#actually got so bad that more than one PR person has emailed me asking if im ok…

[propertyofkylar]

r u gonna do anymore writing prompts D:

😭😭

i am!! i promise i am!!!!!!! im literally working on one rn!!!!

im sorry guys i really am lol. a lot of people on here are able to crank out fics like that. im not one of those people. i live with my parents and my dad got fired from his job (worked with the company for a total of like 20 years) at the end of may and there was like. an insane amount of drama/rumors/backstabbing from friends of 30 years so its actually been like, the most chaotic time of my family’s life. not even considering the fact that my dad is losing his health insurance when he has chronic health issues AND he’s the breadwinner. this compared with like, everything else bad in the world lowkey sent me in a downward mental health spiral these past few months. also work has been crazy since i already work insane hours due to being a journalist and we keep losing members of our team so ive had to pick up more work in the meantime. ALSO ALSO i randomly developed an aversion to men (but it’s going away now dw) and a lot of the prompts were for m LIs and like. I couldn’t do it

all of this is to say sorry. basically got too depressed to write frequently. kinda flopped hard. but i vow this to you all. i will finish all of these prompts. idc how long it takes it will be done.

actually should weaponize my ocd and schedule when to write. that usually helps….

anyway im writing princess kylar rn and im really getting into it so should be a long one :2

[nugnthopkns]

i wish i could disappear

word count: 3.6k

warnings: explicit!fem reader, cursing, feelings of anxiety due to social media harassment, invasion of privacy that border on stalking

recommended listening: brutal | olivia rodrigo

series masterpost: here

a/n: and we're off to the races!! i love this album and olivia so much. there's a shoutout to goon by tobias jesso jr. in here bc it's my favourite album to cry to lmao (highly recommend giving it a listen!). i'm on the fence about this one but am posting it anyways because i don't think i can make it any better

How the fuck do people find your social media?

All of your accounts are private and Kevin makes sure to never tag you on the rare occasion he posts a picture of the two of you together. The wives and girlfriends who have public accounts make sure to never post about you, and you’re careful not to comment on posts often. You’re a private person and though you understand that due to the nature of your relationship with Kevin you intrigue some fans, you don’t want to give them more than you have to.

Despite making no attempt to open up to the public or media, every day you wake up with hundreds of follow requests from complete strangers. At first it was a little exciting knowing that people were curious about your life but after years of the same routine it’s become draining. It takes you nearly twenty minutes each day to weed through them and accept only the people you know personally. Kevin doesn’t actually know how many people want to catch a glimpse of your daily life because you do your best to keep it from him. Knowing would only bring him stress, and you want him to be able to focus on winning games and loving you with his entire heart.

☼☼☼☼

The phone on your desk rings loudly, pulling your attention away from the computer screen that has way too many numbers on it for your liking. The finance department needed someone to proof their audit before sending it away and since you’re the only one in human relations that has a business degree the job landed on your shoulders. Eager to take a break, you pick it up and press the receiver against your ear.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other side laughs gently, but you immediately know it’s Kevin. “Hi sweetheart,” he says warmly, “How’s work?”

“Fine I guess. It’s work, Kev. Nothing terribly exciting happens here,” you explain but continue to fill him in on all the coffee pot gossip you got this morning. Kevin listens as you complain about forgetting your lunch on the counter and chuckles at how upset the situation makes you.

“What if I told you I’m outside your window with a burrito bowl?”

Excited at the possibility of seeing your boyfriend before dinnertime, you whip towards the window and spot Kevin on the sidewalk, waving like an idiot despite knowing your office is on the fifth floor. You hang up quickly after telling him you’ll be down in two minutes and let the receptionist know you’re stepping out for lunch. There’s a line for the elevator so you head to the stairwell, taking them two at a time in your haste. You’re crossing the street to the small park where Kevin has set up a picnic before your co-workers are even out the door.

You plop down on the blanket beside Kevin and lean into him. He presses a sweet kiss to your forehead before passing you the food he brought. You take a bite, sighing at the taste. Kevin knows you better than you know yourself and knew exactly what to get that would satisfy your mounting hunger.

“Thanks babe,” you smile, holding up your fork and offering him a bite. He takes it graciously but makes a face. “What’s the matter?” you laugh as you take the utensil back.

“I fucking hate avocado.”

The two of you eat in relative silence, speaking only when you remember a detail from your morning. Kevin tells you about the drills he’s going to lead at practice in the afternoon and what he plans on cooking for dinner since he’ll be home before you. You insist you can whip something up when you get home but Kevin shakes his head. He reminds you that relationships are give and take, and that you’ve made dinner the past three nights because he had a string of games. You manage to reach a compromise that has you doing the dishes before you have to return to work.

Kevin insists on walking you back to your office even though you protest vehemently. Your relationship is far from secret, and has been the topic of workplace gossip more times than you can count, but after five years you’ve learned to ignore most of it. However, you don’t want your co-workers to think you flaunt your NHL player boyfriend to prove you’re better than them. They all love Kevin, and a couple of them congratulate him on last night’s goal as he follows you down the hall. A few of the newer hires stare in awe and shake his hand, completely blown away that one of Philadelphia’s biggest stars is asking how they like their jobs.

“Pretty soon they’re going to approach you to do PR for us,” you chuckle as you flip the light on and close the door of your office.

His laughter echoes off the walls as a pair of strong arms find a home around your waist. “It would be kind of fun to hear myself crush those radio commercials.”

“Since when do you listen to the radio?”

“Checkmate,” Kevin sighs, pulling you closer. He kisses you quickly, not wanting to give a show to anyone who could be walking past, but it still sends you reeling. You don’t want him to pull away and kiss him again.

You get your way for a few more moments and then Kevin’s leaving with a promise to not burn the house down and wishes for a good rest of the day. Focussed on giving the audit its final once-over you don’t bother pulling your phone from the drawer you had placed it in when you got to work that morning. You turn up the small radio at the corner of your desk and get to work scanning the document for errors. There’s a mistake halfway through that skews the rest of the data and fixing it takes a bit of time, but it isn’t a huge deal. You have nothing else to do except answer a few emails and organize meetings for after the weekend.

An hour or so later you’ve completed all your tasks and debate what to do. It’s too early to leave for the day, so you decide to kill time by checking your phone. You’re expecting a few notifications, perhaps two or three memes in the group chat you share with your friends, but not the hundreds that greet you.

The majority of them are instagram notifications, and assuming they’re just more fans requesting a follow you ignore them, instead heading to your text messages. There’s a picture from Kevin of a dog he found walking home and another from your mom asking why you haven’t called home in a few weeks. However the one from Claude’s wife is the one that piques your curiosity.

Just a heads up that someone posted a pic of you and Kev to one of those stupid wag pages. I filed a request for Instagram to take it down but it’s gotten a lot of traction. Sorry :((

Your heartbeat increases rapidly and a million thoughts fly through your head at a rapid speed. Fingers shaking, you respond with a thanks and open up the dreaded app. You don’t see it immediately, your feed being full of photos belonging to friends and family, but it’s in your messages almost two hundred times. Many of them have text attached and you know there will be a comment about your relationship regardless of which one you open.

Tapping on the most recent message you brace yourself for the worst. The new window opens a photo someone took of you and Kevin while eating lunch in the park across from your office not even three hours prior. It’s grainy and the camera angle is strange, but you’re eating and Kevin is looking somewhere out of frame. The accompanying caption reads Kev and his girlfriend out for lunch today! Follow @philllywagupdates for more :).

You let out a sigh of relief – it could have been a lot worse. Personal pictures of yourself have made it onto pages like that before and most of them they’re paired with mean-spirited captions about your appearance or other trivial matters. Assuming you’re in the clear, you head back to the page of the original message to thank the person for bringing the post to your attention. However, the message accompanying the post is anything but positive.

He can’t even fucking look at you. It’s only a matter of time before he leaves you

The blood in your veins runs cold. You know it’s not true – Kevin’s made it clear you’re the one and truthfully you’re just waiting for a ring – but it doesn’t stop the sting you feel. What could possess someone to say such horrible things? You decide not to respond despite, possibly opening another can of worms with the seen function, and close the app. Leaning back in your office chair you focus on anything but your phone, looking out the window at passersby while regaining your breath. It works for a while, but eventually not knowing what others said eats away at you. You go through every single message to see hundreds of similar comments to the first, with only a few saying they’re glad you’re happy or how posting the picture is a violation of your privacy.

By the time you’re finished your spirit has been crushed. However, it’s also an acceptable time to start the weekend – at least no one in the office will have to see you cry. Things are hastily packed into your bag and you wave a few quick goodbyes before once again taking the stairs. You curse yourself for deciding to walk to work that morning and set off in the direction of home wiping away tears. The last thing you need right now is for someone to recognize you, but you have to get home. Tobias Jesso Jr plays at much too loud a volume through your headphones and Kevin will most certainly remind you it’s bad for your hearing, but the melancholy piano riffs of Goon overpower the thoughts swirling around your head.

Do people really feel that way about me?

Are my friends just too nice to stop inviting me places?

Does Kevin really feel trapped?

Hundreds of similar sentiments and situations cross your mind as you stumble through the streets of downtown Philadelphia, but you force them as far back as possible before opening the door to the apartment you share with Kevin. Hoping to slip inside undetected, you take your shoes off slowly and throw your jacket on the end table instead of hanging it in the closet. Your plan fails somehow and Kevin hears you, greeting you in a goofy apron covered in flour.

“Hey sweetheart,” he smiles, but it drops once your eyes meet and he sees the hurt on your face. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing,” you insist, trying to step around him in pursuit of the bathroom.

Kevin doesn’t buy it and sees right through your feeble words. “It’s not nothing if you’re this upset. If you don’t want to talk now that’s fine, but I think you should get it off your chest.”

You know he’s right, but you also know you can’t tell him the true cause of your despair. “Just some work stuff,” you sigh. “The audit got all fucked up and I had to fix it even though it’s not my job.”

It’s not technically a lie, which makes you feel better, and Kevin buys it. He presses a sweet kiss to your lips in sympathy. “Go take a shower and the gnocchi should be ready by the time you’re done. We can spend the night cuddling on the couch.”

“And watching Selling Sunset?”

“We can watch whatever you want sweetheart,” he chuckles. You part from him with a final kiss and head to the bathroom. Hopefully the steam from the water will carry away the negativity brought on by that damn post.

☼☼☼☼

Time passes but the hateful comments on social media don’t stop. In fact, you’re pretty sure they get worse. It’s so bad that you’ve deleted every app except facebook because you need it for work. Kevin doesn’t notice your abstinence from social media, but he picks up on how you spend more time criticizing yourself or staring off into space. When he pushes you either brush him off or feed some bullshit excuse about how work is getting you down. You know he doesn’t believe you but trusts you enough to come to him when you’re ready to talk.

You aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to tell Kevin what’s been going on. There’s been scrutiny from social media before, when you first started dating, but it quieted down after the initial media frenzy. He helped you through that but it’s different this time around. Never before have you had strangers tell you your life is worthless or that your boyfriend should end your relationship. Some of the other wags notice your absence on instagram but chalk it up to you just taking a break. They reach out via the group chat and send wishes to see you at the next home game. It’s nice to know they care, but the voice in your head that has grown much larger in recent weeks tells you they don’t truly mean it. This leads you to decline the invite as politely as possible, citing extended work hours for your absence. In reality you’re too anxious to be anywhere that isn’t home or work, petrified someone is going to post something that will add fuel to the flames of those who interrogate you.

It’s another Friday afternoon, and you’re leaving the office early once again. There’s a small craft exhibition taking place around the corner from work and today is the last day it’s open. You had been meaning to go all week, hoping to find something small to add to Kevin’s birthday gift. As you step out of the building there’s a small group of young women, who don’t look old enough to have graduated college, standing off to the side. It fills you with dread, worried that somehow someone found out where you work and the insults are going to start occurring verbally, but you force yourself to be rational. You work fairly close to one of the artsier districts in the city and it’s more than likely they just want to find a cute mural to take pictures in front of.

You pass by and swear you hear them snicker, but you remind yourself you’ve just been jumpy lately. When they peel from their place on the wall and follow behind at a distance you think the coincidences are running out. It seems a little too strange how their movements line up with yours, and you go down a few winding side streets in an attempt to lose them. Part of you feels ridiculous because what group of barely legal girls would track a full-blown adult around a city of nearly two million people, but your life is currently strange enough you can’t be sure. They don’t follow you, and by the time you reach the market your heart rate has returned to normal.

The first few stalls have little to catch your eye, but a few rows in you find a leatherworker who makes adorable wallets. Kevin’s is ridiculously old and falling apart at the seams – his mom bought it for him before the two of you got together. You think a new one will make a perfect addition to the concert tickets you already bought and browse the table for something simple and elegant. A deep brown one with tan braiding around the edges catches your eye and you know it’s the one for Kevin. Checking the price to make sure you have enough cash in your wallet, you approach the shop owner to purchase. The older man has a kind smile that reaches his eyes as he thanks you for purchasing from him.

“No, thank you for making something so beautiful!” you gush. “My boyfriend is going to love it.”

It’s then you hear it – snickering accompanied by the click of a camera. You look over your shoulder to see the same group of girls from before laughing as they huddle over a cell phone, no doubt already starting to broadcast the photo across the internet. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes but you refuse to let them fall. Those girls don’t deserve to see their mission accomplished, but the longer they laugh at you the harder it is to swallow your feelings.

Head held high, you thank the owner one more time before holding your head high and walking past the group. The only way out is past them so you hold your breath and pray they don’t notice you. Unfortunately you aren’t that lucky, and one of them looks up just as you come into earshot.

“If Kevin doesn’t leave you after that sorry excuse for a gift I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she sneers.

Another one chimes in, “You’re honestly so pathetic.” They all cackle in amusement, and you speed up. The tears flow freely now, and you call an uber even though it will be a ridiculous amount of money. You just want to get home.

The uber driver doesn’t say anything when you get in, though you know it’s strange to be bawling your eyes out at four in the afternoon. You can’t help it – weeks of keeping all the hate to yourself finally got to you and being followed with the sole intent of ridicule is the final straw. At one red light he silently passes you a box of tissues, which you accept gratefully.

Luckily the lobby of your apartment complex is empty and you manage to get to your floor without encountering a familiar face. There’s a few hours until Kevin gets home from his final roadtrip of the season, and if you play your cards right you can get all the tears out and be as normal as possible before he comes through the door. You don’t even bother to put anything away, just head straight to the bathroom to slump against the tub. Sobs rack your body and you lose all sense of time. All you can feel is the hurt you’ve been holding in releasing itself and soaking the material of your blouse.

Kevin finds you laying in the position hours later. He tripped over your shoes coming in the door and immediately knew something was wrong – you always place them neatly on the rack in the closet upon arriving home. Peering through the quiet house for a hint at where you are, he sees the bathroom light on and makes a beeline for the room. It breaks his heart to see you like this, and even more so because he doesn’t know what spurred it on.

“Sweetheart, hey,” he coos, maneuvering his body to sit beside you and pull you into his lap. “What’s the matter?”

You bury your head in his shoulder and clutch the material of his dress shirt as you cry harder at the sound of his voice. Kevin takes your reaction in stride, rubbing circles on your back and working on evening out your breath. He doesn’t pressure you to speak and provides the stability you desperately crave as the world around you spins. An unknown amount of time passes before your tears run out, but spend it all on the bathroom floor curled into Kevin.

“I guess I should have told you sooner,” you mumble, “But I didn’t want to bother you.”

Concern laces Kevin’s features and his eyebrows knit together. “Tell me what?”

“I, uh, have been the subject of some internet hate for the past little bit,” you say sheepishly. It feels stupid to not have told him now, but you can’t change that. “But you were really busy with the season and I wanted to make sure your head was completely focused on the game so I just dealt with it myself. I deleted the apps and tried my best to go about my life. And then today after work I was followed by some people and they said some really hurtful stuff and shit became a little too real.”

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

It’s your turn to be confused. “Why are you sorry Kev? You're Not the one sending me death threats.”

He tucks a loose strand of hair back into your ponytail. “Maybe not, but I still made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about what was going on. What kind of partner am I?”

“The best one,” you say confidently. “It’s okay, I’m okay. I just want to forget about it right now. Can we just disappear for a little bit?”

Kevin wraps his arms around you tighter, as if he can engulf you to protect from the cruel outside world. “We can do whatever you want. If you want to get out of the city for a bit if you want, or just spend the next few days here away from prying eyes.”

“I love you.”

You say it because you mean it, and if you could scream it from the rooftops you would. Kevin is incredibly easy to love, even when you make it difficult for him to love you back. You know another much longer conversation is coming about everything that has happened recently because communication is the only way to solve problems and Kevin deserves that, but you’re thankful he’s willing to put it to rest for a few more moments.

He cracks a smile for the first time since he’s been home and kisses the crown of your head. “I love you too sweetheart,” he whispers, “Always and forever.”

Things are far from over and though you still never want to show your face in public ever again, you know that Kevin is going to do whatever he can to make things better and that’s enough for you.

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @ricohenrique @tortito @boqvistsbabe @iwantahockeyhimbo @himbos-on-ice @2manytabsopen if you want to be added just shoot me an ask :)

[isitgintimeyet]

Just a Friend

So I finally started to write another story...

I will try and post weekly, but can’t promise on account of real life and my inability to actually focus on translating what’s in my head onto paper (or screen!)

Getting the courage to post never gets any easier, but here goes. I hope you enjoy this frothy bit of fun. I will also post on AO3.

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for being an excellent beta.

Chapter 1: From Airport to Aggravation

Bank holiday crowds, on the whole, are hell.

And this one is rapidly turning into an even deeper level of purgatory. The hottest May for years in Scotland and I’m stuck at Glasgow airport with a dozen women, collectively known as ‘Geillis’s Hen Party Posse’, each displaying varying degrees of inebriation, hangover or general sleep deprivation, and all aiming for the luggage carousel showing the flight from Barcelona. Which apparently is where several hundred other disembarked passengers are also heading.

Eventually, I manage to get a view of the bags and cases slowly making their way around the belt. They’re pretty picked over by this time, apart from the couple of boxes covered in gaffer tape that always seem to be first off a plane—any plane—and last to be collected. They’re always there, on every flight. Why is that?

I pause from my musings to wave frantically at Geillis, who now has a trolley and is clearing a path straight towards me.

“I got us a trolley.” she informs me, stating the obvious. “I thought it’d be easier. Have ye seen ours yet, Claire? I canna see the others. They must have already gone through.”

“No,” I answer, keeping my eyes firmly on the little hatch, willing our bags to appear. All I want is to go home, put my sleep mask on and try and get some sleep. Three days in Barcelona celebrating Geillis’s forthcoming nuptials have worn me out, and, I glance at my watch, I am due in theatre in approximately seventeen hours time.

"It's there, it's there," Geillis points excitedly at the neon pink and green leopard print bag making its way towards us.

She makes a grab for it as I continue to look for my bag. Predictably, it’s one of the last ones on the carousel. I recognise it immediately from the piece of red gift ribbon tied to the handle of the plain black Samsonite. I load it onto the trolley and Geillis and I head through customs to join the rest of the posse.

We say our goodbyes loudly, with much hugging and kisses. A stranger viewing this scene might imagine we won’t be seeing each other again for weeks or even months. In truth, I’ll be seeing most of them in the next week or so at the hospital as our schedules coincide.

“Shall we two get a taxi, then?” Geillis asks me.

I start to answer as my mobile pings — a text from Frank...very nice, very caring, very predictable.

Darling, it’s been a long three days without you. I am ready to collect you from the airport if you would like. If not, might I see you later this evening? xxx

And that is very clearly Frank. Correct grammar and punctuation, even on his texts. I shake my head as if to drive away my inner bitch and pretend I haven’t read it. I will respond, of course, just later when I’m back at home.

So, I smile at Geillis and agree. “Of course, we can go halves.”

***********

As I walk into my flat, the peace and quiet and sheer bloody calm wraps itself around me like a swaddling cloth. It’s blissfully cool too, with all the shutters closed.

It’s not that I didn’t have a good time in Barcelona. It was actually great. But being in the company of others twenty four hours a day is wearing, much as I love them. And we all had to do everything together. No sneaking off for a solitary walk, or escaping to bed for a little siesta.

I deposit my suitcase by the bedroom door, slip off my converse, pour myself a glass of orange juice, settle down on the sofa and figure out how best to tell Frank not tonight without offending him.

Frank, Sorry but tonight isn’t —

I delete and try again.

Thanks for the offer to pick me up. I was already in the taxi when I got it. Can we give tonight a miss? Theatre in the morning and I’m knackered totally exhausted. You know what Geillis is like. Speak tomorrow, I promise. C

Frank knows what Geillis is like. Frank thinks Geillis is a bad influence on me, with her larger than life personality and wild ideas. I think Frank doesn’t really know me at all if he believes I can be influenced like that. I hang out with Geillis and my friends because they’re fun and we laugh… a lot.

Without realising, I feel my shoulder muscles relax as soon as I’ve sent the message. These are not good signs for my relationship with Frank. He’s investing far more into ‘us’ than I am willing to do. But as long as I’m honest with him…

There are advantages to being with Frank, of course. He’s punctual, very organised and a proficient and considerate lover. He always makes sure I come, even if I sometimes...er… exaggerate my reactions to hurry things along. So much for honesty, then.

I finish my orange juice and plan my evening. Four things to do - unpack, grab some food, shower and sleep. Not even going to wash my hair. That would really be too much effort, struggling with my untameable mane, and it’s going to be stuck under a surgical cap for most of tomorrow anyway.

It takes a bit of effort to actually move from the sofa. I could quite happily fall asleep there. But then I’d wake up in the middle of the night—starving hungry and still smelling of sweaty airports. Reluctantly, I haul myself into a vertical position and head for my bedroom picking up my suitcase en route.

Opening the suitcase, I am not greeted with the expected haphazard mass of sun dresses, t shirts and shorts—all with the evocative aroma of Hawaiian Tropic—but a layer of white dress shirts, immaculately folded and the faint scent of a musky cologne.

Shit, shit, shit!! Some else has walked off with my black samsonite with the red ribbon on the handle. My evening plans are rapidly going awry. I delve into my handbag praying that I kept my boarding pass with the sticky bar code luggage receipt. The relief when I find it lurking in the bottom of my bag is immense. Quickly I google the airline lost baggage number and dial.

After a few bars of some god awful plinky plinky hold music, I hear a recorded message. “Your call is important to us, please hold. Your call is important to us, please hold.”

Good to know, then back to the plinky plinky before another message. “The office you are trying to reach is now closed. Please try again during office hours nine am to five thirty. Thank you.”

“If my call is so important to you, why is no one there at six o’clock?” I yell down the phone, but the plinky plinky ignores me and continues its irritating melody.

I sigh. I don’t want to have to wait until tomorrow morning to sort this out. Besides, by nine am tomorrow morning, I will be somewhat unavailable - reshaping the hip bone of a seven year old boy. So, I have no alternative. I will have to have a bit of a dig around this stranger’s suitcase, looking for any clue or contact details.

As I start to have a feel around, it occurs to me that some stranger might, at this very moment, be doing exactly the same thing — having a poke around my suitcase in the hope of finding my details. No doubt judging me based on my choice of holiday attire.  And, I suddenly realise, his judgement may well be coloured by the discovery of some items of a more adult nature.

I say ‘he’, based on the XL white shirts, the pair of battered jeans and faded Scotland rugby shirt, but I could be wrong. I don’t have to dig any further into the case as I spy, in a mesh pocket, a neat rectangle of card with a name — James Fraser — a mobile number and an email address.

Relief sweeps over me. Perhaps we can get this all sorted tonight. Unless this James Fraser lives miles away and was just passing through Glasgow on his way to, say, the Outer Hebrides. That could be a whole other level of problem.

I quickly reach for my phone. Another message from Frank awaits.

Are you sure, darling? I’m looking forward to seeing you. Would tomorrow evening work for you?

I ignore it for the moment. Let me sort my luggage issue out first.

I dial the number on the card and begin to pace around my bedroom as it rings and rings. I am just about to give up when, thankfully, it’s answered.

“Hello?” A female voice asks warily.

I clear my throat and put on my most pleasant phone voice. “Is there a James Fraser there please?”

“Ye’ve the wrong number.”

“Oh, sorry, I must have mis—“ I begin, but find myself apologising to dead air.

I try again, carefully comparing each digit to those written, very neatly, on the card.

“Hello?” The same female voice answers, more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I’m sorry, but this is the number I have for James Fra—“

“And I already told ye, ye’ve the wrong number. Dinna bother again.”

In the days before mobiles, I’m sure this would have been accompanied by a deafening crash as the receiver hit the cradle. Pressing a soft key doesn’t have the same dramatic effect. But I get the message anyway.

So, new plan needed. All I can do is email this James Fraser and hope he actually has written down the correct email address. If not, I’ll have to sort it out with the airline tomorrow afternoon.

My stomach rumbles and I suddenly realise that I’ve not eaten since breakfast, unless you count the slices of fruit in my jug of sangria. I wander into the kitchen and peruse the contents of my cupboards and fridge. I’m not the most gifted cook, but I’m not too bad and can usually rustle up something edible and fairly tasty. The bread feels a bit on the dry side but will be fine toasted, and I know I have eggs.

I put a knob of butter in a pan and text Frank while I’m waiting for it to sizzle.

Think tomoz will be ok. Talk 2morrow. C

I don’t normally use text speak at all,  but something about Frank’s perfectly formed text messages always makes me want to rebel. I can imagine him wincing right now.  He’s a professor at the university and is forever complaining about the standard of literacy amongst his undergraduates. If he thinks he has problems, he should try dealing with junior doctors.

With my scrambled egg on toast all eaten, I focus my attention on the email to James Fraser. I write it quickly, brief and to the point: I have your suitcase and therefore presume you have mine, can we meet to swap them over and here’s my phone number.

The longing for a shower and then bed is now overwhelming. I strip off and bundle all my clothes into the laundry basket, tie my hair up with a scrunchie and step into my shower. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite places on earth and possibly the reason that I bought this flat. Large enough for two, I suppose. Although none have yet been invited to partake in this heavenly experience. Maybe I’m saving that for someone extra special. It has a huge overhead rainfall shower head and a handheld shower head too.

My indulgences are all in here — a selection of expensive shower gels, scrubs and lotions and an assortment of huge fluffy bath towels. I choose a lavender scented gel and scrub all traces of the day from my skin.

Wrapping myself  in one of my pristine white towels, I slather shea butter lotion on my slightly sun-burnt skin, noticing the uneven red patches where the sun cream hadn’t quite reached but at least it’s not sore.

A quick check of my emails shows there’s no word from James Fraser as yet, so I decide to just settle down to sleep and leave luggage worries until the morning. Fortunately, I had changed the sheets before my weekend away, so I simply unwrap my towel, leaving it in a heap on the floor and slide into bed. The feeling of the cool, crisp bedding against my skin is wonderful. I assume a sort of diagonal starfish position, not having to worry about any other occupants. It crosses my mind whether to reach for the tiny vibrator in my bedside drawer, but I’m too comfortable and drowsy for that, so instead I check my alarm and settle down for sleep.

[rowaning]

The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft rated by me, someone who read them all* but has a terrible memory

The Beast in The Cave: uh a guy goes on a cave tour and finds a creature that was like a human that got lost and adapted to its surroundings. 0/10 just because im pretty sure there was another one with this exact premise and neither of them were memorable at all.

The Alchemist: dude achieves immortality and lives in the narrators basement and has pledged to murder his entire lineage or something. 4/10 the alchemy stuff was actually kind of interesting

The Tomb: im pretty sure this is the one where a guy starts hanging out in a tomb and like travels back in time/becomes one of his ancestors? 5/10 if its the one im thinking of i did enjoy reading it

Dagon: guy lands on a mysterious island with signs of a long dead civilization. 1/10 i do not remember what happened in it

A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson: 0/10 i have no memory of this

Polaris: also 0/10 i forgot all about it

Beyond the Wall of Sleep: could be any of the dream focused ones. if its the one about the dude sailing into the void or whatever than 4/10 not too bad

Memory: ironically, i dont remember it. 0/10

Old Bugs: 1/10 for the title god i wish i remembered this one

The Transition of Juan Romero: i got nothing. 0/10

The White Ship: this might also be the one about the dude sailing into the void? i liked that one he lived in a lighthouse and boarded a dream ship and just fucking left it was fun. 4/10

The Street: uh i think really steep street that didnt actually exist. 3/10

The Doom that Came to Sarnath: i wanna say another one of the dream centered ones where a town discovers some old relics and blatantly disrespects them and gets exactly whats coming to it. 5/10 they deserved what they got

The Statement of Randolph Carter: ok this dude shows up several times. i think this one is about how he returns to his childhood home then travels back in time and creates a time loop paradox thing. 1/10 meh

The Terrible Old Man: uh some thieves harrass a weird old guy and get got. 5/10

The Cats of Ulthar: someone is mean to a cat in a dream city, all of the rest of the cats get revenge and are revered for the rest of time. 2/10 (-3 because lovecraft has a specific name he gives to apparently every fictional and real cat he encounters and wow i wish he hadn't)

The Tree: i feel like this is something to do with a person becoming a tree but i cant actually remember. 0/10

Celephais: yeah no i got nothing 0/10

The Picture in the House: also nothing 0/10

The Temple: nope 0/10

Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family: is this the one where the dude's great grandfather married an ape? i dont think so but im not sure. 0/10, -5/10 if it is that one cause that one was especially shitty

From Beyond: nope 0/10

Nyarlathotep: charismatic dude shows up and is like get in bitches we're going to the void. i love nyarlathotep cause hes the one who directly interacts with humanity and like wears a human suit or whatever so hes just some dude whos like hey im gonna feed you to azathoth 5/0

The Quest of Iranon: got nothing 0/10

The Music of Erich Zann: narrator makes friends with an old musician whos being hunted by supernatural forces. 2/10 because i remember it but it was just ok

Ex Oblivione: 1/10 for the title but i have no clue what it was about

Sweet Ermengarde: lovecraft's sole attempt at comedy. not to my taste like at all 0/10

The Nameless city: nope 0/10

The Outsider: also nope 0/10

The Moon-Bog: sounds cool, dont remember it. 0/10

The Other Gods: dude tries to find the gods of humanity where they live on a big mountain, actually finds them, is immediately smited by the Other Gods who protect the gods of humanity. 3/10 he deserved it

Azathoth: dont recall, 0/10

Herbert West- Reanimator: Arkham man Herbert West and his assistant ressurect the dead with little thought to the consequences, then get murdered by a band of said resurrected dead. 5/10

Hypnos: nope 0/10

What the Moon Brings: also nope 0/10

The Hound: still nope 0/10

The Lurking Fear: again, nope 0/10

The Rats in the Walls: dude returns to his ancestral home, hears rats, excavates the basement and finds out that his ancestors ate human flesh, eats his friend. 1/10 it was an interesting read but can lovecraft please stop calling cats that.

The Unnameable: no clue 0/10

The Festival: nope 0/10

*Under the Pyramids: ok im pretty sure this is the one with houdini which is the only one i could not read. i went into this mentally prepared for lovecraft's bigotry but i was not mentally prepared for him dropping harry houdini, avid skeptic who absolutely would have beat the shit out of him for this, into the middle of his super racist paranormal horror. -1000/10

The Shunned House: nope 0/10

The Horror at Red Hook: also nope 0/10

He: cool title, no memory of the story. 0/10

In the Vault: wow im bad at this. 0/10

Cool Air: still no 0/10

The Call of Cthulhu: kind of all over the place, there was a thing about artists and then a thing about a cop investigating a cult. 3/10 meh but ill give it a bonus for being a staple of horror fiction.

Pickman's Model: uh artist sees some wild shit and draws it and then it eats him. 2/10 i forget the details

The Strange High House in the Mist: if this is the one im thinking of, dude does a dangerous climb to find a mysterious house and meet the inhabitant who is kind of interdimensional and also being hunted by interdimensional things. also maybe the house eats people? 2/10

The Silver Key: another Randolph Carter one, and i think this is actually the one about him travelling back in time so idk what the other one was. 3/10

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath: randolph carter goes on a quest in the dream world to find the gods of humanity and ask why they wont let him check out this cool city he can see from his window. lots of action and very wordy and went a lot of different places. 4/10 good read but extremely xenophobic

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: guy investigates his ancestor who looks disturbingly like him, ancestor comes back to life and kills him and takes his place and a bunch of other stuff happens. mostly a dramatized genealogical study. 3/10 not bad, very suspenseful

The Colour Out Of Space: meteor lands on a farm, scientists get weirded out by it, everything in the area gets weird then dead, alien thing gets enough power from draining nearby life-forms to escape earth. fun twist ending. 4/10 bonus for being one of the better ones, detraction for writing out a 'rural accent'

The Descendant: nope, 0/10

The Very Old Folk: nope again, 0/10

History of the Necronomicon: very dry. fake history of lovecraft's fake book thats super important to a lot of the stories. 0/10

The Dunwich Horror: isolated witchy family has a kid who no one likes that grows up real fast. graphic descriptions of renovation. a horror gets unleashed on the area and the local folklore scholars have to deal with it. 1/10 nothing good enough to counter the xenophobia

Ibid: i remember this one. no idea what it's deal was. pseudo-bibliography? it was weird. 0/10

The Whisperer in Darkness: guy has a correspondance with another guy about local folk legends based on evil crab things. other guy gets straight up replaced by an evil crab thing and first guy doesnt even notice. imagine if you followed up on a scam email and didnt realize anything was up until you saw that the face of the dude you were talking to in person was a mask. 4/10 for the comedy this guy would not last in the internet age at all

At The Mountains of Madness: guy whines about penguins and how awful it would be if there were civilizations that predated humanity. also commits grave desecration. i get hit by the realization that if lovecraft was less of a racist coward he wouldve made a great speculative sci fi author. 3/10 i would love to watch that old asshole get absolutely torn to shreds by the monster fucker community

The Shadow over Innsmouth: Fish People! Leave Them Alone! Or Else! 5/10 the protagonist gets to live the dream by escaping human society and becoming an immortal fish person

The Dreams in the Witch House: dude rents an objectively haunted room, doesnt listen to people trying to help him, gets murdered by a weird rat. later they find a shit ton of bones in the attic. 2/10 meh

Through The Gates of the Silver Key: Randolph Carter transcends time and space, then de-transcends time and space and immediately gets stuck on another planet in the distant past, makes a long and difficult journey back to earth to find that his estate is being divided amongst his heirs. the comedy potential of a man stuck in an alien body dealing with a legal system that has declared him dead is not examined. 2/10

The Thing on the Doorstep: narrator's good friend marries a fish person witch who steals his body. thats basically it. 3/10. at this point im like wow these narrators really refuse to believe the heavily foreshadowed supernatural explanations that turn out to be correct huh.

The Evil Clergyman: dude is in a room. some ghosts (?) show up. dude has a UV light for some reason. Gets his face stolen i guess and just has to live with it. 5/10 for being absolutely buck wild and refusing to explain anything

The Book: nope 0/10

The Shadow Out Of Time: dude gets his body stolen by ancient scholar species. agonizes about it for a while. finds archaeological evidence of said species. finds a book he wrote while living with said species. almost gets eaten by something. 3/10 more cool speculative sci fi but lame protagonist

The Haunter of the Dark: you'd think id remember it bc this was the last one and i read it last night. oh wait, nvm i do remember it. dude finds an old box in a run down culty church and unleashes a horror that then comes and fucks him up. 1/10 meh.

[svt-writers-club]

Ask games #5: 10 and 39 for Jicheol in Emotional Hurt/Comfort trope please and thank you 😊

the sudden influx of jicheol asks is making me think that my birthday came early and i’m living for this. hope you don’t mind that i slipped in a little iron man au here, because it’s been a while since i talked about those kooky bois and emotional hurt/comfort fits them so well

also hi! i know it’s been like a year since i wrote anything, but i’ve been going through some stuff. i’m better now, though! and i’ll be working on some stuff so hopefully i can add more to this blog!

#10. “You’ve… never really looked at me that way now, did you?”#39. “I never say it. But… I do appreciate it.”

Jihoon is dying.

He’s dying and he’s… he’s okay with that.

Well, not really okay. There’s no feasible way for a man to be completely content with death. But he’s… he’s adjusted. He’s known for two months now, so he’s been getting his affairs in order.

He’s trying to, at least.

He has a multi-billion dollar company to give to an heir, weapons that he can’t afford to leave lying around lest the government makes use of it and all his babies. His binary babies, like WooJI and Dokyeom. He can’t just give them away to anyone.

“Sir?” WooJI demurs. “Your heart rate is spiking again.”

Jihoon lets his head loll off the arm of his sofa. His workshop is a mess, half-complete inventions littering the vast work top. He can’t bring himself to finish anything, thoughts scattered between his impending demise and the lethargy the palladium poisoning brings.

“I’m fine,” Jihoon sighs. He shields his eyes with his forearm in a weak attempt to alleviate his killer headache. Between stressing over Wonwoo’s new armour and his babies, he’s at his wit’s end. For once, his brain is failing him.

High-pitched beeping has Jihoon shifting, squinting up at the camera he’d placed on Dokyeom’s head almost a decade ago. In its claw, there’s a dark green smoothie. It doesn’t even look like there’s oil in it this time.

“Did you make that yourself, buddy?” Jihoon murmurs. Dokyeom beeps an affirmative, attempting to press the smoothie into Jihoon’s hand again.

One of these days, Jihoon will have to tell Seokmin he named his dumbest and oldest bot after his high school nickname. One day. (Maybe he’ll do it in the goodbye videos he’s planning to make. His oldest friends deserve that much, he thinks.)

Dokyeom beeps insistently again. Jihoon takes the glass and, under the bot’s watchful camera, takes a sip. It’s disgusting, but in the way all health drinks are disgusting.

Jihoon forces a smile. “It’s good, dude. You did really well.”

Dokyeom does a happy little spin, even managing to show off the new treads WooJI had ordered for him. They fit him well. Jihoon makes sure to tell Dokyeon that he looks very handsome. (He doesn’t know when he’ll get another chance.)

“Sir?”

WooJI’s voice is lower, like he’s worried about Jihoon. He snorts. Only he would be able to program worry into an AI.

“I’m fine,” Jihoon reflexively says, as his chest twinges.

He stumbles over to the floor length mirror he had installed recently. He let Seungcheol believe it was for purely narcissistic reasons, but it’s actually so he can monitor the darkening veins creeping out from the arc reactor in his chest.

It looks worse. Darker, and more sinister. Like death himself has injected poison into Jihoon’s veins to claim him.

WooJI lets out a warning chime. “Seungcheol-ssi is heading into the basement.”

Jihoon lets out a heavy sigh that sticks in his throat, dropping the hem of his shirt.

God. Seungcheol.

What’s he going to do with him? His highly competent assistant, who���s been with him through work binges, playing around, Afghanistan and betrayals. The only man who makes his blood pressure rise that has nothing to do with anger or exasperation. Jihoon has been so careful to keep his messy life away from Seungcheol, but it’s all rushing together and he can’t keep up. For once in his life, he’s lagging behind, exactly when he doesn’t want it to.

The door slides open, Seungcheol’s feet exaggeratedly loud as he stomps to Jihoon’s work desk and slams a newspaper down onto the surface.

“What’s this?” Jihoon asks, trying to force some levity as he picks the newspaper up between two fingers. “This is a relic. People still read newspapers?”

Seungcheol jabs at the front page headline. “Only as long as people keep writing news!”

Iron Man Back To His Old Ways?

There’s a truly unflattering picture of Jihoon, fully clothed, floating on his back in a pool. Jihoon doesn’t quite remember when that was (these days, he tries his hardest to get drunk and stay drunk, in between trying medications), but Wonwoo can be seen on the edge of the pool, yelling at him. He thinks it might have been at the last weapons conference he’d attended. Jihoon tilts the newspaper; wow, the photographer really managed to highlight that one vein that pops out when Wonwoo is pissed.

“Keep a scan of this,” Jihoon says distractedly. “I want to email it to Wonwoo.”

“Right away, sir.”

“No,” Seungcheol says vehemently, snatching the paper out of Jihoon’s hands. “This is serious! You told me when you got the suit that you were going to change.”

“I did. I am changed.” Jihoon bites his tongue. He can’t tell Seungcheol about the palladium poisoning. It would do nothing but make him sad.

Seungcheol’s gaze makes him feel three inches tall. The vitriol in his voice is barely disguised as he enunciates, “Clearly.”

“Seungcheol-ssi.”

The scowl on Seungcheol’s face has no business being as gorgeous as it is now. Jihoon finds himself memorising the angle of Seungcheol’s lips, the exact curve of his frown and the colour of his lips.

Seungcheol takes a deep breath. “Yes, Jihoon-ssi?”

He clasps his hands politely, back straight. The perfect picture of professionalism. Jihoon could never match that, so he settles for running his fingers through his hair so it’s not that big of a mess.

Jihoon pulls out a folder from one of his drawers, the one that has been burning a hole in his mind since the first time he asked WooJI to get them printed. He had to do it old school – with papers, instead of electronically. Old-fashioned, but undeniably legitimate.

“If you could do me a favour and sign these,” Jihoon says casually.

He’d been hoping Seungcheol would just sign the papers, too annoyed with Jihoon about the PR disaster that he knowingly caused.

He should know better than to underestimate Seungcheol’s intelligence. He’s more than just a pretty face, after all.

Seungcheol makes a strange expression. “This is an employment contract,” he says slowly.

“Yeah. You know, bureaucratic bullshit.”

“This is an employment contract for being CEO of Lee Group.” Seungcheol pauses deliberately. “That’s your company.”

“It was my father’s company,” Jihoon snaps, before he can stop himself.

Seungcheol blinks, rearing back like a wounded animal. He slowly places the folder back on the table. “I can’t accept that. I’m not qualified.”

“You’ve handled my accounts from the moment I hired you as my personal assistant, and you’re basically running the company already.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows draw an angry V on his forehead. “So you’re, what, shunting all the boring stuff to me so you can – can fuck around and go back to your old ways?”

“No.” Jihoon takes a deep breath. “It’s because you’re competent and I’m not. I can’t run a company. I’m an engineer, not a business man. Do you understand?”

Seungcheol continues looking at him blankly.

“What is is this time?” Jihoon sighs.

“Nothing,” Seungcheol says. He’s still frowning. “You’ve… never really looked at me that way now, did you?”

“Like what?”

“Like… like you need me.”

Jihoon chokes on Dokyeom’s healthy shake. He coughs and coughs, even when his airway is clear and he can breathe just fine. He coughs because it’s so true, that he needs Seungcheol the way he needs to tinker in his workshop or the way he needs to breathe and it’s okay, he swears the tears are from nearly choking to death, nothing else –

“You’re a mess,” Seungcheol says helplessly, after Jihoon calms down and he can find the composure to dry the tears from his eyes. The warmth of his hands leave momentarily, but a cup of cold water is pressed to his hands.

Seungcheol’s touch is nice, especially where he’s running the back of Jihoon’s neck while he drinks his water.

“What would you do without me?” Seungcheol says, a hint of fondness in his voice.

Jihoon clings to it, remembers the exact timbre, the exact note. He wants to play it again and again, until it’s ingrained in the grooves of his brain even when he’s long gone.

“I would be infinitely worse off,” Jihoon says with a forced grin.

Seungcheol reaches for the folder, tapping it against the table top. “I’m shredding this.”

“No!” Jihoon clasps his hand over Seungcheol’s, squeezing lightly. “Just – sleep on it. Maybe it won’t look so bad in the morning. The benefits are killer.”

Seungcheol looks down at their joined hands. Then, he sighs. “Fine. I’ll sleep on it.” He bites his lip. “You get some sleep too. You’re looking more and more like a panda lately.”

Jihoon can’t sleep. He’ll sleep when he’s dead. He doesn’t have that many waking hours left. But the worried look in Seungcheol’s eyes has him saying, “Yeah, I’ll sleep.”

“Good.”

Seungcheol takes the folder and the newspaper, stopping to pet Dokyeom on the camera. The bot beeps happily, circling around Seungcheol quickly. Maybe Seungcheol and Wonwoo can have joint custody. Jihoon makes a mental note to update his will.

“Hey,” Jihoon calls out, right before Seungcheol crosses the threshold outside of his workshop.

Seungcheol pauses, looking over his shoulder with a questioning look.

“I never say it,” Jihoon says, “but… I do appreciate it.”

Seungcheol’s smile is as confused as it is beautiful. Jihoon wishes he was an artist, so he could paint Seungcheol the way he looks now.

“Appreciate what?”

“Everything.” Jihoon clears his throat, turning to his holo screens. “That you do for me, I mean.”

He can’t bring himself to look at Seungcheol. It feels too raw – like something he never should have said. But it’s out there now, so he can’t take it back. Because it’s true.

It’s true that Jihoon appreciates him and he wants to tell him, but there are so many words that he can’t put them together. So he’ll give him his company and set him up for life, because Seungcheol is competent and beautiful and he’ll be just fine without Jihoon.

“Thank you,” Seungcheol says softly. “And… I appreciate too.” Before Jihoon can fool himself, Seungcheol continues, “You’re a great boss, Jihoon-ssi.”

Jihoon smiles – a fake, plastic smile he reserves for cameras. “And you’ll be a wonderful CEO, Seungcheol-ssi.”

Jihoon sits in silence for a while, staring at Wonwoo’s suit schematics blankly. He feels regret. He feels empty. There’s so much that needs to be done before his time is up.

“WooJI?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Start recording me. End of The World Protocol.”

“As you wish, sir. Who would you like to start with?”

Jihoon thinks – really thinks. He reaches out for the trophy Seungcheol had stubbornly left for him, the day after he’d called the arc reactor that got him out of Afghanistan obsolete.

“Choi Seungcheol.”

Feel free to ask me more of these ship asks here!

[aricazorel]

N7 month prompts--Day 15 Compassion

(this takes place during the flashback scene in Chapter 13 of Broken Road during shore leave on the Citadel in 2183)

After accidentally running into Lt. Alenko during shore leave while the Normandy was docked at the Citadel, Kora Reese had decided Alenko engineered the whole thing just to spend time with her. Well, it wasn’t like he had hid his motives as they avoided talking about the meeting Shepard was in with the Council and Ambassador Udina. In fact, they had gone to great lengths to avoid anything duty related. Talking instead about themselves, their pasts, their interests, their families. And Reese found that she rather liked that.

Or rather she liked talking to and being around the Lt. In fact, she loathed to admit it even to herself, but she enjoyed being the sole focus of his attention for the afternoon. Either way, Alenko showed no signed of running off to find something else to do.

After a rocky start to their impromptu shore leave outing, both admitting they were extremely bad at it, they found a place that served steak sandwiches and beer Alenko said was almost like home. Further conversation had led to them agreeing to call each other by their last names when off duty instead of by rank. As conversing with each other became easier, the pair wandered the wards aimlessly. Too engrossed in their conversation to care for the scenery.

It was when a pair of teenagers, probably twins 13 or 14 years of age began pointing at them that Reese stopped walking. They had wandered into one of the residential districts heavily populated by humans. The boy and girl were whispering excitedly and pointing. For the life of her, Reese could not figure out why they would be interested in two off-duty Alliance Officers.

“Reese, why’d you stop?” Kaidan asked confused as he looked at her.

She arched an eyebrow and motioned to the teens. “We have an audience.”

His whiskey colored eyes glanced to where she’d pointed as a holo advertisement for the Alliance Military cycled on at a nearby kiosk. More specifically it was pandering to biotics, alerting them to all the benefits of joining the Alliance because of their abilities. Flashing before her eyes was a picture of Lt. Kaidan Alenko at attention as the narrator carried on.

Reese grinned broadly. “Never mind. It’s you who has an audience.”

Kaidan muttered under his breath. “I thought they had quit using that…I sent an email to the PR department about it…Several actually.”

Reese glanced at him. He was turning red. He was embarrassed. Was it because of the idea that he was the poster boy for Alliance biotics or because she had seen it? Deciding to cut him some slack, she whispered, “We could hack the terminal. You know…Make it not show a rather handsome picture of you posing for an Alliance PR campaign.”

“And get in trouble with C-Sec and Alliance Command? No thank you,” he declined with a sharp shake of his head.

“You’re only in trouble if you get caught, Alenko,” she corrected as she noticed the teens hesitantly approaching them. “But forget about that, you have fans.” 

He made a face at her and then put on his best Lt. façade as he turned to greet the kids. “Hello. Can we help you?”

“You’re him, aren’t you?” the boy said as he motioned to the ad kiosk. “The one in the add.”

“Ummm…I—”

“Yes, he is,” Reese answered for him. “This is Lt. Kaidan Alenko.”

“See? I told you it was him,” the boy whispered to the girl. Turning back to the Lt.’s he added, “Steph didn’t believe me.”

Kaidan raised his eyebrows forgetting about his annoyance with Reese as the girl said softly, “I didn’t think they really let biotics serve. Some people say its just way to get rid of us.”

“Us?” Alenko repeated, glancing quickly from the boy to the girl. He finally realized he was feeling more than just his and Reese’s biotics. “You are both biotics aren’t you?”

The girl nodded as the boy admitted quietly, “Yes. Our Dad is too, but he left…”

“He left because of work?” Kaidan asked, hoping it wasn’t for another reason. One he had seen far too often with parents who didn’t know how to cope with a biotic child. Even those who were biotic themselves had troubles. It didn’t make it right, but it happened regardless.

The girl shook her head. “He left when Sam first showed he had biotics…My biotics showed up after Dad left…”

Sam added, “That was 5 years ago. Mom hasn’t heard from him since. She tries but having both of us be biotics is…hard.” 

Steph lowered her eyes. “We just…We see the ad all the time, and Mom says she’s not sure about it. She doesn’t want us to go off to war…”

Reese spoke up. “The Alliance isn’t just a military force. They are involved in R & D and joint civilian projects to help make colonizing easier and safer.”

“Who are you?” Sam asked rudely. 

Reese bit back a smart remark as Kaidan waved her off. “This is Lt. Kora Reese. She’s assigned to the SSV Normandy with me. She’s assigned to ship operations but she’s also a biotic. An L3. I’m an L2. Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah. It’s the kind of implant you have. Dad was an L2,” Sam replied proudly.

“Well, the implants they have now was better and safer than either of ours. When it comes time to get yours, you’ll have an advantage over us,” Alenko commented, trying to sound encouraging rather than angry that people had convinced the twins that biotics were a burden.

“What’s that?” Steph asked excitedly.

He grinned. “You’ll be able to have access to training and support that Reese and I didn’t. You’re second generation so there are more resources at your disposal,” Kaidan explained.

Sam shook his head. “Mom says getting an implant marks you and there’s no way to hide your biotics then.”

Reese watched as Kaidan bent down on one knee. “Do you hide your biotics now?”

The twins nodded. Kaidan made a sympathetic face. “I used to too. I was afraid people would think I was a monster or a freak. People even called me that. But my parents made sure I knew I wasn’t. I was just born with abilities others didn’t have. It’s like being good at sports or music or math. Not everyone is. Biotics just take a while to learn how to control. But you shouldn’t fear them.”

“But Mom doesn’t want us to be treated different…”

“And you shouldn’t be,” Kaidan stated firmly as he glanced up at Reese. “I’ve tried to use my service in the Alliance to help people see that biotics are nothing to be feared…Are you afraid of your biotics?”

“No. Not really,” Steph admitted.

“I like to be able to move stuff with my mind,” Sam said.

“Okay, that’s a good start,” Alenko replied as he stood up. “What if I could give you guys some people to contact? People that could help with any questions you have, maybe some training, and some education opportunities?”

“I don’t know… Mom doesn’t like random things we bring home about biotics. We’ve tried before,” Sam said dejectedly.

Kaidan grinned as a thought popped into his head. “What about bringing home two biotics instead? Two live people she can actually talk to.”

Steph smiled broadly. “Would you? Would you really?”

Kaidan shrugged as he turned to Reese. “I don’t know. What say you, Reese?”

His whiskey brown eyes begged her to go along with his plan. She could tell he really wanted to help the two young biotics. Something told her it was extremely personal for him and something akin to a promise he had made to himself. Maybe he had done just that. Promised to help other biotics after his own experiences made it clear more could have been done for the first generation.

Compassion. That was one word she instantly associated with what he was trying to do. Show a couple of random teens on the Citadel who were biotics compassion because everyone around them didn’t know how to cope with their abilities. He had dealt with them all his life. So the advertisement had been right; he was a poster boy but in the absolute best way possible.

Please.

He mouthed the word to her continuing with puppy dog eyes. Reese sighed. She was doomed.

“Yes,” was all she got out before he had grabbed her by the hand and tugged her towards the excited twins. Following them in an unceremonious trot, she caught a quiet thank you from the L2 as they made their way towards the twins’ residence.

Doomed. That was the correct word. Doomed because she was rapidly finding fewer and fewer reasons to deny her growing attraction to the Lt. He was a great tech, a model marine, well-spoken, had a good sense of humor, was smart, kind, and compassionate. She knew she would have appreciated someone like to help with her biotics when they first manifested. Either way, she doubted giving into his puppy dog eyes would ever be on her regret list.

[lia-jones]

Growing Pains - Chapter Four - My Office. NOW.

I arrived at LFG the next day at 8 am, way before everybody else did. I went to the CEO’s office and left an envelope on top of his desk, with my resignation letter inside.

I brewed some coffee, and grabbing a cup for myself, I sat on my laptop and worked on the pending things I had to do for the week. Whoever would take my work, would have no problem picking up the pace if I left things organized.

I was so absorbed in my task I didn’t even notice all the other people coming in. I also didn’t notice Victor’s arrival, so it came as a surprise to see Victor’s message on the company communication channel.

My office. NOW.

I knocked on the glass door and heard a dry “come in”. Victor was sitting at his desk, my resignation letter in his hand.

“You called?” I said, my voice emotionless.

“Explain this.” His tone was severe, angry even, as he threw the letter on the desk with contempt.

“Not much to explain, it’s my resignation letter.” I said, my cold eyes meeting his fiery ones.

“Is it now?” His tone was of scorn. “Here’s what I think about your resignation letter.” He took the letter from the table and slowly ripped it to pieces. I was astonished, not believing my own eyes. That man had some nerve. Suddenly he got up, and although he wasn’t loud or aggressive, I was startled all the same. I could hear my heartbeat in my eardrums.

“Tomorrow morning a car will be picking you up at 6:30 in the morning. You will be ready for it at 6: 29, so you won’t cause any delays. You’ll pack a bag for a two-day trip, including dresses for business dinners. You said you wanted to learn, here is your chance, I will teach you. Tomorrow, you’ll sit with me at the grown-ups table.” His grey eyes were menacing and icy, defying me to retort or refuse. Seeing him like this, I simply couldn’t. I just stood there and took all of his fury, unable to move a muscle. He paused for a moment, watching my reaction, and continued.

“Goldman will send you my schedule for the next two days, which you will memorize like it was your own name. You’ll also come prepared with all the information required about the companies I am going to visit, including reports on your analysis of the present reality for those companies, and what actions should be taken to protect the investments. And you will not fail or disappoint me, or I will personally make sure you will never work in finances again, here or in any other place. Understood?”

He spat the threat like it was coming from the deepest darkest pit inside him, and it fell on me like a double punch on my gut. I remained silent, knowing that I couldn’t possibly say no to him. I wasn’t pleased with the whole situation, but I wasn’t stupid enough to face the angry bear now. I had poked him, after all.

“Yes. Anything else, sir?” I said, my expression emotionless, the word sir coming out sourer than I intended.

His eye twitched, and for a nanosecond, it seemed this was as hard for him as it was for me, a glint of discomfort in his eyes. Clearly wishful thinking. He sat down and picked a file, and spoke to me while reading it. It was clearly his way to show despise.

“Yes. Later today you will have a desk placed in my office. You will be working with me closely, taking all the tasks I give you. You will be here when I arrive, and you will only leave when I tell you to leave. I will be demanding and most likely ill-tempered, but you’ll take it like an adult, since I will be teaching you everything I know. In return, I expect from you nothing less than excellence.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening, but I wouldn’t relent. I asked to be taught, didn’t I? If I played my cards right, I could profit greatly from all the knowledge he had to offer. I didn’t know if the CEO was pushing me to be better or if it was just punishment for being sassy, but I wouldn’t lose the opportunity to get my hands dirty and learn something worth the trouble.

Seeing Victor was already busy with his own work, not even caring to finish the conversation, I excused myself and went to my desk. Ted was waiting by my chair, his expression worried.

“What the hell happened? You’re pale as a ghost.” He asked, worried.

“Victor will be supervising me now. I will move to his office soon.” I said, my body feeling tired as all the tension slowly left it.

“Did he say why?”

“Not really.” I lied. “I think he wasn’t pleased with my reports.”

“Are you keeping any of my accounts? You were working on them, will Victor be supervising them too?” Ted seemed worried, maybe because he felt his efficiency was on trial as well.

“I don’t know, Ted. He’s your buddy, go ask him yourself.”

Ted didn’t lose any time. He went straight to Victor’s office. I just sat at my desk and went back to work, not minding what was happening there.

I opened my email to find I already had an email from Goldman with the schedule for the two-day trip. I printed it and put it beside me, starting to research about the companies we would be visiting.

I was so busy with my own work I didn’t notice the time pass me by, the busy energy of the company acting only as a background noise. I was startled by someone tapping me on the shoulder. It was Diane.

“Oh sweetie, I noticed you just came back from Victor’s office. You don’t look so good. We’re going to grab something to eat. Would you like to join us?” She said, smiling. Diane was a tall blonde with piercing blue eyes, and a voice so calm it could literally put you to sleep. She was one of the best workers in LFG, constantly praised by Victor but especially by Goldman, that seemed to like and respect her deeply. It was no surprise though, her heart being as big as her brains, and her attitude always positive and wise, making it extremely difficult not to like her.

I looked at the clock, it was one pm. But I still had a lot of work to cover. I was about to say no, when a man approached me.

“Hey, you’re Andrea, right? I’m Lenny. I’m here to move your things to the CEO’s office while you have lunch.” Lenny extended his hand for me to shake.

“Actually, I still have work to do…” I said, not wanting to leave my desk at all. Victor would be arriving from his lunch break soon, and I was pretty sure he would dump all kinds of tasks on me. And I still wasn’t done with what I had started in the morning.

“20 minutes, that’s all I ask. You’ll be doing me a solid, if the CEO arrives to see I still haven’t done what he asked me to, I’ll be in trouble.”

“Come with us, Andrea, we won’t take long, I have a lot to do too. You grab some lunch and relax a little, you’ll be more productive when you return.” Diane chimed in.

“20 minutes.” I turned to Lenny. “And make sure everything is working properly, I can’t lose any more time than the much I’m giving you.”

Lenny agreed and I went with Diane and some other people to this salad bar we often went to. We sat with our lunch, the others engaged in conversation, me and Diane eating silently. That is, until Diane broke the silence.

“So… Do you want to talk about what happened? Goldman was in his office when he opened your letter. He said he has never seen him so angry.”

“Well, the report presentation went incredibly sour yesterday. I thought he was going to fire me, so I quit. To save myself the humiliation. He didn’t take it too well.” I blurted out. I didn’t want to, but I needed to tell somebody.

“Went sour how?”

“Well, he called me an idiot… And I called him a bully. And he is a bully, Diane. I never had any complaints until yesterday, but I see how he treats people. Like he is the only smart person in the room. You’re close to Goldman, you know how nervous he gets. Life can’t be easy for him.” I tried to defend myself, although I knew I wasn’t very nice to Victor either.

“Ok… But he didn’t fire you. You’re moving your stuff to his office.” Diane stated, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“He’s my supervisor now and he wants me to work closely with him. Probably to make me trip and add to my humiliation.” I sighed.

“I’ve known Victor for a while now. Goldman and I have been in the company for at least 7 years working close to him. And he’s not what he seems, Andy. He gives off the cold vibe but he’s actually a very kind and honorable person. It’s hard for him to let people in, I think. Do you know how Goldman started working at LFG?”

I shook my head, giving her my undivided attention.

“He was in a very bad place when he applied. He was practically homeless, he had lost his parents recently, nobody would hire him. He applied to work as a receptionist. Victor interviewed him, for some reason.” Diane paused to sip her drink. “When Victor asked him why someone with an Economics degree was applying as a receptionist, he told him his troubles. Victor not only hired him, but he did it as his assistant. And for a while, LFG paid the rental of a small apartment so Goldman could save some money and get himself back on his feet. And Victor taught him everything he needed to know about the job, making him his right arm. Victor didn’t need to do that.”

I pondered for a moment, thinking about how he helped me with my car trouble. Although it was a very uncomfortable experience, he was nothing but a gentleman. But that man was a very different man from the man threatening me in his office.

“He seems to be two very different people.” I said, concluding the conversation, not wanting to talk about it anymore.

“Well, since you are working with him, here’s a piece of advice. Don’t let his standoffish act fool you. Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

I nodded. Maybe he wasn’t all that bad. I sure hoped so, since I would be in close vicinity for the next few months.

I ran to the office to finish my work. My desk was already set on Victor’s office. Fortunately, he was still on his lunch break, so I sat and put on my earphones, resuming my work, my focus solely on my screen, the music blocking exterior stimuli. I worked fast and furiously for a while, my mind speeding through the process, when my concentration was broken by the sight of a tie next to my screen. I could only imagine the scolding I would get if the CEO had been there for long talking to me and I didn't listen.

“Sorry for the earphones. I needed to focus. Do you need anything?” I asked him.

“Do you have your reports ready? Did you gather all the information regarding the companies?”

“Almost ready. It’ll be finished in half an hour.” I answered.

“Let’s hope the quality of your work surpasses your efficiency, which is seriously lacking. A toddler could do it in half the time.” He said, sitting down at his desk.

I sighed. Who told me to be that straightforward to the guy and call him a bully?

“Did you have lunch?” I heard his voice again.

“Yes, I took a quick break and ate.”

“Rule number one in this office: No matter how busy you are, you take a break to eat and drink.”

“Understood.”

“The last thing I need is the intern to pass out from hunger and make a fool of herself in my office.”

This was going to be hell. I could feel it. Way to go, Andrea, you missed a perfectly good opportunity to be quiet.

[artxyra]

In Her Darkest Moment - Part 2

Part 1 | 2 | 3

Note: The song inspiration came from Utada Hikaru & Skrillex Face My Fears. Yes, there will be a part 3. It just felt right to end the part where it was rather than continue it to be a completed two-shot story. Don’t know when the next part will be out but I did start it. 

Marinette’s day started off okay. Her usual clients emailed her for some design commission, her lovers decided that today they would the day that they make breakfast for her, but the day comes to still when she sees an official letter in the mail.

You Are Invited to Lycée Fantômette Dupont Reunion!

Oh yes, an invitation to the worse years of her life. It still amazes her how she was able to graduate with all her absent days and constant visits to the dean’s office.

“Did you see the news?” Marinette turns to see Kagami, dress in a casual black and red jumpsuit.

Marinette sighs and places the letter down. She didn’t know how to answer this. There were already too many memories running through her brain to even think of a proper reply.

“You don’t have to say anything.” Kagami comforts placing a kiss on the conflicted woman’s cheek. “If it makes you feel any better, we don’t have to go.”

Marinette shakes her head, “No, we should go. I want to see whether or not they have changed enough to understand that her lies have consequences.”

Kagami takes a step back, a hand coving her heart. A smile sneaks it away onto the Japanese’s native woman. “Of course, you would. Should I tell Fe and Luka of your decision?”  

Marinette nods, “That would be wise. Actually…I might have something better in mind.” The designer teases biting her bottom lip.

Kagami has known Marinette long enough to know that mischief is that woman’s best friend through thick and thin. Nodding, Kagami notices the time and rushes out of the room. Marinette lets out a small chuckle and returns to reading the letter.

There is never a bad time to face her past, and as much as she blocked out everything regarding her times in Lycée, there were still some good memories. It’s an odd feeling to have ten years’ worth of fear piling in her small body structure, but she didn’t want to linger on to that feeling any longer.

Burying herself in her commissions, Marinette barely heard the slamming of her office door late on that evening.

“This is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!” A certain blonde shout to the heavens. Marinette stops her sowing and turns to see one of her closest friends, who’s chest is out and seething. Pushing the fabric aside, the bluenette gets up and lightly push against the blonde’s shoulder.

“What happened?” She asks looking at the blonde in the eyes.

Chloe huffs and folds her arms, “Our favorite liar decided that it would be useful to use your name once more for personal gain.”

Marinette’s bluebell eyes widen. She stands frozen against Chloe. Her breathing quickens as the once buried memories flood their way into her mind. Subconsciously, she touches her shoulder and rubs her forearm.

Chloe quickly notices the woman’s actions and guide her to the futon. Siting blue-haired woman down, Chloe immediately tries to get her to do some breathing exercises. Realizing that wasn’t working, Chloe pulls out her phone calls the others. Luka’s the first to answer.

“She’s having a panic attack,” Chloe immediately states, placing the call on the speaker.

Luka immediate sings a soft lullaby, as Chloe adds Félix and Kagami to the call.

“Netta, listen to us, you are safe, she can’t get to you now.” Félix states in the softest voice he could muster.

As the three lovers try to soothe their love, Chloe paces back and forth thinking of possible ways to get the panic woman out of her attack. She hates seeing Marinette like this, Lycée was hard on all of them and here was the past creeping its way back up to them.

They have created a life outside of lycée, away from their former classmates and tormentors. Marinette became a successful designer despite doing it under a pseudonym named Fortunate Red, Kagami being a fencing instructor and agent, Félix becoming a well-known lawyer, Luka taking off in his solo career as a rock star, and her being the best damn PR specialist for the group.

“I think she’s coming to.” Chloe acknowledges seeing the clouded look in Marinette’s eyes fade away. Immediately after saying that, the three on the phone simultaneously sighs in relief.

“That’s good to hear, Chloe,” Kagami states what they all were thinking. “Please keep an eye on her. We know how much she hates it, but I wouldn’t want to take the risk.” The others were quick to agree but not without promises of being home soon.

The call ends; Marinette shakes the daze away and looks around. “What happened?”

Chloe pinches the bridge of her nose and murmurs, “You don’t want to know. Anyways, as your PR, I advise you to stay away from social media, especially your old accounts.”

Marinette tilts her head sideways, why would Chloe mention her practically dead social media accounts? She hasn’t posted anything on there in ten years—perhaps it was longer than that.

“I won’t. I promise.” Marinette promise. “I think I need to take a walk—a break, maybe. I promise Madeline that I would meet her at the café.”  

Chloe gives Marinette a reassuring smile.

“Maybe I should go with you, besides I miss Madeline.” Chloe offers.

“You don’t have to do that; besides, I will have Tikki and Plagg with me.”

“I thought Plagg was with Félix.”

“He didn’t want to listen to another long meeting without cheese being present.” Marinette giggles.

Chloe loves these moments. Moments when Marinette is herself, carefree, and the weight of her past behind her even if it’s for a moment.

“Fine, you can go but the moment Madeline calls us, we’re going in.” Chloe readjusts her purse, “Also tell her to call me, she missed our last dinner date because of the late-night rush at the restaurant.”

Marinette nods and calls for the two kwamis out of their miniature house. Due to Marinette becoming the guardian of Miraculous box once she was fully trained, she felt bad for the kwamis and decided to make them a little house—similar to a dollhouse—for them to live and have fun in. It works out as it gave something to come back to and give them all personal spaces.

“So, Marinette are you going to go to the reunion?” Tikki wonders flying next to her chosen.

Marinette didn’t answer. Her mind wanders off to the possibilities that could happen regarding the decision to go. They always did say the best way to be free is to face the fears that are holding you back.

~*~

Breaking News: Lila Agreste nee Rossi claims that her husband Adrien Agreste is having an affair with a former Lycée classmate!

“I caught them in our bed!” Rossi claims. “This wasn’t the first time, either!”

Headlines: Adrien Agreste remains silent at this acquisition.

Headlines: Are Rossi and Agreste getting a divorce?

Breaking News: Rossi claims that former classmate Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a homewrecker!

~*~

Marinette couldn’t help but feel an enormous amount of guilt. Chloe’s warning may have done her good on the social media part, but it didn’t stop her from seeing the newspaper and hearing the whispers behind her back as she continues with her daily routine.

“You shouldn’t be reading those, Netta. We don’t want you to have another relapse.” Luka states wrapping his arms around her shoulder.

“I-I-I can’t help it.” She stutters, her voice cracking. “I haven’t seen or spoken to any of them in a long time, so why put my name out there?” She ponders covering her face an attempt to hide from the world around her.

“You’re not obligated to attend the reunion.” Luka reminds her, but Marinette shakes her head.

“It won’t do me any good to stay away now. That will only make me look guilty to those that still believe her lies.”

She did have a point. Everyone in their graduating class received the invite and nearly everyone in Marinette’s class believed the lies especially after the photo incident.

Luka sighs and a quick text to Félix.

“I guess I’ll get the car prepared, then.”

Marinette goes to kiss Luka’s cheek, allowing herself to feel a little peace with this decision.

~*~

Lila couldn’t believe how easy it was to bring the Dupont’s everyday Ladybug name back into her crazy schemes for attention and power. All it took was a little bit of blackmailing on some well-known reporters and the waterworks.

No matter what, she will get her happy ending. Lila believed she thought her plan entirely through. Soon Juleka would be able to sway her rock star of a brother into her scheme allowing her to be his lover. Adrien was dead to her. She dried him the minute they got married, but her spot-light fantasy faded away when Gabriel Agreste had to file bankruptcy. It was then that Lila knew she needed someone better, richer, and handsome than the former model.

“I can’t believe that Marinette would do such a thing to you Lila.” Alya spats clearly angered at her former best friend for all the pain she causes the Italian woman.

Cue the waterworks, “It’s true, I caught them. She didn’t bat an eye when she rushed out of the house.”

Alya immediately goes to comfort the teary-eyed black widow.

“I would feel embarrassed for Marinette if she dared showed her face here tonight.” Lila couldn’t help but internally smirk at the damage she has caused.

“Oh look, there’s Rose, Juleka, and Alix over by the punch bowl.” Alya attempts to direct the conversation to something else.

Lila cheekily smiles and allows herself to be dragged over to the punch bowl. Alya immediately greets the small group of women.

“I heard about your divorce, Alya, how are you doing?” Alix cautiously asked despite the concerned look she’s giving to the reporter.

Alya sighs, “It was hard, but we manage to get an agreement for the kids.”

Alya wasn’t alright, she loved Nino with all her being, but when he asked for a divorce, it was out of the blue and she was going through a hard time finding a new journalism agency. Together they have twin boys that were as energetic as their mother when she was teen chasing after Ladybug.

“Oh my, I didn’t realize and here I am in tears about my marriage.” Lila gasps bringing the conversation back on her. Alya gives the Italian woman a soft smile and hands her a glass of punch. “So Juleka, is your brother joining us this evening?”

Juleka shrugs and pulls Rose into a side embrace. “He told me it was possible as his girlfriend is also a part of our graduating class.”

Lila nearly spits out her drink, “G-girlfriend.” She stutters cursing in the back of her mind that her plan was already going down like a sinking ship.

“Uh…yeah. I think he’s planning on proposing soon but we haven’t been in contact since the start of his tour.” Juleka adds cautiously seeing the slight change in Lila’s behavior.

Lila sends Juleka a sheepish smile and turns around to fold her arms against her chest.

“Well I do hope he shows up, it will be nice to see whom he’s dating.” Alya wonders, probably thinking of a new scoop for her blog.

~*~

Marinette is feeling a panic attack approaching, that or a nervous breakdown. Since the last time she saw the news, more information regarding the cheating scandal came to light. Reporters are going at each other throats about the lack of truth and trying to make as much sense as to why this story is just now coming out. Few of them tried to contact her, but she told them they had the wrong number.

“Deep breaths, Netta, we’re almost there.” Félix softly whispers into her ear holding the bluenette’s hand in his own.

Félix’s right, she does need to calm down.

The limo stops in front of the venue that the school provided for such an event. It was time for her to face her fears.

Exiting the limo, Marinette could only wish that she had taken up Tikki’s offer for her to accompany her, but she denied seeing as Félix, Kagami and Luka would be there with her. Even though their poly-relationship is hidden from the public they every much have a plan. Kagami’s dating Luka while she’s dating Félix. They only hope to marry one another one day but they’re happy with their dynamic.

“I’m ready.” Marinette murmurs, but her tense shoulders and quicken breathes would say otherwise.

“Baby steps, Netta, baby steps.” Kagami grabs hold of her black and blue-haired lover’s arm and walks towards the entrance.

Entering the banquet hall, Marinette could spot her other favorite blonde amid a conversation she clearly did not want to be in. Thankfully, Chloe caught sight of them and excuse herself from the conversation.

“Nette!” Chloe exclaims, but not before wishing that her voice was a little bit lowered.

Everyone has their eyes on the group of newcomers. Gossip spread throughout the adults and the majority of it was how Marinette showed her face to them after what she had done to Lila’s marriage.

“How are you doing?” Chloe asks her friend. “Don’t worry, my guys and I are working overtime to get this scandal handled. I’m sure Félix is putting together a case against Rossi and whoever’s involved with this.”

“That would be wrong of me to not help save my Netta’s reputation, Bourgeois,” Félix states wrapping his arms around Marinette’s small waist.

“Félix!” Marinette stares at him in shock. A small weight of negative emotions are lifted from her shoulders.

Félix gives her heartfelt smile and gently place a kiss on her temple.

Very audible gasps fill the ambient sounds.

Alya angerly charges towards the happy group with fire in her eyes. “How could you, Marinette! You show your disgraceful face here and have the audacity to kiss another man when you’re hoeing around with Adrien.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cesaire. I haven’t seen Agreste in years.” Marinette states clinging to Félix’s blazer.

Alya screeches, her hand making a swing at Marinette. However, if it wasn’t for Félix grabbing her wrist mid-swing, Marinette would have been hurt.

“That is enough, Cesaire.” Félix growls, his cat-like instincts kicking in. “Marinette and I came here to have a good time and it would rude of you to act out at such a formal event.”

He then violently shoves her wrist away. Alya gawks at him.

“Your so-called girlfriend has been hooking up with another man behind your back and you’re acting like everything is okay.” Alya shrieks and if there wasn’t a crowd before, there was one now.

“I have not been hooking up with other men. I love Félix and I would never cheat on him.” Marinette sneers, her fears of the past coming at her was being boiled away by fury red anger. If Hawkmoth was still in action, this would have the perfect time to become Scarlet Moth. The amount of fury, confusion, and sadness ran high at the reunion.

Part 3

Tag List:  @zebrabaker | @chloe-bourgeois-is-big-gay | @kuroko26 | @ayuchan07 | @whitennerdiest | @mewwitch | @hauntedfreakdeputyhero | @captainmac6 | @somedayillwrite

[percyscourt]

imagine the movie Wild Child, but Silena Beauregard as Poppy Moore...

silena beauregard was born and raised in Malibu, CA. she lived with her mom, dad, and little sister until her mom died when she nine years old in a car crash. before the crash, silena was quirky, respectful, sometimes even quiet. but after the crash, she was like a totally different person. as soon as she hit middle school, she became a party-girl, and her nights weren't complete without drinking, dancing, or trashing somebody's house. of course, it also didn't help that her dad owned a million-dollar chocolate company and was rarely home

the last week of the summer before her sophomore year, silena's dad announced that his new girlfriend was going to move in with them. naturally, silena reacted with nothing short of a large ball of rage. when the moving trucks arrived, they were greeted by more than 100 teenagers that silena had invited over to take, trash, and torch all of her father's girlfriend's belongings

as if this wasn't enough, silena herself wanted to participate. silena scooped up a handful of clothes and started running full speed to the pool in her backyard. instead of jumping in the pool like everybody assumed she would, silena didn't stop running, but instead ran behind the pool to where the cliff looked down into the ocean, and dived in

right as she came up from the ocean, her dad arrived, and he immediately started kicking everybody out

flashforward to dinner that night, silena's dad tells her that she's going to boarding school.

in new york. and not the city new york, no, the countryside new york.

after dinner, silena stormed to her room. her younger sister, Lacy, came into her room and spent the night. they didn't get any sleep, though, but instead talked about their mom. "i've already lost her. i can't lose you too, S."

the next day, silena began packing. her friend, Kelly, helped her while lacy sat on the bed, talking about new york. "What if your school is like in Gossip Girl? That'd be awesome!" when lacy stepped out, silena and kelly looked at the school's website. the school showed a lacrosse field, outside dining pavillion, horse stables, a lake, and dorms. "could be uglier, I guess." kelly left, promising to call silena every night

the next day, silena and her father left early so silena could see the campus before classes started, and they drove all the way from california to new york; "S, it's like a roadtrip! Fun, right?"

it took them about two days to get there, and when silena and her dad finally get to the campus, it's two hours till dinner. as soon as she stepped out of the car, silena was met by the school's dean, Professor D. who introduced her to the school's head girl, Drew, and her friends

silena immediately takes an instant disliking to Drew, which is only increased when drew looks at silena's phone case. "'Pink is powerful?' Ha! Pink is weak- like you, I'm assuming." when drew tried to take silena's hand to shake, silena pulled it back roughly. of course, drew was taken aback. "You shake the head girl's hand out of respect." she yanked silena's hand

silena pulled it back. "When the head girl has earned my respect, then I'll shake her hand..

Biotch."

after drew and her posse stormed off, silena was introduced to Clarisse, her "big sister." while clarisse was nicer than drew, you could tell she didn't like silena either. all silena wanted to do was go home.

clarisse told silena to get any bags she needed and follow her to their room. when they got there, silena was introduced to her other roomates; Katie, Thalia, and Annabeth, though everybody just called Annabeth "Wise Girl"

when she got to the room, silena found out that technically she wasn't allowed to have her phone, except for sundays, and during the week it would be with her dorm's RA

silena hated this. this rule. this school. this whole thing.

two weeks pass, and silena wasn't any closer to liking this school, but also not any closer to finding a way out of it, either. her and her roomates barely talked, and when they did, it was snarky remarks or arguments

one night, silena ended up sneaking out after lights-out. she went to the school's computer room and logged into her email to write to kelly. after she wrote and sent the email, silena looked for the log out button so she could get back before anybody realized she'd left. right before she was about to log out, she saw somebody else sneaking around, just out of the doorway

it was annabeth.

silena left the computer to investigate. she walked out of the comouter room on her tippy-toes, looking this way and that for signs of anybody else. a thought popped into her mind, maybe she's meeting a guy, but as soon as that thought came, it was gone. silena creeped behind her and saw annabeth walk into a doorway. silena waited, counted to ten, then followed and peaked inside the room. it was the school's library. ugh, lame. silena left and started heading back to her room

when she was on the second floor on the way to the third, a fire alarm went off. scared of getting caught sneaking around during lights-out, silena hopped out a window and onto the fire escape. she walked on the fire escape until she got to an apparently empty bathroom. she hopped through its window

when she gets into the bathroom, she realizes it's actualky occupied. a voice calls out from her from behind the shower curtain. "may I help you?" it was a man's voice. holy hell, i've walked into one of my teachers taking a bath! "Uh maybe. I'm Silena Beauregard, sophomore, room 308. How do I get out of here? without getting caught, I mean." the faceless voice gave her directions and she ended up getting out without getting in trouble

a couple days later, silena is in pe class when she gets in a fight with drew. it starts out with a witty comment from silena, as it always does, but then drew threw the first punch. soon, both girls were rolling around on the ground, equally pulling hair and punches. "Silena Beauregard from 308?" it was the voice. silena looked up, but instead of coming face to face with a professor, it was a boy. a boy her age. "Charles! Hey, Charles! Hi, how are you?" Drew was quickly on her feet, rushing to shake his hand.

"Uh, well. Goodbye, now." Charles left, and silena found out that his full name was Charles Beckendorf, and he was the Dean's nephew. "How do you know him, fresh meat?"

"Aww, are you mad because you have a crush on him, old meat?" Drew's friends had to drag her away before another fight ensued

as she walked to her dorm from pe, a bucket of sewer water was dumped on silena's head, courtesy of one of drew's minions from seventh grade. silena wasn't alone, though, and turned around to see clarisse. clarisse laughed for several seconds before composing herself. "Okay, let's say we get yourself cleaned up, alright?"

after they had cleaned back up at the dorms, clarisse handed silena her phone. "We gave Mr. Brunner decoys; some old flip-phones. Go ahead and call your friend if you'd like."

silena calls Kelly but it goes to voicemail, and she texts her a simple "imy girly <3" instead

when all the girls are in the room, silena opened up about her mother's death and how hard it was at this new school. partly because they liked her, and partly because they felt bad for her, they all agreed to help Silena get expelled from school.

over the course of several weeks, the girls pulled a series of pranks; dying the lake blood-red, re-recording over Mr. Underwood's lectures, etc. they never got in trouble though, and the only thing the pranks were successful in doing was bringing the girls closer, though they didn't know it

after she realized their pranks weren't working, clarisse suggested a different approach: silena would seduce charles, and the dean would be so mad that he'd expel her immediately

their plan was put into motion at the school dance a week later. the girls were allowed off campus, and they went shopping for dresses in NYC. while they were shopping, clarisse suggested they all get their hair done. Silena went along with them, then even ended up swapping her platinum blonde curls for her natural raven-black waves. when the hair stylist was done, she realized with a shock that she looked exactly like her mother. she liked it

the girls showed up twenty-five minutes late to the dance, per silena's suggestion to be fashionably late. they were by far the most dressed up and stylish there, also due to silena's large interest in fashion and design

when they got there, charles was standing in a corner, awkwardly talking with drew

"Hey, Charlie, wanna dance?"

They danced, though it was more like Silena danced and Charles just standed there and watched. "Nobody ever calls me Charlie, y'know. It's either Charles or Beckendorf. I like when you call me Charlie."

in the middle of dancing, Silena tried some new move she had seen on one of her shows, but she tripped and fell on her head. charlie picked her up and took her outside to sit down. when she assured him that she was okay, charlie just started looking at silena instead. he leaned down to kiss her but they were interrupted by drew's followers

just as she was leaving, charlie asked silena on a date

the next day at school, silena was called into Professor D's office. he scolded her for not only for behaviour but also the fact that she had brought alcoholic beverages on to the school campus. silena sat silent through the whole stretch of this talk, waiting patiently for Pr. D to finish up and expel her. instead, her punishment was joining the girls' lacrosse team

after a good two weeks of lacrosse, silena had started to like it. she found out her mom not only went to the school when she was young, but also was the team captain to lead them to nationals, and silena was determined to do the same. somewhere along the way, she found herself actually falling in love with the sport. and something somebody else.

silena and charlie's first date was the day after her talk in the dean's office. charloe took her off campus to an underground bunker. silena was surprised to see that while it was a little packed, it was very neat and fresh-looking. "welcome to bunker 9." they had a picnic then went on a drive. the date ended with a kiss that made silena feel as if she was floating

when she got back to her room, she found Clarisse, Thalia, Katie, and Annabeth crowded around the computer. "What're you reading?" the girls turned around, faces mad and hurt at the same time. "Your email."

when she looked at a screen, silena saw an email from her account, though she hadn't sent one. it went on for more than a hundred words, with the summary being that she was only pretending to be their friend so they'd help her get expelled

silena checked her account to see that a similar email was written to charlie. both charlie and her roomates shut her out and refused to talk to her

upset and alone, silena decided to call kelly. when she did, she found out that kelly had been sneaking around with Silena's on-and-off-again boyfriend, Luke, since the first week of them dating in eighth grade. silena deleted both their numbers. she sat there, feeling almost as alone as she had when her mom died

poppy was in the common room after lights-out when she really started to feel depressed. absentmindedly, she started playing with her lighter. the flame accidentally touched the curtain and scorched the corner. though she put it out before anything else happened, silena was so spooked that she decided to retire to her room. as she walked, she heard footsteps, and her slow pace turned to a fast sprint

a few minutes later as she laid awake in bed, silena turned her head to see that outside of her window the common room was on fire. silena got up, started yelling, and slammed down the fire alarm to wake everybody up

once everybody was evacuated, the teachers started doing head-counts. silena and her roomates quickly realized that one of their own was missing. "ANNABETH!" silena pushed past the crowds, ran past the firemen, and made her way to the library. when she got there, she saw Annabeth trapped behind a fallen bookcase. silena, dizzy and bleary-eyed, led annabeth until they reached the kitchen, and the firemen carried out the collapsing girls.

after the fire was successfully put out, charlie pulled silena aside. when she tried to talk about the email, he only shoved her lighter into her hands. "I believe this is yours." he refused to listen to her explain and walked away, fully believing that she was the one who started the fire

the next day, silena sat in the dean's office awaiting his decision. ironically and cruelly, she found herself wishing not to be expelled. though she held off for a while, she started crying. she couldn't tell if the tears were because of the fire, or her friends, or even her mom, but whatever the cause they didn't stop. until somebody called her name. "Silena"

silena looked up to see charlie staring her right in the face. "I believe you. It was an accident, wasn't it? Tell me everything."

later that day, silena was set to attend a hearing concerning her future at the school. at the hearing, she told her side of the story, starting from when she first got to the school, and her roomates realized she didn't send the emails

they quickly left the hearing, and silena was convinced they hated her

they returned after several minutes of investigative research and took the stand in favor of silena. they defended her against drew and debated back and forth until drew let it accidentally slide that she had saw silena put the fire out, then started it back up herself again

of course, the case was immediately resolved, and silena was cleared while drew was expelled

silena spent the next weeks preparing her team for their nationals game. when the gameday came, silena was surprised to find her dad in the crowd with the rest of the parents. mr. beauregard was equally surprised to see silena's new natural, happy appearance

silena and the rest of the team ended up winning their nationals game by a landslide, and afterward they had a party at the beach by camp

silena ended the schoolyear completely different from when she arrived. she was now officially dating charlie, her team was staying with her for three weeks in the summer, she learned more about her mother and became closer with dad, and she was finally, truly happy.

[zukofenty]

just my luck

➜ Summary: The one where Katara whisks away her picture-perfect life the night she kisses a stranger with the worst luck in the world.

“I lost all my good luck!” Katara screams. “Everything I touch turns to shit!” 

“I mean, have you considered fucking a leprechaun?”

➜ Genre: Modern!AU, Journalist!Katara, Girl group manager!Zuko, Music Producer!Zuko

AO3, @zutaraweek

“I am too pretty to be punched!” Katara yelps, ducking and clenching the holding cell’s bars until her knuckles turn white. 

  “And I thought I was too pretty to commit tax fraud, but here we are.” Ty Lee rolls her eyes. “That’s just how the pussy crumbles.” 

  “First, you need a gynecologist. Second, I think the saying goes ‘that’s how the cookie—’” Nothing in life could have prepared Katara for the tiny girl to deliver a resounding punch that has her head rattling against the jail cell. 

  “I lost all my good luck!” Katara screams. “Everything I touch turns to shit!” 

  “I mean, have you considered fucking a leprechaun?” 

  Katara sighs, still recovering from the intense nosebleed Ty Lee bestowed on her. “Where the fuck would I even find a leprechaun?” She promptly shoves wads of tissues up her nostrils. Of course, the next one she reaches for actually had a spider in it, and she thinks killing herself just might be easier on her soul at this point. 

  “Just say you like Megan Thee Stallion and all of a sudden all the men under 5’7” start giving you a 5’11” attitude. Easy peasy.” 

  She’d managed to limp her way back to Suki and Toph’s apartment from prison, after getting a call that her apartment had flooded, destroying everything in it. Only her apartment. She was barely holding on to her broken YSL pump in one hand and her pride in the other. Emphasis on limp , because while calling taxis to instantly stop for her was always her thing , now she was nothing but an ant (in head-to-toe Prada) on their radar. If they do stop, the taxi either gets snatched up by someone else, or the drivers tell her, not so kindly, to eat a dick. 

  Nevertheless, she’s still determined to have a positive day, walking and humming a Rihanna song to try and calm her nerves. But, because this day was sent by Satan himself (Jeff Bezos), she was drenched, face to booty to toes, in drain water by the seemingly hundreds of Uber Eats whizzing by, trying to get someone’s Buffalo Wild Wings order to them quickly. 

  “I can’t believe you guys actually think all that stuff’s real!” Suki scoffs, diligently painting her toenails a pretty pastel purple and not giving any mind to the conversation. 

  “Tell me, how would you explain this bitch’s life?” Toph points an accusatory finger in Katara’s way. “Katara has been living life as the main character. For fuck’s sake, you won prom queen five years in a row at Ba Sing Se High!” 

  “A lot of people win prom queen—” 

  “We went to Omashu High!” Toph adds with frustration. “You even won the year after you graduated!” 

  Toph and Suki could never quite wrap their heads around Katara’s life. 

  For as long as they knew her, she was always the luckiest girl in the world. 

  At seemingly every turn, the girl had all the luck in the world on her side. I mean, just the other day she was accidentally delivered Rihanna’s dry cleaning, because of course she lives in the same fucking building as Rihanna, the goddess herself. See, Katara was the type of person with the luck to manage to find an upscale apartment on their shitty salary in the city for nearly half of what Suki and Toph were paying to sleep next to inbred cockroaches. 

  “Bitch, you do not have the range for that.” Toph snatches the dress away before Suki or Katara could make a face and whimper a soft ‘gimmie gimmie’ that surprisingly always worked.  

  “I might not, but at least we could clone Rihanna now.” 

  Toph pauses. “Say what?” 

  “I’m getting the girls and gays that album, no matter what.” 

  Katara went to return the dress after getting in a helicopter with her date of the night, People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, Haru (before the mustache). On top of all that madness, she said Rihanna, in the shimmery, Fenty Beauty Body Lava coated flesh, even complimented her makeup. Suki almost shit herself when Katara was added to the Fenty Savage PR list. 

  Katara would walk outside and the clouds seemed to part as if on her command. She could wear all-white in the city without a bird unloading one on her shoulder, or one of those guys on the street flicking feces in a pudding cup her way. Jammed streets or congested traffic never ceased her from being ten minutes early to every meeting, event, or even accidental movie set she walked on and got cast as an extra instantly. The lead actor, Academy Award winning Bolin, is still sending her detailed DMs about the various ways he would harvest her toenails because it reminded him of her. 

  And you know those Airpods or laptop scams that go around on social media you have to train your grandparents not to click on? Or those princes that email you promising to marry you after you send them your banking information? Guess which bitch manages to actually win over a prince’s heart and his inheritance? 

  Katara had the universe wrapped around her finger, and it didn’t seem to mind bending to her will. 

  Fresh out of college, after much clawing and fighting and miraculously switching coats with an editor at a restaurant, Katara managed to snag a job at Nyla magazine and secured spots for her best friends, too. They’d been reading the entertainment magazine before they could even process solid food. While they were all saddled with a mailroom job, Katara’s quote unquote irresistible charm had landed her as a scribe to record meetings when their original conveniently broke a nail. 

  Of fucking course, the day their entire team is stuck in a broken elevator is the day the CEO of White Lotus Records was coming into the office to discuss Nyla ’s next cover star. 

  Their next big thing, teen singer, Song was still hesitant to work with a magazine aimed at young adults with unhealthy coping mechanisms, compared to the J14s and Tiger Beats with the foldable poster at the back you could steal if you were quick enough at Walgreens. 

  “ Young lady.” Ugh, why do old men always sound so fucking condescending? You know how easy it is to push an old person? “You know how much dough I make so I can regularly spend it on drugs? Every minute of my time is worth $964.” While Piandao gets up for his assistants to put on his fur coat, Katara slams her hand on the table. 

  “I promise you this cover story will be worth every minute of your time. I’ll even pay you $965 at the end of my presentation if you hate it.” 

  And who could say no to that sweet (and scary) face? 

  When editor-in-chief June waddles back, glazed with sweat after someone farted their entire Del Taco Thursday three chicken soft tacos for $2.49 deal in her face , their cover story was booked. The carnival themed, masquerade party to celebrate Song’s new cover was already scheduled in Google Calendar. Soon enough, Katara was handed her own office, Tesla, and platinum corporate card to start planning the entire event. 

  Everything was going fine . There were acrobats doing flying yoga in the sky, a fortune teller she hired at the last minute that everyone loved. Music was playing, people were dancing without a care in the world, and everyone was having a good fucking time. She even snagged her bitchy boss a date with her hot neighbor, and her Painted Lady costume was designed by Vera Wang herself. By the end of the night, her brain was scrambled from the paperwork and yelling and pen marks all on her hand. Yet, with her luck, she still managed to kiss the cute guy who asked her to dance. 

  Well, at least she knew he felt and smelled like a cute guy, considering half his face was covered by a mask. 

  He was a bumbling thing, managing to stomp on her feet a few times even when she reassures him at the end of the day. Despite being all broad shoulders and muscles, he seemed to shrink in on himself at that moment.  “I’m really, really bad at dancing.” She gave him a weird look and Zuko had to remember that he had stolen a backup dancer named Lee’s gig for the night to sneak into the event.  

  Katara rolls her eyes. Dancing, much like nearly everything else, always came easy to her. “So what if you gave a girl a black eye and another guy a concussion?” Her laugh is so pretty and her waist between his warm fingers just felt right. 

  He lets himself laugh, too. Wrapped up in the girl’s spell. Forgetting any thought of trying to win over the White Lotus CEO. 

  She leaned in first, and he was more than happy to reciprocate. Zuko didn’t have time for impulsive decisions, not when the universe was actively always trying to kill him. For some reason, he couldn’t help but be drawn in. Her soft lips against his felt like a plush dream, and all he didn’t want to wake up to reality. Not when in that moment, there were sparks and blood rushing to his head and soft skin peeking out of her expensive dress he wanted to discover more of. 

  One minute, Katara was throwing back a margarita in case she had dumb bitch breath that caused her mystery man ran off. The next, she was choking to death, only spitting out the olive on Suki’s face after Toph delivers a quick punch to her sternum, right between the titties. 

  “Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a stupid whore by her throat!” 

  “Stop choking me, June!”

  “No!” June screeches. How was Katara supposed to know she accidentally set her boss up with the ‘ King Kuei ’? The FBI’s most wanted illegal animal trader by day, male prostitute by night? And who knew that would land her a night in jail? 

  “The universe is a stupid fucking whore!” Katara sniffs, still trying to detangle the chunk of hair embedded deep into Suki’s blow dryer. Katara managed to not only break a mirror with the blow dryer in her mere ten minutes in Suki and Toph’s place, but also rip out a section of her hair after throwing said blow dryer in their bathtub which promptly caught on fire. The icing on the dog shit cake of the day was when she managed to cause the building’s power to short circuit, shutting off everyone’s lights.

  //

  The universe, for the first time in his life, was finally on Zuko’s side. 

  For as long as Zuko could remember, rain clouds suddenly appeared when he walked outside, even despite what Alexa told him earlier that morning. 

  “Alexa, what’s the weather like today?” 

  “Completely sunny with a chance of naive bitch,” the smart speaker might as well have said. 

  Zuko was sure of four things in life. 

  Adderall and 7 up were never a good combination 

Alexa was always watching for an opportunity to strike fear in his heart

He could never catch a fucking break

Having a waterpark poncho always on hand never hurt

  He heard from his Uncle Iroh his family was perpetually cursed. Something about a fame-hungry witch with the last name Kardashian in the past life, and one of his relatives eating said witch’s ass that inflicted the present day curse on his family.

  Everyone he knew was impossibly clumsy. Random flooding accidents, cars always running into you, bugs trying to get their fuck on in your ear. It was like the universe said yeet! On their good fortune.

  What does he wish for every year on his birthday? For it to be easy just to be him . To be easily liked, like Adele, or Dippin Dots. He wished life could be easy enough for him to take a shit without the toilet bowl accidentally caving in, or a lightbulb somehow always falling on his good eye.

  Zuko had always been relatively clumsy, worse than what Iroh’s seen before. After so many years of being shit-out-of-luck, and having literal shit on you at all times, he was used to being alone. 

  It stopped stinging a few years ago. Besides, he had his half-sister Kiyi to keep him company these days. 

  Nobody wanted to be around the guy who constantly smells like dog shit because he always manages to find a shit covered dollar bill flowing down the street. No one wanted to be associated with the guy who, without fail, splits his pants open every time he bends down.  Saddling him with yet another public indecency charge. 

  Like clockwork, at least two times a week, he was getting his face shoved into the concrete and handcuffs slapped on him. He started investing in a mouth guard about five years ago.

  It was like a safety hazard, just being him. There were so many times you could get struck by lightning before you were banned by the nation from buying umbrellas. 

  Predictably, he has been rejected from every job he applied to. His laptop has been hacked by so many Hentai porn bots he doesn’t even bother upgrading his Dell from 2013. He even started a conversation with the guy monitoring his keystrokes. Landlords chucked his application out the window before he could even give them his soul and a deposit, and while the doctors didn’t think he’d do it, he found out that yes you can survive being hit after someone throws a piano out their window while you leave the leasing office. 

  Sure, he came to the city with dreams of making it big, loving music since his mom taught him the difference between a treble and bass clef. But when he’s always accidentally setting his tsungi horn on fire? Breaking his nose open trying to put resin on his violin’s bow? Somehow getting a reed stuck in his throat and his sphincter (on the same day)? No chance in hell was anyone willing to risk their lives to let him play anything on stage. 

  So he stuck to writing and producing, watching YouTube tutorial after tutorial to learn mixing, because he thinks it’s safer for everyone involved. 

  “Zuko, someone tried shoving Nutella up their ass and shat it back over the bathroom.” He looks up from his laptop to see a plunger too close for comfort near his face. 

  “Why?” 

  “Some weird sex thing! I don’t fucking know.” Jet points to the elderly couple nearby. “You ask them why!”

  Zuko takes a deep breath in. “No, I’m asking ‘why?’ because my shift doesn’t start for another two hours.” 

  He was a janitor at the bowling alley across the street (it was the only place that would hire him, but he thinks they felt bad for him after he ugly cried and ate out their supply of shitty, frozen curly fries). 

  “You know I love you, Zuko! But these!” Jet cups Zuko’s chest with two, oddly gentle, hands.  “Make our alley’s world go round.” He even gives them a squeeze for emphasis. 

  “Let go of my man titties,” Zuko glares at Jet. “ Now .” 

  “You’re the breast.” 

  Zuko’s eye twitches. 

  It wasn’t all bad. After all, the alley does let him make music in his free time, and the girl group he was “managing” can perform their sets on Fridays. 

  “We’re firing you!” Mai pokes at his chest and has him readjusting his glasses from the force. 

  It was a Monday and his week was starting off better than most. He was scraping green colored poop from the walls and was already being threatened at 9 a.m. without any weapons in sight. 

  “You don’t pay me!” He points out, which only seems to get everyone in the room angrier. His sister and her friends formed Shooters 4 Rihanna when they were pre-teens. They wanted to be a group trying to make it big in the pop scene, and quickly signed to a record label together. The girls were promised all their years of childhood training would pay off when they would debut as young adults. That was, until their CEO was broadcast on TLC’s My Strange Addiction for his habit of collecting Mark Ruffalo’s nose hairs, and confessed to killing someone for it. 

  Investors weren’t too happy. 

  While all the girls could see was repressed childhood trauma, Zuko saw that and potential star power. 

  Every single member already had years of dancing and singing lessons under their belt. They could play their own instruments, write their own songs, and had the stage presence. A few Twitter DMs later (from his multiple accounts, because they thought his profile picture made him look like a fucking creep and blocked him years ago) they were dumb enough to trust him with their future. He’d been trying to get them signed for months to no avail. Somehow fucking up, or electrocuting himself in the process of showing an executive their new single. 

  “This was a mistake!” Jin shoveled the curly fries in her face. 

  While Yue was always one to stay positive, her sad ‘ I miss pickled fish ,’ had the rest of the girls wanting to leave, too. Going back home, just give up seemed sensible. Why waste your prime years on a pipe dream?   

  He stopped them, plunger in hand. Against all logic, and partially because they could smell the desperation, the girls gave him one week . 

  One masquerade party later, he managed to throw Piandao out of harm’s way, taking the brunt of the taxi running into him. 

  “ Are you fucking stupid !” The CEO screams. The boy had blood flowing from his scalp, but looked as alive as ever handing over Shooters 4 Rihanna’s demo CD. 

  “A little.” Zuko admits. He could feel his bones still intact, and judging by the blood it wasn’t anything serious. Piandao gives him a call the next day after listening to the tape. 

  By some miracle, or Kardashian curse lifting, the girl group and him were shuffled into the city’s upscale penthouses, and their debut single was slated to be released on the radio the next day.

  While he headed for lunch at a nearby cafe (one he couldn’t afford to eat at just last week) he can’t help but notice her . 

  //

  “Ma’am, I have already told you our restaurant’s motto! No eat, no shit!” The waiter glares down at her. “Either pay up or get out, broke bitch.” 

  Katara was caked head to toe in mud, tissues shoved yet again up her nose. Haru had invited her out to his dad’s art show the night before. After insulting the literal piece of shit art, she tripped over the clump of clay on display and landed face-first in his million dollar creation. 

  Of course, it would land her in prison, and of course Ty Lee would be there, too. “Move bitch, I’m gay! ” When Katara was too exhausted to budge, the girl, yet again, socked the shit out of her. 

  Katara just wanted a plate of steaming breakfast foods, but of course all her cards declined. And of course, she has a meltdown because she was fucking tired, hungry, and was about to throw hands.

  She grabbed the salt shaker. “Look, I’m just going to try one thing before I go!” 

  “It’s the bath salts,” she hears one woman whisper. “Those fashion bitches are always on bath salts.” 

  “Just smile politely. We’re witnessing mental illness.” 

  She didn’t expect that throwing salt over her shoulder would land in the waiter’s eye, or cause him to collapse on the table of Mormons nearby. Or something to catch on fire, or someone to get stabbed with a fork with a pancake on it. 

  She certainly didn’t expect a (cute) stranger to be so gentle with her, helping her escape the madness and handing over his turkey on rye. Or him following her as she tried to save face and sit on a random bench away from any nearby birds’ tiny assholes. 

  “You look sad.” He’s not mocking in the slightest.

  “What does that even mean?” She went from sad to affronted in just a second. 

  “What’s wrong?” Fuck this guy and those eyes that were so damn enchanting . 

  “I don’t look sad.” She says with the roll of her eyes. “I am fucking sad.” She was blackballed from every newspaper in the Four Nations, the prince she was talking to did indeed end up stealing her savings, and on top of all of that, her undereye concealer was creasing. 

  “You!” Katara points her finger in the fortuneteller’s face. 

  “Me?” Aunt Wu looks beyond irritated. “Look, I can’t predict when you’ll get a fat ass, just buy a resistance band and leave me—”

  “You’re the one who told me whatever Wheel of Fortune would spin back on me! And Alex Tribek would take away my good luck or something!” Katara was crazed and running on two hours of sleep, but she had a bone to pick. “My perfect life is gone.” 

  “Wow, that was a lot to unpack.” Aunt Wu locks her shop’s door. “Look, can you think of anything strange that happened that night?” 

  “Besides someone telling me to make them toilet wine in prison, no I don’t think so!” Katara grunts out petulantly. 

  Aunt Wu smacks her with a stack of tarot cards. “No! Jesus! What else happened?” 

  “Can’t you just tell me? Childhood trauma has really fucked with my memory.” 

  “You kissed someone, didn’t you?” The fortuneteller scurries to her Kia Soul before Katara could retaliate. “Maybe he needed that luck more than you do!” 

  She tried kissing every single dancer that was working that stupid party, and came up with nothing but mono and the feeling of defeat.

  “Did you know, I even fucking sharted myself today!” She smacks her forehead repeatedly. “At twenty-fucking-three! How fucking embarrassing . All I could do is run to the H&M with my cheeks out to buy a pair of sweatpants.” 

  “I know a job looking for someone,” he says and even when he’s staring at her with nothing but understanding, she’s still apprehensive.  

  “Don’t care, didn’t ask, plus you’re a colonizer.” If she had any energy she would’ve put more force into the shove. “Why are you even helping me?” 

  She looked like shit on a dick and he was just smiling at her. “Let’s say, I just know what it’s like to be SOL.” 

  “What’s the catch?” She stares at him down and pouts. He’s wearing an Armani shirt with an Off-White belt, which was already offending her senses, but on top of that he dared pair the atrocity with a pair of knock-off Converse. He couldn’t have sprung for a real pair, he just had  to get the off-brand from Costco that made everyone’s ankles look like cankles. 

  New money . “I am not letting anyone suck my toes for money, again. Try a different girl.” 

  Zuko grows positively red, but at least it brings the ghost of a smile to her face. “No toe sucking. Only on Wednesdays.” 

  She delivers a well-aimed kick to his crotch. While she’d expect him heaving and puffing, he’s unphased. He’d put on his MMA fighter grade, groin protector out of habit, even though he’s getting kicked a lot less in the ball bags lately. 

  “So, you’re trying to convert me to Scientology?” Katara scoffs. “I’ll pass, Asian Tom Cruise.”

  “Not that either.” He sees the defeated look in her eyes, the same one he’s seen in himself. There’s a spark there, though. A willingness to just keep going. Something he lost years ago. “Trust me.” 

  “No.” 

  “All good.” He shrugs. “Can I at least help you up?” Before she could bite back, she turned to the spot on the bench where he was pointing.

  Wet paint. 

  He’s taking her mustard covered hands (the sandwich exploded in the foil) in his soft ones without question, and peeling her off the bench. 

  “Of fucking course,” she huffs. 

  //

  She thinks he knows. He knows the fact that she wants him sticking around. Even with her adamant protests against it, he’s persistent. 

  Stopping by after long days at the studio to her shit job, handful of first aid supplies at the ready.  

  He’s just always there . 

  He’s there when she’s scraping gum from under the alley’s tables and almost swallows one that had “Live, Laugh, Love” carved into it. He quickly stops her from choking, practically an expert at the heimlich with how many times he’s almost died from drinking boba. 

  There when she electrocutes herself changing the alley’s light bulbs to catch her as she falls straight off the ladder. He’s not even phased, pushing a fried piece of hair sticking up the heavens and staring at her as though she squirted cupcake frosting from her nipples. 

  He’s there with his first-aid messenger bag, all duct taped and falling apart and it makes her want to say sorry to Alexander Wang for daring to wear it with his Spring 2019 boots after Zuko forces her to carry it around. But then he’s pulling out a tube of toothpaste from the bag while she’s cooling her burnt fingertips on a 10 year old Yerba Mate can, and she’s reminded why he’s so firm about it. 

  “Earth Nation trick to heal burnt skin.” He’s too concentrated on rubbing the paste into her flaming skin to notice her staring. She remembers that he included her favorite Fenty gloss in the bag after handing it off to her, and blushes. 

  “I don’t need your help, you know.”  Katara was always the one fighting for her own dreams. She didn’t want to stick back living the life other people imagined for her. Even all the luck in the world couldn’t help her escape a sleepy town or an unsupportive family. 

  When they came to the city, she knew her friends let her take care of them on purpose. It was second nature, what she grew up on. She’d always been the one looking out for everyone, even if they didn’t ask, and they let her do it because they all needed a coping mechanism. Toph’s is cake cutting videos, Suki’s is practicing her crying face because she always wanted to be a pretty crier, and Katara’s is being overbearing. 

  She was confused. As many times as she tried drilling through his thick head that her grandma was a nurse, that she could easily wrap up every cut, bruise, and swollen toe, he never budged. For the first time in a while, someone was there, stubbornly making sure she was okay. 

  “I know?” He says it as though it was obvious. “I’ll make you a deal, though. Just let me help you out, just this one time?” He gently taps her fingers wrapped in Minion bandaids he got her just because he knew she hated them in public, loved them in private. “I won’t do it again.” 

  He’s teasing and it’s obvious he knows she’s putty in his hands. Though, his newfound look (she helped with) balancing boy-next-door with heartthrob is not working on her heart. Her pussy, sure. Not her heart, though. She swears. 

  “That’s what you said last time,” Katara protests, without any energy behind it. 

  He sends her a lopsided smile. “I know.” 

  Zuko wasn’t about to let any hair on her pretty head get hurt. 

  While Kiyi already had enough of a bad case of bad luck, considering all the Power Ranger figurines she had super glued to her face by fourth grade boys, Katara’s was just something else. 

  It reminded him of him . Whatever stroke of good luck he had, he knew the universe takes in ten-fold what it might give. So he’s taking advantage of every bit of luck he has for a girl without any. 

  While he’s been stabbed many a time walking back home at night, somehow he’s in the clear when he escorts Katara back to her apartment. Or the times he buys her Water Tribe take out because she’s still figuring out how that prince managed to spend $10,000 on Swampbender diet pills. Or when he sneaks in before her shift to do some of her tasks for the day (he still has the keys), so he doesn’t have to worry about her bruising her pubic bone with the vacuum, or breaking the ceiling with a slippery bowling ball. 

  He wasn’t all used to his new life. The designer shoes, the fancy parties, the attention . Girls in the past would look at him as though he wasn’t more than shit at the bottom of their Jimmy Choo, but his good luck brought this newfound female attention that was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. Especially when, all he wanted was to catch her eye. 

  She was his good luck charm and didn’t even know it. 

  Since he’s met her, everything just was going right . She brought Toph over with her guitar to string together a few verses the day they were in desperate need of new lyrics to go with the beat he’s spent the last few nights cranking out. The day after they released it on Apple Music, the song went #1 on Billboard. Piandao had even booked them to play the Hard Boulder Cafe for their first performance, and tickets were sold out. 

  Even when things just seemed to get better and better for him, the universe doubled down in its punishment for her. 

  He’s there when she’s walking back from work, drenched to the bone because she missed all trains for the day, a taxi said her face looked stupid, and she was just tired of it all and wanted to go home and eat processed frozen food and die. 

  Zuko’s there, though. Without fail.

  He’s there with his fucking Tesla and personal driver and Chanel top and she couldn’t be any more embarassed. 

  “Get in!” He hesitates before approaching. “Also, maybe let’s put down the umbrella?” It was inverted anyways, and looked three seconds from whisking her away into the storm. 

  “No, I’m good!” Katara insists. She was afraid that falling for Zuko, going to bed and waking up thinking of him was messing with her brain and she didn’t know if she wanted it to stop. 

  “You could get hit by lightning.” 

  “That can’t—” She ponders it for a second. “You know what, fuck you.” 

  He throws his expensive jacket over her to quell the shivers, and when she protests, seeing as it was a Valentino Lacquered Nylon Jacket, he bundles her even deeper in the thing, buttoning it up until she’s complaining from the warmth.  

  “You’re laughing at me.” She pouts.

  He’s covered completely in bubbles. Not her fault he decided to strip off his shirt to throw in the cycle with her wet clothes, and she got distracted by the abs and dumped the whole bottle of laundry detergent in the washing machine. 

  Zuko shoves her face into a pile of the suds. “I am, yeah.” She looks upset and he stops the mirth growing on his face. Reaching out to her, instead. “Katara, I’m sorry did I—” 

  She might’ve leaned out to accept his embrace, but then she’s flipping them over, pinning him down to the floor. Her warm, still soaking wet body, pressed against him and her arms coming out to pin his hands to the ground. 

  He gulps. 

  “This would be more fun if you let me peg you afterwards.” 

  Her laugh vibrates her whole body and he couldn’t help joining in, too. 

  He let her have her pick of his dress shirts, and she looked so much at home. Little strands of her bangs framing her face and growing curly with the addition of water. Her brow furrows when she mentions her leave-in conditioner washing away with the suds, and he takes advantage of the momentary distraction. Flipping her and placing two hands at the sides of her head. 

  She knows he’s covered in the bubbles, just so she wouldn’t feel anymore of a stupid bitch than she already does. He never seems to mind it, even when Katara was frustrated and just couldn’t figure out why all this was happening to her and dragging him into every single accident. 

  “What would you say to the universe, right now?” She’s curled up on his couch and he’s massaging the balls of her feet she presses in his lap. 

  “Welcome to your tape.” 

  “Katara, no.” 

  “That bridge off of Fourth Street? Looking really easy to jump off of right about now, universe.” 

  He lets her take his bed that night after he cooked up his famous komodo chicken and both Kiyi and her complain about having a food-baby.

  “Hey, Katara.” He whispers while her eyes could barely open. He tucked her in those blankets all ethnic people have, the super fluffy ones with a tiger on them that are always wrapped in a plastic bag.  “You’re cute.” 

  “Yeah?” She breathes out, crinkling her nose and blinking those long lashes and making his heart skip beats. “Hey, Zuko.” 

  “Yeah?” 

  “I think I like you.” 

  He pinches her cheek. “I think I like you, too.” 

  //

  He was right. As soon as life blessed him with everything he’s wanted and more, it whisked it away just as fast. 

  He’d mustered up the courage to invite her to a studio session after everyone in Shooters 4 Rihanna insisted on meeting her. Their songs were getting a little too emotional and they wanted to meet his muse. It was going well, too well. He even catches all the lamps she knocks down. When she rights herself, she manages to knock down the table with their food. Double bagging existed for a reason, just like he warned her! But, of course, the bags holding the takeout she was supposed to surprise him with broke from the bottom. He’d go hungry, that day. But, anything for her, though. 

  She looked so into the session, asking him if she could play with the buttons, leaning into his chest when he hesitantly surrounds her space. His two lean arms coming out to steady her waist when she trips on herself and sends him a sheepish smile that has him hypnotized. 

  Katara normally felt lightheaded around him, but she felt absolutely faint as soon as Piandao walked in to finalize the details of the performance, and Zuko started talking about some lucky masquerade ball. 

  She couldn’t hear much else, body getting up before she even registered it. 

  Before he could fully get into his chair at the mixing console because just one little note in their new song “Rihanna Impregnate Me” just sounded off, she’s tugging him up. 

  “Can I kiss you?” 

  “W—what?” She’s holding him up by the collar of his shirt. 

  Katara smirks. “I really want to kiss you.” 

  “I mean, uh, yes! Definitely a ye—”

  It’s everything he’s imagined, hoped, prayed for the last few months and more. She’s sweet and soft and tasted like lip gloss and the toothpaste he had stowed away in her bag. When he’s leaning in for more, ready to do things like give her his heart or do her taxes for her because he couldn’t think straight and his heart was guiding him through the motions, she’s gone. 

  //

  Katara’s gone when Ty Lee somehow gets into, yet another, tax fraud case and can’t make their performance. 

  She’s gone when he needs her by his side because even though he’s not performing he still manages to feel fucking sick. He wants her holding his unnaturally sweaty palms and telling him it’s going to be okay, just like what she does during his late night writing sessions where she stays up and refuses to sleep until he does. 

  She’s gone when the band has to answer to an angry crowd, an angry CEO who already sees the articles lambasting the girl group’s unprofessionalism and was ten seconds away from pulling the plug on his dreams. 

  “Zuko!” 

  He hates his heart rushes, even when it was about to break because of her, too. 

  She's gotten her perfect life. She’d gotten the job back, her apartment back, Rihanna even sent her a secret song for fuck’s sake. 

  She must really love this fucker, because she was giving up a chance to stalk Rihanna so he could be happy. 

  “Maybe he needed that luck more than you do!” Was running through her head the entire week she avoided him.

  “I don’t know what to do, Suki!” 

  “Why don’t you both fuck leprechauns?” She says between bites of string cheese. 

  Katara sighs. “Why are yours and Toph’s minds built like that?” 

  “I heard my mom tried punching her stomach every day, hoping that I wasn’t going to be a result of St. Patrick’s Day sex. That’s why my head’s lopsided.” 

  He felt nauseous. Not only did 3 of the girls just spew their lunch into whatever container they could get their hands on, of course Azula has gone missing. “Katara not now I—” 

  She comes to him flushed, extensions stuck to her hand after running too fast and accidentally grabbing someone’s hair. Her feet hurt, her heart hurt, but in this moment she knew. She knew he needed this more than her. He was soft and kind and took people in and cherished the moments with his half-sister because he missed all the ones with Azula. He worked so hard now because he was afraid she hated him, and even when he was on the verge of giving up, he still pushed through. He gave people chances, even when the universe was never as kind to him. 

  After she presses her lips to his, suddenly Azula presses a button from the underground room she was trapped in, appearing on stage in front of their very eyes. They have the best show the Hard Boulder Cafe’s seen in decades . Their contract is extended, and he opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate without taking his eye out. 

  He was the luckiest man in the world. 

  Though, when he turns, he realizes. 

  His girl’s missing. 

  //

  “Katara!” She tried shuffling away, but accidentally slips on a few drug needles someone threw carelessly on the ground. 

  She’s still nursing the sore spot on her forehead, where the champagne cork hit. “Zuko, please just...go.” She waves him off with a bandaged hand. 

  “I know you’re going to be stuck here for the next three hours. Because trains never come on time for you no matter what.” 

  Even in the middle of the nearly dead station, he was right. Every stop flashed to delayed .  

  “Then you’ll be robbed by someone on the train, and then you might even get spit on by the guy with the imaginary dog who’s afraid of whoever gets too close to it, and then you’ll get an eye infection.” 

  Katara wipes the snot at her nose. “So?” 

  “So?” He laughs, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I’ve lived a whole lifetime of bad luck, and I can’t let you do that for me.” 

  She lets him turn her to face him, lets him gather her up in his arms and hold her like she’s delicate and irreplaceable, and not just a girl with mascara running down her face and her heart stolen by someone she couldn’t love. 

  “Even in a lifetime of being shit out of luck, I still got the chance to meet you.” 

  “Zuko, stop.” Katara wipes at her tears. “Our luck will just get switched, and I always figure things out, I always do. But, I just want you to keep this. You put it to better use than I would’ve.”

  Zuko shakes his head. “I don’t want it anymore.” 

  “I said that to my bladder infection, and that didn’t work. What makes you think that will work now?” 

  “I can live without it.” He smiles. “A few bumps and bruises are the price I’m willing to pay for you in my life.” 

  She’s blushing, hands coming up to bring his head closer to hers, to see every little detail of him.  

  “You’re so fucking stupid.” She whispers, millimeters away from his lips. 

  The grin splits on his face without his permission. “I am, yeah.” 

[jj-lynn21]

The Charity- various fandoms & x-reader ch 1

warnings: egotism, light flirtation, Swedish language (but probably only in this chapter), straight & LGBTQ characters, AU actors: I do not think any of these actors act like what I am writing them to be like. Its just a story folks. 

ch 2

ch 3

ch 4

ch 5

You get an intriguing email from Vernon:

Hello YN,

I’m an assistant at your public relations firm. There is a charity event coming up on January 25, we think you should attend. You will help raise money for your favorite charity and get to meet other like-minded individuals in entertainment. The gathering is at Le Jardin de Russie 1430 N Cahuenga Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028. Arrive before 5pm. Dinner will be served at 6:30pm.

Thank you,

Vernon

You only hired a PR firm on the urge of your manager who was suggested by family when you did your first small acting job last year. The job paid more than you expected and lead to other small roles which mostly got cut from feature films. You still got paid for the work, so although it was disappointing it wasn’t devastating. Your family was more upset than you, roles got cut. You decide to attend the event. You might even get some connections to help you get another acting job. It doesn’t hurt to mingle a little.

On the date stated in the email you arrive at Le Jardin de Russie at 4:30pm. After following the signs to parking you walk to the front entrance to climb the stairs wearing an off the rack red cocktail dress with the six-inch Jimmy Choo shoes your manager bought you for these occasions. Two men in tuxes open the doors. Walking in, your breath is just taken away by the space.

Ellen Page says, “What’s up buttercup.”

Trying to keep your cool you smile saying, “Not a thing at all, for now.”

Ellen Page says, “cool, I’m Ellen. I don’t think I have ever seen you at one of these things before.”

You say, “I’m (YN), my first time at one of these, Ellen.”

Chris Evans nudges Tom Hiddleston with a mischievous grin on his face.

Chris Evans says, “What do you think? I know Ellen can be a real bitch, but you think I could fuck the new girl. She might be bi.” He laughs and tosses some peanuts in his mouth from a bowel on the bar counter as he holds a beer with the other hand.

Tom Hiddleston says, “That’s the LAST thing on my mind.”

Chris Evans says, “You’re no fun. Charity functions are only good if you can get a little something out of it for yourself.”

Tom Hiddleston shakes his head annoyed with his immature past co-worker. Robert Downey Jr walk over to them bottled of water in hand.

Robert says, “How are you gentlemen this evening? Not planning to get into any trouble, are you Chris?”

Chuckling Tom says, “You know he has already picked out a victim.”

Chris Evans says, “Hey, she is not a victim when she consents. I do have rules at these functions.”

Robert says, “And from what I’ve seen they are very loose rules.”

Putting on a serious voice Chris Evans says, “But they are rules.”

You can’t believe the people you are seeing here already. You excuse yourself to go get a drink at the bar. You are so nervous as you walk trying not to look nervous. You do eventually have to introduce yourself to these people.

Whispering in Tom Hiddleston’s ear Chris Evans says, “Here comes my Princess. She will fucking eat that shit up.”

Tom Hiddleston rolls his eyes. All of them smile as you get closer.  You ask the bar tender for a rum and coke before saying anything. Maybe it will make you not sound so star struck. Before you even get a sip of the liquid courage Chris Evans introduces himself.

Chris Evans says, “Hey, Princess, I’m Chris. I know there is more than one Chris here tonight,” He points to Chris Pine who somehow you missed standing with Cody Fern on the other side of the room, “I’m the one that will call you Princess.” He winks.

Giggling you say, “I’m (YN) but you can call me Princess if you want to. Are you boys staying out of trouble?”

Taking your hand to kiss it chivalrously Robert says, “They rarely do. I’m Robert.”

Raising his drink Tom Hiddleston, “Pleased to meet you (YN), I’m Tom”

Then Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost walk in the door. Scarlett waves to the guys as Colin smiles towards the group of avenger film alumni.

Putting a hand on your back Robert says, “Excuse us our sister is here.”

Chris Evans says, “Me calling her sister is sick.” He winks at you before all of them rushes over to her, “Hey baby girl.”

You keep your laughter to yourself as they surround her for a group hug. You definitely feel bad for Colin dealing with all her big brothers and whatever Chris Evans considers himself to her.  They come back over to the bar and Chris Evans puts his arm around your shoulders as he introduces you.

Chris Evans says, “This Princess is (YN). Princess This is Colin and Scarlett.”

Colin says, “Oh, another sister for the group, cool.”

Chris Evans says, “You know I don’t consider any women my sister unless she is actually blood.”

Awkwardly Collin says, “Oh, yeah cool.”

The Skarsgårds walk in next speaking Swedish among themselves.

Valter Skarsgård, “Varför var jag tvungen att komma till detta?”

Stellan Skarsgård says, “Om du vill arbeta i staterna som dina bröder måste du bara gå till dessa saker.”

You bite your lip as you see all of them in there beautifully tailored suits. There height in person just blows your mind. And the hotness of the young men is almost overwhelming. You shrug Chris Evan’s arm off your shoulders.

Laughing Tom Hiddleston says, “I think you have competition.”

To Valter, Bill says, “suga upp det smörblomma.”

Gustaf Skarsgård says, “lägg dina stora tjejtrosor på lillebror och njut av detta.”

When Chris Pine sees Alex Skarsgård He smack Cody Ferns chest.

Chris Pine says, “Fuck me.”

Cody fern says, “That is Daddy.”

Alex walks over to Ellen and kisses her sweetly on the lips.  Pine and fern drop their jaws.

Alex says, “Good to see you baby girl.” Which give him a giggle from the last person in the room you would picture as a giggler.

A gentlemen walks out to say, “Dinner will be served if you all come into the dinning room. There is a table for ten and a smaller table set for four. You decide who sits where.”

Tom Holland rushes in all hyper, but pale as hell. He says, “I made it. Who’s ready to party? I brought party supplies.”

Robert shakes his head. Everyone heads into the dining room.

[go-diane-winchester]

The Travis Aaron Wade debacle and why you should care.

I only write about my boys, Jensen and Jared, and any harm that I feel is coming their way.  That harm comes from Misha's mobilizing and his poisonous fanbase.  So why am I talking about this?  It's got nothing to do with Jensen and Jared?  Well, actually, it does.  And I am starting to feel, maybe Wade is innocent.  I am not saying he is, because the case is still pending.  But, thus far, he has only been accused.  He hasn't been proven guilty.  I am an abuse survivor, having dealt with this horror three different times in my life, twice as a child and once as an adult.  If Travis did do any of this, I would back up his accusers, I don't care how much of a friend he was, to Jensen and Jared.  Abuse of any kind is intolerable and in Travis's case, some minors were involved.  That is unforgivable. 

Travis Aaron Wade, in case you didn't know, was accused of sexually harassing and stalking fans at cons and then via social media around 2015.  When I first heard this, I believed it because the allegations came at a time when I was fast asleep with regard to this fandom.  Even then, I frowned when a recognizable name popped up in this debacle:  Emily Rose.  So I guess I wasn't as fast asleep as I thought.  Emily is the fan who got into a fight with William Shatner over destiel.  He even accused her Anti-Bullying Twitter page of being biased.  I don't just believe anything this person's name is attached to, because she is a very devious creature.  So recently, I decided to dig deeper and came across a report on this case.  Upon reading it, I realized something.  Almost every single person who has accused Travis is either a minion or heller or both.  People mentioned in the case are also minions or hellers or both.  That is too much of a coincidence.  This is the list of the accusers and the affiliated parties in this case:

Ashley McClintic  [first accuser]

Theresa Cotter/Lua James  [fled California after Travis's home was vandalized]

Monica Gleberman [lied that she has sex with Jensen and Jared]

Lexi (Alexis) Cooper (@lexicooperxo / @hugsforthemish)

Stacy LePore

Emily Cleghorn [Emily Rose - refused to help Travis when his account was hacked]

Michele Villery  [Monica's friend - defamed Travis online]

Jackie Bojarski [Monica's friend - defamed Travis online]

Kristin Justice [claimed Travis kissed her in crowded room]

Reba Snodgrass (@RebaWinchester / @Mishanews)

Jessica Halliday 

Jenna DeViller

Kim Swartz

Falon Yates

Janelle Clay Davis [stalked Travis online mobilizing fans against him]

Rike Marie, or Melanie Adeline (@mishasdiary [sent nudes to Travis]

Dominique Teagle

Sgt Stephanie Fiebke [mocked Travis's military career]

Sara Burnhope

Katie Maie Aucter

Elizabeth Wera [told the truth and then retracted statement]

Michelene [only name provided in this report]

Jenna [no other name provided]

What are the odds?  The only people Wade went after were Misha's fans, and the only people who tried to help them were Misha's fans.  Nope!  Something is very off about this whole scenario.  This case is a legal one now, so there are certain receipts that are unavailable.  However, most of the information, corroborated with many receipts, is on this site:  http://www.spntrollsvstravisaaronwade.com/.  Be warned the some information is withheld due to the ongoing investigation and the reporter does become subjective.  There is also some hearsay in the report, something I am not crazy about.  Hearsay has no place in an investigative reports.  But the report is thorough, and has various receipts.  I am not telling you to believe everything.  I am just telling you to keep an open mind. 

After reading these reports, about the accusers and their accounts of the events, I have to say the whole situation seems fishy.  The accusers made really far-fetched claims and there is proof that some of them not only lied, but some of the sympathizers were stalking Travis for years now, hacking into his account and stabbing a knife into his front door with a note threatening to kill him, his family including the family dogs.  Two of the victims confessed to lying about the accusations.  The first is Lexi Cooper. 

The second is Reba Snodgrass [Mishanews] who was doing a con called Wayward Con, which is why she apologized to Travis.  She wanted him to do the con.  She did a video confession, but after being reprimanded by hellers on social media, she recanted the apology.  Many of the accusers set up gofundme and similar accounts asking for money for legal fees, but never approached lawyers.  The more I looked into this, the more sorry I feel for Travis.  I am not saying I know what happened, but so far, they look more guilty than he does.  Why was there such a full blown ambush against him?  If he is innocent, then there were some possible reasons. 

Travis was threatening the spinoff

Travis, and I didn't know this, is quite a popular actor, even amongst SPN fans.  Fans were choosing him over Kim and Briana.  If CW got wind of this, they might have cancelled the Wayward idea and pushed for something with Cole, Travis's character.  The hellers didn't want this because their logic was that if they could make Wayward happen, they could make destiel happen.  So they couldn't afford for Wayward to fail.  That is why Travis had to go.

Travis threatened Cockles

Apparently Travis has said something sweet about Jensen and Jared's friendship.  Clif [who is an idiot] made a big deal out of the whole issue because of the possible tinhat angle of what Travis was saying.  As a PR person, I would like to tell Clif: stop acting like a suspicious idiot.  No one is drawing more attention to the tinhat thing than you are.  Try being subtle, stupid fool.  You are causing more ripples, instead of letting it just slide.  Well, Clif was not the only one that was affected by Travis's lighthearted comments.  The hellers were adversely affected too.  There are tinhats amongst them, who believe that destiel is cockle's fault.  This man's admiration for a friendship rubbed them the wrong way.  He needed to be punished.

Threat to Misha's ''popularity''

Misha has been on the show for ten years.  No one is demanding for a spinoff for him.  Not even his own hellers perhaps because they know Jensen wont join Misha, and Castiel is not entertaining by himself.  This new guy pops up and suddenly he is very popular.  An account called Tara Larson appeared on Twitter, on the 22th of December 2017, accusing Misha of sexual harassment during his photo ops.  Any idiot can see that although none of the pictures are tasteful, they are requested and paid for by fans.  So that is not sexual harassment.  Fans gave their consent and none of them look like minors.  Neutral fans are many things, but they are not stupid.  The over-reacher's in our fandom are hellers.  The hellers allege that Travis's assistant Vicki did it to tarnish Misha's name.  Why would she do that?  What does Misha have to do with this debacle.  The evidence they use, is this one.  Vicki is grey.

However, if you read the whole exchange, you see this:

So Vicki knows what a bibro is?  She used to be a fan long before the word bibro was born, so she knows the fandom lingo that is not even part of all the fan's lexicon?  I know of hellers who don't know what a heller is.  Read the whole exchange here:

http://www.spntrollsvstravisaaronwade.com/events-by-year/2017-2/

Nope, the whole thing sounds suspicious.  Especially since, at the time when the account was started and active [it has probably been reported and removed now] Vicki and her daughter were, allegedly, both in surgery.  Possible scenario is that one of the hellers set up the Tara Larson account to make Travis look like a bully and to make Misha look like a victim.  Because why would Vicki do something like that and then confess to it like an idiot.  And on social media no less, even though monitoring social media is part of her job.  Either that, or they doctored the screenshot.  I think the hellers feel Travis was competition for Misha.  According to one heller, who knows Misha personally, this is what she said to Travis about Misha.

Now, a few of them are starting to feel the same way about Alex Calvert perhaps because he is a younger, handsomer, shinier new replacement for Misha.

Why I care and why you should

So far, I have received messages from hellers about Jared's ''bad working conduct''.  I have posted on people saying that he abuses his power and Misha on set.  One heller told me, Jared intentionally cracked her rib by hugging her too hard during a photo op.  I made a post about that.  Travis's reality today might be Jared's reality tomorrow.  They have accused him of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc.  Whose to say they don't take this route tomorrow?  I mean, it hypothetically worked on Travis.  It might work on Jared.  Especially since, they hate Jared more that Travis.  And Jared is a friendly ''run across the road to meet the fans'' type of person.  One big accusation and boom! it's over.  Ironically, everyone distanced themselves from Travis when the scandal hit except Jared.  Eventually even he had to distance himself, perhaps by the behest of his manager.  It was far too sticky a situation.  Travis has dealt with the stalking, harassment and vandalism for three years and counting.  I think that is too much for anyone to deal with. 

Who knows what the legal outcome will be.  I don't know Travis well enough to make any claims about him.  Although from what I read, he does seem like a very stupid man with a big mouth.  A gullible sucker, if you catch my drift.  However, if someone out there does know the truth, please speak up.  Remember, if you know something about Travis that is incriminatory, and you remain quiet, you are part of the problem.  If you know of his innocence, help him, the way you hope someone will help Jared one day.    Either speak to Travis's lawyers or send a confidential email message to this reporter at:  info@spntrollsvstravisaaronwade.com.  Informant names will be kept confidential.

[thespacehairandthespaceidiot]

1 - 19

Nat. You I hate you. But I love you. Ok, strap in. this will get a little long. Everything has wasn’t asked already.

1. Babyfic

Matt and Alex have a one night stand. Go their separate ways. She very surprisingly ends up pregnant. After a few more weeks, they meet for lunch. She tells him. He doesnt believe her at first but then is stoked. She’s worried about a lot of obvious things but cautiously excited. He wants to be around for the baby but also her, she’s not so sure. He promises to convince her to let them be a proper family. It kinda goes from there. It’s mostly in note form right now, but a good bit of it is pretty well mapped out. And the concept has been done a million times before but I’ve wanted to put my own spin on it for a long time. Maybe some day I’ll get around to it. We’ll see. 

2. Big Finish

Someone on here sent me a prompt after I asked for them (I don’t remember who rn, but I still have the email with the notification saved somewhere) to write Matt and Alex being reunited to record a Big Finish series together. They haven’t seen each other for a long while and all the pent up emotions and sexual tension come to a head in their off hours. They spend some time together and old feelings come spilling out and things get hot. Probably leading to extra flirty banter in the recording booth and hoping other people cant tell they’ve brought fiction into the world of reality. 

5. Luggage

Matt and Alex, traveling with the rest of the cast and crew to film in Utah, get off the plane, both exhausted beyond measure, and end up taking the other person’s luggage back to the hotel with them by mistake. Once Matt gets there, he goes rifling through what he thinks is his bag for a pair of joggers to change into and instead pulls out a number of things rather more frilly and battery operated than he was expecting to find. His mind, understandably, goes a bit haywire and suddenly, sleep is the last thing n his mind. 

(A bunch more under the cut)

6. MattexJournal

Matt has keep keeping a journal with stories he’s written about he and Alex, mostly of the filthy variety. After a night of running lines and an enjoyable dinner at Alex’s flat with the Team Tardis foursome the night before, Matt wakes up and can’t find the journal anywhere, soon realizing with dawning horror that  it must have dropped out of his bag and been left in Alex’s flat. He contemplates with dread having to go back to ask for his notebook back, but little does he know that Alex has already found and accidentally read enough to know exactly what is between the pages. 

7. MattexSims

This one is very cracky. Alex gets called back to set on a day the cast was supposed to have off. Matt volunteers to sit with Salome while she’s gone. But Sal is a kid who doesn’t need much supervising, content to sit on her computer and play the sims for the afternoon. Matt, never one for video games, asks her to show him what the game is about. When he realizes how easily you can play out your own stories with whatever people or characters you want, he gets the idea to make characters of him and his coworkers as a bit of a laugh. But soon he finds himself strting to play out a very not-true-to-life game with his and Alex’s characters that makes him start thinking about how to bring them to life. He just hopes Alex never finds out what he’s been doing with his very limited spare time. 

8. Moving

Matt has just moved into a new neighborhood. On his first night in his new house, he heads to his room to get ready for bed and can’t help but notice that he has a very clear view from his window into the bedroom of the woman next door and that she has the shocking habit of walking around her bedroom in the nude, despite there being no curtains on the window. There hadn’t been a car in front of her house all day, so she might not know the long-empty house next door has anyone living in it just yet. But when she shows up at his door a couple of  days later to welcome him to the neighborhood, he doesn’t know whether or how to mention the nightly show she’s been giving him without making her never want to face him again. 

9. Olympics

Ok this is also slightly cracky. I read an article during the last summer Olympics about how sex-crazed Olympic Village always is and how they organizers give out like 100,000 condoms to the competitors during the span of the event. So when Alex, the older equestrian likely competing in her last Olympics, gets dragged out to the party scene after a busy events and meets Matt Smith, the awkward but enticing 18 year old up and coming football star, she finds him a little hard to resist. A one night stand in Olympic Village with a much younger competitor is one thing, but in the light of day, when he wants to continue seeing her, how can she allow herself to indulge him when both of them have have the competitions of their lives ahead of them? And what happens if, when the end of the Olympics come, neither one of them feel capable of stopping?

10. Online Dating

I think I’ve explained this on here before but I have no idea where. Alex is convinced by her sister after a girl’s night in to set up a dating profile for herself on a site that keeps i’s users completely anonymous. No names, no pictures, no identifying information. Just good, old fashioned person-to-person talking and personality quizzes to determine compatibility. She indulges her sister but has no plan to actually speak to anyone on the site, especially as she’s heading back to Cardiff shortly to film a few more epidodes for Who. Until one message comes through from a very highly-compatible match who stands out from the boring or creepy messages she’s gotten so far. Meanwhile, back in Cardiff, Matt hears about the same site, and tired of random hook ups with women whose last names he doesn’t know or care about and relationships that head nowhere, decides to join up. He’s quickly disillusioned by it, until he comes across one woman who makes him think this idea wasn’t a complete waste of time. As the two start messaging each other back and forth, getting to know each other, they slowly starting to fall for the mysterious strangers on the other side of the computer screen. It’s too bad both are also contending with the enticing costar they see a work every day in addition to their new secret penpals. How do you reconcile feelings for two different people when one is unattainable and the other is someone who may never live up to the expectation you’ve built up in your head?

11. OverlookCaught

Matt and Alex have been together for a couple of years now, but they’re still very much a secret from the general public. They’re at a convention together and when they find themselves alone for a few moments, Matt can’t help but get a little closer than they’re allowed in public. She’s knows it’s a bad idea- who knows when someone might walk in?-but she cant resist giving into his affections for just a minute. When they head off to the last event of the convention, they think they got away with their little moment together but when video leaks online of her and Matt kissing just minutes before, all hell breaks loose. Suddenly the romantic weekend alone they planned after the con becomes about PR management and hard reconsiderations about the so-far rock solid relationship they’ve built together. This is what I’m actively working on right now. It was meant to be something short to get me back in the swing of writing but it’s a little longer than I planned. Still under control through and should be done soon. 

12. Pornstar AU

Matt and Alex are both relatively new actors working in the porn industry, disillusioned after their proper acting careers both failed to take off. When they get the assignment to make a film together, it’s just another job. But after filming their first sex scene together on day one, Matt recognizes Alex as his old drama teacher back home that he used to fantasize about. When he reminds her that they used to know each other, they leave set and grab dinner to catch up. Before they know it, they’re bringing the steamy sex scenes from work back home with them and falling hard for their screen partner. This was something @beware-my-sting and i were working on together. It’s fallen by the wayside for now, but who knows if one or both of us will get our shit together to continue it? Hopefully lol. 

13. Proposal

It’s their anniversary and Matt plans on popping on the question. He wants everything to go exactly right to give himself the best chance of getting Alex to say yes, but he’s worrying himself frantic and not much seems to be going right. 

14. Proposal/Meet the Family

It’s Christmas and Matt has been planning to propose. They’re in a pretty great place and he thinks he’s broken through Alex’s defenses enough that he’s not super worried about getting a no. But a last minute change of plans has them spending the holiday with his family. Who don’t yet know about Alex. So while he’s introducing his much older, long-term secret girlfriend to his rather surprised family, he’s also getting ready to make the biggest commitment of his life. He just hopes the weekend goes well enough to not ruin his plans of a happy life with Alex or his hopes of a close relationship between her and his family. The awkwardness and stress may be getting to him just a bit. I love fics that incorporate either of their families and the probably likely reality that the relationship would take a little getting used to by their relatives, but also don’t like ones when things are actually hostile between them. This will be written with them being confused and very concerned and awkward about everything but no one will be being mean to Alex. Cuz i hate that. 

16. StolenTardisFicathon

This is a River/Doctor fic for a ficathon I signed up for forever ago.I don’t even know which one anymore because I suck. But young, babyfaced Eleven has dropped off Amy and Rory for a romantic weekend together and is off exploring a strange planet on his own. He soon runs into the mysterious River Song who is in possession of his tardis, having obviously swiped it from him at some future point in time. As usual, he’s completely captivated by her but there’s a niggling thought in the back of his head, spurred on by talk of good men and murder and prison sentences, which whispers that maybe she’s just come from murdering him in cold blood before stealing his ship. That thought really should send him running for the hills, but he his feet refuse to move unless its in step with hers. 

17. Tattoo

Matt is dreading going back to set after a break a week’s break from filming. On the last night before he returned from Cardiff, he got very drunk and woke up in the morning sporting a tattoo on his arm. This would be bad enough, but the tattoo in question bears the name of his very captivating co-star. This this episode also heralding the return of River Song, Alex would be on set. It wasn’t like he planned to be taking his shirt off on set or anything, but if she were to somehow find out what he’d done, surely she’d never want to speak to him again. Or at least look at him with pity in her eyes at the obvious signal of his very unrequited feelings for her. He gets through the work day decently enough, but when Alex suggests running lines together and catching up that night, he worries he won’t be able to keep his shameful secret much longer. 

19. WeddingInvitation

Alex is getting married. The invitations have gone out and everyone has RSVP’d. Except for one very conspicuous person. She and Matt haven’t spoken in quite a while, their once close friendship fading into one of quick and impersonal birthday messages and not much else, but she did want him there to celebrate her wedding with. When she calls him to confirm whether or not he’ll be joining the rest of their friends from the show at her wedding, he’s cagey and non-committal until he breaks and responded with a no and a suspicious apology. It doesn’t take much thought afterward to figure out the real reason why he won’t be attending. After their time on the show together led to nothing happening between them despite the years of flirting and tension, she’d well and truly put the feelings she’d felt for him behind her and she’d honestly thought he’d also gotten past whatever feelings he’d harbored for her. Apparently not. Disappointed, she marked his as a no on the guest list and gets on with planning her big day. She’s surprised, however, when Matt shows up in town the week before the wedding with a confession and asks her to call it off. Maybe those feelings of hers hadn’t been as completely buried as she’d thought, but she can’t throw away a love and a life she’d been excited about only moments before for Matt, can she?

[alliebruns-blog]

To Live A Life Less Ordinary.....

So here’s something a little bit different. This week there was discussion in the Bad Boy Running group on Facebook about adventures. My pal Lorna posed the following question “On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do the adventure podcasts such as Sean Conway, Anna Mcnuff etc make you feel inadequate?! 10 for me! If you had no responsibilities and could just up and leave for an epic adventure what would you do?” Much discussion ensued over this - head over to the Facebook post to take a look, but something about it really got to me. 

That post.....

For some time now, there has been something not right about how I am living. I haven’t been running as much as I would like - down to a little bit of my mojo being sapped by the Thames Path, the arrival of Pickle the very nervous but totally wonderful rescue dog, and my crippling anxiety about the thing that enables me to run. My job. 

As some of you know I have worked for many years in the music industry, marketing bands and making you buy music you don’t want. Living the glamorous life that you all read about. Parties and festivals and famous people. I am partially responsible for Ed Sheeran. But please don’t hate me (I love him, he’s great). I am so lucky. Or so I was constantly told. 

When we were young - in the years PR (Pre Running)

Two years ago I decided that I didn’t want to do it anymore. Or I thought I didn’t. I was fucked, to be frank. Tired out, abused, taken for granted, under paid, miserable, on the receiving end of some pretty #metoo behaviour.  So I went and started my own business as a freelance marketing consultant. To the music industry. And it’s gone well. I had good clients and the money was coming in. I was making a profit. I was doing things on my terms most of the time and I had time for the running adventures and the money to pay for them. Then I lost my biggest client. My bread and butter. And I haven't been able to replace them as yet. And I don't think I want to. And I have had a lot of time to think and worry. When Lorna posed this question in the group, it came at a time when I had agreed to take part in a reccee of a race across Namibia and then one across Panama in November/December of this year. A reccee that was not only going to cost me about five thousand pounds, but was also going to put me out of work action for 3 weeks. It was OK though - I had my big client and I had money coming in. And then I lost them. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? 

That’s there to be run......the Namib desert

So is that - The Panamanian jungle 

I read through people arguments on Lorna’s post, looking for some answers. Should I cancel the trip? How was I going to afford it? Was I being spectacularly stupid? How was I going to get a client when I had 3 weeks of ‘holiday’? There were a lot of people saying if it wasn't for job/kids/partner etc they would do something epic. Some people even said they wished they could go back in time and get these things done before they had “settled”. I have never settled. I did for a while (the married years pre running) but I never really settled. 

People like to tell you how to live or how you ought to live, especially on the internet. Good education, stable career, pension, husband, wife, children, save, mortgage, sensible, safety, plan. Saving it all up for a rainy day. But what if every day is a rainy day? What if it’s raining from day one and it only stops occasionally to allow a glimpse of sunlight into the otherwise black room of your brain? What if everything that you have been told you want is wrong? What if the things YOU thought you wanted are wrong? What if the thing you love starts to destroy you? Was that part of the plan?

Losing my biggest client was not part of the plan. The plan was long term. I want to make a living from my running. Something that is NOT the done thing. I am told by people that I am inspiring and clever and engaging and funny. I do not necessarily believe this, but the proof is in the pudding and I do know people that have gone out and done their first 10k, marathon, ultra because I have talked them into it - whether that is inspiring or whether I am a good sales person, I don’t know but there it is. I have done some pretty great adventure runs and I love to talk about them, I love to see people finish their first marathon or ultra and I love to be able to help with advice that I believe is contrary to most of the stuff you get from magazines or online. The CEO of The National Running Show recently referred to me as the first of the “Rock and Roll runners” - a description I totally love. Running is my passion. It has changed my life. Even if I don't get out and do it every day like the shiny people on instagram, I am always thinking about it. What sort of races I could do, where I could go and how I can help other people make their races and race companies great. How to makes things accessible and brilliant. how to make people glorious. 

Before I lost my client, I was branching out and doing all the extra curricular I could around running - going out to Mongolia with Rat Race - the ultimate adventure, becoming their only female ambassador, doing the various bits of press etc. Running all the White Star Races, bringing the White Star community into the Bad Boy Running community to make it the most glorious and dangerous group of all time. Working with the National Running Show to secure a partnership with Bad Boy Running, becoming and ambassador for them and being lucky enough to be asked to speak at their event. I was running races most weekend - winning some of them - and triumphing in all my A game races for the year which I am very proud of (SDW100 sub 24 hour, winner  and now course record holder of the TP184 and winning the Ox Epic 2018). Everything I wanted to do with regards to running this year I have achieved, and that to me is amazing. So why have I managed to achieve these things but NOT managed to secure another music client? Maybe it’s because I don't actually want to. Music and me, I think we are finally done. The long drawn out process of splitting up and getting back together is over. 

From when I did a win. 

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, petrified and afraid. I cannot afford Namibia and Panama. I can’t afford the flights or the time off. I have very little money coming in and no savings. I have no 9-5 bread and butter money. I am fucked. So, so fucked. I am going to have to cancel it. And then I thought of Lorna’s post again. I thought about the people that I admire and look up to - the Sean Conway’s and the Anna McNuff’s. I thought about Mongolia and how much that experience can NEVER be taken away from me. I think about my own mantras - see the world through your eyes not your phone. Relentless forward progress. You have more in you. I think about being old and the regrets I may have. I can’t go - I have a dog and I need to make money. I need to be sensible and grown up. I am going to have to email Jim and cancel it. I am going to have to do what society tells me I should do. 

I think about when I am most happy. I think about the Crafty Fox marathon at the weekend and how much I am looking forward to seeing the White Star lot and how much I am looking forward to running. I think about how kind Jim and Rat Race have been to me. I think about how happy I am when I give a talk to a bunch of people that think they could never run a marathon or a 10k or an ultra and how, when some of them email me months later to tell me they have done it, I feel like doing a little cry. I think about my breakdown. I think about the death of my dear friend Scott. I think about my future. I can’t see further than tomorrow. I call my sister, my most wonderful sister, and talk to her. And I make a decision. Based entirely on gut. Based on my sister being spectacularly supportive and kind and talking to me from her heart.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. I know what I want to do. I want to inspire people, I want to live a positive life, and give back the joy running has given me to people. I want to make people believe in themselves. I want to show people they are capable of so much more than they think. I want to write a book. I want to run all over the world. I want to be an extraordinary, ordinary person. And I want to be happy doing it. I don't want to be rich, or famous or the best or the fastest. I want to be the kindest and the most honest and the most accessable. I need money to live, but there has to be a better way. I don't have children. I have Pickle the dog, but she will be well looked after. I have nothing left to lose, and even the tiny bits I do have to lose mean nothing. I want to live a life less ordinary. 

So I am going. I am going to run 300km across the Namib Desert to the Skeleton coast. Then I am going to run 200km across Panama from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. I will be poor. I will have to move out of London. I want to move out of London, so this is not a problem. I will have to work hard to secure talks and part time work. I will have to scale back my whole life. But I will do it. And I will do it fucking well. 

Normal service will be resumed next week after the inaugural Crafty Fox marathon. Now go and sign up for something extraordinary. 

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #53

UPDATE 53: Retribution

Last time the Undersiders delivered to Coil the data they got from their mission, and the Slaughterhouse Nine were introduced via exposition, effectively building what may start being the plot of the next arc. Before that there’s still an intermission, though, the next arc will start in the next update. Onwards!

Okay, there are a few things that are clear straight from the very first line. The first is that Regent is the character this will be following, since otherwise the other option would be Shadow Stalker and she already got her turn on the spotlight. The second is that this intermission tells what happened after a certain point last chapter. The third one...

“I’m letting you go,” Regent lied.

...is that this is going to be interesting. A lie, huh. Shadow Stalker isn’t going to be happy about this. But yeah, it’s just like this first line says: Regent lied about having let Shadow Stalker free in that moment. I had thought he had actually done that, to make an example of how easily he could take control over her again, but nope. Everything Shadow Stalker did last chapter after that line was Regent still making her move. I was fooled, let me admit.

I believe he wasn’t lying about how easy it’ll be for him to control her if he’s ever near her, though.

Once the charade is over, Regent makes Shadow Stalker leave through the door, doing just like he had said, ordering her to go to the other side of the city before letting her go. I still wonder how large his radius of action is. It sure must be considerably large, given how he’s taking her to the other side of the city without any trouble, instead of she snapping out of the body control just a few blocks away. No wonder he’s the highest Master classification in Brockton Bay!

Something I really like of these intermission is not only that they allow the reader to see better how a character thinks and how they behave – one of Mr. Wildbow’s greatest strengths as a writer is that he can make each character have their own voice – but also that there’s more insight about how their powers work.

For long minutes, he exercised her power, the ability to be as light as a feather, enjoyed it.  He even liked the running, too, when he turned off her power and just legged it

It seems Regent can feel the puppets to some extent. I don’t mean he shares sensations with them, but it seems to me he can have...some sort of vicarious enjoyment in what they do. Makes me wonder if he has captured other capes before. It’s unlikely, I guess, given how it’d require kidnapping a cape and staying in close-quarters with them for a long while, so maybe he’s more used to doing this with normal civilians.

Fighting had been much the same way, but it had been even better.  Her muscle memory had been so primed for punching, kicking, takedowns and evading that he’d almost been able to let her go on autopilot, let her body handle things on its own.

Not that he could, really.  But it had been easy.  He loved that sort of thing.  Maximum reward for minimum effort.

Ah, he can access her muscle memory too? Like, all he has to do is give some sort of vague direction, he doesn’t have to plan every single of her movements. Convenient! Another advantage of controlling a cape.

Also what a relatable philosophy, hm! He uses it to not stand out, just doing what he wants, when he wants. Staying under the radar, even in the team, is advantageous when he has to deal with his puppets. While the Undersiders are en route to meet Coil, he sits back and focuses on making Shadow Stalker move further away, nobody notices he’s focused on something else. In his opinion, it’s better that way. He likes doing this. This brings forth a memory of the time he was a child, living with a couple of her sisters, his father and some of his father’s ‘girls’.

Hah! He as prone to tantrums, apparently. Even when everyone tried to appease him, he just kept going, until Heartbreaker was forced to come into scene. That wasn’t good for anyone, to say the least.

Father had taken two or three seconds to assess the situation before using his power on Alec, his two sisters and the ‘girl’ with a hand over Alec’s mouth.  He hit each of them with stark terror.  The kind of fear you experienced when you were claustrophobic and you woke up in a coffin six feet underground.

Charming. Quite the way to get them to be quiet...and it doesn’t sound like it happened only once or twice, given how Regent wonders if Heartbreaker doing this may have influenced his actual behavior.

That was only one of a dozen or so experiences that came to mind.  So yeah, maybe father had broken something in the process. Maybe it had been the emotional equivalent of staring into the sun for far too long, too many times, being left almost half blind.

...maybe? It’s possible it may have influenced, yeah. I also wouldn’t be surprised it’s also a side effect of Regent’s power. True, he may not have had a trigger event, given how he was the son of a parahuman, but it’s possible his power may have made it easier for him to make use of it, like slowly conditioning him and making him able to use the power to its maximum extent. Look, Regent was surrounded by so many factors that may have contributed to how he is now, it’s hard to blame a single one!

And now he says maybe it’s his power what made him like this. It’s always nice to see when my thoughts are echoed, makes me feel like I’m going in the right direction.

It doesn’t take long to get far away. Regent enjoys the sensation of controlling another person, basking in all of Shadow Stalker’s feelings. Unlike him, her emotions aren’t dulled at all. Yeah, that may be a reason why he likes so much to control other people. He can experience what he can’t experience so well by himself.

“Funny thing about having this control over you, I can feel your emotions, your body’s reactions.  Like a really, really good polygraph test.  I wasn’t even half done saying my piece back there when I caught on to the fact that you were too pissed and too angry to back down and walk away. There’s no way you’re going to leave town if I let you go, right?”

...in hindsight I took at face value that nod. I should have known someone as defiant as Shadow Stalker wouldn’t simply leave the town just because of what happened. She’d be hellbent in vengeance. Why did I take that nod at face value? I’m not sure, honestly...

Since he has nothing better to do right now and the rest will have stuff to deal with, Regent decides to have some fun flexing his power, and he does that by throwing Shadow Stalker’s stuff to the trash and committing some privacy breeches. He’s no Tattletale, but he can find out the password to Shadow Stalker’s phones by using muscle memory. One is the Ward-issued cellphone, which has the contacts stored. I bet it has excellent protection, even against tinkers. The other is her personal phone.

Browsing through the sent messages is a tedious task, so he goes for the saved messages. It confirms to him who Shadow Stalker is – since Taylor accidentally mentioned the names of two of her bullies, it seems. The message that confirms it, well...hm...let’s say it still feels rather uncomfortable to read plans to bully someone, especially when they’re written so flippantly.

Long seconds passed.  He knew he should feel bad for the dork, but he only felt annoyed.  He felt worse about the fact that he didn’t feel bad than he did about what he’d just read.

Something to thank father for, maybe.

...at least he felt something. Of course this something isn’t really directed towards Skitter, since it’s nothing like sympathy or the such, but since the concept of right and wrong didn’t rely on his emotions, he seems to be able to decide to...punish Shadow Stalker for her bullying campaign. She’s not taking it well, seeing Regent calmly getting ready to send the incriminating proof to the teachers of the school.  Eeeeh...can’t say I have much faith in them doing anything about that, after how things went in that meeting many arcs ago. Maybe he’d get better results sending them to Director Piggot as well, who knows. Give her some more headaches to deal with.

Oh, nevermind, she’s adding the police force to the email recipient list.

When he’d added that email to the list, he added another line:

contacting police to make sure something is done

In a way that’s kind of a brilliant move. These messages are about Sophia Hess, not about Shadow Stalker. Civilian identities are something the heroes need to be careful with, trying to not reveal anything to anyone who shouldn’t know. If Piggot tries to make some damage control regarding PR, she’d pretty much giving away what Shadow Stalker’s civilian identity is, as well as what kind of stuff she does at school. That’s going to be difficult to twist with PR. Even if there are people in the police force who already know about Shadow Stalker’s civilian identity, that doesn’t guarantee they’d cooperate to bury this situation away.

All in all, either something actually happens and Sophia Hess receives some retribution, or Director Piggot has to spend many, many hours dealing with this major mess. Either way she’s not going to be happy at all with Shadow Stalker. How much longer will it be before she decides it’s not worth it to have her around?

Once the messages were sent, Regent makes Shadow Stalker go around, walking on precarious railings and calling Emma at 3 AM. Hah! She asked to be called later, yep, but not at three in the morning, that’s for sure!

Well...Regent isn’t really very good at imitating Shadow Stalker, but that’s not important. She’s annoying Emma a lot, there’s some satisfaction to be had in that. And theeeeen he makes her confess her love to Emma. Well alright then! If there were any doubts in Emma’s mind that something was up with Shadow Stalker, this will dispel them. Not that it matters much, after all, what can Emma do about anything? She’s somewhere else, and she’s just some random civilian. In the big scheme of things, she’s a largely unimportant character.

Emma didn’t believe not even a single word of that love confession. Figures. What’s next, Regent? He hasn’t gotten fed up of messing with Shadow Stalker’s life yet. He takes out the map application of the smartphone and studies the last request for directions Shadow Stalker did.

...

He’s going to do something at her home now, isn’t he? He sure is being thorough in this methodical dismantling of Shadow Stalker’s life. Her work as a reluctant Ward had been ruined already, and now he’s ruining everything about her civilian identity. That’s rather messed up, definitely.

But who knows if he’ll actually be able to do anything. The further away he is, the harder it’s for him to keep Shadow Stalker moving. She’s already moving sluggishly; it may be matter of time before she recovers all control over her body. Oh, nevermind, they got closer later. Shadow Stalker won’t ever know it, thankfully.

These people are awake at three in the morning, huh. Waiting for Sophia to arrive, perhaps? The young man who saw Shadow Stalker first seems to be unable to believe what he’s seeing, while the woman who’s likely to be Sophia’s mother reacts with...that behavior parents do when they want to talk something they don’t want their kids to hear.

“Chill, bro,” Regent was making a guess here. From the way the boy stared at Shadow Stalker, he knew he’d hit the mark.

“Sophia!?”

“Yeah,” Regent grinned behind her mask.  “Duh, moron.”

She has been keeping her hero identity as a secret from her family! Or at least from everyone who isn’t the mother. Now that I think about it, that makes sense. It’s not like the Wards surreptitiously induct people into the group. Kid Win had talked with that budding spy while the spy’s mother was present. Sophia’s mom must have known about the hero job.

There was a flurry of hissed words between Terry and Shadow Stalker’s mother.  Among them was a surprised, hurt, “You knew!?”

Hm. While I still feel some retribution towards Sophia’s action was deserved, this is starting to get other people involved and therefore it’s starting to go rather far. Emma was one thing, because she was directly into the bullying plans. This family, well...I doubt they had anything to do with all the poisonous mess Sophia is. Things are going to be very awkward for this family for a while.

This truly illustrates how someone like Regent having the ability to control other people’s bodies is a rather fearsome thing.

You know, I can’t tell if Sophia would behave so dismissively towards her mother. Apparently yes, since the mom isn’t realizing something is off about Sophia’s nonchalant behavior. The woman gets angrier with each flippant line, and even more when Sophia yawns. Wow, Regent really knows how to piss people off.

“It’s the rules in my house!  If it’s going to keep you out of prison and on the straight and narrow, fine.  But I will not have you glorifying violence-”

Hoh, nothing kept her on the straight and narrow at all. But yeah, looks like this explains why only the mother knew about Sophia’s hero role. She doesn’t approve any of this at all, and I have a hunch Sophia’s extreme vigilantism from before she joined the Wards can’t have helped to earn her support.

It must be horrible to watch someone else make you dig your metaphorical grave deeper and deeper. Showing the lethal arrows to the woman who disapproves of violence in the first place isn’t going to convince her she’s on the straight and narrow. The mom is appropriately horrified, and demands to know what’s going on – with her violent behavior, that is, not what’s happening right now.

“You do not have the right to complain about something like being bored!  I work two jobs for you three!  I put in overtime, I attend every school function, I come into the office every time you get reprimanded because you’ve got anger issues! You aren’t even taking care of your sister, or helping out around this house!  What do you think-”

What she does goes beyond anger issues, that’s for sure. But yeah, I feel a lot of sympathy for Sophia’s family, frankly. They didn’t ask for any of this to happen, and their lives were already hard enough before this night. I hope they will be alright.

Shadow Stalker stood at Regent’s directions, then pointed the crossbow at the mother. The woman’s eyes widened, and she hurried to back away as Shadow Stalker advanced.  They stopped when the mother’s back was to the wall by the kitchen door, with Shadow Stalker’s crossbow bolt pressed against her throat.

My sympathy is increasing exponentially. I don’t have children, and it’d be extremely hard to imagine how it must feel to be in this situation, but...having your kid pretty much threatening to kill you must be awful, to say the very, very least. Is this something she and Sophia can leave behind? ...who knows. I have a hard time believing they will. It’s simply too big of a shock to just...talk over.

Once Regent is done terrorizing Shadow Stalker’s mother, he makes Shadow Stalker go to her room, ignoring the brother who just found out his sister is a messed up hero. Sophia’s room is rather normal, with the usual furniture and many photos on the wall. Most are of Emma and Sophia. There’s also a photo of Sophia’s family.

He found a picture of Shadow Stalker – Sophia – with her family.  Her mom looked younger and far less tired there, and was pregnant. Shadow Stalker looked twelve or so, and her brother looked sixteen or seventeen, sporting a fantastic looking afro and a less fantastic attempt at a moustache.  They were clustered around one another, but only the mom was smiling.

I don’t know, in my opinion Shadow Stalker keeping that picture pinned there with all the rest says a lot, even if she’s not exactly happy in the photo. There’s also the fear and anger Sophia felt when Regent made her enter the house with the costume on. I think she does care a lot about her family, despite how she’s like.

Could it be that Sophia’s father leaving is related to her trigger event? Like, he leaving caused it, due to the stress and hatred she must have felt back then? There’s not really any detail about what happened back then. What’s for sure is that whatever happened with him, and he leaving, really took a toll on the mother.

Regent makes her burn Emma’s face off a couple photos, and reveals he has been dismantling Sophia’s life with a goal in mind. He’s...

...he’s making her write a suicide note. Wow. I don’t feel nearly confident about how to treat this. Seriously messed up, that’s for sure. Regent’s going rather far. I’m not sure if I should have imagined this’d happen. Then again, Rachel and he are the two that’s said to have killed before. Maybe that’s not why I feel surprised this is happening, or surprised about how cold Regent can be while doing this. The fact he’s a villain also makes it less shocking. None of that makes all this be any better, of course, but yeah.

“Here’s the thousand dollar question,” he mused, as he began following the steps outlined in the video, putting the knot together, “Will your boss tell your mom what happened with me controlling you?  If she keeps her mouth shut, well, this paints a pretty ugly picture, doesn’t it?”

For some reason, I keep trying to think about how Emma would react, since that call was a love confession and all. I simply can’t imagine how she’d react. After how she left Taylor behind, I just can’t envision her having an emphatic response to anything, even though she clearly isn’t unfeeling.

“But if she does tell, if she lets mommy know, then shit hits the fan.  It looks pretty fucking bad for her, and if word gets out, it’s as bad as it gets for public relations.  Scary, dangerous parahumans.  Not just lives at risk, but you could be controlled.  Ooooh, scary.  Nobody would ever be able to trust their coworkers or neighbors.  It’s the kind of stuff they want to keep quiet.”

You mean nobody in this city has ever imagined there may be a parahuman with the ability to control minds or bodies? Parahumans have all kinds of abilities, and the heroes are rather good examples of some of them. Has nobody in this city ever thought that, hey, there may be someone who can use you as a puppet, better hope it’s not a madman? I guess just imagining is fine, confirming there’s one in Brockton Bay would be the part that’d terrify everyone.

I never thought I’d be feeling anything resembling sympathy towards Sophia Hess, but there it is.

Regent gives Sophia enough control to say stuff, and of course the first thing she asks is why he’s doing this. He outright says it’s because of what she has done to his teammate, and thankfully she doesn’t make any connection to Taylor, she immediately thinks of Grue. That’s a bit of a relief...

“I dunno if I care all that much, but it’s the sort of thing I’ll do because it feels like I should.  Dunno. There’s also the fact that you’re dangerous, and you’ve outlived your usefulness, so… unless you can give me a convincing reason.”

“Please.”

“Not that convincing.”  He raised one foot, then kicked the chair, hard.

It rocked, but didn’t tip over.

He chuckled lightly, feeling the confusion and the relief from his host.  It was a thrill unlike any other.  “I think I made my point.”

I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath with trepidation until now. True, I despise Shadow Stalker and all, but I can’t say I ever wished for her death. She’s, well, she’s not going to be okay, but at least she will live. That’s always a relief.

Regent is right, now Shadow Stalker has even less of a reason to stay in Brockton Bay, now that her life was completely destroyed, both in her hero identity and in her civilian identity. There’s also Regent’s threat about taking control over her again.

“I can feel your emotions.  I know I’ve convinced you.  You leave town, and if you don’t want me paying a visit, wherever you wind up, you keep your mouth closed about tonight.  They don’t need to know this was all my doing.  Things get messy that way, yeah?”

The more I read, the more it feels like this really may be Shadow Stalker’s last appearance. She has been convinced about leaving the city, she’s terrified...all in all, she’s not in condition to be an enemy to the Undersiders anymore. I can’t see how she can be integrated back into the story now. Quite a way to end her role in this story, if this really is the last time she appears. Well then...

This is pretty much how the intermission ends. I can’t think of anything else to say. Quite the shock, honestly. Mr. Wildbow doesn’t pull any punches in his writing. I feel a bit exhausted, for many reasons. All in all...wow. Yeah. That sure happened.

So! Next time the next arc will start. See you then!

Next update: in seven updates

[halowastaken]

Why I left (chapter 7)

read it in ao3!

Summary:

You're so pathetic Your parents wanted so bad to get rid of you they died so they didn't have to see you again And May? The only person that liked you? You killed her You don't even deserve Mr Stark's pity He hates you Just like everyone else Mr Stark used him Peter was just his pr stunt, wasn't he? He doesn't really care He's a liar Peter may not have full control of his life right now but he can totally control that problem. That's when he made up his plan, but he has to start with the first and probably most complicated thing. The code

------

"Tony if you are not here with the paperwork that I gave you, you're more than welcome to leave my office" Pepper said typing something in the computer

"Don't worry. She’s normally nice” Tony said. She then stopped typing and looked up. There was a teenager in her office next to Tony

“Uhh hey” Pepper managed to say confused “What is going on?”

“You said that you wanted to meet Spiderman and I said that I would ask. This is Peter Parker aka Spiderman” Tony said and the kid just shook his head sighting. Pepper gave the kid a good look

“Excuse my silence. I am speechless” Pepper said turning to see Tony “Honey did you hit your head with something? Are you drunk? I am confused” After that the kid smiles and looks at Tony who rolls his eyes

“You owe me an ice cream” Peter says and then Tony hands him some kind of weird watch. He puts it on and then he aims for the pencil holder in Pepper’s desk with his hand. Then he pressed a weird button and a white thin string came out of it. The kid then pulled the string before the pencil holder fell, he cached it with every pencil inside. What the fuck

“Holy shit” Pepper let’s out “Tony he is a kid! What the hell?!”

“Told you she would say that” Tony says and the kid rolls his eyes “I understand why you would be mad at me-”

“You brought a kid to fight the avengers! Yes I am mad at you!” Pepper says standing from her seat

“And as a matter of fact I take full responsibility for that! Not my best decision at all. It was wrong. I was wrong” Pepper raised both eyebrows. She wasn’t expecting that. She was expecting Tony to make an excuse for his actions

“And I shouldn't have accepted his offer. Also I’ve been Spiderman way before the accords mess” Pepper was even more shook. The kid was defending Tony. He stuttered while he was at it but he did it anyways

“Mr. parker being a superhero isn’t supposed to be a job for a teenager” Peter raised an eyebrow

“No offense Ms. Potts, but  you already tried stopping me once. I think we both know how that ended” Peter said, more confident yet not in a rude way. He was defending his position without attacking hers. She wasn't used to that. He clearly didn’t go to business school

“So the real reason I am here it’s because I wanted to inform you that he will be my new intern” Tony said with a smile while Peter’s eyes widened

“No he wasn’t. That was a joke” Peter said almost horrified

“Not really kid. So when can I submit the paperwork?” Tony asked and Pepper smiled

“Mr. Parker, care to let me talk in private with my fiancé for a second please? We’ll call you in when we’re done” Pepper said and Peter nodded and got out of the office “Tony what are you doing?”

“Listen. I know you may think that this is a bad idea but I really think the kid has potential and I am not even talking about the superhero stuff. He's a genius as, like, Bruce level shit. He's a good kid and he deserves it" Tony says

"You know what I think? I think you like him a lot, and I really hate being the one that has to tell you this, but this has happened before. You tend to trust someone, you give them all kinds of love and appreciation, and then they stab you in the back. He seems like a good kid, but you got to be sure about this" And it was true. Pepper loved Tony and the last thing she wanted is someone to hurt him again. Just like in the past

"Peter is a good kid. He's not like Mr. Good and righteous and his minions, or Stane. He has something different" Tony said and then sighted "I love you for trying to help but in this case I am giving that kid the internship. Even if he is a backstabber, because I still need a lab assistant and he can keep up" Then Tony gave his fiancé a kiss and left the office. The woman just sighted and sat again on her chair to keep working but he then heard the door knock again. After a few seconds the same teenager with a completely different look came inside

"I'm sorry, I know you are a really busy person. I just wanted to talk without Mr. Stark in the room. I'll just-"

"Take a seat Mr. Parker" Pepper finally says with her eyebrow raised. It took balls to do what the teenager was doing right now. He hesitantly closed the door behind him and sat in one of the chairs in front of Pepper's desk "Aren't you supposed to be with Tony?"

"I told him I had to go to the bathroom" He admitted hesitantly "I am gonna be fully honest right now. One of my Spider powers is increased hearing and I can't control it so I couldn't help to hear your conversation with Mr. Stark which I am so sorry, because It is none of my business anyways" Peter said in one breath

"Please don't forget to breath once in a while" Pepper added and Peter took a deep breath

"I'm sorry Mrs. Potts. I honestly just wanted to clarify that if you don't want to, you don't need to give me anything" Peter says and Pepper blinks

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, technically you are the CEO of Stark Industries. You're the one with the last word in any intern discussion even if Mr. Stark says doesn't like it. And I get that you don't trust me enough for such a high position and that's fine. I can just stick with the normal Spiderman training" Pepper raised an eyebrow

"Mr. Parker, I do hope that you are aware of the value a stable internship here has. It would look good in any resume or college application. With your Spiderman training, you can say you interned here for a month and that's still impressive but they will ask why couldn't you stay" Peter shrugged

"I understand Mrs. Potts, but I am ok with that. I-"

"Mr. Parker I would really appreciate that you speak your truth this time. What is going in that mind of yours that encouraged you to stay here and talk to me?"  Pepper asked with full business woman voice. Peter took a moment to answer

"I am not trying to hurt Mr. Stark" Pepper's eyes widened when she heard the kid's answer "I get it. Why would a teenager appear out of nowhere and just try to be Tony's protégé? The thing is I am not trying to do anything. After the vulture thing I honestly just expected Mr. Stark to never call me ever again and that would've been the end of the story. Yet he didn't, and honestly I am glad. I like being around Mr. Stark. I also didn't ask for him to all of the sudden turn my internship into a real thing, actually when he said he would I thought he was joking. I really don't get why he wants to be around me of all people. And you're his fiancé. The CEO of his company. You've been with him in the most important moments of his life. And the media already made sure everyone knows about how many people have hurt Mr. Stark. You don't trust me and I get why. I wouldn't trust me either. That's why, if you don't want to, just don't give me the internship. I don't want it if you don't feel safe giving it" Peter said and then sighted "I am sorry for wasting your time like this. I know that you're busy and-"

"It's fine" Is all that Pepper says. She already made a decision "Tony must be wondering where you are. What were you two doing before you two came here?" Pepper asks in a totally different tone

“He was showing me coding stuff in the lab that I didn’t really get because I am more into chemistry” Peter says confused. Then Pepper smiled at him

“He must be in the lab then. You know your way around?”

“Yeah?” Peter said standing up

“Awesome. It was nice meeting you Peter. Can you close the door on your way out please?” Pepper asks with a soft smile in her face. Peter just nodded “Thank you”

“Have a nice day Mrs. Potts” Peter says closing the door

“You too Peter” She says before he closes the door “Fri?”

“Yes Mrs. Potts” FRIDAY answers

“Send an email with the internship paperwork to Tony please. Also can you please send me an update when Spiderman is mentioned in the news in the future please?” Pepper says staring at the door with a smile

“I certainly can” The AI sounded amused

“You’re the best Fri” Pepper says getting back to work

“I try”

---

Pepper just finished everything that she had to do at SI for today. Which meant he could spend time with Tony and Peter if he is around. Pepper loved having Peter around. She still remembers when they met. He was so shy and polite and she first thought that it was too good to be true, but luckily for all of them, Peter proved her wrong. She always got protective when it came to Peter. Protective as in ‘I will drop a lawsuit bigger than the entire state of Texas if you mess with him’ kinda thing, which she was proud of. The kid is a blessing. She was sure that if it weren't for Peter, Tony wouldn't have recovered from the Germany thing, so yeah. Pepper could certainly say that the teenager saved her little dysfunctional but cute family and became part of it too. So imagine how Pepper reacted when she didn’t see Peter that Thursday after a busy day

“Where the hell is Peter?” Pepper finally says catching Tony’s attention

“Not here” Tony answered and she just glared at him “He’s late which, by the way. if you ask me I find weird“

“No shit sherlock” Tony just rolled his eyes. This actually pissed her off. She wanted her emotional support teenager “Have you called him yet?”

"No not really. I figured that the kid may have a good reason so I am just waiting”

“He’s, like, an hour late. FRIDAY call my kid please” Pepper demands

“Calling Underoos” FRIDAY says out loud

“I am gonna talk. You are grumpy and need coffee” Tony says and Pepper just rolls her eyes

“Hey Tony” Peter said with his bubbly voice as always

“Care to tell me why the hell are you not here?” Tony says more jokingly than mad looking at Pepper. He found amusing that she is actually mad that the kid is not here

“What do you mean?” Peter asks, confused. Pepper scoffs and Tony’s jaw drops

“Oh my god. Parker how dare you? I thought that we had something special!” Peter’s silence screamed confusion. Tony scoffed because he found it funny “It’s thursday. Why are you not here?” The kid shrugs. He totally forgot

“I had to pick something up from the department. I am on my way” Peter lies immediately and Tony just laughs

“It’s fine if you forgot. If you still want to come just tell me when you get here” Tony can feel the sassiness before Peter even answers

“No can do. I like surprises and you know that. I’ll swing by eventually” And then the kid hangs up

“Are you happy now?” Tony asks teasing her

“You know, as the person that asked me to marry you, you have to remember that you're one of the decisions that I made in my life. Keep up with the teasing and my next decision will be to run away and keep the company” Tony just rolls her eyes and kisses Pepper’s cheek

“Love you too. Let’s order takeout today. I feel like having pizza today. You?”

“Sure. Make sure to order four more for the spider” Pepper says getting out of the lab

“FRI you heard the woman” And yes. After a few minutes, Peter was in the balcony with the spider suit and everything. It was comforting for pepper because she thought he was hurt or something

“Hey Pepper” Peter said entering the living room

“Peter! I am so glad you came! What happened?” Pepper asks with a smile on her face. Peter takes off his mask and only half smiles

“I had so much homework and I lost track of time” Peter admitted

“Next time bring it here. I am sure that Tony could help you with it” Peter only rolls his eyes

“Ok. Is he in the lab or-”

“He’s gonna come up in a few minutes. Meanwhile why don’t you tell me about your day?” Peter shrugs before answering

“It was great. Nothing interesting tho. What about you Mrs. Potts? How is SI?” Pepper sights

“Better than ever. I am really tired today, so what if I convince you to start the movie night early?” Pepper says and Peter just glares at her

“I am sorry Pepper, but I I want to spend time in the lab today” Pepper shakes her head while smiling

“You know what? What if we make a deal. We ordered pizza a few minutes ago. When the pizza arrives, we start the movie night” Peter raises an eyebrow

“I get to choose the movie”

“Fine, but not star wars again. I like the movies but we’ve seen every single one of them more times that I am proud to admit” Peter then calls the elevator and gets in

“Well it was a pleasure doing business with you Mrs. Potts” Peter says before the elevator door opens. She loved that kid

When Peter got down the lab, Tony was in the middle of a hologram doing his mechanic stuff that Peter didn't really care a lot about.

“Have you ever considered dying your hair? You are starting to look your age” Peter says standing by the doorframe. Tony turns around and rolls his eyes

“Yet there you are, the sixteen year old that hasn’t grown a single chest hair” Peter raises an eyebrow

“I can live with that. Can we finish that code for that robot we were doing? Ametrine I think? “ Tony laughs and shakes his head

“It’s funny how I name my robots dumb stuff like DumE and U and you use something like 'Ametrine' or 'Hybrid' or even 'Synergy'. Sounds like you actually care" Peter shakes his head and rolls his eyes

"If you want to I can just do it myself" Peter says and Tony glares at him

"Not in a million years. Go get the damn robot" Peter shrugged and then went to his workshop to look for the prototype. When he came back Tony already pulled the blueprints in the hologram screen

"Looking good so far. Can you start the wires while I finish the code?" Peter asks pulling the code  in the hologram

“Are you kidding me? That’s like, the most boring part” Tony complains but Peter totally ignores him

“FRI play our playlist please” Peter says and Tony sights going to his desk. FRIDAY plays ‘Animals by Maroon 5 which confuses Tony “Did you mess with our Spotify playlist again?”

“You can’t have a playlist called ‘Labtime feat Parker and Stark’ and just have stuff that stark likes. Besides you always end up liking my music” Peter says while coding Tony just scoffs and then keeps working

Tony didn’t know this, but Peter really needed the labtime. He needed to escape from reality somehow, and only when he was in the lab or out as Spiderman is when he felt great. Like the old good Peter. To everyone’s eyes that Peter still lived. But that wasn’t really how things were working. Peter was now a cold, calculating bad person. His moral compass went through the roof the second May died. His sanity is almost gone, and his will to live? We don’t know her. At this point he was just wondering, when will he finally break into pieces?

When he was doing something that he enjoyed, his mind was focused just on that thing. No time to think of how he wants his life to end already. He knew exactly how everything worked. That’s when he thought that being a total nerd came in handy.

“Kid the food’s here” Tony says after, like, thirty minutes

“I already got too involved” Peter said without taking his eyes away from the screen

“Totally understandable. I’ll just tell Pepper that the kid she’s been wanting to hang out the entire week is too busy for her playing in the lab. She’ll love it” Tony says and Peter puts the tablet down

“No need to threat me” Peter says and then Tony takes the tablet

“Looking good. You’re almost done. Good job kiddo” Then Tony proceeded to ruffle Peter’s curls. Peter flinched. What?

“Don’t do that!” Peter yells immediately. Tony’s eyes widened. He was shocked. Peter just sights “Sorry, my head just hurts a little”

“FRI scan Parker from hair to toes please” Tony immediately says. If Tony wasn’t wrong it looked like FRIDAY hesitated

“Mr. Parker has multiple bruises around his body. They all match with punches thrown by someone else. The most severe ones are located in his nose, ribs, and head” Tony’s jaw literally dropped

“What the fuck” Was all that came out of Tony’s mouth

“I forgot to tell you ok? Spiderman has been having a rough time-”

“You can’t just forget to tell me that! I worry about you! I thought we were way past not telling when you get injured!” Tony yells

“I am sorry, ok? I swear I was gonna tell you-”

“Yeah? Then why did you put makeup over it?” Peter just froze “You think I didn't notice? I let you get away with it because I thought it was a new interest of yours, but please forgive me if I judge you for using makeup to cover a blackeye” Tony was so mad.

“You have all the right to be mad at me. I should’ve told you and I didn’t because I could handle it. The bad guy is already gone so It’s fine. I am sorry I didn't tell you” Tony just sighted and nodded

“Wait if you were out as Spiderman, why didn't Karen notify me?” Peter shrugs. Thank god FRIDAY spoke before him

“The Sipderman suit has been notifying you of every injury Peter has had while in it, boss. You specifically told me to ‘send it to the trash bin’ two weeks ago when Peter was past his curfew for two minutes” Peter raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear

“What? I don’t remember doing that” Tony says tilting his head

“You were in the bedroom at the time with Mrs. Potts” FRIDAY says

“In the bedroom with Mrs-” Then Tony’s eyes widened. He now has an idea of what was he doing when that happened “Remind me from now on. And you can’t just not tell me, kid. We’re way past this” Peter sights and nods “Ok then. Let’s go eat and get you some ice for that”

And so they did. Pepper was mad at Tony when she found out about the bruises, but nothing a good movie couldn’t take care of. Peter didn’t feel like going out as Spiderman that night so might as well take advantage of that.

“You know, we can always rewatch Bolt. You like that one” Tony says and Peter rolls his eyes

“Pepper said I could pick the movie, and I want to watch ‘mickey once upon a Christmas’ so we are watching it like it or not” Peter says putting on his blanket

"Honey, I can assure you that I wouldn't have said anything if I knew we were gonna watch a Christmas movie in September" Pepper said

"Pity. FRI?" Peter asks in the middle of Tony and Pepper then the movie starts playing on the tv. It wasn't a surprise when Pepper was the first one to fall asleep, which was actually convenient. Tony wanted the alone time

"I've been thinking" Tony says catching Peter's attention "When we first met, If someone told me that I was gonna be your mentor I would've laughed at their face. That was obviously before you decided that taking down a plane was better than going to homecoming. That's when I realized that I made a good decision when I recruited you" Tony sighted and Peter leans back to rest on the ark reactor. This was somewhat comforting for Tony "I want you to be ok all the time. And I have the strongest armor that will always protect you" After that he gets up to go look for it in the kitchen

"Tony, you already made my suit. I don't think I need an Iron man suit too" Peter says jokingly which makes Tony chuckle. Then he goes back to the couch to sit next to Peter

"In that case, sorry to disappoint" Then Tony hands it to him. It wasn't a steel armor, but a cashmere sweater with the MIT logo on it

"That's your MIT sweater" Peter says looking at it

"When I was your age I was already in college. And everyone knows that I wasn't exactly a role model teenager, but this piece of fabric was always with me. Late nights studying or just hiding in my room from my dad because he was annoying me. I had most of my best ideas with this thing on" Tony then looks at Peter. He was sure he was doing the right thing "Then one day you came here and put it on because you forgot your clothes. I knew that It's your turn to have it" Peter's eyes widened

"Are you delusional? I know how much you love it! I can't accept that" Peter says and Tony rolls his eyes

"I want you to have it, kid. It will fit you better than it fits me" Peter then looks at Tony and sighs. He takes the sweater carefully and then puts it on. It was really soft. He really liked that sweater since the first time he wore it but now it just feels wrong that he's the new owner

"I'll take care of it. I promise" Peter says and Tony then just hugs him carefully. Peter wanted to cry. He didn't deserve that hug. At the end they ended up cuddling till both of them fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning, Tony woke up next to Peter. Pepper wasn't there anymore so he figured that she woke up already, so it was the perfect time to start with his master plan. He left Peter sleeping on the couch and he ran downstairs to SI.

"Pep whatever you are doing is irrelevant right now, I need every single bit of your attention" Tony says storming into her office

"It's too early for this Tony" Pepper warns writing something in a notebook

"I know, ok? But this is important. I think something is going on with Peter" Pepper's writing stopped and then she looked at Tony

"You got to give me more than that" Pepper said closing her notebook

"The bruises. I know Peter has a record of not telling me stuff like that, but it just felt different this time. Like if he was hiding something bigger than that” Tony was actually worried and Pepper could see it

“Honey, I really love knowing that you about Peter, but he seems fine to me. The story matches with the facts and I have no reason to not believe him” Pepper said frustrating Tony

“Yeah I know. Call it a gut feeling, but that kid is hiding something from me” Tony says sitting on the couch of Pepper’s office

“That doesn’t have to necessarily be a bad thing. He is allowed to keep stuff for himself” Pepper adds raising an eyebrow

“You know what? Maybe I am overthinking this. Maybe it’s just some stupid shit that it’s not that important. But maybe it’s something bad. And I am worried that’s the case”

“Tell you what. I promise that I will keep an eye on him and so will you. If there’s something that we found out of the ordinary, we can even use your helicopter parenting techniques. We will even drop a lawsuit if you want to. But please, for now just keep being the cool Tony of always” Pepper begs. Tony really has this feeling that there’s something going on, and he doesn't like it. But Pepper is right. He shouldn’t worry too much. Maybe is nothing

“Ok then. I’ll wake up our little spider. He has school today” Tony says and then gets out of Pepper’s office

---

Peter had a decent day. He wore Tony’s sweater to school and MJ thought it was cute. Flash obviously said it was lame but he really didn't care about his opinion. Then he went out as Spiderman and stopped a few muggers. It wasn’t a horrible day, which was unusual for Peter lately. Obviously that didn’t last long. When he got home he tried to be as quiet as possible, but that didn't really work out given that when he opened the door, an empty bottle of wine crashed in the wall next to him. Back to reality

"Come here" Peter didn't hesitate to go near the couch. If he did, the next bottle was gonna hit him. Ben looked at Peter's sweater "What is that?"

"Mr. Stark gave it to me. It was his when he was in MIT" Peter kept looking down

"Take it off" Peter hesitated for a second but then he took it off and handed it to Ben. He took it and then he slapped Peter "Don't try to lie to me. You stole it didn't you?" Peter couldn't dare to answer "He doesn't even like you. You're his little charity project. He wouldn't give this to a stupid little retarded like you. Bet he still keeps you around because of pity. You still have the internship?” Peter nodded slowly “Bet he still keeps you around because of pity. You are gonna quit, you hear me? If not I will tell him myself what you did and then let’s see for how long will he keep you around. And if I see it ever again around this house, I'll burn it"

"Y-Yes sir" Peter said and then walked as fast as he could to his room. He curled himself under the blanket while hugging the sweater.

What an idiot. He's right. Mr. Stark doesn't really like you. He just gave it to you because he wanted you to shut up. He would never like you. He doesn't like killers.

Tears of pain were the ones rolling through Peter's cheeks

You're so pathetic

Your parents wanted so bad to get rid of you they died so they didn't have to see you again

And May? The only person that liked you? You killed her

You don't even deserve Mr. Stark's pity

He hates you

Just like everyone else

Mr. Stark used him

Peter was just his PR stunt, wasn't he?

He doesn't really care.

He's a liar.

Peter may not have full control of his life right now but he can totally control this problem. That's when he made up his plan, but he has to start with the first and probably most complicated thing.

The code.

--

btw guys the playlist they are talking about is this if in case ya’ll wanna hear it