#also don’t ask why I’m starting a third run and already have over 200 hours in this game

[mydictionary-yume]

Finished my du.rge run last night, started another run today and I am physically holding myself back from trying to romance Star for a third time

[bombshellbois]

Bait

@harringroveweekoflove

Harringrove Week of Love Day 2: Mythological Creature AU

Rating: T

Words: 1641

Summary: Steve is barely paid enough to scoop ice cream under the hot sun at the Hawkins Aquarium. He's definitely not paid enough to deal with their asshole of a science project.

Steve is used to Dr. Owens showing up at his job by now. The Scoops Ahoy stand at the Hawkins Aquarium sees most of the science staff at some point because Indiana summers are fucking hot and a 15% employee discount is a 15% employee discount. Dr. Owens doesn’t come for the ice cream, though. He comes to ruin Steve’s day, usually carrying a bucket of raw fish for the... secondary duties Steve has now. 

There is no bucket today. There’s a black eye, a busted lip, and a ruined wetsuit under a Hawkins Aquarium windbreaker, but no bucket. The signs of carnage are not uncommon either. 

“Harrington.”

“Still think having a mermaid in an aquarium is a good idea?” Steve asks, glancing at him briefly before he goes back to wiping down the stand’s serving counter. 

“I didn’t ask your opinion,” Owens says shortly. Talking splits his lip back open.

“But you want something from me.”

“You’re on the clock, aren’t you?”

Steve could argue, and sometimes he has, that he’s on Scoops Ahoy’s clock, not Owens’. Not even the aquarium’s, technically. And he’s being paid 3 bucks an hour to sling ice cream, not deal with the world’s first known mermaid. But Owens seems to be having a tough day, so he lets it go. 

“Fine. Robin will be back from her break in 5 minutes. What do you need?”

***

Once Robin is firmly in charge of the ice cream scoop, Steve heads to the giant laboratory at the back of the aquarium. The heavy door buzzes open as soon as whoever watches the cameras sees him coming. Yeah, they all know him here, the asshole in the sailor uniform who’s Owens’ bitch.

‘We need to clean the tank,’ Owens had said. Which meant they needed to empty the tank first. 

Billy wasn’t having any of that, apparently. 

Steve sighs as he climbs the industrial staircase up to the top of the massive 2-story tank. There’s a lot of humming in his ears from the giant industrial filter and all the equipment in the room. He can’t hear shit inside the tank, but he doesn’t need to. A cursory glance over his shoulder confirms that, yep, as per usual, he’s got a mermaid following behind him. Probably staring at his ass. 

Billy pops up at the top of the tank, folding his arms on the rim of it as Steve reaches the top of the stairs. He shakes his head of wet, blond curls out, and grins when water splatters all over Steve’s blue work uniform. Steve has no idea where a mermaid learned to be such an asshole. 

“Hey, pretty boy,” he says, running his tongue over his sharp teeth. Steve doesn’t know where he learned that either. 

“Why are you roughing up Owens?” Steve asks, crouching on the platform along the lip of the tank, bringing himself down to Billy’s height. “You always bitch that your tank isn’t clean enough.”

“It’s not. Because it’s a fucking tank and not an ocean.” Billy flashes him a grin that shows off his teeth, like rows of pins. “What can I say? They don’t handle the merchandise correctly.”

Steve gives Billy a critical once-over. He’s all muscle, from the sturdy human trunk to the thick red tail that Steve has seen him use to break ribs. “Too delicate for Owens’ handling? That’s what you’re sticking with?”

Billy scrunches his nose, and that’s all the warning Steve gets. The giant fan of his tail fin pops out of the water and slaps down on the surface, hard. It sprays Steve with more cold water that definitely, definitely needs that cleaning. He coughs and splutters, fumbling for his hat when it falls. Billy makes a grab for it, but Steve manages to slap his hand away. This time. Billy already has two of these stashed somewhere in his tank, and Steve’s boss is going to start charging him if he keeps losing them. Even if it’s aquarium property that’s stealing them.

“Were you saying something there, princess?”

“Asshole.” Steve drops his weight back and sits on his butt. “What’s got your mer-panties in a wad? Seriously.”

Billy’s tail fin slides back under the water and he shrugs. “Where’ve you been? You haven’t come to see me.”

Ah. That’s probably it. “Missed me?” 

That earns him a dramatic rolling of eyes as if Billy has ever heard of anything so absurd. As if he hasn’t just roughed up a man in his fifties to get Steve to come to his tank. As if Steve is somehow the unreasonable one here.

“It’s okay if you did.” 

“We don’t feel shit like that. Merfolk aren’t pussies.”

Steve is pretty sure that’s a lie. According to Owens, mermaids might have a very complex system of interpersonal relationships, which may or may not include bonding the way humans do, blah blah blah. From what Steve can tell, Billy’s pretty human in respect to how his emotions work. He’s just a typical guy about them, meaning he doesn’t want to talk about them or acknowledge that they exist. 

He really hates that he’s the emotionally mature one here. That is not a thing that should be happening in Steve’s life right now. Robin has already confirmed for him that if emotions were a car, he wouldn’t even have a learner’s permit. He’d still be on roller skates. It’s a sound analogy, and it’s comforting because it confirms what Steve pretty much already knew. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you,” he says because it’s just faster. Pointing out that he’s not allowed inside this place unless Owens has requested his help won’t end well. Steve is pretty sure that’ll make Billy  just dig in his proverbial heels every time he wants to see Steve. That’s kind of sweet, in a Billy sort of way, but Steve doesn’t want to suddenly find himself working six days a week and on-call for Sundays even though the aquarium is closed. Easier to just take the blame. 

Billy huffs a breath out through his nose. “You’re just being nice so I’ll let them clean the tank.”

“And you were only an asshole to Owens so I’d show up and be nice to you,” Steve points out. He’s learned not to let Billy’s bullshit slide. He might be some majestic legend of the sea, but he’s also an asshole. And an opportunist. 

Billy breaks out into a grin, doing that Thing with his tongue again. “You got me.”

“So. Will you let them clean the tank?” Steve asks. “I’ll bring you your lunch in the holding tank and tell you about the bullshit new ice cream flavor they’re making us push.”

Billy looks up and off to one side as if he’s considering it. “Hm... sure.”

That was relatively easy. Small mercies. “Awesome,” Steve says, getting to his feet, sneakers squeaking on the wet platform. “I’ll tell Owens to get that hammock thing th—“

“But only if you carry me.”

Steve stares down at him. Billy just gives him a shit-eating grin, popping his tail fin back up and swaying it in what Steve swears is a taunt. Not that he knows anything about mermaid body language but that... that’s taunting right there. 

“No.”

“Then I’m not leaving my tank.”

“Billy.”

“Steve.”

Steve flails helplessly, gesturing to include all of Billy. “Dude. You’re over 200 lbs.”

Billy fakes an affronted look and pats his sculpted abdomen. “Hey. I’ve been watching my figure.”

“Your tail is the size of a person.”

“Only a small-to-medium size person.”

“I am not hauling your slimy ass down two flights of stairs.” Steve is not paid enough for this bullshit to begin with, but this is a whole new level of paid that he’s not getting. 

“Excuse you, I am not slimy!” Billy strikes the water again with his tail on a hard angle, sending a small wave of water crashing over Steve. Then he shoves back from the side of the tank and starts to submerge. 

“No, no, no!” Steve coughs and wipes the water from his face, crouching back down. “Okay. Okay, you win, I’ll carry you.”

Billy pauses and raises an eyebrow. “...And?”

“And... you’re not slimy.” Steve has no idea if that’s true or not because he doesn’t usually have to haul Billy’s entire ass around. But apparently, he’s about to find out. 

***

Getting down two flights of industrial stairs with a mermaid whose tail is the size of Steve when the whole thing is out of the water is... interesting. In a lot of bad ways. Steve’s arms feel like they might rip out of his sockets after the first  five steps because Billy is well over 200 lbs of muscle and fucking fish scales and maybe he’s not slimy but he’s definitely slippery. And then he has to get up a half flight of stairs to get Billy to the smaller holding tank. 

Billy thinks the whole thing is hilarious, and also steals his hat in the process. 

The only satisfaction Steve gets is dropping Billy’s heavy mer-ass into the holding tank completely without ceremony. Which, as he should have remembered, does the same thing as dropping any other large, heavy object into the water. Steve gets soaked for a third time today when the wave it creates crashes over him, but at least this one doesn’t reek. And maybe it even gets some of the fish smell out of his uniform. 

Billy pops back up from the water, laughing his ass off. “Good thing you look good wet, pretty boy,” he says, leaning on the side of his tank. “Now I believe you said something about lunch?” He snaps his fingers twice. “Chop, chop, I’m starving.”

Mermaids are assholes and Steve is absolutely not paid enough to deal with them.

[mrs-takami-keigo]

Strawberry Fields

Paring: Kirishima x Full Figured Reader

Rating: SFW

Word count: 5.5K

Warnings: Self-Deprecation, Fat-phobia 

Prompt: First meeting

Taglist: @dragonhrte​

So this will be my third tile off of my bingo card for the @bnhabookclub​ and this one was a tough one to write. This is SFW but will cover themes such as Self-deprecation and Fat-phobia. As a person who has been on the bigger side most of her life it has taken a lot of confidence building to get to be who I am today. And as a writer I fell like it’s my duty to be as inclusive as I can be. Through my years of reading I haven't seen that many fuller body reader fics. When I say fuller body I’m talking 200+. 

If there is one thing I want someone, plus size or not just remember you deserve to be and feel loved, everyone does! I hope this can give whoever is reading this a sense of comfort. 

You don’t think you could ever forget the first time he came into your life. At the time you worked at a sweets shop called Honey’s, a place that only sells, well sweets! Cakes, doughnuts, pastries, floats, sundaes and milkshakes. Honey’s had a wide variety to offer for their wide variety of customers, they ranged from kids all the way to cute elderly couples, sharing a banana split.

You loved working there, it was perfect seeing as how you were in culinary school to be a confectionary chef. Making pastries and anything sweet was all you wanted to do, it was something that brought great joy in your life. It also didn’t require you to be around too many people at one time. The owner and head chef were more than happy to hire you, and the position was perfect, you just had to work the bar or as they called it the candy bar. Standing behind a giant bar as you took orders for the people that came in alone really was ideal, seeing as how you had anxiety. Being a fuller bodied and taller girl all your life and having dealt with bullying and all types of teasing always stuck with you.

You could remember those whispers people around you in high school made as you walk down the aisle of desks in your classes, your hips sometimes brushing against the desk or the person that was sitting in them. Or even having to turn sideways just to get past something, because you couldn't fit. So working behind the candy bar, where there wasn’t anything you had to squeeze past or worry about bumping into things, truly was a match made in heaven.

You were in charge of making the milkshakes, recipes, names everything. The owner let you have full control of that. When he first told you that you didn’t think anything could top that day.

That was until you met him.

It was a Friday afternoon on a beautiful June day. Even though there was a pandemic going on and everyone, workers and patrons alike still had masks on. Even the regulars were happy the shop was open, happy to have some sort of normality back. The light chime of the bell in the front signaled that a new customer had walked in.

Usually you didn’t look at the door when someone walked in, seeing as how you were always busy manning the bar. But something told you to look up. Standing at the door was a group of guys who were around their twenties, looking around the shop and talking amongst themselves.

You couldn’t take your eyes off of the red haired one. He was tall, one of the tallest in the group, he had broad shoulders and a muscular build. A plain white v-neck t-shirt, light blue jeans that had frayed holes in them and red converse’s. It was a simple look but you couldn’t help but watch as a waitress, who just so happened to be your roommate, walk them over to the booth in the back of the room.

He slid into the booth, the side he sat on faced you, so when he took off his black mask with the words ‘RIOT’ in red letters, you could feel heat rise up your cheeks under your own mask.  

‘Oh god he’s really handsome.’  The way his eyes turned into upside down crescent moons as he smiled a smile you were sure could light up the world. His features were manly but also so soft at the same time, it just made you want to pinch his cheeks. His crimson eyes were big and bright, you could feel yourself melt when they glanced in your direction.

You panicked when you locked eyes for a millisecond with him before you just turned your head and pretended like nothing happened. Your heart was racing and legs were weak, all he did was look in your direction and he had you turning into a puddle.

“Hey, are you okay?” The sound of your roommates muffled voice broke you out of your slight panic.

“Yeah, yeah I’m good!” You smiled at her and even though she couldn’t see it through the mask.

“Well the group of hotties I just sat down all want milkshakes. One cara-delight, one cookie monster, one banana mania and one strawberry fields.” You took the small piece of paper from her order book, placing it on your board as you start to make the milkshakes.

You didn’t know which one the man that caught your attention got but something was telling you it was the strawberry one. You kept on smiling as you made the drinks. Wondering what his name was or what his voice sounded like.

Glancing back at the table, you watched as he continued to laugh and talk with his friends. The blonde with what you would call porcupine hair that sat next to him, seemed to be angry about something. But red, that’s what you decide to call him, was just laughing at him which seemed to make the other male angrier.

Shaking your head you turned back to the shakes, putting on the last piece of garnish on the strawberry one. Tapping the bell that let the waiters/waitresses know their order is up my roommate came bustling over.

“This is for the hotties at the back booth right?”

You nodded your head as she fixed her hair and her outfit before taking the drinks over to the table. I felt my heart sink slightly as she started to talk to red. It looked like she was flirting with him, and he was smiling back at her. You let out a defeated sigh as you watched the exchange.

This always happened, a guy you found cute or interesting would fall for your friend. They would become close with you just so they could get close to her.

‘Why am I surprised? Why would a guy like that even notice me?’  You started to wipe down the counter and work station as you got lost in your thoughts. Your roommate was beautiful and petite, an extroverted type of person that people just flocked to, a man’s ideal type.

You felt like you were the exact opposite. Tall, full figured, not great looking and a person with too much anxiety to be sociable. So of course he would go for a girl like her, it just made sense.

You spent the next hour making milkshakes, taking orders of the regulars you had, thinking of new recipes and cleaning. Anything to distract yourself from looking at where red sat. Still not looking you heard your roommate say her goodbyes to the group as they walked out of the shop. Exhaling a sigh of relief, knowing that he was finally gone, it came rushing back as your friend bounced behind the bar, hopping up to sit on the counter of the work station.

“Guess who has a date?” She gushed as she played with a neatly folded piece of paper between her dainty fingers. “I think I’m in love! His red eyes were so...ugh!! And his hair although it was sticking up all over the place, he was still cute. He was so in shape too!!”

With each word she said you felt like your heart was breaking into a million pieces. You weren’t sure what made you think that there was just a shimmer of hope he would be one of those guys who didn’t care about looks and things like that.

“Well anyway he’s coming here tonight when my shift ends for a date! I already asked the owner if we could do it after we close and he said sure as long as you’re here!”

“Wait, you want me to stick around while you go on a date with this guy?” She nodded her head vigorously. “And I’m assuming I'm going to be cooking for this date?” Again she nodded.

“Fine but you owe me big time!” You couldn’t say no to her, she's been your friend since middle school. She was the one to defend you when people used to pick on you and was there for every mental break down you had.

“Do you know how much I love you!?” She jumped off the counter to give you a big bear hug. You wrapped your arms around her slim waist. “His friend said he’d come along, so you wouldn’t just be here alone! He kept asking questions about you.” She wiggled her eyebrows as she danced out of your embrace.

“Huh?! Who?!” Before she could answer a few waiters came up with orders for milkshakes.

“You’ll see later. I’m gonna run and grab stuff for you to cook during my break, and again thank you so much!!” You just waved her off as you started to get the order together.

“When did you have time to change?!” You and your friend had already closed up shop and were getting ready for her date and his friend to show up.

“I move quickly! So I got chicken, lemons, cooking white wine and pasta, that's all you needed right?” She had removed the bags from the walk-in fridge, putting them on the table.

“Yeah I figured a nice grilled lemon chicken and pasta would be a good dinner for the date, and I already started prepping for the creme brulee.” You began to pull the items out of the bag when you heard her phone go off.

“Oh he just texted me! Bakugou and his friend will be here in twenty!” You had never seen your friend act like this about a guy. There was another sharp pain as you felt your heart break.

‘So Bakugou is his name huh?’

“Go out and set up your table, I found some candles in the office for you to use to set the mood.” You started to shove her to the door and out of the kitchen so you weren’t bothered.

She looked like she was walking on clouds as she hummed and made her way to the table in the middle of the room. You figured that would be the best place seeing how it wasn’t so close to where you were going to be, so it didn’t seem like you were intruding on them and not far enough incase she needed help.

Twenty minutes went by too fast for your liking, as happy as you were for her, you didn’t want to see Bakugou so soon. The pasta was done and the chicken needed another ten minutes when she came through the kitchen doors.

“Take off your jacket and come out, they are here!” She was tugging on the sleeve of your white jacket. Sighing you started to unbutton it before sliding it off your arms.

‘Might as well get this over with.’ Hanging your jacket up you looked at yourself in the mirror one last time. All you wore was an old baggy band t-shirt that was so big it came down past your behind and leggings paired with black combat boots.

Following your friend through the swinging doors, you could see two shadowy figures at the door. You heard the lock click as she unlocked it and opened it for the two men. Feeling your anxiety come back, you didn't want to see him again, this was a mistake.

“Hey! So glad you guys can make it.” You tried to busy yourself with the silverware for you and his friend, avoiding looking at him.

“It’s our pleasure! Plus I couldn’t stop thinking of that milkshake from earlier.” That made a smile spread under your mask. You loved hearing people compliment your work.

“My friend here actually is the one in charge of the recipes and menu for them. And she cooked us all dinner tonight!” You could hear them getting closer.

‘Alright here we go.’ You looked up to see blondie and red walking towards you. If this was an anime you were sure one of the ghost things would come out from your mouth as your body left your soul. Bakugou looked so handsome. His spiky red hair from earlier was down now, a black button down with a red tank top peeking through the undone buttons hugged his muscular frame, dark blue jeans showcased his long thick legs, black converses were on his feet this time and that same mask from before.

You were positive that your heart had stopped and so did your breathing. You didn’t even pay attention to his friend, you only saw him.

“Gentlemen this is, y/n. y/n this is Bakugou and Kirishima.” It took you a second to realize that the blonde was Bakugou and the red head was Kirishima. Which meant your friend was on a date with the blonde.

“It’s nice to meet ya!” Kirishima sent you a small wave as those beautiful red eyes turned into crescent moons, he was smiling at you.

“Ditto.” You heard a deep chuckle come from him causing you to blush even more. “Um, I’m gonna go check on the food. You guys can go to the table and Kirishima can sit at the bar with me.”

Walking back through the door to the kitchen, you started to pace. You were about to have dinner with the guy you have been thinking about all day, and you were sweaty and gross from a day's work. Hair pulled up into a ponytail with strands poking out all along your hairline and in an old gross band tee.

You covered your eyes with your hands as you shook your head. ‘Get it together!’

Going to the chicken you saw that it was done and started to plate the dish. Once everything was plated you grabbed a large round tray, placing the four plates on it. Heaving it up to your shoulder to help you balance it, you walked back to the door before backing into it. You had just gotten around the bar when you felt the tray be lifted from your hands. Looking to your left you saw Kirishima hold the tray like you had and made his way to the couples table.

“Here you go guys. Enjoy!” He put the plates down as if he was their server and made his way back to you. You watched as he put the plates down on the bar, then setting the tray off to the side.

“Aren’t you gonna join me?” He pulled his mask down allowing you to see his handsome face in all its glory.

“Um yeah.” You walked over to the stool that had the plate in front of it. Your stool and his were separated by one empty one in between you two.

You felt his eyes on you the whole way to your stool. Once you sat down you looked back at him, he was still staring.

“What?” You started to feel self conscious.

“You’re beautiful.”

You looked at him in disbelief. “How could you possibly know that, when I'm wearing this mask and all you could see are my eyes?”

“That’s all I need to see to know you’re beautiful.” You felt your cheeks heat up intensely as he said that. Not once did he look away from your eyes. And his voice, god could you listen to his voice all night.

“W-we should eat before it gets cold.” You finally pulled down your mask, letting him see your whole face for the first time.

“Seems like I was right, you sure are beautiful.” Your head snapped over to look at him, but he had started to eat his food, a prominent blush on his cheeks as well.

The rest of the night flew by as you and Kirishima started to talk about your love for cooking and baking.

“You're telling me that not only are you beautiful, you can cook and bake?!” He had his elbow propped up on the bar his chin was being held by his hand. A goofy grin was spread across his face as he watched you prepare the creme brulee.

A small part of you wanted to be happy that he was taking interest in your likes and passions in life. But a bigger part of you was aware that he was just here as a wingman for his friend.

“You have the cook and bake part right at least.” You turned on the small blow torch to caramelize the sugar on top of the custard. You glanced up at the man who had your heart racing all night. Instead of the cheerful look you’ve gotten used to, he had an expression of sadness. It confused you, why would he get sad?

“Hey can I talk to you for a second?” You weren't sure when your friend had come over to you, seeing as how you were caught up in Kirishima’s expression. Shutting off the torch, you nodded your head and excused yourself from Kirishima, taking your friend's hand and head for the kitchen.

“I’m really hitting it off with Bakugou, we're gonna go for a walk in the park after dessert. He’s asking Kirishima to walk you home, is that okay?” You could see it in her eyes, she really liked him.

“It’s fine! Go have fun just text me every once in a while okay?”

You both walked out from the kitchen again as you went to finish the creme brulee. You all decided to eat it together at the bar and finish up the night. You learned that Bakugou was a hot head but was still super sweet, perfect for your best friend.

Once everyone was done, the two men insistent on helping you two clean up the mess before leaving for the night.

“All right, have fun you two! I’ll see you at home.” You waved at your friend as she wrapped her arm around Bakugou’s, making their way to the park.

“Shall we go?” Looking over at Kirishima, who had his arm out for you to take like his friend had done, you sighed.

“Listen Kirishima, you don’t have to walk me home. Bakugou got my friend, he doesn’t need a wingman anymore.” You could see the confusion on his face as you continued to speak. “It was a fun night and all but I can get home by myself. Take care.”

You started to walk down the street, leaving Kirishima to stand alone in front of Honey’s. Your apartment wasn’t too far from the shop, only about a twenty minute walk. The only thing that sucked was there was a strip of clubs you had to walk past in order to get home. Drunk people always made you feel anxious, they tend to not be so nice.

You did feel bad for leaving Kirishima like that but you also had to face the harsh reality that there was no way a guy would like you like that. His smiling face and his voice when he called you beautiful rang through your head. You had to admit it was nice to think that maybe he did take an interest in you.

You were so lost in your thoughts you didn’t notice the large group of men outside of one club. Trying to squeeze yourself through them, you accidentally bumped shoulders with the bigger male in the group.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You apologized the second it happened but the man didn’t care. His large hand shoved against one of your shoulders causing you to fall off the sidewalk and into the street, landing on your side. You could feel the arm you landed on start to burn, certain that you had a couple of scrapes. You had tried to avoid the fall but it caused you to twist your ankle.

“Watch where you're walking lard ass!” He laughed with his group of friends as you still sat on the ground, holding your injured arm in your hand.

Tears started to form in your eyes. Sure you’ve been called names all your life because of your size, doesn't mean it didn’t still hurt. You tried to stand up but your body wouldn’t, you were just emotionally and mentally exhausted. So you just sat there and cried.

“Ha! Look she can’t even stand up! It’s called a gym and a salad, fat-OOF!” You heard what sounded like a rock hitting something followed by a thud of the big man falling and hitting the ground. Wiping your tears you saw Kirishima standing over the fallen man, his chest heaving up and down, hands balled into fists, teeth bared. His face was covered in rage, it kind of scared you.

“It’s not very manly to push a woman around like that!” The guys friends came to try and peel him off of the ground saying apology after apology to you as they ran away. “Cowards!”

Kirishima looked over his shoulder at you, his expression softened once he saw your tears. Moving next to you he squatted down, a large gentle hand came out to move the hand that was covering the wound. You let out a hiss as his fingers grazed it.

“I’m sorry, I should have gotten to you sooner.” His voice was nothing but a whisper, his eyes covered by his hair. “Do you need help standing?”

“Yeah.” Kirishima stood up in front of you holding out both of his hands for you to grab on to. Your hands let go of his as you tried to stand on your own, but there was a shooting pain in your right ankle, sending shockwaves through your body. You felt like you were about to fall again but you felt arms wrap around your waist and a hard chest against your body.

“Whoa I got you.” You could feel him tighten his arms around you, making you feel so warm in his embrace. “I’ll carry you home.”

“No it’s okay I can walk.” You pushed yourself off of him trying to prove you could walk, only to almost fall again.

“Damn it will you just let me help you?” He was holding you around the waist again. A light blush appeared on your cheeks. “Here climb on my back.” He crouched down in front of you, his broad back was in your view.

“I-I don’t want to hurt you.” Your voice was meek, as you looked around. Other people on the sidewalk were staring at the two of you.

Kirishima turned around looking over his shoulder, a wide toothy grin was plastered on his lips, your heart started to race. “I’m a lot stronger than you think.”

You knew he wasn't going to give up, sighing as you climbed on his back. You pressed your chest against his back, your arms wrapping around his shoulders. Your head was next to his as you tried to bury your face in the back of his shoulder. Standing up Kirishima gripped your thighs, jumping so you were in a better position for him.

“You okay?” You could only nod against him. “Can you tell me how to get to your place?” Everytime he spoke you could feel the vibrations go through your body. You directed him to your apartment. As he kept walking you were readying yourself for him to just say that you were too heavy and drop you in the middle of the sidewalk. But he barely broke a sweat as he walked the last ten minutes to your place.

“I can walk now.” You mumbled against his shoulder once Kirishima stepped out of the elevator on your floor.

“Not until I get you inside and patched up.” You’ve only known him for only a few hours but the effect he had on your heart was indescribable. Once he got to your door he squatted down, keeping his eyes to the ground so you could put in your code to open the door.

You were grateful for the fact you cleaned the apartment yesterday, seeing as how there was a guy walking through it. Walking over to the large couch by the window, Kirishima turned around sitting on the couch, allowing you to slide off his back.

“Do you have a first aid kit anywhere?” Your eyes watched his every move as he bent down on one knee, softly grasping your injured ankle. He slipped the boot off slowly, removing your sock and pulling up your leggings so he could get a look at your now swollen ankle.

“Yeah it’s under the sink in the bathroom, down the hall first door on your right.” Kirishima took one of the small pillows off the couch and pulled the coffee table closer. Placing the pillow on the table, laid your ankle on it as he ran to the bathroom.

You weren’t sure how to feel. Between your feelings for your red knight, what happened with the guy outside of the club and your own insecurities. Could he actually like you? Were you allowed to actually have someone like you, for you?

“Here we go. I took a bag of frozen peas from the fridge if that's okay.” You could only nod your head as he went back to the same position he was in earlier. “Looks like it might be sprained. You are gonna have to stay off of it for a while, so that means no work for the time being.”

Kirishima was wrapping an ace bandage securely around your ankle and foot. Once he did that he put the frozen bag of vegetables on top of it. He dug through the first aid kit searching for some more items. You couldn’t stop watching him, his face was full of concentration. For some reason it just made him look even more handsome than he already was.

“Alright let’s take care of that-what?” He turned around to look at you, catching you just simply staring at him. “Is there something on my face?” He started to wipe his face in all different areas.

You chuckled at how cute he looked trying to get whatever he thought was on his face. “No, nothing is on your face, it's just…” You let the sentence die out. You couldn’t let him know what you were feeling, but you also didn’t want to get hurt….again.

“What’s wrong?” Kirishima got up, taking a seat next to you on the couch, facing your direction. You couldn’t look at him, opting to look down at the hem of your shirt, playing with it between your fingers.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What are you talking about?” You sighed a deep sigh, gathering the courage to look him in the eyes.

“Why are you going this far to help me? Are you just trying to get brownie points for your buddy or something? I already told you my friend is really into your’s, so no need to go this far.” You felt tears spilling from your eyes again. There was nothing more you wanted than to live in this fantasy with Kirishima, but after years of experience you knew how this all would play out. So you might as well put an end to it now.

“You think I’m doing this for Bakugou to get points with your friend?” Kirishima reached a hand out cupping your round cheek in it. His large thumb wiping away your tears, a soft smile on his lips. “You've got this all wrong angel face, Bakugou was my wingman tonight.”

You could only stare at him. Not sure if what you heard him say was correct. There was no way that he was the one to set all this up for you.

“What do you mean?”

“I noticed you the second I walked into Honey’s, you were the most beautiful person I have ever seen in my life. And when we sat down those sparkling eyes of yours looked right at me and I was sure my heart stopped.” His thumb was drawing small circles on your tear stained cheek.

“I knew your friend was into Bakugou so while she was busy I told him to ask her out hoping that in some weird way I’d be able to get closer to you.” You could see the small blush forming on his cheeks, he was embarrassed.

“But why? Why would someone like you, be into someone like me? I mean look at me I’m not pretty, I’m tall and huge.” You pulled his hand off of your face. He was everything you could wish for, handsome, funny, caring, protecting, Kirishima had it all. But in your mind you had nothing to offer a man like him.

“I’ve done nothing but look at you. All I see is a woman who is selfless, talented, passionate about her craft, honest, strong and so freaking beautiful it should be a crime.” Kirishma had turned your face back to him, but this time he was much much closer. His crimson eyes stared into your own. You felt like you could get lost in them.

“Kirishima…” No matter how hard you tried the tears wouldn’t stop.

“I don’t care about what your physical appearance looks like, in my eyes you are the most beautiful being out there, angel face.” He brushed a few stray strands of hair from your face. “So please stop crying, okay?”

He pulled you closer to him, burying your face in his chest. One hand rubbing your back while the other was patting your head. He kept humming a song you couldn’t recognize, but the vibrations were lulling you into a deep sleep.

According to your friend, Kirishima was still there holding you as you slept when she came home. He explained everything that happened that night and she told him about your past experiences. Kirishma felt his heart break for you. He wanted nothing more than to protect and give you the love you deserve.

Over the next three years that's exactly what he did. It was your graduation day, you were officially a professional confectionary chef! Finishing your hair you heard your cell phone go off, letting you know you had a text.

Red Knight: I’m downstairs whenever you’re ready, angel face! <3

You: I’ll be right down~ <3

Even after all this time just a simple text from your boyfriend always made your heart flutter and a smile spread across your face. Looking one last time in the mirror, you were in love with the dress you had ordered for your special day. It was a long soft pink dress that was made from lace, ruffles along the bottom of it. With every movement the dress flowed with you, showcasing your body in all the right ways. It had sparkly strawberries embroidered all over it. Something that went along with your profession while also having Kirishima’s favorite fruit on it.

Having him in your life was a blessing. He showed you an unconditional love you never knew could exist. He was patient with you, always there to reassure you that no matter what he loved you to the moon and back when you doubted yourself. He was there when classes and work were getting to be too much, staying up with you at all hours of the night helping you perfect certain dishes that proved to be difficult. And always without fail Kirishima was there to walk you home each and every night. He really was your red knight.

“Hey! Kiri is downstairs I’m gonna go! I’ll see you after the ceremony!” You shouted out to your roommate. You didn’t even wait for a response as you flew out of the door and into the elevator.

The elevator reached the main floor, dinging while sliding it’s doors open. You could already see him standing outside, hands in the pockets of his as he rocked back and forth on his heels, looking around and whistling. His red hair had grown over the years to the point where he could put it in a ponytail, you were obsessed with it. You always admired how he dressed and today was no different. He looked so good in his tan blazer with the sleeves rolled up showing off his defined forearms, and a loose white t-shirt under it. It was paired with a black trousers and black leather shoes.

Pushing the door open you caught Kirishima’s attention, his mouth hung open as you stepped through the door, his eyes roaming around your body.

“Do you like the dress?” You started to fiddle with the dress, nervous as time continued to pass and the man that held your heart hasn't said anything yet.

“Like it?” You let out a yelp as you felt him put his hands on your waist lifting you up off the ground slightly, spinning with you. “It’s freaking amazing! You’re amazing, angel face.”

He placed you back on the ground but never stepped away from you. Kirishima brought his hand up to the side of your neck, leaning down.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are to me, I love you.” He pressed his lips against yours.

There was nothing you wouldn’t change about the day you first met the man of your dreams, not in the slightest.

[wickedsingularity]

Can’t Sleep Without You [One-shot]

Fandom: Star Trek Pairings/characters: Jim Kirk x reader (but not really), Leonard McCoy, mention of Spock Words: 2359 Warnings: Use of medication, use of possible addictive medication, insomnia, nightmares, almost graphic description of a disturbing dream

Note: A somewhat self-indulgent story that I posted a little while ago, but had panic about after a few hours and then deleted. It felt too personal, too self-indulgent, amongst other things. I planned on giving it some time, and then rewrite it so it was less personal. I did give it time, but I haven't rewritten it, just edited. And now I'm giving it another go, hoping that I don't panic this time around and telling myself so fucking what if it's self-indulgent. And hopefully people enjoy it because I do like this story.

Summary: Having suffered from insomnia for a long time, Jim is the only thing that manages to calm me enough to function when it gets bad. But Jim is off on a mission...

"You look like something the cat dragged in, Commander."

"Thanks a lot, Doctor." I glared up at Leonard McCoy as he towered over me. Even if I couldn't stand the stuff, I was now on my third cup of coffee of the day. But I was also on my fourth day of barely any sleep, and I was desperate for something to keep me alert.

"Have you had trouble sleeping again?"

I downed the last of the coffee, cringing as the bitter liquid made its way down and sat the cup down on my empty lunch tray. I closed my eyes for a moment and grit my teeth, trying not to snap at the obvious question. "Looks that way."

The doctor sat down at the other side of the table and looked at me with worry, not even phased by my annoyance. "I've seen you getting worse the last few days, Commander. Why haven't you come to see me?"

"What you gave me three days ago made me wake up after four hours with a nightmare from hell. I'm still seeing ghosts in broad daylight."

He pursed his lips. "Please stop by the medbay at 2200 hours. We'll try something else."

I sighed, knowing that there was only one thing that would help, and it was not something our Chief Medical Officer could provide no matter how good he was. But I nodded. "Yes, doc." Then I pulled myself to my feet, grabbed the tray and went to put it back in the replicator for recycling.

For as long as I could remember, I'd had some form of insomnia. It hadn't been a problem when I was younger, I had been more energetic, more durable, not to mention more careless. But as I got older it got worse. Most of the time I managed to keep it under control, but sometimes it took on a life of its own. And when it did that, there was no medication, meditation or treatment that worked better than the captain of the ship, my boyfriend.

There was just something about Jim that calmed my mind like nothing else.

Funnily enough, insomnia was what brought us together. I had been wandering around the ship one night, after several nights of little sleep. Finding myself in the briefing room, I had sat down in the chair reserved for the captain, put my feet up on the table and gazed out at the streaking stars. After a few minutes of silence, the door had slid open and Captain Kirk had walked in. We were already on friendly terms, so I hadn't bothered taking my feet off the table or giving him the chair, even when he made a joke about it being his.

He'd been having trouble sleeping too, claiming his mind was running at warp 5 after an exhausting meeting in that very briefing room earlier in the day. He'd chosen to go back there in the hopes that it would clear his head.

We sat next to each other, him in the First Officer's chair and I kept occupying his, and chatted for a while. All the while we both seemed to gravitate more and more towards each other and I got sleepier at the same time, until I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder. He had gathered me up in his arms and ordered a site to site transport, dropped me off on my bed and pulled a blanket over me, before going back to his quarters, falling asleep as well. After that, our friendship had shifted and things escalated quickly from there.

Now though, he and Spock and several admirals were trying to work out a peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. We had dropped them off on a colony near the Neutral Zone and had then gone off to survey a newborn nebula a couple of systems over. We weren't scheduled to go back for them for another two or three days, the trip itself took a whole day. And my body was kind enough to refuse to sleep properly without Jim now, no matter how much in control of the insomnia I was.

I made it through the day somehow, with at least two more disgusting cups of coffee. Thankfully, there was more than enough to do in Engineering that I decided to not leave once my shift was over, it was better to keep working than sitting in my quarters and feeling like I had been in the middle of a warp core breach. As soon as Jim and Spock came back, Starfleet wanted us to check out an uninhabited planet that a passing cargo ship had detected held large deposits of deuterium and our long-range sensors had detected too much atmospheric disturbance for transporting, so we had to adjust the shielding on several shuttlepods. I was barely conscious when I stumbled into the medbay at 2200 hours.

"Not looking any better, I see." Bones appeared out of nowhere and would have scared the daylights out of me if I hadn't been so sluggish.

"Your bedside manners are always so lovely."

He ushered me over to a biobed and pulled a tricorder from one of his pockets.

"There's no need to scan me. We both know what's wrong. Just give me what you think I need and I'll be off." I looked at the tricorder with annoyance.

He didn't answer but started scanning me anyway, so I sat there patiently, closing my tired eyes and listening to the whirring of the device. "It's a wonder they haven't found a cure for this yet, after 200 years of research," he muttered to himself.

I looked up at him and saw him analysing the results. "You've found a cure for some pretty serious viruses on your career, why don't you find the cure for this?" I argued.

"This isn't a virus, sweetheart."

"Still, I'm sure you're brilliant enough to find a solution." Bones always said that flattery would get you nowhere with him, but I found that more often than not, he enjoyed having his ego stroked. He was that good too.

He just huffed and went over to a cabinet. I saw him pull out a vial and fill up a hypospray. "I know you have tried this before and it didn't work so well. But that was a few years ago, it might work better for you now." I nodded and obediently bared my neck to him. One touch of the cold metal to my skin and it was done. "I want you to go straight to bed now. It should work quickly and you have to be in bed when it does."

"Yes, sir."

It did not work. Or, I did sleep through the night, but the dreams had me waking up more exhausted than if I hadn't slept at all. It had been worse than last time, the irrational, weird and disgusting dreams had just come at me, one after the other. I would honestly prefer good old-fashioned nightmares over this. I called Bones as soon as I had showered away the night and he was at my door by the time I had dressed.

"Sit down," he barked, the tricorder out and a deep furrow between his brows. "What happened?"

I told him all about the night, even gave him some snippets of the nasty dreams for emphasis, each one of them still crystal clear and disturbing in my mind. The way he cringed at some of it, told me just how disturbing they had been. It wasn't normal to dream that you're pooping out severed arms, after all. *

"This is very strange," he said after he was done scanning. "Barely any light or deep sleep at all. Dream sleep almost all night. I've heard about a few phenomena that cause a person to not have any dream sleep at all, but not nothing but dream sleep. You're not getting any more of this medication, and I'm making a note in your medical file."

I sighed, trying to think about what I could do to help myself that night. But Bones had suddenly gone very quiet. I looked up at him and there was a deep furrow between his brows, his eyes gazing down at the tricorder, but it looked like he was mentally lightyears away. "What's wrong, doc?"

He didn't react right away, but then he blinked and looked down at me. "There is something we can try, but it can be highly addictive if the dosage is off by even a fraction. Call Scotty and tell him you'll be a bit late. I need to take some blood for analysing."

All through that day, I felt a bit apprehensive about what Bones was planning on giving me later. And I missed Jim so much it ached. This was the worst it had been without him and it was also the longest we had gone without each other since we got together. I missed him because of his absence, of course. But in my sleep-deprived state, it felt a million times worse. It felt like there was a gaping, bleeding hole inside me where he should be. I needed him to calm my mind, to kiss me and tell me it's okay if I can't sleep, that I'll sleep when I'm ready and he would be there with me all the while. I needed him to breathe with me. I needed to feel him. He was able to relax me enough that I could function.

After working well past my shift again and forcing down too many cups of coffee, I forced back tears of exhaustion and desperation and went to the medbay, got the mysterious hypospray and went straight to bed.

Apart from the fact that I woke up every ten to fifteen minutes, this one worked a lot better. In the morning, I felt less like I had been hit with a meteor shower and more like I had just tumbled through a thick atmosphere without a spacesuit. Bones came to check up on me in engineering after lunch and I asked if I could get a higher dosage, hoping that maybe that would finally be what helped me sleep through the night. But he refused, he had given me as much as my body could handle without becoming addicted or suffering other nasty side effects. In defeat, I told him if I couldn't have a higher dosage, I didn't want it at all. Then I started counting the hours until Jim came home, and drank all the coffee I could stomach so I wouldn't feel like a zombie.

I was just starting to doze off. It was probably just an hour or so until my alarm, but I let sleep take me. I would take anything I could get. What felt like just a minute later though, the computer spoke to me.

"The time is 0630 hours. The time is 0630 hours."

"No no no," I moaned in annoyance, screwing my eyes shut to the illumination in the room becoming stronger. But then a pair of lips landed on my cheek.

"Forgot to turn that off," someone said.

I didn't process this right away, but in the back of my head I knew that voice and knew it was important, so I forced myself to open my eyes to the way too bright room. Jim was there next to me and judging by his one barely open eye, he had just woken up too. "Hi..."

My heart was beating wildly in my chest, the room seemed to be spinning a little, my vision getting blurry, but then he smiled with his eyes closed and started to clumsily kiss my cheek and jaw and everything cleared up.

"When did you come home?" I whispered.

Jim didn't answer but kept trying to kiss me, but he was struggling, he too seemed exhausted, not able to aim. "A while. Laid down minutes ago. Tired. Want lips."

I made a happy sound and rolled around to face him. He opened his eyes a fraction, revealing the brilliant blue I loved so much. His lips landed on my nose, then my cheek before finally finding my lips. The gaping aching hole inside me seemed to vanish. I moved closer, pressing my lips and my body to his and everything inside me seemed to settle down, mind was quiet, all tension washed away. When I needed air, I pulled back just enough so I could stare into his eyes and see every little shade of blue in them. "You're home."

"The time is 0635 hours. The time is 0635 hours."

"Home and tired." His breath washed over me when he spoke and I wanted to breathe nothing but him for the rest of my life.

"Ditto. Haven't slept since you left."

"I know, Bones told me. I'm so sorry, Supernova."

"'s okay. Just missed you." My voice broke, and all the frustrations from the past week made a few tears fall. Jim snuck one of his arms around my waist and I moved even closer, burying my face into his neck, breathing in the smell of stars and nebulas and galaxies. "How were the peace talks?" I asked between lazy kisses to the soft skin on the side of his neck.

Jim didn't reply right away. Instead, he kissed my hair, breathing it in for a moment. "Exhausting. I'll tell you all about it later."

"The time is 0640 hours. The time is 0640 hours."

"Have to get up," I mumbled against his skin, but my entire body felt like lead in Jim's arms.

"Computer, turn off the alarm." A gentle beep confirmed it was now turned off. Then Jim pulled back just enough to look into my eyes. "Bones told me to tell you that he has declared you not fit for duty today and that he has ordered bed rest, and if you disobey his orders, he will not hesitate to have you strapped to a biobed with a force field."

I blinked. "But..."

"And your Captain concurs. He recommends you spend the day with him in bed and sleep." He was grinning at me. "He's been flying fancy admirals in a shuttle all night and is in need of some tender loving care from the love of his life."

I knew there were things I had to do in Engineering. It would take time and almost all the Engineering staff to get the shuttlepods ready in time for exploring the deuterium planet. But as I looked into Jim's eyes, I felt exhaustion all the way to my bone marrow, and there was no point arguing with that, or the Captain and the Chief Medical Officer. I teared up with relief and buried my face in Jim's neck again.

Jim settled down on his back and pulled me halfway on top of him. I swallowed down my emotions and rested my head on his shoulder, tangled my legs with his, and laid my arm across his stomach. Peace filled me and I barely had time to mumble love you before I was fast asleep.

Note: * Yes, I have actually dreamed that as a side effect of taking melatonin.

[oneofthemillionarmy]

The Impossible Order | Ch.2

Summary line: Mr. Min is a stoic boss who will never outwardly show appreciation for you. Not until you’re gone does he recognize how much you do. And what you do matters to him.

ceo!Yoongi | best.friend!Hoseok | romance, fluff, angst, and stuff

Loosely inspired by Secretary Kim and this third bullet point of the prompt list

Last chapter

~•~

Last night, one of the Peruvian suppliers was able to promise 250 ct worth of tourmaline, but it would be delivered in two weeks rather than the originally intended week and a half. Knowing your boss is one for deadlines and punctuality, you believe he’d prefer Hestia Sourcing. Despite your own gut telling you that Peruvian Treasures will pay off in the long run. Regardless of the turnaround time from your main supplier, the 200 ct in two weeks will keep the remaining four projects afloat before the regular shipment. However, you still report the remaining two supplier response and quotes, also providing your own input. Mr. Min says he prefers Hestia; as expected.

“How goes the status on our tourmaline crisis?” Mr. Min asks as he sips on his third cup of coffee this morning.

“Hestia Sourcing has already been officially contacted for their shipment of tourmaline to arrive in a week and a half. Jimin is currently working with Kim Taehyung on the new design for the frame. Seokjin has already crafted two other designs for you to look at today before he meets with Yoo Jae Suk tomorrow. Beyoncé loves alexandrite, but the tourmaline was intended to match with her costumer designer’s vision for the Met Gala, so he’s unwilling to make changes. Your father had already ok’d the change for your parent’s anniversary gift, so we can switch their gemstones with alexandrite instead. The JP team has already started working on the mold for the Jubilee. And marketing just emailed me the final draft for the letter to the customers and PR is still working with marketing for the ethically sourced advertisement. They are utilizing internet ad platforms, both short clip video ads and on social media.” You handed him your tablet for him to read over the final draft letter and Seokjin’s designs.

“Tell marketing to go ahead with the letter. Also, tell Seokjin that I would also like to see his first design with silver instead of rose gold.”

“Yes, Mr. Min.”

“Today I’m meeting with Jasper and Jester Industries over Zoom at 12:30. Tell the tech team I want to use the hologram projector during this meeting because we’re showing them the prototype today. Speaking of prototype, I need to see the prototype from the TP team by 10. Go to L’Orange today for lunch today; I want the lamb chops. James and Soobin will be coming at 1:30 to go over the purchasing of the mine sites for the cobalt mining. Check back in with me at 2 on the Kim Taehyung project and the marketing strategy. I want to see Seokjin’s new designs by 3. And check with our supply team if we’re maintaining our upkeep of inventory. If not, I need a list before 11 this morning along with suppliers’ response for turnaround time and quotes.”

“Yes, Mr. Min.” You had your hands clasped behind your back the entire time.

“Another coffee please.”

“Yes, Mr. Min.” Without another word, you step out and take out your recorder. You play back his directives as you get the coffee.

~•~

“Hey, Hoseok.” You sigh as you pour hot water into your instant noodle bowl for lunch.

“Hey, Sunshine.” You chuckle. If the either of you were the sunshine, it’d be him.

“How’s Yeontan?”

“He’s fine. The vet says that he’s a little underfed, but otherwise, he’s still the most adorable Yeontan-ie that has ever lived.” Hoseok gushes at the puppy in his lap as he drives on his way back to his home. Hoseok will be holding onto Yeontan until the weekend.

“Ok. That’s good news. Was he good at the vet?”

“He hates the vet. You should know that better than I do. I was a dog catcher for 30 minutes. And he caused a whole waiting room full of dogs into a frenzy. Did you know that one of the people there brought their snake? I hate those. Yeontan almost fought a snake! You have no idea how hard it was for me to finally grab Yeontan before anything drastic happened.” You laugh as he goes on about his heroic deed of saving your pup from a snake.

“You did very well. Thank you, Hoseok.”

“Never mind that, Blessings. Hey. Are you coming over today after work?”

“I might. My boss has been very extra today. Every ten minutes, his chat bubble pops up adding 3 more things to do. But honestly, with the amount of things going on today, he shouldn’t have anything else left to do tonight. I might actually get off work on time.

“Good. Good. ‘Cause I was thinking –“ before Hoseok can finish his words, you hear the sound of a car swerve.

“Hoseok? You ok?”

“Yeah. Some idiot w-“ and the line cut off.

~•~

At 12:15, you were nowhere to be found. You left a message to Yoongi that you had to take the day off. Everything you were requested to do was already set in motion like a Rube Goldberg machine. You texted him saying that there are cups and cups of coffee in the fridge ready for him. If he wants hot, he’ll have to wait another day. And as promised, everything Yoongi needed was here. He had everything he needed. You just weren’t there to provide it.

“Where’s Y/N?” Seokjin asks as he comes in at 3pm like clockwork, “I would’ve thought she’d give me that 20-minute warning like she always does when I have a meeting with you.” She does that?

“I don’t know. She took a half day. I haven’t seen her since 11 or something.” Yoongi says nonchalantly as he looks over the Seokjin’s work. Seokjin just blinks at that before he starts slowly, “That’s not like her. Is everything ok? Do you know what happened?”

“No.”

“It’s just not like her to –“

“I like it better in silver this way.” Yoongi cuts him off, gesturing to the new designs.

“Heh. Yeah, Y/N said you would. I wanted to show you the rose gold one first anyway.” Seokjin chuckles as he sits down across the table from him, “Speaking of Y/N,” I wasn’t speaking about her…, “You got the supplies list for JP, TP, and HP, right? She told me you were working with the cobalt mine sites today. She told me to tell you that since cobalt is one of the supplies on the list, and the mine site wouldn’t be ready just yet, she contacted 3 different cobalt miners and selected Arrows for the cobalt supply.”

“She should’ve come to me first about the different miners. We have our upcoming product from HP –“

“The ceramic tiles for Ms. James’ bathroom. Yeah. She contacted HP. They require 300 g and Arrows is the only one with the adequate amount of supply. It will be here in 5 days.” Seokjin stands up and walks over to Yoongi’s kitchen, “All the other suppliers have been contacted. She sent me the list and wants me to report it to you.”

“You’re just a designer for the jewelry department,” Yoongi says as he looks through his email to see if you sent him any recent emails. Nothing.

“Give me some credit. I’ve got a brain and it’s used for more than just designing. Don’t forget, before I was a designer, I was also your assistant too.”

“Yeah, a pretty bad one.” Yoongi snorts. It’s why he needed you.

“We were just a startup! We literally just graduated then.” Seokjin protests as he come back over and sets down a steaming hot cup of coffee in front of Yoongi.

“I thought Y/N only had iced ones left.”

“She did, but she instructed me to heat up one for you before we go over the list with you.” Seokjin scoots his chair closer as he whips out his tablet to bring up the supplies list, “And one for after.”

~•~

“Mr. Jung has suffered a serious blow to the head and is currently unconscious. We don’t know when he will wake at this point. His left arm has scarring from the glass shatters from the window when the car was impacted. His left leg has a hairline fracture and the patella was dislocated but has already been set back. Luckily, his left leg is the worst of the limbs. There’s bruising on the right thigh and right elbow also has bruising. The bruises are likely from holding on to the dog during impact. His right arm has some muscle tears do to strain.

“Right now, our biggest concern is when he will wake up. He had internal bleeding in the brain but the blood has been removed and there’s no clotting, in his brain or anywhere near his spine. Everything is where it needs to be, and there’s nothing that indicated long term brain damage or trauma. But we won’t know for sure until he wakes up.” The doctor nods his head and leaves.

You sniff as you cross your arms, staring at your best friend lying in the hospital bed. His head is wrapped as well as his left arm. His left leg is currently suspended in its cast. By his left eyes and cheeks, are massive bruises that still look sticky and gooey.

If only I didn’t let him take Yeontan…

“How’s my dog?”

“We checked in with the vet hospital nearby. Your dog has no extreme injuries, only mild bruising. The doctor wants him to stay overnight for observation.” The nurse reports to you. You shiver from the lonely air of the hospital.

“You can go in and see the patient right now, but please do not touch him. And visiting hours will be over in 40 minutes.” The nurse gently reminds you before you nod, thanking the nurse and heading in.

Walking towards Hoseok, your nose feels the burn as tears well up in your eyes. Before you even reach Hoseok’s bed, the tears already overflow out.

“I’m so sorry Hoseok. This is my fault.” And he’s a dancer too…oh my God, he’s a dancer….his limbs…

Your tears quickly turn into hysterical sobs, thinking too many things at once. Your greatest prayer is that he wakes up and he is completely healed. You start hyperventilating so you sit down and take deep breaths.

Although you were instructed not to touch him, you couldn’t resist to at least clutch to the hospital blankets next to his right hand, your knuckles touching each other’s.

“Please wake up, Hoseok. I’ll never have you do anything else for me. I’m sorry if I ever took advantage of you. Please know that I never once took you for granted. You are my dearest friend and I don’t want anyone else for a best friend. I promise to hug you more. I promise to cook for you. I’ll do it at your house. You don’t have to come to mine. I’ll clean up my mess after too. I’m here for you, I promise. I really am. I’m not leaving you, I swear to God. Please just wake up and be ok. You’re gonna be ok. I promise.” You turn to look to the hospital window to make sure no one sees you. You grab his right hand and lean down to kiss it, “Please wake up.”

Your phone in your pocket vibrates and you take it out.

The board members meeting is tomorrow at 8am. Please gather the data and reports from the teams ready by 6am. I will look over it before the meeting.

“Fuck you. No. Not now.” You grit your teeth and put the phone back in the pocket.

Your tears are both sad and angry now, but you know you need to calm down. Nothing drastic.

You take a couple deep breaths before you wipe your tears and take your phone out again to write an email. You look up as you think for a moment. Make that three.

Next chapter

[write-like-you-mean-it]

A Hunter’s Prey: Hotel Rooms and Pins

Being so close to the Republic of Padokea was strange. In the far off distance, I could almost see the outline of Kukuroo Mountain. Heaven’s Arena was on the same continent as where I was held captive for so long. We had been traveling here ever since the day after Chrollo and I’s ‘date.’ 

Most of the walking was dedicated to my thought process on how I would speak to Illumi once I was there. Many times during the trip, Machi had stopped to ask what was on my mind. As much as I wanted to tell her, I couldn’t. My revelation needed to be discussed with Illumi first. 

The only solace was the bickering between Machi and Shalnark. They seem like old best friends even though they have almost nothing in common. Since we had such a long trip, Shalnark had brought along a handheld gaming system. He only brought it out when we were on a transportation method; however, if Chrollo would let him, he’d be playing while we were walking. 

Heaven’s Arena was a massive structure that could only be truly seen through squinted eyes as it went to the sun. “Finally here,” said Shalnark in a chipper tone. “I can finally play my games in peace!”

“I can’t help it if I’m better at them than you,” joked Machi. I rolled my eyes at the typical scenario. She only said that to tick him off. And, of course, it did. Chrollo didn’t care about the back and forth. Instead, his focus was only on the arena. 

“You ready?” I asked him. He held a cold, stoic demeanor but I could feel tension. 

“Yes,” he said. “Are you?”

“No,” I confessed. “I still haven’t planned what I’ll say.”

Chrollo chuckled before taking steps to walk into the arena. Kortopi and I followed while Machi and Shalnark were still fighting over her comment. I doubted that they would be coming anytime soon. 

The front guest lady treated Chrollo and his guests like royalty: the perk of being a floor leader. We were taken to this room close to the top floor. The skyline was a beautiful mess of city and country. From this vantage point, it was almost impossible to not see the mountain that held the family of assassins. Chrollo had yet to tell me what Illumi would be at this fight. He had also neglected to tell me who he would be fighting. 

“Nice room boss,” said Kortopi. He was easily scouring around the room in hopes of finding treasure that was held within the inclosed space. He easily found a vase and started to make a copy. 

“Don’t waste your Nen,” replied Chrollo as he stood beside me while I looked out at the ground. “I’ll borrow it from you when you get a chance. You might need to get Salnark to come up here because one of them is going to die if we don’t check on the two.” Kortopi nodded his head. His hair flying in all directions before scurrying out of the room to get the bickering members. 

“How do you know Illumi will be here?” It was the question that plagued my mind ever since I’d been invited on this journey. 

“Because my opponent is Hisoka.” His words were as poignant and void of any emotion. I remember back to my meeting of Hisoka many weeks ago. Machi and his pissing match was all I could remember of the killer clown. 

“And?”

“Illumi and him have an interesting relationship.” Chrollo walked back to the single bed in the room and sat down. His eyes were transfixed on the black, leather book that lay within his hands. “Illumi would not miss this fight for the world.” 

I decided not to press the topic further due to Chrollo’s furrowing demeanor and hurried hands. The typical strong man was going over his notes again and again. His study was like a master musician playing an strenuous instrument. I could see the gears of preparation moving deep within the recesses of his mind. Even though he said he wasn’t worried, there was a thin crease on his brow. 

I found myself to become occupied within the context of my own mind. If Illumi was to be here, then when would he arrive. What if he was already here? Would I run into him as I go to the snack machine down the hall? If so, I have to figure out the best words to say what I feel. Coming out with love would be a bit too strong for someone who hasn’t text or talked in a week. 

Machi, Shalnark and Kortopi finally showed up after thirty minutes. My guess was that it took that long for them to calm down enough to be in the same elevator. The flight up was a little long. 

“So Boss,” said Machi, taking a seat on a chair that was next to a small kitchen set within the room. “We saw Hisoka entering the building a little bit ago.”

“It has begun,” smirked Chrollo before standing up. “I must talk to the people in charge about a few preparations for the fights. I have one host that I like a lot more than others. I’ll be back before the fight so that I can borrow Shalnark and Kortopi’s Nen. In the meantime, enjoy the space.”

The three seemed uninterested. It’s like they knew this place more than anyone else here. “Oh, Y/N,” said Chrollo. “I told the others but do not be in the arena for the fight. Watch it on the screen. Make sure anyone you want to be alive does that as well.”

With that final word, Chrollo disappeared. It was a warning that I should find Illumi before the fight. From the T.V that Shalnark had turned on, the announcer said that the fight would be happening in a day. I had 24 hours to find Illumi and make sure he is not in the arena tomorrow.. 

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

I told the rest of the team that I was going to take a walk throughout the hotel to find something to eat. It was a lie but Machi wouldn’t appreciate what I was actually doing. I made sure to note where the room was before I went on my grandiose adventure to find him. 

My first stop was the ground floor to see if anyone had seen him. The response of the workers was that no one by that name had registered for a fight or had purchased a ticket to see the fight. 

My next idea was to continually wander the hallways until I found him. I peaked my head into a few matches to see if he was there. None of the arena’s held Illumi. As tall as this building was, the prospect of finding him was getting smaller and smaller. 

By the time that I had reached the 200th floor, I had yet to see any source of the long haired man. I was becoming tired and hungry. I was going to give up my search when I noticed a red headed clown standing at the end of the hallway. 

“Hisoka!” I couldn’t tell if my cry was out of fear or excitement. If Illumi and him did have a friendship then he might know where Illumi could be. My outburst had caused his attention to be turned away from whatever his goal was before. 

“Oh hello~. I can’t believe that Illu would bring you to this fight.”

“He didn't,'' I said. 

“Then I’m even more surprised that you were able to get up to the 200 floor. I would’ve knocked you out by the third~.”

“-No,” I interrupt. “I’m not a fighter either. I’m here to find Illumi. Have you seen him or know where he might be?”

A sly smile crossed his painted face. It was a smile that would kill someone if they looked at him the wrong way. Here I was asking a murder for advice on my assassin significant other. No. We were broken up. My assassin ex. “My information comes at a cost~. Why do you want to know here poor Illu is?”

I sigh knowing that this was my only lead. The vibes he gave off sent a shiver down my spine. If I was smart, I would head back and find Machi. Hisoka gave off more powerful vibes than Illumi ever did. It must be their personalities. 

“What would you like to know?” 

“Why aren’t you with Illu~. Decide you were too good for him?” Hisoka put emphasis on his statement with a wink. 

“No,” I stutter at his boldness. However, Hisoka was right. I did decide I was too good for him. That is the reason I left. Now I want him back. “Well yes, “ I corrected. “It was a mutual thing. Now I want to see him.”

“Ah Illu~” Hisoka sighed dramatically. “He needs to learn how to keep a girl. I should show him after the fight-”

“-I told you so where is he?”

“My. my, little Illumi found himself a spitfire. I always thought he’d get a submissive girl. Maybe you are more interesting than I gave you credit~.”

I sighed and realized that he was not going to give me the information that I wanted. A sad state of affairs that made my bones ache even more. Only a few hundred more rooms to look through before I’d give up for the night. 

“Check under the name Gittarackur. He should be in room 275,” the clown called from down the hall. I didn’t give him the decency of a response. Instead, I went to the elevator and started my ascension to Illumi’s floor. 

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

My heart pounded as the elevator climbed to the floor. After all this time looking, I still hadn’t found the correct words to say in order to make him want to stay with me. I was stuck between confessing my love and telling him off for leaving me alone. I glanced at my reflection in the warped metal hung on the sides. I looked a lot more tired than I did when I lived with him. The phantom troupe tries to stay hidden so they don’t eat as much as other people. My hair was a mess due to sleeping on the ground. My reflection matched the image I felt: empty. 

I walked to his door. My heart beat faster with every single step. My legs carried me only by force rather than by acknowledgement. Soon enough, I was at the door. Gold numbers said 275. 

I took a deep breath before finally knocking on the door. There was no answer for a long time. I knocked once more. This time my knocks were desperate and wanting. If Hisoka had lied, I would personally beat him even if I died in the process. 

A few more moments went by before the door’s chain clanged off the runner, and the door opened. However, it wasn’t Illumi. It was a creepy man with a sunken face. Needles protruded from his face like a monster. Unlike Illumi’s naturally long hair, his hair sat up in a purple mohawk. My heart dropped in disappointment. 

“Oh, I’m sorry sir,” I said. “I was told this was a friend’s room.” My legs started to take me back to the elevator in embarrassment. 

The man’s head turned with a few violent clicks as if he was made of metal. “Wait,” said the metallic voice. The arm pulled out a few pins in his face as if a terrifying gesture for attack. I braced my body with the use of Nen as I knew that he could throw them at me anytime. 

Instead, the man’s face transformed. The pins were keeping his appearance different. Black hair shot out from the top of his head and cascaded down to his knees. The smiling face was replaced with the blank looked expression that I knew so well. 

“I-Illumi?” I stuttered. “How? What?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, Illumi walked out of the room while dropping the needles. They scattered the ground like dust. Illumi reached out and pulled me close to him. A desperate feeling of warmth washed over me. He held me tightly in his arms. 

I held back hopelessly wanting the basic affections of a hug. A sob wracked my body as every emotion came out at once. During all our time together, he’d never want to hold me. We always had sides that couldn’t be crossed. The only sense of emotional vulnerability was when we had sex. This was different. This was more intimate than any of our times. 

I didn’t know how long we stayed there in each other’s arms. Illumi was the first to pull away and only to drag me into his room. Instead of embracing once again, we stood at an awkward distance; waiting for someone to make the first move. “Illumi,” I whispered. Our silence was broken by that one word. 

“I was afraid you’d never come back,” Illumi said. His voice still held the same montonedness; however, it was different. There was a break to his tone. His voice sounded more human and not like a creation of his father. 

“I was afraid you left,” I said. 

“No. I won’t. Not again. I can’t lose you again.” His words were enough to bring the same tears to my eyes. Illumi was actually using emotions. It was a twisty fantasy that I held ever since I was kidnapped so long ago. Words couldn’t express the hurt, pain, longing that held me up so many nights. I, after long last, could kiss him. Which I did gladly.

Next Chapter

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Full Masterlist

[anthonyed]

Part 2 of this (now available in Ao3)

-//-

The blowjob doesn’t happen.

Because Bucky Barnes cannot stay awake more than 20 minutes into a movie and he falls asleep. He fucking falls asleep in the middle of their first non-date kind of date and that too, on his non-date kind of date’s shoulder.

“Fantastic.” Tony huffs. Because really, what more can he say to that.

Frankly, it makes him laugh, a giddy sort of frustration that warrants a continuous maniacal laughter. However, he only succumbs to a snort and disbelief shake to his head.

It pains him to admit it because he’s pushing 40 and his hopes shouldn’t climb so high, but they did anyway and it feels like someone had just poked a balloon and let it bleed out its air.

Deflated. Yes. That’s exactly how it feels like as he sits on his bed with Barnes' heavy head weighing down his sore right shoulder while the stupid B-grade movie which Tony doesn’t even remember what it’s about, is still playing in the background.

One more hour to go.

“What do I even do with you?” Tony sighs, sinking into the bed, dragging Barnes with him. He signals FRIDAY to shut the TV and he carefully shifts Bucky’ head onto the pillow.

For a super soldier, he sure is dead to the world when he’s asleep. Funny though, because this is not how Bucky used to be when he first got here; a slight shift in the air could startle him awake. He used to be sleep deprived for weeks until Tony invited him into the workshop one day and subtly pointed out all the different security measures he’s got installed in the tower and Bucky sure did notice the highest level to be in the workshop. Ever since then, for a good period of time, the workshop couch was Bucky Barnes' ‘bed’.

Thankfully, that was only temporary because Tony wouldn’t know what to answer to Pepper and Rhodey if they had found a sleeping ex-assassin in his shop for the third time in a row. It must have been a mix of therapy and a lot to do with Tony installing the exact security measures to Bucky’s floor in the tower. Eventually, the couch lost its occupant. But it didn’t lose him permanently because Bucky kept the visits.

Now, however… Tony finds it a little bit baffling but also proud? Because of all the places, the Winter Soldier deems his room safe enough to fall into a deep slumber and sure, Tony's non-date kind of date is ruined, but for this, Tony finds it hard to be mad at him.

In fact, he’s already forgotten about it. Lying on his side, facing Bucky, Tony is more preoccupied with studying his face and his posture and the way he is completely relaxed in this state that a part of him preens. His state is not exactly Tony’s doing, regardless, Tony’s glad that he could provide the space and in whichever way Bucky felt it; the comfort as well.

But Tony couldn’t leave him like that, no. Because Tony is a restless soul with fidgety hands and curiosity drilled behind his ears that he lifts a hand up, ever so quietly and slowly, and he inches it close to Bucky until he could press an index to smooth out the pinched frown between dark eyebrows.

When he succeeds without waking up the sleeping soldier, he gets bolder and he ever so softly – extremely softly – drags the digit down the bridge of a sharp nose and up the slope. He pauses on the tip to catch a breath, tunnelling all of his focus to exert a gentle; incalculable pressure to the tip of Bucky's nose - a tiny 'bop' - before he lifts his hand away.

But right then is where he gets caught.

Because, while Tony has been so lost in the task to trace his nose, Bucky Barnes has snapped his eyes open, awake; watching all that Tony has been doing to his face.

He catches Tony by his wrist right when he starts to pull away and with a quick calculated manoeuvre, he topples him onto his back and himself over him.

“Oof,” Tony grunts, caught by surprise which quickly shifts into a surge of arousal. “That’s – Yeah, that’s very,” he stammers, pausing to clear his throat and will his flush away. “Very hot.” He admits anyway, because what is shame? What is dignity?

Bucky snorts, lips curling into a smirk. “I know,” he rumbles, deep and intimate. Just for Tony to hear.

“Do you now?” Tony asks, faint like how he’s feeling inside because it’s hard to concentrate with 200 pounds of solid muscles on top of his body and that too, a fine ass specimen like Bucky Barnes.

Worst; someone he’s already harbouring a myriad of feelings for and is probably falling way too hard way too soon but Tony cannot stop himself. Has always been unable to stop himself when it comes to the matters of heart and he could only wish that Bucky is different; that he wouldn’t tear it apart like the rest but he’ll treasure it instead.

Torn between pulling and pushing, Tony can only pretend he doesn’t care as he looks at the man and teases him like the playboy persona he wears so well.

But Bucky Barnes wields his own kind of weapon and boy does he wield it well. “I know where you give and where you don’t,” he replies, still in that low baritone rumble. His elbows cage Tony’s head as he hovers, their legs entangled and Tony’s blood is boiling somewhere vulnerable to his gender.

“You promise me a blow job,” he reminds; moving away, running far from the serious kind of emotions because that’s how you survive. That’s how even when you fall you can pretend you didn’t and that it didn’t hurt.

But Bucky seems adamant to steer the ship right where he wants. “I’ll promise you a lot of things,” he breathes, blue eyes boring on Tony. Intense in the way they study. If Tony looks into them, he can hear them ask; Why are you running?

“Promises mean nothing if you can’t keep them, soldier. Anyone ever told you that?” Tony smirks, cheeky. His heart however, is thundering in his chest.

“Not me,” Bucky husks, still studying Tony. Still intense, still chasing. “There’s not a word I've never not kept.”

Tony gulps, looks away. Couldn’t help but squirm under that sharp blue stare. “There’s a first for everything,” he pats the man’s arm. Dons on his nonchalance mask and he leers, “I’m still waiting for that blowjob.”

He expects a laugh or even a snort but he gets neither. What he gets is a heavy look and a silent nod then a stiff smile and Bucky releases him.

Just like that, his weight is gone. His solid heat that bore down on Tony disappears and Tony feels strangely exposed to the ceiling of his own bedroom. For the first time in their equation, Tony is speechless.

[gffa]

WHY I WILL ALWAYS DEFEND THE CGI IN THE PREQUELS--They were doing some pretty mind-bogglingly new stuff that had never been done before and creating all these tools and techniques that are still being used today and, honestly, while not everything holds up, a shocking amount of it does.  The work that went into The Phantom Menace really was amazing: ‘ALL FILMS ARE PERSONAL’: AN ORAL HISTORY OF STAR WARS: EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE [x] ‘Well, This is the Future’ Once in production, The Phantom Menace would lean heavily on digital effects and technology, with more visual effects shots than any film in ILM’s history. John Knoll: I think the first time I really got exposed to what was ahead of us — I suppose the first thing was we read the script. There were, I think, three or four of us: myself, [visual effects supervisor] Dennis Muren, I forget who else was there. I think there were three or four of us, went out to the Ranch. There was one copy of the script [Laughs] and so basically what it is, we sat together in a room, and somebody started and would hand off the page that they had just read to the next person in the line. I don’t know, I was third in line or something, and I would get the pages and read them and hand them on. It was pretty overwhelming. I had a million questions because you’re reading it written on a page, you can imagine a lot of different ways that that could be executed. That could be a full set, the alien character that’s being discussed, I haven’t seen a design yet so I don’t know whether that’s just a guy in a suit or what. Initially reading through the script it seemed like it was a pretty big and ambitious thing. Sometime later we had — and there’s video of this, I think it’s on the making-of video — we saw the storyboards. George had the art department draw up storyboards for the whole movie. It was 3,600 storyboards, something like that. George walked us through all the storyboards. It wasn’t just telling us what was going on and this is this and that, he was also kind of mixing in what he was thinking about [for] shooting methodology. He had a number of colored highlighters, he had a magenta, a blue, and yellow highlighters, and as he was going down, things that he was going to shoot in front of a blue screen he’d scribble blue where he’d imagine the blue screen would be, and I think yellow was for live-action, and magenta was for CG characters like Jar Jar or battle droids or whatever. He sort of went through that, he went, “Yeah, it’s going to be this,” sort of telling us what was happening in all the frames. I was used to a situation where almost every show we did there was something that we were doing that was new, that we’d have to develop new tools or new techniques to do, but it’s like almost every storyboard was something that we hadn’t done before or didn’t have tools that could do. I was taking notes the whole time, making note of all the things we were going to have to do in R&D, or new things that would have to be developed to handle doing dense scenes with thousands of characters in them, or robust cloth simulations, or rigid body dynamics. There was a pretty long list of things. I walked out of that meeting with my head spinning, because it was not only massive in terms of sheer shot number, but in terms of all the new tech that has to be developed to get it done.

Rob Coleman: I remember going back to California and building the team up, and doing the early animations, and as time went on, I started really suffering in terms of insomnia and stress and freaking out, and I knew the world was waiting for this film. After a couple of months, three months, I actually drove up to Skywalker Ranch to resign the job to George. So I booked the time in to see him, and I went in there and I started fumbling and saying all this stuff through three hours of sleep, or whatever I had. He’s like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Well, just, the world is waiting for this, and the pressure of this, and I’m not sure if I can perform, and…” He goes, “Hey, hey, hey, wait. You’re working for one person. You gotta make one person happy. That’s me, and I’m happy. I think the animation you guys are doing is great.” I said, “Y-you do?” He said, “Yeah. It’s great. It’s my problem to worry about the world, and I’m not even worried about them. We’re making these films for me. You’re making me happy, so you can relax, and you can go back down to ILM and everything will be fine.” I was the happiest guy driving back down Lucas Valley Road. I was like, “Oh, my God!” From that point on, I was fine. I slept like a baby, I was able to do it, I was able to focus on it. George Lucas: You don’t really start something unless you think you’re right, and think that you’re on the right track and what you’re doing is going to be great. It never occurs to you that it’s not going to work. Otherwise you wouldn’t do it. That’s what keeps people from doing things. So I didn’t worry about that part. I knew that the process of making a film was very difficult, and most of it was grounded in nineteenth century technology — or older than that, actually. And it had just reached its limits and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. That was especially true in visual effects. And it was through visual effects that I began to realize we had the power and the knowledge to develop something that really would make a big difference. I started that whole process. I wanted to raise my kids, so I retired, but I spent my time building up the company and at the same time developing this digital technology. Rob Coleman: As reference, I think there were around 200 [effects] shots in Men in Black, and there were 2,000 shots in Phantom Menace. John Knoll: I’ll give you an example of some of the things we had to develop. I think prior to Episode I, the most complicated CG animation we had ever done was on Mars Attacks!, years before. We had one or two shots that had like 16 or 18 Martians in it, and they all had the little spacesuits and the helmets and their props and all of that. But that nearly brought the whole system down to its knees because having that many rigged characters in a scene at once just was more than the systems could handle at the time. I was regularly seeing shots where there were 50 battle droids, or a big battle scene where there are two characters fighting in the foreground, but the background had hundreds or thousands of characters back there. This is a whole order of magnitude of higher complexity than we dealt with, so we’re going to need to have systems for managing that level of complexity. And then a few years before, I think it was maybe ’95, we had done Spawn. There was a number of shots where Spawn’s cape does something magical, and we’d done cloth simulations for that that didn’t look super realistic, and it was fine for the movie because it was kind of stylized. The cape was almost a character in itself. We didn’t have a particularly good or usable cloth simulation system. But looking at the designs of the characters, they’re all wearing clothing. Jar Jar has clothing, and Boss Nass has clothing, and Watto has clothing, and we’re going to have to do digital doubles of the Jedi to do some of stunty things that we can’t shoot for real, and they need to have their cloaks and all of that. We’re going to need to have a good cloth simulation package in there. And we said, all right, we’re going to have to develop that. And then we had — there were lots of shots of Jedi cutting through battle droids, so the pieces of the battle droid clatter down onto the ground and that’s hard to animate completely from scratch, and there were so many shots, that, all right, we can’t fake it through that. We need to have a rigid body dynamic system. These were the things I’d been seeing at SIGGRAPH and technical papers about how to do those believable physical collisions, and we’re going to need a robust rigid body simulation system that’s integrated into our pipeline. It was just a lot of that kind of stuff. All these things that I knew were technically possible; we didn’t have any tools that did that. Rob Coleman: Part of my problem was, for months, there was no crowd system, which meant there was no Gungan battle. No ability for my team to animate hundreds of characters back then. It just didn’t exist. I remember there was one line in the script that said something along the lines of “The Gungan army walks out to battle.” That was six months of work — that one sentence. You were like, “Holy [expletive], how do we do that?” And that was one sentence out of a 100-page script. Ultimately, it was a matter of acquiring the right tools to accomplish what George Lucas was asking, using the latest versions of software already available, or developing new techniques. Rob Coleman: We had a database with all the different Gungan walks, runs, throws, falls, fights. We had little vignettes. We’d have Gungans and battle droids, upwards of five of them together in a little cluster, and we’d animate that. And then we could put that cluster into any shot, and we could rotate it, and it wouldn’t look the same to the camera. So we could create a finite number of those and then we could place them, and we’d actually get a fair amount of movement into the shot. We’d just be able to use it over and over again, and we’d put some hero work in the foreground, and the audience would never know.  Jean Bolte: Back then they called it Viewpaint, it was the first software that was developed to paint onto computer graphic models. I was the Viewpaint supervisor. Most people know this, but Viewpaint was a huge leap forward in Jurassic Park. Dennis [Muren] has always acknowledged that. As I have stated publicly, I don’t want to make it sound like I think my job was the most important contribution to computer graphics, but it was a very important one. The work that we were able to do, because we could paint onto the models, transformed the look of everything. Up until then we’d had The Abyss water tentacle, we had the mercury man in T2, very simple, very rudimentary, you know, the shading on things didn’t allow for very much believability, really. What we were able to do with the paint software, even in the very early, early stages there on Jurassic — I didn’t work on Jurassic, but I was having a good look at it. They were able to contribute a bump surface and a paint surface to give things the scale pattern, the aging, obviously the color, the different qualities of specularity. And in addition to that, for anything that was hard surface, there’s the aging that comes into making something rusty or dented or scratched. And when you have that, suddenly a thing has a story. It has a history. In addition to it having the believability, you can introduce the backstory as to, why did it get dented here? Why are the scales roughed up in this area? What kind of creature is this thing? Is it dry? Does it hunt? Is it an apex predator? Is it moist? All of that stuff is the story. So even if you’re making a creature that has never been seen before, you can kind of establish what its niche is in nature, and then contribute all of that to the look of it. The dinosaurs in Jurassic, that was a huge breakthrough to be able to see that. So the software being very rudimentary still functioned and continued to update. Every project there were things that were written into the software and in our technique and approach that allowed us to get more and more realism. The Phantom Menace featured several completely digital characters. Jar Jar Binks, played through motion-capture by Ahmed Best, would be the most high-profile, a supporting character that shared screen time with our heroes. Initially, the idea was for Best to perform in a suit and have Jar Jar’s neck and head created digitally, but this proved more costly and labor-intensive than just using a full CG model. Watto, the junk dealer, and Sebulba, Anakin’s rival podracer, were two other completely CG characters that played prominent roles. Ahmed Best: George wanted a character that was part-Goofy, but very physically aware. He really moved me toward what eventually became the walk. He wanted me to move slower, longer. Jar Jar was taller than I am, so he really wanted Jar Jar’s head to move in a specific way, so that forced me to try to come up with a physicality so that Jar Jar could move in a way that would work once animated. But a lot of it was just a collaboration of movement, me giving George options, and him saying, “Yeah, more like that.” The voice was the same thing. It was just me giving George options, and he was like, “Yeah, do that one. Do that voice.” George Lucas: I was tired of putting masks on people. I was much more interested in having them be all-digital so you could do more things with them. More freedom.

Ahmed Best: Jar Jar’s character, the movement and the motivation, was really based off of Buster Keaton. George really honed into that aesthetic when it came to me. Jean Bolte: Casper had a speaking character, Dragonheart, that was a speaking character, but there was something about Jar Jar being a character in this film that was a huge step further. I mean, he had to work in so much of the film in so many different environments. He had to sit there and interact as if he was somebody George had cast and put into a suit. Ahmed Best: It was great. I loved it. It never really felt like I was this other thing. It felt like we were all actors in the movie working together. This whole idea of me being in the movie or not being in the movie never occurred to all of us while we were shooting. It was never a separate thing and, subsequently, that’s what mo-cap has become now. It’s become actors in the movie, doing the motion, and then animation later building the realized, fantastical look of the character. But the actors are an integral part of the filmmaking and an integral part of the collaboration. And that kind of started with Phantom Menace. Rob Coleman: I believed in my crew, and I believed that I’d understood what George was looking for from a performance point of view. Ahmed Best: After principal [photography], I spent probably another year and a half, maybe two years, going back and forth between ILM and New York working out some of the kinks. That final battle scene with all the Gungans and the droids and the battle tanks, that was me, George, Rob [Coleman], John [Knoll], everybody at ILM, up in San Francisco figuring it out. It was just us in a room, there was nobody else there. I was doing all the motion that Jar Jar did in the final battle scene. George really wanted that to feel like not only just a live-action battle, but he wanted it to have the same physical comedy as a Buster Keaton movie. We worked really hard on that final battle scene. Jean Bolte: One of the things about this film is that this is what George wanted. He wanted them to have a similar kind of quality to the animatronic characters who also were not necessarily always 100 percent believable. But they had a charm to them, they had a life in them. That was more important than anything. I think Jar Jar has this quality. Ahmed Best: For me, it was just such a joy to be as creative as I wanted to be because I knew I had so much room. And George was really generous with the amount of room he gave me to bring Jar Jar to life. Doug Chiang: Watto was completely out of nowhere, and that scared me, because the genesis of Watto was that I did an early trader baron portrait that George really liked. The story of that character changed eventually, but he liked that. One day he came in and said, “Remember that portrait of the trader baron? Take that portrait, let’s put on a body, and add the feet, and add bat wings.” And that was the brief! It scared me because it didn’t make any sense, and I thought it was going to be a complete cartoony character that people are going to laugh at. I remember we spent weeks and weeks designing it, trying to make it very real, and George kept saying the same thing. And then literally one day I said, “Okay, I’m going to take George exactly at his word, and draw exactly that.” And it worked. One of my big appreciations for George is that he can push us quite a bit. I learned to trust him that he knows what he wants, and he will then stop us if we’ve gone too far. And right now Watto is one of my favorite characters. Rob Coleman: The amazing thing about The Phantom Menace, I think, certainly for the ILM animators, is we were moving from putting creatures in scenes to actually being actors in the movie. This is what I was trying to get across to them. The notion of getting up and acting things out. Talking about what’s happening internally inside a character’s head. Do they believe in what they’re saying? What do they want from the scene? Everything you would talk to an actor about I was trying to teach these animators. Jean Bolte: The main characters, Sebulba, Watto, and Jar Jar, were things that I had painted. Those were great. I mean, Jar Jar, obviously, was an important character. I remember that Doug Chiang [paid] very, very close attention to him. After there was artwork from Doug, and the model, then I would do the texture paint on it, and then Doug Chiang would take a frame render and paint on it. The next morning I’d come in, I’d see what he had done, have a meeting with him, I would incorporate those changes into Jar Jar. That process went on every day for weeks and weeks and weeks. Rob Coleman: I remember showing [a test of Watto] to George, and he was so excited that he showed him to Frank [Oz], who was doing the actual rubber puppet of Yoda on that first one. And then Frank said to George, “Well, this is the future.” And George was just beaming. The centerpiece action sequence of the film is the podrace, a fast, furious race between Anakin Skywalker and a smattering of strange aliens, through a course that includes a stadium, caves, rocky terrain, and the occasional Tusken Raider sniper. John Knoll: I had been playing around with a desktop tool that did two-dimensional physics simulations. It was called Interactive Physics. You could draw 2D shapes and you could have gravity and drag, and you could attach springs or chains to them and let them collide, and kind of do what they do. Seeing the designs for the podracers, they’re supposed to be suspended on repulsors, like Luke’s speeder, where they just sort of hover, and if you disturb them they have a kind of springy action to them. So they’re supposed to be just kind of hovering there, and then the cables go back to the cockpit. I just kept thinking that they should be, as they’re driving along, bouncing and springing and kind of look like they’re being held up by springs.

I used this Interactive Physics program to build a top down version of a podracer in 2D, where I had two engines and chains that went back to a cockpit. Then I attached thrusts to the engines, and I hooked them together by a spring network. I would jostle them a little bit and they would have this nice secondary springy motion that you would never have the time and patience to animate believably. I just really liked the look of it. I talked to Habib Zargarpour, my friend that was doing all that [computer animation software] Maya beta testing, and I said I want to try setting something up like this in 3D where we make up a frame and we suspend the pods from springs that attach to the frame. Basically, what we’re going to animate is, we’re going to animate the frame, we’re going to jostle it around, and when we animate the pods we’re basically just animating this frame. The pods are just going to hang from that, and when we move the frame, they’ll kind of bounce around and we’ll get all this really nice secondary motion. So that’s how the animation system worked, we weren’t actually animating the pods directly. We’re animating this frame that was holding them up. That was, I think, the first time that we’d done vehicle animation that was all being driven by rigid bodies and dynamic simulation system. Jean Bolte: I remember the first time I saw the podrace come together on the screen, and I was like, “This is it. This is amazing and it’s a beautiful collaboration.” The model makers and the computer graphics department come before me in the [process]. It’s first artwork, then the model makers get busy, the CG model department gets busy modeling, then it’s passed off to paint. Often it goes back to model and back to paint and back to model. John Knoll: Yeah, it’s a mixture. Doug and the group had designed this racecourse that had all these very distinctly different-looking regions. It was all pretty deliberate because George wanted you — if you saw two racers in one particular terrain — to immediately understand where you were in the racetrack. “Oh, that’s the area right past the stadium,” or “There’s the arches,” or “That’s the area where they get into this narrow canyon.” So if you kind of understood what that racetrack is like, then you cut to this character and you kind of know, “Oh, he’s like 10 seconds behind Anakin because he’s still in the crater field,” and that kind of thing. We had all these different terrains we had to create, and some of them were more closed in than others. A couple of them, like Beggar’s Canyon, and there was another sort of cave, this stalactite cave, I figured were closed in enough that we could do in miniature.

(The stunning podrace arena miniature.)

(Thousands of painted Q-tips stood in for audience members in the podrace arena miniature.) The podrace stadium was another one where I really felt like we’d get a lot of benefit out of building a miniature of that. Partly I was kinda looking back at how people had done things in the past, and the Ben-Hur stadium from the chariot race, that always really impressed me. Those were done in miniature and they just looked amazing. We’ll build a miniature of that arena, and we’ll shoot all the elements outdoors, and we’ll get that really nice, realistic daytime look. And then there were other terrains where it was just wide open and we were going at 600 miles an hour, and it seemed like the only way to do it was this CG projection technique. It was a whole mixture of whatever technique would work. Ben Burtt: I followed through with the podrace from day one to however we ended it. [Laughs] Even in the earliest stages of temporary assemblies of the race I showed George, I always was starting to put sound in. I, of course, had a library to start with of aircraft, and some automobile, cars, and things that had high-speed racing-type sounds that I could manipulate. I would sketch those in a temporary way. As we went along and the podrace developed, I would go out and record new vehicles, as would [sound designer] Matt Wood and a few others. We’d send them out to races to get drag strips, cars, we did some — everything from antique biplanes with wires humming on them to running an electric toothbrush up and down a harp string. It wasn’t just restricted to aircraft or anything. We did a lot of cars, a lot of aircraft of different types, and then manipulated other sound effects. George Lucas: The podrace was the direct result of my lifelong fascination with racing. I thought it would be fun to build really intense race vehicles that were as much sort of chariots as they were anything else, like two horses and a chariot. I took that idea, and plot-wise, it was necessary to get them off the planet. Obviously, you could come up with a million different ways, but I have a tendency to always go toward the racetrack. It was very dynamic. And it’s fun. I love it. The digital revolution of which The Phantom Menace was part did not stop with effects; it played a big part in the editing of the film and the entire delivery method. Still, the movie was ultimately made utilizing techniques both new and traditional. George Lucas: I’m not sure where my embrace of technology comes from. All art is technology. Film, or the movies, were the highest point of technology in the art world. You just had to learn a lot, and there’s a lot of technical things to deal with. So that wasn’t the issue as much as it was the fact that I didn’t mind change. And I didn’t mind change because I actually physically worked in it. I worked as an editor, I worked as a cameraman, and I know how difficult it was just working in the medium where you have little splices of film, you can’t find them, when you go to look for something you have to go through reels and reels of film. It takes a long time and it’s very frustrating on lots of levels. Just the whole idea that back in the Kodak days, you’d shoot the film, and then you have to send it in to the drugstore to get it processed, and then bring it back to see what you have, is slow and frustrating. And the whole thing was built on that, whereas if you do it electronically, digitally, you can see what you’re doing as you’re doing it. So you know exactly what you’re doing. Ben Burtt: Phantom Menace was shot on film. It was the last of the ones shot on film, but it gets transferred to a digital form, then we’re cutting on Avid editing machines. Once you’ve got the image in the digital realm, rather than a physical piece of film, of course then it opens up the door to the amenities of working digitally. You can cut and paste images, and you can duplicate them, and you can flip flop and enlarge them and shrink them, doing all kinds of stuff with a lot of fluidity that you would never have if you were working on a physical film. George loved that world of manipulation after the fact. You learned working for George that no shot as the camera saw it was final. [Laughs] It could be thought of as just an element for further development.

(Jean Bolte paints a Sebulba maquette.) Jean Bolte: When Jurassic came out, the company offered to train those of us who were interested in making the switch — they referred to it as “making a switch to computer graphics.” I had no intention whatsoever of making a switch [from the model shop]. What I always wanted to do was to train on this, in the new technology, learn as much as I could about it, but also keep the door open in the model shop. I had to fight kind of hard to make that work. But I think I was fairly successful because during Episode I, I was still able to go back to the model shop and paint maquettes, sort of keep both doors open. I loved that. John Knoll: To be perfectly frank, I was getting a lot of pressure from George and Rick to do less with miniatures and more with digital techniques. And what George told me, this was, I think, during Episode II or III, he was pushing back on me wanting to do so much with miniatures. He said, “Listen, the future is in computer graphics with these digital techniques, and you’re using miniatures as a crutch. You’re going to have to get better at doing this computer graphics work and expand the palette of things you’re going to be able to do that way. And the way you’re going to get good at it is doing it, so I’m going to kick the crutch out from under you and it’s for your own good. Don’t build so many miniatures. Do this stuff more with digital techniques because you need to be doing that.” Even though my preference would have been to keep doing what I was doing on Episode I. I look back on a lot of the miniature work we did on Episode I and I think it still looks amazing. Like Theed city, I think a lot of those shots are completely convincing. You’d never know. And I think the podrace stadium looks pretty good, and the podrace hangar looks really good. And there’s a lot of extensions that I don’t think people even know are extensions that are in the Nemoidian ship, of the corridors and the bridge and all of that. You’d never know. 

[youreverycolor]

An Unlikely Love: Fight For It, Pt. 2 (Rafael Barba x Anna Stein)

AN: Prompt #43 from 200 Prompts from @drink-it-write-it (“Do you believe in soulmates?” – “No.” – “Oh, well, that’s a shame, because I’m it. I’m your soulmate.”)

The conclusion of Fight For It. I hope you guys enjoy. Comments and reblogs are always appreciated. :)

Special thanks to @madpanda75, @thatesqcrush, and @misssirenlove for love, support, idea-bouncing, and generally being wonderful women.

Tagging: @danahart1 @nikkijmorgan @ele-esposito @dianilaws @sunnyfortomorrow @mommakat32 @lucifersadvisor @gibbs274 @oliviamariathegirl @evee87 @tropes-and-tales @garturbo @delia26 @neely1177 @jennisdirtyimagines @lostintech0011001 @letty-o @lucifersadvisor @sunnyfortomorrow @literallyprentissstwin @gibbs274 @dianilaws

Song: "Ours” by Taylor Swift

~*~*~*~

There was nearly a decade between Amanda Rollins and Anna Stein, but they could easily be mistaken for sisters, only a year or two apart. Of all the squad members, Anna was closest with Olivia, and so she might have asked if the lieutenant could use some time away from work, but she thought better of it. Olivia was Rafael’s best friend, after all, and he would probably want to talk to her over the course of the week. However, since the party he had thrown to celebrate Anna’s first semester grades, Amanda and Anna had also formed a fast friendship. Amanda was a lot of fun and up for anything without needing an explanation, as Liv might have asked for. As it turned out, she also had a copious amount of vacation time saved up. So, she bribed Carisi into taking Jesse for the week—with the use of her sitter for the daytime—and told Olivia a slight fib about a “family emergency back home.” By Tuesday night, she and Anna were on a plane headed to Tennessee.

Originally, Anna had suggested Vegas, but Amanda—a recovering gambling addict—quickly countered with Nashville. Anna had never been there, but Amanda said she would love it: all the fun of Vegas bars without the price tag, and the added bonus of hot cowboys. Amanda knew Nashville like the back of her hand; she had graduated from Middle Tennessee State University. The college was only about thirty miles from downtown Nashville, and Amanda and her friends frequently went into the city on weekends. So she knew exactly where to go and what to do, and Anna was more than happy to let her lead the way.

Although in some ways, Amanda had become a hardened New Yorker, she quickly reverted to her roots after only a day in Tennessee. She took Anna along for the ride, converting the native Californian to a Southern belle. During the days, they visited the Parthenon, Music Row, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. They took walks along the riverfront and even went to the Grand Ole Opry. Amanda had done most of these things already, but she was content to do them again with her friend, who clearly needed the distraction.

At night, they teased their blonde hair (Amanda joked that “the higher the hair, the closer to God”) and wore obscenely short denim skirts and cowboy boots while drinking on Honky Tonk Row. At some point, they found themselves in a karaoke bar, and Anna shocked the hell out of Amanda by singing the mysterious, little-known third verse of Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places.” They talked about their families and how much they missed them; Amanda’s mother and sister had moved back to Atlanta and she rarely got to see them, while all of Anna’s family still lived in Los Angeles, where she also had lived until four years ago. But all the while, Anna did not bring up Rafael once, and Amanda didn’t ask about him.

But by dinner on Monday, Amanda’s curiosity got the better of her. They were sitting at a bar nursing vodka tonics and eating the best burgers Anna had ever had, when Amanda asked, “So, since we’re scheduled to fly out tomorrow morning, you gonna tell me why we came?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, as much fun as this trip has been—”

“So much fun!” Anna said. “It’s honestly been the best girls’ trip I’ve ever taken.”

Amanda smiled. “I’m glad you had fun, but I have to ask…”

Anna set her burger down in favor of a sip of her drink. “I don’t want to make it weird for you when you have to deal with him at work,” she said. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal anyway.”

“Okay, first off,” Amanda began, “unless you’re telling me about whatever weird kinks Barba has in the sack, nothing you could say would make me feel weird around him. And second, it must have been a pretty big deal for you to want to get out of the damn state for a week.”

“Maybe I just wanted to do something fun over spring break with a friend,” Anna replied, avoiding eye contact.

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “You know I’m a detective, right?”

Anna laughed. “You and, like, half my other friends.” She put her face in her hands and then turned on her bar stool toward Amanda and told her the whole story, starting with Rafael’s Spanish-laced tirade when he arrived home to the moment he stormed back out. Amanda listened quietly the entire time, the same as she did when investigating a case. Her face betrayed nothing—no doubt a skill she learned in her gambling days.

When Anna finally finished, Amanda took a deep breath. “You know, I can’t say any of this surprises me.”

Anna raised her eyebrows. “What?”

Amanda downed the last of her vodka. “Well, let me start by saying that you did the right thing getting out of there. A lot of women would’ve hung around waiting for him to get home. Took a lot of guts to do what you did.”

“What, run away?”

“You planning to go back?”

“Of course,” Anna said, a little taken aback.

“Then you didn’t run away. You decided that for the good of your relationship, you needed to take some time for yourself. No shame in that.”

Anna took a moment to process this. “It really was a stupid fight,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” Amanda agreed. “But, you know, all couples fight. At least you’re fighting about stupid things than about, I don’t know, whatever the hell my old partner, Nick, and his wife used to fight about.”

“I guess,” Anna said.

Amanda put her hand on top of Anna’s. “Anna, look at me.” Anna looked up, pushing a wisp of her hair away from her eyes. “You’ve gotta understand, Barba has been alone for a long time. And take it from me, when you’re alone that long, you get used to thinking you’re right all the time because there’s no one telling you otherwise.”

“I get that, but maybe we’re just too different. Maybe he’s been alone too long. Maybe I don’t take things seriously enough. Maybe it’s just too—”  

Amanda held up her hands. “Look, I get it. He’s a stubborn pain in the ass. Hell, he’s hard to work with, so I can’t imagine living with him. You’ve got a pretty big age gap, and you’re both really busy with work and school. So I would completely understand if you decided you weren’t right for each other.” Then she softened her voice. “But I told you once before, I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. And when I asked if you were planning to go back, you looked at me like I was nuts for even asking that question. That says something to me.”

Suddenly, the bartender came over with two shots of whiskey. “From the gentlemen down that way,” he said, gesturing to two young, extremely handsome men sitting at the end of the bar.

Anna and Amanda looked at the men, then at each other. “You wanna go talk to ‘em?” Amanda asked, a sly grin on her face.

Anna hesitated for a second, looked at the men again, and then took out her phone. “Give me a second.” A minute later, she put it away and grabbed one of the shot glasses. “Okay. Ready.”

They clinked their glasses, tapped them on the bar, and downed the shots. “Sisters, right?” Amanda asked, referring to their cover story.

Anna hopped off her barstool and the two of them linked arms. “Sisters.”

***

Rafael was miserable.

Anna had only texted him twice a day since she’d landed in Nashville the previous Tuesday: once in the morning, and once at night. It was largely the same message every time: good morning or goodnight, and that she hoped he had a good day. He appreciated that, despite her anger, she at least wanted him to know that she was safe. And he wanted to give her the space she had clearly demanded, so he didn’t message more than that. He wasn’t a jealous man who needed to know what his girlfriend was doing every minute of the day, after all. Anna had gone on a handful of trips with her friends over the course of their relationship. That wasn’t what bothered him. What bothered him was that this time, she did it to get away from him rather than to get away with other people. That made all the difference. He trusted Anna implicitly. But every night, after he’d finally dragged himself home to bed, his brain went to a dark place where she met some stranger in Nashville, some ridiculous cowboy, who made her realize that he wasn’t worth the effort.

And because of what? A damn pen.

The day after she left, he threw them all out.

He felt like a bachelor again, but this time it wasn’t self-imposed. Nevertheless, he had reverted to his bachelor ways, working as much as he could until the wee hours of the morning. On Thursday and Friday mornings, Carmen had found him asleep on his office couch in the same clothes he’d worn the previous day. He worked right through the weekend, up until Sunday night. The good news was that he actually seemed to have caught up on a good deal of his backlogged work. The bad news was that he couldn’t even enjoy the spoils because he had no one to enjoy them with.

He had lunch with Olivia a couple of times and didn’t mention what was going on. She noticed something was off, but he deflected, saying he just hadn’t slept well that week. It wasn’t a lie.

Since he had gotten caught up with work that week, he decided to take Monday off. He cleaned out his closet, donating a bunch of clothes he hadn’t worn in a year. Anna had said more than once that she wanted to get a rain shower head, so he went out and bought one and installed it. Carisi came over with Jessie and a pizza that evening. Rafael had never been comfortable around children, but he had to admit that watching Carisi play with Jesse made him want to participate. So he and the detective and Amanda’s daughter colored and ate pizza—and for a minute, he forgot about being alone. Then, he got the nightly text from Anna, and was reminded all over again that she wasn’t going to be next to him in bed.

By Tuesday, he was climbing the walls. Work was the only thing he knew would take his mind off of the long wait until she arrived back home, so he threw himself into it that day. He had to give his phone to Carmen so that he wouldn’t be tempted to check it every ten seconds. She gave him a weird look but took it anyway. When three o’clock hit, he gathered his things to head home. Anna’s flight was due in at four, and he wanted to be there when she got home so that he could tell her what he’d failed to tell her before she left.

***

The light in the bedroom was on when he got home. For a split second, he was terrified—was there an intruder? And would his briefcase be enough to knock said intruder unconscious? But then he noticed the suitcase against the wall adjacent to the living room.

His heart raced. She must have gotten back early.

He found her in the master bathroom putting her toiletries away. She was wearing old, beat-up jeans and a t-shirt, and her hair was in a messy ponytail, but to Rafael, she had never looked more beautiful. He stood watching her for just a second, breathless. He worried if he said anything that it wouldn’t come out right. The last conversation they had turned out terribly.

But as soon as she turned her blue eyes up and locked onto the green of his, words were the last thing on either of their minds.

She flew at him, leaping into his arms and knocking him backwards onto the bed. She kissed him everywhere; on his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, and, finally, finally, his mouth. He kissed her so deeply that he thought he might actually be able to drink her. She tasted like mint and smelled like ripe peaches. She had come back to him in a flood of living memories. She had come back to him, period.

He finally pulled back to look her in the eyes again, his own wet with tears. “Te amo,” he said. “Te amo, mi corazón.” He repeated it like a prayer, so many times that he worried it lost meaning, but to Anna, nothing ever sounded better.

Rafael made love to Anna for the next two hours, and every time he moaned her name, “I love you” wasn’t far behind.

After they were both finally spent, they lay under a throw blanket on the bedroom carpet; at some point in their lovemaking, Anna actually rolled off the bed and they just continued there, laughing and kissing all at once. She told Rafael about her trip and all the things she and Amanda had seen and done. He hung on every word. But there was one more story she had to tell, and she hoped that when he heard it, he would understand why she reacted the way she did when he arrived home.

“So,” she said, “I don’t think I mentioned, we had a cover story on this trip that we were sisters. We didn’t use our own names with anyone we met the entire time. It was like being undercover. So last night—”

He laughed. “Okay, I have to know. What was your UC name?”

“I was Ariel and Amanda was Aurora.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You seriously used Disney princess names?”

“Well, if you’re gonna go UC, no better cover than a mermaid and a narcoleptic princess, right?”

“Does that mean I get to be Eric?” When she gaped at him, he said, “We’ve been together for over a year. I think you underestimate how much Disney trivia I’ve picked up in that time.”

She drew in a deep breath and focused her eyes on his. “So, as I was saying, last night, we were having dinner and two really hot cowboys sent us shots of whiskey.”

He sat up slightly, alarmed. “Okay, why are you telling me—”

“Because you need to hear this,” she said, pushing him back down and propping herself up on her elbow. “Amanda wanted to go talk to them. And we ended up having a really good conversation. It was a lot of fun.” He looked stricken, and she softened her expression. “Raf, you know nothing happened, right?”

“Of course I know that,” he said, although he was glad for the confirmation. “I just—it’s not that I don’t want you to go on trips with your friends. But this time…I guess I wish I could have been there with you.”

She smiled and kissed his shoulder. “You were, Raf. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Right before we went to talk to them? That was when I texted you goodnight. Because I wanted to make sure I said goodnight before you went to bed—whenever the hell that was this week. I didn’t want to do it late and have you wonder if I’d forgotten you.”

He felt tears welling in his eyes again. “Anna, I never would have thought that.”

“Even still. You were on my mind every night and every morning. I wasn’t just texting you to let you know I was safe. I wanted you to know that no matter what happens, no matter where I am or how things are between us, I’m always thinking of you. And,” she added, “I’ll always come home to you.”

He sat up and wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck, into her hair, and brought his lips to hers. When he pulled back, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

She pressed her forehead to his. “I’m sorry, too.” Then, she grabbed his watch from the nightstand above them. “I know it’s not our usual date night, but I could sure as hell use dinner and a movie right now. How about you?”

He smiled at her and ran a hand along her hip, memorizing the curves. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll even let you pick the movie.”

***

Anna wiped away her tears, which had been flowing for the last twenty minutes. After they’d eaten, she and Rafael had settled in to watch her favorite movie, What Dreams May Come. The plot was simple: the two main characters, Chris and Annie, lose their children in a horrible car accident. Annie has a mental breakdown and is institutionalized until she and Chris manage to rebuild their lives. But four years later, Chris also dies. His afterlife is beautiful, and he is reunited with his children. But when Annie commits suicide and is sent to hell, Chris journeys there to save her.

Even though Anna had seen it a thousand times, watching the two characters reunited at the end of the movie never failed to turn her into a weeping mess. She didn’t even try to hide it. “God,” she said, “That scene where they’re in Hell and he’s about to join her there and—Raf? Are you okay?”

Unlike Anna, Rafael preferred people think he was born without tear ducts. But there was no mistaking the sound of his sniffling next to her. “I’m fine,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

She leaned over and turned the end table light on. As her eyes adjusted, she caught him wiping his cheek with his shirt sleeve. “You’re crying!”

“I am not—”

“Yes, you are.” She handed him a Kleenex from the box she’d judiciously placed next to her before the movie started. He took it and blew his nose. “I warned you it was a gut-punch.”

“When you said it was a movie about soulmates, I think I expected, well, the usual tropes. I wasn’t prepared for something that seemed…realistic.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Almost the entire movie was set in heaven, and this is the one you’re calling realistic?”

“That’s not what I mean. Usually, movies make it seem like soulmates are perfect together and never fight and read each other’s minds. But come on, who gets that?”

She laughed. “People in movies.”

“Exactly,” he said. “People whose lives are literally scripted. But I don’t think our lives are predestined. For instance, I don’t think whatever higher power there is intended for you to be assaulted so that I could meet you.”

She cast her eyes downward. “Well, I’m glad to know that, because if that were the case, I’d think God was a huge asshole.”

He shifted on the couch to face her. “You want to know what part of the movie it was that got me?”

“Of course.”

He took a deep breath. “It was when they finally explained what their double-D anniversary was.” In the movie, Chris and Annie had a special anniversary; it commemorated the day they decided not to divorce after their children died and Annie had her breakdown.

“Oh, I know. When he told her not to give up—”

“No, it wasn’t that.” He cleared his throat. “When I first heard them described as soulmates, I was internally rolling my eyes. But then, we saw them suffering in two completely different ways. He pushed the pain away, and she collapsed under it.”

“Life’s like that,” she replied. “People react differently to things.”

“Yeah. But that’s what got me. They weren’t on the same wavelength at all. They didn’t just push through everything together like it was easy. They had to make an active decision to do it. When they chose to stay together, even after the gargantuan amount of suffering they went through…”

She pushed her hair over one of her shoulders and tilted her head. “So you do believe in soulmates now?”

“You know,” he said, “I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility. But like I said, I think soulmates aren’t people who are perfect together.” He took her hand. “I think they’re two people who aren’t perfect together—maybe even two people don’t even make sense together—but who make the choice every day to come back to each other. They fight, sometimes blow up, maybe don’t even speak to each other for a week, but they actively choose each other every day.”

She moved closer to him, tucking her legs underneath herself. “That sounds…very plausible.”

“Plausible,” he repeated with a chuckle. “In what world am I the romantic in this relationship?”

She grinned. “We can share the title.”

“I was thinking about the fight we had,” he said, pivoting so fast that Anna was worried he was shutting down on her again.

“Okay?”

“It was a nothing fight, but it turned into this big blow-up,” he continued. “A lot of couples would have let it get into their heads and make it into something about the relationship itself.”

She picked off a piece of lint from his shirt and smoothed the fabric over his shoulder. “Well, we’re not other couples.”

 He nodded. “And I know how people look at us when we’re out together. They see you, this beautiful, young, vibrant woman, and then they see me—”

“A handsome, distinguished, slightly silver fox?” she offered, gently touching his hair, the silver in it just beginning to show.

He smiled and put his hand on her cheek. The softness of her skin was like her generous heart: it never failed to amaze him. “The point is, despite what people think or say, or when life makes love hard, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we work at this, even through the hardest days, because we want to. We choose each other, every day—even if we need to go to other states to do it.” He winked at her.

She lifted his hand from her cheek and kissed his palm, her heart beating so hard it might have jumped out of her chest. “Are you saying…”

He didn’t complete her thought, but he didn’t have to. She knew the answer when he gave her that half-smile she loved so much. It made him look like a man much younger than his years, almost timid, a little mischievous. “I know, I just destroyed my grumpy, cynical persona. Don’t tell the squad; I have a reputation to keep up.”

For a minute, he was afraid that she would think he was silly or—worse—being disingenuous. But then he caught her eyes with his, and they were sparkling. She crawled from her spot on the couch into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You know, in the movies, this would be when the boy asks the girl to marry him,” she laughed.

He pulled her to him, so that their lips almost touched. “Well, we’re not other couples,” he said, just before he closed the gap between them.

***

Two weeks later, Anna had fallen asleep on the couch hours ago while she was reading and he was reviewing case files. He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t fallen asleep when she read on the couch. She would lay with her legs stretched across his lap and he would run his hands along her calves, sometimes massaging them if she’d had a particularly hard day at the diner. She thought it was for her benefit, but the truth was, he loved doing it. Knowing he could relax her into sleep just with the touch of his hands was an intimacy he loved even more than sex. And so it was that he found himself lifting her legs off of his lap carefully, trying not to wake her. Mercifully, she was a heavy sleeper. It would probably be a struggle to get her into bed later on. For now, he decided to just change into pajamas and do the rest of his work in the home office. But there was something he wanted to do first.

The fight they’d had was a turning point. It had been a result of nothing more than mishandled stress on both of their parts. It hadn’t been anything deeper than that. But it had scared him more than any other argument they had ever had. She had gone away on trips before that, but he hadn’t been lonely. Their apartment still felt like their home because he knew she would be back. But when she’d been away with Amanda that week, he had been afraid she would realize she was happier away from him. So their home had temporarily transformed into just a place to keep his stuff. It didn’t feel comfortable. It didn’t feel warm. It just felt like four walls he slept in. Waking up without her was excruciating, as was knowing he would have to fall asleep without her there. He’d missed her laughter, her smile, the way he could smell her shampoo for hours after she’d left the bed. He’d missed seeing her body wash next to his in the shower.

He had missed her legs on his lap.

He crept into the bedroom and turned on the nightstand light, the dimmest in the room, so as not to wake her from afar. Then he went into the closet and opened one of the drawers. She never went into his closet, saying that she was afraid she would get lost under a pile of ties and vests, never to be seen again. He reached deep within the drawer, toward the back, and found what he was looking for.

Anna had joked that, in the movies, after a boy told a girl she was his soulmate, he would ask her to marry him. Although he had deflected the comment with a kiss, for just a heartbeat, he thought she had somehow tripped, fallen, and landed in his sock drawer. He had managed to compose himself, but now, his overstimulated, paranoid brain needed to make sure she hadn’t actually found what he was holding.

He looked over his shoulder, and then carefully opened the velvet box in his hand. The ring he had bought was still there, the question within it. All he had to do was choose a day to ask.

[krreader]

BTS scenario → you meeting ghost!bts in a haunted house.

pairing: ghost!bts x reader fandom: bts warnings: non idol!au ; supernatural!au ; language ; mentions of masturbation ; mentions of sex genre: fluff ; crack ; hints of angst ; hints of smut 

a/n: I really really hope this is what you had in mind and that you like it love ♥

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kim seokjin

“Haunted house,” you murmured to yourself in annoyance as you put down your sleeping bag in this dirty, old room, “I hate them for making me do this.”

“It's not that dirty, I just cleaned!” Jin said, his hands on his waist as if he was outraged by that statement.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” you immediately jumped to the side, so scared that you actually slipped and fell to the floor, staring at the guy who hadn't been here a moment ago. You would have noticed someone like him standing in your room, “Who the fuck are you?!”

“I'm the ghost that lives here, obviously. You can call me Jin. Or worldwide handsome. I'd like to think I'm still incredibly good looking, even after death,” he smirked.

For a second you just stared at him, then you furrowed your eyebrows and then you finally got up, crossing your arms over your chest, “Okay, which one of those fuckers set you up to this? Was it Tae? Emily? Or maybe Mark?”

“Are those your friends? I tried to say hi to them too, but one of them fell unconscious, the other one ran away and the third peed in his pants.”

Everything inside your body screamed to run too, but what came out of your mouth instead was: “Who peed himself? It was Mark, wasn't it?”

Jin grinned happily, “Do you want to see for yourself?”

Again, the intelligent option was to run, not to follow the ghost downstairs, but oh well.. that's what you did. You followed him.

And after that day, he followed you everywhere you went, because you actually ended up befriending him.

min yoongi

“Who even still does these things? It's so stupid,” you mumbled, continuing to undress yourself until you were standing in front of the mirror only in your underwear.

“You'd be surprised how many people come here, but you're by far the hottest.”

You smirked, not looking up as you replied: “I told you not to spy on me, didn't..-” but when you looked at the person in your bedroom and it turned out to be not your friend, but someone you had never seen before, you let out a scream and pressed a shirt against your breasts.

“Ah come on.. you're blocking the view!”

“Who the fuck are you, creep?! Get out of here, or my friends will kill you!”

“I'm already dead, sweetheart,” Yoongi shrugged and continued munching on popcorn. Only that the popcorn seemed to fall right through him.

“Wh..- What?”

“It's a haunted house, idiot. It's haunted for a reason.”

“It's a rumor! These things are never true, there aren't any ghosts and especially not ones that look like you!”

“Look like.. me?” Yoongi wiggled his eyebrows, getting up and floating towards you, something that made you stumble back until you hit the wall behind you, “Elaborate.”

“This isn't real.. this isn't real.. this isn't..-” but when something cold suddenly touched your arm, you screamed again and ran downstairs.

This was very real.

And Yoongi would enjoy this weekend having you around.

jung hoseok

“I'm a ghost!” Hoseok said with excitement as you looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“Uh-huh. And I'm a vampire.”

“Really?” his eyes widened, “Do you guys actually drink blood or is that just another stereotype? Because see, we don't really look like the ghosts in the movies either.”

“Yeah.. you.. look very real. You know, with your gorgeous nose, your beautiful lips, your amazing body..-”

“Stop it!” he scolded, “Ghosts and humans can't have sex, but if you keep this up I'll get a boner and the last time I got one it took me forty hours to get rid of it.”

“Seriously?!” you wanted to approach him and your hands seemed to try to touch his body just because curiosity got the best of you. And even if he couldn't really feel it, he could feel the warmth. And warmth was.. deadly when it came down to not getting boners. And that said something, because he was already dead.

And so in the end, it wasn't like he anticipated, you didn't run away from him, but he ran away from you.

And that had never happened before in his past 400 years.

kim namjoon

Namjoon didn't want to scare you. He wanted to have you here for as long as possible. So what he did instead was write messages in the dust, just small messages that made you think it was your friends that left them.

“You're beautiful,” you read out loud, chuckling a little, “Creepy as fuck, but also very sweet, whoever is writing them.”

He continued doing so for the entire weekend. It was only by the end that you realized something was off and that this wasn't your friends, because none of them were as nice as this person..

And maybe because of the approach that he took, you weren't scared when you asked him: “I know you're a ghost or.. something like it. And I assume there's a reason you've been hiding from me but.. I'd really like to meet you.”

There was a moment of silence, your heart beating so fast in your chest that you were afraid it would jump out.

And when you turned around, there he was.

He didn't look scary at all, instead, he looked ethereal. Like a god..

“I'm.. Namjoon.”

“An angel?”

“A ghost,” he chuckled, “But thanks for that compliment, I appreciate it.”

At first you had hated coming here, but after this encounter, you found yourself doing so whenever you could and Namjoon was really grateful for it.

park jimin

You had been drinking way too much tonight, nothing really mattered, not even what stood in front of you.

“I used to hold my liquor quite well when I was still alive and let me tell you, you're horrible at it.”

“Are you.. shading me?”

“I might be,” Jimin shrugged and joined you in the kitchen, pointing at the half empty bottle of alcohol, “I'd love to drink it myself but it wouldn't do much if I tried, so.. have another drink on me?”

You were so wasted that you didn't even really question half of the things he did. You didn't realize that he just flew through the kitchen counter, you didn't realize that he didn't look alive and you didn't realize what he had just told you.

Instead you downed the next shot glass and grinned triumphantly at him.

“This one was for you!”

Jimin started laughing, “You're the most fun person I ever encountered in the last 500 years. Let's be friends!”

“Sure, buddy. Friends.”

And that's how your friendship with Jimin the ghost had started. Because you were so fucking drunk that you couldn't even tell that he had been a ghost and afterwards it wasn't scary anymore.

kim taehyung

“Wait, wait, wait, reverse,” you said, shaking your head, “You've been haunting this house only for a year? But they said it's been haunted for over 200?”

“Oh yeah, that was the guy before me. I died a year ago not far from here, so they figured they'd give him a break and put me here.”

“They?”

“The people in charge,” Taehyung shrugged, “I never see them, they just kind of guide us to where we need to go and then lock us in here.”

“That’s.. horrible!” you furrowed your eyebrows, “That's so unfair! You shouldn't be stuck in here, you should be free!”

“That's very sweet of you, but..-”

However, you were already coming up with a plan, “No, absolutely not. I will not accept that life after death is about entertaining teenagers with hormone problems.”

“And what do you want to do about it?”

“I probably can't bring you back to life, but maybe we can figure out how to get you into a peaceful afterlife.. if we work together. You, on the death side, me on the living one.”

“Like a.. team,” he beamed.

“Exactly! We're a team!”

jeon jeongguk

Your friends had wanted this trip to this haunted house, had set everything up to watch a horror movie in it and now they had all fallen asleep and the only one who was watching it was you, the one who didn’t even want to come here in the first place.

You kept munching on your popcorn, your eyes so focused on the screen that you didn't notice someone pop up next to you.

“Can I have some?” a voice asked. You didn't properly listen, didn't realize the voice didn't belong to any of your friends, just held out the bowl, “Actually.. can you feed me? I'm having trouble with my hands.”

“Why? Jerking off too..- holy fuck!” you didn't scream, but your eyes did widen as you stared at the boy next to you that clearly was a ghost.

You've been watching horror movies for the past three hours, you could tell.

“I can't even do that anymore,” Jeongguk sighed, “The last time I had an orgasm was right before I died..”

“Did you.. die because of sex?” you furrowed your eyebrows.

“No, but that would've been a lot more fun,” the guy chuckled, “You're not afraid of me though.. how come?”

“I don't know,” you said honestly, still staring at him, “You don't seem like a scary ghost. Or one that wants to hurt me. Fuck, you asked me to feed you popcorn. How bad can you be?”

Jeongguk smiled from ear to ear, “You're really cool.”

“Thanks.. I think,” this was so weird, but also.. kind of awesome.

[sheonvinyl]

the snl standby line ~experience~

um. wow.....

so i’m making this post mostly for myself and to have a documentation of these memories while its all still pretty fresh in my brain, but i figured i would share it on here too just in case anyone wanted to read it or chat about it all w me. (side note: if u were in the line too PLS hit me up we MUST discuss)

basically, long story short is my friend and i slept on the streets of nyc for three nights in below freezing degree weather, got standby tickets for the live show and were able to get in......like i was THERE. for the snl LIVE taping. 

feel free to keep reading below the break if you want an extremely detailed description of the whole ordeal and my personal experience that no one asked for dsjkhfksdjh

to be frank our journey did not start out as we had originally planned lmao. when harry announced that he was doing double duty my friend and i immediately were like. let’s start planning bc we’re 100% going. that resulted in a lot of amazon prime orders and reading up on blogs about tips and tricks in order to plan. we were trying to gauge how far in advance we were going to have to get in line in order to have a good chance. we got a lot of our info from a twitter account/blog run by these three women who have been to every show this season and been in the standby line every week so we trusted their advice. they have been so many times that they apparently have a relationship with the security ppl and are in contact with them. and obviously since it was harry this week, there was a lot more buzz about it and higher stakes of actually getting a ticket. people had been tweeting about lining up on MONDAY in order to be in the front of the line. this account reached out to people and nbc and said that security didn’t want anyone lining up before thursday and if people did, they would be asked to leave and not allowed to get back in line again. finding this out made us panic a bit bc we didn’t want to get thrown out for breaking the rules or anything like that. we originally decided to finish up our days at our internships on wednesday, head back to our apartment, gather up all our supplies and head to 30 roc around 10 so that we could be ready to get in line at midnight aka when it would officially be thursday. 

however, when i woke up wedensday morning amidst all the news about harry’s tour dates etc. there was an update that there were ~20ish people in line already. and that set us into a panic. we were confused if they were going to be thrown out or not bc they lined up before thursday, but periodically as we checked throughout the day security didn’t seem to be doing anything about it. so we made the decision to get to the line as quickly as possible after work. not sure i’ve ever moved faster in my life than i did when i got home and immediately threw anything i thought would be remotely useful into my duffle bag. the state of my room right now? despicable.

we make it to the line a little bit after 8 pm and after an initial assessment, we were around #70-80 in line. and based on that, we decided to stay and set up camp bc we thought our chances were pretty good. (for reference: when the standby tickets were handed out on saturday morning, we were 86th and 87th in line so the number definitely fluctuated based on when people counted us and people maybe being in the bathroom during the count etc.)

everyone around us in line was super super super nice and the ppl we met thru it will def be homies for life. we went through too much together not to be bonded for life ksjdhfksdh. shout out to aisha @teafull​ specifically !!!! we really did that luv......miss u and kristina already babes xoxoxox

wednesday night was definitely the worst sleeping-wise. our set up originally was a waterproof tarp on the ground and then a yoga mat that my friend used as a bed and then our two camping chairs next to the yoga mat. for the first night, i slept in the camping chairs using one to sit in and having my legs propped up on the other one. we each had two blankets and were wearing more layers than i could ever count. we bought a shitton of feet warmers, toe warmers and hand warmers in preparation, but we didn’t really get the hang of using them until the second and third night lol. i woke up probably every hour and a half on wednesday night bc i was either uncomfortable or just so unbearably cold. every time i woke up i made sure to move my toes around bc i was so paranoid i was going to get frostbite lmao. 

thursday was better. we actually got the hang of the hand and feet warmers!! we figured out that if we were wearing shoes they didn’t really work because they were being suffocated and they needed to be in open air to work properly. they worked exponentially better if we didn't wear shoes bc they were exposed to the cold air and heated up really well so that’s a useful piece of information out of this i guess?? sdjhkds. at this point i think there were about 150 people in line. the line wrapped from the back of the nbc building on 6th ave/avenue of the americas around to w 48th street as far as the nintendo store which ends right at the today show plaza (and it got even longer over the next two days). 

one of the worst things about the whole experience would probably have to be the incessant comments from passerbys on the street. they would look at us and speak about us as if we weren’t there. they would also film or take photos of us in the LEAST discreet ways possible which was very irritating. and made me feel like a literal zoo animal on display. i heard comments like “they know the show is on SATURDAY right?”, “they’re doing all of this for that one guy from one direction?”, “do your parents know you’re doing this?”, “you’ve got to be kidding me”, “they’re going to freeze to death for not even a guaranteed ticket to see this guy” and by far the absolute worst one and most offensive thing i heard, “they’re like the modern day homeless”. i could go on a whole separate tangent about this because it makes me so FUCKING angry, but i was very close to confronting some people because of the impeccably inconsiderate, insensitive and blatantly classist comments people were making straight to our faces. additionally some people in line were being harassed by people from radio stations (or people posing as employees of radio stations) that clearly had the agenda of making it seem like fans of harry are dumb and unaware of world issues etc. you can read a more well-written and detailed account about it all on aj’s blog here. but i’ll reiterate that they definitely chose the wrong group to mess with!! the issue was dealt with in record time and i’m proud of and thankful for all the people who stood up to that asshole and put him in his place. he deserved it.

i slept the best on thursday night into friday. probably because i finally had the common sense to buy GLOVES (someone lmk why i thought it was okay to come without them ??? ) as well as buy an extra blanket at a barnes and noble nearby. one of my roommates was also kind enough to bring me her yoga mat and two extra pairs of pants to add to my layers. those two extra layers 100% made a difference. not much happened in the line on friday besides a little bit of drama between a couple of girls at the front of the line who apparently left for 10+ hours that day and (to my knowledge) weren’t kicked out of the line. i don’t want to speak too much on it because i wasn’t directly involved in any of it and only heard it by word of mouth. however, i will say i think there was definitely some suspicious activity from some people that were in line who were for example, using lawn chairs (which are specifically prohibited on the snl webpage) and abusing their break times. 

at 7 pm on friday, the line was shifted so that the beginning of it started at the doors to the nbc studio. i think they do this mainly so that the pages who hand out the standby tickets have easier access to the line? but i’m not positive. our new area was now on 6th ave, smack dab in front of the rear end of 30 roc, basically where the line had originally started. with the amount of people in line (probably around 200 or so at this point on friday) it STILL wrapped around to west 48th even after the shift. and then not even 20 minutes after they moved us was when snl interns came down with CARTS of slices of WATERMELON and CHERRIES !!!!!!! when i tell you i lost it.....

i didn’t get a good picture of the cherries but you get the idea. one of the interns giving us info about what was going on said that harry “was very specific about giving you guys cherries and watermelon” sjkdfhksdjh. and because of his previous behavior w the kiwis i was like....well he’s not playing watermelon sugar then we’re just going to have to prepare for something else. and let me tell you, i have never been more happy to be wrong in my entire LIFE. 

additionally, a couple of men, who i believe worked for snl or nbc, came around with carts of soup for all of us. they didn't confirm or deny that harry sent them (which makes me think he probably didn’t), but the two options were either chicken and sausage or split pea. yes, that’s correct. SPLIT. PEA. when they told me that, i shrieked in their faces, “YOU’VE GOT TO BE JOKING” and they just looked at me so weirdly and go, “......no? like which one do you want......” skdjhfkjsdh. they definitely thought i was absolutely off my rocker (which i certainly was, but that’s besides the point). i’m pescatarian so i chose split pea, and if there’s one thing to know about me it’s that i absolutely ABHOR peas, but i ate it anyway. i had to use all of the oyster crackers as well as some pretzel crisps that i brought with me as a snack in order to make it bearable LMAO. however, regardless of if harry sent it himself, it was a really nice gesture and i’m thankful that they were kind enough to provide us with some food. the snl staff also sent down hot chocolate and coffee and pizza over the course of the three days which was very much appreciated as well!

we were a lot less separated in our new spot on 6th ave so everyone in line was able to hang out with each other a lot more which as really fun!! a girl near us had brought cards against humanity and a group of 7 of us played for what felt like over an hour or so which was really good time. aisha won and no, i am not salty about it at all !!!!!1!1!11!11!!!! 

it was really difficult to sleep that night as well because we were on a much busier road with a lot more lights. it also felt colder and windier despite windscreens that staff put up around our barricades (see the poor quality pic of my friend and i with one of them below LOL). i think everyone was really on edge for the next morning so i’m sure that didn’t help with sleeping either. we settled down to go to bed a little past midnight and i woke up at least three times throughout the night to readjust my blankets and sleeping position or check the time.

finally saturday morning came. my friend had to shake me awake at 6:30 am bc i was finally able to doze off again, but the panic in me immediately activated and i was UP and ready to go. we still hadn't come to a full decision on if we were going to choose dress rehearsal or live yet so we were definitely on edge. we basically wanted to wait until the pages came to us and ask them how many people chose live vs. dress so that we could choose the show we were more likely to get into. however, deep inside i know that we both desperately wanted tickets to the live show. we had been keeping track of other people who were farther up in the line via their socials and seeing what they were choosing too. surprisingly (at least to me), a lot of people ahead of us decided to choose dress rehearsal rather than live. in theory, it makes sense because you’d hopefully get to see more sketches that might get cut for time as well as “spend more time” w harry. my friend and i (who is probably the biggest snl fan on the planet, no lie) would’ve been happy with either, but we both definitely wanted to witness the show that everyone else was going to watch on tv. 

when the pages got to us we found out that it was basically split 50/50. an equal amount of people decided to do live vs. dress. for either show we chose, we would’ve been in the 40s for our standby ticket number. and because of that, we decided to SEND IT and sign up for tickets for the live show (and partly because all our friends in line were also sending it w the live show too!!!). we were tickets #41 and #42 and we honestly felt really really good about it, but we didn’t want to discuss it too much or get our hopes up in the event that it didn’t end up working out. 

after that, the actual standby line experience was basically over. we IMMEDIATELY grabbed all our stuff and ubered back to our apartment. our roommates were already up and they greeted us with lights up blasting through our alexa akjhfkdfh. saturday was also conveniently my university’s homecoming weekend, and as seniors in college, my friend and i felt that it was important for us to go. i won’t go into too much detail about it bc that’s not really the point of this whole post, but my friend and i REALLY had ourselves a DAY on saturday. i actually don’t know how we pulled this off. we ended up showering for probably 40 minutes each to scrub the grime off our body and then day drank from 11:30 to maybe 5 pm........like??? whomst???? luckily, i was able to squeeze in a nap before we had to start getting ready for check in at 10 pm back at 30 roc, but i was 110% hungover when i woke up. 

we got to 30 roc at around 9:30 and were told to go to the nbc store to check in. from there they cross-checked the name on your ID and name on your ticket and then lined you up in order based on your ticket number. i don’t think i realized how many people actually ended up lining up for the standby line until we were there....people had ticket numbers all the way up #267 or something. that’s CRAZY!! after a bit of waiting (maybe half an hour?) a security guy came out and told us that they were going to starting bringing the group up into the corridor and get the process moving. he made it clear that this wasn’t a guarantee to get in. the first 40 were taken and then after about 5 minutes they sent probably the next 40 or so (including us in the front of that second group). from there, we did a security check and waited in the hallway outside the peacock lounge (anyone who’s been to a taping of snl, jimmy fallon or seth meyers might know what i’m talking about). while waiting there we saw a few people trickle in and go through a security check as well. those people included zoey deutch (!!!!!!) - who was rocking this INSANE red plaid suit combo as well as the cutest bob i’ve ever seen - as well as GLENNE aka jeff’s wife who was also serving looks™️ with her outfit. 

security then moved us farther down the hallway closer to the elevators and this is where we all started getting really nervous. i had no concept of time bc my phone was running out of battery and i turned it off bc i was paranoid if they saw it they would ask me to leave skdjhfs. it was only a matter of minutes before we knew if we were going to make it in or not. the staff had us line up two by two and kept counting and recounting us. then one of them grabbed a stack of wristbands and counted us one last time before he stopped at ticket #30 and said “congratulations all of you have a seat in the show”. the energy in the room was SO CHARGED. he was handing out their tickets and was urging them to put them on as quickly as possible and then they were ushered into the elevators. side note: there’s rumors that lorne michaels (creator and head of snl) reserves 30 seats specifically for the standby line. so that might be why he originally stopped at ticket #30.

my friend and i were holding each others hands as if our lives depended on it bc it was really make it or break it at this point. a couple minutes later he goes down the line again while counting us and stops after maybe 15-20 people behind us and again goes “congratulations, you have a seat in the show”. my legs literally almost gave out. my friend couldn’t speak to me bc she was trying so hard to hold in her sobs. i had to put on her wristband for her bc her hands were shaking so much LMAO. they quickly usher us into the elevator and as soon as the doors close all of us in the elevator start screaming and cheering bc WE MADE IT!!! but we quickly quiet down because we had been told beforehand that if we were excessively screaming during the show that we would be removed. i’m pretty sure that during dress rehearsal the staff said someone was shouting distracting comments at harry during the pauses and they were kicked out. someone else was also kicked out for drinking which......blows my mind. but anyway.

when they elevator doors open we are ushered SO FAST into the studio and into seats. i almost got split up from my friend bc the page tried to sit me in a single seat and i was like “no no no, i’m with her”. luckily they were able to sit us together on the back wall of the section that was facing front. they weren’t actual seats, but rather a large cushioned bench. most of our standby line peeps were sat in the right-most section of the studio which was sad that we couldn’t sit next to everyone, but also glad that my friend and i were sat together. 

the taping started no more than 10 minutes after we got there. it all happened so quick and i don’t think i’ve really fully processed everything that happened. i won’t talk too much about the sketches because you can all just watch them yourself but i’ll talk a little bit about some of the behind the scenes things that we witnessed. 

1. the way in which harry RAN between scenes and sketches was INSANE sdkfjhsdkjfh. right after the monologue he basically LUNGED off stage. a staff member (i think its a woman who does wigs for the snl cast) was moving so fast past the main stage after the cameras cut that from what i saw, the way harry had moved so quickly made her TRIP and harry IMMEDIATELY scooped her up basically DRAGGED her backstage skjdfhksjdhfdjkshk. it all happened so fast i still can’t tell if i imagined it happening or not but it was crazy. either way, harry was on the MOVE. 

2. one of my fav sketches by far was the lamaze class one. harry did SUCH A GOOD JOB SFKHSKJDHFSD especially w the accent????? (he actually did so many accents throughout the show i’m so proud of him). he broke a little bit during the lamaze one but as far as i remember that’s the only time he broke?? which??? that’s honestly impressive, especially for the sketches/jokes they were doing (don’t even get me started on the Sara Lee sketch....). also i wasn’t openly jealous of heidi gardiner because of how harry was holding her and caressing her but i was jealous. i will not speak more on this topic.

3. the slow/ballad version of lights up.............BREATHTAKING. there was not a sound in that studio literally everyone was so mesmerized by it. it was honestly gorgeously performed and the back up vocalists did SUCH and amazing job!! the music stage wasn’t really near us but we still had a good view of harry himself and THAT OUTFIT. it was......chefs kiss.

4. when the ballerina photos came up on the screen there was an audible GASP that ran through the audience. i shrieked. i almost grabbed the woman’s hand whom was sitting next to me and i did not know. that is all. 

5. WATERMELON SUGAR !!!!!!?!?!?!??!?!!!!!!!! y’all. have i got a story for you. when the drums hit right before the first “high” my friend and i went FERAL. we were on the edges of our seat the WHOLE song. i had such the urge to stand up and dance but we couldn’t out of fear of getting kicked out ksjhdfkjhs. the entire song we had our hands in the air grooving to it, i was flailing my limbs as MUCH AS I POSSIBLY COULD to jam out to it. additionally, if you watch the performance back you can actually see that harry’s hands are shaking and he’s fiddling with his soundbox on his back during the beginning of the song. we’re pretty sure that his earpiece wasn’t working so he was freaking out a bit. he started to dance a little, but you can kind of tell that he was a bit stiff, maybe because of nerves. then at one point, he looks to someone off stage to his right and he smiles at them and laughs a bit to himself. after that, he starts looking around at the audience up above and there are times that harry looks over to his left EXACTLY in the direction of where my friend and i were sitting/dancing. my friend who has literally ANALYZED this performance from watching it so many times claims that 2:15 is the exact moment that he looks over sees us flailing our entire bodies. and right after he looks over is when he really starts moving and grooving himself and appearing to look a bit more comfortable. while we don’t know FOR SURE if he really did see us or started dancing bc he saw us jamming out, i do want to mention that we were literally the ONLY people in the studio moving like that. we were in the back corner by the sound guy and one of the exits and sitting next to a middle aged married couple who were looking at us like we were certifiably crazy. we had a view of almost everyone in the audience because we were in the last row and as far as we could tell, we were the only ones that were jamming out as hard as we were. so take with that what you will. but from this time forward, i will go on with my life believing that my uncontrollable bodily reactions to hearing watermelon sugar LIVE perhaps made dear harold feel a little less nervous and more comfortable to do his thang :-)))))

i don’t think i’ve clapped harder for anything in my life than i did when he finished performing watermelon sugar and when he signed off the show. i teared up watching him go around to his band and all the cast members giving them the BIGGEST hugs. you can clearly tell that every single person on that cast had the best time with him this week. heidi and cecily both mentioned in their instagram posts about how agreeable he was to everything and how he has to come back to host again. it was clear that he had SUCH a fun experience and he did SO WELL!!!!! i have no doubt in my mind that he is going to host (or do double duty) again at some point in the future. so to those who were in the standby line and didn’t make it in to the taping for live or dress, don’t lose faith. there will for SURE be another opportunity to do this whole thing again. i am so so proud of everyone who was brave enough to face the elements for even a chance to get a standby ticket over these past couple days. you’re all so strong and such warriors. this is certainly not the last time he’ll be doing this. 

as grueling and testing as the whole camping out on the streets and standby ticket experience was, i would do it all over again in a heartbeat. i’m a senior in college and was privileged enough to be able to skip some classes and call out of work in order to do this. i figured that this time in my life is probably one of the only chances where i’ll be able to actually drop everything and sleep on the streets for three days to see one of my favorite people in the world. and in the end, it was all worth it. i couldn’t be prouder of harry and what an amazing job he did last night. this journey is something that i will cherish forever (and will definitely be telling my kids about in the future).

feel free to message me or drop in my inbox if you have questions or want to come chat about it all ! thanks to anyone who actually had the patience to read this whole thing. i’m so sorry for how unbearably long this was dkjfhsdkjhsdk. much love to you all. treat people with kindness :-)

[hardeepcox]

Visa Run #3

 Before I start this, I want to add that during Visa Run#2 my dad, Poomi and I found May at the Foxzee’s bargirl place. Business was dead though because of Chinese New Year and actually it felt pretty awkward. I also want to add May had acquired a laugh that seemed more like a maniacal cackle, true story. Seems hilarious now though oh my god. May and I had been messaging every now and then so we stayed somewhat in touch, but when we met this time the atmosphere just felt really awkward. She told me how less fat I now looked and then invited me to play pool. She destroyed me in the first game. We had a re-match, and the bar boss then told her to let me win (thanks for the intel Poomi [he understands Thai]). Dude I am so bad at pool that I actually sunk the 8 ball too early and managed to lose again. I give up at pool, another awkward beer later, I can hear Poomi’s soul faintly saying “true…. yup….” (this is his catch phrase and also the mantra that I mentally tell myself to be chill). He’s bored, and honestly so am I and my dad. We end up spending that night roaming around and drinking beer in random places, pretty chill.

  Okay the ACTUAL Visa Run #3

This was my third and final visa run thus far. And for some reason I found myself going to Bangkok ALONE.

 The dumbass company that I work for (whose name I won’t say but rhymes with ee em gee) said we had to go to a capital city to get our new visas, we couldn’t go to the Cambodian border and get new visas like literally every other English teacher in the city. This then became my one shot at exploring Bangkok again on my own and getting to know this city better.

 Day 1 The first stupid thing I did.

 I didn’t know that there was a metro train going straight from the Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok to my hotel, so I got stuck in multiple cabs during rush hour, got sent to the wrong address, and walked for over an hour while dragging my carry-on luggage. Yeah it sucked but dammit it looked so cool. After walking under and over a sketchy bridge or two, I finally got to my hotel. Damn it actually looked pretty nice, well on the outside at least. I definitely killed a few roaches in my room that night. I only had 2 nights so I planned to make the most of it.

 The second stupid thing I did.

I went to the one place that I had only heard about in legends… Nana Plaza. I was now experienced in the partying ways of Thailand, these guys don’t fuck around. I took a Grab motorbike taxi to the place, and the driver drops me off right outside the beginning of a street full of bars. They seem to be stemming from this big place that looks like an outdoor shopping center at your local suburban neighborhood, except for all of the stores were replaced with strip-clubs. Read that again, and nope I am actually not exaggerating. Imagine an outdoors shopping center where you would expect to see Baby Gap, Auntie Annes, Toys r Us Express, Hallmark, CVS Pharmacy, and a local tae-kwon-do dojo, but they have all been replaced by strip-clubs. Yeah and lots of red colored lights. I took a lap around the bar in the center, and the music was absolutely pumping in every single one of the surrounding rooms. I walked up to the second floor, and it got a bit more intense. I think or at least it seemed to me like this floor was the ladyboy floor. Two ladyboys would stand by the entrance to the bars and hit you with something, like a small whip or something. Not my thing, if you’re into this kind of stuff, well then hey you do you bro. Nana’s Plaza is a bit much for me at the moment so I step out to see some of the smaller local bars. My method of choosing which bar to enter first is to listen for the one that starts playing reggaeton first. A couple beers later I’m kinda tipsy, so I go BACK into Nana’s Plaza. I somehow stumble straight in and a lady tries to pull my arm. “Real girls here in this bar” she says. I reply, “what about that bar straight ahead?” She goes “I don’t know.” My drunk logic says this person is trying to reverse-psychology my ass, I’m going straight into the ‘I don’t know room,’ fuck it. She lady is surprised while I zoom past her into this unknown abyss.

I walk into this room, and I see a stage with a pole with a bunch of girls dancing. I take a seat right in front of them, which I usually refer to as the “splash-zone.” I sit down and order a local beer, probably a Chang, and suddenly all the girls that were dancing began to line-up in a horizontal line in front me and give me the sad puppy eyes. They want me to choose one to sit next to me. I go “hey actually I just wanna drink my beer.” They try to look even sadder and bummed out. I try to ignore them. After a couple awkward sips of my beer I figure well I guess I’m supposed to actually choose one in this place. So I pick the one that I think is the hottest. She’s happy that I chose her and she sits on my left. Immediately she grabs my left hand, puts it over shoulder, under her bra, and suddenly I’m holding her boob. I was like damn that was quick uhh I’ll just keep chillin and sipping on my beer. She tells me she’s a university student, and some point makes a comment that I find confusing. I don’t remember what she said, but my response to that was “wait…. Is this a ladyboy bar?” She says yep and laughs her ass off. I go “wait so all those hot girls on-stage are actually dudes?” She says yep. I go “ohhhh… okay then cheers!” And we have a beer. I look across the room and I notice that the bartenders are also ladyboys, but not the kind that look like supermodels. They are just regular dudes, with guts, who want to be women. At that point I realize that being a ladyboy is not necessarily just about transforming yourself into a supermodel, some dudes just want to be chicks. And hey I can respect that. You do you bro. Anyways, my ladyboy then says, “hey I have milk too.” I say, “shut up no you don’t.” She goes, “wanna see?” I reply, “um fuck YES.” The ladyboy pulls down her bra, squeezes her nipple, and a few drops of white liquid come out. I’m like “duuddeeee that’s fucking awesome!” and I give her a high-five. She asks me, “wanna taste?” I say “dude fuck youuu” and we are hysterically laughing our asses off. Then she decides to take it up a notch and asks me if I wanna take her back to my place for 3000 baht. I say nah sorry I’m not into that. She replys, “oh it’s your first time? Okay then half price.” I say, “nahh sorry I’m not down.” Eventually she gives up and start to go back with the rest of the ladyboys. Before she leaves she says “can I get a tip?” I had already paid for the beers so I was like, “why?” But I just want to leave so I give her a 100 baht so she can go away. She then says, “can I have 200 baht more? I want to buy food.” I say “uh hell no.” She smiles and slithers back into the darkness. And I proceed to get the hell out of that place.

 The third stupid thing I did.

 I was hungry, and I was determined to eat some mozzarella chicken at Family Mart. I walked around Bangkok drunk as hell, through random streets, looking for a Family Mart. I find nothing but back to back 7-elevens and I am so incredibly annoyed. I eventually give up and get some basil rice with chicken at a 7-eleven. After over an hour of roaming around the city and looking for Family Mart, I hail a street taxi and head back to the hotel. Day 1, complete.

 Funny enough… in the morning I walk outside my hotel and there is a fucking Family Mart literally across the street. I scurry my way across the street and go into Family Mart, mozzarella chicken here I come! I then realize, they only serve this dish in Vietnamese Family Mart… not Thai Family Mart… fuck me.

 Damn Bangkok, you always find a way to surprise me you sly bastard.

 *I forgot to mention that earlier during Day 1, I had to stop by the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok to get a new Visa. This was the whole reason of me being in Bangkok in the first place. The office which handles Visa applications is literally a hole in the wall, literally dude. And what’s funny is that it’s located in a reallyyyy nice part of town. It honestly felt like Northwest Washington DC, but of course the hole in the wall just felt like an actual hole.*

  Day 2

 I decide to explore the city on foot. As I stroll around, I see my hotel is located on Sukhumvit 71, near a Muslim community on one side and a bargirl community on the other side. Super interesting, I hadn’t seen this often in Asia except for in some streets near Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City. I ordered a coffee, I think the lady was a Thai Muslim and she was super nice. But of course… no coffee will ever compare to Vietnamese coffee, the best in the fucking world. I only drink milk-coffee, for some reason it tastes like home. I explore a bit more and I notice the metro station is literally next to my hotel. Jesus I’m an idiot, but okay lesson learned. Anyways I can walk for hours, so I keep going like the energizer bunny. I get some spicy Thai food near a gas station, it was like spicy garlic chicken with rice, veggies, and a fried egg on top. Dope. I crushed it. My mouth was on fire and I was craving caffeine again so I walked to a nearby coffee shop and sipped on some damn good local coffee. I used the coffee shop’s wifi and I called a Grab taxi to take me to Sukhumvit road near the Hilton to reminisce the good old times I had previously had with my dad, Paper, and later on Poomi. I get there and I am walking for hours again, enjoying every second of it. I get lost, and suddenly come across different streets that I have seen before during my previous trips. I am absolutely loving this, downtown Bangkok is becoming more and more familiar. Also keep in mind that I am eating random foods along the way. Damn downtown Bangkok is amazing, I estimate it’s about 20 years ahead of Ho Chi Minh City in regards to development. Sky train, subway, and advanced technology every step of the way. As I continue roaming around I start to feel tired and I think about going back home, also I’m full. SUDDENLY. I find myself resting on a walking bridge in between two shopping malls, and I see a fucking TACO BELL! Dude! My first Taco Bell outside of the US! I rushed in there and ordered a taco combo meal with beef. So full but so worth it. I decided to keep walking so I could burn at least 2% of the calories I had been consuming that day. It starts getting dark out, and I can feel the vibe of the city changing. When the lights go out in this concrete jungle, the night beings come out to chill. I only have this evening left in this trip so I decide to make the most of it, let’s go to Soi Cowboy!

 I start walking towards Soi Cowboy on foot (soi means “side street” in Thai), and now it’s dark. Tons of working girls are sitting on the sidewalks, all trying to get your attention. The streets definitely feel more intense than in the morning and afternoon. I keep walking and walking, and eventually I make it! I start walking towards Soi Cowboy and along the way there is a little bar next to the street playing some rock music that catches my attention. I decide to keep this spot in mind. I walk into Soi Cowboy. This shit feels really intense when you go alone, and the strippers or ladyboys are out on the street pulling people into their bars. I decide that I had enough of this shit last night, I’m going back to that street bar I just walked by. I walk to the street bar, get a chair, and start sipping on a Chang beer. Two older ladies are working there and letting the customers choose the songs. Dude if you let me DJ at a bar you KNOW I’m gonna play reggaeton, 100% chance. One lady has good English so we are chatting, the other lady doesn’t speak much English so she sits behind me and starts massaging my shoulders. This lady massaged my entire upper body while I sat there that night, I never even asked for a massage. These ladies are bar-ladies, so they will ask you to buy them drinks. I figure ah hell why not, it’s my last night and I am actually having a good time! We must have been like 4 or 5 beers in when the massage lady says, “hey choose any bottle and I’ll buy you a shot.” I know what’s going down… these ladies are trying to get me to blackout! I, having much experience in blacking out, have an idea. Most Asian girls that I’ve met don’t know much about the strength of liquor/spirits, whatever you want to call it. I look at the options: vodka, tequila, gin, absinthe, jagermeister, you know… the classics! Somehow, I notice a lonely bottle of Malibu, this is a fruity flavored rum with a relatively low alcohol percentage. These ladies don’t know the difference between Malibu and Jose Cuervo, so I order a bitch shot of coconut Malibu and gulp it down. The ladies then expected me to blackout any minute…. Any minute now….. umm…. Anyyyy minute now?! Nope. I was just tipsy and feeling good! So I decide okay I’ll call it a night, time to call Grab. I get the bill it was about 3000 baht! Ouch, but I had a good time so it’s cool. Then the lady with good English asks me, “would you like to take my friend home?” She was referring to the massage lady, who by the way had already digivolved a couple decades ago. I kindly refused. Then, the massage lady asks me for a tip, she had massaged me over an hour non-stop. By now I was tipsy, but I remembered the ladyboy last night asking me for a tip at Nana’s Plaza twice, and this time I was like aw helll nooo. I didn’t tip the massage lady and she was angry as hell, she wouldn’t even say goodbye to me. I called a Grab bike, and he was out there waiting for me in a crowd full of cabs trying to pick-up other drunk, idiot foreigners. Cab drivers of different ages would stand in my way as I walked to my Grab driver, and me being a drunk asshole was actually shoving them to the side! Haven’t done that ever before or since, but I think I was just drunkenly annoyed at people trying to constantly scam me. I finally find my Grab driver and I hop on.

A slight drizzle begins and I don’t have a raincoat, but damn does it feel amazing. As the motorbike speeds up, the light rain hits my face harder. I open my arms wide like wings and I feel like Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic. I survived day 2, and the next day I had to catch a flight back to Vietnam with a new Visa. Success!

I was supposed to visit Thailand again in June, but yeah goddamn coronavirus hit so… that’s not gonna happen. Until next time Thailand!

[fernwehbookworm]

Woke The F*ck Up- Chapter 1

August 24th, 2009

Kara walked into the high school for the first time. Alex made her go in alone, no way was she going to be associated with a freshman especially not during her Senior year. She looked at the paper in her hand, her class schedule with her locker and combination on it. The hallways were so much bigger than that of the middle school. In this main hall, you could see the balcony of the second floor clinging to the side as the roof soared high above with skylights. Kara gulped and took a deep breath.

“You can do this. It's just another school. A bigger school but school none the less, you like school.” Kara mumbles to herself. She is relieved when she turns a corner and is a normal hallway lined with lockers.

“See you can do this.”

Kara hears a commotion around the next corner. When she turns, right outside her first class, two large guys are shoving a much smaller one back and forth. Another looks to be opening a locker from the paper in his hand.

“Come on Schott. Agree to do our homework this year and this would be so much easier. We won't even tell people here about your dad.” One sneers.

“Guys I can't. I almost failed last year because if you.” The little one cries out.

“Hey!” Kara yells. That gets the bullies attention.

“Got it! Alright, let's see if he fits.” Says the third as he opens the locker, turning to notice the slightly lanky girl now starring them down.

“Get lost. This has got nothing to do with you.”

“I think it does.” Kara steps closer.

That's when one of the guys makes the mistake of grabbing her shoulder. Jeremiah had been taking her to various fighting classes since she was adopted. The therapist had recommended it to help her cope with the loss of her parents and Kara loved it. Loved the control it gave her over her own body when everything else felt like chaos. Her test for her black belt in Karate was next month even.

On instinct, Kara grabbed the wrist and twisted, turning the much larger boy around and forcing him to the ground. He cries out makes a pained expression. The other boys are shocked and then mad.

“Well, now you made me mad.” Said the kid who opened the locker.

Kara twists the arm in her grasp harder, just right before it dislocates she releases and shoves him forward with a foot. He rolls on the ground, clutching at his shoulder. Kara looks up just in time to see the locker kid take a swing, she ducks and shoves the heel of her hand into his exposed nose. Instantly, blood gushes out. The last kid runs at seeing how quickly his friends were dispatched. Kara finally turns to the bullied boy, plastered against the lockers in fear.

“Are you okay?” She asks.

“Y-y-yes. I’m-I’m better than those guys. Who are you?” He asks over the moans of the two remaining bullies.

“Kara Danvers.” She sticks out her hand. He takes it tentatively.

“Winslow Schott. But everyone just calls me Winn.”

“It's nice to meet you.”

“What is going on here!” Roars a tall teacher as he rounds the corner.

He towers over the four students. Kara and Winn are both too shocked to respond.

“All of you, to the principal's office.” The man lifts the boys by their shirts and heards them back the direction Kara came from.

The two boys only get two days of suspension and a week of after school detention because they didn't actually hit anyone, though the cameras caught then shoving Winn around. Kara got a week suspension starting tomorrow. The principal was letting her stay for her first day.

“Thank you for saving me. Those guys have been bullying me for two years. I thought when we got here it would be better.”

“What are friends for?”

“Are we friends then?” Kara laughs.

“Well, I don't get suspended for just anyone. We better be friends. Plus if I'm around those guys probably won't bother you.” Winn grins.

“I just have to make it through a week.”

“I'll have my sister keep an eye on you. She's a senior. She probably won't acknowledge your existence unless you're in trouble though.”

“Thanks, Kara. I'm glad we are friends.”

The new friends walk down the hall for their first day of high school and it feels just a little bit smaller.

***

November 6th, 2013

“Breaking News: Lionel Luthor arrested for using his company Luthor Corp to fund an anti-government campaign and also has financial ties to a massive assassination plot. Evidence of Luthor Corp funds traced to the massive explosion in Washington D.C. that killed over 300 people and led to the hospitalization of 200 more…”

Lena turns off the television in the now basically trashed hotel suite. She didn't care, the label paid for it. Lex had tried to call her. Get her to come home. Trying to say that Dad didn't do it, then saying he was just trying to save the world or some other bull shit. The only thing her already drunk mind could understand was that her family was now fucked beyond repair. Someone passed her a blunt and she took it, inhaling deeply to forget. Forget the fake family of her childhood. That she was the bastard daughter of a madman. That her adoptive mother was cruel. Her brother had loved her in his own way, but he had been much older and didn't understand. She found an out and took it.

Once Lena passes the smoking comfort on to someone else she takes a drink from the Vodka bottle on the table and buries her nose in the neck of the woman next to her. The woman would help her forget too, if only for a few hours. Lena pulls her into the bedroom of the suite and closes the door, ignoring the twenty other nameless people left on the other side.

***

June 20th, 2014

Kara paces the locker room. It's the final match. To win it all. Her nerves felt frayed and she was too anxious to sit and wait. Winn appears with tape to wrap her hands.

“Why?” She asks, trying to distract herself.

“To help keep you from breaking every bone in your hand on her jaw.” Comes Winn's smart-assed comment with a little laugh.

“No, Winn. Why did you follow me? You could have gone to MIT or something but you followed me. Became my assistant trainer. I mean I know you developed all those simulators and different equipment to help me train but you could have done so much with a brain like yours.”

“You might as well ask yourself why you saved me in the hallway then. It's what friends do. Especially best friends. I'm behind you all the way Kara. Win or lose. If you lose we will keep training and try again. If you win, well we will keep training anyway. But I'm behind you one hundred percent. So is your family.” An announcement calling Kara to the ring.

“Are you ready?”

Kara nods. She is. Somehow Winn's little speech was enough. He always had her back and Kara was so glad for that.

***

August 4th, 2017

“Ahh... Hi.”

Lena looks up at the blonde woman now standing over her, coffee cup in hand. Lena closes her notebook and raises an eyebrow to the woman who continues to stand awkwardly next to her table.

“Umm... all the tables are taken up and umm… well… the inside is full too. So do you mind if I sit with you? I mean I guess I could just go home but I was kind of looking forward to reading at my favorite Cafe on a beautiful day like today. But I can just go. I should go. Never mind.” Lena laughs and pushes her glasses back up her nose where they started to slip. She glances around the little patio, separated from the sidewalk by a little black gate. Through the large windows, Lena can see the long line of people and crowded tables because of the peak Saturday morning hours.

“You can sit, as long as you stop talking.”

The woman blushes but sits anyway. Lena opens her notebook and continues writing. The blonde opens her own book and leans back in the chair. Lena tries glancing at this very forward stranger, very aware of how easy it would be for someone to recognize her. The blonde is wearing a pastel peach cardigan over a simple white shirt. Behind the glasses are eyes as blue as the sky on this very morning. A crinkle appears between her eyes as she becomes engrossed in the well-read book. Wizard's First Rule the cover reads. After a few minutes, the other woman pulls out headphones and begins to listen to music. It only takes four seconds for Lena to recognize the song that drifts over to her. She glances back up and taps her pen in front of the blonde. She pulls out one earbud and cocks her head to the side, very much like a puppy.

“Lena Luthor?”

“Yeah. My sister got us tickets to the concert tonight.” The blonde blushes slightly.

“You don’t look like a typical fan.”

“Oh, and what do I look like then?” the blonde challenges.

“Like a ray of sunshine gave birth to a golden retriever puppy.” The women stammers, trying to think of a response.

“Well, I am not a fan. My sister is though and she has wanted to go to a concert for a while. I am just listening so I don’t completely make a fool of myself.” That peaks Lena’s interest.

“And what do you think?” Somehow she feels drawn to knowing what this woman’s opinion is.

“Well, I think she’s talented. Definitely has a varying sound to each song so that they don’t all sound the same.”

“But?” Lena hears it in the sound of her voice.

“But, it's kind of depressing. I mean, when I really start listening to the lyrics I just really want to give her a hug and tell her… well, I don’t know really but she sounds like she needs someone who will be there for her.”

That catches Lena very off guard. This woman in front of her wants to comfort a complete stranger because of a few songs. Lena makes the mistake of looking into her eyes and letting the raw emotion in those blue pools wash over her. Something was tugging at her, something she hadn’t felt in years. That scares Lena. She quickly closes her notebook and clears her throat.

“Well, I am sure she just uses her music to work through things. I am sure she has people…” Lena trails off, feeling the hollowness of her own words. The women across from her nods.

“Yeah of course.”

“What do you listen to then? Probably some top one hundred pop star, maybe a boy band?” Lena says, needing to change the touchy subject.

“Well depends on the playlist. Definitely much happier music and NSYNC will always be my go to.” The blonde says, unashamed.

“Oh no. Now you have to leave my table. This is a Backstreet Boys table.”

That starts a whole argument on which nineties boy band was better. The debate expanded into a top ten. Lena actually lost track of time and couldn’t believe that this rather beautiful woman just sat in front of her and actually made her forget her numbness for a while. Then Lena’s phone starts ringing, shaking them out of the little bubble that had formed around their table in the heart of National City. Lena holds up a finger with an apologetic look.

“Hey, Jess… No, I just lost track of time...No, I can get there...Yes, see you in about half an hour… Bye Jess.”

“You have to go?” The woman looks disappointed.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Okay.” The woman sips at her forgotten coffee, making a face at the surely cold liquid.

“Thank you,” Lena says, knowing this woman wouldn’t know how good this conversation was for her.

“For what?”

“I am not sure. Have fun at your concert tonight.” Lena starts to turn to go.

“Wait!” Lena turns back to the woman suddenly standing. Lena raises an eyebrow.

“Can I umm… see you again?” Lena is caught off guard again by this woman who continues to surprise her.

“I-I won’t be here long. I… travel a lot.” The blonde looks disappointed again.

“Well can I have your name at least?” She tries again. Lena pauses to think then stretches out her hand.

“Elena Colby.” the woman takes it.

“Well, Elena. I’m Kara Danvers. Just so you know, if I see you again, I will take it as fate or destiny or something and I will ask for your number again.” That makes Lena smile.

“Consider me warned.” Lena hails a taxi to take her away before she decides to change her mind.

***

“Ugh Alex, you should have seen her. Even in that sweatshirt and her hair up in a messy bun, she was beautiful. She kept fiddling with her glasses and I swear that laugh should be illegal. And those eyes...” Kara flops on the couch in her sister’s apartment. Alex was changing from her pantsuit in the other room, having had to go to the Bureau to fill out some paperwork this morning. Alex laughs and walks out of her room to sit next to her swooning sister. She is wearing her official black Lena Luthor tour t-shirt. Half of the women’s pale face stares out with a piercing green eye next to bold lettering of her own name.

“Her eyes?” Alex pokes at Kara’s shoulder.

“They were this captivating brown. But…”

“But what?”

“There was something off. I don’t know. But they were sad too. Like I just wanted to hug her.”

“Kara, you want to hug everyone you meet.” Alex teases.

“True, but I wanted to.”

“Yes, you wanted to hug the pretty girl.”

“How’s Detective Sawyer?” Kara flips it back around on Alex.

“Annoying,” Alex grumbles.

“Just because you don’t share cases well. She practically solved the murder that led to the dogfighting ring bust herself.” Kara points out. Alex grumbles a protest.

“And you like her.” Kara continues to push.

“She has a girlfriend.” That takes the fun out of the tease.

“You asked her out?”

“Yup. And she shot me down in one of the most embarrassing ways. So I need tonight.” Kara grins and throws her arms around her sister.

“I love our Sister Nights. Even if the music is slightly depressing.”

“But the expensively cheap beer will be great.” Kara laughs and turns on the TV to kill the few hours before they were going to head to dinner.

***

Lena carefully removes the colored contacts from her eyes and places them in the case that she keeps in her dressing room table. She puts in her real contacts and begins to carefully put together Lena Luthor, the cold, badass, rising star. The person adopted and raised by one of the richest madmen in the world. Who disappointed her adoptive mother by pursuing music instead of using her MIT degree. Music was one of the few things that made her feel anything. Now performing was mostly going through the motions, like everything else.

A knock at the door. Jessica is calling for her to report for sound check and a quick run through of the set. Gone is the simple disguise that Lena used to blend into public spaces. In its place is a woman who is all sharp lines and piercing eyes. Lena takes a deep breath, rolls her shoulders back, and purposefully strides out of her dressing room.

Jess is waiting with the set list and banana, knowing full well Lena hasn’t eaten, only ingested copious amounts of coffee. She takes it gratefully and eats half before ditching it in a trash can just off stage. Men and women still dash about all around, preparing for the night. Her band and back up singers mingle on stage. Lena walks up to the mic and waits for her cue to begin.

***

“Alex! You really bought front row tickets?”Kara practically shouts over the noise from all around the Colosseum and the opening act. They both struggle to keep their beers from being jostled and spilled as they make their way between people's legs and the barricade.

“I got a raise. Plus, come on. It's Lena Luthor. This may be the last time tickets like these are within my price range.”

“Okay. But next sister night is on me.”

“So pizza, potstickers, and a movie?”

“Well retired MMA fighters don't make that much when their replacement career is part-time coaching and trying and failing to sell their own art.”

“Hey, you'll sell sometime. It just takes one to the right person.” Kara rolls her eyes.

Suddenly the lights go down and cheers erupt. A slightly eerie chiming begins. A spotlight comes up on a single, raven-haired figure. She is dressed in a leather black v neck vest, leather pants, and boots. Very much what someone would expect from her music.

Hey girl, open the walls, play with your dolls. We'll be a perfect family. When you walk away, it's when we really play You don't hear me when I say, Mom, please wake up Dad's with a slut, and your son is smoking cannabis No one never listens, this wallpaper glistens Don't let them see what goes down in the kitchen

A hush had fallen over the crowd as Lena Luthor began her song. It was called 'Dollhouse’ from what Kara could remember. A catchy song with depressing lyrics. People all around joined in on the next verse, including Alex.

Places, places, get in your places Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces Everyone thinks that we're perfect Please don't let them look through the curtains Picture, picture, smile for the picture Pose with your brother, won't you be a good sister? Everyone thinks that we're perfect Please don't let them look through the curtains

Kara takes a long pull on her beer.

Hey girl, look at my mom, she's got it going on Ha, you're blinded by her jewelry When you turn your back she pulls out a flask And forgets his infidelity Uh-oh, she's coming to the attic, plastic Go back to being plastic No one never listens, this wallpaper glistens One day they'll see what goes down in the kitchen

Kara remembers the rumors that circulated about the Luthor family. Most of it was unconfirmed but this song coming out several years after only renewed them. Lena refused to comment in any of her interviews and ended them whenever a reporter dared to ask. Kara admits that she had gone beyond just listening to Lena’s music. She began to wonder who the person was behind the mysterious facade of a nearly unreachable woman.

Cheers and clapping erupt as the song ends. The next song is a completely different sound as Lena is handed an electric guitar. The lights come up so you can see the whole band and the different lights flashing around the stage. Everyone joins in almost instantly to 'Teenagers’ as smoke billows on to the stage and over the crowd.

They're gonna clean up your looks With all the lies in the books To make a citizen out of you Because they sleep with a gun And keep an eye on you, son So they can watch all the things you do Because the drugs never work They're gonna give you a smirk 'Cause they got methods of keepin' you clean They gonna rip up your heads Your aspirations to shreds Another cog in the murder machine They said all Teenagers scare The living shit out of me They could care less As long as someone'll bleed So darken your clothes Or strike a violent pose Maybe they'll leave you alone But not me

Kara decides just to sit back and enjoy being with her sister. The music is really good and Lena Luthor is really talented. Kara gets three more beers for both of them throughout the two-hour concert. Kara has a good buzz going by the time she and Alex shuffle to the parking lot with the mob of people. They wait for their Uber to pick them up on the sidewalk.

“Thanks for coming with me Kara.” Alex drapes her arm around her slightly shorter sister.

“I will always come when you ask me to. You, my sister, are my best friend.”

“And you're mine.”

***

Lena throws back another shot of Maker's and then let's the girl pulling on her hand lead her to the dance floor. The exclusive after-party was held in the loft of some new nightclub. The concert was long forgotten and it was that weird limbo time that got trapped between late night and early morning. People still packed the club and the pretty girl was more than eager to show Lena how big a fan she was. The brunet was pressing her ass into Lena and Lena let her own hands wander from the girl's hips and up her stomach.

“Want to get out of here?” Lena whispers in her ear.

The girl didn't respond and instead takes Lena's hand to make their way to the door of the club. Jess and her bodyguard follow at a distance, always making sure she is safe, despite Lena’s disregard for her own health. Lena’s hotel for the night is just a block away so the journey is quick. Even so, Lena begins exploring the woman’s body in the elevator. Kissing her neck to her collarbone. Fingers sliding under the white crop top that already showed too much skin. The woman’s hands tangle in Lena’s hair and sinful moans escape her lips.

Somehow Lena manages to open her door and get the woman who will help her feel something for the night onto the bed. Clothes were shed with little ceremony as soon as the door shut behind them. Lena resumed kissing her all over. All over except for the lips. She refused to make that connection. That was the thin line that turned sex from fucking into love and Lena couldn't do that again.

A thigh presses against the heat in Lena's center and she moans into the woman's neck. Slender fingers trail down Lena’s back and then caress her hips. They slide quickly in between the already dripping folds between Lena’s legs.

“Fuck.” Is all the girl says as Lena’s hips buck into her hand. She begins circling the swollen nerves and Lena grips the sheets as she hovers over the nameless woman. Lena is relieved that she is moving quickly because some of her partners would try to drag things out.

Lena bends and begins working on the brunette's nipples. Taking one in her mouth and earning a moan in return. The woman dips lower, finally entering Lena and setting a steady pace. Lena bites down slightly and it causes the fingers inside her to jump, bumping the most sensitive spot. Encouraged by whatever noise Lena made, the woman finds it again. And again. Soon Lena stops her menstruations to let her own sensations build inside her. Her release builds quickly and Lena does nothing to slow it.

Lena falls to the side and breathes deeply, reveling in the feeling of her own release.

“You are fucking sexy.” The woman says.

“Shhh… no talking.” Lena says, silencing her with a finger to the lips. Lena quickly begins to work to return the favor. The woman is easy to push over the edge. Almost as soon as the woman's cries end, Lena stands and throws on her sweatshirt and underwear.

“Feel free to take whatever from the minibar. I'm going for a cigarette. I recommend you be gone when I get back.” Lena says to the slightly confused woman. She nods in a daze and Lena steps out onto the balcony she made Jess pay extra for.

She only allowed herself one cigarette after sex. It always helped take her mind off the women and sometimes men she used and kicked out. Lena heard noses behind her, then the door opening and shutting. Lena pulled on the small comfort and watched the city forty floors below. Despite the late hour, lights still lit windows and moved along streets. Sirens could be heard faintly in the distance. It always amazed Lena that she wasn’t the only one whole really felt alive in the hours after two.

Lena puts out the cigarette butt and climbs back into bed. She stares at the ceiling, hoping for a dreamless sleep that alcohol usually brings her.

***

August 5th, 2017

Sweat pours down Kara’s head and back as she runs through the park. The early summer heat bakes onto her shoulders, already sweltering at eight-thirty. She had removed her t-shirt two miles ago and now clutched it in her fist, using it to wipe sweat out of her eyes. She loved finishing her runs in this park. A big fountain stood in the center, along with an ice cream cart that was always open at eight sharp.

Kara was just rounding the last corner when she ran straight into something or someone. Kara quickly grabs whoever it is to stop their fall, her own reflexes keeping her upright. Kara manages to grab one hand and wrap an arm around their back. Brown eyes stare into hers and Kara gulps, realizing who she is now holding.

“Elena!” The woman's eyes go wide.

“Kara!”

“Well, maybe this is destiny.” Kara surprises herself with how smoothly that came out.

“Yeah, to ruin my morning coffee.” Kara winces and looks at the spilled to-go cup now drained on the sidewalk.

“Well, I guess I’ll need that number so I can buy you a new one.” Kara recovers. Elena clears her throat.

“Kara, can I have my hand back?”

“Can I have your number?” Kara tries again. She isn't usually this forward but something is telling her not to miss this chance. Elena rolls her eyes.

“If I am going to give you my phone to put your number in, I will need my hand back.” Kara brakes into a huge grin and releases Elena. The dark-haired woman pulls her phone out of her back pocket and hands it over after unlocking it. Kara enters her number and sends herself a quick text.

“I'm still leaving town in a few days.” Elena tries.

“Looks like I'll have to take you to dinner tonight.”

Elena shakes her head. The loose bun on her head flopping a little. She pushes her glasses back up her nose.

“I can't tonight. Tomorrow though. I’ll have a few nights off work.”

“Hmm… a beautiful mysterious woman works a night job on weekends.”

“And that's all you will get for now,” Elena says, cursing herself for saying that much.

“Goodbye, Elena Colby. I'll call you tomorrow.”

Kara runs off in the opposite direction of where Lena was headed back to her hotel. The loss of her coffee was eclipsed by the distinct raised abdominal muscles of the persistent blonde that clouded Lena’s judgment.

Lena had to recover before her second performance tonight. After that, the tour was going to have a two-week hiatus and Lena was strongly considering spending that time in National City. She tried to shake off the image of the half-naked and actually very muscular woman but she had a feeling that that would be playing a role in her dreams tonight. Lena heads to buy another coffee before going back to her hotel to get dressed for the day.

***

K- How do you feel about Chinese food?

Kara glances at her phone again, waiting for a response from Elena. She had texted the woman, too impatient to wait for tomorrow to call. Frowning, she heads back to the mat to wait for her trainee to come back from his water break. James was a nice guy. He was friends with her cousin and had just moved to National City a couple months ago. Apparently, Clark had recommended he find Kara and train with her to make a friend and also learn some self-defense after being mugged in Metropolis. They fell into an easy friendship that didn't venture much outside the gym except for the occasional coffee or meal after a workout. Sometimes he would join her, Winn, and Alex for game night.

“You keep checking your phone,” James states while strapping back on his gloves.

“Yeah, I'm waiting for someone to respond. Now put 'em up.” Kara raises her padded gloves for James to hit.

They work methodically together. Kara calling out various moves for James to perform while she blocks each one. They work for about another half an hour before it's time to go. Kara is drying off her arms with a towel when she realizes that James is standing awkwardly in front of her.

“Hey. So I was wondering if you would like to get dinner with me tomorrow night.”

“Like a date?”

“Oh yeah. I mean if not that's cool.”

“Well actually, umm… I kind of already have a date for tomorrow. That's the text I was waiting on earlier.” James looks like a kicked puppy at the news.

“Sorry. Raincheck?” Kara didn't want to turn him down completely. James was a nice guy and all. Probably good for her too. But Elena intrigued her and she couldn't pass up this chance, even if she was leaving soon. It seems to brighten the man.

“Raincheck.” He repeats before leaving the gym. Kara looks back down at her phone and smiles.

E- Can sushi be involved?

K- I guess I could find a place that serves both. I'll send you an address when I do. I would pick you up but I actually don't have a car. How does 7 sound?

E- So do you just run everywhere then? Not that I don't enjoy the view. Seven sounds great.

K- walking or the bus. Sometimes I use my sister's bike but she needs it tomorrow. Besides, National City is best explored on foot. You miss too much otherwise.

E- Guess you'll have to show me around properly then. I'll see you tomorrow at seven.

Lena put down her phone and focused on getting ready for tonight after chuckling at the string of emoji's. She couldn't believe she was breaking almost all her rules and going out with this girl. She never let herself get attached. Attachment led to heartbreak and Lena had enough of that. She takes another swig from the flask and winces slightly at the burning liquid. Jessica sat on the couch managing Lena's life almost down to the second. Lena didn't know what to do without the woman. Jessica had been by her side since the label found her during her final year of college, well when she was eighteen. A talent show Lena had entered on a dare from her then-girlfriend led to her winning and signing a deal with Green Diamond Records. Here she was, two albums, three tours, and five years later. The only person she considered anywhere near to a friend was paid to be here.

Lena decides to leaf through the newspaper left on her dressing table. The front page is, of course, her sold-out concert. Something catches her eye in the bottom half of the paper though. A blurry, dark image of a hooded figure punching another shadowy form. The title reads Justice or Revenge? The word vigilante stands out in the small text so Lena starts reading.

Two nights ago another rapist and Cadmus gang member was apprehended by National City’s Vigilante. The criminal was left tied in an alleyway after an anonymous tip was called into the police. The photo was taken by CatCo’s own photographer, James Olsen who just happened to be working on another story for his own publication. The National City police would like to remind everyone that vigilantism is illegal and the apprehension of criminals should be left to the professionals. Any information about this person should be reported to...

Lena kept reading. There wasn't much. Only that whoever this was had been bringing in a lot of low-level criminals who the police were having trouble finding. Each had enough evidence to be convicted for several long years also. Lena decides to pull out her phone and look for more pictures but apparently, the one from this James Olsen was the only one in existence. No wonder the police couldn't identify them.

“Isn't that interesting news? I mean first the crazy guy in Gotham and now whoever this is taking on Cadmus. “ Jess says from behind Lena.

“Yeah, it takes a certain type of crazy to take on criminals like that.”

“It also takes a certain kind of crazy to do what you do.” Jess points out.

“I never said I was sane.” Lena drawls out. Jess laughs.

“Neither am I. But hey, crazy loves company.”

“Misery loves company.” Lena corrects.

“That too. Alright. Time for the last sound check.”

***

Kara carefully wound the bandage around her bruised ribs. Hissing at the soft pressure that brings slight relief once it's in place. The punch didn't break anything but it still hurt like hell.

“Kara!” Alex calls through the apartment. She winces at the anger in her sister's voice. Kara pulls her shirt back down, hiding the evidence of tonight's activities. Slowly Kara walks out of her bathroom and into the kitchen. Alex throws this morning's paper at her. She sees it. The picture that no one should have caught because it was three in the morning two nights ago. It just so happened to be at the time that James just happened to be working on another story about corruption at the docks.

“So they finally got a picture of this vigilante,” Kara says, trying to remain neutral.

“You know I couldn't figure out how they avoided leaving evidence of any kind. How every camera had been avoided. Now it makes sense. I trained you. Taught you more than I should.”

“I don't know what you are talking about.”

“Save it, Kara. I bought that red and blue hoodie for you last Christmas. The marks left on the captives are consistent with a professional fighter. Most of the men would take significant strength to bring down. I know it's you. You have lied to my face about this for the last time.”

Alex is serious. If Kara pushes this could be their worse fight yet. Alex knows and Kara can't pretend any longer. Kara drops her head and goes to sit on the couch, hoping that siting will de-escalate the tension before Alex actually explodes. She winces as the bandages pull at her bruised ribs.

“Okay. Yes. It's me. I couldn't keep doing nothing. Not after that girl was raped and left to die not four blocks from here. Not when I can do something.” Alex follows Kara but doesn't sit.

“Kara! You need to leave this to the professionals. The police are trying to do their job and they can't if you are…”

“If I'm what?!” Kara explodes, standing again in front of her sister.

“If I am leaving criminals nicely tied up with everything but a bow? If I am leaving them alive and willing to testify against those even higher up? If I am giving people hope?”

“That isn't the point. It's illegal, what you are doing. It has been since the crazy Archer started killing off corrupt politicians in Starling City two years ago.”

“I'm not killing anyone! The police aren't actively looking for me because of that. Yes, they warn against it and try to seem like they are doing something but most of those cops are relieved that something can actually be done. Maggie told me so.” That makes Alex pause.

“Maggie knows?”

“Not who I am. She just thanked me after the third guy I practically dropped on the hood of her cruiser. I wear a mask and use a voice modulator.”

“How the hell do you have a voice modulator?” Kara winces. Knowing she slipped up again.

“Umm...Winn?”

“Winn!?”

“Well yeah, he's like super smart. Like the top IT guy for CatCo smart should have gone to MIT smart... Well, he made me a mask and a voice modulator and he's actually working on a suit for me to wear.”

“Winn knows.” Alex states.

“Winn gave me the idea. He has supported me through this whole thing.”

“I'm going to kill him.”

“Alex leave him out of this. It was my choice.”

“It's a stupid choice!”

“Well, I made it. And I'm not changing my mind now!” Kara yells back. She was right. This would be their worst fight. The never yelled like this. Not since Kara's very misguided choice of dating that man-child Mike.

“Kara!”

“Alex! For the first time since I quit the ring I feel like myself. Like helping people is what I am meant to do.”

“You can help people in other ways.”

“And I will. I'm going to start teaching self-defense lessons at different schools. But this, Alex this is making a difference. I can already see it.”

“You could get killed,” Alex says, suddenly soft.

“Or I'll risk regretting my life. I know the danger is real. That is why I am careful. It's why Winn has my back.”

“How does Winn have your back?” Alex asks.

“Umm… not something I think I can tell a federal agent who already hates him.” Alex finally sits on the couch and Kara follows her.

“Just promise me you won't be reckless.”

“I swear. We don't do anything without a plan.”

“Okay. So why did you ask me to come over then? I assume it wasn't so we could scream at each other.”

“I have a date tomorrow.” Kara grins at her big sister.

“Who?”

“The girl from Noonan’s. I literally ran into her at the park and pulled the smoothest line ever.”

“Blushing, babbling Kara Danvers pulled a smooth line on a pretty girl? Now I know your lying.”

“Well, I set myself up for it yesterday, even though it was the cheesiest thing to say, ever. I told her if I saw her again it would be fate or destiny and I would ask for her number again. Then on my usual morning jog, I turned a corner in the park and literally had to catch her from falling. She agreed to a date once I called it fate again.”

“You realize that your 'morning jog’ is something most people train for months to do once?”

“Not the point Alex.”

“Right, so does this girl believe in fate then?”

“No, I just think it was a good line.”

“Okay, so where are you taking her?”

“I want potstickers and she wants sushi so I was thinking that new Fusion restaurant. But I have no idea what to wear. I mean I haven't been on a date since forever. Help me?” Alex laughs at the pleading look on her sister’s face and stands to go look through her closet.

“You could do with fewer cardigans, you know,” Alex calls from the other room.

“I like them. They go with everything.” Kara calls back as she gets up to follow her sister.

“Well, they aren't really first date-worthy. Give me a second. I think I remember you having.. ah, here it is. Now if only you had… these work… shoes...shoes...shoes…” Alex is mumbling to herself while Kara sits on her bed to wait.

“Perfect!” Alex exclaims.

Kara perks up as Alex lays the outfit out on the bed. A dark blue off the shoulder shirt she forgot she owned with black ripped jeans and ankle boots.

“Blue was always your color. And arms are probably one of your best features. Especially for sweeping pretty girls off their feet.” Kara squeals and hugs her sister excitedly.

“Thank you, Alex!” Alex brings her arms up to hug Kara back. The pressure causes Kara to intake a sharp breath. Alex doesn't even ask what's wrong. She jerks her sister’s shirt up to find the bandages wrapping Kara’s torso.

“Kara!”

“It's fine Alex. Just some bruised ribs. Nothing is broken.” Kara thinks she can literally see Alex swallowing her next words. She just nods instead, not wanting to renew the anger already.

“Have fun on your date tomorrow. I have to go. Maggie and I are meeting to go over another case.”

“Have fun on your date then.” Alex rolls her eyes.

“It's not a date. Our superiors are just glad we are closing a bunch of cases. She has good connections on the streets. I have good connections in the FBI.”

“Okay, sis. But I'm calling it now.”

“Calling what?”

“Being the maid of honor at your wedding.” Alex begins sputtering in response.

“Goodbye, Kara. Remember the three date rule.”

“Three date rule?” That gives Alex some of her swagger back.

“Bye Kara.” She calls over her shoulder on the way to the door.

“Alex!” Kara calls after the woman, the door shuts without further explanation.

[monohart]

stardust. (idol!au)

ft. huang renjun, failure and a secret relationship.

i’m back after a long break, haha. this was an old writing that had been sitting up in my drafts for a while... happy 2019! please spend this year showing more love to renjun. :)

thank you, and enjoy!

when you were cut from the line up for sm’s new group renjun was 100 times more devastated then u were

u were like hey rj cmon don’t worry i’ll be fine??? i’m sure i can audition for another company or smth?? or wait for the next unit debut??

u even jokingly said maybe u could debut in an nct unit but he couldn’t bring himself to smile

and your chest :(( hurt :(( from seeing him so hurt ;;;

ofc for as long as you remember y’all had been talking about both debuting under sm at the same time so y’all could be chasing your dreams and not be too far away from each other

but that plan failed when renjun debuted first with nct dream and had his schedule Packed w nct promotions and concerts and stuff

he and the other nct guys would sometimes let u sit behind the camera in vlives

this one time omg

(( ok so refer to this for a visual :) ))

u sat behind the camera in the chenle jaemin renjun react to baby don’t stop vlive

even though u were hella scared to be kicked out chenle was like HEY DW I’LL FIGHT ANYONE WHO THINKS YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE THERE OKAY

so u snuck out of your practice session slightly earlier to watch them

renjun was so excited u were there but obvs he had to keep it together for the live

then!! lolololol rip your manager found out u snuck out of practice and found u in the room and pulled u out of the room

(u kno that moment when they all looked behind the camera and then turned down the music.. yeah issa bc ur crazy manager almoST ruined the mood)

manager scolded u outside the room for a good few minutes and then told u to get yourself together

and u stood outside the room for a bit longer after manager left

and u were literally about to leave but then guess who u ran into!!!

chittaphon knew about u and rj since the day he met u and him both

it was kinda funny really bc u and rj stood rly awkwardly next to each other at this company event a few years ago and y’all were standing around the other dreamies and some other trainees and suddenly renjun’s hand brushed the side of your leg and u glance at him and he smiles at u and u look away smiling

AND chittaphon, who happens to be taking a nice long sip of his soda SEES THIS and spits his soda out

accidentally sprays soda onto jeffery’s back

but yeah thats another story

anyway!!!!

ten sees u sulking outside the door and peers in and sees renjun and hears bds

u know that smile smirk ten does when he knows whats Up™.

yeah he does that and be like

“eyy why don’t u go in???”

then u give him a breakdown of what happened with skipping practice and being caught by the manager

and hes like :o

but chittaphon is chittaphon so he grabs you by the wrist and pulls you back into the practice room and hides you in a corner just out of view

and then he sneaks onto them!!

then jaemin... quick-eyed, lovely doe-eyed jaemin... sees u hiding and nudges renjun ever so slightly

he sees u and before he gets flustered ten’s all over him asking how the mv was and flustered rj tries to keep his cool while showering chittaphon w compliments

and u know how ten looks at him like That :^)

and jaemin keeps peeking over their shoulders

yeah :))

OK I SPENT TOO LONG DESCRIBING THIS

but anyway, on that night u were cut from the line up

after the news got to him he sits down and was just like

:(

because he knew how much debuting meant to u and

and... YOUR DREAMS TO BE TOGETHER :(( debuting together and always being close to each other

and u mentioned before that if u dont debut in the next five years u prolly would quit the entertainment industry

maybe go back to school and study some or idk work in a less chaotic industry

in that moment he remembered what u said and was a little heartbroken too

he tried to find you in your usual practice room but u weren’t there and he shouldn’t be loitering around so he gave up and let you have some space

bet u he sulked all the way home

you had travelled back to your dorm because u needed some time alone oof

it took u a good few hours to deal with the news and when u were ready to talk about it again, it was like 3am but u still gave his mobile a call

he picked up on the second ring and said to meet him outside your dorm in a few mins and y’all can go take a walk or smth for some fresh air

so u guys go to the park for a nice quiet walk in the dead of night hhh

u had so many things to say but mostly u were worried with your relationship w him and how y’all were supposed to balance that out given his priorities with nct and you as... just a trainee...

u didnt have to explain anything or other bc he suddenly goes

“what if we went public with our relationship?”

u look up at his face that was hidden behind a mask and his glasses

u deadass thought he was kidding but his that look in his eyes were like hella serious

“just think about it for a second. maybe we don’t have to bring it to the fans, but at least let the company know”

and u were like no way they’ll just do anything to keep yall apart

he didnt answer after that and not too long later yall started heading back to your dorm

it was almost 5am and the streets were still dark and renjun had an arm around your waist and you leant against him and yall walked slowly bc honestly u guys haven’t slept a wink and its been a Really Long day

your dorm was a street away from his

actually he stops about a street or two away from your dorm bc another idol group also lived in the same building as u and there were always sasaengs and people w cameras outside your dorm

u were a trainee so it didnt bother u but renjun was renjun :,)

plus he actually wanted sum privacy so he could kiss u.. so...

hsaksdnd

there was a narrow alley just around the back of the apartment block next to yours

u would never go there alone kasdnj it was scary at any time of the day

tbh

u wouldn’t go even if someone was there with u

maybe it was the heat of the moment or u were just so down that day

it didn’t rly bother u when renjun gently backed u up against the wall and hugged u n took off his mask n buried his face in the crook of ur neck

and that immediately put a smile on your face ur like baby wyd its 5am

hes looks at u like :(( and says “i miss u” in a quiet quiet voice & in his mother tongue

u knew what it meant and hearing him say it in chinese made you uwu to mars

then he showers u with like tiny tiny butterfly kisses and he wraps his arms around u to make u feel safe and warm

which u do!!

he holds u up too when ur knees buckle a bit but then just continues kissing u hehehe

its all sweet and innocent but his kisses last just a tiny bit longer each time, as if hes scared that you’d run away

after he finishes kissing u he meets your eyes and u literally watch his orbs go all soft and he hides his face in your neck again while u mutter about how much of a big baby he is

the goodnight was!!!

the hardest thing y’all had to do omg

he literally didnt want to let u go

and when he did and when u started walking toward ur building u kept looking back, wanting him to head off but he didnt and stood there waiting for u to go in

and u didnt want to go in without knowing he was on his way home and was safe on the walk back wdf it was almost 6am

then when u were almost at the door u saw he hadn’t moved an inch

so u run back to him

he was still standing at the spot where y’all parted - which was a few streets down and out of sight

he scolds u for running back out but he smiles when doing so and u snap his mask back onto his face and kisses him over the mask like 200 times and u couldnt see but hes like dying from the giggles

anyway eventually y’all go home :,) it just took forever :,)

the next day u head to the building in the afternoon to catch up on some sleep

u were a bit guilty to find out renjun went back to work at 7am which meant he practically didnt get any sleep

y’all brush shoulders in the cafeteria but he was walking w hyuck and his manager so u couldn’t stop and chat

tho u couldn’t help but notice his manager steal a glance at u when u walked by and he had this really weird smile on his lips

made u go like huh.,, maybe he recognises me from the many Brief encounters yall had before

anyway u were doing some vocal and keyboard practice later in the afternoon when the door to the private training suite opened and two loud boys stumbled in

made u rly surprised bc u never expected it to be them??

it was taeyong and winwin??

they were both looking at u like :))) as if they did something great :))

taeyong introduces himself formally but you’re like ,, um u know we’ve met before at this function and hes like OH,,, sorry

anyway they were there to tell u how renjun couldn’t shut up about u since he went back to the dorm last night and now all of nct knows about everything to know about u and him (if they hadn’t already)

you’re just like .,, oof what embarrassing stuff did he say

they’re like NO ALL NICE STUFF,, a bit cringey at times

but !! nct wanted to help u

so earlier today

johnny and jaehyun spoke to their managers and night night producers and asked if they could hire a third radio dj - yknow someone who also speaks english and is really nice and entertaining and funny and cool like u are!!

that idea is now In The Talks

winwin brought up a variety thing china line and their managers had been thinking about for a while and also asked if they could consider u

nct managers be like ok so who actually is this trainee and why are all 18 boys obsessively asking to include her in nct activities

later that day when u see renjun again he was just heading off but he came around your practice room to see u before he left

thankfully u were the only one left at practice as the others were away busy preparing for their debut or smth :,)

u didnt hear him come in bc u were sitting in the middle of the room on the floor scrolling replying to week old texts oop hehe

renjun sneaks up behind u and hugs u from behind and kisses your cheek

he got a bit scared when u didn’t respond as explosively as he thought... for a second he thought he got the wrong person poor bean he was so nervous hhh

you chuck your phone aside and tackle him and he falls onto his back and yall kinda lay there on the ground for a bit

and you told him about taeyong and winwin visiting u and he just smiles

“you inspire me.”

“me? inspire you? you’re huang freakin’ renjun, and i, of all people, inspire you?”

“yeah”

“don’t understand u sometimes”

he turns his head to look at u and u turn to look at him and he kinda just admires you for a while then reach over and touches your cheek

it wasnt even a sweet caress or anything he literally just

touched

your cheek

“renjun what the heck”

then he laughs and u laugh and u snuggle against him and for the first time that week both of u feel completely at ease bc even though the dream u guys shared at the beginning was completely shattered,

y’all would still find a way around it

and knowing so many people around u still supported u guys meant so much

especially to renjun bc u were his everything and he’d do anything for u

and i mean it!!!

[networkbangtan]

hi! i found this net recently, it's amazing that you guys have run this net for so long to bring bts fans tgt! not planning on applying but i read the member requirements&i have a question. you'll only rb oc by members, yet the members do not need to be creators. wouldn't it make more sense to either only accept content creators, or simply rb creations with the tag regardless of membership? if only member content is reblogged, it seems that your aim's to give creators a platform but bts content

creators may not get in bc many spots are filled by simple fans. if the aim’s to let them meet frnds you’re not focused on promoting content by members, why not rb other creators’ work? moreover, do 80% bts posts really reflect their devotion to bts? isn’t it better to check if they create bts content than check if they rb bts ones? you’re probably the biggest bts net here&many creators would love to join for the exposure+community, but most may fail bc they dont only rb bts content, or bc

spots’re filled quickly. would 60 or even 50% be acceptable? i was in over ten tmblr networks, most are literature-focused ones who trag tags that all can use. i’m curious abt the point in such a high standard for members bc it’s a shame if multifandom bts creators cannot get the exposure they deserve, so can you guys can explain a bit/reconsider the requirements? thank you!

Hello. We have quite a lot to say in response to this ask - it’s clear that you have little understanding of how labor intensive running a network this large is, so we’ll try to explain. 

Re: accepting only content creators: NetworkBangtan was not created with the intention of promoting original content only. We are a network - that means our focus is connecting fans through various means. Reblogging our members’ original content is just one of our focuses; we have also run multiple events in the past, as well as group chats for all members and spotlight posts for members. Accepting only content creators and not “simple fans” as you said is elitist and exclusionary for no reason; we are not a blog solely dedicated to content creation. There are other blogs like that out there, but that’s not our purpose, nor has it ever been. We don’t see the purpose in excluding fans from joining the network and participating in its other aspects just because they don’t produce content. 

Our job is not to cater to every BTS content creator on Tumblr. None of our rules are in place to purposely exclude people from joining the network; all of our application requirements are there simply to make the network more manageable for our team. Here’s why: 

Re: the 80% BTS requirement: We started the network with a 50% BTS content requirement. This was before HYYH-era, so well before the fandom grew so large on Tumblr. As the fandom grew, the network’s popularity boomed. We ran a round of apps where we received over 200 applications in a few days. In order to make the network more manageable rather than closing apps forever, we decided to raise the content requirement just to generate less interest. Over the years, we’ve raised it slowly and are now finally at 80%. Despite the high content requirement, we still receive scores of apps in a very short amount of time. 

We allow members to apply with sideblogs; many content creators and non-creators have gotten around the 80% requirement by making a BTS-specific sideblog and leaving their main blogs multifandom. In terms of spots being filled quickly, Round 9 was open for several days. 

Re: the NB tag being open only to members: Opening our tag to the entire ARMY fandom on Tumblr would be absolutely impossible to manage. We currently have over 800 members. Our queue remains consistently full; we have three assistants who queue daily and three admins who pitch in with queueing whenever needed. Around comeback season, queueing literally takes hours a day. We’re not sure you realize exactly how massive this fandom is on Tumblr; with 800 people, our queue is nearly unmanageable. ARMYs on Tumblr amount to the thousands. Keeping up is impossible.

Even if we were to double our team and queue twice a day instead of once a day, Tumblr itself is not built to handle that kind of content. Tumblr has a queue limit of 300 posts with only 50 posts posted a day. We’re already always at that limit or close to it; around comeback time, we have too many posts and far surpass the limit, so we can’t queue them all. As a result, posts are backlogged for weeks at a time to deal with the influx. We tried a third party app that increased the queue limit but unfortunately found it was a shady service, so we had to delete it. We’re stuck within the confines of Tumblr’s limits. 

If we were to open our tag to all of Tumblr, we would not feasibly be able to reblog everyone’s content anymore. We would have to pick and choose - like you said, there are other networks that track the tag for everybody rather than just members, but many networks that we have seen do this do not reblog every single post. They pick and choose to make it manageable. And they also receive anons like you questioning them - for being biased in the posts they select, for not reblogging their own posts enough, etc. Additionally, most other networks aren’t as large as ours. 

We’ve been running this network since 2015 - that’s 4 years. For four years, we have reblogged members’ content every single day. We have opened 9 rounds of applications. We have expanded our team, organized activities, run group chats, and more. No one has ever bothered to thank us; we do this for free, despite our own busy schedules. We receive absolutely nothing in return. 

We are now one of the largest networks around; we would have been well within our rights to close applications permanently years ago given how many members we have. Most networks do that. Most people don’t stick around to grow as big as we do simply because it’s hard. We put in a great deal of work on this network every single day. 

You’ve essentially come to us and asked us to do ten times the amount of work, while letting us know that you don’t even want to be a member of the network. Next time you think about sending an ask like this, consider the absurd amounts of hard work that go into running blogs like this for little to no return. This fandom is lucky that so many people put in their hard work and dedication to run networks, update blogs, create content, and more when they’re doing it for free on top of their own busy lives. 

Please do not ask that people put in more work to accommodate you when they’re already doing more than enough.

[occasionalfics]

Paige’s 2k Challenge/Bash!

Hello and welcome to my 2k Follower Celebration/Bash! First and foremost, thank you for getting me to 2k!! This blog has more followers than my main blog. But I write for Thor so I get it. We’re hungry.

Secondly, the challenge! I wanted to do something more creative than just a simple writing challenge...but I think that’s gonna end up being more in the execution than this prompt list. And by that, I mean that I want y’all to get as creative as possible. Do whatever you want (within reason): one-shot/drabbles, feature-length fics, mini-series, letters, etc.

So here are the specifics:

Up to two prompts per person, two people per prompt. 

Should enough prompts be open by Wednesday, September 19th, I’ll think of something else to add because right now I’m out of ideas. 

Send me an ask with the prompt you want, the character(s) you want to include, and maybe a backup or two if you think you’ll need it (I’ll let you know if someone gets to your choice ahead of you though).

If I don’t respond to your ask within 24 hours, send it again.

Tag me in the body of your post and make sure to tag #paiges2kbash so I can find your entry! (If I don’t respond within 24 hours, send it to me in a message.)

If you’re gonna write smut, you’ll have to be 18 or over and the character you write for needs to be as well.

All Marvel characters are on the table - even ones I don’t normally write for. This is about what you want, as my way of giving back to you for following me!

I am 100% cool with and encouraging you to play with the genre your prompt comes from. You see something in the Angst category, but you think it’ll be cute and fluffy too? GIVE. IT. TO. ME.

Gimme AUs, Gimme body swaps. Gimme it ALL.

Word minimum: 500. Total. There is no maximum.

I prefer Reader Insert fics, but I’m also cool with OCs. PLAY WITH THAT PERSPECTIVE BABE!

Make sure the prompt is easily identifiable in your post. Bold, italicised, a different color, or just point it out in the informational part of the post (if you do those like I do), just make sure I and other readers can easily figure out what the prompt is!

You do not have to be following me to enter! I’d love to have you and would appreciate your company, but it’s not required to participate.

Entries are due by HALLOWEEN (10/31/18)! 

Make it spoopy.

Here’s what I’ll be doing throughout/at the end of the challenge:

Making a masterlist of all the entries with descriptions and tags

Denoting which are my favs in some way

Reblogging each entry to support and promote both the entry and the challenge (once again, if I don’t reblog within 24 hours, send it to me in a message)

Interchangeable prompts are located under Misc. So you get to pick what genre!

Angst

“Not you again..”

“I thought you loved me.”

“I can’t believe you!”

“We can’t keep this up forever.” - @mcu-owns-my-ass

“Don’t leave me…” - @the-resal10 with bucky (and/or steve)

“You’re a disappointment.”

“Don’t die on me– Please.” - @bvckysmanbun with steve

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“Thanks for nothing.”

“Why did you spare me?

“You need to leave.” - @the-resal10 with thor

“I thought we were family!” - @akamaiden with thor

“There was never an us.”

“So that’s it? It’s over?”

“I fucked up.” - @distinguishedstarlightcrusade with tony

“I came to say goodbye.”

“I don’t deserve to be loved.”

“About the baby… It’s yours.” - @sidehowriting with thor

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No, it was my fault for thinking that you might care.”

Fluff

“I’m so in love with you.” - @thorsstorms with thor

“Dance with me!”

“I wish we could stay like this forever.” - @thorsstorms with thor

“Will you marry me?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“You’re special to me.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Can I kiss you right now?” - @lookslikeleese with thor

“You’re cute when you’re angry.” @multi-fandom-imagines8 with thor

“We’d make such a cute couple.”

“I want to take care of you.”

“Shut up and kiss me already.” - @iambuckyrogers with bucky

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Is that my shirt?” - @barnesrogersvstheworld with bucky

“You’d be a great dad/mom.” @averyrogers83 - with steve or bucky

“Did you do something different with your hair?”

“This is why I fell in love with you.”

“Stop hogging all the blankets!”

“Let’s run away together.” - @sweetboybucky with bucky

“Where did all these puppies come from?” - @samanthasmileys with peter parker (feat. tony stark)

“Wanna go see a movie with me?”

“I vote today to be a pajama day.”

“I’ll just be in the bathroom throwing my fucking guts up because our unborn kid wants to be a dick!”

“You’re smart and successful with an adorable belly.”

“Your hair is so soft…”

“Just relax, I’ll wash your hair for you.”

“You are ridiculously comfortable…” @uhltrons with peter parker

“I’ve had a rough day and honestly all I want right now is a drink and someone to cuddle with…”

Smut (NSFW, for 18+ only, I will be checking)

“This was fun— Let’s do it again sometime!”

“Why are you naked?”

“Bite me.”

“Fuck me.”

“Stop teasing me so much…”

“What a pretty sight.”

“Well, fine; just this once.”

“As you wish.”

“First one to make a noise loses.” @sassysupernaturalsweetheart with loki

“Car sex looks so much more easier in the movies.”

“Already? Do I really have that much of an effect on you?”

“We can’t do that here!”

“I’ve never wanted anyone to fuck me this badly.”

“Don’t give me that look.”

“You’re more than just a one night stand.”

“Don’t be so rough. There can’t be any marks.”

“I really don’t care. You still look hot and i’m trying not to kiss/fuck you senseless right now.”

“Put that thing away!”

“Don’t kink shame me.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“You’re n-not ,um, w-wearing anything under that, are you..?” - @buckybarnes-xyou with bucky

“Are you trying to turn me on or are you really just that oblivious?”

“You taste like fucking candy.”

“Just let me finish this level/chapter/etc. and I swear I’ll go down on you until you cum at least three times.”

“If I have to stop what I’m doing, you won’t be able to walk for the next week.”

“Were you just masturbating?”

“Ah, he’s playing hard-to-get. thats cute.”

“For the love of fuck.”

(optional) “Yep, thats me. I love to fuck.”

“I know for a fact that you can be a hell of a lot louder than that.” - @kentuckybarnes with bucky

“Your ass is going to be seven different shades of red after that little stunt.”

“Did you just… finish?” - @supernovasandcoronas with bucky

“They always make shower sex sound so appealing, but honestly, this is getting dangerous.”

“I’m not actually feeling anything.”

“Are you getting any closer?”

“Boobs are really just squishy pillows.”

Misc. (could be any genre you’d like)

“I’m fine.”

“I’m really fucked up.”

“Are you drunk/high?”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Not sure if you could tell, but I’m not exactly a people person.”

“I don’t remember that!”

“Well that’s pretty rude of you to say.”

“You owe me.”

“You did what?!”

“I love that show too!”

“Can I borrow that book of yours?”

“What are you listening to?”

“I brought you your coffee.”

“I haven’t slept in four days.” @hwkewhy with steve

“This place gives me the creeps.”

“Just how stupid do you think I am?”

“I can take care of myself just fine.” - @samanthasmileys with steve, oc, and tony appearance

“Since when have we ever been friends?”

“Stop texting me weird stuff so late at night.” - @thatfanficstuff with clint

“Put me down!” - @evanstarff with bucky

“It isn’t what it looks like! Okay.. Maybe it is…”

“Didn’t you read the sign?”

“Do you think you can teach me that?”

“Okay.. This is new.”

“You’re in trouble now.”

“Tell me again.”

“What do you think? You like?”

“This isn’t what I had in mind, but okay.”

“Don’t forget who taught you that.”

“Are you sure this is legal?”

“Why are you so annoying?”

“What’s with the box?”

“Stop pinning this on me! You started it!” - @hiswhiteknight with bucky

“Just pretend to be my date.”

“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”

“I just did some calculations, and I’ve determined that you’re full of shit.”

“Do you ever think if people heard our conversations they’d lock us up?”

“It’s not that you’re wrong, exactly, you’re just extremely not right.”

“You shouldn’t be trusted with small children, should you?”

“Give me cake or give me death.”

“You have to tell me why were committing a felony before we do it. Not that that’s going to stop us, but at least I’ll have all the facts.”

“Those things you said yesterday… Did you mean them?”

“You’re like, five feet tall. How you gonna reach me, shortie?” - @sectumsempra-beaches with loki

“It’s not a double date, we’re just third and fourth wheeling.”

“I’m going to keep you safe.” - @captain-ariel-barnes with thor

“It’s lonely here without you.” - @romancing-the-reader with loki

“How did we get here?”

“You are not going without me.”

“You know we’re supposed to be together. I knew it the first time I saw you, and you know it, too. I know you do.” - @mcu-owns-my-ass

“I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

Prompt sources:

http://rfaimagining.tumblr.com/post/159085054669/nearly-200-writing-prompts-feel-free-to-reblog

https://justforshitsandcackles.tumblr.com/post/173942517099/smut-prompts

http://rpmemesfam.tumblr.com/post/164529932732/nsfw-sentence-starters

http://you-make-me-wander.tumblr.com/post/128505986473/random-sentence-starters