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n7punk · 2 years ago

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"As Many Lives As It Takes (To Be With You)" Fic Notes

After talking shit and increasing the chapter count like five times, AMLAIT is finally done at 13/5 chapters. You can maybe guess there’s a lot going on in these fic notes.

No playlist this time, I didn’t make one assuming it would be a quick fic and just listened to random shit, or watched baking videos, or put in earbuds and listened to silence when I had migraines.

Epilogue life:

So I pretty much put what would be this section in the fic’s actual epilogue, but Catra and Adora end up staying in the apartment for a while. After a couple months of living with a third wheel (who is more like the primary wheel they are tricycling considering who owns the place), it starts cramping on their couple moments. Adora gently prods Catra about the idea of getting their own place, which is an idea that takes several weeks to sink in before she’s willing to explore venturing beyond her safety bubble, but everything changed once and the world didn’t end, so she eventually decides she’s ready. Catra finally leaves that small room after four years. As scary as it is, it feels like the ultimate measure of her growth.

After a few years they move to the outskirts of Bright Moon when Adora switches hospitals, giving them a bit more air and the “best of both worlds” when it comes to being in the city but having a bit more of the freedom/relaxation from their childhood town back. They’re also closer to Thaymor which makes visiting a little easier, and closer to Glimbow and Scorfuma specifically, though they’re farther from some of their other friends.

They both learn to maintain their best friendships even not living together and they regularly visit Adora’s parents, though they never tell anyone else about Catra’s ability. Netossa seems like she suspects something at times, but she never directly implies or asks something, and whatever she suspects certainly couldn’t be the truth.

Chapter 1:

⦁ If you were expecting me to have ever forgotten that tweet ND made about Catra going through all nine of her lives over the course of She-ra and Adora healing her to reset them, then you’re wrong. In a way, this entire AU is ND’s fault. Did you think about that. I have No Responsibility for this.

⦁ Entrapta’s “nerd merchandise” is a premier ball from pokemon because for some reason that was the only thing I could picture for it. It’s not even a regular pokeball I don’t know why!! But that’s what they use.

⦁ Catra technically has binocular vision dysfunction in this due to her right eye being a little out of sync from her left.

⦁ Time paradox is, of course, a portal reference.

⦁ Entrapta’s blanket used to fall off her lap when she was working, which is how it ended up under the table the first few times, and then she noticed Catra balling up there and started leaving it there on purpose, even washing and rearranging it.

⦁ Entrapta’s room is always hot because of the equipment in it and the heat output from her computer and stuff. Luckily, all three occupants of the apartment like it when it’s warm.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Catra watching ice melt is a Booker reference. I love you Booker. But also a euphemism like “watching paint dry,” “watching grass grow,” etc.

⦁ The nightmares weren’t in the initial concept for the fic, but Entrapta helping Catra out with her “condition” was and I found they were a good way to showcase the backstory without actually showing flashbacks or having an entire prologue chapter of trauma after trauma that just would have felt miserable and spoiled everything.

⦁ Catra’s job isn’t necessarily real but is also heavily based on real things. Basically universities sometimes have special collections, archives, etc that are typically “open” during regular work hours, but only by appointment. They might have their own staff or just the librarians see to them. For this fic I basically made up something that might be real, where BMU also allows appointments after hours, but only from grad students, and then professors can come in after hours (or during hours) without appointment as long as there’s staff present. And of course they get away with that by hiring someone cheap so it doesn’t cost them a lot extra to keep it open. Catra has been paid more by other jobs, but she likes this one way better, and she doesn’t have a ton of money pressure living with Scorpia and Entrapta, so she’s planning to keep it. This is also heavily based on one of my first jobs where I did something similar for a university but it had nothing to do with collections or the library. Catra works the same hours I did then.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Bow would have offered Catra his own bed if he thought she would have taken it, but Entrapta — and Catra’s own reactions — made it pretty clear that she was going to make herself difficult to help, so he thought the couch might seem “less pitying,” but he didn’t account for the Adora factor. Everybody forgets about the Adora factor.

⦁ Scorpia mentioning “six years” immediately solidified in Adora’s subconscious that Catra’s injury was from the fall, which is why she jumped to saying she watched it happen. It didn’t even occur to Adora that Catra’s paralysis could have come from something other than the fall until she was in bed like two days later and thought, oh fuck, there could have been something worse.

⦁ Sneaking onto the school roof is the exact kind of shit Catra and Adora would do together, but since she was going up there to have A Moment™️ about one of her deaths, Catra wanted to be alone. It felt like this dark secret that she was harboring and would ruin her life at any moment.

Interlude:

⦁ “It helps a lot even without her talking back or looking at me” yeah sometimes Entrapta is listening and sometimes she isn’t even aware Scorpia is there. Scorpia can unload her whole problem, talk herself through a solution, say “Thanks!”, and then only after she has marched herself out of the room will Entrapta realize she has left and throw a goodbye through the door, still not looking away from her screens. The first time Catra witnesses this she immediately gets a clear picture of the apartment dynamic.

⦁ Catra wouldn’t say her name because it was part of her paranoia over being hunted down somehow.

⦁ “Maybe Scorpia isn’t used to people not immediately loving her.” Yeah could not be further from the truth she was kind of bullied in school, that’s how she and Entrapta became friends, because they were both bad at social cues and stuck together.

⦁ Obviously, Entrapta didn’t mean anything by her questions. When you don’t realize other people would treat someone differently over something, it can seem like innocent curiosity to ask about it. She learned very quickly after meeting Catra that those kinds of things have limits, it just wasn’t something that had come up in her life before and she hadn’t inferred it.

Chapter 4:

⦁ Honestly Adora had to have Mara as family to support her because any less and she might not have made it to be at all together after everything she thought happened with Catra.

⦁ Catra does wear her arm brace in other scenarios — when she’s going to be doing physical activity, for instance, though she might opt for a sling instead/in addition — but as far as wearing it while in the apartment, sleeping like that is the only one. The difficulty of putting it on by herself — and the pain of getting help — are why she almost never uses it, even though it would work for some (but not all) of the things the sling works for, and be less obtrusive too. That’s why Adora being able to help with it later is so helpful.

Chapter 5:

⦁ The thing Adora knows that Catra doesn’t is that she’s absolutely going to break and come back home with her, even if the driving thing was more up in the air.

⦁ I went back and forth on the language to use around Catra’s ears, specifically whether to refer to them as a pair or only reference her single fully-functional one. Ultimately I decided that Catra’s internal dialog would still think of it as her ears pinning back even if only one moves (at all for small movements, or all the way for larger). She spent her entire life thinking of them as a pair, and she can’t feel one not reacting, she just doesn’t feel anything over there, so she defaults to how she used to consider them unless she’s like, looking in the mirror and can see only one move. When it comes to other people addressing them, they see just one ear reacting for the most part and tend to refer to them singularly.

Chapter 6:

⦁ Scorpia got Adora’s number at the same event that she told her about arm-hugs, mostly to puff herself up when she realized Adora could pet Catra, however carefully.

⦁ Scorpia’s pillow said “Not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be ok” which just irritated Catra every time she saw it, so she hid it. She can’t throw it out because Scorpia’s moms are the ones who got it, but she can do her damnedest to never see it again. It mysteriously reappears when Scorpia is moving out so she can take the dumb thing with her.

⦁ Like every chapter I had a scene that I was like “this is the most fun to write, I love this so much” (which like… really awesome from a writing perspective!) and the cuddling scene was that one for this chapter. I thought it was going to be the phone call, but Adora’s determination to cuddle, her diagram, and Catra’s fluster were just so fun to work with.

Chapter 7:

⦁ Mara calls her loved ones dear because Razz always called her dearie.

⦁ Mara and Adora went all-in on the driving thing because they know Catra well and knows she needs an excuse, or at least an extra push, whenever it comes to emotional stuff like coming home.

⦁ Originally the phone calls were outlined to be one singular phone call, with Catra eventually getting comfortable enough to turn on the video as the call went on, but spreading it out made a little more sense. In the version where it was all one call, though, Catra admitted that she didn’t want them to see her face paralyzed and Adora asked Mara to tell Catra that she didn’t care about her ear. Another reason I cut it is because I decided Catra wasn’t self-conscious about that aspect of her injury.

⦁ Entrapta is thorough. There were two-three months there were she was tracking and timing just about every single thing Catra did inside the apartment. She had monitoring devices she didn’t realize her roommates would want to know about because it just seemed more effective to her than following Catra around all day. Her presence would have skewed the experiment. It’s creepy, but it all came from a place of love and wanting to build a better understanding of what could be effecting Catra’s situation.

⦁ The restraint it took for me to not make a joke about Entrapta knowing when Catra… “takes time for herself” was immense but I kept reminding myself it was a T fic.

⦁ “I was there two months ago” Ha, yeah, this is set in December and… The anniversary……. Adora needed to be home. Her moms are the only ones who can really comfort her when she’s like that.

⦁ Mara really wanted a kid, and Hope did too but less so, and she had a lot more Concerns about it. When they started looking into adoption and found a kid who was human (so Hope was confident they were informed on taking care of her) and had been an orphan for ten years, Mara couldn’t stand to leave her there. They hadn’t really been intending on getting an older kid (I mean, ten is not old, but in Hope’s head they were looking for a baby because typically you Acquire Child at babyhood so that must be how it works) but Adora being older was another thing that made Hope go okay, we can do this (she’s also, to be quite honest, not a fan of babies or very small children). What that meant in the end though was that Mara, in her older twenties, had much less of an age gap with Adora then would be typical. Hope is like six years older and so her age gap with Adora is less noticeably off.

I think it’s a faceblind thing, but I’m absolutely awful with ages. You could tell me Mara is supposed to be early 20s or late 30s and I would have no choice believe you. Regardless, I roughly place Mara somewhere around the 20-30 mark in the show and as having a more “big sister”-like relationship with Adora, so that’s how things got set up in this AU.

⦁ It’s “Bow’s” senior year because Glimmer is a year younger and Adora’s college education was kind of weird so she doesn’t really consider herself as having anything but a freshmen year. Maybe sophmore.

Chapter 8:

⦁ Catra has two bags while Adora has one for two reasons: 1) Adora still has some stuff at home and doesn’t need to bring as much, and 2) Catra’s second bag was mostly dedicated to her adaptive devices and hybrid shit since she knew she might need them for any stuff Adora wanted to do and she couldn’t borrow the shampoo already at the house.

⦁ Perfuma’s nature hike actually originated in this chapter and then I added it in to chapter 6 since I was far enough ahead in writing to do that. Before that the vibe was just “Well obviously Scorpia got Adora’s number from Perfuma at some point,” but this gave a more solid throughline on that. Their interaction at the nature hike is also what led to Scorpia starting to turn around on Adora until she tested her with the phone call.

⦁ The “look” that passed over Adora’s face when Catra joked that she didn’t remember getting tangled in the ribbon was her briefly worrying that Catra actually didn’t remember due to her supposed memory issues following the fall.

⦁ The school where Catra fell is loosely based on the random high school I took my SATs at, where it was actually four buildings with a courtyard and a quad between the buildings and various sports fields. Adora was walking on one of the paths circling one of the buildings when she saw Catra fall from the roof of another.

⦁ Adora mentions hospitals plural because she checked every single one it was even semi-plausible for Catra to be taken to, though there was only one that made sense since it was more than twenty minutes closer than the next one.

⦁ Adora has her childhood twin bed at home and at the apartment Catra has a double bed to give her enough room to comfortably position her arm without worry. It also helps when she does have a nightmare bad enough for her to move around, and when she’s having a day where her fear of falling is intense. She can tuck into the corner between the bed and the wall and know there’s no way she’s going over the edge.

⦁ This fic was supposed to be set nebulously in the fall until I had the Winterfest ideas and lined everything up to make it happen. It still worked out with it starting literally right after Catra’s birthday, but I went back and edited in a line referring to it later so it would build the time of year out better before it got to the Winterfest stuff. Of course, that only matters if you reread chapter 2 after I did it or started reading the fic later on, but it’s there for rereads, at least. It’s one of those unique things about fanfic and how you (typically) post it as you write it, which doesn’t allow for much in the way of second drafts. I really like that about fanfic because of how it forces you to work the limitation (and also I hate rewriting), but I always have more ideas while I’m writing so sometimes it can get in the way of something good.

⦁ The original title of this fic was “As Many Lives As It Takes (To Be With You Again)” but at some point between creating the document and posting the “Again” got dropped. This isn’t relevant to chapter 8, I just happened to notice it while typing the notes for it.

Chapter 9:

⦁ There was a lot more stuff about Catra learning to drive in this chapter initially, but I wasn’t happy with it and found I was skipping right past it when I was trying to reread/edit what was going on in the chapter, so for the final version I cut it. Some things though: Catra’s entire first day of driving didn’t even involve leaving park, it was mostly spent on figuring out how to manage her arm (in the end, putting it in the arm brace was the best way to keep it still and out of the way, even though that was difficult with Adora helping her instead of Entrapta) and stuff like hitting the turn signal with her pinky while turning the wheel. The first day where they actually drove in the street Adora came along — just for fun and not in case you have a panic attack, promise! — but was sworn to being silent in the backseat. That lasted until Mara said Catra was learning faster than Adora did.

⦁ Adora’s not a bad driver, she’s just an anxious one, partially due to Catra’s accident making her all too aware of the dangers. She spent high school watching Catra deal with her paralysis which supposedly came from the car accident, after all, so she tends to be a meek driver.

⦁ When Catra sees things she wasn’t able to IRL in her dreams, like when she sees parts of the incidents that she was actually dead/unconscious for… sometimes that’s accurate. And that’s all I’ll say.

⦁ The dent stuff… with the bumper… might or might not have been inspired by the movie Underdog……… It’s a very comedic origin for something that is so traumatic in the fic but like. I saw that movie as a kid and never forgot that part.

⦁ Entrapta 100% hacked the DMV and canceled someone else’s permit test so Catra could be fit in immediately, she just didn’t tell Catra that. Not that she’s hiding it, exactly, but volunteering that information? No.

⦁ Oh that phone call from Adora’s perspective. Adora basically didn’t know shit about what they did in the logs. She was horrified by what Catra described, but also a little confused, and maybe even put out. Catra had never told her even half the details it was clear Entrapta knew off the top of her head, and she made it sound like it was all very clear and she remembered every second of what she was awake for. Which, well, she did. Because her body was totally fine. Adora was ruffled by Entrapta’s “bedside manner”, and then she heard the hacking stuff which had her like, wait, what? because Catra had mentioned Entrapta was a professional white hat hacker before (sometimes. Sometimes black hat. Sometimes she does other stuff and invents a new programming language) but the whole “instantly pulling up results from the DMV thing” threw her. She was very attentive when Entrapta was running diagnostics and stuff because she didn’t know about things like Catra still being able to slightly twitch her fingers or shoulder sometimes.

⦁ Catra specifies not mocking Scorpia during romcoms because there is no way, ever, no matter what she owes, that she won’t make fun of the dumb romance movie stuff that happens, especially het nonsense when that applies.

⦁ Catra’s fosters did get her “Winterfest gifts” but they were things like clothes and school supplies she would need anyway, just maybe a little nicer or at least less generic than usual.

⦁ Time to talk about what everybody thought happened to Catra! Obviously, people at school decided Catra had died within the first few weeks. At that time, Adora decided Catra must be in a coma or suffering memory loss, maybe awake but not lucid. She thought Catra’s condition being unstable might be why no one would talk to her, but she told herself she couldn’t be dead because then they would just say that. The longer it went with everyone remaining tight-lipped, however, the worse things Adora began to believe. About a year in, she came to “accept” that Catra was dead — outright, or brain dead even if her body was still breathing. Mara and Hope also didn’t know why anyone would “cover up” what was supposedly a very public suicide, so they also believed Catra “survived,” but knowing how far she fell and how bad it must have been, they knew pretty much right away she was likely to be brain dead or not remember anything. They didn’t really ever say what they thought, though, mostly focusing on comforting Adora when she went through disaster scenarios and occasionally reluctantly admitting which they thought was most likely when she got too frantic to be calmed by anything but an answer. Each member of the trio had a different opinion (each of which was an option that everyone else had considered individually): Kyle believed Catra was severely injured and sent away to a rehab facility to recover and perhaps help her overcome her “suicidal tendencies” but was basically cut off from them by the system, Rogelio believed she was in a coma and if she ever woke suffered memory loss (explaining why she never contacted them), and Lonnie thought that she was straight up brain dead before they eventually pulled the plug. Catra’s foster parents, knowing she had run from the hospital, thought she was dead in a ditch somewhere and after a few months decided they were just never informed when she was found.

⦁ Yes it’s late for chestnut season. No I do not care. Chestnut season is a few weeks later in Etheria, okay.

⦁ Both Mara and Hope cook usually, but around holidays Mara takes charge and it’s family recipes 24/7. Mara probably would have baked a pie for the final day of Winterfest anyway, but it wouldn’t have been that one. That one is the most special.

Chapter 10:

⦁ Even if Catra didn’t need her hand for the VR game, Bow’s headset wouldn’t have fit over her ears. There are headsets that would work, just not the one Bow built. It wasn’t a concern for him at the time.

⦁ Glimmer is terrified of horror games for herself, but she seems to forget that literally every time and is always really excited to play, just remembering the adrenaline rush and thinking this time she’ll redeem herself and be totally cool and composed.

⦁ The horror game was going to be the latest Resident Evil DLC (for the Village? I think? Or like the sequel?) but then I was like damn. I don’t know if that’s in VR. But it was literally the only horror game I could think of at the moment despite liking (let’s plays) of them, so I kind of co-opted and mangled the mom-mannequin-dolls section of that.

⦁ The Star siblings were actually at the barbecue in my first draft but it made the scene too crowded when half the attendees already didn’t have speaking roles.

⦁ I kept trying to figure out where to fit in Adora’s school shit and it just never didn’t slow the scene down. I’m not sure it doesn’t here, either, but somewhere in the fic proper I wanted to mention why Adora and Catra never bumped into each other on campus. I had already decided Adora’s school worked out this way before I decided on Catra’s job, but that just made it relevant. Basically, Adora came to Bright Moon intending to get a four year degree and then go into nursing. Mara and Hope were supportive, but a little insistent she go to a four-year instead of a community college for nursing because then she could explore more. They just didn’t want her to fall too into the martyr shit without them there as a support system, but Adora thought they were lowkey hoping she’d change her mind and decide to become a doctor instead of “just” a nurse. Adora was roommates with Glimmer freshmen year and met a few of their eventual friend group there, which she always says made it all worth it, but university was a disaster for her. She would have rather drop dead from exhaustion than drop out, but that was looking increasingly likely as her mental health combined with ADHD to make her a disaster. Her grades weren’t good, she spent time crying in the study rooms at the library, it was a mess. Eventually Glimmer called Mara to make sure she knew just how bad it was for Adora since she knew by then she would play it down. They’d only been friends for a few months and she was definitely overstepping, but Adora’s moms made her talk it out and they decided she would transfer to Bright Moon’s community college, where she could take one less class a semester and graduate with what she needed after only three years of school overall. Adora still kind of felt like a failure, but Glimmer just happened to decide at the same time that the dorms were insufferable and hey, we know we make good roommates already, why don’t we get an apartment between our campuses together? And living with Glimmer meant seeing Bow a lot too, so Adora didn’t have to “lose” the two good friends she had made at uni so far when she left (something she was really worried about). Glimmer and Bow wouldn’t let her hide in a shame corner over “not being cut out for it” either so she still saw their other friends from campus and even made more via mutual friends, eventually ending up with their current friend group, the exceptions being the Star Siblings (from community college), Frosta (from across the streets), and Netossa/Spinnerella (from work, Adora met Netossa during the course of her med studies).

⦁ Adora spent like an hour agonizing over her outfit and asking Glimmer for help, insisting it was just because she wanted to look nice for her birthday and not because she was thinking of putting the moves on someone or wanted to impress them. She undid the top two buttons, and then Glimmer undid two more and called it perfect.

⦁ Hey, guess what, this chapter was supposed to cover twice as much as it did (shocker) and then they took too long making out (shocker) ¯_(ツ)_/¯ This is where I had to update the chapter count AGAIN and when I did that I went back and filled out the scene during the party, which was only written in summary until that point, because apparently I had the fucking room for it in that chapter since the real confession clearly wasn’t happening.

Chapter 11:

⦁ Entrapta is playing Monster Hunter in the first scene, because I’ve had single monster fights last 40 fucking minutes in that game before. I was actually going to make it vaguely be like, a Souls game or something, but then I was like no, Monster Hunter is more her speed, leading to the jokes about how long the fight is.

⦁ Catra’s arm pain is both psychological and magic. Obviously the mechanics of how it hurts without her having any feeling are magic, but the pain comes from her mental state. The more comfortable she is with someone’s touch and the more she trusts them, the less it hurts. It also ties to her general emotional turmoil, which is why it’s still bad when she remembers stressful things, when waking up from a nightmare, etc and why it caused her such pain that first moment Adora touched her.

⦁ Tapetum lucidum is the thing that makes cats eyes glow in the dark (among other creatures) when hit correctly with light. Melog’s was not being hit correctly with light. I refuse to explain Melog.

⦁ The start of Catra’s speech was once the start of the fic, but instead of her telling it to someone, it was just the narration (“It all starts when Catra is eleven and decides to run away to find Adora, but she doesn’t understand it until later. Actually, she never understands it, but the first death she could pretend was a fluke.”). When I had this idea, I started just kind of writing with the idea of well, let me do a few paragraphs on each death and see how I feel about that. I had a few false starts, and then I wrote that beginning bit of Catra’s speech, and then it cut to a new scene to talk about the car. That paragraph ended up being heavily edited down and used in the scene in chapter 9 where she talks about the nightmare. I decided to change direction on that because 1) it wasn’t good, 2) it was wallowing, and 3) I wasn’t actually intending to start the fic that way anyway, it was just so much in its infancy that I was testing some stuff out to see what the backstory was and where I wanted to take it. Because of that false start, though, I then had trouble tracking what had been revealed/implied throughout the fic when it came to the later-revealed deaths and their fallout.

Chapter 12:

⦁ Adora lowkey moved in on a temporary basis, she just needed to be around Catra very badly between the new couple and “died four times” things. She did end up going back to (mostly) sleeping at her place and Glimmer and Bow were very insistent on them spending time together too when she relaxed again.

⦁ I didn’t want to do anything above a T rating with this fic, really, but I did kind of want to make allusions to other ways disability can effect intimacy, hence the allusions to Catra needing toy assistance since her left hand just can’t manage it and her insecurities about “contributing” when it’s time.

⦁ Catra’s ability was so unbelievable and confusing that it wasn’t the kind of thing Adora could just instantly accept as fact and help her work through, so a “trailing” ending was necessary to show Adora coming to that place of total belief with time, and trying hard to support Catra while she did so. And of course I wanted them to get time being totally honest with each other. I had a lot of the ideas for the Scorpia stuff and such that I thought would just be in the “epilogue” part of the fic notes, but then I went no, you know what, this is Important to how I envision the end here, so I made it an actual part of the fic, similarly to how I did the third fic in the Greys/Waiting For My Spaceship To Come Back For Me series. Why am I mentioning that here? Because all of the epilogue stuff was supposed to be part of chapter 12 too and then of course that didn’t work out. And I had to update the chapter count. Again.

⦁ It was really important to me that Catra’s disability didn’t magically get better. The only thing that changed was it caused her less pain, and even that is person-dependent. Her muscle response gets slightly better — sometimes — but that isn’t enough to hold a pen or be useful. There are temporary disabilities, of course, but that wasn’t the kind I was trying to show here and a disability doesn’t have to “go away” to get a happy ending. Catra’s happy ending was finding peace and love despite the things that haunt her, and she can have all that while still being disabled, she can just get hugs from at least one person now. The original outline had a point where Catra began kneading with both hands while cuddling with Adora around when she told her the truth, but I decided that was too much of a miraculous recovery. Even the sudden squeezing of the ball was something I was iffy on, but that was truly a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I kept it and portrayed it as such, editing the kneading thing down to just twitching, because I did think it was cute.

Chapter 13:

⦁ WAILMER PAIL

⦁ I know I’ve talked a lot about how this fic ballooned, but I haven’t had fun on a project like I did this one, and Hurricane Adora, and the other smaller fics I’ve done recently, in a long time. Let Me Ride too, to a lesser degree, but I haven’t really had a project just flow out and build like this in the last year. The big difference on those last two was I just… did what I wanted. Which I know sounds obvious, but I didn’t sit and try to plot out okay, what is the whole arc for this fic going to be, what do I need to get done to get there. I did that a decent amount of Let Me Ride, which is why it’s a halfway fic here (and look at that, written slower than the others), but for these two I went well, they’re short fics, I don’t need to worry about that stuff and I can just let loose. And then neither ended up anywhere near where I thought they would, and I had an absolute blast. It’s hard to describe, but I just had a lot of fun and felt very liberated with my fics recently. I think I was treating them too much like novels, if that makes sense, and honestly the word count speaks for itself. I wrote less in November AND December combined than I did in January alone (working on LMR + oneshots), and that’s half as much as I’ve written for March alone (February being closer to March’s word count). I had my 4th highest ever word count day (since I started recording them in 2021) on this project at over 8k (for those curious, my highest ever was 12k the day I pumped out most of MNoHL in one sitting). Anyway, it ran away from me, but I was more than happy to go along on the ride, even if the fic notes alone are 7k.

Adora Interludes:

So, this fic was entirely from Catra’s perspective. Which was for three reasons: 1) Adora’s POV has no place in the first two chapters so at that point I was pretty committed, 2) she’s the most interesting POV by far for this fic, and 3) I thought this fic would be short. I don’t normally do long fics from just one character’s perspective, and you’re about to see why, but I thought it was only going to be 20k which was a fine amount for one POV. The longest fic I’ve done from one perspective before this was ASDLM, depending how you want to count it, and even then I included five fucking interludes of Adora’s POV. I don’t usually use one character POV since I find it interesting to go back and forth, but also, it’s so hard to stick to one POV. The reunion happened and I wanted to write Adora talking to Glimbow that night! Catra has her panic attack and I want to write out what Adora is thinking! But it doesn’t fit with the fic. So sometimes I did it anyway. None of these were fully written and polished and were more just me tracking where Adora was at with the big stuff, but I wanted to at least talk about them a little and they didn’t fit anywhere else in the fic notes. I just played it out in my head, sometimes, but I ended up writing down some rough scene outlines with intersperses of actual writing for:

Adora telling Glimmer and Bow everything Catra told her the night after she leaves. Glimmer starts off a little unsure of if they should be mad at Catra or not for never telling Adora she was alive, but eventually she “accepts” it (though she remains cautious of Catra for a few weeks).

Adora’s next call with her therapist, dumping the story onto her and talking a little about the guilt thing.

I don’t think I ever wrote anything down for the convo Adora had with her parents where she told them the story, but I sure thought about it a fucking lot.

Adora having a conversation with Hope over the break, while Catra and Mara are out driving. I would go into more detail, but there was a line that was originally drafted in a previous scene with Adora and Catra that didn’t end up happening, and then I put it in this scene that also wasn’t “real,” so…. At this point I’m just fucking sharing it. Because why not. The scene will be up tomorrow as a fic extra and linked in the meta section. Note that it is a detailed outline and NOT real writing, but I like it and can’t imagine just deleting it once this fic is done, so I’ll just post it here for anyone interested.

Original Outline:

I talked so much shit about the chapter count for this fic and it came back to haunt me. Here’s the thing: my initial chapter count wasn’t that wrong, which I know sounds insane when it was only like 5, but the contents for the fic I was imagining then did take up about 5 chapters. The intro, getting to the party, reintroduction, getting to know each other again, and then getting comfortable and confession.

The first two of those went exactly as I pictured. While I was writing chapter 3, though, the reintroduction went on longer than I imagined just because there was a lot to cover to do it right and it ended up taking up an entire chapter. Around then I started getting so many more ideas for the story. Initially it was supposed to be like, a nightmare/death per chapter, but then I started thinking about Adora telling her parents, and Catra going back home to visit them, and around then was when I accepted the vision for the fic expanded and bumped it to eight-ish with the vision that the visit would take two of those chapters roughly and another chapter would be fitted in for more bonding/growing closer before the confession.

Then I sat down and actually started doing my, like, one sentence outlines for scenes ([phone convo with Mara, rejects facetime], [entrapta/netossa collab], etc) and realized ohhhhh god this is more than three additional chapters worth of material. And maybe I always suspected that, because when I added more chapter headings to the document, I bumped it up to ten rather than eight. I had a detailed outline up to chapter nine, and by the time I was actually writing that far I was like this is going to be fucking eleven chapters isn’t it… but I was still unsure where it was going to fall in the 10-12 range. The epilogue was, once again, an addition, though a necessary one in my opinion, but those ideas weren’t part of the 10-12 chapter estimate.

I didn’t really have a strong vision for how the end was going to go until I got there, so the only thing about the final part of the fic that is different from the “original outline” is the remote log during the visit home (initially that was supposed to happen in person on a night when Adora slept over after they got back, but that just made less sense) and how they ran into the trio. My very initial idea for that was them driving (Catra driving, Adora teaching her, probably later on in the trip when maybe it isn’t all on Mara) and they drive past the trio walking on the sidewalk of a neighborhood and Catra nearly has a panic attack. Adora steers her through parking on the side of the road (ahead of where the trio are walking) and Catra gets ahold of herself as Adora glances back through the back window to see the trio eyeing the car, because they just saw it park a little erratically, and then they realize Adora is in the car. They can just barely see eartips around the headrest for Catra but can’t make much out.

They then watch Adora get out, wave to them sheepishly, make a motion for them to stay where they are, and then she walks around to the street side and opens up the backseat to get out the sling. This was before I had thought about anything and realized the arm brace was probably the best call for driving. Adora then opens Catra’s door, helps her put on the sling while still sitting in the driver’s seat, and holds her hand to help pull her to her feet out of the car, finally letting them see her. This made the conversation more of Catra’s choice, but when I pictured the whole exchange on the sidewalk, I had no intention of it actually being part of the fic. At that point, I hadn’t even decided if the Winterfest stuff was going to be part of it. But once I started writing that stuff, I decided the trio had to be in it too and switched it around to a run-in that made a little more sense and actually furthered Catra’s progression.

Meta:

Interlude: Three Years Ago

Fic Extra #2: Adora’s Interlude: A Conversation with Hope

Fic Extra #3: Timeline

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I had a plan for what fic was going to be next. Then another fic idea solidified and it was going to be that one. Then I had a new, but also returning, idea. What I’m saying is, I’m indecisive, but for the last month one AU in particular has been calling, and it’s honestly shocking I haven’t done it yet because I’m me and it's, well…

Up next is Superzero.

#amlait #ficmeta #fic notes

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dangerous-swift · 1 year ago

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it’s now time for a long overdue discussion of how the ends of ‘mastermind’ and ‘you’re losing me’ mirror each other and portray the changing nature of a relationship from stable to in crisis (in my own little opinion, of course).

earlier songs in midnights lay the groundwork for this. both lavender haze and sweet nothing held paint a picture of the couple as individuals, while also introducing the external threats to their relationship.

lavender haze is written in the first person establishing a vocal narrator (taylor) juxtaposed with her lover who “[doesn’t] ever say too much”. there are also references to external gossip and rumors being harmful to the internal relationship.

sweet nothing brings the focus back to the gossiping outside voices from ‘lavender haze’ with the narrator’s lover still not saying much, instead opting to hum. however, they do have the spoken line “what a mind”

mastermind closes out midnights and full dialogue between the couple is finally fleshed out and explored. it can almost be read like a script:

Person A (embarrassed and anxious): none of it was accidental and the first night that you saw me nothing was gonna stop me. I laid the groundwork and then...

[Person A trails off as Person B looks at them with a knowing smirk]

Person A: (with a mix of awe and bewilderment): you knew the entire time? you knew that I’m a mastermind?

Person B: and now you’re mine

Person A: all you did was smile...

Person B: ‘cause I’m a mastermind

the song’s core message is that taylor thought she was, in a sense, being underhanded in ‘tricking’ her partner to fall for her, only to find out they knew the game she was playing the entire time.

framing her partner as the true mastermind of the situation makes for a more interesting interpretation of the song. taylor’s partner recognized and indulged her need for control while still getting what they wanted.

this person loves taylor for who she is and wanted to be with her from the start, no gimmicks or schemes necessary.

this sort of non-obvious dialogue is employed in the song ‘you’re losing me’ to explain a lack of communication causing the breakdown of a relationship.

the song actually opens with a verbal exchange:

“i don’t understand.”// “i know you don’t.”

the outside voices are also once again present as they all say “you don’t know what you got until it’s gone”

additionally, the repeat of “stop, you’re losing me” in the chorus could also be intended as a line of dialogue. the heartbeat in the background of the song and allusions to sickness and death could make this line a reference to how doctors say “we’re losing them!” when a patient is starting to flatline. but it’s also a line frequently said in an argument.

as taylor, the more vocal party, word vomits her frustrations, all her less vocal lover can do is make a ‘T’ with their hands and say, “stop, you’re losing me.”

like mastermind, the ending of the song is a dialogue with little repeats after each line that could be considered responses:

Person A: do something babe, say something

Person B: say something?

Person A: lose something, babe, risk something

Person B: you’re losing me...

Person A: choose something, babe, i got nothing

Person B: i got nothing

but while mastermind reflects how well-suited the pair are with an almost instinctual understanding of each other, you’re losing me juxtoposes mastermind’s final exchange with its own to show the changing nature of the relationship and the necessity of its end.

#taylor swift #tswift #midnights #mastermind #you're losing me #I have been turning this over in my mind for MONTHS now you do not understand

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gunsli-01 · 2 years ago

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So I have a qustion for you bestie, do you really think mu was in love with her victim or was the queen off milgram pulling a victim card

TL;DR: Yes, all the things that have come out regarding Mu supports the framing that she was romantically interested in her victim. After Pain, Otome Dissection, and MKDR paint a firm picture of this being the case when watched and considered in conjunction with one another. So, barring any huge world-shattering bombshells coming out in the mv for It's not my fault this is more than likely the case.

It’s not even that I want to believe it is. I tend to be harsher on Mu than any of the others. Because honestly...I find her personality grating and she’s not the type of mean girl I tend to view favorably. That would go to Yuno.

Mu, just isn’t harsh enough for me. Plus, I hate people that pretend to be weak when they’re strong the most. That’s just my personal bias. She could be colder, and I actively like the way she’s behaving now more than how she was in trial one. Even if it’s still not as mean or the sort of meanest I prefer it at least feels honest and I like that.

However, I’m not going to ignore the facts just because they don’t validate my feelings. In this case Mu’s own songs and her covers tell the story of a teenager who fell in what they believed to be love and tried to do everything to keep that. Even if the behavior they exhibited to do so was toxic.

Honestly, I thought Mu would be getting Chimera just because of how fake she came off to me. I have zero reason to defend her, but her romantic feelings seem genuine and what the information provided is leaning towards. She doesn't seem good at lying about her emotions outside of omitting them entirely.

I did a post on Mu and Futa going over everything I thought about them before. Though Futa got more attention than Mu given I was more interested in him at that time.

However, in that post I mention that I believe Mu’s mv is out of order. That her music video is the first one to start messing around with time distortion and my belief that her victim was dead before her bullying ever began. In her first interrogation she answers the question, “What do you dislike?” with-

“Scary people and ghosts. Oh, and right now, school.”

The hourglass Mu is stuck in throughout After Pain breaks from falling off her desk at the beginning of her music video. The flower shown at the end of After Pain is firmly planted on the desk next to hers, presumably the one belonging to her victim. Implying she was dead while Mu was still in school. Despite her claiming she doesn’t remember what happened after her crime the writing on the blackboard at the end of After Pain tells a different story alluding to people wondering if it was a murder or suicide.

We know the wording on the blackboard at the end of Mu’s mv isn’t referring to her since one of the things written on it translates to,

“Reeks of poverty.”

And the Milgram team have made it abundantly clear that Mu was born financially well off. Her classmates would also know this, given that she’s texting her old friends about giving them expensive lipstick as gifts during the mv. So, she was someone who did show off her wealth to the extent that this insult wouldn’t be lodged at her. Meaning these are not the same instances of bullying.

Also, where it says drew a picture of you on the board the drawing looks nothing like Mu but weirdly resembles the girl she killed. The final nail in the coffin on this one is, “Thanks for all the fun times we’ve had! The flowers are a present for you!”

As we see, the flowers are not on Mu's desk but on the desk right next to hers. Her standing in front of the board holding one of the flowers is even more suspicious cause that means she’s either a part of the bullying or the instigator of it. More than likely the instigator given this line that can be found on the board as well, “Acting like the heroine.” Along with this line in her music video “If you’re going to make me the villain it’s ok to ignore me.”

This is vastly different from the board that we see at the beginning that is full of things directly targeting Mu specifically. If we take into consideration that her classmates have reason to believe that she killed someone else then these things shown on the board at the beginning make more sense, “You should go to a reformatory” “Criminal” “I did nothing wrong←huh?!”. The first board also includes jokes about Mu’s name specifically. So, we know all this bullying is towards her.

When it comes to her being romantically interested in her victim I feel what matters the most is what Mu didn't say. She wants to appear like a victim certainly, but she wants to do it on her own terms. I don't think she'd be okay with any of us knowing someone found her undesirable. This is possibly one of the other reasons she doesn't want the guards looking as close as she wanted them to before anymore.

Because honestly it would be embarrassing having people know a thing like that. Which is why she remained so vague about how her victim hurt her during her first interrogation and why we never see her victim partake in bullying her during After Pain. Also, why she says this when being bullied by her former friends, "If you’re going to make me the villain. It’s ok to ignore me. If it’s endurance, I’m used to it. It’s just having another taste of it."

She's already been ignored by someone who meant far more to her than her former friends probably did. So, she should be used to it but being ignored by her victim was so unbearable she had to kill her for it. That's odd. The girl she kills is rarely shown outside the hourglass she’s trapped in. In fact, the closest the victim ever gets to Mu's bullying is when she just so happens to be leaving the bathroom the same time Mu is being bullied in it.

Which is suspect because the lines that transition us into that scene are, “But I see it in my dreams even though I erased it maybe I’m done. Just one more time before saying goodbye. I’m just kidding, please forget I said that.” So, she very well may be flashing back to the crime in this moment not committing it after.

I wrote this in that first post, “Conveniently overlooking that the hourglass Mu is stuck in is revealed to be filling with the victim’s blood at the end. Showing even more that Mu may not give a fuck about her actions effect on this person but how the mere thought of them continues to inconvenience her.”

As though despite them being dead and gone the mere concept of them lingers haunting her like those ghosts she dislikes so much. Her classmates seemingly carrying on her will by holding her accountable bringing her behavior back around to her. She erased it but she still sees it. It’s gone but things aren’t the same cause sorry won’t reach anyone because the people who used to listen won’t.

I wrote something going in depth about Otome Dissection and how it ties into this but then tumblr glitched and deleted it. Though overall it was a happy accident because I found a better way to articulate my point through rewriting this. However, I still want to try to touch on what I had before briefly.

Otome Dissection and MKDR both allude to a relationship growing sour while someone tries to hold on to it despite that. Otome Dissection looks at the toxic ways a person tries to get attention from the one they want affection from. For example, as we reach the hook of the song for the second time in Otome Dissection the lyric leading into it is, “You know you’ve been so cold lately.” Before going into playing a game of girl dissection highlighting that need to get affection but focusing in on the manipulative or detrimental way the seeker goes about getting said affection.

After this even stating, “How stupid. Your unwillingness is irresistible to me. I wonder if our misunderstanding will be resolved.” People tend to be very gracious when interpreting the lyrics of Otome Dissection. However, when taken from the most unflattering angle it can come off as someone threatening self-harm to keep a lover around. Even having the lyrics, “You know I had a dream where you fell in love with someone else. I hope you deny it. Love me, please?”

While MKDR can be considered a healthier progression. Since it at least recognizes the love had problems.

It’s just funny and cruel that Mu gets praised, showered with never ending excuses, and dotted on for being the way people suspected and vilified Mahiru for possibly being. This woman almost dies because people created a story in their heads about her being so clingy, she drove her lover to suicide or that she never had a lover at all and was a yandere. When really the chances are she poisoned her cheating fucking boyfriend.

Especially given the two people that feel bad for her the most are implied to be notorious fucking homewreckers. Kazui who we all know cheated and Yuno who was probably fucking people’s husbands given her stance on how the public views adultery. Kind of weird that they both feel really bad around the one person who abhors cheating and may have had it done to them. Like I feel sorry for her and you’re too nice to be here. The two gold medalists in the Cheating Olympics specializing in stealing your man and breaking your vows feel bad for her.

If that’s not a sign her murder was a crime of passion due to a relationship failing, I don’t know what is. Yet, for Mu this is used as an excuse for her actions, a means to validate them. So, yeah during trial one I was pretty much confused to hear that this was being pushed forward as a defense. Not only because it was hypocritical but because it makes her look worse.

I was actively hoping that this wouldn't be the reason because to me that would make this an incredibly open and shut case. Like a person would just have to love Mu to vote this act forgivable or innocent at this point in my opinion. Because regardless of whether a person is in a same sex relationship, or a heteronormative one this sort of treatment isn’t okay.

Of course, Mu’s first cover was actively ignored and now people want to say the covers don’t really mean much when they very much do. Mahiru didn’t get that treatment though she got dragged through the mud for Psychogram she wasn’t given any benefit of the doubt. People even speculated that Mahiru would be getting MKDR before Mu got it. Now Mu wants to be like don’t look too hard cause the entire story is coming together, and some people will certainly go I do not see it.

#milgram #kusunoki mu #shiina mahiru

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castle-ravenloft · 2 years ago

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that other post did some numbers, huh. well here is some advice for the GMs out there.

communicate obstacles and consequences.

a common trap i see lots of GMs fall into, and me more than most, is the idea that mystery and secrecy brings drama. oh you want to jump this chasm? well try and see what might happen nyehehehhe!

it’s terrible, and stop that. conflict resolution in most tabletop rpgs is a game of chance, usually in the form of a dice roll. a good player-facing conflict is a clear if -> then | else statement. drama comes from knowing what’s at stake and understanding the challenge, and overtly telling your player that jumping the chasm is DC 21 creates tension that is then resolved during the success/failure. if you don’t set the bar for the player, they have no reference point for how well they did, and thus the tension being resolved is much lower.

this includes enemy hit bonuses and AC. we have these abstract numbers to in a simple fashion model the natural ability, skill, and gear the creature possesses. the characters within the fiction can tell that another character is very skilled by the way they wield their rapier, but us telling the story can’t see that, so we say that it has +9 to hit.

further, by announcing the stakes of a conflict you also paint a narrative picture. if the chasm is over lava, you may state that failure will not necessarily mean death, but might cause impairment. it is also a good tool for table cohesiveness. if you have already communicated that failure in crossing the bottomless pit chasm will mean death, the player will have accepted those terms when their character falls to their death. it feels unfair - and is unfun - if you as a gm just sprung “well, you’re dead now” from what feels like nowhere.

to further illustrate what i mean, consider the game blackjack. the tension comes from knowing that you need to approach - but not exceed 21. each additional hit makes your heart beat just an increment faster... just one more hit and! shit. 22... imagine if that number was hidden, or random. you would have no clue what was going on, and would seemingly win or lose at the dealer’s whim. overtime you could of course intuit what the target number is, but suddenly the dealer announces that the target has changed. and what if you were just sat down at the table by a friend, and no one told you you were playing for money - suddenly the dealer just takes your cash from you. that’d fucking suck.

tl;dr - proclaim the DC, as well as the consequence of failure, before resolving a conflict to create tension and fun

#dnd #ttrpg #dm advice #gm advice

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aquamarinescarlet · 3 years ago

Text

Chapter 2: The notebook

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Word count: ~3.7k

Warnings: None, Wanda is too hot.

Author’s note: The gif is killing me, how can a human being be so pretty?

Series Masterlist || Aqua's Masterlist

“I thought interrogating was your favorite part,” you jumped out of surprise, not much for the voice, but for the file that fell right on your stomach.

“When I can interrogate actual suspects, these people won’t be able to tell us a single useful thing,” you told Barton.

You pushed yourself up from the floor. You had arrived early at the office, hoping to get a chance at talking to someone interesting, but they had only brought in the people who were at the club on the night of the murder. As much as it was important to go through every single person’s statement, it was also absolutely pointless, boring even. So you decided to take a quick nap on the floor. Odd places tended to give you the best ideas, unfortunately it didn’t quite go that way this time.

“Did you get anything useful?” You asked just for the hell of it.

“No,” he threw himself on his chair, “no one saw anything interesting for the investigation, most of them didn’t even know Pietro other than the fact that he was a Maximoff.”

You nodded along, that wasn’t a surprise. Being hit with insomnia after leaving the crime scene, you took that time to go after everything you could find about Pietro Maximoff. The internet hadn’t been exactly a good source of information. One specific paper really caught your attention though, The Asgardian.

What was particularly interesting about it were the articles it held portraying the Maximoff family. Half of them painted the twins and their parents as good people, examples of great leaders, the other half always brought the gossip, unmasking that perfect picture. And two names stood out: Thor Odinson and Loki Laufeyson.

Both men took over the paper when their father, Odin Borson, died of cancer. Talking to these men might be a good idea for the investigation, for reference on how they gathered this exclusive information that no other place seemed to know about. But you’d pitch that idea later, there were more pressing things to discover first.

“How about the owner of the club?”

“What about him?” Barton didn’t take his eyes off of his phone.

“Did you find him?” You asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“No, records only gave us a name, Gabriel Burns-”

“But you haven’t been able to track him down yet,” you stated, interrupting him. He raised his eyebrow, gaze finally meeting yours. “If you had found him, he would be the first one we’d talk to,” you thought about it for a second, “although it isn’t surprising, he wouldn’t want to have any contact with the police considering all the illegal activities going on in his club.”

“Illegal activities?” It was Wilson’s voice that captured your attention.

“Of course, the drugs alone could cause him some trouble.”

“Not enough trouble for him to disappear like that, we haven’t even found someone who’s heard that name.”

“Then it’s because he has more things to hide.”

“Are you saying we should put more effort into finding him?” Barton spoke up again.

“Not really, I believe we can get answers from that notebook... by the way, how’s it going?”

“Banner is still on it, but I don’t think he’ll find anything.”

“Why not?” Barton probably expected that from you, but not from Wilson, he tends to be more hopeful and less observant.

“Well, our killer is smart, calculated, and if what she says is true,” he motioned to you, “they wouldn’t leave behind a notebook full of evidence that would lead us directly to them.”

“So you believe we were meant to find it?”

“Of course, that would make it a fun investigation.”

There it was. Wilson’s hopes were high, but placed in a different direction than Barton’s were. The dynamic of this team would be an interesting one to deal with. Sam wanted an investigation - follow leads, solve puzzles - while Barton would go for the quickest way to close the case.

While Sam would be a useful asset, eager to do things out of sheer curiosity and without asking too many questions, Barton was one to be kept an eye on. What would he gain with getting rid of the case so fast? You took a mental note to look further into that.

It was almost an hour before something actually interesting happened. An hour of asking the same boring questions to the same frightened and traumatized people. An hour of walking around the office, listening to the sounds of papers, typing, printing, yawning.

And then she walked in, the woman you had been dying to talk to. She walked in like she owned the entire place. It was a natural reaction - you noticed - acting powerful and elegant. Deep down she felt small, shy, uncomfortable with the amount of eyes that followed her every movement.

She kept a high posture but her gaze met none other. Her hand played with the rings adorning her fingers, although she tried to avoid, stopping every time she noticed the action, not wanting to look weak before all these strangers.

She was dressed, head to toe, in black, just as a sister in mourning would. A suit that made her look professional, important, but wasn’t exactly something that would catch the attention of the high society. A black wool coat protecting her from the cold, a piece of clothing anyone could use. Black heels, comfortable, short, making her look taller than she was, all for the sake of exuding power.

You couldn’t help but notice the contrast between her and her brother. His need to show he had money, and her’s to show she was someone to be respected.

Right as you were about to walk towards her, Romanoff appeared, pulling her to an interrogation room. Apparently you couldn’t hide your disappointment well since the men in the room felt the need to comment on it.

Determined not to let this go, you went towards the same room the two women had walked into. Natasha wouldn’t like the interruption, but you had been waiting for this opportunity for hours now. The universe, however, seemed to have other plans for you as Banner entered the office. You wouldn’t have cared for his presence if he hadn’t commented on the notebook. More specifically, that it was clear for you to try and solve the numerous puzzles it contained.

You’re sure your eyes shined at those words, as you all but ran back to the room.

“The notebook is cleared?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, but you had to voice those words anyways.

“It is, but we’ll leave it for Romanoff to take a look when she gets back.”

“Really Barton? Is she your boss now?” You knew how to get things from people, and Barton was clearly afraid of Romanoff, but what he feared more was being diminished, and making him believe you saw him as a subordinate in an investigation he was also the lead would do the trick quite well.

His eyes held anger, but he complied, allowing you to take the notebook from his table. You leafed through the pages, not letting yourself get completely lost on all the symbols and words on it.

"Ballistics was able to match the bullet to the gun found on the abandoned building,” Banner explained, “but they weren’t able to trace either of them.”

“Wasn’t there a lot that disappeared from the US military a couple of months ago, a small amount of the same rifle as the one we have?” Barton seemed deep in thought while Banner just made himself busy on his computer.

“Are you implying that whoever killed Pietro was the same person who stole from the military?” It was unlikely, and somehow not impossible to believe.

“Not necessarily, the killer might have gotten the gun from the stealer.”

“C’mon boys, that’s not the point of the investigation,” Banner interrupted.

The discussion died down, Banner kept himself busy while Wilson and Barton went to the improvised kitchen to get some coffee. You turned your focus back to the notebook, this time with no distractions.

The patterns of the letters were specifically crafted so the handwriting wouldn’t be recognizable. Block letters, sharp and pointy, almost as if the handwriting was printed, which you could only tell wasn’t true because it seemed they were written at a moment of rage, harshly, practically tearing the pages.

You all but jumped when you reached the page you wanted to.

If you had a guess, you’d say it was a floor plan. The numbers, from one to five, indicated different rooms, maybe there were actually numbers in each door that matched these?

There was something about the pattern the numbers followed, it didn’t make any logical sense. The number four was circled in pen, but you could see the other numbers had also been at some point, except it was with pencil and only light traces could be seen.

The entire notebook itself looked like it had seen some horrible times, but that specific page had wrinkles and folds all over it. Although it could be passed as just an overused piece of paper, the folds didn’t seem to be accidents.

As to the actual location that drawing was depicting, you weren’t sure, you had your theories, however, you wanted to see if the woman who was the closest to all of this had something to say about it.

A quick glance at the clock indicated that Natasha had already been with the woman for several minutes now, she wouldn’t mind the interruption. Plus, the only person around to stop you was Bruce, who was too busy on the computer to notice your absence.

So you set off to the interrogation rooms. The place was one you’ve known all too well for the past seven months, first as the interrogated, later on as the interrogator. You knew the feeling of being in that room, whether you’re guilty or not. The feeling of being under a microscope, the fear that they might actually find out all the illegal things you never even did. It could be frustrating.

Bursting into the room, your eyes fell on Wanda Maximoff. Gorgeous woman, impeccable from head to toe. Even under these circumstances she was able to keep her head held high. Impressive.

Natasha was just about to complain, probably something concerning your interruption, but you were faster.

“Ms Maximoff, if you don’t mind, I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask,” she just watched you, confused as to why the other agent in front of her didn’t seem too fond of you.

“And who are you?” Her voice was one of honey and spices, sweet and smooth, enveloped with the remainders of a foreign language she’d been trying to, unsuccessfully, get rid of.

“Dawson, you better get out of here,” Natasha warned, threateningly. She held no hints of companionship towards you, which would likely only make the other woman all the more wary of you.

“Relax Romanoff,” you sounded casual, “I won’t be long,” you approached the table, leaning forward beside Natasha, “I’m Sara Dawson, to answer your question,” you offered, the name still sounded weird in your mouth.

Her demeanor wasn’t inviting, “and what do you want, Ms Dawson?”

You smirked. Despite knowing she would put up a strong front against you, she had given you a chance to ask your own questions, taking away the power Natasha had of kicking you out.

“Alright, so, Ms Maximoff, how would you describe your brother?” She seemed bothered by your question.

“Look I already answered that, do we rea-”

“Please, Ms Maximoff, how would you describe your brother?” You insisted, causing her to sigh and roll her eyes.

“Funny, charming, good with people,” there was no emotion in the words uttered, she didn’t want to talk about it, you kept thinking it might be because they weren’t exactly true, “maybe too good,” she whispered.

“Were you, perhaps, jealous of him?”

“Jealous?”

“Yes, jealous, you talk about his qualities not with the nostalgia of a sister who just lost her beloved brother, but of one who wishes she could’ve been just like him.”

Your words had caused an effect. She straightened her back, clearly uncomfortable with what you were implying. Her expression shot daggers at you. The fact that you held a friendly smile was probably only making her madder.

“Yes, I would’ve liked to have been more social, but I would never want to be like my brother,” silence invited her to continue, “he was an irresponsible dumbass, had no sense of priority and would throw it all away for a chance to fuck a whore somewhere or get his veins pumping with the newest drugs on the market.”

She was fuming. If this was a cartoon, smoke would be coming out of her ears. It took her a few seconds to calm down, leveling her breathing and slowing her heartbeat. It must not be easy to admit something like that less than twenty four hours after her brother’s death.

“So you resented him?”

“He left me,” her tone was much calmer this time around, “our parents had just died and he left me alone. I had to take care of the empire my father had built, dealing every single day with sexists who didn’t believe I could do it. Do you know how hard it is to be told again and again that you are incapable, unfit for such a high ranking job? So yes, Ms Dawson, I resented him.”

She wasn’t affected by the confession. Her eyes bore right into yours. It wasn’t a lie, she really resented him, and she had a good reason for it. Taking the toll that was her brother’s to bear, defying, by herself, all the beliefs ingrained in society that women aren’t capable of taking positions of leadership. It must not have been easy.

You asked yourself if she ever gave out sexual favors in exchange for things. Beneficial business trades, respect, power. A beautiful woman like her would have men crawling to take her to bed. You were hypnotized by her green orbs; vivid, scared. Your eyes scanned her features, red hair cascading down her shoulders, small delicate nose that blended perfectly with the rest of her face.

“Did you kill your brother… Ms Maximoff?” She did not avert her gaze from yours, her breathing didn’t change, her chest rising at a steady pace.

“No, I didn’t.” You believed her, she didn’t seem like the murderer type, and despite their differences, she held nothing but love for her brother.

“Do you know a man named Gabriel Burns?”

“No,” you weren’t so sure you believed her this time. A simple pull of a muscle, right above her lips, made you question if she was being completely honest.

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not,” she insisted.

“So you don’t know Gabriel Burns?”

“I told you, I do not.”

“But you’ve heard that name before,” it wasn’t a question, and she didn’t treat it as one. The long silence that followed was enough for you to know she did.

“My brother mentioned it once, but I have no idea who it could be,” you could sense her hesitation, “do you think he might be the killer?”

Her words were enough for you to conclude that Gabriel Burns was good at keeping himself on the low. All the research done by the team has gotten you no answers. There were no matches in any database, all of the witnesses interviewed stated never having heard the name before. The man was a ghost.

“Unimportant,” the tenseness from moments before was gone, “now one last question,” you raised the notebook you’d been hiding underneath the table.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to have that!” Romanoff protested after her long silence, but you just ignored her.

You placed the object in front of the woman, opening on the page you had been marking with your finger throughout the whole interaction.

“Does this ring any bells to you?” She scanned the page, her eyelids closing slightly while she focused on the weird sketch.

“I have no idea, it looks like a floor plan to me, but I wouldn’t know what for,” she seemed uneased by the smile that suddenly made its way into your face.

“I happen to have an idea,” you said, already making your way out of the room, but before you left you stopped by the door, turning back to face the woman, “oh, and agent Romanoff, let her go, she didn’t kill her brother.”

“I never said she did,” the woman screamed after you, but you were already far down the hallway, excited by the next steps on the investigation.

You hoped back to the office, catching the attention of the three guys.

“Looks like Romanoff didn’t kill you this time,” Barton’s tone was laced with amusement, which would’ve annoyed you if you didn’t have other things in mind.

“Wilson, I need you to come with me,” if he was surprised, he didn’t show.

“What for?”

“Just come,” you insisted, already turning your back to him. The less information you gave, the more intrigued he would be, therefore following you.

You could sense his shadow behind you as you walked down the hallway. Unfortunately you got cut off of your course by the two women leaving the interrogation room.

“Where are you going?” Romanoff asked in that authoritarian tone only she could manage to do.

“Nowhere,” you dismissed her, but a sudden idea made you stop on your tracks and turn around, “Ms Maximoff, if you’re free right now, I’d like you to come with me.”

She looked confused by the request, and you were getting impatient. Natasha was clearly not happy about it, but there was nothing she could do if the woman said yes. After almost 30 seconds of complete silence, you started to make your way again towards the exit, a pair of heels clicking behind you.

You got inside the car, Sam on the driver’s seat, Wanda following behind.

“Where to?”

“The nightclub, of course.”

Wanda’s demeanor changed at the mention of those words. She was already on high alert, but the idea of going to the place where her brother was murdered lit up something in her. It wasn’t fear, anger or shock, it was nervousness. Her fingers kept playing with her rings and her eyes kept a religious watch outside the window.

You couldn’t help but look at her through the mirror. The traces of red around her eyes, from crying all night, lips red and swollen, skin shining yet pale. She caught you staring when your phone rang, but you didn’t look away for a few moments.

“Yes?”

“Where is the notebook?” The voice on the other side of the line was mad, irritated.

“I have it, why?”

“And where are you?”

“I told you before, Romanoff, it doesn’t matter,” her silence scared you a little bit, “look, I’ll let you know in a few minutes, okay?” You tried to appease her nerves, as a precaution, though, you hung up.

“We’re here,” Sam said, as he parked the car on the entrance to L’Archange.

“Alright,” you said before either of them could get out of the car, “Wilson, I need you to go up to that security guard,” you gestured towards the one that guarded the entrance of the, now, empty club, “and say you’re from the FBI, that you need to take a look inside, let me know if he says yes.”

“Why? Aren’t you coming?”

“Nope,” you simply answered, swiftly leaving the vehicle, leaving them both startled, “go people, go.”

Wanda followed you, not sure what to do or where to go, while Sam, surprisingly, obeyed you, walking directly to the guard. You walked along the front of the building, watching the walls as if they were the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen.

“Wait, where are we going?”

“You people ask too many questions.”

“Forgive me for wanting to know what I’m doing with a stranger at the place…” she quieted abruptly, you didn’t blame her, it was all still too fresh.

“I’m planning,” you explained, not quite sure why you did it.

“Planning what?”

You stopped at the side of the building, digging yourself into the small corridor between the club and the property beside it. Wanda felt weird about it, but followed you anyway.

“Planning for what?” She grunted when a twig got caught on her hair. The heels and clothes certainly weren’t ideal for this kind of situation.

“Agent Wilson will set the guards on alert, they won’t let us in without a warrant, of course, but they’ll know we’re coming. And what do places like these do when the police are coming?” You paused to look at her, but she didn’t show any signs of understanding. “They get rid of everything illegal.”

“Isn’t it preferable if you guys can catch all these… illegal things inside?”

“Perhaps,” it was the only thing you offered her, she’d have to wait and see your plan for herself, if she wanted to.

You finally reached the end of the corridor, and you found yourself, pleasantly, on the alley you had walked been that night, when the murder was called in. Wanda watched you curiously, the proud smile painting your features.

“You’re a very weird person, Ms Dawson,” for a moment you hoped she wouldn’t call you that anymore.

You smiled at her, “I’ve been told that before.”

You finished your round at the club.The other side also consisted of a thin corridor that Wanda was very uncomfortable to cross again. It was strange to be there when it was so peaceful and quiet, none of the crowds from that night, or the loud music that must’ve usually enveloped the place.

Sam met you at the car, a not so pleased expression on his face.

“He said we needed a warrant to search the place.” You sent Wanda a knowing look.

The three of you got back inside the car. Sam mumbling all kinds of complaints about going all the way there for nothing. You held the notebook tight on your hands, mindlessly flipping through the pages. Wanda caught your attention, tapping your shoulder after a few minutes on the road.

“Hey, can I take a look at the… notebook?”

“Of course,” you turned to hand her the object, but clumsily dropped it on the car floor instead.

It fell open, starting Wanda.

“I’ve seen that before!”

Taglist (fill up this form to be added): @purplemeetsblue @blurryylines @ambivertedfrog @nervoustrack @scarjo-wife @ilovemarvelwomen @Tsmukanii @chaekhan @sxfwap @zairaaaa @dabakedpotato420 @onceattwice @marvelwomen-simp @royalityofmultifandom @hallecarey1 @kategayden @unexpected-character @spongebobtentacles @007giu @wandasbubs @gimaximoff @myneveerlaand @Fallingfineline @makegoodchoices @olsensnpm @celestialcat44 @supersourlemon13 @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @yeetus-thyself @@stephanieromanoff @paladinho @lenissa @lokisconnexion @myfavoriteficss @when-wolves-howl @aawake-atnight @dandelions4us @peter3iscool

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff au #wanda maximoff #mcu #marvel #sleeping dogs

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haveyouprayedtonight-desdemona · 2 years ago

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albedo’s relationship with rhinedottir is such an important key aspect to his character and yet i never really see people talking about it? rhinedottir left albedo’s prototype, a living being with emotions, to die because he wasn’t good enough. knowing this, i imagine that albedo probably lived to be perfect only for her to eventually abandon him as well, essentially confirming that he would never be good enough for her no matter how human-like he seemed. albedo’s character story describes rhinedottir as a cold, strict woman who would threaten to leave him if he ever failed her. it specifies that he believed her, too — rhinedottir evidently wouldn’t have hesitated to throw albedo out just like she’d done to his brother. to rhinedottir, albedo was always replaceable. sure, we don’t know a lot about the specifics of their relationship. maybe there was more nuance on her part, but from the way that i see it, rhinedottir either didn’t see albedo as sentient despite creating him to be so, or she knew that he was but just didn’t care. one thing is for certain: rhinedottir treated albedo like an experiment.

(what makes this even more interesting to me, though, is durin. in the festering desire’s description, we see him refer to rhinedottir as “mother” multiple times, and she also refers to her creations as “my lovely children”, which tells me that she must’ve established parent-child relationships with them. durin’s memories paint a completely different picture of rhinedottir in comparison to albedo’s. rhinedottir was kinder to durin, she calls him “lovely” and tells him that she’s sending him away from khaenri’ah in order to “display his beauty”, a stark contrast to the way that she seems to have treated albedo (albedo also says that he considers rhinedottir to be family, but he never outright calls her “mother” in the same way that durin does. i think that’s interesting.) in the end, though, rhinedottir still corrupted durin and sent him to his death, so i don’t think she really cared about him either. at the end of the day, no matter how she treats them, rhinedottir only sees her creations as tools that she can use for her own gain.)

so, okay, rhinedottir doesn’t care about her creations. fine. cool. albedo doesn’t see it that way. or maybe he does and he just doesn’t care. albedo knows about durin, he knows about his prototype and what she did to him and yet he still loves rhinedottir. he still views her in a falsely positive light and doesn’t seem to register anything wrong with the way that she treated him. he maintains that rhinedottir means more to him than words like “family” or “master” can convey. he still thinks it was his fault that she left and now he’s stuck chasing after an impossible goal in an attempt to get her to come back. meanwhile, she evidently cared for him conditionally and left as soon as she found something more interesting to study (we don’t know the full story but that’s how it looks). in a way, i feel that he must have somewhat realized that his relationship with rhinedottir wasn’t healthy on some level because, while he’s not exactly warm, he doesn’t treat sucrose or timaeus the same way at all. like, he’s patient with them and he helps them out on a personal level. i can only imagine that he learned this by examining his relationship with his master and realizing that it bothered him at some point. that’s mostly just speculation on my part, though.

the thing about albedo is that, on the exterior, he seems to have moved past it. he’s still looking for the “truth of this world” as far as we know, but he’s also managed to find a place in mondstadt on his own, divorced from rhinedottir’s influence. he’s developed hobbies outside of alchemy, likes and dislikes, has made friends and has even met people that he considers family. sure, he lives in a secluded cave on a mountain so, i mean, it’s not like he’s social but he’s his own person. albedo also seems to have come to terms with his origins as a synthetic human, the mark on his neck and has accepted it as something that he can’t change. he seems happy, if not, content with where his life has come to in the current state of the game.

this raises a question for me. between albedo’s love for rhinedottir and his place in mondstadt, if rhinedottir were to come back, what would he choose? what would come of it? i’m honestly really curious, and i hope they find something to do with their dynamic in the future (if rhinedottir even appears) because i think it has a lot of potential.

#(this is a re-write of an old post because i realized that i didn’t like it.)#genshin impact #genshin analysis #genshin theory #i need to find another character to write about #gi albedo #genshin lore #good morning btw

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shurisneakers · 4 years ago

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harmless (ix)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, sex jokes, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, anxiety

Word count: 3.9k

A/N: a lot of requests came in last week, so cool and thank you for sending them in!! i’ll try my best to write them if they weren’t originally what i had planned for this series bc they’re so cute kfjdghdf. also hey shoutout to @i-reblog-fics-i-like for suggesting the backstory thing!

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Additional Scene || Previous Part || Series Masterlist

Hot single in your area! 😈 Find your solemate!

Somehow it bypasses Bucky’s spam folder and is in his primary email. SHIELD tech is too advanced to let fake mails like this reach him and this doesn’t make sense. Unless it was one of the stupid dating websites he signed up for.

Leaving aside the obvious typo in the subject, he clicks on it, hoping it doesn’t unleash a virus onto his computer.

He’s instead greeted with a poorly Photoshopped picture of you at a bar with a martini in your hand. He doesn’t have to look too hard to see that the martini is, in fact, an emoji. Off to a terrible start already.

Right beside it is an even worse image, an imitation of an early Internet chat box.

Harbinger of Doom just sent you a message!

Come to the empty lot near lair. Bring goggles. 😩💦

Decline/Accept

He wants to strangle you.

______

“Why did you curse my eyes so early in the morning?” He spots you at the top of the lair, speaking loudly so that it hopefully reached you.

“What?” you yell back down instead. “If you’re saying something, I can’t hear you.”

He rolls his eyes. He pulls his phone from his pocket and presses on your contact.

He watches the look of confusion morph into one of slight surprise when you reach into your pocket and pull out your call.

“Don’t ever send an image like that to me again,” he says directly.

“If that one image is too much for you, how will we ever make our sex tape?”

His mouth opens and shuts like goddamn fish.

He can hear your laughter even without the phone.

“First of all- stop laughing- first of all, a sex tape is never going to happen. Second of all, I have a debriefing to go to, we need to make this quick.”

He holds up a finger when he sees you begin to say something. By the look of trouble painted all over your face, he knows it’s going to be a dumb innuendo.

“Thirdly, why are you standing there?”

“I watched The Last Airbender,” you say once your cackling dies down.

“I like that show.” He did. Peter sometimes watched it when he came over and Bucky more often than not joined in.

“I know, you told me.”

Oh.

“Okay, what now?”

“Put your goggles on.” You take one step towards the ledge.

“What are you doing?” The goggles don’t do anything to shield him from the sun, considering that they’re not tinted. Maybe he could invest in those.

You send him a smile, taking a step further. His walk towards the building turns into a jog, then a sprint when you’re basically standing on the edge.

You spread your arms out like Jesus Christ himself before flinging yourself off the building. His stomach drops.

His phone falls to the ground, discarded to the side as he sprints to break your landing.

It never comes.

Instead, a gust of wind smacks him in the face, forcing him a few steps backwards.

“I am now an air bender.” your eyes shone. “Kind of.”

Just like that, the show was ruined.

He wipes the dust on from his glasses that he now understands why you made him wear. Considerate, for a person who nearly just gave him a heart attack.

“Why.” It’s not even a question, just a statement.

“You know how the Tower has a giant ‘A’ on the side?”

He stares at you.

“I‘m gonna spray paint ‘asshole’ on the side of it.”

Pepper would not like that.

“That’s not even evil.”

“Yeah, but it’d annoy your super friends,” You do a flip midair, testing out the repulsors that were tied around your palms, “and I’m the voice of the people.”

You’re too high for him to reach. He doesn’t have his tools, or anything useful on him considering that he never had to use them before. He couldn’t even launch himself at you from the side of the building because you’d just move out of the way. He could jump really high but it would just have the same consequence.

He could talk and keep you distracted but that worked once, it wouldn’t again. At least not for long.

Fuck, he really had only one option.

He leaves you to do your somersaults and turns, walking over to where he dropped his phone. It’s an upgrade from the brick he was using a while ago, but not a high end Stark model. A smartphone, but barely.

He sighs, punching in the number and holding it up to his ear.

“Who are you calling?” you yell from above him.

“Go back to your shitty aerobics,” he yells back.

You pause for a second. “Was that a fucking pun, James Bar-”

The dial tone ends when someone picks up. He diverts his attention back to the call.

“Hey man, I-

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“It’s probably something stupid,” Sam doesn’t even sound annoyed, just uninterested.

“I need your wings.”

“I was right. Bye.”

It was a long shot anyway.

“Fuckin’ hold on a second.” He sees you disintegrate a concrete block by having it drop from the air. “You come here and fix this, then. She’s air bending now.”

“...like Avatar?” Sam unsurprisingly got the reference.

Peter’s interests were usually shared by everyone in the Tower, just because they had to compensate for the teasing he had to endure. It led to a lot of geeky documentaries and occasional musicals. Bucky wouldn’t be caught dead humming songs from Thoroughly Modern Millie under his breath.

“Yeah.”

“You want me to come and fight your girlfriend,” he says slowly.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Bucky urges, “and yes, I need help. Can’t exactly reach her when she’s twenty feet above me.”

“We have a briefing in 30 minutes. Why did you even go there today?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. Just looks up at you smacking one of the repulsors against your thigh when it sputters for a second. It’s tradition.

“Well?” Bucky ignores his question.

“Fine,” Sam’s voice is distant for a second as he agrees. “Clint’s asking if he can come too.”

“Fuck no.” One of them was more than enough and Sam was way better at negotiation.

He hears a faint profanity from who he assumed was Clint before the call cuts.

He takes a seat on the ground and waits.

“You’re not going to make any effort to stop me?” You have your arms pressed to your side, palms pointed downwards to keep you afloat.

“I could just throw things at you again.” He makes a mention towards the small pebbles.

“I will fuck you up if you even try,” you warn. He lifts his arms in surrender. “So that’s it. You’re just going to sit there.”

“To be honest, I couldn’t care less if you painted the building,” he says with the least amount of interest he could muster, not that that was very hard.

“Do you not like your team?”

“I do.” He isn’t lying. “But they’re little shits.”

“I can draw a couple of dicks on their window, no problem,” you say offhandedly.

He looks up at you through his fingers. “That won’t be required.”

Although it was appreciated.

“Cool, so then I’m gonna go.” You make a mention of the utility belt on your waist. He looks at the many spray cans that decorate it.

“What colour are you going with?” he interrupts quickly. Fuckin’ Sam. What was the point of wings if he couldn’t get here in 2 minutes?

“Red, probably.” You look down. “I got purple and white just in case.”

“Building’s dark, red is good.”

“You really don’t care, do you?” You lower yourself down to the ground, a few feet ahead of him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” For fucks’ sake, Sam. “You really don’t like superheroes, do you?”

“I don’t have anything against them.”

“Then why do you do this every week?”

This was wading into personal territory and he did not like it.

“Well.” Your eyebrows knit together. “Because I want to. It’s fun.”

“No other reason?”

“Do I need to have another reason?” You push your palm downwards, sending you back up into the air. “Can’t I just be evil because I want to?”

“Sure,” he says. He’s heard worse reasons. “Why not?”

“Besides, if you think I don’t like superheroes then you should meet Jake.”

“Who’s Jake?” He hadn’t ever heard you mention him before because he’d remember if you had.

“My roommate.”

“I didn’t see him when I came over.”

“That’s because we’re not conjoined at the hip.” It takes you a second to stabilise. “Besides, he grabbed the water while I got the bracelet but he refused to come say hi.”

Bucky looked down at his wrist. It was still there. He found himself fidgeting with it more often than not.

“He hates superheroes?”

“He has a valid reason.” Your eyes widen in worry when your head suddenly dips.

“What is it?” He knows the height at which you’re at isn’t very dangerous but if need be, he’s close by.

“Come find out.” Your eyes shone mischievously. “But yeah, no reason for me to be evil.”

“Not even a tragic backstory?”

“None. But if you want it, I can give you one, Barnes.” You test the waters, seeing how long you can lie horizontally. “Can’t promise you’ll like it though.”

“Try me.” He has time to kill. He’s a good listener.

“Well, it all started with my family- a troop of gorillas.” You flip over to lie on your back. “They practically raised me, they did. Until my gorilla mother died and I was all but consumed by grief and-”

“Your mother was a gorilla?” He entertains the notion.

“Or was it my father?” you ask thoughtfully. “I don’t know, I don’t remember. Anyway, I met a-”

“Just to clarify, none of this is real, right?” he interjects.

You stare at him. He stares at you.

“Bucky, that’s the plot of Tarzan,” you say slowly, “or at least whatever I remember of it... which I’m beginning to realise isn’t much.”

“Just clarifying.” He leans back again.

“Anyway so then when my mother, the deer-”

“Gorilla.”

“Whatever. Was killed, I escaped to some place-”

“Where?”

“Somewhere. And I stayed with these seven men-”

“Why seven?” He actually remembers watching this movie with his sister when it came out. An early memory, a bit faded. He remembers how long he saved up for the ticket.

“Because character development. And then I realised the reason my life was so weird was because there was a rat controlling me by pulling on my hair-”

“What the fuc-”

“If you ask any more questions, I’m going to stop.”

Bucky blinks at you. “So that’s your backstory.”

“Raw and uncut, baby.”

“Just to get this straight, your mother, the gorilla deer-”

“Witch.”

“Huh?”

“She was a witch who stole my hair.”

“Wha-”

He’s interrupted by the giant shadow cast by something that flies overhead.

Fucking finally.

He doesn’t even have to look up. Sam does a small glide to the ground, landing gracefully beside him.

Bucky finds you speechless but straightened up from your earlier posture.

“Buck,” Sam greets him.

“Sam,” he says in return, getting up from his place.

A grin spreads across your face. “Mr. Sam Wilson. No way.”

“You’re Y/N, I’m assuming?” Sam offers, posture relaxed. He clearly wasn’t here to fight.

“The one and only.” You tear your eyes away from Sam to glare at Bucky. “Barnes, if you had told me we were expecting guests, I would have dressed better.”

Bucky furrows his eyebrows in suspicion at you. You’d dress up for Sam.

You dressed up like a suburban tourist dad for him. He was feeling the offence incoming.

“Can’t count on him to be useful in any situation.” Alright, he did not call Sam just to have the both of you team up against him.

“Normally I’d agree with you but he did just invite you here, so...” you trail off, looking at Sam expectantly.

What the shit.

Sam smirks. Bucky switches rapidly back and forth between the both of you.

“I see why Buck keeps coming back every week.” It doesn’t take long for him to catch on, enlisting a feeling of triumph from you.

“I can’t see why he doesn’t just stay at home everyday if this is the view.” You gesture to him.

This is not what Bucky wanted.

“Okay,” Bucky interrupts, “what is going on here?”

“Pure chemistry, I’d say.” You’re half tempted to bite your lip to seal the deal.

“I agree.” Sam just nods, completely and utterly serious.

You think that you’ll give him a gift basket just for playing along despite meeting you for the first time at that moment.

“Get a room.” Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Maybe we will.” You tap your finger against your lip in thought. “How do you feel about Indian food, Sam?”

“Very positively.”

Bucky grits his teeth. “If you’re not planning to spray paint the Tower, can you just hand over the repulsers so we can go home for the day?”

You let out a small tsk in disapproval. “See what I have to deal with?”

“Can’t imagine how you do it every weekend,” Sam says dryly, not wasting a second in replying.

“Hello?” Bucky waves his arm around. “She’s the villain here.”

“Your face is the villain here.” You tear your eyes away from Sam only to glare at him. “He won’t even wear a cape. Why am I the only one who brings their A-Game every week?”

“Sam just get the damn-”

“You should wear a cape, man.” Bucky’s absolutely sure that even Sam knows it’s a ridiculous idea.

“I’m not wearing a fuckin’ cape,” he grumbles.

“What are your thoughts on swords, then?” Your finger finds a place under your chin in deep contemplation. “You’d look great with a sword.”

Bucky buries his face in his palms. “Sam, for the love of God.”

“Okay, alright.” Sam finally gives in with a small chuckle. He runs a few steps to get a small head start before launching himself into the air, whizzing past your levitating figure. He does a neat little flip midair before matching your height.

Showoff.

“How difficult are you gonna make this, Wilson?” you ask, a smirk on your face.

“Jesus Christ.” Bucky exhales, looking at the both of you through his goggles.

“What’s your play here?” Sam calls out loudly.

“Was gonna spray paint ‘asshole’ on the side of the Tower.”

“After the ‘A’?”

“After the ‘A’,” you confirm.

“Now that’s too small,” Sam tutted. “You gotta think bigger. Paint the whole Tower.”

“Sam!” Bucky looks horrified.

“Hmm.” You look like you’re considering it. “Don’t have enough paint for that though.”

“You’re an evil genius, right?” Sam casts a small glance at Bucky. “At least that’s what he tells me.”

“You talk about me?” You grin at the disgruntled man on the ground.

“I don’t,” he mutters, shaking his head. A lie.

“Yeah, so build something,” Sam points out. “Get some more paint. I’ll even tell you the best vantage points to spill it.”

“No, he won’t,” Bucky shouts from below.

“He’s just cranky because he didn’t get his prune juice this morning, ignore him,” Sam dismisses him.

Prune juice? He was a young 100, not ancient.

“What’s your favourite colour, Falcon?”

“I like red.”

As annoyed as Bucky is right now, he stores that away in his memory for later. He also knows Sam loves seafood and a good pair of shoes.

“A couple of gallons of red paint it is, then.” You lower yourself to the ground, Sam slowly follows suit until he lands beside Bucky.

“You know we can’t let you go without taking those, right?” Bucky tilts his head towards your invention.

You narrow your eyes at him. He doesn’t budge.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Sam pipes in instead. “I’ll keep them until you finish getting the paint and once you’re done, we’ll make an evening out of vandalising the Tower.”

Bucky may not enjoy his company all that much but he admires Sam’s diplomacy. Of course, you would never make it this easy while reasoning with him.

“That a promise, Mr. Wilson?” You raise your eyebrow at him questioningly but are already in the process of removing the things from your hand.

“Wouldn’t ever lie to you, doll.” He holds up his hand in a mock swear.

You walk towards Bucky and him, rotating your wrists to get rid of the soreness. “Bold claim for a man who met me ten minutes ago.”

“Feels like it’s been longer.” He sends you a wink and you can’t stop the laugh the escapes from you finally.

Bucky holds his hand out for the gadgets. You shrink away from him with a click of your tongue.

“Technically, he takes this round.” You send a nod towards Sam, dropping off the repulsors into his hand. “So he gets it.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“You gonna keep ‘em safe?” you ask Sam, this time a little more earnestly.

“Guard it with my life,” he says seriously, pressing his lips together in a line to avoid smiling.

“You’re both ridiculous,” Bucky cuts in.

“You’re going to be late.” Sam tucks the devices into his pocket safely. “You know how Steve gets when people walk in on his speeches. Do you even have a ride?”

“Got the motorcycle.”

“See you there.” Sam nods.

“Save me a place,” Bucky says to him.

“No.” He doesn’t even hesitate. “Y/N. It was a pleasure.”

“Still holding you to that evening, Sam.” You send him a smile.

“I’m countin’ on it.” He gives you a small three finger salute before taking off, leaving you staring after his retracting figure.

When the dust settles, Bucky awkwardly clears his throat. “Right. So that was that.”

“Dude,” you let out an exhale. “he’s so hot.”

He murmurs something unintelligible. It vaguely sounds like a series of threats but mostly a list of complaints.

“Don’t you have a meeting to get to?” You turn your attention back to him.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you going to be late?” You glance at the clock on your phone.

“I’ll just tell them I was on a mission.” Well, sort of. “Besides, what are they gonna do? Kick me out?”

“Fair enough.” You shrug. “Have a safe ride back.”

From what he knows of you and Sam, the both of you were kidding around. But he could never be too sure. He can’t even ask if you were serious about the entire thing because it’s none of his business.

Were the implications of having his mortal nemesis and other mortal nemesis date important enough to overrule that?

“Are you planning to skip your meeting, or?” you ask when he remains freezes in his spot, eyes glazed over like he’s thinking about something. “Because if you are, I know this great Thai place-”

“Don’t do that again,” he says instead, shaking his head to jolt him out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“Flinging yourself off roofs like that.”

“Why?” Because it scared the hell out of him, for one.

“Just don’t.”

“Oh please, like you’ve never done dangerous shit like that before.” You narrow your eyes at him, reading his face. “Are you telling me you care about me?”

“No.” His nose twitches. “Just don’t throw yourself off buildings when I’m around.”

“What about when you’re not?”

“As long as I’m not there to witness it.” He shrugs, spinning on his heel to leave. Technically he preferred if you didn’t do things like that at all.

“Fine. I’ll just have my clone try out all the dangerous stuff for me.”

He stops in his tracks. “You have a clone?”

“Well,” You squint, “no. But I’m working on it.”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “Bye Y/N.”

“You know, it sounds an awful lot like you’re saying we’re friends.” Your whole demeanour changes and he already knows what’s coming.

“I never said that,” he argues vehemently. “All I said was that I can’t have your murder on my hands.”

“Thus implying that we’re friends. In a fucked up, enemies kind of way.” You positively beam at him. “Aw, Barnes, that’s adorable.”

Adorable? Adorable?

“I hate you.”

“I love you, too, bestie,” you gush, dumb grin on your face. “I’ll make us friendship rings next time. What are your thoughts on matching tattoos?”

He wants to cry.

______

By the time Sam walks into the meeting room, the session’s already begun. He shoots an apologetic look to a monologuing Steve before taking his place at the nearest chair available.

Something sharp pokes his thigh. His wings are off and in the backpack beside him, but then he remembers your little inventions that were still in his pocket.

He tries not to make much of a noise while he pulls them out, giving them a look over to make sure they’re not broken.

“Watcha got there, Big Bird?” Tony asks lowly from beside him.

“Something that Barnes’ enemy made.” Sam holds it up slightly.

“The one he’s been rendezvousing around town with every weekend?”

“That’s her.” He’s about to put it in his backpack when Tony stops him.

“Pass that here for a second.” He recognises it immediately for what it is, interest piqued.

Sam hands one of them over while he puts the other back in the bag. It’s a metallic circle, not bigger than Tony’s palm, with a thick leather strap to tie it around your palm.

“She made this?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Sam mentions towards Bucky who silently slips into the conference room, standing in the corner near the potted plant since there were no more chairs left.

“The balance has gotta be off on this thing,” he mutters to himself, wholly ignoring the brooding man standing in the corner like a Christmas tree.

“She seemed to be manoeuvring it fine,” Sam catches the eye of a lower ranking agent who makes the mistake of glaring at him for talking while the meeting was going on. A few seconds later the agent hastily looks away and doesn’t turn around for the rest of the hour.

“Could be better.” He uses a much more intricate model for his suits, although this isn’t even half-bad for a homemade version. “Do you know how long she took to make this?”

“Buck says she comes up with a new one every week, so I’m guessing that long.”

It had a few glitches but it was incredibly refined for a week’s worth of work.

“Interesting.” He gives it a quick overlook before handing it back to Sam who drops it into the bag.

He casts a swift glance at Bucky, noting how he wasn’t even paying attention to the meeting but rather to whatever he had tied around his metal wrist, fidgeting with it with his thumb.

Tony has an idea.

And that was generally bad news.

Next part

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #mcu fic #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky angst #bucky barnes angst #harmless fic #winter soldier x reader #Winter Soldier #bucky barnes #bucky

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dadsbongos · 3 years ago

Text

trashy dad

Movie/Game/Show: My Hero Academia Dynamic: Shota Aizawa/Reader (Platonic) Warnings: references (2) to un*s ann*s, one (1) use of (y/n), fem pronouns Summary: Shota trying to support his YouTuber daughter :) cuz social media aus own me Word Count: 2.1K ~~~

"Hey, gamers," you grin at the camera before tossing an arm over your father's shoulders, "My dad's in town and as you can see," you hesitated slightly before turning to face your father, "Dad's not super into taking care of himself. So, I figured what's better than doing a Q&A together while I do his makeup?"

"Hitoshi just did a 'what I eat in a day', didn't he?" Shota quirked a brow, already reaching back to tie up his messy, tangled hair.

"Spoilers!" you quietly whine as you open your phone, "He still has to edit it, silly man. We're gonna have to brush out your hair later, by the way."

Shota's eyes widened, "We? I thought this was your idea and video, (Y/n)."

"No," you huff, scrolling through a few of the questions from fans, "I mean it was but your hair is so… Okay, first question is from - oh my God the names - shrekslongtoe, what was my first word?"

"Are you gonna start putting makeup on me or just sit there?" Shota scratched at his nose before snickering, "That wasn't your first word. Your first word was 'Dada' and it drove Hizashi insane."

"Hizashi is my other dad, by the way," you lean over to grab your makeup bag, "'Toshi and I call him papa. Oooh, oh no," you looked up to Shota, "I don't have your shade, you're gonna look weird."

"I don't really care," the man shrugged, watching as you took out a pink beauty blender, "That looks like a buttplug."

"Don't say that!" your eyes were wide at his words while you got out your foundation, "Youtube doesn't like that."

"Whoops," he deadpanned, "Next question."

"Shit, right."

"Language."

"Japanese," you murmur, going to the next reply, "yoonbumskneecap asks, 'Did you believe in me-’ they said my name but you know, ‘and Hitoshi when they decided to become Youtubers?' And 'in 'Toshi's case - drop out of college to become a professional clout man.'"

"To be honest," Shota closed his eyes, only in slight fear, as you began pressing the foundation into his skin, "I was really worried about Hitoshi, I didn't know if he'd stay as big as he was because he's a lot like me, in the sense that people tend to not like us for our bluntness. So I was worried he'd be a meme for like a month and then people would drop him, but thankfully I was proved wrong," he opened his eyes when he felt you pull away and begin rooting through your bag once again, "With you, I was less worried because you're more like 'Zashi, i.e extremely likable, and you were kind of getting a boost from appearances on Hitoshi's channel. I still worry because the internet is a fickle mistress but I'm not staying up at night about it."

Pulling out a dark eyebrow pencil, you grin at your father, "Aww, that was kinda sweet. Not really but kind of."

"What I'm here for," Shota's eyes followed your hand as you uncapped the pencil and reached up, beginning to mark at his eyebrows, "I'm gonna read the next question while you kill my eyebrows."

"I'm not killing them!" you giggled, "But unlike Papa, you already have pretty thick, full eyebrows so I won't be here long."

"Good," he muttered before furrowing his brows in confusion, ignoring your frustrated groan, "who is daddysero and why is he asking if you pissed today?"

"What?!" you pull your dad's hand back to see what he was looking at, instantly calming down when you saw he was still on Twitter, "Oh, that's just Sero, he asks me that every time I tweet. I thought you went to my Instagram DMs," at Shota's questioning stare you grinned, "Mama's got simps in her DMs."

"Don't ever call yourself 'Mama' in my presence ever again," Shota shook his head, once again ignoring your annoyance, "papichulo46290 wants to know my favorite memory of you."

"If you mix me up with 'Toshi, I'll be so pissed," you return the eyebrow pencil to your bag as Shota speaks.

"I won't... probably," he shrugs while you root through your bag, "So, Hizashi had taken Hitoshi out for ice cream because of - has he mentioned his middle school trauma?" at your nod, he continues, "Hitoshi was having a bad day from middle school, shocking, so you and I were left home alone together. You were probably seven and you really wanted to paint my nails and I let you. You..." he shook his head, snickering, "you fucked them up. So bad. But you were so happy to just be spending time with me- "

"Keep talking, but I'm gonna do your eyeshadow," you lean back in, swishing your brush over a navy blue, almost black shade, "Just so you guys know, Dad wanted to look like shit, don't unsubscribe cuz this is gonna come out bad."

"It won't be too bad, you're talented," Shota did his best to remain still, "But overall, you were just so adorable and it didn't even matter that the smudged nails got me teased in the teacher's lounge the next day. It all came off after like a week because it was shitty polish but you get the idea."

"Aww, I didn't know you kept it on, that's so sweet," you fall back briefly to inspect your work, "It's not awful but I'm only posting this because you're my dad."

"Of course, I did," Shota continued scrolling through the questions, "A lot of people are asking if you mean Dad or Daddy, and a lot more people are asking for pictures of your feet, you should block them all."

"Yeah, I got sickos in my replies too, just gotta scroll past em'."

"Disgusting..." Shota grumbled as you moved to his other eye, "Is 'electrodick' Kaminari, perchance?"

"Unfortunately."

"Gross, he asks if you had an 'I'm not like other girls' phase," Shota hummed quietly in thought, "Maybe when you were eight for like a month, but that's probably because except for Nemuri you didn't have any women in your life. Thankfully you moved on from that pretty quickly."

"Oh yeah, that was a gross, weird time. You and Papa also weren’t shitty people so I didn’t have a lot of misogynist influence."

"I like to think we did a good job," Shota sighed, finally moving back into his slouching position when you pulled away completely, "Is 'explosionmurder' Bakugou?"

"You know it."

"Okay well, he's asking if you plan on fucking up your bronzing again?" he thinks for a moment, “Was that from when you looked kinda copper-ish in a video?

"Oh my God, that was one time, Bakugou!" you shout and shake your brush at the camera, "One time!"

"I don't even know what blending is so you're doing better than I am."

"God, how are we related?"

Without hesitation, Shota replied, "Surrogate. Which answers summerlongsock's question."

"Nice," you chuckle, setting the brush back in your bag, "You probably won't need too much bronze or countour since you're going for bad," you immediately turn to the camera, "And Bakugou isn't gonna say a fucking word about it!"

"Is eyeliner next? And if so, I would enjoy a nice wing," Shota muttered, looking through the remaining questions, "Hitoshi asks why I haven't done a video with him yet."

You nod along while uncapping the liner, "I'm curious about that too. I thought my first video with a parent would be with Papa. I was gonna say family but..." you shrug, "Hitoshi was my first video and then Eri came on."

"He never asked," Shota closed both of his eyes, allowing you to move his head around as you pleased, "You just texted me the video idea and we set it up while I was in town. If Hitoshi wants a video so bad he should come up with an idea."

"Jeez, don't bully the poor boy," you laughed quietly, carefully applying more eyeliner to your father's left lid, "We should all do a video together. I think it'd be fun."

"Come up with an idea," he replied flatly before opening his eyes, "davinky wants to know when you got into makeup. Probably after thirteen, sometime."

"Yeah, I got my first real eyeshadow at like fourteen and then you guys just enabled my love of makeup after that."

"Well, the thing with that was, Hizashi and I didn't want you growing up thinking you had to wear makeup for any reason," Shota opened his eyes once he felt you back away, blinking a few times, "So we waited till you were more mature because giving makeup to a six-year-old is weird."

Capping your eyeliner, you traded it out for mascara, "Yeah, even little play kits are a bit ehhh. Don't close your eyes, but look down."

Following instruction, Shota took the opportunity to read off another question, "I can't see the name but someone's asking what we did together for fun. While you were a kid."

Humming quietly in thought, you move from one eye to the other, "We used to go to diners a lot. Those late-night diner trips, remember?"

"Oh yeah, you were such a little demon about bedtime. I had to take you to this little place for scrambled eggs or some shit and you'd fall asleep on the way back home."

Putting away your mascara, you reach out for your hairbrush before beginning to pull out the hair tie in Shota's hair, "Mina wanted me to ask what videos you show people when they ask what your kids do for a living."

"For Hitoshi, the one where he and Kaminari made Bakugou breakfast with sex toys. For you, the one where you turn yourself into Mina's little character - with the pink skin," Shota winced slightly at the tug of your hairbrush, "And Eri's a teacher so that information comes first since it's the least strange."

As you fussed with his tangled nest of hair, you read another question over Shota's shoulder, "When did you know you loved me? Like after adopting me."

"Not too long after the adoption was finalized actually," Shota grumbled as the brush made its final courses through his hair, "You've always been a really great kid. I don't know when I 'realized' but it was definitely around the time you were born, maybe like the day after."

"That's pretty good considering I was a stranger," you giggled, brushing out the final knots in his dark hair, "A baby stranger."

"Hmm," Shota hummed in response, "You almost done?"

Refraining from rolling your eyes, you fluffed Shota's now smooth and detangled hair around his shoulders with a small smile, "I'm done. Your hair is so pretty when it's brushed out."

"I know," the man muttered, handing your phone back, "Wanna do one more question and then sign off?"

"Yeah," you scroll through some of the questions, "I want it to be the best question that's ever been asked."

"Ask your own, you're great at that."

You shook your head with furrowed brows at his comment, "Is that a compliment?"

"It was meant to be."

"Thanks, but no need, I've found one. Midoriya wants to know if raising two attention whores was hard. He didn't say ‘attention whores’ because he doesn't swear but that's the vibe."

"What's Midoriya's at?" Shota asked.

"SmallMight."

"Of course," the man grumbled, closing his eyes to think, "You two were honestly pretty easy to raise. Not a whole lot of fits compared to what I've heard other parents talk about. You both liked to talk a lot to each other, and, of course, to Hizashi and me. Not terribly difficult at all."

"Aww, I'm glad we didn't make you pull your hair out," you grin.

"Oh, you still did. Absolutely."

"Nice," you giggle before turning off your phone and facing the camera, "Okay guys, well, I hope you don't clown on me as much as usual because if you do, my dad will... I don't know… kick your ass."

"Exactly," Shota nodded, a horrific smile on his face, "I'll beam right into your living room."

"Hopefully you guys come back next week where I'll..." floundering for an answer, you turn to your dad as if he’d give you ideas, "Create wings to do it better than Icarus ever could."

Giving a singular stiff nod, Shota looked dead at the camera, "I'd watch it."

"You heard it from the main man himself, peeps," you waved to the camera, Shota copying the motion, “Bye!”

"If there's one comment about my eyebags, I'm never coming on your channel again," Shota lied as you leaned over to stop recording.

"They're gonna love you, I'm sure," you assure your father, "Wanna see how I edit?"

"God no, Hitoshi showed me how long it takes to edit his videos, it looks like hell."

#bnha x reader #bnha x reader platonic #shota aizawa x reader #shota x reader #aizawa x reader #shota aizawa x daughter reader #aizawa x daughter reader #shota x daughter reader #shota x reader platonic

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ashbelero · 4 years ago

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AKA a tutorial on color theory and skin tone that you shouldn’t have had to hear from a pasty white guy.

I’m not here to talk about what brought me to do this tutorial. I’m just giving my thoughts on color theory, basically, because most of these examples, WHILE TOTALLY VALID, use other pictures as reference points to pick out color. That’s not even necessary all the time, so I’m showing how I choose skin color from the wheel itself.

We’ll be using this sneak preview of Mammon from Obey Me! with piercings, which will be appearing on my Patreon soon. I am literally willing to give you guys exclusive preview content to make this point.

For simplicity’s sake, I went ahead and gave Mammon a base coloring just to give us an area to paint in. Look at that sad, gray skin. He’s so sad. Why would you do this?

I’ll start with what I think the biggest problem is. Here’s a selection of skin tones I use for white or asian-coded characters. Some of these are color-picks from Belphie and Beel, as they’re in my palette currently, along with the tones I use for Matteo. We can see that those colors tend to be clustered towards the white corner and the top of the color scale.

I theorize that when people want to make a skin tone darker, what they’re doing is either using black and gray as their shaders, or simply dragging the color selection down towards the bottom, the black side of the color picker. But that side is also where colors are their least saturated.

Skin tone is determined by melanin concentration. Melanin isn’t a different color for different people - it’s simply more concentrated in some tones than in others. So when we’re choosing a darker skin tone, what we have to do is move down into more concentrated and saturated colors.

Here I’ve selected a few shades of “pale” skin and concentrated them to show a variety of shades and colors that can appear in normal skin tone. You may want to compare shades with the ethnicity you’re portraying before you select your midtone for that character.

The purple tones I’ve selected at the bottom are uncommon, but can often appear in the skin tones of people with extremely dark coloration, which can sometimes suggest an almost violet hue. I think that’s awesome and I implore people to explore reference pictures and models of all backgrounds to literally broaden your spectrum.

As an aside, I personally don’t even like the tones that are often used in official art of Mammon because he does still appear de-saturated in some, so I knew from the start I was going to be selecting my own color.

First point to consider: Never choose your highlight or lightest color as the base for your midtone!

What we want to do is play around with the base color for our model, and then select our highlight and lowlight tones from there. Once you’ve selected your midtone, it’s okay to slide a little vertically to get your highs and lows, but make sure you don’t lose the concentration of your pigment or you’ll end up shading your model with an entirely different color.

Below I played around with gold and copper tones for Mammon to determine the best complement to the color of his hair, eyes, and piercings. As he’s a fallen angel and technically has no ethnicity, I had the freedom to do that, but I’ve been trying to lean more towards latinx/hispanic for his overall aesthetic. (I am relying HEAVILY on other tutorials and friends who know better than me to get THAT part right. Once again, this is only about color theory.)

As a side note, #2 is probably the closest to Mammon’s canon coloration among these.

I personally use linear/color burn and color/glow dodge with concentrated colors to achieve my high and low tones. I used mainly a marigold color for this round, but I usually only end up saving the midtone color and using my background to determine the color cast of my highs and lows, so the highlights and shadows might look totally different if Mammon were standing in, say, a dark blue room with a pale light source... but that would not change his base hue.

Here’s the color palette I ended up getting after toying around a bunch. Just from a color perspective, I think this makes his hair and the gold jewelry pop a bit more while also making sure that they don’t drown out his color.

I hope this tutorial was useful, and if my BIPOC followers and friends have issue with anything I’ve said above, please feel free to correct me and add to this post as you see fit! Once again, this is only from the perspective of someone using color theory to determine these factors, and I am not an ethnic or racial minority in any way, shape or form. My opinions and views on this matter are probably flawed and subject to guidance. I suggested doing this tutorial as a passing thing and someone said that I should, so I did.

Look out for the upcoming “Demon Boys with Piercings” post available publicly on my Patreon for patrons AND non-patrons!

#obey me mammon #mammon obey me #color theory #art reference #art tutorial #bipoc #mammon #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me! swd #obey me!#piercings

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toplinetommy · 4 years ago

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Kill My Lonely Nights - Tyson Jost

a/n: after plotting and replotting this fic for over a month its finally here. my baby and definitely my most favorite thing ive ever written. hope everyone enjoys it as much as i do.

tagging @bqstqnbruin thanks for being my beta and for bouncing ideas around with me and also my fav josty whores 😇 @justjosty @hookingminor @farbutnevergone

Synopsis: tyson finally meets jt’s neighbor — and he’ll stick by her side through her ‘i’m a single and independent woman’ phase as long as jt doesn’t find out

songs: im so tired - lauv, troye sivan; better than heaven - slander; cherry on top - olmos, kyle reynolds

words: 20k+

warnings: alcohol, smut, unprotected sex

“Tyson, you know my neighbor right?”

You roll your eyes at JT’s way of introducing the two of you, because, no, you did not know the curly-headed brunette in front of you. You had seen him in passing a few times when he was over at JT’s but you never learned his name. In fact, the only thing you knew about him was that they were teammates and you got that from deductive reasoning since he was always dressed in some sort of Avalanche merch.

“I’m y/n,” you smile, sticking out your hand for the stranger to shake.

“Tyson,” the no longer nameless stranger responds, a quirky smile on his lips.

“It’s nice to finally put a name to the face,” you respond, your cheeks heating up as you look over him. He’s cute in that quirky way where his head’s a mess of curls, his eyes full of joy, and his shoulders filling out the grey Avs hoodie quite nicely.

“Same here,” Tyson agrees, shoving his hands into his sweatpants pockets. You continued to gather the few things in the living room that were yours before finding your phone charger and giving JT a hug.

“I’ll see you when you get back from Chicago yeah?”

“Yep, have a good birthday!” JT cheers, from his spot on the couch.

With that you bid Tyson and JT a goodbye, choosing to wave at Tyson instead of showing an outright affection towards the stranger. The door shuts behind you as you walk a few feet down the carpeted hallway to your own door.

“Dude,” Tyson starts, turning his attention back on his buddy from where it was lingering on the now-closed door.

“No-”

“You don’t even know what I’m gonna say!” Tyson incredulously interrupts.

“You’re gonna tell me she’s hot because, yeah, anyone can see that. She’s going through this thing she’s been calling a ‘guy cleanse’,” JT explains, putting finger quotes around guy cleanse. Tyson brushes the comment aside, not bothering to ask any more questions. If he’d want to get to know you, he knows he’d have to do it without JT’s help. JT always had this thing of being overprotective over the women in his life, especially being a guy that grew up in hockey with three little sisters.

Another week or so passes before Tyson sees you again. It’s when he’s getting into the elevator after getting dinner with his JT, and you’re just getting home from what Tyson presumes is work and maybe even the liquor store with the purse and lunch box hanging in the crease of your elbow as well as the case of Truly’s in your other hand.

“Hey, it’s y/n, right?” Tyson says in lieu of a greeting. He holds the elevator open for you as you step out, thinking of ways to keep the conversation longer than a simple greeting.

“Yeah,” you smile, warmly at him. He can see that your hands are full as you try to shovel through your bag in search of your keys as you take another step towards your door towards the end of the hallway. “Well, uh, have a good night Tyson.”

Tyson watches as you turn away with a small smile, and suddenly he’s stumbling over his words, trying to make the moment last longer. He’s rarely ever seen you around, most times in passing in this very hallway and the occasional time JT talked to you on the phone when they were on the road. You didn’t go to games, you didn’t hang out with the team, and you were never over at JT’s when Tyson would show up.

But when he had officially met you the other week when you were leaving JT’s apartment, he was transfixed and curious about the girl JT always talked about but never brought around.

“Do you wanna come in for a drink?” You ask, nodding to the case in your hand. You’re asking as more of a common courtesy than anything else, but you can tell that he’s waiting for you to make the next move regarding this run-in with him. The peachiness of his cheeks and his hands shoved into his jacket pockets are proof of that.

“You sure?”

“Any friend of JT is a friend of mine,” you smile, opening your front door and gesturing for Tyson to go in before you.

“Yeah, okay,” Tyson smiles, taking another step towards you and reaching out for the box of Truly’s. “Let me take that for you.”

Tyson graciously takes the case from you and steps through the doorway of your apartment, suddenly losing any train of thought he once had now that he’s in an apartment he’s never been in. He sees the fridge across the way and decides he’ll just stick the drinks in there. There’s thankfully space in the fridge for them and he watches you shred your raincoat and heels by the door. “So, uh, how do you know JT? Like, I know you guys are neighbors but he’s always referring to you as his best friend. I honestly didn’t even know that you lived next to him until the other week.”

You laugh, thinking back to how you even met JT. It was nowhere near being a typical introduction between neighbors, it was honestly pretty far from that. “So, whenever he first moved here like two years ago, I was sitting in my car in the parking garage on the phone with my dad, and this car parks next to me and the driver gets out and completely dings my car. I’m talking a paint scratch that’s starting to rust now.”

“He’s pretty unaware of his space,” Tyson laughs, knowing all too well that his friend did something like that.

“And so, I get out of my car, and I confront him about it, and he apologizes and whatever, not a big deal. But then he gets off the elevator with me and I’m thinking this guy’s gotta be a creep since he’s barely talking to me but then he pulls out his keys and is unlocking the door next to mine, and now he bugs me all the time,” you smile, Tyson making space for you to go into the fridge he’s currently standing in front of.

“You see that picture frame over there?” you nod your head to the wall your TV is mounted on. Tyson walks over to it, inspecting it and noting that neither of the people in it are you or JT. “There’s paint missing behind it because when he was helping me mount my TV he hit the wall with the drill. He got me the frame to cover it but I still haven’t gotten around to putting a picture there.”

Tyson’s eyebrows quirk up, “and how long has it been there?”

“Uh, maybe a year?” you answer, your tone making it sound more like a question as you blush. Tyson only laughs at you, fully understanding how something like that can slip from your mind. You offer him a Truly at that, him not missing an opportunity to chirp you since your flavor of choice was lime, even though his was black cherry, which in your mind was the most basic flavor there was.

He sits across from you at the island while you stand opposite of him, leaning on the granite in front of you. He can’t get enough of your laughter, finding it’s something you do quite often as the two of you share stories. You, on the other hand, have to stop yourself from blushing since he doesn’t break eye contact with you once. It’s starting to get late and you still haven’t eaten dinner, so with an empty Truly in hand, Tyson is reluctantly getting up to head home to prepare for his early practice and flight tomorrow. He doesn’t want to impose on you any further, considering you were essentially strangers an hour ago.

You wave goodbye at him as he walks down the hallway to the elevator, a smile on your face as he nearly runs into Mr. Harter, the man that lives at the end of the hallway. You laugh as he apologizes profusely, something you amount to his Canadian upbringing.

Tyson curses himself over the next few days for not getting your number, and there’s no way in hell he’s asking JT for it. He doesn’t know how he’ll go about getting it, and the possibility of him running into you to get it is slim, with the fact that the Avs have a nine-day roadie on the upper East Coast. He figures he’ll try to ask JT more about you over the course of the trip, and then hopefully weasel his way into getting it.

It’s three days into the roadie and they’re sitting next to each other on the flight from Ottawa to Toronto. JT is busy on his iPad, and Tyson looks around him, seeing Cale and Gravy reading books, and G is passed out behind him. Tyson nudges JT’s shoulder with his, JT pulls out his AirPod and looks towards his buddy.

“So, y/n, eh?” He jumps right in, watching as JT rolls his eyes and moves to put his AirPod back in. “You said she doesn’t date?”

“Correct.”

“Why’s that? She seems like she wouldn’t have any issue in that department.”

“First off, that’s gross. Secondly, even if she was dating, you aren’t allowed to try anything,” Tyson chooses to ignore that part but continues to listen anyway. “She’s just like focused on herself, I don’t know. She knows her worth and knows what she deserves. She’s been single for as long as I’ve known her. It’s no bullshit with her, in every aspect of her life.” JT shrugs his shoulders as he talks. He’s not an expert on the topic because it’s not one you really talk about with him considering it’s just not really a huge part of your life.

Tyson hums along as he listens to JT talk, trying his best not to show why he’s even asking these questions in the first place. He takes what his friend says in stride, not being one to have gone through a phase like the one you’re going through. In fact, Tyson’s never been someone to say no to a date, fully taking advantage of the pro-athlete lifestyle he’s been living for years now. JT knows this, knows what it’s like to be 22, and all eyes on you.

He was there once, but he’s been with Sydney for over two years now. JT knows the locker room talk that goes on within hockey teams, he’s been living it his whole life. Yeah, the Denver room has been the best and the calmest when it comes to comments about guys’ dating lives, but the occasional whistle and chirp is made when one of the single guys has a story to share. The last thing he wants is to hear your name in one of those scenarios.

He doesn’t get your number during that road trip, can’t even find you on social media so he puts his efforts on pause. He even went through the list of people JT followed, your name not coming up once. Come to think of it, he doesn’t even know your last name.

Soon January is ending and February is starting, the season kicking into high gear as the all-star breaks ends and the playoff push truly begins. Tyson still hasn’t seen you around other than the occasional run-in, and you honestly haven’t given him much thought since that night in late January. Your life has always been chaotic, but still in the most organized way, and you’ve barely seen JT with the way his game schedule is laid out. But the middle of February brings Sydney to town and brings too many parties while she’s around.

It’s at Andre’s place where you see Tyson again, warm pleasantries shared between the two of you. He’s a little confused as he watches you chat with almost everyone there, the weird feeling coming from the fact that most people filling the apartment are on the Avalanche roster. He wonders if you’ve already met most of them or if you’re just that outgoing.

Tyson finally makes his way over to you, two cans in hand as he offers you the one with green lettering with a smile.

“A lime White Claw? That’s the way to my heart,” you joke, placing your hand over your heart before taking his offering.

“I was asking around to see if there were any Truly’s,” Tyson laughs, waving his hand around. “But I hope the White Claw is okay.”

“A White Claw definitely isn’t as good as a Truly but it’s a close second, thank you.”

“Right!” Tyson agrees, “People think they all taste the same but there’s a clear hierarchy of which seltzers are better than others.” You laugh along with Tyson at his comment in complete agreement. You tell him your own tier list of seltzers, starting with Truly’s and ranking the Bud Light ones as the worst.

“I’ve only had a few of them, but I’ll take your word for it,” The laughter between the two of you dies down before JT finds you, saying he’s been looking for you for a little bit.

“It’s not my fault I’m hidden by all these huge men,” you roll your eyes, pointing around the room that’s filled with men all over six feet tall.

“Did you know your neighbor was a hard seltzer connoisseur?” Tyson asks with a quirk of his eyebrow, causing you to scoff. You were nowhere being a ‘connoisseur’ of sorts.

JT takes a sip of his drink, “She’s an alcohol connoisseur period, bud.” WIth that JT disappears to go find his girlfriend, leaving the two of you alone. Tyson’s face is filled with confusion at JT’s comment, not entirely sure what his comment even meant.

“I used to bartend in college,” you answer his silent question. “Which makes me JT’s personal bartender most nights.”

“Maybe I’ll have to get you to make me a drink sometime then,” Tyson suggests. It’s a little too forward for his liking but it just slips out, and you giggle at his attempt at flirting. His tan cheeks have a pink flush to them, and you’re sure it’s not from the alcohol since most people have only been here for an hour or so.

“C’mon,” you nod your head in the direction of the kitchen. Tyson silently follows you, weaving between the people and the furniture. “I can get you that drink right now.”

Once you make it to the kitchen you look around the counters, taking note of the different types of liquors laid out. Tyson watches you as your hands move around, picking up and setting down various bottles. When you’re satisfied with your concoction, you hand him a shot glass, one in your own hand to match his.

“It’s a shooter,” you inform him. He puts trust in you, clinging your glass with his own and bringing the glass to his lips as he tips his head back. Your eyes stay on him as his tongue pokes out to swipe the extra liquid off his lips before you realize you haven’t even taken yours yet. His eyes stay locked on you as you throw your own shot back, your eyes reconnecting when you set the glass on the counter next to you.

A shiver runs through you as his eyes watch your every move. You hadn’t noticed it with any of your other previous run-ins with him but he’s intimidating in that way where his presence is radiating that good kind of confidence. You watched him, unbeknownst to him, as he made his way around the room before ever making it to you.

“So what was that you just gave me?” He asks, crossing his ankles and leaning further on the counter behind him. You move to stand next to him, your shoulder brushing his cotton-covered bicep.

“It’s called a lemon drop shot, it’s just vodka and lemon juice so nothing too special,” you shrug, turning to look up at him. “Maybe I’ll get around to making you more drinks.”

Tyson smirks lightly at your comment, his hands gripping the counter behind him. He remembers what JT told him not too long ago about you, and how you’re someone that doesn’t put up with bullshit when it comes to relationships and his heart deflates a bit. He’d much rather keep talking to you and eventually kiss you, but he knows deep down that’s not what he wants with you either. He can tell from your brief encounters that this could be way more than just a few dates, so he holds back and instead bites his lip before pulling his phone out of his pocket.

He passes it over to you, and you hesitate taking it as you look between the black phone and his brown eyes, “so we can plan a time for you to make me drinks.”

“Ah, I see, I see,” you quip back, taking the phone from his hands and opening a new message and typing in your phone number. You respond back to him on your phone, showing that you got the text and opening up the contact to save his information. “Should I put in some funny name for your contact or is Tyson good enough?”

Tyson laughs fully at that, his chest rumbling for a moment before he calms down and tells you his name is just fine for now, “but I won’t complain if you find a better name for me.” Tyson scratches the back of his head for a moment as he places his phone onto the counter next to him, trying to find the words to keep the conversation going.

You leave not too long after that, catching an Uber with JT and Sydney back to your place. Tyson stays near your side most of the night, giving you a full hug as you leave and a promise of texting you soon.

You see Tyson the next morning at brunch with JT and Sydney, his strong, muscular thighs touching yours in the small booth. You get some fancy french toast, Sydney eyeing you from where she sits across from you. She’s been a close friend of yours ever since JT introduced the two of you whenever she first visited. Her eyes keep flicking between you and Tyson and you give her a stern look, silently telling her to knock it off.

“So, y/n,” she starts, a smirk forming on her lips. “How’s the dating life?”

You scoff with a laugh at her question. She knows well enough how that aspect of your life is doing considering you text her on a pretty regular basis. You choose not to answer, the scoff you let out being enough.

“Besides, no guy is good enough for her, right?” JT asks, looking over at you continuing his girlfriend’s train of thought. His eyes glance over at Tyson sitting next to you and Tyson ignores the look his teammate gives him.

“You mean the idiots you always try to set me up with? The ones that don’t live in Denver?” You quip back with a raise of your eyebrows. It’s more of a joke than anything else, but Tyson doesn’t quite understand your tone and mannerisms yet.

His heartbeat speeds up momentarily, thinking that if you hadn’t had any interest in any of JT’s other friends, you definitely wouldn’t have an interest in him. Besides, he may live in Denver now, but that’s not even the whole year when you account for traveling and the offseason.

You miss it, but Tyson changes the subject anyways, which is something you’re grateful for. Brunch passes by and when the waitress comes back with two checks, you knit your eyebrows.

“Actually, could I have my own check? We aren’t together,” you stumble, cheeks heating up at the misinterpretation of yours and Tyson’s relationship.

Tyson takes the check from your outstretched hand, “it’s fine, I got it.”

He’s talking more to you than to the waitress as he smiles warmly at you. You thank him quickly, but not before saying you have enough cash to take care of the tip. He doesn’t argue, following the three of you out of the restaurant and to your car. The two of you linger a little further back than JT and Sydney, both of you reveling in the comfortable silence.

“Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?” You ask.

“Not really, I was probably gonna call my mom and maybe do my laundry,” Tyson answers.

“Do you want to come over and hang out instead? I’m just gonna third wheel the two of them but maybe we can find something to do that’s more interesting than laundry.”

Tyson laughs at the third wheeling comment you make, being all too familiar with being the third wheel around most of his friends. “Sure, yeah, I’ll just follow you all then?”

“That sounds good. I’ll see you in a few,” you say goodbye with a smile and a shy wave, hopping into the backseat of JT’s SUV.

Once you get home, Tyson’s knocking on your door a few minutes later with the same warm smile he seems to always have. He sheds his winter coat as he enters your apartment, throwing it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He notes the change in clothes, as you’re now wearing an olive green crewneck instead of the wrap top with flowy sleeves you were wearing at the restaurant a few moments prior.

“You a big reader?” He asks, picking up and inspecting the book that’s laid out on the kitchen island. The Power of Now, it reads on the cover. He flips through the first few pages and goes to the back cover to read the reviews.

“Sometimes, it depends on what it is, but I usually just go through phases where I read in all of my free time and then I won’t touch a book again for the next few months,” you admit with a small laugh. “That one’s really good so far though. It’s just about how to live more presently and in the moment.”

Tyson nods his head as he listens, his eyes on you as you speak, “Cale really likes reading this kind of stuff, I should tell him about it.”

“Which one is Cale, again?” You ask, mentally going through the Colorado roster.

This causes Tyson to laugh, “JT really doesn’t bring you around much, eh.”

You laugh along with him, “not really, but that’s on me sometimes. I go to bed too early for my own liking.”

Tyson’s confused as to why he’s never really seen you before at anything. Guys on the team are always bringing their friends around if they can. At first he thought he just always missed you, but he knows he wouldn’t miss someone as carefree and beautiful as you. Nevertheless, he’s glad he’s sitting in your kitchen right now, and to top it all off, he didn't even have to ask you to hang out first.

“Do you read at all?” You ask curiously. You really knew next to nothing about the man in front of you other than that he was Canadian, played hockey, and preferred Truly’s over White Claws (his favorite flavor was still to be unknown to you).

Tyson chokes out a laugh at your question, “No. When we travel I usually play random games with Sammy and he’s been teaching me French. I still don’t know much so don’t go asking me to say anything.”

“Duly noted,” you nod. You move to the pantry, looking for a few things as you continue to respond. “Like I said, my interest in reading comes in waves and you barely speaking French is better than me only knowing English.”

You continue rifling through your pantry, pulling out everything you know you need. You’ve just finished setting all of the dry ingredients you’d need to make brownies when Tyson asks you what the hell you’re doing.

“I was thinking we could make brownies,” you respond, opening your fridge and pulling out the milk, butter, and eggs. You hear the island chair scratch against the hardwood, indicating Tyson getting up.

“Wait a second,” Tyson says causing you to turn around with a confused look on your face. “Are these the brownies Comph always bringing around that his friend makes?”

“They very much are,” you chuckle. He compliments the baked good one more time before you’re putting him to work. The two of you move seamlessly through your small kitchen, both of you sharing smiles and stories to fill the time. There’s a moment where you see a certain glimmer in his eyes paired with a small smirk and you think he’s about to pull one of his infamous Jost pranks that JT was always telling you about. He doesn’t though, and instead just nudges your hip with his. It seems like you’re looking more at him more than focusing on the flexing of his forearms as he mixes the dry ingredients.

Once it’s time to mix the dry and wet ingredients, Tyson all but misses half the bowl, causing a good chunk of it to land on your crewneck and jeans. The brown powder covered the ‘Disney World’ logo across your chest.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Tyson rushes out, holding back a laugh, because of course he would embarrass himself in front of you and mess up something as simple as that. You move to the sink, shaking off the loose contents into it to help alleviate any sort of mess.

“You’re fine, I promise,” you reassure, turning around to give him a smile. He smiles nervously back at you, not fully knowing your statement was genuine or if you were trying to spare his feelings. He glanced at your chest, trying to see the damage he had done before realizing he was staring directly at your chest and his cheeks flushed. You walked back over to where he was standing, giving him another smile as you began mixing everything together.

“Would you, uh, ever wanna grab dinner with me some time?” He asks, voice higher than normal as he speaks, his heart beating nervously for your answer. Your face falls as you hear the question and you slowly turn around to face the curly headed brunette. Tyson is a great guy, it’s obvious to everyone, and you’re not oblivious to the fact that there’s physical attraction between the two of you. It’s that Tyson is best friends with your best friend who also happens to be your neighbor.

You laugh nervously at the question, the question seemingly coming out of nowhere, before you respond, “Sure, it’s not like it’s a date or anything.”

You brush it off, even though you’re pretty sure he was explicitly asking you out on a date. You turn your focus back to the brownies, popping them in the oven before wandering down your hallway to change into something clean. As Tyson walks over to take a seat on the couch, he sees your retreating figure as you pull your sweatshirt over your head. He stops in his tracks momentarily, seeing your bare back, the skin between your shoulder blades covered by your lacy bralette. He blinks a few too many times as he shakes any thoughts from his head and continues his path to the couch.

Your guys’ friendship quickly develops after that. The two of you starting a snapchat streak and having a long string of text messages involving various TikTok’s and memes alongside the more serious stuff. You seem to be spending more time at JT’s place when Tyson is also there and soon enough Tyson’s leaving JT’s and going the few extra feet to your place instead of home like he says he’s doing.

It’s one of those rare nights where it’s the three of you at JT’s place and you’re all catching up on the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen. You’re pretty sure JT cheated and watched the new episode already with how quiet he’s being and how absorbed he is in his phone.

“JT, did you already fucking watch this?” You ask, whipping your head to look at the ginger in question. He’s sitting across the room from you in what he claims as ‘his chair’ while you’re sharing the sectional with Tyson, your feet in his lap. “And you wonder why I never watch shows with you. Tyson and I are going to start watching it without you.”

Tyson chuckles at that, his thighs rumbling under your ankles, his hands coming to rest atop of your shins. JT scoffs at you, unaware of your two’s newfound friendship. To him, the only time you ever saw or even talked to Tyson was when he was also around. Besides, he didn’t need to know the ins and outs of every single thing you did in a day, even if Tyson was involved in a good portion of those things.

You let JT’s previous actions of watching your show ahead slide since the episode was finally wrapping up. JT goes back to the Hulu home screen with an exaggerated yawn followed by stretching his arms above his head. It’s then he turns to his two best friends, letting them know he’s going to start heading to bed and that the two of you are more than welcome to hang out for a little while longer. He doesn’t think much of his offering, but it’s one Tyson’s thankful for if it means he gets uninterrupted time with you that isn’t revolving around the team or drinking.

It’s then he remembers how he never found you on social media, something that had bewildered him in the moment but one he forgot about once he got your phone number and snapchat.

“So, this is gonna sound totally weird but do you have an Instagram?” He asks, infliction in his voice and ears turning pink at the question. He remembers how not too long ago he did some heavy duty deep dives into JT’s social media to see if he could find your name only to come up empty handed. Your stomach tightens and the thought of him looking for you, and you definitely don’t take it the weird way he’s insinuating.

“No, I don’t,” you respond, sitting up further in the corner of the couch, Tyson bravely holding onto your ankles. “Which definitely makes me the outlier of our generation. I had it for a while but then I kinda just got sick of it and how fake it was starting to get, so I deleted my account. I have not missed even once, too.”

He nods his head in understanding, he’s been there, especially with being a professional athlete. “I’ve been there. I deleted my twitter a while ago because every time I got on there some nobody would be in my notifications about how I was playing. I really didn’t need that, ya know? Like, I play hockey for a living and I’m very aware of when I’m underperforming. So, it was hard when I would get on my phone and see other people telling me the same things.”

Tyson’s fingers began to brush comfortably over your shins and ankles as he spoke, causing you to start slouching back into the couch.

“I’ve gone back and forth with deleting Instagram but I just can’t seem to make a decision. Besides, I only follow my friends and musicians I like.”

“It’s definitely not for everyone,” you agree with a hum. “The biggest plus is that it gets me off my phone and I’m more absorbed with the real world. It’s all in that book I was reading a while ago that you asked about.”

Tyson remembers that conversation, a smile falling on his lips as he hands rub higher and higher on your calf. The movements are causing you to yawn not a minute later, but you try hard to keep your eyes open to continue to hang out with Tyson. “You a big music guy then?”

Tyson scoffs with a small, playful grip on your leg, “I get the aux in the locker room, so I’d say so. Not a big deal.”

You laugh at his joking manner, snuggling deeper into JT’s couch. Tyson notices how sleepy you’re becoming and he gives your leg another squeeze.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” Tyson suggests as he slips from underneath you to his feet.

You chuckle at that, considering you're more than capable to walk the few feet from JT’s door to your own. Before you can respond saying just that, Tyson’s reaching his hand for yours to help you off the couch.

“My mom raised me to be a gentleman, so I’m walking you home even if it is down the hall.”

You accept his offer, the two of you walking in silence until you’re pushing your key into the lock. You turn back to Tyson once you’ve cracked your door open, wanting to take in the silent, all-too-relationship-like feeling this scenario is. Tyson’s eyes drift from where they’re focused on your eyes to your lips, before he’s scratching the back of his head, a sign of nervousness you’ve quickly caught on to.

“Goodnight, Tyson,” you smile softly, leaning up on your sock clad toes to wrap your arms around his neck and give him a hug. His arms wrap around your middle; his back bending over at an awkward angle to properly reach you. You breathe in his musky scent as his hands spread out over the small of your back. The scruffiness of his beard against the side of your face has you giggling as you pull away.

“Goodnight, y/n,” Tyson reciprocates your smile, walking a few steps backwards before finally turning around and heading to the elevator. Your eyes linger on his toned thighs and maybe even his butt under the cotton of his joggers as he walks the all too familiar way hockey players walk, before finally entering your apartment.

JT’s sitting on your couch this time around, rather than you sitting on his, a too large glass of wine perched in his hand as the two of you catch up. He’s been busy with morning skates and a string of back-to-backs with a road game sprinkled in the middle. It’s getting to be that part of the season where it’s ‘all gas, no breaks’ as he likes to say. They had an earlier than normal game today due to it being a national broadcast on a Sunday, so the two of you ordered take out from one of your usual spots and parked your asses on your couch for the night.

“I feel like we haven’t had best friend time in so long,” JT groans, sipping down the remnants of his wine before standing up for a refill.

“Not all of us can travel the continent on a regular basis,” you chirp with a laugh, one JT matches. The tv show murmurs in the background, it’s one you completely forgot about as JT relates stories and updates on his sisters to you.

“I still can’t believe Jesse graduates soon,” JT starts. “Like, soon when we go to Boston it won’t be the annual family trip since two of the kids are actually in the same city for a change.”

“But that’s so awesome for her, you have to remember that. How’s her season going?”

“They’re doing good, winning games and taking names, she’s really stepped into her captaincy role.” The smile on JT’s face is contagious, causing you to mirror it. You had only met his family a handful of times, only whenever they made the trip out to Denver every now and then. His sister’s, even if you didn’t talk to them regularly, were like your own at this point. JT loved to joke that you were the third sister he never wanted but still somehow ended up with. It was part of the reason he was always trying to set you up with his friends, because to him, if he already knew them, then he knew he trusted them with you. It was more of a joke when it first started over a year ago, but the guy’s he mentioned started to become more serious considerations on your end before you ended up always telling him no.

You were more than okay with being single, being independent, being a woman that never looked for male validation and instead lived life purely for yourself and the people you choose to include with you in that life. JT understood that more than anyone else, that’s why the thoughts you consistently had about Tyson were being shoved deep down inside of you in fear that JT would laugh at the idea and tell you not a chance in hell. It’s why those times you caught each other staring you never did anything about it, or how JT was still unbeknownst to the close friendship you started with him.

It’s why now there’s a silence between the two of you as you take a too-long sip of your wine, a way to stall before opening your mouth and getting JT’s opinion on all of this. You set your glass down on your thigh, your spare hand running along the stem of the glass as you start to speak, avoiding looking over at JT as you do so,

“You know how I don’t date or whatever,” you start, your lip caught between your teeth. You glance over at the redhead on the other couch, seeing him knit his eyebrows as he sets his phone down next to him.

“Yeah,” he draws out, confusion laced in his tone

“Well, I was thinking of maybe getting back out there or something,” you shrug your shoulders, unsure of how to really continue this conversation so you end up on the topic of Tyson being that someone you get back out there with.

“Did someone ask you out?” JT immediately asks with a shake of his head, wondering where all of this is coming from. His full attention is on you now and there’s no way to avoid his eyes as you respond.

“No, I was just thinking about it, I don’t know.”

“Did you, like, have someone in mind?” JT asks, the definitive knit in his forehead still there.

You purse your lips in thought. This would be the time to drop his teammate’s name you think to yourself. His name is heavy on your tongue as you take one more sip of your drink, “Tyson’s kinda cute.”

You say it simply, with a shrug in your shoulders, hoping the ease of your posture radiates towards JT. It doesn’t, just as you expect, a choked out cackle leaving his lips, before he says a harsh ‘no’. The comment deflates you, the knot in your stomach only tightening, mainly because you weren’t really asking him a question and just trying to get that thought out into the open for the first time. JT doesn’t read that as you respond back, telling him was just a thought anyways.

You drop it at that, thoughts running through your head of your close friendship with his teammate, one that’s very close to blurring that line between just friends and something more. It's a problem for another day you think, shoving the thought to the back of your mind as Tyson’s name flashes across your phone screen.

A few more weeks pass of Tyson and you hanging out at JT’s apartment, only for Tyson to follow you to your own apartment before he’d leave for the rink for his game. He slowly began going through his pre-game routine at your place, only to leave with JT under the guise that they would carpool together since his apartment building was on his way to Ball Arena.

Tyson’s cooking his pregame meal in your kitchen, something he had yet to do but when you had told him you had never eaten squash the other day, he made a point to make it his favorite way, even if it meant eating dinner at 4:30. His game day suit was hanging by his coat in your coat closet, you wouldn’t tell him but it was your favorite suit of his. The navy cashmere made the highlights in his dark brown hair pop out and was a nice contrast to his tan skin. He was taking the squash out of the oven, laughing as you made yet another comment on not knowing that was how a squash was cooked.

“What does a squash even taste like?” You ask, peering over the kitchen table to watch him as he places the pan onto the oven to cool down. The bright yellow and oranges of the fruit freak you out a bit, but the smell of garlic and parmesan cheese brings a smile to your face.

“It’s like earthy and nutty, I don’t know. I’m not a Food Network chef.”

The comment has you rolling your eyes with a laugh as you stand up from your chair to retrieve plates and silverware.

“What are you doing?” Tyson asks with a whip of his head as his eyes follow your movements.

You look at him quizzically, pausing your movements on your tippy toes as you reach for the dinner plates, “setting the table?”

“I can do that,” Tyson starts, reaching out for the plates in your hand and setting them on the counter in front of you. “I’m the one cooking.”

“Exactly,” you reason, “And this is my apartment so I know where everything is.”

“I’m wining and dining you, well minus the wine since I have a game.” Tyson shrugs, tending to the squash on the pan and the veggies surrounding it. “That reminds me, the guys are going out after the game, you should come.”

You move around the kitchen as he speaks, filling up two glasses of water to set on the table. He plates the food as he finishes speaking and sets them on the table. It looks colorful and delicious and you’re shocked he can cook something that seems so complicated, especially since you know JT can only cook a burger and some random pasta dish.

“Well, I am going to the game so I don’t see why not,” you finally answer. You hadn’t gone out in weeks it seemed like, mainly due to your earlier than normal mornings and that you were the only single one out of most of your friends. All of your coworkers lived with their partners and were usually the type to bail on a night out so they could stay home. The few single friends you did have lived on completely different schedules than you, so they were either getting home late from work which was around the same time you’d need to call it a night, or were like you and too worried about early mornings to do anything.

But it was a Thursday, and you had taken the weekend off so it was a perfect time to catch your first Avs game of the season, even if it was already a few days into March and the season was halfway over. The both of you eat your dinner with a few laughs, Tyson telling you about how he forced himself to learn to cook over the past two years of living by himself. He even shared a few horror stories of when he lived with JT and Kerf, giving you plenty of dirt to use as blackmail if necessary.

“Dinner was really good, thank you,” you acknowledge standing up and grabbing his plate from him.

“You liked the squash, eh?”

“It wasn’t too bad,” you reply playfully. He knew you liked it with how quickly you scarfed it down and the profuse compliments you offered him. As you clear off the dishes and load the dishwasher, Tyson disappears down the hall only to reappear dressed in his suit, save for the jacket and tie.

“Who are you sitting with tonight? I never asked.” Tyson speaks, making the job of tying his tie look easy as he’s not even looking in the mirror to do so.

“Oh, my coworker, Amelia, and her girlfriend, Gabby,” you respond, leaning back against the counter as you watch Tyson finish up with the details of his suit like putting his cufflinks on and checking his hair in the mirror by your front door.

For a reason Tyson knows too well but ignores, a weight falling off his shoulders as he hears you saying you’re not going with a potential date. But then again, he knows you’re not dating and you more than likely would’ve declined his offer to go out afterward if that were the case. Tyson checks his watch for the time, seeing it’s about time to knock on JT’s door to grab him.

“So, I’ll see you after the game, yeah?”

“Yep, I’ll meet you and JT down by the locker rooms so we can all head out together. Maybe I’ll finally get to meet the infamous Cale.”

The Avs scoot by with a tough division win, one that’s needed to put them in first place in the Central by two points. You’re standing in the hallway of the locker rooms among the other WAG’s that you don’t really recognize due to your lack of knowledge on who’s who. Your nose is buried deep in your phone as you shoot off a text to Amelia telling her to let you know when she gets home safely when you recognize Tyson’s familiar Canadian accent followed by JT’s booming laughter. The two of them reach you, both of them giving you quick hugs before walking to the parking garage.

“Who’s jersey you got on there?” Tyson asks with a nudge of his shoulder into yours. You look down at the 19 stitched into your shoulder with a smirk.

“Only the best Av to ever play the game,” you respond, to which JT rolls his eyes. Tyson’s look of confusion doesn’t change as you answer, still pretty keen to the fact that you’ve never really talked hockey with him besides the stories about practices he’d share with you. “Never told you I didn’t like hockey, just said I never went to games.”

“I’ve tried to get her one of my jerseys and she literally told me she’d return it,” JT interrupts before Tyson can respond. You open your mouth to chirp him back but before you can, JT is calling shotgun once Tyson’s car is in view.

The bar isn’t as packed as you thought it would be, given half of the Avalanche roster was occupying more than a few booths. Andre takes a seat across from where you’re sandwiched between JT and Tyson - a seating arrangement you’re not sure how you got in.

The first round of drinks slowly turns into the third, and you’re no longer squished between two bruly hockey players since JT has found a home at the pool table with Nate and Naz. You had finally met Cale, the blush on cheeks matching Tyson’s description of them. You shared book recommendations with one another while Tyson had wandered off to the bar. It’s then you learn that Tyson’s kind of taken him under his wing, despite the very small age gap and that they live in the same building. Your eyes catch him as he chats with the bartender and a dirty blonde that’s close to his height that you very much did not recognize.

She’s all legs and has an award winning smile from what you see from fifteen away. Tyson’s turned away from you, his back facing you, and if you could see his face filled with that smile that’s showing he’s just trying to be polite to the stranger.

It’s then that you start to fully allow yourself to notice not only the physical attraction you feel towards your new friend, but the emotional one as well. It’s not overwhelming by any means, but the pit in your stomach can only be described as jealousy — a feeling you don’t have much experience with.

You see two new glasses being set in front of them at the same time, assuming that Tyson had bought the stranger a drink. That pit in your stomach only tightens, the smile on your face from Cale’s story falling as you continue to watch them interact.

The pair only talk for a few minutes before the girl walks away, a defeated look on her face. With he departure, you make your way across the hardwood floor to meet him at the bar, nudging his side lightly as you mirrored his stance. He smiled as you greeted him, noting that this was the first time in hours he got you all to himself. You were just as outgoing as he and JT were, always butting into conversations when you had something to say.

“I never asked if you had fun at the game,” he asks, voice somehow still soft even in the loudness of the bar. His voice raises goosebumps on your arms, as you hum before responding.

“It was fun, definitely a good game, just a little too much third wheeling for my liking but I’ll take what I can get.”

The comment is a nod to the feeling Tyson knows all too well, one the two of you seem to always share funny stories about with a dramatic use of eye rolls. You ignore the fact that not even a few minutes prior you were plotting that girl’s death, too busy and entranced with Tyson’s presence.

The night continues to pass with just the two of you in your own little world. You find yourself up on your tiptoes, an arm resting on his muscular bicep as you lean up to speak into his ear. His lips move alongside your temple as he speaks, the scruff of his beard against your forehead causing you to giggle. You’re not even sure if JT or any of the other guys are even still around, but your bubble pops as JT calls your name. You turn your body towards the ginger, your hand on Tyson’s bicep not moving as he says that you two should find an Uber soon.

“Okay, yeah, sure. I’ll be out in a sec, Tyson was just telling me a story,” you let him know. JT knits his eyebrows at the comment but walks outside with a few of the other guys all heading home.

“How are you getting home?” You ask Tyson once you’re face to face with him again.

“Cale and I are gonna Uber back, too,” Tyson answers, his tongue swiping over his lips slowly. Your eyes watch his movement as time seems to slow down as the two of you keep your eyes focused on the others. His eyes are squintier than normal from the alcohol and you’re yours match his in that regard. You’re pretty sure he’s about to kiss you and for once, you’re actually going to let that person kiss you.

Tyson’s eyes flick behind you momentarily before you see his body semi-deflate. He steps away, your hand falling off his bicep for the first time in at least an hour as he picks up his blazer that’s draped over the stool next to him and nods towards the door.

“I think JT’s looking for you.”

Sure enough when you turn around, JT is in the doorway waving his phone in the air and pointing at it, silently telling you that the Uber is almost here. Your shoulders fall as the moment you were sure was about to happen is ruined. Tyson walks you out of the bar, into the brisk start of Spring air. You’re too busy thinking about how you most definitely would’ve let Tyson kiss you and next thing you know, your foot is slipping on the ice and you’re yelping in surprise.

Tyson catches your waist before you can even hit the cold pavement, and again, you’ve found yourself in a compromising position as Tyson’s face is mere inches from yours. You blink away the embarrassment as JT’s comment about your almost accident goes unnoticed by the both of you. You regather your stance, muttering a quiet thank you to the brunette before hugging him and waving goodbye with a soft smile.

“Dude,” Cale chastises, “You like her don’t you?”

The comment made by his building-mate has him stuttering over his words, trying to figure out an answer that’s not a straight up lie. Cale takes that as his answer, though, rolling his eyes with a heavy sigh as the two find their Uber.

“Does JT know?”

“No, because nothing’s going to happen,” Tyson answers curtly as he slumps his shoulders in his seat. “JT told me I couldn't try anything and I’m going to try and respect that. Besides, she doesn’t date so it’s not like I have a real shot or anything.”

“I don’t know, man. She seemed to jump out of her seat and end our conversation when she saw you talking to that girl.”

Cale’s comment silences the two of them for the remainder of the ride back to their building. Tyson hadn’t really paid mind to the fact that the second that girl left, you had appeared and stayed by his side for the remainder of the night. He brushes it off, blaming his inebriated mind for the overthinking before asking Cale how they’ll get his car in the morning.

Tyson wakes up to his phone dinging with a string of texts from you, a smile on his face when sees your name across his screen.

y/n: not sure what you did to me last night but this is the most hungover ive been in forever y/n: thank god i dont have work y/n: jt is still sleeping so im thinking of ditching him to go get breakfast y/n: you in? Tyson: im down Tyson: do you think we could swing by to get my car from the bar too? was gonna have cale drive me but if you can that’d be great

Getting ready for breakfast feels all too real as you do your hair and pick out an outfit before finally brushing your teeth. You tap your fingers an obnoxious amount of times against your steering wheel as you drive to Tyson’s apartment, your lip stuck between your teeth as you softly sing along to the songs flowing through your speakers.

Sitting across from him in the diner feels a little bit suffocating, the events of last night replaying in your mind. The path your eyes follow tends to keep going to his lips before you realize what you’re doing and snapping them right back up to his eyes or to the coffee in your hand. Those lips you sure you were close to kissing last night. He orders some obnoxiously healthy omelette bowl with enough eggs and potatoes on it to feed a house of four, while you get classic french toast.

You don’t miss that opportunity to chirp him, the weight finally off your shoulders as you lighten the mood. Tyson never really caught onto your weirdness, thinking it was some side effect of your hangover.

“Is french toast your favorite food or something?” Tyson asks, mouth a little full as he finishes chewing. You knit your eyebrows in confusion, partly because yes, it is your favorite breakfast food, but why would he think that if he’s only ever seen you eat it right now in this very moment? He sees your confusion, answering your question before you can even ask it.

“You got french toast that one time we went out with JT and Sydney.”

“Oh, it is, actually,” it dawns on you then, even though that morning was over a month ago at this point. It’s sweet that he remembers that, your neck warming at his comment.

“It’s not a big deal,” Tyson shrugs, shoving another forkful of egg into his mouth. And shit, did you actually say that out loud to him? That misstep has your neck heating up even further as you take a large swig of your coffee, mainly so the large mug blocks your face from him.

“Besides,” Tyson starts with a heavy laugh. “You just about inhaled that from what I remember, so it has to be your favorite.”

You drop your jaw in shock from his very true accusation, a slight laugh coming out, “You’re a dick.”

“Hey, at least I’m a dick that paid for your meal,” Tyson acknowledges in a lighthearted tone. You smile at him at that, him sending you one right back. “And before you say you can pay for this one, this is that meal I promised you a while back when we made brownies.”

It dawns on you then, was this a date? Did you accidentally on purpose ask Tyson out on a date? Tyson can sense the wheels turning in your head and drops that topic, instead telling you all about this new artist he’s found on Spotify.

That day’s a turning point for your relationship with Tyson. You end up following him back to his place then, a strange sense of deja vu coming through. The rest of the day is spent shaking your respected hangovers on his couch, your feet perched on his lap, his body naturally leaning towards yours.

Your head’s full of what ifs as you drive the short way back to your apartment, thoughts surrounding the feelings you’ve been ignoring when it comes to why Tyson looks at you the way he does or why he’s always sending you Tik Tok’s about your newfound inside jokes. Your friendship with him is easy, he’s an easy guy to catch feelings for and an even easier guy to fully allow yourself to do that with.

The thought of your friendship with JT clouds your thoughts, though. Unsure of what you should even do considering how quickly he shot you down when all you said was that his friend was cute. You don’t think much of it, knowing that the feelings that are starting to show need to be reciprocated for you to even face that next set of problems.

Soon you’re catching yourself focusing on the number 17 jersey skating around the ice instead of 37 when you have the time to watch their games. Tyson’s eyes are the ones you’re always finding in a room and he’s the one always refilling your drink without a thought. He’s the one you text after a particularly rough day, and he does the same when the Avs snap their eight game winning record. He’s slowly taking that spot as your best friend over from his teammate, a spot you’re sure is slowly turning into more.

It’s another one of those nights where he’s the one you're constantly looking for. This time back at Andre’s apartment with the guys and few significant others as you celebrate yet another Avalanche playoff berth.

You’re drinking far less than the crowd surrounding you, fully buzzed on the atmosphere that is clinching the number one seed in the division with still so much time left in the season. Unlike the group of people that have the day off the next day, you have work, but the thought of missing this night for your two best friend’s wasn’t an option when Tyson texted you as soon as he made it to the locker room after the game was won. Tyson’s hand seems to never be empty, but you soon learn he’s been nursing the same beer since he got to Andre’s. There’s a heavy feeling of contentment washing over him as he celebrates his fourth straight playoff appearance, alongside setting a Central Division record for the fastest team to clinch.

The air between you two has that same fuzzy feeling it’s had for a few weeks now, ever since you had gone out to breakfast with him hungover. The high from the win still filling his veins, that same high radiating towards you as you continually find your way back to his side throughout the night.

Tyson catches you slipping out the door as the sun is just about finished setting and follows you a moment later. You’re leaning against the railing with your arms folded atop of it. It’s the easiest thing in the world for Tyson to step in behind you and place his hands on either side of yours, bracketing you against the cool metal.

The wind blows through your hair, causing you to push some strands back behind your ears as you breathe heavily with Tyson’s new presence.

“You doing alright out here?”’ Tyson asks, one of his laying to rest on top of yours, you fingers interlocking with his.

“Yeah, just wanted to take advantage of Andre’s view,” you respond. Andre’s place had everything, the view of downtown Denver, the suburbs stretching outside of the skyscrapers, but he also had the best view of the mountains you had seen from a complex downtown.

The silence continues between the two of you, the sound of the Denver traffic beneath you filling it out. Tyson’s chest moves behind you with a heavy breath before breaking that silence,

“I talked to my mom this morning.”

“Yeah? How is she?”

“She’s good, but, uh, I called her to tell her about this girl,” he trails off, his chest inflating behind you again as the nerves start to tighten in his stomach. You remain silent, there’s an unspoken understanding that this is something he’s been wanting to get off his chest, something that you too feel the weight of.

“I wanted to tell her about this girl and ask her for advice because it’s complicated since she’s best friends with my best friend who’s also my teammate and I didn’t know if I should put my feelings aside for the sake of my friendship or if I shouldn’t let my friend telling me I couldn’t ask her out stand in the way of my feelings for her.”

Your breath hitches in your throat, the sudden knowledge of the weight his words have. His grip around you had tightened as he spoke, causing you to turn around in his arms slower than you would’ve liked to as your eyes find his. His hands move from the railing to rest on your hips, his grip a little tight yet still soft. Your fingers toy with the hem of his cotton t-shirt, one that accentuates his arms more than you’d like to admit.

You’re not naive, you know that this is that tipping point in your friendship that you’ve been avoiding, yet at the same time anxiously waiting for. He’s right there in front of you, all wide eyed with that playful little glimmer in his eyes and that smile that’s always plastered on his face when he’s with you. It’s the confidence in his smile as he speaks that contradicts the doubt in his eyes and the understanding he has where he knows he needs to take this all slow. He’s not just trying to win you over or get you to bed, he’s trying to show you that he’s what you deserve, that the feelings brewing inside your stomach are two sided.

All of those things are conveyed in the little things and how he hasn’t made any unwarranted moves on you and how he’s always reading the situation before trying anything.

It makes you truly let the feelings you have bubble to the surface as you open your mouth to finally respond, “I don’t think you should ignore your feelings.”

It comes out as a whisper, one where the breaths of air hit Tyson in the chin from how close you two are standing. Nothing else needs to be said, your heart racing in your chest at that first admittance of feelings. Tyson searches your eyes for any sense of doubt, making sure he’s interpreting your words correctly. His hand moves to the junction of your neck, his thumb brushing against the hollow of your cheek. Your hands trail up his sides, brushing the stray curl that’s fallen onto his forehead back in place. He leans into your touch, his nose softly brushing against yours as you close your eyes. His breath fans over your mouth and the hair on his upper lip tickles you before his lips are landing on yours. It’s slow and soft and full of fire as you kiss him back.

You pull apart breathless a few moments later, a smile on your face as you bite your lip. His smile is wider than yours, a sense of smugness behind it. His lips find their way to your forehead, placing a soft, lingering kiss there as he wraps his arms around your body and pulls you tightly to him. A few more heavy breaths are shared before his fingers trail back to your jaw, his thumb running over your bottom lip before pulling you in for another kiss.

His touches are welcome and the chill you felt earlier is gone with his presence, your stomach tightening in a million knots at the man standing before you. Everything he feels is portrayed in his soft eyes and those several moments over the past couple of months where it was just the two of you, getting to know one another much more than you thought you ever would with one of JT’s teammates. The space he gave you as he let you explain your fascination with living the life you did, one with no obsession with social media or what other people thought and one where you carefully curated the people you choose to surround yourself with.

Tyson had slowly worked his way into your heart, one that now had his name written all over it. You smile at the thought, still lost in chocolatey, brown eyes and the way he’s looking at you like the gorgeous view of the Smoky Mountains isn’t right behind you.

“We should go back inside,” you say, breaking the little bubble the two of you had just created. Tyson understands, knowing where the two of you were, knowing who’s just on the other side of the door. Neither of you make any moves to go back inside, and you bask in the cool weather, enjoying the other’s warmth before finally opening the door to the rowdiness that is a bunch of professional hockey players.

JT beckons for you when he sees you come back inside, too drunk to ask where you’ve been for the past fifteen minutes. He’s dragging you to the kitchen, begging you with his eyes to make the room a round of drinks. Tyson smiles at you from a few feet away, silently telling you he’ll find you eventually. He does, making his way to you when everyone’s drink needs are met, his presence causing your stomach to tighten even if he is standing a few feet away from you.

Both of you lay off the drinks for the rest of the night, already tipsy enough from your drinks earlier and in a silent agreement that there’s more to talk about between the two of you once the crowd thins and everyone's on their way home. JT disappears into thin air it seems like until he’s practically yelling that he’s called an Uber for you two.

“I think I’m actually gonna stay for a little longer,” you answer, eyes drifting over to where Tyson is talking with Cale and Andre. He sees you glance over at him, sending a smile right back your way causing you to blush before telling JT he’s fine to head home and that you’ll text him when you get home.

The room starts to clear out after that, Andre’s front door opening and closing every few minutes as Uber’s are called and before you know it you’re in the back of a Kia Sorento, laughing at the lie Tyson told Cale that led to him getting an Uber by himself and your hands tightly intertwined on your lap.

You find out a few months later that he didn’t lie, he just told him that he had finally gotten the nerve to kiss you.

The elevator ride up to his apartment is full of giggles, those giggles only continuing as he fumbles through unlocking his front door. He tells you to stop making fun of him under his breath, a blush spreading from the tips of his ears to his nose.

He’s pulling you inside once the door is unlocked, causing you to lose your balance from the pull. Your laughs quiet down as he stares down at you, that smile you're familiar with nowhere to be found as he licks his lips. He’s pulling you in with those big, brown eyes of his and then you’re kissing him wildly, barely a few feet into his home.

“We should talk about this,” you mutter against his lips, not fully wanting to break away from him. He’s connecting your lips before you can continue, too addicted to the feeling of finally having his lips on yours.

“What is there to talk about?”

“Us, what this is,” you respond between kisses.

Tyson pulls away this time, resting his forehead against yours. He knows the logistics of all of this needs to be worked out, but right now he doesn’t want to think about how he’s making out with JT’s neighbor or his inevitable murder if JT finds out before one of you can tell him.

“Let’s worry about the consequences tomorrow, because right now I can’t keep my hands off of you,” he reasons, dipping his head down to place his lips right below your jaw. “And if the way you’re kissing me is any sign, then I’d say we’re on the same page about how we feel.”

You moan as Tyson’s teeth nip at the skin, his tongue poking past his lips out onto your neck and goosebumps are popping up all along your skin.

You give into him then, too intoxicated in his warmth and the taste of Bud Light on his mouth. It’s a conversation for you in the morning when you’re both nursing your hangovers over a cup of coffee. Your lips move along his hungrily, his hands gripping your face before sliding down your sides and squeezing your ass through your jeans. You tug your fingers through the long curls behind his ears, him pushing you against the nearest wall with a thud and a rattle of a picture frame.

Your lips move along his softly, the passion and fire laced in it enough to cause a wave of electricity through your veins and down to in between your thighs. He’s towering over you with his big personality and his wide shoulders and you feel like you need to get impossibly closer to him as you pull him in by the fabric of his t-shirt. His hands fall to the wall on either side of your head.

“God, I’m never gonna stop kissing you,” Tyson huffs out, causing a quick chuckle to run through your body. It’s quick because as soon as the words are out of Tyson’s mouth, his lips are already back on yours.

“You’re gonna have to stop kissing me if you want to fuck me,” you mutter out, a sly smirk on your lips as you watch Tyson’s eyes grow darker at the insuination. The hands that were bracketing you against the wall slide down to your jaw, his thumb running over your bottom lip again before pushing past your lips. You keep your eyes on his as you suck on the digit, your tongue swirling around it. His resolve slips away from you for a moment, before his other hand drags down your side until his fingers push under your top, the warm fingers ghosting over the skin of your ribs.

His breath is heavy against you, the growing bulge causing his jeans to tighten around him. You’re feeling bold then, as you feel him against your stomach with his thumb still in your mouth and his hand tight around your jaw. He’s frozen in front of you as he watches your eyes, that stupid smirk finally wiped off his face as your hands move under his shirt, your nails scraping against the tight muscles. You hold back both a comment about his abs and a moan at the feeling, all the hard work he’s put into his body clearly paying off as you push his shirt up his chest and over his head.

Your nails drag back down his chest and torso before looping in the waistband of the boxers peeking out from his jeans. His thumb falls from your mouth, the wet digit leaving a trail of your saliva on your chin as you work on pulling his jeans down. His head tips back with a low groan as his member springs free and you sink down to your knees, his hand finding purchase on the back of your head while the other is used to brace himself against the wall.

Tyson sucks in a breath as your hand reaches out to grip the base of his cock, tugging softly a few times as you lick the tip. His mouth waters at the sight of your lips wrapping around the head, your eyes looking right back up at him. You hum around him as you swallow him down, the vibrations causing a groan to escape from Tyson’s mouth. He feels euphoric, even if you haven’t had your mouth on him for more than 60 seconds. His hips involuntarily thrust forward at the wet feeling your mouth gives as you hollow your cheeks around him.

Tyson continued to moan above you as you moved your mouth along him, both of your hands digging into the flesh of his thighs. Tyson’s hand is heavy on the back of your head, not using it to push you deeper onto him, but to ground him as he starts to see stars embarrassingly fast in his eyes.

He pulls you off him then, pulling you up to your feet to stand in front of him once again. There’s a dribble of saliva mixed with his pre-cum on your chin and he wipes it away with his thumb before pulling you in for another harsh kiss. He pushes the two of them to his bedroom, never breaking the kiss as he sheds your shirt and pushes you down onto his bed. You giggle again, the hunger in his eyes all too real as he crawls over your body until he’s hovering over you.

“You’re so fucking beautfiul,” he whispers into your ear, causing shivers to shoot down your body. He runs his hands along your bare sides up to your breasts as he kisses down your neck. His hands brush along your lace covered nipples, making you sharply inhale a breath and arch your back against him. He pulls the fabric down to expose your breasts, his lips still nipping at the skin on your collarbone. He looks down at you again, a sensual look in his eyes that you mirror. His lips attach to one of your nipples, the other being tended to by his fingers as twists and pulls the bud between his thumb and forefinger.

Your hands find purchase in the curls atop his head, pulling at the strands as he breathes a huff of cool air onto your npple before switching to the other one. He makes his way down your body painfully slow, a trail of kisses being left down your stomach until he reaches the waistband of your jeans. He tugs them off just as quickly as he stripped you from your shirt, his eyes locking on the sage green thong you’re wearing and the very obvious wet patch between your legs. He’s impatient from the brief blowjob you gave him and the fact that he’s been imaging this exact moment for far too long now. His fingers dip into the strap of your underwear, his eyes finding yours and asking if this is okay. You respond with a resounding yes as he pulls the underwear off of you.

His lips leave kisses along your thighs, throwing them over his shoulders as his mouth finally makes his way to your center. His beard is rough against the skin of your thighs, a sensation only causing you to whine as he breathes over your clit.

“Tyson,” you whine, causing him to smirk before pressing his tongue to your entrance. The cool, wetness of his tongue has you catching your breath and fisting the sheets underneath you. Tyson moaned against you at the taste as he licked over you a few more times. His lips wrap around your clit, this time causing a full, throaty moan to release from your mouth. One of your hands found its way to his head, holding him impossibly closer to you, the other finding his hand as he interlocks your fingers together.

His tongue dives into your opening, fucking into you as his other arm wraps around your thigh so he can rub his thumb at your clit. His tongue licked around you entrance, alternating between that and fucking into you. His thumb stayed on your clit, rubbing circles hoping to get you to that tipping point, the one you felt nearing with every pass of his tongue over you. Your back arched off the bed, your hips pushing further into Tyson’s face as you felt your high near. Tyson continued at the same pace, pushing you over the edge as you moaned out his name.

He continued to lick softly at you, his thumb slowing down on your clit as he lifted his head up to kiss at your collarbone. The kisses he leaves along your inner thighs gives you time to catch your breathing, your chest still heaving from your orgasm. It’s short lived as his thumb on your clit slides down to your entrance, spreading your wetness around before pushing a finger into you.

His lips make their way back to your clit with the same smirk he had on his face a few minutes ago, wrapping his lips around the bud as he moves he added another finger. You clench down him at the feeling, moans and heavy breaths of air escaping your mouth as Tyson worked his fingers against your g-spot and his mouth worked over your clit. Your hand squeezes his, the pressure becoming too much so soon after your first orgasm. It doesn’t take long for you to groan out his name again as you clench down on his fingers, your second orgasm rushing through you.

He stays down there a moment longer, but you pull him up by his hair, just wanting his lips on yours and his body hovering over you. His beard is wet from both his spit and your juices, and it has you licking your lips and craning your neck upwards. You pull him in with both of your hands, licking into his mouth and tasting yourself on him.

The kiss is heavy, his hands running along your body trying to memorize every dip and curve, the heavy weight of his member on your hip. His curls tickled your forehead, the kiss turning soft as he splayed a hand on your cheek to pull you in tighter. The head of his dick brushed over your mound, a shiver running through you at the feelings, your hips bucking up towards his with a small whine.

You reach your hand down between your bodies to tug on him softly, a whine leaving Tyson’s lips, one that’s swallowed by your kisses. It’s unspoken between the two of you as pulls away from you, only to push your hand away from him and give himself a few tugs as he settles heavily between your thighs.

You share a look, one that’s gleeful and full of smiles as he licks his lips and slowly pushes into you. You moan and whimper at the feeling of him inside of you, your hands clawing at his shoulder blades to pull his body flush against your own.

“You good?” He asks, referring to if you’re ready for him to start moving.

“Yeah,” you whine, looking into his eyes smiling, “I’m good.”

There’s a pause as you answer, both of you understanding the double-meaning behind your answer. It’s more than just telling him you feel good physically, but that you feel more than that when he’s with you.

He leans in to kiss you again, starting a slow pace as he thrusts into you. He moaned out at how tight you were, how well you were taking him as he kissed you. He picked up his pace, thrusting into you harder and faster, with more purpose as he rested on his elbows above you, looking into your eyes. You always got lost in those eyes of his, as he hit your g-spot you tilted your head back, your eyes fluttering closed. They weren’t closed for long as Tyson grabbed your chin, forcing you to look at him once again.

“I wanna look at you,” he muttered as he leaned back down to kiss you. Your moans filled the room as the layer of sweat started to thicken on your bodies, his chest rubbing against yours. He lifted your thigh and pushed it against your chest, the new angle causing the knots to tighten in your stomach as you felt you high nearing. Your lips found their way to his neck and down to the dips of his collarbone. Biting down into the flesh as you moan out again, Tyson’s pace quickening as he feels you clenching around him.

“I’m so close,” you moan out, Tyson hitting you deeply. He could feel himself getting close too, his hips starting to stutter as he moved inside of you. Your breasts bouncing as he pounds into you, your eyes screwing shut as your orgasm starts to wash over you. Tyson swallows your moans as he kisses you through your third orgasm.

His breaths are heavy as his orgasm comes soon after yours, spilling into you as he slows his pace down and gently lowers his body weight onto yours. You two stay like that for a few moments, catching your breaths and basking in that post-sex afterglow. He removes himself once you’ve both settled, a whimper leaving your mouth at the newfound emptiness. He disappears to his bathroom, coming right back with a washcloth as he cleans you up. You thank him as he runs the cool, wet cloth over the insides of your thighs, pulling him back for another quick kiss before he disappears into the bathroom once more.

When he gets back, he lays down next to you, pulling your body snug against his. His chest is warm and still a little sticky from the sweat. Your fingers draw aimless patterns along his bare chest, his lips leaving a soft kiss on your forehead and you feel the upturn of his lips when he pulls away. You smile up at him then, leaning up and puckering your lips, asking for a kiss. He obliges with a soft hum and rubs your arm gently before you’re falling asleep against him, a few drops of drool falling onto his chest.

The morning rolls around too quickly for your liking, the curls on Tyson’s head ticking the back of your neck. Neither of you are in a rush to move as he smiles against the bare skin of your back, a few kisses being placed there as you hum and hold his arms tighter to your torso. He’s up from bed moments later, a sweet kiss lingering on your lips as you watch his naked form emerge from bed and pull on a pair of sweats. Your eyes watch over the ripples of muscles between his shoulder blades, down his back and over his ass before he’s running around his apartment in search of your thong.

He remerges with it draped over his finger, a smirk on his lips before he flings it at you, causing a giggle to erupt from your stomach. You pull them on, a large t-shirt being tossed your way to drape over your shoulders. You follow him out to his kitchen then, a small pit in your stomach at the realization of the conversation that needs to be had, the small bubble you’re in at its popping point.

You jump onto his island counter, the coolness of the granite sending shivers down your bare legs, his back to you as he starts the coffee pot. He’s just in a pair of sweats, bright red lines on display on his back. You squeeze your legs together as you cross them, the actions of your late night antics running vividly through your mind.

He presses the warm mug into your hands, his now free hand pushing open your legs to step between them. He’s so close then, probably the closest you’ve really been to him with a sober brain. The heat from his torso radiates towards you, warming not only your skin but your insides as well as you smile at him. He’s still got that wide, goofy smile plastered on his face, the one you’ve grown to love and to look forward to seeing.

Tyson’s hands move to rest on the counter on either side of you, the close proximity between your faces causes you to set your mug down and move your hands to his shoulders.

“What’s going through your mind, pretty girl?” The new pet name has you mentally squealing, your chest tightening as your cheeks heat up.

“Just how last night I was so adamant to talk about everything, but now I’m not so sure I want to break our little bubble,” you start, the huff of breath air coming out softly as you avoid his eye contact, even if he is a few inches away from your face.

It’s hard to concentrate on relaying your feelings to him and fully opening up to a man for the first time in a long time with him standing right there in front of you, in all his shirtless glory — the defined lines of his pecs and abs, the veins protruding from his arms, and the few purple bruises you’d left on the dips of his collarbones. It’s always been hard to think straight around him, you realize, with the way his presence gives you a comforting buzz and that warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach.

Tyson’s quiet as he watches over you, he licks his lips in thought, a silent hum of agreement coming out. He’s in the exact same boat, the outcome of this conversation not one he’s too scared of, knowing that the way he feels is reciprocated, but rather what the next step is with the best friend you two share. He’s leaning closer into you, a small smile as he places another soft kiss on your lips. It’s one you get lost in, gentle and blissful as your lips move slowly against his. He pulls away first, something he wasn’t able to do last night, before finally being able to put his thoughts into words.

“I just want to make sure we’re on the same page with this. We’re taking a big risk doing this behind JT’s back and I want you to know, no matter what, the risk is worth it with you,” he starts, voice soft and still scratchy from the morning. “And I know you don’t date because you put yourself first and if that’s what you want to do then I’m okay with that, too.”

Your heart melts at the words, your hands cradling his face. Tyson’s always been better with words and feelings than you have over your short friendship with him. The metaphorical door is already wide open in front of you, it’s just a matter of taking that one more small step through it with Tyson, or shutting it and never turning back.

“I don’t date because most people don’t like having independent girls as their girlfriend’s. I put time into myself to be the best person I can be, not only for myself but for others and they don’t like that stuff,” you start to explain, your hands falling from his face to hold both of his hands. “I like you, a lot, Tys, and I want to be with you.”

He smiles wildly at that, the doubt draining from his eyes as he opens his mouth to respond.

You interrupt him though, with a huff of air as you continue speaking, “But JT’s my best friend and I don’t want to hurt him either.”

And Tyson fully understands where you’re coming from, because he’s been struggling with that for the past few months ever since he met you. He thinks back to that conversation on the plane all that time ago and how JT firmly told him to not try anything, but now as he really thinks about it, he’s not sure he meant it because of him and that it was more so because he cared for you and didn’t want to see you get hurt in general.

You can see in his eyes that same wide open door you’re thinking about, the one where you get to explore a relationship with the quirky, optimistic, competitive guy in front of you. The guy that matches your level of confidence as you, the guy that lets you be stubborn and lets you live out that stubbornness because he’s the most patient person you’ve ever met.

The decision’s easy as he stands in front of you, putting the ball in your court, your lip caught between your teeth. He’s waiting for you then, waiting for you to walk through that door or close it and walk out of his apartment. He’s hopeful, knowing that last night wasn’t a fluke and that all the kisses you’ve already shared are real and full of passion and those feelings you’ve been dancing around.

That’s when you give in, wrapping your legs around his torso and pulling him into you with that toothy smile of yours as you place your lips on his hungrily. It’s a kiss full of teeth as he smiles against you, his hands coming to cradle your face as you kiss. It’s much more addicting now that you’re sober and you fully agree with Tyson’s comment from last night about how he’s never going to want to stop kissing you.

You decide later that day that there’s no rush in telling JT, instead opting to see how things go between the two of you for a few weeks. Those two weeks are full of plenty of quality time, a coincidental home stand falling during that time meaning you get him to yourself before facing the reality that is how much he travels. You’re sure you can handle everything the new relationship can throw at you, the honeymoon phase lasting long as the two of you skirt around how you’ll tell JT whenever that time comes.

“I need to leave now if I want to leave for the rink and not see JT,” Tyson warns, prying away from your warm body in bed. You whined in response, wanting to have his warmth for just a little while longer. You let him escape from your grasp, only after asking for one too many kisses. You follow him out into your kitchen, watching him as he pulls on his shoes and finds his keys.

“You sure I can’t get you to stay for at least a cup of coffee?” You muse, giving it one more shot to spend time with him before your work week starts. You make your way to where he’s lingering in your entryway, looking extra cozy with his hood over his messy head of curls. You wrap your arms around his middle, slipping your hands under the cotton of his hoodie to feel his skin against yours.

He leans down to place a soft kiss on your lips, giggling when you follow him as he pulls away, “I really need to get going.”

“Fine,” you hum. “I’ll see you when you get back from Dallas?”

Tyson nods his head with a hum in answer, finally pulling open your front door to get to his car downstairs in the garage without running into JT. But luck isn’t on his side this morning and he gives you one more goodbye hug and kiss in the doorway before shutting the door behind him and coming face to face with a certain redheaded teammate a few feet down.

JT’s eyebrows are knitted as he takes his key out of the lock. His mouth opens a few times in confusion before any words come out. “What was that?”

Tyson doesn’t think he’s ever been at such a loss for words as he is right now. He looks between the door he just shut and his friend a few times, trying to wrap his brain around what this scene looks like. It’s not even 8:30 in the morning on Sunday, and to anyone, this looks like the start of a walk of shame.

“Uh, y/n and I were hanging out and we fell asleep so she let me sleep in her guest room,” Tyson lies. He hopes it’s convincing, his voice didn’t waver but his hands flailed around a little more than normal when he talks and he scratched his beard, something he always does when he’s nervous.

“I’m pretty sure I just saw you kiss her,” JT explains, voice stern as he completely turns to look at Tyson. “And you don’t just kiss people goodbye.”

Tyson stumbles over an explanation for that, no logical reason coming to mind.

“You were just kissing y/n!” JT exclaims, a rise in his voice as he starts to fill in the blanks. Now he’s starting to connect the dots of your tendency to bail on him on the nights you’d normally hang out and Tyson’s lack of interest in guys’ night or after game celebrations with the team. The giggling he would hear through the wall late at night, the girly squeals, and the few times he remembered hearing the bedpost hit against your shared wall a little too hard for his liking. “You just fucking kissed my best friend after I told you to not get involved with her!”

Tyson moves to close the distance between him and his best friend, but JT takes one back, effectively cancelling it out. Tyson’s opening and closing his mouth, trying to figure out the best course of action for this premature conversation. The two of you had just figured everything out in the past few days, telling JT about your newfound relationship hadn’t even come up in conversation yet.

“How long has this been going on for?”

“Barely two weeks,” Tyson stutters out, watching as JT’s face fills with more anger. “Comph, just let me explain,” he tries again, but JT just shakes his head and heads for the doorway for the stairwell instead of the elevator. It’s a huge flight of stairs given that he lives on the 11th floor of the building. He wants to follow his friend, but knows that space is what he needs and instead presses the button for the elevator and gets in, leaving him alone in his thoughts.

When he meets up with him at the rink, JT’s still avoiding him which is hard considering their stalls are only separated by one other in the locker room. Cale hadn’t even made it to the rink yet, so someone wasn’t even there to put up a wall between the two. Gabe takes notice as he walks around the room after taping his ankles, his eyebrows knitting at the fact that Tyson, who’s normally cheery even this early in the morning and bugging JT, is putting on his pads and skates with his mouth shut.

It’s something Gabe puts in the back of his mind, just thinking that Tyson had a rough night or morning. It’s during morning skate that Gabe, and almost everyone else, notices something is off between the pair. JT doesn’t chirp him like normal when they take face-offs against one another, he’s not by his side in between drills, and JT sticks his stick out a little too far during a one-on-one, sending Tyson to the ice during a drill that no one should be falling during. Bednar thinks nothing of it, just telling Tyson to stay on his two feet.

Practice eventually ends but the silent treatment between the two continues. JT’s uncharacteristically quiet to everyone that talks to him, something clearly on his mind. Meanwhile Tyson’s nerves are causing him to not shut up as Cale shares a story about his rough commute this morning.

As Tyson and Cale quiet down, Gabe steps in, pointing between the two of them, “What’s up with you two today?”

“Nothing,” Tyson lies quickly, not wanting anyone else to get involved in this. Even if their captain is just trying to help, Tyson’s not sure there’s anything Gabe can say to help.

JT scoffs, tying his shoes before standing up, “He’s fucking my best friend.” Cale, who was taking him leisurely time with getting dressed suddenly stands up and crosses the room to where Gravy was, avoiding any possible conflict.

Gabe’s eyes pop out of his head as Tyson responds, “we’re not fucking.”

“So the banging into my wall last night wasn’t you?” JT asks in an accusatory tone.

“Well, we’re not like,” Tyson starts, gesturing his hands in front of his body in a way to finish that sentence, soon realizing he doesn’t want to add fuel to fire by saying he was in fact fucking his best friend last night. “It’s not just that, we’re together.”

Gabe, who thought this was probably a misunderstanding of one of Tyson’s pranks or even just JT not winning a stupid bet, is just as shocked as JT was a few hours agao when he saw two of his best friends kissing. The captain isn’t entirely sure of how to navigate this situation, one that hasn’t really happened in any of his locker rooms. He doesn’t have much else to say to the two of them other than to figure it out and that a girl shouldn’t get between two friends that are as close as they are.

With that, Tyson’s trying to apologize to JT, tell him that there’s more to the story but JT wants nothing of it, and is throwing his jacket on and running out the door. Everything in Tyson’s being wants to follow him back to his place and beg for him to hear him out, but instead he’s racing back to your place, ignoring the fact that he still has to pack for their quick road trip.

Tyson all about sprints up the 11 flights of stairs to your door, knocking on your door with urgency until the door swings open. You move to the side as you let him in, clearly seeing how frantic he is with his flushed cheeks and the excessive knocking.

“JT saw me leave this morning,” Tyson lets out, a little out of breath from his run up the stairs. Tyson’s waiting for you to respond but you’re still not getting it. “He saw me kiss you goodbye and then didn’t talk to me all practice then when Landy confronted us he was just like ‘Tyson’s fucking my best friend’ and I tried to explain but-”

“Tys,” you interrupt his rambling, taking a step forward to reach out to him. Your hands grab his in an attempt to ground him, your thumbs rubbing back and forth on the back of his hands. “It’ll be okay.”

“He literally tripped me in practice today!”

“That’s because he can be a petty asshole. He doesn’t hate you, he probably just feels betrayed because he didn't know any of this was going on.” You try to console him, pushing all of your anxieties and paranoia aside to deal with the panicking boy in front of you.

“Let me talk to him, you need to go home and pack for your road trip since I know you haven’t yet.”

“But,”

“I’ll come over right after and update you, I promise.”

WIth that, Tyson kisses you goodbye as you push him to the elevator with a promise that everything is going to be okay before giving yourself a pep talk and bursting into JT’s apartment next to yours.

He spots you before you can greet him and you can see quite a few different feelings crossing over his face.

“Oh, God, are you here to also tell me that you’re not just fucking my best friend, too?” JT scoffs, causing your heart to plummet into your ass. “I really don’t want to listen to any excuses you may have about this.”

“Stop being an asshole for just one second and let me explain,” you reprimand him, already over the fact that your so-called best friend won’t even hear you out. “How is this any different from the countless times you tried to set me up with your friends? Is this not the same thing?”

It’s a genuine question that shuts up JT, because really, it’s not much different in your eyes. For over a year now, JT’s been showing you pictures of buddies he has from back home or from college or even friends of friends that he’d think would suit you. You had always turned him down because to you, dating wasn’t something you wanted other people to really interfere with, even if some of his friends were young, successful, bachelor types.

“Because it’s Tyson,” JT answers simply with a shrug of his shoulders. You look at him, hands clenching at your sides with the vague and uninterested tone. He’s barely even looking at you as he tidies up his kitchen, something he always did when trying to fill silence.

“What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?” You ask incredulously. “You’ve told me a million times he’s one of the best people you’ve ever met.” You bite your tongue from adding a comment about how he is one of the best people you’ve also met.

“The other guys weren’t professional athletes, it’s pretty simple from how I see it.”

“But you could set me up with your friends from Chicago and New York and Michigan but I find one of your friends here in Denver then it’s off limits? Because he plays a sport for a living? If that’s the case then I shouldn’t be friends with you either.” It’s a low blow, you know that, but it finally catches his attention as he drops the cloth he’s wiping the counter with. His eyes finally connect with yours and it’s then he finally notices how hurt you are by the lack of emotion in both his words and his body language. There are tears in your eyes as you look up at the ceiling to try and even your breathing.

“It's an honor for anyone to have a place in my life JT and that includes you,” you continue. “Tyson understands that. He understands that I'm my own person before anything else but he’s still there when I'm stubborn. I've been single for so long and I truly know what I want, what I deserve to feel and I get that with him.”

You often don’t get this deep with the red head, but his lack of wanting to understand you has you emotional as you think of all the benefits of being with Tyson. The few months of being his friend were a perfect build up to the past few weeks of it being more, of sharing a life with someone else.

“You know him better than most people and if you can honestly tell me he’s no good for me right now then I’ll end it,” you suggest, your heart beating fast as you wait for an answer. JT has come to be one of your best friends in your life, even if he is just your neighbor, and at this moment it’s hard to think of putting a guy between you. Even if that guy is the first guy you’ve really felt this way towards.

“I’m not gonna tell you that,” JT admits with a heavy sigh. He makes his way across the room to you before continuing. “He’s my best friend, too, and if there’s anyone that knows everything about both of you, it’s me. I guess I just felt like you were hiding a secret from me and we don’t do that, ya know? I just wish you could’ve told me.”

You laugh snidely at that, “Do you not remember like two months ago when I told you I thought Tyson was cute and you shot that down before I was even done talking?”

The wheels turn and the light bulb goes off in JT’s brain as he remembers that conversation from a while back, “I won’t confirm nor deny that I said that.”

The both of you laugh lightheartedly at that, pulling him in for a much needed hug, both of you apologizing to the other. The weight on your shoulders is liften as he pulls away, thankful for the fact that you have such an understanding person for a best friend.

“You want to watch an episode of Psych? I think we can fit one in before I have to leave.”

You contemplate it, knowing that a few miles away Tyson is in his apartment panicking as he waits for some sort of update from you. You know you need to tell him how your conversation just went, but something inside you is telling you that JT needs you to spend time with him to normalize everything.

“Sure,” you smile, walking over to his couch and laying on it long ways, forcing JT to sit by himself in his chair. You pull out your phone to text Tyson, smiling as you type out an explanation.

y/n: just finished talking to jt y/n: everything’s good but i think i need to just hang out with him to make him feel better about everything tyson: you sure? y/n: yes, ill call you when he leaves for the airport💚

Everything gets sorted out when you call Tyson an hour later, calming his nerves as you give him a detailed play-by-play of everything that was said between you and JT. The comfortable silence before you hang up is almost filled with him telling you he loves you, but he knows he needs to talk to JT first and needs to tell you in person, and not over the phone as he boards a flight.

The flight was filled with awkward air as most of the guys saw what happened with Tyson and JT in the locker room when practice ended that morning, and even if they weren’t there for that, they felt the tension between them. It’s not until a few hours later when Tyson’s doing his hair before the game when he hears a knock on his hotel door.

He swings the door open to see JT, his hands shoved in his short pockets as he stares right back at Tyson.

“Can we talk?”

“Uh, yeah,” he responds nervously, stepping out of the way to let his friend through the door. The two of them awkwardly stand a few feet away, that meme about two straight guys sitting six feet away in a hot tub because they’re not gay going through Tyson’s brain.

“I, uh, wanted to apologize about everything earlier. I’ll admit, I overreacted a bit and I shouldn’t have tripped you in practice. It was just a lot to take in, especially because I didn’t really know that you two were that close. And I feel like a bad friend now for not knowing that.”

JT’s apology is way more than what Tyson thought he would get from his friend. He knew yours and his conversation went well, but that didn’t mean he still wasn’t scared JT was going to punch him or yell at him or literally anything that wasn’t an amicable conversation between two adults.

“It’s fine, man. It’s on us for keeping you in the dark on this one and I’m sorry for that. I think we barely knew what was going on until it was all happening,” Tyson starts to explain. He’s trying not to look at his feet, knowing that JT needs to see the feelings in his face, those feelings that are very much real to him.

“And it’s real for you? It’s not a game? Because I swear to God, Tyson.” JT darts, voice stern.

“God, no, this isn’t a game to me JT,” Tyson answers quickly, head shaking in disgust at the thought. “I’m not just trying to bag her and call it some accomplishment or whatever you think this is. If that was the case I wouldn’t even be having this conversation with you and you’d already hate me,” he shudders at those words, unable to ever think he could do any wrong to you. “You told me a while ago that it’s no bullshit with her and I know that because it isn’t for me either.”

JT takes a seat on the bed in the room as his friend speaks, taking it all in. It’s a lot for him to take in, but Tyson really is one of the best people he’s ever met and he has little to no doubt that he’s telling the truth about how he feels. If the tears brimming your eyes earlier in the day said anything, you feel the exact same way. The room is silent once Tyson is done talking, his nerves causing him to be quiet for once as JT figures out his next move.

“I hear one bad bad thing from y/n, then it’s over,” JT warns, Tyson nodding his head along in agreement. “And if the guys start talking about your sex life I will be cutting your dick off.”

“Got it.”

“Okay, now that that’s out of the way, how’d you get her to go for you? I’ve been trying to get her a guy for forever.”

“Easy, have you seen my charming smile?” Tyson jokes with that crooked smirk of his, happy to see that JT is already moving on from that heavy stuff and onto best friend stuff. JT rolls his eyes heavily at the joke, a light ‘shut up’ coming out as he laughs.

Tyson explains everything then, the same wide smile on his face he had when he scored his first hat trick. He tells JT about how he wined and dined you on more than one occasion, how he learned those little, obscure things about you that you caught you off guard whenever he remembered them, and most importantly, just spent uninterrupted time with you, getting to know the ins and outs of your life. To Tyson, getting you to open up to him was difficult yet still a tranquil thing to do. The latter severely outweighed the former, as the sense of serenity he felt with you would always overpower any of those harder moments.

The team returns to Denver two days later, a quick road trip to Dallas and St Louis in the books with the regular season ending within the week. You can see that it’s that time of the year on both JT and Tyson’s face, their eyes a little more sunken in with the back half push, even if they’ve already clinched the playoffs. There’s only a few more games left to round out March and the beginning of April, the guys’ still waiting on their round one opponent.

Tyson heads straight for your place when the plane touches down late Wednesday night. You’d talked to him every day for the past few days, but not being able to see him much after JT finding out caused a lot of anxiety for the both of you. The problem may be solved with that, but seeing the other would just give you that little extra push that this was the right thing to do.

Tyson enters your apartment quietly, dropping his backpack and suit jacket down onto the nearby couch as he navigates his way through your apartment in the dark. The light of your string lights in your bedroom illuminates the hallway, soft sounds coming from your phone as Tyson walks in on you laying on your side.

“Hey,” he gently greets with a smile, pausing in the doorway to admire you. You set your phone down, turning around to face the man leaning against the door frame.

You smile just as wide as he does, responding with just as gentle of a ‘hey’. That anxiety you felt over the course of the last few days instantly dissolving at the sight of the man in your doorway.

“Why’re you standing all the way over there?” You ask with a pout.

“I can’t just look at you?” Tyson laughs, making his way over to you slowly. He joins you in bed, crawling over you like he’s still not dressed in one of his expensive custom suits.

“Not when I haven’t seen you in a few days,” you complain with a giggle, the same pout still glued to your face. He places a quick kiss on your lips in response, giving into your silent ask while also erasing that puppy dog look from your face. You’d only officially been with Tyson a few weeks now, the butterflies still heavily present in your stomach everytime your lips meet his.

“Do you not have clothes to change into?” You ask, referring to the crisp white button down he’s still wearing. He nods his head no against yours,

“Only what’s dirty from the roadie. Besides, I plan on being naked here pretty soon,” he smirks playfully. The comment has you shoving him off you with a roll of your eyes, only causing him to laugh loudly at your reaction. You know he’s partly kidding, using that as an excuse to get up from bed to go to the bathroom.

When you emerge from the bathroom, he’s finally shed his clothes and is under your covers. He opens his arms for you to snuggle into him. You do, resting your head on his bicep as he wraps both of his arms back around you.

“I missed you,” you let out. “Because I didn’t know what was gonna happen when you got back with everything going on with JT.”

“I missed you, too, but I’ve always missed you when we left for road trips,” he responds, letting you in on a little secret that clues you in once again to how real this is and how long it’s truly been going on for. “He’s fine with everything, he just told me we can’t act too much like a couple around him.”

You chuckle at that because of course that was the part JT focused on when they talked. As you look up at him, your heart is full and your head still has that same fuzzy feeling it always has when you’re around him. With him you’ve never really felt lonely, something you often felt even when you were around people before him. Those love songs you once heard on the radio that annoyed you no longer do, and instead you welcome them when they play spontaneously in the car or at the bar and parties or even at Avalanche games.

The thoughts swimming around in your head have you swinging your leg over him, straddling his hips with his hands on your waist and yours on his ribs. That doe-eyed smile he has is focused on you, a grin spreading over your face at the way everything’s worked out with him. Your heart flutters as he gently squeezes your side, a small squeak coming out. He leans up on his elbows then, admiring the view he has of you. He slowly yet full-heartedly fell for you over the time he’s known you and you can see it in the way his gaze turns soft and as the quirkiness drops from his expression.

You’ve slowly fallen in love with the man underneath you, too, and you lean down to kiss him one more time. It’s slow like they always seem to be with him in scenarios like this, where it’s just the two of you and the sounds of your breathing.

The playoffs fly by quickly with the pace they’re winning at, a WAG jacket wrapped tightly around your shoulders to every game you make it to. A new one is shoved into your hands at the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Mel telling you it’s a special occasion that calls for a new jacket, even if it is just for a series and even though you’ve just barely broken in your first one.

You go into that offseason with your newly crowned Stanley Cup Champion of a boyfriend, flying out to Chicago over the summer for JT’s day with the cup and spending a whole week in St. Albert when its Tyson’s turn with it.

And that picture frame you never found a picture for that’s hanging up on your wall by your TV? It’s been occupied now with a photo of you sandwiched between JT and Tyson on the ice after Game 6 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Cup on the ice in front of the three of you, faces full of glee with confetti falling around you.

Plus One

The pitter patter of small feet running along the hardwood floors of the hallway, followed by a squeal of ‘daddy’ has you setting your glass down and following after her. Your daughter’s giggle is heard through the house, the familiar sound of your husband dropping his bags by the front door following soon after.

“What’re you still doing up, baby girl?” Tyson chastises the four year old as you round the corner to find the two of them still by the door, your daughter in Tyson’s arms as he gives her a kiss.

“Sage said she wouldn’t go to bed until daddy came home for story time,” you answer for Sage. She only giggles in response.

“How about you go get in bed and mommy and daddy will come tell you a story in a minute?” Tyson asks, playing with her little fingers.

“Okay daddy!” She agrees instantly, running all the way up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom. The brown curls she got from Tyson bounce as she runs, your heart warming at the heavy resemblance she has to her father.

“How are you doing, baby?” Tyson hums as you give him the usual welcome home kiss, his hand coming to rest on your protruding stomach.

“Good, the back pain is much more manageable now, but I’m still going to the bathroom every hour it seems like,” you shrug as you answer. He’d been on the longest road trip of the season so far, one that means the season is almost over. You’d tried extremely hard this time around to get pregnant at the right time so your next child would arrive during the offseason and not in the middle of the conference finals like your first did a few years ago.

“Soon enough we’ll have her running and occupying all of Sage’s free time,” Tyson muses, the two of you making your way to your bedroom so he could change into comfier clothes. You smile at the thought of Sage finally having a little sister to play with and hopefully become best friends with.

When you don’t get to Sage’s room fast enough, she’s racing into yours and Tyson’s room and plopping down onto your spacious bed. You join her, Tyson following, knowing that she’d much rather be sandwiched between the two of you than in her tiny bed in her own room. She leans into her dad’s side, something she’s always done, but you don’t mind — you love seeing them get so close.

“Did you bring a book, sweetie?” You ask her, taming some of her curls.

“No, tell me the story of how you met daddy again,” she proposes, causing you and Tyson to share a look. It’s her favorite story, one she asks you to relay to her at least once a week, and the one she asks for the most when Tyson’s been gone.

The two of you tell the story to her anyway, taking turns as you tell her how upset Uncle JT was about the two of you dating, all the way to the jokes he made sure to make when he gave a speech at your wedding six years ago now.

#tyson jost imagine #alex writes #nhl imagine #hockey writing #when i post this i’ll be at work lmao i’m really posting it then dipping

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