#and i usually just trash art once it's finished or sell it to someone for $20 if anyone wants it

[celestialhounds]

Some WIPs I came across while going through old pics

Feng-Wu and Luo-Lang the autumn before they get sent off to Japan

[phykios]

honesty and promise me, part 5 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

 Annabeth is making her periodic pilgrimage to the gynecologist when she gets Leo's call. It's very fitting--two uncomfortable and invasive things for the price of one. She answers her phone, ignoring the doctor's chastising frown. Surely she can place her new IUD while Annabeth deals with whatever Leo wants.

 "What are you doing on the 18th?" he asks, about the only type of hello she ever gets from Leo.

 The two of them never really grew out of pretending not to like each other, after they had gotten over their initial dislike. When he and Piper first got to Miss Minerva's, more or less straight out of juvie after Piper's dad made a lot of calls and called in a lot of favors, she and Leo had really hated each other. They used to fight over everything, from Piper's attention to the position of captain of the Mathletes team. And also, over Leo hating a rich white girl on principle, which, in retrospect, is totally fair. But then, by a weird twist of fate, they wound up in Boston together.

 If Annabeth had to choose between hanging out with her creepy, Norse mythology-obsessed uncle and hanging out with Leo, she'd pick Leo every time. They had gone through a lot together, things both big and small.

 "Of August?" she asks.

 "Please be still, Ms. Chase," says her doctor. Annabeth rolls her eyes.

 "Duh."

 Wracking her thoughts she can't think of any prior commitments she might have had. Maybe there's a concert that day, but if she can't remember, it probably wasn't that important anyway. "Not much."

 "Good, because we have plans."

 She frowns. "Piper didn't mention any--"

 "No, you and I have plans. I'll see you in Philly, yeah?"

 Philadelphia? Ew. "Why Philly?"

 "Our Smarter House thing won an award."

 "No shit?"

 "Eta Industries Award. The gala is on the 18th. You're my plus one."

 She sucks in air through her teeth, readjusting her hips as unobtrusively as possible. Eta Industries was… a very big deal. "Isn't that, like, an engineering specific award? Maybe you should accept it by yourself." She'd be better off staying out of the limelight for this one, she thinks, even as some part of her longs once again for recognition.

 Something electric whirs in the background, tinny and buzzing. "I'll see you on the 18th, then," says Leo, not having heard a word she said. "Also, you've been summoned to the castle."

 "Leo--" she jumps as the gyno touches something she really shouldn't have.

 "No arguments, she's expecting you today at two. Adios!" He clicks off.

 "Okay, Ms. Chase," says the doctor, a little too chipper for Annabeth's taste. "You should be all set."

 Annabeth leaves the doctor's office with her brand new IUD, a handful of medical literature which immediately gets tossed in the trash, and a sinking feeling in her gut as she gets on a train to Brooklyn, headed to Piper's place for another annoying and unnecessary fashion show. It's not that she doesn't enjoy being Piper's model--it's a position she's held since their time at Miss Minerva's, and it's never really a hardship to be told how gorgeous she is--but Piper has a way of just... getting information out of her that she doesn’t always want to share.

 Stopping off early, Annabeth gives herself a moment to walk down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, to settle her nerves and indulge herself a bit. That skyline gets her every time.

 Turning down Pierrepont Street, she is once again struck by just how quiet the city can be. Manhattan is loud, rude, in-your-face, almost an entirely different world from the stately, deafeningly silent Brooklyn. For Annabeth, who is incapable of falling asleep without city horns blaring, it wigs her out a little.

 She barely has time to ring the doorbell on Piper's dad's place before the girl herself wrenches it open, grabbing Annabeth's hand and yanking her inside. "You're late!" she trills, suffering what Annabeth can only assume is the onset of a caffeine overdose.

 "I thought I had until two."

 "That was before I had the best idea."

 The brownstone is a mess, as per usual, reams of fabric tossed over every available surface, enough dressforms strewn about to make it look like Piper is hosting a party exclusively populated by headless zombies, adorned with a warehouse's worth of half-finished dresses and jackets. Based on the loud fabrics and structured angles, it looks like Piper is in the middle of a Klimt-ian phase of inspiration. Annabeth eyes a bright gold gown with a huge, extended collar, embroidered with silver eyes, the raw edges trailing the floor. "Please tell me this isn't your idea."

 "First of all," Piper releases her arm as they enter her kitchen-turned-photo studio, gingerly stepping over a box of assorted beads, "even though it would look amazing on you, that dress is for an actual paying client. Second of all--" she snatches up a dressform from its position behind the camera, setting it down in front of her with a flourish. "This is my idea."

 Annabeth was right--Piper is definitely on a Klimt-ian kick.

 Pulled straight from her art history classes, the dress looks like a two dimensional painting come to life, a stunning skirt like a column of liquid silver descending onto the black mat, pleats like fluted columns precisely draped over the dressform's hips… and not much else. Annabeth points. “Is that it?”

 Piper makes a face. "I have a bodice, promise. Now go take that shit off."

 Annabeth looks down at her repurposed The Police shirt, fished out of a thrift store bin some months ago, shirt collar cut and sides resewn to bring the waistline in. "I like this shirt."

 "Oh, I like the shirt plenty," she agrees. "But you could stand to wear a nicer pair of jeans."

 She does have a point there--her jeans are clinging to life at this point, the knees and hems all but obliterated, strings of fabric valiantly attempting to hold their original shape. "Fine. Be right back."

 When she emerges from the bathroom a minute later in just her bra and panties, Piper has laid out another bolt of fabric in that same color, silver with a blue shift beneath the studio lights. Piper, bent over with a strip of measuring tape, looks up at her, then squints. "So who is he?"

 Annabeth starts. "Excuse me?"

 "The guy you've been seeing."

 How... the fuck does Piper always know these things? "I don't know what you're talking about."

 She flicks her eyes down to Annabeth's thigh, Annabeth following her gaze to the remnants of the bruise that Percy had left there with his mouth two days ago. Dammit.

 Piper tsks, a smile distorting the sound. "Naughty, naughty, Annabeth."

 "How do you know it wasn't from a girl?" she asks, petulant.

 "Because if it had been a girl, you wouldn't be nearly so defensive."

 Shit. "We've been friends way too long," Annabeth grumbles.

 "That we have," says Piper. "And out of respect for our friendship, I will refrain from grilling you about him until you are more comfortable sharing."

 "So, for a few hours?"

 She shrugs. "More or less."

 "I suppose you want me to thank you for holding back."

 "Don't thank me yet," she grins, wide and toothy. "I've been cooped up here working on my collection for three days, and I am dying to talk to someone."

 Annabeth sighs, but obediently raises her arms, making room as Piper crouches down to pin the skirt on her. "Okay, you got me. I'm seeing this guy."

 "Seeing or seeing-seeing?"

 "Just seeing," she clarifies. "It's pretty casual."

 "Can't be that casual if you're telling me about it," Piper points out.

 Fuck. This is why she never tells Piper about her hookups. "You're the one who asked."

 "Another business bro, I assume?"

 "He's--" Piper swats at her as she automatically sucks her stomach in, their long held code for "stay put." "He's a dancer."

 She hums, arranging pleats over Annabeth's knees. "Like on Broadway?"

 "Ballet."

 Piper glances up at her, eyes sparkling. “Un danseur! Ooh la la,” she trills. “What’s his name?”

 “I can just leave,” Annabeth says, distinctly not thinking about how Percy will occasionally slip into French whenever he stubs his toe.

 “Okay, okay, no more boy talk.” Piper moves in front of her, adjusting the fabric about her waist. “Tell me about the thing you just won with Leo.”

 “I had honestly forgotten about it,” she says, lying a little, pulling her arms forward. “You remember his master’s thesis?”

 “The shmart kishen thing, right?” Piper asks around the tape measure in her mouth.

 Leo, the prodigal boy that he is, had spent his last year of school dedicated to a singular problem faced by people around the world: the sudden, out of control kitchen fire. Using very complicated electronics and engineering that Annabeth does not understand, he devised a handful of mechanisms to sense, contain, and ultimately douse random fires as soon as they popped up. Annabeth came on as his design partner after he had graduated and had gotten some funding to conceptualize an entire safe house.

 “Well, it just won an Eta Industries award.”

 Her head snaps up, hands freezing in their tracks. “Holy shit.”

 “Yeah.”

 “Congrats.”

 “Thanks,” she shrugs as Piper gets up to grab some more fabric. “I mean, it was mostly Leo’s doing. I just made sure he didn’t leave any stray pipes around.”

 Holding out her arms again, Piper slides them through the sleeves of a heavy, corset-like piece, structured and straight and very forgiving on Annabeth’s lack of curves. “You shouldn’t sell yourself short,” she says. “I’m sure your skills as a guinea pig were very valuable.”

 “Are you ever going to let that go?” Annabeth asks, she who has literally burnt pasta while it was submerged in water.

 “You’re just lucky my dad was out of town that weekend. Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the awards ceremony?”

 She shoots her friend a strange look. “I thought I was wearing this?” she gestures to the unfinished silver gown currently making her feel like an absolute goddess.

 Piper makes a face. “What do I look like, the fucking Flash? This isn’t going to be ready for another thirty hours, at least. I’ve got decals to add, Swarovskis to bead, not to mention all the hand-stitching on the neckline because for whatever reason my machine has decided to hate me this week.”

 “Okay, well,” says Annabeth, appropriately cowed, “then I guess I’ll wear the black one you gave me.”

 “2019 fall/winter?”

 Annabeth nods.

 “Styling?”

 “Luke gave me this really nice scarf for my birthday.”

 Throwing her head back, she groans.

 “What? What’s wrong?”

 “You’re so boring,” she moans, pulling Annabeth’s hair out of the way. “Let me guess, you’re going to pair it with the black shrug and opaque nude tights.”

 “Well… yeah, I was.”

 “Exactly! Boring.” Coming back around, she pushes Annabeth lightly into the light, before taking her place behind the camera. “You could do so much with that dress and you choose to make it boring. Why not some fishnets? Or a big statement necklace?”

 Annabeth waits after a few shutter clicks to answer. “Because I doubt that the people at Eta Industries are going to be big fans of my tattoos.”

 “That is a bald-faced lie and you know it,” Piper says. “Your tattoos and piercings are gorgeous and you would look absolutely rocking with them. Knock all the old farts right off their feet. Turn.”

 Obediently, Annabeth rotates, letting Piper snap off as many pictures as she likes. “This isn’t a Vogue event, Pipes,” she says, rolling her eyes where her friend can’t see them. “Punk isn’t exactly accepted practice yet.”

 “Punk was the Met Gala theme almost a decade ago, babe. It has filtered down from Vogue. It's practically cerulean now. Side.”

 Annabeth turns again, keeping her eyes straight. Side-eye would ruin the shot, no matter how much she wants to give it.

 “I will never understand why you both refuse to wear halfway decent jeans and then refuse to go guns out in my dresses that demand it. I can almost guarantee you that Leo will show up in those stupid suspenders with grease on his face. And you’ll have to get him to leave his tool belt in the car.”

 “Then it’s probably for the best that I have a modicum of professionalism, huh?”

 Piper leans out from behind the camera, glaring. “At the very least,” she hedges, “will you let me set you up with some shoes?”

 “I don’t know…”

 “You are not allowed to wear those horrid Manolo pumps you wear everywhere. And your nude Louboutins won’t look right with the black.”

 “What did you have in mind?”

 Piper’s grin is evil, and the way she scampers out of the room means she’s got something she’d been trying to force on Annabeth for a long time.

 Five minutes later, Annabeth is presented with a set of black strappy sandals, its edges detailed in a gold zipper, with safety pin pull to match. She frowns. “Are you sure? They look kind of… hardcore for something like this.”

 “They’re Versace,” Piper says. “I was not lying about punk’s democratization.”

 Well. They are pretty cool.

 “It’s either this or the McQueen boots. They have studs.”

 Annabeth sighs, holding out her hand. Piper squeals, bouncing a little, wrapping her in a brief, but exuberant hug, kissing her cheek with a loud, wet, smack. “You’re the best!”

 “I haven’t even done anything.”

 “I am saving up favors to cash in. Now,” she releases Annabeth, retreating behind the camera. “If you’ve got some time, can I borrow your head? I’m working on a helmet and all my mannequins are busy.”

 ***

 “Hey,” Percy begins. It is so late at night, the dawn is on the edge of breaking, and they are both exhausted from some particularly good sex. Which is saying something, because all their sex is particularly good. “You doing anything on the 18th?”

 “Yeah,” She says, distractedly, snuggling down into his bed. The fact that she’s also snuggling into him is just a coincidence.

 “Oh.”

 “Why?”

 “Nothing. Was going to invite you to a thing if you weren’t.” She nods her head against his shoulder and falls asleep in his arms, thinking absolutely nothing about it.

 She continues to think nothing of it on the train to Philadelphia on the 18th, half-asleep and listening to Paramore to pass the time, blasting Misery Business on repeat as she changes in her hotel room.

 The Eta Industries event is pretty much exactly what she expected: a lot of old rich white people milling about, sipping champagne and verbally circle jerking each other, the insipid strains of classical music spilling out of the ballroom as Annabeth steps up to claim her name tag. “Name?” asks the young, college-aged girl, skimming her printed guest list over the rim of her glasses.

 “Annabeth Chase.”

 She runs a long fingernail over the assorted collection of name tags, before settling on the correct one, handing it to Annabeth, her star tattoo on the inside of her wrist free and open to anyone who would care to look. “Here you are, Ms. Chase,” she says, smiling. “Have a wonderful night!”

 Automatically, Annabeth goes to pin it on Luke’s scarf, before she remembers that something is already occupying that place--Percy’s Acropolis pin. She had taken to keeping it in her pocket these days, something of a good luck charm, and thought that it might… she doesn’t know, maybe send a subconscious signal to Percy that she’s thinking of him. Even though there is, quite literally, no way he could know, she hopes that maybe he can sense it, and that maybe he’s thinking about her, too.

 Ugh. She snatches up a flute of champagne from a wandering waiter, eager to get that thought out of her head, making a beeline straight for the refreshments table. It’s there that Leo finds her, not five minutes later, munching on some chocolate covered strawberries.

 “And here I thought you might ditch me entirely,” he says, even as he bumps her shoulder. True to form, he is absolutely, 100% dressed in those stupid suspenders, a smudge of grease behind his ear.

 “You’ve got a…” Annabeth trails off, motioning behind her own ear.

 “Huh? Oh!” He snatches up a napkin, rubbing discreetly. “Thanks.”

 She squints. Something about him is distinctly different. “Are you taller?”

 Kicking out a foot, he wiggles it, triumphant. “Platform shoes.”

 “Seriously?”

 “Hey, if they're good enough for Robert Downey Jr., then they’re good enough for me. After all, I am Ir--”

 She groans, good-natured, taking another gulp of champagne. “If you quote Marvel in your speech, I’m leaving.”

 “Fine by me, Your Highness, they’ll give me the award either way.”

 “Excuse me, Mr. Valdez?” The same college girl from before sidles up to them, clipboard clutched in her hand. “They’re about to start.”

 He claps his hands, rubbing them together. “Excellent. You coming?”

 “I…” She casts her gaze to the makeshift stage they’ve constructed, eyeing the bright “Eta Industries” placard, the sharp angles shiny and alluring, the siren-song of recognition.

 This is a big deal. There are photographers in the audience. In the write-ups and reviews, she would be listed as a co-winner of the award, a co-designer of the world’s safest house, a thought so happy she practically starts flying.

 “I think I should stay out of the limelight for this one, Leo,” she says, politely. “This is your moment. I don’t want to ruin it.”

 He frowns. “You sure?”

 Were it not for the fact that people were watching, Annabeth would have leapt up onto that stage without a second thought, snatching up the trophy like she had just won the Oscar, holding it up like the goddamn Olympic torch. “What, you want a white woman stealing your glory?” she says instead, arching a brow.

 “You get a pass this one time,” he quips, holding out his hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”

 Whatever social grace she has left crumbles. She’s denied it enough--she wants to be up there. “Oh, fine. Since you insist,” she says, following clipboard-girl to the stage.

 There’s a quick burst of feedback, then an elderly gentleman at the podium begins speaking into the mic. “Excuse me--sorry about that. Yes, yes, thank you all for coming tonight to the annual Eta Industries awards presentation ceremony. It is always such a pleasure to come together with our hard-working and generous board members and shareholders to honor the best and brightest upcoming talent in engineering.”

 Internally, she rolls her eyes. Rich people.

 “It is my pleasure, however, to introduce the young man who is the recipient of this year’s Millennium Prize for innovation and safety. One of MIT’s youngest and most decorated graduates, he was a recipient of the Mead Prize for Students, the Friedman Young Engineer Award, and the Collingwood Prize, among several others. His master’s thesis, ‘Towards the Design and Implementation of Autonomous Safety Measures in Commercial Kitchens,’ formed the basis of the project which we recognize tonight, the so-called ‘SmartSafe House,’ reflects the pioneering spirit and outstanding creative vision of not only Eta Industries, but also the field of engineering as a whole. Please join me in congratulating this year’s Millennium Prize recipient, Leo Valdez.”

 From the sidelines, she claps enthusiastically with the rest of the crowd as her friend takes the stage, shakes hands with the Vice President of Eta Industries, and accepts the award, a blue, blocky triangle which almost seems to glow in the light of the ballroom. “Thank you, Mr. Helms. This is--this is a really big honor.”

 She can see him shaking a bit, taking a quick drink from his water glass. Public speaking was never really his strong suit.

 “As--as a lot of you probably know, this project is very near and dear to my heart. Growing up in Houston with my mother, a car mechanic, I was eight years old when her beloved shop went up in flames, like that.” He snaps his fingers, his other hand pressed to the podium where no one can see, joints white with pressure. Annabeth is proud of him--he hasn’t been able to speak this candidly about it in years. She knows firsthand how much his mother’s near-death haunts him still. “Thankfully, we were able to rebuild, and my mother went on to bigger and better things--including a shop with cleaner vents. But I can definitely pinpoint that moment as the day I knew I wanted to make the world a safer place, for my mom, if not for everyone else.”

 She remembers, so clearly, that snowy night in the dorms at Miss Minerva’s. The power had gone out, and Leo had made them an illicit campfire out of their trash bin and Annabeth’s failed English exam. Cold and miserable and with dying phones, they passed the time instead telling scary stories and funny memories, until the conversation had gotten suddenly, intensely real.

 “But I would be remiss,” he goes on, cheerful, “if I didn’t acknowledge my friend and collaborator, without whose work I wouldn’t be here today: Annabeth Chase,” he waves to his side, indicating her. The whole crowd, as one, turns their gazes on her. She straightens up, imperceptibly, hoping she doesn’t look too haughty or anything. “I’ve never been very good with people. My mama says I’m just like my dad that way. Give me a car, or a computer, or pages of multiplication tables, and I’m golden. But people?” He blows out a breath, and the crowd chuckles, naturally. “Now, if it had been left up to me, the SmartSafe House would have been a top of the line, cutting-edge metal box, efficient to a fault, but completely unlivable. Thank God I had Annabeth on my team to remind me what the project was really about: a home that families could feel safe in, so that what happened to me and my mom might never happen to anyone else.” He hoists his award above his head, leaning into the mic. “Ma, este es para ti. Thank you all.”

 Stepping down from the stage, they reenter the crowd, ready to receive adoration. In another life, she might have been embarrassed by such praise. Here and now, however, she takes each handshake and word of congratulations like a starving man in a desert who just came across an oasis, hungry and greedy.

 Hey, it’s her night, too.

 After what feels like a whole-ass sixty minutes of shaking old people's hands and polite nodding, though, she is in desperate need of a break. Escaping the throng of mingling bodies, she darts into a dark corner of the ballroom, leaning against the back of a rounded stone column, just barely out of sight of the party.

 Rubbing her hands over her face, she sighs, just short of a scream. Blowing out all her air, she lets the faint music and fake laughs melt into each other, becoming white noise, a blank canvas, empty of concrete thoughts and feelings.

 Then, her ear picks up a strand of conversation.

 “...announcing tomorrow that the CEO of Pallas Inc. is choosing a successor,” a woman says, the sneer in her voice almost visible. “About time.”

 “I thought she already picked a successor,” says the woman’s conversation partner, a man with the kind of cookie-cutter cadence that she heard every time she took a business major to bed. “Pallas is a family business, isn’t it?”

 “You haven’t heard?” Annabeth can almost picture it, the furtive glance around the room, the woman placing her hand on her partner’s arm, leaning in to share a juicy secret. “Supposedly she was grooming her daughter for the role, before she went in for rehab.”

 “Rehab? Really?”

 “What else could it be?” says the woman. “She’s disappeared off the face of the earth, and her mother refuses to talk about her. Let’s be honest, if she were dead, she would have raised a bigger stink about it.”

 Annabeth closes her eyes, sucking air in through her teeth. That… wasn’t totally untrue.

 But the woman doesn’t stop. “It’s always the same story,” she scoffs. “You throw countless hours of schooling and millions of dollars into girls like her, and what do they do? Turn around and blow it all on drugs and partying. Honestly, she should be grateful her mother is even bothering with her rehab at all. Hasn’t she wasted enough of the family’s money already?”

 Blood roars in her ears, drowning out the fancy party. Sharp points dig into her palm, pinpricks of pain, before she realizes that they’re her own fingernails.

 The lady has got it all wrong. Her mom couldn’t even be bothered with that.

 Luke’s scarf, the shrug, it’s choking her, suffocating and constricting. Percy’s pin feels heavy on her chest.

 Blinders on, she would have sprinted for the exit were it not for the Piper’s stupid Versace heels, reduced instead to a teetering, tottering wreck, like a baby colt running from a predator. The night is hot and humid, heavy with the threat of rain, and Annabeth can barely breathe, dark spots in her eyes, until she ducks into a nearby Target, the frigid blast of air a welcome distraction.

 Almost in a daze, she watches herself pick up a few things--clippers, an electric razor, beef jerky, a blue Gatorade she considers for a moment before putting it back, choosing a lemonade instead--practically throwing them at the poor cashier who begins checking her out, mechanically. He doesn’t spare her a single glance for her odd assortment of items. He doesn’t even look at her at all.

 The walk to her hotel room disappears in the blink of an eye. Blink--she breezes past the check-in counter, slipping into the empty elevator. Blink--she kicks off her heels in her room, nearly hitting the wall mirror, leaving a scuff mark on the white plaster. Blink--she’s down to her underwear and tights in the bathroom, shaving the right side of her curls clean off. She’d gotten them professionally done for the night, perfect spirals held together by expensive products. And now she wants them gone.

 She pauses and breathes too hard, looking at herself in the mirror. Her mother didn’t like that she was blonde. Maybe because of dumb blonde stereotypes, maybe just because it reminded Athena too much of her failed romance with Annabeth’s dad. And that thought stays her hand from getting rid of the rest of them.

 That, and maybe the idea of Percy, of some broke dancer, tangling his fingers in it as they lie together.

 Fuck her mother, and the fucking stories she tells.

 She likes it. She likes her blonde hair and her fresh undercut.

 She can get Thalia to touch this up later, maybe. Now, though, she needs this.

 It doesn’t look perfect. The left side of hair is too long, her gold laurel earrings too fancy for a homegrown haircut like this, her makeup too pristine. Shoving her hand under the running water, she rubs at her eyes, mascara and eyeliner smearing until they’ve reached something much more respectable for the failure that she really is.

 She misses her industrial. And her eyebrow rings. And the tongue piercing. But this will have to do for now.

 Breathing heavily, eyes hot, she doesn’t register her phone blinking, signaling an unread text message.

 It’s from Thalia. surprised you weren’t at kelp heads bday party, it reads. was pretty boring. Kno he missed you  

[taliaquinn]

Why Me!? Chapter 12

Mass Panic immediately ensued following the texts.

Rose couldn’t help but tear up at the thought that she won't be wearing the beautiful new dress she designed with Marinette. Alya was panicking because she knew how much Marinette's MDC dresses cost. Yes, she stalked her website, but only to trash talk it with Lila, Lila even told her how some of those designs were her idea and Marinette stole them.  

Adrien decided to try and call his ex-classmates but was shocked to find that he was blocked . He decided to try calling Marinette but was even more shocked to find that the line was disconnected.

Alya finally had enough of the chaos and decided to try and get control of the room again. She blew a shrill whistle “EVERYONE QUIET, Look we lost only a few people, most of them bullies, we don't  need them together we can handle this”

No one would admit the queasy feeling they got at the pit of there stomachs. They knew Marinette might've been a bully but she was an excellent president.

Gotham Airfield                                                                                          Gotham City, U.S.A                                                                                            7 a.m

Marinette stirred and was shocked to find that her parents were up and getting there carry on luggage. Quickly glancing out her window she was shocked to find that they  Landed in Gotham. Eep. Quickly gathering her art supplies she followed her parents down the steps.

Suddenly she heard a squeal “Oh my gosh she’s so adorablleeeee,  Bruce are you sure this is your kid?”, she looked up to see a blonde girl jumping up and down while clinging to another boys arm.

Mr.Wayne seemed to have a look of eternal suffering etched on his face. “Yes Stephanie I'm sure, How’d you even know we were going to be here ?”

“Tim told me” The guy she was clinging to slightly grimaced while side-eyeing Mr.Wayne who was giving him a glare.

“Of course”

‘MARIBUGGGG” Dick quickly ran towards the steps and scooped her up and twirled Marinette around. Marinette couldn’t help but clutch to her supplies for fear of dropping them while giggling.

“Hi Dick,really happy to finally be here” She hugged him back, while he put her back down. Suddenly Dick was abruptly shoved away

“My Turn” Suddenly Marinette was engulfed in by a blonde tornado.

“Steph you’re suffocating her let her goooo”  The guy Tim said as he was approaching them.

“But shes to adoranble~” the blonde said, still holding Marinette captive. Why was it always the Blondes who tried to kill her?

Oblivious to her plight her parents went on ahead and greeted Bruce and Dick who had to stumble back to Bruce's side after being viciously shoved.

“Bruce I want to say a huge thank you, We can’t wait to get Marinette situated and head back to Paris,” Sabine said making sure to quickly shake his hand and giving Dick a quick hug.

“Ha, I swear all three of us eventually dozed off on the flight,” Tom said while moving to do the same.

After a few more seconds Stephanie finally released Marinette.  

“Oh gosh, you’re too adorable for words~ My name is Steph” Wait did Bruce have a second daughter? Marinette thought he only had one other daughter, Cassandra?

“Are you another one of Bruce's kids?”

“What!? Oh gosh,you’ve only been here for a few minutes and you already recognize that Bruce has an adopting problem, pfft luckily I am not one of those poor suckers. I am just here to eternally annoy them plus I’m besties with Cass, Bruce’s other daughter” Stephanie explained.

She quickly pulled Tim towards them. “This is one of those poor suckers, Marinette this is Tim Drake, He’s constantly sleep-deprived and suffers from severe caffeine addiction”

“It's not severe”

“Yet”

Marinette couldn’t help but snort. Being a Fashion designer/superhero/ highschooler, Marinette has learned how to make a dang good pot of coffee. Also how to tell if she’s hallucinating or not from lack of sleep. Seriously there was this one incident where she was seeing hamsters take over the school's library, there was also that one time where she saw a mob of pigeons chase a man, but that turned out to be pigeon man who got akumatized again.

“A fellow addict, nice to meet you,” Marinette said.

Stephanie suddenly started looking at two before seemingly coming to a startling revelation

“ OH GOD, THERE'S TWO COFFEE ADDICTS NOW!!!” She yelped. She suddenly scurried away in a desperate attempt to call Alfred and warn him about the new incoming addict.

Dick glanced down and noticed that Marinette dropped a few of her pens and markers. He knelt to pick them up quickly he handed them to Marinette.

“You like to draw?” He asked giving her another quick hug

“Yeppers I mainly focus on designing outfits and  making  them as well, where’d you think your jackets came from?”

“ No way, I thought you bought them!!! I love mines and I know for a fact Bruce loves his.”

“Well yeah I make a lot of my clothes, I have a website where I sell some of the clothing, I also do commissions” suddenly Dick was once again shoved away.

“MDC!!” Tim exclaimed

Marinette jumped back a few steps before suddenly realizing that he was a fan.  

“M.D.C are your initials, I knew I recognized the Jacket from somewhere”

“Yep based off another Jacket I sold on My website, except some of the detailing is different”

“You’ve gotten recognition from Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste,” Tim gawked. Dick was busy grumbling complaints “What is it with you two and shoving me”.

Marinette quickly went over to help him up. She quickly got one of her suitcases and opened it up pulling out a few articles of clothing. Quickly she handed Tim his jacket, and since she wasn't aware of Stephanie's existence she settled with Handing her a Trench Coat since it was cold.

Stephanie immediately shed her current coat and shoved it at Tim to hold. She put on the trenchcoat and admired the embroidered birds around the sleeves.

“Oh my gosh, you have such a good eye”

Stephanie immediately shed her current coat and shoved it at Tim to hold. She put on the trenchcoat and admired the embroidered birds around the sleeves.

“Well duh kinda necessary” Marinette teased

“Wait you didn’t bring any of your supplies?” Dick responded, noticing that Marinette didn’t bring Big enough suitcases to carry some of the bigger sewings and designing supplies.

“Well, we had to kinda leave in a rush so…. I didn't have enough time to pack some of the bigger supplies”

“I have an idea! We can go around Gotham and buy some of the supplies!” Dick suggested.

“Maybe on the weekend Dick, We gotta take her to the manor and let her and the Dupain-Chengs meet the rest of the family,” Bruce noted joining them. Honestly, though Bruce was more worried about a certain butler ripping him a new one for taking so long to introduce him to his newest granddaughter.

College Francis Dupont                                                                            Paris, France                                                                                                  8:30 a.m

People walking into Bustiers Class couldn’t help but be disconcerted at all the empty seats the next day. They all decided to sit on the right, some glancing at the empty seats on the left.

Lila finally walked in and with the flip of her hair, she strolled straight and made sure to take a seat next to Alya. Right in Marinette's old seat. It was odd seeing someone else sit there. Eventually Madame Bustier walked in and only took a momentary pause upon seeing the small class size.

Adrien slowly walked in and lightly jumped at the new class size. He took his usual seat next to Nino. However, it wasn’t too long before he felt a tap on his shoulder. Both he and Nino turned to face Alya and Lila.

“Hey, Adrien you mind switching seats with me? I wanna sit to Nino” Alya announced. Adrien, however, didn't miss Nino’s slight grimace. However, Lilas's look of pure hopefulness was the thing that made Adrien slightly grimace as well.

Regardless of how Adrien felt he knew he had to say yes.

“Sure”

Meanwhile in Mendelievs….

“I call dibs on sitting next to Kagami!!!” Chloe loudly exclaimed and made a mad dash towards the empty seat next to Kagami.

Nathaniel immediately moved to sit next to Marc. Sabrina sat next to Juleka. Ivan decided to sit next to Max. At first, it was a slight adjustment getting used to Mendelievs class, she taught and had control over her class. No way was she going to permit and outburst or arguments when she taught. However, she did permit them to talk whenever she was done teaching.

“Marinette just quit ?” Probed Aurore. She was furious at the fact that Marinette was essentially driven to quitting.

“Yup” Chloe responded popping the p, “But now she’s staying with Family in Gotham for a bit, she even texted to mention how she might transfer schools and stay in the states”

“B-but sweet Marinette in Gotham, don’t they have like a gajillion crazy villains? At least the Akumas’ damage in Paris can be reversed and they're only temporary” Aurore mentioned

“Marinette is tough, plus she’ll be away from this crazy school” Nathaniel offered while finishing up a sketch for his and Marcs’ comic

“Plus Marinette said she’ll call us once she’s comfy and everything” Chloe finished.

“Poor Marinette”

Wayne Manor                                                                                                Gotham City, USA                                                                                          9:00 a.m

Marinette knew Mr.Wayne was rich but holy cow, he makes both the Agreste and Bourgeious fortune look like pennies. She never understood how rich he was.Seriously he has a fleet of luxury vehicles in his garage. The inside of the manor looks photo-ready, AND all of his kids have gone to a 30k a year school. Thank God she was going to a Normal School.

Mr.Wayne made sure to take Maman and Papa to a luxury hotel suite to get them settled before bringing them back to the Manor. She quickly said goodbye and gave them big kisses on their cheeks.

Marinette was occupied still gaping at the giant Chandelier when suddenly she was face-to-face with two teenagers.

Dick immediately noticed that there was an awkward staring contest going on and moved in to ease the awkwardness.

“Marinette this is Cassandra shes the fourth oldest,” Dick said while introducing the two. Marinette was occupied gaping at Cassandra. She was so pretty. Cassandra took a quick step forward before quickly putting her hand on Marinette's shoulder.

“Cass” She gently chided.

Marinette only slightly stumbled before yanking out a sweater from her duffle bag and practically shoving it at her. Sue her she was intimidated and impressed.

“Me?” Cass was surprised. She took the sweater but couldn’t help but hold it close to her. It was so soft. Marinette made it for her, and she didn’t know her!!! Cass couldn’t help the grin that was overtaking her face. She made sure to get closer to take a long glance at Marinette who was giving a cynical Jason his own sweater, along with gloves.  Nervous. jittery. uncomfortable.  

“Huh, you are most definitely too sweet for this family" Jason couldn't help but coo at the sight of the petite blue-eyed girl.

"I'm Jason Todd,  technically dead and black sheep of the family. Whenever you get tired or pissed at Bruce, trust me that is a guarantee, feel free to crash at my place.” He piped. While shrugging off his leather jacket and putting on his new turtleneck sweater. Holy crap was it soft.

Technically Dead? What in the world!? Are they choosing to ignore that!?  Marinette was so confused. Seriously first off Cass has the biggest grin on her face and seems to be studying Marinette, Jason Todd just admitted he’s still technically dead!? Are all siblings this confusing? She’ll have to ask Luka. Seeing as he seems to be the only one in their friend group who has a sibling.

Taking a glance around the entrance. Marinette noticed that she suddenly had older siblings and even a  younger one. One week was all it took. Marinette took a glance at Cass she mirrored her grin. She realized one thing.

THIS FAMILY IS INSANE!!!

And now she's a part of them. Crap.

Tag list:

@another-fan-of-anotherplan @damianette-is-life @amayakans @parallelparabox @miukiiu @valeks-princess @toodaloo-kangaroo @vixen-uchiha @thezestywalru @dreamykitty25 @souleateralicestein @thestressmademedoit

A/N:

I hope that all of you lovely peeps are staying healthy and safe. Please enjoy todays chapter. Feel free to reblog and leave a note <3.

[love101imagines]

Crush culture

(osman | imagine)

Requests: Hey!I have one request for Osman and the artistic S/O! How about Osman actually posing for the S/O? He can buy him/her some paints because someone requested a portrait but he/she is rather used to painting only landscapes so he/she tells Osman they can’t do it? When he says he/she has to he/she suggest that he has to be the model and he doesn’t want to but does it anyway for them? So this is basically an idea about Osman having to pose and the S/O falling for him

Heeyyy, you can write a picture with Osman, where he gets jealous of the reader for spending a lot of time with Sinan, so they argue and Osman finally admits that he likes the reader and it's all very cute.

Hi, about Osman, maybe the second prompt. I love read about him.

Prompt used: 2. I don’t have any money.

Tags: @girl-looking-out-window @trashofsth55 @carollllstarkk

It had all spiraled down when the two of you mixed things. For you, it had been when you were asked to do a certain portrait, and for him it was when he let you tag along with him to Sinan’s house.

He didn’t think much about it until you looked around Sinan’s living room and noticed the paintings.

“They’re so pretty. I’ve never seen a copy of anything from İbrahim Çallı in person.”

Osman expected Sinan to shrug and act uninterested. Instead, he got up from his spot on the couch and made his way to where you were standing in front of two paintings in the wall.

“You recognize the painter just by looking at it?” He asked.

You nodded absentmindedly. “I like to draw.”

And that’s how you ended up talking with Sinan for the whole afternoon as he showed you the other paintings which had belonged to his mother. He told you they belonged to their mother, so you assumed it was nice for him to talk about it with someone else. Osman thought the opposite.

As Kerem and Eda argued about something, Osman kept glancing at the two of you as you showed Sinan your notebook with your drawings. Işik noticed and raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Why do you keep staring at them?” She asked him and he quickly hushed her.

“I’m not staring. We should figure out what we should do about Burcu and Kemal.” Osman replied getting up from where he was sitting taking the papers left in the floor from the lunch you had just had.

You noticed and started helping him. Once you gathered a few papers, you made your way to the kitchen to throw them on the trash while he heard your voice.

“You also have a china set?”

Osman saw Sinan following you into the kitchen with a small smile, his shoulders not as crouched as before.

“At least he seems happy.” Işik mumbled.

He hadn’t planned this. He had a plan for everything, but he had assumed that you would end up talking with Eda or end up bored and leave to your house. He hadn’t thought about the possibility of you becoming friends with anyone. He knew that you were very sociable, but he didn’t expect you to make Sinan smile.

After a while they got up ready to leave since it was getting dark outside. However, not everybody was leaving yet.

“They are drinking tea and still talking.” Işik said once she returned from the kitchen but she seemed to be saying that directly to Osman who only ate a hazelnut.

Eda chuckled grabbing her bag. “Seems like Burcu and Kemal won’t be the only couple we helped.”

“Nice work setting them up Osman.” Kerem said as he did his best not to roll his eyes.

That’s when you appeared in the room as Eda and Kerem went outside and Işik stayed close to hear in the doorway. You grabbed your bag which made Osman relax a bit.

“You want me to walk you home?” He asked you even though he already knew the answer since he always did.

This time the answer was different.

“It’s fine. You can already go, you don’t need to. I’m staying a bit here.” You spoke with a warm smile and a small blush on your cheeks which he noticed.

“Do you want them or not?” Sinan’s voice came from the kitchen which made you smile more.

“Can you believe he wants to throw into the water a perfect set of chinaware?” You said amazed going to the kitchen. Before you did, you turned to Osman. “Thanks for inviting me.”

He regretted doing that but still couldn’t be sure why. “You wouldn’t stop bothering me.” He said without looking at you as he left closing the door before Işik.

The next day, when you usually waited for Osman at the school’s gate, you were waiting for him talking to Sinan. When he showed up, you were ready for him to greet you and then walk with you to your classroom. However, he just walked past both of you to talk to his groups of nerds. You furrowed your brows but continued talking to Sinan until Işik joined the two of you and you noticed how Sinan looked at her.

“I have English now and I have to go early to ask Osman for the homework. I’ll see you later.” You said before leaving.

Işik turned to Sinan with a smile. “Osman likes (Y/N), I’m sure of it.”

The boy only raised his brows. “He didn’t even greet her when he arrived.”

“That’s because he’s jealous, don’t you get it?”

You walked into you class and went straight to your desk where Osman was counting money and you weren’t surprised.

“I finished the portrait.” You said once you sat down. You expected him to congratule you or something, but you didn’t expect him to only nod still counting.

“Here’s your share and the homework.” He said leaving it on your desk without sparing you a glance.

You were startled by his attitude and were ready to snap at him when you closed your mouth. You started copying down the answers in complete silence as Osman kept thinking about if he was jealous about you being friends with Sinan, or if he was only jealous of you being with someone else. You, on the other hand, keep thinking about how you had fucked things up the day before, when he approached you with a request.

“I have a new job for you.”

You left your bag on the floor as you sat down next to him on your Music class and stared at him with a raised brow.

“What do you need?” You asked leaning back against your chair.

He took out a piece of paper where he wrote down the paintings you had to do and read out loud as a few students sat down and took out their flutes. “A portrait for a birthday gift similar to the painting of Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.”

You gasped. “That one is beautiful. My house is full of Friedrich’s works.”

“Originals?” He asked and you rolled your eyes.

“Of course not, but they are from my grandpa. But sorry, I can’t do it.”

Osman almost dropped his bag before you caught it in time. “You almost dropped it on my foot idiot.” You said kicking him.

“You have to do it.”

“I can’t. I only do landscapes, portraits are different. I’ve never done one with a full body before.” You huffed.

He didn’t quit and continued. “But I need you to. Necdet is onto us and I can’t keep selling homeworks.”

You only sighed already knowing his response to your request. “You’ll have to pose then.”

“Absolutely not.”

You rolled your eyes irritated even though a smirk gave you away. “You only have to stand in front of a window for at least ten minutes while I sketch and you’ll have the painting tomorrow.”

You were sure he was going to turn you down again so you hanged your head over the back of your chair. Once class started, Osman started goofing around with one part of his flute had had separated as you twirled around yours which was completely painted in different patterns. You didn’t expect him to sigh and look over to you.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

You grinned already thinking about the drawing you would make. “It’s going to be great, I have already practiced doing cliffs with chalk and I’ll do it at night so the landscape looks better. That’s why you should let me sleep now.” You ranted after leaning your head on his shoulder.

He felt his heart speed up as you closed your eyes but he tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore it.

“And to stop you from enjoying this music?”

You bit down your lip to hold back laughter as your classmates played a song with their flutes off-key and Osman glanced at you as you dozed off on his shoulder and he held you so you wouldn’t fall.

When the bell rang, you rubbed your eyes and got out your notebook and chuckled once you noticed him standing next to you not knowing what to do.

“Stand here just like...this. A bit to the left, not yours, my left. Just like that, perfect.”

You sat down on one of the desks with your feet on a chair in front of you as you started to sketch Osman. He stood facing the window and you did your best to draw.

“Why do you sell them?” He asked out of a sudden.

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see you. “I want the money and get it on my own. That way I can buy more art supplies.”

“But you could ask your parents. It’s not like they don’t support you, you told me your grandma was a painter too and your dad paints in his free time. It basically runs in your family.”

You chuckled as you moved on to the shadows. “But I want to do it myself. If we success with this that means that I’m good and could live of this. I can’t imagine doing something else.”

You were sure he was smirking as he ate a hazelnut. “I can’t imagine it either.”

You smiled at yourself feeling weird. You had been spending so much time with Osman the last few months you couldn’t remember what you used to do at class without seating next to him. Before him, you only drew small things during class or slept so you could practice at home, but now you knew you were actually good. Thanks to him.

“Are you finished?” He asked snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Yes, it’s done. I’ll paint it later.” You said getting off the desk where you were sitting. You handed him his jacket and loosened your tie.

“I have to go now, we’re going to talk with the others about what to do to avoid being expelled.”

“Can I come?”

You were sure he had noticed you had a crush on him now. Or at least someone had told him. That had to be the reason he hadn’t talked to you over the week. You acted indifferent and started hanging out with Işik and Sinan, the girl urging you to talk to Osman and the boy agreeing with her less enthusiastically. You tried not to think much about it and now here you were dragged into their plans in Eda’s room waiting for Burcu and Kemal to arrive at her house. You hugged yourself as you sat on a chair in front of her desk and started looking at her books to do something. You wanted to talk to Osman but did your best to ignore him, just like he had all week.

You rubbed your eyes feeling a bit intoxicated since you had downed at least two beers in the concert with Eda and yawned. Getting drunk made you dumber than usual and sleepy.

Işik spoke up. “It’s getting late, you guys. I should go home.” She said standing.

You got up and grabbed your jacket to cover yourself. You were only wearing some ripped mom jeans and a white strapless top similar to Eda’s red one. “I should too, I’m going to fall asleep in any minute.”

“Yeah, this is exciting, but you can tell us what happens tomorrow. I’m out.” Sinan said.

“I’ll take it and give it to her tomorrow.” You said as Işik handed you Burcu’s bag.

“See ya.”

“Bye.” You said rubbing your eyes.

“I’ll head out, too. See you later.” Osman said as you walked outside with Işik and Sinan. He kept talking with Kerem to see if he was going too and you checked to see if you had your keys and money.

“I’m starving. I need something to reduce the alcohol.” You said next to Işik as the four of you started walking down the street.

“You didn’t eat anything?” She asked you as you shocked your head. You shared a look with Sinan, as you had arrived at his house before going to the concert and witnessed something you wished you hadn’t.

“I had a big breakfast and forgot.” You mumbled.

“I don’t know how you are still walking. You drank more than me and are like 5’ 1” feet tall.” Sinan said as you wrapped your jacket around you.

“I’m not thinking about how angry my parents are going to be at me, I’m only thinking about eating baklava or anything.”

“How about işkembe?” Osman said to you for the first time of the week.

“That’s disgusting.” You said grimacing with disgust.

“Dude, you have the worst taste.” Sinan replied making you laugh.

“What? I’m hungry too. Let’s eat.”

“Yes, I’ll pay. My parents already gave me my allowance.” You could see Sinan smirk lightly next to Işik.

“I can’t believe you have an allowance. What are you, 5?” He said to you.

“What are you, poor?” You shot back not noticing how Osman tensed up immediately.

“I can’t eat. It’s already late. My mum will get angry.” Işik pointed out.

“I’ll walk Işik home. You two enjoy your meal.” Sinan said.

“We’ll grab some. See you.” You said and once they started going away, you turned to Osman who was already walking away. He made his way to the other side of the street but you were quick to follow him.

“Are you mad at me?” You said to him before going inside the small food establishment.

He turned around confused but you only stood there with a serious look on your face. As people gathered to enter, he grabbed your hand and pulled you into a nearby alleyway to talk.

“I’m not angry.” He said leaning against the wall behind him.

You scoffed. “You’ve been ignoring me all the past week and I don’t know why.”

He didn’t look at you and you became impatient. “You know what? Let’s just go and eat. I’m tired and just want to sleep.” You said checking your pockets for your money.

“I don’t have any money.��

You didn’t think much of it and started counting how much you had. “It’s fine Osman, I’ll pay for your food.”

“I’m not talking about that.” You gave him a look saying you didn’t understand and he looked at you. “I can pay my food thanks to my work, but I don’t have a family as wealthy as yours, or Kerem’s or Işik’s.”

You stood there surprised but knew that you had to say something. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

He chuckled dryly and looked down at the floor. “You think I should have said that my dad drives people around and my mom cleans houses?”

You felt everything moving slower than usual, like it was just Osman and you in that dark alley. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of...” You started but he quickly interrupted.

“Of course, like you just didn’t joke that if you didn’t have an allowance you were poor.” He snapped and you felt like someone had thrown cold water to you.

“Osman, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” You apologized.

He sighed and looked away. You rubbed your eyes and sighed. “It’s that why you haven’t talked to me for the last week?”

You saw him scratch the back of his head while you crossed your arms. “I don’t know why you want to be friends with me.”

Your heart dropped when he said that and he just continued. “You should be friends with Sinan or Kerem. They have more money and probably more in common with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You said picking at the skin between your top and your jeans.

He didn’t answer so you stepped forward to make him look at you. “Answer me, Osman. There’s nothing that makes them better than you.”

“I don’t have some fancy paintings at my house or a chandelier like Işik’s and I certainly don’t have any of Friedrich’s works.” He said sarcastically.

“I don’t care.” You said softly looking up at his piercing eyes.

You stood like that until you stepped back and looked at the ground and pursued your lips.

“You haven’t answered my question yet.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re very annoying sometimes.”

You smirked. “That’s why you like me so much.”

“Actually, I do like you.”

You almost dropped the money you had between your fingers. “What?” You mumbled.

“Do you like Sinan?” He asked you as you felt your face blush, but not because of Sinan but for his recent declaration.

“Do I like Sinan?” You said raising you brows. You started giggling under his annoyed look but you just couldn’t stop.

“I’m leaving.” He said.

“No, no, please. I’m sorry.” You grabbed his arm to stop him and he looked down at you. “I don’t like Sinan. I like you.” You said unexpectedly shocking yourself.

Osman stood in front of you and you felt a rush of adrenaline go through you. You were still holding his arm and he was too close to you.

“So you like me?” He asked you.

“You said it first.” You smirked as he rolled his eyes with a small smile.

“Whatever. Let’s go to eat.” He said pulling you out of the alleyway moving his arm to hold your hand. “Hey, can I have işkembe? I’ll have it in a tray please. And a baklava too.”

And even though you felt a weird feeling in your stomach, you were sure it wasn’t that it was empty but that it was some shit they say about love and butterflies.

[xmalereader]

Javier Pena X Male Reader

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|| Masterlist ||

-

Summary: And they were roommates *Le gasp*

Warnings: Language, Sarcasm, Javi being an asshole at first, Spanish. Italics means it’s in Spanish or I will write it in Spanish because this child speaks it!!

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“Senora, Rosa please.” A young adult male follows around a middle aged women as she walks around the apartment building that he was living in. “I said, I would allow anyone to live here but I don’t have the time for a roommate I need to focus on my projects and whoever this guy is they could ruin my life—!”

“Ya!!” Señora Rosa shouts out as she twirls around to stand in front of y/n with an angry look on her face.

Never anger a middle aged Colombian women.

“Estoy cansada de escuchando te!”

She was tired of listening to his complaints he’s been complaining to her all day about him not wanting a roommate at the moment but as the landlord she was either going to force him or throw him out. So of course, y/n silently agrees to allow his new roommate to settle into his own apartment.

He was going to regret sharing a place with a stranger, as much as he enjoyed having company around he just couldn’t help but want to be alone whenever he’s at home and not have someone on his constant back every single day.

“He’s a nice young man, you’ll like him.” Said Senora Rosa as she gives him a grin and hands him a spare key to hand to his new roommate to be.

—

Javier was moving back to Colombia for a short period of time, after being caught a couples of years back he was allowed to return back with new information and work in a much bigger position then his last. He’s going to be honest he missed Murphy, his trustworthy partner that he actually got a long with unlike the other partners he had in the past but that all ended once they caught Escobar, Murphy got what he wanted and returned back to America to live with his wife and daughter. Leaving Javi on his own once again.

Once he returned to Colombia to continued working for the DEA, he first needed a place to stay at and moving into his old apartment won’t work since they were all taken. So, before he could arrive he remembers finding any available place, he could stay there but as long as he can handle a roommate. Something that Javier wasn’t up to do but he had no choice but ot take the place wether he likes it or not.

He’s spoken to the landlord about his sudden roommate, she only told him that he was a quiet man and mainly stayed home focusing on his art work. Turns out that his roommate was a painter and worked over seas during a couple of months, but this year his roommate wont be going anywhere.

Javier made sure that his stuff was sent earlier to the apartment, he hasn’t gotten his key yet so he had to knock in order to get inside his new place. He stands outside and waits for the other to answer, he hears slight commotion on the other side of the door and hopes that his roommate wasnt having sex in the middle of the living room or something.

The door swings open to reveal a young man, he looked a little younger than Javier and more American looking but that didn’t matter to him. “Can I help you?” The other asks as he stands in front of the doorway with a rag in his hands, he noticed that they were covered in paint which is why he was cleaning them off. “New roommate? You Y/n?”

The other groans softly and sighs, “Yeah.” He pushed the door wider for him to enter as he walks back to the living room. His place was big, big enough for a family to live in. “So you’re Javier right?” Y/n asks as he tossed the dirty rag on the kitchen counter and turns on the sink to properly clean his hands. Javier watched him closely and nods. “Yeah, Rosa tell you?”

“Something like that,” y/n mumbles out and dries off his hands. “Listen; if you’re going to be staying here theirs going to be some rules.” Javier leans against the counter and pulls out a cigarette, putting the between his lips as he sighs. “And they are?”

Y/n approached him and removes the cigarette from his lips. “First rule, I don’t allow smoking. If you are going to be living under my roof then you are going to keep my air clean. If you want to smoke you’ll have to do it outside and if I notice that you smoked indoors I won’t hesitate to kill you.” He hissed out and tossed the cigarette in the garbage. “Second rule; No drinking either.”

“You’re kidding right?” This guy was taking away everything that he liked doing when he was alone but he was going to have to live with it. Sighing deeply he rubs his temples and nods. “Fine, anything else?” He was tired and just wanted to get some rest before he heads off to work tomorrow morning.

Y/n taps his chin in a childish way as he puts on a thinking face. “Oh right! How could I forget?” He laughs out, making his way around the kitchen, grabbing an apple and a knife. “If you want to have you’re little fun wiht your lady friends, you’ll have to do that at their place. I don’t allow that here.”

That was it, he crossed the line.

“Now, you can’t do that. I live here so I might as well and put some rules down myself!” Javier exclaimed in anger. “Oh, yeah and what’s that?” Y/n questions as he held the knife up and points it at javiers face, threatening him. “This is my apartment, I slaved and I slaved to earn the money that I need to move here. So don’t you dare say that you own this place when you don’t. So, if you so badly hate the rules then you might as well and find yourself another place to live.” With that he silenced Javier.

“You’re crazy.” Javier mumbled out as he watched him closely.

“Thank you, I take that as a compliment.” He finish’s cutting up his apple and smiles at Javier. “Make yourself at home.” He added and leaves back to the living room to continue on with his projects that he left behind.

Javier rubs his face in frustration. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

—

After living with y/n for two months, Javier was quick to get adjusted to the place and to the rules. Their morning routines for the first couple of days were horrible, the two would argue about one of them making coffee and the other wanting to make tea. Same with breakfeast, y/n would be up early making food and blasting music which irritated Javier so much. He knows that the other had to be up early as well and do his own work, but Javier just couldn’t stand the blasting music.

But the two were able to work it out. The two made a plan for every morning and were to stick with it for the last two months. The two were quick to become friends, sometimes Javier would come home late and would sometimes buy them a pizza and the two would sit together in the living room and just talk about their burdens.

“Anything new on your project?” Javi asks and leans back on the couch. After living with Y/n for the last two months he noticed that he was an artist and would often spend his time standing in the living room in front of a colorful canvas or a blank one when he can’t think of anything. He was quiet famous for his work and would sometimes sell his own pieces, he didn’t get much but it was enough for him to live here in Colombia and to get the materials that he needed.

“Not yet...” he sighs out and grabs a slice of pizza. Lying down on the couch as he eats it and stares over at his blank canvas. “I would go outside or out in the country but it’s not safe right now. So, might as well and find another way to get inspiration.” He shrugs his shoulders and chewed on his food.

Javier chuckled a little and rolled his eyes. “You usually paint things from nature, why not paint out a portrait of some one? Or of something that happens in the streets?” He asks.

Y/n blinks at the thought and slowly sat up. “You know what? That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I mean I’ve never actually painted anyone before so its going to take awhile for me to do at least one portrait.” He says with a smile. Smirking a little at Javier, he sits up properly with his legs crossed.

“Wanna be my model?” He wiggles his brows with a grin on his face.

Javier raised a brow himself and shakes his head. “I prefer not to.”

“Come on, why not?”

“I’m not a model.”

Y/n scoffs and rolled his eyes, “that doesn’t matter and besides its a simple tasks you just stand there and look pretty. I’ll draw you like one of my French girls.” He grins at Javier and laughs a little. Javier rolled his eyes. “Still, no.” And with that he tossed his pizza crust back inside the pizza box and stands up to go to the balcony and have a smoke. Y/n groans in frustration and shakes his head, he watched Javier leave the living room and go outside , he watched as he stands their and began to smoke which causes an idea to quickly come in mind. He scrambles out of the couch and grabs his sketchbook and a pencil, he sits in front of the entrance of the balcony and began to sketch out Javier. He makes sure that he isnt notice as his hand moves fast against the paper, making sure to get the smaller details so when he paints it out he’lol just have to look at his sketchbook.

He kept looking up at Javier and the back down to his sketchbook, he finishes his body form and his face. grinning as he draws out the eyes before he hears the sound of the balcony door being pushed open. He slaps his sketchbook closed and looks up.

“what were you doing?” Javier asks as he cleans up the mess that they have made. Y/n gives him an innocent smile. “Just drawing what catches my eye.” He replies back before standing up and tucking his sketchbook behind his canvas. “Need help cleaning?”

“Yeah, unless you want to live in a mess and from the looks of it you sort of do.” He gestured around the house where several paintings materials and finishes paintings were being laid around. “My house is clean you jackass.” Y/n says back and takes the trash with him. “Don’t judge me or else you can leave.” He pouts out.

Javier shakes his head with a laugh, he’s usually a closed off person and didn’t show much emotion but living wiht y/n, even though it was for a short period of time, he seemed to open up and be himself only around the other young man that he’s grown to like.

[rmg91]

The Woes and Antics of Living Together-10; Prank War

AN Edit, 8/14/19: I want to thank you all soooooooo, so much for all the wonderful comments you've left so far! I know I don't reply to all of them (at least on ff.net) but please know I love seeing them and appreciate all the love you've given this fic! I actually wrote this chapter back in like...April/May and while I maybe should've done a few things differently I still like how it came out and I hope you all do too!

So this chapter was really, really hard to start. Not because of the content but because at the time I was going to start it I was dealing with a lot of real life thinks, the biggest being we had to put one of my cats to sleep and it was really hard to find the motivation/inspiration to write. I almost thought this would become like all my other half-finished fics and never get done but with sheer determination and being boosted by all the wonderful comments I'd gotten so far, I kept trying until the muses responded and gave me something to work with. So without further ado, Chapter 10.

Prank War time!! Also this is the chapter where Branch and Poppy apparently unconsiously flirt with each other XD

Previous Chapter/Next Chapter; AO3/FF.net

@writerofberk-I think (and hope) you’ll like this chapter c:

@hair-in-the-air-I know you’ll like the ending of this chapter, heeheehee~

                                               ~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a few weeks after The Incident, as Poppy was dubbing it in her mind, and for the most part they had moved on from it. Poppy had been a little awkward around Branch for a few days and he had been a little more irritable than usual but they had managed fall back into their sort of routine. Being distracted by classes and work had helped of course and now they could concentrate on more important things. Like Poppy's current prank war with the Snack Pack.

What had started as a few silly jokes -jump scares, drawing on faces, fun with puns- had quickly turned into elaborate plans to get whoever was the current victim. Guy had tricked them all into wearing shiny disco outfits for a day by telling everyone there was going to be a Retro Day at the university. Of course when they made their epic entrance they were the only ones in costume and Guy was filming them. They all, of course, still had fun, even after Smidge chased Guy around campus.

Satin and Chenille somehow found the time to pull the classic of covering someone's car in sticky notes on Suki. The Dj had been quite surprised to come out of class one day to find her car completely covered in written on sticky notes. Most were teases from the twins but there were a few from Guy asking the tangerine haired woman out. What the twins hadn't expected was for Suki to get them back by wrapping their car in saran wrap the next day.

Smidge had tricked all of them in believing she no longer loved pranks by claiming she was tired of them. She kept them believing it for two whole days until she caught them in a massive water balloon bombing. And then Biggie had somehow managed to find the time to wrap all their things in wrapping paper, tame by comparison sure but their big hearted friend could never find it in him to play mean pranks on anyone.

The latest prank had been by Cooper, who had gotten Poppy by replacing all the middles of a carton of Oreo's with toothpaste.

The young pink haired woman was currently in the midst of setting up her revenge on her friend by filling up a large bucket with as much glitter as she could find. She planned on the classic of a bucket falling on the victims head but with her own twist. Giggling in a rather evil way, Poppy finished filling the bucket almost to the brim before carrying the pail to the front of the art building. Guy and Smidge were helping her set up, as they had also eaten some toothpaste filled cookies, and they were eager to see their tall friend covered in the colorful cocktail of glitter Poppy had mixed up.

Passing the bucket up to Smidge, Poppy watched her attach it to their rig that would spill it all over Cooper when he walked through the door. Once they were certain it wouldn't fall by itself and ruin the prank, the three cleared away the step stool and trash and hid behind the corner as Poppy opened the camera app on her phone. Guy made the call to Cooper telling him to come quickly and now all they had to do was wait for him to show up.

However as they were so focused on the door, they didn't noticed their dreadlocked friend come up behind them, “Hi guys! So what'd you need to see me for?”

“Aaah!”

“Oh my god!!”

“Cooper!” Poppy cried as she turned around, “You were suppose to come through the main door!”

“I was?” He asked before laughing, “Sorry!”

The trio sighed at their oblivious friend before a sudden cry and crash of a bucket falling came from around the corner. The cry had even sounded very familiar to Poppy as she peeked around the side to see a now thoroughly glitter covered Branch standing in the doorway. She couldn't help the snickers that escaped as she watched him growl and shake some of the tiny sparkles off, the bucket slowly turning on the floor.

The raven haired man glanced up with a glare as he heard her and yelled, “Poppy!! What's the meaning of this?!?!”

“Sorry, Branch!” She said, walking over to him, still trying to contain her laughter as her friends giggled behind her, “That wasn't meant for you.”

Branch scoffed and brushed more glitter out of his hair, “Oh yeah, the giggles really sell that.”

“Really!” She exclaimed, “Although...” More snickering escaped as she gestured to him, “You're really making that work. Heehee!”

Glowering at the pinkette, Branch stepped up to loom over her, “Careful, Poppy. You don't want to face the wrath of the Prank King, do you?”

“Ha!” She laughed, giving him a disbelieving look as she crossed her arms, “You? The Prank King? I think not.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, “Who won all of our prank wars as kids?”

Poppy scoffed, “Pffft, please. We were kids.” She smirked up at him, “You don't have what it takes to take me on, Bud.”

“Oh really?” He smirked back.

“Really, really~”

Branch gave her a rather predatory grin, “Then bring it on, Princess.”

                                 ~*~*~*~*~*~

Poppy was on her highest guard for the rest of the day and into the next, she even spent the night at Smidge's just to make sure Branch didn't get the opportunity to prank her at home. She made sure to keep an eye out for him as she made her way around campus, making note of anything that seemed suspicious. She avoided him whenever she could and went as far as sitting in the front row of their shared class, he wouldn't be getting her to sit on any whoopie cushions or brownies. Was she going just a little too far? Maybe but the so called 'Prank King' wasn't going to get the drop on her! She was the Queen of Parody and she wouldn't be de-throned.

Approaching the end of the day, Poppy was confident that she had managed to thwart any attempts Branch could have made during at school. Now she'd just have to avoid him at their apartment, or at least make it very difficult for him to prank her back, a little more complicated but not impossible. She was happily making her way down a hallway, stopping here and there to talk to other friends, heading toward the door that would lead her toward the parking lot. Maybe if she got home before Branch did she could whip up a batch of cupcakes and then preemptively prank him before he got her? Hmm...but how to get him to take the treat if she did?

Taking a chance look out a window, she couldn't help but notice her roommate outside walking down the path, phone in hand. The pinkette stopped and tilted her head to the side, wondering what he was up to as he never walked around texting or playing games on his phone like that. He always claimed it wasn't safe and people were bound to run into something! Watching him disappear around the corner, Poppy scrunched her face up in suspicion and hurried to catch up with him. The hypocrite wouldn't get away from her!

So focused on catching up with him, Poppy harshly pushed open the door and didn't notice the bucket falling on her head until it was too late.

Stopping in shock at being covered in some soft, sticky substance, the young woman lifted the bucket off her head and wiped at her eyes. She wondered briefly what it could be until the familiar sweetness filled her nose and she recognized it as vanilla frosting. How in the world did Branch managed to get this much frosting?! Blinking, she looked up to see her roommate standing a few yards away, smirking at her. He then bowed and saluted her before turning and walking away.

That little-!! How dare he?!?!

“Ooooh...” Poppy growled, hands fisting, “Just you wait, Hawthorn. I'll get my revenge,” She licked some frosting off her thumb, “And it'll be sweet.”

                                         ~*~*~*~*~*~

After a thorough shower to wash away all the frosting in her hair and starting a load of laundry, Poppy brainstormed for what she could possibly do to get Branch back before he got home. Humming as she looked through the cabinets for something to eat, she caught site of a lone can frosting. Hmm, Branch wouldn't suspect her to use frosting in her prank against him, would he? But what could she put it in...

Taking a look around, she'd have to choose something that wouldn't be obvious for a prank set up. Nothing in the kitchen, too obvious, and nothing in his room for now as he'd be too suspicious and check everywhere. Groaning, Poppy bounced on the balls of her feet as she tried to shake some idea out. Of course, rushing would make her sloppy but then again if she didn't figure something out soon, she may run out of time. Grabbing her phone, she decided to turn to the internet for inspiration and if that didn't help, she'd text the Pack. Her friends could always come through in a pinch.

Although it looked like that wouldn't be necessary as one of the first few suggestions would be perfect. Poppy grinned and cackled evilly, Branch was in for a surprise.

                                            ~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a few hours later, quite a few hours more than Poppy thought he'd be out, when Branch came home. He dropped his keys in the small bowl by the door, glad he didn't have to worry about tripping over any of Poppy's shoes since they added the shoes rack and wandered into the kitchen. He looked around, trying to find anything out of place before glancing at the pinkette on the couch. She was seemingly just innocently playing a game on her phone but he knew her better than that. She'd had plenty of time to set up a revenge prank.

“I'm home...” He said, tone betraying his suspicions.

“And rather late too,” She gasped dramatically as she looked up, “And it's a school night!! Such a delinquent! Whatever were you doing?!”

He glared at her, unamused with her antics, “I was playing video games with Gristle. He's a sore loser and wanted a rematch. Now what did you sabotage?”

She giggled, going back to her phone game, “Tsk, tsk, Branch. You know I wouldn't tell you that. If I did anything that is. As it stands I'm waiting till you fall into a false sense of security before getting my revenge. Nobody dumps frosting on me without paying.”

“Right...” He didn't believe her for a second but currently had no proof that she was lying.

As Poppy went back to her game, he subtly inspected the kitchen for any pranks laying in wait. Finding the cabinets free of fake spiders and the faucet free of plastic wrap and no fake gross food in the fridge, Branch concluded it was safe. Grabbing an apple, and inspecting it to make sure it was indeed real, he wandered into his room to thoroughly check for any tricks. Finding his bed and drawers empty of itching powder or sneezing powder, closet free of anyone waiting to jump out and his desk chair free of glue alongside anything else he could think of, he decided to trust that Poppy hadn't done anything to his personal effects either. Still, he didn't trust her to not have done anything in retaliation and he wasn't about to let her catch him off guard.

Unable to think of anything else to inspect at the moment, the raven haired man yawned and decided he'd have to place some tentative trust in Poppy for not having sabotaged anything yet. Also he was locking his door tonight, he didn't trust her that much to not sneak in and do something in the night. Quickly changing into some pj's, Branch made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. However as he opened the medicine cabinet for the toothpaste, he thought better of it and grabbed the new one from below the sink. He wouldn't put it past Poppy to have somehow messed with the opened one.

Squeezing some onto his toothbrush, Branch would have began brushing his teeth, if it had tasted right. Feeling the substance dissolve in his mouth and licking some off the toothbrush, he growled. That little witch! She went and somehow replaced it with frosting!! Mint flavored frosting! Slamming his toothbrush on the counter he stormed out of the bathroom.

“Poppy!!” She had the gall to start laughing as he came to stand in front of the couch, “Seriously?! The toothpaste?!”

“Hahaha! That'll teach you! I told you no one gets away with dumping frosting on me.” She smirked before sashaying her way over to him and poking him in the chest, “Face it, Branch. You're fighting a loosing battle here. Because while you may claim to be the 'king', you're nothing compared to the Queen~” She leaned in close with a smug look, “And this is just the beginning.”

It took all of Branch's willpower to not grab her and kiss that smug look off her face, for there was something insanely attractive about a smug Poppy, as he watched her go toward her room. And if she thought he was going to give up now, she was oh so wrong, this was only the beginning and Branch would be the victor. The Prank King would reign supreme.

                                              ~*~*~*~*~*~

The next few days were filled with various pranks pulled on one another, starting the very next morning. Poppy really should have expected a retaliation from Branch for the toothpaste. The prank? The sugar jar replaced with salt. So when a sleepy, not awake pinkette came shuffling out of her room and started pouring herself a cup, she didn't suspect that the white granules she spooned in wasn't the usual. Until she took a sip that is. Her nose had wrinkled and as she made a disgusted face, Branch couldn't help but laugh and snap a quick picture. Poppy had glared and shook her head at him, claiming 'not cool' before finding the sugar to make a proper cup.

Her revenge was simple but a classic. A pie in the face. Spending a quick hour in the Home Ec. kitchens, Poppy whipped up a plain crust before filling it with homemade whip-cream. She even made sure it was towering as high as she could make it, since Branch loved his whip-cream. Waiting until he was distracted with studying, thankfully somewhere outside, she approached as casually as she could with a pie held behind her back. Glancing quickly to where Smidge was recording this for a vlog, Poppy asked if Branch knew there was something on his face. As soon as he turned to ask her what she meant, she cried 'This!' and smashed the pie right in his face. She and Smidge laughed joyously as Branch sputtered and cursed, jumping up and wiping cream off his face. He glared at Poppy and bit out that she was in for it.

Branch had to wait to get back at her as it was extremely difficult to catch Poppy off guard when there were pranks around. The opportunity was finally granted when Branch came home a little earlier from work than usual. Poppy was asleep on the couch, in the aftermath of an afternoon of babysitting, and was dead to the world. Grinning, he had quickly and quietly grabbed the can of whip-cream from the fridge. Sneaking over to spray it in her hand, Branch couldn't help but take a moment to gaze at her. She hardly ever seemed to slow down so for him to catch her asleep and unaware was a rare treat. She was just so beautiful, inside and out, he had to take his chance to take it in. If he had a heart he wouldn't ruin her slumber but she started this war and he wouldn't give up until she caved.

As quietly as he could, Branch had maneuvered one of her hands to cup the whip-cream before spraying a pile. He then stood over the back of the couch and tickled her nose with a feather he found in her craft boxes. Nose twitching, the pinkette lifted the cream filled hand up to get the itch. Coming awake with a start, she stared at her hand before spying a smug Branch standing over her. Pouting, she stuck her tongue out at him before getting up and claiming he was immature. He promptly responded he was just putting himself on her level with a smirk.

After some brainstorming, Poppy opted to prank Branch back by painting his bar soap with clear nail polish. She would have done the classic of some hair dye in his shampoo but the jerk had been hiding his from her. She was however soon rewarded with Branch storming out of the bathroom, sadly dressed, waving the soap in the air. Thankfully she had managed to dodge it when he threw it at her as she was laughing. He then claimed he'd get her back with something she wouldn't expect.

                                        ~*~*~*~*~*~

That something was an unexpected find at the grocery store as Branch had been brainstorming the rest of the that week's dinner. Grinning from their small balcony as Poppy walked down below, Branch waited from the perfect opportunity to dump his bucket of balloons on her. Sure water balloons weren't too original, but water balloons filled with special watercolor dyes were. They would make his perky and confident roommate regret ever starting this prank war on him by, temporarily, making her into a walking rainbow for a few hours.

Watching as she stopped to talk to one of their neighbors for a moment, Branch quickly readied the bucket on the railing to dump it once she was done. Just as she waved the neighbor goodbye, the poet quickly shouted to her before pouring the bucket over. Multi-colored tiny balloons spilled out and rushed toward the ground where they broke all over Poppy and the sidewalk. Branch chuckled as Poppy stared up in shock at him before her face transformed into a look of rage and she stamped her foot. He saluted her and watched as she began marching herself inside.

“I can't believe you did that!!” She shrieked about five minutes later as she came inside, “Water balloons?! Really?!”

“Hey, what can I say,” He smirked as he shrugged a shoulder, leaning against the balcony door, “Can't really mess with a classic. Although I did put my own spin on it. Try not to drip too much on the furniture though.”

Poppy huffed, chest heaving and Branch was eternally grateful she wasn't wearing anything that became see-through when wet, “I'll get you for this! Just you wait!”

“I'd like to see you try.” He smirked as it took all his willpower to remain casual because he was quickly discovering an angry Poppy was just as attractive as a smug Poppy, “Maybe you'll even come up with something that isn't as lame as your last prank.”

“Oh-ho-ho! You think my last prank was lame now, huh?” She crossed her multi-colored arms, “Then prepare to feel the rain, mister, because I'm gonna pour the best prank on you. Ever!”

“Water-puns? Really? What? Gonna throw water balloons on me too?”

“Oooh...Shut up!” She punched his shoulder before storming off to the bathroom. He was gonna pay so much for this!

                                        ~*~*~*~*~*~

Ok, so Branch had sort of called it and she was gonna return the water balloon assault but the difference was going to be that she had the Snack Pack on her side. Giggling maniacally, Poppy couldn't wait until Branch came down the pathway. Everyone was already in position, Cooper and Biggie were hiding behind some bushes on the right, while Satin and Chenille hid on the left. Suki was kneeling behind a tree and Smidge was beside Guy behind a bench armed with super soakers. Poppy herself was hiding behind a trashcan as she waited for visual before she made herself known to the target.

Creek had briefly tried to talk her out of this, insisting that this prank war had gone on long enough but Poppy hadn't listened. She was determined to make Branch admit she was the prank master. After that the guru had sighed and wandered far away from the splash zone to watch the incoming carnage.

“Poppy, target is incoming,” Came Biggie's voice through the walkie-talkie, “Are you sure about all this?”

“Yes, I'm sure. Now everyone, hold position and wait for my signal. Heh-heh-heh, it's showtime.”

Peering around the trashcan, the pinkette watched Branch walk just past where Biggie, Cooper and the twins were hiding before popping out. She casually wandered up a few steps before stopping as Branch noticed her. He frowned at her and the water balloon she held in her hand.

“So you are copying me. Psh, and I thought you were original.” He said, crossing his arms.

“Oh, Branch, you simply can't mess with a classic.” She smirked, “But you're not the only one who can add their own spin to something. I'm not gonna just throw a water balloon at you. I told you, I'm bringing the rain.” She then grinned evilly before shouting, “ATTACK!!!”

“Wha-?!”

Branch didn't know what hit him as all members of the Snack Pack popped out of hiding and began pelting him with balloons. He tried to get away but was stopped as Smidge jumped in front of him and sprayed him from her water gun. He tried to find another way to escape but it was difficult to form any sort of plan as the small projectiles hit him. Their laughter surrounded him as they continued their barrage with Poppy's being the clearest of them all. Eventually though they ran out of ammo and it was finally over and Branch was now completely and utterly soaked.

He stood there, water dripping off him, clothes sticking to his skin, spitting water from his mouth as Poppy cheerfully skipped up. He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes to glare at her, “Seriously?!”

“Uh-huh, yep~!” She chirped, “Ready to admit I'm the Prank Master?”

Branch growled and stood up from his hunch to tower over her, “Never.” He then marched off muttering, water logged clothing sloshing as he went.

                                           ~*~*~*~*~*~

Branch was still seething later that evening when Poppy came home, happily bounding in through the door. His response to her greeting was a heated glare before going back to his homework, not wanting to hear whatever she had to say. He heard her huff, and he could just imagine the pout she sent his way as she placed her hands on her hips, before she went into her bedroom. If he was smart he'd just go knock and tell her what she wanted to hear and end this stupid war but his pride wouldn't let him. He was going to win and she was going to be the one to admit he was the master of all pranks. He just needed a chance to get her back...

His chance came not forty-five minutes later when she flounced out dressed to go clubbing. Ponytail swinging, Poppy said she'd be back later and to not wait up. Branch watched her leave before grinning slowly, she was naive to think he wouldn't set up a return prank just because he was pissed off at her. Or she excepted it and thought whatever he'd do wouldn't compare to bombing with water balloons. Well, he'd just have to pull out something diabolical then, wouldn't he?

                                               ~*~*~*~*~*~

Poppy arrived home well after two am, giggling as she teetered on her high-heels coming through the door. Clumsily locking the door, she giggled again as she spun and weaved her way to her room. A few hours of dancing and singing at a club with her best friends was just what she needed. Plus the few drinks she had didn't hurt either. Prank wars were fun and amazing but it was exhausting waiting for Branch to admit she was the master. Oh well, she'd just have to meet his attempts for however long it took.

“And if you knock, knock me over, I will get back up again...” She sang under breath, opening her door before pausing.

She blinked a few times as it took her muddled brain a moment to process what she was seeing. Not only was her bed completely covered and made neatly in newspaper but it was surrounded by a sea of red plastic cups filled with water. Poppy stood there for a second, momentarily impressed how fast Branch had set this all up as she'd only been gone a few hours, before realizing she'd now have to clean some of it out of the way so she could go to bed.

She'd have to make sure to throw a pillow at her roommate in the morning for this.

Sighing, for all she wanted to do was flop down on her bed, the young woman began picking up cups. After a few passes back and forth to the bathroom, and briefly pounding on Branch's door to get him to come help, Poppy finally had a path to her bed. Finding the edge of the newsprint, she pealed it back, making sure to crumple it loudly in hopes Branch would hear. Tearing more off her pillows, Poppy could finally crawl into bed. However she noticed that apparently one other thing had been done as she tried to slip her legs under her blankets. She couldn't slide them more than a few inches.

Throwing her comforter to the side, she saw her flat sheet was folded in half. She couldn't believe it, not only had Branch made it entirely difficult to get into her bed, he had also short sheeted it! Crying out in frustrating, Poppy flopped dramatically down, uncaring that she was now laying the other way. She'd just sleep this way for the night. Grabbing a pillow, the pinkette made herself comfortable, thought's of how she'd make Branch pay for this swimming in her head.

                                               ~*~*~*~*~*~

Poppy spent the next few days trying to plan something worthy to get Branch back with while also, hopefully, drawing him into a false sense of security. She had been brainstorming with Cooper that morning but still hadn't settled on the right prank. She needed something epic, something so out there that not only would Branch be impressed by it but finally, finally admit she was the best prankster ever. If only she could figure out what that was...

Taking a quick glance at her phone's clock, Poppy noted that it was getting pretty late and she had yet to see her roommate since that morning. Wondering where he could be, it's not like he went out to party or anything of the sort, she hoped he was alright. That's when she heard the door click open and Branch come shuffling in.

She listened to him lock it before greeting, “Hey, Roomie. Where ya been?”

“Library,” He grunted, not even looking at her as he dragged himself though the kitchen, “I hope you haven't set up some ridiculous prank because I am not in the mood.”

“What's wrong?” Poppy asked, getting up from the couch suddenly worried. He'd seemed fine this morning.

Branch growled low in his throat, “Bad day.”

And it had started out relatively well too but he should have known things would go bad. They always did. Work had been fine, Reed had even praised him on his ideas to help make the store more organized and efficient but that was the only high point. Branch had missed the first bus back toward the university and had almost missed the second. Then the library had a small power outage which was just enough for him to lose the progress on his English essay, which he then of course had to rewrite. Then he'd had a run in with Creek. That damned guru had decided to not only insult his choice of major and his choice of electives but had of course rubbed it in that if he continued to be a negative person, he'd never find anyone to be with. And of course, of course, he brought up Poppy during that bit and how happy she was to be with Creek, even if they weren't 'officially' dating yet. And the last straw of the day had been when he'd gotten a email from one of his teachers saying he had to completely re-do an assignment for no apparent reason, other than to make him suffer.

Branch just wanted to go to bed and not deal with anything anymore. Even his well meaning and caring roommate, who was looking at him like she wanted to hug him. He held up a hand to stop her from speaking, “I don't care what you have to say right now, Poppy. Just tell me you haven't set up a prank. Or go get rid of it, if you have.”

Poppy bit her lip, wanting so badly to hug Branch right now but knew he'd just yell at her if she did, “I haven't done anything. Promise. I hadn't thought of what to do yet.”

“Good.” He grunted before shuffling off to his bedroom.

“Good night, Branch.” Poppy said after him.

He mumbled something that sounded vaguely like a 'good night' back as he opened his door. He paused however, “Poppy...” He said, voice sounding like his was trying to keep it even, “Where the hell is my bed?”

“What?” The pinkette walked closer and peeked over his shoulder to find his mattress completely missing and a small piece of paper sitting on the box spring, “Uuhhh...I did not do this.”

“Really?” He asked, giving her a incredulous look, “Then who did?!”

“Oh dear...” It just occurred to her that perhaps Cooper could have gotten the wrong idea when they were talking and took her nodding to his suggestions as confirmation to go ahead and execute it, “I-I think it was Cooper. We were brainstorming earlier and oooh...”

Poppy ran back to the living room and grabbed her phone, hitting Cooper's speed-dial as she walked back to stand next to Branch. She listened to it ring, bounding on her toes, and preyed he picked up. When that didn't happen and all she got was his voicemail, she groaned, “Cooper! Call me back as soon as you wake up! Please! You weren't suppose to go through with the prank on Branch yet. I love that you wanted to help but I hadn't decided if that's what we were gonna do.”

Branch watched her hang up, scowling, “You're too nice, you know that?”

“Shush, mistakes happen.”

He rolled his eyes, “Suure, mistakes.” He then huffed and glanced at where his missing mattress should be, “Floor it is. Or I guess the couch.”

“What? No.” Poppy protested, “You are not sleeping on the floor. Or the couch. You'll be even grumpier in the morning if you do that.”

Branch leaned against his doorjamb, crossing his arms, “Then what do you suggest? Hmm? Only two options I have.”

It was Poppy's turn to roll her eyes, “You can sleep in my bed. There's plenty of room.”

“I-What?!” Branch's eyes widen and his brain momentarily shut off as he blushed, she couldn't be serious?! Them? Share her bed?! Nu-uh! No way! Not happening! That was the worse idea in forever! There was absolutely no way he was going to sleep in Poppy's bed, “No! W-we can't do that!! I-it's not-! No!”

Poppy rolled her eyes again, “Psh! On please, Branch. We're both adults here. Nothing's gonna happen. Plus we use to share all the time as kids.”

“Yeah. When we were kids! I am not going to sleep in your bed!”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are~”

“No, I'm not!”

“Yep~!”

“No!”

                                              ~*~*~*~*~*~

He couldn't believe he was doing this. It was ridiculous, him sleeping in her bed when he could just use the couch. But as always, Poppy had managed to get her way. He groaned as he watched her pull back her comforter and sit on the left side, patting the right side before turning to her picture frame of friends and starting her good night routine. Rolling his eyes as her, Branch eyed her bed like it was going to attack him before stiffly sitting on the edge. Maybe he'd just wait till she was asleep before sneaking out to the couch. Sure, he'd probably regret it come morning but it was better than being in the same bed as Poppy. There was no telling what could possibly happen if he let his guard down and he wasn't about to let his feelings get out because he got too comfortable.

“Hey, Branch?” Poppy said, calling his attention to her.

“What?”

“I...I just wanted to say sorry. For letting this prank war get sort of out of hand. Heh...I forgot how competitive we could be. Truce?”

He sighed wearily before glancing at her, “Truce.”

She smiled, and dammit if he didn't want to lean over and kiss her, before she yawned, “Well...guess it's bed time. And you don't have to sit on the edge like that Branch. Just relax.”

Yeah, right. Like he could relax while laying in her bed, surrounded by her scent and being just a few inches away from her. He didn't say that though and just threw a pillow in-between them. It was fruitless barrier but it was better than nothing.

“What? Afraid I'll bite you in the night, Branch?”

He shrugged, “Yes.” He then tossed his own pillow down and laid down, stiff and as far on the edge as he could go.”

Poppy shook her head, “And you say I'm ridiculous. You need to relax, Bud.”

“I am relaxed. Now go to sleep...and stay on your side of the bed!”

The pinkette heaved a fond sigh before flipping her light off and slipping under the covers, “Good night, Branch.”

Branch made a noise in the back of his throat, “Night...”

He didn't know how long he just laid there, trying not to focus on Poppy every time she shifted or sighed. Branch also tried not to find the combination of vanilla and strawberry shampoo relaxing as he waited for her to fall asleep but soon enough his eyes fluttered closed and his muscles lost tension as he fell into a deep sleep.

                                                ~*~*~*~*~*~

Morning came and with it Branch's internal alarm rang to wake him up. He came to slowly, feeling more well rested than he had in years. Sighing calmly, he shifted to sink farther into his pillows, deciding a few more minutes of sleep couldn't hurt. Poppy wasn't the only one who liked to sleep in. Then in dawned on Branch that his pillows were never this fluffy and the sun was coming in though the window at a different angle than usual.

And that's when Branch remembered just where he was sleeping. He was still in Poppy's bed and now that he was awake he became aware of a few things. One, he had turned in the night and rolled toward the center of then bed and two, Poppy had done the same. Now she was laying practically on top of him, head tucked into his neck, leg thrown over his and a hand lightly clutching his shirt. And of course his arms had once again found their way around Poppy's waist, holding her close to him.

Branch felt himself tense because this was not good! He couldn't let Poppy wake up and find them like this, it would be so awkward. Trying to keep his breathing calm so he wouldn't wake her up with his hyperventilating, Branch tried to shimmy out from under her. Poppy made a noise of discontent as he started moving though and mumbled out something that almost sounded like 'stay' as she clutched his shirt harder. Branch groaned quietly, heart beating rapidly in his chest because he couldn't stay here. Taking a deep breath, he tried to move again, carefully prying Poppy's fingers from his shirt and slipping out from under her.

Once free, he rolled out of her bed and backed up a few steps, breathing heavily. He watched her grab after him before finding a pillow and hugging it close, humming softly. Trying to calm his racing heart, Branch watched her for another moment, mentally kicking himself for allowing that entire situation to happen. He shouldn't have given in last night. But what was done was done and he managed to get up without waking Poppy. Now he was going to go take a cold shower and not think about just how adorable she was when sleeping, with her hair a mess and the way she clung to the pillow like it was someone special to her. A very, very cold shower.

                                             ~*~*~*~*~*~

Branch and Poppy are way too competitive for their own good and honestly could have done way more savage pranks to each other but at the same time I was trying to keep light hearted like the Prank Day episode, which honestly boils down to the frosting buckets and water balloons XD

Also, fun fact, all the pranks were pure set up so I could write them sharing a bed XD

Also yes, I do ship Guy and Suki. I've been slowly falling for it and decided to slip it in, however I headcanon that they have a rather open relationship as Guy is a lover of all and Suki is a go with the flow kind of gal.

And woo!! This is the longest chapter yet! And it took extra long to write not only because of aformentioned RL stuff but also intermine writers block but it's done now and I'm actually pretty proud of it! And wow 10 chapters! I've never gotten this far in a multi-chapter fic! Hope you all enjoyed it!

[canaryatlaw]

alright I really need to get to bed. I was set to write this like twenty minutes ago but then I realized I hadn’t taken my pills yet so I went to do that and then swallowed them all at once because I’m impatient when I usually due it in two batches and inevitably one got stuck in my throat because my esophagus occasionally tries to choke me to death randomly when I do things like swallow too many pills at much so then I felt like I was going to throw up and had to swallow like 4 spoonfuls of honey until it finally went away. and then I returned to my computer and then got distracted by the BTS performance video and watched half of that before returning to actually write this. so that was a playback of the last twenty minutes of my life, but we can get on to the rest of it now. I had set my alarm for 11 just so that I didn’t sleep in too much but when it went off I still wanted to sleep more so I slept for like another hour then got up and discovered bagels had already been obtained, which was helpful because I thought I was going to have to go obtain them myself, so that made my life easier. so I ate a bagel that was very good. We were gonna keep some for tomorrow morning but then I think it was decided that we’re gonna go out to breakfast so hopefully I can steal a few bagels and shove them into my bag before I leave, I had some space when I finished packing on the way here and I didn’t buy anything, so I should be able to fit a few. we kinda just chilled for a while after that until around 3 when we left to go to the movies since my mom wanted to see the mr rogers movie (”A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”) so my parents, my brother, and I went to do that. It was a really good movie, Tom Hanks portrayal was phenomenal, he embodied him so well and the whole thing was just so well done it made me really happy to see. I also may have texted a bit during the movie (but with my phone brightness all the way down so nobody could actually see it, I’m not that much of an asshole) because the dude I went on a date with last week texted me back, and I asked if he wanted to go to the jingle bash concert next weekend because I had an extra ticket, but like he could definitely say no if it was too much, and he was basically like “so I really hate pop music” and I just laughed and was like that’s totally fine, I wouldn’t want to put you through a night of torture, especially since I hadn’t mentioned there was gonna be two kpop bands there that were the actual reasons I wanted to go, and I would probably inevitably thirst after them watching them perform and this probably was not a good dating activity lol. I’ll probably ask my roommate if she wants to go and if she can’t I may just sell the ticket on stubhub and be a loner for the night (which I don’t particularly want to do because I don’t like doing things by myself, but I might not really have a choice). but yeah, after the movie we dropped my brother off at home and then went to get italian food for dinner. I had previously googled fred rogers because I wanted to see when he had died (2003, in case you were wondering), and one of the articles that popped up first was a review of the movie that was like “Christian faith is the one thing that was missing from [movie]” and I was like huh that’s an interesting take (especially when there was definitely a scene where he was praying and it was mentioned that he was an ordained minister) and it was just like this review trashing the movie as being humanistic and secularist and how all of its hope and goodwill were empty and meaningless without an acknowledgement of his Christianity and I was just like.....what the fuck movie did you watch??? Both my parents had loved the movie and I told them about this and they were both like wtf too because that’s such a shallow and short sighted perspective to think that no good can come from a piece of media without an explicit gospel message coming through. and that was like, a huge part of my college Christian artist perspective with the idea being working on “redemptive” art that doesn’t necessarily have to focus on evangelizing (and tbh, the more explicitly gospel aimed productions were usually the weaker ones). and like, reading that just irritated me so much like...imagine thinking that any kindness you express is worthless unless you’re shoving Jesus down their throat at the same time and that’s just like....that makes no sense at all and is completely unrealistic. There’s a Christian song i’m partial to called Live Like That which contains the lyrics “people pass/and even if they don’t know my name/is there evidence that I’ve been changed/when they see me do they see You?” and that’s just always what I’m focusing on- spreading God’s love without the need for words even, just through action alone. I shouldn’t have to spout off the gospel to show love to someone, it doesn’t work like that. and I mean, I don’t automatically devalue any explicitly Christian productions as there have been a few that were actually very well done (though admittedly most of them are pretty crappy). there had been a trailer playing before the movie for the movie coming out about Jeremy Camp (who’s a fairly well known Christian singer) that has KJ Apa in the lead role and it actually looks like it could be really good, but the audience that’s actually going to see that movie is barely a fraction of the audience that would go to the mr rogers movie. This was such an awesome opportunity to share love and kindness and they did it so damn well, I just thought it was so callous and ignorant to totally dismiss the movie because it didn’t contain an explicit gospel message. I’m rambling now, I know, though before I totally get off the topic I did also want to mention we also saw a trailer for the movie adaptation of Just Mercy, which was a book written by Bryan Stevenson, the founder of Equal Justice Works, which is a huge public interest law group that provides a ton of fellowships funding new attorneys who want to work do public interest work, and I know several people who had such fellowships with them (I came very close to applying but I had gotten the info about it too close to the deadline to really come up with a good proposal so I decided against it). so I’m super pumped for that movie as well, I do have a copy of the book that I received from that pro bono training we did at the fancy law firm a few weeks ago, I might have to sit down and read through it (which isn’t something I’ve really done with physical books since law school, you just do so much reading for school it kinda kills reading for pleasure for you, though I do still read plenty of fanfiction, lol). but now, anyway. the italian food was good, though when we got home I had a got a pretty bad stomach ache, but I don’t really know if it was the food or some other random reason because my body is crappy like that. but yeah, for most of the rest of the night I just chilled on the couch with my parents and a heating pad which I still have on my stomach currently, though it’s mostly feeling better. and yeah, eventually people went to go to bed and I showered and then came back here to start writing and went through the sequence of events recounted at the beginning of this post, and now I’m here. It’s now 1:30 am and I do have to wake up at some point not too late in order to go to breakfast because the car is coming to take me to the airport at 2:30 (I know that sounds so pretentious and spoiled and every time I say something like that I feel the need to explain my dad is really good friends with the owner of a limo company and he gives us free airport rides whenever we want, which is very generous of him, and my parents hate laguardia airport more than anything so I tend to get driven by them fairly often) so we’d obviously have to go sometime before that, and henceforth, I should go to bed now, so that is what I’m going to do. Goodnight friends. Goodbye November, hello December. 

[phckingusername]

Because I wimped out

Here is the story I deleted off ao3 but shorter. Waaaaaay shorter. More like a run down of the idea.

Fandom: Detroit: Become Human

Warnings: Rape and non con., Major character death.

Characters: Connor, Richard, Gavin, Hank, Amanda

Relationships: Connor& Richard &Hank, Richard/Gavin, Connor&Gavin

Other notes: Weird au, Connor and Richard are Marble God's, that turn "human", Hank is a farmer, Gavin is a starving artist literally.

.

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Connor and Richard are God's carved out of Marble by their "Mother" Amanda. Both live in a heavenly garden. They are not allowed to leave. They are however unwanted and Amanda hates them. (Honestly I wrote some pretty good poems for this part) One night as she sleeps Connor takes Richard and runs away. "She plans to kill us." He tells his "little" brother. But once in the land of man they are no longer made of Marble stone. They are now ashamed of their Naked bodies. (Very biblical I guess)

So naked and covered in mud and leaves the huddle and cling to each other at the village market. This is where Gavin first See's their beauty. Being an artist he wants to immortalize them or more specifically Richard in his art. Not knowing they are already.

Rather than typing more out here's the haiku of Richard's first impression of Gavin.( In the first chapter the story was told in poems from nines pov like his diary almost.)

Man who dwells with Rats

Beauty hidden under dirt

Is he one of them?

Soon Hank who's son and wife both died of the same sickness shows kindness and compassion for the two naked siblings. Gavin is quite relieved the two are safe. Hank is a farmer, well was I guess, after his son's death the crops stopped growing. The two brothers quickly adopt Hank as their new Father and try to help with chores. Hank seems quite alright with them staying and calling him Father.

Gavin was left on the streets to die as a child and would have very nearly died. However a traveling poet/ Artist took him under his wing. Naming Gavin, and giving him a passion for art. Although the artist was very old and died late into Gavin's teen years. Gavin is his adult age in game now. He lives in a rundown home. Holes in the walls and rats crawling everywhere. He looks rough. Literally starving, he tries to sell his art and draw others for a living. He doesn't know much else.

Because Hank has no crops to eat or sell he is also starving. Connor and Richard try to help by making things to sell at the market. Richard has made wooden children's toys and heads to the market alone.

By this time it's winter. Richard has set up right across the way from Gavin. The two seem to have a quiet conversation via staring. Gavin lost so deeply in those steely blue eyes. Wanting nothing more than to hide the man away and draw every last inch of him. So that he may stare into those eyes forever. Richard doesn't feel so strongly about Gavin but is filled with innocent curiosity.

This is where things go down hill. Gavin isn't the only one who thinks Richard is breathtakingly beautiful. Three drunk men crowd and trap Richard before pulling him off to a more secluded area. Richard is strong but he also feels small despite his actual size. If he were a god still he'd have no problem pushing the men off him. But his flesh is man now. He is scared. He screams and begs but they show no sign of stopping. They rip off his clothes they touch him, they touch themselves.

Meanwhile Gavin hears Richards pleas for help. They break his heart, he knows all too well what is happening. He tries to tell himself not to get involved and stay out of trouble. But he can't let them take away what was taken from him all those years ago. Not to someone so pure. So he finally gets the courage to help. Knife in a white grip and angry. He slashes and stabs at the men. Giving them.......28 stab wounds! ( Sorry not sorry).

Richard is huddle in the fetal position body shaking and eyes shut tight. Gavin tries to soothe him enough to look at him. Telling him he's safe. "Hey you know me. I'm the man across the way." "The artist?" "Yeah, that's me." Finally Richard relaxes enough to walk over to Gavin's place for some new clothes and the promise of a warm fire. Richard is exhausted and allows Gavin to dress him. He soon falls asleep on Gavin's trash pile he calls a bed.

The next morning Gavin waits for his brother to show up. It's just before dawn when he sees Connor searching. Connor wakes Richard up and just bombards him with questions and fusses over him. Checking and turning Richard's head for injuries. Richard places a hand over Connor's mouth and only let's go when he's calmed down. Richard starts by introducing Gavin the tells Connor Gavin had saved him from 3 men. Richard tells all and the two share in their tears. Gavin seeing How angry and incredibly sad Connor is about this. Connor saying thing like I'm supposed to protect you... Gone with you... It's all my fault..ect. When Richard just flat out tells Connor to shut up. " You are not at fault for the sins of man." Gavin found that an odd phrase. Finally they get collected and Connor pulls Gavin into the tightest hug thanking him deeply for what he's done. Richard now properly expresses his thanks and wants to know how he can repay him. "Let me draw you." It was almost embarrassing how quickly he blurted it out. Richard says they are friends and Gavin gets all touched by it.

The two brothers walk home and crawl in bed with Hank. The two quite cold, they hug either side of the sleep man they call father. Back with Gavin. He pulls out the few sketches of Richard he had drawn of him while he slept. Gavin giddy about soon seeing him again for a proper portrait. He spends his new energy cleaning the house and himself up.(this was as far as I had written but here's the rest I had planned)

Connor tells Hank (at Richards request) about what happened and Hank freaks. Richard then tells them both for the first time that he will be going back to visit Gavin. Hank knows of him and doesn't think too highly of him. Gives off a bad vibe. People don't want to go near him in fear of being bitten. Although he has never actually bitten a person before. Nevertheless Richard goes (with Connor) to see Gavin as promised for a proper picture. Connor selling the things he made as Richard's toys were destroyed by the men. But also keeping a close eye on his brother. Gavin is a blushing mess but once he's in the zone he gets this really focused look on him. Richard finds himself entranced by the look and admires Gavin when he's like this. Gavin saved the eyes for last. "Richard, get really close I need to draw your eyes." Gavin says still focused but when he looks up he freezes. He can't seem to look away. Nines stares back for awhile before speaking up. Putting Gavin back on the task but blushing red all the way to the tips of his ears. Richard has never seen anyone blush before. He wants to see more of it.

Things go well for Connor as he seems to have more people skills. They finally have money to buy food for their starving father. Richard gives Gavin a few coins. Gavin shocked by this. However Connor and Richard don't seem to plan on forgetting about Gavin and what he did. They treat him like family.

Richard and Connor visit every day to sell things and for a picture. Gavin drawing Connor quite a few times. Noting how different the two are. Connor is as Richard described, Soft with eyes of Earth. Connor is always protective of his brother. Expression always Stern and harsh. It was incredible to see just how soft Connor was when he smiled. Gavin wanted to capture that. However Gavin spent most of his time drawing Richard. Page after page. Looking at them when Richard went home for the day. Gavin would hide away and hold the papers close to his chest. Heart fluttering as he spent countless hours looking through each one.

Spring has come and gone. Just on the cusp of summer. Richard has become just as obsessed with looking at Gavin as he is looking at him. When he's with Gavin he feels... Something different. A different kind of love. Content and happy to be with him and almost empty without him. Richard is perplexed and frustrated with these feelings he doesn't understand. Gavin notices that Richard is not his usual self one night. By this time Connor trust Richard is safe when with Gavin and doesn't always go with him. Richard went somewhat late at night. Gavin asks what's up and Richard honestly and openly explains how he's feeling and wants to know why. Gavin's hopes that what it sounds like is what it is but asks Richard to go deeper and describe how he feels when with Gavin. It's all quite poetic (remember Richard has this internal diary in the form of poems) Gavin kisses Richard when he's finished speaking. But right after Richard gets up and goes home in a rush.

When he gets home he hides himself away. Hank finds him as asks. He tells him Gavin kissed him and Hank calms his anger before jumping to conclusions. "And how do you feel about it?" Richard sniffles and rubs his wet eyes. "I really liked it. Is that ok?" He looks up at Hank. "Son, I don't know where you came from but what you're feeling, is love. Love is pure and innocent, the things you do with a loved one is not sinful, it will not make you dirty or tainted. Love is beautiful and it comes with many faces. For me love of different kinds looks like my wife, like my son Cole, like you and your brother. It's ok son."

Back with Gavin he's freaking out and yelling at himself just about pulling his hair out. Richard waits a few days to sort out his thoughts and think about what Hank said. Meanwhile Gavin is an emotional wreak.

One night as Gavin gazes at a portrait of Richard he hears a knock on the wall. Richard is there leaning through the window. "May I come in?" Gavin is relieved to see him. Once Richard is inside Gavin goes to apologise but his lips are claimed before he could. He practically melts. "Gavin, you are what love looks like to me. You, Connor, Hank. You are all the different faces of my love." He said holding Gavin. "I know not of the joys of the flesh. I want to experience this with you. I want us to make love." At this point Gavin's circuits are fried. But he finally responds "For now, I want to hold you tonight." And that's what they do. They hold each other. They whisper sweet nothings as they soothe each other into sleep. Gavin wants to hold Richard, feel him in his arms. Make sure he is real. Not just pencil on a page. Don't get him wrong Gavin really wants to make love with Richard. But he wants Richard to feel the softer, simpler form of intimacy. Hold hand and cuddle, spoon and give sweet kisses. Show him love, not lust. And Richard is all about it. Just adores it. Loves holding and being held. Then one night it happens. They make love. Naked bodies against each other. Hot sweat steams off of them in the cool night. Beautiful moans and whimpers. Hands grabbing and clawing. Broken up love letters and each other's names spilling off their lips. During and after there's just so much love.....

Everything seems to be going ok now. They all have food to eat and they have each other. The crops are growing again . But Hank isn't doing so well. He is sick. No matter what they do Hank doesn't seem to get any better. He is dieing. The two brothers hold and cuddle Hank in his death bed. By the time they wake up in the morning Hank is gone.

Both Connor and Richard go to Gavin to mourn. The last time he's seen the two cry was when they first met. He over hears them talking, discussing whether or not to go back to Amanda. To leave the land of man. But they can't, back at the garden they will be killed. "I do not want to go back to being made of stone. I don't want my body to feel cold. The flesh of man is weak and delicate, but it's warm and soft. I want to bleed. I want to live and die with man." Well fuck, Gavin fucked a God. He's not really sure how to feel about that, about the brothers. He is afraid.

Gavin is acting distant and nervous around Richard now in their alone time with each other. Richard doesn't understand why and it hurts. "Gavin, don't you love me?" I'm a RAT and he's a God. Gavin tells himself. And he tries to push Richard away. Fakes anger and hate towards Richard. Gavin breaks Richards heart and his own. Gavin is alone now. Richard cries as Connor tries to comfort him. He is depressed and doesn't leave the bed. Richard doesn't move, doesn't even talk to Connor anymore. Connor is lonely.

Gavin misses Richard. Misses the company of the two brothers. He doesn't want to live anymore. Life is without meaning now. He can't bare to think of Richard, to look at endless drawings and memories that come with it.

While Richard sleeps Connor makes a visit to Gavin. He is angry. Grabbing Gavin by his shirt and lifting him up against the wall. Asks him why? Why he would hurt his brother this way. "I thought you loved him?" "I do love him." "Then why did you make him Cry!!? Why has he stopped smiling? Stopped getting out of bed! Stopped talking to me!!!?" His grip tightens as tears start to fall from Connor's eyes. "Why did you break his heart!?" "I know your little secret. I know what you two are!!! You lied to me! You're Gods. And I'm not..... I'm not... Good enough. Even if we stayed together, I would die and he'd be alone again. I'm not worth all that pain.". "Gavin, love is what makes life worth living. We loved Hank and it hurt more than anything when he died. But I wouldn't trade anything for the love we felt together. Our Father gave us something nothing else in this world could. Gavin, you gave that to Richard and then you took it away. Give it back. Give his life meaning again." "Can man really do that for a God?" " No not man, you. It's you who can make that possible for him..... Please come with me. Come back to him." "I... I will." Connor hugs Gavin tightly when they hear voices outside. Gavin recognizes two of the men as the ones who assaulted Richard. The other must have died from Gavin's attack. The other three men with them must be friends of theirs. The five where headed towards Gavin's home. "Shit! Connor get out of here! Go home and don't let them see you!" Connor protests but Gavin gets him to leave.

Connor runs back to Richard waking him up and telling him Gavin needs help. He gets up instantly and the two head back to him. Only by the time they get there it's too late. ......

WARNING THIS IS REALLY BAD!

There's blood everywhere one of the men lay dead. But the other 4 are gone. They find Gavin. Naked. Raped then brutally murdered. Cut, stabbed, bruised, choked. The stream of tears still visible on his cheeks. (I'm really sorry)

------

Richard and Connor build a garden of their own deep in the forest. It's filled with so many beautiful flowers and trees. Lilacs and cherry blossoms, aspens and roses. A river stream and a small pond of fish. They burry Gavin and Hank next to each other. Richard places every drawing with Gavin. Connor stands over Hanks grave while Richard stands over Gavin's. "He loved you you know. That night. He was going to come back." "Why did he leave?" "He found out we were God's. And felt unworthy." Connor explained. The two stayed silent after that for some time. "Together?" "Together my brother. We'll all be together soon." The held hands still standing over the graves. Then, they turned to stone. Neither God or Man now. Merely marble statues. Pieces of art never to be seen by any man again. Tombstones for lost loved ones.

[crashdevlin]

Well-trained

Author’s Note: Written to fulfill my Free Space for @spnkinkbingo, I chose Pain Kink and threw in some nice Dom/sub dynamics and the rare pair of Debriel x Reader. It’s also a take on this thing I shared two weeks ago about getting my newest tattoo. I blame the Debriel on @thewhiterabbit42. They welcomed me to this trashcan with open arms...

Pairing(s): Dean x Gabriel x Reader

Summary: Y/n’s boyfriends take her to get her anti-possession tattoo.

Word Count: 2526

Story Warnings: Dom!Gabriel, Switch!Dean, Sub!Reader, pain kink, established poly relationship, possessiveness, handsy tattoo artist... no sex, just kink 

The parlor was well-lit and smelled of cleaning solvent. You'd insisted upon it. You didn't want the neons and black-lights of the parlor down the street. You didn't want the place to smell like incense. You were getting a medical procedure done, that's how you saw it. A tattoo was art, but it was also more disruptive to your epidermis than most laparoscopic surgeries these days and you wanted it done somewhere clean, somewhere that smelled like a hospital.

You filled out your paperwork and sat in the waiting area while the tattoo artist set up his area. Gabriel took the opportunity to flip through the sample books, a popsicle in his hand despite the cold weather outside. “I'm thinking a badass dragon across my shoulders. What do ya think, babe?”

“I think you could do it yourself with a snap,” Dean responded, not looking up from his phone where he was losing Words With Friends to both Mary and Sam.

“Not the babe I was talkin’ to, but you're right. I could do hers the same way if you wa-”

“No. She's gotta get it done right, Gabe.”

Gabriel turned to him, eyebrow cocked over his perfect honey eyes. “You think I'd fuck it up? I could have that thing done perfectly and completely healed in a fraction of a second and she wouldn't have to worry about-”

Dean dragged his eyes up and green met gold. “The pain is half the point. You don't heal her when we tan her hide in the bedroom, why would you deprive her of what she likes, here?”

The archangel blinked slowly and nodded. “Got me there, Winchester.”

Dean turned his attention to you, nudging you with his elbow. “You nervous, baby girl?” You shook your head. ‘Nervous’ wasn't the right word. ‘Anxious’ was closer. “You sure? I mean, you're about to have a big Romanian dude with ⅞ gauges in his ears seeing the glory you usually reserve for me and a damn archangel.”

You smiled. “Not all my glory, Dean. Besides, Gabe’ll be able to tell if he’s thinking impure thoughts and he can give him his just desserts if he acts unprofessionally.”

“Don’t give him that permission, y/n. He’ll kill the guy. Dude’s gonna be full of impure thoughts once your shirt comes off.”

“Come on. He doesn’t need permission, Dean.” Gabriel’s eyes sparkled at that. “And the shirt’s not coming off. It’s why I wore a camisole instead of a t-shirt. Just gonna pull the left side down. He shouldn’t even get to see any nipple.”

“Shame,” Dean rumbled. “Definitely love it when other guys get hard for you, coveting what’s ours.”

“Don’t worry, Dean-o. He already wants her.” Gabe tossed the stick from his popsicle at the trash can by the door and flopped down next to you on the black leather couch. “He keeps wondering which of us is her boyfriend. Thinks he’s more attractive than me, but if she’s your girl, he doesn’t have a shot.”

You scoffed out a chuckle. “You guys should put on a show. See how he acts when he thinks you’re my gay best friends and I’m fair game.”

“You hear this girl? She’s trying to get this guy killed,” Gabriel said, an almost proud tinge to his words.

“Am not, but come on. It should come as no surprise that I like games, Gabe. Why else would I have fallen for you?”

“I’m adorable?”

Dean smiled and leaned across in front of you to wrap his fingers in Gabriel’s hair and pull him in for a kiss. It was a rare thing for you to be caught between, in public at least. The hunter usually kept his PDA with the archangel to a bare minimum. If he was going to neck with someone on a park bench or something, he wanted to know people were staring because they were enjoying the show not because they were judging him.

Each man put a hand on your thigh, digging their fingertips into your flesh as their tongues danced across each other in front of your face. You immediately flooded with heat, your cheeks warming under the stimulus.

“I’m ready for you, sweetheart,” the tattoo artist, Kevin, said, walking into the waiting area. The look on his face was a mix of disgust at the display of man-love on his couch and excitement at the thought that those guys were obviously together and not with you.

Your boyfriends separated once Gabe gave Dean’s bottom lip a nibble and all three of you stood to follow Kevin back to his work area. He sat you down on a seat that reminded you of a weight bench without the bar and lifted the stencil he’d made of the anti-possession sigil. “Where we puttin’ it, darlin’?”

You placed your hand over your heart. “Right about here.” His lips twitched at the corners but he held back his smile.

“Okay, just lean on back and look straight ahead.” You did as you were told, looking straight ahead as he pulled the straps of your bra and camisole down your left arm. Based on the cold air on your skin, you could tell he’d pulled the fabric down almost to the edge of your areola. His gloved fingers carefully placed the stencil and he had you stand and check the placement, which was perfect. You sat down again, getting comfortable. Dean sat in the chair in the corner and Gabe leaned against the wall.

“Play a ‘D’ on Sam’s ‘SOPHISTICATE’. You’ll get the triple,” you coached from your chair as Kevin retrieved his tattoo gun. Dean’s eyebrows raised and he pursed his lips as his phone buzzed.

“Thanks. He's probably just been waiting for a ‘D’.”

“No prob.”

“Keep looking at him. It stretches your skin just right,” Kevin said.

“Okay.”

You took a deep breath, scene starting as the gun touched your skin. The pain was instant, and a throbbing pulse of need took up in your core because of it. You focused on Dean. Not the pain or what it was doing to you, just Dean and breathing. Dean and breathing. Not the wetness slowly seeping onto your underwear. Just Dean and breathing.

“Wow. Is this thing even working?” Kevin commented after a few minutes. Dean's eyes jumped from his phone to your chest, where the outline of the symbol was definitely starting to be etched into your skin. “You haven't even flinched, sweetheart.” Dean smirked and looked back down at his phone. You didn't respond as Kevin started in again, his pinkie finger dipping under the edge of your shirt in a way that could have been an accident but totally wasn't.

“I could tattoo you forever, y/n. You're, like, the perfect client,” Kevin praised a few minutes later.

Dean nodded without looking at you. “Thank you,” you answered, now that you'd gotten permission.

The gun started its trek across your collarbone and the sharper pain forced your eyes closed, but no sound escaped you, still. “I mean, I have had grown-ass men, like big burly guys like me in this chair and not a single one has been as tough as you. I could tattoo you ‘til I was blue in the face.”

“I'd be worried if you went blue in the face, Kev,” Gabriel spoke up.

“I'm just saying, she’s a fuckin’ rock. She barely moves. She's got a pain tolerance to die for. I mean, I'm stabbing prime fuckin’ real estate here and you're barely even acknowledging it's happening.” He turned his attention back to you as he finished speaking.

Dean's smirk made you bite your lip. “Yeah.” He looked up and caught your eyes. “She's well-trained, aren't you, baby girl?”

“Yes, sir.” Kevin's hand twitched at the words and he seemed to catch the tone. Of course he didn't understand that he was just a tool in your scene, that he was no more relevant to the game than a flogger or cock cage. But he would come to understand.

His fingers dipped under your camisole again, this time far enough to brush your nipple. Dean caught it this time. “Hey, Gabe,” Dean said, quietly, a deep rumble in his voice.

“I saw. That's two.”

“And we're going to give an opportunity for a third?”

“Well, we don't want the job left unfinished. If I explode him now, she'll only have an outline… and not even a full one.” Kevin snatched his hand away from your body and looked up at the other two men, trying to ascertain what Gabriel meant by ‘explode him’.

You still didn't move. As Kevin determined there were no explosives for Gabriel to explode him with, you stayed looking off at Dean, whose green eyes had taken a darkness. “What's wrong, guys?” Kevin asked, trying to sell the idea that he didn't know why they were upset.

“You think we're blind?” Dean leaned forward. “You've got more than enough access to her ‘prime real estate’, Kev. You don't need to be tryin’ to get more.”

“I… I mean, if she's uncomfortable with anything I've done, she should-”

“Y/n?” Gabriel called out.

“Yes, sir?”

“How you feel about this fucking disgrace sticking his fingers where they don't belong?”

“I don't like it, sir. He's not supposed to do that.”

“What do you think Dean and I should do about it, lollipop?”

“Whatever makes you happy, sir, but I'm partial to the head-splosion.”

You couldn't see Kevin's eyes go wide with fear, but you could see Dean lick his lips and Gabriel raise his hand. “I wanna make you happy, sweet stuff, but head-splody is such a Lucifer move. And it's a bitch to clean up.”

Dean stood up, phone going into his pocket as he walked around you to stand next to Kevin. “How about Kevin keeps his hands off'a our real estate, he doesn't make our girl feel any more uncomfortable than he already has, and maybe, just maybe, we don't kill him and wreck his shop?”

There was a moment of silence as Kevin debated with himself what to do and were they serious. “If you call the cops, they will arrive to blood and body parts viciously strewn around your shop. I don't usually go for the direct explosion death, I like a little more flair, but I'm more than capable of it.”

Kevin cleared his throat and nodded. “Yeah, I'll… I'm sorry. I'm gonna finish the, uh, the thing.”

“Good call.” Dean stepped back and looked down at you. “You need to move, baby girl?”

“May I, sir? This chair is very uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, why don't you get up and stretch, huh? Kev ain't comin’ near you again ‘til he stops pissin’ his pants.”

You stood, smiling, scene effectively paused as you stretched your arms across your chest. You turned to the mirror, ignoring the terror still on Kevin's face as you examined the start of the tattoo in the mirror. “Well, you're a terrifying guy, Dean,” Gabriel teased. “You shouldn't have been so hard on the man.”

“Me? You're the one talking about exploding the guy, name-dropping your brother ‘cause who's gonna be frightened of Gabriel: the trumpeter?”

“A lot of people!” Gabe defended.

“Maybe you as Loki, but not you as-”

“Guys!” you called out, before nodding your head toward Kevin, whose eyes were huge with shock. “Don't think he's quite ready for all that.” You turned to the mirror and smiled. “You're doing a wonderful job, Kevin. With the tattoo and the scene. Don't worry about my boys. They won't hurt you.”

“Speak for yourself, y/n. He touches that tit again and I'm gonna fuck him up.”

You rolled your eyes at Dean and shook your head. “He kinda has to if we want the tattoo finished. I mean, unless you want me to get possessed by demons.”

“What are you people?” Kevin asked.

“Well, one of us isn't even a people,” Dean joked, slapping his hand across Gabriel's ass.

“The short answer, Kev? Dangerous. Those two much more than me, and you had the bright idea to touch what belongs to them. So, ya know… you should refrain from that shit in the future.”

“Or you won't have a future,” Dean finished.

When you sat back down, Kevin started to tattoo you again, your head stayed turned to the corner where Dean was sitting. He moved quickly, without the inappropriate touching and without the praising remarks. Just Dean and breathing, Dean and breathing… pain and dizziness, pain and dizziness. Your breaths went heavy to compensate the flushing heat assaulting your skin.

“There she goes,” Gabe whispered to Dean as your eyes crossed, going unfocused as endorphins rushed through your system and all there was in your world was Dean. “She’s so cute in subspace.”

“Is she gonna pass out?” Kevin asked, but you didn’t hear him. All you could see was Dean. All you could hear was Gabe.

“Nah, she ain’t gonna pass out. Just finish the tat, man,” Dean demanded.

“She did pass out that one time, didn’t you, tootsie roll?”

“I awayaoh,” came out of your mouth but Gabe just nodded in complete understanding of your drugged-out mumbling.

“She only passed out because you didn't put the whip down when I said to.”

“I’m sorry, Dean, but what part of ‘archangel’ do you think puts you in charge, huh?” Gabriel gestured to himself, then Dean.

“Well, if you had listened, she wouldn't have passed out. Too much pain puts her over.”

“I know that, now, don't I?” Gabriel took your hand, kneeling next to you. “You good to go for her aftercare, Deanie Baby, or do you want me to handle it?”

Dean stood. “Huh, here I was thinking we were both her doms and we'd take care of her together.”

“Ya silly switch, you. Of course we can do it together. I thought you might wanna lose Words with your family some more, that's all.”

“The day I pick games on my phone over you and y/n, explode me.”

“Gonna hold you to that.” Gabriel popped to his feet, looking down at you as Kevin finished your tattoo, sliding petroleum jelly over the new symbol. “Great job, Kev. I'll take it from here,” he said, snapping his fingers.

“Gabe…” Dean's voice was full of warning.

“I didn't kill him. Just thought he should know what it feels like to be pawed at against his will.”

“Where is he?”

“Currently performing a striptease for a dozen ladies in their eighties.”

Dean chuckled as he reached down and picked you up. You nuzzled into his neck, still riding out your high. “Come on, let's get her home. She's gonna need to get her sugars back up after she's done in subspace.”

“And after that, we can see if I can get you there,” Gabriel said, quirking an eyebrow.

“Told you, man, I can't get there. Just can't let go enough.” Dean leaned down and pressed his lips to the archangel’s. “But I'm happy to let you try.” He winked as Gabriel reached out to take his hand. “Sir.”

KITCHEN SINK TAGS @heyitscam99 @wonderlandfandomkingdom @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @mrs-meghan-winchester @henrymorganme @lonely-skys @allykat2108 @mogaruke @flamencodiva @team-free-will-you-idjits-67

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[gotatext]

          whats up ! its ur local feral goblin nora ( 23, she/her, gmt ) bringing u yet another baby i dug out of the trash and vomited onto the dashboard. a fake psychic slash rodeo bull sensation studying at hendrix but born in marfa, texas. luvs wearing gingham print dresses and cowboy boots n always in loads of rings and necklaces w flowers in her hair. very into art and pornography, and particularly the combination of the two. wants to do a PHD on gender studies and female autonomy in porn (yeehaw!). this is a pinterest board. without further ado, here’s frida !

hendrix template.

( cis-female ) haven’t seen FRIDA CALHOUN around in a while. the ELIZA SCANLEN lookalike has been known to be (+) SCHOLASTIC & (+) PLUCKY, but SHE can also be (-) DOGMATIC & (-) SINGLE-MINDED. The 18 year old is a FRESHMAN majoring in GENDER STUDIES & VISUAL ART. I believe they’re living in AUDAX, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( nora. 22. cowboy time. she/her. ) 

 aesthetics.

a red gingham print dress from your childhood that tugs at the seams and hitches at your thighs. brown cowboy boots still thick with the dirt of a marfa desert. stripper heels decorated with hello kitty stickers. a crystal ball you bought for a dollar from a one-eyed woman at a thrift store. dead flowers clinging to the braids of your hair. a rucksack permanently packed for the move. a streak of red across your lips. roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens. smiling with a mouthful of blood. the female orgasm cut and pasted from pornhub and superimposed onto renaissance art. sweet wrappers scattered over the vinyl seats of an older man’s car. also this pic here is a big frida mood

connection to eva & did they choose her name during the watershed?

study abroad mentor. when frida moved to the netherlands to study, she was assigned a mentor to help her settle into campus life, since she was not of dutch heritage. eva was her mentor for her first few weeks of study, though they weren’t really friends. occasionally they hung out if they saw each other out at night, but they weren’t like... super close.

ok,.... so first up ! despite going to uni in amsterdam, this gal was born and raised in the ole’ U.S of A. she’s from marfa, texas. it’s a very arty place. she was surrounded by art wankers as a child and it kind of educated her to a lot of shit, but also meant she grew up p fast?? like she learned about sex and death and violence from all these art people who thot they were Freeing her Superego n makin a genius child bt rlly.... they shd hav just let her play with dirt rather than showin her artistic representations of the inside of a dead bird.

 BACKSTORY TIME.. her mother was from the wrong side of the tracks, wanted 2 go to art school and started working as an erotic dancer to pay for college but then jst.... ended up staying there. one of those girls u see in the documentaries who had Big Plans but ultimately never got to pursue them n jst got.... sucked in by the money

 frida was raised in dressing rooms surrounded by sparkly costumes and nipple pasties and leotards and the like. as a kid she’d try to trot about in her moms heels n yearned for the day she’d be able to be on stage. 

if you’ve seen pretty baby its a bit similar to tht..... her mom works in a brothel n has her quite young n the expectation is her daughter will probs end up working at the brothel too when she's old enough. no1 really expected frida to get into a good uni or anythin

frida was p much raised by the town, to be honest. most of her youth was spent scurrying about half naked in cowboy boots and glasses too big for her face. a smol feral child

as a kid used to lie about being able to see dead people bcos she thought it’d make her seem cool and interesting to other kids n it got the attention of the girls her mom worked with. but when her mom realised people were willing to actually believe a 7 year old had seen their dead scorned lover, she saw it as an opportunity to swindle some extra cash and registered her as a child psychic n started putting adds out in local papers for palm readings and tarot predictions. 

when her mom hit 30s she couldn't hack being a sex worker any more, so she set up her own fortune telling business and hired a load of the girls from the club to be fake psychics. it was sort of a fortune telling parlour slash brothel, bt they kept tht very under wraps. palm reading upstairs, handjobs downstairs. the reason why some of the women from the strip club agreed to work there was because it was a business actually run by a woman who got what was going on, n not jst someone trying to make quick cash out of old men wanking

as a child, frida was on a few tv shows in the netherlands  making psychic predictions in front of live tv audiences and attempting to reach out to the spirits of their loved ones. this con continued into her teenage years, she even did youtube videos n had minor success, though she was accused of being a cheap horoscope predicter and packed it in shortly after a twitter backlash. 

if pressed, frida still claims to have a gift, but that it's not as simple as switching a light on and off, it comes when it comes, you can't summon it, and that's how she gets out of being labelled a fraud if anyone who recognises her demands a reading.

ws street smart, but also did super well at school? quite charming as a kid and good at winning adults over because of a life growing up basically conning rich white women out of their money just by telling them stuff they wanted to hear. was moved up a grade in junior high and graduated early. attended a summer school, before choosing to study in amsterdam because of the appeal of the red light district. very interested in the lives of sex workers and the way they express themselves. is only a freshman but, is like, 50% through her degree already jst cos she’s..... super passionate about her subject getting recognised as a legitimate brand of academia

she wanted to study gender performativity in the lives of sex workers and plans to do her thesis on the porn industry. it might be because of her childhood, growing up surrounded by sex workers, but she's obsessed with it, looks at mathematical structures and symbols in porn through a lens of politics and art history. very interested in visual art.

some ?mildly amusing? facts

owns 4 tarot decks and a crystal ball she bought frm an old lady with one eye

favourite drink is cherry coke

part of a burlesque collective at hendrix university who run speakeasy nights. is trying to set up her own small-scale grassroots burlesque group in one of the more mainstream clubs along the strip bcos there’s so much money and female tourists go wild 4 it

sells nudes on twitter. whenever she gets low on cash she contacts one of the seedy old men who used to visit her mom's club to venmo her $500 in return for pictures

that girl who’s always harping on about body positivity on instagram while wearing cute underwear and looking absolutely bomb 

really good at rodeo bull riding. the club in marfa had one so as a youth she got really good at it bcos she was constantly tryin to outdo her friends on who could stay on for the longest. a video of her staying on one for like 4 minutes after downing several jager bombs went viral once.

smol baby. 5′4. wears a lot of cute summer dresses n big boots. gingham is her usual dress style, or like red plaid, n then she’ll either have big white cowboy boots with spokes on the back or the really long doc martens. also owns a lot of abba-esque gogo boots and 90s creepers. flats?? who are they. has her hair in braids a lot, and usually has flowers or feathers threaded through it to add to her whole “mystic” vibe

micro-doses acid for mild depression bcos she didn’t believe in “that CBT bullshit”, thought that therapists, like her, were jst con artists so always a bit spaced out

her flirting technique is absolutely offering to read your palm. she used to do it all the time at school its how she met most of her eighth grade boyfriends. 

volunteers at one of the local galleries but mostly just rants to old white dutch men about how cis white men have dominated art for years :/ is one of those SJW-types but only?? when it comes to art?? 

has a pet rat called popeye

takes photographs of dead animals to use in her art and often posts them side-by-side with stills of women in porn to show the shelf-life of female sex workers in a patriarchal-dominated industry or some bullshit idk

big into spoken word poetry, even if its shit. likes savage depictions of femininity

wrote a thesis on art as an act of masturbation that got published 

big into capitalism and commodity culture. loves it.

wanted plots, fucker

ppl who are also studying @ hendrix but speak english !! bcos frida finished her exams a year early at like 17 n just up and left to amsterdam cos she knew if she got in-state tuition she’d never leave texas, she came to the netherlands with like, 40 dollars and a phrase book. eva was kind of her study-abroad mentor to help her settle into amsterdam campus life

ppl she met at an inter-school maths championship competition or something really fuckin nerdy like that. she probably got entered in a spelling bee or two, she was her high school’s pride and joy until people started calling her a slut in toilet door grafiti 

hook-ups !! frida does not do relationships, she had several girlfriends as a kid but she enjoyed the thrill of the chase more than being with one person. pan, but not about befriending straight men. very much fuck-em-and-chuck-em wham-bam-thankyou-ma’am when it comes to guys. that said, if u think ur character cld get under her skin n try n change that by all means be my guest

other ppl who wld be in burlesque with her. also she goes to strip clubs n peep shows like every day, thats basically research for her, so if ur characters would be into strip clubs they might see her there

she volunteers at a few galleries, tht is also a possible place where they cld kno each other from

i feel like she’d be on student council if they had one of those. shes that kind of bitch, turning up like elle woods with a big feather pen or a light-up heart marker, slamming down some truths before upping and leaving to go for her 11am chai latte break

mayb someone she’s trying to coach into being more body confident through self-expression in burlesque.

som1 who attended the art institute in marfa for a summer n maybe knew her when she was a bit younger ??? idk

drama. angst/ horror. someone accuse her of being a fake psychic and she’ll predict your horrific untimely death

nice bike rides in amsterdam please

yea like this if u a) want to plot or b) think the self is as undefinable social construct and i will slide in ur dms to further discus ruckus  x x

[keena-kapu]

Band Rehersal

Pairing: Blake/Weiss (Monochrome/Checkmate) Words: 5′364 AU: @dashingicecream‘s RWBY!Rock AU Content Warnings: NSFW Summary: A few questions leave Blake stressed out when she thinks of how much she's changed since leaving The White Fang and her old relationship with Adam and Ilia. Thankfully Weiss is able to sense her friend's upset and offers a far more exciting way to ease that stress rather than smoke a cigarette.

“AND A ONE, AND A TWO, AND--!”

The concert hall erupted with sound from the huge speakers in each corner of the room. It was two days to go until RWBY’s first performance in this venue, and they needed to be in top form. If they had any hope of making it to one of the bigger music festivals of the continent, they’d need to swamp any competition and impress potential judges. Thankfully the first evening was a guaranteed sell out, that would surely be a big enough hint that they were going in the right direction.

Truth be told, the group was growing in popularity as of late. Smaller venues were grasping at any chance to have the newest sound in, and bigger ones didn’t need much convincing either! Everyone was shocked at how fast their fan base had seemed to be growing, but everyone was equally pleased and proud.

Today was just a practice, but it was all about staying on top form. Even just for a rehearsal, they were all playing their very best. Both Ruby and Weiss were sure as they performed to keep moving around the stage, making things just as interesting to watch as they were to hear. According to their managers, an interaction was always adored by the fans, and thankfully the two were good enough friends that they never disappointed in that regard.

Blake continued to take her subtle approach. She was too focused on playing the correct notes, doing her part in delivering the bass. She knew all too well that singers and guitar players usually got the most attention, so remained in the background so as not to upstage that. It was comfortable for her to stay in the back, safer, but that wasn’t all that was on her mind lately.

While playing, she found her gaze turning to Weiss every so often. Now they were regularly meeting outside rehearsals and drinking nights, Blake was seeing their lead singer in a whole new light. At first, she didn’t have time for Weiss. She thought she was pretentious and obnoxious, only interested in herself and keeping up appearances. That view had entirely changed. She could see Weiss for who she was; a strong independent force who was trying to make a life for herself, breaking away from the family role to find her better self, and having fun while doing it. She admired her for that. But there were, of course, other things she saw more in her ever since they’d started their ‘ private rehearsals’.

Being in the background had its perks when it came to watching Weiss perform. Those skintight jeans did wonders for her body, really bringing out the definition in her legs and in her backside. Shamelessly, Blake found herself looking a little too often, her own face darkening with her blush on occasion. She didn’t need to do that on stage when she sees the full thing in her hotel room regularly, but that wasn’t about to stop her anyway.

“Mirror Mirror, I’ll tell you something, I think I might change it aaaall!”

Weiss blasted out the last note of the song, holding the microphone up as she sang it out to the empty hall, eagerly waiting for everyone else to be finished with their parts.

SMASH!

Everyone on stage jumped in fright when the guitarist’s instrument was slammed against the stage floor, snapping it in half and severing most of the strings. Instantly she held her hands up in the air, cheering with glee. Funnily enough, that expression was not shared by her other band members.

“Woah woah woah!”

From the back of the room, their lead manager was running as fast as he could toward the front of the stage, holding his hand out in some desperate hope it would have saved the electric guitar. No such luck, of course. Out of breath by the time he got to the main stage, he took a moment to pant, before looking up; “What’s with the guitar smashin’, squirt? You know they aren’t free, right?”

“Sorry Uncle Qrow!” Ruby apologized, holding up what was left of the headstock as she shrugged her shoulders. “You know our audience, they love a good guitar smash!”

“Rubes, there’s no audience here.”

“But there will be!” Ruby argued, tossing its remains on the floor. “Guitar smashing is a fine art that requires practice.”

Qrow pinched his nose and groaned in annoyance, shaking his head in resignation. He grumbled something under his breath about his poor wallet before focusing elsewhere instead. “We’ll talk about this in a minute, Rubes. Other than that, you and Weiss were putting on a fantastic show, as always.” His attention then turned toward their drummer, who he offered a smile to. “Yang, you were pretty damn good too, but I think you’re right. Those drums definitely need a light show to bring you out a lil more.”

“YES!” Yang exclaimed, throwing one of her sticks high into the air, somehow managing to catch it again as it came down. “And I still think we should be throwing some of these to the audience, they need souvenirs!”

“Ho jeez, I thought we talked about the insurance of that. And last but not least…” He turned to the final band member. “Blake, mind if we have a word?”

Having just lifted her guitar over her shoulder, Blake leaned it against one of the speakers before she addressed Qrow, pacing to the edge of the stage, giving a small nod as she knelt to his level. “Yeah?”

“You ain’t really movin’ much still,” He gestured to all of one side of the stage, “Got all this room. Y’know, Weiss and Ruby barely hop that way so you don’t gotta worry about falling over each other or anything.”

Blake could only shrug her shoulders again, sighing. “I know I have the room, but it's just not my style to make a show of myself. I’m the bass that’s always the background, and I like performing that way.”

Qrow raised one of his brows in doubt, folding his arms as he leaned against the stage. “You don’t think I never went to a White Fang concert? You weren’t always that way.”

Those were days Blake didn’t enjoy thinking about anymore. It was a year or so ago, but the time with The White Fang was still in her memory forever. She was indeed a lot braver then, daring to jump around the stage in excitement while she performed alongside their vocalist and guitar player, sometimes even in a flirtatious manner that always got the crowd roaring. She blamed it on her innocence back then, when all she knew was that she wanted to have fun and make music. How naive she was. Since her leave she’d been a lot more mellow with performances, sticking to the background and being sure to avoid making a huge show of herself. Despite being the backbone of most of their music, on stage, she liked to make herself almost invisible.

“That’s what it is, ain’t it?” Qrow seemed to have sensed Blake’s drop in mood. He pulled away from the stage and instead leaned against it, looking up more sincerely. “They won’t be anywhere near here if you’re worried about that. I spent hours convincing the liaisons here that you were cool, they were very vocal that they don’t want The White Fang back here again.”

Frowning, Blake simply folded her arms and rolled her eyes. She seemed to be in no mood to talk about this, especially not with someone like Qrow Branwen. The last thing she needed was a loudmouthed drunk knowing her insecurities. “Things change, I’ve changed. I’ll work on it, but I don’t see how making a fool of myself on stage is really gonna make us better.”

Shrugging his shoulders Qrow left the stage instead and folded his arms again, resigning to the situation. “Fair enough. Give it a shot when we come back tomorrow if you can. I think we’re done for today.” Stepping back to the other side again, he pointed to Ruby, gesturing for her to follow him offstage. “Meanwhile I’m gonna have a lil talk to my nieces about the costs of insurance and guitars.”

To which their lead guitarist called out in annoyance; “You just don’t appreciate my art!”

While the others squabbled among one another, Blake was already putting her guitar away back in its case, placing it toward the back of the stage for the stage men to take care of. As she paced toward the stage exit once done, there was only one thing running through her mind after that conversation; she needed a goddamn cigarette. It wasn't the healthy option, it wasn't even the smart option, but filling her lungs with red hot smoke did wonders to help her try and forget her former life. At least a stick of tar wouldn't ask her to come clean about her feelings like their manager always seemed to do.

The instant she pushed the backstage fire door open she was lighting up, leaning against the door to keep it open as she took a breath in. Finally, some release for the day. She stared out toward the open as she took her breath back out again, quietly thinking to herself.

While she didn't want to admit it, Qrow was right about something; she was in a far better place now. She never had to worry about any of the RWBY members going out on all night benders and returning with bloodied knuckles in the morning, or about entire venues and hotel rooms being trashed through their orders. The heaviest thing about them was just the music, the way it should be.

Overall, she was happy now, right? So why couldn't she act that way on stage anymore?

“I see you’ve made yourself a little smoking den already.”

Looking back around, Blake spotted Weiss just indoors. She spared her a smile as she paced closer, but did nothing other than take another drag of the cigarette and breathe it out toward the outdoors. As she flicked off some of the ash, she shrugged her shoulders. “Gotta go somewhere. You want one?”

Weiss shook her head, holding a hand out in dismissal. “Pass, but thank you for the offer, I guess.” She stepped a little further in, shifting Yang’s motorcycle helmet to one side of a crate to make a seat for herself, where she hopped up to idly. “Do you always smoke after you receive unorthodox questions, or is this just a coincidence?”

Blake lightly smirked, raising an eyebrow as she stared back outside again. “Helps me calm down, figure stuff out in my head, ease stress, that sorta thing.”

“I see.” Weiss idly swayed her legs from side to side, looking down toward the ground. Lightly smirking, she joked; “I’ll bear that in mind next time you light up right after we ‘hang out’.”

Unable to help herself, Blake chuckled during the drag she had, quickly taking the cig from her mouth and clarifying; “That’s definitely for the ‘calm down’ part, don’t worry about that. What you and I do together is a different way to ease stress.”

“Nice save.” Weiss laughed lightly, keeping the smile for the moment in silence while Blake finished off her cigarette. But that wasn't the end of it. Blake could tell by now when Weiss did want to say something but was debating. She’d wait patiently, looking off into the distance sometimes or twiddle her thumbs idly if it was serious. And that seemed to be true when Weiss asked; “Was it those questions that stressed you out?”

There it was. Blake allowed the end to fall from her fingers and ground it into the concrete with her foot. Immediately she leaned back against the wall again. “Only because they came from him. The dude might be Yang and Ruby’s uncle, but he’s not mine. I’m not one for talking about exes to strangers.”

“I figured it was something like that. He can be rather invasive at times, especially after a drink or two.”

“Tell me about it.” Blake rolled her eyes again, running a hand through her hair. “Glad he’s at least sober enough to keep from suggesting I should do what I used to, randomly make out with one of the members on stage.

Where she expected Weiss to laugh, she did not. Instead, she was actually very intrigued, raising an eyebrow. “You really did that with them? Live during shows?”

Right away Blake’s face lit up. She did just let that slip easily when she framed it as a joke. Welp, this is awkward.

But Blake just shrugged her shoulder again. “With Adam or Ilia, yeah. I mean, the three of us were dating at the time, we were always trying crazy ways to get the audience screaming. Guess I was just glad it was that over smashing the venue and running up a huge bill.”

“... Huh.” Weiss appeared bewildered. Even though the two had been getting to know one another a little better since their arrangement, it seemed that wasn't one of those things. “There really is a lot I still don't know about you, huh?”

Allowing the fire door to fall shut again, Blake leaned against the wall instead, looking over at Weiss again. She sighed deeply. While she knew Weiss had the best intentions at heart, the whole subject was exhausting. “It really isn't important. The past is the past, I'd rather just focus on ‘Making better memories’ as you put it.”

“Oh, no, I’m not saying you shouldn't focus on that! I just… I don’t know, it's interesting to find these things out? Like I never knew you were bi or poly or…” Sensing this wasn't helping to lighten the mood, Weiss immediately stopped. “Sorry, that isn't helping.”

Unable to help herself, Blake chuckled lightly. As frustrating as it was, she could still understand Weiss’s heart was in the right place. She cared for her feelings and was just curious as her friend. That warmed her heart. When she looked at Weiss again, she was left with a smile.

“You are helping,” She reassured her, “God, you’ve all been helping. It's been so nice to be in a group who cares about each other, who just make music because we love it rather than use it as an excuse to cause chaos. And… uh…”

Finding her cheeks beginning to burn once more, the smile she had was turning sheepish. “ You Especially have been helping. It's been nice to just mess around without any pressure and just… have fun. And with you its… really, really fun.”

The redness grew in Weiss’s cheeks also. For a moment, she found herself unable to look Blake in the eye, instead looking off toward the wall to try and avoid eye contact. But in that moment of silence, she took the time to look around the backstage area. When she was finally ready to speak she shifted her position slightly on the crate, moving closer and speaking quietly, “How about we ‘have some fun’ right now?”

“... Huh?” But Weiss’s expression never shifted. She appeared just as smug, in fact even more so once the cogs turned in Blake’s head. Her eyes snapped open when realizing, and she whispered back; “Wait, are you serious? Right here?!”

“Why not?” Weiss asked, “No one’s exactly coming back here, they’re all packing away to head back to the hotel.”

Blake narrowed her eyes. “Then… why don’t we just wait till we’re back there too?”

“I don’t think you’re quite getting it.” Shifting forward off the crate again, Weiss refused to let her confidence slip just yet. She looked to Blake with a half lidded expression, pacing very slowly toward her. “I mean… I’m pretty sure no one will be back here but there is a tiny chance someone might…”

“Surely that’s all the more reason to go back-”

“Doesn’t that excite you though?” Once close enough, Weiss trailed one of her hands up Blake’s arm. Agonisingly softly, until resting it on her shoulder as she looked up and met her gaze. “The thrill, the risk… That tiny chance someone could walk in. You don’t want to do things too adventurous on stage anymore, I get that; but how about adventurous backstage, right here, with me instead?”

A shaky breath escaped Blake’s lips. Now that was definitely something worth the risk. No matter how skeptical she was of Weiss’s intentions at first, the longer she gazed into that half lidded expression, the more she felt her own need growing. But Weiss just smirked, continuing to hold her close and stare up at her. That was enough for Blake to make her choice.

She grasped Weiss’s wrists from her shoulders, using it as leverage to push her back into the opposing wall, where she immediately captured those lips with hers in a heated embrace. Mere seconds it took for them to find a rhythm, bodies pressing up against each other and grinding to try and fill that need they both shared. Blake released her wrists, instead bringing one of her hands to the back of Weiss’s knee, pulling the leg up and against her so those grindings would do more to satisfy her.

And they did. Numerous times Weiss had to pull away to catch her breath, but a moan hung in the air every time. And she always returned within seconds, immediately crashing their lips again and opening her mouth wide for Blake’s advances. That leg Blake pulled against her looped around the back of her knees, pinning her in place in the hope Blake would grind against what was between them. Even though both Blake’s and Weiss’s jeans it felt good, but she needed more. They both did.

When they next pulled away, Blake went to her neck. She immediately began kissing and biting, making Weiss moan out in desire. The bassist was determined to drive her crazy, pulling her leg up further and pushing up against her just so they could tease one another for longer. But it couldn't continue. Their needs were growing too great.

After a few seconds of resisting, Weiss finally had the courage to push on for the next step, quietly whispering; “Condom?”

Blake nodded, at last breaking away that kiss and releasing her leg. While she fussed about the packet and getting it open, Weiss was already eager to go and unzipping her jeans for her, smirking and grasping the waistband of both her jeans and her underwear, pulling it down just enough to expose the hardening cock there. They were well past the point of talking. Both could read each other like a book and everything worked perfectly without words. Blake moaned quietly as Weiss jerked her, feeling her member grow to its full length before Weiss took the condom from her and put it on for her. Now they could get started.

In a swift movement, Blake knelt down and pulled Weiss’s jeans and underwear together down to her knee, scooping her legs up as she stood again. The quick action knocked the wind out of Weiss when she was pushed against the wall, pinned there by Blake’s body and her legs on her shoulders. But the instant she felt Blake’s wrapped member pushing itself up against her bare lips she smirked again. It wasn’t at all a glamorous position, but neither cared. All they were both focused on was how good it was going to feel.

And once Blake guided her member inside, the gasp from them both was a clear example of that. A smug smile formed on Blake’s face when she witnessed Weiss’s eyes falling shut with pleasure, unable to keep her eyes off her while she settled into a fast paced rhythm, breath getting heavier with each thrust. There were moments when a small moan escaped Weiss’s lips, but she each time, she tried to suppress such sounds by biting her lip. Such a sight made it a struggle for Blake to keep herself from moaning as well.

She found herself remembering their first real encounter of this nature, where what got her going was Weiss’s noises and screams. Now it was completely different. It was the thrill of pushing her own limits to get Weiss off quickly and quietly before they were discovered. What a way to create such adventurous memories.

The faster pace was taking its toll on the both of them. She felt Weiss’s hands grasping at her shirt tightly as she desperately clung on, eyes screwed shut as she tried to suppress her urge to scream out loud. Blake’s own breath was getting faster, and a few quiet grunts escaped her lips as she pushed in over and over. Seemed neither of them had quite anticipated how good this position was. Already Blake could feel the odd tremor from Weiss’s legs when she thrust particularly hard.

“S-Shit…” Weiss could barely hold herself together anymore, shaking her head side to side in some kind of attempt to hold on longer. But it wasn’t working at all. She just barely managed to mutter out for Blake; “C-Close…!”

But Blake was already feeling that for herself. She could feel her lover’s muscles tensing more often, hear the odd hum of pleasure that managed to escape from Weiss’s lips. She nodded in response, supporting her rear in order to make her thrusts that bit harder and faster, desperate to push herself for her own end alongside Weiss’s.

With a sudden whimper, her lover met that end. Weiss’s legs shuddered even more against Blake’s shoulders, finding muscles below clamping down on Blake’s member with each thrust, trying to pull her to her own finish with her. Blake watched as her face turned to a vision of pure ecstasy, finding it spurring on her own end much faster than she thought it would.

A few moments later, Blake met that end as well. She thrust herself to the hilt and allowed a quiet, long groan, feeling her member throbbing inside Weiss’s body. Her own eyes screwed shut as her mind was flooded with pleasure, quivering all over as the height of her orgasm passed over her. The knowledge that she’d came so close to when Weiss did was definitely a memory she’d be clinging onto for a while.

The both of them remained that way for a while, taking the moment to catch their breaths back again and just enjoy the afterglow. All Blake could bring herself to do was stroke Weiss’s lower back, just enough to ensure her she was there and had thoroughly enjoyed herself, as though her orgasm wasn’t enough. But it wasn’t long before Weiss was patting her shoulder.

“Okay, you can let me down now.”

Although at first whining sadly, Blake gave into her lover’s demand, drawing her hips back and the member out of Weiss’s body again, holding her rear firmly to support her as she brought her legs back to the ground. Both of them were still out of breath as they tidied themselves back up, Blake quickly tossing the condom in the trash and zipping her jeans back up while Weiss pulled her own back. Should anyone come in now, at least the only possible sign was the redness in their cheeks.

“So…” Blake began, holding her hands behind her back as she tried to think of what to say. In the end, only one phrase was perfect, but also not enough. “... That was fun.”

“Oh yeah.” Weiss weakly laughed, trying to tuck away the few strands of hair that’d managed to come loose while she was pinned. “Jesus, that position was just incredible.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Blake was straightening the collar of her shirt, folding the sleeves back again to their usual position. Still, her interest was piqued, she raised an eyebrow when looking over. “Just cause it was new or…?”

“Blake, you’re my first, everything is new.” Weiss clarified with a small laugh, but her cheeks went pure red when she explained it. “It was so deep. I don’t think you have ever managed to get in that much before. It was… wow.”

Blake also blushed. “Wow, really? I mean, I knew I could make it hard, but I never realized it was that good.”

Though she found her ears perking up at a sound. There was the low rumble of a motor outside. A small one, most likely belonging to their drummer, Yang. Seemed the rest of the band were making their way back to the hotel.

“C’mon, we can talk about this back in the room.” Blake walked to the fire door instead, where the volume of the engine increased significantly.

“Right, yes, let’s do that. I should probably take Yang’s helm-” Though when Weiss turned to face the crate she was sitting on earlier, she stopped. She appeared deeply confused, raising an eyebrow of her own. “That’s odd… I could have sworn her bike helmet was on there a minute ago.”

“Maybe you saw her put it down and you’re remembering that,” Blake reassured.

“Perhaps so. Yes, that was probably it. Either way, she has it now, so we can just go back to the room ourselves and relax and…”

Blake let Weiss ramble on about their evening plans as she followed her out, smiling to herself as she watched her talk, even if she wasn’t necessarily listening. She couldn’t help but keep looking at her, keep thinking about how she came backstage just to make sure she was alright and how she could even tell something had been wrong in the first place. That was something only Yang or her family had been able to do for her before.

Maybe this was all a sign that this was going to last. Or maybe it was a sign it could blossom into something more.

Hours later, the hotel bar was full of hustle and bustle. Both from the residents and from the few people who’d wandered in from outside to have a good evening, drinking and laughing with their friends over beers and cocktails. A relaxing social atmosphere to be in for most.

But it always felt awkward for Blake. She wasn’t one for socializing with anyone other than a few close friends, so a bar atmosphere wasn’t something she enjoyed. But Yang was going, and she could barely say no when she’d be on her own otherwise. She sat at the bar with her friend, nursing the bottle she’d just started.

“I was looking at some of the lights for my kit, some things are insane. ” Yang had been going on about her drum kit for a good five minutes now, seeming excited to tell Blake about it after their long day. Was this really what she wanted to come down here and talk about? “I could light the thing in fuckin’ pride colors if I set it up, I mean can you imagine a rainbow pulsing each time I hit a beat?”

“Sounds pretty fuckin’ gay.” Blake agreed, managing a smile as she looked at her. “At least it's better than your other idea, I think fireworks would have gone down with Qrow like a lead balloon.”

“Dude what if I could get pride fireworks? Kill two birds with one stone!”

“And one of those birds would be your Uncle if he saw how much the insurance would charge to cover that!”

“Alright alright, point taken!” Yang laughed with her, taking a long sip from what was her second bottle for the evening. Yang always could hold her drink better than anyone else in the band, usually she needed at least two for a casual evening, and this was no different. This was tolerable for Blake, she could handle a bit of a louder atmosphere as long as she had someone to talk to, and that someone tonight was her best friend. It wasn’t all too awkward after all.

Until the subject changed.

“So… You and Weiss have started hangin’ out a lot lately huh?”

Blake paused. It was a simple enough statement, but given the context, she already felt her heartbeat getting faster. She and Weiss hadn’t told anyone of their arrangement yet, and Blake wanted to keep it that way. She laughed gently, keeping herself as calm as possible so to not give it away. “Alright, I’ll admit it, you were right; she is great once you get to know her. We’ve got a lot in common it turns out.”

“Right, yeah. Like you both like Malibu and coke, or taking a walk in the park when the weather’s good,” Yang was watching Blake’s every move, waiting for her to take a sip of her drink, before she slipped out, “or fucking in public…”

PFFFFFF

Instantly Blake spat out the drink, luckily managing to aim it at the ground in time rather than spraying it directly in Yang’s face. No, anything but that.

“Wha- I-Uh- E-excuse me?!”

“Oh don’t pull that bullshit, I walked in on you both!” This was getting worse and worse by the minute, but Yang shuddered at the memory. “Very quickly, of course. I walked in, saw you two… yeah; grabbed my helmet and noped outta there fast as I could.”

“Oh my god…” Blake was covering her face in an attempt to hide her shame. They really had been caught after all. “I am so sorry you saw that-”

“I mean from what I did see, Weiss sure is flexible…”

“Will you please stop talking?”

Yang could only laugh as her friend leaned against the bar, burrowing her head into her hands more and more. While she didn’t like to think about her best friend watching that, it seemed she did more or less leave as soon as she realized what had been going on. Yang was rather vocal on that part. “Look, I don’t care what you do but like, Jesus, I wasn’t expecting to see my best friend’s bare butt today.”

“Hey, my butt isn’t that bad!” Blake finally perked up to argue. Though her cheeks were still completely red with the humiliation she felt. “Sorry again, by the way.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, I just like teasin’ that’s all.” Yang gently punched her shoulder. There were clearly no hard feelings. “I’m just kinda surprised! I didn’t know you and Weiss were dating.”

“We’re not.” Blake clarified, taking a much longer sip of her drink, sighing with relief once done. She needed something to ease the embarrassment. “And you weren’t supposed to know. We agreed it's probably best to keep it secret that we’re…”

“Fuck buddies?”

Blake cringed. “I was gonna go for ‘bed buddies’ but that works too.”

“Hey, if it works for you, then it's totally cool! So long as you’re both having fun and you’re both sure that’s all you’re doing, then fucking without the commitment is pretty damn fun.”

Although Blake nodded in agreement, she started to think about that a little more. Yes, it was fun without the commitment. It was what she needed after the last mess she went through with Adam and Ilia before. But the more she thought about it, the more she started to think; did she want to just do this without commitment? Her and Weiss had been growing closer and closer as of late, not just in the bedroom. She knew in her heart, if it did grow into something further, perhaps she wouldn’t mind that at all. It could be even more fun than their current arrangement.

But she didn’t know if Weiss felt the same yet, and nor did she want to ruin their current one. For now, she was satisfied, as was Weiss. If she made the first move in the future… Then perhaps.

“Anyway, I gotta ask, outta curiosity…” Yang snapped Blake out of her train of thought, leaning closer and wearing a curious smile. “Was she good?”

“Fucking hell.” Blake immediately called for the bartender’s attention. “Please get me the strongest whiskey you have.”

[missjackil]

We’ll Figure It Out (Pt 1)

gif art by @travellerintime thank you so much!

Summary: After recent events, Sam has been fighting insomnia. Dean wants to help him in any way possible. He need’s Sam to talk about his experience, and needs him to relax, and will do anything to get him there. Pairing: Sam Wincester / Dean Winchester Warnings: None Tags: WIncest, First Time, Season 12 Divergance, Bunker Sex, Depressed!Sam, Caring!Dean, Comfort, Slow Burn, not too smutty

                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dean’s eyes burn after what felt like 24 hours straight of reading articles on the internet about crazy events that might be in their wheelhouse. Nothing particularly jumped off the screen to him, so he took the last 2 swallows from his beer and decided to call it a night. Sam had gone to bed hours ago. A little earlier than normal, but he had been looking more tired than usual, and it’s probably just caught up to him.

 As he approached his bedroom door, Dean paused and listened to voices coming from Sam’s room. It sounded like the TV, but Sam doesn’t usually fall asleep with the TV on, so he decides to check on his brother.

“It’s open.” Sam says as he hears Dean’s signature “shave and a haircut” knock on his door. Dean opens the door to find Sam watching TV in the dark, sitting up on his bed, in his T-shirt and lounge pants, sipping from a tumbler of whiskey, also not normal Sam behavior. Dean is sure something is out of whack.

“Hey, you okay?” Dean asks as he gives Sam a once over look to see if there is anything visibly wrong.

“Yeah,” Sam says with a half smile, “just can’t sleep. Trying to take the edge off,” as he gestures with the tumbler. Dean glances over at the whiskey bottle on the night stand. Still 3/4 of the way full. Sam could probably still drive if he had to at this point, so Dean lets himself relax a little...his little brother isn’t sitting in the dark, brooding and getting drunk.

“Whatcha watching?” Dean takes a swig from the bottle himself.

Sam chuckles.  “Believe it or not, a documentary about Hitler. How conspiracy theorists don’t believe he died in 1945,”

Dean grins with pride.“Well, we know he didn’t. He died in 2016, from a bullet to the head, fired by yours truly.” They both smile and clink a glass to bottle and take another swig.

“Want some company?” Dean asks, and Sam slides over to make room on the bed for him. Dean takes a seat, puts his feet up, and pours 2 more fingers of whiskey into Sam’s glass, takes another swig from the bottle himself and sets it down on the nightstand.

Sam never admits it, but he likes when Dean is this close to him. If it was anyone else coming into his personal space like this, he would subtly move away a bit, but this was his big brother. He knows, for whatever reason, Dean likes to be touching him, or at least close enough to touch him if he needs to.

Dean isn’t good with words, but he always speaks volumes with touch. Sam is somewhat the opposite. He doesn’t need to be physical, he much prefers talking or listening to someone else talk, but for Dean, he happily accommodates him and allows him to be as close as he needs to be.

The brothers share several silent minutes, staring at the TV, absently sipping whiskey. Dean rests his right hand on Sam’s thigh. Sam is highly aware of it but isn’t sure if Dean realizes he has done so. Sometimes Dean would touch him in ways that you never see one brother touch another, but do it with such ease that Sam would try to brush it off as just a “Dean thing” even though it would always make his stomach leap a little.

Sam had lost all interest in whatever was on TV and focused on how Dean was touching him. There was no space between them, and though there was a good foot of bed left on either side, neither made any effort to separate. They were even propped up on the same pillow.

Dean absently thumbed the fabric of Sam’s pants. Sam had to wonder what this was doing for his brother. Was he even conscious of it? He didn’t plan on asking because it would surely make him stop, and Sam wanted to stay absorbed in this feeling.

Dean broke the silence by picking up the whiskey bottle again and offering more to Sam. Sam declined by showing he still had plenty in his glass, and Dean took another long swig and settled back in next to Sam. He looked at his face for a moment, trying to read him.

Sam looked content, but still had traces of melancholy in the lines of his forehead and cheeks. His eyes blinked slowly, as though he was in deep thought about so many things he kept hidden. Dean was sure he didn’t know half of what goes on in that huge brain of Sam’s. Experiences he never speaks of past vague comments, and hints about their severity.

Dean knew Sam kept things from him since they were little kids. It used to hurt him, thinking Sam didn’t trust him, but as they aged, and became closer, Dean knew it had nothing to do with trust, but with Sam not wanting to make these things really real. As if not speaking certain words, or describing certain events, would make them disappear.

  Dean thought back to a time when Sam was 12, and Dad had been missing for a week. The first time they hadn’t heard from him for more than 3 days. Normally, if Dad knew he would be gone for more than a week, he would send the boys to Bobby’s or rent them a motel in a safe town and be back before they overstayed the rent.

However, this time, Dad didn't come back or call and when the motel managers came asking for more money, the boys had to get resourceful. They gave the manager most of what was left of the food money to pay for 2 more days, then the boys set out trash picking to find anything they could sell to a thrift store or pawn shop.

Sam would be fine during the day, while they hunted for sellable items, but at night he would cry for hours. Trying to be quiet so Dean wouldn't hear. It never worked. Dean always heard him, and though usually, he would let him have his space, some nights it was too much to bare and Dean would lay down beside him. “It’s Ok Sammy, Dad will call soon. I promise”

Then came that day when Summer Vacation was 5 days over and the boys hadn’t been enrolled in school when Sam had a bit of a meltdown.

“Dean! What do we do?! School has already started and Dad isn’t here to enroll us!”

Dean tried to joke to get Sam to calm down “You have got to be the only 12-year-old in the country that doesn’t want summer vacation to last longer!”

But Sam was always too smart for his age and knew about how things worked in the real world. “Dean, if we don’t go to school, the motel managers are going to see us here and report us to Child Services!”

Dean countered “So? We’ll get dressed in the morning and leave like we’re going to school, and just hang out at the park or the mall or something.”

Sam threw his hands up in frustration, tears streaming down his face. “Dammit, Dean! If the Cops see us walking around during school hours, they will take us to Child Services and we’ll be put in Foster Care! We’ll be separated!”

Dean knew Sam wasn’t wrong, but he had to think of something before the kid had a real nervous breakdown. “Alright, I’ll call Uncle Bobby and see if he can come get us. We can stay there for years in case Dad is dead.”

No sooner had Dean said it, then Sam flew across the room and pushed him “DON’T SAY IT, DEAN!! DON’T YOU EVER SAY IT!”

Dean catches himself and gets a firm grip on Sam “Shit Sammy, what’s going on with you?” Sam broke down in tears “If you never say it, then it won't be true!”

Dean pulled his little brother in and wrapped his arms around him. “Okay Sammy, Dad’s fine, he’ll be back soon. Until then, we’ll figure it out, we always do.”  

Then just as if their father had felt their fear, he walked through the motel door. Bandaged and bruised with a broken leg, but welcomed both his sons into his arms. “I’m sorry boys, I'm so sorry.”

Sam isn’t generally superstitious, but he has a few quirks, this happened to be one. Something about not speaking the words about any fear. emotion, or trauma, made them easier to deal with. Speaking the words means someone else will hear, and if they hear, they’ll know, and then he won't be able to convince himself it’s not true.

In fact, when other people, even Dean, had called him a “freak”, he never really felt like he was until he called himself a freak, then it became real.  So that was his therapy of choice. Bury it, don't speak of it, and it’s not real.

The Hitler documentary had finished, with sadly, no mention of how Sam and Dean stopped The Thule Society, and Hitler himself, and had moved on to a documentary on Prohibition.  

Sam was 3 glasses of whiskey into a warm mellow buzz. Still not drunk, but looser. If Dean pressed any issue, he was sure he could get Sam to spill, but he didn’t want to pressure him, he wanted him to open up if he wanted to.

“You feeling okay Sammy?” Dean nudged him with his shoulder.

"Yeah, I’m fine, I'm just... I don’t know... maybe it’s all just weighing me down now.” Sam sat forward, bending his knees up and leaning arms on them. “We’ve had one hit after another. BIG hits, first me being tortured and uh.... the whole deal with Toni Bevel, to Mom being back and leaving, then our asses ending up in little Gitmo, and now this deal with Lucifer and his love child? Sometimes I can’t get my brain to shut down so I can rest.”

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Dean asked with concern, he knew after seeing Sam go 5 days without sleep a few years back, that insomnia was stage 4 of an emotional breakdown.

“I did sleep yesterday, for a few hours,” Sam said, rubbing his face. “That's been the norm since prison. I sleep 3, maybe 4 hours a night if I get there. But sometimes, like tonight, I just can't get there.”  

Dean stared at the back of Sam’s head. resisting the urge to stroke his hair. It looked soft, and a little messy, making Dean want to smooth it out. He would never admit it, but he loved that Sam kept it long. He gives Sam’s hair one supportive stroke “Don’t worry about it Sam. we’ll figure it out, we always do.”

Dean wanted to help Sam sleep but didn’t know how.  He would offer him a sleeping pill from his own stash, but Sam wasn’t a fan of sedatives other than alcohol, because he could control the sedation level of the alcohol himself, and since he had a few drinks in him, Dean thought it might not be safe anyway. So, Plan B. “Hey Sammy, when was the last time I gave you a massage?”

“A massage?” Sam popped his head up startled by the question.

“Yeah, a massage. I used to give them to you after almost every hunt, then for some reason, you stopped asking.” Dean raised an eyebrow as if to say “Yeah, I did notice.”

Sam sat straight up on the bed, trying to think. “Um I don't know, I think maybe 4 or 5 years, since I had insomnia before?” It was. It had been just after Sam got a face full of Hell memories, that he avoided being touched most of the time, but Dean insisted, once he got Sam out of the mental ward and his head was feeling better. He wanted to make sure he would finally get a good night sleep, so he rubbed Sam’s back, neck, and shoulders until he was snoring.

“Do you want one? I think it will help you feel better.” Dean asked before proceeding.

“Uh yeah, sure? I think I have massage oil in the medicine cabinet actually,” Sam tried not to smile or look overly eager, but it wasn’t really working. Sometimes he would want to ask Dean for a massage, but it had been so long, and so much has happened, he was afraid they’d passed that level of closeness, and Dean would reject him. He knew deep down it wasn’t true but was still afraid to risk it.

Dean picked a bottle out of the medicine cabinet. Red with a black leaf stenciled on it. “All Natural Scented Massage Oil” Dean read from the bottle. He opened the cap and sniffed it. Gave a look of approval to the scent. It smelled like vanilla with a hint of cinnamon. He couldn’t help but wonder what it tasted like. He stuffed that thought away for another time. “Self-heating?” he read from the bottle “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam smiled, a little embarrassed but answered anyway. “It means it heats up when you touch it or put....” Sam stopped abruptly, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“Orrrrr what Sammy?” Dean grinned.

Sam let out a defeated sigh “Or if you put your mouth on it.”

Sam’s crooked grin, and the way he scratched his head let Dean know he was a little embarrassed.

“Wow, Sam gotta say I'm pretty impressed.  But wait! You can put your mouth on.....nevermind.”

Sam laughed “You’re an idiot.”

Dean relented with a follow through, he wanted to be able to get Sam relaxed into sleep. “Okay, weirdness over. Lay on your stomach, let's do this.”

Sam took his gentle orders and took his shirt off before he laid down. He brought the pillow down to the foot of the bed with him, and crunched it in his arms and rested his chin on it. He felt Dean squirt a generous amount of oil between his shoulder blades and down his back to just above the waistband of his pants. It was a little bit cold, but that wasn’t what made the chill run up his spine.

As soon as Dean put his hands on the middle of his back, Sam felt the oil getting warm beneath them. Automatically, Sam felt relief. Like laying back in a hot tub. He closed his eyes and let the feeling of his brother's hands spreading the oil around his back, pull him into a warm place he hadn’t felt in years. Before things got so crazy and weighed so heavily on their shoulders.

He thought to himself how he has never really given Dean a massage. He has rubbed out his shoulder before, or his bum knee, but never did this. This felt so awesome, that he felt like he should share the experience. Tomorrow maybe, or the next day, just not too soon after this, then it would just be weird.

                        Sam stared up at the TV, not really paying attention, but a commercial came on with a little boy complaining of a sore throat and his dad offering this children’s sore throat medicine, and Sam remembered when he was 7 and had strep throat. How raw and sore it was but the medicine the Doctor gave him smelled and looked horrible, and he refused to take it.

Dad got frustrated with him. “Sammy, you have to take it or you’re not going to get better and you’ll end up in the Hospital, and you know we don’t have time for that!”

Sam still refused, and Dad pushed the medicine bottle and spoon at Dean. “Here! Maybe you can get through to him,” and stomped out of the room.

Dean sat down on the bed next to his sick little brother. “C’mon Sammy, let's get you better. Here, I'll take some first and tell you if it tastes like ass okay?”

Dean poured himself a spoon full of this thick pink swill and swallowed the whole thing in one shot. He grimaced and gave an exaggerated gag, which made Sam laugh. “Now you do it, and if you swallow it without making a face, it means you’re stronger than me. You ready?”

Sam nodded and took down the whole spoonful. It did indeed taste like ass, but Sam fought back a gag put all his strength into not making a face. Dean ruffled his hair in pride. “You’re a bigger, stronger man than me, Sammy,” he said. Almost like prophecy.

Dean pressed firmly into the muscles in Sam’s back. Admiring, and almost envying the definition of them. Sam was still muscular, and healthy, but that didn’t stop Dean from worrying about the weight he had dropped over the past few years. He was watching him though. He was definitely eating, real food, not just rabbit food, and still enjoyed cheeseburgers and pizza more than a few times a month.

Maybe it was just because he runs regularly now. Before, Sam would work out, but running wasn’t part of his routine until after he had gotten his soul back.  Sam used to run a lot more on the job when he had no soul, maybe that’s something that stayed with him from the transition, the urge to run. Whatever it was, the muscle was still firm and defined, just more lean than bulky.  7 years ago, Sam would definitely beat him at arm wrestling, but Dean wasn’t so sure now.

Sam felt like he could fall asleep now, with very little effort, but it was so rare to feel this comfort and peace, that he wanted to savor it for as long as he could. His muscles were loosening up right along with his mind. He could sense every word Dean was saying with his hands, by the way, they moved. They never said “I love you” to each other in words, but it was always known by their actions.

He could hear those words coming from Dean’s hands right now, and he let himself be dragged down into it. Their actions of love for each other had gone from the simple things, like cooking each other a nice meal, to soul selling, and releasing The Darkness to save each other. What more could they possibly do to convey this message further?

Sam let his mind dip momentarily into the secret world he’s wanted to take Dean for years. The world where it didn't matter that they’re brothers, but only that they were each other's very heart and soul. Two sides of the same coin, and could express this bond any way they saw fit. For a moment, Sam imagined laying naked beside Dean. Flesh to flesh, with no walls and no rules. Wrapping each other in their arms, legs, and lips, until they were truly one single unit. It wasn’t about sex really, it was about completion.

Dean squeezed some more oil on Sam’s shoulders, and Sam immediately responded by arching his back and rocking his hips a little bit. Dean liked this... a lot. He felt a great satisfaction in being able to melt Sam under his hands.

He slid his hands up to Sam’s neck and gently moved his hair over to the side so he could press his thumbs into his nape. Sam let out a low moan and buried his face into the pillow as if to stifle it. “Does that feel good Sammy?” Dean said, knowing the answer already. He could read Sam like a braille book by the goosebumps raised on his skin. Sam didn’t answer, he didn’t need to.

                       Dean stayed in the zone. Kneading his brother’s neck and shoulders until the tightness melted away. It was working, Sam was relaxed and would start talking soon.  “Still with me Sammy?” Dean broke the silence.

Sam drew a long breath and assured Dean he was still awake and nodded “Yeah.”

“Dean? Can I asked you something?”

“Yeah, sure. Ask anything.” Dean could tell Sam was in a thoughtful place by the tone of his voice.

“Do you still regret being alive?” Sam asked, turning his head to the side so he could see Dean’s face. Dean didn’t expect this kind of question, and Sam could see he was trying to wrap his head around it.

“Seriously. When the faith healer healed you, and then Dad sold his soul, you kept saying you should have stayed dead. Do you still feel that way?”

Dean hadn’t given it much thought for a long time. In fact, every morning that he woke up on the cold side of a funeral pyre, and Sam was right there with him, was a good day for him. But it brought up a question for him as well. “No Sam, I don’t regret it. Do I wish it went down differently?  That Dad hadn't died in my place?"

"Yes... but  I'm happy to be alive.and I'm even more happy you still are too.” Dean approached his question, with his hands still on Sam’s back. No longer rubbing, just touching. “How about you Sammy? Do you still hate me for the whole Gadreel thing?”

Sam propped himself up on one arm and looked at Dean straight in the eyes. “I have never, and will NEVER hate you, no matter what you’ve done. Even if you stayed full on, foaming at the mouth Demon. You’re my brother and I lo..... “ Sam stopped himself from saying those words. This wasn’t the right time."

“I’ve forgiven you. I have. I no longer wish I was dead, and I'm grateful for every time you’ve saved me because I've gotten to save your ass just as much. My problem was always that possession is the worst thing ever for me, and you didn’t allow me to make that choice.”

Dean rubbed his face in frustration. He knew it would come up again someday, but they had been enjoying this time so much. Why did it have to be now? “Because you asked him, stupid!” Dean thought and automatically regretted it.  “Sam, I am never going to say I'm sorry for saving your life ever!”

“I know, and I’m not asking you to...I just want to know, to trust, that you won't ever do that to me again.” Sam kept his gaze on Dean’s face. He could see the pain in his jaw clenching.

Dean took a deep breath. “I am sorry Sam, I’m truly truly TRULY sorry I made that judgment call without your okay, and I won't promise I won't do everything completely in my power to keep you alive if the situation arises again. But, I will promise you, I’ll do everything I can to get your consent.”

Dean lowered his head, and Sam reached up and rubbed his arm. “Good. If it’s possible, you’ll figure it out.... But what if you can’t?”

Dean turned and started rubbing Sam’s back again. “ If I can’t, I’ll die right along side of you.

Both brothers were long past sleepy. The sun was probably coming up by now, but the lack of bedroom windows kept the room dimly lit by only the TV. Sam still didn’t feel like sleeping, and if Dean did, he wasn’t telling.

The massage had turned into light stroking of Sam’s back, while Dean rested his body alongside him, propped up on one arm. Dean’s mind was quiet, just enjoying the opportunity to be this close to Sam for so long, Touching him without any reason to stop. Sam was obviously okay with it. Maybe now he would tell Dean what was really making him sleepless.

“Sammy, tell me the truth. What’s keeping you from sleeping?”

Sam reached for his tumbler that he hadn't touched for 2 hours, but if he was going to talk, he needed a lubricant. He swallowed back the remainder of the glass and looked back up at the TV. He couldn't get it all out if he had to look Dean in the face, but maybe it was time to accept what was real and deal with it.

“It seems surreal to think I can say this and be perfectly literal.” Sam started with a chuckle, that was sprinkled with a little disbelief, with a side of sadness. “Dean, you know I’ve been tortured, by people, demons, witches, ghouls, ghosts, and even Lucifer himself. There is literally, no torture I haven’t endured.”

Dean knew this to be true. He himself had been tortured in Hell and even became a torturer, but he knew Sam endured more. It broke his heart to consider the things he knew happened in Hell, happened to his little brother.  Even now, while he can see Sam, hear him, feel him, and touch him, he knew part of him never came back.

Nothing Dean could define really, but there was a spark missing. The something in Sam that used to allow him to see the world as a giant Christmas present just waiting to be opened.  Sam was still hopeful and intrigued by the world around him, but he was no longer excited to unwrap the package.  Dean swallowed a lump in his throat, and continued rubbing Sam’s back with the palm of his right hand, and listened.

“I thought there was nothing anyone could do to me anymore, that I couldn’t recover from in a day or two, but the experience with Toni Bevel really kicked my ass, Dean.” Sam kept his eyes on the TV but Dean could hear the cracking in his voice.

“It’s okay Sammy, we don't have to do this now. Tonight, I just want you to feel better.”

“I can do this Dean. I need to.”  Sam rubbed his face and cleared his throat.  “Toni did her best to break me. I’ve told you most of it already. She shot me, burnt my foot, kept me in a cold shower for hours. The works, but then she did something I’ve never experienced really. She put a mind control spell on me. It didn’t only make me hallucinate, it controlled everything I was thinking.”

Dean looked at Sam, confused. He’s been possessed several times, and each time his mind and actions were controlled.

“I don’t get it. What do you mean? You’ve been under another's control before.”

“Not like this,” Sam continued, “She made me dream that we were having sex. Only it didn’t feel like a dream at all, it felt as real as you and me laying here right now.”

“But it was a dream right Sammy?” Dean was clearly having a hard time understanding what he was hearing.

“Yeah, it was a dream, but it didn’t feel like it was.” Sam sighed, trying to find the words that would make this make any sense at all. “I mean, this spell made me think I wanted to have sex with her, and I can tell you honestly, I wanted to do a thousand different things to her, but none of them were sexual. I thought you were dead, and I didn’t even care.”

“I’ve never been under the control of anyone or anything, including Lucifer, that changed how I actually thought. Like, what else could she have done, or can she do to me? I think part of what has been bothering me, is being afraid that she still has power over my mind. Or, that she could regain it at some point. And I could really hurt someone. Maybe even you.” Sam wiped a tear that escaped his right eye, and Dean gripped his shoulder firmly, to remind him he was safe.

“Well Sammy, that’s nothing I want you to worry about. We’ll have Cas come check you out and make sure you have no spells stowing away in your melon or anywhere else. And then we’ll go through the lore books to see if there’s any way we can prevent her from getting her claws in again.” Dean stroked Sam’s hair “And then we’ll hunt the bitch down and stab her in the brain. Okay?”

Sam turned and looked at Dean and smiled. “Yeah, I like that plan.”

Sam already felt lighter, cleaner. It was good to confront the issue and put a plan into action. He laid his chin back on his arms, and let Dean continue rubbing his back. Dean could tell Sam felt better, his muscles weren’t nearly as knotted as they were an hour ago, but he wasn’t convinced he got the whole story.

                                       “What else is there Sam? Anything  you want to tell me?” Dean asked, trying not to sound accusing or too pushy. He was happy with where Sam was right now. Slowly unraveling beneath his fingers,  He can’t think of a time in recent memory where Sam seemed this relaxed. It was good to know it was still possible.

Sam thought for a moment because he wasn’t completely sure what else was wrong. He had already told Dean what happened, and the fears left behind, and now they have a plan of action, but one thing still kept coming to the front of his mind.

“I guess that I just don’t like that being my last sexual experience. Even though it wasn’t real, it felt like it, and I don’t like that it stays in my mind that way.”

“Do you mean last like most recent, or last as in final sexual experience?” Dean asked with obvious alarm.

“Both I guess,” Sam answered. A bit puzzled himself at his own realization.

“Why do you think you might not have sex again?” Dean couldn’t even imagine having such a thought himself. Would he ever think of any sexual encounter as his last? God, he hoped not.

“Well, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I probably won't ever settle down with a woman, and I’d never bring someone into the life that isn't already in it, and if she was already in it, then I wouldn't want us to worry twice as much as before. So yeah, it’s probably my last.” Sam said with conviction.

“That’s bullshit Sam! You don’t need the white picket fence with a wife and 2.5 children to have sex, we can find you a nice girl on a dating app, or Piper, maybe we can look up Piper again and you guys could be, you know, like friends with benefits or something.”

Dean’s heart broke a little thinking of Sam never being touched or cared for in that way. Dean thought any woman in the world would be honored to be his girl. Hell, half the guys in the world too if he was into that. It was painful to hear him giving up so easily.

Sam was a little shocked at the look on Dean’s face. It never occurred to him that Dean ever gave it any thought.  However Sam didn’t mind the idea of never having a sexual relationship again, he only minded having mostly bad ones in his memories.

“Dean, you know I'm not really into one nighters.  I've had more meaningless sex then I’ve had good sex, and I’m just better off without it. “

Sam knew that wasn’t completely true. He would miss it, a man has needs after all, but he wouldn't miss the heartache. Not only with the fact that it wouldn’t be permanent, but the fact that he knew deep down, no romantic love could ever compare to the love he had for his brother. He had thought he could make a life with Jess or Amelia once, but in both cases, as soon as Dean was back in his life, he knew he would rather spend his life with him, than anyone else.

He never told Dean that, it sounded too pathetic, and maybe even wrong, but it was true. He couldn't admit it to Dean, even though he thought Dean might feel the same way since Dean never tried to settle down except for when he thought Sam was dead.

Sam remembered when he was soulless, that Dean had gotten pissed at Bobby for not telling him Sam was still alive.  Bobby had said he kept quiet because for once Dean had what he wanted, a good woman, a kid and a normal life, but Dean responded with “What I wanted was my brother, ALIVE!”

It made no sense to Sam at that moment, but he understood now. “We belong to each other and that's all”. He thought and closed his eyes.

Sam was quiet. Dean felt better about his brother’s state of mind but kept mulling over his words over the past several hours.  Still fixated on Sam’s back, still shiny and slick from the oil. Dean started tracing patterns on Sam’s skin with his finger. Drawing little symbols, barely noticeable across his shoulders and down his spine. He thought Sam might be asleep until he spoke.

“What are you drawing?” Sam said with a quiet curiosity in his voice.

“Warding sigils” Dean answered without stopping in his work

“For what?”

“I want to keep every living breathing, undead, creeping, crawling, evil piece of shit away from you forever Sammy.”

A fresh set of goose bumps rose over Sam’s skin. Dean smiled in satisfaction once again.

Sam raised himself up on his elbows to see Dean’s face. Dean was still settled on his left arm while drawing on Sam’s back.  Sam loved how he looked right now. His hair a little messy, smile lines in deep creases around his eyes.

“You really do want that, don't you? To keep anything that can hurt me away from me.”  

“Well, not everything maybe. I mean, I can still kick your ass, and I'm not going anywhere.” Dean’s green eyes nearly glowed in the dim light of the TV. Sam was lost in them.

Laws of the Universe be damned! He never felt more loved in his life than he did right now. He freed an arm from beneath the pillow and wrapped it around Dean’s back. Dean pressed his hand flat against Sam’s back and pulled himself in closer. They breathed in each other's air for just a moment before letting their lips touch, in a soft, cautious kiss.

Dean stroked Sam’s hair as he pulled away. As if promising the discussion wasn’t over. Sam’s eyes were opened wide and dark with arousal, tainted by a little fear that shown across his brow. There had been only one other time they accidentally kissed, and that was a decade or so ago, after too much beer and not enough weed at the Ozzy show, when they knew they couldn’t drive and ended up sleeping in the Impala in the stadium parking lot.

Neither remembered how it happened, and neither had spoken of it since. Sam recalled the event, and the awkwardness that surrounded the both of them in the following days, and silently prayed that wasn’t about to happen again.

Dean ran his thumb along Sam’s jawline, meeting his eyes. “Sammy,” Dean spoke in nearly a whisper “I’ll give you anything you want, you know that. But you have to tell me if this is what you want.”

Sam took a moment to process what he just heard, Dean was already on board, he just needed Sam’s consent on the matter. “It’s okay Dean, I want this.” and he smiled nervously. He could feel Dean trembling in time with his own.

Dean mimicked Sam’s smile. He wanted to take a moment to enjoy the want in his brother’s eyes before taking things to a level they’ve never been before.

“If we cross this line, Sammy, you have to promise me, no matter what shit this universe throws at us, that you won't take it back. You won't try to leave me again or pretend it never happened. I don’t think I could handle it.”

Dean was serious. He loved Sam, in every way imaginable. He was always willing to keep most of that to himself, but not anymore, not if they were going to break their own unspoken rule.

Sam worried about the same. How would Dean be tomorrow? Would they live and hunt in this painfully awkward silence for weeks, or months, before they just went back to the same old grind?

Sam wanted to give Dean everything, and take everything he had. And build on it. He wasn’t afraid to cross the line with his brother, honestly, of all the lines they’ve crossed for each other, this one was the least terrifying.

“I promise Dean, I won't leave you. You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

The smile on Sam’s face was so full of light and dimples, that Dean couldn’t wait to taste it. He kissed Sam hard and pulled him in so close that it hurt a little as Sam’s chest heaved against his own while trying to catch his breath. Their tongues fighting for dominance in each other's mouths. There was no turning back now.

Sam could barely breathe, and his heart was beating out of his chest. He could hear the thuds becoming more rapid in his ears, and a wave of dizziness threatened to make him pass out. This wasn’t the first time he's had a panic attack, but it was indeed the worst time to have one.

“Breathe through your nose Sam. It’s okay, this is Dean, he won't hurt you, you’re safe, just breathe.” Sam told himself. “Count to 20, try to remember the names of the High Schools you attended.” He tried to think of the names, but it was too hard to concentrate on anything other than staying conscious.

“Dean!” Sam uttered sharply, chest heaving but not releasing his brother from the death grip he had on his shoulder blades. He buried his face into the crook of Dean’s neck. “Stop, please slow down. Let… let me catch my breath.”

Dean stopped immediately and pulled back. He held Sam’s face in his hand to assess what was happening.

“You okay Sammy? I’ll stop, we don’t have to do this if you don't want to. Talk to me”

Sam flopped onto his back, squeezed his eyes shut and put his hand in his hair, nearly hyperventilating. He took a couple long deep breaths before trying to speak. Sweating and shivering at the same time “God my body is so fucking weird” he thought to himself and laughed a little at the idea of how stupid he must look right now.

“It’s okay, I’m okay…. I… I’m just … huh.. I’m just really nervous. Just slow down and let me breathe for a bit. It’ll pass.” And he knew it would. Sometimes when he had a panic attack before, he would go to his “happy place” in his mind to help calm him down.

That “happy place” however, was the image of him and his brother entwined in a naked embrace. And now that they were nearly in that situation, Sam was having a little trouble finding somewhere to redirect his anxiety.

Dean has always been sensitive to Sam’s anxiety, it wasn’t like he couldn’t relate, but sometimes he would joke about it, just to get Sam to smile, Sam didn’t like to be fussed over or to draw attention to himself, so Dean would try to lighten the mood. However this was an odd situation for them both, Dean pressed a hand on Sam’s chest, he could feel it cold a damp with sweat and his heart pounding beneath it.

“Let me get you some water.” Dean got off the bed and rinsed Sam’s glass in the sink and brought him some water. “Here, drink up” Sam swallowed it all in 2 gulps and laid back down, still breathing hard but more steady. Dean returned to his spot beside his brother, noticing the color returning to his cheeks.

“It’s passing,” Sam said. “Thanks, man… I'm glad you’re here”

“What was that about Sam? That was kinda scary.” Dean spoke with an air of concern in his voice.

“It was nothing really, just got freaked out for a moment, but I’m alright now.”

Dean was visibly curious as to what might have freaked Sam out.“Was it something I did? I told you we can take this as slow or as fast as you want.”

Sam felt sad for Dean, he could see he was being honest and was worried he did something wrong, but Sam reassured him. “No Dean, you didn’t do anything wrong, This is just new to me you know? This is a first, not only with you but with any guy. I've never even kissed a guy before.”

“Well I know that Sammy and neither have I, but I've been around many blocks with many women, and I just figure how much different can you be?”

Sam kicked Dean sharply in the shin and Dean laughed “OW Sammy! I was only kidding, I just want you to laugh is all. I'm sorry.” he smiled and kissed Sam’s head. “See? You’re feeling better aren’t you?”

“A little… yeah.”  Sam swallowed hard. Still visibly nervous, but Dean wanted to take every trace of anxiety away from his brother and erase it forever, but he could tell Sam’s brain was still working overtime.

“What if I disappoint you, Dean?” Sam met Dean’s eyes again.

“Disappoint me? How could you disappoint me? What, am I gonna get offended if you fall in love with me, or want to move in with me? ‘Cause, to be honest, Sammy, that ship has sailed.”

“No.” Sam rolled his eyes “you don’t get it. “ Sam propped himself up on his elbow and cupped Dean’s face with his hand. “I'm not … I'm not a woman. I don’t know how to do some… things. And I don’t know which roles we’re supposed to be playing in this.”

Dean took Sam’s hand and gently laid him back down. He ran his hand up Sam’s long forearm, and over his bicep. Sam’s eyes watching him, as he let his fingers trace the line of his clavicle. The hair on Sam’s chest was always thicker than his own, and always made Dean feel a little less masculine when their shirts were off, but now as he felt its softness under his fingers and how they stood on end a little bit as he traced a line down to Sam’s navel. If there had ever been any doubt, that Sam is not a woman, it was definitely squelched.

                                            Sam’s abs were tight and defined, and trembled under Dean’s hands as he stroked over the ridges. Looking down, Dean could see the huge bulge in Sam’s pants threatening to pop out of his waistband, and he teased his fingers just above and let his hand rest on Sam’s hip.

“Sammy,” Dean said as he gripped Sam’s hip and leaned himself into him. “I am fully aware that you’re not a woman. And to be completely honest with you…” He let his eyes wander down the length of Sam’s long body “looking at you right now? You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Sam’s breathing labored again, but not with anxiety this time, but excitement. He’s never heard words like that come out of anyone’s mouth directed at him in his life. He was always called “cute” and on occasions “attractive” but usually “big’ “tall” or “nerdy”. Does Dean really think he’s beautiful? He could feel his body heat rise from his feet to his head, and it was getting hard to keep his body still.

Dean grinned as Sam fidgeted alongside him.  “Tell you what. We don’t need to figure out any roles between us.” He sat up only long enough to take his shirt off, and lay back down, lying one leg across Sam’s. “How about we just do what feels good, and go from there?” Sam nodded in agreement.

Dean leaned down and gave Sam a quick teasing kiss on the lips, and moved his mouth over to whisper in his ear  “I want to peel your pajama pants off and eat you like a banana”

Sam didn’t even try to stifle his laugh “Seriously? Is that your best line?”

“Hm didn’t work?” Dean faked a perplexed look.

“Heh, no, not even a little.” Sam chuckled in response.

Dean looked around and found the bottle of massage oil and squirted a generous amount on Sam’s stomach. “Guess I’ll try something else.”

Dean smoothed the oil over Sam’s stomach, relishing in the way it expanded and contracted with his breathing. He moved his hand along Sam’s ribs and down his back pulling his bottom half in closer to his own and nudged his legs apart with his knee. Only 2 thin layers of fabric separated their growing erections.

Sam was fully on board with the proceedings and followed suit with a handful of oil for himself. He spread it with his huge hands down Dean’s back and grinned happily so see someone else in the room had goosebumps as well. He kissed Dean hard. Nipping at his lower lip while fighting the urge to devour him.

Kissing his chin and up his jawline, He could feel his own hard dick throbbing and threatening to explode before either of them were naked. He pressed himself into Dean’s hip and became aware quickly that Dean was not far behind, if at all. He hoped Dean would get the hint to move this along before he embarrassed himself.

Dean picked up on what Sam’s body was telling him and slipped a hand into his pants and squeezed the cheek of Sam’s tight ass. He held on for just a moment before letting his fingertips graze the back of Sam’s thigh. And there it was. A low agonizing moan escaped Sam’s throat, and Dean knew he found a sweet spot he would file away and use over and over again forever. Sam bucked his hips so hard, Dean knew he was close.

Sam’s hands were shaking. He tried to focus on keeping them steady so Dean didn’t think he won this little chicken fight. He slid his oil slicked hand into Dean’s pants to get a handful of his tight round ass too, and as much as he liked doing so, he decided these pants have to go and took the initiative to push Dean’s pants down far enough that Dean could kick them off the rest of the way.

Dean did so and returned the favor to Sam. Both took a moment to look at each other. They had seen each other naked many times but never aroused, and never took a moment to enjoy the whole package. Both were very well endowed. Sam was a bit longer, but Dean was thicker. Both were impressed, and neither were embarrassed at the moment.

Dean pulled Sam in as close as he could for the first hug they’ve ever had skin to skin, With no barriers. Sam clung to him as if he’d be sucked away into a void if he ever let go. The secret wish Sam had always hoped for, was happening right now and it was almost too much to bear.

He closed his eyes tight, trying to take a mental picture of this entire moment. The feel, the sounds, the smells… everything in the moment was more than he ever imagined. He fought back the urge to cry for the 3rd time today.

Sam was warm. Dean could feel his heartbeat against his own and he swore they were in perfect rhythm. But why wouldn’t they be? He always knew they shared the same heart and soul, and now they were even sharing the same body.

He kissed Sam’s shoulders and up his neck. He could feel Sam’s stubble scratching his cheek, also a very new feeling. He could feel Sam squirming and causing their erections to rub against each other. Dean put his left hand into Sam’s hair, that was now a little damp, and ran his right hand down to the small of his back that was now collecting beads of sweat mixing in with the oil.

Sam was digging his fingers into his back and biting his shoulder. Somewhat painfully too, so he tugged Sam’s head back by his hair, just far enough for him to kiss him again. Dean’s new favorite thing.  Kissing Sam. And he’s going to do it as often as he can.

Sam was nearing the point of no return, and trying his hardest to think of anything else besides the proverbial dam break that was coming too soon if he didn’t get a grip  “haha funny brain you’re so not helping.” Sam thought to himself. What was arousing him most was how aroused Dean was.

This was just Sammy, his annoying little brother who managed to break the world as often as he saved it, and Dean was always there to help pick up the pieces. He didn’t know if he deserved this much pleasure, but he was sure they deserved each other.

Dean kissed Sam deeply. No tongue wrestling now, this was just love. And not just love it was more. It was something the English language hadn’t developed a word for. Maybe because no one had ever experienced it. It was truly magic, and not the stale, half-assed magic they had seen and performed in their twisted, torn up lives, but …. Something.

Sam was overheating and dripping sweat down his face. Dean didn’t care. It even tasted good. It tasted like victory. Sam’s dick was hard enough to cut diamonds, and Dean wanted to tease just a little longer until he heard “Dean… please” come from his brother in a low breathy voice saturated in desperation.

He could almost see the words hanging in the air, and dripping all over him. Dean’s NEW new favorite thing. He collected some oil off Sam’s back and gently took Sam’s cock in his hand. “Ok, Sammy? Is this good?”

“God yes… that’s good.” Sam whispers as he takes Dean in hand as well. Stroking each other, and trying to find a good uniform rhythm was futile. Sam had a steel grip and a more rapid pace, while Dean was slower and paid more attention to the head of Sam’s dick. Oddly enough, it felt perfect for both. Sam is loud. Dean never knew this. He had never been in earshot of him while he had sex with anyone else. However, they were the same grunts and groans he made while fighting. Dean thought he might now get turned on every time he was in earshot of Sam fighting.

Sam could feel the build up threaten to overflow any second. “Dean… DEAN!!”

“Fuck! Sammy, you’re gonna make me come if you keep doing that” And with one hard grunt like he just pushed a boulder up a hill, Sam shot the warm fluids between their stomachs and down Dean’s hand, and Dean lost himself in response.

Dean thought he’s never come so hard in his life and was pretty sure Sam never had. Now they pressed together panting. Half laughing and completely spent. They shared a few light kisses before Dean grabbed his t-shirt so they could clean themselves off.

“You alright Sammy?” He watched Sam’s chest heave as he tried to catch his breath again

“Yeah, I'm good. I'm actually really good Dean. Thank you.”  Sam smiled in a way Dean had never seen and added that to the growing list of his new favorite things.

“You’re welcome. You know I'm here to please so if you ever…..” Dean let Sam fill in the blanks.

“Yeah, sure! I might even text you while you’re on the road someday.” Sam joked in response.

“Absolutely! But I'm gonna go take a leak. You get comfortable and we can pick this up when I get back."

“Yeah…. Sure.” Sam said with a big yawn.

Dean knew this exploration session was done for now, and as suspected, when he got back, Sam was snoring peacefully.

Dean slid behind him under the blankets. “Goodnight Sammy.” and kissed his head.

@winchesterprincessbride @eruthiawenluin @txdora thank you guys for all the help and inspiration!! Love you gals!

[olympiansrpg1-blog]

BASICS

Name: Rakim Hannibal “Rocky” Beauchamp Age: 28 Affiliation: Titans Occupation: Drug Dealer Faceclaim: Don Benjamin Status: TAKEN by Mae

THE STORY

They call you Prometheus. You have always embraced the fire, the harsh, acrid smell of leather and the constant buzzing of a tattoo parlor. They say one man can’t change the world but you have always fought that, against anything that stood in your way. Your knuckles have always been stained red and painted blue, because you have never learned to face the world any other way. They don’t understand that you are a man of chaos and a man who rarely steps into the fire without careful calculation all at once - a businessman, one who has created something out of so little. Soon enough, all the red lines led to you, no longer someone who could be so easily ignored. It didn’t take long for Atlas to find you, as you have never been humble nor felt the need to hide yourself from the rest of the world. Unlike some others, you didn’t agree to join Atlas because you needed him - no, you, a small fire, finally saw an opportunity to engulf the rest of the world in flames. 

CONNECTIONS

ATHENA - You tell yourself that you didn’t realize it was Athena because it was too dark, but you know that’s not quite true. Maybe it was a form of temporary rebellion, to feel that rush of adrenaline that comes from almost getting caught, meeting up in secret spots and sneaking in through back doors. It’s just for fun, anyway - at least that’s what you tell yourself. 

POSEIDON - If there’s something actively stopping the Titans from completely taking over the New York scene, it’s the fact that they can’t seem to get rid of Poseidon, who no one can seem to touch right now. If you could just track down where they manufacture their goods, it’d be too easy to bring them down. Plus, it’s just the icing on the cake that you’ll get to show that smug bastard that they’re nothing special. 

HYPERION - You’ve dealt with a fair share of dishonest people in your past, and you’ve hated every single one of them. Hyperion is no exception, and you can’t stand the fact that you can’t seem to read them. You have to admit it’s a little mean, the way you always goad Hyperion, but for once, you’d like to see the real person underneath that mask. It’s nothing personal. 

SUGGESTED FACECLAIMS

Rick Genest, Don Benjamin, Kim Woo Bin, Charlie Hunnam, Zoe Kravitz, Kehlani Parrish, Rihanna Fenty 

BIOGRAPHY

I.

Some babies are born happy, their chubby arms reaching out towards the warmth of their parents, their cousins, their aunts and uncles and grandparents. Some babies are born healthy, their hearts beating strong and loud, their breathing easy and clear. Some babies are born in hospitals, some babies are born at home, and some babies are you.

You’re a week early, born in the back of a bus in a puddle of your mother’s heroin-laced blood. You cry the moment your head hits air; your mother cries to, because she’s scared—of you, for you, it’s hard to tell. You cry and you cry and you cry, you don’t stop. Even when your mother wraps you up and carries you off, you don’t stop. At the hospital, you don’t stop. Nurses and doctors take you away, and still you cry. Turns out, you’re jonesing hard.

It takes weeks for the withdrawals to stop tearing you apart.

II.

The first time you bleed, you’re five years old. You walk to school, all by yourself. Your mother sleeps on the couch, arm and head dangling off the side—you covered her with a blanket before you left, because she loves you enough to give you the only bed. But you don’t mind. You like it, walking by yourself. You walk with your head held high, haughty and proud. A king of the streets, untouchable.

Boys on the way take notice of you, of the angle your chin is raised, and they don’t like it. Really, they don’t like you. Naïve, you don’t notice them, you’re too busy ruling your little kingdom—it exists in the squares of the pavement, the lines on the road, the exhaust of countless cars trundling by. So they grab you, hold you down, hit you until you can barely breathe. You try to fight back, but they’re too big. From where you are, their elbows are hitting the tops of skyscrapers, their heads hitting stars.

The next day, you have a knife in your backpack.

III.

School is boring, for you especially. Math, science, literature—they hold no meaning for you. Homework goes undone, classes go without any attention being paid. Instead of learning, you draw. You deface your assignments, your projects, your detention slips. Any desk you use falls victim to your pens. Teachers, they don’t care. They don’t get paid enough to care. So you draw and you draw and you draw until it’s all you’re good at.

Someone asks you to decorate their skateboard. You think it’s stupid, but you do it anyway. To make it worth your time, you ask for money. He thinks, he looks at your desk, he agrees. (In your house, money’s tight, unavailable. You’re a little desperate to actually have dinner.) So you draw and you paint and you make twenty bucks. Other boys ooh and aah over your finished product. They want one too. You agree to make them, but charge more and more.

The other kids, they actually start to like you.

IV.

You were ten when your mom started using again. You’re older now, and just as apathetic. You like your mom when she’s high. She lets you do whatever you want, whenever you want. She doesn’t give a shit about who you invite over or where you spend your nights. Her boyfriends pay you to leave the apartment, to leave the both of them alone. And it’s one of her boyfriends that starts you on your next business venture.

He’s a dealer, missing part of his demographic. The two of you discuss it over a bowl of off-brand cornflakes. What do you want now, you ask—it’s not a question, because her boyfriend’s the type that always wants something. You wanna make some money? You’re quiet, but he knows: fucking duh. The two of you strike a deal. He supplies, you sell. At first, you keep ten percent, then you up it to twenty, and then thirty. By sophomore year, you’re keeping seventy (and you’ve expanded. You’re a regular pharmacist).

By now, you’re one of the most liked boys in school.

V.

No matter what you do, there are still those that hate you. There doesn’t seem to be a reason, but they do. Maybe it’s the way you wear your clothes, how ratty they are, how hungry you look every morning before lunch. Maybe they can smell how badly you want to be powerful, how badly you want to be king, and they hate you for it. Maybe they just want a piece of your business. You don’t know, and you never will.

You only know how much they hate you, because they like to tell you. In twos and threes, they come at you. At lunch, after school, when you’re walking home from your girlfriend’s, it doesn’t seem to matter. They jump you, beat you. But you’re strong now. You’re less naïve, smarter. You fight back. This time, they bleed too.  Whatever they want from you, they never get. Eventually, they stop trying.

Soon, everyone knows not to fuck with you.

VI.

Sometimes, you’re too proud for your own good. Usually, you’re too proud for your own good. The cops get involved when someone reports your little business. They don’t know who’s selling, they just know someone is. Everyone else is in on the joke, everyone knows who they’re looking for. No one wants to rat you out, though—it’s better for them if you don’t get caught. Otherwise, who are they going to buy from?

The cops are there a whole day. They have dogs and bulletproof vests. One stands at the end of every hallway, just watching. You don’t try to get your stash. It’s too ballsy, even for you. By noon, they find you. There’s nothing in your locker, but the teachers have big mouths. They take you into the lounge and ask you questions for a few minutes. You’re silent until you confess—you got bored with them. That afternoon, you’re no longer a student, you’ve got a criminal record, and you’re picking up trash on the side of the freeway.

You’re one of the most popular kids out of school.

VII.

Business is fine, but you get bored, trapped in your house like that. You wander the neighborhood, chatting up people you know and people you don’t. Some of them are friendly, some of them are not. You don’t really care. At some point, you end up in a tattoo parlor. It’s a few blocks from the apartment, but it feels like a whole different world. It’s gentrified, full of yuppies—nothing you’ve ever seen before. But you stick around, because you’re bored.

You watch them work, you ask them questions. They seem annoyed, but none of them make you leave. A boy, not much older than you, takes you under his wing. You show him some of your art and he likes it, a lot. It’s the first time in years someone’s noticed it. You lie about your age so you can work there, work with him. They pay you in cash and don’t ask many questions.

Turns out, you’re a really fucking good tattoo artist.

VIII.

After a few years, you get too comfortable. You’re tired of the same old, same old. Rich people come in and get some shitty tattoo, and you have to give it to them. Hardly anyone wants anything interesting and they hate making conversation. So you quit, you move, you get away from the yuppies, in favor of something grungier, more exciting.

You get a job somewhere seedy, somewhere close to bars. Drunks come in and pitch you the greatest ideas you’ve ever heard. You save them, call them later. People with extra cash come in wanting intricate back pieces, or sleeves, or whatever else. You start posting your work online, because you’re proud and you want everyone to see. Look at me! Look at how great I am! And people see your greatness and hey come in and they want a piece of you to take home.

For a moment, you’re actually happy.

IX.

At some point, Atlas finds you. Your side business has only flourished over the years, developing until it stretched city-wide. You have connections, you have friends; you can be a powerful player, when you try—which you do, every once in a while. Apparently, it’s enough to get noticed. You don’t worry about how easy it is to find you. Actually, you like it.

And when he proposes his business to you, you accept right then and right there. You don’t need to think, because this is exactly what you want, what you’ve always wanted. You see your way up, your way out. It’s a foot in the door to something bigger and better and wilder than anything you have. If you play your cards right, maybe it’ll all be yours.

You don’t tell him that, as you shake his hand.

X.

But now, you’re growing bored again. Art’s fun and all, but it feels repetitive. People come in and they already know what they want. No matter what you sketch out, they never like it. They change it, deface it, erase it. No longer does it feel like something you’ve created. So you get ballsy, get wild—not just with your tattoos, but with everything you do.

You go places you’re not supposed to go, meet people you’re not supposed to meet, do things you’re not supposed to do. It’s fun, the sex is good, you’re not think about how bored you are. You smile so easily, it feels like a sin. But you don’t care, you’re getting what you want. You’re risky and you’re risking everything. It makes you feel like a kid again, like that untamable wildfire who once burned through your life.

If only you had a seat at the table, then maybe whatever you feel would be real.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

ACCA 2 | Nanbaka 16 | SGRS 16 | Marginal #4 2 | Classicaloid 15 | Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga 2 - 3 | D Gray Man Hallow 1 | ReLIFE 2 - 6

The idea for D Gray Man Hallow from now on: Once all 2016 shows are done (rewatches or not), expect the 2016 ranking.

(ACCA 2)

What in Dante’s Inferno? I’m properly listening to the OP as it was intended in the anime…and it doesn’t quite look like what I expected.

I don’t like tomatoes, so no bread for me.

This is a cute…albeit unconventional way to introduce the series’ core concepts. Also, acorn berets.

Kabocha = pumpkin, while murasaki = purple. That’s made from purple lettuce, so I don’t blame ‘em for calling it that.

Mushroomhead = Rail.

I thought ACCA paid really high if he got cigarettes for free.

Oh no, is Nino going to go against Jean?

Bihinshitsu = equipment room.

2m 22 cm is over 6 foot…wow.

Walnut-topped cake filled with nuts.

The systems managers seem really incompetent…I suspect something’s up.

The guys all deilberately seem to have the same face.

A-hah. As I thought. (Dang you, title spoiler.)

If this ED were to evolve, it would be even better than Yuri on Ice’s OP. (That’s saying something.) Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening…

Doesn’t seem like there’ll be any title spoilers next time either.

(Nanbaka 16)

I’m less likely to skip Rin! Rin! Hi! Hi! than some of the other Ops when I’m watching. That does make it slightly unwieldy as a rewatching show, though.

“Wow, he’s trash.” – Dat me.

Samon has a brother?

In a world full of filial piety, the worst one can do is to insult someone else’s family.

I’m not very good with “kept secret” stories, which is why I’m trying to do “Next to Me” well enough…at least to my standards, anyway. My standards are very high, you know.

They must’ve done something to the snacks…

(Showa Genroku: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen 3)

The fireworks are so lifelike in this ep!

Daiku Shirabe…I found out about the story from an ANN article, so I should’ve seen its appearance coming…“Tamaya” is something you yell during fireworks displays. Apparently it was the name of a fireworks company somewhere along the line.

The flattening refers to how Yota had to bow for forgiveness, but I think I kinda explained that already.

“Shinuchissei”…Yota seems to slur the end of his sentences.

I actually went “WHAT?!” at Yota not being fazed by the big daddy boss.

Note for later: The baby (I heard his name was Shinnosuke) was born November 23rd.

The jazz soundtrack really sells this show.

...so this is the rant from Daiku Shirabe. It’s fast (compared to even the usual), but it has lots of heart. Plus the showcasing of the tattoo really did its significance justice.

I think the bridge is called Matsubashi (Pine Bridge).

Yota could’ve fabricated the shaking of his hands.…wow. Yota has such yaoi hands. Just what you’d expect from a former BL artist.

I thought Yakumo was more of a cat person. Whose dog is Hanako?

Aw. I felt sorry for Matsuda, even if I have a suspicion he feigned those tears. Well, regardless, now I know Matsuda has grandkids anyway…so win win.

I knew he was either summoning the master Sukeroku II pissed off or Sukeroku himself.

“Tou-chan” was an unexpected nickname I didn’t think Konatsu would use.

Update: I thought about it, and even Shinnosuke’s name takes after the legacy. Remember? Sukeroku used to be called Shin! 

(Marginal #4 2)

One of the things that makes this show stand out is the space-styled episode titles.

Ooh. Pretty cherry blossoms.

Pan shots. Of course.

I know this isn’t the sort of show that gets too much coverage, and I even think it looks a bit ugly at times (not to mention a bit weird) but when you’re not caught up on most of the other big idol shows, this is the best you can do.

I think game boy (orange twin…er, aka R)’s trying too hard with his terms.

Now that Atom is talking about heart, it really does look like he’s a Toshiki Masuda character through and through, although he doesn’t look very angry when he sounds angry. I’ll chalk that up to the art department.

“Don’t think, feel” seems to be attributed to lots of places, so I don’t know the original source. However, since game boy (um, aka R) cites a movie star, it’s apparently Bruce Lee (if my Google-fu serves me right).

L makes stuff sound deeeeep.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?! Rui wasn’t surprised by the juice.

Atom is such a Ryuu sometimes...

…okay, enough with the underwear jokes…The twin jokes are a bit weird. Plus the ships can be smelt from a mile away…but that’s not enough to save a show.

“Ore-sama”? I only just realised Atom uses such a term.

Enough about the lucky underwear! *flips table*

Oh, I saw Ayanokouji in the background at one point.

I’m with Rui most times, including the need for deduction.

I’m still questioning the sanity of someone who wrote an entire episode plot about lucky underwear.

Alright, since I feel brain dead after that, I’m going to drop it, meaning ACCA is the show that forges ahead. Well, I’m lucky I was hoping to watch FLCL to fill in the gap once I’m done with my 3 remaining rewatches at this point in time (ReLIFE, D Gray Man, Morose Mononokean). The latter two will have, from ep 7, fresh impressions, so hopefully you can look forward to them.  

(Classicaloid 15)

Selfies: a worldwide phenomenon…I never got into that stuff, but if I were to analyse ‘em, I’d say they tap into the human need to be self centred.

There’s something sad about seeing someone rejected, eve if that someone is a piece of trash like Sousuke…

The game the Classicaloids are playing appears to be a game of Life.

Unfortunately, Kanae’s right…again. Sad life for you, Sousuke.

Motz literally became a flippin’ Akoya, right down to wearing a dress. Plus, the Amazon brigade came back.

Aw, I really felt for the glasses guy, even if briefly.

“Basics of Programming”? Don’t need that for Garage Band, Sousuke.

Hanted house and cosplay café...

…eh? Tchaiko still calls herself a former member of Cla:Kla?

Oh. I never realised until now, but Hamamatsu + festival (matsuri) = Hamamatsuri.

With that song (Sousuke’s song), it’s a sad blooper reel.

(Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga ep 2)

I got a wallpaper of Shima trying not to laugh (it was from the official Blue Exorcist anime page, but only for a period around Shima’s b’day). So this ep is where it comes from.

“Bon” means “young master” anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

“…a herbal tea antidote…”

Kyoto is meant to be the imperial capital…at least around the 1700s, it was the imperial capital.

Mamushi means “pit viper”. She’s not one to mess with.

He’s got some reflexes, that Ryuji.

Uwabami is also a type of snake…I forgot which one though.

Wait, Uwabami’s the man?! Uwabami was a woman in Oumagadoki Zoo…

Seriously, are they all getting drunk on juice…? Oh, okay. So that’s what happened.

(ep 3)

Rin’s shirt says “Sankyu” in goroawase and English, LOL.

Even if you love weeds, please don’t smoke ‘em, kids.

I thought Rin was going to pull a Shaft head tilt out of nowhere when he looked back at Konekomaru.

Update: For efficiency, the tag for this one is “Chesarka watches AoEx”. However, I don’t normally refer to it as such. I’d probably refer to it as “Ao Eku” if I wee speaking (due to the season 1 DVD extras), but “Blue Exorcist” is the shortest mode of the name I’d use in typing format.

(D Gray Man Hallow ep 1)

I am familiar with this source material, so do be aware of that. However, I didn’t finish the anime the first time around, so do be aware of that too.

Sometimes the art style for this anime can be a little off. The noses can be a little too pointy and too close to the eyes, so on and so forth.Allen doesn’t even look like he’s blushing with this art style too…that’s a bit of a disappointment.

Even the golems have it in for each other…LOL.

Johnny has apparently been stealing the spotlight for quite some time, but I haven’t noticed it all that much. Probably because I read volumes 21 – 24 in one go…

I think.Cross Marian looks more like Grelle (Black Butler) than ever in colour.

Why does Lenalee have such a short skirt?

When even the masked guy has a sweatdrop, you know there’s trouble.

(ReLIFE ep 2)

Unfortunately for Kariu, I understand there is no “next time”…

I’ve found out even at 18, people don’t judge two people of different gender sitting together eating lunch…of course, cultural standards notwithstanding.

Stud earrings are fine if you play sports, I think.

According to Google-sensei, it’s only about $11, my country’s money. It’s not that much if you work…but knowing Japanese standards (which say you should focus on getting into uni before getting a job), it does seem a bit much for someone who doesn’t work and doesn’t get any allowance. So in a weird way, it does make sense to me.

...but you took Kariu’s hand when she offered you the rubber, Arata?

Hey, that joke was in Erased too.

Kazu-kun = Karamatsu…kinda. LOL.

I always seemed to understand Hishiron, and yet also understand Arata to some extent too. Maybe I’m the perfect in-between for these two. Probably because I tend to break off friendships as soon as the year ends, and yet prior friendships are a core part to my social strategy.

Unfortuately, the downside to “minimalistic” is that it’s obvious when it goes off model.

LINE sticker…LOL. LINE’s very popular in Japan.

(ep 3)

I’ve wondered whether Yayoi Sou is a lady or not. Considering the circumstances, it probably is that Sensei is a female.

Hideyo is the dude on the 1000 note, obviously.

Ah…fitness tests. The bane of youth. No one says “stupid loud” though.

Oh. Tamarai’s there around the time of Asaji’s throw.

Lookit that rabbit on Usa-sensei’s shirt. No one says “crazy athletic” either…you outdated subbers.

Akira (Inukai) is kinda like Yurio, come to think of it, eh?

Didn’t you just say it yourself (about you being old) though, Arata?

Yoake literally had a blank face there, LOL.

There appears to be a Sato GP on the way to Aoba. Huh.

Ah…a show’s a real classic if it makes you laugh every time…

(ep 4)

Where’s the guy who does sad interpretations of OPs and EDs? (This guy.)

I know your feels, Kariu. (see the Tumblr debacle for an instance of this)

There appears to be something about whales near the fishtank.

The cityscapes in this are so nice.

There’s a map of Japan on one wall of Kaizaki’s place.

Go forth, young Kariu! Pick up your fallen balls! (teehee)

CGI balls, LOL.

It’s creepy (but also dramatic) when the lights of the eyes are the last to move.

(ep 5)

Sumire! Her name means “violet” (the flower).

There are some nuances lost in translation, like yappari and the levels of formality…but those are typically lost.

This “lecture” is probably the highest point you can get in the show (so far). It’s times like this you can really see an author’s strengths in storytelling.

The piano really sells the Hishiro/Kaizaki meeting.

What a strange angle that “lean to the left” shot is.

I’ve found out swear words have a lot of leeway when it comes to levels of “oh no”. These swar words include yabai and temee. Due to the context of Wan! and the fact it was Chuuya who kept using them, I went with the nastier variants [in my scanlating days] but sometimes a non-swearing variant is enough. However, kirai (to dislike) is pretty nasty if you use it in Japanese.

Kaizaki’s delivery of these lines really sells their comedic effect. The electronic keyboard makes it sound like night, but also makes it sound 1) like night and 2) creepy, for some reason.

Freeter is almost as bad as NEET, Kaizaki.

There appears to be a 100 man (10 thousand) coin bank behind Yoake, which makes that...1000000 yen. (chorus in back: One million yen?!)

(ep 6)

Apparently someone tried to type the same Japanese words into Google and didn’t get the same results, LOL.

Hishiron uses a Mac, LOL.

“Thanks for having us” probably isn’t the right words for it. Ojamashimasu means “sorry for intruding”, but it sounds heavily formal when translated, so I can see why the subbers did what they did though.

*laughs* MDs (minidiscs)? I know what they are, even though they’re meant to be completely dead by now. Apparently they’re a product of the 90s that never caught on..although I admit I’ve never used an MD in my life, let alone held one. It does kinda look like a floppy disc, though. (chorus in back: You poke through old stuff too much, don’t you?)

Those fadeout cups are so cool! I want one.

Ah, maths. The sad thing about my life is that up until a certain point I was good at maths. Then the hard stuff came up and I started to fail.

I thought it was Third Street Oga was talking about, but it’s 3rd chome, sort of like a suburb.

Knowing An, she may have deliberately put Oga out of the way for her own purposes…if you know what I mean.

CGI car just ruined the suspenseful mood, dangit.

Sometimes I just turn off my volume and turn on some music on Spotify. That way, you can make your own soundtrack.

Why did Arata have such a dumb face in the thought bubble?

Wow, she’s a real fujoshi, that one [An].

“Dude”? I cringe so much at her use of it, despite the fact I use it myself. 

You liar, Onoya. Knowing who subject 1 was means that I know they couldn’t have even thought about that part…

[lorrainecparker]

ART OF THE CUT: BLADE RUNNER 2049 with Joe Walker, ACE

I have interviewed Joe Walker, ACE, three times previous to this (in addition to hanging out once with him for a trendy lunch in LA this summer while he was finishing up Bladerunner 2049. I hope you have time to dig into his previous wisdom from his work on the films 12 Years a Slave (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Sicario (for which he should have been nominated for an Oscar), and Arrival (for which he received another Oscar nomination). He has a lengthy filmography going back to his days editing documentaries and dramas at the BBC.

This interview was nearly two hours long and we recorded it on a Sunday morning while Joe sat near a lovely canal in Amsterdam, where he is busy cutting Steve McQueen’s next film, Widows. We are waiting for the studio to approve some personal photos, screenshots and artwork. Please check back on this interview in a few days to see even more visuals from the movie.

(This interview was transcribed with SpeedScriber. The entire interview was transcribed within 20 minutes of completing the Skype call. Thanks to Martin Baker at Digital Heaven)

HULLFISH: Joe, as usual with your work, I loved Bladerunner 2049. I originally saw it in Mumbai, India where I was doing some training at Digital Film School and then I went to go see it again yesterday. There was some international editing in the Mumbai version that I’m pretty sure that you and Denis would not have approved of, so I needed to see a proper cut. The Mumbai version even had a makeshift intermission that was cut smack into the middle of one of the most crucial scenes in the movie. But there was no intermission in the version I saw in a Chicago multi-plex.

WALKER: The first assembly of the film was nearly four hours and for convenience sake and – to be honest – my bladder’s sake, we broke it into two for viewings.  That break revealed something about the story – it’s in two halves. There’s K discovering his true past as he sees it and at the halfway mark he kind of loses his virginity. (laughs) The next morning, it’s a different story, about meeting your maker and ultimately sacrifice – “dying is the most human thing we do”.  Oddly enough both halves start with eyes opening. There’s the giant eye opening at the beginning of the film and the second when Mariette wakes up and sneaks around K’s apartment, the beginning of the 1st assembly part 2. We toyed with giving titles to each half but quickly dropped that.  But what does remain is that there’s something of a waking dream about the film.  That’s a very deliberate choice in terms of visuals but also the kind of pace they were striving for on set and the hallucinatory feel in the cut – it’s the kind of dream where you tread inexorably closer to the truth.

HULLFISH: I don’t remember a lot of recent films having an intermission. The only one I can think of in the last couple of years was Hateful Eight.

WALKER: David Lean had them, of course. Ryan’s Daughter has one and a grand musical suite opening the film to boot, which plays over an image of rippling curtains. I also seem to remember Gandhi had an intermission. Very civilized.

HULLFISH: I really loved the tension of the opening scene, that there’s no music. It doesn’t give away anything.

WALKER: That’s the scene with Sapper Morton where K goes out to ‘retire’ an outdated Replicant played by Dave Bautista, a scene dropped from the original Blade Runner. If you put music on it, it somehow becomes less tense. It just felt that all the tension we needed was in the dialogue, the different sizes of the men, and that pan of soup boiling on the stove. Without music, you sense the quietness of the place and that helps sell the kind of barren landscape of the film, a world without natural life. Everything is designed by Wallace, even the maggots. Late in the process, I was sitting next to the producer, Andrew Kosove, and he made a comment which I thought was brilliant about the opening line of the film, K saying “I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty. I tried not to drag in any dirt”.  Andrew said it’s a kind of mission statement for the production – revisiting a much-loved 35 year old film and hoping not to contaminate it.

HULLFISH: One of the other things that I noticed is that you preface that scene with Sapper actually seeing that someone has arrived. So the tension isn’t in whether K is going to jump him unexpectedly. While he’s farming he looks up to see K’s spinner arriving. So when he comes into the house the audience knows along with him that someone is there which I think it adds to the tension. So just one little shot plays into the whole rest of the scene.

WALKER: Yes. And then deliberately keeping K hidden from view, this skinny vampire. I loved holding on Dave Bautista’s back, at the sink – that colossal head, those ears.  When Sapper finally turns to face K and puts his tiny glasses on, I think you start to feel, like K, tremendous sympathy for Sapper.  It helps inform the idea of what a foul job K has, and that he doesn’t take pleasure in ‘retiring’ anybody.

We trimmed out a chunk of the previous spinner scene – a deliberately anachronistic conversation between K and Joi designed to make them seem like newlyweds. Cutting this helped simplify the purpose of the scene to simply being K on a mission, heading across a barren landscape.

HULLFISH: Part of that scene with Joi still exists in the movie where you see him waking up in the car…

WALKER: Yes.  Another allusion to dreams.

HULLFISH: I’m always interested in movies that are so heavily VFX, if that’s challenging?

WALKER: There were over 1150 VFX shots in the movie – so for Editorial a big challenge for my temp team (led by Javier Marcheselli and Russell Sadeghpour) was creating sophisticated templates of at least a thousand of them.  Denis, Roger Deakins and VFX Supervisor John Nelson’s approach to the VFX shots was to ground them in real footage. For example, the aerials over the abandoned solar farms are shot at a real location, a thermosolar power station near Seville.

VFX had to remove reflections of sunlight and clone the reflectors out to the horizon. The approach to Sapper’s farm was Iceland. An insanely cluttered aerial of Mexico City became Los Angeles. There were a few CGI sequences conceived in the cutting room, such as that vertiginous shot tumbling down to the Atari sign, or the sequence where K returns to the abandoned LA Cathedral, but for the most part things were tethered to reality and the majority of the sets were real builds, with cityscapes visible through the windows. Very little green screen, maybe to extend something into the horizon or capture some supplementary element. I’m sure it makes a huge impact on the actors in how they inhabit that world, but also in editing terms there’s far less delay before you can properly decide how long to hold a shot.

HULLFISH: It changes the way you feel about the scene as you’re cutting when it’s “real.”

WALKER: Yes, indeed. Shooting took place in Budapest and most of these sets were a two minute walk from one another. For example, the ‘Trash mesa’ set was a stone’s throw from Sapper Morton’s. There was a shot where originally K leaves Sapper’s farm and picks up a little maggot as he walks towards his spinner before the reverse shot shows us the farmhouse ablaze. There was a giant green screen marking off the horizon. Over the top edge of the screen you’d see Hungarian stuntmen being yanked 40 feet in the air by crane, while on the Sapper side, the American Humane Association were on hand to make sure that the maggot was properly rested.  We could see all this from my cutting room, one of the more surreal moments of the shoot.

So much was shot for real.  For example, the three-some scene, there were no green screens, no elements. The actors would run the same shot twice with the same choreography. One complication from that was that you had two Ryan Goslings in the shot and two backgrounds of the apartment and you had to pick which to use. There was a lot of craft involved in finessing that. But the fundamental thing was that they could get instant gratification on set by seeing blended images and go “yeah, we got it”.  During the shoot, my cut used 50/50 blends and I did a few motion effects and picture-in-pictures position shifts to improve the actors’ sync with each other. Then my temp team would roto everything in order to finesse it in Nuke.

Because of the difference in the actors’ faces, if you matched the right eye up, the left eye would be out of register, making three eyes in all, a spidery quality. Denis chose to enable accidents. For two seconds Joi and Mariette’s choreography will be identical and the next they’ll be adrift, which creates a kind of ghost in the machine that we cherished.  A fantastic accident I really loved – I don’t know whether Denis sees it as a failure or not but I certainly see it as an unexpected treasure – was a moment where the two women walk behind K’s back to take his coat off and he no longer has eye contact with them. That was one section where their body positions never sync’d well and despite every trick in the Effects palette I couldn’t get a match.  In the end, the VFX House D-Neg used an animated CGI Joi for that shot. It’s subtle, but it feels like the program conserves energy when she’s not being watched – she defaults to something more robotic.  A beautiful happy accident.

HULLFISH: Did you pick performances that were completely realistic for this “holographic person” or did you attempt to interject some sense of artificiality?

WALKER: This is meant to be the most sophisticated hologram technology available and at one point K says both “she’s very realistic” and “you are real to me.” So we always went with realistic performances from Joi, who in any event was played by an actress who looks so perfect you begin to doubt she’s real. In my first cuts, I tried freezing her image for like nine frames when she was interpreting a remark from K that might have drained her processor.  The visuals shut down just for a nanosecond and then skip forward and resume. But it felt corny. There was enough to suggest that she’s artificial, like her rapid costume changes and the rain effect on her hand. For example, I exploited those beats on the rooftop with Roger Deakins’ fabulous strafing lighting where she’s momentarily see-through.

HULLFISH: I just felt a bit of artificiality in the timing of Joi’s first lines, when you haven’t even seen who K is talking to and you get the impression it might be a real person and it might be some kind of “Siri-like” program.

WALKER: This is a long established game between them. He’s coming home and settling into a rhythm with his Digital Companion. And that sort of informed the choice of timing which is just a little off. There were two or three interventions in the cutting room – for example, once we settled on having Frank Sinatra singing ‘Summer Winds’ in the background we wrote a very Siri-esque comment for her: “Did you know, this song was released in 1966 on Reprise Records? It was number one in the charts.” It’s the idea of barely concealed traffic reports or weather predictions. We liked the fact that it said something charming about K’s character that he’s customized Joi to a place where I suspect 99 percent of the customers will not have taken her. He’s gone for the most exotic available options, including presumably her Cuban accent. He wouldn’t have gone for the kind of Jessica Rabbit version of Joi which is the technology’s default setting. Another change we made, just before the seawall sequence, was to replace her voice in the giant pink Joi incarnation of her character. It was a much more ‘sex kitten’ voice. That’s Mary’s voice, my very versatile 1st Assistant Editor, who recorded a temp voiceover which stuck.  There to drive home that K has permanently lost that personal history with his customized Joi.

HULLFISH: I’ve talked to some editors who’ve said that their shows, as a rule, do not ever use pre-laps in dialogue between scenes. There’s a great pre-lap of dialogue going into K’s first baseline test. You hear him going through the baseline test for quite a while before we actually see him in the room where he’s finally in sync. Was that as scripted? Or did you create that pre-lap?

WALKER: One of the very first things I did was lay guide tracks on the pre-viz, so from the start I made this a pre-lap. The first voice you hear is the interrogator saying “Officer KD6-3.7” and I felt it was important to put that on K’s face to hammer home that he is a numbered replicant and what that means to him. I love pre-lapped sound. One of the editors I learned a lot from was Tariq Anwar who worked at the BBC for a long time. I was lucky enough to be his dubbing editor on ‘March on Europe’.  He often created beautiful pre-laps with either a sound effect or a voice ahead of the picture cut.  The new scene would come to fruition at exactly the right time. It felt beautifully cinematic, the soundtrack is in sync for most of the film but sometimes it diverges and you entertain two separate thoughts, like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. In Blade Runner, the pre-lap helped make the actual interrogation when we cut to it, a very violent assault. I was able to spread out the first part which is a kind of slower paced introductory section where K repeats the ‘Pale Fire’ mantra: ‘Cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played.” So when we cut into the interrogation room we join it in the middle of a quickfire assault.

By the way, this quickfire section was not scripted that way, it’s something Ryan Gosling brought to the party. Apparently, there’s an acting technique to help learn complex dialogue, where you answer hundreds of questions about each word. That’s a way of grappling with complex memory tasks like Shakespeare, I imagine, it just penetrates the deeper tissue of memory. It was great to edit.  Although it didn’t end up in the film there was an extended version of this scene which is ten minutes long.  There were some other really interesting baseline experiments, to me anyway. I did a version of the second baseline test, the one where he’s really under pressure and his identity is collapsing, but I tried to use this as the place where we finally reveal visuals of his memory, far later than planned.  That stayed up until the 7th or 8th version of the fine cut. All these harsh questions from the interrogator: “When you’re not performing your duties, do they keep you in a little box?” or “What’s it like to be filled with dread?” These were used to provoke little synaptic memories which we glimpse piecemeal rather than as a continuous sequence. Those scenes were always fantastic material to play with, a great spin on the Voigt-Kampff test. It became a rhythmic motif like a percussion solo that we really tried to exploit more.

HULLFISH: You mentioned that scene on the rooftop. It had a great deliberate pace as Joi is discovering her new freedom. Talk to me about trying to maintain that beautiful pace as you’re under pressure to cut down a four-hour movie.

WALKER: Denis doesn’t like deleted scenes on BluRays and I tend to agree. There’s a reason why you chop scenes out and although I respect the fact that there’s some fan interest out there, we wanted to make one definitive cut of Blade Runner 2049. In reality, there weren’t so many whole scenes to cut because it’s a story that develops piece by piece – remove any substantial piece and the edifice collapses. So we had the challenge of bringing down the length but if you merely cut things faster so that they’re just “fast” then the whole film motors on without the audience. The right version is the one that allows you time to peer into the souls of the character, interspersed with some very dynamic moments of destructiveness. We were also trying to create a dreamlike quality. There are takes where Ryan walked through the desert faster but the shots that sang this song more clearly were the ones where K slowed his pace.

So what could we cut?  Firstly, a lot of connective tissue and bridges.  For example, there was a really magnificent aerial sequence when K and Joi fly to Las Vegas. It was one of those rare occasions when it was raining on the hills outside Las Vegas, God’s contribution to Blade Runner 2049. But it just felt more impactful to go straight to the pilot fish’s view of this strange landscape and hear K’s distorted commands, to skip ahead of the audience for a while. For the vast bulk of the tightenings, we pared the dialogue down to the minimum amount you could get away with, allowing us to play the beats that remained very intensely.

I had a great experience watching the IMAX version of the film in a screening very late in the process – we were more used to the 2.39 aspect which we worked with for over a year.  The IMAX was a revelation because while the big vistas and cityscapes were even more dizzy, the dance between the actor’s eyes is also way more intense. Because of the sheer size of the screen you just push away the peripheral information a little bit when you watch and zero in on the actor’s expressions. That was a very enjoyable screening.

HULLFISH: This is our fourth conversation. In our first conversation, I quoted something to you about the fact that if you trim a film down too much, it just turns into information and is no longer entertainment. The next time you talked, you remembered that quote and quoted it back to me. Now we’re back to the same idea. If you trim too much, the film loses its heart.

WALKER: You wouldn’t believe the vast amount of effort and tricks we perform to speed up the flow whilst trying to preserve what’s so special about the pace of the dailies. Roger’s lighting effects often require a certain amount of time to play such an enjoyable role in the experience. The Wallace building, for example, had this slowly moving artificial sunlight. It just felt such a groovy idea, artificial sunlight following the characters around the most sophisticated office on earth, owned by a blind man. That means that a shot like Luv walking down a corridor, which in a normal drama you’d probably hold for three or four seconds, but here with slowly shifting caustics you’d be decimating a world-class cinematic moment if you didn’t give that the necessary slot. I guess the choices are about picking which moments to sell and which to buy. And that made it a really interesting edit.

HULLFISH: You’ve said in the past that time is your superpower.

WALKER: Certainly not the amount of it in the schedules. (laughs).

HULLFISH: There’s a great cut of K seeing the date on the tree to the furnace scene. Was it scripted that way? And how do you determine that perfect moment to make the cut in time?

WALKER: It’s kind of a little informed by working on Arrival and exploiting the freedom to flash to something to reveal an inner thought. It wasn’t planned or scripted. It was something I chipped in as a way of underlining the power of the memory prompted by the clue when none of us at that stage can tell its significance. If K had a big reaction to the clue alone, it would perhaps have looked too big. There are a few flashes elsewhere – the same thing happens when he’s describing the memory to Joshi, and Deckard also has a brief memory, of Rachel.  That one we talked about a lot.  We needed to remind the audience or inform a new one what Rachel looked like, how she moved, which we ultimately fixed by pinning a shot of Rachel walking towards Deckard from the first movie to a moment of intense concentration on Harrison’s face in the second. I hope we got away with this perilous choice by peppering the film earlier with moments where we see what people are thinking. Arrival really taught me the power of the Kuleshov Effect . It’s a powerful tool not to be abused. But it’s there in your armory, so if it tells your story better, you have to go there.

HULLFISH: And if you’re going to do it throughout a film, you have to use it relatively early in the movie, because otherwise the first time you do it is too much of a shock to the audience.

WALKER: Exactly, the inscription on the tree and the cut to the furnace was the perfect chance to set that in motion, early in the story.

HULLFISH: There’s a jump cut in a scene in Bladerunner 2049 with Robin Wright’s character in K’s apartment and she’s having a drink and says, “This breaks the world.” and then there’s a jump cut to a later moment in the same apartment. This is back to you saying time is your superpower. It’s a break in time.

WALKER: What makes it work, I suppose, is the big change in shot size, and the contrast between some qualities in the performance. We go from a tense charged performance of Joshi taking a drink in a close-up and then you cut to a wide shot with a different body language that suggests K’s been stuck there for a while out of politeness to his boss who’s in no hurry to leave. A nice time compression.

It’s worth talking about the beginning of that scene in K’s apartment, an even bigger compression.  It originally started with a few beats of K using a device that zooms into pictures of the tree and the photo of Freysa holding the baby.  Then there’s a knock on the door and a kind of paranoid beat because K isn’t expecting anybody.  He goes to the door and Joshi barges in saying “Coco’s dead”. In tightening up the film we noticed a kind of repetitive pattern to scenes, each had a beginning, middle, and end which made for an unhappy global pace to a film. By overlapping her dialogue over the last shot of Coco’s death – Luv dropping Rachel’s bones into her bag, like a deranged Audrey Hepburn shopping in Beverly Hills – we’re meeting the new scene in the middle. It’s odd how many scenes in films, not just Blade Runner, but all films, start with a door and end with a door. I don’t know whether that points to the theatrical origins of film, or whether it’s just a common way to shape a scene. In many cases, of course, doors can be phenomenally loaded symbols – of hidden secrets or paths disguised. I’m no door-ist, but if there are too many scenes bookended by them, the editor’s duty is to kick them down.

HULLFISH: That was one example of choosing to create a pre-lap.

WALKER: Yes.  As an audience member hopefully you just feel as though the tectonic plates are moving faster and the thread is tugging hard.

HULLFISH: You had this same comment about doors in our interview Sicario and Kirk Baxter also talked about the difficulty of doors in editing Gone Girl. Sounds like it should be somebody’s Master’s thesis.

WALKER: Yes, or perhaps it’s time to make a version of Christian Marclay’s ‘Clock’ entirely made of doors.  Having said this, there’s a lot of really great doors in Blade Runner and I think we preserved the very best of them.  K entering the door into the forest in Ana’s lab; the giant door to the archive which Luv wrenches off its hinges. One of my favorites is after K’s boss tells him he’s doing fine without a soul. That’s a beautiful moment where K gently closes the door behind him and walks away – K’s melancholy was so palpable in that boxed off framing of the glass panel.  It was a beat we could have easily shed, but we pinned our masts to it. I’m no door fascist.  But you have to sell some to buy others.

HULLFISH: That’s a great expression and very true. I loved that “don’t need a soul” moment. There’s a sadness in him. You need to rest on that moment, right?

WALKER: We had to be very careful about which moments really worked and which didn’t. Some sequences just needed a little time to work, and as soon as you cut them down they don’t work anymore. For example, when he’s in the orphanage there’s a moment when he and the story come to a dead end. The book identifying adoptive parents has been destroyed. Then K looks down and spots an ashtray in the shape of a horse (Blade Runner aficionados will know the importance of animal imagery). K walks back to an area in an abandoned ship where he’s already sensed something puzzling and he’s drawn deeper towards it, into the dark, into the subconscious. The music starts to kind of tip downwards as he treads towards a clue that’s going to change everything. We tried tighter versions of the beginning of it and it just looked like he was lost. You have to have that ‘Aah! Bisto’ moment, as the Brits say. (There used to be an advert of kids who smell gravy being cooked for Sunday lunch and follow the wavy scent home). You had to have that moment.  Take it out and it just becomes an accident.  If you take your time, you know there’s something going on, even if you don’t know what it is yet.

HULLFISH: RIght. And the movie actually seems LONGER by cutting it because you don’t have the meaning, but you still have the rest of the scene taking up space.

WALKER: That’s it. Put very well and quite a lot shorter than me.

HULLFISH: The DNA scene — what I call the DNA scene — is where K is looking through this thing that looks like a Moviola. And Joi appears to be with him and they’re interacting and overlapping similarly to the threesome scene at his apartment. Let’s talk about the complexities and decisions of working on that scene.

WALKER: Again it was shot the same way as the threesome with seven or eight takes of the two actors together and then K on his own, in situ, no green screens, and then again with Joi on her own. So I’d end up with maybe 7 takes of each version to pick from and I could just do a 50/50 merge with a little bit of picture-in-picture adjustment for positioning. In the days where roto is not prohibitively expensive, this way is relatively easy.

Actually, the big ticket item for me in that sequence is the machine itself. That was a very early example of saying the sound needs to participate in the scene. Denis briefed Ryan Gosling that it should be like switching on a snow plow – or was it a jalopy? – they are both Canadians so they understand each other no matter what.  Turning on this machine with all its levers should make it whir and click and grind into action. A great friend of mine Bernie Leinfelder – she’s a voice artist in LA and sometime assistant to Werner Herzog – provided us with a depressed Japanese voice for the machine.  Denis asked for this, he wanted to fill the soundtrack with hypnotic voices trying to lull the population into dreamlike states. On the rooftop scene, you hear them very clearly.

For the Denabase screen, there was a really great company Territory who provided the on-set graphics. But in this case, we just wanted to push it further in post and I think Denis let me kind of get my fingers stuck into that one because I suppose a viewing machine is such an obvious thing for an editor to get over-excited about. I remember being in your ‘hood, Chicago for a day, for a secret test screening and I was scribbling little diagrams and sending them back to Russell Sadeghpour, the Editorial VFX designer to develop. The general brief is that we’re in a post-digital world where the analog world has sort of taken over again in some hyper-developed way.  In the case of the Denabase machine, we were harking back to the weird machines languishing in libraries, or in editing warehouses, like the twin-headed PicSyncs which were a strange monster indeed. In every BBC cutting room, the typical workhorse was a motorized viewing machine called an ‘Acmade Compeditor.’ It had one ground glass viewing screen where you watched the picture and three audio tracks, and a fourth audio track you could disengage to spin the mag track down to find the sound effect you needed. Something like that mixed with library microfilm machines informed our Denabase graphic design. Russell did this beautiful job of making these celluloid records click a little bit as they settled into position.

We went to all this effort because fundamentally it’s a scene of somebody looking at a screen and we all struggle to make those exciting. The curse of modern day storytelling is that too often the characters are gawping at screens and blabbing on cell phones, something we all head to the cinema to escape. So one has a duty to make them as interesting as possible. Mr. Robot, for example, so much of that show includes computer screens, but what a great job they do with them. They convey enough information for a lay audience to understand what’s going on but with enough deeply researched information to keep the real hackers on board. They’re very free pieces of editing. They break continuity and time. And they condense things beautifully, it dances in some way.  I’m always marvelling at how well they do that.

HULLFISH: I did an interview with the editor on that.

WALKER: On a tangent, but one of the things I love about that show is the use of contrary framing. It’s like the camera’s panned to the extreme and pushed the eye-line off the edge of frame. You end up getting that bizarre editing consequence that heads are often cutting from one side to the other which jerks your audience’s eyes each time you cut. I edited a film shot like that a long time ago, called Tabloid where we really got so much more impact from the sets and the décor, especially in widescreen.  But I remember the pressure on every cut. There’s a huge distance the eye has to travel on a forty foot screen so it’s kind of a big ask. The editor has to make double sure every single cut is perfectly timed for it to work.

HULLFISH: That’s exactly what I talked to him about. With that off-set framing, it seemed like it would have a big effect on the cutting.

WALKER: I’d really love to read that. I think Mr Robot is exquisitely cut.

HULLFISH: There’s a wonderful moment, where K asks Joi, “Do you want to go for a ride?” it was a wonderful moment where he says “you want to go for a ride?” And then it cuts to the water pouring over the seawall.

WALKER: As storyboarded it was a very simple sequence but gradually it got more elaborate and it was one of those things where I was pushing Denis to set up the seawall more which had a great benefit when you re-encounter that location in the finale. I felt kind of guilty because we really overfilled this sequence then had to reign it all back again. You’re setting up Joi and K out on the road, you’re setting up the seawall, you’re setting up off-world transporters, at one stage we were even setting up the idea of him being followed by Luv’s drone. At the heart of it were the little beats between Joi and K.  One of them we cut was Joi reacting to a Joi advert. As they passed it there was a very beautiful non-verbal moment where Joi’s a little embarrassed by her shop window version and he sort of reassures her. There were a great many things that we tried to shoehorn into that sequence which had to go.

As for the opening shot, John Nelson the VFX supervisor had filmed some amazing element shots of salt being poured over a black surface and it was just one of those things where you see an element shot and say, “Holy F*ck, that’s got to be in the film’. So that’s where it came from, it was an element plate.

The other big thing that kind of took control of that sequence was that when we started working with Hans Zimmer, the very first thing he did after we watched the film together was say “Well, I can tell you what’s missing.” And he figured out this tune at the keyboard while talking about trying to get that Mahler 5/Death in Venice kind of longing.  To us this was mindblowing. Denis and I thought “At last! That’s what it needs!” Something that’s oddly optimistic, not confirming what a dystopian world it is. That’s something that Vangelis’s original score has in spades, a kind of cracked optimism. Vangelis wrote a very heroic major key theme which could almost have worked in a cowboy picture, but for it being played on a Yamaha CS80. On the seawall sequence, that combination between images and Hans’s music worked so well, at that point when you need to go outdoors and feel some sense of majesty and scale.  So that music became a kind of traveling theme in a way, a journey theme.

HULLFISH: There’s a scene where K goes to Stelline to find out if his memory is made up or real and that was amazing. The performances between the two were really pitch perfect, I thought and the breath and the moments to soak in the information K’s receiving…

WALKER: There was something that just moved me deeply when I first saw the dailies. Something about Carla Juri’s demeanor and this anemic place filled with digital playthings. The set is symbolic, it’s an egg in a box. In a previous cut, you could see the architecture of the space a little bit more clearly. Ron Bartlett, the re-recording mixer in charge of dialogue, played a lot with the sound, creating different perspectives in the chamber against the sound of her voice projected into K’s glass booth. Again it was a fully built set and actually, Mac Ruth’s location sound was really interesting with some very odd reflections. The performances were just outstanding but we had to make sure the scene sustains a second viewing so that when you’ve seen the whole film you come back to that enigmatic moment in your mind where Ana reacts to K’s memory.  The first time round it seems to be an empathetic reaction to K but of course, it’s Ana’s own complex feelings of sadness about her past and the need to conceal the illegal act of disseminating it. I like the idea that somehow unconsciously she planted that memory to call Deckard to her.

There was quite a decision at the end of that scene which was how does K react to hearing that the memory is real? And for that, I had lots of choices. There was one particular take where the pressure blew and K kicks off and screams, hurling a chair against the wall.  It was a violent reaction which felt right for such a huge turning point. Elsewhere, Ryan’s performance is buttoned down and stoic almost like the Clint Eastwood role in a spaghetti western. One of the reasons why trying to find the right music for the film was really hard because it needed thematic music to really draw out the passions lurking inside. But here, the pressure blows from under the surface, which I thought was a great beat.

HULLFISH: I think it shows tremendous discipline between you and Denis to maintain these important moments. Like the threesome scene. There are these amazing emotions going through all three of the characters that make it so much more poignant, yet if you rush those, all you’re left with is just a sex scene.

WALKER: Like Joshi says: “We’re all just looking for something real.” The mystery of sex is revealed to him and his virginity is lost and maybe it’s because I was brought up in the Catholic faith that my view of this initiation rite is that in parts, it’s fascinating and exciting and in parts frightening and disturbing.

HULLFISH: There’s tremendous sadness in that scene. Joi has the sadness of the other girl taking over and a kind of fascination and he seems sad as well. You mentioned that part of the scene where they go behind him to take off his coat and he seems, not thrilled, but resigned.

WALKER: I think it’s also set up rather well by the previous scene between Joi and K.  She keeps persisting that “you’re too good to be a K. Your mother would have named you.” When she starts planting the name Joe, he gets short with her. He says, “Stop!” In a way, it’s on the trajectory from self-controlled robot to self-interested human, this rather blunt response to her. And it puts a small chasm between them. If he is really human, is he going to need her? Joi and K’s relationship is a strangely touching ingredient in the movie. There probably could have been a version without it but that would have been very different, a lone wolf Philip Marlowe kind of thing. You would have lost a lot of heart.

HULLFISH: One of the things that I love is that she is completely inhuman. She’s a computer program, like Siri, and there’s no reason for K to treat her like a human — with respect, dignity, and love — but that’s just what K does. A lot of the optimism of the movie is in that relationship that he treats his computer program.

WALKER: Yes. I couldn’t have put it better myself. She’s a glimpse of hope in his life, a tiny green shoot in the vast empty tundra of his life, a life of being shunned and hated.  A big moment was when Mariette and Joi’s combined hand touches K’s. That shot is so strong – after all, the only way he has been touched in the past is when a giant Replicant slams a fist in his face or shoves his head through a wall.

HULLFISH: He is treated inhumanly throughout the movie, yet the one thing that’s even less human than him, he treats as humanly as possible.

WALKER: So much is kind of a beautiful spin on the original film. It took a Replicant to tell Deckard how to be human. Here, it takes a hologram to show a Replicant how to be human.

HULLFISH: Did you convince Denis to have K be called Joe?

WALKER: No! It does mean that I’ve got some good ringtones on my phone, though. I think it’s a reference to Kafka, don’t you? ‘Josef K’ – protagonist of The Trial and The Castle.  Or maybe it was just to set up that sour moment where the giant pink Joi says to K “you look like a good Joe.” You’ll have to ask the writer.

HULLFISH: She really hopes for him to be “a real boy” and there’s a moment where, faced with her own mortality, she says, “just like a real girl.”.

WALKER: All the characters are just looking for something real.

HULLFISH: So would you say that idea is the subtext? And how do you build that subtext into the film?

WALKER: Well, in so many of the characters there’s certainly a lot of broken dreams. Building subtext is I think about exerting the right choices. If you’re condensing a longer film to a shorter film it’s that sculpture analogy: you just don’t want to lop off an arm. Isn’t that the difficulty about editing and appreciating what we all do? We’ll never know what has been discarded and how wise that path has been. When you look at a Bernini, you don’t see the pile of rubble on the floor and get to contemplate what’s been excised or what other possibilities there might have been. We’re hopefully reducing and simmering, sometimes flambéing in musical alcohol, but always hoping not to damage the vital tissues. Here, honoring that subtext was about discarding other ideas to make space for it.

HULLFISH: Want to talk about transitions — either between storylines or otherwise?

WALKER: There’s a scene where K’s been rescued by a nascent Replicant army and he’s out in the desert, badly beaten up.  There’s a hallucinatory feeling as he looks across to these strange figures around a fire. The plan was to cut from the floating embers to the city – originally the meeting with Freysa was set in the abandoned Tyrell pyramid. But we felt we had to explain better that they have brought him back to LA in his spinner so that it’s available for the seawall fight. There was a fantastic test animation of the spinner landing which had no particular place in the film, and that became the basis of a shot of the spinners passing the giant Pink Joi and landing in front of a church. That choice of building was a late idea, hatched in the cutting room. I was always gripped by that cathedral St. Patrick’s in New York, this little sliver of religion dwarfed by the vast towers of commerce.  Something similar felt right as the setting of a rebel army. And we got to create a mesmerizing transition from the embers of the fire into the lights of the city.

HULLFISH: Let’s talk sound.

WALKER: When choosing who would be our sound editorial team, we knew it would be a perfect marriage between Mark Mangini – who won an Oscar for his work on Mad Max Fury Road – and Theo Green who I’d known for years since working together on ‘The Escapist.’ We’d picked up on Mark’s fanatical devotion to recording original sounds – all the amazing vehicles on Mad Max for example – but we wanted to merge that with the kind of leftfield approach I knew we’d get from Theo. The blaster sound effects exemplify this: Mark recorded a whopping great big sniper rifle and Theo chipped in a 909 kick drum as a sweetener. That gives the gun a great signature. In a microcosm that’s the kind of creative match we wanted, to create sounds that we’ve never heard before.

In my edit, I set out to make contrasts as sharp and intense as possible.  One I love is during Luv’s violent attack on Joshi where there are some very sharp cuts… literally and editorially.  At the height of the attack, we shift outside to an exterior looking in and the soundtrack plummets down to the soft sound of snow falling. I am very happy that the soundtrack preserves an idea prevalent in all the assemblies which was that it would be extremely dynamic. You could have big grand overpowering pieces of music and sound, such as the seawall sequence and yet you could also zero in on the sound of the bee beating its wings on K’s hand and an odd moment of desert silence. That’s the kind of range.

The sequence where K walks into the Las Vegas hotel is a really outstanding piece of sound.  Silence isn’t enough. You have to feel a little bit of dust or plaster falling on the floor to give you a sense of space. Mark Mangini puts it very well. He says, to make a perfect white a painter has to add a tiny dash of blue. It actually takes that one contamination to kind of make it real and make you appreciate the silence.  We chose not to have the sound of the dog panting when you first see it lurking in the shadows. You just have this mysterious creature you study and then the silence is broken by the most famous voice in all of cinema saying “You don’t happen to have a piece of cheese, do you boy?”

We pared down the music here, too. In the sequence where K walks through the erotic playground we had a full score at one point. Then we were going through all the stems with Clint Bennett, our fantastic music editor. There were always about 20 elements sent over by Ben Wallfisch and often we would investigate them to see what we could live without. One of the stems from this fuller piece of music was just a single stroke on a drum and that felt closer to the kind of Vangelis bombast which we wanted. So we came all the way down from the full band to one heavy drum stroke.

Also, there’s the sound of the piano luring K inside, the Brahms lullaby being played on two fingers. Sorry to boast, but by the way, that’s me!

HULLFISH: Really? Some readers may not know that you have been a sound editor, but also that you have multiple credits as a composer. So, a two finger Brahms Lullaby, huh? Uncredited I guess?

WALKER: Well, I definitely like to see myself as the rhythm section of the band, finding a way of fitting together rhythmic objects whether they’re dialogue, sound effects, music or in many cases on this film little visual elements we dropped into shots like the hologram adverts or the graphics or the dancers in Las Vegas.

Denis had chosen the piano piece, for him it represents something maternal, but we didn’t want some virtuosic performance of it.  It’s Deckard playing that piano and he’s not filling concert hall seats, he’s luring K into a trap.  I asked Mark Mangini, our sound supervisor if he had a real piano available and he suggested the one that lives in Formosa’s ADR suite. I took the piano apart and prepared the strings, John Cage style – we wanted to age it, so I stuck credit cards between the strings and all manner of paper clips and screws.  Mark recorded it on seven or eight microphones and I kept the loud pedal down so that each note had a long sustain to it, that felt like it could curl around the corners of that grand architecture. At the end of the session, Mark told me it was “the Raiders of the Lost Ark piano”. I couldn’t remember any piano in Raiders of the Lost Ark. So he rammed his foot down on the loud pedal and screamed into the strings. It scared the living daylights out of me. If you remove the sound of the scream and just keep the sustain, that is exactly how they created that angelic effect you hear in the Nepal bar scene in Raiders, this is when Marion reveals the headpiece she has been wearing round her neck. In Hollywood, you’re never too far away from some iconic movie prop.

HULLFISH: The flip side of the silence, is the dynamic change of a scene like where the three prostitutes are told to go and talk to K. That was a really loud scene. From my recollection, the previous scene had been very quiet.

WALKER: Yes, the previous scenes are the killing of the newborn Replicant, and Gaff in the nursing home which were relatively quiet. They’re accompanied by those types of sounds that either be a sound effect or music, it’s hard to tell – a blur very true to the original film. When I obtained the bootleg album back in 2003 it was one of the few (if unofficial) soundtrack albums that pay homage to the sound design. You can’t tell whether they’re provided by the sound team or Vangelis. We really took that idea for a ride on this film.

Before I go, one sequence we didn’t talk about is the Hologram Funhouse. That was a big deal in the cutting room, and probably the hardest and longest sequence to work on. This is the scene where Deckard traps K in the nightclub and flips a switch that summons a broken hologram show to life. To gauge the scale of the operation, on that scene alone there were 21 fine cuts, just of the pre-viz. That gave us a solid idea of music for playback and a template for Roger to design his lighting.  Denis and the main unit then filmed the scene for real with Deckard and K, with Ben Thompson in the background as Elvis. They shot old-school without a motion control rig. Then we had a weekend to frantically fine cut this material and then break everything down again so that we could go back to set with the 2nd unit and shoot all the holograms: the Folies Bergere, Elvis’s band, Cowgirls, Gogo dancers, Liberace, Marilyn Monroe, you name it. We had to get it right because when you cut from one angle to the other, the dancers had to do their high kicks on exactly the same beat whilst staying in sync with lighting effects already shot by Roger. That’s a really complicated thing to achieve, technically. I ended up with dozens of video tracks running for each shot and my temp team set about creating more polished versions.

So when we got back to Los Angeles, soon after Thanksgiving 2016, we sat and watched the First Assembly.  Denis said, everything is fantastic, it’s going to work, except one scene: the Hologram Funhouse. We’d been toiling on that on and off for six months so it was disappointing, but I knew he was right. Tonally it didn’t fit, it didn’t feel like Blade Runner.  Denis’ point was that the last time Deckard met a Replicant, it was Roy Batty, who nearly killed him. So this should be full of fear and tension. A manhunt, not a variety act. Deckard turns on those holograms because it gives him an advantage, he knows where and when the light will fall. So Denis and I recut the scene to maximize this and we dumped a lot of the layers of holograms. Really great footage of pole dancers spinning down from the ceiling, all had to go.

I wanted to emphasize the spookiness of this broken machine and I dug around and found some golden moments before “action” where the dancers were waiting for the playback music to start –just breathing, standing by, lit heavily from above.  These ended up in the cut.  We tried to put in as many dead and broken holograms as living ones.

The big transformation was dumping the music almost entirely. We just had this idea it would be creepier if just one little speaker somewhere in this vast room would suddenly spit out some audio. Theo Green our sound designer worked with me the entire length of the project. He came up with this amazing track of all the lighting units shifting and the crackling of bulbs firing up. That absolutely nailed it. Denis loved the new sequence and it was back in, but at one stage it was so far from the ‘Bladiverse’, its head was on the guillotine and we were reading it last rites.

HULLFISH: Watching it I was thinking what a nightmare to edit this scene.

WALKER: I’ll send you a screengrab that shows all the video layers. There’s one wide shot facing the stage where the plate is Deckard throwing a punch at K and the light changes very dramatically to a different routine halfway through that punch. And in that, you’ve got dozens of elements: the Folie-Bergeres dancers, the go-go dancers, Elvis and different shots of his band behind him. Then a line of cowgirls doing a kind of Cotton-Eye Joe routine. We timed it so that a cowgirl did a fantastic forward somersault which crashes through Elvis, it’s barely visible but added some chaos.

HULLFISH: Joe as usual. I loved talking to you and it’s been a great conversation. Thank you so much.

WALKER: Great talking to you about Bladerunner 2049, my friend. It’s always lovely to talk to you. I mean that.

HULLFISH: Same with you. Thanks so much for your time. I’m sure we’ll be talking about Widows at some point.

WALKER: Better get on and cut it.

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 interviews in the series provided the material for the book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV Editors.” This is a unique book that breaks down interviews with many of the world’s best editors and organizes it into a virtual roundtable discussion centering on the topics editors care about. It is a powerful tool for experienced and aspiring editors alike. Cinemontage and CinemaEditor magazine both gave it rave reviews. No other book provides the breadth of opinion and experience. Combined, the editors featured in the book have edited for over 1,000 years on many of the most iconic, critically acclaimed and biggest box office hits in the history of cinema.

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