#Pretty sure these guys have been kicking around for over a decade

[youngerfrankenstein]

hello can you introduce us to some of your ocs 👀

THANK YOU!!!

For the most part all my OC’s are from a specific story or story idea but unfortunately(? Maybe just how it is) the main two who live in my head rent free have had their story become more and more nebulous over time (still have a supporting cast though lol) Perhaps someday I will iron things out so they can pay for their stay, but also I just like having them around as imaginary friends.

Jules!

Juliet, but only her dad really calls her Juliet anymore. Mother was a Shakespeare scholar, passed away when she was four, hit her dad really hard. Cheery, energetic, friendly to just about anyone. And it’s only slightly forced at this point! Became a Shakespeare nerd herself and is actually a bit snippy about it. Can speak at least English, Spanish and Irish Gaelic (probably also French?) Has a tendency to not swear in English as to not get caught. Curious and enthusiastic perhaps beyond the point that’s good for her. And perhaps overly optimistic, though that’s largely a choice. A lot less blind to things than people tend to assume. Also a shorter temper. (And I have at this point made the executive decision she’s a big G1 Transformers fan because weirdly it suited her well? Helped her feel less awful about being called a robot due to being very unemotive until age like. 10 or 11. At which point she chose violence for a year or two. Followed by actively deciding the kind of person she would become.) She’s also just generally quite smart, though she also tends to miss the details. And also play up the goofier side of her personality to keep people a little less on-guard.

Sebastian!

Very, very angry teen when he and Jules met. And he was a grouch and a half to her. Basically an angry boy with a crush he had no idea what to do with. But weird shit happened and they became friends. Tends at least early on to lash out and just insult people. He keeps insulting people he just becomes a lot more clever and witty about it. It’s basically part defense mechanism, part a want to see how people react to different things and part he just finds it funny. Voice of an angel. Pianist and kind of a music nerd, taught himself on an electronic keyboard he fished out of the trash and from what theory books he could find at the library. Actually really good at reading people and could be the most charming man you’ve ever met if he didn’t have more fun being mean. That said he’s really not a bad guy and over time becomes a little more willing to be selfless and even hopeful, though he does tend to think the worst of people (he had a really shitty mom). He also becomes way more comfortable in his own skin. Honestly happy Jules never recognized his crush as they are way closer now than they would have been if she had.

(I, kind of have this thing about him where his absolute most hated thing in the world is an untuned grand piano. Since it means the person has the cash to buy one but no love for music or even respect for their own possessions, they just want a status symbol.)

Often they just hang out in my head. Sometimes with random other fictional characters lol. This feels like a dull way to put them but… they mean a lot to me okay? Almost as much as they mean to each other.

[vidavalor]

I've had to disconnect from my dash because of all the negativity; I honestly do not get why people are acting like a semblance of justice+a movie is the worst thing in the world?

I'm mourning for the full six-episode season we lost because ng couldn't pass the utmost basic sub-zero bar for not acting like scum and of course I wish amazon had kicked him out and then sprung for it anyway (and honestly, as long as you're blaming the right person, I think it's fine to feel upset? We deserved better, the cast and crew deserved, Terry deserved better, and this one guy ruins it for everyone because the bar was buried six feet deep beneath the ground and he still managed to go lower, and that does suck, and it is miserable and unfair, so take a moment if you need it 🤷‍♀️) but let's face it, we got off lucky. Arguably, considering this was a standalone novel from the nineties, that then got made, in one of the best book adaptations I've ever seen, into a limited standalone tv miniseries (and, again, emphasising the standalone here, so even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, we'll still always have S1 and the book; people have been ignoring the Jurassic Park sequels for nearly three decades), and then got a surprise sequel, we were pretty lucky the whole way through.

And regarding the whole what if it's bad thing, I was always going to be worried: I was anxious long before this shit went down, and I was anxious before S2 and even S1, as well. It's not like we ever had any guarantee it was going to be good beforehand either, and at this point, knowing what we do now, I'm not at all sure I'd have trusted ng to write this anyways. So while, yeah sure, I'm maybe a little more anxious now, I trust Michael and David with these characters and I trust Rob and Rhianna with Terry's legacy and story and that they wouldn't have fought so hard for this ending unless they planned to keep fighting and thought they could pull it off. Isn't the problem with this kind of thing normally that what happnes is the creator who cares deeply about the work gets pulled in favour of someone out-of-touch who cares not a jot about the story and needs to leave their own grubby fingerprints all over it? More the other way around here, no?

Anyway, what I also wanted to say was that I really appreciated your 'think of it as the final two episodes of season two' (and all your takes on this situation so far, very level-headed and optimistic, thank you). I mean, you're right, and it's hardly wildly out-there for a series to finish on a feature-length special, and although the filler material in S2 and the compression of S3 maybe means it doesn't exactly resemble what the second book would have been, it was only ever meant to be two books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed S2 and was very glad to get it, even though I am a book/S1 fan and also had the most fun in that time fandom pre/post/around the time of the S1 release, but why does it exist? Ego? You can't tell me you couldn't have fit the important parts of S2 into one season with the S3 plotline.)

Basically, I'm grieving the could-have-beens (imagine if he'd been exposed way earlier and the TP estate had had control of this whole production from the very start!) and I'm a little worried that that hurt'll stick around no matter how good S3 is - which I need to fix, because that's more power over my favourite show and what it means to me that I want to give anyone, let alone someone like that - but at the end of day, I do think it definitely can be done with what we have, and I'm choosing to be hopeful it'll be done well, because, well, why wouldn't I?

(I will say this hasn't been great for my faith in humanity, because I really want to believe not all men are shit and some of them are making it very difficult right now, but that's an entirely different problem and so far believing most people are mostly good has always prevailed in the end so. y'know. we'll get there. might reread discworld, that's always good for that.)

Sorry for venting all this at you! I just kinda felt the need to write it all down once to get it off my chest... have a snack on me? I'm partial to cherry tomatoes, green melon and mandarines at the moment (I stop eating salads in winter, which means I default to eating even more fruit) but I can also offer homemade baked goodies fresh from this morning? 🥧

Hi there. 💕 You are welcome to vent away & thank you for the delicious-sounding snacks and kind words. I'm glad my posts on the movie boosted your spirits about it. I agree with and can relate to almost everything that you said here so assume that anything that I don't address just has a 'yes, absolutely' nod happening. 🙂‍↕️

The one thing I want to touch on here is S2 and this idea of it being "filler" that you mentioned that I think might not be quite accurate. I think you (and anyone else who reads this) might feel more enthused about the idea of a good ending in 90 minutes after reading this so hopefully this'll be another way that I can help?

On why S2 is really the whole story and actually had a lot more going on in every way than S1...

Ok, I'm going to explain something that drives writers like myself bonkers 😂 and that is how some readers or viewers of fictional stories mix up plot and story.

Nothing grinds our gears than reading things like "filler" and "unnecessary subplots" because, while everyone is within their rights to have an opinion on written works, 95% of the time, the person who says phrases like this isn't talking about the quality of the work but of its very existence. They're saying "why did we have to read/watch this? it didn't connect to anything" and that's where they are very, very, very... argh, just tell them, Crowley...

...thank you, dear. Right, so, why is it wrong?

Because what many people who don't write don't understand about subplots and more character-driven story arcs is that the writers sat down and decided to do that stuff for very, very specific story reasons. Readers and viewers mistake plot for story. Plot only exists in service of story and, so, all plots exist for a purpose in the story. They're all relevant. In fact, the stuff people usually label as "filler" in a story is really exactly where they should be looking to figure out what the story is saying. If you're big mad about all this time you spent with Maggie and Nina in S2, I'd say you might not still understand what S2 was about because you won't understand Aziraphale's story without understanding both Maggie and Nina's struggles in S2, for example.

A story is the whole, overall thing. It's the meanings, themes, and messages in the work. It's what's being said. It's the ideas being put forth by the piece. It's what it's about. It's different from plot, which is just the stuff the writers are making the characters do or not do in order to tell the story that they are looking to tell. Story is the art; plot is a tool used to make that art. Fiction writers can come at their story from almost anywhere to convey what it is that they are trying to say so there is meaning in the fact that they are choosing to tell their stories the way that they are telling them. They came up with these ideas for reasons.

When you dismiss stuff as filler, you're saying that it's lesser than more in-your-face and bigger plots (when, often, it's very much not), and you're telling a writer how they should have written their own story-- most of the time, without even fully seeing the ending of that story or giving any consideration to why it is that the writer wanted you to read or watch the stuff you're saying wasn't necessary. I'm not arguing that every story is perfect but you aren't getting anywhere near close to being able to evaluate a story if you're not willing to dive into what you were given and consider why it was that you were given those things and what they might mean.

Until the main question that you're asking about every single aspect of a story is "what is this saying?", you're not really fully engaging with a work. You won't get there by dismissing what the artists are telling you is important.

The secret sauce to interpreting fiction are subplots, actually. They exist to help highlight the themes of the main story, often in a slightly more direct way. If you want to understand Good Omens, starting with Ineffable Bureaucracy is actually one of the best ways to get at the core of the themes of the story. It's far from wasted time in the story.

There's actually a funny nod to the importance of subplots in 1941 when Aziraphale references Sophocles, the playwright who basically created the concept of the supporting character whose story mirrors and parallels the main character(s). The mention of Sophocles shows up in S2, the season that brings Gabriel more fully into his purpose as exactly that.

The reason why S2's plot is centered around the honestly pretty easily solvable mystery as to what's happened to Gabriel is because Gabriel, from the get-go, has been the entire story distilled down.

If you follow nothing but Ineffable Bureaucracy in Good Omens, you're going to be closer to getting what it's about and where it's going and what its end game is than you are if you are dismissing it as wasted time when we only have few episodes left. If you haven't yet seen the secret wisdom in Jim-- not to mention understand that Jim and Gabriel are the same person-- then you're probably wigging out more about the movie.

You likely think that S2 was wasted on stuff like Gabriel, or Maggie and Nina's romance, when they should have been getting to Armageddon and The Second Coming already!

You haven't yet noticed that Armageddon has more than one meaning in the series.

It's not always the literal destruction of Earth but also a person's own life crisis. We are all worlds of our own and those worlds can be put at risk if we don't let others in and take care of ourselves and those around us.

When you realize this, you can start to see that S1 goes hard with a freight train of plot all over the place that is related to Armageddon in a more Biblical, apocalyptic sense while it establishes its universe for us but that, once we know how it all works, we can get something like S2... a time where we can step back and start using Armageddon in the more figurative way that the story is also presenting it.

We need to because the story isn't about Heaven or Hell-- it's about being a person. S2 is emphasizing the deeper aspects of the themes and rolling that out at a pace more in line with a person having a few days of inner crisis. When you see that Aziraphale's crisis is the point then you can see how S1 can be about The Four Horsepeople riding to the end of the world and S2 can show War (inner conflict), Pollution (mental health issues), and Famine (symptoms of the other two; lack of food and pleasure and connection; self-starvation and self-denial) as a mental health crisis.

The point is that if you're thinking these characters need to come together to overthrow Heaven and Hell and get to the South Downs Cottage and there's no time slajdflkfwjlkejlje!?!?, then you aren't realizing that not every revolution involves guns and bombs.

People all over the world can start a love train that's far more effective. You might think a subplot about The Hellhound and The Ginger Cat learning to play nice and that they have a fuckton in common and should maybe bury the hatchet and just become eternal bffs already is filler but Crowley and Gabriel aligning is set up for the end game. It's strength in numbers and finding peace and family. They can't overthrow Heaven/Hell without help and Gabriel is the Supreme Archangel. They literally will never have a South Downs Cottage ending without a plot that helped Crowley and Aziraphale see that Gabriel and Beez are on their side.

This is the revolution in Good Omens:

It will take all the characters coming together to overthrow Heaven/Hell and set up something new for us to get a happy ending and we absolutely will. S2 is Gabriel-centric because Gabriel is the key to all of the characters getting a peaceful ending and because he's a split-directly-down-the-middle mirror of both Crowley and Aziraphale. In a season that is more about Aziraphale's inner Armageddon than about an external threat, Gabriel is vital to telling that story. The plot of S2 is every bit as important to the story as S1. I'd argue that it's even more important because takes the time to go at the themes in a slower, deeper way. It needs to because it's a story of a fall that sets up for a story in S3 of a recovery from one.

Good Omens is the absolute perfect combination of a show that is both very, very detail-oriented and full of depth while also being, secretly, an incredibly simple story. I do not mean simple in a negative way but in a chef's kiss sort of way. Simple in a tight and elegant sort of way. This is something that I think some people might not see when they're theorizing but it's something to keep in mind ahead of the movie. Not just because the movie is shorter-- this would have been relevant if we were having a longer S3, too.

Good Omens has a very engaged fan base that looks for the details, yes. *raises hand* I'm one of them lol. And there will be plenty to pour over in the movie, but... the big thing to keep in mind is that your theory needs to be something that is simple, that can be explained in under a handful of scenes, tops, and that is focused on where Aziraphale's story arc is going above anything and everything else.

If you're beginning with time loops and the birth of a new antichrist baby, I'm telling you from ages of experience reading and writing stories, you're going to be way off. If you are over here composing theories of the story that you are arguing are correct and this theory involves, idk... *makes something up* Crowley is really Elvis and Elvis is really The Bentley and when a rainbow hits Whickber Street at exactly 4 minutes into the new season, Satan will be revealed to really be Jesus, I think maybe you might be missing the point of the details that the show has given already. Like the plot, these details exist to reinforce the themes of the story. Story beats everything else-- it's what this is all about.

And what Good Omens is about? Is best summed up by Michael Sheen, in this single sentence that I really, really agree with and have paraphrased more than once in posts:

Good Omens is about the business of living. It's about the human experience, which is the experience of being a person. Everything related to Heaven and Hell and good and evil and Armageddon and supernatural things is plot that only exists to highlight a story about the complexities of being a person.

The supernatural is human and the human is supernatural.

That is what Good Omens is about.

While Crowley and Aziraphale are built as two halves of a whole and are both main characters, Aziraphale is the main character from a technical, story perspective, because he is the character whose story arc is driving both the plot and story forward. He's heading for a happy ending with Crowley in the South Downs by the end of the film. If you're making theories, start with what kind of plot would truly get him there and still fit with all of the themes of the story.

This 'it's about being a person' business is why if you look at S2 as filler and not as a season that is exploring the continuing themes on a deeper level, you're still worried about things like there being no time in a movie to show the story of a new antichrist kid being born or how they're going to fit the whole Second Coming into the movie. You don't yet see that Aziraphale parallels Adam and that being an antichrist is basically just being a person and that Aziraphale is presently the antichrist in the story. There is no antichrist child yet to be born. They won't be cutting it because it's not the story.

Armageddon since S2 has been Aziraphale's own personal one and the story from the end of S2 on is now how, if all the other characters can't come together to help him, it could also trigger Armageddon of the S1, Earth-destroying kind. It's tying a more literal Armageddon into a more figurative one. Because this story is about being a person so Armageddon is just metaphorical for going through a mental health crisis and shutting people out.

This story's themes include that every person matters and we all have to let others in and look out for one another. That there's strength in numbers. That found family and adopted family is as much family as biological family-- often, even more so. That labelling and categorizing people is bullshit and you should always open the cover and read the first sentences of people and help people whose stories begin with the same letters find one another. That it might be surprising who has things in common. It's about all of Heaven and Hell versus all of humanity, in the sense that ideas of being a perfect angel or being seen as an evil demon are concepts felt by human beings that get in the way of peace and healthy, happy living, but that fighting them is a common, human struggle, regardless of from where you come.

If you are too focused on the religious plot being the center of the film, you haven't yet seen the meaning of why the end of S1 was an eleven year old kid saving the world by telling off the bio-dad that was never there for him. You might be one of the people who thought this a silly, anti-climatic ending to that story, and don't yet realize that this is the entire story in a nutshell.

Adam can only reject Satan and keep the darkness at bay because he is surrounded-- here, literally-- by a family that supports him. He has good people for parents and was lucky enough to grow up with resources that all kids in this world should have. He has an absolutely terrific group of friends. He has this witch lady and her boyfriend and these two gay uncles that just showed up out of nowhere 😂 and his human incarnate self has what it needs to make it through this crisis, in this moment, even if he'll probably have others throughout his life, just like all of us. He's not evil incarnate and he doesn't have to be perfect-- he's just a person.

Aziraphale tells Adam this but struggles to see himself in the same way. That's what S2 is about.

S2 is about that other kid who, like Adam, breaks the season down into a single line of dialogue, David Tennant's apparent favorite from the season:

Jemimah knows who she is and she is happy to claim ownership over her art and contributions to the world. She's living her life with excitement and enthusiasm in a way that gets more complicated as we become traumatized adults. Crowley and Aziraphale struggle with this. They have been making a life together on Earth for thousands of years and each struggle, in their own ways, to truly accept that they are people who are allowed to have a life because they struggle to accept that they are people, just like everyone else.

Their story is about getting to a better place with that. That's really all Good Omens fundamentally is. That's why their ending is going to be to go live in a little cottage together that isn't a business that covers up an angelic embassy that covers up a secret love den. It's just their house-- theirs together for the life they're going to live openly together.

If you want some peace with the film, I'd advise throwing over your theories about The Second Coming and Armageddon needing to happen and antichrist kids and how Jesus fits into everything. Jesus in Good Omens is Crowley romancing Aziraphale at the crucifixion and Aziraphale using what Jesus said to Crowley to reject temptation as invitation to fuck him. I thought Jesus in a single scene or less was the most likely thing for S3 and the same holds for the movie. It's not the story. The only time The Second Coming is mentioned in S2 is by the villain and, to get there, Earth would have to first be destroyed. It won't be.

If the story is about being a messy human walking the Earth and we're in the end game now, then the story is about Aziraphale and only Aziraphale. Everything-- everything-- will be in service of Aziraphale's story arc. We already had just a few episodes with S3 and we now have even less time but the way this is going is still the same. The story is Aziraphale's fall and the other characters coming together to challenge Heaven to keep Aziraphale from eternity in Hell. That's how Armageddon is stopped this time around-- overthrowing Heaven with Aziraphale's fate as the motivation to take on The Metatron. It's nothing to do with Jesus. It's everything to do with Aziraphale.

When you see that, you can see how feasible that is in 90 minutes, with plenty of time for things like 1941, Part 3 and other flashbacks.

I think, when all is said and done, you might wind up appreciating S2 more after the film but you can get there already if you start looking at it less as meaningless fluff and start asking why it is that we were shown this story, in this way, and what that can tell us about the story we're watching.

[razorblade180]

Random MHA chapter 427 thoughts (spoilers duh)

Midoriya is a better man than me because I’m not getting called a murderer hatefully by someone who worshiped The Hero Killer. Sir, your idol tried to kill my friend’s brother who’s just a nice person.

“You should make it a comic” is unironically a really cold response. That’s crazy.

It makes complete sense society does not give a fuck about Tomura. There’s a difference between sympathy and empathy; even if they learned everything, it’s a hard sell to make people care about someone who took their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, etc.

I do find it a little obtuse to pin society for people like Tomura and Dabi specifically when the main reason they were such a problem is literally because the personification of evil (AFO) was plotting on these for decades. Yeah Endeavor is major key for Dabi but that boy would’ve burned to death as a child or been found by his dad/firemen if AFO wasn’t being unhinged. Honestly if we’re talking about Hero Society failing anyone specifically by its structure, it’s Toga cause not having any solution for child development regarding taboo quirks like hers is insane. Spinner’s issue essentially racism and that’s a complex problem before hero society. That’s just a societal problem in general! I personally can’t pin that blame on hero society specifically.

I see so many people hating on Deku after reading this and I just don’t get it. The 15 year old boy literally did everything he could and gave up everything but his life for a person who by no means was going to turn over a new leaf and did not feel bad about his actions.

Overhaul has been nothing but a mentally broken/unstable double amputee that’s been in confinement ever since he lost. Don’t really understand why there’s a need to kick this guy more since the villain he was has been dead forever. He’s also objectively done less atrocities and yet nobody seems to feel bad for him. Dude was also an orphan taken in by organized crime too but since he abused a child we got to learn about he deserves no sympathy? Okay. Oh we’re supposed to feel absolutely devastated by Tomura though? Pfft, I’m not. “You should feel bad about Eri forever.” Okay, but can you he do that with prosthetics and a mental institution since Y’know… he doesn’t have a quirk.

Seriously, if the message is “society should do better when it comes to how villains happen” then at least give Overhaul the ability to eat without help. I agree with the idea of Eri not seeing him but like… that dude could rebuild Japan quickly with his quirk. That MF could probably fix Dabi if he tried. Maybe I’m not hero material cause with Eri’s consent, I would’ve negotiated giving his arms back so he could fix grandpa; but before he gets to save grandpa he fixes the country and gravely injured heroes. Does it cheapen some events? Perhaps. Do I want Bakugo and Deku to not have medical problems at 22? Also yes. I’m typically not big on undoing lots of things but it’s not like the heroes didn’t earn a portion of their life back. You can spin it positively. If Endeavor isn’t in a wheel chair, then nobody has to aid him cause I’m pretty sure his wife and Todoroki are just nice enough to wheel him around but they could be doing better things.

[katyawriteswhump]

the freak in the penthouse, epilogue 1/2

E-rated (for sexual content), accidental millionaire eddie/sex-worker steve. On tumblr: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3.1 Part 3.2 Part 4.1 Part 4.2 Part 5.1 Part 5.2 Part 6.1 Part 6.2 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 or search #thefreakinthepenthouse :) On AO3

Chapter 17: Epilogue (part 1)

One year later

Eddie strode across the lobby of the Beverly Hills Yorkshire.

He slid his blaring Walkman headphones from his ears—savoring the delectable mutterings of high-and-mighty folks’ having their feathers ruffled by his mere presence—and slammed his credit card down on the reception desk. He slammed its hapless occupant with the mega-watt grin that’d studded his life more regularly this year than the last.

His fiendish gurning was set off to perfection by rocker hair that was ‘so last decade,’ an Exodus t-shirt featuring the band performing cannibalism; and jeans with a rip up his left thigh that artfully allowed the cool air to kiss through his underpants to his butt-cheek.

“Room for a little one, Sweetheart?” That brought a raspberry blush to the male receptionist’s cheeks. “Penthouse suite would be a blast.”

“Uh… right. Yes, of course. Let me see what we have available, Sir.” The guy eyeballed the card nervously, although, frankly, Eddie’s nerves were kicking off too. This had seemed like a hilarious jape last night, at least to Eddie, if only to make the forced-conformity piggies around him wriggle and squeal…

…and to get a bad day off to an unsettling start for one particular douchebag who needed bringing down a billion pegs or so.

The receptionist had wandered into the back office, and then… Eddie rubbed his sweaty palms together, and mumbled, “Showtime.”

Head concierge, Larry Kline, emerged from behind the scenes. Eddie detected some decidedly pinched lines at the edges of Kline’s oily smile.

I know why you’re sweating. You’ve been summoned to an ‘extraordinary’ meeting of the board of shareholders who own this hotel.

Unlike me, you don’t have the faintest clue as to why.

“Mister Munson.” Each syllable was a stabbing ice-pick. “I’m afraid the Penthouse Suite is occupied. In fact, we are fully booked.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” sang Eddie. Robin had already checked for him.

Kline pressed two white-knuckled fists to the counter, dropping his voice to a snakey hiss. “You’ve got a damn cheek, coming here, after you assaulted another guest.”

“Those charges were dropped, man,” announced Eddie, loud and theatrical. “I think you’ll find the lying son-of-a-bitch who made those accusations is now in jail. Then again, if this hotel ONLY WELCOMES JAILBIRDS then I’ll be on my merry—"

“Get out!” Kline jabbed a finger toward the revolving door. “Get out before I summon the police!”

“Cops, huh?” Pretty much everybody in the lobby was now gawking at them, and the lyrics of ‘I hate everything about you,’ by Ugly Kid Joe radiated tinnily from Eddie’s headphones. The snark-fest song wasn’t a favorite or the most subtle choice. Kline would never have appreciated the depths of any true thrash metal track. Either way, Klein was enjoying the show a lot less than Eddie. And Eddie was only the warm-up act. “Call ’em if you want, Sweetpea. I’ll wait for my room-key, or for the cops to come and arrest me for…” He drummed his fingers on his lower lip. “What exactly?”

“I should think rifling through your pockets for illegal substances would reap dividends,” seethed Kline. “We had to fumigate that suite after you left.”

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that, dude. I quit my entire spectrum of smokey substances over a year ago.”

Eddie blew Kline a kiss then was pretty sure he detected steam hissing from the concierge’s ears.

The receptionist cleared his throat. “Mr Kline? The, uh, board of shareholders are waiting.”

Eddie didn’t miss a beat. As soon as Kline disappeared, tugging at his neckerchief, Eddie skedaddled to the nearest service corridor, where Robin was waiting for him.

“Is he okay?” asked Eddie.

“Yeah, I think so. He’s all set.”

She hooked her arm through his and tugged him through a small door. At first impression, they seemed to have entered a cramped space, almost totally filled by a table of used coffee-cups and leftover and half-eaten pastries. Then, as the hum of conversation rose in his ears again, he realized they were behind a curtain at the catering section of a huge conference room.

Robin peeped around the curtain. Eddie held back, fists curling so tight his rings and nails gouged his palms.

Steve had gone through a lot in this past year. Too much. He’d stood up in court, faced the most brutal of interrogations. With the help of other abuse victims, who Suzie’s legal team had traced and supported, he’d helped dump a whole bunch of nasty pieces of shit in jail. It’d been impossible to keep his name out of the press completely. On the other hand, the exact nature of the financial handouts to the Harrington heir—following early victories in his ongoing multi-million-dollar lawsuit against his parents’ lawyer, Martin Brenner—had been kept more or less under wraps.

In the final months before Brenner had been arrested on charges of fraud and sex trafficking, he’d purchased shares in the Beverly Hills Yorkshire. It had been why his current jailbird buddy, Dickchester, had switched hotels and had been allowed to treat the staff like dirt. Robin had known that at the time, even though she’d had no clue that these were Steve’s abusers. Now, the vast majority of Brenner’s assets were in the process of being transferred to Steve.

Eddie sucked a swift breath into his leaden lungs and peeped around the curtain.

The room was bigger than his and Steve’s entire apartment—and for LA, theirs wasn’t exactly a broom cupboard. On the other hand, the illusion of space was magnified by the small number of shareholders—six men and two women, all pushing retirement age. A little apart sat Vickie, the hotel’s newly recruited business manager. And, at the far end, a guy barely out of his teens sat at the head of the vast table.

Steve was rocking the power vibes. He’d paired his ray-bans with an Armani suit—Eddie reluctantly conceded his boyfriend made even establishment bling hot—countered by the pair of Nike Airs he’d gotten planted on the table. His hair was so perfectly groomed that Eddie fought an urge to run out and ruffle it.

Yeah, Steve had nailed the act. Apart from, perhaps, the arms he’d gotten wrapped tight and defensively around his middle.

Eddie’s own hand clamped to his stomach. He was so nervous, suddenly, he felt sick. “Should we—”

“Ssssh!” Robin pressed a finger over her lips.

Kline had entered at the far end of the conference room. Silence reared up. “To what do I owe this honor?” he smarmed. “Should I take a seat?”

“No,” said Steve, tipping back on his chair. He nodded to an older lady, sporting the archetypical blue rinse, twinset and pearls, who sat to his left. “Vera? Would you do the honors?”

She stood up: “Mister Kline, a multitude of instances of gross misconduct have been brought to our attention. It is the unanimous decision of the shareholders that you should be dismissed today. With immediate severance of all pay.”

“But… but…” Kline’s hands flapped wildly before clapping together in a prayer: “Ladies, Gentleman. I am sure this is a trifle—a misunderstanding that can be easily cleared up. Shouldn’t I at least know what these accusations of misconduct are? Who is making them against me?”

“All those questions can be answered by our new majority shareholder,” said Vera. “Mr H—”

“Thanks, Vera,” said Steve, cutting her off with a breezy wave. He changed the cross of his ankles on the table. “Kline, you’re a bully and a liar. You’re also one hundred percent guilty of physically assaulting at least one member of staff in this shith… uh, I mean, in this fine institution. I’m happy to testify to that, but I’m sick of court cases. I want this to be over.”

Kline’s eyes stretched wide. Robin grabbed Eddie’s hand, finding it as clammy as his own. Had Kline figured it out yet?

Steve raised his sunglasses to nail Kline with a death-ray glare. “You’re fired, asshole.”

“You?” squeaked Kline.

“Yeah, it’s me. Let’s recap for your jumped-up little pea-brain. Treating me like shit? Treating anybody like shit, just because you can get away with it?” As the former chief concierge opened and shut his mouth like a beached fish, Steve smirked, apparently totally at ease now: “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”

…

Steve let Vera bark the final orders: “Clear your desk, Kline. You have five minutes to get out, before security will kick you into the gutter where you belong.”

Steve’s heart pounded against his ribs.  Adrenaline tore through his veins. He watched Kline scuttle from the room like the cockroach he was, and then unleashed what felt like the longest, most heartfelt sigh of his life. He slid his sneakers down from the table and righted his chair with a loud clack.

The entire board’s attention swerved back onto him. For the briefest moment, he’d felt like there should be triumphant music swelling in the background. Now, there was simply an eerily reverberating silence.

“Mister Chairman?” said Vera, with a grandmotherly smile. “Shall we proceed with the rest of the day’s business?”

Steve recalled the list of agenda items, as long as his arm. He’d not even started to read it. Every ounce of his willpower had been dead set on getting even with Kline. Now, his mind fell disarmingly blank. And his mouth flapped off before he could stop it: “Absolutely. I’ll, um… Can we take a brief raincheck? I need to hand you over to the new majority shareholder and chairwoman of the board, Robin Buckley.”

A small shriek sounded from behind the catering screen. It was Steve’s turn to scuttle, as he sped to join his friends. He didn’t even have time to hug Eddie before Robin got right in his face:

“What the fuckety fuck, Dingus? I told you—I don’t even want to be promoted yet. Doreen deserved to be the new head of housekeeping. I’m not ready to be anything other than a sous chef!”

“That’s why this makes perfect sense.” It had been a spur of the moment decision, born basically of panic. Still, Robin’s wrath aside, he honestly believed it didn’t totally suck: “You’re smart. You could skim those minutes in seconds. Plus, who better to make decisions about the running of the hotel than somebody who actually works here? Somebody who will make sure nobody is ever treated like dirt again. Besides, these meetings are quarterly. Shouldn’t cramp your style, huh?”

“I agree with Alex P Keaton here,” said Eddie, hooking an arm around Steve, who gratefully sagged into him. “You are literally Frodo with the ring, Robin.”

“Oh God, not the nerdy ring book.” Occasionally, Steve missed the times when these two were at each other’s throats, rather than uber-geek best buds. He pinched between his eyes against the start of a tension and caffeine headache. Also, to evade Robin’s beyond death-ray glare.

“Okay, maybe you’re more Eowyn in war-cry mode,” Eddie conceded. “But the metaphor’s not so lousy. Power is best wielded by those who crave it the least.”

Steve peeped up. Robin had plowed eight shaky fingers into her hair, which was an uncharacteristic violation of hygiene standards. “Aaaargh! My stomach is a gordian knot right now, Steve!”

He was starting to feel really bad: “I don’t know what that is, but I’m pretty sure my stomach was in one too when I said what I did. Look, I’m sorry, but… please, Robin? Honestly, I can’t think of anybody more fitted for the job. I can have the shares transferred into your name today.” He took off his ray-bans, hooked them on her nose. “These totally come with the role. Tho’ promise me you’ll take them off when you’re making eyes at the new business manager. I swear she’s making them back at you.”

“Ssssssh,” hissed Robin, though the edges of her lips ruffled toward a smile.

“You’ll do it?”

She harrumphed loudly. Concealed beneath the shades, he was pretty damn sure she rolled her eyes at him.

“Next time, Dingus, a few minutes notice would be polite. Oh, and… there’s gonna be a few changes around here, starting right now.”

She grabbed a croissant, took a hefty bite. She chewed, swallowed, dabbed nutella from the edge of her lips, then swished aside the curtain. Her hands planted on her hips, she confronted the board: “Is it really so dreadful to watch somebody pouring your coffee?”

Steve and Eddie beat a hasty retreat to the corridor. “Okay, why am I starting to worry about absolute power corrupting absolutely?” Eddie moved a step behind Steve to give him a backrub.

“How long till she’s calling them shit-birds? We should start a sweepstake. Oh God, yeah, Eddie… that feels amazing.”

They paused in their progress, while Eddie eased a little more of Steve’s tension from him, and Steve leaned into him. Post adrenaline crash, he was starting to feel pretty tired. It was a few blissful moments before he turned back to face Eddie. Who’d plopped a bellhop hat on his head.

“What the fuck?” said Steve.

“Does it suit me, Babe?” Eddie touched his face and fluttered those long dark lashes.

“No! It looks Halloween costume levels of ridiculous on you.”

“Just because I don’t wear it as well as you did.” Eddie pouted, adorably fake-sad, then: “What do you wanna do now, Stevie?”

Melt into your arms. Stare into your eyes till it gets kinda creepy. Make love for days.

He opted for an equally honest answer, one that was bubbling-cheese-on-cheesy-toast levels of cheesy: “I want to be with you. Forever, pretty much, and… I dunno.” He nibbled his lower lip, unsure about this next part: “I take it you didn’t snag the key to the penthouse?”

“No. Don’t reckon there’s gonna be a problem, though. You wanna go up? I know you miss that plunge bath. I could…” Eddie slung both arms around Steve’s neck and waggled his brows. “Pretty sure I owe you an aquatic blowjob.”

“I guess.” Steve laughed. Nevertheless, behind Eddie’s goofing around, he sensed darker shadows shifting. Eddie had had one recurring nightmare this past year, and it was for sure to do with what he’d witnessed when Steve chained himself to the pillar in the penthouse. Steve still barely remembered having the flashbacks about his abuse at the hands of Godchester and the others. His shrink had helped him begin, slowly, to come to terms with what had happened to him. However, there were some ghosts best left in the past.

He sure as hell didn’t want to raise those ghosts for Eddie. They had become Eddie’s nightmares almost as much as his own, and Eddie had his own demons to battle too. Slowly, painfully, his agoraphobia had gotten better, though he was still on baseline anxiety meds.

Steve shook his head. “Nah, I don’t wanna go there again. I thought I did, earlier. I mean, it is where we fell in love, but… It’s not who we are any more. I guess it never was. Anyhow, next summer we’ll have that pool ready at our place up in Oregon.” They’d bought a house on the same block as Wayne’s. “Aaaand we’ll have the jacuzzi hot tub, so…”

“Not waiting till next Summer to blow you, my Princess.”  Eddie flung open the door into the busy lobby. He bowed low, like a knight of old, for Steve to pass through. “Let’s go home.”

...

The end on AO3 The end on tumblr

If you have stuck with me this far, thank you so very much <3

perma-tag for the best inspiration friend ever: @wheneverfeasible

Thank you for reading. Likes, reblogs and comments much appreciated and will feed the bunnies🐰💕🐰💕🐰💕🐰💕

On tumblr: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3.1 Part 3.2 Part 4.1 Part 4.2 Part 5.1 Part 5.2 Part 6.1 Part 6.2 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 or search #thefreakinthepenthouse :)

On AO3 All my ST stuff on AO3

[livwritesstuff]

how does steve and eddie deal with all three girls’ periods?? or high hormones?

(don’t have to answer if this topic makes you uncomfortable 🫶)

HA ok i'll be very honest - i've actually been hoping someone would ask me this

when you think about it, steve and eddie aren't necessarily coming at it from equal playing fields. steve had a mom and had girlfriends and had robin who, as we know, is a chronic over-sharer. he also has several psych degrees and as someone with a psych degree i can tell you that menstruation/hormones absolutely come up in the coursework.

eddie, on the other hand, never dated women, his mom died when he was in elementary school, and on the whole it’s just uncharted territory for him in a way it isn’t for steve.

when moe is around 11 or 12, steve and eddie have a very long conversation with robin and nancy getting advice on how best to breach that topic with their daughters, and then they turn that into a conversation with Moe that is much shorter by comparison (and that she is absolutely mortified by) letting her know they are there for her (but that she can also go to her Aunt Nancy and Auntie Robin too).

overall, their sentiment is yes, it's an important milestone and yes, it’s a very big deal —

but also do. not. make it a big deal.

so that’s what they do, and they manage to be normal about Moe first starting her period, and it’s even more normal with Robbie a few years later. It’s so normal by the time Hazel hits that age that they miss it entirely.

Moe, back from her first semester of college: Where the fuck did you guys move the tampons?

Robbie: Pretty sure I gave the last one to Hazel

Eddie: EXCUSE ME?!?

as for hormones, they actually do pretty okay. they both jive with the whole teenager thing and get a kick out of how the girls keep them on their toes. (the 5-year age gap between moe and hazel kind of did them dirty tho because it means they’re in hormonal hell for like a decade)

[ohbx]

Partnered Up

A JJ x Reader Slow Burn Fic

Author's notes:

This is pretty much PG (with a touch of PG-13, maybe some swearing, mentions of abuse as in the context of the show). No warnings, except it being over 4k words & unedited. I wrote in first person so I just made it a reader insert but I might give the character a name cause she definitely seems like a character. (Y/F/N= Your Friend's name) Also this is a treasure hunt free alternate universe.

Partnered Up

I had obviously noticed JJ and his friends at school. They almost always traveled in a pack. Loud, boisterous and looking like they just rolled up from the beach. Although that was more common than not because I went to public high school on the Outerbanks. Out of his crew, he and John B were especially notorious for leaving a trail of broken hearts throughout the island. Whether it be kooks, pogues, tourons or anyone in between any girl I met knew who they were, and had a crush on one of them at one point or another. While the girls reasoning differed, (Kooks were usually looking for a one night tryst with a bad boy to piss their ex boyfriend off or gain the attention of some kook guy.) the point remained, they were the sleepover talk of girls across the island - every girl secretly thought they would be the one to tie down one of the island boys who were a little rough around the edges. 

But now, John B was dating Sarah. A fact that only raised the desperation for JJ throughout the school halls. I could practically hear girls heads turning from their lockers as he made his way down the hall, clutching tattered papers, no backpack in sight. And sure, I understood the appeal. The piercing blue eyes, the charming, shameless flirtation. And of course I had read enough romance novels to understand the “i could fix him” urge for the girls who saw him show up year after year to school with no parents whoever came to end of the year barbecues, busted lips and black eyes monthly, and stoned more often than not. I understood it, I really did. But I didn’t have time to worry about boys. Especially not boys who would never give me a second look. I mean, I had been going to school with him for almost a decade and I doubted he even knew my name. It wasn’t self pity, but rather self awareness, to know a boy like him would never give me the time of day. And for that I never spent that much time worried about what the blonde boy thought of me- since I was pretty sure he didn’t think of me at all. It wasn’t self pity, just self awareness. And for that my self preservation kicked in anytime other girls at the lunch table gossiped about the blonde boy’s smile or dimples - I would have never admitted that I had given him a second glance. 

As all high school teachers do, my biology teacher had a penchant for making her class as socially draining as possible. Which meant today when we were being assigned our physiology project for the final 6 weeks of the semester - she announced that she would be assigning us partners instead of letting us pick our own. I glanced longingly at my best friend sitting next to me and slowly rolled my eyes. It would be a lot simpler and more fun if the two of us could just work together. The teacher read out all the pairs and announced my name next to the infamous bad boy himself. JJ Maybank. As the teacher wrapped up her pairings, she projected the topics that each group was assigned to on the board. I slowly and nervously bent over to grab my text book from under my desk. But when I looked up, JJ was already leaning on the desk next to me. 

“Hey Y/N - looks like we’re partners,” he said with a sheepish smile. 

“Yea!” I replied maybe a bit too enthusiastically.

I offered him my phone number as class was ending for the day and then had to rush to swim practice after school. I told him to just text me before class tomorrow so you could get a jump on planning your project. 

After swim practice, as I toweled off at your locker, I picked up my phone to several text notifications from JJ

JJ: Hey y/n it’s JJ Maybank

JJ: Sorry you’re stuck with me as a partner

JJ: Just text me whenever you’re done with swim and we can start a plan 

I  felt a pit in my stomach. JJ wasn’t known for being the smartest or most studious kid in school but I immediately felt bad that he was apologizing before the project even began. Secondly I was shocked he even knew I  was on the swim team. 

I quickly crafted a response telling him I was happy to work with him. Trying to keep it casual. Admittedly, that had never been my strong suit when it came to cute boys.

I then texted him that I would do some googling and take some notes about the  assigned topic tonight, and we both could chat about it tomorrow. 

He replied shockingly fast that he would do the same. 

After swim practice the next morning I found myself taking more care in the shower to not smell like chlorine all day and taking a little bit longer on my makeup and hair before I returned to school for first period. I wouldn’t let myself admit that it was because I would be in close proximity to JJ later that day- but deep down that definitely played a factor. 

When I  got to class that day after saying hi to my best friend, I sat farther towards the back where JJ was already slumped in his chair. He perked up a bit when I sat down next to him. The teacher had given us a free period to discuss and plan our projects , so after a quick hello I took out my notes, and so did JJ. 

I offered him my notes to look over while he handed me his but then he cleared his throat promptly. 

“I uhhh…” he began sheepishly and then paused.

“I can’t read cursive” he spit out all at once and then half laughed. 

I tried to keep my face neutral, and not laugh, as he was clearly looking nervous, but I was confused. 

“I uh, I have dyslexia” he quietly offered by way of explanation as he rubbed the back of his neck- not making eye contact.

“Oh!” I tried not to sound surprised or show it on my face. “Here pass me back my notes and we can just discuss what we both learned and then what direction we want to research and create our presentation on.” 

JJ just nodded and said “thanks” as he handed we traded notes back. 

We spent the next hour or so nerding out and actually having great, very insightful conversation about our disease we were researching, and I scribbled quick messy notes with promises to type them up when we were done so we could both see them on Google docs. 

At the end of class everyone rushed out the door at the bell, and I turned quickly with a quick see ya! to JJ on the way out the door. 

“Hey Y/n wait” JJ said quickly as he called after me. I spun around to face him. 

“Uhh thanks for being so nice and helping me out today. I know you probably wish you had a partner that wasn’t such an idiot"

"You don't need to thank me, you're my partner, we both deserve to be able to work in a way that works for us. Otherwise I wouldn't really be a partner and I'd be a bitch" I said, and I meant it.

JJ had offered some of the best insight you had heard in this class all year. I was confident that he was going to be a good partner for the project despite my initial internal reservations due to his reputation. 

JJ just shrugged back at me sheepishly. 

"Well, I mean it, thanks. You'd be surprised how few people feel that way. Usually teachers or my group hear that and just decide they'll fail me or do all the work themselves."

"Seriously, you don't have to thank me, I am happy you're my partner, I think things will go well with this project. Sorry - I really gotta go to swim practice. Coach will kill me if I'm late" 

He just nodded and offered a brief see ya as I turned and headed down the hall. 

It went on this way for a few weeks. We worked tirelessly during class, had a few brief moments of small talk, and then I would rush off to practice. I was secretly thinking about him during the evenings, but I didn't usually hear from him until class the next day. 

So imagine my surprise when I powered my phone back on after practice to another two texts from JJ. 

JJ: Hey - hope your practice went well! 

JJ: I got sidetracked after class

JJ: but I wanted to no if you wanted to come to a party tonite that my friends r having at the boneyard. I know your not a big partier but since its not yet  summer it will be pretty low key, you can bring Y/F/N or whoever if you have a bf or something 

I found myself smiling slightly to myself with my head in my locker. Y/F/N laughed and asked who was making me blush. I coyly avoided the question... for about 14 seconds until I asked her if she wanted to go to the boneyard tonight. 

"Oh so JJ" she joked. "C'mon you cannot be falling for him that is such a bad idea" 

"I am NOT falling for him" I rolled my eyes. "We are just becoming friends. Plus I feel like we could use some Friday socialization that doesn't involve chlorine or studying in my living room"

 It was late May, and Y/F/N sat on my bed as I deliberated about what I wanted to wear to the party. After a lot of back and forth, I landed on birkenstocks, jean shorts and a tank top. Boring, I know, but it felt the most me, and the most appropriate for the weather. 

We decided to walk, as it was only half a mile away, and then we could have a few beers and then walk home after. It's not like my mom was home anyway.

I had texted JJ for the details on when to arrive, but I hadn't expected us to be the first ones there beyond his direct friend group. They quickly ushered us into their circle and we joined in the drinking games they were playing around the bonfire. 

Y/F/N was flirting with Pope, and while I didn't think it would go anywhere tonight, I could definitely see them being a cute and nerdy match.

As the party picked up, I was definitely feeling a bit of a buzz from a handful of hard seltzers and beers.

Y/F/N was occupied chatting with Pope and Kiara about who knows what, something scientific that I was too drunk for, so I made my way across the party in search of someone else to chat with.

JJ intercepted me, steadying himself on my arm after we almost collided.

"Wanna walk down the beach?"

I wasn't a big partier, but I definitely knew the insinuation there, and this many drinks in, I couldn't think that far in advance, I think I was just flattered by the invitation.

We broke away from the big group of high schoolers and reached a quieter part of the beach.

"So you're a fast swimmer right?"

"Compared to girls in this county, sure"

"Dont try to be humble, Kiara told me how you're ranked like #3 in all of North Carolina or something"

"#2" I mumbled sheepishly, never good at bragging about myself.

"Damn, so like good?"

"Let's hope so, I am gonna need it to pay for my college"

JJ nodded, thinking something over. A mischevious glint flickered across his eyes.

"Ok let's see it then. Race you out to that swim buoy!?" He challenged, stripping off his shirt and kicking his shoes off already.

As he dove into the calm surf, I peeled off my jean shorts and kicked off your birks. Diving in in just my tank top and thong. I took off swimming messily, but still passed JJ fairly quickly.

I didn't beat him by much, just enough to be standing looking bored when his head popped up at the buoy.

"Damn" he laughed "You got me."

His eyes flitted down to my thick, but definitely more revealing when wet tank top. He took a step closer to me.

For the first time in our friendship, it was silent. He kept a strong eye contact with me as he reached his hands out placing them on my waist, now covered in goosebumps. He pulled himself closer to me or me closer to him, I wasn't even sure my brain was forming coherent thoughts over the sound of my heart fluttering.

And then he kissed me. He kissed me in the way that the world around me went silent and all I could think about was him, and us. I didn't think about the fact I was practically naked about 10 feet from my first party, nor the fact that we were in the ocean at night. Nothing. Just him and us. Not that I had a lot to compare it to, but I knew it was a good kiss.

We continued to make out hands roaming up and down each others upper bodies, until our teeth were chattering and we made our way out of the water.

JJ shook his hair off like a dog before sliding his tee shirt over his head. I shook off suddenly self conscius about my lack of clothes, and slid into my jean shorts. Luckily it was a nice night, so we started to dry off pretty quickly.

Jj snaked his hand through my belt loop and pulled me closer to him. Catching my jaw with his other hand and pulling me into kiss me. I got the vague sense that he had done this before, but not even in a way that I could be jealous, because of how special this moment was making me feel. Well until it wasn't.

"Look Y/n. I like you a lot."

My heart skipped a beat.

"I uh, like you too"

"Do you wanna come back home, er uh, to John B's with me?"

And the other shoe drops. He doesn't actually like me, he just wants me to come hook up with him in his friends guest bedroom. I knew if I did that I would end up feeling temporarily validated, only to be more heartbroken when he inevitably didn't like me at all.

"I cant, I uh, have to walk home with Y/F/N" I said quickly as I started walking back to the party. Tears pricking the corners of my eyes. He followed behind, murmuring his agreement or understanding or something.

I left soon the party after, giving JJ a hasty goodbye hug, before shedding drunk tears on the way home about how he didn't really like me.

The next day I woke up with a pounding headache. I was asleep on the floor of my room and Y/F/N was asleep in my bed. I climbed into it, jostling her awake but I was in need of girl talk. 

"So now what?" she asked 

" I just like, don't know what to do. He clearly just saw me as another girl, when I had thought we were getting along so well so I guess I will just wait and see if he says anything." 

"You could just ask him" 

"No way" 

My mom was still gone the rest of the weekend, so it was spent going to the beach, and hanging out at home with Y/F/N. I was dreading going back to school on Monday, and I hadn't received a single text from JJ, and knew I had blown my chance. 

I arrived in my last period on Monday and slinked my way to the back of the classroom next to JJ. He looked like he hadn't slept since I saw him on Friday. When I sat down he grunted a hello. We pretended that there was nothing we cared about more than our current science project. But we still got almost nothing done. We couldn't agree on which way to go forward, what to dive deeper on, what should be the main focus of our presentation, everything was an argument. 

I left the class for practice without saying another thing, barely even a goodbye. I had never swum so fast or hard in my life. Blowing off steam, I buried my head and swam faster splits than I usually swam at meets. I kicked my legs until I couldn't feel the pain in my chest any longer. 

I got out of the pool and grabbed my phone out of my locker. I felt my stomach bubble in anticipation of a text but I didn't actually expect one. 

The next four days JJ didn't show up to school. Our project was still due in just over a week, so I worked a lot on it in class by myself. 

On Friday I finally built up the courage to shoot him a text in the morning when I see he's not there. A few hours went by without a reply. I figure I knew Kie well enough by now, so I asked her if he was ok.

She gave a concerned looking shrug. 

"We've heard from him, but he does this sometimes, just kinda drops off the face of the earth and no one can get him to hang out or go to school. Are you worried about your project?" 

"He told you about that?" 

"Yea he won't shut up about it" Kie laughed " It was all we had heard about for like the past 4 weeks" 

TYou exchanged numbers with Kie, and she told me to just text her if I was worried about him or hadnt heard from him by the end of the day and she would try and do a wellness check. 

As soon as you sat down for 6th to begin though, JJ had texted me back. 

JJ: Sorry I'm not in class. I couldn't. 

No further explanation? I wondered to myself

me: Are you ok? 

The typing bubbles repeatedly showed up and then disappeared at least 3 times before he responded, completely ignoring your question. 

JJ: Can we meet up to talk about the project today? I feel bad I haven't pulled my weight. 

Sure I quickly replied.

Me: My place or yours? 

he shot back: Cant do mine. 

me: that's fine

Then I just texted him my address and the time I would be home from swim practice.  

I grabbed a pizza on my way home from swimming. I figured if this was going to be the most awkward friday of my life at least we could have a snack while studying. 

I got home, quickly showered, and tried to make myself look semi-presentable in a flannel and jeans, even though I knew that ship had pretty much sailed.

I put the pizza in the oven to stay warm and grabbed a few cokes out of the garage to put on the kitchen island. 

By the time I was done, I heard a soft knock on the door. 

I opened it to JJ, looking like he had been hit by a car. Probably not today, his clothes were clean, and his hair looks more purposeful than usual, but he had deep, purple bruises across his face, and a dark scab drifting from his eye down his cheek. I let out a slight involuntary gasp and stuttered a little bit. 

"what happened? are you ok?" 

"Can we please not talk about it" he looked as if he might burst into tears or run off at any moment. 

I nodded, not trusting my words. 

I just held out my arms and offered him a hug which he wordlessly accepted, melting into my embrace. He wasn't much taller than me, but he slumped down, head on my shoulder he let out a heavy sigh before letting go. 

"Thanks, I guess I needed that" he said his words attempting to convey lightness but getting stuck in the back of his throat.

"I figured" I shrugged, helplessly. Lost at what to do as I led him into the kitchen where my books were spread on the island. 

I saw him taking stock of my kitchen which had small pads on all of the corners as well as small braille labels on the cupboards. 

"Is this like babyproofing?" he asked. 

"No" I laughed "My little brother is blind, its for safety but also theoretically so he can find stuff on his own" 

"I didn't know you had a little brother" JJ looked shocked as he tried to process that information. 

"He lives off the island about 11.5 months a year. He's almost 8 and my favorite person in the whole world. He goes to a boarding school for blind kids." 

JJ just nodded. 

"That's why my mom's not here. She tries to spend a few weeks a quarter there, whenever she's not running our family business on the island. She feels really guilty about sending him away, even though the only place she can make money is on the island and the only place he can learn is off. So she has a tiny shoe box apartment out in Raleigh where his school is." 

"And your dad stays here with you?" Jj asked innocently. 

I just shrugged "He's not really in the picture these days"

"I'm sorry," JJ offered. 

"It's alright. We get by ok. I've had to grow up pretty fast these past few years since my brother started school, but it's worth it." 

"Wait. This is why you were so good at helping me and dictating everything you wrote isn't it. JJ asked. 

"I don't even think I thought about it like that, I just have spent a lot of time with my brother who also learns differently so it came easily to me" I answered genuinely. 

"That was the nicest way anyone has ever called me illiterate" JJ joked, perking back up to his normal self. 

I just rolled my eyes at that comment. We worked for a few hours only breaking for pizza and soda until about 10 pm. Until we decided we were caught up enough to call it a night. JJ promised to work more over the rest of the weekend to make up his share, even though I told him that wasn't necessary. 

Normally on Friday nights, I watched a movie after homework, studying and pizza with Y/F/N, but she left right after swim practice to go to her grandparents on the mainland. So I just offered JJ to stay. He accepted, quickly shooting a text to his friends to let them know his whereabouts. 

"Kie made it seem like they did a pretty good job of checking up on you" I noted. 

"They do, they mean well" he said. Now that I had seen him, I better understood why. They probably knew something that he wasn't ready to let me in on yet, even though I was desperately curious and felt unceasingly bad for him. 

As we watched the movie he slid closer to me on the couch. I was  keenly aware of his body’s proximity to mine , and not as much so to the plot of the movie. 

I was aware that i was a bit nervous and jumpy, after all I had never had a boy at my house alone before. But he put his hand on my thigh, and as much as I had wanted to not be nervous I moved away from him and put my back to the arm rest of the couch, hugging my knees into my chest.

“Oh fuck I’m sorry i knew i misread the vibe I’m an idiot” JJ quickly spat out 

“No it’s not…” I struggled to find my words which was rare for me 

“I just , I like you, but I felt like I gave you the wrong idea last weekend. I don’t want to have a one night stand, and then I felt like you didn’t speak to me all week or say anything after. I get that that’s what you’re looking for but it’s just not me” I word vomited

“I’m so stupid I’m sorry i should have known you’re too smart to think of me as more than a friend. Can we just pretend I didn’t do that”

“I do like you like that I just. I know you just do hook ups and I don’t know I know i sound like a prude but I don’t think i can do that.”

“Wait. You do like me like that?”

“Obviously. We have so much fun together.” I replied honestly. 

“I spent all of last weekend and all week convincing myself that I fucked up by kissing you. And convincing myself that you like every one else just wanted to brag about having some drunken escapade with JJ and never see him again.”

“And I thought you were mad I didn’t sleep with you because you didn’t text me. “  I admitted.  

“I’m sorry.” He looked heart broken. “It honestly wasn’t that. No one has ever wanted me in anyway other than for my body. So i assumed if you didn’t want to come home with me you were probably offended I even made a move at all and certainly couldn't like me back.” 

My heart hurt hearing his genuinely vulnerable comment. 

“I obviously always thought you looked good, but only have developed a crush on you now that I know you for you” you admitted. “But i assumed since you have your pick of gorgeous girls that you wouldn’t want me.”  My voice quivered. I had never once admitted to someone how insecure I was about how I looked. It always seemed like there were more important things than appearances, quite literally speaking in my life. But that didn’t make being a high school girl any easier. 

JJ scooted back closer to me and pulled me in a big hug. 

“I think you’re absolutely beautiful. I always have. Why else do you think the teacher put everyone else together with their normal partners except us and John B and Y/F/N. Because she noticed me staring at you up front all of class.”

“Is that true?”

“I’m pretty sure. Everyone else I know in that class has their normal partner.”

I let out a little laugh. 

“I must not have noticed because I was too preoccupied by your insights about our project   And your, well everything.”

I pulled away from JJ’s hug. 

“Do girls really not talk to you except to get you to hook up with them?”

He shrugged. 

“Usually people only think I’m interesting or want to talk to me at a party. That and my dad spent all weekend and Monday night reminding me how worthless and stupid he thinks i am.”

"Did he do this?"

He just nodded. His chin quivered. 

“You are actually one of the smartest people I’ve ever been paired with at our school. You are funny and interesting and genuinely a good friend to me day in and day out. “

At this point, my limbs were so entangled that i was sitting in his lap on the couch, your legs basically straddling him. His strong arms were snaked around my back, while mine rested on his shoulders. I leaned back so I could make eye contact with him. 

“Maybe we’re an ever better more messed up pair than I thought” he joked. 

This time it was my turn to make the first move. I leaned in slowly. Meeting his lips gently as his face was all bruised. He sighed happily. I deepened the kiss. His hands slowly unwrapped from my back and made their way onto my backside, slowly rocking me in his lap. 

I hated that I pulled away. 

“I thought you didn’t want me to use you for your body.”

“On second thought, please do” he joked, voice husky. 

“I wouldn’t want you to think I don’t like you for your brain.” I  said as I climbed off of his lap. 

Without even having to explain again though, he understood I was only ready to move so fast. By the time we had rehashed all of our misunderstandings and made out through the second half of the movie, I was exhausted, as I had been up since morning practice. Something told me, and it wasn’t just the bags under his eyes, that JJ also hadn’t been sleeping very well. 

“Wanna stay the night uh. I mean. Like just actually sleep here?” I asked. 

He nodded happily before getting up to follow me upstairs. I quickly changed into pajamas in the bathroom and emerged to JJ, shirtless and littered in even more bruises, a pair of my baggy swim sweatpants sitting low on his waist. 

I climbed into my bed at the same time as he did, and he pulled me in close to him.  My head rested on his shoulder. 

“Can I ask you something ?”

He asked softly.

“Would you wanna be my girlfriend?”

I nodded softly.

“I would love to”

He kissed the top of my head

-Two weeks later-

I entered John B's house, through the screen door on the porch, and came into the kitchen to meet the already gathered pogues. I was joining them in celebrating the last day of school.

Pope immediately asked me when Y/F/N was arriving, so I reassured him that she would be there for the real full party. I walked over to JJ who wrapped his hands around me from behind and placed his head on my shoulder contently.

"Want a beer?" John be asked.

I nodded, and as he pushed open the fridge, I saw magneted to it our final graded report from our Biology final, with an A+ scribbled in red ink on the top corner.

"Aww our project" you involunatarily remarked. JJ stepped over trying to remove it from the fridge out of embarrassment, but John B intercepted him with both arms pulling the other boy close in a half wrestle, half hug.

"We're very proud of him, always" John B smiled ruffling a hand through JJ's hair and laughing while JJ groaned.

You were thankful for this found family when yours was away, but even more so for the love they provided JJ each and every day.

[askbensolo]

Journal Entry #51: Weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me in a Spacebucks

Ever since Poe and Beebee-Ate moved in, I’ve been buying caf in the morning more often, instead of making it at home. RIP my bank account.

See, Beebee is kind of hyper in the morning. When my alarm goes off, he rolls off his charging port and starts following me around. Even into the bathroom—like, bro. Personal space?? So, I’m kinda eager to just get out the door as soon as possible.

But, maybe Beebee-Ate is just my poor excuse. Because...coffeeshops in autumn? Vibes. I already admitted to you that I’m a sucker for seasonal beverages.

I'd had it in my mind to try to meditate before work. I had told Fannie I would. (This was before...stuff happened.) And over my morning caf seemed like a good time to do it. But…I never really ended up doing it. I guess I’m afraid of what I’ll see and hear, if I quiet my mind like that. I’m scared I’ll see whatever’s inside me that my mom seems so afraid of... Or, I’m scared I’ll see nothing at all.

Because...that’s how I’ve felt, lately. Like a husk. Holding my head above water, but just barely. Making it through. Texting my mom every day to keep her happy, and saying “Yes I love you I’ll tell my parents about you soon” to my sorta-girlfriend to keep her happy (guess I won't have to worry about that anymore at least), and showing up to work on time and generating five-hundred pieces of content to keep them happy, and lying to my uncle about my connection to the Force to keep him happy (won't have to worry about that anymore either I guess), and suppressing my urge to kick Beebee-Ate across the room like a football to keep my roommate happy (still have to deal with that unfortunately), and, well, I guess I kind of thought if I had my dream life in the city and a decently-paying job and a girl telling me every day that she loves me and I mean something to her and I’m not just a waste of space that I’d be happy, too, but—

…Frick. No. I can’t. See what I mean? I’m much better off keeping my introspection at bay.

And my little daily overpriced latte helps. Because it’s not just coffee. I am purchasing my sanity.

Somehow.

Even if it does cause me financial ruin in my thirties. But, hey—the way the New Republic is going, I don’t got a lotta hope for the decade ahead anyway!

And—well—I just made a little deal that'll set me up for life.

You’ll see.

So, anyway. Since I’m not meditating, I end up people-watching a lot. And, I end up watching Armitage a lot, because he is by far the most entertaining character of the ensemble. At first I thought he was the store manager, but then I saw him getting yelled at by the manager, so, I think he's just a shift leader or something.

But he wants to be the manager. I can see it in his eyes.

And I can tell this guy is a real psych case—someone clinging onto whatever little power he can grasp between his bony little service-gloved fingers—because he runs the place like a freaking military operation. Like, homie?? You do know you’re working minimum wage for a food service galacticorp, right?

I would soooo hate to work with him—but to give him credit, it’s the most efficient Spacebucks I’ve ever been to. Even at peak business hours. Armie runs a tight ship.

(I call him “Armie” in my head. One day it’s gonna come out of my mouth by accident, and dude’s gonna vault himself over the counter and try to murder me.)

(Well, try to murder me again, I mean. No, wait—I'm getting ahead of myself here—you'll see.)

So, last week, they got my order wrong. I brought it to the counter, and Armitage muttered “absolutely unacceptable” under his breath, and dragged over this poor zit-covered, sleep-deprived, college-kid barista by the scruff of his collar and publicly berated him in front of me and forced him to apologize to me and let me keep the first drink but upsized my new drink for free and remade it himself and forced the poor barista kid to watch him do it, and I’m pretty sure someone should report that as a workplace harassment incident—but it was also funny as hell, and sure made my day.

What I actually ordered was the korranut sweetgourd cold brew. But, I ended up kind of liking the first thing, too, so I came back to the counter to ask what it was. The traumatized barista kid ducked into the back when he saw me coming, so I flagged down Armitage.

“Yo, Armitage. What was in that first order?” I asked.

He blanched—as if he could get any paler. His eyes shifted around, like he was afraid who might hear. “What?” he whispered hoarsely.

I blinked a couple times. Was I insane? “Uhh…what was…in the first order…?”

He seemed to regain some composure, and squinted at me. “How do you know about the first order?” he hissed.

Now I was getting a little freaked out. “I…I tasted it?” I stuttered.

Then things got really weird.

He grabbed me by the wrist and took me behind the counter and pulled me into the back room. It happened so fast—my brain froze up. He was skinny as heck, but his grip was like iron. I could’ve beaten him up if I’d tried, but I was scared stiff. I threw terrified looks at the other baristas. Tried to say “help” with my eyes, but they just ignored me. The manager was nowhere to be seen. Either this was a normal occurrence to them, or they were too scared of Armitage to do anything.

Maybe both.

He pulled me into a storage closet and slammed the door behind us and shoved me back against the wall.

“Dude, what—”

“Who are you?” Armitage hissed. “I knew there was something I didn’t like about you from the start, Ben Quadinaros—if that even is your real name. Who sent you? How long have you been watching me?”

“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I stuttered. I was bigger than him, but I don’t like when grown-ups yell at me—it doesn’t matter that I’m a grown-up now—I still don’t like it.

Armitage wrinkled his nose at me. As if I were literally garbage. (For reference, I am only figuratively garbage.) “What’s your real name, Ben Quadinaros?”

Was there a reason why I shouldn’t give him my real name? I didn’t know. Maybe? I couldn’t really think.

“Ben, uh...Calrissian?” I posed weakly.

He looked me over with a snarling grimace, seeming to feel I had insulted his intelligence. “No…no, I don’t believe that one bit. What is it really?”

The Solo snark won out. “Would you take Jabba the Hutt?” I asked.

He sneered. In an instant his hand flew to his hip, under his green apron, and I realized—OH, KRIFF ME—Armie was armed. It was Armitage Arkanis, in the broom closet, with the blaster. Ben Solo becomes a white outline on the floor. I got that horrible feeling all of a sudden like when you jump into hyperspace on a full stomach.

“Oh frick—geez—oh my Force—I’m—Ben—my name is—Ben Organa Solo!” I blurted, genuinely scared for my life. Because yeah, my life kinda sucks, but it doesn’t suck that bad—not bad enough to lose it to an unhinged ginger who’d smoke me in the back of a Spacebucks for, what—lying about my name?

“Solo,” Armitage said slowly, and his eyes flashed with recognition. “Yes. I knew it. The Alderaanian princess’s son. What do you want from me, then? Information?”

“I-I mean…yeah? I…I just wanted to know what was in the drink,” I choked out. “Please. Don’t kill me.”

Now his expression turned to one of bewilderment. “…The drink?” he repeated.

“Y-yeah," I said. "The order that got messed up. The…the first one.”

The longest thirty seconds of silence ever. My knees were shaking and my heart was pounding in my ears. I felt like I was either gonna throw up or piss myself. I wondered what it felt like to get shot.

And then Armitage blinked a few times and withdrew his hand from his hip and looked around for a second and became the shift leader again and seemed to realize how insane it was that he’d dragged a paying customer into a broom closet and threatened him. He took a clumsy step backward and cleared his throat.

“I…apologize for the misunderstanding,” he muttered weakly. I could sense his weakness.

Oh, I thought. He's not so scary. I could crush his windpipe with one hand. And then I stopped feeling so afraid.

I saw an opening. Stood up a little taller. Squared my shoulders a little.

“Uhh, yeah, you better,” I said. “‘Cause I’m reporting your ass. What the kriff, dude?”

He took another step back, and cast a worried glance behind him.

Oh! So he was scared of me now. I liked that. I liked that sooo much better.

“I mean...hello?" I shouted. "You’re kriffing insane! You can’t freaking do that to people! Who do you think you are? Who’d you think I was?”

“I misunderstood,” Armitage sniffed, but he couldn’t hide his discomfort. “I…I thought you were someone looking to get me in trouble.”

“Yeah, well, now I am,” I said. I took a little step forward, and he took a little step back. I found that really funny for some reason, and if I weren't so fired up I would've laughed at him. “Seriously! You were making threats on my life just because you thought I was like, what, an undercover workplace investigator? From Spacebucks corporate, or sentient resources, or something?”

“Yes,” Armitage agreed hurriedly. “Yes. That is—exactly—precisely—who I thought you were. Quite.”

“Well, you should damn well be investigated,” I huffed. “For Force’s sake! I’m filing a police report.”

“Don’t,” he begged.

“You were gonna pull a blaster on me!”

“I don’t have one. I don’t have one!” He pulled up the lap of his apron and showed me his pockets. And he was right. His legs were so skinny. Like toothpicks, or something. There was no way he had a blaster—not even one of those really little ones.

So, he’d been bluffing. That tracked. I was beginning to understand this guy real kriffin' well—he was scary as kark, until you had him in a corner, and then he just freaking melted.

“Okaaay,” I said. “Pretty sure you can still get in a lot of trouble for threatening me. You don’t want my mom to know about this, buddy. She practically freaks out when I get a hangnail.”

Armitage turned white. Again—as if he could get any whiter. “P-Princess Leia? I mean…the Senator Organa?”

“The one and only.”

Bro dropped to his knees on the dirty-ass closet floor. “Oh, my God. Please. No.” I once again suppressed the urge to laugh at him.

Wow! Wasn’t this amusing. I felt like I could kick him in the face right now, and he’d just sit there and take it.

Something stirred within me. Something toothy and mean and strong that rippled downward through my body and made my hands feel hot. Maybe it was that thing Mom and Uncle Luke were so afraid of. What Snoke had always tried to encourage, before I cut contact with him. What Snoke seemed to still want to stoke inside of me, now that his whispers had begun again to brush up against the perimeters of my mind. That power that had made me believe, for a second, that I could come at my uncle with a lightsaber...

Armie’s bottom lip trembled. Now he looked like he was going to throw up or piss himself. I kept him in suspense for a luxurious fifteen more seconds and wondered if he’d cry. I imagined what it’d feel like to bash this loser’s skull in for thinking he could threaten me.

How many homicidal fantasies is a guy allowed to have before he has to turn himself over to the psych ward? Is twice in one year okay? As a treat?

Asking for a friend.

Anyway. Now that I knew he wasn't armed, I wasn't scared of him anymore. Because if Armitage wasn't armed, then it was just up to whoever had bigger arms, and that was me—but luckily for Armie, we were kind of in an armistice.

Well, I was gonna call the police on him. But then I had the most legendary, freaking hilarious idea ever. A real stroke of genius.

“...Okay, Arkanis,” I said finally. “I’ve got a solution: buy me caf for the rest of my life, and I won’t tell your manager. Or the police. Or my mom.”

Armie’s eyes bugged out. “Buy your caf?” he spluttered. “For life?”

“Yep.” I gave him a little grin and a nod. “What can I say? I’m a college grad in a failing economy, who bought into the lie that my degree would mean something, and now I’m effectively an alcoholic—just with overpriced caf-based beverages instead of booze.”

Armitage blinked slowly, like an ugly little frog, and wet his thin, pale lips.

I shrugged. “I’m a simple man, Armitage. I’m giving you options here. Finance my addiction, and I’ll let this go.”

He slowly rose to his feet. “There is no way I could possibly afford that,” he spat. “You come in here almost every day.”

“Yeah, well. Can you afford me reporting you to the authorities?” I asked. “‘Cause I’ll throw in what an abusive little skrit-head you are to your employees, too. And the time I saw you accidentally sneeze into a drink but serve it anyway.”

If he was any paler, he’d be frickin’ transparent.

“...Fine,” he said. “But—there has to be a credit limit on this. Five credits a day.”

“Five credits doesn’t buy a single damn thing on your menu, and you know it."

“It buys a plain black coffee,” he disagreed haughtily.

“I don’t want a plain black caf, I can make that at home,” I snapped. “And what makes you think you’re in any position to negotiate? I don’t have to hold my tongue. I can call the police right now.”

Armitage opened his mouth and closed it again. Like an ugly little fish. (Basically you could describe him as an ugly little anything and it'd be accurate.)

Well, I already had all the leverage here. But I decided to throw him a bone anyway.

“Look, buddy,” I said softly. “I keep in shape, so I’m not gonna rack up a tab. And when I’m picking up orders for work, they let me do it on the company card. I'll go easy on ya. I swear. So…do we got a deal, or what?”

He was silent for several moments, his eyes kind of glassed over. Then he nodded dumbly.

Oh my Force. He actually went for it.

Ha! Baby’s first blackmail.

“Nice.” I grinned and punched him lightly in the shoulder. He flinched. “So, uh. You mind transferring me some credits for today? And then you can just, like, give me a gift card, or something.”

Again, he nodded, looking like I'd kicked his puppy—or, maybe just like a kicked puppy. For a second, I almost felt bad.

And then I remembered how he'd threatened my life—or tried to make me think that he could—and I thought of Snoke—and I thought of Luke—how my whole life I've always felt like everyone was always trying to control me—and how I'd sworn to never let anyone throw me around ever again—and suddenly, I didn't feel quite so bad anymore.

"Crabapple caramel crunch," Armitage muttered, all of a sudden.

I looked at him. "What?"

He raised his watery eyes to meet mine, the familiar scowl back in place.

"That was the first drink," he said quietly. "The...first order."

[lurkingshan]

SHIPPER TAG GAME

Tagged by @negrowhat to give away all my fandom secrets. I came up in the US, so most of these will be Western shows. Also be aware that I'm old and been around in fandoms for decades, some of you youths might not even recognize these ships.

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

Felicity and Noel. I was very into them (and very anti-Ben) when I was first watching this show at the tender age of 14, but then I rewatched it as an adult, realized Noel was a classic Nice Guy with some clear warning flags, and settled into Team Ben.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

Hmm maybe Elizabeth Wakefield and Todd Wilkins? I think I started reading Sweet Valley High at, like, age 8. For TV, I was a sitcom kid and I was obsessed with Dwayne Wayne and his flip-up glasses as a child. I loved him and Whitley. Damn now I want to rewatch.

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

The first I read? I am pretty sure the honor goes to Buffy and Spike.

They were the first ship I remember having that classic fanfic brainrot combo of 1) captivating me entirely with their dynamic and 2) canon leaving me unsatisfied. I lost months of my life over at Elysian Fields.

In terms of the first fanfic I wrote, the honor goes to Ian and Mickey.

I was big into Shameless for its first four seasons. But then the show went way off the rails, the fandom went with it, and I quit watching and scrubbed all my fandom activity off the internet.

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

I honestly have no idea. Probably something Buffy, I was doing a lot of internet dwelling for that show.

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Getting into discourse is my whole entire thing LOL. I have survived many, many ship wars and let me tell ya you haven't seen unhinged until you've been knee deep in the tags in a long-term fandom with multiple ships for the protagonist. One of the things I love about BL and nearly all Asian dramas is that we go into every show knowing who the main pairing is, so we don't have to fight about ships.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

Hmm I was a big Buffy/Angel anti and that was before Spuffy was even a twinkle in my eye. I never liked that man in a romance until he got hooked up with Cordelia in his own show (but then they ruined it ugh). I was also very anti-Harry/Hermione back in the OG HP days (let characters have meaningful platonic relationships!).

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

I've been on a Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian kick of late.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

OTPs are eternal! Like I said above, since I mostly watch Asian drama now, they're baked in. My fav of my current watches is Ten and Prem.

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

YES I AM STILL MAD ABOUT ROBIN AND BARNEY.

You show me two characters who are clearly uniquely compatible, you give me a brief taste of their extremely fun and non-traditional relationship, and then you break them up and stick her with the milquetoast Nice Guy protagonist in a total betrayal of your entire narrative premise? Fuck off forever, HIMYM, I will see you in hell.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

Hmm nothing comes to mind. If I decided to hate a pair in the past I am pretty likely to still be hating.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

I would like to see you try to cancel me!! I'll echo Eboni here and say Brian and Justin, though of course there were people who hated them because of the age gap back in ye olden times, too. Fandom spaces are mostly women and women in queer fandom spaces often struggle to account for the totally different culture and power dynamics between m/m pairings.

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

I don't really do crack ships, I am a canon pairing girlie.

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

I don't know who the ultimate winner is, but I think it's probably a neck and neck competition between Spuffy and Wangxian as my most read pairing.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

There's actually a lot of variety in them in terms of personalities, appearance, and tropes. I think what makes me really click into a ship is the feeling that the two people are uniquely suited to each other and well matched to go through life together.

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

When I don't believe they can actually make it.

Tagging @my-rose-tinted-glasses @twig-tea @imminentinertia @shortpplfedup @stuffnonsenseandotherthings @littleragondin.

[pettyrevenge-base]

Make my life difficult for nearly a decade, I'll make you look like an idiot.

When I first left home to go to university, my parents co-signed a mortgage for me on an apartment style condominium in a small Canadian city. This was 20 years ago, so it came in at a whopping $52,000. They thought that this was a much better and economical choice than trying to find an apartment and deal with landlords. I loved the idea and moved into my new home.

The building was almost entirely populated by the 65+ crowd. It was small and only had 24 units split into 2 halves. I had a basement condo. It was a nice place, nothing fancy, but amazing for a student. I was young (19) but I was quiet, kept to myself and didn't do the whole party thing.

I got along with most of my neighbors, I'd help them out moving heavy things or carrying groceries upstairs. I was acutely aware of the age gap and the general image of a university student, so I made sure to be just an all around great guy to avoid conflict.

The one person I could never see eye to eye with was my upstairs neighbor. For a 70 year old woman that couldn't have weighed more than 100lbs, she walked like a damned elephant. She'd have gospel music on her TV at max volume at 5am on Sundays, she'd make remarks about "that damn kid" whenever something was left out of place. She even went so far as to accusing me of breaking into her car and making a police statement saying she saw me do it. Unfortunately for her, I was out of the country on an internship at the time, but still she persisted being a pain in my ass. I'd tried to approach her about the TV issue, and her response was to make sure that it was no longer just Sunday. After a couple of years of attempted diplomacy, it was clear that nothing I did would make things better.

Others in the building probably knew she had it out for me, but why would this adorable little old lady try to lie and get me thrown out of the building by the condo board? (She tried at least 11 times while I lived there).

7 years into my time living there, I was at my job with an Ambulance service just north of the city. I got called to a shooting. Guy shot his neighbor in a land dispute. The neighbor survived, but there was of course going to be a police investigation. The investigating officers called me to get a statement and offered to just come over to do it, rather than have me travel. One of them was a constable I'd worked with quite a bit, so I said sure. We set a time for about an hour after I'd get home from work.

I was just getting out of the shower when they buzzed to get into the building, I said "come in, I'll be out in a second". I hit the door buzzer and quickly grabbed some pants and a shirt. I heard them come in, and then walk upstairs. As I'm trying to throw on clothes, I hear them knock....on my upstairs neighbors door. They introduce themselves as being from RCMP Major Crimes division and that they were looking for me...balls. She says "oh, he lives downstairs, what do you want with him?". They thanked her and informed her that they couldn't say, as it was an active investigation. My heart sank....but then I had a thought.

It only took about 15 minutes to do my statement and they went on their way. And then the fun began. I knew the rumour mill would be starting. She would tell everyone that would listen that Major Crimes was looking for me and that I must be some sort of criminal. I decided to see where this went. Pretty soon I'm getting side eye in the hallway, neighbors are steering clear of me, so I know she's been talking. Turns out I've been arrested for robbery and kidnapping and must be out on bail according to her.

I found this out when one of my neighbors who was on the condo board showed up with a letter demanding an explanation and threats to have me kicked out. I asked him what this was all about, and he said "Well, Linda (not her name) sent us a letter about what had happened and we had to have an emergency board meeting because people don't feel safe with you here". I said that per the by-laws of the condo board, before any action could be taken, I could request a meeting to review and provide a defense. Linda was on the board, so I know she'd be there. They set a date for a week from then, but I was given a caution that it didn't look good for me and that I would have to do a lot of explaining.

The meeting day comes. Linda is sitting smugly looking at me, the other board members are giving me dirty looks. The board president asks what I have to say in my defence. I stand and quietly distribute a letter on RCMP letterhead, signed by the regional superintendent that says"Mr. Zenmedic is not under suspicion of any crimes, past or current and has not been arrested, detained or questioned as a suspect in any criminal matter. His duties as a Paramedic will often require him to make statements in regards to ongoing investigations, and in this instance on (date), investigators had gone to obtain a statement about an ongoing investigation for which he was professionally involved. At no time did the members discuss, disclose or in any way indicate that he had any involvement in any wrongdoings. I am deeply saddened by the necessity of this letter and we will be reopening an investigation into a previous incident regarding false statements made against him".

You could tell when people read and understood it. The dirty looks shifted from me to Linda. She exclaimed that it must be a forgery, she witnessed me being led off in handcuffs. She pleaded that they should believe her. It didn't help her. I stood and addressed the board and outlined the years of abuse and harassment, including the false accusation of break and enter to a vehicle. I informed the board that on advice of my lawyer that I do not discuss the matter further with any member of the board, as Linda being part of it and using her position for the purposes of harassment opened the board as a whole to litigation and I was still weighing my options.

The next day I had a knock on my door. The board president had informed me that Linda was removed from the board and that she was given warning about her conduct and that any further harassment could result in proceedings to have her removed from the building.

She also had a visit from police with a summons for providing a false statement and obstructing a peace officer. She had to attend court. She pled guilty to both and was given a suspended sentence and 1 year condition not to harass, threaten or intentionally inconvenience me in any way. If she abided her conditions, she would receive an absolute discharge (meaning it would be removed from her record, like it never happened).

I moved to another province before her year was up, but for a brief period of time, I actually got to sleep in on Sunday mornings.

Source: reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge

[gozzer]

So, we don't know for sure if Valentino’s spit or whatever is 'poison' like Angel seems to be implying in his song. But I've got some headcanons on if it is.

Big platonic kisser when alive. Kisses on cheeks and foreheads, lips if he was really excited. A trait that carries on in Hell.

Definitely signs his soul away to a pimp or someone similar. (Sex club worker or stripper. Maybe a street worker, maybe not.)

Doesn't realize his saliva is actually a sort of venom. Part aphrodisiac, part head and body inducing. Very addictive either way.

Val carries on his little quirk of kisses with his co-workers and friends. Accidentally hooking a few of them on his venom without realizing it.

Doesn't know why his friends are suddenly more interested in other things with him, but hey he likes sex. Why would he say no?

Being at the bottom of the totem pole, Val gets a lot of sinners addicted to him. Some willing to pay, others more likely to take what they want by force.

It takes him a while to understand what's happening and cues a whole breakdown because he doesn't know who actually likes him as a person or simply as an addicting plaything.

Val comes out of that with the decision made to not be on the bottom anymore. He's tired of getting screwed over. Of being a drug for everyone to take and take from.

And he learns to use that venom to get sinners to give him their souls. First his regular customers then the irregulars until finally he gets his 'friends' to sign over their souls.

Soon enough, he's got the power to be an overlord and turns the tables on the guy that owns his soul. A little coercion, a lot of threats, and finally murder gets Val his soul back.

He's at the top of the game, freshest overlord with his old boss' businesses to expand upon. An opportunity Vox sees and swoops in to use.

Now, Val's made the decision to always been the one holding the cards. He has to stay vigilant and know who is around him for what. Vox presents a good way for him to make a proper name for himself. And he's always wanted to try making porn.

It is entirely a business play at first for both of them. Then Val decides, hey, let me just get another overlord under my heel using my venom.

Shocker, it doesn't work. Vox’s body doesn't function like most other sinners' and filters out the addicting properties of Val's venom. He just gets the taste and maybe a hint of the aphrodisiac element.

And Val doesn't know what to do but at some point he comes to the conclusion that Vox is the only person that he knows is around him for who he is. Not what his body can provide. (At least until Velvette comes along.)

Cue Valentino falling hard and fast for Vox. Who, in return, still only views him as a business partner with a benefit thing thrown in occasionally.

It's a very rocky relationship for the next, oh, decade at least. Val's in love but Vox doesn't love him back. So, he finds Angel Dust. He wants someone to love him back even if it means they only love the addiction and high he can give them.

This new relationship triggers Vox into realizing a few things. Maybe it's not love at first but he certainly doesn't like his business partner giving so much time to Angel.

And Val grows bored eventually. Angel isn't Vox and while he genuinely likes Angel, it's not enough. So he gets Angel's soul and keeps him hooked for a little while longer to make things easier in the porn studio. Then he cuts him off completely for his venom.

It's not pretty. Val's back to where he started but now he's got a pornstar that kicks up a fuss when he's going through withdrawal. And he's reminded, again, why he stopped kissing people other than Vox.

(Even if he still finds himself having to physically stop his own instinct to lay a kiss on someone when they please him or something happens to make him a little less conscious of his actions.)

So at this point it's been close to twenty years since Val and Vox have worked together. Val’s in love and Vox, being the stubborn repressed old man he is, won't admit that he is too. Then Velvette comes along.

She shoves those two together so hard not even miscommunication could get them out of admitting their feelings for each other. And then it's a happy day in Hell for everyone.

Then Velvette’s asking to use Val's venom in a potion. And he's not happy.

It takes months, fuck, years before Velvette wears him down enough. When he does give in to being used like that, Val drifts a bit. Because he doesn't know if Velvette’s love potion is going go work or if he's gonna have to worry about stepping outside V Tower soon. (Power of an overlord or not, he still knows what it's like to be taken advantage of.)

But Vox is there to help smooth things over. Being the one person that Val had found that wasn't affected by his venom. And in the state of mind he's in, that means Vox is the only sinner he can whole-heartedly trust.

Sure, he's friends with Velvette but after the love potion, he doesn't trust her. There's no telling if that'll ever be restored but at the moment he has Vox. And even with an empire of souls, that one that's his because of who he is and not because of his venom? Well, that's enough for him.

[saywhatjessie]

Angels on Richmond Green

Day seven of the Advent calendar! Using this list. Day 6: Making snow angels. Fandom: Ted Lasso - Pairing: RoyJamie & TedTrent 1.2k[Ao3]

“I don’t know if it’s fair for Jamie to be out here doing all the work,” Ted said, frowning.

Roy snorted. “Nah. He needs this too. Trust me.”

They were on the fifth day of the heaviest snowfall Richmond had seen in decades. Business had closed, schools were shut down, and Nelson Road had kicked out all footballers and coaches, citing canceled matches and unsafe working conditions.

At first Jamie had been excited, bouncing around Roy’s kitchen.

“I never got snow days in Manchester,” he’d told Roy. “Everybody’s too used to the cold and shit, This is mint.”

That attitude had lasted exactly one day.

“Good Lord,” Trent said, fascinated, “I’m not sure if I ever had that much energy.”

Roy grunted. “Pretty sure the kids will flag before Jamie does.”

When Roy had found himself shut inside his house with a bored and whiny Jamie and an equally bored and whiny Phoebe – staying with them while her mother dealt with all the things that could go medically wrong in a fucking blizzard – he’d turned to the Diamond Dogs group chat in desperation, hoping maybe Higgins with all his fucking kids could find him some solution.

What he’d found instead was Ted and Trent, snowed in together at Ted’s, with an equally desolate Clara and Henry.

Ted had proposed they all meet up at the Richmond Green and let the kids get their sillies out. Roy had the better idea to let Jamie get their sillies out while the three actual adults sat nearby on a bench to kvetch.

Well, Roy and Trent were kvetching. Ted was just happy to be there.

The three of them watched Jamie run around in the snow, little Clara Crimm on his shoulders as the smallest of the three children as Phoebe and Henry chased Jamie around and tried to push him into a snow drift. Roy didn’t try to hide his smile as Jamie laughed. Ted and Trent were more embarrassing about each other than he could ever be about Jamie. Probably.

Clara shrieked and threw her arms wide, saying something the three older men couldn't hear, but marking the rest of them cheer with her, Jamie lifting her from his shoulders and placing her on the ground so she could barrel toward them with the other kids.

Phoebe got their first. “Uncle Roy! Uncle Roy we’re making snow angels!”

“Great,” Roy said. “Sounds fun.”

“No, we’re making snow angels,” Henry said, gesturing at all of them. “You guys, too!”

“Oh, are we?” Trent asked.

“Yes, Daddy!” Clara said, breathless from her little legs doing the run. “And Jamie will judge!”

“Wait, why doesn’t Jamie have to do it?” Roy asked, brows furrowed.

Jamie loped up, cocky grin on his face. “Wouldn’t be fair, would it? I’d win right off.”

“How you figure that?” Asked Ted, looking more amused than insulted.

Jamie snorted, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. He’d taken off his big heavy coat when he’d started running around. “S’all about muscle control, innit? You gotta be strong enough to move the snow but now flail around or you’ll ruin it. I got the best muscle control.”

Trent hummed. “There’s some truth to that.”

Roy pulled a hat out of his pocket and stuffed it on Jamie’s head. “Put your jacket back on, you muppet.”

Jamie grinned, grabbing Roy’s wrist before he could pull his hand away and kissed his palm. “Keep your hair on, grandad, I’ve got like four layers on. And you’re the one about to lay down in some snow.”

Roy growled, making the kids giggle.

“Well, no time like the present!” Ted said, brightly, and then hurled himself onto an untouched patch of snow.

“Dad, no fair!” Henry called, jumping after him. “You got the best spot!”

“Snooze you lose, mother goose!” Ted said, brushing his arms and legs back and forth. “Remember: Jamie said muscle control.”

Henry laughed, finding a smaller fresh patch near Ted’s head. Phoebe and Clara shrieked to go find their own snow spots.

Jamie grinned over at Roy and Trent. “You better find some good snow or your angels will be shit.”

Trent turned big sad eyes on both of them. “But my hair.”

Roy rolled his eyes, yanking Trent closer to him, making him stumble a bit. Roy steadied him before reaching around Trent for his hood and pulled it up over the beautiful hair Trent was so worried about. He tucked some wayward strands away, buttoning the neck to keep it closed and pulling on the strings to keep it secure. He ran his hand down the hood to check his work and gripped Trent lightly on the neck, affectionately.

“There,” He said, taking a step back in satisfaction. “Hair’s all tucked away.”

Trent was just staring at him with wide eyes before looking around him at Jamie. “He really does just do that, doesn’t he? How do you usually react?”

Roy turned and saw Jamie shrug. “Half a chub, usually. Sometimes butterflies or whatever. It’s kinda sweet in a daddy way.”

Roy growled and Trent laughed, a little disarmed.

“Excuse me for solving a fucking problem,” Roy grumbled. “I’m making my fucking snow angel over here.”

“Need help getting down, grandad?”

“Fuck you.”

Jamie did end up having to help Roy up. Not like it mattered: his shit knee didn’t give him the proper range to make a decent snow angel. He knew he’d lose.

“S’alright, babe,” Jamie said, reassuringly, his arm gripping Roy firmly around the middle. “The angel’s skirt is just asymmetrical, innit? That’s fashionable that is.”

“Fuck you,” Roy said, but he put his arm around Jamie’s back and held him closer, anyway.

All the kids had already bounced back to their feet and Ted was helping Trent to carefully step out of his own angel.

Ted was frowning at Tren’t hood. “I miss her.”

Trent patted his chest, comfortingly. “She’s there, darling, just didn’t want to pick ice out.”

Ted still pouted so Trent gave him a little peck.

Jamie made a loud buzzer sound. “That’s a point deduction. There’s no PDA in snow angels.”

“Oh? Then what’s this?” Trent asked, gesturing at Roy and Jamie’s walking snuggle.

“We’re clearly just bros, ain’t we Royo?”

Roy grunted, moving his hand to grope Jamie’s arse.

Jamie didn’t even jump, just smiled wider.

“Jamie, who wins?” Phoebe asked, giving her puppy eyes.

Jamie hummed, rubbing his hand over chin before nodding decisively.

“Ted.”

Ted whooped, pumping his fist while the kids all groan.

“But wait!” Trent said. “Doesn't the winner buy hot chocolate for everyone?”

“That they do, Trent Crimm!” Jamie grinned, and the kids all cheered.

“Well hot dog, all right. If that’s the price of victory.”

The price of victory, or hot chocolate for seven, couldn’t have been more than £40.

The nap that Jamie and Phoebe fell into when they got home, each curled into Roy’s sides on the couch, was definitely worth way more.

[sgrumby]

“How can we breathe?”

“Force field,” Barry replies, his legs dangling over the rim of the TARDIS. “Keeps the bad guys out and the oxygen in. I, uh, wouldn’t be able to answer the phone without it.” He reaches up sheepishly and pops open the hatch on the door to reveal a rotary phone.

Lup gives him a look that he’s beginning to realise means she thinks he’s being tremendously stupid. “Why couldn’t you wire it in to the console? Or install a door so it opens from the inside, even?”

“Hey, have you seen that?” He changes the subject with his usual tact. “Look, wow, supernova.”

She grins and sits down next to him, kicking her feet in the vacuum of space. “It is pretty.”

“I should think so,” he grumbles. “Take a girl halfway across the universe and a million years back in time and all she can do is criticise my phone.”

“I’m just saying, I thought the Time Lords would’ve invented better phones! It’s rotary, Barry, it’s from the sixties!”

“It’s retro,” he insists. “It fits the police box aesthetic. Did you miss where it says PUBLIC CALL on the top?”

“Did you miss where it says PULL TO OPEN?”

“Shut up.”

“Why is it a police box, though?” She asks. “That seems… very sixties. You’d be right at home with my gran.”

“Chameleon circuit got stuck,” he says. “She’s designed to change her outside to blend in. I could fix it but, honestly, I like the blue. Plus, uh, it used to be real hard to find the door on a rock or a tree or - if there was nothing else around sometimes she’d materialise as a blade of grass, or whatever, and then I couldn’t even get out. I’m not sure if she was messing with me, or if she was designed to do that, or - it’s just easier this way.”

“It’s nice, actually,” she says. “Comforting, somehow. It feels sturdy. I can’t imagine it as a rock or a tree.”

He pats the floor next to him, and the engines go dwummmm. “She used to be different inside, too. All white and sterile. She had these big roundels - it was really weird. I don’t know who designed the UI, but it wasn’t good. As soon as I figured out how to redecorate I got on it.”

“You designed the coral?” Lup hadn’t really questioned the organic-looking arches and pillars. They’d been low on her list of priorities when she’d found herself in a time machine, and then the question had just fallen by the wayside.

“Well, I mean, I gave her a brief. I wanted it to feel more comfy, you know? This is my home, not a science lab. Well, it’s a lab, a little bit, but it’s - you know what I mean.”

“Wait, wait, gave her a brief?” Lup looks back in at the console, with its mess of wires and mismatched switches and knobs. She’d assumed that was the result of a few decades of Barry conducting haphazard repairs, but now he mentions it, they do look a little like some kind of sophisticated nervous system. “How sentient is this ship, exactly?”

Barry pulls a face, hesitates, and shrugs. “I dunno.”

“What!”

“Well, like, I told you that she’s soulbound, so she’s intelligent to some extent. I have a degree of control over the interior, and - I always kind of feel like she is. Like, I can do everything right on the console, and I’ll find myself halfway across the universe from where I asked her to go.”

“That’s a broken satnav, Barry, not sentience.”

“But it’s always where I need to go,” he elaborates. “Like, there’ll be someone who needs help, or a distress call, or something neat to go and see. Like this! This supernova. I’ve never been here before, and I basically just told the TARDIS that I wanted to show you something ro - something cool.”

He blushes at his slip, but Lup’s wrapped up in her thoughts.

“So, what, you just said “make me something comfy” and she made big coral pillars?”

“It’s a little more elaborate than that, but yeah, pretty much. I don’t know either, really. She’s… eccentric.”

“And the car seats?”

Barry shrugs again. “No idea. I needed somewhere to sit, that’s what I got.”

Lup hums, unhappily. “Can she see us? Feel us? I don’t like the idea that we’re walking around inside a sentient being.”

“I don’t think she minds. She can lock you out, if she likes. One regeneration I got a haircut she didn’t like and she wouldn’t let me in til it grew out. I was trapped on Gorvon Six for months.” The engine makes another dwummm noise, and Barry scowls. “It’s not funny!”

Lup can’t help but laugh at the expression on his face. “The more I learn the more I realise who’s in charge here.”

“I’m in charge!” He protests. “I’m a Time Lord! You know they used to grow TARDISes like bonsai? In little pots?”

“Oh, you’re getting pushed around by a bonsai?”

“I’m gonna go find Taako,” Barry grumbles. “Maybe he’ll be polite and respectful.”

Lup gives him a look.

“Okay, yeah, fine,” he concedes.

She laughs again and turns back to the star, gleaming brilliantly before them. The light plays across her face, reddy-orange, making her hair seem to glow and her eyes seem to sparkle.

Barry’s seen beauty in the universe. He’s seen nebulae, the births of stars, watched the sunrise on Heloyus, which orbits in a complex path between thirty different suns and, once every ten thousand years, sees a simultaneous thirty-sun sunrise. And yet, somehow, watching Lup…

“Want to grab pizza?” He offers.

“Shit, yes,” she grins. “Alien pizza?”

“Future pizza,” he counteroffers, jumping up from the floor of the TARDIS. “November 18th, 2045. The restaurant opened that day and burned down the next, but it’s the best pizza I’ve ever had. I pretty much singlehandedly earned them their money back, cos I keep parking the TARDIS in different places and ordering takeaway. You should see the look on the delivery guy’s face every time he sees me and my enormous blue box in a different area of London, all on one night.” He holds a hand out to help her up, and she takes it gladly.

“How do you order takeaway! You don’t have an address!”

“I just tell them the street,” he says. “It’s not like there’s a lot of blue boxes lying around.”

She considers that for a second. “Okay, yeah, that’s fair, I guess. What’s your order? Hawaiian?”

He narrows his eyes, hands frozen above the console. “How did you know that?”

“Shot in the dark. You seem like you’d go nuts for pineapple on pizza, is all.”

“What does that mean?”

“Alien tastebuds,” she says with a shrug. “I’ll grab Taako.”

“So rude,” he murmurs, and flips a switch on the console, setting the rotors whirring once again as Lup skips out of the room.

[imtryingmybeskar]

Come Home Chapter Six. Joel Miller x F! Reader.

Welp, if you've made it this far thank you so much! The Joel stuff really kicks off from here (just in time for the start of the series!) and we see the first glimmers of hope for our reader.

Warnings for anxiety and a panic attack, past trauma, PTSD. And Joel being super sweet and caring despite the AWKWARD conversation.

Word count: 4946

Come Home

Chapter Six - Against The Grain

Joel’s face is concerned, the lines on his brow deepened by his furrowing. He’s never been this close and you’re suddenly very aware of the height difference between you.

“You okay?” he says without preamble. “I was knockin’ for quite a while.”

“Uh…ummm…yeah. Yeah I’m okay,” you manage to force out.

“You sure?” he presses, and when you look up at him you know he can see the spark of anxiety behind your eyes.

You blink. Sigh a breath. Force yourself to relax. “I’m fine,” you say, more assuredly.

“Well good,” Joel says somewhat distractedly. He’s not looking at your face, instead his gaze is fixed slightly lower and you don’t realise why until he speaks again, a slight levity to his tone this time. “Worried about a home invasion? I meant what I said you know, this is a nice neighbourhood.”

Shit. You hadn’t even realised you were still holding the kitchen knife. Or remembered the gun at your hip. And –

You press your lips together in embarrassment as you switch off your torch.

“Sorry,” you offer in a small voice. “Didn’t mean to blind you. Or threaten you.” Joel gives that sweet half smile you’ve come to enjoy, but before he can comment on your peculiarities you find yourself asking if he would like to come inside and move back into the house so he can do just that.

“Thank you,” he says gratefully. “The snow’s stopped but it’s still mighty cold.”

He steps inside and glances around – a habit you know very well is born less of curiosity and more of decades of needing to be cautious in new spaces. His gaze settles on the fire, then on the sofa where your book is placed precariously on one arm, and a small smile touches his lips again.

“Looks like you’re settlin’ in,” he remarks.

You shut the door behind him and gesture to the sofa. “Well, I’m trying,” you admit. “Please have a seat.”

The social nicety strikes you as both hollow and faintly ridiculous, but Joel inclines his head in thanks before sitting down and beginning to take off his coat. You cross to the kitchen and place the knife back in its allocated drawer before filling the kettle again and putting it back to boil on the hob.

“Do you want some tea?” you offer as you come back into the living room.

Joel turns to face you, and you’re struck by (and quite envious of) how comfortable he looks in this environment. His coat is now draped over the other arm of the sofa, his elbow resting on top of it, long legs stretched out in front of him. Without his layers he somehow looks even more broad than before – the soft looking green plaid of his shirt tight over his shoulders and upper arms. He’s rolled up his sleeves too, giving you a view of his muscular forearms and christ its been a long time since you’ve been intimate with anyone but you’re pretty sure you shouldn’t be this excited to see them.

He saves you from having to wonder if you’re staring at him as hard as you think you are by answering your question.

“Well, I hate to be a cheeky sonofabitch, but you wouldn’t have any coffee would you?” he asks. His tone is jovial and light, a jokingly knowing undertone to his words because…well…who the fuck had coffee any more?

“I uh…I do actually,” you admit. Shit. Maybe you like this guy even more than you thought. Why the fuck are you offering him your prized possession? Though it’s almost worth it at the astonished, wide-eyed look he gives you. He really is super fucking handsome. “But you have to earn it,” you blurt out. Heat rises to your cheeks almost immediately as he raises a quizzical eyebrow at you. Probably could have phrased that better.

“Excuse me?” he asks, his voice wiped of its joking tone.

“I didn’t mean…I mean…sorry,” you splutter. “That came out wrong. What I mean is, I have a favour to ask.”

Joel sits forward, those thick forearms now resting on his knees and he gives you a wary look as he responds. “Go on."

As you struggle to articulate your request you feel a fresh heat suffuse your face. This was excruciating. It would be an embarrassing situation with anyone, but you’re managing to be extra awkward around him and it feels like your skull is transparent and he can see your stupid burgeoning crush emblazoned across every part of your mind. It doesn’t help that he is so calm and self-assured. Every word, every mannerism speaks to supreme self-possession and it makes you even more flustered.

“I…will you…please…” You stutter yourself into silence and take a deep breath. He already thinks you’re rude and a moron. Might as well add “coward” to that tally against you. “Please could you come upstairs with me?” you ask calmly, looking firmly at the curtains behind him.

No! Shit! Add to that sentence! Complete that thought!

“To check the rooms!” you add hastily, your eyes widening as you finally look at him in horror. Yup. Adding “pervert” to that list too. Good going. “I just…I know it sounds ridiculous, because you’d know if you were living next door to infected or someone that shouldn’t be here but I need to check. And I’m not used to living in such a big space. I looked into most of the rooms but- “

Your stream of words suddenly runs dry as you realise how pathetic you sound. Wanting back up to explore your own house. How fucking ludicrous.

“Sure.” His voice is warm again, and you sigh as you relax into its gentle confidence.

“Thanks. Sorry.”

He shook his head and his dimple flashed briefly before he spoke. “Nothin’ to be sorry for. I get it. Me and Ellie, we’ve only lived here for six months or so. She’s the one lives in my garage and while she’s enjoyin’ havin’ her own space, I like havin’ her close if I’m honest. But the first few weeks we were here we slept in the livin’ room together. She took the sofa, I slept on the cushions from the other chairs. It just felt right to y’know? The beds were a nice novelty. Comfortable. Warm. But actually gettin’ to sleep in them? That was another matter altogether. The nightmares don’t stop just ‘cause you’re behind walls now. And I needed to know she was next to me just as much as she needed to know I was next to her. So…I get it. You do what you need to. I’m happy to help.”

You bite your lip hard to stop it wobbling. Sweet and kind as well as pretty. You kind of wish he’d been a dick to you instead. Then perhaps you could nip this crush in the bud before it really took hold.

“You wanna bring the knife along?” he asked, only a tiny hint of teasing in his tone.

“I think the gun will suffice,” you say as you give a watery little smile. “Besides, I just gotta outrun you, right?”

He chuckles as he stands up. “Long as I get my coffee before I succumb to any bites I’ll die a happy man,” he jokes. “Want me to go first?”

You shake your head. “No, thank you. Just…having someone else here is enough.”

He nods. “Well okay then. Lead the way.”

The light is still on at the top of the stairs so going up them is not as big an ordeal than before, even less so with Joel bringing up the rear, and you begin to feel foolish again as you climb. You should be able to do this alone. After surviving for so long, you should be able to do anything. But you can’t deny that you find his presence behind you extremely comforting.

“Does this place look anything like yours?” you ask as you crest the top step. The question is more to make conversation than for any burning desire to know what his house is like, a way to delay the anxieties that you’re still fighting to keep down.

“Pretty similar,” he replies as he walks up the final few stairs and sweeps the area with that practiced glance again. “Though I think mine was modernised more recently. The décor isn’t so…80s.”

There’s that slight tease to his tone again and it brings a smile to your face despite yourself.

“It is a little dated,” you agree as you gently scuff a foot along what you now realise is a pretty hideous coral coloured carpet, sending small puffs of dust into the air as you do. “But I can forgive almost anything for a roof that doesn’t leak and hot water for a shower.”

Joel huffs a soft laugh. “Ain’t nothin’ like that first one after bein’ on the road awhile.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” you reply distantly. Your voice sounds faint to your ears as you’re suddenly very aware that you haven’t bathed properly in a while. Cold weather and lack of plumbing at your cabin meant that the best you and Chris were usually able to manage were quick wipedowns with a flannel out of a bucket. Add to that spending the previous night in a barn and the killing of two relatively fresh infected the day before…God you must stink.

You bite your lip again as shame joins the simmering anxieties in your belly and threatens to spill hot tears down your cheeks. In this world, there weren’t many opportunities for glitz and glamour and dolling yourself up. The absence of mushrooms sprouting from your face was about as good as it got. But it was cruel, you thought, that you couldn’t even privately indulge in the stupid, dopey, soft feelings you suspect you’ve started to harbour for this man without being faced with what a disgusting mess you really were.

“You alright?” Joel asks, that low comforting rumble of his voice breaking into your thoughts, and you realise you must have been staring at the carpet all this time. You nod, still biting your lip, still not looking at him, not trusting yourself to speak right now as your throat is still tight with the humilation you feel.

“This it?” he asks as he gestures to the door ahead and you nod again, oddly thankful that he seems to have mistaken your embarrassed silence for fearful silence. It feels better somehow that he thinks you would be afraid of something that isn’t there rather than knowing you’re twisting yourself up about what he thinks of your currently lacking personal hygiene.

“Well…guns at the ready,” he quips, and this time his gentle humour does draw you and you look up at him with a small, shy smile.

Before you can psyche yourself up, before you can debate with yourself as to who should actually open up the room he’s past you, grasping the door handle firmly and removing all possibility of further chickening out. The feeble hall light isn’t nearly enough to penetrate the gloom and you automatically steel yourself for a potential fight before forcing yourself to relax.

Joel steps through the doorway and flicks the light on.

Or tries to. Even though he takes up a good deal of space in the frame, you can see that the room beyond remains stubbornly dark and a thin snaking of vindication that you had asked him to accompany you up here creeps through you. Since he’s not backing away you have to assume that once again, no one infected or otherwise has managed to conceal themselves in your house.

“No bulb," he mutters half to himself as he looks up at the light fitting. "I think we’re all clear,” he adds, and a wave of gratitude hits you at the seriousness of his tone. He really does understand. “But if you wanna pass me your torch I can take a proper look around?”

“That’s okay,” you reply hurriedly, not wanting him to think you were totally helpless. “I can do a little sweep myself.”

Joel steps inside the darkened room to give you space to follow and you immediately regret your decision. The light from the hallway barely penetrates past the door, and the curtains are already closed here, so not even the light of the moon can be seen. The whole area is made up of hues of grey, shadowy shapes made of deeper blackness the only things that stand out.

Swallowing your fear, you step inside the room and flick your torch back on, directing it at the floor so you don’t accidentally shine it at Joel again. The carpet here is a soft grey colour and whether that was how it looked originally, or the result of years of dust having settled into it you cannot tell. You raise the beam of light slowly up and it travels across to the curved wooden bottom of a rocking chair, the peeling paint that coats it some sort of light pastel shade under the dirt. The gleam of gloss paint. The skeletal nature of the slatted wooden back makes you uncomfortable in a way you can’t quite define, and that feeling grows and sharpens to something you do recognise when you see that the angled centre of a decrepit nursing pillow is hooked over one armrest.

You turn the beam away hurriedly, wanting to finish your investigation in a way that will be thorough enough that you can sleep at night, brief enough that unpleasant memories won’t have time to crowd you, and some way that doesn’t make you look even more jittery in front of Joel. Then you can get out of here and never open this door again. The torchlight sweeps up and over the walls, and now you can see the faded but still intact wallpaper that decorates the place – animated elephants holding umbrellas in primary colours as they frolick through raindrops and puddles. Cartoon toadstools with faces smiling back at you. The remains of some educational posters can be seen too; ABC’s, 123’s, farm animals and the noises they supposedly make.

A buzzing is surfacing in your ears, as if a swarm of angry hornets is closing in on your location. You can almost feel the vibration of it rattling through you, brimming in your skull and you grip the torch tighter as you swallow again around a dry mouth and a distinctly sickly feeling. That’s enough. You know what this place once was. Get out of here.

As you turn to do just that, the beam cuts across the space to your left and lands upon a crib, projecting shadows of the bars at its side hugely against the wall behind it. The sight is so stark that it halts you momentarily. A cage on wheels. The mobile of cartoon giraffes above it twists gently in the disturbed air from where you have come in. You can’t breathe. The corridor stretches away ahead of you as it does every night, as it always will, and you can’t breathe. The gas mask obscures your vision, narrowing it to a pinprick view, spores in the torchlight floating around you like dust motes in a sunbeam-

“Whoa, whoa, easy now.” A gentle voice. Strong arms. Warmth at your shoulders. “Look at me.”

All you can see is the carpet, a halo of light around your feet and you realise you’re bent double with your hands resting on your knees as you gulp for air.

He’s speaking again. His voice is coming from so far away, hidden behind the wall of buzzing. But its insistent, firm. Not inclined to take no for an answer. “I said look at me.”

Exhaling deeply one last time you draw yourself up and stand in front of him. He has one large hand on each of your shoulders, reassuring you with bodily contact, saturating you with his warmth. A tiny, stunted part of you wishes you could take more pleasure in his touch before the shame and sorrow begins to creep in, as it always does after one of these episodes. Feelings that you should be able to cope, that you’re being ridiculous, that you wouldn’t be surprised if he never wanted to see you again and that he would keep Ellie away from your weakness too.

You look up and his face fills your world. Those dark eyes, a strong curve to his nose, a whiskery chin. “You’re okay,” he’s saying. “Just look at me. Listen to my voice. Breathe.” Those are instructions you can obey. His face is so pleasant to look at, his voice rich and soothing. You can breathe. You do it all the time. In and out. In and out. You realise he’s the one speaking after a few moments. “In and out. That’s it. You’re doin’ great.”

Fuck all of this.

“What?” Joel is watching intently, the furrow back at his brow as he regards you, and you realise you must have spoken out loud. Oh well.

“Fuck all of this,” you enunciate quietly, as the whirl of anxiety and fear suddenly abandons you, leaving you feeling exhausted. A quizzical look passes over Joel’s face before it transmutes briefly to a piercing gaze, as if he is trying to get the measure of you. Then it softens to understanding and he nods.

“You wanna get outta here.” It’s a statement not a question and you nod tersely before breaking away from his soft grip and marching back out of the room and down the stairs on wobbly legs. You hear Joel close the door to the nursery before he follows you back down to the lower level of the house.

The kettle is just starting to whistle shrilly as you enter the kitchen once more. You had almost forgotten that coffees were on the agenda, but now find yourself grateful for the distraction and begin to prepare the cups with shaking hands.

It didn’t exactly come as a surprise that one of the rooms was for a child. After all, you knew before you chose this house that these had been family homes. And it wasn’t like you hadn’t seen a thousand kid’s rooms over the years – some abandoned, some with horrendous and heartbreaking scenes within. But having it so close at hand was hard. You didn’t want a reminder like that. Not in your own house, your supposed fresh start. Not when you’d been congratulating yourself on starting to put the nightmares to bed. It seemed unfair that you had survived so long and yet could so easily be derailed by such a seemingly small thing.

“Hey.” Joel’s warm, bassy tones come from somewhere behind you and break into your thoughts. “Was uh…was that what you were expectin’ to find in there?”

“It wasn’t a bloater. So it’s a good day,” you shrug, keeping your back to him and your voice carefully neutral as you avoid the question.

You hear him huff a gentle laugh. “That’s true,” he agrees. “But uh…you okay?”

“Yep,” you answer, trying to put a note of finality into the short reply. Time to change the subject. “How do you take your coffee?” you ask as you grab the silver tin from the cupboard above you and measure some of the contents carefully into two mugs.

“Black. No sugar. Wait, do we even have any sugar in Jackson right now? It doesn’t matter. No sugar.” Though you hadn’t known him for very long, you had still never heard such excitement in Joel’s voice before. Clearly this coffee was very, very dear to him.

“Black, no sugar,” you confirm as you turn and hand him the steaming mug.

He takes the mug and inhales deeply over it. His eyes close in bliss and a tiny smile quirks the corner of his lips. “Oh man,” he sighs longingly. “Its been a while since I had any kind of coffee and this smells amazing. Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” you reply, raising your own mug toward him. Before he can ask you anything more about what had just transpired in the nursery you jump in with “Come sit down, get comfortable. And then you can tell me what your Starbucks order used to be. I reckon you’re a triple caramel shot half foam extra whipped cream sprinkles on top kinda guy.”

You make your way over to the couch and place your coffee on the table before sitting in the seat opposite where he had vacated. Not too close. But close enough. You hear him chuckle as he moves to take his spot once again.

“You got me,” he grins. “I loved those sugar monstrosities. And Sarah, she-“

He draws up short, his eyes flickering with sadness and his body language becoming immediately closed off as his words abruptly stop. With the gentlest of touches he absent-mindedly caresses the face of the watch on his wrist and its only now that you notice that its broken - cracked and chipped and with two big holes marring the plastic covering. Shit. You hadn’t meant to unleash any kind of painful memories. But that’s all that most people had these days. A few seconds of awkward silence tick by as you desperately try to think of something, anything to steer the conversation back into lighter topics, but he beats you to it when he shakes his head almost imperceptibly and speaks again.

“I’m Joel, by the way. I know we’ve seen each other a coupla times but I don’t think I ever actually introduced myself. As mentioned before my lodger, guitar student, and all round pain in my ass is Ellie.”

He holds out his hand and you take it, noting how it completely swamps your own. His palms are warm and dry, his skin softer than you’d expected, fingers long and thick and – fuck you should be saying something right now, instead of fixating on his hands. You open your mouth to introduce yourself but he’s speaking again.

“I know who you are. Maria briefed me and Tommy about your group last night. We’ve had some trouble here recently. Its why you were guarded overnight. Nothin’ personal. We just can’t afford to take risks with what’s been built here. So…Maria has said that when people arrive they need to be screened more thoroughly for the time bein’.”

“What kind of trouble?” you ask, frowning. “If you can tell me. I know its none of my business really.”

“It’s your business as much as anyone’s if you’re gonna be livin’ here with us,” Joel says gently, and “But uh…can I have my hand back first? I really wanna drink this coffee.”

“Oh shi-“ you exclaim as you hurriedly release him. “Sorry.”

“You can stop apologisin’,” he says kindly. “I know what its like after bein’ outside for a while, but take my word for it – you can relax here.” He picks up the mug before adding in a quieter voice, “That’s easier said than done, I know. But if you do wanna talk about anything you can. Do you…do you wanna talk about what happened upstairs?”

A hot lance of anger pierces you through. “You wanna talk about your watch?” The bitter, spiteful, defensive words slip out before you can stop them and you press your lips together as if you could take them back if only you could make your mouth small enough. Fuck. You hadn’t meant to be so cruel when he had been nothing but kind. His eyes immediately narrow, darken in anger and his mouth twists as his jaw sets angrily. You drop your eyes to your lap in shame.

“I’m sorry,” you say again. “And this time I do need to say it. That was rude. And unnecessary.” You sigh, trying to find the words that might fix this. “I-I can’t talk about it. Its not even about wanting to I…I just can’t. But thank you. For not judging me. I’ll sleep better thanks to you.” You hope the lie will help him feel better.

Silence reigns for a few moments, then when he speaks again Joel’s voice is soft once more and you risk raising your eyes to his face. It’s closed, pinched with sorrow, but no longer angry and that's probably more than you deserve.

“Well I’m sorry too. I shouldn't have pushed you on it. And it was a dumb thing to ask anyway. After tellin’ you you’re safe now and to relax…no one needs to relive…” He trails off, then begins again. “Guess I’m just used to tryin’ to pry out how Ellie’s feelin’ about...well anything. The world’s all but ended but teenagers are still the same.” He chuckles hollowly before taking a swig of coffee.

“So…what happened? Here I mean,” you enquire, trying to move on from your indiscretions.

“Had a group of twelve come in a coupla months back. In a bad way. All clean of infection but malnourished and…well you know what its like. Some of ‘em wouldn’t talk, wandering around like…well like zombies. The Romero kind, y’know.” It’s a feeble joke but you smile nonetheless. Perhaps he could forgive you for the awful thing you had said.

“Maria put ‘em up, gave ‘em food, welcomed them. A lot like you, except they were put in houses straight away, allowed to keep their weapons, not monitored. I guess they thought we were soft, livin’ here behind our walls with our electricity and supplies. The third night they were here they tried to take the place by force. Twelve against a whole town. Doesn’t seem like good odds. But they had the advantages of surprise and desperation. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, that can be mighty effective."

You nod your understanding and agreement and he continues. “They killed five of our people before we got ‘em under control. Three of theirs were killed in the fighting, the other nine…well me ‘n Tommy drove ‘em a hundred miles or so out and dropped em in a town out there.”

“You let them go?” you ask, a little incredulously.

“Maria and Tommy did. I was all for disposin’ of them there and then, but they insisted.” He took another swig of coffee, and you followed suit. “Don’t think they’ll be botherin’ us again though. We made a helluva noise as we left. And its hard to run when you’re hogtied and blindfolded. Still…” He trailed off again and you found yourself agreeing with his unspoken sentiment. It was always better to be sure. “But that’s why I near broke down your door earlier. Needed to know you weren’t uhhh…up to anything.”

“Oh, I won’t be causing trouble,” you confirm. “I know a good thing when I see it. And I barely know the others. I just met them on the road here.”

“Well, I can’t lie. The coffee has gone a long way to get you into the good books,” he twinkled. “And Ellie seems to like you.”

“She seems sweet,” you reply.

“Don’t let those innocent eyes fool ya,” Joel chuckles. “When I said she’s a pain in my ass I meant it.” His eyes soften further as he speaks about her, his love and affection for the girl plain to see upon his grizzled face. “Speaking of…” He drains the last of his coffee, stands and stretches. “I’d better get back. If I don’t cook, she doesn’t eat. Too used to living out of tins.” You stand too, suddenly struck shy at how close and imposing he is in front of you.

“It was nice to have you here,” you say, and find yourself meaning it as more than a mere pleasantry. “Come by again if you want. Though I can’t promise coffee every time!”

He quirks a thoughtful eyebrow and raises his eyes to the ceiling, tapping his finger on his chin as if deep in contemplation. “Without the coffee…I’ll have to think about it,” he replies, but you can hear the joking in his tone. He puts on his coat and you walk him to the door. The icy blast of frigid winter air that invades as you open it makes you shiver and feel extremely grateful for the strength of the four walls around you and the fire you have built.

As he steps over the threshold Joel turns back to you, his face serious once more. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks, and the grave concern in his voice sends a flood of warmth through your chest. You don’t know. You just don’t know if you’ll be alright. But he has Ellie to think of, and himself. He doesn’t need to worry about you too.

“I’ll be fine,” you say, hopeful that you’re being truthful. “You’ve helped me out a lot. Thank you.”

The house feels much emptier without him, but the warmth his care and empathy have inspired linger, and you find yourself with a small smile upon your face as you settle back into the cosiness of your sofa and open your book again.

“Well, that’s what neighbours are for,” he replies more cheerily. “I’ll see you around.” And with a final nod he departs from your porch and heads back to his own house. You watch him go, raise an arm in acknowledgement when you see him open the front door, his silhouette stark against the lights inside his own home.

Next chapter

Taglist - @thisshipwillsail316 @prostitute-robot-from-the-future @elegantduckturtle @dihra-vesa @midwesternwitchery @just-here-for-the-moment @eri16 @readsalot73 @littlemisspascal @princessxkenobi @harriedandharassed @pagannightwitch @tentacruels @kirsteng42 @shirks-all-responsibilities @deadhumourist @pedrostories

[superheroesofbothuniverses]

Soulmates and Cheese Fries (Shieldshock)

Steve was spending a lot of time at the gym, partly because he was bored in his retirement, and partly because of her. He’d nearly fallen off the treadmill the first time the curvy brunette hopped up on the machine two down from him. He’d not been so bowled over by a woman in decades and it freaked him out. She’d winked at him, and he’d nodded dumbly back, forcing himself to return to his running with intense concentration.

She’d appeared regularly after that and though they’d shared several nods, smiles, and stares (the ogling was mutual, he’d found out, when he’d caught her staring at him lifting weights) neither had said a word yet and he was deeply invested in this interesting game.

Darcy had been in a bit of a slump since Jane’s death and had made a New Year’s Resolution to get active again, hoping that a regular routine plus endorphins would help. It had to be just her luck that she happened to pick the same gym frequented by the All American hunk, Steve Rogers.

She’d frozen for a second when she’d recognized him on the treadmill, but sternly put her inner fangirl in check and got to jogging, unable to help but admire the way his muscles moved when he ran. When they moved to the weight machines, she was too busy trying to not die of exertion (being this out of shape was no fun) to really notice anything around her, but as she was wiping down the leg press bench, she looked up and accidentally met his gaze as he was lifting an ungodly amount of weight. He smiled at her and she felt warm all over.

She spent a long time thinking (and dreaming) about said smile, but never struck up a conversation with her silent gym buddy. Darcy was pretty sure Natasha would have been deeply disappointed in her, but she was reluctant to risk her little private fantasy being destroyed.

Their silent interactions continued over the next several weeks and Darcy started winking back at Steve’s little smiles. She may or may not have googled his relationship status. Then one day, he didn’t show up and didn’t return all that week. Darcy felt strangely bereft and kicked herself over the missed opportunity. She spent Valentine’s Day working, then took the next day off to revel in National Single’s Awareness day, capped off by a trip to her favorite pub for a celebratory drink.

She was sipping and chatting to Gary the awesome bartender, when she heard someone slide onto a nearby stool.

“Hey, Steve. The usual?” Gary greeted and Darcy almost did a spit take at the sight of her gym crush, looking unfairly good in semi casual attire,

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times and then she blurted: “Hey, gym buddy, here to celebrate National Single’s Awareness day? You have to try the cheese fries.”

Steve turned to her, looking so shocked she was wishing she’d kept her mouth shut, but then he grinned at her.

“I was hoping it would be you. I was kinda bummed you didn’t show today.”

They stared at each other and Gary looked back and forth between them.”

“You guys okay?” he asked.

Darcy turned her hand palm up to show them her words.

Gary’s eyebrows raised and he beamed proudly at them.

“Well, congrats! Should I put in an order of cheese fries?” he asked, winking at Steve, who nodded without taking his eyes off of his soulmate. Her eyes were so blue, he could drown in them.

She hopped off her stool and took the one next to him, looking him up and down with great excitement.

“I took today off for some self care, but the universe found a way. I’m Darcy Lewis, by the way: astrophysicist and friend of Thor.”

“And I’m Steve Rogers, cheese fries devotee and gym rat.” He shook her hand and she felt downright giddy. “You wouldn’t believe how many different places I’ve gone for cheese fries on February 15.”

Darcy laughed. “While I definitely wished mine were more specific, they were comforting. I knew I Wasn't going to be rejected by my Soulmate. Believe it or not, it does happen.”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Steve sighed. “But seeing my soulmark stay steady the last few years gave me hope when I didn’t have much. I kept expecting it to fade, but it didn’t.”

“I’m too stubborn to die,” Darcy shrugged. “Just like you.”

There was much flirting over the cheese fries and sharing of stories involving their mutual friends. Talking to Steve turned out to be much easier than Darcy had imagined. He was funny, sarcastic, and showed genuine interest when she was talking, which was incredibly refreshing.

“I was kind of afraid you weren’t coming back to the gym,” Darcy admitted. “I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone I hadn’t spoken to before.”

“Me neither,” Steve agreed, rooting for the cheesiest fry he could find. “But I did. I was visiting Sam and Bucky last week and kept thinking about you. I took the red eye back to get back here for the 15th, just so I could finally say something and find out where it went.”

“Awww,” Darcy crooned, giving him her best heart eye look as she grabbed a fry. “That’s so fluffy!!” She finished off the last of her drink then turned back to Steve.

“A couple more questions, Mr. America.”

“Fire away.”

“First one, where are your Words? Second, would it be way too forward of me to kiss you?”

She spun around on her stool and he caught her hands as she stopped, laughing dizzily.

“I can’t believe Captain Cutie is my soulmate!”

“You’re adorable,” Steve chuckled, beaming down at her. He hadn’t smiled this much in years and it was a glorious feeling.

“But to answer your questions, my Words are right here,” he pulled up his shirt briefly to show the loopy scrawl trailing down his left side.

“Also,” Steve tugged her closer, so their knees were touching, “I’m up for a kiss if you are, Dr. Lewis.”

She was, indeed, very up for it.

[alritestoodeos]

Summarizing the OG timeline characters (badly) Pt. 1: Kenshi

So Kenshi is this really snotty guy who’s like “come here, let me kick your ass plzz” so he can prove he’s the toughest guy in town. Then Kenshi found this guy named Shang Ts- I mean… Song… This Song guy is like “Kenshi, me boy. You need yourself a killer sword, because you are super cool”, and Kenshi’s like “damn straight”. So Song and Kenshi went to this really big well, and Kenshi took the lid off of it and got blasted in the face by a bunch of souls, permanently blinding him. Song then revealed he was none other than the sorcerer Shang Tsung! DUN DUN DUNNNN!! And then Shang Tsung pushed Kenshi into the well after absorbing all the souls inside of it, making him strong and youthful again. Kenshi thought he’d be left to die in there, when the sword (that actually existed wtf??) that Shang Tsung had told Kenshi about went into Kenshi’s hand, giving him an artificial sight of sorts. The reason this sword (whose name is 戦闘 which I find adorable that it just has a name) is able to do this is that it belonged to a long line of warriors who all just so happened to be ancestors of Kenshi. Those ancestors were all also tricked by Shang Tsung’s trap, dying in the well, which is why there were so many souls.

Then Kenshi was like “ok boys we’re getting our revenge” and spent the next decade relearning how to see and fight, greatly humbling himself along the way. Word got around of this badass blind Earthrealmer swordsman who can use this magic sword and even move things with his mind a little bit, which catches the attention of Sonya and Jax, and they’re like “hey. Come join the OWIA (Outworld Investigation Agency, super lame) so you can look around in Outworld”, and Kenshi is like “hell yea”. He was then given the order to find Cyrax, whose tracker had been taken off the map. While he never found Cyrax, he did find Ermac, this amalgamation of 100s of souls, all having a mid-life crisis. Kenshi thought they were super cool and was like “hey what’s wrong bud?”, and Ermac’s like “Our one order in this life doesn’t exist anymore, so we aren’t really vibing rn”, and Kenshi’s like “well what if it wasn’t?”, and Ermac’s like “oh shit tru. Thanks. Here, let us teach you how to piledrive people into the ground with your  m i n d .” And so they did, and Kenshi now knew how to telekinetically slam people. Then Kenshi was like “yoooo OWIA I didn’t find Cyrax but I did find this person with green hair and pronouns”, but they didn’t respond, because they got fucking bombed by the Red Dragon. On the topic of the Red Dragon, the Deadly Alliance (one of which in this alliance is Kenshi’s sworn enemy), sent Mavado to go kill Kenshi, and nearly did so, but was like “yOu ArEn’T eVeN wOrTh ThE kIlL”, and walked away thinking he was cool.

As Kenshi lay, dying, a figure formed in the distance. It was Kuai Liang, the current Sub-Zero. Kuai carried Kenshi back to his Outworld cabin and nursed him back to health. Kenshi appreciated his generosity, and the two became actual besties. Suddenly, Kenshi felt his sword grow 10x in power. He’s like “dude dafuq-”, and Sub-Zero’s like “Oh yeah so there’s this dude named Onaga and- whatever there isn’t time for that. Anyways I’m pretty sure Onaga just killed Shang Tsung and all your ancestors just went back into your sword”. And Kenshi was happy, because his ancestors were back to being free, and his quest was over. He was happy. At least he felt like he should’ve been. But, he wasn’t. Kenshi felt… empty. Like this was what he devoted all of his life to, and now it’s just gone. He began to understand how Ermac felt, how awful it must’ve been for them when they realized everything they were meant to do, was just destroyed. Kenshi needed time to understand what he wanted in his life and disbanded from OWIA, and unaligned with the Lin Kuei, but promised both he’d still be an ally. He then left them both, becoming a lone warrior, in search of something to fill the hole that had been created within him. (angst rant go brr) Anywayyys Kenshi became Batman pretty much, hunting down the corrupted in the night, taking out criminal organizations. He also intercepts a transmission from the Red Dragon to Mavado, the man who nearly killed him, to kill the demigod Taven. Before Kenshi can do anything about Mavado’s mission, he gets a little tap on the shoulder from Johnny Cage, who’s like “dude XD 💀 so-so get this- 💀 there are these evil dudes like Onaga, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Shao Kahn who are all, like 🤣 going to try to kill Blaze or some shit, and like, I was wondering if you- hold on a sec 💀… I was wondering if you wanted to join this team I’m making that has Sub-Zero, Ermac, and a whole bunch of other wacky characters to take them out”, and Kenshi’s like “were you audibly saying skull emoji- wait- SHANG TSUNG!?!” so Kenshi joined Johnny Cage in the Forces of Light. When Kenshi arrives at the pyramid, he takes out Sheeva and Quan Chi, and sees Ermac, and is like “dude this is a massacre out here what the hell is–” and before he could finish, he is telekinetically slammed into the ground by Ermac, who’s foot is planted into Kenshi’s chest, revealing his identity to really be Shang Tsung in the form of Ermac, before Shang Tsung casts his arm out to Kenshi, muttering “your soul is mine”, driving out the life force of Kenshi, now ultimately failing the quest he’s tried his whole life to complete.

If there's any other character's you want explained like this (from the og timeline only sorry), reply which you'd want!

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Hello! First time asking on tumblr!

I just wanted to ask about your thoughts between Edward and the last remaining furness engines that made it into BR days? Do you think he would be chummy with them cuz of the fact that they’re the last furness engines kicking around in the area, or would their be a divide due to them being “Sharpies”, if the whole feud between the seagulls (Well Seagull, singular) and the sharpies is even still a thing?

Ooh.

At the risk of a spoiler in the Nobby-verse... the Sharpie/Seagull feud becomes a dead letter (or more of a tired old joke) almost immediately after Grouping. Furness territory gets swarmed in short order by "foreign" engines who start taking over some of their assignments, the situation with management is uncertain, and the idiots by and large get their shit together real quick. They still bicker plenty ofc but they also show up for each other against outside threats instead of trying to undermine each other. By the '30s they probably refer to each other as "cousins" instead of "those dirty bastards."

So by nationalisation? Yeah, I think the 7 or so ex-Furness 0-6-0s and Edward would have felt positively about each other—it's nice to know it's not only your little spot of earth that still remembers all that lost culture. Chumminess, though, would have been pretty well precluded by distance. Edward only poked his funnel into Barrow occasionally and irregularly at this point, and the remaining 0-6-0s weren't even at Barrow—they were shedded up at Moor Row. So it's kind of a coin flip as to whether they ever ran into each other at all. If they had, though, I am sure the vibes would be  good. Perhaps bittersweet, but, look, by the early '50s these guys are all survivors. They've been through a lot. I think on the whole they'd appreciate it as a happy coincidence and would go home chuffed to tell their shedmates that they saw old so-and-so that day.

I have thought a good bit about these postwar years up in Moor Row and I like to imagine it was cosy. I mean it was a small, unimportant depot in the middle of nowhere but it was homey. Trainspotters often wrote into journals at the time about seeing some of the last pre-Grouping engines at Moor Row. It not only had the final ex-Furness engines but it also had a contingent of old ex.-Lancaster and Yorkshire 0-6-0s. Ha! I'd bet those two groups were also fierce rivals early in Grouping but by that point, hell. Again, they have all survived a Grouping, a Depression, a World War, and Nationalisation. They're all old and they just like to live a mellow life. All of them were scrapped by the end of the '50s but they'd gotten a pretty full working life. Judging by the notes people wrote into rail magazines at the time, Moor Row took great care of its engines. It was not a bad way to spend your last years and I like to think they were all friends.

And if someone brought in "Old Iron" to read to them? The incredulous laughter and the swapping of stories from four decades ago and the gossip about what an absolute looneybin Sodor was—it would have gone on for hours. ("Why do they have two major crises a year? It's only, what, 150 miles of network all told?... More like 200... aye, what a bleedin' circus... They dress it up for the stories, I reckon... nah, I was right across the bridge from them for 20 years. If anything they sound more sane in these books of theirs...")

So that's my personal headcanon.

That said, for fic writing purposes I have definitely experimented with the drama of, like, FC1 or FC2 trialling one of the last FR 0-6-0s on Sodor. And Edward being delighted to find another survivor! Only to be absolutely blown away when the pleasure is not reciprocated and, like, 52509 or whoever (who, mind you, would have been built after Edward had left the mainland anyway) just being like piss off, Seagull and Edward being gobsmacked. ... this is the year of our Lord nineteen fifty-two?? Surely you cannot be serious.

Obviously, James is the hero everyone needs here. No, I'm serious. That's a separate ask, I'll finish describing that fic idea one day.