#and I save my work assignment folder to my desktop

[woundedheartwithin]

The amount of times I’ve nearly zipped and shipped my gif folder instead of my actual work lmfao

[loaksky]

no thoughts other than professor!abby / coworker!abby and the holiday stocking ! this is like 80 percent backstory bc who am i to not blabber about my new favorite trope...full length fic abt them in the works oops! not proofread + no warnings other than language!

tlou masterlist | main masterlist

⋆.ೃ࿔ first let’s set the scene by establishing that abby’s probably a tenure-track professor in a hyper specific literature study or maybe cross-teaches a course or two in the women and gender studies department. you’re a new educator probably teaching english 101?

⋆.ೃ࿔ abby first sees you at the faculty meeting for her department during the late summer and is immediately enamored.

⋆.ೃ࿔ by some stroke of luck, she finds that she’s been assigned to your neighboring office and her final lecture is held in the hall across from yours.

⋆.ೃ࿔ abby’s usually pretty good about the timing of her lectures and she ends up finishing 10-15 minutes early every session. so sometimes she hears the tail end of your lessons and can’t help but think you’re so fucking brilliant.

⋆.ೃ࿔ the students are taken by you too, usually not paying any mind to professors that teach lower level classes, but you’re animated and hands-on, and abby realizes that maybe she should take a page from your book.

⋆.ೃ࿔ literally can’t work up the courage to say anything to you first and is so surprised when she’s having an internal warfare one day while she’s locking up the lecture hall and you slink past her.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “have a good weekend dr. anderson!”

⋆.ೃ࿔ nearly short circuits because how in the fuck do you know her name? (hint hint: you haven’t been able to get a grip after seeing her in the same faculty meeting she’d basically fallen head over heels for you at).

⋆.ೃ࿔ for the life of her, can’t get her shit together over the weekend. is so scatterbrained because the hot new professor knows her name?? practically spirals because that means that she’s been perceived and she has no idea if it’s a good or bad thing because what do you think of her ???

⋆.ೃ࿔ runs into you bright and early monday morning as she’s about to duck into her office and she wants to make a beeline for the safety of her ergonomic chair, but you look a little frazzled and she’s speaking before she can stop herself.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “everything alright?” she asks as you miss the slot for the keyhole a few times and blow out a shaky sigh.

⋆.ೃ࿔ notices you’re carrying a fuckton of things and is wordlessly grabbing your stack of folders and taking your heavy knapsack from you as you finally get the key in the keyhole.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “thank you so much,” you say, voice thick with unshed tears. “i just, fuck, shit, sorry, that wasn’t professional—”

⋆.ೃ࿔ and she could melt because you’re so cute.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “i don’t think i saved the form for midterm grades on my laptop and the battery just crapped out on me, and i’m pretty sure i just missed the deadline and—”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “hey, breathe, breathe,” abby says gently, hands involuntarily smoothing over your shoulders. “you’re okay, it’s okay. shit happens.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “god, i’m such a idiot.” you scrub your hands down your face. “the upper level professors were right, i do suck—”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “whoa, whoa,” abby calls out sternly, expression horrified. “who said that?”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “it’s not important,” you whisper, blowing out another breath and squeezing your eyes shut as you shake your hands to try to calm yourself. “they’re not wrong.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “who.” and abby is no longer asking, arms bulging in her oxford shirt as she crosses her arms over her chest and stares down at you.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “dr. paige and mr. ruiz,” you say quietly, fidgeting under such a steely gaze.

⋆.ೃ࿔ abby just makes a noise in her throat, uncrosses her arms and tilts her head towards your desktop computer.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “if you were working on the submission form on your faculty account, it automatically syncs to the cloud both on and offline,” she says. “there’s usually a grace period until the final scheduled lecture for the day which is in...” she glances at her wrist watch, “in about an hour.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ you’re rounding your desk, practically throwing yourself in your chair as you boot up the computer and log into your faculty portal. your cheeks are flushed warm and eyes wide as your gaze flits across the screen.

⋆.ೃ࿔ you deflate in relief after a few clicks to find that professor anderson’s absolutely correct, and there’s the form in all it’s glory, cursor blinking and ready to be completed and submitted.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “holy shit, thank you so much,” you whisper.

⋆.ೃ࿔ when you look up, she’s already stormed halfway out of your office.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “dr. paige and i would just like to extend a sincere apology for our words regarding your tenure here,” mr. ruiz says after they corner you in the staffroom a few mornings later.

⋆.ೃ࿔ your eyebrows are knitting together momentarily before it dawns on you like a splash of cold water.

⋆.ೃ࿔ it explains why professor anderson had been in such a hurry to leave your office after assisting you a few mornings ago.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “s’okay,” you shrug.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “it’s really not,” dr. paige says. “it was immature and uncalled for to make such comments, and such shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ a sudden movement outside of the window catches your eye, and you’re grinning when you see the familiar flash of dirty blonde.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “really, it’s no hard feelings,” you assure them. “now if you’ll excuse me.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ you’re breaking away from them to duck out of the staffroom and surprise surprise, abigail anderson is standing a few metres from the door, arms crossed over her chest.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “are you eavesdropping dr. anderson?” you tease.

⋆.ೃ࿔ she doesn’t even bother to hide it, answering with a firm and resounding, “yes.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ that earns a full-bellied laugh out of you and she realizes that she’s so fucking whipped.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “you’re a wonderful professor,” abby assures you. “your students love you and you’ve already accomplished such great things in the department.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ you can’t help but flush and an awkward but cute silence dawns the two of you after you murmur a quiet “thank you”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “where’s your next session?” dr. anderson breaks the ice. “i’ll walk you.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ the two of you end up getting a lot closer over the rest of the semester and abby starts to get a little frustrated with herself for waiting for so long to actually talk to you.

⋆.ೃ࿔ because you’re practically perfect; so sweet, insanely intelligent, and it’s just the icing on top that you’re probably one of the prettiest girls she’s ever seen and you’ve got an equally pretty ass to match (abby is an ass girl IDC !)

⋆.ೃ࿔ heart is in shambles because you’ve learned how she likes her coffee and frequently bring her one first thing before your string of lectures start.

⋆.ೃ࿔ also, more often than not, the two of you are spending lunch hours together whether you’re grabbing a quick bite from one of the dining halls, splurging a little to eat lunch at an actual establishment, or killing time at the nearby bookstore a few blocks from the campus center.

⋆.ೃ࿔ long story short, you and abby have been spending so much time together and she knows she really likes you, but she can’t find it in herself to say anything because she doesn’t wanna scare you off with such a strong bout of emotions.

⋆.ೃ࿔ but literally everyone sees it! and it’s not necessarily that you’re oblivious, but abby’s accomplished, a really well-loved professor by both the department and her students, and even if there isn’t a ring on her finger, you’re convinced that abby’s got to have someone special in her life...it’s literally you.

⋆.ೃ࿔ even the students see it! dr. anderson’s been lagging recently during her last time slot and it doesn’t take long for a few students who love her especially so to see the way it takes her a little while longer to pack up and how she lingers out in the hall as your class ends!

⋆.ೃ࿔ “have a good weekend dr. anderson!” her last two students chime as they part ways with her. one of them glances over his shoulder and sees you filing out with a group of students from the adjacent classroom. “good luck.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ and abby’s beet fucking red when you finally lock up and ask her what that was about.

⋆.ೃ࿔ fast forward to now, it’s the final week before students are set to go home for the holidays and she’s a little down in the dumps because not only will she not get to see you for almost a month, but she’s usually alone this time of year and it’s agonizing to think that maybe you’ll be going home to someone else.

⋆.ೃ࿔ unbeknownst to her, you’ve been really nervous because maybe you’d overheard her talking to an adjunct professor, owen, about how she’d never gotten a personalized stocking made for her in response to seeing the one hanging on his shelf that his wife and kid had made for him this year, and perhaps you’d watched a couple youtube videos on stocking decorating and went out to buy the supplies right after.

⋆.ೃ࿔ admittedly, the last few days, the two of you are distant, her because she’s sad, and you because you’re probably spending every waking moment trying to think of ways to make the stocking perfect and you’re so in your head that you don’t even notice her change in demeanor.

⋆.ೃ࿔ and you try to make it perfect, really want abby to love her gift, so you fiddle around with it until the last possible moment.

⋆.ೃ࿔ you’re also nervous as fuck as you peer over your shoulder thursday afternoon, hoping dr. anderson doesn’t catch you in the act of staging her gift because frankly you’re too shy to give it to her.

⋆.ೃ࿔ even though you and dr. anderson are on great terms, she’s still so intimidating and you don’t trust yourself to make an ass of yourself, so you relay your message through a pretty piece of cardstock and tuck it into the bag before you’re scurrying off for the end of the semester.

⋆.ೃ࿔ finally, it’s the final day that campus will be open and abby’s trudging up to her office, only really intending to gather the last of what she’ll need since the buildings will be locked throughout the duration of holiday break, but she’s stopped dead in her tracks when she sees the sizable gift bag hanging on her doorknob.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “what that—”

⋆.ೃ࿔ she’s carefully moving around the tissue paper and her heart catches in her throat when she sees a blue stocking bulging with different treats and even a book! with her name carefully stitched on the band.

⋆.ೃ࿔ her first knee jerk reaction is that maybe owen pitied her and made her one, but a matching blue envelope catches her eye and she’s fishing it out of the bag.

⋆.ೃ࿔ recognizes your handwriting from the whiteboards when she’s stealing peeks into your classroom.

⋆.ೃ࿔ cheeks are flaming and stomach is tying in knots as she reads your note.

⋆.ೃ࿔ Firstly, I’m really disappointed I couldn’t deliver this to you in person, but my flight leaves for home on Friday... :( Nonetheless, you’ve been such a wonderful office neighbor and even more wonderful colleague. I truly can’t string together an adequate way to express how grateful I am to work alongside someone as kind and thoughtful as you, Dr. Anderson. You’ve quickly become such a dear friend and I hope you have a wonderful holiday! See you next year! ˆ<3

⋆.ೃ࿔ the fucking heart...the fucking heart!!! literally it’s all abby can fixate on before she realizes that there’s an ass of things tucked in the stocking and not only did you take the time to handstitch onto the fabric, but you took the time to gather things she didn’t even realize you knew she liked.

⋆.ೃ࿔ is unlocking her office so that she can pour the contents of the stocking onto her desk and she nearly dissipates into a pile of goo right then and there because there’s a few packs of her favorite gum (wintergreen), a set of her absolute favorite ballpoint pens (because gel pens are too runny for her liking), a giftcard to her usual coffee shop (“since I won’t be there to bring you your order” according to the note scrawled on the holder), a thick pair of argyle socks in her favorite colorway, and finally, there’s an annotated version of this is how you lose the time war.

⋆.ೃ࿔ and it has to mean something; your book choice and how you raved about it weeks prior during an excursion with abby to the public library, and you’d pulled the copy off the shelf and asked her if she’d read it.

⋆.ೃ࿔ “no,” she answered simply. “never caught my eye.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ “you should read it,” you’d said quietly. “their love was beautiful.”

⋆.ೃ࿔ and she’d never admit it, but she’d checked it out the following morning and blew through the book so fast, heart pounding in her chest as she realized that it was about two women in love. and, god, this has to mean something, she’d continue to agonize, even until this current moment.

⋆.ೃ࿔ and here an annotated version sits, your thoughts and inner feelings inking the pages. it makrs abby bubble with equal parts hope and sadness. sadness because it seems like way too long until she’ll see you again, and hope because maybe this means something more for the two of you in the future.

⋆.ೃ࿔ who knows, really. but abby’s certain that this holiday will feel a little less lonelier with her heart a lot more fuller.

neng © 2023

[aislingdenton]

7 Essential Computer Tips and Tricks You Can’t-Miss

In the vast world of technology, hidden features often can transform how we work. Let’s delve into the details of seven lesser-known tips and tricks, providing step-by-step guidance on mastering each.

1. Mastering Keyboard Shortcuts: A Game-Changer

Efficiency meets simplicity with keyboard shortcuts. These time-saving combinations vary across applications, but here are some universal ones to get you started:

Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V: Copy and paste selected text or files.

Win+D: Minimize or maximize all windows, revealing the desktop.

Ctrl+Z: Undo the last action.

Alt+Tab: Quickly switch between open applications.

To master keyboard shortcuts, practice incorporating them into your daily tasks. Soon, you’ll find yourself navigating your computer with unparalleled speed and ease.

2. Customizing System Preferences for Personalization

Tailor your system to suit your preferences by customizing various settings:

Desktop Background: Choose an image that inspires or relaxes you.

Taskbar Settings: Adjust its position and decide which icons to display.

System Sounds: Personalize notification sounds for a unique auditory experience.

Explore these settings to make your tech environment uniquely yours, creating a more enjoyable and personalized computing experience.

3. Time-Saving File Organization Techniques

Efficient file management is crucial for productivity. Here’s how to organize your files effectively:

Use Folders and Subfolders: Categorize files based on projects or types.

Utilize Tags and Labels: Add descriptive tags for quick identification.

Create Shortcuts: Place shortcuts to frequently accessed folders on your desktop.

Implementing these techniques will save you time and ensure you can locate essential files swiftly.

4. Unearthing Hidden Browser Features

Your browser holds powerful features beyond primary navigation. Explore these hidden gems:

Pinned Tabs: Keep essential tabs readily accessible by pinning them.

Gestures: Enable mouse gestures for quicker navigation.

Hidden Extensions: Discover extensions that enhance your browsing experience.

Uncovering these features will revolutionize your internet browsing, making it faster and more efficient.

5. Mastering the Art of Autofill

Streamline online activities with autofill:

Form Autofill: Save time filling out online forms with autofill.

Password Autofill: Store and manage passwords securely.

Payment Autofill: Safely save and autofill payment information.

Configure autofill settings in your browser to enjoy a hassle-free online experience.

6. The Power of Virtual Desktops

Enhance multitasking with virtual desktops:

Create Virtual Desktops: Use Task View on Windows or Mission Control on Mac.

Switch Between Desktops: Seamlessly move between virtual desktops.

Customize Virtual Desktops: Assign specific tasks or projects to each desktop.

This feature is especially beneficial for those juggling multiple projects simultaneously.

Conclusion

Unleash the full potential of your tech experience with these 7 hidden tips and tricks. Incorporating these into your daily routine will streamline tasks, save time, and allow you to enjoy a more efficient and personalized digital environment. Explore this blog for in-depth insights into Must-Know Essential Computer Tips and Tricks.

While mastering these hidden tips and tricks can significantly enhance your computer experience, addressing potential hardware or software issues promptly is essential. Consider seeking professional computer repair services if you encounter persistent slowdowns, system crashes, or other issues.

Expert technicians can diagnose and resolve various issues, ensuring your computer operates at its best. Whether it’s a hardware upgrade, software optimization, or virus removal, investing in computer repair can extend your device’s lifespan and maintain its optimal performance.

FAQs

Q: Can I customize keyboard shortcuts on my computer?

Yes, many applications allow customization of keyboard shortcuts. Check the settings of the specific program you’re using.

Q: How do I set up virtual desktops?

On Windows, use the Task View button or press Win+Tab to manage virtual desktops. On Mac, use Mission Control to add and switch between desktops.

Q: Is dark mode suitable for everyone?

While some find dark mode more comfortable, it’s subjective. Consider personal preference and any potential impact on eye strain.

Q: Can I turn off autofill if I don’t want my information saved?

Yes, most browsers allow you to manage autofill settings. You can disable or customize autofill based on your preferences.

Q: Are keyboard shortcuts the same for all applications?

No, keyboard shortcuts vary across applications. Familiarize yourself with the shortcuts specific to each program you use.

Q: Can I use virtual desktops on a single monitor setup?

Absolutely! Virtual desktops are beneficial even with a single monitor, allowing you to organize tasks and reduce clutter.

[lilac-hecox]

also 12, 22 and 24 for the writing questions! -💩

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

More confidence

More time to write

Ability to think of more original ideas

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

I write mainly on my laptop using the Word program so I have a folder saved on my desktop for all my writing because I want it separate from the folder that has my college assignments!

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

I think I plan a little! I have basic ideas and thoughts of scenes but when I start writing I just kind of wing it!

[kiarawhiteartdirection]

Blog Post #2

Up to this point, I've been putting all of my assignment files in folders according to their specific course number, and then by week. The weeks acted as a sort of journal for me to go back and reflect on what I did throughout the semesters, but it was a bit messy to find the most current version of a project I was working on. Usually, to avoid looking through the folders, I ended up just saving things to my desktop, but that would end up getting very messy as well.

This alternate file organization system is going to be much more efficient, and has convinced me to change my techniques. Rather than organizing files by weeks, I'll be organizing by projects from now on.

[rpclefairy]

updated tutorial on trimming posts on mobile

reply formatter mobile edition:

i’ve been trying to figure out a way to adjust the roleplay formatter to be used on mobile but unfortunately tumblr just does not render blog themes well on mobile browsers (my guess is to force people to use the app but i digress)

so i made a mobile friendly version with carrd. the only differences are the box size option and the night mode toggle, which the carrd version doesn’t have.

if you don’t use either of these you can use the carrd version on desktop as well, everything else is the same. for the purpose of this tutorial i’ll be using the carrd version as it is optimized for mobile screens.

if you can consider tipping my ko-fi or using my carrd referral code ( DPY34V1H ) to help me keep hosting the formatter ♡

this is a very easy level tutorial

even if you’re not comfortable with html!

this post may be long because of the screencaps, but the method itself is only a handful of clicks and it shouldn’t take you more than a minute.

this method technically works on any browser, but it works best on firefox as it is the only browser i’ve tested that keeps all formatting (bold, italics, color text, etc).

i encourage you to install firefox on your phone to at least cut replies, you could technically use the tumblr app to write and format your reply once you get the code of the trimmed reblog.

what you will need:

a mobile browser (can’t stress this enough i strongly suggest firefox, specially if you don’t want to have to manually add your partner’s formatting. it will make your life easier)

the mobile friendly reply formatter.

that’s it.

tutorial:

step one:

first thing you’re going to do is copy this line of text:

?redirect_to=%2Fdashboard%3Frestore%3D1&avoid_redirect=1

time saving tip! depending on your device you may have a “pin” or “lock” option in your clipboard, use it so you can keep using it without looking for this post and copying it all over again.

if your device does not have a pin / lock option, you can create shortcuts assigning a short word or symbol and when you type it the saved line of text will be suggested.

here is a tutorial for android and ios.

step two:

save the post you want to trim as a draft.

you can do this on the app.

step three:

open your draft on your mobile browser. click to edit the address bar.

the url of this post will look like this : https://www.tumblr.com/edit/USERNAME/POSTNUMBER

now delete the part with your username and one of the brackets (either the first one or the last one, it doesn’t matter which one, just don’t leave 2 brackets.

then add “?redirect_to=%2Fdashboard%3Frestore%3D1&avoid_redirect=1" (without the quotes) at the end of the link, then click on the link and load the page

thanks to this anon who figured the link trick out💗

step four:

select everything and copy

then click on the x to remove the previous reblogs.

step five:

now go to the reply formatter here, click on the paste button and you’ll get a pop window.

there tap your screen until you get the options “paste” and “paste as plain text”. use the regular “paste” option.

step six:

select the blockquote text you want to delete trimming the reply like you would on desktop with editable reblogs.

and that’s it ! you’re done.

from here you can either write and format everything on the formatter

or you can copy the html code from trimming the post and paste it on your trimmed draft on the app

ir order to do that, on step 4 add anything to the body of the post so you can save the post (it can be just a comma or a keymash)

then write + format everything on the app. just remember to switch the editor to html on the app!

bonus tip + tutorial: uploading icons

save your icons folder to your phone / google drive (and then save to your phone the icon you want to use)

on your browser (NOT THE APP) create a new post

upload your icon

switch the editor from rich text to html

copy everything, paste it in the source code of the formatter.

you’re done!

[miss-noo-na]

Strange Love (Part 2)

Featuring: Johnny (NCT) x Reader

Rating: Mature. Future updates to include BDSM themes

Summary: On your first trip out of town, you learn more than you bargained for about your co-worker’s personal life.

The weeks had gone by as usual, not much had changed leading up to your first assignment, save for the occasional meeting with the boss. That, and ever since he had told you to call him Johnny the name was now cemented into your head despite your efforts to remain impersonal.

Your first job was some dinky small town in Nebraska, and your boss had warned you most of these locations would be as such. They didn’t have the resources to acquire their own people, which is where you came in.

“It’s not gonna be luxurious, but you’re gonna leave feeling like you really accomplished something.” He assured you with a smile. Easy for him to say, from his swanky office in the big city.

As logistics would have it, you flew out separately and planned to meet at the hotel. When you got there, you took an Uber to the location and thought at first it might be a mistake. This was most definitely a Motel, the kind with outside hallways you saw on the side of the road.

“Are you sure this is it?” You asked the driver, looking over the address again.

“This is what you gave me.” He shrugged.

You had at least expected a Holiday Inn, or somewhere it didn't look like people checked in only never to be seen again.  You sucked it up and went to the front desk, where at the very least nothing looked broken down or dirty. Just….dated.

You were on the ground floor, right around the corner from the vending machines, as the clerk had told you with a smile. You opened the door with your keycard and you were greeted by two beds in the middle of the room, separated by a nightstand with a single lamp. They faced an old TV and the door to the bathroom.

There was a table by the window that you could do your work from and you dropped your bag in the chair in the corner. You did a quick sweep of the room, looking for anything out of place, and checked the mattress for bed bugs to be safe. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it would serve its purpose.

You sat on the end of one of the beds, idling through your phone, waiting for a text from your new business partner. It came a few moments later when he informed you he was checking in.

10 minutes later the door handle jiggled and your head shot up in its direction, your heart jumping into your throat thinking someone was trying to break in. Instead, the door swung up and Johnny stood there. He paused before entering and you stared at each other like two deers caught in headlights.

“What are you doing here.”

“This is the room he told me to come to.”

“That’s impossible, this is my room.”

Johnny stepped it and the heavy door shut behind him. He dropped his bags at his feet and extended the hand still holding his key card. You snatched it out of his hand and looked at the number written on the sleeve in marker.

“This can’t be right.”

“I’ll call the boss.”

A few minutes later Johnny was pacing the space in front of the beds, trying to get through on the managers personal line, and you nervously chewed your nails while still in your spot at the end of the bed.

“Shit.” He cursed under his breath, hanging up after another failed attempt.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” You started, looking up at him. “But even without the same room debacle, this place is less than ideal.”

“Yeah, as much money as they’re pulling in you would think they could splurge on a Super 8.” He half-joked, then noticed his phone was buzzing. He waved it at you before answering.

“Hey, Steven, yeah-” He stopped, cut off by the other man. You realized he called him by his first name and had to suppress an eye-roll.

“”Oh uh, it’s….fine. Listen, it looks like we’re in the same room and I’m wondering if there was some kind of mi- oh. Oh I see. No, no, it’s fine I totally get it.”

Your stomach sank at his tone.

“We can totally work with that, no problem. Have a good week, bye-bye.”

He hung up and sighed before turning toward you.

“So it's not a mix-up.”

“What?” You responded, feeling rage building.

“Apparently they didn’t have the budget for this project they thought they did. They’re still working on it, and this is all they could swing on short notice.”

You buried your face in your hand for a second, collecting your thoughts. “They didn’t think to mention this to us?”

“Yeah, not great planning on their part.”

The only consolation to this situation is that there were two beds. However, having to sleep, live, and work in this room with a man for the next week made you uneasy. You didn’t know him that well.

Johnny was studying your face in that moment, and then he looked around as if he was searching for something. He went and grabbed his bags and moved them next to the bed you sat at.

“You can have the bed by the wall, I’ll sleep by the door if that makes you feel better.” He nodded. You blinked up at him and realized what he was saying, then nodded and grabbed your things, moving them to the other bed. You did feel more secure over here, and felt a little endeared to him in that moment.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. We can set up our stuff here.” He gestured to the table that had a chair on each side. He started to take out his things and organize them on one side. You were thankful he was taking this in stride and meeting you halfway on it, which you had to admit you didn’t entirely expect. He was more mature than you gave him credit for.

You followed suit with getting your laptop out and set up across from him, though there wasn’t much distance between the two of you. You both sat down to get some pre-emptive notes done before you met with the team tomorrow. You worked into the evening, barely registering the sun setting until he closed his laptop and stretched.

“Do you want to get dinner?”

You glanced toward the window. “I guess we should.”

He had picked up the rental car at the airport, and you took it to the nearest restaurant, a dingy little diner down the street. The lighting was yellow and the booths were cramped but it gave off a homely feel you kind of enjoyed.

“Are you still bothered about the room?” He asked suddenly. You had already ordered and had sat in silence since you came in.

“Not really, why?”

He half-smiled, almost to himself as he shifted in his seat. “You’ve been tense since I got here.”

You blinked for a moment, “And how do you know that?”

“Your shoulders are pulled up and you keep fidgeting. I’m good at reading people’s body language, and I can just tell you haven’t taken a full breath all day. It’s not good for you, you know.”

He cast his eyes aside and took a drink after he spoke, and what he said just made your muscles seize up more. You suppressed the urge to get snappy.

“I’m naturally high-strung.” You said honestly, even if he didn’t need to know it.

“I can tell.” He chuckled. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, we’re gonna have a great day tomorrow.” He said in a strangely reassuring tone.

Your food came then and you fell back into silence, your mind wandering over thoughts about why he was reading your body language so acutely.

The greasy comfort food was just what you needed after the day you’d had and you split the bill with the company cards you were given. Back in the car, he told you he had to run to the nearest printing store to pick up the packets you were handing out tomorrow.

“You wanna go over my notes for me while I’m out? Let me know if I missed anything.” He asked, and you agreed before he let you off back at the motel and took off.

Back in the room, you took a seat at his laptop and were met with his desktop, the notes closed out. You sighed and grumbled to yourself as you opened up the files and tried to find the notes. His folders were a mess, all named with random codes and abbreviations probably only he could decipher. You clicked through countless nonsense files and folders filled with other types of work jargon that had nothing to do with the current project.

You clicked into one folder near the bottom that was filled with photos, and went to click away when something caught your eye.

You couldn’t quite tell from the thumbnails what was going on, but it looked interesting. They were high quality, almost like a professional photoshoot, and there was only ever one or two subjects in each photo. Before you could think the better of it, you double-clicked one purely out of curiosity, and when the image came into full view you drew in a sharp, surprised breath.

It was a room, dark save for windows in the background that looked out to a blurry night skyline. The focus was on a woman on her knees, mostly nude, her arms secured behind her back with ropes that stretched across her chest, stomach, and thighs. She was leaning forward, and her chin was held delicately in the hands of a man sitting in front of her. He had one arm resting on his knee, dressed in slacks and a button down shirt and tie, the other cradling the woman’s face as he looked into her eyes. You could see distinctive red marks across her skin, from her butt and across her thighs.

The man was your co-worker. The one coming back into this room any second now.

Your cheeks burned red hot as you reached up and slammed the laptop shut without thinking. You shot up from your seat and grabbed your bag, marching out of the hotel room to the vending machines, trying to get your breathing back to normal.

You stared at the list of drinks as your thoughts raced. You could conceptualize what was going on in the photos, you weren’t stupid, but putting it together with the man you just had dinner with was making you feel flush and nervous.

You dug into your bag for some spare change and got yourself a can of soda, cracking it open right there and chugging it, letting the bubbles burn down your throat and quell your nerves. You took a deep breath before you went back to the room.

When you opened the door, Johnny was leaning over the chair, looking at his opened laptop, and the photo was still open.

“Oh God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was-”

He looked up at you, babbling away as you fidgeted with your bag and almost squeezed the can in your hand in half.

“I see you didn’t find the notes.” He said humorously, as he stood up. You had expected him to be upset, angry, or embarrassed. Instead, he had his same relaxed stance as always, and a slight smirk on his face.

“If you were curious, you could have just asked me.”

Your eyes went wide and you shook your head hard. “I was just looking for the notes, I swear.”

He laughed as he took a couple steps to close the gap between you, and gently laid his hands on your biceps for a moment. He had never stood this close before, his shadow almost dwarfed you.

“Relax, it’s okay.”

“Sorry...again, I wasn’t snooping.” You tried to assure him with a shaky breath.

He could feel you tremble under his hands and he smiled. “It’s not a big deal, yeah?”

You nodded, and he dropped his arms and went back to the table. He closed out the folder and tabbed up the notes. “Here they are.”

You blinked, a rush of emotions dissipating from your body. You felt mortified, worried, and intrigued all at the same time. His reaction, his gentle voice, and his touch further complicated those feelings.

You went to sit down and look over the notes. At first you could barely concentrate on the words, but after a few seconds of letting your heart-rate get back to normal, you began to focus on the task and found it helped get your mind off what had just happened. However, you had almost forgotten that Johnny was standing behind you, watching you go over them.

Suddenly you felt his presence at your back, as he leaned over your shoulder and pointed at the screen. You almost jumped out of your skin.

“Do you think this needs more detail?” He asked, and his voice was way too close to your left ear. You shivered but tried to play it off.

“Uhm,” You swallowed the lump in your throat. “More details wouldn’t hurt.”

“Great, I’ll do that now.” He said as he stood back up, and you moved out of his chair so he could sit down.

“I’ll finish these up and print us some copies in the morning.” He threw you a pleasant smile before he started typing away.

You both finished up for the night and he offered you the bathroom first. In the shower you had time to process the day and knocked your fist against your forehead, not only for letting yourself see what you had seen, but for letting it affect you like this. He was an adult with an adult life outside of work, it really shouldn’t have bothered you like this.

But bother wasn’t the right word and you knew that, and you got angry with yourself for what it really did. You were curious, and more importantly, you were turned on.

You grinded your teeth together in an attempt to will the thoughts out of your mind, chalking it up to a lack of physical affection lately. Besides, since when had any of that interested you? You didn’t experiment much, there was never any attempts at tying up or inflicting pain with past partners. The most you had done involved toys and maybe a blindfold, but nothing to the extent with which you saw in the photos. So why did your mind keep going back to those stark, red welts on her bare skin? What was the appeal?

You finished up in the bathroom and went straight to your bed, avoiding eye contact and turning toward the wall. Luckily you were exhausted and fell asleep without much fuss, even if that moment still lingered in your mind.

The next day most of the anxiety had worn off and you were able to conduct yourself normally, especially since you were preoccupied with other things. You brought your materials to the office, an old building probably built in the 70’s with fluorescent lighting and small rooms. The staff were friendly and happy to have you, and you found that you and Johnny worked well together. For two people who had no reason to get along, you bounced off one another as you gave your presentation and were able to avoid stepping on each other's toes. Then you went to work, each of you tackling a set of departments and getting them started on their new updates.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing, you were on your feet for the whole day and with any sort of transition there were bugs in the system or things that didn’t go as planned. You dealt with it as it came, but could feel the tension building up in your neck and shoulders, the stress collecting in your body and making your muscles tight and your head a bit fuzzy. This added with the nerves of doing something new made you both drained and wired by the time the two of you left the office.

You agreed after your first day that you deserved a drink, both to celebrate the success of getting through it and starting off strong, and as a way to ease the stress of the day. You found a small restaurant with a bar and had dinner, followed by said beverages. It may not be the healthiest coping mechanism, but the white wine you were sipping was doing the trick.

“Look at us, getting along.” Johnny half smiled at you, and you let out a small laugh.

“We work surprisingly well together.” You nodded.

“Are you kidding? We were the dream team in there. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took us less than a week to get them set up.”

“Lets not get ahead of ourselves.” You laughed again, and fell back into a comfortable silence.

Alcohol was always tricky with you, dredging up the things you wanted to keep hidden. Your mind flashed to that photo again and you wanted to squash it down, but the curiosity was killing you. You were off the clock now, and he had proven he was a pretty chill guy. Would it hurt to ask?

“Can I ask you a personal question?” You said as you felt the wine warm you up inside and make the words flow with less effort from your mouth.

“Hmm?”

“You don’t have to answer if it’s too nosey.”

“Try me.”

“You know the uh...thing, that I saw?” You looked at anything but him as you took another sip.

“I do.” He said slowly, and you caught his face from the corner of your eye. He might have been smirking again.

“I don’t even know how to ask this.” Your eyes darted around some more and you fidgeted in place. “Just, what was that all about?”

He laughed, a deep sound from his chest that made your ears tingle.

“It’s just something I enjoy doing in my personal time.” He shrugged casually.

“What, the photoshoot?”

“That was just a way of documenting it.”

“Documenting what?”

“The thing I like to do.” Now he really was smirking and he seemed to be enjoying stringing you along.

“Which is?”

“Dominating my sexual partners.”

You swallowed hard and nodded. “Got it, that’s what I thought.”

“Then why’d you ask?” He responded. It wasn’t confrontational, more curious.

“I mean I get the whole domination thing, I’m not that naïve.” You prefaced. “It was more so,” You cleared your throat, “ the pain aspect I don’t completely understand.”

“Ah, so I take it you’ve never been spanked before?”

You couldn’t believe you were having this conversation in a dinky small town bar with a man you practically despised a week ago, and the fact he was being so nonchalant about it.

“I mean, I wouldn’t say I haven’t,”

“Let me guess, a couple love taps from a dude during the act and that’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

He looked as though he expected that, and sat up straight before he spoke again. “I’ll put it to you like this, you know all that tension you carry in your body? And all those erratic, loud thoughts in your head that keep you from sleeping well at night?”

You knew all those things very well, and nodded along.

“Some people, when they submit to another person and let them inflict pain, find that all those things cease to exist in that moment. Your body releases a lot of chemicals in response to pain, and they happen to feel really, really good.”

You listened intently, his entire posture and manner of speaking had changed once you got to this subject, his usual chill, kind of goofy office guy persona slipping away into someone more serious, but relaxed and knowledgeable.

“So instead of that,” He nodded toward your glass of wine, “you achieve a similar effect with a few lashings.”

You thought about it for a moment before you spoke. “I thought it was just something people got off on.”

“It can be, but it’s a complex experience. Sometimes there’s no sex involved at all.”

“You’ve had situations where someone came over, you beat them with a belt, and then they just go home?” You blurted out in response.

He laughed again, louder this time, but nodded. “Yeah, sometimes.”

You didn’t know why, maybe it was the alcohol, but suddenly this all seemed way too intriguing. For years you had tried to find ways to deal with your stress. You had tried yoga, tea, getting a facial once a week, but nothing seemed to work. Sometimes you even thought drugs might do the trick, but watching your friend on molly at a concert that one time has put you off the idea.

“The pain just makes everything fade into the background, I’ve even been told it’s euphoric.”  He added, only enticing you further.

“Makes sense.” You murmured, bringing your glass back to your lips to finish it off. You felt like you were in a daze, and when he suddenly leaned in it took you by surprise.

“Are you curious to try it?”

He said it gently, quietly, so only you could hear. Immediately your cheeks burned and you leaned back.

“No! I mean, I don’t know.” You stated truthfully. Whether you did or not, the accusation that you might was horribly embarrassing to confront.

“Well if you do ever want to try it, just be careful.” His face drew down into concern. “There’s a lot of people out there that don’t know what they’re doing.”

“You’d say you’re experienced?”

“I’d like to think so.”

He seemed to pause, running his finger along the rim of his glass, hesitating before he spoke up.

“It wouldn’t be wise of me to offer up my experience, since we’re co-workers n’all.”

You gulped, wishing you had more to drink because suddenly your throat was dry.

“But if you have any more questions, you know where to find me.” He grinned, and it felt like an invitation.

[huntermovies280]

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[awrldalone]

26th August 2020, 11.08pm

Yesterday I got my hair cut and, as usual, my barber cut it too short. His name is Fabio and he does mostly everything by hand, but I don’t think he is as good as he would like people to think. 

I also translated two texts: one from Greek - it was by Plato, and it talked about what Socrates thought of what we call swan song; it was really interesting, but hard to translate, and I discovered that I should not even have translated that text in the first place because it was not assigned as homework - and one from Latin - by Cicero, on why friendship is the superior virtue.

This morning, I tried doing homework. But I just could not do it. School is coming up, we start in less than a month, and I have so so so much work to do. I’m still working through my assigned readings and I still need to do all of my Math homework, for which I am scared of as I hate Math. Although I should have put as much effort as possible into studying, I ended up browsing the internet, watching Youtube videos and scrolling endlessly through Twitter. 

At one point I was feeling really sleepy, so I went to the kitchen to  make myself some coffee, and when I opened the cupboard a big bottle of beer fell on the countertop and shattered in brown sharp pieces. The smell of beer makes me want to vomit, I never liked it. I had to clean everything, of course, and I almost cut my hand a couple of time with the glass shards.

Then, this afternoon, I went to Venice and I met this boy - actually, man is the better descriptor as he’s in his late twenties - that I met through Twitter. Nothing romantic, of course. He’s not my type, although I think it’s funny to just flirt with certain people. He’s not from here, he was here on holiday for two days, and he wanted to hang out. At first I was really awkward. Meeting people in real life is scary, not only because they could literally kidnap you, but also because I’m scared they would make any remarks, either to me or to others, about my appearance. He did not. And he did not kidnap me either. We spent the afternoon walking around, talking, and it was kind of boring. 

We aren’t that close, and I do not want us to get any closer, so it is fine.

When I came back home I started reading Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, and it’s definitely my favourite tragedy. I have not read that many - only five to be exact - but it was surely the most striking and well written one.

This was probably my favourite quote:

 [I read the Italian translation, but I easily found an English one on the internet to take some quotes from; lately I have gotten into the habit of saving quoted that I like in a folder on my desktop.]

-c.

[buoyantsaturn]

I’m in Hell (9/?)

summary: it’s thanksgiving! plus some

word count: 8,359

read on ao3

Nico was so incredibly, unimaginably bored. During the evenings and on weekends, he had Will and Bianca to occupy his time, but when they were at work and school, what was Nico supposed to do? The house was clean, the laundry was done, and their wedding was planned, so Nico wandered around the house aimlessly in search of something to do. What did he even do with all his free time in the past? Did he really spend so much time on his homework every day?

At the thought of his classes, Nico brought out his laptop. He’d had to complete a manuscript for the final assignment in one of his classes, and what good was a manuscript that was just sitting in a folder on his desktop?

He started off with a simple reread, though once he got a few pages in, he decided to start over from the top of make some minor edits. By the time the front door opened and Will and Bianca returned home, Nico was about a quarter of the way through his manuscript. 

Will came around the corner into the living room and leaned over the back of the couch to press a kiss to Nico’s cheek. “Hey, Babe,” he greeted, and Nico turned his head to meet him for another kiss, though Will held back and gasped. “You’re wearing your glasses again!”

Nico frowned, wondering why glasses would keep him from getting a kiss. “Yeah, and?”

Will darted forward and pecked at Nico’s lips. “You look good in glasses. What are you working on?”

“Manuscript,” Nico replied simply, turning his gaze back toward his laptop. 

“A new one?”

Nico shook his head. “Same one as before. I’m going to edit it as much as I can and then send it off to a few publishers to see if anybody will take it.”

“That’s great!” Will wrapped both of his arms around Nico’s shoulders from behind and pressed kiss after kiss to any part of Nico he could reach. “I’m proud of you.”

Nico tensed, hiking up his shoulder in an attempt to bump Will away, though Will just held Nico tighter. Nico squirmed. “Get off of me,” he said, beginning to laugh when Will’s kisses on the side of his neck started to tickle. 

“Alright, fine,” Will said, though he pressed one forceful kiss to Nico’s cheek before he pulled away completely. “I’m feeling pizza tonight, what do you think?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nico replied, and when Will stepped back, Nico stretched his arms over his head. “Does Bi have any homework she needs help with?”

“Yeah, but I’ll help her,” Will replied. “You go ahead and keep working on your book.”

Nico saved his document and shut his laptop, jumping up off the couch. “No, you should relax. You’ve been working all day, and I could use a break from editing anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Go sit, and order the pizza or something.”

With a nod, Will turned and went back into the living room, while Nico made his way into the kitchen, where Bianca was sitting at the table, her homework already spread out in front of her. 

Nico pressed a kiss to the top of her head as he sat down beside her. “Hey, Princess, how was school?”

After a week or so of editing and proofreading and editing some more, Nico decided that if he read through his manuscript one more time, then he was going to drive himself crazy. He took a day to find the submission requirements of a few different publishing companies, then mailed out an armload of manuscript-filled envelopes while he was on his way to pick Bianca up from school. 

Then, the next day, he was bored again.

Luckily for him, he only had a few hours to lounge around without anything to do before Will came home from work, having taken an earlier shift than usual that morning to get him home just after lunch. 

Will dropped himself onto the couch beside Nico, resting his head in Nico’s lap and throwing his legs up over the arm of the couch. “I could use a nap,” Will said. 

“Nope.”

Will pouted up at him. “What do you mean, nope? I can take a nap if I want to!”

“Nope, I’ve been bored out of my mind for the last few hours, and if you take a nap, then I’ll be bored again,” Nico explained. 

Will hummed. “What if I keep you entertained for a little while, and then I can take a nap?”

Nico raised an eyebrow. “What kind of entertainment are we talking about?”

Will grinned. “Did you have something in mind?”

Nico twisted a finger in one of Will’s curls and gave it a light tug. “No, but it sounds like you do.”

Will reached up and grabbed onto the collar of Nico’s shirt, pulling him down for a kiss. “I’m thinking… We get up, we go to the bedroom, close the door…and figure out what we’re wearing in our wedding.”

Nico snorted, knocking his head forward, and accidentally headbutted Will in the nose. 

“Ow!” Will exclaimed, sitting up and holding his nose.

“Sorry!” Nico shouted, though it was difficult to sound sincere while he was laughing so hard. “Are you okay?”

Will frowned at him, and let go of his nose. “I think so.”

Nico took Will’s face in both hands and drew him in to place a kiss on the bridge of his nose. “Better?”

Will scrunched up his nose. “I guess.”

“So,” Nico said, “you don’t know what you’re wearing in the wedding yet?”

“No, why, do you?”

“I have a suit, if that’s what you’re asking. Don’t you?”

Will shook his head. “I mean, I have a suit, but… No, I’ll need to get a new suit, shoes, I’m thinking maybe I should get a bowtie--”

“Do you even know how to tie a bowtie?” 

Will pouted. “I can learn!”

Nico’s hands slipped down from Will’s cheeks to lock loosely behind his neck. “Do you want to go buy something? We could at least go look around somewhere even if we’re not buying anything, and we could figure stuff out for Reyna and Cecil, too.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Lunch first, though? I haven’t eaten since I left here this morning,” Will told him. 

“Of course. Want me to make you something?”

“You don’t have to,” Will replied. “I was probably just gonna throw a sandwich together.”

“Let me,” Nico said, already standing. “Hot or cold?” 

“Cold’s fine.” 

“Any special requests?”

“No,” Will said, his reply muffled by the pillow he’d fallen onto. “Surprise me.”

Nico entered the kitchen and gathered a few sandwich ingredients, taking his time as he made two sandwiches - one for Will and one for himself - though he didn’t get far before his phone started to ring. He set the device on the counter nearby, answering the call and setting it on speaker phone. “Hey, Annabeth, what’s up?”

He heard her let out a frustrated sigh. “The project I’m on just got canceled so I’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the day and I need to vent.”

“Huh,” Nico muttered, then hurried to say, “I mean, that sucks, and I’m happy to let you vent at me, but would you be interested in coming shopping with me and Will this afternoon? It’s for wedding stuff.”

“Oh!” Annabeth said in surprise. “Uh, sure! I was just gonna head home and stew in my anger but that sounds like a much better idea. Just let me know when and where, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Actually, do you have any stores in mind? You know, since you’ve done this before and I haven’t.”

Annabeth snorted. “Yeah, sure. I’ll text you the address, just let me know when you’re ready.” 

“Sounds good. See you soon.”

Nico ended the call before he finished up the sandwiches and carried both plates back to the living room. Will was on the couch where he’d left him, but now he was sprawled out across the length of it, appearing asleep though Nico had a hard time believing he could fall asleep so quickly. 

“Wake up, Sunshine,” Nico said gently, and Will cracked one eye open to look at him.

“Have I told you that I love you?” Will asked before he pushed himself upright to lean back against the arm of the couch. 

“Not in the last...six hours or so,” Nico replied. He stepped closer to hand the plate over, but pulled it back at the last second and leaned down for a kiss. 

“Well, I love you,” Will told him with a smile, and Nico handed over the plate. “Thank you, Darling.”

Nico lifted Will’s feet off the other end of the couch and set down, letting Will’s legs rest in his lap, and balanced his plate on Will’s shins. “Annabeth just called, by the way,” Nico said. “She’s gonna come shopping with us.”

“Oh, thank God,” Will said, “someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Do you guys have any sort of color theme that we should be looking for?” Annabeth asked as she led them into some independent wedding boutique. 

Nico and Will exchanged glances, and Nico shrugged. Will said, “I don’t think we do. Should we?” 

“If you don’t have a lot of decorations, then it’s not a huge deal, but you should probably at least have something to give a little cohesion to the wedding party. So, any thoughts? Favorite colors maybe? Knowing Nico, I would normally say that classic black and white would be the way to go, but we don’t want your wedding to look like a funeral.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” Will said, and squeezed Nico’s hand as he looked down at him. “Any ideas?”

“Aside from black and white? No. You?”

Rather than answering, Will looked back at Annabeth. “Any suggestions?”

Annabeth looked between them like they were a complicated equation she was trying to solve in her head. “Show me your engagement rings.” Nico and Will held out their left hands without question, and allowed Annabeth to examine the rings. “Why not silver and gold?”

“That’s a great idea!” Will said with a grin, and grabbed Nico’s hand again. “What do you think?”

Nico smiled back up at him. “That sounds perfect.”

“Great, so now that we’ve got that figured out,” Annabeth started, “what are we here for?”

“Well, I need to get a suit, but I can do that on my own time. We were thinking...ties? Shoes, maybe?”

“Do you think they have flower girl dresses here?” Nico asked.

With a shrug, Annabeth replied, “I don’t see why not.”

“Oh, shit!” Will exclaimed suddenly, possibly too loud for the quiet store they were in, and startled the other two. “We don’t have a ring bearer! Do we need one of those?”

Nico turned to Annabeth for an answer. 

“We didn’t have one, but if you want, I could see if Luke wants to do it.”

“Great! So we can look around for something for him, too, just in case,” Will said, and started leading them further into the store. 

“I see ties over there,” Annabeth said, and pulled on Nico’s arm to guide them in the right direction. She stopped a few feet away from the wide array of ties on display. “We’re going with silver and gold, right?”

“I found silver,” Nico said, reaching for one of the ties, and on the other side of the display, Will selected another tie and announced, “I have gold!”

“Good. Now trade,” Annabeth said. 

“What? Why?” Nico asked.

“If you trade, it’ll match your rings,” she explained, her eyes still scanning the display until she seemed to find what she was looking for and selected another tie. “You don’t have to, of course, it’s just a suggestion.”

“No, I think we should,” Nico agreed, and held the tie in his hands out to Will. “It feels, like, symbolic, somehow.”

Will smiled at him, and swapped ties. He turned toward Annabeth and asked, “What do you have there?”

Annabeth held up a silver and gold striped tie. “I’m going to ask if they have something like this for kids. Actually, you need a dress for Bianca, too, right? Let’s go find a kid’s section.”

They wandered the store for a short while - not too long because the store wasn’t actually all that large - until they found the children’s section. As Nico and Will wandered toward the area marked for flower girls, Annabeth went toward another display of ties.

Nico and Will meandered between the rows of clothes, ending up on opposite sides of a single rack as they sifted through dresses. “Do you ever feel like you have no idea what you’re doing?” Nico asked over the rack. 

“You know, it’s not like I’ve planned a wedding before either,” Will teased. “I’m just really good at pretending to know what’s going on.”

Nico searched through a few more dresses before he continued, softer than before, “I’m glad I have you to pretend with.”

Will grinned, and there was a sparkle in his eye. “Yeah, I’m really glad I get to plan this wedding with you, it would really suck to have to get married by myself.”

“Don’t make me call this wedding off,” Nico threatened, but couldn’t keep the smile off his face even as he said it. 

“You wouldn’t. You love me too much!”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Okay, well, since our wedding is still on because you love me more than anyone has ever loved anything on the planet, what do you think of this one?” Will pulled a dress off the rack and held it up for Nico to see. It was primarily made of a shimmering silver material, and had a gold sash tied into a bow in the back, which separated the simple top of the dress from its poofy tulle skirt. 

“That looks perfect,” Nico told him, “except I hope you know what size will fit her, because I have no idea how children’s clothes are sized.”

Will had a late start later in the week, so he volunteered to take Bianca to school before heading out to find himself a suit for the wedding, but before he left he asked Nico, “Are you sure you have a suit to wear?”

“Yes, I promise you, I have a suit,” Nico told him for what felt like the tenth time. 

“‘Cause you know I’m going out to get one for myself right now if you want to join me, and you can get one for yourself.”

Nico stepped up to him and held Will’s face in his hands. “I’m going to try to say this clear enough that it gets into your head and finally sticks: I have a suit. I don’t need another one. Now, I love you, but please leave so Bianca isn’t late for school.”

Will hummed, eyes narrowing. “Alright, if you say so.” He darted forward for a kiss, and when he pulled back he said, “Love you, too.”

Once Will and Bianca had left, Nico made his way to his bedroom and threw open the closet doors. He searched through the clothes, though he wasn’t able to find his suit after a few minutes. He tried to think back to when he packed up his room at Hazel’s apartment, but couldn’t remember packing or unpacking his suit, so he decided it must still be over there. 

Nico got dressed and headed over to Hazel and Frank’s place, not bothering with a warning text since he still had a key and he was just going to pop in for a few minutes at most. He wasn’t expecting, however, that when he opened the door, Frank would be sitting on the couch in his pajamas and eating a bowl of cereal. 

“Uh, hi?” Frank said, his voice expressing confusion but no surprise at all, as Nico froze in the doorway. “Did Hazel leave the door unlocked for you?”

“Um, yep, she must have,” Nico said awkwardly, hoping that he wasn’t being too obvious as he stuffed his keys back into his pocket. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to be here, or I would’ve texted first. I just need to grab something from my old room.”

“Sure, no problem,” Frank said, and he turned back to his cereal and whatever was playing on the TV. 

Nico hurried through the apartment, heading straight for his old room, which was almost entirely bare aside from the few furniture pieces he’d left behind. He walked up to the closet and slid open the pocket door, though there wasn’t even a single empty hanger inside. 

He dropped his head against the doorframe and groaned. “Shit,” he whispered, then called out of the room, “Hey, Frank, did you guys empty out my closet?”

“No, that was you,” Frank replied.

Nico stepped out into the hallway so that he didn’t have to shout as he continued, “I could’ve sworn I had a suit in there! I wore that suit on my first date with Will, but I can’t find it anywhere! I was going to wear it for my wedding!”

Frank tipped his head back on the couch and shot Nico a frown. “You were just going to wear some regular old suit for your wedding? Neeks, you have to get a new one.”

“Well, yeah, I do now, because I have no idea what happened to my other one,” Nico complained, walking back into the living room. He leaned his forearms on the back of the couch beside Frank’s head and hesitated for a moment before asking, “So, uh, are you doing anything today?”

“Are you about to ask me to go tux shopping with you?”

“Maybe.”

Frank shrugged. “Sure, I don’t have any plans. Besides, I’m gonna need my own suit one of these days, so better sooner than later, right?” He glanced up at Nico. “It’s not weird to get a suit before even talking about the wedding, right?”

“I think you’re in the clear.”

“Cool. Just let me finish eating and, you know, get dressed, and we can head out.”

“Alright.” Nico made his way around the couch and sat down to wait. “Oh, and we can’t let Will know we’re doing this, because I promised him that I already had a suit.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at him, then looked back to his cereal, nodding. “Alright, very cool, start your marriage off on a lie, that’s fun. That’s fresh.”

For another week, Nico felt like all he did was sit around. There was cooking and cleaning to do every so often, but still, when Bianca was at school and Will was at work, Nico had a hard time figuring out what he should do with himself. 

His phone started ringing one afternoon, though he didn’t recognize the number. Normally, Nico would ignore a call from a number he didn’t know, but with nothing else to entertain him that day, he figured he could make himself some fun by screwing with whatever telemarketer was on the other end.

He picked up the phone with a simple hello, and heard in response, “Hello, this is Malcolm Pace from Wise Owl Publishing, can I speak with Nico di Angelo please?”

Nico straightened up in his seat despite the fact that Malcolm couldn’t see him, and stuttered out, “This is me-- That’s me, I’m Nico.”

“Hi there, Nico, how are you doing today?” Malcolm asked politely.

“I’m fine, how are you?” Nico answered automatically, his body completely frozen in shock, though one knee slowly started bouncing in place until the movement became rapid and practically shook Nico’s entire body.

“I’m doing great, thanks for asking. I’m calling about a manuscript you sent in recently; Wise Owl Publishing is very interested in what you’ve sent us. I’d like to schedule a time to meet with you here in the offices so that I can talk you through all of the technical aspects of getting your book published, and have you sign a few things. Would you be available sometime soon for a meeting?”

“Yeah, yes! I have, uh, my mornings are free all this week, so is there any time then that would work for you?”

“Let me just check on that…” Through the phone, Nico could hear the sound of Malcolm typing rapidly on his keyboard until he continued, “Yes, it looks like I’m free tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. How does that sound?”

“That’s perfect.”

“Great! It looks like I already have your email, so I’ll be sending you a follow-up shortly just as a reminder, and I’ll include the building’s address and directions on how to find my office once you arrive. And I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“See you tomorrow.”

As soon as Nico hung up, all he wanted to do was scream, but instead he stared down at his phone in disbelief. He debated texting his friends to share the good news, and thought about calling Will, but he couldn’t manage to make his thumbs work, so for about ten minutes all he could do was sit there in silence. It was the email notification from Malcolm that finally allowed him to move again. 

He read the email a few times, as if needed reassurance that this was real, and put the address into Maps to figure out where he needed to go. And maybe this was preparing too early, but as soon as Nico managed to get on his feet, the first thing he did was run to his bedroom to pick out an outfit for the next day - it wasn’t a job interview, but it wasn’t like he could just show up in jeans and a t-shirt either...right?

Oh God, he had no idea what he was doing.

He got on his laptop and started down a Google spiral as he tried to figure out what was supposed to happen at this meeting tomorrow - what Malcolm would say, what he would have to sign, and even how long it would be before he could actually have a hardcover in his hands. All the research was just giving him more and more anxiety, but as soon as the front door opened when Will came home with Bianca, all of the excitement immediately returned. 

Nico leapt off the couch and ran for the kitchen, throwing his arms around Will and nearly knocking him off his feet in surprise. 

“Hey, Babe, I missed you, too,” Will said around a laugh, catching himself on the counter with one hand while the other patted Nico softly on the back. 

Nico pulled back so that he could see the look on Will’s face as he said, “My book’s getting published!”

The smile dropped off of Will’s face, replaced by a slack-jawed look of surprise. “Seriously?” 

“I have a meeting with a publisher tomorrow!”

Will’s smile returned full-force, beaming as he wrapping his arms around Nico’s waist and hugged him so tight he lifted him off the ground for a second. “That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!”

“What’s going on?” Bianca asked as she stepped into the kitchen, having taken her time hanging up her coat and taking off her shoes. 

Nico released his fiance and turned to Bianca, kneeling down in front of her and explaining, “I wrote a story, and now a publishing company wants to help me make it into a book!”

“Woah, really?” Nico nodded. “That’s so cool!” Bianca jumped forward and wrapped her arms around Nico’s neck, and he returned the hug with the same amount of enthusiasm. 

After they broke the hug and Nico stood up once again, Will looked at him with a more muted smile, and a concerned arch to his eyebrows. He grabbed Nico’s hands in his and said, “I don’t want to diminish how amazing this is - because, don’t get me wrong, I’m unbelievably happy for you - but… This won’t interfere with the wedding, will it?”

Nico squeezed his hands. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure nothing happens until after the wedding. Besides, I’m sure I’ll need to do some editing, and at least one of their editors will have to read over everything. It’ll take time. But I promise, I’ll make sure they know about the wedding.”

Nico dropped Bianca off at school the next morning before driving into the city. Even with the time it took to locate the right building and find parking that wasn’t incredibly far away, Nico found himself navigating himself through the Wise Owl Publishing house with about half an hour to spare before his meeting with Malcolm. Better to be early than late, he supposed. 

He waited around outside Malcolm’s office for a while before the door finally opened and a man with blond hair and glasses greeted Nico with a smile. “Hey there, Nico di Angelo, right?”

“Yeah, hi. Malcolm? It’s great to meet you.” They shook hands, then Malcolm welcomed Nico into his office. 

As Malcolm sat behind his desk, and Nico took a seat on the other side, Malcolm said, “So, just to reiterate: We’d like to publish your book, and I’m sure you’re interested, otherwise I don’t know why you would be here. Right?”

“Right.”

“Great. So,” Malcolm reached into a drawer in his desk and brought out a folder which he placed on the desk between them. “I’ve already had one of my editors read your manuscript and make notes on a few things that need editing - mostly minor things, because, seriously, you’ve done a fantastic job with this story. I’ll make sure you get into contact with Julia in case you have questions about any of her notes. Now, normally we give writers about two months to incorporate any notes, but considering the state your manuscript is in right now, I don’t think you should need more than a couple of weeks, so I’d like to have your edited manuscript back here by the first.”

“Oh, uh--”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Well, I’m getting married on the third. I’m going to be pretty busy with, you know, wedding stuff, for a little while.”

“Oh! Congratulations!” Malcolm told him. “That’s totally fine! As long as we can get things rolling on our end before Christmas, there shouldn’t be an issue, so… Let’s make it December twenty-first. Now, let me just print out a copy of the contract I’ll need you to sign with an updated schedule…” Malcolm typed furiously on his keyboard for a few moments before the printer in the corner whirred to life and spat out a few ink-covered pages. He handed the contract to Nico and said, “I’ll give you a few moments to read this over and sign it, unless you have any questions. It has all of the information you should need, like the projected schedule for the publishing process, compensation, and a few promotional things. We do require that our authors go on a book tour to promote the new releases, but we will cover your housing and transportation for the duration of the tour. Any questions?”

Nico did his best to listen to everything Malcolm said while reading through everything on the contract, though it was all a bit too much to handle all at once. “No, I think we’re good.” He probably should have tried to read through it all until he completely understood what he was signing, but really, Nico was too excited to bother. He figured that if they tried to screw him over, it would only be in the compensation, but he wasn’t really doing this for the money. 

“Fantastic.” Malcolm handed him a pen. “If I could just have you sign and date on this line here, we’ll be all set.”

Nico signed, and slid the contract back across the desk. 

“Let me make a copy of this for you, and then I’ll walk you through everything I have for you here.” Malcolm moved back toward the printer and copied the contract, keeping the original for himself and giving Nico the copy. “That’s for you to hold on to, and everything in this folder is yours as well - I already have my own copies of everything. This has your manuscript with Julia’s notes, Julia’s card so that you can get into contact with her, and the typical publishing schedule.” Malcolm took out the schedule, and started writing on it. “Going by this schedule, if you have everything submitted by the twenty-first, and if we’re able to get to work before the holidays, then you can expect the release date to fall sometime around the end of April, and we’ll start on the book tours about a month beforehand.”

“How much control do I have over the specific dates of the book tour?” Nico asked. “My fiance’s birthday is in March, and our daughter’s is in April, so I’d like to be home for those, if possible.” 

“We can figure things out once we determine the actual publishing date. Now, if you don’t have any more questions, I’ll let you be on your way to finalize those wedding plans of yours.”

Nico went through Julia’s notes as soon as he got home, and got so into his editing that he almost forgot to pick Bianca up from school. Luckily, he was only a few minutes late, and Bianca hardly seemed to notice. As soon as she saw him, Bianca ran up to him and demanded, “Nico! Do you have your book yet? Can I see it?”

“No, Princess, not yet,” Nico told her. “It’s gonna take a few months before it’s ready.”

“Oh,” Bianca said, visibly disappointed, “okay. Let’s go home. I’m hungry.”

Nico smiled and led Bianca out to his car. 

When they got home, Nico portioned out a small bowl of Goldfish crackers for Bianca to snack on while she did her homework, and he sat down next to her just in case she needed any help. They remained there until Will came home about half an hour later.

Will pressed a kiss to the top of Bianca’s head and said, “Hey, Bi, how was school?”

“Good,” she answered simply. 

Will moved toward Nico next, pressing a kiss to his lips first, then said, “Hey, Babe, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nico replied as he stood, and said to Bianca, “Just shout for us if you need any help, okay, Bi?”

“Okay.”

Nico followed Will into the hall, just far enough away that Bianca wouldn’t be able to hear. 

Will leaned back against one wall and pulled Nico close, resting his forearms on Nico’s shoulders. “So,” he whispered, “how would you feel about my mom coming up for Thanksgiving and staying here through the wedding?”

“Oh,” Nico said, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. “Yeah, sure. You know, I hadn’t even thought about Thanksgiving. I’ve been too focused on the wedding. I’ve always gone to Sally’s for holidays, so I kind of assumed that’s what we’d do.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out,” Will told him, twisting a finger in Nico’s hair. “I don’t want you to have to give up seeing your family just so I can see mine.”

Nico sighed, leaning into Will’s touch as he thought. “What do you think about having everybody over here? Like, anyone who’s planning on going to Sally’s can come over here instead. I’m sure Sally wouldn’t mind a break from hosting.”

Will smiled softly. “That sounds completely crazy, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. I don’t know how many people we’ll be able to fit in this house, though, considering it’s only ever been the three of us.”

“So, I’ll text Sally and see what she thinks?”

“And I’ll see what I can do about getting Thanksgiving day off. If not, I’ll just go in early so I can get back here to help host,” Will agreed. “I mean, whether we end up hosting or not, I’ll try to get the day off, of course.”

TO: Sally; i have what is possibly a once in a lifetime offer

FROM: Sally; Should I be worried?

TO: Sally; will and i are thinking about hosting thanksgiving, thoughts?

FROM: Sally; And give me a break from hosting? I’ll gladly take that offer.

TO: one big dysfunctional family; thanksgiving at my place

TO: one big dysfunctional family; everybody bring something, no freeloaders allowed

TO: RARA; you should try to get your flight moved up so you can come over for thanksgiving

TO: RARA; also so you can keep me sane between then and the wedding

With a final guest list of nearly twenty people, Nico’s anxiety was through the roof. Reyna and Naomi had arrived the day before, and Sally had shown up that morning to help with the turkey. Gradually, his friends had started to arrive, starting with his sister and Frank, then Percy, Annabeth and Luke, Jason and Piper, and Leo arrived on his own. Will’s siblings, Austin and Kayla, come somewhere in the mix of Nico’s friends, and he worried for a moment that they would feel out of place without Will there to talk to, but Kayla and Hazel instantly hit it off - something about a commonality between the two involving their idiot brothers. 

Paul showed up late with Estelle, and Bianca was instantly fascinated by the baby. Lou Ellen arrived not long after them, also falling in love with Estelle immediately, and between her and Bianca, Paul and Sally hardly had to pay any attention to their own daughter. 

The turkey still had about half an hour to cook, and the counters were littered with side dishes - unfortunately, communication between the many parties was difficult, so there were multiples of a few different dishes, but at least there wasn’t anything missing as far as Nico could tell. 

He was slowly slipping into a panic as he realized that there were hardly enough seats for even half of them, and he couldn’t expect them to eat in shifts. He started scratching at his arm, his eyes darting around the room. He was struggling to count chairs and people - and plates, did he even have enough plates? - in his head, when the front door opened and Cecil stepped inside. Oh God, not another person.

Nico was too busy recalculating things to realize that Cecil hadn’t walked in alone, and soon there were arms around Nico’s waist and a chin resting on his shoulder.

“How’s it going, Darling?” Will whispered in Nico’s ear. 

Nico spun around in Will’s arms, staring up at him in a panic, his hand now latched on to the other arm, gripping the skin with his nails. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know how to host! The last time anybody got together in my apartment was for New Year’s last year when I was really out of it, so Hazel hosted. I don’t know what to do.”

Will set his hands on Nico’s arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Let go,” he whispered, his hands sliding down to pull Nico’s part. “Don’t worry about it, okay, Darling? I’ll take care of it. Can you hold on for just a minute while I change out of my scrubs? I promise I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Nico nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thank you, Will.”

Will smiled at him, then pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

Nico watched his fiance walk down the hall, he saw Will smile and greet a few people on his way to the bedroom. 

“Nico,” Naomi said from behind him, and Nico jumped at the sound of her voice.

“Yeah? Can I get you something?” he asked, his heart rate speeding up once again as his anxiety spiked. 

Naomi took Nico’s hands in hers and squeezed them. “I just wanted to let you know how happy I am that Will found you. I know I’ve said this all before, but I really am overjoyed that he was able to build a family here, and I don’t think he could have done that without you.”

“I can’t take the credit for that,” Nico tried to argue. “He has his siblings and his job--”

“But he has you at the center of it all. I know you might not believe me, honey, but I know my son, and if it weren’t for you, Will and Bianca would probably be having another Thanksgiving on their own. I truly am grateful for you, Nico, and I can never express that enough.”

Nico didn’t know what to say to that, but luckily he didn’t have to try.

“Mama, are you trying to embarrass me again?” Will’s voice came from behind him as an arm slipped around his waist once more. 

Naomi scoffed, and released Nico’s hands to cross her arms over her chest. “What good would it do me to try to embarrass you when you aren’t even in the room?”

“If I’m remembering correctly, the last time I found you alone with my fiance, you had him convinced that I would have starved without him,” Will pointed out.

“Okay, but she was right,” Nico said, shooting Will a smile over his shoulder.

Will pinched Nico’s side. “Don’t you start with me now.”

“Boys, please, keep your flirting to yourselves,” Naomi said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start setting out dishes, if that’s alright with you.”

“Mama, you’re a guest here, you don’t need to do that,” Will insisted.

Naomi waved him off. “I’m happy to help.”

Will seemed like he was ready to follow his mother around until she agreed to step out of the kitchen, but Nico grabbed his arm before he could even twitch. 

“Hey, I need to talk to you,” Nico said.

“What is it?” Will asked, all of his attention snapping to Nico in an instant. “Is something wrong?”

“We don’t have enough room for everybody,” Nico pointed out. “Where’s everybody supposed to sit?”

“Is that what’s got you so worried?” Will asked gently. “We can figure it out as we go. Whoever doesn’t fit around the table can sit around the coffee table in the living room, or something.”

“That’s not...rude? To make people sit on the floor?”

Will set his palm against Nico’s cheek. “Honestly, Babe? I don’t think anybody will care all that much. They all look pretty happy just hanging out, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Once the turkey was taken out of the oven and carved, Will announced that it was time to eat, and everyone lined up to grab a plate. Nico and Will hung around until everyone else had their food, though Will did put together a plate for Bianca so that she could get a seat at the table before all the chairs were taken. By the time Nico had gotten his food, there wasn’t anywhere to sit in the dining room or living room, so he and Will stood at the island, overlooking the gathering in front of them. Nico was happy to see that there wasn’t much segregation between Will’s friends and his own. 

Will leaned toward Nico and asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

Nico tipped his head toward Will and smiled. “I always feel better when you’re around, Babe.”

Will snorted and elbowed Nico in the side. 

Sally, Paul and Estelle were the first to leave when Estelle fell asleep, and next were Percy, Annabeth and Luke for the same reason. Either one by one or pair by pair, friends and family started to head out, until Jason and Piper were the only couple that remained. Somehow during the night, Jason and Nico had gotten caught up in a video game argument - then competition - and lost track of time until it was nearly midnight. Jason and Piper already lived over an hour away, so Will offered them the couch for the night.

“Uh, Babe?” Nico started. “I’ve slept on that couch, and it’s hardly a decent bed for one person.”

“Sure, the couch part isn’t great, but the bed isn’t half bad,” Will replied, already dragging the coffee table across the carpet until it was out of the way of the couch. He pulled the cushions off the couch, and brought the bed out from inside, revealing a full double bed. “There you go! Let me just get you some pillows and blankets,” Will said to Jason and Piper. 

As Will started toward the linen closet at the end of the hall, Nico ran after him. “Hey, hang on a second! That couch has been a bed this entire time? I slept on that thing for, like, two months! Why didn’t you ever tell me it was a bed?”

Will shrugged. “I dunno, I just… I thought you liked the couch?”

In order to make up for leaving so early the day before, Will had to be to work before the sun rose on Friday, which meant that he wasn’t able to have breakfast with everyone that morning.

It was nice to have so many people together that morning, but Nico didn’t think he’d ever had to make such a big breakfast in his life. He’d practically emptied out the fridge in order to make sure everyone had enough to eat, yet he hardly remembered to eat something himself until Jason reminded him to take a seat at the table. 

“Thanks again for letting us stay here last night,” Jason said as he started clearing the table after everyone had finished eating, “and for breakfast.”

Piper stepped up behind Nico, and in a single quick motion, pulled the elastic out of his hair to release the bun that sat on top of his head. “Maybe to repay you, you’ll let me give you a haircut.”

Nico spun around and reached for the hair tie, but Piper held it over her head - Nico had never more hated being one of the shortest in the group. “What if I don’t want a haircut?”

Piper grinned and ruffled his hair. “C’mon, you don’t want to look shaggy in your wedding, do you?”

Nico crossed his arms with a huff. “Fine. But just a trim, okay? I like my hair long.”

“If you like it long, then why do you only ever wear it up?” Reyna asked from the sink where she’d started washing the dishes. 

“I like it like that!”

Piper patted him on the head. “Sure you do. Get me a towel and some scissors, would you?”

Nico batted her hand away, and pointed toward the counter next to the stove. “Scissors are in there.”

“Oh, get a hairbrush, too!”

He started down the hall toward the linen closet to find a towel, but as he passed by the living room, Bianca called out to him, “Nico, will you come play Mario with me?”

Nico stopped and poked his head into the room. “I can’t right now, Princess. Why don’t you ask your grandma? I bet she’d love to play with you.”

“But Grandma doesn’t know how to play video games,” Bianca argued. “I’m sure you could teach her.”

“Okay.”

Nico continued down the hall, passing Naomi as she came out of the bathroom, and heard Bianca shout, “Grandma, can I teach you how to play Mario?”

Nico took a towel out of the closet, then stepped into his bedroom for a second to grab his hairbrush before he returned to the kitchen. 

Reyna and Jason were washing and drying dishes respectively, and Piper grinned at Nico as soon as she saw him. She pulled a chair out from the table and patted the back of it. “Ready, Neeks?”

Nico dropped into the chair and held out the brush for Piper to take, then draped the towel around his shoulders like a cape. This wasn’t the first time Piper had cut his hair for him, so he knew the drill. 

As Piper started brushing the knots out of his hair, she said, “So. Will. Is he good in bed?”

Nico hoped his face wasn’t bright red. “I’m not answering that.”

“Oh, come on! It’s just some classic beauty shop gossip!”

“Yeah, but this isn’t a beauty shop, it’s my kitchen,” Nico pointed out, “and his mother and daughter are in the next room. So, no, I’m not talking about that.”

“You’re no fun,” Piper said, her pout clear in her voice. “Just for that, I’m going to shave your head.”

“No you’re not!” Nico exclaimed, and tried to jump out of his seat, but Piper must have anticipated the move, and held him down with her hands on his shoulders. 

“Relax, I’m kidding!” Piper set the brush aside and used her hands to angle Nico’s head down so she could start trimming. “We can’t just sit here in silence, though. There’s gotta be some gossip you can share.” 

Nico sighed as he tried to think. Eventually, he said, “Frank bought a suit for his wedding, even though they haven’t set a date or anything.”

“That’s hardly gossip,” Piper told him. “Everybody knew they were going to get married from day one. You’re going to have to try harder than that.”

After another few seconds, Nico started, “I got my ears pierced again, like, six months ago. Because, well…” He trailed off, and when he tried again, he spoke quiet enough that only Piper would be able to hear him. “Bianca kind of...sorta...caught Will and I having sex. She didn’t see anything!” 

“Oh, you have to elaborate on that,” Piper insisted.

“Yeah,” Jason said from the sink, “and speak up, so you won’t have to say it all again to me.”

Nico groaned and buried his face in his hands, but Piper grabbed his shoulders and sat him up again.

Will’s shift kept getting extended as critical patients were brought into the ER, so even though he was supposed to by home in time for lunch, it wasn’t until the early evening that he was finally pulling into the driveway, utterly exhausted. He kind of wanted to sneak inside and head straight to bed, but as soon as he stepped into the kitchen and saw Nico standing at the stove, he froze. 

At first glance, when Will saw the back of Nico’s neck, his tired brain supplied the image of Nico’s hair being pulled back into a ponytail, but after Will blinked his eyes a few times, he realized that Nico’s hair was shorter. It was still long on the top of his head, four or five inches that still allowed Nico’s hair to curl and wave, but the sides and back of his head were cropped closer, an inch in length at most. Will suddenly felt much more awake than before. 

“You got a haircut.”

Nico reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck, as though he needed to remind himself that the hair was gone. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, yeah, Piper did it before they left this morning. It ended up much shorter than I wanted it to be, but… It doesn’t look bad, right?”

Will moved toward him and pulled Nico close with an arm around his waist. “It looks so good,” he said, his voice low, and he brought his other hand up to card through the short hairs at the back of Nico’s neck. He closed the distance between them and kissed Nico in a way that he hoped expressed just how good he looked. 

Nico pushed Will back, but Will simply moved his lips to Nico’s neck instead. “You realize there’s other people in this house, right?” he asked, but Will just hummed in response. “Specifically, our daughter, your mother, and my best friend, who are all people that I would prefer not walk in on this.”

Will finally pulled back, running his hand through the longer hair on the top of Nico’s head. So soft. “Sorry, Darling, I’m just trying to admire you.”

“I don’t know how you expect to admire me with your eyes closed,” Nico replied. 

“You know what I mean,” Will said with a pout. He brushed his fingers through Nico’s hair once again, his eyes catching on a certain spot that seemed bare. He couldn’t have a bald spot developing on the side of his head, could he? “What’s this?”

Nico snatched Will’s hand away. “It’s nothing.”

“It looked like a scar,” Will said, his pout curling down with worry.

Nico dropped his gaze. “My dad...when he was still drinking, I got pissed and dumped out a bottle of some expensive old whiskey, or something, and when he found out, he… He hit me with the bottle. That was the last straw - I moved out right after that.”

Will’s hand moved out of Nico’s hair as he spoke, his palm resting against Nico’s cheek instead as his thumb stroked Nico’s skin gently. “Is that why you’ve kept your hair so long?” Nico nodded, a just barely-there twitch of his head that didn’t dislodge Will’s hand from his cheek. “I’m sorry for pointing it out. It wasn’t even noticeable until I started messing around, I promise.”

“Thanks,” Nico whispered, finally allowing his eyes to meet Will’s once more. 

“You really do look amazing, you know,” Will continued, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I mean, I loved the long hair, too, but this is a pretty welcome change.” He kissed the tip of Nico’s nose next, then his lips once, then twice. 

“Will,” Nico complained as he pulled away, but Will could see that he was smiling.

Will dropped his forehead against Nico’s with another pout. “You’re going to make me wait to express my appreciation for this haircut until everyone goes to bed tonight? That’s just cruel.”

“Nope,” Nico said, popping the p and turning Will’s pout into a confused frown. “I’m making you wait until our wedding night, since Bianca’s sleeping in our room until your mom leaves.”

Will buried his face against Nico’s neck and groaned. 

thanks for reading!!

buy me a coffee 

[leelewishnd2c]

Seeing the Light (Workflow)

Due to the large number of photos I’ve had to take for this project, a good workflow is an absolute must have to effectively process and select desired images to further work on in your editing software of choice, I’ll now go into how I go about my work flow in a post-shoot scenario. 

Firstly, I’ll import all my photos from my Canon 100D to my laptop via USB. I’ll rotate any images which need doing so, allowing me to properly analyse them for rating. I’ll do all this in the photos application, as It’s the first point of contact for my files, I can then skim through any duds, which are far too under/over exposed. 

After that, I’ll then select all of the photos I’ve imported minus the obvious duds. I’ll create a folder on my desktop and drag them to that, I’ll name the folder after the shoot for example; “Seeing the Light shoot 2″ I’ll include my name and more specifics in the files themselves but that comes later. 

I’ll then open up Adobe Bridge, I prefer the simpler organisation of Bridge over Lightroom as I have full control over where my files are being saved, sent and stored. I’ll select the folder on the desktop tab and I’ll open it, now I’ll sometimes use the rating option a few different ways depending on what brief I’ve been shooting for. If I’ve got a task I needed to shoot on multiple settings or lenses for, I’ll use the Libraries tab in the top of the interface first when dealing with my photos. This means I have access to the metadata and don’t have to eyeball any changes in lenses or any other variables, I’ll then initially group them by assigning them a number between 1 and 5 before moving them into their own sub-folders within the shoot. 

This is where I’ll go to the Filmstrip tab, which allows me to have a deeper look at the photographs (You can enlarge the photo by dragging down the little selection menu if you need a closer look), This allows you to also zoom in as you would use a Lupe over a light box and check for your fine details and sharpness. I’ll usually clear the ratings in the sub folders so I can rank them more finely, for the one’s I wish to put on a contact sheet.  

After I’ve done this for every shoot, I try to narrow it down to around 4 or 5 good shots per shoot. This may seem very little to put on a contact sheet, however this example is part of a bigger project, which I will have 4 or 5 selections for multiple shoots. With that being said, once I’ve collected 4 or 5 from my many shoots, I’ll then go forward with putting them on a contact sheet to pick finals. 

This is done through a couple ways, however the method I choose is like so: Select photos for contact sheet (around 12 per sheet is a good number), Select Tools, Select Photoshop, Then Contact Sheet II. This will bring you into photoshop’s interface with your 12 photos on a canvas, I prefer this method as it allows you to use the brush right away to mark any favourites or crops, then you’re able to export it as a JPEG afterwards. 

After my selections, I’ll come up with my Final 4, I can then make them another sub-folder for easy access, I’ll select them all and double click them which will open them all in camera raw. Any fine tunings such as dodging and burning will be done in photoshop, which you can access by clicking the open image option next to the done button at the bottom right. 

[kat-hawke]

Purpose and Placement

The often organized desk lay littered with documents, dossiers, and files. Colored ink and markers highlighted various points of note in each as metaphorical dots slowly connected on the current open case. Tired eyes continued to scan pages and pictures, dark bags hanging beneath the lower lids as sleepless nights began to take their toll on the woman who threw herself deeper into her profession. Silence in the office broken by the clicks and twirls of a butterfly blade as it spun and slung around in the operative’s hand.

“Must you?!” The Director finally snapped, eyes shot upward to pin the elven woman where she sat.

With a final spin and click Vynette’s blade came to halt in the palm, her lips curling inward over the teeth as she stared back, a silent agreement to stop the idle fidgeting. The folded weapon was tucked into a pocket as she continued to lounge sideways across the upholstered seat across the room, one leg slung over the arm of the chair as the other stretched to the floor, propping the operative in the corner of the seat.

Before either could speak several rasps against the door interrupted their impromptu stare down.

“It’s open.” Kat called out, returning to her documents.

Doctor Hayes promptly entered the space, letting the door shut behind her as she eyed Vynette in her comfortable perch. With a quiet and judgmental hum rolling behind the pursed lips she returned her focus to the Director. “A moment?”

With a long inhale Kat abandoned her current task, closing the folders of more sensitive documents and glancing towards her elven operative. Nodding towards the door without a word, Vynette instinctively smiling in return with a shallow nod before standing from the seat and taking her leave.

“I thought the ever serious Director Hawke didn’t play favorites?” Hayes commented, looking back at the door as the elf exited. “You continue to play to her submissive nature and fulfill the need for a dominant figure. Surely I do not need to tell you how poorly that could end in a position such as this.”

“I let her have a bit of a longer leash than some, yes, but there are clear boundaries. Vynette earns her place, she does good work, so I let her get away with a few things ‘ere and there.” Fingers laced on the solid wooden desktop. “I trust yer here fer something other than tellin’ me how t’run my unit, Cecelia?”

Without hesitation the folder within the woman’s hand extended towards the Director, dropping softly atop the desk.

“Jocelyn Wellson’s evaluation.”

“Is she sound? Or did I hire another loose cannon?” A raven brow arched as Kat began to page through the evaluation of her newest operative.

“Well she certain fits your type. Sacrifice one to save the many, so long as there is no personal connection to that one. Feels responsible for her actions, seems to understand everything has consequences. She wants to improve, to have a sense of purpose. Either to herself or a consensus.”

“Loyal and sense o’ community, then?”

“Yes, but not without her own shortcomings. Keep her close, she needs someone to lead her or I feel she could become a stray sheep. I recommend a less visible role, in time she may be better conditioned for hostile field work.”

“Cecelia, ya’ know I can’t make predictions like that all th’time. Cases can go sideways in th’ blink of an eye.”

“I understand, but you have a choice on where you assign her.”

“And if I put her in the field to apprehend and raid?”

The Doctor paused, glancing down a short moment before answering. “I would fear you may trigger something she has yet to work through. Light help you if she finds a snap segregate for her brother in the field and it’s not a friendly at the end.”

“This is th’part where ya’ recommend treatment? Weekly visits t’yer office, hm?”

“She would benefit greatly.” A smile dusted Cecelia’s lips. “Thus, so would you in the long term. Sound operatives and agents means better efficiency.”

A low hum rolled in the Director’s throat as she skeptically eyed the Doctor, peeling the amber hues from the woman and scanning the rest of Jocelyn’s assessment.

“Ya’ll want yer regular rate, I assume?”

“The one we agreed upon for the exclusivity of your people, yes.”

“Fine.” Kat’s gaze froze on one answer in particular, jaw shifting and tongue pocketing in the corner of the a check. “I’m already providing Wellson with decent lodging, I’ll ensure she’s at yer office every Wednesday.”

“Thursday.”

“Wot?” Her gaze shot up.

“Wednesdays are fully booked.”

“Fine, wotever. Thursdays then. For eight weeks.”

“Twelve.”

An unamused look was cast from the Director to the Doctor, Cecelia mirroring the look.

“Killin’ my budget, I still need t’get Jocelyn’s armor done. Think yer in the wrong business Cecelia, should have been a saleswoman. But- alright. Twelve weeks, Thursdays, regular hourly rate. Done.”

[ @jocelyn-wellson​ ] [ Mentioned: @lovelydeadlysocialite​ ]

[arthurhwalker]

Moving your Tabletop RPG Online: First Steps

Trapped behind a fortress of toilet paper, but still want to play Tabletop RPGs with your friends? This is my quick and dirty guide to getting started running and playing your games online. Toward the bottom, I'll have links to as many digital resources to help run games as I can find. I will update whenever I find new things, so check back, and comment on what you're looking for.

Requirements

You and your RPG table folks will each need a computer, tablet, or smartphone capable of running Discord, and accessing Roll20 via a browser. Discord can run in a browser as well, but I recommend using the desktop app on your computer, or mobile app on your tablet or smartphone. Also, I strongly recommend a headset or earbuds with a mic.

Every participant will need a Roll20 dot net and Discord App account.

https://discordapp.com/ https://roll20.net/

Discord will primarily provide video and voice chat for your table. It has lots of other potential for community building, but for right now we're just going to use it so you and your fellow gamers can see and hear each other.

Roll20 is where you'll host the game itself. It is where you and your RPG crew will roll digital dice, manage character sheets, look at maps, move tokens on the battlefield, and similar. It takes some setup, but not a lot to get started.

The more preparation the person running the game puts into Roll20, the nicer and more streamlined the experience. This can be done over time, between games. I wouldn't delay play to have everything perfect, just get enough set up to get started and go.

Discord for Gamemasters

Don't worry about setting up or joining a server just yet. You don't really need one, and it often just confuses folks that are new to Discord. At minimum, the person running the game should have all the players added as friends. Go to the Friends Tab, click "Add Friends", and put in their handle, pound sign, and number. Your handle and number will be displayed somewhere in the app depending on whether you have the mobile, browser, or desktop version of the app.

Once the person running the game has everyone added as a friend, they can add them to a Group DM. The New Group DM button looks like a speech bubble with a + sign by it, and should be visible in the Friends Tab. Once everyone has been added to the Group DM, the game runner can hit either the start voice or video call button, prompting everyone else to join.

That Group DM will persist in the Friends Tab, regardless of whether anyone is actually online or in the call. People that drop from connectivity issues can pop back in by just selecting that group DM when a call is ongoing. If people are having connectivity issues, they can send text messages to the Group DM, add files, send GIFs, and similar.

The person running the Game can post news and game schedules to the Group DM, and people can chat about the game off camera/mic in between games.

Yes, you can set up your own dedicated servers, forums, and communities using Discord, but you don't need to. In my experience, Discord is just arcane enough to confuse people the first few times they run it. The desktop version of Discord will continue running in the tray, by default, even if you close the main window.

Make sure you either go into settings and turn this feature off, or shut Discord down from the tray, and/or that you've left the call when you're done. Otherwise, you'll continue to broadcast as you talk to yourself, while browsing the Internet (to the amusement of your friends still in the Group DM.)

Roll20 for Gamemasters

Like Discord, Roll20 dot net is just arcane enough to baffle people. It has a lot of functions and features, and you do not need to make use of them all to get started. Don't delay play while you figure out how to get dynamic lighting to work, or build every map for the campaign.

Just get rolling with it, hands properly dirty.

Once you're logged in, you'll need to create your first game. Once you're logged in, there should be a shiny pink button labeled, "Create New Game". Click that, and head to the next screen. Give your game a name, and don't worry about tags (if you're just playing with friends). Pick the character sheet from the drop down menu that most closely fits the game you're going to run.

This will save you a bunch of time later. Don't worry, you can change it after you've created the game if you don't like this feature.

Once you've created your game, hit the menu button, and go back to Home. Click on your game, scroll down to invite players. You can send direct invitations to the email address they used to sign up for Roll20 with, or copy and paste a link, dropping it into your Discord Group DM text chat.

After your players have accepted the invitation, have them launch the game, at least once, so the Roll20 servers fully recognize that they are participants. This will allow you to assign them control of characters, and access to handouts later. This merely saves you the time of having to make those assignments at the first game.

While your players are in the game, have them go to the "My Settings" tab, by clicking the Gear Icon in the upper right corner. Have them scroll down and set Player Avatar Size to "Names only", and Chat Tech to "None" (no video/audio). You're using Discord (which is way better), so you won't need these features.

On your game's landing page, there is a place for Game Discussion where you, or any player, can post topics, people can reply, and so forth. For important game things, you can flag posts to hang around at the top of the Discussion Feed. This is a good place to put house rules, leaderboards, game schedules, and more.

There is also a place to indicate when the next game will be, the time adjusted from your timezone, to whatever everyone else has, depending on where they live. Handy!

When you launch the game to work on it, I recommend having the Roll20 Wiki up in another browser tab. I'm going to run through some of the basics, and give a tour, but there's too much to detail in a single blog post. I'll be focusing on what you'll need to just get started.

https://wiki.roll20.net/Main_Page

The game view has three visible points of user interface. The vertical bar of icons on the left, the horizontal bar of icons at the top of the chat log on the right, and the game board itself. The first thing in the Chat Log should be a "Welcome" message with some helpful chat window commands. At the bottom of the Chat Log is a toggle letting you change your role from yourself, to NPCs, monsters, and even player characters (should they find themselves charmed by a dryad).

Also, note the little blue Page Toolbar button at the top in the middle. This is what you'll use to navigate between different maps, and change what players are able to see on their screens. Your view doesn't have to follow what the players are seeing.

The learning curve with the Roll20 interface is going to feel very steep at first, for you and your players. If you're already anxious about running games, this can feel overwhelming. However, once you learn even a little of how it works, Roll20 is a very powerful tool. I use it to run my local games now with a big screen TV.

It's that good. Trust me, hang in there.

Okay, you're logged into Roll20, click on the games tab, mouse over it, and click the tutorial. Watching a YouTube video is a fine way to learn, but this gets you accustomed to the tools, where things are located, and so forth. Breaking through this initial learning curve, understanding where your game assets are stored, and how to control what your players see and hear takes a minute.

If you've ever used Photoshop or any image editing tool, even Microsoft Word or OneNote, a lot of the user interface will feel familiar, functions and features much the same.

Okay, some general tips that should streamline things for you.

Make a character called "Dungeon Master", "Game Master", or similar.  In the Attributes & Abilities tab create several that are going to automatically roll for yourself via /gmroll, or for players using /roll, the most commonly used things. Passive Detection, Surprise, Random Encounters, Treasure, Initiative, and anything else you roll for multiple times per game.

Then, click the "Show in macro bar" box so they are on screen for you whenever you need them.

When uploading assets, give the file names that are searchable in an intuitive way. You can make folders and to organize your art library, but it isn't really necessary. The search feature is robust enough it'll pick through the pile very quickly, provided your file names reflect what the asset is.

Asset0023.png <- No GoblinShaman.png <- Yes

Finally, in the settings for your game, add any applicable compendiums for your game, and click the box that makes them available for players. There are compendiums for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Ed, Pathfinder 2nd Ed, Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, Dungeon World, Fate, Kids on Bikes, Pathfinder 1st Ed, Starfinder, Burn Bryte, DramaSystem, and Dialext.

A lot of these are paid upgrades, but worth the investment if you plan to stay on and use Roll20 for any particular duration. You'll find the full list on Roll20 dot net, under the Tools Menu Tab, in Compendiums.

Roll20 & Discord For Players

In the beginnning your goal should be to have fun, and understand how Roll20 works enough that you aren't slowing the game down for anyone else. Worry about macros and navigating the game as you play. Definitely watch YouTube videos, read the Wiki, and do whatever else you need to feel comfortable.

But, first, make sure you are using best application available to you for accessing the game.

There are these options for Android and iPad. (Keep reading, don't just grab one of these yet.)

Android iPad

As far as I'm aware, these are horrible, 1-2 star applications with problems, and lacking in support. Only resort to these options if you've tried every browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari) available for your platform, and  can't get it on your desktop or tablet.

Likewise, do this for Discord.

Make sure you are accessing the Discord App using the best option for your platform. I have yet to find a platform where Discord isn't pretty great. Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux, all awesome with a dedicated app, or in the browser.

Figure out how to mute yourself, and be courteous to other people participating. No one wants to hear you eating chips or yelling at your kids. ;-D Also, perform and audio test with your computer and headset. Have a friend or the game master meet you online and make sure everything is working properly.

This is, literally, 75% of the battle for a game master running their first online game. Just getting people online with the right software, hardware configured properly, with a modicum of understanding of how it all works. The absolute best thing a player can do is be responsible for learning and helping others learn Discord and Roll20.

Preparing games for Roll20 takes more effort for the dungeon master than normal. You can help this along by writing background stories, doing illustrations of your character, or just making a wish list of magical items your character hopes to encounter. Taking some of the guesswork out of making the game fun for you, will greatly streamline the process for the game master.

Likewise, organizing games online is time consuming and stressful as compared to just meeting at the local game or board game cafe. Make sure you communicate with the game master your availability, and be on time for games. This sets a standard for other players. Supporting the table with your reliable presence makes it nicer for you, and everyone else.

Build some custom emote macros for your character in the Attributes & Abilities tab or your character sheet in the Journal tab above the chat log. Whenever my Warlock uses one of his class abilities at my 5e table, I click a macro button that executes one of these commands.

/em holds a rod aloft, summoning hellish fortitude! (Using his Rod of the Pact Keeper)

/em grasps a shard amulet around his neck, closes his eyes, and reaches across into the hellscape it came from. (Using his Dark Shard Amulet)

/em gains terrible fortitude following the slaying of an enemy. (Dark One's Blessing Class Ability)

/em produces a shadowy tome, bound in the hide of an otherworldly beast, flames leaping up from the script inside. (Book of Shadows Class Ability)

/em reaches back into the void, altering his fate. (Dark One's Own Luck Class Ability) /roll 1D10 [Add To Current Saving Throw]

This accomplishes three things.

It lets the game master know you're using a class ability without breaking the flow by babbling about game mechanics.

It marks the use of that class ability in the chat log for tracking purposes.

It enhances the game for other players, giving them a more vivid picture of what your character is doing.

Resources

As of writing this, Roll20 has a ton of things in the marketplace for free, tokens, maps, and modules. It is part of the response to people being stuck at home. I've included links to some notable items, but definitely cruise through all the things.

The Master's Vault, D&D 5e (Free as of writing this) Quick-Start Rules Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition The Lightless Beacon - Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition The Strange: Starter Pack - Pathfinder Playtest Flip-Mat Multi-Pack

Lone Wolf's Hero Lab things provide for Online Character Creation, Campaign Management, and regular old Classic Character Creation. It looks like they primarily provide online support for Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder, and Shadowrun 6th Generation, and classic support for Pathfinder 1e, D&D 5e SRD, and Savage Worlds.

For 5th Edition Shadowrun, there is a keen Character Chummer on Github. Also, this tool for figuring out your Priorities before you start writing things down.

For Star Trek Adventures, there is a Character & Starships tool here. Also, this fan site looks like a keen source for ideas and things.

@Tartle_Games on Twitter turned me onto a service called Astral. I haven't checked it out in detail yet, but folks that play Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, Vampire: The Masquerade, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Exalted, Forbidden Lands, or Fantasy Age should probably head there and see what they've got. It looks like those games are specifically supported for playing online, and Astral appears to be free? https://www.astraltabletop.com/

Even More Resources

PCGen

"Compatible with Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e (coming), d20 Modern, Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Starfinder, and many more..."

This service went into archive mode December 17, 2019. Take advantage of it while you can.

Fast Character

"Need a few quick pre-gens for a game convention or organized play group at your local game store?

Your cousin from out of town wants to sit in and join this week's game?

The party insists on hiring that NPC to join them for the adventure?

That failed stealth check got half the party killed and now the fallen are playing back-up reinforcements?

You don't have time to min/max your way through a character build but want to try something new?"

Support for D&D 5e, and Cypher System (Numenera, The Strange, etc)

Also, don't forget about ye old' Google Search for free assets and dungeon maps.

[split-n-splice]

Now! I must mention, “If you leave, that's your choice, but I would like to not lose my car in the process.” ahahhaa

[Chapter Guide]

6. Enabler – 3

Reclined in a computer chair before the CCTV system, Shego had her feet kicked up on the desk and a magazine she’d already read front to back open on her lap when she heard the quiet tip-toe of Dr. Drakken’s descent down the staircase. In her peripheral, she saw him poke his head out from the stairwell, but she didn’t look up from the magazine.

It had been hours since the explosive demonstration, but he was wise to continue giving her a wide berth. A mumble announced his presence before he cautiously called out to her. She didn’t let her surprise show when the sheepish man awkwardly apologized for provoking her wrath.

Shego merely shrugged it off with a deceptively nonchalant grunt and flipped a page in her magazine. Following orders was in the job description after all, but didn’t remind him so.

Making a funny thoughtful sort of whine, the man drummed his fingers on the wall he was peeking out from behind. “I was beginning to have my doubts,” he dared to share. “But you made me proud out there. Fine work, Shego.”

It was an odd sort of congratulation and it didn’t sound natural at all. It didn’t do squat to comfort her, if that was the intent. She didn’t feel particularly proud of herself, no matter how nice it had felt at the time to lash out at men well deserving of the attention.

She didn’t have to tell or threaten Dr. Drakken to shut up. Her cold shoulder got that message across loud and clear without her moving a muscle.

Even if she didn’t so much as glance up at him, she could tell he was still daunted by the earlier flogging he’d incited, and was being careful to tread softly around her minefield temper, likely fearful of detonating her on himself. Shego didn’t like his cagey glances, but she took no action to assure him the threat had passed.

The man safely reached his desk and took a seat to tend to business she didn’t care to inquire on. He shuffled around behind her now and then, moving slow and trying to stay quiet. When Shego swiveled her chair to keep better tabs on him from the corner of her eye, he just about dropped a sack of paperwork he’d pulled from a filing cabinet tucked in a corner behind the desk. As if afraid to make any sudden movements, he moved at a snail’s pace as he returned to going about his business. He flipped pages, plopped stacks aside, hummed, scribbled, and highlighted for what felt like hours.

Shego didn’t move from her chair the entire time, nor did she look up to him. The longer she sat peacefully, the more he relaxed. She could tell that much when he gradually returned to his regular amount of huffs and sighs and grumbles. A mean little thought crossed her mind and almost made her smirk as she considered doing something – anything, like maybe shooting plasma into the crackling fireplace – to startle him, but she supposed watching her beat the daylight out of two big mean men may have frightened him enough for one day.

Sometime that evening, the man heaved a huge apathetic sigh as if to make an announcement and sat back at his desk. It certainly garnered her attention, and from the corner of her eye she could see him scrubbing his face. He slumped forward on the desk, groaning wretchedly into his hands before tossing his glasses aside entirely and rubbing his temples.

“I’m down to three henchmen now,” he said as if declaring defeat, head still in his hands.

Shego didn’t let her surprise show as she finally looked up from the magazine. She studied the man and his desk and concluded he’d been combing through records on his staff. His henchmen must have been garbage anyway if he was willing to forfeit more than half of his crew for her. Unless of course it was a big fat lie or he’d planned to sack them anyway to save a buck. She remained unmoved, sparing no remark.

“They’re good seeds, though,” Drakken added, sounding almost hopeful. Nonetheless, he whined as he stacked up papers and folders. “Nnng, that sounds so backwards. But! I’ll have you know, the worse they have on record are traffic violations and shoplifting. Happy now?”

Ignoring the question and his anxious stare as he awaited some sort of approval from her, Shego pulled her feet off the surveillance desk and stood to stretch. “I’m hungry,” she answered dully instead. “Are you going to take me out for Chow, or do I have to steal your keys? Because I’m not having canned soup again and I don’t trust the cafeteria grub anymore.”

Glasses back on his nose, Drakken frowned across the room at her, but after a moment he gave a yielding rumble and slumped back in his chair to root around in a pocket of his slacks. He pulled his car key off the ring and tossed it across to her, carping, “Don’t make me regret this,” as she caught it.

Shego arched an eyebrow at him, even as she gravitated toward the stairwell. “Aren’t you coming?” she called over, just a tiny bit perplexed as he went back to shuffling paperwork around.

The man grunted dismissively. “No. I have work to do.”

“Oh. Okay,” Shego muttered, taken aback. She looked down to the key and back to him, and to the door beyond him leading into the henchmen’s domain. “Are you assigning me an escort or…?” Or was he actually letting her go alone?

“Do you need a sitter?” he retorted, and shook his head. “Go. Do whatever you’re going to do, just be back by morning.” He gave a wave to dismiss her.

She should have been happier to be given such slack and the key to the ride. Though she really hadn’t been kept on any kind of leash since her arrival, she realized as she left. There wasn’t a single thing keeping here but reluctance to just walk off into the unknown.

And now she had the key to Dr. Drakken’s SUV – but in light of his indifference, the drive to do something unruly was markedly absent. She gave it her consideration, but the freedom to go have a night on the town wasn’t so tempting. She had a funny suspicion that even if she did cause a stir with the law tonight, she might only earn a pat on the back for getting away with it – because she knew she would.

She kept Dr. Drakken’s rule of thumb in mind: don’t stir trouble in one’s own neighborhood. With that voice of reason nagging her all the way, Shego didn’t do anything more rebellious than smoke in his rig and ignore a stop sign. She could have snuck into a pub, or found some shady back-alley deal to make or bust, or gone to see a movie without paying. She considered dining and dashing somewhere nice, but the thought of dining alone didn’t appeal to her for reasons that disgusted herself.

In the end, she swung by a Cow-n-Chow drive-thru to order two meal combos so she wouldn’t seem so…so what? Pathetic? Because she was alone? It was a damn drive-thru for crying out loud. The underpaid staff couldn’t care less if she bought one meal or enough for the whole crew. Shego scoffed to herself as she drove back to the hillside lair, something miserable curling in her stomach. With four brothers, and having been in charge of two since they were in diapers, she could barely remember being as alone as she felt now.

She caught herself wondering for a moment what Dr. Drakken would do if she never came home – although where she’d go, she didn’t know. Probably back to Go City. Would he hunt her down, or just write her off and let her go? He hadn’t sought vengeance on her for past transgressions, so she’d bet her money on the latter.

And then she cringed. Not in a million years could that dingy lair be called a home. She’d only been there two weeks, and the place was dark and cold and kind of damp and a far cry from welcoming. It wasn’t a home by any means. It was only a place to crash and a roof over her head. It was a lair – a safehouse, a crucial part of keeping a low profile.

There was a nation-wide search for her. The hideout was necessary, even if it was a burrow set in the side of a sorry little mountain half-scorched by a past wildfire. Running off and never coming back was lackluster. She’d already done that.

Left alone with her unwelcomed thoughts, they involuntarily drifted back to why she’d ever skipped town in the first place. Why there was a manhunt for her. What she’d done to her big brother. He might be a big softy and let it slide – it was an accident, one he’d brought upon himself no less – but the organization he worked under was guaranteed to be less understanding. A full pardon was a fantasy. There was no way they’d take her back with open arms after what she’d done. Going back would mean atoning for her actions. Even if she wasn’t imprisoned for attempted homicide, she’d still be going back to the same life on a tight leash she’d just abandoned.

She could ditch Dr. Drakken and his lair whenever she wanted. She could live on the lam like any ordinary runaway.

Yet she returned to the lair.

Stealing Dr. Drakken’s car tonight had lost its appeal anyway. Maybe some other time.

The gangly henchman manning the gate was hasty and bumbling. He kept his head down and avoided looking up to her as he let her through, tripping as he pushed the gate open. She couldn’t help smiling bitterly to herself, content as could be with his healthy fear of her.

The cool subterranean lair was a welcoming respite from the evening heat, but the paper sack she gripped was starting to lose its warmth as she made her way downstairs.

She announced her entry with a flat, “Knock, knock,” which was enough to startle Dr. Drakken still stationed in his office, but then he was right back to work, thoroughly engrossed in an unusually compact desktop computer she suspected he’d built from scrap. He jerked back when she dropped a brown sack of Chow in front of him on the desk. She’d already had her dinner back in the car, not that he’d find any evidence of it to chide her over.

As she came around his desk, Shego smiled to herself again, content with the knowledge he let her get away with so much more than her family ever did. Polar opposite of them, he actually encouraged thrilling little hobbies like thieving and roughing people up, so long as it wasn’t inconveniencing. He was a bad influence if she ever knew one, not that she needed much of a push.

She perched on an available armrest of his chair, watching him brush the food aside to get colder as he resumed clacking away at the keyboard. Eyeing his slumped shoulders, a ludicrous notion from earlier escaped the lockbox.

She didn’t have a chance to run it by herself a second time when she abruptly leaned over. She wouldn’t exactly call it a hug – more like just leaning on his back in a piss-poor show of appreciation, because wrapping her arms around him in a full embrace sure as hell wasn’t happening.

Dr. Drakken tensed. He might as well have been carved from stone like the rest of the lair.

Shego didn’t dare let herself indulge in the notion that he smelled almost nice, but in a huffing-fumes sort of way from whatever fuels or grease that had rubbed off on his jacket, or whatever he used to slick back his hair – because she was shoving herself away from him the moment an unwarranted lurch in her chest caused her to warm over.

Inwardly berating herself to never do that again, Shego ended the awkward contact as suddenly as she’d initiated it, though it was a mistake to let a hand linger on his shoulder for a moment too long to give it a squeeze, hoping it might convey her thanks.

She squeezed her unintentionally warm hands between her knees as she glared to the crackling fireplace, taking measured breaths as she willed the heat to leave her face. As desperately as she wished she could bury what goodness remained in her heart six feet under and in a lockbox for the sake of turning a new leaf and taking the whole evil gig seriously, that wasn’t happening. She wasn’t a hero, but she wasn’t inhuman either. She could at least work on being inhumane, and that meant not doing stupid things like trying to hug someone to show gratitude, or whatever had been behind the impulse.

It took Dr. Drakken clearing his throat before she slipped away from the armrest, taking the brusque cue to back off. Without a word, she left him grimacing and his face a funny shade as she strode off quietly to hole herself up in her room for the night.

She left whatever had transpired behind her as she focused on getting herself into bed, knocking back a shot of cold medicine knock herself out early for the night to escape overthinking.

She was late to rise the next day, and the worst thing to plague her mind was the ingrained anticipation of being chided for sleeping in. The dread nagged at her as she suited up and combed her hair quickly, hastily making herself presentable, only to find Drakken wasn’t in the lab, or even down in his office. The surveillance feed indicated activity out in the garage that doubled as a scant hangar.

A deadpan stare was fixed on her face as she moseyed in, ready to face the day and Dr. Drakken with the futile hope she would be tasked with something more engaging than watching surveillance feed again.

She slowed her pace halfway to the chief overseeing today’s project, something about his posture raising a warning to proceed with caution. Two of the remaining henchmen took notice of her, but then ducked their heads and avoided eye contact like guilty children. One man sat on a stack of tires, and the other stood at attention to lend a listening ear to Drakken’s low chatter.

The men were gathered in the midst of a mess of dismantled aircraft, and Shego had barely stepped foot into the ring of clutter when she paused at the boss’s rising tone.

“If you’re missing the parts, THEN GO GET THEM!” roared Dr. Drakken with a stern point to the door, and even Shego flinched. The abrupt ferocity was startling, but it in the same vein it was reassuring that he might very well pull off fearsome dictator one day. The men booked it, Dr. Drakken shoving one of the goons as he passed.

The chief whipped around and was about to storm right by her as if she were invisible when Shego piped up. “What’cha need? Maybe I could get it,” she offered, trying not to sound so desperate for something to do. Something exciting, preferably.

The frustrated man snorted. “Please,” he scoffed. “I need a whole new jet. The most these imbeciles know about aerodynamics is paper planes, and I’ve seen children fold better.”

Shego wondered inwardly why the know-it-all didn’t just get his own hands dirty and build a jet himself if he needed one that badly. He certainly had enough scrap lying around for one. Maybe even two. A fanciful thought crossed her mind as she eyed the scavenged remains, and she couldn’t help muttering thoughtfully to herself, “I can fly a jet.”

Before she could dismiss the notion, Drakken was scoffing in her direction, shooting her a displeased frown before turning back to head for his lab. “Very funny, Shego,” he groused. “Next you’re going to tell me you’re the Easter Bunny.”

Well, she had put out baskets and hidden eggs for kids before – but he didn’t need that information.

“No, really,” she insisted, taking long strides to keep up with his brisk pace. “I mean, I’m not licensed, but my brother had special authorization, and I copiloted a lot with him the past year, and I actually—,” she clamped her running mouth shut abruptly, realizing she may have let slip too much. Divulging Team Go information like her illicit copiloting might have been just a little too traitorous for her just yet.

Drakken was flapping a hand in blatant disregard anyway. “Bullbuttons. There’s no way a kid can fly a jet,” he said arrogantly, not buying it for one moment.

Shego paused and scowled at his back. Kid comment aside, she was offended that he didn’t believe her. But then again, she supposed it was a farfetched thing to believe. There was no denying she was a tad young to know how to fly – but so what? He knew she was no ordinary girl, so he ought to know not to hold her to ordinary standards.

Still glaring, Shego turned away without adding to the argument.

She’d show him.

++X++

Dr. Drakken hadn’t noticed the newcomer had left his side until he was crossing the threshold into the foyer, at which point he heard the sudden rev of an engine and the squeal of tires spinning out. Whipping around, his eyes flew wide and he patted his pockets to feel for his keys, but as he watched his favorite set of wheels barrel out of the garage, he came to the stark realization that the new recruit had never returned his car key last night.

“Stop her!” he bellowed, but the bumbling idiots racing back to him were a moment too late. Reprimand was in store for the oaf who’d left the damn gate open. There was nothing more he could do as she floored it off the premises and down the gravel driveway with a trail of dust in her wake.

Drakken ordered for someone to put keys in his hand immediately, and thus he commandeered the car of the nearest henchman and sped out of the garage in a little red Beetle, but it was no use. The secondhand car was no match for the disobedient subordinate when she had such a head start. In his haste to cut her off, he made the mistake of trying to take a shortcut down Main Street to meet her at the highway out of town, only to get himself stuck in untimely morning traffic.

Defeat was bitter. He should have known better.

Sighing heavily in frustration and shoving his glasses up his forehead, Drakken leaned on the door and rubbed his eyes as he waited for a red light to turn green.

The clown accompanying him had the nerve to speak up. “Uh, boss? What just happened?” asked the henchman.

To which Drakken could only growl out something indiscernible through his teeth. He wasn’t completely sure what had just happened himself, but he could take a guess. Chasing after her was a lost cause at this point, so he grudgingly pulled a U-turn to head back.

He prowled back through the lair to the landline in his kitchen and waited at the counter with a frown creasing his brow deeper by the second as he waited for the call to be answered. The first attempt yielded zero result, so he tried again, and on the very last ring, Shego finally picked up the cell phone he’d graciously gifted her last week.

“Yeah, what is it?” she snapped harshly on the other end before he could get a word in. “Kinda busy here.”

“Shego, just what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded through grit teeth.

“You wanted a jet. I’m jacking you a jet.”

He really couldn’t tell if she was being serious, but the implications of jet theft crossed his mind regardless. “You are going to get yourself killed, more like it,” he retorted.

“Aw, worried about me? That’s so touching,” she jeered, and he heard her feign a gag.

Questions stormed in his brain – like where she planned to get a jet, how she planned to pull it off, how the hell would he get his car back – but none of them made it out of his mouth before she spoke again.

Her scathing tone eased to something more playful at least. “This job don’t come without risks, Dr. D. Don’t worry about little ol’ me,” she said, and Drakken found himself grimacing as her mischievous chuckle met his ear. Did she think this was a joke?

“Oh, I will,” Drakken mumbled. He dreaded whatever she was scheming. Her safety was of some concern, but first and foremost, it couldn’t mean anything good for him if she got herself busted. There was the doubt as well that stealing a jet was just a ruse. What if she’d duped him? So soon after firing all but three of his men, the worry of losing her and all her potential danced on his nerves.

There was a pause, and he wasn’t sure if he should take the chance to lecture her for the brash decision or beg her to turn around, but Shego beat him to it.

“Drakken, I need you to trust me,” she pleaded coolly, and something in her tone almost persuaded him to do just that. “Don’t be tracking me, don’t try to follow me, just…stay out of my way – and don’t call me. I got this. ‘Kay?”

Before he could agree or disagree, she hung up.

He hadn’t a way to track her anyway, he realized unhappily. He didn’t have her chipped, nor did he have his rig bugged either.

All he could do was accept that if he lost her, he lost her. And if she returned, then great. But if she didn’t, he was out several henchmen and one priceless reckless subordinate. He sourly acknowledged that she wasn’t much of a subordinate if she was going to be running off on her own accord like this. Shego was quickly making herself into more of an accomplice he wielded very little control over, if anything.

[hekate1308]

Owe No One Anything, Chapter Seven

Chapter Six

He took a few deep breaths even though he’d never needed too and now inside his mind, they were more useless than ever, but he needed to calm down; he needed to keep the connection.

He needed to warn Crowley.

Because he knew Heaven.

If they’d just wanted to drop holy water on him, they could have anytime; no, this must be something crueller, something more sophisticated, as Gabriel would have put it while he was giving out his orders.

They had not averted the Apocalypse for this.

And so, he stayed in their cabin at the London Eye, determined to see this through and save his demon.

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

Crowley once again drove to the bookshop in a manner that would have Aziraphale grasping at his seat, telling him to go slower. He didn’t mind. He needed to get there, to see with his own eyes that his angel had returned to him, as a part of him had always insisted he would.

He all but jumped out of the car as soon had he stopped, told it firmly that it was to open the door to none but Crowley himself since he didn’t want to take the time to lock it, and hurried inside. “Angel!?”

What if this had just been temporary, what if it had been nothing but a fluke –

But Aziraphale was standing in the middle of his now almost-empty office, wringing his hands. “Crowley dear! They made me get rid off my books, and your plants, and look how they made me lose weight – I must be horribly disfigured in your eyes –“

“No no” he said, quickly taking him into his arms, “It’s alright angel. We can fix all of this.”

His heart was soaring. Now that he had Aziraphale back at his side, everything would be alright. Everything would be like it had been before – with the exception that he would make it his mission that none of these bastards ever touched either of them again.

“But look at this” Aziraphale wailed in his usual overdramatic way as he stepped back, “This – they must have made me shed at least twenty years and thirty pounds!”

“Nothing a few good lunches at the Ritz won’t fix, if we don’t use a miracle for it” Crowley soothed him, “And I’d say we’ve earned one, now.”

Aziraphale leaned against him. “You’re right, dear, of course. I just – I just came back to myself and let’s just say it was a bit of a shock.”

“Maybe they didn’t realize there was a time limit to whatever they did to you” Crowley said, starting to rub his back. “I have to say, this was creative even for them.”

He made his own experience sound light because in comparison, it was. He didn’t even want to know where Aziraphale had gone while all this had taken place – although he would of course listen if he wanted to talk. “Anathema’s going to be glad.”

“Anathema? What does she have to do with this?”

Something struck Crowley as strange about his reaction, but he couldn’t quite tell what. Maybe he was still in a bit of shock, too. “You know what? I could use a cup of tea” he said, moving towards the kitchen that hopefully would still work (and if it didn’t he’d make it) “How about –“

“Oh no my dear, let me” Aziraphale said eagerly and moved past him.

He probably just wanted to do something normal after the nightmare that had been the last few weeks, and who could blame him.

Crowley realized his legs were shaking underneath him and sat down on the chair. He probably was experiencing this delayed shock thing the humans sometimes went on about – not that he’d paid them much attention, unless he’d quickly helped them out by way of miracle.

Only so he could properly tempt them, of course, not because he was being nice.

He looked at the desktop of the new shiny computer that seemed utterly wrong in Aziraphale’s hands. He would be glad that he had, later.

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

It was almost too much to bear. How they made Crowley think that he’d returned to him, only to try and…

Aziraphale closed his eyes even though he wanted nothing more than to check how his beloved serpent was doing; but he needed to do something, needed to let him know…

He heard Crowley’s voice clear as a bell. “Anathema’s going to be glad.”

Anathema? So he had finally learned their friend’s name…

And then he realized.

And so, he concentrated on his tongue, forming words, forcing them out…

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

It didn’t take long for Aziraphale to bustle back into the room with two cups of tea in his hands. “I used lots of sugar. I think we could both need it.”

Crowley wouldn’t help but agree with him there. “Thanks, angel.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Crowley reached out for the cup.

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

Oh no. He’d pout the holy water into the tea.

Aziraphale would never forgive his brethren. This was even more vile than he could have imagined. It already hurt demons to be emerged in it, but if Crowley swallowed it –

And so, in his desperation, he did the only thing that he could think of.

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

Crowley knew Aziraphale liked his snacks, and his tea, but that had never stopped him from sharing.

So when, instead of letting go, Aziraphale left him to uselessly tug at the cup while he stood there, his fingers seemingly clenching around it, he knew something was wrong.

Something, considering the strange expression on Aziraphale’s face, was very, very wrong.

And then he remembered.

He hadn’t commented on Crowley finally bothering to remember Anathema’s name. That in itself was unusual.

And then the desktop –

He’d had the documents folder open, and he’d saved a file just a few minutes before Crowley showed up.

Which meant –

All of this it took him only a matter of seconds to comprehend; and knowing that, if he revealed himself, he probably would never have a chance to come this close to Aziraphale ever again, he did what he probably should have done from the beginning.

“Angel” he chuckled, “Kinda need that if I’m to drink the tea.”

The panic he saw flare up in Aziraphale’s eyes – proving that on some level he knew what was going on and was desperately trying to prevent it – made things easier.

He wrenched the cup out of his hands, tossed its contents into his face to distract him, miracled the tire iron from the Bentley to him, and knocked him out.

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

Aziraphale rubbed his head.

That had hurt.

But at least Crowley had realized, Crowley had known, Crowley was safe for now –

“I’m almost impressed. That took a lot of strength.”

He opened his eyes and ignored the throbbing to glare at not-Crowley. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for him.” Sadly, the apparition was right; he felt drained. But Crowley was alive.

“Apparently” he agreed, sitting down next to him. “Nice view. Should come here more often.”

“I will. With him.”

“Please. What do you think he’s going to do?”

He didn’t know but it didn’t matter. After all, Crowley had already stopped time for him more than once. He’d come up with something.

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

Crowley carefully put the two cups away – holy water, the thought alone made him shudder, and God knew what Aziraphale must have gone through to warn him – and then used another frivolous miracle to put their bed back upstairs. He needed it – he couldn’t let Aziraphale lie on the floor.

The one good thing was that Heaven was probably giving him time to finish his assignment of doing away with Crowley, so that he didn’t have to recon with a visit from Above for the time being.

Crowley carefully placed Aziraphale – his now thin, fit body as always gave him a painful stab as he contemplated it – on the bed and thought.

Well. Demons and angels… they weren’t exactly corporeal, were they, even if they had bodies.

And he’d travelled through the phone.

Which meant that it technically should be able for him to get into Aziraphale’s mind and try and fix whatever they had done to it, to him.

It would be dangerous, of course. Angels were not known for their subtlety, and they had probably put all sports of guards in there just to make sure nothing went wrong.

Too bad.

He was doing it anyway.

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

Wasn’t it ironic that one of the few times he wished he could just lie down and sleep was when he very much could not because he didn’t even have control over his body.

Aziraphale stood up from his seat and swayed lightly from side to side.

“What – angel!” Not Crowley grabbed him and held him up. “You shouldn’t have done that. It will take days before you can even check out what’s going on outside again.”

“Had to” he managed to say. “Crowley was in danger.”

Even with the sunglasses, he could tell he was rolling his eyes. “He is always going to be in danger Why you two just puttered around London for a year when you could have been God knows where already is a –“

“We like London” he interrupted him, “And the flat we miracled together. That’s not to say we’re not going to get that cottage we talked about –“

“Angel” he said flatly as he dropped him back into the seat, “Haven’t you learned a thing from today? You might have kept – well, yourself from getting him today. But one day you won’t be able to, or maybe he’ll grow tired and leave eventually and then they’ll get him. This is it. End of the line.”

“No” Aziraphale said, quietly but firmly, “It’s not.”

If he had managed to warn Crowley for the moment, then Crowley would find a way to fix this.

“If you say so…”

“Yes” he smiled through his exhaustion “You don’t know my dear serpent as well as I do.”

“I’m you, remember?”

“Not quite, though, are you?” he challenged him.

“You figured it out?”

“Very early on. A completely…. Crowley Crowley in my mind would have encouraged me to get back to him.”

Not-Crowley threw his head back and laughed. “The confidence you have in him is astonishing.”

“I know you think that because part of you was put in here by Heaven, probably to make me doubt him. But I’ll never do that. Six thousand years, and he’s always found his way back to me. He will this time, too.”

“If you say so…” he repeated.

“Oh trust me. He will. It’s only a matter of time, now.”

After all, that was how it worked. He had just saved Crowley, so now it was Crowley’s turn.

It was ineffable.

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

“Alright alright…” how to do this….” Crowley mumbled to himself while pacing about the room. He’d made sure that Aziraphale wouldn’t wake up for several hours.

He would have to… break himself down to molecules again, like that time with the phone. Only this time he’d have to enter Azriaphale’s mind.

He desperately hoped it wasn’t as shattered as it appeared to be.

He bit his lips.

Memories. Memories they both shared. That could be his way in.

And at the end of memory lane would be the place where they had put Aziraphale. Everything between him and the world outside, so he couldn’t find his way out.

Well. Crowley would be there to help him or die trying.

And so he gently laid a hand on the angel’s forehead and closed his eyes.

Where to go, that was the problem.

Six millennia of memories, locked away in Aziraphale’s head to make him into a perfect little soldier.

Well… Let’s start with… where it started, he told himself.

And went in.

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

In his worst moments, he had feared that heaven had managed to completely destroy Aziraphale’s memories.

But when he opened his eyes and found himself looking at the angel who’d just given his sword away and a demon who was about to fall once more, although in an entirely different way, he realized he’d been wrong. This – this was exactly how it had happened.

And so he watched himself speak his first words to his future love.

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon.”

Chapter Eight

[lololollywrites]

I have a GenZ neighbor who just started her undergrad degree. She once called me over to help with an essay. I love her - she's so sweet - and I currently work as a college professor (at a different university), so obviously I came over. This story is not to disparage her intelligence (I think she's very smart; knowledge and intelligence are unrelated), but the technological illiteracy she displayed - as well as the lack of awareness of academic writing conventions - was shocking to me. She had hit "enter" after each line to make it double-spaced (she'd never heard of that), which obviously capitalized each new line of writing. There were *immensely* long run-on sentences, full of misspellings that autocorrect wasn't there to fix, improper/random capitalization, and informal language. I sat down and explained the requirements to her (we reviewed the assignment description together, which her professor had never fully done), then wrote what I hoped was a thoughtful checklist of things to keep in mind (the structure of an essay, formatting, how to double-space, etc.). The next day, she called me panicking that she tried to submit her assignment online but that it had been deleted. She said it was nowhere on her computer because it didn't appear when she clicked the "Browse" button to select the file. On the phone, I asked her "Where did you save it? To your desktop, your documents, or to a specific folder in your documents? You have to navigate there first." She had no idea what I meant; she just said "I clicked ‘save’". I asked her if the file appeared in her "Recents" when she opened Word, as that would tell her it hadn't been deleted (and even if it had been deleted, it would be in her Mac's recycle bin), but - again - she didn't know what I was talking about. I'm almost 33 years old and she's more than a decade younger (having taken a few years off after high school before college). She's part of the generation that we all say "grew up" with technology, but it's not in the way we did. She only uses her phone; she sees her laptop as only for school. I learned on a computer and didn't get a smart phone until I was 24. This isn't better or worse, of course, but all of the things we take for granted (file folders, Word formatting, multiple tabs, optimized searches, avoiding plagiarism) are all things learned on computers. This isn't her fault. There are no longer required typing courses, Microsoft certification courses (which I took in high school), or even explanations given by professors when we ask students to submit assignments to certain specifications. We assume they know what citing sources means. What "Double-spaced, size 12, Times New Roman" means. Well, I don't, but that's because I've learned otherwise. The same problems plague my graduate students. I see some insane interpretations of APA citations, and blatant (but usually accidental) plagiarism all over the place. Along with some wonderful writing, of course, I'm not trying to be fatalistic, but that's beside the point. We can't assume knowledge based upon age. This is all true, yes, but it still worried me greatly in terms of the experience she was yet to have in college. It's going to be such an uphill battle, and that's entirely unfair to her. I don't understand what she did in high school if not write essays and learn how to use Word. So many things are just done on shared Docs now or accomplished via online quizzes/text boxes. I think we're losing a lot here without even realizing it. It's like being caught in the middle: colleagues my age are always trying to figure out how to best support our younger students as they struggle with technology, and we're also being called over to help tenured professors who've been teaching for decades figure out how to submit their grades, attach a file to an email, or use Cloud/Google Drive. I had a 20-minute conversation with a super-intelligent, highly-esteemed professor the other day about why her flash drive was obsolete and how I could make her life easier, but she simply didn't understand. Which is fine - she makes things work, and has learned how to do so. It's just... an odd feeling. And YES, there are exceptions. There are plenty of super tech-savvy GenZs and GenXers. Obviously. My neighbor is just one person, but I've taught dozens of students now as a professor (and hundreds beforehand in the decade I taught in a different capacity), and this is all based on what I've observed.

ALT

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[ID: A tweet by Popbase that reads, "Nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram as a search engine instead of Google, new data shows.". Below the tweet is a pic of a poorly drawn Goomba from Super Mario Bros with text below him that reads "are you out of your fucking mind".]