#at some point i should just start getting white sheets and dyeing them

[asterdeer]

finally went to the thrift store and got some sheets for pirate/poet shirts ! i think I might try adding some bells and whistles this time, maybe some frothy cuff ruffles or a different kind of collar. the only good thing to be gleaned from those two “bernadette’s pirate shirt pattern is Bad actually” videos is the existence of neck gussets, which i wasn’t aware of though it makes sense, so I’ll probably try those out. another thing ive never been completely happy with has been the neckline so i might try shaping it into an actual V instead of just doing a cut down the center. and far be it from me to deprive myself of extremely inconveniently long sleeves but it’s getting warm already and i want to experiment with short poofy sleeves. we’ll see!!

[honourablejester]

Starfinder Character Concept: Entropic Darksider

Because I was browsing around the class descriptions more, and my Vercite Darkside industrial worker is now a Vanguard instead of a Soldier/Mystic. Because it fits so nicely. Darkness, ice, isolation and decay. I like it. It’s so easy to imagine an incident, an accident, they got locked out of the installation in the polar night, or maybe less of an incident and more of a slowly building fascination, and the vast midnight ice sheets of the Darkside of Verces induced an almost spiritual understanding of entropy for them.

Yes. We’re doing this.

Character Concept: Xalke Syzon, Vercite Entropic Darksider

Name: Xalke Syzon

Age: 47

Starting Statistics:

Strength 8 (-1), Dexterity 16 (+3), Constitution 16 (+3), Intelligence 10 (+0), Wisdom 13 (+1), Charisma 10 (+0)

I possibly should fix the racial flaw to Strength, but it’s not going to be used until 10th level, so … frankly, I’m not gonna. I’ll put some in with ability boosts as we level, but at the minute I like Wis more.

Starting Skills:

We’ve got 6 at level 1. Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, Stealth are the main four I’m going to level continuously. I’ll also put a point in Survival and Sense Motive, just for theme here. Later on, might put some in Intimidation, Mysticism, Piloting and/or Engineering?

Race: Winterborn Ryphorian

I wanted a Vercite race, but verthani wasn’t really doing it for me. I did consider shirren and strix, but they’re both more commonly found on Fullbright, not the Darkside. But there is a note that there’s a decent population of ryphorians on Verces, because the tidally-locked divisions remind them of the years-long seasons of their own Triaxus. And if we want a character themed around ice and polar survival, winterborn ryphorians do nicely.

There’s also an interesting thing where ryphorians are culturally rather communal, which might make an interesting tension with a character that’s drawn to isolation out on the ice.

For our racial traits we get Keen Senses (+2 to Perception), Low-Light Vision, Cold Resistance 5 from Winterborn, and a bonus feat. Just because we’re a Darksider, I’m going to take Toughness. We’re just a real hard-bitten sort of a gal out here.

Description:

A lean, rangy, hardbitten woman, absolutely snow-pale from stem to stern, dusted in white fur, and with short, thick white hair that she’s never bothered to dye. Xalke’s never been one for fashion, and there was never any call for it out on the ice sheets and industrial platforms of the Darkside. Of course, that might have been more reason to go for a bit of colour and individuality, but Xalke’s always been one to settle into her environment, always been a still, watchful, slightly morbid sort of presence, blending blithely back into the snowfields.

Theme: Death-Touched

I was really flip-flopping between this and Void Nomad. Both give Con, both fit thematically with a Vanguard’s entropy, and near-death experiences and/or undead encounters are both likely easy to come by working out on the ice sheets of the Darkside. In the end, though, Death-Touched won, just because I might prefer a Perception bonus to a Survival one, and the eventual cold resistance just feels thematic?

(If I’m reading it right, the ryphorian cold resistance will stack with it, so long as we don’t have any other source of cold resistance. The racial resistance stacks with one other source)

So at first level, we get +1 Con, +1 bonus to Perception, and we can use Perception to ID and recall knowledge about undead and negative energy effects.

Class: Vanguard

It’s a melee martial class but it’s Constitution based, and the theming is fantastic. “To you, the inevitable decay of the galaxy is simply a force to shape, control, and even temporarily reverse.” Something happened in your life and you got tuned into the wavelength of inevitable change and decay, to the point that you can reach down through the grounding of your own body and manipulate it. This is basically damage manipulation, either to cause or prevent, but I love the way it’s framed. Definitely A+ theming on this class.

On Verces, and specifically the Darkside, there’s possibly an influence of philosophies like the Ascetics of Nar, the ice cult in Fastness of the Ordered Mind. A compare/contrast sort of deal, maybe. The Ascetics see ice as a blueprint for the frozen oneness of the universe, and some allow it to ravage their bodies to allow that blueprint to remake them. The vanguard channel their senses of the entropic universe through their bodies to allow them to manipulate their surroundings. There’s … not a link, nothing direct, there’s two different philosophies in action, but there’s certainly some calls for comparison there.

Not that Xalke has anything to do with the Ascetics of Nar, beyond having heard of them and vaguely considering them a bunch of masochistic nutters. But maybe the ice does have an effect, whether you plan to let it or not. Maybe if you do commune with the ice and the darkness, gradually over time, or intensely for a brief period (such as, say, going out to check a facility’s fuel lines for ice-damage and getting snowed out for a nearly lethal amount of time, even for a ryphorian), then … maybe it does wake something in you. A sensation of vastness. A physical understanding of it. A touch of something incomprehensibly vast that you can nonetheless feel in your bones.

Maybe you come out a vanguard. And you can pass that understanding, some glimpse of it, from your flesh to other people’s. Heh.

So, as a Level 1 Vanguard, we have the following features:

Entropic Pool, the pool of entropy points that fuel our abilities. We have 16 Con, so we can have a max of 3 EP currently. We only get them in combat (in various ways), they do a bunch of different things, and as long as we have at least 1 in the pool, we get a +1 to AC, we can spend 1 to get a +10 speed bonus, or boost an entropic strike by 1d4 per EP.

Entropic Strike. I love this thing. You channel your field of entropy into a(n advanced) melee weapon that you always have. Vanguards don’t ever have to buy weapons (as long as they’re happy in melee). ES scales, as far as I can tell, just fine by its lonesome. Also, it’s Con based, not Str. It’s entropy channelled through your body. I love that. It does either acid (to emulate entropic dissolution) or bludgeoning (for raw crushing force) damage, or a mix of both, and you can choose each time. And you can deliver it with any bit of your body. You can headbutt someone for entropic damage, if you want. Is that a good idea? I don’t know, but it’s a hell of an image. And maybe kind of fitting on our icefield industrial worker. Heh. Though it might be more fun to flavour it as a calmer, colder sort of attack. Maybe not even attack. Gesture. A gentle kiss of the ice. A seeping breakdown of your flesh, gifted gently …

Or maybe not. Xalke isn’t sadistic. Maybe we’ll just headbutt people, like a proper blue collar worker who had no philosophical pretensions, she just got locked out into the serene black-and-white void of the ice for too long, and came away a bit touched.

We also get shield proficiency at 1st level, our first feat (I think we’ll take either Fleet, to get into melee faster, or Weapon Focus: Advanced Melee, to help out our entropic strikes a little) and our Vanguard Aspect, sort of a subclass. I kind of feel like I need more scientific or philosophical background than I have to parse what these mean on a flavour/philosophical level, but I think …

Xalke’s always been rather solitary. Strikingly so, for a ryphorian. She’s always been at home out in the silent darkness of the icefields. She’s the one people do send to check fuel lines, and stand watches, and pull stuff down from remote corners of the mining rig. And she came into her abilities as a result of near-lethal isolation, and the vast understanding that came with it. So I think we’ll go for the Boundary aspect, which involves manipulating the isolation of a system to protect it from entropy. So we get a(nother) Perception boost, we get EP from avoiding damage as well as taking it, and we can use our abilities later to help allies mitigate damage. Which is … it feeds back into ryphorians as communal people, too. As isolated as she is, Xalke still understands and feels, on a physical level, what community is for. She’s on the edges of it, but she’s not rejecting it. She just likes her space, is all. But she’ll help out where she can.

Summary:

On the whole, Xalke is very much a tough, solitary, blue-collar sort of woman, someone who’s spent her life doing a hard job in a tough -but beautiful- environment, and who enjoys the isolation of it to a degree. But she’s not misanthropic, or sadistic. She has a sort of frontier helpfulness about her. If you need help she’ll do right by you.

How did she end up adventuring? Well, I’m thinking that after her little ‘incident’, the mining company wound up letting her go. For a couple of reasons, both wanting to distance themselves from her ‘incident’ and the possibility of having to pay injury benefit, but also because superstition is very much a thing out on the ice, and she came back tangibly changed enough that she unnerved her co-workers. If someone gets changed out on the ice, you don’t invite them back in. You don’t know what she is anymore. Not for sure. And maybe it was more than cold out there. She’s death-touched, too. Exposed to ‘strange radiation, dimensional rifts, or magic’. Maybe that wasn’t a normal storm that snowed her out. You can’t let something like that walk around the rig. No offense. You’re a good woman, and it’s not like we want to hurt you none. But you can’t let something like that on the rig. Even if she’s fine herself, you don’t know what else she’s inviting down.

So she wound up cut loose. And, yeah, she could’ve got another job, there’s enough rigs and smugglers operations and what have you out on the ice, but maybe she took it as a sign. She’d touched something vast. She’d come away with magic in her body, in her bones. She’s no ascetic, she’s not one of them nutters in the monastery, but she does need to go out and maybe explore what she is.

And, maybe, help some people along the way. Pay it forward. It might come back around.

Xalke Syzon. Blue-collar death-touched vanguard from the icefields of Verces’ Darkside.

[delimeful]

not always what they seem

finished g/t space au commission for @legendsgates ! it was super fun to work on, i hope everyone enjoys!

warnings: dehumanization, treating people like animals, abduction, miscommunication, remus being remus, deceit, misguided but good intentioned light sides

-

“Hey, kid, wake up.” 

Virgil groaned, shifting to his side. It was still dark, why was someone bothering him? 

“There you go. It’s a great day outside, open your eyes already.” 

Wait. He lived alone. Who was talking to him?

Visions of chatty burglars or insane door to door salesmen breaking and entering flashed before his eyes, and he jerked upright with a gasp, eyes flying open. 

Darkness. He couldn’t see a thing. “What?” 

Virgil nearly poked himself in the eye in his haste to check his face for a blindfold. He should be able to see plenty; there was an annoying streetlamp just under his apartment window. Had he spontaneously gone blind? Had he been kidnapped? Was he in a trunk, slowly suffocating to death? 

“Hey, calm down. Everything’s going to be fine, don’t pass out on us now.” 

A burst of unhinged, echoing laughter nearly cut off the end of the sentence, and chills ran down Virgil’s spine. “Oh god. Look, I take terrible care of my body, you don’t want my organs, I promise.”

There was an aggrieved sigh nearby. Virgil hesitantly reached his hands out to feel the space around him. It didn’t feel like a car trunk. He was sitting up just fine. 

“I don’t think we’re being trafficked, but if we were, you’d be pleading your case to the wrong guy. I’m in the same situation as you.” A dull knocking accompanied the words. “Unfortunately.”

Virgil carefully turned his body to face the direction of the voice, squinting in case he could make out any sign of an attack. “...Right, sure. Care to fill me in on what-- what exactly that situation is?” 

The stranger only seemed sardonically amused at the bite in his voice. “We’re trapped in a room. There’s glass walls dividing the room into sections. There’s a little bit of light coming in through the roof, your eyes will adjust soon. That’s all I’ve got. Remember anything from before you woke up?” 

 Virgil shoved down the rising panic, rising to a tentative crouch with his arms outstretched for balance. He’d been… What had he been doing? “I… I don’t know.”  

Another sigh. “Yes, I assumed so.” The outline of a silhouette seemed to be coming into focus. Unless Virgil was just imagining things. “Thank you so much for being helpful.”   

He bristled at the tone, but before he could respond, another giggling laugh reverberated around them. 

“Don’t fret so much, figments,” a new, somewhat nasally voice said cheerily. “I’m sure your terrible and inevitably gory deaths will only hurt for as long as the dream lasts.” 

Virgil took a long, shaky inhale. “What the fuck.” 

“‘The fuck’ is Remus, the third occupant in our room. As far as I can tell, he believes this is all a hallucination brought on by sleep paralysis. Best to just ignore him,” the first stranger advised dryly. 

“I’m still ignoring you back,” ‘Remus’ returned in a singsong. Virgil almost couldn’t blame him. He’d really rather wake up and realize this was all a dream, too. 

He wasn’t going to bet on it, though. He stumbled forwards, feeling the walls for a door, a switch, anything. 

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” the unnamed stranger scorned. “I’ve already checked everything that could be checked. Nothing’s going to happen--” 

His voice was cut off by three quick, consecutive beeps from somewhere above their heads. Virgil turned his head this way and that, searching for an intercom or mechanical device nearby. “What’s that?” 

Neither stranger answered, and Virgil realized that this was something new just as one side of the room began to slide upwards like a garage door. He raised a hand as bright light poured into the room, backing up as far as he could. In the corner of his vision, another person was doing much the same.

Something large moved outside the room, its shadow falling on them and making it a little less difficult to see. 

Unfortunately, what he was seeing was impossibly horrifying enough to be real.

A huge figure, like a giant from a children’s fairytale, was visible from the torso up. It was wearing something close to a full body hazmat suit, its inhuman face visible behind a pane of red-tinted glass. Piercing red eyes were placed just slightly too far apart, and a shiny black shell covered the bottom of its face like a curved medical mask.

It leaned closer, and Virgil recoiled harshly enough to slam his back into the corner of the room. The eyes settled on him for a moment, before flicking over to the other occupants. Adrenaline surged through him, but there was nowhere to channel it. He couldn’t flee, and there was no way he could fight. He was helpless.

In the section next to Virgil, a short man dressed in formal wear stood carefully still. He was meeting eyes with the monster, his expression neutral and still. Where Virgil had felt like a deer in the headlights, this man acted more like a snake assessing prey. The only sign that he was unsettled was the white knuckled fists at his sides.

The monster made an unsettling sound, like a hum interspersed with clicks, and then turned its attention to the only human still laying on the ground, presumably Remus. A few rigid plates along its forehead twitched downward, and it chittered at Remus. 

Virgil caught what looked like mandibles protruding from under its face plate, and felt lightheaded. 

“Remus, I suggest you look alive,” the snakelike man muttered, attention still locked on the huge creature. Remus didn’t respond, though whether it was because of the monster or because he was still ignoring them was anyone’s guess.

A moment later, the monster reached up with a limb, the suit glove doing nothing to conceal the creature’s spindly, clawed fingers, arranged like an osprey’s talons. It tapped the glass between them, and Virgil was abruptly reminded of a child at an aquarium. The ‘room’ they were captive in was a mere box to this being. An enclosure.

Remus finally sat up, stretching lanky arms as though it was a normal morning. He cocked his head at the monster, squinting. “What are you looking at, you big bitch?” 

Virgil inhaled sharply through his teeth, but the monster didn’t react beyond its forehead plates shifting back up, and before long, it was looking down at a strange grey cube, flicking talons along its surface like it was a touchscreen. 

In his section, Remus had unfolded to his ridiculous full height, and was ambling up to the wall separating them. He smiled, something about it vaguely unhinged. “Hmm, hallucinations aren’t supposed to be this expansive! It’s almost like we’re actually here, captured by giant monsters that are probably going to stick us in a blender for a morning smoothie!” 

The snakelike man rubbed his temples, still holding onto his composure. He didn’t dignify the gory statement with a response, but Virgil was more than happy to. 

“Hey, it was Remus, right?” Virgil asked, and he saw the man nodding enthusiastically in the corner of his vision. “Please shut the hell up.” 

“Never been very good at that!” 

—-

Roman glanced up from the data sheet, watching as the new specimens wandered about and made little noises at each other. He couldn’t help but hum a bit at the sight; the little animals were so charming. 

“Roman!” a familiar voice trilled, and he turned to the lab’s entrance, clicking in greeting at the sight of his partners. Though he’d been uncertain about working with beings from other quadrants at first, they’d managed to overcome most of their original hurdles and now worked smoothly together. There was nobody he’d rather have as his research team, even with the disapproving twitch in Logan’s ears. 

“Dear friends,” he returned, gesturing widely and making all the specimens freeze up again. “I swear I haven’t opened a single sect, only gazed upon our newest finds. You’re going to love them Patton, they have the strangest little noises.” 

The Nilh wasted no time in scampering forwards, just barely prevented from bumping the enclosure by Logan’s tail tugging him back slightly. “Oh, they’ve already started communicating with each other? What about body language, did you have the vidfeed on?”

“Yes, and of course,” Roman gestured with a pointed flourish, “I have also followed procedures and had the cam on since I entered the lab, treasured nerds.”

Logan’s hand flicked in an exasperated gesture, but his ears were no longer angled down, so Roman counted it as a win. Patton tugged the Glanrim closer by the tail, using his multitude of hands to push him into his spot. “Look, Lo! I think this one is threat displaying at me! They’re all acting so differently, it’s going to be so exciting to figure out what sort of sounds they use!” 

Despite his professional demeanor, Logan’s eyes all widened with excitement as he bent slightly to inspect their samples. “There’s quite a variety in patterns and sizes as well,” he observed, voice low and resonant. The little creatures all seemed to stiffen at it. “I would almost believe them different species entirely if not for the similar body structure.” 

“They’ve even got little primitive outfits, see?” Roman pointed towards the calm one in the middle, eyeing the seams. “There must be a bonding purpose for it, like how some mammalian animals will use pigment-dyes for enhancing appearance to attract mates. The real question is, how did they all end up looking so different? Which one is closest to the traits that make one desirable?” 

“I don’t see any reason we can’t find out!” Patton responded brightly. “We’ve got three samples, one for each of us, so what say we each get started on recording all the information we can!”

“We only have three specimens, so it’s important that we don’t push too far with any of them. This is only preliminary work,” Logan cautioned. “That said, I agree. The sooner we begin, the better.” 

“I’ll take the yellow one!” Roman immediately chimed in, his wings vibrating slightly inside his suit. 

—

“There’s three of us, and three of them, so of course they’re going to eat us.” Remus remained blithely oblivious to Virgil’s glower. “It’s lucky there’s not one more, otherwise we’d have to rock-paper-scissors on who gets torn in half.” 

Of course, this was the moment that the monsters stopped their odd, chitter-click-buzz noises to turn back to the container, and the first monster, the red one, began to fiddle with the side of the glass. Virgil started to breathe heavily as there was mechanical clicking around them, and then the ground under their feet shifted slightly. 

Without another second of suspense, Red reached under the box and slid the middle section out like a book from a shelf. The man in formalwear went with it, stumbling slightly and pressing against the glass for balance. 

“Oh hey, you got the freaky insect one,” Remus said, waving cheerily. “Hope your death is really cool and gory! Try not to make it cooler or gorier than mine though!” 

“Very helpful,” the man hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes slightly panicked. Virgil stumbled forwards to the front of his section as though he could reach the other human through the glass, terror chilling him. It was a pointless gesture, but as he was carried out of sight, the man offered him a nod anyways. 

Remus seemed to be unfortunately correct about them being split up, since next the one with the six arms and rocky skin pried the tall man’s section out and left with it as well. That left Virgil with the last one, a monster whose face was covered in neat fur and long whiskers. It looked at him with way too many eerie slitted pupils, and Virgil couldn’t help but compare it to a predatory big cat. Maybe several predatory big cats.

Its gaze was nothing compared to its size, of course, and Virgil couldn’t help but drop to a crouch, curling in on himself as gloved hands curled around the glass box he was stuck in and lifted it with ease.  

The floor of the box was transparent, and he stared at the dizzying drop to the floor the whole transferring process. When there was finally solid ground beneath him again, he looked up and found that his box had been placed on a sterile, shining counter. 

Before he could get much of a read on his surroundings, a shadow darkened the floor around him, and he barely got to flinch before cool fingers were descending on him, lifting him from the box. 

The hold was firm and clinical; his arms pinned to his sides, and a finger under his chin to prevent biting. The pressure on his throat was just slightly too much, and Virgil let out a choked cough, struggling to breathe through his panic. 

Thankfully, it only lasted for a moment. In the next, he was released, and his hands and knees met a solid surface. He scrambled to his feet, glancing around. 

The bad news was that he was out of the relative safety of the glass box. The worse news was that he appeared to be in a warped version of a hedge maze, walls and corners twisting around him. The worst news was that the monster was still present, and now it was manipulating some kind of square device. 

A heartbeat later, the walls around him started to buzz ominously, making the hair on the back of his neck rise up as he pictured every Saw movie he’d ever seen. 

“Fuuuuck this,” he muttered, shifting to his feet and starting down the nearest path. He alternated between making sure he didn’t get too close to the walls and making sure the monster hadn’t moved or otherwise acted suspiciously. The creature was watching him unerringly every time he looked up, and having all those eyes on him didn’t help his increasing unease at all.

As he turned a corner, he was faced with something new, and automatically ducked away in case it was going to start shooting at him. The small orb continued to sit in the middle of the path innocently, at just the right height to take out someone’s achilles heel. 

Virgil shuddered and turned around, backtracking to the last fork in the path. He wasn’t messing with monster traps, no fucking way. 

Above him, the monster seemed to sigh slightly.

—-

“... just too timid,” Logan was saying when Patton re-entered the main area of the lab. “The specimen didn’t engage in a single puzzle during our session, not even one.” 

“What a puzzling situation!” Patton chimed in, carefully slotting his own specimen unit back into the container. Inside, the little creature continued to make a bizarre assortment of calls, not even in Patton’s direction. 

Logan exhaled shortly. “Am I to assume that your insistence on wordplay means that you had greater successes than us?”

“Well, you could go with that, but you know what they say about assuming!” he replied, tucking a pair of arms behind his back as he wandered over to the others. “The little guy seemed pretty aggressive, so I tried to see if there were any specific threat calls I could make out, but… it almost never repeated. Either they have very complex body language that I’m missing or my little friend is a few sticks short of a tree!”

The other two looked disheartened, and the linguist glanced over at Roman. “You two didn’t have any luck, either?” 

“No. My specimen barely participated in the trials I set up, and so I haven’t discerned what level of intelligence we are working with yet,” Logan gritted out, ears flat.

Patton tilted his head slightly. “Not even the treat ball? Most sentient life forms have no trouble with that one.” 

“No, no interaction at all. It may be worth looking for more compelling bait…” 

Roman cut in, antennae flicking in displeasure. “Anyways, mine was uncooperative too! I was trying to get a few samples of their outer shells to see what the fabric is constructed of, but it was so resistant after just one layer that I started getting worried that maybe removing any more would actually harm it.” 

“Good. Better not to risk damaging them.” Logan turned to the units, nose twitching as he thought. “There are other non-invasive tests we can try, but results might shift if we try different samples for different tests.” 

Roman click-buzzed in complaint. “That could take forever, though! We’re supposed to be coming up with significant research, not trading specimens around!” 

“Maybe, instead, we could observe all of them at the same time,” Patton suggested, getting both of his teammates’ attention. “After all, isn’t controlled engagement with multiple specimens one of the tests?”

Roman and Logan exchanged a look, before the latter inclined his chin, slowly. “It’s worth an attempt, at least. Just watch carefully for any signs of aggression. They can’t harm us, but they could certainly harm each other.”

---

By the time the monsters finally decided to put them all in a penned-in space with each other, Virgil was almost too exhausted to be worried. Almost.

He shuffled away from where the three bizarre creatures were looming over them, but carefully remained out of grabbing distance from the other two humans. He wasn’t stupid; he barely knew these people.

“Aliens,” Remus greeted them, holding his hands up in an exaggerated pose. “I’ve totally cracked it.” 

“You’ve totally cracked,” Virgil shot back, but most of his attention was on the well-dressed man. Or, formerly well-dressed, since now he appeared to have had all top layers except his undershirt removed. “Hey, what happened?” 

“Oh, is it not obvious?” the man hissed, arms crossed tightly. “I’ve been robbed. Clearly, this must all have been an elaborate mugging for my blazer and button up.”

Remus cackled. “Yeah right! That suit is cheap as hell!”

The man rolled his eyes, and Virgil couldn’t help but notice the way he was shaking. It didn’t seem like a fear shake, not with this man’s demeanor. “Okay, but are you okay? You seem, uh, cold.” 

“Of course I’m not cold. Why ever would a half-dressed, anemic man in a glass box be cold?” the man snapped. One of the aliens moved slightly, and their gazes all flickered up for a moment. 

Once it became clear no grabbing was happening, Virgil sighed lowly, pulling at his zipper and shifting the sleeves of his hoodie off. “You’re kind of a bitch, huh?” 

The man snapped his head around, opening his mouth to deliver a scathing retort, but Virgil interrupted him by tossing the hoodie at his face. “Excuse m-- oof!”

“Don’t spill anything on it,” Virgil muttered, ignoring the man’s perplexed stare. “You can pay me back with your name.” 

“... It’s Dee.”

---

“Did you see that?” Patton bounced on his toes, tugging at Roman’s talons. “It gave away it’s covering!” 

“Astonishing,” Roman replied, not tearing his eyes away. “Is it a social hierarchy thing? Did you see any familiar dominance displays?” 

“I… didn’t, actually,” Patton replied, face scrunching in perplexion. “Maybe this one is less attached?” 

“No.” They both turned to Logan, whose eyes had gone wide. “It was an act of assistance. The yellow specimen was shaking, likely from temperature exposure due to losing some of it’s covering. It was… kindness.” 

“Woah, what?” Roman clicked, antennae perking up. “But that would mean--” 

“Look!” 

At Patton’s cry, they all watched as the other specimen seemed to attack, almost jumping forwards to intervene. At the last moment, Patton’s arms pulled them back. “No, wait!” 

Though the small, gangly creature had flopped onto the shorter one, the action seemed to elicit no pained cry or battle screech, only mild grumbles as the two readjusted in their impromptu pile. The one that had given away its covering made a face before carefully folding into a sitting position as well, a seat that kept it between the aliens and the other specimens. 

“These specimens were all pulled from different locations,” Logan half-stated, half-asked. Roman nodded, eyes wide. “They can’t be nestmates. What in the galaxy is this?”

“They’re sapient,” Patton blurted, a hand pressed to his mouth. “The sounds, they’re too complex because they’re not calls, they’re words. Language.”

“Language? But, the planet was said to only contain primitive lifeforms!” Roman protested, wings flaring up in agitation. “You’re telling me… Oh man.” 

“The heat sharing, the communication, even the extreme caution shown in unfamiliar circumstances,” Logan spoke slowly, as though warming up to the idea. “It… does seem to be a potential explanation.”

They all looked back to the tiny bipeds, now seeing their every action in a new light. 

“Well, there’s only one way to be sure,” Patton said, lifting up a hand and waving it slowly in a generic friendly gesture. “We’ll just have to figure it out for ourselves, using our own judgement.” 

After a long moment, one of the specimens-- no, aliens-- waved back. 

[depressedacadamia]

I couldn’t tell!

Word count: 2.1K

Summary: Solangelo one-shot! It started when a Will bought Nico the wrong coloured clothes.

Warnings: Nothing much, just some kissing at the end and solangelo being dorks.

A/N: okay, so this picture does not make sense now but once you finish reading this, it will. This was based off of this post so thanks for @didnt-want-to-be-a-halfblood for the inspiration. I meant to say that Will has tritanomaly not tritanopia- tritanomaly is a kind of blue/yellow colour blindness. I hope yall enjoy and make sure you comment, like, reblog and all that jazz. <3 from moi!

“Uh, Will- I asked for navy, not… camo green?” Nico raised the t-shirt in front of him, his nose wrinkled as if the colour offended him in any way. Now that Nico thought about it, most of the clothes in the shopping bag were a similar colour, looking as if Will was trying to send him off to the army.

“What are you talking about?” Will whipped his head towards Nico, his blond hair following him. Nico pointed to the vast sea of green covering his bed- almost all the clothes were green and there were even some yellow ones in there.

“The clothes, they’re all the wrong colour?” Nico repeated. Cabin 13, for once, was brightly lit, so Nico could prove his point that his clothes were the wrong colour. Camo green jackets, yellow bracelets and nail polishes and only a few navy t-shirts.

“You asked me for some navy stuff,” Will spoke slowly before picking the camo green jacket. “This is navy, just like you asked.”

Nico couldn’t tell if he was meant to laugh or scoff at the statement. Was this a prank? Surely Travis and Conner were right around the corner with a camera filming the entire thing. Perhaps Will was working alone and this was supposed to be some initiation for his birthday- after all, it was right around the corner.

“Will, everything here is green…” Nico picked up the yellow bracelet. “And this is yellow.”

Will’s face bore true and utter confusion. The jacket was navy, just like Nico wanted. He had bought the red bracelet and nail polish for Nico because he thought he could do with some colour and since he refused to wear any clothing of colour, he thought perhaps some red nails would give him a fun look. Will couldn’t see Nico’s problem- it wasn’t like he had bought neon green eyeliner.

“No. It’s not. That’s red,” Will said, his voice on the verge of confusion.

“This is yellow,” Nico’s voice wobbled, also on the verge of laughter. He shook the bracelet in Will’s face. “Will, you dork, stop it with the jokes. It’s yellow.”

Will frowned, his eyebrows creasing and eyes quinting hard at the object. He looked at the clothes strewn across Nico’s bed. What was Nico talking about?

“Nico, I’m not joking- are you sure your lack of sleep hasn’t finally caught up to you?”

“Are you insinuating that my lack of sleep will one day catch up to me?”

“I’m insinuating that your lack of sleep may have altered the way you see things.”

“Are you calling me blind?” Nico’s voice echoed with mock outrage.

“I’m calling you colour blind,” Will pointed to the masses of clothes, accessories and makeup across Nico’s room. Nico raised his eyebrow at the statement. His room was quite monotonous- black covering almost every inch of the walls- the only streams of colour peeking through being the white duvet sheets, the mirror hanging on his wall and Will’s terrible fashion sense. Will may have been cute but boy did he not know how to dress. From his bright orange Camp Half Blood t-shirt to his green zip up hoodie he was wearing. But Nico didn’t care- Nico thought Will looked cute in his clothes.

On the Night of Halloween.

“Will, where is the hair dye you were talking about?” Piper yelled as she went through his belongings, trying to find the box of platinum blond hair dye that Will had been telling her about earlier. He was planning on being Draco Malfoy, because Nico told he couldn’t pull it off, besides- Will had always appreciated snakes; something about the elegant way snakes would move always captured his eye.

“Uh, it should be in the shopping bag!” He called out as he scrambled about to check the time. Piper shoved her hand in the bag, rummaging around until her fingers glided across a box like shape. She pulled it out and immediately frowned at the box.

“Uh.. Will, this is strawberry blonde?” Piper asked questiongly as she looked at the colour of the hair dye label.

“What! No, no, I could have sworn I got platinum blond, I even looked at the little box which shows the hair colour!” Will began to panic as he turned towards Piper.

“Sorry Will, but this is definitely strawberry blonde. Kinda looks red-ish to me.”

Will reached his hand out to Piper, indicating he wanted to check the box. Shrugging her shoulders, Piper handed it over. Surely, Piper was joking? This would be some funny and long elaborate prank that she was playing on him. As he looked at the colour of the label, he sighed in relief- he was right; he had gotten platinum blond.

“Ha ha Piper, very funny,” Will’s sarcastic drawl took her by surprise and just as she was going to point out that she wasn’t joking, the door clicked open and Nico walked in.

“Where have you two been all day?” Nico asked, his voice suspicious- he was not about to dress up for halloween.

“Preparing.” Will stated bluntly. He took a look at Nico’s confused face before adding. “For the Halloween party.”

Nico groaned and threw his head back. “Of course you were, dorks.”

“Says you,” Will muttered as he started unboxing the hair dye in his hands.

“You’re dying your hair?” Nico said, his voice shocked and slightly bewildered. Will knew how much Nico loved his hair. Nico always compared his blond curls to the sun. How whenever Will would glow, Nico would enjoy basking in the warmth his curls provided as well as his golden skin; the freckles on his skin would stand out and make Nico want to kiss his face even more.

“It’s only temporary and it’s just platinum blond.” Will shrugged as he eyed the contents.

“Will, you’re going to look like Octavian if you dye your hair platinum blond,” Nico complained slightly. Piper nodded with her eyes slightly widening. Will stopped, confused and turned around.

“What do you mean I will look like Octavian if I dye my hair platinum? Octavian had red hair,” Will said incredulously as if it were the most obvious thing ever. Piper and Nico froze, their eyes almost bulging out of their heads as they struggled to contain their laughter. While Nico and Piper obviously respected the dead (Well Nico didn’t always respect them but he fed them happy meals and that's what truly mattered), the idea of Octavian sporting red hair was enough to make them crack up.

“What?” Will asked, his voice innocent and his nose scrunching up.

“Octavian had blond hair- Like Jason’s blond hair!” Piper cried.

“No. Octavian’s hair was red. Jason’s hair is red!”

“Will, what colour do you think your hair is?” Nico asked, his face suddenly very serious.

Will struggled on that question. “Uh.. it’s strawberry. It’s strawberry blonde, kinda ginger sometimes, right?”

Nico lost his composure and fell back, laughing so hard, he could have sworn his ribs were breaking. Will was colour blind and he had no idea as well!

“Sunshine, have you ever considered that you’re colour blind?

“Nico what are you on about?”

“Remember when you bought me green clothes instead of navy? And you said you bought me red nail polish but it was actually yellow?” Nico recalled, his hands resting on his hips, making contact with the sword that was practically glued to his side.

Will did indeed remember these circumstances as it wasn’t the first time someone had called out his lack of knowledge when it came to colours. He had always suspected something to be up with his sight but he would forget to book an appointment and other times, he just was not bothered enough. He had never thought his colour issue had been a big problem.

“I guess that’s happened more than once… anyway, I don’t see why you’re complaining. You’re wearing the bracelet and nail polish right now!” Will argued.

Nico snatched his hands away from view. “Those are not for your eyes, Piper,” he snapped as she turned her eyes to Nico’s hands where the sunflower yellow nail polish along with the yellow bracelet (that indeed had sunflower and sun beads on it) resided.

After plenty of arguing, trick or treating and continuous laughing at the fact that Will thought his hair was red (Nico refused to get over it as he believed Will’s blond hair to be his most prominent feature and the very idea of it being red was ridiculous to him), Will and Nico were resting in Cabin 13, where several candy wrappers were strewn across the room.

Will was sitting on Nico’s bed while Nico sat on the floor below him, in between the gap in his legs. Will was leaning over Nico’s shoulder as he showed him more mythomagic cards. Out of nowhere, Nico reached his arm up, weaved his fingers into Will’s golden locks and pulled. Hard.

“Ouch, jee- no need to pull so hard,” Will tutted as he started to glow. The tug on his head started out as a little joke- Nico had once called Will his personal night light and Will, in return, had said that Nico could tug on his head and he would turn on like a lamp. Will never thought that Nico would actually take him seriously.

Will’s skin was gorgeous, warm and glowy. He remembered once when Will had asked him ‘Why does everyone want to be compared to the sun? People should compare others to the moon because all I do is squint at the sun angrily’ .

At the time, Nico had found it funny- considering Will was a child of Apollo. But as time grew, Nico kept on thinking about the statement and he decided that the beauty of the sun sometimes is overwhelming and yet when it is missing, the entire world falls to despair and depression. It glows and basks everyone in their light and when they’re away people complain. That is what Nico would see about Will- why Will was his personal little sun.

“Wait, Will- does that mean when you glow, you think you’re red?” Nico asked all of a sudden, the intonation in his voice raising like a child.

Will groaned and nodded, embarrassed and annoyed.

“I’m sorry, okay! I couldn’t tell!”

Nico turned his face so he could see Will and sat up on his knees so their heads were at the same level. His lips were so close that his breath tickled Will’s lips and he could practically smell the caramel on his breath. Their lips closed together softly and Will sighed into the kiss, one of his hands moving to cup Nico’s cheek and the other to support his back. He pulled Nico deeper into the kiss, their lips moving passionately against one another. Will’s lips were warm, comforting and tasted like the caramel apple he had eaten earlier. Nico’s hands moved against Will’s face and Nico slowly pulled away from the kiss and started planting small butterfly kisses across Will’s face.

Every freckle, every feature, every inch of skin was blessed under Nico’s soft lips, muttering italian words that Will could only imagine the meaning of. Nico’s touch had no possible words to describe it because Will knew no words in english that could describe the magnitude, beauty and divine power his kisses held. No angel could resist the temptation of sin when Nico was the sinner- his onyx eyes so terrifying and yet so beautiful- he felt like he was looking at shattered glass, glass that had cut oneself over and over again; but the way Nico kissed Will made him believe that even if the glass cut him a thousand times, the way Nico kissed him would heal every wound.

The soft hands that cradled Will’s face now were the hands that had caused the death of too many to name. The fingers that grasped the sword and directed such a powerful force of rage now stroked Will’s face softly, holding him. Nico’s aura of pure terror and fear held a bewitching aura- an alluring aura- completely irresistible and filled with desire. He wore the scent of blood and death as if it were his perfume and his eyes so heavenly and yet so shattered, it made Will wonder how anything good can exist without being broken.

“You know I still love you..” Nico muttered. Somehow during the kiss, Nico had climbed up and was now straddling his boyfriend. Will looked up at him in awe. He had no words. He had nothing to say, he was too stunned by the divinity of Nico. So all he did was nod.

“...Even if you do think your hair is red,” Nico added, his lips curling into a smirk. Will threw his head back and groaned. The rest of the night was filled with the echoes of Nico’s laughter.

[frostsinth]

Laughing at Clouds - Commission One-Shot

This was a commission one-shot for the lovely @toocurly4me who requested a monster match based upon some information given. The request was set to modern day, and with a little info about what our MC is into, I was more than happy to write out a little something for them! I had fun writing this. It was nice to be in our own time for once, and I love seeing our monsters out and about with the rest of us!

Want your own commission? I have a few slots left open. Check out my post HERE for details, or DM me directly. You can also BuyMeACoffe while you peruse my other ramblings on my MasterList

All the best and enjoy!

It was a rainy day on campus, with the cold biting chill of the morning lingering in each droplet that beat against the navy fabric of her school sweatshirt. The forecast hadn’t said anything about rain today. The storm felt like it had come out of nowhere. Hell, it was nearly the middle of winter! If the weather was going to do anything unpredictable, it should be snowing! Then she wouldn’t be caught so horribly unprepared; it would have been easier to brush off soft powder instead of soaking up the ice cold water into every inch of fabric on her body and plastering it to her small form. Until she was completely miserable, and pretty certain her dark skin would have a distinctive blue tint to it from her sweater’s dye bleeding into it.

But there had been nothing for it. Attempting to wait out the worst of the storm in the back of the science building where she had snuck in to view the new zoology exhibit had led to the downpour only getting heavier. And she had that end of term paper due the day after tomorrow. There was no way she could waste another minute lingering beneath those flickering lights. It was only a ten minute walk. How drenched could she possibly get in ten minutes?

The answer was “very”. “Soaked to the bone” also seemed a much more concrete and visceral description to her now than it ever had before in her life. And the young woman wasn’t even sure if she was even still headed in the right direction anymore. Three years on campus had imprinted the memory of the sidewalks of the commons into her mind's eye, but the rain was driving down sideways now, and she had bowed her head and pulled her hood as low as she could over her thick braids to keep it from smacking her in the face.

So she had a lovely view of her grey and black striped boots right when she hit something far more solid than the sheets of rain.

Her center of gravity forcibly shifted, a soft squeak escaping from between her lips before she could even process the fact that her feet were trying to continue forward even as her upper body fell backwards.

Just before she completely lost her balance, she felt something strong and firm catch hold of her flailing arm. Stubbornly denying the will of gravity.

“Hey, woah! Watch out!” Came the cry, the smoky sounding voice muffled by the pounding rain.

But it seemed to no avail. She was going down, and now whoever was the owner of the voice would be coming with her. The young woman toppled backwards, catching the majority of the impact on her bottom before toppling the rest of the way to her back. The icy cold puddles on the sidewalk splashed up about her in a stumpy wave almost comically. Or at least, it would have been comical, had another form not fallen pretty much directly on top of her as well.

Her lips sputtered for air momentarily, stuck somewhere between the weight of the stranger’s body forcing the air from her lungs and the pouring rain making her feel as though she were halfway underwater. She flailed her arms about, gasping in surprise as she tried to get her bearings.

Her progress was impeded by the person currently flailing about themselves as they tried to find solid ground. The full realization of her predicament had her face flushing dark, and she managed to sink her palms into the puddles on either side of her and start to prop herself up. Feeling the water thoroughly soak into the seat and back of her worn jeans as she did.

Her would-be rescuer slash the instigator of all her woes managed to get to their feet first, and she found a hand extended into her line of sight. Dark brown eyes darted up, blinking through the rivers of rain streaming down her face that seemed to pool at the ends of her long lashes. The first thing that cleared the mists beyond the tip of her nose was a set of sharp, sparkling white teeth bared in a sheepish smirk above her. The young woman reached up in a daze, and found her forearm caught in his offered hand. She could barely make him out through the thick turrets, but as he leaned back to help tug her to her feet, she was very aware of the fact that he was not human. Not that she could really tell much else amid the pouring rain. The man was about her height, perhaps shy an inch or two, and that was about the extent of her analysis at the moment. That, and those glitteringly sharp teeth he shot her once more. She couldn’t help but stare a little in surprise even as she got her feet back under her.

It certainly was not entirely out of the scope of possibility. Her university was one of the most diverse in the area. But still, having come from the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and coupled with the fact that she tended to avoid the more crowded aspects of college life in favor of quieter, more solitary activities, the young woman was always a little surprised at first to run into any of the non-human students of the campus. In this case, she was being quite literal about the “running into” part.

“Sorry!” He exclaimed as loudly as he dared, having to raise his voice to be heard over the din of the rain. “I wasn’t looking where I was going!”

Under any other circumstances, she would have laughed as she fished for her soaked hood. “Me neither, I’m sorry too!” She replied quickly, eager to be on her way and out of the downpour. She cast an eye about, and realized she must have turned right at the fork instead of left. She was going completely the wrong direction, which would mean even longer out in the icy grip of the storm. She shivered at the thought.

He seemed to be looking about as well, and reached for what appeared to be an umbrella that had been lost to the side of the path in the scuffle. As he scooped it into hand and turned it right side up, she gave a shriek of surprise which matched his own yelp as a fresh bucket of water fell on both of them.

“Aw, fuck!” He shouted, jumping a little. “Damnit! Fuck, I’m so sorry!”

Now freshly soaked and feeling like a drowned cat, she looked at him. Her arms wrapped around her shivering body, her thick hair plastered to her face and neck. He moved to hold the umbrella high over the both of them, again returning her bewildered stare with another sheepish look. He managed to reduce the rain’s assault on the tops of their heads at least, save for a few errant drips, but increasing its pounding crescendo tenfold in their ears as it pounded against the top of the umbrella instead.

“Look, my place is just there,” He told her, pointing to one of the scraggily buildings repurposed for dorms a few yards down the road, “Come on, it’s fucking cold out here. We’ll catch our deaths.”

She glanced over at the building, still shivering, and opened her mouth to reply. Quite before she could, she found his arm scooped in hers. Steering her the few yards to the creaky iron gate and up to the door. She was far too surprised to object.

Once on the covered porch, he released her arm, then shook the excess water from his umbrella and turned to look back over the drenched campus behind them.

“Gods above, what a dreadful day.” He grumbled before turning to face her properly. “I’m sorry I knocked you over…. And then dumped water on you…” He cocked his head to the side, smirking grin returning to his face, “And then proceeded to kidnap you. Let me make it up to you, yeah?”

The woman blinked at him stupidly a few times, finally able to take him in from head to toe without the rain impeding her line of sight.

He was slender built, with an athletic form currently generously framed by the way his drenched clothes stuck to him like spandex. Water dripped from the tip of a long slender nose, and his eyebrows arched in the center of an over pronounced brow as he looked at her. It was impossible to tell what color his hair was normally, as it was several shades darker now with water dripping from the spikey tips that were currently flattened to the top of his head. She ventured to guess it was probably a copper brown, and he seemed to have the sides shaved stylishly short while the top was wild and long. Long enough to possibly braid down the back of his slightly oversized head she imagined, should he so choose. He also boasted a pair of large ears, nearly as wide as her palm where they connected to the side of his skull, but then tapering into a broad but slightly rounded point a few inches beyond. The tips were loose, and shifted with his features as he talked. As expressive as his wry lips, which curled back into that sheepish smirk as she watched. She would also venture to guess that he was a deep, mottled green, though in the dim light of the morning it was hard to tell the exact shade, and she imagined he might be a fair bit paler from the cold.

The goblin cocked his head back to the side under her inspection, perhaps used to such staring, and offered out his hand “I’m Jaco, by the way.”

“Uh... “ She realized her mouth was dropped open a bit, and quickly endeavored to close it. Reaching out to carefully take his hand in hers. But as she met his bright yellow eyes… the knowledge of her own name suddenly fled her. “Oh.. I’m… Um…”

His brow raised quizzically. “... Ah, Are you alrig-”

“Rachelle!” She blurted quickly, then cleared her throat embarrassedly. “... I’m Rachelle…”

That sheepish grin returned, and his eyes glinted mischievously. “... Perhaps you hit your head when we fell?” He offered, almost as if he could read the loud hum that seemed to be currently filling her cranium. Though it certainly wasn’t from falling. Well… not the fall he meant at least...

She did laugh now, releasing his hand bashfully and pushing the loose strands of her sopping hair out of her face. “Something like that…”

“Sorry again about all that... “ He shuffled his feet, clearing his own throat and sneaking a peak up at her. “Can I make it up to you? Perhaps some tea or coffee? Or maybe hot chocolate, if you’ve got a sweet tooth?”

Rachelle gave a hefty sigh, shaking her head. “I really shouldn’t, I’ve got a term paper due that I haven’t even started-”

“Well, you won’t be able to start until you get dry, right?” He interrupted. “Why not dry off and warm up over some cocoa with some company?”

Her face blazed hot again, and she sheepishly rubbed at the back of her neck. “I’d just get wet again.” She pointed out with a small smile.

“I’ll escort you back, if you want.” He offered. “Or you can take my umbrella; I’ll enchant it this time so you won’t get a drop on you.” Her eyes lit up at the word ‘enchant’, and the goblin eagerly latched on. “I’m here studying enchantments.” He explained. “Working on my thesis actually, in thermopartical magicks and their effect on…” He dropped off, looking a little embarrassed at the sudden gush of enthusiasm for an obviously favored topic “... Ah, I don’t want to bore you with the science-”

“No, it’s not boring at all!” She returned quickly, almost bouncing on her toes in excitement. “I’ve always wanted to learn more about magic, but humans aren’t allowed to study the Application field, only research and historical.”

His sharp toothed grin grew to reach almost to his ears. “I am certainly not above showing off with a few magic tricks for a beautiful woman.” He teased, and his ears flopped as he cocked his head to one side. “Especially if it makes her eyes sparkle like that when I do.”

She nearly toppled over as her head spun at his words. A shy laugh petered from her lips, and she shuffled her feet. But she couldn’t completely hide the embarrassed smile that slipped across her lips. Jaco waited a moment, then bowed his shoulders, trying to catch her eye.

“... Can I tempt you again with the hot cocoa, Rachelle?” 

She grinned again, looking up at him coyly.  “... I could probably be convinced.”

He returned the smile, and reached for the handle of his door, bowing melodramatically at the waist as he opened it for her. She couldn’t help another laugh, and moved to step around him. As she did, her foot slipped on the old wooden boards of the porch, having spent the last few minutes becoming horribly slick with the water dripping in streams off their clothes. She gave another squeal, and felt herself sliding backwards for the second time that day. This time, Jaco reacted quicker, and his arm snaked out, catching her and lending his strength as she gathered her feet beneath her once more.

However, the motion brought him perilously close to her, and both of their eyes widened slightly at their sudden proximity. A hesitant silence filled the air, punctuated only by the drumming rhythm of the rain around them. Her breath caught and fluttered about in her throat, her heart skipped sporadically in her chest. He smelled of rain right now, but there was also the distinct hint of something spicy beneath it… cinnamon maybe? The realization that he was close enough to distinguish that made the balls of her cheeks grow hot despite the chilly morning air.

She couldn’t help her eyes darting down to his thin lips. Which curled into a smile as she did. Rachelle quickly corrected her gaze, meeting his yellow eyes with dark pools of velvet brown.

“Don’t let me stray down that train of thought,” He warned her lightly, his voice teasing and soft, “I’m trying to be a gentleman. Cocoa and an enchanted umbrella seem more than sufficient for a good first impression, no?”

She straightened a little more, and realized his three fingered hand had lingered in the small of her back. “Oh?” She managed after a shallow little wisp of a breath. “And I suppose a gentleman wouldn’t kiss a woman they’ve just met?”

She meant it to sound teasing and light, but his sharp yellow eyes danced at the sound of her voice. She caught him sneaking a peak at her full lips and they tingled under his scrutiny. She chased a nervous breath down her throat with a quiet swallow.

“I suppose they might. But the problem is,” He purred, leaning a little closer, “If I kissed you now, I don’t know if I’d be able to stop...”

[elisaphoenix13]

Never Too Old (Or Young)

It was a rare morning that Tony got up before Stephen or the girls, so he took the opportunity to get up and go downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. He may have been awake, but he wasn't quite aware, which was something the coffee would help with. Tony yawns and pours the coffee into a mug when it finishes brewing and he walks over to one of the windows to blearily look out as he drinks his...what did Harley call it? His anti-murder juice.

Each sip he took woke him little by little until he noticed a white smudge on the window in front of him. What the hell? Tony tries to rub it away with his finger, and that's when he realizes that the smudge was on the outside. It looked nothing like bird poop, in fact, it was a solid white. It had a specific curve to it…

The engineer takes a step back when he notices another white smudge out of the corner of his eye, and he sighs heavily when he sees the smudges all over the windows. They were everywhere. It took a couple more thoughtful sips of his morning coffee for things to finally click and Tony realized they were stickers.

"These damn kids," Tony huffs as he walks into the living room.

The likely suspects were Peter and Diana. He considered Harley for a brief moment, but not only would it be hard to place so many stickers on the outside of the tower windows in the Rescue suit...but he was also passed out on the couch. Textbooks were all over the coffee table, the floor, and even a couple were on the teen himself which was a dead giveaway that he had been studying all night. Why he was in the living room instead of up in his room was beyond Tony, but he shrugged it off before carefully taking off the boy's glasses and setting them aside.

Stephen was the one to suspect Harley's far-sightedness a couple of years ago, and the boy had been so relieved that there wasn't something seriously wrong with him. The sorcerer had kept a close eye on Harley after almost a week of complaining of headaches, and the boy would squint while doing homework or reading, pull the book farther away, and even rub his eyes.

Maybe in the hopes of fixing his vision.

So Stephen took him to a specialist since he and Bruce didn't exactly specialize in optometry. The doctor confirmed Stephen's suspicion and they got Harley some prescription glasses which clearly made a difference when he started wearing them. No more furrowing brows, no more headaches, and he got his homework done faster since he wasn't using most of the time to try and see it in the first place.

Tony had a suspicion that William liked them too.

Just as Tony was about to throw a blanket on his oldest son, Levi beat him to it and draped itself across the teen. "Why didn't you do that before?"

"It can only do so much without me." Stephen says as he descends the stairs holding Lucy and with Athena trailing behind him.

"One of our kids decorated the windows." Tony tells him as he puts his coffee down on a book free surface to take their youngest. "And the tree is miraculously still standing."

"That's because Tibbs is in Peter's room. We have a whole day of prying him away from it ahead of us." Stephen rolls his eyes and heads into the kitchen to make himself some tea and a bottle for Lucy.

That was made and handed to Tony before breakfast was started. Thomas and William join a few minutes later and the younger of the twins joins Stephen in the kitchen to help as Thomas retreats into the living room. It turned into a typical morning after that. The rest of the kids woke up, some of the Avengers came up to join the family for breakfast, and sometime in the middle of that chaos, Harley woke up and cleaned up his study mess. Breakfast was eaten and Harley and William made plans to do some last-minute Christmas shopping.

It definitely wasn't a date.

Peter and Cassie had their own plans and Peter was currently showering while his girlfriend went back downstairs and got ready. It was relatively calm then...at least as calm as it could be with as many people as there were. Stephen was reading on the couch with Athena next to him with her head in his lap, and he periodically pet her head as he read. Tony had disappeared down to the lab with Lucy to undoubtedly turn her into a grease monkey, and Valerie was coloring on the floor with Diana. Thomas...was somewhere not dying or getting into trouble so that was enough for them. Harley disappeared as well which was weird since William was still in the living room with the girls.

Stephen nonchalantly turned a page in his book when Peter screeched. The wolf lifted her head at the same time Stephen, Valerie, Diana, and William looked up toward the bedrooms, and Peter soon came out of his room with only a towel around his waist with blue splotches all over his skin.

"HARLEY!" Peter shouts and Stephen sighs.

A prank. Specifically the one where a showerhead was filled with dissolvable dye capsules or Kool-aid powder. Harley was nowhere to be seen and to Stephen's surprise, William burst into hysterical laughter. Peter gave the younger teen a look that was a mix between annoyance, bewilderment, and what looked like glee. Probably because William was actually laughing about something.

"I-I'm sorry!" William sputters through bouts of laughter.

Peter huffs. "Mom, have you seen Harley?"

"Nope." Stephen says as he flips a page in his book and Athena lays her head back down.

Peter looks at William. "Tell your boyfriend it's on!" He disappears back into his room to scrub the blotches off his skin, leaving William to sputter.

Stephen chuckles and returns part of his attention to his book when William ends up blushing bright red.

"You should kiss him." Diana finally says and William's eyes widen.

"Wh-what?!"

"You should kiss Harley. You both like each other." She repeats. "You're worse than Uncle Quill and Uncle Scott."

"He doesn't-"

"He does." Stephen says and turns another page.

"Hey, Will! Come on!" Harley says from the elevator.

William turns a deeper shade of red as he gets up to join Harley, and Stephen hears the older one ask him if he's okay as the elevator doors close. Maybe his and Diana's little confession would be just the push William and Harley needed but then again…

"Boys are stupid."

"Diana." Stephen scolds lightly.

"They are." She mumbles.

"Who's responsible for the stickers?" The sorcerer asks.

"Petey. He crawled on the windows outside and put them on."

"I suppose you supplied them?"

"Nuh-uh. Valerie."

Stephen looks back up from his book and raises an eyebrow at Valerie who definitely looks a little guilty. She pouts up at him with her big blue eyes, and he sighs in defeat. One would think that with seven kids he would be immune to the puppy eyes but he fell for them every time. He was pretty sure the kids knew it too.

No. He was positive.

"Bye Mom! Be back later!" Peter calls out as he races down the stairs and through the door to the stairwell.

"Have fun." Stephen manages to say before the door shuts.

"Mama, look." Valerie holds up the paper she was coloring on and reveals endless scribbles that covered the whole of it.

"It's very beautiful. Do you want to hang it up?" He smiles when her eyes widen in excitement and she nods.

The two year old gets up and walks over to the cloak floating nearby and holds it up to Levi. The cloak happily takes it, and with a cartoonish flourish that briefly made Stephen feel like he was in one, Levi tacks it to the wall with the other drawings. When it claps the folds of its collar together, Stephen knew they were in far too deep. Even his cloak was domesticated.

"My children have turned an ancient relic into a nanny." Stephen bemoans.

"Daddy said you started it." Diana says and Stephen huffs.

"It was one time and that was when Peter was turned into a baby. The cloak was the only one that could reach Peter when he was climbing the walls and the ceiling." Stephen closes his book. "Speaking of your daddy, since he smuggled your sister into the lab, why don't we go to the store?"

"Can I come?" Thomas suddenly says from next to him.

"Get your coat."

In the meantime, Stephen takes the girls upstairs to get them dressed and once they all have their coats on, he opens a portal to the store. Thomas of course returned while the girls were getting ready, and went through the portal after picking up Diana. Stephen huffs fondly when Diana giggles loudly and picks up Valerie to follow them. It took a couple of years, but the twins were finally comfortable asking for things but it was usually still necessities. It was still kind of rare for them to ask for things they wanted.

"'tena?" Valerie asks and waves at the wolf behind Stephen. "'Tena, here!"

Athena comes through the portal and Stephen rolls his eyes as he waves his hand to get her service vest on. It would at least lessen the looks, which only left the 'is that a wolf' whispers. Yes. Yes she is.

"If you weren't so shy of strangers, I'd say you would grow up to be a politician or a world leader."

"Nah, Val?" Thomas cackles. "She's too nice."

"Also a good point. Push the cart please?"

Thomas nods and puts Diana down so he can grab a cart and they walk through the aisles of Target. Diana was happy to 'ooh' and 'aah' at every piece of clothing she saw and Valerie soon ended up in the seat of the cart when Stephen's hands began to tremble a little too much. He then had to attempt to redirect Diana's attention away from the clothes because he was pretty sure she had twenty versions of the sundress she was looking at. Cassie was the one that took her shopping for clothes anyway. It was their thing.

"Aww…" Diana pouts but goes without a fuss to the bedding aisle.

"Why don't you help me pick out some sheets for your sister?"

"There's one with stars on it." Thomas points out and grabs the set to hand to the seven year old.

Diana rolls the set around in her hands with a scrutinizing gaze and then shakes her head. "No. She needs animals."

She looks up at the selection of bedding and finally points up at a set with little brown rabbits. Thomas grabs it for her and after she scrutinizes it like the one before, she smiles and nods and holds it up for Valerie to see.

"Do you like it Valerie?" She asks and the two year old grabs it and scrunches her brows at it before smiling.

"Bunny!"

Stephen chuckles. "I'll take that as a yes." His phone then rings and he takes it out of his pocket to answer it. "Yes love?"

"Heyyyyy Honey…" Tony starts and the sorcerer instantly narrows his brows in suspicion even though his husband can't see.

"What did you do Tony?"

"What? Nothing! Everything's fine! FRIDAY just told me you were at the store and thought I'd tell you that we're low on diaper wipes." Tony answers casually.

"Lucy is covered in grease again isn't she?" Stephen asks flatly.

"It suits her."

"She is two weeks old! Give her a bath. A proper one."

"Yes Duchess." The mechanic chuckles. "We do need more wipes though."

"Noted."

Stephen hangs up and rolls his eyes as he directs the kids to the baby section. Wordlessly, he grabs at least three packs of wipes before grabbing a fourth just in case. Tony had a habit of wiping down Lucy with diaper wipes whenever she was down in the lab with him and she got dirty, but Stephen didn't even know how he managed that. Her motor skills were still nearly non-existent and he wondered if maybe his husband used her as a rag.

He wouldn't put it past Tony. He got tunnel vision whenever he got invested in a project. Stephen couldn't complain though. Lucy loved being in the lab with her father and Tibbs, and whoever else happened to be in there with them. Granted, she slept through most of the chaos, and when she didn't, she was very helpful to Tony.

Baby noises were apparently helpful.

"We better hurry and finish up so we can go save your sister." Stephen says.

"It might be too late." Thomas jokes.

They finish their shopping and Stephen opens a portal back to the penthouse where they find Tony giving Lucy her bath. Before Stephen can even open his mouth, he sees the baby tub in the sink and makes a strangled noise when he finds the water in it nearly pitch black.

"I'm afraid to ask...but what happened?" He asks through clenched teeth.

Tony looks up and actually looks a little sheepish. "Domino effect I think? Something backfired, Tibbs was startled...and I think he knocked over a box of dust."

"I wouldn't be surprised. You barely clean the lab." Stephen sighs. "I hope you found a baby underneath all that filth."

"I did. She's very cute too. Can we keep her?" Tony holds up their naked baby daughter and grins.

Stephen can't help but chuckle.

"You get to change the diapers."

"Always stuck with the dirty work." Tony grumbles.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter seventeen: the city by the lake

“So here we are in Lone Pine—what's next again?” Alex asked her as he drank down his fresh coffee.

“Independence. Fort Independence and also Manzanar.”

“Oh, damn.”

“Yeah. I remember the first time I polished up on my history and my dad told me about it. I was horrified, especially by how it's so close to home, too. But yeah, it's Independence, Manzanar, and then Big Pine, and then finally Bishop. We'll stop there and I'll show you one of mine and my parents' favorite places to go at during this whole road trip: right on the main street. Maybe the next time around—like when it's closer to summer, we can go up to Tom's Place—up the hill north of Bishop. My dad stopped at Tom's Place once years ago, and he said they have literally the best blueberry cobbler.”

“Yum,” Alex declared as he rolled his eyes up into the back of his head, and it made her giggle.

He sipped on his coffee some more and he peered out the window which looked out to the west. Mount Whitney was still buried underneath those clouds, but every so often, those feathery wispy sheets dissipated and they both looked on at those high jagged points as they stood strong and foreboding and blanketed with a fresh layer of pure white snow, like the highest most haunted castle in all of the land. Sam shivered at the sight of those points and then she returned to her French toast.

“Just looks cold up there,” he said.

“Where? Up there?” Sam pointed out the window to the top of the mountain, and he nodded. “You know, we're not too far from Death Valley.”

“Oh, yeah, there's that race they have every year. You know, the run from the very bottom of Death Valley to the peak of Mount Whitney.”

“Oh, that! Yeah! That takes place every summer, though. I mean, it makes sense—given how cold it is up there and everything but—still.”

“Right?” Alex showed her a little grin as he reached for another piece of toast. “We should go to Yosemite at some point.”

“I dunno if we can go up there, though,” she confessed. “I didn't see the sign that says that the roads are closed, but that one in particular on this side of the mountains—Tioga, because it's so high up—is closed for most of the year.”

“'Cause of black ice and whatnot,” he added.

“Right! But that's another adventure for us, if you ask me, though. When I went on the road trip with Louie, he mentioned the Eastern Sierra being so peaceful. I kinda wish I agreed with him the first time around because—it really is. There's so much to this side of California. So much to offer, so much to see, so many unique adventures away from L.A., San Diego, and the Bay Area. So much more than meets the eye.”

“It's almost as if you're showing me the one place that you go to when no one's looking,” he said with a thoughtful look on his face. Sam hesitated and then it dawned on her. She really was showing it to him. She was showing him her quiet place. “And at some point, I probably should show you mine, too.”

“You have a quiet place, too?”

He nodded at that and the black hair dye on the crown of his head seemed to fade away with the movements of his head.

“It's not where you think, though,” he explained. “If and when you and I have time and there's a right place for it, I'll show it to you. And I want it to be just you and me, too—there's only one other person I think of who's been to it and that was my mom.”

“Mama took her baby to a place to keep him quiet,” she teased him as she brought her cup of coffee to her lips.

“Yes! Exactly!” he laughed at that, and he raised his coffee cup to her and they made a toast to one another. A toast to one another and then they ate up the rest of their toast. He took one last sip of his coffee and then he leaned back in his chair.

“Feel better?” she asked him.

“Oh, yes,” he replied with a nod of his head and a hand on his stomach, “a lot better actually. I was getting ready to roll out of the car, chase something down and kill it with my bare hands.” She burst out laughing at that.

“I was, though!” he insisted. “And it was that—like—real sudden hunger, too. You know, it's like you're fine one second and then all of a sudden, it's like 'hooooly fuck, I'm starving!'” He said that last part under his breath. “It's sudden and leaves you feeling kinda sick, too. It's almost like you're carsick.”

“Ooh, yeah, that sucks,” she said with her nose wrinkled, and then she took another sip of her coffee. “It also didn't help you were actually in a car, too.”

“Right!”

One more sip of her coffee and then she wiped her mouth with her napkin.

“Shall we?” she offered him.

“We shall,” he said back to her and he put his sunglasses back on over his nose and gave his flattened stomach a loving pat. Sam led him back outside, and she held the door for him all the while.

“Thank you,” he told her and he adjusted the lapels of his windbreaker. The cold winds flooded down from the Whitney Portal and the rugged tall mountains off to the north; she huddled closer to him as she got the keys ready for the next stint of the trip and yet even more cold desolate desert.

Soon, they returned to the road and the short series of stoplights all the way to the edge of town and even more barren, wide open road. Alex peered out the window and the morning sun, which had now risen up over the windswept landscape: a fine layer of clouds blanketed those cold rays as if it behaved as a veil. The shine on those mirrored lenses appeared as more of a glow rather than a straight glare.

“So new album's gonna be called Practice What You Preach, right?” she asked him as the signs for Manzanar entered her view.

“That's the running title, actually,” he explained, “I do hope it's gonna be called that. It just feels appropriate, you know? Especially for this time and era, but at the same time, I don't wanna be like—really on the nose about the things I'm thinking of with writing lyrics.”

“The power of art!” she said. “I still owe you a demo.”

“It's okay,” he assured her, “we needed breakfast after all. And there's so much you wanna show me, too.”

“There really is, Alex. Like I said, this whole road is like a gateway to a whole bunch of adventures. A lot of things that so many don't know about, and a part of me wants to keep it all to ourselves.”

“You didn't call it a quiet place for no reason,” he pointed out.

“True.”

On the left side of the highway, the sage brush and scraggly low trees gave way to partially collapsed chain link fences and the low buildings that made up that old Japanese internment camp. The house in Elsinore felt like a prison for sure, but the sight of that old abandoned compound left Sam speechless. She took a glimpse over at Alex and the thoughtful expression still plastered on his face, even with the sunglasses upon his nose.

To think that she and him wanted nothing to do with each other at one point, much like how she didn't care for Marla at first, and to the point she was willing to take Charlie from her. She still had a long way to go with him, especially when the beautifully desolate desert gave way to even more low rolling foothills and steep slopes along those ferocious towering mountains with their thick sheets of snow, those massive, thick glaciers indicative of the Palisades, the rather treacherous part of the Sierra Nevadas. Even in broad daylight, they looked ready to take these two young kids under their darkness as if they were dragons that guarded the castle down by Mount Whitney.

All along the fine white sands under the seemingly endless droves of scraggly sage brush. All within even more black volcanic rock.

Within time, they reached Big Pine and the titular big sequoia tree at the northern end in all of its lush light greenery even in the dead of winter, like the tallest turret of the castle.

“Here's a fun li'l fact for you, Alexander,” Sam started again. “That tree right there was planted by Teddy Roosevelt.”

“Really?” He was genuinely stunned by that.

“Planted it almost a whole century ago, and it just got bigger and fuller and healthier with time.”

“Sounds like my belly,” he joked, and she laughed at that.

“Past that tree is yet another road to Death Valley. But keep going on it and you end up in Nevada and eventually the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest—right on the other side of those mountains over there.”

“Ancient bristlecone pines,” he echoed that.

“Literally some of the oldest trees in the world out there.”

“Yet another adventure for us.”

“Right?”

The Palisades soon gave way to a far more elaborate complex of rugged rough mountains, all covered with even more snow and glaciers. Meanwhile, the sun dipped behind a thicker part of clouds, such that Alex took off his sunglasses and revealed his deep set eyes to the world. The black hair dye upon the crown of his head glimmered and shone under the faint gray winter light and for a second, she swore that she saw that little tuft of gray there right over his brow once again.

“Do you plan on dyeing your hair again?” she asked him.

“Um—” He stopped and those eyes caressed over the immense corridor of land before them. “Actually—no. Unless there's a reason for it.”

“I don't want you to,” she told him. “That little tuft of gray hair is what makes you—” She hesitated for a second in search of the right word. “—unique.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and sighed through his nose. She was sincere with that: that little tuft of premature gray set him apart from everyone else whom she had known before then.

Another fifteen miles of flat sands across the landscape and soon the first trees, the ones that weren't bristlecone pines or anything akin to them, appeared in their view. The mountains dipped away into the low hanging gray clouds and gave way to a bowl shaped valley before them. The town of Bishop emerged in their view.

“So the place that my parents and I liked to go to on the way through here,” she began as they slowed up for the main street and the deserted, rolling golf course off to the left, “it's—on my side.”

He looked out the windshield along with her. They rolled at a slow pace, past all the little shops and boutiques. The big city of the middle of nowhere right at the base of all the giant mountains. All the rocks to climb and master. All to uncover and carry the weight upon: for a fleeting moment, Sam thought of Belinda and how much she loved to work with her hands. She wondered how Belinda would fare in such a stark terrain because it all but required one to work with their hands, especially if they were artists.

She recognized that rusted sign as it poked out from the side of the road, right beyond the stoplight at the center of town.

“Ah! Here we are.”

Lucky for them, there was no one else in the parking lot given it was New Year's, and thus she eagerly took the first spot closest to the heavy wooden front doors, right in the narrow parking lot. The clouds overhead thinned out a bit for the sun's rays as it began to reach the apex of the sky: but the fact that the mountains had disappeared behind a block of white clouds told Sam that the snows were upon them.

She led him inside the bakery, into that initial narrow corridor followed by the room off to the left with all of the bread and pastries they could possibly imagine. On the far side of the room stood the case with all the fresh cookies and cakes either of them could ask for. She thought of Joey on the previous New Year's Eve, in how they could have all the ice cream they could possibly imagine some day.

A part of her felt as though she and Alex could have all the fresh pastries they could ever ask for some day themselves. Alex himself set a hand on his stomach even though they had only eaten an hour before; Sam raised two fingers to the older baker, who then took out one of the fresh dark reddish brown cookies with a kiss of pearly white frosting on the front side from the row right before her with a sheet of white tissue paper.

Alex chuckled at what she was buying for him.

“Yet another ginger snap,” he remarked.

“Except these have frosting on them—these are nothing like the one I bought for you when we were in Germany. And you're getting two this time around, too.”

“I really am going to gain weight hanging out with you,” he joked with a straight face and a shake of his head.

“It's all good for ya, son,” the baker behind the counter said. “Handmade ginger cookies.”

“Think of it as healthy weight,” she pointed out. “Healthy weight for your little body. And ginger's real good for your stomach, too.” She returned to the baker. “And I'll have one of these big round sugar cookies here, too, please.”

He kindly got the big cookie in question for her and then wrapped all three in that tissue paper, followed by a little brown paper bag. She thanked him and then the two of them doubled back towards the cashier: all the while, Sam swiped a bag of freshly baked cheesy bread from one of the racks.

“My parents love this stuff,” she told him. “It's like the ultimate road trip snack for us.”

“Just break off a piece and eat it every so often,” he followed along. “It's so humble. I kinda like it.”

“We don't have much but we have each other,” she stated.

“We don't have much but we have each other, right.”

She reached the cash register at the wooden desk first and she took out her wallet from her purse.

“I'm gonna be right over here,” he told her, and she nodded at him. She stepped forward with his ginger snap and her sugar cookie in that little paper bag as well as the cheesy bread, and the cashier rang her up in one fell swoop. She looked over at Alex as he walked on over there.

“Beautiful boy,” the cashier told her in a low voice. Sam glanced over at Alex, who gazed on at the rows of freshly baked breads on the racks on the other side of the room.

“Yeah, I guess he is,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. The cashier squinted her eyes at her.

“Hon—he's gorgeous,” she told her. “Don't lose him. It's not often you see a boy as gorgeous as him.”

Sam pursed her lips together and the cashier handed her her change. She just treated him as she would a good friend and treated him well, even with all of the complex thoughts she had in mind: she dared not look at Alex that way, especially with him still not even old enough to drink alcohol yet. She still had those thoughts within her, but thoughts would have to remain as thoughts regardless of everything else. She thanked her and beckoned Alex to follow her back outside to the gray late morning: the sun disappeared behind the thin veil of clouds once again as they returned to the car yet again.

“You smell like freshly baked bread,” she told him as he buckled in.

“And you smell—like—baked bread, too,” he retorted to her, to which she giggled at him. She fired up the car again and they doubled back to the mouth of the driveway, and back onto the main road once the light turned red. They were alone on the street: despite it being the big city of the middle of nowhere, the sidewalks had already rolled up for New Year's Eve.

She caught the next and final light green and she rounded a lefthand turn, away from the next turn off to Highway 6: she had a vague memory of that turn off, and how her father told her it extended all the way out east, all the way back to New England, but she dared not tell Alex that just yet. They had a mountain to climb in front of them.

The highway separated out into four lanes once again, two in their direction and two which headed back to Bishop: in between was a sandy barren center divider.

The clouds collected all around the summit of the gargantuan Mount Tom right before them.

“Right up this road here,” she explained as they stared the mountain straight on, “when we get to the top, is Tom's Place.”

“The place with the amazing cobbler,” he recalled.

“That's the one!”

They soon cleared the city limit and they meandered over even more barren landscape. So bare and stark, and yet there was something so endless and stunning about it all, much like the coastline. Where the coastline with Louie's presence proved to be serene and intense at the same time, the mountains paired with Alex's presence brought her in touch with herself more than ever. She dared not tell him about it as they reached a series of pastures and ranches on the edge of town.

The highway took a sharp curve around the bend and they were met with a daunting hillside.

“This part of the trip here bothers me the most,” she admitted.

“Why's that?” he asked her.

“It just goes up.”

“It just goes up?”

“All the way up.”

She realized that they were in an older car, too. She had no clue if they would reach the top still in a cool spot.

She gripped onto the rim of the steering wheel and sighed through her nose. The snows were upon them after all: she could feel it through the glass of the windshield.

She took a glimpse over at Alex and his relaxed pose, although those deep eyes were locked onto the cold pavement before them. Another glimpse and she realized how wide they had gotten with the sight before them, as if he had seen a ghost of some sort. She recognized that look in his eyes from the fire ball incident in Germany.

Sam sighed through her nose and, once she switched off the heater, she let the road guide their way.

They climbed all the way up the hillside, a continual gradual incline to the very top, high above the desert and the Owens Valley, and almost level with the mountain tops. The halfway point already had a fresh dusting of snow upon the ground.

“Jesus,” Alex muttered as the road continued on and on up the side of the hill.

“Yeah. People overheat on this mountain pass all the time.” Once the words left her lips, they passed a trailer with a water tank aboard specifically for that problem in question. She took a glance down at the narrow red needles within the gages: the one with the temperature rose a little bit but she knew their saving grace was the cold and the snow.

More snow emerged along the sides of the road. More snow, more slope. Alex shifted his weight in the seat: he clung onto the safety bar over his head. His breathing was steady but she could still see it in his eyes.

They both sat still until they spotted that sign on the side of the road that told them they reached the top of Sherwin Summit. A gentle curve downwards and then the road finally leveled out. At least a foot of snow covered either side of the road and all of the dark forests that lined the way. Miles and miles of thick dark forest covered in white snow so they resembled to those fake trees on a display at Christmas.

“Reminds me of the Black Forest,” Alex said aloud.

“Reminds me of upstate New York,” Sam followed up.

It really did, too: the highway snaked through the trees, complete with big views of Mount Tom and all the snow capped mountains before them, and Lake Crowley and the Long Valley Caldera along the way it all made her think of Finger Lakes and the thick lush forest that she and Joey drove through over to his parents' house. Alex switched the heater back on, but it was rather futile given the cold and icy feeling of everything outside the car.

She pictured Joey in the back seat right behind them as they passed the turn off up to Convict Lake as well as even more forest. She knew that, had she shown him this trip sooner, he probably would never have met Krista in the first place. He probably would love this place as well, especially with the added fact that it was all volcanic.

“This place is so stunning,” Alex remarked as he peered out the window to the vast volcanic plain, now blanketed with fresh pure white snow. “Can't believe this has been right under my nose the whole time, too.”

“Some day I'll show you Convict Lake, Rock Creek Lake, and June Lake,” she vowed as they scoured the rim of Lake Crowley: its black waters glassy under the gray sky and in between the white snow. “There's one place I haven't been to up here with my parents yet and that's Mammoth Mountain, Mammoth Lakes, and Devil's Postpile, right up this way—”

Straight ahead, Mammoth Mountain towered back against the cold gray, but soon they reached another gentle curve in the road and headed for more dark forest. More dark forest lined with small snowy clearings and tiny ponds of black icy water.

“Somewhere along the way here is Obsidian Hill,” she told him as they slithered through those tall trees, “a literal five hundred foot high pile of obsidian.”

“Volcanic glass,” he said.

“Don't take any of it, though,” she advised him. “We are in a volcano, after all.”

“Something about the goddess Pele or something?” he recalled. “I remember reading about her in that book when we were in England. The one where I read about the Wandering Jew. Like if you take something from a volcano, it'll erupt or something—I don't completely recall it.”

“Please the goddess somehow,” she declared. “But how is another question.”

They reached the top of the next ridge, albeit a low one in comparison to the hulking Obsidian Hill, which hid away back in the trees like a troll. Another sign appeared on the side of the road which told them they reached the top of Dead Man Summit. At that point, Alex set a hand on his stomach yet again.

“Ginger snap time,” she said.

“Time for a snap,” he said with a snap of his fingers. He took one out of the paper bag in between them: right underneath it was the cheesy bread. While he took a cookie for himself, she reached into that bag with one hand. With two fingers, she sloughed off a piece of that bread and stuck it in her mouth.

“Yeah, I'm gonna be so plump by the time I'm thirty,” he confessed as he broke off a piece of ginger snap and set it on his tongue.

“Let me ask you something,” she began.

“Ask me anything.”

“Why are you so concerned about your weight? Like that's something that I worry about. I've never met a guy who was so finicky about that.”

“'Cause I'm Jewish—we have health problems galore. Obesity and trouble with the heart runs in my family, too.”

“Aw, I had no idea.”

“It's okay—you didn't know. But—you know—I can't help myself sometimes. I don't care. I like to eat!”

“You grew up in the Bay Area, too. You guys aren't really known for your food so much.”

“No, we aren't! When we eat, we eat.” He took another bite of ginger snap and closed his eyes.

“Man, I wish we had Mexican hot chocolate with us,” she declared. “You ever had that?”

“YES,” he replied with his eyes so big that he resembled to a cartoon character.

“I made a couple of cups of that for Cliff when we were together,” she said in a soft voice, “he loved it. And I feel like that cookie there would go excellent with a little cup of that.”

“Oh, my god, talk about spicy,” he said as he covered his mouth with his free hand. He then swallowed. “By the way, what's the food like over in New York? I only caught a small sliver of it the times Testament went out that way to record but is it really as extensive as everyone says it is?”

“That's an understatement,” she told him. “Alex, I only lived there for three years but I feel like I only scratched the surface. Marla and Bel know far more about it than I do and I think they get overwhelmed from time to time.”

“Jew boy paradise,” he said as he took another bite.

They passed the June Lake Junction followed by a small series of frozen creeks in the woods, and then they were met with a watershed in the shape of a small valley. A thin layer of snow covered the grass out there. Once Alex finished his ginger snap, he licked his lips and gave his black hair a little toss back. In that stint of the trip alone, the black hair dye faded even more to the point Sam could actually see those grays once again.

“Kinda thirsty,” he said.

“We'll stop in Lee Vining and get some water,” she assured him, “we need to get gas anyway.”

Indeed, they turned the next bend, which brought them down lower into the watershed: off before them stood the noxious glassy salt water Mono Lake. They turned another bend and she caught a glimpse of the salty turrets down by the shoreline.

“I remember Mark Twain talking about this lake,” he said aloud, “how it's so salty that it's like swimming in brine.”

“Yeah, it smells, too,” she added, and she couldn't help but think of the East River back in New York all the while; “and not how the beach and the ocean smell, either. Salty and even more volcanic than Lake Crowley. Not the best combination for humans.”

Even though it was midday, the shadows of the mountains next to them cast down upon them like a veil. Sam thought about Zelda and the name she wanted to give the Cherry Suicides' album, that of Black Veils. She was yet another person she wished could see this trip with her and Alex.

They passed the turn off for Tioga Road, which led into Yosemite, and all the while, he muttered, “some day... some day...” to himself.

“Some day, indeed,” she vowed; the road dipped down and they slowed up a bit for the town of Lee Vining. She brought them to the gas station right in the center of town, where he offered to fill them up and she offered to get him some water. She was the only person in that gas station, too, such that she considered merely taking the water bottles for herself when the clerk in the back stopped her in her tracks. They had a good laugh but she was in fact serious about it.

“Man, there is no one here,” Alex said as he stood before the tank door and held the pump steady.

“Middle of the day on New Year's Eve,” she told him, “all the hicks and the tourists went home or they're in the city.”

Within time, and after he washed his hands, they were back on the road and they scoured the edge of Mono Lake. He peered out the window at those dark waters as they loomed just under the road's edge. Lucky for them, the snow hadn't yet come again and they cleared the lake's edge in no time. They stared straight ahead to the next kink in the road, or rather series of kinks in the road as they ascended up another side of a mountain.

“Yet another hill,” he said as he took a piece of cheesy bread for himself.

“Well, at least this time around they got it right,” she assured him as they turned the first right hand corner.

The next one turned left and they rose up a bit. The next one to the right. To the left. To the right. And on the third left one, Alex clasped a hand to his forehead.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“Kinda dizzy. This road is making me dizzy.”

“It's alright, we're almost at the top. Just one more little grind up this hill and—”

A sign appeared on the side of the road that told them they reached the top of Conway Summit, at eight thousand feet above sea level. They made a sharp right turn and began on down the other side of the hill. There at the top, the snow was the thickest it had ever been: tall steep drifts lined the sides of the separated highway as if they were genuine walls.

“Poor guy,” she said aloud.

“This is such a new thing for me,” he confessed, “being a city boy and all.”

“The rough country life is not for the faint of heart,” she told him. “Although a part of me sees you thriving out here.”

“Nah, I'd rather be in the city. Although that doesn't mean I can't not appreciate the wilderness, mind you.”

The road snaked along the other side of the hill: Sam peered out her window at the wispy light gray clouds over the mountains on the far side of the valley.

“Over that way is Twin Lakes,” she pointed out. “My mom's family visited this place so much when she was growing up.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, my great aunt is buried down here in Bridgeport.”

They scoured the edge of a huge snowy pasture and right before they reached the outskirts of that small town, they passed yet another junction to a road less travelled, the highway up to Yerington.

“We're getting close, Alex,” she told him as they strolled through Bridgeport, which too had buttoned up for New Year's Eve. “Another eighty miles—I think.” At the edge of town was another sign, but a thick layer of snow and ice obscured the words from her view.

Another straight shot across the pasture ended by a sharp right hand corner past an old dilapidated house surrounded by barren cottonwood trees, and they headed back to another series of hills.

“How's the car doing, by the way?” he asked her as he reached for his second ginger snap.

“Doing excellent! The only time I was kind of worried about it was when we went up the Sherwin grade. It got a little warm but it never went any higher because it's so cold outside. I dread to think how it'd be if we went in the summer time.”

“Oh, right? And how're you doing?”

“I'm doing excellent! My hands are a little stiff, but I've got it, though.” He flashed her a wink and took a little nibble off of the cookie.

The hills only rose up around them as if they too withheld dragons inside. All the dips and curves in the road and they were soon at the top of a hill. Another sign told them they reached the top of Devil's Gate Summit, and the fourth and final one to boot, and the one that ran adjacent to a creek.

But then Sam remembered.

Within a matter of minutes, those low snowy hills to the left gave way to high stony columns that looked as though they were about to close in all around them. And that creek gave way to a full on rumbling river that ran parallel to the road.

“Let me guess,” Alex started as he licked the crumbs off of his fingers and put his sunglasses back on, “this is the—Walker River?”

“Yes! It's the west fork, too. Even in the summer time, that water is so cold and crisp.”

“Just looks cold,” he remarked as he took a drink of water.

The black river waters washed over beds upon beds upon beds of smooth stones: every so often, a small waterfall emerged out in the open. Meanwhile, the two lane road wound through the meandering canyon like the full body of a serpent. A big beautiful serpent, lined with dense evergreen trees and tall high stony cliffs, to which the head brought them to more snow covered grass land and the rim of Lake Topaz.

“The stateline, Alex!” she declared as they zipped through the snowy scraggly trees.

“Just saw a sign back there that literally called this place 'the quiet side of California,'” he told her.

“And that's exactly what this is,” she assured him with a wink.

They rode all along the edge of the lake, which too appeared so cold and crisp that a mere glimpse sent a shiver down her spine. A final straight shot uphill and—

“Welcome to the Silver State!” Alex proclaimed as he took another drink of water.

“You know, I had a feeling we'd get here by the middle of the afternoon,” she told him as they passed a small casino on the side of the road. “Anyways—welcome home, Alex.”

“Ah, you're taking me to Carson City!” he declared.

“One of the three places I call home,” she continued, “the others being New York City and L.A.”

“Wow,” he breathed out.

The road led throughout more low hillsides and low forests, this time of stubby little bristlecone pines and pinion pines, and then they reached Gardnerville and Minden. Another ten miles across a flat valley and they reached a low ridge. On the other side was Carson City, that old familiar crown jewel that always felt so close and so far away at the same time.

A little ways down the main street and she turned right on Clearview Drive, followed by another left onto Silver Sage Drive.

That old familiar neighborhood, all of those old familiar houses now covered in a blanket of that infamous powdery snow. If only Charlie was there to see it for himself. If only Cliff could see it all, especially when held in comparison to the house in Reno.

“So this is where you grew up,” he said aloud.

“One of the neighborhoods, anyway,” she corrected him. “This one, one up in Reno, and the one down in Elsinore.”

“This is all so precious,” he declared, “it'd be like me taking you to the place I grew up.” He froze and then he looked over at her. She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Funny, uh—there's another place I wanna take you, too,” she declared, “but we gotta hustle, though. It might snow again.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She pulled up to the stop sign and nibbled on her bottom lip.

She remembered the way up. It would prove to be a bit of a challenge, especially since they had already gone over four hundred miles in that car. But she was willing to do it for him.

She made another left so as to head back to Carson Street.

Up the ever so slight hill, past the car dealerships and the little restaurants featured on the way out of town, and she recognized that old turn off to that big mountain road. She had only gone up that way once before and she was rather small when it happened. But that winding mountain road felt like visiting an old friend again.

She was amazed that it was even open despite all of the snow on the ground.

Alex shook his head a little bit at one point but she kept her focus on the pavement before her. A sharp turn followed by another and another so as to resemble yet another snake. He parted those sensual lips and let out a low whistle in response to the feeling within him.

But they reached the top, and all of those thick lush trees clustered together against the dense snow, and Sam recognized even more glassy black waters on his side, cradled by the stark mountain top.

“Spooner Lake, Alex,” she announced.

“Holy wow,” he breathed out as he ran his fingers through his black hair.

But it was an appetizer for what awaited them at the very top and beyond the forests and the next bend in the road as it overlooked the enormous valley down below, and as far as they both knew, the entire world at their whim. They had climbed the mountain to see the world, but before them was what she held dear, and for him in particular.

The snowy scapes cradled those freezing, perfectly still black waters before them. Where they had seen the ugly salt waters of Mono Lake, they were met with the massive beauty of Lake Tahoe. Alex lifted his mirrored sunglasses off of his nose for a better look before him.

“One of the places my mom loved going to when she was growing up,” Sam started again as the road gently dipped downward, “was Incline Village.”

“Is that what this is down here?”

“Nah, this is Glenbrook over here. Incline's over that way—” She pointed out his side of the windshield and the lush banks of snow that covered the forest along the lake side. “I have no doubt that had she not picked Catalina, she would've moved there. To the city by the lake.”

“What stopped her?”

“Her publisher's based out of L.A.”

“I see.”

“We'd have to turn around and head back to Spooner Lake to get there, too. But—” She bowed her head for a better look out the windshield. Even though it was only five o'clock in the afternoon, the night was upon them, as were the storm clouds overhead. All the way up they had gathered around the mountain summits, but now they were officially upon a mountain summit, and thus it warranted snow.

“I don't know if we can get back over there before the snow comes in, Alex,” she said aloud. “Or back down for that matter. That road sucks when it snows.”

“What do you think we should do?” he asked her, concerned.

“Well... we have that blanket in the back and we have our jackets with us.”

“That means we gotta fold the seats back, though,” he pointed out.

“And? Here—”

She slowed to a stop at the next side street, which brought them closer to the water's edge as well as a few long low buildings, including a bar. Once they had come onto smoother pavement, the winds picked up. She pulled behind the bar, away from the water and ultimately the incoming wind and the blizzard.

“We'll park behind this bar here so we're out of the wind.”

“Eat some more of that cheesy bread, too,” he said.

“I'll go into the bar here if you want something more to eat,” she promised him. “I don't have much left on me except enough to get us back down the hill and then over to some place like the Bay Area, but that's for later on, though.”

“And I'll keep you warm,” he promised her.

Five o'clock in the afternoon and yet Sam was exhausted, with no desire to go any further. Indeed, she could see it on his face as well. Both of them had traveled hundreds of miles together and without the sense of a tour lingering over him in particular. She killed the engine and they both climbed out. Both of them wore windbreakers and yet Sam knew it wouldn't be enough. He opened the passenger door and took the blanket off of the seat before he adjusted it back: she did the same when flurries fluttered down from the darkening sky overhead.

“I got another couple of jackets back here, too,” he told her as he took a pair of dark puffy jackets out from under the seat closest to him. “Use these for pillows—”

He rolled up the first one and lay it down in front of him, and did the same for the next one.

Sam brushed the extraneous snow off of her head before she climbed in and onto the flattened back seat. Alex followed suit, although he had to skirt around the edge of the seat so he could lay right next to her. He shut that door above their heads and she shut the other door down by their feet. He then took the blanket and spread it over their bodies.

“Just like that—yeah—yeah—yeah, you got it?” He lay there on his side with the jacket rolled up right under his head; she nestled down right next to him with her head upon the other jacket. She lay right there with only an inch of clearance between herself and the tip of his aquiline nose. Four hundred miles of driving and they both had had enough despite it being early still.

“I do,” she told him in a hushed voice.

“Okay.”

His slender body was so very warm; even though he had slimmed down a great deal, his stomach was still very soft. She kept her arms around his slim waist: even as a thin, almost delicate young man, he had rather prominent hipbones and such thick sinewy thighs. Even when thin and having shed most of his childhood weight, he was still as warm and soft as a teddy bear. She pictured him as even more delicate in a few years time at the rate he was going at with his weight: even having eaten to his heart's desire at the house down in Catalina, he still maintained that slim figure. She tucked her head under his chin so she could better feel the warmth from his neck.

To think that she was laying like this in a bed in West Germany not long ago. To think that she had no one next to her, and for months, in that bed in the house down in Lake Elsinore. That room all to herself for months, such that it felt like a prison of sorts.

“This feels so weird,” she confessed.

“Why's that?”

“Well—because the last time I got this close with a guy was Joey. And I dunno if we're even a thing anymore.”

Alex raised an eyebrow at that. She kept her hand on the small of his back: it wasn't long ago she lay the same way with Joey before and with her hands down lower on him. Maybe she overthought the whole thing and he really was fooling around. No way she could ask him at that point, however.

Alex shivered a bit.

“Are you cold?” she gently asked him.

“A little bit—I'm feeling kind of a draft on the side of my neck. I also think I've lost too much weight.”

“What makes you think that?” she asked him.

“Even under the blankets, I'm cold.”

With a bit of a struggle, Sam lifted her hand and she tugged on the blanket a bit so it covered the side of his neck. She brought her hand towards the small of his back and she burrowed even closer to him so he was warm. Outside, the snow pummeled on the street and the sidewalk beyond the car: given they were behind a brick wall, every so often some of the snow hit the roof or the hood, but not enough to deafen them.

“I will say this,” he started again with a sniffle.

“What's that?”

“I'm glad we parked behind this bar here—” His voice was low and crisp sounding, as though he had a sore throat. “Listen to those winds.”

Sam nestled even closer next to him as the winds picked up out there to where they formed a ghostly howl. He may have felt cold, but his chest was warm and his body was soft and tender. He bowed his head a bit so he could better keep in the warmth between them.

“God, you're so soft,” she told him, “you're like a little teddy bear.”

“I'm gonna say this, though,” he said, “I'm sure you can feel my arms.”

“I do.” Indeed, even though his body was soft, his lanky arms felt so firm and toned, even when covered in that thick windbreaker. “I see you just being so elegant, though,” she confessed as she recalled his life's wish. “All wrapped in lace and standing tall.”

“I dunno 'bout lace,” he said. “Velvet, maybe. Velvet with—silk.”

“All silky soft,” she joked and he chuckled at that.

She had no memory of what happened after that: they both fell asleep, and she woke up to total darkness and the howl of the cold winter winds. And yet even in the wake of the noise outside, Sam caught the sound of voices on the street. Against the wind, she swore she heard church bells ringing.

“Happy New Year!” a man shouted. “Happy 1989!”

“Happy New Year, Samantha,” Alex whispered to her in a broken voice.

“Happy New Year, Alex,” she whispered back. She was practically squeezing his thin little body at that point, but she knew that he would be toasty warm in the morning.

[crownjimin]

✰ 086 | baby fish, part one

la vie en rose ━ in which lee aera, a girl who has been crushing on choi soobin for a long, long time, is starting her junior year and her friends decide that its time for her to make her move.

A/N: the entire thing ended up being 5k so like the last written part, i broke it up into two separate posts, which is why it took me so long to update. part two will be posted tomorrow.

( masterlist | prev | next )

The entire week leading up to Saturday was abnormal, to say the least. Firstly, Haeun hadn’t spoken a word about her and Hyunjin’s meet up from the previous Friday. From what Aera could tell, Haeun didn’t seem sad, which the smaller girl  thought was good, but Haeun also didn’t seem completely happy. If Aera had to describe how her friend looked, she would probably say serene or tranquil, like she had less to worry about. There was definitely a weight lifted from Haeun’s shoulders, as far as the smaller girl could tell, but if that feeling would last is what Aera was unsure about.

Coupled with Haeun’s odd behavior, this week was the first that Jiah had insisted on Jeongin and his friends joining their table for lunch. Maybe it was because Hyunjin and Haeun had “resolved” their issues, so inviting his friends wouldn’t be awkward for Haeun, but Aera is almost certain Jiah forgot to wonder whether or not this would make Aera awkward.

On Monday and Tuesday things were fine when it came to seating arrangements. Sanha had sat next to Aera, since she sat at the very end of the table, meaning only one person could sit next to her. Soobin sat at the opposite end of the table, the furthest seat possible from her, something that Aera tried not to purposely pay attention to (or feel sad about). But on Wednesday, Soobin had decided to switch seats with Sanha, so instead of Sanha keeping Aera company, it was Soobin. From there, things progressively got weirder for Aera, mostly because she noticed that she wasn’t panicking at the thought of being so close to her long-time crush. And Aera always panicked when it came to Choi Soobin.

Maybe it was because Soobin had been to her house before, he had met her parents, and for crying out loud, they even hugged. So him sitting next to her should be a walk in the park for her, and it truly was. Up until Soobin’s leg brushed hers.

At first, she chalked it up to an accident, since it initially happened as a result of Soobin shouting out in excitement at something Huening Kai brought up. But once his leg had returned to its regular position, away from Aera’s, Soobin had deliberately moved it back, bringing back the warmth that came with it. And even worse, he stared at her while he did so, eye contact ensued, and maybe that meant something important to Aera.

She wasn’t sure yet.

The last bit of change that occurred throughout the week was that Soobin was everywhere. Yes, Aera and Soobin already shared two classes and lunch together, but usually Aera would walk there herself. But after lunch on Wednesday, Soobin waited for Aera to throw away her trash so they could walk to Music class together.

Together. Like, side-by-side.

While Aera never imagined herself walking anywhere with Soobin, having him as a somewhat guide, since he was so tall, wasn't that bad of a thing. He could see over the majority of everyone’s heads so Aera didn’t have to worry about navigating her ways through the crowded halls. Added onto the fact that the clutter of students practically parted for Soobin meant that Aera’s usual four minute trek to class was shaved down to two.

And from lunch to music wasn’t the only time Soobin walked her to class. He walked her from music to physics, then from physics to her brother’s car after school, keeping her company as she waited for her brother to arrive from his last class, which Aera used to do on her own.

But now she had Soobin.

So, yes, the week leading up to Saturday was odd. All of these actions, more so the ones from Soobin made her really think, was Saturday supposed to be a date? Is that why Soobin decided to start walking her from class to class and sitting next to her at lunch? Is that what people do when they start dating? Aera had no clue, but she couldn’t help but to have the smallest bit of hope that it meant something good.

_ _ _

When Soobin had told Aera that they would hang out on Saturday, it wasn’t until the day of that he realized he never told her what time. So on Saturday morning, as he woke up at a quarter past ten, he shot Aera a text, telling her he would be there by noon. Unsurprisingly, she texted back quite fast with a simple okay. Soon followed by another text, oh and also good morning soobi.

Soobi.

If anyone else had come up with the nickname he probably would’ve thrown up, but it wasn’t anyone else. It was Aera.

Honestly, Soobin had never felt this way about anyone before. He wasn’t inexperienced when it came to having an occasional crush, he’d had plenty of them throughout middle school and even had one on Lee Chaeryeong in ninth grade before he decided that dating was one of his last priorities—so none of this was new to him. What was new to him was Lee Aera and the way she came out of nowhere, with her adorable eyes and cute pouty lips.

The first time he saw her he swore his first thought was: “is this love at first sight?”. Soobin wasn’t one for cliches or overly romantic gestures, but he was prepared to be at her beck and call, ready to do whatever she wished after that first glance. It was odd, and dramatic almost, which was weird because everyone knew Soobin was level headed and almost nonchalant when it came to pretty much everything.

But the way he had been acting recently whenever it came to Lee Aera was anything but level headed or nonchalant. And maybe he liked it a bit, he liked knowing that there was potentially someone he wanted to genuinely make happy in a non-platonic sense. Someone that mattered romantically to him, rather than as a friendship and it excited him while it also made him nervous.

He never actively sought to make someone his girlfriend before. He never had the self-doubt or the burden of worrying about a perfect date, and yet the moment Lee Aera showed up and smiled at him, his mind started thinking about and opening up to the idea of a relationship. It’s funny how much one person can influence sudden change in someone’s life, and at the moment Soobin was experiencing that firsthand.

But, oh, Soobin remembered, this wasn’t a date.

Brushing his teeth and styling his hair was quite easy for Soobin to handle on his own. When it came to choosing his outfit, that’s where Soobin found trouble. He changed from a collared white shirt to a plain tee, then back to the collared shirt. From sweatpants to joggers, back to sweatpants then to jeans. His collared shirt then turned into no shirt at all and instead a hoodie, and finally Soobin felt like he looked presentable. His outfit was simple enough to not clash with his purple hair (which was starting to fade, so he needed to decide a day where he dyes it back to dark brown).

The obvious choice in shoes were his high top black converse, and then he finally went downstairs for a light breakfast. By time he scarfed down his cereal it was eleven-thirty, so he called for his mom to see if she was ready.

From there, it was fast-paced. The trip to Aera’s house was blurry, and him ringing the doorbell was a fuzz as well. He seemed to snap from this odd state once Mrs. Lee, or Dongmin as she asked to be called, opened the front door with a bright smile and widened arms. With sounds of excitement, Dongmin pulled Soobin into a tight hug, swinging back and forth as Soobin heard the sound of his mom’s car engine turning off and a car door slamming.

At that, Dongmin stepped aside and ushered Soobin into the house, pointing up the stairs as she said, “Ae is upstairs, you can go get her.”

And with that, Soobin peeled off his shoes and began up the stairs. It wasn't hard to see which room was Aera’s since a large A was hanging on the closed door of only one of the many rooms on the second floor. He knocked and waited for a reply, but with the loud music that was slightly audible through the door, Soobin knew he wasn’t going to get an answer.

He took it upon himself to slowly push the door open, and the second he did so the loud music flooded into the hallway. Soobin was greeted with a sight that he couldn’t help but describe as devastatingly adorable and a pleasant view for his eyes.

Aera danced around her room with closed eyes and the utmost conviction, as if this was the last ever performance she would ever give. Her dance moves weren’t anything close to perfect, but they were so imperfect that they seemed natural coming from her. It made Soobin chuckle at her antics, an almost awed and proud feeling for him to see his favorite person so carefree and comfortable in her own space.

Soon though, she whipped around as she continued to sing, and spotted Soobin as he smiled at her with crossed arms and a teasing glint in his eye. He watched as she slipped on the hardwood floor from her socks as she scrambled over to her desk to shut her speaker off.

Silence filled the room for half a second before they both broke out into laughter, Aera with a more embarrassed tone compared to Soobin’s pure glee.

“Forget you saw that,” Aera spoke once she finished laughing. “You saw nothing.”

Soobin shrugged coyly, poking his bottom lip out in a joking manner. “I don’t think I will, Pouts. To me, it looked like you were putting on a good show.”

Aera’s cheeks tinted a shade of red as she stood frozen in place for a second. She then puckered her lips as she pointed at Soobin before she shook her head, seemingly deciding against saying whatever was on her mind. Soobin takes that as her moving on from the entire ordeal and begins to look around her room. Instead of posters lining her walls, like he had expected, there was art work, some framed while others were just sheets of paper that were pinned into the wall.

Some of the pieces were colored, others just rough sketches made with what looked like a pen or pencil. Many of them weren’t finished, just random sketches of life-like hands or other body parts--one page having multiple sketches of noses of different shapes and sizes, some with shading and others with scribbles over them.

Aera never spoke about or mentioned any interest in drawing, and maybe it was something she wanted to keep private because the moment she realized Soobin was studying the art on her wall, she rushed over to him, and practically shielded them from his eyesight with her body.

“They’re terrible, I know,” she said, grabbing one of his arms and turning him the opposite direction, so his back was facing the wall. “I just do it for fun, so please don’t judge too hard.”

Soobin quickly shook his head. “I’m not judging at all. And they’re not terrible, they’re really good—like super good.”

“You’re only saying that to spare my feelings.”

“No, really,” he followed Aera as she walked to her closet. “I wouldn’t lie. It’s really good.”

Apparently, Soobin had followed too closely and too quickly, because once Aera had reached her closet and gotten what she needed (which were her shoes), she had whipped right back around, colliding forehead first into Soobin’s chest. They both jolted at that, Aera jumping back and Soobin doing the same, except he didn’t land on his feet, he landed on his butt after his foot caught onto a stray piece of clothing that was on the floor.

Immediately, Aera rushed to help him up, tossing the shirt that Soobin tripped on across her room a little too harshly, before she tugged him off the floor. His clothes were disheveled and Aera was panting a little too hard from the energy it took for her to pull him up, but they didn’t have time to dwell as their mothers shouted up the stairs after hearing the thud of Soobin’s fall.

With that, the two of them gathered themselves and left Aera’s room, heading down the stairs fast and awkwardly, with Aera behind Soobin. So far this “not date” was starting off fantastic.

_______

Neither of their mothers noticed the awkward air between Soobin and Aera once they greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. Soobin’s mother and Dongmin seemed to have bonded quite nicely while Soobin was in Aera’s room, seeing as two empty wine glasses sat on the coffee table in the living room.

Soobin’s mom, who Aera learned was named Ruha, reassured the two of them that she was more than sober enough to still drive them to the park where they planned to hang for the afternoon, and the three of them planned to head out. But first, Dongmin made sure to ask Aera a million and one questions before she could leave.

“You have a jacket?”

“What about money? Do you need money? Go check your dad’s wallet for some money.”

“What about your phone? Is it charged?”

“Are you sure those pants will keep you warm? You know it’s getting chilly outside. Maybe you should go chang--”

“Eomma,” Aera gasped. “It’s fine! I’m fine! I have money, my phone, and a jacket. It’s fine!”

Dongmin rose from her spot on the couch and walked up to her daughter, smoothing her hands down her shirt sleeves while simultaneously raking her eyes over the entirety of Aera’s outfit. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Dongmin takes a second to look at Soobin, “Awe, how cute! You guys are all matchy-matchy.” She points at the both of them before grabbing each of their shoulders and smashing them together. “Same shoes and black jackets, so cute. Ruha, look.”

Soobin’s mom walked over from her spot by the door to see what Dongmin was cooing about and once she explained everything to Ruha, they both began teasing their children. Soobin took control of the situation before it got any worse and reminded his mother of their plans, wrapping his arm around his mom’s shoulder as he led her towards the door while shouting a farewell to Dongmin. Aera followed close behind after she looked at her mother with a deadpan look, already regretting having Soobin pick her up from her house.

And per usual, Dongmin ignored the look from her daughter and sent her a flying kiss as Aera walked out the door and to Soobin’s mom’s car.

[angelicmichael]

Imminent Annihilation Sounds so Dope, chapter one.

Michael Langdon x reader

Summary: Readers POV. Reader wakes up in a unfamiliar place in a unfamiliar body. She’s finally getting to chance to meet her soulmate, but who could it be?

Words: 2.2k+

A/N: here is another chapter that I’m reuploading of imminient annihlation!! I absolutely love writing this story so please let me know if y’all are enjoying reading it ♥️ please reblog or like this if you enjoyed!

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You woke up, and for the first time in a long while, you actually felt well rested. Typically even after a full nights sleep, you woke up still feeling groggy and tired from all the stress from constantly having to practice witchcraft. But today, you felt different. It was a good different though.Even though this shift in energy was strange, you definitely didn’t mind it.

You instinctively reached for your phone, since this is what you typically did first thing every morning. But It wasn’t there.

You huffed in annoyance and assumed that maybe your phone got tangled in your sheets or fell off your bed?

You opened your eyes and sat up - mentally preparing to get out of bed and start shaking your sheets out when your stomach dropped.

You weren’t in your bed anymore. You certainly weren’t in Robichaux’s or anyone else’s house that you knew. I mean, you definitely were still in a bed but it wasn’t your bed.

You were in a small room of what it looked like to be of a hotel. The pure white clean sheets, white fluffy pillows, the whole neatness and semi organized fashion in which the room was set up in screamed hotel. There also was a small worn backpack that was in the corner of the room, that had clothes littered around it. The room also had various belongings, that definitely could be considered eccentric, to put it nicely.

White candles were littered all throughout the tabletop surfaces in the room. Mostly on the nightstand and on the tables. Most of them looked like they had already been burned.

It certainly did not take long either to notice a decent size upside down black cross hanging on the wall directly across from the bed.

You immeaditly felt a rush of Nausea. You had tried to stand up, but after feeling like you might have a panic attack - you sat back down on the bed to attempt to ground yourself. Then you jolted immeaditly off of the bed and bolted to a small trash can that was near one of the tables. You threw up until you physically couldn’t anymore, your throat sore and tears streaming down your face.

Even though the change of scenery was confusing, You knew what was happening. It was finally happening, you were finally going to be able to meet your soulmate! But something felt off, and very wrong in your gut and you couldn’t shake off that feeling. Not to mention all of the strange decor in the room was making you increasingly uneasy and on edge.

In this society, everyone had a soulmate. Someone who was their other half, someone who they were meant to be with forever. On the twentieth birthday of whoever happened to turn twenty first, the people who were soulmates of eachother switched bodies for twenty four hours. Which meant your soulmate was currently residing in your body. You couldn’t help but laugh and wonder how your sisters were currently dealing with your soulmate.

It obviously wasn’t your birthday, you would know if you were turning twenty. That would mean it was their birthday. You currently sat slumped next to the trash can as you thought about this. You would think that if they knew they were turning twenty, they would atleast try to make the room look presentable? At least remove a couple candles?

Finally getting a chance to breath after being sick, you noticed a dark red pentagram on the ground next to the bed that you hadn’t seem before. It was fucking huge, you couldn’t help but wonder how you had missed it before. It was dark red, could it be.. blood? No fucking way. You tried desperately to think of another explanation, maybe it was red food dye that was meant to look like blood?

Tears were in your eyes. Who the hell was this person that you were now inevitably tied to for the rest of your life? Out of terror and instinct, you leaped up back to your feet and started to back away from the pentagram and into a corner of the hotel room. The same corner where the worn backpack was.

You tried to take deep breaths to calm yourself down and it temporarily worked. You slowly opened your eyes, and as you slowly looked up, you realized at the very far side of the room was a large mirror, next to what you assumed was the bathroom.

It didn’t register in your mind at first that who you were staring at in the mirror, was actually you. Curly brass colored hair that fell just below the ears, and piercing icy blue eyes were the features that you first noticed. It didn’t take long to notice that the body you were inhabiting was a male. A shirtless male actually. The fact that he was shirtless made you smirk. Atleast he had a nice body, even if his hobbies and interests were questionable.

After admiring your temporary body in the mirror for longer than you would like to admit, you finally decided that you should attempt to find a phone or some kind of personal belongings, so that you could actually learn about this guy.

On the nightstand there was a small black phone. Bingo! You quickly snatched it up and it seemed miraculously unlock on its own. Thank god for face recognition.

The phone immeaditly went to the home page, and you couldn’t help but frown. The home page was black, no customization or anything hinted toward any kind of personalization.

You couldn’t shake the thought of how weird it was. The feeling of uneasiness started to creep in but you shook it off. There had to be a explanation because he certainly wasn’t boring. It was clear he was doing some kind of ritual in this room, and with the looks of things, it looked like he was practicing dark magic.

You defintly felt a dark energy in the room. It hung over the space like smog, making the air thick and leaving you feeling queasy. You wish you could get out of this damn room, but, you felt it was best not too. Atleast not yet.

You brought your attention back to the phone and opened the photos, although this time you weren’t too surprised at the results.

No photos.

Sigh. You couldn’t help but think that maybe this guy really was boring, maybe he’s just some weirdo who practices dark magic and has no personality maybe?

You shook your head and kept looking. In his text messages, there was no names or contacts saved, so all of his conversations were just miscellaneous numbers. Your finger was hovering over one of the conversations when, you realized how wrong this felt.

You know you would hate if he were to go through your phone. You couldn’t help but feel bitter as you pictured him doing so. The bastard better not be doing that, you would kick his ass in the future if you found out he did.

...but wait. He had a phone. You had a phone. You had memorized your phone number... you were a fucking genius.

You reopened the text messaging app and quickly clicked the option that allowed you to message another number. You typed your phone number as fast as the speed of light and then.. froze.

What would you even say to this guy? ‘Hey how’s it going’? You think you were defintly past the point of small talk. Even if you never formally met this person, being switched in someone’s body was a whole new level of intimacy.

Before you knew it, you typed out a text and basically closed your eyes as you sent it.

‘What’s your name’?

You threw the phone on the bed and walked away out of sheer embarrassment. What if he even didn’t reply? He should be able too, since your phone has face recognition as well so it’s not like a password would be blocking him from doing so.

You heard a ‘ping!’ And you basically gave yourself whiplash with how fast you had moved to the phone.

‘Who is this?’

You blinked silently. How would you even respond to this? Straight up admitting you were his soulmate felt a little heavy, even if it was true.

‘I’m the person you switched with last night. I’m sorry for using your phone but I had to talk to you’.

You replied embarrassingly fast, but he was also replying pretty fast so.. it didn’t feel too weird.

This time you held the phone in a death grip, staring at the conversation, and waiting for a reply.

‘I don’t have time for this’

Your heart sank and the feeling of nausea started to creep back into you. How could he already reject you so soon? Did your sisters say something? Or was he a witch hunter? Surely by being in Robichaux’s he probably knew by now that you were a witch. Your thoughts started to race a million miles per minuete.

‘Did something happen’?

You sent the message and set the phone back down on the nightstand, making sure to set the ringtone to silent this time.

You wandered toward the window, which was covered by thick white curtains. Blinding sunlight instantly spilled through as soon as you pushed the curtains back, and you relished in it.

Back at Robichaux’s, you had been kept in the dark for the past week basically. Too busy trying to learn spells and work on your powers to go outside and soak up the sun.

Basking in the sunlight, you noticed that you were atleast a hundred feet above the ground. The view was absolutely spectacular, and overlooked the ocean. You were pretty sure this was a fucking penthouse. How exactly rich was this dude?

It didn’t really matter anyway, since he already rejected you before you could even have the chance to properly meet him. But you weren’t the kind to give up so easily, espically when it was your god damn soulmate. Your literal other half. The person you were supposed to be with for the rest of your life.

You decided to go back and check his phone and there was actually a reply back. You smiled, giddy that maybe, perhaps he decided to give you a chance.

‘This is the last time you are going to hear from me, so I’m going to be crystal clear. It is vital that you stay inside, and don’t go anywhere. Got it’?

You sneered. How could he be so controlling? You contemplated writing back a witty reply but you figured that wouldn’t do any good. You should atleast attempt to stay on his good side.

‘Can you atleast tell me why’?

You nervsouly chewed your nails.

‘No’

You rolled your eyes and threw the phone on the bed so hard, it bounced. Even though as much as you wanted to get out of this damn room away from this heavy energy, you had to remind yourself that there had to be a good reason for him not wanting you to leave. You don’t even know where you would go anyway if you were to leave.

You decided to send one last text.

‘Okay, fine’

You now sat on the bed, defeated, shaking and your eyes filling with tears. You were always yearning and dreaming about how it would be like to meet your soulmate. How great it would feel and how happy you would be. You heard all of the stories from your fellow witches.

You saw nearly daily at Robichaux’s how happy Cordelia and Misty were, since they were soulmates, and you wanted something like that so bad for yourself.

But, sitting here, in this guys hotel room, you felt basically everything execpt for what you had expected. You felt scared, confused, rejected, controlled, and sad.

Who the hell was this guy?

Tears were now fully streaming down your cheeks, as you now fully embraced every emotion that you were feeling.

That’s when you noticed a thin, gray Apple laptop on top of one of the tables.

‘Fuck privacy’

You muttered and went and snatched up his laptop. You smirked as you opened it.

‘What a idiot’

You said laughing with glee as you wiped your tears away. He never shut his laptop off so, you had access to everything. There was no password to be unlocked.

There was currently one tab open, which was google chrome. It was his emails. Interesting. The first thing you focused on was who the email was from. The cooperative? Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

You thought it was nearly impossible to be even more confused than you already were, but, here you were.

You quickly opened another tab and did a quick google search of the cooperative.

Nothing. Nothing that seemed helpful anyway. The search results only showed definitions of cooperative, and other nonsense that wasn’t helpful. You opened the tab that contained the email back open, and started to actually read the email.

‘Micheal Langdon,’

That was who the email was addressed to. Micheal Langdon... Wait...

You froze. Your heart stopped, you stopped breathing and your sure for a solid minuete you probably stopped blinking as well.

Micheal Langdon? That meant... your soulmate was none other than the actual antichrist. God fucking damnit.

[princess-mei]

Mei 美美 Qin – Character Sheet

it’s like everything you say is a sweet revelation / all i wanna do is get into your head / yeah we could stay alone, you and me and this temptation / sipping on your lips, hanging on by a thread, baby

late night watching television / but how’d we get in this position / it’s way too soon, i know this isn’t love (no) / but i need to tell you something

i really really really really really really like you / and i want you, do you want me, do you want me too?

Archetype — The Explorer Birthday — July 9th, 2002 Zodiac Sign — Year of the Horse, Rising Leo, Sun in Cancer, Moon in Cancer MBTI — ENFP Enneagram — 2, the Helper Temperament — Sanguine Hogwarts House — Gryffindor Moral Alignment — Chaotic Good Primary Vice — Lust Primary Virtue — Charity Element — Water/Fire (she’s a Water Horse, so she definitely identifies with that but in Western tradition she is Fire.)

Overview:

Mother — Tanya Qin Father — Peng Qin Mother’s Occupation — Editor-in-Chief of the San Francisco Chronicle Father’s Occupation — financial diviner Family Finances — wealthy Birth Order — middle Brothers —  none Sisters — Ting-Ting (Gemma Chan, May 13, 1993), Su (January 22, 2003) Other Close Family — close to their mother’s side, father’s side lives in China, but they’ve taken trips to see them once or twice. do not have any cousins/aunts/uncles, but close to their grandparents. Best Friend — Daisy Zanetti, they grew up together. Met in school and were thick as thieves right away. Daisy is a half-fairy, so they both understood the whole “half” background thing. Other Friends — Lots and lots of friends~ Enemies — There was probably like one Mean Girl that Mei was always antagonizing and who was always antagonizing her. Pets — None. Home Life During Childhood — Relatively happy. Has nice, loving parents. Did a lot of Family Activities, since that was important. Mother was busy a lot with work, but her father was around a lot and Ting-Ting was always around (until she went to school.) Town or City Name(s) — San Francisco, CA What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — Posters everywhere! Very personalized and customized. Lots of reds and golds. Probably had like one of those net things around her bed. Always very messy, because Mei starts a project and then just jumps to the next. Lots of natural light too probably. Any Sports or Clubs — Dance and Gymnastics. Mei has kept up with both of these throughout the year. Does both ballet and hip hop. Her favorite gymnastics is rhythmics. Favorite Toy or Game — She wouldn’t consider it a toy or game, of course, but loves doing tarot and tea readings. Also enjoys a good board game, is very competitive though. Schooling — Public school. Favorite Subject — Physical Education ?? Maybe literature. Art classes… Popular or Loner — Decently popular. She wasn’t one of the people that everyone knew but she had a wide circle of friends. Important Experiences or Events — Discovering she had divination skills. Deciding her specialization. Moving to Swynlake! Nationality — American Culture — Chinese-American Religion and beliefs — Spiritual, borrowing from a spread of Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese folklore, and Confucianism.

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim — Cheng Xiao Complexion — Fair-skinned Hair Colour — Naturally a dark brown, but she dyes it a lot! Eye Colour — Dark brown. Height — 5’6 Build — Athletic, but slim. Tattoos — None. Piercings — Ears. Common Hairstyle — Likes to braid it or put it in two buns. Does a lot of half-up/half-down hairstyles. Clothing Style — Chic and trendy, lots of colors and patterns. Mannerisms — Very bouncy, doesn’t sit still much. Twirls her hair around her finger a lot. Usual Expression —

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — Pretty healthy! I’m sure this is due to Ting-Ting constantly balancing her Yin-Yang Physical Ailments — None. Neurological Conditions — None. Allergies — None! Grooming Habits — Rather good. Takes a lot of care with her appearance. Always makes sure to moisturize and exfoliate and change out of sweaty clothes. Sleeping Habits — Average. Eating Habits — Eats a lot because Su is constantly making things, but can forget meals if she is distracted or concentrating. Exercise Habits —  Exercises a lot! Does all sorts of things like pilates and swimming and jogging. Emotional Stability — I give her a 7/10, she loses points for being a stubborn, unreasonable teenager and for her temper, but otherwise is pretty even-keeled. Body Temperature — Average. Sociability — Very social! Loves surrounding herself with people. Addictions — Love? Drug Use — None, we will see. Alcohol Use — Has gone to parties where she’s drank before, but not often.

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — Interrupting people, bouncing from topic to topic, meddling in things that she shouldn’t, talking back, being a general nuisance. Good Habits — Very kind, very caring. Wants to take care of all her people. Strong moral compass. Best Characteristic — Her certainty. Worst Characteristic — Her stubbornness. Worst Memory — Being told she would have to move to Swynlake. Best Memory — When her father told her that he was proud of her for completing her studies for being a sorcerer and accepting an apprenticeship. Proud of — Her magic, her family history, her looks, her sporting ability. Embarrassed by — Not much, probably the fact she isn’t very good at school. Driving Style — Probably was just learning how to drive. A speed demon, but surprisingly a good driver. Strong Points — Her moral center and her big heart. Temperament — Can be explosive, but general soft and sweet. Attitude — Generally positive. Weakness — Not knowing what she wants. Fears — Not knowing what she’s going to do with her life. Phobias — Anything unlucky, though I wouldn’t call it a phobia, more of a cautious regard. Secrets — None really? She doesn’t keep much from people. She’s very “This Is Who I am. Fight Me.” Regrets — Having to leave Swynlake. Feels Vulnerable When — People are angry or upset with her, she’s not following her heart. Pet Peeves — Being told she’s wrong, lol. Conflicts — Duty to Family v Duty to Heart Motivation — Following her heart. Short Term Goals and Hopes — Make friends and something out of her life in Swynlake. Long Term Goals and Hopes — Figure out what she wants to do with her life. Sexuality — As-is she is straight, but this can change. Day or Night Person — Day Introvert or Extrovert — Extrovert. Optimist or Pessimist — Optimist except she can be really sour when things don’t go her way.

Likes and Styles:

Music — Oh, gosh–where to start? Mei loves love songs, of course. Big fan of Elton John, Elvis Presley, Celine Dion, etc etc. She also loves modern stuff, of course. Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ed Sheeran…if she’s really feeling it some Florence and the Machine. Loves KPop too. I’ll let Lauryl tell me who she stans. (Is that the phrase I feel like there is a phrase.) Anyway, anything that is love related, she’ll give it a listen. Books — Doesn’t actually like reading that much, tbh. Doesn’t hold her interest. Magazines — Do people read magazines anymore? Does Buzzfeed count as a magazine? Probably giggles over Cosmopolitan. Foods — Sweets! Chocolate is her favorite, but she likes licorice a lot too. Is one of those weird people that likes black licorice. Also, loves a good rice pudding. That’s probably her favorite dessert. She also loves chicken, any kind of chicken–she doesn’t care what you put it in or what you put on it. Isn’t much of a picky eater. Actually really enjoys being adventurous with her food. Drinks — Green tea, green tea, green tea! Mei loves tea, especially iced. She also surprisingly likes salt soda water–she goes back and forth on sweet and savory. Sometimes, she just really wants salt soda water because it is just crisp and refreshing and wakes her back-up and reorients her yin-yang when she needs it. Animals — Elephants! Mei loves elephants. She’s that girl that has like elephant shirts and an elephant backpack and an elephant stuffed animal probably. They have such a high emotional capacity and Mei really respects them for this. They are also just so cute with their floppy ears and their soft, sweet eyes! Loves birds too as most of them are symbols of good luck and good tidings–besides owls, which are harbingers of death. Sports — Gymnastics and dance. Social Issues — Magick Rights is the biggest one. Also feminism. Also all the “main” issues. Favorite Saying — “Better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness” - Chinese Proverb Color — Golds, yellows, reds, blues are her favourites. She loves gold because it is a Classy color. Most of her jewelry is gold. She loves yellow because it is bright and happy! Red is lucky in Chinese culture and it always reminds her of times like New Year’s! Also, it is the color of passion and love. Blues she likes because they are calming and gentle.  These are her lucky colors. She also loves pink, even though it is technically a color that she should avoid. Really hates white, because she doesn’t like what a blank slate it is. Also, hates brown because it is an icky boring color. As you can see, she has a lot of Opinions on colors. Clothing —Chic and trendy, lots of colors and patterns. Jewelry — Loves it! Wears mostly gold. Probably has a few staple pieces but then exchanges things depending on her mood. Websites — Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter etc etc TV Shows — CW shows and K/Cdramas Movies — All the great love classics: Gone with the Wind, the Titanic, When Harry Met Sally, Roman Holiday, all of Audrey Hepburn probably, the Notebook, Singing in the Rain…I could go on and on. She loves movies that tug at the heart strings and are full of that wild, amazing, passionate kind of love. They always make her swoon and if she is choosing a movie for movie night, you know it’s gonna be a romantic tearjerker. Though, she also likes romcoms. Doesn’t like action movies or horror movies or anything too intense, they freak her out Greatest Want — To figure out what to do with her life. Greatest Need — To grow up and learn things aren’t all about her, lmao.

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — A three bedroom apartment with Ting-Ting and Su. Household furnishings — Rather plain at the moment, but will probably grow cozy as they settle in. Favorite Possession — Her pseudogrimoire where she writes down all the signs and stuff that she sees and puzzles out the meaning to. Most Cherished Possession — Her wand, which is a fan that was her mother’s, her mother gave it to her and her father and Ting-Ting help her imbibe it with magic. Neighborhood — Tortuga Place Married Before — No Significant Other Before — Non-serious boyfriends and Serious crushes Children — She iS a child Relationship with Family — Very close with her dad, even though he’s always yelling at her and being disappointed in her. They have a lot in common and she loves him. Her and her mother also get along more or less, she’s less stringent than her dad. Ting-Ting and her probably have the most contentious relationship, but even that hasn’t been that bad really. Mostly Mei being a nosy, annoying little sister. It will get more intense now that Ting-Ting is the authority figure and Mei is pissed about their situation. Su and Mei get along more or less well, they annoy each other, as sisters are wont to do, but Mei would def consider Su one of her best friends. Car — None. Career — Student Dream Career — She doesn’t know !! Dream Life — Married, with children, though she doesn’t know what she wants out of a career. Love Life — Nonexistant, which pisses her off. Talents or Skills — Excellent gymnast and very good with her magic. Intelligence Level — Decently intelligent, has street smarts, tbh. Very sharp in conversation. Finances — Wealthy

[thatbitchassstay]

Lee Know smut #2

If you want the whole story and not just the smut scenes go to my wattpad @thatbitchassstay If its not there than they took down my account lol.

You were sitting in your room doing math homework when all of a sudden your brother Chan walks in.

"Hey, Y/N? I invited some friends over, is that ok?" You quickly looked up from the problem that you were having trouble with and asked "Which friends?" "Um, let me see. Felix, Changbin, Jisung, Hyunjin, Jeongin, Seungmin, and Minho. Some of them are really good at math also if you need help with that problem." he said as you were visibly struggling with the numbers. "That's ok, what time are they coming over?" you asked. "should be here in around 30 minutes!" "Thank you!" you said as your brother left to get ready.

As soon as he left, you put away your math homework and went to the bathroom for a shower. You knew all of Chan's friends pretty well already. There were some that you were closer with, but other than that there was only one guy that set you off. Lee Minho. He was just never friendly around you. He never looked you in the eye.  His rhetorical remarks, which made the others laugh, just made you annoyed. But there was something about him that just made you want to... I don't know, kiss him or something.

After you got out of the shower, you put on some shorts and an oversized sweatshirt. Then you went to the kitchen.

"Chan, what time is it, when are they coming over?" You yelled as you walked out of your bedroom and accidentally ran into someone. You look up at his face only to see that it was Minho. "omg, I am so sorry!" You quickly apologized and went to Chan's room.

"Why didn't you tell me that he arrived!" you whisper shouted at chan, not wanting Minho to hear. "I heard your shower was on and I didn't want to disturb you. By the way, please try to get along tonight!" You look at your brother exasperatedly and said "I always do try, he is the one that messes things up!" you quietly storm out of your brother's room to see Minho was sitting on the couch texting someone. When he sensed your presence, He quickly looked up and when he saw it was you, he gave you a little smile. You quickly gave him a little smile back, not wanting to be rude, and turned away so he could not see the heat rising up your face.

~10 minutes later~

You were just finishing up your math homework when chan came into your room again. "Hey sis, we are watching a movie, what to watch with us?" "Sure!" you replied.

When you got to the living room, you looked around and the only open seat was on the couch next to Minho, behind everyone. "do you mind if I sit here?" you ask gesturing to the open seat next to him. "Not at all." he said with a small smile.

For the first ten minutes of the movie, you could not pay attention. You were too busy sneaking glances at Minho. You had never been this close to him for a long period of time before. Then a thought of you and him kissing came into your head and you turned extremely red. He must have noticed the change in your mood because he turned his head to look at you. You looked away from him and tried to pretend that nothing happened.

He scooted closer to you, leaned over, and whispered into your ear, "Your cheeks are a bit red." Quiet enough that no one else could hear, but loud enough that you could make out words. "I wonder why..." He said before kissing your cheek and going back to his position before. Your face became a bright shade of red as you looked in his direction. He too had some red on his cheeks. You weren't able to help yourself... You climbed you way over to him and kissed his lips. At first he was taken aback, but then after one second he started kissing back, biting your lip as you and him fought over dominance, he won as his tongue entered your mouth. He then pulled away from you, picked you up, and took you to your room.

"This is your place right?" you nodded and he opened the door and entered.

Chan POV

you heard something behind you. As you looked back you saw Minho and your sister making out on the couch. You quickly made eye contact with Minho as you slyly passed him a condom. He asked you with his eyes for permission. You nodded. You don't know why it was okay with you, It definitely should not be. You mouth Don't be too loud and gesture to jeongin as Minho picks up Y/N and takes her to her room.

Y/N POV

he lyes you down on your bed and starts kissing you. your arms grab around his neck as he starts to make his way down your throat. You slowly pull off his shirt when all of the sudden says "Ah Y/N I am hard!" he rips off your shirt and pants and continues to kiss you. "Wait, this is unfair!" you say as you take off his pants. He smiles at you and says "can you do me a favor?" You tilt your head as he takes off his underwear and you start to stroke it. He throws his head back and says "Faster baby, please!" pretty loudly. You start to suck and then you deep throat it trying not to gag He lets out a long moan and says "I am going to cum!" He lets the white fluid into your mouth as you swallow it. "good girl."

He then takes it out of your mouth and takes off your underwear and bra. he leans in and starts sucking in your nipple as his fingers tease your entrance. You sigh loudly and then he brings his mouth away from your body. "You ready?" he asked. you nod and you feel one of his fingers go inside of you. As his hand builds up speed you start to moan and when he sticks another finger inside of you you feel yourself getting wet.

He then takes his fingers out of you and leans down as his tongue races its way through your folds. He then  positions his member at you entrance and with out warning, sticks it inside of you. You let a moan that was a little to loud escape from your lip and then he spanks you.

"Shh, i don't want anyone else intruding on this." he then starts thrusting. At first it was slow and painful, but then he started to speed up and h found your g-spot. You threw your head back with pleasure as he kept thrusting into it.

At this point you two were just a sweaty mess underneath the sheets of your bed.

After a little, he stops and collapses next to you. "gn baby." you say and then you both pass out.

Chan POV

you had to cover jeongin sears as you heard their moans escape from her room. "i hope they are using protection." Hyunjin says slyly as their moans dye out.

[letswritefanfiction]

Pink Macarons

A Pokemon oneshot. Also can be read on ffnet here.

Summary: Who needs a man on Valentine’s Day? After the events of XYZ, Serena and her friends try out the new livestreaming feature on Pokévision, whilst trying to make the most of a difficult holiday by baking and hanging out together. Onesided Amour and onesided PoffleShipping.

“I can’t figure out how to do it!” Serena moaned as she fiddled with the equipment setup. “I don’t know if it’s the laptop or the camera!”

“Let Shauna do it,” Miette said. “She’s the only one of us to have used the new livestream feature before. We need you with food prep anyway.”

Food prep, at this point, was mostly done, thanks to the work Serena had done earlier. Every counter in the Pokémon Center kitchen was covered in all the ingredients needed for baking: sugar, moo moo butter, flour, and lots and lots of berries. Every spot that wasn’t had equipment like mixers and bowls.

“Yeah, I don’t remember how to cut the Qualot Berry so that it looks pretty,” Nini said, struggling with a paring knife.

Serena gratefully abandoned the filming setup to help Nini as Shauna, wiping her hands on her apron, took her place.

“If you can’t do that, you can always just cover it in chocolate and call it a day,” Serena said as she demonstrated, leaving a perfectly carved rose. “And remember to save these little bits for your Pokémon! Nobody likes waste.”

There was a little scrap pile going of edible berry bits that Serena was going to give to Pancham later. Delphox was the only one of her Pokémon out at the moment as Pancham couldn’t be trusted during the cooking process and Sylveon would likely be jumpy around this lively group of girls. Not to mention that with four girls in the room, space was already limited.

“Okay, save the little gems of wisdom for when we’re actually on the air,” Miette said sarcastically as she managed to sculpt a berry rose just as Serena had.

“I’ve got it!” Shauna exclaimed as she stepped away from the laptop.

“Wait, we’re live now?” Serena squeaked.

“Yep!” Shauna waved into the camera. “Hi, Serena’s audience! Happy Galentine’s Day!”

“No, no, I have to introduce—excuse me, Nini—us and what we’re doing!”

Serena scooted past Nini, placing the paring knife on the kitchen island behind her as she scrambled to join Shauna in front of the camera.

“Hi, I’m Serena! And this is my partner Delphox,” Serena said, gesturing in the background to where Delphox was washing the last of the berries. “And today—”

“On Galentine’s Day,” Shauna inserted.

“On Valentine’s Day, I have a special treat for you! My first ever livestream! And my friends Shauna, Miette, and Nini are all here to help me out. Their socials are in the information tab below—and they’re all great Pokémon Performers, so you should follow them if you don’t already. Thanks to everyone who saw my post on Fletchat today and is tuning in! Today, we have a Q and A planned where you can ask me and my friends questions while we bake for Valentine’s Day!”

Miette gave Serena a sympathetic look. “Serena, you’re talking really fast. Seems like you’re nervous.”

Serena gave the camera a big, cheesy smile and said with the utmost confidence: “I am!”

Miette shook her head and went back to working with the berries.

“I’ll be doing most of the moderating,” Shauna said, coming back in front of the camera, “so let me see those questions! Oh, here’s one. What are we baking, gals?”

“Everything,” Miette said.

“We’re making Poké Puffs and macarons,” Serena answered, ignoring Miette. “And we’ll be giving tips throughout the broadcast for those at home who are interested!”

“And for us,” Nini added. “Serena’s a much better pâtissière than we are.”

“Oh, you guys, I don’t know about that!” Serena said, trying to fight off her blush. “Anyway, for Valentine’s Day, we’re making everything pink and romantic. So that means heart-shaped macarons and beautifully decorated Poké Puffs.”

“Del phox del!”

“Oh, and we’ll be doing some taste tests too.”

“Serena, why don’t you let them know what we’re working on right now?”

“Good idea, Shauna! So, Miette and Nini are working on sculpting some fruit to make pretty toppings for the Poké Puffs—if you want a video on that, I can make one—and I have our macaron batter here! Delphox, can you hand me the Persim Berries and the pink towel?”

“Delphox!”

“If you want to use food dye to color your batter, you can, but I prefer to use more natural ingredients,” Serena explained as she took the items from Delphox. “If you put Persim Berries in bright sunlight, even after being picked, they become very rich in color. Then you can put them in a towel like this, and wring them out to get a very bright juice!”

Serena demonstrated putting a few berries in the cloth and twisting it. Dark pink juice bled from the towel and into the bowl that the berries had been in, and Serena showed it to the camera before pouring it into the white macaron batter.

“Persim Berries don’t have a lot of flavor,” Nini added. “So you don’t have to worry about your food tasting weird when you use it.”

“Very true, Nini. With macarons, all you have to worry about is that you don’t water down the texture too much, so start with a little bit. And you can always reduce the juice on the stove so that it’s more potent. Just make sure it cools down all the way first, because you don’t want to deflate your egg whites!”

As Serena folded the batter, Shauna was scrolling through comments on Pokévision and Fletchat, looking for questions.

“Aw, this is sweet,” Shauna cooed. “How can four lovely girls such as yourselves be without dates on Valentine’s Day? I’d take any of you out. Thank you so much!”

“Well, now seems like a nice time for a reminder that not everyone is alone on Valentine’s Day because they failed to get a date,” Nini said. “Some of us either don’t want a date today or maybe don’t want a date ever.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the case for all of us,” Miette drawled. “Right, Serena?”

“Hmm?” Serena asked, a blush rising to her face as she reached for a piping bag. “Um, sure. Everyone’s different.”

Serena knew that Miette was just trying to get a rise of her—like always. She should have expected that live TV wouldn’t make her behave any differently. But Serena had a job to do here, and Miette’s antics weren’t going to steer her off-course.

“So when your batter is this consistency just scoop it into your piping bag and make sure you have a sheet tray ready,” Serena said, steering the conversation back to what she was doing.

“Ooh, Shauna, you’re not reading out the good stuff,” Miette said, leaning over Shauna’s shoulder to read the live feed. “LuvdiscLuver—very Valentinesy name, I approve—wants to know if there’s anyone Serena wishes she were out with tonight.”

“Hahahaha,” Serena barked, the laugh coming out completely unnatural. “I, uh, I love my girls, so I couldn’t be happier here baking with them.”

“Lies!” Miette got her face close up to the camera and pointing accusingly at Serena. “There is definitely someone Serena would rather be with, and I know who it is.”

Shauna shook her head at Miette and Nini, poked her on the shoulder. “It’s not your business to talk about that,” she whispered.

“Ooh, the comments are really coming in now!” Shauna said, scanning as the comments went flying by. “Everyone wants to know your crush, Serena!”

“Are you sure they don’t want to know how to shape macarons into hearts?” Serena asked, tilting the camera down so that the people could see what was happening on her sheet tray—rather than the boiling blush on her face. “If some of them don’t turn out perfect, just make sure to put that one on the bottom of your finished product!”

“Okay, Serena doesn’t have to tell you all that,” Shauna said, crouching down to get into the camera’s frame. “But to get back at Miette, I’ll tell you that she has a crush on the same person Serena does!”

Shauna gasped dramatically, putting a hand in front of her mouth as she looked at Miette and scurried out of frame.

Miette grabbed the camera and jerked it back up so it was right at eye-level. “Yep, that’s the truth; thanks, Shauna. One thing you all don’t know about Serena—she has great taste in guys. So of course I like the same one.”

Serena looked down at her macarons. They were hardly the best ones she’d ever done—most of them would qualify as bottom-halves, if that were possible. She could only hope that all the distractions hadn’t messed up the recipe. Macarons required such a specific finish, it would be obvious immediately if something went wrong.

At least Delphox was keeping things on track. She’d already rinsed out the bowl that the batter had been in and was reaching to do the same with the pastry bag.

“Okay,” Serena said. “I’m just going to slip these in the oven and then we can move on to our PokéPuff batter! Girls?”

Serena was going for a neutral vanilla base with pink sprinkles and a custard-like sour Colbur Berry topping. Then the girls would make them almost look like fruit tarts, putting the beautifully cut berries on top. All four of the girls knew how to make PokéPuffs by heart, and were able to get together the ingredients for this particular version of Serena’s with machine-like precision. Serena was weighing the dry ingredients, Miette measuring the wet, and Nini was juicing the Colbur berries.

“Wow, you guys are getting a lot of questions,” Shauna mused as she grated a little bit of the pink flesh of the spiky berries to add a bit of Valentine’s pink to the PokéPuffs.

“I have a link to my blog post about this recipe in the description,” Serena said. She’d written the post up that day and used pictures from her practice batches. If Pokémon Performing didn’t go her way, she could always be a food blogger.

“No, not about that—though you girls are doing great,” Shauna said absently as the wet and dry ingredients were combined. “No, people want to know how you two can stay friends when you have a crush on the same boy.”

Serena—whose face had finally returned to its even, beige complexion—could feel herself flushing again. When she’d said she wanted the livestream to be pink-themed, she hadn’t thought her face would be a part of it. Though, she was sure that Miette would use it as an excuse for her behavior.

“Well, it’s not serious for me,” Miette said, answering first since Serena had taken over the batter and Nini was handling the topping. “I mean, I like this guy. He’s cute, kind, and skilled. He ticks the boxes, you know? But I don’t honestly know him that well. I can recognize that and know that my feelings for my friend, Serena, are more important than a little crush on some guy.”

Serena looked up from where she’d been staring intently at the batter that she, frankly, was beginning to over-mix now that she’d put the sprinkles in. She blinked at Miette, surprised to hear such a mature response.

“Here, lemme take that,” Miette said, grabbing the bowl from Serena and beginning to dole the mixture out into a greased cupcake tin. That left Serena on screen with Nini mixing away in the background.

“Um, well, it’s different for me,” Serena started nervously. She couldn’t forget the fact that she wasn’t just in a room with her four friends and her Pokémon. There were thousands of concurrent viewers right now, watching as she floundered for the perfect words. “You could say…it’s more serious for me. I know this guy really well and I’ve liked him for a long time. But like Miette said, that’s different from our friendship. I mean, she teases me about it, and maybe it seems like she doesn’t care, but I trust her enough to know that she wouldn’t betray me or do something that would really hurt me.”

“What would you do if one of you were to start dating this mystery guy, someone wants to know?” Shauna asked.

“I’d get over it,” Miette said, popping her head back in frame as she finished up with the PokéPuffs. “Always more Goldeen in the sea.”

“Serena?” Shauna prompted.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Serena said honestly. “Realistically, I mean. Because, in reality, I don’t think he’s ready to date either of us. Or anyone. I mean, maybe I tell myself that just because he didn’t show much interest in me, even after the signs I gave him.”

Serena avoided eye contact with the girls. She still hadn’t told any of them about their one kiss. Knowing Ash, he could have missed all the smaller signs she’d given him…but she didn’t believe even he could mistake what that kiss had meant for her.

“I don’t believe that,” Shauna said, jumping in next to Serena. “Look, we all know this guy. And, for all his good points, which Miette pointed out, I think we can all agree that he’s not boyfriend material quite yet. He’s not ready. Right, Nini?”

Nini looked up. “Um…let’s just say he’s the type you have to be patient with.”

“And I’m not that patient,” Miette said. “So in the event that Serena and what’s-his-face end up together, I’m going to give her a big congratulations. You win.”

Just then, the timer for the macarons went off and Serena scrambled to turn it off, not wanting the sound to be too irritating on the livestream.

“How are they looking, Delphox?” she asked.

“Del, del!”

Delphox reached in and pulled out the sheet tray, and Serena could see the perfect feet that the macarons had formed. They might not be shaped impeccably, but at least they’d cooked well.

“That’s perfect,” Nini, said. “Now we can put in the PokéPuffs!”

Nini did just that as Delphox set out the macaron halves to cool and Serena started on the buttercream filling, able to do it completely by muscle memory.

“Aw, Serena, look at this comment,” Shauna said. “It says: Don’t worry, Serena. Relationships are all about timing. This guy might be the guy for you, or Miette, in parenthesis, but today wasn’t the day. Maybe tomorrow or next Valentine’s Day.”

“That’s so nice,” Serena said, touched to find that her fans were such lovely people. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I hope you’re right.”

Delphox had been fanning a sheet pan over the macarons, quickening their cool-down process. Miette touched one of the cookies and declared, “I think they’re cool enough to pipe now!”

Serena had just started scooping the buttercream into a fresh piping bag when Shauna came over and bumped her on the hip. “I’ll do this part, Serena. You should read what people are saying to you for a minute. They’re your fans!”

Since this was Serena’s first livestream, she was surprised to see how quickly the chat was flying by. It was hard to grab onto any one thing to respond to, but it was touching to see how many people were watching and cared enough to write in. There were messages about the food, people saying they were fans of the other girls, and lots of people grateful for the stream, as they didn’t have any Valentines plans themselves. They didn’t feel so lonely, because they felt a kinship with Serena and her friends.

Serena couldn’t help but think of Valentine’s Days passed as she imagined all the people at home watching her stream. Last Valentine’s Day, Serena had been traveling with Ash, Clemont, and Bonnie. It had been lovely to be with Ash, of course, though it wasn’t exactly in the way she might have hoped. And every year before that, she’d been alone with her mother, wishing that she was with Ash, or someday would be. Funny how when she finally was, it ended up being so different from her imagination.

Really, it felt like her first real Valentine’s Day was this one. Even if she didn’t have a date, this was the first time she was doing anything to celebrate. And everyone at home was celebrating along with her.

“You know what, I want to answer that first question honestly,” Serena declared suddenly.

“Which one?” Shauna asked

“The first one Miette asked—”

“Geez, that was, like, half an hour ago!”

“Regardless,” Serena said. “The one about who I wish I was with tonight. The truth is that I feel a bit sad that I’m not with the guy I have a crush on. I feel a bit lonely, like I’m seeing a lot of you at home feel. But you know what? I think I would probably feel a bit lonely if I were on a dream date with him too. I think that’s just something that people feel. But what I said before was the truth too: I couldn’t be happier to be with my gal pals tonight, enjoying Galentine’s Day.”

Shauna grinned. “Yeah! Galentine’s Day!”

“Or Palentine’s or whatever it is for you,” Serena continued. “Any day that reminds us of our connections with other people, and Pokémon,” Serena added, sparing a look at Delphox, “and encourages us to spend time with them is a good day. But it’s just what you make of it.”

“And we,” Nini said, bringing the finished macarons into the picture, “are making the finest desserts in Kalos tonight.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Serena started, only to be cut off by Miette plopping one in her mouth.

“No, she’s right. Fuck, Serena, these are amazing!”

“Miette!” Serena exclaimed. “You can’t say that!”

Miette wiped a bit of frosting off the corner of her mouth and winked at the camera. “Oops.”

“Seriously, Miette, they could strike my channel!”

“Nothing to be done now!”

“Okay!” Shauna said, pushing in front of the other girls. “I think that’s the end of our stream! Thanks to Serena for hosting all of us, and make sure you check out everyone’s links in the description below. Sorry you all couldn’t see us assemble the PokéPuffs, but rest assured that we will, and then we’ll eat all of them until the only pain we have is in our stomachs. Everyone, have a fantastic Galentine’s Day and we’ll see you all next time! Bye!”

Only Nini managed to join in waving to the camera before Shauna ended the broadcast with a sigh.

“Well, that’s that.”

“Why did you end the broadcast there?” Serena asked. “Shouldn’t I have said something to everyone? What if there were more comments we needed to respond to?”

“Sorry, I just figured we’d better end things before Miette decided to say anything else.”

“I really am sorry, Serena,” Miette said, in a tone that made it difficult for Serena to tell if she was being truthful or not. “These are just some really effing good macarons. For real.”

“If that’s the case…” Nini reached over and grabbed one, giving it a once over. Despite the uneven heart shape, the cookie had the same coloring all the way through, looking perfectly cooked all the way around. When she popped it into her mouth, she couldn’t help but moan. “Oh yeah. We’re definitely gonna eat these until our stomachs hurt.”

Serena was unable to hide a grin as any irritation she felt towards Miette or Shauna evaporated. She just loved feeding people good food.

“Just you wait until the PokéPuffs are ready,” Serena said, pulling out a berry that looked like a large lima bean. “I got us some Micle berries. They’re pretty rare, but they have this incredible flavor that makes your mouth just pucker like when you’re drinking a dry wine. Squeezing just a bit of them on top of my PokéPuffs is my secret weapon.”

“God, how can you be making me hungry while I’m already eating?” Shauna asked, digging into the macarons as well.

“Ugh, why aren’t they ready yet?” Nini complained.

Serena shrugged. “Guess we’ll just have to spend all day together.”

The girls looked at each other, smiling. Yeah, maybe it would have been nice to be in a nice romantic restaurant across from Ash, holding hands and eating expensive food. But beyond that possibility, Serena was so thankful for the reality of her best girl friends here with her on this February fourteenth, doing something they all loved, together.

That was really a happy Valentine’s day.

FIN

[thiswasinevitableid]

Could you maybe do sternclay with #57? :3 Stern needs Barclay hello him with cookies IMMEDIATELY

#57: You called me at two in the moring insisting that I come over and help you bake christmas cookies for the party tomorrow because you forgot to make them earlier and need help now.

(I tweaked it slightly for the set-up)

Beepbeepbeep

Barclay blinks awake in a panic. That is definitely a smoke detector. His faculties return enough to clue him in that it’s not the one in his apartment, but rather the one below him. 

It’s probably nothing. His downstairs neighbor sometimes gets home late, and makes (or burns) dinner at odd hours. Still, Barclay would prefer to check and have it be no big deal than go back to bed only for said bed to collapse through the floor into the fiery inferno below an hour later. 

He pulls on his green, plaid bathrobe and walks the short flight of stairs to 32B. It takes a few moments for his knock to be answered. And he’s unprepared for the sight that greets him when it is.

Joseph Stern is the epitome of buttoned up; Barclay’s never seen him in anything less formal than a button shirt and slacks, even on the weekends. His black hair is always slicked back, allowing Barclay an unfettered view of his movies-star handsome cheekbones and bright blue eyes. He’s certain Stern doesn’t know how badly he’d like to dig his fingers into the gelled strands and pull them loose, how he looks forward to the times Stern invites him in for tea if they arrive home at the same hour, how weirdly relieved Barclay feels that he’s never heard or seen a sign that Stern’s brought a date home. 

Which is why the man who opens the door makes Barclays imagination spin out like a car on the ice. 

Stern’s hair is mussed, he’s in a white t-shirt and bigfoot-patterned pajama pants, and there’s a streak of white across his cheek. He turns red as soon as he glimpses Barclay.

“I’m so sorry, the alarm woke you up I assume?”

“Yep. Just, uh, just wanted to check to see if everything was okay.”

“Nothing’s on fire, if that’s what you mean.”

“You sure? Still smells kinda smoky-”

Beepbeepbeep

“Shit.” Stern dashes back towards his kitchen, leaving an open door and a confused Barclay behind him. 

Barclay crosses the threshold, shutting the door and then jumping when a narrow head and beady eyes peer at him from the dark bedroom

“gAH!”

Stern stops waving a piece of junk mail at his smoke detector to address the eerie shape, “It’s alright Nessie, your idiot owner just burnt some cookies.”

A greyhound pokes itself into the living room, collar jingling as it cautiously approaches Barclay. 

“Hey there, friend.” Barclay coos, lets the narrow, wet nose investigate him as he walks into the kitchen, “Cookies, huh?” He takes in the messy counters, the pile of bowls in the sink, and the plume of smoke escaping the oven. 

“Yes. I have a holiday party to attend tomorrow and I was already in bed when I remembered I agreed to bring cookies.”

“Can’t you just buy some before you go?”

“I considered that, believe me. But, well, it’s at a house where I know my ex will be attending, and he would just love the chance to point out to everyone how I’m too busy to even make cookies for the people I care about.”

“Jesus, what a dick.”

Stern laughs, a sound only he could make dignified, “That’s the understatement of the decade. And the reason it’s two in morning and my kitchen is full of smoke from cookies I clearly did not make correctly.”

Barclay examines the cookie sheet. It’s contents are one giant blob.

“Well, looks like your batter was too liquid so it spread and dripped off the sheet. That’s what started burning. Do you still have some left?”

Stern nods toward a silver mixing bowl. Barclay peers in, then grabs a nearby quarter cup measure and the bag of flour.

“This is a pretty easy fix. Here, I can get this sorted out if you can get the gunk out of the oven when it cools.”

“Right, of course.” Stern kneels down, searching beneath the sink through a stash of cleaning supplies, shooing Nessie away when she gets perilously close to the bleach bottle. 

Barclay adds flour to the cookie batter and turns on the mixer. It takes a little tweaking, but soon it’s looking how it needs to. His lingering grogginess turns on his autopilot, and he flours up the rolling pin and starts pressing down the dough.

“Why are you helping me?” Stern asks softly. 

“Just being neighborly, I guess.”

“It is two a.m, the apartment still smells like burnt dough, and you must have work at the bakery in the morning. You don’t need to stay. I care about our friendship Barclay and I’d hate you to resent me for this. You should go.”

“Yeah, I guess, even though I have the evening shift tomorrow. But I kinda want to stay. I like making cookies, and you could clearly use a little help. Unless you, like, need me to go, in which case I can.”

“I’d prefer the company, honestly. I can’t think of many things more pathetic than a grown man frosting Christmas cookies by himself in the dead of night.”

Barclay sets the rolling pin aside, rests a hand on either of Sterns shoulders, and smiles down at him, “Okay, how about this then: you plug in those lights you’ve got up and put on some water for tea and some music, and then come and help me make these? That still sound pathetic?”

“On the contrary” Stern meets his gaze, eyes regaining some of their shine, “it sounds wonderful.”

——————————————

The clock reads 3:30 a.m  by the time they’re frosting at the table. After he agreed to stay, Stern became immediately calmer, and has moved from that to downright chatty. He looks even more handsome by the glow of his christmas lights, and has made Barclay laugh more times than he can count. Barclay’s crush is only intensifying as a result. 

Stern opted for tubes of premade frosting to simplify things, and he’s busy decorating tree-shaped cookies with the green while Barclay tackles the star cookies with the white. 

“Anyway, that’s how come I named her Nessie. I actually had–ugh, why isn’t this coming out–a hamster named “Hodag” when I was youngAH!” The bag explodes, splatting sugary green goo over both men. 

“Shit, I’m so, so sorry.” Stern scrambles for a napkin.

“Really not your night, huh?” Barclay chuckles as he undoes his now-frosted bathrobe and tosses it on an empty chair.

“Clearly, good lord, I wasn’t even squeezing that…”

“Everything okay?” Stern’s eyes have gone worryingly wide

“Yes.” Stern breathes out.

Barclay shivers. Which is how he remembers that he’d gone to bed shirtless. And that Stern hasn’t stopped staring. 

He grins, “Like what you see?”

“Let’s just say my night has been greatly improved by seeing it.” Stern steps around the table, draws the napkin along Barclays neck, trying to remove a stray splotch of green.

“Agh, why is this stuff so hard to get off?”

“Dunno, must be whatever dye they use-oh, oh fuck.” A warm tongue laps at his neck, and the spot is gone in an instant. 

“It appears we’ve just found an efficient way of removing it.”

“Uh huh.” Barclay cups Sterns cheek, kisses him as gently as his jackhammer of a heart will allow. 

“Is this really okay?” He whispers. He needs to know, he has to be certain, because Stern is relaxed and melting into his arms and if he fucks that up by moving too fast he will never forgive himself. 

“It’s perfect.” Stern nuzzles his beard, “I’d, uh, I’d very much like to keep kissing you until I fall asleep.”

“Think I can manage that. Go get cozy, babe, and I’ll join you in a sec.”

Stern kisses his cheek and heads into the bedroom. As Barclay packs up the cookies, the dark-haired man reappears with a puzzle toy and a dog bed, which he sets in front of the heater so they won’t be disturbed.

By the time Barclay is done, Stern is waiting for him under the covers, sans his frosting covered shirt. Barclay snuggles up in his arms, kissing him slow and soft, learning and memorizing the ways to draw little sighs of pleasure from his lips. Sterns eyelids droop first, and he falls asleep in Barclays arms. He strokes his back gently before dropping off himself. 

And in the morning, they have cookies for breakfast

[shutupandshipit]

Live Stream - Oneshot

Summary: Everyone knew that if you wanted to have sex or needed help through you heat/rut, you went to Midoriya.

Or where Midoriya is promiscuous and a cam girl, and Kirishima is an avid viewer who catches part of a live stream that wasn't meant to be live.

Pairing: Bakudeku

Rating: M

Notes: More outside POV for BakuDeku! I told y'all that I wasn't going to stop. I might expand on this one later, just because I love a good shameless slut character (because there's nothing shameless about enjoying sex). Also, I love a good cam girl fic.

Aaaaanyway, I've got Kiri's POV this time for you to partake in. Hope y'all enjoy! See you in my next one!

Everyone knew that if you wanted to have sex or needed help through you heat/rut, you went to Midoriya. He was the unapologetic slut of the school with a never ending stream of lovers to entertain him. Even the teachers knew about his exploits, but never did anything about it simply due to the decrease of rut and heat related attacks. They promised though that if a pregnancy occurred or there was a sudden rash of STIs, there would be repercussions.

Midoriya had taken the warning in stride and shrugged it off. He had told Kirishima time and time again that he had no plans of getting pregnant so early in his life and career.

Everyone also knew that he only took credit for having sex with you. If it ruined any relationship you may have been in, well then that was your problem.

Midoriya had a few simple questions he asked you and rules that you had to follow if you so happened to partake in his services.

1) No touching. For the duration of your session, your hands would be tied to his headboard. That was non-negotiable. The rule was in place for his protection more than yours. This was sometimes relaxed when it came to friends of partners he saw frequently and trusted enough to know what they were allowed to do.

2) No biting. Being tied to the headboard, it was harder to accomplish than normally, but if you made any attempt to do so, you'd be out of his room whether you'd gotten off or not. He expected you to find control even in a heat/rut haze. If you couldn't control yourself, you had no right being in his bed. There were no exceptions.

3) A condom would be used at all times. He didn't take it raw or suck dick without protection. It was simple as that.

4) Do not involve emotions. It wasn't his fault if you caught feelings for him, and he would not take responsibility for them. Sex with him was a no strings attached, purely physical transaction. He was a bunny omega after all with a sexual appetite that couldn't be satisfied by one singular person, so there was no room to get butt hurt about any other partners the frequented his bed.

5) Do not, under any circumstances, ask about his heat or offer your services during his heat. If you did, you were liable to have your ass verbally flayed and all contact with him cut immediately.

6) Rule 6 was probably the most important of all. You would be recorded and posted on his cam channel. Only your lower half would be shown. Your face would never be recorded. If you weren't okay with that or refused to sign his release form, you wouldn't make it passed his threshold.

His questions were simple as well.

1) Were you clean? This included drugs, STIs and any contagious sickness you may have at the time.

2) Were you in your heat/rut?

3) Had you ever had sex before?

He didn't ask if you were in a relationship because he didn't care. It was your choice to meet with him, so you were liable for any consequences caused by your actions. So if something did happen, you weren't allowed to come crying to him.

The last thing everyone knew was that he spent his heat alone. Or at least, if he did have someone he shared them with, no one knew who it was.

Kirishima knew all of this from personal experience. Even though he and Mina were together, it was hard to satisfy his alpha with another alpha, and the same went for her. So, they both employed Midoriya's services pretty often, both alone and together. They were one of the only couples Midoriya featured, and it had shot his popularity through the roof after the first video he did with them.

He offered a kick back of any money he made from his videos, but from what Kirishima knew, people rarely took him up on his offer. All the money he made went to his mother and omega related foundations. He was in it to satisfy his omega, and the money was simply a byproduct.

Kirishima had asked Midoriya once how much his partners would receive if they did take his offer, and the amount had floored him. He hoped all those foundations put his donations to good use.

It always surprised him exactly how popular Midoriya was on the internet.

Then again, sitting in his room with his laptop open on his stomach, nodding off as he waited for Midoriya's Friday live stream to begin, he could see the chat room already filling. 1,000 turned into 2,000 turned into 3,000, and just kept ticking. A countdown ran down on the screen, and people had already begun tittering away in the chat.

Kirishima wondered if the entire school was watching. He knew at least half of his class was. That's why the dorm was always so quiet on Fridays save for the sounds coming from Midoriya's room.

Just like every Friday at exactly 8 o'clock, the stream went live. Midoriya sat on his bed in front of a black back drop and on top of creamy white sheets, knees splayed out to his sides. He wore pure white lace panties and garter belt. Encasing his arms and legs were silvery metallic support sleeves that his garter belt clipped onto. A half face bunny mask covered the upper portion of his face. A white wig to match the white tuft of his tail covered his very recognizable green hair. The green fur of his ears had been sprayed with temporary white dye that would wash out when he showered.

When he was on his channel, he became Snow Bunny, beloved omega of the cam world.

Despite who he filmed with, not everyone who watched his channel knew who he was, and he did what he could to hide his identity.

Granted, if you asked him, he would say that society should normalize sex in relation to heroes. They could be sex icons in their own right, but if they were actually caught having sex or with multiple partners, it was a scandal. He wasn't really that concerned if his channel was discovered later in his career, but right now, it wouldn't do him any favors.

Kirishima commended him on that because he just wasn't that brave or confident.

"Hi, everyone! Oh my gosh, there's so many of you! I feel so lucky and blessed! Oh, no, no. I've got a guest here with me tonight. Not going solo today," Midoriya said in a sweet, high voice that was several octaves above his normal speaking voice, answering one of the flurry of questions in the chat. He peered at the screen intently, smiling widely. "Thank you 'johnfromohio' for the tip! I'm so grateful. How was everyone's week? Wonderful, I hope. I know mine was."

Midoriya was lying, at least Kirishima assumed he was. The class had spent the week getting their asses handed to them during training as was evident by the various stages of bruising across his torso and backs. They extended beneath his support sleeves as well. At some point, Recovery Girl had started to refuse to heal him day after day, hoping to curve his reckless behavior, but it hadn't worked quite yet.

On screen. Midoriya spread his legs, giving the camera a healthy view of his dick straining against the white lace. "Oh, don't worry about the bruises, loves! They're all healing well, and I got them all in good fun." He winked, smiling enough so that his canines poked out over his bottom lip.

Midoriya -or rather, Snow Bunny- was the most popular cam omega on the internet. It seemed unlikely. There were hundreds of other bunny omegas that worked as cam omegas that could have been just as famous, but none of them looked like Midoriya. Where he was toned and muscular, his counterparts had the bodies typical of omegas. Thin and reedy and lacking all muscular definition. Soft where he was deceptively hard.

Not only that, but his dick was more akin to the size of an average betas rather than tiny like most male omegas were. His fangs were not those typical for his second gender either. Sharp and pointy though still small, could cause damage if given the opportunity.

If Midoriya didn't slick and go through heat, he would have been a beta. Or even an alpha. He exuded the presence and confidence of an alpha. A wolf in sheep's clothing, praying on unsuspecting and willing alphas. Satisfying omegas when he shouldn't be able to.

He was a conundrum that Kirishima avidly virtually partook in most nights, sometimes alone, sometimes with Mina, sometimes with the other guys.

Except for Bakugou who never stuck around long enough for a video to load. Kirishima wasn't sure if he even watched porn or had seen any of Midoriya's exploits. Let alone enjoyed his bed. Their relationship was better than it had been before, but they still got into arguments that ended with destruction of property. He wasn't sure what Bakugou did during his ruts, but he thought they must have been lonely.

Even now, Bakugou would have been settling down for the night. Either reading a book or something else to wind down before bed.

Just like Kirishima should have been doing. The day had been long and grueling, and tomorrow promised to be more of the same. Still, he wanted to watch the stream.

He blinked several times, trying to clear the tiredness from his eyes as Midoriya smiled into the camera and turned to show off a crystal white as snow nestled between his cheeks.

"I'm all ready to go, loves, but this is for someone else. I've got to introduce my guest for tonight." He moved aside to flip the blanket off two pale legs. A thin, long tail of coarse yellow fur flicked back and forth across the mattress. "I found this little kitten omega all alone in the rain today and thought I'd be nice enough to bring him home and play for a bit." He trailed his nails over bare thighs that trembled under his touch. The tail swept faster.

Kirishima huffed, grinning. Now he knew why Kaminari had blown him off for the night.

Midoriya continued talking, dipping his fingers between Kaminari's trembling thighs. They came away dripping, and he licked away the slick to a pitiful moan.

Kirishima's eyes were itchy and each time he blinked, it got harder to keep them open. He scrubbed at them, but to no relief.

Even as Midoriya lovingly flipped Kaminari onto his stomach and hiked up his hips, he felt himself dozing off. When he came to with a jolt, the screen of his computer was dark and the dorms were quieter than usual.

Scrambling to log back in, he groaned when he saw the time. 11:54 PM. He'd slept through the entire stream and then three hours after it. He was the only one left logged into the chat. He was about to turn off his computer for the night when the stream loaded again.

It hadn't been shut off like it normally was at the end of a live stream, and Midoriya's moans slipped from his speakers. The shot was only from the waist down, but everything important was visible.

Strong muscled legs were bent in half as long elegant fingers clutched at Midoriya's ass. The pair slowly rocked together, unhurried in their movements. His fluffy white tuft of a tail betrayed his frantic pleasure, twitching each time his partner pushed into him.

This new person certainly wasn't Kaminari, desperate and scrambling for his climax. If that wasn't the biggest indicator, the other red flag was the fluffy blond wolf's tail that curled around the back of Midoriya's trembling thigh. He lay on top of his new partner, the knee that was visible planted firmly in the mattress.

There wasn't a hair's breath between them, and Kirishima felt like he was violating Midoriya's privacy even as he slowly came to full attention in his boxers. He ignored his hard on, more interested in figuring out who was held so intimately beneath everyone's favorite omega. If Midoriya did one thing constantly, it was keep distance between him and his partners, even when having sex.

When the pair finally came, it was together and quiet with long moans of pleasure followed by the gentle sounds of kissing. They didn't part, just lying still with one another.

It was several long moments of Kirishima's heart splitting his store of blood between his face and groin before they finally spoke.

"Mm," Midoriya hummed, shifting on top, but not moving away, "If this dries, we're going to be stuck together forever." His voice was low and slow, barely a whisper. Kirishima only heard him because everything else was absolutely silent, as if the dorm was holding its breath in the face of their intimacy.

A deep chuckle joined his voice, and Kirishima startled. That laugh was all too familiar even distorted and drenched with sex.

"Too late. You're already stuck with me forever," his partner said, and that voice was all Bakugou.

Kirishima sat straight up in bed, catching his laptop before it could tumble off the side. If he hadn't been blushing before, he definitely was now. He was blushing so hard he could feel his pulse in his cheeks. "Bakugou?" he hissed incredulously, still staring at the screen.

"Why don't you ever ask me to be on your stream?" Bakugou asked. Just a question without the usual demand in his voice.

Midoriya hummed again. "I didn't think you would want to be. You don't watch my videos. I thought you'd be too worried about, you know, everything else. Also..." He trailed off, voice considering as he sat up and slowly lifted himself off Bakugou. Cum and slick trickled from Midoriya's entrance and down the inside of his thigh. They both hissed at the sensation of their uncoupling, and Kirishima flinched in sympathy.

They settled back together, Midoriya's back to the camera and Bakugou's leg hooked over his to pull them closer.

"Also?"

"Also, this is... just for me. They get everything else, but you... You're my beautiful, amazing alpha that I get to have all to myself. You're private. Just for me. I like it that way."

Bakugou hummed, the sound slowly becoming a purr. "Yeah, I like it that way too," he agreed gruffly, "When does your heat start? My rut is in a few days."

Midoriya laughed. "I don't know why you keep checking. We've been synced up since we presented."

As Kirishima watched, the number of people viewing ticked up from 1 to 5.

Before he knew what he was doing, he launched himself from his bed and to his door. Sprinting down the hall and stairs to the second floor, he listened closely as the pair made plans just in case they said anything too incriminating. Without knocking, he slammed into Midoriya's dim room lit only by the light from the laptop. He stood there for the briefest moment, confused about whose name to call. "B-Bunny!"

His own voice echoed back to him from his laptop a millisecond later.

"What?" Midoriya shouted in surprise.

Bakugou pulled him close and sat up, pulling a blanket over them. "What the fuck? You ever hear of knocking, asshole?" he shouted, rage and murder clear on his face, "Why do you have you computer? And why are you hard? Get the fuck out!"

"Your- Uh- The, uh, stream is still live. It never got cut," Kirishima stammered, face so hot he could have sworn he'd become another light source, "I was the only one still logged on, but it's filling back up again pretty quickly." The counter was already reached 300 viewers again.

Horror filled Midoriya's face, and he scrambled from Bakugou's hold, skirting around the view of the camera. Bakugou followed his lead, pressing himself back against the headboard as Midoriya shut the computer off from its power button. The whir of its fan slowly died away leaving only Kirishima's humming computer.

"Close the door, Kirishima, please. I, um, need to log on on your computer if you don't mind so I can see what kind of damage there is and properly shut everything down," Midoriya said calmly, but his hands were trembling and it was quickly spreading to the rest of his body.

"Sure thing," Kirishima blurted, turning his back as Bakugou stood from the bed and wrapped Midoriya in a blanket before turning him into his chest.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I-I swear. I just can't believe I made that mistake. What if someone saw your face? What if I said your name?" Midoriya rambled, and a twinge of pain shot through Kirishima's chest at the worry in his voice, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Bakugou murmured. When Kirishima turned back to them, Bakugou had his arms wrapped around the omega, chin resting on the top of his curly green hair right between his ears. "So what if people saw? They just know that you're mine now. I'm the one who gets the truest version of you."

"But what if-"

"Stop with the what ifs, shitty Deku. Let's find out first if there's anything to be worried about." Bakugou jerked his head to the desk that had been moved earlier into the middle of the room, and Kirishima carefully moved Midoriya's laptop out of the way and set the camera stand off to the side facing the wall. After, he retreated to the far wall.

Midoriya, still bundled tightly in Bakugou's arms as they sat on the edge of his bed, went to work.

A lifetime passed as he combed through the comments from the stream and watched parts of the video before he finally sighed and slumped back against Bakugou's chest. Relief shone clear as a sunny day on his freckled face. "I don't think anyone saw us. And our faces didn't make it on screen, which is a miracle, but if anyone did see and knows our nicknames, well..."

Bakugou shrugged more calmly than Kirishima thought he was capable of. "Then the cat's out of the bag. We're almost graduated. I'm surprised they haven't figured it out yet, but then again, they are all dipshits."

"But-"

"Before you say something that's just going to piss me off, I don't care. We've been faking it for almost two years. I'm tired of having to sneak around and pretend like you're not my mate. So, fuck it. We were going to go public after graduation anyway."

If Kirishima felt like an intruder before, he felt like a proper interloper now as he watched Midoriya stare lovingly up at the alpha, nose twitching wildly as tears filled his eyes.

"Aw, fuck, Deku, don't start crying. You're going to kick start your heat early if you do. I don't think you want Shitty Hair seeing all of that."

Eyes widening and ears standing at attention, Midoriya spun towards Kirishima. "Sorry, Kiri! Thank you though. For letting me use your computer and warning us. I don't know what would have gotten out if you hadn't told us about the stream. I'm really, really grateful. I'll do anything to repay you."

Kirishima's face reddened again at the honest sincerity on Midoriya's face and the way his alpha paced restlessly in his chest. He waved his hands through the air wildly. "You don't have to thank me, I'm just glad everything's alright." He ducked his head in deference as he drew closer to the pair to gather up his computer and Bakugou's warning snarl filled the room. Backing away quickly, he smiled. "I'm going to go back to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

Making a break for the door, he just caught the moment when Bakugou buried his face in the crook of Midoriya's neck and his growl turned into a contented purr. Midoriya giggled as he closed the door.

The next morning without any help from Kirishima, the entire class knew that Bakugou and Midoriya were mates. They were discussing them over breakfast before the pair even appeared, those who had caught the last minutes of the stream speaking the loudest. When they came down, they ignored the others, but didn't pretend like everything was normal. They were completely drenched in each others pheromones and could, for the life of them it seemed, not keep their hands to themselves. Kirishima could of sworn that every time he looked at them, they were pressing close for another kiss.

Spurred on by his friends' show of affection, he nuzzled Mina's neck. She buried his hand in his hair, but continued with her conversation with Momo.

He wondered if the pair were putting on a show, but suspected that this was just how they had always acted behind closed doors. Their affection was as natural as breathing. They were two planets orbiting each other.

He wished that coming out had been on their own terms, but either way, he couldn't have been happier for them.

[igotyoukth]

Mornings. BTS

Masterlist

Seokjin

You were used to finding an empty spot next to you in the morning, so it startled you to see a knocked out Seokjin next to you. He was always cooking breakfast or already on the way to practice, but today he snored shamelessly. It was so weird, how he slept without any movement, but little snores filled the room. He had told you how hard practice was last night, and how exhausted he felt. So his current state wasn’t that shocking, if you thought about it. 

You decided to reward him with an amazing breakfast. Not that you were as talented as he was cooking, but you tried your best. You even googled these egg rolls, he performed so perfectly. 

“Welcome to ugly, but hopefully delicious breakfast sponsered by me,” you greeted Jin, when he entered the dining room with sleepy eyes. He rubbed his eyes, not believing what was presented on the table. 

“Yes, yes, you won’t believe me but those are egg rolls and some sausages,” you pointed at the rather sad plates. You had tried to decorate things with ketchup, but it looked more like a murder scene.

“I’ll eat well,” he said, not able to hide his smile. “You won’t eat?,” he asked when he picked some eggs. 

“No, one of us should be able to drive to the hospital,” you shook your head. You were joking, really, you just had too many bites tasting during cooking. 

“Very promising,” he laughed, but took his first bite. And immediatlely, he tilted his head and arched his brows. “It’s delicious?” 

“Hey, try to hide your shock at least.”

Yoongi 

People loved assuming things about Yoongi’s sleeping routine. How much he loved to sleep, whenevere wherever. At first, you thought like that as well. When you woke up around noon, he was asleep. But with working hours, waking up at eight in the morning, you found a wide awake boy. It wasn’t because he was a morning person, but simply because he didn’t sleep until that hour. He had his own routine, you jokingly called him a vampire. He stayed up all night working on new songs. Because the nights were quiet and inspiring. So understandingly, throughout the day he used every opportunity to catch on sleep he missed at night.

At first it was a bit tiring to get used to it, but soon you found yourself staying up late too. When he was working, you joined him and read a book, get some work done or talk about your day. You could sleep after work, if you could spend more time with him that way.

Once he confessed, that he felt like improving as he wasn’t alone at night anymore. How your voice soothed and relaxed him. He felt at ease around you, because you didn’t judge him and how he handled his life. You simply nodded and explained how much you loved his very own time-zone.

Hoseok

When Hoseok started to hug you in his sleep, you knew that this morning peace wouldn’t last long. Because once he started to move, it wasn’t long until he woke up. And then he would go to pracitice like he did every single day. His inner clock was working so perfectly, it was shocking every time. Minutes before his clock went off, he yawned and tickled your side. Then he stood up and started his day. People only saw carefree, sunshine Hoseok in him, but he was so weird in the mornings. He was so serious and disciplined with his morning routine. He walked into the bathroom and ended just in time, when you finally opened your eyes as well. 

“The sun is up, pretty one,” he said before walking out of the room. You liked to hear that sentence. He probably referred to the actual sun, but you liked to think about him being up. Your personal sun. 

By the time you dragged yourself into the kitchen, he already set the table up and started eating his toast. Until this point, every morning was the same. You were the only variable in his very monoton morning. The time spent by the table was very easy to disturb. Talking about your dream from last night, eating super slow or not being able to think of a cute outfit were your favorite options. 

And Hoseok was okay with it. You brought variety into his life, even though you made him nervous sometimes. There was no script or schedule he could follow with you. Very different from the life he lived as an idol, but very welcome.

Namjoon

You jumped awake, when loud music suddenly filled the bedroom. 

“Sorry, sorry! Go back to sleep, please, I’m so sorry!,” you heard Namjoon whisper, while trying to put the headphones back into his laptop. When he had tried to get out of bed, while working on a song, he somehow had tripped and removed the headphones. 

You were wide awake now, there was no way you could go back to sleep again. And also, he didn’t find a way to stop the song yet. He was apologizing to you, his laptop, the bed and everything else at the same time, you almost laughed at his situation. 

It wasn’t even the weirdest way Namjoon had woken you up. Once the bathroom door had fallen to the floor, when he had tried locking it. Sadly, you were used to this now and didn’t bother crying over your sleep. 

“I like the song,” you said, reaching over to him and lowering the volume on his laptop. He looked at you with puppy eyes, and thanked you. 

“What would I do without you, my morning sun,” he  said into your hair and started the song again. 

“Probably lose your hearing, I don’t know.”

Jimin

He had changed his hair color back to brown again. Like a puppy inside the white sheets, he looked so peaceful. It was a shame, that his alarm would wake him up soon. You were already awake, you did some yoga before work and waited for Jimin to wake up. 

His peaceful face changed, when he heard the ringing sound and started hiding his face in the pillows. “Five more minutes,” his muffled voice filled the room. He was acting like a school boy, like he always did.

“Yes, that’s what I’ll tell your fans, who wait hours in the cold for you.” He immediately sat up and glared at you. He looked more like a goblin right now. “You don’t have to be mean first thing in the morning.” But eventually he stood up and walked into the bathroom. Yes, you were mean, but it was the only way to wake him up. You tried many things, just this seemed to work. Really. And he knew it as well.

Minutes later, he joined you in the kitchen and looked more like the puppy from his sleep. “What did my number one fan prepare?,” he asked you and eyed the breakfast table. It wasn’t spectecular, just some toast and some topping. And coffee. 

“Not much, sorry,” you handed him his mug. It had his face on it, from the Run era with orange hair.

“Should I dye them back?” Questioning his current hair color was as usual as drinking coffee to him. You had never met a person that greedy about hair colors.

“What did I tell you, Jimin?”

“Healthy scalp, healthy heart,” he pouted. Still, you didn’t trust him.

Taehyung

Well, technically Taehyung woke up half an hour ago. But you were pretty sure his soul was still in bed and sleeping. He sat by the table with his eyes closed, head moving in circles. You still hadn’t found a way to make him a morning person, and you tried many things. Nothing ever worked. Not even the pancakes you had prepared this morning. 

“Tae! Wake up and eat,” you almost yelled. He murmured something that sounded like thank you, and he tried finding his fork. 

That’s when an idea popped in your head. You quickly grabbed his plate and put dish soap on his pancake. You put the plate back to its place, when he found his fork. He placed his fork right into the soap soaked dessert and you anticipated his first bite. 

“You really think I’m dumb easy, don’t you,” he suddenly said and opened his eyes. He was wide awake and laughing at you. Then he took your face in a swift motion and squeezed your cheeks. You unwillingly opened your mouth, knowing what would follow.

“Eat a lot, love,” he said, forcing the disgusting pancake into your mouth. He didn’t let you go, until he was sure, that the cake touched your tongue. Then he let loose and you could pull yourself out of his grasp.

You ran towards the tap and washed your mouth. It started to bubble.

“YA! KIM TAEHYUNG! That means war.”

Jungkook

You hated it. You hated waking him up in the morning. It always started with your cute whispers, but ended with yelling at a soundproof Jungkook. He liked to call it a morning exercise. 

The funny thing was, right before you were about to lose your voice, and your mind, he woke up so peacefully, with a smile on his face and dreamy eyes. Your anger disappeared just like that. 

“You have five minutes to get ready,” you told him. 

“That’s more than I had yesterday, am I improving or what,” he said while trying to hug you and kiss your still red face. When you pushed him away, he rubbed his hair into your neck, before running into the bathroom.

At this point, you gave up on making him some fancy breakfast. He never woke up in time to eat in anyways. So you simply put some bananas on nutella bread and waited for him to rush to you.

He still found time to tell you about his plans for the day, like he always did. It motivated him, when you listened to him talk and imagine what his day would look like. He always told you, that he felt like you were watching him that way. And he tried harder and better. 

“You are only ten minutes late, love. I’m almost proud of you.”

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter four: fresh paper and fan clubs

happy 4th of july!!

Esmé took her seat right next to Joey with her face slightly blushed and the collar of her mock turtleneck down a little bit from her chin. She showed him a perky little deep scarlet lipstick laden smile, to which he returned the favor, albeit with a blush on his part. She, Sam, and Marla helped make a full dinner party for the evening, and all the while, Sam caught glimpses of her father speaking to Joey about things, especially with how life went for him up to that point. She wasn't even in the same room and she squirmed a bit at the curt sound of Ruben's voice directed at him.

She would slice up carrots and in between the knife blade on the cutting board, Joey's nervous voice made its way into the kitchen.

“I am, uh—yeah,” he would say, “yeah, I'm a hockey player as well as a musician.”

Then Ruben said something.

“No, well—” Joey cleared his throat. “Well, it's a little bit harder than that 'cause like—like—I would play for hours on end. On the ice, I mean. And it's a different vibe being up on stage, too.”

Then Ruben said something.

“Um—” Joey cleared his throat again. “—I don't think so, no? It's funny, I, um—” He snickered a bit. “I was just talkin' to Sam about that one time and it escalated into something about—”

Sam then poked her head in at the sight of Joey and Ruben opposite each other in the living room. She loudly cleared her throat to grab his attention, and Joey turned towards her.

“Huh?”

“Yes?” Ruben raised his eyebrows at her.

“To Joey,” she started and she shook her head at him.

“Oh, okay,” he breathed out and brought his arms in closer to his little body. Even with his sun kissed skin, he managed to blush a full blush. “It's a little—” He coughed and covered his mouth with one fist. “—a little thing between me and her. So never mind that.”

He let out a long low whistle and he turned his attention back to her, to which she tilted her head at him. He swallowed and ran his fingers through his black curls so she could see his right ear.

He never let the blush go away by the time they sat down for dinner and Sam kept her eye on Esmé, who sat on his other side, all the while. She eyed his tone flat stomach as he leaned back in his chair. There was a lot of food on the table in front of them, and Sam wondered that since he was a hockey player, that he really could eat as much as he said he did. The two of them lay their napkins over their laps in unison and while she wanted to know more about the strange man in junction with her father, Sam thought about Greg and Alex there on the porch.

That was literally the first time she got to see Alex in his element and without a crowd around him. She pictured him alone with her and with nothing more than his guitar with him, all for her. It was a fleeting thought but it proved to be something for her. She thought of his jet black hair and that smooth skin, and of course there was that beautiful stripe: even with the hair dye, she could still see it for herself. She knew that it was still there.

Marla, who was on the other side of the table, picked at her chicken and sipped on her cider in the mean time. To think that she and Charlie had broken up, and now she had to move back to Hell's Kitchen. Sam thought for sure they were a match made in heaven.

“So Sam,” Ruben started, “Joey here told me that you have big news to share.”

Sam flashed a look at Joey, but then again, she should have done it right there upon entering the house when she had the chance.

“I do,” she carefully replied, “another good friend of mine—her name is Aurora, she's not an artist, but she's getting married to my landlord.” Marla then set a hand on her forehead and leaned over the plate. She needed to be alone and away from there.

“Aw, that's wonderful,” Esmé declared, and then she knitted her eyebrows together. “What's his name again?”

“Emile. Emile St. Vitus. Big Southern genteel guy from New Orleans. He just got divorced, too, so it's going to be quite the change.”

“Wow,” Ruben muttered as he brought his glass of cider to his lips, “wow.”

Sam thought about what her mother had said about Joey when they came to the house. There had to be something there, a secret that she never knew about before. It didn't help matters that whenever Joey opened his mouth to say something, Esmé always looked at him with a glow to her face and Ruben returned the favor with a nonchalant expression. There was definitely something there, but in the meantime, Sam kept on thinking about Alex.

The sight of him on the hillside with his shirt off. She never got to touch him but her fingers tingled at the very thought of it. If and when they got to play a string of shows for themselves, he had to do that at some point.

She thought about that piece of rice paper in the bottom of her drawer back home. There was something behind that cool demeanor, something she wanted to know more of.

She lifted her gaze to Marla across the table, still silent and with her elbow rested upon the table as she picked away at her food. They had just broken up, which meant she never had the chance to rid of those feelings within her; Sam also wondered about Charlie, and how he was taking all of it.

All the thoughts stayed on her mind even as she told her parents about her art and how school was faring for her all the way in New York; she dared not tell them about her questioning her place there lest they frown at the notion of her wanting to leave for somewhere else.

She and Joey offered to clear the table, the latter of whom was quick to take up the offer given Esmé's fleeting glimpses and warm little smiles to him: there was a moment in which Sam swore she winked at him when he made a joke about hockey players having strong legs.

She stood before the sink with the rubber gloves on as she scrubbed the dishes and Joey put the food away. She wondered what exactly happened between her and that other man, and if her father knew about it. If he did, he should have said something: it only made sense to her. Once he put away the bottles of salad dressing, Joey stood next to her and right in front of the drainer with his hand on the counter. Her parents were in the next room, right there behind him, and while Marla was telling them something, she knew they had to end it at some point.

“Your mom is quite nice,” he whispered to her. “A little bit too nice, if you ask me.”

“She told me you remind her of a boy she used to know when she and my dad were dating,” she whispered back to him.

“Oh, shit, really?”

“Yeah. She never went any further than that so I don't know anything else.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No. I probably should've, though.”

“Eh, should'a, could'a, would'a.” He set one of the clean dishes onto the counter in front of him. Sam peered past him at the sight of Esmé, who nestled back in a corner of the next room, right within her line of sight. She could very easily look in their direction and check out Joey's slender toned body. She had been acting strangely all evening long: she had never acted like this with Ruben when Sam was growing up, at least not as far as her memory went along.

Indeed, Esmé glanced into their direction and Sam swore she looked on at Joey's curved back and slender shoulders. Careful to make sure her mother couldn't see her, she leaned a bit for a better look past Joey. Esmé's eyes scanned those black curls as they sprawled down his back like the fresh tendrils of a pea plant.

He then raised his eyebrows at her in curiosity.

“What is it?” he asked her, to which he turned around right as Esmé looked away and back to the television. Joey returned to Sam, befuddled.

“Nothing, I—I thought I saw something in there.”

He frowned at her, and that was when she noticed Esmé's glance again. That time she raised an eyebrow at Joey's back and behind. If her mother wasn't going to talk about it then she had to force an answer out of her. There was only one way to do it as she took off the rubber gloves.

“Fuck it, come here, Joey—” She put her hand on the back of Joey's head and she planted her lips onto his. He scrambled a bit out of sheer surprise but she let her lips do the talking for him. He held his arms out before him, perfectly still, and then she set her hands on his chest and groaned in her throat. Just so long as her mother got to see them in the moment. She closed her eyes and relished in the soft silken feeling of his dark lips. Soft and smooth like melted chocolate; unforgettable like venom.

She let go of his lips and he gaped at her, bewildered and with a bit of blush across his tanned skin. She looked past him again, and that time Esmé had gotten up and left the chair; she sighed with relief.

“Whoa,” he breathed out.

“Sorry,” she said as she let him go and ran her tongue over her lips: he tasted like dinner and innocence.

“Sorry?” he chuckled at her. “What for?”

“My mom was looking, Joey—I had to think quickly.”

“Well—” he chuckled and he held his fingers up to his mouth. She noticed his tongue sticking out like that of a dog. “I wanna know where that came from, though.”

“I just did it,” she confessed with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Sam?” Ruben called from the front of the house.

“I'll be right back—”

“I'll be waiting for ya,” Joey promised her with a wink and a lopsided grin. Sam ducked into the living room where Ruben awaited her with a pad of smooth grained, pure white Bristol paper and a small set of watercolor paints.

“Happy late birthday,” he announced to her.

“Aw, thank you, Daddy,” she replied and, once she took the paper for herself, she leaned in for a hug on his part.

“Little sump'n different,” he said, “I figure it's going to be part of your curriculum at some point to work with Bristol, so why not get ahead of the curve?”

“It's so smooth,” she remarked as she ran her hand over the top sheet.

“The guy I spoke to at the store said it's ideal for anything, especially with illustrative type work.” Sam then flashed back on Charlie's comic book at L'Amour. Maybe that could be a new venture for her! She hugged Ruben once again and then she bowed back to her old bedroom to check it out for herself.

It would definitely be something to work with once she returned to New York given she couldn't stop feeling the top side of the paper.

The family turned in at eleven thirty at night: Marla rubbed her eyes out of exhaustion and she trudged into the guest bedroom across the hall from Sam's old bedroom, but Sam herself was still wide awake by the time she gave her parents one last embrace.

“Leave the door open,” Ruben whispered into her ear.

“I mean, it's not like we're gonna do anything ridiculous,” she pointed out with a shrug, “and I'm twenty two now, but yeah, okay. I'll do that.”

“I know you're twenty two now but leave the door open.”

“Okay, okay—” She nodded at him, slightly exasperated. She returned to her bedroom where Joey awaited for her with his jeans unbuttoned and something red in his hand.

“What's this?” she asked him as she left the door wide open and stripped off her top.

“Check it out,” he told her as he lay out a couple of bright red feathers on the bed before him.

“Ooh!”

“It's the very beginning of a little thing I've got planned for a song on the new album,” he said. “Just a li'l hint.”

Sam ran her hands over the edges of the feathers, and the soft plumes kissed her skin. She pictured Joey with the crown of feathers all about his head and she wondered what they could have in store for her and the rest of the world. She lifted her gaze to find him staring back at her with his eyelids hooded and his dark lips turned into a warm, sensual smile. The sight of him made her heart skip a couple of beats, especially since she had no shirt on herself.

“I also have something else,” he continued, and he reached behind him to the nightstand, and he showed her a white T-shirt with the word “Alcoholica” inscribed in bright red lettering over the top.

“What the hell?” she giggled.

“Lars gave me this before we left,” he explained. “I told him I was gonna be spendin' the night here with you and he lent me this. What a name, right?”

“Right! Total inside joke.”

“By the way, speaking of inside jokes—I can't stop thinking about that kiss you gave me earlier,” he confessed in a low voice, and Sam rolled her eyes at the thought.

“Joey, I just did that so my mom would stop staring at your ass,” she scoffed.

“Still. I can't stop thinking about it.”

She raised her head a bit and gave her black hair a slight toss back so he could see her neck. His tongue slithered out like that of a snake. His brown eyes seemed much darker and more brown than before. He wanted something, like a dog waiting for his treat from her. But then she remembered the look on Marla's face when she turned in for the night. Something wasn't right over there across the hall. Any excuse would do.

“Sit tight, I have to talk to Marla about something,” she told him with a raise of her finger.

“I'll be waiting for ya,” he vowed, and he still kept the smirk on his face. Sam bowed out of the room and across the hallway to the guest room with the night light in the bathroom as her guide. Careful not to wake her parents, she knocked on the panel with two knuckles.

“Who is it?” Marla called.

“It's me,” Sam said in a low voice.

“Come on in.”

Sam ducked into the small but cozy guest room with the large queen bed, two nightstands, a bookshelf against the wall, and a small television adjacent to the door. Marla had hunkered down in the bed with her arms upon the covers; her iridescent hair glowed in the soft pale yellow lamp light and her eyes looked puffy as if she had been crying. The television wasn't on, either.

“What's up?” she asked Sam at a fast clip.

“Nothing, I just—needed to get out of that room,” she confessed.

“Why's that?”

“Joey's—trying to make a pass on me.”

“At least he's doing that.” Marla sniffled. “At least someone's hitting on you.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.” Her bottom lip trembled. “No, I'm not okay.”

Sam took a seat at the foot of the bed.

“Do you want to tell me?” she gently coaxed her.

“Charlie told me he has feelings for someone else,” Marla replied in a broken voice, and she stared on at Sam, who gaped at her.

“Me?”

She shook her head.

“No, he didn't say. But—that was enough, though. That was his follow up to the whole 'we shouldn't see each other anymore.'” A tear streamed down her face and she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Sam then leaned in with her arms wide open for her, and Marla returned the favor for her. She shuddered and shook under her arms; Sam closed her eyes and held her so close to her body. Her iridescent hair smelled soft and clean as if she had just washed it.

Marla held back and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes.

“Thank you,” she breathed to her.

“It's all I can do,” Sam admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. She sank back down onto the edge of the bed next to her, and Marla folded her arms over her chest.

“Can I get you anything?” Sam offered.

“A drink of water? I have kind of a headache.”

“Yeah, I can do that. I'll be right back.”

She headed out of there and, still using the night light in the bathroom, she made her way into the kitchen for a clean glass and some water out of the fridge. She returned to Marla who then drank it down in four large gulps.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“And if you need anything, Joey and I are right across the hall here,” Sam told her, to which she nodded her head. “Try and get some sleep, Marla. We'll be going home tomorrow.”

She gave her one last hug and then Sam returned to her old bedroom, where Joey had taken off his shirt and crawled under the covers. He lay in the same exact spot as Cliff, except he propped himself up with the pillow. He bowed his head and gazed on at Sam with the darkness over his face. Like the freshest bloom of deadly nightshade.

But Sam slid under the blankets next to him and she lay her head down on the pillow before he could do anything more. The room was silent except for his own steady quiet breathing and the water from the pipes.

“I didn't tell you this but your mom pinched my butt,” he whispered to her.

Sam rolled over onto her side for a better look at his silhouette in the darkness.

“She pinched your butt? When?”

“When you and I were clearing the table. I picked up the platter that had the chicken on it and she brushed past me, and I could feel the slightest pinch right on my right one.”

“Oh, my god. I need to talk to her now. I'm sorry, Joey.”

“No, don't be. It was kinda funny, actually. I wasn't expecting it so it got a giggle out of me.”

Sam paused, and then she thought about it. She couldn't resist a soft laugh herself, and then Joey started laughing at it. But even as she rolled back onto her side and closed her eyes, she knew she had to talk to her mom about it.

They woke up bright and early in time for breakfast, but Marla wanted to get back to the Bay Area in time for their flight.

“Besides, all our things are over there,” she added in a low voice.

Sam bode her parents another goodbye for the time being, and the whole ride back, she was disappointed in the fact she had no time to talk to Esmé about the other man in her life. There was no way she could do it over the phone, either, given the secret was already out for her.

They soon reached the villa in Marin Heights, and Marla gaped at what they saw before them once they pulled up before their cabin. Sam climbed out first, followed by her and Joey, and they glanced about the place.

Kirk and Rebecca's door stood wide open while Testament's windows stood wide open despite the cool overcast feel to everything. Trash was strewn about the driveway: a metal keg had tipped over onto its side and lay there dented before Zetro's cabin. Tom and Gary both lay on the ground: even from a distance, Sam could tell that they had plenty to drink; the former had his arms over his head and the latter had partially taken off his black denim vest so his arms were tied right behind his back. Cables like the ones Sam tripped over at the Stormtroopers of Death show extended across the way in a big mess. A microphone stand lay on the ground, and boxes that held amps were scattered all over the place. Exodus had had a miniature concert but then it all came unraveled; something foul filled the air and Sam knew it wasn't from the marine layer.

Joey glanced about the place with his hands pressed to his hips. He looked on at Tom and Gary before Zetro's cabin and the dented keg, and he shook his head in disgust. Sam grimaced at the thought of him being there with them, lest he be laying there with those two men.

“Oh, my god, they're hammered,” he groaned, and Sam lingered closer to him, but then he strode towards the collapsed makeshift stage.

“What is that smell?” Marla asked as she wrinked her nose.

“It's either dirty socks or clean broccoli,” Joey quipped as he tripped on a cable, but he caught himself before he could face plant into the grass.

“Oh, my god, there are you guys are!” Belinda called from their door step. She hurried over to them, wrapped in a sweater and with her blonde hair tied back behind her head in a taut ponytail.

“Looks like a tornado hit this place, what the hell happened?” Joey demanded.

“You guys should've seen it,” Belinda started. “Alex, Greg, and I were in the room upstairs with the guys from Death Angel and the whole party just raged on out here. Everyone got drunk, and I mean everyone. The bunch of us were like, 'there's no way we're sticking around here', and Greg wanted Alex to stay away from it—you know, his being the young kid and whatnot, and I was just hanging here reading when they came in. I literally thought Zetro was gonna light something on fire with that lighter of his.”

“Did he?” Sam asked her, horrified.

“No, but he was smoking like crazy, though. Smoking like a chimney and around a bunch of booze. I thought he was either gonna light something or fall ass over teakettle right into the keg there on the ground. Zelda ran away from there and I haven't seen her since.”

“You sayin' Zelda's missing?” Joey asked her.

“Maybe. I dunno—she told Zetro she was gonna be back but she hasn't come back since. And yes, she was sober the whole time.”

“So for all we know, Zelda's missing now,” Marla remarked. She fetched up a sigh and closed her eyes, but then Sam noticed something right behind her.

“No, wait, there she is,” she pointed out, and Marla, Belinda, and Joey whirled around; Zelda hurried up the driveway with a flustered look on her face. Her suspenders dangled off of her jeans and a big hole had ripped in the knee of her jeans. She let out a low whistle once she came within earshot.

“Zelda! What the hell happened?” Sam asked her.

“Oh, man, I can't believe this place is actually still standing,” she said in a single breath. “I told Zetro I wasn't comfortable but he was completely wasted, though, so I bolted down the hill here. Spent the night on a park bench and an old German guy walking his dog offered to buy me breakfast. But there was no way I was gonna sleep with him last night. Jesus H. Christ, my band doesn't even party that hard—when we do, it's usually cocktails and a little bit of weed.” She gestured at Belinda. “Really hope you and Greggy and little Mr. Skolnick locked your door last night.”

“We did,” Belinda assured her. “Greg slept in the top bunk and Alex went with Mark and Death Angel into their room, and they promised to keep him away from it all. Andy said they pretty much just locked their door and played cards all night until Alex fell asleep.”

“Greg slept in my bunk?” Sam chuckled, and Belinda's eyes sparkled.

“Yeah, he was moving his butt around the mattress and he was all like 'oh yeah, Sam's been sleeping here, isn't she?' And I was like 'yes!'” Belinda and Sam both laughed at that, and then the former returned to Zelda with a serious look on her face. “But yeah, we all retreated into our homestead once things started getting rowdy. I was waiting for you, though—even from up top, I could see you and I could tell things were tense between you and him.”

Zelda shook her head and pressed her hands to her hips.

“Made a big mistake breaking it off with Louie,” she muttered. “Made a big mistake.”

“Lou was smashed, too,” Belinda continued, “he and Chuck went back into their cabin in a stagger, and I think they both just collapsed in there because I haven't seen them.”

Zelda shook her head again, and Sam dropped her gaze to the ground. On one hand, she was glad that Joey was with her when it all went down the night before. But on the other hand, the whole description of it, and the fact that they hadn't burned the place to the ground told her that there was something afoot there in that scene.

She thought about the Alcoholica shirt that Joey had showed her and suddenly it made sense.

“At least nobody was drinking vodka, though,” Zelda said with a sneer on her face, “that shit's like solvent.”

“Metallica were,” Belinda corrected her. “Kirk and Lars just downed a whole bottle of it between the two of them, and Rebecca was like, 'how can you guys drink that stuff like water?' And that was when I said, 'nope—I'm outta here' and I fetched Greg and Alex.”

“Well, shit,” Marla declared, and she folded her arms across her chest. “Are you packed?”

“I am, yeah. Just been waiting for you guys. I don't know what Charlie's plan is, but I think he's up right now.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, and then she strode over to the cabin next door. Sam and Joey glanced at each other.

“Need any help?” he offered her.

“Nah, I think I got it.”

Indeed, the ride to the airport was rather quiet between them, as Sam took to the front seat next to Charlie and Marla stayed in the way back section. Anything to keep the tears at bay as they made their flight on time; Marla sat next to her two rows behind him and Frank, and right across the aisle from Belinda and Joey. Sam thought about the mess back there at the villa, and she hoped they all would at least do something to clean it all up. She thought about the times Joey had drank too much. It was too much to think about in and of itself.

“What is with these boys getting so drunk, I don't get it,” she confessed in a low voice.

“My guess is it's part of the lifestyle—to do it and let go of control all the while,” Marla told her with a raise of her eyebrows and a slight shrug. “At least, that's my guess.”

“It just makes me wish they would take better care of themselves, though,” Sam continued. “If drawing Joey and Cliff has taught me anything, it's that men have beautiful bodies, and they need to take care of them.”

Marla rubbed her eyes again, but she had no tears in them. Sam then picked out that copy of Siddhartha and buried her nose into the pages. Marla kept her arms folded over her chest and gazed out that small rectangular window at the fluffy white clouds, and then the high desert and the Rocky Mountains.

The two of them were silent for the rest of the flight back to New York City, and they were still silent until Marla drove her back to the Bronx.

“I always found it odd that you live in the Bronx,” she remarked finally at one point. “I mean, I kinda get it. It's cheap-o, but it's the school of hard knocks up there, though. Once you've settled in, it's hard to get out of there, especially if Frankie and Charlie are anything to go by. You oughta come back down to Hell's Kitchen with me and Bel. It's nicer. Little bit pricey but it's a little more in your wheelhouse, though.”

“Or I can go to Brooklyn with Aurora,” Sam said.

“Brooklyn's great—real funky and there's so much there. But Hell's Kitchen is where it's at—well, for those of us who like art, anyways.”

They fell silent again, and that gave Sam some more time to think. Maybe that was the source of her problems: she need not leave the city altogether, just find a different neighborhood for herself. Within time, they rolled back up to her building and Marla offered to walk her upstairs. Sam fetched the mail before they headed up to her room together; once they were inside, she noticed the red envelope at the very bottom of the stack.

“Ooh, what's that?” Marla asked her, and then she remembered the first one of those she had had when they were still known as Legacy.

“It's my first club letter,” she declared.

“From Testament?”

“From Testament.”

Sam was eager to open the envelope that she set everything down on the couch and put all her attention on that. She unfurled the soft red paper so as to reveal Eric's shaky scrawl of a penmanship.

“Testament—formerly Legacy—are going on tour!” she read aloud. Marla gasped.

“When?” she asked, excited.

“This spring and summer—and with Anthrax, too!” But a small voice in the back of her head said it was going to be trouble, given the whole thing between Joey and them. Then again, she returned to the paper in her hands. “Special guest... to be determined. But oh my god!”

“I think it's gonna be Metal Church,” Marla told her, “because one of the last things Charlie told me before I left was Anthrax wanted to go on tour with Metal Church this year. Does it have dates?”

“Ummm... let's see...” Sam moved her thumb down the surface of the paper. “—yes! A couple here in New York City—wowie, plus back out on the West Coast, including Reno and Vegas.”

“So your parents can see them if they wish,” Marla concluded.

“Yeah, and my mom would be all over Joey's ass the whole entire time, too,” Sam joked. Five pieces of paper the size of postage stamps drifted out from under the club letter.

“What are those?” Marla asked her, and Sam stooped down for them.

“Aw, look at these boys,” she remarked as she showed Marla the little photographs of the five of members of Testament. Alex's photograph was taken some time before the hair dye, and the little pearl of gray hair over his head held up strong and high over his brow. She gazed into his deep eyes, those deep set eyes that she knew she would be able to recognize anywhere even if his hair changed colors all the way. He had missed that big brouhaha from the night before, and she wanted him and Joey both to stay that way as Marla handed her the photographs of Chuck, Eric, Greg, and Louie next.

Young, safe, healthy, and most of all, beautiful.