#and two one of these days i'm actually gonna do more than just vaguely hint at my crack ship but apparently it is not this day

[kanerallels]

For @chenford-prompts 2 Weeks of Chenford, prompt: Injured.

This is set sometime mid season four, and is obviously not canon compliant. It's also technically a deleted scene from a fic I'm posting later this week, but doesn't have any real spoilers. Oh, and it was inspired by a piece of art by @accidental-spice, that I will link here when it's posted!

(TW for hospitals and injury)

Tim felt like he spent a lot of time in hospitals for someone who wasn’t a doctor. Sure, it was bound to be a part of his job— hazard of being a cop was you got hurt. A lot. And he was fine with that.

It was when it was someone else who got hurt on his watch that things were different.

He glanced at the bed he was sitting next to, and his heart twisted in his chest at the sight of Lucy Chen, pale and motionless, hooked up to a heart monitor. He hated seeing her like this. It was unnatural for her to be anything less than bright and energetic and full of life.

She’d been shot on patrol. A shooter had gone after him, and she’d tackled him just in time. Just in time for him to be safe, and for her to be hit herself.

Tim could still feel the panic swelling in his chest at the sight of the blood welling through her shirt as he clung to her, begging her to stay with him. She’d been unconscious by the time the ambulance reached them.

But somehow, miraculously, she was alive. The surgery had been fine, and she was supposed to wake up by the next day. The others had been in to visit her— Jackson for a brief stint, Lopez and Wesley right behind him with Thorsen. Genny had been one of the more recent visitors, carrying a bag with his things, and had walked out again with Nolan. He’d stayed longer than almost any of the others— besides Tamara, who had been right there with him for hours, until the Greys insisted on driving her to their house, where she would stay the night.

Tim hadn’t moved from his spot in hours, and he didn’t intend to. Clasping his hands, he bowed his head, emotions swirling in his chest.

She’d taken a bullet for him. And that had landed her in the hospital. I failed. Again. I couldn’t keep her safe.

“Neck deep in the guilt spiral already?”

Tim’s head snapped up at the sound of Harper’s voice. Handing him a disposable cup, she said, “I thought I’d bring better coffee than what they sell here.”

“Thanks,” Tim muttered, taking a sip. 

He could feel her studying him, and elected to ignore it. Finally, she said, “It wasn’t your fault. Lucy knew what she was doing.”

“She was jumping in front of a bullet meant for me. If I hadn’t—”

“No,” Nyla said flatly. “Don’t try and take the credit for it. Lucy made the choice to protect you, and she wouldn’t want you to be worrying about it like this. Don’t make it about you.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Tim said. “I just— she shouldn’t have—”

“Shouldn’t have what? Shouldn’t have made the same choice any other cop would have made? Shouldn’t have protected someone she cares about?” Nyla snorted. “Sure. When she wakes up, I’d love to see you sell her on that.”

She turned towards the door, then paused, looking at him. “Accept the fact that she got hurt helping you, and then move on. Wallowing in it isn’t going to help anyone. Got it?”

“Got it,” Tim said, looking back at Lucy. Like it or not, he knew she would have said the same thing.

That didn’t mean he was going anywhere, though. Sliding his chair a little closer, he took her hand, lacing his fingers around hers. He felt Harper watching them for a minute, then she turned and left, leaving them alone together.

[zarnzarn]

i see all these comments talking about this after the new episode, but. i would like to state for the record that stolitz isn't. toxic.

first off, the concept of a toxic and a healthy relationship are such... vague terms. when you're online, drenched in language and tight moral boundaries, trying to put a nuanced story like helluva boss's into boxes is easy to attempt and impossible to do.

a toxic relationship is one where one or both parties is maliciously affecting the other. I'm talking fetid, nasty, rude interactions where there is more hurt than love. they're unhappy more often than not when they're with their partner, there's no respect or give from the other side.

stolitz is nothing like that.

Stolas actively cares about Blitz and actually has no fear or hesitation in ADMITTING IT OUT LOUD TO OZZIE. he has been calling, texting, commenting, laughing and finding ways to spend time with Blitz. he's throwing everything he has to the wind, finding the courage to move forward with the divorce, putting everything he has into trying to keep him. he's been alone in a palace since he was born, on medication, with such less people dear to him that he remembered the circus boy who spent a day with him DECADES ago- so when blitz comes into his life and brings back in laughter and color and sex, he's holding on with everything he's got.

and blitz does care!!! he cares a LOT, the whole series we see him falling in love with stolas through SHOW NOT TELL (his expressions, his choices, his fear, his lashing out) and utterly unable to process that stolas cares about him too when talking to fizz; almost a desperate kind of denial-

cause yknow. the first time he tried to confess something to someone he really liked, he accidentally killed half the people he knew and ruined the lives of the rest?

thats gonna leave just a teensy impact on the will to express your emotions in the future, methinks.

even before that, he clearly felt like on some level that he was unworthy and he's said twice that he despises himself for the accident even though it wasn't actually his fault. being self aware doesn't stop the emotions from emotioning.

he keeps insisting its only sex so urgently to anyone who doesn't ask because he can't even imagine it being anything else. he's both disappointed and relieved when he repeats that stolas sees him as a novelty, because what else can it be?

(there's a whole other spiel of how brave both Stolas and Blitz have to be to say it out loud even when asmodeus can't afford to, considering how publically and completely beaten down both were at the club.)

(there's also another whole spiel about how frustrating it has been for ME to see all these comments over time with such bad takes based on like,, 20 min worth of info of a show that takes months to release an ep. like godDAMN have some patience?? let the story UNFOLD MAYBE? IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO HAVE AN EXPLANATION WHY WOULD YOU CRITICIZE THINGS THAT ARENT EVEN FINISHED ESPECIALLY AN INDIE ANIMATION- i digress)

mind you, this has NOTHING to do with abuse. an abusive relationship is one where one is actively harming the other with full awareness. Stella is an abuser and their marriage is abusive.

and stolitz isn't that; it isn't even unhealthy or toxic. it's a consensual, transactional fuckbuddy relationship that slid into something more for both of them.

but!!!!! one of the main reasons for the problems that everyone looks over is-

they're in a BDSM relationship.

I can't possibly delve into dynamics without making this a 10k research paper BUT even though we've gotten only hints and costumes and dialogue- they're very clearly and undeniably in a BDSM contract. Behind the scenes of this crazy show is a whole different story, of these two delving into the most hardcore kinks out there- knifeplay, painplay, bondage.

if you've gotten into the community, if you've read a couple dozen particularly good fics by authors who know what they're talking about, hell; even if your only experience is fifty shades or 365 or whatever- you gotta know that BDSM scenes are crazy fucking emotionally heavy. there's so much that has gone down between them during their full moons that helluva can't get into!!

but you know how in so many of these popular medias and fics, the dom in the relationship is also like,, the billionaire/mafia heir/prince, etc, the one with financial and physical power? this isnt that. it has been very clearly stated that stolas is subbing, blitz is domming.

now take a moment and think about how much that fucks up the dynamics.

in stolas' eyes, blitz is a confident, dangerous individual who's an old friend and cherished memory of his, who he's trusted wholly with his safety during sex and he's lucky to have; and he has been in an abusive arranged marriage for the past eighteen Years, he's probably not going to be pushing his luck with his dom that much in the first place. plus, blitz is never cowed by him during their conversations- think back to the first phone call right after he stole the book, completely unafraid.

and for blitz, it's someone trusting him again- but it's also a royal- a blue blood who's nearly untouchable and so much more powerful- who couldn't possibly like a piece of shit like him, apart from the sex he gets out of it. he only flirts once he gets some sort of cue from Stolas; he's desperately trying to view this as only a Goetia trying to get his rocks off, despite all the evidence to the contrary, because anything else is unfathomable to him, no matter how clearly Stolas shows it, because of the ptsd.

both of them thinks the other has the power. both of them aren't expecting the other to keep shut if something's bothering them.

and there's so much conflicting messages from the other too!

stolas calls him a plaything when trying to intimidate the humans; stolas cups his face gently and asks if he's alright

blitz asks him on a date and tells him to get better soon; blitz yells that it's only sex and doesn't reply to his messages

ya see?

bring it to fizzozzie for a second now; even though they do look all good on surface, you can still see fizz's trauma and doubt in all their interactions, they're still forced to keep the relationship secret. do you see his face when Ozzie says in hyperbole that he's never leaving the house again, or when someone accuses him of being a pampered house pet or when he got sexualized in the 7th ep? whatever happened in the interim between the accident with mammon, it fucked him UP. even though oz seems to be well aware of this when he tells him not to apologise and in their general interactions, fizz still visibly has trouble separating plaything/commodity from healthy relationship.

shout the fuck out to Ozzie btw, man knows whats UP. rooting for these two so much omg.

i forgot where I was going with this point, I'll edit it when i remember. but yeah! lovely fucking relationship, but damn what angst filled issues.

anyway, to sum up- stolitz is not a toxic relationship. the relationship is stuck sludging through misunderstandings and careless microaggressions and trauma responses, but it's not unhealthy or toxic because of the simple reason that most of the current hurt comes from... a misunderstanding. stolas didn't realise blitz would need reassurance about what they were and blitz didn't see stolas as someone who could get hurt.

unecessarily calling it toxic, even online, is more impactful than people think too. almost all spindlehorse ARE on all social medias; so MANY YouTube animators i know have found jobs there; they see your words, especially since a lot don't tag posts with "anti hb" correctly to keep them out of the main tag. there are Very few queer medias made BY queer people that haven't gone through heavy corporate revisions- helluva boss is practically a historical landmark in its success. it's very very very fucking easy to forget that not ten years ago some of the only queer videos on YouTube were butter lover (one kiss at the end post credits), dirty paws and welcome to hell (subtext).

the amount of "critical talk" helluva boss gets for what it is is very unprecedented. it's a beautiful show. can't wait for the next episode.

[hauntedestheart]

Security Footage - Body Swaps (Part 1)

One of Trevor & Andy’s misadventures, a more detailed account of the sort described in Security Measures - Body Swaps

While the university claimed it was supportive of its professors doing independent research and experimentation, Professor Bernard Smith of the Humanities department suspected that "using ancient magics to take the form of one of his students" was a proposal that likely wouldn't make it past the review committee, so he kept his activities on that project private.

He thought of the past twenty years he'd given to academia and heaved a melancholy sigh- society didn’t really put much consideration to how emotionally taxing it was to be a college professor. Every day, year after year, he stood at the front of a classroom and looked out upon a sea of smiling youths hopeful for a bright future that he had already resigned himself against; he aged, but his classes never did. Every rakish young man was a reminder of who he’d never be, and beautiful young woman was a reminder of what he would never have.

After all, the clock only moved one way.

Or, he glanced down at the ritual items he'd assembled before him. Maybe there's a miracle waiting for me.

He lit a candle and the changes began.

🔀

Once it became clear that Andy's… situation wasn't going away, moving in together had just made sense, but in the back of Trevor's mind he had been worried about it. Old habits are hard to unlearn and he hadn't yet shaken the niggling doubt that if they spent too much together and the novelty of the relationship wore off, Andy would realize that he could probably find someone better and leave Trevor hanging for a second time.

Reality was much kinder though, and living together actually brought the two boys closer than ever. Between school, attempts at a social life, and their constant misadventures, their small apartment became a sanctuary where it could be just them and no one else.

Trevor grabbed his bowl of tortilla chips and made his way from the kitchen to the living room, where Andy was sprawled out on the couch clicking through options on the television. Andy gave a little wolf whistle at the sight of his boyfriend bending over to put the bowl on the table, which made Trevor roll his eyes, and he picked up a chip from the bowl and flicked it towards Andy's face.

The throw fell short and bounced off of Andy's chin, dropping down and settling atop the boy's pronounced bosom; he plucked it up and tossed it in the air. Trevor watched with mild bemusement as Andy actually caught it with his mouth then squinted his eyes shut while he chewed, scrunching his forehead up as if he were deep in thought.

"Mmm, I'm detecting notes of salt… a hint of corn… is this gourmet? It must be," Andy smirked up at Trevor then leaned forwards and grabbed another chip, popping it into his mouth with a crunch. "This is why I got man who can cook. I would starve without you."

He threw Trevor a wink and a smile, which Trevor responded to with an eye-roll and a smile of his own. Andy scooted back on the sofa and spread his legs, patting at the empty space in front of him, and Trevor slipped in to claim his spot; the larger boy wrapped his arm around the smaller boy's midsection and placed an absent kiss on his head before returning his attention to the tv.

"Is this what you picked for tonight?" Trevor asked, referring to the film queued up on the screen- some sort of anime movie he didn't recognize but vaguely recalled Andy mentioning before. He tilted his head up so he could see Andy's face above him. "Have you seen it before?"

"I have, but I want you to see it too," Andy smiled down at his boyfriend before giving a mischievious chuckle. "It's awful, you're gonna love it."

Watching bad movies had become something of a "thing" for the two boys as Andy (for some reason) thought Trevor's dry observations were hilarious, and if Andy was introducing the movie as awful, Trevor knew he was in for a good time.

As Andy clicked play, Trevor snuggled in closer to him and gave a contented sigh. His muscular boyfriend boy liked to joke that he worked out so much so he could give better hugs, and when those strong arms were wrapped around him, Trevor could believe it. Being with Andy had made him appreciate being on the smaller side for a guy because it meant they fit together perfectly, and Andy's broad physique made for an incredible pillow.

He leaned back and rested his head on Andy's firm pecs, relaxing as he felt the young man's belly pushing outwards against his back while they- wait.

Trevor bolted upright and looked over his shoulder to confirm his suspicions- Andy's body was changing, and from the expression of shock on his face, he was well aware of it. Surprised, Trevor slipped off the couch and fell onto his ass, and his new vantage point on the floor let him see that his boyfriend's toned muscles going saggy beneath his clothes. The transformation made it appear almost as if he were melting, and the sight of it made Trevor so queasy he had to look away.

"FUCK!" Andy exclaimed, staring down helplessly at his hands as his skin bubbled and his flesh grew softer. He hurled himself off of the couch and bolted out of the room, the slam of a door echoing down the hall a moment later.

Well, Trevor thought to himself. There goes our weekend.

🔀

Unbeknownst to the couple, in a house across town, a lonely old college professor was having a significantly nicer evening. The Egyptian ritual he had uncovered had gone off without a hitch and now, everything that Andy had lost belonged to him.

"Well, I'm definitely getting tenure after this!" Bernard announced to no one in particular. He'd just made a major breakthrough in his field by proving that magic was real, and the proof was staring back at him from the mirror!

He leaned in closer to the glass and stared into his new eyes, tilting his face back and forth to admire the enviable visage he'd stolen from one of his students. A smile, which made him look rather dashing, appeared.

Andy Douglass from his Intro to World Religions class was far from the first jock to pass through his classroom, but there was just something about the boy that had caught his eye. He was an okay student, often late with his assignments but otherwise unremarkable, but his appearance made him hard to overlook- the tallest boy in the class, magazine-worthy looks, and a sculpted body so good it was actually a distraction to the other students.

Professor Smith couldn't miss the way every girl in the class spent more time looking at Andy than at the whiteboard, even going so far as to arrive at class half an hour early just to stake out the seats closest to where he usually sat so they could ogle the way his biceps flexed whenever he raised his hand. But whenever the young women tried to chat him up after class, the stud never seemed interested in them. The professor thought he was an idiot for it- beautiful females were throwing themselves at him and he wasn't taking what was offered? The young fool clearly didn't appreciate what he had.

After a few weeks of classes the professor had begun to fantasize about what it would be like to be the one in Andy's shoes, to be the hot young stud who had his pick of all the girls in the school. If that were his muscular body he would use it right and plow through as many women as he could find!

So when he'd stumbled across a spell to "take the form of another" in one of the hieroglyphic scrolls he'd been translating, there had been no question about who he would use it on.

Words could not describe how incredible it had felt as the spell took effect and the years shed off of him, his body shifting until all traces of his old visage were gone and he stood there in the form of the student he'd so envied. The professor quickly divested himself of his clothes so he could perform a thorough examination of his new body to gauge the effects of the ritual- as a staunchly heterosexual man it was a bit strange for him to be studying another man's body so intimately, but since it was his now he relished the opportunity.

It was a literal weight off of his shoulders as his belly melted away into nothing and for the first time in decades he had a flat stomach- more than flat, it was cobbled through with abs. He could touch his abs now, and he couldn't bring himself to stop rubbing at them just to feel the rock hard ridges beneath his fingers. In his old body these muscles would be shriveled up from years of disuse and buried behind layers of fat but now they were fully on display, and they looked damn fine! This was actual six pack, the kind that came from countless hour of crunches and other such exercises that Bernard knew nothing about.

His entire body was now threaded through with muscle and he had no idea where any of it came from but he was grateful for it and he intended to have a lot of fun with it. Broad, well developed shoulders slithering down to powerful arms that hung down on either side of a set of hefty pecs that look like they belong on a Greek statue- and he felt as good as he looked! Everything about his new body was so tight and compact, built out of trained muscles that stood up proudly rather than weak flesh that surrendered to gravity.

Experimentally, he dropped to the floor and began doing push ups- he hadn't even thought of the exercise since his days in high school physical education class, but he was filled with a burning need to test out his new muscles. Back in his old body he’d usually collapse after one or two and then need an aspirin, but as he pumped up and down with his strong arms he felt like he’d never have to stop. Liquid gold was flowing through his veins!

Over and over again he sank so close to the floor that his chest almost touched the boards, but something else always touched down first- the pièce de résistance of his new body, Andy's penis. Given the unfortunate size of the cock Bernard had been born with he'd been certain that it would be an improvement no matter what his student was packing, but this was beyond his wildest dreams. Even soft it was a behemoth, and the heavy balls that accompanied it were equally impressive. He'd certainly made the right choice when picking a new body!

Grinning, he hopped back up to his feet, appreciating the simple joy of being able to stand without his joints protesting. The years had not been exceptionally kind to him but even in his youth he’d been something of a weakling, so being a strapping young lad was a novelty to him. One he intended to make the most of...

There were so many possibilities! His mind raced but ultimately he came to the conclusion that there were really only two things he really wanted: to drink and to fuck.

In his real body he got drunk often (partially due to the sting a lifetime of missed avenues and wrong choices, mostly due to boredom) but there was a difference between drinking alone and at a party... and as for the sex? Bernard turned his attention down again, admiring the young man’s enormous cock. He couldn’t imagine what lovemaking would be like with such an impressive tool at his disposal!

Tilting his face side to side he admired how handsome Andy was. With that strong jaw, those deep brown eyes, the manly stubble, he’d certainly have no trouble landing a pretty young thing! And a head full of hair too! He ran his hands through his hair, a bit surprised by its unfamiliar, wooly texture, but he wasn't going to complain because he was just thrilled to have anything on his head.

"Hello there ladies," he tested out his new voice, which was so deep and rich compared to his old one. If he'd taught classes with a voice like this, maybe students would have listened more! He leaned in to the mirror, letting him stretch his new wingspan, and imagined that he was talking to a group of admirers. "I don't suppose any of you pretty young things would be interested in showing an old man a good time?"

"No? Well how about a young stud like me instead?" he said cockily, making his bicep bounce a few times, and he pictured a classroom full of girls swooning. "Ladies, please, don't fight! There's enough of me to go around." He winked then reached down and took his new cock into his hand, wagging it around so its huge (even when soft) length danced, and he felt his balls tingle. "More than enough for all of you."

His mind drifted back to his ex-wife, who had left him after ten years of marriage because she "wasn't attracted to him anymore" and he cackled with delight when he looked at the young stud in the mirror. He'd like to see her try to say that now! But he wouldn't give an old broad like that the time of day anymore, no, he was more interested in girls "his own age," and on a Friday night he knew there would be plenty of them out there waiting for him.

Satisfied with his examination of his new body, Bernard hastened to get dressed so he could head out for a night on the town. He could work out the realities of his situation tomorrow- tonight he was going to have some well deserved fun.

None of his boring old clothes would fit a body like this so he'd thought ahead and picked out a new outfit to match his new body- something classy, unlike the baggy dreck that the youth of today wore. He slipped into a button up shirt, purposefully leaving it unbuttoned halfway down his chest to allow a tantalizing peek at his new torso, and he dabbed a bit of cologne on his wrists for good measure. The pants were a bit tighter than expected and he had to shimmy his hips to squeeze himself inside and leave the belt fairly loose, and when he looked in the mirror he realized why.

"Oh dear god..." he whispered, turning himself to the right and left to get a view of how his new butt strained at the back of his pants. He'd had to guess at the boy's measurements and he'd severely underestimated the size of Andy's posterior. Bernard never understood the fascination that young men these days seemed to have with their posteriors- what on Earth would any man need with such a giant backside?

But when he turned back around and saw the bulge in the front of his pants, the only thing he could think about was stepping out the door and finding someone to use it on.

"Get ready world," he boldly declared. "There's a new big man on campus."

[player1064]

And as for the prompt two: I would like to subscribe to your "Gary has autism"- newsletter. So something Carraville about Gary being autistic. Could be something like them actually needing to communicate with each other about relationship stuff, because Gary can't do vague and needs to have things spelled at him. Or maybe something more lighthearted, maybe Carra has googled "how to support your autistic partner" and is trying his best and Gary who has no idea he has autism is like "what's all this then?".

Or just go nuts and do what you feel like.

god I LOVE autistic gary so much. I mean I'm always Implying he's autistic in everything I write but it was fun to have a go at making it like,, the Focus...

also sorry guys that I dissappeared from doing prompts again!! Not forgotten them or lost inspiration I'm just. Slow. And I keep starting new WIPs instead...

---

Gary wakes to the feeling of chapped lips pressing against his temple, and he blinks his eyes open to smile up at Jamie and (more importantly) the cup of coffee he’s holding. He’s sat himself down on Gary’s side of the bed and waits patiently for Gary to shuffle upright so that he can pass him the mug, his free hand absently running up and down Gary’s thigh over the covers.

There are worse things to wake up to, Gary thinks generously, and he takes a careful sip of his coffee.

Jamie watches him intently for a few moments, his hand still resting on his leg. “Think I could get used t’ this,” he says softly, “you not runnin’ off to gym at the crack of dawn.”

I could get used to this too, Gary thinks. But he knows it’s not something he can get used to – the minute he lets one thing slip, the whole carefully balanced ecosystem that is his life will come tumbling down and before you know it he’ll be a stone or two heavier. Besides, then he’d have to admit that he likes being here in Liverpool, and that’s obviously never gonna happen.

It’s not Liverpool that he likes, anyway.

“Hmm, I dunno,” he says instead. “My chi’s probably gonna be all out for the rest of the day now.”

Jamie rolls his eyes at the mention of his chi, but he doesn’t try to argue it. Likely because he knows he won’t win, ‘cause Gary’s right.

When he sets his mug down on the bedside table Jamie immediately leans into his space, cupping his cheek with one of his warm dry hands and kissing him gently. This, too, Gary could get used to. He chases all thoughts of working out from his mind and instead focuses on returning the kiss, curling his hands in the fabric of Jamie’s t-shirt.

“’m not much for morning sex, me,” he murmurs when they come up for air.

“I know.” Jamie shifts his face slightly to press a kiss to the corner of Gary’s mouth, then one to his jaw. “This okay though? Or d’you want me to stop?”

“This is okay,” he confirms with a fraction of a nod. More than okay, really, but Jamie doesn’t need to hear that – his head’s big enough as it is.

*

They’re at the studio to film Stick to Football and Gary’s having one of those days where everything feels just slightly off. He’s not sure what it is, really – probably stress, most things in his life are caused by stress – but he’s always explained it away as ‘just a headache’, or ‘didn’t get enough sleep last night’.

Everything’s just a fraction too bright, a fraction too loud – the laughter of his friends feels grating, the equipment being shifted around while the crew packs up might as well be a dozen car crashes all clanging together.

He opens up his phone as soon as they’re done shooting, hoping that sends enough of a ‘don’t talk to me’ message that people will get the hint and leave him alone. Of course, this plan fails to account for Jamie being – well, being Jamie.

He walks up behind Gary and claps a friendly hand on his shoulder, asks in that loud voice of his “’m I comin’ back to yours?” in a way that makes Gary wince.

“Maybe not,” he says apologetically. “Got a lot of work to get through.”

“Have you fuck,” Jamie mutters.

This thing he’s got going on with Jamie is still new enough that he’s not really sure how he’s meant to act in public. Probably just the same as before, but he can’t remember what that was like. He thinks he should be meaner, then he panics that he’s hurting Carra’s feelings. If he’s nicer, he worries he’ll think he’s just being polite because they’re fucking now.

Jamie, obviously, has no such problem. He just does whatever he wants, whenever. For example: right now he’s watching Gary with this piercing sort of look, and Gary finds himself wanting to squirm under the intensity of his focus.

After assessing him for a few moments, Jamie’s tone turns gentle and he asks, “you sure you’re alright?” like he already knows the answer. “Just – thought you might be getting one of your headaches.”

Gary nods, rubs a hand at his temple to really drive the point home. “I can work through it though, it’s fine.”

Jamie looks at him for a long second, his face twitching a bit like he’s trying not to let his expression slip. “At least let me drive you home? Promise I won’t try talk your ear off on the way or anything.”

“Fine,” Gary agrees with a sigh. “Yeah, fine.”

*

“When was the last time you ate?” Jamie asks as he follows Gary through his front door.

Gary shoots him a Look. “Thought you were just dropping me off?”

Jamie ignores this and walks past him and through to the kitchen. “If I made you a sandwich would you eat it?”

He doesn’t really feel that hungry, but he’s also not got the energy to try argue with Jamie. “D’you know how to make a sandwich?”

“Mmm,” Jamie hums as he rummages through Gary’s fridge, which does not fill him with confidence.

“I’m gonna go sit in the living room.”

“Good idea,” Jamie says absently. He opens up a cupboard and grabs a glass out of it, goes to the tap to fill it up right to the brim. “Here, take this with you.”

Gary, too confused by Jamie’s inexplicable behaviour to remember to thank him, takes a careful sip of the water so that he doesn’t have to worry about spilling it on his walk to the sofa and he wanders out the room to the sounds of Jamie muttering to himself about butter knives and bread knives and whether there’s any real difference between them.

A few minutes go by – much too long for any functional person to make a sandwich – before Jamie walks into the living room looking pleased with himself. He hands a plate to Gary – and fair play to him, it looks like a perfectly acceptable sandwich – then hovers awkwardly in front of him.

“Alright if I sit with you?” he asks.

Gary nods, picking up the sandwich with his hands to get a proper look at it. Jamie plops himself down on the next cushion over as he takes his first bite. It’s just ham and cheese and a bit too much butter, but it’s edible. Gary’s stomach grumbles – maybe he’s hungrier than he’d thought.

He eats in silence and finishes off the rest of his water, then when he’s put the plate and glass down on the coffee table in front of him he turns to Jamie and raises an eyebrow. Now what?

Jamie shrugs, then lifts one arm up to rest on the back of the sofa. “You up for a cuddle?”

No, would be Gary’s immediate reaction, but Jamie’s being suspiciously nice to him so he thinks maybe he should try avoid snapping at him. And it might be nice, just for a minute or two. Jamie’s chest is always lovely and solid.

He shuffles over into Jamie’s space, lowers himself down to lean against him. He presses his cheek against the soft fabric of Jamie’s t-shirt, takes a long inhale to try adjust himself to his smell.

Jamie’s arm slips down across Gary’s shoulders, squeezing him with just a bit too much pressure which should be annoying but which just makes Gary feel secure in his place. His other hand comes up to rest on the small of his back and Gary feels his lips brush briefly against the top of his head.

“This okay?” he murmurs into Gary’s hair.

The headache, or not-headache or whatever it is, is already fading to the back of Gary’s mind. He nods against Jamie’s chest, then he lets his eyes flutter closed. Maybe a quick nap won’t do any harm.

[foressfaction]

:Ticci Toby:{A Rewrite}

WARNING:: This story contains EXTREMELY triggering topics such as Domestic/Child/Substance abuse, Death, harsh language, GORE and dissociation triggers.

This story mentions mental illnesses and disorders such as Depression, PTSD, ADHD, and Tourette's Syndrome.

!!TICS MAY BE TRIGGERING!!

Prologue

So it begins. The boy tugged on the skirt of a middle aged woman. She was his mom. Her hair was short, cut into a nice layered bob, though it had grown over time, it at one point was a pixie cut. She had diamond shaped ruby earrings on, in an attempt to look formal. Her name, it rolled off the tongue very smoothly, Connie Rogers.

"Why are there so many old people here?" The brunette boy asked. Connie's son, who's name also seemed pretty vague. Tobias Rogers.

The woman was quick to correct him, shushing him loudly while murmuring under her breath with a hint of embarrassment on her face. "Toby! Haha, I'm so sorry about him," she yearned off the stares she got from her son's odd choice of a question. And a rather rude one too. Toby had always been quite the weird kid. He said what was on his mind, whatever it was, and when he wanted to say it. Maybe the question would've been better at a funeral, or a grandma's birthday party. Do grandma's have birthday parties? Toby wouldn't know honestly. He never did meet his mom's mom. That's a funny way to put it.

The two were currently at a 'meet the teacher' day. Y'know, the day about a week before the first day of school. For Toby, he will be starting the 6th grade. To him, school has always been a joke. He barely passed 5th grade and was one point away from having to be stuck doing summer school. He had never been a people person either, especially with other kids his age.

"Are any of these people actually going to be important?" Toby asked, earning a glance from his mom. Her dark circles are more visible than ever.

"I'm sure they will be, look, that's your principal, you should probably go say hi, or....something. I have a lot of paperwork to fill out. Go have a look around, stretch your legs, we've been walking all day."

Toby made a spitting noise as if he thought that was one of the most boring things she could've said. He bared his braced teeth. Meet his principal? He didn't realize going to a different school would be so tiring. Toby eventually left her side, wandering out into the empty halls. Oh so that's why there was a big sign on the door that read 'staff only.' Not like that mattered to him, no one saw, no one had to know. Despite it being a day for his entire grade to be here, it was almost like the halls were abandoned. His mind was always a little trickster, it would make him believe something when that 'something' isn't in existence. Toby took some steps forward, then found himself walking further away from the chattering of the people from the room he was just in. His entire body felt cold, chills running up and down his broken nerves.

It was kind of eerie, not gonna lie. The only thing Toby could hear was the pitter patter on his own shoes, the same old shoes he's had for years. Honestly surprised the souls haven't torn off yet. The boy found himself turning multiple corners and met with endless hallways of lockers. He's never seen a locker before. There were thousands of them, atleast, that's what his mind was showing him. 'Did I take my medicine?' was the first thing he thought to himself as he continued down these narrow halls. He was over thinking the reason why his mom shooed him away, probably because he was a distraction, or knew he needed one. As uncanny as this felt, Toby found himself quite occupied. He had started counting the lockers, every one of them, and remembered the exact number of lockers on the 8th hallway.

That's suddenly when he saw that one part of the hallway's lights were off. It was right smack in the middle of the hallway, so why did those lights not work? Toby grew curious so he started to inch towards the area. That's when he noticed they weren't just off, but flickering a little.

He knew this feeling a little too well. That feeling of being watched, judged. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He felt the air grow thick around him, as if gross, slimy water had just been poured onto him, soaking him to the heavy weight of being drenched. This of course actually didn't happen, but it felt like it did.

Toby turned around quickly, hearing something behind him, then again in front of him. He thought he was going to give himself whiplash from all of the darting of his head. Nothing was there though, nothing of sight, atleast. When Toby looked back to the hallway where the lights were supposedly off, he noticed they were working now. This caught him a little off guard, but as he looked closer, he could see that even further down than before, lights were off.

It was leading him further down the hallway?

Toby shook his head. "No that's not real." He whispered. "That's not r-real," he once again whispered with a little more voice. He felt that if the longer he looked, the more that feeling of tightness would increase.

Toby turned his back to the suffering lights, inching his way back to the room he was in not too long ago, with his mom. He turned the corner, only to nearly run into the frantic woman. "There you are, goodness, I thought you left this building." She spoke in a rather worried tone, taking his hand into hers, her rings were cold against his fingers. "You're really warm, are you okay? Are you sweating?"

Toby looked at her quickly, confusion sweeping him. "Am i?" He asked out while taking his free arm and wiping his forehead. Behold, bits of what felt like condensation rubbed off his skin. "Well we can forget meeting your teachers, I have your schedule here. I don't want you overheating again in all those layers, you know you can't feel temperatures to an extreme, you know this." She slightly scolded. Toby was just confused. He didn't feel too hot, he didn't know he was sweating. He does struggle with a certain disorder where he could technically place his hand on a lit stove and not feel a thing, despite his flesh melting off and severely damaging his hand. If anything it would just feel warm.

It was sad to be reminded he wasn't like the other normal kids in his grade, and certainly wasn't looking forward to another year of the constant reminders either. "I will be more aware next time." He stated, tone sounding a bit degraded.

It wasn't long before the two brunettes were on their way home. Toby was gazing out of the window, sitting in the backseat with his legs pulled up into a hug. The ride was silent, but his mom had never been too talkative after the last few months. Things weren't too good at home. Though he was going to go to a different school, they still lived in this dump of a house. Denver was a nice city, but in winters it was hard to stay warm, and in summers it was hard to stay cool. The house overall just about had it.

And the family knew that.

Toby finally broke the silence as the car hit a few road bumps. "There's exactly 286 lockers in the school." There was a moment of silence, but when he expected an answer there was nothing. "Mom?" He called out, not moving from his position but did lean his head over to try to peek into the rear view mirror that hung on the roof of the car.

He could see makeup running down her face, hands clenched onto the steering wheel tightly. If he listened closely, he could hear sniffling.

Toby knew better than to barge into questions but this time he knew the answer. He would have the same reason to cry, but lately he hadn't been able to feel much emotion at all. He, again, only saw life as a joke, nothing was real, no matter how hard he pushed away the reality. A 20 minute drive full of sniffles and awkward silence finally ended as the brown Subaru pulled into the cracked driveway to an old two story house.

The thing looked as if it was gonna fall in at any given moment. On the inside it was pretty big, still had carpet though it was old and stained, very stained.

A couple of whistles left Toby, followed by a few uncomfortable popping sounds from his neck. He had something called Tourette's Syndrome which caused the boy to jerk and tic uncontrollably. It was very uncomfortable for both him and those having to witness it. If he wasn't careful, he could accidentally hit someone, or himself. Which he does occasionally. Toby stepped out of the car to see the man standing on the porch, cigarette in hand. Seemed like he didn't see them pull into the driveway. Toby knew he did.

Toby noticed his mom left the folder of his school rules and other stuff in the car on the dashboard. He opened the door to reach in and grab it, his hand slipping with a slight tic, accidentally honking the horn, making the woman jump.

"Fuck- sorry, fuck! Sorry!" The boy jumped to coo out as he held the folder up. "Got it-"

Toby quickly closed the door to head inside, hearing the man spur something up. "Fuckin' boy." He muttered in a southern accent.

Toby paid no mind as it was something he was used to, rushing into the house and sitting the folder onto the counter, opening it and looking at all the papers. "Oh there were 287 lockers..I was off by one." He had his finger on where it stated the fact. He didn't understand why he was so fixated on the locker count. Gave him a distraction probably.

Toby moved the papers just enough to peer at his schedule, something he didn't have at his old school. "Wait mom? Why did you sign me up for public classes?"

The folder was snagged away from his hands, probably giving him a paper cut. "Stop complainin' and suck it up, it's about time you learn with other kids." The man scolded. Toby could see the vein popping from his forehead. The same shaggy blond buzz cut blanketed the man's head. His dad; he carried a name that would make anyone grimace just hearing it, Jacob Rogers. "Dad!" Toby tried to take the folder back but that only earned him a smack on the hand with the rather hard plastic outsides of the yellow folder.

Toby glared slightly as he took a deep breath.

The brunette woman strolled in, setting her bag down on the small island counter as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Look, Toby, I tried to suggest special education, but they said that it was time for you to get to know your grade better, plus wouldn't it be great to hang around people who...Actually respond when you talk to them?" She spoke out, slightly raising her voice.

"But they were nice to me," Toby added, narrowing his eyebrows, taking glances at the folder in his dad's hands. "Can i atleast see it closer? Again?" He eyed the man after asking.

"Your sister takes public classes, so can you. It's time we stop babying you, you're 13 years old for fucks sake. Act like it."

"Jacob!" Connie shouted with an offended tone. She knew the man was an asshole but she usually tried to defend her kid's opinions. Their marriage hadn't been the best lately, especially after her husband started to waste their money and abuse alcoholic substances. Speaking of which, the blonde man held a dark green bottle in his hand that wasn't clinging to Toby's school information.

The second Toby noticed that his mom saw the bottle, he knew they were about to bicker.

He just didn't want to be in the middle of that, excusing himself from where he took a seat.

Toby disappeared upstairs to one of the rooms he called his own. It wasn't much, just a carpeted floor, a dark blue rug with matching bed sheets. Completely unintentional. His shelves consisted of vintage toys he never touched, books, a lamp, and other nick nacks. He only ever kept one thing out, a stuffed cow. Why? He honestly grew an attachment to it. The poor thing was ripped up in many places, had patches on the stomach and left side of the head. It looked derpy as hell but he loved it to death.

Sometimes though when he holds it, he can't help but remember the time he 'played tug-o-war' with his dad who eventually ripped the head completely off while trying to take it from him. His only reason was because 'he was too old.' No one is too old for a comfort item.

Toby crawled onto the bed and took the cow plush into his hands and stared down at it. He gently gnawed at the inside of his cheek, a habit he developed a while ago. "Today isn't the best day, Mr. Cowbells, will you make it better? At least until Lyra gets home.." He hugged the stuffie to his chest and stared down at his sheets. It wasn't long before what he assumed would happen started up. He heard their loud voices downstairs. He knew it wasn't going to be too long until he heard thrashes and door slams.

It was like this all day, everyday.

All day, everyday.

••••••I

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

Just a short interlude before tonight's episode...

Before the Ashes Hit the Ground

(T, 790 words)

“I'm impressed,” says Tommy, and the glow dawning in Evan's eyes at these words outshines the soft lighting in the kitchen.

He’s enchanting, he doesn’t even know how much.

“It's Bobby's recipe.“

It seems a cloud is moving in front of the sun, if only for a second.

Tommy has taken a peculiar liking to Bobby, and it may be partly because of Evan, because of his admiration for this man who’s more like a father to him than the man who conceived him. It’s probably also because he played a big part in saving the captain, experienced him in control, even in an exceptional situation. Experienced him caring for others. Evan is like that too, and Tommy believes he's always been like that, even though he can't know for sure; but if that's Bobby's legacy, then it's in Evan, and it's beautiful. Beautiful, like Evan, who wanted to distract himself from his racing mind with cooking – another thing he got from Bobby – and his boyfriend.

Evan has a dozen emotions portrayed directly on his face, bare like an open wound. Tommy wishes nothing more than it being easy to kiss the worry away, to smooth that little wrinkle above Evan's perfect brow. He averts his eyes – only very briefly, he can't stop looking at the man – to look at his plate. Evan has set the table as if for a date, and yes, that had actually been the plan. The food looks fantastic, and even though Tommy isn't really hungry, he needs to taste it. That’s not mere politeness, it's a necessity. Evan hangs on his lips as he brings his fork to his mouth.

Tommy blinks as the taste spreads in his mouth. He's not much of a cook, long and unpredictable shifts usually lead him to grab something on the go. He's quickly learned that mindless eating is over, it's not for Evan, and if Tommy wants to be one thing, it's good for Evan.

There are so many details, so many nuances of flavor. He realizes that this is like a good blend of coffee, and he knows a thing or two about it. Tommy’s been called a coffee snob before, but he doesn’t care. Good coffee has a mild finish, a strong aroma and leaves a long-lasting, pleasant sensation in your mouth. Wrong thought at the wrong time, but that’s a bit like Evan’s kisses, actually.

This meal, however... The fork in his hand stops in mid-air, he needs to think. To taste. Not devour, no. Evan has put time, his heart and soul into this meal. This food contains the essence of things Bobby has taught him. He has seasoned it carefully, maybe even with his fear and worry. Sometimes a dish needs this hint of bitter to develop its full flavor, just like the best coffee. There’s this vague sharpness of basil, perfectly balanced with the acidity of the tomatoes in the sauce. A hint of oregano, and perhaps a whiff of red wine. Everything is harmonized. Smooth. Perfect, like Evan's blue eyes, his lips, even the shape of his birthmark.

It’s brilliant, but it’s not gourmet food, not star cuisine, and that's what makes it special. This is great, but also down-to-earth. Perfect, because this recipe contains a piece of Bobby, and now Evan. Love, above all.

Tommy swallows the bite, puts the fork aside and grabs Evan's hand.

“He's gonna be fine, Evan.”

“You don't know that.”

No, Tommy doesn't know that, and he has no interest in reciting statistics. With sudden cardiac arrest, the survival rate is 50%. Bobby may be a fighter, but from what Evan has told him and from everything he's read between the lines, the man may have lost his desire to fight.

“But he will,” he returns, almost defiantly. “However, with this food here, he can't teach you anything more.”

There's the faintest smile on Evan's mouth.

“Really? You like it?”

“I love it. Just like you, Evan.”

Tommy's heart takes a stumble. You idiot, that's way too soon. But how can it be too soon? How can it ever be too soon with what they do every day? Life is short. Short and hard, and every single moment of happiness counts.

Evan blinks. And then the sun rises again: he smiles, his whole face lights up. He looks at Tommy, and just like in this meal, everything is laid bare before him. Tommy would do anything for that smile, anything.

The phone rings.

[fruitybashir]

hey hello 👋🏻 i'm sorry im very shy but i'm a huge fan of the holidate and dopamin (closer) was so fantastic and super hot and i was blushing the entire way through, i've reread it maybe five times by now, i'm sorry if that's weird 🫣

if you don't mind me asking, i'm curious about something? in the holidate and in dopamin, there's obvious hints at some of their kinks or preferences in bed (hair pulling, praise....) and i'm just wondering......can you say more about what kinks they're both into? what you envisioned for them? is there more we don't know about yet? i'm a bit embarassed to ask but i'm so curious

either way, i'm a big fan and i can't wait to see what you post next and have a nice day/night bye bye 💌💕

omg hiiiii <3333 dont be embarassed omg i loveeee when people tell me they reread my stuff, thats how i know it actually was good!!! 🫶🏻💖💖💖

and sure i can talk about it! its nothing super exciting tbh but i do have a certain set of kinks/preferences/likes whatever you wanna call it for each of them, im gonna put it under the cut as per usual in case it gets long.

edit yeah this is getting super long. sorry. dont ask me to yap, i will not stop.

starting with kris:

the very obvious: hair pulling. i think that was made pretty clear lmao. in a non-sexual context he looooves having his hair played with, someone just running their fingers through his hair, lightly scratching at the scalp, playing with a strand or two, anything at all gives him very pleasant tingles and practically makes him putty in your hands. find that spot behind his ear like bojan did and his brain shuts off, you have now successfully tamed your kris, congrats.

in a sexual context that translates to him loving having his hair pulled, its a combination of him liking having his hair played with + liking a certain level of pain. and the combo of that really gets him off. obviously.

pain for kris is like. hes into some level of pain, like the hair pulling and he also likes biting sometimes. in dopamin thats bojan biting his butt, but i imagine sometimes when bojan takes his time exploring kris' body, he takes a bite here or there, kris' neck, the sides of his stomach, the inside of his thighs .. stuff like that and kris is also really into it then.

hes not into any bigger levels of pain other than that like he wouldnt like stuff like spanking etc although thats a combination of not liking that type of pain and not liking being in a submissive position

next point: he doesnt like being submissive. its both just a preference thing plus not liking loss of control. he loves being the one to order the other part around and be the one to kiiind of have the upper hand. im saying that a bit vaguely bc he also isnt really a dom, he wouldnt like a very strong dominant role, he just likes calling the shots and being in control of the situation. idk how to put it. ill come back to this later

hes freshly discovering that hes into feminization, as you can probably tell from that last upload lmao, and he likes it both in a non-sexual and in a sexual context. he likes feminine words of affection, being called pretty, likes thinking about how in certain perspectives and moments people might mistake him for a girl, and he could have shopped online for lingerie thats specifically made for men, and buy panties that actually had some space in the front, but he deliberately chose not to do that, he wanted it to be girls underwear. that was important.

holidate kris is definitely not fully cis, but also not really trans either i think, idk what to call it but yeah. he might be a little trans, hes having some thoughts and feelings and maybe ill let him explore that properly one day but basically he doesnt really know what to make of it yet or how to categorise it, but he knows he likes himself exactly the way he is and doesnt want to change anything. he also likes getting called girl-ish things and thinking about how people might mistake him for a girl sometimes. idk

other preferences uhhh he really likes sucking dick lmao, like he genuinely enjoys going down on bojan and it gets him all worked up as well. he just figured out he loves getting eaten out. he doesnt like bottoming and he also doesnt like getting fingered all that much. and the thing with that is that he likes having things in his ass, but he doesnt like the uhhh motion of it? having a dick in his ass is fine, having that dick thrust into him is a big no no. the lucky thing with bojan is that he has really short fingers so when hes fingering kris, hes focussing on kris's prostate and doesnt move around all that much so that is still something kris enjoys. on occasion. he also generally doesnt like coming more than once, bc he tends to be very sensitive after his first orgasm and the second one is often very overhelming and too much

moving on to bojan:

also fairly obvious: likes being manhandled, likes being told what to do, big on getting praised. he also loves servicing and making kris feel good, it genuinely gets him off when he can just worship kris a little.

bojan loves both receiving and giving oral but he really loves bottoming and coming on kris' fingers. he loves getting a little overstimulated like getting teased for a long time before getting any proper attention so by the time kris finally goes down on him or fucks him, bojan is already shaking with it and desperate. or in the way like in dopamin, literally not being able to fully calm down in between orgasms and still being super sensitive from the first one.

i think the praise thing is pretty self explanatory, he really loves getting praised for doing a good job when he follows kris' instructions, loves being called a good boy, loves when kris keeps telling him how good hes being in general, its a major thing for him

he loves getting fucked classic missionary or riding kris, they tried doggy once but he didnt like not being able to see kris and touch him. he loves watching kris' face when he comes and also before that, he just loves fucking face to face.

also he would love for kris to make real on his promise of fucking his tits, neither of them knows how that would work but bojan is heavily into the idea of it

as for both of them:

ive said it in dms earlier but basically like. theyre both still kind of vanilla with their kinks? like there is a dom/sub dynamic there but its a very mild one kinda.

like how in dopamin kris tells bojan hes gonna make him come on his fingers and then give him no break after, but later he still does give him a break and checks with bojan if hes still okay with it, if its too much etc. or how he keeps telling bojan to use his words, but always forgives him when bojan cant use his words or is too embarrassed to say what kris wants him to say. like theres never any real consequences.

and thats the thing with them: they are so in tune with each other and have a level of trust for each other that they never had with previous partners. bojan likes being bossed around but he wouldnt like if anyone was actually mean to him, hes not into humiliation or being actually punished for something.

kris knows when he says it that its all empty threats and he would never give bojan any real consequences, and bojan knows this as well, but he would also never intentionally misbehave bc he likes following commands.

they work so well together like that bc theyre both fully aware of what they and the other wants out of it, they know the others wishes and boundaries and limits etc, like there is just a level of trust and understanding between them like no other.

also theyre super in love. did i mention that. does that come across. thats not a kink thing but theyre just super mega in love and thats so important to me.

uhhhh i think thats basically all there is to them kink wise ✌🏼 sorry this got so long, oopsie

[raycyel]

What were the Border Wars (headcannons)

Oooo boy headcannon time. This is some background lore for my NSR fic, The Comeback from the Fall. This post is gonna center around the Border Wars, Neon J's involvement in them, and how cyborgs came to be. Considering Neon J is a main character, that stuff matters at least somewhat.

Probably mild spoilers for my fic below the cut.

Alright, so the border wars. We don't know much about them outside of what Neon J mentions in his speech after being defeated, and the creators said they're purposefully leaving it vague to let people fill in the blanks. So that's what I shall do.

Name alone, I'm under the assumption that the "Border Wars" are about one country trying to take over other countries, expanding their borders. Maybe it started as a fight over where the border should be between two countries, but as more allies and other countries got involved, it turned into one country trying to take over others.

Now, which country went and started taking over all the others? Hard to say because we know next to nothing of this games geography, but based on what Neon J says in his speech, I would say Azkar.

Neon J said he was in the Azkar faction in the ridges of Kewan. I took that to mean the part of Kewan that Azkar had taken over.

This next part is where I start getting a bit cannon divergent. Its hinted at in the game's lore that before the war, Neon J had a toy shop in Vinyl City. I agree that he was 100% a toy maker, but I would like to argue for the sake of my headcannon that he wasn't a toy maker in Vinyl City, because he wasn't in Vinyl City.

I think that Neon J is a refugee from one of the countries that Azkar took over in the Border Wars. Vinyl City opened its arms to soldiers from countries that had been lost, as long as they fought in the war for Vinyl City. With nowhere else to go, Neon J joined Vinyl City's military and continued fighting in the border wars. Maybe his deployment to the Azkar faction in Kewan was his first as a soldier for Vinyl City, which is why he brought it up after talking about defending the city.

Despite how well off Vinyl City seems to be, blackouts aside, he still talks about his home in the past tense. What it was like, how he wants kids to be able to run around freely without worry, even though they can 100% do that in Vinyl City. Before B2J start rebelling for sure, but honestly also during because B2J were not causing that much harm. People were doing graffiti, and in the finale they were actually fighting, but Neon J said this before the real fighting had started. I feel like Tatiana's announcements made it seem a lot more worse than it actually was.

Either way, Neon J's words feel a lot bigger than just the revolution, because it wasn't causing that much chaos until the finale. Almost like he's talking about a home that he lost entirely, which is what would happen if his home country was consumed by Azkar. It's a home he can't get back, which is why he is so dedicated to NSR and Vinyl City. When he lost so much before, dude is probably constantly on edge about things going bad and losing everything again. Any threat to what he knows could send everything he has back to nothing, so he needs to protect his new home with everything he has from even the smallest disruption.

Also this line in particular makes it feel like he's not talking about Vinyl City to me. It comes right after the "A promise to bring peace back to my people" line. Until the day comes where peace is brought back to his people, he will serve this city. Seems like very extreme wording for a rebellion that has been around for like, 5 days max at the time Neon J fights B2J. He could be blowing things out of proportion (which is very in character), or he could be saying that until he gets his first home back (which might never happen), he will protect his new one the best he can. Also saying "this" city instead of "my" city, but that is very nitpicky so its only a side note.

Well, if Neon J is a refugee soldier from another country, how is he a charter and basically the head of military in Vinyl City? There are two major military based robotics developments in Vinyl City, cyborgs and warbots. In my fic, there will be more cyborgs than just Neon J. 2 major movements, perhaps 2 different people leading the Vinyl City military? Major headcannon territory below, but here is what I think could have happened.

When Neon J arrived to Vinyl City, he was still fully human, no robotics. Given that his home country was being consumed by Azkar when he was still there, they would not be able to make advancements in robotics to make cyborgs happen. The Vinyl City military at the time were the people developing cyborg technology. Injured soldiers were given robotic parts whether they wanted them or not, and dying soldiers got the worst of it all.

Dying soldiers were the primary experimental group for whole body replacements, as we see with Neon J. Some injury (perhaps an explosion on a naval vessel, because Neon J is a navy guy *wink wink*) almost killed Neon J. He was barely alive when he was rescued. Experimental procedures replaced his body with robotic parts that housed all his remaining human organs. I'll discuss this more later in a different post, but long story short, cyborg parts have to function in the same way human parts would in order for the brain to really recognize and use them. This made the procedure highly lethal until way later in development, where Neon J was one of the first successful cyborgs to actually survive. Not a lot of cyborgs exist, and since they were struggling too much to simply exist after the procedure, they were removed from the war force and left to fend for themselves in Vinyl City.

This is when Neon J started his toy shop in Vinyl City, while working to adapt to his new life as a cyborg. Obviously, we can see Neon J works with a radar on his monitor head, I assume that he is blind and uses the radar to "see". Him and other cyborgs who lost their sight can plug in cameras to see, but because its not how the brain wants to see, it gives Neon J a migraine, so he doesn't use it often. So it took him a while to get to the point where he was making coherent toys. That was enough time for like, 13 cyborgs to pile up, most of whom were pissed off about forcibly being turned into cyborgs and basically left for dead to try and figure out how to live.

What do said 13 cyborgs do? They go to complain to the leader of Vinyl City, of course. She must know that this was happening. Except she doesn't, not to the extent of full body replacement. That's no good, the head of military was keeping secrets and has got to be replaced. And who better to do it than the cyborg in front of her with one of the best track records as a naval commander. Neon J. He obviously accepts.

Now in charge, he ends the cyborg program for full body replacement. But that gets rid of Vinyl City's advantage over Azkar, because the robotic enhancements were really giving them an edge. Neon J has to come up with something else. If not robotic enhancements, how about robots in general. And thus, Neon J combined his newfound robotics expertise (thanks to needing to do self maintenance) and his old toy making abilities to start making warbots. Due to what happened to his first home, Neon J plans to do everything in his power to protect his new home. And when he finds out giving the warbots fake memories makes them fight better, he does so without hesitation.

Over time, the war continues going with no real end in sight. At this point, there is no real hope for recovering the countries that were overtaken. When no progress is made in recovering the lost land, Neon J shifts his priorities to defense, making sure Azkar doesn't take over more territory than they already have. Eventually he shifts his priorities further to make Vinyl City open to people who lost their homes. The war continues on at the time the game takes place.

If the war is still happening, then why are all the warbots at home? Simple, Neon J pulled Vinyl City out of the border wars and is now focusing even more on defense. He's defending his new home after having lost the first one to the war. Vinyl City is an island, its a fair distance away from where the war is happening, meaning they can afford to prioritize defense without the worry of constantly being bombarded by attacks. Vinyl City is very diverse because he is focused on helping refugees find a new, safe home. Something he didn't get to have when his home country was lost. It's also why he takes B2J's rebellion so seriously. Not only is it an attack on the home hes trying to protect, but it could be taken as a sign of instability to Azkar, a vulnerability that might cause them to attack. It draws unwanted attention to Vinyl City.

tldr: The border wars are the country of Azkar taking over other countries around it. One of these countries is the one Neon J is from, so he joined Vinyl City's military in order to gain citizenship to it. An injury during his time there resulted in him undergoing cyborg replacement against his will and then being left on his own. Himself and other cyborgs brought it up to Tatiana, who made Neon J the new head of military. As the head of military, Neon J switch to making warbots before eventually pulling out of the border wars all together to protect Vinyl City and allow other people displaced by the war to find a new home. Because he lost his first home, he will protect Vinyl City with his life.

--------

HAHA! THAT WAS A DOOSEY TO WRITE BUT IT IS HERE! I've been meaning to write this for a while. It's all been rotating around in my brain, but that's all I remember right now. Might edit it again later if i remember anything. Some of this is about to be relevant in a lore dump in the fic, so I figured I'd get my story straight. Hope you like it (:

There is gonna be another lore dump about how I think cyborgs work at some point, and then maybe also some stuff from my outline that isn't gonna be coming to the fic for, like, potentially years depending on how long it takes me to write when I'm out of college.

[azzie-tangerine]

📚

OKAY I was really looking forward to doing something with this prompt.

I have a lot, and I mean, A LOT of fic ideas that I just don't ever write. Same applies to drawing. I have a very short attention span and my motivation is like a balance scale. One tip and an idea is likely to be gone for good.

However, I don't wanna pick one that I may end up writing in the future. It's happened before. So I'm gonna talk about a Kirby fic idea I've had since 2020. An idea I really wanted to write at the time, and even hinted towards it in my old One More Week fic. And a fic idea I know I will never NEVER end up writing in the state this idea was in at the time (I will explain why later!)

So, let's talk about my fantasy, Super Kirby Clash-inspired kirfluff au.

It started out as a just insert Prince Fluff into the story au. I did this a lot in 2020. I had a Smash brothers ultimate au with it, a Star Allies one. You get the point. And with Kirby Clash, there's a blue puffball right there. Very easy to just pretend that's Prince Fluff! But slowly I developed it to just be mildly inspired by Clash.

It stars Prince Fluff, who runs away from his kingdom after receiving a prophecy he just can't make out. It's vague, all he knows is that he sees four figures in it. But he can never make out what they look like.

He uses a disguise as a mage to stay on the low, and travels endlessly to figure out what exactly the message means. He hears the Dream Kingdom is well familiar with magic, so he heads there. And runs into Kirby.

Kirby had been raised in the Dream Kingdom all his life, and has been, quite literally, dreaming for an adventure he can experience. So when he hears of Fluff's predicament, he decides to help him! They're later joined by two other characters to fill in the Hammer Lord and Doctor Healmore roles, who I was thinking should be Ribbon and Marx respectively. I love Ribbon as a character and I thought Marx being forced into a healer role when he is very violence driven would be funne.

Bandana Dee and Meta Knight were also big characters! Bandana Dee was actually searching for Fluff, while Meta Knight is the titular mentor character for Kirby and Fluff.

I kinda stopped developing it from there, so I imagine the story just kinda falls back into the clash story. I did imagine a lot of scenarios with Fluff vs King D Mind so it makes sense.

And like I said, I later lost my motivation to continue the story further than the ideas I came up with. I had concepts (that I can't find right now hh), had a whole animatic idea, but I moved on. It happens a lot. I later stopped thinking about a majority of my aus from that time, mostly cause I wanted to be more creative I guess?

But here's where I pull the rug from your guys' feat. Because this story wasn't completely, COMPLETELY forgotten. It was changed heavily, it barley looks like the same idea by now, but I did later use the grounds of this story idea that i was most attached to, and threw it at a different story.

If you know my characters enough, you may have put it together already.

Because I ended up using some bits of this idea to change into my Mirror Prince Fluff character! The mage aesthetic, the runaway plot. A couple of other things. I won't go into complete detail here, mostly because the story I have with Mirror Fluff and Skirby in my head is still very much in the works. I'm hoping to share bits of it some day, if enough people are interested in it.

So uhhh. Moral of the story? Some old ideas can later be used to make something a lot better! I'm a lot more happy with this Mirror Fluff idea than I ever was with the original. While some things had to be dropped (like Ribbon with the massive hammer sadly. And chaotic doctor Marx), I have had a lot more fun developing this one. Story ideas can always be forgotten, but it's okay to look back at those older ideas for inspiration sometimes.

Sorry for the long post anon, I was just really excited to talk about some older fic ideas I've had. Maybe I'll talk about some other ones in the future.

[eyesanddragons]

"The Rising Star of Protection, Starwitch Aegis!"

First Draft of Winter design is here, please do send opinions and thoughts I would like that. It's actually really funny I'm going from the most "energetic" to the most "put-together" per say. It's hard to show without visuals but Kinkajou is very explosive and energetic, especially in battle while Winter is just a lot calmer and tactical.

Winter's designation was so easy to choose, it was going to be protection it could not be anything else. The name was a bit harder but Aegis was such a cool one and I liked it a lot.

Design-wise Winter was very much inspired by both princes and traditional superheroes. There was so ballet thrown in there but that mostly disappeared as the design progressed. Still not completely happy with the skirt but the transparent (or, supposed to be transparent I'm not sure if it reads) fabric over it is nice I like it.

Gave him a hair heart thing cause...Winter cares a lot and I wanted to add a visual detail that hints at that.

I meant to throw this into Kinkajou's one too but I had a lot of fun sketches before solidifying the first draft so here's two sketches for both of them:

On lore stuff: Winter is the first of the Jade Winglet to become a magical girl (he becomes one right before the story) he's very dedicated to it. He's the star of protection of course he's gonna protect. He's actually quite well-known as a result.

On that, People know that magical girls exist, they get talked about and what not. Magic does also fix all the buildings after battle-

Aegis is very popular with kids, like, Winter can't really communicate well and is very awkward because he's still trying to kick the habit of acting like a "true Icewing Prince" (he's still a prince ILL GET TO THAT) but the kids love him. They go up to him after a battle and talk about how cool he is and he gets flustered every single time.

It actually takes him a while to join the Winglet because while Winter is very dedicated to being a magical girl he still got some Issues, so he usually helps the Winglet if they need it but doesn't join till much later when he finally accepts that he needs help and wants to be friends with them.

On the prince thing this place is still one continent with multiple kingdoms, this is also vaguely modern day. Don't worry about the specifics that much I don't really think it's that important so just assume it's like canon WoF but modern day + extra world building since they should have more details than just "likes fruit" or "Literally nothing for the Mudwings"

On the DoD then actually really quickly, I imagine there not magical girls and I don't really want to handle a war since that's just feels like a tone shift I can't recover from for this magical girl au. I would have to account for the fact that magical girls exist and probably participated and were used in war and all that baggage I Don't Want To. This AU goes places but that is one I don't want to go to.

So no war, the DoD are are still teachers though and Glory is still queen. I'm leaving it vague on what there doing.

There's other stuff but this is getting long so I'm stopping now. Next up is Turtle!

[thompsborn]

Hi! How are you?

First, thank you for create tbaf and hb, I really love the au's you create and how you tell stories, idk you are amazing. I just needed to tell you :D

Now, I'm sorry if this ruins the 'no spoilers' but can you say if there is a happy ending for homeward bound series or is there not one planned yet?

Have a nice day, thanks!

hello!! i’m pretty good, actually! i hope you’re doing good, as well!!

no one has to thank me for tbaf and hb, these two projects have been very fun to write and have helped me a lot in terms of developing my writing styles and exploring different approaches to writing in general, and i genuinely LOVE writing them (even if i sometimes go a Very Long Time between updating them lmao) so please no need to thank me!! thank YOU for reading them !! ❤️❤️❤️

honestly i’m not against giving spoilers, i’m more just worried about posting them and anyone who may have wanted to avoid them getting upset? it happened a few times back when i wrote reddie fics (the reason i stopped writing for the it fandom is because i would get a lot of messages and asks that were in general not nice and very demanding about what i write and how often i post and it just took all the fun out of it) so i’m just like… overly cautious probably lmao

but!! if anyone WANTS vague spoilers, there are some that i don’t want to share at all because i’m very excited to see peoples reactions to them (there are things i haven’t even told oddy, who i have messaged A Lot about hb and have told the most about my plans for it) but i’m down for some spoilers/hints !!

here’s my compromise i guess for anyone who WANTS to see these hints and mild/vague spoilers and stuff: i’m down to post them, but i’m gonna put them under a read more tab and maybe i’ll start a hb spoiler tag?

homeward bound fic is my tag for the series (i also follow the tag in case anyone else ever wants to post about it pfkfkf) but i’ll tag this homeward bound fic spoilers and any posts in the future that drops hints and shit will be tagged the same !!

anyway, your question: will hb have a happy ending? look under the cut if you’d like to see my answer!!

okay, so here’s some transparency about the series: i don’t have the whole thing planned out.

i have a lot of ideas and i have certain things decided and vague ideas about the other parts, but past the last three chapters of the first fic, i don’t have like proper outlines or anything just yet. i didn’t even have a plan for the first fic when i posted the first like two or three chapters—i was coming up with it as i wrote it and it wasn’t until i was a couple chapters in that i started planning ahead because it was at that point that i realized how massive i wanted the fic to be and it was around that time that i started thinking about making it a series instead of a stand alone fic.

i’m still trying to decide who the antagonists of the second fic are gonna be (i know one, but i’m debating adding more and am ironing out subplots and such)

basically: i don’t know how the series is going to end yet. i’m planning on having the four main fics that will basically be the main story, and then having additional one shots/short fics that kind of fill in gaps and provide moments after college, as the four fics are supposed to encompass one of their school years. this might change, i might make it three fics or add a fifth one or something, but as of now that’s my plan.

while i don’t have the actual ending figured out, i can say with certainty that i want it to be a good ending. maybe not necessarily a super happy one, but it’s not going to end in tragedy. harley and peter are going to have a future together. the spidey squad is going to remain a found family and support system for each other. (also the spidey squad is going to consist of more than the core four we currently have, but i’m not going to spoil that part. it’ll start to be clear who else will be in it group as the series continues. matter of fact, the last chap of the first fic starts that process!)

the one shots that i plan to write based after the end of the main fics will have a lot of snapshots of moments as they all grow up — ups and downs, highs and lows, relationships taking next steps and having fights and making up and everything in between.

this answer is kind of long and rambly, sorry, let me try to summarize my answer in a few sentences:

while the ending of homeward bound has not been officially decided, it is not going to be a bad ending. it’s not going to end in sadness or tragedy. that being said, it might not be a super upbeat ending either, because life will always have its struggles, but the ending will be hopeful and happy in whatever way is most fitting of the series once it ends.

hopefully that answers your question well enough? idk i don’t wanna make it sound like it doesn’t have a happy ending at all, because i definitely want the best for these characters and their futures, but homeward bound has, at its core, been the embodiment of being a realist—not an optimist, not a pessimist, but a realist. the reason i started writing the first fic was because in the emotional turmoil following nwh, i wanted to try and take a realistic approach towards what peter’s story could be following the spell and may’s death and the loss of everything that his life used to be. and also wanted to explore how harry and gwen could be introduced and how harley could be brought into the loop. and of course as a parkner shipper how to make it into parkner as well lol.

life is hard. these characters have been through a lot (and will go through a lot more as the series progresses) but they are strong and they are full of love for each other and that will get them through it.

thank you for the ask!!! genuinely i LOVE answering questions about my fics and having a chance to ramble about them so please feel free to send more!!

[pekodayz]

💞💐💕 (I'm sure people already asked you some of these but I'm still curious :3)

these were alr answered but for some reason i have more on my mind.

💞: How do you both express affection?

answered here :3

Ok so i meant to explain this too but I was sleepy. Boooo… also I’m on the phone omgee. I think they would use platonic as an excuse to be more …romantic-ish. they would I think oso would give aini a lazy smile and she would smirk at him back. then, they’ll slowly move closer to each other and hold hands for a while. They they’ll stop and say omg haha…that was gay…what? (that doesn’t make sense ofc but they’re idiots so..) Maybe they’ll do something where aini leans on her chair and puts her legs on oso while he works, then they’ll watch YouTube. flipping back and forth between that and work while on the job, every time their boss walks by. punchies is smth they love doing bc it’s funny to them. sometimes it gets out of hand and they end up knocking each other straight in the face accidentally. Aini secretly admires oso’s work ethic, sad…I know…he’s better than her for some reason (even tho Aini’s been here b4 him. She HATES THAT) she uses that as an excuse to say petty insults towards him (u didn’t do that right. do it my way. stop using that shortcut ur gonna make me look bad) oso usually has a comeback to say to aini so just imagine aini hovering over oso while he’s working and she’s just nitpicking stuff to make him mad cuz she’s jealous. at some point she pulled him aside and interrogated him abt how is he doing so much better than her. She’s so confused….he’s supposed to suck…not her….(she’s good at her job, oso just happens to be better than her ew)

💐: How did you two meet?

answered here :3

But ig I’ll talk more abt it (they already knew each other thru other means ofc) aini bragged abt having a job and moneyyyy (waving it in his face) .I think a week prior to oso working with aini, he kept giving some vague hints abt a surprise for aini. She really thought he had something for her, very suspicious. Kept asking him what he was talking about. He told her he had some interview for a job, aini shook her head and kyahahaha laughed at him. Oso said watch me, he’s gonna get this job. then yah. Day b4 he showed up, aini was told she had to train a newbie. Smug, she happily accepted….then yeah…it was him. surprise aini…..her blood went cold and her smile went away. She was like, no you’re joking right?????? RIGHT??? Staring him up and down like she’s looking at a dead body. Then ya oso sat right next to her and nudged her talkin about being work buddies forever and everrr!! aini asked him where he got the suit, he stares at her. looks away…mumbles ur money…aini cant really be that mad bc she was actually quite happy abt him working with her on the inside. but she still punched him in the arm. Still flabbergasted and pissed that she cant brag abt being the one with a job anymore. (and that he took her money lol)

💕: Who’s the clingier one in the relationship?

answered here :3

[thermodynamic-comedian]

papa saltarian headcanons.

(for context on this au, see this post. btw i'm gonna be using the tag "papa saltarian au" for posts about this lol.)

1. dynamic with the nameless ghouls

starting off, i don't think the ghouls would change, so i'm going into this headcanon with the era 4 ghouls in mind.

since saltarian isn't even vaguely related to the emeritus bloodline, he has some trouble trusting the ghouls, since they're not intrinsically tied to his presence and could leave or betray him at any time. this is why i feel like at first, he'd be a lot more formal with the ghouls than the other papas, not really interacting with them on stage, overall coming off as cold and distant. so the ghouls start to pull away a little, losing a lot of their stage antics and routines, and instead just stay at their respective spaces on the stage.

but suddenly, saltarian starts to warm up to them. no one can really figure out what changed his attitude (a lot of things contributed, but really, it was seeing swiss fall off the stage and still continue playing that sparked sudden respect for the ghouls in saltarian).

since then, a new dynamic has been developing between him and the ghouls: it starts out as saltarian making sure they're okay if something seems off with a specific ghoul.

then, slowly, they start developing their own routines:

during cirrus' keytar solo in mummy dust, saltarian starts gesturing for the crowd to cheer her on more.

for the backing vocals in moac, him and swiss do this thing where they hold each others' mics to each others' mouths, so the song pretty much becomes their duet.

sometimes aether sneaks up behind him and pretends to bite him in the neck. at first he just reluctantly let it happen, but eventually he started actively playing along with it ('because the fans love it' he reasoned to himself), stretching his neck out and rolling his eyes back dramatically, as if fainting.

2. stage presence

we've seen how being papa affects someone's personality. i mean, it transformed awkward shy little cardinal copia into papa emeritus iv.

but saltarian is a very serious man. so serious, in fact, that sister imperator eventually has to tell him that people just respond better to the natural flamboyance and energy of the emeritus bloodline compared to his excessive professionalism. luckily, he takes the hint.

his performances finally start developing into a new kind of show. his body language becomes much more dramatic, though unlike our dear copia, saltarian goes out of his way to move slowly on stage, as if trying to make every step resonate with the audience.

alright, now for some of his solo stage antics and routines:

saltarian's really good at addressing his audience, making them feel like every song is a direct message to them and them only. this obviously comes out the most when he's ciriceing someone.

once he gets fully comfortable with the audience, he starts talking in between songs. just little comments, thanking everyone for being there to hear the dark lord's message, that sort of stuff.

but at some point, after every performance of a seven inches of satanic panic song, he suddenly starts casually telling stories from era 0 of ghost. nobody really knows why he does it (they're convinced it's either just to embarrass nihil and imperator, or because he's genuinely reminicing about the good old days), but hey, free lore, am i right?-

remember what i said about him moving really slowly on stage on purpose? yea well sometimes he'll also make one or two really fast, sudden movements, just to try and stratle the audience.

3. costume??

papa saltarian probably wouldn't have proper papal make-up, since he's only acting as papa until the actual papa v is found, but i still think he'd wear a decent amount of eye-liner, if just to make his facial expressions more noticeable. also wears ghross (ghost cross) earrings, just because the symbol makes for some sickass earrings in my opinion.

now, for his actual outfit, well- currently i'm thinking he'd wear something relatively plain, but fancy. maybe like an almost gothic version of his regular black suit with some extra silk, maybe leather.

4. the music

all i'm gonna say is.

and that's about it.

[kissinginkitchens]

You Bring Me Home — Chapter One: Flightless Bird, American Mouth

a/n: I've been working on this story for mooonths now and I'm so excited to finally share it with the world! It's heavily inspired by Harry's Behind the Album mini doc, except I changed the setting to Hawai'i because I've personally spent some time there and as they say, write what you know! YBMH takes place in the period between One Direction's hiatus and Harry's first album/tour, but with that being said, this is entirely a work of fiction and some events don't follow the true timeline. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little story, I hope you love it as much as I do! It will be updated every Friday at 5 PM PST. My inbox is open, so feel free to talk to me once you've finished reading! I'd love to hear from you :) Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 5.5k

May, 2016

Harry watches LAX get smaller through the airplane window and visualizes all of his worries stuck at the terminal gate, their magnitude also diminishing as he takes flight. He sinks lower in his seat and skims through playlists on his phone when a nagging feeling at the back of his mind pulls his attention away from the screen. Looking up from the song choices, he spots a cell phone quickly lowered from his line of vision and a girl with flushed cheeks who quickly averts her gaze. Harry shoots a tight-lipped smile in her direction and goes back to his phone with a sigh. The days when he could roam the streets freely without fear of recognition—or worse, harassment—feel like an entirely different lifetime. He sometimes imagines that he’ll wake up back in his childhood bed as if the past five years had all been a dream, but he never does. In fact, his privacy and anonymity seem to dwindle with each minute of radio play that One Direction receives. It’s a bittersweet pill to swallow, but one he hopes will go down easier with some time in the Hawaiian sun.

His close friend and new manager, Jeff Azoff, had suggested the vacation as soon as the band privately agreed to take a hiatus.

“You’ll go home for a few weeks,” his voice had crackled through the speakers of Harry’s phone. “Visit your mom and Gem, lay low for a while until the smoke blows over,”

Harry mulled it over in his mind, eyes flickering over the rolling landscape outside of the tour bus window.

“Then what?”

“Then you go for a little vacation. The label offered to cover a house in Hawaii so you can start working on the album,”

“Alone?”

Jeff chuckled lightly on the other end before responding. “I mean, if that’s what you want,”

“No,” Harry corrected. “You and Tom should come. Mitch and Bhasker, too,”

“The dream team,”

“And there’ll be a studio there?”

“Yes,” Jeff started, almost hesitant. “But I don’t want you to think about that too much,”

“But you said the label—"

“I also said vacation. Look, Rob said ‘it will all happen in due time,' did he not?”

Harry twisted the rose ring around his finger, tracing over the silver petals and thinking back to his conversation with the CEO of Sony Music, Rob Stringer. Upon the proposal of his debut solo album, Rob had told him that the most important ingredient for a successful debut would be patience. The singer had agreed in the moment, but every day not spent in the studio felt like a test he hadn’t studied hard enough for.

“Yeah.”

“So you take the free vacation,” Jeff suggested. “You go out, live, get some writing material. Maybe mess around with some tunes. And then we come back to L.A. and get to work. But until then, I just want you to focus on taking it easy.”

So take it easy he had. Or at least he had tried to when he was back home in England. Harry quickly grew restless after what felt like the millionth awkward conversation with past friends and acquaintances, all of which eventually led to the topic of One Direction and it’s unexpected hiatus. After one month at home, his mind and journal were full of ideas for songs, things that he wanted to say before he lost his nerve. One night as he tossed and turned in bed, he shot Jeff a text, just two words that would kick off a three month getaway to the Big Island of Hawai'i:

I’m ready.

********

“Sounds great, I'll go put in your order.” Alani offers sweetly, trying not to overdo it with the customer service voice. After waiting on the family at her designated table, she heads back to the kitchen and finds her younger sister, Pua, crouched in the corner taking what appears to be a serious phone call.

“I don’t know, I just saw it!” Her sister cries in a hushed tone. “Where do you think he’s going?”

“Is everything okay?” Alani cuts in with concern.

Pua whispers into the speaker before bringing the phone to her shoulder.

“Harry Styles was just spotted on a plane this morning,”

“Who?”

“The guy from One Direction,” her sister explains with a hint of irritation in her voice. “The band who sings that song you secretly like, ‘Fireproof,'”

Alani vaguely recalls the melody, but she waits expectantly for Pua to elaborate. “And this is news because…”

“Because the band just broke up, so where could he possibly be going?”

"The unemployment office?”

Pua rolls her eyes and returns to her phone call while Alani envelops her in a tight hug.

“I’m just kidding!” Alani apologizes, squeezing tighter despite her sister’s attempts to break free. “I’m sure he’ll be living off of royalty checks until he’s, like, eighty,”

“Get off me, freak!” Pua cries out, finally breaking the embrace.

Alani clutches her chest and pulls out an invisible knife. “Ouch. I’m telling Harry you said that,”

“This is exactly why I don’t tell you things.” the younger sister huffs, storming out of the kitchen through the employee entrance where Alani’s best friend, Maleah, has just arrived.

“Looks like someone forgot to eat their Cheerios today,” she remarks, tying her curls into a high ponytail.

Alani shrugs and leans against the counter. “She’s going through something. Just discovered that boys in pop bands are, in fact, just regular boys.”

“Poor thing,” Maleah frowns. “We all have to learn eventually.”

********

The sky is a blend of cotton candy pink and burnt orange when Alani returns home from the café with a strawberry smoothie in tow. She empties the mailbox and sorts through the various bills and advertisements, but her stomach drops when she sees a familiar return address label. After a quick greeting to her excited dog who waits at the door, Alani bolts up the stairs and quietly shuts the bedroom door behind her. Breathe, she reminds herself before tearing into the envelope and discarding it onto the wooden floor.

Dear Ms. Hale,

We are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine. However, we regret to inform you—

She doesn’t read the rest, slumping to the floor in defeat. The sixth rejection letter from Rolling Stone lies crumpled at Alani’s feet and she kicks it across the room with a frustrated grunt. She had worked for over two months perfecting her analysis of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi and its allusions to the environmental impact of urban development in Hawaii. As part of her initial research, Alani had even traveled to both the Royal Hawaiian hotel in Honolulu, which is the famous Pink Hotel mentioned in the song, and Foster Botanical Garden that Mitchell referred to as “the tree museum.” She was certain that her effort and persistence would result in at least a consideration. The second third time's the charm! Maleah had joked watching Alani submit the piece. Six articles in the span of two years, each one facing the same rejection despite the increased effort Alani had put in over time. The fact that the rejection letter hadn’t changed over the course of the two years brings an incredulous smile to her face, and her stomach turns when she considers that the editors probably hadn’t even read her work, anyway. All that effort, she thinks to herself, all that time, for nothing.

“It will take time,” her favorite professor, Dr. Hudson, had reassured her three months after the Joni Mitchell article was submitted. “Every great writer faced countless rejection until that one piece. Yours will come. Keep your eyes open and your pen ready.”

Alani sighs and lifts herself off the floor, choosing to crawl into her unmade bed instead of slumping onto the hardwood. She hears a soft scratching at the door before her King Charles Spaniel, Freddie, pads into the room.

“Come here, bubs,” Alani whispers. He obeys and burrows into the duvet, giving her temple a gentle lick before nuzzling into the nape of her neck.

“You still love me, right?” she asks, voice cracking. “Even if I’m a failure?”

Freddie sniffs her ear in response.

********

“Right,” Harry says, his tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth as he reads the map. “No, left, sorry,”

“Do you actually know how to read a map?” Jeff teases, correcting the turn.

Harry pouts in response, his brows furrowing. “In my defense, we’re literally in the middle of fucking nowhere,”

“There are worse places to be,” Mitch pipes up from the back seat. “England, for example, where they say things like ‘litchrally’,”

“Very well said, Mitchell,” Jeff Bhasker adds with a fake British accent of his own.

Harry turns to his friends in the back seat with a finger pointed like an agitated mother. “If you lot don’t shut up, I’m gonna lead us to a volcano and push you in,”

“Where are we even going? I forgot,” Tom complains.

“To get food,” his manager responds from the driver’s seat. “I think,”

“Why can’t we just stop there?” Mitch asks pointing to a café pulling up on their right.

Jeff merges into the turning lane quickly without a second thought. “Good enough for me, I’m starving.”

“Sorry, H.” Mitch pats his friend on the shoulder.

Harry scoffs. “You’re the one who wanted poke.”

The Aloha Nui Loa Café is much more spacious than the exterior suggests, yet it still feels cozy. The walls are painted sage green and adorned with various local art pieces, as described by the plaques that accompany them. A skylight fills the center of the room with plenty of warm lighting, leaving the space along the walls in a bit more shade for an intimate feel. In one corner, a hanging disco ball leaves freckles of sparkling light along the walls where the sunlight hits, making the whole image very idyllic in Harry’s mind. As if he couldn’t enjoy the setting more, he hears the beginning of an Otis Redding song that he’s had stuck in his head drift through the restaurant speakers.

“Welcome in!” a voice calls, which pulls him from his survey of the room. His head whips to the source—a girl around his age with wavy, dark hair and honey skin. “For here or to go?”

Harry takes a hesitant step up to the counter. “For here,”

She smiles warmly and pulls some menus from under the counter. “How many in your party?”

“Five.”

“Great, follow me.”

Harry and his friends follow the waitress to the corner of the room under the disco ball and take their seats at the round table.

“My name is Alani,” she introduces herself, setting the menus down. “I’ll be serving you today. Can I get you started with some drinks?”

Harry continues scanning the restaurant while his group orders. His eyes land on the shirt that Alani is wearing, a white tee with the words “Enjoy Health, Eat Your Honey” in blue lettering that surrounds a picture of a cartoon bee.

“Harry,” Jeff says gently, catching his drifting attention.

The singer turns to his manager, who nods to Alani waiting with a pen pressed to her notepad. Harry feels a rush of embarrassment creep across his cheeks and he clears his throat to cover it.

“Just water,” he says, eyes glued to the menu. “Thanks.”

“You got it.” Alani nods, flashing a toothy grin at the rest of the group before turning back to the kitchen. Harry. Her mind repeats, finding a hint of familiarity, though she doesn’t know why.

When Alani arrives at the drink station, she finds her sister staring at her, mouth agape, while Maleah unsuccessfully conceals her laughter.

“What?” she questions, checking herself for any embarrassing stains or smells.

“You were—and he—” Pua stammers. “He was—and then he—”

“That’s Harry Styles,” Maleah translates, her voice hushed as she peers over her friend's shoulder.

Alani turns to steal a glance at the table she just seated, but Pua and Maleah latch onto her and shake their heads frantically.

“Don’t look!” her sister hisses.

Alani smirks, amused at their reactions. “No shit. That’s One Direction?”

Maleah snorts, clasping a hand over her mouth as Pua huffs. “No, dumbass! It’s just Harry. I don’t know who the other guys are,”

“But the blonde guy? That’s not—?”

“No!” Pua and Maleah giggle in unison.

“Okay, geez,” Alani relents. She manages to steal a quick glance at the table over her shoulder, immediately searching for Harry. Her eyes scan over the long, curly hair kept out of his face by a pair of white sunglasses that she had seen on Kurt Cobain once. All of his features are sharp and striking, from his pointed nose and defined jawline to the bright blue eyes. Or maybe they were grey? Alani wonders, trying to remember the exact shade. He doesn’t look anything like the fresh-faced teeny bopper she’d had in mind, the one from a music video her sister had shown her a long time ago. She would have never guessed that the What Makes You Beautiful singer had so much dark ink trailing down his bicep and forearm, though her knowledge of One Direction was very limited.

“What did he order?” Pua questions, her eyes wide.

Alani quickly snaps back to reality and resumes filling the drinks. “A water,”

“Oh my god,” Maleah swoons. “I’m never drinking anything else ever again,”

“I didn’t even know you liked him,” Alani teases with an eyebrow raised.

Maleah sneaks another peek at the table and catches her lower lip between her teeth. “I mean, I didn’t really think so either but look at him. What a fucking dream,”

Harry was objectively handsome, this Alani could admit, but she personally didn’t see the appeal and had a strong feeling that he was just like every other male celebrity. The fact that he hadn’t even bothered to make eye contact with her only served as further proof of what she knew to be true.

“Okay, well, your dreamboat is waiting for his water. So excuse me,” Alani winks, making her way back to the table.

The singer spots Alani returning out of the corner of his eye and the sight of her causes a strange flutter in the pit of his stomach that makes him want to duck for cover. Instead, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and pretends to be occupied with something on the screen.

“Okay,” she greets, setting the drink tray down. “I have a Blue Hawaii, a Mango Mama, two Loco Cocos, and a water,”

The group graciously accepts their drinks with a chorus of “thank you," but the only one under Alani’s scrutiny is Harry. He still doesn’t meet her almond eyes, and though she figured he wouldn’t, she can’t help the inkling of disappointment that washes over her. After taking their meal orders, Alani heads back to the kitchen, checking on her other customers along the way. Harry’s eyes follow her and he observes the way customers light up at her presence, indulging her conversation with laughter. He watches as she lingers by the jukebox in one corner of the room, a detail he had missed in his initial scan, and waits anxiously to see what song she chooses. Baby I’m-a Want You begins softly and Harry feels the corner of his lip curl ever so slightly. Good choice, he thinks.

********

“He’s still here,” Pua muses, peering through the tiny window in the kitchen door. It had been nearly two hours and the five men were still seated around their table cracking jokes and doing a lot of talking with their hands.

Alani doesn’t look up from her bowl of sliced kiwis, offering a hum in response. “And what do you want me to do about that?”

“Nothing,” Pua shoots back. “Don’t bother him,”

“What kind of girls do you think he’s into?” Maleah asks, attempting to peek through the window.

Alani shrugs, bored of the conversation and of thinking about Harry. “I don’t know, but I’ll bet he’s a real sucker for the ones who stalk him while he’s eating,”

“How does he make eating a salad look hot?”

“Can we talk about something else now?” Alani whines, poking holes in a lone kiwi with her fork.

Pua tosses a wet dish rag in her sister’s direction and cheers when it lands in her face. “Go see if he wants more water, he looks thirsty.”

“I already refilled it,” Alani defends. “Twenty minutes ago. I’ve refilled it a hundred times, I’m surprised he hasn’t peed his pants.”

I’m gonna piss myself. Harry thinks, his right leg bouncing to distract himself. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. Like clockwork, she would return to fill his glass almost as soon as the last drop had been drained, and so what began as a little experiment slowly turned into a bladder hazard. But if the trend was to be trusted, she would be back any minute and he wasn’t going to miss it; afterall, there were only so many ways to casually linger in a small café without making it weird. Unable to bear it any longer, he heads to the restroom and hopes that Alani doesn’t clear their table before he has a chance to see her again.

Harry pads down the back hallway with his eyes cast down at the floor, which proves to be a mistake when he walks directly into another person.

“Sorry!” they both apologize quickly, Harry’s palm taking purchase on the other person’s upper arm.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he offers, finally meeting the dark, mocha eyes already looking back at him.

Alani presses her lips into a tight smile. “Me either,”

Harry’s heartbeat picks up when he realizes it’s her, and he isn’t aware of how close they’re standing until he detects the faint scent of kiwi on her breath. He takes a step back and rakes a hand through his hair.

“So I guess I’ll just—”

“Yeah, sure.”

Green. Alani notes to herself. His eyes are green.

********

Shortly after Harry returned from the restroom, him and his friends settled their bill and headed out. Alani cleared their table and her eyes nearly fell out of her head when she saw the hefty tip left behind. The word mahalo was also left behind on the receipt, underlined twice, and she wondered if it was his handwriting.

Later that night, she settled into bed with her laptop and hesitantly typed his name into Google. As she expected, countless articles about the split of One Direction emerged, most of them speculating what was next for each member. To her surprise, however, Harry’s name seemed to be mentioned more than his fellow bandmates as various sources labeled him “the next Justin Timberlake” and rising star of the group. Upon further investigation, she learned that the demand for information about the elusive Harry Styles was high, especially concerning any possible solo music. No news had yet been confirmed by Styles himself, nor anyone claiming to represent him, but she still wondered if his presence in Hawaii had anything to do with a possible solo project. Almost as soon as she thought it, Alani dismissed the theory in favor of the idea that he was most likely just taking a vacation. And from the buzz that she saw surrounding the news about One Direction, she couldn’t blame him.

The more Alani read, the more she wanted to know, and something deep down told her that his was a story worth telling. Of course, the only problem was that she had hardly talked to him, and there were only so many things she could say about the fifteen glasses of water he downed. There was no way of knowing if she would ever see him again, either, or if he was merely stopping in Hilo on his way to another island or somewhere else entirely. Alani sighed, thinking back to her most recent rejection from Rolling Stone. She knew that there was no possible way she would ever see or talk to Harry ever again, and even if she did, why would he bare his entire soul to a stranger? Still, she let her mind wander through the possibility.

Dear Ms. Hale, the letter would read, we are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine and are pleased to inform you that your piece on Harry Styles will be featured in next month’s issue. Additionally, we would be honored to have you on staff, effective immediately.

It was far-fetched, Alani knew this, but she dozed off that night with endless ideas swimming in her head.

********

By the third day after his visit, the only trace of Harry is in Alani’s search history. She would have completely forgotten about him if it weren’t for her sister’s constant reminiscing and multiple attempts to rename the house salad to the “Harry Special.” As a result, a part of Alani’s thoughts periodically linger back to that day and the subsequent hours spent on Google that she’d rationalized as research instead of stalking. Somehow the knowledge that she’ll never see him again only adds fuel to the questions still burning in her mind, but a customer clearing their throat while she sorts menus below the hostess podium interrupts her thoughts.

“Welcome in!” She calls, standing. “What can I—”

She stops in her tracks, unable to believe her eyes. Harry blinks and waits for her to continue.

“What can I get started for you?” Alani tries again, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her shock. Luckily for her, Harry had been too focused on choosing his next words to register her mistake.

“What’s in the Honu smoothie?” he asks, mentally kicking himself for asking such a stupid question when the menu just inches above her head clearly spells it out.

Alani hums, thinking back to the times she had made the smoothie herself. “Kiwis, spinach, mango, avocado, and a hint of lime,”

“I’ll take one of those,” Harry says, reaching for his wallet.

Alani punches in the order with trembling fingers and nods. “For here or to go?”

“To go,”

Disappointment fills her chest. Sure, she hadn’t planned on seeing him ever again, but the fact that she did felt like a sign. If she wanted to take the chance, she’d have to do it fast.

“Anything else?” she asks, weighing her options while he skims the menu.

“No thanks.”

Alani makes the smoothie quickly, head spinning. She had spent most of the night after their initial meeting planning out exactly the type of questions she hoped to ask him and what kind of article she would write. She was used to writing about what she knew—artists and music she’d admired for years— but she figured that starting fresh with someone she hardly knew would be a good challenge. Not to mention that it seemed like just the thing Rolling Stone would jump for. Alani finally works up the courage as she finishes his smoothie, but when she returns to hand it to him and hopefully strike up a conversation, his ear is pressed to his cell phone. She holds out the drink and he graciously accepts, giving her a small nod as a “thank you” and rushing out of the restaurant.

Two days later he returns and is seated at the counter, typing away on his phone. Alani feels both a rush of optimism and annoyance at the universe for dangling his presence so unexpectedly. She starts heading over to him, but Maleah cuts in.

“Trade me?” she proposes, eyes wide.

Alani blinks. “Oh, I would but I—”

“Please,” her best friend pouts. “I’m leaving to see my grandparents in stupid California for two months. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to see him again?”

Alani sighs, but gives in, reluctantly exchanging Harry for the family of four seated by the window. A strange feeling settles into the pit of his stomach when he sees that she heads in the opposite direction after a hushed conversation with another waitress. He doesn’t know why she traded him for a different customer, but he takes the hint.

A week goes by without another sighting of Harry and Alani has permanently taken on the role of greeting hostess in hopes of seeing him again. Her heartbeat temporarily speeds up when she sees a long haired customer approach the door, but her spirits quickly fall when the face doesn’t match his.

Another week brings another disappointing realization that Harry might be gone for good. One rainy morning when the restaurant is quiet and only two customers huddle together in a booth near the back, Alani hunches over the hostess podium and doodles on a stray receipt— a sunflower, a crescent moon, and two hearts. The bell above the door jingles but she doesn’t look up, too absorbed in her scribbles.

“Do you serve coffee?”

The familiar accented voice stops Alani’s pen dead in its tracks. She lifts her eyes first to confirm, and then straightens up when she sees that her ears haven’t deceived her.

“Yes,” she swallows.

“Great. I’ll take it to go,”

She slightly deflates, but Harry thinks he’s reading too much into it.

“Actually,” he corrects anyway, just in case he isn’t. “I think I’ll stay for a while,”

Alani flashes a warm smile and nods in the direction of the counter. “Right this way,”

Harry sheds his windbreaker onto the back of the seat, revealing a black and white Rolling Stones t-shirt that makes Alani’s blood pressure rise. A sign, she thinks.

“What do you want in your coffee?” she questions carefully.

“Nothing,” he responds, shaking out his damp hair gently. “Or actually, uh, butter...if you have some,”

Alani blinks, not sure if she’d heard correctly or if there had been some transatlantic miscommunication.

“Butter?”

“Yeah,”

“Like the—”

“Spread, yeah,” Harry confirms. “It’s weird, I know,”

She lets out a light-hearted laugh and nods. “It’s a...unique request,”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Harry confides. “It’s not bad, actually. But maybe I’ve just been in L.A. for too long.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She offers a polite smile and heads to the kitchen where the cook and two other waiters talk amongst each other. Alani is grateful that the restaurant is slow this morning because she knows that it means minimal interruptions to her time with Harry. To ensure this, though, she asks one of the other waiters to cover the podium and returns to Harry with his coffee.

“One butter coffee, free of judgement,” the waitress announces, setting it down.

Harry grins softly, stirring the drink with the spoon Alani provided. “You can judge, it’s alright,”

“I just wanna know why,”

The coffee had been part of a fad diet while on tour in order to boost Harry’s energy on stage and stay trim for the hundreds of photo-ops he would be a part of. He doesn’t know how to communicate all of this to Alani, however, not sure how much she knows about that part of him, so he shrugs and tells a simplified version of the truth.

“I read about this trend a while back, it's called bulletproof coffee. Supposed to get your energy up and I needed it for my job,”

“Which is…” Alani trails off, downplaying the knowledge that she had acquired from Google.

“I make music,” is all Harry says and he takes a sip of the drink to avoid elaborating.

“Anything I would have heard?”

He swallows hard and listens to the faint rumbling of thunder outside before replying. “Possibly,”

“Try me,” Alani challenges.

He narrows his eyes and takes another sip of coffee. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself first?”

“What do you wanna know?”

Everything, Harry responds internally, though he reigns it in. “How you got into waitressing,”

Alani sighs, resting her elbows on the counter across from him. “There’s not much to tell, it’s a family business. What I really wanna do is write,”

“Music?”

“Articles. I’m studying Journalism at UH,”

Harry hums in response, filing the detail away in the back of his mind. “Sounds interesting. You ever publish anything?”

“Not yet,” Alani shakes her head gently, toying with the sleeves of her green University of Hawaii crewneck. “Hopefully soon, though,”

Harry racks his brain for something else to say, but before he can, Alani speaks up again.

“Is it my turn to ask something now?”

He offers a curt nod and stirs his coffee.

“What kind of music do you write?”

Harry chooses to be vague again. “Different stuff. Pop, usually. Been messing with some classic rock, though,”

“Explains the shirt,”

He peers down at the design on his tee and agrees. “Yeah, I guess so,”

“Do you like it?” Alani asks, her eyes begging to make contact with his again. “Writing music, I mean,”

“Yeah,” Harry confirms, tapping his spoon against the rim of the mug. “I really do,”

Alani’s heart pounds. This is her chance, a moment to finally secure her breakthrough piece. She doesn’t know how to approach it, so she opts to dive right in without looking back. The worst he can say is no.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“That’s cheating,” Harry teases lightly. “It's my turn,”

She pouts playfully, but obliges. “Fire away,”

Harry doesn’t know which question to ask first, but when he glances down at the crescent moon inked on her wrist, he decides to start there.

“What’s with the moon tattoo?”

Alani isn’t sure what she expected him to ask and wonders what purpose such a detail could possibly serve him, but she answers anyway.

“Oh, well,” she begins, tracing her index finger over the outline. “It’s kinda the meaning of my full name. It’s Mahealani, Hawaiian for ‘heavenly moon,'”

Fitting, Harry comments to himself. Every detail he learns about her makes him want to learn that much more, from her favorite foods to the last thing she thinks about before falling asleep. Studying her expectant eyes, he suddenly remembers that it’s his turn to respond.

“That’s cool,” is all he says.

Alani doesn’t know what to make of the faraway look in his eye, but she decides to pose her most burning question while he appears to be in good spirits.

“I know this is gonna sound totally out of the blue,” she starts, working past the lump in her throat. “But when you mentioned how you write music, I was just reminded of this assignment I’m working on in my class,”

Harry waits for her to continue, nursing his now lukewarm coffee.

“I’m supposed to write a piece about someone who I don’t know that well,” she continues. “You know, to practice our interviewing skills. And, well, I was just kind of wondering if you might be interested in helping me out—being the subject, I mean,”

Alani had every intention of telling Harry the truth, about how she really planned to submit the article to Rolling Stone in hopes of securing an internship before her college graduation next Spring. But as she started speaking, she quickly realized how it would come off: a complete stranger asking for personal information to submit to a well-known publication. She knew that there was a chance he would shut down and never return, so she lowered the stakes and hoped that this route would be less risky. Was it ethical? Alani hadn’t decided yet, but she would work out the details later. After six failed articles and two years of rejection, she saw a ray of hope and wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Harry ponders her offer for a moment, which confirms that she had recognized him. Normally he would be off-put by such a request, and to a certain extent he is, but there is something sincere in her voice that he trusts deep down. Before he agrees, however, he decides to fish around a bit to test her reaction.

“You know who I am,” he says gently. “Don’t you?”

Alani’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach, not sure what to say next. She hopes with every fiber of her being that she hasn’t upset him, or worse, ruined her chances, so she decides to offer some truth to throw him off her scent.

“My sister recognized you,” she explains. “That day you came in with your friends. I thought they were your bandmates at first,”

This lets Harry know that she isn’t a total stalker, which is comforting, but he wouldn’t have been minded if she were a fan simply engaging in conversation.

“Oh,” he laughs weakly.

“I totally understand if you say no,” Alani offers quickly, trying to smooth things over. “I just thought it was worth a shot. And that it might be more interesting than interviewing our produce guy,”

Harry decides to give her one last scan for any sign of insincerity. He’d always felt that his gut instinct was strong and it hadn’t led him astray thus far.

“An interview?” he clarifies.

“Just one,” Alani promises. “An hour, tops. And you can proofread all of it once I’ve finished, too.”

Harry waits a beat, already knowing his reply, but he wants to see how she will react to his silence. She doesn’t budge, almond eyes set and determined.

“Okay.”

next chapter

[veliseraptor]

So this is in NO WAY PRESSURING, get to this whenever you're bored and have nothing better to do, but I (have still not watched The Untamed) would love to hear any disorganized rambles around your fic 'Punitive Measures', like your thoughts while writing it, how you view Xue Yang's fight/flight/freeze instinct, and/or where you would take the plot if you ever came back to it (again, not pressuring, I'm not asking for a sequel, I'm asking for director's commentary. Also I know the mysterious flute was implying Wei Wuxian, I know that much and not much more.) It's a really fun, quick fic that I enjoy reading through while I keep circling around your longer, more intimidating stories. I aspire to write like you.

oh boy, well, I don't know that I ever have nothing to do but here I am answering this ask anyway, because I like talking about my fic even if I get self-conscious about it.

this entire fic falls solidly into the genre of fic I write that is legitimately just “I’m gonna fuck up this character I love because it’ll be fun and I love to do that” and then just kinda...went for it. actually harder than I was initially planning! my vague sense of what I was going to do with this fic didn’t have Xue Yang down an eye at the end of it.

but when inspiration strikes, what’s a girl to do, etc.

I actually thought recently about writing a sequel to this fic (or, well, continuing into the AU it started, more like) because the concept of Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang being bloodthirsty vengeance brethren is a very good one for me, personally, and at the point their paths would be intersecting in this AU a more plausible one than it would be at pretty much any other time (I would argue, at least in CQLverse). And that’s where I think this would be going. Because Xue Yang would see Wei Wuxian, in his bloodiest frame of mind, powered up with a gorgeous flute of bad vibes and go “fuck yes” even if he wasn’t in a place where he really needed the help.

The question I had was whether Wei Wuxian would be interested in accepting company, and I feel like Xue Yang on that front could be convincing. And the way that the latter would both enable and egg on all the former’s darkest fantasies and impulses...I’m just saying, Wen Chao and everyone he has ever known is in for a very bad time, possibly even worse than they already were.

I invite you to picture in this AU the part where Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji find not just darker and edgier Wei Wuxian at the end of their scavenger hunt but darker and edgier Wei Wuxian with a friend. A familiar friend! Now down an eye and practically picking his teeth with Wen Chao’s finger bones. :D

since you asked for disorganized rambling I went back to reread and I’ll give you some director’s commentary on a few things

And he’d kind of hoped Wen Ruohan would be too busy figuring out how to deal with his brewing war to dedicate much attention to looking for one absent retainer. And even if he did, Xue Yang had sort of figured that finding him would fall to Wen Chao, who’d probably struggle to find his own ass with two hands.

kicking off this director’s commentary with Xue Yang’s brutal assessment of the competency of Wen Chao.

tbh one of my favorite things about CQL’s involving Xue Yang in the whole Sunshot storyline, despite the merry hell it plays with timeline stuff later, is how obviously little regard Xue Yang has for the Wens, even when they’re at the height of their power. He shows Wen Ruohan himself very little respect, and I can’t imagine anyone else getting more (except maybe Wen Qing, because Wen Qing is competent and if nothing else Xue Yang can respect competency).

and he just like. ditches them. walks out! promises to deliver very powerful magical artifact, and then gets what he wants and is like “smell ya later, peace” and they never catch him.

that’s just a kind of gutsiness and casual disregard for very powerful people that I really both love and respect about Xue Yang. and also that he has in common with Xiao Xingchen, tbh. and Song Lan (though him I think to a slightly lesser degree, partly because he has a little more tact and sense of societal norms as something relevant to be thinking about)! they can all vibe on that.

They took Jiangzai. Well. One of the Wen disciples took Jiangzai in the stomach and Xue Yang didn’t get it back.

this isn’t an important line or anything. I just like it a lot.

Wen Chao gestured again and he went down in a hail of fists and feet. Xue Yang tucked his chin down to protect his throat, curled his hands into his chest, and drew up his knees to guard his stomach.

He knew how this worked. Sure, it’d been a while since someone had beat him like this, but the lessons stuck. It was almost boring, really. If Wen Chao was going to play torture games then he could at least do Xue Yang the favor of trying to be creative.

He checked out the part of his brain that registered pain as anything other than a thing that was happening and focused instead on opportunities. Weaknesses in his assailants. Escape routes. Getting away would be the first thing. Nice if he could take a piece of Wen Chao with him on the way out - arm, or maybe even a head - but the priority was freedom and survival.

okay, this I feel like cuts into some of what you were talking about regarding Xue Yang’s fight/flight instinct, and also a lot of what if, I was feeling pretentious, I feel like this fic is digging into on a level under “what if I just tortured Xue Yang a whole bunch,” which is something about the relationship Xue Yang has to (a) pain and (b) his own body. Specifically, the relative indifference he has toward both. Or...not indifference, exactly, because it’s not like he’s enjoying himself, it still hurts. It’s just...expected.

unremarkable.

which is a lot of what I was trying to convey with Xue Yang’s narration during the whole torture sequence, with the commentary on methodology and how things are mundane or boring, because the suffering itself is mundane! as far as Xue Yang is concerned that’s exactly what suffering is! other peoples’, for sure, which is part of why it doesn’t matter, but also his own.

the world hurts and that’s just how it is and you learn how to cope with that. pain as...a thing that [is] happening.

I also, since you mentioned the fight/flight instinct, think a lot about how Xue Yang is, while he’s very proud and very stubborn, absolutely not someone to pick fights (in general) that he knows he can’t win. Xue Yang will almost always be on the side of “run and come back another day” over “stand and fight when all is lost.” survival, first and foremost.

which feeds into the weird paradox that I kind of hint toward at the end of this fic about Xue Yang as someone who has a definite death drive, who is profoundly obsessed with his own death in a lot of ways, and simultaneously is attached to staying alive above pretty much all else.

“Snap and snarl all you want,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere. And the only part of you I need intact is your tongue, so you can tell me where you hid the Yin Metal you promised. Everything else is optional.”

A prickle of fear rolled down Xue Yang’s spine and he flicked it away, baring his teeth.

I actually do think that, even before they get around to hand-specific trauma, permanent mutilation is one of those things that still scares Xue Yang. which is a short list! there isn’t much that actually either gets to or scares him, but I think the prospect of (further) mutilation does, because I think Xue Yang is very...acutely aware of the fact that his physical capability is a major factor in what has kept him alive and what, in all likelihood, is going to keep him alive moving forward. anything that threatens that capability, that limits him in terms of strength or mobility or otherwise has a disabling effect, is consequently going to be a short road to death, and Xue Yang would much rather die painfully fighting than die as a consequence of not being able to take care of himself.

for Xue Yang, the idea of a return to the kind of helplessness that is tied to his trauma is one of the worst possible prospects to contemplate. in my head this is exacerbated further by the fact that I figure Xue Yang didn’t get much if any medical care post hand incident, meaning that the recovery period was absolutely nightmarish and a whole stretch of time beyond the event itself where Xue Yang was struggling to survive because he’d been damaged.

in some ways I think that period of time probably did more to shape Xue Yang than the moment itself.

Wen Chao grabbed one of the branding irons from a disciple’s belt and pressed it to his stomach. That hurt. More. He clamped his back teeth together so he didn’t make any sound, absorbed the burn, owned it. His. You only hurt if you were alive. And anything you survived made you stronger.

Not that this was actually going to make him stronger. It was probably just going to make him dead. But then again, the worse this went the more resentment he’d have built up. He could use that. Would.

Dead didn’t have to mean finished.

obviously this is pulled almost direct from what Wei Wuxian himself says to Wen Chao. deliberate echoes based on character parallels! we love those.

and yeah, again here about Xue Yang and his relationship to pain, but in a less mundane way this time where it’s about pain as a tool, pain as something he can use. which is another thing about coping, I think - when pain and suffering are a regular part of your life, one way to deal with that can be to convert it into having some kind of purpose or benefit.

which in this case it definitely can. Xue Yang is definitely someone who, I think, has thought a lot about trying to arrange it so he becomes a ghost after he dies. or at least has thought a lot about what he’d do after dying to the person who killed him. 

and when you’re a necromancer by trade death really isn’t the end of the line anymore, just the start of a something new. Xue Yang’s relationship to life itself: about as jacked up as his relationships in general.

He felt the snap of bone in his teeth. Pain shooting up the side of his hand, all the way to his wrist, and Xue Yang couldn’t keep himself still enough not to try to wrench himself away. He swallowed his scream and turned it into a laugh. It was funny, wasn’t it? Funny, that he was back here, again. It wasn’t as bad, though. He knew how to take pain, how to breathe it in, make it part of himself, later turn it outwards magnified tenfold. They were old friends. Practically lovers. 

two things here:

1. the thread throughout this fic of Xue Yang making things funny so he can deal with them, here brought to you by reliving trauma! because it’s funny! right? laugh about it! just fucking hilarious.

I have a thing about characters basically deciding for themselves to make very unfunny situations funny because it makes them less awful.

2. and look, now he can deal with it better this time! he’s Learned. :) :) :)

Everything splintered. Splintered like bones under a wheel, and first thing he tried to struggle to get away but that just hurt worse and then old old old instincts kicked in and he went still, limp, dead.

“Did he faint?”

Someone nudged him with their foot. One part of him roared to grab that foot and rip it off along with the leg it was attached to. Immediately the same thing that’d made him play dead told him to wait.

at an end point where fighting is impossible and running is also impossible, the only thing left to do is play dead and wait it out. this is very much, in my head, a reversion to a tactic Xue Yang hasn’t used in a very long time and does not want to be using now, because it is absolutely the recourse of the extraordinarily helpless with no way out.

which he has been! and is now, but he really really really doesn’t want to be. Xue Yang has built his life around not being that, ever again.

but here it’s not a move he makes planning to turn it around the way he does, not at first. he gets there, but when he first does it I think it is literally just instinct that goes enough is enough and shuts down.

Wen Chao, Wen Chao, Xue Yang thought. My body’s going to give out before I do.

someone should remind me at some point maybe (or not) to write something coherent about my Xue Yang vs. his own body thoughts. specifically the way that, while Xue Yang is very physical and very grounded, I think he has a somewhat antagonistic relationship with his own body, actually. not completely! he definitely respects what it can do for him! but I think he also treats it a little as a slightly separate entity that’s capable of betraying him rather than as a fully integrated part of himself.

not always! but it’s a little bit there. this idea that sometimes his body, and its capacity to be hurt or damaged, is a weakness that he’d like to be able to forgo entirely, if only it wouldn’t mean losing all the good things about having a body. and that’s present here in this line, for me, where he thinks about himself and his body as slightly separate, and his body as something weaker than its Xue Yang core.

[cjsinkythoughts]

The Night Shift

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 4,189

Warnings: a few bad language words (sorry Stevie), fluff, I think that’s all

Summary: Your bad day turns worse when you're given the night shift at work. But you find it has more perks than you original thought. 

A/N: Here it is! My first ever posted/published work! This is a bit new for me for quite a few reasons. 1. I usually write OCs. 2. I'm used to writing 3rd POV and past tense. 3. I like writing series and longer fics. 4k is actually pretty mild for me. Also, I'm planning on doing more first date fics with the Avengers, but we'll see if I keep up with that. Thank you and enjoy!

(Pictures not mine but collage is)

Today is not your favorite day. You woke up late, your laundry isn’t done because the machines were all being used when you tried, your roommate didn’t do the dishes so you had to do them before you left, your car broke down - meaning you had to take the Subway - and now you’re working an extra shift because your stupid coworker didn’t show up.

Who even comes in to get coffee at 9 at night? The sky is dark, the stars are out, and everyone should be getting ready for bed - including you. God. You love New York, but sometimes you wish the damn city would just go to sleep for once in it’s goddamn existence.

You’re practically asleep on your feet, getting ready to close in fifteen minutes, when the door opens, the little bell ringing in response. You rub your eyes and turn from where you’re wiping down the back counters to speak to the wackjob who wants coffee at this cursed hour.

You freeze, your eyes meeting stunning azures framed by dark lashes. Thick, soft, chocolate locks fall down past his ears and into those alluring eyes. Lips, perfectly pink and very tempting, pull up in a delicious smile. He’s got a jawline sharp as a knife, only accentuated by the dark scruff covering it. Jesus Christ this man is attractive. He’s also vaguely familiar…

He strolls up to the counter, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans that pulled taunt around his thick thighs. His shirt is pulled tightly across his shoulders, muscles flexing beneath the fabric, threatening to tear the material with every movement.

“Hello.” You thank whatever deity that might be out there that your voice doesn’t shake as you greet the gorgeous god of a man.

“Hi there, doll. Cody’s off today, huh?” Even his voice is breathtaking.

“Yeah. He didn’t show up. Is he a friend of yours?”

The man tilts his head in confusion, before his eyes light up realization. “Oh, no. No. I just come here a lot.”

“At nine at night?”

He shrugs, a small blush rising on his cheeks. “It’s the only time I get to myself really.” It clicks in your head who this man is when he raises his hand to rub the back of his neck. Black metal gleams in place of tanned skin.

“You’re Bucky Barnes!” You blink at him in disbelief. His hand quickly finds its way back to his pocket while he chuckles awkwardly. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. You’re one of my favorite Avengers! After Black Widow, obviously, but-” You stop rambling, feeling heat rise to your face. “God, I’m tired. Uh, what can I get you?” You punch in the order that he gives you and look up shyly. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

He smirks and leans on the counter. “How about a name, darlin'? Yours, specifically.”

You roll your eyes, unable to contain the snort you give. “I’ll be right back with your order, sir.” You start making his drink, avoiding his eyes that you feel watching your every move. Usually you had another worker helping to make drinks, but since there’s only ten minutes until closing, you’re alone to close up the shop tonight.

You also usually only write on the cup when there’s more than one person, but you find yourself writing down your own name on his cup. It is part of his order, after all.

“Here you go.” You repeat his order, handing his cup to him.

He raises an amused eyebrow. “You forgot-” You interrupt him by clicking your tongue and turning the cup in his hands. He looks down at it curiously, before grinning and reading the ink out loud. The way your name falls off his lips has you holding in a shiver. “Thanks, sugar.” You watch him leave the shop, whistling a nameless tune, and wonder if Cody would mind switching shifts more.

Turns out, Cody had been arrested, so your boss had to hire a new kid who, because of school, couldn’t do the night shifts. Which meant your shifts changed. Not that you mind all that much; it gives you more chances to see Bucky.

When he said he comes in often, he wasn’t lying. Occasionally he stays while you clean and lock up and the two of you get lost in conversation under the city lights outside the shop. He usually orders and leaves with a witty comment and a wink, probably off to save the world from aliens or Nazis. He always orders the same thing, but he always asks for a little something extra, different every night.

“The usual?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Anything else?”

“Your phone number would be great.”

~

“I’ll get right on your drink, Buck.”

“Awesome. Can you add your favorite flowers to that, too? Thanks, sugar.”

~

“I’m gonna change it up today, dollface.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll have the usual, but on the side I want to know what your favorite dessert is.”

He’s such a charmer. You aren’t sure if he’s just flirting or if he actually likes you. You think maybe he does that with every girl - waitresses, cashiers, secretaries - and he’s just being friendly. You’re sure after being stuck as a brainwashed assassin for nearly a century, flirting and cracking jokes with people makes him feel more normal. Still, you can’t help but wish that maybe the relationship you have now would become…more.

It’s not until he shows up a few weeks after your first meeting that you finally get an answer to whether or not he really likes you.

The bell rings, signifying a customer coming into the shop. You know it’s Bucky by the watch on your wrist; in the past few weeks of working the night shift, only one other person came in at nine o’clock.

“Good evening, beautiful.” A smile lifts the corners of your mouth at the familiar smooth voice that you could listen to all day. “Whatcha doin’ down there?”

You straighten up and look over the counter. “It’s called inventory. How’s your day been, Buckaroo?”

“Better now that I get to see your pretty face.”

You roll your eyes, face heating up and a small smile gracing your features. “Give me a minute and I’ll have your drink done. Anything extra?”

“This is a bit riskier than normal, but I’ve been wanting to try it for a while. Can I get your schedule?”

You raise an eyebrow in confusion as he smirks confidently. “My schedule?”

“Yeah. I just need to know something.”

“What would that be?”

“You free on Saturday, doll?”

* * * * * * * *

Saturday comes much too slowly for your liking, especially considering he asked you out only two days prior. He didn't tell you what you'd be doing today, so you decide on a casual sundress that you can play off as fancy if you need it to be. The color and style compliments you and your beautiful features perfectly and you can only hope he agrees. Your roommate assured you you looked gorgeous before going out with some of their other friends this morning.

You're just putting the finishing touches on your outfit for the day when a knock on your door sounds throughout your apartment. You check your watch: 10:30 on the dot. Just like he said. You get up too quickly, causing you to trip on your own feet and stumble - but luckily you catch yourself before you fall. Feeling simultaneously embarrassed and relieved he didn't see your clumsy actions, you head to open the door.

A bouquet of your favorite flowers appeared once you open the door, bright cerulean eyes shining at you from behind them. He grins, said eyes scanning your figure. "You look pretty as a picture, doll."

You duck your head bashfully, taking the flowers from him. "Thank you." You not so subtly check him out as you put the flowers in a vase. Like always, Bucky is absolutely stunning: his brown locks frame his face, falling into those mesmerizing blues, which are even more so due to the dark blue t-shirt under the light bIue jean jacket hugging his muscled torso. Dark jeans pull taunt across those thighs, his large hands in his pockets casually. You find yourself frowning when you notice his left hand is covered by a black glove. You want to say something, but decide against it, too anxious to ruin the date with this god of a man.

He clears his throat, which brings your gaze back to his face. You feel yourself heat up at the smirk on his perfectly pink lips. "Uh, I, um, so...what are we doing today?"

"I thought we could have some fun today, since all you ever seem to do is work."

"I don't always work." You quickly defend. He raises a disbelieving eyebrow, making you drop your head again. "Okay. Maybe I don't get out much."

He chuckles. "Good thing. That way I get you to myself." There's that smug smirk again. "As for what we're doing, that's for me to know and you to find out. I'd wear walking shoes if I were you, though."

You give him a curious look, moving over to grab your keys, phone, and wallet, before slipping on your sneakers. "I don't get a hint or anything?"

"And ruin the surprise? Where's the fun in that?" You giggle a bit as the two of you head out your door and down the hall. "I didn't know if you mind motorcycles, so I just borrowed Steve's car." He tells you in the elevator.

You talk about motorcycles and your opinion of them as you walk out your building and into the bright Spring sun. Your eyes widen at the nice Camaro parked in the street that he leads you to. "Wow."

"Yeah." Bucky nods in agreement. "Tony had it custom made for Steve for their anniversary a few months ago."

"And he's allowing you to use it?"

Bucky chuckles, running a hand through his hair as a pink tint dusts his cheeks. "'Allow' is a strong word."

You laugh as he opens the passenger door for you. You thank him, sliding onto the nice brown leather seat. "Does he even know you have it?"

He shrugs, shutting the door and leaning into the open window. "He'll find out soon, I'm sure."

Another laugh escapes you, a smile adorning his lips at the sound. He walks around the car, doing a hood slide to make you chortle again. While you two start driving, you try to convince him to give you a hint, but he's stubborn, denying you answers with that annoyingly charming smirk of his.

You recognize the direction you're going after a while and bounce in your seat as you arrive. "Coney Island?"

"I haven't been here since before the War and I've been meaning to come see how it's changed." He told you with a grin. "Who better to come check it out with than the pretty dame who serves me coffee at nine o'clock without complaining?"

Rolling your eyes to cover how much comments affect you, you smile teasingly in return. "Have you always been such a charmer, Barnes?"

He parks the car before shooting you a wink. "Only to angels, darlin', and you're the first one I've met so far."

You inwardly curse, hating how easily flustered you get around him. He gets out of the car and you're about to follow when he opens your door for you and offers his hand to you like the gentleman he is. You take it, enjoying the feeling of your smaller one against his rough calluses, and he helps you out of the car, shutting the door behind you.

"You ready to have the time of your life, dolIface?"

"As long as you get me a treat." You joke, linking your arm with the one he offers.

"Like I wasn't going to?" He scoffs back. "Who do you think l am, sugar? Now c'mon. Fun's awaitin'."

You laugh, letting him drag you around, loving the child-like wonder in his pretty eyes. Whether or not you enjoy roller coasters, you have a blast: playing carnival games, eating food you both know is terrible for you, but tastes oh so good, and people watching the interesting crowds, all while teasing and playing around with each other. There's nothing better you can think of to do with your free day than goof off with Bucky, no stress or worries plaguing your mind like usual. He even wins you multiple adorable plushies! Being a super soldier wasn't just good for saving the world, evidently.

It was while you're eating lunch that you ask Bucky why he's wearing a glove. "I've already seen your arm. I don't mind."

He hesitates, opening his mouth before licking his lips nervously. "It's not...I know you don't. I just don't...I dunno. I don't wanna freak anyone out."

You frown and put down your food, leaning forwards on your elbows. "First off, I think you're an amazing person. Just throwing that out there. Second, I don't think anyone will mind. You're a hero. An Avenger. Basically a celebrity with a badass arm. And, finally, if anyone does say anything, I'll tell them off. Easy peasy."

He snorts at that, before looking at his gloved hand warily. You reach across the table to give both his hands a squeeze. He meets your eyes and you grin reassuringly back. "If you're not comfortable, that's okay. Just know that other people should never be the reason to hide yourself. Trust me."

"I do." He says genuinely. You give him a questioning look, playing with the tips of his gloved fingers. At his nod, you slowly start taking his glove off, giving him time to say no. He doesn't, letting you tug it all the way off. He blushes when you lift the smooth metal to your lips.

"So, what's next? Wanna win me one of those monkeys with the velcro hands?" He chuckles at your question, telling you he'd win you all of them if you asked. You giggle, tightening your hold on his hand and, after finishing the last bite of food, pulling him to the booth with the monkey prizes.

When it starts getting dark, Bucky convinces you to go on the Ferris Wheel with him, promising to hold your hand the whole time if you're scared of heights (even though you haven't let go of his hand or arm since lunch). It's one of the most stunning scenes you've ever seen. The sun is just barely peeking over the horizon, a few stars dotting the darkened sky, a rare sight living in New York City. The aforementioned city's lights were turning on, causing the skyline to glow brightly. It's hard to think of anything bad about NYC when she looks like that.

"Wow. " You breath, enchanted by the city you've grown to love as home. "There's something almost...magical about it, don't you think?" You turn to Bucky, still captivated by the view, expecting him to be the same. After all, New York has been his home for over a century and so much has changed. Instead, you find him intently watching you, a small, adoring smile etched on his features. You smile shyly, unable to keep his gaze while he's looking at you like that - like you're the most enthralling thing he's seen, bewitching his heart and soul, even with the magnificent picture before you.

"Yeah...there is." He agrees, grabbing your chin between his left thumb and pointer finger gently, making your eyes meet. His right arm is around your shoulders, pulling you into his warm chest, heating you up from the chill the night is bringing.

Your heart drums hard against your ribs when he glances at your lips and you're sure he could hear it, even without his enhanced hearing. Your eyes lock onto his lips as his tongue darts out to wet them. You're suddenly so much closer, his right hand holding the back of your neck delicately while his left cups the side of your jaw. Your hands are gripping his jacket, noses brushing.

"Can I kiss you?" His voice comes out low and raspy.

"If you didn't, I'd probably smack you."

You feel his deep chuckle reverberate through his chest, which you just notice is pressed solidly against yours. Before you can process anything, his lips are slanted over yours. They're softer than you originally thought and they move expertly against yours. It surprises you, before you remember he's technically over a century old, so of course he has experience.

The kiss is over before you want it to be, but the need for oxygen gets too much and your lungs start to sting, so you pull back reluctantly, your hands now in his hair while he's holding your face tenderly.

"Speaking of magic."

You laugh, rolling your eyes as the Ferris Wheel starts turning again. "Who knew Bucky Barnes is such a sap?"

He smirks, leaning forwards to peck your Iips a couple times. "I prefer the term 'romantic'."

Once you get off, you hold onto his elbow, leaning against his shoulder. "Thank you for bringing me, Buck. I really enjoyed today."

"Well that's good considering we're not done."

Your eyebrows shoot up. "Wait, what?"

Bucky scoffs in amusement. "You didn't think that was all, didya, doll? The day's not over; the night's still young!" His right arm slings around your shoulders, pulling you close and kissing your head.

"Okay. What's next?" You ask curiously. He raises an eyebrow, a smirk on those delicious lips. "Another surprise?"

"Hope you're hungry, sweetheart."

"Dinner?"

Giving you a charming grin, he leads you back to the car. "Guess you'll have to wait 'n see, darlin’."

* * * * * * * *

"Buck.” You groan, toeing the ground nervously. The blindfold covering your eyes was keeping you from seeing anything and, to your embarrassment, you've already tripped more times than you care to admit. “Where are we? l feel like we've been walking forever. Can I take this stupid thing off yet?”

Bucky chuckles softly in your ear, holding you steady as you walk on the uneven surface beneath your feet. “We’re almost there, doll. I promise."

Letting out a huff, you let him lead you further along. Finally, after what feels like hours, though you know you're being dramatic and haven't been walking that long, he stops. "Stay right here," he mumbles, his hands that were on your shoulders leaving, along with his warmth behind you, with a kiss to your cheek.

"Haha. You're so funny."

A couple snickers leave his lips and you can just imagine the smile no doubt gracing his features - the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes adorably. You feel wind nip at your bare skin and shiver slightly, wondering where the hell you are.

"Okay. C'mere." His hands are on you again, the contrast of the two adding to the goosebumps the breeze was giving you. "Right here." You can practically feel his excitement and nerves as he positions you. "Alright. Ready?"

"As much as I'll ever be, I suppose."

His nimble fingers are suddenly at the edge of cloth covering your eyes, which he makes quick work of, tugging it off gently. "You can open your eyes, sugar." He chuckles, seeing your eyes tightly clenched shut. You do as he says and blink them open. The sight that meets you takes your breath away.

He brought you to a beach, which you had kind of already guessed due to the sad slipping through your shoes. In front of you, a blanket is spread out, being held at the corners by lanterns, which are connected by a string of fairy lights outlining the blanket. Pillows are scattered on the blanket, a picnic basket to the side while a single red rose is in a small vase in the center with rose petals surrounding the setup. He really is a romantic.

"Bucky. It's beautiful. When did you set this up?"

He rubs the back of his neck, turning red. You smile, enjoying the fact that you can make him just as flustered as he makes you. “Actually, the team helped me out a bit. It was originally just Natasha and Steve. But, uh, then Tony and Wanda found out and then...Sam."

You giggle, knowing his and Sam's brotherly relationship from previous conversation. "I bet he teased the shit out of you when he found out."

"Please," Bucky scoffs. "I'll be the butt of his jokes for at least a month. At least, this part of me will."

"Well, I love this side of you if that's worth anything."

He grins dashingly at you. "Then let the birdbrain tease, because that’s worth everything. Here." Taking your hand, he leads you over to the blanket and sits you down. "All those questions at the coffee shop and I never asked your favorite drink so I brought red, white, beer, Coke, Pepsi, root beer, and," he pulls out the last bottle he brought with a boyish smile. "Apple juice. There's water in 'ere too. And, o' course, the meal and the dessert, which I did ask about because I'm not a complete idiot."

Laughing, you can't help but pull him in for a kiss. "You're so cute."

He clears his throat, his face heating up while he rubs the back of his neck, tying his hair back in a knot. He hands out compliments like candy on Halloween but he can't take them to save his life. How adorable can one man be?

You two eat and talk about everything from hilarious childhood stories to what keeps you up at night. You love listening to his fascinating tales of playing through the 20s, scraping through the 30s, and fighting through the 40s. You especially love the way his face lights up when talking about his family, the Howling Commandos, and America's Golden Boy, both twink and tank stories.

After a couple hours, you find yourself wrapped in his warm jacket - which smelled amazing - leaning against him as he tells you about his new family. You sip on your preferred drink, your eyes fluttering shut, content to simply listen to his soothing voice talking about Clint and Scott's latest prank on Pietro.

"You tired, doll?" You hear him whisper tenderly, his arms around your waist while his thumbs run small circles on your sides.

You hum and look back at him over your shoulder. "Just feeling the moment." He smiles adoringly at you, kissing your temple.

"It's getting late anyways. We should get you home. Don't want your roommate worrying."

You scoff, but agree. You help him clean up and carry things to the car, despite his protests. You nearly fall asleep on the ride back, his big, warm hand resting comfortably on your thigh the whole way. He squeezes gently when you pull up to your building, murmuring lightly to wake you up.

Ever the gentleman, he walks you inside and helps you bring the armful of prizes he got you to your door. Once there, you unlock the door and lean against the frame, facing him.

"Thank you, James. As far as first dates go, this is by far the best one I've had."

He shoots you a smug grin. "Glad to hear that, beautiful. Does that mean if I asked for a second date you'd say yes?"

You give him a smirk back. "I'd say your chances are very good."

"And if asked for a goodnight kiss from the most gorgeous girl I've ever been blessed to be in the presence of?"

You giggle, ducking your head shyly. His hands grip your jaw, pulling your gaze back to him. He nudges your nose with his, whispering against your lips, "is that a yes?" AII you can think to do is nod. He smirks at your reaction, before he's pulling your lips against his. It's more passionate, less hesitant and experimental, than the few previous kisses you shared. He's angling your face to deepen the kiss, his hands tangle in your hair and his tongue prods your lips open, swallowing the little whimper you let out.

When you pull back, you're breathless, panting against his open month. "You workin' tomorrow, darlin'?" He rasps out.

"No." You try to collect yourself enough to answer, although it's hard with all your nerves on fire, his scent fogging up your brain. You manage to move your heavy tongue enough to say, "I have the weekend off."

A broad grin lights up his pretty face. "Great. I'll be over at nine. Have a nice night, sweetheart."

You nod, an airy "goodnight" leaving your lips. You watch him walk off, a pep in his step and his lips turned up. You lean back against your door, hugging all your new plushies to your chest, still wrapped up in his jacket, and let out a sigh.

You'll have to go visit Cody and thank him. After all, that dreadful night shift gave you the best day of your Iife.