#Why do people even get up this early unless you have like. a flight to catch or are doing crimes or something

[itsbrucey]

Brucey accidentally put herself in a good coma after work and went to bed at a normal hour and had been awake since like. 7:30 am like a normal person. And she's not loving it

[harley-sunday]

Vagabond

Summary: There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for Daniel. Even if it means flying out to Singapore on race day. 

Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x reader (unnamed OFC)

Warnings: Language

Word count: 1.9k

AN: How could I not? ♥

Part of the Pieces of Us universe (collection of one-shots). 

Pieces of Us masterlist 

The sound of your phone ringing pulls you out of your early morning slumber and you blindly reach for where it’s laying on your nightstand, swiping right to accept the call without really looking at the screen, “Hello?”

“Hey,”

You pull the phone away from your ear and look at it in disbelief, thinking maybe this is all a bad dream, but the caller ID confirms it's not, “Blake?”

“Yeah.”

Shit. 

“Taff-” there’s an urgency to his voice that makes your heart beat faster and sends your mind racing because there’s no reason to call this early unless- Oh God- Daniel- What if-

“Taff,” Blake says again, his voice kinder now. “I need you here.” 

You let out a whimper in pain because no- Not like this- God, not like-

“Oh. No that’s not why- Shit. He’s ok,” Blake quickly tells you, “but I need you to listen, ok?”

You nod, then realise he can’t see you and so you whisper, “Ok.” 

“There’s a flight from Perth at twelve ten,” Blake tells you, using what you and Daniel dubbed his ‘manager-Blake-voice’. The one that doesn’t take no for an answer. The one who you trust blindly. And so you listen. Even if you don’t know what the hell is going on. “You’re flying Qantas, so you can use priority. I’ve already checked you in, I’ll send you the boarding pass in a couple of minutes. I’ll text you the rest of the information for when you land in Singapore, but there’ll be someone to pick you up, drive you to the track so you can see him before the race starts, ok?”

Twelve ten. Ok. That’s means you’ll have to be at the airport at ten at the latest, even if you only bring a carry-on, so you’ll have to leave here at nine-thirty, which is an hour from now, so technically there’s enough time, unless-

“Taff?” Blake’s voice interrupts your thoughts. “I need you to make this flight, ok? It’s important.”

It’s important. 

The words echo through your mind as you try to connect the dots, try to figure out what it is you’re missing, try to understand why Blake would call you at eight AM on a Sunday morning during the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, asking you to fly out not even four hours later. You try to come up with a million other reasons why he needs you there but it’s no good- You know there can be only one.

People say that whenever something mentally or physically terrifying happens, a person will either fight, or flight. You like to think there’s a third option; save what you can and make sure no one gets left behind. And so you ask, “Do you want me to pick up Joe and Grace?”

“No.”

You push yourself up from where you’ve been sitting on the edge of the bed and walk over to the window, peeking through the curtains to find the sun already high in the sky, “No, they’re driving to the airport themselves, or-”

“No, they can’t make it in time.” 

“Blake,” you whisper, something heavy settling deep in your chest because this is not how it’s supposed to go. “If this is- If he’s-” You take a shaky breath, “They should be there.” 

“I know, babe, but-” he sounds absolutely defeated. “I looked at all the options but with them at Karroun Hill they’re too far from an airport to make it work on such short notice.” 

You feel your throat go dry, because his parents should be there. “Michelle then?”

“She’s got the kids-”

“I can take the kids,” you offer immediately. “If I go over there and watch the kids, Michelle can go. They might still let you change the name on the ticket if you-”

“Taff,”

You start to feel yourself get desperate, “He needs his family there, Blake.” 

“Taff,” Blake tries again, his voice filled with sympathy. “You’re his family too.”

***

It takes you forty minutes to shower, pack a small overnight bag, and leave the house. Of course you need to stop for gas, which costs you another ten minutes, but ninety minutes after Blake called you’re at the airport and waiting for your flight to board. Which isn’t for another two hours. 

You kill the time by having breakfast, or try to anyway, because you’re way too nervous to eat more than a couple of bites and so instead you find a quiet corner and send a text to Grace and Joe to let them know you’re flying out to Singapore. Michelle gets a text too- by now you know better than to call anyone in a public place, especially with this kind of sensitive information- and she replies within minutes, telling you to give her brother a big hug when you see him. 

You decide against texting Daniel, don’t want him to be distracted, and instead you spend your time people-watching and remembering the last time you were in Singapore, two years ago, when Daniel finished fifth in that piece of shit McLaren. It was his best result in that god awful final year with the team and so you ignored Zak Brown’s pleas to celebrate with the team and instead opted for a quiet celebration with just the two of you. 

You’re so lost in thoughts you almost miss the final boarding call but there’s a kind gentleman next to you that nudges your elbow and says, “Isn’t that your flight, sweetheart?”

***

In the end, there’s a delay leaving Perth, a delay arriving at Singapore, and a never-ending queue at customs. To say you’re on edge when you finally get into the car Blake sent to pick you up would be an understatement. It’s already past eight in the evening and there’s no way you’ll make it to the track in time to see Daniel before the race. Your already broken heart breaks into a million more pieces at the thought of that and it takes everything you have not to break down right then and there. 

The driver seems to feel there’s an urgency, weaving in and out of traffic effortlessly, dropping you off at the paddock entrance a mere twenty minutes later with a hesitant smile. You make sure to thank him by tipping generously before you get out of the car and step into the hot Singapore air.

With only a few minutes left until the race starts there’s an almost eerie quiet in the paddock, most people getting ready in their respective garages, pit walls, or starting boxes, and so you make it through the gates and into the alley behind the garages with relative ease. No one seems to pay you any mind as you walk to the VCARB garage, which suits you just fine. 

The formation lap starts just as you enter the back of the garage, the roar of the engines sending a shiver down your spine. You find your way through the maze of corridors, offices, and driver rooms with relative ease, grabbing your pair of headphones as you pass the comms wall, and then all of a sudden you’re in the actual garage and there’s no going back. 

You look around and find Blake in his usual spot, near the back, standing a little to the side so he can keep an eye both on the monitors and the pit wall. The pit crew is too busy watching the cars line up on the starting grid and so you’re able to sneak past them to stand next to Blake. You look at him once you’ve put your headphones on and connected them to the comms unit and your heart, oh your heart. He looks so defeated, the sad smile he wears so unlike him, and you hate it. 

There’s so much to say and yet you both keep quiet, knowing now’s not the time. It’ll come- After. 

And so when Blake puts his arm around your shoulders and pulls you close, just as the red lights come on one by one, you have to bite your lip to keep from crying and try to get time to slow down. You don’t want this race to ever start. Or end.

***

It’s when Daniel gets boxed on lap fifty-eight that Blake nudges you and motions for you to take your headphones off. When you do, he leans in and puts his mouth close to your ear, “Pierre’s going to share his channel with you after the finish, ok?”

All of a sudden there’s a lump in your throat and all you can do is nod.

***

“Ok mate, thanks again for the hard work,” you can hear Pierre tell Daniel. “When we stop at the bridge, P1 on full-car switch-off, P0 on everything else.” On the screen you see Pierre looking at the garage from over his shoulder, “There’s someone here with a special message for you, Daniel.” 

“Hi babe,” you start, the tears you’ve been fighting all day finally spilling over. “I just want you to know that I’m so proud of you.”

There’s a lot of static on the line but you think you hear him let out a quiet laugh, “Ah, I can’t believe this.”

“I’ll see you in a bit, ok?” You smile through your tears, “Take it all in, Dan. It’s yours.” 

On the screen that shows you his onboard camera, you can see him nod. It takes a while before he answers, but when he does his voice is full of emotion, “Yep. Understood.”

***

It’s when the screens show Daniel sitting in his car, in Parc Fermé after the race, that you need to step out of the garage and into the corridor that leads to Daniel’s driver room. Because all of a sudden it hits you. He’s never going to have a moment like this ever again. The quiet crying from earlier turns into big, ugly sobs because God, it hurts. There’s too many people around for anyone not to notice you and so you use your access code to unlock Daniel’s room and step inside, a safe haven in the middle of all this madness.

You try some of the breathing techniques Michael taught you when he was still working with Daniel and after a few minutes you’ve calmed down, if only a little. It’s then the door opens and Daniel steps inside and all of a sudden it’s like nothing else exists. He looks the way you feel and so you are wrapping your arms around him before he’s even had the chance to close the door behind him and tell him, over and over and over again, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” 

 You know there’s not much time, know he has interviews and debriefs to get to, and so you pull back a little and cup his face, rubbing your thumbs over the stubble of his beard before you lean in and kiss him. Hard. 

“I should go,” Daniel whispers against your lips.

“I know-”

“Wait for me?”

“Take as long as you need.” You stand on your toes and press another kiss to his lips, “You know I’d do anything for you, right?” There’s a hint of that mischievous smile you fell in love with all those years playing on his lips, and so you match his smile and add, “And-” 

Of course he plays along, “And?”

You rest one hand against his chest, over his heart, “You love me for it.”

He lets his hands fall to your hips and rests his forehead against yours, sharing a breath, “That I do.”

“That you do.” 

He presses a kiss to your forehead then, “Always.” 

[mixelation]

The thing is I'm not even a stickler for magic systems "making sense", I am pretty willing to roll with whatever. You say "hey in this universe people can fly" I am not going to be doing the math on how that works(unless its for fun maybe). You tell me that almost everyone has a superpower and sometimes people just walk around with engines poking out of their legs, I can roll with that too. As a reader I am pretty willing to accept a given premise and suspend my disbelief. So the fact that I read JJK with my head tilted to the side in puzzlement was really unexpected for me lmao.

well, i mean, the point i was trying to make is that fictional worlds need to be internally consistent for readers to follow along, and also readers WILL pick up on glaring gaps in the world's internal logic. you don't need to have it "make sense" the way many reddit fans want things to make sense (ie, having in-depth explanations based in real world facts and logic).

if flight exists in your universe as a common power most people have, but some characters seem to just never fly even when it would be more convenient, readers will wonder why that is. and you don't need to be coming up explanations for HOW people can fly, or explaining complex genetic inheritance patterns to explain why some people just can't do it. you don't even need to pause your whole plot to give someone a classroom lesson on it. you just need SOMETHING. it can be "yeah a lot of people just don't get their flying license, like with cars, and we see this because someone complains about how their parents won't let them take the test" or "either you're from a flying family or you're not" or maybe "yeah it gets taught in school, but a lot of people just never get good at it. look your favorite character has just listed it along with math and spelling as things they failed in school but don't need kick your ass"

jedi mind tricks in star wars are presented like this, for example. the movies never spell out hard rules for how the force in general works, but we see on screen what it can accomplish and what it can't, and we can intuit the vague framework of "rules" from this, although it's inherent a soft magic system so the rules are wishy-washy. for mind tricks in particular, we see how they work very early on in a new hope, and it's stated it only works on "weak minds." Then in both return of the jedi and a phantom menace, where a problem could be easily solved with a mind trick, we see it attempted and then fail due to minds being "too strong." does anyone ever explain to us strong versus weak mindedness? no, not really! but also the concept of strong/weak wills exist in our world, and we as viewers can clearly see the difference in agency displayed by storm troopers and characters like jabba and watto.

my issue with JJK is that a lot of panel space is dedicated to longwinded explanations but they often don't answer basic logistical questions, or are just a string of words that don't make a ton of sense even with my brain in "yeah, there's curse-ghost-things, sure" mode. then fight choreo (in the manga at least) is then also poor, so it's difficult to then intuit what's happening by simply reading how events play out. sort of like if every three chapters there was a break in the cool fight to explain how flight works, except the character explaining keeps talking about positive and negative air space and special parts of your brain for sensing the negativity of air itself, but never what any of those words mean and also we still don't know if certain characters can fly or not. or like if suddenly people in star wars were like "oh yeah, the strength of your will is related directly to midi-chlorian count" and then nothing there is unpacked or demonstrated on screen in any meaningful way whatsoever.

[bettyfrommars]

Love the new theme!! It’s giving Holiday Horror where a family gets snowed in at a motel in a small town somewhere off the beaten track 🎄

Close, Holiday Hallmark, but this is for you:

A Very Hawkins Christmas

18+

towtruck!eddie x f!reader

no horror, just something random in honor of the Holiday Romances I watch with my mother this time of year. This is as cliche as it gets.

Reader is a big city girl who has worked hard to scrape and claw her way to the top of the company. Your boss is a soulless scrooge who loves to bulldoze whole communities to build parking lots and strip malls, and guess where his eye lands next? That's right, Hawkins. He makes you trek out there the day before Christmas eve to scope it out, since you're the only one of his employees without family. You roll into town hours later and find out that the only room available is at a quaint Bed & Breakfast owned by Joyce Byers. Jonathan, the guy working the desk, asks if you'll be staying to see the Lighted Farm Implement Parade on Christmas night, but you are like, absolutely not, just one night please (you can't wait to get out of town.)

You're told that the two best bars in town are the Hideaway and the Hideout, and you frown, wondering why the names are so similar, but it doesn't matter, the Hideaway is in walking distance, so you bundle up and go there. The only other person sitting at the bar is a guy named Jim, you find out he's the Chief apparently, and with one glance, he knows you are new in town. He asks what brings you to Hawkins, but you give a vague lie and says you're just passing through. He buys your drink. You overhear Jim talking to the bartender about the fundraisers people are doing to keep the small businesses of Hawkins from going under when the new strip malls and chain stores come to town.

Morning comes and you wake up to a snowstorm the likes of nothing they've seen since January of 1964. But you're determined to get out of town regardless, hoping to be able to catch a flight home, at the earnest protests of Joyce who is sincerely worried about you. You don't have snow tires, so your car slips around, only to find out that the roads are closed and, yes, you are stuck in Hawkins.

You have a little frustrated cry behind the wheel, and then become defiant, and try to cut through a backroad to evade the roadblocks. Unfortunately, your car goes off the road and nosedives into a ditch.

Good thing a guy behind the wheel of a big towtruck with Munson's Garage on the side happens to be rolling by on his way home. You flag him down, relieved, and he playfully gives you shit for being a "city girl" and not having chains or snow tires.

You think he is crass; he thinks you are a snob. He reminds you that there is no way out of Hawkins unless you grow wings, and he offers to tow your car back to the dry safety of his garage until the storm subsides.

When he drives you back to the bed & breakfast, you offer to buy him dinner, to thank him for everything (he refused to take any payment from you. The people of Hawkins are just generous and hospitable like that.) But he tells you he can't, his band is playing a show at the Hideout that night, and he invites you. You tell him you'll probably just go to bed early, but of course you change your mind.

The phone lines are down, so you can't call your boss or check in with anyone. A girl named Robin overhears you asking if there are any Taxi's in town that could take you to the venue. Robin laughs and says there are no Taxi's in Hawkins, but she's going to the same place, and you can ride with her in her truck.

You make friends that night, enjoy yourself, and think Eddie the towtruck driver is sexy as hell. The bar is an actual dive, and initially, you're afraid to even touch anything, but the booze and the people loosen you up.

You walk around town the next day, to buy some warmer clothes, and visit all of the quaint little shops, including the bookstore that Robin owns. She tells you that when Barnes & Noble comes to town, she'll go out of business, and how sad that makes her. Eddie sees you trudging around in the show, and he asks you to have lunch with him at the diner that Murray Bauman owns. At lunch, you find out how much the two of you have in common.

On Christmas day, you find out that Joyce bought a present for you, a festive sweater, because she didn't want you to feel left out. Joyce's business is also at risk of tanking when the big hotel chain comes to town, but she tells you that she'll find a way to make it work, she always does, she doesn't want you to worry. At this point, you've been vague about what you do for work, so no one suspects that you are at the root of their problems.

At the Lighted Farm Implement Parade that night, you and Eddie get close. He takes your hands in his to keep you warm, and some tender moments happen. A guy named Steve is dressed up as Santa for the kids. You meet Wayne, Eddie's uncle, who is at risk of losing his job at the mill when it closes. You and Eddie have hot chocolate and make snow angels.

The next morning, the roads open, but you don't really care because you're no longer in a hurry to leave. You like Hawkins now, and you love the people in it. You're going to tell your boss that this town is the wrong fit for his company, that you will find him some place else that suits his needs. You're also realizing that you hate your job, and you haven't felt this light or happy in a long time.

But your boss is already downstairs, he came because he hadn't heard from you, and he is ready to buy out some buildings and get to work with that wrecking ball. You see him in his expensive suit introducing himself to Joyce and Jonathan---they know his name, everyone received official letters about the possible liquidation, and it's all anyone has been talking about for weeks.

The cat is out of the bag now. You see the sadness and disappointment in Joyce's face when she looks at you. Head hanging low, you go with your boss in his posh SUV, and then it's time for the big reveal at the town meeting in the old Methodist church.

Your boss is very friendly and fake as he addresses the crowd, basically letting them know what a "good thing" these new additions he's planning to bring in will be for Hawkins, and he's "looking forward" to getting to know all of them. You try to explain yourself to Eddie, but he refuses to even look at you as he gets in his van and drives off.

Your heart aches, and you realize you have to think fast.

You decide to confront your boss and tell him he can't have Hawkins. When he laughs in your face and reminds you that he can have anything he wants, you pull up all of the proof of all of the affairs he's had over the years, all of the emails, the flower deliveries, the lies to his wife, you kept a record of all of it.

He's says he'll sue you blind--he'll ruin you--"you'll never work in this town again"... but you tell him it might be hard to follow through on that since his wife will take him for everything he has. In fact, she'll probably be on your side, and it's her family money, so it will be his ass on the line.

He tells you you're fired, and you say, "too late, I already quit". You go over to the garage to find Eddie, but one of the mechanics named Jeff tells you that he's not there, so you take your keys and go. What you don't know is that Will, Jonathan's little brother, overheard the conversation you had with your boss, and he tells his mother after you are gone.

You're just about to pass the sign that says "Leaving Hawkins" when Eddie's tow truck pulls out in front of you, blocking your path. He says that Joyce told him what you did, and that he doesn't want you to go. He tells you that he hasn't felt this way about anyone in a long time, but also, you still don't have snow tires, and he can't let you drive in these conditions.

Then, you're standing under the mistletoe back at the B&B, in the sweater Joyce gave you, and you and Eddie kiss while everyone cheers.

The End

[nine-of-words]

Something Borrowed (Part Ten)

M Gargoyle x M Reader

PREVIOUS || STORY TAG || NEXT

Wordcount: 5127

Content Warnings: Discussion of a Breakup

The horrors have been numerous and persistent for me lately, so this part took its sweet time getting written. Not much else to say about this chapter, other than I’m very excited to write the next one!!

It seems that things are determined to go sideways today. 

“Sorry to drop all of this on ya so early, but I knew you’d be awake.” Your sister’s voice comes through the speaker of your device.

You are indeed awake. You haven’t been sleeping well lately, despite it feeling like what you do the most these days- no idea why that would be- so you were already up and slowly trudging through your morning routine. But now you’re distracted with the call, going through making yourself a desperately needed cup of coffee mostly by feel in your dimly lit apartment kitchen.

“It’s okay- So, how exactly did this happen?”

“She took a wee tumble down the stairs. Got up in the middle of the night to get water, fell ass over kettle.”

“Oh, spirits. But you said it wasn’t serious, right?”

“Eh. Fractured her wrist, or so the doctor says. Right, Ma?” You hear a bit of noise in the background that sounds remarkably like your mother being quietly muttering in a displeased manner. “She’ll be right as rain soon enough. But she’s going to be in the cast for a tick.”

“Do I need to book a flight?”

“Hmm. You know we love to see ya- but nah. It's really not all that dire. Think she's tired of all the fuss by now, really.” She explains, before immediately switching into compulsory older sibling teasing. “Plus won't your new fella miss you? Unless you want to bring him along to meet what he's got to look forward to joining up with.”

“Haha… Yeah, you’re right. I suppose you’ll just have to wait…” You haven’t told them he’s not exactly your fella at the moment. What would you even say?

After a bit more conversation, Emer puts your mother on, and you speak to her for a short while. It assuages your worry a little, but not nearly enough to take the edge off. Though she's adamant you don't let her little mishap scare you into making sudden travel plans, you can't help but let it add to your ratings worries.

Maybe… you should go home?

You hang up your voci and look down at the brewed coffee that’s just started to drip through the filter. In your absent minded state, you’ve managed to put the exact mug you’ve been avoiding into the machine.

But there it is, the pink and white curves of ceramic reminding you of everything you're trying to push out of your mind.

You let out a long, frustrated sigh, pausing to stare vacantly at the mug.

Maybe putting an ocean between you and here will help you forget what you could have right now instead, if you weren't cursed.

You have all day to sit on it, you suppose, and can make a decision later. But you do have a business to run in the meantime, so you return to the process of adding your usual milk and sugar. 

It doesn’t help the bitter taste at all today.

Things don’t really go much better for you the longer the day progresses. 

“This is too sweet,” The older woman across the counter says, brandishing the mostly eaten cupcake in its paper lining. “I want a refund.”

“Well, it's a cupcake, m’am. It is mostly sugar…” You don’t even have the energy to muster your usual level of pleasantness. You barely keep from grimacing as you ring up the refund, just to get this person out of your hair.

Your customers are usually not this problematic, but you’re beginning to think that no one is having a good day today. You can deal with grumpy or picky people, but usually they’re not quite so many of them in a concentrated blast. Every little interaction is finding its way under your skin, and that’s not even taking into account how hard it is to concentrate and get any meaningful progress done.

Though, this is a task you’ve been pointedly avoiding that you’ll have to start sooner or later, today.

You’ve got to finish putting together Devin and Trevor’s cake- if you want it to be solid enough to put flowers in before delivery tomorrow night, which is rapidly approaching the longer you dawdle.

As in, nearly can be measured in hours instead of days soon.

It was different when it was just… anonymous cake layers you were cutting out and leveling. That could’ve been for anyone’s cake! But the more personality that goes into it, the more the subtle, nagging grief makes it difficult to work on.

You sigh and glob a stabilizing dollop of the vanilla buttercream- Trevor's choice- onto the base with your offset spatula.

It’s not as if you’re jealous that your ex is getting married at this point. You’re far past the stage of wanting him back by now. It just… all seems so unfair. Hopeless. He was able to wound you so deeply when he left- and just when you thought you had healed and moved on, carved out some new happiness for yourself- that got taken away, too.

Why should he get to be happy when you’re on the short end of the stick again?

You center a cake layer, then slather some more buttercream, spreading it out to make a glue for the next layer to adhere onto.

You’ll just have to think about it as Devin’s cake. It’s for your friend. That’s how you’ll get through this. You’ll do a good job, for your friend. Even if she’s marrying your ex, she should still get the best cake you can make for her, like you’d do for any other client.

Another layer of cake. A layer of elven berry compote that you made fresh yesterday- also Trevor’s choice, naturally. Another layer of cake. Then, repeat it all again.

As much as you try to rationalize that to yourself as you work through applying the crumb coat, you can’t help but realize you’ve been white-knuckling the spatula handle by time you’ve finished applying the buttercream.

Eventually, you have all of the crumb coated tiers ready on cake boards, to be given another coat and assembled after they’ve firmed up for a bit.

You mercifully shut the disassembled cake in the cooler, relieved that you don’t have to look at it for another few hours. Though, you have to hand it to yourself, even when your life is falling apart, you can make a bang-up gorgeous cake.

The demands of your business don’t stop just because you’re having a bad day and have other things to do, unfortunately. You’re not sure what portal to Hell has opened nearby, but it seems like all of the most awful customers have all decided to come to your shop today to take out their anger on you.

“No, we don’t do tiered pies here. I don’t even know if you’d be able to do that without making a mes- Well, okay. Have a nice day-” You say, though the person on the other end of the line has already hung up on you.

You turn to face the customer waiting at the counter, but before you can even greet them, they interrupt you with a snapping of their fingers.

“Where’s our waiter? I put our order into the kiosk twenty minutes ago and no one has even been by to so much as pour our water!”

“Oh, well, you can eat-in here, that’s what the seating is for, but we’re not a full service-”

“Ugh, fine! Just get me my order already, then.” The customer barks and you have to bite your tongue to restrain yourself from snapping back.

By time you reach another lull in activity and get back to work on Devin’s cake, your jaw and shoulders are fully tensed.

Since it’s slow, you take out the gumpaste. You have another tray of roses to sculpt so they can dry on time to place them tomorrow, so you might as well knock it out sooner than later.

Maybe none of this would be getting to you so much, but the full weight of the wedding being tomorrow is bearing down on you. The one saving grace is that Kirby will be there to distract you- at least you won’t be alone. You’ll deliver the cake, you’ll get through the ceremony, you’ll stay for a brief yet socially acceptable amount of time at the reception, and then you’ll go home and this whole excruciating ordeal will be over.

You just have to finish this cake and get through tonight first.

Only a few more hours until close. 

You can do this.

You make it another hour, rolling thinned pieces of sugary paste into delicate petals, before the bell door rings, and the person you see walk through the door gives you pause.

It’s not Carlyle, as you’ve been hoping it was every single time you hear the shop bell jingle since the last time you saw him. But it certainly looks like him, in everything but personal styling, and of course, the shape of the quartzose horns protruding from his brow.

Today it seems he’s left his body glitter at home, however. He’s dressed in relatively casual clothing; a hoodie (midriff still intact), untied slim joggers, immaculately clean sneakers. The difference is so staggering you might not have even recognized him as the same person, compared to his last visit, if he didn’t have Carlyle’s face; which you can now see clearly underneath his loose brown curls, this time not covered by the shadow of his hood.

“Hey.”

He gives you a tilt of his chin in acknowledgement and smiles an uncannily similar, fanged smile to the one you’ve grown accustomed to seeing. It’s a stab of pain, how sorely you miss it right now, and seeing it again, but just different enough to not be it.

“Uh. Hi, Marcus?” You say in a stilted manner, not really sure how to proceed. “You are… looking less gilded today than last time.”

“Hahahah, yeah. I didn’t have work last night, dude. No hangover!”

“Hah. Right…”

“But good to see you again, man! …I was wonderin-”

“Listen, if you’re here to deliver a message or something, I really can’t do this right now.” You cut him off, begging more than anything at this point to not have another thing go wrong or a twist of the knife today. You scrub at your face with your forearm to keep your hands sanitary, the deep pit of frustration starting to bubble out of you unintentionally. “And he knows to not-”

“Hey, no man, listen! It’s nothing like that.” He pats his curls down, the same way that his brother occasionally does with his dreadlocks when he’s smoothing out a misunderstanding. “He’d be PISSED if I knew he was here, hahah. He told me never to come here on my own after last time!”

“Well, maybe you should follow his instruction on that matter.” You say dryly and continue to roll the soft substance in silent judgement. “He usually knows what he’s talking about.”

Marcus seems to take this as a bad sign, his face twisting into a look of exasperation.

“Fine! Gimme a dozen cupcakes then. Fuck, make it any flavor, dude, I don’t even care.” He starts rifling through his pants pockets, finally pulling out his wallet, and then a card that he puts on the counter. It’s got his name printed on it, rather than Carlyle’s, so you suppose he’s gotten it replaced since the last time. “You’ve gotta talk to me if I’m a customer ‘n shit, right?”

“You know I do have the right to refuse service to you…?”

“Yeah man, but I don’t think you’re gonna! You’re too nice, from what I’ve heard.” Marcus says with the sort of shit-eating grin on his face that absolutely makes you want to refuse service to him, but with a vengeance.

“Well if you’re not here on your brother’s behalf…” You sigh in your own matching exasperated look and set down your gumpaste project to start boxing a dozen cupcakes. “Why are you here, then?”

“I’m gonna be totally honest with you, dude. He didn’t send me, but it is about him. I’m like, super worried about him.”

“Oh…” You can’t help yourself, you have to ask. “Is he alright…?” 

“Hell no! He’s all fucked up, man! The other night, I left at 8pm and he was still in the same spot at 11am when I got back in. Same book, same fit, same stale cup of coffee. He had sat still in the same place reading whatever nerd shit he was reading for so long that he deadass went half solid.” 

You can’t find the words to respond to that. The guilt gnaws at you like you gnaw at your bottom lip, but in a strange way, you feel validated that he’s still as messed up about things as you are.

“Look, whatever he did, it can’t be that bad, right? It’s Lyle!! He like, never fucks up like that.” He leans over the counter, talking with his hands in another show of familiar, yet foreign-in-this-context expression. He taps his chest with the fingertips of a spread hand for emphasis. “And I would know, ‘cuz I’M the family fuck up here. So, maybe you could like, just forgive him and junk? Make up or whatever?”

“It’s not…” You take a second to steady your breath. You’ve been trying to suppress these feelings for weeks, and now they’re getting dragged up so suddenly. “It’s not something he did. It’s… outside circumstances…”

You hesitate for a brief moment before you pick out the last of the random assortment; an orange and mixed spice flavor you found yourself trying out.

“That’s it? There’s no gettin’ around it, huh?”

“No. I'm sorry. It's complicated. I just can't.” You say with weakened conviction as you tape the box up, and then hoping to persuade yourself once again, add; “It’s better this way.”

“Right-” Marcus straightens up and rocks back and forth on his feet, his sneakers squeaking slightly against the tile with the motion. “Sorry if pushing was out of line, dude.”

“Don't worry about it- honestly, I'm sort of glad you showed up.” You smile, bittersweet. “It’s good that he has someone looking out for him.”

“Yeah.” Marcus smiles a conflicted smile back, then takes his cupcakes to go. “See you ‘round, dude.”

You find yourself having a silent argument with yourself as you finish the rest of the roses.

There’s the guilt, of course. Are you a bad person if you know that this separation is hurting you both, and yet you’re continuing to enforce it? Maybe you should have just let Marcus convince you to reach out?

Seeing someone with such familiar features has only made your heart ache that much more for what you’re missing.

Perhaps it’s for the best that you don’t have any customers in the shop at the moment, because they’d be able to clearly see you sneering at empty air and grumbling to yourself.

By the time you finish the last petal on the last rose of the tray, you’re no closer to having resolved your internal disagreement.

You put the roses away, and pull out your fully set, crumb-coated cake. Now just to put the final layer of frosting on, and then you’ll be done for the night.

As you set the tray down on the counter, your voci starts ringing in your pocket. You remove your gloves and answer the call, seeing that it’s Kirby. They’ve been checking in on you a lot more often lately, like you’re a sickly pet needing constant supervision. They're not entirely wrong.

You greet them as you put them on speaker. Then you wash up, and reglove as their voice comes through on the other end.

“So! How is your day going so far?”

“Oh, you know. Typical weekend customers. Ma broke her wrist.” You say flatly, smoothing out the buttercream on the top of the lowest cake tier with a spin of the stand with well-practiced motions.

“Oh no! That’s terrible! Is she okay??”

 “She’s fine, but it’s still stressful that I can’t be there to help out.”

Once you’re finished getting a perfectly even, level surface on the lowest tier, you begin the process again on a slightly smaller scale on the next largest cake tier.

“Mmm. Yeah, it must be, being so far away.”

“And Carlyle’s brother came into the shop earlier.” You continue, now lathing more buttercream onto the sides.

“Whaaaat??? No!! Glitter Boy?! Oh my SPIRITS you’ve gotta tell me all the details right now!”

“There’s not a lot to say, really. Told me Carlyle’s not taking it well either, and now I feel like a villain.”

“You’re not a villain,” Kirby sighs. “Sometimes things are just. Y’know. Messy.”

You continue to make your way through doing the final coat on the cake tiers, each one going progressively faster as they diminish in size.

“Oh, and how could I forget- I’m making a cake for my ex’s wedding that social pressure is forcing me to attend. So you know. The usual.”

“Hahah- Ooh, bummer. Well, when you put it like that, it does sound like, toooootally miserable! You’re having a pretty horrible day, and I’m… definitely not about to make it worse, hahah!!”

“Oh no.” You hiss through gritted teeth. “Something’s wrong, then?”

They laugh nervously, a little giggle-whimper that you can’t possibly be irritated with.

You’re silent as you begin to fill a piping bag with buttercream, waiting for Kirby to divulge their information.

“I MAY have some bad news.”

“Oh. Lovely. Just grand! More bad news is exactly what I need at this current moment.” You say, dripping with sarcasm.

“I know!!! Believe me, I know! But I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out.” Kirby sighs. “I just got out of a meeting with my boss and they’re sending me out of town on a case. I have to get on a red eye in a few hours.”

“But… the wedding is tomorrow…”

“Yeah, that would be the problem! But I can’t exactly tell my boss to fuck off and still have a job, y’know??? Soooooo. We are in. damage. control. mode!”

“It’s okay.” You say, it not really being okay at all, but not wanting to lash out at your friend who’s only ever tried to help you in any given situation. You’re simply too stunned to even start to panic.

“Nope! It’s ABSOLUTELY not! But I’ll be there in like, an hour!! I’ll bring dinner and we can totally figure out a plan B, okay? Or I guess plan C or D by now- But bestie, I don’t care if I have to HIRE an escort to take you to that wedding, you’re not going alone! Especially not because of stupid work interference!!”

“Hah- A-Alright.” You laugh weakly and speak through a sharp intake of air, but manage to not sound like you’re about to burst into tears, even though you desperately want to. “See you soon.”

The call ends, but you continue working, despite the rapidly expanding pit of terror in your gut and the sting at the back of your eyes.

This news, surprisingly, does not help your ability to finish this cake.

You keep going, but not without roadblocks. Your eyes screw closed in frustration and pain. Your teeth grit. Your hand clenches around the bag, nearly squeezing the frosting out of the back end of it.

As a small mercy, closing time finally comes and you turn off the light, though you leave the door unlocked, given you’re expecting Kirby sometime in the next hour or so.

You need to move on to piping some of the finer details- But you can't even think about piping an even line right now, not with the way your hand is trembling.

Still, you persist, pushing the bag back taut and re-twisting the open end. 

“Stop. Shaking.” You hiss out loud at yourself, your body refusing to obey even your own verbal instructions.

You just need to get this cake done. Is that so much to ask?

Kirby is coming over and you’ll find a solution for the wedding. You won’t have to go to your ex's wedding alone. It will be fine.

The tremor in your hand nearly causes you to stab through the layer you’re working on with the piping tip, so you take a moment to straighten up your posture and try to loosen your locking muscles. You take a few calming breaths, then go back in and manage to finish the last few filigree details on the tier you're working on.

Your hand is already shaking again. You ignore it. You’ll get through this. You have to.

But every time you regain focus, the thought of Carlyle as a miserable and inert statue keeps creeping back unbidden into your mind.

It’s all too much. Too much. Too much.

The lights above you flicker. A buzz of energy ripples through the room.

The pressure on your chest is unbearable now. Blood rushes in your ears. 

You can’t deal with this anymore.

You can’t even think-!

POP-

In an instant, something cold and cloying splatters across the side of your face and the bridge of your nose, the front of your shirt, your clenched hands and outstretched forearms.

You bring a hand to your face in shock, blindly testing the sudden change in texture.

Your fingertips come away coated in sticky, sugary goop, and bits of shredded vanilla sponge cake.

And where the cake tiers were sitting on the counter, there’s a conspicuous absence of a cake, only the sparse large chunk of shrapnel- a bloodless crime scene, the mostly empty, frosting smeared cakeboards evoking the essence of a chalk body outline.

Well. You’ll be damned.

The cake exploded.

Hoarse, incredulous laughter escapes your throat- first in disbelief, then in bitter resignation. No other reaction really seems to suit this situation more.

Because your life is a joke. A bad joke.

Your laughs thin out, turning into choked sobs. You sink down until you’re sitting on your cold shop floor with your back against a cabinet, and bring the lower clean edge of the apron up to cry into.

Eventually, the unrestrained weeping quiets into silent tears Time has passed, as evidenced by the sky beginning to darken outside. 

“Heeeeellooooo~! I’m heee-” You hear a familiar voice call out and then equally familiar hoof falls on the tile. There’s a rapid change in their tone, making a 180° turn into hushed concern. “Oh. Well fuck, that doesn’t look good-” 

After a few moments, Kirby rounds the counter, an inquisitive look on their face.

You can’t even muster the embarrassment to be seen like this, too tired and emotionally drained and just simply done with it all.

You expect a look of pity or maybe some awkward fussing, but instead, Kirby simply gives you a knowing smile.

“What a mess!!” Kirby shakes their head, curls tumbling as they assess the damage. “You’re not hurt, are you, honey?”

You shake your head weakly, rubbing at your eye with your inner wrist.

“Good! Well then, let’s get this all cleaned up!” They chirp and reach out their hand, palm up.

After the moment it takes to recognize the gesture, you take their hand. Kirby’s grip is surprisingly strong for being such a petite faun, and they easily manage to help you to your feet.

“You don’t have to-” 

“Well I’m NOT going to let you sit here and cry covered in frosting all night.” Kirby laughs, beginning to roll up the sleeves of their work shirt. “So. Yes I do~”

“...Thank you.” You sniffle.

“Don’t mention it!!” They laugh. “You go get cleaned up and I’ll start tackling this absolute disaster zone!”

You trudge upstairs and debate on the benefits of a full shower before deciding that it’s worth it, even if ten more cakes explode. You’re uncomfortably sticky down your neck and arms. 

Maybe you can wash this day away, while you’re at it…

Before long you’re redressed and coming back downstairs- if not feeling completely refreshed, you at least now have it in you to face the (suddenly much longer) list of tasks ahead. Kirby has gotten most of the cake into a trash bag, and is wiping down the counter.

“There, you look much better! Now, come tell me what was happening when this happened, will you?”

You join them, grabbing a sanitizer rag and beginning to help wipe down the closest surface. You describe as best you can exactly what you were doing, feeling, and thinking about when the cake exploded, just as you’ve explained to them about the previous incidents that you weren’t physically present for.

“Hmm.” Kirby hums quizzically. “Well, the good news is I’ve got a potential solution for the wedding dilemma.”

“Oh?” You’d be lying if you said that the promise of a stressor being removed didn’t sound divine.

“Actually, I’ve already convinced Rosario to go with you, if you want, while I was on the way over. Did you know that she’s surprisingly easy to bribe?!” Kirby giggles. “But to be honest- I didn’t even need to bribe her!! She agreed before I offered anything in return. Apparently wedding cake and an open bar is enough reason for her to turn up, or so she said. But I think it’s because she likes you.”

“That’s… very kind of her.” She wouldn’t be the worst companion for the event- you’ve grown quite fond of her presence in your shop, prickly attitude and all.

“Yeah! She’ll easily make your ex just as uncomfortable as I was planning to, all on her own merit, hehe!! BUUUUUT, I think you know what I’m about to say-”

“Don’t…”

“You should call him!” Kirby says in the most obnoxiously sing-song sweet tone they can, and you wince hard.

“I can’t-”

“But you can~!!”

“But I don’t think I should-”

“Well, maybe you should think again, sweetie!! You absoluuuuutely should! Because if this-” Kirby motions to the partially cleaned up buttercream splatter still coating the vicinity. “Isn’t proof enough that it’s not a him problem, I don’t know what would be!!”

You drag a palm across your face, overwhelmed, and heave a sigh.

“At the end of the day it’s your choice! I can’t make you call him. But you miss him, and he misses you! I know this for a fact! And SPIRITS is he being SO insufferable about it!! And so are you!!!! And it’s just a BIT silly to keep drawing this out like this.”

“But… I don’t want him to get hurt…”

“Listen. We know there’s something attached to you- Rosario’s exorcism attempt confirmed that much. But there’s no like, actual indication that any of that is related to what’s happening with the curse. It’s just not how this kind of magic works. We’re almost certain we’re dealing with two unconnected, non-standard issues complicating each other at this point- some sort of spirit attached to you, and some sort of ley-based magical compulsion in play- but we don’t know the source of where either of those things are coming from. Yet.”

“Right.” You say, pausing your cleaning work to take in the new information.

“Though, someone has some very promising ideas about the later being some sort of messed up geas, and Rosario seems like she has a hunch on what is in the shop.”

“But… it just feels like it’s getting worse. Not that I don’t appreciate your efforts, of course…”

“I know it feels that way. But I am good at my job! And I’ve been keeping track of the numbers this whole time, y’know?? I’ve got the DATA. Do you know what I’ve noticed the most as a trend over the time I've been working your case?”

You simply shake your head to give them time to build dramatic tension before they continue.

“The cakes explode more when you’re upset!! Like, a whole, whole lot more! And quite frankly at this point, in my professional opinion, you being separated from him is making it WORSE!!”

“...You really think it’d be okay to ask him-” To go back to how it was before, to be with me again; you want to say, but end up continuing instead; “to come with me to the wedding?”

You have the feeling Kirby understands what you wanted to say, anyway, based on their pleased expression, like they’re finally getting the message through to you.

“You’re my friend!! And as your friend, I am HEREBY giving you the permission that you’re not giving yourself! I wouldn’t be suggesting this to you if I didn’t think it was safe.” Kirby squarely lays their hands on you on the shoulders, though they need to reach up slightly to do it. “If anything, having him there might keep you from getting bent out of shape at your ex and blowing up the second cake, like, at the actual wedding.”

“That would be horrible.” You rasp and find yourself genuinely smiling for the first time all day, trying to blink back the sting of more tears threatening to spill, though this time more out of a sense of appreciation than despair.

“It. Would. Be. HILARIOUS.” Kirby says with a mischievous grin, patting your shoulders with each word for emphasis. “And if it were to happen, I would hope you were recording it. Y’know, for data collection purposes, hehehe!! But it would also be, let’s say: bad for business.”

You manage to finish getting things looking clean, as if nothing bad had happened at all, Kirby has called their ride to the airport.

“Now, I have to go or I’m going to miss my flight and my boss will probably-actually-literally murder me.” 

“And I have a cake to remake.” You quietly lament. “If you want, I can get on the plane and you can make the cake…”

Kirby lets out a string of giggles, picking their carry-on bag off the seat at the counter they stashed it on..

“Hahah- No thanks!! But- Call him.” Kirby repeats as they give you a squeezing hug goodbye. “Or Rosario, if you must. But don’t make yourself go alone. And keep me updated!! All of the juicy wedding gossip, please. I’m definitely going to be bored out of my mind otherwise, hehe!!”

Then they release you from their grip to head out the door with one last wave and a jingle of the shop bell. 

You, on the other hand, let out a long, withering sigh and pull out another set of white cake layers from the cooler.

…It’s going to be a long night.

>> ✨ MASTERLIST >> ☕ KO-FI

[hazyskyline]

poukie | n. kamden

desc. | kamden and (y/n) have been in a long distance relationship for 2 years, and (y/n) plans a little surprise for kamden.

pairing | boyfriend!kamden x gn!reader (no pronouns used)

word count | 659

genre | fluff

warnings | none

bold text - (y/n)’s messages | italicized text - kamden’s messages

——————————————————————————

kam, i miss u 😕😕

i miss you too 😔😢

it had been 1 year since kamden went back to korea, 2 years since you got together, and 3 years since you first met him. you met him in a dance class back in the states and the two of you hit it off immediately. the day ended with both of you getting each other’s number.

if i go to korea.. can we binge watch boys planet and ur fancams?

if u come, ill make sure to block all the videos on every device when u walk into the airport

wow, youre just the master of sarcasm arent u

guilty as charged 🫡

you have to say, he was good at making you happy. he was even better at making you miss him. if only you could actually go to korea.. wait.

“why don’t i go to korea?!” you said, having an eureka moment.

you quickly opened your browser and looked up flights to korea. a flight to korea in two days. you booked the flight and the countdown started.

always found guilty of that charge mr. na

sry kamden but i have to go now, i love u poukie 😍😍)

not that nickname again.. i love u too (y/n) 🫶

you shut off your phone and grabbed your luggage. though it was two days away, a little early packing never hurt anyone..

——————————————————————————

it was the day. the day! you grabbed the luggage you packed when you pulled an allnighter, too excited to fall asleep that night. you literally, LITERALLY, ran out your door. you rushed to put your luggage and get into you uber.

you sat down and pulled out your phone, instantly pulling up your texts with “poukie ❤️”

ill see u in 12 hours 😘😘

hm? what do you mean? do you want to facetime? im free right now if you want

you’ll see, oh btw are u free in 12 hours?

yes… why?

no particular reason! ☺️

im slightly concerned babe..

your uber arrived at the airport. you grabbed your luggage from the trunk and walked into the airport. you slowly went through the process. security, walking to your gate, and waiting. pulling up kamden’s texts again, you messaged him.

i do wanna facetime but ill be busy for like 12 hours, so ill text u when im done!!

awh, i wanted to see u :c, have a nice 12 hours :p

your boarding group was called and you quickly went onto the plane. you practically sprinted to your seat, stowed away your carry-on, and sat in your seat. you eagerly awaited for the plane to take off and for you to finally see your boyfriend again.

——————————————————————————

“- please fasten your seatbelt, put your tray up, and prepare for landing”

you rubbed your eyes before a flight attendant came to tell you to buckle up. you groggily obliged before remembering where you were.

kamden!

you got a burst of energy, your brain now bouncing off the walls of your skull with excitement.

the plane landed and you and the other passengers slowly siphoned out of the plane.

as soon as you got to the waiting area where the next group was waiting to board, you pulled out your phone.

kamden

no response.

kamden!

no new messages.

poukie!

hm? yeah whats up?

can you pick me up?

what? i mean unless i can drive across an ocean, im afraid i cant

check my location 🤭🤭

…what are you doing in korea?

you laughed, drawing attention from the people getting on the plane. you excused yourself and walked to the exits of incheon airport.

well.. remember when i said i missed you. i got an amazing idea, to go to korea!

why would you do that! it’s so.. impulsive! 🫠🫠

well theres no avoiding it now so.. can you pick me up from the airport :D

… of course i can love.

you were extremely happy and excited to spend the next two weeks with your lovely poukie.

——————————————————————————

a.n | please tell me y’all get the pun with poukie 🙏🙏 (pou as in the character he looks like and pookie as in the silly little nickname) i love kamden. also you cannot convince me otherwise that kamden wouldn’t use emoticons in his texts, ESPECIALLY “:p”

feel free to leave criticism in the comments!!

[not-poignant]

oh god im having a moment. this may seem obvious but…i know that utr is set in australia…theres more than a few references….to australia.. and ….australian things..but i only now realised that means everyone has an australian accent omg 😭😭😭😭(me to my brain: “why didnt you tell me” my brain back: “girl are you forreal”) idk why this is so surprising to me…im slow. so all the conversations that happened…. happened with an aussie accent….temsen…gary….gwyn 😭 i know faber has more of a british accent right? idk why i remembered that but then didn’t think about calebs accent… this is amazing, its also embarrassing for me but i am protected by the veil of online anonymity so im just rolling on my couch going through past conversations in the stories re-imagining them. wait that means YOU also have an australian accent!! i LOVE australian accent!!!! almost as much as kiwi but then again i hear that one even less than aussie accents… 😂 oke have a good sunday..or wait what time is it over there?! have a good time from 9pm germany 🇩🇪 cheers mate

Ahaha, this was so great to get

Okay so firstly, I think it's fairly universal that most of us don't think of ourselves as having accents, so unless a character has a very distinct accent, I don't think of their accents at all. For that reason, I also have zero problems when people just imagine the accent that is normal to them!

Secondly, what most people know as the Australian accent is very particular to certain parts of Australia. Most people haven't heard a Perth accent, which is a lot milder overall than say, a Queensland accent. And class really influences how people talk. Like, most of these people aren't saying 'mate' for a reason, it's just not part of their daily language. So...in that sense, it wouldn't be accurate to imagine a standard television Australian accent either. It's kind of jokey, in the same way that people put on really overdone German or Russian accents, you know it's not always reflective of reality.

I love Kiwi accents too btw, so good. :D Early Flight of the Conchords forever!

But, yes, they are in Australia and they do have...Australian accents. Kadek's probably one of the most 'ocker', Faber is one of the fanciest speakers (as is Flitmouse, though he picked up his accent out of choice lol), though Gary's up there too because he came from a very educated and relatively upper class family (as is Efnisien, when he can stop swearing for five seconds!)

Characters who have a more standard Australian accent would be Janusz, Caleb, Nate, Kadek and I would say Anton's about in the middle.

But, again, if it's just easier and more comfortable to imagine whatever your internal 'generic accent' is - imagine that! For me that's actually like... a neutral English accent, for I think most people it's American! I don't even think my neutral accent is Australian, lmao, because I'm influenced by coming from a family of immigrants (Dutch + English + Russian) and watching a lot of TV growing up of which the majority wasn't Australian, and of course thinking of my own accent as just 'neutral' which it absolutely isn't.

Accents are weird!

[lutrainman]

Hey @doodle-girl I wasn’t sure if you were going to resend this question to this blog, but I felt that I couldn’t just let it fade to nonexistence. It’s also an excuse to explain why Creon is an utter freak of nature. Creon basically becomes a discount vampire that can walk in daylight. She can mostly regenerate life-threatening injuries if blood or flesh is consumed. There was a lot of existential panicking for a while.

Not sure if I wanted to give her wings. She already has a lot of physical attributes of a prehistoric bat and big predator felines. I don’t think flight is needed to make her even more goated after mutation.

LUTR lore dump about Metas below.

Creon falls under the "latent" metahuman. Which means her mutation hasn't fully manifested. So she's a late bloomer. However, due to circumstances behind her being a Chrysalis baby and how she was created illegally, her meta genes were dampened to an extent. It's been forcefully awakened at age 14, but she hasn't fully come into her meta abilities yet. Her full mutation won't occur unless she undergoes severe stress or life-threatening situations.

This is why she rarely gets sick and heals much faster. Also why she can endure long, working hours and lift heavy loads with ease. Meta beings have a leg-up compared to average, natural people. Do they still need to work and study hard for skills and abilities? Yes. But they have natural advantages or newbie-gains that give them an edge. 

Project “Chrysalis” was originally eugenics project proposed to make the future generation better equipped to survive the fallout of climate change and the possible nuclear fallout. But the government had military super-soldiers in mind first. At first they tried to test out altering the genes of adults, both human and anthro. Less than 30% barely survived; mostly anthros.

The best success rate was starting from birth, in an artificial womb structure. Early experiments have proven that natural births kill both the mother and the fetus. After a lot of failures, political and socio-economic disasters, and World War 3, most countries made further meddling in Eugenics illegal.  Especially the making of “Chrysalis” babies. All bio-genetic projects or proposals are closely scrutinized and need to be approved by all nations in NATO, or some world council overseeing this issue. 

Creon’s mutation isn’t quite normal compared to other Meta-beings. Creon is maybe the 2nd “Chimera” experimented on by the same scientist who has created her friend, Hinder; another S-rank Meta. She was really scared of what her possible mutation could lead to. Most Meta-beings have black sclera eyes and more colorful, glowing pupils. Even in the future, gene modification in eye color, hair/fur, is strictly prohibited or regulated.

For Meta-humans, they have slightly pointed ears, giving them an elf-like appearance. Meta-anthros have more vibrant colorful fur, or irregular patterns on their bodies. Depending on some Metas, they might have additional appendages or facial features or an extra sense.

Which is why Creon’s mutation is more bestial. The good news is, she probably doesn’t carry a potentially infectious disease like she was warned of. This was one of the prime reasons for why Creon feared her mutation and being set apart from her fellow Metas. The unpredictable fear of the unknown and how the world would treat what is different is why she hopes to never “reach full potential.” She fears being even more of a monster. Lots of war crimes were committed during her time of service.

That fear is why Creon forcefully stopped herself from mutating a few times during combat, even though that probably resulted in a lot of physical and mental trauma. After leaving service, she felt safe in the possibility of living a normal (in her terms) civilian life. What life-threatening, high-stress situation can possibly force her into Meta-evolving? Well you can thank Dr. Zane for launching a world-wide infestation of bio-engineered monsters. 

Dr. Zane wanted revenge for having his work on bio-engineered, garbage eating life-forms was shut down after World War III. Especially when he was so close to a breakthrough. So he decided to punish humanity’s hypocrisy by unleashing his “monsters.” First they were harmlessly introduced as cute Fuz-Z pets (or toys).

Then on “Doomsday” as he called it, he sent out signals that caused the creatures to mutate to bigger monsters that laid carnage everywhere. Creon and Hinder were busy slaughtering most of the monsters in Acmetropolis, but this is what caused her body to fully mutate in response to the danger. 

I don’t know how far in timeline it is, but Terry and Creon would have progressed far in their relationship. Terry was worried after 1 week of silence and no contact after the the Fuz-Z attack. He initially freaked out when Creon finally broke the news of her mutation. Terry would be the one stepping up in helping Creon readjust to her new normal as a Metahuman.

Meta-sentiment isn’t that favorable in the general public, especially in America. Very few places are tolerant of them. Metas are like an ugly reminder of World War III and America’s dirty laundry. Despite there being a few scattered in parts of the world, most will live secluded lives. Most end up living in obscurity. 

Thankfully Creon has found support from her besties and fellow neighbors in the Crater community. Crater residents would have THE MOST beef with Metas, considering the Crater happened due to errant Metas losing control and wreaking havoc. But thankfully they’re usually the type of folks who mind their own business as long as you don’t mess with them. They’ve recovered strong after rebuilding from gang and turf wars, and the massacre of said gangs. It helps that they know Creon very well.

[autumntouched]

Day 15 of Ode to Phoenix Pt. 2

What? Two Ode to Phoenix posts in one day? Yes indeed. Bringing this Valentine's Day fic over from AO3. In honor of Phoenix's disdain for Valentine's Day, I am posting it the day after...

Summary: It’s irrational that Natasha hates the entire month of February, but for two weeks, the bombardment of saccharine promotional emails, constant red and pink hearts and roses, and the chocolates is enough to make her want to scream or puke or both. She’d even broken up with a guy for daring to send her a bouquet on the day. Well, there were other reasons, but a gag worthy card and flowers for a stupid made up holiday for a fake, hollow, unoriginal performative symbol of love seemed like a good enough reason to end things.

Pairings: Natasha "Phoenix" Trace x Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Warnings: PG-13 implied sex (f/m/m)

A/N: AO3 Unk365's prompt: Phoenix hates valentine's Day. She doesn't do sappy shit.

Love in the Small Things

It’s irrational that Natasha hates the entire month of February, but for two weeks, the bombardment of saccharine promotional emails, constant red and pink hearts and roses, and the chocolates is enough to make her want to scream or puke or both. She’d even broken up with a guy for daring to send her a bouquet on the day. Well, there were other reasons, but a gag worthy card and flowers for a stupid made up holiday for a fake, hollow, unoriginal performative symbol of love seemed like a good enough reason to end things.

Her disdain for Valentine’s Day makes her popular among her squad and the recipient of more gifts of alcohol than she can responsibly consume this side of thirty. She always signs up for the flight duties that day, takes any shift trades, so the guys can get home to the partners who would break up with them if they didn’t make a big deal about a bullshit holiday that turns hospitals into a November hellscape of people dropping babies left and right.  

So she doesn’t even think about what it means for her to put her name down for February 14th, until she comes into the office one morning in late January to find Bob staring forlornly at the board. 

“I forgot you hate Valentine’s Day,” he says sadly when she stops beside him, cheap coffee with powdered creamer in hand.

Natasha braces herself for the questions and comments about what made her so bitter and disdainful about love. Who hurt her like that? But she’s too pretty to hate Valentine’s Day. 

But this is Bob, who never questions any of the things most people find unfathomable about her. She doesn’t want to hold your baby? He will. She shudders at pickles? He swoops them off the plate before she notices they’re there or swaps their meals if the waiter made a mistake. She knows every line of Miss Congeniality and The Lion King by heart? He only talks through the parts she doesn’t mind. She has to see a Marvel movie on its Thursday night premiere so the internet doesn’t spoil it? He wakes up early the day tickets are released to get them seats. Well, she’s not all that alone on that one. 

She’d put their names up as soon as the schedule opened in January. Not that it’s predictable. If anything comes up, the Navy gives as much of a fuck about Valentine’s Day plans as she does. This is why Natasha loves her job. 

“I didn’t think you had plans?” Not that she’d explicitly asked but she and Bob practically share a calendar at this point and she’s pretty sure that day was open. A blush creeps up Bob’s neck and he gulps. Natasha sets her coffee down on the filing cabinets to put her hands on her hips.

“Unless these ones are recent?” she probes. “Or secret .”

“I’ve never had a reason to do anything before,” he says quietly. “It’s okay though. I’ll figure something out.” He hitches on a smile to reassure her and scurries to his desk. She’ll get more out of him later when they don’t have to worry about anyone in the squad overhearing. 

While Bob’s old squad hadn’t even bothered to come up with a call sign for him—something that still makes her angry when she thinks about it too long—Natasha’s popularity in the Black Aces immediately rubbed off on him. Unfortunately, though, that means they want to know about who he’s dating as badly as they want to know how a guy who doesn’t root for a football team has been dominating their fantasy football league. 

Natasha feels like shit. Last she’d badgered him just yesterday, Bob had been evasive and noncommittal about where things were with Fanboy. While she avoids dating because it is always only a matter of time before she gets bored or annoyed and finds a reason to blow things up, Bob’s relationship slate’s emptiness isn’t all his doing. In high school, no one wanted to date the kid people either bullied or couldn’t remember existed. He’d hidden away in art rooms sketching, painting, and sculpting the incredible art pieces that decorate his parents’ and sisters’ houses. She’d even commissioned a piece to give to her mom for her birthday. 

He’s gained a little more confidence since then but spending most of his life ignored or forgotten means he doesn’t notice people noticing him unless the Dagger squad takes it upon themselves to intervene. She, Hangman, Rooster, and Payback have spent hours on chaotic FaceTime calls figuring out what Bob’s feelings are and how to keep Fanboy’s hopes up. Most of the chaos comes from Hangman who googles every question that comes up and reads aloud the articles or subreddits he finds. Some are helpful, most are absurd. 

Natasha grabs her coffee and ducks out of the building to consult one of her co-conspirators. Shut in her car, she calls Payback.

“What up?” he answers.

“Are you alone?” It’s their code to let one another know that they want to discuss Mission FanBob SquarePants, as Hangman dubbed it. Another chaotic call of him solely contributing portmanteaus. 

“For like maybe ten minutes. Shoot.”

“Bob mentioned having a reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day,” she blurts. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Uhhhh…ohhhhhh! Oh shiiiiiit.” Payback cracks up on the other end. 

“Want to let me in on it? Because right now I have us slated to work.”

“Yo, Phoenix. You better fix that. Fanboy hasn’t said anything, but we did just get approved for leave that weekend. His request.”

This is huge! And Payback’s right. She has almost just fucked it up.

“Did he give any specifics?” she presses.

“Nah, but I assume if Bob wasn’t planning leave but has plans, Fanboy’s going there.”

“I hate Valentine’s Day,” she grumbles, banging her head against the headrest. “It makes everyone stupid and shallow and sappy.”

“You’re a guy’s dream, Phoenix. But for real, we’ve been trying to make this happen for over a year so you need to get your shit together.”

Payback’s right. This is about Bob. “Fine. Don’t say anything to Fanboy for now. I think I can get us out of it.” 

“Copy that. Gotta go. Bye.” He hangs up. 

Natasha frowns at her windshield, absently tapping her phone as she mentally puts together a list of people willing to trade with her. It’s short. Pagemaster and Sherlock. She’ll start with Sherlock. 

Sherlock’s new to the squad and, as far as she knows, single. At least he hadn’t mentioned dating anyone in the first ten minutes of their conversation, which most guys find a way to do if they’re attached. Neither Hangman nor Rooster believes that rule so she wonders if it’s just a thing guys do with women or if they don’t remember to notice. 

Natasha texts him about getting lunch before she goes back in. Sherlock responds almost immediately with a “yes.” She doesn’t envy being the newest arrival.  

Bob is waiting for her when she gets back to her desk. “Where’d you go?” 

“Period,” she lies easily. He winces sympathetically. It’s nice flying with someone who grew up around girls. 

“They just called a meeting in Building 64. Want to head over together?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”  She waits until they’re outside, among the distant bustle of airplane maintenance and refueling, to return to their earlier conversation. “You didn’t answer my question about these plans. Are they new or a secret?”

He dips his chin and slips his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want to jinx anything,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Well this guy has another thing coming if he thinks he can fuck with your heart like that.” She deliberately bumps his arm as they pass through the row of hangars. 

“He’s well aware I have a bunch of knights in shining armor ready to deliver his head on a platter if I ask,” Bob jokes. But he’s admitting that whatever is going on has some kind of foundation. That’s something new. 

“Okay, Solome.”

“What?”

“Sunday school joke. She asked for John the Baptist’s head.” 

Bob nods thoughtfully but she can tell he’s only half listening. His mouth is turned down in a frown and he’s hunching in on himself. Natasha moves in closer. Not that anyone is likely to overhear them, but she knows he wants to keep things as quiet as possible. He’s never dealt with dating and she can see that even her gentle teasing overwhelms him sometimes. 

“Look, I’m happy for you if things work out with Fanboy. But I’m your back seater on this one and I go wherever you go, okay?”

“Well,” he grimaces, “that’s kind of the problem. I don’t really know what I’m doing here. What if I mess it up?”

“Then I’m still your person because I possibly have more experience with that than getting it right,” she reassures him. “So I can say this with confidence. You’ve probably got a good thing when the other person makes it extremely hard for you to completely mess up. Might not always work, but it’s a good thing.”

Relief washes over him, and some of the lightness returns to his stride. Bob glances over at her, and she gets her own sense of relief from his adorably shy, crooked smile. “I can never tell if your relationship advice is terrible or too honest.”

Natasha tilts her head. “Me neither but I’m glad you have a healthy sense of skepticism. It’s probably for your own good.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he chuckles, and she gets the urge to pull him into a hug. Sometimes when she looks over at him, she’s surprised to realize they’ve known one another for a few months shy of a year and a half instead of their whole lives. 

She has her own group chat with his sisters, shows him pictures of his nephews and nieces that he hasn’t seen yet, and knows his cousins on both sides. She is his plus one to every wedding they can make, the one he waltzes onto the floor during the couples dance or sneaks out with to drink from a flask in the car at the dry or cash bar receptions. He was the first person she told when she got the news that her grandmother died three days before she was supposed to fly home to say goodbye. Bob was holding her less than ten minutes after she sent the message. He’d forgotten to switch his shoes at the bowling alley. When they went on vacation together and she didn’t listen about trying street food, he’d sat outside the bathroom door with gatorade while she made horrific noises emptying out her stomach and intestines in both directions. 

That’s just not the kind of love you can sum up in a pink-drenched Hallmark holiday. But fuck, she better get them off the schedule. 

Sherlock is waiting for her at a table in the NEX food court. He waves as if she could miss him. The pilot looks like a freaking model with smooth brown skin, long-lashed almond shaped gold eyes, and high, sharp cheekbones. She’s watched men straight as rulers lose their stride on the treadmill when he walks into the gym. 

He gives her a nervous, dazzling white smile. That and his reserved kindness are the only hints that he didn’t walk the halls of high school as a god among mortals. “Appreciate the invite, Phoenix.” 

“Well, I have a favor to ask so maybe wait until you hear it before you thank me,” she laughs. “Lunch is on me. Pick a place yet?” 

“You good with Five Guys?” 

“Sure.” 

As they wind their way through the cramped rows of tables, he tells her, “You know, it’s funny. When I was a kid the best you could hope for in these in the states was a Sbarro or a Subway until Quiznos came along. Oh, and Baskin Robbins.” 

“You were a military kid?” she realizes. 

“My dad was in the CEC.” 

They join the Five Guys line. It’s on the earlier side so they’ve beat the rush. Otherwise, they would be waiting at least half an hour for their food. “So your dad is an engineer but you ended up a pilot?” 

His face lights up, and she starts to wonder if she made a mistake thinking he’s single. “When I was four, my best friend’s mom was a pilot. She used to take us up for her hours. Then one of the parents at our kindergarten invited–well, he was Colonel Bolden then, now he’s the former head of NASA–to speak to our class. Pretty much replaced all my Legos with planes after that and here I am.” 

“Tell me they’re paying you to make recruitment videos with a story like that.” She’s only half joking. It’s better than the dramatic video game type ads they’ve been running. 

“I’ve heard the Navy only gives out one paycheck and assumes that covers everything. But I’m all ears if you’ve got the scoop.”

“I’ll let you know when I hear,” Natasha agrees with a smile. “So, how was the PCS?” 

“Just got back from sea duty so most of my stuff was waiting in storage.” That sounds promising. No use of “our” or “we.” They place their orders then snag a table within calling distance. 

“So what’s this favor?” he wants to know, folding his hands and resting his elbows on the table. “I don’t remember that in your text.” 

“Not exactly living up to your call sign there.” 

He hangs his head. “I’m going to tell you a secret and if I hear it from anyone else, I’ll know who told our squad.” Sherlock looks up at her, waiting for her agreement.  

Curious, Natasha nods. 

Sherlock takes in a dramatic breath. “I made the mistake of stating something very obvious during a training exercise. Our instructor responded with ‘no shit, Sherlock’ over comms and that was it. I was ‘Sherlock.’ But usually I just say it’s because of how much I like the RDJ Sherlock movies.” 

She’s glad their names are called then and he gets up to grab their food so he doesn’t have to see her laugh in his face. Making a mistake in the early days of training is one of most pilots’ worst fears for that very reason–it will stick with them for the rest of their career. At least he escaped being named for his mistake. 

He grins sheepishly when he gets back, well aware she had a laugh at his expense. Parsing her fries from her burger, she lays out the favor without going into detail about why she needs it. “I know it’s a little late to ask…” she trails off. 

Sherlock chews over his grilled cheese and her offer. “What’s in it for me?” 

Natasha was expecting this. “Do you drink? I have a cabinet of expensive liquors you can choose from.” 

“And if I don’t? Drink.” 

She flashes him a smile. “That’s my offer until I know whether it’s one you’re willing to accept.” 

His eyes widen slightly, and he takes another bite of his sandwich. She didn’t grow up with a brother who became a lawyer with a corner office in San Francisco to not protect her interests in a negotiation. 

“And if I say no?” he tests. 

Natasha pretends to think through her options while she selects a fry and douses it in ketchup. “I’d probably ask why to see if it’s because you can’t or won’t.” 

“The guys warned me not to underestimate you.” 

“I think they meant in the air.” 

Sherlock’s mouth quirks. “They didn’t qualify. For a bottle of alcohol, I’ll think about it.”

Crap. She wants an answer before they head back to work. “So you do drink. Also I didn’t say how many. And I have some pretty expensive stuff.” 

“I heard you love working Valentine’s Day. Why the sudden change of plans this year?” 

“A friend asked me to help them out with some special plans, and they’re someone who doesn’t ask for a lot but is always there for me. So I want to try to be there for them.” For the most part, true. Bob doesn’t ask for a lot. Even when she’s his plus one, he insists on paying for everything no matter how much she protests. 

“Can I let you know by the end of today? I have some stuff I have to see if I can move around first.”

Inside, she lets out a little breath of relief. Not a yes, but close enough. “Definitely,” she agrees. “Thank you.” 

“Maybe wait until I’ve given you an answer before you thank me.” 

Natasha smiles at his call back. “I really appreciate you even considering it.” 

Sherlock doesn’t wait until the end of the day. He stops by her desk at three o’clock. “Four bottles, any pick and I’m in.” 

She tries not to grin too hard or fast. “Deal. Thanks!” 

“You got it, Phoenix.” He knocks his knuckles on her desk and goes back to his spot. Maybe one of those bottles she’s giving him will lead to some answers she wants about his dating life or—even better—his singledom. 

When he’s sure Sherlock is out of hearing distance, Bob swivels around and leans low over the arm of his chair. “What was that about?” he whispers. 

“I’ll tell you later,” she promises, excited to see the look on his face when she gives him the news. Catching herself having any anticipation about Valentine’s Day whatsoever, she wipes the smile off her face. The things she’s willing to do for her sweet back seater. 

Natasha’s barely through the door that night when Jake looks up from the couch. Sports Center is on, covering the lead up to the Super Bowl. “What’s this I hear? The woman whose heart is two sizes too small turning into an adorable little Valentine’s Day cupid?” 

“You’ve got your holidays mixed up, dickhead,” she retorts, kicking off her shoes and hanging up her keys and purse. “But yes, I saved Mission FanBob SquarePants and got Valentine’s Day off. As long as the Navy doesn’t fuck it up.” She glares at him. “And don’t you dare make any plans now or come up with any stupid surprises because I have a free evening.” 

“I checked. All the good restaurants are already all out of reservations anyway, my gorgeous little grinch.” She knows he’s teasing, but she’s still not happy about it. 

Jake sighs and pushes himself off the couch as she heads into the kitchen to sort out dinner. Natasha jerks the refrigerator open before she registers the smell of roasting brussels sprouts then notices the container of couscous on the counter and pot of water. 

“I was waiting until you got home to put the salmon on the grill in case you got caught up at work,” he says from the doorway. “Also picked up your favorite sauvignon blanc because I know what even thinking about that atrocious day of love does to you. I’m sorry you have to suffer the indignity of a free evening alone with me to very much not do anything romantic, unless it’s sex because…” Natasha strides over and shuts him up with a kiss on the mouth. Jake wraps his arms around her and squeezes her close. 

When she pulls back, he smooths her hair behind her ear and gives her that little smirk he keeps just for her. “Please tell me sex isn’t off the table on February 14th because everyone else is doing it.” 

“As long as it doesn’t include roses, rose petals, chocolate, anything heart shaped or pink…” she ticks off.

He laughs and kisses her forehead. “You can text me your very specific list of don’ts, Birdy, and I promise to follow every one of them.” Jake slaps her ass. “But right now let me serve you hand and foot and finish making your dinner while you recover from spreading love on the couch.” 

“I hate you,” Natasha grumbles when he releases her.

“I’ll pour you a glass of wine and hopefully you change your mind.” 

Natasha heads to their room to change out of her uniform. By the time she gets to the living room in leggings and one of Jake’s former Longhorns sweatshirts that became hers when it shrunk in the wash (he may have once let slip how much he likes the way the horns curve over her chest), he has the promised glass of wine waiting for her on the coffee table and she can smell the salmon grilling on the balcony. 

Neither of them was particularly keen to find themselves in a relationship and had insisted it was just a hookup for months until one day Jake went to get his favorite pair of sneakers from his closet and realized all the things he preferred were at her place. In the early fall, he made O-4 and now he’s waiting to hear from NPS to get his masters in Monterey. But Natasha can’t really worry about that bridge until she gets to it. And who knows, this could all be over by then. For now, she cradles her glass of wine while she admires his backside through the glass.  

He notices her posting when he slides the door open to bring the salmon in. “I’d have put on a little show if I knew you were there.” 

“You can save it for later, Bagman,” she shakes her head. “Right now, I’m hungry.” 

Jake salutes her and hurries back to the kitchen. She watches him go and lets her smile fall. His parents had invited her to spend New Year’s with them in Texas. He’d insisted that they just wanted to meet his friends, that there was no pressure to go as his girlfriend. That had led to a fight because what parents invited the person in the background of all their son’s FaceTimes to their home thinking they were just friends? But she agreed to go because she could tell it was something he really wanted. 

Sure enough, his mother started showing her all of his and his sister’s baby clothes that she’d saved for his children to have. By the time Beth Seresin pulled out his well-loved bear and a quilt his grandmother made for him, Natasha was having a full blown panic attack in the Seresin attic. She had ribbons and medals for the missions she flew in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the uranium enrichment plant mission last year, but just the hint of carrying a child nearly made her pass out. 

Jake came home to find her curled up in his bed with the family’s Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lilah, after a frantic, tearful call to Rooster and stormed off. She wishes she could forget the awful dinner that night where Jake and his dad, Gerry, barely said two words to one another while Beth kept up a constant, overly cheerful chatter at everyone that couldn’t hide how red and swollen her eyes were from crying. Natasha prayed the whole meal for the floor to open up and swallow her. 

She lets the wine ease the sharp jab of that memory. Jake has been on his best behavior since then, tripping over himself to keep her from even a thought of irritation, careful not to push too far with his teasing. No, he wouldn’t dare spring a Valentine’s Day surprise on her because he knows that might be the end of whatever this is. 

Jake’s cooking goes a long way toward putting her in a better mood and by the time they’re getting ready for bed, her heart’s grown three sizes and she’s all too happy to let him show her some very convincing suggestions for her list of do’s for her evening off. 

Natasha wakes to Jake’s voice in the darkness. “It’s three in the morning here, Fanboy. She’s asleep.” He shifts away from her and lowers his voice. “I guarantee this can wait a few hours, but I’ll tell her you called. Yeah, I know. It’s important. Yeah. Fine. Bye.”

“What does he want?” she groans. 

She feels Jake jump slightly. He turns and hands over her phone. “I don’t know. Something about Bob. I thought your phone was on sleep mode, Birdy.”  

Natasha returns it to its charging pad on her nightstand and curls back into her pillow. “He’s in my favorites,” she yawns. 

“Mmm,” he hums, settling around her again. “Take him off tomorrow.” 

“Mhmm,” she agrees, but she’s forgotten even before she falls back to sleep.

It turns out Fanboy wants her suggestions for what to do with Bob for Valentine’s Day and suddenly she remembers her promise to Jake to remove him from her favorites. It feels like she’s been duped and trapped into playing cupid. For Bob, she grits her teeth and reminds herself before promising to send Fanboy a list of things to do within a reasonable driving distance. 

Natasha looks forward to the Super Bowl providing at least some distraction from the Valentine’s Day fury, but nearly every woman who talks to her at Commander Lazarescu’s Super Bowl party wants to know about her plans. She’s glad that, for the most part, not many people outside of her squadron know that her relationship with Jake is official, if they know about it at all. Bob gets a few prompts but nowhere near what she endures. Natasha starts to avoid everyone with a stone on their left ring finger and eventually stays tucked in between Jake and Bob who gamely go to get her food and drinks so she can avoid the questions and, weirdly, concern. 

“Should I get him something?” Bob worries during one of their flights. Natasha’s glad he can’t see her scowl. “My sisters sent me some ideas but they don’t seem right.” 

“What about one of your drawings?” she offers. “That feels more personal. And there’s always a bottle of Veuve Clicquot to take the edge off your nerves.” 

“You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for, Phoenix,” he tells her. 

She just grunts. One week left until everyone regains their sanity. 

If Jake feels any type of way about doing nothing to celebrate their first Valentine’s Day together–Natasha mentally cringes at even having that thought–he doesn’t let on. Or maybe he does because he spends extra time cleaning the apartment and goes to the commissary so she doesn’t have to walk through the red and pink crepe draped aisles. When she pulls out her basket in the bathroom, she finds he’s even restocked her supply of tampons. There’s a folded sticky note on top. She opens it up and sees his scrawl:

Since you hate the color red so much thought you might need more of these . xoxo your dickhead 

She touches his hugs and kisses. There have been times that he’s half jokingly told her that he loves her. When they’re several shots deep into their own raging dance party with a disco ball light Natasha still has from a classmate’s Bat Mitzvah. When her fantasy football team outranked his or when she surprised him with trips to San Francisco to see any Texas team play the Warriors. 

Those three words she has yet to say in any meaningful way seem to make their way into all the things he does for her and puts up with from her. Natasha slams the basket away. God, she hates Valentine’s Day. 

Another wonderful thing she loves about her job. When she walks into the office on February 14th, the only sign of Valentine’s Day is a sign taped onto the door instead of a rush of flower deliveries throughout the day that her sister tells her happens at her job. “Did you wish them Happy Valentine’s Day before you left home?” 

She laughs to herself and wonders who learned the hard way. Natasha leaves the reusable bag filled with her payment to Sherlock on his desk. He gives her a thumbs up when he finds it. Bob gets quieter and quieter throughout the day, and by four, he’s given up on work and sits flipping his pen through his fingers.

“I can’t concentrate with you worrying so loud over there,” Natasha complains, looking up from the latest manual update. 

Bob goes ramrod straight. “Sorry about that.” 

She sighs and closes her reading. “Half the guys in here are still scrambling to find a florist to order flowers from. No one’s doing any work anyway. Want to go for a walk?” 

He calms down slightly after they stroll around the planes. They’re only back at their desks for another fifteen minutes before Commander Lazarescu pops his head out of his office. 

“For those of you who don’t need to stick around, why don’t you head on home and stop distracting the people trying to work?”

Usually, Natasha watches as almost everyone snatches up their briefcases or backpacks and sprints out before the commander can change his mind. It’s not until Bob puts a hand on her chair that she realizes she’s still sitting. “That’s us,” he says gently, as if he’s worried that she’ll startle. 

With a heavy sense of dread in her stomach, Natasha shoulders her backpack. She gives a small wave to Sherlock who lifts his hand in acknowledgment. 

“I’m headed home to freshen up before meeting up with Fanboy,” Bob tells her in the parking lot. “Text you later?” 

Natasha gives him a playful shove. “You better! It’s not like I’m doing anything.” 

His eyebrows shoot up, and he hacks a laugh. “According to you or according to Hangman?” 

She flips him off then throws her arms around him. “Tell Fanboy hey for me.” 

Bob’s face is scarlet when she lets go. “Yeah, will do.” He swallows and flexes his shaking hands in and out of fists. 

“Hey!” she tells him. “It’s a Valentine’s Day date, not a haunted house.” 

He lets out a slow breath but finds it in him to smile. “Says the woman who’s been acting like she got sentenced to the gallows for the last two weeks.”

“I’m making an exception for you.” Becoming more serious, she squeezes his forearm reassuringly. “It’s Fanboy. I’m pretty sure he’s just going to be really glad to see you.” 

“Thanks.” He rubs the side of his nose awkwardly. “And, I didn’t think I’d ever say this but–try not to give Hangman too hard of a time? He’s really trying.” 

Bob says it nicely, but she still feels chastised because he’s right. “I’ll let him know to thank you for my good behavior.” 

And as much as she hates with a capital ‘H’ Valentine’s Day, Natasha can’t resist calling after him to take pictures of his date. 

The apartment feels extra empty when she gets home. It will probably be at least an hour or two before Jake gets off from work. That should be enough time to run to the commissary to get the specific ingredients she needs for the King Ranch chicken casserole recipe Beth gave her and have it in the oven.

But Natasha is halfway across the living room when the bedroom door opens. So much for her surprise. “I thought you were–.” She freezes, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. 

Because it’s not Jake who’s walking toward her in jeans and a snugly fitted, long sleeve gray shirt she picked out for him to wear instead of his hideous print shirts. 

“Bradley?”

“Yeah,” he says, lips quirked beneath his mustache. “Thought I’d surprise you.” 

And then she shrieks and launches herself at him. Rooster scoops her up easily and clutches her as they kiss, the months they’ve been apart slowly receding as she’s reminded of the taste of his mouth, the thickness of his arms, and of course, the soft tickle of his mustache. He’s trying to kiss her, hold her, and wipe her tears all at once. 

“I missed you so much,” she sobs, burying her face in his neck and gripping the back of his shirt. 

“Well, I guess we know who she loves more now,” Jake laughs as he joins them. He kisses her forehead and rubs her back as Rooster rocks her. She didn’t realize how much of her heart had been missing when Bradshaw wasn’t with them. 

“For someone who hates Valentine’s Day as much as you,” Jake starts. 

“Shut up, Jake,” she and Bradley say in unison. 

“I’m assuming you were going to change out of this?” Rooster asks, plucking her bra strap through her khaki shirt. 

She closes her eyes and soaks in the rumble of his voice in his chest. “Just hold me,” Natasha hums, hugging him even tighter. 

“Come on.” He turns around and carries her back to the bedroom. She remembers something and lifts her head, leaving her chin to rest on his shoulder. 

Jake follows them, and she meets his eyes so he knows how much this means to her. “This goes on my list of dos.”  

He beams with such relief and elation that her heart thumps so hard it feels like a kick in her chest. When they fall into bed, she makes sure to pull Jake in first while Bradley unbuttons her shirt. She massages his scalp, just above the nape of his neck, the way she knows he likes. His eyes are heavy-lidded watching her shirt fall open to reveal the dark green bra she wore knowing it’s his favorite.  

“I might not tell you enough how good you are to me,” she says barely above a whisper so it’s only for him. His gaze jumps back to her face. “But I want you to know that I see it. I know it. Every single day. Not just today.” 

Shyly, she kisses the corner of his mouth. It’s the closest she’s come to telling him that she loves him. Jake cups her face, stroking his thumb over her cheek. He stares at her intently, unwaveringly focused as he is whenever she finally gets around to opening up to him. “Don’t worry, Birdy. I get you.”  

And for a brief flash, she’s terrified of a future without these two to hold onto. Instinctively, she reaches up to grab his hand and wrist. Maybe Jake sees it or feels it too because he kisses her like he’s afraid of what will happen if he lets go. 

Natasha realizes Bradley has stilled, fingers hooked into the button above her belt while he watches them. He gives them a goofy smile when they notice him. “My two commitment phobes are so cute together.” 

She threatens to kick him in the head. 

Later, Jake disappears to the kitchen while Natasha stays curled up against Bradley with the blankets pulled haphazardly over them. He winds his legs around and through hers and from time to time drops light kisses along her bare shoulder and neck. 

“I’ve missed holding you, Sash,” he tells her. 

“Me too. How long are you here?” 

“Til Sunday. The CO needed someone to go to Washington with him, and I volunteered. Maybe do something with that Poli Sci major I spent four years on.” 

She rubs the arms wrapped tightly around her middle and tries not to think about how short that is. He’s here now and it’s more time than she was expecting just a few hours ago.

Jake returns with a bowl of grapes, complaining that Rooster is too messy of an eater to be trusted with anything else. She ducks while they tussle over the bowl before Bradley settles the fight by pulling Jake in for a kiss. These fools are making this stupid holiday bearable. 

Natasha wakes up to an empty bed and growling stomach the next morning. Beneath the mouthwatering aroma of French toast and bacon, their room is musky with the smell of sex. She takes a quick shower and opts for one of Jake’s sweatshirts. 

Her guys are in the kitchen, apparently cooking up a storm. Bradley’s whisking what looks like two cartons worth of eggs while Jake carves an entire cantaloupe for a platter already lined with strawberries. There’s a half cut loaf of challah for the French toast and what looks like waffle or pancake mix. 

“Did I miss something?” she asks.

Jake looks up and grins. “We have about thirty minutes to enjoy the fact you’re not wearing underwear before it gets awkward.”

“Bob and Fanboy are coming over for breakfast,” Bradley clarifies.

“Oh!” She should have guessed. “Can I help?” 

Bradley glances at Jake. “Not in that. He’s already distracted. We’ve got this while you get dressed.” 

Natasha giggles at Jake’s scowl but heeds Bradley’s request. She dries her hair and returns in jeans and a crew neck sweater just as the doorbell rings. 

“I got it!” she calls. 

“Phoenix!” Fanboy raises the bottles of champagne he’s holding in each hand when she opens the door. She immediately looks to his neck for any lovebites, but there’s no hint there of last night went for him and Bob who cradles two more bottles of champagne. “So were you surprised?” Fanboy asks, giving her a one armed hug on his way in. 

“Bob told me you were coming,” she laughs. “Many times.” Bob goes bright red and narrows his eyes at her. “But it’s good to see you.

Fanboy bumps her arm with his elbow. “No, I meant about Rooster.” 

“Ohhh. I–.” 

But Rooster and Jake pop out of the kitchen then and there’s a commotion while they all say hello and Fanboy presents them with the bottles of champagne. Fanboy knew Rooster was coming? 

“Let me get those so you can make yourself at home,” Jake offers, collecting the alcohol from Fanboy and Bob. He ushers everyone toward the living room while Rooster and Fanboy clap one another on the shoulder. 

Bob lingers by her in the entryway. “Did you know Rooster was coming?” she checks. 

He rubs the sides of his thighs, which means he’s thinking of a way to tell the truth without lying. “I might have heard something. But I guess I, uh, was a little distracted.” 

The doorbell rings again. “Can you get that, Birdy?” Hangman calls. 

“I should help with the mimosas.” Bob hurries after everyone else 

Becoming increasingly suspicious, Natasha opens the door and she’s less surprised than she should be to see Payback on her doorstep. 

“Are you serious?” she demands. 

“Hey, Phoenix.” He hugs her then steps inside and Natasha’s mouth falls open. 

“Holy shit motherfucker!” The din behind her goes quiet. 

Mel, Payback’s very much pregnant fiancée, looks torn between being annoyed and amused. “I guess we should have given you a heads up,” she says heavily, tucking her long locs behind her ear. Even pregnant, she’s effortlessly beautiful and stylish in bold purple lipstick, an oversized marigold cardigan, and a flowing cream dress that bring out the rich darkness of her skin. 

“Heads up about–you motherfucker,” crows Jake. “Congratulations!” 

“What’s happening?” Rooster yells from the kitchen while Mel embraces Natasha around her baby bump and the others offer their congratulations. 

“Looks like Payback’s been busy, Pecan,” Jake calls back. Natasha elbows him in the stomach under the guise of making space for Mel to come in. He grunts and wraps his arms around her from behind. 

“When’s Maverick getting here?” she guesses. 

He kisses her neck. “They hit traffic but should be here soon. Apparently with Amelia’s boyfriend.” She looks back at him with a raised brow and he lifts his own and gives her a wicked smile. Jake kisses her on the mouth. “Bradley’s going to be stressed now that almost everyone’s here so I better get back to work. Can you make sure everyone behaves?” 

“As long as you’re busy, I don’t have to worry about that.” 

“That’s my girl,” he grins. He pats her butt as they part ways, and she notices Payback watching. 

“That looked cozy,” he leads with an impish smirk. 

“Considering how cozy it looks like you got, I think you ought to spare me,” she warns amiably. “And when were you going to say something?” 

“We just did, didn’t we?” He becomes more serious. “It was a bit of a rough start so we figured it was better to wait.” 

Natasha makes a note to check in with him later when Fanboy isn’t swooping in with a wine glass of mimosa. “Glad we got to find out in person,” she says for now. 

Payback nods appreciatively. 

Mel is already badgering Fanboy about his evening with Bob, and since Bob slipped away before she could ask, Natasha happily teams up with her to get the details from the two of them. Fanboy, normally the more talkative of the two, remains as mum as her back seater beyond the vague details of dinner on the coast. 

“We went stargazing,” Bob finally offers shyly after Natasha warns him that she won’t stop Jake from extracting the information by any obnoxious means necessary if he holds out on her. Fanboy blushes and looks down into his drink. That might not sound like an eventful date to anyone who doesn’t know that he can read the night sky like it’s an epic adventure, his knowledge of the constellations and the myths and folklore that inspired their names is practically encyclopedic. Tentatively, Bob rubs Fanboy’s shoulder and the bashful look they share melts Natasha’s Valentine’s Day hardened heart. A little. 

She’s glad now that she suggested Bob draw something for him so they each had a personal gift to exchange. 

“I hear California’s a perfect place for that,” Mel says, as if she did her own share of orchestrating the night. 

“Very perfect,” Bob agrees happily and so sweetly that Natasha doesn’t have the heart to embarrass him with questions about how or where the night ended. 

They’re all helping to set out breakfast on the table when Maverick arrives with Penny, Amelia, and her boyfriend, Devin, who manages not to cringe at walking into a room full of adults. He hangs back on the edge of the enthusiastic circle Maverick, Penny, and Amelia form around Rooster and then Payback and Mel. 

Maverick shakes everyone’s hands but reserves hugs for her and Jake. “Were you surprised?” he asks her, eyes dancing. 

Natasha wrinkles her nose. “Did everyone know except me?” 

“I can only speak for myself,” he says, patting her on the shoulder, but it’s clear he knows more than he’s letting on. 

“Please eat before the food gets cold!” Jake announces. “Rooster came all this way to wake up early and feed you all.” 

Everyone crowds around, complimenting him on how delicious everything looks while Jake brags about the fruit he sliced and teasingly apologizes for the lack of red, pink, and hearts because we all know how much Phoenix hates Valentine’s Day. Fortunately, Bradley knocks him upside the head and stuffs a piece of bacon in his mouth to shut him up. 

She knows she should share him, but Natasha selfishly enjoys cuddling up under Bradley’s arm on the sofa while they eat. Maverick lounges on the other side of Bradley, peppering him with questions about his deployment and making him wince at a video of Amelia learning to drive his Bronco. Payback fills one of the living room chairs with his long legs stretched out in front of him and Fanboy and Bob squeeze into the other, shyly bumping arms while they eat and trying to pretend that they’re not looking at one another as much as they are. Across the room, Amelia and Devin crowd onto Rooster’s piano bench but are careful to leave some space between them, close to Penny and Mel who sit at a clear corner of the table talking animatedly. Jake bounces around, playing host but also claiming the center of attention. Sometimes he settles at Rooster’s feet, only to bounce up again. The room feels so full, in the best way possible, with their friends who have come from near and far to be together for just a few days. 

Some time after breakfast, Maverick proposes a game of dogfight football. Mel insists on playing even though Payback complains it’s not fair because no one’s going to tackle the pregnant woman. Rather than take her down though, Jake eventually picks her up and runs her and the ball in the opposite direction. 

“How’d you do it?” Natasha asks that night after the house has cleared. Their friends’ presence lingers in the warmth of the air, their chatter echoes in her ears. 

“It was mostly Jake’s idea,” Bradley tells her while she unloads the dishwasher, once again wearing only Jake’s sweatshirt now that it doesn’t matter whether they get distracted. “I just wanted to surprise you and he did the rest.” 

Jake’s making their bed even though she argued they were going to change the sheets tomorrow anyway. 

“What was the rest?” 

Bradley takes a platter from her and reaches over her to put it on the shelf beyond her arm span, pressing their bodies together. “Convincing you to take Valentine’s Day off since you were so adamant about him not being allowed to do anything. We knew Bob was our best bet, but it was Payback’s idea to kill two birds with one stone and suggest that Fanboy make Valentine’s Day plans here.”

He continues to help her put away the dishes. “Jake invited Payback and Mel to come out since he had leave anyway and then invited Maverick. Once you switched shifts, it was smooth sailing from there.” 

“Was Jake upset that I wouldn’t let him plan anything?” 

Bradley looks over at her, surprised. “Well he planned something, didn’t he?” 

“I mean before you knew you were coming home?”

He stacks plates on the counter while he thinks about his answer. “I think he wanted something special, yes. But that’s our dickhead, he likes to put on a show.”

There’s a heavy weight in Natasha’s stomach while they finish cleaning up the kitchen. Jake did so much to make Bradley’s visit special for her and because she’s been so intractable about acknowledging a certain day, he’s had to do it all by himself. 

The only things he got in return were a bunch of threats and worry that even for such a wonderful surprise, she’d be angry with him. Natasha can’t stand Valentine’s Day but she also can’t stand the thought of Jake worrying that one more thing he wants could make everything fall apart. 

Because he and Bradley never bring up the want they agreed not to ask her to give them, if this lasts that long. It’s what led to Jake’s argument with his parents in Texas and why the two of them spent all afternoon hovering over Mel jockeying for the role of favorite uncle. They wouldn’t give Amelia a hard time about dating but, like the dads they wanted to be, they did make a point of pulling her aside within listening distance of Devin to be sure he knew they would know if he didn’t respect her. 

“This is not what I expected to find when it got quiet in here,” Jake drawls as he strolls into the kitchen. He massages Bradley’s shoulders and places a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Or were you two desperately waiting for me?”

“We were just talking,” Bradley says easily. 

Natasha tugs the cuffs of his sweater over her fists. “I’m sorry I made such a big deal about Valentine’s Day, Jake.” 

Jake looks taken aback. His hands drop from Bradley’s shoulder, and he gives him a sharp look. “I don’t mind that you hate it. I mean, yes, people gave me shit for not having plans but that’s their problem, not ours.”

“But we—I didn’t do anything for you .” 

A soft blush spreads across his cheeks, and he takes out his phone. After a few taps, the strum of her ukulele and the notes of Rooster’s piano fill the kitchen. It’s the cover of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” that they recorded for his birthday. “It’s my most played song,” he admits. “Whenever I’m missing one or both of you or sometimes just because.”

Jake teased them for weeks after they sent it to him, so much so that Natasha started to feel embarrassed she’d done something so sappy. Knowing that it means so much to him makes her want to give him the finger for giving them such a hard time and elated that they came up with something he holds onto so dearly. 

Bradley touches her shoulder. “We like that you get more excited about all the small things we do for you every day, that you text your mom to tell her that Jake vacuumed or put your clothes away or that I called right when you needed me.”

“Or that the easiest way to make your day is to iron your uniform,” Jake adds. “You’d think we’d bought you every diamond in the world.” 

Feeling self-conscious, Natasha hugs herself. Their earnest expressions while they try to sooth her without saying the words they know scare her make her heart swell large enough to make her dizzy. Somewhere along the way, maybe while she watched her parents’ marriage fall apart, cliché as that sounds, she stopped believing people mean the things they say about love. Or maybe it was high school when guys wanted to date her until they found out she went to community college for her math and science courses. It was possibly something wrong with her, she thought sometimes, when her college girlfriend broke up with her for refusing to put anyone before her career. All the grand gestures and words could add up to nothing but hollow promises, regrets, distance, and heartbreak. 

She knows that months ago, Jake and Bradley told one another they love each other. Jake, although he pretends not to, needs the affirmation and Bradley doesn’t have many people to say it to him. In all of this, they have made sure to creep along at her own pace. 

It’s not on Valentine’s Day that she feels particularly loved or loving, but in these mundane, normal moments when it occurs to her that Bradley and Jake are the only two people she might not mind giving up space to be on her own for. 

Her heart is in her throat when she realizes what she is about to do. 

Seeing her expression, Jake steps toward her and opens his arms. “Hey, it’s okay, Sash.” 

“I love you,” she blurts. “Both of you, I guess. I love both of you.” 

Bradley chokes. 

“Did you say what I think you did?” Jake asks, mouth hung wide open in disbelief. 

She rushes to get Bradley a glass of water because Jake is too stunned to move or help. Then Jake lets out a whoop and tries to hug her and clap Bradley on the back at the same time, which only leads to her spilling half the water down their shirts while Bradley spirals into a laughing coughing fit. By the time he can breathe again, she’s crushed into the circle of their arms with kisses raining down on her like her plane caught in a hailstorm. 

“I love you, Natasha Elena Trace,” Jake says into her hair. Turning his cheek to the top of her head, he adds, “And you, too, Bradley Nicholas Bradshaw. Just to make it official.”

“I know, Honkytonk. And it feels good to finally hear you say it, Sash,” Bradley admits. “I love you.” 

Jake walks around for the rest of the night like an incandescent light bulb. Every time he looks at her, his face melts into a dopey, dazed smile.

In the morning, they’ll drive Rooster to Point Mugu to meet his CO but Natasha already feels the hole he’ll leave behind when he’s gone. Huddled together on the sofa going through Bradley’s pictures of his deployment in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, they put off going to bed until Jake breaks and kisses Bradley like he’ll lose him forever. Bradley clings to him, and Natasha regrets not spending every moment of his brief leave telling them how much she loves them. 

The playfulness of their lovemaking the night before is gone, replaced with deep longing and a fierce determination to wring everything they can from the time they’ve been granted. Over Bradley’s shoulder, Natasha watches Jake’s composure shatter with ecstasy and grief and her chest explodes knowing that he shows her the many layers he keeps so carefully guarded from everyone else. 

In the darkness, Natasha runs her fingers through Bradley’s waves. Jake sprawls across him, head cradled to his chest. They murmur promises that she can’t resist tying her hopes to until they fall asleep in one another’s arms. 

Everyone comes by again for one final parting in the morning. Payback and Mel promise them they’ll be among the first to know when she goes into labor. Natasha tells a blushing Fanboy that he better treat Bob well or she’ll fly to Virginia herself to set him straight, prompting Fanboy to ask Payback whose side he’s on because he didn’t threaten to do the same thing to Bob for him.   

Once Payback, Mel, Fanboy, and Bob head off to San Francisco, Bradley, Jake, and Natasha have to say their real goodbyes. H e kisses Jake first. “Thanks for making this the best weekend, Honkytonk. Love you.” 

“Love you too, Pecan. Keep giving ‘em hell,” Jake says thickly. He clears his throat as he steps back and busies himself with Bradley’s suitcase. 

“Sash?” Bradley opens his arms to her and she flings herself into them. 

“For the record,” she says hoarsely, trying not to cry, “I still hate Valentine’s Day, but I’m happy you came, Roo.” 

“I love you, sweetheart.” The words envelop her like a hug she’ll be able to carry with her long after the shape of him fades from her arms. 

“I love you back.” He lifts her chin and kisses her, and when he finally pulls away she rises onto her toes to hold him as long as possible. 

“I love hearing you say it.” Bradley kisses her on the forehead. 

Outside, Maverick, Penny, Amelia, and Devin are waiting for them. Maverick drives Natasha’s SUV with Amelia up front so that Natasha, Bradley, and Jake can sit in the backseat together. And even though it’s a squeeze and slightly uncomfortable, the ride still goes by too fast. 

All three of them put on their sunglasses when they climb out of the car at the Mugu airstrip. They give Bradley one last round of hugs before his CO arrives. 

“Didn’t realize you had such an entourage, Rooster,” Captain Brewer calls as he approaches. “Good to see you, Maverick.”

Maverick shakes his hand. “Pacman.” He introduces Penny, Amelia, and Devin. 

Pacman seems unsurprised to see Natasha and Jake there but if he has any thoughts or suspicions, he keeps them to himself. He congratulates Jake on his promotion then gives Bradley five minutes to board. There’s another rush of hugs and then Bradley is hurrying away. 

Jake and Natasha say their goodbyes to Maverick, Penny, Amelia, and Devin and promise to visit when they can get away. Finally, it’s just the two of them waiting against the car until Rooster takes off and the plane climbs beyond their sight.

“Ready?” Jake asks. 

“No,” she admits. It’s weird but as wonderful as it is to see Bradley for a few days, the reminder of what she’s missing aches more now than it has in any of the months since she’d last seen him. At least she still has Jake, she reminds herself. Bradley is all on his own. 

The tears come when she gets behind the wheel, and Jake rubs her back until the sobs fade sniffles. “Here,” he reaches for something on the door and hands her a thin square of red tissue paper. “It’s from Bob,” he protests when she gives him a wet glare. 

It’s a watercolor of the three of them on a sofa. Jake kisses a blushing Bradley’s cheek while reaching for her on one end while an angry Natasha sits with her arms and legs crossed on the other. There are little hearts above the kiss and Natasha’s head. Across the bottom he simply wrote, Valentine’s Day. 

She laughs and shows it to Jake. He takes the painting, holding it carefully as if it’s made of glass. “Will you let me frame this?” 

“Of course,” Natasha agrees, starting the car and adjusting the seat. She looks over at him and her heart double beats at the soft expression on his face while he stares at Bob’s artwork. “It’s a good reminder.” 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Birdy.” 

“Fuck you. No.” 

He grins. “What if I try again next year?” 

“I’ll hate it then too.” 

“Okay. What if I call it the anniversary of you saying I love you. Can I celebrate that ?” 

“I’ll think about it,” she says finally, slowing for a red light. Natasha looks over at him and holds up a finger. “But if–and it’s no guarantee–I say yes, there are no flowers, no hearts, no chocolate, no pink, no red, no diamonds, no candlelight dinners, no couples massages, nothing sappy and stupid and if you ever fucking propose on Valentine’s Day I will say no.” 

He nods brightly, and it’s both annoying and endearing how hard it is to deter him. “You have a whole year to work on your list of don’ts, and I’ll follow every one of them. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” Jake’s mouth turns up in a mischievous grin. “But also, you’ve thought about us proposing?” 

���No!” Natasha shouts, pressing the accelerator a little too hard on the light switching to green. But she has, even if she’s not ready to admit that . “It was–hypothetical.” 

“Okay,” he lets it go and carefully rewraps Bob’s gift. 

Natasha hates Valentine’s Day but for Jake and Bradley, she’d be willing to go through so much worse.

Tag list: @melodiousoblivionao3

Ode to Phoenix Masterlist

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

Let's Rewind! Toast watches Voltron: Defender of The Universe (1984)

Season 1, Episode 8: The Stolen Lion

Training time for the princess! I'm not sure if it's canon or not, but I feel like Lance is the best flyer out of all of them, so it's nice to see that he's the one training Allura up there

Lance talking smack and still getting proved right when Allura can't hit him Why did a smack to blue's forehead send a jolt of electricity to Allura?? She's free-falling right now and that doesn't make sense

Someone else saved Allura this time! He was pretty snarky about it too when the boys finally got to her in that traction beam

Introducing Prince Bokar, I know his story, but it'll be nice to see how it plays out

He's looking for a bride and destiny led him to Allura apparently, but she's not buying it Now she does after he says he'd never hurt her

Lance being sassy again and starting his human lie-detector streak THIS MAN IS TRYING TO GET HIS ADRENALINE ANYWHERE, FLIPPING OFF THE TOP OF RED LION LIKE THAT

"You, up there, come down!" "Alright I'm down, your high and mighty majesty" GET HIM LANCE

Nanny said she wished two young men fought over her, this is probably where the Allurance started I'm an allurance shipper but not for this voltron show so right now I'm only reacting to nanny with heavy judgement

Pidge and Hunk being the only real ones who help Lance, but Keith is just staring down Bokar for being a piece of shit LMAO

Lance making good points about Bokar travelling by himself when a prince wouldn't do that, especially if he was in search for a bride

Apparently Lance knows how a space pirate fights, more angst material for meee

NANNY HAS NO CHILL MY GOD

Pidge learns not to insult the woman that gives him desserts, apparently he likes astrocakes which I like to think are just moonpies with a different name

R E V E N G E

And the reveal that Bokar really is evil His plan is to kidnap Allura and blue for Zarkon, fun Oh and apparently Koba is still watching on Arus and tormenting the mice while he's at it lol

Lance is still on his rampage about Bokar being evil, he's right of course, but man is he volatile

COBRAS IN THE VENT LANCE WAKE THE FUCK UP SINCE WHEN DID LANCE HAVE A KNIFE UNDER HIS MATTRESS

Lance's room number is R110, Keith's is R112, Hunk and Pidge came out of the same room which I assume would be either R111 or R113 I like to think Pidge and Hunk were having a sleep-over holy shit it keeps switching between r110 and r112 for Lance, jfc why does animation do this

MORE COBRAS suddenly the other boys have daggers, I guess they all have em

mmmm they want prince Bokar to pilot blue, obviously it's still early one as the princess agrees that she shouldn't be in blue unless in emergency but still GROSS they haven't tested his combat flight skills, I'm very much a stickler for the rules

This is where lance's sharp shooting skill probably started, he shot at bokars arm but only to hit the cobra under his sleeve which revealed that bokar was indeed the reason why the cobras were in the castle

I don't like that the princess just faints at the sight of a cobra, I know it's a very real fear for people but still that girl has seen nightmares come alive I think she can handle a danger noodle

Alfor ex machina returns again, is alfor part of voltrons spirit?

bokar tries to threaten her to fly blue but she refuses to but keith makes the weird ass call to follow his commands maybe it's to get them out of the water

AND THEN SHE FAINTS AGAIN WHEN SHE SEES HIS ACTUAL COBRA FORM ok this one i kind of understand but goddamn girl get a GRIP

out the open head hatch he goes apparently he can glide with those cobra wings of his

Voltron when we didn't even wake up Allura? I mean I guess she's awake now but maybe make that obvious to the audience guys

Prince bokar is technically listed as a robeast, but it's just his name, he weighs 3960 short tons in his giant form though

suddenly a real lion fades in and roars as voltron is slicing bokar in half? ok i guess

Lance calling Nanny out for being superficial lmao

Allura makes a weird comment about being watched, so she doesn't get taking in by a pretty face and then almost whispers "Unless I want it to happen" girly pop what uh,,, what are you implying here

Episode end! This was a fun one, it's always interesting when the villains stop trying to be obvious and start being smart by sending in spies to get to the team instead

[occult-roommates]

Setting the record bi

After the bombshell that was Daniele’s reveal, Dawud had to call Ralf. Except first he had to go to work. As soon as he made it to the airport, he grabbed his phone, responsabilities be damned. He had worse stuff to worry about.

Meanwhile, Ralf was in a hotel room near the San Myshuno International Airport. He was supposed to go back home in Windenburg the day before, but that flight got cancelled due to dangerous weather conditions and now he’s stuck there for almost another day. Yippee.......

Anyway, as he was doing his absolute best to forget about his boredom, seeing a phonecall from Dawud seemed like good news. Unless Akva is in a crisis again, but he likes her, she’s a nice girl, he wants to protect her so much. All of this to say that innocently, he answered it and oh boy. Maybe he should have just not.

Ralf: Hallo. Dawud: YOU FUCKING MADE OUT WITH DANIELE?! YOU KNOW I WANT TO BE HIS BOYFRIEND WHAT THE FUCK DUDE! Ralf: ...What...

Ralf stood up, in pure confusion, then did like a lot of people do sometime on the phone, which is just walk around. 

Dawud: Yeah, he told me he made out with you while Magdalena watched on Facetime. Ralf: Who the fuck is Magdalena?? Dawud: ...Your wife... Ralf: That is not even remotely close to my wife’s name. Dawud: ...Oh. Ralf: Also, even if he had somehow manage to get my wife’s name out of the millions of female names out there, trust me, he would still be lying. I have no interest in making out with a guy who’s young enough to be my son, no offense. No problem befriending, but making out...no that’s just weird. Especially if my wife is just awkwardly watching us through Facetime...Actually, I think this is my personal definition of Hell, and I’m Jewish, I don’t even believe in Hell. Dawud: Ah um...well...Alright then, sorry for bothering you that early. Have a nice day. Ralf: Thanks, you too.

Dawud hung up, and went to do his job. On one hand, he was relieved to find out Daniele had lied, on the other...why did he felt the need to do so in the first place? Wait...What if Ralf is the one lying uh? In fact, like an idiot, he forgot to ask what his wife’s actual name is! Though in this case he could be lying about what her name is...Aaaah why can’t he tell whether people are being honest or not?! Though really, he’s more inclined to believe Ralf, he gave good enough argument as to why this story is fake, on top of sounding genuinely confused.

As for Ralf, he went back to doing his stuff. However, in spite of Dawud wishing him a nice day, he had a gut feeling he wasn’t going to have one...No, literally, his stomach made a noise you never ever want your stomach to made. Which he really shoudn’t be surprised considering everything that was laying in front of him on a coffee table.

Prev - Next

[reflingthefox]

It's 4 am here. Feb 24th 2023, 4 am.

It's approximately a year since I was sitting awake, grinding the hell outta new Destiny 2 year content, when I heard weird, loud distant sounds. Then, the news broke out about war starting. Then, in less than hour, we were fleeing the city.

(Just in case, I'm not staying this late tonight because of some dumb anniversary. I'm prepping for another Destiny 2 year start. Timings are like this, sometimes.)

In fiction, it would be something something about horrors, obtaining trauma and looking for the ways to heal at this point. Sometimes, real life is like that. But sometimes, real life is dumbfuck, and it's dumbfuck I reminisce.

I think I scared my friends with the news I was fleeing more than I was hurt myself. Even now I feel like my stories hurt people I tell them to more than me. But at the same time, I have a superpower of not feeling how bad I am until it overflows. I mostly reacted to the air raids as "oh, huh", but then when I was left outta game raid event a couple weeks later, I broke down and cried for a day.

I farmed Flight Rising's Trickmurk Circus right in-between hiding in the cellar. It's the game's local holiday, it has so many things I didn't want to miss. When nothing was happening yet but tensions were rising, I even asked Ailinn to farm it wildly in case I go offline those days (so I'll have a place to get my stuff later). I didn't go offline, but I had to hide every so often.

Of course, it had to be called Trickmurk Circus.

Now every english-speaking person I tell this has to google "блядский цирк".

When the news came about some vehicles entering my city and getting lost in there, I wasn't surprised. I lived there all my life, and I know even locals get lost there every so often. The invaders didn't have a chance to beat the architecture clusterfuck.

The news I read consisted mostly of stuff like this for the first month. I guess people do need more dumbfuck in such moments.

Two months later I returned to the city. The people I was staying with were worse than bomb scares.

I started getting therapy. I started getting on track.

I shared at some point how the war felt liberating. Now I didn't have to worry if I'm a failure. "To survive is enough" was country-wide.

I promised myself I'd set up PayPal and do proper comms since it was relevant now. I never did. I struggle to draw unless I'm hyperfocused as hell.

Please make me hyperfocused more.

In the summer, I went to the countryside to meet my aunt and grandma. They relocated there before the war, fearing the city was too electricity-dependent. Then they got sieged. It wasn't probably too nice at that time, but when I got there, I was only greeted by more dumbfuck stories.

Then, half a year later, when I went again to visit for the late Christmas, I learned my cousin died on the frontlines, Jan 1st.

(I loved him. I didn't get enough time. He didn't go for a good reason. If he stayed alive for a month more, he would've returned for good. He helped me become me. I hoped his life gets better after this. It's not fair. Why.)

I'm not celebrating New Year next time.

In the autumn, some attacks managed to damage power infrastructure. We started getting scheduled blackouts - the city tried to preserve energy. Then we started getting sudden infrastructure drops for days straight. Sometimes there was no light, no water, no internet, and no way to learn the scale of stuff until one got to a public safety point.

I managed to download a few things before it got this bad. It was a right call. Nexomon Extinction, you're singlehandedly responsible for me staying sane the whole late autumnand early winter. Thank you so much.

Somewhere on the ride, I met Quotes and I'm so happy it happened. I thought I was not capable of making friends anymore, I tried so much, and kept failing, and drifting away the next day, and now with war in the picture, I wasn't capable to put the energy I was required to put for it to not fall apart. Turns out, it just has to be the right person, and then it clicks and isn't taxing at all.

I'm on my vacation right now. Somehow, between war and Covid and my work being not too mentally straining, I forgot to take my leaves and accumulated three months worth of vacation. So it's a month-long one, this time.

The last day at work, I just broke the fuck down. I think whatever was moving me forward turned off, and I finally felt how tired I am. I needed this rest. I hope I am getting rest.

My plants are dying, and I feel so guilty.

My snail didn't die, and that's both a relief and responsibility.

Time is a blur, and I'm crying again as I'm writing this post.

It's Feb 24th, 2023, and I survived. Please let me keep it on.

[weaselle]

Early human match ups with animals

Wolves: have a very similar social structure and lifestyle as early humans, benefit greatly from group dynamics -- teaming up with humans allows them greater access to food at less risk, safer sleeping, higher pup survival rate, better protection from the environment. One wolf eats about as much food as one person, so it's a normal member to add to the group in terms of resources.

Cats: have some amount of social overlap (cat sisters often help raise each other's kittens, and grouping approaches common in some cat species, notably in lions, but also for example in cheetahs, where brother cheetahs often stay together for life in groups of up to 4). Humans are HUGE prey attractors for them, drawing in rodents in large numbers - also meaning people don't have to give up their own food to feed them. Human housing is safer from the elements, keeps competitors and dangers like snakes and larger cat species away. Associating with humans gains special grooming and healing unavailable to wild species, such as draining and cleaning abscesses caused by infected bug bites or, very importantly, feeding and caring through a major illness or injury. A wild cat with a broken leg will often die, a human's cat with a broken leg will live to hunt again.

Goats (which we actually turned into Sheep): Herd structure similar enough to human social structure as to be compatible. Guaranteed food during winter and other times of scarcity -- and none of it is human food. Higher offspring survival rate, robust protection from predators and the elements. Horses : same. Cows: same. Deer/caribou: same but a little less so, actually surprisingly good at both fight and flight (cows, specialize in fight, horses specialize in flight) often travel more distance for resources so have better access during lean times; can match but less beneficial to the deer.

Other animals be like

Big cats like Tigers: Why the fuck are there so many of you in one place. This cold doesn't bother me at all because i'm so big my core stays warm. Just what do you think i need protection from? I'm super capable of feeding myself, and even if food is scarce? you have to sacrifice enough food to feed several people to keep me fed, which is a bummer for your group if food is scarce, and i cannot eat your stored food like dried fruits and grains. Your lifestyle is incompatible with mine, i hate everything about being forced to live with you and also it doesn't benefit me at all. Lions: yeah, plus I already have all the group dynamic benefits you could offer me, you're actually the weakest link in my group, be careful or we might outnumber you, being near us all the time greatly increases the number of times murderous male lions attack this group

Bears: Listen. Even if i get injured i'll just eat something that doesn't run from me until i heal (some brown bear populations spend a couple months a year mainly eating moth colonies, they will eat anything, including moss and fungus). This makes me a direct competitor for ALL you food, btw. Speaking of which it takes like 15 people's worth of food to keep me fed. If i get angry someone is definitely going to die. Protection? from what? The most dangerous thing to a bear is another bear, so also you can't really have more than a couple of me in any group, and staying near me greatly increases the chance of some territorial wild bear rolling up to camp with murder on their mind. What do you meeeean keep wandering around actively instead of sleeping in one spot for months at a time? My life is literally worse with you than without you, and your life is probably worse with me around too.

Weasels: Fuck off you can't keep up with me i eat half my body weight in food every day and bite everything near me. Try to contain me and see what happens i'm made out of teeth and murder and cleverness, and destruction of property and theft are my favorite games and i'm basically always bored unless i'm hunting or fighting or fucking with something. What do you meeeean hold still for 30 seconds now i'm mad and you'll basically have to kill me to stop me from going after whatever i want forever. I will absolutely try to murder every other animal you associate with no matter what size it is, and i will totally also eat all of your other food too because i love fruits and fungus and anything else you like to eat probably - you can't keep me out of your food stores and what i don't eat in the moment i'll steal and hide in my own stash for later. Excuse me now i have to sleep for 18 hours i do not understand why you want to keep doing things for so much of the day.

Don't ask me about ferrets they must have been bought with rodent hunting opportunities like the cats, total fluke if you ask me (ferrets are, in fact, domesticated, after more than two thousand years of human intervention. And it's kind of weird that it happened but i think they were the exact right size to make it work)

I think it's a common misconception that domesticating animals is somewhat like enslaving them. It really is more of a symbiotic relationship. No wild animal would have willingly put up with early humans if they didn't get something out of it. Wolves wouldn't have stayed with us and become dogs if they weren't getting food and safety out of it. Many large herbivores that are now domesticated could and would have easily trampled their early human captors or broken their enclosures open if they didn't have a reason to stay. Sometimes individual animals still do if we don't give them what they need.

The animals that have stayed with us for thousands of years have evolved to cooperate with us better. Dogs have additional facial muscles around their eyes that wolves lack in order to mimic human facial expressions. Sheep grow their wool perpetually while their wild counterparts don't because a bigger fleece means they're more likely to be allowed to breed and be kept around. Domestic dairy cows produce much more milk than wild bovine species and domestic hens lay more eggs. Do you know how energy costly producing eggs or milk is for an animal? It's pretty intense! They wouldn't be able to do that if we hadn't given them the food and safety from predators and the elements to.

And we really need to show these animals respect and gratitude for what they give us by taking excellent care of them. They gave up a lot to be with us, often including the means to take care of themselves in the wild. That's a huge reason why I'm not against using animal products, but I hate factory farming. They are still living, breathing creatures with needs and feelings. They deserve a comfortable life and, when the time comes, a humane death.

[welcometomyweird]

Something in the Sky

On the subject of cryptids, I have always been and remain agnostic. My attitude is that stories are great and they're fun to hear, but until I see the thing... in the wild... with my own eyes, all these creatures are are stories. Until they walk right up to me from the woods, Bigfoot, Mothman, the chupacabra and all the haints and boogers that go bump in the night are just urban legends. (Wow! I need to take a break from Old Gods of Appalachia.)

Well, my dear strangelings, as fate and Charles Fort would have it, it turns out that I have actually seen a cryptid... or cryptoid? I'll get into the debate in a bit, but there doesn't seem to be any agreement on what category this critter falls into. Due to the uncertainty, there isn't much in the way of good and well researched information. Even the photographic evidence (as you can see above) doesn't give us a whole lot to go on.

So, what is this squiggle in the sky? I was asking myself the same question when I came across it back in the twenty-teens. The name given to it is "sky serpent". Now, while I saw a total of twelve of these things almost a decade ago, I just learned that they're a thing last week.

"Twelve?" Yes, twelve... four groups of three over a period of about twenty minutes. My guess is it was possibly a migration. They were moving in a southern direction over the city of Boston in late summer or early fall. I only saw them because I looked up while stretching a kink out of my neck. Were it not for that... knot... I would have missed them entirely. City people don't look up, especially in Boston. We keep our eyes down and mind our business.

I wasn't the only one who saw them. The one friend who always seems to be with me when weird shit happens was there. Because we were both looking up and watching these things, a few other people looked to see what had us mesmerized, then a few more. Pretty soon, there were a couple dozen people just watching this sky parade.

The photos aren't mine, but they illustrate the problem of getting photos of aerial phenomena. Unless you have professional equipment and you KNOW it's going to be there, photos will always be crappy. Don't believe me? Take a picture of the moon with your phone. Even the "good" ones I have are mostly lens flare.

Having said that, I mentioned the words... THE words at the root of the debate. Are sky serpents creatures or crafts? Ufologists say they're the former and crypto zoologists say they're the latter. (Of course, I would find the critter that defies classification.) Yes, they move through the sky, but they seem to be organic. They move like snakes or eels. I may not know much about UAP, but I haven't seen anything in the historical record describing extraterrestrials getting out of or off of one of these. (Perhaps Mr. Hanks will find something and correct me.)

What I have seen in the scant literature on the topic of "sky serpents" appears to draw comparisons with the traditional depiction of dragons in Chinese and Japanese art. No, I am not saying dragons are real, but if ancient cultures had seen these sky serpents, I can see how that would give rise to myths about dragons. Had my mother been with me, that is precisely what her conclusion would have been.

Biological entity or extraterrestrial craft, my big questions are: Where are they coming from? Where do they go? Why have we not seen one on the ground?

Obviously, I have no answers. No one does because the people who typically study this kind of thing aren't interested. I've only seen them myself the one time. I did see a video in a Facebook group I belong to. One of the members got footage at about 30,000 feet while on a flight... assuming it's not doctored. That's how I became aware that those weird flying whatevers I saw were a known phenomenon.

Has my position on cryptids changed? Nope! Bigfoot is still gonna have to sit down next to me and ask for a cigarette. Mothman is going to have to read my tarot cards. That said, if the pros don't want to invest the time and energy into getting something close to answers about these "sky serpents" then maybe I finally a cryptid to hunt.

[mer-se]

How do you experience panic attacks I wonder if that’s what’s happening to me at night and early in the mornings

Oh boy this is gonna be long.

Cortisol levels are higher in the morning so it’s sort of normal to feel anxious in the morning! If I have something stressful to do and i’m up early for it I can’t even eat I’ll like gag. But I also have generalized anxiety and other craziness as well. I don’t have panic the same way I once did. Everyone experiences them differently! Some people cry and literally freak out, some are just quiet. Panic attacks are usually random and from pent up unresolved anxiety. Someone who didn’t know me well probably wouldn’t know I was having an issue aside from getting shaky. Mostly because I’m deeply self aware to my own detriment and will never make a scene or make myself look a mess so I internalize everything. I don’t like medical things and have had a lot of that recently and internally am stressed but on the outside it looks like I’m chillen, like unless you really know me you wouldn’t know fully, that’s probably why I’m not always babied by strangers (which is great for me) I don’t want that and it makes it worse. I do well actually in stressful situations/environments and on my own in them at times because without a source of familiar comfort it makes me flip a switch in my brain to look/be brave as fuck, because what I’m not gonna do is embarrass myself ever and I can pull a good poker face. Growing up I went through a lot alone and I can go back to that place and deal with a lot and rely on lil ol me to get through it, but gonna need all the comfort after. It’ll just take a lot out of me physically after. Mine have gotten so much better and it’s more rare now. I mostly just get extremely nauseous and feel like I’m probably going to die immediately, and it’s random like I can be washing dishes and get a wave of doom wash over me and internally am like running from a bear in the woods but standing at my sink. When I use to get them bad a couple years ago I’d get them at night and would have to lay down and like sweat it out basically, lasted for hours back then. It’s just your fight or flight response misfiring, but it literally feels horrible and I wouldn’t wish the feeling on anyone, takes a lot out of you, like ur body is reacting to danger and there’s a lot of physical symptoms, and that dread ooof gurl. I can cope wayy better with it now but you never can get use to the initial feeling. If you’re going through this I promise it’ll get better, in 2019 I took cold medicine and got really drunk and ended up in the er from what was like a bad reaction/medicine induced panic attack it was terrible, after that I was having them like daily for months. Was a nightmare, because I didn’t know what was happening it took a long time but I climbed out of it and I very rarely have them now and if I do I can get it together. I had a mild one at work this past winter randomly and just paced around and felt like throwing up but didn’t, and made it through and still did my work. I actually went and took the trash out to the dumpsters in the dark (cold air helps). I don’t let it like devastate my life anymore and that’s kind of key, not giving it so much power. They don’t scare me as much now so I can get over it faster and now they don’t happen as much. Anxiety feeds off anxiety. It’s just your body trying to protect you unfortunately it’s bad timing and feels not good. A misfire. I take way better care of myself now. I take magnesium (glycinate or taurate) for my anxiety and it help me a lot, also walking and doing cardio helps. You’ll come out of it promise, it just takes time.

[op81s]

okay.

Halloween, to Alex, has always seemed like a largely nonsensical holiday. Maybe because he’d never been allowed to celebrate it much in the first place ... “Dressing up” as a kid had been largely limited to what he could make on his own out of discarded scraps of cardboard and tinfoil. He’d been a battery one year, a traffic light the next, and both times he had come home with a meager supply of candy and been made to count it out so he could learn to ration it appropriately.

okay. starting off good i see 🙃 *starts crying thinking about baby rossi having to make his own halloween costumes and counting his candy*

Alex is old enough now to buy his own candy, keeps his house stocked with sugary snacks  ferreted away in the cabinets for when a sweet tooth inevitably hits. He doesn’t need to don a cheaply made costume and hunt the streets for it, wouldn’t be allowed to at his grown age anyway.

alex canonically having his own candy stash is very iconic/sweet af.

why does it sound like alex absolutely WOULD don a cheaply made costume and hunt the streets for it if society hadn't decided adults aren't allowed to have fun?

The house that had prompted the conversation, already decked out with ghosts and fake skeletons littering the yard, was left behind them. Alex’s house didn’t have any decorations yet, because it was only the end of August, and he wasn’t insane. He’d put them out closer to October, and even then they’d be sparse.

okay i LOVELOVELOVE halloween but i gotta agree with alex here. AUGUST??????????? that's a bit too early even for me.

They were always shocked to learn Thanksgiving was the holiday he preferred, namely for the labor of it. The cooking, the preparation, the order to how it all proceeded, he preferred that to the chaos of a night founded on sheer unpredictability and secrets happening in the dark. Trick or treat, and Alex was never in control of which he was going to get. At least with Thanksgiving he knew there would always be three things: turkey, football, and a fight between family members who hadn’t seen each other in a year to keep things interesting. Dependability, predictability, that’s what Alex preferred, and Halloween had little.

It made sense for Pato though, who lived for chaos in all its forms. Last minute flights booked hastily as an afterthought, cars bought because he desired the rush of a new toy, money spent on a whim, while Alex watched him swipe his card with an increasing sense of dread. He couldn’t act on impulse the way Pato did, wasn’t made for it, unless he was solidly sat behind the wheel of a racecar – then it was all impulse, drilled into him from a young age, his senses hammered into reliability.

i love how different pato and alex are as people.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. once again being reminded how young these drivers are when they start their careers 😔 please stop doing this to literal children 💔

Alex wasn’t sure if Pato’s family liked him very much, was less sure after he indirectly cut into their vacation time with him.

😭🔪💔😔

“I bet I could make you like Halloween,” he says, smirking, nearly tripping over Norbi when the dog pauses in his straight-line pace to double back and jump at Alex, twisting the leash across Pato’s legs in the process. He leans down to pet the corgi, and then Brunner because the doodle doesn’t like to share his toys, let alone Alex – the impacts of being an only child. “I doubt it,” he says, scratching behind Brunner’s ears, and then Norbi’s, stuck in a cycle because the dogs seem to be fighting for his affection. Pato scoffs, “I’m very good at making people like things.” “Making people like you, you mean.”

i know i'm supposed to be focused on pato being all suggestive about how he could CONVINCE 👀 alex to like halloween but i'm distracted by brunner being an only dog child and the dogs fighting for alex's attention 💖💖💖😭💖

“Sure. Give it a go, O’Ward,” he challenges, already sure that this is an area where Pato will fail. Alex does not like Halloween, he never will. He doubts Pato O’Ward will change that.

oh. if only you knew alex. pato will ROCK your world 😌

Alex watches the time tick by on his watch, sponsor provided, and always just on the side of too expensive for his taste. James’ house is only ten minutes down the road, max, but Alex hates being late. Even if everyone will be too drunk to notice them arriving past the stated invite time, and even though James has assured him it’s fine, he cannot help but to feel his agitation grow. Schedules are important to Alex, he lives his life by him, and late to James’ party means out later than he intended, means up late for his workout tomorrow. Like a domino effect, he can see his perfectly coordinated calendar falling with each second that passes.

the characterization? perfection. (also i love the shoutout to his tag heuer sponsorship 😅👀)

His one concession had been that he wouldn’t wear a costume, no more than the velvet black bunny ears Pato had slid on his head before he darted his way up the stairs.

bunny ears alex. BUNNY ears ALEX. bunny EARS alex. BUNNY EARS ALEX.

........................................................................................

i am so Normal™ about this

His footsteps are distinct, accompanied by the eager tapping of Norbi’s nails on the wood. They both needed a trim, he and Brunner both, Alex should add the groomers to his list of Sunday chores.

okay but the domesticity of alex taking norbi to the groomer along with brunner? 'cause of course he would. they BOTH need a trim. so why wouldn't he take pato's dog as well as his own? 💖😭

“Dude-“ he starts, complaint about the tardiness stuck in his throat when he twists around on the couch and sees Pato standing at the foot of the stairs. Any words he may have been forming leave, get lost somewhere between his mouth and the line of sight his eyes have taken. “Yes?” Pato asks, voice lilting in the teasing way that Alex is used to hearing in the bedroom – rarely in the open space of his foyer where Pato is leaning casually against the banister of the staircase.

alex literally being struck speechless. ALEX. being struck speechless. how many times do we think that's happened?

Alex stares him, at the substantial amount of exposed skin that his presence has brought. Broad shoulders, the wide expanse of his chest, all just barely covered by the black strapless bodysuit he wears.

👀👀👀👀😏👀

“Are you-,” he starts to ask before the words catch in his throat all over again. Because yes, Pato is wearing makeup. Alex doesn’t even need to ask the question, he can see the eyeliner applied around Pato’s eyes, smokey and a little messy. It’s not much, confined to his eyes and the gloss that’s shining wetly on his lips, but it’s enough to make Alex choke a little on the breath stuck in his throat. “What the fuck?” He manages to get out. Pato grins, Cheshire wide, “You like it?” Alex is not usually lost for words, not of his own volition. Normally, his lack of speech comes from choice, never from the ability being shocked out of him.

mwhahahahahahhaha. alex literally being stunned SPEECHLESS by pato in a playboy bunny suit is the greatest thing ever actually 😏😌

As if to tease him further, Pato bounces up on his tiptoes, turns to the side so Alex can just barely catch the sight of the white puff ball that’s meant to be a tail affixed to the bodysuit just above his ass. His thighs are as much on display as his chest, just as firm and solid as the rest of his body. Alex knows the feel of them beneath his hands, is used to grabbing Pato and sliding him down the bed, used to lifting one of them up to rest on his shoulder. He is not used to having to look at so much of Pato when they are not in equal amounts of undress.

hot.

“Fuck,” Alex breathes. This close he can see how messy Pato’s makeup really is, applied with an amateur’s hand, but somehow hotter for it. Alex used to hide a playboy magazine under his bed, stolen from his friend’s house and tucked between the box spring and mattress. He knows the look Pato was going for and finds that it’s exceedingly better in person – more than it had ever been on those sticky pages. Pato’s smile widens, “Maybe later. C’mon Rossi, we’re gonna be late. Remember?” The fucking tease.

alex having a playboy magazine 😭

pato is going to have SUCH a fun night 😌 alex? hmmmm. not so much. or at least. not 3/4ths of it.

The ride to James’ house is exceedingly tense. Alex grips the steering wheel so tight he’s half afraid the leather will be molded with the shape of his fingers when he finally removes them. His eyes don’t leave the road, so locked in that it’s like he’s doing 220 on an oval. The suburban roads of Carmel don’t require this level of attention, not with their 15 mph average speed limit, but Alex is afraid that if he looks away for even a moment that he will end up in someone’s mailbox. Pato’s spread thighs in his passengers seat are an open invitation, one that Alex would normally accept. He’s used to keeping one hand on the wheel, the other on Pato’s leg, but never when Pato’s exposed this much. The feel of Pato’s warm skin against his palm, no clothing to act as a barrier between them, it would send him into a tailspin.

hahahahhahahahhahahahha. oh. alex. you're so fucked 😌

It would have him parking the Silverado in someone’s driveway and fucking Pato in the truck bed, Hinchcliffe Halloween party be damned.

oh. do go on. 👀

“I’m going to kill you,” Alex grits out through clenched teeth when Pato shifts, props one foot up on the seat and exposes the muscle of his inner thigh. He’s taken off his shoes, black Nike’s that clash with his whole ensemble, because as much as he’s trying to push Alex he knows better than to dirty up the freshly detailed interior of his truck.

might legit be my favorite line so far 😭

“Is it turning you on this much?” Pato asks, sounding genuinely surprised, genuinely thrilled at the realization that his costume is doing more damage than he had originally thought it would.

pato being surprised with his own hotness is iconic actually.

“Don’t forget your ears,” Pato commands when they park, climbing down out of the truck and casting Alex one last look over his shoulder before he’s bounding up to James’ front door. The white of his bunny tail stands out starkly against the black of the bodysuit, calls attention to his ass in a way that has Alex biting back a groan. He’s not going to survive the night. Becky is going to find him fucking Pato in a closet, hand held over the man’s mouth to muffle any noise. If this is Pato playing with Alex’s self-control, Alex is sure he’s about to find the limits of it. ... God help him.

.......................................polycule? 👀

i'm not sure god will be of any help here alex.

The Hinchcliffe Home for Wayward Drivers

*ugly sobbing*

Pato does not share his need to stay cool, perfectly content to find himself in the middle of the dance floor, where he was practically grinding on Becky Hinchcliffe, dressed in a matching playboy bunny get up. Alex hadn’t been aware he was agreeing to a double couples themed costume when Pato had slid the bunny ears on his head, not until he’d seen James wearing a duplicate pair.

i repeat.........................................................................polycule? 👀

He didn’t justify Conor with an answer, too busy staring at the way Pato’s ass was half hanging out of his costume, the way the top had slipped down his chest with movement and sweat. Fucking indecent.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Becky’s got a hand on Pato’s hip, Pato’s got an arm around her neck, he’s leaned close enough to her that there’s no space for anything to get between them. Their twin bunny ears are getting tangled together.

I. REPEAT. POLYCULE ?

James had offered the guest bedroom for them to crash in, but Alex was craving the comfort of his own bed, keeping himself sober so he didn’t have to fuck Pato in the room right down the hall from James and Becky. He’d already spent half a year muffling moans into the pillow when he lived with them, sleeping in that exact bed, jerking off and feeling guilty every time he came. It was one of the motivators to finding his own place, the shame of having to wash his sheets while Becky watched him load the washer from the kitchen becoming too much.

...................................i know a way to solve that problem. *sits alex down* see. there's this thing called poly-

Pato, in the brief glimpses of him that Alex catches through the throng of people surrounding him, looks sinfully good. He looks like all the parts of Halloween that his parents warned him about, something sent to tempt him away from the light. Alex finds himself wanting to be lead, doesn’t care where it lands him. He suddenly understands why his childhood experiences of Halloween had been largely confined to the one block of houses he was allowed to trick-or-treat at. He understands the strict curfew he was given, his dad trailing him as he walked to each doorway and held out his plastic shopping bag to be filled with candy. Of course they wanted him indoors and in bed before the night took a turn, and by the time he was old enough to sneak out of the house, he never once considered it. By then he was being homeschooled, little in the way of friends, or invites to parties. If this was what he was missing, Alex understands why his parents had fought so hard to hide it from him.

again. i know i'm supposed to focus on the whole 'pato is hot as fucking sin' but i'm getting stuck on the whole alex's childhood sucked part 💔😔

Pato turns, one hand held above his head as he waves it along to the music, the other trailing a line down his body, from his chest to his stomach, pausing when he catches sight of Alex staring at him. He smiles, wide, teasing. The bunny ears have gone lopsided on his head, tilting toward the left and making him look messier than he already did. Alex is thinking about later tonight, picturing how he’s going to lay Pato out beneath him and strip him slowly, if he manages to hold onto his willpower for that long. He thinks he’s going to tell him to keep the ears on, likes the image of them sliding from Pato’s head with the force Alex is going to fuck him later.

😳😳😳😳😳😳😳

Alex is sat in the backyard, lounging on the couch that has been moved from the living room to the covered patio. He’s discussing the merits of pool ownership with James, the upkeep and the cost of it all.

of. fucking. course. he. is.

James hasn’t removed his bunny ears yet, wears them like he’s trying to guilt Alex into putting his back on – of the four of them, Alex is the only one who’s ditched the ensemble. He’s been asked five times already what his costume was meant to be, James replying for him, ‘Buzzkill,’ while Alex not so subtlety flicked him off.

james. my beloved. 💖

Alex normally prefers the chill, would be perfectly content in his jacket in the October air.

#relatable

Pato’s lips against the shell of his ear, his teeth nipping at the cartilage, are unexpected. Alex chokes on his words. “Please, Rossi.” “Fuck,” Alex grunts out, knows James hears him, because the man’s eyebrow arches obviously. He grins, slyly, like he’s getting anything on Alex here. Alex would be mortified, if it were anyone but James witnessing this. They’ve seen each other naked, shared a bed on nights that James didn’t have his own bus at a track, nights when the couch wasn’t cutting it. He’s woken up with his morning wood pressed against the curve of James’ ass. Neither one of them spoke of it, but he’s witnessed Alex in far more humiliating situations than this.

.....................................................................................go on 👀 (also love pato fucking torturing rossi 😭)

Pato leans back, gives him enough space to breathe in air that isn’t heavy with the heat of him. His eyes go to the top of Alex’s head. “Your ears,” he states, frowning slightly. His lips have been wiped clear of the gloss, lips only wet with his own spit when he licks across them. The costume ears are the least of his concerns. He’s so hard in his jeans it aches, he can feel James staring at him, see other people around the party beginning to notice Pato’s half-dressed state and how he’s deposited himself in Alex’s lap. The attention only grows when Pato slides the ears off of his own head, and then hooks them over the back of Alex’s ears. Alex can feel that they’re lopsided, feel himself growing red when Pato adjusts them with fumbling hands. He maintains eye contact the whole time, lips slightly parted, tongue poking out between his teeth. They’re both flushed, Alex from the contact, Pato from the dancefloor. The red of Pato’s cheeks bleeds down his neck, to his chest, Alex follows the spreading expanse of it. When he looks back up Pato is still staring at him, eyes gone dark in the dim lighting from string lights James has strung along the roof of the patio. “They look good on you,” Pato says, genuine, not teasing in the way most people have tonight.

i love them.

“Elba helped me do it,” Pato says, like he can tell that’s what Alex’s attention is most caught on. “That’s why I took so long. The facetime call kept going out. My stupid hands were too shaky.” Alex finds that hard to believe. Pato is known for a lot of things, unsteady fingers is not one of them – so sure on the wheel when he executes a perfect save.

alex's complete belief in pato's talent as a racing driver hidden in this playboy bunny fic? truly the cherry on top 😌

“It looks dumb-“ “No it doesn’t,” Alex interjects, quick. It’s messy and chaotic, and it’s not perfect, but that’s exactly why Alex likes it. He would never have had to confidence to wear the outfit Pato was, to sport the makeup he did, to dance the way he had. He’s too pent up, too aware of his own body and his own thoughts and never able to get out of his own head. He envies Pato’s ability to act on impulse sometimes. Putting on makeup for the first time just because he’s trying to impress Alex, because he wants to try something new for the simple pleasure of it. Alex could never have been half as bold as he was tonight. He won’t let Pato begin to doubt himself now. “It’s hot, I promise. So hot, baby.”

this 'pwp' is making me very emotional cass 😭

“You ready to get out of here?” he asks, when they manage to break apart for breath. Pato nods where they’re foreheads are pressed together, looking at Alex through heavy lashes and with lips bitten red. “Please,” he begs, like he’s been waiting for Alex to suggest the idea.

forehead touching. my weak spot.

Alex gets him spread out on the bed easy enough, Pato’s danced himself into a state of borderline exhaustion. He doesn’t protest when Alex picks him up in the foyer, just wraps his legs around Alex’s waist, lets Alex press him against the wall of the entryway and kiss him senseless. Alex’s arms strain under the weight of him, he figures he’ll count it as part of his workout for the week. If his trainer asks why he’s so sore, he’ll say he was doing reps with the weights in his garage.

person a picking up person b and person b wrapping their legs around person a's waist? my other weak spot.

There’s a moment, before he lays Pato out on the bed, when he’s still carrying him up the stairs and to the bedroom, where he half thinks about how dirty their sheets are about to get. He adds laundry to his list of Sunday chores.

i would truly love to see alex's sunday chores list.

take the dogs to the groomer.

do laundry ('cause we had so much sex our sheets should be considered bio-hazard).

tend the roses.

The grip Pato’s kept on the back of his neck has gone desperate, fingernails just starting to scratch at the sensitive skin. Alex arches into the touch. “I need-“ Pato pants, in the brief moments where they break apart. He’s been thrusting up against Alex with a desperation that’s rapidly approaching frantic. He’s quickly silenced by Alex’s reply of, “I know.” Before he’s leaning back in, slipping his tongue into Pato’s mouth to keep him quiet. He uses one hand to pin Pato’s hips to the mattress, makes sure there’s no chance of him gaining the relief he’s so desperately seeking. It’s a bit like payback, revenge for the knifes edge that Pato’s kept him on all night.

oh. revenge is a dish best served hot apparently. 👀

Pato is still waiting for him when he gets back to the room, propped up on one elbow. The position accentuates the line of his body, draws attention to his exposed thighs. The top of the costume has given up on trying to stay up, has rolled down beneath his chest. Pato’s made no move to fix it. He’s looking at Alex with eyes shining in the lamplight, pupils dark and wanting. Alex figures two can play at this game, makes a show of working his way back up the bed. His hand traces the line of Pato’s leg, mouth following behind it. When he reaches Pato’s thigh he bites at it, just to feel the way Pato jumps beneath him. The feel of the bodysuit is like liquid, cheap costume silk that slides against his fingers when he follows the seam up Pato’s side, kissing along his hip, just below the exposed skin of his pectoral, making his way back up to Pato’s shoulder. Pato’s breath hitches with each ghost of warm breath along exposed skin, each touch that Alex gives him. By the time Alex gets to the line of his neck, licking along the sweat-sharp skin, Pato’s gone. Alex takes one look at him, slightly parted lips and heavy-lidded eyes, and knows he’s slipped into that space that Alex is always aiming to take him. The brown of his iris is a barely there ring, almost completely swallowed by dilated black. “You’re gonna keep these on,” he tells the man, slides the bunny ears back onto his head with careful fingers. Pato leans into the contact, the feel of Alex’s fingers tangling with his hair, and then nods. “Don’t let them come off.” “Uh-huh.” “Good boy.”

hothothothothothothothothothothothotho-

He leans down, until his lips are just barely brushing along Pato’s jaw, up to his ear. “I’m gonna rip the damn thing off of you,” he promises. Pato’s breath hitches, Alex can feel the stutter of it against his hand.

+

Contrary to his promise, he doesn’t rip the costume off. It’s cheap, would give easy under his hands if he wanted to, but the force of it isn’t what Alex wants right now. Pato’s been so good to him, did all this for him, he plans to show him how appreciative he is of that. He’s careful when he slides it from Pato’s body, works it down over his hips, his thighs, and then tosses it off the side of the bed.

this fic be making me feel all the emotions 😭😏💖👀

Pato, fully naked, spread out beneath him, flushes. All confidence and easy bravado until he’s got the full attention of Alex studying every inch of him, and then it falters. Alex knows he’s prone to bouts of self-consciousness where his body is concerned, lingering remnants of childhood insecurity making itself known when he’s got nothing to hide behind. Alex strips off his shirt, throws it in the same general direction he did Pato’s bodysuit, unbuttons his jeans and kicks those off too, tries to level the playing field so Pato doesn’t start to feel so insecure. He also makes sure Pato knows how good he looks, praises him just to see the way the blush spreading across his cheeks deepens.

alex getting undressed so pato would feel less insecure? stab me.

His hand on the back of Alex’s head tenses, like he’s trying to grab for hair that’s not there, being met with rough stubble. Sometimes Alex regrets not trying to let his hair grow out, thinks he would like the pinpricks of pain he would feel if Pato was able to pull at it.

known masochist alexander michael rossi being turned on at the thought of pain? no. say it ain't so 😱

“You can’t- I’m gonna-,” Pato tries, thrusts up on instinct so his cock sinks further into Alex’s waiting mouth. “Please, I don’t want to-.” Alex pulls off, gives Pato the reprieve he’d been searching for. So maybe they’d been toying with each other for too long, maybe Pato was more gone than he might have originally thought. “Breathe, baby,” he soothes, sits back on his heels and gives Pato a second to collect his senses. He keeps one hand on his thigh, closer to his knee than to his dick. “Don’t wanna come,” Pato cries, “not yet.” “Okay, you’re okay.”

communication? during sex? *chef's kiss*

Next year Alex thinks he should add the collar and arm cuffs to the ensemble, the black bowtie would look good resting against the hollow of his throat.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

His eyeliner is smeared further, nearly gone, just faint lingering remnants of kohl at the corners of his eyes. He’ll need to make sure that gets cleaned away before they fall asleep, figures Pato won’t be thinking about it once Alex is done with him. At least that’s Alex’s goal.

alex would make sure you don't go to sleep with makeup on.

The lube in the nightstand is nearly gone, another thing to add to his list for tomorrow, but there’s enough for tonight.

okay. now i also need to see alex's shopping list.

groceries

gold fish

lube

jelly bellies

“Keep these on, remember,” he says, flicks at the bent ear of one of the bunny ears while Pato nods beneath him. He’s quick to adjust them, pull them back down on his head while Alex smiles approvingly.

favefavefavefavefavefavefav- i just really loved this part okay.

With his other hand he’s been warming the lube, making sure it’s not cold when he coats a finger in it and slides into Pato. “Ah,” Pato cries out, hand grabbing at Alex’s bicep where he’s propped above him. His grip is tight, just like the rest of him. “Easy, Pato,” Alex soothes. He waits until Pato opens his clenched shut eyes, until he breathes and some of the tension leaves his body. Because as hard as he is in his boxers, he’s got no intention of rushing Pato into anything. “Okay?” He asks. “Okay.”

alex being considerate 😌💖 you are correct for this cass.

Alex has his forehead resting against Pato’s shoulder, can feel Pato’s arms snaked around him, fingers scratching lightly at his shoulder blades. He hopes Pato leaves marks, hopes they’re still there come morning, hopes when he slides his t-shirt on that he’ll feel the sting of them. The first time he did, he’d spent half the morning apologizing, until eventually Alex admitted to liking it. It made him feel owned, wanted, needed – he’d asked Pato to dig deeper next time. In return, Pato had told him the hickey he’d left on his neck was welcome. Alex made sure he always left them where the collar of his fireproofs would hide them.

of course alex would love pato leaving marks. it combines his two favorite things: pain + knowledge someone wants him.

His fingers scratch deeper at Alex’s shoulder blades in retaliation. Alex hisses, feels the pain go through him like molten heat.  “Do that again,” he commands, setting a steady rhythm fucking into Pato while he obeys. The strangled noise that escapes Pato when Alex nails his prostate is loud, enough that Alex finds himself muffling the rest of Pato’s cries with a kiss that swallows it down. Pato lets him slide his tongue into his mouth, commit the taste of him to memory. When he pulls away Pato’s lips are slick with spit, drool dripping down his cheek and trailing down onto the pillow. There are tears just barely beading at the corners of his eyes, when they spill they track a line through the lingering eyeliner. Alex wipes them away with a trembling pad of his thumb, leans down to kiss another. Pato nods against his unspoken question of ‘are you okay?’ Alex feels the motion against his lips, kisses Pato’s temple in response.

i love them. i love this. i love you for writing it.

“Good boy,” he commends, just to hear the way Pato keens at the praise. “Close,” Pato whimpers. Alex can tell, can feel it. He thrusts back into Pato and feels Pato clench around him in response, feels his fingers as they skitter desperately across his back. It’s Alex’s permission that tips him over. “Come, baby. I got you.” Alex wraps a hand around his cock, strokes him the way he knows he likes, swiping his thumb over the head and twisting on the downstroke. Pato comes with a cry, a shudder running through him. Alex holds him through the whole thing, whispers praises in his ear as he spills across his stomach. He follows along right after, feeling Pato tighten around him, and the tightening of his stomach, just barely managing to pull out before he’s coming and adding to the mess on Pato’s abdomen.

hothothothothothothothothothothothotho-

“I love you,” he says again, because it’s easy to do so, surprisingly so. The confession is not one that’s ever come to him easy, wasn’t something he ever thought would. But Pato’s still got the bunny ears just barely clinging to his head, lopsided and resting fully on the pillow, but still where Alex placed them.

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

His arm was in Pato’s lap, the man tracing Alex’s tattoo, nail following the pattern of the ink on his forearm. “What?” “Halloween. Did you like it?” Pato asks again, reaching the end of the pulse line and tracing back up the design until he reaches the pink heart resting along Alex’s vein.

being obsessed with alex's tattoos <- pato 🤝 me

He’s wearing one of Alex’s shirts, some faded thing advertising a local brewery, it’s what Alex had managed to slip him into after cleaning him off last night.

ALEX TAKING CARE OF PATO. DEVASTATING. (+plus pato wearing alex's clothes 👀💖)

Alex hates when his system is thrown off, when the structure he’s so carefully put into place slips, which is maybe why Pato’s tracing figure eights around his tattoo trying to keep him calm. It’s working, surprisingly. He’s warm, comfortable where his head is resting against Pato’s thigh. “That okay?” Pato asks. Alex thinks it through, figures most of the areas he was meant to be working on today he’d done a pretty good job of working last night. “Yeah, it’s fine,” he amends, curls closer to Pato. He’s so warm, heat roiling off of him in waves, and Alex would normally hate it. But from Pato, it’s a comfort, it’s like a blanket. Pato keeps tracing figures around his tattoo, following the line of his vein, the repetition is lulling him back into the sleep he’d just clawed his way out of. He doesn’t fight it. “You didn’t answer my question,” Pato says, when Alex is on the brink of unconsciousness, when opening his eyes takes monumental effort, so he just keeps them closed. “Mhmm?” he says. Pato huffs out a laugh, goes back to tracing a nail along the pulse line of the tattoo. “Halloween. Did I make you like it?” Alex is already slipping into sleep when the answer falls from him like water, “You could make me like anything.”

this entire section. STAAAAAAAAAB ME. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Make Me Like Anything

Summary: Alex doesn't like Halloween, Pato is determined to change his mind. AKA: playboy bunny Palex

Dedicated to @raapija, because without Mari giving me a deadline this might never have seen the light of day.

Warnings: NSFW, this was meant to be PWP, it just spiraled away from me.

AO3 Link

Halloween, to Alex, has always seemed like a largely nonsensical holiday. Maybe because he’d never been allowed to celebrate it much in the first place – not to the extent that he found most people did, once he was old enough to move away from home and gain a new perspective. “Dressing up” as a kid had been largely limited to what he could make on his own out of discarded scraps of cardboard and tinfoil. He’d been a battery one year, a traffic light the next, and both times he had come home with a meager supply of candy and been made to count it out so he could learn to ration it appropriately.

Alex is old enough now to buy his own candy, keeps his house stocked with sugary snacks  ferreted away in the cabinets for when a sweet tooth inevitably hits. He doesn’t need to don a cheaply made costume and hunt the streets for it, wouldn’t be allowed to at his grown age anyway. And most of the adult activities associated with the holiday aren’t activities he much likes engaging in. Parties, loud and dark and filled with people whose faces are hidden behind macabre masks, are not really his scene. Alex isn’t big on horror, wasn’t allowed to watch the genre for most of his life, and he hardly likes being crammed into a room full of people when their faces aren’t dripping fake blood.

The problem is, like with a lot of things in their relationship, Pato holds an exact opposite opinion.

“What do you mean you don’t like Halloween?” the man had asked, when summer was beginning to tip into fall. The leaves on the trees had just begun to curl in on themselves from the slight chill that had crept its way into Indiana.

Alex, wearing a hoodie, hands stuffed in the pocket, had walked beside Pato as they made their way through his neighborhood. Pato had taken the dogs’ leashes, Brunner and Norbi pulling eagerly, because Pato never gave them the command to stop. He was stumbling along behind them in a rush to keep up. Alex, long legs and long stride, did not face this same problem.

“I just don’t like it,” he had shrugged.

The house that had prompted the conversation, already decked out with ghosts and fake skeletons littering the yard, was left behind them. Alex’s house didn’t have any decorations yet, because it was only the end of August, and he wasn’t insane. He’d put them out closer to October, and even then they’d be sparse.

“But it’s Halloween,” Pato pressed.

“And?”  

“What do you mean ‘and’? It should be exactly your thing, Rossi.”

“What? Because of my cheery personality and lovely disposition?”

He’d been told this before, by friends and family alike, that because the dark holiday matched his mood it should be one he loved. They were always shocked to learn Thanksgiving was the holiday he preferred, namely for the labor of it. The cooking, the preparation, the order to how it all proceeded, he preferred that to the chaos of a night founded on sheer unpredictability and secrets happening in the dark. Trick or treat, and Alex was never in control of which he was going to get. At least with Thanksgiving he knew there would always be three things: turkey, football, and a fight between family members who hadn’t seen each other in a year to keep things interesting. Dependability, predictability, that’s what Alex preferred, and Halloween had little.

It made sense for Pato though, who lived for chaos in all its forms. Last minute flights booked hastily as an afterthought, cars bought because he desired the rush of a new toy, money spent on a whim, while Alex watched him swipe his card with an increasing sense of dread. He couldn’t act on impulse the way Pato did, wasn’t made for it, unless he was solidly sat behind the wheel of a racecar – then it was all impulse, drilled into him from a young age, his senses hammered into reliability.

Even this, Pato here in a brief break between races, had been planned last minute. One second Pato was complaining on Facetime about how much he missed Alex, the next he was boarding a flight to Indiana. Alex wasn’t sure if Pato’s family liked him very much, was less sure after he indirectly cut into their vacation time with him.

Pato bumps into him, a not so subtle jab for his attention.

“I bet I could make you like Halloween,” he says, smirking, nearly tripping over Norbi when the dog pauses in his straight-line pace to double back and jump at Alex, twisting the leash across Pato’s legs in the process.

He leans down to pet the corgi, and then Brunner because the doodle doesn’t like to share his toys, let alone Alex – the impacts of being an only child.

“I doubt it,” he says, scratching behind Brunner’s ears, and then Norbi’s, stuck in a cycle because the dogs seem to be fighting for his affection.

Pato scoffs, “I’m very good at making people like things.”

“Making people like you, you mean.” Sponsors, fans, Alex – Pato draws them all in with an effortless magnetism. Not his dog though, Norbi is hardly paying him a bit of mind.  

The mock affront that Pato puts on is cute, all open mouth and raised eyebrows, the scoff he lets out is comical, “No. I mean, yes. But I’m a good salesman! I sell things all the time!”

“Yeah, your Electrolit sales are through the roof.”

“Exactly-!”

“The Mission tortillas are flying off the shelves. Because you pitch them so well, of course.”

“Rossi!” Pato’s voice goes all high-pitched when he’s indignant, Alex likes getting him to this point, because he gets defensive in a way he rarely is. He smiles to himself, hides it when he ducks his head to pet Brunner, kneeling on the concrete to better reach the dog. His shirt is going to be covered in dog hair, the corgi’s more than Brunner’s, because Norbi keeps jumping up on him in an endlessly energetic ball of fluff.

“Whatever,” Pato pouts, “I mean it though. Halloween with me will be fun.”

Alex likes that Pato is already anticipating being with him for the pseudo-holiday, likes that he doesn’t ask, but instead has inserted himself into Alex’s life with all the ease of a wrecking ball. The presumption of it doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it usually would, because Pato has a way of smoothing over the more brunt elements of his personality with a syrupy sweet grin and a laugh that makes it so that Alex forgets why he was rankled in the first place.

“Sure. Give it a go, O’Ward,” he challenges, already sure that this is an area where Pato will fail. Alex does not like Halloween, he never will. He doubts Pato O’Ward will change that.

-------------

 They are late.

Alex watches the time tick by on his watch, sponsor provided, and always just on the side of too expensive for his taste. James’ house is only ten minutes down the road, max, but Alex hates being late. Even if everyone will be too drunk to notice them arriving past the stated invite time, and even though James has assured him it’s fine, he cannot help but to feel his agitation grow. Schedules are important to Alex, he lives his life by him, and late to James’ party means out later than he intended, means up late for his workout tomorrow. Like a domino effect, he can see his perfectly coordinated calendar falling with each second that passes.

 All for a Halloween event he hardly wanted to attend. His one concession had been that he wouldn’t wear a costume, no more than the velvet black bunny ears Pato had slid on his head before he darted his way up the stairs. Alex had pulled them off immediately, had them resting in his lap where he was picking at the fabric with anxious fingers, his other hand tangled in the coarse fur of Brunner, who was snoring on the couch beside him.

The news was playing on mute on the tv, weatherman rambling about the projected first bit of snowfall heading their way. Alex watched him gesture at the projected clouds on the screen behind him, focusing on the way the guy pointed with energetic poise, trying to distract himself from the increasing tapping of his foot on the carpeted floor.        

Eventually, the anxiety won out.

“Pato!” he calls, leaning back on the couch to shout up the stairs. Pato had locked himself in the master bathroom, kicked Alex out in the process, told him he would be ready in a few minutes. That had been a little over an hour ago. “What are you doing, sewing the damn costume?!”

Pato’s reply is distant, muffled by the space and the closed doors between them.

“One second!” “You’re out of seconds!”

“Almost done!”

“We’re late!”

The argument was a well-trodden one by this point. Alex could almost play it on a loop in his head. Their perception of time differed, in that Pato had none, not outside of a car anyway. To him, late to a party was on time, to Alex it was enough to have tension building in his gut. He kept waiting for a text from James, despite knowing it wouldn’t come, because the start time was a suggestion, but Alex had wanted to adhere to it anyway.

His grip on the bunny ears was tight enough that he could feel the plastic of the headband creaking in his grip, threatening to snap. For a moment he considered it, figured it might just get him out of the night altogether. It was the shuffle of noise upstairs that eased some of the building frustration within him, the opening of the bedroom door and Pato’s footsteps on the stairs that helped him release the breath he’d been holding.

His footsteps are distinct, accompanied by the eager tapping of Norbi’s nails on the wood. They both needed a trim, he and Brunner both, Alex should add the groomers to his list of Sunday chores.

“Dude-“ he starts, complaint about the tardiness stuck in his throat when he twists around on the couch and sees Pato standing at the foot of the stairs. Any words he may have been forming leave, get lost somewhere between his mouth and the line of sight his eyes have taken.

“Yes?” Pato asks, voice lilting in the teasing way that Alex is used to hearing in the bedroom – rarely in the open space of his foyer where Pato is leaning casually against the banister of the staircase.

Alex stares him, at the substantial amount of exposed skin that his presence has brought. Broad shoulders, the wide expanse of his chest, all just barely covered by the black strapless bodysuit he wears. Alex’s ‘costume’ a t-shirt and jeans accessorized by the bunny ears Pato is making him wear, suddenly feels comically pathetic – more so than it already was.

“Are you-,” he starts to ask before the words catch in his throat all over again. Because yes, Pato is wearing makeup. Alex doesn’t even need to ask the question, he can see the eyeliner applied around Pato’s eyes, smokey and a little messy. It’s not much, confined to his eyes and the gloss that’s shining wetly on his lips, but it’s enough to make Alex choke a little on the breath stuck in his throat.

“What the fuck?” He manages to get out.

Pato grins, Cheshire wide, “You like it?”

Alex is not usually lost for words, not of his own volition. Normally, his lack of speech comes from choice, never from the ability being shocked out of him.

“It’s good, right?”

As if to tease him further, Pato bounces up on his tiptoes, turns to the side so Alex can just barely catch the sight of the white puff ball that’s meant to be a tail affixed to the bodysuit just above his ass. His thighs are as much on display as his chest, just as firm and solid as the rest of his body. Alex knows the feel of them beneath his hands, is used to grabbing Pato and sliding him down the bed, used to lifting one of them up to rest on his shoulder. He is not used to having to look at so much of Pato when they are not in equal amounts of undress.

“You’re-,” again the words refuse to come, again he swallows.

Halloween costumes are not meant to be this, Alex doesn’t know much about the holiday, but he does know this. Masked killers and comedic plays-on-words, that’s what guys are meant to dress as. James in a hot dog costume comes to mind. Pato is not in a hot dog costume, he’s barely in a costume. He’s barely in clothes. He’s in a one piece bathing suit with a fucking bunny tail.

“You okay, Rossi?” Pato asks, with all the air of someone who knows Alex is very distinctly not okay. He comes up to the back of the couch, leans over it so he’s inches away from where Alex is twisted around to face him. A strand of his hair falls free from where he’s pushed it back, curls over his forehead. Alex wants to pull it, wants to wrap an arm around the back of Pato’s neck and pull the man down onto the couch. Hinchcliffe party be damned.

“Earth to Alex,” he sing-songs.

“Fuck,” Alex breathes. This close he can see how messy Pato’s makeup really is, applied with an amateur’s hand, but somehow hotter for it. Alex used to hide a playboy magazine under his bed, stolen from his friend’s house and tucked between the box spring and mattress. He knows the look Pato was going for and finds that it’s exceedingly better in person – more than it had ever been on those sticky pages.

Pato’s smile widens, “Maybe later. C’mon Rossi, we’re gonna be late. Remember?”

The fucking tease.

------------

The ride to James’ house is exceedingly tense. Alex grips the steering wheel so tight he’s half afraid the leather will be molded with the shape of his fingers when he finally removes them. His eyes don’t leave the road, so locked in that it’s like he’s doing 220 on an oval. The suburban roads of Carmel don’t require this level of attention, not with their 15 mph average speed limit, but Alex is afraid that if he looks away for even a moment that he will end up in someone’s mailbox.

Pato’s spread thighs in his passengers seat are an open invitation, one that Alex would normally accept. He’s used to keeping one hand on the wheel, the other on Pato’s leg, but never when Pato’s exposed this much. The feel of Pato’s warm skin against his palm, no clothing to act as a barrier between them, it would send him into a tailspin.

It would have him parking the Silverado in someone’s driveway and fucking Pato in the truck bed, Hinchcliffe Halloween party be damned.

“I’m going to kill you,” Alex grits out through clenched teeth when Pato shifts, props one foot up on the seat and exposes the muscle of his inner thigh. He’s taken off his shoes, black Nike’s that clash with his whole ensemble, because as much as he’s trying to push Alex he knows better than to dirty up the freshly detailed interior of his truck.

Pato, playing at innocence, looks up from where he’d been scrolling through his phone. The dim light of the screen illuminates his face in the dark of the cab, casts shadows across the makeup, catches on the shine of his lip gloss.

“What?” He asks, while Alex casts him a sideways glance and clenches his jaw tighter.

“You know what,” he growls, grip on the wheel going white knuckled.

“Is it turning you on this much?” Pato asks, sounding genuinely surprised, genuinely thrilled at the realization that his costume is doing more damage than he had originally thought it would.

Alex slams to a stop at a stop sign so hard that they both lurch forward with the force. He takes a second to breathe, tries to clear his head of Pato on his knees, looking at him, eyelids smeared black with eyeliner. It takes him a significant bit of time.

“Baby-“ Pato starts.

“Don’t.” Alex warns, the pet name going straight to his cock that’s already half-hard in his jeans and aching with the pressure.

He counts to ten, breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, like he’s employing the tactics used to deflect an anxiety attack. He can feel Pato’s smug satisfaction, it’s rolling off of him in waves, seen in the smirk he catches when he glances back at Pato one last time before gunning it down the last stretch of street to James’ place. It’s late enough that all the trick-or-treaters have wrapped up for the night, confined by bedtimes and age, so he doesn’t have to worry about hitting anyone.

“Don’t forget your ears,” Pato commands when they park, climbing down out of the truck and casting Alex one last look over his shoulder before he’s bounding up to James’ front door. The white of his bunny tail stands out starkly against the black of the bodysuit, calls attention to his ass in a way that has Alex biting back a groan.

He’s not going to survive the night. Becky is going to find him fucking Pato in a closet, hand held over the man’s mouth to muffle any noise. If this is Pato playing with Alex’s self-control, Alex is sure he’s about to find the limits of it.

He forces himself to let go of the steering wheel, flexes his hands a few times to ease out the lingering tension. His shirt is sticking uncomfortably to the undersides of his arms with sweat, clothes feeling too tight already.

God help him.

-----------

“Your boyfriend looks good, man!” Conor yells to be heard over the speaker they’re stood beside.

James has hired a DJ, had the guy bring in professional equipment for his house party that spills from the living room out onto the back lawn. The Hinchcliffe Home for Wayward Drivers is commonly full, but never to levels that Alex can feel the heat of everyone crammed together. He’s steered clear of the crush of bodies on the makeshift dance floor that occupies where James’ couch once was, content to nurse his beer on the outskirts where pockets of AC can still be found. Pato does not share his need to stay cool, perfectly content to find himself in the middle of the dance floor, where he was practically grinding on Becky Hinchcliffe, dressed in a matching playboy bunny get up. Alex hadn’t been aware he was agreeing to a double couples themed costume when Pato had slid the bunny ears on his head, not until he’d seen James wearing a duplicate pair.

“What the hell, man?” He’d asked, feeling betrayed at not being told, still accepting the Bud Light the man offered him, before being ushered into the house.

He lost the bunny ears around the same time he lost James, now stood in his t-shirt and jeans with his arms crossed over his chest and tried not to make his staring obvious. He was failing.

Conor told him as much when he said, “You gonna get in there?” He nudged Alex with an elbow.

Alex shoved him back with a press of his arm against Conor’s side, sending him stumbling away. He didn’t justify Conor with an answer, too busy staring at the way Pato’s ass was half hanging out of his costume, the way the top had slipped down his chest with movement and sweat. Fucking indecent.

“It’s a good look for him,” Conor presses. It’s what he’s good at, especially when he’s drunk and the last smidge of a filter he possesses on a good day falls away. Alex can normally tune him out, finds it hard where Pato is concerned. He’s a lot like Brunner, he’s not good with sharing. Watching Pato grind on his best friend’s wife is sending waves of jealously through him. He has nowhere to direct it, other than at Conor in his zombie make-up, with his mixed drink spilling tendrils of smoke down his arm from the dried ice in the concoction. James had hired a bartender too, because he was anything but unprepared when it came to a party and a good time. 

“Surprised he didn’t dress you up like Hefner.”

“Shut up, man,” He snipes, rolling his eyes and grinding his teeth in a way he knows is going to make his jaw ache. Becky’s got a hand on Pato’s hip, Pato’s got an arm around her neck, he’s leaned close enough to her that there’s no space for anything to get between them. Their twin bunny ears are getting tangled together.

“Touchy,” Conor says, holding his hands up in surrender, drink sloshing in the clear party cup and spilling in a sticky tendril down his arm. “You know, if you want him that bad, you could probably just go dance with him.”

The heat of all those bodies alone is enough to keep him far-removed from the dance floor, the fact that he’d have to be nearly in the center of it to reach Pato is another. He likes his corner by the speaker, half stood in the fake cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. At least from here he can keep an eye on the front door and Pato, monitor the exit and his increasingly inebriated boyfriend.

But he can’t explain his anxiety about large gatherings to Conor so instead he settles for, “Fuck off.”

Conor does not. He’s never been a very good listener.

“I’m just saying, if you want to get grinded on by your boyfriend it’s not going to happen over here.”

Alex thinks about shoving him again, settles for glaring at him with all the aggravation he can muster. His grip on the bunny ears clenched in his fist goes tighter. They were giving him a headache, or maybe the music was, or the way he couldn’t seem to clear the tension from his jaw. Pato’s plan to make him love Halloween had started off strong but was falling apart with each bad remix the DJ attempted. He’d already heard Michael Jackson’s Thriller two times in the twenty minutes he’d been standing here. Pato had danced to it both times, not the actual dance, he and Becky were too drunk for any sort of coordinated choreography.

Alex is on his second beer, hardly feels the buzz of it. James had offered the guest bedroom for them to crash in, but Alex was craving the comfort of his own bed, keeping himself sober so he didn’t have to fuck Pato in the room right down the hall from James and Becky. He’d already spent half a year muffling moans into the pillow when he lived with them, sleeping in that exact bed, jerking off and feeling guilty every time he came. It was one of the motivators to finding his own place, the shame of having to wash his sheets while Becky watched him load the washer from the kitchen becoming too much.

He takes another swig from his drink, watches Pato tilt his head back to laugh, how it exposes the long column of his neck in the strobing lights James has hung from the ceiling – or that the DJ’s hung, fuck it if Alex knows. Purple and green lighting catching on the sweat coating Pato’s skin, the slick expanse of his chest. Alex’s mouth goes dry, his dick twitches uncomfortably in his jeans.

“Jesus, he’s really got you whipped, huh?” Conor says.  

Alex tunes him out, doesn’t care how intensely he’s staring or that he’s been caught at it. Pato, in the brief glimpses of him that Alex catches through the throng of people surrounding him, looks sinfully good. He looks like all the parts of Halloween that his parents warned him about, something sent to tempt him away from the light. Alex finds himself wanting to be lead, doesn’t care where it lands him.

He suddenly understands why his childhood experiences of Halloween had been largely confined to the one block of houses he was allowed to trick-or-treat at. He understands the strict curfew he was given, his dad trailing him as he walked to each doorway and held out his plastic shopping bag to be filled with candy. Of course they wanted him indoors and in bed before the night took a turn, and by the time he was old enough to sneak out of the house, he never once considered it. By then he was being homeschooled, little in the way of friends, or invites to parties. If this was what he was missing, Alex understands why his parents had fought so hard to hide it from him.

Pato turns, one hand held above his head as he waves it along to the music, the other trailing a line down his body, from his chest to his stomach, pausing when he catches sight of Alex staring at him. He smiles, wide, teasing. The bunny ears have gone lopsided on his head, tilting toward the left and making him look messier than he already did. Alex is thinking about later tonight, picturing how he’s going to lay Pato out beneath him and strip him slowly, if he manages to hold onto his willpower for that long.

He thinks he’s going to tell him to keep the ears on, likes the image of them sliding from Pato’s head with the force Alex is going to fuck him later.

-----------

It’s nearing one by the time Pato tires himself out dancing.

Alex is sat in the backyard, lounging on the couch that has been moved from the living room to the covered patio. He’s discussing the merits of pool ownership with James, the upkeep and the cost of it all, when Pato makes an appearance. He gets the brush of a hand along his shoulder as a warning before Pato is coming around to the front of the couch and depositing himself in Alex’s lap. He’s heavier than he looks, more muscle than anything else. Alex grunts under the weight of him.

“Jesus, Pato,” he grumbles, just barely managing to pass his beer to James, who takes it without question, finishes it off as he eyes Alex over the top of the can. James hasn’t removed his bunny ears yet, wears them like he’s trying to guilt Alex into putting his back on – of the four of them, Alex is the only one who’s ditched the ensemble. He’s been asked five times already what his costume was meant to be, James replying for him, ‘Buzzkill,’ while Alex not so subtlety flicked him off.

Pato’s lips ghost along his neck where he nuzzles up against him, breath warm and smelling distinctly of alcohol. He’s sweat most of it out though. His speech is clear when he whines, “Want you to fuck me,” quiet enough that only Alex hears it.

Alex coughs, shifts in his seat, regrets it when the movement shifts Pato’s weight In his lap. Pato’s arms are slung around his neck, fingers inching their way beneath the collar of his shirt. The feel of his nails barely there, just a light brush against his chilled skin, faint scratches along the top notch of his spine. Pato runs hot, and while Alex normally prefers the chill, would be perfectly content in his jacket in the October air, the heat roiling off of him in waves is welcome.

The look James keeps shooting him is less so.

“Pato-,” he starts, tries to shift again. His hands go for Pato’s hips, plans to hoist the man off of him going out the window when Pato grinds down on him. “Pato-“

Pato’s lips against the shell of his ear, his teeth nipping at the cartilage, are unexpected. Alex chokes on his words.

“Please, Rossi.”

“Fuck,” Alex grunts out, knows James hears him, because the man’s eyebrow arches obviously. He grins, slyly, like he’s getting anything on Alex here. Alex would be mortified, if it were anyone but James witnessing this. They’ve seen each other naked, shared a bed on nights that James didn’t have his own bus at a track, nights when the couch wasn’t cutting it. He’s woken up with his morning wood pressed against the curve of James’ ass. Neither one of them spoke of it, but he’s witnessed Alex in far more humiliating situations than this. Doesn’t mean he wants James to watch as Pato teases him in his backyard in a playboy bunny costume. Some things he doesn’t want to share with the man, Pato being one of them.

“Babe-“ he tries again, muffling a moan with his teeth digging into his bottom lip when Pato grinds on him again. His jeans are too tight, Pato’s weight on top of him too much. And there’s so much skin, Pato’s whole chest basically exposed by the costume that’s slid further down, his thighs that he’s got bracketed on either side of Alex. Alex’s hands stay on his hips because the feel of the costume’s fabric is the only thing keeping him sane.

Pato leans back, gives him enough space to breathe in air that isn’t heavy with the heat of him. His eyes go to the top of Alex’s head.

“Your ears,” he states, frowning slightly. His lips have been wiped clear of the gloss, lips only wet with his own spit when he licks across them.

The costume ears are the least of his concerns. He’s so hard in his jeans it aches, he can feel James staring at him, see other people around the party beginning to notice Pato’s half-dressed state and how he’s deposited himself in Alex’s lap. The attention only grows when Pato slides the ears off of his own head, and then hooks them over the back of Alex’s ears. Alex can feel that they’re lopsided, feel himself growing red when Pato adjusts them with fumbling hands. He maintains eye contact the whole time, lips slightly parted, tongue poking out between his teeth. They’re both flushed, Alex from the contact, Pato from the dancefloor. The red of Pato’s cheeks bleeds down his neck, to his chest, Alex follows the spreading expanse of it. When he looks back up Pato is still staring at him, eyes gone dark in the dim lighting from string lights James has strung along the roof of the patio.

“They look good on you,” Pato says, genuine, not teasing in the way most people have tonight.

Alex can’t help but grumble, “They look stupid.”

“It’s Halloween, baby. Everyone looks stupid.”

‘Not you,’ Alex thinks, doesn’t voice it, because he doesn’t want to stroke Pato’s ego right now – not when he’s got a lapful of him and Pato’s already proven he doesn’t mind the attention tonight. Besides, he’s too busy studying a curl of Pato’s hair where it’s fallen across his forehead and stuck with sweat. Too busy resisting the urge to reach his hand up and brush it away, trail his thumb along the messy eyeliner that’s gone from the corner of Pato’s eye to his temple, smear it further.

“Elba helped me do it,” Pato says, like he can tell that’s what Alex’s attention is most caught on. “That’s why I took so long. The facetime call kept going out. My stupid hands were too shaky.”

Alex finds that hard to believe. Pato is known for a lot of things, unsteady fingers is not one of them – so sure on the wheel when he executes a perfect save.

“It looks dumb-“

“No it doesn’t,” Alex interjects, quick. It’s messy and chaotic, and it’s not perfect, but that’s exactly why Alex likes it. He would never have had to confidence to wear the outfit Pato was, to sport the makeup he did, to dance the way he had. He’s too pent up, too aware of his own body and his own thoughts and never able to get out of his own head. He envies Pato’s ability to act on impulse sometimes. Putting on makeup for the first time just because he’s trying to impress Alex, because he wants to try something new for the simple pleasure of it. Alex could never have been half as bold as he was tonight. He won’t let Pato begin to doubt himself now.

“It’s hot, I promise. So hot, baby.”

His hand on Pato’s hip tightens, a brief squeeze, before he’s bringing it up to rest on the back of Pato’s neck and pulling the man down to kiss him. Despite the lip gloss being gone, Alex can still taste faint traces of it, sticky sweet and mixing with the lingering remnants of tequila when he licks into Pato’s mouth.

Pato moans against him, hands resting against Alex’s chest and fisting around the fabric of his t-shirt. It’s damp with sweat, with the beer Alex had spilled on it when he’d been speaking emphatically about the proper chemical balance of a pool to James earlier – James who had made himself scarce. Alex could feel the difference in weight in the couch beside him, knew his friend wasn’t there anymore. He’d apologize to him tomorrow, for practically dry humping Pato on his couch during what was meant to be a mature Halloween party. Tonight, he didn’t care about niceties.

“You ready to get out of here?” he asks, when they manage to break apart for breath.

Pato nods where they’re foreheads are pressed together, looking at Alex through heavy lashes and with lips bitten red.

“Please,” he begs, like he’s been waiting for Alex to suggest the idea.

Alex is going to show him just how much the makeup, the costume, Pato’s easy confidence has been driving him crazy.

------------

Alex gets him spread out on the bed easy enough, Pato’s danced himself into a state of borderline exhaustion. He doesn’t protest when Alex picks him up in the foyer, just wraps his legs around Alex’s waist, lets Alex press him against the wall of the entryway and kiss him senseless. Alex’s arms strain under the weight of him, he figures he’ll count it as part of his workout for the week. If his trainer asks why he’s so sore, he’ll say he was doing reps with the weights in his garage.

There’s a moment, before he lays Pato out on the bed, when he’s still carrying him up the stairs and to the bedroom, where he half thinks about how dirty their sheets are about to get. He adds laundry to his list of Sunday chores. And then he drops Pato onto the mattress.

Pato bounces, reaches for Alex, pulls him down with his fingers looped through his beltloops in the same movement he lays back on the sheets. Alex goes, easy and pliant and oh so eager. He’s been holding out all night, letting Pato tease him and toy with him, thinking about all the ways he was going to take him apart in retaliation. Pato’s got a glint in his eye, the barest hint of a smirk, that tells Alex that was his exact intent.

Pato’s been putting on a show with the sole purpose of entertaining Alex, gone to lengths to ensure Alex knew that. He says as much when he’s got his head propped up on the pillows, one hand raised to rest on the back of Alex’s neck, fingers ghosting featherlight along the stubble short hair at the base of his skull. It’s a sensitive spot for Alex, sends a shudder down his spine. Pato knows this too, it’s exactly why he’s doing it.

“Did you like my costume?” he teases.

Alex has one hand resting on the mattress, propping himself above Pato, the other tracing the exposed line of his collarbone up to the hollow of his throat, feeling Pato’s heartbeat skip a beat when he cups his palm around his neck. If this is a night of playing with one another, Alex won’t be left out. He knows Pato likes the warm weight of a hand around his throat, the threat of oxygen being lost without it ever being fulfilled.

He leans down, until his lips are just barely brushing along Pato’s jaw, up to his ear.

“I’m gonna rip the damn thing off of you,” he promises.

Pato’s breath hitches, Alex can feel the stutter of it against his hand.

He swallows the gasp Pato lets out when he leans down to kiss him. It’s not the gentle kiss they share on easy mornings, as soft and easy as the sun peeking through the blinds. It’s the crushingly violent kiss of two men who have been toying with something the whole night, walking the fine line between decency and fucking in the bathroom for the quick thrill of it.

Alex bites Pato’s bottom lip, nips at it enough that Pato keens and twist beneath him. And then licks at the chapped skin with a quick swipe of his tongue. He takes the last lingering bits of the lip gloss with him, tastes the makeup when it mixes with his and Pato’s spit.

The grip Pato’s kept on the back of his neck has gone desperate, fingernails just starting to scratch at the sensitive skin. Alex arches into the touch.

“I need-“ Pato pants, in the brief moments where they break apart. He’s been thrusting up against Alex with a desperation that’s rapidly approaching frantic.

He’s quickly silenced by Alex’s reply of, “I know.” Before he’s leaning back in, slipping his tongue into Pato’s mouth to keep him quiet. He uses one hand to pin Pato’s hips to the mattress, makes sure there’s no chance of him gaining the relief he’s so desperately seeking. It’s a bit like payback, revenge for the knifes edge that Pato’s kept him on all night.

“Rossi,” Pato begs, sounds so pretty as he’s doing it.

Alex bites at his lip again, and then commands, “Wait.”

Pato is obedient, doesn’t chase Alex when he pulls away. The bunny ears had fallen somewhere in their journey from downstairs to here, put back on Pato’s head when they left the party and slipped off from the force of Alex slamming him up against the wall. He finds them in the hall, counts it as a small blessing that Brunner and Norbi have stayed sleeping downstairs and hadn’t gotten to them yet.

Pato is still waiting for him when he gets back to the room, propped up on one elbow. The position accentuates the line of his body, draws attention to his exposed thighs. The top of the costume has given up on trying to stay up, has rolled down beneath his chest. Pato’s made no move to fix it. He’s looking at Alex with eyes shining in the lamplight, pupils dark and wanting.

Alex figures two can play at this game, makes a show of working his way back up the bed. His hand traces the line of Pato’s leg, mouth following behind it. When he reaches Pato’s thigh he bites at it, just to feel the way Pato jumps beneath him. The feel of the bodysuit is like liquid, cheap costume silk that slides against his fingers when he follows the seam up Pato’s side, kissing along his hip, just below the exposed skin of his pectoral, making his way back up to Pato’s shoulder.

Pato’s breath hitches with each ghost of warm breath along exposed skin, each touch that Alex gives him. By the time Alex gets to the line of his neck, licking along the sweat-sharp skin, Pato’s gone. Alex takes one look at him, slightly parted lips and heavy-lidded eyes, and knows he’s slipped into that space that Alex is always aiming to take him. The brown of his iris is a barely there ring, almost completely swallowed by dilated black.

“You’re gonna keep these on,” he tells the man, slides the bunny ears back onto his head with careful fingers. Pato leans into the contact, the feel of Alex’s fingers tangling with his hair, and then nods. “Don’t let them come off.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good boy.”

Pato whines, Alex silences the sound with another kiss.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he promises, “Gonna take care of you.”

Contrary to his promise, he doesn’t rip the costume off. It’s cheap, would give easy under his hands if he wanted to, but the force of it isn’t what Alex wants right now. Pato’s been so good to him, did all this for him, he plans to show him how appreciative he is of that. He’s careful when he slides it from Pato’s body, works it down over his hips, his thighs, and then tosses it off the side of the bed.

Pato, fully naked, spread out beneath him, flushes. All confidence and easy bravado until he’s got the full attention of Alex studying every inch of him, and then it falters. Alex knows he’s prone to bouts of self-consciousness where his body is concerned, lingering remnants of childhood insecurity making itself known when he’s got nothing to hide behind.

Alex strips off his shirt, throws it in the same general direction he did Pato’s bodysuit, unbuttons his jeans and kicks those off too, tries to level the playing field so Pato doesn’t start to feel so insecure. He also makes sure Pato knows how good he looks, praises him just to see the way the blush spreading across his cheeks deepens.

“You know how insane you’ve been making me?” he asks, leans down to nose along Pato’s jaw, suck at the warm skin of his neck, pressing a kiss to the mole that sits just above his collarbone.

Pato shudders beneath him, “Sorry.”

“No you’re not.” Alex corrects him, both of them knowing that getting him to this point had been the whole intention of the night.

“No, I’m not.”

Alex keeps working his way down, kisses at another mole dotting the right side of his chest. Pauses only to hold Pato down where he’s started rolling his hips up again, and to speak so that his breath ghosts warm over Pato’s skin.

“I wanted to fuck you on that dancefloor,” he admits, just to hear the way Pato’s breath catches in his throat. “Wanted to rip that damn costume off you and fuck you right there. Show everyone who you belong to.”

Pato’s hand comes up where it had been fisted in the fabric of the comforter, grabs desperately at the back of Alex’s head, like he’s trying to ground himself. Alex kisses just below his sternum, works his way down the line of Pato’s abs, looks up at the man as he does so. Pato’s looking down at him, chest rising and falling with each half-panted breath he draws in through lips Alex has bitten red.

“You could have,” he says, around a groan when Alex licks at his v-line, just barely avoiding his cock that’s hard and twitching against his stomach, “Fucked me, there. I would have let you.”

“I know, but then everyone would know what you sound like moaning my name,” Alex shrugs, looks at Pato as he takes the base of his cock in his hand, “Didn’t feel like sharing that.”

“Alex,” Pato keens when Alex wraps his lips around the head of his cock, licks at the precum beading there. His hand on the back of Alex’s head tenses, like he’s trying to grab for hair that’s not there, being met with rough stubble. Sometimes Alex regrets not trying to let his hair grow out, thinks he would like the pinpricks of pain he would feel if Pato was able to pull at it.

“You can’t- I’m gonna-,” Pato tries, thrusts up on instinct so his cock sinks further into Alex’s waiting mouth. “Please, I don’t want to-.”

Alex pulls off, gives Pato the reprieve he’d been searching for. So maybe they’d been toying with each other for too long, maybe Pato was more gone than he might have originally thought.

“Breathe, baby,” he soothes, sits back on his heels and gives Pato a second to collect his senses. He keeps one hand on his thigh, closer to his knee than to his dick.

“Don’t wanna come,” Pato cries, “not yet.”

“Okay, you’re okay.”

Pato’s young enough, could probably go again if Alex got him off now, but that would require giving him enough time to recover. It’s close to three in the morning, Alex has been exhausted, powering through on the sheer need to sink his cock inside Pato and feel him around him. But at some point the exhaustion is going to win out for both of them.

“Think you can take my fingers?” he asks, which is the wrong thing to say if the way Pato groans is any inclination, cock twitching against his stomach, hard and red and leaking and looking oh so pretty. Alex didn’t think a dick could look pretty, figures it probably wouldn’t if he wasn’t so horny, but Pato’s is – just like the rest of him.

“Yes,” Pato finally pants out, arm thrown over his eyes, jaw tense, “Yeah, just, quickly, please.”

The bunny ears are sliding down his head, resting more on the pillow than they are on him, but Alex still commits the sight to memory. The black of the silk against the white of the pillowcase, the red of Pato’s cheeks when he pulls his arm away and meets Alex’s gaze. Next year Alex thinks he should add the collar and arm cuffs to the ensemble, the black bowtie would look good resting against the hollow of his throat. His eyeliner is smeared further, nearly gone, just faint lingering remnants of kohl at the corners of his eyes.

He’ll need to make sure that gets cleaned away before they fall asleep, figures Pato won’t be thinking about it once Alex is done with him. At least that’s Alex’s goal.

Careful, he leans over Pato. The lube in the nightstand is nearly gone, another thing to add to his list for tomorrow, but there’s enough for tonight. Pato watches him as he grabs it, looks at the line of his arm, follows up until he’s looking at Alex again. Alex leans down long enough to give him a quick kiss, just to taste him, just because he can.

“Keep these on, remember,” he says, flicks at the bent ear of one of the bunny ears while Pato nods beneath him. He’s quick to adjust them, pull them back down on his head while Alex smiles approvingly.

With his other hand he’s been warming the lube, making sure it’s not cold when he coats a finger in it and slides into Pato.

“Ah,” Pato cries out, hand grabbing at Alex’s bicep where he’s propped above him. His grip is tight, just like the rest of him.

“Easy, Pato,” Alex soothes. He waits until Pato opens his clenched shut eyes, until he breathes and some of the tension leaves his body. Because as hard as he is in his boxers, he’s got no intention of rushing Pato into anything.

“Okay?” He asks.

“Okay.”

It’s been a minute since they’ve done this. Pato having only just flown in for Halloween, coming in late last night, so there hadn’t been much time for anything other than a messy hand job in the shower. Pato coming with his head thrown back against Alex’s chest, while Alex categorized the image away into his growing mental folder of expressions he liked on Pato. He’d already added a few more tonight.

Alex pulls his finger out, slides it back in, repeats the motion until Pato’s grip on his arm loosens.

“Second, add a second,” Pato urges, thrusts down like he’s trying to encourage Alex.

Alex complies, slides a second finger in beside his first, works his way up to a third. Eventually the tension in Pato’s expression fades. It’s replaced with the open-mouthed pleasure of someone who’s single thought is on getting off. He’s practically riding Alex’s fingers, moans spilling from him as he arches his back off the mattress. The ears slip back down his head, he doesn’t even seem to notice.

Alex lets him enjoy himself for a minute, content to watch the way he slips further and further into his own pleasure. He manages to slide his boxers off with his free hand, push them below his ass so they end up wrapped around his knees. His own cock his just as hard and leaking as Pato’s when it springs free and rests against his stomach. He’d been so caught up in Pato’s pleasure that he’d been ignoring his own, until the cool air touched his dick and he realized he needed this just as bad.

“Baby,” he chokes out, hand wrapping around the base of his cock, fighting the urge to stroke.

Pato’s eyes blink open slowly at the endearment, find Alex looking at him with pure want and need and barely held-back lust. He whines at the sight of Alex’s dick.

“Can I-?”         

“Yes.”

Alex slides his fingers free, lines his dick up with Pato’s hole. Distantly he remembers he was meant to be teasing the man, getting back at him for fucking with him the whole night, but the thought quickly leaves his mind when he slides inside Pato. Any logical thought of the night is quickly replaced by the feeling of Pato’s fingers clutching desperately at his shoulders, trying to drag him down and closer. The pinprick feel of his fingernails digging into Alex’s skin, it’s what he’s been searching for the whole night, grounding and all consuming.

He falls forward and Pato catches him.

“Fuck,” he pants out, once he’s fully inside Pato, enveloped by the warm, tight, heat of him. “Jesus. Fuck.”

“You can move,” Pato says, “Please, move.”

Alex has his forehead resting against Pato’s shoulder, can feel Pato’s arms snaked around him, fingers scratching lightly at his shoulder blades. He hopes Pato leaves marks, hopes they’re still there come morning, hopes when he slides his t-shirt on that he’ll feel the sting of them. The first time he did, he’d spent half the morning apologizing, until eventually Alex admitted to liking it. It made him feel owned, wanted, needed – he’d asked Pato to dig deeper next time. In return, Pato had told him the hickey he’d left on his neck was welcome. Alex made sure he always left them where the collar of his fireproofs would hide them.

Now, Pato presses his nails deeper into Alex’s back, goads him into thrusting forward, hips stuttering. They both moan.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he pants, slides back out until he’s just barely in Pato before thrusting back in.

Pato chokes on whatever reply he’d been crafting. His head falls back on the pillow, bunny ears shifting with the movement, long column of his neck being exposed. Alex takes the moment to suck at the skin at the base of his neck, where his shoulder blade meets his carotid, bites at it so Pato cries out.

His fingers scratch deeper at Alex’s shoulder blades in retaliation. Alex hisses, feels the pain go through him like molten heat. 

“Do that again,” he commands, setting a steady rhythm fucking into Pato while he obeys.

The strangled noise that escapes Pato when Alex nails his prostate is loud, enough that Alex finds himself muffling the rest of Pato’s cries with a kiss that swallows it down. Pato lets him slide his tongue into his mouth, commit the taste of him to memory. When he pulls away Pato’s lips are slick with spit, drool dripping down his cheek and trailing down onto the pillow. There are tears just barely beading at the corners of his eyes, when they spill they track a line through the lingering eyeliner.

Alex wipes them away with a trembling pad of his thumb, leans down to kiss another.

Pato nods against his unspoken question of ‘are you okay?’ Alex feels the motion against his lips, kisses Pato’s temple in response.

“Good boy,” he commends, just to hear the way Pato keens at the praise.

“Close,” Pato whimpers. Alex can tell, can feel it. He thrusts back into Pato and feels Pato clench around him in response, feels his fingers as they skitter desperately across his back.

It’s Alex’s permission that tips him over.

“Come, baby. I got you.” Alex wraps a hand around his cock, strokes him the way he knows he likes, swiping his thumb over the head and twisting on the downstroke.

Pato comes with a cry, a shudder running through him. Alex holds him through the whole thing, whispers praises in his ear as he spills across his stomach. He follows along right after, feeling Pato tighten around him, and the tightening of his stomach, just barely managing to pull out before he’s coming and adding to the mess on Pato’s abdomen.

Pato watches him through heavy lidded eyes, lips quirking into an obvious smile, sated and happy and continuing to be a tease when he swipes up the mess of their come with his finger and sucks it into his mouth. The noise that escapes Alex is indecent, a choked off moan that might have been an attempt at Pato’s name.

“Fuck, I love you,” Alex pants when he collapses down on the bed beside Pato, chest heaving, breath still returning to his body. He can already feel all the places he’s going to be sore tomorrow. Maybe he’ll cancel training.

If Pato hears him, he doesn’t respond, nothing more than the twitch of his lips. He’s already closed his eyes, drifted off into that space he goes into after they fuck, all blissed out and heady with it. Alex reaches up to brush a curl of his hair back from his forehead, sweat soaked, and damp to the touch.

“I love you,” he says again, because it’s easy to do so, surprisingly so. The confession is not one that’s ever come to him easy, wasn’t something he ever thought would. But Pato’s still got the bunny ears just barely clinging to his head, lopsided and resting fully on the pillow, but still where Alex placed them.

-------------

“Do you like Halloween now?” Pato asks the next morning, well – afternoon.

Alex had slept through his alarms, woken to Pato propped up in the bed next to him. His arm was in Pato’s lap, the man tracing Alex’s tattoo, nail following the pattern of the ink on his forearm.

“What?”

“Halloween. Did you like it?” Pato asks again, reaching the end of the pulse line and tracing back up the design until he reaches the pink heart resting along Alex’s vein.

He’s wearing one of Alex’s shirts, some faded thing advertising a local brewery, it’s what Alex had managed to slip him into after cleaning him off last night. Alex can smell his own detergent, his cologne, but beneath it there’s the familiar scent of Pato, mixing with the stench of sex from sheets they still need to clean.

He blinks, wipes at the sleep that’s crusting at the corners of his eyes, tries to get a sense of what time it is. The sunlight through the blinds betray the truth, it’s not the early morning light Alex is used to waking to, but the midday sun that brings a warm heat to the room.

“I missed training,” he grumbles, less of a question, more of a statement. His breath tastes of stale beer, like the sweat he’d licked from Pato last night.

Pato nods.

“Fuck.”

“I texted James, he said to just let you sleep.”

Alex hates when his system is thrown off, when the structure he’s so carefully put into place slips, which is maybe why Pato’s tracing figure eights around his tattoo trying to keep him calm. It’s working, surprisingly. He’s warm, comfortable where his head is resting against Pato’s thigh.

“That okay?” Pato asks.

Alex thinks it through, figures most of the areas he was meant to be working on today he’d done a pretty good job of working last night.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he amends, curls closer to Pato. He’s so warm, heat roiling off of him in waves, and Alex would normally hate it. But from Pato, it’s a comfort, it’s like a blanket.

Pato keeps tracing figures around his tattoo, following the line of his vein, the repetition is lulling him back into the sleep he’d just clawed his way out of. He doesn’t fight it.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Pato says, when Alex is on the brink of unconsciousness, when opening his eyes takes monumental effort, so he just keeps them closed.

“Mhmm?” he says.

Pato huffs out a laugh, goes back to tracing a nail along the pulse line of the tattoo.

“Halloween. Did I make you like it?”

Alex is already slipping into sleep when the answer falls from him like water, “You could make me like anything.”