#I do my own thing I mostly just borrow names

[biocrafthero]

The weird thing about me is that if you were to ask if I was a specific religion based on my blog theming I unfortunately have to answer with “technically yes, but not in the way you think”

[realcube]

WRATH & LUST . t.kei / y.tadashi

synopsis ✧ you hate tsukishima kei. you do everything in your power to make his life miserable but nothing works. now you have no choice but to fuck his best friend

cws/tags ✧ college au , enemies to enemies who screw, cursing, slut-shaming (both ways)

parts ✧ i. ii. iii. iv.

your friends call it 'inexplicable hatred', 'misdirected anger' and 'envy' but they couldn't be more wrong.

your feelings towards tsukishima kei were completely rational in your mind. he carried himself as though he was better than everyone and treated those around him like filth, yet he's still tolerated and his shitty attitude is even deemed charming by some self-loathing girls at your college.

it irritates you to no end how he behaves. too cocksure and too sassy; no dignified man should never act in such a manner, you believe. you could go on about other reasons you dislike him — his style atrocities and his punchable face, to name a couple — but you shan't.

you intended on going about your life, simply hating him from afar as you didn't see the need to stir up petty drama. but he made it impossible for you to do so.

one day he was sat behind you in a maths lecture. the seats are tiered so he is slightly higher up than you are. while making notes, his pen slips out of his hand and tumbles forward, landing somewhere under your desk.

you do the polite thing by making an attempt to search for it, but it is dark under the table you can't seem to find it.

a couple moments pass, and he remarks lowly, "are you just going to stare it?"

white hot rage courses through you at his comment. what ever happened to 'please'? to 'would you mind'? you were about to do him a favour by fetching his pencil and he still has the audacity to be snarky.

fuck that, he can pick up his own damn pen. you leave it alone and try to focus on the lecture.

you make it through the whole thing without him bothering you again, probably using a spare or borrowed pen. once the class has been dismissed, you gather your things and wait for the people in your row to start filtering out so you can leave, that is when you feel a gentle tap on the shoulder.

you turn around and lock eyes with a tan, freckled boy with mousy brown hair, he wears an awkward smile and point to your desk, "excuse me, my friend dropped his pencil and i think it landed under your desk. could you get it, please?"

his voice is meek and demeanour similar to that of a shy puppy, which is why it almost pained you to scoff at him and say, "tell your friend to stop being such a cunt, then maybe."

you rush out of the door, keen to get as far away from those two boys as you can. yet as you leave you hear the blonde's voice mutter in your wake, "what a moron."

after marinating on the situation during the retelling to your friend group, and a group vote, you came to the conclusion that perhaps your response to yamaguchi — you learned his name from one your friends — might have been a bit severe. but in your defence, you were peeved by the comment tsukishima had made prior.

it's as though manners and etiquette are totally lost on him.

ೃ⁀➷

two weeks passed since your last little altercation with tsukishima, and you were proud to say you haven't been involved in any conflict with him since then. mostly making snide remarks in passing or exchanging dirty looks in the hall.

however, that all changed when your professor was late to one of your classes. they expressed in the past that they prefer students to wait outside the lecture theatre when they aren't present, so naturally this caused many people to be clogging the hallways.

there was a long queue of people waiting to enter, you stood far away from the door, while tsukishima and yamaguchi happened to be standing opposite. you couldn't help but notice the outfit tsukishima had on: skinny light brown trousers with a black belt, and a pressed short-sleeve white shirt, that was a bit see-through.

you didn't know much about this guy but from his slightly toned figure, which was made apparent by his choice in clothes, you could tell he does some sort of sport. probably basketball, considering how tall he is, but maybe golf. he acts like a golf player.

lost in thought for too long, your finally yanked out of your own internal monologue by a familiar voice snapping, "what are you staring at?"

you blink, and before you even have time to process what he just accused you of, you blurt out, "has anyone told you that you're dressed like a slut today?"

yamaguchi must slap a hand over his mouth to suppress his burgeoning laughter. tsukishima's eyes narrow at his friend's offensive display, before they snap back to you and he argues, "really? me? i'm dressed appropriately. take a look at what you're wearing."

he motions to your outfit: jorts and a tank top. maybe not the most stylish choice but definitely not as whorish as his attire. "it might be more revealing but still not as slutty as you."

he rolls his eyes like what you said was contradictory, wearing smug smile. he wants you to believe what you said is nonsensical and 'proved his point' but all it does it anger you to no end.

not fond of his facial expressions, you retort, "don't pull stupid faces and play dumb. you're already dumb enough as is, so it isn't a very becoming look on you."

with furrowed brows, he opens his mouth to say something, but you cut him off, "and i can see your chest through your shirt. no one wants to see that!"

"you say that while your tits are out, have some self-respect."

"at least i have tits. you're wearing a short sleeve to show off the muscles you don't even have!"

yamaguchi is thoroughly entertained by this squabble, which is why it pains him to chime in, "uh, tsukki. the lecturer is here, let's go."

as much as he wanted to get the last word in, tsukishima glances between tadashi and the empty halls before he decides his education is actually kinda important and begins to make his way inside the theatre. it was good timing because he didn't have a witty response anyway.

your heart is beating rapidly, though you're unsure why. you gaze at the empty walls for a minute to collect yourself before heading into class as well. you totally won that fight, is what you tell yourself.

ೃ⁀➷

ever since the disagreement you had with tsukishima in hallways of the maths building, what was once comments and glares has escalated to threats and insults being made boldly in each other's face.

despite the fact you ate him up the first time, you've been on a losing streak since then. you feel as though nothing you say gets under his skin anymore.

you've tried belittling his face, his smarts, his personality, his mother but nothing seems to work. you even tried to ridicule his glasses but that didn't work either!

"hey, four eyes!"

"hey, five guys."

what the fuck? you weren't sure if that was a dig at your diet, your weight or your quantity of sexual partners but regardless, you could not let that slide.

verbal abuse wasn't working so naturally the next option was physical. you attempted to trip him in the halls but his legs were so long he stepped over you without even noticing. you attempted to pour milk over him but tadashi noticed and pulled him out of the way. you considered pushing his knees while he was standing in front of you but you realised that if he fell backwards his weight would crush you and you'd probably die.

all of that was so elementary and childish though; high school bullying at best. you need college level bullying. you thought about planting weed in his bag and calling the campus police on him but your friends said that was 'too far'. you thought about leaking his nudes but firstly you don't have them and secondly, he's already walking around college half naked anyway so he likely wouldn't be phased by it.

the hard thing about trying to torture a boy like tsukishima is you don't know enough about him to know what will truly drive him insane. you know he cares about his grades but sabotaging his test scores is beyond your means. he doesn't have any dignity so you can't humiliate him. even if you tried, his little gremlin of a best friend would probably catch onto you anyway.

that green haired boy was just as bad as his handler. always gawking at you to make sure you don't try anything; literally glued to tsukishima's ass at all times — it's so gross. and it gave you the most disgustingly perfect idea.

[tarantado-si-viann]

The Elves Reacting To Their S/O Wearing Their Clothes^^

Pronouns: You mostly so it's GN^^

A/n: So, hello! I'm new here on tumblr and I just thought that a nice, maybe warm, headcannon ( is that how you spell it? ) would do good for a first start.,. I'm sorry in advanced if there are spellings that are needed to correct! Also, I was lowbat at the moment so I could only do three huhu. But either way, please enjoy<3

P.S- if you liked this one, do me a favor and reblog, won't you?

LEGOLAS•°`~

• "And what's this I see?"

• Although Legolas didn't mind lending his clothes to other people, you may be the first to amuse him in this state.

• There you were dressed in his casual, green, elven shirt with his double sized elven pants on you.

• "Why, hello there! I don't believe we've met...?" he smirks, rubbing his nose as he circles around you in curiosity. You giggled at his pretending and you played along.

• "Y'know, I haven't seen such a handsome ellon like yourself," you state and punch his arm gently. "You are?"

• For a moment, Legolas doesn't know what to say. In fact, he paces around, brewing the correct words until they lingered on the edge of his tongue.

• "The love of your life."

• You were shocked with his sudden answer and felt a trickling heat that crept onto your face in a flustered blush. You stumbled back while hovering your right palm unto your dusted cheeks in embarassment. Legolas chuckled and pulled you close into his arms.

• "Oh, melleth nin, I adore you so. However, I was truly surprised to see you in my own garmets. What made you think of this adorable nonsense?"

• "I didn't think I'd come up to this as well. You know me, full of surprises. Wait... are you perhaps cross?"

• Legolas kissed your forehead and rubbed circles on your back.

• No, Legolas wasn't cross. He was delighted by this incident that he even offered you to borrow more of his clothes next time. Why would he be cross with the person he loved the most?

• "I am not cross, my love. I am very happy and this just gave me an idea! Why don't we do this together? You wear my clothes again and I'll wear yours. Are you up? We could go surprise everyone here in Mirkwood!"

• A fond smile painted on your lips as you nodded in agreement. "Sure thing."

THRANDUIL•°`~

• "Y/n!" A needy voice echoed down the halls calling your name.

• "Huh?" you flinch on your spot, hurriedly placing king Thranduil's belongings back to where they exactly were minutes ago.

• Although you may had messed up... too much. Why, you didn't even know where to begin.

• "Where do these hangers go? How about the robes, oh! And the brushes as well!" you thought while your hands quickly picked up everything you saw. Hot damn!

• The footsteps grew louder and louder until they finally stopped at Thranduil's room. He was annoyed, no joke.

• The door carefully opened, revealing you caught in the headlights.

• "Y—"

• What were those? WHAT WERE THOSE ON YOU? WAS THAT HIS RED ROBE AND RINGS ON YOUR FINGERS?

• Thranduil was speechless. Unlike his son, he wasn't too keen on lending his spare clothes. But this, this would have to been an exception.

• His irritation disappeared like a bubble in an instant. "Uh... I'm sorry..." you sighed and began to remove everything you had a hard time putting on. What was truly the waste was the small, leaf branch circlet thingy that took you hours to prepare.

• However, Thranduil stopped you, a shy look on his face.

• "N-no... please... ke-keep them... I mean, well, uh... I—"

• You laughed nervously. "Wait what?" He looked so sincere, so that had your mind twisted in confusion and at the same time, gave you a hard time comprehending what he just said, not to mention his stuttering.

• "No... keep them, please. As long as you're happy, my dear."

• You blinked a few times before a happy grin etched on your face. It was a sight to see for Thranduil.

• He walked closer to you and fixed the stray hairs on your face, tucking them under your ears. He hummed in satisfaction before placing a quick kiss on your lips. He then turned back to the door when he didn't notice you followed his heels. "What?" he asked you in the least of annoyance.

• You shook your head and wrapped your left arm around his right one. Giving in, he dare let you roam inside the halls with his vibes radiating off of you.

• But wait...

• Where's the circlet thing????

ELROND•°`~

A/n: oof, that's my father figure^^

" Dear, Y/n! Please slow down!" Lindir called from behind you, dragging his heavy clothes along as his panting grew louder and louder across the halls.

You didn't pay mind to him as you continued to jog towards the council meeting, to which you could already see outside the door.

Lindir, who was too tired to chase after you, leaped into the air, catching you off guard, and grasped the end of your long robes. His body hit hard on the floor which made you shriek in guilt.

"Oh, Lindir! Are you hurt? Where does it hurt??" you worriedly call as you helped him sit up. The ellon wore an irritated expression on his usual bright face which made chills slither down your spine. You knew this wasn't normal, and to Lindir… well…

ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH.

"Y/n! Calm down at once! My lord Elrond will not be pleased when he finds out that you have fitted once more into his fine robes! Not even the mere 'fun' I'd expect from someone as superior as you. Yet, you've decided to do it again, I mean, LOOK AT YOU!!"

This wasn't the kind of critique you had expected from your best friend. Nonetheless, it offended you when you realized you had offended him as well. This poor elf was now injured for your sake. He just didn't want you to be judged and judged so rudely. No, not like the last time you imitated Lord Elrond's attire at one feast. Damn elves.

"I'm sorry, mellon. I'd be careful next time. But… I don't want to take these off yet! Can't we make most of the hard work?" you pleaded, pulling the puppy eyes that seemed to get everyone and literally EVERYONE all of the time.

"Screw this. Be free, Y/n. You are big and old enough to make decisions of your own." he spits with concealed amusement in his tone. To this, you smile, help him stand and leave him alone in the hallways.

"Make Elrond love you hard!" you kept in mind.

The council consisted of several elves including the Sindarin, Legolas, and Elrond who was seated at the edge of the circle of chairs. Gandalf was on one side and a dwarf at the other edge. The rest was occupied by more elves, a hobbit, and two humans, leaving you a rather intentional saved spot beside the Lord of Imladris.

Everyone's eyes laid on you. You had imitated every part of Elrond— his hair, clothes, shoes, and a hand made ringlet that matched his own.

Elrond raised a brow at you, but you could tell that he was delighted with… you. "Ah, well someone's tardy today. Where have you been and what have you been up to?" he asks slyly with a smirk on his face.

"I certainly had brewed some sort of mess back in your chambers. Tut! Well, that's nothing to worry about now, meleth. We should begin this instance!" you smile cheekily, patting his arm, head resting on his shoulder. You had made yourself too comfortable before a meeting. How would you be able to focus now?

"We'll discuss this 'brewed mess' after today's meeting. For now, we will figure out ways to destroy the ring."

•°`~~~~~~♪

This was so dumb.

Feel free to request!

No tags at the moment^^

[pparacxosm]

something borrowed

(dearly beloved part 2: electric boogaloo ! ; tashi duncan x fem!childhood best friend!reader x patrick zweig ((x art donaldson?? a little?)); nonlinear narrative; playing fast and loose with tenses; where do i start; patrick and reader are their own trigger warning; tw pregnancy and childbirth; major major tw for talk of abortion; tw depression and antidepressant talk; cw breeding kink centric smut; more artashi wedding scenes; baby lily !! ; art donaldson #dadding out; grammy donaldson mentioned ! ; tw vomit again i’m so sorry lol; cw more menstrual talk; tw adultery but i mean come on; baby names; lasagna; we all have annie’s reblog to thank ((blame)) for this)

‘ JESUS: Judas—

JUDAS: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas—you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse—you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead—but me? Me? Your “heart”? . . . What about me??!! What about me, Jesus?! Huh?! You just, you just—I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn't sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO!

JESUS: Don't you think . . . that if I knew that it would have changed your mind . . . that I would have?

Pause. ’

Stephen Adly Guirgis, ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’

“Is it one of those ugly ones?”

You’re not special; you, too, hate hospitals. Not the least because your parents ralphed up all that cash for med school and you tanked like a castiron anchor. But there’s so much else to feel guilty for. You feel guilty for being alive while people are dying. You feel guilty for wanting to die while people are being born. You feel guilty, and nauseated, by this sickly visceral fume of birth and babyflesh, and the fact that you’re so upset.

You’d marked it on your calendar, is the thing.

March seventh, Doomsday, the purge, the end times.

Tashi Duncan’s Caesarean section.

Timely and clinical, fittingly so. You’d bought a little beanie for the occasion. The beanie is soft and grey and pink. It has a cartoon flower embroidered on the side of it.

But then this is the spawn of Art and Tashi Donaldson. The baby is inherently desperate, and eager, in that order.

It’s February twentyeighth.

It’s probably for the best, you think, while you and Art are on either side of the hospital bed, and he’s grasping Tashi’s hand more tightly than she is holding his, even though she is the one whose innards are being shat out. You don’t believe she could take another scar.

You grimace as she crowns. Art is sobbing and sniffing. He looks at Tashi like he’s getting to watch God populate the world with greenery. It makes your mouth tug sharply to one side, and you close your eyes, briefly, escaping the bright white light.

You watch the papery sheets go redder and redder with every gush from the cavity of her torso.

The baby is not rosy pink so much as she is carmine. Before this, as an idea, she’s existed mostly in black and white. Aminocentesis results on a MacBook screen. The sonogram on their coffee table. The concrete wall of your abject jealousy. The living colour of her, it shocks you more than her glass-shattering screech.

Art holds the baby first, of course, since Tashi is somewhat incapacitated. You soothingly caress her damp hairline.

“What was that like?” you whisper, wincing down at her.

Tashi sheds a few tears and manages a smile that’s part relief and all agony. “Remember…” she croaks, “Remember when Tre fuckin’… like, roundhouse kicked you up the crotch?”

You blink, quirking your brows. Then you snort in surprise, grinning. “Oh my God, yeah,” you giggle. “When Yas and Matteo got that trampoline.”

Tashi nods weakly, her desiccated mouth twitching at the memory, her eyes shivering gently closed.

The baby is tiny against Art’s body, cradled so carefully in his arms. He’s counting all her toes and fingers.

“Hey there,” he murmurs to her, like they’re the only two people on this earth Tashi made. Then he sinks down onto the stool by Tashi’s head, and holds this tiny, beautiful thing out toward her. “Say hi to momma,” he says, his voice soft as gauze.

Tashi reaches out. Her hands are trembling but all of her is trembling; both you and Art tried to get her on the epidural, but fuck if she’s not stubborn. She crooks the tip of her index finger into the fleecy receiving blanket, pulling it down just a little so she can see the baby’s entire pink face.

The baby opens just one bleary eye, only halfway, but it’s enough for her to see you, for you to feel yourself being seen.

Tashi sobs and Art sobs and you wonder, momentarily, if her obstetrician can reach up the cavity of your body, too, and tug out your heart.

So, of course you hate hospitals, and of course you feel guilty. For many reasons. Chief among them being how, the very moment your dear, gutted friend conks out, you’ve stolen to the hall to ring her ex. And he’s asking you, hopeful, if her fucking newborn is one of those ugly ones.

You sigh into the receiver, shaking your head all solemn. You’re sure any passersby think you’re delivering horrific news. “She’s beautiful,” you confess sadly.

“Fuck!” Patrick says forcefully, like he’s just stubbed his toe.

You can hear the hum of the highway on his end of the line, and he’s definitely a bad enough driver that he shouldn’t be calling you right now, because you don’t want to be back here at his bedside when he’s in a fullbody cast after a nearfatal accident—and you would come to visit, actually, if he were in the hospital; maybe that’d just be the guilt again—but this is pretty urgent.

You frown, tucking your hand under your armpit and managing a smile at a passing couple cautiously rolling their precious trolley to the NICU. “They named her Lily.”

Patrick scoffs. “Those fucking assholes.”

“Right?”

You appreciate his company in your deplorable sorrow. There’s a special corner in the firescape for the two of you, but at least it’ll be the two of you.

“That’s a beautiful name for a baby girl,” he says, practically insulted.

You sigh again. “I know,” you pout.

They’d planned the wedding, as they did all other things, a bona fide team. A well oiled unit. Art and Tashi. A&T. Handing off tasks with practiced efficiency, like another one of her hyperintensive drills, wherein he would sooner keel over heaving than drop the ball. The wedding planner was effectively ornamental once they really got into it.

And they really got into it.

Tashi was one of those little girls who stuffed a stream of toilet paper in her ponytail and pictured the vinyl flooring of her home’s warmly lit passage as a ceremonial aisle on the Amalfi Coast at sunset. Here comes the bride, aluminium foil wedding band, ramshackle wildflower bouquet picked from the backyard, et cetera.

Most times, she’d have you play groom.

But you don’t internalise that too much. Because she had you play a lot of things. And sometimes she’d have their senile Mastiff Mutt, Franklin, play groom, too. Really, the most important part was her having you at all.

And, apparently, as a little boy, Art used to page obsessively back and forth through the decrepit scrapbook of his grandparents’ Peoria union, the pictures frayed and hued dandelion. So it’s great that they found each other, and so many dreams were coming true, and everything was fine. Everything was better.

You’d been happy she was happy, really, you had. You hate big endeavours in your name. If she’d married you, you’d have made her elope to Puerto Rico.

And now she was all sprawled three-ring binders, pen behind each ear, Game Face On. And Art was there, talking place settings in full sincerity, so yeah. It’s fine. Better, even.

She let him intercalate all the mawkish, ubercorny bullshit—the Fleetwood Mac, the garter toss, the pictures of his grandmother at the centrepiece of every table. Because they were a team and it was his wedding as much as hers. And you’d told her, too. You’d told her that she’s going to have a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit wedding to a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit guy. But she’d waved you off with a dismissively sentimental smile. I just want to marry him, she’d told you, which had felt like a million and one serrated spurns all over.

A getaway car, really? you’d deadpanned. Then, leaning closer to her phonescreen, eyes narrowing at their shared twodozenpage Pinterest board, incredulous and disgusted, Are the cans really necessary?

Apparently so.

You were standing at the foreshore, toes all grainy, shoes in hand, pistachiorose and Patrick Zweig on your tongue, your ass still seadamp. Art and Tashi pulled up in front of you, cans rattling, like a justmarried Lyft order.

When you climbed into the backseat, they were in the middle of sharing in dulcet laughter over something or the other. Something that did not concern you. Which was fine, and better, and the flower arrangements were spectacular. And, anyway, you’re busy trying not to get sand on this vintage carpet.

“Shouldn’t you two be honeymooning?”

Art looked back at you, his arm outstretched, wrist resting on the bend of the wheel. He gave you this smile you couldn’t discern, which most of his smiles were, and are. He blew a raspberry from his rubicund mouth and tsked.

“What, without you?” he scoffed, wry but playful, and you realised that, though he teased, and wanted you to know as much, his goodnature was sincere.

And your fingers twitched to wrap his seatbelt—because he was wearing the seatbelt—around his rosy throat five or six or seven times and tug hard.

Tashi threw her head back and laughed into the humidity of the night, of their wedding night.

Tashi squirmed in the leather passengerseat of the ivorycoloured 1960 Ford Thunderbird convertible.

You were leaning over in between them from the back, straddling the armrest. And she watched Art turn his head and kiss you. His hand looked huge on the messy, delicate bone of your jaw. It felt cool and clammy, you remember. Tashi sucked in a breath. You two broke apart after a moment, laughing, your palm coming down on his forearm like he’d just made a joke.

“That,” you said, making a puerile face as he absently brushed a thumb over your cheek, “Was too far.”

Your eyes were still shining with tears.

Art nodded, grinning, slipping his hand from your face and running it through his sweaty shoresand hair. “Anything for you, baby, but maybe not that.”

Tashi was flushed and florid and tamping her thighs tighter together and she wanted you both to put your hands on her.

Her arm slunk across the centre console to press her palm into his chest. And she ran her nails along the tender skin of your inner arm. And Art looked back at you like he was asking for permission, which was the first time in a long time he’d done that. And probably the last time since. And you don’t know why you nodded, but you did.

He gave you another strange, cursory kiss on the corner of your mouth, then leaned across the centre console and nipped at Tashi’s earlobe. The whetted burst of pain sent a visible shiver through her bones. She bit her lip and sighed.

“Mrs Donaldson,” he’d murmured, all husky and low. His white buttonup was all sweatrumpled and unfurled. He looked handsome and disheveled like a fallen angel or those illustrations on the covers of erotic paperbacks.

You swallowed, overwhelmed by it all.

You pressed the seam of your lips to the skin where her neck met her shoulder and her lithe fingers encircled your wrist and guided it between her legs.

You and Art are friends—good friends, by now—but sometimes you feel more like business partners. Cofounders of Keeping Tashi Duncan Happy and Okay Inc.

So, when he cannot stomach all the vomit—so, so much fucking vomit—for all his earnest, anguished, tearful trying, he calls you. Because he and his hairtrigger loins can’t help her right now.

And you don’t tease, or berate, or say it should’ve been you.

And he doesn’t protest, or control freak, or remind you it wasn’t you, it was him.

He dips out to stock up on crackers and barley sugar sweets, and you stay with Tashi and stand sentry on emesis duty.

You hadn’t known that any one thing was capable of maiming her this way. Tashi Duncan, your impenetrable infanta. Fast to get up, faster, still, to dry her tears. But this baby is wringing her bone dry. She’s feeble, swollen, and practically debilitated.

You feel her spine shift as she shakes and heaves into the toilet. You hate her like this. At mercy to her bones.

You can’t help the archaic scorn. None of this, none of any of it, would’ve happened, had it been you. But it wasn’t.

You cradle Tashi’s feverish head in the bend of your knee. You thread your knuckles through her sweaty curls. You rub your fingers into her collar, tracing her bones where they have been swallowed by her plummy sallow skin. In college, you used to give each other lymphatic drainage massages.

You’re on Virginia Key Beach with T and her brothers, at the edge of the ocean. You’re, like, fourteen. Tevin’s mouth is a comically fluorescent shade of blue as he topes down a Slurpee. Tre hops over waves. Tre keeps saying the sharks will get you, they’ll smell it, blood in the water, blood in the water and Tevin keeps holding the Slurpee so high that the ultramarine of it obstructs the sun. And Tashi is yelling I’m not even on my fucking period! even though she is red and wet between her thighs, and give it to me, Tev, it’s mine, you took mine! as she reaches and reaches and reaches, unable to grasp what she wants.

There are some women unmoved by such trivialities as their own blood. Eightinch stilettos, eight months in. People will assume Tashi Duncan, pulchritude and powerhouse, to be one of these women.

But you’ll know better.

She’s so good at the tennis, ultimately, because she listens to her blood. She lets it move her. Lets it give her power. She is a mesmerising glass carafe of red.

But when it spills, it pours. When she breaks, she shatters.

Art Donaldson’s child writhes inside her, swills her blood. And you watch.

Patrick takes you home from the hospital. You were planning on sinking into the void of your couch while forking miserably into a whole tray of lasagna by yourself, but you feel bad. You feel guilty and lonely. So you invite him in.

You thunk your stoneware roaster on the granite of your peninsular countertop. He’s sat on a barstool and you’re standing across from him, and he wastes no time tucking in. You nudge at the broiled cheese with your fork.

You’re crying, which he doesn’t mind, but it’s a little distracting while he’s trying to eat, is all. He peers up at you, circumspect, as he chews.

You roll your eyes at him. “Please don’t make me cry alone,” you tell him.

He chews, swallows, licks some pasta from his gums. He rests the fork against the edge of the tray and dusts his hands off.

“I don’t cry,” he says, shrugging like it’s out of his hands. The corner of his mouth quirks up as you fix him with a sullen glare.

“I’ve seen you cry,” you say pointedly, dropping your own silverware.

He shrugs again. “Yeah,” he says, “One time. That was the only time I’ve ever cried. Ever.”

He has this way of saying things like he absolutely means them. This hamfisted sincerity, serrated deadpan. And, when you’re emotional like this, all husked and raw, it’s unfortunately an extremely effective way to make you laugh. His eyes gleam with victory as you duck your head and giggle wetly.

“You feel special?” he smirks.

You roll your eyes again, tears still trickling pools into the tender shadowed skin beneath your eyes. “I feel especially depressed,” you reply thickly.

He flits his eyes back and forth between the both of yours a few times. You’re reminded of the abject tedious torture of sitting through one of Art’s tennis games. “Are you really? Or are you just moping?” he asks you.

You reach into your pocket and pull out your little Effexor prescription vial, rattling it twice, and tossing it his way. It’s a sloppy underhand, but he catches it easily.

“Huh,” he muses, turning it between his fingertips. “That’s why you look so different? I thought you were just putting on sympathy weight.”

Your lips wobble, and your eyes burn and blur again, your throat swelling shut like fucking anaphylactic excoriation, and you catch your face with your hands and cry.

“Don’t be mean right now,” you blubber.

Patrick blinks, sobering with a smart, the humour seeping off his face and replacing itself with an almost comically disturbed frown.

“Okay, okay,” he says, his voice light with a culpable urgency reserved for a triggered, irate straitjacket patient. He reaches over the lasagna, the savoury brume warming his forearms, and he takes your wrists and peels your fingers from your eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry.”

You hiccup breathlessly. Your tears slithering down your cheeks in rills.

“I’m sorry,” says Patrick. He presses his thumbs into your pulsepoints, like he can quash your distress through your radial arteries. “You look hot, okay? Really, you do.”

For his part, he seems genuinely contrite, and utterly concerned, and he probably means it. He is rarely insincere, even when his tongue is in his cheek. But your sulky inner voice says he’s bargaining. How about I quit being an ass and you stop with the ugly crying and I can finish this pasta and hotfoot it out of here? But this is your house. And your pasta. And you think you should get to mourn his exgirlfriend’s womb, if you so choose.

You sob harder, shoulders quavering. His brows raise in quiet alarm when you wrest your arms from his fingers.

You snuffle and swallow. “Please stop,” you moan sadly.

Somewhere between the cake cutting—which walked that revolting, quintessentially Art and Tashi line between sweet and sexy; she daubed some frosting on his nose, he licked it off her finger—and your purloining of a slice or two for your and Patrick’s beachside bitchsesh, the speakers are thumping with ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’.

Everyone is wasted.

You don’t even mean to, but one of Art’s cousins, who is clearly eking out his fraternity days that have long since started mouldering, keeps ordering you shots from the open bar. And you keep downing them, one after the other. He’s wearing a practically lurid red polo that really errs on the ‘optional’ side of Black Tie Optional, but he has a really charming smile, the light glistering off the white of his teeth as you dance.

And—fuck it—he’s hot. And he’s looking at you like he wants to kiss you in the middle of this dance floor, grinding against you like you’re teenagers at a CYO dance.

The lights are scintillating technicolour and the music is so loud you can feel it in your rib cage and it doesn’t take long for the room to start spinning like the world’s trippiest ferris wheel.

Cody—or Connor, maybe—goes to the bathroom to piss, and you track down the newlyweds on the other side of the room. Tashi’s beautiful eyes, already aglow, light up even more when she sees you.

“Hi, baby!” She kind of has to yell over the music. God, it’s been a while since you’ve seen her let loose like this. Either of them, really. They’re having a great fucking time. The Happy Couple. It makes you feel sick. “You good?”

“I’m fucked up,” you smile blearily, because all of a sudden the room’s spinning has increased in velocity.

You fight the urge to grab for her hand for some fleeting sense of stability. Because, if you do, you’ll tackle her to the ground and kiss her until someone hauls you off.

And her husband’s right there.

“Me too,” says said husband. He is flushed in the face, grinning elatedly, his eyes drunkenly disfocused, Tashi’s glossy, nudepink lip-print on his cheek.

Tashi, as ever, seems appreciably more put-together than Art looks and you feel. All silken and nitid. Art’s holding her with the desperate adoration of someone who knows, in the far far end of his bevvied mind, what you’re thinking right now. You narrow your eyes at him. Then,

“Do you wanna dance?” you ask on a whim.

“Sure,” Art shrugs, a sloppy smile curving on his lips. And by now Tashi’s turned to exchange polite smalltalk with some or other extended family member, so he impishly adds, “Let me ask the missus.”

He and Tashi have a short conversation that you can’t quite hear, and then she’s pulling you in by the wrist to whisper in your ear,

“Don’t let him drink anymore, okay?”

She pecks a kiss onto your cheek before you have time to question this rule, but you know her well enough to know she’s also surreptitiously telling you to slow down. You spitefully nab another shot on your and Art’s way to the dance floor.

Art’s a good dancer. You would certainly not have pegged him as one, if asked. But when he’s twisting and moving his feet and putting his hands on your waist in a halfway facetious impression of a slow dance, you realise it’s true.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you shout when you get close enough to his ear. “Happy for you.”

He winces at your volume, raising his fingers to his ear and laughing and looking at you and shaking his head. “No you’re not.”

Patrick watches you sob for a few more moments before smacking his hand against the counter.

“Let’s make one,” he says, declaratively.

You snivel and sweep some tears away, looking up at him. “What?”

“Let’s make one,” he repeats, more urgently now, “If we make one right now, it’ll show up before the end of the year, and we can still weaponise it. Come on.”

He’s sliding off the stool and reaching across the counter to grab your hand and tow you out of the kitchen.

“Patrick,” you whine in demurral, stumbling after him.

But he pulls you along even harder, making a decisive path toward the hallway. “Come on!” he insists, “I’m serious.”

“You’re broke.”

Which is true. He’s been snipped off from the trust fund, which you’d thought was purely the stuff of Murdochian nightmares. But he whipped out his Chase Mobile app and showed you the negative balance to prove it. He’d rather bum it out than suit up and schmooze. So he’s not spoiled for funds right now, nor is he spoiled for wins, and you aren’t equipped with great confidence in a potential future as his baby mama.

“They’re pissed, they’re not cruel,” he tells you, effectively shoving you into your room and kicking off his shoes. “I’ll be back on the payroll with a kid on the docket, I promise. My mom would love it, actually. My sister just had a hysterectomy, this’ll be like a family miracle. You’ll have the child support of a Kardashian.”

He grabs your head and kisses you sloppily—he tastes like tomatoes—clumsily walking you back into the bed.

You think he’s too old to be fingering you the way he is. Rubbing your clit all clumsy, like a faulty button on an old remote. You’re a little sticky, but not enough for what he plans to do here. He sighs and leans back.

“This isn’t working,” he says, all pensive, sitting back on his heels. It’s a little difficult, though, to take him seriously, when his cock is on the front end of halfmast and still rising.

When Tashi first started seeing him, you remember her barrelling into your room all stiff and saucereyed and clamorous. As though a particularly warhankering pigeon had just been elected president, or an alien society had been discovered in the thick of the Amazon. But no. She held your shoulders and shook them wildly and yelled, I’m telling you, it’s fucking huge!

She made a point to you that she’d never be caught dead gushing about his dick to his face. She said it was important to humble him.

So you want to maintain that tradition.

And, anyway, it’s a big dick, not the cure to cancer. You don’t even know what he needs it all for. It’s probably all he has left. You can’t imagine it even gets him very far.

People have frontiers. Parameters. Limits. To their patience, to their bodies. Patrick used to kill the sprinting drills, back in school. He likes going end to end, reaching those limits. But once you start pissing someone off and/or ramming into their cervix, everything else is probably a nonstarter.

You sit up, drawing your knees to your chest. “Uh, yeah. It isn’t.”

“Well, is there something I can do? Should I act like her? Will that get you going?” He asks, but he doesn’t wait for your answer. He huffs and crosses his arms and imitates Tashi’s angry moue.

And his dick is still hard, harder now, so you splutter into laughter. You laugh really, really hard. Then he guides your legs back open and swipes his fingers between them again.

And he grins and says, “Bingo.”

You got really into Pilates for about a month or two mid last year. You’re starting to think you should have kept at it. Your knees are hooked over his shoulders, the undersides of your thighs pressed to his chest. Your hips ache, but it feels, regrettably, really fucking great otherwise.

It’s eminently uncomfortable, sure. For your part, it hasn’t really occurred to you to let a man fuck you raw. Your lingering childishness still recoils a bit at the very idea. And it feels strange, that gauche drag of skin on skin. You’d need to be really wet for this to be working, and that hilarious necessity makes you wetter in response, and then he’s slipping in and out and fucking you raw and he doesn’t even seem to be trying too hard.

He’s a little relieved. You’re letting this happen and taking it like a champ and your pussy’s deep enough to give him room to work.

So he does. Because he knows how. He knows how to work things from here.

He’s had more sex than you’ve attended pilates classes.

The thought of you, splayed and tensile across a reformer, gets him pretty hot. Very hot, actually, and he can tell because the surface of his skin is bloomed pink, and your fingers blench away from his shoulders like he’s caught aflame.

He knows by now how tremendously warm he runs in these moments. He usually asks about a girl’s AC before things get going.

Should he say that aloud, or will it piss you off?

You probably see your appending to the convoluted list of unfortunate holes to sheathe the great penis of Patrick Zweig as a little beneath you.

This is his chance to remind you that Tashi Duncan doesn’t go back on her word for just any heavy pair of balls.

He angles your hips to get deeper, experimenting with ways to evoke a reaction. He’s working you like you’re paying him.

You’re trying really hard not to say anything too nice about his dick. But he’s plunging hard and fast into you, rolling his hips with all the dexterity of fucking Magic Mike, and—well—you wouldn’t be able to, even if you wanted.

The words you’re saying are not in the dictionary. You’re sweating, panting, tugging a little mercilessly at his hair. Patrick bends your legs and hoists your pelvis. He can’t keep a trainer right now, but some adrenalinefueled strength is allowing him to support your body like it’s nothing. He wasn’t bluffing about you looking hot. He’s groping you all over with the ferocious depravity of a necrophile.

There’s some real blasphemous perversion slipping off his tongue. Ersatz porno shit that should be giving you early onset morning sickness, but he’s going all Daniel Day Lewis with it, and you’re kind of buying it.

Fucking come-slut… fuckin’— fuck… gonna breed you… gonna put a baby in you.

You’re audibly wet. The air around you grows practically mephitic. You’re losing your fucking mind. If this shit falls flat, and he can’t get you pregnant tonight, and you dump and block him and never want to speak to him again, he at least hopes you remember this for a long time.

And—you know what—fuck it if that wasn’t memorable enough, he thinks, feeling his cock twitch as he slooshes molten litres into you. Because he’s pulling out, flipping you over, and hiking up your hips. Maybe this’ll be.

He fucks you, he comes in you. A lot. He needs a second to replenish.

You steal to the kitchen. Your inner thighs are chafed and viscid. You cover the lasagna dish and cache it away, and take a second to scoff at some vapidly controversial Twitter thread. You yelp when you feel his arms around you again, lifting you off the tile and carrying you back to the bedroom.

Patrick’s never really thought too hard about his come. It’s an ancillary deluge. A mess to clean most often. Maybe he’s considered meliorating his diet when someone’s gleaned a taste and gagged.

But right now it’s serving a purpose. And he is, among other things, relieved for that, too. He’s not gonna sit around and mourn this while it happens and ask you if you’d really have his child. He’d rather look you in your beautiful, milky pussy than a gift horse in the mouth.

He refuses to waste a drop of himself. He makes sure to coat your insides with it.

He lies sheathed inside you for many minutes after he comes, gripping your hips harshly to him, groaning like this were the real orgasm.

Afterwards, he holds your knees to his chest and lifts your ass and presses his palm to your cunt as if sealing an entrance, making sure nothing escapes. He’s trying to give his guys a fighting chance.

You were, at first—as in, after two or three rounds—a little amused by this stupid, elaborate routine. Something out of an old maid’s pastel mommy blog. You were amused, and frankly weirded out, by what seemed like a laughable lack of dignity on his part.

Now—now you’re feeling aroused by it. Because being aroused disrupts the dumb ritual and kind of annoys him.

When he is holding your knees up and your cunt twitches, he rolls his eyes.

“You already got off,” he chuckles, shaking his head. He sounds a bit spent, too. He’s usually flaked out by now, in his actual customary postcome routine. “Just stay still for a second.”

The fact that he doesn’t want you to come makes you almost desperately want to. He holds his palm over your cunt but he offers no friction.

The simple touch is enough, though. You can find your own internal rhythm.

Your head falls back against the pillow.

“Oh fuck.”

And maybe you’re being particularly loud and lewd in this moment, while he’s trying to be serious, and get something done. Because you’re still doing this longcon in calling his bluff. You don’t think he knows what he wants.

You don’t want to believe that you two are really so bitter as to start a life out of spleen.

You still don’t know if he knows whether or not he actually likes you.

“What the fuck?” he laughs, “I said don’t.” He squeezes your cunt like he wants to tear flesh from bone, trying to render you still again.

But it only makes you moan louder.

“Oh, fuck, that’s so good,” you mewl indecently, smirking a bit, because you’re joking, but you also sort of mean it, “It feels so good having your come inside me, I can already feel your little fuckass kid crawling around in there. He’ll grow up loving bagels, I just know it.”

These taunts are supposed to disgust him or hurt his feelings or simply turn him off, and Patrick does sort of look like wants to throttle you. Because he’s tired and a little grumpy and he knows you’re not letting him stay the night. But a part of him has always found you funny. So he just ends up getting hard again. Your crude, glib moaning brings him to such a pitch of want that he yanks you into his lap and fucks you roughly, gripping your jaw.

And you grin as he brings your head close. You feel it’s some kind of victory.

Even though you’re just prolonging this dumb, bitter, unfulfilling farce. Making sure there’s more of him inside you.

You two should not be parents.

By the eighth or ninth round, he starts getting conversational.

“I was one of those babies that never shut up,” he tells you, fucking up into you in cowgirl. He grunts and makes a thoughtful face. “Colic? Is that what it’s called? Yeah, I think I was a colicky baby.”

You make a face down at him. “I thought you said you’ve never cried,” you pant, rocking your hips back and forth.

He rolls his eyes again.

“Yeah, obviously I was lying. I cry all the fucking time.”

You consider this, your hips stilling, your palms resting against his hairy hotplate chest.

“Over what?” you ask, “Tashi?”

He blinks, scowling a bit, like he thinks you’re making fun. Then his grips your hips and starts to move you on his dick again. He doesn’t answer. Your pussy feels warm and raw.

Geez, how long have you two been at this?

He asks, absently, about baby names.

“I thought every girl had, like, a whole fucking list of them,” he says, pushing his semen back into your used cunt with his long fingers.

You don’t entertain that presumptuous conversation, but you don’t underestimate his commitment, either.

He’s back the next day, and the next, like clocking into a shift. He brings supplies. Sliced pineapple, fresh honey, ground cinnamon, cough syrup, two boxes of ClearBlue.

“I read acupuncture helps too,” he says.

“Absolutely not,” you say, but you let him feed you baby aspirin while you ride him in reverse on your couch watching Selling Sunset.

He feigns disinterest, but keeps tilting to look past your shoulder whenever the arguments start riling up.

“Ugh, Nicole’s a bitch,” he mutters.

Then he grunts and comes inside you, grasping your hips to sink you down and hold you still.

Her name, for the better or worse part of the first and second trimesters, was actually Stella.

Art’s grandma used to love that Philip Sidney poem, and Pam’s favourite film is Streetcar. It’s just that Tashi got sick of the name, and all other things, at a stage. So it didn’t stick.

They were oscillating between Lily and Rooney towards the end, and only made the final call when they saw her.

But, for a while there, she was Stella.

Stella’s craving peanuts, Stella’s the size of a rutabaga, Stella’s a kicker. And, boy, was she.

She’d ram her foetal feet into Tashi’s ribs over and over like she was on a treadmill. Which Tashi was starting to think of as karmic consequence for all the times she’d have Art doing cardio until he fainted.

You crouch down between her knees, resting your head against the amorphous motion of her distended stomach.

“Hey hey, Stella girl,” you whisper, “You wanna stop giving your mom a hard time?”

Tashi chokes out a wounded laugh from above you.

“That’s how Art talks to her.”

“Ugh, don’t ruin it,” you frown, moving to stand up.

But she sticks her leg out to halt you, grabbing your hand and tugging you back down, shifting her hips and spreading her thighs further apart.

You never could resist her sweet face when it was all crumpled up in asking. Because she got all soft and wet, like a flower caught in a gale.

She looks even softer now, over the horizon of her bloated body.

You gently tug her cotton shorts down and put your mouth on her and Stella stills.

“One more,” you say anxiously, eyebrows knitted in concern as Patrick sighs and unboxes a another pregnancy test—the fifth one—and you quaff down another glass of water to get your bladder teeming, because no way.

No way, right?

You’ve been taking him raw at all angles, and swigging shots of cough syrup, and weaning off the antidepressants, but no way.

“I don’t know what you thought was gonna happen,” he calls from beyond the bathroom door as you’re pissing on stick number six.

It’s just that you don’t feel anything.

You think you should be feeling more.

You think of Tashi, writhing and groaning like a bullet victim, miserably clutching her turgid body. You think of newborn Lily, her cottonsoft, tiny eye peeling open and seeing you. Deep steeped coffee, gleaming in the sterile light. Tashi’s eye. Tashi’s hair. Tashi’s baby. That tender absorption, that vivid creation.

If this kid is taking nothing from you, it’s gonna come out all Patrick. And—just—you don’t have the bandwidth to contend with such a prospect right now.

He drives you to the clinic every time. Every single time. One night, you rouse sharply from a morbid dream punctuated by the squall of wailing children. You call him. It’s 2 AM. He answers, and comes over, and drives you to the clinic, and tries not to nod off as you’re filling out the medical paperwork for the dozenth time. He also tries not to express any overt reaction to you changing your mind again.

Is it a kindness, to tease a man with the brutal decimation of his unborn progeny? No, of course not. His mum’s already preemptively enrolled the thing into a fancy German daycare.

But you hate that he’s given you an ultimatum and put it inside you. That’s the worst place, in relation to you, for an ultimatum to be.

If you tell Tashi, either he’s in, or you’re out. And those aren’t really odds you’re keen on rolling.

There are all sorts of ways to be a shitty friend. You opt for evasive gambits via claims of hectic work schedules and immovable errands. Any retching you do is that of guilt. You’re loathe to lie to her, to house this wretched zygote, to stay away. But she used to be able to tell when you’d changed your shampoo. She’d sniff him on you, in you, in a second. She’d just know. And she shouldn’t. She can’t. And if you could just unearth this presentient betrayal and toss it in a petri dish, she doesn’t have to.

You don’t know what matters more.

He drives you to the clinic. Teary teenaged girls, redcapped pickets out front. The receptionist knows you two by name by now.

Patrick slumps beside you. He’s still slogging through the first chapter of Last Child in the Woods. He’s pretty sure he’s never sat and read an actual, physical book to completion before in his life. But he’s too easily abstracted for Audible. So he’s working on it.

You’re groaning frustratedly and thunking the clipboard repeatedly against your skull. He absently slips a hand over your forehead, shielding the next few collisions before you huff and drop the board and turn to face him. He looks at you askance.

“You can change your mind,” he shrugs. Again, he generously omits.

You scoff at him, incredulous and a little irked. “I’m not gonna change my mind,” you grumble.

He shrugs again. “Okay.”

He knows what it’s like to have a mother in sackcloth and ashes. To be less of a son than a sentient thing of regret with little arms and legs. To not know what to do with that, or yourself. He wouldn’t do that to a kid.

You watch him thumb through Richard Louv for a few more moments.

Then, “You’re probably sick of me, aren’t you?”

He smiles a bit before schooling it stoic, slowly lowering the book and fixing you with this wry but incongruously tender look. “Of course I am,” he tells you.

“Get mad at me, then.”

He smiles again.

He knows what that’s like, too. Dad mad at mom. Stilted five course dinner. Dad telling him and Saskia what a goddamn headache mom is on the drive to school. Of course he’s sick of you, he’s always sick of you. But he likes you. And his head feels fine.

He turns back to the book, shrugging.

“Can’t,” he says simply.

You feel for baby Lily. She’ll never be able to get away with anything.

It’s Art who sniffs it on you, in you.

Tashi’s asleep upstairs when, after a fortnight and a bit, you rally up the guts to come over. Art opens the door and looks surprised for mere moments, and there is perhaps a flicker of concern, but then he smiles. And there’s only very mild ire there. The rest is fatigue and goodnature.

“Hello, stranger,” he smirks, turning to filch a set of keys from the marble catchall in the foyer. He is wheeling Lily out in the thirteenhundred dollar stroller he had lost six nights of sleep picking out. “You coming?”

So now you’re on a walk.

Lily lays on her soft belly in the stroller. The walls around her are a breathable mesh, and she fights to hoist her head and gawp at passing trees. This is, apparently, the only way she’ll do tummy time.

“And the only time she gets any sleep,” Art adds, jutting a finger over his shoulder in the general direction of their home down the street.

Lily’s wearing a ruffly lavender romper. Her skin is a healthy shade of linen and her hair is dark. Her fists have tiny moony fingernails that—when you comment how, Her nails are long. Like, sharp—Art explains how he keeps trying to cut them with a pair of tiny silver scissors. But they make Tashi nervous, their sharpness and its proximity to Lily’s fleshy hands.

“She said she wants her to get a grip on the world,” Art chuckles.

You snort, and you have to skip a bit to keep up with his brisk strides. “Oh, that’s definitely what she said,” you confirm.

Lily tosses and turns a bit in the strollerbed. She gurgles an impressive spit bubble, by Art’s standards. Most things she does are probably impressive to him, quite frankly. He tells you how, the other morning, she had thrown up breakfast onto his shoulder with such verve and accuracy that they’re already talking tennis lessons.

“Oh God,” you grimace. Not at the story, but at the memory of his nauseous pallor in the throes of Tashi’s own gravid sickness. “How’s that been for you?”

Art flashes a selfdeprecating simper. “I’m managing.”

When she casts her little coral taglet security blanket curbside, Lily scrunches up her face, grasping, gearing up for the Big Scream. Art sighs and says, “No, please?” as he stops to pick it up and give it back to her, and his arm, when he sticks it in, blooms with little ruddy strings as she claws at him.

He looks more than a little surprised she isn’t crying.

Apparently, in that meantime, you had jutted your fingers into the cot and offered her a pinky as a peace offering. Versailles-style, like you’ll be punished later.

But he seems content with how she’s chewing you and figures you guys can stop here, for a bit, beneath these treemottled springtime sunbeams. In the garden of the home in front of which you’re standing, huge orange bougainvillea loll their petaltongues in the breeze.

“I just…” Art flounders for his words, then scoffs a not unkind, but vaguely embittered, sort of laugh, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why him?”

You groan. “Don’t ask.”

“How is he?”

“He’s—” you waver, then shake your head, before finishing, “Ugh.”

“Patrick’s ‘ugh’? Patrick? Wow. Should we call all the outlets? I mean, that’s never happened before. Patrick. Ugh. You’re blowing my mind.”

You snort, and Lily laughs, and Art informs you that that is a very hard reaction to glean. And he rubs his temples, because all the wails sort of tremor at that same migrainous pitch. No matter if they’re amused or rabidly apoplectic. But you can enjoy it, the laughter.

“Can you just tell her for me?” you frown helplessly up at him.

That flicker in his tired eyes that wants to agree is purely paternal, but he sighs and shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”

He’s genuinely sympathetic.

“She’ll forgive you,” he tells you. You roll your eyes and hang your head, kicking piteously at the wheel of the stroller. He intercepts your foot with his, lightly shoving it away before bending to search for your gaze. “Hey,” he says, “She really will.”

You huff. “She’s never had to.”

You instinctively press your fingers into your womb, through your shirt. You feel the strange sensation of something starting to swell beneath the flesh.

“You’ll be a good mom,” says Art.

It’s a small relief, for you, to feel your face screw into its shut-the-fuck-up-Art expression. It’s something you know how to feel, a well trodden path. Maybe, once they drop you like a bad habit, he’ll still send you those furtive pictures he likes to take of Tashi sleeping. And you and Patrick can dualmasturbate to them, pretending your swollen belly isn’t in the way.

What you like about them, all three of them, is that they have all always loved you so simply. Tashi is severe, and Patrick is flippant, and Art is occasionally insincere. But they each care about you, to varying degrees, in their own ways. And they do so without reservation, even when you’ve been an ass.

You think that’s how you’re supposed to love your child.

You should probably figure out how he does it in the next five to ten seconds.

You ask, “What makes you say that?”

And his eyes flick down to where Lily is still gumming your knuckle like a dog with a bone, then back up to you, and he gives you one of those smiles. Your face screws. Shut the fuck up Art. Then, he tells you, “You love harder than you give yourself credit for.”

Lily gags around your pinky.

[the6thpaladinofvoltron]

Sephiroth and Female Reader: A Short Excerpt-Crisis Core Era.

The moment Sephiroth himself brought you on board as a new recruit, a connection instantly tethered you two together. It was quite a mystery; because aside from Genesis, Angeal, and Zack, the silver soldier wasn't known to bond with others so quickly.

You rose through the ranks under Sephiroth's wing (no pun intended), spending hours training together, going on missions together, and chatting in your rare off time. So much so that fellow Soldiers started calling you Sephiroth's Girl.

"Hey there, fellow Cadet!" Zack, the Puppy Soldier, scampered up to you. "Hojo wants to see you in the lab."

You inwardly shiver hearing that name, but begrudgingly agree to see what that horrid scientist wants.

You despised Hojo. Mostly because you were able to see just how uncomfortable Sephiroth was in the doctor's presence, and you came to the conclusion that Hojo must've done some violating things to your friend. That and Sephiroth made sure that for any medical checkups, Hojo was allowed nowhere near you.

And the irony, on your way down, you passed by the silver soldier as he was headed in the same direction. And he immediately took notice of this.

"Don't tell me that Hojo requested your presence at the lab too?"

"...Yes." You slowly answer, suspicion creeping into your brain. "He has. What does he want you for?"

Alarm bells rang in Sephiroth's head. Hojo must've noticed how close he was getting with you. He grabbed your wrist rather hard and started leading you away from the elevator.

"Ouch! Sephiroth, hold your horses! What are you doing?"

He tugs you into a training room and taps in a code to lock the door before answering.

"Don't freak out, but there's only one reason why Hojo would call both of us into his office. That monster..."

You can see Sephiroth's body convulse as he struggles to get the words out. And it clicks. You start to feel rage simmer at the base of your gut.

"That lunatic wants to... breed us?! UGH! No, no, a million times no, I am not letting that quack use me to violate you!"

Sephiroth isn't surprised that you managed to piece it together, you were very clever when it came to figuring out problems.

"There you go again putting me first, Cadet. Your body matters too, you know, and I am not letting Hojo get his hands on you."

You notice something, something different, an intensity in those blue/green eyes that you've never seen before. Sephiroth was always protective of you, but now, of all times, you start to question why.

"Sephiroth? ...I have to ask, why me? I mean, I really appreciate everything you've done for me, but why? I'm just your average Soldier."

"...Cadet, you're more than that."

Sephiroth hesitated. He was scared. Scared that if he told you why he cared about you, that you would disappear just like Angeal and Genesis. But he had to, you wanted an answer.

"The day I selected you out of dozens of candidates for Shinra, I didn't know yet just how much you would mean to me. You treat me as a human, Cadet; not a hero to live up to, not a celebrity to admire, and not a test subject to poke and prod whenever you feel like it. I'm your equal, your friend... You help me feel normal."

You stare at your friend, unable to form words. But, your body moves on its own, your arms encircling Sephiroth and pulling him into a hug. And from the way you feel his arms grab onto you and his body relax, it seems he really needed this.

"Sephiroth... I promise... I'm gonna try my best to always be there for you. And if Hojo ever tries anything, can I borrow your sword to skewer him?"

The silver soldier chuckles softly.

"Sure you can. And... I promise to try to always be there for you in return. I won't let anything hurt you."

[vieshiftsx]

talking about my drs (but i prefer calling them "lives") that are not based on movies/tv shows:

: ̗̀➛ cafe owner life

my name is blaire rosewood and i own a bakery cafe in a small town. on the ground floor, it's just like a normal cafe with tables and chairs. on the second floor, it's a blend of library and cafe, where people usually go to, to study or work. multiple bookshelves are also provided for anyone to borrow or read books in the cafe. while i work mainly as the barista, my (soon-to-be) s/o works as the baker. all his pastries and cakes he makes are really good and they always get sold out by the end of the day.

: ̗̀➛ singer/songwriter life

my name is phoebe webster and i'm 23 years old. my first EP, "dreamer" was released in 2018 and most of the songs were about my celebrity crush at the time: ruel (I LOVE HIS MUSIC AND I LOVE HIM). this first album had a fair amount of listeners, but it was the only album that i never got any award for. then, in 2021, i released my debut album, "goddess" and i won my first ever grammy. at the time, i was 2 years into my relationship with ruel (he was LITERALLY my celebrity crush and i ended up dating him AHHHH). ALSO, my artist besties are laufey, olivia rodrigo and gracie abrams!!! there's a lot of things that i scripted to happen in this life, but i'll refrain from explaining everything bcs i don't want it to be too long 😭

: ̗̀➛ fashion designer life

i'm genevieve estelle and i own a fashion brand, "estelle". all my designs are sustainable because they're mostly recycled from used materials. on top of that, 20% of the profit will be donated to organizations that contribute to taking care of the environment. there isn't much i can talk about for this life because i decided to just follow the flow and not script any major scenarios that could happen. this is one of the lives that i don't script an s/o in.

: ̗̀➛ youtuber life

my name is phoebe claire and i'm a youtuber who mainly posts vlogs on my channel. i live in nyc and i have an apartment of my own. in my current life, i've always loved watching vlogs (esp the alexander siblings, saranghoe, michelle choi, daiz, alex bondoc, etc.) but i know deep down i can't be a vlogger like them based on my current circumstances. at least i can do it in another reality. plus, vlogging looks so fun.

[not-ur-boy-toy]

Hartbreak Ranch Chapter 2

AN: Chapter 2 has finally arrived after a massive delay!! Not much romance going on so far for the two, BUT, it is getting there, I'm trying to not get too impatient, but gotta build it up... ;D If you'd like to be tagged in this series, please let me know as well! :)

TW: foul language, addiction mention as well as drugs mentioned (lightly)

Word count: 3.4k

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“Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my home?”.

The voice rang out through the living room as Shawn stood still as a statue. It was an odd situation. Shawn was in the middle of the room, in the middle of nowhere, by himself. He didn’t exactly blend in either, he couldn’t have been an ‘neighbour’ just coming to borrow some sugar. By any sane person’s mind, they would have thought he was trying to rob them. Shawn knew he should have answered by now, but his mind was elsewhere… Mostly admiring the cowboy in front of him.

“Oh uhh.. I-.. Well..-” Shawn stuttered out before being interrupted by the man who now stood in the doorway, his warm chocolate eyes now holding a dangerous glare. 

“Spit it out, I don’t need a story. Name and what the hell are you doing in my home” the guy repeated with a slight hiss, aggression now starting to build up in his tone as he moved  towards Shawn. 

This was all that Shawn needed to reply back as quick as possible. He had dealt with plenty of fights before. But, that was with a bodyguard who knew about his bad temper and sharp tongue. Cowboys weren’t his forte to fight with either..

“Sorry! Right, I’m Shawn, I’m guessing your brother, Owen, brought me here!” Shawn blurted out quickly, not risking to anger the other.

Shawn was praying that Owen would return fast, especially as the man stared Shawn down. It was hard to figure out what he was thinking, especially as the guy stayed quiet. Was he gonna punch Shawn? Beat him up? Or perhaps Kiss him?... Probably not the last one. The blond really needed to stop watching those romance films at 2AM. 

The doubtful look Shawn was given was surely about to seal his fate. His money winner face (literally) was about to get decked by an attractive, muscular guy and thrown out into the middle of nowhere again. Shawn backed up slightly, trying to give himself a bit of space in case things turned, however, fate was clearly on his side for once as he heard Owen’s chirpy voice from behind.

“Bret! Didn’t know you’d be here yet,” Owen laughed out as he walked over with a grin, oblivious to the growing tension in the room, “Shawn here is just stayin’ with us for a few days, I felt awful leaving him in town… His car had broken down and you know how far the closest motel is”.

Bret, which Shawn just learnt the man-who-was-gonna-beat-his-ass name was, stared at Shawn one last time before those same dangerous eyes softened as they looked at Owen. 

“You have too much of a soft heart, Owen… You know how I feel about bringing strangers home” Bret lightly scolded Owen, although Bret did receive an odd stare from his brother. One that clearly read that he didn’t actually know what the other was talking about at all.

“Don’t be such a grump, Ma and Pa don’t mind people being here.. Or well at least Ma doesn’t,” Owen chuckled out before looking at Shawn, “Oh! Sorry Shawn, this is my brother, Bret, don’t mind him, he can be quite the grouch after a long day”.

Once again, Bret and Shawn stared at each other, the tension building once again. 

“Nice to meet ya, Bret” Shawn hummed out trying to break the ice, however, his attempt was pushed away as Bret walked towards the kitchen instead, mumbling under his breath something about ‘lemonade’. Owen gave Shawn a small pitiful smile,

“Like I said, don’t mind him, I don’t know what’s up with him…”, Owen glanced over his shoulder to look in the direction Bret went before huffing and turning back to the blond, “Anyways.. Let me take you to the guests room!”.

Heading upstairs with suitcase in hand, Shawn followed after the cheerful man. The next floor of the house continued the rustic, homey feeling, having plenty of family photos dotted around, however this time, flowers in vases decorated the hallway on small, pine cabinets. Lavenders, some roses and a few other flowers that Shawn didn’t know were blooming from the elegant vases, filling the area with a soft, relaxing and refreshing aroma. There were five different doors, one on the left that was white with painted pink flowers and ‘Diana’ painted delicately across it, another next to it  was a pine door with painted on sunflowers, the third was a dark mahogany door with simple gold detailing. Across those doors were two other doors, one was a double door, clearly the master bedroom, and the furthest away was just a simple pine door. Owen guided Shawn past the doors until they reached the plain pine door. He opened the door with a soft smile, 

“This will be your room, if you need any blankets let me know… If you need me, my door is the one with the sunflowers”, Owen hummed slightly, trying to think if there was anything else he needed to tell the other. “I’ll knock on when supper is done” With one last smile, Owen left Shawn to get comfortable, heading to his own room.

The black boots Shawn wore clicked softly against the wooden floor as he entered the room that he’d call ‘home’ for the next few days. Compared to the rest of the house that the model had seen, this room felt rather… empty. There weren't any family photos, there weren't any carefully embroidered pillows or even any bright colours. Instead, the room had a simple double bed in the centre of the room, leaned against the right empty wall, the bedding was a cool white with a few fluffy pillows that looked like they were brand new and untouched. Two bedside tables laid beside the bed, both having a pull-cord lamp and one had a singular alarm clock that seemed to echo in the room. Next to the bed, there was another closed door which Shawn assumed was the bathroom. On the opposite side of the room, there were two panel doors, which once again, Shawn assumed was a wardrobe. A lounge chair sat in the corner of the room with a small table next to it, however there was nothing on it. No flowers, no leftover mug of coffee. This room truly felt abandoned, almost lonely compared to the rest of the house that Shawn saw. The only thing that was rather interesting to look at was the window which showed off the large farm from behind. He could see a few roaming animals around as well as an old barn by a few, large trees.

A soft huff left Shawn’s lips as he leaned his suitcase against the wall, admiring the view he had, “Just a few days… that’s all..” he quietly reminded himself.

Getting himself situated in the room didn’t take too long at all. Shawn had hung up his clothes which he deemed weren’t entirely appropriate to wear at a farm, his extra pair of shoes were lined up in the wardrobe, and he had made sure his cigs and bottle of vodka was hidden away in one of the bedside tables. He was gonna save them for when he met up with Ramon, Kid and Diesel, but desperate times called for desperate measures if he needed them. He even had some ‘extra’ measures hidden in his cig packs as well, something that relaxed him more than the cigs. But that was for extreme desperate times. Or fun times. Shawn’s shampoo and conditioner was lined up in the bathroom right next to his cherry and vanilla scented body wash, his hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste was also placed on the sink as well. It felt mostly like home now. Although, there was a small problem. Or well, two small problems. One was that there was no TV, did these people live like cavemen? And the second, his phone was getting pretty low and there was no plug socket.. He had double checked the whole room just to make sure! There was none behind the bedside tables, there was none behind the chair that could be hidden, there wasn’t even one in the bathroom! 

Staring at his phone screen, he weighed out his options. He could ignore his phone, save up the battery… But  having Diesel panic and get on his ass? Yeah, he needed to phone up his bodyguard. Shawn paced around the room as he held the phone to his ear, listening to the ringing before that familiar gruff voice appeared as Diesel picked up.

“Shawn? Everything alright? Are you at your hotel?” The questions instantly rang in from the protective man which made Shawn awkwardly chuckle.

“Yeaah… About that…”

“Shawn, please don’t tell me you’re lost”

The blond chewed on his bottom lip nervously, “Well… Not exactly lost… I mean, I don’t know where the fuck I am…” he started, “But don’t panic! I’m safe, I’m all good, just gonna be late for the photoshoot, y’know?”.

A deep sigh filled Shawn’s ear from the otherside of the phone, he could tell that Diesel was rubbing his temple.

“Telling me to not panic makes me panic more… and how late are you talking about?” the bodyguard questioned.

“Well, maybe a day or two… or more… I don’t know ‘kay?! My damn car broke down, but this guy is fixin’ it up” Shawn mumbled out before moving the phone away from his ear as he knew what was going to happen.

“YOUR CAR BROKE DOWN?! I KNEW I SHOULD'VE DROVE YOU HERE!” the voice bellowed down the phone as Shawn played with a strand of his silky hair. “Jesus fucking Christ Shawn, just-.. Are you at least somewhere safe?” Diesel asked with a loud huff.

Shawn moved the phone back to his ear before speaking, “Yeah, I’m safe, my phone is probably gonna die though, just gotta find somewhere to char-”

“AND YOUR PHONE IS ABOUT TO DIE?!”

A small hiss left Shawn’s lips as Diesel’s voice picked up again, “Let me finish my sentence, asshole! Givin’ me a goddamn headache, I get your point!” Shawn tried to argue back but the model was greeted by silence. “Diesel?” He hummed out, “... Big Sexy??” Shawn continued, believing the other was being petty enough to give him the silent treatment, “Kevin???”. Finally, Shawn glanced at his phone being greeted by a dead screen, “FUCK!” he hissed out in anger, throwing the phone on the bed without a care. Just what he needed. His phone dead, Diesel being pissed off and probably thinking he was dead… Shit, he really needed a smoke.

Grabbing his pack of smokes and his trusty lighter, Shawn made his way out of the room and down the stairs before making his way outside. He had no idea if they let people smoke on their property, they probably didn’t, but he was desperate for a fix. Standing outside of the house, Shawn took out one of the cigs and placed it between his thin lips before flicking his lighter a few times to produce a small flame. He held it under the cig before he breathed in deeply, relishing in the feeling of the harsh smoke filling his lungs before blowing it out of his lungs. The familiar taste of menthol was one that was always calming, something he had always chosen as a young teen, they were the cheapest, but they were perfect in his eyes. Sure, he enjoyed a good cigar, it made him feel confident- almost unstoppable. But a Marlboro blue cigarette? Nothing could beat that feeling of a soft burn, it reached an itch that some would call an addiction, but Shawn called it self-soothing. Another puff of smoke left his lips as he glanced around the farm. The sun was already starting to set. It was rather beautiful to see, watching pinks and oranges blur together as the sun started to dip behind the horizon…

Shawn was thrown out of his thoughts at the sound of footsteps behind him and a low voice filling his ears again.

“If you’re gonna smoke, at least have an ashtray nearby” Bret mumbled out as he placed a ceramic ashtray on the edge of the patio fence, “...Everything alright? I heard yelling” Bret continued as he stood at the top of the patio stairs.

Shawn turned around, cig still gently dangling from his lips, his baby blues meeting the warm chocolate ones in a stare, “I didn’t expect you to have one… But yeah, I’m fine, just peachy..” he huffed out, his eyes going to the floor as he kicked at a bit of dirt on the ground. He took another drag from his cig before moving over near the patio to flick off the ash that lingered on the edge into the ashtray. 

“Mhm, sure, peachy,” Bret answered back, his warm eyes never leaving Shawn’s lean figure. Shawn’s baby blues glanced back up at Bret, fidgeting slightly. He wasn’t one to keep his mouth shut, especially when it came to drama. Even if it was about himself. Or perhaps it was the way Bret looked at him like he was an actual person? Shawn wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t help but let the truth flood out.

“... My phone has died, I don’t know how long I’ll be here for, Diesel is pissed off at me like it’s my fault…” Shawn spat out the truth, his eyes looking back at the ground as he took another puff of the cigarette in his hand. Smoke flooded out his mouth before he continued, “Like, sure, maybe I shouldn’t have taken a small ‘shortcut’... Or actually listened to him… But still, fuck, It’s not my fault” He huffed out. Bret raised a brow. He wasn’t sure which part he was more shocked at, maybe it was the fact that this ‘Diesel’ was pissed off at him, or perhaps it was the way Shawn deflected.

“But anyways, I’ll be out of your lovely hair, you clearly don’t like strangers,” A soft, sarcastic chuckle left Shawn as he pushed the cig against the ashtray, “Thanks for the ashtray and well, that little rant” he thanked quietly.

“It’s fine… And don’t feel like you need to leave fast, you just caught me in a bad time” Bret awkwardly apologised, rubbing the back of his neck, “If you need to phone someone, we’ve got a landline phone you can borrow” he offered with a small shrug. 

“Ha, thanks for the offer handsome, but I don’t exactly remember phone numbers, got too many to remember” Shawn chuckled out again, he wished he remembered Diesel’s phone number or even Hunter’s… he knew part of Marty’s number, but even if he remember his number, they hadn’t even spoken in years… 

Bret was surprised at the name ‘handsome’, it was very sudden but he shrugged it off quickly, “I can get Owen to take your phone and charge it as the repair shop, I know there isn’t any plugs in this house- Never has been, never will, that’s the old man’s orders, but the shop has one” He offered again, hoping to ease the mans tension as well as an apology for their first meeting.

“I-... I suppose that isn’t a bad idea at all… Thank’s Bret” Shawn smiled softly, “I’ll give you it tomorrow, or Owen, whoever I find first, but thank you” his blue eyes took one more look around the ranch before looking back at Bret, “I’ll see you inside, if I stay out any longer I’ll be tempted to have another cig” Shawn tried to joke, gently shaking the box of cigs he held, but it was the truth. He would have had another cig- Or probably the whole box and his ‘fun sticks’ as he liked to call them as well. He gave Bret another small smile before heading inside of the house, brushing past the bigger man.

Bret glanced over his shoulder, watching as the man made his way inside the house. Questions continued to wrap around his brain about Shawn. Who was Diesel? Why would he be upset with Shawn? Where was he even heading to make a shortcut through the middle of nowhere? Even Bret knew it was a silly mistake to make. His thick brows furrowed together as he huffed, his eyes glancing over towards the sunset. He stayed for another moment, watching as the sun ducked behind the horizon, the sky getting darker and the warm air grew colder. He took a deep breath in, the smell of Shawn’s cheap cigarettes still clinging to the air as one final question ran through his head. Sure he had met other strange characters, like his soon-to-be brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith, but Shawn was a lot more different than him. He didn’t fit in, he didn’t fit in the town nearby nor the farm life itself by the looks of his clothes and the way he held himself. His hair and clothes were too perfect for a man who was stressed about being stranded in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t any out of place hair in sight or a crease in his clothes… Who the hell was Shawn?... Bret shook his head slightly, he was just simply overthinking about Shawn, that’s all.

Night had quickly arrived by the time Owen knocked on the guest door to announce that supper was done. The dinner table was on the biggerside, having about twelve chairs around the table and only a few of the chairs were being used. He met the patriarch of the Harts, Stu, and his Mrs, Helen. Much like Bret, Stu wasn’t as welcoming, but Helen was his saviour. She had welcomed him with open arms, Owen clearly took after his mother. He had met Diana who was sweet, she was the youngest daughter of the Harts. He had also learnt that the family was rather large, having twelve siblings all together, but most of the kids had moved out. The supper was something he needed, something relaxing, and soul soothing from how fresh and hearty the soup and bread he ate. He did notice Bret missing from the table, which must of been the usual as Owen’s voice perked up,

“Bret usually misses his supper, he’ll be checking on the animals making sure their water is good and they have food” He explained before taking a sip of water, “He’ll have it later”. That eased Shawn’s curiosity, leaving it without another question. 

After the meal, Shawn thanked them, especially for the welcomed hospitality before heading to the guest room. He changed out of his clothes, hanging them up before fully getting ready for bed. Shawn had a strict regime that he followed, he would wash his face before cleansing it, then he would moisturise as well. He had to keep his face looking young, obviously. He would then brush his hair before tying it up into a ponytail, he’d also have a whiskey over ice and even a cigar before brushing his teeth.

Usually after his little routine, he would stay up late in his penthouse, he’d sit on his large, comfy couch that was as soft as clouds and watch a few films before going to bed. On bad nights, he wouldn’t sleep. He’d instead sit outside on his balcony, watching the bright city of New York light up the dark sky, replacing the stars he couldn’t see. It was called the city that never sleeps for a reason. Yet, being in this home, he felt as if he wouldn’t have a bad night, that he could actually rest without an issue.

The guest bed wasn’t exactly as comfy as his bed at home, but he was used to other beds, especially when he travelled. It was the comfiest he had in awhile, he seemed to sink in like his own bed somewhat, and it didn’t feel like stone like a few five star hotel beds did. The room wasn’t fully pitch black either, which didn’t annoy him as much as he thought it would. The curtains that covered the window in the room were thin, letting in the natural light of the moon and stars outside fade in which tempted him to go and admire… but he’d leave that for a sleepless night. Even the sounds of crickets outside didn’t annoy him even if he enjoyed  silence when he slept. They chirped out a symphony that lulled Shawn to a somewhat peaceful sleep.

[neo-novaa]

love languages (ft. neteyam, lo'ak, tsireya, and ao'nung)

*ੈ✩ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: neteyam, lo'ak, tsireya, + ao'nung (seperate) x gn!reader *ੈ✩ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: none really? mostly fluff, brief mention of something nsfw, VERY ooc ao'nung i am so sorry and i tried my absolute hardest to avoid using "y/n" bc imo, it takes me out of the story, so expect some corny ass pet names.

*ੈ✩ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3k

*ੈ✩ 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: me when i accidentally write waayyy too much,, oops. anyways !! these are just my hc's at each of the character's love languages, hope you enjoy :))

neteyam

giving: acts of service!!

when it comes to showing you his love, neteyam will do anything and everything for you.

need to clear up your tent? he’s already on it. need some new beads for a necklace you’re working on? he’ll go get them for you.

any time you even off-handedly mention something you might need, it’s yours by the end of the hour.

from the opposite corner of your tent, neteyam hears you hiss under your breath. “what is it?” he asks, heavy concern in his voice.

“nothing ‘teyam,” you fib, gently setting down your string of beads and standing up, ready to go off and try to barter for some more. “hey-- where are you going?” he blocks the exit -- not in any way that is intentionally imposing, but to get a proper answer out of you that doesn’t involve chasing after you. “it’s fine, i just ran out of beads. i’ll go find my mother, see if she has any i can borrow--”

“no!” his volume catches you off guard. “no, don’t worry about it, i will get some. you stay here, okay?” he’s holding his hands out in front of you, as if you’re an animal he’s trying to calm down. it’s cute, in its own way, and you can’t help but feel a sense of pride at how willing he is to drop everything for you. “okay, nete. just don’t take too long!” you have to shout the last half of your sentence, because the moment you gave him the green-light, he was off. receiving: quality time!

time to himself is something that neteyam rarely gets. and when he finally does get those sweet moments to himself, all he wants to do is be with you.

he’s usually too exhausted to do anything but listen to you talk.

and you could talk about anything, he doesn't care, as long as he gets to hear your voice

he’d be able to listen to you talk about meaningless things for hours and never get tired of it.

“i was so close nete! you have no idea!” 

it’s just the two of you in the middle of the forest, the only sounds being your voice, and the occasional shriek of some distant animal.

“i had my arrow pointed right at it, right at that slinth. i was ready to shoot,” you mimiced the action of holding a bow an arrow, and as you brought back your arm, you could feel neteyam cup your bicep, as if he was guiding your form.

“i drew my arrow back, and then-- kxangangang!” you exclaimed, releasing your hand as if you’d just fired the arrow. “it moved just as i shot.” you stifle a hiss behind your words, arms helplessly flopping down to your sides. “we really needed that venom nete, many people have been coming in with worse injuries from their hunts.”

he’s running his hands up and down your arms, and you can feel him nod behind you. “don’t worry, paskalin," my sweet berry, "there will be more opportunities.”

you sigh, muttering something along the lines of “i guess so,”

“now,” he begins, readjusting himself so he’s sitting straighter. “what else have you been up to while i was gone?”

lo’ak

giving: physical touch!

in the purest and least invasive way possible, lo’ak loves to have his hands on you.

it honestly doesn’t even have to be his hands. it could even be his tail unintentionally coiled around your thigh, or his knee brushing against yours when you’re sitting together; it doesn’t matter what it is, he just has to be touching you.

it comes in more obvious ways too: holding your hand at any chance he gets, having his arm wrapped around your waist whenever he’s standing next to you, greeting you with a tight hug and quick kiss (because the last time it was more than a peck, your mother yelled at him.)

he just loves to know that you’re right there, and he loves to be as silently vocal about his love for you as possible.

it wasn’t uncommon for you and lo’ak to be separated throughout most of the day. you were always so busy with your mother, having her assist you in being a healer; teaching you how each herb aided your body, how to make salves that helped wounds heal twice as fast. you always aspired to be a healer, to follow in the footsteps of your mother, and her mother, and her mother after that.

but every time you heard lo'ak with his brother and sisters coming back, the beating of their ikrans wings-- you always had to excuse yourself you greet your lover.

“lo’ak!” you called his name out before you even saw him, and just as you expected, he came running up to you, scooping you up in a tight hug. 

he whispers your name against your neck, pulling away, beaming like the sun. “i missed you dude," you giggle at the untraditional term of endearment, "you been up to?”

you lead him back to your tent, easily slipping your hand into his. lo’ak always felt self-conscious about his five-fingered hands, but the way that your four digits slipped so easily into his made it all the more bearable.

you showed him the make-shift setup of your mortar and pestle to grind down herbs, the various jars of powders and salves, the untouched fungi that you’ve yet to have turned into salves. 

your mother, giving you a knowing look, exits the tent, leaving you and lo’ak to your own devices.

unsurprisingly, you spend the rest of the day with him glued to your side. 

his chin on your shoulder, his arms around your waist, his hands gently brushing against the base of your ribs. it doesn’t matter what your doing, he doesn’t even think about whether his actions are inconveniencing you; just wants to be all over you, pressing as much skin against yours as physically possible. 

receiving: words of affirmation!

growing up as the middle child, lo’ak was very easily overlooked. 

that, and the tension between him and his father which seemed to have been growing since the very moment he was born left him with very little affection.

which is why he absolutely relishes in every compliment you give him. whether or not it’s offhanded or carefully crafted, he savors them, memorizes them, and does anything he can to get you to say them again.

it was a game that you played often after rehoming with the metkayina clan. to test lo’ak and his speed in the water, you’d throw four or five fist-sized wooden disks across this corner of the reef, and see how long it’d take for him to collect them all.

you’re sitting in the sand bar, gently tapping the side of your thigh with each second, seeing if lo’ak would be able to beat his best time. he said he would, he swore he would, and you wanted to see if could do it.

you can see him, a distance away, swimming from disc to disc; you must admit, even though he is already a fast swimmer, his determination is truly something to marvel at.  

soon, you can see him just below the surface, making his way back to shore. you stand up, shivering slightly at the soft breeze against your wet skin, and you can’t help but silently cheer him on.

and, true to his word, he did beat his best time.

“lo’ak!” you cheer, enveloping him in a tight hug. “you did it! your fastest time!”

“really?” he looks shocked, the lopsided smile on his face making yours grow indefinitely.

“yes! you did so well lo’ak! i’m so proud of you!” you say that last part into his neck as you bring him into another hug, feeling his arms squeeze you a bit tighter when you praised him.

he pulls away, fanning out the discs in his hands, looking quickly between you, and them. sheepishly, he holds them out to you, his ears pinned against his head.

“do it again. i’ll be even faster this time.” 

tsireya

giving: gift giving and physical touch!!

tsireya will give you any sort of affection, around anyone and everyone. she is so proud to know that she belongs to you, in the same way that you belong to her.

in public, especially around her family, she will restrain herself to hand-holding and feather-light kisses on the back of your hand

no matter where you are, tsireya always wants to show you how deeply she cares for you.

whenever it is just you two, she loves to drape her body over yours, intertwining your limbs, knotting yourselves together.

she also absolutely loves to make jewelry for you

you swear, every time you see her, she has another piece for you: a necklace, an anklet, a new string of beads to put along one of the braids she made in your hair-- besides your song chord, you’re not sure if there’s any decorative piece on your body that wasn’t made by her.

tsireya will also deliver all sorts of little trinkets along with her jewelry

it could be a rock, a shell, a broken-off piece of coral, a geode-- she'll find literally anything pretty and give it to you.

you’re finally getting the hang of this, of weaving baskets. you never expected it to be so difficult, and you certainly didn’t expect your hands to be covered in tiny little cuts from the blades of the leaves.

“ma oare!” you hear her familiar name call for you, my moon, it makes you smile every time you hear it.

“tsireya!” you break away from your partially-woven basket, seeing her running up into your pod, and greeting her with a deep kiss. she’s the one to pull away, looking at your hands, worry setting into your face.

“my love…what has happened to you?” you can’t help but smile at the way she’s fussing over you. her hands are tracing over each cut, turning over your hands to see if there are any more.

“nothing, i was just a bit clumsy when i was weaving baskets.” you slot your fingers between hers, noting the woven ring on her middle finger.

“what is that ma tsawke?” you say, my sun, turning her hand over and inspecting the piece. you focus on the bright yellow pebble in the center, gently rubbing your thumb over it. suddenly, the worry in her eyes melts away, and she looks ecstatic. 

“it is a ring i made! look, i made one for you as well,” she pulls away, digging into a small sack woven into her loin cloth. just as she said, tsireya pulls out a ring, exactly like the one she has on her finger. it’s woven with strands of thin, dark leather, its primary adornment being a white, black-speckled pebble.  

“oh, it’s beautiful tsireya,” you whisper as she places it on your middle finger, adjusting it so that the pebble is facing out. without a word, you hold her head in her hands, placing a soft kiss on her lips.

she returns the sentiment, breaking the kiss with a giggle. “come! there’s more i want to show you,” she grabs you by your ringed hand, squeezing it tightly. “when i was out with my father, we found these incredible stones…”

receiving: physical touch!

tsireya loves receiving physical touch just as much as she loves giving it

and, let's be real here, you love giving it to her as well.

holding her hand, having your arm around her waist, unbraiding her hair-- she just wants to be able to feel you 

and any time she isn’t feeling your hands on her, she’ll be the one to reach out to you

she yelps your name as you crash into her, wrapping your arms so tightly around her that she nearly falls over into the water. she’s giggling into your skin, peppering your shoulder with kisses.

“hello!” she says through a smile, pulling away and brushing the hair away from your face. her hands are locked around yours, gently squeezing them. “i missed you, where have you been?”

“out hunting with my father,” you bring her in for a quick kiss, feeling the presence of your aforementioned parent coming closer behind you. when you pull away, she tries to chase your lips, and you can’t help but laugh. “tsireya, i was barely gone for half the day. what will you do when i leave for longer than that?”

“i will come with you,” she says confidently, gently swaying her hands with yours, bumping her head against your forehead. “i cannot stand to be away from you for long, you are like air to me.”

you sigh, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “ma tsawke--”

you hear your father call out for you, and she notices your ears quickly drawing to your head. tsireya looks at you skeptically, wrapping her arms around you once again.

“are you supposed to be somewhere right now?”

“...no,” you lie. “besides, why would i be anywhere else when i can be with you, in your arms?”

ao’nung

giving: words of affirmation and physical touch!!

words of affirmation but in the way that ao’nung will always flirt with you.

all the time.

24/7.

you’re sure he even does it in his dreams.

no matter where you are, he’s always saying something to you.

whether it be a compliment that could slip under the radar in front of either of your parents, or something more attention-grabbing, like a corny pick-up line he managed to pick up from the sully’s

and, to his surprise (and delight), you’ve managed to make something of a game of it

“well, here i am. what are your two other wishes?” ao’nung beams. “for you to go away, and for you to never come back.”

okay. it’s less of a game and more like completely denying his actions.

oh, Eywa, you love him to bits, but there’s a small part of you that dreads seeing him because you know you’ll have to hear one of those cheesy, earthly-sayings

(but you’d secretly be sad the day he comes up to you without one or two in his back pocket)

even when you two are mated, even when the chase is over, he still acts like you could slip away at any given moment, which is why he always feels the need to be around you, to be showing everyone else that you are his.

not in a weird, creepy, possessive way, but in a way that primarily comforts himself

but sometimes, he can genuinely stun you with the way he compliments you, when it’s just the two of you alone, without ao’nung having to impress anyone besides his mate. 

it’s just past eclipse, and you can see the bioluminescent algae washing up on shore. each crashing wave just barely brushes by your feet, coating them with a bright-blue hue.

your back is against ao’nungs chest, and you can feel his slow and steady heartbeat. it’s grounding-- it’s comforting. 

but when you feel him shuffle around behind you, you take a quick glance back, only for him to stop you from turning to face the shore once again.

“i don’t think i say it often enough, but you are the most beautiful creature i’ve ever seen.” 

it stuns you to the point where you feel paralyzed. he’s right, he doesn’t convey his emotions in such a poetic way. but when he does, when he finally finds the right words, it’s everything and more.

“ao’nung,” you softly mutter his name, bringing a hand to his face and gently cupping his cheek. “i see you.”

he rests his forehead against yours. “i see you.”

receiving: acts of service!!

so...the acts of service part could mean. two things.

but for the sake of things, i’ll go down the more sfw route 

ao’nung loves when you surprise him with doing things that you know he didn’t want to get done.

i.e.: tidying his marui pod, reeling in empty nets from the reef, feeding some of the ilu, the list goes on

and honestly, you love doing it too, because it puts him in such an incredible mood

i mean, really, it’s almost like a bit of a superpower. he could be moping around all day, putting off this one thing that he hates, the thing he loathes doing, only to see that you did it? only to see that you already took care of it?

he'd fall in love with you all over again.

granted, he did complain about it all the previous day, but he didn’t think you’d actually do it

you’re folding the empty net in on itself, careful to avoid tangling it. you knew ao’nung hated this more than anything else. one of his fatal flaws was his lack of patience, and the moment anything took a little longer, and was a little harder than expected, he’d blow his top.

which is why you took to doing some of his less-favored tasks. you were able to avoid an angsty ao’nung, and you’d be able to spend more time with him.

but despite this, you can’t help but note how your heartbeat begins to race when you hear him call out your name from behind you, as if you’re doing something that’d get you in trouble.

“what are you doing?” he asks, doing nothing to help the way that your hands are suddenly gripping the folded net. 

“i figured…you did not want to bring the nets in, so i could do it for you…?”

the confused look on his face suddenly turned into one of elation, and he picked you up by your waist. 

“irayo, ma paysyul,” he mumbles against your skin.

thank you, my lily.

[faketrex]

Slowly but surely approaching the end of this caper... but first, Alex and Henry need to kick off their best friends tour.

To be continued.

...

SHARING A SLICE... part 5

RWRB, rated T, 750 words (this part).

(click here for part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)

...

“Alex.”

Blearily, Alex blinks up at the ceiling.

“It's time to wake up.”

The voice is familiar but weird, like listening to a recording of himself. Alex rubs a hand across his eyes and looks over toward the sound of a floorboard creaking. That explains it: his own voice always sounds strange outside his head.

“Go away, Evil Alex,” Alex mumbles. “I'm tired.”

“What?”

“Why no eye patch, Evil Alex? You always have an eye patch.” It doesn't matter. Alex closes his eyes. Since he's still dreaming, he can get some more sleep.

“Get up, we've got brunch reservations and you should shower first. Unless of course you have a fetish for bees? That certainly wasn't on your Wikipedia page.”

“I – bees?”

“Cake contains sugar, Alex. Are you always so obtuse in the morning?”

Cake. Alex snaps awake. He sits up, but Henry-as-Alex has already disappeared through the doorway. “I thought you were my evil dream twin!”

“Your phone won't stop vibrating,” Henry calls back. “Does the name ‘Bug’ sound familiar?”

Fuck. Alex needs to text June – calling would be better if she's blowing up his phone, but June would see through Henry's shitty subterfuge in a second – and then he needs to – “Did you say brunch?”

“We're leaving in thirty minutes.”

Alex showers and brushes his teeth in record time. It's not easy getting clean while trying to ignore, like, all of his borrowed body – Henry's body – but he manages, mostly. Surprisingly, Henry's pretty fit. Alex had assumed all those beach photos were airbrushed.

Back in the living room, he finds Henry wrapped in a robe on the loveseat, scrolling on his phone.

“Why aren't you dressed?”

Henry looks up. “For the same reason you're wearing a towel, I assume. Going through your suitcase would have felt rude.”

“I'll dig out an outfit for you if you get one for me, just try not to – what the fuck did you do to my hair?”

“Nothing.”

“You must have done something, it never looks like that.”

“I didn't–”

“Did y'all ever have guillotines in the U.K.?”

“Charming suggestion, Alex, don't hold yourself back on my behalf.”

Alex keeps his commentary to himself while he's standing six inches away from Henry, trying to fix his hair from an unfamiliar angle, and even while they’re getting dressed – except for some entirely valid criticism of Henry's boring ties – but it's all fair game once they're seated across from each other, pretending to enjoy one another's company.

“You look exhausted,” Alex begins.

“Why, thank you, your royal highness. I didn't sleep much last night.”

“Maybe I should have warned you, I have insomnia.” Alex waits while the server sets down his coffee and a pot of tea for Henry. “I don't know if insomnia is a brain thing or a body thing, though. Hey, does this coffee taste weird? How often do people try to poison you?”

Henry takes a sip from Alex's cup. “It tastes fine. As a world-class insomniac myself, we may never know the answer to that particular question, but it seems we've already determined that taste is a matter of body, not brain.”

“What? How?”

“I don't like coffee.” Henry blinks at him slowly, obviously, like he's waiting for Alex to pick up on a secret code. “Usually.”

“Oh.” They swap drinks. “Anyway, I didn't know royals ate brunch,” Alex continues once he's sipping his Earl Grey and – as if things weren't bad enough – actually enjoying it.

“Alas, man cannot live on ribbon cuttings alone,” Henry quips, so deadpan that Alex nearly snorts. “Brunch was easier to arrange than any other morning appearance, given the spontaneity of today’s... excursion. Shaan is still organizing our afternoon engagements.”

“He's getting everything cleared, right?”

“Of course.” Henry smiles at the server as they arrive with their food. There's no hesitance to it, not like the smiles Alex has seen him wear in photos. At least Henry’s not a dick to service industry workers.

“In normal circumstances, there wouldn't be any public royal appearances the day after a royal wedding.”

“Yeah?” So they're breaking rules by trying to fix everything. Good to know.

Henry nods. “In an effort to avoid stealing attention from the all-important pomp and circumstance, you understand.”

“Well... seems like that ship has already sailed.”

“Boy howdy,” Henry drawls, sipping his coffee. “I do believe you might say we’ve dulled their sparkle.”

Alex can’t help it this time: he laughs. When Henry grins back, Alex isn't even thinking about the cameras.

...

(Part 6)

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I think, Meghan (allegedly) filed a case against the IRS to contest some charges/tax returns that she felt were unfair. Or because she thought she was charged extra and deserved a hugher refund than she got. And then she lost the case and had to pay the IRS for the filing a case against her. I don't know how true that is, just that she did file a case against the IRS. This was probably around 2010/11 so around the Trevor years. This is off the top of my head though, no factual receipts. Just something I remember reading on the old Tumblrs that are now defunct.

But about the financial fraud, I don't know if it counts but it is interesting to me that Meghan's lifestyle was mostly sustained on gifts and favours. She hardly paid for anything. At first, while she was auditioning, she lived with Trevor. They had a decent enihouse. But her dad says that he sometimes gave her money and it was mostly Trevor who sustained their day-to-day. It's believable and nothing wrong in that if that's the understanding that the couple has.

Then in Toronto, the suits producers got her a rental home. And later, a chauffeured car to get her to and from the set. This was a favour pulled by her friend rick hoffman.

There are some conflicting reports that say that she moved in with Cory mainly to save on rental. As in, it was his place and she moved in with him immediately after they started dating.

The Soho ambassadorship that she did, and later her small scale endorsements and Tig sponcerships got her a lot of goodies. All of her hotel stays, 1st class travels, food etc was almost always sponcon.

The only thing she allegedly spent her own money on was (probably) the air travel when she started dating Harry and they had their 2week arrangment. (Either one of them would travel to the other every 2 weeks). But she later moved in with himwhen suits ended.

So I'd say, Meghan does not understand finances, other than accumulating money in her own name in her own bank account. She has big dreams - foundations, charities, galas, UN missions, commonwealth, holiday homes, private jets etc etc... but has never paid for anything out of pocket so does not know how to sustain those dreams.

I was thinking of a different case of financial fraud - in 2020 or 2021, it was revealed that the SussexRoyal Foundation was being investigated over some allegations made about the way Harry and Meghan handled some transactions. I don’t remember the specific details and I can’t look it up at the moment, but there was a very haughty Sussex “we told you we didn’t do anything wrong” statement made when the investigation closed/cleared the allegations.

Whenever the Sussexes get in the news for their finances or Archewell paperwork, I always remember that incident, and specifically their response. It really rubbed me the wrong way and because they seemed to be gloating about having been cleared of wrongdoing, it makes me think that there actually really is something shady happening behind the scenes. I think they’re lucky it hasn’t been caught yet, chiefly because their MO is to distract us with semantics and petty “it’s the AG’s fault” blame game-type BS, but this week makes it clear they’re living on borrowed time.

[fever-project]

LU AU | Power Shift

A strange dungeon challenge forces The Chain’s items/powers to swap with each other! Oh my! Aka an idea I had that started with me thinking about what would happen if Warriors drew the 4Sword after reading “My Heart’s Forsaken Me”, which then spiraled into this, somehow. Speaking of Wars, let’s start with him:

Warriors - Four - The 4Sword has spilt him up and he can’t convince his other selves to rejoin. His different colors represents different parts of a Five/Four man band, instead of just different emotions.

Green - The closest to the original and The Leader. Very embarrassed by his other selves. He wears the regular Hero’s Clothes, a green tunic with a blue scarf. The rest of the color’s clothes are based on other Hero’s Clothes outfits in the HW game.

Red - The mischievous one who’s always butting heads with the others, he’s The Lancer. He loves to use all of Four’s items, and if the dungeon didn’t ban him from using other people’s weapons, he would steal borrow all the items he wants. He wears the red(since there’s two of them)Wind Walker version of the Hero’s Clothes, a red tunic with a teal scarf.

Blue - The one who would be the sweet one if not for getting constantly frustrated by the other colors. He’s very friendly to Time and Wind, but mostly Wind. He looks kinda sad around Time, and is generally very expressive. He’s insistent on helping anybody he can, he’s The Heart. He wears the Grand Travels version of the Hero’s Clothes, a blue tunic with a red scarf and yellow pants.

Whitney - Similar to Vio, this guy has more of a normal person name, a combination of White and Pinkie, the first two nicknames that were suggested to him. Like Vio, he was also named by Red. He wears the Koholint version of the Hero’s Clothes, which is almost fully white, with the scarf being a light pink and some pink accents on his tunic. He’s the silent tactician of the group, he’s The Brains.

Four - Sky - He is not at all used to carrying around the Master Sword, it being practically the length of his entire body. Once he can successfully swing it, he is able to do a Skyward Strike, but it’s a bit of a challenge. Quite a few of Sky’s items are similar to some of his own, so he mostly knows what he’s doing. He loves the Beetle, he uses it all the time and tries to figure out what he can do to upgrade it. So far, he hasn’t figured anything out yet. But unfortunately, he now he has to deal with Sky’s limited sprinting stamina, sadly not being able to use his Pegasus Boots.

Sky - Legend - Now Sky’s the one who can run to his heart’s content. He has face planted into many walls however. He also has many magical items that he has no idea how to use. It’s a little overwhelming to say the least. Why does Legend have so many rings? At least the Tempered Sword is cool.

Legend - Wind - He can use all of Wind’s items perfectly well, but whatever amount of paranoia he had has now gone through the roof. His items, his precious items that could easily kill Sky if he’s not careful with them, his precious items that could get lost, his precious items that he can’t use-needless to say that he’s not having a good time right now. But he’s holding on, just sticking close to Sky’s side to make sure everything’s okay. And also to laugh at him when he keeps face planting into a wall.

Wind - Twilight - Wind is having the time of his life right now. All of Twilight’s items are so fun to use, he loves the cute little Bomblings and uses the Spinner a lot with Red!Wars. The most exciting thing is that he can turn into a wolf-a sea wolf/coastal wolf specially-with the Shadow Crystal. It’s not too different than experience than using a Hyoi Pear on a seagull, in his opinion anyway. He is very wrong. He also now has Twilight’s marking on his face, and he thinks he looks cool.

Twilight - Time - The markings on his face have been replaced with the ones Time have. He is…kinda confused on what they mean and Time isn’t really giving him any straight answers about it, but the masks are very cool and fun to use. But the strange feeling he constantly has, the strange, almost whispers that he can barely hear, he knows something is wrong. The spirits of Termina are awake, trying to get him to fight literally everything. The Lens of Truth is pretty useful, and magic is cool.

Time - Wild - This wouldn’t be the worst set of items for Time to have, if not for the fact that he also got Wild’s curse of everything just crumbling in his hands all the time. It sucks and he is not at all used to it. Everyone’s a bit more sympathetic towards Wild now. Time’s also a whole lot better with a bow now. He wasn’t bad with them before, but now time seems to slow down when he jumping down from a platform, bow drawn, raining down arrows on the enemies. But now he can’t even tread water without wanting to collapse into himself like a pile of goo. Damn you stamina.

Wild - Hyrule - He was excited about the unlimited* arrows at first, but unfortunately, he was struck with the tiny wallets that can only hold up to 999 rupees. The magic and the rest of the items are amazing though, even though he keeps burning through his magic meter since he keeps thinking it’ll refill on its own. It does not.

Hyrule - Warriors - Since in HW you use items from different games, Hyrule can just use whoever’s items he wants. Basically ignoring some of the limits set by the dungeon. He didn’t understand the combos, weak point smashes, focus spirit, all of that stuff until Wars tells him about it. He still doesn’t really get it but he tries.

I don’t really have a story for this, just spun a wheel and thought this would be a fun idea. Anyone can take any part of this concept and run with it, please @ me so I can see. I also think the name Whitney is inherently funny.

[helpme695]

Hello, hello,Hello,my dear!!

I saw that you were a brand new blog with barely any writings and that you wrote for IDV,so i HAD to jump on the occasion,you see?

Allow me to introduce myself (as this is most likely not the last time you will be seeing me!), I am Nina (or Weewoo!),self proclaimed platonic asker!

And I am here to humbly ask for headcanons (or a one shot,i don't know which one you prefer,but I'd be happy with both!!) For Jack the Ripper (except if you don't write for him,which i understand,He IS based off a real murderer...if you don't write for him,I'd love some Antonio! But I'd prefer Jack :3 or both if you're interested Or if you prefer to choose other than those two,that's okay!!) with a child!reader (platonic ofc) that loves all types of art? Like they like listening to music while drawing- sure they're not the best,since they're still learning,but they show their art to them when they're proud of it? And they give the Hunter(s) drawings of them?? They're just a small cutie that gives drawings to people?

Thank you for reading! I hope you like this prompt and enjoy writing it!! Remember to drink,eat and take breaks,Hun!

Stay proud,

-Nina <3

Helloooooooo Nina :D I'm glad to have you in my silly blog :) I hope you will enjoy it in the future <) I wrote for both of them since I like Antonio ^_^ I'm sorry for taking quite a lot to answer ;-; it will happen again if I continue with this writing style </3.

I didn't dive too much about child thing, so you can take it as an adult or little kid. Either way, it's definitely platonic. Oh and it mostly seemed gender nature sooo :)

Aaa i just did reader give art to these 2 lol , sooo yah </3 sorry for my mistakes

Both of them are not that experienced with children because of their backgrounds. Antonio is busy drinking his favorite wines and playing masterpieces for the nobles, and god knows what else. As for Jack, he's just being, well... Jack. :)

they don't mind children that much; it depends on their mood. Mostly, they act like 'the cool uncles'.

However, Jack is not as fond of babysitting as Antonio. He thinks there are better options, like Michiko or Leo! Or maybe, why not play with people your age? Robbie and Memory would be happy to have you around.

They recognize your unique and diverse interests in various forms of art, which is uncommon even among adults.

Sometimes, they will simply watch you to see what you are best at. That way, they could buy you something nice related to it. Of course, they would support you in other forms, as well. They just figure that if you are great at something specific, it means you love it the most.

Now, let's talk about each one :D

Antonio:

It's not unusual to find him friendly in matches if he's in the mood. A simple, goofy mistake was all it took to make this weird-haired noodle crack up (thanks to Tracy's terror shock and Martha's failed flare gun rescue).

You participated in this match. All of you were having fun in Moonlit River Park.

After this match, everyone said their goodbyes and left to do their own thing. You, on the other hand, felt you wanted to appreciate him more. So, you got yourself comfortable, put on your favorite music (or headed to the composer to listen to him), and started drawing. It didn't take you long to finish it, so you borrowed some clay from Galatea to make a small version of him. It turned out messy. Nevertheless, you colored it. Your paper drawing turned out better than your little clay Antonio, but it still looked adorable.

You would know if he's in his room by his usual violin playing. And today was no exception. You knocked on his door softly, and the long-haired man heard it. Which makes sense since he's hard to hide from.

"Come in,"

And with that, you slipped past his door. You were greeted with his usual creepy smile and a couple of bottles of booze around his desk.

"Hello (name), I thought you were tired from the last match. Especially for a little one like you. Do you want to listen to my latest work later? I suggested Mr. Kreiburg and I do a musical performance together for the upcoming season."

You didn't say anything, just smiling at him as you got closer, and so did Antonio's curiosity.

"Is there something on your mind you would like to tell me, (name)?"

He crouched down to meet your height, still looming over you. You smile only brighten when you got excited to show your work to him. Behind your back, you emerged two artworks of him. His eyes lingered on what your hand was holding before he took them.

The drawing was of him ballooning Tracy and holding you with his hair, while what seemed like a sad Martha with her gun, and Forward way back running at him.

And then he looked at your small clay sculpture. His hair looked like overcooked pasta and worms coming out of it, with some black coloring. implies you are still new to shaping.

You were overjoyed just looking at how his smile widened even more than it already was. You felt his eyes leave your art and look at your face. He honestly didn't know what to be happy about. Was someone actually spending time doing something wholesome for him? Or was it the sound of your laughter echoing in his room with the big smile of yours?

He placed your work on his desk and gently guided you with his hand to his embrace.

"I know you have undeniable talent, and I want to admire it and make sure nothing disturbs it. Today, you illuminated my heart with your caring light, crafting something priceless. I thank you for your gift, and if it was for that silly match, it's nothing compared to your kindness."

He patted your head for a few seconds and then stood up tall.

"As much as I like spoiling you with my masterpieces, you have to go to sleep. Ms. Dyer won't be happy finding you out of bed.

He placed his hand gently behind your back and guided you to his door. You were kind of disappointed; you don't like how Doctor Emily makes children go to bed so early. Nevertheless, you didn't complain. He didn't close his door yet, so you kept waving, saying your goodbyes and sweet dreams before your little form disappeared when you went downstairs.

He closed his door gently and went to his desk, which now held booze, paper art, and a mini clay Antonio. He stared at them for... what? Seconds? Minutes? He didn't care. Your pure soul made his usual lonely night better, and thanks to you, you gave him inspiration for his next musical piece.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

He will cherish your gifts and art; they brightened his room and made him feel less empty.

I like to think he will force Joseph to take pictures of them and him together.

He's your number 1 supporter and fan of your work. Hell, even if it's horrendous, he'll be damned if he ever THINKS it's bad. He might as well show it to everyone and threaten anyone who says otherwise.

Despite many people and nobles gathering around him for his matchless skill, he appreciates you because you do what you want with pure intentions. He doesn't need to bother thinking about your actions (unless something is very odd), and you see him as someone to trust. Which is sometimes a bad idea because, you know... the devil thing.

He did consider having a child before, but he knows he would be an awful father. Having you around, not taking up all his time or responsibility of taking care of you, yet still filling that void, made him drink less than usual.

Jack:

If you are interested in the art of music, you just so happen to have the most skilled violinist in the whole world next door, and you might even catch him happily holding a small violin for you. Now, get ready for waking up every Friday to Monday at 6 a.m. for a teaching course. Will he make you as amazing as him? No. But you'll surely come close to amazing.

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°••°•°•°•°•°•

He likes to go to the manor garden, especially at night, because he likes his "own alone" time. He is known for being mysterious, sadistic, and moody, so most survivors keep you distance from him, usually the women. You always wonder why; he's not that "bad," as you think. He even carries your teammates in bride style, and likes to joke around in serious, stressful matches at the end of the day. And very polite gentleman.

So curious about him, you asked the hunters you trust when he usually comes to the garden, and then you decided to do your activities in it, hoping to see him today.

You painted, grafted, shaped, played music, listened to music, and even helped Emma water the whole garden. You spent almost 3 hours just hoping he would show up before your match schedule start. And just when you were about to give up-

"Helloooo there, little child. I must say you know where and when to pick the most perfect time for a suitable experience."

You turned around to see the very man you waited for, Jack the Ripper, outside the matches and in the open? You must be lucky. A smile rose on your face as you greeted him.

"It's great to see you too. I hope you don't mind me bothering you with my presence."

You watched him as he went further into the garden, chatting with Emma for a few moments. You wanted to speak to him, but you didn't exactly know how. So all you did was paint one specific flower that you liked and show him. Maybe it wouldn't be so awkward.

In a good 10 minutes, you finished, and while you admired your art piece and prepared to show it to him, he was already bent down beside you to judge.

"Hmmm..... very impressive, I do notice improvements in your details. But I fear there is something off about it."

You looked between him and the painting, figuring out what was missing. After a long silence, he finally stated.

"You don't have any idea how to light and shadow a flower, do you?"

You shook your head, saying you did what felt right.

"I do like to believe this statement as well, but sometimes there are better ways, especially when you can improve it much better. Here, give me your brush."

You hand him your brush as he takes your place, watching him work his magic on your art piece and fixing any mistakes. He makes sure to tell you where you messed up.

You were surprised, to say the least. You ask him if he's an artist, but he shatters your little heart when he says he stopped being one a long time ago. For you, you did feel frustrated, angry, and sad, however. You didn't give up on your journey, even on days you wanted to pull your hair out.

A thought crosses your mind. A white lie. You tell him you don't know how to paint certain things and would like him to teach you. He remains silent after your explanation, which creeps you out.

He knows you're lying, but it's not harmful, and he understands why. However, teaching you to paint? Out of all the requests, he prefers bring you the supplies you need.

"Hm... I asked too much. Would you mind if I left for a few minutes?"

You only nod, and he takes off. You felt guilty. Maybe you shouldn't have asked him; maybe you missed your chance.

20 minutes passed, and he still didn't show up. Yep. Might as well cry a bit tonight.

You gathered up your things, only your paints and canvas left. Once you collected them, you heard a familiar violin playing inside the manor. You decided to stay a bit to listen to it before you leave. You wondered if it was a stupid decision. You could just ask the hunters and survivors if you really wanted to know more about him.

"Fascinating, is it? Antonio's violin charms everyone to enjoy the moment, as if they are just puppets he controls."

Jack almost gave you a heart attack, but you forgot about it very quickly when you noticed him holding different types of objects—a bunch of paints and canvases.

"I did say I would leave you for a few minutes. You should learn be more patient. Anyway, sorry for taking your time. That da Vinci boy wasn't pleased to see me."

He placed the canvases and objects in the proper way before asking you to take your place.

"You are a very talented child. Your previous request was too silly to believe, so I brought things rather difficult to test you out and sharpen your skills."

And he wasn't joking when he said it would be difficult. At least he was more patient and easygoing than (da Vinci young boy).

One hour before the matches started, he decided you had had enough for today. He was focused on drawing small sculpture. So you took a chance to draw something.

Just when he finished his painting, you quickly told him you had to get ready for your matches, then left so fast, leaving one standing canvas behind. Before he could call you out about it, you were already far gone. So he let out a sigh and mumbled something about children these days.

He gathered all the stuff and went to your canvas as well, only to see a full drawing of a person.

It was him, focused on his own painting, with many red and blue roses around him. You almost made him seem like an innocent art teacher who loves nature. And well... one or two of those is true.

He couldn't help but admire it. How you pictured him in your head, how clueless you are about him, almost making him pity you.

If it weren't for Emma coming back because she's forgot something and noticed him, he would be quite late for his match. Not that he would have a problem with it; he would rather watch the painting dry so he can take it to his room later.

⋅ ──────────── ⋅

Nobody truly knows him, especially with how his personality switches so fast, but when he's in a "normal" state, he does feel guilty about... everything. He would rather meet you outside this game, an artist teaching young people how to draw. Yeah, that would be much better than being "Jack the Ripper."

I'm sorry, but he can't really promise to help you with drawing; he doesn't enjoy it anymore. But he can give you tips and bring you what you're missing.

He tried to learn other forms of art but changed his mind too quickly when he failed miserably. No, he would rather sleep underground to have someone guide him.

High chance he would take your artwork and study it, did you improve? How much? Was it easy or hard? How did you feel when you finished it? He can tell more about it. And he usually comes up and tells what he thinks about it and what to improve (if you want, of course). He hopes that one day, you will beat your fellow artist survivors.

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°••°•°•°•°•°•

♡

Hi hello I want to bury myself :3 I seriously need to buy a novel book or smth because I feel stupid using simple words lmao 💀 #help

Anyway Have a nice day :D

[pumpkinsy0]

Do u have headcanons about or what do you think about a 90s or 00s AU (maybe) where Curly Shepard is a punk and Ponyboy a goth or a babybat? ^_^ Like imagine purly but ponyboy tries to show his obsession for edgar allan poe and curly or the gang JUST DON'T GET IT 😭

wym anon that literally already IS purly🙄🙄

BUT YEA I DO HAVE HCS!!!! o(^-^)o

(for context who dont know, baby at is the name for like ppl who r newly goth basically, theyre just starting out listening to music n stuff like that)

•since curly is punk here and the whole idea of punks is essentially anti establishment and love individuality i will NOT make him make fun of pony for being goth, especially when hes a babybat hes just embracing himself

•also curly is curly i feel like hes a bit morbid himself and would be at the very least interested in edgar allen poe, so even if he wasnt punk he wouldnt make fun of pony for liking him, even if he does thats just bc hes being friendly and just does NOT like poetry

•ill place this in like, late 90s and early 2000s, so there is that huge thing against goths and punks for being ‘weird’ and against god or something along those lines

•curlys pretty used to being targeted for being different for his punk style and such while pony isnt exactly used to that so i imagine that hes more protective while ponys trying to figure himself out in that regard

•some bands pony would b interested in is evanescence, the cure, and siouxsie and the banshees, london after midnight, of course there IS more but these r like more so his favs

•how pony found out about gothic bands was like, a song was playing in darrys car radio and darry didnt rlly like it so he changed it but the song was already stuck in ponys head

•he brought it up to curly but pony was just like ‘idk maybe itll pass’, it in fact DID not pass and later they was just chillin in curlys car and the song came back on the radio and pony was like ‘neuron activated’

•curly was personally not rlly into the song, but hey, ponys happy so its whatever

•personally i imagine that pony doesnt have a gothic STYLE more so he has a love for gothic songs and literature, yknow what i mean??? but maybe he does borrow some clothes from curly thats more on the gothic side or thrifts some clothes

•other than edgar allen poe, he does like phantom of the opera, frankenstein, dracula, carmilla, dr jekyll and mr hyde, also he would like ruby gloom (thank my gf for this hc)

•his art style is kinda influenced by those media actually

•as for what type of goth he is i could mostly see him being like a geek goth, but he is interested in the looks of victorian goths and gothabilly goths

IVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT PONY FOR TOO LONG NOW ON ABOUT CURLY

•tbh, not much to add for this guy, punk curly is literally just regular curly but more understanding of who he is and what he wants in the world yknow??

•think of curly but actually a lil more, idk thought provoking in his own curly way with a better understanding of the world

•MAY I INSERT MY HC OF CURLY HAVIN AN AFRO MOHAWK HERE🗣️🗣️

•he is from a haitian household tho and haitian moms especially tend to be more, religious and all that jazz, so while tim and angela get their ears yelled off for well being them, its especially happening to curly bc in his moms eyes hes “turning away from god” n what not being a “vagabon” as many haitian moms would put it

•he likes customizing his own clothes, he thrifts and gets a bunch of hand me downs so might as well make them look cooler

•hes a graffiti artist and hes acc pretty well known, everyone knows its him but they dont rlly say anything cause 1) hes curly shepard but 2) his work rlly isnt that bad actually

•i could totally see him liking green day and he does NOT like fall out boy but he does like a coulle of songs from them (much to his dismay

•hes picking up guitar (how he afforded it??? i payed for it lets just say that)

WHEN IT COMES TO THE GANG, they dont rlly get pony being goth, they support him of course, but they do tend to make fun of him a bit</33 but darry, soda, and johnny do try to understand him more, its rlly just two

ps anon my gf said she loves u for ur idea (shes goth, u got the goth stamp of approval)

[eartheats]

//ooc post but god. for my own sake, i'm organizing and trying to set some hard dates for some events. i'm also looking for some volunteers, specifically BBA adjacent for one of them and just in general for the second! i need to stop keeping plots in my head.

no cws up until the third bullet point, where there is talk of kidnapping (successful attempts on adults, failed attempt on a teen), violence (to adults and to a teen), murder (of an adult and only an adult), mind control, and other evil team shit on the horizon. be forewarned! the final bullet point will be in very high stakes territory, given that noriko fully intends to try and end the world, but feel free to ignore if that isn't your jam. live your lives besties <3

(mid-may ETA): Bouton evolution arc. I need to find someone or multiple someones to bother with a very nosy Roselia who is trying to find a shiny stone, and may potentially steal something sparkly thinking that it's what it needs. If anyone wants to volunteer for this lmk, but I can just as easily borrow Carmine for this if nothing else! (CLAIMED)

(may!): Ren goes back to Zapapico! Temporarily. Jacques is going to get his grand festival trophy from Sinnoh and quietly retire. Ren's going to be in Zapapico and getting used to life back home for a lil while.

(early june through august): I wanna work in the Iron Crown sighting/healing arc I have in the works, because while Ren's not going to CATCH the paradox, it's going to be something that works alongside any volunteers for taking care of Noriko's evil team resurgence. Mostly as extra assurance for them to lose! Tatiana reconciliation Arc will probably take place around here too. basically, if anyone wants involvement with zapapico/ren just in a general context, feel free!

(start of september) Ren goes back to Blueberry! Madison and Jacques will be posting some of notes they find from Noriko, which will have some involvement IC if desired since I'll be using Caesar Ciphers to scramble shit up if anyone wants to play detective. :3c They'll also briefly be around to post on Ren's blog/answer questions!

(mid september) The final batch of notes is found and translated, and the opening to Noriko's secret base of operations is opened! But Madison/Jacques are going to end up kidnapped here by Iori, an admin in Noriko's Neo Flare stuff and actually a faller from Hisui! She'll be available to interact with for at least a day. <3 Design coming soon, I need to figure out her nonsense.

(also mid september) yeah so ren is. escaping the academy, even if it tries to keep them constrained. they are going to be meeting their mom on the remains of cinnabar island, where one confrontation may take place. please keep in mind if you try to do a ren rescue party, it is going to fail. (very specifically for ren) it has to fail for the next leg of the plot, but i AM potentially considering getting carmine in on this mess and getting her injured in the process, and while there, noriko is definitely going to think about taking her too so that her kid has a friend. which. yeahno. this one is influenceable, but is MUCH more likely to fail, so if anyone wants to big damn heroes carmine you have my full permission 👍👍👍 save that girl! (CARMINE SAVING IS HANDLED BY THE GIRLFRIEND BLESS)

as a small aside: would anyone like to get ren's very stressed out team to take care of for a bit? noriko's a lot of things but she's not a monster, if anyone wants to take care of the team for a bit/potentially use them against lotus :3c it may be. interesting! (CLAIMED for now)

(october-november? maybe) noriko's neo team flare shit (name pending) will emerge proper and try to be as evil teammy as possible! ren is going to be a mind controlled admin named lotus and have none of their actual pokemon! shit's going to be bad, but! while it might take a bit to organize some losses for them and i may mostly leave that to anyone who wants to fix this mess (we can either handwave or actually play them out, preference to whoever volunteers), but there's gonna be one event specific for camille, one for iori, one for lotus (which can influence how the big admin battle goes), and then what i'm hoping to be a siege on the base. this one i have ways to bullshit a win (for the good guys!!) for, but i wanna see what people come up with, too!

and by the new year, everyone should be recovering, and that'll be the end of team neo flare at least! the rest of the event will decide everyone else but ren's fate. they will end up coming back fine from this, but it's gonna be rough :')

so yeah. basic rubric and very changeable (i gotta ask some players some stuff and things), my only real rule is no instant wins/legendary spam/godmodding really? i want this to be fun but i want it to feel like an actual uphill battle a bit, and i'm still trying to build toward that. this could even be pushed out into 2025, depending, but! yeah!!!

idk if anyone has questions feel free to leave 'em on this post and i will try to get to them when my brain isn't a mess because of retail or other stuff 👍

volunteers (for my ref)

@/suddenlyauntiemaya (bouton evolution arc!!! pushing this one back for this :3b)

@/little-guys-pokemon-central

@/elite-amarys (CARMINE'S SAVIOR!!!)

@/goindownswingin

@/professor-amaryllis (ren rescue party!)

@/electricalflre

@/bee-bee-kyuu (ren rescue party!)

temporary team-ups/team holding:

lulu the orthworm: going to @/professor-amaryllis!

bouton the roserade: @/professor-amaryllis! teaming up to bring lotus back to their senses/back to being ren :3c

coriander the ferrothorn: available! she is not a battling pokemon and is. going to be about as stressed and anxious as lulu, as a warning.

soba the furret: @/bee-bee-kyuu! will be very determined and ready for a fight.

harusame the huntail: available! will also be very determined though a lot more emotional.

any pokemon who is not taken will likely be taken in by amy, and lulu is going to be going to amy instead by default for planning purposes~

[perplexingluciddreams]

I ask because it could be either: do you say you are a transsexual because of language borrowing, or because it feels more right to you than transgender--I also relate to transsexual, so I thought I would ask

A bit of both I think.

Transgender definitely doesn't feel right. I don't like the tactile-ness or shape of the word. And I think because I feel different and have different experiences of gender and sex than what seems a lot of trans people... it feels wrong to use that same word that is used by majority group.

My experiences of gender and sex definitely fall outside of the "norm". I am not typical. But I also have never found anyone else who is same or even much similar to me, with gender experiences.

Transsexual definition feels a tiny bit closer. One of the main changes I want to make is my chest. And that is a sex change category thing, not gender change category thing. However, I am also happy as being female. I am not upset at being called female or being apart of female group. (I think I mainly use the word transsexual because I prefer the tactile-ness and shape of it).

(Oversimplifying sex (and gender a bit too) here, I know it is not as black and white as binary male female. But this is what I understood growing up and until very recently learning more about intersex from here on tumblr.)

Never felt like I should be grouped with boys as a kid, always felt comfortable and fine grouped with other girls in school and stuff. And I say "other girls" because for me, by default I was a girl growing up. Everyone called me as a girl, and I didn't have ability to put words to myself yet. So by default I was what words everyone called me as. And by default I was part of whatever group other people decided to put me in. Due to that, I had experience of growing up as a girl. Disabled girl, yes, which hugely impacts overall experience - I knew I was different from everyone else no matter about gender - but still girl.

I often nowadays call myself a boy. I like the word boy. And I have my own definition in my head that is just the Ezra version of "boy". I don't think of myself as part of overall boy "category" or group. I don't fit in there. I also don't fit in with girl category/group. But feel a bit more comfortable be automatic put in that category because I am used to that, it is familiar.

Socially, I don't fit in anywhere. Not only due to gender. Gender-wise, I don't feel that I fit in anywhere. I am on the outside of everything.

For my transition, a lot of parts that seem like gender-related-stuff is actually mostly explained by other reasons (sometimes with gender as smaller sub-reason, or as positive side effect, or not at all related).

For example: name change is because birth name was very connected to trauma, and also changing name means I feel more connected with it and more in control. Mum helped pick name! Masculine name is just because I like it and it feels right to me. Basically same story with change of pronouns. (Here is gender as sub-reason and positive side effect).

Even the fact that I want my chest removed/dramatically reduced - this is in big majority part due to physical discomfort and pain. Due to sensory issues, chronic pain, hypotonia and muscle weakness, and more. I do have some dysphoria around my chest. But mostly about how huge it is. (Here, gender is small sub-reason, and it would receive positive side effect of top surgery or dramatic breast reduction. But big majority reason for need this is the physical - sensory and discomfort and pain).

As for other physical traits... I feel very neutral. I like some parts of my body. Other parts I feel completely neutral, no bother. I only really care if something causes me physical/sensory discomfort or pain.

Due to disabilities, I am not aware of how the entire of me really looks like. And especially not aware of how anyone else would perceive me. Or how they might mentally categorise me based on my appearance/presentation. So I almost completely miss out on that aspect of dysphoria that I see lots of people describe.

I occasionally start to think hypotheticals and wonder what is in someone else's head when they see me. Mainly that is around anxiety about be judged or mocked for visible disabilities - because I have had that a lot in my childhood. And realistically, my disabilities is the (probably, most likely) first thing anyone will notice when looking at me. I do sometimes wonder how someone else sees me gender-wise... but always come to the conclusion that I just can't know, I don't have enough awareness.

But I still get conflicting feelings about it all. And I just have a lot of confusion about gender and sex and my feelings about them, all the time. I struggle a lot to identify and understand my own feelings. And with this topic I know I feel a lot of complex things.

I think I might never really fully figure it out or be able to explain it to someone. Especially not in only one or few words. So the words is a really hard part of that.

My experiences are very very very coloured by my disabilities. My disabilities affect my perception and comprehension of gender and sex overall. I suspect that some of my feelings is directly caused by my autism. My experience of gender is completely entwined with being as disabled as I am.

Whenever I have these thoughts spinning around in my head, I always come to the same final conclusion: Even if I never find any other words to label or describe or explain... it doesn't matter so much. Because most of all, I am just me, just Ezra.

I did quite a ramble here! I hope I answered your question in there somewhere. Have a nice day/night/whatever time it is for you! 😊👍

[cobaltperun]

I actually don’t really listen to taylor swift that much either but my little cousin kinda forced me to listen to her playlist and that song came up 😂

All the bells went off in my head when I heard the line “at every table I’ll save you a seat” cause in my head, since reader and Jenna had breakfast together while filming scream, whoever got there first would totally save the seat next to them for the other one

- 🤟

Okay, that's actually adorable 😁

That line definitely fits them the best, probably followed by 'have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years' or if I were to go down the jealous route 'and I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you' because look, we are all here because of Jenna, so, breaking the fourth wall with that one? 🤣🤣🤣

Okay, yeah, jokes aside, while I didn't write the scene, I reckon that would have happened, at least until the rest of the cast figured one of the seats next to either of them is reserved for the other.

Fuck it: Here's a deleted scene for you all:

Eternal Flame - deleted not at all added right now scene 1

Mason had gotten used to plenty of things on the set of Scream. From him and Jack being the ones responsible for the movie projector they borrowed from the hotel, not because no one else could do it, but because the hotel staff preferred to lend it to the same people. To you sometimes cooking better than the chefs in the hotel kitchen. To Jenna almost constantly wearing earbuds and sometimes sharing one with whoever was sitting next to her, so, mostly you or occasionally Melissa. To David giving art lessons.

He got used to it all.

He did not get used to Jenna looking grumpy at the breakfast table.

Melissa was sitting next to her, but there was an open seat to her right, and from the looks of it, nothing Melissa was saying worked to cheer her up. She just absent-mindedly messed with whatever was in front of her.

He would not let her start her morning like this! He would be a good co-star! A good friend! And cheer her up!

The gasps around him when he grabbed the chair next to Jenna meant nothing, he would not be dettered!

"Hey, Jenna, what's up?" he sat down next to her and Jenna immediately whipped around and stared at him, more specifically at the seat he had just taken. And even Melissa's jaw dropped.

"Hi," she greeted him slowly and Melissa just quickly mouthed your name and pointed at the chair he was currently occupying.

"Y/N?" he repeated your name, not yet understanding what the issue was, and then it hit him. This was your place, and you weren't there. "Right," he moved to the empty seat next to your own and then once again turned to Jenna. "What's up?"

Jenna smiled a bit. "Don't worry about it, I'm okay," she shrugged and then, before he could tell her he was there for her as her friend and assure her she could turn to him if needed, the doors opened and you walked in. Yawning and dressed in your usual post-work-out clothes.

"Morning," you raised your hand and greeted everyone, grabbed some toast and something to spread on it and dropped down on the chair next to Jenna's. "Hey, Jen, sorry I'm late," was it just him or did you greet Jenna in an entirely different way than the rest of them? And most importantly Jenna was no longer grumpy, so Mason kinda just got up to pour himself another cup of coffee because he must have been seeing things.

Jasmin, who was getting her own coffee, patted him on the back. "There, there, I'll explain later," she assured him, yet Mason still remained confused.

Well, at least Jenna was in a good mood once again.

Wait, did Jenna just lean closer to you so your arms were touching? "Am I missing something?" he whispered to Jasmin.

Jasmin just sighed. "Nothing at all," she paused, turned around to leave then whipped around and pointed at Jenna and you. "Just the birth of this generation's acting power couple!" she whisper shouted and Mason just looked at you and Jenna again and pointed subtly toward you.

"Jenna and Y/N?" he asked and Jasmin groaned. Right, that was a stupid question.

"As long as they get out of the will they won't they phase," Jasmin sighed.