#because you're shacking up with a man who just had a BABY

[piperslovebot]

If I ignore quite a few of the lyrics in yes, and?, this song would be one of my faves

[ckret2]

Chapter 72 of human Bill Cipher being 50% the prisoner & 50% the weird guest of the Mystery Shack:

Soos makes a deeply significant moral decision. To redecorate!

If you're seeing this picture, it's because I either didn't have enough time to draw a better one before the queue spat out this chapter, or I decided that nothing else I could draw would be half as funny.

####

Whenever Soos faced something difficult, he talked to Abuelita. And Bill was nothing if not something difficult.

Soos laid out the situation to her in the living room as she watched her telenovelas—she didn't mind the distraction, she far preferred real life drama over anything they put on TV. He told her about the confiscated canes, the daily injuries, the bargaining for food, the threat of forced showers, the bruises and burns and blood Bill said nothing about. He told her about Bill's door trick and how he'd only used it to talk to a teen about life and tuck a kid into bed. Once he'd told Abuelita all his thoughts, she nodded slowly, eyes still fixed to the TV screen; and for the moment, said nothing.

The doctor on TV confirmed the tearful new mother's suspicions that her husband had cheated (DNA tests confirmed the baby was another woman's), and Abuelita muted the show as it went to a commercial break. Soos waited as she collected her thoughts to render her judgment.

"I have been talking to Mr. Cipher for the last month or so. He keeps me company while I cook so I do not poison him again," she said. "I think he is ruthless, manipulative, and self-centered."

Soos winced, but nodded. "That's true."

Abuelita went on, "I like him. He is self-confident. He's blunt in a way you only get when you're old and cynical. I think he is a bad person; but, many bad people are good company."

"That's also true." Soos nodded again thoughtfully. Like whenever a comic book had a young idealistic superhero team up with an old jaded ex-villain who played by his own rules, and they ended up best friends, in spite of their glaring ethical and political differences.

"But, more importantly than whether he is a good person or a bad person," Abuelita said, "he is a person. And if you do not like a person, there are three ways you can deal with him." She counted off on her fingers, "You can kill him; you can avoid him; or you can set your feelings aside, and treat him with decency. Yes, get rid of the people who are bad for you—but no matter how terrible a person is, you must treat him like a person."

Soos's eyes lit up. "Oh, like with grandpa!"

Abuelita nodded slowly. "Yes. Just like grandpa."

"Yeah but—what if treating him decently is, you know... dangerous? Like if he uses any privileges we give him to do bad stuff? The Pines think he will. And I think he might be secretly talking to his cultists or whatever? Who miiight wanna destroy the world? But what if they can't destroy the world actually, and if I tell about the people he's talking to, he gets treated even worse..."

"Without his devil powers, he couldn't destroy a bookclub," Abuelita said. "But, if he is so dangerous, are you going to kill him?"

"No. I actually don't think we can anymore?"

"Are you going to avoid him?"

Soos let out a heavy sigh. "I can't as long as he lives here."

Abuelita shrugged, as if to say there you have it. "You are a good, kind man, mijo. I am sure you will figure out the right thing to do."

####

He took Melody out for lunch. They went through a drive-thru so they could park and talk privately in the truck.

She took a firmer stance on it than Abuelita. "I do not want to be stuck with Bill forever," she said. "I could put up with it this long because I thought the Pines would get rid of him as soon as possible! Now that he's staying here indefinitely...?" She shook her head. "I really don't like it, Soos."

Soos wasn't surprised. "Do... you think they should have 'gotten rid' of him?"

Melody paused, then shook her head again. "This whole thing is such a bizarre situation. Like, I can get why it makes sense to execute the guy that can end the world, but... I just don't think that's a decision two random guys with a big gun should be allowed to make," she said. "Honestly? I think we should call some federal agency and put him in jail somewhere. You know I've been iffy on Ford's 'only we can contain Bill' thing from the start."

"Yeah. I know." Soos agreed with Ford—he was the Bill expert, he would know—but he couldn't say Melody was wrong, either.

"Our wedding's scheduled for the end of summer," Melody said. "And... I'm sorry, Soos, but I just can't live under the same roof as the guy that turned me into a statue. We'll still get married—"

"—Oh, phew, almost had a heart attack there—"

"—pff, sorry. But if Bill's still in the shack after the summer, then... then I'll keep staying with my aunt, or we could move into your old house and just visit the shack for work, or something... but I can't move into the shack permanently until he moves out."

"Okay. I accept that." Even if the rest of them had sorta gotten used to living with Bill, Soos thought not wanting to live with a former torturer/conqueror/dictator was a pretty reasonable boundary. "I dunno what we'll do long-term just yet, but—we'll decide on something before the wedding."

Melody let out a long, nervous sigh. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Thanks, Soos." She reached across the truck's center console.

Soos took her hand. "But, how do you think we should handle Bill until then?"

Melody stared out the window at the gray sky. The rain had dried up before dawn, but the sky was still hazy. "If we keep guarding him ourselves instead of getting law enforcement involved... personally? I wouldn't give him any kind of special treatment at all. He tried to end the world! He stuck the whole town in a throne! He can just keep sleeping on the floor and being miserable, and I'd be fine with it."

Soos winced. "I see."

Melody squeezed his hand. "But—the fact that you're kinder than that is one of the things I love about you. Even when the creep you're being kind to doesn't deserve it." She gave him a resigned smile. "Do whatever you feel is right."

He considered that. Then he nodded. "I will."

####

Bill kept Soos's Abuelita company while she cooked, and gossiped with her in Spanish better than Soos's about people Bill had never even met. Bill liked watching cartoons, sports where people got hurt, and weirdly intellectual movies Soos didn't get, and he heckled historical documentaries and the news. Bill was offended by white rice and had incredibly strong opinions about salsas for a guy who'd only started eating them a month ago. Bill hadn't taken his friendship bracelet off once since Mabel gave it to him. Bill might not have been a human; but he was a person.

It was high time they start treating him like one.

####

Soos came home late in the afternoon with his truck laden down with supplies. Stan's car was gone, and when Soos came in with an armload of wooden boards he didn't see anybody around except Abuelita, napping in the living room, and Dipper, laying on the living room floor watching TV. "Hey dude," Soos whispered. "Where's everybody else?"

Dipper whispered back, "Hey Soos. Stan and Ford are at McGucket's mansion." He didn't look up from the TV. He was watching a rerun of Ghost Harassers on mute. "Mabel's with Bill in the floor room. He's in a bad mood about something so they've been doing karaoke all day."

"Huh." Soos could faintly hear someone playing his electric piano. It sounded like it was on the organ setting. "I didn't know he plays piano."

"He's alright," Dipper said. "His singing's terrible, though."

Soos shuddered. He could imagine.

Well, at least it meant Bill was out of the way. Soos began his first of many trips upstairs.

####

"What's all this racket?" Stan trudged upstairs to inspect Soos's noises—and abruptly stopped at the top of the stairs as he almost ran into a wooden beam. "What the—?"

"Oh, hey Mr. Pines!" Soos hooked his hammer on his tool belt. He'd put up wall framing to section off the corner of the attic floor that included the window seat.

Stan circled around the framing, inspecting it in bafflement. "Soos, what the heck is this?"

"So, remember at the beginning of summer, when I said that me and Melody were thinking about putting in a gaming room-slash-guest room in the attic? And Ford said not to bother until Bill was gone because he wouldn't be here long enough for me to finish? Welp! Sounds like he's gonna be here long enough for me to finish now! So I thought, hey, might as well, right? No reason not to!" He shrugged. "By the way, do you think I should put the door in front of the stairs, or on the long side of the room opposite the window? If it's in front of the stairs, you can just walk right in the room when you come up, and we'd be able to put a big screen on the long wall; but when you're walking out of the room it'd be really easy to forget the stairs are there and fall, and uh, we already have enough of a problem with that—"

Stan finally got his dropped jaw working again. "But this is where the demon sleeps! Where are we supposed to put him now?!"

"Oh, it's fine! Bill can keep sleeping in here. I'll put up a curtain instead of a door for now. This way the room's ready for gaming once Bill's gone." Soos planted his hands on his hips and surveyed his handiwork with pride.

"Are you crazy? You're giving Bill his own room?! No way! He could do anything in private. We can't trust him with that—"

"Listen." Soos gave Stan a serious look. "Mr. Pines, I respect you, and I love you like the dad I never had except technically I do have a dad but he's off being a deadbeat in Florida or something so he doesn't count."

He pointed at the floor. "But this is my house now. My name might not be on the deed, but my butt is in the master bedroom! And nobody under my roof is living like—like—like some kind of starving hobo sleeping on a bench under a newspaper, you know what I'm talking about? The Mystery Shack is a happy place! Where people come to see dreams come true and have their imaginations expanded! And I won't see it turned into some sad one-man prison!"

Stan stared at Soos, speechless.

"So." Soos took a deep breath. "With all due respect—I'm building a gaming room, and it'll have walls, and Bill gets to sleep in it. Because he's a person! And we're gonna treat him like one!"

Stan slowly looked from Soos to the wall framing, to the boxes of supplies he'd bought for the room and pushed against a wall to wait—to the pathetic couch cushion bed still sitting on the floor in front of the window. "All right. That's—that's fine. I'll let Ford know."

Soos's shoulders relaxed. "Thanks, Mr. Pines."

Stan clapped a hand on Soos's shoulder; looked for a moment like he wanted to say something; then just shook his head and said instead, "Knock off the hammering before the kids go to bed, all right?"

"No problem! I've gotta set up some furniture and stuff in here anyway." He got back to work as Stan went downstairs.

####

Soos paused his work when he overheard Bill's voice: "Hey Stanford. Figured out the kitchen situation yet?"

Soos had to strain to hear Ford (jeez, Bill was loud) as he said, "We haven't had a chance yet. For now, we can at least leave one of the counter cabinets open."

"Huh." It didn't sound like an impressed huh. "And will this open cabinet have any of the foods you put in the cabinet to hide from me? Or just more of the junk I've already been scavenging."

Ford was silent long enough to provide the answer.

"Right."

"I went by the grocery store," Ford offered. "I got avocados."

"Uh huh."

"And several pepper varieties."

"Ooh." Bill sounded intrigued in spite of himself.

"And protein drinks. They're nutritious, at least," Ford said. "But—I know that's not adequate. Stan and I will have something permanent figured out by the end of the week."

"I guess it's fine as an emergency measure," Bill said, "but you know how the phrase goes! Give a triangle a protein drink, and it'll eat for a day. Teach a triangle to open the fridge, and it'll eat for the rest of its life. If you lift that curse..."

"We'll talk. But don't get your hopes up. Neither of us likes the thought of giving you the power to come in our bedroom and smother us in our sleep the next time we have an argument."

"Fine." Bill's voice had hardened again. "You've got to the end of the week. But don't forget! If I don't like your offer, I don't have to take it! You can't keep me in this rickety barn anymore."

"I haven't forgotten."

The conversation seemed to be over and Soos didn't hear anyone coming up the stairs. He got back to work.

He felt good. He was doing the right thing.

####

When Mabel came up to bed, she stared in confusion at the modified attic floor, squealed in excitement when she realized what she was looking at, surprised Soos with a hug, and gushed about how great it was; and then she let Soos know Dipper and Ford were out tonight investigating weird stuff and went on to bed herself.

The first notification Soos had that Bill had come upstairs was a flat, offended, "What."

"Oh, hey!" Soos ducked out of the opening he'd left for the doorway—which he'd ultimately decided to put straight across from the window, to let a little light back into the attic. (He'd have to add more lighting in the main attic now that the window was blocked off.) Bill was standing at the corner of the new room, surveying the work with an expression of deep suspicion.

Soos said, "I was just getting started on this gaming room Melody and me wanted to put in—it's okay though, you can keep using it, we'll just turn it into a gaming room, uhhh... lllater. Whenever, it's cool!"

Bill turned his suspicious look on Soos; but when Soos gestured for Bill to follow him into the room, he reluctantly followed.

"Yeah, I got up the framing," Soos said, "but I couldn't get to the drywall today, so I just stapled up some tarps to be walls for now. But, look!" He gestured grandly. "I brought up the old orange sofa and chaise thingy that used to be in Abuelita's room! They've been in storage for like a year. I bet we could sit, like, six people on it for game nights. It turns out the sofa's a daybed, so we can use it as an extra guest bed for visitors, we do not have enough beds for visitors in the shack, haha. And, check it—" Soos flipped up the lid on a chest he'd placed in front of the right end of the sofa like a footrest. "I put in one of those top-down chest fridges for gaming snacks! It uh, the top of it swings up, that makes it a lid instead of a door, right? Sooo I guess you can use it too, right? You can just, put whatever you want on the weekly grocery list, and we'll put it in here. Oh, and!" He pointed at the ancient TV console table he'd hauled up from the cellar, "I set up a hot plate here, too! So you can cook stuff in the attic! For—for normal legitimate gaming room purposes."

Bill's gaze followed where Soos pointed, from the ancient orange sofa to the fridge chest to the hot plate. He didn't say anything. His expression was completely unreadable.

Soos swallowed. "Oh, and, by the way, speaking of home improvements, I took out the doorknob on the main bathroom, and put in one of those, like, little slidy dealies like public bathroom stalls? Plus I gave the door those swinging hinges—like the kind on saloon doors in the movies, o-or, say, the door into the gift shop—"

Bill whipped around to face Soos.

Soos jumped. He laughed nervously and tried to remember what point he was making. "S-so, um... there's no latch now, so it doesn't latch, which means there's no way to accidentally get locked in—or out, of the bathroom, and... and I don't actually know how much of that you understood, due to the whole curse thing? Just forget everything I just said, I guess, the important thing is you can use that bathroom without asking someone else now! Cool, right?"

He had to turn away from Bill's intense gaze, pointing back at the gaming room's doorway. "Anyway since the room isn't finished yet and you're probably gonna use it for a while, I hung up a curtain instead of a door. And I added that cool zodiac spell blanket thing Mabel gave me inside the curtain! Since you said you liked it so much when you first got here. And like... having it in our room kinda creeps Melody out, I think it might be giving her nightmares? So I thought you might like it better. Anyway I've still gotta do some other stuff, like add power outlets in here, and air conditioning, and... a-and..." He petered out weakly.

Bill was giving Soos the most venomous look he'd ever seen. 

"Sure. Terrific." Bill crossed his arms, seething. "I've slept on the floor, I can cope with sleeping in the middle of a construction zone too. No big deal! I'll make do."

"Oh," Soos said. "Uh... if it bothers you, I could try to get the walls finished tomorrow? Shack's closed tomorrow too, so, I was already planning to keep—"

Teeth grit, Bill snarled, "Don't put yourself out on my behalf."

Soos froze. "Oookay! Uh... well, I'll be getting ready for bed if you need... yeah, no, you—you probably don't need anything. Bye." He ducked out into the attic, letting out a whoosh of a sigh as soon as the curtain swung shut behind him.

Bill had looked like he was two seconds from ripping out Soos's throat. Why? Had he liked sleeping on the floor? He'd never seemed like he had. Maybe he'd preferred the attic's open flooring? Maybe he hated extremely 70's orange upholstery? Was this a mistake...?

Bill watched through the tarp until Soos was down the stairs. Then he lunged over the sofa, hanging over the back by his waist, to reach the attic window seat. He groped for the corner of the seat cushion where he'd hidden Journal 4.

He sighed in relief when he felt the familiar rectangular block in the cushion. He pulled it free: there was Journal 4, along with his two stubby crayons. As well as two marker pens, black and red, with a sticky note wrapped around them that said, "Thought these might be useful, dude!"

Bill's hands trembled with fury.

####

Soos was brushing his teeth when someone pounded on the bathroom door, making him drop his brush. The door swung open a couple of inches; Soos heard Bill mutter a confused, "What?" before it swung shut again.

Soos opened the door. "Bill? What's..."

Bill's face was completely flushed. It was hauntingly reminiscent of the look he'd had last year right before trying to murder Soos and the kids in Stan's mind. His rage had shot past "apoplectic" and landed on "apocalyptic." Soos understood how Pompeii had felt when the rumbling began. He took a few steps back.

Bill stalked into the bathroom.

He slapped the red pen down on the counter.

And, avoiding eye contact, he muttered, "Fine-tip yellow highlighter would be better. If you've got it."

"Oh," Soos said. "Sure, I... I think I have some skinny highlighters in my office. Just... lemme finish brushing my teeth."

####

Bill leaned in the office doorway, arms crossed tight, waiting. As Soos rummaged through his desk supplies, back to the door, he got the uneasy feeling that maybe Bill had lured him here to stab him in the back or something. He seemed mad enough. And the office was narrow; if Bill came up right behind him, there'd be nowhere for Soos to dodge...

When he found a new highlighter and turned around, Bill was glowering inches behind him.

Soos jumped. "Dude! You freaked me out."

Bill didn't condescend to respond. He just snatched the highlighter out of Soos's hand and stormed from the room. A moment later, Soos could hear him stomping up the stairs (and stumbling on one step. Soos really needed to figure out how to make the stairs more safe). 

For the life of him, Soos didn't know how he'd offended Bill.

####

The contraband supplies Bill had hidden behind a loose board in the wall still appeared to be undisturbed. He could only hope Soos hadn't found them during his snooping. For tonight, he could hide Journal 4 there; tomorrow he'd have to find a new, more secure hiding spot that kept it close enough to where Bill slept.

He turned around the hanging zodiac blanket and curtain so Bill's watchful triangular face was guarding the new attic hallway rather than staring into the room.

He surveyed his atrocious new sofa. If he'd known he would be plagued with this thing in the future, he would have found a way to make Ford get rid of it thirty years ago. Would Ford have thrown it out if his blessed Muse had told him it looked hideous? Maybe, but that would've put a ding in Bill's benevolent image. He could've said the sofa would lead Ford to doom? No, too implausible. Ford had always wanted a nice set of leather furniture; maybe if Bill had claimed the cost of leather furniture was about to skyrocket, and if Ford ever wanted to build his dream sophisticated gentleman's den then he should buy as soon as possible—maybe sell his current sofa to recoup costs and free up space... Yeah, Ford would've eaten that up, he'd have been so grateful Bill was thoughtful enough to care about his silly little life dreams and look out for his financial future. He shoulda done that. Hindsight.

So. What did he have here? A daybed; personal fridge; mini-stove; walls (tarp); two pillows; throw blanket; two markers; a lamp (unplugged); a clock radio (unplugged); a low console table with two shelves, onto which Soos had emptied the contents of Bill's cardboard box of clothes; and an implicit promise to keep a pile of secrets.

How humiliating.

He considered sleeping on the bare floor in protest; but, his back still hurt. Once again, subject to the tyranny of an organic body. He sighed, pulled his bedsheet from the console table, and curled up on the sofa.

The moment he lay down, a scent soaked into the seat cushion made his heart leap into his throat. He was sure he could smell home. Familiar and comforting and right—and for a moment the evidence of his other six senses didn't matter: he had his power back, he was in his kingdom, and all was right with the world. It took a moment to figure out what about the scent had so strongly disoriented him: he was smelling the atmosphere of the Nightmare Realm.

And then took another moment to work out that it wasn't really the Nightmare Realm, but a very similar scent—sulfurous, organic, burning. Burnt hair.

The cushion still smelled like Ford.

Bill groaned in frustration, rolled off the sofa, and flopped to the floor.

After permitting himself a moment of rage at the injustices of the multiverse, Bill crawled up onto the chaise lounge on the left end of the sofa, avoiding the part of the sofa where Ford used to sleep.

The chaise was smaller than his floor cushion bed used to be; but he'd make do.

####

(I know we're all busy going insane over the website but i'd love a comment when y'all read this chapter lol)

[imastrangeone98]

Homecoming

(A/N: boothill my cyborg my love my life my everything-)

WARNING: fem!reader, SMUT SMUT FRESH OFF THE PLATE MINORS GTFO ILL WHOOP YO BUTTS, probably ooc!boothill but whatever it's fine lmao, his exact birth name isn't known so I didn't put a name for him- if there is one I'll replace it; but I found some X art that called his baby girl "cherry" and I really liked it so I'll use that, and way too much plot as always

"Well, hello there! What'cha lookin' at, sweetie?" You bend down to the little girl's eye level, peeking at where the child's gaze is locked on, then smiling in understanding. "You like those ones? They're moon lilies; they're flowers that are really special!"

"Pe... shal?" the little girl babbles, and you laugh.

"Yes, dear. Special." You pluck one of the flowers, beautiful with light blue petals and golden pollen, and offer it to her. "They mean loyalty, and undying devotion, because they only grow in places they like, and they won't grow anywhere else."

"Loya..." the girl mumbles. You chuckle and pick her up, carefully tucking the flower behind her ear.

"Now, where's your mama? Or your papa? I'm sure they're worried sick about-"

"Cherry! Sweet pea, where ya at?!"

Your ears prick, and the girl giggles and claps at the sound. "Well, I guess we found him."

You maneuver through the crowd until you find the source of the call: a man, tall and lean, with flowing black-and-white hair and piercing gray eyes.

Oh. He's beautiful.

The little girl squeals with delight at the sight of her father, and his head whips towards your direction. He sprints over to you and takes the child in his arms, pressing her close to his chest.

"There ya are, ya little rascal! What'd I tell ya about runnin' off?! Ya had me worried sick!" He kisses her forehead, then looks at you. "Thanks, I would've lost her without ya."

"Of course!" You wave it off, hoping he doesn't notice your hot cheeks. "I will say, she has good taste in flowers! If you'd ever like to buy a bouquet, you should bring her along!"

"Flowers? Oh..." He looks at his daughter, finally noticing the moon lily tucked in her hair. His cheeks flush a bright red. "Aw, man, I'm sorry for the trouble, I can pay for it-"

"Oh, don't worry about it, it's on the house! But I do hope this won't be the last time I see her!" You wave at her, and she giggles.

The man laughs at that. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind." He then stretches out his hand to you. "I'm [???]."

"(Y/N)."

He repeats your name slowly, thoughtfully, then smirks. "Guess I'll be seeing you around, lady."

"I'll be looking forward to it, cowboy."

Your eyes crack open.

Instead of a bustling marketplace, you're in a small shack in the middle of nowhere.

Just a memory.

You rise, body aching with fatigue and heartache, but you force yourself to push it to the side.

There's work to be done. You grab your phone and send a message.

ML: The USB is ready. I'll leave it at the usual place.

BH: ca nt maek it cme her

You stare at the coordinates your contact sent you with a groan.

You don't do face-to-face, too much risk. And the information you collected is time-sensitive; you're not sure if you'll be able to make it to the abandoned planet of Mavorosa in time for it to still be valuable, and your spaceship isn't one meant for such great lengths.

But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: Oswaldo Schneider is likely to make an appearance at the upcoming IPC Centennial Gala, and BH has proven themself capable of terminating that sick bastard.

You know you're not strong enough to do it yourself, but BH is. And anyone capable of taking down the son of a bitch who destroyed your home, your planet, your lover, is worthy of your trust.

So you bite your lip and bear it. You'll work something out.

ML: ok. I'll be there tomorrow @ 18:00, don't be late.

BH: k

You roll your eyes. Never mind.

With a heavy sigh, you carefully take out the picture/ only one you have of him. With your little girl in one arm and the other wrapped around your waist, he stares back at you with a grin. Bright, beautiful, alive.

"Don't worry, darling," you whisper, tracing the lines of his cheek and hair on the photograph. "We're one step closer to our goal. That bastard's a dead man walking now that we got BH on the case. They're good; strong and capable, I know they'll get the job done for us."

You gently press your lips over his image. And for a brief moment, you let yourself pretend that the paper is a good replacement for his callous skin.

"Once everything's done, I'll go over and join you and our girl. We'll be together again, I'm sure."

He smiles eternally at you, and you find yourself smiling back.

"Wish me luck, darling. Help me be strong."

[...]

His little girl adores you.

Each time he comes by the market, the first thing she whines for is to see the flowers. And you always indulge her, lifting her in your arms so you can show her all the pretty little blooms you have in your small cart. You give names to each one, tell her what they mean as though she understands you.

And you laugh. And he finds himself thinking that his little girl is a good judge of character, because he's starting to adore you too.

And it's becoming obvious, since Nick and Gray give him the occasional nab and jab, wondering out loud when they're going to see him get married and give them another grandchild. His siblings too, always cackling and yapping about how he might be the first to hang up his boots and settle down.

He rolls his eyes, but he's not too displeased by the idea. You're soft and sweet, with a kick of spice to match- the thought of settling down with you and Cherry on the farm is surprisingly sweet.

So he leaves Cherry to her loving grandparents and invites you out on a moonlit stroll through the hillside meadow, the one with the perfect view of the blooming moon lilies and the spring lake that reflects the starry night sky.

"I've never been here before," you gasp in awe, eyes aglow as you absorb the scenery. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah," he murmurs, gaze fixated on you and the moonlight in your eyes. "You are."

You turn your head, and your eyes meet. "Huh? Did you say something?"

"N- nothin'!" He faces the lake, and hopes you don't notice his red cheeks. "Said nothin'."

You laugh, and god, he melts at the sound. Then you rub the back of your head, and turn away, blushing. "I... I think you're very beautiful too."

His brain short-circuits. "Pretty... you think I'm..." Then he gasps dramatically. "So you did hear that! You sneaky mouse!"

He playfully tackles you, and you both laugh and chortle as you wrestle one another to the ground. But then he opens his eyes and finds himself on top of you, hands intertwined, faces so close he can feel your breath, smell your moon lily scent.

The moonlight bathes you in silver, and god, he wants to kiss you. He wants to kiss you senseless, run his callous hands on your soft skin, wrap your plush thighs around his hips and-

"Can I...?" he whispers, weak and wanting. "Just... just a taste, I swear..."

You stare up at him, eyes so big and wide that he swears the moon itself disappeared to light up your gaze, that he doesn't notice you untangling your hands from his until you wrap your arms around his neck.

"Just a taste, cowboy?" you tease. "You don't wanna try... anything else?"

You raise your hips and grind on his pelvis, and he moans and kisses you, hard.

Eager hands dart across skin, tearing off clothes. He runs his hands over your plush tummy, hooks your thighs around his hips and moans when he finally enters you.

He'll never forget this moment. Even if he were to die and be reborn, he'll never forget you. Your pleasured moans as he slides himself inside your tight heat, your teary smile as you open your arms to let him press his chest against yours, your starry eyes so full of love and desire that mirror his own.

You make love for hours, the stars and moon lilies your only witnesses.

"-hill. Boothill."

His eyes crack open.

Instead of a blooming moon lily meadow, he's in the underground repair shop.

Just a memory.

He rises with a groan, mechanical joints creaking from the lack of use. "Done already? I was havin' quite the nice dream."

The mechanic rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I can tell. Anyway, speed upgrades are done; the rest of your body is the same- sensory receptors are good, memory chip still intact, et cetera."

She rambles on and on; he's used to tuning her out at this point. As long as his body is in peak condition, he doesn't need to know what else extra she's stacked on him.

"-and the dick. Make sure to test it out at some point."

He blinks. "What'd ya say?"

She groans. "The dick, Boothill. Make sure to test it."

"What dick are ya talking about? If you're trying to say I'm a piece of shi-"

"I added a dick attachment to your body, dumbass." She points towards his crotch. "I had an extra one that I really need to get rid of, so I'm giving it to you. Use it, rip it up and toss it, I don't care- just get it off my back!"

And with no further explanation, the mechanic practically throws him out the store, slamming the door with extra ferocity. Boothill lies on the ground, blinking a few times in shock, before checking his pants, and lo and behold, there is a silicone dick attachment. Sensory receptors and everything, he hisses when he pokes lightly at it, the wires in his body jittering at the unfamiliar sensation.

Doe eyes and a teary smile flash in the back of his mind.

He suddenly jumps to his feet with a vengeance and slams on the door. "You cheating, deceitful shirt-bag! Take this fudging thing off right now! You hear me, woman?! Take this shirt off right now!"

He's no doubt starting a commotion, a crowd drawing in to witness his rage-induced ranting and raving. But then his phone dings, and he's forced to put a pin in it, taking out the shitty device to hear the alarm: Meeting with ML @ 18:00! Meeting with ML @ 18:00! Be there or be square!

Ah, shit.

He can't miss this meeting, not even to blow a hole right between that shitty mechanic's eyebrows. ML is too valuable to lose, having provided him with incredibly detailed information on Oswaldo Schneider and the IPC time and again. Almost as if they have an agenda against that sick bastard as well.

Well. The enemy of an enemy is a friend, right? He'll take what he can get. And if they end up turning their back, well, he's sure his bullet is faster than their legs.

So he leans to the door, whispers a deadly "I'll be back for you, baby," and dashes to his spaceship to head over to Mavorosa.

And as he's prepping for flight, he looks over at the picture on the dashboard.

It's the only one Boothill has of you. The three of you, together- him holding little Cherry in one arm and your waist in the other, you wrapping your arms around him and your baby girl with your sweet smile and moon lily eyes.

He brushes a metal fingertip over your face.

"Just hang in there, moon lily," he whispers, a clump in his throat. "We're one step closer; ML's got some good intel on the son of a nice lady that destroyed our planet- our home. That destroyed you."

Boothill lost the ability to cry long ago, but the corners of his eyes itch all the same. He gnaws on his lip so hard, drops of blue blood trickle down his chin.

"I swear to you, darlin', I'm gonna get our revenge against that beautiful bench. He'll wish he never set his filthy sights on our home once I'm through with him." He gently picks up the photo and presses his lips to your image. "And then I'll come home. To Cherry, Nick and Gray, my siblings. I'll come home to you. We'll get started on that house we talked about, maybe some runts so Cherry can be a big sister..."

He swallows, then carefully puts the photo back on the dashboard. The lump doesn't disappear, so once the spaceship is cruising through the stars to Mavorosa, he sets it on autopilot and descends into the belly to go to his chest of valuables. He opens it up and delicately takes out the moon lily crown.

The one he was working on for you, a promise of his undying devotion. Before the world exploded in fire and ash. Before the IPC decimated his family, the moon lily meadow... decimated you.

He closes his eyes and raises it to his face. Even preserved, the petals are still soft to the touch, and smell just as lovely.

Just like you.

He won't let your death be in vain. He won't.

The lump in his metal chest morphs into rage.

Boothill opens his eyes.

[...]

If not for the Stellaron, Mavorosa would be a wonderful planet. A once lively city now stands abandoned, its skyscrapers and glass structures being embraced by nature once again.

You stand on the rooftop, mask and voice synthesizer on, fidgeting with the USB, simply observing everything when-

"So this is what you look like. I thought you'd be bigger," a male voice calls behind you.

Your body freezes. That voice... it sounds like...

No. You must be wrong. Maybe you've been so lonely that every male voice just starts to sound like your deceased lover.

"I thought you'd be here earlier," you reply with your warped voice. "Time is precious to you and me both, BH."

"Sorry, had to wrap up some... personal stuff on my end. I'm here now, ain't I?" The oh-so-familiar yet distant voice chuckles. "Well. Business ain't gonna settle itself. Where's the drive?"

"Where's the payment? We both know I don't work free."

He huffs. "Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. Don't worry, I got your cash. Just fork over the drive, no need to make things difficult, not after everything, yeah? Haven't I earned your trust by now?"

"You realize how difficult face-to-face is? It takes a substantial amount of effort to get this intel, not to mention the possibility of being-" You turn around in your exasperation-

And you drop the USB.

Tall and metal. Flowing black-and-white hair. Piercing gray-and-red eyes. Sharp teeth.

"Y'know, I've always wanted to be a gunslinger, just like Nick," [???] cackled, whipping out his revolver and making dramatic poses with it. "Maybe be one of those boothills of legend."

"I'd rather you not," you murmured as you brushed off some dirt off of his shirt. "Those boothills always died on their feet. I'd rather you not die at all."

He softened, and with a smile, he put down his gun and sidled up to you, bringing you in his embrace, warm and strong. You breathed in his comforting scent and sighed happily.

"Don't you worry about that, hun." He kissed your cheek, then square on your mouth. "I ain't goin' nowhere. You can't get rid of me that easy!"

BH. Boothill.

How could you not notice earlier?

Your mouth dries. You can't move a muscle.

It's him. Mechanical, but very much alive.

"Hey, watch the merchandise!" he hisses, pointing at the fallen USB. "I need that, don't you forget it!"

"How are you..." you weakly gasp, then you grab the USB. "Here. Take it. Forget the money."

You slide it over to him, and he stops it with his foot. But his eyes narrow at you.

"Whaddaya mean, 'How are you,' huh?" He walks towards you, slow and leisurely, like a coyote cornering its helpless prey. "You say that like you're shocked I'm still around. What'd ya do, huh? Sell me off to the IPC?"

"No!" you cry, shocked. "I would never-!"

"Why so jittery, partner? What are you hiding?" He smirks, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "How about a show of trust, huh? You take off that cute little mask of yours, I don't shoot you dead, and we keep our little arrangement goin'. Sound fair?"

You turn around, eyes searching for an escape route.

Aeons above, you need to leave. You can't show him your face. You can't remind him of everything he lost, the people he couldn't save. You can't hurt him any more than you already have. You're afraid. You want to hide. You're selfish. You want to tell him. You're in love.

You want to die. You want the ground to swallow you alive. You want to hole away in your shack and wallow in your grief, descend into a spiral of what-ifs: what if you tried harder to find him? What if you searched the whole IPC ship you snuck on trying to resolve things peacefully until you found him? What if you ran out earlier and tried to bring him with you? What if, what if, what if-

"Now that you got some measure of my grit," he whispers in your ear, suddenly standing behind you, "I'm sure you know how this ends, yeah? C'mon now, take it off."

You pant heavily, head dizzy with his close proximity- god, even with the metal, he still smells the same. "I- I can't-"

"Feelin' shy? Alright, I'll do it for you."

"No! Please, no!" You swat at his hands and try to break free of his iron grip, but he grabs you hard and pulls you against his chest.

He cackles, metallic and bitter. "And here I thought I finally had an ally, but no- you're just like the rest of 'em shirt-bags." He whips out his revolver and raises it to your head. "Take. It. Off. Now."

You want to cry. You don't want to hurt him.

Slowly, with trembling hands, you take off your mask...

And his gun falls to the floor.

Doe eyes. Soft cheeks. Scars. Floral scent.

"What made you wanna be a florist?" he asked you once, helping you water the rainbow roses. "They're pretty and all, don't get me wrong. But don't you want somethin' more exciting?"

"On the contrary, I think they're very exciting," you explained. "They all have their unique personality; some need lots of love and care, and others don't mind if you go missing for a week or two. There's flowers that only stay with you for so long, and there are others that will love you for as long as you'll let them."

He grunted. "Sounds like you'd do just fine without me."

"Oh, please." You put down your watering can and embraced him from behind. And just as planned, he melted at your touch. "Moon lilies love the moon, but they need the sun to grow. And that's exactly what you are to me."

"The moon?"

"The sun."

ML. Moon lily.

It's so obvious, how did he not realize it sooner?

He lets you go. You immediately stumble away from him, hands covering your face in shame.

Boothill has no lungs, yet he feels his chest collapse.

"(Y/N)?" he calls to you, weak and desperate. "Moon lily? That's really you, right?" He reaches out, hand shaking. But when he grazes your shoulder, you hunch further into yourself. "I- I'm sorry, I... I didn't mean to scare ya. Please..."

Boothill willingly let go of his humanity. But right here, right now, he wishes he still had his skin.

"Please, darlin'... turn around? Let me see you, please."

You shiver, tears spilling down your cheeks, and slap a hand over your mouth. You can't hurt him, you'll never hurt him. "I can't... I can't see you."

His body wants to collapse. He wants to grab you by your shoulders and kiss you senseless, look at you from head to toe and sing praises to Lan for protecting you and keeping you safe.

But you won't see him. You won't turn around.

"Why?" he whines, like a pleading child. "Why not?"

"Because I'm not the same anymore!" you sob. "I'm not your moon lily anymore! I don't want to remind you of everything you lost! I don't want to hurt you anymore! You don't know the things I've done, the blood I spilled, all to destroy the IPC!" You sink to the floor in despair, echoes of the dead haunting you, swarming your mind. "I can't bear to see you hate me for being alive when everyone else died. I already hate myself so much, hated myself because I couldn't save anyone else! I thought I lost you, but now I realize I didn't search for you at all! I didn't even try to find you, I..."

You cry and sob and scream. You pound the floor with your fists. You pull at your hair, your clothes, your skin, so hard that drops of blood water the cement.

Boothill's eyes itch with tears that will never spill. His chest burns with a profound grief that will never truly be his own.

"You think I don't feel that way about myself?" he finally whispers. Bravely, he takes a step closer to you. "From the moment the bombs fell, I was never the same. I changed too much to be that man you met at the market- hell, I don't even have the body anymore." He sits just behind you, close to touch but not close enough. "The blood I spilled would be enough to fill oceans. But I'm still here. I still remember everything. I still remember you." His hand, feather-light, brushes your arm. You don't pull away. "I thought I lost you. When I went back to the ranch and couldn't find anyone there, I thought you were one of the piles of ashes on the ground." He chokes as he speaks, but he pushes on. "I never hated myself more. I failed to save them; I failed to save you."

You shake your head, but he gently rests his head on your back, right between your shoulder blades. He breathes you in- dust, machine oil, and moon lilies.

You smell so alive.

"How could you think I'd ever hate you," he whimpers, "when there's no one I hate more than myself? No, sweetheart, I could never hate you. I never will. Nothing you do could ever make me hate you. So please, turn around..." He grabs a fistful of your shirt and tugs. "I'm begging you. Let me see your face, please."

Your heart breaks. You couldn't fathom how much he suffered, how lonely he must have felt, the self-loathing that coursed through his wires every time he looked in the mirror.

Just like you.

"Don't hate yourself," you sniffle, rubbing your eyes. "Nothing you do could ever make me hate you either. What happened wasn't your fault; you didn't know what the IPC was going to do until it happened."

He lets out a small huff. "I could easily say the same about you. It wasn't your fault either- neither of us could've known until it was too late."

You exhale shakily. "Do you really mean it? Not hating me?"

Boothill smiles. "Every word."

For a moment, you're afraid. What if he doesn't like what he sees? You know he's not a superficial man, but you're still not the sweet florist he remembers anymore.

You suck in a deep breath. He's not the same man you remember, but he's still your cowboy, your Boothill.

Slowly, you turn around, and...

Oh. His face is just how you remember. His beautiful silky hair, the red targets in his eyes still framed within familiar stormy gray. When you reach out with trembling hands to cup his smooth cheeks, he melts in your touch just how he always did.

And melt he does. He nearly moans at your soft touch, pressing his cheek into your palms to keep your focus on him. He drinks up every detail of your face and commits it to memory- your beautiful moony eyes and the dark circles under them, the faintest hint of a scar curling from the edge of your jawline into your neck, your soft hair that smells of moon lilies.

You're still you, the sweet florist he fell in love with all those years ago. And now you've returned to him, and this time, he'll never let you go.

He sits you on his lap and embraces you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck and savoring your scent. You wrap your legs around his waist and make yourself comfortable, admiring his metal body, tracing patterns into the steel.

"I love you," he whispers with a kiss to the corner of your mouth. "I never stopped loving you, not for one second."

"I'm sorry I didn't look for you," you confess. "But I kept you in my heart every day. Even when we weren't together, you were always a part of me."

"I'm here now." He pulls away to admire you, his thumb brushing your bottom lip as he gazes at you with what you could only describe as reverence. "I'm right here with you. I'm not leaving you ever again."

Boothill didn't realize how much his world lacked color until he kisses you, but now he swears he can see every color in the spectrum flash before his eyes. You taste just how he remembers, sweet and salty with your tears. When you pull away for air, he dives back in to reclaim your lips, hooking a hand around your neck to keep you in place.

He won't let you slip from his fingers again. And you clearly feel the same way, because you tangle your hands with his hair and tug him closer, pulling him on top of you.

"Please don't be a dream," you cry in his shoulder, and it damn near breaks his heart. "I don't want to wake up if it is."

"Darlin', those dreams are better off in Penacony; I'm right here. Does this," he kisses your cheek, "or this," he squeezes your ass and relishes in your squeal, "or this..." He grinds into you, and you gasp, squeezing his shoulders with a whimper. And fuck, maybe he was a bit too harsh with that mechanic, he should send her flowers or something, because your face contorted in shock and a hint of reawakened pleasure is a drug he will happily become addicted to. He nibbles on your ear and whispers, "Any of that feel like a dream to you?"

"...No." You stare at him, moon lily eyes abloom with hearts and love and fuck, he wants you, he needs you.

And your eyes are reflected in his, because you're so captivated by how the targets in his gaze morph into blood red hearts that drip with love and devotion. You want to give him everything, bring him under your skin and into your heart so you'll never be separated again.

"I love you." You smile and open your arms for him. "Let's never be apart again."

Boothill's brain short-circuits. He can only remember the minutiae of what happens next- tearing off your clothes, your hands running across his metallic chest, his sensors working in overdrive to let him process your touch, your smell, your taste, as he kisses, nibbles and sucks his way across the canvas of your body to reach your core.

But just as he's about to taste your liquid gold, you tug on his hair. He immediately moves up to your face, nuzzling into your neck to comfort you.

"What's wrong, moon lily? I'll be gentle, I promise," he reassures you, but you bite your lip and shake your head.

"I know. But I don't want that right now; I want you to fuck me."

You spread your legs, once again revealing your soaking pussy to his hungry eyes, and fuck, his mouth goes dry at the exquisite feast before him. And his new dick feels the same way, as the electricity in his body jolts it to life, straining against his pants.

He swallows. "Yeah, baby. I want you too, but I gotta prep ya, or it's gonna hurt."

"Don't care!" you whine, and on Lan's Arrow, you're so cute with your pouting and wailing. "I need you, Hillie, I need it, I need it-!"

Ah, fuck. He can't say no to you, and he won't start now.

So he rips off his pants, and after a few quick pumps of his new cock (yeah, he'll send some flowers to the mechanic as a thank-you), he grabs hold on your hips and thrusts forward.

You shriek at the burning sensation, scrambling for grip on his shoulders as he penetrates deeper and deeper. Fuck, it's been so long since you had sex of any kind, and it shows. You moan loudly, shamelessly, so sensitive to the buttons his cock presses perfectly against your walls, that you cum instantly when he bottoms out, hips meeting yours with a soft thud.

"Fuuudge," Boothill groans, each syllable drawn out in pleasure, "you're so tight, sugar~ I can't even move..."

His brain might just melt from the overload of sensations. Your pussy's so tight, so wet, he's damn sure he near ascended to aeonhood. And your face is so adorable when cumming, he makes sure to engrave every part of it into his neurochip and brush the hair out of your eyes, moving his hips in slow, shallow thrusts, guiding you out of the afterglow.

When you finally blink the stars out of your eyes, you see Boothill hovering above you, rubbing your cheek with hearts in his eyes.

"God, you're so fudgin' gorgeous." He grins, sharp teeth glinting in the dim light, and a shiver of excitement runs down your spine. "Think you got another for me?"

You whine, "Still sensi- AH!"

He immediately sets a vigorous pace, hips slamming against yours in a hypnotic rhythm. He fixates on your breasts, and leans over to take a hard nipple in his mouth to suck and lick and nibble. You squeal and pull on his hair. He bites your skin in retaliation.

"Easy, moon lily," he moans, quickly stifling it with a kiss. "Hold on to me."

He grabs under your arms and lifts you onto his lap. His cock sinks impossibly deeper inside you, the tip nudging at your cervix. With a shriek, you bite his neck to try and ease the discomfort, but it only excites him more. With a guttural groan, he thrusts up into your sopping hole, bouncing you up and down with rough hands to set an even rougher pace.

You're still so sensitive; too much, too fast, and his cock fits so snugly inside you that you're already spiraling towards another release. But you don't want to make that journey alone, you want Boothill beside you.

So you grab his face and devour his mouth, pressing your tongue against his to savor his metallic taste. He moans against your lips, hips stuttering in an effort to keep up with you.

"Wanna make you feel good," you pant heavily. You carefully slide up and down on his thick cock, head thrown back as it hits your sweet spot. "Wanna... wanna cum with you!"

"Y- you are, baby," he groans against your neck, each word punctuated with a deep thrust. "You're makin' me feel so- darn- good-"

You're so close, you can see the faintest glimmer of stars again. Or maybe that was the sparks from his body as it overworks to keep his sensors running, so he can keep feeling you, tasting you, fucking you.

"Hillie," you gasp when the stars start to overwhelm you. "Hillie, I-"

"I know, baby, let go, I'm right with ya." He kisses you, over and over, thrusts sloppy as he chases his high, sensors working overdrive, wires sparking to further push him over the edge. "I'm- fudge, fudge, fudge-!"

He chokes, and you both come undone together, chasing that relentless wave of pleasure side by side. Stars collide and burst in showers of gold and silver, and your strength all but fails you, so you collapse in Boothill's arms, rubbing your cheek on his cool chest.

He catches his breath, letting his sensors rest as he basks in that afterglow. His wires are probably fried after such an intense sensory overload, but he can't bring himself to give a damn. Not when you're sitting so pretty in his arms, eyes just barely able to stay open.

You're so cute when you're sleepy, it's hard to not bite your cheek like he used to do. But tonight, he'll be generous and resist the temptation; you need your rest.

He runs a hand through your hair, and he once again finds himself wishing he still had his skin. But he sets that aside, preferring to be lost in your sleepy smile instead.

"Love you, Hillie," you coo drowsily, head nodding off.

"I love you more, moon lily," he whispers back with a kiss to your forehead.

In a moment, he'll bring you on his spaceship and clean you up, then tuck you in the spare bunk next to his charging port. He'll have to look at that USB you painstakingly put together for him sooner or later.

But for now, right here, he's not going anywhere.

His moon lily came back to him.

Boothill has finally returned home.

[Post-Credit]

"What the actual hell is this..." the mechanic sighs as she stares at the large bouquet of blue flowers.

She wonders if she should toss them out before she notices the card.

Thanks for the added bonus, Doc! - BH & ML

Her eyebrows raise. The handwriting's too nice and legible to be that Galaxy Ranger's, so...

She chuckles. "I figured it'd come in handy sooner or later."

She sets the bouquet on her desk and continues on with her work.

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

A/N: holy shirtballs BOOOTHILL MY LOVE AAAAAAAHSHDHDBSK I LOVE HIM SO MUCH LIKE I NEVER LOVED A CHARACTER BEFORE

...if only he loved me back just the slightest, cuz I lost 50/50 and went hard pity to get him. But I did win his lightcone so I guess it's even...?

[icarusredwings]

Was asked what Wade thinks about his skin after his powers and cancer are taken away. If he would cover up still even when it's hot. And I would like to say yes. He automatically does it as muscle memory.

Logan: Why are you covered up? Its july

Wade: babe you know how people think about me. I dont wanna scare the kids

Logan: .... Wade you are quite literally the third hottest guy in our apartment complex..

Wade wont let logan place himself lower then him EVER so he always has to say hes at least the second, but also, this one guy down the hall is a body builder husband and both logan and wade flirt with him sometimes. Its insane.

"LOGAN!! Mr. Plesetski is taking out the trash again!!"

"Really? Again?.. damn..."

*both of them AND puppins at the window*

Al: yall are some freaks..

Harold and Sheryl Plesetski are their neighbors down the hall. Real nice people.

Honestly this is the only man that wade is allowed to flirt with freely without his face getting beat in.

He just kinda rolls his eyes amused because its nice to see wade happy and giddy. Besides. Mr. Plesetski is one of the only people that makes wade feel good about how he looks, he means it as a innocent compliment but wade takes it as flirting.

Wade, in the hall: *pretends to struggle carrying in groceries*

Logan: ? What are you-

Wade: SHH- Oh Mr. Plesetski! Could you please help me? I did chemo today so..

Mr. Plesetski: Hm? Oh yes of course! Your appartments 204 right?

Wade: Yes it is! Thank you so much! Soooo... what are you doing this weekend?

Mr. Plesetski: Oh, no, thank you for asking. Im taking Sheryl mini golfing and then to the lobster shack. You?

Wade: *drooling*

Logan: *nudges him* Hes gonna be sleeping. A lot.

Mr. Plesetski: From the chemo? Im so sorry. You know- Sheryl could knit you a hat if youd like. I know you probably get cold easily. My mother did when she had her breast cancer.

Wade: Uh huh *his ass is not litsening*

Logan: *rolls his eyes smirking and shaking his head* wow

Sometimes Wade still gets jealous if Logan is a bit too interested, tho because Wade thinks compared to Harold. He's like a 0, and he's a 100

Logan: *lingering after 'bumping' into him* Hey so.. Do you know any good gyms around here? Cause.. obviously, you weren't born like that

Mr. Plesetski: *laughs* I actually go to the one over on the corner of 6th. You're free to join me sometime. I know how hard it can be to find a good routine at this age.

Logan: hah.. yeaah... this age.. you're like. What? 35?

Mr. Plesetski: Ha! Close! Im 53.

Logan: damn-

Mr. Plesetski: Excuse me?

Logan: I-i mean.. Im *panics* 62

Mr. Plesetski: *pats his back* Well id say you look pretty good for 62. Alright. Suppose I should get back. It's meatloaf night.

Logan, blushing: H-heh... yeah..

Logan, later: Hey wade? Have you seen my shorts?

Wade, crossing his arms on the couch: Why dont you ask Mr. Plesetski!?

Logan: Oh come on! It's not a big deal!

And then.. you have Carla Boothe...

"Hey Howlie have you- DAMN, Well let me put on my glasses to have a look at ya. God your gorgeous! Winston come look at this ass! It's bigger then yours!"

And unironically, this makes Mr. Plesetski a little uncomfortable but respects her enough not to shoo her away as she pinches his cheek and tells him how cute he is. "Uhhh.. thanks? I-i think Sher is calling.."

"Mh mh mmh. Althea dear you have no clue what youre missing." She tells her partner, who rolls her eyes. "Yall are some sick fucking teases. I hope you know that..."

Hell. Even Puppins likes him, always trying to mark him as hers by peeing on his foot. Or maybe it's because she dislikes her papa flirting with him and not logan. Who knows. Shes a weird dog.

"Whats Mr. Plesetski look like?" You may be asking.

Imagine Hugh jackman had a baby, and the baby daddy is between Pedro Pascal and Oscar Issac.

That is Mr. Plesetski.

[30somethingautisticteacher]

The drunk woman was relentless, invading Tommy's personal space as he tried to step back. He kept flashing his ring, but either she hadn't noticed or simply didn't care. Tommy glanced at his watch, grateful Evan hadn't arrived yet to see this mess.

"I'm just a poor girl all alone and new to the city," she slurred, pressing closer. "Can you help me get home safely? You can drive me, and then you can come up and I can thank you properly." She traced a finger down his arm. "I'm sure your wife wouldn't mind."

'Okay, she just doesn't care,' Tommy thought, taking a step back.

"I'm sure the bartender would be happy to call a cab for you," he said firmly.

"But you're so big and strong. I would feel so protected," she pouted, swaying slightly.

"I'm flattered, but I'm sure you'll be plenty safe," Tommy said, maintaining his distance. "And my husband won't like you all over me."

"Husband?" the woman spat, her flirtatious demeanor instantly shifting. "Seriously, you're gay?" Her slurred voice dripped with disdain.

It was at that exact moment that Evan appeared.

"Oh, he's very, very gay," Evan said, draping his arms over Tommy's shoulders and pulling him in for a steamy kiss.

"Hi, baby," Tommy said when they broke apart, his earlier tension melting away at his husband's presence.

"You can go now," Evan said dismissively to the woman.

"You're the husband?" she scoffed, looking Evan up and down with obvious judgment. "What a waste."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Evan asked, his voice sharpening. Tommy could feel him tensing up beside him.

"Not worth it, sweetheart," Tommy said softly, squeezing Evan's hand. He knew that tone in his husband's voice - the one that meant someone had struck a nerve.

"No, I want to know," Evan insisted, his jaw set. The playful possessiveness from moments ago had been replaced by something harder, more defensive. "What exactly is being wasted here?"

"Your lifestyle," she sneered, waving her hand dismissively. "Two big, strong, handsome men shacking up together."

"Shacking up?" Evan said, his voice dangerously quiet. The woman had crossed a line, and Tommy knew his husband well enough to recognize when he was about to snap.

"We're not shacking up," Evan continued, holding up his left hand where his wedding ring caught the bar lights. "We're married. Legally married. I walked down an aisle, said vows, signed papers, and promised to love this man for the rest of my life. And you know what? It was the best decision I ever made."

Tommy's heart swelled, watching his husband defend their marriage.

"So no, it's not a waste. What would be a waste is if I pretended to be something I'm not just to make people like you comfortable. Now if you'll excuse us, I'd like to have a drink with my husband."

"You people," the girl said, shaking her head in disgust.

Tommy felt Evan stiffen next to him, ready for another round, but this time Tommy stepped forward. He'd let Evan handle it his way, now it was his turn.

"Ah, 'you people,'" Tommy said, his voice calm but firm. "Let me tell you about 'us people.' My husband and I are first responders. We put our lives on the line every single day for others - including people who think like you do. I spent years hiding who I was because of that kind of hatred, afraid to be myself. But then I finally accepted who I really was, and that opened my heart to the possibility of love. And I found it - real, earth-shattering, life-changing love."

He pulled Evan closer, feeling his husband relax against him. "So the only waste here would be letting people like you make us ashamed of something so beautiful."

Tommy turned away from the woman, effectively dismissing her. "Come on, baby."

The woman slunk away into the crowd, her previous bravado gone.

"You ok, babe?" Evan asked, turning to Tommy with concern.

"Are you kidding?" Tommy said, pulling him closer by his belt loops. "That was extremely sexy watching you tell her off like that. Look how far my little baby bi has come."

"Couldn't have done it without you," Evan said softly.

"You know, I'm actually more hungry than thirsty," Tommy said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Oh, is that so?" Evan replied, a knowing smirk spreading across his face."Well, we should probably do something about that."

"Yeah, we probably better," Tommy said, pulling Evan in for a heated kiss.

When they broke apart, Evan was speechless. He shook his head. "But not here."

"Right, right, let's get out of here."

They stumbled out of the bar together, Tommy tugging Evan along by their joined hands. Their laughter mixed with the night air, any trace of anger long forgotten replaced by the joy of just being together.

[apomaro-mellow]

Every Baby Needs a Daddy 10

Part 9

EDDIE MUNSON'S NEW HOT PIECE?

The lead guitarist of acclaimed band Corroded Coffin is never far from a pretty face. What's the scoop on the newest one hanging off his arm? While their latest album Darkest Knights is climbing the charts is it possible that he's climbing into the sheets with a mystery man?

Steve scrolled through the article, expecting to find some highly invasive information from a sneaky journalist. But most of the writing was just telling readers who Eddie was and a couple of people he had publicly dated in the past. Probably because it was a mainstream publication and they didn't expect their usual viewers to know anything about a metal band.

The picture they used was of when they got to the venue the night of the concert. Eddie had walked Steve in with an arm around his waist. He went in search for any other information or reactions to this news. He wasn't an idiot. Fans could get pretty possessive over their idols. He was ever thankful that he wasn't very active online. At least not to the point where people could easily find and harass him.

Steve had always cautioned against reading too many comments on things. Online communities could quickly turn negative. But he had to see what they were saying about him and Eddie if he had any chance of defense.

Twitter was full of people giving their two cents either in their own posts or under other articles that were all saying the same thing. #CorrodedCoffin and Eddie Munson were both trending.

Quite a few weren't happy at the idea of Eddie shacking up with someone they had never seen before. Add to that the changed tour schedule and they were extra upset.

ro @ alittleunsteady i can't believe a random omega is taking care of eddie he's probably some money hungry whore

Right out the gate with that one. But Steve supposed it made sense from the outside, what with him being a nobody in the industry. And he was definitely benefitting off Eddie's money.

Star @ estrellamy who’s that wannabe? He even looks like a poser, look at his outfit, no way that’s real.

B @ bipanicroom replied: he's cute and I totally get Eddie wanting him for his rut but he definitely doesn't look the part for a long term omega I mean look at that polo shirt, our metal alpha needs some grunge

Okay, Steve laughed a little at those because, well, he stuck out next to Eddie. He'd mentioned perhaps changing his look to blend in with the crowd and Eddie had immediately vetoed it.

"Those bright ass jeans are like a lighthouse to this weary vessel", he had said. To which, Steve reminded him you're supposed to steer away from lighthouses.

"Whatcha laughin' at?", Eddie asked as he came back into the bedroom, carrying a tray of food.

Steve contemplated telling him about the cat being out of the bag, but it wasn't like they were keeping it a secret. It was just...something they didn't need to announce. He sat up, letting the blanket pool at his hips. They could keep the outside world outside just a little longer.

"Just some memes", then he took a deep breath as Eddie opened the curtain of their den. "Smells good."

Eddie put the tray across Steve's lap. "Pesto grilled cheese. With sun dried tomatoes."

"Fuck, that sounds good." Steve's stomach growled in agreement.

He and Eddie ate in bed, thankfully only getting a minimal amount of crumbs on it and cuddled. Eddie was the big spoon while Steve looked at some more comments. There were a few in a thread trying to figure out who he was and what his deal was. It seemed for as many as there were decrying Steve's fashion sense and how he was probably a gold digger, even twice as many were either in support or neutral.

He went to one of Eddie's fan pages which had a good amount of followers for their thoughts.

stream cc's darkestknights @ yourlove Omg y’all are so dumb, he is a literal rockstar why are you guys asking for explanations? That could be his boyfriend or just some rando, as long as I get good music who cares? Get a life atp really💀

Maple @ maplehazelnusse replied: right??? calm down he wasn't get with you either way

Steve felt Eddie's teeth grazing his skin, not even really sinking in, just squeezing lightly across his shoulders. He put his phone under the pillow, deciding that it all could well and truly wait. Eddie needed his full attention right now, even if he wasn't outright whining for it anymore.

While they spent another day wrapped up in each other, the media was having its usual field day. Eddie's unexpected rut would have made news on its own with it disrupting a tour. But add to it an omega that most of the world had never seen and it was a whole circus.

There were plenty who had actual concern over Eddie because sudden hormonal changes weren't fun. A youtuber posted a video summarizing the events of the past couple of days and under their video was an entire conversation regarding this.

@ thegenericcookie 2 days ago shout out to eddie Munson repping all of us off cycle bitches I had to postpone SUBMITTING MY THESIS because a stupid rut was 10 days early for no goddamn reason😞

@ fastimesatfasttimes 2 days ago OMG same! Its so embarrassing like "yo prof i gotta take of and go fuck myself for a week" >.<

@ grapesofyass 3 days ago is now a gud time to mention some places give rut leave but not heat leave?

Of course, when things of this nature came up, many voiced their opinions of the relationship, simply unable to help themselves. Especially since neither party were at all forthcoming about it. Photos surfacing of the two of them at the club and the sushi restaurant added fuel to the fire.

Sappy @ crazytipper67 eddie munson seen with RaNdoM OmeGA like we havent seen him all over his new bf for nearly a month now 😒 🥱 let not forget Eddie doesnt need to explain shit to us fr

GareBear @ garethsstressball like for real not to be a stalker but anyone whos been payin attention knows these two have been goin out a while

tigger @ corrodedcoughin12 he literally took him on tour i wouldn't be surprised if eddie was like actually courting him old fashioned style hes that type

mya @ amerikanscy Since when has Eddie been one to keep an Omega for this long? I bet as soon as his rut is over he'll just move on to the next like he always does. Who cares if he's been seen with Eddie more than once--if they were really anything to each other then they wouldn't be hiding it.

kas @ neveroncelostbutfound I mean, go off ig 🫤 jeff is not taken tho, right? RIGHT?

helix @ judyjetsuuuun replied: bestie.... image.jpeg

Attached was a very clear photo of Steve dancing with Jeff the night of the club and the resurgence of those pictures sparked all new conversations as Steve was seen dancing with everyone except Eddie.

jill @ jeffsnumbuh1 i just think its funny how when i posted pics of jeff that nite they got a lukewarm response but when the same pics show up with the guy i cropped out (out of respect for his privacy) somehow those got hundreds of shares

Everyone online was having a time. But for some, it was an unfortunate time. As was the case for those that Steve had known back home. Dustin was only a few years younger than Steve. He was pretty much an adult now. But it didn't make it any easier to see a section of the internet thirsting after his old babysitter. Some comments were tame and some were not.

countess @ dollarsandstars omg yay eddie's in love, boo its not me but yay him

estrella @ starsnstripes4never daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry.

bips @eddiemunsons2ndhusband EDDIE MUNSON IS TAKEN IM SOBBING HIS OMEGA IS SO PRETTY THO

Mark @ marklyblakemore Are we going to get news about a baby Munson soon🫣

fangs @ dusterjacketsarecool can you guys not? the dude literally drove me to middle school and made me go to sleep AT curfew when he watched me

When Dustin left that comment, he had a split second where he wondered if he should delete it. There weren't a ton of pictures of him online but the internet was full of super sleuths who would be able to dig up a lot on Steve if they were able to find a connection and get his name. Dustin hadn't even known he and Eddie were a thing until the tabloids picked it up.

But when replies came, they all shared a similar sentiment. 'Lying for clout is still lying'. Most didn't believe he knew Eddie's new arm candy in real life. And maybe it was better that way. But still, he could talk to the rest of the gang about it because holy shit Steve was dating a celebrity. The texting in their group chat (the one without their older siblings because they didn't want any lectures) had been going crazy since the news broke.

Dustin: How long until we can start posting embarrassing photos of Steve for maximum impact?

Lucas: We gotta wait until they publish his name

Mike: You think Eddie's really gonna announce theyre dating?

Dustin: Only if he's gonna make an honest man out of Steve

Will: But what if it's just a fling? Did Steve tell anyone about this?

Max: Betcha he told robin

El: I'm going to post the one from when he took us to Comic Con.

Lucas: That's not an embarrassing pic

Will: Yeah it was objectively awesome

El: I know. That is why I want to post it :)

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

Eddie could tell when he himself was done with his rut. He wasn't filled with an all consuming need to impregnate Steve. The thought was still attractive, but he could allot some brain power to other things now. Like the madhouse surrounding his love life that was going on. Eddie had never really announced it when he was dating. Then again, the last couple of times it had been with fellow famous people.

Media outlets knew them well and were able to craft their stories easily. He got asked about them during interviews but most of it was public knowledge already. This was the first time since making it big that he'd been seen with someone like Steve. The next time he made an appearance he was going to be asked about him. And there was no way he could just say 'he's my sugar baby, we fuck and then I buy him things'. Even if that was true on paper, it wasn't how Eddie really felt.

Steve was sitting on the couch, gazing intensely on his phone and Eddie was sure it was some discourse about him but when he ventured to look over his shoulder has saw that he was watching a stop motion lego video.

"Interesting entertainment?", he asked, coming around to sit next to him.

"They just make it so smooth, I don't understand", Steve said in awe.

"I was wondering if we could talk about the-", Eddie cleared his throat, "about the, you know, what people are saying."

"Yeah sure", Steve paused the video and put his phone down.

"So, we're gonna move the tour soon", Eddie started. "And at some point, like in the next week, I'll probably be expected to make some kind of statement."

Steve nodded, eyes full of sincerity and understanding and Eddie couldn't take that pointed at him. He shot up and began pacing around.

"Okay, here was the deal. You're my sugar baby, right?"

"Right", Steve answered with another nod.

"But like, and correct me if I'm wrong, we don't really do the things people normally do in this sort of relationship."

"It's not that we don't do them", Steve watched Eddie move back and forth like a caged animal. "We don't-you don't treat me like a sugar baby."

Eddie froze. "Have I been doing this wrong?"

Steve shook his head. "Eddie you've been fine, great even." He stood up and grabbed Eddie's hands. "I couldn't have asked for anyone better. 'Cause like, from what I've seen, a more, let's say experienced sugar daddy would have just assumed I'd assist with a rut. You assumed I wouldn't."

"I couldn't just put that on you. I know what I'm like during a rut", Eddie looked away sheepishly. "But you can't pin this aaaallll on me sweetheart. You haven't been acting very sugar babyish."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Like you're the expert?"

"I've seen a couple! I know that they're very keen on pointing to whatever catches their fancy and saying 'daddy buy me this'. And I know you have good taste in things. You could also stand to drape yourself over me much more in public. I'm frankly appalled that too many of my fans don't see you as someone important."

Steve blushed at all Eddie was describing and tried to hide behind his hands but since Eddie had them, he kept him from doing so.

"That sounds like...a lot. Are you okay with me being a lot?"

"You're asking a musician that?", Eddie raised a brow.

"I mean like, when I get really...involved with someone", Steve was avoiding the word 'dating', "I can get clingy, and like, really hungry for attention."

"Baby, I just spent a week with my face attached to your pussy. Which, for the record, I would have done even I wasn't under hormonal persuasion." Eddie kissed his knuckles and then breathed in deep. Steve still carried so much of him, even after a shower, and would for a while. In about a week, his scent wouldn't cling to him the way it was now, but for a moment, he could imagine Steve was wholly his.

"When I go out in front of cameras, I..." He wanted to tell them Steve was his omega, that he was officially courting and if the fates saw fit, would make him his mate.

"What?"

"What should I tell them?", Eddie asked.

Steve thought about what people already thought was going on. The world already assumed they were fucking. They didn't really announce that. The only real question was how permanent Steve was. Was he a fling or an actual boyfriend?

"What do you want me to be?", Steve asked in return.

Eddie's heart thumped in his chest. The false answer hung from his lips, ready to go. To keep them in this limbo for as long as he could. But that was no guarantee either. Besides, Eddie really wanted to make a proper den for Steve to make a proper nest. He wanted to take Steve back to his actual home. He wanted to meet this enigmatic Robin.

"I want you to be mine. And I wanna tell the world about it." Eddie knew that was the right response from the way Steve lit up.

Corroded Coffin ☑️@corrodedcoffinitsafishyall

The official Twitter of Corroded Coffin. Stream our new album Darkest Knights. And to the owner of the corrodedcoffinofficial handle, come outside we just wanna talk

corrodedcoffinband.com

150 Following 529k Followers

5 minutes ago Changed the password account again bc some knot-heads never heard of PR - Grant

8 minutes ago Btw his name is Steve and he's my sweetheart

10 minutes ago Post-rut clarity call that seein with my third eye

Eddie Munson ☑️ @ edmunsoncc

This is where I go when they kick me off the band account :(

1 minute ago they took my Stevie D:<

2 minutes ago They can take away my account privileges but they cant take away my Stevie

And the world knows his name! And the tour continues! What will happen as they travel down the east coast!? Stay tuned!

Part 11

Tag Team CLOSED

@awkotaco24 @lingeringmirth @littlewildflowerkitten @estrellami-1 @tartarusknight @velocitytimes2 @mrsjellymunson @trashcanniballecter @paintsplatteredandimperfect @a-little-unsteddie  @sllooney  @starman-jpg  @oxidantdreamboat  @xxbottlecapx   @newtstabber @tiny-enthusiast  @desidrarry-wolfstarshipper @y4r3luv @hello-fellow-nerds  @anonymousbandgirl @alyelf @potato-of-the-lord  @beckkthewreck  @croatoan-like-its-hot @pluto-pepsi @abstractnaturaldisaster @ellietheasexylibrarian @eyesofshinigami @dragonmama76 @greatwerewolfbeliever @chaosgremlinmunson @blackpanzy @millseyes-world @batxsignalsx @lilpomelito @goosesister @libraryofgage @aresthelostboy @royjaimie4eva @silenzioperso @she-collects-smut @lost-wondering-souls @eddielives1986 @marklee-blackmore

[twisted-gremlin]

Platonic yandere first years!

Ace(sibling):

- he is overly protective of Yuu, makeing sure that they are by him at all times

- he was glad that they can't use magic but has alot of mixed feelings about them following him to NRC

- he practically begged Crowley to let Yuu into Heartsbyul- but there was no room (he didn't mind shareing his bed- but, his roommates better leave you alone)

- he invites you to every celebration! Why? Oh Trey was worried you're not eating enough in that shack with the greedy rat-

- he isn't strong enough to actually kill, but he is cunning enough to manipulate people, trying to get a boyfriend without his permission- hey look at all this homework- oh he wants to break up and hates you? Oh big brother is here for you-

- you're never leaveing your bother♡

Deuce(sibling)

- he is worried that his baby sib is gonna go down the path he did- he made sure that any gangs would never take you in, but would beat to death whoever dared lay their hand on you- its ok- he and mom is there to hold you and protect you-

- his mom sent you to NRC so that he could protect you, and he swore to her that he would.

- he allways walked with you to class, he even made you join the track club, Jack was trustworthy, right?

- you have some things you are allowed to do on your own, just be careful, of anything goes wrong and he finds out, he isn't letting you do that stone again

Jack(bestie)

- he saw you as like a little cub that was lost and alone when he first saw you

- as you two grew to know one another, he did his best to take care of you. Hungury? He has some extra food, it's not like he bought it just for you- cold? Idiot, you need a scarf- so what it has his sent? You'll be protected from other beastmen who may want to pick on you

- he greets you every day and walks you to class (like he did with ruggie), if he has the time he waits outside of your class and walks you to your next one

- he wont let you think about going home, why go home when you have it so great here? I'm sure none could love you like he does, or even protect you like he can when you're at home-

Epel(sibling):

- excuse me- he is the man here- he can take care of ya- why are you laughin-

- Epel beats the snot out of those who try to hurt his sweet and innocent baby sib- they are a sweet apple tart- none hurts em-

- Epel before Vils traning was much- much more aggressive towards others, with a slight sweetness. But now, he acted more sweet and innocent until the time came where his opponents was in their backs

- now he uses thar cuteness to ask to hangout and stay by your side. You can't exactly say no because... look at that face-

Ortho (sibling):

- in life, you weren't all that close to Ortho- he and Idia were allways hanging out with eachother.

- then the accident happend, now you can get rid of the fake brother or your older Otaku brother-

-you're at NRC because of said Otaku, so while he was in class, you got to do whatever you wanted- and a certain robot followed your every move

- if Ortho evaluated someone as a threat they would be exterminated as soon as possible.

- you tired to get him to leave you alone, to make his own friends and learn about others. But he would make his following you a bit more... subtle...

- while he tried to get his big brother outside, he kept you inside. He played games with both you and Idia, to keep you content and stay

- need anythjng? He will get it for you, he wants to be a good brother for you- so you don't have to linger in your hurt anymore- so you didn't have to be alone anymore-

Sebek(friend/Maleus' bestie)

- you as a pathetic human from another world had caught the eye of Malleus, so, he needed to vet the human to he sure they were good for his master

- his first meeting with you was interesting to say the least. Despite your conditions (and his attitude) you treated him kindly and sat down with him and had an array of tea and baked sweets (courtesy of the Heartsbyul bois)

- he started to see why his master took a likeing to you, you were sweet, a good listener, and even interesting. He just, couldn't understand why you would want to return to your boring world?

- his master would take amazing care of you- even extend you life! All you had to do was ask!

- so why are you breaking their hearts and asking for help going home...?

- maybe... your mirror could be broken? This Mickey is a distraction, and they had room in Diasomnia, he will keep gaurd of your room, it'll be by Malleus'!

[anachilles]

“So, what’s the prognosis, Doc? Am I gonna live?”

Your firehouse buckies? 😍 or anything else with buck x bucky 💓

omg hi! and please yes give me all the excuses to write my firehouse!au buckies!! (for those who may not be familiar - this is firefighter!bucky and bartender/PhD student!buck) here's a little thing set significantly further along than where we're currently at in the actual fic lol. + shout out to @avonne-writes and their 'who's taking who's surname?' poll and the discourse for inspiring a little part of this lol. currently taking prompts from this list: [ x ]

"So, what's the prognosis, Doc? Am I gonna live?"

His voice hoarse and barely there, trust John to tease him even around the tail end of a thermometer, just as Gale went to pull it from his mouth.

'Suppose he can't be too sick if he still has jokes,' was the first thought that came to Gale's mind. The second thought though, sneaking up hot on the first's heels, was 'John would be cracking jokes on his damn deathbed so that really isn't as much of a reassurance as it should be.'

Gale squinted as he examined the numbers. The light was low in the early winter morning, the sun not having quite fully risen yet. He'd usually have switched even just his own bedside lamp on as he got himself ready to leave for the day, but with John's groan of protest that particular morning, he’d quickly switched off again.

It'd been a restless night, and even though they were both feeling the impact of John's tossing and turning, and the seemingly inability for him to breathe at all through his nose anymore, the man himself just looked downright exhausted with it. He'd eventually managed to fall asleep with his hot, clammy forehead pressed into the back of Gale’s neck, plastered to his back, and Gale hadn’t the heart to try and move him despite how he had then been overheating.

"You know there's another, arguably much more enjoyable way to do that..." John leered, even if half-heartedly, and if only to fill the silence as Gale's eyebrows pinched at whatever he saw on the little digital screen.

See, this is why they'd more or less permanently shacked up at Buck's place rather than his. He had stuff like thermometers lying around. Stuff an actual home has.

Gale looked up at him then, incredulous. "You're really trying to flirt with me, sitting there with a 101 degree fever?" he said, turning the thermometer as if to prove his point. Incredulous, but not surprised; not really.

"Baby, if I'm ever sick enough that I don't want to flirt with you, make you blush all pretty like you do, that's when you should be worried."

Gale had almost been tempted to smile at that, until John had to cut himself off, a sudden bout of congested coughing rattling from his throat.

Capturing the inner corner of his bottom lip between his teeth, Gale sighed, his long legs unfolding from beneath him and as he got up from where he'd been perching on his side of the bed. He crossed to John's bedside, pulling the covers further up around the other man’s chest.

Gale clicked his tongue slightly, though his expression and voice betrayed him in their co-ordinating softness. "All of this because you just had to be the hero and go jump in the damn lake."

Off to the side of them, Maverick jumped up onto the bed, sleepily curling in at Bucky's side in the warm spot Gale had just vacated. She bumped her head against John's hand, eager and impatient as the day Gale met her. John responded without even having to look away from the conversation, his fingers scritching at the especially soft little spot of fur behind each of her ears.

“Hey, I saved someone's life."

Gale wordlessly took his phone from his pocket, showing him the text he'd already gotten from Benny, "Just FYI - let the record show that the guy knew how to swim and your boy did not have to jump in after him."

Uh, since when did his team all acquire his boyfriend's number just for the purposes of ratting him out?

"Well how was I supposed to know that?! It’s called due diligence."

Either way, he'd ended up with what seemed to either be a wicked cold or the beginnings of the flu for his trouble.

"You make up for your lack of sympathy with your excellent bedside manner, Doctor" John said, talking half to himself as Gale strode out to the kitchen at the sound of the kettle whistling.

He continued as the other man reappeared a minute later, a steaming Fire Department-branded mug in one hand, his own filled travel mug in the other. "Huh, that's kind of funny, seeing as you will be and everything. Dr Cleven."

“Not that kind of doctor,” Gale muttered, and John breathed out a faint laugh. He knew the difference, duh, but it was cute when Gale interpreted things so literally sometimes before he could think about it.

Gale quirked a brow as he set the mug down on John’s bedside table, batting aside lozenge wrappers and tissues with the rim of it to make room.

"Y'know what has an even better ring to it, though? Dr Gale Egan..."

When the idea of marriage came up between them, it was always in an abstract, vague kind of sense, underpinned by off-hand comments and passing jokes relaying the image of some version of their life that lay a safe distance away on the horizon. It wasn't right in front of them yet, but it felt comfortably inevitable, which made talking about it casually not really a big deal. One of the more common jokes being what they do in terms of surnames.

Gale could tell John was sentimental about his father's name in a way he himself wasn't about his own. It was never said so outright, but he got the sense that it was either a matter of hyphenating (even with John's arguments that neither Cleven-Egan or Egan-Cleven 'sounded right'), or Gale taking John's.

When Gale thought about the idea of shedding his father's name, he felt so much nothing it almost pissed him off because shouldn't it evoke something? Is that not the most normal reaction to losing such a defining part of your identity, feeling some sense of sadness? Of loss? It felt more to him like shrugging off a grimy, weather-beaten old coat turned threadbare in the elements, not particularly pleasant but reliably familiar. It was simply what he had.

Looking now, he took in the pallid, rheumy face and contrastingly long, firm lines of a man who loved him like John loved him. Who loved him so unshakeably, proved to him over and over seemingly without even really having to try; who made it look easy. Who loved him in a way he didn't think he ever could be loved, or be prompted himself to love like he loved John back.

"Well, then I guess you have until I finish my PhD to marry me."

There was a weird beat of silence and neither seem to be sure whether they were still joking or not.

“You saying you want to marry me? Is that a proposal? A deathbed proposal?” The look that bloomed on John’s face was as adorable as it was utterly insufferable. It was, however, quickly dispelled however by a sudden sneeze. He reached for more tissues, the groan that followed evidently vexed.

It cut through whatever tension had inadvertently bled into the moment, though, and Gale smiled. “Bless you. Tempting proposition that it is…” Gale finally said, as he checked his watch. When he continued, there was an edge of regret in his voice. “If I want to be Dr Anything I’d better get going.”

A noise echoed from John's throat, half displeased, half mournful.

Gale sighed and leant forward, bringing a gentle hand to John's fever-flushed cheek, his thumb stroking lightly on the sharp angle of his cheekbone. "Now, you get some sleep and drink plenty of water, you hear me? You can have more of these here pills in like a couple more hours. I should be home around 3ish, but text me if you need anything or your temperature gets any higher."

His voice was as even and steady as ever, only John could tell he was fretting slightly by how unsettled his hands were, and how they kept touching him, fiddling with the blankets, smoothing things down that were already smoothed down as he spoke.

John reached out and grab Gale's wrist, stilled it, in a odd reversal of their usual roles. "Okay, okay..." he acquiesced lightly, easily, and was immediately rewarded when Gale's fingers laced into the sweat-damp curls that had fallen down into his face, moving them aside so he could press a kiss to his forehead. His lips lingered for an achingly welcome half-beat, before moving to press another to his cheek.

Gale tore himself away then, grabbing his wallet, keys, and the steaming travel mug where he'd abandoned them on the dresser, and tossed his bag over his shoulder. A few second later, he was gone.

“Dr Gale Egan” is all John thinks about for the rest of the day.

In between naps, that is.

[bowieandqueen11]

Dylan Lenivy With A Protective S/O Would Include...

Request: Dylan from the quarry with an s/o who’s like really strong. Like wrestle bears strong (or in the quarry case wrestle werewolves strong) and is very protective. Like i mean picking Dylan up and running or taking hits for him.

I genuinely love Dylan so much time to work through my writer's block for him bby!! :)

Warning: Strong language, mentions of blood/ injury, mentions of guns and werewolf attacks!

(I do not own the Quarry or its characters, all rights go to creators. Gif credit goes to @moafleco.)

☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°

Dylan Lenivy: darling boy, absolute light of my life!! I full on expected to come into this game and have Max be my favourite because I loved Skyler Gisondo in Booksmart and Night at the Museum 3 but Dylan really side swept my ass here and stole my heart I've got to be honest.

You can bet your ass during the whole Werewolf Attack night at Hackett's Quarry, Dylan will use whatever battery is left on his phone sending you cheesy texts just to check in and make sure you're okay. Be ready for your phone to ding about a thousand times a minute, until Kaitlyn finally cracks and shoves it, still vibrating, into one of the cubbies in the nurse's office.

'Hey sweet... baby-heart! Wait that sounds weird let me start again. Hellooo there sweetheart!❤️🥰 just wanted to make sure ❓that you’re still alive! 💘😖 and not ripped apart! 🤞❌ anyway love you please don’t get eaten by a swarm of bears!! 🐻😘'

Ryan had the joy of reading that one over his shoulder in the radio shack, and the groan he emitted was so loud they both ended up having to pitch over each other and duck under the table because it drew Caleb back up onto the roof.

The poor guy keeps peering out between the slats of the radio shack window like a scared meerkat popping up from behind towering rocks, thinking he can see you float past in a mist of lucent white, weaving through the treeline. He keeps pacing back and forth, back and forth sweating buckets because he's so terrified, and so ashamed that he's cowering in here while you may be in danger out there. Even Ryan's awkward offer to let Dylan borrow his earphones for a while: to sit with his knees drawn up to his chest in the corner and just breathe for a minute while Ryan kept watch, was met with an uncharacteristic sharp intake of breath and manic shake of the head.

So when you come bursting through the rickety door: drenched from head to toe in Nick's metallic reeking blood and propping Chris Hackett's shotgun in your arms, neither of the two men know what to do. But when a crash of lightning makes the full moon glowing behind your head shudder, making the pulsating umbra shrouding your head seem all the more monstrous, Dylan suddenly does.

The man starts screaming in a key that only dogs had a chance of hearing.

When he finally realises that it's you and not - you know - the 'Hag of Hackett's Quarry', and he's spent enough time bent over with his hands resting on his knees trying to catch his breath, the nervous butterflies in the pit of his stomach suddenly turn into somersaults. You came back for him. You came to save him. You care for him that much: love him that much, that you were willing to risk your own life just to try and save his.

Even though he's known you since you were seven years old: even though the two of you had met all those years ago during your first week at this very same camp, catching each other's eyes and waving as he bundled up to Chris' office with a brand new tape player he had restored in his arms, and you helped one of the younger girls pull her luggage out from the back of her parent's van, the true extent of how much he could fucking love someone hits him like air freshener to the face.

Even though the two of you used to sneak out of your bunks and meet up at midnight in the Shady Glade, bumping down beside each other on the dewy grass, constantly craving each other’s company. You made him blush one night, when you suddenly grabbed his hand and intertwined his growing fingers over your smaller ones, pointing up at the moon, and the glowing stars, not realising the little side eye, euphoric look he would give you. 

Even though his heart had flipped over there and then: greedily gorging and festering in his chest, even though he had spent years stifling the feeling until he learnt that he was lucky enough to have it returned, it still shocked him to realise you didn't see him as a waste of space. As a spent joke.

And then his hand gets bit, and everything changes. It must have looked at least a little bit funny when it happened, considering there was not a chance in hell you were about to let any mystical creature drag off your poor boyfriend. As soon as Dylan got swung up to the roof: screaming and begging for you and Ryan to get him down, you jumped onto the desk and latched yourself on Dylan's back like koala bear. Your legs are quick to wrap around his waist until your heels kick up onto the slats, your arms wrapping around his waist until you manage to reach past and grab onto thick handfuls of warm... oozing fur.

With a swift punch to the snout, the two of you fall unceremoniously to the floor in a resounding crash. You managed to cover most of Dylan's moans during your fall by cradling him into your stomach, taking most of the brunt of the force. The poor guy for a moment just curls up on top of you in a state of wide-eyed shock, the side of his cheek heavy as he smooshed it against the side of your jaw. It's almost domestic: almost sweet, as he tugs his legs up between your knees and hides his eyes by turning his head into the curve of your neck. It's the same manner in which he wakes up every morning, hiding himself by nestling himself into you every time the sunrise comes falling through the dusty cracks of the Quarry's alpine blinds and makes him jolt awake.

This time, though. This time is far worse. Because then he starts laughing: a hoarse, shaking, unnerving noise that seems to seep through your throat and make you choke on your tongue. You do your best to grab onto his biceps as he starts shaking, his hands beginning to ball into your shirt as the reality of what's just happened to him settles in.

This man has seen enough horror movies in his life. If he's going to die, he wants to do it lying here in your arms.

Before he knew what was happening, he's being lifted up into your arms bridle style and rushed out towards the pool house. The whole way there, despite the agonising pain he's in, he keeps pressing his lips into your collar bone and giggling like a school boy caught head over heels by his crush. Even when your hands finally slip off from underneath his knees and you gently perch him on the edge of a sink, he's still cradling the side of his head on his neck and looking down at you as if you hung every star in that unbridled sky. It doesn't matter if you're trying to use a cloth to clear some of the blood from underneath his eyebags, or using some bandage Abi found in one of the pool lockers, this man is too busy trying to spend every second he has left as him enraptured by you. That means you have to work with him biting his bottom lip and smiling wonkily as he dodges the cloth and instead grabs onto your fingers, pulling them to his lips so he can kiss your knuckles one by one languidly. He looks so soft - so goddamn soft as he nudges his cheek against your intertwined hands, letting them rest against the side of his face.

He gets really fidgety, and it's then that you suddenly understand he's asking for a reassurance kiss: for the knowledge that you're not going to leave him. He’ll never say it outright, because deep down he’s too embarrassed and touch starved to admit it, but you can always tell. He has so many give away signs: he starts looking down at the floor, taps his feet against the tiles and fidgets his hips back against the porcelain, plays with his fingers by threading them through each other until you lean up to kiss the tip of his nose, and then he just beams with pure, unbridled happiness.

'You're so beautiful, you know that?' Even with the tendrils beginning to twist up his forearm, even half delirious with the stress of what had been happening that night, even thinking he's about to die he's still thinking of you. Worried about you. Desperate for you to know, that it's always been you. That it's all you.

'Dylan... I love you too, but if you keep putting yourself in danger to save everyone else I'm going to kick you into Lake Septimus ass first, okay?'

'Look, I've never met the guy, and although I'm sure he's lovely you're the only person I want to fall ass first onto', he replies, trying his best to hide how his eyes were starting to burn: how his eyes were beginning to crinkle with the effort of stopping his face contorting in pain by cupping your cheeks with his large palms and pressing a lingering, needy kiss against the side of your mouth.

'Ew. Gross, guys.' You turn your head to raise an amused eyebrow at Kaitlyn, but she only shakes her head and turns her attention back to the knitting gash on Nick's leg.

He seems to spend half of the time hiding behind your back! Like, you can just feel the slight tremble as his slender fingers touch your shoulder, and then the growing shadow against the lodge chimney as he jolts behind you. He's trying his best, bless his heart, even though the way he tucks the jut of his chin into your shoulder blade and grabs onto your biceps restricts you from shooting off Caleb when he comes clambering up the stairs towards the two of you.

But also even though he knows you're super bad ass he is 100% ready to launch himself, full-body starfish jump, in harm's way at the first sign of danger. Such as when Emma comes jumping out of the minivan, and Dylan straight away launches you away from him and nearly bearhugs her to the stony ground. Thankfully, you manage to tear off a branch from one of the encircling pine trees and strike the werewolf off Dylan; a near home run hit had her scrambling off into the woodland again as fast as her four legs could carry her. For a moment, your boyfriend just lounges against the dirt, shaky breath only interrupted by the sound of his wincing as he begins to flick pebbles off the deep scratches lining his elbow. Then, before you can even blink, he comes scrambling on his hands and knees towards you like a prowling predator, before melting into you. His arms are quick to lock behind your hamstrings; Dylan doesn't even bother to get up off his knees, he just shoves his head into your bellybutton and refuses to move until he can feel your fingers card through his scalp.

'Oh my god!', he finally starts, once you begin to unlatch his rusted fingers from around his legs by pulling at them one by one. 'I can't believe you never told me!'

'Told you what?'

'That you're secretly the sports coach! I knew Jacob was too much of a butthead - I just knew he was too busy playing hookup to look after the kids. That's the real tea from this summer.'

For real though - it doesn't matter where you are: turn around and Dylan's on your heels like your own personal walking, talking, screeching shadow. You have a bet with Kaitlin on whether he's managed to build a teleporting machine during his free time in the radio shack, because you could be down scouting the kitchen and he could be up looking at the weird family pictures in the lodge's attic, but at the first sound of any kind of howl he's there. You barely have time to duck down behind the counter before your boyfriend has made you jump out of your skin; he's standing right by the freezer (how tf did he manage to get all the way there without you hearing him??), completely out of breath and holding a cast iron skillet in his hands like a baseball bat.

'What?', he shrugs down at you with a tired smirk, putting his free hand on his hip and wiggling them a little. 'My mom always told me that it's better to be prepared than to catch anything unexpected. And I'm not letting you get bit too.'

'I'm... not quite sure that's what she meant. But thanks, sweetie.'

The nickname has his face burning a deep-set roseate for the next thirty minutes.

And then the two of you meet Laura, and this man's world just turns upside down. You turn down her offer to join her in trying to find Chris Hackett and end all of this for good, but from where Dylan was sitting on the bench next to the rattling window, he missed out on your reasoning why. He missed out on how you'd admitted that your sole focus: your one care now was to make sure that Dylan was safe. That you cared about him more than anything, and Mr. H could go to hell as far as you're concerned. You had to make sure Dylan survived the night.

Dylan's eyebrows crumpled when you came, cross armed, to unsteadily take a seat next to him again. He was too nervous to ask what the two of you had agreed, so he just fiddled with his thumbs and let the idea that he was holding you back darken his thoughts.

That he was a hinderance. That he was an annoyance.

He doesn't know what else to do, so as the two of you head out to the Hackett scrapyard in search of a new rotor arm, he takes up every silent moment by cracking wise. It starts to worry you - the way he can barely touch you. How he holds his hands in near claws against the meat of his biceps: how he barely lets his leg brush against yours before he jolts away again as if electrified. He even seems anxious when you reach out and grip onto his hand, his hold limp and loose as he lets it sway uneasily in the growing gap between your bodies.

He's just so afraid that if he lets go now, you'll be letting go of him forever. So he doesn't want to hold on at all. He feels it will be easier this way: kinder to you, to feel as if he's just drifting off with the breeze, a fond memory of long summers spent at some strange, long forgotten Quarry.

But you know him far too well not to register the full-blown panic behind his eyes as he dares to take a glance over at you. So please, shove this guy up against the nearest trunk of a tree, hold him up by shoving your knee in-between the seams of his thighs, and kiss him silly until all he can do is saunter off with a dopey smile and a brain so far up in the clouds all he can do is laugh rather than string together a sentence!!!

Literally I feel like this would heal him. Give this poor bby the love he's so desperately craving.

Straight up hefting him over your shoulder and carrying him away from Caleb in the scrapyard. The confused look on Kaitlyn's face as her head slowly turns to follow the set of you sprinting past with a screaming Dylan folded over your back like a snapped ruler is mfcking hilarious I'm not going to lie.

You refuse to leave him in the crane. Not even when he's gouging into the balls of your shoulders, crying and yelling and begging you to leave. To run. To get the hell away from him while you still can. Between his tormented yelps, you do your best to grab onto his face despite how forcefully his body's contorting. Despite how his fingernails are starting to cut into your skin and send blood blooming out in wispy tendrils across your shirt. You just place your thumbs up against the darkness obscuring the sides of his eyes and try to keep Dylan looking at you. To try and make him understand, to try and make sure the last thing he saw before he turned was you not leaving him. Not Ever.

[satureja13]

Ji Ho, Jack and Jeb's Therapy Game started to merge after they met in Bacalao Bay. And they are not quite sure how to deal with that. Should Jeb and Jack log in with Ji Ho or should they wait to not interfere with Ji Ho's therapy? They decided to wait and just watch what happens since NPC Jeb knows where to find the Captain and real Jeb doesn't and to give NPC Jack time to regain access to his memories.

They took the ferry southbound to the islands where - NPC Jeb is sure - they would find the Captain. The poor Princess did not take the passage well - just like Ji Ho. She sits on the deck next to NPC Jeb and prays to the gods that this will be over soon... NPC Jack, however, seems to enjoy the ride ^^' He started to talk again - because nothing can shut this big snout of him, not even death. But he still can't remember anything from the night he died.

When they reached the landing stage on the main island, the first thing NPC Jack noticed was the fish shack. (To his defence: there wasn't much more to see anyway ^^) NPC Jack: "Gods I'm hungry!"

They didn't even notice the beautiful sunset. NPC Jack because -> hungry, Jihovere because -> sick and NPC Jeb because he's worried for the poor girl.

As soon as the fish monger gave NPC Jack his plate, he started to wolf down his lobster roll right at the stand. Jeb was startled. Jihovere, still a bit weak on her legs: "Can we sit down at least?" (Yes, Tiny Can did a very good job with their NPC versions! hahaha)

NPC Jack: "Hm?"

Jihovere and her new friends had studied the map they found in the Vicegerent's office thoroughly. Jihovere: "Are you sure your Captain will be able to steer us through the shoals and cliffs to the remote cave where the Vicegerent and the Demon entrench?" NPC Jeb: "Oh, he will. I've never met a bolder and more daring ('and daunting' he added, but just in his thoughts) man like him." (I don't know if greasy popcorn shrimps are the right food choice when you're nauseous, Jihovere...)

It was late when they left the harbor. Tomorrow morning they will start their search for the fearless and skilled Captain.

They went over to their lodging nearby the monger arranged for them. (TMI: This is one of adult Ji Ho's houses.)

Jihovere still doesn't feel much better (owing to the shrimps, I bet!) so they just chatted for a while and went to bed soon.

Outtakes

NPC Jack fell in love with NPC Jeb! So this is the counter episode to the mini episode when Jeb fell in love with Jack shortly after Vlad's death ö.Ö' Which lead to Sai and Jeb's first break up...

After NPC Jeb regained his composure: "I'd rather have you, Jihovere!" NPC Jack: "What? Ewww." (Argh! They try to make me sway! Because they know: for me, Jeb is the perfect partner for each of them! For Ji Ho / for Jack) But their hearts want what their hearts want...

'I'll push the wood (stir it, stir it, stir it together) I'll blaze your fire Then, I'll satisfy your heart's desire (Stir it, stir it, stir it together) I'll stir it, yeah, every minute, yeah All you've got to do, baby, is keep it in, and

Stir it up Little darling, stir it up Come on baby, yeah I say stir it up Little darling, stir it up, oh yeah

Quench me, baby, while I'm thirsty Cool me down, mama, when I'm hot Your recipe is so tasty And you sure, baby, can stir your pot, so'

Stir it up - Bob Marley This songtext leaves nothing to the imagination ^^'

The Therapy Game Master Post with the sessions and places so far is -> here

From the Beginning 🔱 Underwater Love 🔱 Latest

Current Chapter: 'Who killed Jack?' from the beginning ▶️ here

📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 17-22 ~ 23-28

[themoonweaversden]

Messeges that were found so far: SOOS (spoilers)

This is just to collect all the codes that you can type in in thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com and their effects only (please click images for better quality)

Masterpost with all messeges / codes

Transcript:

"Sup Dude! Soos here, or as I call myself now "Mr Mystery," but I also call myself Soos too because that's still my name dude! Okay, so first, the GOSS, Tad Strange. Is Totally. Crushing on Woodpecker Guy. I ship it dude. I ship it HARD.

Anyway Mabel wanted me to write about the triangle guy? Dawg, homie is BAD. NEWS. Never trust a bro who can climb inside of your brain. And his book is sus and, to be quite frank, mid. I looked inside and just saw glitches and the words "HE'S UNCORRUPTABLE." What's that supposed to mean? At least holding the book made me look kinda smart, so 1/5 stars I guess.

Anyway Mabel told me to keep it brief, which is no problem for me, I love brievity! I can't get enough of it! Being succinct is like, super easy for me for some reason, I guess it's like a gift? Don't get me started on pithiness, let alone- oh dang I'm like, running out of paper?! LOL! That's what tape is for bro!

SOLVED!

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, my life as chief proprietor/tour guide/scam-magineer (Mr Pine's phrase) of the Mystery Shack! Running this place is an actual dream come true. To stop from pinching myself I asked Old Man McGucket to invent a Pinch-Bot but then it got loose and went on a pinching spree and had to be put down, heh heh. Wild times!

What's the shack like without the Pines? Well, it's got a lot more laser tag. And Questiony is back and MORE QUESTIONABLE THAN EVER! (Turns out all he needed was PANTS!) Every day I get to regale the children with yarns of enchantment and lore, and Melody set up this dope train that goes through the redwoods carrying baby goats. We're doing like... so good. Knock on on wood, but we're always saying "jinx" after talking and like, "anticipating each others emotional needs." Might be some little Sooslets on the way! WINK!

Mr Pines is gonna be away at sea for a while but he promised to not send me any postcards, which meant a lot to me. Dude is a real one! Anyway, I gotta go get some lotion for my cheeks. Abuelita and Melody have been pinching me at the same time a lot and it's starting to become a problem.

Look what I gotta deal with over here! Seesh! Stay cool, and if you're ever in Oregon stop by the Mystery Shack to see the local world record holder for the world's happiest dude. ME! Ha-ha!

-Soos "Mr Mystery" Ramirez

PS: Don't tell Ford that I got pudding on his cursed book!! Unless he likes pussing, then tell him to lick here ⟶

PPS: Did you know that you can turn any spoon into a spork with a few simple adjustments? I'll show you how any time dude!

PPS: If you see Bill, cover your head in tin foil and bring some ninja stars. And a bat, in case he ever accquires human flesh. Or in case you see a PINATA"

[aceviscontiswife]

hi!! If you're taking requests I was wondering if you could write about Ghostface x (preferably male) killer!reader who is basically a yandere for him and Ghostface finds out because a survivor was crying to the others because reader tortured them for "stealing their man" aka just getting "too close". It would be nice if there was smut but even just ghosties reaction would be fine :)

You're Mine || Danny Johnson

I really enjoyed this! I've never written anything yandere (or male x male) so I apologize for any mistakes I might've made. I hope you enjoy, I had so much fun writing this! P.S., k/n = killer name

Amab! reader. Warnings: killer!reader, sub!Danny, dom!reader, face-fucking,fucking against a tree, spit as lube, fingering, yandere reader, reader is VERY possessive, marking, names such as pet, baby, sweetheart, etc.

"It was...terrifying..." Came quietly from a very distressed Renato, who was trying his best to focus on repairing the generator whilst he spoke. Even while crouched behind the corner of killer shack, eavesdropping on the survivors, Danny could tell Renato was crying. It took all of his strength to stay quiet, to not burst out laughing at the scene before him.

"Why didn't he just kill you? The k/n's never had a problem with killing me..." Danny's brow raises at the mention of your name. You were ruthless, efficient, and scaringly handsome. Danny had no shame in admitting that he liked you, that the mere thought of you had his body heating up. Danny could kill the survivors later, for now, Danny was stuck listening to Renato retell his encounter with you.

"He said I- I was too close to Danny..? I don't know any survivors named Danny..." Renato's voice was shaky, almost inaudible, but Danny had heard him loud and clear. Beneath his mask, Danny was grinning wildly. It was as if his deepest, darkest desires were coming to life right before his eyes. It only got better when Meg, who had been listening to Renato the entire time, stopped repairing the generator and looked at Renato with a look of sheer terror.

"Renato... Danny is Ghostface... k/n was talking about Ghostface." Danny bites his lip to hold back a groan as a wave of arousal spreads through his body. He would definitely be confronting you about this later.

Renato and Meg seemingly abandon the generator, now staring at each other, frozen in fear. "He... I- The things he did to me... All because I.. It doesn't make any sense..." Renato could barely form words, fidgeting with his hands as a tear rolls down his cheek. Meg stood in silence, but the look on her face told Danny everything he needed to know. He was satisfied with what he had learned about you, and steps out from behind his hiding spot, chuckling.

"It doesn't have to make sense." Danny mocks, reveling in the sheer terror that Renato felt as Danny began walking towards him with his bloodied knife pointed towards the survivor. Once he killed this team, he'd be sure to pay you a visit.

----

"Why are you doing this to me?!" Cries out Kate, blood gushing out of a nasty looking gash on her forehead. It was quite the sight to see, especially since Kate had it coming to her. "You know why." You had caught wind that Kate had been seen trying to suck up to Danny, and it set you off. Danny was yours, not hers. Who does Kate think she is, messing with your man? You'd make sure she learned, though. Just like you taught Renato.

"I-I just wanted hatch!" You scoff, rolling your eyes as you look down at Kate, a twisted smirk on your face. "You should've been better, then." Kate's eyes go wide as you bring your knife up again, and she begins to all but beg for her mercy. "Please- Don't hurt me! I-I just wanted to escape!" You ignore her, taking a step closer to her. Your knife was stained with Kate's blood, but that wasn't enough for you. A psychotic... disgusting...whore like Kate deserved to suffer, and you were going to make sure she did.

Kate's screams fill the room as you get to work. You would say the sounds of her choking on her own blood was music to your ears, but nothing could beat the husky voice that belonged to Danny. Speaking of, you were going to find him just as soon as you were done settling this, and make sure once and for all that no one messed with your love ever. again.

---

Danny's quiet, near silent footsteps echo throughout the woods, his cloak rustling in the wind as he made his way to your shack. Little did he know, you were headed straight for him, still covered in Kate's blood with your knife now discarded. You could hardly think, your mind overflowing with rage and possessiveness.

When you came into Danny's view, he could immediately sense something was up. You'd never looked like...this. A part of him thought you looked hot as fuck, and the other part was scared of you. You were absolutely drenched in blood, stopping mere inches from Danny. You look down at Danny, and right as he begins to speak, you shoot into action. You rip off his mask and smash your lips against his in a possessive, steamy kiss.

Danny moans into the kiss, and that only sets you off even more. A wave of pride courses through you. You were causing Danny to make such sweet sounds... you. No one else. Danny's hands bury themselves in your hair, tugging lightly. Only separating from Danny's lips to take a breath, you push him back against a tree, your hands trailing down his arms and grabbing his wrists.

“Fuck… Happy to see me?” Danny chuckles, separating from the kiss to catch his breath. You don’t respond, pressing him against the tree even harder. Danny groans softly, his cock twitching as he begins to get hard. “What- What brought this on…?” His voice was strained, his eyes half-lidded as he spoke.

“Survivors don’t know their fucking place. You’re mine. No one else owns you—Fuck… only me. I’m gonna make sure everyone knows that.” Danny can’t help but moan at your words, now fully erect as his dick strained uncomfortably against his pants. He leans his head back against the tree, his eyes closing. “Please…” Danny’s voice was soft; this was a side of him you had never seen before, and it only made you want to keep going. Like Danny, you were near desperate to free your member from the confines of your clothes. You wanted to fuck him senseless right here, against the tree, where you could easily be caught if someone were to walk through here.

“Please what? Use your words, Danny…” You let go of his wrists, taking a step back and crossing your arms. The knowing grin on your face was driving Danny wild and you knew it.

“Please… fuck- Please just fuck me already.” Your brow raises, you were surprised by Danny’s bluntness. You chuckle quietly, shaking your head. “Was that a demand?” Your voice was low, and you take a small step towards Danny, looking down at him. You could see his obvious bulge, and you were certain he could see yours as well. “You listen to me, sweetheart, not the other way around.”

Danny nods, shocked by his own submissiveness. His gaze travels from your face to your chest, and finally to the growing bulge in your pants. You weren’t going to be small, that much was obvious. “S-Sorry…” You can’t help but laugh as Danny apologizes, a feeling of pride rushing through you. He was completely at your command. Danny fucking Johnson was submitting to you.

“That’s alright, Danny… but I’m still gonna have to teach you who’s in charge.” You pause for a moment, bringing a hand up to Danny’s face and cupping his jaw. Your other hand began to undo your belt as you spoke again. “I want you to suck my fucking dick, got it? Be a good little pet and get on your knees, now.”

Your words sent a shiver down Danny’s spine, and he followed your command almost instantly. He drops to his knees, his eyes going wide as you remove your pants, kicking them aside. Your member strained against your boxers, and it wasn’t long until your boxers joined your pants. Danny stared at your now exposed cock, glancing up at you with wide eyes.

“Take as much as you can. I wanna see you choke on my dick.” Danny nods, wrapping a shaky hand around the base of your cock. You groan softly as Danny presses a kiss to your tip, licking off the precum dripping down your dick. “Stop teasing.” You command, bringing a hand down and grabbing a fistful of Danny’s hair.

Danny takes your tip into his mouth, not breaking eye contact with you as he begins to bob his head slowly. “What did I-“ You shove Danny’s head down harshly, forcing him to take a majority of your length. “Fucking. Tell. You?” Your hips jerk, a groan escaping your lips as you feel Danny gag and choke on your cock. His nails are digging into your thighs, his eyes screwing shut as tears welled in them.

You were relentless, your loud moans and grunts filling the dark forest as you fucked Danny’s face. “God— yes… Your mouth feels so good, baby.” Danny moans at your words, tears rolling down his cheeks as the tip of your dick hit the back of your throat with each of your thrusts. He’d never been with anyone like you before… he was loving this new experience more than he wanted to admit. Danny bobs his head faster, taking you as deep as he possibly could.

“Fuck- you just want me to cum in your mouth, don’t you? You wanna feel my hot cum in your mouth, hmm?” Danny’s eyes snap open, and he meets your gaze with a pleading look in his eyes. You knew exactly what he wanted… which is why you pulled out of his mouth, chuckling as Danny coughed and panted for breath. He whines, his brows furrowing as the lustful hue in his eyes switches to one of confusion.

“Oh, baby… I’m gonna cum in your ass first. I gotta let everyone know who you belong to, don’t I?” You hold out your hand, offering to help Danny stand up. He takes your hand, and as soon as he’s standing, you turn him around and press him against the tree. “Fuck—!” Danny curses, but you shush him by placing your finger against his lips. “Quiet. Save that pretty voice for when you’re screaming my name.” Danny looks back at you, moaning softly as you begin to undo his pants.

“Look at you… moaning so sweetly and I haven’t even touched you yet.” You rest your head on Danny’s shoulder, undoing his pants and letting them pool around his ankles. “Do you want me to touch you, babe? Do you want me to fuck you?” You ask, pressing your lips against Danny’s neck. “Yes… god yes, Y/n…” You chuckle at his answer, your fingertips trailing over his clothed erection. Danny squirms under your touch, bracing himself against the tree with his hands. “Please…”

You slip a hand under his boxers, gathering some precum off of the tip of his cock. Danny hisses, moaning quietly. You slip your hand out of his boxers, bringing your fingers to your mouth and sucking the precum off of them. Your free hand pulls down Danny’s boxers, wrapping around his dick as soon as it was free from his boxers. Danny moans loudly, his head falling back against your shoulder.

"You sound so pretty... all of this, just for me."

"Please, Y/n... I need you.." Danny's voice was quiet, but the lust and yearning behind it was evident. He looked so desperate, his hips jerking up into your hand... You couldn't keep him waiting any longer, could you? You pull away from Danny, spitting on your middle and index fingers and pressing them against his hole. "You ready?" Danny nods in response, gasping as your fingers slide into him. "Fuck-- Y/n-!" You gave Danny a moment to adjust to the feeling of your fingers before you began to move them, stretching him out so he could take you easier.

"God- I need you, Y/n! I can take you, just- Please!" You laugh at Danny's words, but you can't ignore the shiver they send down your spine, or the way your dick twitches as a delicious moan escapes his lips. You pull your fingers out of him, pressing the tip of your member against his hole.

"Beg for it." Your command was simple, as well as the breaking point for Danny. "Please, Y/n! I need you to fuck me- I wanna be yours-! Fuck, I need to be- AHH~!" You cut Danny off as you suddenly slide into him, groaning as Danny yells out, his back arching as you set a fast pace, giving him little time to adjust. The forest was filled with the sounds of Danny's moans and skin slapping skin, and you were sure someone had to be onto what you were doing by now.

"If- hah, if someone catches us... I'm gonna break their fucking legs so they can't run and force them to watch me cum in your tight little ass. You- You'd like that, hmm?" Danny nods frantically, unable to form words. You bring a hand to wrap around Danny's member, jerking him off as you thrust into him.

"Gonna mark you up- your pretty neck is gonna be covered with my marks." You pant out, trailing kisses down Danny's neck until you reach his sweet spot, suddenly biting down onto his flesh. Danny moans, his nails digging into the tree so deeply that they were bleeding. The sight was enough to elicit a groan from you as you began to leave marks on Danny's neck, all the way to his collarbone.

"Fuck- Just like that, Y/n-!" Danny already felt so close. He was overwhelmed by all of the pleasure, his eyes screwed shut as he took you. You could tell Danny was close, and if you were being honest, you were too. "Gonna make you mine- Mine." You push deeper, Danny moaning out as your tip hits his prostate. It was getting harder and harder to hold off his orgasm, you could tell simply from the way his cock twitched in your hand that he needed to cum.

"Oh my god- Y/n- I'm gonna cum! Please- don't stop!" You chuckle, keeping up your brutal pace. "Cum with me, Danny." You jerk Danny's cock harder, pushing him to his peak. Danny finishes with a scream of your name, his cum spurting out and onto the tree. You follow behind shortly after Danny, your teeth sinking into his shoulder as your hot cum fills him. "Fuck, Danny... So good." You pant, slowly pumping your cock into him a few more times before pulling out.

You watch as your cum drips out of his ass, a satisfied grin on your face as you gather some on your finger and push it back into Danny, causing him to yelp and squirm against your touch.

"You're mine, Danny. All mine."

[bradenthompson]

The Starfield Experience: Crimson Fleet

Never before have I been so mixed on a video game. And that's really something, bc I'm a little shit who isn't happy with anything.

I thought, rather than attempt to "review" Starfield, I'm just gonna catalogue my journey through the respective faction questlines, culminating in actually doing the main story. To star: Space Pirates. Yo ho hohohohohohohohohohhoohoohohohohooohoohhohohhhohohhhhh

Of course it's a pirates life

so two things motivated me going evil mode: for one thing, I like pirates already. Second thing is feeling out the game's morality system. Are we getting Skyrim-style slaps on the wrist or can I be, if you will, the king of the pirates? I had been talking in some Discord, doesn't matter which one, about morality choices in video games, and decided, since I was agnostic to Starfield, I would stress test the system by being the worst guy possible. And the Crimson Fleet, the game's premiere bandit faction, promised to get me there.

The way you initiate this quest is kind of funny and also immediately disappointing. I can accept having to join up in some way other than asking the first pirate who doesn't immediately open fire, but... okay so like--

The first time I was arrested in Starfield (it can be for literally anything) instead of being taken to jail I was instead taken to the UC Vigilance, a giant space cop flagship, and interred under Commander Ikande. He made me a deal: rather than serve my sentence, I can instead become a dirty filthy stinky RAT. He wanted me to join up with the Crimson Fleet and find out whatever they're up to because they were apparently real excited about something. You can refuse him, and I guess proceed to jail, but I wanted to be a pirate anyway and accepted, planning on cutting Ikande off the moment I could***************

What sort of crime did I pull? Failed a pickpocket check. Intentionally. Because by then I had already killed like three people unnoticed, one of which out in broad daylight trying to get caught but New Atlantis clearly doesn't do "see something say something." By then I just wanted to see what jail looks like, man. Now I did pick the "Gangster" trait at the character creation, a background picked up by Ikande in dialogue. So that was cool. Idk what he brings up for players who didn't pick that. "Based on your failed attempt to steal a lollipop, I think you're just who we need to infiltrate the Turbo Murder Gang."

Turbo Murder Gang

The Crimson Fleet initiation was deceptively simple. I first meet up with first mate Naeva Mora. She sends me off to kill a Crimson Fleet deserter named Austin Rake. Zooming off to his location, I discover Rake had shacked up with a civilian ship. Boarding, I ask for Rake, they say they don't have him, I say I'm going to shoot everybody (evil character), they say "oh nevermind he's right here," he shoots everyone, and then I shoot him. Yo ho.

After that, Naeva decided I was one cold sonofabitch and invited me to The Key, Crimson's Fleet main hideout. Here I met their leader, Delgado, and realized terribly quickly that things were gonna be a lot less violent than I was anticipating.

Before setting you loose, and constantly as you report back to his bitch ass, Ikande urged me to avoid killing anyone. Seeing as he was a space cop, I ignored this. I'm about to join a gang of space pirates whose canned NPC text is twenty four variations of "hmm I think I'll have murder for dinner." Odds are slim we avoid violence.

Delgado's grand plan is finding the Space One Piece. Legend has it an old banking ship crashed out in wildspace some years ago, and the credits (bc we're in space) inside would set us up for life. It's very pirate-y to be hunting for treasure, okay, I get it. But space pirates? We'd be robbing a bank with extra steps. We're really building to a bunch of credits? This is not a game where money is hard to come by; half the NPCs are walking about with 1000 bucks minimum, and baby I'm running a pickpocket build.

ugh, fine, okay, treasure hunt. But I better get to plunder a few ships along the way.

Ice Planet with a bunch of bug enemies

(I didn't take any screenshots and couldn't find any online, so here's a picture of Greenland)

Our first mission was to go to the ice planet The Key orbits in order to find some leads on the ultimate treasure. This ice planet prison does lead to some lore on the Fleet, but man I was pitching a fit the whole time. I wanna plunderrrrrrrrrruh. Suffice to say my first impression of space pirate questing was not too exciting. All the enemies here are native bugs you gotta aim at the floor to shoot. Felt very wimpy, even when the big one showed up for a boss fight later.

But that's ignoring this quest's diamond in the rough, a man named Mathis:

He's also a Crimson Fleet initiate, just like me. When we landed on ice planet the game started feeding me all these dialogue options to antagonize Mathis. Unprompted, mind you. It's always trying to underhand me some bad guy options, and this time they were all "fuck Mathis" flavored. I thought it was funny, so I picked them every time. This got Mathis quite heated with me, and to put the candle on this filler episode birthday cake, Mathis and I found ourselves on the other side of a cave in, separated from the rest of the pirates. Here's when he dropped all the antagonism and immediately dealt me into his plan: kill Delgado. Why he wanted to do this, I still don't know. Why he would invite me in on the plan, even though we hate each other, I wish I knew. But I wasn't exactly loyal to Delgado, by any means. That, and when Mathis brought this up I started to turn around on the guy. Thought "wow, Mathis doesn't fuck around. Maybe he's alright."

From then on, Mathis and I were pals. We killed bugs, found sick gamer loot, and he was over the moon when I told (lied to) Delgado he was one hell of a pirate. Not that killing bugs in a space prison would prove this, anyway. But Delgado was happy with our work, and from then on we were Crimson Fleet bona fides (the way I'm pronouncing that is a secret, oohohohohoho). Soon after this, Mathis pulled me aside and suggested we drop that "killing Delgado" business. It was never brought up again. Still dunno if I would've gone through with it or not. Probably would've.

Siren of the Snores

(not my screenshot)

I haven't been super clear on what this ultimate treasure is, and I have to be now for any part of this next mission to make sense.

Kryx' Legacy is the name. All I knew at the start was it's a bunch of credits. Come to find out, Kryx is the founder of the Crimson Fleet and Legacy is the name of a GalBank ship lost in an unknown nebula. I said this earlier but I wanna be super clear right now. A high ranking GalBank executive, with the credentials needed to get inside the bank's archives (housing the final known location of the Legacy) is currently lounging on a big space yacht. This is the Siren of the Stars and my goodness is it a snoozer of a quest. And it shouldn't be! It's perfectly in line with my character build! Even so! Even sooo!!!

It's a whole process just getting to this executive guy. Gotta talk to all the patrons until one of them decides to tell you something useful. Then you talk to his mistress, then you talk to some third guy, then you talk to... whatever his name was. It's talking in circles with one--maybe two--persuasion checks. On one save, I went postal. Killed everyone on the stupid ship and got the info I needed. Only to discover my Crimson Fleet contact inside the ship, guy by the name of Rokov, got scared(?) and locked himself inside a room I couldn't open??? Sorry, Rokov the space pirate, is this not your speed?

Ugh. Loaded a save and did the quest orthodox. After one lap of this damn boat I was sick to death of it. Seven laps later I was thinking of quitting the Fleet. They talk a big game. You're in for life or you're dead, sucker. Or else what, Naeva? You're gonna send three ships at a time every six hours? Execute this (picture me flippin her the bird. Hell yea).

Quick thing about Naeva Mora: she gave me an optional goal in this quest. Steal an expensive award set with precious space diamonds. Only one woman on board had access to the award. But I, the silver tongued devil of the stars, was able to persuade her into giving me the key to the vault. You ask, how. How did you, a space pirate dressed in rags, convince a stuffy lady on an expensive pleasure cruise to just give me her multimillion dollar trinket? I don't know. This is the most absurd persuasion check in the game, so far.

From there I jetted over to New Atlantis and snuck my way inside the GalBank archives. There was less money to steal than you would think but I suppose this isn't the vault. Killed some mercs, got the location.

How are we doing on heist missions over here?

So we've got the location of the Legacy, but no way to get close. See, it's in a hazardous nebula that'd fry any normal ship that dares approach. The cynical man would assume the game's solution was some novelty ship part that protects from the nebula and has zero function outside of this questline. And sometimes cynics are correct.

We need the ComSpike, dammit! What's a ComSpike? I forget. Protects ships from bad nebula juju. I'm not knocking the story for details that I forget, to be clear. Nor was I happy that the pirates were sending me off on another secret heist. In fairness, I didn't have to do these missions the way the game suggested. I could go postal on every facility I'm told to infiltrate (more on that later). But because I was so oddly punished for doing so on the last quest, that led me to assume some approaches were preordained. The Crimson Fleet has connections to uphold (WHY).

Whatever. I go to New Atlantis and talk to Huan Daiyu, pictured above. She's a smuggler, owns a pretty cool ship called the Jade Swan (am I a bad person for predicting her ship would be called the Jade Something?). I'm gonna bum a ride to her next dropoff, dropping off myself and sneaking aboard a research station that just so happens to be working on that ComSpike technology. In the opening steps of this quest, I encountered the first real Bethesda Moment of this game.

Picture this: I'm on the intercom with Huan. She tells me I need to find a keycard to get to the next level of this station. In her dialogue, explicitly, she suggests picking someone's pocket. Well, you read my mind, Huan. Just so happens I've been dumping skill points into pickpocketing...

Imagine my deflation when I had checked every pocket in that damn storage room, only to find the keycard was on a table and only accessible by talking to multiple guards in a specific sequence. Let's be really nice and say not all of Huan's suggestions are going to work. Dynamic world, indeed! I'm gonna throw myself out the airlock!

Throughout the infiltration I was only answering Huan's calls to be nice. Couldn't trust one bit of advice from her after that. She's not a reliable source. So I throw on a security uniform, talk my way into the engineering bay, find the ship fitted with the ComSpike, and perform a high-precision shipjacking outta there. Not an ounce of booty plundered, not a doubloon to be seen. What a life, the pirate's life.

We have Night City at home

It only occurred to me in this mission. Something that should've occurred to me about three heist missions ago.

The NPCs in this game are so fucking mean, all the time.

It's not even prompted. Mathis, I get. I was busting his chops something fierce. But everyone else is just off rip "wassup dickshit, I'm Suzy Cosmonaut, and you're dirt on my boot. Hows about you go find a USB stick but hey don't forget to kiss my ass on your way out."

What am I supposed to do? I say something rude back. What, I'm supposed to take that? My dream was to fill my ship with my best buddies in the galaxy but I think I mostly hate all of these people.

Ugh. I fly off to Neon. Great city name, guys. This must be the criminal underbelly. Where do you think they shack up? The part of Neon literally called the Underbelly? And what do you suppose this crime syndicate is called?

Neon is a city built out of placeholder names. Indistinguishable from any cyberpunk town in all of fiction. Uninspiring place. One of my character traits is being from here, which is more embarrassing than the city I'm actually from irl. But fuck it, whatever, let's ride.

Estelle Vincent is my contact in Neon. She knows where I can find the schematics for the conduction grid the Fleet will need to access nebula space. But she won't give that info for free! Nothing comes cheap in Neon, baby!

I was in full Fuck It mode by this point of the questline. My promise for this quest was to kill everybody I could get away with killing (more, on, that, later). So when Estelle wants me to go talk to Generdyne executive Ayumi Komiko about gaining access to their computers, well... sorry Ayumi. Victim of circumstance.

After Ayumi was super dead, I stomped over to Generdyne with her access card and opened fire. Terrible scene, no survivors, yo-ho-ing all the way. One must imagine justice served somewhere in this--no doubt cancelled out by the rest of the carnage. But whatever. This is the piratiest I've felt so far. I shoot my way to the top floor, where the brother of the CEO just gives up the computer. Turns out he hates his stupid CEO brother and I should probably kill him too. Noted.

When I go to meet back with Estelle, that Generdyne CEO is sitting in her place. He offers me a deal to sell out Estelle, which I refuse. Estelle was my test subject, to see if I could make someone less mean to me by sticking my neck out. I lied and said it was all me, he didn't believe me, I put a shotgun to his temple and realized he's an essential NPC and cannot be killed. Party's over.

After this, would you believe it, Estelle did like me! I only had to sell myself out in her place and pay her like 9000 credits for like no reason. But I turned someone around. Now it was time to finally get me treasure.

The One Piece Is Real

I'm gonna bring this up now before I forget. Periodically, after every heist or so, I was instructed (by the quest markers, not anyone else) to report back to the UC Vigilance and Commander Ikande. Because this is also Point Break and I'm technically a government agent. Despite me showing no loyalty, lying to his face every chance I had, insulting him and his crew, and straight up shooting his flagship twice, I was Ikande's spy on the inside and expected to give report. The whole questline I was looking for outs. Some reason to cut these dorks off and go full pirate. To my knowledge, there's scarce ways of doing this. Won't say there isn't one, just nothing immediately obvious.

Until now.

I'm called to the bridge and Ikande's super pissed about my Neon killing spree. Just steaming mad. So mad he's ready to terminate this deal and send me to jail. I give his crew the rope-a-dope and run back to my ship, just barely shootin out of there. Exciting! Felt appropriately climax-ey, and it's genuinely cool that was a moment I could orchestrate with my own choices.

No time to lose. I'm off to Kryx' Legacy while the rest of the Fleet at the Key gets ready for the UC Vigilance to come knocking. Should've guessed I'd also be getting the ultimate treasure alone. This was so far the most impressive setpiece of the game. The thundering of the space lightning outside while I navigated the dead stranded spaceship was sufficiently immersive. I was immersed, for the first time in this game, and I was savoring this moment. The flashlight was on, people.

It's sci fi, so all this treasure is loaded onto an external hard drive. Look, I didn't need a big wooden chest with gold doubloons spilling out but I shouldn't be able to fit a bajillion dollars in my backpack. As soon as I have the treasure, the ship is critically damaged and I gotta skedaddle. I'm always down for a "flee the facility" type mission and this one delivers. Hop back in my ship, make just enough distance to avoid the magnificent explosion of the Legacy, and now all that's left is to get the gold home. Easily the best quest in the Crimson Fleet, no contest.

And now, the worst quest in the Crimson Fleet

angry emoji angry emoji devil horn emoji angry emoji

Right when I get back to the Key, Delgado tells me the UC Vigilance is knocking at out doors. It's now or never, them or us. Turns out, had I not burned that bridge earlier, I would've had the choice of fighting for either the space pirates or the space cops. My decision had been made hours ago, and that aforementioned bridge was aforementionably burnt. We're fighting for the pirates, gah dammit.

Oh my god

Who playtested this. Still riding in the starter ship, I was now tasked with fighting off like a half dozen ships double my level and working off WWII flying ace AI. I died, and I counted, nine times. Half of which in the first two minutes. oooooh, gamer rage. By attempt ten, and sorry for breaking my own immersion, by I jumped outta that part of space, over to a shipwright, and got my weapons upgraded along with a new shield. I could barely squeeze out a win with this boost. No I did not lower the difficulty because I shouldn't have to, dammit, and yes this put and impenetrable stank on the final leg of this questline.

One silver lining to all this: I'm a reincorporation loving person, and was delighted to see all those pirates I had worked with across the questline suddenly swooping in for the final stand. Cinematic stuff, I loved it. Mathis was there, Rokov was there (who?), Huan was there, Estelle was there. Even Adler Kemp was there. I didn't even mention him, he seemed so inconsequential. But he showed up! Love that sort of thing.

We in tandem blow away the auxiliary space cops (not for lack of gamer rage) and board the Vigilance to kill Ikande. High energy firefight, this. I'm constantly impressed by the number of players in any one fight, in this game. Back in the Skyrim xbox 360 days, I remember doing the civil war questline and going "wow, there's like twenty NPCs in this thing." In Starfield, that number's the standard. Truly next gen, amiright guys.

Me and my friends blow our way through the Vigilance, I spend like ten minutes looking for a healing item of some sort, free some prisoners, and eventually we're at the bridge. The game even leaves in some briefs moments where I can chat with all the friends[citation needed] I made along the way. Me and Huan high five. There wasn't an animation for this or anything, but I imagine we did a jumping high five. Excuse me for roleplaying. Me and Mathis bump hips.

At the bridge, and really I should've seen this coming, there's a dialogue with Commander Ikande. The honorable man he is, Ikande calls for his crew to abandon ship and plans to self-destruct the Vigilance with all of us on it. There's precious little time to talk him out of this, and scarce options for doing so. But I'm a gangster, and have exclusive ganger dialogue options. So I have the option of telling Ikande "hey, cancel the self destruct or we're gonna torture your crew," thinking this would open up more dialogue.

But he chickens out right here. Goes "okay, fine, I'll cancel it just don't hurt my crew." And like, dude. We've been hurting your crew. They're all dead, actually. This is the most empty threat possible in this situation and this disciplined space cop chief buckles at my first threat. What a guy. We take him prisoner and the Vigilance is ours. Supreme Victory.

I deeeeed it

Here comes my favorite part of any Bethesda questline epilogue. When all the celebration dialogue is exhausted and all the NPCs just start to aimlessly wander away, throwing out a few more canned "wahoo we did it" lines. It's a joy, I'm so glad Starfield still does this.

Delgado gets me my cut of the Legacy: 200k credits. This feels like a lot of money for this point in the game. I have seen ships that cost twice this, but it's a decent reward all the same. That, and I had picked up plenty of paychecks along the way, so my ultimate takeaway is bigger.

Best of all, Naeva doesn't think I'm lower than dirt anymore. She gives me a cool Crimson Fleet jacket and a room on the Key. I promptly placed one chair down in the dead center of the room. Home. Naeva's a classic NPC who talks a herculean game and does jack shit the whole questline. I warmed up to her.

With my new credits, I bought a Crimson Fleet Phantom ship, and hired my first crew member. Finding him piss drunk in the Key's bar, I threw my arm around the shoulder of good ol' Mathis and offered him a place on my ship. He agreed, now my best buddy and no longer wishing to kill Delgado. I also tried to get Huan on my crew, but I guess she's got her own thing going on. I wished her well, Mathis and I cleared out bounties, and we took off for our next adventure.

Crimson Fleet: In Conclusion

Pretty mixed on this. While there's a pretty strong ending despite the awful awful HORRIBLE ship battle, everything leading up to this felt distinctly un-pirate. As if the game wasn't comfortable with me going morally undercarriage. Odd stance to take, with the space pirate questline, but this is the studio that watered down the Dark Brotherhood (I said it). While the gameplay loop is showing me some promise, I was always feeling like I had to fight the game to play it my way. Maybe I take this as a lesson: I gotta commit to the type of character I wanna be. The game will attempt to lure me away, but I gots to be evil.

My next questline is the Freestar Rangers, and only because that's the first major one I was introduced to apart from the main quest. See ya there, I say shooting away in my new spaceship which you're gonna have to imagine.

[franksintrayaoi]

Chapter 4

Gabe had woken up due to Clems shifting in bed,he stood up and walked over to her while she was examining the wound.

"How are you feeling?you got hit by a bullet but it didn't leave any fragments anywhere."

Clem tried to sat up but winced at the soreness of her shoulder,Gabe laid her back down and felt her forehead.

"Well you're not burning up atleast,that's a good sign. And you're not pale. But let's get you some fresh air ok?it's sunset,maybe itll help you feel better."

Gabe helped stand her up and walked her to the door. It was a old little shack,mostly made of sheet metal and wooden pallets. The sun was beautiful, the sky was a mix of pinks,oranges and blues. It was just what she needed. The two sat down and Clem struggled to hold her head up.

She leaned herself onto Gabes shoulder,once she did that his heart rate picked up. Gabe looked down at her and smiled at her,she smiled back at him. Both of their hearts skipped a beat. Gabes eyes dilated before he cupped her cheeks and kissed her on the mouth.

"Oh man I'm so sorry I should have asked,I'm reall-" Clem cut him off by pulling his head right back into her. Both of them were utterly wrecked and shaking,but not in a bad way. After all it was their first kiss. Clem left her eyes shut. The two pulled back slowly and hugged,Clem didn't know what their relationship was but it didn't matter to her. She was utterly infatuated with him.

Gabe was sweating,his face turned a shade of maroon. Clem looked utterly elysian, she was playing with her hair because she had become nervous. Both of them fell asleep right there under the moon only using eachother to stay warm.

At that moment their shared redamancy washed away all past troubles they had ever had. And then dawn came atlast.

When both of them had woken they prepared to leave,a few more hours and they'd be in Nevada. After 32 days they'd finally be there. They had made it to some place called "Scenic", it was right next Mesquite.

Gabe was inquisitive "Where do you plan on going once we get here?you can stay with me,I'm sure mama will let you stay with us."

Clem practically jumped around all giddy,she couldn't wait to be able to have a real family for once. After a few hours and over the afternoon horizon you could finally see the strip. It was old yet still standing. Far a few soldiers stood around the tents near by and glanced at Clem like she was a mad woman.

"So when we get in here don't be afraid of mama,she isn't mean she just didn't expect me back so soon..." Gabe knocked on the house door and was greeted by a woman in her late mid 30s. A pretty woman with dark curly hair and sweet eyes,however she had been holding a dagger. Once she had noticed it was her baby she quickly put it up and squeezed him as tight as ever.

In a light and heavily accented voice she asked "who is that mi sol?ay do you have a girlfriend now?"

Gabe blushed and didn't know what to say,he wasn't really sure what they were yet.

"My name is Irene dear,and you are?"

"Clementine"

"Oh like the oranges?or like it's all merciful meaning in french?"

"What's a orange?"

In a whisper she said"*Gabe where did you find her at..?*"

"I found her in the mire all the way in West Virginia, she was statving to death"

"Ay pobrecita,come eat please you look thinner than a freeside junkie"

Irene glanced over at Clems shoulder and saw she was clearly in pain. "Mijo I told you to stay out of trouble.if you can,who got her?"

"Some raiders way back in Moab,I thought it was vacant there. "

"That's because it was,it was last year anyways. But they've had time to move in and settle down." She said as she rolled out some dough.

The house was cozy, a little cluttered but it felt nice to be in a house that was loved. It looked as if she had made it herself. The windows were made from old church stained glass and the light coming through it was gorgeous.

"Do you want any help miss?I don't wanna be a guest in your house and sit like a bump on a log."

"If you insist then yes,do you know what we're making?"

Clem thought for a moment and looked at how she was folding the dough,it looked like the recipe her mom left her in her notebook,empanadas de queso,she had never had the chance to taste it before. "¿Empanadas de queso?"

"Bingo!don't know how you guessed it right but you got it."

Clem felt satisfied at all of this,she was happy again.

[dufferpuffer]

"SNAPE was a victim of the marauders (specifically James’s) bullying." You're not wrong, but the other marauders don't get off free from this. The fandom has completely twisted who these characters are. SO I'm write an essay on it B^) OP don't take this as me telling you off or something, I'm just passionate. You're perfect. Sirius Black was a daredevil prankster who took things too far, even hurting his own friends in order to hurt Snape. Werewolf prank. He didn't grow up either: (I don't blame him much tho he was in Azkaban.) Snape had every right to be MANIC in the Shack in POA. Sirius was a murderer who got Lily killed, Remus was minutes away from turning into a werewolf - and Ron was already injured. The stakes were high for Sirius: He had to get the kids and Remus on his side without letting Peter get away in the chaos... and now Snape is in the mix. So what does he do...? Immediately urns all of his attention to bullying the man again. He shirtfronts him. Teases him. Belittles him. Leers over him with his height and intimidates him. Remus, his friend, tries to diffuse the situation but Sirius steamrolls, tells him to shut up which he whimpers away from like he's used to it. And then...? The pettiness of this man - he floats Snapes body down the hall, banging his unconscious, concussed head on the walls and ceiling as he goes. Compare to how Snape treats HIS unconscious body later: carefully lifting it onto a stretcher, despite the fact nobody is watching - even though he could probably kill Sirius right there and get a medal for it. He still treats him with basic human respect. He was just as active in bullying as James was. Perhaps moreso, since he is more than happy to take things way too far. Peter Pettigrew We don't know much about this kid, other than he was a meek sort that Remus was kind to... ...and that he enjoyed displays of power and pain. He would cheer and mock when the others bullied. He was the sort of hold someones arms back while they struggles. Fandom doesn't do much with Peter anyway, he is ignored for the 'hotter' characters - but he wasn't just a bystander. He was an active contributor. Remus Lupin ...Was a Prefect who did nothing. He was put in a position of power and he used that power irresponsibly. He pulled that book closer to his face and let everything happen, he supervised it. He admits that he knew it was wrong. He admits that his full moon romps had close calls and were foolishly dangerous. And yet he still did them, because he didn't have the backbone to say 'no' to his friends, even when it was the morally correct thing to do. He was irresponsible with his power. And then as an adult...? When he has been given power over Severus AGAIN...? - Snape is a lil scared of him (backed away when giving potion) - Snape isn't allowed to tell anyone anything (though he tries to equip the kids with knowledge anyway, sneakily) - Snape has to bust his ass brewing a difficult, expensive potion every month (and apparently BABY Remus into drinking it.) As an adult, grown man - what does Remus do...? Belittles him. Needles him. Gaslights him. Mocks him. Ignores him. Not overtly, but constantly - and he enjoys it. He is still irresponsible! How much FUN Hogwarts is, having some power and some respect, that you can ignore your problems, put off drinking your wolfsbane and forget it. How right Severus was to rearrange the DADA lesson plans on the few days he got to teach it, to urgently teach how to identify and defend against a werewolf. It's all he could do to protect them against an irresponsible manchild with no backbone even to take responsibility for himself. (I love you Remus Lupin) Sometimes it really feels like people have completely twisted these characters away from who they are. And for fanfiction and AUs and fanart that is AMAZING and beautiful - but people have clouded their view on the actual characters to the point of attacking people for not prioritizing fanon.

Sirius wasn't a little manic pixie dream girl twink. Peter wasn't a jelly knee coward. Remus wasn't a strong, grumpy alpha wolf. James definitely wasn't a sweet sunshine boy. James Potter Was a boy that went through the halls hexing people for fun. Was a boy that wasn't used to having people tell him 'No'. The whole reason James even tore Severus' pants off that day was because he was angry Lily rejected him. He took out his frustration on her best friend for kicks, to release some steam. He was part of the Werewolf prank with Sirius, they both planned to use Remus at his most vulnerable, like a tool for a laugh. He just got cold feet. Which is good. He was a rich spoiled brat. He was a low-empathy bully. He was a ringleader of his own circus. He was a horrible little boy. ... Who was Severus as a kid? Poverty stricken with an abusive father, whose muggle life had always hurt him - but his magical life had brought some joy. A boy stuck in the propaganda sinkhole that was 1970s Slytherin without his only friend. A half-blood wearing his mothers old uniform. He was a bit nasty, he had an interest in potions and the dark arts... ...and that was it. That was literally it. A nerd with a sharp tongue who hid in the shadows of bushes from his bullies while he tried to study. He respected his friends wishes to never speak to him again and left her alone... leaving him all alone, too. He made dark spells - but he never used them even on his bullies. He would have been expelled. None of the adults listened to him. He was almost mauled by a werewolf and just told to shut up about it. But according to most of the fandom he was the worst of the worst. Enough that you feel the need to say 'there I said it' just by defending him. "That man did NOTHING to be as hated as he is" Well put.

snap is not that bad.

THERE. I SAID IT.

Like c’mon let’s be honest 😭 if we want to talk canon, SNAPE was a victim of the marauders (specifically James’s) bullying. Ofc yes he was terrible to Harry and yes, he was mean during his years in school. But being honest with all of you (as a victim of bullying) it changes you as a person, Snape did nothing to deserve that kind of treatment.

IF WE’RE TALKING FANON

Snape is literally just used as the ‘bad guy’ because the fandom already converted the slytherins (More Regulus and Barty who are canonically known to be PROUD DEATH EATERS) and now they need a character to “bully” and make the marauders (and I’m talking about Sirius and James) look cool.

Please grow up and realize that if you can and want to make Regulus, Barty, Evan, NARCISSA AND BELLATRIX good people, you should also consider doing the same for snape. That man did NOTHING to be as hated as he is 😭😭

[izzy-b-hands]

Cute/emotional little Roach centric fic. Went sort of flowery prose in bits, forgive it if u can, if not I absolutely get it and valid lmaooo

TW for brief descriptions of medical care/treatments & allusion to abortifacients (no actual abortion or miscarriage occurs in the fic, this is just a general allusion as it being noted as part of his medical knowledge.)

---

"I know," Roach sighs. "I'm sorry!"

The little girl wriggles on her mother's lap, but lets him finish her stitches.

"Thank you," the woman sighs and hands him a few coins. "I don't quite have-"

"This is more than enough," he cuts her off gently. "Make sure she keeps that clean. If anything starts to look infected, she'll need the next doctor that comes through."

She nods and waves as she and the girl leave the small empty shack he's commandeered for the duration of their stay at the port.

He told the captains that he simply prefers to find his own accommodations, but truthfully, it's because he doesn't need the crew knowing about and hanging around all this.

Part of why people come to him, after all, a transient pirate doctor/cook, is for the discretion and quiet.

He's helped out girls and women needing certain teas, with ingredients his mother taught him about.

There are babies growing up that he delivered, then for a fee took and found a home (sometimes as easy as reaching out to the local church or orphanage, other times begging a better off family or a pirate captain in want of an heir but lacking a family to consider a new baby.)

Broken arms he's set while ignoring blackened eyes and listening to insistent protests of a bad fall. He always mentions how easy it is to simply disappear on a ship, should one need to escape from anywhere for any reason.

And worse. So much worse, often begged to be kept secret, but they simply had to tell someone who might help.

And a doctor always tries to help. A decent one, at least. He may not be quite decent yet, but he figures he's close enough.

"Please," the man comes skidding around the corner, wailing bundle in his arms. "I need five minutes. Just two, even."

"Hey," Roach says softly. "What's up?"

"She left me with him," the man holds out the bundle. "He won't stop crying. I can't take it."

Roach silently takes the baby, and points the man across the way towards a cheap inn. The coins the girl's mother gave him will be enough for that, and the man can sleep for the first time in days.

"You're giving your dad a lot of trouble," Roach says over the baby's cries. "And all of what, a few days old?"

He's joking, but he feels bad when the baby wails louder.

To make up for it, he doesn't set the baby down in the bassinet in the shack (one bassinet and one small cot, in case anyone needs to be monitored overnight or longer), even after the baby sleeps.

Instead he walks the small square of the shack and rocks on his feet and drowsily mumbles shanties and lullabies until the two blur into an odd mix of fish in cradles knocked out of tree boughs by sailors.

Four hours later, the man returns with an older woman. Grandma, who upon hearing the situation has agreed to come and stay with them.

Roach hands over the baby with a bittersweet ache. Memories of younger siblings held and the idea of a family of his own (incredibly unlikely considering his career) and the physical ache of his arms from cradling the baby for so long.

"Here you are."

He peers out as his latest patient is carried off, and there stands Ed.

Pipe in hand, smoke lazily drifting through the candlelight shattering the dark. He looks imposing, every bit the fearsome Blackbeard of legend.

He also looks incredibly, almost upsettingly attractive, but Roach is fairly sure Ed just has that effect on most if not all people.

"Can I help with something?" Roach asks.

"Everyone else is waiting for you to come out with us," Ed replies. "But no one knew where you went. When I volunteered to find you, I didn't know what I'd expect to find you doing-"

Roach braces for a lecture about being a pirate, or something to that effect. It won't stop him doing this, and he'd be disappointed in Ed, but this wouldn't be the first captain to disapprove of what he did, of the time and loyalty they always claimed he took away from them with such work.

"But this is awesome! I could hear that kid clear across the way earlier, but look at you!" Ed smiles. "How'd you quiet them down so fast?"

"Practice," Roach shrugs. "Siblings, then patients."

Ed's eyes grow wide. "Midwifery?"

Roach nods. "Sort of. As needed, thankfully not too often."

"You've got stories," Ed beams. "You've gotta come tell us-"

He pauses. "You're open all night to help people, aren't you?"

Roach nods. "But I can-"

"No, hang on!" Ed says. "I'll go get everyone, and we'll have things here. We can help you with anyone who comes by! We've got food and drink we can carry over, and I want to hear stories while we eat! Gorier the better!"

Ed claps a hand on his shoulder before jogging off to wherever he left the crew, leaving Roach stunned.

Stunned, but incredibly happy. Not just for the company, but for the extra hands. With them, he might even get to sleep for an hour.