#So I'll probably be tinkering with that one for a while to see where it gets me

[etherealily]

guilt // f.odair

[1/3] Long. this was queued, idk if I've already promised another character before this is out.

Finnick Odair + fem!reader. Warnings : Cuss words, SFW but discretion advised, mature themes.

Desc. : But is it in his nature?

You do NOT have permission to repost and/or translate any of my fics.

═════════════════════ ⋆🔱⋆ ══════════════════

'Suck on his sellout cock, go ahead', your mind taunts you as you traipse behind him into the Victor's Village, a place where you simultaneously hoped you'd live and you'd never step into again.

See, Finnick had always dominated your childhood.

You grew up watching him charm the nation, be welcomed back to the District like he was God.

One of your biggest flexes was that you got to see him in person in a parade once, when he'd come back from one of his many Capitol visits.

However. That all changed once you became fifteen. Because you'd finally got some fucking sense and realized that the people at the Capitol, the Hunger Games, none of it was fair, it was all fucking shit.

And you hated Finnick all the more for it.

Prancing around, doing promotions, adverts, sending children to die, being the Capitol's bitch. You'd narrowly escaped your last chance to be reaped, but you still wished he'd choke on his ridiculously expensive Capitol meal.

You couldn't respect him.

But. But, it wasn't like you'd ever tell him that, though. Because when Finnick Odair talks to you, you fucking talk back.

And when he tells you he wants you to come back home with him after seeing you by the ocean one night, you go, no matter how much you'd rather fucking kill yourself.

"This is my house.", he smiles, and waits expectantly, as if you're supposed to applaud.

"It's nice."

He doesn't look disappointed or surprised at that. In fact, he seems mildly entertained. "Get in."

═════════════════════ ⋆🔱⋆ ══════════════════

"And then, maybe, just bring your hand up the side of your leg? Yeah, yeah, just like that. Okay, yeah, sweetheart, that's it."

Click.

"And this is for..."

"Modelling."

"For the Capitol?"

"Who else?"

You raise a brow, your mind immediately picturing some rhinestone encrusted Capitol asshole getting off to a picture of you. You shudder.

"I'm joking. It's for me."

"For you?"

"Feel free to look around.", he says, offhandedly, as he looks through the camera at all the pictures he'd just clicked of you. "Maybe something will catch your fancy."

"You brought me here to... take pictures of me and... let me take whatever I want from your house?"

"I'm a weirdo, sweetheart."

"What will you do with the pictures?"

"I dunno. Can't publish them anywhere. I guess I'll just use them.", he mutters, more to himself than you, but you catch it. He looks up and then clarifies, "To improve my photography skills."

Thank fuck.

"Why me?"

"You're a good subject."

Your fingers move almost fluidly past various things, bottles of expensive liquor, watches, jewellery that he probably stole from his long list of Capitol lovers, and a single, slightly pathetic looking conch.

"I'm a subject? Like... math?"

He snorts. It's condescending, he's aware - there's no way you'd know. You've never been out of the District.

"It's photography lingo. A subject is who you're taking photos of. You have the correct facial structure for my lighting to illuminate you how I want it to. Hence, you're a good subject."

"Oh."

He continues flicking through photos and adjusting the background, taking a few trial shots with the result of his tinkering, until he seems to notice that you haven't spoken in a while. "You like the conch?"

"It's pretty."

"So are you."

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. Ugh. There he goes again, back to Finnick Odair, Capitol man-whore instead of Finnick, photo geek.

You turn to him. "How much did it cost? Twice the wine?"

"I didn't buy it. I found it, back when I was eleven."

"You've had it for almost a decade?"

He licks his lips, his hands pausing their scrolling of the camera's gallery for a moment. "I guess it has been a decade."

"What was it like, though? When you won?"

"Won? Won what?"

"The Games."

"Oh. Uh... bittersweet."

"Bitter? Why would it be bitter?"

"You ask a lot of questions. Sit down."

You know the truth. He just didn't want to admit that there was nothing bitter going on. He won because he was hot, and now, he continued reaping the benefits of his genetic lottery win.

You sit, still looking up at him as he comes to kneel in front of you, turning his camera to you. "What do you think?"

The pictures he's taken of you have an unsettling ethereality to them. In one, you're looking out the window with your back to the camera, your outfit hidden by a rose he'd apparently been holding in front of the camera.

A white rose.

It featured in every fucking picture, so much so that you almost asked him about it. Key word : almost.

In one of the more lighthearted ones, the rose sat in your mouth.

"They're pretty nice."

"Is your vocabulary limited to those two words? Pretty. Nice."

"I don't know what else to say."

He regards your face for a moment - like, really fucking observes you - before fiddling with some knob on the camera. "Take off your clothes."

That shouldn't have surprised you as much as it did.

"What?"

He looks up, confused. "Take off your clothes and I'll take some pictures."

"What? No."

"You don't want to? But you were okay with all the previous pictures."

"Yeah, because I was clothed."

"Being unclothed is a problem for you? Being exposed? Hm? That bothers you?"

What?!

"I- look, man, I'm not trying to offend you."

"But you are. You said you'd let me take photos of you. You are not your clothes, are you? You are your self, your soul, your body."

"Yeah, but I'm just not comfortable."

'Y'know what, sweetheart, people do shit they're not comfortable with all the fucking time. Twenty-five/eight. If you can't deal with it, you're weak. Take. It. Off."

You had a feeling there was another reason he was so angry about your non-compliance, but you didn't push it.

"Please don't make me do this."

"Fine! FUCK! Am I asking you to suck my cock? Huh? I could, y'know that? I could've, but no, I asked you to help me make art, and you chickened out!", he yells, his finger scarily close to poking your eye.

Finnick Odair was no longer pissing you off.

Finnick Odair was genuinely scaring you.

"Just get out.", he mutters, setting his camera down in defeat on his couch. "Get out, seriously."

You don't even have two seconds of backing-away-time before he stops you again. "What if I killed your family?"

That scares you more. "What?"

"What if I killed your family? Or at least, threatened to? Would you do it? Would you?", he asks, and now, he's not angry at you, or frustrated, he's more desperate, frantic, as if your answer would shake his fucking world.

As if your answer would change his self perception.

"Please don't kill my family."

"Would you suck my cock if I threatened to kill your family, Y/N?!"

"YES!", you scream, flinching, almost. "Yes! I would, but please, PLEASE don't!"

Finnick Odair gazes back at you with relief, and you want to strangle him. "You would, wouldn't you? You'd do unspeakable things for your family, yes?"

Well, of course.

"Things that would make your skin crawl. Not just because you love them, but because you're responsible for them. Because you got yourself into this mess."

He's no longer talking to or about you, that much is clear.

"And it's up to you to keep them away from it."

Slowly backing away, you try your hardest not to show up in his peripheral, to make sure he stays in whatever zone he's in.

But he is Finnick Odair. So he doesn't even look up at you as he instructs you. "Don't take the conch." Like stealing from him was the first thing on your mind.

"Wasn't planning to."

"Don't tell anyone about today."

"Wasn't planning to."

"Stay."

Wasn't planning to.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. Please. Stay."

The apology only solidifies your urge to stab him in the gut. "I have to get home."

"I didn't mean stay the night. I don't want you staying the night."

Finnick Odair, as you had begun to gather, was debilitatingly honest.

"I just mean stay for a while. Have dinner and then go."

"Dinner?"

"Yes, dinner. I have turkey from the Capitol."

"What's that?"

"It's a kind of bird. It's just like chicken but better."

"What's chicken?"

"Another kind of bird."

"Oh."

He frowns at you for a moment. "You're not okay with eating birds, are you?"

"They're just... very rare, so I don't see why you have to kill them."

He sighs, looking around the room in deep thought. "I could make fish. You know fish. You like fish."

You do know fish. You do like fish. You nod.

~~~~

Finnick's fish is unlike any you've ever fucking eaten.

Living in District 4, you'd figured you'd had fish every way it could be cooked. But no.

You can't help but take more. And more. And more. You weren't hungry, and momentarily felt guilt, thinking about kids in the other districts who were, but it was divine and you couldn't bring yourself to care much.

"You like that?", he asks, from opposite you, raising a brow in amusement.

"It's really fucking good."

He whistles lowly. "Ooh, nice, vocabulary expansion. So you do cuss. I was afraid I'd corrupted you with my rough Capitol language.", he muses, looking at your plate. "You have room for dessert?"

"Doesn't everyone, always?"

He nods. "That's fair. Cake?"

CAKE? This Capitol whore managed to bring cake back to District 4?

"Sure."

That was divine, too.

"You like that, too?"

"Yeah. It's really good. The Capitol has it really good."

"The Capitol is filled with cunts who throw up food because they want to taste more."

Was that... disdain? Interesting.

"Well, seeing as you spend most of the year there, I just thought..."

He stands, clearing the plates. "What? That I was one of them?"

You watch him go into the kitchen, taking a sip of water as you do. "No, just that... no, yeah, I did."

"It's okay, I get that a lot. I just... I gotta go, do these promotions, adverts. I have to. I made a deal."

You sigh, standing and pushing the dining table chair back to its original position. "Contract?"

He clenches his jaw momentarily, before nodding, his shoulders tense. "Yeah. Sm'n like that.", he grins, his dimples emerging once more. Thirteen year old you would have swooned and fainted and died.

Eighteen year old you just lets him lead you to the door.

"I'm leaving for the Capitol tomorrow. Along with the tributes from this year."

Why he's telling you this, you have no clue.

"You should come and wave me off."

"Do we know each other well enough for that?"

"No, but I know you know the tributes well. One of them goes to school with you, doesn't she?"

Yes. Little Faye.

"Yes, she's in the eighth grade. I used to tutor her."

The reality hits. She will probably never be able to high-five you when she gets a question right again.

"You should give her courage.", he suggests. "Going in thinking you're going to die will get you killed. Let her know she can make it."

"Can she?", you ask, quietly. The answer will ruin you, you can tell.

"She's a Career."

"Yes, but can she?"

"Chances are slim." Finnick fucking Odair. Finnick "debilitatingly honest" fucking Odair. "I won't tell her that, though."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Finnick."

═════════════════════ ⋆🔱⋆ ══════════════════

His hands grip your chin and you swear you're about to kill him. You look up at him, hanging out the open door of the train carriage and holding onto you, and you're half tempted to pull him down with you because what the fuck was he doing?

You can feel it coming, the urge to slap him away, but then again, it's still Finnick FUCKING Odair, and you're not sure if there's a law against rejecting his advances.

So you just kind of let him kiss you. It's not bad, no, far from it, it's just... unexpected.

Considering it's in front of every camera in the district.

Considering you'd only known each other one night.

Considering his last words were 'you're the only thing I care about.'

Considering he said your full name an unsettling amount of times.

Considering little Faye was watching and wondering why you were calm enough to be making out with some hot guy instead of sending her off.

Considering now the entirety of Panem was either going gush at you or rush at you.

~~~~

You can't bring yourself to watch the news.

Everyone assumes it's because of Finnick.

But, ironically, Finnick's the only one who knows it's not.

It's because of Faye.

"Finnick's on TV.", you're informed at least twice an hour.

"'Kay.", is your usual response. "Faye?"

"I'm sure Finnick trained her well. And besides, the 11th is this weekend! You'll find out."

Right. You'd been invited by Snow him-fucking-self to the Capitol. Apparently, the cameras outside your house weren't enough. He needed you there, with Finnick, for promos. While children were dying.

You receive gifts from your family, your neighbours, your teachers - basically anyone you'd breathed around - for your journey to the Capitol, as if you're going to some dreamland.

As you ride the train, your head against the seat, you try to imagine this is the train that leads you out of District 4. Your family will be waiting at the destination - in your head, an actual dreamland - and you'll be fine and dandy.

As you're escorted out, you imagine you're hanging from the ceiling in full display on the TV instead of Faye having to go through the Games.

And as you're directed to Finnick's room, you imagine slitting his throat. It's funny. You almost laugh. Then, the door opens.

Dimples.

═════════════════════ ⋆🔱⋆ ══════════════════

"How is it you've never worn lip tint before?", he mutters, tutting as if you'd just misspelled a basic word. "C'mon, pucker up.", he instructs, his thumb smearing red on your lips.

You have no idea what you look like and you're not sure if you want to find out. "I thought you were a merchant."

You shake your head. "No, I said I live by the merchant sector of 4."

"Not in it?"

"Of course not. Why would I have been picking seashells to make necklaces out of if I were a merchant? I just sell shit in the marketplace. Doesn't make me a merchant."

"I mean, technically... yeah, it does.", he says, his thumb accidentally slipping and smudging your makeup over the left of your cheek.

"Right, well, I'm not merchant class.', you shrug, trying to wipe the results of idiocy that was Finnick Odair off the side of your cheek.

Finnick... seems to get it. He nods along as he continues trying to de-plague your face with makeup.

Guilt is etched on his face. Regret, a tiny bit. Sadness, festering throughout.

"What's that look?"

He doesn't seem like he's out of whatever thought he was in moments ago when he hums in response, before quickly leaping towards his bedside and taking his camera, holding his thumb next to your bottom lip, with your still messy lip tint just about seen. Click.

"What's that look?", you repeat.

"What look?"

"That one.", you say, pointing to his face as if he can see it.

"That's my sorry look. I shouldn't have sprung the kiss on you. It was a dick move.", he says, gently moving behind you and guiding your shoulders to manoeuver you to face the mirror.

He says it as if he already knows you'll forgive him.

Yes, you do. But it irks you that he seems to assume that.

"Yes, it was."

"I'm sorry. What do you think?"

"I look like the 12 escort."

"Trinket? No, no way. You look great.", he assures, and you try to believe him, but you haven't seen yourself in makeup before and it doesn't look as though it's you standing there.

"Beautiful.", he says, as an afterthought, almost, as if he were trying out the word to see if it sounded right or not. He seems to decide on the former. "Beautiful.", he repeats, nodding.

That gets your attention and you take a second glance, and suddenly, you see what he sees. The makeup isn't subtle and hidden, but it isn't what the Capitol wears. It's... pleasant.

He brushes some hair in front of your shoulders. "See? Beautiful.", he reiterates, like he can't get enough of that word now.

"You sure I'll fit in here like this? Like... dressed up?"

"Yeah.", he says, vehemently nodding before doing that thing when he looked in your eyes again. "Well, mostly. I mean, I'd prefer it if you had the easiest time possible, 'cause I kinda got you into this mess."

You nod. That checks out. "Thanks."

═════════════════════ ⋆🔱⋆ ══════════════════

The night sees you staring at the ceiling while Finnick breathes softly in sleep beside you. It's pleasant. Domestic, almost. Like what Finnick wants, you think. Like the Capitol believes, you know.

He shifts and your eyes snap shut. Why you're so afraid of him finding out that you are awake, you don't know, but you are. He reaches out, his knuckles grazing your cheek with enough purpose that you realize he wasn't asleep in the first place, either.

And then he does it.

His hand reaches out, gently feeling around for your hand, before he grips the middle three fingers on your left.

He squeezes them softly, then brings them to his chest, where his own hand lays. That's it.

You watch him actually sleep until he mumbles, shifting again. 'Y/N?"

"Yeah?", you respond immediately, kicking yourself internally. Cover blown.

"Can't sleep?"

"No."

"Scared?"

"Mhm."

"Of the photos we took today? I promise, the makeup isn't bad, and you won't have to take any more - they'll publish them and pass them off as taken over a few months, so it's not-"

"No, for Faye."

Silence. "Oh."

"I feel like I didn't get to even tell her how well she's going to do."

"You can see her."

You can what?

"When?"

"Well, not in person, but we can watch the live feed of the Gam-"

"Yes. Yes, please, thank you.'

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. "Really?"

"Yes. Yes, absolutely. When can we?"

"Well, technically, it's always streaming, so I, I guess we can go now."

You nod.

He raises a brow as if he never expected you to agree. "Okay, uh, just, uh... gimme a second to wake up, okay?"

He comes out of the bathroom after washing his face to find you pacing, biting the inside of your cheek. "C'mon."

~~~~

The Viewing Room is desolate except for a few Gamemakers' Assistants (GAs), that have to watch footage 24/7.

"We have to record these things all the time, just in case something happens during the cover of nightfall", he explains, as he walks in front of you and gestures to the large screen in the opposite side of the room. "Usually, the stronger Careers, from 1 or 2-", he cuts himself off. That was not what you needed to be hearing right now.

He watches as you slowly walk up to the screen, as though the soft glow from it could lead you to Faye. Your eyes dart around the entirety of the enormous screen, looking for something - anything - to announce you of Faye's survival.

"She is still alive. You'd have heard a cannon and seen a picture of her if not."

It's not the most comforting thing he can say. He's usually better at this. God, if he didn't miss his old self, but the guilt of essentially using you to keep Snow's interest off his family and on you, the - to the extent of Snow's knowledge, anyway - love of his life, isn't exactly letting him be warm and inviting to you.

But he wants to. Let it be known, he wants nothing more than to do what he usually does. Brighten people up.

"Where is she?"

"WE'VE GOT A RUNNER!", calls one of the GAs and your head snaps to a blue triangle tracking one of the tributes on the screen, and you run over to that side of the massive screen.

The lights come on in the room, and people flood in. Sponsors, gamblers, Gamemakers. Because this is prime TV. He imagines every screen in the country lighting up, because you have to watch. Every child has just been woken up because the feed's back on.

"Who's the runner?", someone asks, and Finnick turns to you, diligently tracking the blue triangle with your eyes. Blue. Ocean. District 4. It's Faye.

"Girl from Four. The boy's already dead."

"How much did I have on her?"

"Oh, c'mon, you didn't have shit on her! No one thought she'd make it this far."

"Fine, fine, but now how much?"

The sounds of cruelty almost have him zoning out, going back into Capitol-Party-Finnick-Mode. That is, until, you call him.

"Finnick?"

He rushes to your side, a guilt induced speed to his gait. "Yeah, y'okay?" No the fuck she isn't. What the fuck is wrong with him?

"Who's the gold triangle chasing her?" Gold. Luxury. District 1. CAREER.

"Uh..." Deliver it softly. Sweetly.

"Unless she's a shapeshifter, the girl's DEAD!", laughs one of the sponsors. "It's my tribute, the Career boy from 1 chasin' her, with... wait, zoom in? Oh, yeah, a dagger!"

Your eyes widen and Finnick wants to kill himself. "She'll be fine. She can swim, he..."

Can also swim. Fuck.

"... he won't be able to keep up with her." , he says, finally.

Partially true. District 1 Careers didn't have access to the ocean, not like those from 4, so it was very much possible that he wasn't trained to know about tides and currents and shit.

There's a moment where no one in the room says anything. Because they both just jumped into the water, and Faye went under.

Finnick holds your head to his chest as you cling onto him in fear. It's not even remotely close to making up for what he's planning to put you through - well, already putting you through - but he at least feels a bit like the old him. The one who could actually comfort.

The tribute from 1 splashes around a bit, looking for Faye. You've turned a bit now, your head's still in his chest, but half your face is facing the screen. You're watching, anxious as ever.

"She's not drowned.", he mutters, stupidly. Duh.

"What if something pulled her under?"

Oh fuck. Yeah. Valid point.

"I'm sure it's just a strategy."

One that he remembers teaching her.

Maybe if she uses this and beats this District 1 Career, he could be one more step closer to gaining your forgiveness, and his redemption.

For a crime that the victim wasn't even aware was being committed.

The Career flounders around a bit more, screaming, clearly, but the audio is muted here. He looks around, not willing to look under, in case that might trigger the release of any muttations the Capitol cooked up for them.

And then, he's tugged a bit, his leg down, and he springs away from the motion. Please be Faye. Please be Faye.

He's jerked fully under, and a splash of Faye's hair can be seen before both disappear underneath the midlly murky waters, a struggle very evident in the way the water's splattering about.

Suddenly, it stops.

Faye leaps exhaustedly onto the bank, gasping for breath.

A cannon goes off. Florian Jentry. District 1 , Luxury. Score : 10.

Finnick holds onto you tighter as you sigh in relief. He softly kisses your hair because he doesn't know what else to do.

Relief is the only possible emotion to feel.

No one's happy. No one's sad. You're only either relieved that your loved one isn't gone, or relieved that they're not gone in a torturous way.

Wait, scratch that. The patron who just bet on Faye is happy.

[drawbudd]

O Sol

Just published this bad boys on my ibis paint account which is the first time I've done that!! Exciting stuff!!!

[peppermintquartz]

The watch strap is worn out and stained on the inside. Buck takes note of it, and when Tommy's taking a shower, picks up the watch to see if there's an inscription anywhere.

Nothing. Just a regular watch.

But if Tommy has worn it to this state, then he probably really likes it.

Buck hums to himself, then takes a picture of it, front and back, with a dime for scale in case he needs it, and puts the watch back where Tommy left it.

-

They miss their dinner reservations the next week when Buck sees Tommy in a new shirt and decides that Tommy is not allowed to wear that shirt for more than five minutes.

He ends up gasping for breath under Tommy, his legs and arms shaking with exertion, and Tommy is no better, one thick arm wrapped about Buck's soft middle, biting marks into his shoulders.

After they both came - Buck first with a desperate wail, dragging Tommy after him with an equally desperate "Evan, god, Evan" - Buck is a limp puddle of satisfaction. His gaze falls to the side and he sees the bedside lamp, its shade faded to a nondescript beige. It's clean, because Tommy is on top of his housekeeping, but it's old.

"How long have you had that lamp?" he asks, his words slurring together while Tommy wipes him clean.

"I don't know. Since I left the army, I think? It works." The washcloth is tossed towards the laundry basket and Tommy mutters a happy "three points!" like the dork he is when it lands among the dirty clothes.

Buck turns his head and smiles at Tommy. "I love you."

"I love you too. So, frittata or ramen? I have some frozen shrimp dumplings I think." He kisses Buck on his forehead, like Buck didn't cause them to miss their dinner.

"Frittata and ramen," Buck says, because he knows he can get away with being spoiled for a while.

Tommy only chuckles fondly.

Buck stares at the matching lamp on the other side. Beige.

--

Tommy holds onto things, Buck discovers. DVDs, CDs, tools from his army pilot days, his high school football jersey. Not necessarily because of sentimental value. Because they still work.

But some things are old and breaking apart, like the clock in his living room, or the fan that's in the garage, or the ancient vacuum that chokes every five feet.

Like it doesn't occur to Tommy to buy a new and better one.

"It still works," Tommy says. His vacuum coughs. "It just needs a little tinkering. I'll make do."

--

When Buck gives Tommy new watch straps, Tommy just. Blinks. And then he smiles that soft, amazed smile, as if he can't believe Buck is real. Like he can't believe anyone will notice something so trivial about his stuff, and do something nice about it.

"Thanks," he says, and switches out the straps.

--

Buck buys white lampshades and paint, and he makes it a date for them to paint the two lampshades. Purples and blues, with a touch of pink. Buck jokes that it's his bisexual lighting. They're hideous, objectively speaking, but they were painted by them both, and Buck figures he can get better ones in the future when they're tired of these.

After they replace the old beige ones, Tommy rides Buck, lit only by the new bisexual lighting lampshades.

--

When Buck replaces the clock, the fan and the vacuum, Tommy helps to discard the old ones.

"You deserve nice things too," Buck tells Tommy when the latter sputters something about making do with the old stuff. Buck kisses him and repeats, "You deserve nice things too."

If he can keep bringing that slightly stunned and amazed and soft expression to Tommy's face, Buck will consider himself a good boyfriend.

[fatuismooches]

Idk if this had been done yet but Dadtorre having a son that looks exactly like him that people mistake his son for a segment?

His lover finds it hilarious, they had their suspicions when their son first came to the world, which grew stronger the moment the infant could open his eyes, showing that red they so loved. Surely, the kid wouldn't be the spitting image of his father—

But then he reaches toddler age and he has the same hair. He's literally Zandy 2.0

His lover would be giggling at him, especially when Dottore has a faint hue of pink embarrassment dusting his cheeks. Damn it, who knew his genetics would be this strong?! Now everyone thinks he'd made a second child segment!

He's not getting 'Congratulations!' He's getting: 'Doctor, why have you made a second segment of your youth...?' from his colleagues!

Things get especially awkward when their son reaches around Alpha's age, people start mistaking him for the segment and give him reports unprompted.

A researcher could spout at him about his father's latest project, and the son would go: "Okay, I'll be sure to tell my father that :D" cue in the horrified look of that poor researcher. Does this count as dissemination?!

While their son inherits his father's face, he did not inherit the personality. Which means they now have a boy who looks exactly like Dottore, but has his spouse's personality running around the place. So people mistake him for this particularly bubbly and chatty segment (he definitely got his father's intelligence though so him tinkering with stuff in the lab doesn't help)

Oh, and for a tinge of angst :3

He inherits the illness.

There would be days when he can't get out of bed at all, pain shooting up all through his aching joints, making every twitch agonising.

This fuels Dottore to find the cure even more, for a memory haunts him. That night where he found his spouse comforting their child all those years ago, cradling his little body close to their chest, on their lap as the child sobbed, begging for this terrifying persistent ache to stop. Dottore could only stand by the doorway of his son's room as his spouse gently hushes him, false reassurances falling in abundance from their lips, promising that they will teach him how to deal with the pain for they have it too.

Dottore swears that he will save them.

Before your son was born, you had always teased your husband about the possibility, to which he scoffed at. (Perhaps a part of him wasn't sure what he'd do, knowing they'd bear such a resemblance to him, a monster.) Of course, you end up being right and you have laughed about it multiple times, much to his dismay. (Despite his kid's resemblance to him, his ever-observant eye still manages to pick out your features that had passed along to his son. The more his kid grows, the more he notices them both physically and in his personality, and he notes them all down, not wanting a single one to slip by him.)

Although the comments he gets are a nuisance, he supposes they aren't unwarranted. After all, it's still probably more believable that he made another segment rather than him having a child. A lot of times he brushes these questions off and said colleague doesn't find out until you break the news to them. They go so pale you think they may collapse in that instant (flashbacks to the time they provided him information, and wondered why he seemed much sweeter than he usually did.) It's probably so unnatural for others to see - the poor agents are getting whiplash from dealing with their boss's coldness and then being greeted by the child smiling widely at them. They watch as his son and you tease the Harbinger in front of them with no remorse. It's a bit scary, to be honest.

Your son inheriting your illness is no doubt your worst nightmare. You would think that Celestia punishing you would be enough, but no, they have to hurt your child too. You have to watch as he relives everything you did, watch as he's robbed of his childhood and so many memories and experiences. You resort to sleeping with him in case he's woken up from his pains and cannot sleep, your only remedy being to hold him and usher him back to sleep. Ignoring how your own body shakes as he cries. Promising that he's going to be okay (even though you're still not.) You can only look at Dottore with an exhausted smile before tucking your son in again.

You believe in him, if only for your son.

[thelampisaflashlight]

Lukewarm

[Something, something, Dew is like a computer without a fan. RainDrop. Some mild angst/brief mentions of sickness, but nothing too crazy.] Below the cut.

Dew heaves a sigh that seems to take all the energy from his body; He sags deeper into his chair, tired, but not overly so, though still too worn out to right himself as he slips deeper into the faux leather.

One too many long nights of tinkering with his equipment, working on his own projects not associated with the band or the church -while also doing everything asked of him for the band and the church- has left him beyond drained, to the point that he can't even bring himself to be mad about it, just...

Tired.

With a yawn, and slightly watery eyes, Dew settles further, into a pose that doesn't look terribly comfortable, but feels amazing on his aching joints, and lets his vision narrow down to what can be seen between his lashes.

It's not long before he begins to slip into unconsciousness, nearly passed out in his chair, head tilted awkwardly to the side in yet another painful looking position, but it feels nice... at least for now.

He knows he should probably get up, go to his room, to his bed to sleep, but thinking about all the notes and guitar parts and all the other bullshit he'd have to remove from it -with care so he doesn't lose any of the mess he's made- has him set firmly in place.

Short of being carried to bed, he's not moving.

At some point, one of his packmates comes along to prod him, to see if he's awake, or simply checking to see if he's feeling alright, but Dew can barely keep his eyes open, and his response to being touched is to lean away from them, not liking the warmth of their skin on his already hot body.

He overheats quite easily when he's tired, unable to pool enough of his magic to keep his temperature in check, and it leaves him feeling a tad feverish... which also makes it quite difficult to motivate himself into moving.

The next thing he feels -shocking him into opening his eyes wide- is the press of an icepack to his exposed neck.

He doesn't have the energy to full-on yell, and instead lets out something between a bark and a yelp, an undignified reaction overall, but an honest one.

He follows the the arm holding the offending object to his neck up and up until he makes hazy eye contact with a frowning Rain.

"C'mon, let's get you cooled down." he says, shifting the icepack to the center of Dew's chest, lifting his arm up with his free hand to make the other ghoul hold it for himself.

Dew obliges as best as he can, making a contented chirping sound as he feels the coolness spreading through his body.

Cooling down after a flare up like this always leaves Dew feeling a little off-kilter; In a lot of ways, it feels like the aftermath of being drunk, not quite into the hangover stage, but definitely headed that way, and even though he wants to remain stagnant, Rain is right to get him cooled down before it does get to that point.

Leaning against Rain's cold shoulder, Dew lets himself be guided back to his bedroom, and then further still into his bathroom, where Rain makes him sit on the floor while he cleans off his bed.

The tile is cold, and Dew finds himself splaying himself out upon it, pressing himself into it and once more contorting himself into a pose that is outwardly uncomfortable, but soothing to his aching body.

"...Gotta put it away in the..." he mumbles, trying to tell Rain how to tidy up his mess, but with his cheek pressed to the ground as it is, he isn't making terribly much sense.

"I'll put everything together, don't worry." Rain assures him, shaking his head as Dew eyes him from the floor, "Don't look at me like that."

"Can't look at you any other way..." he says, curling into a ball for a second before deciding the sudden warmth from his own body tucking into himself is too much and flopping over again.

"You have to stop overworking yourself." the other chastises, finally joining him in the bathroom once more, "You're going to cook yourself at this rate."

Dew closes his eyes.

"Mn, gotta stay busy, Rainy... Can't..."

"You can." Rain says, "You can take a break."

Dew frowns.

He'd argue some more, except he can feel Rain's fingers weaving through his hair, and the soothing circles he draws against his scalp have him drifting off again.

"I'm gonna turn the shower on." he informs him, slipping his hands under his armpits to hoist him up again, "I don't trust you in here alone, so I guess we're sharing today."

"Kinky..."

Rain rolls his eyes, or at least Dew feels like he does, his own are still closed, but the mood shift is palpable.

"You worry me..." he sighs, pressing a little kiss to the side of his forehead, "It's not kinky, it's practical. Can't have you slipping and falling and cracking your head on the faucet, now can we?"

Dew makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, letting out a soft hiss when the first droplets of water hit him.

"I know, baby, you'll get used to it." Rain placates, pecking his overwarm cheeks, "Just want you to stop being so hot, yeah?"

"'m not hot, 'm cold..." Dew pouts, but even he can feel the steam rolling off his body.

Rain holds him still, and as Dew comes back to himself enough to feel cold, he wraps himself around him to shelter him from the water just enough to start working on cleaning him up a little.

Dew grumbles through much of the process, unused to the water ghoul handling him quite so roughly, or perhaps it just feels rougher because he's so achy to begin with, but when he lets out a noise of genuine hurt, Rain is quick to cease his scrubbing and instead moves onto rinsing him off.

"Well, you don't feel nearly as warm, but you're still running a bit hotter than I'd like..." Rain announces after dressing Dew in just enough clothing to protect his modesty -not that he had much of that to begin with- and laying him down on the bed, "...I'll talk to Aether and have him come up here to make sure you're not coming down with something..."

"'m fine... Just sleepy..." Dew yawns, "Wanna sleep..."

"Okay, baby, you get some rest, but if you start to feel sick-"

"If you're worried..." Dew opens his eyes, peering up at him in an almost coy manner, "You should just stay with me."

Rain snorts.

"I would if I could, you know that, but I have to help Papa set up the practice stage, and I know for a fact you won't sleep if I'm here." he comments, brushing Dew's hair out of his face, "Rest up, yeah?"

"Yeah..."

"Dew?"

"Mn?"

"Love you."

"...Mn, love you, too..."

[algea]

Ghoul School

prompt: you, Lucky, Phoebe, Trevor, and Lars go to investigate a spirit infested school, but ends badly for you.

Ummm basically enemies to lovers?? idrk tbh LOL

warnings: idk scary stuff? cussing! sexual tension! um you smoke 1 cigarette and thats it. GORE!!!!!!!

a/n: I’ve been thinking of this since I saw the movie…

*THIS IS A SUPER LONG STORY!!!*

“A school? Are you serious, Lars?” You mutter, running a hand down your face and sighing.

“I wish. What’s your grudge against a school anyway?” Lars said, cocking an eyebrow at you as he turned to look at you.

“Well I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that kids still go there. It makes me sick how they have to experience that while being in an environment where it’s supposed to be safe and welcoming.” You explain, tapping your fingers nervously on your desk. Behind you, Lars sighed,

“Well that’s why we’re going innit? So stop worrying about it so much.” You snapped your head when heard the door open. In trudged a slime covered Trevor, Lucky, and Phoebe.

“Lars, I need your help with something!” Lucky called. Lars stood and strode to her, his eyes lingered on you for a little longer than they should’ve. Trevor had a proton pack on his back, which was slightly smoking from the interior.

"Piece of shit only fizzed when we tried to turn it on, know a way to fix it?" Trevor asked, gazing up at Lars. Lars' face was stone cold, probably because he had to deal with the dumb shit Trevor stirred up.

"First off, it's not a piece of shit. Second off, did you even try to figure it out?" Lars scoffed, eyebrows drawn together in a scowl.

"Give it to me, I'll see what I can do." He sighed, obviously not wanting to deal with him anymore. Trevor basically shoved the proton pack into Lars’ arms, which didn't waiver when he received it. Hot. You thought. Lars trudged to his station and set the proton pack down. He removed the protective covering, and coughed when smoke blasted in his face. You snickered, which earned an unimpressed glare from him. Lucky appeared beside you, ready to talk about what else you've come up with her to test.

"What is it?" She asked, tinkering with the item on the desk.

"You know how there's buckshot for a shotgun? I've figured out how to compress protons into little pellets and create a buckshot-type stream." You explained, showing her how it would work on a sheet of paper. You heard Lars muttering about something, though you brushed it off. You handed Lucky a few pellets, which contained about 12 rounds of buckshot each. She eagerly shot off into the test room, excited to try it out. With nothing else to do, you shuffled behind Lars, peering over his shoulder to watch his hands work efficiently. Lars really didn't know you were there, truly he didn't. So when he turned around to go get something from his desk, he jumped back.

"Good Christ you scared the shit out of me!" Lars exclaimed, putting a hand on his chest and letting out a big sigh. He shoved his glasses back up his face and ran a hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry! I just wanted to watch you work..." You trailed off, staring at the ground in embarrassment.

"Well maybe next time maybe fucking keep to yourself." He snapped, brushing past you, his hand grazing yours. You just stood there, hands clenched and cheeks burning in embarrassment. Phoebe stood next to you, putting a hand on your arm and whispering,

"It's ok, really, he doesn't mean it."

You couldn't help the tear that slithered down your cheek. Blinking away the rest of the tears, you muttered an 'excuse me' and walked outside of the lab. Taking a left, you headed through the doors to the cool breeze outside. Stuffing your hand in you pocket, your hand found purchase on the cig case you had. Sliding one out of it and grabbing your lighter, you lit the cig up and shoved the lighter back into your left pocket. You sat against the wall and pulled your knees to your chest. Hearing the doors open, you see Trevor walk out. He spots you and slides down the wall, sitting next to you.

"It's not your fault. It really isn't." Trevor offered, watching you let out a sigh, smoke going with it. You laugh, dragging a hand down your face.

"Listen, don't ever fall in love, man. Shit sucks." You sighed, resting your head against the cool brick. Trevor started to say something but the rest of the three burst through the doors. Lars was wearing his red jacket, walking towards the car. Lucky was carrying yours in her arm, right on the heels of Lars. He spotted you and Trevor sitting down against the wall. Trevor hopped up, offering you a kind hand. You took it, cigarette still in hand.

"Put that shit out." Lars commanded, crossing his arms. You glared at him before taking a long drag and blowing the smoke out. You dropped the rest on the ground, twisting your foot against it which successfully put it out.

"Happy?" You huffed, throwing your arms out in surrender. He just stared at you before pushing past you to get to the car. 'Bitch' You mutter under your breath. God he’s insufferable. Following them, you hopped into the passage seat. Lucky handed you your red jacket, which you put on before you buckled up. You zipped it up all the way burying your face in the collar. Lars watched you from his peripheral, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Are gonna stare or drive the goddamn car?” You snapped, turning to gaze at him. His hand tightened on the wheel and started to drive.

To say that Lars was a good driver was a pretty big overstatement. You were even lucky you made it to the school alive, much less in once piece.

“You are never ever driving again, Lars.” You said, stumbling out of the car as a wave of nausea hits you.

“Stuff it.” He replied, pushing up his broken glasses. You turned your gaze to the school, which stood ominously in the distance. You shivered, which didn’t go unnoticed by Lars. He took a small step closer to you, his hand ghosting the small of your back. You jumped slightly at his feather touch, but relished it. Lars flicked on your switch, making your proton pack hum with the familiar ‘whirring’ sound. You walked to the front steps, pushing open the two massive double wooden doors. You were blasted by a cold air, which you stumbled back from.

“S-shit.” You muttered, hands shaking ever so slightly. You reached for your flashlight, but froze when you saw a shadow figure dart through the darkness.

“Lars.” You whispered, a lump forming in your throat. Lars was off busy helping the others get their packs on, which meant you were the only one at the front. You felt something tugging you forward. You stumbled back into the school following the tugging sensation to a room downstairs.

Lars looked up, about to ask you something, when he noticed you were gone.

“Where the bloody hell did Y/N go?” He asked, looking around. His question was answered when he heard your frantic screams coming from inside of the building. They all looked at each other, then bolted to the building.

The building was absolutely freezing. That you were certain of. The frigid temperature fucked a little with your head, at least that’s what you can conclude. You found that being able to see in the dark was not your forte, which caused you to fall down a flight of stairs.

“OH FUCKING SHIT—!” You screech, tumbling down the stairs. You landed with your head cracking against the cold floor. Groaning, you tried to lift your head, but you felt like you were spinning like a top. You eventually stood, swaying slightly after. You blinked a few times, holding your head in your hands. In the corner of your eye, you could see another shadow figure. It was tall, tall enough to reach the ceiling. It started to approach you, but you let out a scream, starting to run back up the stairs. You felt a push, then you tumbled back down the stairs, smashing your head into the pavement again. You landed on your knee, successfully snapping the bone in your shin. You let out another bloodcurdling scream, spitting out blood in the process.

You felt lightheaded as blood spilled from your shin and lips, dribbling down your chin and neck. You were in too much pain to cry as you crumpled to the floor again. You heard all three of them yelling your name, but you couldn’t yell back. Instead, you pulled yourself across the floor, leaving a long streak of blood as you went. With as much effort as you could muster, you pulled yourself to the steps. It took everything for you to scream,

“LARS!!!”

Footsteps could be heard, which sounded like heavy boots clomping towards you. You clawed at the steps, trying to grip anything that you could to pull yourself up. The blond man appeared in the doorway, shining a flashlight down the stairwell. Lars hair was tousled, eyes wide. You make out how he was panting, as well as a horrified look painted across his face.

“oh my god.” Was all he said. He rushed down the stairwell to get you. You couldn’t make out much of anything, you kept fading in and out of consciousness. His hands, his strong and elegant hands held your face as he tried to keep you awake. Your breaths became labored again as you felt extreme pain rippling through your limbs. You let out another scream, which was muffled by Lars chest as he picked you up and started to rush you outside. One of his hands found purchase in your hair, gently stroking it with his thumb as he ran to the car.

Lars felt like it took years to make it to the hospital. His red jacket was drenched in your blood, but he couldn’t care less about what he looked like as he rushed you into the ER. Immediately after, you were rushed into a room, where you would reside for God knows how long. Lars sat next to Lucky, his face grim. He didn’t care how long he had to wait to see you again, just as long as he could see you. Lars stayed there all night, into the morning to be able to see you. When they told him that he could see you, he ran to your room as fast as he could. There you laid, eyes closed, face peaceful. When you heard the footsteps, you opened your eyes and found the blond man standing in your doorway.

“Bloody hell, I thought I’d never see you again.” Lars breathed as he approached your right side. Your hand lay limp on the top of the bedsheet. He brought up a chair and sat, taking your hand and lacing his fingers with yours.

“I was so scared that you were going to die, I couldn’t bear to see it.” He further explained. You smiled weakly and croaked,

“Are you being nice right now? That’s so unlike you Lars.”

Before you said anything else, Lars pressed a kiss to your lips. It wasn’t your ideal first kiss with him, but you relished the feeling.

“I didn’t save you because I thought it was the good thing to do, I saved you because I love you.” Lars whispered, his nose brushing yours.

“God I love you too, Lars.” You whispered back.

[emeritusemeritus]

Exactly my cup of tea. [George Weasley x reader]

Title: Exactly my cup of tea

Pairing: George Weasley x Gryffindor!reader, background mentions of Cho x Harry.

Timeline: Set during OOTP (mentions of Harry and Cho’s canonical date on Valentine’s Day 1996)

Summary: After Harry’s failed date with Cho at Madam Puddifoot’s, he tells the reader and George all about it. They decide to check out the place for themselves.

Warnings: Brief mentions of sexual acts, no smut or detailed description. Friends to lovers. Just a big ball of fluff 🤍

"Ughr I'm telling you, it was awful," Harry groans as he throws himself onto the couch next to you in the Gryffindor common room. George, who is sat opposite you in a little armchair looks up from tinkering with his newest invention and gives Harry a look which tells him to carry on. Harry looks around to check no one is listening in before he continues. "It's that stupid teashop! She talked about Cedric the entire time, cried through most of it and when I briefly mentioned Hermione she stormed off and disappeared."

You and George's eyes met very briefly as you tried to stifle the giggles that were threatening to spill out of both of you at the awfulness of the story but you quickly recovered and tried to console Harry.

"It was probably just too soon mate, she probably felt guilty that she wanted to go out with you so soon after his death," you reasoned, earning a slight nod from Harry, who had listened to your opinion.

"Yeah but how long does she need?" George says with a tone to his voice you couldn't place.

"What, you think she can just get over it like that? If it were-." You began to say, only to cut yourself off sharpish when you realised what the next words out of your mouth would be. George gave you a strange look and Harry seemed to be completely oblivious as you carried on. "It's not the same for everyone, these things take time, especially when it was such a shock like that." Both boys silently agreed and we carried on talking about the whole debacle until Fred and Lee joined later on. Harry had described in excruciating detail the floof and frills of the tea house, with its chintzy furniture and outdated wallpaper that looked like a remnant from someone's great grandmothers house. The conversation quickly diverted as Fred began waffling about an idea for a new product that had piqued George's interest and had lost Harry's.

George tinkered with the project a little while longer whilst Fred talked you into designing new packaging for his new idea and drawing up a basic plan for how he wanted it to look. Only when Lee had fallen asleep and had slunk down and dribbled onto Fred's shoulder did you all declare that it was time for bed, seeing that the common room had been vacated by everyone else hours ago.

"I'll be up in a minute," George says, ushering his brother and a very sleepy Lee away. Fred pauses, waiting for you with an outstretched elbow for you to take but you also say you'd be up later with George so he shrugs and walks off to bed.

"So, Harry and Cho..." George says with a smirk, chuckling to himself. You had to giggle back, finally able to now that everyone had disappeared.

"Do you think she meant to take him there? Like, for the reason everyone else goes?" You asked, still laughing.

George looked up at you with confusion for a second, "what, for tea?"

"No you great oaf, it's where couples go when they want to be alone... away from the prying eyes of Hogwarts," you said with a wiggle of your eyebrows. George's eyebrows shot up high on his head at the information, clearly not knowing it was Hogwarts' number one make out spot.

"Go Cho," George says, his shoulders shaking with laughter, to which you snorted in reply.

"Do you think Madam Puddifoot knows that she's running a teen brothel? Or maybe a live sex show at least." George barks out a laugh that is much too loud for the current time and situation and you both fight to hold back your laughter.

"Probably, she is a Madame after all," George laughs with a shake of his head.

"Maybe she puts something in the tea," you joked, "you and Fred should get on that. Aphrodisiac all sorts," you said cheekily, alluding to the popular liquorice muggle sweets that Arthur was so fond of. He laughed again, finally putting down the invention and assortment of tools.

"Shall we go?" He asks.

You look at him completely dumbfounded at his question, shocked that he'd even ask. Reading your reaction, his eyes immediately shoot open and words fall from his mouth to recover, "I didn't mean like that! We should go tomorrow and scout the place out." You can almost make out a small blush settling on his cheeks and you laugh whilst nodding your head.

"It's a date, Weasley. Dress nice!" You smiled and walked over to him to hug him goodnight, something you had both done for years, before you climbed up the stairs toward your dormitory.

The next morning you dress nicely, choosing a cute skirt and sweater to wear as you prepare to meet George ready for tea. When you walk down the stairs from your dorm you see him sat there with a single flower in his hand. He looked so handsome in his blue floral shirt and nice chinos, apparently having listened to your warning of dressing nice.

He rises as soon as he sees you, smiling as you walk down the stairs and you have to remind yourself briefly that it's a fake date.

"You look really pretty," he says as he hands you the flower, causing you to blush as you smile shyly up at him.

"It's not going to squirt water is it?" You laugh, gesturing to the flower. He looks at you with a puzzled expression, clearly not getting the joke.

"It's a muggle thing, like a magic trick? They have flowers that squirt water, mostly clowns," you explain as his eyes widen.

"Muggles have magic tricks?" He asks in complete astonishment. You laugh, nodding as he continues to look amazed.

"You and Fred should sell some, when you open your shop," you chuckle as he leads you out of the common room and down the staircases.

"One eyed witch or regular walking?" You asked George, preparing how you were going to get to Hogsmeade.

He shoots you a little look before replying with a smirk, "regular, I'm not taking you down one eyed witch in your little skirt."

"God it's like Umbridge threw up in here," you commented as you sat at the intimately small table at Madam Puddifoot's tea shop, waiting fir tour tea to arrive, the hideous decor already making you feel claustrophobic.

"Yeah except there's less cats," George mutters, scrunching his face up as he looks around with a loom of utter repulsion.

The exterior of the tea shop should have been enough evidence that the inside was going to be as frilly and pretentious as it was with the powder pink windows and door frames but nothing could have prepared you for this.

There wasn't a single surface inside that wasn't covered in either powderpuff pink, florals or lace. Harry really was telling the truth. There were armoires filled with delicate China teacups and boxed teas that fit the aesthetic of the shop, China plates lined up on the walls alongside some truly hideous artwork of loved up couples and badly painted floral bouquets.

How this place had become a den of inequity you had no idea but there were subtle references to love all around; erotically named teas and treats, picture on the wall that seemed to blend into female silhouettes the longer you looked at it, even some of the cakes on display looked phallic.

You looked around at the couples that were clearly there on dates and had to stifle a laugh at the awkwardness of it all. Some couples looked like it was their first date and were sat awkwardly amongst the sea of people clearly much more comfortable and familiar with each other. Some of the boys looked painfully uncomfortable amongst the ostentatious decor, clearly having not chosen the venue of their date. Most couples however were more than comfortable, most of them glued to each other in one way or another.

Your tea was brought over and you thanked the waitress as you poured the tea for you and George. He hadn't said much since you walked in, more silently observing with an outright puzzled and disgusted expression that you couldn't help but chuckle at.

A few couples, particularly near the back were snogging, no doubt regulars on account of their knowledge to sit at the back and wrapped around the little cozy corners.

"Godric, he'll get lost if he gets any further down her throat," you whispered, laughing at a couple far off in the corner, nodding your head subtly towards them so that George could see. He immediately snorted after catching a glimpse of them, looking around to mock more of the patrons.

"How is this place getting couples riled up? It's like my great aunt Muriel's front lounge," George laughs, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Well it seems to be working regardless," you chuckle, taking a sip of your tea which was actually quite delicious.

"She's definitely getting fingered under the table," you whisper suddenly, nodding towards a couple in the back you and George had been mocking.

George immediately spits out his tea, eyes bulging at your blunt words making you laugh. He wipes down the front of his shirt as his eyes flick over to the couple in question and he quickly looks away from them realising you're probably right. His reaction was so cute that you couldn't help but laugh, seeing George Weasley shy was an incredibly rare occurrence and you were loving it.

"Cushion in the lap," you nod towards a guy on your left sat with a frilly, heart shaped velvet cushion placed in his lap, "might as well have a sign over his head saying 'I've got an erection," you laugh.

"Girls know this stuff?" George whisper-yells, eyes bugged wide, horrified that you'd apparently cracked guy code.

"Only the bad girls," you wink at him before taking another sip of your tea. You couldn't help but notice George begin to vividly blush, all the way up from his collar to the top of his hairline and you smiled sweetly up at him, finding his reaction entirely too endearing.

You both carried on making fun of the couples around you, happily sipping your tea as you enjoyed spending time with George. He'd become a little less bashful over the course of your visit and had began actively mocking the couples, pointing out particularly aggressive ones and making little quips.

When you walked up to the little counter, the waitress passed over your bill and you began reaching into your bag to pull out your little coin purse. At the same time, George reached into his pocket to pull out his own money but you quickly placed down your money and dragged him out of the tea shop before he could fight you on it.

"Why did you pay?" He asks, frowning as he looks over at you. You smiled sweetly if not a little sarcastically at him as you replied.

"My treat, for you being gentlemanly enough not to feel me up under the table," you joked.

"Not like I wasn't thinking about it," he mumbles, making you pause. His eyes widen at he realises he just said that out loud as you both stand frozen, looking at each other with shocked and surprised eyes. Usually you would have thought nothing of a comment like that coming from George, thinking he was simply teasing you but his reaction told you otherwise.

"What?"

"What?"

"You wanted, with me?" You said in utter shock, wanting him to clarify what he meant. He was blushing again, not as heavily as before but you could definitely detect a pinkness to his cheeks underneath his freckles.

"Yes," he says, looking up at you nervously.

You didn't think twice and immediately stepped forward, shyly pressing your lips to his. He began kissing you back a few seconds later, assuming the shock had settled and he reached delicately for your hip, holding you to him as he kissed you back.

When you pulled apart, you both smiled nervously at each other, letting out a little awkward chuckle at the sudden twist.

"I told you, she puts something in that tea!"

[tsams-and-co-memes]

POV you found a notepad and wanted to get the autographs of your favorite characters

Font names and other stuff under the cut

Sun: Font name is “Luna.” You likely got his autograph by approaching him in the daycare. He's skittish and awkward sometimes with fans, so you had to be very chill and calm with your approach. As long as you maintain a normal speaking volume, give him personal space, and talk to him like a normal person, he's cool with giving autographs

Moon: Font name is “Quikhand.” Like Sun, you probably also had to go to the daycare to get his autograph. He can be a bit awkward and distant, but as long as you treat him like a normal person and aren't clingy and don't hover or insist on physical contact, he's cool with giving autographs

Frank: Font name is “CakorAyam.” No one ever knows where to find Frank, or where he is at any given point in time, so let's be real; you didn't find Frank, Frank found you. He's a guy of few words and mostly breathes at you during the whole interaction, but as long as you're kind to him, he'll be kind to you, and he'll even happily give you an autograph

Solar: Font name is ���TINET.” You more than likely went to the Superstar Theater and approached him while he was working at the counter. If you treat him like a normal person, he'll give you an autograph, and he might even be content to crack some jokes or make light conversation. If you go at him like a crazy fan though, he'll send you away empty handed and tell you that you're being weird

KC: Font name is “Bree Font.” He worked at a soup kitchen, so you probably went there to see him. If you're weird in your approach, he'll tell you and ask you to stop, but if you're chill and polite, he'll give you his autograph and speak with you during his break. If he's in an especially good mood, he may even send you off with a cinnamon roll or cookie, too

Eclipse: Font name is “PP Handwriting Normal.” No one knows where Eclipse is, most of the time. Only god knows where you manage to stumble across him, but when you show up, he's probably in the middle of plotting and scheming something. He's not happy you're there, but he tries dismissing you. If you're calm and patient, and have the willpower to stand there and take the attitude he'll more than likely give you, he might give you his autograph purely to make you go away faster. If you're rude back to him, he might find some amusement in it and give you an autograph too, but that's a 50/50 shot whether he'll laugh or get annoyed

Solar Flare: Font name is “TrashHand.” You spotted him when he was on his way to the daycare to deliver satellite blueprints to Moon, so you stopped him for a moment. He was in a hurry, as blunt as ever about how important he is that he completes his task before Eclipse realizes what's up, and he finds the concept of autographs a bit strange, but he goes along with it. He doesn't really care how you behave, since he's indifferent to most things

Ruin: Font name is “We Mano Negra bta.” You found the British boy hanging out in the fazcade, tinkering with an arcade machine. As long as you're not a crazy fan about how you approach him, he's quite the social butterfly and would happily give you an autograph, but if you're weird about it, he'd either get visibly uncomfortable and leave as soon as possible, or he'd drop the sweetheart act and tell you, in a very blank, very flat tone of voice, to knock it off

Creator: Font name is “Taken by Vultures demo.” I'll be honest, I have no idea how you'd get his autograph. Firstly, you'd have to break into his lab, and doing so would probably result in death because now you've seen too much. Secondly, he has no hands or opposable thumbs as a giant brain. He'd need to be in the body of one of his little droids to even think about holding a pen and writing anything. On the off chance that you break into his lab and stroke his ego enough, he might consider letting you go, but if you say or do something he doesn't like, he'll put you 6 feet under

Bloodmoon: Font name is “5 years old.” I'm not sure about this one, either. You'd need whoever Bloodmoon was following/taking orders from present, to keep Bloodmoon from launching himself at you with murderous intent. That's assuming the person in question is nice enough to allow that, but... with the track record that Bloodmoon has of people he's decided to follow, the chance of his new master being kind is slim to none. If you don't end up in multiple pieces or smeared on the ground, you'd be very badly hurt. It's in everyone's best interest that you avoid this one at all costs

Monty: Font name is “Mind Antiks.” You likely found Monty in Gator Golf and decided to approach them there. They might be a bit skeptical of your intentions at first and assume you’re there on behalf of The Government, but with patience and gentle perseverance, you could convince them that you’re there of your own will and that you don’t intend to do anything weird or bad with their signature. As usual, treat them like a normal person, and don’t be weird or act like a crazy fan, that’d make them super uncomfortable (gonna stop repeating the “treat them like a normal person and don’t be a crazy fan” rule, because I feel like that should just be a given that no one likes it when you’re weird towards them)

Foxy: Font name is “Note this.” You likely saw him at the store when he was picking up something for FC, or while he was heading to Gator Golf. He’d be caught off guard and a little awkward at first, but probably very flattered that anyone would like him enough/think he was cool enough to want his autograph. Just,, whatever you do, be patient with the man; we all know he struggles with moving his arms

Puppet: Font name is “Domestic Manners.” You stopped by the Faz-Pad for a drink and saw Puppet there, crashing in that little corner that has the pool table. They were in the middle of watching some anime that you’d never even heard of, and although they’re slightly miffed about their show being interrupted, it’s quickly forgiven when you explain why you’ve approached them. Puppet likely didn’t think they had enough of a presence in the shows or that they couldn’t possibly be anyone’s favorite character, so they’re very flattered and more than willing to give you an autograph. If you started asking them questions about anime (whether it’s the one they’re currently watching, a different show, or anime in general), you’d probably be there all day while they happily ramble at you

FC: Font name is “Kindergarden.” FC was under Sun’s care when you found him, likely in the daycare. While it’s a little odd to go up to a kid and ask for an autograph, FC would be very excited, and he’d get the biggest ego boost from it, because this was all the proof he needed to see that he’s cool

Vegeta: Font name is “Elliot six.” Much like Frank, you do not find Vegeta, Vegeta finds you. He might be a little weird about the situation and a bit skeptical at first, but he could be convinced to give you an autograph. You might be suckered into getting him ice cream, helping him find his dog, watching some of his weird, out of pocket dance moves, or something else entirely, and he might find you again in the future, but hey. He’d be happy, and you would have unintentionally made a friend

Stitchwraith/Andrew: Font name is “Bear Butter.” You’d probably die the instant you wandered into his base, uninvited and unannounced. To be honest, I highly doubt anything you could say or do would be enough to get any form of mercy from him, let alone getting a simple autograph. He doesn’t take kindly to people poking their noses into his business, so… yeah. Hope you have a will drafted and a coffin picked out before you even try to approach him

Stitchwraith/Jake: Font name is “Endless Bummer” (in all caps). Everything I typed out for Andrew also applies here, so I don’t really need to add anything else

Lunar: Font name is “Dadhand.” Like with Sun and Moon, you probably found Lunar in the daycare and approached him there. He’s chill with fans coming in to say hi, and he’s happy to give you his autograph, provided you’re not a creepy weirdo

Earth: Font name is “Shadows into Light.” She was also in the daycare (wowie wow wow, look at all the people in the daycare, such a shocker /silly/sar) when you decided to approach her. She likes interacting with fans and it makes her very happy. She’s more than willing to give you an autograph, but you need to be especially mindful of how you act. If she’s even the tiniest bit uncomfortable around you, you’ll be booted out the door by one of her brothers

Jack: Font name is “Coffee House.” Lord knows where you stumble upon Jack, honestly. He’s probably confused about why you want him to write his name on a piece of paper, but he does it anyway, because why not. The only downside is that he might steal or break your pen

Castor: Font name is “Oil bats basic.” Astral bodies don’t typically get asked for autographs, so he’s thrown for a loop when you waltz up to him and ask him about it. While Castor grasps the concept of it, it’s just ACTUALLY doing it that confuses him, since… that’s his name. Why do you need/want it so bad? He is literally just There, he doesn’t see why you’re so invested in getting him to write his name. He’ll do it, but not before expressing how bizarre this is to him

Pollux: Font name is “A hundred miles.” Pollux doesn’t quite understand why you’d want her autograph either. Her thought process is very similar to Castor’s, but she’ll still do it. If you tell her that you want her autograph because you think she’s super cool, you might even manage to score some brownie points

Gemini: Font name is “Hathem Bosteem Free.” They’ll do it. They’re just Castor and Pollux merged together as one person, so just imagine everything I typed out for both of them, inserted here

Nebula: Font name is “Antro Vectra.” Again, this is another one where only god knows where you’d find her. Nebula doesn’t quite fully understand the concept of autographs, but I get the feeling she’d be flattered if you explained it to her and said that you wanted hers because you thought she was cool. She’d be flattered and still slightly confused, but either way, she could be convinced to do it

Taurus: Font name is “Across the road.” You…. Are not finding him on your own. Plain and simple. You’d have to get his autograph through Nebula, assuming he was feeling gracious enough to give you his autograph at all

[double-0h-no]

Old Dog, New Tricks

Second to last prompt I want and need to fill. And slowly and surely running out of time, but I'll do this. My prompt fill for "Secondary Villain/Henchman" and for @meadowcastiel prompt, to be revealed at the end. With the tiniest nod to @thestalwartheart gorgeous poem that didn't leave me alone while finihing this up, please go and read it, it's so so gorgeous!

on ao3

Bond has a sudden influx of ideas for gadgets to take out into the field. Henchmen suffer the consequences.

"007, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. Just wanted to see what R6D is working on these days." 

That stopped Q dead in his tracks and pinched the bridge of his nose in a feeble hope that it would delay the headache that was bound to result from this conversation.  "How often do I have to tell you that, unless you have a very good reason for it, there will not be an exploding pen for you."

Bond had the audacity to scoff, as if he hadn't asked for exactly that, and then continued his lazy stroll past the benches where currently, a few prototypes and blueprints were scattered. "I wouldn't dare come to you for something as trivial as that. Anymore."

"I'm not sure I like where this is going, but do go on."

"Well, I was thinking about how night goggles were actually rather handy, in general, but also very suspicious looking and bulky. And I know you've been tinkering around with your own glasses. Isn't there something to be done?"

Now, that piqued Q's interest, because: "There is, actually. As you've correctly stated, it can't be that only my glasses get tinkered with. There are a lot of things we're trying to do in that department, the easiest and most obvious one being cameras installed into the frame, or something as simple as a GPS tracker. Night vision has so far proven difficult because - Do you know how night goggles usually work?", he interrupted himself.

Bond shook his head, and Q motioned for him to step closer to his own bench, where he quickly opened a new browser window to pull up some graphics. "All right, so our problem currently lies in this."

_//\\_//\\_

Mission transcript for internal use.

H - Handler - Quartermaster

A - Agent - 007

Transcript written by Quartermaster for potential blackmailing purposes among the women of Q branch and Bond.

Transcript begins:

A: "Q?"

H: "Yes, 007?"

A: "Could you develop a repellent?"

H: "A repellent? Whatever for? I think you're quite capable of getting some nobite from a nearby drugstore or pharmacy."

A: "Not for mosquitoes. For all the women approaching me this evening who aren't my target."

H: "..."

A: "Q?"

H: "..."

A: "I take that as a no."

H: "I'll start a survey among the women who frequent Q-branch on which aftershave or perfume they think to be the most repelling. Otherwise, I will keep it to myself that you just asked me for a spray to repel women, but I will save this bit to bring out and show to R and Moneypenny should I feel the need to blackmail you, are we understood?"

_//\\_//\\_

It was the strangest thing, really, and unfortunately, horribly endearing in the way it reminded Q of his cats, at least distantly.

James was lounging on the sofa in his office, limbs akimbo, half asleep, a cooling pad still held to his face, and quite possibly loopy on pain meds.

Q thought it incredible that James appeared to be able to maintain that position without too much discomfort. His own joints probably wouldn't appreciate this kind of treatment, but that might be due to his own lack of exercise in recent years.

"Run that by me again?", he asked, mortified by the amount of affection that his voice held.

"S'mthing to call 'nimals. Useful ones. Like a swarm of bees."

"And how would calling a swarm of bees to your location be helpful?"

James shrugged to the best of his ability. "Don't know. Not to my location. the other guy."

"So let me get this straight, you want to call the bees so that they go after the bad guy."

The Double Oh agent made a sound that could, unfortunately, best be described as a giggle. That was that settled, at least. Certainly high on pain meds, and possibly not half as comfortable in this situation as the meds might make him believe.

"You said bad guy."

Q buried his face in his hands both in exasperation and to hide the redness he felt blooming in his cheeks.

Hopeless cases, the both of them.

_//\\_//\\_

"How small do you think you can make a taser?"

"About lipstick-sized. Of the larger variety, but about that size."

"So not the size of a ring."

"Not unless all you want to be able to stun is a blowfly. Or knock yourself on your arse because I'm not sure how the hell I'd isolate a metal ring properly."

_//\\_//\\_

"You want what?" James - Bond had caught him just on his way back to Q-branch from a meeting that surely could have been an email or three, at most.

"Come on, Q, you can't deny that it would be helpful."

"I mean, yes, except you'd ultimately always impede yourself as well. Plus, it would require you to get out of dodge in the blink of an eye."

James cocked an eyebrow in amusement. "Because that's never been known to happen."

He couldn't help the snort. "Careful with your knees at your age."

"You had nothing to complain about last-"

"Will you be quiet?", Q interjected snidely, but with a big grin on his face. Gosh, that surely had happened. And would happen again, and again. And a few more times after, for sure.

"Now, about my idea?", Bond teased, and Q sighed.

"Why do you always come to me with those things anyway? You very well know by now that R heads R&D, not me. I don't have time for those things anymore because I have meetings now that take a day and an age but could have been done in a fraction of the time, and she-"

James suddenly pulled him around a corner, pressed him up against a wall, and snogged him silly. It wasn't a good kiss, he was smiling way too much for that, but damn if it didn't make him feel good. He was so giddy with it it made him look stupid.

"You're very distracting," Bond murmured, lips only centimetres from his own. "Did I ever tell you that you're incredibly hot when you get worked up and commanding?"

Q bit his tongue not to giggle. "That explains so much, actually." He closed the gap between them and stole another kiss. "Where would you even stash them away?"

It visibly took James a few seconds to catch on to Q's drifting thoughts. "Depends on how small you can make them, but I was thinking about fastening them to the inside of my belt."

"Won't that be uncomfortable?"

James left featherlight kisses on the high point of his cheek, pushing his glasses up with his nose, the hinge of his jaw, corner of his lips, before he answered: "I've been through worse. Plus, I'm sure you'll come up with something."

Another kiss. He felt like a teenager again. It was embarrassing. It was glorious.

"I probably will. Don't think it'll be like that now just because you give decent head."

The indignant sound was almost as sweet as the kisses.

_//\\_//\\_

Mission monitoring was not going any worse than it had been before, and Q was a bit relieved about it.

No matter what he'd told James before, no matter what he'd told himself, deep down he had been worried that separating the mission from his personal feelings would in fact get more difficult now that he had something to lose that went beyond his feelings, but included a person almost sharing his flat and life and feeding his cats. But it was fine. Or at least not any worse than he was used to. Which was to say, it wasn't going great.

He was monitoring Bond, but couldn't communicate with him anymore, which at least was not Bond's fault. 007 was being led down a corridor, henchmen guarding him, Q and R watching him via the security cameras. Their journey ended in a windowless room, and Q and R exchanged a worried glance. They'd seen too many rooms of that variety in their time, though fortunately never from up close.

The henchmen kept their guns trained at Bond while he sat down on the singular chair in the room.

There was no audio, but his lips were moving.

The next thing they saw was the camera whitening out for a brief second, and when the feed returned to normal, black smoke filled the room and was already being filtered out. He could make out the feet of one of the guards, clearly sprawled on the floor, and the other one had probably suffered a similar fate, though Q was already going through the cameras to find Bond again.

"I can't believe it worked," mumbled Riley next to him, and only then did the reality of what had happened set in.

He groaned pitifully. "We will never hear the end of this."

_//\\_//\\_

They did never hear the end of this.

_//\\_//\\_

After this very first success, Riley was actually more open to working with Bond on several of her projects, and the litany of minions of various evil operations who'd fallen victim to increasingly ridiculous contraptions was growing by the week.

It also had the nice side effect that James was... Q didn't have any other words to describe it, but he felt that Bond was doing better. The time he spent in R&D shortened the time he spent on the bench, at least in his perception, and he wasn't as keen to go out in the field anymore between missions. As much as he'd like to think that it was in part his own doing, Q knew that James' work with R played just as big a role.

It was good, all in all. It was very good.

_//\\_//\\_

Q was standing at his desk in his office, double checking a mixup with an order of materials to find the error, when a heavy blanket of Double Oh draped itself over his back.

"What have you come up with this time? Or is it time to leave already?" It usually was one thing or another, these days.

"An EMP."

As much as he tried - not very hard at all, this bit of chasing tails had already robbed him of his last nerve - this one really caught his interest.

_//\\_//\\_

They never managed to figure out a way to make it work. It was fine, too.

_//\\_//\\_

When Q came home that day, exhausted beyond comprehension, James was already home, sitting in his favourite armchair, reading glasses on his nose while he was reading something on his tablet, the Admiral snuggled into his side.

"What do you think of freeze grenades?", he asked in lieu of a greeting.

"Freeze grenades?", Q asked incredulously, still getting out of his shoes. "What are they even supposed to do?" He wandered into the kitchen and scoured it for something left to eat. There was a sandwich sitting out, carefully protected from the cats, and Q picked up the plate with a grateful smile and joined James in the living room.

"Well, they're supposed to emit intense cold upon activation."

"To what end?"

"Depends. Freeze something over to make it brittle. Freeze water over to cross it, though I can imagine that might be difficult. Freeze burns are a bitch, too."

"As opposed to normal grenades, who don#t hurt much at all. What even are you reading there?" He leaned over to catcha glimpse at the screen, and James didn't try to hide it. Q tilted his head. "Is that a batman comic?"

James nodded. "I never read them when I was a kid, but I watched one of the movies on my way back from... I don't even know anymore. It was utterly ridiculous. I wanted to know more."

"Is that where you get all those ridiculous ideas from?"

"You say that as if they haven't worked."

Q's eyes widened in childish wonder. "You have. This is amazing. You're such a closet nerd." He leaned in and pressed an ill-aimed kiss to James' cheek.

James tried his best to appear annoyed at Q's antics, but there was the smile in his eyes that everybody else said was missing when they met him.

"So, what about batarangs?"

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 14 thoughts from 14.8 through the end:

Gonna get a little bit gay up in here pretty soon. But first, some other stuff.

Pretty much jump right into "Oh shit everything is fucked" with the bio-weapon just spreading everywhere right away.

Skitter's focus on Tattletale specifically when trying to get them to higher ground was top level Chatterbug/Smugbug content. Like sure Sundancer and Trickster too, she wanted to save them. But when Bentley wasn't climbing fast enough what she said to herself in worry was "Tattletale."

Fucking god. Tattletale telling Skitter to fly to the higher building and use bugs so Trickster could teleport them and they'd follow? But fully knowing it wouldn't work and just trying to get Skitter to safety?

"It doesn’t look like her plan will work out. Tell her I’m sorry." - I WAS FUCKING BAWLING

I had figured that Bonesaw's contingency wasn't just a "everyone dies right now" virus or whatever. It would need to be artistic. And it would need to be a punishment to the local capes, both hero and villain. And the way to punish them would be to "take the city from them". "Make them watch it destroy itself." "Make them help".

I feel like what she did covered that general outline with a heavier focus on taking everything away from the capes. But still, god damn Bonesaw. Absolutely fucking terrifying. Super powered face blindness. At the base at least. Don't know who anyone is. Damn.

SKITTER IT'S NOT GAY YET THAT ISN'T TATTLETALE IT'S BONESAW! GAY WILL COME LATER!

If Jack put's his slimy fucking hands on my daughter again I will personally remove them.

The "Don't swear!" from Bonesaw while pretending to be Tattletale was fun. I managed to hit on it before that, but it was a good confirmation.

Fucking Jack and his "You’re versatile" after seeing Skitter make decoys while prepping to tie someone up with spiders. FUCK OFF WITH YOUR DREAMS YOU DICK. YOU CAN'T HAVE HER.

Instantly confirmed when Skitter flat refused to shoot someone despite Jack and Bonesaw telling her to. My daughter might not be perfect but she's not going to be one of you!

Coil fucked up a bit on the phone. He wasn't dealing with the pathogen so he should have done better. Even just asking everyone there to say something so he could listen to the voices. He would have known right away it wasn't Tattletale and Grue. Patching them through to Cherish that easily was a mistake. He really doesn't do as much as he could be. Like ya he's evil but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed when he isn't using his full potential.

Cherish very fucked up when she thought letting Jack and Bonesaw know where she was would be good for her. Hope she likes her eternal torment at the bottom of the ocean. (Ok there's a chance she'll get pulled out in the future I guess.)

I'll admit, when Amy left with Victoria earlier I wasn't expecting to see them again so soon.

"Panacea is the healer, top floor, Jack is the slasher, the blond girl is the chemist-tinker." I don't know why, since it doesn't rhyme or anything, but I got very "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true" vibes from this.

Jack trying to convince Amy by talking about how many of her ancestors were successful by being cruel and Taylor just internally going "How many were successful because they cooperated?" Love my daughter.

Victoria is still very much . . . not dead.

HOLY SHIT AMY YOU PUT YOUR SISTER IN A PERSONALIZED FLESH COFFIN MADE FROM CATS AND DOGS?

Seriously. Personalized. It has her face on the outside made out of bone. What the actual fuck Amy?

Proud of my daughter for shooting Jack, even if it didn't work.

It's probably fine that Skitter got Amy to break her brain rule again. I mean like it's good. It was the only way to fix the pathogen. It saved herself and the city. That is all good. Just . . . there might also be some long term negative outcomes. Probably fine though.

Getting gets cured and goes off to cure the city be gay.

"I leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on her lips." - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER!

SO FUCKING GAY I LOST MY FUCKING MIND WHEN IT HAPPENED

"'You couldn’t have waited until after you’d cured me before you put the bugs on your face?' Tattletale asked. She was smiling as she asked it." - ALSO EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

SO GAY. DOUBLE GAY. EXTRA GAY. ALL THE GAY!

CHATTERBUGCHATTERBUGCHATTERBUG (SMUGBUG IS FINE TOO)!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also the level of effort the girls went through after that trying to figure out how to cure Grue and Regent without kissing? Fucking amazing. Kissing was only ok for these three. Obviously.

GAAAAAAY

Gay (bug)horse girl gay (bug)horse girl gay (bug)horse girl

And the remainder of the Nine got away. Which is pretty fucking bad I guess. What with the whole "end of the world" and all that. I get that story point is the *actual* big end of the arc. But it's been overshadowed. By the gays.

Did I mention things being gay? I just want to make sure. Cause they were. Gay that is.

Interlude 1 - Sierra is amazing. She is exactly who Skitter needs to be running things while she's away. Charlotte is also amazing and I think worships the ground Skitter walks on. My daughter is, as always, absolutely terrifying when described from anyone else's PoV. She only gets more so every time. She just uses bug speak without even realizing now. Amazing. I love her. Atlas is helping and I'm so proud of him. He even got to take the gun. I hope he gets to keep it.

Interlude 2 (thought about making this it's own post but I'll just keep it really simple) - God dammit all three of the big 3 are Cauldron created? Ugh. Legend you appear to be trying to do the right thing but you sure as shit aren't paying much attention are you? Holy shit like, you believed so much of what the Doctor has been saying for years? God damn bud. How could you look at Cauldron and assume they *aren't* doing human experimentation? Especially since you know they have done it in the past! Like god damn man! At least you do kind of acknowledge that maybe you were purposefully ignoring the signs cause you wanted to be ignorant. Maybe there is a little bit of hope for you. Hell of a lore dump interlude though. Gives me lots to think about. Also I'd absolutely listen to The Number Man talk about spreadsheets all day long.

GAY

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Beta Reading, Workshopping, and Peer Editing for Indie Writers: a Guide

Beta reading is a term you might hear tossed out as a vague buzzword, kind of like how people talk about "character development" and "worldbuilding"; I've made a bunch of posts to demystify words in that latter category, but beta reading is a different type of term. Where those latter words and their ilk are terms of craft, things we can discuss in theory ("this is how I think characters are developed best"), beta reading is about a novel after its first draft and first wave-ish of edits. Pretty much everything before and after the production of a novel or story is purely up to what works best for the writer, so this post will introduce beta reading if it's new to you, and I'll give you my process if you want to tinker with it!

Beta reading is when interested readers work through your polished manuscript and make workshop comments so you can make an extra wave of edits. Publishing houses usually have two waves of this type of reading--alpha reading (AR) and beta reading (BR). If you can find enough people to alpha read for you (and you want alpha readers), go for it! But if you're confident in your grammar, your ability to craft a scene and characters, and the other formalities of creative writing, alpha reading isn't a requirement (as an indie. If you ever query your work to a house, it'll probably go through alpha reading).

Alpha reading is to catch grammar and syntax slips, mischaracterizations, character development that doesn't add up, excesses of adverbs and adjectives, and other craft faux-pas that the average reader wouldn't catch. Your alpha readers should pretty exclusively be other writers.

Beta reading is to gauge what your audience is thinking or feeling while they read your work. If your beta readers want to make alpha reading comments ("I don't feel like [character] would do that here"), that's A-okay, especially if you didn't have alpha readers, but that shouldn't be your chief concern with your betas. These are your audience surrogates! The job of beta readers is to tell you what they think or feel: "I like this," "I don't like this"; "This paragraph hit me hard"; "This word is confusing"; etc. If they add more words to their comments, that's A-okay ("I like this because these words go well together" or "This word is confusing--does it mean X or Y?") but not necessary! If your beta readers are your audience and not people who really get how writing works, then you should be taking any reasonings in their comments as loose, loose suggestions. Maybe those words that go well together to one reader feel, as you look at them a second time, cliche. Or perhaps the confusing nature of a word or phrase was by design. In any case, try to see your beta readers as a "live audience reaction" and not a "live reactionary critique."

One aside about alpha/beta reading: "this is bad" and "this is good" comments are toxic and should be avoided at all costs. Tell your readers to avoid these before they start writing. No good can come from these. Even "I don't like this" and "I like this" are worlds better, though still not great. But absolutely warn your readers against using objective blanket statements like "good/bad" as they read.

Now that we've laid the foundations, I'll go into my own process so hopefully everything above makes more sense.

Before I give my manuscript to beta readers, I go through 2-3 waves of revision on my own. After I finish my first draft, I wait about a month to let the dust settle, to gain at least a little emotional distance from the project so I can look at it a little more objectively. Then, I read it through, revising for content: cut this scene, add a scene here, chop paragraphs and sentences, add paragraphs and sentences, move this chapter here, make sure this character actually functions as he should in the narrative, etc. These are my macro edits.

Then I let it sit a week or two and go into line editing: punctuation and syntax, word choice, tweaking figurative language, etc. Close pruning of your work. Filing your nails after you've clipped them.

The third read-through is at a normal reading pace, as if you were a reader, to catch anything that may have slipped past during your close edits and revisions. This third read-through is likely the first time you've read your manuscript as it should be read--a book! This step, then, is a victory lap, but it's also one last troubleshoot. You might not find the errors in a computer program until you run the program. So too it is with writing.

This is a lot of work! You might want to relegate these tasks to your readers, but DO NOT!!! If you're still heavily revising and editing your work, don't let your readers to the table. This is your work and your story, and outside influence will stray it from what you want. Own this. Buckle down. Read.

Once you've got your polished draft, it's time to contact your readers! I would recommend 4-6 readers total unless you think you can handle more cooks in your kitchen at a time (I cannot). I typically just ask some of my friends to beta for me. Here's an example text:

"Hey all! I finished that book about church camp a while ago and was wondering if you'd beta read for me! Basically, I'd just need you to read through the book and make comments in the sidebar whenever you like something, don't understand something, are excited or intrigued by something, or other general impressions. You can comment however often or little you feel comfortable with--some people make one comment a chapter, others make multiple comments a page--anything works great. Really all you shouldn't comment are blanket statements of "this is bad" or "this is good," but feel free even to say stuff like "I like this" or "I don't like this." Just avoid objective language when possible.

I don't have any money for this, so sorry in advance, and if possible, I'd love for all of my beta reading to be done by the end of summer.

Let me know if you're down or not! :)"

I really have had readers comment that much and that little on my manuscripts. This is normal. If your readers are supposed to comment whenever something in their attention triggers, different readers' attentions will trigger differently.

It's also a wise idea to form your beta reading group (again, especially if you aren't doing a wave of alpha reading) as a mix of people from different backgrounds and writing experience. My church camp novel group is below:

Person A who went to church camp with me, is into poetry

Person B is into fanfiction, little church experience, mindful of social issues

Person C has little church or writing experience, mindful of social issues

Person D is very into writing, pretty into church

Person E is very into social issues and church, not a writer

I would advise to find a similar balance of people who are into your subject matter and those who aren't.

It's also helpful to give them a timeframe to read by, and make this longer than they need. I gave people ~two months for my ~60k-word novel.

Also, as a little incentive for your readers, plan something for when everyone's done! A post-beta party! Something like this will also encourage you through the process :)

Once you have your betas' comments, it's time for one last wave of revisions. Compile these comments however you like, and start tweaking. I like to have each beta's document open so I can cross-reference while I work through my own doc. And remember: these are audience comments, not writer comments (unless you explicitly brought writers on). If someone says something confuses them, that might just be their cross to bear. If none of your other betas were confused by it, or if one of your betas compliments the same section, it may be worth ignoring that first comment. Try to rule with the majority when you can, and take everything with a grain of salt. "I don't like this" doesn't mean it needs to be changed. It means you should figure out why that reader doesn't like it.

If you have any questions, my asks are open! Again, this is a pretty open concept where anything works as long as it works for you, so don't feel pressured to "get it right." But if you have any questions or suggestions, I'm all ears :)

Hope this helps!

[ewingstan]

We sort of touched on it in a prior post, but you’ve gotten a fair few details on how Mark and Carol raised Victoria by this point.

From what details you recall, how does her handling/raising of Kenzie fall into compare and contrast with those details?

Wooh. Hm. Well, I think she has Kenzie's ultimate wellbeing in mind more than Carol probably did while raising her and Amy. At the same time, when Victoria's first reaction to Kenzie getting publicly pilloried was "lets get you in front of cameras to argue your case, and also while we're at it lets keep our cape-network plan from falling through by jumping on the public-Scion-reveal grenade" I thought well. Yeah that's something Carol's daughter would think to do huh.

Its a dangerous relationship they're in. Victoria legitimately wants to keep Kenzie safe and stop her from overworking herself. She also really wants this cape group thing to work. She'd probably not consciously let the latter get in the way of the former, but she will let Kenzie fight as a hero if it seems like that's what Kenzie wants. The problem, of course, is that Kenzie wants what Victoria wants. Kenzie will act in whatever way will make the people around her happy, and so if she thinks Victoria wants her to be a hero (which you don't exactly need to be an observation tinker to notice), she's gonna make being a hero her whole thing. Not to mention that Kenzie also knows Ashley wants her to be an active cape, Sveta enjoys being on a hero team, etc....

I'll also say that the way Victoria's treating Chris.... kind of reminds me of how Carol treated Amy growing up? Victoria sees him as her responsibility: he's a member of the group Dr. Yamada asked her to shepherd, and he's a kid, and now that Dr. Yamada's gone that responsibility is even greater. Victoria is burdened with Chris in the same way Marquis burdens Carol with Amy; sure, Victoria does it a lot more voluntarily.... but she's also doing it more because she agreed to care for "the group," not for Chris. Chris is a responsibility that came packaged with what she wanted to do. And while the care she has for Kenzie seems to come from a place of genuine concern and affection, her keeping tabs on Chris feels strictly procedural. She's responsible for him, she'll keep tabs on him, nothing more to it. There's a lot of resentment and some frustration that boils into how Victoria treats Chris as a result. Insert your arrested development "I don't care for Chris" image here.

Hell, despite otherwise having pretty wildly different viewpoints when interacting with people, Victoria ends up resembling Taylor a lot in how she thinks about Chris, because it matches up so well with how Taylor thought about Regent. Its another case of "That guy I'm not as close to as the others, the dangerous one, the one whose probably a sociopath waiting to be let loose." I remember thinking that Chris seemed like "the Regent of the group" in my early reading, but they're really not so alike personality-wise, or even in terms of their place in the team dynamic; they're just positioned the same way in the mind of each text's narrator.

I read Taylor's reaction to Alec as one part fear-response to people who seem to delight in other's pain for no obvious reason, and one part a reaction to all the stuff she doesn't like about herself projected onto some twink in leggings. Her fixation on the idea that Regent must just like hurting people, that its just the kind of person he is, comes from the same scared confusion about why her best friend and the whole of the school started torturing her for no apparent reason. Its a reaction from a person who still categorizes everyone as bullies or victims, and is distressed about whether there's more to that and where she is on the spectrum. In her mind, he's a kinda evil dude that likes to hurt people because hes a bully and that's what bullies are, but actually maybe he's fine to hang around with? Which is getting churned in her head alongside her pledging to protect people by becoming a horrifying warlord and making long arguments to Pariah and Flechette about how villains can be helpful and heroes can be bullies. Taylor's relationship to Alec and her distance from him is symptomatic of her evolving views about who people can be, what power can be used for, and why people act the way they do.

Of course, Taylor conversely forms one of her strongest emotional bonds with someone who reminds her of her bullies even more than Alec does. But I think this makes sense for the same reason Chris and Kenzie could both remind Victoria of Amy but inspire such differing treatment. Bitch's first encounter with Taylor was a seemingly random attack that Taylor directly compares to the trio's assaults: she instinctively looks for a reason to hold back like she did for them, and then finds freedom in not having one. But while Rachel at first seems to directly fit the "bullies because she's a bully" model, Taylor learns pretty early on that Rachel has perfectly understandable reasons for her behavior, and that she can be predicted and made into a close ally if she just pays attention and puts in the work. Taylor's relationship with Alec is her sticking to the idea that the world is bullies and victims, and you have to find your place in it without understanding it because there's nothing more to understand. Taylor's relationship with Rachel, meanwhile, is her finding out the world isn't just bullies doing bad things because they're bad people. Rachel is the possibility of understanding the world, bringing it to heel, learning to love it and make it love you.

Similarly, Victoria's relationship with Chris is a reflection of everything she internalized from the Wretchening, while her relationship with Kenzie is her reacting against those internalized lessons towards something more hopeful. Chris is a medical freak who becomes a horrible misshapen monster on a regular basis and who suffers horribly for it, yet keeps choosing to do so. He's wretchening himself at the slightest provocation—he's impatient to wretchen himself! Add to that how his emotions rule him to the degree that they physically transform him, and that he shows absolutely no desire to reign them in, and its pretty clear why Victoria is often so negative to him. He's a powderkeg waiting to go off in a horrible way like his sister was, filled with strange and offputting desires turned into strange and offputting flesh, and unlike Amy he doesn't even have the decency to shamefully repress it. Chris is Amy as the deviant who qua deviancy will inevitably be a danger to everyone around him. Kenzie, meanwhile, is Amy as the sister who gave too much of herself. Victoria's shown at times that she hasn't forgotten how she loved Amy as a sister, how she wasn't inherently evil. She spoke with regret about not listening to Amy when she begged Victoria not to hug her. And she's pretty much said in-text "I don't want Kenzie, who I love as I once loved my sister, to exhaust herself to the point that she becomes lost in the way my sister did." Victoria looks at Chris and is reminded of all her fears of what strange and dangerous people will do, of her belief that bad people do bad things because their bad people. Victoria looks at Kenzie and remembers that's not true, and that she can do something about it.

[dduane]

Hi there! I'm not sure if this is something you've talked about before in another post, but I just finished the first draft of my first novel, and I was wondering if you could talk about what your experience was like getting your first novel edited and published. I have this story that I'm excited about but no idea what to do with it now that I've reached "The End," do you have any advice on what my next step ought to be towards eventually getting it published? Thanks in advance!

First of all: thanks for asking. ...And now I have to warn you that I am possibly one of the worst possible people to ask about what their first novel's publication looked like... as it was completely atypical.

Not that that's going to stop me, mind you. (And you know what? I'm inserting a cut here, because this goes on a bit. Warning: contains [calculated] dissing by old friends, pulp non-fiction, unexpurgated language, unexpected awards nominations, and advice that's worth just what you're paying for it.)

What happened with me and my first book goes like this:...

In the late 1970s I was starting to burn out on psychiatric nursing, and was offered a job as assistant to the novelist and Star Trek ["The Trouble with Tribbles"] writer David Gerrold. I took it happily, as I was in a place in my life where I really needed some kind of change. The work with David was part-time; I also occasionally did special duty nursing shifts to help make ends meet.

Now during this period, I was writing for my own amusement (as I'd been doing all my life from about age eight onward). Right then I was working on a project I'd been tinkering with from my late high school years right through college, nursing school, and my first couple/few years of practice as an RN. This was the background worldbuilding for a vaguely Tolkienesque, somewhere-between-late-Medieval-and-early Renaissance fantasy scenario featuring a couple of moderately unusual magic systems, a sexually diverse culture, and a pair of "These Two Idiots"-style protagonists with complex interleaving problems.

While I was working for David, I had a lot of opportunity to observe, close up, what the life and workflow of a career writer looked like. Slowly, over a year or so, the realization crept up on me that what David was doing, I could do too. And it was at this point that I finally admitted to him that I thought I might want to write as well.

David's (as I later discovered, extremely calculated) eyeroll could probably have been seen from space. "Oy, not another one," he moaned. After which I went away from the abortive conversation pretty much resolved never to speak to him about this again... but also with a single thought filling my brain: You fucking supercilious sonofabitch, I'm going to show you that I'm not just another one.

...I'll never be able to thank him enough for that. Fury can be so motivating. :)

In the aftermath I got busy pulling together my background material with much more focused intent, and beating the most significant parts of it into something that started looking like a plot. It came together with surprising speed and unnerving insistence—one of the very few times in my career when a project, once begun, has simply flung me into the writing chair and insisted that it was the most important thing in my life and needed handling now. And when in the fullness of time David went on vacation, leaving me to house-sit at his place in LA, I immediately started using his very early computer to transcribe my novel's so-far-only-handwritten draft material.

I took what I thought was considerable care to cover my tracks... but not quite enough. On his return from vacation, when he was putting out the trash, David found some of my discarded draft pages, read them, and confronted me (with a certain amount of friendly teasing) about what had been going on. Then he said to me, "What I've seen of this thing doesn't look too bad. Let me see it when you're finished, and if it looks good enough, I'll ask one of my publishers if they want to take a look at it."

So that's what happened. I finished my first draft and a polish of it in about six weeks, and passed it to David. He read it and immediately handed it on to his editors at Dell, who were just starting a fantasy line for which they needed product. Two weeks later, they said they liked the novel and made an offer, which I accepted. Not a vast amount, but respectable enough. So there it was, my first sale: this book. Which then got me nominated two years running for the Astounding Award, and opened the door for the sale and publication of So You Want To Be A Wizard, as well as my earliest Star Trek work and my entry into the animation world.

I remember very little about the editing process, except that it was painless. What was not exactly painless was the book's cover, about which...well, the less said here the better. But the book came out to generally good reviews. So, with this series of events behind it, you can see why as regards first-publication stories, I'm a first-class outlier and should definitely not be counted. (Also to be avoided by new writers if at all possible: the experience of having half their strongly-selling first novel's initial print run pulped in the warehouse* because it was taking up room needed by a new book by a world-famous novelist.) (Whom I have long since forgiven, since it wasn't his fault, and...well, what can you do? Shit happens.)

...Anyway, that's more than enough about me. Now let's talk about you.

My first advice about what to do with the novel you've just finished? Stick it in a drawer (literally or figuratively speaking, whichever suits your case better) and don't look at it for at least a month. Two would be better. You can spend those two months thinking about your next moves... because you need to give those some consideration before you do anything else.

The question that you first need to answer is going to at least partially shape what you do next. And it's this:

Are you seriously considering making a career out of writing?

It's not that it can't be done! Of course it can. But it won't be easy... not at all. Anyone who tells you it will is either just outright lying through their teeth, or trying to sell you something. ...Or both.

Be honest with yourself as you consider this. If you aren't, you may be letting yourself in for considerable pain over a prolonged period... and I'd sooner you were spared that, if you can be. In particular, be clear about the difference between the statements "I want to write" and "I want to be a writer." Often enough people like the sound of the lifestyle and what they see as going with it—the signings, the book tours (physical or virtual), the interviews, the best-seller lists—without any real concept of the grueling, day-to-day, weekends-are-for-other-people, why-am-I-making-less-than-minimum-wage-most-of-the-time labor that underpins it.

If you simply want to write and be published—without the concept of a career necessarily being involved, or the lovely shimmering dreamlike vision of Giving Up The Day Job—you now have work pathways available to you that would've been unimaginable in the previous century. Self-publishing makes it possible for you to get your work in front of many, many eyes without necessarily having to submit yourself to the specific set of trials that go with achieving the initial stages of an intended career. Selfpubbing still has significant unique challenges of its own, of course, which have to be evaluated so that you can tell (as the commercials say) if they're right for you.

But if you're thinking of a career in what's usually being referred to these days as "traditional publishing", then you face a number of challenges that don't necessarily come with the self-publishing end of things. In particular: many publishing houses no longer consider manuscripts that come to them un-agented. So you're going to need to find an agent who's willing to represent your work... and this is a task that no longer looks anything like what it did when I found mine. (Or rather, when he found me, having been recommended to me by one of my editors. I've been with him for even longer than I've been with @petermorwood... and that's saying something. But this is yet another way in which my career's been wildly atypical.)

There is so much that could be said about this subject alone—the business of researching agencies to see which one seems like a good fit for you, the art of writing the perfect query letter to get their attention focused on a given book, and so much more—that I could hardly begin to even skim the surface of it here. There are whole websites devoted to shopping for agents, not to mention how to pitch yourself and your work to a given literary agency.

Let me leave this whole subject here for the moment. We can come back to it another time, because right now you need to be thinking this through. ...This I'll say, however. For the past six to nine months I've been pulling together links to various online resources that can be beneficial to new writers just getting started. These will be available as posts over at the FicFoundry.com site that I'm going to be bringing online before summer. I'm hoping to build that into kind of a compendium site or clearing house for online resources on this subject. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, thanks for inquiring about this. You're standing at the first branching of what I'm hoping will be, for you at least, a fascinating variant of the Choose Your Own Adventure genre. :)

More on this later.

("Wait. Did she just call us idiots??")

*Now that we live in the era of just-in-time warehousing, this is something that fortunately doesn't happen much any more... as far as I know. But once upon a time, if somebody's new best-seller was going to the warehouse in its many thousands of copies, and your relatively-less-well-selling book was taking up space that could be used by the other author's "more valuable"/higher-priced titles, your books (5-10K of them, in my case) were simply thrown into a machine and turned into papery mush. And these go on your sales record as "unsold copies". (sigh) Some discussion of this phenomenon can be found over here.

[tezzbot]

congrats on finishing your essay! :))

Love your Sonic Underground au, btw! I need some lore drops on my boy, Manic, tho. It doesn't even have to be a long explanation. Something goofy like, how many times has he been arrested?

Also! Do the triplets eventually form a band? [side-eye]

Oh my goodness, hello!! I love your art so much it's all so cool!!!! Thank you lol!

Some stuff about Manic in the au lets see...

He was kidnapped as a baby after the triplets had been sent halfway across the continent for their own safety, whoops lol, he's quite charismatic, must always have been since he managed to endear himself to Ferral pretty much immediately lol, he grew up pretty much similarly to the canon of underground, getting by stealing where he has to bartering and stuff, he's part of his own found family within the city and they're all very close, a tight-knit little community of thiefs sfgdhj, though every so often one or two of them decide to spread out (though they stay in touch), which is actually the reason for Manic's being on the train alongside the others, he has family he misses! And he has some things to get to them! (little does he know he'll be meeting more family than he anticipated lol) Though he's never actually been out of the city he grew up in himself (despite what he may claim lol), uhh he is very technically minded he loves to tinker and making little thingamajigs and doohickeys that look like they wouldn't have any practical use but he usually finds a way lol, nothing, like, robotic like Tails does, he's more a manual guy fdsgfgdf, aaand just a random headcanon he's fairly dyslexic n has some trouble reading, he usually has someone help him. There's also gender happening to him :thumbsup:

As for how many times he's been arrested lol uhhhh I think that early on he was pulled up a few times, probably spent some time in juvie, but he hasn't actually been caught in quite a while, I don't imagine Manic gets caught all that often lol you know those videos of kids running from cops and the police just making absolute clowns of themselves trying to catch them? That's Manic JHGJFG

So wrt the band, I'm sort of playing around with ideas right now? The main idea that I'm running with is that, the medallions only react to them when the triplets are getting along, when there is harmony between them (eehh? geddit? lol) that's the only time that they are able to be activated. Which, given the rocky start that they all have with one another obviously takes time, with Sonic being reluctant to share pretty important info with them and generally keeping his distance from them, Sonia's frustration with him and her being Very mad at Manic for scamming her, not much harmony going on for a fair bit of the journey. Eventually the three of them do get along and discover the powers of the medallions and they do perform a few times throughout. Eventually Sonic does spill that they're family and after the reactions they come up with the idea to use their music to get their mothers attention, Sonic is hesitant etcetc. I DUNNO! I'm still futzing with it lol I'll decide on stuff eventually fdghfg

Oh and I do want Sonia and Manic to have their own powers like a lesser version of Sonic's speed but, again, still deciding LOL

Anyway! Sorry this got so long lol, I've thought a lot about this AU! Thank you for the qs!!

OH ALSO Manic uses "bro" and "brother" on Sonic just as a casual thing but the first few times Sonic is like .Does He Know... GJFHG OKAY I'M DONE

[wawamouse]

wip wednesday!

Fun fact about how I perceive the passage of time: every day is like a week to me and yet every week passes in the blink of an eye. That is, yesterday as I was realising today would be Wednesday, I thought to myself, "Damn, but I've barely even written anything since posting ch. of In the Course of Destiny, which was who even knows when!" ...which prompted me to check the date on ao3 and realise it was Monday that I posted. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

Anyhow, I have a couple of wips in the works right now. Ch.5 of Destiny, of course, and then there's Crash, which I hilariously started writing to take a break from Destiny with, and now it's its own monster. It's been on pause for the couple of days I was finishing up Destiny ch.4. I figure I'll probably return to it when I'm halfway through ch.5 and hitting a lull there 😆

There's a further three wips I have started in the past week, but I'm sort of Pretending I Do Not See even as I tinker around with them here and there. I've been trying to figure out shorter things to write. It feels like my hallmark of writing is getting stupidly invested in creating plot. Stupid, I say, because for all my ambitions, the execution of the plots I try to craft never seem to live up to my hopes. I'd say that I'd be happier trying to write juicy, tropey oneshots, except that I can't really pull those off, either, or don't know how to, or don't have the exciting creativity required. So what is there left? Long, long rambles, I guess, and the illusion of adventure. Very Tolkiencore of me

Anyway, now that my weekly glum whining is out of the way (yes, I am whining because I feel like I haven't been posting anything) (see again: my fucked up perception of time) (😔)...

While I was looking for a snippet to share, I found a hilarious typo in one of my fics:

Over his shoulder, Seamus bowled in fury.

Meant to write "howled", of course, but now I'm imagining an Oz where it's just competitive bowling. Could definitely imagine the Italians have a bowling league, at least.

Anyway, snippet from Desire Path: (at this point, I don't really remember what I've shared from this wip. Feels like I've shared like half the fic already...)

[awkwardlyfangirly]

Hello! I hope this message finds you well! I read the Donnie x reader x leo story and I was wondering if you can do a angsty part two? In which both leo and reader went out, donnie figured it out, tries to win reader back but the outcome I'll leave it to you :) if it's not too much that is! Keep doing you❤

AT LONG LAST!! the donnie ending!!

(here's part 1 and here's the leo ending)

i hope u enjoy! thank u for reading! and thank u for being patient with me until i finally wrote this lol

/////////////

rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfiction ~ Donatello x female reader ~ part 2!

/////////////

You considered staying out in the living room with Leo for a while, but he looked on the verge of tears, so you quickly excused yourself to go see Donnie.

He was in his lab, hard at work on an improvement to one of the shell hogs. It was suspended in the air so he could reach it, and he was tinkering with the engine, his mechanical arms carefully maneuvering the tiny components inside. His goggles were down over his eyes and he didn’t even glance over as you walked in.

“Grab that off the table, will you?” he said immediately, gesturing vaguely in a general direction.

You scanned the tabletops near where he’d gestured and picked up the thing that looked most like what-he-probably-needed. He was still holding out a hand, waiting, and you pressed it into his palm.

“Thanks.” It seemed to be the right thing; he closed his fingers around it. His fingertips brushed yours.

Gosh, every time he touched you sent electricity sparking around the contact point. You shivered and grabbed a pair of safety goggles off of a nearby desk, sitting yourself down in one of his chairs, scooting forward until you were sitting next to where he was standing.

You spun yourself slightly from side to side and he started to describe what he was doing.

“See, I’m connecting the blah blah blah to the blah blah blah,” he rambled, and you watched the sinews flex in his arms as he reached towards the engine and you watched his careful fingers handle his tools so quickly and so surely and you watched the cut of his thighs tighten as he shifted his weight and you watched his throat and jaw clench and loosen and clench again and you watched the curve of his mouth and you listened to his voice, the words foreign and confusing but not unfamiliar, and he chattered and chattered and you listened to his voice, drank in his voice like rainwater --

Donnie. Dear, dear Donnie. You dug your fingernails into the fabric of the chair.

He didn’t care about you, obviously. Not in that way. He never had. Ever, ever.

You were telling yourself this, over and over again, repeating it like a final plea in your mind. He didn’t care about you like that. He wouldn’t date you. He wouldn’t. It was hopeless. Move on. Move on.

He pushed his goggles back up onto his head and wiped the sweat away from the space around his eyes.

I want to spend the rest of my life with you, you wanted to tell him. You wanted to fall to your knees in front of him. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t know how to describe the way I feel about you. All I know is that I’ve felt incomplete my entire life, and the moment I saw you, I understood. I understood everything. You wanted to show him the space on your chest where your heart beat, just underneath the skin, and hand him a knife. I need you. Desperately and pathetically. Is it love? Or just infatuation? All I know is I sob if I think about you for too long.

“Leo asked me out,” you said.

He glanced over at you, and flipped his goggles back over his eyes. “Congratulations.” He resumed work on the engine.

“Thank you.” I feel like I’ve betrayed you.

“Where’s he taking you?”

“We. Um. We haven’t discussed it yet.” Tell me you need me, Donnie, tell me you need me, scream it in my face and swallow me whole, tell me you need me, tell me you need me, tell me you need me, please, please, please --

“Wow. Have fun. I didn’t know you liked him.”

I don’t.

“Me neither,” you laughed, a little too loudly. “He just… he just asked me. And I said yes.”

“So you don’t like him?”

“I never said that.”

“But you don’t.”

“No. Not really. I mean, he’s nice.”

Donnie bursted out laughing at that, and then cleared his throat. “Sorry. Go on.”

You smiled back at him. “He’s nice -- to me -- and he’s pretty hot --”

Donnie gagged. “Ergh. Sorry. It’s just… you just said that…”

He thought about it again, and gagged again.

“Donnie, you’re impossible. Your brother is hot.”

“Ew ew ew. Kindly stop saying that. It’s making me feel ill.”

“Anyways. It’s not that I don’t like him. I just… I never considered giving him a chance before.”

I don’t think it’s worth it to go out with another man. I’ll spend the rest of my life pining for you.

“Let me know how it goes,” he said. His hands and mind were busy with the engine.

“I will,” you said, picking at the edge of the chair’s upholstery.

The date went well. You went to Run of the Mill Pizza, and Leo brushed his hand against yours every chance he could.

He ordered some sakurayu tea.

“It symbolizes new beginnings,” he said, and he looked at you like you were his missing piece, like he’d felt incomplete until he met you and now he understood.

You had trouble meeting his eyes.

He held your hand the whole way home.

You went out with Leo again, and again, and again -- you didn’t feel like you had much of a choice. Your only options were to go out with one of your best friends, or to break his heart.

He held your hand the whole way home after every single date. He dragged his thumb along the back of your hand. You let him.

There was no electricity when Leo’s skin made contact with yours.

You almost told Donnie about it one day.

“Can I talk to you about something?” you asked, plopping down in a chair next to Donnie’s and resting your chin on the back to watch him work.

“Sure,” he said. “As long as it’s not about Leo.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t want to hear about your ‘dating life,’” he said, punctuating the words with air quotes. “It’s weird to hear it about you and it’s weird to hear it about my brother. Please just… don’t.”

“Oh. Okay.”

So you didn’t tell Donnie about your lack of interest in Leo, and how horrible it was making you feel.

Should you just break up with him? Was this “stringing him alone”? Were you just going to hurt him more if you didn’t let him go as soon as you could?

Leo had to be in constant physical contact with you at all times. He’d always have a knee pressed against yours -- or a finger on your palm -- or a hand on your elbow. Constant physical contact. It was just the way he told you how much he cared.

You tolerated it, for him. But you didn’t like it.

Every time he touched you, your skin burned. You coward, it hissed. You slimy no-gooder. You’d rather hurt him later than now, hm? You’d rather drag it out until he marries you? And then are you going to turn him down? Or are you just going to spend the rest of your life as Donnie’s sister-in-law? Why can’t you do it? You coward. You cruel, cruel woman.

You didn’t like it when he touched you.

And you wouldn’t tell him, you wouldn’t tell him, you wouldn’t ever tell him that you were uncomfortable. You didn’t want to hurt his feelings. You figured this was how a couple should be.

You wouldn’t tell him, wouldn’t tell him; he was so gentle and sweet, and there was so much affection behind his eyes, and he said your name like it hovered like cotton candy on his tongue.

He was so gentle and sweet, and you didn’t love him.

But Donnie.

You were still spending much of your time with Donnie -- half of your time at school -- half of your time with your, um, boyfriend -- and half of your time with the love of your life.

He worked on his inventions as you worked on your homework and occasionally asked him for help with it; or you played video games together, screaming and laughing as he annihilated you in Mario Kart and the like; or you just sat on his bed and swung your feet and talked.

You loved him. More, and more, and more. You loved him already, as a best friend, as a crush, but now that you had Leo -- ? More, and more, and more, you understood: you wanted Donnie for the rest of your life. Not Leo. Just Donnie.

Sometimes his fingers would brush yours, as he pointed out an equation on your homework or took a tool from your helping hands. It felt like an electric shock. You’d fold your hands in your lap afterwards, feeling your heart beat in your fingers.

The more you spent time with him -- the more you spent time with him --

One day, you were sitting in the bean bag next to Leo’s, watching him play a video game -- and then he stretched his arms out toward you, and beckoned you into his lap. You sat. He nuzzled up against you and leaned back, so your back was firmly level with his chest; and then he threaded his arms under yours and pressed his beak into your hair.

Your brain was snapping at you, calling you all sorts of bad names, and you felt just a little ill.

He kissed the top of your head and started playing again, keeping you held close to himself.

He hummed a little bit into your hair. His voice was nice. You shivered.

“This has been the best three months of my life,” he said into the top of your head. “I really, really like you, Y/n. A lot.” He dropped his voice. “I think I love you.”

You didn’t say anything back. How could you? “Can I kiss you?” he asked, and his voice was so soft, and his avatar was still bobbing on screen.

You nodded, silently, and he rubbed his knuckles against the sides of your face and brought your mouth to his.

He kissed like… like… like a pair of lips, moving against yours. Like a body you were sitting pressed up against. Like Leo kissing you.

I don’t love you. I don’t love you.

Your brain started chanting at you: donnie donnie pretend -- pretend he’s donnie

Are you crazy?? you screamed back. I can’t just “pretend he’s donnie” for the rest of my life --

But your brain tried it anyway, and it didn’t help much at all.

Leo still had his eyes closed when he pulled away. You tried to smile, so that when he opened his eyelids again, you’d look like you somewhat enjoyed the kiss.

He was breathing hard, his hands shaking against your cheeks.

You’re stringing him on!! your mind shrieked.

I know! I know! I know! Shut up! Shut up!!

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he mumbled against your mouth.

You smiled back and let him kiss you one more time, and then you excused yourself and leaned over the toilet for a while, sweating, waiting, wondering, waiting. Nothing ended up happening. You flushed anyway, and washed your hands.

You glanced up and saw yourself in the mirror. The skin around your eyes was swollen and wet.

“I can’t do this anymore,” you whispered to yourself, and rubbed at your eyes until they stopped leaking, and then you texted Donnie -- “where are u” -- and once he replied, you ran as fast as you casually could across the lair, stepping awkwardly into his lab and looking for him somewhere in the chaotic, mechanical mess.

“Over here,” he called, and you gratefully followed the sound of his voice.

He was in one corner, working on a helmet of some sort.

“You wanna help me test this out? You see --”

“I’m sorry,” you said, and your voice broke, and you sat down next to him and rubbed at your eyes again. “Not right now. I just… I just need to talk.”

“Oh. Okay.” You heard him set the helmet down, and then you felt his hand on your shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Deep, shaky breath in. Deep, shaky breath out.

“Leo kissed me,” you said, in a rush of emotion, and his eyes narrowed, and you narrowed yours back and kept talking. “He kissed me and he said he loved me and he said I’m the best thing to ever happen to him and he told me he loved me and he kissed me but I don’t love him!! I don’t love him! I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t -- and I’ve just been stringing him along for the past three months because I’m a JERK and -- and -- I don’t want to hurt him but I’ve just been stringing him along but what else am I going to do?? Marry him and just be unhappy for the rest of my life?? I don’t want to hurt him! I don’t!! But I don't love him! And I don’t want to kiss him! And I don’t want him to kiss me! And I don’t want him to love me! And I don’t want to hurt him! He’s so happy, he’s so happy, but I -- I’m not -- and -- and --”

“It’s okay,” Donnie said, patting your shoulder. “I’m here to listen.”

(You’d given him some pointers on how to deal with your emotions. In the middle of your tears, you still found space to appreciate that he was applying them. You gave him a thumbs-up.)

“I don’t love him,” you sobbed. “I feel so bad --”

“You’ve only been together for three months,” he offered. “Three months is not a very long time. Leo’s moving fast. He has to learn to not throw himself in so hard after three months together. You’re fine. It’s not like you’ve sunk years of your life into this relationship.”

That did make you feel better. You nodded your head eagerly.

“You feeling better? You’ve stopped crying.”

You nodded again, not trusting yourself to speak.

“Good. Then. Um. Will you be going now? To talk to him?”

You shook your head.

“Okay.” He turned, going back to his work. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

I need you.

You watched him for a little while. His hands moved so smoothly, and his forehead was wrinkled as he focused. I don’t love Leo, you thought, I don’t love him.

And your brain took your hand in its own and whispered, tell him. just tell him.

But I can’t.

Why not?

And you told your brain that you were afraid. You told your brain that it was a very, very vulnerable and open and frightening thing to tell Donnie that you loved him. You reminded your brain that Donnie didn’t like you like that.

But your fingers were twisting themselves together on your lap and Donnie held out his hand and asked for a tool and you gave it to him, immediately, and your hands touched and --

“Want to know why I don’t love Leo?” you said.

Your heart began to thump, loudly, in your ears.

bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea

“Why?” His eyes stayed on his little mechanical bits and pieces; his voice sounded far away.

And then you froze, and you couldn’t --

“Why?” he said again.

You forced thought back into your brain.

“Because… because I don’t love him,” you said, your heart still pounding. bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea

“Ooh. Good reason.”

I love you! I love you!

But you felt like falling on your knees and baring your chest and handing him the knife and you were already going to ruin your relationship with Leo forever, what was one more relationship down the drain??

“Because I like someone else,” you said, not letting yourself think about what you were saying.

“Mm-hmm?”

“I like you,” you said, staring straight ahead, not daring to look at him.

He laughed, nervously. “Good one.”

“No, no, I’m serious. I’m serious. I like you. A lot. I know, I know, Leo would always tease us about it, and you seemed so disgusted at the thought, but --”

“You’re kidding!!” he screamed, turning sharply towards you and grabbing your hands. “You’re kidding!!”

“No, no, no, I’m --”

“You like me?? For serious??”

“Yeah. For serious. I --”

“Sweet sweet apple frittatas!” he shrieked, and jumped off of his chair and let go of your hands and bounced up and down a few times, shaking his hands and giggling.

And then he threw his arms around you and pulled you up to your feet with him. Both arms tightly, securely, firmly around your back; one hand in your hair and the other on the back of your neck; kissing you, kissing you, kissing you, kissing you like a dying man finding an oasis in the desert. And your skin was on fire, exploding, sparking, sizzling, electric.

“You’re serious,” he said again, twice, and you told him again.

“Yes, serious. Yes, serious. Yes, yes, I like you --”

He kissed you again. Just as hard and frantic. Giggling against your lips, letting himself melt into you.

“I thought you were in love with Leo,” he whispered. “I thought there was no way you’d ever like me in that way --”

“No, no, I thought that you would never ever like me in that way --”

He kissed you again. So hungry, so giddy.

“I would give up every invention I’ve ever made for you,” he whispers against your mouth. “I would give up every braincell I’ve ever had. I would --”

And this time you kissed him. Pushing your mouth into his, squeezing his body tight against yours, and he squeezed back. You’d been keeping your hands around his back, and now you let go, bringing them up to his face, pulling your mouth away from his -- he followed it, chasing it, searching for you with his eyes closed -- and cupping his cheeks with your palms and just looking at him. Just looking deep, deep into his eyes.

He kissed your palm, twice.

“I should probably officially break up with Leo,” you whispered.

“Yeah. Yeah. Probably a good idea.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Me either.”

“He’s not going to be happy. He’s going to be very sad.”

“Aw, don’t worry. I know Leo. He’s tough. He’ll mope for a week or two and then he’ll get over it.”

“Ooh. You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I know Leo well enough; I can judge most of his girls. You weren’t the One for him. You weren’t his soulmate. She’s still out there, somewhere, waiting for him to find her.”

“Oh, cool.”

Donnie leaned in closer, pressing his forehead to yours. “I can also assess my girls,” he said. “Few as there have been. And let me tell you -- I don’t think I’m ever going to look for any more.” He threaded his fingers through yours, laying your palms square against each other. “I think I’ve found my one and only.”

“Oh, my goodness. That’s so cheesy.”

He giggled, and you let your eyelids flutter closed as his lips found yours again.