#but the funny part is is that nobody seemed to plan for this possibility of being captured while infiltrating to save queen anora btw?

[ranunculussy]

enigma | part 02.

ꕥ part 01. | part 03. | part 04. | part 05. | part 06. | part 07. | part 08. ꕥ pair: Spencer Reid × BAU!fem!reader ꕥ warnings/tags: canon-typical violence, mentions of human trafficking, swearing, somewhat oblivious Reid and reader, age gap, moderately jealous Spencer, slow-burn, mutual pining, rivals to lovers, english isn't my first language so bear with me pls, idk about other warnings ꕥ word count: ~3.5k ꕥ summary: Spencer can't quite figure you, his rival out and this annoys him more than it should [this fanfic is also available on AO3 with the same title and username]

wednesday

“Eek, this is like a group vacation.” Her quick, light claps accompanied Garcia’s excited squeal. Her bright, energetic demeanour seemed to lift everyone’s mood, which was below average that early afternoon on a cloudy Wednesday. The reason was mostly that they were all tired from the mission on the previous day. Also, the fact that a one-and-a-half-day road trip was ahead of them didn’t really help either.

As soon as they clocked in to work that day, Hotchner greeted them with the rather unfortunate news that in order to avoid any suspicion, they’d have to travel on the road and not with the private jet, which meant a roughly 35-hour-long drive. The Bureau was kind enough to provide the team with a minibus and three assigned FBI agents as drivers so they wouldn’t have to take turns behind the wheel.

“Did Morgan manage to kick down fewer doors in the previous month or what?” you asked jokingly as you watched the biscuit-coloured vehicle roll up to the team. The Bureau was constantly up in your asses with the monthly budget and how expensive it was sometimes to fund the unit. They were so stingy that it became a joking material between you.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” rolled his warm, chocolate brown eyes the mentioned man as he lightly punched your shoulder.

The truth is this wasn’t out of generosity. It was more of a tactical investment, recommended by the anti-trafficking unit. If it were up to the Bureau, you’d be crammed up in those notorious black SUVs for almost two days straight. But the dark vehicles became so known for belonging to law enforcement personnel that if the host or some guests from the auction saw them, the BAU would immediately get noticed and the mission would be a failure.

“So, Hotch” spoke Reid not so far from you who was strangely silent this morning. “We are going to spend the night at some hotel, I assume.”

“Yes. This way we will arrive at Flathead Lake either tomorrow night or Friday morning, depending on the traffic.” nodded your boss. He informed you that the briefing will take place on the bus since the anti-trafficking unit - who invited the team to help with the case – gathered some new information about the owner of the lakeside mansion where the auction will take place. While you infiltrated yesterday’s gala, they also put together a somewhat solid plan. Luckily, the BAU didn’t have to do everything all by themselves, they got joined up with competent people.

You quickly ran your gaze through the whole team. There was Hotchner, Rossi, JJ, Prentiss, Morgan, Garcia, Reid and of course, you. An even number of people. Meaning everyone had to share rooms with someone. You were more than sure that the “dads” – as in Aaron and David – would share one, just like Emily and Jennifer. There wasn’t any question about it. Now came the bigger problem, which was the Morgan-Garcia duo. If they were to share a room, it would only leave you with the doctor. Oh God no. You definitely can’t let that happen.

The minibus was the smallest possible one out there with 12 seats maximum, plus the seat of the chauffeur. This looked worse and worse for you by the minute. Of the three drivers, one was obviously behind the wheel, and the other two were occupying 2-2 front-row seats so they could rest properly. Leaving exactly eight seats for the team, so nobody had the opportunity to sit alone.

“So, Pen…” you hugged the woman next to you with one of your arms and had a Cheshire cat kind of smile on your face.

“Absolutely not” objected Derek, shaking his head before the flamboyant blonde diva could even take a breath. “There is no chance in hell that I’d sit next to Reid for around 40 hours. Babygirl is with me, so don’t even try. And I’m also sharing a room with her.”

“But…”

“Get your asses moving, guys” called for you already from the bus Emily. The rest of the team was waiting for only the three of you. As you placed your foot on the thin steps of the light-coloured vehicle, you silently prayed that someone, out of pure coincidence, decided to sit next to Dr Pain-in-the-ass Reid. The cleanly designed door of the modern bus silently shut behind you while you quickly scanned the insides. Since you were the last to get on board, there was only one unoccupied seat in the third window row… Next to your unpleasant co-worker. Of course, where else? At this point, you felt like God was testing you.

It’s not that you didn’t like him, but there was always some underlying tension between you, and you felt like you were constantly on edge around him. The subtle rivalry was exciting, of course. You were a very competitive person by nature. But still, you felt like you were under a microscope, getting dissected by his curious, watchful eyes each and every time you were in the same place. You weren’t friends, not even close to that, in your opinion. Simply co-workers who were a bit too similar in some ways and exhaustingly different in others.

Reid was sitting in the aisle seat. His thumbs played with the edge of the case folder, which was on his lap while he leaned back in his seat with closed eyes. He tried to shut out the lively group for a moment and get 8 hours of sleep done in 2 minutes.

“Hey…” you were the one who pulled him out of his somewhat meditative state as you awkwardly stood next to him. “Could you let me in?” you pointed at the empty seat.

For a moment, he didn’t really react, just looked at you with his eyebrows furrowed. He was slightly taken aback. Of course, there was a high possibility of you two having to sit next to each other. However, he thought that due to the complicated relationship that you had – which oftentimes was the cause of heated arguments -, someone would do the whole team a favour and take the place next to him. But no. Everyone seemed to stick with whom they were the closest with. This was reasonable, given that suffering through 1 and a half days of travelling would be even worse if you’re by the side of someone you aren’t that close with.

In a sense, the BAU was like a family, yes. During their years of work, they crossed the river Styx and came back countless times. They’ve seen Hell unleashed. They’ve experienced how cruel and disgusting human nature can be. But they did it together. And this created an unbreakable bond between them. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for each other.

Now, sitting in one place for around 40 hours crammed up in a small space is an entirely different question. Everyone gets bored, grumpy and annoyed easily. It’s safer to stick with the person you’re especially comfortable with, even amongst them.

Reid quickly collected his thoughts. He wasn’t feeling like he was in his element, and it bothered him. He couldn’t lose against you. Not even in a non-existent competition about which one of you is handling this cooler.

“Be my guest,” he smirked but didn’t move an inch.

“Are you serious right now?” you crossed your arms in front of your chest as you looked him in the eyes with a challenging spark in your irises. The bus slowly moved under you, making you stumble a bit. His smirk turned into a grin as he slid down in his seat, making himself more comfortable.

“Everyone, I’d like to start the briefing,” you hear Hotch’s voice through the bus’s speaker since he used the microphone at the front. They were waiting for you to sit down finally.

“I won’t hesitate to step and walk all over you,” you tried to sound as serious as possible, hoping that by asserting your dominance, he’d stand up and let you in.

“Kinky” came the unserious comment from JJ who was in one of the backseats, causing the more unserious half of the team to chuckle.

“Guys, please,” your boss tried to take control of the situation while the little asshole next to you was just smiling smugly. This was your last straw. You took a deep breath and lifted your left leg over his lap, so your back was facing him. This situation was so embarrassing that you couldn’t possibly face him and remain collected.

Since the trunk was placed there, the ceiling above the seats was low, you had to kind of sit down to be able to squeeze yourself in. So, for a few excruciating moments, you were in his lap.

“I swear to fucking God one of us won’t get off of here alive, and it won’t be me” you murmured, your voice was filled with anger as you finally wiggled your way through the obstacle, being a literal grown-ass man. You didn’t even notice that the sound of his irritating chuckle was absent. He severely miscalculated things with this stunt that he pulled. You were so close to him. So damn close. He could smell the pleasant mix of your soft, sweet perfume and your shampoo lingering in the air. It wasn’t too strong, nothing over the top. You mostly used things that had natural scents, either from flowers or fruits. Things that smelled like candy, or anything overly artificial usually gave you a headache so you tended to avoid those. He probably wouldn't have noticed it if you weren’t that close. But now, as the gentle aroma filled his nose, it became impossible not to think about it. Also, the fact that he could’ve just reached his hands out and grabbed your hips when you sat down for a flickering moment on his thighs was an image he was hardly able to ignore.

But alas, you finally got to your seat and Hotch was able to start going through the developments of the case with the assistance of the one and only Penelope Garcia. “I’m sorry to say this, my lovelies, but the mansion is equipped with the best security system anyone could ever dream of. On top of that, the private guards hired are employees of the most elite and most efficient security agency worldwide. I don’t think it’d be possible for you to sneak in,” she said while she sent files and pictures to your tablets. “Being wired is also risky. Plus, there is the problem of no weapons, no vests, no nothing.”

“So, we're just going to raw dog this mission the way God intended?” you clicked your tongue as you said the rhetorical question mostly to yourself, causing Derek, who was sitting behind you, to snort.

“Well, one of us is definitely going in ra…” Emily’s sly smile matched her unserious tone perfectly. You could envision a crystal-clear picture of her face with a playful glimmer in her eyes. Not even a day went by since the undercover mission with your boss, so it was obvious none of them were going to let the topic go.

“Prentiss.” Hotchner’s deep, warning grunt came from the front seats as firm advice for your best friend to think carefully about whether she’d like to continue her sentence or not. You let out an awkward laugh as you pressed your forehead to the back of the seat in front of you. When the others quieted down, your boss continued. “Luckily, the anti-trafficking unit was able to get information about the staff working on the event. Morgan, Reid. You and a few agents from the other unit are matching their descriptions. They were all pursuable to give their shifts over to us. Garcia will send you detailed information about them, so you’ll be able to blend in as much as possible.”

This seemed logical so far. It was clear as day that you couldn’t send in Emily, JJ or Rossi since they were more or less public figures. Rossi was a well-respected author, JJ was the liaison of the team who later became a full-fledged agent, and Emily was known for her international contacts.

“We know that there are even politicians and CEOs joining the event. This will be an awfully low-risk crowd in one place at the same time. Wouldn’t they be more throughout with the workers too?” shook his head Spencer making his light brown wavy locks bounce slightly. He let his hair grow longer, giving his characteristic face a perfect frame. It took some time to collect himself, to tame the rushing thoughts that were so out of character for him. He honestly didn’t understand his reaction. Why did he freeze at the smell of you? Why did those sharp images appear in his mind out of the blue? What the hell was wrong with him?

Countless thoughts occupied his outstanding brain, making him somewhat irritated. Ever since they started working on the case, he felt like every single factor was against them. With politics involved, it was almost impossible to gain the upper hand, moreover, the team was at a bigger risk than usual. And now this too?

“Well, I’m sure the host will be. But the other rich assholes don’t give a fuck about anyone lower than them, let’s be honest. Moreover, I could also imagine that the staff is the responsibility of an employee of the host, not even the host himself.” you didn’t even realize that you went against his judgement, it came so naturally, almost as an instinct. But you opposed him, again. He turned his head towards you, a stern, stoic expression on his face, one of his eyebrows slightly raised.

By this time, your head was also in the game. You quickly collected yourself after the embarrassing moment with Reid and your teammates' comments. The latter one wouldn’t have bothered you, but since you were already awkward and your face was all hot and red, the girls’ remarks were like gasoline to the fire. But you couldn’t let this bother you for a long time. You worked too hard to get to where you are right now. You loved your job and were great at it. You loved the team too, more than anything. That bastard next to you couldn’t possibly gain the upper hand so easily over you.

“Are all the victims kept in the mansion?” took over the word Rossi. His eyes were slightly narrowed as he stared at the documents on the flat electronic device in his hands.

“According to the anti-trafficking unit’s information, over the years, Jonathan Grace, our host this weekend, brought most of the land around the northern area of Flathead Lake through different, hardly traceable accounts and he has properties all around the area. There is a big chance that the victims are held captive in all locations, making it harder for them to unite and attempt escaping.”

This was making things even harder. Now, there was a huge possibility of the victims not even being at the same place at the same time, making rescuing them in one organised attempt almost impossible.

“There are an awful lot of things that could go sideways,” Derek’s sigh was filled with worry and annoyance. He hated nothing more than when politics got in their way. In humanity’s way. This whole thing was bullshit. Proceeding with caution when hundreds of people were forcefully stripped of their freedom, their free will, and their lives, just because politics made this case a delicate one?! It almost seemed as if the actual victims hardly mattered, the only important thing was not to get damaged by an influential asshole. Of course, he knew that it wasn’t the situation with the team, but the outside looked very much like it. If it was up to him, he would’ve raided all of Grace’s properties with a bunch of SWAT members and got everyone out immediately. But he also knew that the moment the traffickers smelled something fishy, they’d disappear without a trace and reorganise somewhere else, continuing their activities, destroying people’s lives while not even being on the radar anymore. He would’ve ruined months, even years of hard work for the AT unit. Not to talk about any future victims he wouldn’t be able to save. So, logically speaking, he understood perfectly why they were handling everything so carefully and second-guessing each of their ideas, but it still infuriated him.

“Will there be units at every building Grace owns?” you asked. You habitually turned over and over the single ring on your ring finger as a subtle method of stimming. You were anxious because of the case. It was impossible not to be.

“Obviously,” came the kind of condescending reaction from, you guessed it right, Reid. “That was kind of a dumb question, Y/N, don’t you think?” he was facing you, his head slightly tilted downwards to look you in the eyes, since he was significantly taller even while sitting. A small smile was plastered on his face, making your blood boil even more. You weren’t even on the road for half an hour and already wanted to choke him to death.

“Yeah, I decided to take one for the team and ask the stupid question early on so you could correct me and get your daily bitching done,” you nodded your tone full of fake sympathy.

“Is it really daily bitching or you’re just constantly making mistakes?” he clapped back immediately while wearing a passive-aggressive smile on his patronising, punchable face.

“Ah, here we go again,” came Morgan’s grunt from behind you.

“Last time I checked I had more solved cases than you, thanks to my so-called mistakes.”

Ah, yes. Solved cases. Obviously, none of the successful ones were thanks to a singular person, everything you do is a team effort. However, since both of you were competitive as hell, you had this unsaid game going on between the two of you. Whoever’s leads or ideas proved the most useful during an investigation could take that case as their own.

“Kids.” This time the eldest was the one whose warning voice caused you to stop.

The next four or five hours went by quietly. After Rossi put an end to your bickering, both of you stayed in line. We could even say, you acted as normal, reasonable adults. The briefing went on for an hour more but after that, everyone became silent and absolved in the files.

The time for the first toilet break came when the bus parked at a resting stop. You pulled the earphones out of your ears and stretched in your seat. As you arched your back, the salmon-coloured button-up shirt that you were wearing tightened a bit around your upper body, perfectly outlining your otherwise hidden curves. Your movements weren’t provocative, not even in the slightest. It’s just Spencer who’s been finding himself in these weird scenarios where he suddenly noticed everything about you.

Of course, you were pretty, he was very well aware of this fact from day one. But now it seemed like this piece of information was actively in his mind for some unknown reason.

“Will you let me out or do I have to crawl over you again?” you turned with your upper body towards him and leaned a bit closer. The others were in the middle of leaving the bus, so nobody gave much attention to you, luckily.

He also leaned towards you, and swallowed his saliva before answering, making his Adam’s apple quickly rise and fall. “Whichever one you’d prefer more.”

“Move your ass then,” you urged him as you looked directly into his pretty, light brown eyes that had hints of green in them, seemingly unaffected by what he said. He kept eye contact while his pupils slightly dilated but didn’t say a thing. For a quick, unnoticeable moment his brows got furrowed and his jaw tightened but this expression disappeared as soon as it came. Without a word, Spencer stood up and left the vehicle with quick-paced steps. He felt like even the air got tighter around them in the small space. Must be the fault of the tiny bus.

thank you so much for reading my work, hope you're having an awesome day! divider from @cafekitsune

[yenqa]

ADVANTAGES

in which…

on jay’s live, fans point out a stuffed animal on his bed, one that seems to be the other piece to your notorious missing pair. as imaginary pieces start to connect for fans, the viewers beg for some kind of interaction. and though you and jay have never met before, why not use this situation to your advantage?

warnings : crying, panic attacks, depression is depicted but isnt really said, lots of bad self talk, food/eating, having no appetite, just lots of bad mental health talk and depictions, hurt/comfort, god this chapter is PACKED

wc: 1829

i’m sorry that i couldnt be your teenage dream.

not proofread!

☆

It had been a week and a half since you had seen anyone.

Well other than the cashiers at the local grocery store but that made you look even more pathetic. 

You haven’t been well, at all.

It was a horrible sight, honestly you couldn’t even look at yourself in the mirror without cringy. You had no productivity and had planned to do nothing for as long as possible. 

You were surprised your body hasn't exploded yet, since all you had ate was instant ramen or the three meals you could cook total. 

Today was one of the worse-r days. Three hours into the new day but your mind couldn’t seem to sleep one bit.

You had zero appetite, your room was a mess, it was worse that you couldn’t even sleep away the days even though you were so tired. Your eyes were glued shut at night but your body couldn’t stop fighting the feeling of sleep. 

So here you were, eye bags almost able to give the color purple a run for its money, and so puffy it felt like a balloon was stuck in there. But your eyes hadn’t shed any tears, instead you felt like nothing. Like you were just floating around with no purpose or any feeling at all.

The empty feeling in your head made you unable to do anything but scroll on your phone, letting hours after hours pass by rewatching your favorite show at least a billion times. It seemed like the world had gone gray, like the world was ending and you were the only one feeling it.

A part of you screamed at yourself to get a grip, to stop being so dramatic and realize there are still good things in life. 

You tried to get better, you really did. You had researched on how to get over this drought but you never could. So every night you would lay in your bed, trying to figure out what was wrong with you.

Mornings have always been your least favorite part of the day. But it seemed to get worse with every second that passed. 

Realizing you still had a whole day ahead of you seemed utterly impossible to finish, but still you would reach your hand out to the finish line, only to miss every time.

You had six hours until it was the appropriate time to wake up. You couldn’t call anyone for help, you couldn’t text anyone in the middle of the night. It was your burden, so you had to keep it to yourself and hope and pray it washes away over time.

Your phone has been your only sense of livelihood during your dull days. If you had been wasting hours after hours at least you had been doing something. 

Before you could think of the consequences, you had thought of searching yourself on the internet, just for fun. You clicked on the first source, hoping that someone would see your side of the story.

No it was not fun–you wish you could warn yourself because the title of the article read; “All you need to know about Y/niora and why she’s trending”

We’ve all seen the names “Y/n” or “Y/niora” trending on X, who is she? Some might wonder. In this article I’ll be going over everything she’s done wrong, and why fans hate her for it.

Y/n is a popular streamer on twitch, known for her funny commentary and her boyfriend Jay, but recently she’s shown a darker side to her.

Her boyfriend, Jay, is also a twitch streamer, a much more popular one at that. He’s known for his good looks and his random reactions that have us crying with laughter, but why would he date a nobody like her? 

If you’ve seen Y/niora’s X account, you can see that she posts provocative photos of herself, things that only lead to temptations of male fans. Fans speculate this is the reason they met, saying that she seduced him and used him for money, fame, and views.

If you know anything about streaming, you know BlueJay and his friends. Who stole the internet's hearts with their looks and cute personalities. But things start picking up between Jay and Y/n when she posts their matching stuffed animals, officially presenting their relationship to the world.

This seems to be a bad move on Y/n’s part, as her facade starts slipping through and we get to see her for the calloused person she is. 

She continuously shows her disinterest in anything he’s saying. Making him repeat everything he’s said to her. This strikes up the question, does she really care about him or her fans?

Arguments of this exact topic have been trending among fans, some saying

You closed your phone before you could read anything else. Flipping your body over you could feel tears start to form in your eyes, your vision goes blurry and your breath starts hiccuping. 

Wiping your wet cheeks, you start to panic when you feel like your throat is closing up, placing your hand on your chest to try to calm yourself down. 

That clearly doesn’t work. As you swear you can feel the walls closing in beside you. In a last effort to stop your ugly sobs, you open your phone once more, your breath quickens when you open the phone app, calling the person that you need the most right now.

The ringing on your phone shakes you more, “Please answer, please answer, please answer.” You croak out desperately, glancing at your window to realize it’s the middle of the night, and he’s probably getting the nice sleep he deserves. 

Unlike you who only makes things worse, and can’t even get a wink of sleep at night.

You sob harder after the fifth ring, realizing that he’s not going to answer. And you have to do this on your own–

“Y/n? Are you okay?” His voice brings relief to your ears, that’s until you realize the state you’re in. 

“Jay I’m so–so so sorry for calling you this late.” You rasp out, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me, I can’t stop shaking and crying, I just–fuck” Bringing your hand up, you grab a fist of your hair, not knowing what to do or say.

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah, I am.” You choke through, words barely coherent.

“I’m coming. Stay there, okay?”

“Okay.” 

His tone is so soft it scares you. How could he be talking to you so sweetly knowing the mess you made? How could he be talking to you so sweetly knowing that you are burdening him at such a late hour?

Your throat tries its best to keep your hammering heart inside your chest, but it closes up, your breath is so uneven you're not even sure you’re breathing at all. 

That is until you let out a soft apology into your phone, but it’s covered by your staggered breathing, and the sound of you stuffing up your snot back into your nose.

The silence coming from him is apparently meant to drive you insane. Because the nausea of it all starts to get to you, your condition is crippling so you can’t even move from your curled up position on your bed.

You can hear your door slam open, eliciting a strong flinch from you. 

Your heart seems to be racing too fast for your liking, almost like it’s fighting to get out of your chest. “Jay?” You mutter, as you can see his dark silhouette standing through the doorway. 

Before you can actually decipher if the man is actually Jay or just some random burglar who found your spare key, you feel his arms wrap around your body, tucking your head into the space between his neck and shoulder. 

You conclude that it’s Jay’s warmth you’re feeling right now.

For a second you feel safe, for a second you feel like he’s just hugging you, not because you are literally having a panic attack. 

That snaps you back into reality. God were you really having a panic attack over an article? That you chose to read? 

Feeling your chest tighten and your eyes water up, you tuck your head impossibly deeper, letting your tears and snot get all over his shirt. 

It’s grossing you out how you can physically feel his shirt dampen with your tears, but you’re too focused on figuring out how to breathe rather than the mess you made on his shirt.

“You can let it out, or you can just cry, I don’t mind.”

You sob even harder than you were before.

He’s so warm. He’s so warm. And you have no idea why it’s the perfect descriptor for him. 

“Jay,” You mutter, being muffled by his shoulder, “I’ve ruined everything.”

His arm rubs your back gently, “You haven’t ruined anything, pretty.” He whispers, talking like if he speaks any louder you’ll crack into hundreds of pieces (you actually might but that’s not the point).

“I have! You can’t even deny it without lying,” You hiccup, “I mean—I’m trying so hard, but I can’t do anything right.” You pull your head back to look up at him.

He stays silent, letting his hand cup your face, wiping away any tears that fall down.

“And I’m so tired. I’m so tired of doing everything I can but still being hated for not doing enough. I mean who wouldn’t? I can’t even cook a proper meal, it just goes to show how hopeless I am.”

“Y/n you can’t possibly think about yourself.”

“I can because it’s the truth.”

He tucks your head back into his shoulder, “Y/n, not being able to cook a proper meal is okay. Some people never learn how to cook an egg.”

Your breathing calms down slightly, you let out a small chuckle, trying to stay forever in his warmth.

“I’m sorry for calling you here so late, I know you’re tired from streaming or something.”

“I could never stay away from you for too long, even if it’s in the middle of the night.”

Letting out a breathy smile, you look back at his face, a small smile spreads through his face looking at you.

Your eyes were tired, for the first time in a week your body was tired. “I’m going to go to sleep. Thank you, Jay, seriously.”

He gets up from your position, you feel the absence of his warmth even though he just got up, he’s about to walk out the door when you build up the courage to ask, “Can you stay? Just for tonight?”

Looking back, there's a smile on his face as he replies “Always.”

Walking back to you, he lays himself under your blanket, tucking you in before wrapping his arm around you, he pulls you into his chest.

And for the first time in what felt like forever. You fall asleep, in Jay’s arms.

☆

back masterlist next

yenqa > um title is reference to teenage dream by olivia rodrigo! umm hope u enjoyed while i ripped my heart out and put it in my writing… thanks!

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yenqa © please do not copy, steal or translate.

[brnesblogposts]

cootitis

(this is the stupidest thing i’ve ever written.)

bucky barnes x reader & avengers

a/nthis is another conversation i just had on character ai that was funny so i’m turning it into a fic

this turned out to be shit but i’m posting it anyway.

———

It was two in the morning and the two of you were standing outside your room when a figure appeared in the hall “Wha—“

Your heads whipped around to find Peter wide eyed and jaw hanging open staring at you both. Bucky instantly tensed up and you fought to come up with an excuse.. “GOODNIGHT!” You shouted abruptly before running back into your room. Bucky remained stood, stiff as a board staring at Peter awkwardly, “Were you guys..?” Peter raised an eyebrow and his voice went all high and squeaky because he felt awkward at what he’d walked into. Bucky shifted on his feet and coughed out a “No” before turning on his heel ready to walk away when another voice made an appearance—

“Barnes?” fuck it’s Stark Bucky thought to himself. Bucky coughs awkwardly “Oh hey” He smiles coyly because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Tony eyes him up noticing he’s standing outside your room in just a pair of boxers.

“Mr Stark I think Bucky and Y/n were um.. kissing..” Peters voice is still squeaky. Tony’s eyes go wide as he whips his head to find Bucky trying to walk away “Barnes.” Bucky stops in his tracks and is as still as a statue. You’re on the other side of the door eavesdropping of course and decide to help Bucky out by opening your door and stepping out into the hallway..

“Oh, hey guys! Nobody told me there was a party going on out here in the hall!” You may just be the worst liar on the planet. Bucky’s eyes shoot to you from where he’s stood and then to Peter and Tony.

“Do you care to explain why you’re both as red as tomatoes right now?” Tony has a smirk on his face, he’s finding this quite entertaining. Bucky says nothing because he can’t come up with anything and quickly you spit out “We were um— we were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest..” what. You think to yourself.

“Is that right?” Tony is full on smiling now “May i ask who won?” he’s feigning curiosity. You shift awkwardly and look around “Uhm Bucky because you know.. super soldier serum and all that. Was close though, we had several complications but he is undefeated so far—“ SHUT UP you thought to yourself because you were rambling now. Bucky grunted in agreement heavily avoiding looking Tony in the eye.

“So you have these competitions at 2am often?” Tony looks so relaxed as he’s interrogating the both of you, you want to strangle him. Another awkward silence passes, “Uhhh no, one time thing.” You hold your chin up high as if it will help.

“Mr Stark..” Peter looks up to Tony “I feel like they’re lying.” Tony smiles down at Peter “I think we can continue this conversation in the morning, don’t you all agree?” Bucky is nodding frantically and you shoot Tony with a thumbs up.

“Right, Parker go to bed.” Tony says to Peter who nods and walks away “And you two.. better start planning some better excuses for the morning.” He grins and goes back to his room. Bucky and you don’t say another word as you part ways and he goes back to his room.

———-—————— breakfast ———————-

Everyone is sitting at the table, an awkward silence lingers between Tony, Peter, Bucky and yourself. Everyone else seems to notice and keeps glancing at all of you, “Who died?” Clint breaks the silence. It goes silent again before Tony coughs and looks to you and Bucky waiting for one of you to speak up, neither of you do.

“LAST NIGHT I CAUGHT BUCKY LEAVING Y/N’s ROOM, TONY AND I THINK THEY WERE KISSING” Peter lets out a breath as if holding that in was eating him alive. It probably was. The table goes silent again as cutlery clashes from people dropping their forks or spoons and looking at the both of you. If possible Bucky and yourself sink into your seats just waiting for the floor to swallow you whole.

“Excuse me?” Natasha is smiling.

Steve is simply staring at his best friend processing what he’s just heard.

“We weren’t kissing.” You spoke abruptly and went back to picking at your food.

“Why are you both blushing so much?” Clint asks while smiling, this seems to be entertaining for all of them.

“Uh you know— allergies.” Bucky is sitting in silence letting you suffer everyone’s questions.

“Allergies?” Tony inquires and you nod, “That doesn’t make any sense—“ He continues but you interrupt “Yes it does.” The way you say it is incredibly unconvincing.

“Why is Bucky’s face also red if you have allergies?” Natasha smirks as she asks you, “They’re um— contagious allergies..” You lie through your teeth.

“Contagious?” Clint and Steve ask in unison, “Yeah.” You’re panicking.

“What are these allergies called?” Tony is practically grinning as he asks.

“It’s uh it’s called um Cootitis. very serious stuff” You blurt out and are met with snickers as everyone tries holding in their laughter and Bucky looks at you absolutely perplexed.

“Cootitis..?” Tony asks with a serious tone while holding in his laugh. You look stern as you say “Yes and I must have passed it onto Bucky in passing” avoiding eye contact as you say that because you don’t even believe yourself.

“Well this sounds like a new disease we know nothing about. I think it’s best Bruce and I take you both to the med bay and run some tests.. like take some bloo—“

He doesn’t get to finish before you blurt out “FINE. BUCKY AND I WERE KISSING” because he knew your fear of needles would invoke you.

“I KNEW IT.” Peter screams as Tony leans back in his chair with his arms crossed and the widest smile on his face. You sit back defeated letting out a long sigh.

“Well why didn’t you just say that from the start?” Steve asks and you both give him an evil look. It goes back to awkward silence now that the secret is out except for the secret glances you and Bucky give each other throughout the day, earning scoffs and fake gags from your co workers.

—————————————

reblogs appreciated :)

[buoyantsaturn]

fics I read in 2024 that made me go crazy

wherever he is, is where I'll go (what if I said he's down below?) by Caora / @curseofdelos [T, 68,790, 4/4]

When Will ventured into the underworld for the first time, he was hoping to find his sister. He did not expect to find Nico di Angelo. After the tragic death of his sister Gracie, Will Solace hatched a plan - go to the underworld, seek an audience with Hades, and lead her out of the underworld just like Orpheus had tried before him - but his attempts were immediately waylaid by Hades’s mysterious son, Nico. What started off as a rivalry shifted into something more, and soon Will found himself dropping by the underworld every week to spend time with the boy who stole his heart - and whose heart he may have stolen back. There was just one problem: Nico couldn’t leave the underworld and Will couldn’t stay. Despite the insurmountable odds, Will was determined to make a relationship between them work - if only he could find a way to get Nico out. (Canon Divergent AU in which Nico grew up in the underworld. Solangelo star-crossed lovers. Witten for the Solangelo Week AUctober prompts light/dark/boundary.)

When The Day Bleeds by Wrish / @espritwrish [M, 85,780, 6/6, MCD]

There's not a lot left in a world ravaged by monsters, and yet Nico still somehow finds himself face to face with possibly the most infuriating boy he's ever met. -- Nico stared at the wheelchair in disdain, looking for a sign that Will was joking. “Seriously?” Will nodded, a grin forming on his face, “Could not be more serious.” Glaring, Nico couldn’t help the childish urge and flung his arms out, gesturing to the others in the room, “No one else needs one.” He challenged, irritation thoroughly sparked in his chest. “No one else needed to be handcuffed to a gurney.” Will deadpanned, eyes still sparkling with mirth, “Chair, now. Doctor’s orders.” -- How the hell had his life ended up this way?

Sour by Skitty_chii / @icravestrawberryflavoureddeath [T, 91,646, 14/14]

(part one of the Tasteless series) “Hey, I’m a gay man. The only things that scare me are God and the government, I just don’t understand all of that,” he said as he gestured to Piper. She rolled her eyes, but was still smiling. “But hey, at least you can listen to Olivia Rodrigo’s album and really feel it now.” Piper let out the loudest laugh she could, her entire body was shaking as she doubled over. Nico couldn’t help but copy her. They had joked about her and Jason breaking up just so she could listen to the album to the fullest about a month ago, but now that joke was a bit too real. “Oh, god. You’re fucking right.” Nico decided that he could keep making jokes as it seemed like Piper was starting to feel a bit better. “God, I wish I had someone to break up with to listen to it. We could go through this together,” he joked, but Piper just grinned and raised a brow. “Why don’t you just ask someone to date you and then break up.” “What the fuck?” “Seriously,” she started, “I think that would be so fucking funny.” “Who would I even ask to do that?” “Why not Will?”

Olympus Detective Agency, Inc. by hello_blue_moon / @hello-bluemoon [T, 44,496, 12/12]

“Will saved the contact to his phone, then swiped back to the message and stared at the words written there. P. Jackson & A. Chase: Olympus Detective Agency. And that was how it began.” Or: the modern detective AU that nobody asked for.

Falling With You by emi @thelordofshrimp [T, 1,635]

They’d watched their way through genre after genre, with the notable exception of any movies strictly about romance. Will’s third suggestion of the Princessbride, though it was technically a love story, had made the list because the action outweighed the “kissing parts.” It hadn't been a spoken decision, but when Will scrolled through online lists of movies, he’d read all the titles, except for the rom-coms. Nico never pointed it out.

Delilah by daniearnest / @softhearted-dani [M, 6,585]

“I don’t understand,” Jason said, swirling his straw in his milkshake without looking. “What’s so hard to understand about he isn’t my boyfriend?”

love is like ghosts (few have felt it but everybody talks) by Caora / @curseofdelos [T, 38,447]

Nico had a timer on his forearm that counted down to the moment he met his soulmate. It did not, however, tell him what he was supposed to do once he met them. Nico di Angelo hated the concept of soulmates. He wanted to choose who he spent his life with, and he certainly didn’t trust a stranger not to break his heart. True love was something that happened to other people; it did not happen to him. If given the choice, Nico would have gone the rest of his life without ever meeting his soulmate, but no, the universe just had to pair him with Will Solace, a hopeless romantic he had nothing in common with and who thought Nico’s approach to soulmates was cynical and pessimistic. It couldn’t work. It shouldn’t work… …but Fate had a plan for him, and Nico was about to learn that falling in love was a long slow descent. (Solangelo soulmate AU. Written for Solangelo Week Day 4 - AU.)

put your hand in mine through space and time by myileo / @onion-dishwasher [T, 8,671]

It was an hourglass. Simple, practical, portable. As tall as his hand was long. Fine golden grains trickled down. Whatever length of time it counted was halfway passed. “What’s it counting down to?” Will asked. “The end of the world?” Nico’s hold on it was gentle, as if he were holding a glass flower that would shatter from the smallest breeze. “Something like that.” . In which Will meets Nico in every universe.

Salvage by MuffinLance / @muffinlance [T, 127,145, 20/20]

Mid-Season-One Zuko is held for ransom by Chief Hakoda. Ozai's replies to the Water Tribe's demands are A+ Parenting. Hakoda is… deeply concerned, for this son that isn't his, and who might be safer among enemies than with his own father.

good old-fashioned lover boy by brainrot247 [G, 2,338]

“I swear to the gods if you touch that door handle, Solace,” Nico threatened, opening his own door and climbing out quickly. Kayla and Will watched Nico round the front of the car before Will turned to look at her, humor dancing in his eyes. “Watch,” he said. He reached for the door handle and cracked open the door just as Nico made it to his side. Without pausing, Nico threw his hand against the door and shut it again. ____________________ or, five things nico is a little romantic about

[voidofthevoidmv]

What Journal????

(A gravity falls AU-> Name pending)

(Simple idea, what if Dipper never found the 3rd journal. Maybe when he switches that secret switch, a wire got crossed or the electrics were faulty. What would happen to canon if Mabel and Dipper never had Journal 3 as a crutch? Would it be a detriment, or possibly a good thing? What would they do instead of investigate the secret of the author, because how would they know? That is what I plan to explore in this little whatever… I just think it would be funny that everyone would be talking about these journals, or like whatever and meanwhile these two 12 year olds are sort of just winging it the whole time. Surprisingly enough, not a lot changes… That much.)

Tourist Trapped: (Prologue)

On the cusp of the wooded thicket bordering the forests of Gravity Falls, a young boy by the name of Dipper Pines could be seen hammering up signs. He didn't seem all that enthused by the idea, and his expression really said it all.

“Stupid Stan... Making me do all his dirty work...” He murmured under his breath, brown eyes narrowed while he made his way to yet another tree. He began lifting a hammer to plaster yet another terrible advertisement towards “The Mystery Shack.” The place which was supposedly going to be his home away from home for the next upcoming few months- If he even survived long enough to make it that far.

So, he continues to grumble to himself, despite his clear discomfort and presses the nail against a tall pine, truly selling the look of distaste with a very fashionable rolling of the eyes and a furrow of his brow.

“...Nobody ever believes anything I say...”

TING!

“Huh?”

How peculiar, he tests the waters once more to ensure he isn't hearing things. But after a few more taps with his mallet, it was clear by the ringing sound of metal on metal that this tree was apparently made of tougher stuff than that of your average spruce.

Very strange. The 12-year-old could sense an almost excited feeling stirring his gut.

He smooths a small hand over the seemingly slick face of the not-tree- And to his surprise his fingers found a sort of hatch-like lip, to which he was quick to attempt in prying open. He succeeds after a few good tugs, and the sound of old rusted over hinges squeal over years of neglect.

Dipper takes a moment before peering within the unknown chamber, to wipe his hands on his shorts and wave away the cloud of dust that came with the containers pressure release. He also had to bat away a few disconnected cobwebs as well, which billowed in the nonexistent breeze. Once the dust clears, the boy finally gets a decent look at the hidden compartments' contents. It’s a little mechanical box, rusted and clunky. The top part of its dusty face has two small activation switches. It’s clear that the device has not been touched in quite some time. It’s likely it doesn’t even function anymore.

Even so, of course, the 12-year-olds first instinct is to mess around with the device. He at first attempts one of the little switches, flicking it a few times but to no avail. Nothing happens. So, he tries the next one, though this next switch has a more volatile reaction than the one prior.

“Ow! What the-”

There was a sharp spark this time, and he flinches back harshly whilst clutching his once hovering hand. In the process in this motion, he drops everything he had been carrying, and it all lies in a small scatter beneath the not-tree. The tip of his pointer finger and thumb are both reddened and buzzing from the short burst of electricity, that had stuck him whilst he had been flicking the other switch. Brow furrowed, he places the stinging fingers in his mouth to soothe them as he glances around again. Almost hopeful.

But alas, other than giving him minor electrical burn that felt like they were beginning to blister, nothing had happened at all by flicking the switches. Whatever those activation doodads had been meant to do, Dipper would never know, because the box was clearly faulty. That was a shame. Maybe it could’ve had some answers as to why he’d been feeling so extra paranoid lately. There’s a beat of silence beyond the ambient forest noises, and while itching his mosquito bites from earlier Dipper suddenly feels a little self-conscious- And almost ridiculous.

“Maybe I am overthinking this stuff…” He murmurs sullenly to himself.

A short distance away, the goat named Gompers bleated quite unhelpfully. Dipper couldn’t help but sigh again, and while nursing his very slightly blistered fingers, he began towards his dropped tools and signs.

However, before he could grab the last of the signs leaning on the not-tree, a blur of fur and teeth whizzed past his nose making him let loose a very not-masculine scream- something along the lines of “MONSTER!”- and the shock causing him stumble over his own feet and collapse onto his bottom. The stuff he had been holding now scattering once more.

After a few minutes of catching his breath, Dipper glances upwards only to find some kind of squirrel family had made themselves at home in the once sealed shut secret compartment. He couldn’t help but feel silly, cheeks reddening as the embarrassment sank in and the adrenaline died down.

“Great. Just great. Maybe I really am going crazy…” Dipper stumbles to his feet in order dust himself off while glancing around yet again, and for a moment he chuckles awkwardly.

“At least nobody saw that…” Suddenly, a blur of color jumps out from behind a nearby log.

“GET EXPOSED!!!”

“AAGH!!!”

Once again, Dipper lets loose a very girlish scream, causing the colorful interloper to burst into obnoxious laughter. Though, the interloper happened to have less beast like features, and more middle school, preteen girl features. Very FAMILIAR features.

After a few moments to collect his bearings, Dipper tried to ignore his embarrassed pink cheeks and glowered harmlessly at his twin sister, who now seemed to be wiping a stray tear away and recovering from her laughing fit.

“Mabel…” He groaned irritably.

“…Oohhhh you should’ve seen your face! You were all like- AH! And I was like- BOOM! And you were like AH-” However his twin sister Mabel seemed more intent to reflect on how great of a scare she got out of him. It was humiliating really. Dipper began to pick up the dropped signs and hammers and nails AGAIN, still gazing at his giggling sister.

“Har-har-har. One of these days Mabel, you're going to give me a heart attack.”

“Yeah right, that’s if a squirrel doesn’t do it first. You heard me bro-bro. I saw the WHOLE thing!”

“Greeeaaat…” His sarcasm was practically palpable in the air, but Mabel clearly either couldn’t tell or just didn’t care and continued onward. Though if it counts for anything, she did wordlessly liberate a couple signs from his hands to lessen his load. It helped to temper his annoyance with her in the moment. He couldn’t really blame her; he was sure that it probably really was funny to spook him like that.

Still annoyed though. Still annoyed.

They began to walk together through the woods, with Dipper tacking on a sign here and there without much care or enthusiasm in the action. Unlike Mabel, who happened to hold enough energy to power the entire state of California.

Twirling around in front of him, Mabel had that look on her face that spoke volumes of what her current mood was in the moment. She was sort of an open book, and Dipper could tell that this was the kind of love-struck expression he recognized- Which was beginning to be more trouble than it’s worth nowadays.

“Ohhh Dipper, you're NEVER going to BELIEVE the MAGICAL day I’ve had!” She nearly trips on a tree root this time in her twirling but catches herself just in time. Dipper could only shake his head. Here we go…

“Let me guess. You harassed another kid to try and date you?” He inquires, to which Mabel giggles rather forcefully, chopping a home-made sweater sleeve in the air.

“Pshhh! NOPE! Well, close.” Dipper rolls his eyes this time, though the corner of his mouth tilts upwards with almost amusement as his sister continues to yammer on about her latest attraction.

“-SO BASICALLY- At the cemetery today-”

“-Wait, you were at the cemetery? When did you have time to go to the cemetery??” Mabel only waggles her long sweater sleeves in his face as an immediate response, making him splutter and stick his out his tongue. She takes before continuing without any lack of enthusiasm.

“That’s not IMPORTANT. So BASICALLY, I was walking, you know, like I DO, and then-”

“Bleat!!!” Both twins are then startled by the goat Gompers again, who had chosen that very moment to start chewing on the back of Mabel’s sweater again. After a few moments of wide-eyed staring, Mabel’s eyes softened and her rosy cheeks puffed out as she started to coo over the goat. The GOAT of all things.

“Awww… I guess this isn't the kind of thing we should be talking about with prying ears around, huh?”

“What? Why, did something happen?” A flash of alarm strikes Dipper, and he glances over at his sister uneasily- Who only guffaws at his reaction before hovering over the goat even more than before.

“Pssshh, nah nothing like that!” Covering Gompers ears, she poorly stage whispers with a faux look of sympathy. Or it could've been completely genuine, it was hard to tell sometimes. “I just don’t want Gompers to feel jealous.”

Dippers worry quickly dropped to zero, and he leveled his sister with an unamused stare.

“Of what? You breaking the world record of quickest restraining order?”

“Guh! It’s called TRUE LOVE!!! I’ll tell you later…” In that moment, a flash of cheekiness crossed the glitter obsessed 12-year olds’ face, and she dropped the signs without much care.

“Hey, last one to the shack has to be on Stan waxing duty!!!”

“What!” The boy screeched with barely restrained terror. Let it be known that Mabel has always been good at bringing out others enthusiasm. Dipper certainly was no exception to this rule, so without much of a grand flourish he too casts the signs aside and with earlier horror melting away, he grins competitively at his twin.

“Yeah right! You're on!”

With that, the race was on and as the two twins sped off along the outskirts of the forest and back towards the ramshackle cabin in the distance. Good natured laughter resonates in the air, as they hop over logs and try to trip the other up, oblivious to the futures they left behind. Perhaps in another timeline, in another world, that switch would've worked the way it should.

Perhaps in that timeline, they would've found a mysterious journal, speaking of the great wonders that reside in this fair town. A journal that would be their crutch during danger, that would save their lives on many an occasion, and risk them just the same amount.

-But that is not what happened. Maybe a few wires had been crossed wrong, or something more external, but that switch never worked and thus the old book is never revealed...

Yet somehow, this changes everything and nothing all the same.

No cheating and no hints, but the Pines always did have a knack for getting wrapped up in the paranormal. It might be a genetic thing, but whether they like it or not, they could never live a life mundane.

...It's time for the blind to lead the blind, and let it be known that a Pines has never gone down without swinging...

They'll figure it out. Probably.

***

Thus it begins… I have the next little part ready to go, but I kinda wanna see how people react to this and if folks are interested in the concept. I just think it’s kinda funny- And it gives me a chance to look over the transcripts again which is sort of like watching the show

(I can’t go on Disney cuz I’ve been logged out and don’t remember the password lol-)

[lunar-oceansong]

okay slightly longer post with some archon quest reaction highlights

i took the screenshot a moment too late, but Mondstadt looked EERILY red when i was approaching it and i audibly went "oh. i don't like that." only to find out it was just my game switching between rain and sunrise and wasn't even part of the quest halskjslkdfjsldfs

this caught me so off guard i was loosing my SHIT. this is how every Bi person feels about Kaeya

Dahlia is so fucking tiny behind that table look at him you can barely see him in this screenshot but that table is way too tall

the way this courtroom is set up is so bonkers. i didn't take a screenshot of it but the fact the witnesses would just stand RIGHT BESIDE ALBEDO WHO THEY BELIEVED WAS A MURDERER during their testimonies is INSANE what if it WAS a murderer and he lashed out?????? i mean i know later they say that most of them were in on this plan so its possible they don't normally set it up this way but it's plausible that they DO and that feels unsafe lmao

also i was losing it over the Traveler having Net Zero Information during the trial but it eventually getting revealed that it was on purpose made it make soooo much more sense. the Monstadtians are insane planners

i did in fact shriek upon noticing Venti

the way he said this was so insanely funny, the emphasis on it... plus then the later lil conversation where Dahlia is like "i guess i should pray to Barbatos and tell him I still don't understand his drunken ramblings from when we went to the tavern 3 times...." and Venti going "oh, um, maybe don't do that....." is SO FUCKING FUNNY. also them referring to Barbatos in 3rd person even though nobody else is around is also so fucking funny. this is why Venti says things like "thank Barbatos" even the people in the know around him talk about him in the third person...

(also just as an aside the amount of times Venti just got subtly teased this update was incredible and absolutely hilarious. more of this please hoyoverse).

THE BROSSSSSSS i was in disbelief during the whole battle sequence it was done SO GOOD. definitely an improvement from the Natlan battle sequence for sure, it was kinda like Natlan was a test run for this.

also Diluc saying that he could tell this was faked/something was up because Kaeya didn't seem nervous enough during the first trial is so funny. i need to know what Diluc thinks Kaeya's tells are now.

I KNOW HE SAYS HE WAS JUST JOKING ABOUT THIS LATER BUT IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY IF HE WASN'T. like, he was doing that whole damsel in distress act (which was funny as fuck), so it's possible that if some citizens came near him he very much would have had to pretend to run for his life, and the mental image of that is SENDING me

also Dahlia asking if Venti was talking and Venti just panicking was so funny

IS THIS OUR FIRST LOOK AT VARKA??? THE GUY ON THE LEFT. IS THAT MEANT TO BE VARKA??????

i have to admit when Albedo turned the entirety of Mondstadt into a giant magic circle i nearly lost my shit cause i'd been thinking that that was what Mondstadt was since like, FOREVER.

AND DURINNNNN HOLY SHIT. I WAS NOT ACTUALLY EXPECTING THEM TO GO THIS FAR IN THIS QUEST. I DID NOT EXPECT THEM TO ACTUALLY TACKLE THE WHOLE DURIN THING. I WAS SHOCKED WHEN MINI DURIN SHOWED UP AND SAID WHAT THE PLAN WAS HSLDKFJSLKDFJSDFS

also Wanderer just letting Mini Durin go do that like "well get on with it then" is so funny to imagine. Mini Durin is literally living Wanderer's dream, he's getting to be human and have a family. i wonder how Wanderer feels about all that.... they're definitely going to have Durin and Wanderer meet again like this

[cybertron-after-dark]

You should write beast wars, can I have some silly predacon headcanons?

I should absolutely write beast wars. Silly Predacon headcanons coming up

-Megatron talks battle strategy with his rubber duck all the time. He considers it his most trusted advisor because it's never said anything stupid and never tried to kill him. Honestly, he's tempted to think of the little dude as his only real friend.

-Speaking of Megatron, the man is a WHORE for a good bath bomb. Lush addiction, 100%. He has a whole hidden stock of bath bombs, bath salts, scented oils, candles, decorative soaps, scented metal polish and flower petals specifically for spoiling himself when he feels like hes completely surrounded by idiots. Which is often. Has he ever tried to eat one of the decorative soaps that look like baked goods? It doesn't count if it's the t rex hand.

-the reason skorponok occasionally reverts into caveman speak for some episodes is the writers couldn't figure out what to do with him he knows talking like that pisses off tarantulas and he thinks his annoyance is funny even though literally nobody else is amused by the bit.

-skorponok actually kind of misses dinobot because he made his job a lot easier. Constantly pitching ideas, suggesting battle strategies, pointing out flaws in plans. He was useful, even if he seemed to hate skorponok. He doesn't really know how to be a good second in command anymore because a crucial part of the dynamic is missing and he just can't adapt.

-waspinator is perfectly capable of speaking in normal grammar and not in the third person but he's been doing it since he joined in with Megatron and at this point he thinks he's in too deep to knock it off. He thinks it makes him sound cuter because it's actually an evolution of internet uwu speak. Memes get weirdly translated from earth to Cybertron and back.

-waspinator is actually really good at baking but he'll get blasted to bits a thousand times over before he lets anyone other than terrorsaur know because none of his other coworkers deserve to try his cupcakes (and also because he doesn't want to get "promoted" to kitchen slave). Dinobot knew, but he didn't snitch. Wasp never found out that Dinobot would occasionally snag a brownie, he always thought he just counted wrong.

-Terrorsaur is not above attempting to seduce a maximal but all his flirting attempts go horribly awry. If they don't outright reject him they just have no idea what he's getting at bc Predacon flirting is usually a lot different than maximal flirting so everyone thinks he's just kind of being a dick like usual. Dinobot knows exactly what is happening and ranges anywhere from amused to disgusted by the cross-faction fling attempts. The flying weasel clearly has no principles.

-Every couple weeks or so wasp and terrorsaur will get together to watch terrible movies over a bottle of highgrade and it always devolves into bitching about megatron. They tried inviting tarantulas a few times but he'd always make things Weird by bringing in slashers with really good special effects and proceeding to gush about how tasty the gore looks.

-Tarantulas knows what just about every living species in the known galaxy tastes like, organic, mechanical and everything in between. If it's made contact with Cybertron, chances are he's he's tried their flesh (or lack thereof). If it's at all possible, he wants to find out enough about the Vok to figure out how to capture, kill and eat one.

-Tarantulas also thinks rampage is a total poser when it comes to cannibalism. He doesn't even look like he's having fun with it. Barely any torturing or teasing beforehand, only dramatic monologues about fear and anguish. Bah! Amateur...

-Blackarachnia has a trash tv addiction. She doesn't know WHY the Darksyde's datatrax has every season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and like 30 TLC produced shows, but she refuses to stop watching them. Tarantulas fucking hates it. She does not care and if he complains she will turn the volume higher.

-Blackarachnia has incredibly mixed feelings on the story Cinderella. On the one hand, it gives her a degree of hope. A girl reduced to a work slave for terrible people that gets to escape and live it up with a guy that lives her? Great conceptually, but she only got to get out of it because she was a good person and nice to everyone. Blackarachnia? Not quite so disgustingly sweet. She's a bad girl through and through. And evidently bad people don't get to escape bad situations. Oh well. She can always try to fake it til she makes it.

-Inferno has always secretly hoped that when the war is over, his Queen Megatron will settle down with him and repopulate the colony together. He has wildly saccharine domestic daydreams of being with his giant beloved lizardy queen and their 3000+ kids. He has accidentally let this slip around Megatron once, who proceeded to pointedly ignore what he just said.

-Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia got Inferno to watch Drag Race but upon hearing the contestants being called queen, he took it a bit too literally and interpreted the show as the sad, underwhelming way human queens settle disputes between their colonies instead of just fighting the proper way. Lame.

-Quickstrike is so so very sad he can't play video games. He wants to play GTA and cause excessive and wanton death and destruction, but his fucked up hands cannot hold the controller. He forsakes Primus for building him the way he did. He keeps trying to get tarantulas to make him a usable controller but he gets brushed off every time.

-Quickstrike has attempted to ride inferno in his beast mode into battle. It did not end well but for about a solid 18 seconds it looked metal as hell.

-Rampage actually really likes depth charge and wants to be friends sooooo bad but he doesn't know how to handle that in a healthy way so he keeps trying to get his attention by playing up the cannibalism thing and hoping they fight again. Honestly he just kind of likes depth charge holding him, even if it's in a chokehold.

-After losing transmutate, Rampage projected a lot of his grief onto waspinator, which lead to a very strange period of time on the ship where rampage would get very cuddly and protective of wasp, who was incredibly terrified of what would happen if he shoved the crab off. Usually accompanied by Rampage being Incredibly Sad.

-every month the preds have a game night. Usually a board game or card game with Megatron's house rules. Said house rules are specifically designed to make a fight break out for his amusement. These game nights typically end with at least three people in the r-chamber and somebody missing at least one limb.

[illfoandillfie]

Quality Vs Quantity

Rich Fuckboy Ben Series Masterlist

Pairing: Rich Fuckboy!Ben Hardy x Fem!Reader

Summery:  Spending a day in Ben's hotel room has some unforeseen consequences

Warnings: Basically just fluff with some references to sex - nothing happens on page, Specifically references to oral sex (m receiving) and P in V sex, Rich kid dickishness, hints at dom!reader/sub!Ben but nothing major, discussions of urinary tract infections.

Words: 1,166

A/N: The idea for this one came about because I was rewatching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (for those that are unfamiliar it's a tv comedy series that features musical numbers, its great, highly recommend) and in on episode the main character contracts a UTI and the guy she's been sleeping with sings a song about how he's proud to have been soon good at sex that she needs medication. It's funny and stupid but it did make me think of my favourite rich prick and I had to write something lmao.

(How could I not use this image lmao)

Taglist: @labessieisallama@deakyclicks@jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor@i-cant-hangout-im-drumming@queenmylovely@ilovequeenmorethanyou@johndeaconshands@borhapbois@stardust-galaxies@cherries-n-rocknroll@rogersslave @scorpiogemini

When you’d gone out with Ben you’d figured you’d have a good night letting him be all dominant and then you’d be sent home as soon as he was done, with a slap on the arse and probably some comment about being a whore. You hadn’t expected to still be there the next morning let alone for Ben to get so subby so quickly. You definitely hadn’t anticipated that the night with him would turn into nearly a full day in his bed. But you hadn’t been able to pull yourself away and he seemed reluctant to let you leave. So instead, you’d stayed.  

It was only once you were home (and Bianca had stopped grilling you about your new mystery man, since she had no idea you’d seen Ben again), that you were able to actually think about what had happened. There’d been a surprising amount of kissing when you really thought about it. None of it like how it was when he kissed you in the limo – territorial, cornering you so he could claim you or mark you. It was nicer than that. Sweet and soft and a lot of it had happened when he wasn’t inside you which was maybe the most surprising part. Though, really, the whole thing was definitely unexpected. 

There’d been breaks for room service meals and at one point you’d dozed off whilst laying against his chest, a movie playing on the TV and his fingers playing with your hair. But most of the time had been spent fucking. A, frankly, ridiculous amount of fucking. In all sorts of positions and places throughout the suite, some of it rough, some soft and sensual, all of it very satisfying. Honestly, you couldn’t help but be a little impressed by Ben – his prowess and stamina. But unfortunately, there was unforeseen consequences too, even a couple of days post marathon fuck session.  

You hadn’t planned on telling Ben you probably had a UTI. You’d felt the burning sensation and immediately called your gyno to organise an appointment and on your way home you’d made sure to pick up some cranberry pills and juice to hold you over until then. Ben hadn’t even factored into your thoughts at all except to briefly curse him. And then, out of the blue he’d called.   “You free tonight?”  “Y’know, typically conversations start with some kind of greeting.”  “Hi, Y/N. So are you?”  “That depends. What were you planning?”  “Well something like the other day preferably. There’s more I want to do to you.”  You couldn’t imagine what else he could possibly be thinking of but kept that to yourself in order to tease him a bit, “You must really love being my sub if you’re asking me out again already. Don’t think many girls get invited into your bed a second time and little old nobody me gets a third.”  “I just figured since I got you off so much, the least you could do is suck my cock again.”  You laughed, “Well if a blowjob is all you want then maybe I’ll consider it, but I’m not really up to uhh penetration.”  “Why not? My cock too big for you to handle and now you need a week to recover?”  “No, I just think I have a urinary tract infection so sex is off the table until I can get onto some antibiotics.”  “Soooo,” he stretched the word out thoughtfully, “I wasn’t too far off. You’re pussy just couldn’t handle all the incredible sex.”  You sighed, somewhere between exasperated and amused, “It’s not the quality of the sex and it’s not a comment on your size. It’s just that there was like a lot of sex happening and that led to a very natural transferal of bacteria.”  “No don’t ruin this for me. It’s my huge dick and how good a shag I am, you need medication to cope. It’s actually a complement, so thank you.”  You snorted and heard Ben laugh too.  “But I s’pose that’s a good enough excuse, I’ll let you pay me back some other time. I could probably use a quiet night in anyway.”  “A quiet night? What’s that, only going to one club before you’re newest conquest sees the hotel?”  “Usually yeah,” he chuckled, “but actually I was thinking of staying home and watching TV. Maybe some video games, don’t know yet.”  “Really? You don’t have a model you can call as a plan B?”  “Oh, believe me I have them. I guess I just don’t really feel like it tonight.” There was a short pause and then Ben said, “Believe me, no one is as surprised as I am.”  You had to laugh, but also said, “Well, sounds like it’ll be fun.”  “You could still join me.”  “It’s a tempting offer but I probably shouldn’t. A night on your own will do you some good anyway.”   “Sure it’s not cause I’m so irresistible? Worried you’ll catch a glimpse of my halfie and beg to suck on it?”  “More that I don’t trust you not to talk me into it and I’m still trying to train you to behave.”  Ben gave a soft little whimper that he tried to cover with a cough and you smiled, pleased you could still affect him like that.  

But just when you thought he was being a little predictable, Ben decided to throw you for a loop.   “You are okay though right?  “Yeah,” you said, trying not to sound like you were too taken aback, “I’m fine. UTI’s can become serious if ignored but I’m not ignoring it and they’re pretty easy to treat. I’ll just be out of action or a week or two, no biggie. Unfortunately I had agreed to go with Bianca to a cycling class so I’ll probably have to cancel that. She’ll understand though.”  “Well then let me pay for that. I mean, I assume there’s a cancellation fee.”  “There is but you don’t have to do that.”  “Please, Y/N, if there’s one thing I have, it’s money. It’ll be like losing some loose change in the couch. And...I want to help. I did contribute to your situation after all – y'know, big dick, hot lay, we’ve covered that already. I’d be a prick not to help somehow. Is there anything else I can do? Pain relief or, I don’t know, do you need a lift to the appointment? I could send my car for you.”  You were thrown entirely off balance by how genuine and sweet and un-dickish Ben sounded, “Um no I think I’m all good. It’s really kind of you to offer though.”  “Okay, if you’re sure. But if you need something just let me know. And message me with how much the cancellation costs. And...feel better soon.”  “I will, thanks Ben. Umm, talk soon?”  “Yeah, definitely.”  You were still a little in shock when you hung up, and not at all sure how to break it to Bianca that you might have a crush on the Ben Hardy.

[herrenxenoberg]

Fandorm Showcase #4 - The Emperor's New Groove

Okay, a bit of a funny thing I did with these dorms is that they're made to be a kind of parallel to the main seven dorms in terms of vibe or theme. So, the fact this would have a similar plotline to Scarabia's story is just too good to not bring it up.

Presenting the magnificent dorm inspired by the Emperor's New Groove...

Aztesurco!

The name is taken from Aztec (the overall ethnicity of the movie) and surco (which is groove in quechuan), and it's mostly inspired by Yzma, the main villain of the movie.

"Heh, really rolls off the tongue huh?"

This dorm centers around having eccentricity and flair, as well the intelligence and strategic mind to boot. They also specializes in transfiguration potionology and spells, which requires skilled alchemy knowledge or magical prowess to achieve in order to become the housewarden. However...that rule doesn't seem to apply with the current presiding housewarden.

"Why do you even need to meet the requirements? Clearly only one dude gets the job done, and it's yours truly!"

"A dorm founded on the eccentric advisor's spirit of ambition. Students in this dorm all have their own groove and ambitions to be on top."

"Oh sure, make it all about that wrinkly old fossil of a woman, as if she's any greater..."

Requirements and Traits:

"Someone get me a marker, I'm making some changes to this list!"

Have knowledge in alchemy and advanced spellcasting No need for all that mumbo-jumbo

Eccentric and full of personal groove Eh, I'll let this one slide.

Able to handle responsibilities and tasks properly with careful planning Boooooorrrring~

Just be as cool as I am!

Be the greatest future emperor!

Onto the dorm uniform desigsn:

For this dorm, I wanted to keep the color palette close to Yzma as possible while also incorporating some designs of Kuzco into the main housewarden fit. (Cuz spoilers, the housewarden is the Kuzco of this dorm)

"Not a bad fit, if I do say so myself~"

Now introducing the character roster...

The ever-so-amazing housewarden of Aztesurco...

"Boom baby! It is yours truly!"

Khuno Nisqa! (Twisted off Emperor Kuzco)

Future emperor of the sun empire!

Khuno is...a very eccentric kid his whole life. Everything he can ask for is served on a silver platter due to his background of the only remaining royal heir of the Nisqa family after the previous emperor (his late father) of the Sun Empire passed away due to illness. Because of this spoiled lifestyle, he has prided himself of always be in charge of everything and everyone else under his jurisdiction. He is the first ever NRC student to be a housewarden on the first semester, which is freshmen year. He didn't have to do anything or follow a rule, he was simply given the role by flaunting his wealth and status to Crowley. Unlike Kalim, he's very self-absorbed and prideful in his rich and royal status, and would abuse said status to get what he wants. Because, clearly, nobody gets that he will be on top no matter the costs. But it did gain a seething hatred from his second-hand advisor and vice housewarden...

"A bit of a complex way to say it, but yeah, I'm great!...What was that last part?"

Notable Members:

Yves Pocion (Vice Housewarden, Junior) - Khuno's long-time royal advisor for the Nisqa family for years...until Khuno's dismissal of his advisor role to someone new due to the fact he's "passed his prime", causing a deep-seeded hatred for the young heir. (Twisted off Yzma)

Masi Yanuy (Sophomore) - A thick-headed bimbo who is Yves's friend and loyal servant that can always cook up nice meals for any occasion despite his lack of brains. (Twisted off Kronk)

Miyu Donna (Sophomore) - A venomous individual that spites anyone who irritates them in the slightest, but shows a side of interest for Yves's ideas. (Twisted off the llama extract/poison for Kuzco)

"Hah hah, what a cast, amirite?"

Synopsis:

Winter break is almost over (and thankfully another Overblot crisis averted in Scarabia), our main protagonists have stepped into another problem before school officially reopens in spring. Their Ramshackle building is at risk of being turned into a summer home thanks to the spoiled brat of a housewarden of Aztesurco, Khuno Nisqa, and have to do whatever it takes to protect their only accommodation. Meanwhile, the vice housewarden of Aztesurco, Yves Pocion, is plotting in the background to take down the spoiled heir because of his disregard for his years of wasted life with the help of his bumbling friend, Masi Yanuy.

Chaos ensues on both sides of the situation, all because of a simple potion mix-up...

(Occurs between after Book 4 and before Book 5)

As I said before, the plotline for this one is similar to Scarabia's but involves a lot more risks, which is like the perfect parallel.

"Hey, don't just ignore me!"

That is all for Aztesurco's introduction! See you in the next fandorm showcase!

"I'm still relevant, right?"

Next Up: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

(This will be explained when the showcase post is up)

[ganondoodle]

need help for rewrite

so ... im still stuck trying to decide who fits what sage role best, mainly its a tie between purah and monk miz kyoshia for the role of spirit sage, current plan is that the spirit temple is located beneath the forgotten plateau and is accessed via shrine of life/the DLC dungeon from kyoshia but its broken and leads into the temple

purah pro

female character in a mostly male cast in the sages roles

tech enthusiast = tie in with mineru

kinda hinted at in the game to be a sage but then isnt (imo)

possible tie in with josha so she actually gets something to do

possibly fun companion for a dungeon

con

already gives link his shiekah prosthetic arm and its abilities + upgrades

doesnt seem that spiritual all things considered

what would her ability be?/would a guardian laser fit her??

doesnt seem to have any magical capability without her tech (then again does mineru?)

monk kyoshia pro

hes cool :)

very spiritual

would be a very unexpected choice

located right where the temple starts

can do a guardian laser just like that

having a floaty mummy monk in the sage meeting would be kinda funny

possibly having funny interactions with koga as he/the yiga seem to take after the original shiekah alot before they were split (plus my HC of koga having been a monk from the same time as well ... should they know each other ..??)

con

he was a DLC character

another male character, making zelda and riju be the only sages

duplicated moveset with koga, what would be the most logical ability to gain from him and in turn whats more iconic for koga? (as in AoC tho non canon koga does a laser thingy too, would be neat to pick that up here, then again kyoshia and koga both teleport like nobodies business)

lore clash bc he should know too much, he could tell everyone whats going on robbing away alot of the mystery (and if not mentioned, is there a good excuse?) plus would render alot of the research into new tech useless bc he might know all of that .. unless being monk doesnt mean also knowing the tech ..

possibly less fun companion for a dungeon

additionally, zelda mainly being the sage of light (perhaps the time thing being just an inate thing the shiekah arm can do bc its a more developed version of the stasis rune) could also mean she could do a laser attack as we see rauru do, then again the moldora attack is not part of the rewrite so if ever used by rauru its when he and ganondorf fight one on one in one of the new memories which brings up the problem of what would be the most logical ability to gain from either, is the teleport the yiga do not a little .. to little impactful for someone like koga? also kyoshia can do the same, again a moveset overlap and .. if it was purah instead, what is her ability (same problem with paya, she doesnt have any ability either .. tho i could imagine giving you a shield like sidon does in canon and change sidon ability to be something healing related bc of mipha?)

if i took kyoshias ability to make clones of himself as an ability (since you dont have the sages running around you in the rewrite) as a distraction tech and battle support, would it fit koga more to have a laser attack or the teleport? i kinda like the idea of giving zelda the laser attack bc she rarely gets an overly offensive role

more thoughts, if it was kyoshia, couldnt he just waltz around with you all the time bc he doesnt have any leadership roles he needs to furfill? or perhaps he cant leave the area of the shrine of life, hes a mummy after all, would that be a good excuse? (thought about impa too bc it would be cool to have an old character kicking ass in the main team, but after giving her role to paya she doesnt have any reason why she wouldnt be able to tag along everywhere too)

[confession-of-the-heart]

Akusai negative anon here, I’m glad AkuSais seem to be a civil part of the fanbase at least and I read some of the responses I got. I wanna clarify that when I said people overdramatize how bad Axel is I was specifically focusing on his actions within his relationship to Saïx. Of course I know he’s an asshole I played CoM (as a side note, I think it’s funny that people always bring up him lying to Roxas and Xion as evidence of him being manipulative when it’s like the one time he does it with good intentions. If you wanna cite anything in regards to him being a ruthless manipulative nutjob you should talk about Repliku. Hate on him CORRECTLY!). Like I said though, despite being a bad person overall, his main crime with Saïx is shrugging him off after their relationship became strained during their years in the organization.

Someone also said that Xemnas gave the orders, and I’ll give them a half point on that since it’s kinda vague. Axel says something along the lines of “I take it that comes straight from lord Xemnas’s lips?” and Saïx doesn’t reply, which you can take two ways. A) Saïx doesn’t reply because obviously Xemnas makes most of the orders, or B) Axel’s being sarcastic because Saïx has given him undercover missions before (maybe the light novels say one way or another but I think a lot of people forget those aren’t canon). We know B is at least partially true, Axel specifies “I took out Zexion, just like you wanted.” Not “like Xemnas wanted,” how Saïx wanted. This is in tandem with rising up the ranks talk, so it’s possible Saïx saw the other CO members as threats too. But once again, I concede that it’s still also entirely possible that Xemnas ordered all the other executions.

I do think that transitions into another interesting facet of their relationship though- Axel is incredibly overworked and Saïx seems to have some part in it. That same conversation where they talk about his CO orders also implies that Saïx is pulling strings to make sure Axel can carry out specific missions, and is established to be in control of who gets what jobs during Days. This coincides with Axel’s remarks with getting “stuck with the icky jobs,” as stupid as the line sounds. Missions that aren’t just killing a few heartless or recon are almost exclusively given to Axel (CO, searching COs chambers for days at a time, trying to lure Xion back, going after Roxas, etc). Saïx’s plan ends up essentially playing out as him laying about and kissing Xemnas’s ass while he makes Axel do the actual work, only ever acknowledging him when he wants to complain about not getting enough attention. It’s not like these orders don’t affect Axel either, obviously they do, with missions like bringing back Xion and Roxas, it’s just that Saïx doesn’t care. That’s enough grounds for me to understand why he would want to avoid Saïx.

The argument that it’s just because Saïx is a Nobody also doesn’t work, he’s the only one that acts like that, and DDD confirmed Nobodies’ hearts start to regrow almost immediately. Xemnas’s brainwashing definitely would’ve had him believing otherwise and might’ve made the members think they had an “excuse” to act the way they do, but still, not a completely accurate point.

~~~

[teecupangel]

What if the assassins were in Doom Eternal?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz8_a47OetM&pp=ygUUZG9vbSBzbGF5ZXIgZ2FtZXBsYXk%3D

I was contemplating if this should be a case of the Assassins meeting Doom Guy during the start of Doom Eternal or go for the Assassins having a very bad time in Mars all by themselves.

I think a full AU would be fun so Imma go with that XD

So, in this case, we’re going for the whole the main ‘past’ protagonists is integrated in the story.

Since we’re going for Doom Eternal instead of Doom (2016), we’re setting this up in Earth that is in the process of being overrun by the demons.

The Brotherhood would be a distant ally of the ARC with the Templars have, surprised, surprised, actually has NOT joined the Union Aerospace Corporation.

Because the Templars do not like the whole ‘yeah, we’re bowing down to demons’ bit.

But the Order of the Ancients does.

They believe they can gain power and the secret of the universe by siding with the demons.

So this is more of a case of the Brotherhood and the Templars having a bit of a… tense alliance to protect what remains of mankind.

And the funny part?

The Templars are the ones in power in ARC.

The story would be focused on Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton. Of course, if this was multichaptered, there would be chapters that focused on other POVs. Anyway, Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton would be part of a three-man squad and focuses on infiltration, sabotaging and assassination. Their main focus is getting as much information as possible to have an idea on what the demons would be planning next (or targeting next).

It’s during one of their missions that they find a sarcophagus that seemed to have been guarded tightly by demons. It opened during the fight and-

We’re bullying Desmond once more because Desmond is the one inside the sarcophagus. And he remembers his life before as Desmond Miles so he recognized the three who ‘saved’ him.

They escort him to Leonardo Da Vinci who is working as a scientist and doctor for the Brotherhood, fascinating by his tales of the Animus and his ancestors. Desmond is surprised to see that Shaun is actually Leonardo’s assistant and he doesn’t recognize Desmond. Nobody does.

The mentor of the Brotherhood who goes by the name Amunet tells the three to keep Desmond with them because he’s good (maybe even better) at freerunning and stealth. Desmond stresses that he’s only good because of his Bleeding Effect and he realized that Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton have a lot of room to grow. It seemed like he had met them during the time when they haven’t yet mastered being an Assassin.

So there’s bonding there and maybe Desmond acting like the unofficial ‘mentor’ of the three (not that anyone acknowledges it)

For the rest of the AC characters…:

Edward is one of the high ranking members of the Brotherhood and serves as a liaison between the Brotherhood and the Templars. He travels using a reinforced light tank called Jackdaw together with his second in command Adéwalé. Adéwalé is more or less the only thing keeping Edward from doing crazy shit that could get them killed.

Aveline is one of the leaders of the Brotherhood’s largest headquarters and is a member of the council together that directly takes orders from the mentor. She’s focused on making sure the Brotherhood has all the supplies they need to fight and survive and she mostly contact other surviving ‘organizations’ to trade with them. She’s close to her stepmother but learning she was a Templar has strained that relationship. They still keep in touch but they don’t talk about anything ‘work related’.

Shao Jun is an Assassin under her instructor, Wang Yangming, and seemed to be friends with Claudia Auditore. Whenever they meet, Ezio acts more like an older brother to her.

Nikolai is actually more of a rogue Assassin with his son and his nephew, Daniel Cross. They don’t talk to the Templars but they would assist the Brotherhood… for a price (usually food and supplies. The Brotherhood keeps telling them they always have a place with them but there are rumors that Nikolai had done something that the Russian Brotherhood didn’t like and had run away with his family before the whole demon invasion happened and that’s why he’s keeping to himself)

Arbaaz has gotten roped in becoming the Frye twins and Jayadeep’s supervisor. He’s part of the council as well and he has no idea how that happened. The death of his close friend Ethan Frye during the invasion has made him a bit protective of the twins.

Speaking of, the twins do not like Arbaaz’s overprotectiveness so they tend to go… their own way whenever they have a mission. Jayadeep gets roped into all of these because he’s worried about them………. Jacob may or may not have some kind of ‘it’s complicated’ romantic entanglement with the leader of the mercenary group known as the Blighters hired by the Templars, Captain Roth.

Arno… well… Arno has his own squad under Bellec’s command (the Assassins in the Unity trailer) and he’s one of the best Assassin in the field. Unfortunately, his relationship with the Templar Élise de la Serre makes some Assassins distrustful of him. The fact that Élise’s father died during the initial wave of the demon invasion because Arno was not able to give him an important report that could have saved his life has complicated their relationship, driving a wedge between them. Some believe Arno became an Assassin to ‘make it up’ to Élise who don’t want to see him. Some believe Arno became an Assassin to spy on the Brotherhood for her. Bellec’s support is one of the few things keeping him safe from those rumors.

Bayek is an Assassin who prefers to check the headquarters and help out. More like a nomad and it’s rumored that the mentor gave him free rein to do whatever he wanted. It seemed he lost his son during the second wave of demon invasion.

Kassandra and Eivor are in charge of their own mercenary group who is more or less allied with both the Templars and the Brotherhood. Alexios is Kassandra’s younger brother who she needs to keep an eye on because he gets to all sort of trouble.

Haytham Kenway is the Grand Master of the Templar Rites and everyone knows he’s Edward Kenway’s prodigal son. The Brotherhood doesn’t like him and his rise in the Order is the main reason why Edward left his seat as a council member of the Brotherhood (his seat is taken by Benedictor who commands two squads led by Aguilar (with María and Mateo) and Callum Lynch (with Lin and Mousa))

Shay Cormac is an Assassin turned Templar who is part of the main force. He works directly for Haytham Kenway and has his own tank named Morrigan. His secretary (sorta) goes by the codename Numbskull.

Maria Thorpe is part of the squad under Robert de Sablé and they serve as the main force against the demon invasion. She doesn’t like the mercenary group the Blighters and think Cesare should not be a leader at all but she keeps her mouth shut because it’s not her place. Robert de Sablé and Altaïr have an ‘if we didn’t have a truce, I would have killed you already’ thing going on.

Basim is… Basim. They know he’s an Assassin but he’s gone dark since before the demons invaded. Some believed he got his hands on a forbidden ‘artifact’ that makes him dangerous. Basim definitely has some kind of connections with the Sentinels and he called Desmond ‘Reader’ when they met. Desmond has no idea what he means by that and Basim seemed both interested in him and disappointed in him.

(Of course, the twist could be that, while we’re focusing on the AC characters here, Doom Guy is actually doing the Doom Eternal canon at the same time and the ending would be about him meeting up with the survivors after taking care of the Icon of Sin to help wipe out the remaining demons)

[fadebolt]

I've seen some people posting their attacks collection from this year, so here's mine:

With the lovely targets being:

1. meowynn

2. aquaticnebulae

3. soul-sylver

4. sb-is-a-thing

5. saintwyrm

6. bindibites

7. phishtoast

8. pansear-doodles

9. toiletpapericecream

Decided not to ping them here, since I already did it once when I posted the attacks individually. But these are their blog names, and they're cool people with cool art - so feel free to look through their stuff!

This was an awesome first year of Artfight! Huge thanks to everyone who sent me their creations involving my powerswap scugs, I adore them all quite a lot! And thanks for all the wonderful comments and reactions to my attacks as well!

You guys were wonderful, and I hope I'll get to see you next year as well! :)

(Bonus ramblings about AF thoughts below cut. Be warned, they do be lengthy)

So when I was starting out with the site, I looked around on the internet to see what people had to say (out of curiosity, and to maybe find something helpful). And apparently, there are a bunch of entitled users that complain if the art you send them isn't "high quality" enough, or if you don't send a revenge for their attacks.

And I'm just sitting here, and wondering which Artfight did these people show up to, cus I've frankly never seen a person like that. Everyone was super sweet and appreciative when I attacked them, and I received zero scorn from attackers I didn't revenge. Perhaps it's something that happens only outside the Rain World community?

Anyhow, I ended this year with a solid 9/5, which might seem like rookie numbers for many, which... is actually kind of fair, considering that I am technically a rookie.

I really didn't expect to get attacked at all, considering that my refs were slightly rushed, and not particularly polished (something I'll hopefully get around to addressing in the meantime). Though I did have hopes that sharing my profile on Tumblr, and some Discord servers might help.

Funny thing is, I don't think any of those 5 people came from there, as they haven't interacted with me on Tumblr yet, and they haven't joined the servers that I was in. There's no way for me to confirm this, but they probably found me while browsing through the AF website itself, which is extremely flattering (especially since I initially thought that folks usually just attack their friends... turns out that ain't quite the case).

But this also proves that my theory about people liking powerswap Slugcats was actually correct! Which is great, cus they're a blast to create, and hopefully by next year, I'll get to have the other half of the cast (name ideas are 'Lightcat', 'The Crusader', 'The Solitary' 'The Augmented' and 'The Gambler', but it's all subject to change).

There were also some of my OCs which showed up in my attacks - I'm planning on adding them in, too. (So if you like necromancers, wizards that copy the spells of others, and weird fanchildren of niche ships, then I got some wonderful news for you!)

Speaking of my attacks, I definitely didn't draw nearly as much as I did for Art Month. That's because I decided it would be better to take things a bit slower, to have more fun, and avoid burnout. As I would rather send over a few attacks that I enjoyed, than to rapidly rush out like 60, to hit as many people as possible.

Sure, it'll mean that I won't get to attack as many people, but I still think it's worth it, as I get to enjoy myself more, while my target gets a better piece.

I was slightly concerned that a lot of people would find it insulting that I used a randomizer to pick targets, but nobody seemed to mind, which is great. After all, there were no bad intentions on my part, I just simply had too many people I considered worthy of being attacked, and I needed some outside help to combat my indecisiveness. There's simply too many great artists in this community!

My list consisted of SC members that stayed (I was grateful for their efforts to keep the place alive, and I felt this would be a great way to thank them), some other people from the fandom that I liked, and my attackers, who were given a multiplier of 5 to their chances, cus yeah xd

There were over 30 people there, so it's safe to say that I didn't get to most of them. I think next year, I'll give them increased chances too, and hopefully, I get around to most of 'em. (Unless I'll have to work on my thesis in July... I don't quite remember when that's going to happen. Hopefully, that won't be the case, and I'll have a bunch of free time, like this year, and I'll be able to do more than 9 attacks then. Fingers crossed)

So that's pretty much all I wanted to say here. I'm not sure if I should post any updates or uploads I do to my characters there btw. I suppose we'll see.

But the event was real fun, and I'm looking forward to experiencing it again!

[ducktracy]

Conspiracy theory I didn't come up with: Part of why Hollywood is so weird with Looney Tunes and Muppets is that they resent the voice work involved. Even dumbass execs know you need Kermit to sound like Kermit and Daffy to sound like Daffy and they HATE that they can't just recast them with some random celebrity.

HMMMMM… i unfortunately don’t know enough about the Muppets to throw my two cents in there, but with LT—i both see where you’re going with this and somewhat object at the same time.

i guess my point i’m about to bring up just as much proves you right, but they DID get away with some celeb stunt casting with Space Jam 2 (lol) thanks to Zendaya and Gabriel Iglesias. and hell even going back to TLTS, you have Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen… Frank Gorshin voices Daffy in Superior Duck.. so there IS the fair share of celeb stunt casting with these characters, which i guess does in a way sort of prove your point, but to me still makes me think it’s not entirely it

one of my biggest complaints with modern LT revivals IS, however, that they never seem to write the characters with Mel Blanc in mind. i realize the man has been dead for 35 years and we obviously can’t raise him back, but the originals were so often written to cater to his voice talents and his quirks and his specificities, and while you have incredibly talented voice actors like Eric Bauza or Bob Bergen or Jeff Bergman or Joe Alaskey (RIP), the one little ingredient missing from their deliveries is because they aren’t written with Mel in mind. Mel’s involvement is just as important to the characters and their personalities as the directors and writers and animators

which leads me to my next point in that i just think that nobody understands the Looney Tunes characters, simple as. they don’t! they are not some big happy family à la the Muppets, who, in turn, are not some big happy family. likewise they are not mindless drones who drop anvils and blow each other up and repeat the same 2 bits over and over and over again. i don’t think Space Jam 2’s ineptitude is a product of execs losing their minds over the inability to stunt cast—i just think you don’t know your Looney Tunes if you’re going to genuinely play up a Bugs Bunny death scene as a sincere, heart felt moment. come on!!!!!

i still think a lot about the excerpt in Jerry Beck’s 100 Greatest LT Shorts book where one of the contributors—whose name escapes me—had a WB exec tell him in the ‘90s that nobody likes Porky because “people don’t like pigs”, and his quip in the book was “well, i’m people and i like pigs!”. likewise the whole political correctness bit in Back in Action is true to life! the Speedy complaint surprises me less but the whole “first they tell me to lose the stutter, then they tell me i’m not funny” actually happened! WB hasn’t known what to do with these characters for half a century at this point and it’s unfortunately nothing new. i wish it were just a matter of grievances at celebrity voice casting, but i really do think it’s just because nobody knows how the hell to characterize or approach the characters.

likewise, that is very much by design. the original run is lightning in a bottle. its brilliance is the product of so many ultra specific circumstances and benefits and histories and trial and error that you just can’t really replicate. i mean, you can, but even with the most meticulous studying and planning and adaptation and mathematical calculations and all that other jargon, even if you put all that into your work… you’re still not Chuck Jones with Chuck Jones’ life experience, you’re not Bob Clampett with Bob Clampett’s life experience, not Friz Freleng, not Bob McKimson, not Frank Tashlin…

i am a loud proponent of thinking that honoring these characters correctly and accurately and respectfully is possible. i think it can be done. i think it is possible to study all of the quirks of the directors, of the writers, the animators, the characters, how the characters talk and walk and play off of each other, how the directorial tone is dictated. you have to be a complete nut to do it, but i think it’s possible. but that just goes back to the original question of: well… why try and make carbon copies of the originals when the originals are right there? (which, i admit, is another question that i myself get huffy about and am like “just because!!!! why not!” but i can’t act like i can fully deny it either. it’s a valid question.)

ANYWAY. i just went on a huge tangent, some of which is completely unrelated to your ask and your point so MY APOLOGIES! i do think you have something there, but i really do think the main perpetrator is just a lack of understanding and awareness. or, we do have adaptations that show potential and they aren’t given the light of day to be realized and help set the course a little because we need to think of our tax write-offs first. god forbid!

[anons-has-hlvrai-aus]

The Metamorphosis of Gordon Freeman [Chapter 7]

Asking About Monty Armadillos

Chapter 1 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Summary: Gordon just wanted to get some errands done. Unfortunately, the wall had other plans.

Word Count: 6,425

Ao3 Version

Notes: This chapter was originally going to be about Bubby’s job at Burger King, but I decided that Gordon needs to spend this chapter and part of the next one dedicated to more slice of life stuff. Or at least the closest thing to slice of life that’s possible with these characters. That’s partially why this chapter took so long to release, it was meant to go in a completely different direction.

It had been a couple weeks since Benrey had moved in. For now, life was pretty much the same as it had been for Gordon, except now he had to deal with somebody eating his Honey Nut Cheerios straight out of the box like a fucking animal, and he now had to dedicate about thirty minutes of every evening to purposefully utilizing his Sweet Voice. He was at a point where he could easily toggle the ability on and off without fail, and he hadn’t had any particularly extreme emotions recently that would cause him to spew it out involuntarily. He was incredibly thankful with how easily it came to him, because he did have a life outside of the Science Team, and he couldn’t afford to lose it on account of some bullshit that was absolutely Benrey’s fault.

Always Benrey…

He supposed the man’s inclusion in the household did have some benefits other than having a ‘teacher’ near him at all times.

It encouraged him to play more video games he hadn’t experienced before, for one. As somebody that had familiarized himself solely with computer games in the last four years, Benrey’s surprisingly wide PlayStation collection was admirable, but his weird fascination with 2000’s Crash Bandicoot games, specifically Mind Over Mutant, was a tad concerning…it wasn’t a massive game changer, though. As long as Benrey didn’t start making proud exclamations that he was going to name his firstborn child after the funny marsupial, it was probably fine…

Another benefit, Gordon considered, was that Benrey was generally helpful around the house, offering to do his share of the chores not even a day after their first lesson, and this seemed to tie in well with Benrey’s technical skills with the various appliances in Gordon’s possession.

Benrey was immensely competent with technology in a way that nobody else in the Science Team could possibly rival. Tommy was up there in terms of technical literacy, able to explain in simple terms to Gordon how to restart his router when the internet had crapped out, or how to fix his computer when he accidentally flipped the screen upside-down that one time, but Benrey seemingly knew every appliance and piece of technology in the house from the inside-out. He’d even figured out how to get discs for his older games to read on the PS4. It wasn’t supposed to do that, but Benrey had found a way, like with the Internet Wad.

He shouldn’t have been surprised at this point that Benrey was continuing to challenge any and all previously conceived notions Gordon had about him. Hell, Benrey had literally walked up and asked to borrow the manuals for all the home devices within a few days of moving in; Gordon had obliged to get the man off his back, but he did, in fact, see him reading those manuals throughout that following day. Of course, this only led Gordon to wonder why Benrey seemed to arbitrarily forget things they had talked about, even if it happened minutes before.

Benrey wasn’t dumb, that much had always been obvious, but there was definitely something holding him back. Maybe he was scared of large responsibilities, so he played dumb to avoid them…no, that was giving Benrey too much credit. He was smart, but all his decisions were notably short-sighted and only focused on his current wants and needs. So, yeah, he had no idea what was going on there.

An operatic tone pulled Gordon out of his thoughts.

“Yooooo.”

“Hey Benrey.”

The other man pried his attention away from the box of Honey Nut Cheerios being held close to his chest. “…Nice shirt.”

Gordon looked down…and gave an awkward thanks.

“Where’d you get that?” Benrey probed.

According to a conversation Gordon had with one of his neighbors some time ago, there was a long-running joke involving novelty shirts that was entirely localized in the Anomalous Materials department and had resulted in said department having the means to create them whenever they wanted, which certainly explained how he had ended up with so many in the first place. Outside of a few notable exceptions, almost every single novelty shirt Gordon possessed came from his old apartment in Black Mesa and followed the criteria of either being related to his pre-game backstory, or was a joke shirt he had (apparently) created in his free time; unfortunately, neither of these things existed in his current memory. The fact that all of these shirts came from the same printing company, and that the few remaining members of the original Anomalous Materials crew could be counted on one hand and were incredibly spread out geographically, meant Gordon would have to take the daunting task of determining which shirts were legitimate creations by his workplace and which ones were created by himself in a previous life, or at least inadvertently by The Player, into his own hands.

Gordon wasn’t sure which category ‘I got my top surgery done at Black Mesa’ fell into, and honestly he didn’t care enough anymore to find out.

He responded to Benrey’s question with a shrug and a very neutral “I don’t know,” which seemed to appease the non-human enough to continue eating breakfast on the couch like a heathen.

“Is there another reason you called me over, or did you just wanna see my pajamas?”

The lingering silence, occasionally broken by audible crunching and sniffling, could drive somebody crazy. Gordon had learned that rushing Benrey didn’t help any, so he just walked away to make his own breakfast (sadly not Honey Nut Cheerios, because a certain somebody was hogging them). If his new housemate had an answer for his question, he would get it out-

“Bubby’s on his way.”

“What?”

-right now, apparently.

Benrey sniffled again before responding. “Bubby’s on his way. Gonna be here soon.”

“How do you know that?”

“Smell ‘em.”

“You can…smell him coming? While it’s raining like hell outside?”

“Yeah.”

Great, wonderful. Write that up as another horrible power to look forward to. “Why is Bubby coming to visit?”

Benrey smiled, a mischievous green color escaping from his lips. “He’s got a uhhh, feet pics.”

“He does NOT!!!!!!”

Gordon blew his own Sweet Voice back at his tormentor, who simply laughed. ‘Blue means stop it, you!’

Okay, so maybe saying he didn’t have any extreme emotions was a bit of an exaggeration, but so far these slip-ups were only happening at home and almost entirely triggered by something Benrey said or did.

It’s fine. He’s fine.

The sudden rapping and ringing of the doorbell that occurred immediately after their spat, thankfully, did not come as a surprise.

Gordon had the Science Team’s usual hints of arrival memorized: Tommy had a slow and calculated knock, Darnold rang the doorbell twice in succession, Coomer rang the bell then knocked, and the ever so extra Bubby would perform five knocks and a ring of the bell.

The seamless performance of ‘Shave and Haircut’ more than confirmed the claim of Bubby’s arrival. Again, not like he should have been surprised anymore. Benrey’s behaviors since he moved in made it clear he made a lot of shit up, but so far he never lied about how his powers worked; although he did get oddly quiet whenever he was asked about how many powers he had.

Weird but…whatever.

Gordon got up from his spot in the kitchen and opened the door for Bubby.

“I got the job at Burger King, Gordon!”

“What?”

“I got th-” He paused. “Where the hell did you get a shirt like that from?”

Normally, Gordon wouldn’t have advertised any part of his absurd shirt collection to other people, other than Benrey who he had correctly assumed on day one wouldn’t have cared, but he wasn’t really in a position to keep Bubby waiting. It was, after all, wet as fuck outside. Explaining the whole backstory behind the shirt would be too much, so he simply replied “I don’t remember.”

“Well uh, let me know if you do…I want to get one for Harold. He’d find it hilarious. Anyways, I got the job at Burger King, Gordon!”

“Oh shit, congratulations.”

“No need to boost my ego, I knew it would be easy!” Bubby beamed with arrogance. “I start in the next week or two, you should come say hi once I get my hours!”

“I don’t see why not. We’ve celebrated much smaller occasions.” Gordon looked over his shoulders, “How about you, Benrey?”

“Oh fuck YEAH bro!” Benrey’s disgustingly loud affirmation peaked like a cheap microphone. He slipped into a valley girl accent, making the experience significantly worse for everybody involved as he began chanting “Road Trip! Road Trip!” ad nauseam.

Gordon responded with another line of blue at Benrey, much less aggressive than his earlier stream. The message was conveyed, but he wasn’t sure if it actually had the same influence on Benrey that it had on himself or if Benrey was just listening to him out of kindness. He wasn’t exactly willing to try it out on anybody else to find out, either…

“You’re really getting the hang of that!” Said Bubby.

“Thanks.” A warmth peppered itself around Gordon’s cheeks. He still felt awkward about ‘expressing’ himself like this around other people. A little bit of praise did a lot for Gordon’s fragile ego, even if he had no plans to display his powers in front of anybody outside of the Science Team. “So uh, when do you want us to show up once you get your hours?”

Bubby hummed in thought before responding. “If it’s the morning shift? Probably around lunch. It’ll be the best possible time to show off my sick customer service skills.”

“You have customer service skills?”

“Well, not yet I don’t!” He half-chuckled, “But I imagine the other workers will have me trained up real quick! See you then!”

“See ya, man!”

Both men exchanged waves before Bubby slammed the door behind himself, leaving Gordon to look over his nasty self. It was, like, 1 PM. He desperately needed to put on some normal clothes.

“I’m gonna take a shower.” Gordon loudly announced. “Please don’t do anything crazy while I’m in there.”

He didn’t hear Benrey’s response, but he did catch a glimpse of him returning the cereal box to its rightful place before clipping back into the attic, which he had officially declared his place of residence. Personally, Gordon would have preferred the nice and comfy guest bedroom with a massive window to let sunlight inside, but he didn’t particularly care one way or another if Benrey rejected the objectively better living space.

If the man wanted to sleep like an opossum, then so be it; more luxury for Gordon. Although, he did secretly wish Benrey would move his sleeping quarters for the sake of his legs. Climbing the ladder to the attic kinda sucked ass.

Other than that, there were no issues…at least, not any that needed worrying about at the present time. It was the weekend, after all, which meant he had two full days to attend to whatever needed doing at a leisurely pace, not that he was pressed for time in any way. He was still unemployed after all, it was the illusion of leisure that really mattered here.

So Gordon took his sweet time in the shower, or at least he tried to. For a moment he remembered that it was raining outside and he was reminded that it was possible to get electrocuted in the shower during a thunderstorm. But, it wasn’t thundering right now so…maybe it was-?

There was a rumble outside.

Hastily, he scrubbed the remaining soap suds from his hair, ran some conditioner through for good measure, and hopped out from the awkward tub. It was annoying to maneuver over the knee-high wall of porcelain, but it was so much easier to clean compared to the sliding glass doors that had been there when he moved in, a necessary evil. Plus, you just couldn’t get the same privacy from a frosted window that a shower curtain could just as easily provide for much cheaper.

He threw on a bathrobe, a habit he had to start picking up to avoid any uncomfortable encounters with his new housemate in the hallway since the master bathroom was sadly not connected to his bedroom, and hurried across the hall to complete his routine.

There was a knock at his bedroom door while he finished combing his hair. “Goin’.”

“Going? Going where?”

“Forzen’s.”

Gordon silently let Benrey be on his way. The odd man had been hanging out with Forzen a lot since he showed up, which checked out since they were apparently best friends again. Or…maybe they never stopped being best friends from Benrey’s point of view? He wasn’t sure, and it didn’t really matter anyways.

What did matter right now was getting some of his tasks done, like grocery shopping and stopping by the movie rental shop. He decided to get the latter done first, the grocery place was bound to be crowded right now. It wasn’t that he doubted his ability to be seen in a crowded public space without a Sweet Voice outburst that wasn’t prompted by the presence of Benrey, he could do that just fine, he just didn’t like crowded spaces.

He swiftly grabbed the copy of All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (which Gordon could now definitively say he did NOT die at the end of, much to Benrey’s continued insistence) and its predecessor from the TV stand and made way to his car.

‘Who DID like crowded spaces?’ Gordon wondered. He certainly couldn’t name anybody off the top of his head. It was a question he would consider pondering later.

In around one hour he had gone to the rental store, carried a pretty casual conversation with the lady at the counter, and exchanged his duology of animated films about dogs and the consequences of toying with life and death for the original trilogy Jurassic Park, a completely unrelated series of movies also about the consequences of toying with life and death. And he’d gone through the entire scenario without even a single bubble of Sweet Voice, once again proving to himself that he was fully capable of integrating himself into human society without breaking the veil of normalcy. He could only hope that Benrey would be able to do the same. If Forzen could do it…

Actually, that was a good point.

Forzen and Benrey were pretty much the same guy aside from Forzen obviously being human, that much Gordon already knew but…shit, man. Maybe this was a good thing.

If he could teach Forzen to fit in, why couldn’t he do the same with Benrey?

Clever Gordon, very clever Gordon. And it would work out perfectly fine in the long run because Benrey was teaching Gordon how to handle his new fucked up alien puberty anyways, why not do Benrey a favor in exchange and help him integrate as well? It was a win for everybody involved.

This was good.

This was SO good!

He was absolutely electrified about this revelation; he’d dare say he was actually looking forward to Benrey getting home so he could share this brilliant plan. It was amazing, HE was amazing, and…and…his house keys were gone.

He didn’t forget them this time, he wasn’t making that mistake again, but there was a hole in the back pocket of this particular pair of jeans that he’d never really paid any mind to, just large enough for his keys to wiggle through. It wasn’t a particularly heavy set of keys: just the house key itself, the key ring attached to it, and a little plastic tag for scanning himself into the local gym. Perhaps a clunkier keychain would have saved him the embarrassment of losing his keys, but it was a bit late for that.

‘Don’t panic, Freeman.’ His inner scientist urged.

…

He wildly checked his car, convincing himself that the distinct lack of stuff on the key chain would have allowed the keys to slide around with the almost minimal amount of friction possible on a carpeted floor mat. And of course, there was some space underneath the seat that could have allowed the keys to slide to the back of the car as well. Alas, there was neither a nook nor cranny that he could scour that yielded his house keys.

Defeat engulfed Gordon like an ocean wave, he had to face the possibility that his keys were, at worst, being toted about by whatever burglar found them on the pavement outside of Aftermath Plaza; best case scenario was that they were just in another pocket…

He checked, just in case…Nope.

‘Silver lining: they may be somewhere on the floor of the rental store, and you just have to drive back for them.’ Another fair point from his inner scientist.

He leaned against a wall near the front door while he called the store. He hated the rain, it had stopped reminding him of being shot a long time ago and now just felt uncomfortable, but he was too stubborn to return to his car until he was absolutely certain that he actually needed to go back in. The overhang of the roof did a fine enough job of keeping him and the DVDs dry as it was, anyways. Perfectly justifiable.

The phone hummed, once, twice, three times. If he lingered on the noise for too long, he felt shivers from a now-ancient memory. It paired itself to pins and needles across his whole body and his mind pulling itself like taffy to see beyond a veil that he was lightyears from being able to physically reach; a voice that both was and wasn't his own spoke behind it. So thick was the veil, the voice was not even a whisper when it came through, and his own voice, when he was held together enough to speak, was even quieter by comparison. Their voices made no sound, their presence was felt and to each other was deafening. An argument in two separate realities, both sides rumbling in his skull.

His own voice manifested from the vibrations.

He leaned his focus into the voice…

“This is FYE at Poastgame, New Mexico. Judith speaking.”

“Hi Judith!” He answered way too cheerfully. Reality continued as it normally did.

Gordon explained his predicament to the woman on the other end, getting quiet hums whose meanings he didn’t quite grasp; he waited for a response once done.

The silence on the other end lasted for just a while longer before Judith spoke again. “I’m afraid I don’t see any keys around here, sir. I’m sorry.”

Great. He thanked Judith for her help regardless and followed through with the pleasantries of wishing her a good day, waiting a bit too long for her to hang up first before he stashed his phone away.

“Fuck my life.” He groaned.

He had Benrey’s number. If the man could sniff out Bubby, maybe he could sniff out the house keys as well, it was just the matter of…messaging Benrey for help that made him fucking livid. He didn’t wanna ask somebody for help.

He didn’t wanna ask Benrey for help, but it would have to be done eventually.

He gently thumped his head against the wall rhythmically, swearing under his breath with each successive impact.

This continued for about a minute. It likely would have continued for much longer if his head hadn’t decided to abruptly disobey every law of physics and pass through the wall like a knife cutting through silk. A tickling sandpapery feeling enveloped a sliver of his face, moving as his head moved. He craned his neck so that he could slip more of his head through the wall. When his eyes went into the wall, the white texture of its plaster glitched with weird black lines that quickly flickered in and out of his vision. This visual error vanished as soon as his eyes were entirely through the wall, whereupon he could now see the (upside-down because of how far back his neck was craned) interior of his house.

Noclipping.

This was noclipping.

Gordon had noclipped his head into a fucking wall.

And he was still noclipping his head into a fucking wall. He couldn’t help it, he was simply too baffled to move further.

It was like the universe was teasing him by putting him into the exact scenario where he would need to learn how to clip himself back into his own house.

He was not partial to the idea, but it was better than the alternative of…asking Benrey for help, he supposed. He didn’t care if the man was supposed to be his teacher, he should be allowed to figure at least some of this shit out on his own. Just like how Benrey had already sorta been independently figuring out how to act human beforehand. Something-something ‘independent learning’ or whatever.

This was good though, admittedly. He wouldn’t have to wait in the rain or in his car for Benrey to show up. The thought that he’d have to grab his spare house key from the bedroom and make a copy of it so he still had at least one spare key wasn’t fun, but he supposed it would be a small price to pay for a chance to figure some shit out on his own for once.

He slowly moved further into the wall, trying first to get the Jurassic Park rentals into a dry place; his empty hand passed through just fine, the one holding the DVDs, though, required a bit of force and him mentally begging for them to follow his will. He was able to place them on a side drawer so he could put the rest of his focus into just clipping himself through the wall.

He started by reorienting himself so he could see his house rightside-up again. His back was not happy with the hunched over posture he was in, but it was fine. He would be on the other side of the wall very soon.

He pulled one arm the rest of the way, then his shoulder, then the other arm. His whole chest was inside the house now.

His legs and feet refused to go through, he’d had to try pulling himself in like a cartoon gopher. Getting his hands to cooperate was hard too, they kept wanting to clip again when he really just…needed them to stay solid so he had leverage. Was leverage the right word? He wasn’t sure.

Eventually his hands decided to play nice and treat the wall like a solid object again. Good.

He pushed his arms some to pull himself inside, the rest of his chest coming through just fine…so far so good, and then part of his stomach. The awkward position of his clipping meant he had to lift his legs some to get himself further inside, but it all was working fine.

All he had to do now was get his legs, and hope he didn’t get stuck halfway. That would’ve sucked.

He dragged himself in now, his upper body sulking onto the floor, further inside and…of course, of course he got stuck. The sandpaper feeling was a ring of sensation around where the belly button was.

He’s fucking jinxed himself. No amount of clawing or kicking got him any further into or out of the house, and his hands were still treating the wall like a wall again so he couldn’t pass them through to grab the phone from his pocket. He was a spitting image of that coyote character chasing the bird, stuck in a problem of his own creation.

It’s fine.

Benrey would be back soon, hopefully. He just had to wait.

It was later now, he supposed…might as well ponder that question about people who like crowds while he waited…and maybe reconsider getting a garage for the car while he’s at it.

-

Benrey was beholden to a pretty humorous sight: Feetman half-clipped into a wall near front door, the bottom half of his sweatpants fucking soaked from the rain, and his phone, on the wrong side of the house, just slightly covered in mud after seemingly falling out of his pants pocket. The whole situation reminded him of something but…he wasn’t sure what.

He peeked his head through the door, no key required. “Yo!”

“The hell were you doing at Forzen’s?!” Damn, not even a hello? “I was starting to worry it would be dark out by the time you got back.”

“Catching up on all the memes I missed, bro.” Was he going to use any of those memes? No, not really. He didn’t roll that way, but he did like being in-the-know when it came to humor.

He phased the rest of the way through without issue, he was pretty sure Gordon was displaying jealousy on his face for a couple seconds before responding. “Of course you were. Can you uh, help me out? I’m uh, Gordon’s…Gordon’s kinda stuck.”

“Like a square peg?”

“Yeah, sure, like a square peg.”

“Yeah.” Benrey echoed Gordon’s feelings. Being stuck wasn’t fun, he remembered that much from when he was still fresh and new. This remembering was completely different from the other thing he was currently trying to remember on purpose, but he did remember that fact.

He hovered around Gordon from multiple angles, inside and outside of the house, carefully assessing the degree of stuckness so he could help with utmost care. He spotted the phone again in the ground while outside and scooped it up, wiping off the mud and the rainwater so it looked clean.

“Here’s your phone sir. One phone, extra wet. No fries.” He said, handing the device off to its owner.

“What do you have against me and French fries???”

“Kettle chips are better.” He said. The appeal for the humble french fry was entirely lost on Benrey, the insides were simply too soft for his liking.

“You know what?” Gordon said, “I’m not gonna argue with you about that.”

Holy shit for real?

“I’m totally with you about that, man. Kettle chips are awesome.”

If Benrey wasn’t determined to become Gordon’s best friend before, he 300% was now. Do you have any idea how much 300% is?? That’s like, a LOT!

“Tommy…” Benrey had to pause so he could process how excited he was to find something he and Gordon had in common. Potato products are a big deal, after all. “…Tommy makes good kettle chips.”

“Oh fuck yeah. First time I actually tried Kettle chips was when Tommy made them for my birthd-can we please focus?” Gordon’s face went all serious as he cut himself off.

“Yeah man no problem.”

“Cool.”

Wait. “Wait!!!”

“What?”

Dude. Oh god. “Oh my god dude.”

“What??”

“Bro I…I missed Tommy’s birthday! I’ve missed like, four birthdays! I gotta make it up to him, man.”

“Can we PLEASE fucking concentrate on what’s going on right now instead of some shit that’s already happened?”

“Wow, okay.” Benrey huffed, trying to convey a playful tone. “What a way to talk to the guy getting your ass un-wet from the rain.”

“Please do not use those words in that exact order ever again.”

He laughed and did another lookover of the situation, starting from the outside. There was a faint chuckle from the interior. What a wonderful laugh. That was a laugh that needed to be put in the laughter hall of fame with Tommy’s laugh, and his own…

Yeah. Gordon was suuuuuper stuck no matter how he framed it. He could drag him out himself easily…or he could make this into a Benrey Teacher Moment.

He dramatically flung himself onto the floor in front of Gordon, posing brilliantly. “So uh…you got stuck in a wall, did’ja?”

“Are you fucking flirting with me?” He waited for an answer before sighing. “…Yes. I did get stuck in a wall, thank you for noticing. Are you gonna help me out?”

“Not yet, not yet, this is, uh…impromptu lesson.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.” Benrey nodded. “You gotta learn to get your settings menu under control. You can do shit by thinking about it, if you think too hard about something, it’s gonna happen, and then you’re gonna get in situations like this all the time. Yeah?”

Gordon nodded back at him, slowly. He couldn’t tell if the man’s face was from anger or from thinking very hard about his settings menu.

“Gonna get stuck a lot more often if you don’t figure yourself out. Just like uh……”

“Like what? What are you trying to conjure up with your head?”

“Like uh…” He still couldn’t remember. It had something to do with walls and… “armadillo?”

“…What?”

“Armadillos, man!!” Yeah no, he was totally onto something. If he just explained it enough, he would remember. Or at the very least Gordon would know what he was talking about. He started to kick his legs behind him and play with the ears of his fuzzy hat in excitement, not really focusing on Gordon like he was supposed to.

“What do you mean armadillos? What are you talking about?”

“You know, armadillos! They’ve got the thin curly horns. Monty armadillos. They were in the uh, the floorboards or something, or…actually it was also in the walls, like you are right now…”

“Benrey…”

“…Like they were just living there. And there’s this guy and he’s like ‘Uuuugh. Buuuh. There’s armadillos in my wall in the basement or whateverrrrrr.’ Cause there’s holes in the wall right? Like armadillo holes. So they were getting in and out with the holes…”

“Benrey.”

“…and the reason they were coming in was because they were stealing his wine. Just taking all of it. Don’t know why though, maybe they just like it. So he tries to fill in the holes in the wall and the armadillos are like ‘bro you don’t have any caulk we stole it all’ and he was like ‘okay then what’s this?’ And then bam! He had the caulk with him the WHOLE time!”

“BENREY!”

“Whaaaaaaa-tuh?” Benrey whined. He looked in Gordon’s direction with his arms splayed out in front of him.

“I need you to be quiet so I can focus.”

“You don’t like armadillos bro? Funny deer guys? Live in Africa?”

“First of all, pretty sure that’s antelopes. Second of all…are you thinking of fucking…the Edgar Allen Poe thi-” Gordon let out a pained profanity, punctuated by a particularly loud thud.

“Oh shit you got out!”

He flipped himself over like a pancake to meet eyes with Gordon, who was now clambering himself out of the Ass-Up-Crumpled-Napkin Position he had managed to get into.

“Crongatulation you have uh, paper clips.”

Gordon physically cringed at the mutilated pronunciation of ‘Congratulations’ and shook his head, “No. No way, man, you’re gonna have to explain this shit better…But-!”

Benrey jumped.

“I need to tell you something first, and before that-” Gordon strutted into the hallway. “I need to get into something not soaked with rainwater, I can NOT work like this.”

“Don’t like rain bro?”

The conversation continued at a medium-volume shout between the foyer/living room and Gordon’s bedroom. Yet another thing Benrey didn’t quite get…not the bed part, the open windows. At least this one he understood was because humans didn’t go into immediate sleepytime when drenched in blue light. Lucky.

“I like the CONCEPT of rain and I like how it sounds on the roof at night when I’m going to bed, but I don’t like the feeling of getting rained on. It’s like a shower I didn’t consent to.”

“We gotta fix that.”

“Fix what??”

“That sleeping thing. Shouldn’t have to do it every day. Super inefficient.”

At this time, Gordon had walked back into the living room with a new pair of jeans and had returned his voice to a normal volume. “Are you telling me you don’t need 8 hours of sleep every day?”

“What? No!” Man he WISHED he could stay up for days on end. That would be cool as fuck. “No, I just think it’s dumb that we need to sleep every day. They should make it so you only have to do it once a week…or just make it optional.”

“Who the hell is gonna change how sleep works?”

“Sleepytime gods.”

“I don’t think those are real. Anyways…”

Benrey huffed. Again, to display he wasn’t being serious. He even made an exaggerated pout. “You don’t know that.”

“ANYWAYS!”

He was led into the living room, Gordon picking up a stack of DVDs near the front door and placing them on the tv stand before sitting in his recliner. Benrey debated on whether or not to sit on the floor, but out of courtesy decided to sit in the seat nearest to him instead.

“So, I know I said I wanted you to help me work out the noclipping stuff, but I need to share this with you before I forget it.”

He nodded.

“I have an idea on how we can make this…” he waved his arms around, “situation more beneficial for the both of us. Okay?”

Another nod.

Gordon started with a long-winded explanation on how he had ‘fixed’ Forzen’s social skills.

Bullshit, there’s nothing wrong with Forzen, he’s just Forzen. What happened to him wasn’t even his fault…but then again…did Gordon even know about that? Forzen didn’t like to elaborate on stuff unless he needed to so…shit, maybe Gordon doesn’t know about That Thing, then. He would let this offense slide since he obviously doesn’t know what happened…

Now, Gordon was talking about helping Benrey himself with social skill stuff and…okay, but like…he’s already doing so good at fitting in? At least, Benrey thought he was doing good. He’s not human though so…maybe there’s some stuff he’s doing that isn’t sufficiently human-enough.

Normalcy mattered a lot to Gordon, that’s what Doctor Coomer had said to him a couple days ago. Something was going on with Gordon that was making him paranoid, something that had him convinced that the Science Team as a whole needed to act as close to normal humans as physically possible, especially while in public. It was going to be addressed in that meeting that ended up not working out…but, well, that kinda blew up for reasons somewhat outside of their control. And now Gordon was asking for Benrey to be more like HIM, to tighten up how he acts around other people.

It was…he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He absolutely wanted to fit in, now that he was free from Black Mesa, but what would that entail? What were Gordon’s standards for him fitting in? Was it worth it?

…

It…it had to be worth it. It just had to be. Benrey had spent a lot of time alone, figuring things out on his own before Black Mesa captured him. He liked attention, even bad attention, but he didn’t like the consequences of the bad attention. This, though? This felt like good attention, being able to have Gordon’s approval felt like good attention.

This was worth it, he decided.

If it meant they could become friends one day, then jumping over however many hoops Gordon wanted was more than worth it. Proving he was worthy of Gordon’s friendship was worth it. It wasn’t like this was being done without compensation, he was already helping Gordon with his own shit. By that logic, it only seemed fair that Gordon do something for him in return, besides letting him stay at the house.

So…he smiled back at Gordon, to the best of his ability, and agreed.

“Yes! This is great!” Gordon laughed, what a gorgeous laugh it was. “This is perfect, even!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, dude!”

Benrey laughed too. This was worth it. It was fine. This would all turn out fine.

“God…that reminds me.”

Benrey tilted his head. Did Gordon forget something too? He wouldn’t blame him if he did.

“I was gonna go to the grocery store today but, I’m honestly too people’d out to physically go anywhere now. And I’d rather get the noclipping figured out before I leave the house. Do you wanna like…come with me tomorrow?”

“For real?” If Benrey had a tail, it would be wagging with excitement.

“Yeah just…so that I don’t have to worry about getting stuck again. I actually can’t afford to NOT go to the store tomorrow so the help is appreciated. And it-it’ll be good practice for you! I’ll even let you buy, like…a fun snack or something for the trouble.”

“Road trip?”

“No.”

“Road trip?!”

“It is NOT-”

“ROAD TRIIIIIP!”

“BENREY!!!” Gordon got up from his seat, phone in one hand while the other was cupped around his mouth. “I need to-I NEED TO CALL ACE HARDWARE! ABOUT COPYING MY HOUSE KEY! AND THE GYM ABOUT MY MISSING MEMBERSHIP TAG THING!”

“ROAD TRIIIIIIP!”

“I’LL BE OUTSIDE!”

Road trip! Road trip!!!! Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!

Totally worth it!

-

Gordon’s shoulders slowly relaxed, his relief nearly palpable. “Thank you, I appreciate the understanding.”

“Of course, sir. There’ll be a $15 fee for the replacement tag, but you should be fine as long as you can provide the phone number your account is under.”

“Awesome, thank you again. Have a good night.”

“You too, sir.”

Click!

Given how long he’d been stuck in the wall for, he was not too surprised that pretty much everywhere was nearing closing time, not that it mattered since he had no plans to leave again tonight. He just wanted to know when everything opened tomorrow so he could get everything done as soon as possible.

Now that he had done that, he could enjoy the sound of rain on the overhang above and reflect on his conversation with Benrey. He expected a tiny argument at the very least, but the man had accepted the deal without a hint of complaint. He was honestly thankful that Benrey accepted so quickly, he wasn’t sure he would have had the energy to properly defend his idea if they had argued. Overall, this had been a very successful proposition.

“Dude!”

Gordon yelped. “What?!”

“Cask of Amontillado!”

“Huh??”

Benrey was gone before he could ask any sort of coherent question. Not too surprising, but certainly not ideal…

The first thing on his Benrey-specific to-do list was going to be volume control. The second was going to be…context, he supposed. Context for whatever the fuck he was talking about at any given time.

Goodness knows Gordon was gonna need it.

[leaveitalonesky]

Touch

summary: soulmate au where whenever your soulmate touches you it leaves a temporary imprint on your skin. (aka the soulmate au nobody asked for)

janine/ava/melissa. (platonic work wives mentioned)

ps: this is a part 1. there is more planned. also all mistakes are mine.

Janine is a very touchy person which has always brought trouble to herself. Most people prefer to think she was just a stupid girl trying to find her soulmate. Janine had learned to stop her instincts of touching people very young. At work it takes a long time for her to touch anyone. First time it happens with Jacob, him being her best friend and also gay and having a soulmate already, there was no worries surrounding physical touches. And so there was no awkwardness between them. 

Second time she touches someone though, it’s Ava.

It's an accident, obviously. Ava is sitting in Jacob’s place in the teacher’s lounge. Well, it’s not actually Jacob’s place, but it is the place Jacob sits everyday. By Janine’s side. And when Janine sits down, Ava doesn’t get up to leave. She just stays. It is not the first time it has happened. They’re talking. Actually mostly Janine is talking, but then Ava says something funny in return and Janine touches her arm while laughing without even thinking about it. Janine takes her hand off Ava’s arm fast, thinking she fucked up. Then she sees it. Right on Ava’s arm, where she touched it, the mark of her hand. And Janine finds herself speechless (really it’s a first for her, not having words).

Ava takes a few seconds to understand what’s going on. She’s not the kind of person who believes in soulmates. That’s just a cute thing that happens to some people. Certainly not to her. Certainly not with Janine of all people. And yet, she finds herself shocked by the image of Janine’s hand imprinted on her arm. So shocked she just stands up and leaves. Hoping nobody has been paying attention to them.

From the other table, Melissa had been observing the whole exchange. She wasn’t the one to keep probing into other people’s life but she had been keeping tabs on Janine. Maybe she had been turning soft, really. Because she found herself caring for those younger teachers more than she did the ones that came before. Maybe it was that they stayed, and Melissa had to admit she actually respected them for it. Melissa tries to ask, confirm it somehow, but Janine looks like she's about to cry if anyone says anything.

“Come on, let's take a walk.” Melissa says, standing up. Her voice doesn’t leave room open for Janine to do anything other than follow. So Janine follows, quietly. Melissa makes a mental note to go to Ava next, because she can't really believe Ava just left. (She can, if she's honest to herself, but she looks at Janine and gets sort of angry again). Melissa guides them to her classroom, Melissa knows the younger teacher needs some privacy. 

“Come on.” Janine enters, Melissa closes the door softly. Janine sits down, Melissa can see she’s holding the tears. “Hey,” Melissa says, “I think she’s just scared.” This makes the tears fall down on Janine’s face. 

Melissa pulls Janine into a hug, softly soothing the younger woman. “Everything is going to be fine.” Melissa whispered, softly. Over and over again, until the young woman in her arms calmed down. 

“You don't know that.” Janine said, her voice broken. Melissa had let go of the hug, but she was still close, her hand was holding Janine’s. 

“I know it mig…” Melissa started saying, but then, something caught her eye. Where her hand was touching Janine, there was an imprint. “Oh, fuck” Melissa said as soon as she realized it. Janine looked at Melissa confused, then followed her eyes to where Melissa’s hand was still holding her. The imprint was starting to fade. It’s a second that seems like they are both frozen in time. 

“Is that possible?” Janine asked. Of course, she knew about it. People with more than one soulmate. It was more common with people who had already lost a soulmate. Janine has seen documentaries, not many. But to someone who grew up hearing that she probably had no soulmate, that she was too annoying to have a soulmate, Janine had never engaged the idea of multiple soulmates. She was happy with Tariq, they had been friends, she thought it was the best she would’ve managed to get in her life. And now she was watching as an imprint of Melissa’s hand was fading from her skin. 

Melissa. And Ava. Both of them. 

“I’ve never seen it happen either…” Melissa let her hand touch Janine again, leaving it for a moment just to see the imprint again. Janine felt like Melissa wanted to say something but was stopping herself. She didn’t try to make her. Instead, she looked at the red haired teacher, her cheeks flushing a bit 

“I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do.” Janine admits it, “Have no experience with having soulmates.” the s in the end sounded so foreign to her ears. It didn’t feel real. 

“We could talk after school? My place? I’ll make dinner, we’ll have time to think about it…” Melissa offered. Considering her experiences, she wanted to take this slow. 

“And Ava?” Janine asked, unsure.

“I can ask her to come to my house. We should probably discuss this all of us anyway” Melissa said, but Janine still looked unsure. “It’s going to be fine, hon, I promise.” Melissa reassured her, and pushed her close to kiss the top of her head. Janine left Melissa’s classroom then. The kids were starting to arrive and they had to do their jobs. 

And so they did. Janine went through her day as if nothing had changed. But she felt so different. It felt like a dream, really. Janine considered going to Jacob to talk about it, but gave up on it. She decided she was better off eating lunch by herself, to put her thoughts in place.What she didn’t expect was Ms Barbara Howard going to check up on her. 

“Janine, I’m sure everything's going to be fine.” Barbara said, when she saw the younger teacher eating at her classroom, alone. Janine gave a small smile to Barbara. 

“Barbara, have you ever seen someone have two soulmates? At the same time?” Janine asked. Maybe she hoped Barbara would tell her that it was common.

“Two?” Barbara asked, confusion clear on her face. “I’ve heard it, yes.” And it seems like maybe Barbara isn’t as comfortable talking about it than Janine thought she would be, because she doesn’t add more than that.

“ When Melissa touched me…” Janine doesn’t finish her sentence. She thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe Melissa wants to tell Barbara herself. 

“Melissa?” Barbara seemed more confused than Janine herself, but her face soon turned happy. “Well, that’s a good thing. She’s good, and you can be good for her. She might be able to make Ava settle too” Barbara said. “Listen Janine, I do hope everything turns out well with them. Don’t worry too much.” And then she was gone. 

-

Melissa, on the other hand, knew exactly where she was headed to during lunchtime. She made the way to Ava’s office fast. But the principal was nowhere to be found. Not that Melissa expected Ava would be doing her job anyway. She walked to the basement. Ava’s bathroom was the next place Melissa had on her list. If she was honest it was the last place too. She kept thinking of the imprint of her hand on Janine’s arm. She thought back of the first time she saw her hand imprinted on someone else. 

They had been friends for a few months, Melissa and Barbara. They had started hating each other, at first. Melissa knew the hatred was not real, at least not from her part, but she knew she felt this necessity of having Barb’s attention. They had eventually become friends. When it happened, they were thankfully by themselves. Just them. Melissa had forgotten herself and had held Barbara’s arm, as they laughed about something she couldn’t even remember. Her hand on Barbara’s arm was an image that had haunted Melissa for many years. Sometimes it still did. 

Barbara didn’t want to have another soulmate. She had Gerald, and she was ready to have kids. But they could still be friends. And so they stayed as such. Melissa didn’t resent her, she really didn’t. At that point she knew Barb too well. But, sometimes, during a lonely night, Melissa would cry about it. The rejection of her soulmate was a wound that she didn’t think would ever heal. 

And then Janine happened. And Melissa didn’t exactly know what to think about it. How to feel about it. She certainly didn’t let herself think about Ava. Well, not until she actually found the principal. Which she did. In Ava’s secret bathroom. 

Ava was… She did not look well. 

“Ava?” Melissa asked. She had no idea how to approach this conversation. She knew Ava, though. Melissa knew how much of her she saw on Ava. Melissa knew that, when no snarky comment came as Ava looked at her, it was serious. That unlike what she did with work, Ava wasn’t taking this lightly. Melissa approached her. She sat on the floor, by Ava’s side. At least the principal didn’t look like she had been crying. Melissa wasn’t sure she could deal with that. “Listen Ava, I don’t know how you feel about that whole thing, but, hm… You should touch me. Just to test it out.” Melissa blurted out. How do you explain to someone that their soulmate is also your soulmate? Melissa had to test it, she had to know if Ava was also her soulmate. 

“What?” Ava asked, confused. 

“I went after Janine, after all of that happened at the lounge. I’m also her soulmate?” Melissa explained. Ava looked like she was about to say something; but no comment followed through. Melissa continued, “We’re having dinner tonight, at my place. I would want you to go, even if we’re not soulmates.” Melissa didn’t dare hope that Ava was. She could understand Janine, pushing through life always with a smile, having more than one soulmate. It even made sense that it would be Ava. Ava who’s tough and pretends to not care when she does care a lot. They’d balanced each other out. Ava’s practicality and Janine’s dreamy ways. But Melissa? She was too old, too battered by life. She had already been rejected by one soulmate, what good would come from having another one? She certainly didn’t think she would have a third one. 

“Why would you want that?” Ava asked, which made Melissa freeze a bit. She knew she would have to tell them about Barb eventually. But she wasn’t really ready to let anyone else know about it yet. 

“Because you’re her soulmate too. I’m not going to make her choose between us. Even if we’re not, we’re still linked by her. And even though you’re a pain in the ass at work, I really like you Ava.” Melissa was honest. Well, as honest as she was willing to be at the moment. 

“What if I don’t want to know?” Ava asked.

“I don’t mind if you don’t want to know, but it might be difficult to keep it up for a long time” Melissa said, she didn’t want to force it on Ava. She understood the Principal's behavior in a way. “I mean, Janine is not the only one who’s a bit touch-y” Melissa offered up this little secret about herself freely. Ava laughed a little. It was easy, between them. Melissa felt her cheeks flush. If she had looked at Ava, she would’ve seen the principal was also flushed. A comfortable silence settled between them. For a moment Melissa considered saying something, but couldn’t think of what to say. She looked at Ava though, their eyes met. Ava did not look away.

“Your place tonight, huh?” Ava asked, eventually breaking the silence. It was unsaid that Ava was still not ready to know. Melissa knew it would happen eventually. And even though it made her insecure to think about it, she thought it was important to respect Ava’s own time. 

“I’m going to cook.” Melissa confirmed, with a smile. 

“So at least I know the food will be worth going.” Ava said. 

“Ava, don’t overthink it. I’m sure everything is going to be fine.” Melissa tried to sound like she was sure of it. Truth was, she didn’t know. But she hoped. 

Melissa’s phone rang, announcing it was the end of recess and she had work to go back to. She left for her classroom, feeling a little more hopeful for the night than she was before.