#Birds usually live at least 6 years...

[tobeholyistobeempty]

‘SO YOU CAN LISTEN….GOOD.’ | simon ghost riley

📊 result of my poll found here.

WARNINGS - 18+ smut mdni, (amt) engineer!reader, asshole!ghost but with motives, slightly stalkerish!ghost, ghost is a cocky bastard but reader is too, so much verbal sparring, enough tension to choke on, reader afab, ghost is a munch and has a unique way of saying sorry, oral f!receiving, religious undertones, fingering, enemies to something worse then enemies, dubcon bc consent verbally unstated, so much dirty talk it hurts, canon warped a bit.

A/N - this ended up being so much longer than i intended but dear god it needed that build up. ghost makes a real wild first impression. 12k.

Today was just another day. Just another day.

At least, that's what you kept telling yourself as you grabbed your data pad from the terminal and made your way toward the front of the hangar — pulse thrumming, blood pressure undoubtedly a tad higher than usual. Perhaps today was just another day, but to say that it didn't hold slightly more merit than yesterday would be a fucking lie.

Today marks the date of your six month performance evaluation. Today is the day you finally find out if you nab that promotion or not.

And maybe you’re overthinking, maybe you’re nervous for no reason. Did this promotion make or break your career? Would not getting promoted singlehandedly destroy everything you've achieved and accomplished over the last however many years? No.

But it would definitely feel like a real kick in the ass given everything that you've done for this place since you got here.

The day you first got that damned data-pad, you should have known this job would be a complete shitshow. Still, you pulled up yourself up by your bootstraps and did your duties just like every other day — and that day like all the previous ones since you graduated. You’d been all over the world at this point, as an AMT you go wherever you’re needed and usually remain however long you’re needed for. But this transfer — to an unnamed, unmarked base in the middle of goddamn no where — is different then anything you’d ever done before.

The hours are different, the people are different, the pay is different. It was unexpected, but when their last head AMT simply vanished without a fucking trace — it seemed as though they scrambled, and took the next best thing they could find (or so you like to tell yourself).

It’s all a little…strange, to say the least.

And of course, there’s been talk about what happened to their last head engineer, speculations, but it seems no one actually knows for certain. It’s one of those things that everyone low rank whispers about, but no one high up with actual informative intel dares to speak on — which only made the chatter worse.

Along with your nerves.

Regardless, you didn’t have a choice, and the first day of your transfer was a baptism by fire — stepping into the aftermath of utter chaos they'd left behind.

Your job isn’t to save lives in the heat of battle, or to clear rooms, or to conduct stealth operations. No, your job is to repair aircrafts torn to hell and back and continue to keep them functional. It’s rather thankless, and often you'd find yourself overworked and under-appreciated — which, granted, goes hand-in-hand with your overall life summary — but the hangar at TF141’s main base was a sight to behold, and not in any positive sense. Neglected and battered machinery lay strewn about, with debris haphazardly scattered in every fucking corner imaginable. By the time you'd reached the actual aircraft's you were almost afraid to look at them — and for good goddamn cause.

TF141 has two main helo’s: MH-6 Little Bird and an AH-6J Little Bird. Upon first inspection of them, you’d almost thought they'd been through a war of their own — hastily patched together with little regard for proper repair. The evidence of prior negligence was glaring, and you were fucking fuming.

You'd expected some clean up, but not that much.

And to top it all off, you were given clear instruction by General Shepherd himself to keep your mouth shut and your head down, do your job and mind your own. On your way out of his office he informed you, surely out of the sheer kindness of his heart, that although he couldn't tell you what exactly happened to their prior head engineer, you could easily suffer the same fate if you weren't careful.

Which was more than enough to shake the very foundation of your so very deeply engraved attitude problem.

No matter how pissed off and irritated you’d been during your start here, you kept your emotions bottled up until you were back inside the privacy of your barracks and could freely let it explode. It's been a little maddening almost, the solace. You'd been here half a year and the only person you've had an actual conversation with outside of the other engineers is 141’s Captain, and that was only when he was looking for a debriefing on your recent repair work.

However, amidst the avoidance and the uneasy silence that you experience on a daily with the others, there seems to always be one fucking exception;

Ghost.

You'd seen photos and heard a lot about him prior to this assignment — the mysterious Lieutenant with a reputation that preceded him as if the Grim Reaper himself were present on earth.

But meeting him, being around him, well that was something fucking else entirely.

He routinely shows up at random hours, never muttering more than a few words to you before pissing off — disappearing into the shadows or taking out one of the birds. It’s always odd. He is odd. And the cryptic comments coupled with his rather bizarre reputation continue to leave you tangled between the dangerous desire to learn everything you can about the man, and the primal instinct to avoid him at all fucking costs.

Though, even if you had the choice, it wouldn't matter.

If and when Ghost decides to present himself to you, it is impossible to prevent it. His approach is as translucent as his namesake. You'd never fucking know he was coming, and if you did, it’s with purpose.

Nevertheless, you couldn't worry about him, or any of the other nonsensical bullshit today. You had other matters on your mind such as ensuring the hangar was in perfect condition for inspection later that evening. Price let you know rather early in advance that a hangar and aircraft inspection are part of your performance review — which clearly means the state of them would determine whether or not you passed.

There would be absolutely no room for error, and no one to complain to when it didn't go your way either. If this inspection failed, it would be the result of your own incompetence — and you were well aware of how that would be perceived. You didn't want to give any reason, any chance to end up like the former Engineer, after all.

So today is about one thing, and one thing alone, proving yourself worthy of that promotion.

With your data pad in hand, you began a quick sweep of the hangar, ensuring the guys hadn't made too much of a mess overnight or early this morning before you arrived. A few things were out of place, but for the most part, everything looked good.

Well, except for one thing — which was currently barrelling toward you at a dangerous fucking speed.

"Bloody fucking hell..."

Your data pad nearly fell from your grasp, your jaw dropping in disbelief as your ears rang — no, damn-near wailed — a deafening roar shattering the silence you'd just found yourself in, accompanied by the shrill whine of metal grinding against metal. You couldn't believe your eyes, your feet absentmindedly carrying you closer to the destroyed helo landing on the far side of the hangar, smoke billowing from its battered frame, obscuring the air with a veil of grey.

And as you got closer, you realized it only got worse — a door was missing, torn from its hinges, and half of the exterior was brutally ripped away. You didn't even realize you were clenching your hands into fists until you felt the glass of your data pad crack beneath your fingers.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me.” You’re all but yelling as you take in the damage. "Today? Today. Of all goddamn days! Bloody ignorant bastards.”

As soon as those words were past your teeth, there’s movement from inside the cabin — heavy laden set steps — two iron slabs clanking against the metal floor, quaking the ground underneath your own feet, too. The air thinned slightly, but you didn't notice, too inebriated off your anger to think of anything other than cursing the hell out of whoever was inside.

You came to a halt in front of the now door-less opening, coming face to face with a pair of rich brown eyes peering down at you.

"Care t’repeat tha’?" A deep, low voice rumbled from under a faded, skull-faced balaclava. You swear the ground trembled as he jumped down. "...I'd like t’make sure I heard y’right."

You’d have to imagine he was grinning under that mask, and it only made your fucking blood boil.

"Ghost, why didn't you tell me-“

He cuts you off mid-sentence with a gesture of his hand.

"I need permission t’take out my own helo now? Huh.” A shake of his head. “Y’should know I was told to test your repairs. Bosses orders, sweet’eart. Take it up with him if you’ve gotta’ problem.”

"You-" your lips part, but words elude you. Due to his admission or the nickname he used, you aren’t entirely sure. "What?"

Ghost blinks, sight sweeping the empty hangar for a fraction of a second before fixing back on you.

"Y’heard me." He steps closer, smoke billowing behind him. "Or d'you need me t'repeat it again?" A pause, twitch of his lips. "I can speak slower, if you’d like.”

What a dick.

You pull your own lips thin, trying to trap the profanity desperately wanting to fly his way. “I think you’ve done enough.”

He just hums.

"Way I see it, y’got two options.” He starts, and you long to tell him to shove his options somewhere the sun don’t shine. “Get pissed off with me, which is futile, since I ain’t the one y’actually got a problem with. Or, y’can get back to work and fix er’ up before Price comes down in an hour. Your choice 'ere."

An hour. A fucking hour? Is he clinically insane? This is easily about three days of work. And that’s if the bloody stars align.

"You’re unbelievable.” Scowl laden, you frown at him, words dripping venom as you shake your pounding head. "How nice of you to give me the option of choosing. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude, truly."

A beat of silence, unreadable eyes flicking over you.

“S’that sarcasm, engineer?” And then, he takes another step closer.

It never gets easier — the way he fills the space, how much bigger he is when he’s this close, broad shoulders cutting the world around you down to just him. He could crush you if he wanted. You’ve never forgotten that.

Your lips part, but before you can get a word out he’s already speaking.

"Y'know," he peers down at you with a slight tilt of his head. "A simple ‘thank you' wouldn't be the end of tha’ world."

You deadpan, biting back the scoff threatening to escape. Thank him? He wants you to thank him — for blowing a helo out of the sky an hour before the biggest inspection of your life? No. He’s not insane. He’s out of his goddamn mind.

“Thank you for what, exactly?” You force the words out, fighting to keep the sarcasm at bay, to sound even remotely genuine.

It doesn’t help that he’s right there, close enough to reach out and touch. You’ve been through enough in your time with the military to handle pressure, but there’s something about him — the bulk of him, the way he commands the space around him, the fact you can never read his facial expressions — that makes it hard to breathe.

Not to mention the tac gear he’s always dressed in. Layered thick like it’s meant for a frozen wasteland instead of the stifling summer heat you’re currently experiencing.

“F’givin’ you a passin’ grade,” he says, like that means a damn thing to you.

This game is getting old.

“What the hell do you think you’re talking about now?” Heat flares beneath your skin, frustration mounting. “If that was a test, then it was a goddamn shitty one. You didn’t fly it. You destroyed it.”

He steps in again, exhaling like you’re the one wasting his time.

“M’giving you an opportunity. Take it or leave it.” You’re ready to bite back, to tell him exactly where he can put his opportunity, but then— “How’re you s’posed to prove y’worth somethin’, when no one thinks you’ve got it in ya?”

For the third time today, he shuts you up. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. This is, without a doubt, the strangest, most infuriating first interaction you’ve ever had with anyone in your entire life.

“Wow.” That’s all you manage. You knew being one of the only female engineers here would put you at a disadvantage, but this? Blowing up the helo just to test if you can fix it? It’s beyond comprehension. “That’s great, Ghost. Thanks.”

He doesn’t blink—just steps closer again, crowding you until you have to tilt your chin up to keep his gaze.

“Lieutenant.” Flat. Unyielding. But there’s something about the way it drips off his tongue that makes the hairs on your arms stand on end. It’s not a request. It’s a correction. “Say it.”

Oh.

Heat licks up your neck, pooling at the base of your skull, and you’re not sure if it’s from anger or something else entirely. You swallow hard, forcing down the lump wedged in your throat because technically he is still your superior, regardless if he holds power over your job or not.

“Thank you,” you start again, your ego turning purple. “Lieutenant.”

You don’t look, but you feel his head tilt. You’d bet your life he’s smiling.

"So you can listen." Warm air skims your throat, and you’re not sure if it’s coming from him or from the heat of the burning aircraft - but it stings. "...good."

And then, when he realizes you’ve most likely bitten your tongue in half at this point, he takes a step back. You watch him now, eyes like a laser as he turns and heads for the door without another word. And almost immediately after he vanishes out into the hall you take the opportunity to suck in air like you’re starved of it, not realizing how fucking tense you were until he was out of sight.

Leaving you with a burning helo, an hour of time to fix it, and a whole lot of fuckin’ irritation.

“You bastard.” You mutter under your breath, staring at the wreckage before you.

If there was another option, you sure as hell didn’t know it. But no matter how impossible this seemed, failure wasn’t on the table — not after the years you’d put into this, the money, the sleepless nights, the sacrifices. You didn’t crawl your way up through this goddamn system just to crash and burn now.

You needed a miracle.

And for the next two hours in the hangar, chaos was the only thing you knew.

You’ve never worked this fast in your life. The moment you got down to business you started barking orders, pulling maintenance techs and engineers off other projects, shoving tools into hands and sending them where they’re needed. There’s no room for hesitation, no time to second-guess — the aircraft has to be back in the air, and it has to be now.

And within minutes smoke steeped the hangar, sparks bursting like firecrackers from stripped wires. Everyone’s locked in — shouts, curses, the groan of machinery being pushed and pulled back together reverberating. It’s frantic, relentless, like a pack of starving wolves tearing at a fresh carcass, and you’re right there in the thick of it, teeth bared, fighting to hold the whole damn thing together.

But the euphemism falls short, because this wasn’t just a carcass torn open, in need of some stitching. It was worse — much worse.

The helo wasn’t just damaged; it was obliterated. Every inch of it had been shredded to ribbons, from the engine to the exterior frame, internal wiring snapped and twisted beyond recognition. Whatever the fuck that maniac had done, he hadn’t just tested its limits — he’d taken a sledgehammer to it and kept swinging.

You’ve seen aircraft’s in bad shape before, but nothing like this. It was a wreck, a heap of smoldering metal and sparking circuits, and somehow, you’re supposed to pull it back from the dead. But there’s no time to dwell on the impossibility of it — not when you’re hauling replacement parts back and forth, hands slick with oil and sweat, not when you’re welding and soldering with the kind of precision that would make your professors weep, not when the only thing keeping you moving is sheer goddamn will.

And then, after what feels like hours, you hear it—footsteps.

Slow, deliberate, the kind that don’t belong to someone who helps—but someone who watches.

“My, my.” You recognize the voice instantly—Captain Price. “What in the bloody hell happened here?”

You practically fling yourself to your feet, dragging a sleeve across your forehead, smearing grime over skin already slick with sweat. You almost groan in exasperation, but you swallow it down, clenching your jaw, praying to whatever god might be listening for the strength to not say something about Ghost that’ll get you court-martialed.

“Sir,” you greet him with a respectful nod. “I was informed, rather late mind you, that there was a scheduled test flight.”

A beat.

“Test flight,” Price repeats, brow lifting with something you can’t quite name. “Right. Test flight.”

A sharp bark of laughter leaves him, short and humourless, shaking his head as his eyes rake over the half-patched wreckage sprawled before him.

“And this,” he turns back to you. ��This is the damage from that test flight?”

You hesitate—just for a fraction of a second—before nodding, breath held tight in your chest. It’s useless, really. You both know there’s no universe where a few minutes in the air could inflict this level of destruction. Price might’ve ordered Ghost to take the bird up, to test your work a little more personally—but there’s no way in hell he told him to annihilate the goddamn thing.

You’d bet your entire career the bastard did not have permission to go this far.

“Fucken’ typical,” Price mutters, pulling off his cap as he begins pacing around the bird, taking in the carnage from every angle. “Damn near destroyed the thing.”

That’ll be your fault, you think grimly. You’re the one who gave him the fucking order, after all.

But you keep your mouth shut, trailing behind him as he circles the wreckage, eyes sweeping over the mess of half-patched repairs. When he stops short, turning on his heel so fast you almost stumble back, you know what’s coming before he even speaks.

“How long’s this gonna’ take to fix?”

You inhale sharply, trying to steady yourself. Swallow, but your throat stays dry. It’s not hesitation—it’s knowing the answer is one he won’t like. You don’t even like it. Because with the kind of damage Ghost inflicted, there’s no way in hell you’ll have it ready for any type of inspection today.

“For proper repairs and testing?” You exhale, shaking your head. “Days. At least two, sir.”

You brace yourself for impact—for the reprimand, the frustration, the inevitable do better speech. But it doesn’t come. He only sighs, nodding once before readjusting his cap.

“Two days, then.” He’s already walking away, halfway to the hangar doors when he glances back over his shoulder. “Performance review postponed.”

Those last three words make your stomach churn, and then Price is gone.

“Goddamn it. Asshole.”

The curse leaves you sharper than intended, loud enough to carry across the hangar. You don’t care. How could you? The moment you’ve bled for—postponed—because one insufferable bastard decided to make a spectacle of himself. You want to scream, to hurl every goddamn tool in reach straight at his smug, masked face.

Instead, you inhale deeply, exhaling through gritted teeth before turning to the crew.

“Call it a night, guys. I appreciate the help.”

A few nod, murmuring about leaving their assignments to meet early and help with the rest of the repairs, but their voices barely register. You’re exhausted, and you need a fucking shower — so you just mutter some type of agreement and head for the door. You walk the path back to housing, hardly even noticing that it’s nightfall now. Price must have come later than planned, though you really have no idea the hour because in all honesty you weren’t keep track of time. Either way, your boots hit the threshold of the barracks before you even realize you’d made it inside, your full focus on forcing your mind to keep busy.

You head straight for the showers, not bothering to grab fresh clothes. If you stop now, you might start thinking again — about the disaster of a day, about him, about the sheer fucking audacity — and that’s the last thing you need.

You tear off your disgusting uniform in seconds. The water is scalding, but you don’t flinch. If anything, you lean into it, letting the heat work its way into your bones, washing away the sweat, the grease, the tension coiled tight in your shoulders. You brace a hand against the tiled wall, exhaling sharply.

Fucking Ghost.

Your mind takes over now that you lack distraction, and the name alone is enough to set your teeth on edge. He didn’t just make your job harder—he deliberately threw you into the fire, watched you scramble, tested you like you were some new recruit fresh out of training. And the worst part? He got exactly what he wanted.

You hate that you rose to the challenge. That you had to. You just can’t figure out why. Why he did it — where his motives are.

Steam curls around you as you drop your head, water hammering against your spine, drowning out everything else. Your breaths come heavy, dragging in and out of your chest like you’ve just run a goddamn marathon, so busy in your thoughts that you don’t notice the shift in the air, the faint tremor in the ground beneath you.

You don’t hear the footsteps until they’re too close to ignore, breaking through your sorrows, coming to a halt just beyond the dividing wall. For a long, heavy moment, there’s nothing. Just the steady rush of water, the sound of your own breathing.

Then—

“Y’done sulkin’ yet?”

Fucking hell.

You snap to attention, the sound of that voice like a gut punch. Verbal inflection so intense that only after a few conversations (if you can even call them that) you know you’d recognize it in your sleep, and it takes all of your willpower not to react with more than just the involuntary stiffening in your muscles.

You blink the water out of your eyes, trying to center yourself.

“Do you make a hobby out of sneaking in on people while they shower?” You ask, forcing your voice to stay light, to not betray the rush of heat in your chest. You should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve known this wasn’t the end of the goddamn shitshow. “Or am I just that special?”

"Didn’t know I had t’make an appointment for a communal shower.”

God, that does something to you, and you hate that it does. He’s taking your attitude and he’s feeding it right back to you — and the taste of your own medicine has never been so bitter.

Then, you hear his boots against the floor again, his voice accompanying. “Seems there’s alot I don’ know about ya.”

And again. It’s that tone. The way it drags, measured, like he’s thinking out loud. Like he’s taking you apart in his mind piece by piece. Trying to figure you out.

And you—stupidly, impulsively—throw it back at him.

“I’d say we’re even, then.”

It slips out before you can stop it, and you know it’s a mistake the second the words settle. Because he stops moving. The air tightens. A beat stretches long between you. You take the opportunity to reach for your towel, turn off the water, anything to not feel so vulnerable — but it doesn’t help. Not when you’re suddenly so acutely aware of how close he is. How little space separates you.

How very little there is between you at all.

You swallow, forcing steel into your voice. “I don’t even know your name.”

Then, the softest sound — amusement, maybe.

“Not sure y’need to.”

You exhale sharply through your nose, pulling the towel tight around your torso. Of course.

“Not sure I want to.” You mutter, more to yourself than anything.

But he catches it anyway.

You hear the shift of his stance, another hum of amusement. “Coulda’ fooled me.”

And that does it.

You know you’re walking straight into the trap he’s setting, but you don’t care anymore. Your patience is gone, worn to the bone, and you won’t be able to sleep tonight if you don’t get to glare him right in the eyes and tell him to fuck off.

“Cut the shit, Ghost.” The stall door slams open as you shove it wide, padding forward until your bare feet nearly touch his boots. “Why the hell are you even here?”

You don’t expect to hit a brick wall, but that’s exactly what it feels like. He’s missing a layer of tac gear now, hands stuffed into the pockets of his cargos, shoulder propped against the support beam like he’s been here all night. His gaze flicks over your face, your neck, the way water drips from your skin.

You fight not to pull your towel tighter.

“Cap’s orders.” He states, voice easy, right as rain. “Told me t’make amends.”

He has to be kidding.

“Make amends.” You repeat the words flatly, tasting them, turning them over in your mind like they might somehow make more sense on the second pass. “He told you to make amends.”

They don’t.

And when he nods — you huff a laugh, humourless.

“Right. And you thought the best way to do that was to sneak into the showers and stand there like a fucking serial killer?”

“Didn’t sneak,” he says simply. “Walked in same as you.”

You blink. You have this sick feeling he’s enjoying this. Enjoying every reaction you’re giving.

“Yet your intent is not the same as mine.”

He looks at the door, then back to you. “Ain’t it?”

You inhale sharply through your nose, hands tightening around the towel at your chest. You know better than to engage with this — than to let him push and prod and get under your skin. But it’s too late. He’s already there, and you’re too goddamn tired to claw him back out.

“Look,” you sigh, shifting your weight, fighting not to admire the bulk of his chest at your eye level. “Whatever Price told you to do, consider it done. Apology accepted. Now get the fuck out so I can forget this conversation ever happened.”

A long beat. You don’t know what kind of response you expect, but the way he just stands there considering you is somehow worse than all the possible outcomes you’d imagined.

Then, finally—finally—he moves. But not to leave.

Instead, he pushes off the beam, straightening to full height and moves closer. Not much, just enough to make you feel it — the shift in the air — the heat radiating off him.

“Y’sure about that?” His voice is quieter now, head tilting down toward yours. “Seem a little too wound for someone who’s ready t’forget about it.”

A huff. “And you seem a little too invested for someone who’s just here on orders.”

It's stupid. It's really goddamn stupid how he's able to do this, to turn your words into a rope he can use to drag you around the way he wants. You know that. But still, you’re useless in stopping the way your stomach keens as he leans closer.

"Y’gonna deny you’re still pissed at me?” He whispers.

You shake your head. “Never said I wasn’t still pissed.”

"Mhm." He nods along with it. "But pissed don't fully describe it, does it?”

"It’s an improvement from murderous,” you retort, as pointedly as you can muster. “Count your blessings.”

Another hum, eyes dragging slow over your face, like he’s searching for something. Or maybe just savouring it — the way you bristle under his scrutiny — the way your fingers twitch where they clutch at your towel.

“M’grateful for y’kindness. Truly.” It takes you a second to register it—the cadence, the words, the mockery. He’s parroting you. Throwing your own attitude from earlier back in your face. “But y’know, yeah? I only did what I did ‘cause I knew y’could handle it.”

You go still, pulse hammering in your throat.

Bullshit. Bullshit.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ghost.” Your voice wavers, choked by realization that everything he does has motive. “And definitely don’t flatter me. Not now.”

A slow exhale, warm against your chilled skin, hooded eyes flicking to your ear like he’s considering something.

“S’not flattery. Just truth.”

And then— closer. Close enough that the breath between you is thin, almost nonexistent.

“M’not a good man, sweet’eart. M’a filthy, vile thing. But you—” a pause. He breathes in, your hair shifting with the exhale. “Mm. Y’good. Clean. I knew y’could take it. Needed Price t’know it too.”

Well, fuck.

Your head is spinning now, but even through the vertigo you realize your second mistake. You know it’s a mistake the moment it happens — rather, the moment before it happens — but when your head shifts, just enough that your ear brushes against fabric of his mask; you realize it’s the type of mistake you can’t come back from.

And so, you breathe him in. It’s reckless. It’s ruinous. It’s completely unavoidable.

“My gut is telling me you’re patronizing me.” You whisper; something softer, something you shouldn’t allow. A pause. Your lashes flutter. “But god, I can’t figure you out.”

And again, you don’t know what reaction you expect from him. Maybe you don’t expect one at all. It’s been an exceptionally odd 24 hours, so you’re certain nothing can surprise you at this point. But what you definitely don’t count on is the continued brush of his mask against your cheek, or the way your toes long to curl against the damp floor—

"Y’not suppose to." His voice is so deep you feel it in your bones. “S’don’t try too hard.”

You don’t know what to say to that, but you do know you should step back. You need to step back.

But you don’t.

You stay right there, still as the air between you, every nerve suffocated by the viscosity stretching between his words and yours. The scent of him—gunmetal, something dark and earthen—settles in your lungs like smoke; curling, clinging, refusing to leave.

And so, you breathe him in for the second time. A dangerous temptation. “You came here to make amends, didn’t you?”

The words leave you quieter than you mean them to, tinged in something close to breathlessness — something you wish to god you didn’t hear. Something you hope to god he didn’t hear.

Because atleast now, you can say you know how he is — how he listens, how he picks the quirks out of you and files them away for later — how he knows what to do with the things he finds in people, how to use them like leverage.

And you should be immune to it.

You’ve spent your entire career training for moments like these. All the military training you went through, tactical and aerospace alike. You’ve been thrown into war zones, fixed and pulled aircraft’s out of burning fields, run repairs under enemy fire with nothing but your hands and your own goddamn heartbeat when the situation called for it.

You know what fear looks like. You know what death smells like. You know what it means to be hunted.

And yet—this? You never saw this coming.

Never saw him coming.

“Y’want an apology?” He mutters, and you can hear the smirk in it. “Y’want m’to say I’m sorry?”

“That’d be a good start.”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. Just watches you, the smirk in his voice lingering, curling at the edges of the silence between you.

Then, he hums. “How ’bout I do y’one better?”

You barely have time to process the shift before you feel it—his hand—rough, calloused palm grazing slow along the towel covering your hip.

“Let m’spell it out f’you. Nice n’ slow,” he murmurs, fingers tracing lower with just enough pressure to make your breath hitch. “Get y’feelin’ just how much I mean it.”

For a moment, you forget everything.

All the reasons, all the lines. The ones he's crossing — or maybe the ones you're erasing with every second you let his massive paw of a hand touch you. God — you aren't supposed to want this. You don’t know even know him. Don’t know his name, what his face looks like. You don’t know anything about him except that he’s dangerous, and that he’s made you fucking ache.

You exhale — when the moment passes and you remember where you are — a long, almost shaky breath, and it doesn't escape you the way he notices. Watches you through those thick lashes, like he's enjoying the reaction he's been working so hard for.

You wish you could hate him for it.

“Make me feel it then,” you whisper, all pathetic and trembling and borderline wanton as his fingers find the end of your towel, and brush against goosebumped flesh. “Lieutenant.”

And for a moment, you think you’ve made your third mistake of the evening. His title slips out like a curse — and something in your chest roars with how much you mean it.

He's so goddamn cocky. So sure of himself and you hate that you're the one he's so sure of. But when you call him by his rank — when you push that sarcastic mouth of yours just a little bit further, you can feel his reaction instantaneously by the way he stalls — eyes glinting in the low light.

"She wants t’bring rank into this now, yeah?” And when you don’t reply fast enough, he replies for you. “Get in the stall, engineer.”

There's a thousand reasons this is a bad idea. A million reasons you should be saying no right now. But when he looks at you like that, with those eyes like fire locked on yours and practically daring you to refuse him — he has to know he’s not going to get it.

His hand comes up, cupping your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek. “Now.”

And that, is your fourth mistake of the night.

You turn, padding back into the stall you’d showered in only moments before — tiles still beading with diamond droplets, gleaming up at you as you step inside. You turn as he follows you in, crowding you against the wall, broad shoulders taking up all the width in the already cramped space as he shuts the door behind him.

And then, he’s on you.

It's so abrupt and so visceral that it takes your breath away entirely. Your hands go up automatically to catch his chest, steadying yourself when he slots his knee between your legs, pinning you against the wall. Your towel is barely clinging around you, and it’s a shocker it still is — but you forget about it when he starts dipping his head down.

"Feels good, don’t it? Bein’ told what t'do?” He murmurs, fabric covered lips grazing the shell of your ear. "M'bettin’ y’don’t experience this much anymore. Tha’s why you’re melting for it.”

And god, the fact that he’s right. He shouldn’t be, but he is.

Somewhere between your rank and your title and your pride, you’ve forgotten the last time you had someone looking at you like this. There’s a part of you that wants to fight it, to bite and scratch and insist that you're nothing like he's saying — but then a hand slips up around your throat, and the other down between the space separating your bodies, thick fingers catching the end of your towel — and your eyes flutter.

“M’not hearing any apologies.” You manage to mutter, just before those same thick digits find your inner thigh, working up higher.

You're deflecting. The both of you know it. The same pride that drove you to where you are is the same pride that drove him where he is. You think he’s going to call you on it, but then you realize he won’t. Not when the hand at your throat tightens just barely, not when his voice drips into your ear.

"Y’gonna feel em’ soon.”

And then, you do.

You feel the grazing of calloused flesh against sensitive, damn-near celibate flesh. There’s another sound. A low, wanton, filthy moan, and you’re about 94% sure it came from you as beastly fingers slide along your slick slit, exposing the extent of your need to his ego in its entirety — once, twice, curling toward your sopping entrance before you feel the thunder of his hum.

Mocking. "Christ. S’like m’workin’ a faucet, yeah?"

His lips are on your neck now, mouthing slow and deliberate along your jaw even while covered by fabric — and the whimper that slips out is pathetic, even to your own ears.

"Wha’s that?” He all but growls. "C'mon, use y'words f’me. Or d’you only know how t’spit insults?“

You do know how to use your words, actually — and they're usually good ones. You've got a sharp tongue, a mouth just as foul as your temper. So you don't know what to do when every curse, every name, every string of insults you keep in stock gets caught in your throat. You can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but try not to gasp when his fingers slide up to your clit and swirl.

"Fucking hell." Your jaw goes slack under the hand that holds it. "You—really are vile—“

This whole goddamn thing is vile. The way he can ruin you like this — make you quiver like this — in moments without so much as a name or face to attach the memory of it to.

If he's vile, you know you're not much better.

"Yeah. Tha’s right. I know you’re feelin’ it." He murmurs, fingers circling your clit firmer, faster. "Look how y’squirmin’ for it.”

You have half a mind to spit in his face for that. You have half a mind to tell him to go to hell. You have a million other things you should be doing right now other than clawing at his chest just to stay upright as he brings you to the brink of ruin.

"T-there you go again—mmf—“ your words are so breathless it’s pathetic. “Flattering yourself.”

It’s a futile attempt at a rebuttal, a stupid one because you already know the response he’s going to have to it. Pathetic. You are squirming, and you want to hate him for it, so you do. Your nails bite into his chest, dragging, raking slow and hard as if you could tear through the fabric covering it. You know you wouldn’t. Couldn't. But it's still good enough for him to grunt, hand around your throat tightening just enough to make you gasp in response.

"S’not flattery. Just truth.” He parrots himself again from earlier, and you think you’re on the verge of losing your mind because you know him well enough now have to predicted it. “Y’fuckin need this, don’ you?”

It's not a question. He doesn't need you to answer, because you both know how it ends anyway. But god damn him and his words. Because his filthy mouth is the second most dangerous thing to ever happen to you — right behind his fingers. You need to reply. Need to answer. He's going to force a reaction from you one way or another.

But he doesn’t give you the luxury of even trying.

His fingers still with a suddenness that makes you cry out in frustration — silver platter feeding him exactly what he was fucking looking for.

"Mhm. S’what I thought." He murmurs, hand sliding from around your throat to the back of your head. “M’guessing it’s been years. Least’ a couple.”

And it’s then, that you get it.

You get why this man is feared. You get why he’s so fucking dangerous. He’s worse than the name you know him by — because you’re certain even ghosts aren’t this knowing. This brutal. This consuming.

And through the haze in your head, you try to think back to the day you first met him. There had to have been dark signs — omens in your skies — a warning.

Yet, you can’t think of one.

“F-fuck you.” You spit it at him, because it’s apparently all your mouth is good for. “Stroke your ego any harder and it might just fucking cum before I do.”

He laughs, and then you feel it. The grip tightening in your hair, the palm slapping at your inner thigh to work your legs wider.

“Judging by tha’ mouth, y’never been fucked right either.” He mutters, fingers slipping up the slick coating your thighs. “S’alright. M’here to apologize, yeah? I’ll pay m’penance.”

Bullshit.

He’s not going to apologize by any means — if the last however many minutes aren’t proof enough of that. This is punishment in its worst form, and even that’s not enough. If you want him to make it up to you, you’re going to have to take it.

"Get on your fucking knees, then.” You’re so unbelievably wired that you hardly even realize what you’d said. You hardly even realize when you continue. “And use that mouth for something other than self elation.”

If you thought this was dangerous before - you’re not sure what the fuck this is now.

If someone had asked you an hour ago if you'd ever considered you have a death wish of this caliber, you’d have laughed. If someone had asked you if you were capable of saying half the things you’re saying right now, you’d have laughed even harder. But the fact that they’re leaving your lips - your lips that are now trembling with the realization that you just ordered one of the most dangerous men in the world to kneel — is enough to make you dizzy.

But then, he does it.

He sinks to those knees, cargos sponging the cold showered tiles as he does.

And you don’t think— not really — not for a moment.

Because if you did, you might have wondered if your pride and your dignity are even worth the way he’s looking at you right now — like he wants to eat you alive. You might have wondered if you were dreaming, if this was even physically fucking possible — the nameless, faceless man who has scared people shitless with just his reputation, kneeling between your fucking feet.

“Fuck.” It slips out in an exhale, and you don’t even hear it.

He does, though.

And in response, he holds your eyes while pulling at the edge of his balaclava. Just enough to uncover his jaw and lips — thick, pillow-full lips cocked into the type of grin you’d have expected, but steals the remainder of your breath regardless.

“M’gonna’ spell it out f’you. Nice n’ slow.” He rasps, pulling one of your thighs over his shoulder. “M’sorry.”

Oh, how you wish he meant that.

Because he isn’t. He isn’t the least bit apologetic when he pushes your back against the tiled walls with a heavy palm against your pelvis — he isn’t the least bit remorseful when he’s dragging his teeth along your inner thigh, nipping and lapping — and he’s certainly not the least bit sorry as he brings that filthy fucking mouth of his to your slit, and starts to devour you like he’s starved.

And this, you know is sin.

You know this, because you’ve never felt a mouth on you until now that made you think of god. You’ve never felt fingers dig into flesh with enough force to bruise the way his do — never felt anything that could make you forget who you are and where you are and everything in between.

It has to be sin, because no one could do this without an explicit knowledge of what sin tastes like.

There’s no other explanation for the way he can make you keen, arch and moan like this. No other excuse for the way you quiver as he curls his tongue and strokes you until you’re seeing white, just to suck on your clit with a ferocity that makes your stomach tighten and your hands shoot up to cover your own mouth.

“Feel it.” He husks against you, and the sound and sensation make your hips buck forward in response. “Relax an’ feel it.”

It’s not a request — it’s a demand. And you don’t think to defy him when he pulls your hands away, pushes you back, and buries his whole face against your pussy again like he’ll die if he doesn’t. You’re so dizzy you can’t even keep your eyes open. You can only hear your breath coming out in stilted moans and little cries of his namesake — the namesake that you realize the irony of rather briefly, but forget when your brain flatlines all over again.

Because he groans against your clit like you’re the best goddamn meal he’s ever had, and suddenly, you get how easy it is to fall. Fall into the rhythm — your hips moving in sync with the strokes of his tongue, your thighs closing around his skull. You want to scream. You almost want to cry. Your voice breaks with every sound you make, and you know your heart is only a few beats away from beating out of your chest by the way he grips your hips, pulling your cunt to his head before bringing a finger to your sopping entrance.

"Gonna’ stretch y’out a bit.” He rasps, and you aren’t sure if he’s saying it to warn you or to remind himself. “Breathe.”

You try, but then, it doesn’t matter. Because it’s happening — that thick finger pushes inside you, curling against your walls until you’re gasping and covering your mouth all over again.

And god, you aren’t going to be able to look at his skull mask the same way again. Not when you watch it’s shape shifting just slightly as he works his jaw, suckling against your clit with a hunger you can only describe as feral, eyes half-lidded as they lock with your own. You’re certain nothing in the world could have prepared you for this. It's a goddamn match to a bomb as he starts to work another finger into you, curling them in time with his tongue in a way you don’t think you’d have been able to come up with if you’d had a lifetime to consider it. You can feel that tension building — a tight coil of heat and pressure building low in your core.

Then, you feel his fingers inside you doing something odd. Something—

Oh, fuck.

You feel it before you can comprehend it — before you know he’s tracing the first letter, the shape of it hitting in just the right place that it makes your hips buck in response.

S.

Oh. Oh god.

You can feel him hum against you, like he’s savouring it — the way you’re clenching around his fingers as you realize what he’s doing. It takes everything in you not to scream, eyes squeezed shut and hand over your mouth — head back against the wall as you imagine the look in his eyes, how goddamn wicked it must be while he spells out the rest of his apology inside you.

O. Then, R. Then another. Then, Y.

“G-ghost—“ you know he must be able to tell you're almost gone, because when he hits the last R and your breath catches, his name a whoreish moan you try to smother against the back of your hand — he growls in satisfaction. It’s too much. You can't breathe because your climax is right fucking there, and you can’t stop it for a second longer. “G-ghost—m’gonna—ohgod—“

With a suddenness that makes stars burst across the backs of your eyes, he brings his free hand up, stuffing two fingers into your mouth to smother the sound and feel of his name as you cry it. He strokes you through it, pumping you with his fingers as your vision blurs into some indiscernible haze — a kaleidoscope of light and pleasure and everything you know you should never allow yourself to have.

And then, when you finally catch the breath it took to even say his name, he pulls away. Fingers slipping from your mouth and your pussy like a goddamn magician.

A ghost.

Then, he stands up, and you watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand like you’re all the goddamn nourishment he needs before he’s helping you get stable on your feet.

“M’sure y’feel it now.” He murmurs, lips so close to yours you can taste yourself on his breath. "M’a man of m’word, sweet’eart. Always make good on m’promises.”

You’re sure he can see it, the realization in your eyes when you come back down to earth long enough to remember what just happened. Remember that you weren't supposed to let it happen in the first place. That you were supposed to have better control over yourself — and you can guess he knows, by the way he’s looking at you like he knows exactly what you're thinking.

"Guess I made m’point, yeah?"

He tugs his balaclava back in place, and you exhale.

“Yeah, you made your point.” He hums at that, and you tug your towel tighter. “But this—this can’t happen again.”

It takes him a beat to respond, and when he does, it’s simple.

"Of course.”

You don’t know why, but that response makes your chest tighten in a way it has no business doing. It would have been so much easier if he’d given you a smart ass smirk, or a biting response. It would be so much easier if he told you that you didn’t have a choice in the matter, but he doesn’t.

And so, you step closer to him, tilting your head back to keep his eyes.

“I mean it, Ghost.” You whisper. “I’ll take a pound of your flesh before I allow you to fuck with my paystub ever again.”

You thought, at this point, you’d have figured out some type of gauge on his reactions. But still, he proves you haven’t. You don't expect the hand coming up, cupping your jaw to hold you in place as his eyes drop to your lips. You don't expect him to lean in, and bring his own to your ear — and you definitely don’t expect the words that fill it.

“There’s a few things I wanna’ fuck. Y’paystub ain’t one.” He pauses, and you’re certain it’s because he’s enjoying the drumbeat that is now your heart rate. You’d just found your breath and he singlehandedly stole it again. “I’ll be watchin’ f’your enemies. T’let em’ know they contend with me.”

You think you get it then. The reason everyone looks at him the way they do. The reason they're so terrified of him in one second, and willing to take a bullet for him during the next. It's not even because he's trained to be a killing machine. Not because he can see what you're thinking before you even realize you are. Not because he'd walk through fire just to be close to hell.

It's because he's a man of his word, and even you understand the gravity of that kind of loyalty.

You exhale with a nod, and then he’s gone.

[jackoquako]

Burning from the Inside

Yan! Batfamily x neglected! male! meta! Reader

Prologue: House Fire

I do look through the interactions with my fic and block profiles that only use she/her or say “cis girl”.

Summary: A look back in your memories of a simpler time, and how it stopped being so simple. Word Count: 1463 Reading Time: 6:09 (mins:secs) Notes: I've wanted to write a batfam fic for a while but couldn't think of an interesting spin for the reader, that is until I read a oneshot about an Ice! meta reader that I can't seem to find again (😞) and my third eye opened. This reader is low-key inspired by an oc of mine, who I actually have a pinterest board for, but I've done my best to keep y/n fairly blank for people to project onto. It may or may not come up later in the story (haven't decided) but I'm imagining y/n as a trans man and as an unreliable narrator with memory issues so. First chapter is queued to go up in a week! Warnings: written in first person, anger issues (on reader's side), descriptions of a parent dying, lots of mentions of fire, reader being tossed around in the foster system. Please comment if you think I've missed a warning!

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Rage burned under your skin constantly. When you were young, still kind and innocent, it was easier to control, it didn’t burn quite as hot. You still had a temper- your mother would end up dragging you home from school after many arguments on the playground getting too loud, but it never felt so much like drowning before. 

You were never certain of where your rage came from until an event when you were seven. The memory, clear as glass, would replay every night for that week. Whilst playing  in the front yard, you had noticed a car pull up. It was shiny and silver, that you remembered. But the woman who exited the car was more blurred by time degrading the memory. She’d smiled at you as she walked up to the front door, knocking politely without acknowledging you any more. She’d excitedly talked to your mother, giving your mom a piece of paper before your mother blew up. You’d never seen her so angry before. She’d screamed at the woman, scaring her into running back to her shiny car. 

The woman had driven off in a frenzy, the wheels kicking up dead leaves which showered over you in a confetti spray of autumn colors. Your mom had walked over and scooped you into a tight hug before pulling you inside. You didn’t play outside alone much after that. Your childhood had been normal beyond the odd moments like that.

You used to get ice cream with your mom after a particularly hard day at school, walking in the park as you shared a styrofoam bowl of slowly melting ice cream with her. You held onto that memory with an iron grip. She’d also take you to various garage sales and thrift stores, allowing you to buy the occasional toy or plushie every once in a while. It was only when you were older that you realized how tight of a budget you two had been on. You don’t worry about money much anymore. Maybe to someone who’d grown up richer your childhood sounded awful, but to you it was the golden years of your life. You’d never realized how much you valued your life in your small city with your mom, living in your tiny house at the edge of the city limits, until it was suddenly ripped away.

You’d been sitting in class, scribbling away at the margins of your notebook as the teacher droned on and on. Math was your least favorite subject since the teacher had the most monotonous voice ever. You’d only glanced out the window for a moment, staring at the birds in the trees, when the teacher was interrupted by a knock at the door. You watched as your math teacher walked to the door and opened it for an officer. Something like this would usually become the talk of the lunch period, concerned hushed voices slowly graduating into whispery gossiping over the course of a meal. So you’d watched intently as the officer spoke in a low, almost inaudible, tone to the teacher, who turned and locked eyes with you specifically. Your heart began to race as your teacher gestured for you- not another student, not anyone else- to come over. Your heartbeat had pounded in your ears as you got up, already hearing the concerned “what’s going on”s and “is everything okay”s from your classmates. Your teacher had an expression on their face that you couldn’t quite grasp in the moment. Later on, however, you’d later categorize it as something between sorrow and despair. It wasn’t the last time you saw that expression that day.

The officer had gently guided you into the hall where an administrator was waiting. Your worry shapeshifted into nervousness. You couldn’t remember doing anything horrible that’d warrant a police officer being there. Nervous that you’d be expelled over something you couldn’t remember, you began rambling apologies to the administrator, grasping at every single wrong thing you could remember doing. The man had just smiled and looked down at you with something akin to pity- the memory of that pitying expression made your skin crawl- and stopped your rambling with a single gesture. Then, the cop spoke. And the world you’d known shattered into bits.

The words came in bits and pieces as your brain struggled to adjust to this new reality you’d been thrown into. 

Your mother. House fire. The cop was sorry.

That was the thing that always stuck out to you. The apologies from people; as if they’d been the ones to start the fire. It still felt like molten sugar on a burn wound when people responded with “I’m so sorry for your loss”, even so many years later. It seemed like this one tragedy had suddenly changed everyone’s perception of you, reshaping you into the poor boy who was orphaned at the age of 11. 

That week (maybe it was a month, the specifics were hazy) turned into a blur as the world seemed to spin faster and faster around you. Suddenly, you were pulled from school and talking to social workers who had their own shiny cars, you were passed from adult to adult in a frantic bid for control over the situation your small city’s government found itself in. You remembered dizzy days in a guidance counselor’s office, then being rushed to a group home, then to a foster family, then another foster family further away, and again and again. Each time you were re-homed like a bad gift, you found yourself further and further from your little home town you’d loved. You don’t remember anything beyond the crushing weight of your mother being gone.

The only clear memory you have of that time was when a foster family took pity on you and drove you back home, to town. They brought you to the burnt-out remains of your old home. Neither member of the couple could hold you back when you ran towards the charred skeleton of the house. You remember crying and sobbing as hands pulled you away from the remains of the house, your own hands tightly grasping the one thing you’d managed to grab- a small book. You’d been shoved back into the car whilst hugging the book to your chest. Later, when you’d managed the courage to read that plain black book, you’d found that it was your mother’s journal. 

Maybe it was the fact that things had slowed to a more comprehensible speed, or maybe it was because you had something of your mother’s now, but you remembered more from this time period. In fact, you even remembered the foster family you’d been staying with when it happened. They were a sweet couple with a daughter not much younger than you. They’d given you your space, acting unsure and awkward whenever they interacted with you. They’d almost seemed relieved when the social worker came to retrieve you once again, as if having a grieving little boy in their house was equivalent to living with a nuclear bomb. The social worker didn’t need to prompt you at all to gather up your very few belongings and get in her car. You’d leaned your head against the window as she talked about your new home, barely paying attention. She’d talked about how “they” (you didn’t remember who “they” were. Maybe it was the police) had tried to find your father but had been unable, until he came forward himself. That deep anger flared up, flames licking at the bones of your rib cage as you kept it in. So he waltzes out of your life before you’re even born, ignores your existence for 11 whole years, and then struts back in as if nothing happened? The thought made you want to hit something. Someone. It made you want to hurt him. You’d clenched your fist and gritted your teeth as you tuned out the rest of the social worker’s speech.

Then, sooner than you’d wanted, you were in a hallway in one of the many community centers you’d been in, standing across from an elderly man wearing a suit. The fire that made you want to scream and bite and claw like a feral dog was quenched for a minute. Surely this couldn’t be your father, he was far too old. You couldn’t punch him- he’d fall over and die! You simply stood still as the man walked forward and gave a little bow. His voice was posh and his accent was clearly British, not unlike the period dramas your mom used to watch. 

“You, young man, must be (Y/N). Pleasure to meet you, my name is Alfred Pennyworth.”

He’d never know, but with that simple introduction, Alfred Pennyworth changed your world a second time.

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Reptilia - Crocodylia

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Crocodylia, commonly known as “crocodilians”, is our first order of archosaurs. Only three families remain: Alligatoridae (“alligators” and “caimans”), Gavialidae (the “Gharial” and “False Gharial”), and Crocodylidae (“crocodiles”).

Living crocodilians have flat heads with long snouts and flattened tails, with their eyes, ears, and nostrils at the top of the head. Alligatorids tend to have broader U-shaped jaws that, when closed, show only the upper teeth, whereas Crocodylids usually have narrower V-shaped jaws with both rows of teeth visible when closed. Gavialids have extremely slender, elongated jaws. Crocodilian teeth are conical and peg-like, and they have a powerful bite. All crocodilians are semi-aquatic, moving on land either by crawling in a sprawling position or walking in a "high walk" position, traveling with their legs erect. They have thick skin covered in non-overlapping scales and an armored back consisting of scutes. Like birds, their closest living relatives, crocodilians have a four-chambered heart and lungs with unidirectional airflow. Unlike birds, they are ectothermic (“cold-blooded”). They have a largely carnivorous diet, with some species being more specialized while others are more generalized. Crocodilians are found mainly in warm and tropical areas of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, usually occupying freshwater habitats, though some can live in saltwater environments and even swim out to sea.

Crocodilians are generally solitary and territorial, though they sometimes hunt in groups, and can be occasionally social during droughts when water is scarce. Breeding habits usually involve a dominant male patrolling a territory containing multiple females, monopolizing the breeding scene during mating season. Monogamous pairings of American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) (image 1) have been recorded. Depending on the species, female crocodilians may construct either holes or mounds as nests. Different females may nest close together for protection, as one female is usually on guard. Clutches may contain between ten and fifty hard-shelled eggs. The sex of the developing young is temperature dependant; constant nest temperatures above 32 °C (90 °F) produce more males, while those below 31 °C (88 °F) produce more females. All of the hatchlings in a clutch usually leave the nest on the same night, and will call out to their mother for assistance. Their mother helps excavate the hatchlings from the nest and, in some species, carries them to water in her mouth. Young crocodilians gather together and follow their mother. Depending on species, juveniles may become independent between a few months to two years.

Just as birds are the last surviving members of the Dinosauria clade, crocodilians are the last surviving members of the Pseudosuchia clade, which split from other archosaurs in the Early Triassic. However, the order Crocodylia did not evolve until the Late Cretaceous.

Propaganda under the cut:

The critically endangered Chinese Alligator (Alligator sinensis) is associated with Chinese dragons, even called the “Muddy Dragon” historically. The relatively harmless nature of the Chinese Alligator is believed to have been an influence for the helpful nature of the dragon. The fact that the alligator ends its brumation when the rainy season begins and returns to its burrows when the rainwater in rivers recedes, as well as the fact that it lives in bodies of water, may be the reason for the dragon's portrayal as a water-related mythological creature.

The Black Caiman (Melanosuchus niger) is the largest living alligatorid, with a maximum length of around 5 to 6 m (16 to 20 ft) and a mass of over 450 kg (1,000 lb). They are the apex predators of the Amazon, taking prey as large as Domestic Horses and Cattle, and have a bite force sufficient to shatter a turtle shell. Even Jaguars (Panthera onca), who sometimes prey on smaller caiman species, avoid large adult Black Caimans.

The Miocene Purussaurus brasiliensis was a giant caiman once native to South America. It is often regarded as one of, if not the, largest crocodilians to ever exist, with a 145.3 cm (4.8 ft) long skull. A 2022 study estimated a length of 7.6–9.2 metres (25–30 ft) and a mass of 2–6.2 metric tons (2.2–6.8 short tons), based on the body proportions of related caimans.

While most crocodilian fathers are not involved in child-rearing, sometimes even posing a threat to hatchlings, dominant male Gharials (Gavialis gangeticus) (image 2) do actively participate in protecting and guarding their young. One captive male Gharial was observed to show high interest in hatchlings and was allowed by the female to carry the hatchlings on his back.

The West African Crocodile (Crocodylus suchus), once thought to be synonymous with the larger, more aggressive Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), was finally given species distinction in 2003, and only received wider recognition as a valid species in 2011. Ancient Egyptian priests were aware of the difference between the two species, according to Herodotus, with the West African Crocodile being smaller and more docile, making it easier to catch and tame. In Sobek's temple in Arsinoe, a crocodile was kept in the pool of the temple, where it was fed, covered with jewelry, and worshipped. When the crocodiles died, they were embalmed, mummified, placed in sarcophagi, and then buried in a sacred tomb. Herodotus also indicated that some Egyptians kept these crocodiles as pampered pets.

Mauritanian traditional peoples who live in close proximity to West African Crocodiles revere them and protect them from harm. This is due to their belief that, just as water is essential to crocodiles, so crocodiles are essential to the water, which would permanently disappear if they were not there to inhabit it. Here the crocodiles live in apparent peace with the humans, and are not known to attack swimmers.

The Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) (image 4) is the largest living crocodilian, and the largest living reptile. Male Saltwater Crocodiles can grow up to a weight of 1,000–1,500 kg (2,200–3,300 lb) and a length of 6 m (20 ft), rarely exceeding 6.3 m.

The critically endangered Cuban Crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) (see gif above) is known to be highly intelligent, engaging in pack hunting behavior and learning to perform tricks. They are the most terrestrial of the living crocodilians, with reduced webbing on the hind feet and no webbing on the front feet. Once found across the Caribbean, the Cuban Crocodile has been hunted almost to extinction, and can now only be found in Cuba's Zapata Swamp and Isla de la Juventud.

Several species of crocodilian are sold as exotic pets. As they grow larger, pet owners are often unable to meet their expensive diet, space, and lighting requirements, resulting in unhealthy, stunted, and/or deformed crocodilians. Pet crocodilians are often abandoned or released, either resulting in their suffering and death or becoming invasive.

11 of the 26 species of crocodilian are threatened, including the critically endangered Chinese Alligator, Philippine Crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis), Orinoco Crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius), Siamese Crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis), Cuban Crocodile, African Slender-snouted Crocodile (Mecistops cataphractus) (image 3), and Gharial, the endangered False Gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), and the vulnerable American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), Mugger Crocodile (Crocodylus palustris), and Dwarf Crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis). These crocodilians are threatened due to overhunting for their hides, habitat degradation and loss, unsustainable fishing practices, poaching for the pet trade, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and other forms of pollution.

[o-craven-canto]

A cool paper dealing with the conditions and evolutionary background for the evolution of large body sizes, looking at the largest occupiers of different ecological niches in the three recent geological eras (Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic).

Common traits of GIANTS:

Timing: most giants exist near the end of their era. Usually the mass extinctions that divide an era from another take out all largest organisms first, and it takes time for the survivors to grow out again. (Stably, at least. The first burst of growth is fast, but the real giants come later.)

Bodyplan: most giants are vertebrates. Vertebrate giants are generally larger than invertebrate giants, and dinosaur giants are by far the largest on land thanks to their skeletal and respiratory structure. They tend to be groups with fast metabolism and high oxygen consumption.

Environment: for most groups, it's easier to grow gigantic in water than in air. Sea giants are mostly found in highly productive shallows; land giants are not so closely linked to ecological productivity, possibly because they need open environments, to, well, exist.

"Gigantism as a hallmark of competitive superiority appears to have lost its luster on land after the Mesozoic in favor of alternative means of achieving dominance, especially including social organization and coordinated food-gathering."

The Giants identified by the author, by niche (all pictures from Wiki unless noted otherwise):

Ground-dwelling terrestrial predators

Paleozoic: Anteosaurus sp. (Therapsid, ca. 260 Ma [million years ago], 2000 kg) Mesozoic: Tyrannosaurus rex (Theropod dinosaur, 70 Ma, 7700 kg) Cenozoic: Arctotherium angustidens (short-faced bear, 2 Ma, 1000-2000 kg)

2. Terrestrial herbivores

Paleozoic: Tapinocephalus sp. (Therapsid, ca. 260 Ma, 1600-2000 kg) Mesozoic: Argentinosaurus huinculensis (Sauropod dinosaur, 100 Ma, 40 m - 90,000 kg) Cenozoic: Indricotherium (Paraceratherium) transouralicum (stem-rhinoceros, 25 Ma, 7.4 m - 15-20,000 kg)

3. Flying predators

Paleozoic: Meganeuropsis permiana (Insect, 300 Ma, 0.71 m wingspan) Mesozoic: Quetzalcoatlus northropi (pterosaur, 70 Ma, 10-11 m wingspan) Cenozoic: Pelagornis saundersi (pseudotoothed bird, 25 Ma, 6.4 m wingspan)

4. Marine pelagic (open-water) predators

Paleozoic: Helicoprion sp. (stem-ratfish, 270 Ma, 10 m) Mesozoic: Shonisaurus/Shastasaurus sikanniensis (Ichthyosaur, 220 Ma, 17-20 m) Cenozoic: Physeter macrocephalus (sperm whale, living, 24 m - 16,500 kg)

5. Marine herbivores

Paleozoic: n/a Mesozoic: Leviathania sp. (Gastropod mollusk, 150 Ma, 0.4 m) [pic] Cenozoic: Hydrodamalis gigas (Steller's seacow, recently extinct, 10 m - 10,000 kg)

6. Bottom-dwelling marine predators

Paleozoic: "Endoceratid" (Endoceras or Cameroceras sp., Cephalopod mollusk, 450 Ma, 8-9 m) Mesozoic: Ptychodus mortoni (shark, 100 Ma, 11 m) Cenozoic: Odobenus rosmarus (walrus, living, 3.8 m - 1900 kg)

7. Chemosymbiotic marine shell-bearing animals

Paleozoic: n/a Mesozoic: Capsiconcha withami (Bivalve mollusk, 120 Ma, 0.30 m) [pic] Cenozoic: Bathymodiolus boomerang (Bivalve mollusk, living, 0.37 m) [pic of related species]

8. Solitary photosymbiotic marine animals

Paleozoic: Alatoconcha sp. (Bivalve mollusk, 270 Ma, 1 m) [pic of related species] Mesozoic: Titanosarcolites sp. (Bivalve mollusk, 70 Ma, 2 m) Cenozoic: Tridacna gigas (giant clam, living, 1.4 m)

9. Marine pelagic planktivores

Paleozoic: Titanichthys sp. (Placoderm, 360 Ma, 2.5 m) Mesozoic: Leedsichthys sp. (bony fish, 160 Ma, 9 m) Cenozoic: Balaenoptera musculus (blue whale, living, 33 m - 140,000 kg)

10. Marine benthic (bottom-dwelling) suspension-feeders

Paleozoic: Gigantoproductus sp. (lamp shell, 300 Ma, 0.37 m) Mesozoic: Platyceramus platinus (Bivalve mollusk, 100 Ma, 3 m) Cenozoic: Pinna nobilis (fan mussel, living, 1.2 m)

[theanoninyourinbox]

ONE OFF (maybe) WORLDBUILDING TIME

This is all @moths-wc-aus fault with the Worldbuilding generator, and thanks to @exocynraku for the cat description generator!

INTRODUCING STORMCLAN! (yes I know there's now a canon stormclan but it's cool so shoosh and enjoy)

Stormclan is a clan known for their steady demeanors, their efficient actions, and their mercy in battles. They value being like their environment - steady as stone but quick as water, ready to grow like the trees and laugh like the wind - and respect the cycle of life. Their merciful natures comes from the gods they worship - The Five Before. They eat a varied diet, but mostly fish and birds. Certain insects are farmed for the barren times. They weave the reeds and bark of their home into dens, baskets, and accessories.

This clan lives in a verdant stretch of a canyon, on the edges of a grand river. The clan is so large that the are split into 3-5 (depending on the seasons) colonies along the river, all in caves or under stony overhangs.

The main camp is situated under a large, ancient olive tree, and in the den of an equally ancient wolfpack. The nine founders of Stormclan found some of their bones scattered throughout, and sometimes trade the claws to travelers and wandering groups - the rest of the bones were either given to the river or buried beneath the path to The Sacred Grove. A Monster skeleton lies in front of the main cave entrance, and the Leader of the clan will address all from there.

The river is gentle on the surface, but has few places where cats can cross or fish safely. Each safe point is marked with stone stacks, and all cats are taught at a young age to be very careful - fish may be their main food in the hottest times, but the river doesn't differentiate between cat or leaf litter or whole trees. In flash flood season, messengers or available swift and loud cats are stationed at high points, ready to scream an echoing warning to go to higher ground.

The Sacred Grove lies behind the waterfall, down a long tunnel of packed earth. Here a piece of each passed clan member are buried in the walls, the rest given to the river to carry to new places. The Grove has an opening in the roof, allowing a single small tree to grow there. This is where the Speakers go, to offer sacrifices to the Five Before, and to ask the stars for guidance. The stars are where the dead rise to, regardless of their lives. It is the company of the Five Before that is withheld from the wicked, and the ability to give wisdom to the living to the virtuous.

The clan is guided by a single leader, with an heir and several underleaders - one for each colony in the clan. If two colonies merge, the senior underleader takes over, and the junior underleader acts as their heir. If the heir wishes to step down, they choose the next heir - unless they cannot choose (by death, being missing, or being banished, or otherwise), then the clan is asked to vote. The leader is given nine lives - for the nine founders of the original clan - and their health is tied to the health of Stormclan. A happy clan that trust their leadership means a healthy leader - but a clan in turmoil may lead to a sickly leader.

Kits are usually apprenticed at 6 moons, but may take up to 10 moons if they have a disability or special need - so that the best mentor or mentors may be chosen. No kit is left behind, for all kits can overcome anything, with the right mentor or the right role. Training may take up to a year, with the second half of the year being dedicated to learning at least a little of each role alongside polishing their skills. Knowing how to weave a basket may be useful, but knowing what herb helps with snakebite can save a life. This also can ensure an apprentice is happy with their role - there is no shame changing a path to a better or more fulfilling one. All cats know how to hunt, and work in shifts of their chosen duties and hunting duties. Cats may take mates at the half-year apprenticeship mark, when they gain their adult names and visit the Sacred Grove with offerings to each of the Five.

Messengers are traveling nearly every week - carrying woven bags of herbs, bones, and other goods. Only experienced messengers are allowed to travel in the heat of the day - most travel in the cool of the night, on moonlit nights. They are welcomed to each colony, with their goods and tales - and with the toms, their genetic contributions. (Such donations are carefully recorded, with the usual family lines. Female messengers may also get donors from the colonies they travel to, but usually molly messengers are single or don't want/keep kits)

Nurses are healers, but also the cat equivalent to first responders. They tend their precious herb gardens, grind medicines, and valiantly fight off anything or anyone who threatens their patients. The current Lead Nurse lost a leg saving their pregnant patient from a falling stone. Any nurse is allowed to have kits, but only if they have at least one trained apprentice under them, or another fully trained senior nurse available. Every colony has at least two nurses - one fully trained and one apprentice.

Denmakers are the artists of the clan, weaving both useful and beautiful items. They make the dens, as their names suggest, but they also make messenger carry-baskets, storage baskets, and accessories. They often are older or retired cats, and sometimes cats who became injured and can no longer work as they once did. There is no shame in retiring, and denmakers are often good therapists and philosophers.

Speakers are rare - only one can hold the role at a time, but another is always chosen two years before the natural death of the current Speaker (in the case of a murder or accidental death, the leader acts as a temporary Speaker until the new Speaker is chosen, and helps to train them). Speakers are always cats who have survived the unsurvivable - long falls, drowning, flash fires, or heat stroke. They Speak to the gods, and tell the colonies what must be sacrificed for good fortune or to stave off the wrath of offended Wandering Spirits - the dead and the gathered feelings of the living. The current Speaker was found abandoned, her legs burnt by a lightning-sparked fire. Speakers may not take a mate or keep kits, but they may donate and have contact with their family. Only one molly Speaker had kits, but she was chosen shortly after surviving major bloodloss, and was able to raise them with her mate and see them become adults, until becoming the Speaker.

Stormclan worships the Five Before - Stone, River, Tree, Sky, and Change.

As the ancient story goes, River and Stone were mates in the void, and River birthed Tree and Stone birthed Sky. They ran together in the endless dark, before shedding their fur and creating the world. Change clawed their way up from the soil when the world became too crowded, and created the Cycle of Rot and Renewal - of Life begetting Death, and Death feeding Life. One day, nine cats decided to battle the Five, so that they may have a safe place to live. The nine were easily defeated, but Sky begged that his kin stay their claws and fangs, and made the nine cats explain. The boldest spoke up, that their homes had thrown them out for many reasons - being too crowded, refusing to have kits, changing their pronouns, feeling unsatisfied in life, and being too outgoing - and being so desperate for a home together that they would fight the Five Themselves. The Five Before were sympathetic - Stone and River had made their family so they would not be lonely, and Tree, Sky, and Change could not imagine throwing away their kin for any such silly reasons. The Five made the cats vow to give them offerings, and learn from them, so that they might be something new - the first Clan. Sky named them for their ferocity and wild cries - Stormclan.

Stone is the most fierce of the Five, and is known for their hotheadedness and unbreakable fangs and skin. They shed their fur to create stones and soil, and their wrath is felt in earthquakes and rockfalls. Offerings to Stone are succulents (Tree's gift to Stone, to give them the inspiration to grow gems), black or sandy stones, and fossils.

River is the most emotional of the Five, and is known for their adaptability (being ice and water and fog) and constantly waterlogged pelt. They shed their fur to create rivers, oceans, and snow, and their wrath is felt in floods and droughts. Offerings to River are fish bones, hail (Sky's gift to River, so they could make ice and snow), and clear or white stones.

Tree is the most helpful of the Five, and is known for their cheeriness and is known for their ever-growing and ever-changing bark and leaves. They shed their fur to become trees and all green things, and their wrath is felt in disease and poisonous plants growing wild. Offerings to Tree are petrified wood (Stone's gift to Tree, to preserve their favorite trees), seeds or fruit -especially olives-, and green or wood-brown stones.

Sky is the most talkative of the Five, and is known for their sense of humor and their pelt of clouds and feathers. They shed their fur to become the sky and the air, and their wrath is felt in out-of-season storms and tornadoes. Offerings to Sky are windswept stones (River's gift to Sky, showing him how to carve the earth like her waters did), any part of a flying animal - bird, insect, or rarely bat or very adventurous lizard -, and cloudy or grey stones.

Change is the most mysterious of the Five, and is known for their preservation of balance, and their two faces. They keep the Cycle of Rot and Renewal turning for all creatures, and are the most difficult to Speak to. Change is the one who chooses Speakers, halting the Cycle so one may Speak to the Five Offerings to Change are mushrooms (a gift from the rest of their family, mushrooms grow everywhere and keep the Cycle going), birth and death objects paired (like eggs and bird bones or seeds and dead branches), and multicolored stones.

Offerings are given every full moon, and colonies have a designated area to worship, so they don't have to trek back to the main camp every moon.

[tryingahandinholdingapen]

idea for another tcf au, though this one is much more simple it's just a "okay start with this fact. then see how that affects everything else"

krs is not cale henituse au. haven't decided whether original cale still regressed or not, but krs instead of waking up as cale wakes up as a Motif

Motif is the name I'm currently giving to a species (?) I made up; haven't decided whether to consider that a placeholder name or if that's my final decision

anyway. the basic idea is that when someone's soul has been damaged in some way, they can't reincarnate normally. also I'm assuming GoD is mostly responsible for death/reincarnation type stuff because that's...logical. there'd essentially three options for a damaged soul then

option 1) they fucking die. their soul is completely destroyed they completely cease to exist. this is NOT the preferred option generally measures will be taken to avoid this at all costs

option 2) GoD leaves them to just kind of half-doze in an in-between state between incarnations. once enough time has passed that their soul has naturally healed (takes a Very Long Time) they're then reincarnated without memories like usually happens for most people

option 3) speedrun the healing process. instead of a PROPER reincarnation they spend one lifetime as a Motif, which sort of brute-forces the healing process for their soul to be once more undamaged

And now I get to ramble on about what Motifs are. Please bear in mind I made this all up and it's not 100% complete/set in stone yet I may change or expand on little details later

essentially, courtesy of GoD they'll wake up as a bird associated with death (crows, ravens, etc) with or without their memories from their previous life dependent on which option is deemed more likely to help them heal faster. As a Motif they can swap between human and bird form - although in a manner very noticably different from beast tribes, like you can see the difference if you watched a Motif transform vs a beast person - although they'll probably spend most of their lifetime in bird form. Because their human form grows in accordance with their bird form (e.g. crows apparently become proper adults at around 2 years old, based on a quick internet search, therefore if a Motif happens to have a crow form then they will look like an adult human at 2 years old, and at that point would be as mature as an adult NOT as mature as a human toddler) which means that staying in human form when they're little is....extremely conspicuous (I SWEAR that kid looked like they were 6 a fortnight ago but now they look at least a year older than that?? what the fuck) as well as incredibly inconvenient in terms of clothing etc. Also growing that fast isn't great for your physical health so it's somewhat recommended to stay in bird form until you're nearer adulthood. Once they've reached adulthood their aging process starts to more closely resemble their human form rather than their bird form, which sort of has the effect of them seemingly aging really fast and then abruptly slowing to a crawl

If you're thinking "wait, hang on, if they're recommended to stay in bird form til adulthood but adulthood only takes ~2 years, why did you say most Motifs stay in bird form most of their life?"

......yeah. about that! Motifs have a very short lifespan. It's not...It's not a proper reincarnation, you know? It's not actually intended to be a full LIFE, it's just a stage of healing to fix any damage to their souls before they get chucked back into reincarnation. As such, assuming a Motif lives to die of old age, they will only live HALF as long as their bird form does. That's not very long!

For example, say a crow lives ~8 years or so in the wild. That means if someone wakes up as a crow Motif, they've got ~4 years before they die. That's It. So those ~2 years are half their life. On the bright side, because they age more like humans upon reaching adulthood, they don't actually have to deal with being elderly?.. Even if they die of 'old age' their human form will likely still look like early twenties at most, so unlikely to have to deal with arthritis or anything like that

Generally Motifs will be either on their own, will stay with ACTUAL birds associated with their bird form (as in, a raven Motif will hang our with regular ravens), or travel around in human form. But if they somehow manage to get themselves taken in or get a stable job (despite the whole, no identity, either has been observed to age really fucking weirdly as a child OR seemingly appeared out of nowhere as an adult, both of which are extremely suspicious) then their life span may instead resemble half that of their bird form's lifespan /in captivity/, which is. You know. Weird implications there that I guarantee you any Motif ever probably tries to avoid thinking about, but would significantly improve their lifespan

(Using crows as an example again. Regular crow in the wild lives ~8 years, therefore most crow Motifs who understandably struggle to not come across as extremely suspicious can live a max of ~4 years. Regular crows in captivity can live around ~20 years, therefore a crow Motif who managed to get themself taken in (in human or crow form although I doubt many would be able or willing to be taken as a pet in crow form) can live a max of ~10 years. That's a big difference!)

Motifs are naturally associated with GoD and some people may be able to pick up on them having some link to the divine. Pretty high chance that they'll also be able to chat with GoD sometimes

It doesn't actually matter /too much/ how long they live as a Motif? Ideally they should live as long as they possibly can, in the best conditions possible, for optimal healing of the soul but if they somehow manage to die or get killed a mere month in then that's okay their soul will still heal it will just... I said the point of Motifs is to speed up or brute-force the healing process of a damaged soul, right? Yeah well if they die early on or live in horrible conditions then that forces GoD to put extra emphasis on the 'brute-force' side of things and it's NOT pleasant for the soul in question

Not many Motifs ever exist. Firstly, because they only happen when someone's soul is damaged, and the chances of that happening /by accident/ are incredibly low and the chances of it happening as a result of someone's deliberate actions aren't that much higher. Secondly, because even when someone's soul IS damaged there's a reasonably high chance that GoD will just leave them to recover in the in-between instead of spending (admittedly minimal, doesn't take much effort) power on making them a Motif

Theoretically a Motif COULD make their life span last longer than, like, a decade or less. If they can find and be accepted by an appropriate anchor (I will probably want to give this an interesting name at some point too, instead of anchor)

Essentially at some point they'll start having dreams that include some other real people in, instead of it being entirely made up by their brain. Any of those real people could theoretically be an anchor for them: this would sort of match their lifespans to more closely resemble the longer-lived one, and make the Motif's heal slower but better by essentially giving them a blueprint of "like that. we want to heal to look like that undamaged soul". Also somewhat links their souls which makes it more likely that both parties will eventually reincarnate a) around the same time and b) in the same general area, making it more likely they'll meet each other in the next life and possibly experience some weird nostalgia or deja vu when they do

Of course this requires that the Motif can firstly identify which in these dreams are real people vs normal dream people, AND find a real person they'd like to be anchored to, AND get them to understand and agree to it (whilst being unable to 100% explain in the dream, or at least, unable to guarantee that the real person will 100% remember the dream when they wake up) AND then track them down in the waking world in order to properly form the link

Anyway. KRS wakes up as a Motif, because his soul was damaged. Theoretically he might not have suffered that much damage if they'd only been one or two metaphorical blows, but the Cataclysm/unranked monsters PLUS being born in a world he wasn't originally intended for PLUS dealing with some effects of the curse intended for White Star....it all adds up. Damaged soul, not his fault, GoD decides to take pity and let him fuck around as a Motif for a bit instead of waiting semi-conscious in the in-between for like, a few centuries

(If I'm misremembering any details there please do feel free to correct me but bear in mind I may choose to go with the incorrect version anyway for sake of this concept working)

He actually wakes up as a Motif quite a while before canon starts, and I'm saying he at some point ends up with the original Cale Henituse as his anchor. Undecided on whether I want him to know about TBOAH plot or not. If KRS DOES know about TBOAH, then he probably chose Cale as his anchor for reasons related to that. If he didn't, choosing Cale was a coincidence but is also ultimately the reason he gets involved in plot stuff. Sort of inevitable when the protagonist rocks up and gets into a (hopefully not going beyond words before KRS intervenes-) fight with The One Guy who you're dependent on both for resources as well as living beyond like five years

I think that's all I have to say about this for now! If I wrote this it would very much just be "how does this one thing (KRS existing as a separate person, who is also sometimes a crow, associated with GoD and probably is constantly Aware that his soul is damaged and may or may not know why) affect canon?"

[kedreeva]

Hi! I have a small farm but your posts have made me consider adding some peafowl. I've had guineafowl and chickens but god would i love peafowl. I also saw your posts with your hand raised peahen in the house, and I was wondering if she's actually litter trained? I have some bottle babies but have transferred them all out to typical barn/pasture existence, but if I could litter train a peafowl for (partial) indoor existence that would be glorious

As I have said many many times before and will likely say many many times again, you do not want a permanent house peafowl, I promise you. Bug was indoors with me because a) I have over a decade of experience with these birds, b) I did a sex linked breeding so I KNEW that she was a girl from the second she hatched c) I didn't particularly want to hand raise her, but I also wanted sleep and the birds are brooded in the house and she would not stop screaming d) I knew I was going to be home full time basically 24/7 to raise her without having to leave her on her own for long stretches while I was at work and e) I raised her with the full intention of putting her out when she was old enough to hold her own with the big birds- and that's where she currently lives, outside where she belongs.

They cannot be house/litter trained, the most you can do is diaper them, and they're not big enough for that for a few months and wearing one is always a risk- if they catch a toe from a poorly-fitted or poorly-applied diaper, they are strong enough to break their own legs and/or break their necks/wings struggling to get out.

Unlike standard breed chickens and farm waterfowl, peafowl can fly, like Actually Fly, and they can do so from about day 3 of life. You don't want a 10lb bird throwing itself around your house, because they're not passerines, they can't grasp things with their feet so they will just knock everything you love over in an attempt to find flat ground to stand on wherever they want to be. And they WILL throw temper tantrums when they're not getting their way- when you aren't sharing food, when you aren't going to bed at 6pm in the winter, when you aren't performing their daily schedule right, etc. They're just smart enough to be assholes, and big enough that that's a problem.

On top of that, males that are hand raised become exceedingly aggressive at maturity, to the point where many have been put down because they will relentless hunt and attack humans in their territory, and they have nasty spurs on their legs, and the ability to fly and to jump at least 6 feet up and hardly use their wings, which means they CAN jump and spur you in the face- and unlike chickens, they know where your face is, and will go for it. I've seen several folks with injuries from aggressive boys where the person narrowly escaped losing an eye. I, myself, was clawed over one eye once just from a bird that was eluding capture, and I'm well aware how much more badly that could have gone if she'd meant it rather than just trying to get away from being caught. The hens are (usually, although I've seen an exception) not aggressive, but unless you have the ability to socialize a hand raised hen with other birds, they have a hugely difficult time adapting to living in a flock, and I've heard many others refuse to breed with the males of their own kind. If they can't adapt to socializing with other birds, they can stress hugely when left alone or with other birds, and this can make them prone to illness.

The photos are cute, but this is a 110% "please do not attempt this at home" kind of deal. I've been caring for/learning about peafowl and their care in some way for 20 years and breeding them for the last 15 or so and I can say with my whole chest that you don't need any complications when getting into peafowl. There are already a million things that can go wrong just trying to raise a peafowl in a normal way, people kill the babies so often that a) reputable breeders often refuse to sell before 3 months old so they are well started and hardy and b) at least one Large Scale breeder I know of sells multi-pack day old chicks (the "discards" from his experimental pens) for super cheap because he fully expects them to die so he doesn't have to worry about competition on rare color breeding and can still make a buck.

If you want peafowl, and you have the space and the ability to pen one properly, and access to proper food and vet care, and you've done research on care and behavior, then absolutely go for it, they make great farm animals and they're really easy to befriend as subadults and even as adults and some birds are even super chill and will come right up and say hi (like Eris, whom I took home from another breeder because I visited and she just walked up and started inspecting me for treats like a chicken). But they do not make great indoor pets, even partially as adults.

[72votes]

No Birds Allowed: Batman without Robin

The usual claim is that Jason Todd was singularly hated by audiences. Dick Grayson, Carrie Kelley, and Tim Drake are proper, beloved Robins—and Jason Todd is the one outlier so unlikable that audiences killed him off by popular vote.

But this claim ignores a massive piece of the puzzle—the Robin role has long been treated as an outdated remnant of an embarassing phase, not only by a significant share of Batman fans, but also by Batman creative teams. While there were definitely fans who hated Jason Todd, he was at least partly chosen to be killed as a scapegoat for some long-standing complaints about the Robin role in Batman stories.

The 1988 poll to kill Jason Todd wasn't just a poll to kill Jason Todd—the poll to kill Robin was a poll to kill Robin.

Fan letters columns from Batman #221 and Detective Comics #398, reacting to Dick Grayson leaving for Hudson University in Batman #217 (1969):

Denny O'Neil—Batman/Detective Comics writer (1970-1980) and Batman group editor (1986-2000)—on sending Robin away to Hudson University:

Dan Greenfield: Actually, last night I went back through my comics and the one thing that always strikes me is that before you came onto the character, they’d already made the decision to have Robin leave. Robin was up at Hudson University and was used sparingly from that point forward. Denny O’Neil: Well, that was a conscious decision of mine. Greenfield: Oh! O’Neil: Yeah, I mean … I had been offered Batman a year before I did it. Greenfield: No kidding? I wanna hear this. O’Neil: Because that was in the (Batman TV show) camp thing. The comics were very half-heartedly following in the footsteps of the camp because it was having a palpable effect on circulation. That’s not always true but it was in that case. Camp as in the sense — as opposed to the more erudite sense — this one-line joke about: “I loved this stuff when I was 6 and now that I’m 28 and I have a bi-weekly appointment with a therapist and a little, mild drug habit and two divorces, ‘Look how silly it is.'” I would go into the most literary bar in Greenwich Village on (Wednesday) or Thursday evenings and there would be writers and poets and college professors, all looking at Batman! But when that was over, it was over. It was like somebody turned a switch. And that’s when (editor) Julie (Schwartz) said, in his avuncular way, did I have any ideas for Batman? And at that point, I wasn’t going to be asked to do camp. I was going to be asked to do anything within the bounds of good taste, etc., that I wanted to.

O'Neil, quoted from “Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with Dennis O’Neil” in The Many Lives of The Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media:

There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him.

O'Neil in 2015:

Modern Batman does not do camp. He has to evolve but to stay true to the concept he has to stay lonely. The kids, there shouldn't be many. Keep him the lone, obsessed crusader and the stories will be better. We did a story called Son of the Demon. It told a story where he had a kid, a baby. It wasn't in continuity. These days, the kid came back and became the new Robin, and I hear that Batman's got a few more running around.

Jim Starlin, Batman writer (1987-1988), writer of A Death in the Family:

I tried to avoid using [Robin] as much as I could. In most of my early Batman stories, he doesn’t appear. Eventually Denny asked me to do a specific Robin story, which I did, and I guess it went over fairly well from what I understand. But I wasn’t crazy about Robin.

I thought that going out and fighting crime in a grey and black outfit while you send out a kid in primary colors was kind of like child abuse. So when I started working on Batman, I was always leaving Robin out of the stories, and Denny O’Neil who is the editor finally said, "You gotta put [Robin] in."

In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [...] At that time, DC had this idea that they were gonna do an AIDS education book, and so they put a box out and wanted everybody to put in suggestions of who should contract AIDS and perish in the comics. I stuffed it with Robin. They realized it was all my handwriting so they ended up throwing all my things out. About six months later, Denny came up with this idea of the call-in thing. [...] I didn’t find out about it until I came back [from Mexico] and found out that, just as I expected, my ghoulish little fans voted him dead. But by a much smaller margin than I’d imagined. It was only like 72 votes out of 10,000, so statistically it was next to nothing.

Dan Raspler, assistant editor/associate editor to Denny O’Neil (1988-1990):

Denny wasn’t really interested in comics continuity, and he didn’t like superheroes. And if you read his work, you see his influence was really a pushing away from the conventions at the time—it was growing old, that sort of Golden Age-y, Silver Age-y stuff, and Denny sort of modernized it, and he never stopped feeling that way. Jim Starlin’s Batman appealed to Denny. It was a little more ‘down to Earth. Nobody liked Robin at the time. For a while Robin was not—it didn’t make sense in comics. Comics were darkening, and so having the kid was just, it was silly, and even at the time I kind of didn’t. Now Robin is my favorite all-time character, but at the time when I was twenty-whatever, I accepted kicking Robin out, the short pants and all the rest of it.

Comic shop owner Phil Beracha on A Death in the Family, quoted in The Sun Sentinel (October 22, 1988):

"I got 100 copies, and I don't expect them to last past the weekend," said Phil Beracha, owner of Phil's Comic Shoppe in Margate. "I usually get 50 copies of Batman. I doubled my order, and I still expect to sell out." The readers voted right, Beracha said. "Robin is an outdated concept. He was created in the `40s, and back then in a comic book you could have a kid beating up grown men. I don't think that works today."

Writer Steve Englehart, quoted in "Batman, the Gamble; Warner Bros. is betting big money that a 50-year-old comic book vigilante will be a `hero for our times'" in the Los Angeles Times (June 18, 1989):

Writer Steven Englehart, who did a series of Batman stories in Detective Comics, also worked up some movie treatments. In a letter to Comics Buyer's Guide, he revealed the approach he had in mind, which would have pleased Batfanatics: "My first treatment had Robin getting blown away in the first 90 seconds, so that every reviewer in the country would begin his review with, `This sure isn't the TV show.' "

Michael Uslan, producer and film rights holder for the 1989 Batman film:

I only let Tim [Burton] see the original year of the Bob Kane/Bill Finger run, up until the time that Robin was introduced. I showed him the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil stories. My biggest fear was that somehow Tim would get hold of the campiest Batman comics and then where would we be?

"Death Knell for the Campy Crusader" in the Orlando Sentinel (23 June 1989):

For most people, the name Batman summons up a picture of a clown in long johns, a Campy Crusader who - with the young punster Robin - ZAPed and POWed his way into our lives. That's the Batman that appeared on TV in the mid-'60s, and that's the Batman that the world at large knows. Such is the power of television. But this ludicrous image may become obsolete now that the new, $40 million Batman movie has opened. Robin is absent from the film, as are the perky Batgirl and the utterly superfluous Aunt Harriet of the TV series. And though the movie has plenty of sound effects, they don't appear on the screen as words, spelled out in neo-Brechtian absurdity.

Sam Hamm, writer for the 1989 Batman film:

The Case of the Disappearing Robin is high comedy. Tim (Burton) and I had worked out a plotline that did not include the Boy Wonder, whom we both regarded as an unnecessary intrusion. Really: Our hero was crazy to begin with. Did he have to prove it by enlisting a pimply adolescent to help him fight crime? Was Bat-Baby unavailable? But the studio was insistent: There was no such thing as solo Batman, there was only Batman and Robin. So, after holding off the executives for as long as we could, Tim and I realized we had better try to accommodate them. He flew up to my house in San Francisco and we walked around in circles for two days, finally deciding that there was no way to shoehorn Robin into our story. [...] We figured that if we managed to squeeze him in, the lame hacks who were making the sequel could worry about what to do with him next. When the film went into production in London, and ran seriously over budget, WB started looking for a sequence that could be cut to save money. And there was one obvious candidate: Intro Robin! So Robin was cut from the movie and shoved back to Batman Returns— from which he was cut yet again and shoved back to Batman Forever.

Grant Morrison on creating Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (written 1987-1988, published 1989) with Dave McKean (see the annotated script's fourth page):

The original first draft of the script included Robin. Robin appeared in a few scenes at the beginning then remained at Police Headquarters for the bulk of the book, where he spent his time studying plans and histories of the house, in order to find a way in to help his mentor. Dave McKean, however, felt that he had already compromised his artistic integrity sufficiently by drawing Batman and refused point blank over for the Boy Wonder — so after one brave but ridiculous attempt to put him in a trench coat, I wisely removed him from the script.

Paul Dini on Batman: The Animated Series (1992), as told in the 1998 book Batman Animated:

The Fox Network, on the assumption that kids won't watch a kid’s show unless kids are in it, soon began insisting that Robin be prominently featured in every episode. When Fox changed the title from Batman: The Animated Series to The Adventures of Batman & Robin, they laid down the law-no story premise was to be considered unless it was either a Robin story or one in which the Boy Wonder played a key role. Out were underworld character studies like “It's Never Too Late"; in were traditional Batman and Robin escapades like “The Lion and the Unicorn.” A potentially intriguing Catwoman/Black Canary team-up was interrupted in midpitch to the network by their demand, “Where's Robin?” When the writers asked if they could omit Robin from just this one episode, Fox obliged by omitting the entire story. Looking back, there was nothing drastically wrong with Robin's full-time insertion into the series—after all, kids do love him. Our major gripe at the time was that it started turning the series into the predictable Batman and Robin show people had initially expected it would be. For the first season, Batman had been an experiment we weren't sure would work. We were trying out different ways of telling all kinds of stories with Batman as our only constant. For better or worse, having a kid forced him, and the series, to settle down.

Christian Bale, star of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy (2008):

If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I'll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work.

Summed up

Among the keepers of Batman, there has been a vocal contingent arguing against the inclusion of Robin. They argue that Robin damages Batman's brooding, solitary persona. They argue that the concept of Robin is too ridiculous and fantastic for the grounded, gritty ideal of Batman. They argue that a respectable version of Batman shouldn't allow, encourage, or train "child soldiers" to endanger their lives fighting against violent evil-doers.

The original and most iconic Robin, Dick Grayson, has definitely benefited from his deep roots in DC lore and his consistent popularity among fans—and yet even he has been shunned from various Batman projects over the decades. When the first Robin struggles to get his foot in the door, his successors face stiffer opposition.

So it's not quite correct to say that Jim Starlin hated Jason Todd. In his own words, Starlin wasn't fond of Robin, and his storytelling (most obviously A Death in the Family) set out to argue against Batman having any kind of "partner" at all. This was just months after the intended shelving of Barbara Gordon, then treated like a disposable prop. A growing audience welcomed the Dark Age, and the gruesome spectacles made of kid-friendly elements like Batgirl and Robin.

This trend could be broken by the upcoming sequel to The Batman and by the planned slate of upcoming DCU films. But most Robin fans will tell you that many movie-going Batman fans still have their doubts about Robin sharing Batman's spotlight.

[karamatsuboy-aj]

For @quartztwst magikey au

Questions for the MagiKey Users!

Section 1 - Your OC Answers!

1. How does it feel to be a MagiKey user?

Aj :it's amazing I get to help a lot of people and save them! I love helping others!

2. How popular are you in MagiKey rankings?

AJ:I don't think I'm very popular I hope I at least number 55 it's my favorite number you'll have to ask the others I don't really look at rankings

3. Which MagiKey would you rather have than your own?

AJ:I don't know to be honest probably risu( @oya-oya-okay OC) it's cool and cute!

4. Why did you become a MagiKey user?

AJ:I don't think I could have said no to that weird bird even if I had a choice I'll still be a magikey boy because I can help protect others and make a small difference in this world!

5. How long have you been in MagiKey

AJ:I think about a year or so maybe two I'm bad at keeping track!

Section 2 - You explain!

6. What is their motivation to keep being a magical user?(Angsty)

He didn't think he was enough he thought if he became a magikey user he could prove himself

7. How are they usually in a battle?

Depending on the type of battle usually he tried to be the comic relief but if he thinks the battle is getting serious or too dangerous he becomes serious his voice changes from upbeat and happy to barely talking and in low towns if this happens with the others around they would probably get shocked or surprised he's always have a plan in battle no matter the style he fights with

8. How are their daily lives?

He goes by a schedule starts with his daily games logs in while eating breakfast then to school hangout with friends and finally his nightly patrol sometimes it's different but rarely it helps him keep track of the day he has no friends besides the other magikeys users

9. What is their opinion on other MagiKey users in general?

He likes them thinking they're cool and are his friends he'll do anything to help them he hopes none of them get corrupted he loves hearing all of them talk about their favorites things he even gets them small gifts

Section 3 - Deeper Level (might get emo)

10. What are your OC's struggles as a MagiKey user?

He thinks he's not worthy about being a magikey user he always second thinking everything he does he scared his powers would hurt others if he isn't careful he always thinking of the worse outcomes always having high anxiety almost every moment it's why he always have a plan for every outcome it eats at him sometimes especially if he thinks the other magikeys users can Sense it he thinks no one really likes him thinking everyone is judging him if he does something wrong

11. What is their favorite color?

Red and blue

Thanks I hope I did this right and I hope you like it❤️💙❤️💙

[heartmeadows]

Tag Game: Nonsims Interests

@grilledcheese-aspiration thank you for tagging me!

This might get long so read if you feel like it!

Journaling -- I've been journaling since I was a child. Mostly writing about anything and everything, some drawing/painting on the pages and the occasional scrapbooking/junk journaling. I stopped journaling in my early twenties when my addiction and mental health took me on a dark road. But I started scrapbooking/junk journaling about 6 to 7 years ago and been doing it since.

I love creating journal spreads with all kinds of ephemera, stickers, stamps, old post stamps, papers, etc. It gives me a freedom no other form of creative outlet I've tried has given me. I don't get swept up by perfectionism, even when I'm less than satisfied with what I create. I usually come back to it and see it with new eyes and end up liking what I created. It's so therapeutic to me to spend anywhere from 30 mins to multiple hours creating without any burden of making it perfect. Making mistakes just leads to more creativity with it. Visual journaling without having to draw or paint is freeing to me because I get frustrated whenever I try to do so. Drawing and painting used to be a big passion of mine but it got exhausting mentally for a lot of reasons. At least this way I get to create something visual without stress. To me it's the most important part of it, to have something creative to do that won't stress me out.

Plants/gardening -- I've always loved nature and taking care of plants, whether it's indoor plants or gardening, and it brings me joy. The most plants I had at once was about 90. Then life got in the way and my plants died because I could barely function. Since then I keep only a handful of plants. I only have ten now. Unfortunately I don't have much space and even less natural light so I can't get back into it like I want to. But I'm happy with what I have.

As for gardening I've been growing flowers, herbs, leafy greens and vegetables for a decade. I still struggle with some aspects but mostly I'm able to grow things that I then use in cooking. Even some flowers are edible. I'd like to have a big garden full of decorative flowers and edible plants and it's definitely a possibility now. I just don't have it in me to commit to such a big undertaking while I'm focusing on my recovery. But I'll be growing some things this summer, only an amount I think I can handle. If I fail even a lil bit I'll forgive myself and remind myself that there'll be a time where my mental health is at capacity for more.

Animals -- I grew up surrounded by animals and I've always loved taking care of and spending time with them. In our family we've had dogs, cats, hamsters, mice and bunnies. Bunnies were my absolute favourites as a child. Then I had my first cat at 13 years old and they became my favourite. My two oldest cats are living with my youngest siblings in the city. I miss them but they're in good hands.

I grew up with dogs though. But once our dogs died there was a long period of time we didn't have any because of the grief. It's only 4 years ago that we got dogs again. Now we have three dogs and they're my babies. I love them so much. I still have two cats, they're my babies, too. Though they're getting older. And my mum has two cats. I love them, too.

Now we have a horse! I've never been much around horses or ponies, apart from going on two riding lessons on ponies as a child. I'm still wary around our horse because he's so large and any sudden movement could end up badly. But he is so wonderful and adorable, I'm starting to get attached! We also have a pony staying here, the owner pays my mum to take care of him. I can't tell you how happy being around animals daily makes me!

As for wild animals and all kinds of creatures. I have always enjoyed watching wild animals and crossing paths with them. I've seen/heard deer, foxes, lynxes, rabbits, a wolverine, meese, squirrels, frogs, lizards, owls, all kinds of other birds (like the ravens that live here in these woods), wolves and asian raccoon dogs.

My closest encounter was with three European badgers. I was walking around 10 pm at summer (it was still light since we have midnight sun here) on a dirt path through a nature reserve and suddenly I saw three badgers ahead of me at a crossroads. I stopped and watched. Two of them wandered from side to side looking for whatever they look for and one approached me. It sniffed my feet for the longest of time and I just kept silent and watched. They were big creatures, the one sniffing me bigger than than the other two. It was possibly a mother and its babies.

I would've taken a video or photo but back then phone cameras sucked. I'll always remember that moment vividly though. Once it had sniffed enough it opened it's mouth and made a sound I couldn't hear. The two others further away perked up at once and all of a sudden they all ran from the road to the edge of the woods, meeting at the same spot and disappeared to the woods. It's a core memory for me. I feel blessed to have experienced it.

I do have plenty more interests but this is long enough!

Edited to add: once I saw a tiny white mink running across snow from the woods to our backyard and it stopped, looked at me, disappeared and then popped up once more to look at me and disappeared yet again!

This lil dude! Photo from google

[mystra-midnight]

Haunted Hoedown - DAY ONE

summary: it was like white-hot lightning engulfed your body, setting your world on fire. lights of red and yellow flashed behind your eyes like a disco dance from hell. eddie didn't try to keep you quiet this time.

warnings: 18+ only. teenage!eddie x housewife!reader. unprotected sex. tiny hint of praise kink. hints of dacryphilia. overstimunation. squirting. age gap (eddie’s is 18, readers is 34). cheating (i don't condone this outside the world of fiction). readers husband and kids have names but reader doesn't; no use of y/n. reader has some body insecurities (but is a total milf in my head tbh).

words: 5.3k

notes: day one of the haunted hoedown challenge being hosted by @inklore and @psychedelic-ink. i'm usually terrible at writing for challenges but i've had so much muse for eddie munson that this literally jumped off the pages. i might had missed the mark with the au setting tbh.

prompt: taboo au + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into."

You woke slowly, sleep heavy in your head, as the twittering of morning birds roused you when you wished it hadn't. The world was still dark, the cresting sunlight hardly peaking over the horizon to illuminate it. On your bedside table, your alarm clock flashed, the hard red numbers burning your eyes.

6:30. Blink. 6:30. Blink. 6:31.

Groaning, you reached up to rub your tired eyes, disturbing the crusties that had formed overnight as you swung your legs to the side of the bed. Your bare feet touch the cold tiles, drawing a shiver down the length of your spine.

It was another mundane Monday: wake up, wake your teenage son, wake the twins, make everyone breakfast, get the twins dressed, drive everyone to school, do the weekly shopping, come home, and clean the house before cooking dinner.

You'd had the same routine every week, every Monday, like clockwork, for the past fifteen years. It wasn't that you regretted marrying your husband or having children. You loved them all, but life had felt boring lately—plain and boring.

You lived a comfortable life. Not above your means or in the lap of luxury, but comfortably. You weren't a nineteen-year-old wild child any more. You were thirty-four, a mature mother. And this morning, it sucked.

Peter touched you for the first time in weeks last night, and it wasn't with a young lover's rage. He'd laid between your legs for an hour until an orgasm punched the air from your lungs, huffing and complaining the entire time, making your climax take longer than it should have. He'd made it seem almost like a chore, and you hadn't said anything; you'd rolled over and gone to sleep, like you had every other time.

And try as you might to understand him, it still hurt. It had been years since he'd surprised you with flowers just because he wanted to. He didn't initiate sex like he used to; there were no spontaneous romps in the kitchen while the kids were out and no skinny-dipping in the pool at midnight.

You knew you'd put on some weight after the birth of the twins. It was harder to lose this time around, and even though he still said you were beautiful and kissed all the parts of your body that you hated, it didn't feel the same anymore. He didn't look at you with wild desire anymore.

You tried to shove your hurt down deep; time changed things; it changed him and you. At least that was what you told yourself while you brushed your teeth, staring at the crows' feet that cinched the edges of your eyes. And you told yourself again as you woke your teenage son, who was in the stage of life where he thought he was ten-foot-tall and bulletproof; he’d inherited your sense of sarcasm, as your husband often reminded you.

And you told yourself a third time while you fried sausage links and scrambled eggs. And finally, you told yourself this for the last time when your husband rushed into the kitchen, panicking because he'd overslept and would be late for work again. He'd barely stopped to acknowledge the breakfast spread on the table. He shoved a triangle of toast into his mouth and then was out the front door without so much as a goodbye.

The next few hours blurred together as you finished getting the twins ready for kindergarten while your teenage son protested having to go to school at all, claiming it was stupid, pointless, and useless. Somehow, by some miracle or divine intervention, you managed to get them all ready and to school on time. But that brought you to your current predicament.

There, sitting on the kitchen counter, was the lunch you'd so lovingly packed for your son. You felt your blood boiling with annoyance, your brain skipping between letting him go hungry or taking it to him. But no matter how mad you were, you couldn't let him starve.

So you drove back to the school, fifteen minutes away, for the second time. A little bell rang as you shoved the door open, which drew Lotti's attention from where she sat behind the front desk. She smiled as you approached.

"Let me guess, Corey forgot his lunch again?"

Her lips were tipped into a kind smile, one that mirrored your own tired expression. You hummed with dry amusement before placing the brown paper bag on the counter. "Walked right past it. I swear sometimes he does it on purpose."

"Sounds about right. Teenagers right?"

"You’re telling me. Can you make sure it gets to him before lunch?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Lotti," you said with a smile before stepping away from the counter. You had every intention of leaving and going to do the weekly shopping, but you stopped when you saw Eddie Munson sitting on one of the waiting room chairs. He was sitting with his head in his hands, hiding his face, but you could see he was pale and clammy.

Most people wouldn't have given him the time of day, but you liked Eddie. He was friends with your son and was always polite and helpful when he spent the night. He would wash up the dishes and play with the twins to give you a much-needed break.

Eddie was a good kid.

He wasn't trailer trash, as some people had taken to calling him. It always infuriated you when you heard them say such vile things about Eddie and his uncle. People were quick to throw stones, but none of them ever took the time to get to know the people they judged.

You gently placed a hand on his shoulder but still startled the poor boy. Eddie jerked back in his seat and stared up at you with big brown eyes, his raised eyebrows hidden behind his wild curls, and eyes glistening with unshed tears. Your heart broke all over again.

"Eddie, baby, what’s going on? Are you alright?"

"I don’t feel well," he answered, his tone dejected with a hint of misery. You lowered yourself into the seat at his side, sliding your hand up and down his back in a comforting way.

"Is Wayne on his way to take you home?"

"No, ma’am."

You internally flinched. Wayne had raised him to be respectful to his elders and especially to women, and he was, despite his metalhead persona. But when he called you ma'am, you always felt like a frumpy old woman.

"He’s working a double today. He won’t be able to pick me up until after one."

You checked your wristwatch for the time. It was hardly nine in the morning. Eddie would be waiting here for hours, feeling sick, miserable, and uncomfortable. You patted his knee and gave him a soft smile.

"I’ll be right back." You stood and moved back to the counter, smiling as Lotti looked up at your approach.

"Lotti, can you call Wayne for me?"

The beauty of small towns meant that she already knew what thoughts were going through your mind. She dialled the number for the auto shop Wayne worked at and handed you the phone. You listened to the dial tone ring and ring before the line finally picked up.

"Hi Wayne, it’s me."

You worried for a minute that he wouldn’t recognise your voice. You and Wayne went to school together a literal lifetime ago. For a while, you’d been sweet on him, but nothing had come from that school yard crush.

"Hey, love, what do you need?"

"Well, I’m at the school. Corey forgot his lunch again, and Eddie’s here in the waiting room. He’s not well, and I was thinking that since you're not able to pick him up, would it be alright if I brought him home? Just for a few hours until he feels better. He can rest in the spare room."

You didn’t know why you felt the need to explain everything in such detail. It wasn’t like you were about to kidnap his eighteen-year-old nephew and drive to Mexico. And given how small Hawkins was, it wasn’t like you could make it that far. You muffle your amused laughter at the thought when you notice Lotti giving you a strange look.

"You can drop him off at the trailer, love. He’ll be alright alone for a few hours."

You looked over at Eddie, hunched over again, hiding his face in his hands, and you knew that that option wasn’t on the table. You’re shook your head a few times before you remembered that Wayne couldn’t see you. "No, no, it’s okay. I wouldn’t feel right leaving him alone when he’s like this. It'll only be a few hours, and then I’ll drop him home when you finish work, okay?"

"Alright, thanks for this."

"It’s what friends are for, Wayne."

Handing Lotti back the phone, you bid her goodbye a second time before going back to Eddie. You place a hand on his shoulder again. He's prepared this time and isn't surprised to find you staring down at him with kind eyes. "Come on, Eddie. I’m going to take you home with me. We’ll get you some water and medicine, and you can rest until your uncle finishes work."

For a minute, it seemed like he's going to protest before he gives in, likely too tired to refuse your kindness. He follows you to the car in silence and doesn't speak for the entire fifteen-minute drive. You glanced at him now and then to make sure he's okay, only to find him asleep with his cheek smushed against the glass.

He's not happy when you gently shake him awake, but he mumbles a thank-you despite himself. Eddie lets you help him inside the house and into the bed in the spare room, which he could have found himself.

Once he was settled beneath the blankets, his dark curls contrasting with the plush white pillows, you went ahead and got him a glass of water and medicine to help him feel better. He was already asleep when you got back, so you left them on the nightstand before going about the rest of your day.

You'd decided that the weekly shopping could wait until tomorrow, which prompted a silly laugh from you while you washed the dishes from breakfast. It was so scandalous that your Monday weekly shop would be done on a Tuesday. That was about the most exciting thing that had happened since the birth of the twins.

The day became a blur as you moved about the house on autopilot. You picked up toys from the floor and put them into the matching trunks at the end of the twins beds, no doubt mixing up which ones belonged to Alice and which ones belonged to Anna. Then you cleaned Corey's room. You groaned when you opened the door only to find a mountain of spoons, bowls, and cups scattered around his computer desk.

You swore if there was an apocalypse and spoons became the world's currency, he’d never go hungry. You washed them next, then put on a load of laundry to wash while you hung out the load you'd put on earlier in the morning.

By the time midday rolled around, you felt like you were actually accomplishing something, which was a strange feeling. Normally, by this time, you'd feel overwhelmed, underappreciated, and drained all at the same time.

Maybe you felt that way because Eddie was still asleep in the guest room. You'd be mortified if he woke up to find your house in such a sorry state. But you didn't need to worry about that now.

You made yourself something to eat—a simple bologna sandwich—and made one for Eddie as well. He'd been in the room for a few hours now, and you imagined he would wake hungry, especially if he hadn't eaten breakfast again. The few times he’d spent the night here during the school week, he’d woof down the pancakes you made as though he were starving.

Wayne worked hard to provide for him, but you could see it was a struggle. You didn’t mind having Eddie over, feeding him, or even donating clothes when his own were beyond repair. Wayne always promised to pay you back, but you both knew that wouldn’t happen. You’d maybe let him work on your car as a favour, but you could never accept money from him.

With a plate in hand, you knocked on the door. Hearing Eddie's soft groans from the other side, you pushed it open, assuming he was awake. The sight that greeted you was not what you were expecting. He was lying on top of the sheets with his dark denim jeans and boxers shoved down his thighs, cock in his hand as he fisted it.

The sight of his heels digging into the mattress and his hips rising to thrust the length of him into his hand made your brain short-circuit, leaving you wide-eyed and open-mouthed. It was only the sound of the plate clattering against the tiles that drew his attention.

"Oh shit, shit!" Eddie shouted as he yanked a pillow to cover himself. You had already turned away, the door slamming shut behind you as you quickly left the room. You pressed your back against the door and covered your mouth with your hand to stifle the sound of your heavy breathing.

You weren't meant to see that.

You definitely weren't meant to see that.

You squeezed your eyes shut as you tried to calm your racing heart, but it didn't help. Images of him flashed through your mind: the bulge of the veins in his forearm as he tugged relentlessly on his cock, how his lips were parted in breathless gasps, and how your name had sounded like Molton Lava falling from his tongue, hot and heavy.

There had been a bead of pre-cum that you'd seen before his thumb moved over it, spreading it along his shaft like lubricant. His chest had risen and fallen with quick breaths as he worked himself into a frenzy, hurtling towards orgasm like a train with its brakes cut.

Had he been thinking about you? Was that why he'd been moaning your name?

Your face felt like it was burning when he knocked on the door, making you almost jump out of your skin. You held the handle tightly to stop him from opening it; you weren't sure you could look him in the eye right now, but he didn't try.

"I’m sorry," he said softly. He sounded sheepish and sincere. "I didn’t mean for you to see that. It’s just... that you're so fucking hot."

You heard him pause and could swear you heard the gears in his mind turning as he tried to articulate his thoughts. It made you feel better to imagine that he was red in the face, blushing with embarrassment more than the impending orgasm he'd been working himself towards.

"Eddie," your own voice was soft and shaking, as were your hands. It wasn't that Eddie wasn't attractive—hell, if you'd been about ten years younger, you'd be riding him just like you'd ridden his uncle in high school. But you were old enough to be his mother, for crying out loud!

"I can leave if you want."

"No! It's not that." You answered quickly—too quickly—with your thoughts moving too fast for you to make sense of them. It had been years since you'd been this flustered. Peter hadn't made you blush in a long, long time. He didn't touch himself while thinking about you.

He didn't love you anymore; your mind graciously and ruthlessly provided.

"What do you want?" Eddie asked in an impossibly soft voice.

"Jesus, Eddie, I don't know!" You shouted through the door. You felt exasperated, confused, and aroused. "I'm old enough to be your mother. And I'm married!"

He had the good grace to be silent, and while you appreciated the moment with your own thoughts, you found them betraying you. You couldn't stop yourself from imagining Eddie, not your husband. His hands on your body, his lips smashed against yours, his breath on your neck, his fingers gripping the flesh of your hips so tight while his cock split you open.

You mentally admonished yourself.

We're horny teenagers with mummy issues your type now?

No, it wasn't that.

It was Eddie; he was your type.

Brooding, filled with emotional rage, the personification of a rebel yell. With his dimpled smile, wild curls, studded belts, and rings for days, he was every high school girl's wet dream.

"I'll be your dirty little secret if that's what you're into."

You shouldn't want to open the door. You shouldn’t be excited and dripping wet from having caught him masturbating. You shouldn't want him.

But when Eddie said that, it's the nail in the coffin that sealed your fate.

You stared at him after opening the door. A part of you was expecting to see him wearing a malicious smirk or his typical joking smile, the one that's lopsided and goofy. But that same part of you is ecstatic that he was entirely serious and that he's still hard.

The outline of his cock was prominent against his jeans, straining against the zipper as your eyes roved down his body and up, taking in every inch of him. It must have been the look in your eyes that encouraged him because the next second Eddie kissed you, all teeth, tongue, and male arousal.

He was rough as he grabbed your upper arms, pulling you against his chest and into the room. The bedroom door slammed shut with an awful bang seconds before he’d all but thrown you onto the bed.

You shouldn't have enjoyed being manhandled. You shouldn't want him, but you do.

His kisses were hot. It was like lava pouring into your mouth and free-flowing through your veins until it felt like you were burning alive, your skin aflame wherever he touched. His hands were rough but gentle at the same time, leaving you with emotional whiplash. Eddie grabbed you with urgency, as though you were all that kept him from being engulfed in this wild fantasy.

And as he stripped you, methodically removing each article of clothing until you were naked beneath him, he took the time to appreciate every inch of your body. He didn't seem to notice the way you tried to hide yourself—hands covering the stretch marks and skin left behind after pregnancy, your thighs rubbing together to hide the obvious sheen of arousal. You grab his face between your hands and pull him in for another fiery kiss to stop his eyes from wandering.

The pads of his fingers were calloused from summers of hard work with his uncle in the shop and hours of guitar playing, creating a rough drag against your skin. He fondles your tits, palming them, rolling your nipples between his finger and thumb until they pebble, until you whine against his lips; the sound he pulls from your throat is positively whoreish.

By the time he dragged his hands down your stomach, you were soaked, the slick of your arousal dripping down your backside to dampen the mattress. Eddie mouthed your neck, leaving broad, wet stripes over your racing pulse with his tongue. "You're so fucking hot," he groaned while pulling your thighs apart. You want to be embarrassed, but when his lips close around one of your nipples, embarrassment flies out the window.

You should have felt guilty. Your chest should have been tight and your heart heavy. Instead, all you could feel was the delicious slide of his tongue over and around your nipple and the way his teeth burrowed so faintly into your sensitive flesh.

He paid the same attention to the opposite one, sucking, swirling, and biting until both were hardened peaks that crowned your breasts. When he lifted his mouth, your skin glistened with his saliva, a line of it connecting his lips to your nipple before it settled into place on your stomach. And then he was everywhere—his mouth trailing down your stomach, his lips, his tongue, his palmy breath, even all the places that you hated.

He took his time, each caress of his lips and swipe of his tongue unhurried as he worshipped your body in ways you hadn't realised you’d been craving. He pressed his palms against the inside of your knees, forcing your legs apart as he slotted himself between them. His breath was hot against your bare cunt, which glistened with obvious arousal.

Eddie gave a low whistle that made you blush.

"Stop," you whispered when your eyes met his lust-blown orbs. You tried to bring your thighs together to stifle the growing ache at your core, but he forced your knees apart.

The gasp he tore from your throat with the first touch of his tongue was loud and strangled. Eddie used the tip to lick from your clenching hole to your clit, gathering your arousal and swallowing it down with a lustful moan that vibrated through your cunt. His fingers tightened at your knees, leaving prints behind when he licked you again, making your hips buck hard enough to almost dislodge him.

"Jesus Christ, baby," he breathed out. "Your pussy's so fucking juicy."

It was all he said before his mouth was on you, his tongue pushing through your slick folds and into your clenching hole to drag the arousal from you. He was methodical, making your hips jerk and twitch. It was like electricity had replaced your blood, turning your body into live wires and leaving you a twitching, writing mess as Eddie lapped at your cunt relentlessly.

Maybe it was it’s months and weeks of bottled-up frustrations; maybe it’s was your feelings of inadequacy and insecurities melting away; maybe it’s was the sheer ridiculousness of sleeping with someone other than your husband; whatever the reason, Eddie and his wicked tongue have you hurtling towards climaxing faster than you thought possible.

Eddie grabbed your wrists and pinned them to the bed when you pulled on his hair; his mouth was now the only thing that kept your hips pinned. It was the stab of his tongue into your quivering hole and his nose bumping into your throbbing clit that threw you over the edge.

Not once did he stop, even as heaven and hell clashed violently around you, leaving you crying beneath the assault of his tongue. It started with white-hot lightening sparking to life in your heart and then settled into a static hum behind your ears when you sagged back to the bed. Your bones felt like jelly, and your limbs trembled with each aftershock.

His tongue pushed through your folds again and again, leaving you a whimpering mess, which was music to his ears. He left broad, wet stripes along your lips, your clit, and your hole, drawing your orgasm out much longer than you thought possible.

Eddie kissed you hard while you regained your senses and came back to earth, his lips working over yours while he ran his hands down your sides and gripped your hips tightly. "Felt good, baby?" he cooed. His voice sounded almost mocking as he pushed a hand between your thighs, the calloused tips of his fingers a rough drag against your clit as he gathered your spend to lubricate them.

The noise he drew from you was whoreish. Your eyes snapped shut while your back arched involuntarily. You twisted your fingers around the sheets when the pleasure began to race too close behind your first orgasm, bordering on too much, too quickly.

"Eddie, Eddie, please, I'll die," you managed to gasp out, your voice straining when he pushed two fingers into your clenching hole, making the arch in your back deepen. He kissed your neck, his teeth leaving faint marks behind on your skin. You grab at his hair again and pull it hard to make him stop before he can leave bruises for your husband to see.

"Not yet, sweet girl; you can give me another one."

He made it sound like a question, but he wasn’t asking one.

The drag of his fingers through your slick walls had your mind going blank as he doubled down on you. Your head is thrown back as nothing comes out of your parted lips. Your thighs trembled to the point of cramps as your walls spasmed suddenly around his fingers. You'd never known that your orgasms could crash so close together; it's like ocean waves crashing over sand—it happens once, and then again, and again.

It was like there was a string that ran the length of your body, and it was being pulled tighter and tighter by the prod of his fingers as he curled them and changed the angle until he finally found that spongy sweet spot that had galaxies and stars bursting to life behind your eyes. You back arched until it hurt, then snapped straight as he fingered you through your orgasm.

Only when your body went limp did he pull his fingers from you. The sound of them moving through your soaked folds was obscene, but not as much as the sight of him licking them clean. Eddie brought them to his lips, his devil’s tongue snaking free to greedily lap up your spend with a throaty moan.

You blink at him slowly to clear the blur of tears from your eyes, but more fell each time your lashes swept atop the apples of your cheeks. Eddie smiled smugly before moving to stand at the side of the bed so he could strip himself in a hurry. He threw his jacket and shirt across the room haphazardly and left his jeans and boxers pooled together on the floor. You watched with half-lidded doe eyes as he stroked himself.

He was far bigger than you'd realised before. When you'd walked in on him, it had all happened so fast—you'd seen him but hadn't seen him.

You tugged your lower lip between your teeth and chewed on it while he crawled up the bed to hover over you, his cock bobbing proudly against his stomach with each movement. "Ready, pretty girl?" He asked as he mouthed up the hollow of your throat before capturing your lips before you could answer.

It wouldn't take a genius to understand why he's asking. He was giving you a chance to change your mind, to tell him to stop and preserve whatever modesty and dignity you have left. He was giving you an out, but you were already lost in him. Eddie. Eddie. Eddie.

You wrapped your legs around his hips and dug your heels into the backs of his thighs to bring him closer. The glide of his cock between your slick folds and the way his mushroom head nudged your overstimulated clit, were delicious. You moaned against his lips. Eddie took this as permission and sank into the warm, wet tightness of your cunt with a single thrust, hissing with pleasure as he seated himself fully within your walls.

"So fucking tight for me," he grunted against your lips. His teeth were clenched, and his eyes were screwed shut as he stilled and gave you a moment to adjust to his invasion. Eddie was bigger than Peter, both in length and girth, leaving your brain short-circuiting and sparking. He was pressed against every delicious spot inside your gummy walls, so that it felt like he was pressed against your cervix, and deeper still.

Your lips opened and closed and opened again in silent, breathless moans when he began to move, setting a gruelling pace right from the start. You weren't a virgin; he knew that. He knew he didn't need to go slow or be gentle. He could throw you over the edge and into oblivion and make you scream his name without any preamble.

He took over your world as he fucked you.

The scent of his cologne was deep in your lungs from where your face was buried against the side of his neck, just so you could attack his skin with sweet kisses and blistering bites. Your hands mapped every inch of his skin that you could reach, committing each detail to memory: the faint dusting of freckles over his nose, the slope of his neck, the way the muscles down his back would shift and tense each time he moved, drawing out and thrusting back in with wild intent.

You could feel yourself oozing—a warm trickle of liquid that rolled down your backside only to be lost in the sheets as he fucked you hard enough to make your tits and tummy jiggle. And as he frantically kissed you, desperately trying to keep you from being too loud, you saw the way his jaw tensed and the flush of colour that crept up his throat and into his face. He was steamrolling towards orgasm like a skydiver caught in a free fall, no wind in his sails, no way to stop.

"Eddie, Eddie." It was a whine, a desperate plea, but for what? You couldn't say.

You canted your hips, raising them to meet the piston of his, so that he could drive himself as deep as possible and crash into the spongy sweet spot he'd found earlier. And when he found it, he didn't stop.

Eddie grabbed one of your hips hard enough to leave bruises in the shape of his fingers and pinned you hard against the mattress. His other hand snaked between your bodies to find your clit, which was still sensitive and throbbing. Eddie drew tight, quick circles around your nub, punching more and more air from your lungs with each rotation when, out of nowhere, the pressure suddenly becomes too much.

The way all your muscles seize had you suddenly panicked, your walls tightening around him like a vice, earning a hiss of pleasure from his tight-lipped expression. He still didn’t stop. You stare at him wide-eyed, your voice strangled, as you try to articulate the way the pressure is building too fast and moving too far beyond what you understand is normal.

"Ed-Eddie, fuck, s'too much!" You cried out as you threw your head from side to side. Tears fell from your eyes like waterfalls, sliding down your temples and disappearing into your sweat-damp hair. You felt yourself tightening around him. He managed a deep groan at the first sign of your leaking cunt.

You grabbed his wrist wildly, your nails clawing at his skin. Your body trembled violently, screamed at you to make him stop. Your brain begged for more.

Another perfectly aimed thrust of his hips, his cock sliding through your quivering walls, his thumb on your clit changing directions, finally broke you. You threw your head back; your eyes opened wide, but you saw nothing as you screamed. It was like white-hot lightning engulfed your body, setting your world on fire. Lights of red and yellow flashed behind your eyes like a disco dance from hell.

Eddie didn't try to keep you quiet this time. Each drawback and push forwards deluged his cock with liquid. He still didn't stop. His mouth was affixed with awe, permanently hanging open as you drenched him, yourself, and the sheets. "Holy fucking hell, baby, just like that, Jesus... fuck, fuck, fuck!"

He couldn't hold back, even if he'd wanted to. He grabbed you roughly by the hips, keeping you pinned to the mattress as he buried himself. Eddie came hard—harder than he'd ever come before. He felt each rope shoot from himself despite the tremors in his body, and he knew that you felt it too. Your walls were on repeat, gripping him, releasing him, and gripping him again, like a record stuck on repeat.

There was relief in his eyes when he slumped forwards, his chest pressing tight against yours. He brushed his face into the crook of your shoulder, curls tickling at your skin as he laughed breathlessly. "I didn't know you could do that," he muttered against your dewy skin, tasting your sex-sweet sweat.

"I didn't know I could do that."

[strixiebean]

Henry Holly | H-1, H-3, H-4, G-7

Roscoe Hartford | S-1, S-2, S-5

Tai Rivera | O-3, 0-4, 0-5, 0-8

Emmett Wells | I-2, I-4, I-7, I-8, G-3 & G-5

Owen Bowie | D-1, D-2, D-5, D-6, R-8 even tho he's not from ramshackle

and just bc i love our ERA girls i'll modify some of these

Cerise Wormheart | H-9 replace w/ Cygnette, P-2, G-2

Eunice Davies | Ramshackle questions but just replace them w/ the ERA Library :

R-5, R-6, R-7, R-8, R-9

HENRY HOLLY

H-1) Henry has gotten collared a few times for scaring the animals. It mainly happened in their second year, with the choice made by Riddle to forbid him from those duties as the collaring was so frequent for something they truly couldn't control.

H-2) Henry loves painting the roses, but their upmost favourite chore/duty is watching the door. They loved it so much it just became their job. But their least favourite used to be with the animals as he has the unfortunate ability to scare tiny animals as a bird of prey. Now, after getting taken off those duties, their least favourite is cleaning up after an Unbirthday Party.

H-4) About 400 rules have been memorized, and to the best of their ability they try to follow each and every one!

G-7) Ignoring their help and bullying the freshmen in his dorm pisses Henry off very quickly, but they can be calmed down with headpats and seeds. Cheering them up sounds easy as they're always so happy, but it's actually harder to truly make them happy. Loved ones giving him some time and company does the trick, though.

ROSCOE HARTFORD

S-1) Roscoe considers himself the third in command in Savanaclaw, right after Ruggie! Cause he's tough! In reality, as a deer beastman he's at the bottom of the food chain in that dorm.

S-2) Roscoe plays Spelldrive to fit in, but honestly? His specialty is hockey. He loves playing it but wanted to suck up to Leona and joined the Spelldrive club instead.

S-5) He has hella beef with Epel and Sach (@pomevinelle 's Undertow TWST) for being short and, in his own words 'girly and weak'. Roscoe is deeply insecure that he's only 5'1" and Sach at least makes him feel tall.

TAI RIVERA

O-3) Tai is very trusted in the kitchen, he's usually there to make sure everyone is fed though. It's the dad instinct in him. His favourite food though are crab cakes, and he feels bad eating them but they just taste so good.

O-4) He is shit scared of them, and the tweels 100% know that, but when he's really struggling from his lack of sleep, Tai has no issues telling them both off for their bullshit. He once told Floyd to sit in the corner and think about what he'd done, and Floyd did. Tai apologized profusely afterwards.

0-5) Tai stays at school during the winter holidays due to how cold it is, but even as a mer he feels uneasy with the dorm being underwater. What if something goes wrong and all the human and beatsmen students die? He's just paranoid like that.

0-8) He scolded the shit out of Azul for it, he only found out afterwards but the fact that he even pulled a stunt like that is shameful at best.

EMMETT WELLS

I-2) Emmett is proud of all his inventions, but in terms of completed and working ones? The Break-O-Matic! Emmett mainly made it for himself to have breakfast ready and waiting each morning, but it benefited the dorm so much! He feels very proud of it, even though it needs repairing a lot.

I-4) Alone, Emmett likes to read the newspaper and garden, but an activity he does both alone and around other people is knitting. It brings him joy to listen to the ramblings of others while he knits, or take in the serene silence of shared company. It's nice.

I-7) He wants no part in S.T.Y,X, in all honesty his dream job is being an inventor for his little home town and improving all their lives in any way he can, or being a gardener. He prefers the simple things in life.

I-8) Emmett thinks it has something to do with games, or tech, but he's not too fussed to find out, honestly. But even if he did know, he wouldn't really mind or care too much.

G-3) The main inspo behind his design was just his twst, which isn't even a disney property. I had based him off of Gromit from the Wallace and Gromit franchise, and had taken inspo from hairs that I thought looked nice!

G-5) Emmett is fine with caffeine, usually drinking tea each day, but he does kinda need it. He will be mad at others though if they drink too much of it.

OWEN BOWIE

D-1) Owen is a musical theatre nerd through and through, though he also likes the classics too, and usually he listens by himself. Post OB he started listening to musical soundtracks with Boo (@pomevinelle 's Jack Twst), as they both share a love for the arts.

D-2) Yes. And he hates being scared of Malleus so he turns his fear into hatred instead. It's how he copes.

D-5) Outside of Owen's UM, he specializes in shadow manipulation, getting them to a point where they can walk and talk and can interact with objects. However it's very risky magic and builds up a lot of blot each time.

D-6) Owen has many 'old fashioned' hobbies, but his main two are calligraphy and whittling. Calligraphy became a hobby after reading a book on how to do it about ten times, and the whittling was taught by Sister Agnes ( My wife's oc once again), and has now expanded to making mini dolls, dice and a various amount of things.

R-8) Book Seven, as me and my partner had put his overblot as a Book 6.5 event, and after that he had lots to grow from, and confronting his dreams helped his character growth a lot. Though if we bring more oc's into it, Sister Agnes' overblot is what pushed him to have the most character growth.

CERISE WORMHEART

H-9) Replacing Riddle with Cygentte, Cerise would rather eat her own robe than study with her. She finds Cygnette to be so full of herself. But Cerise's methods of studying are easy and simple: Study til she passes out.

P-2) Cerise would be a squishy wizard with a CON of -3.

G-2) Her robes and her crow familiar, Merlin. Cerise feels safety and comfort in her robes, and she knows that Merlin would never lead her astray.

EUNICE DAVIES

R-5) As Eunice lives in Enchanted Rose's library, she customized the tiny office she sleeps in with fun decals she finds, and stickers gifted to her by her friends. Its not much but it's enough for her.

R-6) Eunice sees her close friends Cerise and Najma (who we headcanon go to ERA) as her family, and her rabbit Gordie too.

E-7) As a certified D&D nerd, Eunice loved the idea of magic, but after getting it from in your face a bunch and getting mocked for not having it? You start to resent it.

E-8) This one is one I'm still unsure about honestly, but possibly she'd have some big character growth after the Cerise betrayal arc.

R-9) Logically Eunice wouldn't have met any of the NRC guys, but if I had to think... Idia would be terrified that someone is talking to him and run away before Eunice can reveal how big of a nerd she is.

[cosmica-galaxy]

Idk if you've answered this before but how does the reproduction of Mimics work in your Mimic-verse? Like, does it work like humans or do they lean more towards like how birds or some other egg-laying creatures do? Or do they have an entirely different way of having offsprings? What's the gestation period before birth for if they mate with a human or other mimics? .

Um, sorry about this weird ask but I've been curious to ask this since your version mimics are, for the most part, organic ^^;

Mimics reproduce similar to humans, as they were the template for their existence for hundreds of years before the Skibidis killed them off...or at least killed MOST of humanity off. Gestation periods vary from mimic to mimic, as each one lives a different lifestyle. But their overall biologies are the same or mostly similar. For all human/mimic pairings:

It will depend on who is the carrier. If the mimic is the carrier, the young will arrive in around 6-7 months. If the human is the carrier, it will be closer to a standard 8-9 months. The brood will also vary from the type of mimic the human chooses to pair with. Giving a possibility of just a single child to multiple.

Camera mimics usually have multiple young in one sitting (so keep that in mind if you're gonna get with one XD), speaker mimics usually have only one to two babies per litter but triplets aren't super rare (just mostly uncommon and it's not very likely on newly-paired mates) , while TV mimics are more traditional and will only have one to two at max per litter. For all mimic/mimic pairings:

Camera mimics have the quickest gestation period with about 5 months being the shortest amount of time for an average litter of campups to arrive in the world, 6-7 months for larger litters. As a result of this, they are the most common mimic that one can find. Speaker mimics have the second longest gestation period with about 7 months being the time for a little speakitten to arrive into the world. The parents will hole away in a safe haven with their kin and the carrier will be cared for by the whole clan in a communal care system. This social behavior usually results in plump happy speakittens being welcomed into the world! TV mimics are VERY picky about their breeding practices and preferences. So a pregnant TV mimic is a rare sight, since an area needs to be perfect for a TV mimic couple to settle down to have a little one. They take the longest as well, with 8-9 months being required for a gestation period to develop a baby. Which also contributes to their rarity, no-doubt. Hybrids:

Hybrids in general are a mixed bag. When two different mimics meet, get along, and decide to contribute to the mimic population--anything can happen. When two gene pools are mixed together, the young can come out as few as one single baby to a large litter! That also makes their birth expectancy unpredictable. For example, if a camera mimic mated with a speaker mimic and the young was a camera-dominant hybrid, the pregnancy will be short and multiple young can be expected. But if the baby is speaker-dominant, it will take 7 months instead of 5 and may have a sibling or two as well. Same for any other mimic pairings as well. Special cases:

Large mimic variants can only breed after Origin has been released back into the world and they can only mate with other large mimics, as smaller mimics and large mimics are not compatible sexually.

The "crowned" variants of the large mimics are unable to breed entirely, they are sterile once their crown grows in and they devote themselves to serving Origin for the entirety of their lives. It doesn't bother them at all, as they view serving Origin as the greatest honor a mimic can achieve as well as how they eventually will "adopt" a trainee that will take their place once the time for their retirement comes. Origin themselves also can't breed, but can bring life into the world via creation. Similar to how they brought the mimics into existence long long ago. Other than that, they are above such "mortal desires and needs" and do not actively seek out any pleasure. They are probably considered asexual? If that's the correct term.

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Reptilia - Ciconiiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order are the Ciconiiformes, which contain one family, Ciconiidae, commonly called “storks”.

Storks are superficially similar to the unrelated cranes and herons, with a long neck, bill, and legs, but they are more heavy-set. They have large bills, with sizes and shapes that vary between genera, adapted to their different diets. Storks usually hunt by wading in shallow water, but some will also stalk through grasslands. Most storks eat frogs, fish, insects, earthworms, small birds, and small mammals. Some are also scavengers of carrion. Storks live all over the world, except for the North and South Pole. They live in a variety of habitats, and can survive in drier environments than other waterbirds, but they are most diverse and common in the tropics. Many stork species are migratory, and soar on thermals to conserve energy.

Storks range from being solitary breeders through loose breeding associations, to fully colonial, nesting in colonies of a few pairs to thousands of pairs. Some colonies may include other species of storks, cormorants, herons, egrets, ibises, and/or pelicans. Storks use trees in a variety of habitats to breed including forests, cities, farmlands, and large wetlands. Their nests are often very large and may be used for many years, with the pair returning and building onto it each year. Most storks are generally monogamous, but some species exhibit regular extra-pair breeding. Both parents take care of the young.

Like most families of aquatic birds, storks seem to have arisen in the Palaeogene, around 40–50 million years ago, with living genera dating back to the Middle Miocene (about 15 mya).

Propaganda under the cut:

The characteristic feeding method of storks involves standing or walking in shallow water and holding the bill submerged in the water. When contact is made with prey the bill reflexively snaps shut in 25 milliseconds, one of the fastest reactions known in any vertebrate. The stork is also able to sense whether its bill is making contact with prey or an inanimate object within those 25 milliseconds, and it is still not known how they do this.

Openbills (genus Anastomus) are specially adapted to feed on freshwater molluscs, particularly apple snails. They feed in small groups, and sometimes African Openbills (Anastomus lamelligerus) (image 4) ride on the backs of hippos while foraging. Having caught a snail it will return to land or at least to the shallows to eat it. The fine tip of the bill of the openbills is used to open the snail, and its saliva has a narcotic effect, which causes the snail to relax and simplifies the process of extraction.

Various terms are used to refer to groups of storks, two frequently used ones being a “muster” of storks and a “phalanx” of storks.

The Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer) (image 2) is the largest stork, at a height of 152 cm (5 ft) tall and weight up to 8 kg (18 lb). With a wingspan of 3.2 m (10 ft 6 in), it joins the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) in having the widest wingspan of all living land birds.

Although it is sometimes reported that storks lack syrinxes and are mute, they do have syrinxes, and are capable of making some sounds, although they do not do so often. However, their syrinxes are "variably degenerate", and the syringeal membranes of some species are found between tracheal rings or cartilage, an unusual arrangement shared with the ovenbirds (family Furnariidae). Instead, storks mainly communicate by clattering their bills.

The two species in the genus Ephippiorhynchus are unique among storks for having colored sexual dimorphism. Saddle-billed Stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) (image 1) males have brown eyes and small yellow wattles, while the females have yellow eyes and no wattles. Black-necked Stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus) males also have brown eyes while the females have yellow eyes.

Many ancient mythologies feature stories and legends involving storks. In Ancient Egypt, Saddle-billed Storks were seen as being amongst the most powerful animals and were used to represent the ba, the Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul, during the Old Kingdom.

Greek and Roman mythology portrays storks as models of parental devotion. Storks were thought to care for their aged parents, feeding them and even transporting them, and children's books depicted them as a model of filial values. The 3rd century Roman writer Aelian, noted in his De natura animalium that aged storks flew away to oceanic islands where they were transformed into humans as a reward for their loyalty towards their parents. The Greeks held that killing a stork could be punished with death.

According to European folklore, the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) (see gif above) is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. German folklore held that storks found babies in caves or marshes and brought them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks. The babies would then be given to the mother or dropped down the chimney. Households would notify when they wanted children by placing sweets for the stork on the windowsill. Subsequently, the folklore has spread around the world to the Philippines and countries in South America. In Slavic mythology and pagan religion, storks were thought to carry unborn souls from Vyraj to Earth in spring and summer. This belief still persists in the modern folk culture of many Slavic countries, in the simplified child story that "storks bring children into the world".

[virgo-mess]

The Birds and the Bees

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Chapter List

1.Alexithymia- The Inability to Express your Feelings Parts 1 and 2

2.The Woes of Adolescence/ What the heck Happened that Summer Parts 1 and 2

3.Caught in a Summer Storm/ What the heck Happened that Christmas.

4.Summer Bluffs? Part 1

5.Disco, Strippers, and Margaritassss Part 2

6.Sleepless in a Hotel Suite Part 3

7.Shades of Pink

8.The Things I’ve Dreamed Part 1

9.Renewal Part 2

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TW: None really just two angsty pretty people that can't communicate, flirting, with a little fluff ....ENJOY!

Alexithymia- The Inability to Express Your Feelings Part 1

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“For adults, summer was different- flatter, the way everything became flatter when you grew old, like the hills you once sledded and stood on your pedals to climb, like the Christmases and birthdays you once anticipated, even after you discovered they disappointed, again and again, until you became numb to their disappointment.”- Dana Cann

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Shay’s Pov

Shay hummed softly to the radio while she inhaled the salty scent of the New England coast, she watched the deep blue of Plymouth Harbor flit past her car windows for the first time in two years. The ocean and their pretty beaches were one of the things she missed the most about coming back to her hometown of Plymouth Massachusetts, at least when they weren’t hidden under a thick blanket of winter snow. Winter was usually the only time of year Shay could afford to slip away from her job as Vice President of an investment banking firm on Wall Steet and make the nearly four-hour drive back home. She had moved to New York what felt like a lifetime ago to attend school at NYU but in reality, it was only seven years. She had only intended on majoring in marketing, but the allure of upper-class New York City living was too strong. Shay ended up toughing college life out for one more year to earn an MBA and before she knew it, she was calling NYC home and worked her way up the investment banking chain. The hours of being a VP of investment banking were grueling, but the pay was good with extra perks like end of the year bonuses and paid time off, but Shay had come to find the life of a workaholic was also incredibly lonely. The only reason she was even able to swing this trip home was because her boss, Harold Weber, had suggested she take a sabbatical after having a mild mental breakdown in front of a few clients a couple of weeks ago. A breakdown that landed her in the back of an ambulance. Needless to say, Shay jumped at the opportunity to expand her horizons for a few months and oddly enough home seemed like the best place to do it.

So, here Shay was back in her hometown about to meet up with some of her oldest childhood friends, her breakdown had conveniently lined up well with some major life events. Her best friends Daisy and Pete were getting married in a few weeks, and Shay was sweetly bestowed the title of Maid of Honor. Daisy had gone all out and had showed up at Shay’s New York loft to hand deliver the biggest bouquet of flowers and spa basket Shay had ever seen about three months ago. How could Shay say no after such a grand gesture? Truthfully, she would’ve accepted if Daisy had just shown up with a cupcake and a big hug it had been so long since she had gotten one of those. Shay turned her forest green Audi R8 into the 1620 Wine Bar parking lot at exactly 12 o’clock for her scheduled lunch date with Daisy Martin, soon to be Daisy Foster. They were meeting to not only catch up but to also put together some of the last-minute touches on the wedding Shay had promised she’d help her with as soon as she got the time. Luckily for them both, Shay seemingly had all the time in the world now after this sabbatical she wasn’t sure if she was going to stay in the world of investment banking or New York in general.

Shay sighed stepping out of her car and taking in the warm summer rays as she made her way up to the small wine bar at a leisurely pace. She only made one stop the entire four hour drive up and that was to put actual clothes on, so she didn’t show up to a fancy wine bar in a pair of skimpy pajamas with a set of hair rollers in her hair. Instead, she opted for a simple mint green floral mini sundress and a matching cardigan that matched her misty green eyes. She even took the time to apply some make up and the hair rollers helped her achieve her routine picture perfect 90s blowout in a sketchy gas station bathroom. Shay looked at her reflection in the glass for a moment before pushing the heavy door open and walking into the dim wine bar with an awed expression on her face. Soft jazz music lulled through the overhead speakers as Shay’s green eyes took in the antique furnishings, beautiful stone walls, and gilded ceilings.

“Welcome to Sips at 1620, do you have a reservation?” a girl’s voice came from behind the hostess stand pulling Shay out of her thoughts with a polite smile on her face. She couldn’t help but feel a bit underdressed and fidgeted with the hem of her sundress as she took the last few steps up to the hostess stand.

“Yeah, it should be under Daisy” Shay said feeling a bit out of place in such a pretty place despite how polite the hostess was being to her. She wondered why Daisy picked such a romantic looking establishment, it seemed more suited for a date night than to just be planning parts of your wedding with a childhood friend but perhaps they weren’t going to be alone, and Daisy was looking to make a good impression.

“Looks like you’re the first one here, do you have a seating preference we have our main room off to your left here or our patio overlooking the harbor is just through doors.” The hostess said with a knowing look in her eyes as she watched Shay fidget with the hem of her dress again.

“The patio sounds perfect” Shay admitted letting out a faint sigh of relief. She could push her suspicious train of thought to the back of her mind for a little while and worry about surprise guests later, for now all she really needed was a glass of wine.

“Good choice, I know it can be a little intimidating in here, but I promise we aren’t nearly that fancy you’re not underdressed. You can go out and have a seat wherever you want, I’ll send someone out to bring you refreshments while you wait.” She said with the same knowing look in her eyes and a soft smile. Shay let out a soft, embarrassed sounding giggle and wondered how some people were able to get a read on her so easily.

“Thanks, could you make the first refreshment a glass of sangria please” Shay asked with a sheepish smile on her face, the host chuckled nodding her head as she began to shuffle out from behind the desk.

“Sure, thing hon, I’ll be with you in just one second sir.” The hostess said giving her one last smile before disappearing through a back door. Shay took one last look around the bar to get a closer look at some of the pretty furnishings before heading towards the patio doors and stepping out into the warm late June sunshine. The patio was empty but had a much more relaxed feel to it than the main room. The tables were covered with black and white striped umbrellas and the chairs were a pleasing assortment of cushioned patio loveseats and cute wicker chairs with brightly colored pillows. Shay all but skipped to one of the tables closest to the rippling blue of Plymouth harbor, she sat her purse down and quickly discarded her cardigan before taking a seat on one of the comfortable loveseats. Her green eyes fixate on the crashing waves and a loved-up couple in the distance, the faint lull of soft music could still be heard floating through the balmy air. Only instead of smooth jazz, the soft notes of a dreamy sounding indie pop song graced Shay’s ears. She couldn’t help but get dewy-eyed as a small wistful type of smile made its way across her face because the music and the couple on the beach reminded her of the happy summers of her girlhood. Most of which were spent with the boy next door, her first crush, and also her best friend before she and Daisy got really close.

“Hey gorgeous, what are you doing over here by yourself?” a deep, flirtatious voice asked, Shay jumped slightly in surprise halting her daydreaming to focus on the tall man standing in front of her table with a flirty smile on his face. Shay blushed under his gaze as she let her eyes trail over the man’s tall, muscled body for a bit longer than socially acceptable. He’s dressed in a pair of dark fitted jeans, a white button down that gave her a very teasing display of his muscled chest, and a dark blue blazer. Cropped gray hair sits atop his head and a pair of dark sunglasses shield his eyes from Shay’s view but even with the sunglasses on she can tell he’s incredibly handsome in a mysterious, brooding type of way. Something about the man feels remarkably familiar to her but she can’t quite pinpoint what it is.

“I’m um, waiting for my friend and my glass of sangria” Shay said awkwardly letting her eyes sweep the patio to find it still completely empty save for her and the mysterious man wearing sunglasses in front of her that almost seemed to appear out of thin air. The man let out a soft chuckle under his breath that somehow had Shay’s stomach doing flips and her eyes giving him another quick once over because she swears, she’s heard that chuckle before.

“Sorry I startled you; would you mind if I keep you company while you wait pretty lady?” he asked in the same deep coquettish tone, Shay felt her cheeks flush a darker shade of pink as she gazed up at him for a long time. She couldn’t see his eyes but part of her knew he was gazing right back at her in a way that made her feel like he was undressing her and staring into her soul at the same time in a sensual, tantalizing sort of way.

“You’ve complimented me twice in under a minute that can’t be good, have a seat Casanova” Shay said coyly motioning to the two other chairs around the table. Mystery man let out another soft chuckle before plopping in the empty spot next to Shay on the patio chair close enough for his large thigh to ghost hers in the most teasing way. He flashed her another flirty smile as he propped an arm on the table and rested his chin in the palm of his hand. Shay rolled her eyes and let out a soft giggle of her own as she teasingly mirrored his action, placing her chin in the palm of her hand as she flashed him a coy smile before deciding to break the brief silence the pair of them had seemingly fallen into.

“Have we met before Mr…?” Shay trailed raising an eyebrow at him expectantly as her eyes continued to try and pinpoint why on earth, he felt so familiar yet oh so different at the same time. She watched him bite down on his lip like he was trying to bite back another chuckle. She concluded that the sunglasses were what was throwing off whatever picture she had of him in her head.

“Right or Perfect for you, whichever you prefer darling. You know I think we have met, in my dreams…” his tone had a playful edge to it this time and Shay could see one of his eyebrows peek up at her from behind his glasses, mirroring her expression with a teasing grin. Shay giggled, shaking her head as she felt the familiar fluttering of butterflies in her stomach.

“Yeah, okay Casanova. Let me guess, you’re in town for that big rodeo happening down at the fairgrounds and you need some ‘eye-candy’ in your cheering section…” Shay said with a coy smile on her face at her artfully subtle tack of asking the silver haired mystery what he’d be getting up to while he was in town. It’d been ages since Shay actually let loose and entertained a random guy that had the guts to brazenly flirt with her like this but part of her felt like the guy sitting next to her wasn’t just a random guy and that she’d known him her whole life. There was only one other guy Shay had felt such a thing for, someone she knew a lifetime ago back in those carefree days of her youth…

“I’m no cowboy, doll but you aren’t too far off about me wanting some eye candy and luckily I just happened to stumble upon the prettiest girl in Plymouth.” He all but purred, reaching out to brush his thumb against her flushed cheek affectionately, too affectionately for a supposed stranger… Shay eyed him suspiciously but couldn’t find it in her to pull away from him because everything about him had her utterly transfixed and once again feeling oddly homesick, homesick for a person rather than a place.

“Let me guess, you’re in town for that over-the-top Foster wedding, aren’t you blondie?” he crooned in a teasing tone. His long fingers left Shay’s flushed cheek to toy with a lock of her blonde hair and Shay found herself biting down on her lip to prevent a displeased whine from escaping her throat at the loss of contact. Familiar waves of conflicting feelings coursed through her veins as she gazed over at him with the same coy smile on her face.

“That obvious huh, seems a bit unfair that you know what I’m doing here when you still haven’t told me your name or what you’re doing here. To think I let you sit at my table with me and everything.” Shay said letting out an exaggerated sigh and ditching her coy smile for a playful, mock pout of sadness. He chuckled shaking his head to himself for a moment before settling his shield gaze back on her with a teasing smirk on his face.

“Oh, I’m just here looking for my soulmate maybe you’ve seen her. She’s wearing a cute little green dress that matches her eyes and has an adorable albeit, fake pout on her pretty face right now” he said in a teasing tone, still twirling a lock of her blonde hair on his long finger. Shay rolled her eyes playfully and found herself biting back a giggle.

“Do you use that line on everyone, Casanova?” Shay said nonchalantly, raising an eyebrow at him as she rested her chin back in the palm of her hand, she silently wished she could take his sunglasses off not just because she wanted to see who was behind them but more so to getting a better feel for what he was thinking. Interpreting his thoughts and expressions based on eyebrows alone was getting tedious.

“No, just a cute little blonde with pretty green eyes and an adorable button nose who also happens to be my soulmate. Haven’t you been listening?” he said in a low borderline seductive tone as he bit down on his lip and gave her a teasing bop on the tip of her nose with one of the long fingers that had just been toying with her hair. Shay didn’t resist the urge to giggle this time, finding the action mildly ridiculous but strangely adorable all the same. Her giggles took a second to die down but when they did, she found herself analyzing his face again.

“She’s got a cute laugh too…why are you staring at me like that ch…blondie?” he all but cooed, dragging a finger down her thigh delicately, staring at her in a way that implied he was searching her eyes for something. Shay tensed a bit at both the action and the intensity of his shielded gaze as she felt an unexpected wave of arousal creep up on her.

“You remind me of someone…” Shay breathed out tearing her eyes off the man for the first time since he had magically appeared in front of her table a mere twenty minutes ago because it finally dawned on her to dig through her purse for her cell phone. She doubted it was a coincidence he showed up at the exact time Daisy was supposed to be meeting her here. No, Daisy Martin was playing matchmaker again and she was in for an earful when she finally decided to grace her and mystery man with her presence.

“A good someone I hope, tall, handsome, pretty blue eyes, might be a cop, could’ve got suspended for beating up a dirtbag named Tyler in a hotel lobby in New York…” he trailed nonchalantly.

“Huh” Shay said though she wasn’t really listening to what he was saying as she unlocked her phone to see about ten text messages from Daisy.

“…Nothing, what’s your favorite flower?” he asked in the same nonchalant tone, pointedly running his fingers up Shay’s thigh again in a teasing matter to get her attention. Shay sighed, pausing her skim through Daisy’s messages to arch her brow at him again though this time it was in a snarkier manner than the previous ones she raised at him. He smiled over at her almost seeming sheepish under her gaze for the first time in the last twenty minutes or so.

“Why does that matter, you gonna buy me some Casanova?” Shay sighed, forcing a tight smile on her face before glancing back down at her phone to read the first few messages her meddlesome friend Daisy had sent her. Apparently, Pete had convinced Daisy to go up to Boston with him early this morning to take a look at some incredibly last-minute ideas for their reception décor, they hit a ton of unexpected traffic on their way back down but would be here at 12:40 by the latest.

“I don’t know maybe, women like that stuff you know, and I bet a favorite flower says a lot about a person. Looking at your phone when someone is trying to talk to you is rude blondie…” he said letting out an exasperated sigh before placing a long finger under her chin, urging her to look at him with a teasing grin plastered on his face. Shay scoffed, narrowing her misty green eyes at him.

“Well, if we’re really soulmates shouldn’t you be able to guess what my favorite flower is. Pretty sure I read that in the soulmate handbook, I can fact check that for you on my phone if you want…” Shay said coyly. Looking past him, she finally spotted a glimpse of Daisy’s black curls in the afternoon sun coming  out of the  patio doors with a disheveled looking Pete Foster in toe. “Sure… stuck in traffic…” Shay said sarcastically under her breath as she watched Daisy try to discreetly readjust her denim skirt.

“You don’t have to do that; I already know the answer is cherry blossoms Shay” he chuckled. Shay sharply settled her green eyes back on the not so mysterious man’s amused-looking smirk at the sound of her name and her childhood nickname coming out of his mouth in the same sentence. There was only one person that ever actually used that nickname for her on a regular basis, he had dark curls and a pair of carefree, captivating blue eyes.

“CASHTON MICHAEL EWING!” Shay all but snarled, reaching up to aggressively tear his obnoxious sunglasses off his face and carelessly tossed them down on the patio harder than necessary. Cash let out a deep annoyed sounding sigh as he watched the glasses clatter and skid against the stained wood with an audible smack.

“I just bought those, that was rude Cherry Blossom, bad girl” Cash chided her though his amused smirk and spread into a full grin as he teasingly bopped her on the tip of her nose with his finger again. Shay scowled at him through her lashes and swatted at his shoulder as hard as she could before finally scooting away from him. Shay crossed her arms over her chest and tried to process everything that happened between them in the last twenty minutes.

“You haven’t seen me in almost seven years, I was hoping to get a warmer greeting especially from you, Cherry Blossom. You’re not being very neighborly, you know.” Cash sighed with an unreadable emotion swirling in his eyes. Shay let out a sigh of her own but refused to meet his gaze even though he was in fact the person she’d been thinking of in the back of her mind this entire time. The someone she had known her whole life, the someone she was feeling homesick for. Cashton Michael “Cash” Ewing was Shay’s neighbor, the first friend she made when her parents moved into the Manomet neighborhood and her first crush though looking back on it now, it was more than just a crush. From the ages of four to fourteen Shay and Cash were basically inseparable, they did everything together back then and Shay had so many happy memories of those years. The innocent years, the ones before the dreads of awkward adolescence crept in on them both and set them down different paths to live separate lives that no longer involved the other.

“Well, we haven’t been neighbors in like eight years Cash… I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you with the hair…it’s looks great though really suits you, brings out your eyes” Shay tacked on awkwardly finally meeting his gaze with a timid look in her eyes. Cash gave her a half smile in response though there seemed to be a million thoughts running through his head as he gazed back at her with almost affectionate eyes. Shay was sure she was misreading the look in his eyes though; she felt the all too familiar bundle of conflicting emotions  Cashton Ewing often brought upon her were still coursing through every fiber of her being.

“You don’t have to apologize Cherry Blossom it’s not your fault, I figured Daisy didn’t tell you I was coming when you checked in with the hostess. I’m just surprised and only mildly offended it took you so long to piece it together” he said lightheartedly though his blue eyes were sincere as they stared back into her green ones for what felt like an eternity. Gazes like this always had Shay’s mind flooding with happy memories from those early years of their friendship but then she’d remember all the more dreadful, angst filled memories of her adolescence and somehow some way, Cash Ewing was at the center of them all. She could remember all the summers their families spent together down in Cape Cod and all the days she and Cash spent running up and down the beaches, the day trips up to Boston during Christmas, stargazing in her backyard, eating ice cream every Tuesday at the parlor downtown, and movie nights with pizza in Cash’s basement. The Cash in those memories was like the one sitting beside her, gazing at her with sincere blue eyes yet something about him still felt so foreign. In the early days they told each other everything and sought comfort in each other when one of them was upset or cried. Shay missed the way things used to be between them before she knew the depth of the feelings she had for her then best friend. Shay knew the distance between them was her fault, they say girls mature faster than boys and that was definitely the case for her and Cash. She still remembered the summer, everything changed though sometimes she really wished she could forget it.

“Shay… are you okay?” Cash asked, pulling Shay out of her moment of reminiscing by running his thumb along her still rosy cheek almost tenderly. Shay nodded her head in acknowledgement without even thinking about it, a habit she picked up that summer between middle school and high school. The summer she no longer felt comfortable letting Cash Ewing know every thought and feeling she ever had because the weight of her feelings and the heartbreak that came with having a crush on her best friend were too embarrassing to admit.

“I’m fine” Shay replied softly, not really knowing what else to say to him because she still felt mostly confused by his charade of choice. Shay knew she should be used to Cash giving her a hard time by now but given her still ever-present feelings for the doofus she can’t help but feel hurt by it. Cash and Pete had been routinely teasing her since they were Sophomores in high school. Shay always assumed it was just because she spent most of her time with Daisy after she pointedly distanced herself from Cash that sour summer, but she didn’t know why he bothered to keep it up after all this time.

“Good, I thought I lost you again” Cash said, flashing her an almost sheepish grin as his finger trailed the length of her thigh again. Shay gave him a weary look before gently pushing his hand off her leg and rising to her feet to greet Pete and Daisy, clad in their matching pastel pink polo shirts and denim bottoms like a couple out of a magazine spread.

“Hey guys, you’re a little late don’t you think” Shay said giving Daisy a pointed yet playful look as she pulled her into a hug. Daisy rolled her eyes but hugged her back, nonetheless before pulling away with an unmistakable impish glint in her brown eyes.

“Didn’t you get my text messages, Pete insisted on driving on up to Boston at the crack of dawn like a deranged rooster because we simply have to have this over-the-top archway at the end the isle. Long story short we’re already way over budget so this fanciful archway ain’t happenin’.” Daisy said giving Pete a pointed look of her own, Pete let out an exasperated sigh before pulling Cash into a brief half hug.

“Yeah, I did get your text messages and you failed to tell me Cash was gonna be joining us for lunch in all ten of them Daisy Martin. Also, don’t think I didn’t see you readjusting your skirt on your way out the door over there, stuck in traffic huh.” Shay said in a hushed tone, Daisy blushed giving Shay a sheepish smile.

“I could’ve sworn I told you that, what’s it matter anyway? You two sure looked nice and cozy together from what I saw. Love is definitely in the air” Daisy said wiggling her dark eyebrows suggestively. Shay let out a sad sounding sigh and gave Daisy a weary look.

“What you saw was Cash toying with me like always. Made a whole show of flirting with me because I didn’t recognize him right away. I’m sure it meant nothing…it never does” Shay said quietly, Daisy’s brown eyes softened a bit, and she reached over to place a comforting hand on Shay’s shoulder the same way she’d been doing since they were kids.

“Shay, you don’t know that alright. I think Cash just has a hard time flirting with you as himself, you can come off a little cold towards him sometimes you know. That doesn’t mean he isn’t being genuine, maybe you make him as nervous as he makes you. You two should really talk…” Daisy trailed; her tone implied that she knew something Shay didn’t, but Shay was already feeling too vulnerable for her comfort level.

“Cashton Micheal can’t have an honest conversation to save his life, Daisy even you know that. Let’s just eat alright, I’m starving, and the hostess forgot to bring me a glass of sangria” Shay said in a lighthearted tone, but sadness was swirling in her green eyes even as she glanced over at Cash and Pete who were having a hushed conversation of their own. Shay could still recall the last two serious conversations she and Cash Ewing had on the last Christmas Cash had come home for and the one on Thanskgiving seven years ago. A conversation that landed her in tears on a train to Cleveland, she was headed back to reassemble the shambles of her first traumatic break up with her ex-boyfriend, Tyler. The second break up happened a mere two years ago but Shay knew their relationship was over the first time around. She just didn't want to be alone...

“Okay, are these yours?” Daisy asked, grabbing Shay’s attention she held up Cash’s battered looking sunglasses with a raised eyebrow. Shay bit her lip to stifle a chuckle as Cash grumpily walked over and took the sunglasses out of Daisy’s hand. The annoyed look in his blue eyes as he looked over the scuffed lenses left Shay feeling oddly satisfied.

“No these are mine, Shaylee Rose thought she’d try her hand at being Walter Johnson before you got here. You owe me a new pair, Cherry Blossom, I know you can afford it, I saw you pull up in that fancy green Audi” Cash smirked with an all too familiar mischievous glint in his ocean blue eyes as he glanced at a surely grinning Pete behind her. Shay rolled her eyes and mentally prepared herself for Cash Ewing and Pete Fosters routine teasing session to begin.

“It was awful nice of you to take a break from your upper Manhattan circle and spend some time with us poor people, Shay. After you ditched us these last two Christmases, I was beginning to think you turned into Scrooge on us.” Pete chuckled, reaching over to pinch Shay’s cheek playfully. Shay scowled and let out an annoyed sounding sigh as she plopped down on one of the wicker patio chairs instead of the loveseat Cash weaponized to entice and torment her just for fun as it would seem.

“You didn’t come home for two whole years, and you couldn’t even come see me an hour car ride over in Jersey City, Cherry Blossom. I’m not too sure she hasn’t turned into a Scrooge after all Petey. That’s not your spot, Shaylee.” Cash said pointedly, sitting back down on the loveseat with a raised eyebrow. Shay stared back at Cash blankly watching his large hand patting the spot next to him almost…seductively. Shay felt her cheeks flush despite her growing annoyance towards him and his cocky attitude at the moment. She knew Cash moved a few years back, but she never realized he had only been a half hour drive from her on a good traffic day.

“Doors work both ways Cashy, I didn’t know you moved to Jersey City but if you wanted to visit me all you had to do was show up Daisy does it all the time.” Shay said flatly, pointedly ignoring his adamant ‘pleas’ for her to sit by him even though part of her wanted to more than anything. She was sure his insistence was just part of whatever this playful act of flirting with her was, she wouldn’t allow herself to fall for it this time.

“Well, I figured if you wanted anything to do with me you would’ve at least answered one of the letters I sent you. Now get out of Pete’s seat.” Cash said, matching her flat tone with a serious expression on his face. Shay furrowed her brows at his words, she hadn’t gotten a letter from Cash since her sophomore year at NYU. She’d received it shortly after that sad Thanksgiving at his mom’s house but at the time she’d been trying her hardest to forget about that day all together. So, she just never answered it with the vague after thought she’d just talk to Cash about it at Christmas if he ever brought it up. Of course, that was because Shay didn’t know Cash had no intention of ever coming back home for a holiday again…

“Pete can sit by you, what letters are talking about?” Shay asked in a gentle but serious tone as her green eyes searched his blue ones for an answer. Cash sighed and shifted uncomfortably under her gaze for the first-time since he walked up to her table which took Shay a bit by surprise. She could count the number of times Cashton Ewing had ever looked this vulnerable on one hand and most of those times were back when his abusive, alcoholic father, Huck Ewing was around. Seeing him like this had forgotten memories of a battered Cash crawling through her window with tears streaming down his face and Shay couldn’t help the twinge of guilt that came along with them. Shay wasn’t sure how her brain ever let her forget the way they used to cling and hold each other back then. Or why neither of their parents seemed to care Cash and her slept and cuddled in the same bed every night until they were fourteen, innocently of course, but Shay can’t recall them ever being supervised. Shay glanced over at Daisy and Pete who were looking between her and Cash like they were watching a daytime soap opera.

“Pete doesn’t want to sit by me, do you Pete?” Cash asked him sharply, taking a turn at ignoring part of Shay’s words this time. Shay sighed feeling some of her guilt subside to make way for her growing annoyance towards Cash once again.

“Nope, I’d very much like to sit by my future wife Shay, so, mosey on over there by your silver fox why don’t ya” Pete replied almost instantly, almost as if he and Cash had rehearsed it beforehand. Shay felt another blush sweep across her cheeks as she looked at the two feeling equal amounts annoyed, suspicious, and embarrassed that Cash had told him about her complimenting his hair.

“No can-do Pete, Daisy and I are planning for the wedding and the bachelor parties. I know Cashton is insufferable, annoying, and obnoxious but do you think you can manage sitting next to your best friend just for today?” Shay asked in an overly sweet tone. She stared up at Pete and batted her eyelashes while a trace of a smirk made its way onto her face at the annoyed look, she could see Cash making out of the corner of her eye. Pete looked like a deer in headlights, his brown eyes darted between Shay and Cash before settling on an amused looking Daisy.

“You didn’t find me that insufferable when you thought I was a total stranger Shaylee Rose. In fact, it looked like you were contemplating letting me get you out of that cute little dress before they got here, and all I had to do was touch your thigh.” Cash said with a coquettish smile plastered on his face. He barely even had to move from his planted spot on the loveseat to trail a pointedly teasing finger up Shay’s leg because his arms were just that long. Shay felt her whole face flush a bright shade of red as she swatted Cash’s hand away from her sharply despite the wave of arousal she felt radiate throughout her body.

“Don’t flatter yourself Cashton and mow I know better than to let someone sit at my table so, trust me it won’t happen again” Shay replied with a scowl on her face, Cash’s coquettish smile didn’t falter, and he opened his mouth to say something snarky back to her, but Daisy cut him off.

“Okay let’s pause the bickering like an old married couple just for a second here…” Daisy said clearing her throat awkwardly though her brown eyes looked very much amused as they looked between them. Shay narrowed her eyes at her comparison of choice but managed to not snap back at her even though she could feel Cash tugging on a few of her curls teasingly.

“Actually Shay, I think it would be easier to talk about things if you sat across from me so, you and Pete should switch. Cash will behave himself, won’t you Cash” Daisy said sharply, Shay heard Cash let out an annoyed sigh and his pestering pulls on hair stop immediately.

“Sure, I’ll behave myself but only if you do darling” Cash said, reaching over to bop Shay on the nose with the same coquettish smile on his face. Shay narrowed her eyes and looked between him and Daisy with an obvious pout on her face.

“Daisy, I don’t think that’s necessary…” Shay said through gritted teeth, Daisy batted her eyelashes innocently, but Shay didn’t miss the impish glint swirling in her eyes. Shay had a sinking suspicion her original train of thought had been correct; Daisy Martin was playing matchmaker and for whatever reason she’d decided Shay and Cash were going to be the new couple that emerged from her wedding party.

“Shay it’s just for lunch” Daisy said reassuringly but it did absolutely nothing to soothe the influx of conflicting thoughts and emotions running through Shay right now. Part of her wanted something to happen between her and Cash and yet part of her didn’t. Part of her wanted to believe Cash was being sincere and that his flirting wasn’t just him toying with her but part of her still felt like it was and ultimately, she’d be the one hurt in the end because she always was…

“Daisy…” Shay said looking at her with pathetic and pleading green eyes that seemed to be having Daisy rethinking something at least. Cash let out a dissatisfied sounding grunt and Shay felt him wrap his arm around her waist firmly enough that she couldn’t wiggle free.

“You heard her, Cherry Blossom, come on now, be a good girl and sit with me, please…I won’t bite you without your permission” Cash said, his tone was more playful than anything this time, but Shay couldn’t help but still feel annoyed with him and everyone really. She made sure to shoot every one of her friends with a menacing glare before she begrudgingly let Cash guide her into the spot next to him with one strong arm.

The minutes ticked by with a long-awaited waiter finally coming out to take their order. He returned sometime later with a pitcher full of sangria and a heartfelt apology for Shay never getting her glass. Shay was mildly aware the waiter was flirting with her at some point during said apology, but free wine is free wine, and she wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Cash had mostly stayed true to his promise to behave by the time the appetizers came out and Shay and Daisy had finally got around to discussing plans for the bachelor party. Shay noticed that Cash seemed to become increasingly grumpy every time, said waiter emerged from the wine bar but she chalked it up to him being annoyed he couldn’t pester her the way he really wanted to.

“Instead of doing separate parties for bachelor parties we could do one big, combined party and pick a fun theme” Shay said, trying her best to ignore the way Cash resumed twirling a lock of her hair. She could see him staring at her intently out of the corner of her eye but kept her gaze trained on Daisy. Daisy nodded her head and pondered the idea with a smile on her face.

“That could be fun everyone could dress up, what do you guys think?” Daisy said animatedly, looking over at Pete with hopeful eyes. Pete nodded his head in agreement because his mouth was full of spinach and artichoke dip at the moment.

“Depends what theme Shay thinks up in this pretty head of hers. I for one don’t fancy dressing up and I know a lot of the guys feel the same way” Cash shrugged nonchalantly. Shay rolled her eyes because you could always leave it up to Cashton Ewing to be a party pooper for the sake of being the cool tough guy. Shay hadn’t seen him dress up for anything other than a school dance since they were kids and of course he wasn’t dressing to impress her. Shay took a long swig of her glass of sangria as names of Cash’s past connections flashed in her head in big angry letters.

“Then I guess you won’t be coming to the party, how sad” Shay said dryly though her gaze was still fixated on a now uncomfortable looking Daisy. Cash didn’t reply but his finger halted twirling her strand of hair and his ocean blue eyes bore into the side of her face for a long moment.

“Well, I’m sure it’s okay if not everyone dresses up…it’ll still be fun” Daisy said, Shay shook her head just as their waiter reemerged from the bar with a tray full of their food.

“Nope, I’m putting it on the invite dressing up is required if people don’t want to dress up, they’re welcome not to but then they aren’t coming. They can stay in their suites and pout, I’m sure they’ll find someone to keep them company and warm their bed…” Shay shrugged, she felt Cash’s hand fall from her hair and another dissatisfied grunt escape his lips.

“Or we could just have separate parties like traditional people. The guys can do what they want to do, and you girls can play dress up and throw your party like you want to do. Then everyone wins because like I said a lot of the guys share my stance, right Pete?” Cash said, Pete once again looked like a deer in the headlights and didn’t seem to want to pick a side for once. His brown eyes grew wide as saucers and pleaded with Daisy to rescue him.

“Oh, please believe it or not, not everyone is a party pooper like you. Some people enjoy having fun and even if they don’t the party isn’t about them. I think you can afford to not be selfish for once and go to a party, smile pretty, and dress up for your best friend Cashton Michael. You can take Pete to the strip club on a different night, can’t you?” Shay said coolly, finally turning to meet his gaze with harsh green eyes. Cash’s face hardened into a glare and his blue eyes turned icy as they met hers in a way that oddly enough had her stomach doing flips again.

“Who said anything about a strip club, I just don’t want to dress up in a stupid costume for a party you just started planning five minutes ago and Pete already knows I don’t like dressing up. And why do you keep saying ‘your best friend’ like that when you’re the one who decided you didn’t want that title anymore, I didn’t take it from you. So, I’m really failing to see how you think I’m the one being selfish here Shaylee Rose, what about you” Cash said sharply, Shay stared at him blankly for a minute before rolling her eyes.

“What about me Cashton when have you ever done anything for me or anyone for that matter just to make them happy, huh? Because last I checked I was always the one bending over backwards to make you happy in our friendship and I just couldn’t do it anymore, sorry. I bet if Opal May, Winnifred, or any number of your girlfriends from Boston wanted you to dress up for their party you’d do it in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you” Shay said dryly, gulping the rest of her wine before angrily pouring herself another heaping glass. Cash stared at her with disbelief swirling in his blue eyes, he opened and closed his mouth several times appearing to finally be at a loss for words. “Yeah, that’s what I thought” Shay muttered taking another long swig of her fruity beverage.

“I don’t know what Opal May has to do with any of this…Is that why you planned a whole trip to Cancun for spring break and didn’t invite me because you think I’m selfish and prioritize other people over you…Are you talking about what happened at Thanksgiving with Winnifred because…” Cash asked her in a soft, careful tone with an unreadable expression swirling in his eyes. Shay pursed her lips and took another small sip of wine as she focused her seething gaze on the waves crashing on the shore in the distance.

“I didn’t invite you because I didn’t think you’d detach yourself from dear old Winnie long enough to get on a plane. Besides she shot down the idea about sunny vacation after she whisked you away to help your mom in the kitchen said something about redheads and the sun being mortal enemies or something… Where is Winnie anyway, not enough glory being the plus one to a small-town wedding?” Shay grumbled; she heard Cash let out a frustrated sounding sigh behind her, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze as unwanted flashbacks from that Thanksgiving trampled her brain. A thick layer of silence fell over their table with a level of awkwardness that matched the one that loomed over them the last holiday the four of them had spent together. That Thanksgiving was the first holiday and last, to Shay’s knowledge, that Cash had brought one of his girlfriends home only he seemed to fail to tell everyone about her including his mother. Everyone was shocked when a redheaded Winnifred Howards popped up out of seemingly nowhere, at least that’s what Daisy told Shay after she’d already gone back to Tyler and New York. Shay wasn’t stupid, she knew when nothing came of her seemingly unrequited crush on him in high school the day would eventually come that Cash showed up with someone better than her in every way on his arm. She had just hoped it would happen at the point in time when she was finally able to put her feelings for Cashton Ewing to rest. All her efforts to do so over the years had failed and Thanksgiving had been Shay’s biggest failure to date.

“Well gee, I guess I see where I fall on your friend roster Shay. You didn’t know I moved less than an hour from you and you apparently didn’t know Winnie and I haven’t seen each other since that Thanksgiving seven years ago either. You can say we broke up I guess but I’d hardly even call her my girlfriend, I just…” Cash trailed, his tone was low and serious but somehow had Shay’s annoyance and anger flaring tenfold. In her eyes Cash put her at the bottom of his friend pool long before she ever put him at hers, sure she distanced herself emotionally that sour summer but after that they still saw each other every day. They still talked regularly, which can only be expected when both of their other friends were dating each other. The emotional distance was more a necessity to protect what was left of her pride because she’d been stupid enough to fall for her best friend, the most desirable boy at their school. She’d also had been stupid enough to let herself believe that there might be something between them on far too many occasions for her liking. The last of which was that heavy conversation on Thanksgiving they had in his bedroom, which seemed more like a confessional more than anything to Shay now. Whatever hope of requited love she had during that conversation walked right out the door when an overtly perky redhead came in and insisted Cash help her and his mom in the kitchen. No amount of Cash pleading with Winnie to give them a few more minutes could ever make that level of heartbreak go away. It was a level that surpassed the angsty melodramatic one she felt most of that lonely summer with her aunt in LA but still it wasn’t quite as gut wrenching as walking into Tyler’s hotel suite in Cleveland later that evening.

Shay felt her green eyes well up with bitter, vulnerable tears before she finally turned her gaze back to Cash. Cash gazed back at her with intense, melancholy looking blue eyes that seemed to be searching hers for something. You could cut through the growing tension between the two with a knife as another awkward type of silence overtook their table.

🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝

“Daisy, she really looks like she might kill him right now maybe this wasn’t a good idea…” Pete said in a hushed voiced, his brown eyes were fixated on the two friends he’d known since his grade school years with a fearful type of fascination. Daisy sighed, still looking at the pair like she was very much watching a soap opera.

“I know, I don’t even know what happened. They looked so cute when we got here, maybe we should just let them have lunch alone. Cash seems to perform better that way, I know he’s nervous but this… this is just sad” Daisy muttered, Pete stifled a chuckle as he finally let his eyes fall on the love his life adoringly.

“We still can you know, lovely. Honestly, they probably won’t even notice at this point. We could go to the beach and sip cocktails, we could even…” Pete trailed, Daisy furrowed her dark brows at him although she was smiling at him as brightly as ever.

“We could even what?” Daisy asked.

“Leave the rest of the planning for the wedding and the parties up to them. The two of them working together might implore them to finally unpack allll of this” Pete said in the same hushed tone as he motioned between their two glowering best friends. Daisy bit her lip, pondering his proposal for a moment. Honestly, nothing could be worse than whatever was going on between the two now.

“I love it when you encourage me to play matchmaker, my lovely but what if Shay actually kills him?” Daisy said in a joking tone as she started jotting a quick letter for their unsuspecting best friends on a piece of paper. Pete stifled another chuckle.

“She loves him too much besides you and Shay weren’t going to get any real planning done with Cash doing… what his doing now?” Pete said letting out an almost disappointed sounding sigh as he took in the sight of Cash gripping Shay’s face in one of his large palms and gently squeezing her cheeks with a serious look in his eyes.

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Shay glowered at Cash for what felt like forever partly because she couldn’t decide if she just wanted to argue with him some more or just cry her eyes out. Those always seemed to be the only options she ever had with him since she was fourteen and she hated it.

“I don’t know how that’s my fault Cash, you bring him flings home and treat them like regular girlfriends and somehow it’s my job to be able to spot the difference?” Shay said in a low bitter tone, Cash sighed and with it his blue eyes softened up a bit.

“No, I’m saying you could’ve just asked me, Cherry Blossom, you used to ask me things you know and now you just shut me out…” Cash said in a careful tone, Shay opened her mouth to argue with him but part of her knew she couldn’t because he was right. She had shut him out and she wished she could tell him why, but her words always seemed to fail her when it came to him, and she could never figure out why. Talking to him used to be so easy and now it just felt like an up-hill battle, an endless trek that seemed to lead her nowhere.

“I don’t know what to ask you anymore, Cash, okay. Everything between us is weird and different and awkward, and I just don’t know how to talk to you anymore, I guess. So…” Shay’s rambling was cut short by Cash reaching over to grip her cheeks in the palm of his hand, gently squeezing them between his thumb and fingers with amusement swirling in his blue eyes though his expression was serious.

“So don’t talk, Cherry Blossom” Cash chuckled softly, Shay felt her cheeks flush at both the action and his words as familiar nervous, smitten butterflies swirled in her stomach. His squeeze loosened the slightest bit as the two of them stared deeply into each other’s eyes for what felt like an eternity. Unlike the previous silence they had fallen into over the twenty or so minute emotional rollercoaster they went on, this one was more comforting, more wholesome, and dare Shay allow herself to think it almost loving in an odd way because she for once felt like Cash heard her loud and clear.

“Your foods getting cold, Cherry Blossom…” Cash said just above a whisper though he made no move to let go of Shay’s face for some time even after the words left his mouth and hung in the air. The faint lull of another dreamy indie pop songs floated between them in a way that seemed oddly fitting for the odd little moment they were sharing.

“Well, I can’t really eat until you give me my face back, Cashy. Unless you want to feed me” Shay said almost timidly, she watched Cash’s lips curl into a genuine smile that reminded her of the ones he used to give her when they were silly kids running up and down the sandy beaches. And she swore she felt her heart flutter when his blue eyes lit up at her before looking over at Pete and Daisy.

“I’ll feed you if you want me to darling and I’ll even drive you home, preferably in that fancy new Audi of yours if you’ll let me but you’re definitely going to need a designated driver after lunch…” Cash chuckled,  turning Shay’s head to face their table full of food and cocktails with an amused smirk on his face.

“They ditched us” Shay gasped in disbelief taking in Pete and Daisy’s now vacant chairs with wide, mildly offended eyes. Surely the last twenty minutes of her and Cash’s bickering couldn’t have been that bad, no this was all part of meddlesome Daisy’s plan.

“Oh look, they left us a cute little note, how sweet of them” Cash said finally letting go of Shay’s face to grab the piece of paper neatly tucked under one of the cocktail glasses.

“It says and I quote, Dear Shay and Cash, if you're reading this it means you’ve finally noticed Pete and I ditched you bickering old bats to go to the beach or Cash is dead and the detectives assigned to solve his case are reading this…in which case it definitely was not Shaylee Harris. Cash is pretty and all but he ain’t that smart and I’m sure he just pissed off another blonde and got himself shot in the shoulder nothing to worry about…. Any who, during your insistent bickering Pete and I decided your problems would best be solved by you two spending some quality alone time together 😉. From here on out you two will be tasked with working out our wedding details and planning those parties TOGETHER. We know you can do it just put those pretty heads of yours together and figure it out, talk it out, kiss it out…. DO WHATEVER IT TAKES, just get on with it already. Lunch and cocktails are on us. Have fun, lots of fun, Love Pete and Daisy” Cash finished reading out loud.

“Ugh, they planned this you know” Shay said glancing over at Cash with the fainted pout on her face and rosy cheeks. Cash flashed her yet another uncharacteristically sheepish smile that had Shay narrowing her eyes at him in suspicion because she swore, he was blushing.

“Were you in on this too…Casanova?” Shay asked him pointedly, Cash shook his head and busied himself by twirling her pasta on a fork.

“No, Cherry Blossom, I can honestly say this…was all them but I’d be lying if I said having an excuse to be attached at your hip for the foreseeable future wasn’t making me giddy. Now be a good girl and eat some of this for me, I’d hate to see you hurl all over those nice leather seats of yours, beautiful” Cash said raising the fork to her mouth with a teasing smile on his face.

“This is going to be the longest few weeks of my entire life…” Shay muttered, picking up her wine glass with a soft, defeated sounding sigh despite how many flips her stomach was doing….

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[all-the-things-2020]

Late Night Talking - Chapter Three

Summary: Dieter and Emily go on date number two at Venice Beach.

Rating: PG

Notes: I’m writing exclusively from Emily’s POV but will include little transcripts here and there to show Dieter’s perspective. I gave Dieter a brother named Friedrich. They call each other Freddy and Deet.

[Telephone call between Dieter Bravo and his brother Friedrich]

Friedrich: What happened now?

Dieter: Why do you assume something happened? Maybe I’m just calling to hear your amazing voice.

F: Because it’s one o’clock in the fucking morning, Deet.

D: Shit, sorry. It’s only ten here. But Freddy, I have to talk to you. This is big, bro.

F: Work big or personal big?

D: Personal. I think I just met the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.

F: [sighs] Is this going to be like Jonathan?

D: No. Nothing like Jonathan. That was just … I was stupid then. And horny. But Emily — her name is Emily — she’s amazing, Freddy.

F: I’m sure she is, but don’t get ahead of yourself. You always leap without looking.

D: I know but there’s something … we just clicked, you know? Met her in a bookstore and we went to another one for our first date. Couple of drinks, dinner at a tapas place. Nothing fancy but … I haven’t felt this alive since I stopped using.

F: I’m happy for you, Deet, but be careful. Don’t jump into anything. Promise me.

D: I’m gonna marry her.

F: Give it a year. If you still feel the same way, then go for it.

D: A whole year?

F: A whole year. Promise me, Deet.

D: [sighs] I promise. But mark your calendar. I’ll be calling you a year from now to tell you we’re engaged.

F: If you say so. Look, man, I need to get some sleep.

D: Okay, sorry. I just … I had to tell you.

F: I know. Make good choices. Night.

[Call ends]

****************************************************************************

I texted Dieter as soon as I got home and he replied instantly.

Me: Home safe

Dieter: Same here. Had a great time tonight.

Me: So did I

The typing indicator showed up, then disappeared, then showed up again. When it disappeared for a second time, it stayed off. I was puzzled until my phone rang.

”Hello.”

”Hey, I hope you don’t mind but I figured it’s easier to do this talking than texting. I hate texting, anyway.” He chuckled softly.

”It’s fine,” I said. “So, you had a good time?”

”A great time,” he corrected me. “I … look I’m not really that good at this kind of thing. In my line of business you get people fawning all over you and they always want something … it’s hard to trust, you know? But I didn’t get that from you.”

”I know you’re famous and all that, but you’re still just a guy,” I said. “I had that bubble burst a long time ago when one of my friends introduced me to one of the members of a band their Dad knew. I thought it was going to be magical and he turned out to be boring. Literally spent most of the time talking to her Dad about some kind of woodworking tool he’d bought and how he was trying get his son to make a bird house.”

Dieter laughed. “I’m not that boring, I hope.”

”Not at all. But you’re still just a guy. Who happens to make his living pretending to be other people and gets paid obscene amounts of money to do it.”

”Not that obscene,” he said. “At least, not for a while.” He cleared his throat. “Look, before we go any further, I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m kind of fucked up. I mean, more than the usual ‘everybody’s messed up one way or the other’.

“I’ve been in rehab. I was using a lot of shit to escape reality and … I almost died on the set of Cliff Beasts 6. Like literally OD’d and they had to restart my heart. I swore off the hard stuff after that and checked myself in. No more coke, no more acid, no more mystery pills.

”And I connected with my therapist there. She’s amazing and she gets me. So I have rules now. Alcohol if I’m with other people, never when I’m alone. Nothing stronger except this one brand of edibles that mellow me out when I’m super anxious. And I’m on meds to straighten out my brain chemistry. And I have a session with her every week. So, that’s me …”

“I knew about rehab,” I said carefully. “It was on the Internet and gossip magazines. But I didn’t know you almost died. That must have been really scary.”

“Scared the shit out of me,” he said. “There was this girl who worked at the hotel. She’s the one who found me and helped revive me. She professed her love for me in the ambulance and … it lasted about three weeks. I woke up one day and realized ‘Shit, I’m in my forties, and this girl’s in her twenties. What am I doing with my life?’ And I checked into rehab the next day.

“I had to drop out of a couple of projects, and my career was already heading down the crapper anyway — I mean, Cliff Beasts? — so I’m kind of starting over.”

”That’s okay,” I said. “Like I said, you’re just a guy who happens to be an actor. Your job doesn’t have anything to do with why I enjoyed the evening with you. We would have had fun if you were a CPA or a garbage man or whatever.”

“Yeah, and that’s why … I’d really, really like to see you again. Soon.”

”So would I,” I said. “I’m off work for the summer so my schedule is wide open.”

“How about Sunday? I have some shit to take care of tomorrow for a charity. Wait, that didn’t come out right, it’s a charity, it’s not shit …” He sounded a bit flustered. “Sunday. We can go to the beach. Unless that’s too long a drive for you?”

”Traffic shouldn’t be too bad on a weekend. And I haven’t been to the beach for a while. I’d love to.”

”It’s a date then. I’ll … I’ll text you tomorrow what time to meet and where, if that’s okay?”

”That’s perfect,” I said.

”Well, I should let you get to bed. I’m sure you’re tired after listening to me all night and driving and everything.”

”Yeah, you should get some sleep, too. Got to be fresh for the charity shit, right?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Good night.”

”Good night.”

The call ended and I sat on the couch staring at my phone for a few minutes. Then I texted Sam.

*****************************************

We were on the boardwalk at Venice Beach. It was a hot day, so the place was crowded, perfect for people watching.

“Oh, my God, your dog is so cute!” Dieter fairly ran across the boardwalk to a young couple with a Corgi on a leash. It was wearing a bow tie. “Can I take a picture?”

I followed more slowly, ready to apologize to them for my date’s ridiculous behavior, but they were already making the dog pose and look even more adorable, if that was even possible. Dieter snapped a picture of the dog, then shoved his phone at me before getting down on the ground. “Get a picture of me with the dog,” he said. His goofy grin was irresistible. I snapped a couple of pictures of him and the dog, then we chatted a bit with the couple. The dog was a boy, named Kirby, and while he seemed to enjoy the attention, he was a bit aloof, as Corgis often are, until he very solemnly and daintily licked my hand. His owners gushed over how he doesn’t normally like strangers and I should feel special.

“She is special,” Dieter said, giving me a squeeze.

They awkwardly asked for an autograph and a selfie. Dieter obliged, with me taking the photo for them. We said goodbye, and Dieter wistfully watched them walk away. “Now that made my day,” he said.

I arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re on a date with me and meeting a dog is the highlight of your day?” I teased.

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” he blustered.”Like, the dog is the icing on the cake. You’re the cake.”

“Come again?”

He scrunched up his face. “It’s like … okay, icing is nice, icing is great, but by itself it’s kind of gross. Too sweet. You need the cake to give it meaning. The cake is the foundation. The icing is optional but the cake is essential.” He shook his head. “I’m not explaining this right.”

I grabbed his hand. “I think I can see the sentiment behind this rather tortured metaphor,” I said. “Cake is good even by itself; icing enhances it but you don’t really need it.”

“Exactly,” he said, raising our joined hands to his mouth. He kissed the back of my hand. “This would have been a great day even without the dog, but the dog made it even better.”

“I’m only letting this go because it was a Corgi,” I told him. “Any other breed and I’d be insulted, but damn, Corgis are adorable.”

He laughed and put his arms around me, pulling me in for a kiss. A skateboarder zipped past. “Get a room, boomers,” he yelled.

“Hey, we’re Gen X,” Dieter yelled back. “We don’t give a shit!”

“You are such a dork,” I said, laughing into his chest as he flipped the kid off.

“Ah, you love it,” he said.

“I do,” I admitted. “You’re ... adorkable.”

“Now who’s making shit up?”

“Shut up and kiss me again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

****************************

“Let’s go in the water,” Dieter said, tugging at my hand and leading me off the boardwalk and into the sand.

“We don’t have bathing suits,” I protested. I stopped to take off my flip-flops; it was nearly impossible to walk in sand with them on without tripping over my own feet. Dieter pulled his own shoes off as well, and we continued across the beach, shoes in one hand, holding hands with the other.

“We’ll just get our feet wet,” he promised. “Come on.” He whined like a little kid who wanted candy. “Pleeeease.”

I laughed. How could I resist him when he was such a goofball? “Okay, but not too deep,” I said, realizing I sounded like a mom. “I’m not getting all wet and then having to sit around in soggy shorts the rest of the day.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise,” he said, but there was a wicked gleam in his eye that I didn’t quite trust.

We waded out into the water, letting it lap against our ankles, the occasional wave breaking harder and splashing us up to our knees. “Next time, we’ll wear our swimsuits,” he said. “Bring a boogie board or something.”

“I can’t swim,” I admitted. He stopped dead, staring at me.

“What?!,” he said incredulously. “You grew up in SoCal and never learned to swim? How is this possible?”

I was embarrassed, but decided to tell him the truth. “I have a phobia about water,” I said. “If my face gets in the water, I panic. I failed swimming in high school, the only F I ever got on my report card.”

“Well,” he said, “we’ll have to fix that. Lucky for you, I have a pool at my place, and I’m a very good teacher.” He slid his arms around my waist. “Do you need to get out of the water right now?”

“No,” I said. “This is fine. This is fun. It’s just when the water gets on or around my face.”

“Okay, then,” he grinned. “Let’s play some more.” He darted off down the beach, splashing water behind him as he ran through the surf. I gave chase, laughing as I tried to catch up. He was a total goofball, but he was my goofball.

*****************************

I was pretty sure I had a sunburn. We’d been good and applied sunblock before we got out of the cars, and reapplied later, but I could still feel the heat on my skin. “Ooh, shave ice!” I cried as we came around a corner. It was a very hot day and nothing is better on a hot day than a shave ice.

We bought two large shave ices, cherry for me, and a multi-hued mixture of flavors for Dieter. “You’re boring,” he said, pointing at my solid red treat with his plastic spoon.

“Not boring,” I said. “Classic.” I took a big bite and savored the sweet, cold ice as it melted on my tongue.

He shook his head and dug into his own ice, as we sat on a bench facing the ocean. The on shore breeze kept the heat from being overwhelming and the shave ice cooled me off quickly.

“Ah, shit, brain freeze!” Dieter said, holding a hand against his forehead.

“Don’t eat it so fast, doofus,” I said, poking him in the side with my elbow.

He stuck his tongue out at me. It was dyed a dark purplish color from the combination of flavors. “Gross,” I said. “See, that’s why I go with the cherry.” I stuck my own tongue out, knowing it would be a bright red.

“Well, you certainly don’t need lipstick,” he said, pulling out his phone and taking a quick photo, which he showed me. My lips were cherry red.

“Ah, you’ve discovered my cunning plot to replace makeup with shave ice syrup,” I said. He leaned in for a kiss.

“Mmm,” he said. “It tastes better than lipstick, I’ll give you that.”

I shoved him away. “You’re so weird,” I said. “Eat your shave ice before it melts.”

“You’re so bossy,” he grumbled, as he shoveled another spoonful of ice into his mouth.

“I work with teenagers,” I reminded him. “I think I can handle your sorry ass.” I took a big bite of my own shave ice, but instantly regretted it. “Ow, ow, brain freeze!”

Dieter nearly fell off the bench laughing, and I joined him, as soon as my head stopped pounding.

***********************************

The sun was low in the sky as we made our way toward the parking lot. “Next time we’ll get here later, rent bikes, and stay to watch the sunset,” Dieter said. His arm was around my waist, his sunglasses sliding down his nose as he gazed down at me.

“That sounds wonderful,” I replied. “But how about our next date, you drive out my way?”

He scratched his chin with his free hand. “I guess I could,” he said. “Is there anything out there to do?”

”I hope you’re being facetious,” I told him. “Because only I can diss where I live.”

He chuckled. “Totally facetious. Besides, as long as I’m with you, who cares where we go?”

”Smooth, Bravo, real smooth.” I tugged his arm, pulling him to a stop. I went on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek, in one of those delectable little bare patches in his beard.

”It worked,didn’t it?” he said smugly.