#I just think tall weirdo freak is better than ‘small gremlin’

[penini-ink]

Some doodles!! Started my first week of school so I’ve been working on coloring these since then :3

Will it help if I introduce willowfrid to the weslow propaganda :3

Anyway if you want please give me some requests! Hopefully I’ll actually be able to draw them and maybe make a full piece as well…

[some-cookie-crumbz]

Puny

Puny Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Pairing: Kidge Summary: AU featuring Katie the bartender and a mysterious stranger rolling into her dull, small town. Standard Disclaimer: If you read and enjoy this, please give it a like/ reblog so I know if I should write more. AN: I struggled a bit with this one but I still think this story turned out pretty okay.

Katie wasn’t necessarily satisfied with her job at The Stale Ale, the only bar in town, but it was a way to pay the bills. She had been living in the small, dull mountain town of Kerberos for nearly three years and been at the bar since she got there. She’d come here because the idea of college hadn’t been appealing but she’d needed some sense of independence from her family. Her parents had been terribly disappointed with her admission that she wasn’t going to take the scholarships or go to college right away, insisting that she would be wasting her time if she didn’t go for a degree. Her brother, Matt, had been much better about it, saying that he understood that she needed to take time for herself to reflect on what she really wanted out of life. She hadn’t spoken to her parents much since she moved but she did keep up with Matt as regularly as she could. He was, after all, busy with his own life.

And living in Kerberos and working at the bar certainly weren’t helping.

Every night was the same; the same faces, the same incidents, the same cleaning tasks and the same shifts. It was all so routine and expected that it felt like she was even more lost than she was three years ago. She ducked back behind the bar after taking the construction workers that came in every Friday night their first round of cheap, draft beer, tossed the serving tray on top of the stack, and pulled up her cutting board to get started on slicing some limes. A quick check of the clock showed that it was a quarter to eight, meaning that the bowling league guys would be showing up for their nightly round of pool and beer soon. It’d be best to have the limes ready to go before they arrived, simply to make her life easier.

The bell above the front door chimed lightly and an unfamiliar figure hovered in the doorway.

She cocked her head as the tall figure made their way to the bar itself, sliding into a bar stool and motioning him over with a small nod of his head. The first thing that caught her eye was the leather riding jacket and hunched shoulders, his arms seeming to be hidden within the front pockets of his jacket. “You got any food here?” He asked, blowing a few strands of his inky bangs out of his eyes.

“Depends on what you’re looking for,” She said, leaning her arms against the counter. He shifted back a bit in his seat, seeming to pull a little bit closer to himself.

“Do you have, like, some kind of fish?” He huffed.

She quirked an eyebrow then shrugged. “We have a tuna salad sandwich. Would that work for you?”

“Can I just get a plate of the tuna salad stuff? Like, no bread or anything extra, just the fishy part? Oh, and a little cup of milk?” He asked, glancing down as if to check his boots and then back up.

She frowned a bit. “Not interested in something a little more��� Typical of a place like this?” She asked, gesturing around her with one hand.

He pinned her with a bland look before shaking his head. “When you put it like that, I guess I’ll take a beer, too. Whatever you’ve got that’s on tap and won’t have me spilling my guts out later,” He said evenly.

“Whatever you say, chief,” She said, giving him a quick salute before turning and heading to the back of the kitchen.

Gomez, the line cook, perked up as she made her way over to the fridge where he kept most of his supplies. “What are you looking for, Kat?” He asked calmly, walking over and leaning against the counter beside it.

“Got a weirdo out there that, get this, wants a beer, milk, and a plate of just tuna mix. Mind grabbing me a plate?” She asked, grabbing the container of tuna salad mix and the open carton of milk. She had one in the mini fridge up behind the bar for certain mixed drinks, but she hadn’t had to open it yet and wanted to prolong it. Once it was opened, she had to remark the labels on it for freshness.

“Yeesh, sounds like a real odd ball. If he starts acting like a total freak, remember to grab the bat we keep up there. It still hanging on the hooks right underneath?” He asked, opening the container and scooping out some of the tuna to plop on a plate. He offered it to her once she had poured some milk into a small cup.

“Thanks for the reminder, Gomez,” She said with a small laugh. The bat was supposed to be a deterrent for any potential robbers, though she didn’t exactly see the point. After all, if someone came at her with a gun, they’d probably be able to shot before she could land any decent blows with the bat.

She took the plate and glass back out to the bar, peering around the guy at the bar to see the bowling guys had come in and were starting to rack the balls at their table. She set the two down in front of the stranger and turned back to the long line of beers, grabbing a frosty mug and holding it up to the nozzle. “Never seen you around here before. Just passing through or planning to stick around?” She called over her shoulder as she prepared the beer.

“Not planning to stay here too terribly long; just got some business to sort out and then I’ll probably be moving along again,” He said, his jacket making noise as he moved.

She had just turned around to set down the beer when he eyes fell to the small, sickly looking fuzz ball now set on the bar counter.

“What is that?” She asked, setting the mug down and watching as he set the little gremlin down on the plate, watching it sniff at the tuna before licking at it cautiously.

“What, never seen a kitten before?” He scoffed, reaching down to carefully stroke down along its little spine with his index and middle fingers. Tiny, rumbly purrs could be heard as the kitten started going to town on the tuna.

“That thing is a kitten? But it looks so… Puny,” She said as she picked up another serving tray and started preparing the beers for the pool players.

“It was half dead on the side of a road, so it’s probably a bit on the frail side. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a kitten,” He scoffed, picking up his beer with his other hand and taking a swig. He made a face before setting it down and returning his attention to the kitten. “But I take it you’ve been here a while?”

“Excuse me?” She asked in surprise as she picked up the tray.

He looked over his shoulder at the pool table and then over at the tray in her hands. “You seem to have a regular schedule around here,” He commented.

She scowled a bit and waved a hand. “Something like that, I guess,” She said before heading over to the table.

The guys greeted her with their usual loud, unified shout of her name. Sampson made his weekly pass at her, complimenting how her work pants fit on her using highly vulgar terminology. Andrew apologized for Sampson, the beaten down little brother that all overgrown frat boys seemed to have, and slipped her a few extra bucks as an additional apology. Derek was on another one of his tirades about the government tapping phone lines while Kyle, a retired cop, told him that he was just being paranoid and had delusions of grandeur. She made sure to leave the small dish of sliced limes beside the ashtray on the windowsill, knowing full well that Derek would most likely end up knocking them over, regardless of location, before the night was done.

She returned and stared down at the brown and white mottled thing still resting on the plate. It had lapped up a decent amount of the tuna mix and was now lapping at a little bit of the milk. “I swear, that thing looks like a gremlin, no matter how you dice it. Oh, and in response to your comment about me having a schedule, so what if I do? I’ve been here for three years so it makes sense that I’d know what to expect by now,” She said.

“Sounds like this place is pretty dull,” He commented, leaning a little bit more on the counter. He kept one arm curled around the plate to assure his furry companion couldn’t run off to far. “Oh, and thanks for the name suggestion. Gismo will be a great name, regardless of what gender this little thing ends up being.”

She laughed lightly. “If you came to Kerberos in the hopes of adventure and excitement, then you really didn’t do any homework before moving out here. This place has been exactly the same since I showed up. I mean, not even a forest fire or car accident has happened in all my years here, and it’s honestly ridiculously infuriating. It’s like this place is trapped in the Twilight Zone or its own pocket dimension or something like that. First interesting thing to happen here since I came out here has been you showing up with that thing,”

“Sounds like a real hoot. Wish Kolivan had warned me about that before he convinced me to head on out here, then,” He scoffed.

“Your brother or something, I take it?”

“Old friend of my mom’s. He runs a mechanics shop here in town,”

“Yeah, I’m well aware of who Kolivan is. He’s the only mechanic here in town, if he hadn’t mentioned that. I know Trent and Glen up and quit on him last week, though,” She said back. Kolivan was one of the few people in town that wasn’t ear-bleedingly obnoxious or mind-numbingly boring. The man had a lot of interesting stories about all the odd jobs he’d worked over the years that he liked to share when he came by to have a few drinks. He could also play a mean game of darts, which she appreciated.

“Yeah, and Harris put in his two weeks a few days after they left,” The stranger snorted.

“Well that was expected. Ever since him and Theresa tied the knot he and I have been making wagers on how long they’d stick around for; looks like he owes me a sweet twenty bucks. Theresa has always hated this place and doesn’t think it’s a good enough place to raise children,” She said while wiping out a glass with a clean rag.

“Don’t blame her for that opinion. I mean, this place doesn’t even have a school, does it?”

“Not an official one, no,” She said, setting the mug in the clean rack. She then grabbed another mug and started cleaning another. “I mean, Claire offers some classes at her place, but it’s far from a structured curriculum. And since she’d be the only one teaching, it’s limited to whatever she actually knows enough about to teach.”

“Sounds like a real party down in this little town,” He scoffed lightly, chugging the rest of his beer. She took the mug and refilled it for him before taking another tray of beers out to the construction workers, then stopped by the pool table to clean up the spilled remnants of squeezed limes from the floor. “So if it’s so miserable and dull here, why do you stay?” He asked when she settled back behind the counter, the kitten nuzzled into his cupped hand, snoozing with its tiny head resting on his fingers.

“What?”

“I asked why you’re still here. I mean, you seem like a smart girl with plenty of potential. Why stay in a place that seems dedicated to stunting people’s development?” He asked.

She frowned slightly as she pondered the question. It was one she’d thought over herself, in the quiet moments in her apartment as she chased sleep like a starving lion on a young gazelle. She had been hoping that life in a small town would give her clarity, give her a taste of real hard work and accomplishment that would answer all the questions she’d been asking herself. At first, she had been thrilled at getting to enjoy the small town experience. There was something charming about having everyone remember her name and what she wanted, and being able to learn the same things about them. But once she hit six months and it felt like every day was the exact same as the one before it, she started to feel the irritation kicking up.

But her pride kept her from leaving. That would be admitting her decision had been wrong, but she didn’t exactly feel that way, either.

“I guess I’m just waiting to see if anything new happens that motivates me to leave,” She said with a  small shrug, making sure to keep up her poker face. She didn’t need a stranger making fun of her ambivalence to the sorry state of her own life.

“Well, if you ever need your car looked at, ask for Keith over at Kolivan’s. I’m sure you’ll be seeing me a lot in the weeks to follow, so you may as well know my name,” He said, taking the last swig of his beer and then standing.

“If you ever need a drink, just come ask your dear Uncle Katie here,” She said lightly while taking away the now empty mug. He chuckled a bit as he carefully settled the hand with the kitten into the pocket of his jacket.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” He said, waving back with his free hand and heading out. She watched him go, then turned her attention back to preparing the round of whiskey shots she knew the pool players would want. Maybe something good was starting with the arrival of this strange young mechanic rolling into town.