#but then i just had gordon explain at the end so. whatever.

[antilocaprine]

Frenrey 4? 🥺

(Kiss Prompt List)

I'm stealing the setting of @melonsharks 90's cryptid hunter AU again, this time with a slightly more gory creature fight.

4: ...where it hurts.

Benrey is utterly and unequivocally fucked.

They’ve been at Bubby and Coomer’s vacation cabin in the woods for two days, hunting after some rumored creature that Benrey didn’t pay attention to the debrief of. Since he’s currently in pieces in the trees half a mile from the cabin in the middle of the night, he probably should have. 

But it’s too late now - he’s hurting and bits of him keep falling off, but he has to keep moving, dragging himself through the dark, because the thing isn’t dead, and it’s still going after Gordon.

He sensed it the day before when Gordon was setting up his newest gadget. He was super excited about it, chattering about the infrared trigger and the type of film, and then he nicked his hand on a buckle as he strapped the boxy thing to a tree. 

Benrey’s used to smelling Gordon’s blood - he doesn’t like it, but the guy’s a klutz and it happens a lot, especially since they spend a lot of time wandering around rickety old buildings in the dark. But what Benrey is not used to is other things zeroing in on that blood scent, and he doesn’t like it. He especially doesn’t like that he can’t see the thing, no matter how many eyes he throws out. (Gordon had said it sounds like a ghoul, but Gordon also seemed very uncertain about that, and kept checking his notes.)

Now, Benrey’s struggling to claw together enough of a limb to drag himself forward, because the not-ghoul has just handed his ass to him on a paper plate. He knows he’s trailing toneless sweet voice, off-color hues dribbling from the jaws scattered across his form. He has to hold his breath to track the damn thing - he hurt it, too, but not as bad as it hurt him, and he still can’t see it.

Benrey closes all of his eyes to listen, then gathers himself and lunges for the nearest big tree. He slings several tendril-limbs around the trunk, the bark cutting into his form, but his claws sink into something that gives a raspy shriek and thrashes in his grip.

Slowly, agonizingly, Benrey drags himself around the tree trunk, anchoring the creature by basically nailing it to the bark with his limbs. It shouldn’t be this hard to hold a physical being - the thing must be utilizing some kind of dimensional slide, or something that lets it flicker in and out of existence. 

Even when Benrey finally sets some eyes on it, he still can’t really perceive what he’s seeing. It’s like a fuzzy shape has been cut out of the world, like a negative space, the shadow of a hole. He wouldn’t be able to describe it, even looking straight at it. But it’s still alive, and it seems incandescently furious at having Benrey’s gaze on it. His eyes burn, and he has to close them one at a time just to keep from flinching away from it completely. Multicolored tears of sweet voice drip down his body, his eyes watering in self defense.

Distantly, a part of Benrey that is always paying attention to Gordon registers that the cabin’s door has just slammed closed several hundred yards away. He opens a few eyes in that direction and sees a weak light bobbing through the trees. Instinctively, Benrey starts to hunker down, but the thing in his grip gives a creaky trill and tries to slink out of his claws. When he loops more limbs around it, it curls over and sinks razorblade teeth into his form. One of Benrey’s limbs falls away, landing with a wet thump on the forest floor.

That’s been happening a lot tonight.

Panicking, Benrey drags himself around the tree, trying to engulf the creature in the bulk of his own body. But it’s sliding away again, out of his sight around the trunk, and even though Benrey can still feel it, he knows he’s about to lose his grip. And when that happens, this…whatever it is will be making a beeline for Gordon, just like it was before, tracking his blood from the camera trap back toward the cabin. 

That can’t happen. However this night ends, it will not end with any more of Gordon’s blood on the ground.

Concentrating, Benrey forms two more limbs from his dwindling mass and sinks them into the creature. It’s incredibly strong, even as injured as it is, and he has to lean over it to achieve the leverage he needs to get a solid enough grip on the amorphous form to wrench his new limbs back and tear it in half.

The creature - and Benrey is going to find out what the fuck this thing is just so he can curse it properly later - lashes out with one tattered limb and rakes something claw-like across Benrey’s face. He rears back and hooks a tendril-limb around the creature’s faltering claw, then rips it off as well. The creature gives a shrieking trill, then shudders into silence. 

Benrey rolls off of it, pine needles biting into open wounds as he drags himself away from the remnants of the thing. He’s exhausted and can barely think, but Gordon’s yelling his name and getting closer and shit, shit, what is he going to do? He’s pretty much a formless mass of eye-bedecked shadows right now, hulking shoulders and thrashing tails and too many limbs, and there is absolutely no way in hell that he can make himself look anything like a human right now.

“Benrey? If this isn’t you and I’m about to be eaten by mutant coyotes - fuck, it better be you and you better be okay.” Gordon’s voice is shaking a bit, and as open as he is right now, Benrey can taste the adrenaline-drenched sweat wafting off him. He’s only got his flannel pajama pants on, but at least he threw a puffy coat on over his sleeveless shirt and managed to don his boots before charging out into the dark after a pair of monsters. “Where are you? Benrey!”

Well, he’s had a good run. Benrey really enjoyed being a person, playing human and following Gordon around. More than that, he’s enjoyed Gordon himself: his brilliant insanity, his tenacious quest to find the supernatural in the world around him, and, of course, his attention to detail - which is what’s about to blow Benrey’s cover. He’s managed to drag enough coils of himself into a pile that he could almost be a rock in the darkness, but Gordon is methodically sweeping the flashlight in overlapping arcs, and there’s no way he isn’t going to shine the light directly at Benrey.

“Fuck, okay, this is getting creepy, now - BENREY!” Gordon cups one hand around his mouth to shout, and Benrey flinches. Gordon’s less than fifteen yards away, he’s going to swing the light around and see either Benrey or the creature any moment -

The beam of light passes over where the corpse should be, illuminating churned up earth, split roots, scattered pine needles - and no body.

Benrey makes a noise. He can’t help it. Gordon is right on top of where that creature was, and if it was just playing dead, there’s nothing Benrey can do in this condition to keep it from killing him.

“Hello?” Gordon snaps, swinging the light around - and oh, okay, they’re doing this now. Benrey flinches and squints several eyes as the beam shines directly into them for a split second before it jerks and the flashlight hits the torn-up ground with a thump.

Even if Benrey couldn’t see in the dark, the half-moon gives more than enough light to tell that Gordon is in shock. He’s frozen, hands up in front of him as if prepared to shove away an attack, his mouth hanging open on a gasp or a scream. Benrey knows he’s a nightmare right now, a mass of black flesh shot through with multicolored sweet voice-dripping wounds, other injuries bleeding copper-scented red as he still struggles to change back to something more human. As it is, he’s piled up in a crescent curve, too many legs and too many eyes, and all he can do is wait for Gordon to see him, to recognize the creature he saw as a child in a darkened park and realize that the very thing that drove him into ghost-hunting in the first place has been haunting him all along.

But then Gordon surprises him again.

“No - no, no, no - oh, fuck, Benrey!” Gordon’s staggering toward him, and Benrey gives a ragged cough of surprise as Gordon drops to his knees in the bloody mud and pats frantically at the closest gaping wound dripping liquid light. “What the fuck did you do? What happened - where’s -”

Then he’s bounding back to his feet, lunging for the flashlight and swinging it in wide arcs as he glances quickly over his shoulder. “Is it still here?”

“S’what…still…” Benrey rasps, too shocked to understand. Gordon blinks and looks to the left, where the words emerged from a mouth on Benrey’s torso. Wincing, he closes it and reabsorbs the teeth and tongue back into himself. He needs to cut down on the redundancies.

“The - whatever did this to you,” Gordon replies.

“Dunno,” Benrey gasps, raising one formless tendril to point where the corpse should be. “Thought’t w’s dead…”

Gordon steps carefully over to the broken ground, then frowns and bends to pick up a stick from one of the limbs that had been torn off the surrounding trees in the fight. Keeping his back to Benrey - keeping Benrey behind him, he realizes with a burst of affection - Gordon pokes at the ground with the branch, then swears and flings a scrap of shadow up into the air. It dissolves as it falls, and nothing hits the ground.

“That’s…not a ghoul,” Gordon says slowly, and Benrey can’t help it - he starts laughing. It hurts, and he’s not sure how many lungs he has right now, but at least three of them are punctured, so the laughter sounds more like a busted accordion falling down a staircase than anything else. Gordon jumps and whips around, then drops the stick and falls back to his knees next to Benrey’s head. Instinctively, Benrey curls the biggest limb he currently has around Gordon, not touching, but keeping him tucked close, caging him in.

Without hesitation, Gordon leans back into the limb, and Benrey could cry at this miraculous level of acceptance. “M’sorry,” he rasps.

Gordon shakes his head, hands hovering over a bleeding slash on Benrey’s hide. “No,” he says quietly. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I need to check my notes, but - I think that was a hidebehind, and - Benrey, they don’t exist.”

“Packed a punch f’r…sumthin’ that d’n exist…” Benrey’s words slur together, but Gordon understands him. He always does.

“That’s the problem, man. It shouldn’t - they don’t exist. They can’t be observed, by anything or anyone. That’s why it turned to shadow when it died - they literally can’t be seen. Ever.”

Benrey takes a moment to let that information sink in like water, and like water, feels it run right off him and pool in the dirt. “Don’geddit,” he mumbles.

“Fuck, forget about it,” Gordon says, and finally presses one hand to a small section of unmarked skin on what will eventually be Benrey’s chest, if he’s got any say in it. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t - I never would have brought us out here if I knew that’s what it was. You shouldn’t be alive…” He trails off, his hand trembling.

Benrey painfully curls a little tighter around Gordon, humming roughly in the dark. “You’re…takin’ this well…”

“What - this?” Gordon pats at Benrey’s hide gently. “Buddy, I’ve known for…a while. You, uh, you’ve been slipping up.”

“Oh,” Benrey says, and doesn’t really know where to go from there. “So…y’don’ mind…?”

Gordon laughs weakly, shoulders shaking as he leans forward to rest his forehead against the back of his hand. The locks of hair that tumble over his shoulders and brush against Benrey’s torn skin feel like burning silk, and he flinches. Gordon pulls back, his face twisted in devastation. 

“I can’t even help you,” he chokes out, free hand coming up to curve under Benrey’s jaw. He’s down to one mouth, now, at least, even if his snout is longer than Gordon’s torso and still full of jagged teeth.

“M’fine,” Benrey grumbles. 

Gordon scoffs and leans back to shine his flashlight across the expanse of Benrey’s body he can see. Even raised up on his knees, the top of Benrey’s back is several feet over his head. Benrey raises an arm to bar Gordon from leaving the curl of his body as he tries to rise.

“You gotta - Benrey, I gotta check your other side, man, what if you’re bleeding out over there?”

“M’not,” Benrey reassures him, then rotates his wrist to knock Gordon back down. He drops to his knees with a sigh, shuffling forward to tuck himself against Benrey’s hide.

“If you die, I will be so fucking mad,” he says, and Benrey rasps out another horrible hacking laugh. Gordon turns his head and presses a trembling kiss to the hinge of Benrey’s colossal jaw. Stunned, he falls silent, and watches with several eyes as Gordon reaches up to run feather-light fingers along the edge of a dripping gash. He tips his head and kisses the tense skin next to the injury, and Benrey hisses out a slow breath, feeling his muscles relax despite himself. And hey, he has muscles now! Nice. What else came together in the last ten minutes?

Benrey rolls himself a little and struggles to compress his wild form down into something more manageable, whining at the pressure and increased bleeding from his wounds. Gordon slings an arm over his shrinking neck and holds him as he gasps and shudders his way back to something approximating humanity. 

It takes a long time, and it hurts the whole way, but Gordon keeps peppering kisses to the small sections of unmarred skin available to him and murmuring encouragement. Eventually, Benrey is lying facedown on the forest floor, covered in mud and blood and jagged pine needles, his head on Gordon’s lap as Gordon strokes the hair back from his face. Benrey keeps his eyes screwed shut as he takes stock. He’s still got a few extra eyes, but he’s on edge, so that’s expected. They’ll go away on their own. It feels like he’s got the correct number of limbs for a human, and most of the gaping wounds seem to have closed, so he’s in good shape there.

Finally, he opens his eyes. The grey light of dawn is creeping through the trees around them, thinning the shadows and showing more of the trail of mayhem Benrey and the hidebehind wreaked as they battled their way through the woods.

“Fuck,” Benrey whines, and closes his eyes again.

Gordon laughs a bit hysterically and sinks his fingers deeper into Benrey’s hair. “Yeah, you can say that again.” Benrey hears his hair rasp against the jacket as he turns his head and whistles at the destruction around them. “Can I, uh. Can I ask why the fuck you went out to fight this thing in the middle of the night?” 

Benrey groans and buries his face in the soft flannel of Gordon’s thigh. “No.”.

“Benrey…”

He sighs, knowing better than to fight that tone of voice. “Your cut. From yesterday. It was tracking you, so…had to stop it.”

Gordon’s hands have gone still. Slowly, he reaches out and passes a hand across the tender lines of fresh scar tissue on Benrey’s back. “So you’re saying…all of this…was because you were protecting me?”

Benrey huffs and shoves his face back into the flannel folds on Gordon’s leg. “Don’ make it weird,” he mumbles.

“I’m not - dude, of the two of us, I am not the weird one,” Gordon says. Benrey snorts, then drags his arms under his chest and struggles to push himself up. Gordon scrambles to help steady him as he heaves himself to his feet, then immediately tips sideways to slump against Gordon’s shoulder.

“Ow,” he says vaguely, and follows as Gordon wraps an arm around his shoulders and draws him stumbling along toward the cabin. At some point he realizes that Gordon’s puffy jacket is also around his shoulders, the three-quarter-length hem hanging almost to his knees. The increased modesty is appreciated, although Benrey’s still nearly black with gore and dried viscera. The poor coat will never be the same again.

“Can we…let’s put this one on a list,” Benrey says, and Gordon looks at him in concern.

“Put what on a list?”

“That…thing. Put it on a list of…’fuck no’ things. Blacklisted.”

Gordon chuckles. “Yeah, okay, no more hidebehinds.”

“No more woods,” Benrey adds, plucking pine needles from between his fingers.

“Some more woods,” Gordon cautions. “We’ll have to stay out here for a bit, at least.”

Benrey frowns at him. “Why?”

“You’ve got some, uh…” Gordon gestures weakly at Benrey, then tightens his arm and shakes his head. “You still have, like, eighteen eyes, man.”

Benrey blinks and realizes that yeah, he can still see even with his eyes closed. He’s definitely still feeling the stress of the last twenty-four hours. “Oh is that, uh, s’that not normal?”

“Well,” Gordon pretends to think as they round a curve on the path and the cabin comes into view. “Y’know, there might be some places in San Francisco…”

Still bickering, they drag each other up the steps and into the warm cabin, the door closing gently behind them. After a few minutes, white smoke begins to drift from the chimney, and more laughter can be heard from inside, startling a chickadee from a nearby tree and sending it spiraling up into the sky, rising with the first bright fingers of light from the morning sun.

[wyrmswears]

Hiii!

I know the au ain’t about Jay, but does he have an animal form? How did Edd & Eddna found him or he does not exist?

I do apologize for the amount of questions not being libber related😞

Pd. I also love wolf children i imagine Libby just recreating the feral Yuki scene right?

Hellooooo!! Had to think about this for a bit; I really didn't give Jay too much mind when making this AU lol. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed getting to flesh out this AU further using your questions so thank you so much for asking! :D I made the AU for Libber and Ice but it's always fun to expand on other characters and how the changes the AU makes affects them.

This post turned out longer than I expected (oops. I love infodumping about my AUs, sorry lol) so the answers in their entirety are under the cut! Spoilers for Prime Empire and Dragons Rising (though nothing particularly about s2) are mentioned though.

The short answers are: Jay is still adopted, Libber left him at the Walkers' doorstep before dying. And yes, Jay has a wolf form like Libber does, but he can't access it until after the Merge.

The long answers:

The second question is easy - the comic on my other post initially had a third page that would've answered this but I found it difficult to get to flow well so I scrapped it. When the Walkers arrive home after coming across Libber, they find Jay on their doorstep. The idea is that she had left him at a safe place as a final act before succumbing to whatever killed her. (Much like in Wolf Children, I don't have a particular cause of death thought out.) Ed and Edna don't make the connection between the child on their doorstep and the wolf on the highway of course, because why would they?

As for whether Jay has an animal form... On one hand I find it very amusing when characters of non-human heritage turn out to be just normal humans, and Cliff Gordon is still completely human in this AU, but I also think it'd be boring to ignore his heritage completely for the sake of the bit. After mulling it over I've come up with this:

Jay grows up showing quirks that align with him being half raijū, but nothing that can't be explained by him being the elemental master of lightning or just a peculiar (and probably neurodivergent) child; these are things like a fascination of thunderstorms, abnormal resistance towards electrical shocks, hyperactivity, a tendency to chew on things...

He has no idea that his biological mother wasn't human until after the events of Prime Empire when Wu, now aware that Jay knows he's adopted as he used it to reason with Unagami, requests to speak to Jay privately. He explains that, if Jay has an animal form then he shouldn't feel like he has to hide it from the team as he is sure that they'd accept him, much like Libber's teammates accepted her. This is sweet and all, but Jay is very confused what he means about having an animal form. And thus begins the explanation of who or what exactly Libber was.

After learning that he isn't completely human, Jay isn't really upset - hell, Zane and Lloyd have both dealt with the same thing and it turned out fine - but he only talks about it with Nya. This is part of my general characterisation of Jay where I feel like he doesn't keep too many deliberate secrets, but does only mention certain things about himself on a need-to-know basis meaning that, while he doesn't care if the team knows he's adopted, only Nya, Zane, and Pixal know that he is (Zane and Pixal for being present at the end of Prime Empire). Nya 'needs to know' because she is his yang thank you very much. Nya helps him to research about raijū and they find out that they can come in a variety of forms. Jay thinks he'd look like a noble and mighty creature, maybe a lion or an eagle. Nya thinks he'd be a chihuahua.

Nonetheless, that seems to be the extent of it; Jay doesn't figure out if he has an animal form or how to use it, and all that's changed is that Nya has become a lot more aware of her yin's oddities. That is, until Dragons Rising.

I think after the Merge, Jay has no issues with accessing his animal form: much like his mother, he's a wolf-like canid. If you told him, he'd probably never believe that he had spent the first 20-or-so years of his life with no clue to his heritage and no abilities related to it when his natural state of self after getting amnesia is to flux between forms. Maybe it developed as one of the strange effects of the Merge, or maybe its a new ability as a result of his environment, much akin to Cole's rock golem. Nonetheless, it serves as a message to Nya that this isn't the same Jay she knew before the Merge. He flaunts his heritage to the team that he never told and has changed, both physically and as a person, without her there to see.

As for the P.S, I'm not entirely sure what scene you are talking about - there's quite a few where I imagine Yuki could be described as feral lol - but Libber is overall quite alike to Yuki in my mind, particularly when she is younger and less concerned with hiding her wolf side.

[bookofmirth]

Did you like cc3 or love? Neither?

oh hello, why don't you pull up a chair because I have finished this book and I have Thoughts. I was thinking for a good chunk of this book that I would give it 2 stars. I still might. It depends on how it sits with me over the next couple of weeks. I ended up giving it 3 because I did enjoy some parts.

I will start with the more positive thoughts.

I am glad that the crossover was limited. One of my fears was that the series be unavoidably intertwined from here on out, so that pleases me.

I really did like seeing how Nesta has grown, her friendship with Azriel, and seeing more interesting things with his powers! That was really neat.

I did laugh out loud a couple of times, at points where I was supposed to laugh out loud. I think Tharion is dumb as hell but he made me chuckle.

The scene with Ithan and Sabine towards the end was good, I was like Gordon Ramsay, finally, some delicious fucking consequences.

Ummm... I like Ruhn and Lidia still. They had some silly moments, but overall they are the only characters in this book that I still have a shred of respect for. Maybe Perry and Sathia. Everyone else is on thin fucking ice.

Shout out to the one (1) line Bryce said that I liked: “I’m sick and tired of people using 'girl' as an insult.”

Unfortunately, the list of things I didn't like is far longer. I'm actually going to put it under the cut if people don't want their enjoyment spoiled or simply don't care.

In my opinion, sjm is a good storyteller, and an okay writer. This book really, really highlighted that for me. The plotting was a mess, I was constantly going back a page because I was confused about what was going on, there were weird inconsistencies that only made sense if you stepped back from the book and thought "well, the author needed that to happen, I guess."

There were some typos and word choice errors that should have been caught - "every muscle in Bryce's body went taught" and then a missing quotation mark (But it was Aidas who answered, pride flaring on his face. Apollion slew her with his Helfire when she attacked him—he pulled her burning heart from her chest and ate it.”). Not to mention the 255 "could have sworns" and 50-something "as if". I noticed a few similar phrases to this. If I'm feeling spicy one day maybe I will go back and find them.

The number of times she says "by whatever power" or "somehow" in a book where she has spent a lot of time explaining the power, and we should know what the "somehow" is???

Who in the ever loving fuck thinks that splitting up two tense scenes by cutting them into bite sized pieces and then interspersing them together is a good idea???

There were multiple times when I laughed out loud at scenes that were not meant to be funny, because they just seemed so dumb. Like... Ithan "accidentally" beheading Sigrid. Excuse me?? lmao (I edited this one because in my annoyance I misrepresented that a bit)

The tone was so, so off. That was a big source of my inappropriate laughing. Like, Hunt thanking Urd that he had such a loyal, fierce badass mate. Or a chapter starting with Ruhn saying "nah". I think this is because the genre could not decided what it wanted to be. SJM was still writing like this was high fantasy, but then used the word "like" in the way that I use the word "like". I do get that this is urban fantasy and she tried to smush it with a high fantasy (a high fantasy with very little world building, but still), but I really do not think that this genre serves sjm's style of storytelling. At all.

Dear powers that be in whatever heaven that exists, please stop letting sjm describe every single character as the most strongest beautiful fiercest loyal badass tough unflenching etc etc etc. I fucking beg. One of the big reasons that I dislike pretty much every character in this series is that they ALL HAVE THE SAME PERSONALITY.

Bryce is annoying as hell. I could write a whole essay on her but she is easily my least favorite sjm character EVER.

I am bitter at feeling like I needed to read this book when, after hosab, I would have given up on this series if not for the crossover.

The crossover really did feel like a "teehee I can do this because I want to" with very, very little thought as to how it would actually make sense. A crossover like this should NOT be done by someone who doesn't outline, and who pantses their writing. Pantsing is fine in itself! Pantsers should be barred from writing this kind of book.

Hunt's dick is too big for his underwear.

[joelswritingmistress]

Last Halloween: Chapter 5

Summary: After a tragedy involving Joel happened on Halloween one year prior, the town now shuns him while ignoring the details of the now closed case. You are seemingly the only one to offer empathy to a man the town is making out to be a monster.

Warning: Angst

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

You sat across from Joel with a hot fudge sundae in front of you on a picnic table out in front of the old Dairy Mart.

"What time do you get off work tonight?" He asked.

"Eight o'clock," you explained. "Is that too late for dinner?"

Joel shook his head. "Not at all."

"You gunna come by for your coffee?" You asked him with a little smile. He huffed a laugh.

"I'm filling in for a short shift from one to five at the garage."

"And then you get to make me an extravagant, Gordon Ramsay-worthy dinner," you teased.

Joel laughed again. "You're setting the bar pretty high." He folded his hands together and looked across the table with a lingering smirk.

You slid a hand on top of his. "What are you thinking of making?"

"Hmm.." he squeezed your fingers. "What do you want?"

"Well, it's going to be a chilly night. I feel like spaghetti and meatballs would be a nice, hot meal."

"I don't think I can screw up spaghetti." Joel let his thumb dance in circles over the back of your hand. "You.." he shook his head and looked down with another barely-there smile. It was contagious.

"What?"

"You just.." he shook his head again, "This is all still just surprising to me. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a broken record or anything, or weird about it."

"You don't sound weird." You waited until he looked back up to meet your eyes. "I honestly didn't think we'd end up here.. like this." You placed your other hand over the top of his. "But I really like being with you, Joel. A lot."

"I do, too." His eyes never left yours. Everything about Joel felt so intense. You were beginning to crave it. "When I'm with you, here like this, I'm not afraid of these people." He motioned to the random townspeople that were scattered about the place in two's and three's.

That might've been the greatest compliment you had ever received. You suddenly wished you didn't have to go to work; that you didn't have to part from him. Joel had set your heart and soul ablaze in the best of ways.

"Hey, you." A male voice interrupted the moment and you looked over your shoulder. Your ex, Officer Steven Hunter, stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Great. It's like the universe has to play cruel jokes on me, you thought.

"Hi, Steve." You edged a few inches away from where he stood close by.

"You, uh, whatcha doing on Halloween night? I mean I'm off that night and I was thinking-"

"We aren't together Steve."

"I know, but-"

"I'm with someone." You looked to Joel, holding his hand a little firmer.

Steve glanced over at him and then back to you as if he wasn't there. "I just thought-"

"I'm good." You said more firmly. "I'm with Joel."

When Steve went in for another try, Joel intervened. "She said she's good."

Steve stared at Joel and then looked over his shoulder at a few other cops who were still in line at the outdoor window. He looked back to Joel with a crooked smile.

"Joel Miller." Steve then returned his attention to you. "You father would be so proud," he said in a purposely demeaning manner.

You went to stand up but Joel beat you to it.

"We have a problem?" Steve asked him, putting his hands on his hips. "Hmm?"

"Joel, it's not worth it," you said, trying to deescalate the situation. "You owe me spaghetti remember?"

For whatever reason it seemed to alleviate some of the anger from his eyes. He took a deep breath, gave Steve a hard stare before glancing more softly at you and sitting back down.

Steve smirked victoriously and looked one more time at you. "You go to boogeyman when you can't sleep these days, huh?" He motioned to Joel once more, trying to get a rise out of one of you.

"You can leave now," you said, not even giving him the satisfaction of looking in his direction. Rather, you dug out a spoonful of ice cream from your sundae and extended your arm across the table, feeding Joel a bite. It was enough to send Steve on an exasperated walk in the opposite direction.

"Let her go be with that psychopath," you heard one of the other guys say as he returned to his buddies.

"He was a guy I dated like six months ago." You began to shake your head as you attempted to explain but Joel simply mirrored your gesture and extended a bite of his ice cream across the table.

"We all have a past," he said, "And you've been very accepting of mine, so I'm not about to judge." When he flashed a small smile you knew that despite the awkward, rude encounter, you guys were still good.

"Sorry."

Joel shook his head and entwined his fingers with your on top of the table again. "Nothing to be sorry for."

You swung your legs around the side of the picnic table and rounded it to give him a firm kiss on the lips. You hadn't quite gotten your fill before and the fleeting smooch only continued to make you want more when you sat back down across from him.

Joel couldn't keep a smile from his face now. It made you smile, too.

"What time do you think you'll be over tonight?" He asked, scraping the inside of the cylindric container with his spoon.

It suddenly dawned on you that you didn't know his address.

"Well, how far are you from the coffee shop?" You asked.

"Five minutes or so."

"I guess I'll be there at 8:05 then."

Your answer made his eyes lift to meet yours and he smirked again as he scooped out another bite.

"Alright." Joel pulled out his phone. "I'll send you the address. Go slow or you'll miss the driveway. My house is a little bit back off the road."

"Okay." You grinned, eager to spend some time privately with him away from the rest of the world. As you waited for Joel's text message you were also secretly texting Jessie.

I'm going over his house tonight at 8, you wrote, should I pack a bag?? Help! 😬

Immediately her response came back: YES!!!! Just don't get pregnant!

Your laugh out loud as you covered your mouth made Joel cock his head to the side as his eyes squinted at you. He wore a smile but in his eyes you saw he was intrigued as to what you were giggling at.

"Jess just sent me something funny," you admitted, sparing the details.

He continued to grin. "I just sent it to you."

"Great." The two of you finished off the last few bites of ice cream and then made your way to Joel's motorcycle, passing by a window that showcased Steve and his cop friends.

They all stared at you as you and Joel hopped on the bike. Despite their group stare, you had never felt more confident in your life.

Your arms wrapped around Joel and he placed one of his hands over yours just below his chest. Your chin rested on his shoulder and he eased the bike back out of the spot.

You reluctantly made eye contact with Steve for a brief second, though you couldn't contain a wide smile as Joel raced you off back to your house.

When you got there you couldn't hold back. You had only dipped your feet into all the lines you were fully prepared to cross with Joel Miller. For the first time you didn't care who was home, who could see you or anything in between.

You wrapped your arms around him and pulled him in for a long, passionate kiss that left your head swirling and your body longing for more of him. It was smoldering and only ended when Joel chuckled and ducked his head back an inch.

"Save it for tonight," he breathed against you.

Oh, what a promise that was.

"Okay." You playfully let your teeth graze his bottom lip.

Joel ran a hand through your hair and kissed you again. "I'll call you later."

"Okay." Your arms lingered around his shoulders despite knowing you had to let him go - at least for the time being.

"8:05," he said.

You spoke quietly against his lips. "I won't be late."

CLICK HERE FOR CHAPTER 6

@untamedheart81 @amyispxnk @grogusmum

[idontknowreallywhy]

A particularly lovely chord progression somehow ended up with me driving a wedge between Earth and Sky and I promised I’d try to fix it.

Super long car journey today presented an opportunity but events got away from me and I accidentally made it worse. Oops… um… I’m sorry? Apologies to @ajpendragon @alexthefly @astranite @janetm74 @sofasurf and anyone else who asked for a fix and will remain disappointed for now…

Piano Angst - the aftermath

It had been nearly a week and Scott felt like he was missing a limb.

Virgil was definitely avoiding him.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen each other - they’d worked together perfectly normally on several rescues. They’d both joined in the usual banter over mealtimes. There had even been a family film night - albeit, instead of joining Scott on their usual couch, Virgil had squeezed in with the Tinies and spent the evening competing with Gordon as to who could wind up Alan the most about his movie choice.

But they’d not been alone in the same room. At least, not for more than the few seconds it took for Virgil to make some excuse and leave it.

He’d even apparently conscripted Gordon into constantly keeping him company whilst he did maintenance on Two. Despite all Scott’s loitering around the hangar, the Fish never seemed to get the hint to make himself scarce. Except that one time when Scott had hinted at the availability of leftover pizza in the kitchen but then Virgil had raced off hot on Gordon’s heels. Which would not have been of any note whatsoever if it hadn’t been for that momentary flash of panic Scott was sure had crossed Virgil’s face as Gordon jumped to his feet.

It wasn’t just the lost chance to really TALK to his brother either. There was a physical distance too which was almost more painful. It turned out that Virgil’s elbow nudges at dinner, his arm across Scott’s shoulders as they walked across the lounge, his habit of stretching out and throwing his feet over big brother’s legs when they had a moment to chill together on the couch… these felt as natural and as essential to Scott as eating or drinking and he missed it more than he could have explained. It made his jaw hurt.

He had figured he just had to give Virgil time and be available when he was ready. So he’d made a conscious effort to *not* be working whenever they had downtime, hovering in the communal areas and looking un-busy. He rushed through the paperwork later, once everyone was in bed and then stayed up for hours each night studying the last couple of month’s worth of mission logs and recordings, desperately trying to work out what had triggered… whatever it was… the other day.

He’d been lying, Scott was certain of that. Ironically that certainty had made him very uncertain of everything else - Virgil never lied to him. He was awful at it. Honesty usually shone out of his big puppy-like brown eyes. When he was withholding something they were clouded with guilt.

But to invoke their mother’s memory as a cover-up?

It must have been serious.

His research efforts turned up nothing at all out of the ordinary other than it had actually been a pretty successful run of rescues, a bit of a reprieve from the average. He couldn’t find any aspect of the scenarios they’d faced that seemed like it might have particularly upset his brother.

It had to have something to do with him. Virgil was acting perfectly normally with everyone else. He re-listened to every interaction they’d had over the comm. Had he been too brusque in directing the rescues recently? Was his tone wrong? He didn’t think he sounded any different although after a while his own voice really began to grate on him. Virgil’s responses seemed normal and he didn’t appear to react to anything in a negative way. Perhaps his brother was maybe a little quieter on the comm than usual… should he have noticed that sooner?

Or had he embarrassed him by making it clear he’d noticed him getting carried away that afternoon? But Virgil had never seemed to be worried about Scott witnessing his piano binges before - most of the worst more-recovery-than-rescue missions had been thrashed out on the piano over the years… No. The only way to find out was to ask him directly.

He hovered at the door of the hangar, took a couple of breaths to slow his galloping heart rate and pushed it ajar. He could hear Gordon talking at a mile a minute about something to do with aquaculture and Virgil was leaning up against a pod module with a politely interested look on his face. His eyes flicked briefly over to his eldest brother but didn’t linger, instead focussing firmly back on little brother with renewed focus.

Scott felt rather like he’d taken a grapple to the chest and backed out, closing the door softly behind him. He ignored the elevator and elected for the long slow trudge up the stairwell. By the time he made it to the lounge his vision was blurry and he had reached the limit of what he could bear. He found a sheet of notepaper from the desk drawer and scribbled a note. He folded it precisely in half, opened it again and checked it, then refolded it, running a shaking thumb along the edge. He tucked it underneath the door to his brother’s bedroom on the way to his own.

Virgil, I’ve upset you and I can’t for the life of me work out when or how it was in order to apologise properly - but please know I am so sorry.

I’ll be on my balcony the rest of the evening if you want to talk.

I miss you. S x

[decks-writing-blog]

Whatever the Fuck Benrey is: Chapter Eleven: Don't be Weird

Chapter One

Previous Chapter

[A/N] I've finished writing this fic, yay! It's 23 chapters and an epilogue. I have no idea how it ended up being that long but I had fun with it. Also, heads up, I got even more lost in the angst sauce towards the end. How bad it gets, I'm not a great person to ask because my perspective on such things is skewed (I read and write super heavy stuff fairly often and it's pretty light compared to some of that but certainly heavier than where this fic is now). If I remember, I'll put a proper content warning at the top of chapter that has the worst of it. Despite that, this fic remains, technically the funniest fic I've ever written solely because it contains the most funny moments (the rest of my funny stuff is short drabbles and one shots) so that's cool.

~

Behind every door was a dead end. Sometimes just cold concrete, other times the walls were made of rotting flesh. It twitched and burbled as something started to rise out of it. Gordon slammed the door and continued on. Overhead the light before him flickered on while the light behind went out with a small pop as the bulb shattered.

Gordon’s friends… traveling companions had gone on ahead while he’d slept. He was weak like that so they’d left him. Surely he would catch up soon. They’d be behind one of the doors or further down the hall. Keep going and he’d find them.

The next door hid behind it a blank room with a health station at the far end. A flickering light shined down on it from an unseen ceiling. He walked towards it, the door closing behind him with a bang. It was locked, leaving him no choice but to continue forward.

A few steps away from the health station, the unseen light bulb burst with a flash and a loud pop, sending shards of glass raining down around him. Darkness rushed in, engulfing him in its thick oily presence. Hands came with it, grasping him, beating him, pulling him down to floor. Whatever they belonged to was dead and rotting; the stench of it filled his nose and mouth, choking him, suffocating him.

Struggle was futile. He tried anyway as he was pulled down and down until until he was partially submerged into the cold concrete floor itself. A hand, its flesh partially sloughing off its bones, grabbed his wrist, yanking it out. He screamed and struggled harder. No one cared. Why would they? He didn’t even have the HEV suit this time, making it all the easier for the saw to…

“Wakey-wakey.” One of the hands was on his shoulder, slightly shaking him. “Time to rise and shine.”

Gordon jerked away, snapping his gun hand up. The instant before he squeezed his ‘hand’ to fire though he stopped. Even in the darkness without his glasses, the sharp yellow of Benrey’s new eyes marked the figure looking down at Gordon as him.

“Yo, you said to wake you if you looked like you was having a bad dream so… I did.”

Gordon’s heart hammered in his chest as he panted for breath. His arm was still tense, moments away from firing the gun. He needed to calm down and relax. Gunshots in the middle of the night would call attention they really didn’t need on them right now. Trying to take a deep breath didn’t work though. The air was still thick and heavy and oh gosh, he was gonna…

Benrey sang a familiar pretty tone, snapping Gordon’s eyes back onto him. Soft blue light rode the sound. Aimed directly at Gordon’s face, he breathed it in, flooding his mouth with the sweet taste of blue raspberry, erasing any lingering trace of rot from his dream. His whole body shuddered a little as the tension was forced out of it, leaving him able to catch his breath finally.

“Thanks,” he said, rolling more onto his back as the sound ended. “How does uh… how does your sweet voice work exactly? If that’s okay to ask.”

“I don’t know. They gave it to me as an experiment, never really bothered to explain anything ‘bout it and I don’t really care.”

Gordon could ask for more information, wanted to but… he didn’t want to bring up a potentially painful subject. Instead he sat up and looked towards the clock. … It was too blurry for him to read. “What time is it?”

Benrey turned his head to look too. “Uh… 3:36am.”

Damn, way too early. He’d barely slept at all. Maybe he’d have more luck if he waited until sunrise to try for another nap. In the meantime… “Well, I tried sleeping so uh… wanna play something?”

“Nah, bro, you need sleep. Coomer says you’re supposed to sleep uh…” Benrey paused as he pulled out his phone, presumably to check his texts, “seven to eight hours and it’s not even been half that so… not enough.”

“So you went to Dr. Coomer for info, huh?” Since when had Benrey cared enough to even think about such things, let alone go to the trouble of learning more?

“Yeah. Apparently you can die if you don’t sleep enough. And uh… for you, you said that’d be permanent which would be a bummer.”

“Ah, okay, I get it. You can’t have me die until after I buy you that Play Station 3 I promised, right?” And he seemed to largely be a social gamer so he liked having Gordon around to play with since they seemed to be into a lot of the same types of games. So it was most likely more a matter of Benrey being concerned about possibly losing entertainment opportunities than actually caring much about Gordon’s health or well-being.

The look Benrey gave him was utterly unreadable without his glasses and the only light in the room coming through the crack leading to the hall, but it was certainly some kind of look. “Just uh… go back to sleep, bro.”

Gordon scoffed as he slid over to grab his glasses and put them on before standing. “Nah, can’t after that. I’m too uh… wound up. But don’t worry ‘bout me dying of sleep deprivation, ‘kay? That takes a lot of not sleeping… though I guess accidents related to sleep deprivation are fairly common. I’ll be careful and won’t drive or whatever tomorrow until I’ve had another nap or something.”

Benrey was silent, his gaze heavy on Gordon as he stretched and paced a little, trying to work out the last of the post nightmare jitters. The blue sweet voice had helped a lot, it was amazing. It didn’t erase the memory of the dream though and did nothing to ease the bone-deep exhaustion that seemed more and more like it might become just a normal part of Gordon’s life now.

He wasn’t alone though. Benrey wasn’t just a voice on the phone this time but physically here with him, making his presence all the better. Their friendship could work like this. Gordon used him to calm down after nightmares and for company and Benrey used him for entertainment and video games. Maybe not the fairest exchange in the world but when one didn’t have many friends, one should take what they could get. Bubby had betrayed him, Dr. Coomer had tried to kill him once too, and heck, even Tommy hadn’t exactly tried to help him after he’d been jumped. So Gordon was no stranger to being desperate for companionship to the point of being willing to overlook things others would likely end friendships over.

The darkness, not being conducive to one contemplating staying up the rest of the night until sunrise, Gordon made his way over to the light switch. Before he hit it though…

“What if… what if I help you fall back asleep?”

Gordon turned to face Benrey, still standing next to the bed. With his glasses on now it was obvious that his eyes were glowing ever so slightly. Some kind of night vision thing or something he was doing because he thought it cool or whatever? But more curious than that was his offer. “What do you mean?”

Benrey didn’t reply, just kept looking at him.

“You got a sweet voice that can put people sleep? Or maybe just more of the blue might help but…” Even if being too keyed up to relax was the main thing making sleep feel far away despite his exhaustion, the fear of descending right back into that dream made him reluctant to try.

“Nah, in the Black Mesa facility, the uh… the first night you spent back there when I was there too, when I went to your room I was just gonna lie next to you for a bit. But you were all tense and mumbling and stuff, having a nightmare. I was gonna wake you but then you just kinda… grabbed me and hugged me. You’re warm, it was nice and you relaxed so… I stayed. Didn’t seem to have a bad dream after that so maybe uh… we could try that.”

Oh. Gordon vaguely remembered having woken with the vague sense of having had a nightmare but it was so gone form his mind by now that’s all he recalled. Not at all like the vivid dreams he’d been having. Perhaps nightmares that centered or at least heavily featured being alone were a bit harder to have when holding someone and being held. “You’re offering to cuddle me back to sleep?”

“Mm-hmm. It was nice and it’s kinda cold. Just don’t be weird about it.”

Gordon almost laughed. Normally it was Benrey making things weird. But well, he was tired and he’d had the thought of cuddling before going to bed before dismissing it as stupid. It was kind of cold in here though so if Benrey wanted to do it to warm up in addition to helping make sure his ticket to getting a PS3 didn’t die of a sleep deprivation related accident before fulfilling that promise, who was he to say ‘no’? So… “Uh… I guess it’s maybe worth a try. Just… don’t make it weird or tell anyone. Tommy probably wouldn’t care but we’d never hear the end of it from Bubby and Dr. Coomer would probably have a thing or two to say about it too.”

“Got it. It’ll be our little secret.”

“Yeah, our little secret. Go uh… get ready for bed, I guess, like put on pajamas and… whatever else it is you need to do.”

Benrey turned and headed for the closet to pull out the sleep wear Gordon had bought him under the assumption he slept like a normal person. He didn’t take it to the bathroom but started undressing right there. Gordon turned away; Benrey might not care about privacy but he did. He returned to the bed and took off his glasses again, placing them back on the nightstand. Getting himself to settle down and lie on the bed again took a bit of hyping himself up but he got there eventually.

By the time he did, Benrey was ready to join him. This already being awkward enough, he did so without either of them saying anything. Unsure how to proceed, Gordon let Benrey initiate the cuddling. Which he did hesitantly at first before pressing into Gordon’s chest, seemingly losing all his shyness over it the moment they made made physical contact.

He wasn’t just not warm but actually a little cold. It was slightly unpleasant but as they settled into each other, he was also soft. Both of them wearing thinner, looser clothing meant a bit more skin contact too. He seemed to have that ‘surface of slime’ feel to all of him, perhaps attributable to his shape shifting. Maybe his true form was a slime monster? Would that be cool or gross? … A little of both. Mostly the former though because slime monsters could be pretty neat sometimes and if that’s what Benrey was, he certainly counted as pretty neat. That being said though…

“This is kinda awkward.” Gordon didn’t entirely hate it though. If nothing else, it was a very good distraction from bad dreams and bad thoughts.

“Yeah, kinda.”

Silence resumed after that as they shifted and got more comfortable. Much like a pillow, Benrey lost his coldness over time, making him just soft in Gordon’s arms again. And then, not long after noticing that, Benrey started purring. Rather weakly but it was still unmistakable in the silence and with how close they were.

“Oh, okay.” After how he’d reacted to Gordon bringing it up, he hadn’t expected Benrey would let him hear him purr ever again. “You’re asleep or…” was he actually choosing to do it this time?

“I told you not to make it weird.” His purring stuttered a little but he kept doing it, his voice rumbling with it. “You said it was soothing… helped you fall back asleep or whatever.”

“Sorry. It… it’s nice, lovely even.” Comforting especially as it strengthened, becoming a deep pleasant rumble that Gordon could feel in Benrey’s chest. “Thanks.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

Gordon’s choice on that matter was rather quickly dwindling. Being a bit awkward didn’t make it not also nice. He was comfortable and comforted. How could he possibly have a bad dream, let alone a full blown nightmare, with Benrey soft in his arms and purring so wonderfully?

~

Next Chapter

[iunpackmyadjectives]

A Ninjago Heathers AU Idea

I adore Heathers with my whole soul(candy store, meant to be yours, dead girl walking and seventeen all ended up on my top songs of 2023 playlist for context), and I love ninjago with my whole soul(70k words of fics in my Google docs, so many hours spent reading and drawing for it, and multiple cosplays), so naturally I want to combine them. But I(probably)don’t have the patience for writing all that, so the skeleton of it is landing here

Cast:

Veronica: Lloyd

JD: Harumi(but like she’s the perfect JD change my mind)

H. Chandler: Kai

H. Duke: Cole

H. McNamara: Jay

Kurt and Ram: Nya and Skylor

Martha: Brad Tudabone

Ms Fleming: Dareth(it just…I don’t think I need to explain it)

Notes:

If you can’t tell, the whole thing is gender bent. tinylifeboat123 has a lovely gender bent Heathers au I used for inspiration/reference 

And to clarify it’s still set in 1989

Okay but Kai definitely gives Heather Chandler. Like he would be popular, a mythic bitch, and sing lead in candy store

Similarly, I think Jay would make a great Heather MacNamera. Also, this would be a Gordon situation, as he is loaded because his dad’s an actor

Look, Llorumi isn’t a popular or generally liked ship(for good reason, I don’t ship them at all when it comes to canon), but idk to me they fit for Veronica and JD??? Like, especially Rumi being JD? She already blew up a building and murdered people in canon

Give me big fun at the Smith house please

Dead Girl Walking would play out differently specifically because I hc Lloyd as hella ace. It still ends in him and Rumi becoming official, but no sex

Blue would also play out differently since Nya is taken(yes by Jay) and Skylor just had her bf(?) die. They would try to convince him to do stuff with a girl(probably Akita but it doesn’t really matter), and when he refuses they spread a rumor that he said no because he’s gay. Cue Rumi using an uno reverse card in Our Love is God(idk maybe a mention about how they both are queer but the world doesn’t love them for who they are and people saying stuff like that are the problem?)

Dead Gay Son could go whatever way you want, but I would probably have it be about scruffshipping(Dareth/Ronin) because I hc Ronin as becoming Nya’s functional uncle post season 5

The dead trio would have a lot more dynamics with each other, considering there’s a pair of best friends, a couple(?), and a pair of siblings(something something Kai and Nya could have been the older siblings Lloyd never had something something)

I definitely could see Dareth leading shine a light. Seems like a very in-character thing for him to do.

Give me Jay having a breakdown over how he rides the bus because all his rides to school are dead. Give me Jay singing lifeboat. Give me Lloyd stopping Jay from doing that one thing in the bathroom. I need it. I NEED it.

The kindergarten boyfriend was Lloyd. He didn’t die, but he has so strongly left Brad behind that in his eyes he might as well have. This also makes the line “I’m so sorry” sooo much worse

Is 90% of this au just for the last 5 songs? Absolutely. They just fit the Llorumi dynamic. Like Lloyd realizes that she is crazy and her being stopped is far more than their relationship being saved. Does Lloyd wish they could have work out? Yes. Does he still try to save her until the very last second? Yes. Is there remorse from both parties? Yes. But in the end she's “beaten fair and square” and dies, and there isn’t a shoved in rushed redemption arc I’m looking at you Crystalized you butchered my girl.

Greenflower in beautiful(reprise)? Maybe a kiss???

[divinecomedyproductions]

I think I also want to explain my big bias about romance in epics: a heavily opinionated thread

Keep in mind, I’m not trying to throw shade at any indie creators who do this, just trying to explain my style and why

I really don’t like “Star-Crossed” Lovers and “Love interest to be built up and killed off” tropes. Not sure I ever did honesty.

I get why they work, they just don’t work for me. Unless like Peter Parker they get another chance again.

And three franchises were the final straw for me, and what drove me to go indie along with being inspired by indie works of others

First it was RWBY the tragic end of Arkos and what I feared to be sane of Black Sun among others along with the doomed fate of Oscar Pine

I tried to express my distaste of it on tumblr on my past accounts and RWBY wiki discussion forum(big mistake, I know) and I regretted it so much

Never had I met a fanbase so arrogant, self righteous, and sanctimonious about this kind of stuff, going on how amazing these tropes and dark stories like RWBY initially seemed circa V3-Finale along with Madoka Magica and Akame Ga Kill were and sneering at anything even one shade lighter than that

They were either passive-aggressively judging and gaslighting me, or outright lecturing me

How a epic story that has Dork knight and a lonely warrior woman isolated by society crushing on him,  or a unlucky moody girl and sunshine himbo, a doomed hero having a well earned happy ending, especially if it involved resurrection as a good thing was nothing but “pandering”, petty, and worthless and the preference of the weak and cowardly

Even one fan said “people don’t find that interesting, sorry.” And that another fan seemed to stated characters like Pyrrha and Jaune are only fit for tragic endings because “that’s the kind of character she is” both of which these fans spoke as these things were gospel, or they themselves had some kind of storytelling authority

Then I heard about Superman and Lois Lane getting married and having a kid and even Bruce and Selena getting hitched, until hearing both marriages get trashed along with a few others

Along with the defense Dan Didio gave

It was absolutely MADDENING to me

"Heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives. They are committed to being that person and committed to defending others at the sacrifice of their own personal interests.

That’s very important and something we reinforced. People in the Bat family their personal lives basically suck. Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon and Kathy Kane. It’s wonderful that they try to establish personal lives, but it’s equally important that they set them aside. That is our mandate, that is our edict and that is our stand."

Like, these guys want to hopeful, but only in certain ways the pop-culture/literary ‘intellectuals’ deem acceptable as well as what they deem to be ‘interesting’ and what I had in mind did not only not qualify, it was seen as outright heresy

When I brought this up in my grievances with stories like RWBY, one holier-that-thou jerk supported it because 

“Single Batman and Superman sells well”

After writing my preferences off as “pandering” and only for the likes such as Disney and Marvel,

The Self-Centered hypocrisy was staggering because what he said and his many followers were basically saying this;

“We don’t like it when your niche interest stuff is forced into our stuff, but when the case is in the reverse? We’re totally cool with that, and we hope it keeps happening.”

other fans said what I wanted was only for sitcoms, imposing themselves as gatekeepers of *epic storytelling itself*

From where I was standing, there is a growing hatred of couples in epics go through and making it and even getting married and having children, especially those of certain dynamics all under the guise of “hopepunk” and “The Greater Good.” Or whatever the term is now

Prattled on by conceited fandoms who in my opinion, have become a bunch of literary snobs who think way too highly of themselves

Who go around deciding what ways are legitimate “raised stakes” and “consequences”, 

both which might I add are defined by their *own* standards,

along with their own preferences, especially fates for of certain kinds of ships and characters, which they flaunt as “objective” and above those of “the unwashed masses” in order to justify glorifying them as well as themselves for liking them

Which then afterwards these fandoms pressure these standards onto aspiring writers such as myself or be exiled to sitcoms, romcoms, Disney, or Marvel.

Because it’s not “entitlement” if it’s directed at the peasants I guess.

That along with the fact their so insecure and discontent with just being different, they need to feel superior than others for their own preferences

Nor they can’t handle the idea somewhere out there there is story that have characters like the those of the stories they enjoy, but with a different outcome

All epic fiction, its characters, its settings, its themes, its use of its inspirations, the creator’s style needs to begin and end on terms of these self-appointed arbiters who, once again, try to justify by presenting their preferences, tastes, and “personal emotional beats” as objective and superior

And once again: I’m *NOT* saying creators who goes with the tragic romance route are bad or malicious, most of them are just doing their thing

This problem lies with sycophantic individuals among fandoms who appoint their chosen champion’s ways as law and act offended on their behalf, even though they never spoken to these creators personally nor did these creators asked them to pick up a sword in their name and are not held accountable for their behavior

And what’s worse, is that these groups imply epic stories where heroic couples get married and have families are allegedly incompatible outside of Disney or Marvel or else it ends up as terrible story

Which they will imply is the case for stories like DragonBall Z, Sword Art Online, and Naruto/Boruto

But when *their* way of doing things ruins a franchise like DC comics and people complain about it?

It’s the whining of unwashed masses or vocal toxic minority opposed to the enlightened few or informed majority

Because *their* way makes everything better and always will

It’s incredibly self absorbed and narcissistic

So that’s why I’ve been so keen on having my heroes find love, get married and having families. Especially ones who’ve been through so much sorrow.

I’m just weary of this and tired of fandoms telling me when I’m disappointed;

“It’s not for you” and implying “nothing should be for you and everything should be for us”

And I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels this way

You don’t have to share my personal tastes and distaste’s in story beats in epics, once again, I just want you guys to understand.

[stories-of-the-nrm]

Emily In Wonderland

Emily was having a very hard time sitting by the bank with her sister Molly. Despite sneaking peeks at her book, Emily found it very boring. She sat around playing with daisies when she saw a white rabbit with pink eyes running around.

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"

It wasn't until Emily saw the rabbit pull out a pocket watch that she realized this was real. She chases after the rabbit down its hole until she falls for so long it's hard to tell how deep the hole is. She starts to see lots of bookshelves and even a jar of orange marmalade as she falls. She tries to sneak a taste but comes up empty.

"Oh whatever shall happen next?! I shall end up in New Zealand after falling through the Earth!"

Suddenly she comes upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves. The fall is over. Emily can only see Cotton the White Rabbit running through a long passageway.

"Oh my ears and whiskers how late it's getting!"

Just as Emily was about to catch up with the rabbit she finds herself in a room with numerous keys and doors. Emily tries to find the right combination that will let her leave.

The door she managed to open had a passageway no bigger than a rathole.

"If only I could shut myself up like a telescope. Surely then, I could enter this passageway."

She looks around the room and sees a bottle on the table with a label saying "Drink me" tied around it. Emily picks it up.

"This was certainly not here before. I must check if it's poison before drinking it."

So Emily looks around the bottle for a hidden label saying "poison". When she couldn't find such a label, she decided to drink it. It had various flavors that reminded her of a lovely Christmas dinner. Suddenly she feels herself shrinking.

"How curious. I must be only 10 inches high."

After going to the door to look around the garden, Emily realized that she left the key behind.

"Oh dear. How can I possibly get up on the table?"

Despite wanting to cry, Emily finds a small cake that says "Eat me" frosted on it.

"Perhaps this will help me get through the door no matter how my size changes."

So Emily eats the whole and is shocked to grow so much she ends up about 9 feet tall.

"Curious! At least I can grab the key to the door."

She notices that she's now too big to fit through the door and is about to cry again when she sees Cotton running through the hall.

"Oh the Duchess! The Duchess! Won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!"

Emily is so distraught that she's willing to ask Cotton for help.

"If you please sir-"

Cotton though gets so spooked he just scurries off into the darkness without saying a word. Emily has a crisis.

"Who in the world am I? Ah that's the great puzzle. Surely I'm not James with his fancy uniform and new school books. After all he is he and I am I."

Unbeknownst to her she had put her hand through one of the gloves Cotton dropped.

"How ever is this possible? I must be growing smaller again."

By the time she finishes shrinking, the golden door is closed again. All of poor Emily's tears were enough to wash her and several animals away. It was not until they had all swam to shore that no one knew how to get dry. There was a long debate when a dodo named Gordon stepped in.

"We should have a Caucus race."

Emily of course had never heard of such a thing.

"A what?"

"Why the best way to explain a Caucus race is to do it."

Gordon proceeded to make a weird circle, organized everyone all over the course and refused to name a winner until after a great deal of thought was put into it.

"See. Everybody has won and will receive prizes. She will give them to you."

He points at Emily and she scrambles to find anything that could be used as a prize.

"I have a box of confectionaries. There's enough for everyone to have a piece."

She hands everyone a prize from her box until they realize she has none left. Gordon looks at her.

"What's left in your pocket?"

Emily takes out a thimble. Gordon outstretches a feathered arm.

"Hand it over here."

When she does, Gordon makes such a serious speech about offering Emily's own thimble as a prize, it was all she could do to not laugh. Instead she solemnly bows as she accepts the thimble back.

She observes the animals try to confectionery that they "won". While it took a lot of trouble, eventually they had all moved on from the matter and took up a conversation. However once Emily brought up her cat, everyone all left in a hurry.

"I wish I didn't mention my cat! Now I'm all alone again."

She buries her face in her hands. Suddenly she starts to hear someone speak.

"Duchess! Oh Duchess. She'll have me executed as sure as ferrets are ferrets. Oh where ever can my gloves be?!"

Emily, being kind hearted, tries to find them when Cotton points at her.

"You there! Fetch me a pair of gloves from home. Quickly!"

Emily does as he says without even giving herself a chance to explain. By the time she gets to Cotton's house and finds a pair of gloves, she sees another bottle with a "Drink me" label.

"Oh how I wish to be bigger again. I'm quite tired of being so small."

Emily starts to drink the bottle when she hits her head on the ceiling.

"I wish I hadn't drunk so much. I can't get out the door!"

At this point Emily can hear a lot of commotion from not only Cotton but also his servants. They had attempted to remove her from the house by force for poor Emily had grown so large, her arm had gone right through the window.

"I'll put a stop to this!"

To Emily's surprise a bunch of pebbles were being thrown at her. To an even bigger surprise the pebbles started turning into small cakes.

"Yes. This should help me get small again."

She eats one and it does exactly that. Once she's small enough she flees the house.

"There she is! After her!"

They had all started to chase Emily, but she managed to run away deep into the thick wood. She ran for so long that she only stopped when she saw a mushroom growing close by. She goes over to it and is shocked to see a large blue caterpillar smoking.

"Who are you?"

This begins a long back and forth involving Emily trying to remember who she is. The caterpillar named Edward simply tries to recite a poem but to no avail.

"No. That's all wrong."

"Yes. It's all wrong from beginning to end."

Edward goes back to smoking for some time.

“What size would you like to be?”

“Well I would like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn’t mind. Three inches is much too small.”

Edward huffs.

“Much too small indeed! It’s a very good height.”

Emily watches Edward rise to his full height which she realizes is exactly three inches.

“I’m not used to it.”

“You’ll get used to it in time.”

Edward begins smoking again. Emily waits for him to finish which takes a couple minutes. He eventually moves off the mushroom and crawls away into the grass.

“One side will make you larger. The other side will make you shorter.”

“The other side of what?”

“Of the mushroom.”

With that Edward had vanished into the grass. Emily begins to ponder what side of the mushroom will do what. There is a long amount of time spent on experimenting with one particular instance involving scaring a pigeon who had mistaken her for a serpent.

“Come now. Surely there must be some way to go back to my normal size.”

Eventually, she finds the right combination and finally returns to her normal size.

“Now all I need to do is to get into that beautiful garden. But how?”

Suddenly she sees a Cheshire Cat sitting in a tree. It grins as soon as it sees Emily. She decides to get closer.

“Can you please tell me which way I should go from here?”

“That depends on where you want to go.” 

The Cheshire Cat named Henry waves his right paw.

“In that direction lives a Mad Hatter. In the other direction lives a March Hare. No matter who you choose to visit, both are mad.”

“But I don’t want to visit mad people.”

Henry grins.

“Oh you can’t help that. Everyone’s mad here.”

Emily groans. Henry keeps staring at her.

“Do you play croquet with the Queen today?”

Emily looks up.

“I would like it very much but I haven’t been invited yet.”

“Oh then you’ll see me there.”

Before Emily can say anything, Henry disappears. She decides to travel along the path taking her to the March Hare.

“I’ve seen Hatters before but perhaps because it’s May this March Hare won’t be so mad.”

Eventually, Emily comes across a very bizarre house with the March Hare having a tea party. Percy pours Thomas the Mad Hatte​​r some tea as John the Dormouse sleeps in between them. They banter about until Thomas starts to tell the story about singing for the Queen of Hearts.

“I was asked by the Queen of Hearts to sing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!”

Thomas keeps singing long enough for John to start singing in his sleep before he is pinched by Thomas and Percy.

“Well I had hardly finished the first verse when she had bawled for my head to be off.”

Percy yawns.

“Perhaps we should change the subject. How about we let this girl tell a story?”

Emily looks down.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any stories.”

Thomas pinches John.

“Dormouse, tell us a story.”

John splutters as he wakes up.

“Alright I’ll tell a story.”

John proceeds to tell a nonsensical story that eventually features treacle. Emily is so fed up she gets up and leaves.

“That was the stupidest party I’ve ever been to! I’ll never go back there again.”

Emily continues to walk until she comes upon a large rose garden and three gardeners trying to paint some roses red. Mike, Rex and Bert were arguing over whose fault it was that some red paint was spilled.

“Excuse me.”

They all stop to look at Emily.

“Why are you painting those roses red?”

Mike sighs.

“We had made a horrible mistake and brought the queen a white rose tree instead of red roses. Oh she’ll have our heads cut off.”

Rex lets out a panicked gasp.

“The Queen! The Queen!”

Frankie, the Queen of Hearts appears with Hurricane as the King of Hearts. Everyone’s afraid of her loud, shrill voice. At every misdeed, no matter how minor, she clamors for their head.

“Now then. Can you play croquet?”

“Yes!”

“Well come on then!”

Everyone follows Frankie to the croquet field. The mallets were live flamingos and the croquet balls were hedgehogs. It’s obviously rigged to avoid Frankie’s wrath. Then everything goes wrong once Henry arrives. He plays a trick on Frankie drawing her ire.

“WHO DID THAT?!”

Henry fades into existence and points at Emily.

“Why, she did.”

A large commotion is caused and Emily finds herself on trial at the request of Hurricane. Poor Emily gets framed for damage caused by the commotion ending with jam being spilled on Frankie.

“Off with her head!”

Emily eats some mushroom to make her big and picks up the cards.

“Oh poo. You’re nothing more than a bunch of cards”

As she confronts Frankie she starts to shrink back to her normal size again. Henry appears and repeats the exact insult only to disappear again.

“OOOFF WITH HER HEAD!”

The poor girl runs in so many directions to escape the cards until she’s woken up by Molly.

“Emily, wake up. Have you heard a word I said?”

“Oh. I’m sorry Molly.”

Just as Molly’s about to scold her, she simply rolls her eyes.

“Never mind then. Come on inside. It’s time for tea.”

Emily gets up and follows her back to the house glad that her dream was only that. Just a dream made by a little girl.

AN: Sorry I've been MIA so long. I've been working on a request by @wisetalekid. I hope you like it.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Sodor Work History: James Edition

Ugh, it seems to have vanished?? But I had an anon request a James equivalent to my Edward work history post. Of course now that I'm done writing I can't find the ask… #ThanksTumblr… Anyway here goes:

I'd like to! But James is tricky...

The thing with James is, we seem to have a bunch of data points throughout the books on his doings. But there's so much we don't know about the main line working and how many "unseen" engines share the work with our main characters. Like, all the branch line characters are easier to at least assemble pieces into a rough border because there are more constraints there. The main line has too many unknowns. There is a similar problem to sketching out Henry's timetables, but at least with Henry—like with all the other MCs—we know of at least one thing that he is known to do regularly. We don't have a touchstone for James.

Broadly, though, here are a few things I notice (and/or just streeeeeetch to conclude in a fever dream) about James's Sodor career:

He spent a little while there as the closest damn thing Tidmouth had to a station pilot. I feel like this gets completely overlooked. After the bootlace incident he's benched from passenger work, of course, but in addition to goods work he is doing a lot of coach-fetching at the big station. Troublesome Engines says that he continued being the "odd jobs" fellow for a while until he started to rebel. He would never have been full-time—unlike, say, Thomas. Thomas, I'm sure, would have been transferred to Tidmouth when HQ moved and continued there if not for his branch line assignment. But, unlike Thomas, James is trusted to take trains out of the station. But in between those trains he was largely stuck with the shunting. (In "Troublesome Trucks" his tricky goods train appears to go as far as Maron or Cronk? Not traversing the whole line, not yet.) Troublesome Engines says of course that Gordon and Henry had to step up, and also that Edward helped when he was available, but I think it's pretty obvious who was a) actually a Tidmouth engine and b) the newest Tidmouth engine and c) the smallest Tidmouth engine. (To add to this brief period in James's life, I note that the train that pushes him down the hill at the end of TTTE might well be—da dum da dum!—the same train that Thomas lost control of in the previous story. How's that for literary repetition, eh? Anyway, point being, James might have been expected to fill in Thomas's old role on the NWR from the very start.)

During Thomas and Bertie's chase, James is seen in an illustration with a goods train on Thomas's line! Now you can explain away one random illustration if you want, but it does make a lot of sense that in 1948 Thomas might need help running goods on his line—this would have been after the useful working lives of the Coffee Pots, but before Toby (and way before Percy) join the line. So yeah, until Toby's arrival James might have pitched in on Thomas's line fairly often. It's a nice detail. It might have gone all the way back to the '20s or whatever. Certainly James would have been grateful to Thomas for rescuing him so he was probably happy to do it... at least for a while...

Let's talk main line stopping trains. I have a bit of a headcanon here, though it's built on the slenderest of canonical reeds which is why I'm not calling this bit an analysis. We see James with a lot of these stopping trains but in my personal canon I've decided that all such trains we see him on in this era ("Dirty Objects," "Old Iron," "A Close Shave," and maybe "Henry's Sneeze") are 'the Limited,' which I take it is a semi-fast that stops only at major stations (places like Knapford, Wellsworth, Cronk—maybe Crovan's Gate though that seems to leave CG, like, absurdly well-served). No all-stops for James, thank you! Well, occasionally he gets stuck with one but usually that's beneath him.

Sadly for him, throughout most of the '50s goods are clearly not beneath him. If I am right that in passenger work he specializes on the semi-fast, he has no such luck in goods work. "Dirty Objects" has that wonderful description making it clear how much James hates slow good trains but I suspect those are his bread and butter for years to come. Certainly he's in the midst of another such assignment a year later in "Old Iron"—and in that story it is also made clear that, not only does he have to stop at each station to pick up or drop off trucks, at most of these stops he has to do his own shunting. This sounds like it probably takes most of his damn day. The day described in "Dirty Objects" of one morning passenger service followed by one of these endless slogs is probably pretty typical for James in this era.

In the early '50s at least, this routine gets broken up—occasionally—only when there is a need to cover the Express. The '50s were a good decade for it, as, in addition to Gordon's regular need for "rest" or maintenance, James also gets to score big with Gordon's unplanned trip to London and Gordon's lengthy punishment following the Ditch Incident. Jackpot, baby!

[Time-Sensitive Alert: There Is A Tram Engine Blocking Your Line]

I assume all James's appearances at the junction with the narrow-gauge gang are when he's taking an Express. Or maybe some sort of Limited? But it's... fairly consistent that Tidmouth engines are not just randomly on the eastern end of the line unless they're taking some sort of major train—I presume that any of the humdrum 'Locals' on the eastern side are taken care of by Vicarstown engines.

The '50s are when we get the most complete picture of James's working days. I reckon it changed, however, towards the end of the decade. Along with the other 'eight,' our boy's fame is on the rise throughout the decade and I think James effectively parlayed this into doing more passenger work, taking advantage of what was surely a rise in tourism to the island. At some point James is merely picking up the slack when it comes to heavy goods—and then. Then! Donald arrives. Bringing a twin with him! I tend to think at this point James was pretty much relieved from the goods work he had hated for so long completely... for, like, a month or two. Then Donald had to be repaired after his totally-accidental signalbox adventure and TFC observes ruefully that "James will have to help with the goods work... he won't like that!" Surely not, but I think the thing was, when TFC got an unexpected 2-for-1, James was immediately released from that stuff. God, no wonder that by the final story he was so keen for both twins to stay on! For that matter, I also reckon that James was usually tapped for snow-removal duty during winters before the Caledonians came. Really they were a godsend to him in his effort to rise above his station. Ye're welcome, laddie.

Seriously. For the rest of the Wilbert Awdry books, I can't find another instance of James doing goods work. *shrugs casually* Now, Awdry was also giving James far less screen time at this point so you can say definitely say there's not enough data to draw meaningful conclusions. I however prefer to think it was no coincidence but rather a logical effect of recruiting Duck, the Caledonians, and the diesels of the '60s. It makes sense. Heavy goods would have only been getting heavier. Not that it was impossible for James to keep up, but if you have some modern diesels and two Scottish goods engines who love to work together as much as possible then, you know. Why keep forcing James into that role?

I admit that Christopher Awdry fucks up this trajectory. Sigh. Sometimes he is soooo thoughtful about his timetable choices but other times I think he just defaults to some of the most obvious franchise tropes the same way a TVS writer would. It's maddening.

Anyway yeah, I concede that as soon as we see James again in '84 he's taking goods. He's also complaining about having to shunt his train, saying that this should be Donald or Douglas's kind of work, but the twins were both called away to help on Edward's branch line on that particular day so the field is open for James to have his karmic story ("Crossed Lines"). Now you could make a plausible case that what James says when he's grumbling is not to be trusted as gospel truth and that he's exaggerating the degree to which this is now true but I'm inclined to take it at face value.

At any rate, for all the rest of the series, James is seen (when he is seen) taking passenger trains, including at least one turn on the Express in '92/'93, except on a few occasions:

1. Filling in while Henry is in overhaul on the Flying Kipper

2. Working some sort of special job repairing rails along with Donald and Douglas in the final book. Notably he expresses on the last day (well, the "last" day, or so they all thought) that he's looking forward to it being done so he can hopefully go back to passenger trains, but he is remarkably chill throughout the whole story and causes zero (0) drama at all. And you thought Gordon was supposed to be the only RWS character to show growth. Mwahaha!

In short, I suppose when you add in the Christopher Awdry era (you know. if we want to) then it's no longer clear whether James is really doing goods work and odd jobs significantly less or whether he's just bitching about it less. I'm inclined to think Both, however: He's called upon for it less often than in the pre-Caledonian invasion days and therefore he doesn't chafe and bitch nearly about it as much when he is.

Much like we let TVS confirm/fill in the gist of Edward's latter-day career, I feel like we can take similar cues for James. I'm thinking here mostly of the Brenner era, especially *drumroll please* "SOMEBODY HAS TO BE THE FAAAAVOURITE!" vibes. Well, I'm not so sure James is really going around singing his smokebox off (... though it's cute ngl...) but I do think it's true that he is, in general, picking up a steady enough supply of "good" jobs that his ego is pretty well fed. Which is honestly a much better way to manage James than to try desperately to teach him humility, if you ask me.

I'm not sure how useful a proposed timeline will be but it seemed to be some people's favorite part of the last such post I did so I'll give it a try.

1925 — goods trial, first day cow-field crash

1925 — overhaul

1925 — passenger trial, bootlace incident

1925 — station pilot and local goods (western end of line only)

1925 — allowed back on passenger trains, also western end of line only

1928 (or whatever year you allow for the strike and Percy's arrival, which is somewhere between '25-'35) — shifts to a longstanding pattern of morning stopping passenger train (I proposed the Limited, to Cronk and back to Tidmouth) and then has a slow heavy goods out of Tidmouth (this requires stopping and shunting at many stations and takes the better part of the day), probably tacks on an evening passenger service too

1939-1946 — I do think wartime disrupted James's schedule. Ironically I tend to think he got a lot of passenger services, including regular charge of the Express to free Gordon on heavy coal and war materiel trains, but the work was all non-stop hell and Vicarstown certainly and probably Tidmouth also got blitzed so it's not like he got to enjoy it. Troop trains were also probably a James specialty.

1960 — James transitions out of heavy goods work and his longstanding timetable of Limited + slow goods + evening commuter service is changed, probably to something featuring more passenger trains than previously. Fitted goods are definitely an option to replace his hated slow goods assignment.

2010-11 — James picks up a months-long assignment helping with some sort of line repair. Notably it seems to be during the late winter/early spring "off season," so my guess is that he took his usual commuter services but that during the summer and holidays James is also taking frequent specials. It's during that chunk of his "busy season" timetables that he is pulled for stuff like this in the off-season—no need to find coverage for him.

You'll notice the 1920s were suuuuuuper eventful but also only a blip in James's life.

Which is the exact sort of thing that I think we so often forget. They've all lived so much more life than their little highlight stories that we're privy to.

[antilocaprine]

Kiss promt 18 frenreylatta

More poly parings!

(Kiss Prompt List)

18. ...as encouragement.

“Okay, okay, okay, shut up,” Gordon says, even though no one else is talking. Benrey watches him out of the corner of his eye from where he’s sprawled across the couch, Switch in hand. He’s glad he had Animal Crossing loaded up before Gordon came barreling in, because it means he’s not getting clobbered by enemies in-game as he tries to keep track of what Gordon’s going on about now.

“We’re, um, we’re listening,” Tommy says from behind the couch. He’d been doing something in the kitchen - and whatever it was, it’s probably good that Gordon distracted him, because it was starting to smell like smoke. 

“Okay,” Gordon says again, both hands in his hair. “I just - I know I’m gonna fuck this up somehow.”

“But you, um, you know the whole presentation,” Tommy says. 

“Yeah, I do now,” Gordon scoffs. “But as soon as anyone starts asking questions, I’m gonna blow it!”

“So don’t let ‘em ask questions,” Benrey mumbles at his screen. “Easy.”

‘No,” Gordon huffs, pacing in front of the couch. “Not easy! These are the big guys, okay, the mucky-mucks, the - the -”

“The big kahunas?” Tommy suggests, and Gordon points at him.

“Yes! That! I can’t tell them to shut up!”

“Sure y’can,” Benrey shrugs. “Bet no one ever does. They, uh, won’t know what t’do with it.”

Gordon snorts. “They’ll know what to do with me. They’ll fire me.”

“They’re not going to fire you,” Tommy says soothingly, like he’s trying to calm a frantic horse. “They asked you to make the presentation, so that means - that must mean they trust you, and, and they think you’re the best person to do it!”

Gordon buries his face in his hands and groans. Benrey takes the chance to look up and give him a solid once-over. He’s fully dressed, but his suit shirt is wrinkled and he’s still in his socks. His suit jacket and tie are tossed haphazardly over the big easy chair, the one that’s extra wide so two of them can fit in it - or all three, if they balance just right. Benrey glances over the back of the couch and meets Tommy’s worried gaze. Gordon needs to leave in the next fifteen minutes in order to be on time, which means they need to work together to build enough of a scaffolding to hold him up as quickly as they can.

Tommy goes first. Tommy always goes first - he was the one who started this whole thing, watching Gordon and Benrey dance around each other, listening to Benrey whine and letting Gordon complain, both of them always circling back to him until he finally snapped and explained their own feelings to them, and then everything had made perfect sense.

“Mr. Freeman,” Tommy says, and Gordon straightens, because Tommy only calls him that when he’s being serious these days. “Listen. You’re - you’ve got everything you need to, um, to succeed. You have your powerpoint, and you know how to start - how to set it up. If they ask you questions, you know the answers, because you - Mr. Freeman, you know this subject inside and out!”

“Backwards and in high heels,” Benrey mutters as his villager shakes a cherry tree.

Gordon huffs a strained laugh. “I’m no Ginger Rogers.”

“Maybe not,” Benrey hums, glancing up and winking. “But y’got better legs.”

“I - really? I really doubt that,” Gordon scoffs, but his cheeks are pink, so Benrey will take that as a win.

“Gordon, you’re - you’ll do fine,” Tommy says, stepping around the couch and picking up Gordon’s tie from the chair. He slings it over Gordon’s shoulders and loops it under his collar. Gordon heaves a sigh and drops his head to rest on Tommy’s shoulder.

“M’just…really nervous, guys,” he mumbles.

Benrey frowns at Tommy over Gordon’s head. The presentation is important - if the board likes it, they’ll accept Gordon’s team’s project and he’ll get a big bump in pay - but it’s not the end of the world if the board picks another project instead. Gordon won’t actually be out of a job - he’s just being dramatic and stressing out over his own anxieties. 

Tommy raises his eyebrows, and Benrey grins and slides his Switch under the couch. There’s really only one good way to quickly get Gordon out of his head when he’s like this.

Benrey rolls off the couch and tackles Gordon, who yelps in surprise and flails as Benrey tips on his heels and collapses back onto the couch. 

“What - Benrey!”

Tommy grins down at them and walks around the couch to lean over the back, elbows on the headrest as Gordon kicks in Benrey’s grip. Benrey twists his hips and wraps his legs around Gordon’s. He’s already got one arm in his grip, and when Gordon reaches back to try to dislodge him, he whips his hand around Gordon’s wrist quick as a snake and locks it across his torso.

Gordon subsides, panting. “Really? What are you, an octopus?”

Benrey ducks his head and nuzzles the back of Gordon’s neck. He’s a bit squashed, but he’s sturdy and doesn’t need to breathe as much as the other two. Besides, he likes having the weight of another person grounding him. Or better yet, two people.

“Tommy?”

“Sandwich time?” Tommy grins down at him.

“Tommy - Tommy, no, I don’t - oof!” Gordon huffs as Tommy eels over the back of the couch and flops his long limbs over the both of them, sandwiching Gordon in between. 

Benrey sinks further into the cushions under their combined weight, and unlinks his legs from around Gordon’s thighs to hook his heel over the back of Tommy’s legs, tangling them all together. Gordon wheezes and cackles, and Tommy grins down at him and smacks a kiss to his cheek.

“See? You just have to relax, and you’ll be fine,” Tommy says. Benrey buries a smile in the crook of Gordon’s neck where it meets his shoulder. He feels it when the tension bleeds out of Gordon, leaving him boneless as he takes a breath. Tommy rises and falls on top of him as his lungs inflate, then heave out a deep sigh.

“Okay,” Gordon says quietly, and Benrey releases his arms so he can wrap them around Tommy, dragging Benrey’s hands with him, squeezing them into a three-person hug. “All right,” he says, this time into Tommy’s shoulder again. Tommy tucks his chin over Gordon’s shoulder and Benrey tilts his face up to kiss Tommy’s nose. Tommy giggles, and Gordon chuckles as well. Their shaking sends vibrations through Benrey, buried at the bottom of the heap, that feel almost like a purring cat - but a really big one. A tiger or something. Do tigers purr? He’ll look it up later.

“Feel better?” Benrey asks, and Gordon tips his head back onto Benrey’s shoulder and squints at him sideways. 

“Annoyingly, yes,” he says. “I hate that this works.”

“You love that this works,” Benrey smirks. “And you love us.”

“Shut up.” Gordon’s ears are flushed red, and Tommy laughs brightly as he rolls off the couch. 

“C’mon, up an’ at ’em,” Benrey groans as he heaves Gordon upright. Gordon’s socks skid on the carpet, but Tommy catches and balances him as Benrey unfolds himself from the dent in the couch cushions. They got an extra-big, extra-springy one on purpose, though. It’ll be fine.

Benrey grabs Gordon’s jacket and Tommy runs his hands over Gordon’s shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. Gordon sighs as he lets Benrey slide the sleeves on, tugging the lapels. Tommy tucks Gordon’s tie in and beams at him. 

“You’re gonna kill it, Mr. Freeman,” he chirps, and Gordon chuckles.

“Can I get a kiss for luck?” he asks, glancing between the two of them. 

Benrey purses his lips. “Don’t need luck. Everything’ll, uh, go perfect.”

Gordon rolls his eyes “Kisses for encouragement, then?”

Benrey hums and raises his eyebrows at Tommy, who pretends to think it over before nodding decisively.

“I think we can - I think that’s acceptable,” he says, and he and Benrey lean in together. Tommy has to bend down a touch, and Benrey has to go up on his toes to make it work, but they each kiss one of Gordon’s cheeks at the same time.

Gordon is grinning softly when they pull back, and drops his head to kiss Benrey on the lips before tipping his chin up to do the same to Tommy. “Thanks, guys,” he says, sounding much more settled.

“Whatever,” Benrey mumbles, his face hot, and shuffles back over to the couch to retrieve his Switch. Tommy and Gordon laugh, then Gordon looks at his watch and makes a high pitched noise as he darts for the door.

“Don’t worry,” Tommy yells out after him. “You’ll do great!”

Gordon yells something back, but Benrey misses it. That’s probably for the best. Tommy closes the door with a sigh and retreats to the couch. Benrey pulls his legs up as Tommy flops across the cushions.

“He’ll be okay,” he says quietly, “right?”

Benrey glances up at him, then tips over to lean on his shoulder as his character races down a path after a beetle. “Yeah, ‘course,” he says, as reassuringly as he can. “He’ll be fine.”

This is proven true when, three hours later, Gordon slams the door to the apartment open with a shout of “GUESS WHO JUST GOT PROMOTED!”

Benrey whoops, and Tommy cheers from the kitchen, but his shout is shortly followed by a hollow crump of sound and a billow of black smoke. “Oh - oops!”

Gordon drops his arms with a wordless exclamation, then stares as Benrey reaches behind the arm of the couch and hurls a fire extinguisher into the smoke. 

“Ow,” Tommy yelps, quickly followed by “Thanks Benrey,” and a hiss of foam.

“Why do I even try?” Gordon sighs, and goes to open the windows. Benrey watches him from the couch.

“‘Cause it’s worth it?” he hazards.

Gordon looks over his shoulder, taking in the thinning smoke, Tommy’s sheepish smudged face emerging from the kitchen doorway, Benrey still lounging motionless on the couch. He smiles ruefully. 

“Yeah, you know, it is. It really, really is.”

Tommy hands the empty fire extinguisher to Benrey, who tilts it at an angle to salute him with it before dropping it back on the floor.

“Wait,” Gordon says slowly, stepping away from the open window and squinting at the ceiling. “Why didn’t the smoke alarms go off?”

“Oh, Benrey ate the batteries,” Tommy replies casually as he flaps a dish towel at the remaining wisps of smoke. 

“Benrey did WHAT?”

Cackling, Benrey dives off the couch and makes a run for the back of the apartment, Gordon hot on his heels and cursing him viciously. Behind them, Tommy laughs like a sunrise, and Benrey decides that, yeah, whatever else he has to put up with, these two are worth it. This is worth it.

[sims-half-crazy]

"Father, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. She's always angry and says horrible things to me and sometimes our friends." Gordon was thankful for the opportunity to speak to his father without Evie in the apartment. Things were tense since they'd found out about the baby. Gordon had suggested they get married but that had set off a 3-day long argument that he'd ended up apologizing for because she thought he only wanted to marry because of the baby. That might be true but he did also usually like Evie, just not so much lately.

His father's voice on the other end of the line broke into his thoughts, "Pregnancy is hard on women. It makes them crazy and become people they aren't usually. Just try your best. Has she reconsidered your proposal?"

"She has not, and I don't dare bring it up again. I'll mention it again after the babe is born. Do you think she's reticent to marry me because of my eye? She brags about her engineer boyfriend to her friends all the time and how I'm able to afford her, although it would be nice if she'd consider getting a job. Having extra income is never a bad thing, but I can't understand why she'd turn me down."

"Pssshaw. Your eye doesn't detract from your virtues and if she's that vain then maybe not being married to her and stuck with her for the rest of your life is a good thing. You know you have your mother's and my support with whatever comes, but marrying the girl would probably ease a lot of her angst. Does she know about all your accounts? I know you don't want any of my money, but it's there for you if you want it. I've set up a trust for you and the girls."

"She thinks you still hold all the purse strings and I'm not telling her any different. Its bad that I don't want to be fully honest with her, isn't it? I just can't explain it. Something isn't sitting right."

"It's not good that you don't feel like you can be honest with her, but now is not the time to start. Let's get this baby welcomed into the world and then we'll see what's what. Love you, son."

"Love you, too, Father. I'll talk to you soon."

[ignorantarmiesclashbynight]

Oh, this is fun.

Rules: post the first lines of your last 10 fics posted to ao3. if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics.

Thanks @goldheartedchaoticdisaster for the tag!

1. Integrity Compromised - The Mandalorian

It was Greef who recommended her. Of course he ‘knew a guy’. Or woman, in this case.

“An engineer of extraordinary talent,” Greef had said over the holo-com. And she would have to be, if she was going to be able to handle Mandalorian armour.

2. Loyalty, Divided - Uncharted

“Let’s try this again,” Sully said, stretching his hand across the table. “Victor Sullivan. My friends call me Sully.”

The kid smiled a little at that.

Friends. Don't suppose he has a whole lot of those right now.

3. Brothers and Sons - Red Dead Redemption 2

He watched his daddy hang.

A part of him hoped the old man would end with some kind of pride. Show some spine. Jut his chin at the sky and meet his maker like a man. But the bastard was whimpering by the end.

4. On the Road - The Last of Us

“Your watch is broken.”

She points it out as if he hasn’t noticed.

He almost laughs. Snorts air out his nose, but doesn’t bother to reply. There’d be no way to explain it even if he did. The watch’s face is cracked and the battery died long ago, but it would be like losing a limb to take it off. Some days the weight of it is all that keeps him in the world.

5. The Last Strand - Death Stranding

There’s so much he needs to tell her. So much he’s gonna have to teach her. But what the hell does he know? And where does he even begin?

He starts with the alphabet because even though she can’t speak and doesn’t even know what the fuck a letter is, he figures it’s a fundamental thing you’re meant to teach kids and she seems to like the rhythm and recitation of it as he walks.

6. Red Dead Whumptober - Red Dead Redemption 2

The wire sliced into his skin like a snakebite, its barbs latching on and pulling tight into the flesh of his thigh, his side, his arm, ripping tears into his brand new shirt and all. Dutch’d given him that shirt just last week and he’d be givin’ him an earful for bleeding all over it, too.

7. The Longest Dark - The Mandalorian

He did the math without really thinking. His navi-computer was programmed to sync with the Galactic Standard Calendar, based on the Coruscant solar system, but a little conversion in his head and suddenly the date, and its significance, was embedded in his thoughts.

He tried to shake it off. Nostalgia served very little purpose except to distract you from the present, and besides, there was no one to share it with, so what did it matter?

8.  Babysitting Cassie - Uncharted

Sam fidgeted at the front door, listening to the various noises of family life behind it. Little running feet; Nathan’s voice raised in a teasing kind of threat; that big dumb dog of theirs, barking its big dumb head off; Elena yelling at them all to stop fooling around, then giggling as she presumably got caught up in whatever game they were playing.

9.  A Normal Life - Uncharted

“Look, kiddo. I’d rather do a lot of things than eat my vegetables but you gotta do it,” Sam sighed, as Cassie pouted over her plate.

“They’re mushy.”

“They are cooked to perfection you tiny Gordon Ramsay.”

The pout deepened. “I’m not a gord-damn namsy!”

10. Blood Brothers - Uncharted

 Head for the lighthouse.

They were so close. Sam could see the top of the dilapidated tower jutting up above the cliffside. They were gonna make it. Of course they were. It’s what they did – scrambling and half-assing their way through situations that should have been the end of them. If the Drake brothers had a business card, By The Skin Of Our Teeth would be their tagline.

I have no idea who to tag because I am terrible at who the heck is who on here and Ao3 so if you wanna take this and RB please do!

[goodoneguys]

Now that mid ‘80s to early aughts television is coming back in style (ie. Fuller House, That 90s Show, Quantum Leap, How I Met Your Father, Frasier, iCarly, and Night Court) there are a few things I want to talk about.

One:

The new Night Court airs in a week and I couldn’t be more excited. There are only a couple things I want for the show; I want Abby (Harry’s daughter for those who didn’t know), to wear glasses (sometimes) like Harry, know at least some basic card tricks/slight of hand, either absolutely love or absolutely despise Mel Tormé (there shall be no in between) and last but not least, she has the big gavel. Gonna be honest, if at least one of those things happens, I’ll be satisfied, I wouldn’t even care if they didn’t tell us who the mother is. We know it’s not Christine.

Two:

I have a lot of issues with the new Quantum Leap, even though it’s hard for me to be mad at the show because it’s created by the same person (Bellisario). While I don’t mind the show being modernized for a modern audience, I could care less about the people who actually work at Project Quantum Leap, other than Sam and the observer (Al). The original series followed the “[x] of the week” format, meaning that each week would be a new thing to fight/problem to solve, with last week’s episode rarely ever mentioned, unless it is significant to the plot or there is a overarching plot (ie. X-Files). Half of each episode is taken up by this overarching season plot. I want to see the leap, not the people behind it. The new series tries to be a new show and season six at the same time and it’s giving me whiplash going back and forth between the two. I understand how a overarching plot would be necessary to explain why there is a new leaper. But I don’t care that there is a new leaper. This makes the show difficult to watch on both ends. As a returning fan, I want to see a man in new situations not knowing what to do with the help of a zany guide. As a new viewer, all of this non-leaping content is confusing/annoying to me because non of this was in the original. And as a new viewer, I do not want to have to watch five seasons of something else to understand what is going on. It would have been much better off if it wasn’t a revival. The original series premiere was a two hour pilot, TWO HOURS. I wanted two hours with the revival. Instead, I got exposition galore with hardly any leap action. When they went on their mid season break I assumed that there were talks of cancellation. Unless they can redeem themselves and finish the overarching plot by the end of season one, I do not care if it gets cancelled. I don’t think NBC had high hopes for it in the first place since the original series jumped from Sunday, to Friday, to Wednesday, and back to Friday during the first four seasons, with the fifth and final season airing at the coveted Tuesday night slot at 8 p.m. and the revival airs on Monday. One last thing, I absolutely HATE how Ben and I-can’t-be-bothered-to-remember-her-name are engaged. To quote Gordon Ramsay, fucking disgusting. If you wanted to have a romantic relationship between the leaper and the observer, have them fall in love over the course of the leaps. That would have been a better overarching plot than whatever they got going on with Al’s daughter. Or just make them best fucking friends that are inseparable, like Sam and Al. Oh, and one more last thing, WHERE IS SAMANTHA JO FULLER??? She wouldn’t have just quit, so where is she? Also the new set design is ugly.

Three:

Speaking of a two hour pilot. Night Court is getting a one hour pilot. ONE HOUR, THE HALF HOUR SITCOM IS GETTING A HOUR PILOT WHILE THE HOUR DRAMEDY GOT A SAD LITTLE HOUR PLOT THAT SOMEHOW TOLD US EVERYTHING AND NOTHING AT THE SAME TIME. Why the new Quantum Leap didn’t have a two hour pilot to get all of the exposition out of the way is a question I’ll never be able to answer. Quantum Leap and Night Court are airing in the same network season, as well as their originals. They even aired on the same nights sometimes. Tuesday and the same night as well. I’m really close to spreadsheet territory, so I’ll be brief. NBC has higher expectations for Night Court than Quantum Leap, which you can see just by their scheduling. I don’t think having Quantum Leap air before America’s Got Talent is helping ratings much.

Four:

I was gonna have a “in conclusion here” but I don’t know what else I can say, other than reboot era is upon us and I’m here for it. Both Night Court (NBC) and That 90s Show (Netflix) air next week and you should definitely watch them, and please do let me know your thoughts on both.

I know more about Night Court than That 70s Show, but if somehow all of the advertisements have missed you, I’ll sum them up for you and where the new series starts off.

Night Court

At the start of the show, main character, Harold T. “Harry” Stone is appointed municipal court judge. He is described as an “oddball judge” as being one to pull pranks and preform magic tricks in and out of the courtroom. The series follows him and his ever changing cast of court members, with Bull Shannon and Dan Fielding being the only other two characters who stayed for the entire run of the show. Dan Fielding grew up a farm boy and became a womanizer and would do anything to make a quick buck. The new series follows Abby Stone, the daughter of Harry, following her father’s footsteps and becoming a municipal court judge. Dan Fielding is back in the courtroom as well, but this time instead of a district attorney, he is a public defender. It is unclear if he is still a womanizer or if he has settled down at all.

That 70s Show 

The series starts off in Wisconsin in the 70s. It shows the lives of teens trying to make their way in the ever changing world. The main character is Eric Forman, a nerdy teen who is in love with the girl next door, Donna Pinciotti. Eric and Donna date for most of he show but break up towards the end. Eric is absent for most of the eighth and final season because he went off to teach in Africa. He comes back at the end and he and Donna rekindle their relationship. We’re now in 1990s Wisconsin and the daughter of Eric and Donna, Leia, is spending the summer at her grandparents. The new series will follow her and her friends attempts to make it through love and life.

[eggtwobroes]

frenrye

i dont evem know who these guys ARE!

jokes aside though i luv frenrey. frenrey means alot to me which sounds kind of funny to say. its an inside joke to several friend groups (3 friendgroups i can think of off the top of my head). its a comfort. it makes me unironically nauseous if i think about it in bad contexts. i couldnt look at it for a little bit due to bad associations. it also helped me figure out alot about myself (mostlu helped me figure out that im. fictoromantic </3)

alot of text under the cut sorry. WATCH OUT! (ship ask game)

as for what it means to me personally, at first i was annoying with hlvrai. i had the worst possible characterizations yiu could possibly conjure up because i wanted to frankenstein every fucking ao3 trait for benrey and gordon together because i thought that was the way to characterize them. i was also 13 so whatever. i also projected onto benrey HARD which made him more annoying and me more annoying also. at some point i projected too hard and got nauseous with the ship cuz i convinced myself that i was projecting trauma about my ex friends onto them.??? which was weird but i ended up reaching some closure regarding those ex friends a little while ago and also at the time i realised "hm. no this is stupid" and moved on. then i got on tumblr and became a bigger frenrey fan (really funny to say) and it started meaning more to me... my characterizations got better ovr time (same with my art) and everything was goung well. i had friends who liked frnerey and also i liked frenrey myself. peace and love on planet autism. and then the thing in june happened when my now ex friend told me something about literally everyone in The Frenrey Discord server which caused alot of stuff that i wont explain cuz i think you guys know it by now. that was embarrassing. i also couldnt look at frenrey because i associated it with that and it made me sick to my stomach to think about. at some point i got normaler and less mentally ill and stuff. frenrey also became a relaly big inside joke in my friend groups and stuff <3 i dont really make as much frenrey art as i used to now since im more of a darnrey enthusiast at this point but thats cuz i did figure out im fictoro bcuz of it (shoutout to my wife. girdon)

other than what it personally means 2 me its also a really funny dynamic. guy shows up and starts pestering you the WHOLE FUCKING DURATION of the worst days of ur life. claims he used to know you when you were kids (you fucking didnt). and ur brains response to this is "lets kiss with tongue" its so funny. in canon context its like. this guy plays a game and meets the most fucking insufferable npc of his life and falls in love with him when hes literally not even tangible. how do you store that much emotion towards a character from a game you could just turn off dude. theyre both pathetic i think. their dynamic is kinda hard to describe. i think its funny when benreys head over heels for this guy that hates his guts. i think its funny if they both hate eachothers guts and are simultaneously thinking "i hope this guy fucking goes to hell. i bet he wants to kiss me. good thing i dont want that". i think its funny if benrey doesnt care about gordon at all and just harasses him cuz he thinks its funny and gordons like "god this guy sucks. would it be weird if i kissed him. id hate that probably". idk its a very fun ship to play around with its very flexible.. they fit as queerplatonic, romantic, AND platonic. they work out in game and nongame scenarios. they work in aus because theyre opposites. its so fun. im like dr frankenstein and frenrey is my frankensteins monster that i test on just to see what happens and what works best. idk how else to end this paragraph and continue to the next one sorry

mre related to the first bit about how theyre an inside joke. heres a collection of frenrey related images that are inside jokes or about inside jokes

theres also a lot more videos i have but i cant put themall here. sadly. heres one at least

[decks-writing-blog]

Whatever the Fuck Benrey Is: Chapter Seventeen: Just a Peek

Chapter One

Previous Chapter

~

‘Aperture’s haunted.’ read Bubby’s text to the group chat several days after he’d left.

Gordon shouldn’t ask because he shouldn’t have even checked his phone and had only done so because it going off had reminded him he hadn’t put it on silent. At work, still sorting through Black Mesa’s recovered hard drives – so far nothing on Benrey had been found – wasn’t the time. But on the other hand… ‘What does that mean?’

It was Benrey who replied. ‘theres ghosts there’

Dr. Coomer’s reply came a second later. ‘It means the Aperture Science facility is inhabited by ghosts and/or demons. Both of whom are known for existing in or sometimes being trapped or bound to specific locations that are then referred to as being ‘haunted’. Sometimes they will also haunt specific people, following them when they move to a new house or just sticking with them throughout the day. One could perhaps say that you were once haunted like this Gordon, when you claimed a skeleton was following you that the rest of us couldn’t see. There are also haunted items, meaning that a ghost/demon is connected to that item.’ How did he type all that so fast? … Probably some cybernetic thing in his hands giving him superhuman texting speed. Gordon was a little jealous, he was used to it now but one-handed texting was still uncomfortably slow.

‘I know what the word haunted means. What I meant was, ‘please explain in what way the Aperture Science facility is supposedly haunted, Bubby’. What drew you to that conclusion?’

‘Should’ve just said that then, dumbass.’ Bubby replied at last. ‘I mean everyone’s dead. I had to break in to even get inside because corpses can’t open doors.’

‘How’d everyone die?’ Tommy asked.

‘I don’t know and I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I think I’m gonna get a job at NASA instead. They’re more ethical so less fun but I want to go to space anyway.’

‘Maybe we should go check out Aperture? They might need help. Like maybe they did a resonance cascade too.’ Gordon didn’t particularly like the thought of going to a place in the middle of something like that but they’d already dealt with one. They’d be more prepared this time too. If Aperture’s got more out of hand it could come back to bite them.

‘I don’t think that’s it. No one was injured and the air smelled bad. Worse than just normal death smell. It made me feel a bit unwell. I think it was poison.’

It would maybe be a good idea to make absolutely sure that whatever it was wouldn’t crawl up out of the facility and do who knows what. Also like with Black Mesa’s disaster, there might be survivors in need of help. And then there was the technology aspect of it. What all Aperture was working on was a mystery but if any of it was anything like some of Black Mesa’s projects, it was some pretty big stuff, potentially capable of making a big impact on the world. Whatever had been on the Borealis had certainly been a pretty big deal before it vanished a couple years ago, bringing Black Mesa’s spies – it had been a big enough deal to draw all three of them in – with it to never be heard from again. An event big enough that it had become the gossip of the whole Black Mesa facility for like a week, ending once and for all the ‘secret’ part of Black Mesa’s spies at Aperture being an open secret.

On the other hand though, it would be dangerous, the drive down there was multiple days and they were kind of in the middle of something right now. Finding Benrey’s files before someone else on the Black Mesa staff did was important. If they left for that long, someone else would take over the sorting job now that it had been started.

‘Maybe we wait for it to clear out a bit more then go investigate. Or just send other people.’ Gordon had a position of power in Black Mesa now, he could use that to his advantage. Aperture being their long term rival would make it justifiable as a company move too. He wouldn’t condone stealing their research but if they were all dead anyway or just as defunct as Black Mesa now was… Or they could maybe merge and become just the one big science tech company that he was trying to not let be super unethical anymore but Breen was still the boss and likely wouldn’t be willing to continue to bend to Gordon’s will as much as he had been for too much longer. They could still potentially do good things though. If they got there anyway. ‘For now, I gotta get back to work.’

His phone beeped again before he set it to silent and put it down but he ignored it. He was a professional. And Tommy and Dr. Coomer were literally in the room with him so if it was either of them had something important to say or relay from Benrey or Bubby, they could just tell him verbally.

~

By some bastion of luck one of the last already recovered hard drives contained the data on Dr. Coomer’s clones. The experiment had started with cloning mice, then rabbits, then monkeys before finally reaching human studies. Given that it was about cloning, Gordon shouldn’t be surprised to encounter the name ‘Harold Coomer’, especially since he’d decided to keep reading instead of moving on because he’d known of Coomer’s clones, but he kind of was anyway. In his defense it was late and they were staying overtime to finish sorting through the rest of the data so he was tired and his brain was a bit fried. Most of Black Mesa’s experiments being interesting didn’t make them not taxing to sort through.

Tearing his gaze off his screen, he looked up at Dr. Coomer sitting at the desk across from him. They hadn’t discussed what to do should any of them find Dr. Coomer or Bubby’s data. Anyone else at Black Mesa seeing it wouldn’t be as much of an issue as they weren’t being kept secret. But it might still contain the kind of info one or both of them didn’t want the friend group knowing. After all it was kind of like looking at medical records, right?

So Gordon should tell Dr. Coomer what he’d found. Maybe even ask him if he wanted the data deleted or stolen to be put solely into his possession the way they planned to do with Benrey’s. It’d be the polite thing to do. …. On the other hand though, Gordon was curious. It was natural to be curious about one’s super-powered friends, right? Since things had settled down, Gordon had made several attempts to talk to Dr. Coomer about his clones and cybernetics but while he always answered questions, he wasn’t often particularly forthcoming on the specifics of how it all worked. So delving a little bit further into his data couldn’t hurt, right? Just a peek, nothing more.

~

A few hours later, Gordon looked back up after having gone over the whole experiment. That was fine though because most of it had been about the clones and what had gone into trying to make each one more powerful than the last – resulting instead in each clone’s death, making the real Dr. Coomer stronger – and not too, too much about Dr. Coomer himself. Other than his literal medical records which Gordon had only skimmed for the scraps of information it had on his cybernetics. Most of which seemed to have been put in after the cloning had been completed as there wasn’t much about them. It was an entirely different experiment done by an entirely different department so it made sense that there wouldn’t be much.

With a sigh, he pushed back from his desk and stood to stretch. It was just him and Dr. Coomer in the office now. Tommy had left to feed Sunkist her dinner. And about an hour ago, after falling asleep on his keyboard, Darnold, had been shooed off to go home and rest. So now would be a good time to tell Dr. Coomer, Gordon had looked through his cloning records. But… it wasn’t that important, was it? Dr. Coomer wouldn’t care so… no need to share. Gordon should just sit back down and move on.

They were almost done, would’ve been done by now if not for Gordon’s distraction but no one needed to know about that. And then as Black Mesa’s members continued pulling stuff out and bringing it here for safe keeping until the far off distant date when the facility was functional again, Gordon and friends could sort through it right as it came in. Benrey’s stuff would show up eventually, no need to go down there themselves. And then Gordon could easily get a peek at it, just a peek, nothing more. He’d skim it to answer just a few questions before giving it to Benrey to do with as he pleased. Yeah, he hadn’t just skimmed Dr. Coomer’s clone stuff but it was less personal anyway, he’d be better with Benrey’s stuff. And then if he was lucky he’d get to peek at Bubby’s records too and possibly Dr. Coomer’s cybernetics stuff as well.

“You got terribly focused on something for a bit there,” Dr. Coomer said as Gordon sat back down. “Did you find something?”

“Uh…” Gordon should tell him. He’d literally asked and it wasn’t that personal so it was fine that Gordon had looked. “Yeah… um… an experiment that was kind of interesting, wanted to know more, got a bit sucked in on accident. We’re almost done though so… yeah, just a bit more.”

“Ooh, what was the experiment?”

“Light sabers, they were trying to make a real one.” Why was Gordon lying? It was fine. Maybe it was a bit weird to have read through the experiment data without letting Dr. Coomer know about it first but not a big deal. “They failed, unfortunately.” He had indeed skimmed through such an experiment earlier so at least he wasn’t making that up too.

“Ah, a shame. I quite liked Star Wars. Perhaps that is an idea we could return to in the near future. For now though, onwards and upwards.”

With a mostly clear conscious, Gordon got back to work. He’d come clean about looking through it later, wouldn’t even have to admit that he’d lied initially. Just causally bring up that he’d come across it and had read through some of it. Not a big deal at all.

***

“It’ll take longer but if we just keep sorting through all the experiment data as it comes in, your stuff, if its intact, is bound to show up eventually.” Gordon had stayed over at work late to finish sorting through the rest of the stuff they already had only to come home with this. “And no one seems suspicious that its just us and Darnold looking through all of it so the risk of someone else seeing it first is relatively low.”

“Yeah but then I don’t get to participate in the heist.” Of course it would’ve been easier if they’d already had his records waiting to be sorted but it also would’ve been more boring. Going and finding them in the facility itself was far more interesting and would give Benrey something to do other than hang out in the basement for a couple hours a day, trying in vain to find any sort of ‘true form’ while the others to did all the real work for him.

Gordon sighed as he resumed heading into kitchen. “Feeling particularly urgent about it?”

Benrey followed, stopping in the doorway. “Uh… guess so, yeah.” Every failed shape shifting session in the basement, though nowhere near as long or arduous as the first, made him more frustrated with the question. “It’s your fault for making me care ‘bout it even though it doesn’t matter.”

Gordon opened the fridge to stare at its insides. A thing he did frequently. Why was it so hard for him to decide what to eat if he was so hungry he had to eat two or three times a day every day? “I suppose it is, huh? But I think it matters. You might not be the only one of your kind, wouldn’t that be cool to know?”

That thought had come to Benrey multiple times since Gordon had first brought it up and refused to completely dissipate no matter how many times he pushed it away. What if he was an alien with a whole alien race out there somewhere and maybe even a family he’d been taken from Though… “If I’m not the only one, there’s a whole bunch of others out there on Xen just like me, what then, huh? You gonna help me reunite with them?” No, of course he wouldn’t. Going back to Xen would be silly after the resonance cascade.

“Uh… maybe. I mean we’d been going into Xen for years just fine. I don’t even know how long, not my department, but longer than I’d been working there for sure. Not sure how we got there the first time but if we did it once we could do it again. And then once we have one means of travel there and back we just need to not fuck around with anymore resonance experiments and it’ll probably be fine.”

It would still be a risk though. And it would certainly be a lot of work just for Benrey. … No, not just for him. Gordon was a scientist, he wanted to study things and see if he could make a portal to Xen happen just to see if he could. That was fine though because it would still be partially for Benrey, even if only a little, and that would be pretty neat. Assuming he was an alien anyway and not made in the lab from ground up alien plants or something.

“So yeah,” Gordon continued as he finally selected last night’s leftovers from the fridge and moved them to the microwave. “If it turns out you’re an alien and if you wanna meet your people or whatever, I’m sure the others will be willing to help see if we can make it happen. It’ll certainly give us something to do, huh? And uh… speaking of that, I guess tomorrow we’ll meet up with the others discuss if we actually wanna make the drive to get your stuff ourselves or if it might be better to just wait.”

That trip really would be just for Benrey’s sake. No one but him would benefit from it but Gordon was seemingly still open to it. He certainly wasn’t shutting it down anyway even though he was right in it not being strictly necessary. … Probably more of him being nice because he was lonely, traumatized, and scared of being alone. Benrey shouldn’t take advantage of that. “I could walk. Long walk though so uh… you’ll have to find someone else to cuddle at night ‘til I get back. Tommy probably wouldn’t, don’t think he likes touching a whole lot, Coomer or Bubby might though. Sunkist don’t like to be held but she might lay on you if you ask nice.”

“Oh, um nah, dude, walking would takes ages. If you really don’t wanna wait, I’ll uh… drive you down there even if the others don’t wanna join us. Don’t worry about it.”

Benrey could insist and maybe even head out right now. Gordon couldn’t stop him. It would maybe even be the right thing to do since this was without a doubt Gordon’s need to please raising up. Encouraging him in it might not be good for him. … Or maybe it would be good for him and help him eventually get better about it. Benrey barely knew how his own mind and emotions worked, anyone else’s, especially a human’s, was beyond him.

Also it was a very long walk just to get to the facility and then another not as long but still long walk from there to get to the part that his data was housed in. And then all the way back doubled both. The second long walk was inevitable either way as the trams no longer worked but it’d be less boring with company – even if said company would also mean he wouldn’t be cutting as many corners – especially when cutting out the long, lonely boring first part of the trip. So… “Okay. Thanks.”

Gordon hummed an acknowledgment, patting Benrey lightly on the shoulder with his gun hand as he walked past him, bearing his sad microwaved leftovers. “Uh… play something so I got something to watch while I eat?”

“Sure.” Benrey had paused his game to come chat with Gordon upon him returning home so he had no complaints about doing so and followed. They would talk about it more tomorrow. If they decided to wait, Benrey would just go by himself and walk.

~

The conversation was surprisingly brief. Gordon suggested they wait, Benrey said he didn’t want to and would’ve preferred to walk instead. Ultimately they all agreed to go.

With how long the trip to the old Black Mesa facility was and how deep they were planning to delve into it to find what they were looking for, they’d be spending at least one night there, probably more like two but perhaps more. And thus Gordon and the rest of the Science Team bought what they called ‘camping gear’. No tent though, the one thing Benrey associated with the idea of camping.

“We’ll be indoors,” Gordon explained on the drive home when asked, “so a tent’s not really needed. Sleeping bags will do just fine.”

“Lame. Guess it’s not a camping trip though so… whatever.” Benrey had got to see and touch the display tents in the store anyway so not having one was fine.

Gordon sighed. “I really gotta take you out more, huh? Being less lazy would probably be for good me too so… how ‘bout we go real camping sometime? I’ve never been but how hard can it really be?”

“Ooh, where?”

“I don’t now. Maybe somewhere in Colorado. They’re just north of us and supposedly got good outdoorsy areas. Could probably go skiing or something too. …. Or uh, maybe not since you’re cold-blooded so the cold might not be fun for you. So maybe we should stick to the desert.”

“Nah, I wanna go skiing, looks fun.” And the snow, was it really as soft as it looked in games?

“All right, it’s a plan then, I guess. I’ve certainly earned a vacation. So we’ll do that sometime in the near future once were done with… you know.”

From there it wasn’t long before they reached home. The plan had been to pack as soon they were through the door but with only a little bit of prodding, Benrey got Gordon to play some games with him first. They were leaving early tomorrow morning so it was important they get some good game time in today. Gordon did eventually put his foot down though; disappointing but probably for the best.

Some of their supplies were provided by Black Mesa as the trip was being made under the guise of it being another salvage run. Benrey coming along and thus being another body to put a pack on apparently meant extra could be brought. The fact that he wasn’t planning on eating or drinking while there made it a bit annoying to be loaded up with water bottles and food rations but he was being allowed to bring the Game Boy Advance and some games in his pack too so he’d put up with it.

Benrey helped with the packing at first but Gordon apparently found issue with his packing style and shooed him away. Leaving him to just wonder around the bedroom and watch. Or he could head off to play more games until it was bedtime; Gordon could come join him again when he was done packing. But someone needed to make sure he didn’t forget anything important such as the HEV suit still sitting in its box in the closet. He could of course be planning on not taking it out until morning but he was forgetful sometimes and it should probably be put on charge tonight to make sure it was fully powered when they go to the facility so… “Don’t forget the HEV suit.”

Gordon paused and looked up at him. “Why?”

What did he mean ‘why?’ “Might be dangerous.” The deeper one went into a dungeon, the more dangerous it was after all. Not that the facility was the exact same as a video game dungeon but it was close enough that the same basic principle had to apply, right? Especially since it had during their first journey through it.

“Maybe but… no. I’d rather not. It’s heavy, a pain to put on, and probably out of power by now.”

“Yeah, that’s why should bring it out now, put it on charge so its all juiced up tomorrow.”

“I don’t have anything to charge it with and don’t really wanna bother anyway.”

Since the idea had first been brought up, Benrey had been assuming that Gordon putting the HEV suit back on was part of the plan. Unlike their first trip back when they’d only intended to venture into the living area of the facility, they were going deeper. Not as deep as they’d gone in their initial journey through the facility but said journey had proven that deeper meant more dangerous. At the time ‘more dangerous’ had translated to ‘more fun’ for Benrey. Now that he knew and cared more about how weak and fragile Gordon was though that wouldn’t be the case anymore. Especially if he was going without the one thing that had kept him alive that first journey. If he lost another limb, it was probably gone for good. … Or if he died, he wouldn’t come back.

“But uh… what if you die? That’d be a bummer.” … More than a bummer actually. Once the thought had made Benrey sad, now it was making him squirm. Was this what anxiety was? A raising tension caused by a fear that wasn’t sourced by a proper threat, just the potential of one. No wonder Gordon was always so twitchy and unable to hold still whenever he got anxious. It was a very unpleasant feeling. Benrey would like to stop feeling it … “So you should wear the HEV suit just in case.”

Gordon looked back down and continued packing. “Nope, not happening.”

“What if there’s more zombies or the lightening aliens or… or the squid guys? What if the military shows up again?” Almost anything except maybe the first was almost certain death if Gordon got hit without protection, right?

“I doubt any of that’ll happen.”

“Could though. What if we run into more… radiation stuff? That’s bad without the HEV suit for normal humans, right? Or an earthquake hits and uh… a wall falls on you or something. Probably survivable with the HEV suit but not without it.”

Gordon paused and looked up at him again, even straightening to fully tun towards him. “You really worried about me?”

“You’re weak, easy to kill, and wouldn’t come back if you died.”

His confused expression turned into the more familiar annoyed one. “Dude, there’s no need to word it like that. It sounds like a threat.”

Benrey shrugged. “Is true though. Maybe I should just go by myself after all.” In hindsight, he should’ve just gone when first deciding he wanted to look at his records. He’d have already had them by now if he had… assuming the computers they’re on were still intact anyway.

“No, no, no. We’re going with you because we already said we would. And we’re already signed up for the thing so can’t back out now.” Gordon walked around the bed to stand in front of Benrey. Looking down at him, his expression softened again. “I’ll be fine though, ‘kay? I got this,” he held up his gun hand, “and I know how to use it. And all you guys are all kinds of powerful so… I’ll be fine. If I do get hit or something, you could just bleed on me a bit and that’ll fix it. We already tested that, remember?”

“I guess so, yeah.” Logically it made no sense to be so worried and normally Benrey wouldn’t be. Worrying about things wasn’t his style. It never accomplished anything, much easier to just roll with whatever happened as it happened. None of it could permanently hurt him anyway so why concern himself much with any of it? But he wouldn’t be able to just roll with it if Gordon died or got hurt in some other permanent way that couldn’t be fixed.

Somehow Gordon had gone from a fun fascination to worming his way into Benrey’s brain and making him feel all sorts of things he didn’t normally feel. Some of those were pleasant feelings but this was very much the opposite. This feeling sucked even more than Gordon having made him care about his past and whether or not he had a true form. And that was saying something because that sucked pretty bad. Even worse would be if Benrey’s newfound anxieties did come true.

“You okay?” Gordon asked, drawing Benrey’s gaze back up to him. He was giving Benrey a mildly concerned look. … His annoyed looks were more fun. That was the problem with getting closer to him; he was annoyed with Benrey less often and worried for him more instead. People being worried for him sucked. The only concern Gordon or anyone should be feeling in regards to Benrey is concern for what kind of mischief he might get up to. But Benrey was concerned for him too, meaning they were concerned for each other. Which was stupid.

“I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t like it. It’s lame.”

“Like what?”

Part of Benrey didn’t want to say but Gordon had told him he could talk to him about things and this was certainly a thing. “Anxious.”

Gordon stared at him for a beat or two in silence before letting a slight chuckle. “Oh dude, being anxious sucks so much, believe me, I know. But uh… uh…” The mirth left his voice as he expression to something more serious. “You’re uh… really actually anxious that I might die or something?”

Benrey had just got done saying so. But by now he was mostly used to Gordon needing things repeated for him. “Yeah or getting hurt in a way that can’t be fixed again. Could lose you other hand or… a foot or something.”

“Please don’t put that thought in my head. But uh… wow, um… didn’t think you… Being anxious sucks. So how ‘bout, because I can’t put the suit back on even if I’d wanted to, if it’ll make you feel better, I stay at the back of the group?

“Middle of the group. Something could sneak up behind.”

“Okay. Middle of the group then. And I promise I’ll be careful as I can be because trust me, I don’t wanna die or lose another body party either. That help you feel a bit less anxious? I know it’s not that easy but… you know, there’s only so much we do about anxiety while still living our lives.”

“Guess it’s better than nothing.” And once they were deeper in the facility Benrey would stick close to him, make sure nothing take advantage of how weak he was.

“Good. Now, I should finish packing. But first uh… I um… uh…” He lifted his hand as if intended to touch Benrey’s shoulder or perhaps go a bit higher to his face. He did neither though as he grimaced and pulled away instead. “You’re a good friend. Thanks for uh… that, being a good friend. It’s… I appreciate it.” Before he’d even finished speaking he was back pedaling, going back around to resume packing, doing so with a bit more intensity than before.

Sweet. Benrey was a good friend. That somehow made the negative feelings Gordon inspired in him more bearable. Being anxious sucked but at least it made him a good friend. … Which also meant Gordon being worried about him, made Gordon a good friend too. It was still uncalled for and kind of annoying but maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

~

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