#also the bisexual and blonde part but whatever I’m making a joke here

[s0ap-bubbles]

Klavier Gavin is actually the David Bowie of his generation in the ace attorney universe but in the way he definitely slept with Daryan’s mum like Bowie slept with slash from guns n roses’ mum

[enhastars]

FLICKER

༊*·˚ — flicker | sim jaehyun horror!au

FEATURING! jake x reader

GENRES! psychological horror, thriller, mystery, paranormal, enemies to lovers, non idol!au, slowburn

WARNINGS! mature themes, swearing, gore, vivid imagery, bisexual jaehyun (he had a fling w/ hee), paranormal activity, mentions of religion. nothing sexual (mentions)

STATUS! ongoing, irregular updates

PLAYLIST! fever (enhypen), animals (maroon 5), mind games (sickick).

TLDR!

“seven lost planets melting into stars of hellfire, how could a tragedy not bloom?”

sim jaehyun, part of a notorious gangster duo with the one and only infamous lee heeseung, has his life crumbling before him when he gets arrested in busan. meeting you, the "bad cop" and down to earth FBI agent might've been the cure he needed to solve his reoccurring problem—learning how to love again. except there's one major problem; there's a blood thirsty demon involved.

————————

— a/n:

hi omg!! my first written enha fic and it’s jake (ofc). i’ve been so mia on tumblr ++ ik it’s been 2 months since spooky szn but i rly liked this old au i wrote a couple years ago and decided to rewrite it !! i’m not really sure how chapter installments work on here but i’ll figure it out lol

alsoo this fic used to be a taekook one (i know stfu) so that’s why jake and heeseung had a little fling or whatever in the beginning but this is an x reader fic! so it won’t be mentioned often :) and also bisexual jake just feels right so i’m going with it

————————

masterlist:

1. Introduction

2. The Beginning

3. The Follower

4. Interrogation

…. and more to come!

SUNGHOON had never been one to be afraid of the dark.

Of course, the petrifying gazes of dolls frightened him, or the maniac grins of clowns haunted him in his sleep, but he has never once caved into the phobia of darkness.

Its a strange thing, to be able to control your own imagination. But Sunghoon was able to master the impossible.

He has always thought he was special in that way.

At least, that's what he used to think.

Instead of the warm feelings of security he was feeling moments ago, it vanished into a sinister frost.

Cold breaths panted down his neck, kissing his tender skin with ice cold air. Shards of glaze stabbed his torso, beads of sweat oozing out of the wounds. The silence engulfing the room was eerie; the tension in the air pressing on his chest as if preventing him from breathing.

Quiet, it was too quiet.

Sunghoon quickly cocked his head to his right, and he swore he heard whispers crooning into his ears seductively.

What the hell is going on?

"Hey, who the hell turned off the lights?" A loud, but shaky voice demanded. It was coming from the corner of the room, but Sunghoon couldn't make out who said it.

The voice seemed almost...unfamiliar.

"This isn't some fucking joke." The same voice roared, louder and more aggressively this time.

Sunghoon’s head was spinning, arms and legs wobbling like they had no strength left in them. His stomach was bubbling up and he resisted the urge to hunch over and retch.

It may have lasted only a couple seconds, but for him, it felt like hours.

"It wasn't me, I swear Heeseung." To the blonde's relief, a familiar voice answered the former male.

That was Heeseung? It didn't sound like him at all.

"Well it was fucking one of you." Someone else growled, sounding obviously annoyed but stumbled on his words as he spoke.

They were all scared.

"I swear to god, once I get my gun back I'm killing you all." The same person warned.

"Jaehyun, shut the fuck up; you're not making this any better."

Jaehyun? That was definitely not Jaehyun’s voice.

Sunghoon would know, he spent hours watching him talk to himself in his cell.

After that, the eerie silence poured into the room again. Palms sweaty, he dried them on his uniform pants, cringing at his fingers sticking together from the friction. He doesn't remember the last time he had ever sweat that hard before.

"Guys, it's alright." A new voice, one Sunghoon had never heard before, tauntingly chuckled.

Footsteps approached him, the whispers in his ear getting noisier by each thud.

Thump, thump.

A shoulder shoved into his, but it felt like a bar of metal. Sunghoon felt like his bones broke at the small gesture, so minimal but so strong.

Who was this guy?

Sunghoon’s always been the strongest, the bravest, and was always there for other people. So when he clutched his shoulder in pain, he hung his face in shame at how quickly someone else put him in his place.

Thump, thump.

It felt like it was just him, alone, in that room. A blindfold tightened around his eyes and dumped into the river styx. He was drowning, sinking into that sea of darkness, with the sharks of sins surrounding him. There was no light, no hope, no escape.

They were eating away at his limbs, but his bright crimson blood could not be seen in that pool of ebony. No one was there to help him out, no one was ever there.

Sunghoon was all alone in the dark, and this time he was scared.

His chest heaved up and down and he choked on greedy breaths, swallowing them as his head sunk deeper into the water. A monotone sound rung in his ears, and he felt as if he was about to die.

Maybe he was dying, his body and brain too numb to feel anything.

All of a sudden, it went quiet. The gurgling of water from Sunghoon’s throat dispersed, and the vicious sharks vanished. He wasn't in water anymore, and felt the dirt floor underneath his feet. There was no sound, just a ringing in his ears.

The thumping of feet finally ceased.

A gunshot echoed around the room, and just like that, the lights flickered back on.

————————

THE OFFICIAL CAST FOR FLICKER:

SIM JAEHYUN AS HIMSELF

— "Blood is such a ravishingly dark painting"

A Serial Killer duo with Heeseung, who always has time for some rebellious fun. He acts recklessly, without a care in the world for the consequences. However, his life of motorcycles and smoking came to a halting crash when he got arrested by the devil himself.

LEE HEESEUNG AS HIMSELF

— "Monster? I'm just ahead of the curve."

Heeseung has been a special case since he was a child, killing innocent animals and such for entertainment. He had never been taught how to love, or express feelings, so he feels no remorse for any of his actions. Will he wire the rest of the crew into his trap like he did to Jake? If he even have enough time to, that is. After all, karma has her own schedule.

YOU AS Y/N

— "Change is inevitable, not always favored."

Mischievous and stubborn, the two words that were basically created for you. Captains of Police Forces are usually intimidating, but your crew would always tease you for acting tough. What would happen if this normal, childlike coffee lover faced a horrifying inter-dimensional creature?

PARK SUNGHOON AS HIMSELF

— "Class first, class second, safety third."

Not exactly the brightest kid in the department, but is the most strategic when it comes to his job. His only priorities consist of ice-skating and fashion, which can be bad sometimes when you wear Doc Martins to a bloody crime scene. He's dreamed of being a Police Officer ever since he's been out the womb, but he would’ve never expected it to be as dark as this.

PARK JAY AS HIMSELF

— "You little shits better solve this before I start growing grey hair"

The Hard-Headed Deputy Chief of Police Force had quite the temper whenever on the job, and his colleagues would describe him as very straightforward + down-to-earth person. Once he stumbled upon an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, however, his whole life was deemed a lie.

YANG JUNGWON AS HIMSELF

— “God, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

The top dog of the Seoul Police force, who also had a conceited heart of stone. He doesn't believe in the supernatural wishwash, with ghosts and demons & devils; thinks it's all a bunch of baloney. (Maybe that's why he gets along with Jay so well.) How will he feel once he finds out there's one after him?

KIM SUNOO AS HIMSELF

— "Icarus got nothing on me."

A lovesick twenty-one year old, with such a face, the sun itself gets envious. A chill, laid back guy that would always have your back no matter what. His only problem was, he fell in love/trusted people too quickly— which could ultimately lead to his demise. I mean, can anyone even penetrate what was about to unfold?

NISHIMURA RIKI AS HIMSELF

— “Last one to hell is a rotten egg!”

A young and aspiring intern that hopes to one day serve his people faces the harsh reality of what the universe could throw at him. He’s basically the department’s certified little brother, and his wide toothed smile could make just about anyone crumble. Can his bright and enamoring personality save him and his crew though?

————————

"knawing at the essence of reality, save it in my grasp, will you?"

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

What I love about the gender and sexual diversity in Juno Steel isn’t just that diverse characters exist. It’s that they live in a world where their existence is taken for granted.

So many science fiction stories make diversity A Thing, even if it’s a really small and subtle Thing, and I hate it. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of far-flung futures where people live in space and have amazing technology but culture is still massively cisheteronormative, and I’m even more sick of worlds where authors try to make it so culture isn’t massively cisheteronormative but don’t lay their social groundwork so somehow make it even more of A Thing, revealing their own biases.

Juno Steel doesn’t do that. Not only are characters who aren’t cis or heterosexual everywhere, there’s no underlying assumption that they should be cis or heterosexual. Juno’s a he/him lady and at no point is this any kind of problem for anyone. In the whole series I can think of two people misgendering him (because they just met him and, like anyone when meeting a new person, go on apparent physical and social cues) and in both cases the correction just isn’t A Thing. Early in the series, he’s fighting a random thug, who tells him to “fight like a gentleman”, and he responds with ‘I’m not a gentleman, I’m a lady’ as fighting banter, and it’s treated exactly the same as if someone had called him a dumb blonde and he��d whipped a wig off and said, “actually, I’m a brunette” -- it’s not A Thing. It’s just meaningless fighting banter and they move on.

The second time, he’s at a party, undercover with his boyfriend. The hostess gets into a discussion with said boyfriend about Juno, who’s wearing a very eye-catching golden dress and very much playing up being a lady, and refers to hims as ‘she’, and his boyfriend does NOT do that stupid fucking thing that cis people always do and stop the conversation to be like “AcTuAlLy, my love’s *preferred pronouns* are -- ”, he just continues the conversation calling Juno ‘he’, and the hostess proceeds to do the same (without doing the even more stupid fucking thing of stopping the conversation to apologise, which is obnoxious and The Worst). It’s just Not A Thing.

Said hostess of the party is also trans, and until the party, had presented as a man with the world’s most eye-catching haircut (she’s a rich eccentric). At the party, nobody recognises her until she reveals her identity, not because of her gender presentation, but because she had a haircut. (It’s also a running joke in the series that sometimes someone will mention an old Earth custom that nobody else has ever heard of, like the one character on Mars who celebrates Christmas. This hostess, who has a Russian surname, changes it to the feminine form of the surname as Russians do, and explains it’s an ‘old earth custom’, which confuses the hell out of everyone -- it must get pretty complicated, changing your surname every time you get a haircut.) Her gender is just straightup Not A Thing.

Very early in the series, we meet a celebrity crime family who make a living off crime and reality TV. Imagine if the Kardashians also ran the mafia, and owned a major TV channel and several prisons and mental health facilities where they were allowed to market footage of the people inside for entertainment, privacy laws just not being a thing (or a thing they have circumvented through exploitative contracts). Everything about these people is big and over-the-top they’re terrible on purpose and if somebody dies then that’s great for ratings.

Two of these are Cassandra and her twin brother Cecil. It’s very heavily implied through the story that the pair are identical twins, and given that their voice actor’s voice is definitely not affected by testosterone, reasonable to assume that Cecil is a trans man. We can’t be sure, though, because that never comes up in the plot. Cecil has an underground torture dungeon where he films a twisted quiz show, once got himself kidnapped by gangsters on purpose for TV ratings, lost his arm in the rescue and now has a cool robot arm. Absolutely everything about him is played up and out-there and over the top for those delicious reality TV viewers. At no point is him being trans ever mentioned, even in passing. It’s not part of his persona because it’s just not interesting or unusual. It isn’t A Thing.

The agender characters aren’t A Thing. They’re just there. The gay and bisexual characters aren’t A Thing. They’re just there. Most of what we know about the sexuality of anyone is speculation based on their dating history; nobody ever comes out to anyone because there’s no need to, there’s no assumption of heterosexuality so the lack of heterosexuality isn’t a surprise. Juno can kiss Peter in one episode and Alessandra a couple of episodes later and doesn’t have to explain to anyone that he’s bisexual. Alessandra can have a fling with Juno and then get engaged and there’s no assumption that her fiance is a man, or surprise that she’s a woman.

Only twice in the series does anyone explicitly state romantic or sexual preferences -- Rita, in a strip club, is asked whether she wants the company of a man or a woman and says “just give me whatever”. (This is a reasonable question to explicitly ask in a strip club.) And Jet, in conversation, once mentions not having romantic or sexual feelings for anybody -- this isn’t explained because HEY LOOK EVERYONE ASEXUALITY AND AROMANTICISM IS A THING, LOOK AT OUR DIVERSITY, WE HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT THERE’S AN ACE GUY HERE. It’s explained because Jet overexplains and overspecifies everything. It’s a core character trait of his, and his sexuality is neither exempt from this nor given special treatment, because it isn’t A Thing.

I’m tired of stories with space travel that unconsciously reflect our own cisheteronormativity no matter how socially advanced they try to be, in the same way that I’m tired of stories with dragons in them that unconsciously reflect our own misogyny no matter how gender equal they claim to be. It’s just nice to see someone get it right occasionally.

[gay-otlc]

Keepers of the Chaos (Chapter 2)

Summary: Tam, Linh, Keefe, Biana, and Fitz are part of the tiny fandom for Keeper of the Chaos, and Tam and Linh's podcast convinces some of their other friends to watch it as well. The group finds themselves strangely invested in this show, where students at Tumblr High School who work together to write about an elf named Sophia, cause incomprehensible chaos, and fight their rival Pinterest High School.

Content warnings: Cursing, food, L*ura

Word count: 2005

Notes: Check out the beautiful theme song here!

(Read on AO3)

Sophie rolls her eyes as she opens the link her girlfriend sent her and puts in her earbuds. Biana has been incessantly pestering her to watch Keepers of the Chaos for so long that Sophie half wants to watch it just to shut her up, but she's always tired, or busy, and she doesn't really like watching new things. Still, Biana asked her very nicely to listen to this one podcast, and she looked very pretty when she asked, so Sophie's dumb omni ass couldn't refuse.

"Welcome to the Twins of the Chaos podcast," it begins after loading for an obnoxiously long time. The girl speaking has a pretty voice, Sophie has to admit- sweet and melodic and vaguely amused.

Maybe listening to this podcast won't be so bad if she can listen to that girl's voice the whole time.

But another person speaks, adding "Where some chaotic twins discuss our favorite show, Keepers of the Chaos," and his voice is not as pretty. She continues listening anyway, since Biana may or may not murder her if she stops.

The two voices- whose names are Linh and Tam, apparently- start talking about Keepers of the Chaos some more, giving Sophie a summary she's heard tons of times from Biana and Fitz- though the twins explain it slightly more coherently and with less... whatever the verbal equivalent of keyboard smashing is. Biana usually starts rambling about her favorite characters, like Lynn- not "Lynn the fandom mom," but the other Lynn- and Avery, or sometimes Nora and Darwin. Sophie doesn't understand any of those names and loses track of the conversation as soon as it involves too many unfamiliar names.

But Tam and Linh are making more sense, at least for the most part, until they start mentioning specific couples. The conversation gets again comprehensive soon enough, though, and Sophie does smile at the name "The Dark Duck."

By the end, when Tam says "half of them wearing sleeping masks with teal eyes painted on and the other half watching the chaos with mild amusement," Sophie is curious enough to be mildly intrigued. She listens to their outro music, and before she can regret it, types out a text message to Biana.

Sophie: fine

Sophie: ill watch it

Biana responds instantly with an array of heart emojis. Sophie blushes.

Biana: can i come over and watch with u?

Sophie: ok!

Sophie: moms making mallowmelt

Sophie: but u cant have any

Biana: >:(

Biana: hope u like being single then

Sophie: fine u can have some mallowmelt

Biana: yayyyy!

Biana: ily

Sophie: ilyt

Sophie: now lets watch ur stupid show

Biana: on my way!!!

Sophie smiles, shaking her head. She's a little annoyed, but fine, it sounds interesting enough from the podcast. And what else would she be doing? Studying? Having US history as an alternative would make even the most horrible of shows seem good. She stuffs her textbooks into her backpack and shoves some things out of the way so her room looks a bit neater before rushing downstairs. The mallowmelt smells good enough to make her mouth water.

"Mmm..." she sighs, barely taking time to let it cool off before taking a large bite. "That's so good. Thanks, Mom."

Edaline  smiles. "You're welcome. Just save some for your father and I."

"Fine, fine. I have to share with Biana, anyway." Sophie huffs and takes another bite. "She's coming over, is that alright? We're going to watch a show together."

"Sure, just make sure to get your homework done."

Sophie rolls her eyes. "Fine."

"And keep the door open!" Grady calls. Edaline laughs as Sophie's face flames.

"I'm going back to my room," she grumbles, taking a plate of mallowmelt with her and walking up the stairs. She manages not to trip over her own feet and drop the mallowmelt, thankfully, as she grabs her laptop and opens Netflix. Sighing, she searches for Keepers of the Chaos and clicks on the show that comes up before waiting for Biana to arrive.

The doorbell rings soon, and Sophie carefully sets down her laptop and her plate on her bed before rushing down the stairs. Panting slightly, she opens the door for her girlfriend. Biana's wearing a t-shirt with the Amsterdam flag on it. Sophie has no idea why. Maybe Biana likes the country? Her girlfriend is pretty weird. "Come on in," she says, realizing she's been staring. In her defense, Biana is pretty and Sophie is very omni.

"Ready to go watch Keepers of the Chaos?" Biana asks. She bounces on her toes slightly.

"Alright," says Sophie. "I set it up on my laptop in my room."

"Awesome! You'll love it."

Sophie follows Biana up the stairs and into her room. They sit on the bed together, Sophie leaning against the wall and Biana leaning against Sophie, and Biana presses play. Somber kazoos begin playing in the background as the theme song starts.

We're on the edge of chaos

No one is straight

We're making fanart

Because L*ura we hate

And we're gonna have teal eyes in the end!

We must be weird, and we must be gay

(We must be gay!)

We will find every bit of sanity that we have

And give it all to Lynn

Ohhhh

We must be gay!

Biana dances a little along with the song, and Sophie can't help but smile. A curvy, round-faced person with short dark hair and colorful earrings plays a few notes on the piano, and then a KEEPERS OF THE CHAOS logo flashes across the screen. Then, a group of students sit in a classroom.

"Shai! Tater! Lynn! You three finally got together?" says the same person who just played piano, gesturing to a redhaed wearing a Sappho lesbian flag cape. She's holding the fingerless-gloved hand of a lanky person with brightly colored hair, and they're holding hands with a tall girl who has chin length brown hair. The rest of the class applauds the fiancees before returning to their own conversations.

"Yep! Thanks, Ink," says Tater.

Ink smiles at them and turns to a person with light brown skin and golden hoop earrings partially covered by long dark hair. "Hi, Kiri, how was your break?"

"Good! Here's to a good 2021?" Kiri turns to the person next to them. "How about you, Ref?"

Ref has short brown hair and red glasses. "Yeah, my break was dOPE," she says, leaving everyone to wonder how he did that with their voice. "oH, and happy belated Hanukkah to Shai!"

"Thanks, you too. And guess what! I didn't set my hair on fire this year!"

A short guy with strawberry blonde hair looks concerned. "Um. Congratulations?"

"Thanks, Sam!"

Sophie looks away from the screen and at Biana. "There are a lot of characters..." she mutters.

"Yeah, but you get to know them well enough eventually," says Biana. "Now shh, let's keep watching!"

A lot of other characters are introduced in various conversations, and Sophie's brain has a hard time keeping track of them all. She does remember Tara, a curvy, bored-looking girl with long sideswept bangs, and Blue, a bisexual who may or may not be an arsonist. She doesn't know either of their personalities very well yet, but she likes them so far. Lucat, a pale, blue haired asexual, who later joins the Hanukkah conversation, also seems cool.

Once quite a bit of introductions are done- Sophie lost count at around twenty something- are over, an announcement comes over the school's loudspeakers.

"Welcome back, Tumblr High School!" announces a voice. "I hope you all had a good break. Now, the Tumblr staff have an important announcement for you all. High schools in this county, like ours, Pinterest High School, and Instagram High School, will be holding a competition. All members of the winning team will receive a scholarship to AO3 college. If you are interested, meet in room 69 after school. Now, onto other announcements..."

Somber kazoos play again as the principal's droning voice fades into the background. A montage of the previously introduced characters wishing they could go to AO3 college moves across the screen. After a few minutes of them zooming through school and talking about how fucking boring it is, all of them gather in the room (some of them with more jokes than others) to discuss the competition.

A blonde woman welcomes them into the room. They wait a while to make sure no one else will arrive, but once everyone is there, the woman clears her throat. "Hello, everyone! I'm glad you're interested in joining the competition. My name is Shannon Messenger, and I'm in charge of admissions at AO3 College. My coworker L*ura and I designed this competition."

Sophie gasps and looks at Biana. "L*ura? But isn't that the person they hate? They said that in the intro!" Biana smiles at her, and she blushes as she realizes that she's kind of... maybe... invested in the show now. She decides she'll endure the "I told you so"s later and looks back at the show, trying to telepathically tell the characters not to trust this L*ura person... and perhaps not Shannon either. It's too early to tell whether Shannon will be an antagonist or not.

"All of you will be working as a team to write a story together. The main premise is that a twelve year old girl named Sophia is a telepath, but she can't tell anyone her secret. Then, she meets a teal-eyed boy named Finn, and he tells her that she's an elf. She travels back to the elf world with him, where she struggles a bit at the elf school Firefox, makes friends with some other elves, learns that she is an illegal creation of a rebel group called the Dark Duck, and another rebel group- the Rarelynoticed- tries to kidnap and kill Sophia and her friend Deck. There are other details to be included into the story, which will be given out to the participants as a packet. The object of this competition is not to determine your ability at coming up with story ideas, but your ability to work in groups and execute well developed ideas. Does anyone have any questions?"

Someone raises their hand- a short, tanned girl. "Lynn?" prompts the principal.

"Did you say the rebel group was named the Dark Duck?"

"And the Rarelynoticed?" adds another person, with rectangular glasses and a red bracelet.

"Raise your hand before speaking, Auran," scolds the principal. "But yes, those are the names."

"Alright then," Auran mutters.

"Unless anyone else has questions, we'll be sending out sign up forms for everyone interested, and then we will distribute the information packets about your story. You can talk to each other and start planning."

No one else has questions, so once they've all filled out the sign up form, they gather in small groups and flip through the packets, making sarcastic comments or mocking names ("'Rarelynoticed' though-" a stylish hijabi named Raiin sighs as they come across a page of information about the group) as they try to form some semblance of a plan. Once they all agree that they've made a lot of progress, they make plans to meet up again soon and walk back home.

Unbeknownst  to them, a pair of ominous teal eyes watch from above.

Somber kazoos play once again, and the credits roll.

"So, what'd you think?" Biana asks as Sophie closes her laptop.

Rather inaudibly, Sophie mumbles "It was good."

"What was that?"

"It was good! I liked it!"

Biana grins. "I told you so." She leans over and kisses Sophie on the cheek. "Thanks for watching it. I have to go do some homework, awesome seeing you!" As she walks out, Sophie hears her singing under her breath. "We must be gay..."

[imagineaworlds]

Rules & Roses

“you’re late”

Written By: @desperately-bisexual​

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing, mention of death. Pretty sure that’s it.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Non-binary!Reader x Emily Prentiss (poly triad)

Word Count: 2046

“You’re late,” I said to him while grinning. He shook his head, trying to stop himself from laughing so that he could focus on running up to me.

Aaron Christopher Hotchner was his name. Though I had learned a lot about him since we officially started talking on that cold Tuesday morning, I still thought of him as that six foot Nordic God. He hated that nickname, though. No matter how many times I used it, he never gave in, but I liked teasing him with it. Only two weeks had passed since we first started talking, and yet it seemed like we knew each other a lifetime. More than that, actually. My worries of talking to a stranger faded quickly the more we passed each other on the trail, then would chat as we walked to our cars. It was a nice, unspoken ritual we had. But it always started like this. No matter if it was warm or cold, sunny or cloudy, busy or quiet, we met at that park bench at the top of the U-turn. Usually, we ran beside each other, or he would be waiting up for me. This time, I was waiting on him. That wasn’t usual.

“How am I late?” he asked.

I looked at my watch. “It’s 7:17.”

“So?”

“You never reach the bench later than 7:15.”

Aaron smiled and put his hands on his hips to help him catch his breath. “Who’s stalking who now?”

“I never said you stalked me. Those are your own words.”

“Ha. Ha.” He panted for another second. “My son woke up late, so I got here late.”

I froze. During our little conversations here and there, he had never once mentioned anything about having a family. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, he seemed more than happy to flirt with me, and he never, ever said anything about having a son. This whole time, I thought he was an available man. I would have never flirted with him if I knew that he was taken, that he had other promises and responsibilities besides meeting me, practically a stranger, in the park every morning. Of course someone like him would have been snatched up by someone else. Of course the one person I saw myself potentially getting involved with since moving to D.C. was the one person I couldn’t have. My fucking luck, right? I was so stupid. How did I not see it before? Why did I get involved in all of this in the first place? I promised myself I wouldn’t talk to a stranger, and I broke that promise for him. I promised that I wouldn’t let my desperate urge for sex and love blind my ability to read social queues and dictate what was good and bad for me— and I fucking broke that promise. I saw him— I felt his hands on my hips— and everything I had learned from past experiences flew out the window. For a moment, for a blissful, wonderful moment, I forgot about Lauren because I had all of my focus on the Nordic God. A Nordic God that was taken. How fucking ridiculous.

Aaron sat down next to me. I scooted away, and he immediately noticed. A couple of days ago, I asked him what his job was at the FBI, and he told me that he studied the behavior of serial killers in order to find them. When he cracked a joke that his ability to “profile” serial killers was a curse that affected every aspect of his life, I asked him if he could profile me. Profiling was putting together all of the behaviors he spotted in someone in order to tell what kind of person they were, are, and could potentially be. Aaron laughed. He said that he had already profiled me the day we met. “Your eyes were on my friend the entire time,” he said. “Her name’s Emily, by the way.” So, that had confirmed that it wasn’t Lauren I saw. Though I was somewhat relieved, I was also disappointed, and Aaron noticed. He asked me why I was staring at her, and I simply dodged a real answer by telling him that I thought she was someone else. His profiling skills seemed to tell him I was lying. Despite the fact that he knew I wasn’t telling the truth, he didn’t pry. He never did. When I moved away from him on the bench, however, and he noticed, that was the first time I ever heard him get serious with me.

“What is it?” he asked me quietly and sincerely. I shook my head. “Y/N, it’s not what you think—”

“Why…” I hesitated for a beat. “Why would you keep flirting with me if—”

“My wife died years ago, Y/N. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

If I wasn’t embarrassed before, I was as red as a fucking tomato, and this time for all the wrong reasons. Originally, I had simply assumed that him having a son meant that he was still with someone. My first mistake. Then, I thought that it all meant that he didn’t like me, that he had been stringing me around for no reason, that maybe I was seeing between the lines. My second mistake. Now, I was embarrassed because I had made a complete fool of myself by tensing up at the thought of him having a kid— something I really didn’t mind, actually— and then I admitted that I thought he was flirting, all while practically pushing him away. I fucked this all up. Why was it that he made me trip over my tongue like this? I mean, he was always in my head since that first day we met and I felt his hands on my hips; and I found myself wanting to spend more time with him and impressing him. All of that had just been flushed down the drain. Any chance I had to keep being this happy and distracted had just disappeared because I had been stupid.

“I’m sorry.” I did a lot of compulsive apologizing around him. Because he made me trip over my own tongue, I always happened to say the wrong thing, so I constantly needed to apologize, which I could tell he found adorable, but I found it to be humiliating. “I didn’t mean to force that out of you.”

“It’s okay. It’s been so long, and I’ve had to tell so many people; I’m neutral about it these days.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“If you say sorry one more time, I’m going to start feeling bad.”

“Sorr—” I caught myself before laughing. “That’s going to be a bad habit to break.”

“All habits are hard to break.” He shrugged, leaned back, and looked forward to make the feeling between us casual again. “New rule, no more apologizing.”

Part of getting to know each other was making rules in order to make ourselves comfortable. I didn’t pry about his work, he didn’t ask me any more about his friend Emily. I didn’t stare below his belt (a personal rule I made for myself that I never disclosed to him), and he didn’t stare too long at my breasts when I would wear a low cut or tight shirt (a rule he made for himself that went unsaid). The rules would come up occasionally, but only when we were sitting on that park bench surrounded by roses. The parking lot, however, was fair game. Because that was the last time we would get to see each other until the next day, which was never guaranteed since he traveled so much— just like Lauren always did— we both got to break our staring rules until we would get into our separate cars. This new rule about apologizing didn’t seem like just a roses rule, though. If I had to guess, Aaron was going to keep an eye on me to make sure I wouldn’t  break this new rule.

I nodded. “Okay, fine. But, no more being late,” I said. He also nodded. “And, I need a 6AM warning every time you won’t be here.”

Aaron looked at me. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Phone,” I demanded while holding out my hand. Aaron urgently dug into his pocket, racing to grab his phone before I could change my mind about giving him my number. He was too chicken shit to ask for it, so I didn’t mind taking that first step for him. Afterall, it was the most I could do since I totally messed up by getting uptight about his son. Speaking of which, when I turned Aaron’s phone on, I saw a picture of him holding his son, both of them smiling ear to ear after what looked like a victory after one of his son’s soccer games. I felt myself melting. “He’s adorable.” He had blonde hair, which wasn’t like his dad at all, but the brown eyes, lips, and nose were all a mirror image of Aaron.

“His name’s Jack.”

“How old is he?”

“Nine.”

I smiled at him before looking back down to unlock his phone and put my information into the Contacts app. When I was done, I turned it off and handed it back to him. “There. Now you can text me at 6AM every time you know you’re not going to be here.”

“And what about… other than 6AM?” He was biting his lip again. I always knew that he was flirting with me when he would bite his lip like that. He was the professional profiler, yet he couldn’t have been more obvious. One would think that he knew how to hide his tells better than that, but he really seemed to suck at it. “Can I call you tonight, maybe?”

“For what?”

He hadn’t anticipated that I would nudge him back with a question. “I—” He didn’t know what to say. I giggled. “Is it too late to take my rule back so that I can say sorry for being too forward?”

“Yeah. It is. Sometimes it’s okay to be forward.” I stood from the bench, giving him the idea that it was time to go. He stood, too, taking my lead because he seemed like a lost puppy that needed to be told what to do. “I get off work at seven. You can call me for whatever it is you have on your mind any time after that.” I jumped on my toes to warm myself up, also testing to see just how long he could keep his eyes on mine and not one any other part of me that was a little more… distracting. “I’ll race you to the parking lot.”

“What happens if you win?”

“Who said there needs to be prizes?”

“The new rule I just made,” he said like it was a tease.

I squinted at him. “You can’t just make rules up for your benefit, Aaron.”

“Well, if you win, Y/N, I’ll stop making up random rules.”

“And if you win?”

I saw his answer coming from a mile away, but I still felt myself smiling when he said, “I take you out for dinner after our call tonight.”

“Deal.”

Aaron wasn’t prepared at all yet, but that didn’t stop me from beginning my dash down the path. Though I was inevitably going to let him win, I still had to put up somewhat of a fight to make his win believable. Aaron seemed to notice immediately. Before I could make it very far, he was already speeding past me, intent on winning so  that he could take me to dinner. Dummy. I wasn’t trying very hard to win. He didn’t seem to notice, though,even as we reached the parking lot where he claimed his victory. He slowed to a stop. As I caught up, he turned around and smiled.

“You’re late,” he teased me.

I rolled my eyes. “Pick me up at eight.” I immediately started making my way towards my car, which gave Aaron the chance to break his rule so that he could stare at me for a little longer than he was supposed to. “And don’t be late!” I called back to him.

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criminal minds family: @peggy1999​ @gorgeousdarkangel​  @alex--awesome--22​ @oceaneblu​ @brithedemonspawn​ @absolutemarveltrash​ @bshelley322​

[formerprincess]

A tale written with fangs and claws || Chapter 60

Chapters: 60/? Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken, Corey Bryant/Mason Hewitt Characters: Liam Dunbar, Theo Raeken, Mason Hewitt, Corey Bryant, Nolan (Teen Wolf) Additional Tags: Alpha Liam Dunbar, Slow Build, Friends to Lovers, Dunbar Pack, Bisexual Liam Dunbar, Werewolf Theo Raeken, Alpha Theo Raeken, Canon-Typical Violence, Smut, Mates, Liam and Theo are mates, Top Theo Raeken, Bottom Theo Raeken, Top Liam, Bottom Liam Dunbar Series: Part 1 of Morning Dew Pack

Liam meets with Luka again and learns a bit more about the other werewolf pack. The friendship is blossoming.

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"Thank you for dropping me off." Liam climbed out of the passenger seat of Savannah's car and closed the passenger door behind him. "Don't forget to text me!" The blonde yelled through the open window before she reversed her car. Liam waved at her and watched her drive away before he finally made his way to the front door of his house. Luka, Savannah, Maddie, and he had sat together in the bar and talked for a while until they all had to disperse in different directions. Maddie and Luka had matters to attend to in regards to business and coven, Savannah had plans with her friends later on but offered to drop Liam off. He had gladly accepted her offer since it saved him from riding the bus during summer. Would Theo or someone else had come to get Liam? Absolutely but his Betas were not his chauffeurs.

Liam unlocked the door now and stepped into the house. He heard the tv running, the bass of Mike's music coming from downstairs. As always, it filled Liam with the undeniable feeling of home and happiness. Here he belonged. He hung his keys up and walked further into the house. Theo and Mason lounged on the opposite ends of the couch; Theo with a book in his hand and Mason with his notebook. Corey sat in front of the couch table and solved a puzzle. Tim sat in one of the chairs and watched tv. "Hey, you're back." Mason checked his watch. "Way later than I expected you to be. So it was good?" The others stopped what they were doing and turned to Liam. Tim even muted the series he had been watching. "Mixed, I would say." Liam kissed Theo and then sat next to his mate. Theo licked his lips. "Have you've been drinking lemon shots?" "I'm concerned how you got that from just one kiss", Liam remarked. Then he decided to answer Mason's question. "First of, those Alphas really think they're something else. Something I'm not. I don't have enough millions in my bank account to ever have them accept me." "That bad? I'm sorry." Corey grimaced. His parents were like that as well and he despised them for it. "Most of them, yeah. But I met three people who are very cool. First of, Mase, were cheetahs and vampire are a thing." Mason squeaked and pushed his notebook out of the way. "Tell me everything!" "The hotel had such old Hollywood glam style. Not my chic but whatever. First I met Savannah. She's the cheetah. Alpha of a very small pack here in Seattle. Outgoing, very direct, and honest. She talked to me before I even entered the meeting room. Was her first time too. We kind of stuck together. Then we met Meadow, the vampire. She has been to meetings before but she does not like the Alphas. She has a human best friend and told me he also has some notes about the supernatural community. I invited the two of them here cause I thought you and him could maybe check your notes, combine them so to speak. He surely will have things you don't have and vice versa, Mason and Corey." "Great idea." Corey helped Mason with the Bestiary and he would also profit from meeting Asher. If Asher wanted to follow the invitation. Maddie had said it would not be a problem but Liam would wait for clarification from Asher himself. "You said you met three people. Who's the third?" Theo asked. "Luka. He's the only other cool werewolf I met. Also older than us but his pack is from around. They're more modern and open-minded. Like ours is." "Sounds good. All in all, it seemed as if the meeting wasn't for nothing." Mason smiled. "And vampires. Wait! How was she there? Can she walk in the sun? Did the other Alphas wrangle her into the hotel? Is she traveling in a coffin? Did she try to drink your blood? What was she like??" "Jesus, Mason." Corey shook his head. But Liam gladly answered every question his Emissary had. "I'll stay in contact with them", he finally ended and his mate, as well as Consultant and Emissary, voiced their agreement. "Liam?" Tim said shyly. "Didn't you put up a rule of not having strangers come to the house? When you said you invited the vampire and her friend here, are you not breaking your own rule?"

Shit. Oh shit.

Liam had completely forgotten about that rule. Yes, he had told his Betas not to bring strangers into their new home. And here he was breaking his very own rule. Great, Dunbar! "No...I mean...yeah, I did....But...." Tim got up to leave the room. "I mean, you're the Alpha and therefore it's your decision. You can do whatever you want. I just remembered the rule." He gave an insecure shrug and then left the room in the direction of his room. Liam huffed. "You forgot you had put the rule in place, right?" Theo guessed. "Yep." Liam closed his eyes for a moment and scolded himself mentally. Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! "I mean, you are the Alpha. We can still follow the rules but what you do is up to you", Corey suggested softly. Liam's eyes snapped open. "No!" He said sharply. "We're not running a pack like that! If rules are in place, we all have to follow them. Including me. Especially me." "Then you have to decide what to do with that situation. You could always meet with Meadow and her friend somewhere else", Mason suggested. "No. The rule made sense back then but not it's not feasible anymore. And I will tell Tim that."

The young Alpha got up from the couch and marched downstairs to his Beta's room. He knocked, waited a few moments, then opened the door. Liam peeked into the room. "Hey. Have a minute?" Tim had sat on his desk and now spun around in his chair, a mixture of shock and surprise written on his face. But then he caught himself and nodded. Liam walked in and closed the door behind him. "You can sit on the bed if you want." Tim pointed at said furniture piece and Liam sat down on the edge. He rubbed his palms over his thighs. "You're right. I set this rule and I completely and utterly forgot about it. Had you not said anything, it would have left my mind forever. I am sorry about that." "It's okay. As I said, you're the Alpha. You make the rules, you sure can break the rules." Tim tried his best to give off the impression it was really okay. But Liam was stubborn. "It's not okay", he stated calmly. "When I set the rule, it seemed reasonable to me and came from a place of being worried about everyone and our home. I wanted to be absolutely sure nothing could get to us. That was weeks ago. I should have kept it in mind and change it again after Ever cast the spell and we were more secure. I didn't. I fucked up and I am sorry about that." Tim opened his mouth to protest but Liam was faster: "I am grateful for you guys calling me out. Tim, you're my friend, my family, my Beta. You and the others absolutely should call me out when I do something wrong. I'm not perfect and I will make these mistakes. But only with this echo from you, I can improve and become a better leader. I'm not mad at you and you don't have to be afraid to speak up. This rule was okay back then but now is not anymore. Therefore I cut it. Gone! Just like that! thank you for bringing this up. I mean it. But what will never happen is that I set rules for you and then don't follow them myself. This is not the type of leader I wanna be. Okay?" Tim gnawed on his lip. "I would not care so much but this is the first house I am not judged and ridiculed in. I can be myself and I want to protect it as much as I can", he confessed. "So do I, Timmy", Liam promised him. "I would never let anyone in here I might consider not fully trustworthy." Tim considered. "So you trust Meadow and her friend?" "I do, yeah." Liam nodded. "Do you consider them good allies for the pack?" The twenty-year-old had to laugh. "My brain's not wired like that." Liam played with his hands. "Theo is good at that, Mason too. But I don't think strategically. On the lacrosse field, yeah, that's my jam, but not when it comes to people. I meet a person and I either like or dislike them. Maybe I trust too easy and maybe I will make a fool out of myself but then I have to take responsibility for it. I can't, I don't want to meet someone and be like Your name is what? Oh, you will be a splendid ally to my pack. This is not me and I will probably never get there. Hence why I keep Theo around", he joked at the end. Tim chuckled but then sighed. "I know what you mean. I'm not like that either. It would feel...I don't know...like..." They both thought about it. "Like using someone", they both finally said at the same time and this time they both laugh. "Mike is good at it too. To easily find out how people can be useful to him upon meeting them." "Maybe it's a survival tactic", Liam put out a theory. "How can you help me in my current situation to get a better stand and survive. Would explain why Theo is so good at it. He and Mike both needed to survive in a world that didn't want them." Tim raised his shoulders. "My survival tactic is not being seen or heard. Not draw any attention." "Well, I hope you don't feel like that anymore in the house or around the pack in general." Liam sounded like a father, he realized that himself. But wasn't an Alpha supposed to be a father sometimes? Tim shook his head. "Not always. But it's hard to unlearn what I learned for nineteen years. You know, you guys are great! You make me feel welcome! Don't think anybody else, please!"

He moved his hands around and knocked over a small can filled with brushes of all kinds. They clattered to the floor. Liam knelt and helped him pick them up again. "Didn't know you were painting, Timmy. Those are many brushes." His Beta turned a concerning shade of red and stuttered. "I...No...Not...Irgs. I don't paint! Pictures! I don't paint pictures!" "Then what do you paint?" Liam had never seen Tim being creative with brushes in any shape or form. From how his friend acted, one would think he was doing forbidden things with those brushes. "You don't have to tell me, of course. I'm just curious." You could basically see Tim's thought process on his face. Denial, fear, nervousness, fear again, shame. Finally, he pointed to the other side of the room. There was a large board with something tiny on it. Curiosity got the better of Liam and he stepped closer. Tiny little figurines were placed all over the board, along with trees, and various other little things. There was even a tiny truck looking amazingly similar to Theo's truck. And there was a car looking like Liam's. Wait a second. "Are those figurines of the pack?" Tim rushed next to Liam. "I can stop with that if you think it's weird. It's just, I like making those little scenes and take inspiration from real life." He gently pushed a tiny figurine in a blue jersey. A tiny Liam in lacrosse gear, Liam realized. "You've got to be kidding me! This is awesome! Can I touch it?" Liam was in awe. Tim blushed furiously but then gently placed lacrosse Liam on Liam's palm. The young Alpha turned the figurine to inspect it from all sides. For such a small thing, the details were incredibly detailed. "I make the figurines from a special clay and then I paint them. I hope you don't think it's weird. I am sorry if you do. I'm not a creep, I promise!" Tim almost stumbled over his words in his haste to get them out. "You make them? This is incredible, Tim! Why did you never show us this? That's not creepy or weird, this is fucking amazing! You're crazy talented." Liam could not stop praising the guy. And Tim beamed under the praise. Once he realized Liam did not find anything weird about that and actually loved it, he preened. "Does anybody in the pack know you're doing this?" "Mike knows." Tim smiled shyly. "But I made him swear he wouldn't tell a soul. Made him swear on something important to him." "Uh uh. What did he swear on?" Now Tim blushed again. "Our friendship." "Aw." Those two were cute and deserved each other. Mike because he needed a calm anchor in his life, Tim because he needed someone to speak up when he couldn't himself. "But seriously, Timmy, those are cool. I'm not going to say anything but if you ever want to share with the rest, I can already assure you, they will be as amazed as I was. It's a really cool hobby. I imagine it takes a lot of time?" "Oh, it does. But I like to modulate all the figurines and then paint them. It's calm work and I can think while doing it." Tim began chatting about his hobby. Now that Liam knew it seemed like a dam had burst and he could share it with the Alpha. Liam willingly listened.

****** "I'm glad you could clear the air with Tim." Theo pulled the covers back and crawled in bed. Liam was already under the covers and had scrolled through his phone but now put the device away to concentrate on the talk with his mate. "I'm glad too. It is important to me to get those kinds of replies so I can reflect on myself. I'm not doing everything right. But I'm working on it." "You're doing a lot of things already right. The things you're not doing right, well they partly make you Liam. Not perfect but human and very loveable." "How were you ever the chimera of death?" Liam teased and Theo smacked him with his pillow. Liam laughed. "I am trying here to compliment you and you do not appreciate it? You should be ashamed of yourself!" Theo wailed. Liam laughed louder. "Naw, you will survive that one, big boy. You know I love you." To prove it, he pressed his mate down on the mattress and kissed him passionately. Theo laughed into the kiss but returned it soon enough. "I know you love me", he mumbled after they parted. "And I love you, Lee." Liam was proud to hear that and he smirked. His phone chimed and he let go of Theo to grab it. "It's from Luka. He's asking if I want to meet up sometime next week. Cool." Liam already typed an answer. "You really like the three, right?" Theo mused. Liam looked up from his phone screen. Theo was watching him with questioning eyes but there was no sign of jealousy as he had shown with Scott in the beginning. He sighed. "I do. It's strange. They're all older than me and yet they never acted like they had to explain the world to me. Never a patronizing word, never telling me I'm still so young. I was just Liam and from the get-go, I was part of this little gang. I didn't have to prove myself to them. Because it felt like I had already proved myself prior to meeting them and they didn't even care. It was nice. I wasn't...." "You weren't the fourteen-year-old?" Theo asked amusedly and yet with compassion. "Yeah", Liam confirmed. "I wasn't even Liam the twenty-year-old. I was just...Liam." He fell silent for a few beats. "Doesn't mean I will leave you guys behind. You're my family." "Nobody's thinking that!" Theo furrowed his brows. "If we did, we would be bad friends and family members. We all are individuals outside of this pack and we all will make friendships without the pack being involved. If not, we would be one lousy pack. What we are is, happy you found people appreciating you and liking you for who you are." He reached out and pushed Liam's chin up so the couple looked at each other. "Liam, you have so many things going on for you. Your age shouldn't be one of the first things to notice." It was still strange to hear those things with such sincerity and Liam swallowed dryly. "What's the first thing?" He asked softly. Theo smiled lovingly. "Your good heart. And your eyes. Not because of their color - even though it's a beautiful color - but because they shine with such honesty and happiness." They stared at each other, Liam lost for words. He found his voice only after moments passed. "Were you always that poetic?" "You bring out the best in me", the ex-chimera replied and then kissed Liam deeply.

****** "Not to be pessimistic or something but would it not have been better to plant the flowers after the heatwave?" Liam stood in the open front door and watched Brett watering their plants. Nope", the tall werewolf replied and carried on with his task. "Because?" "Because I wanted to do it now", Brett simply answered. He gave Liam a cheeky grin. "That's reason enough." "Why would I ever doubt that?" Liam remarked teasingly. "Careful before I water you. You could use some growing", Brett teased back. The next moment, he was distracted by the red convertible oldtimer rolling into their driveway. The car was highly polished, not one speck of dirt to be seen, and it was sparkling in the sun. "Holy crap, that is awesome." Brett didn't even realize he was watering the ground instead of the plants, too busy staring at the car. It stopped in front of the entrance and Luka in the driver seat smirked. "Hi." "Hi." Liam laughed. "Nice car." "It's the pack car when one of us wants to go for a nice ride. Holden, a pack member, resto moded it but he lends it to everyone. Thought it's a nice day, why not take it?" He took off his sunglasses and seemed quite proud of his Beta's skills. Liam had no interest in cars but it was a pretty one and why not? He had no objections to driving around in this. Mike and Theo came out of the house. "Dude, that car is sick!" Mike jumped down the stairs and rounded it. Luka preened. "I'll forward it to Holden." Theo was also circling the car, as amazed by it as Mike and Brett were. Liam could only shake his head. Who knew those guys were such car freaks? "Luka, that one over there is Brett and that guy there is Mike. And that is Theo." "Nice to meet you." Theo was the only one to actually shake Luka's hand, the other two simply waved and then continued to fawn over the car. "Nice to meet you too", Luka replied. "You're Liam's boyfriend, right?" "I am", Theo proudly confirmed. "Bring him back in one piece." "I swear on my life", Luka promised in a playful serious tone. Liam grunted. "I can hear you guys! Theo, maybe I won't bring Luka back in one piece. How about that?" "As long as you bring the car back in one piece!" Mike cut in and made them all laugh. "Okay, now that some of my Betas embarrassed me in front of you, I'll get my sunglasses and we can go", Liam called out to the older Alpha and ran into the house and upstairs.

It took him a little while to find his sunglasses (he really needed to try and be tidier) but when he found them under some papers, Liam let out a triumphant cry and ran back downstairs. His Betas were involved in a conversation with Luka (surprisingly not about cars) which Liam now interrupted. "I'm ready." "Great. Hop in." Liam opened the passenger door and marveled at how smooth this was going. He somehow expected the door to get stuck because of age. But this car looked and felt like a brand new one. "See you guys later. Don't burn the house down", he joked. "Yes, dad!" All three Betas chimed in unison. Theo smirked and came to the passenger side to give Liam a quick kiss. "Have fun", he mumbled and Liam nodded. "Bye, guys. See you next time!" Luka called out before he started the car and soon they rolled down the driveway.

"You're one of the few people in this car to use the seatbelt immediately", he informed Liam when he turned into the street. The young Alpha looked down. "I do this in every car. My mother drilled this into me from a young age. I could not drive in a car without buckling up." "My mom was like that too. She always said just because were werewolves didn't mean we had to challenge fate. And she got mad if she saw one of us without a seatbelt on. Not just her own kids but basically everyone. There is a story where she refused to drive another Alpha's wife to the airport because the lady refused to put hers on. It's said they sat in the car for forty minutes until my dad went looking for them." Liam started laughing. "That's dedication. It's that the temper you were talking about?" Now Luka laughed. "My mom was stubborn. I'm too. And my sister is as well. Fun times during puberty, I can tell you. Good thing my dad was good at finding middle ground." "Your parents seemed like an amazing couple. Their personalities really matched with each other, from what I already heard." He wanted to know more about his new friend. And Liam wanted to share things about himself as well. He believed Savannah was right, this could become great friendships. "They were the perfect match even though their personalities were as different as they can be. But they balanced each other out. They were incredible Alphas for our pack." "You say Alphas. Were both real Alphas? Or just an Alpha couple?" Luka stopped at a crosswalk and let some pedestrians pass. "Technically, if you base it on red eyes and stamina, my father was the Alpha. My mother was a Beta but no one would have dared to treat her like one. Or like she was just dad's wife and mate. The way she cared for her pack, the way she made decisions, the way she spoke, she was an Alpha. There is so much more to an Alpha than red eyes. It's all about behavior and the relationship to the pack members." "I don't base it on the red eyes. Theo, he's also a Beta, but we call him Second Alpha. He takes over if I can't. We're the Alpha couple. Why should the color of somebody's eyes define their role?" Luka agreed with Liam's point of view. "There are some packs without an Alpha with red eyes. One Beta is in charge and guides them." "I didn't know that, that's awesome. But wouldn't that be an Alpha by conquest in the long run?" "Depends on how serious the pack takes it. Not all packs are focused on Alpha and Betas, some are more lenient. There are so many kinds of packs. Not just different species but different versions. There are also many Alpha Omegas around." "Alphas without a pack? So wolves with the Alpha spark." "Yeah." "Huh." Liam had never considered that. To him, Omegas had always been those wolves. With normal wolf powers. What were normal wolf powers? Betas? Liam guessed so. He never bothered to really make a distinction or think about what exactly Omegas were. "I kind of don't know a lot about the supernatural. I know how to fight and about several evil beings but all those connections between weres, species, what other magical beings are there, rituals, I know nothing about." Luka didn't take it badly. "At what age were you bitten?" "Fourteen." "You're twenty now. Which means I'm twelve years older than you. Trust and believe me when I tell you I didn't know that much more when I was your age. Plus I have the unfair advantage of being born in a werewolf family." He smiled impishly. Liam grinned. Yet he still insisted on his opinion. "I still think the first few years as a werewolf did not prepare me for that."

Thus he found himself telling Luka everything, from how Scott bit him to the hyenas. It was somewhat therapeutic to talk about all this with another wolf without knowing him beforehand. He didn't need to find periphrases for things, could tell it how it happened and didn't need to sugarcoat the events. He also could be as open as possible without having to worry about insulting some old friends. It had been the same with Byron.

He talked until they parked in the parking lot of the restaurant they had picked to grab something to eat. Liam didn't know the place but according to Luka it had delicious food and you could sit outside under trees so it would not be too hot. "See? That's the reason why teenagers shouldn't become Alphas", Luka said matter of factly and killed the engine. "I don't mean this condescendingly but it is what it is. Maybe if Scott had been a born werewolf it would have been different but I understand why this was all complicated. And why you didn't learn about the supernatural community. You had enough other problems to take care of." "I just wished I could have learned more. Maybe being an Alpha would be easier then", Liam mumbled. "Nah." Luka denied. "Becoming an Alpha does not mean you suddenly get access to this knowledge. It's not like a hatch opens and it's flowing into your brain. You have to make mistakes to find your footing as an Alpha." He unbuckled his seatbelt. "I was prepared to become an Alpha after my father's death for years. It could have become anybody in the pack but since I'm the oldest it was kind of expected for me to take over afterward. But it's not possible to really prepare someone for the weight we shoulder as Alphas. For the magnitude of responsibility settling in. It's something we just feel. And every Alpha has to find their own way to cope with that." Liam frowned. "How do I know I'm doing the right thing then?" Luka gave him a brotherly nudge. "I'd say you're on a good way already. When the first Alpha came to town, your Betas followed you into a potentially deadly fight. They were willing to die by your side. That's a type of loyalty you cannot buy or blackmail. It's loyalty coming from the soul and the heart. And it's only happening because an Alpha made the right decision for those Betas. You're young, Liam, one of the youngest Alphas I've ever met but you marched into the Alpha meeting without a care in the world. Do you think any of those Alphas would have done that at the age of twenty? From my point of view, you're doing absolutely great. Don't focus so much on being perfect and rather follow your heart and gut and you're set. You will be fine." It felt good to hear that. Byron told him that often enough but now a second experienced werewolf told Liam the same thing. He felt flattered. Those men saw him as equal, not just as a teenager. Saw eye-to-eye with him and respected him the same way he respected them. Enough to give Liam a soaring feeling in his chest. "Thanks." He clapped Luka's shoulder. "No come on, I'm hungry."

They exited the car and walked to the restaurant entrance. The hostess greeted them with a friendly smile and an even friendlier one when she got the first good glance at Luka. Liam was friends with Brett so this was not new to him. He was flabbergasted still. "How do you do that?" He had to inquire once they sat outside on their table and the hostess left to get menus for them. "Do what?" Luka acted innocently but his grin and the sparkle in his eyes betrayed him. The hostess came back and made a show to slowly put the menus on the table. She didn't pay Liam any mind and that was fine, he was mated, instead just gave Luka a coy smile. "Don't hesitate to ask me in case you need anything." "Will do. Thank you", he repaid her with a charming smile of his own and she left in a slow, seductive motion. On top of the menus, she left a little note with digits behind. "You barely talked to her and still got her number. Brett managed to pull this off as well. How? Not that I will ever need to try since I have Theo but how the fuck do you pull that off?" Liam could not find any satisfying explanation. Luka had gazed back at the hostess but now his head snapped back. "Luck, I guess. And charm, maybe." "Maybe, uh uh." Liam snickered. Luka had a certain boyish charm about him and that made him attractive. Not taking life too seriously, giving everything an easier vibe. Liam also understood the hostess because the deep green t-shirt Luka was wearing brought out his eyes nicely and accentuated his fit body perfectly. "I like sex. What can I say? Everywhere. No matter what country I am." Luka was not embarrassed to share this. "Have you always been like this?" "Frankly? Yeah. I always liked to flirt and when I was old enough to actually become sexually active, I saw no harm in there. I don't play. That's how my parents raised me. My mother always said: Go and have fun with whoever you want to have fun. But don't break hearts if you don't have to. Be upfront. If it's just sex, say it. Saves you and other people heartbreak. I always followed that. Yes, I had relationships but most of the time I have been single and had one-night-stands. Or several night stands. Whatever. The minute I'm interested in someone or in a relationship, I'm faithful. I can't stand cheaters." "That's the right answer. Sex is nice, with the right person even better, but I don't like players. Nice to hear someone having values."

Liam took a look inside the menu. Right on cue, a waiter appeared. "Hello gentlemen, I'm your server for today. Would you care for a drink?" The Alphas looked at each other. "Just water is fine for me", Liam decided. It was hot, despite the trees providing shade, and he would become thirsty, he knew himself. "Water is good", Luka decided himself and the waiter went to fetch their drinks. "You said no matter what country you are in. Are you traveling a lot?" Liam had picked up on that. "For work yeah." "What are you doing for a living?" "I deal in car parts for either oldtimer or pimped-out cars. Like the convertible. Holden is the mechanic, we work together. He screws the cars together, I contract the clients and the manufacturers. We have business all over the world since some of the parts are very rare. So I traveled a lot. For periods of time, I wasn't home for months. I never had my own apartment because it made no sense to pay for something I used. Tried it once and after weeks my landlord called and said he just wanted to check if I was still alive since I never came around. So I moved out again and if I stayed home, I stayed with the Alphas." "And that was okay? For you to be gone so long?" "My parents ket an open door policy. If something important came up, they called us home but aside from that, we were free to leave as long as we wanted. We knew we could always return to the pack house. No matter how late, even in the middle of the night, we were always welcome. We all made use of that rule over the years."

The waiter brought their drinks and took their order. When he left the two alone again, Liam raised his glass. "Good idea to meet up again", he praised. "Well, Savannah said it right, it's the beginning of wonderful friendships. So of course." Luka smiled and they clinked their glasses together. Liam took a sip. Perfect, cool water, he never drank anything better. He put his glass down again and savored the sip. "Uhm, I never got the chance to ask. How many Betas do you have? We're only talking about me." "I don't mind. You're good at telling a story and explaining things. Somebody ever told you that?" Luka had put his glass down as well. Liam made an incredulous face. "No. What would they? I'm kind of dumb." It had slipped out faster than Liam could have stopped it. Luka's frown was almost instantly. "What asshole told you that?" "No one. Life experience, if you will. I'm not the brightest." "You don't have to be a genius but you really don't appear dumb, Liam. Don't believe it when people tell you that. They're just haters." It had the same vibe as a worried older brother giving a stern talking to his younger sibling and Liam chuckled. He was a big brother but not a little brother and yeah he called Scott his brother sometimes but that was different. Maybe because Scott was only two years older than Liam himself. They came from the same walk of life, small town, maybe that was also a factor? Liam could not really put his finger on it but it hit differently with Luka. "Okay", he said to end this topic. "I will remember this talk." "Good", Luka looked stern but then he smiled. "To get back to the question, seven Betas. A few less than you have." He leaned back in his chair. "There is my younger sister Delaney. Younger by three years. An absolute firecracker. If she gets angry, if you piss her off, she will cuss at you and rant for hours if you let her. Especially in the background of a phone conversation. Very entertaining, if I'm being honest." Luka laughed. But the love for his sister was evident in his words. "Then there is Simon. He is...was dad's best friend. They've been to school and college together and he acted like some sort of advisor for the pack. Helped with international deals and connections. He's my godfather and like a second dad. I'm happy I still have him after I lost dad. It doesn't bear contemplating if he would have been also gone..." Luka trailed off. Liam managed a compassionate smile. "I am sorry for your loss. Losing somebody we love is never easy." He touched his collar bone where the Lion King tattoo was hidden under his shirt. Luka appreciated the sentiment. He continued his list on a lighter note. "With Simon came Holden, his son. Holden's just a few months younger than I am, we grew up together." "Holden's mom is not part of the pack?" "No. She never wanted to get married or have kids. Yet she married Simon and got pregnant with Holden. Weeks after his birth she handed Simon the infant and announced: I don't want to be a wife or a mother. Here's the child, I'll leave your life for good. He does not have to search for me, I want nothing to do with any of you. My lawyer will send you the documents where I signed my rights away and the divorce papers. Got her suitcase and left. From that moment on, mom and dad gave a hand to Simon. Holt and I basically grew up like brothers. He annoys Delaney the same way I do." Liam giggled. "Are younger siblings not something fun? I have a younger brother. He's ten but living at the lake." "Aw, they're so cute at that age. And then they start stating their own opinions and become brats." It was obvious Luka didn't mean a thing he said about his sister. They both began to laugh. "Holden's a great guy but he can be a hothead. Impulsive and very brash. Those are not his finest moments and we have to hold him back. But he's fiercely protective of the pack. Would do anything for us. Another one of my Betas is Sandro. Alessandro. My second in command. We met during freshmen orientation in college and clicked almost instantly. Have been inseparable ever since. When I brought him home the first time, mom looked at dad and said: Look, it's Luka in another body. Our parents often joked how they could each take the wrong son home and nobody would notice cause we're so similar. It's eerie. "

Their food came out and they interrupted their talk to thank the waiter and dig in before Luka resumed talking. "Sandro was human when we met but after a while, he noticed my family was hiding something. He confronted me and after consulting with my Alphas I came clean to him. Thank god cause when he was twenty-five, he go involved with a lone Alpha and said Alpha got a bit too excited in bed. Right before a full moon. Sandro showed up at our doorstep, bloodied and already on the verge of transforming. Dad took one look at him and dragged him to the basement where we keep a cage for those things.  I stayed with him the whole night and after that, it was more or less clear he would become part of the pack. Sandro helped me a lot after my parents' death. He took charge when I couldn't do it and held the pack together. That's why he became my second in command, just like Theo is for you." Luka drank from his water. "We have two other women in the pack. Bryn and Lynn. Laugh if you want, their rhyming names are a running joke in our pack. Bryn I know for almost her whole life. How fit are you in werewolf genetics?" Liam snorted. "That a thing? I'd give it a solid zero." "To keep it simple: The werewolf gene is dominant most of the time. Werewolf parents will have werewolf children. Even if only one parent is a wolf, the child likely will be one as well. The chances are even higher by born wolves rather than bitten ones. But if you have several generations of werewolves mixing with humans there is a slight possibility to have a human child even as werewolf parents. In Bryn's family case it was the opposite. There had been some wolves here and there, some of them had been in contact with my father's pack, but for generations, there were only humans. Until Bryn was born. Boom. Human parents with a werewolf baby." "You're kidding me!" Liam was amazed at how crazy nature could get. "Absolutely not. But her family knew about werewolves and so they knew the name of my father's pack. They grabbed their daughter and moved closer to us, showed up at our door, and kindly asked my parents to help them. To make having yet another child running around somewhat plausible, we started calling Bryn Delany's and my second cousin. We kept this til this day and mostly refer to her as our cousin. Lynn, on the other hand, was bitten after a night of clubbing and then left to die. Mom found her somewhere in the ditch and brought her home. We were not sure she would survive but that girl is tough as nails. Don't underestimate her." "She reminds me of Sadie. One should never underestimate Sadie as well. She will kick your ass and probably gnaw on your bones without ruining her makeup." "Somehow that description also fits Maddie and Savannah", Luka realized. Liam had to agree with that. "Anyway, you said you had seven Betas. One's missing." "The latest addition to the pack before my parents died. Will. He's Sandro's cousin, full-blood-related this time. They have been close while growing up and he visited one time. This family is good at picking up things and he got curious. We never got to explain to him everything cause a hostile pack attacked and he was wounded badly. Dad turned him in an attempt to save his life. It worked and Will moved to live with us. Funny enough, he and Holden clicked almost as instantly as Sandro and I did. They just balance each other a bit better. Hopefully. One's a hothead, the other is too cocky for his own good sometimes. I think the day these two linked, Simon's world kinda ended. He had several gray hairs more after that day. Lynn once kept a tally which one had to get bailed out of jail more often..." Luka tilted his head. "Huh, wondered what happened to that. I think I was the third place..." Liam smirked and Luka gave him an innocent smile. "I mean, we are all law-abiding citizens and never do anything wrong. We stick together and love each other, as a family should." "So do we. My pack and I. They're my family and I don't want to miss anyone of them." "Tell you what, Liam, why don't you and you pack visit us? We could have a BBQ party. Next Friday, is that good?" "That's a great idea. I'll check with the pack and text you."

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When I started this story, I imagined how many chapters this might will have and thought sixty was a good number. Now we are at chapter 60 and this story is far from over. I can't believe that. It's absolutely amazing and I want to thank every single one of my readers for the support. You all are amazing! Thank you!!!

In regards to this chapter, I like the friendship between Luka and Liam. They both are on the same wavelength and get each other. And it was fun working out Luka's Betas. In the next chapter, both packs will fully meet each other. I am excited.

[fanficwriter013]

The Tower: The Queen of Asgard - 34

The Tower: The Queen of Asgard An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing:  Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 2990

Warnings: smut (bisexual orgy - oral, anal, and vaginal sex, double vaginal penetration, come play)

Synopsis: The twins are now three and while the Avengers know that Clint and Thor are the biological father’s none of them know or care which blond, blue-eyed baby is related to which man.  When Riley gets the power to control wind and it becomes evident that she is the heir to the Asgardian throne, Elly, Steve, Thor, and Tony take the twins to Asgard to train her.

Not every Asgardian is happy with their king’s choice of consort, nor the impurity of the heir’s blood.  While others expect Thor to make things more official.  What’s clear is, the role of Queen of Asgard is not easily filled.

Author’s Note:  Written with @avengerscompound​ whom checks me on my crazy literally all the time

Chapter 34: The Wedding Night

The wedding feast was even bigger than the victory one.  Though where the victory feast was multiple small courses this time the tables were all laden high with things to choose from.  First were tureens of soup, bowls filled with salad and plates piled high with cold meats and warm pastries.  As the food dwindled they were replaced with roasted meats and vegetables piled high on platters.  There were jugs of sauces to go with them, each one both complementing and altering the taste in completely different ways.

When there were only scraps left they were replaced with desserts.  Bowls of puddings and platters of fruit.  Cakes both large and small in all kinds of flavors.  Some intricately decorated.  Some very simply.  By the time the food was done Riley was covered head to toe in it.

There were none of the traditional customs at any wedding reception I’d seen on earth.  No speeches or formal dance.  No cake cutting.  Nothing really that directed the crowd’s attention to us as special.  It was just celebrating.  When the food was cleared away the tables were moved back and a dance floor was opened up.

The children were having a fantastic time considering this had come off the tail of being caught in a battle.  They ate.  They found other children to play with.  They danced with each of their parents in turn.  They even danced with a few of their aunts and uncles.

Thor did spend much of the night in talks with Angela, Loki and a few members of the council.  He took his moments to be with each of us.  Whether that be a conversation, a dance or a stolen kiss, but most of his attention was on the negotiations to hand over the crown.

It was so late by the time we left the party.  The kids were passed out and we were all exhausted.  However, we were all buzzing too.  So much had happened and so much was going to happen.  Thor was coming to be with us for good. We were bonded.  We had new powers.  We fought and won and we were going to have a happily ever after.

We put the twins into bed and all of us went into Thor’s room.  “Are you sure you want to do this, Thor?”  Steve asked as we all began to help each other undress, carefully hanging up our clothes.  It was clear that whatever we had been through had burned off all the Henhalda except the new mark we all shared and the special markings that were made for each of us.  I wanted to explore each and every one of them in fine detail. But there was something I wanted more first.

“I saw it clearly.  My sister is to rule.  She will be a great ruler and bring the nine realms into a new era of peace and prosperity.  And I get to be with all of you,” Thor said.  “Though it means I need to stay here for a while longer while I organize the handover.  I trust the vision, but I am not naive.  I shall supervise her and leave Loki to continue to act as adviser.  If things do not work out, I shall take the crown back.  By force, if need be.  But I do not think it would come to that.  The vision was clear.”

“You don’t get to come back with us right away?”  Wanda asked.

“It is best if I don’t, my sweet love,” Thor replied.  “But when I do return to you, it will be for good.”

Wanda hummed.  “That will be nice.”

“Maybe we go back, organize these two’s legal wedding,” Steve said gesturing to me and Tony.  “Then when you arrive we’ll make it a honeymoon trip for all of us.”

Tony came up behind me and kissed the side of my neck.  “That sounds really good.  What do you think, honey?  Fiji?  The Maldives?”

“Mmm, we can get one of those over the water bungalows for all of us.”  I hummed leaning back against him.

Steve moved over to the two of us and tilted my head up to look at him.  “Elise, I am very proud of how you handled yourself today.  I don’t think this new power is a mistake.  You are our heart.   If you want to join the Avengers.  I won’t stand in your way.”

I furrowed my brow.  “I - uh… I don’t …”

“Talk to us, princess,” Sam said, gently.  “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t want to.  I don’t think I’m cut out for that kind of life.  But if I have this suit, and I can wield Mjolnir, doesn’t that mean I should?”  I said.  “I mean… if you have the power to protect people, and you don’t then aren’t you just as bad as the people doing the hurting?”

Steve chuckled softly and pulled me into his large arms.  “Oh honey, you already sound like an Avenger,” he said.  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.  But if that’s how you feel we’ll work out a way you can balance it.”

“We can probably talk about all that later right?  Don’t we have something to consummate?”  Clint said suggestively.

“Aye, that we do, little bird,” Thor said pulling Clint into his arms.

Bruce shifted down from the blended version of him and Hulk to just him and twirled Natasha into his arms.  “There’s an incident from our past I’d like to make up for,” he said.

“Well, now Doctor Banner.  I would love for you to make it up to me,” she purred.

They kissed deeply and he lifted her and carried her to the bed.  Sam moved in quickly to claim Thor and as he dragged Thor to the bed, Thor took Tony’s hand and brought him along too.  Bucky stalked up to Wanda and lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist.

“Oh, look.  It’s my two troublemakers,” Steve teased.  “Whatever shall I do with the two of you?”

“I think you could do whatever you damn well like, Cap,” Clint said moving up close to the two of us and cupping Steve’s jaw.

Steve leaned in and kissed him hard, as I stood pinned between them.  Clint’s hands slid up my sides and massaged my tits as he ground against my ass.  Steve’s arm was still curled around my waist and he ran it down, squeezing my ass.  I hummed and relaxed between them.  Steve lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist and began to grind against his cock.

“Come on you three, get over here,” Sam called, beckoning us over.

Clint pulled back and dragged both Steve and I onto the bed.  I stretched out arching my back so I could reach Clint.  I ran my tongue over his balls.  He hummed and looked down at me, pushing my hair out of my face.  I ran my tongue up his shaft and it twitched and jumped as it hardened fully.

Steve crouched down between my legs and nosed at my cunt.  I spread my legs wider allowing him to run his tongue up the length of my folds.  As I used my mouth on Clint and Steve used his on me, I saw Natasha lean back from where Bruce was currently going down on her and tease her tongue over the head of Steve’s cock.  It seemed to set off a chain.   When Natasha started to suck Steve’s cock, Tony moved back to suck on Bruce’s.  Thor moved between Tony’s legs, and Sam between Thor’s, then Wanda, then Bucky until it came back around to Clint and he lay down and took Bucky’s whole length into his mouth and we all formed one long daisy chain.

The threads that ran from me intertwined with each other in the circle.  Crisscrossing over each other.  I could feel everyone’s pleasure as they used their mouths on each other.  Their enjoyment of both giving and receiving and being part of this chain which held each of us.

I knew it was Wanda who was feeling it strongly, her muffled moans were louder than anyone else’s, but I could also feel it through the thread and it added to my own pleasure as Steve’s tongue swirled over my folds and flicked over my clit.

I took Clint’s cock into my mouth and relaxed my jaw, letting him fuck it as I curled my tongue around his shaft.

I don’t know why but I began to flick my fingers through the beams of light that were connected with the others.  Each time I did it made the person whose beam it corresponded to moan even louder.  I wound the threads through my fingers and gripped the sheets.

It wasn't long before the room was a cacophony of muffled moans.  Wanda bucked up hard and came, her body shuddering.  The sensation from it I got through the thread sent me over too and I nearly choked as I jerked back and forced Clint’s cock further down my throat.

We all split apart again.  Sam moved over to Wanda, and crawled up over her, kissing her deeply. Bucky, Steve, and Natasha formed a small group.  While Bruce and Tony paired up, leaving me with Thor and Clint.  “Oh hey, it's my baby daddies.”  I joked.  “What could possibly go wrong?”

Thor laughed.  It was a deep rumble of a sound that was infectious and made me feel warm and good.  “Are you saying that our children are a mistake?” He teased, pulling me into his lap.

“No.  I'm pretty happy they exist.”  I hummed as I let him pull me down flush against him.

Clint moved and grabbed some oil and began to liberally coat Thor’s cock with it.  He teased his pussy with his knuckles as he did and I tried to grind down on them.  “Come on now, princess,” he teased.  “Don't tell me you wouldn't want another couple of little monsters running around.”

“Woah,” I said, grabbing his wrist.  “Not until we talk about it.”

“Lady Elise,” Thor soothed, cupping my jaw and drawing my focus back to him.  “I will keep my powers in check.  I promise you.  But if you would rather not risk it, there are other things we can do to give you pleasure.”

I shook my head, clearing out the intrusive thoughts of how bad it had been when I'd first gotten pregnant and returned here to this moment where my new husbands and wives had grown so much since then.  Where an accidental pregnancy would most likely be greeted with excitement and regardless, I had an IUD and even Thor couldn't get around the fact that was in the way.  “No.  It's fine.  Sorry.”

“No need to be, my queen,” Thor replied as he caressed my neck.

“I'm not the queen anymore,” I corrected him.

“You will always be my queen, Elise,” he assured me and with a snap of his hips, he was inside me.  I moaned and dug my fingers into the sheets as he penetrated me deeply.  He didn’t wait for me to adjust, he just started rutting his hips quickly under me.  I countered by slowly rolling my hips against him, but my movement was limited because Clint had moved behind us and was using his fingers to stretch me out more.  Sliding one and then two against Thor’s cock and inside of me.

As Clint was testing my limits, Natasha, Steve, and Bucky kept switching positions like they were made of water, Wanda and Sam were in lotus, kissing passionately as she sat in his lap, and Bruce had Tony pulled up against him as he fingered Tony’s ass.

Clint pulled his hand free and lined himself up behind me, resting one hand in the middle of my back.  “Go slow, Clint,” I mewled as Thor stilled.

“Of course, princess,” he said, adding more oil to his cock. He slowly sunk in and I moaned and bit down on Thor’s shoulder.  The stretch and burn were intense and it tore right through me.

Clint went slowly though and Thor rubbed my back in slow circles and kissed my neck.  “There you go.  You’re doing so well, my life,” Thor whispered.

When Clint was buried deep inside me, both men paused and waited for me to give them the go-ahead.  I was full to breaking and it took a moment for me to adjust.

“Okay,” I said, pushing back against them.  “Okay.”

Clint started to thrust, his cock sliding up and down Thor’s inside me.  When he hit the slow steady rhythm he was happy with, Thor began to move.  He thrust harder and faster than Clint, pistoning in and out of me.

I mewled, tensing around them and clutching at Thor’s hair.  Thor pulled me into a searing kiss, so every moan and grunt and cry was muffled by each other’s mouth.  There was lightning in my veins.  That pleasure that bordered pain surged through me and all I could do was hold on and ride it.

An orgasm tore through me, but they didn’t ease up.  If anything it spurred Clint on to move harder and faster.  He peppered kisses up my spine as he pounded into me from behind.  I broke the kiss with Thor and tilted my head back and pulled Clint down to kiss him.

I came again, crying out into Clint’s lips and clenching hard around both their cocks.  Around us, other’s were reaching their own climaxes.  Wanda had come at least as many times as mine, and Sam was gritting his teeth as he went for one more.  Natasha, Bucky, and Steve were in train position, with Bucky thrusting into Natasha as Steve thrust into him.

As Clint and I continued to kiss, Thor latched on to one of my breasts and began to suckle on it.  I mewled and clenched, everything was getting to be too much.  I was starting to tremble between them, and every breath I took came shallow and rapid.

“That’s it, just a little longer…”  Clint groaned as he thrust again and again.

I cried out and arched back as another orgasm tore through me.  This one brought Clint over with me and he jerked forward and released inside me.  As his cock pulsed against Thor’s, Thor came with a loud cry, arching his back up off the mattress under me.

The three of us took a moment to catch our breaths before I slithered off of Thor.  He and Clint began to kiss deeply as the other’s began to finish around us.

“El, come here, darling,” Bruce said, gesturing me over.  He had Tony pulled up against him and was jerking him off as he thrust into Tony’s ass.  Tony’s eyes looked completely blissed out and he moaned loudly as I crawled over to them.

Precum leaked down Bruce’s knuckles.  “Tony is pretty close,”  Bruce said, a playful tease to his tone.  “How about you be a good girl and open your mouth.”

I was so excited about this new side of Bruce.  He was who he was when he let go with me, only playful too.  The way he got when he was in the lab.  It was amazing and I couldn’t believe that was his gift.  I moved forward and lay down with my head near Tony’s legs and my legs straight out in front of him.  I opened my mouth and suck out my tongue.

“Fuck,” Tony groaned as he looked down at me.  Bruce’s hand began to move a little faster and he seemed to start fucking Tony harder so that it pushed him forward a little with every thrust.

With a low groan, Tony came.  Some got in my mouth, most of it splattered over my breasts and stomach.  Bruce grunted and thrust forward, releasing in Tony’s ass.  I ran my fingers through Tony’s cum and licked them clean.

“Fuck you are such a dirty little thing,” Tony hummed as he flopped down beside me and pulled me close.

“This isn’t my mess,” I teased.

“Gonna have to get someone to clean that up, huh?”  Tony said and he ran his index finger through it and offered it to me.  I pulled his finger into my mouth and sucked it clean as Clint came over and began to lick me clean.  I giggled and squirmed under him as he roughly ran his tongue over my bare skin.  “So, this coffee and arrows are for me then,” he said, running his fingers over his symbol that had been placed on my inner thigh.

“Oh yes,” I said sitting up and looking Tony over, trying to find the symbol that was mine.  It seemed to set others off too and they all began to look each other over closely to find their own symbols.  I traced from Bucky’s wolf down to Bruce’s coin until right on the line of his Adonis belt I found a symbol I hadn’t seen before.  It was blue and looked like a lotus flower but made of flame, right at its center in a blue that was so pale it was almost white, and yet seemed to shimmer like a flame, was a heart.  From the flower threads spread out, much as with the electricity on Thor’s symbol.  Where the electricity jumped from one symbol to the next, the threads from mine just branched out to each one, so they were all tethered to it.  I smiled and kissed it before lying back down and letting Tony look to find his.

I couldn’t believe two weeks ago Riley didn’t even have powers and now here we were with sets of our own.  Bonded together.  It was yet another major life change, but we would move through it together.  We were a family and now nothing could break that.

[thechangeling]

Your heartbeat is disguised as mine.

This is a platonic oneshot between my OC Janessa Williams and Kit Herondale. Full disclosure, I am a nonbinary person writing about a binary Trans woman. I pulled all of the information for constructing Nessie's background and character profile from other peoples stories both fictional and real. If I have spread misinformation of any kind or written anything that members of the community find offensive, please let me know! I will fix it immediately. Also I'm a useless Demisexual so sometimes I blur the lines between romantic and platonic too much, but hopefully this reads as platonic. Enjoy!

Janessa Williams was in trouble.

It wasn't like this was an uncommon occurrence. Nessie had spent the majority of her life weaving in and out of dangerous situations, but in her defense it usually wasn't her fault.

Kids picking on her when she was younger because she was wearing "girls clothes." Angry people yelling obscenities at her while she was walking home and men threatening to beat her up in the middle of crowded places when she was still transitioning and looked more "obvious" according to some people. Whatever the fuck that meant. And Nessie knew it probably would have been even worse if she hadn't been white.

She relished in the fact that now she was a vampire she was essentially invincible. Like many other people, becoming a downworlder was a source of safety. Which is why it was so painful to hear shadowhunters talk about how "tragic" the creation of vampires and werewolves was.

There were girls whispering behind her back in high school. Just trying to go to the bathroom without there being some sort of public debate amongst her teachers and principal was also a factor.

Jenessa was certainly no stranger to conflict or adversity. But this? This was something else entirely.

Before she had died. Nessie had actually made a decent connection with other members of her community. Even making casual acquaintances was comforting. The queer community overall could be a bit of a shit show at times. With exclusionists, TERFs and biphobes rampaging about. But getting the chance to talk to other trans people was incredible. Especially Bi trans people like herself. But despite that she still felt as though something was missing.

Janessa still felt distant and isolated despite the fact that she now had everything she wanted. It was like a dark black cloud had plagued her for all of her teenage years. Depression. It wasn't just due to being in the closet or not being able to be her true self. It was just there. Corrupting her brain and dragging her down into despair.

It was that same despair that had lead to her death. And when she was reborn as a member of the undead, at first she hadn't exactly been grateful. But in time she had found her footing. Music, therapy, a new community of downworlders who were diverse, powerful and brilliant. She moved from LA to basically all over with her band. All of these things helped Janessa re shape herself and her new life into something better. Something stronger.

But yet she still felt a little isolated at times. A little incomplete. Like she was waiting for something.

Fuck that sounded so pathetic. But it was true. Or at least it was true until a wayward mess of a shadowhunter had wandered into the bar Nessie and her band played regular gigs at, looking for information on a particular downworlder.

Janessa was not pleased. She knew she needed to get this asshole far away from her and her people.

Kit certainly had other ideas. It would not be the last time they disagreed on something.

But she had noticed something that day. Something in his eyes. That same lost look of despair she recognized in herself. This of course hadn't stopped her from calling him an angelic, inbred, self righteous asshole and he had thrown his head back and laughed.

Despite Nessie's better judgement, she had decided to trust him that day. He had complemented her t shirt which said "In my defense, I was provoked" and her leather jacket which had the trans symbol on the back with the Bisexual flag as the background.

So she had helped Kit with his mission that day, which turned out to be pretty harmless, which then led to hanging out at the park after dark and eating fast food on the balcony of Ciernworth. He asked her questions about her life and her unlife. He asked the questions that she usually got about hormones and discovering her gender identity, and less common questions about becoming a vampire. She in turn asked him questions about his past and his coming out. Her fate was sealed that day. Janessa just didnt want to admit it.

And now, several weeks later that shadowhunter she had chosen to trust was currently sobbing into her arms.

"Kit it's gonna be ok alright? Just take some deep breaths" Janessa cooed. She was running one of her hands through his blond curls, and another along his back attempting to soothe him.

Kit gasped for air against his sobs as he pressed his forehead closer to her neck. "I mean-. Nessie I just-" he gasped, unable to properly get the words out.

Janessa shook her head. "Shhh no it's ok" she reassured him. "Take your time."

It broke her heart to see Kit like this but all she could do was focus on helping him. Not once did it occur to Nessie that she currently had a live human being pressed up against her, viens full of rushing blood.

She rubbed his shoulders. Kit sighed and began to speak in a more calm tone. "It's just that when I gave Magnus the necklace to give to- you know to him, it brought all of those old feelings rushing back you know?"

Janessa sighed. Him was Tiberius Blackthorn. The boy that Kit was hopelessly in love with. The boy that had broken his heart.

Janessa was most certainly not a fan. Anyone who made her friend cry was instantly on her shit list. Nessie was more then a little protective of Kit but she couldn't help it. He was always getting himself into trouble. Like the other day, dealing with the Devon Vampire Clan which Nessie was kind of a part of now that she was living in Devon temporarily. Kit was picking her up from a meeting so they could get Midnight snacks and play video games at her place.

The Devon Clan was really not happy to see a Shadowhunter. They antagonized her over trusting one of the nephilum. They called her a traitor to her own people. Janessa personally thought they were being a little overly dramatic. It led to a fight that most definitely put the accords in jeopardy.

Janessa also discovered that day that she and Kit fought beautifully together. Almost like Parabatai.

Whoah. Where the fuck did that come from.

Janessa heard a light snore from below her. Kit had fallen asleep in her lap. She snorted fondly. The emotional labour of crying must have tired him out. She didn't really blame him for that. As Nessie stared down at him, this shadowhunter who had become so significant to her, she wondered if this was going to end badly for her.

She could hear the words of hundreds of downworlders echoing in her head, including her own. Shadowhunters can't be trusted. Shadowhunters are selfish. Shadowhunters hate downworlders. They don't believe we're worthy of life so why should we be nice to them? Fuck them all.

And all of that was what she firmly believed.

Kit snored again.

Well for the most part.

It wasn't like she was in love with him. That much she knew. The thought of kissing Kit or dating him or anything like that made her quesy. But the idea of holding him while he cried, or laughing at his jokes, or even staying here watching his chest rise and fall and relishing in the fact that yes, he is alive, that sounded perfect.

Janessa scooped her arms under Kit's body and pulled him up off of the floor. "Come on Kit-Kat" she muttered. "Let's get you to bed."

Kit moaned in protest but didn't try to fight her as she pulled him over to her bed. Nessie could only hope that Kit had told his parents where he would be. Kit smiled sleepily at her and opened his eyes.

"You're my best friend you know?" He murmered.

Janessa swallowed down a sob. "Really?" She asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "I've never had a best friend before."

Kit closed his eyes. He was probably nodding off again. "Me neither" he whispered. He probably didnt want to count Ty considering all of the romantic angst.

And in that moment Janessa made a choice. She made the decision to lay down next to him and relax. She made the decision to forgive him for things that were out of his control.

She leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. "You're my best friend too ok?" She said softly.

And when she saw the slightest of smiles appear on his face, Janessa made another decision as well.

She let herself love him.

Your heartbeat is disguised as mine.

My lullaby.

The song I used for this fic is Always be together by Little Mix.

[sosthemortalcoil]

Is there a list of all of the RO's and their descriptions?

There are several, but I’m compiling them here to help.

1. Sabriel (pansexual, she/her) is another angel of Guardian rank. She’s the Guardian Angel Overseer for the area where you will be living and is technically responsible for making sure you don’t do anything that would influence the state of the world unduly. She enjoys human culture (particularly Star Wars) and has a fondness for tea. She has a lot of walls up that prevent her from easily trusting anything from Heaven, especially figures in power. Having fun is often put on the back-burner when she’s overworked (which is a common state for her). She tries to put duty above all else, though she’s too compassionate to always succeed in this. Being honest with herself is something she values, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be straightforward or honest with others.

Her preferred form stands at 5′9″/175 cm. She has a mess of frizzy brown hair that constantly escapes into her oval face. Her grey-blue eyes are usually underscored by bags, and she wears rectangular, black-frame glasses. Her nose is thin with flared nostrils, her lips curve up naturally but are drawn down by the faint lines on her features. Roughly same age as Ramiel. Her body looks soft, without much definition, but she’s iron and steel at her core.

2. Alice Hudson (bisexual, she/her) is a human and one potential partner for Gabriel. She’s the only child of a powerful medium and is well aware of the supernatural world even though she herself has no gifts. She’s a believer of order though she also believes that there are exceptions and that you have to take things on a case by case basis. She loves to tease coworkers and is fond of practical jokes but perfectly capable of being serious. Commitment makes her skittish in personal relationships. She is also a little afraid of children. She’s a person who will bend the rules if need be–the end justifies the means in some cases. She likes tinkering with her motorcycle(s), rebuilding them when she finishes one.

She stands 5′11″/180 cm with brown shoulder length hair that is mostly straight and usually pulled back in a ponytail. Her skin is fair, touched by sun. Her most noticeable feature is her piercing, light grey eyes that see more than people think. At the start of the story she’s 26 years old. She has lips that border on the thin side, but are quick to smile. Her eyebrows are round, above straight eyes. Her nose is on the short side in overall length, with a deviation from where she once got it broken. The tip is round but drawn out from her face, her nostrils small. She has a runner’s body, muscles built for endurance and speed rather than raw strength. She keeps her nails short, and rarely wears any sort of make-up. She is a predominantly Caucasian mix.

3. Tadea Guerrero (lesbian, she/her) is a werepanther. By the time you meet her she’s the second-in-command of her pride. Prickly on the outside, she sees official authorities (the police) as something to be leery of at best. The pressures of the former leadership of her pack, which emphasized cruelty, leaves her bitter and mistrustful of others. Aggressive and fierce, she supports Leo’s new leadership style though thinks he is too naive to hold it on his own without her assistance. She favors practicality and is cutthroat in making decisions.

She respects strength and will exploit any weaknesses she can find in almost anyone to further her agenda or that of her pack--because she doesn’t believe in the innate goodness of most people, Leo being an exception. In a romantic relationship she can be shy due to inexperience with a proper relationship. She likes flowers, and pink, and things she feels are super girly and don’t fit with the rough-and-tough image she projects. Being with Gabriel would allow her to relax a little, exposing more of her soft side.

She stands at 5′8″/173 cm. Her skin is a rich brown. Short-cropped black hair is styled into a miniature mohawk most of the time, accenting her square jaw and chin. Her cheeks are the softest part of her, her body muscular and lean with little of what might be called feminine softness. Her straight brows sit over large darkbrown, almost black, eyes. Her nose is of medium length with a broad bridge and solid point, resting above chapped lips. Her eyelashes are startling long against her cheeks. She has barbed-wire tattoos on both of her arms, wrapped around roses on the left arm.

4. Karyn Brown (straightish, she/her) is a female werewolf, with some human bloodline, who’s adept at dodging pack responsibilities. She loyal to her pack but has a wild streak. She is of the opinion that life is too short to be serious and tends to be seen as vain and flighty. She is intelligent and a skilled hacker.  She enjoys kickboxing and zumba, can’t cook for the life of her and is very spontaneous. She works as a barista at the local coffee shop, in addition to some of her computer-related odd-jobs. She enjoys dubsteb, flirting, and living life to the fullest.

She is 5′6:/168 cm, of Western European descent. Her hair is mid-back and wavy, golden blonde. She usually wears it in ponytail or loose, and often has a chunk died various colors. Her narrow amber eyes frame a button nose and lips almost perpetually curved in a smirk. Freckles span the bridge of her nose and fan out across her cheeks. She’s fit, but her body appears more soft than toned. Her face is heart-shaped, her hairline low on her brow. Two thin eyebrows curve slightly, following the shape of her eyes. Her cheeks are rosy and full. Her wolf form seems too small for its paws and has a russet coat.

5. Stephanie Xinxin Lee (straight, she/her) is a witch who works at the police department as a beat cop. She specializes in charms and trinkets not having much magical power at her disposal. She’s a little sensitive about her size and hates speaking to large groups of people. Generally mild mannered she enjoys strange tea blends and can talk for hours about the magical properties of herbs but is dismal at pop culture references. She likes learning new things, and has no qualms about taking down people twice her size. While she loves her family, she’s excited to be on her own, away from much of the expectations and pressures of her family.

She’s the shortest RO at 5′2″/157 cm and is ethnically Chinese. She has dark brown eyes that slant upwards slightly, underneath thin black brows. Her long, mid-back length black hair is usually kept pinned up in a tight bun. Her features are generally on the round side, small and delicate. Her lips are narrow, the bridge of her nose flat and the tip of her nose round. Her olive skin is clear apart from a beauty mark at the corner of her left eye. She might be described as petite.

6, Iro Nyx (aromantic, pansexual, she/her) is a succubus dating from Hellenistic Greece. She’s a RO option only for darker Gabriels (though you can have a fling with her as a lighter Gabriel, she just won’t be interested in a relationship of any kind). As a succubus she has mid-level shape-shifting abilities which she predominantly uses to change her physical appearance. Iro likes drinks and toying with humans, though she is not a fan of blood and gore. She tries to rely on her wiles and ability to wheel and deal to maintain a comfy lifestyle free of being controlled. Iro is comfortable with who she is; she doesn’t want to change. She does want more control and power over her life, and will join a Gabriel whom she believes can deliver these things.

Her appearance depends on the day and whatever form she feels likewearing. Her original form had curly light brown hair that she would pin up, exposing the nape of her elegant neck. She was fine-boned and small, with large hazel eyes set above pouty lips. Her nose was small with a pointed tip, her face round. She is roughly 2300 years old.

7. Iain O’Brien (straightish, he/him) is the other option for your partner on the police force. He’s from an Irish Catholic family though he finds himself unable to commit to the same level of faith as his stringent mother. He likes to play the white knight and is always willing to help when asked. He’s very good with his niece and nephew, adores kids, but tends to be clueless when it comes to picking up on hints in relationships. He says drinking is as necessary as water to an Irish-man (even though he wasn’t born in Ireland). He laughs a lot, even when its not appropriate and sometimes speaks before thinking. His work is his passion and sometimes he neglects to take care of himself subsequently. He wasn’t the perfect son, a contrast to his ‘perfect’ sister. He grew up practicing martial arts, and decided to become a cop after a chance encounter with an officer who also went to his dojo.

He stands at 6′4″/193 cm with pale skin that burns easily and freckles spanning his broad back. His red hair, showcasing his Irish blood, is kept on the short side, just barely curling around his ears. When it gets too long the entire mass becomes curly. His eyes are a vivid green, crinkled at the edges with laugh lines. He has a square chin but a softer edge to his jawline than he likes. At the start of the story he’s 25. He has a semi-prominent brow ridge, with thick eyebrows. He has a Roman nose, long and straight. His upper lip has a neat bow to it, and his lower lip is full. 100% human. He works on core and toning, and carries some extra weight around his hips from his penchant for alcohol. On occasion he gets some red fuzz and scruff on, but never lets it get to a full beard.

8. Aelius Roman (pansexual, he/him) works ‘with’ Iro. He’s the incubus to her succubus. Technically they have a competition to see who can gain the most contracts and acquire the most power but he tends to be less ruthless than Iro. He still remembers being mortal and often includes loopholes in his contracts that the clever can get out of–though sometimes these ‘loopholes’ require a greater sacrifice than the original contract. He has a morbid sense of humor and lacks a sense of what humans judge as common decency. He is also possessive of whatever he views as his and sees lying as the key to any good relationship. He enjoys causing verbal disagreements and breaking up ‘happy-couples.’ Most of the time he wears a smile but can become maudlin, which is when he acts the most callous. He prefers to be on the outside looking in; while Iro likes to feed directly, Aelius likes to skim along the top, feeding in proximity. Unlike most incubi or succubi, Aelius isn’t that interested in the act of sex. He enjoys physical intimacy, but small touches and being close are more important to him than intercourse.

His appearance depends on the day and his form, though he typicallyprefers heights ranging from 5′6/168 cm to 5′ 10″/178 cm. He’s Roman via Gaul. Nospoilers on his original look. He is an incubus demon, formerly human. He’s roughly 2100 years old.

9. Ramiel (pansexual, he/him) is a Fallen who has many regrets about his past. He is excellent at putting on masks and getting his job done but takes no pleasure in working for Hell. It’s a necessary evil to him. He’s leery of getting close to Gabriel given their past, not wishing to endanger them but unable to stay away either. He used to be a prankster with little grasp on responsibility, prone to rash decisions. Since his Fall he’s learned a lot about himself, having grown into someone who is more mature and aware of who he is. Much of his humor is buried underneath his regret, but it’s not impossible to see.

Ramiel’s walking form stands at 6′6″/198 cmand has dark brown hair, wavy and shoulder-length that he usually pulls back in a tie at the nape of his neck. He usually has five-o-clock shadow. His eyes are a warm honey-brown, but they look tired. His skin is tan and weathered, more suited to someone who works outside than the lawyer he masquerades at. If it weren’t for the expensive tailored suit, custom Italian leather shoes and briefcase, he could be mistaken for one of his clients being held overnight. He has a long straight nose, a thin upper lip and a full lower lip.

He rarely stands straight-backed anymore, his shoulders often curving with the weight of his failures. Still, he cuts a handsome figure, a quiet intensity to him and a warmth in his smile that draws people in, despite the slightly haggard look to him at times. The oldest of the nestmates by a bit.  

10. Charleston Sawyer (formerly Valois) (gay, he/him) is another cop at the precinct and a werewolf. His orientation and refusal to continue the family bloodline led to him splitting with the pack he was born in. After a few years he was recruited by the alpha of the Jericho City pack as an Enforcer. He is relatively laid-back and easygoing at work, quicker with a smile. That extends only to his co-workers that he trusts. He quite astute and reads people well, but comes across as a pushover to most cops because of his more reserved nature. In the pack he becomes second because of his martial skills (he’s a Beta second while a second appointed for their ability to deal with emotions and politics is usually an Omega second). At home he tends to be withdrawn and cold, quicker to snarl than help--at least at first. The exception to his attitude at home is his alpha, Tom, and Tom’s daughter, Josie. He expects rejection and awkwardness from most of the pack, and it takes him time to open up and trust them.

He is 5′6″/168 cm and French. He has thick dark brown hair, swept back from his face. He has a neatly trimmed covering of hair one could call a beard, highlighting his rectangular jaw. He has mesmerizing hazel eyes situated beneath dark brows that are often drawn low. His skin is tanned, though whether from sun or natural coloring it’s impossible to tell. He’s 29 at the start of the story. He is pureblood werewolf, and his wolf form is a dark grey that borders on black. He’s stocky and solidly built, with the heaviest musculature of all the ROs, but remains flexible.

11. Tom Garrow (straight, he/him) is the leader of the local werewolf pack and recently widowed. Newly a single-father, he struggles between balancing his daughter and his pack. Well-traveled and educated, he tends to have lofty ideas that sometimes need a dose of practicality. He is not a fan of his wolf nature and tends to try to cover any of his ‘innate savagery’ with an excess of culture in his day-to-day life. He runs an upscale bar for his ‘day’ job and is a shrewd business man. He deliberately appointed Charleston in spite of the majority of the pack’s feelings--wondering if an Enforcer was really the best fit for second--informing them that he was selecting the best person for the job, feelings be damned.

He cares for Charleston as a close friend but often finds himself unable to help with his friend’s issues without making them worse. Respected for his leadership because he puts the safety of the pack first, he can struggle with relationships outside of the pack. He does want to create a more international and cooperative pack that has other supernatural allies but has yet to persuade the pack to his point of view, especially after the death of his wife where they want to close ranks. When in a relationship, he likes to indulge in more of his wolf nature, allowing for some of that freedom that he tries to keep out of his professional life.

Tom is 30 years old at the start of the story and stands at 6′5″/196 cm. Ethnically he’s of Western European descent, mixed. He was born a werewolf, but has human blood in his bloodline. His dark brown hairis of medium-short length just brushing his collar and swept away from his widow’s peak. It’s already starting to silver. His warm brown eyes, which take on a golden hue, are evenly spaced on his oval face, cut by a slightly hooked, Romanesque nose. He has strong bones, though his cheeks run a little towards gaunt. His face remains unlined. His skin is a warm peach. His wolf form is entirely silver, lean and long-legged. His shoulders are broad, but he leans towards slim elegance, a graceful dancer’s build with some definition.

12. Leo Soto (pansexual, he/him) is the werepanther Alpha. Young for an Alpha, he succeeded by killing the previous Alpha as is custom with werepanthers (or so it seems). He is attempting to change the way the pride behaves but meets resistance. A bit of an idealist he is often frustrated by what he calls outdated moralities but lacking little in the way of different life experiences tends to exert the authority of his position when challenged. He often appeals to higher powers for guidance, especially when trying to remain calm. He is eager to work with Gabriel, and is nervous and a little naive when it comes to relationships. He views forgiveness and compassion as priorities, despite little in his life showing him the advantages of those qualities.

He stands at 6′1″/185 cm. He is Hispanic, with sienna skin and broad cheekbones. His solid black hair is usually kept in a long,single braid running down his back. Deep golden-brown eyes are set beneath dark, prominent brows. He has a sharp jawline, softened by the remnants of his youth. His body is honed, ready for fight or flight, sinewy and graceful. His white teeth flash often in smiles from behind soft lips. He has a single tattoo, a pair of angel wings on the nape of his neck, usually concealed by his hair.

13. Ryder (Eljas) Alsvartrson (bisexual, he/him): Warlock, born Eljas but renamed himself Ryder as the centuries passed to blend better. He has a brother named Nate who is a perpetually high necromancer.

Warlocks are territorial due to the nature of their power (demonic bargains) so he is the sole warlock in the city. (Warlocks are a type of magic user, and the term is gender neutral.) He has a soft spot for his brother even though he’s usually found yelling at him. Hates werewolves. Likes to use hellfire to burn things.

He has an intense hatred of weakness and is of the opinion that if you can’t hold onto power then you never deserved it. He has no qualms about killing and isn’t particularly good at relationships. Vain, he likes to enforce stereotypes of what a warlock looks like (according to him) so he goes around dressed in a black leather duster, black boots, black cargo pants, a (you guessed it) black shirt.

He is flattered by people giving him power. He is attracted to power, regardless of gender. Ryder finds ruthlessness and manipulating others a turn on. He can actually be protective of the MC if the relationship is approached carefully, but generally he prefers to be part of a power couple. (The tag #evil bean is his.)

His natural height is 5′5″/165cm, but he wears boots with lifts whenever he’s in public, bumping up his height by two inches. He’s Norse, and has straight, knee-length,white-blonde hair that pours over his thin body. His pale, almost white eyes peer out from beneath almost invisible eyebrows, his thin and humorless lips rest below his hawk nose, the tip of which is just slightly upturned. He has high cheekbones, and a long face, a rectangular jaw line but soft chin. He appears to be about 23 years old. He runs skinny, almost unhealthily so, lanky and lean. Natural physical strength isn’t something he concerns himself with, and one can tell.

14. Zaria Wangari (pansexual, she/her) is half-human, on her father’s side. Her mother is a Sauti ya hila (a species unique to the SoS world). Because of her heritage, she is incapable of hearing normal human vocal ranges, so for most intents and purposes she is deaf. She works as the Medical Examiner for Jericho City Police Department.

Because of her deafness, she typically won’t initiate conversations with unknown people or in large groups as she gets nervous about how she sounds. She is fluent in ASL, and the rest of the precinct has various levels of fluency in it as well.

She tends to respond logically to situations first, always being careful to consider things before speaking. She dislikes being rushed or pressed for quick decisions, and isn’t shy about letting you know so. Questioning her knowledge is a good way to offend her. She’s reserved until she knows you, and then is prone to slipping in teasing remarks when visited in her home domain (that being her office and lab). Outside of work, she enjoys spending time outside with Rolo, her Komondor (aka large mop dog). She is a wine aficionado.

Looking sharp and well-presented is important to her, and she is meticulous about the aesthetic feel of her office and home. Going to crime scenes can stress her out because of the potential for crowds and unexpected people; she likes being in control, and places with a lot of people tend to put her on the defensive and she shuts down. Going out in groups with friends that she knows is usually the way she counters for the lack of control in new environments, but in general she prefers to be a creature of habit.

Her natural eye-color is violet, so she wearsamber-contacts most of the time. Zaria’s hair is a wavy cascade of mahogany that she usually wears pulled back in a bun. Her natural eye-color is violet, so she wears amber-colored contacts. She often wears high-heeled boots that bump her height up to 6’ 2"/188cm (she’s actually 6’0"/183cm). She is 29 years old at the start of the story, but is often mistaken for being a decade younger. Luckily her height stops most people from attempting to card her or question if she’s truly old enough to have obtained her Doctorate in Forensic Pathology. She has prominent, high cheekbones and full lips. Her nose is broad, and her eyebrows arched. She has long legs and long, elegant fingers. She’s lean, but has broad shoulders, and knows how to flatter her assets.

15. Michael (pansexual, he/him) is an archangel and nestmate of Gabriel. Young Michael was eager to please and desperate to belong. Older Michael has become jaded and is a source of nearly constant conflict. His version of being overprotective comes across as controlling and stifling. Somewhere along the way something changed him, and the new Michael is often angry and upset, no real cause required.

In angel form, Michael stands at 6′2″/188 cm. Michael wears his long blond hair in a neat, single braid down his back. It falls to midback.There’s nothing in particular that stands out about his looks–standard black eyes, golden skin, large gold wings, lean and muscular build. His nose is on the small size, some might say more button-nose than not, his lips are thin, and his chin has a stubborn jut to it. In human form, Michael’s form is 5′10″/178 cm. His hair is cropped short and blonde, about an inch-and-a-half in length. He has wide whiskey brown eyes. He has a stubborn chin, a short face, and a button-nose. His shoulders are narrow and his frame lean. His lips are thin and usually turned down to mirror the slant of his thick, light blonde eyebrows. His skin is an almost unhealthy shade of white. Slightly older than Gabriel.

[the-angry-pixie]

camboy AU... but make it romantic

Camboy Bill AU feat. the OT7.

- basic stuff really

- Bill is a camboy (billoncam) on those websites that I don’t know enough about to be able to give a name.

- and he does sessions every few days in private chatrooms

- mostly solo stuff - either a vibrator or dildo in his ass whilst jacking it to the camera

- his fans love him because he is really chatty and responsive. and when he gets really turned on, he stutters. he always moans and thanks the person when someone sends him a tip - its like the tip button is directly connected to his vibrator, the way he moans every time it *dings*

- he has regulars. people who always seem to tune in and leave lots of tips. he comes to recognise their usernames.

- “welcome mikey-mike. i hope you’re having a good week.”

- “its good to see you again bigdickrich, what filthy things are you gonna say to me today?”

- stuff like that.

- he holds competitions among viewers - whoever gives him the most tips in a session gets to choose a name for him to call out when he cums

- as a result billoncam ends up moaning out “oh fuck carsforeddie! oh fuck you feel so good carsforeddie! oh fuck OH FUCK!” a lot.

- like previously stated, he’s known for his highly interactive solo stuff but every now and then his audience gets a guest appearance from other people. it always seems to be the same guys but we never get to see their faces 

- one has lovely golden skin that matches his golden curls that Bill loves to grab onto when he’s fucking him

- the other is this buff dude with dark blonde body hair that makes the most delicious sounds when he’s railing Bill

- thats right, billoncam be versatile as fuck

- even more versatile than first anticipated because one time during a session Bill is holding a photo on his phone up to show the camera and he accidentally swipes to the next photo which is of some redhead woman lying on a bed in lingerie

- the comment section goes wild and Bill is like “oh fuck, oh fuck you weren’t meant to see that, ah ha ha ha lets forget that happened pls” and he goes on with the session. trying to ignore all the questions hounding him about who the fuck that was and why was she on his bed??

- two days later when billoncam is next scheduled to cam it is immediately obvious that things are very different when the session starts on a shot of Bill sitting fully-clothed talking straight to camera

- “thanks for tuning in everyone. I just felt I wanted to do something a bit different today. There’s been lots of discussion and questions about what happened the other day and I’ve thought about it a lot and have decided that I would like to be honest with you. This is a part of who I am and I don’t want to feel ashamed of that. So the truth is... I’m bisexual. And this...”

- Bill holds up his phone showing a photo of Bill and the redhead from the lingerie photo hugging each other and smiling giddily at the camera

- “... this is Bev. She’s my girlfriend.”

- again, the comment section goes wild. Obviously Bill has been camming himself on a website for gay men and well... gays can still be mean and weird sometimes when it comes to bisexuality.

- “I know. I know. It’s not what you’ve come to expect from me. I’m sorry if you’re offended or something. Well actually I’m not sorry at all. I would never be sorry for being in love with Bev. She’s my rock. We’ve been together for so long and she means the world to me. And the only reason I’m showing her face on here is because she’s given me full permission. In fact she has her own camming channel. Which I can link you to if there are any fellow bi’s out there.”

- Because the internet is the internet, Bill notices he’s losing viewers quickly, but he’s kind of happy to note that some of his regulars are among the ones being super supportive

- sitonthis: you’re not really gay. get the fuckk outta here!

mikey-mike: thanks for being honest with us Bill. I’m bi too and some people on here need to be quiet and stop being rude.

erotic-cum-on-my-hole: where’s the dick??

bigdickrich: daaaaaaaaaaamn Bill. she’s fuckign hot! gimme dat link please >______>

br000ny: sick of these bi s trickin on us. im out.

carsforeddie: YO EVERYONE NEEDS TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE BILL ALOONE!@! WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO DATE BILL?! HE’S FUCKING GORGEOUS AND PERFECT!! I SWEAR TO GOD YOU ALL NEED TO MEET ME IN THE PARKING LOT RIGHT THE FUCK NNOW!!e@!

- but it doesn’t stop there. Bill has more to tell. He doesn’t get naked at all that session. But he does come clean about being polyamorous. Apparently Bill and Bev were together for years before she started dating Ben. Who then eventually started dating Bill as well (mystery solved on who buff dude is). And then a little while after that Bill started dating Stan who also began dating everyone else eventually (mystery number two solved on who golden curls is)

- of course to respect privacy Bill doesn’t give names or photos for those two (they’re not into camming and only ever fuck Bill on cam as a favour cause they know Bill loves it so much). But he does wax poetic for a further half an hour on just how much he loves all his partners and then unexpectedly signs off.

- billoncam disappears for awhile. his sessions just suddenly stop. his fans reckon its probably got to do with the negative response he got to coming out as bi. 

- they try to reach out to him on his social media but never with any luck. its funny, billoncam’s sessions have weirdly become a bit of community thing. its strange. the regulars all kind of know each other and it feels wrong to not be coming all together (pun not intended) a few times a week on Bill’s channel. but whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore because it seems billoncam is no more. he’s been scared away.

- struggling radio personality Richie Tozier is definitely not expecting to run into Bill aka. billoncam in a random Los Angeles Starbucks one day. But he does. Thats him. That’s totally fucking him. The only way Richie could be more sure is if Bill whipped his junk out in the middle of this cafe.

- Richie is so stunned he can’t even think what to say. How to approach this guy that he has been jacking off to for the last year or so. 

- He ends up chasing Bill down the street and kind of pouncing on him. 

- Bill is understandably wary at first. But of course he’s kind of charmed by this nervous motormouth with his ridiculously syrupy-looking frappuccino concoction. Its strange how familiar he seems. He almost whispers the name to himself just as Richie practically yells “Oh by the way. I’m bigdickrich. Did I mention that? I might have forgotten to mention that. Fuck!”

- And well, a week or two later... billoncam makes a comeback suddenly.

- And he’s got a companion. A companion who is showing his face. Bill’s regulars know they definitely haven’t seen this guy (or his body) before but they don’t mind at all since the session is so much more intense because they can see both participants for once. And this new guy is very cute. In a hairy, gangly, bedraggled kind of way.

- Bill introduces the guy as his new friend. He says his new friend convinced him to come back online. And his new friend even gave permission for their first time together to be filmed live.

- New Friend’s eyebrows wiggle at the camera behind his thick dark-framed glasses

- this sends a thrill through the audience obviously. such an intimate thing that theyre witnessing. New Friend doesnt seem to mind though. In fact he seems to lap up the attention and is very willing to take suggestions from the audience of just what he should do to Bill. 

- the vibrator and dildo remain untouched on the bed that day. 

- and its right at the end, still panting and sweating and coming down from their highs that Bill mentions that his New Friend is a previous audience member.

- “some of you might recognise the username. This is bigdickrich. Sooo... I guess we now know he wasn’t exaggerating with that name ha ha” to which Richie just grins at the camera holding his hands up under his chin.

- the comment section goes BONKERS!

- carsforeddie: THAT ANNOYING CRUDE SON OF A BITCH!! WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS THE UNIVERSE SO UNFAIR! FUCK!”

mikey-mike: good for you bigdickrich. you’re a real lucky guy. 

twinksfordays: i want to choke on bigdickrich’s cock

carsforeddie: HOW?! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! EW I JUST JACKED IT TO THAT ASSHOLE! FUCK I NEED TO SHOWER”

- Bill and Richie giggle and converse with the commenters for awhile and then sign off.

- billoncam returns to regularly camming again. much the way he was before. mostly solo. though sometimes with guest stars. and Richie becomes a more and more frequent feature. He’s the only one (besides Bev popping in now and then) who shows his face.

- and then, billoncam hits 100,000 subscribers

- and Bill. Well he has to make it special right? So he auctions himself off. There has to be some careful wording and labelling so that he can’t be done for prostitution but... essentially Bill auctions off the chance for him to travel and spend the night with the highest bidder.

- of course carsforeddie is not going to let this opportunity slide by him. He’s a successful businessman. He might only be 25 but he’s got money to burn and he’s been loving lusting after billoncam for a LONG TIME

- its undisclosed just how much Eddie Kaspbrak, luxury car rental business owner ends up paying for billoncam to fly to New York and spend the night with him - for legal reasons obviously. And no, Eddie does not give permission for the deed to be filmed.

- But! Its perfectly legal to say that the 2nd time Bill fucks Eddie - the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th and the 6th and all the times that follow - are done completely for free!

- Ben jokes to Richie privately about them going to need to move into a bigger house if Bill keeps adding people to this relationship.

- It becomes less of a joke and more of a reality as Eddie moves permanently to Los Angeles 6 months (and lots of trips to LA) later.

- And thats it. Theyre nearly there. There’s just one more thing missing. One more piece to the puzzle. Bill doesn’t know why he feels this way. He just does.

- Luckily Mike Hanlon (aka as mikey-mike) has been unknowingly working away on this very thing for months. Not that he would have dared to assume that anything would happen when he slid into billoncam’s DM’s 18 months ago.

- He’s just a country boy from bumfuck nowhere. There’s no reality in this universe where he and the likes of billoncam would ever cross paths. But he enjoys talking to him. They have a lot of laughs. And Bill is surprisingly sweet and very well spoken. They like a lot of the same things. The same literature, the same sports teams. Bill is always asking after the animals on Mike’s family’s farm. Mike wishes he could get to know him better. 

- Bill wants the same thing. He’d give anything to meet the sweet-souled farmboy from Maine who brightens Bill’s day whenever he gets a new message from him. I mean, it helps that he’s also gorgeous with the most wonderful smile, but thats beside the point.

- Bill ends up putting his money where his mouth is. Just enough to buy a return plane ticket to LA, so that Mike can come visit him, and cover the cost of a hotel room (ya know, in case he doesn’t want to stay with Bill and the rest of them. Bill would never want to make him uncomfortable).

- Needless to say Mike fits right into the family almost immediately. 

- its a couple of months later and billoncam still exists, but its like a relic now. Bill pours all his creative energy into his new channel “the-lucky-seven”. Its a channel shared by everyone and its outrageously popular. Sure there are still a few individuals who are too shy or anxious to show their faces but the audience doesn’t seem to care. There’s so much variety to be found on the channel. Different combinations of people doing a live cam nearly every second day. 

- they’re all unapologetic, they all love each other, and they don’t mind sharing it with the world. 

- :) :) :) :) B) :) :)

----

Did I really just write a romance story about camming? Why yes, I think I did. Ha Ha. Hope you enjoyed. :)

[mikenewtonhateblog]

My oc’s aka too long of a gd post

The “BL” Crew (does not stand for boys love I’m just a moron who made that abbreviation before knowing what it stands for). My main crew and main series, a lot is a big WIP right now as I’m slowly redoing the first book and all the lore. Why? I love torture. Book is fantasy type but I won’t specify what.

Lacie, the protagonist. God tier idiot, bisexual bipolar depressed MESS, insomniac, former theater kid, doesn’t know what she wants out of life but currently it is not This(plot of book). Hot headed, impulsive, crude, rude, Mommy IssuesTM, would rather be taking a nap right now, rules are made to be broken, absolutely fucking FERAL, more bags under her eyes than the airport lost and found. 5’5, 130lbs, Aries, age 18, white as shit like literally the whitest human you have ever seen, strawberry blonde hair in a 2011 Hayley Willaims haircut with long bangs, the darkest brown eyes you’ve ever seen that stare directly into your soul. Lanky, no curves, body of a 12 year old boy but works out so she can and will kick your ass and thats a threat. Not human?

Josh. Soft boy, smart, Lacie’s cousin and only friend for like the first 18 years of her life, autistic anxious mess who’s special interest is anchient egyptian history, is in honors classes, despises math, passes out when his girlfriend looks too cute, just needs a hug. Can eat a whole carton of easy mac if left alone, whole wardobe is the same outfit just different colors/hoodies, sensory issues, seriously can someone give this guy a hug. 5’9, 150lbs, Pisces, age 18, mixed (half whatever flavor of white Lacie’s family is [they don’t even know its just some scandanavian shit and irish], and half mexican on his mom’s side), medium olive skin with freckles and moles, dark chocolate brown hair that’s a bit of a 2009 Beiber cut, warm brown eyes, not beefy, a lil thicc and self concious about it but squishy boys are GOOD. Gets bit by a werewolf so now he is one his mood on it is “thats a lot to unpack but let’s just throw the whole suitcase away”.

Zander. There is not one braincell in this man, himbo KING, pansexual dumbass with undiagnosed ADHD, no impulse control, head empty and full at the same time, PTSD, his fashion sense should be an actual crime, gets in fights to feel something, basic requirements for him to be attracted to you: kick his ass. Drinks his respect women juice, sees a folding table and must immediately launch himself on it, chaotic, cannot drive a car and will not, food aggression and eats enough for 3 people but never gains weight which is ILLEGAL, him and Lacie may be a couple.....but in this house we stan slow burn, he talks in caps and every sentence either ends with a question mark or exclaimation point, likes romcoms. 6’2, 190lbs, Sagittarius, age 19, austrailian roots and has the accent but is from [REDACTED FOR STORY REASONS], white, dorito shaped with long legs, blueish black hair that’s long and messy, dark navy eyes that match his hair, bigass neck scar from [REDACTED]. Not human

Peter. Gay dad friend who is TIRED of having to be in charge of a bunch of teenagers, only one with full functioning braincells, lowkey a genius who loves engineering, mixes magical technology with human technology because he likes to play god, is he ever sober? No one knows, will kill for a bottle of single malt, his fashion sense? Tastefully expensive suits perfectly tailored. Likes building his own weapons that no one else knows how to even use, generally non-threatening but can get scary if needed. 6’4, 140lbs string bean man, Scorpio, age 179 but looks early 30s, I know I said Lacie is the whitest human but he’s even paler like a literal sheet of paper with scandanavian roots/ancestors were vikings or some shit, blonde hair styled like 2013 Brendon Urie lmfao, light crystal blue eyes. He’s a vampire and was born one.

Danielle. Tiny, sweet, queen of girls supporting girls, comments on all her friends instagram posts with 20 emojis, LOVES fashion and has a wardrobe that would make anyone jealous, oozes feminine energy, only child and parents are in love still, gets exactly 8 hours of sleep each night and wakes up looking like a disney princess. Just because she is small and cute doesn’t mean you should underestimate her she WILL fuck your shit up. Quiet when angey which is terrifying. Josh is her bf and she loves him so much but also loves teashing the shit out of him. Legally cannot cuss, polite, used her high heels as a weapon once, speaks like 5 languages because studying them is her hobby, gardens, hugs everyone. 5’0, 110, Taurus, age 18, mixed (half french-american, half Korean-american), glowy skin always, PETITE frame aka the friend everyone can pick up when they hug, long past her waist curly brown hair, bright green eyes. She’s not fully human as she has fae blood in her and this gives her the ability to talk to and control plants. Flower crowns for everyone

Becca. Theater kid who would die to sing in Wicked and has the vocal range to do so, cannot wait to graduate and go to her dream college which she got into and a scholarship, closeted lesbian bc her whole giant family is extremely catholic and she feels like not dealing with it, “no boys allowed in bedroom” rule is her favorite joke, chill, middle child of 5 siblings and just wants some peace and quiet for ONCE. Her fashion sense is “I’m dropping subtle hints I’m gay but only to other gays”, has a black belt and took self defense classes. 5’6, 145lbs, Virgo, age 18, Latina (cuban and mexican mix), darker brown skin with light freckles over her nose, athletic build, eyebrows on POINT, bright caramel eyes, short light brown hair cut in a bob, has a tiny nose stud, always wears a blue friendship bracelet her gf made her. Human

Anika. Calling her a bitch/slut is a compliment, bisexual, a bit of a mean girl but she grows out of it give her time!!! Is always Too Much, the horny friend, favorite color is red so thats almost all of her outfits, loves to show off her body as much as she can because she’s hot and knows it and thrives in her own confidence. Her mom is literally like Regina George’s mom from Mean Girls but married a rich man 20 years older than her, Anika doesn’t know her bio dad but thats fine neither does her mom and her step dad is nice and does his best to be a dad. Becca’s gf, always hanging out at her home so Becca can get some quiet because Anika’s an only child and has a pool. 5’9, 135lbs, Gemini, age 18, white, long layered dark reddish brown hair, teal-blue eyes, swimmers body type (I normally do not mention bust size but she would want the internet to know she was blessed with big bahoogles so there you go), can sprint in heels. Half mermaid (boy was that a surprise considering her mom doesn’t know who her father is LOL)

Rex. Nb uses they/them he/him pronouns but honestly will respond to any, goth lite, only attracted to men and ace, can read minds so knows all your secrets, mischevious little shit, great friends with Zander and enjoys his dumbass thoughts and that he’s basically a human version of Jackass, wears too many rings, goth boots for kicking and fashion babey, always has the freshest memes and will not hesitate to roast in the group chat, hangs with the girls most of the time. Chaos god who loves making art, be gay do crime, skateboard and spraypaint. 5’8”, 165lbs, Leo, age 18, Native American, masculine frame, dark brown skin, blue eyes, firetruck red shoulder length hair that’s usually in a ponytail, knock-off gucci sunglasses just for judging their friends. Has magic in their blood so not entirely human and can cast spells and shit (don’t roast me its a wip and I’m doing my research)

Sam. Boho goddess, aromantic, makeup and nails are always instagram worthy, quiet and stoic type but losens up around close friends, Rex is her best friend, has some trauma and doesn’t want to talk about it, emotionally numbed out a bit and wants to purely vibe. Has seen some of the worst parts of humanity and wishes she hadn’t, finds no point in being bitter or resentful though because that won’t change anything, loves cats and once she moves out shes adopting one or three. Has wine aunt energy. 5’4, 200lbs PLUS SIZE QUEEN, Scorpio, age 18, Filipino (her parents are immigrants fun fact!), really olive skin sometimes has a grey/green tinge to it, dark brown almost black shoulder length hair, gold-hazel eyes. Sam’s the victim of a family curse that requires her to consume human hearts to survive, she can transform into a pretty scary looking being and uses this curse to hunt down pedoph*les, r*pists, murderers, and abusers. The less often she feeds the less human she looks, hence the constant grey/green tinge to her skin. 

Andy. Baby of the group, must be protected at all costs, 100% didn’t sign up to be in a friendgroup of 90% monsters but highkey loves it, trans, bi, anxiety MAXED, just wants to draw comics and cosplay spiderman, has to babysit his two younger sisters a lot because his parents are....not great, and as a result now knows all the lines to Tangled and The Little Mermaid. Big nerd energy, has to draw on everything including homework, gets inspiration for comics from his friends, awkward and socially anxious, drinks way too much tea and will accidentally steal your pens. Fears include: crowds, thunder, tall angry men, tiny spaces. Just trying his best. 5’2, 100lbs BEANPOLE BOY, Leo, age 16, white (irish and scottish roots), freckles absolutely EVERYWHERE, orangey red hair thats in desperate need of a haircut, chocolate brown eyes, braces, chronic nail biter. Human and kinda wishes he wasn’t.

That’s it for now if you read all this bless u thank u here is my whole heart. Please no discourse, literally these are fictional people I’ll never publish the books they go to.

[songsofacagedbird]

Hello, I’m Katie, this is my sunshine daughter Balo, and you’re watching Disney Channel! Jokes aside though, I’m so excited to bring Balo back and while not much has changed (truly this is nothing more than a continuation where I only omit plots my partner doesn’t want to revive), have a new intro / bio anyway because... I felt like it ok.  I’ll be good and not ramble too ungodly long though so without further ado - another one of my excessively long intro posts:

TWs: Child Abuse / Abuse, Alcoholism (not Balo’s, but her dad’s), Eating Disorders (anorexia nervosa)

Is that BALIAN “BALO” DRISKELL? Wow, they do look a lot like CANDICE SWANEPOEL. I hear SHE is/are a SEVENTEEN year old JUNIOR who originally attended LUXOR Academy. Word is they are a(n) REGULAR student. You should watch out because they can be NAIVE and SENSITIVE, but on the bright side they can also be OPTIMISTIC and BUBBLY. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself.  [KATIE, 23, EST, SHE/HERS]

Last Edit: 8/26/2020

★ basics;

Full Name: Balian “Balo” Grace Driskell Age: 17 Birthday: February 7th, 2003 at 08:06 am Sexual Orientation:  Balo really doesn’t label it (although I like to say bisexual, biromanitc to make my own life easier), she always just falls for who she falls for regardless of gender. If you ask her exactly, she’d probably say MOGAI though. Relationship Status: Kinda dating Caitriona but it’s unofficial Occupation: Student Nationality: American

★ classes;

Communications

French

Geometry

U.S. History

Fashion design

Visual Art

Pilates

★ extracurriculars;

Arts Club (Member)

Balo also used to be a Cheerleader (Flyer) and part of the Gymnastics team but due to her leaving / concerns about her health, she was required to step down, much to her devastation.

★ background;

Place of Birth: Rochester, New York Hometown: Saratoga Springs, New York Health Issues: Eating Disorder (Anexoria) Traumas: Abuse (Constant/Ongoing - from her father)

★ physical;

Faceclaim: Candice Swanepoel Eye Color: Blue Hair Color: Blonde Height: 5′11” -- not at fc height because I don’t wanna change her height with the new fc Weight: 120 lbs - give or take Tattoos, Birthmarks, Scars, etc: Nothing I find a need to link at the moment.

★  zodiac;

Tropical

Sun: Aquarius Moon: Aries Mercury: Capricorn Venus: Capricorn Mars: Sagittarius Jupiter: Leo Saturn: Gemini Uranus:   Aquarius Neptune: Aquarius Pluto: Sagittarius Lilith: Aries N Node: Gemini

Placidus Orb

I ASC: Pisces II: Aries III: Taurus IV: Gemini V: Cancer VI: Leo VII: Virgo VIII:  Libra IX: Scorpio X MC: Sagittarius XI: Capricorn XII: Aquarius

★ relatives;

Father’s Full Name: Lance Driskell Father’s Status: Alive Father’s Occupation: Restaurant Owner Mother’s Full Name: Cassandra “Cassidy” Driskell Mother’s Status: Alive Mother’s Occupation: Waitress at a local diner (not Lance’s place) Siblings: 1 older sister and 2 older brothers

Driskell Children Oldest to Youngest:

Ivan Marsden (22, attending school in England)

Grace Driskell (19, in California for school)

Zander Driskell (LINK TO HIS INTRO)

Balo Driskell

Here is a link to the Driskell family page if you’d like to know more about her family.

★ misc;

Hobbies and Talents: Balo’s a sketch artist and painter who tends to focus on realism, in particular realistic humans and animals. It’s her true passion and I have an inspo section for her sketchbook here! She’s also quite flexible and skilled at gymnastics, part of why it’s bothering her she can’t participate currently because she loves it and she’s good at it - making her removal from the team eat at her even more.

Pinterest Section  // Musings Tag // Playlist

- Balo’s kind of a literal ray of sunshine who believes (almost) everyone is truly good at heart. While she tries to see the best in everyone, no matter what, she truly can’t see it in her father, a fact she feels extremely guilty over it. - She loves art, sketching and painting especially, and she always dreamed of being some sort of artist. While her mother encouraged it every chance she got, her father is truly a different story. - Balo is very easy to manipulate and I encourage it constantly. - She truly just wants to love and befriend everyone, while it’s not really too hard to make her cry, usually you’ll see Balo running around with a smile trying to brighten everyone’s day. This is an issue because she’ll put everyone around her before herself every time, your happiness is a priority before hers. Again, making her easy to manipulate. (So I welcome manipulating Balo and love it when it occurs, please feel free to do so at any point) - Her best friend / favorite person in the entire world at this point is Logan Keller, mention him only if you really wanna see this girl light up like a 4th of July fireworks show. (They’re still in touch, for those of you who remember him from when Jia was playing him here!) - Balo recently got out of extensive inpatient for her eating disorder so while she’s doing a lot better, she’s really doesn’t want it to be the main topic of conversation either. She's okay and back at Luxor and she feels that’s the most important thing at the end of the day.

★ bio; TWs: Child Abuse / Abuse, Alcoholism, Eating Disorders (anoxeria, weight loss, and complications from both)

“'Cause I know that nothing good comes easy, if it did, I wouldn't be me.”

If there was one quote that fit Balo Driskell’s life to a t, that would be it. Nothing was truly easy in the Driskell’s home, she was the youngest of three children - an amount that her mother never wanted to have, and would do whatever it took to stay at after this point. Anytime her father walked in after work, the stench of alcohol clung to. She could smell it on her breath every time he yelled, each time he threw things, anytime he hit her. One could have easily convinced the young girl that all families were like this, that everyone covered up bruises and pretended they were much happier than they actually were if it wasn’t for her mother.

Perhaps Casandra Driskell never wanted her children, but she loved them with her entire heart. She’d sneak her children money, things they weren’t allowed to have - guitars, paints, canvases, sheet-music, legos, and whatever else her father deemed banning fit at a moment's notice. She wasn’t always around, working a job at the local diner, but when she was she did everything in her power to protect her children. It was never enough, though.

Lance Driskell still hurt his children close to daily, whether it was smashing Grace’s guitar over her head the moment he found it, pulling Balo down the stairs by her hair, or lashing Zander with his belt - there were quite a few times where a Driskell had to go the hospital and the family had to lie through their teeth to keep people from looking too closely at them at their mother’s urging. If it was investigated the three children would be separated, they would lose their mother, or at least that’s what they were told - and none of them wanted that. It became common for one child to intervene for another if they could, Zander especially taking the brunt of the punishments for his sisters.

It was part of loving someone in the Driskell home, trying to keep everyone else safe no matter the cost it had on you.

Her childhood wasn’t all bad, however, there were quite a few silver-linings in the dark cloud called the Driskell home. She had a close friendship with her siblings and her mother, and she has plenty of fond memories with them. Christmas was always peaceful, as her father always took that shift at his restaurant and refused to celebrate the holiday with them - a time where he couldn’t taint the joy inside of the Driskell home. She could paint when her father wouldn’t catch her in the act, something she loved doing (and she still does every chance she gets), and she had Logan. Logan Keller was her next-door neighbor and her best friend. If you saw one of them, the other probably wasn’t too far behind. In many ways, he was her person - someone she felt like she could go to with nearly anything (she could never discuss home with him at this point, of course, but everything else she could and she did). 

And then the Driskells moved away and it was like the world was ripped out from under her feet - leaving her spiraling and looking for some sort of control. Her new friend didn’t help matters much either, constantly encouraging her to “shed the weight” they swore she gained. She soon found this sense of “control” in the form of her eating disorder, careful attempts to keep herself as thin as she could, of restricting her food every chance she could.  It wasn’t healthy, far from it, but it fulfilled the desire to have some semblance of control over her life.

Sending the children to Luxor had been an easy decision for Cassandra the second the children were able to attend, a way to ship them off to safety while not being too far away from home. While it pained her a first to be away from her mother, eventually she began to understand. She was safe while at school, and at the end of the day, that was what mattered the most to her mother, right? It wasn’t hard to get into the flow of life at the school, staying at school and only coming home for the breaks that the school refused to keep students during. It broke her heart when Lance shipped Ivan to England and told him not to come home (a thought that still pains her to this day), after the boy served his use, and it only grew harder when Grace graduated and moved to California. But she was happy at Luxor, in spite of everything.

And in a way, her love for the school only grew after the merge. Now there were twice as many people to befriend and support, and in the process, she realized something she had been missing had been under her nose for a while. Logan was attending school at Luxor too, and all of a sudden, she had her person in her life again. At the time she felt on top of the world, regardless of the circle beginning to stir up issues.

And then, suddenly, she was knocked right back down to the ground.

First Logan was kidnapped and forced to deliver the message, and then he was forced to go home for personal reasons. The support she had so quickly grown used to having was seemingly being ripped out from her yet again. While he was still in touch, continuing to be her rock, her eating disorder only continued to spiral out of control. And no matter how much she tried to pretend she was fine, it was getting to the point there was no way to really do so. Balo was sick, and now everyone could tell. It was concern from her teachers that helped fuel the chain of events that resulted in getting her help, no matter how much she tried to assure everyone she didn’t need inpatient therapy and that doing outpatient would be fine. After several months of inpatient followed by a bout of “readjustment to the real world” time at home, she’s back at Luxor and as sunshine-y as ever.

TLDR / quick important notes bio recap for rereads: - Balo’s home life is far from perfect. Her father, Lance - is an abusive alcoholic, and while her mother tried her best to protect her children - she also covered things up without hesitation. It wasn’t uncommon to see a Driskell in the ER with a lie and people willing to back up the story. - The lack of control in her life is what led to her eating disorder, in hopes of regaining a (false) sense of control. - She’s been attending Luxor since freshman year, although she recently had to leave for a few months to attend extensive inpatient treatment. And now she’s back to her normal sunshine-esc antics, trying to love everyone, feeding all the strays at Luxor, and trying to spread smiles everywhere she goes.

★ wanted connections;

Friendships

Someone to manipulate her, please I beg you

Um, pretty much anything? She likes everyone cause if you do something to hurt her she does mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion you are a good person and it was an unintended side effect so...yeah. Doesn’t mean your muses have to like her though (I have a lot of fun when they don’t actually, so… don’t worry about hurting the sunshine daughter. Okay?)

Anyone who knows her from the gymnastics and/or cheer teams, as she was on the teams through Freshmen & Sophomore years, and until October of her junior year.

[it-will-not-last-the-night]

Gossip

Ryuji’s been avoiding Ann at Shujin and she decides she wants to find out why. 

“Ahem?” 

Though not particularly loud the enunciation commanded all of Ryuji’s attention. He had learned, at his own expense, that ignoring that sound never lead to anything good. So he quickly pulled himself up into a sitting position, having been sprawled out on his back over a desk before, gazing idly at his phone.

“Eating up here, again? You could have given me a head’s up you know, was I meant to just figure it out myself?” Ann grumbled, pulling the chair his feet had been resting on sharply out, so she could slid into it. 

“Well I...thought you’d eat in the cafeteria, like usual, ya know?” The look he got let Ryuji know he was already making a mess of this.

“So then why didn’ t you meet me there? We don’t need to hang out in secret on rooftops anymore, and don’t try to say you were up here for Haru’s garden again,” her cheeks puffed out a put, slender arms folding infront of her as she fixed Ryuji with an accusing stare. “Seriously, Ryuji, it feels like you’re trying to avoid me, what the hell is up with that? Did I say something? This can’t be about your roots showing again, I just made one joke, it wasn’t even a big deal-”

“It isn’t...I’m not avoiding you! Honest!” Hands waving before himself, frantically, as he lied. 

“Then what? C’mon, spill it! I get this place is important to you, it’s important to me too, but this is our last year here, didn’t we say we were going to make sure it was a good one? I think after a whole year of skulking about we deserve a bit of a normal school life for a change, don’t you?”

Ann was, of course, correct. When the third year of Shujin had begun the two had spoken at length about how they would make this year infinitely less shitty than the last (hardly difficult). Along with making sure that Futaba acclimated well the two had been lucky enough to land in class together, with Mishima, and had even been trying harder to pick-up their grades. Despite this, increasingly, Ryuji had begun to ‘miss’ lunches with his friend. At first using the excuse that he was tending to Haru’s old garden, to try to keep it around now that the senior had graduated and moved on, but after Ann had caught him a number of times simply laying on his back phone in hand that excuse had dried up.

Part of her had guessed the obvious reason already, so obvious Ryuji didn’t even realize it consciously. Ren leaving had certainly hit everyone but Ryuji was in competition with Futaba for the ones who took it hardest. Still, if it was just about that, then why had he only started becoming so mopey again halfway through the year, as opposed to from the start? Ann’s patience had been put to the test, and she wasn’t a patient person to begin with;

“Then tell me already! You’re always blurting out things I don’t want you too, now you’re dancing around something? You can’t expect me to believe you’re okay,” natural blonde stared at artificial blonde and it was Ryuji who looked away first.

“Ahhh, man, dammit, this is...I was hoping not to make it a big deal...” he groaned, shoulders slouching even lower than usual (she needed to talk to him about his posture), as he tried to look anywhere but at her. 

“It is a big deal already, so you failed at that, now just spit it out already! Did you do something stupid? Is it results?” 

“No! No! Nothing...nothing like that...also just ‘cause I ain’t been talkin’ to ya doesn’t mean it’s cause I did something stupid, ya know?”

“Sure,” Ann said in the least convincing tone of voice ever.

“Hey-”

“Ryuji just say it already! What the hell is wrong?”

He balked, cringing a bit. Whatever it was he was having a tough time getting it out, more of his macho bullshit Ann feared, and her rapidly dwindling patience for him was evident in the way a single finger tapped out a staccato beat on her arm.

“I...” his eyes darted left and right, as if hoping some sort of answer would reveal itself from thin air. For a moment Ann half-expected him to do something as ridiculous as point behind her and say ‘what’s that’ like some cartoon character...before he finally seemed to resign himself with a heavy sigh.

“You probably...you probably don’t know but, uh...hell, this is awkward,” he rubbed the back of his head, a faint pink now tinging his cheeks as his eyes found a decidedly interesting part of the concrete ceiling to focus on.

“There’s been some...gossip going around...about me...and...uh...well...y-you,” his voice got fainter and fainter with every word, like a child admitting to a parent some mistake they’d made. “They’ve been saying we’re...or been gossiping that we...uh...we...we...”

“Oh! The rumour that we’re sleeping together, that one?”

A particular type of stillness descended upon the roof of Shujin Academy. It wasn’t a silence, no, since of course sounds of the Academy proper and the city about them still wafted about, but it was a stillness, a sort of pretenatural lack of activity and motion that made the entire place, for an instance, seem almost static.

Then, it was broken by that most intrusive of sounds: Ryuji’s blaring voice.

“YOU KNEW?!”

Ann could only roll her eyes at the bare-faced shock on her friend’s face. The boy had apparently thought he was harbouring some dark and twisted secret, protecting her from harm. It would have been sweet if it wasn’t, yet agani, more of his macho bullshit.

“Ryuji, duh, I go to this school too, what do you think girl’s don’t gossip? You think I’m deaf? Obviously I know,” it wasn’t surprising either. Since she’d been at Shujin Ann could hardly spend a second with a guy without every second boy and girl whispering that she was clearly handing out favours to them. Hell, there’d been rumours about her and Shiho just from how much they hung out together and, for the record, she was bisexual, not homosexual. 

Knowing that she knew didn’t seem to bring Ryuji anymore closure though, the lanky boy sputtering, hands waving about in the air, as he tried to vocalize something coherent.

“But...but they’re not true-”

“Of course they aren’t, I think we’d know if they were true!”

“Then why...you didn’t...you still hung out...and just...just let it keep going?” He sounded incredulous and Ann returned an equally incredulous look.

“Why would I change anything because of that?”

He shrunk in again, eyes once more looking for anything other than her face, as he mumbled; “W-well...people would think...about me and you...they’d think you were hanging out with...someone like me for...you know...”

Deep breaths, she reminded herself. She unfolded her arms, snapping her fingers in front of his face to make sure he was staring her in the eyes. 

“Ryuji, listen closely, what I’m about to say is very important, okay? I need you to focus on this and actually let it stick in that big empty space between your ears-”

“Hey-”

“Focus!” Ryuji’s jaw clamped shut, though the slight scowl still simmered there. Ann exhaled, closed her eyes, and spoke.

“Fuck what they think,”

“Ann-”

“I’m sorry, I meant; eff what the hell they think, is that better?” Ryuji gawped at her for a moment.

“B-but! But! It’s ain’t right that they think you’d do sumthin’ like-” There was that bit of Ryuji it was so easy to both like and hate. His persistent need for things to be fair, to be right, his indignation when it wasn’t and his tendency to martyr himself to make it so. It was touching in a sort of ‘he’d do anything for you,’ way but, at the same time, infuriating in a sort of ‘he’ll keep you out of your own problems just so he can deal with them,’ way. She hadn’t forgotten he’d never wanted her to enter Kamoshida’s Palace to begin with because he wanted to protect her. What was this but a microcosm of that?

“Ryuji I don’t care what they say, they’ve been saying things behind my back for years! Even after Kamoshida flat out confessed there were still people saying things behind my back! They’re saying things behind your back too, ya know? They never even stopped with you,” his face tightened immediately, jaw clenched.

“That’s different, I can handle that-”

“And I can’t? I haven’t been handling it since day one?” He flinched back at that, realizing he’d once more put his foot in his mouth. They waited for a tense second, his face relaxing, growing morose, her giving a heavy sigh, slouching back into the seat. 

Much as she hated to admit it she didn’t think she’d get through to him. Not because he didn’t respect her, didn’t value her, but because Ryuji was the third most obstinate person she’d ever met (first place being for Ren and second place for Makoto). Even though she didn’t like it (and, honestly, even felt envious at times about it) she knew what the best way to convince him was.

“What was it you told Ren Ryuji? Other people are always going to be looking down on us? So it doesn’t matter what they think?” The words hit the mark immediately. Ryuji straightened out, getting a rare contemplative expression.

Ann didn’t mind (a lie) that he and Ren were so close. It was good, for both of them, she was glad they found each other but...it could hurt sometimes feeling like the only person Ryuji really trusted was Ren. She could say the exact same things he would and Ryuji would just look torn but, if she reminded him Ren had said them, like that he’d believe it.

But that was...that wasn’ t for now. It wasn’t fair to begrudge how close their relationship was either, she knew what it was like having a friend who felt like the only person in the world you could count on. Right now more important was...

“Ryuji...”

“You’re right...you’re...you’re right I was...was bein’ dumb...hehe, as usual, right?” That he could chuckle about it let her know the worst had passed and Ann gave him a small smile;

“We can just enter this into the long list of bone-headed decisions you made, okay? Right next to thinking planning a surprise party for Makoto was a good idea-”

“Hey! C’mon, she enjoyed it!”

“Ryuji she punched you right in the face! Thank goodness you had that mask on or else I think she’d have broken your nose!” The two shared a laugh at the memory before Ann finally got up.

“So, you ready to stop being a baby and just come have lunch with me? Regardless of what some idiots and losers say?” He followed suit, standing up next to her, as they headed for the door.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry about that, I just-”

“I know, you were thinking about me, it’s kinda sweet in a dumb way,” she waved off his apologies, really not wanting the mood to get any heavier. With Ryuji she enjoyed the levity of it all, he had a knack for making even down times seem bright. The flipside was when he did get down it often meant that things were particularly bad, as without him to lift the mood the rest of them struggled.

They were halfway down the stairs from the ceiling when she couldn’t resist getting one last jab in though.

“You know, for the record, a rumour that I’m sleeping with you, is still probably the best rumour there’s ever been about me, you know?”

Thud!

“Ryuji?” Ann twisted around just in time to see the boy trip and hit the stairs. Red-faced, blushing, Ryuji looked up at her in something between astonishment and consternation; 

“W-what? Bwaaahh?” He eloquently asked. Ann simply giggled in response, helping her friend up. 

[uas-art]

Title: The Pandering Country Western Star

Summary: Craig is a closeted country star. Tweek is an internet famous singer who's been out since middle school. when Craig’s ex outs him to a magazine, can Tweek be of any help to Craig in his time of need?

Ships: Creek, Revin, mentioned Stendy, past Cramos

Rating: T

Other: This was a cathartic story to deal with my coworkers being assholes :)

~~~~~~~~

Craig tipped back his head, downing the last of his drink.

Stan raised an eyebrow at him. "So, it's been fifteen minutes. Are you finally going to tell me what happened?"

Craig signaled the bartender for another Coke. He wanted to get absolutely wasted and completely forget the betrayal, but he couldn't risk that he might do something that would drag his reputation down worse than it already would be next week.

"Thomas." Craig fished out a twenty from his wallet and handed it to the bartender. "Just keep bringing whatever drinks you have cold and around until that runs out." He instructed the bartender, who then looked at her regular, Stan.

Stan just shrugged. "What's left over can pay off my tab, I guess."

She nodded and left the men to their own devices.

Stan sipped his Sprite. "What about Thomas? You two break up?"

Craig stirred the ice in his glass. "We are now." He groaned, shoulders slumping forward. "Stan, my career is over. He told a magazine."

Stan choked on his drink. He beat his chest and earned a look from the bartender. He waved her concerns off with his hand.

"'Told'? 'Told' like..." Stan lowered his voice, "like he told a magazine you're gay?"

Craig nodded solemnly. "Yeah. Not just any magazine. Fucking 'Country And Western Life' —the biggest country music magazine. I am boned."

Stan made a sound of understanding, reaching out to pat Craig's back. Stan was in the unique position of having some empathy for Craig's situation. His music career was ruined by gossipy journalism digging too deep into his personal life as well, though, Stan's career hadn't nearly made it as big as Craig's.

His band had one single make it to number one on the top forty charts, and that was mainly because it was in a low budget action spoof that was an unexpected box office success.

Craig had one song make it to number two, and three others make it into the top ten on the country charts. A collaboration he did with another, older star, made it to number one and held the spot for nearly three weeks.

Stan's fall from grace was not nearly as big of a crash and burn as Craig's would be.

"I don't understand why he'd do this." Craig shook his head. "I thought we had something special. Fucking wrong there, I guess."

"What did your manager say?" Stan asked.

Craig raised a shoulder in a shrug. "Red said she'd leave it up to me. I could deny it, but since I don't know what Thomas brought to 'Country And Western Life', I might end up making myself look like a fool. Or I could just come out myself before it publishes and take the thunder from them, but then..." He shuddered.

"You'd have to deal with a legion of homophobic ex-fans throwing Bible verses at you and saying you're doing it to pander to gay people and trying to be some SJW?" Stan finished.

"Yeah." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose my fan base."

"Well, I can tell you from experience, stepping out of the limelight and settling into a nice domestic life isn't terrible." Stan unlocked his phone and began to turn it towards Craig, but he raised his hand to stop him.

"I don't want to see pictures of your partner and kids." Craig rolled his eyes.

Stan huffed in offence but put his phone in his pocket. "Honestly, Craig? I think you're worrying too much. It's twenty-nineteen. Not as many people as you're expecting will care that your gay. A vocal few, sure, but even if some people are against queer people, they'll ignore it for the sake of your music and work. It'll only be a big deal if you make it one."

He raised his glass slightly. "Or that's what happened when Wendyl and I came out. We still have to block some assholes who spam our accounts sometimes, but once the first 'outrage' died down, we actually got more fans. I don't know if I'm good representation for people, but I think Wendyl is, at least." He smiled fondly at the thought of his partner.

Even though he made a snort at Stan, he was glad that they were happy together. When they were just college roommates, Craig was sure he and Wendyl wouldn't actually make it past the first few dates. Somehow they did though.

That was more than Craig could say about his relationship. He honestly thought Thomas might be the one. He'd occasionally even brought up the idea of a secret wedding, usually as a joke, to test the waters. Thomas never answered him seriously, but he never said he would be against it. The tabloids would have a field day if he started wearing a wedding ring.

Not that that mattered anymore...

Craig set his straw down to drink the coke from the glass. He let a chunk of ice fall into his mouth and crunched down hard on it.

"The difference between you and Wendyl and me is you and Wendyl were retired from your music days. No one talks about 'Moop' anymore. 'Craig Tucker' is a household name," Craig pointed out. "You weren't making hard rock for the radio. You two are activists for animals. One of those lends itself well to a non-binary person and their bisexual husband — and it's not the first one."

Stan rolled his eyes. "That sounded like an insult, but you're feeling like shit so I'll let it slide." He sucked a breath through his teeth. "Craig, dude, I really wish I could help you out here, but...I don't know. I don't think your career is over. You're overreacting. You can still make money as a country star. It'll be rough as hell these next few months, but if you just keep on keeping on, it'll be fine. Show everyone you accept yourself for you and don't care what anyone else thinks."

"Besides, " He rolled his wrist as he spoke, "someone will do something else, have an affair, use a slur in an interview, die, and everyone will move on. It's the music industry. They have the attention span of a gnat."

Craig grunted, burying his face in his arms. Why did he think Stan would actually be able to help him? A country star being gay was a totally different ballpark than a rock star going on a drunken stupor in his underwear through New York.

"So you vote for going out on Twitter and telling everyone myself then? Is that what I'm hearing?" Craig asked as he peeked up to stare past Stan towards the stage.

The folk band finished their set and bowed to the applauding crowd. From the little bits Craig had paid attention too, the folk band wasn't that bad, but the violinist and guitarist needed to work on their harmonies together. They clashed more often than not, fighting each other for the melody with their  volume and drowning out the other members.

Stan shrugged. "I guess. At least it's from your mouth and not your ex's."

A single singer with a guitar came on stage now. He was handsome: soft blond hair, round face, a little chubby. Half of him screamed 'country singer', the other half...didn't. He had on a green-gray striped western shirt, brown vest, and a worn cowboy hat above the hips. On the other hand, below the hips, he had on beat up, dirty Converse sneakers and washed out skinny jeans with intentional holes in the knees.

Craig sat up a little to stare at the singer. He whistled quietly.

"Guess if everyone is going to know, it doesn't matter if I stare, does it? Damn." Craig nodded to himself. "He's a mess, but...damn."

Stan followed his gaze to the stage as the singer introduced himself as 'Tweek'. He didn't have the accent Craig was used to hearing from country singers.

"Oh, him? He's a nice guy, actually. Little too anxious, but ok voice nonetheless," Stan told him. "He must want to do country covers tonight. Usually, he wears a normal button up, but not when he sings Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash."

"He ever covered any of my songs?" Craig questioned.

"Yes and no," Stan smirked, "he rarely does any modern country songs. Not unless he really likes them, but I've heard him sing 'You Never Even Called Me By My Name' before."

Craig mock punched Stan in the arm, making him spill part of his Sprite. Stan glared at him before reaching for a napkin to mop up the mess.

Tweek nodded to a man sitting next to the stage to hit play on a recording. The opening piano began as he strummed, tapping his foot. He took a breath and began to sing.

"The bar was empty. I was sweeping up the floor."

Even hearing only the first line, Craig could tell this man had none of the twang that gave the song some of its charm. His voice also didn't go quite as low as Brad Paisley's did naturally, either. He was about to mention this to Stan when Tweek sang the next line, and Craig froze.

"That's when he walked in. I said, 'I'm sorry but we're closed."

"He changed the pronouns," Craig muttered to himself. Stan smirked again at him before shushing Craig with a finger to his lips.

After that, Craig listened more closely. All throughout the entirety of 'We Danced', Tweek kept changing the pronouns from 'she' to 'he'. He even, albeit somewhat clumsily, changed a few other words and phrases as well ('purse' to 'wallet' and 'diamond ring' to 'golden band') confirming that he was singing this song about a man.

"He's not bad," Stan leaned back to speak, "don't you think?"

"Yeah, I mean," Craig shook himself, but it didn't do as much as he hoped, "it's ok. He's ok. He's singing a bit lower than I think he can comfortably do, but he holds the notes nicely and...yeah. He's ok."

Stan chuckled, giving Craig a knowing smile that Craig ignored, instead focusing on Tweek. The crowd clapped when Tweek finished his song before he started up another. Through his entire set, he changed the songs the same way.

After Tweek finished his last cover of 'As She's Walking Away'--'As He's Walking Away'? Craig wasn't sure--he thanked the audience, "Um, thank you, everyone. Have a good night and be safe getting home. Call a cab if you need it." He waved and headed off the stage.

Craig started to get out of his chair before he could help himself. Stan put a hand on his stomach.

"Do you want to meet him?" Stan asked, his eyes glittering.

"W-what?" Craig blinked. He straightened up and quickly took his seat. He sat in the corner of the bar to avoid being identified for a reason.

"Do you want to meet him?" He repeated. "I know Tweek. I can introduce you if you'd like."

Craig narrowed his eyes. "Was this planned, Marsh? Did Red set this up?"

"Happy accident." Stan laughed, jumping from his seat. "Come on, Tweek usually cools down after being on stage out back with his friend, manager, person, Jimmy."

Craig raised an eyebrow but stood anyway to follow Stan out.

~~~~

Tweek and another man sat on the tailgate of a pickup truck that needed a new paint job, new tires, and a new passenger side window. Tweek raised a beer to whatever his friend said with a grin.

"Hey! Tweek, Jimmy! Hey!" Stan waved his arm. "Good show, Tweek."

"Thanks, but it wasn't that good." Tweek took a sip of his beer. "It went ok. I think I sped up a few songs and choruses. Not that that's fully my fault. I was going to sing a different set, but Jimmy brought the wrong CD." He sent a glare at Jimmy, who looked away embarrassed.

"I think it went over w-w-w-well," Jimmy told him matter-of-factly. "Besides, you don’t have 'The M-M-Miss-Missip...' The Squirrel Church Song down yet anyway."

"'Squirrel Church Song'?" Craig stepped around Stan and the two on the tailgate took notice of him for the first time. "You don't mean that Ray Stevens' song, do you?"

Tweek nodded, looking him over as he tried to figure out where he'd seen Craig before.

"Yeah, The Mississippi Squirrel Revival.'" Snapping his fingers to the beat, he sang, "The day the squirrel went berserk in the First Self-Righteous Church--"

"In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula," Craig joined in. Jimmy's eyes grew wide as he made the connection between Craig's voice and his face. His mouth fell open.

With shared grins, the two singers finished the chorus, "It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival! They were jumpin' pews and shouting 'Hallelujah'!"

Jimmy put his hand on Tweek's arm. "Tweek, that--"

"I know, Jimmy, I know." Tweek rolled his eyes. "I don't have the voice for anything too gospel. Let me have my fun, dude. I'm not on stage."

"No, Tweek, do you know who this is?" He jabbed a finger at Craig. "That C-Cr-Cra-Craig Fucking Tucker!"

Tweek let out a strangled 'WHAT?!' and dropped his beer can. Stan frowned and leaned down, making sure to set it beside Tweek. If Tweek hadn't started yammering on, Stan would have told them to recycle the can when they were done.

"I sang a fucking comedy song with a music star?" Tweek gasped. "Fuck! A professional musician heard me sing on stage? When I was singing a set I hadn’t really practiced!?" His eyes went wide and he stared down at the holes in his knees then groaned, slumping down. " While wearing skinny jeans and a cowboy shirt...!"

Jimmy laughed nervously, waving his hands in front of Tweek.

"He's usually much better than this. It's the beer. I swear." Jimmy forced a smile that Craig could tell was fake. It was the same one Red used when she had to give an answer to a bullshit question to save face.

Stan set a hand on Tweek's shoulder. "Sorry. Should have texted you first before bringing him out, but Craig really enjoyed your show. He wanted to meet you."

"'Meet me'?" Tweek squeaked. "Why?"

Craig shrugged. "Just because." He gestured. "Can I take a seat? Do you mind?"

Jimmy lifted himself up and moved over, exposing a pair of crutches behind him in the bed that Craig hadn't noticed before. Craig sat between them, leaving Stan to use the wheel to hoist himself up and sit in the bed. He accidentally kicked the crutches when he spread his legs out.

"Hey, watch it!" Jimmy scolded. "T-those are new, thank you very much."

"Sorry, Jimmy."

Tweek made a high pitched noise then coughed into his hand. "So, what's a big star like you doing in a bar like this?"

"Is that a pick up line?" Stan asked coyly, making Tweek picked up the empty can and mockingly toss it at him. It missed by a mile and bounced against the metal bed with a clang.

"Stan was a big star before he was an everyday, boring family man." Craig smirked at the glare Stan gave him. "We're friends. I wanted to visit him for the night while I was around."

"Oh, right, Moop. I forget someti..." Tweek trailed off when he realized just how offensive his comment sounded. "Well, that's nice of you to stay in touch with your friend."

"Don't know if I'd go as far as 'friend'..." Stan grumbled, taking out his phone.

They chatted for the next hour or so and Craig learned a lot about Tweek and Jimmy. Jimmy hosted an internet show where he brought what he believed to be up and coming talent on to showcase their skills. Tweek, being his good friend, was the first guest he brought on (or, as Tweek put it 'tricked into a recorded video chat').

Tweek himself had his own channel where he posted covers of whatever song caught his fancy. Just a quick, discrete skim of the YouTube channel confirmed it to Craig. Tweek really did post a little of everything: country, classical, Broadway musicals, folk, rock.

Craig wondered if he was still trying to find his niche or not, and Tweek replied with a shrug.

"My therapist told me to do what makes me happy, and different types of music make me happy," Tweek explained.

"You know what would make me happy? A drink." Jimmy twisted around for his crutches. "Anyone else?"

"I'm good." Tweek shook his head.

Stan opened his mouth to decline when Craig tapped his leg. He flicked his eyes towards Tweek then moved his head a little.

Stan understood, thankfully, and stood up in the bed.

"Craig put tetwenty n on my tab, so I'm getting another Sprite. All drinks are on me whether you want a can or not." He leaped over the side and landed with a stumble on the ground. Quickly correcting himself, he dusted off his pants as if he hadn't nearly landed on his nose.

Tweak looked from Craig than to Jimmy and Stan as they walked away. He chewed his lip and began to stand, calling to wait for him, when Craig cleared his throat.

"May I ask you a personal question?" Craig said quickly, trapping Tweek in a social protocol net.

Tweek twiddled his thumbs together. "Sure. I guess."

"When you sang, you changed the songs. They sounded like you were singing to a man." Craig rested his chin in his palm. "Why is that?"

Tweek's face twisted into an angry, sour expression.

"Because I'm gay and I don't want to sing about girls. I want to sing about men." Tweek's voice came out low and warning. "I'm not making money off my covers or hurting people. It's fine."

Craig recoiled with a frown. "I never said it wasn't."

Tweek eyed his expression a second then frowned himself.

"Sorry. Most of the time when someone asks me that, it's directly followed by how ‘I should be ashamed of myself'." He rolled his eyes.

"Ashamed? For being gay? That's bullshit. It's nothing to be ashamed about." He sounded like a hypocritical anti-bullying program. Realizing this, he quickly added, "or should you be ashamed for singing country without a twang?" He saturated his voice with a deep southern accent on the last word, earning a smile from Tweek.

"Both, actually." Tweek snickered. "I've made some people pretty upset that I can't sing in an accent I don't have. People really like to give me shit for things I can't help."

Craig chuckled. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

His phone buzzed loudly in his pocket. Red was calling him.

"Oh, um, one minute, " Craig held up his finger, "and I'll be right back."

He took a few steps away from the truck before answering.

"Yes, cousin dearest?" Craig answered in a deadpan. "Any more news about my toppled career?"

"Depends. Have you decided what you're going to do?" Red asked from the other end of the line. "Are you going to see how the article turns out or are you going to out yourself?"

Craig hummed a minute. Red said the chance that they wouldn't run the article without the part where Thomas outed him was slim to none. That was too good of information for them to just sit on and never profit from.

"I think I'll tell my fans myself." Craig turned over his shoulder to look at the truck. Stan and Jimmy returned with cans in hand. Jimmy tossed one to Tweek, but he missed and it went under the truck.

"The magazine hits the shelves next week. If you're going to do it, you'll need to do it soon," Red advised. "Livestream, maybe. Or a series of heartfelt tweets. Make sure you mention something about God making you gay. That'll work in your favor."

Craig nodded, realized Red couldn't see him, then replied, "Got it."

"I'll start calling around. There will be plenty of news outlets who want to get the inside scoop on this. Tell me when you're planning on posting it. We need you to look in as best of a light as possible. See you, cuz."

She hung up before he could reply.

When he returned to the truck, Stan's legs stuck out from under it as he searched for the missing can. Tweek crouched beside him, holding his phone light out as Jimmy sipped his beer.

"I could just p-p-p-pull the truck forward, you know," Jimmy offered.

"No, I've nearly got it." Stan wriggled forward. "Ah-ha!" There was a thudding, then a dented can bounced out from under the truck. Tweek tried to grab it, only to fall forward into the dirt.

Craig stooped down and plucked the can up. He winced and held it away from himself. Opening the beer would shower everyone around after all the shaking it had endured. He wasn’t risking it.

Stan's head popped up, dusty and a mess, before he hauled himself up onto the tailgate. Craig handed the beer to Jimmy, who, thankfully, had enough sense not to open it.

"Stan, I need to go." Craig shook his phone for emphasis. "Red has a game plan for...what's going to happen."

"Oh, does she?" Stan patted his hair out. "I'd offer to take you to get Wendyl's help if you want it, but I'm driving these knuckleheads home."

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "We're fine. Tweek is sober as a saint."

"He had a beer when we walked out," Stan countered.

"He spilled half of it."

"Half a beer is still a beer!" Stan snapped. "You're not drunk driving on my watch."

Craig stepped forward. "I'll drive Tweek home if he wants."

Only after the suggestion left his mouth did he realize how strange that must have sounded. Craig barely knew Tweek from Adam. What reason did he have to offer to help Tweek when he already said he had something else to do?

Tweek took a step back. "I rode with Jimmy here. I can squeeze in or I'll sit in the bed. It's fine. Thank you though."

"No, really, let me take you home. I'm a good driver, I swear."

"No, I'll ride with Stan. He knows the way there already."

"Please?"

Jimmy narrowed his eyes. "He said no, dude. Let it d-drop."

Craig swallowed nervously. "Ok, I guess I have to get used to saying this but listen..."

It was hard to breathe suddenly. His face felt hot. His hands were sweating.

"Yes?" Tweek frowned.

"Listen, I, uh, I..." He hissed a breath out. "My ex-boyfriend outed me to a very popular magazine that is going to out me to the public in a week. My manager suggested I steal some of the magazine's thunder by coming out as gay myself. I would like someone with a little more expertise in this subject than I have to offer suggestions on how I should go about doing this bullshit."

Tweek's mouth hung open, as did Jimmy's. Stan picked up his Sprite can and took a long drink.

"Breathe, Craig. Don't pass out, now. You'll get used to saying it after a little while." He raised his Sprite to him. "Be brave, brother."

Craig ignored him, but did take a deep breath and force his lungs to expand.

"Well? If you don't want to, it doesn't matter that much." Craig tensed despite himself.

Tweek chewed his lower lip. "I, um, do you want my number? I have work tomorrow, so I do need to get home and sleep tonight. We can talk after work, if you want?"

Craig relaxed. "Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks, man."

Stan snorted to himself and shook his head at his drink. Craig resisted the urge to flip him off again as he pulled up a new contact. He and Tweek then exchanged phones.

For a brief moment, Craig wanted to add a heart to the end of his name as the contact, but he shook off the thought as silly and inappropriate. He wasn't going to rebound with a random guy at a bar to get back at Thomas. At least, not until he read the article or got a call back.

Though Red told him not to get his hopes up, he still held onto the dream that Thomas hadn't betrayed him and they could work through this together.

Handing Tweek back his phone, Craig pocketed his.

"I do need to go, too, actually." He said with a thumb jab over his shoulder. "I'll text you tomorrow?"

Tweek nodded but didn't speak. He stared at Craig for a second too long before averting his eyes.

Craig smiled to himself and turned to leave, suddenly feeling a little better about his future.

~~~~

Tweek panicked, pacing circles around his living room.

Stan planned this. That fucker had to. Him or Wendyl. Both of them encouraged him to "settle down" every other time they saw him, and last night Stan just so happens to introduce him to an available, handsome, music star who wants Tweek's advice?

There was no way that was all coincidence!

Tweek fretted about this meeting all day, ever since Craig texted him that morning asking when he could come by.

Why did he agree to this? Tweek had been out since he was a teenager! He hadn't had to hide that he was gay from anyone since becoming semi internet famous.

Jimmy featured him in his LGBTQ creators to follow video last June for fuck's sake! Tweek wasn't able to help Craig with this!

Someone knocked, tearing Tweek from his thoughts.

Vowing that the next time he went to visit Stan, he would slip Stan's children an excessive amount of sugary treats, Tweek dragged his feet to the door.

Craig looked the epitome of a modern country star: striped button up with the first three buttons undone, sleeves rolled up, jeans from a brand that Tweek knew he could never afford, a wooden cross hanging from a leather cord around his neck, and even a cowboy hat.

He had deep bags under his hazel eyes, which Tweek refused to look at for too long. He didn't want to risk being caught admiring the flecks of gold-brown in his iris.

"Hey," Tweek stepped aside and allowed him in, "Craig. How are you?"

"Tired." Craig rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. "My cousin woke me at five in the morning to talk about ideas for telling my fans I'm gay." He reached into his chest pocket to produce a folded sheet of lined paper. "Here's what we got."

Tweek took it but didn't open it. With a wave of his hand, he led Craig through his kitchen. Kiwi, Tweek's bird, raised his head from cleaning his feathers. He twittered at Tweek, walking across the table towards him. Tweek took the bird in his hand. He stroked his feathers as he returned him to his cage in the living room.

"Take a seat," Tweek said before he whistled at Kiwi. Kiwi chirped back then fluttered to sit on a high perch and preen himself in a mirror.

Craig slid onto the couch while Tweek went to his desk chair on the other side of the coffee table.

"Is that bird yours?" Craig eyed Kiwi.

"Yeah. That's Kiwi. My grandma couldn't keep her parrot when she moved, so my parents said I would take her. So I got her budgie, but budgies do better in pairs, so I bought Kiwi to go with my grandma's parrot--oh, her name was Apples. Get it? Apple and Kiwi? She was more yellow than Kiwi is, but," Tweek realized he was babbling and quickly finished his ramble, "Apples passed away last month, so it's just Kiwi now. I'm getting another budgie in a month or two, though. Do you have a pet?"

Craig perked up, some of his tiredness fading. He took his wallet from his pocket. Like a proud father, he flipped it open to reveal a picture of three guinea pigs: a long-haired brown one, a cream colored one with a stripe, and a black and white one.

"This is Petunia," He pointed to the long-haired one. "This is Astro." He moved his finger to the black and white one, "And finally Stripe the Sixth." He tapped the cream colored one.

"‘Sixth'?" Tweek echoed. "What happened to one through five?"

Craig closed his wallet. "Got into the Easter basket, Mom stepped on him, my friend's dog, old age, and old age," he counted off. "I've been keeping them as pets since I was five."

"Anything else?" Tweek sat, setting the paper Craig gave him on the table top.

"What, do you want me to name off pet names for forty head of cattle or a horse?" Craig chuckled and Tweek turned his full attention to his feet. "It's fine, Tweek. I don't own hooved animals."

"Oh, really?" Tweek swallowed. They should change the topic before Tweek made himself look like a complete fool. "We should get started now."

"Sure, if you're ready." Craig pointed to the paper. "Like I said, we spent all morning on it, but you should look over it and make sure we didn't leave anything out."

Tweek didn't touch the paper. "Do the people close to you know? Your parents? Siblings? Best friends?"

Craig blinked in surprise. "Y-yeah? Of course. I told my sister and friends in high school, and I told my parents in college. They know. Why does that matter?"

"Would you want to find out someone you thought trusted you didn't trust you enough to tell you something like they're gay?"

Craig thought on that a moment. "I guess not," He said.

Contented, Tweek finally unfolded the paper. Craig leaned closer, pushing his hat back a little, as he watched Tweek read.

The paper was...something. Tweek couldn't decide what. At times it really did feel heartfelt, but, at times, it also sounded like a celebrity's forced apology.

After reading it once, Tweek stood up and went to his desk. He returned a moment later with a pad of paper and a pencil. As Craig watched him with his eyebrows raised, Tweek organized the parts by level of sincerity.

When he finished, he spun the pad towards Craig and tapped the column with the least sincere sounding parts.

"Can you cut these?"

Craig furrowed his brow as he looked over the lines.

"But, those are important." Craig shook his head. "If I don't mention I'm sorry for hiding it from my fans, they'll get upset and feel betrayed."

"Are you sorry?"

"Yes," Craig replied automatically, robotically. Tweek fixed him with a probing look.

"They're not the ones hiding part of their lives. Their lives aren’t being judged for nothing. You don't owe them an apology," Tweek smiled softly at Craig. "Actually, a lot of these lines here are about your fans. I think only this one about working to make a better future and honest music with them sounds genuine."

Craig pursed his lips. He took a breath and blew it out. The breath whistled through his teeth.

"Why does it have to sound genuine?"

"Because if not, it sounds pandering." Tweek quipped, ripping the organized lines from the pad. As he began to rewrite the speech from scratch, Craig took off his hat and looked down into it with a serious expression on his face.

When he finished, Tweek pushed the pad over. "What do you think of that?"

Craig placed his hat back on, then skimmed the speech. He furrowed his brows and looked up.

"This is good. Really good."

Tweek shrugged, trying to hide the pride he felt.

"Is this how you came out? Did you say these things?" Craig wanted to know, taking a picture of the new script with his phone.

Tweek shook his head. "No. I just blurted it out during dinner one night. Mom and Dad were talking about road work messing their morning drive up and I just shouted ‘I'm gay!' when my dad took a breath. I wanted to tell them for a while, but I could never find the right time." A chuckle and he went on, "Mom said she always kind of knew. Dad said ‘that's nice.' They went right back on talking about the road work."

Craig snorted a laugh. "Really? Your parents sound very chill about it." A sigh. "I hope my fans will be, too."

Tweek reached over and put a hand on Craig's shoulder. "I'm sure they will be. If not, it's not your problem they're homophobes." He squeezed. "Things are really different from a decade ago. Not nearly as many people as you expect will give you flack for kissing boys."

Craig looked up at Tweek's smiling face and returned the expression. He set his hat beside him and pointed towards Kiwi's cage.

"Do you think I could get a better look at your bird? I need a break from all this already, and I do like small animals."

Tweek nodded and promptly jumped to his feet to retrieve Kiwi.

~~~~

Petunia napped on Craig's stomach while Stripe the Sixth munched on hey beside his head. Astro settled himself against Craig's ankle for a snooze.

Red looked over her cousin with a sigh. Her husband, Kevin, tried to peek around her shoulder. Like Craig, Red was taller than average, so Kevin had to step to the side to get a clear view of Craig on the floor of his pet pen.

"Craig, get up."

"Can't. Babies are sleeping." Craig muttered, keeping his own eyes shut. "Just tell me what you think of Tweek's revisions."

Red glanced at the paper in her hand then back up.

"I liked them," Kevin proclaimed. "They sound more...real than what you two had."

"‘Pandering' to the fans is what Tweek said," Craig smiled to himself, "and he wasn't wrong."

"I still think we should focus more on the ‘God made you gay’ bit. I found some verses we could use." Red tapped against her phone.

"I don't want to read Bible verses, Red." Craig slowly opened his eyes. Careful of Petunia, he picked up Stripe the Sixth and held him over his face. Tapping their noses together, Craig went on, "I actually really like how it is now. Short, to the point. It's perfect for me."

Red sighed through her nose before stepping over the low fence. She sat down next to Craig with her legs crossed before plucking Petunia from his stomach to pet in her lap. Petunia looked around after being woken up, pipped once, then snuggled back down into Red's lap.

"I just don't want this to blow up in your face. You've come so far, Craig. I don't want you remembered as ‘that country singer who came out gay and never broke the top twenty again.'"

Craig set Stripe on his chest, scratching the pig's back. He knew that Red was worried. This industry was quick to blow something small out of proportion, destroy someone's life, then move on like it never happened.

"It'll be fine," Craig reassured.

Kevin stepped into the pen now. He bent down and stroked Astro's back. "If you're honest with everyone, I think people will appreciate that," He said. "People like sincerity."

Craig hummed, slowly sitting up.

"Had me my script. I want to read over it again."

He didn't need to read it over. After leaving Tweek's yesterday, he'd been practicing it repeatedly until he could say it it verbatim without looking.

In truth, he just liked Tweek's handwriting. It was a little shaky, but loopy and fun to follow along with his eyes. Craig wondered if he could convince Tweek to write a song with him after the tenth read over, if just so he could read a little more of his handwriting.

He'd listen to some of Tweek's original songs on his channel the night before. They all had a definite show tune quality to them, but Craig figured they could mix their styles. That would be refreshing, to say the least.

He paused a moment, the smile he let on his face falling, to ask, "Red, have you heard any more from Thomas? He still isn't answering my calls."

Red shook her head. "No, nothing else. I'm sorry."

"No, if he wants to hide, then I don't care," Craig grumbled.

He didn't have much more to tell him anyway. The morning before he went to go see Tweek, he'd left Thomas a voicemail telling him they were over. Even if Thomas did gather up his balls enough to call him back, Craig wasn't sure he'd even answer.

Astro woke up and climbed on Kevin's legs as Kevin asked, "Do you have a date for this? The magazine publishes in less than a week."

"Tomorrow," Red answered before Craig opened his mouth. "This happens tomorrow. A live stream, I think, would be best. Butter them up with your guinea pigs," she held up Petunia, "then break the news."

Sitting up, Craig held Stripe to his chest. "Yeah, I guess that'll work." He stood, stretching his back until it popped. "Come on, Stripe, let's go practice while Aunty Red and Uncle Kevin set up my living room and make everything as down-homey as possible."

Red's head snapped up. "We never agreed to that!"

"Oh no, I can't hear you. I'm out of the room. I'm so far away now," Craig deadpanned, keeping his voice at the same level as he left to go practice.

~~~~~

AN: Chapter 2

[fromdirectorlanawachowski]

honest and unmerciful endgame thoughts

a sequel to this post

this is deadass one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen.

a few brief thoughts before i get into the more or less play by play.

- making jokes about how time travel in movies isn’t really how time travel works doesn’t work if you’re a fucking movie dude

- fat thor was a fucking disgrace

- professor hulk has to have been 80% ad-libbed because there’s no way someone actually wrote that garbage dialogue

- using a past thanos was a mistake because we don’t actually give a shit about him

OKAY LETS GO

actually fuck it i was gonna do plot point by plot point but i’m just so exhausted i don’t have the strength to do it. i’m gonna go in broad strokes and if you want me to elaborate on WHY something was bad feel free to yell at me in the DMs

okay lets go

right away the whole thing with clint fucking turning on the spot as his family disappears was goofy as all hell. i know exactly what they were going for but having him literally turn on the spot instead of go into the house or go into the shed just draws attention to the absolute hilarity of how fast they vanished compared to others.

why the fuck was tony skin and bones when he got back to earth. i know he was in space for three weeks but they clearly show him eating during the montage of him and nebula doing.... things?

also everyone just kind of trusts nebula? okay? i’d be wary of purple aliens in light of what just happens but inclusivity i guess

also you mean to tell me that in three weeks they scanned the entire universe for gamma radiation? also enough gamma radiation that would show up on a scan from light years away but not fry everyone nearby when thanos snapped?

as soon as they killed thanos i knew the climax of this movie was gonna suck ass.

the writers have no idea how fast human hair grows if five years later natasha still has that godawful blonde dye on her tips

a fucking rat got scott lang out of the quantum realm. i don’t have any commentary for this because this scene speaks for itself. a rat.

moreover how did they even get the van down from the rooftop it was on at the end of ant man 2

fat thor. i don’t have any commentary about this either. the whole thing reeks of the russos looking at taika and going “you wanna be a funny man? you want thor to be fucking funny? you think he’s hilarious? fuck you”

oh i guess i did have commentary on that after all

i’m glossing right over the gay scene because again, taika fought tooth and nail to get bisexual valkyrie and now the russo shitters get to say they had the first canon lgbt character and it’s a couple of throwaway lines that can be redubbed for china. seriously. i don’t think there’s ever a scene where he says “he” or “him” while his lips are on screen.

apparently i am doing this relatively plot point by plot point but i digress

if i was keeping points like cinemasins (ew) i’d take a few off for morgan stark. i’m an bitch but not that much of one.

oh yeah pepper potts’ first of, i believe, four lines in this movie is “yeah i’m reading about compost”. i have no commentary for this either. it speaks for itself.

tony hits upon time travel in a day

i’m so glad we couldn’t get any real character development for anyone but we had time for the four minute “ant man becomes various aged forms of himself and then makes a peeing your pants joke in 2019″ scene.

“that’s how time travel works in movies this is real life” that’s great except that joke falls flat cause you’re a fuckin movie bro

i’m skipping over the entirety of the battle of new york thing because that was just fucking.... *benny hill music*

oh no i’m addressing the ancient one thing. love to have characters retconned into previous movies so they can try and explain the time travel in a way that actually makes it more confusing and also isn’t the way the movie follows

steve leering at peggy through the blinds was creepy, i’m sorry. actually the way he was suddenly obsessed with her this whole movie was really creepy.

howard potts

tony meeting his dad was so awkward and uncomfortable and they really meant for it to be heartwarming but i’m sorry it was fucking hilarious and i was howling with laughter in the theater

likewise thor with frigga. a really nice, emotional moment where thor gets closure with his mom and she overtly says she knows she’s going to die soon but she loves him and she’s so proud of him....

..... and then tops it off with a fat joke. the russos can’t let any kind of emotion hang without making a joke.

when they killed natasha a guy three rows down said “if they were killing her here why the fuck did they greenlight her movie then”

why did thanos get a scene confronting the cost of the stone but clint just wakes up in a puddle? are you gonna tell me thanos cared more about gamora than clint did about natasha? ok.

okay i’ll admit seeing quill dancing on morag without the background music was funny as fuck. rhodey explaining the punchline was not funny as fuck though

three cheers for nebula inexplicably having new abilities

as soon as they brought in past thanos i knew the climax of this movie was gonna suck a big ass

hulk snaps the iron infinity gauntlet because he’s the only one that can withstand the gamma radiation that it allegedly emits and has been mentioned only once before in this movie

the fact that it works is demonstrated by not anyone coming back, but ant man looking out the window at some birds. yeah. gee.

okay i have a question here that may take a little bit to explain.

earlier in the movie it’s explicitly stated they only have enough pym particles for one round trip each. that’s why steve and tony had to go back to 197X to get the tesseract and more particles. 

so.

past-nebula takes current-nebula’s place and uses her particles to travel back to the present, leaving current-nebula with no particles

so how did past-thanos bring his ship to the present with no pym particles

anyway past-gamora and current-nebula kill past-nebula to get the iron infinity gauntlet back

the final battle was whatever. i couldn’t for the life of me tell you what happened or where anyone was in relation to anyone else because it was cut so poorly

everyone comes back. remember at the end of my infinity war thoughts when i said the end had no stakes because obviously everyone snapped came back and you all got mad at me? everyone comes back.

the ladies all running the gauntlet would be cool if it wasn’t encompassed by shots of all the men running the gauntlet, drawing attention to the fact there’s literally only like seven ladies and one of them isn’t even a hero

joss whedon was the cinematographer the day they shot wanda fighting thanos, judging from all the gratuitous shots down her shirt. i know elizabeth olsen has nice boobs. believe me, i do. i’m envious. but for the love of christ stop being creepy voyeurs about it

also “you took everything from me” “i don’t even know who you are???” that was a great setup for her to use her mind powers and make thanos experience some suffering but they just didn’t do that so those lines are hilarious

tony gets the stones and snaps, killing thanos and all his army. thanos fades away into dust while a woman vocalizes in the background in a manner that’s less satisfying than when voldemort did the exact same thing in deathly hallows part 2

tony dies because i guess?

at the funeral everyone is there and there’s shots lingering on everyone including this weird kid who looks like he’d microwave a gerbil? i had to google him and it’s supposed to be the kid from iron man 3. i feel like seven years later you should probably put in a line like “thanks for coming <whatever that kid’s name was>

okay we’ve reached the part i have the absolute most beef with.

steve’s ending

from the start of this movie he’s been inexplicably obsessed with peggy. the ending is telegraphed from a mile away and i was still shocked and stunned that they actually did this.

so steve just gives up everything, all his friends and family, to go back in time to be with a woman he knew for max a year, in the heat of war, where emotions run high and they may very well have latched onto each other in case they died.

steve rogers, the man who wielded mjolnir, the man who broke his friend’s mental conditioning just be refusing to fight him, just sits back through the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s. the cuban missile crisis, the LA riots, the assassination of JFK, the death of howard and maria stark, the infiltration of shield, the berlin wall, 9/11, the war on terror, and he just.... did nothing?

what the fuck was that

sam is captain america now though so i’m down with that

but i’m still so angry

this is beyond character assassination for steve. it’s... outright brutal murder and mutilation. anywhere i can, i give endgame a half star review FOR THIS ALONE. setting aside fat thor and how they treat Ragnarok, the fact they think steve rogers would, after everything he’s done and learned, go back into the past where there was still a chance he could help his friends in his own way, and do NOTHING, is the most infuriating thing about this barely-polished turd of a movie.

IN CONCLUSION i said infinity war was the worst movie marvel had ever put out and marvel went “haha we can do you one better”

endgame is just three hours of setpiece, gag, setpiece, gag, setpiece, gag, occasionally punctuated with emotional moments that aren’t allowed to hang long enough for the emotion to sink in before a joke is made, usually at thor’s expense.

[alittleshocking]

Shannon Mae “Shock” Adamson

"come on, little lady, give us a smile" / no, i ain't got nothin' to smile about / i got no one to smile for, i waited a while for / a moment to say I don't owe you a goddamn thing

i, i keep a record of the wreckage of my life / i gotta recognize the weapon in my mind / they talk shit, but i love it every time / and i realize / i'm no sweet dream, but i'm a hell of a night

Archetype — The Rebel Birthday — November 4, 1999 Zodiac Sign — Scorpio Sun (Rising Leo, Virgo Moon) MBTI — ESTP Enneagram — 7; The Enthusiast Temperament — Sanguine Hogwarts House — Slytherin Moral Alignment — Chaotic Neutral Primary Vice — Gluttony Primary Virtue — None lol Element — Air

Overview:

Mother — Vanessa Adamson Father — Wade Adamson Mother’s Occupation — homemaker Father’s Occupation — janitor at PrideU Family Finances — poor Birth Order — eldest Brothers — half-brother: Lucius “Lock” Adamson (FC: Thomas Doherty, February 14, 2002); brother: Braedon “Barrel” Adamson (FC: SOMEONE GET MY BROTHER) Sisters — none, thank god.  Other Close Family — none.  Best Friend — probably her brothers on the lowkey, they #getit  Other Friends — none.  Enemies — everyone probably.  Pets — Iggy, sorta. I guess.  Home Life During Childhood — shitty lmao the adamsons are a hot mess.  Town or City Name(s) — socal somewhere  What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — she didn’t really have a bedroom, she sleeps on the couch bc the boys share the bedroom but the bathroom is HERS. she has posters up in there and her make up and shit all over the counters etc. drives the boys crazy probably  Any Sports or Clubs — nah tho she is pretty sporty. was probs on sports teams until she got sick  Favorite Toy or Game — uh does pulling pranks ? count ? Schooling — public school in cali Favorite Subject — lol (secretly loves lit) Popular or Loner — loner Important Experiences or Events — well getting cancer i guess - shock Nationality — american Culture — lower class american Religion and beliefs — your born. you live. you die. 

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim — Florence Pugh Complexion — pale, lil freckly but she hates the freckles Hair Colour — blonde, but she dyes it when she’s feeling saucy.  Eye Colour — green  Height — 5’4 Build — curvy Tattoos — definitely but idk what mostly classic in style bold colors v classic imagery Piercings — has had several through their years but takes them in and out on whim. has a nose and lots of ear piercings that are constant.  Common Hairstyle — loose and straight and messy but like a purposefully messy Clothing Style — grungy but feminine Mannerisms — picks and chews at nails a lot, always fiddling w something  Usual Expression — 

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — yes her immune system was shit to hell and she doesn’t take care of herself Physical Ailments — her leg gets achy from time to time Neurological Conditions — none Allergies — seasonal, strawberries, citrus, jokes she is allergic to sweet things  Grooming Habits — good, shock doesn’t have nice clothes so she makes up for it trying to look nice  Sleeping Habits — night owl af, reads a lot at night, gets yelled at constantly for having the light on bc her parents can see it under the door.  Eating Habits — shitty, will eat whatever she can get her hands on. they don’t often have a lot of food. she also does make sure her brothers eat before she does  Exercise Habits —  lol Emotional Stability — pretty solid she’s cool as a cucumber. only her brothers know how to get under her skin Body Temperature — is always freezing  Sociability — she’s very good with people Addictions — cigarettes  Drug Use — occasional and recreational doesn’t do the hard shit Alcohol Use — frequent 

Your Character’s Character: 

Bad Habits — smoking drinking not getting enough sleep being a bitch uhhh so many lmao Good Habits — does she...have good habits…? Best Characteristic — smarts Worst Characteristic — uuuuuuh self destruction? Worst Memory — the day she almost died is up there Best Memory — first day out of the hospital  Proud of — kicking cancer’s ass she guesses (her stories but she’d never say) Embarrassed by — her family  Driving Style — reckless  Strong Points — intelligent, charismatic Attitude — devil may care Weakness — her brothers Fears — getting sick again Phobias — hospitals/needles Secrets — wants to be a writer Regrets — nothing baby! (putting her fam in debt) Feels Vulnerable When — people know things about her Pet Peeves — calling her by her real name, saying she cares, telling her she’s talented or wasting her intelligence or her life  Conflicts — uh i don’t think she has any maybe like she sometimes thinks: should i be a better person? then she goes: nah.  Motivation — none.  Short Term Goals and Hopes — we are here for a good time not a long time !! Long Term Goals and Hopes — none lol Sexuality — bisexual af Day or Night Person — night Introvert or Extrovert — extrovert  Optimist or Pessimist — realist? nihilist? Intelligence — she is actually wicked smart but she just uses it for nefarious purposes

Likes and Styles:

Music — all the classic emo/punk stuff Books — anything macabre. she mostly likes short stories  Magazines — lol none Foods — anything sugary and overprocessed Drinks — alcohol duh Animals — anything creepy crawly, she really likes eels and spiders Sports — very sporty was probs on the softball team and soccer team Social Issues — uh none? she doesn’t give a fuck Favorite Saying — get fucked  Color — black (but also green) Clothing — old for the most part unless she’s stolen it. mostly black but she has some color in their too Jewelry — lots of piercings so lots of jewelry. all fake and cheap stuff. maybe she has like a nice ring from a grandma. doesn’t like necklaces really.  Games — playing pranks  Websites — twitter, insta, tumblr, no fb tho TV Shows — n/a they can’t afford cable so what is the point?  Movies — horror! movies! forever! Greatest Want — to have a good time  Greatest Need — probably to like idk get her shit together