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teamred · 6 months ago

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any other way

✩‌ logan howlett/wolverine x reader | fluff | 1.8k

SUMMARY | in which your good friend, wade, ditches your planned movie night, but his roommate offers to watch one with you instead. however, logan ends up falling asleep on your shoulder.

WARNINGS | drinking, kissing, swearing, gets a little steamy/handsy

RATING | teen+

NOTES | it's funny... i've been a big x-men fan for a while, but i never really fell for logan until d&w. if this pops off, maybe i'll write more for him!!!

///

“Wade, hurry up and let me in! A girl can only hold freshly popped popcorn for so—oh.”

Instead of your dear, annoying friend, it’s his gorgeous, rugged roommate who answers the apartment door instead. Your eyes sweep over him, taking a liking to how his brown plaid button-up drapes over his white tank top. His clothing choices compliment his sturdy frame and strong pecs. His facial hair is perfectly groomed and—

And it doesn’t help that you have just the teeniest, tiniest crush on him.

“Logan, hey!” you exclaim, a little too enthusiastically. “I didn’t know you were going to be here for movie night too.”

“Wade’s not here, bub,” Logan says, leaning against the doorframe with crossed arms and a sympathetic half-smile.

“What?! That little shit said he’d be free tonight…” You sigh, shaking your head. “Well, it’s all good. I’ll just—”

“Did you want to watch a movie with me instead?” Logan offers. You think you hear a hint of hopefulness in his voice. “Since you came out all this way?”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bother you. I’m sure you’re—”

“Darlin’,” he interrupts with a soft chuckle. Your heart stumbles at the sound. “I have never been more free on a Saturday night. You’re welcome to join me, but only if you’re comfortable with it.”

Now your heart is melting over his kindness. You smile warmly. “I always feel comfortable around you, Logan.”

He returns the smile and gestures for you to come in, offering to take the popcorn and if you want anything as you remove your shoes.

“I got it, but thank you. A beer would be good,” you reply, settling in on one end of the couch in the living room. You glance around curiously. “Is Blind Al not home either?”

“Yeah,” Logan calls from the nearby kitchen, bending towards the open fridge to grab the drinks. “She’s getting, in her own words, ‘turned up’ at the casino tonight.”

You snicker as you browse through streaming services to pick a movie for tonight. Logan returns with a beer in each hand and you’re surprised when he takes the middle seat next to you. You catch a whiff of his scent and it is intoxicating–a blend of woody notes, perhaps leather and pine.

“So what’s the movie for tonight?” Logan asks, taking a sip from his bottle.

“Well, be honest with me here: Wade promised that we could watch this new movie that just released a few days ago, but it’s a romantic movie, so—”

“Of course,” he cuts in with a roll of his eyes, tossing a kernel into his mouth. “That’s his favourite genre.”

You deflate a little. “Okay, with that tone, I’m assuming I will have to change the movie choice.”

“No! Don’t change it because of me,” Logan quickly interjects. “We can watch whatever you want. I’m genuinely content to just sit here and do something other than watching reruns I’ve seen a million times before.”

You study him for a moment, trying to gauge his sincerity. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he reassures you, nodding and flashing another smile. You will yourself to calm your racing heart and focus on finding the movie. Once you select it, you press play and relax into the couch cushions.

Out of nowhere, Logan places his arm around you, his hand slightly hovering above your shoulders. You stiffen at the unexpected move, unsure why he’s doing it. But then he quickly pulls back, shuffling a bit away from you.

“Shit, sorry,” he mutters, clearly embarrassed. “It’s out of habit when I watch stuff.”

“You can leave your arm there,” you blurt out. You don’t even register the words coming out of your mouth. Where was this boldness coming from?

He quirks an eyebrow, amused. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm,” you nod fervently, rushing to grab your beer to steady your nerves. Taking a long sip, you try to force your body to relax again.

The first few minutes of the movie starts quite slow, but your eyes are glued to the screen to ensure you don’t miss the exposition. Just as you reach for the popcorn, so does Logan, and the back of your hands brush against each other.

“Sorry,” you both mumble, glancing at each other in awkwardness and something hanging in the air. He juts his chin out with a subtle smirk, gesturing you to go first. You grab a handful, and as he follows suit, his fingers graze against yours, causing you to shiver.

The air in the room is electric, and you wonder if the tension is just in your head or if Logan feels it too. The movie continues, but your thoughts are consumed by the warmth of his body so close to yours and the possibility of what might happen next.

Later into the movie, you freeze as you feel Logan leaning in closer. You turn your head, ready for what might happen–

But then, he goes completely lax, slouching into your shoulder and resting his head in a comfortable position.

“I should’ve chosen a different movie…” you think, shaking your head.

It’s hard to focus on the movie with this gorgeous being asleep on your shoulder (and the movie doesn’t seem to be that great anyway). Towards the end of the movie, your attention drifts completely and you indulge in how Logan sleeps. His soft snoring. The gentle squeezes he gives your shoulder as he dreams. The steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes in and out.

Suddenly, Logan stirs and lifts his head, almost snorting up air cutely. He blinks groggily. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, gorgeous. Did I sleep through the movie?”

You hesitate, hung up on the fact that he called you gorgeous. Your cheeks prickle as you search for the right words to say.

“Yeah, you did,” you whisper with a small smile. “But it’s fine. It wasn’t that great anyway.”

“Mm, figures,” he mumbles. “Did you wanna watch another movie or—”

As he straightens up, you instinctively lean towards him, closing the gap between you two. Your noses practically touch.

“Or did you wanna do…” Logan’s voice is low and gravelly. You hold your breath and hold his gaze. “...something else?”

You barely nod, and he drags you into a searing kiss. His hands cup your cheek and neck with urgency. Soon enough, his tongue dips into your mouth, sending a jolt to your core.

Logan cradles your body and carefully positions you lower onto the couch. The weight of his body pressed up against you sends you into overdrive. His hands dive underneath your shirt, exploring your soft skin. The pressure of his body against yours leaves you breathless. Not only the pressure of his body, but also his—

“Winner winner, chicken dinner!”

Wade’s booming voice cuts through the front door like a tornado, forcing both of you to scramble away faster than opposing magnets. However, it’s too late; Wade has witnessed everything.

“Oh, my God, Blind Al, my plan worked! It fucking worked!” Wade squeals, jumping up and down.

“Oh, no. Are they butt-ass naked on the couch? Times like these, I’m grateful to be blind.”

“No, they’re thankfully fully clothed. But they were just dry humping the shit out of each other though.”

“You ditched movie night on purpose, you asshole!” you screech.

“Hey, you should be thanking me,” Wade retorts with a wink. “You and Wolvie always have had palpable sexual tension every time you were in a room together. Hell, even Laura agreed it’d be a good idea to set you two up.”

Logan and you exchange a sheepish smile, acknowledging the truth in Wade's words.

“Blind Al and I will just be basking in our casino winnings with a few drinks and then we’ll be out of your hair in a few. And then you two can carry on and fuck each other freely on the couch.”

“But keep it down, please,” Blind Al adds with a hint of desperation.

“I probably should get going now,” you chime in, eager to avoid the awkwardness. Logan quickly follows behind, walking you to the front door.

“I’m sorry about all this,” he says in sincerity.

You wave him off. “You never have to apologize for them. They’re like family; I’m used to them.”

“I didn’t know where the night was heading, but—” He turns around to check over his shoulder, lowering his voice and leaning in slightly. “—I’m glad Wade set us up.”

“Heard that!” Wade calls out from inside the apartment.

“Damn it,” Logan mutters, making you giggle. “Anyways, would you let me take you out on a proper date tomorrow night?”

You beam as you reply, “I’d love that.”

“Great, I’ll call you later.”

Logan steps outside of the apartment and closes the door behind him, pulling you in by your waist for another kiss. Innocent at first, but then he presses you up against the wall and his hands grips at your waist, extracting a few moans from you.

“Either get back inside or just go home with her rather than wall-fucking her outside of the apartment!” Wade’s muffled voice echoes through the thin walls.

Logan retreats slightly, his breath warm against your cheek. He keeps his voice low. “And not trying to put pressure on our date tomorrow, but if—”

“If things get heated, let’s go back to my place,” you finish his thought with a soft promise.

His eyes light up with a relieved smile. “You read my mind. Thank you.”

You smile into one last kiss, the world fading away as you savor the sensation of Logan’s mouth on yours.

Until Wade pops his head out through the door like a whack-a-mole you’re dying to hit. “Okay, seriously. I will offer you my bedroom, if you’re really that horny, you guys.” He calls out your name. “Also, did you know he can smell how horny you are?”

“I—what?” you stammer, blinking in confusion.

“Wade, shut the fuck up,” Logan snaps with gritted teeth. He faces you again with a gentle smile. “Have a good night, gorgeous. I’ll call you as soon as you get back home.”

Logan’s a man of his word, almost calling immediately as you stepped foot in your apartment (with Wade providing unnecessary commentary in the background, as always).

Later, as you get ready for bed, you can’t help but admit how grateful you were for Wade’s set-up. If it wasn’t for him, neither of you would’ve made a move; it would’ve progressed at a glacial pace.

Lying in bed and looking up at your bedroom ceiling, you think to yourself how tonight truly was perfect, and you wouldn’t have had it any other way. Smiling, you drift off to sleep, dreaming of what tomorrow’s date might bring.

ENDING NOTES | thank you so much for reading and giving some love! part two can be read here!

#logan howlett x reader #logan howlett x you #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #wolverine fluff #logan howlett fluff

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evergreen-pumpkin · 1 year ago

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A snapshot of one morning, on a relaxed day with mild weather. Now imagine this when it's crowded or when it's raining or snowing.

Video description: POV from the lap of a wheelchair user. Very shaky. OP is going downhill on a fall day. Lots of trees and fallen leaves around. There are construction trucks to the left in the very beginning. Every now and then, you can see a German Shepherd on the left. Second obstacle shows a food robot crossing the sidewalk to drive in front of OP, but it stops suddenly and OP crashes into it. OP continues down the hill until she reaches another food robot, which is obstacle 3. This robot sits in the middle of the sidewalk while OP navigates around it. Then OP comes to a concrete ramp with iron railings, which is obstacle 3.5. It is very steep. After the ramp, OP goes to cross the street, where a black SUV blows through the crosswalk. Obstacle 4 is a ramp with red brick. OP struggles to move up and pauses at one point before continuing again to obstacle 5, where there is a big concrete building and manual doors. The German Shepherd service dog goes up to push the accessibility button multiple times to no avail. A student comes and opens the door, OP enters through two sets of doors into a hallway. Clip change to obstacle 6, OP is wheeling down a hallway and approaches a white elevator with out of order signs.

End of description.

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rafeandonlyrafe · 6 months ago

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favorite girl to see

words: 700

warnings: implied sex, cart girl!reader, soft!rafe, fluffy

“hey boys.” you grin as you greet them all, but your eye is on one boy in particular.

“there's my favorite girl to see.” rafe smiles, quickly putting his putter back in his golf bag.

you roll your eyes despite your cheeks blushing. “you just like me because i bring you drinks.”

“nope.” rafe shakes his head, walking closer to you as you stay sat in the cart, worried your knees would buckle if you tried to stand up with his full attention on you. “otherwise id say that to all the cart girls.”

“mmm, and you don't?” you raise your eyebrows.

“absolutely not.” rafe scoffs like it's a ridiculous notion.

“what'll it be for you today?” you ask rafe, standing carefully and rounding the golf cart to the drinks area, opening up the cooler, expecting to grab him a high noon or white claw like usual.

“just a water, actually.” rafe turns to look at his friend he's golfing with. you don't even glance away from rafes perfectly chiseled features. “anything for you top?”

“im good.”

“one water it is.” you dig out a bottle from the melting ice, taking a towel and drying off the sides so you don't have a wet drink to rafe.

“so kind.” he coos, reaching into his wallet.

“rafe-” you sigh, already knowing what is coming as he pulls out a hundred dollar bill.

“nope.” rafe says, stuffing the bill into your hand. “take it. a tip for my favorite girl to see.”

“the water is like five bucks, this is a ridiculous tip.” you state, always trying to argue against the way rafe tips you, knowing you'll end up conceding and taking it.

“well, if it makes you feel better about it, there is something else you can do for me.”

“hm?” you question as rafe pulls out his phone, taps a few buttons, and then hands it to you.

“put your number in.”

-- 6 months later --

you look around the golf course, having taken a later shift instead of the early one you're used to. you're getting out on the green much later than normal, trying to spot your regulars, one in particular.

you put your cart into drive the moment you see him, skipping by any other groups who may be trying to buy something. you'll loop back later to get their orders, but your sole focus is on one man.

“rafe.” you hop out your cart, giving a quick look around before jumping into his open arms, knowing while employee member relationships are technically against the rules, rafe could pull a few strings if anyone ever tattled on you.

“my girl.” rafes smile is infectious, especially as his hands drop down to squeeze your ass over your skirt, pulling your hips right up against his. “you're here late.”

“let's just say someone kept me up late last night.” you giggle, pressing a kiss to rafes lips, knowing he's the reason you had to switch shifts this morning.

rafe deepens the kiss, one hand coming to the back of your neck to keep you close as his mouth covers yours, lips and tongue gliding against each other.

“babe-” you sigh, pulling away.

“yeah, i know.” rafe steps away, knowing you only allow so much pda when you're at work.

it's one of the reasons rafe tried to convince you to quit many times, insisting you didn't need to work now that you had him, but you like picking up a few hours every week.

“what can i get you?” you ask, taking his hand in yours and tugging him towards the cart.

“another kiss.” rafe smiles. you roll your eyes and press a quick peck to his lips.

“and to drink?”

“gatorade, i guess.” rafe shrugs. “im also kinda tired from last night.”

you don't miss the wink that he gives you as you fish out his drink.

rafe grabs his wallet from his back pocket as you let out a groan, knowing what is to come, his tipping habits not changing one bit despite being together.

“what?” rafe says, handing you the large bill, knowing he'll take you shopping later to spend it. “i want to make sure you give better service to me than any of these old bastards.”

“speaking of service-” you get on your tiptoes and whisper into rafes ear. “meet me in the employee break room in 30?”

sfw tags: @winterrrnight @bejeweledreverie @ladyinbl00d @ethanthequeefqueen @drewsephrry

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rayveneyed · 8 months ago

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bakugou katsuki proclaims, quite often, that he doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. he snarls it — cheeks flushed an angry red — when you teasingly ask him for homemade chocolates, or to change your name in his phone to something cheesy. you’ve had him down as pumpkin from the moment you started dating, after all, and he’s long grown used to hearing baby and sweetheart and darling in place of his given name, even though he swears he hates it. you often tug at his wrist and point to bouquets of red roses, whining why don’t you ever get me those? just annoying enough to have him pulling your head under his elbow and roughly ruffling your hair, cursing the way he’s spoiled you.

kirishima got mina a heartbeat bracelet, you say pointedly, tucked under his arm on the couch and peering up at him with those eyes — those eyes that say you’re looking to push his buttons a little. (internally, he scoffs — as if he didn’t know. as if he wasn’t the one that gave shitty hair the idea in the first place. it’s just — it’s different, isn’t it, when he’s getting it for himself? for you?) shouldn’t we get something like that, baby ?

he grunts something unintelligible — something about how they’re gimmicky, how they probably don’t work, how it’d distract him when he’s kicking ass, how it’d probably melt with the use of a single howitzer impact, blah blah blah. you shrug. it’s not that big of a deal, anyway. you mostly brought it up to pull his leg a little — you know he’s not one for grand gestures like that, preferring his acts of service above all else — but for all the fight he’d put up, two heartbeat bracelets arrive at your apartment not even a week later. amazon prime expedited shipping, no less.

he ignores you when you bring it up — lets you fasten it onto his wrist with little fanfare, the tips of his ears turning red, muttering something about he’d probably never use it, anyway, and he only got it so that you’d shut up about it all — never say i don’t do shit for you, woman!

but when he’s halfway across the world, tangled up in schemes larger than you have the capacity to think about — when you’re watching the news with teary eyes and bated breath, hands clutched to your chest, it always comes without fail: a small buzz on your wrist, gentle and thudding and rhythmic. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

#he's so #i want to dip him in water and smack him against the wall #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #mha x reader #anime x reader #bakugou x you #katsuki x you #anime x you #mha x you #fanfiction #fic #x reader #LIKE YPURE ALWAYS ON HIS MIND #i love the dynamic of just like constantly fucking with him #like teasing is ur love language #and he's just like ur so annoying. make out w me #but when u both get serious its sooo serious and he just wants u to know that everythings okay so go back to being annoying ToT

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batboyblog · 6 months ago

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Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #31

August 9-16 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced together the successful conclusion of the first negotiations between Medicare and pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. For years Medicare was not allow to directly negotiate princes with drug companies leaving seniors to pay high prices. It has been a Democratic goal for many years to change this. President Biden noted he first introduced a bill to allow these negotiations as a Senator back in 1973. Thanks to Inflation Reduction Act, passed with no Republican support using Vice-President Harris' tie breaking vote, this long time Democratic goal is now a reality. Savings on these first ten drugs are between 38% and 79% and will collectively save seniors $1.8 billion dollars in out of pocket costs. This comes on top of the Biden-Harris Administration already having capped the price of insulin for Medicare's 3.5 million diabetics at $35 a month, as well as the Administration's plan to cap Medicare out of pocket drug costs at $2,000 a year starting January 2025.

President Biden and Vice President Harris have launched a wide ranging all of government effort to crack down on companies wasting customers time with excessive paperwork, hold times, and robots rather than real people. Some of the actions from the "Time is Money" effort include: The FTC and FCC putting forward rules that require companies to make canceling a subscription or service as easy as signing up for it. The Department of Transportation has required automatic refunds for canceled flights. The CFPB is working on rules to require companies to have to allow customers to speak to a real person with just one button click ending endless "doom loops" of recored messages. The CFPB is also working on rules around chatbots, particularly their use from banks. The FTC is working on rules to ban companies from posting fake reviews, suppressing honest negative reviews, or paying for positive reviews. HHS and the Department of Labor are taking steps to require insurance companies to allow health claims to be submitted online. All these actions come on top of the Biden Administration's efforts to get rid of junk fees.

President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden announced further funding as part of the President's Cancer Moonshot. The Cancer Moonshot was launched by then Vice-President Biden in 2016 in the aftermath of his son Beau Biden's death from brain cancer in late 2015. It was scrapped by Trump as political retaliation against the Obama-Biden Administration. Revived by President Biden in 2022 it has the goal of cutting the number of cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years, saving 4 million lives. Part of the Moonshot is Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), grants to help develop cutting edge technology to prevent, detect, and treat cancer. The President and First Lady announced $150 million in ARPA-H grants this week focused on more successful cancer surgeries. With grants to Tulane, Rice, Johns Hopkins, and Dartmouth, among others, they'll help fund imaging and microscope technology that will allow surgeons to more successfully determine if all cancer has been remove, as well as medical imaging focused on preventing damage to healthy tissues during surgeries.

Vice-President Harris announced a 4-year plan to lower housing costs. The Vice-President plans on offering $25,000 to first time home buyers in down-payment support. It's believed this will help support 1 million first time buyers a year. She also called for the building of 3 million more housing units, and a $40 billion innovation fund to spur innovative housing construction. This adds to President Biden's call for a $10,000 tax credit for first time buyers and calls by the President to punish landlords who raise the rent by over 5%.

President Biden Designates the site of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot a National Monument. The two day riot in Illinois capital took place just blocks away from Abraham Lincoln's Springfield home. In August 1908, 17 people die, including a black infant, and 2,000 black refugees were forced to flee the city. As a direct result of the riot, black community leaders and white allies met a few months later in New York and founded the NAACP. The new National Monument will seek to preserve the history and educate the public both on the horrible race riot as well as the foundation of the NAACP. This is the second time President Biden has used his authority to set up a National Monument protecting black history, after setting up the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument on Emmett Till's 82nd birthday July 25th 2023.

The Department of The Interior announced $775 million to help cap and clean up orphaned oil and gas wells. The money will help cap wells in 21 states. The Biden-Harris Administration has allocated $4.7 billion to plug orphaned wells, a billion of which has already been distributed. More than 8,200 such wells have been capped since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2022. Orphaned wells leak toxins into communities and are leaking the super greenhouse gas methane. Plugging them will not only improve the health of nearby communities but help fight climate change on a global level.

Vice-President Harris announced plans to ban price-gouging in the food and grocery industries. This would be a first ever federal ban on price gouging and Harris called for clear "rules of the road" on price rises in food, and strong penalties from the FTC for those who break them. This is in line with President Biden's launching of a federal Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing in March, and Democratic Senator Bob Casey's bill to ban "shrinkflation". In response to this pressure from Democrats on price gouging and after aggressive questions by Senator Casey and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the supermarket giant Kroger proposed dropping prices by a billion dollars

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mostlysignssomeportents · 23 days ago

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Billionaire-proofing the internet

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

During the Napster wars, the record labels seriously pissed off millions of internet users when they sued over 19,000 music fans, mostly kids, but also grannies, old people, and dead people.

It's hard to overstate how badly the labels behaved. Like, there was the Swarthmore student who was the maintainer of a free/open source search engine that indexed files available in public sharepoints on the LAN. The labels sued him for millions and millions (the statutory damages for digital copyright infringement runs to $150,000 per file) and, when he begged for a settlement, said that they would accept his life's savings, but only if he changed majors and stopped studying Computer Science.

No, really.

What's more, none of the money the labels extracted from teenagers, grandparents (and the dead) went to artists. The labels just kept it all, while continuing to insist that they were doing all this because they wanted to "protect artists."

One thing everyone agreed on was how disgusted we all were with the labels. What we didn't agree on was what to do about it. A lot of us wanted to reform copyright – say, by creating a blanket license for internet music so that artists could get paid directly. This was the systemic approach.

Another group – call them the "individualists" – wanted a boycott. Just stop buying and listening to music from the major labels. Every dollar you spend with a label is being used to fund a campaign of legal terror. Merely enjoying popular music makes you part of the problem.

You can probably guess which group I was in. Leaving aside the futility of "voting with your wallet" (a rigged ballot that's always won by the people with the thickest wallet), I just thought this was bad tactics.

Here's what I would say when people told me we should all stop listening to popular music: "If members of your popular movement are not allowed to listen to popular music, your movement won't be very popular."

We weren't going to make political change by creating an impossible purity test ("Ew, you listen to music from a major label? God, what's wrong with you?"). I mean, for one thing, a lot of popular music is legitimately fantastic and makes peoples' lives better. Popular movements should strive to increase their members' joy, not demand their deprivation. Again, not merely because this is a nice thing to do for people, but also because it's good tactics to make participation in the thing you're trying to do as joyous as possible.

Which brings me to social media. The problem with social media is that the people we love and want to interact with are being held prisoner in walled gardens. The mechanism of their imprisonment is the "switching costs" of leaving. Our friends and communities are on bad social media networks because they love each other more than they hate Musk or Zuck. Leaving a social platform can cost you contact with family members in the country you emigrated from, a support group of people who share your rare disease, the customers or audience you rely on for your livelihood, or just the other parents organizing your kid's little league game.

Hypothetically, you could organize all these people to leave at once, go somewhere else, and re-establish all your social connections. Practically, the "collective action problem" of doing so is nearly insurmountable. This is what platform owners depend on – it's why they know they can enshittify their services without losing users. So long as the pain of using the service is lower than the pain of leaving it, the companies can turn the screws on users to make their lives worse in order to extract more profit from them. This is why Musk killed the block button and why Zuck fired all his moderators. Why bear the expense of doing something nice for users if they'll still stick around even if you cut a ton of headcount and/or expensive compute?

There's a way out of this, thankfully. When social media is federated, then you can leave a server without leaving your friends. Think of it as being similar to changing cell-phone companies. When you switch from Verizon to T-Mobile, you keep your number, you keep your address book and you keep your friends, who won't even know you switched networks unless you tell them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

There's no reason social media couldn't work this way. You should be able to leave Facebook or Twitter for Mastodon, Bluesky, or any other service and still talk with the people you left behind, provided they still want to talk with you:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

That's how the Fediverse – which Mastodon is part of – works already. You can switch from one Mastodon server to another, and all the people you follow and who follow you will just move over to that new server. That means that if the person or company or group running your server goes sour, you aren't stuck making a choice between the people you love who connect to you on that server, and the pain of dealing with whatever bullshit the management is throwing off:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

We could make that stronger! Data protection laws like the EU's GDPR and California's CCPA create a legal duty for online services to hand over your data on demand. Arguably, these laws already require your Mastodon server's management to give you the files you need to switch from one server to another, but that could be clarified. Handing these files over to users on demand is really straightforward – even a volunteer running a small server for a few friends will have no trouble living up to this obligation. It's literally just a minute's work for each user.

Another way to make this stronger is through governance. Many of the great services that defined the old, good internet were run by "benevolent dictators for life." This worked well, but failed so badly. Even if the dictator for life stayed benevolent, that didn't make them infallible. The problem of a dictatorship isn't just malice – it's also human frailty. For a service to remain good over long timescales, it needs accountable, responsive governance. That's why all the most successful BDFL services (like Wikipedia) transitioned to community-managed systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/10/bdfl/#high-on-your-own-supply

There, too, Mastodon shines. Mastodon's founder Eugen Rochko has just explicitly abjured his role as "ultimate decision-maker" and handed management over to a nonprofit:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/

I love using Mastodon and I have a lot of hope for its future. I wish I was as happy with Bluesky, which was founded with the promise of federation, and which uses a clever naming scheme that makes it even harder for server owners to usurp your identity. But while Bluesky has added many, many technically impressive features, they haven't delivered on the long-promised federation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

Bluesky sure seems like a lot of fun! They've pulled tens of millions of users over from other systems, and by all accounts, they've all having a great time. The problem is that without federation, all those users are vulnerable to bad decisions by management (perhaps under pressure from the company's investors) or by a change in management (perhaps instigated by investors if the current management refuses to institute extractive measures that are good for the investors but bad for the users). Federation is to social media what fire-exits are to nightclubs: a way for people to escape if the party turns deadly:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes

So what's the answer? Well, around Mastodon, you'll hear a refrain that reminds me a lot of the Napster wars: "People who are enjoying themselves on Bluesky are wrong to do so, because it's not federated and the only server you can use is run by a VC-backed for-profit. They should all leave that great party – there's no fire exits!"

This is the social media version of "To be in our movement, you have to stop listening to popular music." Sure, those people shouldn't be crammed into a nightclub that has no fire exits. But thankfully, there is an alternative to being the kind of scold who demands that people leave a great party, and being the kind of callous person who lets tens of millions of people continue to risk their lives by being stuck in a fire-trap.

We can install our own fire-exits in Bluesky.

Yesterday, an initiative called "Free Our Feeds" launched, with a set of goals for "billionaire-proofing" social media. One of those goals is to add the long-delayed federation to Bluesky. I'm one of the inaugural endorsers for this, because installing fire exits for Bluesky isn't just the right thing to do, it's also good tactics:

https://freeourfeeds.com/

Here's why: if a body independent of the Bluesky corporation implements its federation services, then we ensure that its fire exits are beyond the control of its VCs. That means that if they are ever tempted in future to brick up the fire-exits, they won't be able to. This isn't a hypothetical risk. When businesses start to enshittify their services, they fully commit themselves to blocking anything that makes it easy to leave those services.

That's why Apple went so hard after Beeper Plus, a service that enhanced iMessage's security by making conversations between Apple and Android users as private as chats that were confined to Apple users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

It's why Elon Musk periodically freaks out and suspends users who list their Mastodon userids in their Twitter bios:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/15/elon-musk-suspends-mastodon-twitter-account-over-elonjet-tracking/

And it's why Meta will suspend your account if you link to Pixelfed, a Fediverse-based alternative to Instagram:

https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

Once upon a time, we had a solid way of overcoming the problem of lock-in. We'd reverse-engineer a proprietary system and make a free, open alternative. We've been hacking fire exits into walled gardens since the Usenet days, with the creation of the alt.* hierarchy:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

When the corporate owners of Unix started getting all weird about source-code access and user-modifiability, we didn't insist that Unix users were bad people for sticking with a corporate OS. We reverse-engineered Unix and set all those users free:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Project

The answer to Microsoft's proprietary SMB network protocol wasn't a campaign to shame people for having SMB running on their LANs. It was reverse-engineering SMB and making SAMBA, which is now in every single device in your home and office, and it's gloriously free as in speech and free as in beer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/samba-versus-smb-adversarial-interoperability-judo-network-effects

In the years since, a thicket of laws we colloquially call "IP" has grown up around services and products, and people have literally forgotten that there is an alternative to wheedling people to endure the pain of leaving a proprietary system for a free one. IP has put the imaginations of people who dream of a free internet in chains.

We can do better than begging people to leave a party they're enjoying; we can install our own fucking fire exits. Sure, maybe that means that a lot of those users will stay on the proprietary platform, but at least we'll have given them a way to leave if things go horribly wrong.

After all, there's no virtue in software freedom. The only thing worth caring about is human freedom. The only reason to value software freedom is if it sets humans free.

If I had my way, all those people enjoying themselves on Bluesky would come and enjoy themselves in the Fediverse. But I'm not a purist. If there's a way to use Bluesky without locking myself to the platform, I will join the party there in a hot second. And if there's a way to join the Bluesky party from the Fediverse, then goddamn I will party my ass off.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

#pluralistic #federation #decentralization #bluesky #free our feeds #mastodon #activitypub #reverse engineering

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kikiiswashere · 3 months ago

Text

Four to Tango

As promised, part two of Waltzing for Three!!!

Thank you for helping me reach 200 followers for this little ol' blog of mine 🥰 And welcome to all the newcomers!

The idea for this ficlet was born of watching my bestie @sand-sea-and-fable help out a pregnant friend by lifting her belly off her hips, and it just sort of spiraled from there.

It's also worth noting that I myself am not a mother, nor have I given birth, nor do I wish to be a mom (husband got the ol' snip-snip). So why this fic? Good question 😅

That being said, I did my best to write about the labor process relatively accurately without getting into the super nitty-gritty of it 😂 So, please enjoy this weird little fever-dream of a fic, and please comment and reblog 💗

Tags for the interested parties: @luhmoon, @legendaryflowercheesecake, @thebeserkvernid, @miffysoo

Pairing: Established Silco x AFAB!Reader

Rating: Teen/Mature (brief reference to oral sex)

CW: Non-graphic descriptions of pregnancy and labor

Insistent cramping had woken you up in the wee-hours one morning, swelling and ebbing in a slow rhythm that sent your heart tapping, a loop of nerves coiling around your gut – little room that there was for it.

Silco had been a terribly light sleeper ever since Vander’s betrayal, ever since those early years on an under-tested Shimmer variant that left his brain unable to fully settle. So, the moment you shifted into a sitting position, he shot up as well.

“What’s wrong?”

Words got gummed up on fear and excitement in your mouth. There was a slight tremor in your fingers as they grazed over your belly. You had noticed it sitting even lower on your hips these past several days. While you were very done with being pregnant, you were still nervous and surprised to say –

“I think it’s time.”

With comical amounts of speed, but awe-inspiring grace, Silco flung himself from the bed, divesting himself of his eyepatch and pajamas. After changing into a simple set of trousers and an old button-up shirt, he fetched the stopwatch Jinx had invented to easily time your contractions, and wrote a tube prompting your midwife that she was needed. It had been decided early on that the babe’s delivery – barring any complications – would happen at The Last Drop. You, nor Silco, were willing to venture outside to a clinic when your family would be at its most vulnerable.

Too nervous to lay down, much less fall back asleep, you began pacing the large bedroom in your large sleep shirt. Every time a contraction locked up and spasmed through your lower belly and back, your fingers pressed the stopwatch’s clicker. And you breathed as the midwife had instructed. Silco kept you company, walking with you up and down the length of the bedroom, holding your hand and becoming an anchor to squeeze when contractions rolled through. Together, you both noted and kept track of their intervals. Their spacing and length suggested that the little one’s arrival was not imminent, but the consistency indicated that this was indeed labor.

The midwife arrived, ushered in by a half-asleep Sevika. You’d bribed her with an absurd bonus and several pre-paid sessions at Babette’s for her to crash in one of the Drop’s private guest rooms during these last days of your pregnancy. She was needed for security, and to stand-in for Silco when his attention and priorities would be elsewhere.

“Good luck,” she’d grumbled, barely glancing at you before shutting the bedroom door, and trudging back down the hall.

The midwife was a petite, wizened Vastaya who’d been selected for her services not only because of her field prowess, but because she was staunch loyalist to you and Silco. Shimmer had helped save more than one of her clients when the birthing process had begun to go sideways, and that was enough for her to hitch her wagon to your agenda.

She was also direct to the point of rudeness – a personality trait that was wholly welcome given the slippery, hidden, self-serving rhetoric you were used to having to deal with.

“Time?” she asked, setting her medical bag down on your dresser with a heavy thunk.

“Forty-five seconds to a minute, about every seven minutes,” you answered. Then gasped and doubled over as another contraction bent you.

The midwife hummed. “How long?”

“About an hour,” Silco said. He squeezed back at your hand as you rode out the current wave rolling through.

Clucking her tongue, the midwife shook her head, long ears slapping lightly against her horns.

“Early.”

Silco frowned. “You are being more than thoroughly compensated to show up whenever we ask.”

“Indeed. To the bed, miss. Let’s have a look.”

Once your legs were freed from the lock of the contraction, you shuffled to the bed. Silco helped you into position, and the midwife closed in. Her fingers were warm, but the tools were cold. The combination, along with your nerves, caused your lungs to shudder.

“Five,” she declared, drawing her head from between your thighs.

“That’s halfway,” you chuckled weakly. Silco brushed his thumb over your knuckles

The midwife hummed in agreement. “True. But as discussed, this process is not linear. And being your first delivery, it is very likely this will take a while. How is the pain?”

“Fine. Manageable.” It came out as a grit, but she didn’t seem to doubt you.

“You should eat and drink while you can. Is there anything else you want or need right now?”

Together, you and Silco walked to the small kitchen in your private quarters. You rested your forearms on the counter as the length of your spine hammocked behind you, hips gently swishing side-to-side. Silco kept the breakfast blissfully simple: toast with a light slather of butter, and a mug of warmed water with lemon.

Eating was slow going. Between the jitters and contractions, your appetite was seriously curbed. When you finally made it to the second piece of toast, Jinx shuffled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and bed-headed. Her bedraggled demeanor did not last long though, as her whip-quick senses tuned into the energy of the space. Big, blue eyes tracked between Silco – unusually underdressed – and your strange posture. One could nearly hear the cogs in her head clicking and whirring.

“Is it time?!”

In a flash, she clambered onto the stool next to you, bright and tittering. Her exuberance washed over you in a relieving breeze. Reaching over, you ran a hand through her unkempt hair.

“Sure is, kiddo.”

“When will he be here?”

“Could be a while yet, Jinx,” Silco answered. He set a glass of juice in front of her. “What would you like? Toad-in-the-hole? Porridge? Pancakes?”

“Make ‘em have a face!” she crowed.

A hook of a smile pulled at Silco’s mouth as he turned back toward the stove.

Jinx settled onto the stool; legs kicking merrily beneath her as she sipped her juice.

“What does it feel like?”

“Like intense menstrual cramps.”

Her small face squished in a ponder. While you had had that conversation with her, Jinx had yet to broach into that aspect of puberty. Thus, she had no point of reference.

“Kinda like when you roof-run after eating, and your abs cramp up,” you offered. “Kind of.”

A contraction swelled upon you, and you grit your teeth, face pinching, head dropping. Silco stepped away from the stovetop, and placed a grounding hand between your shoulder blades. Jinx watched, eyes wide and worried. Timidly, she shifted toward you, pressing her forehead to your shoulder.

The pain continued, but was temporarily numbed by the overwhelming love and gratitude for the two people on either side of you.

Your family.

It was never part of the plan when it came to your Silco’s ideas to lift Zaun up, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. And in a few hours, three would be four. Your heart beat big, tapping against your throat as the contraction passed. You clicked the stopwatch.

“That seems worse than roof-run cramps,” Jinx said suspiciously.

You chuffed. “Like I said: Kind of.”

Silco rubbed his hand up and down your spine a few times, before kissing your temple and returning to the stove.

“You remember what we talked about?” you asked Jinx.

She fiddled with her hair, nodding. “I can come and go as I please.”

“Right. If you want to be with us, I want you to be there. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. You get to decide, and it doesn’t have to be right now.”

Jinx nodded again, eyes staring into the middle-distance. Reaching over, you brushed your fingers through her hair again. Her eyes snapped back to yours.

“Are you scared?”

You gave her a reassuring smile.

“No. I’m happy.”

It wasn’t a lie. But a few hours later, your happiness was thoroughly overshadowed by the pain of labor. It was staggering how it had intensified. How it was becoming near non-stop as the space between contractions shortened and shortened. Gravity felt impossible to contend with on top of everything else, so you sank onto your bedroom floor with a low, guttural growl.

Silco had been attentive throughout, anticipating your needs before you even voiced them. Ever your anchor, your source for steadiness. Even now, on your hands and knees, his own wide palms settled onto your hips and pressed in. It pulled an appreciative groan from your throat.

“You’re doing so well, my love.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

Your eyes flicked to the bathroom door where Jinx was helping the midwife prepare a warm bath. You were proud of your girl. Admittedly, part of you doubted she would choose to stick around once labor became loud and more intense. When you could no longer keep yourself from crying out, hesitancy had flickered in her eyes, and her brows pitched in concern. But instead of dashing away, she’d reached for your hand and held tight.

“Is there anything you can give her?” she’d asked the midwife incredulously.

The female had smirked, impressed and moved by the girl’s protectiveness of you.

“I have mild pain relievers, but nothing that will fully numb – “

“Shimmer?”

The midwife’s black lips thinned. “That is only to be used in emergencies,” she explained. “It is too potent and powerful to be used for anything other than the most extreme circumstances. Which – “her eyes looked up at your haggard form on the bed – “does not seem probable. Her labor is progressing as it should. There is nothing to worry about.”

Jinx frowned, doubtful, and hunkered closer to your side.

“Seems like a dumb design that it hurts so much.”

“Agreed,” you wheezed.

“Come,” the midwife said, “let’s check you.”

She declared you’d progressed to eight centimeters. That had been three hours ago. And the pain just continued to climb and build.

A small sob burst through your teeth. Silco knelt at your side, quietly saying your name.

“I’m scared, Sil,” you admitted in a whisper. You were thankful Jinx wasn’t near to hear you back-pedal. Your breath hitched and words tumbled out: “I don’t know if I can do this.”

He took your warm and tear-streaked face between his hands, and repeated your name.

“Look at me.”

Reluctantly, your tired and wet eyes focused on his face. He looked at you with fierce earnestness, thumbs sweeping across the apples of your flushed cheeks. Suddenly, part of you grieved that the baby would never know Silco without his scars. Or yours. Outside and in.

Silco called your name again.

“Look at me,” he repeated. Your eyes slid back to his. Blue and red pinned you in place. “You can do this. I’ve not met anyone more tenacious, nor strong, nor as spirited as you. Those are but a few of the reasons I fell in love with you so long ago.” His eyes softened now; his adoration made plain. “You’ve absolutely no reason to doubt yourself.”

A small hiccup bubbled from your mouth, and you pressed your face into the warmth of his palm, breathing him in deeply. Not having properly dressed for the day, he hadn’t put any cologne on. The natural terra-sweet scent of his skin filled your nose. You were grateful for his support, respect, and belief in your abilities. A sudden, silly thought flitted across your mind.

“Not my dance moves?”

A single amused breath huffed from his throat. That infinitesimal smirk – one of the reasons you’d fallen in love with him – appeared on his lips. His blue eye flashed; as it often did when an idea struck him. Silco lifted to his feet, and used a strong grip to pull you to yours. He guided your arms to loop around his shoulders and neck, while his went to your low back. A weary chuckle left you as you understood. Your cheek was a relieved, heavy weight against his shoulder. It had to be a strange sight, this dance configuration: with your body slouched against his, massive belly hanging between you two. Slowly, your feet began gently shifting side-to-side.

“Admittedly,” he murmured against your crown, “your dance moves leave something to be desired right now.”

You laughed, even as another contraction swelled within you. Silco’s hands firmed up on your body, holding you upright as it moved through your body.

“I’ll make it up to you,” you hissed as most of the pain subsided. It was such now that there was no longer any real relief.

“A dance and a suck job? Lucky me.”

Your fingers pinched Silco’s upper back, and you felt the tremor of silent laughter in his shoulders.

“Tub’s ready!” Jinx sang as she flounced out of the bathroom.

Managing to smile at her, despite another great, contracting swell that threatened to bring you to your knees, you took her hand. Silco kept a strong arm wrapped around your middle, and you followed Jinx into the humid warmth of the bathroom.

The water helped. Its heat soothed your pained muscles and aching bones. The irony was not lost on you that you found peace in it. After a few minutes of settling into the tub, you gave Silco a look that to anyone else may have seemed like nothing. But he caught the message in your eyes, and tucked himself close to the tub’s edge, taking your hand. Jinx huddled herself into his lap, nervously fingering the buttons on his shirt.

About an hour later, the midwife’s large ears flicked in your direction as the quality of your breath shifted, as the sounds leaving you turned deeper and more animal. Her deft hands slipped into the water and between your legs.

“Something changed,” you gasped, hunching slightly. “It feels like – “

“It’s time,” she said, pulling her hands from the water. Somehow, she’d also stripped your underwear off in the same movement without you noticing. “It’s time to push.”

Push. The word settled into your body with a deep, innate knowing.

Yes. That’s what you were feeling. The near uncontrollable need to bare down. An old, predetermined instinct washed over you. You could do this.

But you did not want to do it alone.

“Sil.”

The grit of his name and the way you shifted yourself forward spurred your partner into understanding. Swiftly, he stood, deposited Jinx onto the stool he’d vacated, and then stepped into the tub, sliding in behind you. Settling against his chest, your hand ferociously intertwined with his. His heart beat firmly against your back.

“You can do this,” he whispered into your ear.

“Give me your other hand, dear,” the midwife said. You did so and she guided it under the water, preparing you to feel and catch. “Push.”

“Push! Push!” Jinx cried, her little fists pumping and bopping in the air madly.

Gritting your teeth, you did just that. A sound you didn’t know you were capable of making burst from your lungs. When the air ran out, you slumped against Silco’s chest.

“Breath in,” the midwife demanded. You did so. “Push!”

You did again, a roar ripping from your chest. A roar that ended in a surprised yip as something into your hand.

“Again,” the midwife demanded.

And you complied, baring down with everything you had. With all the might and tenacity and power your body could exert. Another battle cry echoed off the bathroom tiles, and a solid weight slid into your hand. You ripped your other hand from Silco’s grip, and pulled a wriggling newborn from the water.

“It’s a boy!” Jinx yelled, bouncing up and down in her seat.

Her brother’s face squidged, and his pink mouth opened in an announcing wail. You joined in and pulled the babe to your chest. Silco went very still behind you, scarcely breathing. Then his hands appeared over yours, cradling the baby at your chest. Like on the night you’d taken in Jinx, he pulled his legs up around you both and held tight.

Later, once the placenta had passed (something Jinx was equally horrified and enthralled by) you were helped out of the tub, and cleaned. The midwife tied off the babe’s umbilical cord, and once some time passed, you watched with an incredibly full heart as Silco severed it.

You weren’t sure if you’d ever seen the expression on your partner’s face. A soft, careful, wonderous thing. Then it hit you all at once. You were watching Silco fall in love. The notion took your breath away and fresh tears welled in your eyes. Jinx clung to you, and you to her.

“Thank you for being with me, Jinx. It helped.”

The girl beamed up at you, holding on tighter.

“I think it is your turn for a shower, sir,” the midwife said, twisting off the umbilical nub.

Silco watched her hands like a hawk as she did. He slid in once she finished, and wrapped him in a blanket Jinx had decorated. It was a small thing, but you caught the tremor in his hands. Keeping Jinx tucked against your side, you came to stand next to him.

“He’ll be here when you get out of the shower,” you whispered, voice hoarse.

“Yeah! Go get the baby juice off you!” Jinx ordered.

Silco’s expression of awe turned to one of bemusement as he glanced at your daughter.

“Yes. I suppose I should.”

Your own hands shook a bit as you gathered your son – your son! You wondered if the shock would wear off – and ushered Jinx to follow the midwife out of the bathroom.

With no small amount of effort, your body, beyond sore and exhausted, climbed into bed. The baby cooed and nuzzled and fussed against your chest as you settled into the pillows and duvet. Jinx climbed in on the opposite side, and snuggled close.

“He’s already sleeping!”

“It’s hard work being born. Don’t you remember?” you chuckled.

Jinx laughed, “No!”

A small smile curled the midwife’s mouth as she snapped her bag shut. She turned to you and bowed her head.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you said, eyes on your boy. Then you lifted them to hers, and said again, “And thank you.”

She nodded again, horns catching the light in the room.

“It was my honor.”

She gave you and the baby one last cursory check over, and took her leave.

A few moments after she left, there was a knock on the door, and Sevika stuck her head in.

“Ogre!” Jinx cried. “I gotta brother!”

Even Sevika’s presence couldn’t dampen Jinx’s mood.

Silco’s lieutenant grunted, and stepped over to the bed. She stayed at a distance though, craning her neck to peer down at you and the baby.

“Yep. That’s a baby. Congrats.”

“Thank you, Sevika.”

Behind her, Silco emerged from the foggy bathroom in a fresh pair of slacks and an unbuttoned shirt. Sevika tilted her strong chin in his direction and he nodded back.

“I’ll leave you all to it then,” she said.

Her poncho twirled as she spun back to leave. As she and Silco crossed paths, a metal finger tip whipped out from beneath the red fabric, and poked his bare belly. He jolted and shuddered. He sneered at her, but she just snickered and slipped out of the room.

Silco shook his head, damp hair beginning to curl at the ends. He rounded the bed, and climbed in, sandwiching Jinx between your bodies. He leaned over the girl’s head and kissed you.

“What’re we gonna name him?” Jinx pipped.

You and Silco exchanged a look.

“I’m not sure,” you admitted.

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something.” he added.

Immediately, Jinx began rattling off all her suggestions.

Before a name could be decided, you fell asleep. Jinx followed shortly after; her plump cheek pressed against your shoulder. Gingerly, Silco lifted the baby from your arms, and brought him to his bare chest. The boy tensed, and then melted, a small wispy sigh leaving him.

Silco melted, too; a foreign, near indescribable softness filling him up. He brought his hand to the boy’s back, its length and width nearly covering all of him. His son was so small.

His son. His son.

Emotions gripped him so intensely he nearly choked.

Elation, love, fear.

Grief.

There was grief that his child was born technically as a citizen of Piltover. But that anguish was small compared to the other one that had been tucked away in the scar tissue of Silco’s heart ever since you had told him of the pregnancy. A pain that he hated he harbored.

The secret grief was that Vander wasn’t here to see this. The grief that his Brother had ruined any chance of participating in this milestone. The grief of Vander’s death (justified though it was) was scratched open as Silco’s son lay on his heart. The grief that, had things gone differently, Silco would’ve named the boy after his Brother.

“Sil.”

Silco’s head whipped around at the sound of your voice. Your beautiful, exhausted, beautiful face shone up at him. There was a smile on your lips that he wished to taste, so he leaned over Jinx’s head again and pressed his mouth to yours.

“I told you you could do it,” he whispered leaning back. You smiled and nodded wearily.

The baby grunted and shifted against Silco’s chest, and he pet the back of his head so, so softly. It broke your heart into a million pieces, and then they jumped right back together. Your eyes slid back up to your partner’s profile.

You felt his grief, because it was yours, too.

“I know, Silco,” you whispered. He looked over to you. Jinx snored softly between. “I wish it had been different, too.”

Silco’s eyebrow dropped, and his lips softened. He glanced down at the baby on his chest, and chuckled ruefully.

“I truly don’t know what to name him.”

You shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”

He nodded. You sat in silence for a while, listening to your children breath. Jinx’s raspy breaths and the baby’s snuffling. It was music to your ears. You would never tire of hearing it.

Just as you were about to doze again, you felt Silco’s energy shift. Eyes sharpening onto him, you watched as he first gently ran his fingers over Jinx’s freckled cheek. Then, so carefully, he lifted the baby from his chest so he could look at his small face.

“You and your sister will have better than we did,” he promised. “Me and your mother will give you a nation.”

Your son’s eyes fluttered open and closed, the bud of his mouth stretching into what looked like a small smile. Your throat tightened horribly, and you tucked your nose into Jinx’s crown.

When you were sure you could speak without choking, you lifted your head and said, “We promise.”

I hope part two scratched the itch <3 If you enjoy my work and would like to support me (firstly, THANK YOU!) check out my Ko-Fi page!

ko-fi.com/kiki13

#silco #silco fanfic #silco x reader #dad!silco #soft!silco #jinx #big sister jinx #silco x afab!reader #cw: pregnancy #cw: labor #drive by appearance of sevika #sevika

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socialistexan · 1 year ago

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Hey, y'all, this is a reminder for anyone that has student loans that they are defaulted on or in collections for:

Apply for Fresh Start NOW if you haven't already done so. Like right now. Do it right this very second do not put it off any longer.

If you don't know, applying for Fresh Start will move your loan status from "Default" to "Current," you will no longer have to deal with collections calls! You won't have your wages garnished or your tax refunds taken by the Education Department! The default gets removed from your credit and you become eligible for federal mortgage programs! You become eligible for Income Driven Repayment (IDR) programs that can reduce your monthly payment in a huge way (from $400/month to $50/month for me!) and you get IDR credit for the three years you were in default during the pandemic freeze!

It only has upsides!

I mean it, it can make a huge difference! You can even submit both Fresh Start and an IDR application at the same time. It takes literal seconds. I had my name legally changed and I'm still eligible! I clicked like 3 buttons, checked a couple boxes, and boom. I sent off the application August 22nd and I got the letter yesterday (Sept 20th), but that letter was dated Sept 1st and was only to inform me that my loan was no longer in default would be transferred to a new loan servicer by the end of the month. It took a week and a half to process.

I also became eligible and received a refund check for money taken from me during the starting stages of the pandemic.

The best time to do it is now. Period.

Do. It. Right. Now.

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bucks-babe · 7 months ago

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See What I See

Pairing: Husband!Dilf!Bucky x Wife!Milf! f reader

Summary: You husband shows you how much he loves your postpartum body

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Slight angst (Petal is insecure about her body after birth), postpartum sex, fluffy smut, safe sex (for once), body worship, they are in love, stretch marks, weight gain, struggles with weight loss, lactation kink?, husband kink?, lube, fingering f!rec, p in v, oral f!rec, praise kink, talk about sexual dysfunction, struggling to orgasm, sex toy (vibrator), Bucky is the perfect man, safe to say that he is officially a Dilf, mentions of masturbation, mentions of their daughter, small mention of a hypothetical fire and burns (like one line)

A/N: Part 2 of Let Me Be of Service but can be read alone. Don't know how good this will be but here it is. Thanks to my girl, @buckys-wintersoldier for beta reading; however, any and all mistakes are my own

You know that Bucky is getting antsy; he’ll never say it, but he misses your body, craves the warmth of you engulfing him in your tight heat. Even more than that, he misses holding you, having you sit in his lap, his arms wrapped around you, every part of your body pressed against his, your nightly cuddles, all of it.

He knows that your body has gone through a lot, but he needs to be close to you again, sex or not, he just wants to hold you. Of course, he’ll never say anything; he doesn’t want to pressure you into having sex with him. He’s been patiently waiting to make love to you for eleven weeks. Recently, he and his right hand have been best friends.

Tonight is the first night that he’s able to take you on a date. It’s not a very lavish date - takeout and a movie, but you didn’t want to leave the house, too much packing with your padded bra that you would have to change, and the thought of leaking through your dress was too much to handle.

The date was perfect, finally able to feel like yourself again; you weren’t mom and dad, but Duckie and Petal. It’s not like you don’t want to have sex with your husband, quite the opposite, but between little Bug and your hormones you’ve been struggling. On top of that, the insecurities about your body have been running rampant in your mind.

Your breasts aren’t as perky, stomach softer than it's ever been, raised stretch marks cover your stomach, breasts, and thighs, cellulite dimpling the fat on your ass and thighs. Your body isn’t the same as it was before. You knew that it wasn’t going to be the same, but you didn’t expect such a drastic change. Other women seem to be able to lose their pregnancy weight in weeks, but you’ve somehow gained weight. Maybe it was because Bucky made sure that you were eating, saying that you needed your nutrients to feed Bug, but it didn’t help your confidence either way.

But by the end of the night you weren’t thinking about that, you were thinking about how sexy your man looked in his blue button up, hair perfectly styled, your favorite scent on his skin - you wanted him. It started slowly, gently straddling his lap.

“Petal, what are you doing?” He wasn’t going to complain about your position, warm palms already tracing the exposed flesh of your thighs.

“You just look so good, Duckie. Could eat you right up.” You place your hands on his shoulders, lightly grinding your pantie clad core against his already hard bulge. The lopsided smirk on his face makes your cunt pulse with need. “S’been too long.”

“I’ll wait forever and a day for you, Petal.” His right hand cups your chin, leading your lips to his. Your shared moans mix together, only sharing pecks for too long, never sharing deep, languid kisses like you used to. He flicks his tongue on your lower lip and without hesitation you open up.

The kiss doesn’t speed up. Bucky has waited too long to rush this moment. His left hand moves to your hip, encouraging you to grind against him. At the first motion, Bucky breaks the kiss, tipping his head back, looking at you with half lidded eyes, pupils blown and a dopey smile on his face. “Petal, you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

Bucky catches the way your demeanor shifts, almost cringing away from his praise. “I mean it. You’re so fucking perfect.” The movement of your hips stop completely and you try to leave his lap but Bucky only pulls you closer.

“Duckie, I don’t look the same as I used to. I’m scared you won’t find me attractive anymore.” The words come out so easily. It’s your Bucky; you could tell him anything.

“Ah, ah, Petal, I will not tolerate you talking about my wife like that, you hear me? This perfect body, all those changes that you think ruin you? Fuck, they make me fall harder for you if that’s even possible. You gave me my daughter; how could I think that you are less than the goddess you are?”

“Duckie, I..” He cuts you off, his eyes full of sorrow for not making you see how wonderful you are sooner.

“Shh, let me show you. Let me show you what you do to me.” You nod, trusting him to bring you to the surface. He starts with feather light kisses down your neck, tongue lapping at the sheen of sweat starting to form. “Skin so soft, tastes so good.”

Easing one of the straps from your sundress down your shoulder, he trails his lips all the way down your arm, eyes meeting yours as he gets lower. He does the same on the other side, only pressing extra kisses to your ring. You can feel his grin against your skin as he sucks on your collarbones.

Your breath hitches as he lowers the fabric, exposing your sensitive breasts to him, cupping one in each hand. “Perfect fucking tits. So beautiful, feeding our baby, keeping her strong and healthy. You do that, Petal, your body does that for her.” A lump begins to form in your throat, his gentle touches and praises almost too much and he isn’t even inside you yet.

As his thumbs graze your nipples, milk leaks out. “Oh my god, Duckie, I’m so sorry.” Before you can move to clean them up, Bucky latches on, suckling, his eyes locking onto yours. A heady moan leaves your lips; breastfeeding wasn’t something that was pleasurable. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but the sight of Bucky latched on is erotic, your husband worshiping your breasts has your pussy clenching around nothing.

A distinct pop sounds out as he pulls off of your nipple, only to move on to the other. You can’t control the swirl of your hips against his crotch or the continuous leaking of your breasts. “Almost as good as your pussy, but nothing can beat the taste of my sweet girl. C’mon, let me take you to bed.”

He picks you up with ease, your naked breasts rubbing against his shirt, soaking the front of it. In the room, he sets you down, pulling off the rest of your dress, letting it pool at your feet, taking your hand as you step out. You whimper at the sight of his hand rubbing his bulge. “Duckie, please, need you.”

“In time, sweetheart. I’m not done with your body just yet.” With one hand on your waist and one on your head, he lowers you to the bed, only your panties remaining. “Don’t know how you’re so goddamn gorgeous.” You feel your body go lax as he crawls over you, lips tracing every mark on your stomach, moaning at the soft skin there.

“Love these stretch marks. Makes me so hard knowing that my baby did this to you. My baby gave you these pretty stripes.” Your legs fall open on their own accord, desperate for his mouth or fingers to touch your pussy. But he only does the same thing to the stretch marks on your thighs, sucking bruises the closer he gets to your cunt, and you’re sure that you’re dripping.

“Duckie, please I need you to touch my pussy. You make me feel so good, s’been so long.” Bucky groans at the breathy moans leaving your perfect lips. He keeps his eyes on yours as he eases your underwear down your legs and throws them across the room.

Still holding eye contact, Bucky brings his middle finger to your core. To both of your surprise, you aren’t wet - at all. Mentally you were so turned on but physically your body wasn’t. “I don’t, Duckie, it’s not, you didn’t.” You don’t know what you were trying to say, embarrassment flooding your stomach.

“I know, Petal, s’not your fault. It happens, nothing to be embarrassed about.” The love and safety in his eyes relax you. Bucky leans down, tongue running through your slit, pulling back just to spit on your clit. “Still the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen. Only pussy I want to see for the rest of my life.” Laying flat on the bed, Bucky lifts your thighs on his shoulder and dives back in, purposefully getting his spit all over your cunt, acting as lube for his motions.

Bucky’s always known exactly how to fuck you, how to lick you, to make you cum, but the first suck has your body jerking, a hiss escaping you. “Duckie, just lick, please, too sensitive.” He doesn’t pull away from your center but changes from sucking to licking. Your hand drops down to thread through his hair. “Just like that, baby. Love your tongue on me.”

You see his hips grind down on the bed, the vibrations of his moan almost send you over the edge. “Give me your fingers, please.” Bucky has to use all the restraint in his body not to cum on the bed; it’s been too long since he’s heard your pretty moans. His middle finger teases your entrance, slowly sliding in, groaning at the tightness around his finger.

“Oh, shit, m’gonna cum, don’t stop, just like that.” Your hips grind against his face, chasing more of him, pussy pulsing around his digit. He keeps the same pace, not changing the rhythm at all, but your orgasm is just out of reach. Vibrations of his encouragement don’t do anything and your orgasm slowly fades away.

Tapping on his head, Bucky pulls away, clearly confused as to why you wanted him to stop. “Can’t cum, Duck.”

“Why’d you stop me? You know I’ll go until you soak my face, Petal.”

“Because I could feel it, that I wasn’t going to cum.” You run your hands down your face, groaning in frustration. “I’m sorry, I ruined the moment. If you want I can suck you off.” Bucky only raises an eyebrow, clearly offended. “Duckie, I haven’t done anything for you in almost three months. I can’t leave you high and dry.”

“Get over here.” He swifty pulls you onto his lap, grabbing both sides of your face. “First of all, you can never ruin the moment. When you were still pregnant you accidentally pissed on me and I still finished fucking you. You think that some trouble cumming is going to ruin the moment?” You suck your teeth at his pointed look but don’t interrupt him.

“Second of all, and this one is very important. You will never and I mean never do anything that you do not want to do. I don’t give a shit if we haven’t had sex in three years; I will not make you feel like you have to please me.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I do, but I don’t want to disappoint you if I can’t cum. Don’t want you to think it’s your fault. I want to feel you inside me, but what if I can’t cum? What if it isn’t good for you? What if I’m loose and it's not the same?” Bucky rubs his thumbs through your tears before they fall down your face.

“Petal, my perfect wife,” he presses soft kisses to both your eyes, “all I want is to make you feel good, show you how much I love your body.” Gently, he lays down, pulling you on top of him again. “Of course it’s going to be different. You gave birth, sweetheart, but that doesn’t mean that your little pussy isn’t going to make me bust.” You swallow, trying not to cry again. “Come here.”

He quickly pulls his shirt off and tosses it across the room, pulling you down, feeling your naked chest against his, a few droplets of milk leaking out. You bury your head in his neck, breathing in his comforting scent. Tracing his hands up and down your back, you feel your body go lax, missing being so close to your husband. “My pretty Petal, your little pussy was squeezing my finger so damn tight that I don’t know if she can still take my cock.”

You perk up at his words. “Really?” Bucky giggles at how easy it was to make you feel better. It wasn’t a lie either, after so long of not stretching around his cock your pussy forgot how to welcome him. “Can we, can we try again?” Grinning at your question, Bucky reaches over to the nightstand, grabbing a condom, lube, and your favorite vibrator. “Duckie, when did you buy condoms?”

A blush creeps up his cheeks. “When you got cleared for sex.” At the look on your face he quickly explains himself. “Not that I was expecting anything. I just wanted to be prepared, you know, since you’re extra fertile after giving birth. And I wouldn’t complain about having another but I figured you would want to wait a bit, because we just had little Bug but-” You cut him off with a deep kiss, his hands immediately caressing your body.

“I love you, you’re the perfect husband, you know that?”

“Well, you married me for a reason.” You just shook your head at him in disbelief, grinding your hips against his, drawing a groan from him.

“I want you inside of me, Duckie. Can I please have your cock.” Bucky groans, throwing his head back. Flipping you both over and standing up, Bucky takes off the rest of his clothes. “Shit, I almost forgot how beautiful you are, Duckie.”

Climbing back on top of you, he smirks at you. “I would never forget how gorgeous you are, and I’ll be damned if I let you forget either.” You almost drool at the sight of your sculpted husband rolling the condom down his thick cock. “Damn, Petal, I can’t remember the last time we used one of these. Could barely remember how to put it on, maybe I should have asked for help.”

“Oh my god, you’re unbelievable.” No matter where you are, Bucky always has to make a joke. Half of the reason is because he loves to see you smile, but the other half is because you make him comfortable enough to leave all inhibitions at the door.

His warm hands gently spread your legs, allowing him to settle in between. “Holy fuck. I’m not gonna fucking last, I can guarentee it. Look at you, all spread out for me, all your curves - pulchritudinous.”

The clenching of your cunt is ignored at his last word. “What the fuck did you just say? Pulchritudinous? Really?” Bucky’s eyes snap back to yours, previously latched onto your body, a huge smile gracing his features, the cutest giggle leaving him, eyes bright and shining.

“Sorry, Petal, pussy got me feeling philosophical.” Your mouth falls open and you blink at him - once, twice, before bursting out in laughter.

“There is something wrong with you.”

“But you love it.”

“I do, but are you going to fuck me or not?”

“No, Petal, I’m going to make love to you.”

He grabs the lube, letting a glob fall onto your cunt before rubbing it in, cooing at the hiss you let out from the coldness. “Are you ready, sweet girl?” Your breathy yes has Bucky lining his tip up. “Tell me if you need me to stop, okay?” You nod, reaching out to grab his hands.

Callused fingers rub the back of your hands, soothing your nerves. Somewhere along that way, you’ve relaxed, mind no longer worried about how you look, not when Bucky is worshiping every inch of you. Easing in, you both gasp, Bucky at how tight and warm you feel, you at the uncomfortable stretch. “Wait, Duckie.” Bucky immediately stops, only his tip inside.

“You alright, Petal?” You close your eyes, nodding between deep breaths. The rhythmic pulsing of your tight cunt has your husband holding in a groan. His hands run up and down your thighs, resting them over his own, using his position to take in how beautiful you are, soft belly on display, heaving, wet breasts, the most beautiful stretch marks lining your belly and thighs. He catches the bright pink of your vibrator out of the corner of his eye, reaching out to grab it, slowly tracing it on your inner thighs.

“Yeah, just need a minute. Need more lube, please.” You're ready for the chill this time as he adds more lube. “Can you use the vibrator while I relax, please?” It takes every muscle in Bucky’s body to not slam the rest of the way into you, pounding your perfect pussy with your toy on high, drawing orgasm after orgasm out of you, but he knows you need time.

He starts on the lowest setting, trailing it around your lips, feeling the vibrations on his cock, before gently placing it on your clit. “Oh.” Your little gasp has Bucky leaking precum into the condom. Slowly, you start to roll your hips, taking a little more of his cock each time, chasing the pleasure from the toy.

“That’s it, good girl.” You squeeze the hand that’s still laced with yours, soft moans leaving your lips at his praise. “Take what you need, Petal, I got you.” The ache in your cunt dies down little by little, still trying to accept his cock after months of recovery. “Pussy’s so fucking tight, just as good as I remember. Fuck, maybe even better. You wanna know why, Petal?” He doesn’t wait for you to answer, words coming out between breathy groans. “Because this perfect pussy, this perfect body, gave me the most beautiful gift. Can feel you clenching around me, so close to cumming on your husband’s cock.”

You don’t even realize that you’ve taken his entire length inside of you until the warmth of his heavy balls rests against your ass. Clit pulsing under the tiny bullet, ready to let go and give your husband what he wants. “M’gonna cum, oh, please. Baby, I need it, been your good girl. Let me cum.”

Your eyes open, meeting Bucky’s loving gaze. “Always been my good girl, Petal. I’ve got you, let your husband take care of you. Cum for me, soak my cock, m’already so close for you.” It doesn’t take much to send you over the edge, Bucky doing everything in his power to empty your mind, making you only know the pleasure he’s giving you.

“Fuck, baby.” You can’t finish the rest of your sentence, eyes rolling back as your orgasm rolls over you. Bucky leans down, taking your lips in his before his own release floods into the condom, his groans falling into your mouth. You both stay like that for a while, breathing in each other’s scent, words of praise whispered in your ear.

Eventually, Bucky rolls off, taking off the used condom and tossing it in the trash. “Could’ve given it to me, Duckie, missed the taste of your cum.” You giggle at Bucky’s groan.

“I could get it out from the trash?” He words it like a question, but you know he is 100% serious.

“No, you dirtball.” Bucky laughs before scooping you up into his arms, holding you so close to him that you can feel every breath he takes.

“Petal, I will spend the rest of my life proving to you how beautiful you are. It doesn’t matter if we have another baby, we get old together, you get in a fire and burn 90% of your body.”

You smack his arm at his last point. “Duckie! Don’t say that or it’ll end up happening and I don’t want to go through that.”

“Neither do I, Petal, but I’m letting you know that my cock will always be hard for you, even when I’m 80.”

“You don’t think you’re going to need pills by then?”

“Of course not, not when I have you. It would be impossible for me to not get hard when it comes to you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Hell, I’ll probably still be hard when I’m dead.”

“Duckie!”

He only laughs and somehow pulls you even closer. “I plan to spend the rest of my life with you, Petal. You’re the love of my life and it breaks my heart that you don’t see what I see.”

The mood in the room suddenly changes. “You’re my soulmate, Duckie, and it may take some time, but I think it would be impossible to not feel like I’m the sexiest woman alive when I’m with you.”

“Good, because it’s the truth and I get to have you all to myself.” You fall asleep in his arms feeling much better about your body, already planning on how you’re going to reward him for being the perfect husband. Maybe you’ll wake him up with the sloppiest blowjob. Yeah, he’ll love that.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky x female reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes smut #bucky imagine #bucky smut #sebastian stan x reader #james bucky buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan smut

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anyroads · 3 months ago

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How to actually support small businesses on Etsy

With Christmas approaching and people starting to look for gifts, I thought it might be useful to let people know how to best support Etsy sellers, since we get a lot of sales this time of year! Etsy has a lot of policies that affect sellers which they don't really disclose to customers, and often there's a communication gap that can be damaging to sellers without customers intending them to. Hopefully this post helps more people avoid this kind of thing.

A while ago Etsy implemented the Star Seller program. When you go to an Etsy store, you can see badges at the top of the page, denoting if the seller has done well in three main categories:

Speedy replies

On time dispatch with tracking

Good reviews

If you clear the bar for all three as a seller, you're a Star Seller. This is an important badge for sellers, which I'll get to in a bit. Etsy evaluates your stats monthly, and bases them on three months' worth of data:

Each has specific determining factors, which also advantage large operations like dropshippers over small businesses, but we'll get to that too:

As you can see, the criteria is really demanding. You have to respond to 95% of first messages (ie. the first time someone contacts you) within 24 hours or you lose your Star Seller status. This can be really damaging to a small store.

You also have to dispatch 95% of orders on time, ie. within the set timeline you've chosen for an item listed, and you have to give tracking info. This, by the way, is frustrating and disingenuous; I ship my product in envelopes because they're small and thin, but the mail service in my country doesn't offer tracking for envelopes. I'm not going to spend up to 3x as much on shipping just to have a tracking number (shipping would cost half the price of my product if I did), but if I don't include tracking info I don't get a Star Seller badge even if I ship all my orders on time. I get around this by writing "unavailable" in the field where tracking info goes, but this still poses a transparency issue to customers and rightly so. I end up compensating by issuing a lot of replacements for delayed orders, which I can recoup costs of through my mail service which is a lot of extra work and time.

You also must have an average of 4.8 star reviews or higher. There are no adjustments made for small stores, and this is a big one where dropshippers have an advantage.

As you can see in my stats here, I had 11 reviews in 3 months. That means if just one person gives me a 4 or 3 star review, I lose my Star Seller status for 3 months unless I get a ton more reviews quickly. A dropshipper who makes hundreds of sales a week won't be affected by one middling review. And you'd be surprised how often people who leave 3 or 4 star reviews actually meant to leave better ones but clicked the wrong button without noticing, or just don't understand how the system works.

Because Etsy doesn't explain this to customers. So people will leave a damaging review in perfectly good faith. The number of times I've gotten an "excellent product, would buy again!" review with 3 stars is astounding. I always message customers to ask what I could do better and explain the system, and the response is almost always that there was nothing wrong, they just usually don't give anything higher than 3 out of 5 stars unless the product radically improved their lives or was transformative (and to their credit, most customers change their reviews after this exchange but again, it takes time and effort).

3 stars is average, and what customers rate is their experience receiving and using a product. What Etsy uses these ratings to gauge, however, is whether a customer was satisfied dispatch timelines, craftsmanship, and if a product met the expectations set in the listing.

As an added bonus, Etsy hoses money off sellers by offering to advertise for them. The way this works is that if a seller opts in, Etsy will advertise their store in relevant searches on search engines like Google, and in exchange they take a percentage from any sales made from clicks on these links. And then some. Because if a customer clicked an advertising link once, then Etsy will keep taking that cut from any further purchases from that IP address. So if you click a Google link to an Etsy store and then purchase from that store, and then bookmark that store and go back six months later to get another item, Etsy will keep taking their advertising cut with each purchase you make.

Depending on whether or not you opt in to advertising, Etsy can take up to 30% of your earnings in fees alone. That means if I sell, say, bookmarks for $10, I only get to keep $7. Hopefully that covers my operating costs, but if I charge more for an item that takes me a lot of time and work to make, I have to factor in that Etsy offers free shipping on orders over $35 whether or not sellers agree to give it. So if I sell a product that costs $35, not only do I only get to keep $24.50 of what I was paid after Etsy takes fees, I also have to cover the cost of shipping. And if I'm selling a product for that much, it's likely shipping will cost $5-10, so now my profit is down to $15-20 for an item I sold for $35.

Why is the Star Seller status so important? Because it's the main way the average Etsy store gets onto the algorithm and has visibility, and without visibility you don't have sales. Drop shippers can afford to purchase advertising space, so they'll always show up in searches. They can also afford to have a variety of products, high-end professional photos of their products, and because they have a lot of sales, the occasional bad review or delayed shipment won't cause a blip on their rating system. In comparison, the average Etsy store who makes, let's say, 50 sales a month (and that's a small store that's doing well), is going to feel the impact of a handful of 4 star reviews and one day of delayed orders/message replies due to a family emergency. If you contact Etsy customer service to explain your legitimate reason for having a delay, they're unable to intervene. They can't give you back your Star Seller status, which means you're dropped from the algorithm for the three months it takes for those delays to stop counting towards your averages, and you then have to work your way back up into the algorithm once that time passes, which is even harder to do. (And while you can put up an auto-reply, there's a time limit on how long it'll be up, which is usually 24-48 hours. Which may not work if you have a personal emergency that the average small business would understand and give you time off for in ways Etsy refuses to accommodate.)

So what can you do to support Etsy sellers?

- Give good reviews. If you have problems with a product, message the seller and give them the opportunity to fix the problem or send a replacement/refund. Unless you feel the need to leave a scathing 1 star review, don't leave one unless it's a 5 star. Etsy counts anything under 5 stars the same as it does one star. (This goes for Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo, etc. too. Review kindly.)

- Message sellers during the week. It's harder to get to messages during the weekend, and not everyone remembers to put on their auto-reply.

- Don't click advertising links. If someone promos their Etsy store on their own social media account, it's fine. So if you click a link from an instagram profile or a tumblr post, that's fine. But if you see a link on Google or in a dedicated advertising space, even if it's a sponsored spot on Etsy, don't click on it. Instead, search the shop name on Etsy and go to it through that search. This way the seller won't lose more fees to Etsy.

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pbaz7 · 18 days ago

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ONE SHOT: CLOSE QUARTERS

paige x azzi

word count: 6.2k

A/N: This is one of the prompts from my lovely 🍉 anon. It’s honestly just filled with dialogue and cute shit. 🫶🏼

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March 2022

The hotel buzzed with the quiet tension that only March Madness could bring DI athletes. Players from multiple teams staying there had settled into their rooms, preparing in their own ways for whatever laid ahead for them. For Paige Bueckers, it was another day of carrying UConn’s storied legacy on her back. She leaned back against the headboard of her bed, scrolling mindlessly through her phone, the blue glow casting a soft light across her face. Her headphones rested around her neck, music still playing faintly as she debated whether she should head down to practice early or steal a few more minutes to herself.

A few floors below, Azzi Fudd slipped on her slides, her focus already drifting toward being on court. Maryland’s hopes rested on her shoulders, and she thrived on that pressure. She stood off her bed, stretching her arms over her head, then grabbed her practice bag and slung it over one shoulder. The team had a meeting soon then practice right after, but Azzi wanted a moment to herself in the conference room before it started.

Paige glanced at the clock on the nightstand and sighed.. She slid off her bed, grabbed her bag, and headed out the door. At the same time, Azzi locked her room behind her and made her way to the elevator. Neither knew that their paths were about to converge in a way that would change everything.

Paige stepped into the elevator, grateful to see it was empty. She loved her fans—truly—but riding with a group of them in a cramped space often felt more awkward than endearing. She adjusted her bag on her shoulder before leaning against the back wall, pulling out her phone to read some messages while the doors slid shut.

The elevator hummed as it descended, and Paige took the rare moment of quiet to breathe. After three floors, though, it slowed to a stop. She glanced up as the doors slid open to reveal none other than Azzi Fudd waiting to step in.

Paige chuckled lightly, tucking her phone into her pocket. “Wassup,” she said, leaning casually against the elevator wall.

Azzi gave her a polite smile as she stepped inside. “Hi. How are you?”

“Good. You?”

“Great.”

With that, the conversation fell into silence. Neither one seemed eager to strike up a conversation with the other tean’s star they’d face on the court the next day. The only sound was the soft hum of the elevator as it resumed its descent.

Until it didn’t.

A loud, rough jerk rattled the small space, and the elevator shuddered to a halt. Paige grabbed the handrail instinctively, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. Across from her, Azzi shifted her stance, her hand pressing against the wall to steady herself as the lights flickered off, plunging the elevator into near-darkness. Only the faint, dim glow of the emergency light remained.

“Oh god,” Azzi muttered, breaking the silence.

Paige groaned, running a hand through her hair before stepping forward. She sighed, leaning toward the control panel. She pressed the emergency button firmly and waited. Nothing. She pressed it again. Still nothing.

The two of them stood quietly, waiting, hoping, for the elevator to lurch back to life. But as the seconds stretched into minutes with no sign of movement, both sighed in unison.

Azzi pulled her phone out of her pocket, holding it to see if she had a signal. Predictably, there was none. She glanced over at Paige, who had already taken her bag off and slid down the elevator wall, settling on the floor with her knees bent and her head tilted back against the metal.

“You have service?” Azzi asked, her voice cutting through the silence.

“Nope,” Paige replied immediately, not even bothering to reach for her phone.

Azzi raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t even check.”

Paige cracked a small smile, tilting her head to look at her. “We’re in a faraday cage elevator. There's no point.”

Azzi blinked, confused. “A what?”

Paige laughed, waving a hand toward the walls. “All four walls are metal, meaning electromagnetic radiation is blocked from going in or out. I.e., phone signals. Whole lot of words meaning you might as well get comfortable.”

Azzi stared at her for a moment, then let out a light laugh as she slid down the wall, settling on the floor. “I didn’t know I was stuck in the elevator with Einstein instead of a basketball player.”

Paige laughed, running a hand through her hair. “I had a construction phase when I was a kid. Needed to know which kind of elevator I’d need in my mansion to still have service.”

That earned her a louder laugh from Azzi. “Your mansion, huh?”

“Dream big,” Paige said with a shrug, her grin widening.

Their laughter faded, leaving them in a silence.

The faint hum of the emergency light is the only sound in the small space. Neither of them really knew what to say. Azzi, who wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, didn’t mind the quiet. She leaned her head back against the wall, content to let the moment pass with her eyes closed.

But Paige? Not so much.

“Alright,” Paige blurted out, her voice cutting through the stillness. “I can’t be quiet for this long.”

Azzi turned her head to look at her, raising an eyebrow, chuckling saying, “It’s been like 5 minutes.”

Paige clearly not deterred states “That’s a long time to just sit in silence with a stranger.”

Azzi chuckles, clearly expecting her to continue. When she doesn’t Azzi says “Well?” The smallest hint of amusement in her voice. "Go ahead."

Paige adjusted her position, sitting up a little straighter as a grin tugged at her lips. “Alright,” she said, breaking the silence. “You excited for the game tomorrow?”

Azzi didn’t even hesitate. “I’m not talking to you about the game.”

Paige’s smirked, a cocky glint in her eye. “Why not? Don’t wanna talk about losing?”

Azzi rolled her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall. “No, I don’t trust you. You seem sneaky.”

Paige raised an eyebrow, feigning offense. “Me? Sneaky?”

Azzi nodded, a teasing edge to her tone. “Yes, you seem sneaky. Like the type to try to smooth talk some answers out of me or something.”

Paige laughed, leaning back against the wall. “Fair point,” she admitted, the grin never leaving her face. “Just to be clear though, I don’t need mind tricks to win.” She raised her finger in the air as if to emphasize her point, her tone playful.

Azzi chuckled, shaking her head. “Whatever.”

Paige tilted her head. “Alright, you pick something since you don’t wanna talk about the game.”

Azzi thought for a moment before shrugging. “Fine. What’s your favorite color?”

Paige blinked, giving her a skeptical look. “Really?”

Azzi shrugged again, a small smirk tugging at her lips.

“Alright, fine,” Paige said, relenting. “Purple.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Wouldn’t have guessed that.”

Paige frowned slightly. “Why not?”

“You don’t seem like the purple type,” Azzi said casually, leaning her head back against the wall.

Paige squinted at her, a teasing glint in her eye for some reason. “You keep saying I seem or don’t seem like something. First it was me being sneaky, now it’s my favorite color. Didn’t know you thought about me that much.”

Azzi rolled her eyes, but the faintest hint of a smile betrayed her. “I don’t.”

Paige grinned, leaning forward slightly. “Seems like it.”

Azzi immediately shook her head. “No. It doesn’t.”

“Okay, so what gives you the impression that I’m not the purple type?” Paige asked, folding her arms. “Or that I seem sneaky?”

Azzi gave her a flat look. “You’re all over social media sports pages. It’s hard not to have some sort of impression.”

Paige narrowed her eyes, unconvinced. “Sports pages don’t hint at what my favorite color should be.”

Azzi groaned, pressing her head back against the elevator wall. “Why am I being interrogated right now?”

Paige smirked, sitting up straighter. “Because your answers suck, and now I’m curious.”

Azzi threw her hands up, clearly frustrated. “Alright, fine. You’re always trending on Twitter. That has to mean something about you.”

Paige raised an eyebrow. “Twitter? Are you serious? Thought I would be trending for my highlights and not my favorite color.”

Azzi huffed. “Well, yes, but you’re always posting about the games, your interviews—people make impressions from that kind of thing.”

Paige shrugged. “Okay, but I still don’t see how you connect that to purple, or why I seem sneaky.”

Azzi thought for a moment, then sighed. “Okay, maybe I’ve read some articles about you. Like, your play style and stuff. Coaches mention your ‘quick sneaky moves’ sometimes. I don’t know... it just adds up.”

Paige shook her head. “Rightt so these articles you’re supposedly reading. What do they tell you about what color I should like?

Azzi groaned again, rubbing her temples. “Oh my god, fine, what do you want from me? It’s just... hard not to form some kind of opinion when you're everywhere.”

Paige sat back for a moment, narrowing her eyes as she just stared at Azzi.

Azzi groaned again, rubbing her temples. “Fine, I’ve seen videos that mention it.”

Paige raised an eyebrow, her smirk widening. “You’ve seen videos?”

Azzi just sighed, resigned. “Yup, videos.”

Paige squinted at her, studying her carefully. After a moment, her smirk broke out into a wide grin. “I’m on your TikTok feed aren’t I.”

Azzi’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Oh my god, no you aren’t.”

Paige didn’t buy it, leaning forward with a look. “Oh I definitely am. That’s why you’ve got all these impressions of me. They make some crazy edits so I’m sure you have quite the impression.”

Azzi’s posture stiffened, and she crossed her arms defensively. “No, you’re really not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Paige raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “Oh really? You’re denying it now, huh?” Her smirk grew. “Which edits are your favorite?”

Azzi froze for a moment, her cheeks tingling slightly, and she quickly looked away. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

Paige leaned back, satisfied. “I knew it.

Azzi rolled her eyes, muttering, “You’re annoying.”

Paige grinned, her smirk never fading. “Sure, I am.”

She leaned forward slightly, her eyes twinkling. “So, what other impressions do you have of me, Azzi?”

Azzi shot her a glare. “None Paige.”

Paige burst out laughing, clearly enjoying Azzi's discomfort. “Really? None? Not one?”

Azzi sighed, crossing her arms. “Fine, I don’t know. The whole... superstar thing. You seem to love the spotlight and all of the attention.”

Paige nodded, still smirking. “The videos are definitely entertaining. Most of them aren’t accurate, though.”

Azzi shrugged, still a little defensive. “I don’t know what video’s you’re talking about.”

Paige just laughed again, clearly enjoying this back-and-forth. “Okay, let’s play 21 questions then. I’ll give you some real answers.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow. “21 questions? Really?”

Paige grinned. “Yup. You can figure out which ‘impressions’ you have are valid, and I can learn some things about you.”

Azzi, not ready to give in so easily, crossed her arms. “Why do you want to learn about me?”

Paige shrugged, leaning back casually. “It’s only fair that I even the playing field. Seems like you already know a few things about me even though you won’t admit it.”

Azzi groaned, clearly frustrated, as Paige’s smirk grew wider. “You’re really not letting this go, are you?”

Paige just laughed, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Nope.”

Azzi sighed, crossing her arms. “Alright, fine. But I’m starting. What’s one thing about you that people would never guess just by looking at you?”

Paige thought for a moment before saying. “Most people think I let the attention and all that get to my head and I act all big, but I’m actually really chill.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow. “You’re chill?” she asked, clearly not convinced.

Paige chuckled, leaning back against the wall of the elevator. “Yeah, for real. I mean, I get it. People see the spotlight and think I’m all about the attention, but nah, for the most part I like keeping things low-key when I can. Especially my private life.”

Azzi nodded slowly as if processing this new piece of information. “Alright, I can see that,” she murmured.

Paige’s smile grew as she shot a playful glance at Azzi. “So what about you? If you had to pick one song to describe your life right now, what would it be?”

Azzi groaned, letting her head fall back against the wall dramatically. “Okay, first thing you’ll learn about me is I’m too indecisive for questions like that. We’ll be here all day waiting for me to answer something like that.”

Paige chuckled. “Alright, alright. I’ll keep it simple. What’s your favorite color?”

Azzi didn’t hesitate. “Pink,” she said quickly, as if she’d already had the answer ready.

Paige raised an eyebrow. “Pink? Really?”

Azzi shrugged with a grin. “What can I say? It’s a good color.”

Paige shook her head, grinning. “Fair enough.”

Azzi shifted the focus back to Paige. “Okay, your turn. What’s your biggest fear?”

Paige chuckled, leaning against the elevator wall, a bit taken aback. “Oh, we’re diving deep already?”

Azzi raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Paige shrugged. “Nah, it’s cool.” She paused for a second, her eyes flicking downward as she gathered her thoughts. “Probably failure.”

Azzi nodded. “That’s a very surface-level answer for a non-surface-level question.”

Paige looked at Azzi, meeting her eyes for a brief moment before continuing. “I mean I’ve always wanted to be the greatest I can be, so of course, I hated failing. But with all the attention and everything now, it’s turned more into a fear. It’s not just about not liking failure anymore. It’s like I’m scared to let people down.”

Azzi listened, her eyes attentive to Paige. “I see.

Paige, sensing the heavy moment starting to settle in, tried to shift the tone. “Alright, so... who’s your celebrity crush? I got Zendaya.”

Azzi immediately shook her head, a look of defiance crossing her face. “Nope, not happening.”

Paige protested immediately, her grin widening. “Come on, you can’t just skip the question.”

Azzi crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall, her expression stubborn. She wasn’t about to budge.

Paige’s grin only grew wider as she zeroed in on Azzi’s reaction. “You’re totally thinking about it right now. Come on, just one name.”

“Nope.” As she said this Azzi didn’t even glance at her. It didn’t take long before Paige pieced it together from Azzi’s behavior. Azzi’s eyes had immediately darted away, her cheeks flushing a shade of pink as she stared straight ahead. Paige raised an eyebrow, her suspicions raising.

With Paige’s undivided attention, Azzi let out a groan and buried her face in her hands, her voice muffled. “Oh my god... this is the worst day of my life.”

Paige couldn’t suppress her smirk as she watched Azzi, the realization finally dawning on her. “Ohhh I see.” She was trying to hold back her laughter, but the satisfaction was clear in her tone.

Azzi peeked out from behind her hands, her cheeks flushed a deep pink. “Please, stop looking at me like that.”

Paige leaned in, her smirk widening. “Like what? I’m just trying to help you out here since you won’t answer. You got a thing for me, don’t you?”

Azzi froze, her face going an even deeper shade. The playful teasing in Paige’s eyes made it impossible to deny, and Azzi let out a defeated sigh. “This is so embarrassing.”

Paige laughed, shaking her head. “Nah don’t be. I’m flattered, really.”

Azzi grumbled, burying her head in her hands. “We’re moving on.”

Paige chuckled but let her drop the topic—for now. “If you say so…”

Azzi took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. “Alright, let’s get back on track. What’s one thing that’s on your bucket list that you haven’t done yet?”

Paige looked up at the ceiling, thinking for a moment. “Umm selfish answer, I want to win a natty and be National Player of the Year again. Unselfish answer, I wanna build a free grocery store.”

Azzi looked at her for a second before raising an eyebrow. “I feel like you’re giving me PR trained Paige answers.”

Paige laughed at this. “Nah, I’m deadass.”

Azzi crossed her arms, giving Paige an unimpressed look. “So, you’re just perfect in every aspect?”

Paige’s smirk faltered for a moment, her tone a little more serious. “Nah, I’m far from perfect. We’re all human.”

Azzi tilted her head, narrowing her eyes playfully. “Okay, what’s the worst thing you’ve done then?”

Paige hesitated for a second, her mind flicking through memories. She didn’t want to get too deep, but the question lingered. Finally, she sighed and spoke. “I cheated once.”

Azzi blinked, visibly shocked. “Recently?”

Paige shook her head, her voice softer now. “Nah. Like freshman year. It was a lot going on and I got a little too drunk one night.”

Azzi’s expression softened, but there was a hint of surprise in her voice. “Wow.”

Paige shrugged, a small laugh escaping her. “See? Not perfect.”

Azzi looked at her, studying her face, sensing the weight behind the confession. “I mean, it’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s bad for sure, but not the worst.” She emphasized the word worst, as though trying to comfort her.

Paige chuckled a little. “I felt like the worst person on the planet.”

Azzi’s voice was soft, but there was still a curiosity beneath it. “Why’d you cheat?”

Paige blinked at her, caught off guard by the question. “What do you mean?”

Azzi continued, her gaze never leaving Paige. “Yeah, you were drunk, but what else was going on?”

Paige let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping slightly at the memory. She glanced down for a moment, before looking back up at Azzi. “We’d been arguing a lot. She was my high school girlfriend so you know how that is. We barely saw each other because she stayed in Minnesota and I was getting hella attention just from playing at UConn, and she didn’t like it. Like every other day she was accusing me of cheating, so we were just arguing all the time… and then I don’t know, it kind of just happened from there.”

Azzi listened, her expression softening as she absorbed Paige’s words. There was a silence between them now, as Azzi processed what Paige had shared.

Paige shifted, her fingers brushing against her phone in her lap. “I definitely didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did… it was a stupid mistake.”

Azzi nodded slowly, her voice soft. “I get it. We all make em.”

Paige quickly sat up, her eyes earnest. “I’m not like that anymore, though.”

Azzi couldn’t help but laugh, her lips curling into a teasing smile. “Oh, so you’re the perfect girlfriend now?”

Paige chuckled, the tension easing as she leaned back against the wall. “Well, I don’t have a girlfriend, but you know… I’ve grown. So I’ll be good for the next one.”

Azzi laughed, shaking her head. “Confident, aren’t you?”

Paige smirked, her playful tone returning fully. “Just telling the truth.”

Azzi tilted her head, her eyes narrowing slightly as she asked, “Why are you single then?”

Paige shrugged, leaning back against the elevator wall. “Told myself I wouldn’t date anyone who doesn’t understand the spotlight, but… that comes with its own issues so here I am.”

Azzi nodded. “Fair. So… what’s your type?”

Paige licked her lips, glancing up at Azzi with a small smirk. “Never really thought about it.”

Azzi laughed, raising an eyebrow. “Everyone has a type, though.”

Paige was about to answer before she realized something and gave her a look. “I feel like you’ve asked me a million questions in a row. It’s my turn.”

Azzi rolled her eyes, laughing softly. “Alright, fine. Go ahead.”

Paige grinned mischievously. “What’s your type?”

Azzi groaned, shaking her head. “Really?”

Paige leaned forward slightly, mockingly adding, “Everyone has one, right?”

Azzi glanced at Paige for a moment before deciding to be a little forward. “I tend to go for athletes, blonde… pretty eyes.”

Paige smirked, her expression smug. “Huh. That’s interesting.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow. “Interesting?”

Paige nodded, her smirk widening.

Azzi tilted her head slightly. “Why is it interesting?”

Paige shrugged casually, her eyes flickering over Azzi. “Sounds familiar, is all.”

Azzi hummed softly at this, narrowing her eyes playfully. “Are you going to finally tell me your type, or is that the one thing you’re refusing to answer today?”

Paige’s gaze lingered on Azzi, her eyes tracing her features for a moment before she finally spoke. “I usually go for someone with curly hair… pretty lips—”

Azzi cut her off, raising an eyebrow. “Lips?”

Paige licked her own, leaning back slightly with a faint smile. “Yeah. That’s important.”

Azzi blinked, her curiosity getting the best of her. “Why?”

Paige smirked. “Why you wanna know?”

Azzi leaned back, feigning disinterest as she crossed her arms. “I’m not curious, by the way. Just so we’re clear.”

Paige smirked, her eyes lighting up at Azzi’s obvious deflection. “Rightt, totally clear.” Her tone was clearly laced with sarcasm as she leaned in slightly, resting her chin on her hand while watching Azzi.

Azzi rolled her eyes, doing her best to look unaffected. “You’re kinda annoying.”

Paige chuckled. “Am I? You sure seem to be spending a lot of time thinking about me for someone who claims I’m annoying.”

Azzi shook her head with a laugh, trying to play it off, but the faint pink blush on her cheeks betrayed her. Paige noticed, of course, so she just smiled at her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Azzi asked, her tone more defensive than she intended.

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Paige replied, leaning in just a bit more, her voice dropping slightly. “You’re just… really easy to fluster.”

Azzi let out a nervous laugh, holding up her hand. “Nope. Nope. We’re not doing this.”

Paige tilted her head innocently, a small grin tugging at her lips. “Doing what? I haven’t done anything.”

Azzi gave her a look. “Do you flirt with everyone who seems remotely interested in you, or is this just a special service you offer me?”

Paige laughed at that, leaning back slightly to give Azzi some space—but her smirk stayed. “Nope, this is new. Just the curly-haired ones that play at Maryland, apparently.”

Azzi groaned, burying her face in her hands for a moment before looking up at Paige with an exasperated expression. “You’re full of yourself.”

Paige laughed, the sound bouncing off the metal walls of the elevator. “I’ve been told.” She leaned casually against the wall, her shoulder brushing Azzi’s as the space between them seemed to shrink. “But you seem to be enjoying it more than most.”

Azzi gave her a flat look, though the faint flush creeping up her neck betrayed her. “You’re so ridiculous.”

Paige shrugged, clearly unbothered. “Hey, I’m just saying—if you’re gonna be stuck in an elevator with someone, it might as well be me.”

Azzi groaned, leaning her head back against the cold metal wall of the elevator. “I swear, this is the universe’s way of punishing me for being gay.”

Paige laughed at that, the sound light. “Most people wouldn’t see it as a punishment. More like an opportunity.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow, turning her head to look at Paige. “An opportunity for what?”

Paige’s lips curved into a grin. “Not many people get this much uninterrupted time with me.”

Azzi blinked at her, her mouth falling open in disbelief before she let out a dry laugh. “Oh, so I’m lucky now?”

Paige shrugged, her expression as confident as ever. “You can be—only if you make the most of the situation though.”

Azzi let out a scoff, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back. “And what exactly am I supposed to do with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?”

Paige tilted her head, her grin growing. “Now that’s up to you.”

Azzi rolled her eyes, though a small smile tugged at her lips. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Unbelievably charming, maybe,” Paige shot back. She shifted slightly, the small movement bringing her closer to Azzi, their shoulders almost brushing.

Azzi glanced at the narrowing space between them but didn’t move. “Do you always talk like this, or is it just when you’ve got someone cornered with nowhere else to go?”

“Only when they’re interesting,” Paige said, her voice light but her eyes locked on Azzi’s.

Azzi tried to hold her gaze but faltered, her cheeks warming under Paige’s stare. “I don’t like you,” she muttered, trying to deflect.

Paige laughed softly, leaning her head against the wall and turning to face her more fully. “Yet, here you are. Stuck in an elevator with me. What are the odds?”

Azzi groaned again, a reluctant smile breaking through her exasperation. “Like I said clearly, the universe has a sense of humor.”

Paige tilted her head, smirking. “Or it’s trying to give you an opportunity.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow, her expression guarded for a moment as if debating whether to keep deflecting. But then, with a small sigh, she settled into herself, her shoulders relaxing. “You know what? You’re right.”

Without another word, Azzi scooted closer to Paige on the elevator floor.

Paige’s smile widened, a mixture of surprise and amusement lighting up her face. “Ahh, there we go.”

Azzi rolled her eyes at Paige’s reaction, though a small smirk betrayed her. “Don’t make this a big thing.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Paige said, holding up her hands as if innocent. But her grin said otherwise.

“Yeah, okay,” Azzi muttered, leaning back against the elevator wall, her knee just barely brushing Paige’s.

Paige glanced down at the small point of contact before looking back up at Azzi. “You’re getting comfortable now, huh?”

Azzi gave her a sidelong look. “Don’t push it.”

After that time passed slowly, the soft hum of the elevator filling the quiet moments between their conversation. They’d moved past the teasing and into lighter territory—sharing random stories, laughing softly, and letting the space settle into something much more comfortable.

Paige now had her stretched out in front of her, glancing at the small display panel that was still blank. “It’s been like, what—45 minutes now?”

Azzi leaned her head back against the wall, letting out a dramatic sigh. “With you, it feels more like an eternity.”

Paige let out a sarcastic laugh, leaning back slightly as she shot Azzi a teasing glance. “Haha, very funny.”

Azzi raised an eyebrow looking at her phone. “Probably more like an hour, to be honest.”

They sat there in quiet for a moment before Paige’s eyes lit up suddenly, an idea popping into her head. “You should make a TikTok with me.”

Azzi immediately shot back, “Nope. We don’t have a signal, remember?”

Paige’s grin only widened. “Doesn’t matter. We can still film it, I just can’t upload it until later.”

Azzi looked like she was about to protest some more, but Paige was already up and scrolling on her phone, clearly having made up her mind. With a grumble, Azzi stood.

As Paige continued to scroll through her app, the unmistakable sound of Thuggish Ruggish Bone blared from her phone’s speaker, cutting through the quiet of the elevator as she propped it up to the best of her ability.

Azzi groaned, “This is probably the worst way to pass time.”

Paige, already in her element, said. “It’ll be fun I swear.”

Azzi reluctantly pressed record, and Paige wasted no time, guiding her through the first TikTok with surprising ease. The first two took only a couple of tries before Paige was satisfied. But the third? That one took forever.

“Azzi, come on bro! You gotta go to the right first then the left” Paige said as Azzi threw her hands up in frustration after yet another failed take.

“I hate TikTok,” Azzi muttered, but her tone was amused despite her irritation.

Paige laughed. “You’re just mad because I’m better at it than you.”

Azzi rolled her eyes but couldn’t help but laugh at how relentless Paige was, forcing her into a third, fourth, and fifth take. At this point, Azzi had completely given in to the ridiculousness of it all, much to Paige’s delight.

Just as Paige hit record on yet another attempt, the elevator jerked, throwing both of them off balance. They shared a quick glance, and the low rumbling echoed before, to their relief, the elevator started moving down again.

After a few moments the doors opened with a soft ding, revealing a group of firefighters and several of their respective team members standing in the lobby, waiting. The sudden change in scenery caught both Paige and Azzi off guard, and they stood there for a moment, unsure of how to act. It felt strange to just walk away after spending almost an hour and a half together, trapped in the elevator with nothing but each other for company. That short time had somehow changed both of them a little.

Leaning down to grab their bags, they exchanged a quick glance and a small smile before starting to walk in opposite directions. Paige made it a few steps before she stopped, her competitive nature—and maybe something else—getting the better of her.

“Aye, Azzi,” Paige’s voice carried across the lobby, making a few heads turn, including Azzi’s teammates.

Azzi stopped mid-step, her brow arching slightly as she turned back around. Paige stood there, her bag slung over her shoulder, her expression somewhere between cocky and amused. She licked her lips, smirking just enough to send a jolt of heat up Azzi’s spine.

“Let me get your number,” Paige said, her tone casual but her intent clearly anything but that.

Azzi’s eyes flicked to her teammates, who were already watching intently, then back to Paige. A small amused smile tugged at her lips as she walked back toward her, stopping just a step too close.

“Why do you want it?” Azzi said, tilting her head slightly as if daring Paige to explain.

Paige smirked wider, leaning a little closer. “You never told me who your crush was,” she fired back smoothly.

Azzi rolled her eyes, though the faint blush creeping up her neck didn’t go unnoticed. “You’re annoying,” she muttered, but the teasing glint in her eyes betrayed her words. Reaching out, her hand brushed lightly against Paige’s as she grabbed her phone. Their fingers touched for a brief moment, sending a spark of awareness through both of them.

Azzi typed her number quickly, glancing up at Paige once or twice, before handing the phone back. “Here you go,” she said with a small smile, her voice softer now.

Paige glanced at the screen before she locked her phone and slid it into her pocket, her smirk turning into something more genuine. “I’ll text you,” she said confidently, holding Azzi’s gaze for a moment longer than necessary.

Azzi started walking backward toward her teammates, her eyes never leaving Paige’s. “I look forward to it,” she said, her smile still in place as she turned back around.

Paige stood there, watching her go, unable to stop the grin spreading across her face.

…

The arena still buzzed with excitement as Paige made her way to the side of the court for the post-game interview. UConn’s win over Maryland was still fresh in the air. Her teammates were still scattered around, chatting about the game and cheering about the Final Four, but Paige was still zoned in, ready to speak to the media before relaxing.

A reporter stepped forward, microphone in hand, eager to ask the first question. “Paige, first of all congratulations on the big win.”

Paige smiles down at her saying “Thank you, it feels great. Maryland played an amazing game.”

The reporter smiles before continuing to speak. Before we begin with the game questions we have the state farm fan question and someone asks ‘what's been one of your best memories off the court during the tournament so far?’”

Paige leaned back slightly, a soft laugh escaping her lips as she thought about the events of the previous day. She glanced at the gathered reporters, some still watching her closely, others making notes for their stories.

“Well, yesterday was pretty memorable," she said, her voice light but laced with amusement. "I got stuck in an elevator at the hotel for like an hour and a half.” She paused for a second, thinking about if she wanted to say anything else before continuing with a grin. "That was pretty fun, honestly.”

Her eyes flickered briefly, but she didn’t give anything away. There was no mention of who she’d been stuck with, but the faintest smirk on her face made it clear she wasn’t talking about any ordinary elevator mishap.

The reporter laughs at this saying “Oh wow, that’s definitely an answer I’m sure they weren’t expecting.”

“Yeah, definitely not the usual pre-game prep,” Paige added with a shrug, her grin widening as she looked back at the reporters.

As they moved to the next question, Paige couldn’t help but replay the elevator incident in her mind, her smile lingering as she continued with questions about the game.

…

Later that night Paige lounged on her hotel bed scrolling through social media. After she got bored enough though she switched to her messaging app typing in Azzi’s name before typing out a simple message:

“Hey.”

She hit send and tossed the phone onto the bed beside her, not expecting a quick response. But her phone vibrated almost immediately, making her raise an eyebrow.

“Who is this?”

Paige laughed quietly to herself, shaking her head as she grabbed her phone again. She quickly typed back:

“Paige.”

The typing bubbles popped up almost immediately, and Paige smirked, leaning back against the pillows as she waited for Azzi’s reply.

“I’m not talking to you yet. You just beat me.”

Paige laughed, shaking her head as she typed back:

"You’re going viral."

She attached a link to the TikTok she posted, one of the three they had filmed during their time stuck in the elevator. The video had already racked up a few million likes and thousands of comments, many of which were trying to piece together the details behind the mysterious elevator mishap.

Azzi saw the link come through, and after a moment, curiosity got the better of her. She clicked on it and watched the TikTok, her face scrunching slightly at the memories of how Paige had roped her into it. Then, as she scrolled through the comments, she noticed some of them speculating about Paige’s interview and this being the “favorite memory” she had mentioned. Intrigued, Azzi did a quick search and found the interview clip before responding.

A smirk tugged at her lips as she texted back:

"I heard this was your favorite memory off the court."

Paige rolled her eyes, chuckling softly as she typed her response:

"Spending time with a pretty girl is pretty fun."

It took Azzi a moment to respond, her reply brief and teasing:

"Stop flirting."

Paige grinned, tapping out another message:

"No. Wyd?"

Azzi’s reply came quickly this time:

"Nothing now."

Paige didn’t hesitate.

"Let’s chill."

There was a pause before Azzi finally texted back:

"Fine, but I’m not taking the elevator."

Paige laughed out loud, shaking her head as she typed:

"Bet. I’ll meet you downstairs."

She tossed her phone onto the bed and got up, already grabbing her hoodie and slipping on her slides.

…

Paige and Azzi would always argue about who made the first move that night. It became a playful back-and-forth between them over the years, one neither could resist bringing up whenever the opportunity came up.

Azzi swore it was Paige who crossed the line first. “You were trying to come back to my room,” she’d claim, her voice dropping with mock exasperation. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

But Paige never let the accusation slide. “Excuse me? You asked me to walk you back. I was just being polite.”

Azzi would laugh at that, shaking her head as if Paige’s logic was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Polite? Right. And then you just happened to stay. Sounds like you made the first move to me.”

But Paige always had her trump card ready. “Okay, but who took my jacket so they had an excuse to see me again? You. So, technically, you started it.”

The truth didn’t matter, not really. The moment they were together that night, the rest was history as they talked for hours about everything and nothing. The elevator was just the beginning of a story neither of them would have seen coming—a story full of late-night texts, unexpected flights, and stolen moments that would lead to them finding the love of their life..

Whatever happened in that elevator didn’t just leave them stuck in a cramped space together. It set them on a path neither could walk away from, a connection born out of shared teasing and undeniable chemistry.

And honestly, they both wouldn’t have had it any other way.

#pazzi #paige x azzi #pazzi fics

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clockwayswrites · 10 months ago

Text

City Pigeons Bleed Green - Part 13

Cass looked up as Jason came out of Danny’s room. He looked better.

After Danny had been stabilized, Cass had taken Jason away from the safe house and to Jason’s place with the gym in the basement. She knew what it was like to have that need to act— to hurt to ruin to end— burning under her skin. She gave Jason the fight that he needed, letting him punch and kick until they were both covered in bruises and he was shaking apart in her arms.

Today he looked better.

“N is going to stay with Danny,” Jason said with a little nod backwards.

Dick, Jason, Tim, and herself had all been taking turns staying with their new brother. He was sleeping a lot right then; he was waking with nightmares a lot too. Waking up with one of them touching him seemed to help him calm the quickest so they took turns staying close.

“Red?” Cass asked with a little tilt of her head.

Jason glanced at the clock on the oven as he opened the fridge. He wasn’t really hungry, but eating out of habit. “He’ll be over here in two hours, I he doesn’t get distracted.”

“Be nice. Red cares. He’ll be here,” she said.

Jason seemed to settle on something and popped the top off before throwing it in the microwave. “Yeah… yeah. Danny’s pretty much wormed his way into all of our hearts, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. Will for rest too.”

Jason snorted. “As if he already hasn’t with B. They didn’t need to meet for that. You know how the old man is, a real bleeding heart of stone.”

Cass rolled her eyes and ordered again, “Be nice.”

Jason frowned at her but she just smiled serenely back until he rolled his eyes. It was a win enough for her.

The heated food was set on a trivet between them and Jason stuck two forks in it.

“I’m thinking we get O in here in a few days,” he said around his own large bite of lasagna. “Danny is healing better this time, but we don’t know what sort of set back this will cause mentally and all. Having another set of hands would be good.”

“O will like him.”

“Course she will,” Jason said with almost a scoff.

“No O and Red,” Cass added thoughtfully after she had chewed her own bite. This was definitely Jason lasagna and not Alfred lasagna.

“Yeah… I don’t think I’m going to trust those three in a room together for a long time,” Jason said with a dawning sort of horror. “Danny took apart the remote here and now it has buttons for services I didn’t even know existed. I swear it will change shows on its own too if no one is paying attention to it. It’s useful, I guess, but a little creepy.”

“Ghost brother,” Cass said with a little shrug.

Jason’s eyes narrowed before he let out an exhausted sounding sigh. “I hate that you might be right. Our controller could be haunted now.”

“Alas poor Yorick?”

“Wrong character,” Jason said, pointing with his fork, “but that is a play with a ghost in it so good job.”

Cass smiled happily at the praise. “Once Red is here, you and me errands?”

“You just want to buy Danny another present,” Jason said, jabbing his fork in her direction.

“Yes,” she said with zero shame.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Fine, but we have to do groceries too.”

Babs had been warned that Danny was still very skittish, but he hadn’t actually expected him to freeze like a scared rabbit when she came into the apartment. She stopped rolling forward and moved her hands to where he could see them both clearly.

“Hi Danny,” she said with her kindest librarian voice that she had. “I’m Oracle. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Danny shook his head, the motion ran through him like a shudder and whatever had frozen him shook off him like water off a dog. His smile was still shaky though, so Babs didn’t think that whatever the reaction had been was completely done.

“Hi, Oracle.” His voice was soft, rough, a little broken.

She’d heard from a number of the bats about the latest development and the trauma that went with it, but it as still something to see someone that looked like a young Bruce covered in bandages and looking more than worse for the wear.

“Are you alright if I come in? If you aren’t, that’s alright. I’ll just talk with Nightwing in the hall for a little.”

“No, you can come in,” Danny said, sitting up a little straighter. His eyes flicked over her again. “It’s just… your hair reminded me of someone is all. No one… no one bad.”

Babs offered him a smile and came the rest of the way into the apartment. “If that changes, just let me know.”

“It’s fine, really,” Danny said, though the words were still a little bit of a whisper.

“Well then,” Dick said, interrupting the end of the oddly tense moment, “Babs, do you want any hot chocolate?”

“Thank you, but without the mountain of whip cream I know you liked to put on it,” she said, giving Dick a playful glare.

He shrugged unrepentantly. “Danny?”

“Yes please,” he said. He was fussing with the blanket he had been sitting under, folding it up just so.

Babs moved towards the kitchen to give him a little bit of space and the illusion of some privacy.

‘What was that about?’ Babs asked Dick silently through raised eye brows, a slightly twisted frown, and a subtle nod towards the living room.

‘Not a damn clue,’ is what Dick’s shrug said back.

It almost made Babs sigh.

Danny was still a complete mystery to her. While they were being good and had avoided taking blood or fingerprints from Danny, Barbara had at least been trying to find Danny’s path through the city. She’d been saying for days now that the boy was like a ghost.

She just didn’t expect that to be as literal as it was.

The nickname had lost any of its fun.

“Danny, whipped cream for you?” Dick asked.

Danny’s eyes darted from Dick to Babs.

“Oh, feel free to have it like N,” Babs said with a smile. “I just don’t have the sweet tooth that he does.”

“She never has, it’s tragic,” Dick said with a sigh as he started to warm a pot of milk. “So, whipped cream.”

“Um, yes,” Danny said.

“I will take sprinkles though,” Babs said. “Do you have the little—”

“Bats?” Dick scoffed. “Of course I have the little bats. You can’t have proper hot chocolate without the little bat sprinkles.”

“Of course not,” words serious but unable to help the little smile that she sported.

“You all really like the theme, don’t you?” Danny asked, though he was smiling too now.

“The boy in the hoddie with the Bat logo on it does not get to talk,” Dick said and tossed a large marshmallow at Danny with pin point accuracy.

Danny caught it effortlessly and started to pull it apart with a little shrug. “Hood got if for me as a present.”

“Of course he did,” Tim said as he finally emerged from wherever he had been tucked away. He handed the tablet he was carrying over to Danny before he sat down in the neighboring armchair. “He’s just trying to claim you first, as if him and I didn’t find you together.”

“Hot chocolate, Red?” Dick asked while Danny was busy looking bewildered at that.

“Sure, but add some coffee to it?” Tim asked.

“No,” Dick replied far too cheerfully. “But seriously Dandelion, a Bat logo from a Bat means something.”

Danny’s face scrunched up at that and he looked down at himself. “I don’t think… he was trying to claim me?”

Babs snorted. “Oh, trust us, he was absolutely claiming you. He probably felt that he had to do something material to even start to compete with B.B., as if he wasn’t cooking for you all the time.”

Danny stared back at her with wide blue eyes. The open surprise and desperate want was odd to see on someone that looked so much like Bruce. Damian certainly never let himself appear that way.

“And Red is already souping up your tablet, I’m assuming— though if you really want an improvement let me see it,” she continued, talking over Tim’s little snort, “and N is making you the special hot chocolate. Even Signal is thinking what he can get you and Spoiler is whining that she hasn’t met you yet.”

“She is getting so annoying,” Tim whined while Danny stuffed the shredded marshmallow in his mouth, likely to get out of saying anything. He looked more than a little teary eyed. Tim gave him the out by continuing, “We’ll have her over one morning when she’ll be tired and easily distracted by waffles. You’re not up for the full Spoiler experience yet.”

“Trust Red on that,” Dick interjected as he stirred the coco, “he dated her.”

“I don’t know what either of us were thinking,” Tim said with a sigh. “We are both way too high maintenance in different ways for it to have worked.”

“You were still waiting for you bi awakening, baby bird, you were missing out on half the options,” Dick said. He dropped one of the oversized marshmallows in each of the four mugs before pouring the scalding hot chocolate over it.

Babs left him to his sorcery and wheeled over to the couch before working her way onto it. Danny helpfully moved the blanket out of the way and then offered it back after. She draped it carefully over her legs.

“So what did Red do to your tablet?”

“I actually didn’t do anything,” Tim said, and then had to pause. “Well, not after I gave it to Danny at least. I was just making sure everything was still good. Danny’s been tinkering with it.”

Danny gave a little shrug and picked at the edge of his hoodie.

“Do you like engineering then? Or inventing?” Babs asked, trying to encourage Danny to open up a little.

“Yeah, my— I—, I mean…” Danny stumbled over his words. He lost some of his color with each false start until he was worryingly grey. He swallowed thickly. “Yeah, I used to at least.”

“Danny, hot chocolate,” Dick said with impeccable timing as always.

Danny whispered a thanks and took the almost overflowing mug. He could basically hide behind the mound of whipped cream and he definitely tried to. Babs took the offered mug with a much more modest dollop but an absurd amount of bat sprinkles. Her lips twitched up in a smile as she took a sip.

Tim’s portion was somewhere in between Bab’s and Danny and of course Dick’s was practically laughable. It’s a wonder he didn’t make an absolute mess of himself drinking it as they argued over a movie to watch. It was clever of the Bats, really, they had started to narrow down how long Danny had been a test subject by what movies he had seen or not.

It was somewhere between seventeen and twenty-three months.

Nearly two years.

They were all lucky that Danny had made it out at all. They all knew the statistics of something like that.

Hot chocolate turned into dinner turned into Danny cuddling Dick on the couch and eventually resting against Bab’s legs. A good sign about her acceptance, according to the birds.

“Oracle?”

Babs had thought that Danny was asleep. She reached out to run the tips of her fingers through his hair. The lights from the movie that was still playing glinted off her pink nails. “Yes, Danny?”

“If I asked… would you be able to find someone for me?”

She tilted her head. “The person that I remind you of?”

“Yes. Just… just so that I know she’s okay.”

“Is she in danger?”

“No, she’s not like me. She’s…” Danny cut himself off, swallowing back the words.

“But you’d still like to know.”

“Yes.”

Babs hummed. It was technically an abuse of her powers, but they were something she abused all the time. “Yes, if you ask me to, I can find out if she’s okay.”

“Okay. I’ll… maybe I’ll ask. Thank you.”

“Of course, Danny.”

---

AN: I struggled with this chapter at first, but it was because I was jumping right to Barbara meeting Danny and not giving the others some more time to deal with the change in Danny. They still haven't really dealt with it, right now they're focused on healing and getting more help through Babs being around.

All our poor Bat's. So attached already and so traumatized.

But not as traumatized as Danny...

Stay delightful, darlings!

#dp x dc #batpham #city pigeons

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