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ginkgomoon · 4 years ago

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Gavin and MC’s High School History- Detailed Timeline

Dedicated to my amazing and kind friend @cheri-cheri- one of the Queens of the MLQC fandom on Tumblr! I literally didn’t know how to use it before but I had learnt how in order to keep up with her posts. Without her work, I literally wouldn’t be on here making my own blog either. Thank you, Cheri!!

This is a timeline following the years of high school that MC and Gavin had together. Compiled of dates, rumours and secrets, calls, texts, and other from multiple servers. The source will be shown allocated to its corresponding sentence. I created this because I was really moved when I rewatched Gavin’s Old Days Date and suddenly thought of the many things other players could have missed out on regarding their high school years. If there is anything you need clarification on, or if you would like to add anything in, feel free to send a post/ask or just comment and I’ll try to incorporate and adjust accordingly!

Based off of true correspondence of the Chinese education system in Shanghai, where the schools there are very strict, with specific responsibilities and events students must have and attend to. In addition, this is different from Western school systems where years 7-9 are in a seperate schools from years 10-12 before university. Dates and seasons mentioned will also be noted as accurately as possible to suit the Loveland storyline in which different events occurred. I felt like a detective trying to piece a fractured storyline together to solve a mystery, honestly...

Prepare your tissues, your milk tea and your soul because even I almost didn’t make it to publish this...

Timeline

2008

Gavin enters high school.

2009

MC and Minor enter high school. MC does her hair in a nice ponytail, one of the only hairstyles she ever had in school.

Gavin is a grade above her. He is in his last year of high school. [Spring Festival Date]

Late Autumn of October 2010

“I noticed who you were before you ever noticed me.”

On a rainy first day of school, Gavin helps Mr Keller move the tables and chairs in the classroom.

Without taking an umbrella, Gavin leaves.

At the same time, MC saves a cat in the rain with her handkerchief, attempting to shield it from the incoming rain under a roof. She gives it snacks from her bag while sheltering it from the rain.

Gavin thinks she was nerdy-looking, but couldn't take his eyes off her and watches her from a distance for a long time. He feels out of place standing.

She looks back at him in astonishment, not knowing how long he stood for.

She smiles at Gavin.

Gavin notes that MC’s smile just like her eyes, were pure and comforting as they start filling his vision.

The rain starts to get heavier and MC shivers.

Something stirred in Gavin’s heart as he notices this, and kicks a can in frustration then shelters her with his jacket.

He runs away as MC shouts, “thank you!”

She didn’t know it was Gavin who gave her his jacket at the time.

MC goes back and is then told by her fellow classmates that the boy she encountered was the “tyrant school bully”, and “the Underworld Senior Gavin”, and that she should stay away from him. [Tilted Time- Rumours and Secrets]

MC finds piano dull to play the same songs over and over again.

MC in her spare time practices and sings to Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3 (Love Dream) for a talent show.

At the rooftop, Gavin is wounded by a gangster’s knife. A gradually intensifying melody is heard.

Gavin kicks the gangster boss but then is pursued again. Outnumbered, wounded and losing consciousness due to major blood loss, the gangster boss kicks Gavin off the roof.

Gavin reaches out, to something- anything.

A heavy, surging melody sounded, transcending through time and allows Gavin to reflect on his past- to his father, to his late mother, and invokes deep reflection and epiphanies.

Heavy notes seep into Gavin’s ears as he almost hits rock bottom. He feels his limbs emerging with the wind and awakens his wind evol.

Gavin is now reborn.

The music continued to play. Gavin ends up humming with a bird.

He then hears MC’s singing.

MC stops, mesmerised by the ginkgo leaves flying through the wind. The ginkgo leaves falling was her favourite time of the year in high school. This vivid sight is still engraved in her memory after many years.

Gavin vows to protect her for the rest of his life. [Campus Date]

Gavin saved Minor from bullies.

Minor also happens to be MC’s outgoing, talkative desk mate who sometimes helped old ladies cross the street. How he managed to hang around Gavin and not get beaten up, nobody knew (except us). He would often copy MC’s homework but never dragged her down with him if he got caught. This was MC’s biggest impression of him.

During science class, MC cooked noodles for Minor on the Bunsen burner when he was hungry. The recipe was Shrimp flavoured instant noodles, mix two eggs in well, then add a dab of sea salt and black pepper. [S1 Chapter 7-1]

Gavin is always at the school gates at 7:30am. Carrying his flat school bag, he orders fish balls at the snack kiosk on the north side of the school. It was the third day in a row that Minor notices this. [Minor’s Memory Book]

Gavin would occasionally travel around on his bicycle. (Pre-debut Sparky??) He says he was good at riding it. [Lost Love Date]

It was hard to find Gavin as he’s rarely at school, so she didn’t see him until 3 days later when MC went to the library at sunset.

She tries to retrieve “Byron’s Poetry Collection” from the top of a 2-metre shelf, and since Gavin was a head taller, he was able to help her get it.

He musters up the introduction that he recited many times- but MC quickly thanks him and leaves before he could speak.

Minor notices Gavin watching after MC and that he was SMIL-ING.

He helps him locate MC and reports that every day after school she would go to the library for afternoon revision, always sitting in the same seat.

Gavin sat at a corner not far, quietly flipping through textbooks he hated. People who were reading in the library would be driven away because they were scared of him LOL

MC would then leave at 5pm sharp to go back home.

Gavin commits to walking back 10 metres behind her with Minor every day on forward. [CN Tilted Time Rumours and Secrets]

Gavin saves Minor from bullies again. Minor dedicates himself to be his “bro”.

He finds out that MC is an honours student, but doesn’t know that she’s the school orchestra leader. [Mystery Wings Event] and [Mark Date] However, he does know that she’s renowned as the “campus belle/ school flower”.

Minor idly mentions that more people were giving MC love letters.

Gavin tells Minor to collect all the people who were planning to confess their love to MC. Minor doesn’t want to be wingman anymore HAHA

Gavin stared those boys down as they trembled with fear. He tells them to take them back and if they scare her, he’ll make them regret it.

Minor realises Gavin’s feelings for MC. [Minor’s Memory Book]

MC eats from a small stall outside the school gate selling red bean puffs. ($3 for one, $5 for two. What a deal!)

She also encounters the stall that sells sugar figurines [Gift of Life- Sugar Figurine Call]

MC ate chocolate sticks often at school. It's also a memory of student life for Gavin, as well. [CN 2021 March Sign-In Taste of Happiness]

Students would scramble for the small swing set in the school garden. MC never went at lunch breaks, but she watches the sunset on it after school. Gavin is sometimes nearby. MC never noticed him, but she does however notice the ginkgo leaves dancing in the wind. [Mini House Small Happening- Leisure Time]

Gavin isn’t his usual self anymore. He sees MC out in the library everyday and starts reading “5 Years of College Examinations and 3 Years of Sample Questions” (book for colleague entrance examinations).

MC watches a basketball match at school. She calls someone from an away team “dashing” because they won with a dunk. This has been engraved in Gavin’s memory ever since. [Dreamers Date]

Gavin found out that he was very fond of basketball success stories, rushing into the court to try hundreds of shots after. He writes “I will beat you” beside Sakuragi Hanamichi from a Slam Dunk poster alongside “not a step back”.

(Slam Dunk starts out with a boy wanting to play basketball to impress his crush.)

Gavin then injures his head badly :(

He realises that basketball couldn’t help him to protect anything he wanted. He determines that he will do whatever it takes (to “beat” himself”). [Mystery Wings Event]

Gavin leans against a tree as he watches MC hurry down the corridor as she clutches a textbook. [Boundary Rumours and Secrets]

MC would eat pocky. Gavin would eat them too. [2021 March Sign-In Moments]

MC faints during a sports meet because she didn’t eat breakfast.

Gavin hurries to carry her to the infirmary. [CN Delightful Search Date]

He leaves bread and milk before she wakes up.

MC is on duty during PE class, which happens to be on basketball.

Minor was careless about his aim and the ball almost hit her in the head. Gavin slams the ball away. [Minor’s Memory Book]

Gavin glares at Minor as MC thanks him.

Minor also “accidentally” pushes MC towards him.

Gavin glares again.

Gavin later is continuously shooting hoops.

MC returns late at night to clean up the gym but all had been returned neatly in the basket. MC wanted to thank him but couldn’t. [CN Basketball Court Date]

There was a school sports competition that they attended. Gavin participated in the 10 lap race and came first by an impressive large measure. [Minor’s Memory Book]

MC participates in the sprint race, too. Gavin is worried about her performance, and if she would faint again.

Gavin requests Minor to take a photo of her on his phone (which probably ended up as the photo that he carried with him in his early days at special training where the other men teased him about hiding a photo of a girl.)

Approaching the End of October

Gavin, Minor and MC are walking home.

The weather is cold, and Gavin notices MC shivering in the distance. Gavin, conflicted by this, tells Minor to buy MC a hot drink without telling her that it was from him. [CN Tilted Time Rumours and Secrets]

MC would occasionally spot a hot drink or a carton of strawberry milk in the piano room. [Chapter 31-12]

Gavin one day is conflicted by their early exchange, recalling how MC looks startled at the entrance of the library after seeing each other. His spirit depletes, kicking himself (metaphorically) in the corner of the classroom at how he might have scared her.

Minor rushes in with a pink bandaid from MC for the wound at his mouth.

He carefully took that bandaid, treating it as if it was his world’s most precious treasure.

This pink bandaid was always taped on his heart and whenever he stepped into the swamp-like darkness of the night, it gave off a faint warmth. [Mystery Wings Event]

MC starts to notice Gavin everywhere. At the corners of windows, she would see his figure. At the library, he would help her retrieve books from higher places. She would also see books laid out on his table, but most of the time he would be sleeping. Beneath his overlapping arms, he sees “Byron’s Poetry Collection”. Gavin doesn’t understand the poems, though.

Lord Byron's "Don Juan" - Canto the Ninth, XVI

"To be, or not to be?" — Ere I decide I should be glad to know that which is being? 'Tis true — we speculate both far and wide, And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing; For my part, I'll enlist on neither side Until I see both sides for once agreeing; For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death,

At the music rehearsal room on the fifth floor, she would see a corner of his shirt in the wind.

MC thinks Gavin is friendly and slowly lets down her guard.

At the canteen, he would offer her the last bottle of water.

She begins smiling at him when they see each other, with the small arcs forming on her lips, soon becoming smiles that made her eyes squint.

MC would walk along the Senior hallways and subconsciously stop at a certain classroom- catching the sight of Gavin sleeping. On one particular day, she sees him standing by the window, staring at the sky.

Minor asks Gavin if he could form a band with him. Gavin rejects him. He then asks Gavin if he wanted to join the school’s singing competition. Gavin rejects him again, saying that he didn’t perform for unimportant people or have others tell him how well he could play.

MC plays “Falling Slowly” on the piano. Gavin hearing this, learns to play the guitar. He doesn’t know the name of the song but familiarises himself with the melody. [CN Music and the Past Call]

Whenever school let students out early, she would go to Lynn’s Kitchen. MC gets her noodles with clear broth, chopped scallions and a half-boiled egg. Gavin usually gets his spicy noodles with garlic, cilantro, thinly sliced beef.

Gavin remembers her favourite order.

MC leaves a post-it note at Lynn’s Kitchen, “I might never see you again and I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I miss you”, about a friend who transferred schools.

Gavin knows she hates people who leave without saying goodbye the most.

Gavin, also in the vicinity near Lynn’s Kitchen, writes a post note. “Until I met you.” [Mystery Box Game]

He saves Mr Noah’s son from an accident, immediately takes him to the hospital and pays for the medical fees. [Anime]

Gavin dismisses rumours of high school romance.

“If you confessed on the 7th step of the stairway in the corner of the 3rd floor then it’ll succeed, or if you carved your name and another person’s name on the 6th tree in the courtyard at the back then your misunderstandings will be resolved, or if a guy gave the girl he liked the second button of his uniform on graduation day then the two of them will end up happy together.”

At lunch, he hears MC talking about the second button, and upon seeing her yearning face, he raises his head in thought, suddenly couldn’t wait for graduation. He tears off his second button. [Mystery Wings Event]

Gavin is just in love at this point.

Gavin sees one of the top students stealing money from a shop outside of school. The shopkeeper doesn’t believe him.

He stops the student on his way home to hand him back the money.

MC sees him at the alley then leaves.

Gavin spent all the money on a walkman he wanted for a very long time.

Mr Keller was the only one who believed in him. He said to him, “Since you can’t change what others think of you, you might as well just listen to your heart.” This had a great impact on Gavin. [Campus Date]

Winter

In the snowfall, the school allowed additional ten minutes of break time. The class next to MC’s stuffed Minor’s shirt with snowballs.

Gavin thought of helping him with a counterattack but MC had already returned a snowball to the male student who pulled the prank.

Gavin looks at MC the whole time. [CN Recovery ASMR]

MC overheads girls in her class say that Gavin had bullied students for lunch money that morning.

MC rides her bike back home after studying at the library for her finals.

MC sees Gavin being handed an envelope full of money at Lynn’s Kitchen in an alleyway.

She mistook it for him taking protection money.

Summer of June 2011

On a humid afternoon, MC looks outside the window of the classroom in boredom. A boy in a loose-fitting school uniform ran by. She couldn’t make out his face. [S1 Chapter 7-23]

MC begins to distance herself from Gavin. She rushes out of class and goes straight home instead.

Gavin is sad. He broods by the piano room, goes to the library to brood, then stares at the place MC sits to brood some more.

Minor wonders how he’s able to stare all afternoon at an empty space in the library but sleeps all day during class hours. [Minor’s Memory Book]

Before graduation, Gavin’s father expresses his thoughts for Gavin to join the organisation for special training. Gavin refuses, but his father uses MC to influence him to agree.

Gavin remembers the panic and timidity in MC’s eyes when she first met him. He recalls that moment was probably the hardest to bear in his life.

Gavin in his short period of freedom writes a letter to MC. He ponders about what to say, thinking about their first encounter, and how she started to distance herself from him. But all he writes is-

“Saturday 9am, I will be at the school library waiting for you.

-Gavin.”

MC attends the flag-raising ceremony and rehearses her speech. She then leaves to study for her exams.

Meanwhile, Gavin finishes a fight with other boys from school in an alley after they talk inappropriately about MC. [Old Days Date]

Gavin, bloodied and bruised, asks Minor to make another copy of his letter.

This is the only thing that Gavin had asked Minor to do so of course, he agreed. [Chapter 7-11]

Minor thinks the letter is a symbol of passion and fierce love due to the bloodstains and decides to keep the original.

He writes “GAVIN” and places it on MC’s desk for her to see the next day.

(In the Campus Date, the older MC is the one who finds him instead of Minor and treats him to his injuries. She ends up seeing the contents of the letter to find him later on.)

MC mistakes the letter as a threat and throws it away.

That Weekend

Gavin sits for 14 hours in the library waiting for MC, scanning the library every now and then.

With a fingertip, he rubs “Byron’s Poetry Collection” and carefully sandwiches a dried and yellowed ginkgo leaf into the book. He suddenly felt a measure of self-deprecation.

He stands up, and leaves, his heart filled with regret that he didn’t give it to her personally. [CN Tilted Time Rumours and Secrets]

After Summer Break- July

Minor never saw Gavin, and neither did MC.

“We met often, but never passed by each other. I remember every moment I saw you in school. Time, location, weather, your expression, your clothes...

-I remember them all.”

#gavin #bai qi #mlqc gavin #mlqc analysis #mlqc translation #mlqc cn #mlqc en #love and producer #mr love queens choice #恋与制作人 #mlqc timeline #mlqc storyline #posting early because of exams #im so sad

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wolfstar-supremacy-innit · 3 years ago

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Spilling secrets: Remus' confession

Wolfstar one shot in which Remus is blackout drunk and reveals his feelings to Sirius. Loosely based on this lovely post. Sirius' POV, 2.2k words.

I will probably write another one shot, with the roles reversed (Spilling secrets: Sirius' confession), but don't hold me to that. :)

Enjoy lovelies <3

With a sizable effort, James and Sirius finally managed to shove Remus into his bed. Getting him up the stairs alone took 10 minutes. Remus kept stumbling back down towards the common room when the two other boys paused to take a breath from propping him up, before they realized there’s no letting go of Remus if they plan on getting him to the dorm before sunrise. He stirred in the bed for some time, but ultimately sprawled out on the sheets with a content smile on his face.

James and Sirius released monumental sighs of relief. The party downstairs was still in full swing, but both of them effectively sobered up from the bloody grapple they just endured.

“Bloody hell, the snockered bugger,” Sirius exclaimed wiping his forehead with his forearm. James laughed breathlessly at his choice of words.

“Right you are. You going back down?”

“Nah, I’m about ready to be dead asleep for the next three days after that.”

“Yeah, me too.”

They barely changed out of their clothes when Remus suddenly exclaimed from under the covers: “Ugh, God!” The other two boys slowly turned to him. What now, Sirius thought. Remus irritably chucked the blanket away from his head, all the way to his waist. “Why does he have to be so fucking fit?!” James and Sirius exchanged an intrigued look, growing more amused by the second. Remus rarely, or essentially never made such comments. “With his fucking hands, and soft hair and bloody earrings, Jesus,” he continued muttering angrily, but the words became unintelligible as he turned over and stuck his face into the fluffy pillow.

“Who, Moony,” James asked.

“Fucking, Sirius!”

Sirius furrowed his eyebrows. “Yeah, Moony, I’m here. Who’s fit?” But it kinda seemed Remus didn’t truly comprehend that he was in the room with people he knew.

“I told you. Sirius,” he continued, face still stuck in the pillow.

“Oh fucking hell. You didn’t tell me anything, mate.”

“Sirius is fucking fit, you idiot,” Remus slurred, voice muffled. He released a loud, annoyed groan, then: “I wanna shag him through the fucking wall.”

A dreadful, resounding silence iced over the room. Sirius felt blazing red heat crawling up his body from the pit of his stomach and settling rather heavily on his cheeks. Did he get that right? Seconds seemed to stretch as Sirius willed his mind to comprehend what he had just heard.

As if snapping both James and Sirius out of a trance, soft snores diffused over the room and James broke into quiet, intense giggles. Sirius felt hot all over with a feeling very very remotely familiar to him: embarrassment. You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of things that embarrassed Sirius Black, but boy, was this one of them. Not to mention the boner that was solemnly threatening to make a presence. “Merlin’s sock on a stick, Moony,” he said, nonplussed.

James managed to rein in his laughter enough to breathe out: “You are never going to live this down.”

“And if I shag him on your bed? Will I live it down then?” That seemed to sober James up like a downpour of ice water.

“Holy shit. Do you want to?”

“And what if I do?”

“N-nothing. T- that’s great for you lads, then,” James stammered, obviously bewildered.

“Alright then.” Sirius stepped towards Remus’ bed and pushed his shoulder back to roll him away from the pillow that was threateningly muffling his breathing. “So he doesn’t suffocate, the idiot.”

Without another word, the two boys got into their respective beds and drew the curtains. Sirius lay there, on top of the covers, staring at the drapes with large eyes. He shifted. Yep, an undignified boner was indubitably tenting his pajama bottoms. His heart was hammering, mind buzzing. Moony actually looked at him like that. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. Or was he brain-dead pissed and just speaking nonsense? He felt a heavy lump of disappointment settle in his stomach.

“Padfoot,” came a voice from James’ bed. Sirius made a questioning sound. “Did you actually mean that? About Moony?”

Pause. “Yeah. I did.”

James cleared his throat. “Yeah, okay, cool. Cool, cool. Um, Padfoot?”

“Yeah?”

“You never told me you, um. You liked blokes.”

“Yeah, sorry. I told you now. Is that alright?” There was a silence that made Sirius’ mind stir with fear until he heard rustling and then a body jumped on him, encompassing him in a bone-crushing hug. Boy, was Sirius glad his boner dissipated in the panic of waiting for his best friend’s reaction.

“Of course it’s alright, you git!” Relief filled Sirius as a face-splitting grin stretched his mouth. Pulling apart after a few moments, they sat cross-legged across each other. “And Moony, blimey. What a catch, good on you, Sirius.”

“Hah. Well... We’ll se what the morning light brings.”

“Oh, shut it. Don’t go all poetic on me in the wee hours of the night. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

Sirius flopped around in bed the most of the night. Shortly after James returned to his own four-poster, Peter stumbled in from downstairs and flung himself into bed. Sirius couldn’t will his brain to quiet down enough to fall asleep for a long while. When he finally concluded all of the other boys were sound asleep, he resolved to have a wank thinking about no other than gorgeous, incredible Remus, laying just a couple of meters to the right, snoring away his insobriety. Well, what else was new?

<><><><><>

Sirius, Peter and Remus were sitting at breakfast, exchanging only a few words apart from ‘will you pass me that tray?’ The other two moved sluggishly with lidded eyes, but Sirius was restless. He kept shifting in his seat, shaking his knee under the table and taking bites of food too large to chew. When they woke up that morning like a bunch raised from the dead, Remus made it relatively clear that he, in fact, did not recall most of the party, let alone the atomic bomb he dropped to James and Sirius the previous night. James just smacked Sirius’ shoulder in consolation and left for the showers without saying a word.

Sirius needed to tell Remus and he needed to do it soon, or he thought his head might detach itself from his shoulders. Or he might vomit his heart out. Either way, Remus was sitting there, unsuspecting, looking heavenly with his wild bedhead and watery eyes and Sirius couldn’t keep his eyes off him. Thankfully, the others seemingly didn’t notice.

James plopped on the bench next to Sirius, pulling his attention towards himself. He took a double look at Sirius and made a show of scanning him up and down. “Bloody hell, Padfoot. Don’t you look fucking fit this morning?” Sirius immediately caught his drift, Remus’ words from the previous night etched in his brain like a carving. Test the waters a little. He smiled as James clapped him on the shoulder.

“Why thank you, Prongs.”

Remus’ brows furrowed as his eyes flickered between the two boys in front of him, then went back to eating with a puzzled expression.

“Yeah, like your hands and hair. Soft hair,” James corrected himself quickly, “and your earrings. Merlin, don’t get me started on your earrings.” Sirius felt himself blushing rapidly, remembering exactly where those words came from. Remus was gawking at James, hand holding a fork stopping mid-air. He and Peter looked at each other. Peter shrugged.

“Aw, thank you, Prongs. I’m touched.”

“Yeah, you probably will be later tonight,” James mumbled quietly and Sirius choked on his food, covering it up with a cough, then elbowed the boy next to him in the ribs.

“You two tryna tell us something?” Peter squinted at them.

James mock gasped. “Can’t I compliment my best mates?”

“You never compliment me like that. Or Moony,” said Peter.

“Don’t be jealous, Wormy. Everyone knows I’m simply irresistible,” Sirius chimed in, flashing a charming smile. Remus remained suspiciously silent, glancing between the three other boys.

A little while later as James and Peter engaged in a heated discussion about the Hawkshead Attacking Formation, Sirius seized his opportunity. “Hey Moons, you finished? I need to talk to you in the dorm.” Remus nodded and they slipped out of the Great Hall and headed for Gryffindor tower. Sirius was so jittery, he felt like somebody had hooked him up to a power plant and cranked up the voltage. He could easily make an absolute buffoon out of himself if Remus was just mumbling rubbish the previous night. They barely spoke all the way to the common room, except for Remus commenting on his dreadful hangover headache. When they arrived to the dorm, Sirius started unconsciously wringing his hands. Remus plopped on his bed casually and said: “What’d you want to talk about, Pads?”

Sirius sat next to him on the bed, heartbeat through the roof. “Right. Yeah. Right.” He cleared his throat in a pitiful attempt to give himself more time to get the sentence out of his mouth. “Yeah, so... You said something last night. When you were plastered.”

Remus’ face effectively blanched. “What?”

“Well, you were properly pissed, so maybe it was just rubbish...”

“What did I say, Sirius?”

“Okay, so...” He cleared his throat again. “You remember what James said to me when he came to breakfast this morning?” Remus just stared with wide eyes. “Well, basically that... And- and some other things.”

Remus made a face, then flopped face-first into the pillow. “Oh no. What other things?”

Sirius released a nervous chuckle. He started stammering like no bloody aristocrat ever, his effortless confidence long evaporated. Nobody made that happen like Remus. Nobody made that happen except Remus. “Oh, bugger,” were the first coherent words he managed to get out. Remus mumbled a ‘Jesus Christ’ into the pillow.

“You said you wanted to shag me.” The silence was deafening to poor Sirius who awaited an answer. He almost reached out to put a hand on the other boy’s shoulder, when Remus started laughing short, muffled giggles that shook his back. Dread struck Sirius.

“Well. I’m the biggest dumbass in England. Fantastic.”

“Did you not mean it?” His voice must have resonated with worry because Remus finally rolled a little to look at him for the first time in minutes.

“Did you want me to mean it?”

“What if I did?”

“Well that would probably be good, because I’m barely keeping myself from jumping your bones.”

Sirius barked out a laugh followed closely by a sigh of relief. “Yes, I bloody well wanted it.” Remus gingerly pushed himself up into a sitting position. Sirius was slightly unsure what he was supposed to do, and it seemed like the other boy was too. Trying to take initiative, Sirius lifted his hand to place it on Remus’ shoulder, then changed his mind, going for his cheek, but chickened out at the last second and dropped it back on the bed. They laughed awkwardly. “Smooth,” Remus said. “Shut up. I’m nervous,” Sirius replied.

Remus huffed out another laugh and straightened the collar of his dress shirt as he said: “Okay.” He scooted closer to Sirius on the bed and actually put a gentle hand on his cheek. They stared at each other and Sirius felt pure, all encompassing giddiness simmering in his body, making his fingertips tingle. When their lips finally met, the kiss was delicate and tentative, like feet dipping into unknown waters. After a while, they both started smiling against each other’s mouth and Sirius’ heart fluttered with the warmth that consumed him. Feeling bolder, he licked Remus’ lower lip and he responded at once, gliding their tongues together. Oh, okay, boner again, then. When they pulled apart, Sirius said: “Yep, I’m definitely gay.” Remus laughed, bowing his head and resting it on Sirius’ shoulder.

“I’m that good?”

“That you are,” Sirius responded without missing a beat. He brought Remus’ head back up with a hand on his neck, then pushed him backwards onto the bed with a forceful kiss. He threw a leg over the other boy, straddling his hips. Remus mumbled an ‘mmm’ into his mouth.

“As much I want to do this, and trust me, you’ve no idea how much, we have Potions in five minutes,” Remus said, pulling away. Sirius just resumed kissing him, then replied: “I reckon I might last shorter than that.” The tawny-haired boy chuckled, but still pushed him off. “I’d rather do it when we have more time. And I’m not too keen on doing detention tonight, when I could be snogging you in some empty classroom.” Sirius grinned. “I like the way you think, Mr. Moony.”

As they hurried down a corridor, Sirius remembered. “Oh, yeah. One more thing. James was there with me last night when you professed your undying attraction to me.”

“Oh, fuck’s sake.”

I am kinda proud of this, hope you like it as much as I do. I thought it was funny and I just love the idea of the usually overly confident, heartthrob Sirius completely losing his cool around Remus and also awkward teenage boys being dumbasses.

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thisnoodlewritesao3 · 4 years ago

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When He Saw You | Tsukishima Kei/Reader

Okay, so this is a little cringe-y but I love it. I kinda want to know whether I should turn it into a more fulfilled story or if I should just leave it as is - let me know!

This has been cross-posted on my AO3 (for more stories, check me out, ThisNoodleWrites

Characters: Tsukishima Kei, Reader, Yamaguchi Tadashi, Haiba Lev, Kuroo Tetsuro, Bokuto Koutarou

Word Count: 2199

Warnings: none other than fluff

Summary: Kei had never been interested in someone before, let alone a girl. Until he saw you.

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When Kei first saw you, you were yelling thank you at Lev Haiba, he had caught you by your bag just as you came tumbling to the ground because of the weight of your bags. There was such a size difference between you that it was funny, next to him you looked like a child on your first day of school. Awe-struck and mouth agape as you looked around at everyone, stabilizing yourself by spreading your legs a little wider. When he first saw you his heart fluttered for the first time.

From what he could hear, you were from the photography club and had asked to come along and take pictures for your assignment, promising to make posters promoting every school's volleyball club. They had excitedly agreed to let you come along to the training camp.

He was busy talking to Yamaguchi when you appeared beside them, quickly snapping shots of them. They both looked at you a little shocked and you burst into an explanation, “I’m just taking ones that you can keep for memories or something! I can delete them if you want.” Throughout your whole speech you had your eyes closed.

You opened your eyes and looked at him with a gentle blush dusting your cheeks, mouth agape. He looked away from you and rubbed his face with the back of his hand, trying to hide the redness on his cheeks.

“L/N F/N.” You shot out your hand introducing yourself in a quiet voice. Were you actually nervous or was he just imagining it? He took your hand, noting the differences between them, his calloused hands relished in the softness of your skin.

“Tsukishima Kei.” He replied. The two of you stood holding your hands, pulling back as Yamaguchi cleared his throat and introduced himself.

You bit your lip as you looked around, ushering them to follow you as you positioned them in front of a cliff, the sun shining low in the sky and giving them an angelic glow. The shutters went, capturing the moment and Kei’s heart. There was an intense passion in your eyes that sparked a fire in him. Your eyes lingered on the pictures before running over to them.

Like a puppy showing off her new toy, you scrolled through the pictures, explaining your thought process to them - no, to him, you only briefly glanced at Yamaguchi, but your eyes would shoot back to Kei with such persistence.

Oh, how he would fall for you piece by piece without either of you being aware.

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The second time Kei saw you was the second day of training. As balls flew around the court, so did you, expertly dodging and dipping with ease, snapping shots of each team during intense moments of action. You were wearing a black tennis skirt, knee high socks partially covered by black knee pads so you could keep up with them without damaging yourself. A plain white t-shirt and a black jacket covered the majority of your upper half, but your sleeves were rolled up. Only a few times did you stop at the sidelines to grab a drink.

He couldn’t get enough of you, making sure to give it his all when rolled over to their side. You adjusted the settings on your camera, swerving out of the way just in time as a ball came flying at you. Every time you took a picture for a different team, you would swap the cards and swoop in just at the right moment. It was like you knew what was going to happen.

When they had to do sprints to the top of the hill, you were waiting at the top, capturing the moment once again. Cheering them on.

At some point you had disappeared leaving behind an emptiness in Kei’s heart that he didn’t know was possible.

Little did he know, you would return later in the day to capture some of the training. A sadness swelled in your heart when you couldn’t see him but you brushed it off and kept doing what you came here to do.

The whole time you knew they were putting in just a little extra effort because you were there, it was nice but you couldn’t help the small frown on your lips.

When you were walking back towards your room, you caught sight of Kei coming out of the bathroom, his hair just a little wet and making you blush. He turned and saw you staring, blushing again. You just waved before running off.

He wished he could tell what you were thinking. You didn’t act like this in front of anyone else, from what he could see, so why him of all people?

The next day when Kuroo and Bokuto stopped to ask him to help them with blocking, you were the first thought on his mind. He bit the bullet and asked Kuroo, “is L/N always so shy with new people?”

It was such a strange question that it caught Kuroo off guard, but the older man chuckled and shrugged. Lev was the one to speak up considering he was in your class, “you mean F/N?” Kei nodded. “No, she’s always super outgoing. She terrified Kenma when he first met her.” Lev laughed at the memory.

“Oh.” That was the only thing he could manage to say.

“Why? Is she acting shy with you?” Lev tilted his head.

Kei went to speak but he was stopped by a soft voice, “I don’t think I’m acting shy.” He was surprised to see you grinning behind him. “If you’re going to practice with them, can I get some shots?” You waved your camera and he quickly agreed.

The practice session was cut short when Kuroo made a comment comparing Kei and Hinata; it made him feel such shame, he had everything that Hinata and yet he could never seem to be better than the shrimp.

He stormed away from the group. Worry painted your face as you followed him out, managing to keep his pace as he stormed back towards his room. You didn’t dare speak - you weren’t scared, just worried that you might upset him more.

When he turned around, realising that he had forgotten his knee pads, you followed. He wasn’t annoyed by your presence, quite the opposite actually, but he couldn’t help the glare that formed in his eyes. You hummed to yourself, never getting more than two paces behind him before you jogged back to his side. Even when he put on his headphones you didn’t get offended, only slipped on yours and smiled.

He was thankful for your company even if he didn’t say it.

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The next time Kei saw you was different. You weren’t wearing your typical clothes that gave you the advantage of moving with them at an alarming speed, you were sitting in the common room wrapped in a blanket, stretching your back and sighing. The only source of light was your laptop; so this is why you normally looked tired, you’d stay up late editing the photos. Your head swayed with the music, full concentration.

Kei walked up to you, almost nervous at being alone with you. “You really shouldn’t stay up this late.” He lifted one of your headphones off your head and caused you to squeal. He smirked at the noise and released it, smacking against your head.

“You’re one to talk, at least I have something to do this late.” You sighed and pushed off your headphones, pausing the music that blasted out of them.

“No comment.” He retorted and pulled up a chair next to you.

You sat in silence for a moment, flicking through pictures until you reached the Karasuno team. You turned your laptop to face him, “can you spare me, like, 10 minutes of your time?”

“Obviously not, can’t you see how busy I am.” Sarcasm dripped from his tongue and you laughed.

“Oh, so sorry, I guess I’ll just keep all the embarrassing photos of you.”

He forced the laptop back in front of him, flicking through the pictures at a vicious rate. You had them all filed and labelled, it was funny considering how aloof and clumsy you were without that handy camera of yours. He cringed at the photos of himself, to him they were all terrible. He wanted to delete them all. He landed on one of him blocking a ball, something about the determination in his eyes made your heart twinge until he moved to delete it.

“Nope!” You snatched it away from him.

“How could you take good pictures of everyone else?” Kei sighed, not bothering to try and snatch it back.

“What do you mean?” You tilted your head and gently put the laptop back on the table.

“I just look so…”

“Stupid?”

“That’s bullying.”

“It would be bullying if I meant it,” you shrugged and scrolled through some of the pictures, eventually landing the one you’d taken when you first met him - before you’d posed him, before you’d even said hello, just acting on your own accord - you smiled at it, turning the laptop back to him, “this is my favourite picture.” Kei blushed. He looked neither good nor bad, there was nothing amazing about it, it was just his face along with Yamaguchi’s, so why would that be your favourite? “Everyone always gets so animated when there’s a camera around, even if they don’t know it, they’re stiff. But you knew and yet you were so calm, relaxed, it was nice. I could have not been there and the only difference would be that this picture wouldn’t exist.” You pointed out, something twinkling in your eyes that he couldn’t place.

“That’s pretty cringe-y.” He hid his excitement, laughing at your mock pain.

“You’re pretty,” you paused, trying to gauge his reaction. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated to the max, he was flushed completely red. He choked in response to the sudden compliment.

“I- uh… I better go to bed.” Kei stood up quickly, hoping you couldn’t hear how his heart pounded in his chest. “And so should you.”

You saluted him, shutting off your laptop and packing up your things, “aye aye, captain.”

He walked away, the wind knocked from his lungs.

You were a mystery to him. And, luckily for you, he loved mysteries.

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When Kei last saw you, they were getting ready to head back home on the coach. You’d pulled everyone in together for a group picture, despite some disagreements, you managed to snag the picture and cheered loudly.

You ran around, saying your goodbyes to everyone who wasn’t in Nekoma, saving Kei and Yamaguchi for last. There was a nervousness on your face as you approached the two. You greeted Yamaguchi, who started heading towards the coach, leaving you and Kei.

There was a comfortable silence until you finally met his eyes, “could I have your number and/or email?” You asked. He was taken aback by your sudden confidence.

“W-why?” He stuttered.

“Well, mostly so I can send you the photos for Karasuno, you seemed like the most reliable, but if you don’t want to I can just go ask-” you turned around and looked towards Daichi, but Kei called out to stop you.

“You can have them.” He blurted, hiding his excitement with a soft smirk.

“Oh! Thank you,” you pulled out your phone and swapped details with him.

“What did you mean by mostly?”

“Hmm?” You tilted your head in confusion.

“Don’t play dumb.” He rolled his eyes and you scratched the back of your head, laughing.

“You got me.” You shuffled your feet. “It was mostly so I could send you the picture and partly because…” you paused, meeting his eyes again, “because I want to talk to you more.”

Kei blushed again, nodding. Somehow you always made him feel like a school-boy with his first crush. He never knew the right words to say to you; over and over again he wracked his brain trying to figure out your motives. It hadn’t crossed his mind that you simply didn’t have any.

“I see.”

“With those glasses, I’m sure you do.” You laughed when he shot you a soft glare.

“I’m not very good at replying.” He admitted, although it was only a half truth, he rarely received messages from people so he had no reason to reply.

“I’m not very good at not spam messaging, so you better reply.”

“Are you always this annoying?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would, actually.”

Now it was your turn to blush before quickly retorting, “learn how to reply fast and you might just find out.”

His teammates calling out his name pulled him from your conversation, he sighed and waved goodbye to you. He was almost sad until you waved with such joy that his heart grew warm.

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When he first saw you, he thought he’d only get the chance to admire you from afar. And while that was almost true, you’d been admiring him too. He’d never been more happy to have his picture taken right alongside his heart. For his little photographer, he was thankful.

#haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #hq tsukishima #tsukishima x reader #writing #my writing #fanfic #fluff

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whitleyschn33 · 3 years ago

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Color in RWBY’s Designs

I’ve been trying to reblog this post for a good 10 minutes, and Tumblr just refuses to let me, and I don’t think I’m blocked, so @strqyr , have a reply

...

Okay, ignoring the out-of-left-field (hah) pivot to politics that cropped up in the comments -

I’m not an artist, but I do follow a few that discuss character design and have attempted some recolors myself, and when it comes to the various designs and colors of the RWBY girls, it’s not so much about the in-universe importance of color, it’s about the more meta principles of character design. Once again, I’m not the most qualified person to talk about this, so excuse me if I get something wrong or ramble.

In visual mediums, a character’s design, more specifically their silhouette and their colors, is what makes them stand out and memorable to an audience; in a lot of cartoons and anime, you’ll likely be able to recognize characters by their designs long before you remember their names, and even if you don’t know their names, seeing the silhouette or even color palette of that character can bring their image to your mind. For example, I haven’t seen an episode of Sailor Moon in my life, but show me Usagi’s silhouette, and I can tell you exactly who that is. I can show you this, and I would bet that 99% of you can tell me what character this is meant to represent despite it literally just being 5 rectangles.

(On a slight tangent, in action shows, colors and the smart placement there-of are doubly important, as they help with keeping track of a character as they move through a cluttered environment and interact with other characters, and keep track of how they move their bodies in that space. To use a specific example from RWBY itself, check out the Nevermore fight from Volume 1 - despite all the debris flying around the screen and the amount of wide shots, it’s easy to keep track of how the characters move around the screen. Yang’s gauntlets help direct your eyes to her punches, and the splash of red in Weiss’s collar makes sure she doesn’t turn into a white blob moving around the screen.)

RWBY specifically is a show that quite literally advertised itself and its character on the premise of color. The show is named not just after the main characters, but the main characters’ colors. The first trailers were the Red, White, Black, and Yellow trailers. Their original designs, while of course using other colors in the palettes, give an overall impression of red, white, black, and yellow, making the characters pop against the stark black, red, and white backgrounds of the trailers, as well as stand out against the background characters that were literally empty black voids of silhouettes. Their initial character designs are tied completely to them representing a specific color, and this color gimmick also makes the girls stand out as characters. Ruby’s red cloak and ruffles, Weiss’s white side ponytail and dress, Blake’s black bow and tuxedo vest, and Yang’s fiery yellow hair and gauntlets are instantly recognizable from a glance, and that’s a sign of good design that makes them distinct.

So, when you get to the later volumes and suddenly the characters are wearing less and less of their original, iconic colors on top of getting new silhouettes, it makes them start looking less and less recognizable as the characters they were originally designed to be, and more like completely different characters. Lets look at Blake and Weiss as an example. If you’d never seen RWBY, could you tell me if these were the same characters?

Alright, let’s fill in the details.

They look like two completely different pairs of characters. It’s not even the clothes themselves, but the colors and shapes of their clothes combined with the radically different hairstyles make the V7 designs look very much unlike the original designs. The girls got alternate outfits in V2, but they all fit the general silhouettes and color schemes of their typical outfits, and were still very much recognizable as the main team, just with new clothes. Such a drastic shift in what types of clothes and the colors they wear in V7, on the other hand, makes them look like different character designs. If you’re going to change what a character is wearing to something very different, keeping the colors consistent helps with keeping them recognizable as the character they are.

Now, changing the design of your character beyond the specific clothes they wear isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Characters change as they progress through a story, and in visual media, changes to character design can be used to signify how they’re changing or how they’re reacting to their environment and new situations. For example, in the S2 premire of Avatar, Zuko cuts off his distinguishing topknot to represent his fall from a Fire Nation prince to an outlaw on the run, and in season 3, the GAang don red Fire Nation clothes as a disguise, ditching their usual blue, orange, and green clothing. In the Owl House, Amity dyes her hair purple to represent her making her own choices rather than letting her family control her life (and I picked this up from gif sets, without having even seen the show). Design changes, even to hair and color, can be used to represent change - and RWBY has managed to do this fairly well in the past! For example, Weiss’s V4 design is very different from her original design - her sleeves and collar are tight rather than poofy, her colors are muted and overrun with greys and blues, her whites are mostly hidden and her red is nowhere to be seen. This works, though, because it represents Weiss’s current situation - she’s being controlled by her father, her individuality represented by her whites and reds being driven out, and her dress is mostly tight against her wrists and neck, like shackles and being chocked. It’s a good way of showing a character’s changed situation, while keeping her recognizable from her side ponytail and poofy skirt remaining the same.

The latest redesigns of Team RWBY, however, don’t do this. They change radically, in color, hair, and clothing shape, and there’s no clear reason why. Why do they change how they look so drastically? What prompted them to style their hair so differently, to cut it so short? Why have they decided to choose different colors to wear? To circle back to the initial post, what part of their character development has changed them from the color they were representing to the color they’re now representing?

For more specific question/examples - what prompted Blake to cover herself in a heavy white coat in V4, when she was heading to a tropical island to recover? Why does she wear a bright white coat for official Huntress business when she’s meant to be a ninja? Why does she cut her hair so short? Why does Weiss cover herself in blues and greys in V7 when blues and greys were used to show her unhappiness and imprisonment by Jacques, rather than returning to lots of whites? Why does she go from a sleek ponytail to a thick heavy braid? Why does Ruby replace her cape and start styling her hair differently? Why does she go from a poofy skirt with ruffles to a very sleek, low volume skirt? Why does Yang not wear any yellow anymore? Why do none of them seem to wear anything suited for the cold? None of these questions have real answers. We can speculate all day, but at the end, that would still just be speculation.

Why does Lillie in Pokemon change her hair and clothes? To prove that she’s not just something for her mother to control and dress up to her ideal of beauty; that Lillie can make her own choices and is ready to stand on her own two feet and do what needs to be done, rather than relying on Repels and the player character.

Why does Blake cut her hair and start wearing so much white? ....

Why does Persona 5′s Akechi’s palette switch from bright white, reds, and golds to dark blacks and purples? To show the tearing down of the Detective Prince façade to the true darkness underneath.

Why does Weiss start wearing so many dark blues and greys? ....

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. Things just change on RWBY, key aspects of their designs like their hair and colors, and for the most part, there just seems to be no reason given to change. I’m not saying things like colors can never change, clearly they can, but for character design, especially in a show so heavily focused on colors and how characters are represented by their colors, it’s not a thing that should be taken lightly; if a character has grown so dramatically that the manner in which they express themselves as a character has changed, like the original poster is implying it can, it should be clear to see why this character has changed in this manner.

Without a good reason for it to change, it feels unnatural, like the character isn’t the same character - so when RWBY’s colors seem to be changing without good reason, creating designs that don’t look right for the character they’re meant to be in the situations they’re meant to be in, it causes people to want to revert back to the original palettes. Not because they’re denying individuality of the characters, but because the characters are no longer designed like the individuals they once were, and artists want to bring that individuality and striking design back through the use of the colors these characters use to define themselves.

#rwby #art #long post #please my more artistic mutuals #please correct me if i'm wrong #i'm not an artist

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thebookreader12345 · 3 years ago

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750 Followers Celebration - Q&A

Thank you so much for supporting me through this journey! You guys don't know how much this means to me. Every single one of you is amazing.

Below the cut are my answers to the questions that you all submitted.

Q: Do you think Jay is going to become Sergeant this season? A: There has been a lot of debate over this question because of the past few seasons and all of the "Easter eggs", like the sergeant exam poster hanging in the background of the show. In my opinion, I do not believe Jay will become Sergeant. Yet. I think it won't be until the beginning of next season because, if this is a possible storyline, I would expect that the producers and writers would make the finale of season 9 about Voight stepping down/getting promoted, etc.

Q: Did Chicago Justice deserve more episodes? A: I'm sort of split with this question. I loved the fact that there was a big episode involving Kevin, and they always included people from Med, Fire, and PD in some of the episodes. However, the whole plot of the episodes was kind of slow because it wasn't like they were police officers and could go out and chase suspects and arrest people and what not. Their job was just to gather the evidence and then present it in court. I think for many, the show fell flat because there wasn't much action, and part of me does agree with that, but the whole idea of the show itself was kind of cool.

Q: What would make you stop watching each Chicago show? A: This is a tough question because I've only ever dropped one show that I can think of, and it was only because the plotline got really dumb. Maybe if some major characters died in each show I'd stop watching it? But then again, I love the One Chicago universe so much that I don't think even that would stop me from watching. So yeah. I really don't know.

Q: Do you believe in magic? A: As much as I would love for magic to be real, I don't believe it is. But I feel like everyone thinks that way. Cause lets be honest, Harry Potter and Disney make magic look so cool. However, we all know deep down somewhere that it's almost impossible for certain things to be real, and magic just so happens to be one of them.

Q: Are you superstitious? A: I'm not the most superstitious person out there, but I do somewhat follow a few superstitions. Whenever I find a penny on the ground with heads facing up, I pick it up because I believe I'll get good luck. Doing the whole "fingers crossed" thing is something I do a lot. I believe you shouldn't open an umbrella in the house or else you'll receive bad luck. Broken mirrors are bad omens. Those are the top 4 I believe in, but other than that, I'm not really too superstitious.

Q: Is your perception of yourself similar or the same to how others perceive you? A: I mean, I would hope so. I appreciate my level of smarts, and whenever my friends acknowledge them or compliment me on them it makes my day. However, with that, people think that I'm always only doing things to boost my intelligence. For example, I love to read. So whenever I say that I didn't do much over the weekend, people always assume that I read a bunch, when I really didn't. Or that I always study for tests or do homework like a week before it's do. That is not the case. But for the most part, I believe my perception of myself is the same as how other people perceive me.

Q: Who is your favorite couple on each One Chicago show? A: Okay, so for Med, there aren't really any couples at the moment besides Maggie and Ben, whom I love but they aren't my favorite, so I'm gonna pick a past couple. When I first started Med, Manstead was my prime ship, so I'll choose them. Will had been pining after Natalie for so long so I was glad when they finally got together. For Fire, it's gotta be Kelly and Stella. They were literally made for each other, and they support each other with everything. Also, they are so cute together and all of Firehouse 51 ships them as well! And for PD, while I do love Burzek, Upstead is my favorite ship at the moment. I've seen the connection between Hailey and Jay since season 5. You don't understand how angry I was in season 7 when Hailey was so close to confessing her feelings. So season 8 made me very happy when Jay and Hailey finally got together.

Q: Jay and Lindsey or Jay and Hailey? A: I respect everyone's opinions on this matter, so hopefully you all respect mine. I thought that Erin was almost toxic in a way for Jay. She continuously broke his heart when all he wanted to do was help him. But what really does it for me is that she left Chicago without telling him goodbye. Hailey, on the other hand, has pushed Jay to seek out help when he needed it, like when she recommended he take seeing a therapist seriously to help with his PTSD, and she is always there for him, no matter what. That's why I believe Hailey and Jay are the better pairing.

Q: Which character death got to you the most? A: There have been too many sad deaths in the One Chicago world. But if I had to pick one, I've gotta go with Otis on Chicago Fire. Otis was always one of my favorite characters, even way back when I watched Fire with my dad when it was first coming out. He was witty and funny, and his friendship with Cruz was everything. So, when I watched the episode where he died, I was full on balling. I had to pause the episode for 10 minutes because I couldn't stop.

Q: Who is your favorite character on each show and why? A: I'm gonna do favorite male and female character because I've got too many favorites from each show. On Med, my favorites are Will and Natalie. Will has been my favorite since day one, and I like that he will go out of his way to help patients, even if it means he could get in serious trouble. Natalie, even though she's not in the show, always pushes for the best of care for her patients, and whenever she dealt with kids it was always the sweetest thing. On Fire, I like Kelly and Sylvie. Kelly is so headstrong and driven, and he will do anything to protect the other members of Squad 3. Sylvie is such a hard worker and you can tell she is passionate about her job. I feel so bad that she's had to go through so many partners. On PD I love Jay and Hailey. Jay has not always been my favorite male character. Back when I watched the show for the first time, I adored Adam. However, I love that Jay has such good morals and is always pushing to do the right thing even when Voight disagreed. Now, it took a few episodes for me to warm up to Hailey, but after seeing her be so badass, it was hard not to like her.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?/How do you get inspiration when there's not a request? A: This question is always hard to answer because I really don't know. Most of the time I'm fulfilling requests sent in by you guys and I just write what comes to the top of my mind. If there are requests that are not requested and I come up with them on my own, chances are I saw the plot somewhere else, like in a book or show or movie, and I just tweaked it a bit to fit the One Chicago universe. Either that happens, or while I'm trying to fall asleep, I make up random scenarios in my head, and if I find one that I really like, I'll make a note of it on my phone so I don't forget it, and then I'll write about it.

Q: Do you think Brett and Casey are endgame? Why or why not? A: I'm gonna go with yes on this one. Now, Brettsey is not one of my top ships in the universe. However, they are cute together, and I've been expecting them to get together for a while. The two of them, even when Gabby was around, had a great relationship and always cared for each other. Plus, Matt jumped out of a firetruck to go help Sylvie when the ambulance flipped. He was willing to risk an injury just to make sure she was okay. And now that they are officially together in Chicago Fire, you can see that they really love and care for each other.

Q: What inspired you to start writing? A: I always seem to get this question whenever I do a q&a, but that's okay because I don't mind talking about it. I first got into stuff like this as a reader. Basically, I went on to Wattpad and Tumblr to read other people's stories. I had no intention of creating my own. And then, one day, I started imagining myself in some of the fandoms I was apart of, and I thought, "If I'm imagining myself in these fandoms, chances are others are too," and I began creating stories that followed the plots of movies and shows exactly, just adding Y/n in it. However, that got tiring after a while because I wasn't able to have much freedom because I was following a set script, and that's when I remembered I had a Tumblr account I never used. So, I revamped my account just a little bit and started posting story ideas I had that I couldn't post on Wattpad because either they didn't fit with the stories or they were for someone I didn't write for on Wattpad. And now, here we are. For anyone interested, I've posted this before but I'll post it again, my Wattpad handle is @Writer_Reader05.

Q: Jay or Will Halstead? A: I'm sorry, but I really can't choose between the two of them. I love them both so much. Will and Jay are two of my favorite characters in the whole One Chicago universe. While they do have some qualities that I'm not the fondest of, at the end of the day, I adore the both of them, and I could never choose between them.

Q: Who would you rather date: Jay or Will Halstead? A: Why do you guys do this to me? I love them both so much! But, if I have to choose, I'm gonna pick Jay. The only reason is because I like the characters in PD more than Med, so if I'm dating Jay, chances are I'm friends with Hailey and Adam and all of Intelligence. Will is just as awesome as Jay though and I feel like sometimes people sleep on that.

Q: Which of the requested fics you’ve written is your favorite? A: I think I'm gonna have to go with a Jay Halstead x reader I wrote titled Two Becomes Three. Something about the plot just makes me smile. And to think of Jay being a father......So yeah, while I have so many amazing requested fics thanks to you all, that one has to be one of my favorites.

Q: What’s your favorite series you’ve written so far? A: I love all of the series I have written. Something about creating a whole story that's more than just one part is always fun. If I have to pick one series, I'm gonna pick On the Loose. It was the first series I wrote on Tumblr and the plot of it is something I'm really proud of. However, From the Big Apple to the Windy City, Identity Loss, and Difference of Opinion are all amazing! The first two are finished series and the last one still has a few chapters left to go. Go check them out if you haven't already.

Q: What's your favorite imagine you've come up with and why? A: I don't have a lot of fics that are solely my ideas. Most of my stories have plots that were sent in by you all. However, if I had to pick a favorite out of my stories, it'd be Back Home for Christmas, a Halstead Sister fic I released when I was somewhat new to the platform. Something about writing sibling fics always makes me happy because I get to express the familial side to the characters.

Q: If you had to be roommates with 5 of your mutuals/fellow writers, who would you pick and why? A: I love all of my fellow writers/mutuals so much! I know how much work we put into whatever we post, and most of us are very active on this site. As for who I would pick to be my roommates, I'd choose @hereforhalstead @fighterkimburgess @halsteadlover @resanoona @sylviebrettsey because I feel like we'd all have great conversations, mainly over One Chicago. And every Wednesday night we'd all watch the episodes live together and experience them as a group and then freak out over what happened..........Now watch me fantasize about this all day.

Q: Do you listen to music when you write? A: It depends. On some days when I plan that I'm gonna write, then yes, I do put on some music. When there are days that I have a few minutes to spare, I don't put on music just because I'm only writing for a few minutes and I don't want to waste time. But mostly when I'm writing I do play music in the background.

Q: Do you know how your fics/stories end before you finish writing it? A: This is a really interesting question. The answer is no, I do not know how I'm gonna end a fic before I finish writing it. The only story I had a set ending for was my series On the Loose, but that one wasn't even fully planned out until I got a chapter or two in. Obviously, if I get a request that includes a set ending, like two characters get together or something like that, then I know what the ending will be. Otherwise, I have no clue.

Q: Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along? A: You know, I can't say that I have. Everyone is different in their own way, and that's what makes us all unique. I would imagine if I did meet someone with a similar personality we'd get along because we'd basically be a carbon copy of each other, but who knows. Maybe our similar personalities would cause us to clash.

Q: Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? A: Not really. I know myself more than anyone else so I know what my limits are and when I've reached them. With people, on the other hand, I always feel like they can be doing more with themselves and their lives. So I do not hold myself to higher standards than others.

Thank you to all of you who sent in questions! I never thought I'd reach 750 followers on this platform. The only reason I have is all thanks to you wonderful people out there!

@winterberryfox @maximeevansblog @scarletsoldierrr @i-like-sparkly-things @dreamingmanip @soph0864 @ryliegh8 @lorenakaspersen @wanniiieeee @nevertoofarfromivar @securityfriendly-jay @pinkbay-love @stephie123

#one chicago #q&a time #q&a session #question and answer #750 followers

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copias-thrall · 4 years ago

Text

Cause I'm Young and I'm Here and So Beautiful

A look into the rise and fall of Mary Goore's flash-in-the-pan modeling career.

~12.5K Mary Goore/Reader *drug/alcohol use; mentions of past child abuse; brief homelessness; plot no porn; POV shift*

This fic was inspired by and is very loosely based on Aurelio Voltaire's early days in NYC in the 90s, though I have set it in Boston in the early aughts. 😊

Many thanks to the artists who did commissions for this! 🥰

One Way Streets

Mary stepped off the regional rail and gripped his backpack. He had $72.57 in cash rolled into his socks and a give-em-hell attitude.

When he’d packed his bag the night before, he wasn’t even sure if he’d go through with it, but he couldn’t stand being home anymore. Some of his friends had told him he was crazy.

"Three more months, dude. You got this. Just finish high school, then bounce."

But they didn’t have to live with his dad and the step-monster. Every day was a new indignity. Having them bitch about his music and his style was one thing—that he could have dealt with—but everything else had just kind of…escalated.

Now that the kiddies were older, they’d turned into gremlins. They’d somehow sensed that Mary wasn’t their beloved older brother—he was some sort of half other. They’d stopped questioning why "mom was so mean" to him and had accepted that she was because there was something wrong with Mary. They realized they could be little shits and blame everything on him.

And dad just didn’t care. He’d throw up his hands and say, "I have to live with her"—as if Mary wasn’t in the same boat.

Dad hadn’t stopped her when—in a rage—she’d smashed every single vinyl album Mary had owned because the twins ruined her nice tablecloth. He’d shrugged when she cut all Mary's guitar strings so he couldn’t play "the devil’s music." He’d held Mary back when she took a match and burned all his secret stuff that Mary kept under his bed—action figures, books, guitar mags, journals—in the backyard because he got detention for smoking. He hadn’t said a word when the police showed up after she came at Mary with scissors because he’d dyed his hair black and he’d pushed her away before she could scalp him.

Mary thought for sure he was going to get carted off to jail as she screamed about him terrorizing the family and being afraid he was going to kill her sons in their sleep, but the officers had just looked at her bored and told her being a teenager wasn’t a crime.

So, no: Mary couldn’t wait 3 more months.

He’d scraped together what money he had left from his secret shifts working as a busboy under the table at a local dive downtown, packed his backpack with the essentials, and walked the 5 miles to the train station instead of going to school.

Eighteen was 10 weeks away. He could fudge it for a few months, especially since he could already get away without using his fake ID to get into shows most of the time.

So, to the big city it was.

He shifted his weight and tried to pretend that he belonged here in Boston, but actually facing the busy streets was a lot different from looking at a bird’s-eye view map. He had a printout in his pocket, but he didn’t want to look like a doe-eyed tourist. So he set off down the seemingly labyrinthine streets in the direction he could have sworn was the correct one.

It wasn't.

When he came out a side alley into Faneuil Hall, he almost wondered if he'd gone through a fairy portal, since he was clear on the other side of town. Begrudgingly, he checked his creased map, and set out once more.

And ended up spit out by the State building.

Finding the hostel turned into a fraught adventure, and he got turned around several times more. When he tried to ask for directions, most people pushed past him while one lady shoved $5 at him. He used the cash to buy a hotdog, and it was the vendor who ultimately gave him directions in his thick, Southie accent.

Of course, making it to the hostel ended up being just part one. The rates were almost double what it stated online ("Sorry, honey—that site hasn’t been upgraded since the 90s."), and two nights were practically all his savings. Mary had thought he’d at least have a couple of days to find a job, not 36hrs.

He left the hostel, wondering for the first time if maybe he shouldn’t go back home…but he decided it was a nice day out. Surely there was some place he could hunker down. Just for the night.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the cops at every fucking turn telling him to move along. And any place out of line-of-sight seemed to already be inhabited.

He finally found a place behind some rocks in the Seaport where he didn’t think he’d be murdered in his sleep, curled around his backpack, and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Mary woke up damp from the dew and the morning sun streaming into his eyes. The birds were creating an awful racket, but Mary guessed it was as good an alarm clock as any.

He ran his fingers through his bird's nest of hair, and he made his way back to the South Station. The men’s room may have smelled like a sewage treatment plant, but at least it was free. He had expected it to be mostly empty at the crack of dawn, but it was full of commuters making that last run to the head before they had to take the train 2hrs out of the city for work.

And it was a sight: a bunch of suits with their fancy lattes washing their hands, and Mary in the corner trying to surreptitiously wipe down with paper towels under his Misfits t-shirt and his shredded jeans. At school, he’d have probably gotten into several altercations by now—no one would have let him just turn into Mary Goore without a fight—but this was Boston, and no one gave him more than a cursory glance.

Just another college kid.

It emboldened Mary to go full-out in the kind of way he had only done when going out to the punk shows downtown at night: kohl all the way around his eyes, and some on his cheekbones; mascara because his lashes are long and thick, and he knows it (his dad had said it made him look hard, and Mary had sneered that maybe that was what he’d been going for. But maybe it had been because he’d liked the way it had made his green eyes pop.); a smear of the step-monster’s fanciest matte lipstick on his full lips; and airplane glue in his hair to give it that lift.

He made a kissy face at himself in the mirror, and headed back out.

It was a nice Spring day—almost boiling in the direct sun—and it tempted Mary to wear only his battle vest, but even he kind of figured applying to jobs half dressed was a mistake.

He walked all over the city, trying not to get lost, looking for any kind of work—dishwasher, busboy, barback—but all he had to show for it was blistered feet and a raging appetite. The only good part of the day was that he noted any restaurant or bakery that looked like it might toss perfectly good food at the end of the day.

He and his friends had become experts at dumpster diving in his podunk town, and he felt confident that he had a good feel for a jackpot. Mary staked out a bakery and was rewarded with a find of "old" bagels. He shoved as many as he could into the nooks and crannies of his backpack before slinking off to the Commons to inhale at least two of them.

Cold, stale dough never tasted so good.

He watched the tourists and the professionals walk by in ones and in groups while he ran his bare feet through the grass. Some laughed with each other as they sauntered down the path while others seemed singularly intent on their ultimate destination. A pack of dogs ran and played with each other as their owners looked on fondly, and nearby the baseball diamond hosted a casual game.

Mary counted his lucky stars that his first week in Boston was April at its kindest—always mild during the day, even when it turned cloudy, and a few times even downright warm. The nights turned chilly, though, and it had Mary in more layers than an onion. If the birds or damp didn't wake him, his butt cramps from being curled in a tight ball all night did.

He spent those days walking around the city proper looking for work. He wasn't adventurous enough to make the leap across the bridges to Cambridge just yet, but his travels gave him a good sense on how the different sections of Boston connected—and showed him potential places to crash at night. He didn't even mind living off day-old garbage food and drinking from bubblers (he'd bought a water for the express purpose of reusing the bottle), but the barren wasteland that seemed to be the job market was beginning to weigh on him.

At home, he could always find a shit job if he was willing to put up with shit hours and ridiculous requests. Here, though, Mary was just one of many desperate people willing to do desperate work.

And he didn’t look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

@dipendancesld

Hashtag WTF

I’m scrolling through Insta on the T, and I’m way down the rabbit hole of hashtags. New content was at a minimum this morning (how can I follow accounts in triple digits and only see the same 4 posts?!), so I’d started with some art tags and ended up where I usually end up—trolling social media for blurry pictures of my boy.

His band has been a local staple for years—or at least that’s what he told me on our first date. I had just moved from New York after a nasty breakup, ready to start fresh, and I’d seen him at a coffee shop hanging posters for his next show in his leather jacket, asymmetrical Metallica crop top, and stomping boots.

Fresh had never looked so good.

Then, a few months back, an online publication had featured his band in the year’s 50 best bands "you’ve never heard of," and now the band's starting to gain traction.

He’s starting to gain traction.

Finding the new online content of him first has become a game the two of us play. We had to stop counting images posted from the popular fan accounts because Mary's now acquaintances with most of them, and I said it was hardly fair to snipe me that way. Mary had pouted—but it was to cover up his grin. So now we troll for the pictures of his latest gig or at his favorite haunts from either his casual fans or one of his new ones. I even have a whole range of hashtag typos saved if I really want to triumph, since Mary just doesn't have the attention span.

I usually win, though, by virtue of not keeping Rockstar Hours—and because Mary doesn’t have a smartphone. Mary delights in spending the wee hours while I'm sleeping finding new content, and I'll often wake to one he's pulled up on my laptop and a "suck it" sticky note stuck to my monitor.

(But I’m reigning supreme.)

There’s a thirst tag I sometimes comb through (for reasons), and today I’m desperate for that morning serotonin to keep me from dozing off, which is why I stumble across a particularly convincing cosplayer in some…risqué poses and outfits.

The dude is really good, and I have to admit he really does have Mary’s mannerisms down pat. He’s younger and a little skinnier than Mary is now, but his facial expressions are on point. I zoom in to see the contouring technique because he's using one of those filters to make it look old…and that’s when I sense something off. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but usually there’s an uncanny valley to his serious cosplayers, and this dude looks so real. He’s even 100% accurate with the mole placement, which is something I never see.

My heart does a flip-flop.

Is that…actually Mary?

Foundling

Mary's sixth night in the city, it rained. It was more of a brief Spring shower, but it was still enough to soak him and his backpack through. He shivered through the early morning hours until the sun came up, then he made his way to the Commons to lay his belongings—and himself—out into the sun to dry.

By midday, he had a slight sunburn across his nose, but most of his things were dryish—though the food was a soggy lost cause. He cut his losses and decided to buy a sausage from the hotdog vendor, even if that meant he was down to $52.37 in his sock bank.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever eaten in his entire life (sometimes he still dreams of it), and he gobbled it down as he sat in the grass and watched the show of people pass by.

He could take today off from his job search.

Just another Groundhog Day of rejections.

A gaggle of kids about his age walked past, and he lit up when he saw them: studs and bright hair and cuffs and combat boots. They ran and shrieked and shoved at each other, and Mary had never felt such longing to be a part of something.

Not that nebulous feeling of "my world is out there somewhere," but "my world is right there if I can just get to it."

And he realized maybe he could.

These were his people.

Mary hopped off the bench and approached the boisterous group.

"Uh, hey…guys."

The pack stopped and looked him over, confused but not hostile.

"Oh hey, man" said a girl with green fins and a studded, leather jacket.

"Hey."

I have nowhere to go. Can I go with you?

"Sorry, I forgot your name."

"Oh, you don’t—"

A guy in a tight striped shirt, snake bites, and blue hair interrupted him.

"Shit, were you in my intro into film class last year?"

Mary was a high school dropout.

"Nah, dude. I’m new and shit."

…But he wasn’t stupid.

A curvy white goth with bleached blonde hair and a cream princess dress smiled at him.

"Aww, that’s rough, honey. If you think about it, they really ought to give transfers on-campus housing. It sucks to be so new and away from the action."

Mary nodded. "Yeah. Sucks."

"Well, we’re going to The Pit, wanna come?"

"If you guys don’t mind…"

"Fuck, the more the merrier!"

Mary smiled as they assimilated him into the group. He found out the goth’s name was Vanessa ("But call me Vanity."), green fins was Alexa ("Or Alex. I’m trying it out."), striped shirt was Billy, and the two other punks were Mandi (Manic Panic red) and Aaron (band tee, spiked collar).

No one laughed at him when he introduced himself as Mary or asked him why he had a girl’s name.

They took him onto the T at Charles MGH, and Mary marveled at the setting sun over the Charles River before the train ducked underground to barrel in Cambridge. At Harvard, they ushered him off the train and directly into The Pit, and Mary almost cried when he saw the pit rats there playing hacky sack, strumming guitars, and smoking cloves. Mary watched as his group high-fived, bumped chests, and hugged nearly everyone there before introducing him as if they’d known him for years.

He was shit at hacky sack, but he accepted a round on the guitar and shared a clove with a white girl who had a rat's nest of hair.

"Fuck their beauty stands," she said when she caught Mary staring.

Mary smiled and pointed to his own mess of hair. "Fuck ‘em," he repeated.

She cackled and handed him a brown bag with what he expected to be whiskey, but tasted like turpentine.

She laughed harder at his face as he coughed, and she pounded him on the back.

"Moonshine, dude. Lenny makes it in his bathtub."

"Which one is Lenny," Mary asked as he wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, he’s not here. He goes to MIT. We have a strict trade agreement—booze for pot. I’m Katie."

Head fuzzy, Mary had made out with her until Aaron tugged on his arm.

"Shit dude, we gotta go before the T closes. You live close to here?"

"Uh…"

"Aww, I think he got into Lenny’s moonshine," said Vanity. "If he’s a transfer, I bet he’s at some shithole in Allston. You in Allston, honey?"

Mary just nodded.

"All right then," said Alex, taking charge. "We’ll put him up tonight. There’s no way he’s gonna make it back to Allston by himself, and I’ll be fucked if I’m trekking out there without a BU party to crash."

Mary wobbled slightly as Alex took his arm in his and led him to the T.

"Ok, we gotta go now or we’ll all be hoofing it."

They took Mary back to their dorm by the Hatch Shell and signed him in as a guest.

"Is this ok?" Mary asked warily—he didn't want to get kicked out in the middle of the night.

Mandi patted him on the back.

"We do it all time. No one really gives a shit. Vegan Mick dropped out 2 semesters ago and they don’t even check for his ID."

That night, Mary slept in the common room on a lumpy couch that was half as long as he was.

It was heaven.

The next morning seemed like the end, and Mary slumped as Vanity to sign him out. For one brief day he'd been a part of something, and now it was back to Mary, party of one. But Vanity took one look at his face and asked if he wanted to get breakfast at the dining hall.

Of course, he wanted to…but he thought of the dwindling cash in sock bank and hesitated. Vanity, bless her, misread his trepidation.

"It's on me, sweetie. I know most transfers don’t opt in. Too expensive when it’s not bundled. No worries, I got a ton of points I don’t use."

Alex and Aaron were already half done with their food when Vanity and he joined them, and they looked on in amusement as Mary ate half the breakfast buffet.

When the subject of classes came up, he shrugged off questions.

"None this morning."

Alex narrowed her eyes at him.

"What year did you say you were?"

"Sophomore."

"Not a freshman?"

Mary shook his head. "I’m not a freshman."

She seemed about to ask another question, so Mary quickly changed the subject.

"I thought I’d spend the day applying for jobs. You guys know of any place that’s hiring?"

"No work study?"

"No."

"What kind of work you looking for?"

"Shit, anything. I’ll sweep the fucking floors."

They bandied about ideas, places for Mary to try, but no one had any leads. Too soon, some unknown gong had them scurrying to get to class.

Mary suddenly panicked.

"Hey, do you guys mind if I spend the night again? I mean…"

"Yeah, sure," said Vanity. "Aaron?"

"Yeah, man. Meet me after class and I'll swipe you in."

It apparently was a time-honored tradition, passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen, on gaming the guest system. Most kids used it to essentially move their significant others into their dorm rooms, but a handful every year used it to give haven to others who had questionable housing situations.

So, just like that, Mary had a place to rest his bones.

@dilfpassing

A Deeper Look

I’m so intent on scrolling through the comments on the grainy pics—which I'm sure now are actual scans—that I completely miss my stop, and I have to put my phone away so I can wheeze lightly jog my way to where I work as a receptionist at an alternative hair salon.

It’s really important that I start a good hour before we open so I can return any calls left on our voicemail first thing in case I can fit anyone in today. Which means I have to shelve my find for now, much to my irritation.

Mornings are super-busy because apparently there are some people in the world that like getting up with the sun and want everything done by noon. (June Cleaver’s salon lets me get away with a lot—like coming to work in denim short-shorts and ripped tights, free hair colors, and a snarky attitude—but late start times aren’t one of them.) I honestly don’t have room in my brain to obsess about the pictures because I’m too busy answering calls, making coffee, settling accounts, and giving the new customer spiel for the 57th time to a walk-in.

It’s just after midday, when Penny, the shampoo girl, collects my cash for the salon-wide sandwich run, and I finally have a moment to breathe. And obsess.

I take out my phone again, and I have to retrace my steps because of course the app has refreshed, which is why Sonia has the time to look over my shoulder.

"Missing dream boy’s dick so much you gotta spend your lunch hour ogling pics of him on the internet?"

I zoom in on the one of maybe!Mary in his underwear.

"Who does that look like to you?"

Sonia makes a guh sound in her throat and backs away.

"I don’t need to see your intimates!"

"That’s the thing! It’s not mine!"

"Your boy’s nudes get leaked??"

I wave my arms around.

"I don’t freakin’ know! They may not even be him. Fucking. C’mere and help me out!"

Sonia warily creeps back over, and so does Ryan, since all the yelling has attracted him.

The three of us peer over the phone as I scroll through the images again.

By the time Penny comes back with lunch, we’ve gone back and forth on who’s in the images—Mary or a fake—and I haven’t been able to do any actual research. The afternoon rush starts, and I have to table the whole thing again, having made no progress at all.

It isn’t until near-closing, when most of the other stylists have gone home—and it’s only June who does the post-work crowd—that I can really dig into the matter.

A deep dive and a couple of defunct, decade-old forums later, I find that what I took as an aspirational hashtag was actually the name of a zine called "Heroes."

There’s like, zero online trail about it—except for a few other grainy scans of other pages of articles, poetry, concert pictures, and art—but it seemed to be an early aughts missive for local underground culture and color.

It still doesn’t explain why Mary’s in there in various states of undress and poses.

Or why Mary has never said a word about it to me.

Stripped Bare

Mary settled into a sort of routine. He spent most days looking for a job—any job—with his backpack full of food from their dining hall. Most nights he rotated couches on different floors so the RAs didn’t notice that he basically lived there.

He made friends with Vegan Mick for about 5 seconds until Mary had eaten an entire Rotisserie chicken from 7-11 in front of him. Mick had launched into a whole spiel, and Mary had pointed out that Mick's jacket and Docs were made of leather. He’d only meant it as a joke—a callout in answer to a callout, like he'd do with his friends back home—but Vegan Mick had turned purple, then iced Mary out every time he saw him after that.

Oops.

The brief friendship had lasted long enough, however, for Mick to give Mary some tips and tricks of being homeless.

Homeless.

That had been a tough pill to swallow. Until Vegan Mick had put Mary’s situation like that, Mary had just thought of himself between places.

But it was true: he didn’t live anywhere. He skated by on the kindness of his new friends, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the ruse of "transfer student who didn’t like his shithole apartment and was too busy job searching to concentrate on classes."

He still spent a few nights a week finding an out-of-the-way place outside to hunker down in or huddling in with Katie and a few of the other gutter punks under their boxes in the corners of the T stations. He knew they would have been more than happy to make room, anyway, but Mary always emptied his backpack of all the pilfered dining hall food for distribution amongst them.

It honestly wasn't so terrible now that he had friends and a warm place to go on cold or rainy nights, but.

He needed an actual place to live. To afford an actual place to live, he needed a job. To get a job, he needed a place to live.

It seemed like a catch-22, and he began to despair that he’d never get ahead…until Mandi offered him a leg up.

Mary was sitting on the grass in the Commons in the shade, thinking that with summer coming up, maybe he could fudge it until the gang came back in September. There was always Katie and The Pit, and Mary was sure he could chip in somehow.

Mandi sat down next to him.

"I thought that mess of hair was you, Mare."

"Hey, Mandi. What’s kicks?"

"You still looking for a job?"

Mary put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Don’t remind me."

"You over 18?"

Just last week. But Mary hadn’t said, since they thought he was a Sophomore.

"Yeah."

"Wanna be at least 21?"

Mary grinned at her.

"That’s what my fake ID says."

She laughed, a tinkling thing.

"You got anything against strip clubs?"

Mary furrowed his brows at her.

"Uh…what’s the right answer here?"

She shoved him playfully.

"Do you want a job?"

"Yeah?"

"Then say no."

"No. No problems with strip clubs." He squinted at her. "Are they looking for male strippers?"

She laughed again.

"Definitely not." She canted her head at Mary. "I mean, you're very pretty, Mare. I could probably put you on as one of the girls…even with these triple As," she flicked playfully at his nipple, which had him grunting and batting at her, "but I was thinking more behind the scenes."

Mary held up his arm and made a weak muscle.

"I don’t think I’d be much of a bouncer, Mands."

"You said you’d wash dishes, sweep floors and shit, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the club I work at—"

"The club at you what now?"

Mandi gave him a strange look.

"Yeah. The strip club I work at."

Mary’s eyes bugged out.

"As a…waitress?"

"As a stripper, Mary. Duh." At his dumbfounded look she shook her head. "It’s kind of extra credit, as a dance major. I’m going to turn it into my thesis. Plus, I make hella bank."

She swept her arm across the park that made up her college "campus."

"How else do you think I can afford this rock-and-roll lifestyle? Not all of us are here on scholarship or mom and dad’s dime."

She tilted her head at him.

"I thought you’d get it."

When Mary didn't respond, she touched his shoulder.

"Mare. I know you don't go here."

"W-what…? I…"

He looked at her, wide-eyed as the blood drained from his face.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not gonna tell anybody. Not if you don't want me to."

Mary looked down. "Thanks." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You know that means I've got no address."

Mandi bumped his shoulder and waved his words away.

"A lot of the girls dance. Paddy is used to dorm rooms as addresses. You can use mine."

Mary looked at her, hoping he could convey every ounce of gratitude he was feeling.

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder.

"So, you up for it? Sweeping floors and bussing tables?" She leveled a look at him. "Cleaning up puke?"

Anything.

"Fuck, I’m desperate, Mands. I’ll hold their hair back if it means a paycheck."

"That’s the spirit!"

***

Mary was sure Patrick was part of the mob—or at least in cahoots. The guy had taken one look at Mary’s ID and had said, "But how old are you really?" and Mary had said, "Nineteen."

Patrick had thrown up his hands. "Well, you ain’t gonna be serving alcohol anyway, kid. Your job is to do whatever I tell you. Some asshole breaks a bottle, you clean up the glass so the girls don’t hurt themselves. Some idiot ralphs all over the toilet seat, you scrub the shit out of that fucker. A bachelor party leaves a table a hot mess, you better be out there clearing off the table for the next one, got it?"

Mary had nodded.

"You show up at 5 to help the girls set up the bar. You stay til whenever it takes to close down—but you only get paid 'til 2am—and you get an hour to eat, unpaid. You don’t bother the girls, and," Patrick had leaned in, "you don’t steal from me."

Mary had gulped and nodded emphatically.

Patrick had jabbed a finger at him. "That includes the booze. If I get fucked because some snot-nosed, underage kid is drinking with my good friends Jim and Johnnie, I’m gonna be very put out."

"Got it, sir."

"Don’t call me sir. I’m Paddy to my friends, so you can call me Patrick."

"Yes, Patrick."

Patrick had looked him over.

"You get paid as an independent contractor just like the girls, so you gotta deal with your own taxes, you got that? I’ll start you at $10 an hour."

Mary’s eyes had gone wide. Back home he was lucky to get 5.

"Ten…?"

Patrick had tilted his head again.

"No, you’re right, 12. Do a good job, and I’ll think about raising it to 15."

Mary had to physically stop his jaw from dropping.

"You do weeknights for now so if you fuck up it’s not that much of a problem. If you don’t fuck up and the girls don’t hate you, you can get weekends. Deal?"

Mary had sat up straighter. "Deal." He’d held his hand out, but Patrick had just looked at it until Mary pulled it back into his side.

"Ariel vouched for you, so I’m giving you a shot. Don’t make her regret it."

Mary had shaken his head as Patrick had handed him some forms to fill out.

"Come back at 4 tomorrow with these and we’ll get you started. Now, get out, I got shit to do."

Mary had taken the forms and skedaddled.

Mandi was outside waiting for him, all smiles.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah, but fuck—your boss is scary."

"Nah, he’s a teddy bear."

***

The job was awful.

The puke was an almost nightly occurrence, and by the end of the first week, little cuts covered Mary’s hands from the broken glass. The customers were loud, rowdy, and acted as if their mother was going to clean up after them.

Mary swore he would never get the beer smell out. It now lived in his soul.

One dude punched Mary and broke his nose for no reason Mary could tell before the bouncers dragged the guy away. The girls gave him some tampons to stop the bleeding, and Mary finished his shift.

Patrick paid Mary in cash at the end of every week with a "It’s your job to report that, not mine," and at the end of the month, Patrick bumped Mary up to $15/hr. He worked 5 days a week because, according to Patrick, "The Lord gave us a day of rest, and you get one day off per week."

Mary never reported a single cent to the IRS.

The girls loved him, and joked that Patrick had gotten them a pet. They showed him winged eyeliner and smokey eyes and how to contour. They guffawed when they watched him try out their shoes like a newborn deer. On slow nights, they tried to show him pole techniques.

He saw the gang less and less because by the time they were getting out of class, he was going into work, and when he was done work, they were crawling into bed. Fortunately, the desk sitters seemed to forget that he wasn’t an on-campus "student" and didn’t even bother signing him in anymore. There were a few sticklers, but Mary found that—while back home he was less than scum—here, he attracted all the right kinds of attention…and a smirk with the right compliment went a long way.

By the time their school year ended, Mary had saved up $1,000 (and he needed to transfer his money out of sock bank and into the ripped lining of his jacket).

Even though they didn't know just how much they'd saved him, Mary showed up on the last day as thanks to help them all move their stuff into family cars or rented trucks. They hugged him goodbye and said to ring them next semester.

Mandi bopped him on the nose and told him to keep his nose clean.

Mary took a sublet in Allston with 2 BU kids and a Berkley grad student. The "room" was a closed-in porch with a sleeping bag left by the last resident—but it was $400 a month until September, utilities included.

At first, Mary didn't know why the gang was so snobby about Allston, but the summer seemed to be one continual party. It didn't matter what day Mary got up, there were always broken beer bottles and stale beer on their front stoop, and the apartment had a designated watering can for washing away the vomit that dripped down from the top porches to their own.

But he took it in stride, and when he wasn’t at the strip club or sleeping, he was partying with the BU kids, or letting the Berkley grad show him better string fingering techniques.

Mary still tried to get out to The Pit with what groceries he could spare, but Katie had moved on with some of the others to do a protest tour with an activist street band that had come through town, and without her or the gang, it made Mary feel lonely.

By the end of the summer, Mary had saved up enough money for first, last, and security. He even had some left over to buy more than ramen and some new clothes. To Mary, it felt like a million dollars. He rented a garden-level apartment in the cheap part of Jamaica Plain for September 1st and spent that entire day with the BU dudes driving around in their rented truck for Allston Christmas’s best furniture finds.

Mary ended up with a mattress that he hoped on a wish and a prayer didn’t have bedbugs, a mismatched set of dishes, plastic drawers that were slightly warped, and a broken futon frame he swore he would fix. Throw in a few sets of slightly used string lights, and Mary’s cave felt downright homey.

When the gang got back, he simply told them he’d dropped out.

"Yeah, I just don’t think college is for me. Music’s my real passion, you know?"

Alex had groaned.

"I knew that Berkley kid was gonna be a bad influence on you."

Mary shrugged.

"My grades were shit anyway. But I’m still around, you know. The strip club’s only a block from campus."

"Because we saw you so much then," deadpanned Billy.

"Hey! Stop piling on Mary," said Vanity. "He’s following his path."

Mary shot her a wide smile.

"Thanks, Vanity."

Patrick finally gave him a little more leeway with his days off, and Mary started taking Saturday night to join the gang in Harvard Square for the shadow cast of Rocky Horror. One of Aaron’s classmates, Amber, was in it, and they all wanted to support her.

Mary felt that something again. That thing that told that this was his place and his people. This eclectic group who got up in front of strangers every week in their underwear for free enthralled Mary.

He and Amber bonded immediately, and Mary began going even without the gang. The cast welcomed him in as an honorary groupie, and Mary's friendship with the gang waned. There was still Mandi to cavort with at the strip club, but now when Mary wasn't there, he was at any one of the Rocky crew's apartments getting high and playing dress up.

"You’ve got such a Look, Mare," sighed Amber. "I’d kill for your cheekbones."

"I’d kill for your tits."

She slapped him playfully. "Don’t be gross."

"No, I’m serious. Someone once put it in my head that I'd be a hot chick."

The girls had giggled and proceeded to dress him up in bras and corsets with cutlets. They added a wig, and the glo-up surprised even Mary.

Still buzzed, they went out for girl’s night and hit up all the bars in Fenway and flirted their way to free shots from the dude bros before batting their falsies at bouncers to let them into the clubs ahead of the line and without the cover.

The cutlets eventually became a nuisance—and soon they were all flapping them about above their heads as they danced—but Mary had loved the feel of the lace and satin corsets against his skin.

When they’d all collapsed in a pile at the end of the night, Mary wondered if they’d tell him where to get some lingerie for himself.

***

By August, Mary was ready to quit the strip club.

He was tired of cut fingers (they were making it hard to play the guitar he’d bought), the drunks, and the sick everywhere. Now that he had a little cushion, he thought maybe he could at least find something with better hours.

Mandi had graduated and was well into a summer internship at Disney in hopes they’d bring her on as a dancer.

Alex had also graduated and moved out to LA to make it as a film editor.

Vanity and Aaron had started dating after finals, and they had moved in together in Cambridgeport for their last year.

Billy had stopped going to classes before dropping out altogether. No one seemed to know what happened, and when they called his home, his mother just said he was unavailable.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to stick around the Grid anymore, and it was a bitch of a commute back to his place if he wasn’t going to hang out with the Rocky crew. He landed a job at a record store that was walking distance to his apartment.

Patrick seemed surprisingly sad to see him go, saying, "Ah, the good ones smart up," and gave him a $500 bonus for not "fucking up."

Tim, one of the older Rocky people, turned out to not live too far from him, and when Mary started hanging out there, so did the party.

Now that Mary was no longer shackled by the strip club’s hours, his world opened a few more degrees. He spent his nights dressing up while he watched the cast rehearse. (When he showed them a move or two he learned from the women at the club, they tried to get him to do a guest star as Frank. But Mary had shaken his head and said that wasn’t the kind of performing he wanted to do.)

When they weren't rehearsing, they dragged Mary to TT The Bear’s, The Middle East, and The Milky Way Lounge for underground shows. They took him to fetish night at ManRay after a trip to Hubba Hubba for pleather and lingerie, and Mary made a lot of new friends.

Sometimes, Mary would show up to work straight off a night out in his club clothes, eyeliner smudged and lipstick smeared. It should have got him fired, but his boss just shrugged.

"I used to keep rockstar hours too."

Mary still wore all his old vestiges—his battle vest and his ripped jeans—it was just that now he sometimes added a corset and heels.

Wherever Katie was now, he hoped she knew he was still fucking their beauty standards.

ry.omen Insta

Answer Me This

I practically vibrate the entire way back to our place. I'm still trying to wring information out of the internet like it's too-wet clothes, but the only thing I accomplish is making myself motion sick on the bus, so I put my phone back in my pocket and breath through my nose.

When I get home, Mary is sprawled across the couch in his pjs with various limbs hanging over sides and edges as he watches some extreme sport show on my laptop.

I wonder if he just got up, but I see the start of dinner on the stove, so I decide not to snark at him.

"Hey," he says without looking up.

I am, however, gonna need some answers on "Heroes."

I gently close the laptop, and he meets my eyes.

"What?"

I climb onto the couch, and Mary’s limbs recede like vines to make room for me as I scroll through my phone to my photo app where I’ve saved screenshots.

"Lucy," I say in a terrible accent, "you have some ‘splaining to do!"

Mary squints at me and takes my phone, his expression morphing into one of surprise.

"Shit, babe. Where’d ya find these??"

"So they are you!"

He chuckles.

"Christ…I haven't thought about these in fucking years."

"Mind telling me what the fuck?" I ask, my hands on my hips.

I'm only half joking.

Mary grimaces at me.

"Ah."

"I'm gonna need more than that, mister."

He rubs the back of his neck.

"Fuck, you know those were hard times for me."

I know about his family, the homelessness. I know he tried out a lot until he found a life that fit. He'd given me the overviews with occasional anecdotes filled with names I never remembered.

But none of them included naughty pictures.

I worm my way under his arm.

"Yeah, I know, Mare."

His hand strokes down my arm.

"I mean, shit. I was kinda an asshole, you know?"

I wrap an arm around his chest.

"You're still kind of an asshole, Goore."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

When he doesn't say more, I poke him hard in the side.

"I’m literally dying here."

He laughs a little.

"Fine. But you gotta remember you asked."

Model Behavior

One day, Mary was walking down the street on his way to drinks with the new friends he'd made the weekend before. It was a good day. He wasn’t hungover as fuck, his makeup was only smudged artfully, and he was pretty sure he was going to get laid.

A guy in a leather jacket and tight jeans maybe a few years older than Mary stopped him on the street.

"Hey, man! I love your style."

Mary batted his eyelashes at him. "Thanks, dude."

"You ever think of dark modeling?"

Mary squinted his eyes at him.

"Dark what now?"

"You know—modeling but like," he gestured up and down Mary’s form, "for dark beauties. Show the world beauty isn’t cookie cutter."

"For like what? A website or some shit?"

The guy dug into his pocket, pulled out a card case, and handed one to Mary.

Heroes Greg Karson, Photographer/Web Design Butera School of Art

Actually, Mary had heard of this. It was a zine about the local happenings around town—concerts, art shows, parties, etc. There was a stack of them next to "Rrriot!" in the record shop. He’d flipped through one occasionally, mostly interested in the band reviews.

"We’re really on the lookout for anyone with the right look. You know, wear stuff you already own."

"So like a street fashion spread?"

"Well, we might do a little more with it, but—you know how it is. Most of the budget goes toward printing costs."

Mary perked up.

"Would I be paid?"

Greg laughed.

"Peanuts, my dude. But yeah. Even if it’s a T token. You interested, then?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Mind if I take a few test shots."

Mary smirked at Greg.

"How do you want me?"

"Just natural."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Mary arched his back and gave Greg his best snotty hipster face.

Greg dug out a digital camera from his carrying case and took a dozen or so pictures of Mary from different angles while telling him to turn this way or that.

Afterwards, the two of them huddled over the camera and scrolled through the shots.

"Aw yeah, this one. I love the attitude. The guys are gonna love it. You have a number where we can reach you?"

Mary gave him the number of the record shop. (His apartment had a phone, but he’d never gotten around to wanting to pay for service.)

Later, he and Amber looked up the Angelfire website on the back of the card. It was one page that contained the mission statement, bios of the creators, and locations to pick up the zine.

"Omigod—you’re gonna become a famous model, Mare!"

"Yeah, right. You know most of it ends up in the trash, right?"

But when Ben called, Mary said he was game. He directed Mary to a co-op in a converted warehouse in Dorchester, and Mary brought his favorite clothes in a borrowed duffle.

A girl in cat pajamas opened the door and pointed at a set of metal stairs with her cereal spoon.

On the second floor, Mary found Greg setting up a makeshift studio. A girl with multiple piercings and yarn dreads leaned against the wall in her black babydoll dress.

Mary sidled up to her.

"You here to model, too?"

She gave him an unimpressed once-over.

"I’m the art director, asshole."

Mary flushed hard as she turned to Greg.

"Couldn’t find one with brains?"

She turned back to Mary.

"I don’t know if you thought this would be a good way to meet chicks or what, dude. But I’m letting you know right now that I’m here on my day off to make sure this adheres to our aesthetic, so if you're not serious, fuck off."

Mary rubbed the back of his neck.

"Shit, sorry. I was expecting a dude named Ben."

She waved her hand in the air as if dispelling Ben.

"The Bens are morons. Good idea, terrible execution. I’m here to make sure we remain true to the idea of 'Heroes,' so don’t fuck up my shoot." She gave him a once over. "Christ. You have any experience?"

Greg turned from where he was testing the white balance.

"Angelique, stop harassing the talent. We get it, you have a degree from RISD."

Angelique snorted.

"As if I don't hear you going on and on about being a professional photographer. 'Hey, lemme shoot your portfolio, baby.' Whatever. As if we're not your only professional credit."

"Hey—you wanted a photographer for peanuts? You got me. You wanted models for peanuts? You got him."

Mary gave her his full snaggle-toothed grin.

"I take T tokens."

Angelique sighed, then pasted on a smile.

"Hi! So happy you’re here!" Her smile drooped. "You got your wardrobe in there?"

"Yeah."

Mary handed her the duffle, and she handed him release forms.

"Here: sign these"

She pawed through his offerings.

"Not bad, not bad." She pulled out a corset and his heeled boots. "We'll keep you in your jeans and have you wear your jacket over your corset. Cool?"

Cool.

The shoot was as professional as a shoot in a warehouse in what Mary was taking to usually be a living room could be. Angelique directed Greg with what she wanted. Greg called out positions and expressions for Mary to pose in.

It was surprisingly hard work, and by the end of a solid hour, his smirking lip was getting tired. Angelique and Greg scrolled through the shots, murmuring to themselves and nodding.

Mary waited—greeting at the other inhabitants as they squeezed by on their way either up or down—until Angelique approached him.

"That’ll do. You mind if we post on our website?"

Mary preened.

"Yeah, that’s kosher."

She handed him a pen and pocket notebook.

"Write down a quick bio."

He scribbled down a quick elevator pitch

Into general skulking and metal \m/

and handed the notebook back to her.

"Great, thanks."

She handed him a $20 bill, her eyes skimming him up and down.

"Next time we should show off those hip bones. Just jeans, I think."

Mary perked up. "Next time?"

"We’ll call you."

***

"Omigod, omigod!"

Amber perched on the record store counter, flipping through "Heroes," as Jon peered over her shoulder.

"Mary…look at you!"

Mary tried to swallow his smug smile.

Failed.

"Yeah. I’m hot shit, ain’t I?"

She bopped him on the nose with the newsprint.

"Don’t be vain."

He showed her his toothy smile.

"I like to think of it as confidence."

"So did Icarus."

Mary snorted and went back to putting prices on the new CDs.

"The camera loves you," said Jon, who was always quiet and reserved as you please…until he put on Frank’s corset and heels.

Mary had tried flirting with him, but Jon always ducked his head and played it off.

"Thanks, man," said Mary, giving him a softer smile.

"So??"

"So what, Amber?"

"Are you gonna do it again?"

Mary shrugged.

"I mean, if they call me, sure."

But he was kind of hoping they would.

When the next issue came out weeks later, Mary stared at the cybergoth on the pages and felt himself deflate. Listlessly, he thumbed through the delicate print, barely skimming the section devoted to the World/Inferno Friendship Society’s set he’d been at the week before.

He set it down with a sigh before he picked up his guitar and plucked out a tune he was trying to coax into a riff.

By the time a Ben called again, Mary had given up the modeling thing as a one-off.

"Hey, dude—thought maybe you guys forgot about me," Mary said in a teasing tone.

The Ben on the other end chuckled.

"It’s like herding cats to get shit out. Nah, dude—we definitely want you to be one of our regulars. You in for next Saturday?"

He was.

***

Over the course of a year, "Heroes" had Mary come out multiple times for shoots. Mainly, Mary wore his own clothes and did his own makeup, but occasionally, Angelique wanted something specific.

"How comfortable are you with boudoir shots?"

"With what?"

"Like a pinup, but more…saucy than sexy."

I'd pose nude if you paid me enough.

(Sure, he was a noodle boy, but he knew he had the goods.)

"Yeah, I’m cool with that."

Angelique brightened at him.

"Great!"

She picked up a set of complicated leather garters and thrust them at him.

"Put these on."

Mary had only ever worn lace garters—mostly out to clubs, but occasionally under his ripped jeans for an extra pop—but he found he liked these even more, liked the way they emphasized his thighs.

"Hey—where’d you get these…?"

(He was already thinking of what he could pair them with for goth night.)

"Local leatherworker. He mostly does pieces for Renn Fairs, but he'll also do custom. I can give you his info."

She led Mary into what was clearly someone's bedroom.

"Don't fuck anything up, or Joye will never let us use this again."

Mary shot her his best shark smile.

"Hey, I only mess up the sheets if someone asks."

Angelique gave him a flat look and called for Greg.

(But when he draped himself over the bed and told Greg to "Paint me like one of your French girls," Mary could have sworn she almost smiled.)

On one memorable occasion, she brought in a guy whose rope bondage demo she watched at a sex convention.

"Put on some of that lingerie and we'll truss you up. You ok with that, Goore?"

Mary ran his fingers over the coils and gave her a wolfish smile.

"You know I'm game for anything."

She gave him a vulpine smile of her own then, and she looked down at him from the height of her platformed boots.

"Good. I thought you should be submissive for once."

Mary had no witty rejoinder for that.

He listened with interest as the guy carefully explained what he was going to do, complete with pictures, and he relaxed easily into the process. (They put bunny ears on him, and it would be much, much later that he got that particular joke. Well played, Angelique.)

The ropes hadn’t let him do much posing, but Mary had kind of liked the constriction, and his thoughts were already on asking Amber to help him create a more versatile version for fetish night.

He’d left that day with a new kink…and the guy’s number.

"Why not just do one big shoot?" he asked another time. "Get it all done in one big bang!"

Angelique held up his garments to eyeball over him.

"Honey, we never even know if there's gonna be a next issue. The Bens spend most of the time arguing. My god you should hear them—Ben bankrolls the whole thing, so he says he should get final say on shit, and Benji wants total artistic control because it was his idea, because 'he's the graphic designer', and because it's his Kinko's employee discount they use."

She gave Mary a curled-lip smile as she tossed a few items at him.

"In the end it's this bitch you're looking at who gets shit done."

Mary began to change (they were long past modesty).

"How'd you get involved?"

"Went to school with Benji."

"Ben too?"

"Neg. The Bens are childhood friends. Ben works some cushy start-up job, so Benji lets him bankroll them both. Rent, utilities—everything. I love Benji to death, but he's a giant mooch."

"Shit, that must be nice."

Angelique shrugged. She stood back to appraise Mary's look.

"It's fucking lame. But it least it gets us fucking paid."

Mary didn't say I'd do this for free. Instead, he struck a pose and said, "I'm just happy for the exposure."

Angelique rolled her eyes and went to fetch Greg.

***

That year and a half would become a nonstop party with Mary as one of the VIPs; he wouldn't say no to anything—be it casual sex, club appearances, or whatever drug the current pretty thing was offering him in the bathroom.

But recognition started slow.

At first, it was customers who would leaf through the zine and recognize Mary.

Then, it was the occasional scenester who’d stop him on the street in JP as he walked about, and Mary would pose for grainy cell phone pics.

Soon, he was being approached at shows and clubs. The first time it happened, Mary was high off his new infamy and ready to please. A woman in a black bandage bra and pleated skirt with bondage straps approached him, and Mary was already thinking of what he could do with those.

"You look like that guy in ‘Heroes’!" she'd shouted to him over the music.

Mary had flashed her a crooked smile and leaned in.

"Maybe I am the guy in ‘Heroes’."

She'd given him an exaggerated once over before sidling closer with hooded eyes.

"I dunno…you're wearing way more clothes."

Mary had pulled his mesh top down by the collar in a tease as he'd curled over her.

"Take me somewhere more private and I’ll let you do a comparison."

She'd compared him all night.

And that was before he and the other "Heroes" models formed their own posse.

The Bens had thrown a BBQ and had invited everyone they'd ever met. There were people packed into their little 2 bedroom in Brighton, spilling down the back stairs, and equally packed into the little square of shared backyard. Ben had taken the 12-pack of 'Gansett beers Mary had brought, then introduced him to the other dark models.

"Now you're all here!" said Ben. He slung his arm around Mary. "Guys, this is Mary. Mary this is Mayhem, Lesley, Lola, and Bryan."

Mayhem was a rivethead, and Mary took to him instantly, but he was wary of the others. Lesley was the cybergoth who'd been in the first issue after him, and Mary still felt a bit salty at them, even though Mary knew by now the Bens rotated the models. Lola, the romantic goth, reminded him enough of Vanity that he felt guilty for losing touch with her and had him projecting a little. Bryan was a metalhead, so: competition.

Mary had thought they'd get along like cats and water, but weed, booze, and "Never Have I Ever" went a long way to creating a shared bond.

And there it was again. That pull. The magnetic force telling him that he'd found the place he was supposed to be. They quickly coalesced into their own pack, calling themselves the "Deathbutantes" (because they always killed it when they debuted for the night).

It had been rare for Mary to miss Friday and Saturday night shenanigans with the Rocky crew, but now, every night was Friday night. There was always a show or a concert or club that one of them knew about—and if they couldn't get lucky with the local color, they'd just go home with each other.

Mayhem taught Mary what Lola jokingly called the "grab a bat" dance, and the two of them cut quite the picture on the dance floors.

Lesley took to Lola, and the two of them could always be counted on for scintillating conversation in dark corners when Mary's limbst needed a break from flailing about.

The clubs weren't really Bryan's scene—take him to a sticky hole in the wall with concrete floors and a stage close enough to feel the sweat from the bands, and he was in heaven—but he liked to come along to hang. He'd drink PBRs, rub Lola's feet when she invariably abandoned her heels for the evening, and argue with Mary about the purity of death metal.

Mayhem and Lola weren't really into live music of the screaming kind, so—while Lesley, Bryan, and Mary bounced off each other in the mosh pits—they'd save a "home" base at one the bartops.

Amber noticed Mary's diminishing presence and stopped by the record shop to call him out.

"So you're not dead! Could've fooled me."

Mary was organizing the albums into order, and he grunted at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a cad. I'll make it up to you."

"You missed game night."

"Sorry. Jethro Tull played some tiny venue in nowhere Mass, and Bryan was salivating. I mean, Jethro Tull. Can you blame me?"

He looked at her, arms out wide in supplication. But she just blinked at him.

"You have no idea who Jethro Tull is, do you?"

"Sorry, dude. But christ, Mare. You should have invited me. I'd've gone. Maybe I would have even liked them. Now you'll never know."

"I could just lend you an album."

"Nope! The moment passed. Too late!"

Mary riffled through the stock and shoved a Jethro Tull CD into her hands.

She tapped it against her thigh.

"So, when do I get to hang?"

"I can get us into 80s night free."

"No, I mean, with your cooler friends. Your 'murder models', or whatever."

"You wanna hang out with the Deathbutantes?"

Amber scrunched her nose.

"That's so fucking pretentious."

Mary kind of liked it.

"Dunno if they're really your scene."

"Oh? And what's my scene?"

"Musical theater on crack."

She mock gasped at him, "Called out!" before smacking him with the CD. "Whatever. You love musical theater on crack."

Mary draped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't live it, you know? You guys have your niche—and fuck…I love to visit—but it's not mine."

Amber looked up at him, her expression serious.

"So the Dumbutantes are your niche?"

Mary shrugged and went back to shelving.

The Rocky crew had been good to him. They'd taken him under their wing, no questions asked, and helped him realize things about himself. Tim had taken him to the ER when Mary had come down with a serious case of the flu. Matty had taught him the basics of sewing. Gretchen had held him after a bad trip. Omar and he had had many drunken heart-to-hearts about their shitty home lives.

And Amber was his best friend. She'd been his #1 cheerleader for years and had never been afraid to call him out on his shit.

So yeah, he loved the Rocky crew…but they laughed at anyone who took anything too seriously. Mary would show up to game nights in his latest creation—with everyone else in pjs or jeans & hoodies—and they'd tease him about trying to impress the wrong people. He'd try to talk about the newest guitar god he'd been mainlining, and they'd make snoring noises at him.

How could he explain the kinship he felt with the Deathbutantes? That they were as serious about music as he was, that they just…got why he felt the need to dress the way he did to express the way he felt inside on his outside.

Instead, he said, "I'm just trying shit out, Ambs." He quirked his eyebrow at her. "I gotta do something while you guys do your real-person jobs."

(Amber had recently started as a junior marketing assistant at the American Repertory Theater. "Purely mercenary," she'd said. "Maybe it'll give me a leg up during auditions.")

She made a disgruntled scoffing noise in the back of her throat.

"Fuck, don't remind me. I actually gotta go to bed a reasonable hour now."

"Don't worry." Mary winked at her. "I'll keep ya honest."

"That sounds a lot like my head in a toilet, Mare."

"I'll hold your hair back."

She gave him a good-natured shove, and he pretended to cower.

If she wanted to cross pollinate, who was Mary to stand in her way? So, he invited her out the next time the Deathbutantes went to a show, and it went exactly like he thought it would.

They disliked her, and she was equally unimpressed. They thought she was too loud and frenetic, and she thought they had no sense of humor.

"I fucking told you," Mary had snorted as they sat on the curb sharing a clove.

"Shut the fuck up, Mare."

But she'd put her head on his shoulder.

"They make you happy, though. So I guess I approve. Just as long as I don't have to play nice."

Mary still hung out with the Rocky crew—there were still game nights and drug-fueled sex parties and theater games—but the Deathbutantes introduced him to the underground scene. They always seemed to have insider knowledge about the best up-in-coming bands and the secret shows. Theme nights at the goth clubs were always a must, and they rarely missed one. Sometimes, Angelique would crash, and they'd take the commuter rail to Providence to party at Club Hell before collapsing in a sweaty, smeary pile at a friend of a friend's hole in the wall.

As a bit player in the Rocky crew, Mary had been another made-up face in the crowd. As a certified member of the Deathbutantes, Mary became the face.

They all did.

The owners loved them because they bought round after round at the bar, and if word got out that the Deathbutantes were there, their admirers came to spend money as well. The employees loved them because they were fun and talked to them as equals. The clientele loved them because they were pretty young things.

Sometimes, though, Mary wasn't in the mood to party or get laid, so he talked to the DJs instead. He'd buy them rounds and stay past closing to help them pack up while they talked about the history of punk and 80s new wave and nu metal. There was one in particular, Dave, that Mary even considered a friend.

The two of them would sit in the club past closing, sharing a whiskey and talking about life while the bartenders closed down and cashed out. Occasionally, Dave's other friends would be around, and they'd all walk back to his place; he'd fool around spinning in his home studio, and they'd drink box wine as they danced and laughed before Mary would have to sit on the ground in an intoxicated exhaustion, good for only thumbing through Dave's vinyl collection.

Mary was just happy to talk shop with another music aficionado, but Angelique had pointed out that he should leverage his minor clout.

They'd been waiting for Greg to finish setting up, and Mary had been struggle city after a particularly hard night out. It was all he could manage to sit there quietly and hope some god would put him out of his misery.

"You need to get your shit together," Angelique had said out of nowhere.

Mary had cracked a puffy eye and had slowly (as to not bring the nothing in his stomach back up) turned his head to her.

"As if I haven't seen your melted ass on the floor wanting to die."

"Fuck, Mary. You've turned it into an art form."

He'd closed his eyes and given her the finger, but that hadn't stopped her.

"You wanna be a rockstar, boy? You can't just sit on your ass and hope the right person on the right night hears you. You're effervescent and charismatic—heads turn when you walk into a room and not just because of your skinny jeans—but you need more than air, Mary, which is all you are right now."

"Fuck you, Angela."

She'd clapped in front of his face, and she was lucky he didn't Exorcist bile all over her.

"You're a fucking pain in my ass, Goore. I'm doling out the good stuff, try not to bite my hand off, k?"

"All right, all right!"

"You wanna start that band? You wanna get play and amass fans? Well, make that demo you're always droning on about and give it to those DJs you're alway fanboying over. Fucking network, Goore."

At the time, Mary had been too hungover to care, but her advice would sink in…

Eventually.

For the time being, Mary was content. He loved the attention, and it made him feel invincible, made him feel like it was finally His Time. And he was going to make up for every slight, every unfair situation, and every beat down with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

With his newfound nightlife, Mary's day job had become an afterthought. He started sleeping through opening shifts, but with the extra foot traffic Mary brought to the store, his boss seemed resigned to let Mary slide (after a stern talking to and a pay docking).

The shadow cast had started using him as a mascot of sorts, and he was happy to show up on Saturday nights and hype up the waiting line with a pseudo striptease. (Even if it was sometimes to kick off his evening with the Deathbutantes and not hang with the cast after.)

Mary started a band ("auditioning" any and all of the many admirers who said they’d be more than happy to join it), and after a few false starts and a couple of lineup changes, they began working on an EP. (At least, when Mary showed up to rehearsal, they did.)

A Boston Phoenix reporter got wind of the Deathbutantes and called around about doing a story on them. The Bens were excited about the exposure that meant for their zine, and Angelique and Greg were excited about what it could mean for their careers. Mary did a brief interview over the phone where he answered questions about his style and talked about his dream of making his band a household name.

Mary saw his name up in lights, and he was reaching for it, full speed ahead.

But then things turned.

The story fell through at the last minute with no further explanation or contact by the reporter.

His boss finally fired him after Mary showed up too high to function too many times—or not at all.

The shadow cast had a turnover, and suddenly he was old news—a cringey hanger-on.

A trip to the clinic and a round of antibiotics for an STI had him way more wary of who he hooked up with.

"Heroes" lost momentum when imitators popped up and Ben cut off the gravy train.

Angelique moved to NYC for "better opportunities," and the Bens took their brand of counterculture to Portland, OR.

Greg took down the website when he got offered a legit job as an apprentice at a food magazine, and that was that.

The physical zines were cheap things, most ending up papering the sidewalk after trash day or lining the bottom of cages. Without the online presence, did Mary's "modeling career" even exist?

Mary was a little sad to see the era go, but when he woke up in Maine on the hood of some girl's car and only a hazy recollection of how they'd gotten there, he was beginning to see Angelique's point. He needed to get his shit together if he was ever going to become a rockstar. And frankly, he kind of felt like he needed to spend an entire month eating carrots and hydrating.

The 24/7 party had always been an ephemeral thing; it had been sand passing through his hands in a finite amount as he'd tried to hold onto it

He put himself on detox, and waking up sober for the first time in months felt like a revelation. And as it turned out, playing the guitar without badly shaking hands was way, way easier.

He found another job in another music store, and his starter!band was bringing butts into the smaller venues, like Toad.

He still had his old Rocky friends and the Deathbutantes. The club and venue owners still let him in for free, and Dave was always happy to give his demos a spin. By anyone's else's measure, he was steal one of the scene's darlings.

But Mary was beginning to realize that he needed to stop seeing himself as that scared kid who’d arrived in Boston 4 years ago with only a backpack, $72.57 to his name, and void where his family should be.

He needed to stop finding people to please into loving him.

Instead, he needed to live for himself and let them love him for who he was—fuck ups and all.

@slimylayne

Epilogue

"Honestly, that’s probably the reason I even got a band together," he says. "I was still kind of shit at guitar, but people came to see ‘Model Mary’ perform in his underwear."

He shoots me a smirk.

"I’m sure there’re pictures out there of me looking more glam than metal. I kind of played up the whole pinup thing for a while."

"Fuck, I would kill, literally kill to see that."

He pulls me into his lap until I’m straddling him.

"I could open up my underwear drawer and show you right now."

"Goore, you temptress."

I lean down to kiss him, and his hands sneak under my shirt, but I pull away again.

"I kinda thought I knew all your torrid secrets by now. Shit, how come Dave's never needled you about it?"

After 2 years with him, I’m surprised I hadn't even heard a peep from his oldest friend.

Mary snorts.

"Dave would miss shit hanging off his nose. Great dude, amiable as fuck, but he's always had fucking tunnel vision for his music."

I smirk at him.

"Sounds like someone else I know."

Mary pulls a face at me, and I apply kisses to every line until he laughs and bats me away.

"But really, Mare—how come you never told me about your brief career in blue steel?"

He blows out a breath, his hands smoothing up my thighs.

"Fuck. Cuz maybe I was a little embarrassed at how off the rails I was then, ok? Didn't want you to know what I fuck up I was." He takes my hand and kisses my palm. "And even I know it's a shit move to pitch woo at someone by telling them about banging half of Boston."

I make a face at him, and he laughs.

"Yeah, that’s what I thought."

His hands rest on my waist.

"Christ, everything about that year's a bit fuzzy, and it was like 10 years ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else, honestly. And shit—most of those people aren’t even around anymore. College kids who moved on and 20-somethings that grew up and moved who knows where. I used to watch Amber have—what is it when it’s four people?—and now she lives in bumblefuck Pennsylvania with 3 kids. After she left, I just kinda drifted away from all that."

He shrugs, his eyes downcast.

"I’m sorry, Mare," I say as I smooth his eyebrows.

He shrugs again.

"I mean, we all kinda keep in touch. It's like the only reason I have Facebook."

"When was the last time you even signed into that?"

Mary grins at me.

"Lola's birthday."

"One of the models? What happened with them?"

Mary bites his lip and thinks.

"Mayhem found religion after an OD and kinda ghosted everyone. Lesley followed a girl to New Hampshire. Uh…Lola pursued a PhD for something sciencey involving renewable energy with sugar beets in Idaho, and Bryan moved back to Florida to care for his grandma, who raised him."

Mary leans his head back on the couch and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I mean, shit. We were fucking babies back then. Head empty except for a good time and unlimited potential."

I run my fingers through his hair.

"You miss it?"

His eyes pop open to look at me.

"Fuck no. Not for a million dollars. Too many question marks." His eyes glint as he runs his hands down me. "I like what I got going on right here."

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and kiss his forehead. The fucking sap.

Mary picks up my phone and scrolls through the pictures again.

"Fuck. I used to be goddamn adorable, though. Half this shit wouldn’t even fit me anymore."

I squish his little potbelly, and he grunts at me indignantly.

"Do you still have any originals?" I ask.

He shakes his head, his eyes wistful and his smile sad.

"Nah. Got destroyed when my roof collapsed and leaked everywhere. Fuck, landlords are useless. Glad we fucking own now, babe."

He scrolls up, scrolls back down.

"Just these four?"

I nod.

"Yeah. They were the only ones I found—and I did a lot of searching."

"Christ, I think there were at least 10."

I smile ruefully at him. "It’s not gonna be long anyway before they make their way into the popular tags and shit starts coming out of the woodwork."

He tosses my phone onto the table.

"Whatever. Just shows that I’ve always been cool."

And then he’s kissing me again, his hand tangling in my hair.

"You know, I’m your family now, Mare. Just for you."

He brings my hand up and kisses it.

"Fuck, I know that. Why’dja think I put a ring on it?"

#mary goore #longfic #gender neutral insert #aurelio voltaire

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my-personality-i-guess · 4 years ago

Text

I’m gonna post spoilers of WW84 under the cut, because I did not like the movie and you all need to know why

So I’m gonna start out with what I liked about it, because honestly it was kind of good. Gal Gadot? Phenomenal, gorgeous, 10/10 I rewatched the first Wonder Woman and the woman loving side of my sexuality has reawakened. Costumes? I am not a fan of the 80s, but damn could I get behind every single outfit. I don’t even need to talk about the Amazons, they were beautiful, like I said, women. The cinematography was also quite good.

But the first Wonder Woman movie was definitely better.

WW84 started out fantastic. I loved the opening scene with young Diana, and it set up such a great concept for the movie. Would’ve been great if they stuck to that huh. Then we meet Kristen Wiig, who honestly I’ve never really liked. Maybe I haven’t seen her in enough stuff though, because I absolutely fell in love with Barbara. Especially the obvious gay subtext between her and Diana. All starting out phenomenally. There’s great setup for Diana to fall in love with Barbara, work out her love for Steve and the trauma she got from the war. I’d even go for a love triangle with Barbara, Diana, and Max. Then everything switches.

It feels like there were two different writers for the film. One writer set up a phenomenal plot line, a budding romance, and a storyline about healing from your past and moving on. Then the second writer scrapped all that and resurrected Steve. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Chris Pine in both Wonder Woman movies, and he was pretty funny in WW84, but his whole character just seemed to be there solely to put an end to the romance between Barbara and Diana. He played a role with very little impact. Honestly, I finished WW84 literally 5 minutes ago and I forgot Steve was even in the movie. All of a sudden there’s no plot. My whole family was confused. My dad said it was “just like a stereotypical 80s movie.” Where was the brilliant storyline that had started? Why are we skipping over what could have been a revolutionary film for a literal remake of Aladdin? (literally it’s just Aladdin. That’s the whole thing. Aladdin and queerbaiting)

If we skip over the Aladdin bits (the entire plot line yes it’s as basic as it sounds) all there is is some forced relationship between Diana and Steve to cover up the blatant queerbaiting and, I would argue, homophobia. It’s so incredibly obvious that Barbara is in love with Diana, even though she apparently falls in love “every day, all the time” (which feeds into some harmful stereotypes about bisexuality, by the way), and yet the screenwriters try to play it off like Barbara just really admires her. I was 100% sure that Barbara was going to wish that Diana fall in love with her, but she instead wanted to be like Diana? Yes, she’s insecure, that was made blazingly obvious, but she was in love with Diana, and Diana had just told her how much she enjoyed Barbara just the way she is. Generally people don’t change what others, especially those they are attracted to, like about them. And there ends the romance. Not even a hint at the date the two went on, nothing about the feelings between the two. Steve shows up, and Barbara is no longer an interesting or relevant character. In fact, she’s killed at the end of the movie. Way to dive headfirst into the pool of kill your gays (electrocute them if you want to be vague about whether or not they’re actually dead). To top it off, Steve just is gone an hour after he was resurrected. Steve just showed up to ruin Diana’s relationship and mental health, cuz I’m sure it wasn’t at all traumatizing to lose the love off your life twice, the second time pretty much directly killing him.

Other little things I’m pissed about:

1. Lack of diversity. The first Wonder Woman movie had an incredibly diverse cast, and WW84 had the only main character as a POC be the villain.

2. We never learned more about the Amazons. Woah, they do the Olympics and don’t like cheating, so what? Where’s the deep delve into Amazonian culture that we got in the first film? Why didn’t Diana ever go back to Themyscira?

3. The whole plot is just Aladdin if the genie was evil. That’s it. I’m sure you’ve all seen those posts of “be careful if you meet a genie, they’re evil and manipulative”

4. There was almost no mythology. Nothing. Just 30 seconds of babbling about the “language of the Gods” and the “God of lies” no explanation, no backstory, just a throwaway explanation about how the wishing could vaguely go along with the theme. We didn’t even get any resolution about that? Considering Ares apparently killed all the Gods, I wasn’t really expecting any Godly intervention from whoever that God of lies was, but there was absolutely nothing about what happened to the rock. How did it get out of Max? Did every single person in the world take back their wish, cuz that’s unrealistic. If even one person kept their wish, what happened to the rock. It probably didn’t reform? What happened to the magic???

5. That beautiful suit of armor that’s in all the promo pics, posters, the most iconic part of the trailer? That was there for literally 10 minutes and built into the plot solely for the cameo in the end credits scene. And not even well? The armor was supposedly built to withstand the world? It was torn to shred in 30 seconds, in a fight against a woman with brand new powers she doesn’t know how to work and exactly zero fighting experience. A cheetah hybrid scientist destroyed that armor in 30 seconds flat and you expect me to believe it held back the whole of mankind?

6. Where’s the fun feminism of the first movie? No talk about how women are great? Two and a half hours and the best you can do is the villain beating up the dick who was catcalling and assaulting her and framing it as an evil thing? The entire movie Diana and Barbara were being catcalled and harassed by men who thought they’re gorgeous. Absolutely they don’t have to respond to these men. They don’t have to stick up for themselves to prove that they’re worthwhile. Good for them for ignoring the jerks. But when the only instance of a woman sticking up for herself in the whole film is framed as an evil deed, it’s a bit sketch.

7. The fight scene between Barbara and Diana at the end when Barbara is a Cats movie reject was incredibly boring and not at all riveting and iconic like the fight scenes in the first movie. In fact, every fight scene in WW84 was really flat. It felt like there was a lot of effort put into dampening Diana’s powers. In the first movie Diana was a dynamic and strong individual who had friends who, while not as powerful as her, were important to ending the conflict. In WW84 Diana did everything (except for stopping the mall heist) really poorly, and relied on Steve to get her out of nearly all of her tight spots. For how bad of a character he was, you’d think he wouldn’t do a lot in the movie, but he was constantly saving Diana. Then Diana couldn’t even do anything against Max, it was all the people reversing their wishes. Considering she literally killed a God in the first movie, you’d think she could do something about a man-rock.

tl:dr, it’s an Aladdin remake with queerbaiting and bad plot

#ww84 #ww84 spoilers #ww84 review #wonder woman 1984 #wonder woman 1984 spoilers #dc #queerbaiting #homophobia #screenwriting #movie #review

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thisweekingundamwing · 3 years ago

Text

This Week in Gundam Wing 6-12 June 2021

Here’s this week’s roundup! June 6th -12th!

Remember to give your content creators some love! Be sure to join in on the events at the bottom! And remember to send in any new works you see or make next week!

~Mod Hel (Sorry this is so late all!)

Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:

@destinysblackrose

Losing my Breath https://destinysblackrose.tumblr.com/post/653297355731435520/fic-losing-my-breath-gundam-wing-heero-x

F/M, Heero Yuy/Relena Darlian

Rated M for mature. Contains smut and angst.

Before his ‘reconnaissance mission’, Heero had been coaxing her, week after week. Waiting for her to become comfortable with this aspect of their relationship. Their last 'exchange’ gave him hope that maybe, they were getting closer.

The patience of a sniper. He used to hate it. Waiting. Watching. Aching. Breathing. Boring.

At least nothing about waiting for Relena was dull.

@lemontrash

Pride Day 5 https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/653269838365638656/pride-day-5

5 It Used to be a Different Game - 1x5 SFW - UST.

After a war and a rocky experience with ambivalent heterosexuality, Wufei is not entirely sure what to make of this situation.

@noirangetrois

Gundam Wing Diaries https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/653438898421284864/the-gundam-wing-diaries

May 8, 2000 (Monday)

Episode 46 - “Milliardo’s Decision”

May 9, 2000 (Tuesday)

Episode 47 - “Collision in Space”

Gundam Wing Diaries https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/653714468147265536/the-gundam-wing-diaries

May 10, 2000 (Wednesday)

Episode 48 - “Takeoff into Confusion”

May 11, 2000 (Thursday)

Episode 49 - “The Final Victor”

Of the Sea (Ch. 11) https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/653792472043077632/of-the-sea-chapter-11-archive-of

M/M, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, fairytale my way, Meroctopus!Dorothy, Slow Burn, Multi POV, POV Third Person Limited, merman au, MerMay, Fantasy Politics, mentions of abuse, Unnatural November

Heero Yuy will soon be reaching the age of majority, at which time he will ascend the throne of Wingaria. Before such time, he must needs choose a bride. But what if there are no good choices? What if someone else has captured his heart?

simulacraryn

Friday, I’m in Love https://archiveofourown.org/works/31705282/chapters/78469714

F/M, Gen, Zechs Merquise/Lucrezia Noin

Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, Hangover, Alcohol Mentions, Explicit Language, Established Relationship, Alternate Universe - College/University, 1995 college au, khushrenada family has more issues than a magazine, background Treize being a gremlin, unbetaed - we die like men here

[College AU, 1995] Zechs is well aware of the upcoming social obligations that come with being friends and sharing a home with a "snob". The issue is when said friendship is actually cramping his own style, then it's time to enlist his girlfriend in order to help the friend find a better coping mechanism for the upcoming activities.

@thaiteaaddict

Reincarnated As A Minor Villiainess and I Survived Past My Death Scene (Ch. 28) https://thaiteaaddict.tumblr.com/post/653740109010747392/i-reincarnated-as-a-minor-villainess-and-i

M/M, F/F, F/M, Heero x Duo, Trowa x Quatre, Wufei x Meilan, Dorothy x Relena

Full cast

Teen, AU - Fantasy, AU - Isekai, POV First Person, Unreliable Narrator

After being killed in a traffic accident, Duo wakes up in a medieval fantasy novel - except he’s woken up as one of the novel’s minor villains who was supposed to have died in a main character’s backstory. Intent on righting the wrongs of his novel counterpart, Duo sets out to change his fate and just maybe improve the relationship between himself and his estranged husband, Duke Heero Yuy. (Duo is isekai’d into the body of a novel’s villainess character and runs with it.)

@zaganthi

Catered https://zaganthi.tumblr.com/post/653846550482665472/catered-zaganthi-caffiends-tzigane-gundam

M/M, Chang Wufei/Quatre Raberba Winner

Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, Blindfolds; Demisexuality; Dinner; First Kiss; Hand Feeding, GW Pride 2k21 – Day 13, Blindfolds; Day 17, foodplay

“I would like you to do a blind taste test.” Quatre sat down across from him on the cushion, smiling that serene little smile that he only used when he was up to something. He’d done stranger things. That smile made him a little paranoid, though. Anyone with the least bit of sense would be paranoid when Quatre looked like that.

“All right.”

“Thank you.” Wufei could see the smile, but he could also hear it in Quatre’s voice as he moved behind him.

Gnossienne https://zaganthi.tumblr.com/post/653752431378890752/gnossienne-zaganthi-caffiends-perryvic

M/M, Duo Maxwell/Quatre Raberba Winner; Treize Khushrenada/Duo Maxwell; Treize Khushrenada/Quatre Raberba Winner; Trowa Barton/Chang Wufei

Explicit, No Archive Warnings Apply, Aged-Up Character(s) Quatre Raberba’s Uchuu no Kokoro | Space Heart; Preventers (Gundam Wing); Team as Family; Domestic Bliss; Friendship; Friendship/Love; talking with exes; Double Penetration; rompy sex; Aftermath of Violence; Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery; Awareness of the trouser legs of time; Talking about Therapy; Dinner Party; Swordfighting; Enthusiastic Consent

It was as if his words constituted permission because Quatre’s smile was blinding then as was his emotional reaction - figuratively and literally because he damn well started glowing as he said in a reverent whisper “Sandrock,…”

His Gundam impossibly powered up there and then right in front of them even as Quatre literally ran towards it. This time around he really got it, he could feel Sandrock as Quatre felt him - and it was a him strangely. Just as he felt that Deathscythe was more than just metal and technology, Sandrock had a presence. How, he didn’t know but it was like seeing him reunite with a beloved family member.

Fanart/Crafts/Photo Manips:

@alphaikaros

https://alphaikaros.tumblr.com/post/653299730884050944/late-mermay-post

Dorothy/Quatre, fanart

https://alphaikaros.tumblr.com/post/653860625645256704

Relena/Heero, fanart

@anukisart

https://anukisart.tumblr.com/post/653291417640304640/first-anime-crush-right-here

Heero Yuy, fanart

@babygray-dam

https://babygray-dam.tumblr.com/post/653427876479303680/a-sketch-of-duo-maxwell

Duo Maxwell, fanart

@cloakandfire

https://cloakandfire.tumblr.com/post/653518473738305536/milliardo-peacecraft-lucrezia-neuenheim-noin

Millidardo Peacecraft/Zechs Merquise, fanart

@duointherain

https://duointherain.tumblr.com/post/653647734686072832/a-new-duo-render-from-violet-in-tooth-and-claw-i

Duo Maxwell, render

@gundayum

https://gundayum.tumblr.com/post/653389873532796928/im-just-gonna-copypasta-from-ao3-lmao-sorry

Relena & Heero, fanart

@idrawprettyboys

https://idrawprettyboys.tumblr.com/post/653393436572106753/duo-in-a-crop-top

Duo Maxwell, fanart

@twillpoint

https://twillpoint.tumblr.com/post/653752343129636864/until-next-time-afternoon-tea-booth

Duo/Quatre, fanbook

Photosets/Gifsets/Screenshots/Manga Pages:

@cuteciboulette

https://cuteciboulette.tumblr.com/post/653254092113723392/doujinshika-sango-show

Destiny, doujinshi

https://cuteciboulette.tumblr.com/post/653344695287775232

Duo & Heero Book, doujinshi

https://cuteciboulette.tumblr.com/post/653707101846306816/cuteciboulette-tsuki-no-kodomo-vol-3-full

Act 3, doujinshi

Head Canons:

@bryony-rebb

https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/653352279647371264/lemontrash-bryony-rebb-bryony-rebb

Trowa & Cathy, headcanon

@lemontrash

Quotes:

@incorrectgundamwingquotes

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/653552300665782272/duo-kinda-gay-to-make-a-wanted-poster-duo-why-do

Duo & Heero

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/653642909168631808/duo-im-hella-fucking-tired-but-i-need-to-go-to

Duo & Quatre

Calendar Events:

@gundamzine

Rhythm Generation 2021

Meet the Mods: https://gundamzine.tumblr.com/post/636708854145613824/come-on-over-a-meet-your-2021-zine-mod-team-head

Check out the blog for the Zine schedule!

@gundam-wing-pride

Gundam Wing Pride 2k21 https://gundam-wing-pride.tumblr.com/post/648237909672083456/incoming-transmission-faq

A Beautiful Rainbow of Prompts https://gundam-wing-pride.tumblr.com/post/649898271517573120/a-beautiful-rainbow-of-prompts

@gwcocktailfriday

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompt for Friday, ! [starting back up next week!]

In need of Summer/Fall(Autumn) prompts!

@gwshootingstars

Shooting Stars Online Convention https://gwshootingstars.tumblr.com/post/653339481502564352/hey-everyone-guess-whos-back-with-a-brand-new

This has been tabled for future action.

https://gwshootingstars.tumblr.com/post/653641678082752512/hi-all-thank-you-so-much-for-the-response-and

Latest news.

@oztober-rust

Welcome to Oztober Rust

We’re an up and coming Gundam Wing event with a slight twist! This page is still a work in progress, but you’re welcome to join us over on discord and get a feel for the event.

Have discord, will fan. https://oztober-rust.tumblr.com/post/647568110262566912/i-see-a-nice-and-steady-following-we-do-have-a

@seasons-of-gundamwing

Summer Event Prompts Needed https://seasons-of-gundamwing.tumblr.com/post/652830126852177920/alright-folks

@thisweekingundamevents

Events Calendar https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/644080386309275648/events-calendar-update

If you are hosting an event currently, or are planning on one, hit us up with links and dates! We’ll add them to the Calendar and reblog your notices to get the word out!

#Gundam Wing #This Week in Gundam Wing #Weekly Roundup #6-12 June 2021

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dickspeightjrs · 4 years ago

Text

Show Me How Big Your Brave Is (au / 4.8k words)

Prompt 17 from my ‘30 Destiel Prompts’ for @eccentriccas

ao3 link

It stared at Dean from the fridge, tacked up by a Stanford University magnet gifted to Dean by his brother, Sam.

He’d known his high school reunion was coming up at some point but seeing it embossed in gold lettering created a pit in his stomach.

High school wasn’t the best time for Dean for a few reasons. First, his dad had died in freshman year, which Dean had had mixed feelings about if he was honest. He was mostly concerned about his mother. She didn’t take it well. And then there was-

Dean was torn from his stare down with the invitation by the door bell. He trudged over to answer it. His best friend, Charlie, came bounding in with all the energy of a labrador puppy.

“Hey, friend!” She exclaimed, pulling Dean into a tight hug. “Are you ready for our movie night?”

Dean let himself be infected with Charlie’s excited energy. “Of course, dude! Give me superheroes in spandex already.” He laughed.

“You go set up the first movie and I’ll put the beers in the fridge, okay?” Charlie instructed.

“Sounds good, Bradbury.”

Dean lucked out when he’d met Charlie. They’d been assigned as roommates in college. There had been a mix up with the room allocations. Dean had been a little confused when he’d turned from his boxes to find a tiny red-head standing in the doorway of his dorm.

Charlie had taken a step into the room, let her backpack fall to the floor, and said, “Don’t even think about trying anything. I’m gay as the day is long and I’m not afraid to punch a guy back into his place.” Dean hadn’t known how to reply so he’d just nodded and silently gone back to unpacking his things.

It was when Charlie had put up a Star Wars poster above her bed that Dean knew he was about to make a best friend.

“Ooh what’s this?” Charlie’s voice came from the kitchen.

Crap. Charlie had probably found the invite. He should have hidden it when he had the chance. He sighed and moved into the kitchen.

Charlie had an extremely mischievous grin on her face, and that was saying something for her.

“When were you going to tell me about this?” Charlie asked.

“Urm, never?” Dean mumbled, reaching to snatch the paper out of Charlie’s hand.

But Charlie was too quick and dodged Dean’s grasp.

“Come on Dean. You have to go!” Charlie implored. “It’ll be fun!”

Dean gave his friend an unimpressed look. “Charlie you know how much I hated high school.”

Charlie’s face softened. “I know, it sucks that you got outed before you were ready. No one deserves that. But, it’s been ten years. Things have changed.”

“You don’t know the people I went to high school with.” Dean scoffed.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Stop being dramatic, you nerd.”

“Dramatic or not, I ain’t going.” Dean plucked the invite out of Charlie’s hand and tore it in two.

Charlie stuck her tongue out at him. “Party pooper.”

* * *

A few hours later, Dean and Charlie were deep into their annual ‘NerdFest’ movie night.

“I swear, if I didn’t bat for the best team, I’d be so down for a bit of Black Wing.” Charlie mumbled around a mouth full of popcorn.

Dean couldn’t help but nod in agreement. Aside from Captain America (because, hello Chris Evans!), Black Wing was Dean’s favourite superhero. But he’d only appeared in ensemble movies. There had been rumours of him getting his own solo movie after fans online had campaigned for it but nothing ever seemed to come of it. The guy who played him seemed to just drop off the map.

Shame, Dean thought as he watched Black Wing kick ass on-screen, that dude was hot!

“Take someone like that to your high school reunion and it would make those dicks’ jaws drop.”

“Drop it, Charlie.” Dean groaned, glaring at the red-head.

“Just saying. Get a hot date and you’ll win the game of life in their eyes.” Charlie raised her hands in defence.

“Noted. Let’s move on.”

“Fine.” Charlie pouted.

Dean nodded and turned back to watch the screen, content that the subject had been dropped.

“OH MY GOD!”

Dean jumped out of his skin, sending popcorn flying through the air. “What the hell, Bradbury?” He exclaimed.

Charlie started excitedly slapping Dean on the arm. “I have the best idea.” She practically squealed. “Put an ad up on Craigslist for a hot date.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “No fucking way. Never happening. Now stop.”

“But-”

“No!”

Charlie sulked for the next half an hour, all through the iconic fight scene with Black Wing and his fellow team of superheroes. She stopped eventually after Dean offered her a piece of pie as a peace offering.

* * *

After a couple more movies, Charlie had to leave. Apparently, being an adult meant that you can’t just spend all night watching with your best friend anymore - who knew? So with a ‘see ya later bitch’, Charlie was gone.

Dean felt the aches from being sat on the couch for hours and he was looking forward to laying out on his bed for a good night’s sleep.

He sighed to himself and tidied up the last remains of the movie snacks. He was ready for sleep but he had to work early in the morning and he wouldn’t have time to clean up before he left.

Shuffling into the kitchen to put the rubbish in the trash, Dean spotted his reunion invite where he left it on the counter. Except, it wasn’t ripped in two like he’d left it. It had ‘mysteriously’ been taped back together. He dragged a tired hand down his face in exasperation. Charlie just didn’t know when to quit. She was the bratty little sister he never wanted.

He plonked himself down on the chair at the counter and stared at the white paper for a few moments.

Fuck it!

Charlie was right (though he’d never admit it to her face). He was determined to prove to the assholes he went to school with that the shit they threw at him didn’t stick. It didn’t matter that Dean didn’t really believe it to be the truth,’ fake it til ya make it’ as they say.

Before he could chicken out, Dean had Craigslist opened up on his phone. Thinking back to Charlie’s suggestion earlier, Dean decided against asking specifically for a ‘hot’ guy. He dreaded to think what kind of douchebags that would answer the ad proclaiming themselves to be an adonis.

And, despite knowing since he was young that he was bisexual, he decided to aim the ad towards guys. His few relationships with women had never worked out. Even though this was all going to be fake, Dean would like to be able to at least get on with the person.

In the end, he decided on a short and simple ad:

‘Hi, I’m Dean (28M) looking for a guy to take as my date to my stupid high school reunion next Saturday. Message if interested (no weirdos)’

He posted the ad and then spotted the time at the top of the screen.

Midnight. Shit.

He closed the website and dashed upstairs as fast as his tired legs could carry him.

* * *

The next morning, Dean got woken up by the feel of sunlight shining on his face. He must have forgotten to shut the curtains before he passed out last night.

His blood ran cold when he realised that the sun shining on his face meant only one thing. He was late for work. He scrambled around looking for his phone to check the time but it was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, it came to him. He must have left his phone on the counter in the kitchen, meaning he didn’t hear his alarms going off.

He cursed himself and sped to get ready. Quickly sniffing a shirt to check it was okay to wear, he got dressed and raced downstairs. Sure enough, his phone was sat on the table where he'd sat the night before.

When he picked it up he found that it had also run out of battery overnight.

Great. As if this day couldn’t get any worse.

Forgetting all else on his mind, Dean grabbed his phone and dash out of the front door.

* * *

The ad remained forgotten until a few days later.

Dean was just about to sit down and relax with a beer when his phone lit up with a notification. He put his beer down on a coaster to check it out.

It was a message from Craigslist telling him someone has been trying to contact him about his ad.

Dean’s eyes went wide. He’d completely forgotten about the ad for a date after being late for work and being chewed out by his boss. He couldn't believe someone had actually responded. He looked at the date for the first message. This guy had contacted him like an hour after he’d posted the ad.

He opened the message.

(01:28) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: Hello. I saw your ad for a date to your reunion. It says I’m only 10 miles from your location. I’m interested in helping you out. Are you still in need of assistance?

(10:11) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: I assume, as you haven’t replied, that you’ve decided to go with someone else for your date.

(11:20) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: On second thought, this ad was probably a joke. Please ignore my messages.

Wow. This dude talked funny. And reading that last message, Dean felt a little sorry for the guy too. He seemed lonely. But beggars can’t be choosers, so Dean prepared to reply.

As he went to type, he noticed the guy’s username and smiled to himself.

(19:37) impala67 says: don’t worry dude! the position as my date is still open. you’re the only one who has responded.

PS. I like your username. you a Black Wing fan too?

The reply was almost immediate.

(19:41) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: Okay. What information do you need from me?

PS. You could say so.

‘You could say so’? Was this guy purposefully trying to be mysterious? Either way, Dean was intrigued.

(19:45) impala67 says: idk dude, just the basics I guess. how old u are, what u look like

(19:53) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: I’m 30 years old. I have blue eyes and dark hair. I’m 6 feet tall. Anything else?

Dean hummed to himself. The guy sounded pretty average, which was okay with him.

(19:55) impala67 says: nah, that’s awesome dude. anything you want to know?

(19:58) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: I suppose it would be nice to know what you look like too. Also, if you don’t mind me prying, I wondered why you need to have a date for a school reunion. And why have you turned to Craigslist to find it?

Dean was set aback by this guy’s forwardness. But, he did have a right to know what he was getting into Dean supposed.

(20:05) impala67 says: you already know I’m 28. I have green eyes. sort of light brown hair and i’m around 6’2”. as for the other shit. high school was a shit show. I’ve always been a bit nerdy i guess. people didn’t like it. then I realised I’m bi (hope that’s not a deal break btw). tried asking this guy out senior year. got outed to the whole school. got a lot of shit for it.

(20:11) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: I’m sorry to hear that happened to you. No one deserves that. Why do you want to go back? No one would blame you for leaving and never going back. (Again, if you don’t mind me asking.)

Dean blinked at the screen. His forgotten beer was getting warm but he was fascinated by this guy. He seemed genuine and Dean felt himself wanting to share the darkest parts of himself with a complete stranger. He sighed and typed.

(20:20) impala67 says: I guess I want to prove to those assholes that the things they said didn’t affect my life. even tho that’s not always the truth. I still struggle to accept myself i guess.

Dean chewed his lip, debating whether to include that last line or not. But, hey, he was asking this dude to be his date, the least he could do was be honest with him. He pressed send.

Blue Eyes didn’t reply instantly this time and it made Dean nervous. He wished he could take back the last bit of the message.

After a few anxious moments, Blue Eyes still hadn’t replied so Dean gave up, figuring he’d scared the guy away. He cursed himself and moved to put his Doctor Sexy DVDs into the player. He’d never admit it to anyone, not even Charlie, but Doctor Sexy was his comfort show. It provided him with a much needed distraction.

A couple hours later, Dean was beginning to doze. The extra few beers he’d had cushioned him into a deep sleep.

When he woke, surrounded by darkness with only the DVD menu playing to no one lighting the room, Dean rubbed his face tiredly and went to check his phone for the time.

Instead of looking at the clock, Dean’s eyes were distracted by the Craigslist notification. Blue Eyes had messaged him back! Feeling a little foolish that he’d reacted too quickly before, Dean opened the message.

(23:23) BlueEyesAndBlackWings says: You’re incredibly brave, Dean. Not many people would be able to do what you’re doing.

Dean blushed in the darkness. Why were a random internet dude’s words affecting him so much? He didn’t really know what to say in response so he just sent a quick ‘thank you, dude.’

* * *

Over the next few days leading up to the reunion, Dean carried on messaging Blue Eyes just to get to know him a little more. Turns out the dude is dorky as hell. And, despite the original impression he gave with the Black Wing username, the guy didn’t understand any of Dean’s other references.

It had occurred to him after they’d been messaging for a while that Dean still didn’t know his name.

When he confronted Blue Eyes about it, the man had taken a while to respond again and answered only with ‘I’d rather not disclose my full name at this time. But, you can call me C.’

Dean had been a little skeptical of the guy’s response at first. But then, he figured the worst case scenario was the guy turned out to be a catfish and Dean would just blow off the reunion altogether and go get drunk. And he couldn’t blame the guy for not wanting to give out personal details over Craigslist.

The day before the reunion, they agreed it was probably best to meet somewhere a couple hours before so they had time to get to know each other in person and iron out the final details they’d need to know about each other.

* * *

Dean sat in the coffee shop they’d agreed to meet at (public and easy to escape if things went south). He tried to stop his leg from trembling under the table.

He was nervous for a couple of reasons. The obvious: this guy could turn out to be a creepy old dude stalking men on the internet. And the less obvious but more surprising to Dean: he actually wanted this to go well. Without even knowing what he looked like, Dean had found himself beginning to like the guy. Even if he wasn’t attracted to him when he finally saw Blue Eyes, Dean would be cool with being friends with him.

His eyes were following the patterns in the wood on the table top when a deep voice came from above him.

“Dean?” It asked, with nervous uncertainty.

Dean swallowed and looked up to the source of the voice and-

Holy shit!

It was him! It was the Black Wing!

What was the guy’s name? Cas- something? Castile? Casteel? Castiel! That was it!

Holy fucking shit! This couldn’t be happening.

Dean realised he’d been staring wide-eyed during his internal freak out and Blue Eyes, Castiel, was stood looking as nervous as Dean had felt before the surprise adrenaline took over his body.

“Sorry, dude. Please sit down.” Dean gestured to the chair opposite him. He wiped his hands on his jeans, nerves starting to take over once again.

Neither man spoke for a few moments.

“So I-” Castiel began.

“I don’t-” Dean spoke too.

Both men chuckled. “You go,” Dean told Castiel.

Castiel smiled softly, “I suppose, from your reaction, you know who I am.”

Dean blushed. “Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m a big fan.” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

Now Castiel blushed, “Thank you, Dean.” His expression turned serious. “I hope you understand now why I didn’t give you my full name while we spoke online.”

“Yeah, of course, dude. Don’t want any crazies hunting you down.” Dean chuckled.

Castiel chuckled with him. “Yes, something like that.”

“So, um, before we get into the details for later, I was wondering if I could ask you a question?”

“Of course, Dean. You were honest with me, it’s only fair I return the favour.” Castiel smiled.

“It’s only because I watched one of your movies the other night with my best friend, Charlie-” who was totally gonna freak out when Dean told her about this “-but wasn’t there meant to be a solo Black Wing movie? Everyone in the fandom was talking about it and then suddenly you seemed to disappear. I guess, I’m just wondering why you changed your mind?” Dean asked, nervously. He was waiting for Castiel to tell him to go fuck himself (though Dean knew that Castiel wasn’t really that kinda guy).

Castiel cleared his throat and met Dean’s eyes. “We were just about to go into production for the solo movie when my brother and his wife were killed in a head-on collision with a truck.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open. But, he could sense Castiel hadn’t finished so he stayed quiet.

“The only blessing was that it was instant, so they didn’t suffer. That, and luckily their daughter, Claire, was at the babysitter’s at the time.” Castiel smiled, melancholy whispers gracing his features.

Dean knew he barely knew the guy but he could sense when someone needed comfort so he reached across the table to place a soft touch on Castiel’s hand.

“I took Claire into my care. And that ended my career as I knew it.” Castiel shrugged. “I was deeply disappointed to have to leave the movie, but Claire came first. And I didn’t want her to grow up in the spotlight, with people using her parents’ tragic death as a way to sell magazines. So I left the industry. That was three years ago and I haven’t looked back. Claire is five now and she’s all I could ever want.”

Dean was awestruck. “Wow.” He breathed. “I can’t believe it.”

“What?” Castiel asked, head tilting in confusion. (If the situation wasn’t so serious, Dean would have struggled not to comment on how adorable he looked.)

“Dude.” Dean choked. “You called me brave for wanting to face a coupla high school assholes. But you - you gave up your entire career to give the best life to your niece.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re amazing.”

Castiel blushed again (and Dean found he was slowly falling in love with that look on Castiel’s face). “I don’t know that I’m amazing, I just want a normal life for Claire and I.” He shrugged.

“A normal life, huh?” Dean asked. “Well, I can try and help with that.” He lifted his hand from where it had been placed on Castiel’s and held it in the air between them. “I’m Dean Winchester. I’m twenty eight. A bit of a nerd and in need of a date this evening.”

Castiel huffed a laugh and placed his hand in Dean’s, shaking it. “I’m Castiel Novak. I’m thirty. Uncle to a beautiful niece and I would be honoured if you’d let me be your date for this evening.”

Dean’s face broke into a smile, which turned into a laugh that caused a smile to spread across Castiel’s cheeks.

They let their hands settle naturally on top of the table.

Now, with their barriers down, they began making plans and ideas for that evening. Though, if Dean were being honest, it felt like he’d known Castiel forever already.

Eventually, after what felt like hours of talking, Castiel got up to finally get himself a coffee. It wasn’t until Castiel’s hand left his that Dean realised they’d been holding onto each other the whole time.

* * *

Dean and Castiel ended up talking for so long in that coffee shop that they were late for the reunion. The party was in full swing when they arrived.

Just before they entered the hall, Dean stopped in his tracks.

“What’s wrong, Dean?” Castiel asked, worry etched into his features.

“Are you sure about this, man? There’s a chance someone in there could recognise you or something. It’s not worth ruining your life plan over just for me to say ‘fuck you’ to a couple of dicks.” Dean stressed.

Castiel reached to take Dean’s hand in his. “Some things are worth a little risk.” He whispered and walked with Dean through the hall doors.

It seemed Dean had had nothing to worry about in the end. They’d spoken to a few people who had seemed genuinely interested in that Dean had been up to since graduation. And they barely batted an eye when he’d introduced Castiel as his boyfriend. (He’d meant to just call him his date but clearly his mouth had had other ideas.) Castiel himself had just placed a soft hand around Dean’s waist - stopping Dean from an internal panic.

It was all going so well and Dean was starting to think Charlie had been right (again, damn her!). Maybe everyone had just grown up and moved on.

Once they’d finished a conversation with the guy Dean sat next to in English class senior year, Castiel went to the bar to get them some drinks, whispering in Dean’s ear that he’d be back in a moment. Dean was a little sad Castiel hadn’t gone a bit further and placed a kiss on his cheek.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Dean Winchester.” The voice of Bela Talbot came from behind him. Dean turned with a scowl on his face.

“Hello, Bela.” He said through gritted teeth. She’d been one of the main people instrumental in his forced coming out.

“Goodness me, Dean. If I’d known how pretty you’d turn out, maybe high school could have gone a lot differently.” She practically purred, running a perfectly manicured finger along Dean’s cheek bone. “But, hey, there’s still time now, I could be the one to knock you straight again.”

Dean was frozen to the spot. He was back to being a scared kid, dealing with the loss of a parent and being taunted daily for his sexuality. He knew he shouldn’t have done this. He wasn’t brave. He was pathetic. He couldn’t even stand up to a school bully ten years later.

“Excuse me.” Castiel appeared suddenly at Dean’s side. “What did you say to him?” The look on his face was nothing short of murderous.

“I’m just getting reacquainted with an old friend.” Bela answered, sickly sweet. “And who are you?”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “I’m Dean’s boyfriend and I don’t appreciate the way you’re speaking to him.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. Earlier it had been a slip when he’d called Castiel his boyfriend but now Castiel was purposefully saying it? Dean didn’t dare to hope.

Bela laughed, causing Castiel to glare even harder (honestly, if looks could kill, she’d be in hell). “Ah! So he’s definitely still gay then.” She said, lip curling with distaste.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he’s bisexual, not gay. I’d tell you to educate yourself, but clearly, after ten years you’re still the same bitch you’ll always be.”

Bela looked taken aback, like no one had ever spoken to her like that before.

Castiel didn’t wait for her response. Instead, he grabbed Dean’s hand and stormed out of the building.

It wasn’t until the cool evening air hit his face, that Dean finally snapped back to himself. They’d ended up in the parking lot, stood next to Dean’s car.

“Cas..” Dean breathed.

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Castiel said, begging for forgiveness. “I just couldn’t stand the way she was speaking to you.”

“Cas-” Dean spoke.

“She was just so rude a-and small-minded. I hated it.”

“Cas!” Dean raised his voice. Castiel snapped his jaw shut. “It’s okay. Thank you for sticking up for me.” Dean stepped closer to Castiel, playing with the lapel on Castiel’s suit jacket.

Castiel looked into Dean’s eyes but Dean couldn’t hold his gaze. “I’m just embarrassed that I froze up. After all of this, I failed at standing up for myself. I’m pathetic.”

Castiel placed his hands on Dean’s cheeks, forcing Dean to look at him. Green eyes finally met blue. “Dean, listen to me. It was incredibly brave to walk into that room tonight. You are the bravest person I’ve ever met.” He said earnestly.

Dean couldn’t hold it in anymore. He hoped he wasn’t about to ruin this before it even started. But, as a wise man told him recently: some things are worth a little risk.

Wasting no more time, Dean pulled Castiel into a deep kiss.

Once Castiel was on board, he pushed Dean up against the car behind them.

After a few heated moments, of what can only be described as heavy making out, Dean growled at Castiel to get into the car before they got arrested for public indecency.

They somehow made it back to Dean’s house but their clothes only managed to stay on long enough to get through the front door. Dean directed them to his room and threw Castiel down on the bed.

He took in the sight of the beautiful man laid out under him before kissing up Castiel’s chest and took over his mouth again. The only words said between them were muttered assurances that they were on the same page. Dean could never have dreamed this is how this night would end but he certainly wouldn’t change a thing.

* * *

The next morning, Dean and Castiel laid in each other’s arms, content to be together in the quiet.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Dean. “What about your niece?” He worried. “Don’t you need to get back to her?” He sat up frantically.

“Dean, Dean, don’t worry.” Castiel raised his hands to calm the other man. “I texted my babysitter yesterday at the coffee shop asking her to stay with Claire for the night.”

Dean relaxed into the bed, smirking a little. “So you knew how the night would end even before we got to the reunion.”

Castiel blushed. “I wouldn’t say I knew. But I did hope.”

Dean smiled, pulling Castiel closer to place a tender kiss on the side of his head. “I hoped for it too.” He whispered.

They settled into silence again, warm in each other’s company.

A short while passed before either of them spoke again.

“Thank you, Dean.” Castiel murmured, breaking the quiet.

“For what?” Dean frowned.

“For thinking of Claire.”

“Well, she’s important to you. She’s your whole world.” Dean shrugged.

“Maybe my world could get a little bigger now.” Castiel suggested, smiling nervously up at Dean.”

“Yeah, I think it could.”

* * *

Later, as they dug into a couple of burgers Dean threw together, another thought crossed Dean’s mind.

“Cas?”

“Hmm?” Castiel hummed around the burger in his mouth.

“Why were you looking through Craigslist ads in the first place?”

Castiel swallowed and chuckled to himself. “Sometimes I look through to find funny ads people put up.”

Dean was beginning to get a little offended when Castiel reached across the table to hold his hand.

“But, the night that I saw your ad, I had just put Claire to bed and I was feeling lonely. I took a risk. And I think it worked.” Castiel smiled shyly.

“Hell yeah, it did!” Dean grinned from ear to ear.

* * *

Charlie’s phone vibrated next to her. She paused the video game she was playing to pick it up. Seeing it was a text from Dean, she opened it immediately.

On her screen was a selfie of Dean with another dark haired dude captioned:

‘I should take your advice more often Bradbury.’

Her eyes turned to saucers and she looked at the image again more closely. She frowned slightly, looking at the man whose cheek Dean was kissing.

Wait- That totally looked like-

Her phone dinged with a new message from Dean.

‘And yes, it’s exactly who you think it is.’

HOLY FRIGGIN SHIT!

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it Taylor!

If you liked what you saw, REBLOG! and consider reserving a prompt from my ‘30 Destiel Prompts’ challenge, or just send me your own prompt you’d like me to fill!

TAGS: @eccentriccas @starrynightdeancas @credentiast @imbiowaresbitch @starclaire @cockleslovesdestiel @bend-me-shape-me @destielfactory @dea-stiel @wendeano @wingsandimpalas @aggressivedean @flowersforcas @chill-legilimens @pancakesofthelord @saltnhalo @caslikescoffeeandfreckles @assbuttboyfriends @jhoomwrites @breathingdestiel @simplymisha @thekingslover @aelysianmuse

(once again tagging my faves, let me you if you’d like to be removed from future fics - or added if you’re not already there!)

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recurring-polynya · 4 years ago

Note

For the AU request, whichever one(s) you prefer (for RenRuki of course):

the X-Men universe

the Mafia/criminal underworld

the circus

as FBI agents (the X-Files world perhaps)

So, I got this ask, and I immediately wanted to go for X-Files, because I was hugely into X-Files when I was a tween/teen, and I think that my actual first published work of fanfic on the internet might actually be X-Files. (I didn’t even post it myself, I was like 12 and I didn’t have the internet at home, but a friend of mine posted it on Usenet for me, I have no idea whatever became of it). Anyway, I was going back and forth in my head who I wanted to be Mulder and who I wanted to be Scully, and then I got this ask:

@ulkoilla said:

I though the 10 would be full in about 1 microsecond so I didn’t even try :D This is maybe not AU enough for the purpose but I'd love to see your take on Bleach world where the shinigami work among humans as if they were in gigai -> they'll have to balance the supernatural, perhaps violent elements of their life with the modern day laws and such (like in Supernatural). Renji and Rukia have ofc gotten in trouble with the non-supernatural law (meet: Detective!Aizen?) and are on the run…

It suddenly occurred to me, What If: X-Files World, but Renruki are the cryptids. And it suddenly popped into my head exactly who I wanted to be Mulder. Anyway, I am sorry missrambler, if I messed it all up, I hope you like it anyway.

Also, I somehow thought that I would save myself some trouble by combining two prompts, but then it ended up… really long. (Forty! Eight! Hundred! Words! Go to Talks-Too-Much-Jail, Polynya!!)

PS: This takes place in D.C. because it’s X-Files and also because I am familiar with D.C. and I never get to write about places I know about. A half-smoke is a local delicacy that’s halfway between a hot dog and an Italian sausage. They are delicious.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

👻 👻 👻

Ichigo Kurosaki had known that an office with a view of the Smithsonian might be too much to ask, but he had not expected to take have to take two separate elevators down to sub-basement C, and walk past a storage room, two broom closets and a weird old vending machine full of brands of snacks he swore he hadn’t seen since he was a child.

Maybe Agent Inoue has a huge lab, he told himself. Maybe it needs to be 50 meters below ground because she collides large hadrons down here or so that her work can’t be picked up by spy satellites.

He had to turn sideways to get past a rack of wire shelves full of banker’s boxes, but there, on the other side was a door sporting a handwritten cardboard nameplate reading “Special Agent Orihime Inoue.”

“Come in!” a voice called inside, just as he raised his hand to knock on the door.

Ichigo blinked twice, and then went in.

The office was cluttered, mostly with more cardboard boxes, but books were also stacked precariously on top of boxes on top of books. The walls were plastered with maps and graphs and photographs of hazy blurs in front of staircases. There was a large poster showing a UFO, with the words “I WANT TO BELIEVE” in block caps below it.

A woman with long chestnut hair twisted up into a bun and held in place with three pencils was hunched over a metal box full of diodes and transistors and other things you would buy at Radio Shack. Or rather, that other people would buy at a Radio Shack. Ichigo had never set foot in a Radio Shack in his life.

“Er, good morning,” Ichigo said, as the woman looked up and blinked at him owlishly. “Agent Inoue? I’m Ichigo Kurosaki. I’ve been assigned to work with you.”

“To spy on me, you mean,” Agent Inoue corrected, cheerfully shaking his hand with great vigor.

Ichigo bristled. Yes, he had been directed to ‘provide additional documentation on Agent Inoue’s activities,’ but that hardly counted as spying. She was known to be somewhat scatterbrained, and having an organized person around would probably be a great benefit to her. “If you have any doubts about my qualifications or motivations--”

“Oh, don’t take it personally!” Inoue replied, slotting a lid onto her electronics project, and attacking it vigorously with a jeweler’s screwdriver. “Just because you’re a spy doesn’t mean you aren’t a nice person. Also, I read your file, you have a very interesting background! Degree in literature with a focus on folk legends. Teaching at the academy for the last few years while working on your book.” She took a momentary break from her screwing to fix him with her big, soft brown eyes. “Tell me, Agent Kurosaki, what do you think happens after you die?”

Ichigo froze. “I would be buried? Maybe there would be a funeral first?”

Inoue started laughing so hard that Ichigo was sure he caught a tiny, adorable snort. “Sorry, sorry! I wasn’t clear!” She sniffed, and wiped a tear from her eye. “Do you believe in continued existence after the death of the body? An afterlife, religion-based or otherwise? The existence of ectoplasm, cold spots, spirit photographs, EVP?”

“Are you talking about… ghosts?” Ichigo asked hesitantly.

“Yes!” Orihime replied with a nod. “Ghosts.”

“We-elll…” Ichigo drew out. “I believe that people believe they observe certain phenomena, as part of the cycle of grief and--”

“Just say ‘no’ if you don’t,” Inoue interrupted him.

“Er, no. I don’t.”

“That’s okay. Are you good at carrying heavy things?”

“Am I... I guess?”

“Perfect!” She shoved the box into his arms, and Ichigo’s knees almost buckled under the weight. “Let’s walk and talk, I want to go get a reading over near Franklin Square before 9 am. We’re gonna pass a really good half-smoke cart on the way, do you like half-smokes?”

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“Take a look at this,” Inoue said, her cheek half stuffed with sausage, jabbing a finger at the LED read-out of her mysterious box.

It was rather hard for Ichigo to see, because he was holding the box and the readout was on the other side, but he did his best to crane his neck around. “What am I looking at? The squiggles? I’m sorry, it looks like nothing to me.”

“Exactly right!” Inoue announced, waving her half smoke in the air. “Not a sniff of spiritual residue!”

Ichigo pressed his lips together. “Um… is that good?”

“It is interesting,” Inoue corrected. “Five days ago, a sixty-four year old woman had a heart attack while sitting in that bus shelter.” On every day since, I have been able to record EMF fluctuations, and on Sunday, I was able to get a voice recording that sounded like a woman reciting a grocery list. But this morning, nothing! Nada!”

“Well, uh, ghosts gotta move on eventually, right? Otherwise, just about everywhere would be haunted, right?” It’s not that Ichigo had suddenly started believing ghosts or anything, but there was something about Agent Inoue that just made you want to go along with her and see where all this panned out.

Inoue shot him a finger gun. “Or, they get moved along.” She shoved a folded paper map at him. “You can put that thing down.”

Ichigo eased the Spirit Detect-O 9000, or whatever it was called, to the grass and accepted her map. It was a street map of DC, meant for tourists, emphasizing all the local transit routes and popular attractions. There was also a great loop marked on it in orange highlighter, zig-zagging back and forth through the city. There was a little ‘x’ marked on Franklin Park, with “Tuesday, early morning” written in a bubbly hand.

“What is this?” Ichigo frowned. It didn’t seem to match up with any of the metro or bus lines. It didn’t even match with the sidewalks, it appeared to cut straight through large buildings like the convention center.

“As far as I can tell,” Inoue said, her brown eyes very solemn, “that is the patrol route of our local grim reaper.”

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“So I actually got interested in grim reapers,” Inoue explained, once they were back in the office, “while I was investigating violent ghost phenomena.” She was eating a bag of corn chips that she had gotten from that ancient vending machine by punching it and then shoving her own arm up the chute. (She’d gotten Ichigo a bag, too, but he was too afraid to eat them.)

Ichigo was sitting at a cluttered table that Inoue had told him “could be his desk.” Half of it was taken up by a large aquarium full of rocks and a water bowl, but no life forms that Ichigo could detect. The other half was covered with back issues of “Ghost Hunter Technology” magazine. “You mean like poltergeists?” he asked.

“Not exactly. Poltergeists are noisy, but they aren’t usually able to kill their targets.”

“Kill? Ghosts can’t kill people, aside from, like scaring them to death,” Ichigo scoffed. “I mean, folklorically speaking. As we established earlier, I am not a ghost-believer.”

Inoue tipped her head to the side. “They do, actually, it just tends to get blamed on something else.”

“By ghost-non-believers.”

“By everyone, really, and that’s what’s so strange.” Inoue pulled a fat binder from a stack of seemingly identical ones, and tossed it open in front of Ichigo. “Edison, New Jersey, 2014. An elderly woman dies ‘of a broken heart’ a week after her husband dies of cancer. Coincidentally, a telephone pole falls on her house the same night and rips a hole in her house.” She turned a page. “Norfolk, Virginia, 2017. A young woman dies in what the police rule as a suicide, despite the fact that she made a 911 call 48 hours previous, expressing fear of her ex-boyfriend. Three days later, the boyfriend is dead of mysterious causes. Coincidentally, his apartment complex suffered significant damages from ‘a wild cougar.’”

Ichigo squinted at the pictures. The walls of the building were scored with what did appear to be scratch marks. “Hell of a cougar.”

“Exactly! And I’ve got dozens of these historic cases. But about four months ago, I was able to investigate one myself-- a young man named Joe Wallace. He lives here in the city, over near Dupont Circle. Wallace had cut off his toxic dad years ago, and refused to visit him in the hospital as he was dying. Four days after his father’s death, a truck crashes into his house in the middle of the night and then drives away before the police can arrive.”

“And he died.”

“No!” Inoue held up one finger. “Scratches and bruises, but he doesn’t die!”

“Okay, great. So what does he remember?”

“He remembers a truck crashing into his house.”

Ichigo scratched his chin. “I am confused.”

“Look at this!” Inoue stabbed a finger at the pictures. “These are claw marks, not vehicular wreckage! There’s damage on the second story window! Wallace had scratches and defensive wounds, as if he had been fending off an animal! And look here, at the damage to the walls of the bedroom!”

“What am I looking at?” Ichigo asked, squinting at a photograph that looked like it had been blown up past the point of recognition.

“There were cuts and slashes in the walls and bedding as though someone had been fighting with a sword.”

“Like a Medieval Times sword? Was the guy a Medieval Times enthusiast?”

“More consistent with a katana. Do you like Medieval Times?”

“No one likes Medieval Times.”

“I like Medieval Times. You’ve probably never even been. But back to the ghost! Why would Wallace remember a truck crashing into his house, when nothing about the scene is consistent with that story?”

“He was...lying?”

“His memories were replaced.”

“His memories were replaced,” Ichigo echoed.

“Yes.”

“By… aliens?”

Orihime heaved a deep sigh. “By a grim reaper.”

“A grim reaper with a samurai sword.”

“How on earth did you come to this conclusion?”

Inoue raised one eyebrow. “Because when I placed him under hypnosis, Wallace didn’t remember anything about a truck. He did remember a monster with batwings and a mask made of bone and his dead father’s voice who tried to kill him, except that he was saved by a tall man dressed in black. The man had bright red hair and fought the monster with a sword that was also a whip and then he wiped Wallace’s memories.”

Ichigo stared at her. “You can hypnotize people?”

Inoue gave him a long-suffering face. Ichigo had the sudden flash that he was going to be seeing that face a lot in the days to come. “Yes, I am a certified hypnotist.” Inoue’s phone suddenly started playing “Tubular Bells”. “Oops, that’s an alarm. Come on, we have a meeting with some important people. Do you like diners?”

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Agent Inoue apparently did not care for public transit, but she walked very quickly. Ichigo was concentrating so hard on keeping up with her that he nearly collided with her back when she stopped very suddenly.

“You don’t mind if we make a quick stop, do we?” Inoue asked.

“You said the meeting was with important people.”

“Oh, don’t worry about them!” Inoue pursed her lips. “You see that bodega right there?”

They were in a part of downtown that was mostly mid-to-upscale restaurants and government buildings and FedExes. But sure enough, there was a dingy little bodega nestled between a Mexican-Indian fusion place and an Au Bon Pain, the windows stuffed with t-shirts from the last administration and a variety of cell phone chargers. The overhead sign read “Urahara Shop.”

“Y...eah…” Ichigo replied.

“That place is a hotbed of supernatural activity.”

“Is it?” Ichigo asked.

“I am almost positive that it is a supply point and meeting place for grim reapers, monster slayers, cryptids, alien hunters, and lycanthropes, but the owner is on to me.”

“I see,” Ichigo said levelly.

“Can you go in and pretend to be a customer? They have lots of good candy you can look through. Inoue dug in her purse and came up with a fiver. “Here. Buy a scratch ticket or something.”

“I’m not buying a scratch ticket, they’re a scam.”

“If the big guy is working the counter, he’ll glare at you until you buy something, so be prepared.”

As Ichigo pushed open the door, he realized he’d never actually agreed to any of this. Agent Inoue’s secret hypnosis powers, once again. Whatever. It was a bodega, there were a thousand of them in DC. They all had the same Nats t-shirts and coffee mugs with pictures of the Washington Monument on them. Ichigo pretended to be interested in a rack of comics. He tended to prefer indy comics over the big publishers himself, but even so, he didn’t recognize any of the books. Maybe they were by local authors.

Up at the front of the shop, a tiny, dark-haired woman was giving whatfor to the man behind the counter, a tall fellow with pale, straw-colored hair sticking out in tufts from under the saddest hat Ichigo had ever seen, a shapeless, battered bucket, striped green and white.

“Well, I can sell you a new battery for your phone, Miss Kuchiki, maybe that would help.”

“Not if it only lasts as long as the last one you sold me! I really need to get in touch with my partner, except that even if I could get my phone working again, his battery is probably dead because everything you sell is the same crap!”

“Ah, that’s too bad! You know, I think Mr. Abarai was in here a few days ago… I wasn’t in at the time, but Jinta said he came in, asking about…”

The man trailed off, and Ichigo glanced up to see the shopkeeper looking directly at him.

“...metrocards. But as you know, we don’t sell metrocards anymore.”

The woman made an aggravated noise. “You’re so useless! If I write him a damned note, will you give it to him if he comes in?”

“Oh, of course! Anything for you, Miss Kuchiki!”

The conversation trailed off as the woman hunched over the counter to angrily scratch out a note.

Ichigo stuffed the comic he was flipping through back on its rack. He skipped the enormous display of bedazzled flip-flops and started perusing the surprisingly extensive selection of gum.

“Here!” the woman finished and shoved her note at the shopkeeper. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Have a wonderful day!” the shopkeeper tootled, giving her a little finger wave.

Ichigo felt bad for the woman. “Er, excuse me?” he said as she passed.

She turned to scowl at him. For such a tiny person, she seemed to contain a remarkable amount of rage.

“Do you need to call someone? You can use my phone, if you’d like.” He held it out like an offering.

The woman blinked at him for a moment.

“I didn’t mean to be nosy! You were just kind of loud and you sounded worried about your, um, partner.”

“I’m not worried about him, I just need to find him.” Her face softened. “Thanks, Mister, but I can’t reach him on a regular phone. Don’t worry, I’ll track him down eventually.” She turned to leave, then stopped to jab an accusatory finger at Ichigo. “And that’s professional partner, not… you know! Whatever!” She stomped out.

What a strange, tiny person.

Ichigo selected a gum and walked up to the counter.

“Oooh, dragonberry lime, good choice!” the man trilled. “Anything else I can get you? Bottled water? Fanny pack? Spare phone battery?”

“I’ll pass,” Ichigo replied dryly.

“I imagine it’s against FBI policy to let a stranger use your cell phone,” the shopkeeper said sweetly.

Ichigo’s brows furrowed. “This is my personal phone. And how did you…?”

The man gave a chortling laugh that sent shivers down Ichigo’s spine. “Because headquarters is three blocks away and only an FBI agent would wear a suit that square.”

Ichigo took his change and his gum and shoved them both in his pocket. “Yeah, well, your hat sucks.”

The man laughed harder. “Doesn’t it, though?”

Once he was outside again, Ichigo handed Inoue the gum and her change. “The owner of that place is a creep.”

“The guy in the green and white hat?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Urahara. You’re right, he’s the owner. Were there any other customers?”

“Just the short lady. You must have seen her come out. She was ripping Urahara a new one for some dodgy cell phone battery he sold her. I think she must have been NSA or something. She said she was trying to get ahold of her partner, but she needed a special phone.” As he said it, Ichigo realized it would be pretty odd for an NSA agent to be buying cell phone batteries from some shady bodega.

“No one came out,” Inoue replied.

“She definitely did! I heard the bell over the door ring.”

Inoue regarded Ichigo very seriously. “Agent Kurosaki. I was standing here the whole time. You were the only person who went in or out.” She looked at the gum. “Ooh! Dragonfruit lime! Do you want some?”

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They were late to the meeting.

Two men were waiting for them in the back corner booth. One of them had pinched, pointy features and piercing blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. His chin-length haircut was pretty dramatic, but not as dramatic as his pure white trench coat. A cup of black coffee sat on the faded Formica table in front of him, but it didn’t look like it had been touched.

His companion was an enormous, good-looking Latino who was shoveling pancakes into his face.

“Inoue,” the dramatic guy said. “Who’s this?”

“This is my new partner, Kurosaki,” Inoue replied. “Kurosaki, this is Uryuu Ishida,” she indicated the white trenchcoat guy, “and Chad,” Mr. Pancakes.

“Also known as the ‘Lone Archers,’” Ishida specified. “We are apolitical actors who are interested in revealing the truths that are regularly hidden from the general populace by secret forces that conspire within the machinery of the American government.”

“You can just call me Chad,” said Chad.

“Good morning!” the waitress said. “Can I get you folks anything?”

“Oh, yes! I’m getting mozzarella sticks! Do you like mozzarella sticks, Kurosaki? They’re so good here!”

“So’re the pancakes,” added Chad.

“I’ll just have a coffee,” Ichigo announced. He glanced at Ishida’s cup. “Black.”

“Double mozzarella sticks, please!” Inoue chorused. “And a cherry coke!” She leaned over to Ichigo and spoke out of the side of her mouth. “I’ll give you a mozzarella stick.”

“Do you want some pancake?” Chad offered to Ishida. “I never think to offer.”

Ishida waved him off with a hand. “Agent Inoue. At great personal peril, I was able to obtain a sample of the item we discussed.” He slid a small paper packet across the table. “There are two tablets inside, but one should be sufficient for your purposes.” Ishida leaned forward, his mouth set in a firm line. “I was cautioned very strongly against using this, unless one had a firm plan for handling the… consequences.”

“I understand,” Inoue replied, stuffing the envelope into her purse.

Ichigo wanted to ask more questions, but the conversation shifted very quickly to some USGS floodplain maps that Ishida wanted Inoue to obtain for him that were apparently not available from the public webportals, allegedly because of filesize. Ichigo could practically hear the air quotes around the word “filesize.”

“We’re going to look for Jersey Devils next weekend,” Chad explained, sounding pretty excited about it.

“There’s only one, Chad,” Ishida corrected. “It’s just ‘Jersey Devil.’”

“There could be more than one,” Chad shrugged.

Thirty minutes later, they departed. Inoue had an order of mozzarella sticks in her purse. Ichigo had an armload of backissues of the Lone Archers’ ‘zine, which was, conveniently enough, titled The Lone Archer. There was no doubt in his mind that at least Ishida was completely off his rocker. The jury was still out on Chad… he struck Ichigo as the sort of guy who just went along with Ishida’s nonsense because he was a good friend and also liked taking camping trips and doing layout for ‘zines.

“So what was that thing they gave you?” Ichigo pestered. The idea of that little paper packet had been burning a hole in his brain the entire time.

“You busy tonight?” Inoue asked, raising an eyebrow slyly. “Between 10 and 11?”

“What are we doing?” Ichigo asked cautiously, wondering if he would be able to charge his time.

“We’re going to try and attract an angry ghost.”

👻 👻 👻

“Are you… sure this is… a good idea?” Ichigo asked for the sixteenth time, as Inoue focused the thermal camera on him.

They were in an old, abandoned lot that had formerly served as a Metro service facility. It was pretty spooky all on its own, filled with train cars too dilapidated for salvage.

It was 10:25pm. Inoue had set up no less than 17 different pieces of ghost detection equipment. Ichigo was questioning his life choices.

“You told me you don’t believe in ghosts. If ghosts don’t exist, then what could possibly go wrong?” Inoue posed.

“Well… that’s true,” Ichigo granted. “And, for the record, I still do not believe in ghosts. But in the Pascal’s wager sense of things, I am considering the ramifications of what happens if there are ghosts that exist, regardless of my belief in them.”

“And?” Inoue asked.

“Well, you said that these ghosts have hurt and killed people before. It seems like trying to attract one without having any method of, um, fighting it, seems kind of… irresponsible?”

“Ah, but you see, I’ve specifically picked this time and location to coincide with the grim reaper patrol routes I’ve been mapping out. Our friendly neighborhood psychopomp ought to show up just on schedule to fight the angry ghost for us. We’re doing them a favor, as I see it.”

“How so?” Ichigo exclaimed.

“It’s not like we’re creating an angry ghost out of nowhere. We’re just attracting an existing one to our location. We’re saving the grim reaper the trouble of having to hunt it down.”

Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was it so difficult to argue with Inoue? Possibly because she was so incredibly earnest in all her beliefs, and all her arguments were in completely good faith, it’s just that her logic came from some other dimension. This woman has solved multiple, high-profile murders, including several that were ice cold, Ichigo reminded himself. So she’s quirky. I am sure I can learn a lot from her.

“Okay, everything is in place!” Inoue announced, placing her hand on her hips. “Go hide behind that pile of moldy seats!”

Inoue took Ichigo’s place at the center of her recording equipment. “Agent Orihime Inoue speaking,” she said, for posterity. “It is 10:28pm. I am crushing one tablet of a substance called ‘Hollow Bait.’” She crunched the little white tablet, which looked an awful lot like an Alka-Seltzer, between her fingers, and then made a flying leap for the rotting pile of damp, orange upholstery that Ichigo was crouched behind.

“So, just out of curiosity,” Ichigo started. “How long would we have to wait, theoretically, with nothing happening, before we would declare this a bust?”

Inoue pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Usually, I would give it about two hours, but if you’ve got somewhere to be, I don’t mind if you leave early. It is nice to have company for a change.”

“No, I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Ichigo replied. “I mean… sleeping, I guess.”

Inoue gave a charming little laugh. “I don’t sleep very well. And hunting for ghosts is more interesting than most of the stuff on Hulu.”

The way that she said it gave Ichigo the distinct impression that Inoue was, well, lonely. But that didn’t seem correct. She was weird, sure, but she was also friendly and talkative, and, er, well, she was extremely cute. Surely she had tons of friends.

“How’d you get into ghost hunting, anyway?” he tried to be conversational.

“Hmm,” Inoue hummed noncommittally. “Let’s just say there was an incident in my teen years, where my memories don’t match up to the property damage.”

Oh. Ichigo wondered if he should apologize, when suddenly, a cold chill ran down his spine and a sound like a roar echoed in his ears, except he didn’t actually hear anything. “Did you hear that?” he gasped.

“It’s the EMF detector,” Inoue nodded, scrambling for the reader and Ichigo realized he could hear a faint beeping.

“No, not the beeping, it was like a… a… scream…”

“You heard a scream?”

“I didn’t exactly…” Ichigo trailed off as he heard two more, coming from different directions. “There’s more than one. Monster screams. Not human screams.”

Inoue stared at him, eyes wide. “I don’t hear anything. Have you ever been tested for latent psychic ability?”

There was a sudden change in the air pressure, and a fetid, rotting smell, even worse than the Metro seats. Ichigo grabbed Inoue by the shoulders and rolled out of the way, just as the pile of junk they had been crouched behind compacted like it had been through a car crusher. Or smashed by a giant foot.

“Whoa!” Inoue exclaimed, trying to push Ichigo off of her so she could see what was going on.

Ichigo blinked through the night. He couldn’t see anything, but there was an area of space that looked thick and hazy, like it wasn’t refracting the harsh glow of the sodium street lights quite correctly.

“We have to get out of here,” Ichigo gasped.

“Can you see it?” Inoue asked, her eyes wide and excited.

“Not-- not really,” Ichigo replied, pulling at her arm. The air blurred, and Ichigo had the sense the thing was jumping at them. He could tell it was fast, but he couldn’t see it, he didn’t know what to--

“Howl, Zabimaru!”

It was both there and not quite there, a liquid blade made of glass and starlight, that snapped through the air at the invisible thing. The monster bellowed, and whipped around, charging at a dark figure standing atop one of the old Metro cars.

“Pick on someone your own size, ugly!” the man bellowed, and as Ichigo squinted, he realized that their savior was dressed all in black. He was tall, and his hair was pulled back in a spiky ponytail. It was bright red. He was also wearing sunglasses, even though it was the middle of the night. They were pushed up on top of his head, to be fair, but Ichigo had a feeling this detail would stick with him.

“You can see that guy, right?” Ichigo asked Inoue desperately. “The guy who’s fighting the ghost? The guy that looks just like the guy in your report?”

“There’s a guy?” Inoue asked. “No. Where is he? Can you usually see ghosts?”

“I don’t even believe in ghosts!”

“Well, maybe you don’t believe in them because you can see them and you don’t want to, did you ever think of that?”

“I don’t think now is the time to interrogate my personal traumas!”

Suddenly, there was another drop in pressure, and Ichigo had the sense of heavy breathing and sharp teeth. “Inoue. I think there’s another one.”

“Well, can you get the guy to come fight this one, too?”

“He seems busy,” Ichigo squeaked.

Something black flashed by his vision, and there was a loud crack and a sound of something screeching in pain. A second dark-clad person had arrived, landing softly on sandaled feet. There was the same unreality to her, a sense that she wasn’t entirely there, as well as a certain familiarity that Ichigo couldn’t place. Her sword was bright in the darkness, like moonlight reflecting on snow.

“Oi, there you are, you big dummy!” she shouted at the first man and Ichigo realized with a jolt that it was the angry woman from the bodega. “I’ve been looking for you for four days!”

“I had a problem with my gigai and maybe you should check your texts once in a while!” the tall guy shouted back. Ichigo refused to think of him as a grim reaper. A grim reaper would not wear sunglasses.

“My phone died!”

“Can we-- ow! -- discuss this later? I’m glad you’re okay, I missed you. Why are there so many Hollows in this train yard?”

“You’re such a sap! And the Hollows are here because some stupid humans got ahold of some Hollow bait.” The woman turned, and glared at Ichigo. Her eyes burned with blue flame, like the burner of a gas stove.

That would have been the last thing Ichigo remembered, if he had actually remembered it, or any of the things that came before it.

👻 👻 👻

Ichigo was sitting at his desk.

Inoue was sitting at her desk.

The sun was streaming in the window. The clock on Ichigo’s phone read 7:12am.

Inoue frowned. She examined a coffee cup on her desk. She took a hesitant sip, and then made a face. “Why are we here?” she wondered softly.

“I hate to pull an all-nighter,” Ichigo said, stretching, “but it sure does feel good to be caught up on paperwork!”

Inoue regarded him. “Kurosaki,” she said, “how long have you worked here?”

Ichigo frowned. “Well, I guess this is my second day.”

“Right. So… how much paperwork did you have to catch up on?”

Ichigo blinked. He very distinctively recalled working through the night-- his hand cramping, the incredibly spicy Thai food they’d ordered, Inoue’s seemingly infinite Boy Bands of the 90’s playlist. “I… was helping you, I guess?” Come to think of it, why was he filling out paperwork by hand, anyway? His laptop sat next to him, the lid closed. It wasn’t even plugged in.

Inoue’s fist slammed down onto her desk. “Gosh darnit! They wiped my memories again!!”

#wacky au requests #my writing #in my youth i shipped mulder and scully so hard #and now it's like...girl #you could do so much better #it is not possible to do better than gillian anderson

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