths, it’s this girl. But, she’s very pretty, so better not spook her.

I am impressed that this random throwaway plot point from the beginning of S2 has come back to haunt us.

It checks out. This was about as much credentials that Joey had when he joined Pegasus’ tourney. I mean, Joey trained with Grandpa but Grandpa full on died in the middle of their training so...Tristan should have been fine this episode, he’s been interning with card people for like...years.

Anyways, this is where everyone else is.

And Noah decides to try his carrot-under-a-box trick that has so far worked on literally every child he has tried it on.

These kids cannot resist a door to save their lives--and that’s really the whole thing. If they resist the door, then boom, their lives are saved. But nah. Gotta open every door. So they enter, and behind this door is, you guessed it--their favorite place, the ever recurring supervillain of all of Yugioh,

Wow.

Anyways, the fourth of the Big 5 is here and he is a robot that’s gonna do some Russian ballet to the Nutcracker Suite.

Finally, someone who’s strong enough to safely do the ballet alongside Tea.

*I did not watch Gundam, I spent my Torrent days watching Cowboy Bebop and Love Hina and I remember none of it.*

Speaking of, Love Hina--that one probably didn’t age well, didn’t it?

Tristan just digging his own grave for no reason is basically the rest of this episode. Duke Devlin was their out. Duke Devlin has been primed to die for like a full season but then Tristan had to go and fight a giant robot like an idiot. Which is not a sentence I thought I’d be typing about Yugioh, the show about a haunted card game.

PS, I just remembered something. One sec, let me dig this up, something I wrote in S1 that at the time, when everything was about magic and soul snatching, seemed so outlandish that it would never actually happen.

I can’t believe that I predicted myself but at the same time was still just so wrong, because not only do they already have Gundams, they also are card playing Gundams.

This giant VR Gundam could just step on them, right? Like just step on them? I get that would be against Noah’s set of rules but like...

...just a little step.

And what’s even more nuts about this show, is that some things I knew going in, some things you can’t escape just living here on the internet, like Yugi being strapped to a saw at some point (I just didn’t realize it would be from...a clown and would have *such freakin large blades attached*, it was very sudden) and them dueling from the backs of motorcycles (which apparently isn’t even this show. Apparently dueling motorcycles is a spinoff and y’all...kind of disappointed by that). But Gundams? This universe is so zany that Gundams just went completely under the radar.

*this robot casually wearing a jumbo duel disc*

Faced with the reality of none of his friends ever take him seriously, Duke decides to find a weird compromise and asks for double duel. Thing is, this robot also can’t take Duke seriously, and so this super backfires.

Would it in fact simplify everyone’s dating life if we had a 1 in 3 situation? I mean it’s already a mess because we have two 3 in 1′s, but we could balance that right out with a 1 in 3. Then the math will be correct. Balance will be achieved.

And that was how Disaster Serenity sort of stumbled her way onto a dueling platform and killed her brother’s 2nd (3rd) best friend (4th if you count Joey’s rivalry with Kaiba).

Tristan, who’s job as a volunteer janitor is to clean up messes, could not clean up after this Wheeler hot mess.

This is a card now? OK. I see you, product placement. I see why you made Duke Devlin pick up a deck again. Just for this product. That’s fine. At least we did something with Duke Devlin. But we could have maybe used him at any point outside of dungeon dice monsters, ya? Like any point?

Anyway, Serenity explains that if they tell her exactly what to do, they will be fine, so the robot catches wind of this and does this move

Of course. Of course the abandoned warehouse is now full of lava.

Serenity doesn’t even know the rules since she was actually blind until yesterday. She recalls faintly that on the train Tristan told her the rules, and that there were stars on the card that line up with power or whatever. So she looks down at the card and goes “Ah! there are little stars on here!” she plays it, and she realizes that no one has ever told her that sometimes they are placed sideways. Basically Serenity playing this episode as a recently not blind woman would be like me playing cards as someone who fast forwards through all the shuffling.

It’s hard to say if it’s Serenity who caused all this or Tristan who didn’t just let Duke do his one job. Either way, Tristan will absolutely find a way to blame this on Duke until about the point Tristan dies. Between Tristan refusing to play ball with Duke Devlin who is actually a card expert and Serenity playing all of her cards the wrong direction, I’m fully ready for Tristan to die by the end of this episode. Boy had a million chances to just chill and let Duke do his thing so ya, kill him.

Anyways, here’s a desert brought to you by yellow ochre. A LOT of yellow ochre.

Was this also a background for an 80′s space anime?

At some point Nezbitt sat in a boat and watched Kaiba launch what appears to be nuclear missiles at a missile factory. Kaiba did say he needed to throw out the old and start over so like...do Marie Kondo the way you need to do that Marie Kondo thing, Kaiba. This clearly did not bring you joy.

Anyway, lets skip to the good stuff. That’s right this boy: dead because he couldn’t not.

As you all know, I’ve been looking forward to Duke Devlin dying for such a long time now. I’ve been waiting here, tapping my fingers delicately together all Mr Burns-style expecting that the only way they could possibly find a use for Duke Devlin--since they refuse to give him any cards--would be to die.

But guys. I forgot about Tristan.

(bro wants to point out that right above the dungeon dice card was the revive card that would have come in handy right about now.)

Truly unexpected, standing in between Serenity and Duke, the most killable of the Yugioh franchise, Tristan freakin died.

But most importantly, we’re getting very close to death 169 (nice). We skipped 69 proper (a shame) because *somebody* had to kill just a chunk of people at once, Kaiba. So...who’s it gonna be? Probably the Big 5 member who’s cosplaying around as a Sexy Fish? chances are good.

Anyway, if you just got here, we’re in Season 3, if you would like to start at the beginning in S1, click here to read my so many recaps of this show. I cannot believe how much Yugioh content is in this Yugioh show.

[halfusek]

You Left Me in a Heartbeat

I wrote a fic about my interpretation of how things were between Joey and Henry: from before founding the studio to the moment they split up and a bit more. Also it includes a certain theory I would like to discuss in a seperate post some other time. Hope you enjoy! Huge thanks to @pipesflowforeverandever for beta reading and helping me with getting this thing readable! <3 Warning: ...violence.

✪ ✪ ✪

There is nothing wrong with dreaming. Excitement filled his head and buzzing thoughts were running million miles per hour through that brain hidden under dark hair. Although none of that amount of thinking was focused on the real world. At least not yet. Which is why the owner of fancy looking (but actually really cheap, he was just a broke student with nothing but dreams and 60 cents in his pocket, well, at least for the rest of the month) black shoes didn't even notice his feet were constantly switching being attached to the ground between toes and heels. His sight seemed to be focused on a certain covered in lights sign which was hung way above the cogitating head, at the top of an entrance. He was standing close to the gate with the cinema's ticket booth in the middle, his pointy nose pointed at the sky, expression peaceful, shoulders relaxed, and body slightly bending back and forth.

Oh, no, surely nothing wrong with dreaming, especially dreaming big, but who is to say those smaller ones cannot be fulfilled as well? Even those silly ones.

The cinema was showing an animated production tonight. And he had just enough money to see it and only slightly starve for the next week!

He arrived way too early for the show, but he couldn't just sit at home! So he went out for a long walk, well dressed, which wasn't most comfortable, but God, did he feel good!

To be fair it wasn't just the show his mind was currently so occupied with. Oh, it surely is fun doing alone, but what an experience it must be with a company!

He heard his name being shout out from across the street. The man turned around on his heel and sent the best grin the mouth under the pencil moustache was able to make.

Especially good company!

Henry was with some woman.

Joey stood still.

When the pair finally approached him, he whistled under his nose and then bowed. Both of his arms moved right away, one behind his back, and the other one in front of him, reaching for her hand.

"What a pleasure meeting you, my lady,” she giggled and Henry couldn't help but roll his eyes, though his lips twitched, forming a smile, "Can I know your name?”

"Linda,” they exchanged an energetic handshake, "You must be Joey?”

Said man gasped and put his hands on his chest in disbelief.

"Wow! Well...” he pouted comically and put his finger on his chin, other hand resting on his hip, "It is a possibility.”

Linda snorted.

"You know,” she took Henry by his arm and turned her head to him, cascade of blond hair flowing with that movement, "When you said it's just some cartoon I had second thoughts about going... but it might be fun after all,” she bit her lip as she turned back to Joey.

"Oh?” Drew asked, his mind completely ignoring the compliment, "You don't like cartoons?”

"I mean... I never really tried watching any... who knows, maybe it's fun. I know a fella or two who seem to enjoy it," she showed her teeth in a beautiful smile.

Joey noticed with how much affection Henry looked at her face. His eyebrows frowned a tiny bit.

"Let's try making it a three then," Henry beamed and pulled his girlfriend after him to buy the tickets. He did it in such an adventurous way, she couldn't help but laugh.

Joey watched them from behind. He couldn't move his feet. This was stupid.

He was stupid.

He wanted to pay for them. Only the two of them. He didn't expect-

His body shaked for a second. Only now he noticed how cold it was outside. Or...

He took the first step.

They won't last.

He took another step.

They will break up soon and he will never see or hear of Linda ever again.

He came up to the gate and bought a single ticket, then followed his company for tonight.

He won't lose just like that.

After the seance, Linda’s love for toons started and was growing ever since. She couldn't draw a straight line, but was interested in her partner's passion.

He can't lose.

Few years from this night they are planning to get married.

✪

Music was so loud as if the world was ending and it was the last opportunity to dance ever. Wonderful combination of bodies moving to the wild rhythms, people shouting as long as they had air in their lungs, liters and liters of alcohol and pure happiness – truly the most humane form of insanity. Everyone was dressed in their most expensive clothes they should take care of and nobody cared as they waved their arms and legs, drowning in the ocean of sweat and panting breaths.

They owned the place tonight, newcomers could either join or stay being outsiders which ended for all of them in leaving. Judging by how, hm, unusual the party was, it effectively scared away those who could have something against some of its rules. One woman entered looking for someone to make love to, but went out scoffing as her moves resulted in nothing because she aimed at a wrong pal, currently making his own moves towards another pal. How weird!

Oh, those artists. Such deviants!

Joey was forcibly pulling Henry away from the table, despite all of the yet-to-come-animator's protests.

"Come ooooon!” tall man’s voice sounded lower and slowed down. Also very demanding at the moment, "Don't tell me you're not gonna dance at a celebration of YOUR OWN show!”

They finally both ended up in the middle of the chaos which was the said celebration. They were like two pales standing still in a storming sea. Now they either drown or move. Henry didn’t seem up for swimming.

He doesn't like dancing. Joey only knew he performed a few slow ones with Linda, but she wasn't there to get him out of his comfort zone this time.

Obviously Joey was obligated to step in.

"I-I don't know what to do, I feel weird everytime I do this, I-"

"Don't think about it, just do it!” they had to yell in each others ears to make anything out of their conversation.

"I can't. I can't!” light reflected in Henry’s glasses as he looked back at the table.

"It's like slow dancing! But faster!” Henry didn't need to turn again to his friend to see that big grin of his, but he did it anyway just to send him a mildly annoyed look.

"It's not!”

"It is! I'm gonna... fucking... show you!” Joey grabbed his hands and pulled, which took Henry by surprise.

"What the-"

"Think of waltz! But don't be strict! Use some instinct, for crying out loud you're the one with a girl!”

And so they took few first steps like in a classic waltz, which didn't go well with everyone else's tempo but Joey didn't care. Henry got more nervous.

"I told you I-"

"Shut up! Keep! Trying!”

Drew can be really exhausting with his motivational attitude and never-giving-up speeches, but Henry decided to listen to him. After all, he was usually right.

They took their steps faster. Then Joey started leading them into slightly different ones, and with time and occurrence those differences started increasing.

Henry found himself catching up and they both noticed that.

When they achieved a somewhat satisfying pace and didn't bump into others as much, Joey suddenly pulled Henry closer and whispered to his ear something the shorter man couldn't quite catch but it surely included the words "dancing demon" and he bursted out laughing.

Sillyvision pitched their idea.

Way later that night two figures struggled with walking down the street, both clinging to each other. They were trying hard to keep their balance yet still ended up moving between both sides of the road. Luckily for them it was quite a quiet neighborhood, no cars in the sight. There was only one cyclist who tried their best to avoid them with the accompanying sounds of the bike’s horn.

Their long walk was completed at a construction field. Not a recommended place for the drunk, but things were about to start happening here in a few days, only several materials have been gathered for building.

Joey wants to stand on his own but Henry didn’t let him – he knew that would end in the tall man laying face down on the dirt – so instead of making a majestic spin in the middle of the place with his hand pointed at the surroundings, he did an awkward turn-around, which almost knocked Henry off his own feet.

"Look. At. This!” words were pouring out of his mouth in a bulky mutter, "This will be ours. This IS ours.”

"Yeah,” Henry simply replied but then decided to elaborate a bit, "It’s… it feels amazing.”

"Yes! It does,” dark hair fluttered as the head it was on nodded. He kept doing that as he responded, "I think I’m gonna return today’s alcoholic be… be-ve… rages.”

"Ew. Let go of me then. And not on our future floor.”

"Imagine s-someone will be, like, sitting there, like, drawing, and then, I’ll like come to them from behind and be like-"

"Oh, Jesus.”

"Sir.”

"God.”

"You’re sitting on my barf.”

Henry didn’t let this low level joke make him giggle. He made an excessively serious face.

"You’ll be the worst employer.”

"I’ll be an amazing employer. So honest.”

"Please, don’t.”

"Yeah, no, I’ll lie on occasions.”

"I meant don’t puke on our legacy.”

"Oh.”

They took a sit on a stack of desks and breathed in silence for a while. Their shoulders were touching.

"I think I’m better now.”

"Good.”

"I’m so happy,” Drew’s voice broke as tears rolled down his cheeks.

"It sure doesn’t sound like it,” Henry made an awful joke attempt as his own tone hit a higher pitch and he felt a sudden urge to blink more.

Both men raised hands to wipe their eyes- only to be interrupted by their own bursting, bubbling laughter. Cartoonists put their arms around each other and they wobbled, they laughed, and they cried.

They were tired but it was the best kind of tired. The kind you feel after successfully achieving something, so you can rest a bit and let that accomplishment bring some joy into your life.

Henry rested his head on his best friend’s shoulder.

It was so warm. The night was cold and the alcohol wouldn’t help them keep a decent temperature for long, but they simply had each other.

At that moment, Joey could swear he was burning.

His hand found its place on Henry’s hip, long, thin fingers were trembling. He took in a deep, shaky breath.

Henry felt the chest he was almost laying on shiver and for a short moment there was a sensation grabbing his face by the hot hands of confusion. It lasted a few seconds until Joey stood up and took three steps forward. Henry, not expecting this, ended up falling on his elbow, so he was in a kind of semi-recumbent position, his mouth slightly opened. He watched Joey put his hands on his sides, and turn back to him. Shorter man almost expected some sort of negative expression, but the other surprised him with a smile which could only be described as a smile of a dreamer.

Henry forgot to remind him of being careful, because he knew his friend had something important to say. So he listened to the man of ideas.

"This,” he threw one hand in the air, "This will be great.”

His hand fell back on his hip.

"But it’s just the beginning. It will be greater.”

Henry raised his eyebrows and blinked.

"We will expand!” Joey suddenly released an excited shout and lifted both arms to the sky as if he wanted to grab all the stars.

At that moment Henry was almost certain he did. He got up and approached him.

"What do you mean?”

"We’re gonna make it big! Literally!” Joey let out a laughter before he explained, "The grounds were so cheap because most of them are located above a huuuge cave found many feets underground! Of course we won’t start building above that part, but later we could easily use it for building something…” he made a pause and put an emphasis on the next word, "under!”

"Oh, my,” Henry mumbled, genuinely surprised. This lack of knowledge didn’t bother him much. Not now, "That’s… that does sound great… although it will take a lot of hard work before we’ll be actually able to use something… something like that.”

“Yes. Hard,” he grinned widely, "and happy.”

Eyes behind the glasses rolled.

Joey noticed this is how Henry tries to mask his lack of confidence. He patted his friend’s shoulder.

Back then he used his observations for motivation instead of manipulation.

It’s funny how things change over time.

"We’ll make it,” corners of his mouth fell down a bit so the smile appeared to be more gentle, "You just have to believe.”

"Yeah, yeah,” Henry sighed and closed his eyes for a second, before looking up at his pal and reaching his hand to the one resting on his shoulder to grab it in a reacourging grasp, "Thanks, I will try my best. We will try our best. Right?”

Joey turned to look at the foundations of their workshop and released his hand from the touch. He repeated quietly but undoubtedly, "Right.”

Henry didn’t seem to notice weird reactions on his friend’s side and Joey was both relieved and disappointed by that.

He could have tried to make a move on Henry. Well, in fact, he has been trying. His crush already was in a few relationships before and he always waited them out and they always eventually passed.

(He had a bad feeling about this one.)

He didn’t want to interfere. He wanted Henry to be happy the way Henry wanted to be happy. It was the only fair way. But he didn’t see any dangers in his current one. Linda wasn’t… a threat.

(This time he didn’t have a girl just because of social pressures.)

He could try lying to himself, but in reality he was scared of rejection.

(Henry really loves her.)

What if that dream does not happen?

He closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened again, green irises shined with determination.

They will make it. Belief is all they had before and it’s all they need. It’s all he needs.

They will make their dreams come true.

It’s a funny thing.

How so much can fall apart so fast.

✪

He stretched his back and let out a silent groan. No, he needed to stand up, even for a few seconds. And so he did, all his limbs tried to go as far away from his torso as possible. Brain automatically got filled with air. That felt refreshing. He twisted and bent his body before sitting down again. Just as he was finished adjusting his chair, he heard steps coming from the closest room. He peeked his head to the corridor.

A tall figure approached a long table that Henry could only see a small fraction of from this position. The other person wore a black, long jacket, which shoulders were covered in snow, that also was slowly melting on the dark hair making it a bit wet. Joey put some bags in the middle of the table and came back where Henry's sight could reach him. He took off his gloves and threw them next to - how Henry suspected knowing his friend - some warm food he bought for both of them. Cold, currently slightly red hands, rubbed each other energetically and the man grinned.

"Want some coffee?”

"I want you to get your ass over here and help me," his smile was rather sour but shifted to a tired and calm one, "But sure. Just right after that – you stay there.”

"Right, right," Joey did a reassuring gesture and headed for the kettle. He wanted to get a proper break room someday, but Henry couldn't really see it right now. Irrelevant. For this room to have any use they would have to have proper breaks first. At that time everyone was working really hard.

Well they had to. But they wanted to.

Happily tired.

The animator sighed.

After a while his friend was in Henry's little corner with something to fill his stomach and give a little boost to his head. Henry muttered some thanks and tried not to consume everything at once.

It wasn’t the first time he forgot to eat during drawing. Always, even when he did this as a hobby, he since had that problem. This didn't strike anything alarming in regards to his job, though.

He hasn't become aware of his workaholism yet.

Even Linda wasn't concerned yet, they haven't seen each other since that whole thing started but they both tried their best to stay positive. Of course there will be challenges on the way, especially at the beginning. But they won't give up, no, sir.

Joey took a sit on the other chair present in the room, which he once brought in and never got out. It was its only use as no one really needed to come here except for them. Wally or Norman were coming every now and then, but those visits never really required sitting.

Joey let Henry eat in peace and before asking anything, he took a look on what the shorter man was working on. He crossed his legs and studied the frames.

"Aw, that's no fun. I can't even criticize you for anything. Those look perfect,” his tone was mostly playful but with bits of pure admiration. Henry fought the want to hide behind an exaggerated modesty by declining every compliment which dared to tickle his ego. He couldn't just take it though, so he responded with a teasing joke.

"I would introduce my foot to your crotch if you did after last Friday,” he found himself only half joking. He knew Joey well and he was aware of their problems with perfectionism, especially in his pal's case, but the first time it occurred to him as a bigger issue was the aforementioned Friday. Joey didn't accept that character model but he didn't have to reject all those frames Henry did with it...

Joey's lips slightly twitched.

"Sorry. I'll make up for it. No business trips for the whole week.” Joey put one hand on his chest and raised the other, at which his friend chuckled a bit. He meant it and that was enough for Henry. That's great when you have a friend as your boss. You know you can trust him.

"Well then, let's begin!” Henry beamed at him. They assigned what needed to be done by which one of them and set goals for today, each day and the whole week. Deadline was closing in but they still had loads of time. They could do this. Joey moved to the other room with such a strong aura, he wasn’t even taking normal steps, but made small leaps, which made Henry choke on his coffee.

At moments like this you could say they were getting high on believing.

✪

No.

The smiling devil was mocking him.

No.

He turned another paper sheet into a ball and threw to trash.

He let out a silent sigh when he put the pen back in action and his wrist sent a complaining sensation.

No, Henry, we can't go on like this.

She said.

Wrong again.

He tore the sheet apart.

No.

He couldn't work like this.

He had to.

He felt something hot and wet in his eyes.

No.

He needed to be better. He couldn't lose her.

He took the pen back in his fingers and it was at the moment his hand twitched and emitted hurtful spasms through his arm when the water broke through the barrier of his bottom eyelashes.

He grabbed his right hand with the left one. The pen fell on the wooden boards.

Defeated.

"No...”

"Henry...?”

He almost jumped in his seat. Glasses bent askew when he turned his head to the source of the voice.

Joey.

He started wiping of the tears. It wasn’t really effective since he didn't even bother to take the glasses off. He just didn't want his boss... his friend to see him like this.

Well. Too late for that now.

Joey leaned back on his desk. A few months have passed since they started it all and the second chair was moved out of here.

Surprisingly for both of them it didn't take much for Henry to start venting. He never realised how much he has been keeping to himself. How much has bothered him. How bad he felt.

How afraid he was of talking about it with anyone. And his best friend he used to talk with about everything... was a part of the problem.

Heavy thing clenching onto his heart disappeared as he felt relief after Joey's reaction.

Understanding.

He was almost afraid they wouldn't get along as they used to.

Many things weren't as they used to be.

"Linda will be so happy,” Henry sniffed for the last time and used the tissues to stop his face from looking like a mess, "And right now we need every bit of happiness we can get. We planned some big things but... I don't know, maybe they are too big for us...”

"Nonsense!”, Joey exclaimed before he bit his own tongue, "There is nothing on the way to your dreams, Henry. Nothing.”

"I start to feel as if this idea sounds nice only on paper," that's what the animator said, but Joey as an experienced leader and manager knew what his employer meant: convince me. Motivate me.

"Okay, listen to me, dear pal," he put his arm on Henry's shoulder and leaned in a bit so their heads were on the same level, "Of course the idea sounds easier on paper! All ya gotta do is write it! Now – action – is what requires more commitment. But what would you get from just that paper? Welp, nothing, nada, zero.”

"Alright, I get you, please-"

"Do you kind of want it or WANT IT WANT IT?!”

Henry let out a frustrated groan but muscles on his face betrayed him and he smiled and he hated it.

"I want it. I want her.”

"Then get the hell out and make your future wife happy.” he said it as an order but it was one Henry will one hundred percent willingly listen to.

This was a good moment. There has been a lot of stressful situations recently around the studio. Everyone knew what they wanted, everyone knew what to do to achieve what they wanted. It was just... hard. And they had to do their best to be happy.

Joey tried really hard to make it a happy workplace. He might have gotten a bit harsh sometimes but never let his guard of positivity down. Workers were fast to lose trust but slow to regain it. He was trying his damn best and hasn't realised he was pushing his best friend too hard.

He felt awful.

He had to do this, stuff needed to be done, but today? No, he couldn't.

Henry was crying. He had to let him go home, even if that meant he will spent time with his fiance instead of him. Or more like working for him.

But that would make him unhappy. Henry was unhappy for a longer time.

He sat back and lifted his chin up to look at the ceiling.

Most important person in his life was unhappy because of most important thing in his life.

Oh, dear.

Henry's spirit was definitely lifted up when Joey watched him exit the building. He felt an unpleasant feeling in his stomach when he noticed that – almost as if the workshop was some sort of prison. That just felt wrong. But he was glad for his friend. The animator needed rest anyway.

Anyway... what the hell was he doing? Drawing with a hurting hand? Did he really think Joey is some kind of monster that would make him-

No.

He realizes he clenched his fists. His fingers got released right away.

Well. Is he?

No. Calm down. Henry finds it hard to stand up for himself. He never complains! No wonder he just literally exploded from everything he kept inside! Joey never had any problems with giving him feedback or going on and on about what was going inside that idea-pumping head of his, but to be fair he didn't really have any serious issues himself.

(bullshit)

(liar)

The dark haired man shook his head.

They both felt the unpleasant breath of incoming deadline on their backs. Henry was probably too occupied with his mind today to, well, mind going home. But Joey was fully aware.

Oh, well! Who is supposed to make the impossible happen if not him?

He picked up the pen and then he picked up where Henry left off. He felt tired, but only physically (right?) which was something he surely could stand. Unfortunately he had to focus more on the business stuff but some time in the future he planned to hire an entire management department and join Henry in the art one. He could look for more animators first but...

His eyebrows frowned and he bit his bottom lip.

...he didn't want to. Later.

Why?

Oh, obviously because-

Because...

Bendy looked so off model, Joey just stared at the sketch in pure surprise.

Oh, right, he cheered himself up, after that time period some warm ups are necessary.

The amount of time he spent warming up to get the frame right was a bit disappointing, but he kept going.

He was so absorbed by the work, he didn't (want to think) hear the steps approaching him.

"Gee golly. Is that really you, sir?” the janitor's eyebrows instantly rose up as he reached the end of the hall.

Drew gave him an unfocused look and blinked a few times.

"What," he didn't even articulate the question.

"Um, uh, ya know, I'm just doin' the usual, haha,” Wally wasn't sure what to make out of his boss' tone, so his reply was kind of nervous, "Gotta clean up the place!”

The look on Franks face woke Joey up from that strange state of hyperfocusing.

"Oh!” without any reason to he stood up. Just a second after he realized, but didn't sit back, he approached the worker, stretching his back, "Can't you do this later, my boy?”

"It's already after hours, sir," the smile on Wally's face told Joey two things. First: get some rest, old man. Second: I better get overtime for this.

Oh, he heard that second one so often. Not today.

"Forget it. Go home, Wally.”

"Oh, no problemo, I can wait.”

"Wally.”

"Alright, alright," Franks reassured him to back out of his extra work plan by replying with the strongest accent he could pull off, which Joey couldn't help but find amusing. Such personality! Would make a great character trait.

"You can leave the mop here," as Joey continued Wally twisted his head to one side in curiosity. Kinda like a dog, "I will use it later.”

"Wow, mister Drew, you do Henry's job, now mine. When are ya goin’ to write a song?”

"Very funny, Franks.” Joey sent him a tired smile. "I mean – Wally. Quit the mister Drew, please.”

"You got it!” Joey half expected him to salute. Wally Franks might not be the sharpest tool in this shed, but he sure tries his best to be one and works both hard and happy. He would never regret hiring such a character. Good for the janitor, Joey never cared much about papers and qualifications. There were many things to hate this place for but also many things to appreciate. Maybe even love. Like this little comedy he knew he could expect from the boy always walking with his head in the clouds, "Good thing, I don't hafta go back to the closet! Phew! If I met Sammy down here, I wouldn't hear the end of it!”

"Keys?”

"Keys.”

Joey wasn't even slightly mad. That was just hilarious. Even though he was the one paying for a pair of new ones. Well, the studio was, but someone is responsible for it and is in its very name.

After Wally left, he kept working for a few more hours. He almost got the shot done when he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder.

He got up from the desk with a paper attached to his face. There were small spots of ink on his forehead and chin. He was really disoriented and looked at the person standing next to him with two cups of coffee with pure confusion.

Henry.

He was smiling but looked concerned.

"Damn me, I was afraid I will be too much behind so I got up earlier for work, but you..." he sounded genuinely touched, "Thanks.”

"You're welcome," Joey yawned and slowly got up, to which Henry responded by placing the cups on the desk and pushing him back to his place, "Wha-"

"You look like you're about to pass out,” despite his friend's tone, he could tell he wasn't really joking, "How long were you up?”

"Hell if I know," usually higher positioned shoulders now at a lower lever because of their owner's body being laid back in the chair shrugged, "What time is it?” he asked as he reached out for the cafeine.

"Eight.”

Joey took the cup to his hands and simply stared at the surface of what was inside of it. He smiled in an unsettling way.

"I have a meeting at half past nine.”

"Oh,” Henry gasped in that emotionless way of his but in the name of self-awareness added a more concerned: "Shit.”

"Yeah," a loud slorp could be heard.

"Is it important?”

"Yeah.”

"Are you gonna go there?”

"Yeah.”

"Do you want to?”

"Kinda.”

"Do you kind of want it, or-" Henry tried hard not to wheeze as Joey gave him an annoyed look, "want it, want it?”

There was a moment of silence.

"I don't.”

They both laughed hysterically.

Kinda.

✪

First year anniversary party managed to lift up everyone's moods a bit but not long after that event it faded away. They kept pushing but kept losing enthusiasm. It was even harder to stand that grin.

The one Bendy posters have.

The one Joey Drew has.

Said man entered the corridor to the left after coming through the entrance. He stood quietly and watched his only animator work.

He realized it's been some time since they had a normal conversation. He can't deny this feels wrong. He feels... awkward... out of place...

He hesitated to start speaking. It was Henry who sensed someone's presence and looked in his direction.

"Hi," he only slightly raised his eyebrows, "What do you want?”

"Oh? Is it forbidden to just come to see your pal now?” he tried hard to mask his stress and make the tone sound convincing. Henry's sad smile as a reply made him somewhat relieved.

"No. But I need to work on this if I want to get out of this place today," that used to be a joke.

Joey immediately run back to the previous room and returned with a chair.

"Move yo ass.”

"Come on, you don't have to-"

"It's been months since I used a pen for anything else than my signature or script writing. I. Want. To. Draw.” he really did, Henry was almost jealous of his friend's excitement towards drawing. It was only becoming less and less fun for the shorter man.

"Okay, then, here," he gave a folder to Joey and explained what needed to be done.

It was quite pleasant to have some company. Joey was working in the next room but they could shout things at each other. And they did.

Henry worked at a really fast paste. And very effectively on top of that. He didn't realise that himself but there has been quite some time since he heard an actual compliment about his work. He lacked motivation. Maybe that's why not long after Joey started, he went out of his hall and approached his friend's desk.

"Hey, I wanted to ask how you feel about those back-"

Joey has been scribbling circles.

Henry blinked.

This whole time.

"What the-"

"I can't get his stupid head. I'm so out of practice.”

"Are you serious?”

"I know I goof a lot, but not in the mood for it right now, Hen.”

"Ah," he was slightly taken aback by the nickname. It's been so long, "Maybe you want less Bendys and I'll give you some Borises instead? It's good to try different things.”

"Yeah, that does sound good”, Joey gave him a thankful smile.

Henry didn't dare to show him his backgrounds. He thought something but pushed it away.

No way it would demotivate Joey. Nothing was able to bring this man down. Right?

So they kept drawing.

Later, without anything to show this time, Henry came to him again to check how things were going.

Their little devil darling looked on model, just the way he should be.

When he glanced at the Boris Joey was sketching, he almost froze. He saw a mistake repeated on a few sketches already.

"You won't make me correct all the frames to give him a tail, will you?” he let out a nervous chuckle. Joey furrowed his brows as he studied what he made.

He gazed upon Henry who could see something shifting through his boss’/friend's face but couldn’t quite catch it.

"You're tired.”

"I'm tired.” Joey nodded slowly.

He muttered thanks for reminding him and went back to work. So did Henry. As the animator sat down on his own place, he wondered why did this little thing bother him so much.

Because? It's no big deal, right? Everyone makes mistakes.

After something around twenty minutes, Joey took careful steps while going to Henry's desk. He held some paper sheets and a pen. His face was covered by some undefined mask, so hard to guess what he felt at this moment.

Henry guesses he was... embarrassed? Afraid?

Why?

"Can you... show me how the details on Boris’ overalls look like?” his tone was so quiet, Henry got the impression it wasn’t even Joey speaking.

"Sure," he took out one of the concept arts he barely touched now since the designs of the characters were basically engraved on his memory. He smirked teasingly, "What kind of director doesn't know his own characters?”

That was supposed to be a joke.

Gritted teeth and pencil moustache pointed down told him someone didn't take it as one.

"You don't have to remind me about that," he hissed and pretty much threw all the stuff at the desk, "I'm done.”

"No, I didn't mean- Wait, what? What are you-"

"I'm done. I can't... do this anymore.”

"Um, hello? Are you listening to yourself?” Henry pulled out a nervous smile which was supposed to resemble his concern, "You just need-"

"Practice, yeah, no shit," Joey sighed heavily and crossed his arms, "But I don't have the goddamn time.”

Henry just blinked and stared at him. Joey finally realized what was coming out of his mouth.

"I... I'm sorry. I wanted to help you but-"

"No, it's fine. Don't worry ab-" Henry reached for his shoulder to lay a hand on it but Joey flinched back.

"I'm not worried. Of course it's fine. Now excuse me, I won't waste any more of our time-"

"Hey! No! It's... it's okay if it's not fine, we can talk about thi-"

"No need to. It's fine,” it was the first fake smile Henry remembered after finally quitting the studio.

"I don't believe that. Can you just... stop running away from talking about what's really bothering you?” he approached the tall man.

"I have no idea what you're talking about,” he turned away, planning to exit the room.

"It's okay to admit something is wrong!” Henry grabbed his arm.

Before he gets pushed with an unexpected force, he saw Joey in a completely new form. His friend's face was furious. Paper and pens fell from the desk on the ground. An ink well spilled out its content on a few pages by shattering on top of them. Henry hit the wooden structure with his back and the blue eyes watched the green ones in disbelief.

Joey's expression instantly changed. He looked at the other's face, not sure what to say. Seemed like he tried to state something but failed as his mouth opened and closed.

He exited the room in a hurry.

✪

Joey has been sitting in his office for quite a while now. Motionless. Staring at his desk. At an envelope laying on it to be precise.

He was away for a few days so he missed the biggest news going around the studio right now. On the way to this room he noticed some people gossiping and there was an unusual excited atmosphere.

Subconsciously, he knew what was inside of it. The thought just didn’t form inside of his head.

With a slightly shaking hand, he reached for the paper and cut it carefully with a letter opener.

He noticed the biggest word right away and lost his breath.

BEFORE THEY SAY

"I DO”

KINDLY JOIN US FOR THE

WEDDING

UNITING

LINDA & HENRY

After that there were written the date, the place and his own name but he paid no mind to those.

The invitation was put back down slowly, the fingers holding it twitching.

Tall, thin body was unusually still. Looked calm.

But wasn’t.

It’s over.

He stood up and a noise of something shattering could be heard. He felt a pain in his arm as he looked at it being stretched. He stared almost blindly at the wall and hardly noticed a big stain on it. Then his mind went back to focus. There was glass on the floor and on a chest of drawers which stood under the ink splatter. He remembered to breathe again, which he continued to do heavily, and then slowly approached the furniture to study what he’s done.

He appeared to just have thrown an inkwell.

Oh, what a mess.

Nothing like the one inside his head.

Joey pulled out the drawers. Various things ended up flying out of them. Documents, pens, stamps, keys, you name it. Falling wood made cracking sounds as it hit the ground.

He went around the room pulling his hair.

The man passed a wine rack which he pushed furiously. Alcohol spilled on the wood and the luxurious carpet covering it.

He stopped walking ending back again at the desk. With one swing of the long arm, he managed to push everything off it’s surface. There was something wet on his sleeve and he raised it up to his face with disgust, expecting to see ink.

But it was red.

And it hurt.

It must have been the letter opener.

He almost collapsed on his back, but the chair behind him broke the fall, so he ended up sliding down it. His legs were pointed at different directions, his body in general looked like an abandoned doll. The bleeding arm rose to the chest and was being hugged to it by the other one. It was now, when everything else went quiet, nothing was shattered or thrown, that he heard sounds which only a hurt animal could have made.

It slowly got through to him that he was sobbing uncontrollably.

His limbs slowly woke up from that weird apathetic state and along with head started coming together to one point – curled into a ball.

Hide.

Stop.

From what? Stop what?

What…?

He didn’t want to think.

He didn’t want anything.

Not anymore.

He…

He just can’t have it.

He can’t have him.

No matter what he does. Nothing really matters. He can’t succeed.

THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS!

His whole body trembled.

This isn’t right, this isn’t fair, this can’t be like this, he has to… he… he just needs to…

He has always believed you can achieve anything if you try hard enough. If you believe. If you keep going. At some point that dream will come true.

He fell on his side and put a fist inside his mouth to silence his own scream.

LIES. LIES. LIES.

What was right is wrong. Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be.

He felt that… toxic… desire… to get what he wants.

But the problem was… he didn’t want something. He wanted someone.

Henry isn’t and can’t be your damn property, you stupid piece of garbage. How pathetic can you be?

Dreams are supposed to be your power…

He choked on his tears, but that didn’t stop him from laughing.

…but they can also be your downfall.

✪

This was not what he dreamt of. He run his hand through his brown hair with ending that movement on the neck to give it a small massage. It ached a bit, his back did as well. And his hand.

Henry sighed. He was so tired.

Why won’t Joey hire more animators? They should afford to do so, and even if it was risky, they would rather benefit from it in the future as there would be less dangers of not meeting the deadlines. He managed to do everything alone but at what cost…

A wrinkle appeared on his forehead.

Joey won’t even help him anymore. And his name is in the goddamn-

He released the breath he was holding.

Time passed and things only seemed to get worse.

He put his hands on the Bendy sketch he was working on. He grasped one of the fingers and studied it.

He designed the main character. Heck, two main characters.

He gently touched and twisted the golden ring.

Does he want to live in his shadow?

Does he live in it?

Should he quit? What would happen to them? What job would he look for?

He didn’t want to think about this.

They wanted to start a family. He couldn’t be absent in their children’s life.

He needed to think about this.

Blue eyes closed.

Should he quit…?

✪

There was an unpleasant silence in the office. Heavy atmosphere hanging in the air.

Old friends sat on opposing sides of Joey’s desk.

They couldn’t look each other in the eyes. No one wanted to start speaking.

Henry asked for talking about something. Something important. Privately.

Joey exhaled deeply and looked up at the other one’s face.

"What-"

"I quit.”

Dark haired man blinked. Corners of his mouth rose but the smile didn’t reach the green irises.

"Let’s take it slow from here, okay? Tell me what’s the problem.”

"What isn’t a problem, Joey?” Henry didn’t expect himself to raise his voice. At least not so early, "Short answer is: I’m not happy here.”

Drew folded his hands and put them on the countertop.

"Could you elaborate on that?” his voice didn’t show anything except for impatience.

The animator swallowed his saliva.

"I’m working alone and it’s just too much work for one person, it’s entirely consuming my life-"

"Well, it’s like this in this bus-"

"I’ve become a fucking workaholic, Joey.”

"I… I’m sorry to hear that…”

"Haven’t you noticed?”

"Noticed what? How am I supposed to know what’s going on inside your head? You never tell me anything, you just wait till it all bursts out in one moment, and look what it lead to now.”

"Oh, well I… thought you knew me a bit better and were aware of some changes. I’ve been lying to myself because I have an addiction. And everyone around me seemed to notice. Everyone but you.”

"I thought you liked drawing.”

"I love drawing.”

"What’s the matter then?”

"That I’m a goddamn wreck, maybe that’s what. I’m… sort of… miserable… because of it… If it wasn’t for Linda, I surely would drown the sorrows in alcohol. Almost added drinking to the list of my problems, but she-"

"Oh, thank God, Linda is here.”

Henry didn’t miss the sarcasm in Joey’s tone.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

"She’s convinced you to quit for her, hasn’t she?”

"What? No! Well, we did talk about it, but it’s not like… This is MY decision, I’m doing this for my own sake… Well ours too but…” he shook his head and continued more angrily, "Are you suggesting that she’s… she’s… I don’t know, sabotaging?”

Joey didn’t stop his shoulders from shrugging and Henry could feel his teeth grit.

"I’ll tell you what,” he stood up, "The only person sabotaging anything here is you…”

"Henry, please, sit down-"

"You manipulative asshole.”

His boss gave him a dead stare.

Silence came back for a plenty of seconds, even worse to handle than before.

"You took my designs. You always used pretty words and ideas to get around it but the truth is you stole it from me.”

Joey listened to the accusations without showing any emotions. His mouth only once twitched.

"I won’t let you steal anything else.”

As a confirmation of his words, he turned around and headed for the door. When he pressed the handle, a cold, empty tone reached his ears and sent a shiver down his spine.

"Don’t you dare leave.”

Henry ignored it and walked out of the room. He was aiming his steps at the exit.

He felt as if his head was burning.

This is all wrong. How did they end up like this. Why is it hap-

"WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING TO ME?!”

Against his will, his body faced the man following him.

Green eyes emitted fury and Henry experienced an irrational fear.

Of course he was mad. This was a hard situation for both of them. But it had to be like this.

It shouldn’t have to.

"I’m leaving. You can’t change my mind.” he replied in apologetic tone, even though he knew he wasn’t the one owning the apologies.

"What the fuck did she put into your head?” Joey asked in a disappointed tone and raised his arms in confusion.

"Leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with-"

"Oh, yeah?! Well, everything was okay before she started putting her fucking nose in places it didn’t belong,” taller man approached the shorter one, who was backing out carefully.

"I just told you to not involve her,” Henry growled, "You don’t even realise you’re the problem, don’t you?”

"Ah, of course!” he shouted and hit his forehead with right hand, completely forgetting they were in the hall where anyone passing could witness this scene. Luckily for them no one was there to see it.

Or maybe unfortunately.

"I forgot that three is a crowd.”

"What…?”

Joey immediately stopped and went silent. He was standing right in front of Henry, who also was done moving. Both of them were panting.

Both angry like they’ve never been.

A realization hit Henry like a train. He opened his eyes wide.

He was wrong. Many years from that moment he understood what was actually… the case…

But for now…

"You’re fucking sick,” now he took a step forward, "Just how controlling can you get?”

"What is that now, huh? What else have I done?”, Joey muttered but his tone seemed to have lost some fury, the loss being replaced with… fear?

That came to Henry as nothing else but a conclusion. Guilty.

He grabbed his best friend by the collar.

"You want to pull me away from her,” he hissed and his voice wasn’t ever as dangerous as in that moment.

Joey didn’t reply but his expression revealed his bewilderment and that somehow made Henry’s blood boil with rage. He rapidly pushed him away, long legs almost tripping over each other.

"You’re fucked in the head.”

"Henry-"

"I can’t believe I let you waste so much of my time, my energy… my… my life…”

"Listen to me-"

"No,” he cut him off and pushed again along with letting out a furious cry: "What the hell were you thinking?!”

"It’s not like this!” Joey noticed Henry getting ready to push him once more and tried to somehow stop his hands.

"Then how, huh?!” he went straight past Joey’s weak arms and grabbed him again, "How is it?!”

"I was just… I-I…” now he was the one pushing, anger suddenly kicking in and increasing his strength, "I was doing what had to be done to achieve our dreams!”

"Our dreams?” then Joey was the one backing out, "Or just yours?”

"I… I thought those were the same,” voice coming out from under the pencil moustache cracked.

"Well… maybe they were…” the animator’s tone calms down a bit as they reached an intersection of corridors. Behind Joey’s back was a place under construction which was going to be a break room. It was kinda upsetting Henry won’t even get to experience it. Would be nice… but at his position he probably wouldn’t even have a chance, "But not anymore.”

He held Joey’s vest with only one hand. He was ready to let go but-

"THEY ARE! IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF THIS FUCKING SLUT!”

Something red covered Henry’s vision. He didn’t know what was happening until he heard a loud thud. He blinked.

There was a smell of blood. His hand hurt and was wet. Blood on his hand. But what was that-

Again. Thud.

His eyes followed the noise.

There was a small trace of red dots leading to the beginning of the stairs.

Thud.

His chest suddenly felt heavy.

If he had air in his lungs, he would scream his friend’s name.

But he didn’t.

There was only one sound.

Thud.

And then silence.

A few seconds have passed before Henry finally moved. To him it could have been as well years. His legs felt like they were made out of iron.

Joey never realized he fell down the stairs. He was unconscious before he even fully registered being punched in the face by the person he only ever cared about.

For some reason there was one thing he remembered from that accident. Very clearly.

A sign he saw while the world was upside down.

"WATCH YOUR STEP”

Henry’s eyes stung. Hot tears rolled down his cheek as he watched the body at the bottom of the stairs. He would have sworn to God, he didn’t see it breathing.

Someone was coming.

People.

They will know.

Everyone will know.

Henry whispered a voiceless "sorry”.

He left in a heartbeat.

✪

There’s not enough air. There’s not enough air. There’s not enough air. There’s not-

Henry.

There were flashes.

Joey woke up in cold sweat and wanted to sit but wasn’t able to and it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt like hell.

There was light. Right above him.

And a face.

Henry?

It was a doctor.

The doctor told him many funny things.

Why was it funny?

Well, because it was a joke, of course! It just couldn’t be true! So it must have been a joke!

It! Was! So! Funny!

He was in a hospital. There were more people in the room, trying to calm him down.

They said he was having a hysteria attack.

How was that possible? It was not.

They’re joking!

They’re lying!

Isn’t joking just funny lying?

He didn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t use his arms properly.

They told him he had a spine injury. That he probably won’t be able to walk. Or at least not much, unless he’s really lucky. But they should focus on saving his arms.

They were so silly.

They said he won’t make it for too long. His body was so fragile right now, it was a matter of months until it shuts down completely.

So, so silly.

He asked for Henry.

Nobody told him anything except for that he had a concussion and shouldn’t have any visitors for a while.

Time passed. He barely noticed from all the drugs they gave him.

Then his head started to feel clearer.

He realized they weren’t lying.

He told them he didn’t remember what happened.

He was the one lying.

He was having visitors. Henry was not among them.

But there was the janitor.

The janitor…

Oh!

Franky!

Like a cute version of Frankenstein!

No, wait, it’s Wally!

Wally Franks. The janitor. A really important visitor.

Joey asked him for a favour.

✪

Wally looked around with confusion and scratched his head. He rang the bell again and held it for a longer while. Then he knocked and shouted out Henry’s name a few times.

Well, time to give up. He obviously wasn’t home. His car wasn’t even on the driveway.

Mister Drew just seemed… it just seemed really important to him. And he didn’t want to bring bad news to him, considering the situation his boss was in.

Speaking of the news, there was a stack of newspapers just laying on the pavement.

No one was there since a longer time.

The janitor didn’t need to count them to know the amount of days it took to deliver these was equal to the amount of days which passed since… the incident.

He even asked some people.

No one knew where Henry was. Same about Linda.

Something was telling Wally they were out of town.

Probably for good.

✪

He let out an unhealthy chuckle after he was done writing the letter.

Why does he keep doing it? No one even reads those. And never will.

Without knowing Henry’s current address, he just kept sending mail to his old one. No one lived in it anymore because it wasn’t for sale and it couldn’t be even considered a property belonging to the town, because they’ve got nothing on him.

That’s because Joey never made any statements about what happened. He faked a memory loss. Some people speculated about him remembering what happened, some tried talking to him about it, pointing out how his disappearance happened at the same time his accident did.

But he didn’t tell anyone.

Police would have to start looking for him. He could ruin his life.

And ruin what was left of his own life. But that would also take away his only achievement.

The studio. The characters they argued about amongst other things.

If he took out Henry’s trash, his old friend would probably return the favour.

He couldn’t move his legs at first but after some rehabilitation he managed to use crutches from time to time. On rare occasions he stood with a cane but didn’t really move with it.

His arms were really weak, but got stronger after he started using the wheelchair. Only the dominant left one was really usable though.

✪

The demon touches his glove with the uncovered right hand. His whole body is cold but this part seems almost comfortable.

✪

He sometimes was coming to the art department to watch the animators work. He has hired many after-

He never really paid attention to them though. The only desk he really looked at was the empty one outside the area they were working in.

Despite everything, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it.

✪

Old man pants heavily as he escapes inky black stains whirling all around him. He reaches a corridor without a proper floor, only wooden boards put together in hurry to make a provisional bridge.

He can hear the Ink Demon closing in.

Henry takes his steps carefully. Falling would probably cause him to break his spine in half.

He thinks of the vertebrae sticking out of the deformed Bendy’s back.

He notices a sign at the end of the hallway. It’s upside down.

"WATCH YOUR STEP”

[you-want-fuckign-cicadas]

Into The Abyss, part 4

Felix belongs to @smoresthehalloweenqueen

Not spoiling anything but warning for Lost Ones being mildly creepy

More under the cut

All is quiet among the Lost Ones.

They are gathered around the light. It is bright, and fills them all with hope, and it belongs to a bright-haired human. They wonder how it got here, but at the same time, they do not really care. This is the closest thing to home they will have for a long while.

They don't even care that it was the Liar that brought the Light here. They are simply happy that the Light exists, that the Light is alive. And they will not let the Angel take the Light from them.

Or anyone else, for that matter.

Henry is not having the best day of his life. Or even a mediocre day. No, he is having a very bad day, and it's not at all improved by having a giant, inky demon chasing after him.

No, actually, it's making his day that much worse.

“Bendy�� is also chasing him up the stairs. As stubborn of an old man as he is, he does have his limits, which is why when a Little Miracle station does come into view, he hops in without a second thought and then jams the door shut with the Tommy Gun, just in case.

“Bendy” skids to a halt, looking around bewilderedly. He grumbles a bit, inspects the Miracle station, and then leaves, off to go bug “Alice”, most likely.

Henry relaxes, deciding that staying in here might be good for now. He counts a few bugs before a thought crosses his mind.

Wonder what happened to Felix? I haven't seen him since we split up. I should probably find him.

He climbs out of the Little Miracle station, complete with a new objective and a half-empty gun. “Well, off to go find Felix, then. Let's hope we don't run into any baddies.”

Felix groans quietly. Feels like I got run over by a truck. And then shot. Where am I?

He opens his eyes and freezes. There are ink creatures hovering over him, whispering and staring at him. A few of them are crying, and he feels a flash of guilt. Did I cause this?

One of the creatures grabs him and lifts his arms up. He's surprised and fairly spooked, holding his breath. Staying completely still, he feels himself dragged along the floor, and eventually he is abruptly dropped in front of a smaller ink creature that is crying. He blinks, and turns just enough to see the taller one walking away, rejoining the group.

He's struck with a realization. They're waiting to see what I do, aren't they? He turns back to the smaller one, and it doesn't look at him. ...here goes nothing, then. Let's hope they don't want to kill me.

He hugs it.

Said ink creature seems surprised. If it could blink, it would. Felix doesn't let go, though, and it eventually returns the hug. It's still making very sad sounds, but seems a bit happier. And, to be honest, Felix is a bit happier himself.

That is, until the rest of the creatures surround them. He jerks up in surprise and then promptly hugpiled under a bunch of ink creatures. A laugh bubbles up in his throat, but he holds his breath – again – in order to avoid spooking them. Guess I made the right decision, then.

It feels nice to not be almost killed.

He is violently reminded of the fact that he's probably dying when one of the ink creatures presses down on his right arm. He yelps in pain, and immediately all of the creatures scatter, except for the first one he hugged. Cradling his arm, he picks himself up carefully, and turns to the rest, who seems worried. (He's not sure how he knows this; he just...does.) Speaking quietly, he says, “It's not your fault. It's been like this since Alice. Sorry if I scared you.”

He jumps slightly when the small one behind him wraps its arms around him. Turning around, he quietly sits back down, and smiles at the creature warmly. “Th...thanks.”

He carefully leans against the wall and allows the creatures to sit around him. “Do...do you want to hear a story?”

All of them nod, and he ponders it for a second before deciding. “Okay, okay. Here we go. Once upon a time...”

As Henry walks towards the elevator, he notices a suspicious puddle of ink. He follows it to a locked door, right beside of the elevator. Raising his eyebrows, he bends down and starts to fiddle with the lock. Boris gives him a look, and Henry says, “It's legal to know lock-picking, as long as you don't pick any locks. Now please be quiet while I pick this lock.”

Boris gives him another look, and he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But what are the police gonna do, bust in? They literally can't, actually. Door collapsed. I think the entire upper floor collapsed, actually. So there's that.”

The door unlocks with a click. Henry turns to Boris and waves. “See you soon.”

Boris waves back, and sighs after Henry leaves, feeling another wave of that wisdom. He shuts the elevator doors, and doesn't move again, simply sitting in the corner of the elevator, chewing on his bone.

Henry continues following the trail of ink, noting the change of surroundings. While the rest of the studio is positively covered in ink, cobwebs, and other miscellaneous things, this area is totally clean, much in the OCD-esc style of Bertrum Piedmont.

The farther in he goes, however, the messier it gets. Soon, the walls start sporting messages again, some of them with dead bodies underneath them. Most of them say things such as “THE LIAR IS HERE” and “YOU HAVE TO TURN BACK”. They're not at all reassuring, but Henry looks at them anyway, curious to see whether there are other messages that reveal new info.

By the time he gets to the staircase, he's collected a small box of ammo, a plant, and a can of bacon soup that he is drinking. The staircase's message almost makes him spit out his bacon soup.

Come up and see me :)

Oh yes, that doesn't sound threatening at all, Henry thinks sarcastically. Out loud, he says, “I don't think I'll take you up on that offer.”

And then he does it anyway, climbing the staircase. The top is furnished with a single table, a lever, and a cassette tape. He winds the cassette tape back up and presses play, taking sip of his bacon soup as he does.

Voice of BERTRUM PIEDMONT

"For forty years, I've built attractions that stagger the imagination! Colossal wonders such as the world has never seen!

I have earned my legacy with sweat.

But right in front of everyone... high level investors, Wall Street tycoons, the ever-tactless Joey Drew introduces me, the great Bertrum Piedmont, as Bertie! Like I was his child.

You may be paying me, Mister Drew! But you don't own me!

I'll build you a park bigger than anything YOU could ever possibly conceive!

But before you go taking any bows, Mister Drew, know that this grand achievement will belong to me... and to me alone."

The tape ends. Henry frowns. “I remember that. Old man was pissy for a few days afterwards, wasn't he...” He jolts up. “Wait.”

He couldn't be the one the messages were warning about...could he?

Henry comes tearing out of the hallway. He practically jumps into the elevator, and punches the button for Level K. Turning to Boris, he takes a deep breath, and then says, “I need to find Felix. Now.”

Boris nods mutely.

“I'm so stupid. I didn't even think about him the entire time I was running around this place. He could be dead, or missing.” He pauses. “Or worse, depending on whether or not our lovely 'angel' got to him. Or, god forbid, Joey.”

Boris nods again, and then gestures to Henry's Tommy Gun, and then to his own bone.

“Yeah, hurt. Or dead. Or whatever else has been going on here, I don't know.” Henry sighs, seeming to have lost a good deal of his adrenaline rush in the few minutes he's talked to Boris. “I just...I shouldn't have left him alone. And now I'm going to find him.”

Boris takes his bone out of his mouth. He rubs the end onto Henry's clothes, much to the man's surprise, and then waits for the elevator to reach Level K. Once it does, he uses the bone to write on the wall.

I saw what happened to him.

See, I told you they didn’t want to murder him! Just...hug him, I guess. Also he’s still dying a horrible death.

The Lost Ones can’t actually see the creatures around them - they see the creature’s souls, instead. Felix’s soul just so happens to be a very bright soul. 

I think y’all know who the Liar is, and it ain’t Joey. His title is much more, ah...telling.

Also, a slightly Henry-centric chapter.

The break isn’t going to last long for Felix, though, so don’t get your hopes up.

[jewishaxelwalker]

Out from Isolation

Axel Walker does not have a past, a backstory, a history. He's made sure of that.

He torches his records every 25 years.

(also available on AO3)

“Okay so...one more time. Explain it to me one more time. I swear this time, I’ll 100% understand.”

Axel sighed, pulled the spoon out of his mouth and plopped it back into the mostly-empty bowl of frozen yogurt. “Like I said the last three times, I’m immortal. Eternal, to be more specific because like, I can totally die, but it takes some decent effort.” Joey nodded, seemingly to himself, mouthing the words ‘immortal’ and ‘eternal’ a few times, followed closely by the phrase ‘what the fuck’. “You don’t believe me.”

“I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea!” In the dozens of lives he’d lived over the last few centuries, Joey was easily the best friend he’d ever had. And the first person he’d tried to explain the whole ‘I’ve been alive longer than you’d think’ thing to in...a good hundred years. “And some witch just cursed you with immortality?”

“Dolya Nedolya is not a witch.” Axel snapped, testy. Insulting her was a good way to flip his fortunes for the worse. “She’s the goddess of personal fate. Apparently, I was supposed to have this totally kick-ass life, but I was born poor around one of the major plague years, so that wasn’t going to happen.”

He could practically see Joey’s brain desperately trying to dig up remnants of his 9th grade world history class. “So how’d it happen? This Dolya just bopped you on the head and was like bam, immortal?” Axel sighed again, swirling his spoon around in the melted mess that his froyo had become. Should have picked a heartier food to have this conversation over, like pizza.

“Well, I’d just buried my mother. Literally, I was in the cemetery and everything. So this old woman comes up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder, which wasn’t uncommon, people had been doing that all day.” He took a moment to recall his mother, with her dark hair and blue eyes. They’d looked so much alike when he was a young child, same facial shape, same mouth, same eyes. His father had died shortly after he’d been born and he had no siblings, so the pair of them had been thick as thieves until the day his mother died. She had been a weaver, and he’d learned to make simple clothes at her knee, a skill he’d continued to hone over time. No matter the era or place, people always needed clothes.

“Ax?” Joey waved his hand in front of Axel’s face and he startled, not realizing just how long the pause he’d taken had lasted.

“Right, yeah. The old woman. She said she’d come as soon as she’d heard I was on my own, asked what I’d do now. The town I’d grown up in was small, and didn’t really have anything for me now that my mother was gone.” He’d looked for it, the last time he’d been in Europe, but the land had long since swallowed the place where he was born. “She suggested I try Kiev, as a young man with skill could make his mark easily there. I told her that I didn’t want to make a mark, that I wanted to die.”

He’d been in a bad place that day, which was understandable. He was completely alone for the first time in his life, and this nosy old broad wasn’t exactly making his mood any lighter.

“That was about the time she smacked me upside the head and called me ungrateful which, rude. And that’s when I actually went and looked at her.” Dolya hadn’t really been old, more around his mother’s age. Axel had heard stories about fate visiting people, he’d just never thought she’d come for him. He wasn’t that special. “Dolya told me that I’d been destined to achieve greatness, but I’d never do it there or, frankly, then. I’ve always looked young, and I guess Dolya was feeling whimsical that day, because she told me that I'd be 17 forever.” He paused his story there, taking the time to scrape up the last of his pistachio yogurt soup. His mouth was dry. “Well actually she said I'd be 'forever on the precipice of manhood, destined never to topple', which to me was basically the fanciest set of words ever strung together, back when I heard them."

"Which was..?" Axel hoped that Joey didn’t notice his little wince. This was always the hard part.

"I wanna say early 1400s? It's been a long time, and I didn't actually notice that I'd stopped aging until I was 50."

There was a long stretch of quiet, then. Axel could hear kids playing basketball on the court across the street from their apartment. His bowl was empty, the bright yellow spoon from the froyo place seeming to mock him where it sat.

“So you’ve been 17 for like 600 years? Shit, you’ve got that vampire kid beat by miles.” Axel choked on the breath he’d been holding, too relieved to care that his laughter had spiraled into a coughing fit.

“Did you just compare me to the guy from Twilight?! We’re not friends anymore.”

But they were friends, best friends. Friends that shared the deepest of secrets. They talked all through the afternoon, until the day’s shadows lengthened and vanished. Joey asked him about his earliest years (”Isn’t Kiev in Poland?” “Close, Ukraine. I’m not from Kiev, though. The town I was born in was several hundred miles away, and was part of Russia. It might be part of the Ukraine now, I don’t know. I haven’t really kept up with border lines since I came to America.”), and how he’d managed to keep himself alive for so long (”Stayed away from big cities when people started dying like crazy, avoided getting caught up in any big revolutions, stole and hid a lot of gold over the years, and changed identities every 25 years or so.”).

“So wait, is Axel Walker even your real name?” Axel shrugged.

“Legally? Yeah. I’ve got a guy who draws up new identities for me. His great-grandfather and I served in the war together. I just tell him what I want my new name to be, he does the rest.”

Originally, his name had been Absalom. He’d kept that name for a long time, traveling from place to place whenever people began to act like they knew him too well. It worked for decades, too; no one questioned the legitimacy of Absalom the walker, who traveled here and there with his cart and sold the clothes made in his mother’s shop back home. He simply was, and simply did. 

And then some asshole came up with surnames and record-keeping, and his entire way of life went out the window. 

Absalom became Abraham, became Alexander, became Arthur. Then back to Absalom for a brief period in the early 1900s, when he enlisted and was sent back to Europe. From around 1930 through 1965, he was Adam. Safer that way. He might go back to Absalom again some day, if the old-fashioned biblical names ever come back into style.

Joey raised a brow.

“It’s a version of my real name.” Axel relented. Absalom Walker had a paper trail, one he’d tried damned hard to erase effectively but...bits and pieces were still there. And that part of his life, he wasn’t ready to share just yet.

His larger friend shrugged, then stretched his arms above his head, went to stand. “Okay, fine. So now that I know you’re legal to have a beer, want one?” Axel wrinkled his nose, and Joey laughed. “You’re older than dirt and you just...never learned to like beer, huh?”

“You shouldn’t have to learn to like a drink.” Axel grumbled, following Joey to the kitchen. “Beer is just Stockholm Syndrome: the beverage.”

Joey laughed so loud and so long at that, their downstairs neighbor began to bang on her ceiling with a broom. Axel would apologize later, probably. Mrs. Bergman was in her 80s and crotchety as hell, but she also liked to shove fresh batches of aebleskivers at him whenever he went home via the fire escape and passed her window.

“You realize that every time you say something weird now, you won’t be quirky, right? You’re just a confused old man, who can’t understand the youth of today.” Joey gasped once he’d finished laughing, tossing him a bottle of root beer. 

“Joey, you’re 25. You’re not even a youth of today anymore.”

“Maybe, but I don’t remember where I was when Franz Ferdinand was shot.” Now it’s Axel’s turn to laugh and he does, throwing his twist-off cap at his roommate.

He’d expected this to be weird, for Joey to send him packing. To have to up and leave a city yet again  because of something he literally had no control over.

Instead, they’re drinking root beer and laughing about historical assassinations. As you do.

“You know you’re stuck with me, right? I’m gonna be your grand kids’ babysitter someday.” I’ll be a pallbearer at your funeral, he doesn’t say, because that reality is just too sad to think about right now.

“I figured as much, when I woke up from a coma and you’d moved into my place. We’re BFF, bro, emphasis on that second F.” Joey held out his fist for bumping, and Axel took the offer.

Eternity lasted a lot long time, and it could get lonely. But for the first time in quite a while, Axel was content. He’d be set for friendship for the next few decades. 

And who knew, maybe tar could be just as ageless as he was. It couldn’t hurt to try.

[queenofcats17]

Believe

Based on a quote prompt from @magicalmonsterhero

Written for @yunisverse ‘s Rubberhose AU

When Henry had first arrived back at Joey Drew Studios, he’d played over the conversation he’d have with Joey over and over again in his head. He’d added to the conversation since being turned into a toon. And so, he had a lot he wanted to say to his former friend when he finally met him again. Here he was, outside Joey’s office with the toons behind him.

“Y-You don’t think he’ll be mad, do you?” Boris asked, his whole body literally shaking. 

“Don’t worry what Joey thinks.” Henry said, patting Boris’ back. “He can’t hurt you. Not as long as I’m here.” Even Bendy looked a little scared as Henry opened the door. As soon as the door opened, the toons hid. Joey rose from where he was seated in his chair, beaming at Henry.

“Look at you!” He laughed, slapping his knee. It took everything Henry had not to go over and throttle Joey.

“Hello, Joey.” Henry said coolly.

“Why so cold?” Joey asked, striding over to take Henry’s hand in his.

“Well, first of all, I’m literally a living cartoon,” Henry quickly pulled his hand away. “Second of all, most of our former coworkers are literal ink monsters, and third of all you’re a bastard.” Bendy snorted from outside the room, but Joey didn’t pay any attention to that.

“I’m doing something amazing here, Henry!” Joey said. “You’re proof of that! Look at you!” He laughed, an ink stained hand clutched to his head. “Sure, the design’s a bit wonky, but you’ve become everything I’ve been trying to achieve! You’re a living, breathing cartoon!”

“Yes. Look at me.” Henry said, completely calm. “Look at what your ink did to me! Look at what it’s done to Sammy and Susie!”

“Some sacrifices have to be made.” Joey shrugged a little, moving back to his desk. “That’s the nature of progress. You know that.”

“You think this is acceptable?!” Henry gestured at himself and back to the hallway.

“It’s not ideal, I’ll admit that, but it’s necessary.” Joey said. “I’m going to revolutionize the animation industry! Think of it!” He leaned forward over his desk. “Think of how amazing it would be to have living cartoons!”

“Joey, none of this is worth people’s lives.” Henry took a step forward. “Not to mention, the toons are far from okay! Do you have any idea how #$%&ed up they are? I’ve met veterans with fewer issues than they have!”

“We’ll figure it out.” Joey waved a hand dismissively, going back to whatever plans he’d been looking at before. “I’ll find a way to help them. Now, if you could come over here, I have some plans to show you.”

“No you won’t.”

“Pardon?” Joey looked up, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“You won’t find a way to help them.” Henry said. “You’ll avoid actually fixing the problems you’ve created because you don’t want to take responsibility for your actions.” Joey laughed, but there was no mirth behind it.

“Henry, you’re going to want to watch what you’re saying.” He said, that dangerous look never leaving his eyes.

“Or what?” Henry folded his arms. “What are you going to do to me, Joey? You have no allies. No one in this studio wants to help you.”

“And they want to help you?” Joey rose from his seat again, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “You left us. You left all of us. I told them as much. They know you’re nothing but a traitor, Henry. You don’t get to come back and play savior after you left all of us!”

“I don’t want to be a savior.” Henry said, shoulders slumping. “Why does everyone want be to be some kind of hero?”

“Because this is a story. My story.” Joey said. “And if you want a favorable part, you have to be on the right side of history. You can be so much more than a traitor if you’ll just help me. Things can go back to the way they used to be!” For a moment, the man Henry had once known was standing before him, smiling that smile that always got Henry to agree to whatever weird scheme Joey had thought up this time. It was nothing but a lie. All of it had been a lie.

“I’m not letting you spread this, Joey.” Henry shook his head. “You’re not doing this to more people.”

Joey sighed. “That’s a shame. I suppose I’ll just wait for you to go full toon and I’ll use you then. You’ll make an excellent addition to the cast.”

“So you think I’m just going to roll over and let you take advantage of me and everyone else.” Henry deadpanned. He’d forgotten just how incredibly cocky his old friend could be.

“What choice do you have?” Joey asked. “I imagine you’ll be fully toon sooner rather than later, and it’ll be easier to deal with you then. You all like following a set story and if I offer you that, you’ll do whatever I say.”

“So we’re just pawns to you?” Bendy chose that moment to pop out, unable to control himself any longer. “Just something for you to use?”

“You must have used Susie too.” Alice stepped into the room as well, looking less than pleased. Boris didn’t even say anything, just walked in and stood there, disapproving. Henry looked down at Bendy, who gave him a curt nod. The little demon wasn’t going to admit that Henry had been right. He didn’t work like that.

“How...How did you gather them like this?” Joey asked.

Henry smiled, spreading his hands wide. “You were right about one thing, Joey. In the end, all I had to do was believe.”

[theworstbob]

yellin’ at songs: week 31

brief reviews of the songs that debuted on the 8.9.1997, 8.11.2007, and 8.12.2017 editions of the billboard hot 100

8.9.1997

10) "Never Make a Promise," by Dru Hill

See, the thing about this R&B song in which a person makes an eternal promise that separates it from all the other dozens I've heard in the past couple of weeks is, goddamnit I was really hoping I would come up with a joke by the time I got to the conjunction, I figured, y'know, I'd get the ball rolling, get some momentum, y'know? If I started saying words in the cadence of a joke, I would get with the program and sort of involuntarily make a joke. I see now the folly in my ways. I should've been better prepared for 1997. I knew milquetoast R&B was in store. I dropped the ball on this one, and dropped it in such a way that it did not start rolling, to tie it back to a metaphor from earlier. I promise to do better. And uh, fun fact about me, I never make a promise I won't keep.

87) "Down for Yours," by Nastyboy Klick ft./Roger Troutman

Pitch the Auto-tune a little lower, put in a few of those drums what sound like a dude roiling his rs to imitate a machine gun, and this is a perfectly acceptable 2017 pop/rap song. I just wanna real quick address something: I know I said last week that every 1997 rapper, short Magoo, was better than the best 2017 rapper, but I was speaking in terms of pop/rap. Like, if you only go by what charted, which is a mistake for so... so many reasons, 1997 rap is better? But once -- I mean, the Kendrick and Jay albums were fire, but more importantly, you've got folks like Vince Staples and Brother Ali and Joey Bada$$ and Lupe Fiasco and SZA making awesome, challenging works that aren't gonna chart. These charts are at once a sample of music history and the poorest imaginable representation of music history. Anyhoo, I don't know what previously held the title of 'most innocuous song to throw Bob into an existential tailspin over the general utility of the YAS project,' but it belongs to this dumb sack of song now!

90) "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up," by Lisa Stansfield

Hey: if nothing else, clicking on this edition of YAS 7s should give you a fun and cool new way to Rickroll your friends. Add a meta layer to your Rickroll game. I know this isn't actually a comment on the song, because how could anyone be aware of memes in 1997? All these songs predate Hamsterdance. Someone should have told Lisa Stansfield there was already a song called this, though. Anyhoo, I'm not actually talking about these songs at all. They're boring! This is probably the most okay song so far, but I'm putting it out of my mind to think about a boring meme about a boring song.

92) "Drink, Swear, Steal, & Lie" by Michael Peterson

aw this guy's just a big ol' dork. i love him! ii love his dork ass song about how in love with his girl he is. this song has one joke and it's still a vastly more complex and well-written song than any pi[50,000 word treatise on bro country redacted]anyway, this dude's great. like, i'm a pop/punk main, y'know? i love dorky and earnest jams. this hits that button squarely, y'all. i'm so into this.

only publishing the 1997 top 20 because changes happen with the other two and i value consistency

20) "Step by Step," by Whitney Houston (3.15) 19) "Can We," by SWV ft./Missy Elliott (8.2) 18) "On and On," by Erykah Badu (1.25) 17) "I Want You," by Savage Garden (3.1) 16) "It Must Be Love," by Robin S. (5.24) 15) "Smokin' Me Out," by Warren G ft./Ronald Isley (6.21) 14) "Fix," by BLACKstreet ft./Ol' Dirty Bastard (8.2) 13) "Silent All These Years," by Tori Amos (3.22) 12) "What They Do," by The Roots (1.11) 11) "Step Into a World (Rapture's Delight)," by KRS-One (4.5) 10) "I'm Not Feeling You," by Yvette Michele (2.22) 9) "Bill," by Peggy Scott-Adams (3.29) 8) "Just Another Case," by CRU ft./Slick Rick (7.5) 7) "I'll Be," by Foxy Brown ft./Jay-Z (2.15) 6) "Felton St.," Leschea (6.14) 5) "Bitch," by Meredith Brooks (4.26) 4) "Mo Money, Mo Problems," by The Notorious B.I.G. ft./Puff Daddy & Mase (8.2) 3) "Return of the Mack," by Mark Morrison (3.1) 2) "Hypnotize," by The Notorious B.I.G. (4.26) 1) "Not Tonight (Ladies' Night Remix)," by Lil Kim ft./Angie Martinez, Left Eye, Da Brat & Missy Elliott (7.12)

8.11.2007

47) "Stronger," Kanye West

Graduation is such a goofy album because it has three of the best Kanye singles of all time, including what, let's be real, probably ends up as the best song from 2007, but it's also Kanye's worst and least interesting album. It's Kanye at a crossroads, stuck between being the pop/rap god and the morose Auto-tune sadlord who makes 808s and MBDTF. This song actually finds Kanye at the perfect point in the crossroads. He's still making a towering achievement for the mainstream, but he's breaking out of being chop up the soul Kanye, moving into electronic territory, developing his sound into that direction in a way that doesn't quite sound like MBDTF but sounds like the first step on that road. It'd be a bold experiment if it didn't absolutely work, and this is an amazing song by any objective measure.

65) "Cyclone," Baby Bash ft./T-Pain

Man maybe I just haven't noticed it yet or maybe I'm just coming down from the "Stronger" high, but I forgot how horrible the generic crunk beat was to listen to. It hasn't been quite so prevalent, but heck whoever gave this dude the Lil Jon MP3s. I will say that T-Pain making noises to describe what it feels like when a woman dips it low is the tiniest little miracle of a thing, but boy, is my life not better with this song in it. OK I just got to the part where T-Pain makes that noise three times in a row, this song is an achievement in Western art and culture and the world is saved.

83) "Love Me if You Can," Toby Keith

who the fuck listens to toby keith for the ballads like who is this for who thinks of this song when they think of toby keith no legit dude just make dumbass party jams i don't get why this would ever need to exist

84) "Take Me There," Rascal Flatts

Like legit why would you give "Love Me if You Can" to Toby Keith when Rascal Flatts is literally right there. Songs like "Love Me if You Can" and this treacly pile of love song are why you made Rascal Flatts in the first place. I also enjoy the twist this puts on The Country Song. I don't think anyone ever came to Rascal Flatts for Authentic Country Music, so them saying they want the girl to take them to Main Street and the backroads is actually kinda sweet. Like, they're not posturing, they're saying, "Yeah, we're clearly city softboys, but we wanna see the small town blue jean nights that made my girl." Rascal Flatts: generally inoffensive yet again! They just keep comin'!

89) "Proud of the House We Built," Brooks & Dunn

I like this song because it reminded me of The Wonder Years' "Teenage Parents," and I appreciate the opportunity to think about The Wonder Years. I dunno, country hasn't really been problematic this week! This song is almost good! It's just a nice look back on life. "Yeah, it kinda sucked, butcha know what, we made it." Maybe it could've acknowledged that the tough times sucked instead of looking back smiling and saying, "I wouldn't have it any other way?" Hard times suck, dude. I know you haven't heard that Paramore jam yet, but hard times suck and you shouldn't idealize them. Especially when, you know, you're a millionaire, and people who are actually going through hard times are listening to you and saying, "Welp, guess this is my station in life!" Hey Bob you're going on a treatise on the sociological implications of bro country, and you are actually unable to write that. Please write about JoBros.

92) "Hold On," Jonas Brothers

What a week for songs named after far more notable '80s jams! (Actually Wilson Phillips w)I LOOKED IT UP AND DECIDED I DIDN'T CARE anyway did anyone else forget that Jonas Brothers are like legit songwriters? Like, this is definitely as good as any Simple Plan song, and Simple Plan was like a decade older than these kids. Does Simple Plan make good music? That's beside the point, which is that Jonas Brothers was never garbage. They were always making highly enjoyable pop/rock songs for the whole family, and they were capable of making these songs from an extraordinarily young age. We could've done worse, is what I'm trying to get at. Like, we had it pretty got dang good with the JoBros, friends! There's a world where JoBros fades into semi-obscurity and makes highly enjoyable Christian rock with Hanson, and also no one ever makes "Jealous," and that's a pretty OK alternate reality, that one.

100) "Hood Nigga," Gorilla Zoe

The most optimistic sentence on Wikipedia is, "This is Gorilla Zoe's only top 40 hit on that chart, to date." This song ain't bad! It would've been a fine #1 in some of those weeks where the best song was like "Do it Just Like a Rock Star." He has this really fun and gruff voice, maybe a little laconic but certainly pleasant to put in the ears, the beat is, as the kids might have said in 2007, knockin', and we have certainly heard worse things! Also the radio edit replaces N with F and of all the letters to replace the N, F is easily the funniest, because now this song is about a dude who can't get enough figs in his life. Fuck Cristal, this dude's got a Fig Newton cabinet.

New #1 hype! 20) "Lip Gloss," by Lil Mama (6.9.2007) 19) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007) 18) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 17) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 16) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 15) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 14) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 13) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007) 12) "Can't Tell Me Nothing," by Kanye West (6.16.2007) 11) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007) 10) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 9) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007) 8) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 7) "Misery Business," by Paramore (7.21.2007) 6) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 5) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007) 4) "Beautiful Flower," by India.Arie (6.16.2007) 3) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) 2) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007) 1) "Stronger," by Kanye West (8.11.2007) Hey guess what the alt-country song doesn’t end up being Record of the Year 2017. Also I made a minor adjustment to #20 because Lil Mama is going to stay around as long as I feel I cannot bop her in good conscience.

8.12.2017

40) "Back to You," by Louis Tomlinson ft./Bebe Rexha & Digital Farm Animals

Huh, well, I think I mind this the least of all the One Direction side projects! I'm down for a duet, even if this is just a little too low-key to ever attain Iconic Duet status -- drunk folks and karaoke wanna shout about love, and while I'm sure they'll appreciate the "you fuck me... up" phrasing, you're not giving them a lot to work wth. I've never minded Bebe Rexha as little as I do here, and just like in his boyhood, Louis Tomlinson doesn't do anything to ruin everything. This was passable. I wouldn't mind hearing this again, I wouldn't mind if a thousand lives were lived before I heard it again.

61) "What's My Name," by China Anne McClain 81) "It's Goin' Down," Descendants 2 Cast

Listen. Am I upset that this young woman's villain song does not in any way hearken back to "Poor Unfortunate Souls" in any way? Of course. Am I 15 years aged out of the target market for this song? I mean fucking obviously, I knew we'd be treading in these waters eventually. These are fine generic pop songs, the only true flaw in any being the fact someone looked at purple-haired girl and said, "She should be in a rap battle. I think she could convincingly hold her own in a rap battle," like I'm sorry sweetie you have an abundance of other talents and zero bars. It's charming. It's charming! Listen. Am I ready for China Anne McClain to rule the world for five yet-to-be-determined years in the future? Yes. Do I love Captain Hook's gay son? I LOVE CAPTAIN HOOK'S GAY SON

77) "Issues," by Meek Mill 79) "Wins & Losses," by Meek Mill 83) "1942 Flows," by Meek Mill 96) "We Ball," by Meek Mill ft./Young Thug 97) "Fuck That Check Up," by Meek Mill ft./Lil Uzi Vert 99) "Heavy Heart," by Meek Mill

So if I'm rating the theme weeks of 2017: 1) Kendrick Week 2) Jay-Z Week 3) Future Week 4) Meek Mill Week 5) Migos Week 6) Ed Sheeran Week 7) Big Sean Week 8) Drake Week 9) Bryson Tiller Week I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed these songs. Like, I'm actually adding the Meek Mill album to the library for future listening. "1942 Flows" and "Wins & Losses" are legit, they're engaging songs and Meek Mill brings passion to them, and maybe I'm just unfamiliar with the rest of Meek Mill's catalogue, but I honestly didn't expect to be involved in these songs. This seems like a fine album with which to kill a summer bus ride or two. Like, I can't remember the last time I heard a song with a Young Thug feature where I wasn't paying more attention to what Young Thug was doing. Meek Mill did fine work. (Worth noting: Wins & Losses is 15 minutes longer than DAMN., and I am curious what makes Meek Mill think he has 15 minutes' more of worthwhile thought than Kendrick.)

91) "Imitadora," by Romeo Santos

It was "Heroe Favorito," right, where I said I might enjoy Romeo Santos' whole thing on another day, when I was ready to accept him into my life? WELL HOT DIGGITY, Y'ALL, 'CUZ TODAY'S THAT DAY. I love his breathy falsetto thing over this song way more, it just fits. I'm also in love with this track, this gentle Latin guitar with occasional blasts of indie platformer main menu music. I don't know a better term to express what I mean because I'm bad at music, but these synth blasts play in the intro and outro and occasionally come back and they just take this track to another level. This is just phenomenal work from someone I now understand to be a veteran in the scene from the past seven months of limited engagement with the world of Latin pop.

I changed the top of the 2017 Top 20 again. 20) "Bodak Yellow," by Cardi B (7.22) 19) "Woman," by Kesha ft./The Dap-Kings Horns (8.5) 18) "Smile," by Jay-Z ft./Gloria Carter (7.29) 17) "Love Galore," by SZA ft./Travis Scott (7.1) 16) "Bad Liar," by Selena Gomez (6.3) 15) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 14) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 13) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22) 12) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 11) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 10) "Strangers," by Halsey ft./Lauren Jauregui (6.17) 9) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton (5.27) 8) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 7) "Imitadora," by Romeo Santos (8.12) 6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 5) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13) 4) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 3) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) Like #1 should be a mix of Most Impactful Song and Song I Enjoyed Most, and maybe #1 justifiably belongs to “Despacito” given how great that is, I’m still getting a lot of mileage out of “Issues,” and honestly as long as I’m not keeping up this silly idea that a song that was #90 for one week is the most iconic song of the year this useless list has at least some utility. Shoutout to the true heroes Paramore, though. And also Major Lazer, PARTYNEXTDOOR, and Nicki Minaj. I will never fucking forget you guys.

Who won the week?

2017 actually put up a rather strong fight, but there was no way Meek Mill and the Descendants 2 soundtrack were going to take down “Stronger,” even when it was being weighed down with Toby Keith. 2007 had a couple strong punches, and it was more than able to notch another point. 2017: 11 1997: 11 2007: 9 In next week’s post, we get to listen to Spice Girls AND Billy Joel, 2007 gives us Luke Bryan AND Robin Thicke, and I don’t know what fresh hell 2017 has in store but evidently Tay Tay collaborated with B.O.B. at some point in the recent past and it’s gonna be real fun to deal with B.O.B. the popular musician should it come to that. What an unproblematic and unremarkable artist who has precisely zero bad opinions which he expresses loudly!

[worstshowever]

Alante & Nevaeh

“Alante & Nevaeh”

Season 6 Episode 2 

Original Airdate: March 8, 2017 

More Appropriately Titled: Kissin’ Cousins 

This season has been full of mooks so far. Here are two more. 

Alante emails “A small town guy with a big time love.” Nev immediately finds a way to make this all about him. He shares his dream car is a Cadillac Alante. Wow, big surprise. I learned something about Nev I neither asked for nor wanted to know. Alante is from Saginaw, Michigan. The crowd goes wild because 90% of America’s catfish are in Michigan. For eight (!) years, Alante has been in purgatorial relationship with Nevaeh. Ross and Rachel suggest she could be the female Nev. Please, for the love of God, I do not have the mental strength to handle two Nevs. 

Alante has gone to meet her multiple times. However, something always popped up that prevented them from meeting, which is completely shocking and unheard of. He says she disappears for weeks at a time. I also do that, but that’s because I’m rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. 

They get Alante on the horn. He met Nevaeh online when he was a senior in high school. They spoke for years, but it only got serious when they swapped heart and kissy face emojis. 

*Looks into the camera like Jim Halpert*

I look into the camera like Jim Halpert for the following reasons: 

1) Millennials are stupid. 2017 is stupid. The future is stupid. 

2) The art of communication is dead. Aristotle would be horrified. 

3) My mom literally just told me she needs attention. 

Alante and Nevaeh have Skyped, but she’s always been in a pitch-black room. Nev musters up the strength to talk about someone other than himself. He asks Alante if he sees how suspicious all these moving pieces are. Alante says, “I try not to think of it like that.” I don’t think he’s thought much about the mechanics of this relationship.

Nev starts rambling some garbage about how this will be the one! She will be who she says she is! It’s mad trash. This is why you should sign my WhiteHouse.gov petition to have me replace Nev. Max completely ignores Nev’s barf-worthy sentiment because he, like myself, has common sense. 

They're off to see the wizard. 

They arrive in Saginaw. Surprisingly, Nev rings the doorbell instead of letting himself in uninvited. After chatting for a few minutes, Max does something very Nev-like and asks if Nevaeh’s tiny girl brain is capable of keeping up with Alante’s highly intellectual wit. Trust me, he’s no rocket scientist.

Alante tells Phoebe and Joey that he and Nevaeh spoke all day long until Jimmy Hoffa here suddenly disappeared for months at a time. She would reappear and pick up the conversation as if nothing had happened. Way to keep the upper hand, girl.

Alante has seen eight photos of Nevaeh in the last eight years. The stress of not knowing her is causing him hair loss. He was recently hospitalized due to the stress she brings him. I dead-ass don't even have a joke for this. Some people deserve to get catfished. We’ve seen plenty of bozos over the years deserve it. Nev definitely deserved it. Now this guy (eight years!). 

Nev drives recklessly through a parking lot and then they arrive at their off-brand Starbucks. Alante sends Monica and Chandler all the dirty deets and we learn Nevaeh has two phone numbers. 

*Looks into the camera like Jim Halpert*

I look into the camera like Jim Halpert for the following reasons: 

1) He should know better. Midwesterners are smarter than folks from the rest of the country. Think about the mental fortitude it takes to endure a -30 degree winter. It takes some brains to do that and not die. As a midwesterner from the greatest state in the union (Illinnoying), I am ashamed. 

2) I have nothing for this point. I did, but it’s in an argument with someone about how it’s pop, not soda. Politely, of course. 

The google image search yields results. Nevaeh is really Audrey. She has 13,000 Instagram followers. As they look through her Facebook, a producer tells them how to insert their usernames into the URL to look at their friendship and see what they've posted to each other. They marvel as if this is a great hack. However, Facebook has a button called, “See Friendship.” This is a prime example of why no one, especially the kale eating, trendy exercise-doing west coast, can measure up to the great midwest. If you want kale in the midwest, you gotta farm it. But I digress. 

Alante and Nevaeh have 46 mutual friends, which is a lot for a fake profile. All their mutuals are in Saginaw. They send out the Catfish miranda rights to all 46 friends. 

They google the phone number, excuse me, ONE of the phone numbers and learn it belongs to a Latoya in Saginaw. They do their super cool cutting edge new hack and find she and Alante have 23 mutual friends. I don't think this means anything at all and has contributed nothing to this search but what do I know. I only went to one of Newsweek’s top high schools and one of Forbes’ top 50 colleges. Both in the midwest. 

One of their 46 new best friends messages them back, so they decide to come on too strong and give him a call. Royon tells Rachel and Monica he was recently flirting with Nevaeh on Facebook. 

Max then says something so white, it’s wearing a polo shirt on a golf course; “She’s hollering at guys in Saginaw.” 

The next morning, Nev tells Max he continued on with Nev’s Catfish, written, directed, produced, and hosted by Nev and nobody else. He spoke to two more fellas from Saginaw. They both said Nevaeh flirted with them on Facebook. I do not know if the intended purpose of sharing this information was to show the wide net cast by this catfish or to needlessly slut-shame her, but either way, they achieved their goal. 

They head over to Alante’s house. He’s hosting a barbecue. The guests of honor lucky enough to meet handsome, rational Max are Alante’s brother, Joe, and his godsister, Ericka. Ericka’s chest and shoulders are all tatted up and I think women who tattoo their chest are mad brave. She says she hopes Alante gets the closure he needs because eight years is quite a long time to string someone along. She is also positive Nevaeh is a girl. I love this juicy lil diddy, so keep it in mind as we continue on this adventure. 

Joe and I have almost the same pair of glasses, so I’m going to trust whatever he says. As he puts nearly a whole hot dog in his mouth, he tells Nev he hopes Nevaeh can cook. Maybe I won’t trust what he says because that’s really not our top concern right now. 

Ross and Chandler sit down to show Alante the deer they shot on their hunting trip. As they open Audrey’s (the real girl’s) blog, the recoil hits Alante right in the eye. Nev shows Alante his and Nevaeh’s mutual friends. He asks if he recognizes anyone. Wow, c’est incroyable, Alante recognizes his Facebook friends. Nev then takes a tone as if Alante was the one who asked such a stupid question. To kick him while he’s down, Nev tells Alante Nevaeh is flirting with other fellas on Facebook. 

They show him Latoya’s Facebook. He does not recognize her. MTV plays an angsty song about pain and love lost. 

Nev shoots the ole gal a very demanding text. Right as Alante falls apart emotionally, Joey and Monica decide to leave. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Cool glasses, huh? However, mine are gold all the way around. 

In the car, Nev gets a call from Seiairah, Nevaeh’s friend. She asks to meet them. The goons are concerned this is a trap. A trap for what. You’re two grown men with an MTV camera crew. What’s gonna happen to you. 

They meet Seiairah at what I can only assume is an abandoned gas station where teenagers smoke beer at night. Seiairah is good friends with both Nevaeh and Alante. She says there’s more to Nevaeh than they know and she wants her to come clean. She offers to call Nevaeh since Ross and Phoebe have been unable to get in touch with her. Sieairah does the job MTV is paying them a million dollars to do. Nevaeh will meet them at a park in an hour. 

They meet up with Alante and, shockingly, Nev breaks character and doesn’t storm into his house uninvited. Alante confirms he knows Sieairah and she has a big crush on him. Sieairah looked like she was 16, so naturally, Nev says something gross and disgusting. “A little young. She’s cute. Not sure what your hangup is on that.” 

*Looks into the camera like Jim Halpert* 

I look into the camera like Jim Halpert for the following reasons: 

1) I am disgusted. 

2) I am appalled. 

3) I am legend. 

Max does not touch this with a ten foot pole because he’s not a human dumpster fire. 

The squad arrives at the park. Nev’s gross comment is followed by something equally cringeworthy. Nevaeh is Ericka, Alante’s godsister. I don’t totally know what a godsister is, I barely know what god is, but if you were raised together and/or have “sister” in your title, should you really be in a romantic relationship.

Ericka says this was a lesson Alante needed to learn. Eight years ago, Serairah had a crush on Alante. To prove he was a dirty dog, Ericka made the Facebook page to show her he talks to other girls. She says she continued the page for so long at Sieairah’s direction and chose her side over Alante’s as some sort of womanly solidarity. Nev calls her on her bullshit.

Nev takes Alante on a man walk to discuss man topics as men. Alante maintains he never had any feelings for Sieairah and never led her to believe he did. Handsome, thoughtful Max stays with Ericka. She tells him she never came clean because she wanted to let him down gently. What’s more gentle than a national television audience and the court of public opinion! 

The next morning, Nev performs a classic Nev action and barges into the house without knocking as if he is claiming it under Taliban law. He calls Ericka to come over and “talk calmly.” Nev finds all women to be hysterical and incapable of controlling their emotions. 

Ericka has arrived and she knocked like a normal person who wasn’t raised in a barn on the Upper West Side. She says, “If you hurt me, I’m going to get you.” Yes! We’re finally getting somewhere. I wanna know the petty reason someone stuck with catfishing for eight years. 

Back when Bush was still president, Ericka began dating one of Alante’s friends. We learn he was a dog and Alante knew but didn't warn her. They dated on and off for seven years. At that point, it’s Ericka’s fault. Come on. This guy wasn't into Ericka and Alante knew but didn't tell her. 

Ericka gets honest and says she loved the attention she got from being Nevaeh. The two establish their friendship is over and Ericka leaves in tears. 

Three months later, Ericka and Alante are on the Skype together. His dad passed away and mourning brought the two back together. Ericka is expecting. Nev practices his best gotcha journalism when he asks who’s the father. He looks like a local Toledo reporter who once had New York City dreams. Nev was sure he was going to end the episode with an M. Night Shyamalan twist. Nice try, Nev.

Recommendation: 3/5 Would Recommend. I'm a fan of any episode in which we meet a middle (wo)man before we meet the catfish. Plus, this one had a good creep factor because of the godsibling aspect. However, their relationship was not high-drama enough to justify eight years. That's fucking insane. 

Final Thoughts: I apologize for the quantity of rants and advertisements promoting the midwest. However, I do NOT apologize for what I said. Midwest is best. Follow me on Twitter @MaeveMcDonough I was just told by my boss to clean it up, so you know it’s good.