#and we could still get that whole 'skylar learning she likes attention' story

[lab-trash]

Bro!

Imagine the dynamic between Leo and AJ! They fuckin robbed us in LREF, it should've been Leo instead of Bree!

[tbehartoo]

Dungeons, Dragons, and Dating

A Present for @justknitstuff my giftee for the @lukanette-exchange. This sort of turned into a beast of a chapter and they haven’t even got to the game yet! I promise to get chapter two out as soon as I can.

Summary: Luka knows it’s hard to make new friends when all you do is work and study. He can’t believe it, but Rose and Juleka have finally convinced him to come to the university’s gaming club with them. There he meets some unique characters, and he’s not talking about the ones they create for their Dungeons & Dragons game. Hopefully among this room of strangers he can find some good friends for these hard times.

Author’s note: Set in a post pandemic world. After multiple plagues have swept the world, some daily things will have changed, but there are other things, such as the need for connections to each other, that haven’t.

Beta’ed by:  @soloraven​ and @platypan Thank you both for your amazing help! They did their best, any mistakes are mine alone.

First Club Meeting

The first meeting of the University’s Gaming Club of the fall semester was full of nothing but the sound of rolling dice, the muttering of voices and the flipping of papers when Luka followed his sister and her girlfriend through the door. One of the lounge rooms off the cafeteria had several round tables with various people spread thinly around them. The room’s HEPA filters were humming quietly in the corners, a sound so common that it barely registered but comfortingly underlying the feel of the room.

A man hurried towards them while they stowed their masks in their packs. Luka thought the black eyebrows on the man’s head looked more like wings than brows. They were excellent at drawing attention from the guy’s balding head but couldn’t disguise how short the man actually was.

“Welcome, Rose! Welcome, Juleka!” he called as he passed out papers to the newcomers while they each took turns to put their hands under the automatic hand sanitizer dispenser. “It’s nice to see you back again this semester. Hope the summer break treated you well.”

“Oh, it was busy for sure,” Rose said as she smiled at the professor. “I did an internship at the library and Jules was able to pick up some work for local commercials.”

“Wonderful, girls! Wonderful!” He looked at Luka and picked up another bundle of papers. “And is this a friend of yours?”

“This is my brother Luka,” Juleka said as she took a packet from the man. He was practically vibrating with energy. “Rose has finally convinced him that he needs to come with us to the game club.”

“I’m Professor Damocles, the faculty advisor for the game club, and my pronouns are he/him,” he said nodding at Luka. “I ask you to please fill that packet out tonight. It goes over the club’s rules and by-laws as well as our expectations for following the university’s current pandemic procedure plans. The last page is for you to sign agreeing to abide by our rules and give us an email to contact you. You can use your school email or a personal one.  Later, when we’ve got it processed, you’ll get your own invitation to our Discord channel and be able to look over what games the club has, as well as respond with your interest in each game. Go ahead and review the papers while we wait for the meeting to start.”

“It looks like you’ve already started,” Rose said and waved at a girl with black hair sporting bright blue streaks in her ponytail sitting a couple of tables over. Luka saw Juleka wave as well so she must be a friend of both of them.

“Oh, well not yet,” Professor Damocles said as he cleared his throat. “Our club president from last semester isn’t here to open the meeting and start the vote for club leadership. She said she had to stop off for something, but she should be here soon. In the meantime, I’ll have the vice-president-” he turned back to the room, “- ah, Adrien?” A blond young man looked up at the name. “Do you think you could get these three set up at a table while we wait for Marinette to get here?”

“Sure thing,” Adrien said as he came over, giving the three of them a small nod of acknowledgement. He scanned the tables before beaming at the girl Rose had waved to before. He nodded at the young man sitting a chair away from her. The guy wearing the baseball cap nodded and Adrien moved in their direction.

Those two don’t seem to be dating, Luka thought. Though they do seem pretty comfortable with each other, he noted they were both writing on something between them. 

“Have any of you played Dungeons and Dragons?” Adrien asked as they wove through the tables.

“I have,” Rose answered, “But Jules and Luka refused to come to my game group with me.”

“It’s your time to be with your friends,” Juleka said with a chuckle. “We both have time away from each other,” she poked her girlfriend in her shoulder, “And you like to spend that time with them.”

“Her group always wants to meet while I’m at work,” Luka added on. He looked at Rose and smiled. “I’ve met them all as they seem to order from my pizza place only when I’m working and always request me as their driver.” He rolled his eyes, “I can’t even recall all the weird scenes I’ve walked into during  their game nights, but I’ve never had a chance to play.”

Rose scoffed, but Juleka nodded to strengthen Luka’s claim.

“Well, last semester the club decided to try out twice monthly D&D games,” Adrien told them. “That way we can get a campaign going but still play our game closet every other week. Those who have played are helping the newbies roll up characters. Rose, if I put you with Kagami and Nino, do you think you can help Juleka and,” he paused before continuing both his eyebrows raised, “Luka?”

Luka nodded.

Adrien’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, uh, Luka, to roll up characters?”

“Sure thing, Adrien,” Rose said as she sat down at the table leaving two chairs between her and Kagami. 

Juleka sat next to Rose while Luka claimed the seat next to Juleka.

“It’s good to see you again, Gami,” Juleka said, peering closely at the stacks of paper in the middle of the table.

“You, too Jules, Rose,” Kagami greeted the girls with a nod of her head. She raised a questioning brow at Luka.

“Oh, this is Luka, my brother,” Juleka said then tacked on, “-we all share an apartment off campus.”

"Ah, that's why you're not observing the mandatory one seat apart rule,” Kagami replied.

“Well it doesn’t apply to us as we share living quarters,” Juleka said with a small sigh.

“This is Nino,” Kagami said, indicating their other tablemate with a tilt of her head. “He’s Adrien’s brother from another mother and soon to be best man.”

Rose squealed and clapped. Juleka’s face broke out into a big smile.

“So who asked first, you or Adrien?” Rose demanded.

Nino barked with laughter. 

“They had the audacity to ask at the same time,” he informed the beaming listeners. “So all bets have been cancelled.”

“Alix must be in a mood about that,” Juleka said with a grin.

Nino nodded. “She wouldn’t talk to either of them for a month. But now she’s working a couple of bets on swimming challenges between Kim and Ondine if you want in on that action.” He used his head to point out a girl at the next table. She was kind of short, wore clothes that Luka associated with skaters, and sported hair in a pink Mohawk with short cropped sides.

The whole group had a small laugh before Kagami’s face grew serious.

“Okay, I’m sure you’re familiar with the game, but here’s the short, short explanation just so we’re all on the same page. D&D is a group storytelling game. Every person has a character who has both strengths and weaknesses based on things like what fantasy race you’re from, like troll or elf, as well as what level you are in a certain job known as a class, like a fighter or sorcerer. 

“You know, like my tenth level high elf pirate, Mistress Delores Myra Woodfield-Dee,” Rose said.

“We’re familiar with her,” Luka said nodding his head.

“Very familiar,” Juleka murmured.

“The Captain was so flattered when you made your character, well, her,” Luka grinned.

“Yeah, mom wouldn’t stop asking about her and suggesting things for Mistress Dee to do next,”  Juleka informed Kagami.

“Mom didn’t understand that I had to listen to the directions from the DM,” Rose sighed. “She thought I could just take my pirate crew anywhere I wanted.”

“The DM is the one in charge, right?” Nino asked Rose.

“Yeah. The DM, a.k.a. the Dungeon Master, is the one that leads the story and settles disputes,” Rose said.

“It’s not an easy job, even though Adrien makes it look like it is,” Kagami said. “He’s been playing for years and DMing almost as long. He’s learned a few tricks to make things flow easily and he’s so nice that he rarely has people rules lawyering at him.”

“Rules lawyering?” Luka asked as he looked at Kagami then turned to his housemate, “I haven’t heard Rose say that before.”

“That’s because Skylar, my DM, doesn’t let James play anymore,” Rose grumbled. “He would argue over every little thing and try to pull out the rule book after nearly every play. It got so bad that Claire and Gia refused to play any more and the others in our group started to dread going.” She huffed and put a hand on Luka’s forearm. “If you really have a question about what happened or why something turned out the way it did, then, yeah you should ask the DM for clarification, but in a nice way.” Luka nodded at her as she continued, “Don’t be an ass about it.”

“I usually try not to be one in my day-to-day life. Why would I change that because of a game?” Luka asked.

Kagami shuddered, “Because when people really get into character and the game gets intense then you can have the sweetest, kindest person you know,” she looked directly at Rose, “Turn into a blood lusting, amoral, beast that makes you worried to try the cookies she brought.”

Rose’s jaw dropped. “Those cookies were from T&S! How could you question their fitness for consumption?”

“Because you set fire to the orphanage with the orphans sleeping inside it, for one,” Kagami said “And then you rolled a boulder through the school house while classes were in session!”

“Surti Snan was a chaotic evil Kobold!” Rose said defensively. “You cannot hold him to human standards of behavior.”

“I most certainly can and will,” Kagami replied with a smirk on her face.

“Besides,” Rose almost pouted, “My plan to lure out the mindflayer worked.”

“Only after you decimated three-quarters of the town we were sent to save!” Kagami pointed out.

The two stared at each other for a moment and Luka worried that they might need to figure out a way to deescalate the situation when the two girls broke out into laughter.

“We were fortunate that Marc was the DM that night as they were the one to get everyone to cool down after the orphanage incident,” Rose said with a grin. “I didn’t end up banned from the table or the game.”  

“And that is why you need a good DM,” Kagami said. “They have to keep everyone working together and keep emotions from overpowering the game. They’re also responsible for adding in all the little things like descriptions of people and places and being all the NPCs.”

“Non-player characters,” Rose said as she saw the furrowed brows of Luka, Nino, and Juleka, “are like the shopkeepers or the townsfolk that you meet along the way, but aren’t permanent members of the party like our characters will be.”

“Oooh, Adrien told me that Damocles is going to pop in as some of the NPCs for our game this semester,” Kagami told the table.

Rose squealed, happiness showing clearly on her face, “He’s going to be the funnest little blacksmith!”

“I don’t think funnest is a word Rose,” Juleka said with a smile.

“I can totally see him as a blacksmith, too,” Kagami said. “He’s got all the in-depth history of historical weapons. I bet armor shopping with him would end up being a small comparative history lesson on why a Japanese Do would be better than a French cuirass for a specific race or class.”

“No one told me there’d be actual lessons involved with this,” Nino said with a scoff. The effect was ruined by the huge grin he was throwing in Kagami’s direction.

“Well you’d better get practicing your math facts before we start,” Kagami said as she pulled the visor down on his cap. “There’s a lot of adding and subtracting once the dice start rolling.”

“What are we using the dice for?” Juleka asked.

“Pretty much everything,” Rose said as she leaned into Juleka’s side. “They add chaos and luck into the game so it’s not just a match where you look to see who has the highest AC-” noting the confused looks of the uninitiated she added, “armor class.” Juleka still looked confused. “Dice are used for movement during confrontations to see if your actions hit and how much damage is done. But another important thing the DM uses the dice for is when we roll initiative before there’s a fight to figure out what order people go in, including the bad guys.”

“Does that even matter?” Luka asked skeptically.

“Yes, yes it matters a lot,” Kagami answered quickly. “If you have a party of five brawlers going up against two archers, and the archers go first, they can have the brawlers down on the ground before they ever get close enough to lay a finger on them.”

“But if the brawlers go first, they can get to the archers and overpower them while their bows become useless because the archers don’t have the distance any more,” Rose tacked on.

“And it can get real tricky and dicey, no pun intended, when they’re mixed up,” Kagami said.

“So is it better to be an archer or a brawler?” Nino asked.

“Yes,” Rose answered with a grin and Nino just groaned.

“Well, every character has strengths and weaknesses,” Kagami replied slowly. “It keeps the game more balanced and keeps even the gods from being too OP. So the answer to your question really is that it just depends. That’s why we’re hoping that not everyone will chose to be an Orc Barbarian or the only thing we’ll be able to do is be murder hobos.”

“Murder hobos?” Juleka asked with a wince.

“That’s when the group’s answer to every problem is to stab, club, or smite it and hope that makes it go away,” Kagami answered.

“It gets kind of boring when fights are all you do,” Rose said.

“But Rose,” Juleka said with a frown on her face, “every character you’ve ever talked about was a fighter of some kind. Your pirate, your kobold, the chef from the insane asylum,” she was ticking them off on her fingers, “there are a lot of others that you’ve made, and they’re all fighters.”

Rose blushed a little before answering. “Well, yes, I do like to play fighters more than say clerics or warlocks, but that’s because I use my characters to get out all the aggression I can’t use in real life. It’s just not appropriate to hit the library patron over the head with the book he keeps requesting, but then says it’s the wrong book every week.”

Everyone at the table chuckled.

“So if we’re not just getting into fights, what else is there to do?” Luka asked.

“There can be riddles, murder mysteries, royal court intrigue, puzzles, and, well, it is called Dungeons and Dragons,” Kagami said while shrugging, “so besides slaying dragons or raiding their hoards, there are also dungeons or other structures to explore. Some, well okay, all of them have traps of some kind or they might also have monsters in them.”

“One time Marc did a dungeon crawl where you had to come up with a rhyming couplet to get out of the rooms using the name of the treasure found in it,” Rose said thoughtfully. “We spent so much time trying to figure out a rhyme for the handy haversack,” she murmured.

“What did you rhyme it with?” Luka wanted to know. He was already creating a list in his head.

“We, ah, put it in the middle of the line and just rhymed floor and door,” she admitted. “Then we did that with the rest of the rooms and pretty much made Marc cry that night.”

Kagami was nodding along with Rose’s story. She looked at the three sitting at the table. “One thing you should always keep in mind,” she said to them, “is that the party always ruins the DM’s plans. The DMs know this and they try to be ready for it, but sometimes they just have to call a break or end a session because the group has gone off on a tangent even they didn’t predict.” She smiled at them. “It’s kind of fun, but it’s not something you want to make a habit of or the DMs don’t want to play.”

“What I’m hearing,” Luka said to Kagami, “is that we all just need to play nice with each other and the game will be fun.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” Kagami smiled back at him.

“So how do we get started making our character?” Juleka asked.

Kagami pointed to the piles of paper in the middle of the table. “If you haven’t played before, there’s a few races and classes to choose from on the papers. The more experienced players can bring in other races or classes if the DMs approve. Our DMs are Adrien,” she pointed at the young man they’d met answering a question for a girl in glasses with hair that started a rich brown but changed gradually into a deep red color, “and Marc” she pointed to another person sitting at the adjoining table with short black hair and some killer eye liner. Marc was helping someone with long, bright red hair pulled back into a bun that helped their mask stay in place. She gestured back to their table. “The pink papers have races on them and the details that you should know for that race. The green papers have classes on them. So you can either choose two papers at random or you can look through them to see what sounds interesting. To make things easy on all of us, we’re all starting at level one.” 

“This all sounds pretty easy,” Luka said.

Kagami’s face lost all expression.

 “That’s what I said to Adrien when he first introduced me to the game,” she shook her head. “You might want to get out now-- while you can.”

Rose reached a closed hand over to gently nudge Kagami’s arm. “You don’t mean that,” she said.

One side of Kagami’s mouth quirked up. “No, I don’t. It’s a wonderful game, but it can be kind of overwhelming, especially when you’re new at it.” She slid the stacks of paper towards the little group along with the bottle of hand sanitizer. “As Adrien’s one of the DMs, he asked Nino to play a paladin for story reasons so he just had to choose a race. These are free for you to look at.”

Rose took the sanitizer and squeezed some into her palm before passing it down the line. Luka knew that her time in the library made her very careful to clean her hands before handling something others might also have to touch. She took the pink stack while Juleka looked at the green. Luka said he was going to do the random thing so he started filling out the club rule packet.

A few moments later, a young woman burst through the door carrying a large box of what turned out to be individually wrapped treats from T&S. Tom and Sabine, the proprietors of the bakery, always greeted everyone with warm smiles and tasty samples. T&S was a favorite with students for having delicious pastries, as well as simple sandwiches on freshly baked bread, at prices even those struggling with their finances could afford. 

Luka heard the girl apologizing to Damocles for being late, but she’d had to wait for her order to get finished- at this point she nearly dropped the box as she tripped over something by her rushing feet, but Adrien was there to catch both the box and the girl. He didn’t even hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders as he moved them over to a table at the front of the room.

They can’t be dating, Luka thought to himself. Adrien and Kagami just got engaged. And neither of the girls asked Kagami about how her or Adrien’s girlfriend was taking the news so they probably aren’t in a poly relationship together. They certainly don’t look like siblings, but I know well enough that siblings don’t have to be little carbon copies of each other. Maybe they’re roommates? Quick, be cool Luka, they’re coming this way.

Adrien walked the girl over to their table where she sank into the chair next to Nino and Luka felt his heart drop to the floor. 

She must be dating Nino, who is Adrien’s best friend, so they’ve probably been around each other a lot. Which is why she’s sitting next to Nino and why Adrien felt comfortable enough with catching her, Luka reasoned.

Adrien put one hand on Nino’s shoulder as he leaned across the chair between him and Kagami to give his fiancee a quick kiss. He straightened up and gave Nino’s shoulder a squeeze before removing his hand.

“How are you so late?” Nino asked the girl with a teasing tone. “You left the house with an hour and a half’s head start.”

The girl blushed before she started talking. “When I got to the bakery, Felix was there,” she began. Luka noticed that Nino, Adrien, and even Kagami suddenly tensed up and Nino’s lips formed into a line. “He thought that just because I couldn’t be the club president this semester that I’d stop coming, even though I told him I still had to come tonight to open the meeting and to take nominations for the new president. He-”

“He just went all Felix on you didn’t he?” Nino said followed by a short huff.

She nodded.

“I know he’s my cousin,” Adrien said to her, “but sometimes I really wish he wasn’t related and could have gone to a different school instead of our family’s Alma Mater.” He reached around Nino and gave her a couple of pats on her shoulder before leaning back toward Kagami and grasping her hand. “Then you’d never have met him and all our lives would have been easier.”

This Felix guy must be, what, pestering her? They don’t seem to be worried about her safety, so he’s probably not stalking her. I guess everyone has that one friend you just have to limit time with, Luka thought.

She gave Adrien a strained smile. 

“But then I never would have met you or Kagami,” she said. “You would have just been that one weird guy that Nino was in a bromance with in his Roman history class. The one who has an unnatural affinity for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood,” she added scrunching her nose up.

Adrien’s laugh was loud and free. Kagami, Nino, and the girl all relaxed at the sound and smiled at one another.��

“Okay, you got me there,” Adrien said. “But don’t knock the bromance.” He batted his eyes at Nino. “The feelings of the bros are true, pure, and noble.”

At that, Nino pretended to swoon as he murmured, “Bro, don’t do this to me in public, bro.” He looked up at Adrien, his eyes open wide and a pout on his lips. “You know I can’t handle it when you declare your love for me.”

Both of the men tried to hold onto their awkward posing, but Kagami poked Adrien’s side and the girl leaned into Nino. They started sniggering immediately.

“If you’re really that taken with him,” Kagami said to Adrien with a grin, “I could always give him the engagement ring.”

“You’d do that for me? For us?” Adrien cried melodramatically. 

Luka could see why Adrien would make a good DM if he was always this theatrical. Kagami and Nino also seemed able to drop into a performance easily. Even as a stranger, Luka could tell this was all in good fun and that Adrien seemed quite devoted to the girl whose hand he’d yet to let go of.

“Don’t worry Kagami,” Nino said to her solemnly. “I would never want to be the one to ruin you and Adrien’s happiness.”

Kagami pinned the boy with her stare. “You are the only one who ever could come between us, Nino,” Her tone icy, almost menacing. “ You know the terms: Sabers at dawn.”

Nino sat back quickly holding up his hands in surrender, clearly dropping out of the scene they’d been playing.

“Unh-uh! No way!” He made an ‘x’ with his arms. “I have seen you with your saber and I want no part of that,” he declared.

Kagami and Adrien both smiled fondly at Nino as they chuckled.

“A wise decision,” Adrien remarked. “Oh excuse me, it looks like Alya has another question.”

He pecked Kagami’s cheek before hurrying back over to glasses girl.

When Luka looked back at the table, after watching Adrien go over to the girl who must be Alya, it was to see Nino with his arm around his seatmate’s shoulder.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Marinette?” he’d asked quietly. “I know how Felix can get when he’s...disappointed.”

Luka was pretty sure that the only reason he heard the question was because he was seated on the girl’s other side.

Marinette took a deep breath in and let it out before nodding her head. 

“I’m good Nin,” she’d replied.

The look on Nino’s face seemed to sport a trace of disbelief, but it was gone so quickly that Luka wasn’t sure that’s what he’d seen. Before he could think about it more, Professor Damocles stood at the front of the room to call for attention.

After introducing himself to the group and welcoming everyone to the club, he turned the meeting over to Marinette as club president. She called for nominations for a new president and the club officially got under way. 

Soon enough Adrien, as the new club president, addressed the gathering.

“Well, as your new president, I’d like to welcome everyone here. I hope that we can all have a great time getting to know one another and having some fun playing games.” He grinned as his eyes scanned the crowd. Luka was sure he wasn’t the only one to notice the wink he threw at Kagami. 

“Our good friends over at the Crazy Squirrel,” he gestured to a table covered in dice, velvet bags, trays, books, and brightly covered boxes with two smiling people seated behind it, “have brought a small selection of what they have on offer at their game store. You can look over the merch at any time tonight and be assured, they take all forms of legal tender. If you don’t find what you need, they’re willing to give student discounts all next week as long as you show a valid student I.D. Who knew those cards were good for anything, right? If you aren’t going to use an app for your dice rolls, you will need to make sure you also purchase a tray.” The smile dropped from his face. “We can’t have stray dice roaming the tables.” At this statement, there were various murmurs of assent.

“Marc and I will be DMing this semester,” he pointed to the student Kagami had indicated earlier, “so if you have any questions please feel free to ask us, but we’ve made sure there are two or three people at each table that can help you make a character if you’ve not done that before.” He smiled at the group. “We have a lot of plans for our game but tonight is going to be dedicated to creating your character and getting familiar with the mechanics of how things work. There’ll be several links to videos up on the server so that you can watch the pros in action, but please don’t expect that level of ability of your DMs.” 

“You’re no Matt Mercer, but you’ll do,” a young man with brown skin, dark glasses, and blond dreadlocks pulled into a top knot said to the president who returned his smile.

The crowd broke into snickering.

“We know we’re not Max,” Marc replied from his table, “but then again you’re no Taliesin Jaffe or Travis Willingham either,” an ‘oooooooooooo’ ran through the room, “but you don’t see Adrien and I complaining.” Marc grinned at Max.

That got another round of chuckles from the group.

Adrien hastily added, “We’ll all just have to do our best.”

Professor Damocles stood up and Adrien ceded the floor to him.

“Alright everyone, back to your characters,” the professor said with enthusiasm. “Make them unique and special. Try new classes. Find out where your character came from, even if it’s a roll of the dice by the fates, and then prepare them to go out adventuring!” He practically vibrated with excitement.

“I am way too sober for this,” Alix mumbled into her travel mug before taking a long drink.

“One more thing,” Damocles said after Marc whispered something into his ear. “This is meant to be a friendly game, but permanent character death can happen.”

“You don’t say,” a female voice carried through the quiet room.

“Let’s have a moment of silence for Kagami’s weak ass tabaxi bard,” the pink hair girl called to the room. Everyone chuckled, but a few bowed their heads in Kagami’s direction. While a voice chided with a hissed, “Alix!”

Professor Damocles continued as if nothing had been said, “So, you might want to make a backup-” he looked directly at the source of the voice, “-or two-- Kagami.” He beamed at the room. “Let’s get busy!”

Kagami and Nino immediately put their heads back down to the paper they’d been working on. Kagami pointed to something and Nino’s phone sounded out the rolling of dice. Rose and Juleka each chose a paper from their stacks and then switched colors. Luka looked at Marinette for a moment. She seemed to notice his stare and turned to him.

The first thing he noticed was how very blue her eyes seemed. They were eyes he felt he could gladly get lost in. The second thing he noticed was how expressive her face really seemed to be. The expression right now was curiosity bordering on concern.

“Um,” he had to clear his throat before he could continue. “Doyou- haveyou-” he took a short breath to slow his words down, “Have you already made a character before?” he asked hesitantly.

“Oh yeah,” she answered. “I showed Adrien my character last week when he was over for Brotherhood night.” 

“Oh, well, could you-” he tried not to look as pathetic as he felt, “could you help me?” He had to look away as soon as he’d asked.

He heard her giggle before she shifted over to be only a chair away from him, carefully observing the university seating policy, while still showing her willingness to help him out.

“I’d be glad to help you with your character,” she said and grinned.

Luka tried to get his face to move from its stunned expression, but all he felt was a bit of heat forming in his cheeks.

“Thanks,” he croaked out. 

Juleka was quick to nudge him with her elbow while muttering, “Stop acting like a weirdo, ya weirdo.”

Rose giggled at his behavior, but issued a soft, “Jules, leave him be,” in his defense.

“I’m Marinette,” the girl in question said as she smiled at him again. “Nino and I rent a house close to campus-”

“Because you just have to have your craft room,” he mumbled without looking up from his phone.

Okay, they’ve got to be dating if they aren’t already married, Luka told himself. They’re living together and they’re close friends with Kagami and Adrien who just got engaged. Statistics show that you tend to mirror the actions of your peer group so why wouldn’t they be married? It’s so weird to think of people my age as being married. Why does it even matter? You’re here to make new friends and get away from work and school. This isn’t a dating service, Luka. And now you missed what she was saying.

“-but we’ve lived in each other’s house since forever. Nino’s dad and my dad have been friends since kindergarten,” she threw a smile in his direction. “I grew up calling Nino’s parents Uncle Sami and Auntie Halima and wondering why he had aunts and uncles I never saw at our family reunions, but never questioning that we were related,” she laughed a little at herself. “What about you?”

“Well, um, Juleka and I grew up on a houseboat with our mom. And Rose started coming over a lot when she and Jules were what, twelve? thirteen?” He looked over at his sister who nodded and then smiled at Rose. “She kind of joined the crew when her dad proved to be less than ideal as a parent.” He scowled remembering the night that a tear soaked Rose showed up on the boat and he had to hold Juleka back from killing a man while the Captain held the sobbing girl that was to become a second daughter to her. “It was obviously his loss, but certainly our gain. Mom keeps asking Jules when she’s going to make Rose official,” he stopped when he heard Juleka groan.

“She preaches free love and that marriage is just a piece of paper then goes and asks about ‘the wedding’ and ‘how soon am I gonna to get some grandbabies’,” Juleka grumbled.

“The Captain is a woman of many moods and an example of the most conservative rebel you’ll ever meet,” Luka confirmed to the half of the table that was looking at him with stunned expressions.

“Well she certainly sounds like an interesting character,” Marinette said.

At that, the rest of the table broke up into laughter.

“What did I say that was so funny?” she asked the group.

“Rose is way ahead of you on that one, Nettie,” Nino replied.

She looked at Rose. “Is she--Mistress Dee?” she asked with delight.

Rose just nodded.

“Oh. well then, I stand by what I said- Quite the character.” 

Luka merely grinned at this assessment of his mother while the others returned to their own character creation.

“So,” Marinette said as the table got back to work, “Are you ready to make your fighter?”

“Does it have to be a fighter?” he whined, then the dumbest line that he’s ever heard slips off his tongue as he leaned directly into their shared space, “I’m more a lover than a fighter.” He grinned at her as he winked, then proceeded to blow her a kiss.

She stared at him dumbstruck as he saw Juleka facepalm out of the corner of his eye. Marinette hastily moved back a chair. She seemed to be almost terrified of him and he felt his gut clench in worry that he’d somehow offended or intimidated her.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” he apologized as he sat back with his hands up trying to make himself seem less of a threat. 

“You’re doing your flirty delivery persona,” Rose said through clenched teeth, not even looking over at him. “It might get you more tips at work, but Marinette has a-” she paused and Luka was worried to find out what the next words out of Rose’s mouth would be, “-protective boyfriend so you’d best stop,” her voice had dropped to a dangerous whisper.

Luka looked anxiously over to Nino whose lips had flattened out from what had seemed like a permanent grin, as he put an arm around Marinette. He gave a short nod in Luka’s direction to confirm Rose’s statement. 

“He’s not here Nette,” Nino murmured as he patted her shoulder. “He can’t give you crap over Luka’s fake flirt.”

“But he’ll know, Nin,” the shaken girl whispered. “He always knows.”

Nino just shook his head and sighed as he tried to get Marinette to breathe slowly and tell him everything she was going to do to the plain wooden box she’d picked up at the craft store.

Great, I’ve already insulted Marinette and made Nino distrust me. A wonderful way to go about making new friends, Luka, he mentally chided himself. You went overboard on the flirting. Just because they play along with Adrien and Kagami doesn’t mean they’d let me play the same way. How many times have I said that to the kids?

Luka’s head dropped to his chest in defeat. “Rose is right and, again, I am-- so sorry. I can see that I’ve caused you a lot of distress and that was never my intention. Please believe me when I say, it will never happen again.” He hadn’t even looked over at Rose as his whole focus was on Marinette. “I understand if you don’t want to help me with this after... that, but I do want you to know that I would never want you to feel unsafe around me.”

Marinette was still taking deep breaths and holding them before letting them out slowly. A nervous giggle escaped her.

She grinned timidly at Luka. “It’s not your fault,” her voice had a faint tremor. “You don’t know Felix or that we’re dating,” she said as her voice started to lose it’s warble. She looked at Nino for help.

“Felix... is mostly all bark and no bite,” Nino tells him sincerely. “The only problem is that no one has fitted him with a shock collar to keep him from barking all day and all night.”

“Nino, he’s not that bad,” Marinette protested.

Nino just gave her a flat look. “Do you not live in the same house I do?” he asked incredulously. “I’ve known him to call at 3 am to ask where you are and who you’re with,” his eyes dared her to dispute the fact. “And then there’s the morning and evening check-ins.”

“It’s nice to get texts first thing in the morning,” Marinette argued.

“No doubt about that, but he blows your phone up until you respond, and while I know you can sleep through a tsunami I cannot tell you how much I hate your phone’s notification sound.”

Rose laughed at that. “Oh man I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to tell these two off for leaving their phones on the charger and then not answering them when they’re getting notifications.”

Both Luka and Juleka looked sheepish.

Marinette looked back and forth between Luka, Juleka, and Rose and grinned.

“I see Rose is the one who rules the roost,” she teased. 

Luka nodded and Juleka mirrored the action.

“Do not get Rose mad,” Luka whispered to the whole table. “You wouldn’t like it when Rose’s mad.”

Everyone including Kagami and Nino laughed and the tension round the table seemed to ease. Luka couldn’t help but notice the look that passed between Marinette and Nino.

“Sounds familiar,” Nino said as he grinned at Marinette and waggled his eyebrows.

“Shut it,” Marinette said, her confidence returning to her a little, as she stuck her tongue out at him.

“Make me,” he taunted back.

“Careful, Lahiffe, I know where you sleep and also where you keep your gear.”

At Nino’s gasp and look of mock horror, Luka asked, “Your gear?”

“Yeah, I’m an EMT and also in the nursing program. I have a lot of emergency supplies,” he looked back at Marinette, “Which you promised to never touch again unless I ask you to.”

“You have a tape emergency one time-” she grumbled. “Besides you just asked me to shut you up. Sounds like asking to get in your kit to me.” She singsonged at him. “I could probably tape you to the bed without you knowing, you sleep so deeply once you get off shift.”

“How many times must I say it?” Nino said as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Don’t use expensive, high-quality medical tape for something that duct tape can do better.”

Marinette smiled as she bumped into his side. “I know where we keep the duct tape, too.”

The entire table had a laugh at their antics before getting back to their characters.

They really are a cute couple, Luka thought as he watched them. Nino seems like he’d be a better match than this Felix. At least, I don’t think Nino would be setting off a panic attack if some goon flirted badly with her. Luka couldn’t help the frown that crossed his face as he tried to puzzle out the two.

“And now we see who runs the place at your house,” Rose said with a giggle before instructing Juleka to grab one of the white character sheets so they could start rolling up her tiefling fighter.

After a moment of awkward silence between the two, Marinette began with, “So?” 

“So?” Luka repeated, not understanding what she was asking. 

“Are you ready to make your fighter?” She shifted to be a chair closer again. 

This time, Luka thought of the space between them as a vast wall to keep her safe from his own apparent foolishness.

“Oh, um, Kagami said I could just pick one from each pile to make my character,” he said mostly to the table in front of him. He looked up and saw the scowl that Marinette shot the mentioned girl. “Isn’t that okay?”

Marinette’s lips pressed into a thin line. “It’s true that that is one way to create a character, but it makes you less invested in your player and by association into the game.” She huffed in Kagami’s direction, “Just because she’s gone through so many characters that she no longer cares-”

A muffled protest “Hey, you try to care about your fiftieth character your boyfriend has killed off this campaign alone,” came from across the table. “I can’t find anything he won’t take out. And I don’t mean on a date!”

“- that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t at least look and see what’s out there. This way, even if you don’t choose that race or class you’ll still have some idea of what’ll probably show up in our game,” Marinette supplied. “Though personally, when I have time, I do like to get deeply into creating my characters, especially their backstories.”

Nino snorted. “Please tell them about the time you created a complete novella of your dwarven mage only to have him k.o.’ed by the first henchman your party crossed,” he laughed again, “and you hadn’t even got to tell them your name yet!”

“They buried her with a headstone reading ’To the unknown dwarf. Gone and now forgotten.’,” Kagami added with a grin.

Marinette shook her head. “All that dwarven lore and history gone before it could be shared.” She looked at Luka, “I spent three nights typing up Thomyll Tharrgrisson’s clan affiliation, genealogy, home life, general education, apprenticeship, and mage studies.”  She smiled and sighed as she seemed to drift off into another world. “If I’d had another night, I would have gone into his courtship, marriage, and widowhood as well as his daughter’s apprenticeship as a baker and his sons’ work in the war forges of their people. Thomyll and his family always felt most at home around a fire.”

Kagami snickered and the sound brought Marinette back to the table. “That’s what makes his death so epically ironic,” the laughing girl told Luka. “It was a freaking first level fireball that took him out.”

Nino joined in her laughter, but Marinette just rolled her eyes and turned her back to them.

“I was down to a single hit point,” she grumbled. “We’ll just ignore them,” she instructed Luka. “Nino is barely starting and Kagami hasn’t yet learned the importance of,” she changed her voice to be pitched lower and more nasally as she said, “Backstory! Backstory! Backstory!”

“Too bad you’re stuck with me and not Perry the platypus then,” Luka said with a small grin as he’d recognized the voice she’d been trying to imitate. Her thumbs up made him hope that maybe he hadn’t ruined everything.

“And when do you ever have time to write something that epic?” Juleka teased.

“Probably not much this semester,” Marinette answered her with a wry grin. “There’s already a student showcase to be prepping for this year. Fortunately they’ve all been told they can only use the black blocks we have as their sets and most of the student directors are doing one act plays that are set in modern times so their casts are using their own clothes.”

“Marinette’s a drama major and is into major drama,” Nino confided to Luka with a grin.

“Ugh, Nin that line is getting so old,” she said with a small eye roll. Nino didn’t look put out in the least. She thought for a moment. “I think they’re not going to be allowed to request any backdrops for the showcase either, so I just have to get all their props. Which is good since we only have one stagecraft class and they’ll be responsible for the main play this semester.”

“Oh is it that Voltaire play you were so excited about doing costumes for?” Rose asked.

Marinette nodded, “That’s the one.”

Rose’s eyes widened considerably. “Are you going to have to make dresses and suits for the whole cast?”

Marinette burst out laughing. “No, I won’t be making everything from scratch. Thankfully our costume storage has a lot of pieces that can be altered to fit our needs as well as our actors. It’ll still keep me plenty busy.” 

“Well we know you’re really good at altering a situation for the best,” Nino said out the corner of his mouth, not really looking up from something Kagami wanted him to re-do.

Marinette reddened around the ears, but looked at Juleka. “Are you going to try out for this one?”

Juleka shook her head. “Madame Haprèle made me the lead make up designer.” She smiled a huge smile. “I get to design or approve designs of all the cast’s make-up and then I’m responsible for making sure everyone in the costume/make-up class knows how to read their sheet and apply the design to their actors.” 

Marinette’s smile broke across her face and Luka could clearly read just how happy she was for his sister.

“That’s excellent, Jules!” She seemed to dance in her seat. “That’ll look really good on your résumé and it’ll be some sweet, sweet make-up.”

Juleka hid her face in Rose’s shoulder. It was a familiar action Luka knew she did when she was a little overwhelmed by any intense emotion.

“Thank’s Nette,” she said muffled by Rose's sweater.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Marinette said quietly as she tried to dial down her excitement. “But you should know I only spoke the truth.”

“She’s right and she should say it,” Luka said as he nudged Juleka’s shoulder with his.

“Don’t you meme me boy,” Juleka said as she pushed back at him. “You may be older, but I’m trending.”

Luka laughed a little too loud at this. “You’ve got me there,” he conceded. He looked back over to Marinette. “Anything else that you’re doing this semester that’ll stand in the way of developing your character’s backstory?”

She thought for a moment. “I know that they were thinking about adding a comedy at the end of the semester to try and help the rest of the student body keep their spirit’s up before the winter break, but I haven’t heard back about it.”

“Didn’t you tell me the dance program was doing something from the Nutcracker?” Kagami asked. “You wanted to borrow my saber for it.”

Marinette facepalmed. “How could I forget that I’ll be trying to get about twenty bon-bon costumes made or borrowed?”

“What? Why?” Luka asked.

“She’s the headmistress of the costume department,” Nino told him. “Only the dean has higher authority about what goes on stage. So when the dance department tries to do some kind of cross study with local dance studios to keep the littles doing ballet--” he pulled a face at Marinette and she shakes her head at him, “--to keep them dancing until they’re in college, it’s Marinette’s responsibility to make sure everyone from Sugarland is dressed as cupcakes or whatever.”

“I keep telling you there aren’t any cupcakes in the Land of Sweets,” Marinette grumbles at him.

“Then how can it truly be magical?” Nino demanded. “You know your parents would never approve of a magical land of every good dessert if it didn’t include cupcakes and pain au chocolat.” 

“Why not?” Luka asked.

“You know T&S?” Marinette asked in reply. At his nod, she went on, “Well Tom and Sabine are my parents.”

“Oh, well, yeah,” Luka said as he smiled at Nino, “You’re right about that. No magical world would be complete without T&S pain au chocolat.”

“I knew you were a man of good taste,” Nino said. Behind Marinette’s back, Luka saw Nino point at him and then her and flutter his eyelashes.

Luka’s face began heating up. Okay Nino was turning out to have a good sense of humor, even if it was at Luka’s expense.

“Any way,” Marinette said thoughtfully, “I think that’s everything big going on stage this semester.” She thought some more then mumbled more to herself than to anyone in particular, “Of course we still have to do preproduction for the spring musical…”

Luka was just staring at her while Juleka and Rose were nodding along. “You have all that on top of classes?” he asked with a low whistle. “And I thought doing a double major and part-time work kept me too busy.”

“Oh Nettie never stops moving,” Nino said. “In her spare time,” he said the phrase dripping with sarcasm, “she’ll work on crafting things like some of the dice boxes over there,” he pointed at the table from the Crazy Squirrel.

“Nin, I don’t make the boxes! I just, like, add to them,” Marinette protested.

“And Michelangelo just added to the Sistine chapel’s ceiling,” Nino retorted. “As well as fighting the Foot Clan’s ninjas at night.”

Luka laughed, but Marinette glared at her housemate.

“Wow,” Luka said  as he squinted over at the table with the boxes as Marinette seemed to shrink in on herself. “That’s seriously impressive.”

“It’s not that big-” she began only to be interrupted by Nino again.

“It is,” Nino said looking directly into her eyes.

“Nino, stop,” Marinette whined. “Go back to plotting with your co-conspirator. Help me out here, Gami.”

“Sure,” she said. Kagami looked Luka directly in the eyes and said with the most deadpan expression he’d ever seen, “Marinette is an angel come down from heaven. She does what no mere mortal can and her sweetness and kindness knows no bounds. She has been cursed to suffer us unworthy mortals as she is forced to live amongst the most idiotic and stubborn of humans.”

“Hey, no need to tear me down as you build Marinette up,” Nino offered in mock protest.

Kagami flashed him a smirk, “I didn’t mention you by name but if you feel the description fits...”

Nino and Kagami chuckled and the others grinned at their shenanigans.

“Hey Luka I just had a thought,” Marinette said as she looked determinedly away from Nino and Kagami. “Rose and Juleka need time to roll up their characters and you’ll probably want a set of dice even if you do eventually just use an app. Why don’t we go over to the vendor table and let these people work? You can even see my embellishments, up close.” 

“You’re just going to avoid us now?” Nino asked with a grin.

“Yes,” Marinette said as she got up. 

Luka was quick to follow her lead. They didn’t say anything until Luka was looking at the display of the different sets of dice and dice trays.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked her quietly. “You seem a little-- distressed.”

Marinette bit one corner of her bottom lip, but shook her head. 

“It’s an old argument,” she said. “Nino thinks I should speak up more about my job titles and accomplishments, but that seems so much like bragging and I hate people that do that. Like, my accomplishments should speak for themselves, you know?”

Luka hummed for a moment before replying, “I see where you’re coming from, but the problem is that you can’t let your accomplishments speak for themselves if you don’t let people know you’ve accomplished them.”

“And am I supposed to go around telling people that I’ve eaten all of my sandwich as well as my chips today?” she asked without any heat.

“Do you have problems actually eating your lunch?” he asked with a grin.

She looked away, but quickly looked back. “Maaaaaaayyyyyybe,” she slowly admitted.

He laughed at her sheepish expression, “Well then maybe you do need to tell people, but only if they ask. Or if you’ve done something hard that you are proud of and a good friend would be happy for you, uh, for.” He smiled at her. “If Nino hadn’t jumped in, would you have told me about being in charge of so much?”

“I might’ve,” she replied truthfully. “If you’d asked about it. But why go over all of that if it isn’t your jam? If you’re not into theater then giving you my titles will only be confusing and lead to misunderstandings,” she did an involuntary shudder at some memory. “But if you are into theater than me saying that I work in props and costumes lets you either ask more or tells you that we have some common interests we can discuss later. Right?”

He nodded as he picked up a set of teal dice that were transparent like glass and started looking at the trays. Most were plain boxes, some also had velvet lining.

“These aren’t the fanciest boxes to choose from,” Marinette said as she looked over the selection with him. She looked at the dice he’d chosen. “With the white numbering you’re probably going to want a mid to dark color inside to help make reading them easier, but something like black might make it harder to find your dice in the tray.”

“Well they only seem to have the plain wood or the black velvet,” Luka murmured.

“I bet Marinette could help fix up a tray for you that would be perfect,” the woman behind the table said. “She’s done almost all of these, but I know she has an Etsy where she sells the real fancy ones that most of our clients just can’t afford.”

“Thanks Ms. Watson,” Marinette said with a grin. “You know I offer you a first chance at the more ornate ones.”

“Don’t you be tempting me with any more of your magic boxes,” the woman said with a smile. “I’ve already bought more than my husband realizes. I’m just fortunate that he keeps putting off making the display for them or he’d realize how much the pile’s grown,” she mock whispered.

The man helping Max with his purchases couldn’t help but turning his head and saying, “Oh I know that it’s grown, but it’s so big she doesn’t realize how many I’ve snuck onto the pile.”

“And this is why it’s dangerous for two pack rats to own a game shop,” she said to Luka. “You know Marinette, if he buys one of the plain boxes you can probably fix it up for him in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

Marinette paused for a moment then grinned at Luka.

“I think I have some gray velvet at home that would be perfect for your needs,” she closed her eyes and seemed to be scanning something with her forefinger. She brightened up before saying, “I even know where it is. If you buy one of the plain boxes, I can fix it up before our next meeting.”

“But you just said how busy you were going to be?” Luka objected.

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Those things all have their timelines and we’re at the beginning of the semester.” He didn’t look as if he believed her so she continued on, “You know what classes are like the first week. They'll only be going over the syllabus and discussing which books you must have, which books are extra reading suggestions, and which ones are only required because they were written by a member of the faculty but you can totally not go to this specific web address to get the text in question. Hint. hint. So it’s not like they’re even assigning homework this week. Or not on the first day.” 

She grinned at him and he nodded, having had several of those classes previously. “If you suggested this project two weeks before winter break, I’d probably have a break with reality as I tried to be several places at once including my house working on it but-” she shrugged her shoulders “- like she said, I have an Etsy where I do stuff like this all the time. It brings in a little extra income and gives my hands something to do while I listen to lecture notes or my e-reader.”

“How much would you ask for a project like this?” Luka wanted to know.

“Well, you’re already going to be providing the box so it’s just parts and labor you’re paying for,” she said. “If you just want the velvet, which I already have, it’ll take me about ten minutes to cut and use spray adhesive on it-- then I’d say about five bucks. If you want me to give it a bit of a stain for some color then add another five?”

“You’d be getting a good deal,” the vendor said. “Our prices are pretty low this week because we remember what it’s like to be in school and want all the cool stuff, but don’t want to have to survive on ramen. However, we can’t sell them this cheap forever. And even though the box will only cost you ten dollars, once Marinette’s done with it, it’ll look like a million bucks!”

Luka picked up a basic pine box that had a small compartment for carrying his dice and the rest was an open tray. “So for twenty bucks, I can have this turned into that?” He pointed at a similar box that had a royal purple stain and black velvet lining.

Marinette smiled before saying, “Sure if you want purple, I could do that or something else if you’d prefer.”

“And it won’t be a problem for you?” he asked with real concern. “It won’t be stressing you out?”

She shook her head. “I promise, it won’t stress me out.”

“Okay, it’s a deal,” he said to both the women. Luka used his card to pay before asking Marinette, “So do you take Paypal, Venmo,” he paused before asking, “maybe cash?”

They started walking back to their table.

Marinette shook her head. “I try not to deal with cash if I can help it, but I do have Paypal set up with my Etsy or you could Venmo me.”

“Well, what’s going to make you more comfortable?” Luka asked as he sat back down next to Juleka.

“Oh,” Marinette brightened as she pulled out her purse. “I have a business card. Do you want to grab a pic of that? It has all the needed information on it”

Luka smiled as he pulled out his phone. “That would be perfect.”

He snapped a picture of the card before grabbing shots of the people at their table and then the rest of the room. After he played with the screen, Juleka and Rose’s phones both pinged. A few seconds later Marinette felt her phone buzz, too.

“Did you just send us pics of ourselves?” Juleka asked.

“Yup,” he grinned, “Sent them to the family chat. You know how the Captain is- Pics or it didn’t happen.”

Rose smiled back at him while Juleka rolled her eyes.

“Did you get the payment?” he asked Marinette. “Let me know if it didn’t go through and I’ll cancel that one to make sure you get paid.”

“What are you paying her for?” Juleka demanded.

“For your information I have just commissioned, uh, an angel from heaven I believe were the words, right, Kagami-” he lifted a brow in her direction and she nodded, “-to take this drab little box,” he held up the plastic bag containing his purchase, “and change it into the ultimate dice throwing experience.” He shrugged, “Well as ultimate as $20 can buy, anyway.”

The table laughed as he passed the bag over to Marinette after first wiping it down. She put it next to her purse and then grabbed a blank character sheet and the rejected pink and green sheets from Rose. 

Marinette rifled through the class sheets while asking, “Do you really not want to be a fighter? I think there are a couple of other things in here like, um,” she pulled out one paper, “No, that’s Barbarian which is the opposite of not a fighter. Here’s wizard,” she lifted a few other pages, “-or there’s a bard.” She pulled out another paper, “or sorcerer.” She seemed to deflate. “That’s it for the less stabby, stabby occupations, unless you want to be a cleric or paladin which are more like holy fighters.”

Rose snickered. 

“You should totally be a bard,” she said. She wiggled her eyebrows at Kagami who also broke out into snickers.

“Yes,” she agreed with Rose. “A bard would be perfect for you.”

Nino’s eyebrows contracted as he looked at Luka. “I don’t know if he’s got it in him to be a bard. His first attempt at barding was pretty lame and I don’t think he should be barding all over Marinette.”

Luka looked at his sniggering tablemates and then at Marinette who had some pink in her cheeks as she facepalmed.

“Okay, what’s up with the bard?” he asked everyone in general.

Marinette whispered, “Stop it Nino,” threateningly in his direction before answering Luka.

“Bards have a bit of a reputation for being highly charismatic, or thinking they are highly charismatic, and then trying to sleep with everything that moves and even some of the furniture.”

The table erupted into laughter.

“Oh,” was all he said even as he processed the earlier tittering. “I thought Rose was suggesting bard because I can play several instruments.”

“That never even entered my mind,” Rose said unhelpfully.

“You do?” Marinette asked. “What do you play?”

“Well, pretty much anything with strings but mostly guitar. Then I play percussion, some piano, clarinet, and sax and occasionally I play the bagpipes, badly.”

“I keep telling you,” Juleka piped up, “no one actually plays the bagpipes well. Otherwise they wouldn’t sound like that.”

The whole table broke into laughter.

“Are you in a band, dude?” Nino asked.

“Not right now, but I still sit in with a couple of guys I played with in high school. I don’t have much time with my job and trying to fit a double major into a single major time frame.”

“Oooh. What are you majoring in?” Kagami asked as she leaned over to hear his answer.

“Well music, obviously, but my other one is psych. I’m hoping to be able to do music therapy with children. Especially in lower income schools as they have kids that have high stress situations but low avenues for expression.”

Nino whistled. “That’s so cool man. What types of music do you even play?”

“Oh, I like folk, rock, pop, and metal, but I’ve also tried to branch out into punk and rap. I want to be familiar with the forms that the kids are used to and then help them express themselves through that music. It’s going to be tough though.”

“Why’s that?” Marinette asked.

“Because the school I was doing training in last semester has lots of kids whose families are from Mexico, Laos, and Pakistan and I just don’t know enough about traditional music for any of those groups. Not that they only listen to traditional at home, but those can be familiar to riff off. I mean I’ve heard of Mariachi music before, but it’s not the only traditional Mexican music.”

“Dude, you can’t be expected to know everyone’s music. You should probably let the kids show you what they like,” Nino said even as he motioned for Luka to continue.

I know that it’s not the only music they’d be exposed to or familiar with, but I only know about four phrases in Spanish-�� Mas, por favor, tortilla, and sí’. I don’t know any Hmong or Laotian words, and I’d like to think my little Pakistani friend wouldn’t try to teach me bad words, but I’m afraid to use what I learned from him in front of his mother. I’ve seen My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding!”

The group laughed again

“You certainly have your work cut out for you,” Marinette said.

Luka nodded then looked away. Seeing Kagami, he said, “Kagami you’re the only one here I haven’t really heard about majors or working. So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Kagami said with a grimace. “I’m a math major because I love it and a science minor because chemistry is just amazing, but I’m not sure what I plan on doing with either of those things.”

“It’s okay not to know what you plan to do yet,” Luka said gently.

“Doesn’t Adrien want to be a professor of History?” Rose asked, with a sly smile.

“Yes, what about it?” Kagami asked, raising an eyebrow at the grinning girl.

“Think about it, Gami,” Rose said with a sigh. “You and Adrien could be that cute professor couple that all the students ship! You could teach chemistry, because you seriously were the only one that got me through that class last semester, and Adrien could teach ancient Mediterranean history. And you could sneak into each other’s offices for lunch dates. I bet you could even keep the students guessing if you’re in a relationship or not for years. It would be perfect!”

Kagami smiled at her friend. “I don’t know if it works that way, but it might be something to look into,” she said to the girl who looked like she was actually making heart eyes at the prospect.

“Okay Luka,” Marinette said. “Grab a white paper and we can start creating your bard.”

The genuine smile on her face was something Luka couldn’t help remembering even after they left the club for the evening. He carried home his new dice and the hope that he’d actually found some new friends.

Two nights later, Luka was pulling up to an unfamiliar house with a very familiar person standing out front. He secured his mask and the pizza carrier before walking up the steps to the landing. Nino’s expression was a mixture of embarrassed and pissed, and when Luka heard the discussion coming through an open window he understood why.

Nino spoke up quietly while Luka was climbing the stairs, pausing at the top step.

“Um, sorry about this, but I kind of walked out without my mask or my wallet,” he apologized. “It’s just that whenever she’s talking to Felix, I end up wanting to punch a hole in the wall and we can’t afford to lose our deposit.” He smiled, but the joke attempt fell flat. “Can you just hang here for a bit? They’ve almost got to the end and then I can go get your money.”

“How do you know they’re almost done?” Luka asked.

Nino glanced over his shoulder and grimaced. “I’ve heard it enough times.”

In the awkward silence that hung between the two of them, Luka heard Marinette’s voice.

“I can’t afford to break my lease and leave Nino in the lurch for the rest of the semester as well as contributing to your rent.” There was a silence before she continued, “Because he’s my very good friend and you don’t do that to friends and then get to keep them afterward.” Her voice rose in volume, “No, I can’t just move in with you and have your parents pay for me, Felix. I’m not going to sponge off of your parents or have them telling me I owe them for this for the rest of our lives.” Her voice suddenly sounded tired. “There’s nothing wrong with where I work. I like it. No, it doesn’t pay as much as where we were, but it’s not as stressful.” And now she sounded just done. “I’m not having this argument again Felix.” 

Nino just sighed heavily, “She says that every time, yet here we are.”

Luka tried not to make eye contact with Nino or eavesdrop, but, well, there wasn’t much else he could do unless he wanted to pay for the pizza himself and then leave.

“I can’t come right now, I just ordered food and it’s on the way.” Her voice had lost all it’s color and vibrancy. “Nino’s not in. I can’t ask him to get it.”

Luka couldn’t help glancing at Nino when she said it. He had the decency to look away. Her next statements sent up red flags for Luka.

“No, I’m not meeting someone.” Her tone got higher, a little more insistent. “No, I’m not cheating on you with the delivery driver! Nino’s on his way home. He’s probably going to be pulling up just as the food gets here.” 

This time Nino watched him as he looked away. He knew there was nothing going on between himself and Marinette, but still he felt the blush as the accusation fell from her lips. 

Her voice got low, she was pleading with him now. “Felix, I’m going to eat my dinner and finish my homework so that tomorrow I won’t have anything hanging over my head when we go on our date.” 

Another pause before, “You’ll have me all to yourself, just the way you like.”

“Please, Felix, I can’t.” Each sentence was more full of begging for understanding. “Not tonight.” She got quieter. “Don’t be mad.” She started to sound like she was talking in a fake, cutsie  voice- more childlike and with less adult authority. “Okay, you’re not mad.” 

“Don’t be upset, Fe,” her tone was wheedling for his favor.

“Yes, of course, I want to see you!” 

 “Yes, I’m being good for you.” 

They do this all the time? he thought. Luka was finding it hard to keep his chill and looking at Nino’s drawn brows and thin mouth the other man wasn’t liking what he was hearing either.

“You’re the only one for me,” her tone cowed and sweet. 

“Bye now sweet-” apparently Felix already hung up as they could now hear Marinette taking in great gulps of air.

Nino took that as his cue to hurry into the house calling, “Pizza’s here!” In a few moments Nino returned with his mask on and wallet in hand.

The sound of ragged breaths was the only thing they heard as Nino rummaged in his wallet for his card to tap on the card reader Luka held out for him. Luka couldn’t help the incredulous look he gave Nino as he slid the box out of the carrier onto Nino’s waiting hands.

“Yeah, I know,” Nino said to the silent accusation. “I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but she insists that she loves him.”

Luka nodded as he closed the carrier.

“It sure doesn’t sound like love on this end of the line.”

Nino’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know.”

Luka nodded to him and hurried to his car.  As he started up the engine, he pulled out his phone and made sure his ear piece was on. He was pulling away from the curb when his call was answered.

“Jules, I’m screwed,” were his first words to his sister. “It’s Marinette. She’s a princess in distress and I want to save her from her a-hole boyfriend because, as we well know, I have a savior complex.” 

He listened to her talk him through a grounding exercise before they continued their conversation. 

“I know. I’m not responsible for saving anyone. We all have to save ourselves,” he sighed. “All I could ever hope to be is support. She has to want to get out of the situation and from the sound of it, she’s in it for the long haul.” 

Juleka’s anxious voice mumbled the name Brinley. Luka laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve learned my lesson--no white knighting for me.” 

He thought back to the overheard conversation. “But if I ever meet the guy in person, I’m going to deck him. I swear I’ll... I’ll give him concrete shoes and drop him over the side of mom’s boat at midnight. What do you mean what for?” he asked in surprise at Juleka’s question. “For making her feel bad for wanting to keep her friends, her independence, and her mental balance.” 

Luka laughed at Juleka’s squawk and her subsequent expletive filled threat for Felix. 

“No way, Jules! Rose’ll only have enough to bail one of us out and we both know she’ll choose you.”

Juleka’s bright laughter rang through the ear piece. 

“Thanks, Jules,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I’ll bring home a Julerose special.” He smiled, grateful for the friendship of his sister. “I should be done in about an hour, yeah. Love ya!”

As he drove back to the pizza parlor, he couldn’t help but recall the quiet sobs at the end of Marinette’s call. His heart went out to her. He’d been there before, and it well and truly sucked. He determined that he’d try to be the best support he could for his new friend.

[danetobelieve]

Personal Wolf Jesus || Ariana and Winston

Dying someone's hair was not something that Winston had ever done, had ever considered doing or had thought that anyone would ever need them to do for them. But Winston wasn’t going to let their friend down and YouTube tutorials had never let them down either. They weren’t sure how good this was going to be but when Ariana had said that it had something to do with safety, well that had made Winston concerned. They’d prepared all of the essentials. Drinks, snacks, pizza was on the way and there was ice cream too. Living with Ricky had taught them to enjoy the times when there was other stuff then meat being cooked. Being a Selkie must’ve been exhausting. Winston heard the ringing of their doorbell and headed over to pop it open. “Hey, welcome to our humble abode,” they said a little glibbly as they gave her a warm smile, “come in please make yourself at home, all that fun shit.” 

Ariana felt that she could breathe just a little bit easier the further she got away from home. Being there alone just made her feel like she was just sitting around and waiting for something bad to happen. Maybe being out and about also wasn’t the smartest thing, but it was still early enough in the evening that there were plenty of people out and about and about. Even so, she was on high alert. Every sound and every smell had her attention. There was no way anyone was sneaking up on her. When Winston opened the door and let her in, she immediately felt more relaxed. “Hey, Winston,” she said, attempting a smile that wasn’t the most convincing, “Thanks for having me over, especially so last minute. And you know, for the hair help, too. I don’t wanna miss spots in the back and come out of this experience looking like a cheetah.” 

Raising an eyebrow at the obviously less then sincere smile, Winston stepped back and let her into the house before closing the door behind her. As a second thought they flipped open the security center application they’d designed on their phone and switched on all of the various measures they’d installed. For now motion sensors, security lights and CCTV were the only thing that they thought might help (unless ghosts wanted to fuck with their auto salt dispensers) but it was better then nothing. “No problem,” they said with a shrug, “can I get you something to drink or eat or whatever or are you just … dying ….” they smirked, “to get started?” It was a lame joke, but they didn’t want Ariana to feel shitty and sometimes when things weren’t great they had a habit of making inappropriate jokes. “I’m surprised that I was your first choice, couldn’t Celeste help?” 

The joke had been just terrible enough, that Ariana found herself laughing a little bit. Bad humor was one way to actually relax. “That was bad, but it did help a little. Water would be good though.” At the mention of Celeste, she knew she probably needed to tell them what was going on. She had a target on her head and she was in their home. She nervously ran a hand through her hair and rocked back on her heels, “Well, uh, Celeste is working and I didn’t want to totally freak her out at work. I also really didn’t want to be home alone either.” She looked down at her feet, worried that this was maybe too much. It was a lot even for her and she’d been part of the supernatural world her whole life. “There’s a hunter in town that knows about the bounty that Celeste’s parents have on me. So yeah, kind of freaking out a little hence the wanting to change my hair and not look like whatever description there is circulating around about me.” 

“Bad jokes and water are why people come over,” Winston replied glibbly, “so you have obviously come to the right place.” Grabbing a glass, Winston filled it in the kitchen and handed it over to their friend. The one thing that they had learned as they began to navigate this supernatural world was that you couldn’t rush someone who had something that they thought was difficult to tell you. So Winston was trying to be patient even though part of them wanted to just ask and stop wasting time. Winston nodded. “I get it, you didn’t want to be alone but you couldn’t worry her, that’s why I’m here, you can hang out as long as you want and hell we’ve got space if you and Celeste need somewhere to stay for a while.” They could always stay at the Scribes place if they had to. They paused and frowned as they listened. “How did you find out about this?” Winston asked immediately concerned, “And who have you told? We should try and get a network of people who know so we can take turns making sure you’re safe and nothing has happened y’know.” Winston sighed. “We can definitely dye your hair, any ridiculous colour you want.”

The amount of kindness they were showing Ariana was a bit overwhelming. She’d known Winston was a good person and friend, but they were offering more than she could have ever expected. It only affirmed how much she didn’t want to have to run again. “I- Thank you, really. Once Celeste is home, we’ll figure out something.” She took a sip of the water and tried to think of anything for the moment. She could feel tears trying to make their way to the corners of her eyes. Yes, she was scared, but it was almost hard to believe she had an honest to god friend in all of this. It’d always been just her and Celeste, and they’d never made roots like this. It felt like there was so much more to lose. She nervously fidgeted her thumb trying to shake those thoughts away. She looked back to Winston and said, “It’s kind of a really long and crazy story. I know another wolf who’s been in hiding and the hunter who was after him told him that there was a bounty on me. So far I’ve only told you and one of the other wolves I know in town. He said he’d be talking to my sister to figure out a plan.” She smiled weakly and said, “Yeah, I have a few colors here. I can’t really actually see most colors, but there’s rose gold or purple. Could just do the straight up blonde, too. Is that less attention grabbing?” 

Nervous about the whole situation Winston swallowed gently and nodded. “Cool, there are a few of us now who are just done with working stuff out on our own, so we’re trying to help each other out.” They paused for a second before continuing. “So, just let us know how we can help.” They paused for a moment longer and listened carefully to Ariana, she seemed upset and Winston couldn’t say that they blamed her. The truth was that being hunted must be pretty traumatic, let alone upsetting. “I feel like everything is long and crazy, so don’t worry, I’ll just try and keep up, so for now we’ve just got to lay low whilst the people who are competent do their thing. Cool. I can dig that. It’s kind of nice not having to solve everything, but we will definitely work this out.” They were rambling and should probably do something before they over analysed everything that was happening. “Honestly, I’m not really sure what cool is, so I’m not really the person to ask, but because you’re stuck with me … blonde? Maybe? I don’t know? Do you have a preference?” Winston looked around trying to work out where the best place to do this would be. “We should probably do it in the bathroom, Ricky’s already had to sand down the floors once and he was pissy about that.”

The whole situation still felt out of control, but Ariana did feel less jittery knowing she had friends she could count on. Part of her felt guilty for dumping this on them. They were being incredibly supportive, but it was a lot. They’d only just had that whole tree vampire experience and apparently had to worry about the giant lake squid. “I really do appreciate it. It’s good to know I have people looking out and willing to help. This whole thing just sort of feels like… too much. Really missing the whole passing math class being my biggest worry.” The best thing to do right now was lay low and try to calm down a little bit. Ulfric did tell her to try and enjoy her evening. She had to trust that he and Celeste could figure something safe out. She breathed deeply and blinked away the tears that had been trying to make an appearance. Crying about this wasn’t going to fix anything. “Yeah, I’m sure they can work something out,” she said, only half believing it. She brought her focus back to the hair color. Changing her appearance was a small task she had control over. If she focused on that, everything felt a little bit more manageable. “Let’s go for blonde. A natural color will stick out less in a crowd, right?” She followed them to the bathroom, curious about the floor thing. “Wait, why did Ricky have to sand down the floor?” 

Winston was glad that they had not had to deal with any of this when they had been a pubescent teenager going through the already traumatic experience that was highschool. “Of course, and don’t think we’re just doing this out of the goodness of our own hearts, we just want to have a werewolf on our side when all the world really goes to shit.” They winked at Ariana and flashed her what they hoped was their most reassuring smile. But the truth was that they were a little worried by all of this. Winston could see that this was a lot for Ariana and tried to take control. Stepping forward, they gave her a quick hug, their towering gangly and lanky frame hanging over Ariana’s slighter and more petite one. “LIsten, we’ll work something out, we’ll dye your hair, I have a friend who is a tattoo artist and can give you a face tattoo, we’ll get you plastic surgery, whatever we need to do to keep you safe is exactly what we’ll do.” They nodded before leading them up the stairs towards the bathroom. “Blonde is a good idea and the floor sanding was not just Ricky but we had an incident with Karkinoids at the beginning of the year, they are like these giant crab things. Anyway we were having our friend Skylar here for dinner and there was an attack, kind of. We had to sand away the damage to the floor.” 

Ariana welcomed the hug from Winston. They really were a great friend. She couldn’t recall ever getting the chance to get this close with someone in the past. It wasn’t easy when you were always leaving. She let out a strained laugh and said, “Yeah, you’re right. Having a badass werewolf on your side always helps.” She shook her head and added, “You’re really starting to nail the whole hype man thing.” Talk of face tattoos and hair dye had a way of bringing back a little bit of cheer. She could breathe a little easier knowing that she had more friends than enemies in this world. “You know, face tattoos may be just a little bit too far. As much as I love Post Malone, I don’t need to be his twin.” This time her smile was genuine. She wasn’t even sure what kind of face tattoo she’d get if she ever were to get one. She was kind of a fan of her face as is.  She followed Winston up to the bathroom with the bleach and blonde hair dye in hand. She looked at Winston incredulously at the mention of giant crabs. “Yeah, that’s definitely not good for flooring. We seem to have good luck with the whole dangerous creatures finding us thing. Did I tell you I came across a Spinach?”

Laughing gently, Winston nodded. “Hell yeah, we’re only friends because I’m trying to use you for your supernatural ability, definitely nothing to do with enjoying your company.” Raising an eyebrow playfully, Winston’s face split with a smile and they shrugged. “I don’t know, I feel like that last sentence did the opposite of hyping you up, but I was being very sarcastic if that wasn’t incredibly clear. Winston was somewhat satisfied that they had distracted Ariana enough before nodding. “Plus, I think you might struggle to find like the sort of job you might want to have later on with a face tattoo so before you’ve decided on whether you’re going to be a celebrity or not then maybe hold off? You know.” They nodded for Ariana to take a seat on the side of the tub before beginning to read the bleaching instructions and the dye instructions. “I’m assuming you’ve actually done this before and have a rough idea of how it should go?” They shrugged gently. “Not good for the flooring and not good for my stress levels, but I think that might just be White Crest for you. What’s a spinach?” Winston asked, wondering if she was really that into her leafy greens.

With a laugh, Ariana responded, “Don’t worry, I picked up on the sarcasm. Your title as hype man isn’t being revoked.” She shook her head with a small grin still on her face, “Yeah, I don’t have any plans of being a celebrity. Too much travel for me. I don’t think there’s a lot of famous carpenters anyway though I guess I could play soccer. What are the rules on face tattoos in sports?” She thought over the Women’s National Team in her head and definitely didn’t recall any face tattoos. She took a seat on the edge of the tub and ran her hands through her hair. The bangs still felt strange, but from what she could tell they looked okay. At the mention of whether not she’d ever done this, she shrugged and said, “I haven’t actually. According to the internet, don’t get it on our clothes or skin. There’s gloves in there. It needs to stay on for 15-30 minutes then I’ll wash/condition it. Then you put on the toner so it’s not brassy. Don’t really know what that looks like. Haven’t ever really bothered with dying my hair because I’m colorblind so I can’t tell much of a difference anyway.” She let out an amused breath, “Yeah, I’m starting to pick up on that a little. Spinach. You know the deer you can’t touch without dying? Apparently their heads are red. I couldn’t tell, but they look hella spooky and like to charge. Had to throw knives at it to kill it which was… a time.” 

“Thank god because that is the only title that I’ve ever been given and if I lost it already then it would be just a little bit sad.” Winston smirked gently as they got everything ready. “I mean, you could just do it for the notoriety, but besides, the most famous carpenter was jesus, you could be wolf Jesus or something.” They grinned gently and tried to imagine Ariana with a tattoo on their face. “If you were going to do a face tattoo then what would you get, a soccer ball below your left eye like a tear drop?” Winston laughed gently and nodded. “I have actually watched a few youtube videos about this and they were all clear about not getting it on clothes or skin so I’ve worn old clothes and I will do everything that I can to be extra careful, but I am sure this can’t go too badly and apparently since you can’t see colour that isn’t something I have to worry about.” Winston frowned gently and sighed, it was actually called a Spinach. “OKAY, well, that sounds terrible, Spinach, a deer that I don’t want to touch and you threw knives at to kill, which by the way, why did you just HAVE knives?” 

“I like that. It’s official, my new name will be Wolf Jesus. The coolest carpenter in all the land,” Ariana said, laughing while she tried to sit still on the edge of the tub. She didn’t want to make a mess of Winston’s bathroom by getting bleach everywhere. Plus, had to be easier to get it on evenly if she wasn’t squirming around in between giggles. “Well, if I’m getting the face tattoo to fool people into thinking I’m not me, I’d have to go for something math related. Maybe the pi symbol or something even though I prefer pie of the blueberry variety.” Her expression turned more serious as she matter of factly said, “Through the Power of YouTube, all things are possible.” She cracked a smile, unable to hold the false seriousness for long, “But yeah, I’m sure it’ll look fine if you follow the instructions. Either way I’ll still be cute.” She refrained from shrugging and kept still. “Oh,” she said, realizing she hadn’t quite really filled in the gaps of that story, “They weren’t my knives. Do you know Deirdre? I was over there fixing a leaky faucet and she just kinda has the knives laying around. When the Spinach broke through the glass door to chase me back in the house, we had to do something.” 

“All hail our wolf messiah,” Winston replied with a chuckle although they were starting to regret making her laugh so much as they set to work on her hair. Bleach was a tricky mistress and Winston did not want to make a mess. “Everyone prefers pie with an ‘e’,” Winston agreed sagely, “even me who can recite Pi a lot.” They smirked gently once more as they kept working. This wasn’t that bad, maybe Winston was looking at going into the wrong field and working with hair had always been their life calling, they just hadn’t known about it. “It’s going to be completely fine,” Winston agreed as they bobbed their head and adjusted their glass, keeping working. “Deirdre?” Winston asked with a raised eyebrow, “Yeah I know Deirdre pretty well, don’t make any promises to her and if she asks for your name don’t say anything other then no and then introduce yourself. But Deirdre is nice. She’s weird but nice. But weird. So, knives don’t surprise me I guess.” 

“Why am I not surprised that you can just recite pi,” Ariana said with a smirk on her lips. The bleach stung her scalp a little bit, but she read that was normal and meant it was working. She wondered if the blonde would actually look good on her. This dye job was more about looking less like herself. But she still wanted to look cute. “It will look good. Apparently the blonde also has the added bonus of being more fun.” She messed around with her hands in her lap to help her keep her head still. Why was sitting still always such an impossible feat for her? “Oh, cool, you know her, too. Yeah, I got that I’m not supposed to make promises to her. She’s definitely a weirdo, but I kinda like that about her. Us weirdos gotta stick together and all,” she said with a half smile, before adding, “How do you know Deirdre?” 

“Because you know me well enough to know that I have absolutely nothing better to do then learn how to recite pi…” Winston wasn’t sure that they had entirely meant to make such a scathing indictment of themselves but it was too late to change things now. As they worked the bleach into the hair, Winston nodded. “Blondes have all the fun, or so I am told and I am happy to help you have all the fun, especially if it is just dying your hair.” Winston focussed on the hair as Ariana talked and nodded. “Uh, a while back when I was REALLY new to all of this there was a crab incursion I guess, giant crabs, they’re called Karkinoids, I guess something made them come onto land, Deirdre mocked me for my shitty car and then saved me from the crabs with some bones she had in her pocket. We’ve just been friends ever since, she’s actually given me some really good advice before.” 

Ariana was amused by Winston’s own joke about themself, but had to add, “It’s actually because you’re the smartest person I know.” As much was true, she admired that about them. She listened and kept still as Winston went on about how they met Deirdre. Mocking their car definitely sounded like Deirdre. When she had first started talking to Deirdre, it had rubbed her the wrong way, but she’d decided she ultimately thought Deirdre was pretty cool. The giant crab things didn’t sound cool though. “The same ones that ruined the living room? Or was this a different time? What do the giant crabs have against you? Jeez.” She paused before adding, “Making fun of your car does sound like Deirdre. She’s pretty funny. Glad she was able to make sure you weren’t crab food.”  

“God, you must really not know that many people, I can introduce you to a million people who are way smarter than me, but thanks anyway, I really appreciate the compliment though.” Winston replied with a bright smile. Pausing for a second, Winston bobbed their head in agreement. “Not the literal same ones, but yeah same sort of thing, that was all around the same sort of time, but I don’t think it was me, it was kind of raining fish and I think the fish attracted all of the monsters, it was kind of interlinked. Then there was the whole thing with the chest on the beach, and then the coins and then the darkness and now the squid in the lake, it’s like one thing after another.” Pausing for a second Winston shrugged. “Have you seen my car?” they asked with a laugh, “It is a literal piece of shit.” 

“On the other hand, I’ve lived all over this continent and have met hella people, so I stand behind my statement,” Ariana retorted, looking pleased she had stood by her point. Winston had a way of not giving themself enough credit which she was determined to break. She took her hype man duties very seriously. “Big yikes,” She remarked, there was no shortage of really bizarre things here it seemed. You’d think giant squids and crabs would take priority over werewolf, but here she was, now nearly blonde trying to stay under the radar. “Kind of glad I missed the whole fish rain thing. That’s not something you want to have a supernatural sense of smell for.” Rotting fish smelled awful, she would have spent the whole time feeling queasy. “What was the thing with the chest on the beach?” She was curious. She hadn’t heard about that one. “Hey, a piece of shit car is better than no car,” she said with a laugh. 

“Okay, again, just because you’ve actually gone other places then White Crest, you don’t need to brag about it too.” Winston was surprised at how easy they found Ariana to get along with. When you said werewolf they wouldn’t have expected it to be a laid back and relatively easy going teenager. “It’s a no from me too don’t worry,” Winston replied with a shake of their head, the whole situation was beyond bizarre, “yeah, it was kind of gross really and I almost saw someone get skewered by a falling swordfish and that was really terrifying. Death by fish, can you imagine?” Winston paused and tried to think of the best way to explain it. “So basically there was a chest on the beach,” they pulled out their phone and brought up the photos of it they’d taken showing Ariana, “no opening, just this chest, we’re pretty sure it caused the whole crab and fish rain thing, then it actually did open and everyone found these coins on the beach that made people do weird things. I was sleep walking for almost a month because of it. Kept waking up in crime scenes.”

Ariana looked satisfied as they seemed to stop pushing that they weren’t the smartest person she knew. Probably one of the kindest people she knew as well. She counted herself lucky that math and vampire watermelons brought them together. “Like, I always knew there had to be more supernatural stuff out there, but some of the things here are just wild.” She cringed inwardly at the mention of someone getting skewered by a swordfish. The mental image was unpleasant and that was coming from someone who was far from squeamish. “That sounds horrifying. Death by fish is just rude.” She looked over the photos and the chest on the beach was definitely eerie. She’d like to say she would have personally left it alone, but that would have been a lie. Ignoring her curiosity had never been her strong point. Even now, she found herself wanting to know who put the chest there and why. “Huh, that’s pretty crazy. How did you snap out of the whole sleepwalking thing? Also, like, glad you’re okay now! I’d totally punch a chest of coins for you, but somehow I doubt that’d do the trick,” she finished with a laugh. 

“Literal hellmouth underneath yours, mine n’ ours. You cannot convince me of any different and I am entirely convinced that that is the reason for all the shit in this town. That or we’ve all pissed someone very powerful off and now we’re reaping the benefits. Maybe we’re all just dead and this is our version of hell … actually on second thought I’m not sure that things are that dire … yet.” Winston was joking but they weren’t at the same time. White Crest kind of got scarier and scarier the longer that Winston was aware of everything that was going on here. “Oh, some of us worked out that if you throw your coin into the ocean then your curse kind of stops, but after the first couple of times of almost dying or being arrested due to sleepwalking I kind of started getting Ricky to lock me in my room at night. But during that time I did also get the high score for PACMAN over at the arcade, WIN is me.” They smiled somewhat proud of the fact that even in their sleep they were still sick at gaming. “I am pretty sure we’re done with the bleach, so we’ve gotta leave it right? What do you wanna do while we wait?” 

“I don’t know, I’m kind of curious to check it out,” Ariana quipped with a chuckle, “Dying to know what this town’s fascination with mimes is. Nowhere I’ve ever lived has had so many mime establishments. I always imagined hell would be more helli-ish. I don’t think fun’s allowed there.” She watched with her eyes wide as Winston explained the whole cursed coin thing. It was a relief to hear it was figured out and that Winston had made it out of the whole ordeal okay. Sleepwalking had to be dangerous and she couldn’t imagine them doing well in jail for the long term. “Jeez, what a mess. I’m glad you guys got it figured out. That was good of Ricky to look out for you. Sleepwalking like that can be dangerous. But hey, I guess at least you have the high score on PACMAN. I was never really good at that one.” She could smell the bleach doing its thing and was relieved that this part of the process was almost over. Bleach did not feel nice on your scalp. “Sweet, it needs like 15-30 minutes to sit. Sure we could find something on Netflix to fill that time” 

“It’s weird, if you do check it out, there’s like a weird thing that hangs about in the alleys, I wouldn’t want to mess around with it if I could help it.” Winston replied with a smirk. “As for the towns fetish for mimes, I’ve got to admit that I don’t get it either, it doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t understand why there is so much business specifically related to mimes. It’s probably some weird curse or some mime related portal to a mime dimension. A mimension if you will.” Winston laughed out load at their own joke and nodded. “It was a great time, I’m sad that you missed it, I also suck at the game and will never get near that high score ever again in my life. But really, who plays pac man anymore? Especially when you’re sleep walking … kind of weird in my opinion.” They nodded and pulled the door to the bathroom open. “You want a drink of tea or coffee or something?” Winston asked as they headed back downstairs.

“If that was supposed to deter me, you did a bad job. Now I’m dying to know what’s back there.” Ariana reasoned that a weird creature behind the mime establishments could be the key to whatever the hell the draw with all the mimes was. Her curiosity surrounding the mimes was only growing. “But like, I’ll be careful and make sure it’s not a death by mime deal. If I uncover their crazy mysteries, you’ll be the first to know. There’s gotta be something supernatural about it whether it’s a curse or a portal. A mimension sounds awful though. Is it just always silent?” As they headed back downstairs, Ariana was careful to keep her hair secured in a bun so that bleach didn’t get on any of Winston and Ricky’s furniture. “Tea actually sounds good right about now. I take it with just a little bit of milk and sugar. Thanks.” She took a seat on the couch and called over, “How do you feel about Chef’s Table?” 

“I’m not Celeste so if you want to take your life into your own hand and risk it over seeing a mime monstrosity then be my guest, I just wouldn’t advise it.” Winston wouldn’t ever go back to Yours, Mime n’ Ours and the weird creature that Regan had insisted on calling a cat then a dog and then a frat boy was clearly a part of that. “If it is death by mime then can you make sure your body isn’t found because I don’t want to have a film about vengeance about killing a mime, that would be the lamest action movie ever, guaranteed. But I guess it must just be a bunch of miming in your direction?” Winston wasn’t honestly sure. They were glad that somewhere like that probably just didn’t exist, that made them feel much better. “Cool, I take mine the same, can’t deal with strong tasting hot drinks I’m afraid…” they loved coffee but it had to be loaded with milk and sugar. “I’ve not watched all of it, Ricky has and he recommends it, so sure I’m down.” 

“That’s valid, but I got this. Just casually checking the restaurant out. You know, give it the sniff down,” Ariana said with a shrug. She was more worried about being arrested than she was about having to fight a mime. She was stronger and faster than she looked which usually worked to her advantage. ���I promise I won’t get killed by a mime or a mime like creature. That is not the kind of energy I want my obituary to have and I won’t make you the subject of a lame action movie.” It was amusing in theory, but she didn’t think mime revenge films were anyone’s niche. “Perfect,” she said as Winston grabbed the tea. “It’s so good! I want to go to like all of those restaurants even though they’re probably more than I could afford to spend on a single dinner, but still, everything always looks so good.” 

“Who can blame you for wanting to get a real experience of a silent mime restaurant.” Winston hadn’t even gotten to try the food. The food had to be really good. They couldn’t understand how this restaurant could exist really. White Crest was just kind of weird. “I’m more worried about what you might have to do to the mimes, I’m sure it’ll be fine, weird, but you’ll be okay.” They were sure that there were probably worse things in White Crest then mimes, probably not much, but there was almost certainly somethings that Winston couldn’t even begin to understand. “It would be really nice to eat at some of those places.” Winston agreed with a nod as they brewed the tea and grabbed mugs, adding sugar and milk to the tea before passing it across. “You tried Big Al’s yet?” Winston asked curiously.

“Plus, I haven’t heard of anywhere else to get French food in town,” Ariana joked before adding, “Don’t worry, I won’t be going to jail for assaulting a mime.” As much was probably true. It’s not like the mimes could give a proper police statement even if she did end up having to punch a mime. Somehow, that seemed pretty unlikely. She was pretty hard to sneak up on. Plus, mimes were a lot less terrifying than her real problems. She took a deep breath as Winston handed the mug to her. Tea had this sweet and earthy aroma that matched perfectly with the warmth it radiated. It really was one of those small comforts. She took a sip before she nodded. “Yeah, I love Al’s. That’s where Celeste works actually. I’m obsessed with the hangover burger and the raspberry lemon milkshake.” 

“Is French food really that good though? I’ve never got the attraction of frog or snail…” Winston wasn’t exactly the most cultured individual ever. “Good because I have some very little pull at the WCPD but that would definitely be out of my purview, not to mention that I wouldn’t be able to afford your bail.” They smirked gently at the thought. They really hoped that Ariana wasn’t about to punch a mime. Pausing for a moment, Winston quirked an eyebrow in surprise. “Really? I didn’t know that.” Maybe they’d met Celeste. Maybe not. “God, nothing will ever beat their fatboy and load fries, though the raspberry lemon milkshake is something else entirely.” 

Ariana looked at Winston with wide eyes over their remark on French food and said, “Oh my god, yes. It’s not so much about the proteins as it is about just the overall technique and mastery of sauces that goes into French cuisine. It’s definitely not primarily frogs or escargot, you have things like Steak Tartare and Bouillabaisse which are very technical dishes but hella delicious. Even the desserts are just super complex and tasty.” She laughed a bit as she realized she may have come off a little strong over food of all things, “Sorry, I watch a lot of cooking shows and love food a lot.” She realized she maybe shouldn’t have mentioned the mime thing, but shrugged, “No worries, no bailing out will be necessary.” She nodded and said, “Yep, you’ve probably seen her there.” She pulled her phone out and showed them a picture of Celeste, “That’s Celeste. She’s also a big fan of the loaded fries, but like, who isn’t?” 

“You’re really into that cooking stuff?” Winston asked surprised, “I’ll be honest, I’ve never been much of a cook and as long as something tastes good and doesn’t kill me I don’t really care. Do you cook yourself then? You seem to be a bit of an expert on cuisine.” Winston smiled, impressed by the knowledge that Ariana was able to display. She really did seem to know her stuff. “You shouldn’t apologise for being into stuff, nowadays no one is passionate about things, they just pretend they don’t care because that seems cooler and it is really boring. I’d rather someone gave a fuck and acted like it.” Smiling once more, Winston glanced at the photo of Celeste and shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t recognise her, but I’m looking forward to meeting her eventually, she seems almost as cool as you.” 

“Yeah, specifically cooking, not baking. Was kind of born out of needing to cook for ourselves paired with the fact I usually catch some sort of game once a month,” Ariana responded proudly, “I do cook pretty regularly and love trying new dishes. Love eating them even more. I may be small, but I exercise a lot so my appetite is literally endless.” She laughed at the last part and nodded in agreement, “You’re right, not giving a shit about anything is totally lame. Plus, being my friend you benefit from me being an awesome cook.” She figured there was only a small chance that they would have seen Celeste and remembered it, especially with how erratic her schedule was. “You’ll meet her one of these days. She’s pretty cool. A little more on the serious side, but she’s like an adult adult.” 

“Damn, okay, cooking not baking, okay, I can deal, that’s really cool though, especially if it is your own kill. I’m not pro-blood sports y’know but I don’t know this feels kind of different.” Winston wasn’t a bad cook or anything like that, they just weren’t a pro but they could do a pretty good job most of the time. “Exactly, if you’re going to provide me with free food and you’re going to give me a reason to keep being your friend then I’ll be more then happy.” Winston gave her a bright smile as they settled into their couch with their mug of tea. Taking a sip from it before smiling and nodding. “I’m sure we’ll get on great, besides, I work at the police station so you know, I can do the adult adult bit if I need to. Believe it or not; the f-word can be removed from some of my sentences.” Winston knew they had a tendency to swear when startled.

“There’s definitely a huge difference between fresh and store-bought. I’m not into hunting for the sport of it- like you know, trophy hunting, but I’m wolfed out once a month and I actually eat what I kill, so feels kinda different,” Ariana said with a shrug. As far as she was concerned, there were a lot worse things she could be doing with her natural predator instincts. With a laugh, she added, “Yep, you can definitely count on me to feed you and provide my top of the line hype man services. I’m also great at running to the store to get doughnuts.” She nodded along in agreement and relished in the warmth radiating off her mug of tea. There was no doubt that Celeste would be a fan of Winston. They were smart, kind, and a pretty good influence. What was there not to like? “Even with the f-bombs, I’m sure she’d be a fan.” She fought with the urge to touch her hair. Her scalp felt like it was tingling and she knew the smell was strong, even by human standards. Instead, she focused on finding Chef’s Table on Netflix. When she pressed play and noticed it was one of her favorite episodes, she exclaimed, “Oh, this one is so good! I have Magnus’ cookbook. He recently closed his restaurant, but the cuts of beef he gets look amazing.” 

[theskyeandsea]

A Little Melon-choly || Orion & Skylar

Location: The Common & Skylar’s Apartment

TW List: Chronic Illness and Abuse Mentions

Notes: Just happy fun times at the farmer’s market! calcifires Today at 2:44 PM watermelons wouldnt be in season in Maine but YA KNOW swampfoxx Today at 2:45 PM Listen they're vampire watermelons so its DIFFERENT

The farmer’s market. It wasn’t exactly Orion’s style, but Orion had been sent off by the family to grab groceries. Since he was spending more time at home than usual due to the whole sun not rising ordeal, he was available to be sent off for errands. This seemed like a purposeful ploy. His mom was constantly on him to cut out all the soda and snack foods that he indulged in. So she made up a list and sent him off with strict instructions to return so she could start dinner. Admittedly, he preferred this over being forced to ride along with his parents to something like this. He was happy to hear that she had other plans. So instead, Orion found himself moving from cart to cart, smiling awkwardly at each vendor as he marked his mom’s list off one by one. As he fell into the groove of it, he was almost able to forget how cold it was outside, but every now and then a breeze would blow through and he would get the painful reminder. He shuddered, rubbing at his arms to create some friction against the long sleeves. Unsurprisingly, the list was in order with the setup of the farmer’s market. His mom was way too prepared. He was practically done with his list, only two things left when he spotted a familiar face. From the looks, she spotted him too. His heart immediately began to race, and Orion’s breathing get heavier and faster. He should probably just keep walking on. Give her some space. Clearly she wanted nothing to do with him. He didn’t blame her. But the two were close enough now that it would have been even worse to not saying anything at all. “Uh…. hey there.” He mumbled nervously and waved, “How’s it going?” This couldn’t get any more awkward.

While Skylar didn’t typically go to the farmers market, she figured that it was about time for her to get out of the house and do something, anything to stave off the impending bout of… seal symptoms. The endless night was wearing thin on her and it would be for the best if she went outside, got some fresh air, and talked to some people. So, she took one of her reusable grocery bags and headed out to look at a bunch of produce that she really couldn’t eat. The nice thing about the farmer’s market was that it meant a lot of people were out and about, with plenty of floodlights to spare. Safety and numbers meant the little bottle of holy water in her pocket would probably go unused. She’d started keeping some on her ever since Nic had dropped off his ridiculous shipment of holy water at her apartment. If he thought things were dangerous now, she was going to listen to that advice. Walking from stall to stall, Skylar smiled politely as she looked at the bundles of vegetables and things that she… couldn’t eat. This wasn’t one of her better ideas. As she looked over a few of the stalls, her eyes locked with someone familiar-- her breath caught in the back of her throat. Rio. As he walked up, Skylar’s back straightened and she stared at the weird fruits in the stall in front of them. “Hi. It’s going.” She said stiffly, “What about you?” She asked, not looking him in the eye.

Well this was definitely awkward. Orion should have listened to his gut and skipped the stand. He needed a few things from the same stall that Skylar was currently at. He figured it was better to get the pleasantries out of the way now. As awkward as this was, Orion felt it would be more awkward to just remain silent and continue to run into each other throughout the market. So Orion would bite the bullet and just say hello. What was the worst that could happen? “That’s good. Or well.. It’s alright. I guess.” He muttered, readjusting the hat on his head. He didn’t normally wear baseball caps, but the brim helped to hide the fading black eye. Not that he had much to hide about it. The story behind how he got it was more embarrassing than incriminating. “But uh I’m fine. I uh- didn’t know you shopped here often.” The translation? He didn’t know she could eat any of this stuff. But maybe in smaller doses and if paired with enough meat she would be fine. From what Orion had learned, Selkies were mostly carnivores. “Sorry- I am just here to grab a few things. Then I’ll be out of your hair.

“Mhm.” Skylar hummed, her lips pressed tightly together as she stared at the fruit in front of her. Wow, they looked really weird… like she didn’t normally pay attention to how fruits and vegetables looked, but these definitely seemed a bit odd? She couldn’t quite put her finger on why they seemed odd. Glancing over at Rio, she saw the way he shifted the hat on his head, and her eyes widened as she saw the slight discoloration around his eye. Gasping, she dropped her cold facade and stared at them. “Are you okay? What happened to you?” She asked, glossing over his pleasantries. They both knew that she didn’t belong here, in the farmers market. They didn’t really need to beat around the bush. “No, you’re fine. I’m just looking anyways.” She said, the words earning her a scowl from one of the vendors not far away.

Orion was all too aware how Skylar could barely make eye contact with him. She was focusing way too hard on the fruits on the stand, apparently trying anything to avoid looking over at Rio. He understood why. It was best now to just swoop in awkwardly next to her, grab the selection of fruits and then disappear and stop bothering her. But unfortunately, Skylar risked a glance at him and noticed the eye. “What? Oh, this?” Orion laughed nervously, pointing at the bruise and wincing slightly at the pain. He tried to keep a calm and collected demeanor. At the end of the day, it legitimately wasn’t that serious of an injury. “Yeah I’m fine. Seriously. I didn’t even get it in a cool way.” He admitted, readjusting his baseball cap again more on reflex than anything else, “I uh- tripped…. Down a hill.” He shrugged, “And I realize that sounds fake. But like legitimately. I was with someone who could vouch for me. I was walking backwards and I tripped and rolled down a hill and smacked my face against a tree root.” He started laughing, for real this time at the hilarity of his own ineptitude, “Pretty lame, right?” He moved closer in her direction, careful to move slowly. “Right, right. Sorry. It’s not my business anyways. I just gotta grab a few things.”

“Are you sure? That sounds…” Skylar’s voice petered off before she could finish the thought, but Rio had already answered the question. It sounded like a convenient story, but the way he was laughing seemed like it was real? Maybe? Glancing at his body language, she pursed her lips-- she wasn’t familiar enough with him to get a good enough read on him just yet, but he seemed like he was telling the truth. And, if their experiences at the failed anime night was anything to go off of, he wasn’t a terribly calm liar. “No problem, I’ll get out of your way.” She said, walking away from the stand. But, before she left, Skylar stopped and looked at some particularly odd items in the stall. For one thing… what were watermelons doing here? It was March, watermelons couldn’t be in season yet. For another-- “Uh, Rio…” She said, eyes widening as the fruit appeared to move and shudder. “You should get away from there.” Before he could respond, Skylar watched as the watermelon began to growl and rolled menacingly out of the stand. “Shit!”

Skylar didn’t seem to believe Orion, but he could hardly blame her. It wasn’t like Rio had a squeaky clean image of honesty to go off of. His entire life had been spent lying. Honesty was definitely a virtue of his. “Trust me, it was way more embarrassing in person than it is telling the story, and that’s saying something. I ran into this guy in the woods and we were attacked by this… I don’t know.” Okay that part was partially a lie, but Skylar had been freaked out enough during anime night. He didn’t need to go into detail on the vampire creature that had attacked them. “And I freaked out and fell down the hill.” There we go, full story out. “Oh- Sorry I didn’t mean you had to like leave or-” But Skylar was already walking away. Orion sighed and cursed himself for being so. Dang. awkward. But all he could do was try to shake it off and grab what he needed from the stand. But then he heard Skylar’s voice again, shakingly saying his name. He glanced over, seeing her staring pretty uneasily at a group of watermelon. “I can’t imagine that would be very good right now. Not in March.” But then he noticed it, the thing moved. And… did it just growl at Skylar? “Holy-” He began only to be interrupted when the watermelon began rolling towards Skylar. And along with that, it looked like more started to wake up as well. He eyed Skylar nervously, “Uh Skylar I think we should go. I don’t really need zucchini that badly anyways.”

“Yup, one hundred percent.” Skylar nodded, backing away. But, as she started to move away from the stall, another watermelon, then another, began to fall off the stall and roll towards her. Oh god. Why was this happening, why did this sort of thing always happen to her? Before she could continue her mental pity party, one of the watermelons lunged at her, the widest part opening up to reveal rows of teeth and a bright red center that seemed to be almost… bloody? “No, no, no, no, no!” She shrieked, running away from farmers market, pursued by a small fleet of rolling watermelons that followed her across the open grass of The Common. “Rio! What are these things?” She shouted over her shoulder, hoping that he was still with her. She hadn’t really bothered to check to see if he was running behind her, what with the awful watermelons hot on her heels. 

Orion followed quickly behind Skylar. The things weren’t incredibly fast, but there were a lot of them. And they seemed to come pouring out from other booths to join the group. Others around the market were screaming, the collective noises stinging at his ear drums as they all flooded against his senses at once. Curse hunter senses. He shut his eyes tightly and tried to find some way to drown at the noises, but that only succeeded to distract him long enough that he lost his footing and fell forward, crashing into the grass and rolling. He pushed himself back up pretty quickly, but had noticed a distance growing between himself and Skylar. And some of those things were still following right behind her. He began running again, “I- I don’t know!” He screamed over to Skylar. That was the worst part of all this. He didn’t know what they were. Or where they come from. Only that they seemed to have fangs and clearly had a thing for humans and seemed to have red spots dripping from their centers. Was it blood? The smell of the food from the farmer’s market made it too hard to narrow down any particular scent. And he was too busy running to stop and touch the red liquid for himself. “Where’s your car? We need to get somewhere safe!”

Why were there always weird, terrible things trying to eat her or drown her or just kill her? Skylar didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought as she continued to run away from the rapidly rolling watermelons. And this time, it wasn’t even something that could legitimately be called scary-- these were just watermelons with giant flipping teeth. “You don’t know?” She shrieked, incredulous. He knew about selkies but he didn’t know about demon fruit? Great, just gr-- One of the vampires snapped at her pant leg, tearing a chunk of fabric from the cuff of her jeans. Stumbling forward, she did her best to keep her balance and continue running. Jesus. This sucked, this sucked, all of this sucked. “My car? It’s-- it’s over there!” She said, point to where her Honda Civic was parked across the way of the Common. “Run!”

Orion hated not knowing what these things were. He didn’t like not knowing things in general, but it seemed especially bad when those things he didn’t know about tried to kill him. “I- It’s not something that-” What was Orion trying to say there? He couldn’t tell Skylar that his family only made him study things that they wanted him to kill. That’s where all of his former knowledge came from after all. Since then, Orion has been studying what he could at the Scribe Headquarters but fruit wasn’t exactly something that he had been trying to read about. Apparently he should have been. “I didn’t know fruit could attack people!” He yelled again, eying the watermelon open itself up, exposing fangs and chomping down at Skylar’s leg. Orion’s heart jumped and he gasped before realizing that it had only gotten her pants and not her leg. He breathed a short sigh of relief and eyed the area where she pointed towards where her car was. He veered towards that direction, heading off towards the car when his foot caught into something on the ground. Maybe a hole, maybe a bump. It didn’t matter much. Only that he could feel his ankle twist and he fell forward. He raised his arms to try to cushion the fall, but his elbows hit the ground hard and he rolled forward. His face, down in the grass, the next thing he felt was a searing pain in his arm. He yelled out, looking up to find his right arm with a watermelon biting into it, and hard. Blood poured from his arm and his jacket was torn. Orion’s fist clenched as he cried out in pain and he pulled his left arm free from under his body. With one strong blow, Orion brought his fist down onto the watermelon and crushed it entirely, watermelon guts and presumably Orion’s blood splattering off from it. Orion pulled his injured arm free and pushed himself away. His breath catching in his throat as he processed the pain. It was a watermelon. It doesn’t matter that he crushed it. He hadn’t murdered a freaking watermelon. “Keep running!” Orion yelled, hoping that Skylar wasn’t going to try to help him. He pushed up again and began running towards the car again, cradling his injured arm in the other. 

Her heart was pounding in her ears, her lungs felt like they were going to explode out of her chest, and she honestly felt sick to her stomach from the combination of adrenaline and running. Panting heavily, Skylar was dimly aware of the loud thump behind her, but she thought it was just one of the watermelons-- maybe it had decided to stop chasing after them? But then she heard Rio’s yell of pain. Looking over her shoulder, she was startled to see a watermelon latched onto his arm, fangs embedded into his flesh. But, what caught her even more off guard was when Rio brought his hand down and obliterated the watermelon. Chunks of watermelon flesh and possibly real flesh soaked the ground. Before she could comment on it, Rio had already gotten back up to his feet and was running her way again. Bolting to the car, she grabbed her keys from her pocket and clicked the unlock button, the lights flashing to alert her that the car was open. Throwing open the side door for Rio, she jumped in the drivers seat, slamming her door shut. A heavy thud slammed into her car door as a watermelon threw itself into against the metal. “Get in, get in, get in!” She said to the man, as she jammed her car keys in the ignition. 

All Orion could think about was the pain shooting through his arm. He tried to ignore it, as his feet hit the pavement and drew closer and closer to Skylar’s car. The pain was temporary. He was luckier than many. His arm would bleed for now, but it would quickly slow down. And before long the only evidence that he was ever injured in the first place would be dried blood and a torn hoodie. He ran towards the car, a watermelon rolling smashing into the door as Skylar jumped in. They were surrounding the driver’s side now, and Orion leaped, hitting the trunk of the car and siding over it, and throwing the door open. He pulled his hoodie over his head and used it to wrap around his bleeding arm, careful to avoid dripping any in Skylar’s car. He didn’t speak for a long moment while he tried to regain his breath, but finally looked over at Skylar. “Thank you. Oh god. What the heck were those things?”

As soon as Rio was inside, Skylar threw the car into drive and pressed the gas pedal, urging her Honda Civic down the road. Her front tire smacked into something that gave with a loud popping noise-- she must have squished one of the weird watermelon things? Glancing back in her rear view, she saw that Rio was clutching his arm into his chest. “I-- I have no idea. Demon watermelons? Evil, cannibal watermelons?” She guessed, adrenaline still coursing through her veins as she tried to calm her nerves. Checking the road behind her, Skylar was relieved to see that no rogue watermelons were chasing after them. At least there was that. As she took another look back at Rio, she noticed… scars. Lots of scars, bruises, some faded, others fresh, covering his arms. Those couldn’t have been from just now, right? Pushing the thoughts from her mind, she focused on the road in front of her. “Are you okay? Did they get you? Do you want me to take you to the hospital? Or, I-- I’ve got a first aid kit at my apartment, would that be enough?” She offered, hoping Rio would take the offer for help. That wound couldn’t be good.

Orion was trying to hold back tears from falling down his face. The last thing he needed to do was cry in front of Skylar too. Hadn’t he caused enough stress in her life? He thought after all these years that he would have at least built up a tolerance to pain, but apparently that wasn’t true. The only thing that helped him get his mind off of it was theorizing about the watermelons. “I wonder if they were watermelons at all.” Could they have been some kind of shape shifters? It didn’t seem likely. Watermelons may have been a good disguise at a farmer’s market initially, but it hardly seemed effective to stay in that form while hunting prey. It seemed more likely that Skylar was right. They were some kind of cannibalistic watermelon. Which begged another question. Were they alive? That… thing that Orion had smashed. Had it been alive? “I mean- they obviously were watermelon I just… I don’t know. I wish I knew.” He had been staring up at the roof of the car, his eyes closed as he tried to not dwell on the pain or the situation. He heard Skylar asking about his arm, the concern apparent in her voice. Or maybe it was just fear. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on Orion’s part. “Huh? Oh no. This is fine. He didn’t bite very deep. It’s just a surface wound.” Orion lied. But he had no other choice. He couldn’t let Skylar try to treat him or take him to the hospital. How would he explain it when the bite marks closed by the end of the night? “I just wrapped it to make sure that I didn’t bleed on your car.” Orion forced laughter, trying to make himself sound more light hearted than he felt. He raised his hand into a thumbs up towards her to prove just how great he was. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized what he had done when he took the hoodie off to stop the bleeding. His arms. His scars. Out in public. He quickly moved to bury his free arm under the wrapped on, trying to hide as much of it as possible. “You can just uh- drop me off. If you could. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“If they weren’t watermelon at all? What, like some kind of magic illusion?” Skylar asked, trying to process what that could mean. Whatever it was, it had felt pretty real to her, between with her ripped pant leg and Rio’s arm. Those were some pretty scary illusions if they weren’t real. “It’s, it’s okay. I mean, I don’t know any of this at all. I just-- I’m just trying to figure things out.” She said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. As she spun the wheel in a less than controlled turn, she realized her hands were slick with slime. Grimacing, she wiped her palms on her jeans. They were already ruined, she might as well. “If it’s just a surface wound, why are you wrapping your arm like that? I’m not-- I’m not going to just ditch you.” She said, shaking her head. “At least let me get some neosporin and a bandage on it. Please?” Skylar asked, making eye contact with him through the rearview mirror, hoping that it would convince him. Ultimately, if he said no, she would let him leave. But… as much as she hated what Rio had done, she didn’t hate him. She just hated the way he’d gone about things. She wasn’t going to punish him, that wasn’t who she was. “It’s your choice, but, please, Rio. Let me help.”

“No- no. I think they were definitely real.” Orion answered Skylar, still trying to theorize. Pull anything from his brain that may help him connect some dots and determine what those things actually were. But between the pain and his arm and the now near panic attack that may or may not be building up in him, nothing was coming to mind. He wasn’t good under pressure, never has been. “You deserve your answers. Whatever they are. I’d like to help.” He tried to find a moment of peace within this conversation. But right now he was stuck. He needed to get out of this car, to make up some excuse to get away. But he didn’t want to push Skylar any farther away than he already had. He just wished that he could be normal. So that none of this was an issue in the first place. “Yeah- F-fine. But I don’t want to bleed all over your apartment.” She didn’t mention the scars. Honestly, he didn’t know which was more awkward. But he was pretty sure he would prefer it if they never spoke about it. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t tripped this wouldn’t have been an issue.”

“Mmmmmmm.” Skylar hummed, tapping her hands anxiously against the steering wheel. Now that she was away from the watermelons, that she’d had the chance to catch her breath, her shoulders began to shudder, slight shivers running down her spine. Nope, nope, no. This was fine, this was okay, this was… it was gonna be okay. When Rio relented, she let out a sigh and nodded. They could go back to her place, get his arm treated, and then she could freak out. No freaking out right now, nope, nope. She was going to be calm. She didn’t even get hurt, Rio was the one who’d been hurt. “It’s not your fault, none of this is your fault.” She said as she pulled down the road to her apartment. Zipping through the parking lot, she pulled in and shut off the car, hurrying out to open the door for him. Her fingers slipped off the door handle on the first time, still covered in slime, but she managed to get the door open on the second try. Hoping he didn’t comment on that, she nodded. “C’mon, let’s get inside. I think my roommate’s at work, so we should be okay.” She said, praying that was the case. She didn’t need to deal with more questions…

Orion didn’t realize that they had arrived at Skylar’s until he heard the passenger side door being opened. He perked up immediately, realizing it was Skylar opening the door for him. He had blacked out? That seemed a bit over the top, considering Orion was plenty familiar with pain. Though he didn’t have a lot of experience with being bitten by a watermelon. His vision was blurry at first and he had to force himself to move so that he could see again. He climbed out of the car, mumbling a “Thanks” to Skylar and eyeing the slime on the car handle. Despite how fuzzy he felt, his hunter senses were working overtime to keep him aware. He could hear the slime dripping from the handle onto the pavement. “Cool. Cool.” He nodded, following Skylar inside. He remembered her place, almost fondly. It had been at least. At the beginning. He followed behind Skylar, following closely behind to make sure that he didn’t stray anywhere she didn’t want him. He owed that much to her.

When Rio stepped out of the back of the car, Skylar’s eyebrows knitted together in concern. He didn’t look good-- how much had he bled? Looking at the sweatshirt wrapped around his arm, she saw that there was quite a lot of blood. Much more than he’d let on. Oh god. How was he even standing? “Here, wait.” She said, lifting his good arm over her shoulder. He was a little shorter than her, but that made it easier for her to help him up the stairs to her apartment. Just one step at a time. Her keys were already in her hand and she managed to fit them in the lock on the first time. At least she had that going for her right now. Moving inside, she shut the door with her foot before walking Rio over to one of the chairs in the kitchen. “Sit tight, okay. The first aid kit is in the bathroom. Give a shout if you start to feel, um… worse?” She asked before hurrying down the hall. 

The second she stepped inside, Skylar let out a shuddering breath, shoulders shaking. Rio had gotten hurt. Rio was badly hurt. This was, this was the first time since the Karkinoid attack on the beach that she’d seen one of her friends get hurt like this. And that had happened far away from her-- she hadn’t fully seen everything that had happened to Remmy. Gripping the basin of the sink, Skylar stared at the drain, trying to steady herself. “This is fine, this is fine, this is fine.” She mumbled to herself. Except none of this felt fine. Splashing some cold water on her face, Skylar looked up in the mirror, catching sight of the exhausted, strained young woman that stared back at her. Had she always looked this tired? Or was this just the toll White Crest had taken on her. She swallowed thickly before grabbing the first aid kit from the cabinet. Walking back into the kitchen, she offered a tense smile. “Hey, how are you doing?”

Orion didn’t argue when Skylar stepped in to help guide him into her home.  It was pathetic, how he was acting. It was an arm wound, it was hardly anything that serious. It hadn’t even hurt that badly when it first happened, though he may have adrenaline to thank for that. His family would be laughing at him if they knew. Oh god. The thought of his parents reminded him that he was out in public, with a short sleeve shirt on. That wasn’t good. But there was nothing to do about it now. The damage had been done. Skylar had seen them, and Orion needed to figure out what he was going to say when the time came. 

He fell into the chair that Skylar offered and rested his injured arm on the kitchen table. After Skylar left, Orion pressed his forehead against the kitchen table and stared at the darkness that remained between himself and the wood. The tear dripped from his eyes before he could think to stop them. It wasn’t much, just a few stray tears. But it was enough to force him to start sniffling and it was enough to embarrass himself to death. He could hear the water running in the bathroom, could hear that Skylar was talking to herself, though he tried to force himself against listening to the words. Eventually, he heard the water stop and Skylar making her way back into the kitchen. When she asked how he was, he raised his good arm up and gave a thumbs up as an answer. When he could manage it, he finally sat back up and looked at Skylar. “I’m super fantastic. I don’t want to get blood on your kitchen.”

When Skylar saw the tears that had trailed down his cheeks, her heart broke for him. He was just as overwhelmed by this as she was, wasn’t he? And there wasn’t anything she could really do to help. “Mhmmmm. Well, do you mind taking the sweatshirt off? I don’t really know about first aid, but I know that you should clean a wound out just so it doesn’t get infected.” She said as she opened up the first aid kit. Her hands were shaking as she undid the latches, but she did her best not to let the slight tremors show. Pulling out a couple alcohol swabs, the neosporin, and a roll of bandages, she set them on the kitchen table and waited for him patiently. Now that they were face to face, she could see that the scars and injuries that covered his skin were more than she’d initially noticed. What… what had happened to him? 

Orion immediately used his free hand to wipe away any tears from his face. If he survived today and didn’t die from embarrassment it would be a miracle. “Oh. Right. Of course.” He smiled, slowly unwrapping the sweatshirt from his arm. He grimaced as the blood made it stick to his skin, and he had to peel it from his skin. In hindsight, the wound already seemed to look marginally better than it had when it first happened, a sign that the healing had already started. But this was fine. It was still bad enough that Skylar could treat it, wrap it up and then Orion could leave and no one would be the wiser when the thing healed before the weekend. Especially since he was never leaving the house again without making sure he had a long sleeve shirt under the hoodie. Or two. Once the arm was completely exposed, Orion looked up at the ceiling and shut his eyes. If he didn’t focus on the pain, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so badly. “I promise I won’t whine too much. Do whatever you need.” He mumbled, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. The alcohol burned like no other, but Orion gritted his teeth and tried not to make a noise. When he felt like he needed a distraction, he spoke. “Can I ask you a question?” He prefaced, before leading into it. “What causes the uh- the slime. Do you always do that? Or does something else cause it?”

Watching as he unwound the sweatshirt back, Skyler winced at the sight of the bite mark-- it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be, though, which was a relief. If it was any worse, she’d insist on driving him to the hospital, or at least urgent care. Taking the alcohol wipes, she began to dab around the wound, cleaning off the blood and doing her best to make the process as quick as possible. She’d seen nurses do things like this before, when her sister had taken a bad spill during cheer practice and had needed to be patched up. “No, no, you’re fine. I’m just sorry that you got hurt.” She said, hoping that talking would help him through the pain. Setting aside the alcohol wipes, she opened the tube of Neosporin and spread a layer on some gauze before pressing it gently over the wound. “Oh. Um,” She hesitated for a moment. She still didn’t trust Rio, not fully. But… how could she really say that when he was here, bleeding in her kitchen, after having been bitten up by some cannibal watermelon? “It happens when I get nervous. Or scared. And when I need to change.” She said, not looking at him as she unwrapped the bandage and began to wind it around his arm. 

This was better than going to a hospital, Orion could at least confirm that. They would want to take IV’s and that meant needles in his arms which meant questions. He would take this over that any day. Honestly, the scariest part of today was that Orion dropped the groceries he was supposed to be picking up for his mom. How was he going to explain that? “Thanks, but obviously not your fault. I’m just clumsy.” He shrugged, jumping at a particularly ill placed dab of alcohol that really stung at one of the bite marks. “Sorry, sorry. It just stung.” He listened to Skylar explain the situation to him. Well, the first two definitely made sense. Considering the situation. “Right. That makes sense.” He nodded his head, longer than needed, because he was awkward. “I uh- I read that you can get sick right? If you don’t change?” He asked again. He was genuinely curious, though considering their history maybe this wasn’t the best topic of conversation. “Sorry- sorry. None of my business. We can change the subject.”

“Don’t blame yourself. It’s not anyone’s fault. Except for the crazy guy who was selling evil watermelons.” Skylar said with a shake of her head. Why were those things even out at the farmer’s market anyway? When he jolted at the sting of alcohol, she backed off immediately. But, he seemed okay over all? She continued to clumsily wrap the wound, her fingers unused to the task. Medical stuff wasn’t her forte. If anything, she’d usually been the one receiving treatment. Getting tested by specialists and seeing doctors and having them try and figure out what was wrong with her. When really… the only thing wrong with her was that her parents weren’t telling the truth. At Rio’s question, Skylar’s lips pursed together in a thin line and she focused on tying off the bandage. “Mhm. That’s what happens, apparently.” She said. She didn’t want to think about this right now, but if he was bringing it up… If his research could tell him this much, maybe he could help her figure out a way to be normal. How to undo this… situation.

Skylar brought up a good point. Orion had to wonder how those things showed up at the farmer’s market in the first place. She had to be right- someone brought those things there on purpose. Did someone… grow those things? Had they brought them there with the sole purpose of setting them free on unsuspecting bystanders like Orion and Skylar? And Orion shouldn’t have been unsuspecting- he knows about the supernatural. He should have known about what those things were. If he was a real Scribe, he would have known. Orion understood that look that Skylar had. The two seemed to feel similarly about themselves. The hatred of what they were. He just wished Skylar didn’t feel that way about herself. He would need to do more research. Maybe the more he learned about Selkies, the more he could teach Skylar. In turn she would stop hating what she was. Maybe. “Well… seriously I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me. I can help clean up and then I promise to get out of your hair.”

“It’s okay. I’m happy to help, when I can.” Skylar said, gesturing to the sloppily wrapped bandage. “I’m not… good at this kind of first aid stuff, but maybe I should take some classes or something. With how often people are getting hurt, it might not be a bad idea.” She said with a sigh. The adrenaline had faded from her body and it had left her exhausted. Tiredness seeped into her bones and she was on her last legs. Slumping back in her chair, Skylar rested her head in her hands. “You don’t need to do anything, you’re good, honestly. I can get this stuff taken care of by myself.” She said with a weary smile. She’d get it all figured out, she’d handle the mess, and then she’d take a nice long shower and go to bed. It wasn’t even technically night time yet, but she just needed this day to be over.

Orion laughed, though there wasn’t much humor in it, “Yeah, well. We shouldn’t have to be good at first aid stuff. If this town would just give us a break every now and again.” His arm still hurt, though he had to admit that it felt better now that it had been cleaned and wasn’t wrapped in a sweatshirt. “But I may be able to show you a few things. I’m not an expert or anything, but my dad’s a doctor. He’s shown me a few things.” Not many things that he ever wanted to see or do again, but the first aid may come in handy. At least long enough to get someone to a hospital. He couldn’t tell if Skyar didn’t want to burden Rio or if she wanted him gone. Rio didn’t blame her of course, it was just hard to tell. He pushed himself up from the kitchen table. “I wouldn’t mind or anything but.. I get it. I can head out.” He stood there for a moment longer. Something puzzled him. She really wasn’t going to ask about the scars? It was driving him crazy, the unknown. Skylar had seen them. What was she thinking? He was heading towards the door, ready to escape when he couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m trying to learn self defense.” The lie came to him way easier than it should have, but then again Rio was also trying to be prepared when it came to stuff like this. “With… this town I thought it would be good. Clearly I’m not very good at it right now.”

“Mm. It’d be nice if it would…” Skylar sighed. “But, it seems like it’s just been one thing after another. First weird blood puddles, then fish rain, then the giant lobsters and the stupid chest on the beach with the eyeball in it. And now endless night time.” She shook her head. How were all of these things that had happened? How were any of these things she’d just said real? Her life had turned into some crazy fantasy novel and she honestly just wanted it to go back to normal. “Really? You don’t need to do that, I might just sign up for like… a Red Cross class or something.” She said, shaking her head. As she slumped back in her chair, Skylar stared listlessly in front of her. She wasn’t actually looking at anything, not intentionally. But, when Rio blurted out words, she realized that it probably looked like she’d been staring at him. At his arms. “Huh? Oh. Okay. That’s cool.” She said, slightly confused by his sudden outburst.

Orion just nodded along as Skylar rattled off each thing that had happened in town just since the beginning of the year. It was a long list… one that he hadn’t realized just how heavy the last few months had been until she listed it all together in one neat bullet pointed sentence. “Wow. Yeah. When you say it that way it almost sounds like the town’s not normal.” He tried for a nervous smile. Considering their situation it wasn’t exactly time for jokes, but Ricky had helped Rio see that some light heartedness was good in dark situations. If only Rio’s jokes didn’t fall so flat so often. He supposed that he lacked the confidence. “I mean I’m obviously not an expert or anything. I’m not a pre-med major like my sister. I mean I was. That was my original plan. But I changed course. Sorry that’s not important.” He shook his head, backtracking, “Red Cross is definitely more qualified to teach you this stuff. But the basics I have down pretty well.” Skylar seemed confused by Rio’s outburst which was… peculiar. Had she really planned on not asking him about it? If so, he had practically outed himself which was embarrassing. “I- uh. Sorry. I just saw you looking and didn’t want you to think that I uh like… did it to myself or something. So… okay. Sorry. I can leave now.”

“Definitely not normal.” Skylar echoed, the joke in his voice lost to her. All of the energy she’d been able to muster had been drained from her in the last hour, which made just sitting up a chore. And it was difficult to try and parse together Rio’s words, even with her hearing aids. “Mhm. I think I’ll look into the Red Cross. Thanks, though.” She said with a small smile. As he continued to talk, Skylar realized that he thought she’d been oggling his arms, staring at him-- she hadn’t meant to. She just hadn’t realized that she was even staring off like that. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m--” She shook her head, “I’m just really tired. I was zoning out there.” As Rio offered to leave, a minor feeling of relief made its way through the haze of exhaustion. “That’d be… for the best.” She said with a nod. The second he left, Skylar flopped down face first in bed. Rolling over, she mumbled into her pillow, “I hate farmers markets.”

[niksixx]

Daddy’s Girl

Requested: Yes, by an Anon!

Pairing: The Dirt!Tommy Lee x Reader

Description: You and Tommy have a 3 year old, but you’re not together. The baby takes a liking to your new boyfriend and Tommy is jealous/hurt because he feels like he misses out on his daughter’s life.

Warning: Language, angst

P.S. Skylar is mentioned, so let’s pretend this is set in the past.

*Picture is NOT mine. Found on Google. Credit to the owner.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Momma, can Mike buy me the pink cotton candy?” asked Everly, your three year old daughter. Her brown eyes were bright with excitement, reminding you so much of her father. “Pretty please?”

Bending down to kiss her cheek, you grinned up at your boyfriend Mike. Mike loved Everly like she were his own, and it melted your heart to know that Everly took such a liking to your boyfriend of five months.

“I’m sure Mike would love to get you the cotton candy,” you said, shooting your boyfriend a wink. You and Mike had opted to take Everly out for the day and seeing that a carnival was in town, you decided it’d be the perfect time for some family bonding.

“Come on, Mikey,” Everly said, pulling Mike’s hand in the direction of the cotton candy stand. “I want the biggest cotton candy ever!” Chuckling, you watched as a helpless Mike was dragged by an overly eager Everly, another trait she shared with her father, Tommy Lee.

When you’d met Tommy, you thought he was the perfect man. And he was, until the drugs and alcohol kicked in. You’d gotten pregnant only seven months into your relationship, and Mötley was only halfway done the tour they’d been on at the time. For the first leg of the tour, Tommy had been fine. It was when the second half started, the drinking became a huge issue, but you could tolerate the alcohol.

The drugs slithered into Tommy’s life when Everly turned two. He did his best to hid them from you, but Tommy wasn’t as clever as he thought. You’d found a small bag filled with white powder shoved inside his sock drawer, and you left him that night and stayed with your best friend, with Everly in tow.

By the time Tommy had gotten out of rehab, you had already been dating Mike. Tommy of course, refused to approve of your ‘lame’ boyfriend, as he’d say. You defended Mike religiously, but even so you had to agree that Mike was not like any of the other men you dated, especially Tommy. Tommy was wild, carefree, and fun. Mike was the polar opposite of Tommy, an engineer who enjoyed numbers and Animal Planet, with a buzz cut and thick black glasses, but he treated you well and adored your baby girl. You couldn’t ask for anything else.

Tommy of course was livid that you’d opted for joint custody, but when you reminded him that total custody was a thing (and was usually awarded to the mother) he shut up faster than he had opened his mouth. Instead of fighting, Tommy did his best to brush it off, but he hated only seeing his little girl two weekends out of four.

And sometimes he didn’t even see her that much if Crüe was busy touring. That wasn’t how her life was supposed to be, constantly traveling between Mommy and Daddy’s houses. Everly deserved a stable home, and that’s why Tommy had been so insistent that you try to work things out between the two of you romantically. In another world, maybe you would have tried. But Mike was sweet and you knew he cared for you, and you couldn’t break the poor man’s heart as easy as Tommy wanted you to.

“You know I can’t stand him around our daughter.”

Turning around, you looked straight into the brown eyes you used to be in love with and sometimes wished you still were in love with. Brushing the thought from your mind, you gave your ex-boyfriend, who was looking rather handsome, a hard look. Tommy stood with his hands in his pockets, lips in a hard thin line.

“What are you doing here, Tommy?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest. “And you can’t stand Mike because he’s not you.”

“First, you don’t own the carnival, Y/N, and second, you’re damn fucking right,” Tommy spat, his eyes turning a darker brown. “I’m here with Vince and Skylar, my goddaughter. I planned on taking Everly next week, but apparently you and stepdad over there had other ideas.”

You could sense the hurt and anger in Tommy’s voice right away. He was never one for hiding his emotions. Looking back at Everly, you saw her sitting with Mike on a bench, peeling cotton candy and dropping it on Mike’s tongue, giggling the whole time.

“This isn’t right,” Tommy murmured, causing you to turn back toward him. His hand rested on your shoulder and you tried ignoring his lips by your ear. “It should be me, you, and our daughter. Together. You know that.”

“And it would’ve been,” your voice was hard, gently pushing Tommy’s hand. “But shit doesn’t always work out the way you plan, Tommy. We learned that the hard way when you got me pregnant.”

“I know that,” he said softly, rocking on his heels. From the way his eyes lingered on you to the nervous chewing at his bottom lip, you were fully aware that Tommy wanted to say something else. “I just wish things were different.”

You nodded in agreement. If it weren’t for the drugs you, Tommy, and Everly would be a family. There would be no Mike, and you could watch Everly feed Tommy cotton candy instead.

“I’ve been replaced.” The laugh that escaped Tommy’s lips was dull, empty, and a piece of your heart broke watching Tommy’s face fill with sorrow as he watched his daughter bond with a man that wasn’t him.

Placing a hand on his arm, your face softened. “Tommy Lee, you know damn well that isn’t true. Don’t you dare say things like that.”

“Sometimes I go months without seeing her because of the stupid fucking tours. I’m already sick of ‘em,” Tommy clicked his tongue in aggravation. “I missed her first day of preschool, I wasn’t home when she took her first steps, and I had to hear her say ‘Dada’ over the fucking phone. Now, I can’t even take her to a stupid ass carnival because some other man wants to play dad when I’m not around.”

Grabbing Tommy’s hand, you pulled him to a bench next to a hot dog stand. “Tommy, look at her,” you said, pointing over at your daughter. “That little girl absolutely loves you. She understands that we’re not together anymore, but she has not replaced you. You will always be her father. You’ll be the man taking her to her father-daughter dances at school, and you will be the one who walks her down the aisle when she gets married.” You looked for any sign of life in Tommy’s face as you continued. “She makes me tell her stories of us before bed.”

Finally, a smile crept on Tommy’s face, revealing the cheerful man you’d once grown to love. “Really?”

“Yeah. She loves hearing how Mommy and Daddy fell in love years ago,” you sighed, running your hands through your hair. Your love story used to be one of your favorites, too. “I even let her watch a few videos of you drumming on stage. She wants a drum set for Christmas because ‘I want to be like Daddy.’ Her words, Tommy.”

You and Tommy sat staring at each other for what felt like an eternity. You didn’t want Tommy feeling replaced. He was one of a kind, and despite everything he’d been through on tour, he was a damn good father. You knew he would be the minute he held Everly in his arms soon after she was born. The smile on his face and the tears in his eyes had given it away.

“Daddy!”

Both you and Tommy looked up, grinning as Everly sprinted across the grass. Just as Tommy knelt down and opened his arms, Everly flung herself into her father, wrapping her tiny arms around his neck. She was grinning from ear to ear, and you laughed as Everly gave Tommy a sticky kiss on his cheek. This little girl had always been a Daddy’s girl. No other man in her life would compare.

“Hi, Peanut,” Tommy said, kissing Everly’s nose. He and Mike exchanged a brief ‘hello’ before Tommy turned his attention back to the brown haired girl with two pink bows in her hair. “Are you having fun?”

Everly nodded excitedly. “Sure am! Can you take me on the Ferris Wheel, Daddy?”

Tommy gave you a nervous look, and you shook your head in encouragement. “Of course, Peanut. After the Ferris Wheel, I have a surprise for you. Someone would love to see you.”

“Who?” Everly’s eyes lit up.

Chuckling, Tommy hoisted the little girl in his arms, poking her nose softly. “Oh I don’t know, but I think I saw Uncle Vince and cousin Skylar over by the balloon stand.”

Clapping excitedly, Everly wiggled out of her father’s arms, tugging him toward the Ferris Wheel. Tommy let his daughter pull him toward the mini Ferris Wheel, and as he walked away he glanced at you over his shoulder. He mouthed a ‘Thank you’ before nodding his head.

You nodded back as well, the familiar sight of Tommy with Everly warming your heart. No, you weren’t together, and no telling if you would ever be together again, but you needed to have some sort of a relationship with Tommy. Because in the end, your daughter was the best thing in both of your lives, and you vowed to be civil with Tommy for the sake of your baby girl, Everly Marie Lee.

[rocket-remmy]

Taco ‘Bout It|| Morgan and Remmy

Don’t worry, Cece, they labeled the containers. 

It was a good thing Morgan came prepared. Deirdre’s brain offering, however dear it was to her in sentiment, was not preserved enough to keep Morgan’s mind from zeroing out into the vampire zone. But, she had picked up some pigs blood while on her grocery run and sipped it from her water glass as she fried the brains in one skillet and ground beef in another. Her vomit tupperware was also close at hand, but so far she’d only had a little dry heaving. The gray matter popped and sizzled like anxious hatchlings in her pan, too impatient to be somewhere, some thing else. Morgan added sriracha and stirred. She should be more excited about this. She should be brimming up with relief. Remmy was easy and uncomplicated to spend time with. Too earnest, too nice, too good to care about anything as long as it was meant well. But maybe that was just exactly the problem. 

Remmy was excited about today. Seeing Morgan was going to be a relief. She was nice and sweet and she cared about Remmy enough to cook them brains. And with what had happened with both Blanche-- though that was more of Remmy’s fault, and it still pained them to remember-- and Skylar, they could use a good, relaxing day. And trying something new was always fun! Remmy lifted their fist and knocked, pleasantly surprised by how much nice the house Morgan now shared with Cece was than the run down hotel room she’d been staying in. Maybe Morgan would be excited to hear Remmy had moved, too. Even if their reason wasn’t as nice. “Hi!” they said, giving a little wave when Morgan opened the door. “I brought um-- flowers. Sunflowers! And raspberry jam. I sort of….bought a lot recently and need people to give them to. I hope you don’t mind.”

Morgan wiped her blood stained lips and came to the door, summoning up a smile just as Remmy came into view. “Oh, Remmy!” She took up the flowers and jam. “This is so nice! Thank you. You know you didn’t have to do anything special, right?” She shifted the gifts and pulled her friend into a one armed hug. “Just you is good enough to bring. But, I bet these are going to look amazing in the place. Come on in and get cozy. I’m almost done with dinner.” She kicked the door gently shut behind them and went back to the kitchen, taking another big chug from her glass before turning her attention back to the pan.

Remmy leaned gratefully into the hug, realizing they hadn’t hugged anyone except Moose since the incident with Alain. No, since before that. Since they’d found out what they were. Morgan pulled away too soon, but they covered up their disappointment with a quick grin. “Um-- think of it as a housewarming gift, then!” They took their jacket off and hung it by the front door before following Morgan into the kitchen. “Wow, that smells-- really good. Which is saying something, because um-- you know,” they waved a hand at their face, “It’s not um-- weird, or anything, right?” Their eyes fell on the glass, bright red liquid decorated with flowers and frills. Must be tomato juice. Remmy had never understood why people liked drinking tomato juice.

“Oh, yeah? I guess there is something you can sense after all, it was just a matter of finding what speaks to your appetite,” Morgan said. “Oh, don’t come in here yet, I’m still working. Have to concentrate. I’ll come to you when it’s done!” And when she’d figured out what to do with her blood set up. That seemed like an exhausting thing to explain and she didn’t want anything else to worry about tonight. Remmy was here. Remmy was easy. And as soon as she finished dinner, maybe she could be easy too. “Why don’t you tell me about what’s going on with your girlfriend!” She called over her shoulder. 

“Oh, sorry!” Remmy said, immediately backing up and heading over to the living room. They sat at the table there and folded their hands into their lap, gazing around. Cece’s place was pretty nice, and they were sure Morgan must enjoy it here much more. It felt...homey. And safe. Remmy smiled, relaxing a bit more. “What-- we’re-- we’re not-- she’s not!” they stuttered out at the surprise question. “We haven’t even gone on the date yet! I, um-- I postponed it. Cause of uh, well…” they trailed off, “the whole being undead thing.”

Morgan flipped the brain bits over and promptly felt a twist in her stomach from her lad gulp of blood. Shit. She bent over the sink and heaved as quietly as possible into the tupperware. “What? Oh, but you’re still gonna go, right?” She called. “She really likes you, and I uh--sort of gave her the ‘don’t hurt my friend’ spiel.” Shivering, she turned back to the pan and flipped the brain pieces one last time. Charred on one side, damnit. Morgan turned off the heat and started assembling her handiwork. Red plate for Remmy, blue for herself, so no one got confused. She assembled the fixings the best she knew how, heaving a sigh of relief as the cumin floated up her nostrils. One last sip, to make sure she’d make it through dinner okay, and Morgan brought the plates over to the couch, too tired to think about the stain running down the side of her lip. “Here you go! You can say if it’s too burnt. I don’t have any more to cook, but I’ll know better for next time.” She curled up on the other side of the couch from Remmy and took a deep smell of the food. Her stomach wasn’t ready to take anything in yet, but when it did, she was sure it would almost taste like home.

Remmy heard a weird noise under all the crackling of the frying pans, but didn’t think too much of it. “Oh, um-- I-I dunno. I still need to...figure things out, about myself, a-and how I feel. But-- we’re meeting to talk! Because I sort of...blew up on her. But we’re okay now! Um...mostly.” They stopped, listening as Morgan turned off the stove and started plating the tacos. “Um, thanks again for doing this for me. I, um-- everything is still a little strange. And new.” They paused as Morgan finally came out of the kitchen, looking up at her and-- freezing. That wasn’t tomato juice. Tomato juice was usually orange, wasn’t it? Or orangeish. Remmy didn’t know how they knew, but they knew. That wasn’t tomato juice. “Umm...Morgan?” they asked, staring wide eyed at her. “Wha-- what are you drinking?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Morgan said. “How long ago was this? When we talked the other night she didn’t let anything on. But it wasn’t anything long, just like, online.” She breathed the food in again. It seemed alright, but maybe it was time to chug some peptol instead-- “What?” She asked. What do you--oh!” Suddenly her mouth was the only thing Morgan felt aware of. Her plate clattered down on the coffee table as she got up and ran for her blood towel (this fucking town, turning her into someone with a blood towel) and wiping herself off before rinsing her mouth nearly straight from the faucet. Shit. “It’s nothing!” She called. “I’m fine, really. Just a weird...thing, that’s going on. Sorry.”

Remmy couldn’t help but follow Morgan as she raced into the kitchen, both worry and confusion wrought inside of them. “Morgan, what’s going on?” they asked, scuttling into the kitchen. Noticed the glass full of, well-- if not tomato juice, then-- noticed her rinsing her mouth in the sink. Noticed the tupperware in the sink. “Morgan, are you--!” They started. Stopped. None of this made sense. “Why are you drinking blood!? Why are you acting weird about it! What’s going on?” they said, bewildered. Was this just another person not telling them something? Another person hiding something important? Remmy stepped back. “Are you a vampire?? Or a-- like me?”

Morgan didn’t want to be doing this right now. Between Skylar and Deirdre and getting set back a week from her ghost summoning and her students who were too scared to learn anything new and still, still, being half frozen inside, she was not ready to explain to one more person how she’d screwed herself over and sucked other people into her screwy orbit. She didn’t have the energy to be chipper or self-deprecating about it. She wanted one thing to be right and uncomplicated. “I don’t mean to freak you out,” she sighed. “I am sorry, Remmy. Okay? Can we go back to the couch? Keep eating?” She looked at her friend, and saw her own pleading face reflected back in their expression. “It’s a long, stupid story, a story with a stupid magic TICK in it, but am not anyone or anything other than what I’ve said I am. I can absolutely promise you that.” She began to fix herself a fresh glass of water. Held it over her chest, soothing herself with the weight of it as she breathed slowly. “It’s--call it a temporary allergy! I only flared up because I was making you dinner! Okay?”

Remmy felt a little pang. Another pang. They wanted it to be a nice night, too. That’s what it was supposed to be, just a nice night. “I--” they started, then stopped. They what? Wanted to help? Wanted to know what was going on? They’re help only got people hurt or upset. They stopped talking. “I’m not freaked out. I was just worried, I guess.” They looked from morgan to the table, then back again. “Magical tick? I-- you know, never mind. If you don’t wanna tell me, fine,” they said, slinking back over to the table. “I get it. Okay? You’re going through some shit, I get it.” The tacos looked yummy, but suddenly, they weren’t hungry. They flopped into the chair. “Temporary allergy or whatever, are you okay?” 

Morgan put her face in her hands. She wanted to scream. Remmy didn’t even believe her, and, fuck, why should they? Magic tick? Out of nowhere? Seriously? She shuffled after them, her stomach heavy and ruined with a whole new feeling, and flopped down on the couch. “I screwed up, Remmy, okay?” She said quietly. “That’s basically all there is to it. I tried to do something to fix...myself, and the magic ticks from online were alive instead of dead, and somehow this has managed to backfired on me AND other people.” She looked at Remmy sidelong. They weren’t eating. Was she already messing up with them too?

Remmy tilted their head, blinked in surprise. “Fix yourself?” They moved slightly. “What...what do you mean fix yourself? Is something wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt or sick? Or wait-- do you mean the cold thing? Cause people are working on that! They are! I-I swear. I know it’s hard, being cold all the time, but it’s gonna be okay! But you gotta tell me about these magic ticks. That’s a new one. What did you need ticks for? Why would they make you drink blood or stuff? I’m sorry. I just wanted to help.” 

Morgan pressed her hand to her face again. She was explaining this so badly, and Remmy was somehow over the part where they were left out of this news and offering to help. How did she tell them she was beyond their brand of help? That she was in ‘try to summon ghosts in front of a practical teenager’ territory? Were they next? She couldn’t think of what she could do to screw up their life too, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Morgan drew her knees up to her chest and shook her head. “It’s not that. That is the least of my problems, honestly. Can you just tell me about you? Tell me all the stuff I missed while I was--” being insensitive. “Being kind of a jerk when you were figuring this zombie thing out?”

“What? No!” Remmy protested. “Morgan, we have to talk about you! You’re going through something big and I-- you didn’t tell me, but I’m here now and you can tell me now! Please tell me now? I just want to help.” Why wouldn’t anyone let Remmy help? Why was everything they’d found slipping through their fingers already? “Why didn’t you tell me before? I coulda helped.” They didn’t want to think about what they were going through. They’d done enough thinking about that. They’d already decided to put it away. It was in a neat little box in their head and they didn’t want to unwrap it and everything that came with it. “Please just tell me.”

“Tell you what!” Morgan snapped. “That I am a walking time bomb of a curse? That I sliced some kid’s arm open in this room because the magic tick I wanted for a spell made me lose my shit at the sight of my own blood? Or that you helping is only going to make your life worse?” She trembled as the last words came out. It had all just sort of...happened. She hadn’t let herself stop for very long to process anything and now it was just coming out all over Remmy, on their dinner that was supposed to smooth things over! Why was she like this? “I’m sorry,” she whispered quickly. “I didn’t mean, I mean, it’s all true, but not like how I said it. Um…” Shit. 

Remmy flinched back when Morgan started yelling. Curse? Cutting someone? Spells gone wrong? They paused, waited for Morgan to peter out. “What curse are you talking about?” they asked quietly after a moment. “What do you mean...I don’t understand.” They’d come back to the cutting and the blood ticks and the weird spell that needed said blood ticks. For now, they could concentrate on one thing. “How is...how is helping going to make it worse?"

“Because I am trouble, Remmy. I am literal walking, magic trouble!” Morgan said. “And maybe it won’t happen for a few more months, but you will get sucked into it if you do not start to get away from me!” Morgan’s body was hot all over with fear. Remmy was too good for their own good, too sad and new and good to be strung along, especially while not knowing what they were in for. God, how had she not owned up to what they were in for until just now? 

“What?” Remmy said, bewildered. “I-- I don’t…” the blinked, confused. “I’m not going to leave you, Morgan. I can’t-- I can’t lose anymore friends. So who cares if you’re trouble! O-or in trouble. I’ll help you! I can help you!” They said, leaning a bit forward, not wanting to spook Morgan, but wishing they could go over and hug her or let her know it’s okay somehow. “I’m not leaving. I’m not...going to get away from you. Whatever this curse is, isn’t that what friends do? Stick around even for the bad?”

“Not when the bad wants to eat you for more trauma fodder,” Morgan said. “When my magic bullshit wants to destroy whatever is too close to me, and you are so fucking nice it’s almost terrifying--no. That is the actual recipe for no. And why would you want that in the first place, Remmy? No one wants that! Nothing is worth that! What if you died--or--I don’t know, what if Moose died! Or---” She flailed desperately into space. Remmy didn’t have a lot to lose either. What had she been thinking? Morgan deflated down into the couch cushions.

“You’re worth it, Morgan!” Remmy nearly shouted. They stood up and made their way over to her now, still uncertain how to proceed, but knowing that they needed to just get it. They’d already lost Blanche and now probably Skylar-- it was happening all over again. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t lose Morgan, too. “You’re worth it,” they said, sinking to the floor in front of her, in hopes that she would look at them and see the earnest-- the desperation-- in their eyes.

Morgan was tired. She knew the right thing was to lighten her White Crest baggage as much as possible, to stay focused and lay low and make this end before fall or winter had the next chance to crawl near her, but she was so tired, and Remmy was hurt enough already. She shut her eyes and forced her breaths to turn even, in for five, hold for three, out for five. Five, three, five. She kept count with her fingers on her shoulder. She should probably tell Remmy she made her crystals out of beach junk. That she’d given the waitress at Al’s a concussion. That she didn’t know how to thread the needle between being cautious and tearing apart the ether to break out of her mess. “Okay,” she mouthed. “Okay, Remmy.” she beckoned them to come back up. 

Remmy waited patiently for Morgan, tacos long forgotten. They noticed the fingers tapping on her shoulder-- a similar technique to what one of the doctor’s had taught Remmy for when they started having panic attacks. When she finally relented, Remmy crawled onto the couch and wrapped their arms around her. “I’m sorry,” they muttered, “whatever’s going on...I’m sorry. But I’m not gonna leave because of some stupid curse.” They let out a long breath. They weren’t going to lose someone else, not tonight. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

For a moment Morgan tensed in Remmy’s arms, continued tapping, breathing. She didn’t have anyone to do this for her. She kept herself alone, or excused herself to go hide, but even if she didn’t know what to do with the cold weight around her back, she couldn’t deny how it eased the pain in her shoulders or how it gave her something sturdy to brace herself on. As Morgan continued to breathe, she could see the whole trail of losses that she carried behind her, so many invisible holes pulling on her. She could see a whole blank space of god only knew what ahead, opaque as the black under her eyes. She remembered what Deirdre had said: You can rest, can’t you? Just for a moment. Was this the moment? She felt something rise up in her, something begging to breathe, and opened her eyes long enough for one tear to roll out, and to shift herself so she was gripping Remmy’s arm instead. “I’m sorry I freaked out,” she said.

“What? No,” Remmy shook their head, giving a tiny sigh of relief when Morgan gripped their arm. “Don’t apologize. It-- it’s fine. Really.” They laid their head against hers when they felt her relax a little more. “It’s...it’s okay to cry. We can just sit here. We don’t have to talk.” Quiet another moment, before-- “Whenever I would get um...really sad, I would sit on my bed and tell myself stories about...happier times. It didn’t always work, but...I can do that for you, if you want.”

“I’m not crying,” Morgan scoffed, blinking back the tears at the edge of her lids. But she stayed close to Remmy and held on tight until her chest could keep a steady pace on its own. “I don’t know if I can handle hearing about happy times,” she admitted. “Can you reach the TV remote without letting go? I um...I normally watch something dramatic and trashy, when I’m...tired and on edge like this. Do you like TV, Remmy?” 

Remmy couldn’t help but feel a little saddened for Morgan. “I didn’t say you were...I said you could, but…” they glanced away, giving her a moment to gather herself, “okay. We can watch something.” Remmy leaned forward and grabbed the TV remote, leaning back, “whatever you want. I don’t know much TV so it’s your pick.” Held the remote out to her. And maybe it wasn’t the best resolution to the night, but it was a start. And Remmy still had a friend. That had to count for something.

[wordsandshawn]

Before Now - chapter 8

Previous Chapters 

8. 

Kristen waits until we’re both back in her car before she brings Shawn up again. Its already past midnight because we didn’t leave the festival after an hour like we had originally planned to get back home at a decent time. We both love live music far too much for that.

As soon as I’m seated back in the passenger side of Kristen’s car, I immediately pull my laptop out and start importing the photos from my camera. I can’t wait another second to see them and get started on the editing. Kristen starts backing out of the parking stall, “What was that all about?” And even though it’s been almost three hours since Shawn left the festival, and we had been rocking out that entire time, I know what she’s talking about and she knows I know.

“My photography professor didn’t get me the gig,” I admit. 

“I got that much.” She says shortly, her eyes glued to the road. “How do you know him?” She’s being a lot calmer about this than I expected, but I’m not sure if I should take that as a good sign or a bad sign.

I realize now that I’m in this situation, but I should have never kept this secret from Kristen. When I first met her, sure, it was understandable, but I’ve known her for two years now. I should have told her.

“Kris, I’m really sorry.”

Her voice gets low, “Skylar, just tell me how you know him.” She’s done with bullshit. 

“I’ve known him my whole life.” I blurt.

“What do you mean?” Her voice is shrill and for a second, I’m afraid that she is going to crash the car. I’m starting to rethink having this conversation while she’s behind the wheel of the car, but there’s no going back now.

“I mean, my mom and his mom are best friends. They have been since they were kids, so we kind of grew up together, a little.”

She’s silent, and Kristen is rarely ever silent, so I know it means something. I know it means a lot. “You’re lying.” She says, but in a tone that says she doesn’t know how to believe me, but she knows that I’m telling the truth.

“I’m not. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“I don’t get it.” I know her mind is in a million places. I’m only grateful the anger hasn’t set in yet.

“I’ll explain whatever you want to know.” I offer, knowing she deserves an explanation, and it’s time for me to be honest.

“Well for starters, how could you have never mentioned it, not even a little? You know how much we love him.” She’s still in disbelief.

“It just felt weird to say after keeping it a secret for so long. I didn’t even know if you’d believe me.” She just glances at me quickly before looking back at the road.

When she doesn’t say anything in response, I take a deep breath, “In high school, when Shawn started to get famous, fans started digging up older pictures of Shawn and putting them on the internet. Some of those pictures had me in them. Shawn and I never went to the same schools, but when the kids at my high school learned that I knew him, that we grew up together, they wouldn’t leave me alone. They wanted information about Shawn, they wanted to be my friend because they thought that would mean they’d get in backstage to his shows. Some kids I thought wanted to be friends with me for me turned out to have only wanted to see if they could get to know Shawn through me. It hurt, and I got tired of being used like that. I wasn’t even close friends with Shawn by the time we reached high school. He was always gone, and we drifted apart. So, I just stopped telling anyone. I pretended I didn’t know him, and it seemed to work better.” After I finish talking, there are a few seconds of silence, probably because she doesn’t know what to say, and I’ve already said everything I have to say.

“Okay,” She pauses, still staring at the road, and I’m a little glad that her attention is divided between driving and this conversation. I’m not sure if I’d be able to have it face to face with all her attention on it. “Why didn’t you tell us later, when we were already friends. Why did you pretend to hate him? You knew we loved him.”

“Things are,” I pause, trying to find the right words. “Complicated between Shawn and I.” I dare to glance at her, and I notice her eyes widen. She knows that there has to be something within that word, complicated. And even I don’t know how to describe it, to explain what complicated even means.

“So, the ‘text me so I know you’re home safe,’ thing. That’s part of the complicated?”

I hesitate. I hadn’t thought too deeply about that sentence, except that it was what alerted Kristen to the fact that I didn’t just happen to get this gig for no real reason. “I think that’s just Shawn being Shawn.”

“I knew it!”

I’m startled by her shouting, but I ask, “Knew what?”

“I knew that he was a fucking sweetheart. You can’t fake something like that.”

I roll my eyes at her, but the smile on her face is so big that I can’t help but smile too. I’m glad that this took a turn away from the personal, even if just for a second or two. Surprisingly, Kristen doesn’t ask a ton of personal questions about Shawn. Instead, she’s more interested in what happened between us, my role in the story of the two of us. Eventually, we move on to other topics, although I know that we’ll be back on the topic of Shawn soon enough.

I spend the rest of the two-hour drive editing my pictures and trying to put together a mini video. I have a ton of fun editing the video, and I’m pleased to realize that both the pictures and videos turned out pretty great. I can get used to this concert photography thing. Tonight was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

When Kristen and I finally arrive back at our apartment, it's past two am, but I remember to text Shawn, well, Peter(bio101). We’re home, thanks for everything tonight. I’m sending a link to a drive of the photos and a video over in a bit.

I’m so glad you came, and I’m glad you got home safe. Looking forward to seeing the pics and vid.

I don’t reply for a while, since I’m busy uploading everything to the drive to send over to Shawn. During the ride back home, I carefully chose only the best photos and focused on editing those well. I’ve seen some of the photos that Shawn’s tour photographer has taken and they’re always stunning, so I know there’s a high standard for me to live up to, and I want to do my absolute best.

I send over the photos and the video, then text Shawn. I sent them over. If you post them, do you mind not tagging me or mentioning my ig? He’ll probably think I’m weird because the whole point of this was supposed to be to help my career, and I should want the recognition for my work, but I don’t. Not for this, not right now. I’ll probably use these pictures in my portfolio, but I don’t need Shawn linking them to my social media. If it's linked then people from my Uni will probably start asking questions, and Greg will find out. It’s that last part I’m trying to avoid most. I honestly don’t think Greg processed in his mind that the person who stood up for me that night at the bar was Shawn Mendes. And as long as he never does, then we should be okay.

I’m about to fall asleep when Shawn finally replies. It all looks amazing, Skylar! Are you sure you don’t want credit?

I’m sure. I type back. Thanks again, Shawn, I really appreciate it.

And I fall asleep before bothering to wait for a reply.

~

If last night was a dream, then I certainly wake to reality. Four missed calls from Greg, and a string of text messages I strain to read through barely open eyes. The essential message is that he knows I went to a festival last night when I said I had a photography project. I don’t answer right away, but I start planning my response. I’m tired of lying, but I feel trapped, like I have no choice.

Greg has been going through a lot lately with his work and his family, so I don’t want to make things worse for him. I don’t want to upset him, although it is so hard not to, no matter what I do. I open Instagram and see Kristen’s Instagram post from last night. Even worse, her Instagram is public, and Shawn followed her. How he found her, I have no idea, but it is what it is. Who else follows her, none other than Greg, so my first question of how he found out is answered. It isn’t Kristen’s fault, its mine. I didn’t ask her not to post anything from last night. I didn’t even tell her that I lied to Greg. It’s my own fault for not seeing it coming.  And now I have to face the consequences.

I finally gather up the courage to call him, knowing I can’t put it off any longer. He doesn’t answer, so I assume he’s busy. I text him back telling him that I did go for photography and I didn’t mean to lie to him. He doesn’t respond. I try catching up on some homework, but I’m bombarded by my other roommates who have obviously found out my connection to Shawn. They have a lot of questions, even more than Kristen. Most of the questions I don’t even have answers for, and I try to explain to them that I don’t know Shawn anymore, not really.

When I think about Greg again, I realize it’s been three hours since I texted and called him, and there hasn’t been a response. I’m trying not to read too much into it, but I do anyway.

By the time its six pm and I’ve texted and called him several more times still with no response, I think it’s clear that he’s not wanting to talk to me. I normally spend Saturday nights with him, but since he’s not picking up the phone and I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, I decide to go out with my friends instead.

This proves to be the second big mistake of the weekend because he texts me at midnight asking me why I’m not home. He’s at my apartment and he’s upset that I’m not there. I leave the club to call him, and this time he actually answers. “Where the fuck are you?” He questions.

“I’m downtown, at a club.” I say, forcing to keep my voice even although my heart is beating out of my chest right now. A club was not my first choice for a fun Saturday night, but all my friends were going, and my boyfriend was ignoring me, so my choices were club or stay home alone in my apartment.

He sounds angry, but he also sounds sad, which catches me by surprise since he ignored me all day. I ask him to pick me up from the club and we go back home together. He’s been depressed or angry a lot more than usual lately, and I’m never exactly sure what I’m going to get when I talk to him. I want to love him, to show him that I love him because he’s sad. But he’s still mad at me for not telling him about the show and for not inviting him, and he’s made it clear that even though he picked me up, things are not okay between us. I have a lot of making up to do for lying, but he’s so cold to me, I can’t even make it up to him. I’m torn with what to do. I’m confused. I feel like this is my fault, that it's my fault he’s sad, but I don’t know how to make it better. I don’t know what to do to make things better for Greg or better between us. I just want to stop feeling like I have to walk on eggshells around him all the time. It’s exhausting, but I don’t know how to fix things, no matter how desperately I want to. 

chapter 9

[dancal13]

Day 2 – So Much Music, So Much Wine

Quick Disclaimer:  Suzy and I both love live music, which is awesome as music has always meant a lot to me. And now Jack, Bailey and Megan are all into music - so I am still learning about and loving new music, while keeping up with past favorites.  But I have grown to hate large crowds (might even be a phobia for the small-minded person - meaning me).  So, we pay attention to all the small venues in Seattle and see a lot of up and coming bands as well as lot of bands that are past their prime.  Pretty cool on the whole, but what we miss out on is the big tours, the bands in the their prime, for example U2’s most recent stadium tour. Not a chance that I would go to that even though I love U2.  But Susan is clever and not one to give up on something she wants to do.  As I mentioned in the Prologue a couple of years ago our friends the Wilbur’s mentioned BottleRock and Susan had her in. Combining and weaving my love for music with my addiction and love for red wine into her sales pitch. The opportunity to see the Red Hot Chile Peppers (never seen by me) and hang in Napa Valley. I was low hanging fruit. (Sorry not such quick disclaimer after all)

And here we are…

We woke up Sunday morning to a chill and the threat of rain and thunder (could be song lyrics).  Much different than our previous visits, where our fears mostly included sunburn and 100-degree weather.  No rain gear, no worries – Susan doesn’t believe in General Admission, that is so bourgeois.  We are VIP Baby and VIP gets you shelter, nice bathrooms, shorter food and drink lines and an obvious sense of superiority.  This of course could easily be disproved, but it’s our story, so stick it. Our friends the Robbs (Jill and John) flew in early that morning and met us for breakfast prior to rocking out.  As true festival goers our breakfast included eggs benedict, smoked salmon-arugula-egg flatbread, Belgium waffles with fresh a bananas and a ham-gruyere omelet, obviously the breakfast of music rebels everywhere.

From there we dropped off the muscle car, its head banging purpose complete and left for the festival.  As we arrived the clouds opened, and we again questioned our attire. We watched in utter horror as umbrellas were collected at the gate and tossed into waiting garbage cans - NOT ALLOWED.  But we were quickly reminded who we were. 

We were VIP and loving every minute of it.  First Stop, I know hard to guess, the bar and wait, you guessed it a covered area looking over the main stage. We would never be anything but damp again as each big stage had a covered area waiting for us.

We had been here before, the covered area previously acted as shade, apparently it can serve two purposes. With wine and cocktails in hand we quickly worked our strategy.  In the two years since we had last attended there were some improvements to VIP. The first being that they had set aside a huge portion of the field in front of the stage for those of us who wanted to see the performers up close.  More on that later.

We headed back to the food and drink areas set aside for our elite status, which included some pretty awesome restaurants and drink options and an acoustic lounge, that featured performers who were finished with their sets or still yet to perform.  These quick and intimate performances lasted about 4 to 6 songs, with a much smaller crowd, maybe a 150 people at its largest. Pretty cool. Just a quick note: though we didn’t take advantage of this (or get taken advantage of by this) there was a booth selling very high-end CUPS of wines.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the menu for posterity.  You could get a small “plastic cup” of Joseph Phelps Insignia for a mere $72. It is here where we were quickly reminded that though we were VIP Special, we were way, way less special than the VIP Platinum attendees.

After some food and drink and an acoustic set or two, we ventured out to the main stage to see Skylar Grey. My only knowledge of her was when we received the first set of promotional materials and I was scrolling through the various artists; I was stopped by the picture of her legs.  See the accompanying picture 😊. Apparently, she is a singer songwriter known more for songs that she has written for more famous artists, she is also currently a local of Napa and a big fan of wine, maybe we will hangout some time.  The first song performed was a song she wrote for Puff Daddy, P Diddy or whatever his current name is.  She had a fantastic voice, tons of tats, and yes great legs.

We stayed for 4 or 5 songs, grabbed some fun pictures, and text-taunted our friends the Wilbur’s who went for multiple days and did GA, while hosting one of their daughter, a nephew and other young friends (as mentioned, VIP access got us pretty close to the stage)

Next stop the Firefox stage to see Gang of Youths.  If you have been to a music festival, typically you will come across a band you do not know, know only one song, or maybe know a few and their performance far exceeds your expectations - You are now a fan!  In the past I have had that reaction to Coleman Hell, New Politics, Odesza – this year it was Gang of Youths, sorry for the bad pic, I have video, but not quite sure how to embed.  They were rockers from Australia, and the lead singer and guitarist looked like Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, so Suzy enjoyed them as well. Hmmmm… GoY vs GoT coincidence?  I think not.

I was also able to capture this image during GoY, of the GA crowd behind me and my cup of cabernet.  I almost felt sad for their existence. Then I took another sip of cabernet, enjoyed the music and all was forgotten.

We headed to the third of four stages to see the Teskey Bros, a blues band that Susan had become a fan of, but finally bumped into our friends Brian and Anne, pictured below drinking Frozés (yup rosé slushies) 

and then stopped nearby for a quick visit to the Silent Disco.  A huge dance floor where everyone is provided a set of headphones that are channeling 2 or 3 different DJs.  Pretty funny to watch a bunch of people dancing together but to different music. On a channel that I wasn’t on, Don’t Stop Believing, by Journey was playing.  Half of the audience/dancers were singing along and singing so loud that I couldn’t hear my headphones, it was time to go.

The Teskey brothers were good and we stayed for most of their set.  We then made our way back to the main stage, the acoustic lounge and the food and beverage area in time for the evening set.  This is where my funny wife stepped up.  After getting an unsatisfactory pour of bubbles while I was receiving an abundant one, she decided to watch me during my next order.  Again, I received above the line pours for both our drinks.  Susan screamed; you are flirting with the guy working the bar.  And then again yelled that I was flirting with the girl during our next stop. Obviously these days I don’t believe in gender labeling (thanks Megan for you guidance), so I just went about my business of flirting, I know right – I AM SO WOKE.  The entertainment ensued from there as Suzy started making friends with people who had arrived early enough for seats, or spaces at the rails or just looked fun. After hanging a while with Suz, they would then offer their spaces to her as they left – by the end of the day we each had a role… Flirty WOKE Guy and Friendly “Who’s Your Buddy�� Girl a match made in rock and roll festival heaven

Evening set: First up was Michael Franti and Spearhead.  Seems like he performs every year at Bottlerock, and I’m not sure anyone has a better time doing so.  We were near the stage, but when Michael Franti performs, that means you only get to see him up close for half the time.  He is a bare foot performer who likes to wander out and sing in the crowd, and he does it well. This was the first performance we stayed at for the entire set.

It was nearly 8:30 now and our backs and legs were nearly spent, but the headliner “Mumford and Sons” took the stage.  I’m a big fan of their music but was still surprised and awed by their performance. It was a bit harder than I expected, and they performed with so much energy it was great.  I will find a way to see them again, probably multiple times.

It was a long day, and I was sore for a few days after standing and dancing for nearly ten hours. I’m am not interested in attending other festivals like Coachella, likely because they are not in Wine Country. I know snobbery right?

One insight I would like to share. If you are attending something like this and using a bankcard for drinks, check ahead of time with your bank, as we found out the hard way, that it looks suspicious if you make a bunch of small purchases in a day (food and drinks), in another state. The bank can and will freeze your card until the next day, or until you call them. The good news or easy solution is to carry cash or a second card.  Learn from our mistakes.  

[makesgoodchoices]

Stereotypes: The Female Perspective of being “too” within society

A few of you had messaged me with interest of reading my grad school research paper on gender stereotypes within Pitch Perfect, I’ve excluded some of it, but thought you may be interested in the rest :) Let me know what you think, I would love if we could discuss and would love to hear what you think!!!!

“Okay, so all a woman has to do is ignore society’s expectations, be ambitious, sit at the table, work hard, and then it’s smooth sailing all the way. What could possibly go wrong?” – Sheryl Sandburg, Lean In (p. 39)

From a young age, we, as human beings, are taught how to eat, dress, ride a bike, communicate, and if we are really lucky – we are taught to love. This love still comes with innate beliefs educated, often subconsciously, by those who raise us, those we befriend, and those we come across in all stages of life. These ‘stereotypes’, often learned through behavior not words, is most often not even recognized as stereotypes because they often impact us in ways we do not consciously, or verbally, acknowledge.

Now, let’s try to break these stereotypes down even further and focus solely on the female population and what females are often inherently taught growing up within society. Habitually, these teachings come from our female parental figures, guardians, grandmothers, sisters, and friends who are teaching without the knowledge that they are helping to shape our beliefs and opinions for the rest of our female lives. These unconscious teachings include: the appropriate way to act around males, how to look and act like a lady (never less), how to speak our minds – but not too much, never too much; how to be the perfect student, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect employee. It does not matter if by doing these things we are living as our best selves, if we are being the polite, quiet female we have been conditioned to be, nothing else is of equal relevance. Though, these stereotypes are learned behaviors through our peers.  

Exploring the mass media example of the film Pitch Perfect, released in 2012, the then-Indie-now-major-blockbuster-success focuses on an all-female acapella college group trying to find their way. The film pushes the limits of group female interactions and stereotypes of how women ‘should’ behave within society.  The film could be argued for many different stereotypes as it is packed full of theories begging to be discussed. To name a few, we cross paths with the overweight female – who introduces herself as ‘Fat Amy’, when questioned why she calls herself that, she answers (jokingly?) “So twig bitches like you don’t do it behind my back.” There’s the openly gay member (who is also African-American) of the group who they chose to have play the utmost extreme version of being both a lesbian and a black female. There’s the very exaggerated sexual member of the group, the quiet Asian character, and the overly cocky male members of the rival group. We also get to enjoy the banter of a misogynist male and provocative female acapella announcer team. But nothing quite speaks the weight like the female and male stereotypical roles thrown to the audience throughout the film.  

The female lead character ‘Beca Mitchell’, played by Anna Kendrick, is an incoming freshman at Barden University. Though young, Beca is extremely driven, sarcastic, antisocial, independent, and confident in her goal of becoming a music producer and doesn’t plan to focus on much of anything else.

Pause.

A woman… independent and driven in a successful film? Yes, I know it’s a strange concept. But that can’t just be all she is, she obviously needs more ‘depth’.  

This ‘depth’ is explained as the female need for a male counterpart.  These stereotypes of needing a male to complete a female are engrained into females minds at an early age. In order to really fit in with our peers, we desperately feel the need to make sure everyone knows how ‘normal’ we are by making this our sole life purpose. Females are quickly conditioned to go from thinking boys have cooties to boys being the true thing that completes us as human beings.  We adorn photos of our teen idols along the walls of our bedrooms, read all the ‘cool’ magazines, begin wearing make-up way too young so that we look way better (still debatable) – because our natural look is not how the girls in those magazines look.  We begin dreaming of ‘one-day-fairy-tale-weddings’ and admiring boys on television, because isn’t that what all girls are supposed to be doing? Or, at least pretending to be doing.  “During that blissful period before I had to think about sex, I liked to present myself as “boy crazy.” I did like boys, both boys that I knew and the appropriately feminine boys in Teen Beat, but I played up being “boy crazy” because it seemed like the trait of a pretty, popular girl.  In third grade, I took a quiz in Seventeen magazine and brought it to school. “I’m totally boy crazy according to this. It’s so embarrassing. Look!” I’d looked at the answer key prior to marking each question but thought my classmates would be duly impressed. My teacher took a look at the magazine and cautioned me to curb this quality as I got older. What is she talking about? The whole point of this is to seem like a cool, older girl! It took me years to realize she was warning me not to be a slut,” (Kendrick, p. 88-89).  Especially in our young, developing years, females really stress the need for male attention and even more than the attention, the male sense of approval.  Because nothing is worse than that awful, horrible feeling of rejection.  More often than not, the motherly figures in our lives encourage these types of ‘normal’ behaviors. Anna Kendrick’s teachers’ words are the ones we do not anticipate.  We do not anticipate someone not condoning this perceived ‘normal’ behavior and actually calling us out on it.

Now, to continue with the story of Pitch Perfect, Beca’s father, a professor at Barden University, urges her to give college a try and ‘join in’ on whatever college can offer her – and gives her the leverage that if she at least tries, he will help her move to L.A. at the end of the school year to help achieve her dream of being a producer.  She’s still reluctant and dead-set on becoming a music producer, but tries to appease her father for the time being.  What Beca does not realize is she will soon be bombarded in a dorm shower by a redhead named Chloe (played by Brittany Snow). Chloe has some serious boundary issues and strange recruiting methods, but upon hearing Beca sing, Chloe urges Beca to join a collegiate acapella group, who have struggled with success in the past.  Beca reluctantly auditions and the story then takes off into really focusing on the different personalities of the females within the ‘Barden Bellas’ and what could potentially make them successful and win the championship at the end of the school year.  The story at its core is about a group of females really trying to find their sound and soon, find a deep friendship and bond within each other. Sounds like a great story, right?

Well, sure. It’s great, but mainly, we need more. Just a story about female acapella singing and bonding isn’t enough. For mainstream media – we need more! Mainstream media needs drama and an ‘obvious’ ‘meet-cute’ between a nice boy and an independent, snarky girl.  (Even though the girl finds the boy annoying, she will ‘obviously’ have a deep epiphany and ‘fall’ for his-charming looks and personality, because every mainstream movie needs this oh-so-romantic-storyline).  A film obviously can’t be complete without this aspect of a woman realizing she needs a man to truly fulfill all her dreams. Enter – Jesse Swanson, played by Skylar Astin, member of the rival acapella group longing for Beca’s attention and love. After Chloe’s compelling (and equally naked) argument in Beca’s shower of convincing her to audition for the Barden Bellas, Beca becomes a member of the group. At the initiation night, the audience watches the first ‘pivotal’ scene between Beca and Jesse. Jesse approaches and Beca, again, shows disinterest. His pick-up line? “You're one of those acapella girls, I'm one of those acapella boys, and we're gonna have aca-children. It's inevitable.” She gives no reaction other than saying, “you’re drunk.” Because, what does one say in response to a stranger telling you that you’re destined to have children together? Other than repressing the urge to punch said boy in the face, but that would not be very ladylike.

Reverse this scenario.

Imagine Beca approaching Jesse asserting the exact same statement, how destined they are for each other and she will have his children… Yikes. Stage 5 clinger, much? She would automatically be deemed clingy, crazy, and probably a few other choice words making her unappealing to the audience. But, since Jesse says this and he just seems so harmless and nice, it’s obviously an okay thing to say as an opener to conversation.

Are you officially ‘wooed’ yet??

In Lean In, these gender stereotypes are beautifully explained, “When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women.  When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.  This truth is both shocking and unsurprising; shocking because no one would ever admit to stereotyping on the basis of gender and unsurprising because clearly we do,” (Sandburg, p. 40). People, females and males alike, are often threatened and intimidated by success of others – especially female success.  The thought of a woman knowing exactly what she wants and going after it, while some may find this empowering, most others will see it as a threat.    

Beca is accused by the uptight leader of the Barden Bellas, Aubrey (played by Anna Camp), of being able to “see her toner through those jeans”. Meaning, Aubrey is accusing Beca of ‘having the hots’ (for lack of better words) for Jesse, which is strictly forbidden by the Barden Bellas leader. Beca’s reply is not one you’d expect, “that’s my dick!” she shouts back. Yeah (my inner commentary screams)!!!! A strong female standing up to another strong female and not needing to defend the accusation of needing a man?! I live for this shit!  But wait… This same character will soon fall for this rival acapella singer? Say it isn’t so! The ‘typical male’ finds comments like these distasteful and unladylike. The film pushes viewers to appreciate the character of Jesse even more now that he’s accepting her despite these ‘flaws’. Look, she’s a bit crass, but a boy is still interested in her! She’s still relevant! And look how likable and persistent he is! Beca’s first impression isn’t one that we normally come to expect from anyone and it catches the audience by surprise. “When a woman does anything that signals she might not be nice first and foremost, it creates a negative impression and makes us uncomfortable.  If a woman is competent, she does not seem nice enough.  If a woman seems really nice, she is considered more nice than competent,” (Sandberg, p. 43). So, what’s the perfect blend of niceness and competence? Do we even care? Dyer explains why we do in fact care even when we try to deny the behaviors, “Righteous dismissal does not make the stereotypes go away, and tends to prevent us from understanding just what stereotypes are, how they function, ideologically and aesthetically, and why they are so resilient in the face of our rejection of them,” (Dyer, p. 353).

Looking back to Pitch Perfect with these stereotypes now in mind, think about the ‘love story’ again and really begin to question the relevance.  At first watch, the love story between Beca and Jesse, seems cute, despite Beca’s lack of interest – if even as a side storyline to the real climb and camaraderie of the Barden Bellas. Upon further look, Jesse’s ‘cuteness’ starts to become off-putting.  Jesse constantly tries to change Beca’s feelings on most things she has opinions on including movies (“How could you not like movies? What the hell is wrong with you? Not liking movies is like not liking puppies.”), music, and how she chooses to handle situations. As the viewers, we are supposed to find this endearing. ‘Oh look! He’s trying so hard to woo her!’ More like, he’s trying to change her and tame her into the person he wants her to be. Because the person she is, isn’t good enough. The chemistry between the two throughout can come across forced and Beca’s character seems much more comfortable interacting with the girls within the Barden Bellas. Followers of the independent film were confused by the need for romance storyline. After all, as Dyer explains, “…the aim of character construction should be the creation of “realistic individuals,” (Dyer, p. 353).” The audience has started to relate to the realistic broodiness of Beca’s character but she now abruptly transitions her focus.  The transition is harsh and embodies the opposite of the character the audience is first introduced.

By the end of Pitch Perfect, Beca’s character will realize what a jerk she has been (how dare she reject an attractive, semi-likable guy and go after what she really wants!) and try to perform a big gesture to win the guy over (through song of course, this is acapella movie after all).  The audience is wowed by the outcome and ‘awww’s’ at the result.

Viewers got another stereotypical film to watch repeatedly. The irony is the film is all about breaking molds, being different, and embracing who you are. The director of Pitch Perfect, Jason Moore, said after the movie’s initial release and as it began its rise into massive popularity, the original love story in the film was supposed to be between Beca and Chloe (which, after doing research for this assignment, I’ve realized has an insanely large online fanbase who call the pairing ‘Bechloe’).  Moore admitted that the roles were rewritten because a girl-on-girl pairing in a mainstream film would not garner the attention that a typical boy-girl pairing would. To movie fans from afar, the idea of the Beca and Chloe pairing seems absurd. But for those who understand the film’s complexity and weight, the idea makes sense. It seems almost like a cop-out that the film ended up going the stereotypical route while trying to break out of these gender roles within society. Beca stated in the film, “it’s not enough to be good, we need to stand out – be different.” So, why not choose to go the alternate route of what the film is actually preaching instead of the forced route? Chloe and Beca’s characters’ seem like a much more even match, but alas, this is another rom-com mainstream film.  

Women of this generation are fighting extreme unseen battles. Females have something to prove. We must break the mold and fight, fight, fight to try to escape this invisible stereotyped shell – a shell we have been placed in unknowingly. So what do we do in the mean time? “The gender wars need an immediate and lasting peace.  True equality will be achieved only when we all fight the stereotypes that hold us back.  Feeling threatened by others choices pulls us all down. Instead, we should funnel our energy into breaking this cycle… The goal is to work toward a world where those social norms no longer exist. If more children see fathers at school pickups and mothers who are busy at jobs, both girls and boys will envision more options for themselves. Expectations will not be set by gender by personal passion, talents, and interests, (Sandburg, p. 168-169).” Until the social norms are deemed officially broken, we should expect to see many more versions of Pitch Perfect-like films gracing our screens.  

Stereotypes are universal, often engraved into our innate subconscious, and something that despite evolution and strides for being more open-minded and accepting will remain problematic within society for years to come for all fighting humans (males and females alike) around the world.

[starsocsideblog]

did u want to hear pointlessly long rambling about ocs.....this is the post for u

okay so studying is killing me atm so i decided to use some chill time to chatter about my ocs…my kids….because lbr this blog is a mess of assorted information

stuff under read more

context? i suck at plotting and also gonna dodge some spoilers for now so all u need to know is that the story is set in a futuristic sci fi/urban fantasy sort of world (with some of those sweet dystopic elements thrown in because i love dystopias, even ya ones, especially ya ones) in which magic is a thing which a few people have (is it genetics? is it prophecy? this is why i don’t have a plot yet) but its sort of rather illegal to use and have because either a. magic users have put people in danger in the past and/or b. there is a prophecy that claims magic users will revive an old aristocracy based society in which those with magic had absolute rule and it sucked for every else so there was a revolution and honestly? no one wants that back. it sucked. mostly magic users have their magic removed and their memories wiped so they can start anew in society (although with a few restrictions for a while)

the main four kiddos are a bunch of late teens/young adults (i’m thinking about 19/20?) that have teamed up for various reasons to do some of that sweet illegal magic stuff and maybe jumpstart a prophecy that dooms the world but that last bit was an accident, and accidents happen.

first up is stella shields, who technically dates back to one of the first ocs i ever made??? (she has definitely changed a lot tho haha) stella is the self-proclaimed leader of the group given that she has good leadership qualities and is confident and brave and also very tol and swol, so there skylar

she has no memories of her childhood and is fixated on finding her birth mother, who she believes was andromeda sparks, famed/disgraced figure in prophecy. stella has no magic and believes it was removed as a child, and has been adopted by a lovely but kind of sneaky lady called tamara. tamara studies prophecy and such which is how stella even guessed that in the first place (also because they look super similar).

stella is a deconstruction of a heroic stereotype - she’s tall, strong, and despite having no magic she fights just as well as (if not better than) most of the cast. she even has the fancy heir-style backstory to boot. unfortunately, during the story…things…happen which deplete her strength and she has to take a backseat to the action, which tears her up inside but also prompts her looking at herself without a heroic lens and seeing her flaws/how much unnecessary importance she places on her status as a hero and her heritage

besides being obsessed with the idea of being a hero like her mother was, stella kind of has an ongoing identity crisis which she fills up with fantasies of finding her mother and dumping traits she thinks a hero should have in place of her almost “blank slate” personality (which she’s pretty in denial about). her character arc is about her finally recognising the way that she fills in others’ traits as her own and her growing as her own person and aaaaaaaa i love to see my baby mature

next is lina taylor, the problematic fave™ and stella’s best friend since high school. I’m not gonna lie i love lina a lot because she’s probably the first character i started applying actual flaws and consequences - as in, not 100% forgivable and pure intentioned flaws like being ‘too selfless’ and stuff.

lina is paranoid to the point where it hurts not only herself but others, and tends to lash out when feeling pretty much any negative emotion - sometimes her caution pays off, other times it does even more damage. she’s deathly scared of being betrayed and thus hates anyone knowing too much about her, lies about herself incredibly often, and will attack anyone who tries to get close to her if she feels threatened. however, she is a quick thinker and will immediately take a fall for her loved ones if she thinks one of them is in danger.

is lina a magic user? technically spoilers (eh…like its pretty early on? not a big one?) but someone dies and in her panic she brings them back to life. sort of. mostly. in that yeah, their heart beats, but they’re kind of (unknowingly) a walking corpse. her magic is of the healing variety, but explaining how magic works is kind of complicated in a character post rn….maybe later. just know that that sort of magic is a one-off and no, she can’t bring people back to life willy nilly (or even fully back to life at all)

honestly i love her character development as well because she learns that hey, she kind of is a pretty toxic person and has to work to undevelop these traits and make up for the times she screws up. it makes everyone around her happier, but it also makes her so much happier too (which i think she does deserve)

next is skylar ashe, technically good person? best known for doing his best, skylar is far and beyond the best magic user in the cast (main characters and probably even secondary characters too) probably because he’s one of the few characters that indulges in the slightly illegal hobby. skylar is well spoken and clever, and one of those people who has stupidly high aspirations at all times. he and stella have a rivalry thing going on, and they’re very jealous of each other (although skylar never notices because his self esteem is so low he can’t comprehend someone admiring him. he needs a hug)

skylar for the most part is a sweetheart (#teammum) and is a nice person to be around but can also be a bit scary given that a. he is very very manipulative when he wants to be and b. his moral code is a bit worn down in places. he tends to over-rationalise his own behaviour when guilt becomes too apparent, and can come off as cold. rip don’t piss him off mostly

skylar is sort of??? essie’s adopted brotherish person (essie’s up next!!). his magic appeared when he was a really little kiddo but his parents didn’t want to turn him because he was like 6. and thus a pair of lawful goods decided to buck the law for a while (like 10 years, which is a p good effort i guess) but that went about as well as expected and skylar eventually runs away from home, and comes under the care of essie’s mums. this is partially why skylar gets so much of his self worth from magic because despite the fact that it kind of screwed up his family it’s one of the few things he’s good at - he spent years and years practising so he could bottle it up (btw his magic is illusion and telekinetically based)

listen just give this kid some history books and a quiet room and he will be the most happy ever, and probably give you a hug and buy you lunch. his heart is in the right place most of the time and he does try to act in altruistic ways. that whole self-rationalising thing gets challenged a LOT throughout the story likethetimeheaccidentallykilledsomeonebutdontworryaboutthat and honestly? boy learns that no, you don’t need magic abilities/fun illegal hobbies 2 b kewl. u just need to love urself xx

fINALLY IS ESSIE IM LOVE HER TBH. vanessa mayford, known gay, and also part of the magic squad made up of skylar and a few other characters. a dancer by day and the voice of reason™ by night. except she’s not really that great of a voice of reason per se given that her response to “is that illegal” is “did u mean a challenge"

essie is very extroverted and a bit (a lot) of an attention seeker - if she’s there she’s mostly in it for the thrills. even if she’s not the best with reasonable advice (see above) she’s a bit of a bleeding heart and will always give someone a hug and a pep talk if they need it. on one hand she’s got her super overdramatic flair going on but also on the other she’s occasionally chill?? like she’ll do dumb stuff just for fun but is also pretty much unfazed by anything. a dragon or something could be staring her in the face and she’d just be like “can i jump high enough to kick it in the nose”

alas, as is the way with many loud people, she has pretty low self confidence and relies on the validation of others to feel like she’s accomplished anything in her life (which is one reason why she’s always trying to get people’s attention). she feels very unfulfilled with how her life is going despite still being very young, and thus is driven by the fatal american need to have a pretty good time to do reckless things just for the adrenaline rush - everything is a performance for her. she also hates conflict within her own group of friends, and sometimes brushes things under the rug if she thinks it’ll cause a problem, electing to try to deal with it herself.

essie’s magic has been a bit fiddly given that the rules change depending on the rules of magic (which tend to change from setting to setting). her magic is atm shapeshifting but the rules of it are getting a bit confusing so I’m thinking about changing it a little bit. whatever her magic is, she cares the least about magic and thus while she has a lot of raw power she can’t be bothered training to increase it (if she did, she’d probably outrank skylar power-wise).

in conclusion? essie is a babe and im love her a lot. she’s the charming, gay and flirty gal that we all need in our lives and one of my fave characters to write tbh. wins awards for best dressed, most likely to succeed, best dancer (she’s a cheerleader btw) and probably also prom queen. i would vote for her. she would probably cry but that’s okay

so those are my children i love them and now i have to go back to studying my ass off bye

[mastcomm]

Jay-Z Takes on the Super Bowl

A few years ago, the National Football League approached Jay-Z about performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. To perform “Run This Town,” he was asked if he would bring Rihanna and Kanye West, who appear on the track, along with him.

“Of course I would have,” Jay-Z said, “but I said, ‘No, you get me.’ That is not how you go about it, telling someone that they’re going to do the halftime show contingent on who they bring. I said forget it. It was a principle thing.”

Then, last year, the Super Bowl was in Atlanta, a global center of hip-hop — and the N.F.L. booked the pop rock band Maroon 5 as the headliner.

It certainly looked like the N.F.L. needed help. Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and the powerful chairman of the N.F. L.’s media committee, reached out to Jay-Z to discuss.

“The problem with the N.F.L. is you all think hip-hop is still a fad when hip-hop has been the dominant music form around the world for 20 years,’” Jay-Z said to him.

And it came off, at best, as ignorance from a league of 32 teams, only two of which are owned by people of color, employing 28 white head coaches, and an athletic labor force that is more than 70 percent black.

Mr. Kraft was convinced, and persuaded the N.F.L. commissioner, Roger Goodell, to meet with him and Jay-Z in Los Angeles.

The outcome: a partnership between the N.F.L. and Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s sprawling company, that gives Jay-Z influence over the league’s most important music events, including the halftime show.

This makes it the season of Roc Nation. Last weekend, the Grammys were hosted by Alicia Keys, a Roc Nation client. Roc Nation’s annual Grammys brunch brought together its artists and clients like Rihanna and DJ Khaled with Jay-Z and Beyoncé.

This weekend’s far-more-consequential marquee event, the Super Bowl LIV halftime show at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., will star Shakira, a Roc Nation client, along with Jennifer Lopez.

The deal also gives Jay-Z, 50, a hand in “Inspire Change,” the N.F.L.’s new initiative concerning “education and economic advancement, police and community relations, and criminal justice reform,” according to the N.F.L.’s promotional materials. Roc Nation has asked Mr. Goodell to commit the league to spending $100 million over the next 10 years on social justice outreach and causes.

“Roger is amazing and we couldn’t be doing this without him,” said Desiree Perez, the chief executive of Roc Nation. “He has been so supportive of us and is critical to us making change at the N.F.L.” (Mr. Goodell was not available for an interview, and a spokeswoman for the N.F.L. declined to be quoted for this article.)

This Super Bowl, amid the world’s most expensive advertising, the N.F.L. will sponsor the broadcast of a public service video, one of a series that tells the stories of black men and boys killed by police.

When this partnership was announced, it was received by some as a betrayal of Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who first declined to stand during the national anthem in 2016 as a protest against social injustice, especially the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police. He left the team at the end of the season and hasn’t been hired by an N.F.L. team since. (Mr. Kaepernick’s lawyer declined to answer questions.)

Like many black leaders in entertainment and media, Jay-Z had rallied publicly behind Mr. Kaepernick. And yet, two years later, Jay-Z was doing a deal with Mr. Kaepernick’s foe. In a locker room interview after the deal was announced, Eric Reid, a safety for the Carolina Panthers who took part in a lawsuit with Mr. Kaepernick against the league, called Roc Nation’s deal “kind of despicable.”

Jay-Z said he can live with the criticism if he is able to use the N.F.L.’s platform to convince white football fans that they too should be concerned about police brutality. “As long as real people are being hurt and marginalized and losing family members, then yes, I can take a couple rounds of negative press,” he said.

Roc Nation’s role as a record label and management company for clients who mostly have grown up poor and disadvantaged, and its growing focus on real-time response to criminal justice reform and abuses, has led to this moment with the N.F.L., he said.

Now is the time, he said, for the conversation needs to move beyond only Mr. Kaepernick. “No one is saying he hasn’t been done wrong,” Jay-Z said. “He was done wrong. I would understand if it was three months ago. But it was three years ago and someone needs to say, ‘What do we do now — because people are still dying?’”

Roc Nation has not said how much money it stands to make from the deal. “We didn’t say, ‘Let’s go make some money off the N.F.L.,’” Jay-Z said.

And Jay-Z may be the frontman of the N.F.L. deal, but it’s a companywide effort. Inside Roc Nation, the executives say the higher purpose is to get inside the establishment to bring representation of color and try to foster a nationwide cultural dialogue.

“I understand that some say, ‘Why do you want to sit at that table?’” said Tyran Smith, known as TyTy, a founder of the company and its president of A&R. “I’m a curious person. They’re not going to poison my food, I hope. I’m going to learn something and I’m going to share it.”

Juan Perez, the president of Roc Nation Sports, the company’s athletic management division, said: “Somebody has to kick in the door and get shot first. We’re that company. We’re not afraid. We’ve been doing it our whole lives.”

Wealth Creation as Social Justice

Jemele Hill, a journalist who covers the intersection of race, sports, gender and politics for The Atlantic, trusts that Roc Nation and Jay-Z are well intentioned in trying to bring attention to social justice by relying on the popularity of the N.F.L. — but she doesn’t trust the league to address its own issues of lack of diversity among its owners and head coaches.

“I feel like Jay-Z is giving them way too much of his cultural capital that they have not earned,” Ms. Hill said. “There has always been this tension of, ‘Will progress be made from working from the inside?’ The things that Jay-Z is trying to accomplish, he doesn’t need the N.F.L. to do.”

The company believes its mission in representing artists and athletes is to make money change hands with a purpose. Roc Nation sees this as a social justice function.

“Focusing on social justice is the nature of how we grew up,” Jay-Z said. “The people we sign — 75 percent of them, at least — grew up in poverty. When one of us gets signed, it doesn’t end our connection to the ’hood or the streets. Our lives are still there, our cousin still needs a lawyer, our mother still can’t make the rent. This is real life.”

He cites Meek Mill, a Roc Nation management client, who was arrested in Philadelphia in 2007, when he was 19 on gun and drug charges. “Meek’s got eight guys who could pull him back,” Jay-Z said. “I said, ‘Meek, you are going to go back with them, or you need to bring them with you.’ So he reaches a hand back and pulls them with him. That’s social justice: It’s how we help a person help their community and help themselves.”

Meek Mill’s 2017 appearance before a judge about a probation violation, dating back to those 2007 charges, helped fuel Roc Nation’s increased focus on advocacy.

When the judge ordered the rapper to return to prison for two to four years for the probation violation, Ms. Perez, Jay-Z and Michael Rubin, the founder of the sports merchandise company Fanatics and a close friend of Meek Mill, engineered a two-year effort in which they spent $7 million to fight for his release.

The experience galvanized Mr. Rubin. He raised more than $60 million to create the Reform Alliance, with Jay-Z, Mr. Kraft, Meek Mill and others. It works to overhaul the probation system. Roc Nation administers the organization through its philanthropy division.

What Jay-Z saw was rich white men like Mr. Rubin and Mr. Kraft working to fix a broken system after seeing injustice up close. It made him think more about what Roc Nation could do.

First, You Build a Business

In 2008, Jay-Z decided to start a boutique label and artist representation company. He, Mr. Smith and Jay Brown, a onetime intern for Quincy Jones, took a $50 million investment from Live Nation, a giant in the business of music performance. Roc Nation has many divisions but one mission, said Mr. Brown, its chairman. “We are in business to create opportunities for people we work with and represent,” he said.

From the get-go, Roc Nation had a music publishing division. “We signed writers and producers, and then we could control the song,” Jay-Z said, citing early relationships with artists and producers like Bruno Mars and Philip Lawrence. “We could place the song with any artist, and we were making money.”

The label itself has artists including J. Cole and Rihanna. But Roc Nation’s founders were well aware of the industry’s history of taking financial advantage of musical artists, so an artist’s management division came quickly.

Ms. Perez, is Jay-Zs right hand. (“Left hand, actually,” he said.) She was the operations manager of Jay-Z’s 40/40 nightclubs, including the location in Las Vegas, perhaps the first minority-owned establishment on the Vegas Strip. She is a tough negotiator and a strategic thinker, and helped artists who were struggling financially to reconcile debts and budget their income. (Rihanna famously sued her accountants in 2009.)

And because athletes mixed with musicians and social chitchat turned to money talk, with athletes routinely asking Jay-Z for advice on contract deals and investments, he looked to another old friend, Mr. Perez, who is also Ms. Perez’s husband, and had him start a management division for athletes.

Roc Sports opened in 2013 and now represents athletes including the N.B.A. player Kyrie Irving, the N.F.L. player Leonard Fournette and the W.N.B.A. player Skylar Diggins-Smith. (Kim Miale, the head of Roc Sports’s football division, said that she and her peers have no involvement in the Roc Nation N.F.L. deal.)

Mr. Perez says the pitch is an explanation to young athletes, many of whom were raised in or near poverty, that Roc Nation is evidence of what can be achieved through hard work but also through shrewd choices.

“My job is to give them a foundation and an understanding of how to stay rich and how not to make the same mistakes we probably made when we were young, drinking champagne and all the car stuff,” Mr. Perez said. “We’re going to try our best to make sure you grow as a man. This is a lifestyle. This is a brotherhood. This is a culture.”

That was the draw for Andrew Thomas, an offensive tackle at University of Georgia who declared he will enter the N.F.L. draft this year, represented by Roc Sports. “I’m able to talk to the O.G.s of the company,” Mr. Thomas said. “They teach soldiers how they become kings.”

In the greater Jay-Z-verse, there is the champagne and the cognac. There is a street wear line. There is the Roc Nation philanthropy arm, run by Dania Diaz, which helps administer foundations created by Roc Nation clients and execute on their philanthropic aspirations, like the school that the baseball star Robinson Cano built in the Dominican Republic.

There is Roc Nation Unified, a new division that provides strategic consulting to entertainment companies, venues, consumer brands and sports leagues around the world, run by twin brothers, Brett and Michael Yormark.

“At the core, we have one of the greatest artists of all times who is also a marketing genius. Roc Nation is rooted in an authentic artist space: driving rights for the artists, teaching entertainers to be entrepreneurs,” said Michael Rapino, the chief executive of Live Nation. “We can all talk the talk, but Jay-Z can walk the walk.”

And while that may be true, the glue that holds the whole company together is Ms. Perez. She has a massive office on the ninth floor of Roc Nation’s office in New York, where she is the first to arrive and the last to leave as she troubleshoots for artists, negotiates shoe deals for athletes and tells basically everyone in the extended orbit what’s what.

“You don’t want to see her mad,” one employee told me; I believed it.

Building to Social Justice

With all that built, there was an opportunity to make change. Jay-Z wanted an entire division within the company to be dedicated to it.

Team Roc got its start in August 2018, when Jay-Z dropped in on a Roc Nation staff meeting in New York. Talk turned to news of a conflict at a Brooklyn nail salon, in which Asian employees attacked black customers. “They were talking about Brooklyn, where I’m from, and I was triggered by that,” Jay-Z said.

“‘We should have a division where we can talk to things in real time — give money, get lawyers, try to help,’” Jay-Z said at the meeting. “If something happens in Mississippi, we will get Yo Gotti,” who is a client from Memphis. “If something happens in Philly, we’ll get Meek involved.”

Ms. Perez is in charge of Team Roc. In the last 18 months, it has organized protests outside a mall in Tennessee where a black teenager was arrested after refusing to remove the hood of his sweatshirt from his head at a mall; rallied behind a black sixth-grader in Florida who was suspended for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance; and supported a homeless man in Arizona violently arrested after stealing socks.

For much of the past month Ms. Perez has been consumed by calls with politicians and lawyers to address lawless and inhumane conditions in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where nine inmates have died since late December.

She scrolled through her phone; it showed pictures of inmates with multiple stab wounds, people sleeping on floors amid excrement and rats, a bloody body that appeared to be lifeless. “These are human beings,” she said. “Human beings! This is crazy. How is this America?”

In January, with Ms. Perez working behind the scenes, Jay-Z and Yo Gotti filed a lawsuit against Mississippi prison officials. Part of Yo Gotti’s job was to keep it in the media and social media spotlight as he made his rounds to promote his new album.

On Jan. 27, the governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, called for the closure of Unit 29, where many of the deaths have occurred.

This work makes Roc Nation hope its efforts with the N.F.L. may defy the skeptics and help further both Jay-Z’s and Mr. Kaepernick’s missions. “We are two adult men who disagree on the tactic but are marching for the same cause,” Jay-Z said.

For the family members of the young black men killed by police whose stories the N.F.L. and Roc Nation are promoting, the conversation transcends celebrities, football players and social media spats.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand that we just don’t want any more members to this club,” said Michelle Kenney. Her son, Antwon Rose II, was 17 when he was shot and killed by a police officer in East Pittsburgh, Pa., in 2018. The officer was tried on homicide charges and acquitted.

A video about Antwon’s life and death was released in December. “If there is anything we can do to prevent membership from going up by one person,” Ms. Kenney said, “we’re out here and we’re willing to do it.”

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[mastcomm]

Jay-Z Takes on the Super Bowl

A few years ago, the National Football League approached Jay-Z about performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. To perform “Run This Town,” he was asked if he would bring Rihanna and Kanye West, who appear on the track, along with him.

“Of course I would have,” Jay-Z said, “but I said, ‘No, you get me.’ That is not how you go about it, telling someone that they’re going to do the halftime show contingent on who they bring. I said forget it. It was a principle thing.”

Then, last year, the Super Bowl was in Atlanta, a global center of hip-hop — and the N.F.L. booked the pop rock band Maroon 5 as the headliner.

It certainly looked like the N.F.L. needed help. Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and the powerful chairman of the N.F. L.’s media committee, reached out to Jay-Z to discuss.

“The problem with the N.F.L. is you all think hip-hop is still a fad when hip-hop has been the dominant music form around the world for 20 years,’” Jay-Z said to him.

And it came off, at best, as ignorance from a league of 32 teams, only two of which are owned by people of color, employing 28 white head coaches, and an athletic labor force that is more than 70 percent black.

Mr. Kraft was convinced, and persuaded the N.F.L. commissioner, Roger Goodell, to meet with him and Jay-Z in Los Angeles.

The outcome: a partnership between the N.F.L. and Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s sprawling company, that gives Jay-Z influence over the league’s most important music events, including the halftime show.

This makes it the season of Roc Nation. Last weekend, the Grammys were hosted by Alicia Keys, a Roc Nation client. Roc Nation’s annual Grammys brunch brought together its artists and clients like Rihanna and DJ Khaled with Jay-Z and Beyoncé.

This weekend’s far-more-consequential marquee event, the Super Bowl LIV halftime show at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., will star Shakira, a Roc Nation client, along with Jennifer Lopez.

The deal also gives Jay-Z, 50, a hand in “Inspire Change,” the N.F.L.’s new initiative concerning “education and economic advancement, police and community relations, and criminal justice reform,” according to the N.F.L.’s promotional materials. Roc Nation has asked Mr. Goodell to commit the league to spending $100 million over the next 10 years on social justice outreach and causes.

“Roger is amazing and we couldn’t be doing this without him,” said Desiree Perez, the chief executive of Roc Nation. “He has been so supportive of us and is critical to us making change at the N.F.L.” (Mr. Goodell was not available for an interview, and a spokeswoman for the N.F.L. declined to be quoted for this article.)

This Super Bowl, amid the world’s most expensive advertising, the N.F.L. will sponsor the broadcast of a public service video, one of a series that tells the stories of black men and boys killed by police.

When this partnership was announced, it was received by some as a betrayal of Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who first declined to stand during the national anthem in 2016 as a protest against social injustice, especially the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police. He left the team at the end of the season and hasn’t been hired by an N.F.L. team since. (Mr. Kaepernick’s lawyer declined to answer questions.)

Like many black leaders in entertainment and media, Jay-Z had rallied publicly behind Mr. Kaepernick. And yet, two years later, Jay-Z was doing a deal with Mr. Kaepernick’s foe. In a locker room interview after the deal was announced, Eric Reid, a safety for the Carolina Panthers who took part in a lawsuit with Mr. Kaepernick against the league, called Roc Nation’s deal “kind of despicable.”

Jay-Z said he can live with the criticism if he is able to use the N.F.L.’s platform to convince white football fans that they too should be concerned about police brutality. “As long as real people are being hurt and marginalized and losing family members, then yes, I can take a couple rounds of negative press,” he said.

Roc Nation’s role as a record label and management company for clients who mostly have grown up poor and disadvantaged, and its growing focus on real-time response to criminal justice reform and abuses, has led to this moment with the N.F.L., he said.

Now is the time, he said, for the conversation needs to move beyond only Mr. Kaepernick. “No one is saying he hasn’t been done wrong,” Jay-Z said. “He was done wrong. I would understand if it was three months ago. But it was three years ago and someone needs to say, ‘What do we do now — because people are still dying?’”

Roc Nation has not said how much money it stands to make from the deal. “We didn’t say, ‘Let’s go make some money off the N.F.L.,’” Jay-Z said.

And Jay-Z may be the frontman of the N.F.L. deal, but it’s a companywide effort. Inside Roc Nation, the executives say the higher purpose is to get inside the establishment to bring representation of color and try to foster a nationwide cultural dialogue.

“I understand that some say, ‘Why do you want to sit at that table?’” said Tyran Smith, known as TyTy, a founder of the company and its president of A&R. “I’m a curious person. They’re not going to poison my food, I hope. I’m going to learn something and I’m going to share it.”

Juan Perez, the president of Roc Nation Sports, the company’s athletic management division, said: “Somebody has to kick in the door and get shot first. We’re that company. We’re not afraid. We’ve been doing it our whole lives.”

Wealth Creation as Social Justice

Jemele Hill, a journalist who covers the intersection of race, sports, gender and politics for The Atlantic, trusts that Roc Nation and Jay-Z are well intentioned in trying to bring attention to social justice by relying on the popularity of the N.F.L. — but she doesn’t trust the league to address its own issues of lack of diversity among its owners and head coaches.

“I feel like Jay-Z is giving them way too much of his cultural capital that they have not earned,” Ms. Hill said. “There has always been this tension of, ‘Will progress be made from working from the inside?’ The things that Jay-Z is trying to accomplish, he doesn’t need the N.F.L. to do.”

The company believes its mission in representing artists and athletes is to make money change hands with a purpose. Roc Nation sees this as a social justice function.

“Focusing on social justice is the nature of how we grew up,” Jay-Z said. “The people we sign — 75 percent of them, at least — grew up in poverty. When one of us gets signed, it doesn’t end our connection to the ’hood or the streets. Our lives are still there, our cousin still needs a lawyer, our mother still can’t make the rent. This is real life.”

He cites Meek Mill, a Roc Nation management client, who was arrested in Philadelphia in 2007, when he was 19 on gun and drug charges. “Meek’s got eight guys who could pull him back,” Jay-Z said. “I said, ‘Meek, you are going to go back with them, or you need to bring them with you.’ So he reaches a hand back and pulls them with him. That’s social justice: It’s how we help a person help their community and help themselves.”

Meek Mill’s 2017 appearance before a judge about a probation violation, dating back to those 2007 charges, helped fuel Roc Nation’s increased focus on advocacy.

When the judge ordered the rapper to return to prison for two to four years for the probation violation, Ms. Perez, Jay-Z and Michael Rubin, the founder of the sports merchandise company Fanatics and a close friend of Meek Mill, engineered a two-year effort in which they spent $7 million to fight for his release.

The experience galvanized Mr. Rubin. He raised more than $60 million to create the Reform Alliance, with Jay-Z, Mr. Kraft, Meek Mill and others. It works to overhaul the probation system. Roc Nation administers the organization through its philanthropy division.

What Jay-Z saw was rich white men like Mr. Rubin and Mr. Kraft working to fix a broken system after seeing injustice up close. It made him think more about what Roc Nation could do.

First, You Build a Business

In 2008, Jay-Z decided to start a boutique label and artist representation company. He, Mr. Smith and Jay Brown, a onetime intern for Quincy Jones, took a $50 million investment from Live Nation, a giant in the business of music performance. Roc Nation has many divisions but one mission, said Mr. Brown, its chairman. “We are in business to create opportunities for people we work with and represent,” he said.

From the get-go, Roc Nation had a music publishing division. “We signed writers and producers, and then we could control the song,” Jay-Z said, citing early relationships with artists and producers like Bruno Mars and Philip Lawrence. “We could place the song with any artist, and we were making money.”

The label itself has artists including J. Cole and Rihanna. But Roc Nation’s founders were well aware of the industry’s history of taking financial advantage of musical artists, so an artist’s management division came quickly.

Ms. Perez, is Jay-Zs right hand. (“Left hand, actually,” he said.) She was the operations manager of Jay-Z’s 40/40 nightclubs, including the location in Las Vegas, perhaps the first minority-owned establishment on the Vegas Strip. She is a tough negotiator and a strategic thinker, and helped artists who were struggling financially to reconcile debts and budget their income. (Rihanna famously sued her accountants in 2009.)

And because athletes mixed with musicians and social chitchat turned to money talk, with athletes routinely asking Jay-Z for advice on contract deals and investments, he looked to another old friend, Mr. Perez, who is also Ms. Perez’s husband, and had him start a management division for athletes.

Roc Sports opened in 2013 and now represents athletes including the N.B.A. player Kyrie Irving, the N.F.L. player Leonard Fournette and the W.N.B.A. player Skylar Diggins-Smith. (Kim Miale, the head of Roc Sports’s football division, said that she and her peers have no involvement in the Roc Nation N.F.L. deal.)

Mr. Perez says the pitch is an explanation to young athletes, many of whom were raised in or near poverty, that Roc Nation is evidence of what can be achieved through hard work but also through shrewd choices.

“My job is to give them a foundation and an understanding of how to stay rich and how not to make the same mistakes we probably made when we were young, drinking champagne and all the car stuff,” Mr. Perez said. “We’re going to try our best to make sure you grow as a man. This is a lifestyle. This is a brotherhood. This is a culture.”

That was the draw for Andrew Thomas, an offensive tackle at University of Georgia who declared he will enter the N.F.L. draft this year, represented by Roc Sports. “I’m able to talk to the O.G.s of the company,” Mr. Thomas said. “They teach soldiers how they become kings.”

In the greater Jay-Z-verse, there is the champagne and the cognac. There is a street wear line. There is the Roc Nation philanthropy arm, run by Dania Diaz, which helps administer foundations created by Roc Nation clients and execute on their philanthropic aspirations, like the school that the baseball star Robinson Cano built in the Dominican Republic.

There is Roc Nation Unified, a new division that provides strategic consulting to entertainment companies, venues, consumer brands and sports leagues around the world, run by twin brothers, Brett and Michael Yormark.

“At the core, we have one of the greatest artists of all times who is also a marketing genius. Roc Nation is rooted in an authentic artist space: driving rights for the artists, teaching entertainers to be entrepreneurs,” said Michael Rapino, the chief executive of Live Nation. “We can all talk the talk, but Jay-Z can walk the walk.”

And while that may be true, the glue that holds the whole company together is Ms. Perez. She has a massive office on the ninth floor of Roc Nation’s office in New York, where she is the first to arrive and the last to leave as she troubleshoots for artists, negotiates shoe deals for athletes and tells basically everyone in the extended orbit what’s what.

“You don’t want to see her mad,” one employee told me; I believed it.

Building to Social Justice

With all that built, there was an opportunity to make change. Jay-Z wanted an entire division within the company to be dedicated to it.

Team Roc got its start in August 2018, when Jay-Z dropped in on a Roc Nation staff meeting in New York. Talk turned to news of a conflict at a Brooklyn nail salon, in which Asian employees attacked black customers. “They were talking about Brooklyn, where I’m from, and I was triggered by that,” Jay-Z said.

“‘We should have a division where we can talk to things in real time — give money, get lawyers, try to help,’” Jay-Z said at the meeting. “If something happens in Mississippi, we will get Yo Gotti,” who is a client from Memphis. “If something happens in Philly, we’ll get Meek involved.”

Ms. Perez is in charge of Team Roc. In the last 18 months, it has organized protests outside a mall in Tennessee where a black teenager was arrested after refusing to remove the hood of his sweatshirt from his head at a mall; rallied behind a black sixth-grader in Florida who was suspended for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance; and supported a homeless man in Arizona violently arrested after stealing socks.

For much of the past month Ms. Perez has been consumed by calls with politicians and lawyers to address lawless and inhumane conditions in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where nine inmates have died since late December.

She scrolled through her phone; it showed pictures of inmates with multiple stab wounds, people sleeping on floors amid excrement and rats, a bloody body that appeared to be lifeless. “These are human beings,” she said. “Human beings! This is crazy. How is this America?”

In January, with Ms. Perez working behind the scenes, Jay-Z and Yo Gotti filed a lawsuit against Mississippi prison officials. Part of Yo Gotti’s job was to keep it in the media and social media spotlight as he made his rounds to promote his new album.

On Jan. 27, the governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, called for the closure of Unit 29, where many of the deaths have occurred.

This work makes Roc Nation hope its efforts with the N.F.L. may defy the skeptics and help further both Jay-Z’s and Mr. Kaepernick’s missions. “We are two adult men who disagree on the tactic but are marching for the same cause,” Jay-Z said.

For the family members of the young black men killed by police whose stories the N.F.L. and Roc Nation are promoting, the conversation transcends celebrities, football players and social media spats.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand that we just don’t want any more members to this club,” said Michelle Kenney. Her son, Antwon Rose II, was 17 when he was shot and killed by a police officer in East Pittsburgh, Pa., in 2018. The officer was tried on homicide charges and acquitted.

A video about Antwon’s life and death was released in December. “If there is anything we can do to prevent membership from going up by one person,” Ms. Kenney said, “we’re out here and we’re willing to do it.”

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