#but yeah just... make stuff? instead of souring the whole thing?

[hybbat]

You know I've had a lot of posts on my dash about Lizzie including 3 fics... And all of them are about how she is ignored for the men.

I've not seen any of the content they're complaining about, and I've not seen any of the content they're asking for...

You know you can just... make content about Lizzie. Instead of content about the lack of content. You can just draw her or write about her or make headcanons and essays about her, instead of about how there isn't any.

We get it, nobody is talking about her. So, please just actually talk about her?

[a-hazbin-reader]

Hey! Love your stuff! But i kinda notice you mainly do Vox and Al so...

Can you do like....... A husker x child!reader headcanons ? (Platonic ofc)

The old bartender finds a kid completely without adult supervision at a bar (their just drawing ) , goes up to them to find thier guardian only to realise they dont have any?

Husker wants to get rid of them but they ultimately grow on him and they become closer. The kid is sarcastic and they shit on alastor together....

And they draw a mocking pic of the radio demon and stick it onto the fridge of the hotel for everyone to see?

There is a LOT of Vox and Alastor in my inbox but I'm a sucker for Husk so-

Husk X Reader Headcanons

❌️Romantic

✅️Platonic

TW: Unaccompanied minor in places a baby shouldn't be

Description: 👆⬆️

Sometimes Husk just needs a break from being a bartender, wanting to be the one being served

He wants to relax in his free time and just have a moment to himself

Actually starts to let loose when he suddenly feels a tiny hand tugging on his wing

Husk is so confused when he looks down to see a child staring up at him, clutching dirty paper and crayons

"Can you help me up, mister..? The chairs are too high..."

Sets you up on the barstool next to him, still too stunned to really ask why you're even here

He looks at the bartender as they pass him his drink, gesturing to you with a wtf expression

They just shrug as they give you a plastic cup with water in it, obviously used to having you around by that point

Finally snaps out of it once the bartender pushes a plate of food towards you

Don't look at him like that it's perfectly natural to be freaked out by a kid at a bar

You're just kicking your legs and drawing, munching on the food given to you

You shouldn't be in a rowdy place like this, who's supposed to be watching you??

"So uh...does your mommy take you here often?"

"No, does yours?"

Motherfucker you're already spilling your water on yourself-here let him help you-how are you so bad at this???

"Your papa then?"

"No, I don't have any parents but- *insert bartender's name* -is really nice and let's me hang out in here.."

You're breaking his fucking heart, kid

"Oh well...don't mind me then."

"Uh yeah, I won't."

Sarcastic for such a little squirt, aren't you?

His drink suddenly tastes sour and he's no longer in the mood for another, watching you unhappily

Starts seeing you every time he visits the bar, always keeping to yourself and oblivious to the things going on around you

At first, he's annoyed whenever he sees you, reluctantly keeping an eye on you and making sure nobody bothers you

Even if they do, you're so witty for your age that you leave just about everyone gobsmacked by the shit that comes out of your mouth

The whole point of coming where was to relax and instead he's worrying about some kid

Then that annoyance slips away to reluctant fondness as you worm your way into his old heart

He starts to look forward to seeing you and starts bringing little things for you like clothes, toys, coloring books

Listens to you babble about what you do with your days and how you've managed to survive on your own

Not the bartender developing a crush on him for it

Husk doesn't even realize how attached he is until one day he visits the bar and you aren't there, the bartender distracted and upset

You haven't shown up in couple of days

He immediately goes looking for you, frequenting all the places he's heard you mention

Is asking anyone if they've seen you, getting more frantic with each negative answer

Finally finds someone who knows where you are, leading Husk to where you've been hiding out

And now he knows why you haven't shown up

Husk gathers up your shaking, feverish body, hating the fact that you're so sick

"H-Husk..?"

You can barely even open your eyes, he can feel your little body burning up in his arms

"Hey kid..."

He's not leaving you here

He takes you back to the hotel so that you can be properly taken care of, leaning on the others when he doesn't know what to do

Charlie and Vaggie are the biggest helps tbh, they're actually good at caring for people

Alastor is entirely unhelpful except for the fact that he can provide medicine and other supplies

"My my~ Look at what the cat dragged in! Aha!"

"Shut up...you weird strawberry man.."

Even when you're sick you're still a riot

He tries to keep Niffty tf away from you but you think she's funny

He and Angel are your makeshift heaters, so fuzzy and warm that you want to cuddle them all the time

Angel complains the entire time though so you don't really prefer him

Mostly you want Husk with you and he sticks with you until you're feeling better

By then you're well acquainted with everyone at the hotel and they're all quite attached to you

Everyone agrees that you live there now and you get your own room even though you have a habit of sleeping in Husk's

It's okay, Husk looks forward to waking up to your adorable face and doesn't even mind when you kick him in your sleep

You play with Niffty and Angel, learn from Charlie and Vaggie, bother Alastor with your less than flattering renditions of him

You don't like that Alastor is so rude to Husk so you've taken to being a little thorn in his side

Kids pick up on their parent's emotions what can I say

Which Alastor absolutely hates but hides it behind a tight smile, he's surprisingly patient with you

And if those drawings of Alastor on the fridge suddenly go missing?? Husk can always ask you to make him another one

Husk finds himself thinking of you as his kid more and more often, surprised that you ever got this close to his heart

And you yourself slip up a few times and call him dad/papa/daddy/father/pops

You're always a little embarrassed by the chorus of awwws that follow afterwards but you don't really mind it anymore

And neither does he if he's being honest

He struggles sometimes to be a proper caregiver for you but you always seem to just love him more for his flaws

You're too fucking cute

You're definitely his kid

And don't worry Husk lets the bartender know you're safe and brings you to visit them after their shifts

I GOT SO CARRIED AWAY WITH THIS I LOVE DADDY!HUSK SO I HOPE YOU LIKE IT TOO

[suzukiblu]

Day fifteen of fic NaNoWriMo; obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

Kon grins wider, then holds his cup out to him. Specifically, he tilts it so Tim can take a sip instead of just giving it to him. 

Bastard. Bastard-coated bastard with bastard-flavored nougat-y filling and a bastardly ganache coating and bastard sprinkles on top. 

Bastard. 

Tim thinks several more accusing things, then leans over and tries the smoothie. It does taste pretty good, though it’s a little too sweet for him to want to drink the whole cup. Blackberry is definitely more his thing. 

“Not bad,” he says anyway, because it’s not and also goddammit, Kon is still grinning at him. Because again: bastard. Absolute full and complete and entire bastard. 

“Yeah, for the East Coast, at least,” Kon replies with an easy shrug, reclaiming his cup for another sip. Tim does not think about indirect kissing or anything that ridiculously juvenile and middle-school. Not at all. Not even slightly, in fact. “I dunno, the whole thing just reminds me, um . . . like, I didn’t really do the whole ‘childhood’ thing, obviously, but you know that thing where people talk about extra-liking stuff they used to eat when they were kids? Tropical flavors kinda make me feel like that. Comfort food or whatever. I mean, it’s not Loco Moco or musubi, obviously, but . . .” 

Tim blinks, makes a few mental notes, and wonders if there’s a single actually authentic Hawaiian restaurant in Gotham. Maybe? There’s got to be at least a decent food truck or two around, if nothing else. There’s always a food truck. 

He could probably bribe one to come into the city for a day or two, if it comes to it. 

“That makes sense,” he says, since technically Kon’s childhood pretty much was in Hawaii. He refuses to count the stupid fucking cloning tube, because counting the stupid fucking cloning tube is literally too depressing a thought to even contemplate. Fuck the stupid fucking cloning tube. Fuck it sideways. 

Maybe Tim can just bribe a Hawaiian food truck to set up in Kon’s future cul-de-sac once a week or something, once he's conned him into moving into it. Just include it in their usual schedule or something, he doesn’t know. Or at least drop off a regular lunch order for him, maybe. 

Whatever, he’ll work something out. He’s going to be working a lot of things out, at this point; hooking Kon up with a regular supply of his childhood comfort foods is not even an imposition. He doesn’t even know what either Loco Moco or musubi is, but he’ll put them on the list and do his damn research. He'll go to Hawaii and hire a personal chef straight from the source if he has to, at this point. 

“Can I try yours?” Kon asks, grin going sly again. Tim’s head immediately empties out all over again, and he mutely holds his cup out. Kon’s grin widens. 

He leans in and ducks his head and Tim has to deal with how long his eyelashes are and just how pretty his stupid face is and, worse, how pretty his stupid mouth is. 

Fuck’s sake, this is just not fair at all. He knows Kon’s a flirt, obviously, but does he have to actually be good at it? Because Tim is not used to him being good at it, actually! Usually he’s being overbearing and too-eager and weird about it, in fact! 

Tim has the unfortunate thought that maybe Kon always flirts like this and he’s just not seeing it as overbearing or too-eager or weird because it’s focused on him for once, then immediately dismisses said thought as a thought he absolutely cannot allow himself to ever have again. Just–ever. Not for anything. 

Jesus, what is his fucking life right now? 

Kon leans back; licks his lips. Tim dies, kind of. Like, just a little bit. 

Alright, maybe more than a little bit. 

“I like it,” Kon says, grinning at him. Tim tries not to think about how intimately he now knows how Kon’s mouth would taste right now, sharply sweet-sour with blackberry and tropical fruit and all warm and soft and wet and–never mind.

“Want a pretzel too?” he offers in a hopefully normal voice, tipping his head towards the stand. 

“Sure,” Kon says, glancing towards it. “Sounds good, man.” 

“Cool,” Tim says, incredibly awkwardly, and they head over. He orders a regular pretzel because he doesn't know Caroline Hill's pretzel order anymore than he knows her smoothie order, but “regular” isn't going to be interesting enough for Kon to make a note of either way. Possibly he should just be ordering things Tim Drake would, but the flaw in that plan is that Tim Drake isn't thinking very clearly right now and it is currently much, much easier to be in mission-mode than anything else. 

Kon orders a cinnamon-sugar pretzel. Tim wishes the bastard would stop eating things that taste good, but also recognizes that it’s his fault that the bastard's been eating things that taste good. He’s literally the one both suggesting and buying said things for him. 

So Kon’s mouth is about to taste like cinnamon sugar right now because of Tim, which is actually making the fact that Kon’s mouth is about to taste like cinnamon sugar right now infinitely worse. 

Tim pays. They get the pretzels. Kon immediately tears off a bite of his and Tim wishes he had a cover identity that didn't like cinnamon, or at least was allergic to it or diabetic or gluten-intolerant or something. He could use a cover identity like that to fall back on right now. 

“Wanna bite?” Kon offers. 

“I'm good,” Tim says, because he will literally die if he takes him up on that offer right now. Or possibly go criminally insane like fifteen years ahead of schedule, which would be its own problem. He doesn't have enough kryptonite for that yet. “You like it?” 

He doesn’t know why he asked that. Apparently he’s just a glutton for punishment. 

“Yeah,” Kon says, licking sugar off his lips. “It’s good.” 

“Good,” Tim says, then desperately flails for a subject that doesn’t involve the way anything currently in Kon’s mouth tastes. “Do you have a personal phone or just a work one?” 

“Just work, technically. And then, like, I get issued communicators when I need them,” Kon replies, looking puzzled. “Why?” 

Because Cadmus could very easily track and tap and block whatever numbers they wanted on that, Tim doesn’t say. 

“I’m trying to get your number and I don’t want to call you on your work phone,” he says. “That seems weird.” 

“You a little on the shy side, pretty boy?” Kon asks teasingly, flashing him a smirk. Tim does not examine anything about that statement or his own feelings about it. He also does not think about what Kon’s mouth tastes like, though Kon makes that incredibly difficult by immediately taking another bite of pretzel. 

Has Tim mentioned what a bastard he is yet? Because he is a bastard.

“I’m buying you a phone,” he says, deciding if he just acts like it’s a foregone conclusion and some small little thing, Kon’s likelier to not reject the offer. “I cannot mentally deal with the idea of your boss seeing what I text you about on some random weekly report.” 

“You can’t, huh,” Kon says, biting his lip around a grin and shifting in a little bit closer. “Why, Tim? What are you gonna text me about?” 

Tim realizes how that might’ve sounded much too late, but by then it’s too late to rephrase or backtrack, so fuck it: time to commit. 

“Depends on what you text back, I guess,” he says. Kon laughs, then grins at him again. His face is a little red again too. Tim is resigned to having to survive the experience. 

“Well, I guess you’d have my number if you got me a phone, huh,” Kon says. 

“I would, yes,” Tim says. He’s going to have to resist asking Kon to turn on “find my phone”, probably. Or adding any trackers or bugs to it. It’s the Bat instinct, but it’d probably creep Kon out if he caught a “civilian” doing anything like that. And also definitely concern him, what with the “supervillain creep” concerns he was already having. And Tim would have a really hard time paying for Kon’s entire life if Kon decided he was a supervillain before he’s even become a supervillain, so he’d prefer to avoid that outcome. 

He guesses Caroline Hill could give it a shot if Tim Drake can’t pull it off, though. She’d still probably have better chances than him anyway, given Kon’s usual taste in people. 

They eat their pretzels on the way to the electronics store and Tim tries to plot how to convince Kon to let him get him the best possible phone but is incredibly, incredibly distracted by watching him lick cinnamon sugar off his fingers. Tim actually hasn’t seen Kon with his gloves off too many times, come to think of it. Or possibly, like . . . ever. Like, he might’ve actually never seen him with his gloves off before. 

Alright, well, that’s a thing that he hadn’t yet realized and is now going to be completely normal about. 

Definitely normal. Very, very normal. So normal. 

They toss out their empty pretzel wrappers outside the store and Kon licks a little more sugar off the pad of his thumb. Tim wonders if he has any callouses. Probably not, considering the TTK, but who knows. Maybe he trains with it down? Or maybe TTK just doesn’t protect his skin quite that thoroughly. Tim’s never actually seen him get cut or scratched or even bruised, though, so . . . maybe? 

He really has no idea, at this point. 

He supposes he could ask. Tim Drake’s already said he knew about tactile telekinesis and that he did some research, so . . . 

“Does TTK protect you from callouses?” he asks, gesturing at Kon’s hands with his smoothie and a little too curious to repress the question. Kon tilts his head and smirks at him again. 

“You tell me,” he says, then casually reaches over and catches Tim’s free hand in his own. 

Tim had thoughts in his head at some point today, he’s pretty sure, but hell if he knows what any of them were.

[apomaro-mellow]

Family Planning 6

Part 5

Eddie arrived at the party when it was in full swing, music blaring, and teens inside and out. Kimberly was seatbelted on the passenger side.

“What do you say kiddo? Ready to party?”

Of course, she didn’t answer and not for the first time he wondered if he should draw a face on her. Even he felt just a tad ridiculous talking to an inanimate object. He steeled his nerves and got out, little Kimmy on his hip as he went inside. It wasn’t hard to find Steve. He only needed to follow the chants urging him to chug and sure enough there was a circle of jocks cheering him on.

Eddie didn’t actually see him until he came up, beer dripping from his lips as the crowd cheered him on like they did for the game. He looked completely in his element. One that Eddie didn’t really belong. He didn’t know anyone here. Not really. No one from his club would come within a hundred yards of this place. And without Steve at his side, he doubted these folks would be willingly courteous. So he kept on the move at first, walking around, trying to find a comfortable spot to lurk with a sack of flour.

One guy grabbed his shoulder and asked if he had any of his stuff. When Eddie told him no, he groaned and walked off, chugging the rest of whatever he was drinking. Eddie had his typical lunch box back in the van, but he didn’t feel like being the dealer tonight. Steve had invited him as a guest, he had assumed at least.

Steve never bought from him directly but Eddie knew he had partaken in his product. He was the only plug the high school had. What if that was all this was? Steve wanted him here for party favors? Probably for free because how could he make his project partner pay? Or his friends? God, was that guy going off to tell Steve?

He needed a drink and he knew better than to sip from a random cup or bowl, so he ventured into the kitchen for an unopened can. He grabbed one from the counter and was able to finish it before Steve stumbled in.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you.”

“For me?”, Eddie pointed at himself.

“Yeah, I thought I saw you earlier but couldn’t find you. You’ve been here the whole time?”

Eddie shrugged. He adjusted Kimberly on his hip, drawing Steve’s eyes too it for the first time.

“You brought i..her?”

“Couldn’t get a babysitter on short notice”, Eddie teased.

He knew his joke landed when Steve shared a smile with him but the mood soured a little when guys from the team joined them, Hagan even coming to put an arm around Steve’s shoulders.

“Hey Munson, didn’t expect you to make it”, Tommy said.

“I had an invitation from his royal highness himself”, Eddie said with a half-bow to Steve.

“Dude’s so desperate to pass”, another player, Carl said, pointing at the sack of flour as he jeered.

“Hey, cut that shit out”, Steve said. “It’s my grade too. Believe it or not, some of us actually care about how we do in class.” He felt Tommy nudge him, like he was worried about Steve saying too much or the wrong thing, but he ignored him. Instead, choosing to move from under his arm and get closer to Eddie. “Why did you bring her anyway? Isn’t it like past her bedtime or something?”

“The family that celebrates together, stays together”, Eddie reasoned.

“Geez, if I’d known you were that needy for some alpha dick, I would’ve offered.” Carl grabbed his groin, making eyes at Steve. “Every princess needs a throne, right?”

“You watch your fucking mouth”, Eddie growled.

Carl’s smirk dropped at the actual challenge from an alpha and he muttered a half-apology before scuttling away. Steve purred in a way that no one had ever pulled from him before and he was glad for the loud music covering it. But Eddie might’ve heard it anyway from the dark gaze he was giving him. Someone bumped into Steve from behind, pushing him out of his trance but also bringing him closer to Eddie.

“Um”, he cleared his throat. “We should probably get our pup to bed, right? This isn’t really the scene for a kid.”

“Uh yeah”, Eddie said dumbly, allowing himself to be led out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He caught a great whiff of something coming off Steve and it was intoxicating. It was interest, with a twinge of arousal. He did that, he made him feel that. 

He was able to focus a little more once they got to Steve’s room and the door closed, muffling the sounds of the party. Eddie went right over to the bed and plopped down on the edge.

“Know any good lullabies?”, he grinned.

“Only the ones everyone knows”, Steve said, coming to sit next to him. “Do you think we’d actually be any good at this? Like with a real pup?”

Eddie shrugged. “My old man was a ne’er-do-well and my ma was a good for nothin’, God rest her soul. But my uncle did a decent job with this mound of clay”, he pointed to himself. “So I might not be such a bad dad.”

Steve smiled. “Not such a bad alpha either. You know, if I’m being honest.” His stomach fluttered as he thought about Eddie being at the game. Steve hadn’t even asked and he’d shown up. He grabbed the sack from his arms and pulled back the covers, tucking her in.

“Snug as a bug in a rug”, Eddie beamed.

“We should probably get back”, Steve said. “They’ll think we’re up to something if we take too long in here.”

“Do you really wanna go back to those guys?”, Eddie asked.

‘Those guys’ were still his teammates and friends. And celebrating a win was a good bonding experience. They’d fall in line, Steve would make sure of it. He grabbed Eddie’s hands and pulled him to his feet.

“I wanna show you a good time.”

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

When Eddie opened his eyes, it was to the ceiling of Steve’s bedroom, the floor under his back and the sweet, content scent of omega on his chest. With a groan and a pounding headache, his eyes took some time to focus. There was a soft sigh at his chest and that was what it took for him to realize the weight on him was Steve. Flashes of the night before came to him.

A ton of drinking. Sip after sip. Steve had his side the whole time. 

They must’ve stumbled in here after the party wound down. Why they didn’t sleep on the bed was beyond him. Had they been that drunk? Steve shifted on top of him, swinging a leg over his own. Eddie could tell he was starting to awaken. Steve’s head tilted up and he smiled.

“Morning.”

“Good morning.”

“Very good. Except, why are we on the floor?” Steve groaned as he sat up and popped his back. 

“I was hoping you could shed some light on that.” Eddie already missed the weight of him, but sat up as well, rolling his neck and shoulders. 

Steve looked to his bed, only to see their flour baby, tucked in where they left her. He snickered at the picture she made. Guess they didn’t want to disturb their pup’s sleep. He stood up with a groan, imagining the mess left downstairs.

“Not looking forward to cleaning all that”, he said, stretching his back as he bent forward.

Doing so gave Eddie a prime view of his behind in those tight jeans he favored. “Good thing you don’t have to do it alone.”

“What?”

“What?”

Steve put his hands on his hips, looking down at Eddie still on the floor. “Dude, I’m not gonna make you waste a Saturday cleaning up party trash.”

“It’s not a waste. We can totally put it in our report that we handle domestic tasks together”, Eddie said, lifting off and getting only a little dizzy. He must’ve restrained himself towards the end. “And it’s not ‘dude’, it’s ‘alpha’ to you”, he teased, leaning into Steve’s space.

Steve hesitated just a second before meeting Eddie where he was. “Does that mean you’ll start calling me ‘mate’?”

Eddie’s response was to growl enticingly, closing the distance between them even more. He heard Steve pur, much the same way as last night and couldn’t help himself. 

“Mine”, he murmured.

Steve’s knees felt weak as he leaned against Eddie, scent his neck and shoulders. His eyes closed in bliss, almost missing the phone ringing downstairs. It was probably his parents, either telling him that they’d be back soon or extending their stay. Either way, he had to get the house in order before they came back.

“I can whip us up a hangover cure breakfast if you can get started on the living room?”

“Deal.”

Part 7

Taglist

@marklee-blackmore @aol19 @im-really-annoying @ellietheasexylibrarian @queenie-ofthe-void

@redfreckledwolf @lololol-1234 @cuntyfiedcatholicbisaster

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

Maybe I’m Not Scared of What You’re Thinking Of - Simon Lynch/Reader

Prompt: Don't you know what you mean to me?

Warnings: Gender-neutral reader, no use of Y/N, friends to lovers, slow burn, growing friendship, angst, hurt/comfort, brief canon-related mention of violence, kissing, fully clothed grinding, kindness and praise makes Simon cry ;w;

Wordcount: 14270

Summary: It's a complete coincidence that you meet him, and even though he's a little weird and there's an anger in him fueled by pain, you know that you might be all he needs to be defused.

Notes: It's Simon's turn! I have a lot of feelings about Simon!! As soon as I saw his episode my heart went out to him a lot, he's so me-coded (aside from y'know the homicide lmao) and he really only needed someone to believe in him, so here's a whole ton of words about you doing just that QwQ I've also decided that this will be his own continued world like I did with Joshua, so any future stuff will take place during or after this~

You really regret accepting this blind date after the 30th straight minute comes and goes, your date still talking about himself on his side of the table.

He came highly recommended from your mother, the son of a friend of a friend of a co-worker, and it’s clear she did no actual research on him since you have nothing in common. You just keep smiling and sipping at your drink of choice, his words falling on deathly bored ears as he keeps trying to pitch his business to you, something about a private server for paying customers to get his advice or some dumb shit you haven’t seen a million times before. Sometimes you wished you’d been born in the past when things were simpler, because any idiot with a podcast and access to the internet always came to the same conclusion that they could be the Next Great Thing, and this guy definitely does not have what it takes.

He’s about to write down his contact info so you can check out his server right now, right in the middle of your date, his food cold in front of him as he just keeps choosing to talk instead of eat, and you just stare at him tearing off the paper to hand to you as you pray your souring expression isn’t giving you away too much. ‘Uh, sorry, I don’t have Facsimile,’ you lie as he holds it out to you, but it doesn’t dissuade him as he then says it’s super easy to sign up, he’ll help you. ‘No, I mean I’m not one for all these chatting apps, I prefer some good, old fashioned talking,’ you continue, another lie although not quite as much, for while you do prefer talking face to face, hence the date, you had so many chat apps on your phone to keep in contact with everyone that they had their own page on your home screen.

‘It’ll be worth it, trust me, I already have a bunch of guys giving their own presentations on my server, I’ll even give you a free week’s trial to check everything out, whattaya say?’ he asks, clearly more interested in expanding his brand than making any sort of actual connection with you, and this time you let your face scrunch up in pained awkwardness.

‘Yeah, it’s gunna have to be a no, sorry,’ you cringe, and his smile slowly falls as he crumples up the paper and stuffs it inside his expensive name brand jacket, obviously bought to show off to everyone how ‘successful’ he was.

‘Fine, no it’s fine, I just thought you were smarter than that,’ he grumbles just on the border of passive aggressively, your eyebrows rising as your opinion of him somehow manages to drop even lower. ‘You figure you give someone a chance to get in on the ground floor of something because you think you’re vibing, but I guess it was just me.’

‘Uh…’

‘How is everything?’ The small voice draws your attention from him as you look up to your savior, your eyes just going higher as the person towers over you, even when he’s hunched over a bit to take up as little space as possible as his co-workers pass by him to get to the other tables. Your mouth falls open a little bit as your eyes meet, long bangs just barely swept to the side to reveal dark brown irises that almost appear black focusing only on you as he ignores your date, and you forget to answer as the man across from you answers for you.

‘We’re doing great, just fantastic, thanks buddy,’ he growls, now eating his food as quickly as he can so he can get away from you. ‘If you could hurry up and grab the checks though that would be even better.’

‘Is there anything else you’d like? More water, or a refill?’ He completely ignores the other man as he focuses on you, which pisses him off even more, and you join in on that as you smile politely up at him.

‘Everything’s perfect, although I could go for a refill, thank you,’ you tell him, and he gives you a nod without once acknowledging your date, who’s already gotten out his wallet and is looking up the prices of the bar on his phone; he pulls out enough to cover the meal but passes over his beer and the tax, because that’s too much work to calculate it even with his phone in hand, and he gets up and sarcastically wishes you a nice life as he bails, the silence a nice change as you continue eating alone. Your server returns a short while later with a new glass and the checks, and when he sees the money left behind he puts two and two together.

‘I take it I’m not getting a tip from him,’ he figures, and you laugh into your glass, almost spilling the liquid all over the table as you try not to choke.

‘I doubt you would’ve anyway, he was a prick,’ you admit, which makes him smile, and you decide his smile is actually quite nice as he starts clearing the other half of the table. ‘Hey, uh, would you wanna sit with me? Just for a little, it’s kinda embarrassing to eat alone after that disaster.’

He glances at the freshly vacant seat before looking around, and he leans over to lower his voice, his eyes on the table as he speaks. ‘I should really get back to work,’ he whispers, but you gesture in front of you in a welcoming manner, and he follows your hands before sitting and hiding his apron behind his arms, the nametag of Simon just barely peeking out before it’s covered up.

You flash him another smile before getting back to your lunch, it’s amazing how listening to someone that incredibly annoying can really kill the appetite in the moment, and he tries not to watch you as he makes sure he’s not about to get in trouble. You finish off your first glass and start on the second since you did ask him for it, even if it was an excuse to ignore your date initially, and you catch the way his eyes watch your exposed throat as you tilt your head back; unlike the other person sitting there previously you don’t feel objectified, or like you were a piece of meat to devour after the sell was over. It’s refreshing, and you offer him your plate in case he might want something to eat before his break, but he refuses, of course he would.

He keeps his eye on his watch but never gets up, and as you pop a fry into your mouth you can’t help but want to talk to him as he meets your eye and looks away immediately after for the third time in a row. ‘You work here long?’ you ask to start, and it’s a lame start, but just the fact that you wanna hear about him has him leaning forward in his seat before he controls himself, sits back again.

‘Just a few years, this is actually my second job, I mainly work with Data Waste,’ he tells you, his voice getting away from him for a moment before he lowers it again; it’s obvious that no one asks about him often, just this small amount of attention enough to make his face light up in a way you don't see often anymore, at least not when you talk about work related things.

‘So, you waste all the data?’ you joke, and he leans in again, the plate pushed aside as he fights to keep his voice under control.

‘No, it’s really interesting actually, I get access to all the trashed data in the city, sift through it to find anything incriminating or important, things that were lost or gotten rid of, delete anything useless; my co-workers think it’s pretty boring, but you can’t imagine the things I’ve seen on some people.’ He stops, realizing he’s about to violate his NDA, and you chuckle as he looks around again like he expects his boss from his other job to suddenly appear and fire him.

‘Sounds exciting, you ever see anything on me?’ you can’t help but ask as you lean in as well, and there’s a slight dusting of pink on his cheeks as he sits back again.

‘I dunno, I’d need to look up your name,’ he answers honestly, and you smirk at his reply.

‘Pretty smooth way to ask for it,’ you tell him, and when he stutters out that he wasn’t you just laugh and grab the check so you can see your total. You pull out your card so you can pay, and you’re in the middle of reaching for your ex-date’s check as well so you can cover the rest when he stops you.

‘I’ve got it, you don’t have to deal with trash like him, that’s my job,’ he jokes back, and when he hands you his card reader you make sure to leave a large tip from the both of you. You hand it back and his eyes go wide, he can’t accept this, but you just flash him your most charming smile and hand him one of your business cards from your wallet, something you printed up years ago but rarely got to hand out since most people used electronic cards nowadays.

‘It’s for making me laugh, today would’ve been pretty shitty otherwise,’ you admit as you stand, and when he stands with you you can see that he really is tall. 

‘Okay, well… if I find anything I’ll give you a call, then? Just so you know what people are deleting about you on the internet,’ he offers, and you hold out your hand to shake his as your expressions softens.

‘I’d like that.’

It’s been a week and a half since your lunch date gone wrong but also surprisingly gone right again, and you’re at home working on a project when an unknown number lights up your phone. You frown at it before clicking into the chat and seeing a bunch of strange messages before the stranger clears things up.

ur sqky clean no trash on u sry it took so long was busy this is simon sry from the bar from last week sry

You smile fondly as you type in a quick reply, your phone lighting up again as he answers fast, he must’ve been waiting with baited breath on the other side. You add his number to your phone and answer back, another quick reply getting you to decide to take a snack break as you bring your phone to the kitchen. The more you chat the more he sees that he doesn’t have to use shorthand, his words lengthening and becoming more proper until you’re wondering if maybe he’s trying to find the perfect mix that won’t annoy you. Eventually he settles on a mix like you do, and you get comfy on the couch with your snack as you turn on the TV and find something to watch.

It’s hard to find things sometimes, you’ve had this older model for years and it isn’t compatible with every streaming platform’s updates anymore, which you think is dumb, but the thing works and you don’t wanna shell out money just to be able to watch whatever new reality show everyone’s talking about as it airs. You stick to your playlist of favourite movies and shows again, settling on one you’ve already seen a million times so you can chat without needing to pay attention.

After a half hour you add each other to Facsimile so you can chat more openly without wasting data, his username of 4LM0ST-HUM4N making you snicker as you check out his profile, but it’s bare apart from his age, which is around yours, and his full name, his last name being Lynch. You can’t help but look him up since you already knew he’d done the same to you, and all you can find is a dating profile on a site you’d heard about but never used.

‘“Shy and looking,”’ you say out loud to yourself as you read his info, and you sink a little further into the cushions as his unfortunately off-putting but also undeniable cute profile picture stares you directly in the eye; you can tell he took it alone, he’s all washed out in the glow of his computer instead of from the room’s overhead or any natural light, and you almost want to call him out on it and help him try again, maybe he might get some matches that way.

You don’t mention the profile as you keep chatting, and before you know it the next movie is autoplaying, your battery low with how long you’ve been on your phone. You figure it’s about time you get back to work as you tell him about the situation, and he agrees, he’s also been putting off work, and you wish him a good night, adding in, ‘That data’s not gunna waste itself.’ He sends you a bunch of laughing emojis before changing his mind and editing the message so there’s only one, to which you give him one back, and he starts typing something else but stops. You wait but he never starts up again so you leave it be, your phone charging out of reach as you get back to work.

Now that you’ve been reminded that he exists and you find his company quite pleasant, you take a ride to the bar on your lunch break the next day, keeping your eye out as casually as you can until you see him clearing a table nearby. You wait until he’s done before waving at him to get his attention, and his smile is so big that it makes him self-conscious as a group of people pass him by, it faltering as he gets out of their way. He takes his dishes to the kitchen and quickly returns to take your order, and even though you’re sitting at a table and a menu is in your hands, you surprise him when you ask him when his break is instead of telling him what you want to eat.

‘My break?’ he repeats back to you, like he doesn’t understand the question.

‘I just figured you might want to eat somewhere you don’t work,’ you simply say, and he glances at his watch to check the time.

‘I get off in 15, but we can eat here, I don’t wanna take up your break by traveling,’ he offers, but you just shake your head and set the menu down.

‘I work from home, I can take as long as I want,’ you tell him, and it’s not exactly a lie since you do have some things to for sure finish today, but losing an extra hour to hang out with your new friend seems like a pretty good tradeoff honestly. He accepts your answer and goes back to work with a shy grin, and you patiently wait at your table until he returns, a brown hoodie slung over his arm and his apron left behind. 

You get up and follow him out to the street where he gets ready to hail a cab, and thanks to your convo from last night you already knew he didn’t drive, but you don’t want him to waste any money when your car was in the parking lot. You direct him to it, and in your head you can hear your mother warning you about letting strangers into your vehicle, but apart from being a little weird he has yet to give you any red flags or warning signs, so you unlock the door and hop in.

‘There’s this place downtown that’s pretty good,’ he says as soon as he sits down, and you try not to giggle when you see how his long legs don’t really fit in the space as he tries to find the seat adjust nonchalantly. ‘They mostly do burgers, but their menu is loaded with stuff, you just need to know what to ask for.’

‘I take it you know?’

He glances at you, his hand stilling momentarily as it's wedged between the door and his seat, and when he does find the button he lets out a noise of surprise as his chair suddenly shifts backwards. ‘Yeah, yeah I go there a bunch, I think I’ve tried almost everything so far.’

‘Why not get a job there instead of here if you like it so much?’ you ask as you start the engine, and he looks down at his lap in response.

‘Cause I- I actually didn’t apply to be a waiter,’ he mumbles, your head turning towards him as you pull out onto the road.

‘Did you wanna work in the kitchen or something?’

‘I wanted to be a bartender, actually, but they needed a server, so that’s what I landed on,’ he explains, and when you go to ask for the name of the place he just directs you down the street, ignoring the GPS entirely. ‘It’s actually been a little dream of mine to open my own place, but starting a business is expensive, and saving up is a little hard even with two jobs, city living isn’t cheap.’

‘You could try for a loan?’ you suggest, but he just shakes his head.

‘I dunno… going that far would make it real, y’know? I don’t think I’m ready for it yet.’ He points to the left as he speaks so you hit your blinker and turn, this is a part of town you’ve never been to before.

‘You could always try, and if it doesn’t work out then I’ll keep cheering you on until it does.’ He’s looking at you like your words are about to make him cry, and he’s so preoccupied with you that he nearly misses the restaurant, your brakes screeching down the thankfully empty road as you back up and turn into the parking lot. You’ve never even heard of this place but the lot is almost full, and you manage to find a spot before he’s getting out and waiting for you, the chill of the fresh, spring air making you both shiver and hurry inside.

The place is warm and cozy, the smell of food instantly making you hungry even though you were feeling pretty okay just moments ago, and he smiles at you before you seat yourself and wait to be served. A large menu is placed in front of you and he was right, it is mostly burgers first and foremost, but as you turn the pages and see everything else available you feel your mouth water. You look up to ask what he recommends just in time to see his eyes disappear over the top of his own menu, and you grin and decide you can’t beat the house special, which is a double bacon burger with everything on it. He orders the same as soon as you tell the waitress, a big plate of loaded fries to split as well as onion rings added as well, and when you’re left alone again you rest your elbows on the table and get his attention.

‘How long have you been coming here? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about it before,’ you admit, and again his eyes shine when you ask about him.

‘Most of my life, I used to live around here when I was younger so this was our go-to place when we wanted to eat out,’ he explains lively, and he looks around and gestures towards the decor. ‘It was different back then, they did a rebranding back in the early 2030s, changed the name and everything, but I still call it by its old name whenever I recommend it.’

‘What was the old name?’

‘The Hotel.’

You laugh, your hand covering your mouth as you try to keep it down. ‘I bet that might’ve caused some confusion,’ you chuckle, and he nods.

‘Oh yeah, I always have to correct myself,’ he agrees with his own laugh, the two of you still going even as your drinks are dropped off. You sip at yours, taking in everything and wondering what the place looked like back then when he stretches out and accidentally bumps your knee with his own; he quickly says sorry as he tries to retreat back to his side of the table, but you tell him it’s okay, and your reassurance makes him balk, like he’s been told off too many times for similar occurrences.

‘So, tell me, why do you wanna open your own bar?’ you quickly ask before he can shut himself off from you, his shyness returning and looking more like anxiety as he clearly gets in his own head about something so small.

‘Well, it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, like I love the atmosphere, everyone coming together for a little while to share the space and a few drinks, it’s a good place to forget about your troubles for a bit.’ His eyes are on the table as he fiddles with the brown paper covering, your glasses creating dark rings where they’re set down on it.

‘You can say that about a lot of places,’ you add, and he agrees, but his eyes meet yours as he tries to get you to understand.

‘I know but there’s just something special about it, if your customers come there enough it can become familial, you can make bonds with people, offer them an ear when they’re sad, share in their laughter when they’re happy… I guess I’ve just always wanted to be a part of something like that.’ He looks back down again, the paper tearing and making him stop, now picking at his nails instead.

‘It sounds like you wanna connect with people, you don’t need a bar to do that,’ you say softly, carefully in case he might take offense to it, but he doesn’t, just shrugs.

‘I know, but… I still think it would be fun.’ His eyes meet yours again, and there’s something behind them as you look between them, something lonely that you haven’t seen in them before. You wonder then how long it’s been since he’s been here with someone, if his family still met up with him here, but based on his eyes you think you know the answer.

‘Well, if you do ever open that bar, then I expect free drinks for life as your first customer,’ you tease as you hold up your glass for a promising toast, and your faith in him makes his eyes look a little less lonely as he raises his own and taps the rims together. You drink as your waitress comes back with your food then, and it looks even better than the picture as you grab on tight and take a big bite. It’s the biggest burger you’ve ever eaten but it might also be the tastiest, the toppings sliding against your palms as you try to hold it all together, and you can see him having just as much trouble with his own. You laugh again and take another bite, your conversation moving onto more cheerful things as you eat, from family stories to complaints about work, bad dates to how your week was going, your overbearing but well-meaning mother to his absent father, but he isn’t as upset about it as he used to be as you sit with him and listen, he confesses. 

You douse your half of the fries in ketchup as he dips his own in ranch, and he has more onion rings than you do before you realize it, and when your plates are empty and your glasses hold nothing but melting ice you finally look at your phone and realize you’ve been there for over an hour. ‘Shit, I need to get back,’ he panics as he stands, and you wave over your waitress as you both get out your wallets.

‘Hey, I got you covered, can you go start my car?’ you tell him as he searches for the card he wants to use, but he can’t accept that, even more so than the tip from last week. ‘I insist, this was a much better date than my last one,’ you say with a wink, and he fumbles his next words as you toss him your keys. He rushes out with flushed cheeks, and you instantly let your emotions show on your face as you mentally ask yourself why the hell you actually said that as you pay.

You run out as soon as you’re done and speed off back to the bar, the car quiet until you say your goodbyes, and you watch him go until he disappears through the double doors with a small wave.

It becomes a bit of a thing for you two as you meet up for lunch every Friday after that, with you trying something new at his recommendation each time, and after around 7 weeks of this he flashes you the biggest smile as you sit down at your usual table, Simon already seated and waiting. ‘What?’ you ask, his smile spreading to you, and he holds out his phone to show that he had an appointment with the bank on Monday. ‘Oh my god, are you-?’

‘I’m doing it.’ He’s practically bouncing in his seat, only stopping when he bangs his knee off the metal support and makes the table shake, his excitement so strong that you could probably start bouncing as well if you were to be completely honest with yourself.

‘That’s amazing! Do you need a ride? We can go together, it’s after your shift is done, right? Or should I pick you up at your place?’

‘I-’ His smile falters a bit but he pushes it aside, and it feels a little forced as it returns. ‘I’ve got a ride covered, but thank you. Maybe we can meet up at the bank when it’s over? I can text you, if you’d like.’

‘I’d love that, I’ll be sure to work extra hard so we can celebrate the night away.’

Everything goes quiet as you realize what you’ve said, since while you have been texting almost daily you still have yet to hang out outside of your lunch dates; you’re not even really sure if they could even be called that seeing as, apart from you calling the first time that as a joke, neither of you actually confirmed there was anything more than friendship going on between you. Still, you both take it seriously as your usual waitress approaches to take your orders, and neither of you bring it back up again after she leaves.

‘I’m really proud of you, Simon, this is a big step you’re taking,’ you do say to break the silence, and when he looks at you you can swear he’s about to cry again; it actually hurts in a physical way whenever you see that, and you curse whoever beat him down enough to have this be his default reaction whenever you give him any kind of compliment or praise.

‘I don’t think I could’ve done it if you hadn’t cheered me on, might’ve found more excuses to put it off.’ He looks so vulnerable in this moment, his hands clasped on the table in front of him, and you glance down at them and nearly reach out to grab one when he continues. ‘Actually, because of you, I kinda started paying attention to my old LoveMatch account, turns out I got some messages when I was offline.’

Your smile freezes on your face as you unexpectedly go cold, your reaction to his words catching you off guard as talking becomes hard. ‘That’s… that’s wonderful news, anyone catch your eye?’ you finally ask, and he goes pink as he shakes his head.

‘Not yet, I didn’t get many but I still wanna check them all out, see if maybe my soulmate is one of them. Wait, that’s kinda desperate, isn’t it? I don’t actually think my soulmate is on some random dating site but… it’s nice to imagine, right? It’s like you said, I- I just wanna connect with someone.’ He’s looking only at his phone as he talks, scrolling through the unopened messages still waiting for him, and it feels like you’re watching the conversation from afar as your ears start ringing, your hands shaking as you try to figure out why you’re feeling this way.

He’s cute, you can’t deny that, and you enjoy his company a lot, but you haven’t thought about an actual relationship with him until this moment, when it was made apparent to you that that wasn’t what he wanted. And now that he was considering someone else, picturing a life with someone else, you know that you wanted to be with him, not in a casual, Friday lunch date and daily chats kind of way, but in the way where you’d visit him on his off hours or you’d bring him to your place, where you could have a nice dinner, watch movies together, no more table between you as you curl up against him or have him lean against you. You could hold his hand, and he could tell you about how his day at the bar, his bar, went and about all the new people he met, and when he was done you could cup that enticingly strong jaw of his and angle his face up to yours.

‘Are you okay?’

You blink and your vision blurs, and you quickly sniff and search your pockets for your travel-sized bottle of emergency ibuprofen. ‘Yeah, yeah I’m good, allergies are just acting up again, gunna go blow my nose and take my meds real quick before this gets gross,’ you lie with a fake smile, making sure he can’t see the label before you run off, and he buys it completely before going back to his messages. You don’t let your facade crack until you’re safe in the bathroom, the weight of how much you had fallen for him without realizing making your knees buckle, and you lock yourself in one of the stalls as you desperately try to push down the fact that he would never feel the same.

You’d managed to keep it together as you finished your lunch get together - not date, never date - but you spend the rest of the weekend moping around your apartment after that, your eyes on your phone as you lay on the couch and watch some old favourites to cheer yourself up, but each time he leaves you a message you feel your heart ache and it always takes a while before you can answer back. You give him the excuse of being a bit behind on work so you can’t chat much, and he was fine with that because he was gathering up the courage to message a couple people back, see if there were any sparks, and you have to ignore your phone entirely as you bury your head in the couch pillow and yell.

Before you know it you’re waking up where you’d fallen asleep, the TV going through the night and the sunlight streaming through the wall of windows to the right of your couch, the brightness rousing you from your restless dreams. You reach limply for your phone but the battery died during the night, and you groan and stumble over to your desk so you can charge it. As soon as it comes back to life you see that it’s much later than you thought thanks to your alarm never going off, and you find a bunch of messages waiting for you.

‘Shit! Shitshitshit!’ you swear when you see that Simon had asked you to wish him luck before his meeting, and you’re already a half hour late to reply but you do anyway as you fully push aside all your feelings to wish him all the luck you possibly can. He doesn’t answer back, because he’s obviously in the meeting, and you end up too nervous about it to eat as you let your phone charge. Instead you skip straight to getting ready for the day, having a quick but much needed shower after your weekend-long mope session. As you dry your hair you then find something nice to wear that you secretly hope he might like, some part of you overcoming the misery to hope that if he’s ready enough for a relationship to use LoveMatch again then maybe you could have a chance, and that hope fuels you as you race back to your phone to see if he’s done yet.

you dont need to pick me up taking a cab home see you friday

Your hand reaches up to cover your mouth as dread fills you then, and you quickly call him, unplugging your phone so you can sit down. ‘Simon, where are you?’ you ask the moment he picks up, and all you hear is the sound of traffic before a small sniff is picked up by his phone’s mic.

‘Don’t come, I just wanna get home right now,’ he tries to tell you, but your body is moving when you hear his small voice, how broken he sounds, your keys in your hand and a pair of flipflops that definitely aren’t weather appropriate yet on your feet so you can be out the door faster.

‘Are you still at the bank? Which one is it, I’m heading out right now.’

‘Please…’

‘I’m already in my car, where am I going?’

The resulting silence to your insistence stretches on for so long that you’re about to just try every bank in town until you find him when he gives you the address, and you know the one exactly as you speed off towards it. You arrive about ten minutes later, and you’re scanning the area when you see him huddling from the wind in the alley, his hood up and people giving him cautious glances as they pass. You roll down your window and call out to him, and when he finds you through the gap you can’t help but let out a noise of pain when you see his face; he’s been crying, you hadn’t been able to see because of his hood, but now you can see that his cheeks are damp and his eyes are red, and you hurriedly unlock the passenger door and motion for him to come over.

He hesitates a moment before wiping his cheeks and jogging over, people bumping into him with how busy the street is, but he doesn’t do or say anything even as he gets a couple insults along the way. He opens the door, sits down, and as soon as you ask where he wants to go he hides his face in his hand and starts crying again. You reach out to touch his shoulder but he pulls away, he needs space, and you don’t try again as you drive back to your place.

‘I don’t know why I thought I could do this…’ he mutters to himself as you drive, and the lump in your own throat is so thick that it hurts as you try to swallow it down. You pull back into your parking lot and he finally notices that he doesn’t know this place, and you don’t shut off the engine as you turn back towards him.

‘You don’t have to tell me about it, but I’d like it if you came up with me, please,’ is all you say, and another tear rolls down his cheek before he’s nodding, following you to the front doors. Your place is pretty high up but the elevator ride isn’t awkward as he stuffs himself into the corner opposite of you, where you can’t see him as easily. You reach your floor before you know it so you lead the way to your apartment, and when the door opens and you set your keys back down on the small shelf nearby he takes everything in with an even sadder expression, which isn’t the way you were hoping it would go at all.

‘You- you have a nice home,’ he just says, and before you can thank him he’s already turning back for the door. ‘I shouldn’t have come up, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t talk to me anymore, I’ll leave you alone now-’

‘Whoa, wait, where did this come from?’ you need to know as you stand in front of the door, and he goes to move you aside before pulling back, he doesn’t even want to touch you. ‘Simon, I know I said you didn’t have to talk about it but- what happened in there? Why can’t I talk to you anymore?’

‘Because I’m-’ He flinches away from you as his voice rises, frustration apparent among the sadness, and he leans against the wall with a dull thud. ‘I was accepted into the police academy a few years back, before I got my job at the bar; I was training to be on the bomb squad, I thought my knack for technology could help save lives, and I practiced really hard, learned to disarm nonlethal devices I built myself to show them I could do it, that I could be useful to them.

‘But when they learned I’d been building things they thought I was doing it for the wrong reasons even though there was no danger to them, like I was going to learn how to build actual bombs next using the training I received; I was just learning how to cut the power without setting anything off, I was using fucking coloured lights to do it, there were no explosives on my devices at all! But it was enough to make them think I was a danger to everyone, and they forced me to take a psych exam which I then failed by their standards. I was kicked out of the academy, lost my job when the psych eval was sent to them the following week, even lost my apartment when my landlord got word of everything, this one mistake got me evicted in the middle of winter-!

‘And the guy I talked to today heard about it too, read about all of it when they researched me to see if I was deserving of it, do you know what I heard him say to his supervisor when he thought I was out of earshot? He- he called me “unstable,” and fucking “unqualified” when I told him how much I make a year, like he didn’t trust me to pay it back, like I was a failure before the bar even opened, and maybe he’s right, maybe I am a failure, I shouldn’t have tried, I shouldn’t have fucking tried-!’

He spins and punches the wall he was just leaning against and you tense up, your eyes shutting on instinct at the crash of his knuckles through the drywall; it’s the first time you’ve seen him angry like this and it scares you, but as he pulls his hand back and looks at his bloodied knuckles you feel no fear, just sadness.

‘I’m sorry, shit, I’m so sorry,’ he apologizes under his breath, hissing as he flexes his fingers, his hand shaking from the pain, and it would be so easy to end it all right there, kick him out too and never see him again after what he’s just told you, just done, but you can’t as you take him gently by the arm and lead him to your couch. You sit him down and go off to find your first aid kit, some big and overly full thing your mother made you buy when you first moved to the city, and you’re thankful for it now as you pull out the unsealed bottle of healing spray and spritz it against his torn skin a couple times.

For once you love the future as he heals, and while he’s fine now you can’t help but take out the gauze and wrap the area next just to make sure, your fingers resting over the fabric and the back of his hand as you hold him in place. ‘You’re not a failure,’ you murmur, and he tries to pull away again but you don’t let him. ‘What happened to you… it really, really fucking sucks, and none of it was fair, but… it doesn’t make you a failure, we can just try again until we find someone who can help you get that loan.’

‘I don’t even want it, not after today.’ There’s not a single trace of a lie in his words, he’s giving up, and you want so badly to hold him but you can’t. ‘It’ll just happen again, this black mark on my life will just keep following me, why even try?’

‘Because it’s your dream, remember? You told me you wanted to connect with people, no one should be able to take that from you.’ You’re moving closer to him, slotting yourself between his legs as your knees hit the bottom of the couch, he can’t run from you like this, but it’s like you’re invisible to him in his misery.

‘But they already did.’

You let go of his hand and get up, throwing your arms around his neck in a tight hug, and he lets out a sound somewhere between surprise and relief as he’s pressed into the couch; you’re practically in his lap like this, and you try to shift until you’re beside him instead, but your arms never leave him as you back up, your frown so deep it’s starting to make your head hurt. ‘They only will when you stop fighting for it, you haven’t lost it yet,’ you tell him in a hushed whisper, and something in him breaks as he crumbles into your hug, his head on your shoulder as he grips the back of your shirt as hard as he can, like he’s drowning at sea and you’re the only thing keeping him afloat.

You pet his hair comfortingly as he keeps talking into your shoulder about how it went, how he felt so worthless when he was rejected, how he tried to explain himself but it was all shut down, the man hadn’t even wanted to hear it because he’d heard enough, how he was so upset and hurt and angry that he was afraid of himself and what he’d do, and you just comfort him as he lets it all out. It takes a while but you never rush him, or interrupt him as he vents, you just keep holding him until he’s ready to let you go. You separate, and his eyes are so red as they avoid looking at you, but you just brush his bangs to the side before getting up and grabbing the tissues.

You hand him the box, and the smile he gives you isn’t as sad as he grabs a few, the lump in your throat easing up a bit at the sight. ‘I know you probably aren’t in the mood to celebrate, but if you just wanna grab some food and watch a movie anyway I could order something, or make something here? I think the Hotel might deliver this far, lemme see if it’s on Dumbwaiter.’ You’re already on your phone to check but he’s standing, his used tissues bunched in his hand as he looks for your garbage bin, his eyes on the ground again.

‘I’m not very hungry, thank you but I think I just wanna head home,’ he says after throwing them away, and your hand lowers as you take a step towards him, standing between him and the door again.

‘Please.’ You don’t mean for it to come out but it does, this is about him, not you, you have no right to ask him to stay when he needs space, but you can’t leave him like this, not now. Finally he meets your eye, and you can see that he wants to stay as badly as you want him to, and he opens his mouth to say something before he closes the gap, stands next to you and looks down at your phone. He taps your screen back to life and scrolls before he finds the Hotel’s real name in the list of places on Dumbwaiter’s delivery partnership, and he gives the name another tap before giving you the smallest smile, and it’s genuine and even less sad as his shoulder presses into yours.

‘Order the pasta today, all of their sauces are rich and they always serve too much, and get us the goat cheese spinach dip, it’s to die for,’ he says, his voice still wavering a bit after all his crying, and you just nod before adding it all to your cart, Simon taking off his shoes so he can get comfy on your couch properly this time. You pay for the meal and join him, offering him the remote but he has nothing he wants to watch, so you go to your favourites and pick the stupidest, funniest comedy you can find, needing something silly to lift the mood, and as the food is delivered and you both laugh with full mouths that almost get you to choke you end up wishing you could have this forever, that you could move to his side and hold him again.

You don’t, your phones on the coffee table along with your plates, the space between you feeling so much wider than it actually was as he stays with you until the sun sets.

Now that he’s been to your place your friendship only grows, your meetups changing from Friday lunches to properly hanging out, and it isn’t often he gets free time between his two jobs, but most nights of his are free and you’re always ready to drop whatever you can to see him when he asks. Because of your eagerness you’re slowly becoming a pro at keeping up with your own work, the need to procrastinate fading away like never before since being caught up meant you could go to him wherever he waited. You met him at both jobs, at the Hotel - which he got you to start saying as well since he never called it by its real name - and at the park, sometimes at the mall if there was something he needed to get and he wanted some company, but you’ve still never seen his place, and you’re starting to wonder where he lived.

You know it’s in town, since he got to and from work via Brougham and being outside of town would be hell on his paychecks, but you have no idea which part other than the fact that he used to live near the Hotel when he was a kid. You’ve tried asking before, but each time you do he just brushes it off, makes some excuse to why you couldn’t pick him up or drop him off there, and you’re starting to get a bit suspicious if you were entirely honest. You know he’s not homeless, he’s told you before how it took him a bit but he did manage to find someplace permanent and all his after his eviction, but this is getting ridiculous you think when he comes up with yet another excuse as to why you can drop him off on this random street you’re driving down, he lives nearby, he can walk the rest of the way.

‘Simon, you’ve got six bags of groceries in the back seat, it is literally impossible for you to walk home with them all,’ you say firmly as he just keeps looking out the window, and his lips purse as he tries something else.

‘It isn’t far and they’re not that heavy, I can do three per hand,’ he insists, and you step on the brakes in the middle of the road, no one coming or going as he jerks forwards in his seat at the inertia.

‘Why don’t you want me to see your place?’ you ask bluntly, no longer holding back, and he gets defensive, he’s more open with his anger around you now, but he hasn’t gotten as upset since that day, and you know it’s because he doesn’t want to lose control again, doesn’t want to scare you or himself like that again.

‘I never said I didn’t.’

‘You don’t need to; is it bad neighbours, or a bad neighbourhood? I don’t care where you live, or what your place looks like, I swear I don’t, so you don’t have to keep me away,’ you tell him honestly, and for a moment you think he might tell you when he unlocks his door and heads to the back. You just sigh as he gathers everything up in both hands and thanks you for the ride, but it really is close, you don’t have to waste gas going the rest of the day, he’ll see you Friday.

‘And… you don’t wanna know where I live,’ he mutters mostly to himself before the door closes, and he’s clearly weighed down by everything but he sticks with it, and you watch him just keep going further and further down the street until you have no choice but to take a U-turn and head home, and he’s still in your rearview as you hit a right and he’s forced to disappear around the corner behind you.

It’s a little awkward for you both after that, so you don’t bring it up again to make sure things even out, and it seems to help as you keep meeting up everywhere but his place, wherever the hell it is. He’s been to yours enough times now that you almost consider giving him a spare key so he can invite himself over, but it feels too personal for friends, and when you joke about it to test the waters he nearly spits out his drink in surprise. You clarify that it’s a joke as he sputters out that he’s never had someone’s spare key before, he’s never known anyone long enough for that.

‘You’ve known me for quite a few months now, maybe it might come in handle to have a spare out there in case of emergencies,’ you say next, instantly backtracking on the joke aspect of it with a little hope, and despite you initially calling it so he also looks a little hopeful at the possibility before his phone pings loudly. The moment is ruined as he stops your post-lunch walk through the park to see who’s messaging him, and his eyes widen as his smile grows and his face flushes. ‘LoveMatch, I assume?’ you ask, your teeth clenching in jealousy behind your smile.

‘Yeah, I’ve been messaging this one girl, Jeannie, a few days now,’ he tells you as he clicks in to see what she said, and his smile is so bright at her reply that you feel your stomach drop, your jealousy transforming into something that feels so much worse. ‘I think I’m gunna ask her on a date soon, when I can get an afternoon off so we don’t meet up too late, what do you think? Or should we talk a bit more first?’

The urge to tell him he should definitely talk more first arises because it’s true, you know what meeting too soon can do to a relationship before you can get a better feel for someone, but you also want them to meet before they’re ready; you want her to go in blind because you already know how to talk to him, know that there’s no way she’ll be able to get him out of his shell enough to consider a second date. You know he’ll be nervous, so he might say something weird like he did that first time you chatted over Facsimile, and if he does then there’s a good chance she might leave the date not wanting more.

You can’t do that though, you don’t want to see him rejected like that ever again after the loan, so you ball up your fist and give him a playful tap to the shoulder as he waits for your response. ‘Give it a little more time, get to know each other better, the perfect time for a date will show itself eventually, and if it doesn’t then maybe it’s just not meant to be,’ you suggest, and he nods before one-handedly typing out a reply back to her and putting his phone away. 

‘You’re so good with this kinda stuff, I haven’t been on a real date before, it’s why I signed up for LoveMatch to begin with, so I never know where to start whenever I get a match,’ he confesses as you go back to walking, your fist still balled painfully as you hide it in your jacket pocket. 

‘I’ve been on way too many bad dates by now, I’d like to think I’m a bit of an expert on it.’ Your laugh is strained but he doesn’t seem to notice as he looks straight ahead, his cheeks still pink now that she’s on his mind.

‘I can’t wait to meet her, she works at a flower shop nearby but I haven’t been in yet, I don’t wanna creep her out or anything,’ he says as his shyness crops up again, his expression cute until you remember this isn’t for you, it’s for her.

‘Just keep talking to her and it’ll happen, and who knows? Maybe she’ll like you as mu-’ You stop yourself from saying, ‘as much as I do,’ the words unable to come out as he turns to face you with a curious expression. ‘As much as I know she will,’ you finish, and he grins at the ground before taking another drink, your shoulders bumping for just a moment before he steps to the left to give you a bit more space, and you have to grip the inside of your pocket to keep from pulling him back to you.

About a week later he messages you as you’re working, your phone lighting up and buzzing energetically near your hand, and when you open the chat he tells you that she asked him on a date. Your face falls as you force a smile he can’t see, your thumbs typing him a congrats you don’t mean, not entirely, and when he says that he’s going to take her to the park you feel almost betrayed; you know it’s not your park, it’s just someplace you visit sometimes, it wasn’t like he was bringing her to the Hotel for lunch, that would hurt so much worse.

He then says he’s been thinking about packing a picnic since it felt more romantic, and that he was going to bring roses in her favourite colours since she told him she couldn’t decide between red or orange when they were talking about it, and you almost put down your phone as your chest aches. You want it to be you, you want him to ask you to the park for a picnic, you want to be able to pack your own favourites to share with him there now that the weather is nice again, you want him to bring you roses in your favourite colours even though you’re not even that much of a flower person just because they’re from him and he’s thinking of you.

You want to be her.

You tell him that that sounds like a great idea, she’ll love it, he should tell you how it goes afterwards if he wants to, which he does, since you’re his friend.

You’re his friend.

You send him a bunch of fingers crossed emojis and get back to work so he can start planning, the date is this weekend after all and he has things he has to do now, and when you go to bed that night your thumb hovers over the Sign Up button on LoveMatch’s mobile app until you fall asleep.

Three days later you find yourself lurking outside of the park even though you fought all morning not to, not knowing the exact time they were going to meet up and spending every second continuing that fight as you tell yourself to leave before you got hurt even more. You parked a block away so he wouldn’t recognize your car, and you’re wearing one of your thicker hoodies that you prefer to save for colder weather even though it’s making you sweat like crazy, the hood up as you walk around and see if you can find him. You’ve been there for hours now when you finally decide to go, this was stupid and petty and way too jealous to be acceptable no matter how you felt for him, and just as you’re about to leave you hear his voice echo faintly across the open area.

You look over and see him approach an unfamiliar woman, Jeannie, a big bouquet of roses in his hand and his Brougham waiting for him with an open door by the curb where he was dropped off at. He waves nervously at her, and she flashes him a big smile as he hands her the roses, she seems happy about them, and they chat for a little bit as you get a good vantage point behind a nearby tree. There’s people looking at you as they pass but you don’t care, you can’t leave now, and your jealousy turns to shocked offense as you watch her expression slowly fall.

She’s uncomfortable, he’s said something that she didn’t like just like you’d feared, and he picks up on it and motions for her to wait before he jogs back to the car, he’s still going to try and fix it with the picnic. The moment he’s away from her she puts the roses down on the bench they’re standing by and bails, her footsteps fast as she puts as much distance between them before his return, and your body moves on its own as you want to chase her down, demand to know why she did that. You lose her as you hear him come back to the bench, his voice calling out to her again but she’s long gone, and you freeze with your back to him as you hear him set down the basket, his car already driving off and stranding him there.

The lump is already forming in your throat again when you hear your phone go off, and when you pick up and turn to face him he’s already looking at you, having heard the ringtone you’d assigned to him from your short distance away. He looks hurt at your presence at first, then upset, then angry, and he leaves both the roses and the basket behind as he starts to walk away.

‘Simon, wait,’ you call out to him as you race after him, his long legs carrying him farther and faster as you quickly catch up, but you being there is just insult to injury and he does not want you to be there for him today.

‘You saw it all, didn’t you?’ he demands as he just keeps walking with no destination, needing to get away from you and his heartbreak as fast as he can, and you try to walk backwards in front of him but you can’t keep the pace, not when he keeps changing directions every time you catch up.

‘I’m sorry, I wanted to make sure it went okay,’ you confess before you can come up with yet another lie, and he scoffs at it bitterly.

‘Wanted to make sure I didn’t fuck it up like the loan, right? Well, sorry to break it to you, but I fucked it up again, I’m just one big fuckup!’ He takes another sharp turn to try and lose you in a dense crowd but you grab onto him, use him like an anchor as he tries to jerk away enough to make you let go, but your grip is strong and true as not even that works. 

‘You aren’t a fuckup!’ you insist desperately in a too loud voice for being in public, a group of mothers with strollers giving you the dirtiest look at your language, but you just give them a ‘give me a break’ look back before turning your attention back to him. ‘She just doesn’t know you yet, what did you say? Maybe you can still fix it? Or you could try one of your other matches? She isn’t the only one out there, you don’t need her!’

‘I told her that I wanted to meet her at work,’ he says, and that’s not so bad until he explains why it upset her. ‘I told her that I saw her place of work in the trashed data and I wanted to surprise her by ordering the roses from her, and she didn’t like it.’

Yeah, that’ll do it.

‘She- she didn’t get that you weren’t looking her up to doxx her or stalk her or anything?’ you hurriedly ask, and he just shakes his head, his pace slowing as you exit the main road and head down a less busy street, somewhere more private, probably unintentionally on his part.

‘No, I tried to explain that but her expression said it all, and when I got back…’ He slows even more, you both know how it ended and his lip is quivering. ‘She didn’t even have to guts to say goodbye, she just wanted to leave me there like I could be thrown out like the roses, like trash, that fucking bitch!’ He kicks the trashcan you’re about to pass and it crashes hard to the ground, the contents spilling all over the sidewalk as he loses control of his anger again. ‘I’m a person, goddamnit, why does this keep…’

You step around the trash as the wind blows it into your path, creating a river between the two of you that you cross to get to him, and this time when you try to hug him he steps back, puts a hand up to keep you away.

‘Don’t, just- don’t, I can’t be touched by you right now,’ he says softly, and he isn’t crying but he looks about to as you obediently back up, the trash spreading around you and making the river swell. ‘I’m going home, I’m sorry you keep having to deal with me.’

You try to tell him otherwise but he isn’t listening as he pulls up his hood and heads back to the main road, a cab hailed before he gets in and drives away, leaves you there alone. You lower your own hood and unzip your hoodie so your body can cool a little as you walk back to your car, and when you reach the bench you see that there’s a small group of concerned people gathering around the basket, all of them clearly thinking that it might be something dangerous.

‘That’s mine, sorry, it’s just a picnic,’ you say as you approach it, and everyone can’t help but peer inside as you prove it to them. In that quick glimpse you can see that he worked hard on the contents within, he made a whole bunch and even grabbed a few different drinks as well as a bottle of wine to split, and you swallow as you relatch the lid and grab the handle. The roses are still there too and you pick them up, they’re the synthetic kind you can tell as their scent is muted compared to the real thing, he wanted her to keep them for a while without them dying, and you hold them close to your chest as you finish the trek to your car.

You don’t look at the items in your passenger seat until you get home, and when you reach your apartment you put the flowers in a waterless vase and spread out the picnic on your coffee table. You choose your favourite drink, of course he would’ve brought it out of all the possible options, and open up the wine as well as you enjoy the picnic by yourself, not wanting to let it go to waste as you try not to notice how large your couch was without him there to enjoy it with you.

He ignores your messages for a while after that, so you stop texting him to give him some space, but that doesn’t stop you from at least typing everything out and deleting it before the temptation to press send overtakes you. You look him up on LoveMatch and see that he’s offline, and after looking up Jeannie’s name you discover a recent post she made in the site’s forums section; you click in and see that she completely tried to ruin his reputation on the site, warning others to stay away from him, calling him creepy and a stalker and claiming that he would doxx any matches. Your heart races as the comments join in, insulting his picture and saying he looked like a creep, how some said they had messaged him but now they were going to block, thanking her for the warning and telling her how sorry they were for having to deal with that.

You nearly come to his rescue but there’s no point, they’ve already made up their minds, and you instead flag the post as harassment and pray that it got taken down before he saw it.

He’s seen it.

He sends you the link without another word, your request to remove it denied, and when you look for his profile you find it gone.

He misses your next Friday lunch, and you figure enough is enough as you decide that if he wasn’t going to talk to you then you were going to talk to him. You wait until he gets off work before parking across from the bar, and you keep your distance as he hails a ride and heads home for the night. Your hands are gripping the wheel way too hard the entire way there, and when the car turns into a large, mostly empty lot sans a bunch of trailers parked inside as well as a few storage containers and miscellaneous vehicles and construction things for the building across the street you just keep going and pretend like you weren’t just following him. You wait until his ride leaves as you park nearby, and you casually walk up to the one you saw him heading for and hope that he won’t kick you out immediately as you knock on the door.

There’s the sound of stumbling from inside until the door opens and you step out of its way, Simon just looking at you before a cacophony of emotions plays across his face. ‘Hey,’ you say when he doesn’t shut the door right away, ‘you stopped answering my messages, I wanted to make sure you were okay.’

‘So you followed me?’ He’s more surprised than angry, which is good, but you don’t know how long it’ll last so you talk fast, needing to get it out while you have the chance.

‘You never told me where you lived, I improvised, I’m not the one with access to trashed data here,’ you try to joke, but neither of you laugh as you just stand there on his makeshift porch, which is just big enough to hold a single lawn chair and nothing else, another sign of his isolation.

‘I never wanted you to come here,’ he mutters just quietly enough that you almost miss it, and when you lean in to listen his expression hardens. ‘Your place is so nice, you’ve got a nice view, everything is so open, you do so well for yourself. But me, even with two jobs this is all I can afford, I can’t save up for my bar when I have bills to pay, can’t get a loan because I can’t pay it off if it fails, you’ve got everything so put together and I’m-’ He stops, he’s been looking at the ground the entire time but when he falls silent he makes a point to purposefully not look at you, and you can see the shine in his eyes as he shifts from foot to foot, resists slamming the door in your face. ‘I’m a fucking loser.’

‘You’re not-’

‘I got kicked out of the academy, I got evicted, I got denied for my loan, I got dumped before my date even started and now every other match I made has me blocked, I live in a fucking trailer because I can’t afford rent in the city anymore and it’s cheap to live out this far, how am I not a loser?’ He quiets down when he starts yelling out all the reasons why he was worthless, his voice echoing over the lot, and he tries to shut the door when your hand shoots out and holds it open the second you see it move. ‘I just- I don’t understand why you keep talking to me after all that, why do you keep coming back? Why haven’t you left like everyone else? Why won’t you just- leave me alone…?’

You swallow and walk up the two-step stairs, Simon backing up until you let yourself in, the door shutting behind you and trapping your voices inside so they can’t carry anymore. ‘Because none of that defines you, it happened to you but that isn’t who you are,’ you tell him, and he’s hunched over now that he’s inside, the ceiling not high enough to accommodate him in his own home.

‘And who am I?’ he asked pathetically, but you don’t see him as pathetic, not even now as you see his home and how bare it is, the nicest thing he owns his computer over by the far window, the setup grand and expensive looking, and you fondly think to yourself that he probably built it all himself.

‘You’re smart, you’re so fucking smart, and you’re easy to talk to, and you’re a bit weird sometimes, and you word things kinda badly at the worst of times but you’re not a creep, and you’re passionate about what you want and it’s so unfair that no one’s given you a proper chance, or gotten to know the real you, not just what they’ve heard and assumed about you. You’re not a bad guy, you’re more than your black marks, you’re Simon.’

He blinks and a tear falls from his eye to the floor thanks to the angle his neck is forced to be, but he never sits even though it must be hurting him, and you wonder if maybe you’ve gotten through to him when he catches you completely off guard with what he says next: ‘Would you still think that if you knew the real me?’

‘What do you mean?’ You’ve known him for half a year now, there wasn’t any side of him you hadn’t seen yet, but apparently there was as another tear falls.

‘I killed someone, about five years ago now.’

You stagger back into the door, the wind knocked out of you at this revelation, and he shuts his eyes and looks away from your expression as one of pain takes over his own face. ‘What are you talking about?’ you ask quietly, your voice failing you the first time you try, and he flinches at your words like you’d just screamed them in his face.

‘Back when I was evicted I was looking for people to room with, just temporarily until I could get back on my feet, and this guy had answered my ad, invited me over to check out his place. I should’ve been more cautious but it was so cold I couldn’t wait, and when I got there he tried to mug me, take whatever I had left. I fought back in self-defense, but when I almost got away he started attacking me, wanted to keep me there until his actual roommate got home so he had help, and I-’ He sits down then, his hands shaking as he goes back to that time, and your back leaves the door as he looks up at you with such sadness that your chest feels hollow. ‘He tried to kill me, I was only trying to defend myself, I didn’t mean to hurt him so bad, I just wanted to find somewhere to stay, it was so cold outside…’

‘What happened after that?’ You think you might’ve just mouthed the words with how much your voice breaks, but he understands you anyways.

‘The roommate came home while I- while it was happening, called the cops, and when they saw me standing there covered in blood, holding the knife still, they instantly ruled it as a homicide and arrested me. I was able to plead not guilty but they took one look at my bad psych eval and thought I’d snapped, killed him outta malice or something, it was only by a miracle that the evidence was in my favour.’

‘And the roommate?’

‘They searched the place and found evidence of all the others before me that’d fallen for the con, he was charged and arrested and I made bail, but after that my mother never talked to me again, even though I was acquitted.’ It looks like a weight’s been lifted now that he’s said it, but he also looks so fucking tired, most of him taking up his small loveseat couch. You want to go to him but you can’t move, your body refusing to shift even an inch in case he didn’t want you to, and he looks you over before something in his eyes begs you please; you let out a small noise as you fall to the ground between his knees, your hand holding his just like you had when you’d wrapped him up.

‘Why are you still here? Why haven’t you thrown me out yet?’ he weakly asks you, and you can’t lie to him any longer as you hold his hand up to your cheek.

‘Don’t you know what you mean to me?’ you need to know, your voice so small that again you’re not even sure if any of it even comes out, and he lets out a breath that sounds so desperate and broken it makes you wonder just how long he’s been holding it: days, weeks, months, since the moment you met?

‘I didn’t want to hope- you… you’re my only friend, I didn’t want to ruin everything and lose you too,’ he whispers as he properly holds you, his palm so warm against your skin, and you lean into his touch as you let out the breath you were holding in return.

‘You almost broke my heart when you said you went back to LoveMatch, I wanted to tell you so badly,’ you’re finally able to confess, and when you do his other hand finds your arm, holds you with just enough pressure that you know he wants you there.

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t want to ruin everything either.’

He leans forward until his forehead rests against yours, and when you open your eyes and look into his you can see everything you ever wanted again, all of it feeling so real and within reach as you brush his bangs aside, rest your hand on the back of his neck. His other hand comes up to cup your other cheek, and he’s shaking slightly like he’s afraid to touch you even though he already is because this time it’d be his decision to, his lips parting as he stares down at your own, and when he touches you you lean up and close the space between you.

He sighs against your mouth as you kiss him, it so full of relief and contentment and joy, and you wrap your arms around his neck again as you successfully sit in his lap this time. His lack of experience is apparent but you have no complaints as you deepen the kiss, needing more now that you could have it, and he lets you have everything you ever wanted as he leans back against the cushions until his head hits the metal wall behind him. He mutters an ow as he lets go of you to rub his head, and you laugh before catching his mouth again, which he eagerly allows you to do; he eats up all your attention, starving for it as he gets more into it, needing whatever you can give after so many rejections, and you’re happy to give it all back as you kiss his neck.

‘I was so proud of you when you told me you were trying for the loan, I really wanted to celebrate with you,’ you whisper into his skin, and you can feel him shiver as he lets out a soft moan and tilts his head to the side so you have easier access. ‘You’ve been trying so hard, please let me reward you, I want to be the first to…’

He moans your name as his hips start to move, try to find friction against you, and you shift until he does, his jaw going slack as he holds you by your thighs, perfects the angle even more.

‘When I saw you with her I wanted it to be me, I hated myself for wanting her to go, but she didn’t deserve you, I’ll never leave, and I want the next time we meet to be a real date, whether it’s at the Hotel or the park or my place or here, I want to be with you.’

He makes a noise of pure want, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tries to swallow back the sob that follows, he was always weak to your compliments but you need him to know how worth it he is to you, how much he deserves this after everything he’s been through.

‘You’re wonderful, I love spending time with you, you’re everything I want.’

A tear escapes between his tightly shut eyelids and you kiss it away before going to his jaw, pressing your lips along it before you find his mouth again.

‘I really like you, Simon, you mean so much to me, I’m so glad I got to meet you.’

He’s practically whimpering in your lap as he cries harder, his hips never stopping, he needs this so much but so do you, and you let him use you as the growing pressure wrenches a moan from your lips.

‘I love-’

You don’t get to finish as he comes apart underneath you, his body shuddering as he grips you tight and gasps out a series of choked out moans, your eyes fluttering shut as you feel it all travel from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. You feel the heat between your thighs as he slowly catches his breath, his cheeks turning red under streams of tears in embarrassment for coming from just this much, but you just kiss the tip of his nose and rest your chest against his, let him feel how hard your heart was beating.

‘I love you,’ you whisper now that you can, and he looks at you like you’ve just given him the sun and the moon on a golden platter.

‘I’m so glad I texted you back then,’ he confesses against your cheek, his hands leaving your thighs to rest on your back, keeping you close, ‘I think I started to love you the moment you wanted to actually talk to me.’

‘Lucky for me your standards are so low,’ you joke, but it falls flat in the best of ways as he nuzzles into your neck.

‘It was all I needed, I just wanted someone to believe in me.’ He presses a single kiss to the space where your neck meets your shoulder, and your nails scrape lightly against his scalp as you let out a sigh at the feeling.

‘I told you, I’ll keep cheering you on until it works,’ you remind him, and he sits up straight so he can hold you even closer in his hug, your bodies fitting together perfectly as you hold him back and don’t let go.

The snow is falling lightly outside as you stretch in your chair, your back cracking as you raise your arms high above your head. You’re all done for the day, everything on your list checked off as you glance at the time and see that it’s almost 8PM, he’ll be there soon. You stand and bring the feeling back to your legs before grabbing the remote and turning on the TV, queuing up the next episode of the show you’re marathoning only one at a time each night. You let the recap and intro play and then press pause, it’s nearly time now, and you’re in the middle of grabbing the plates and utensils when you hear a knock at the door. You unlock it and open up to reveal Simon on the other side, all bound up in a large winter jacket, his scarf pulled up high enough to cover his nose and mouth from the cold.

‘You forget your key at work again?’ you tease as he walks in, trailing snow over to the mat where he can take his boots off.

‘Kinda hard to unlock the door with both hands full,’ he points out with a smirk as he then sets the food brought from said work on the table. ‘It’s busy tonight despite the snow, lots of people coming in to escape the chill, had to order these early to make sure they were done on time.’

‘You know I can always make something before you get back, you don’t have to keep bothering Elison over it,’ you remind him, but he won’t hear of it, he loves being able to bring you back something so you don’t have to stop working until you’re ready and you know it.

‘I convinced him to leave the Hotel to come work for me, might as well use him,’ is what he has to say to that, and you can’t argue with it as you both transfer your dinners onto the plates you set out. ‘Besides, it’s the only way I can get my favourites without having to drive across town, that’s a good enough reason to keep bothering him.’

You hum in agreement as you sit down together, the episode playing as soon as you’re settled, and when you’re done eating he curls up next to you, rests his head against your shoulder even though it hurts his neck. You take pity on him and adjust so he can lay more properly, his face still red from the winter chill, and you find yourself paying more attention to him until he feels your eyes on him.

‘You think we can do two episodes tonight before you go back? We’re so close to the season finale,’ you plead in that tone of voice that always gets him, and he looks like he really wants to say yes but he can’t, he doesn’t like leaving the place for so long as is even though his staff is more than capable of watching over things for an hour without him; outside of the weekend it’s the only time you can be together until he gets home at 2AM, when you’re already asleep most nights, and before he leaves again by 9AM, at least until the new year where he plans on hiring more staff if things keep getting better.

‘Not tonight, maybe tomorrow if it’ll calm down when the storm hits, I’ll call it early if it’s bad enough,’ he promises, and you smile and hold his hand as you rewind the episode back to before you stopped watching.

‘Should I be so jealous of a bar?’ you ask rhetorically, and he answers you yes before you playfully hit him and press play again. ‘Maybe I should start working for you part-time, I miss our Friday lunches, you’re too busy for me now.’

‘I’m never too busy for you,’ he reassures you so gently and genuinely before kissing you, the scene you just rewound to getting ignored again as you don’t let him go after just one. ‘I wouldn’t mind having you there, though, even if I think we might not get a lot done whenever you’re there.’

‘I’m just trying to make some C0NN3CT10N$,’ you say as slowly and as slyly as you can, drawing out the word as he just stares at you, ‘y’know like the bar’s na-’

He silences you with another kiss, this one a little more chaste as he laughs against your lips. ‘Yeah, yeah I know,’ he chuckles, and once again the episode is rewound so you can watch it, your arms around him for the rest of the hour he sets aside just for you each night, and in your head you make a mental note to thank your mother for recommending that son of a friend of a friend of a co-worker 10 months too late as he lovingly holds you right back.

[patcaps]

you can read my other thoughts on the finale here so i’m not gonna just say all the same things again but

the ending was always gonna be divisive with people loving it or hating it, liking it but wishing some things were a bit different. it’s the ending of a beloved show and nobody is ever gonna agree on what the right ending would be. it sucks to have folks outright rejecting it but it also sucks to see people like “you are wrong for having any criticisms whatsoever” like, i’m all for being able to discuss aspects of media and what we liked and didn’t like. it’s not always a bad faith interpretation, or cynicism, or being poor at understanding the writing and intention. and i love meta and analysis that doesn’t completely pick apart something and refuse it any grace or leniency. i think sometimes we’re way too hard on stuff that is ultimately heartfelt and from a place of love and joy, and unraveling them dampens the magic.

anyway. that aside. i love this show so much. there are things i’d have done differently, pacing choices that made it fall flat in places, but it’s not my show and these guys know their characters and love them as much as we do. and the ghosts and mike and alison never stopped being family - which is, ultimately, the biggest thing that matters. not the house, not where they are, but how they’ve helped each other for the better. alison and mike spent their entire lives making sure the ghosts were never forgotten, always went back to catch up. they got to enjoy all the fun and love of visiting family without the stress of living under each other’s feet 24/7 - and relationships with family often improve tenfold with that breathing space.

the show ended where it started with the plans to turn it into a hotel, but this time instead of the ghosts panicking and being like “drive her out, kill her” they loved alison enough to take all of that change on, safe in the knowledge that alison would never ever just abandon them. that’s such a neat way of showing how they’ve all helped each other. like, robin’s seen that house and the houses and land before it change so much but he felt so good about this change, literally said he felt christmassy finally, because they could do this. for her. for their friend, their family member, their alison.

they existed before alison and they’ll exist after her, but in the meantime they get to enjoy being her family and also know they’ve given them a more stable, secure, less stressful living arrangement that works for them all. they aren’t fully dependent on alison anymore and alison was no longer fearful of leaving and losing them because she knew they’d still be her family no matter what. i’ve seen some people interpret this as “they’re saying having a baby meant her found family weren’t important anymore, they have to go be a traditional family alone” and that was my kneejerk response too, but then i sat with it. and actually, alison goes from being a (presumed) orphan with no family besides mike and his side, to having all of that plus the ghosts, people who love her and always welcome her back to visit whenever she wants. how lovely for her to have her very own family she can go and see, who did such a kind thing for her, however bittersweet a decision it was initially.

and yeah, it’s true that the ghosts have less of alison there to take care of things like personalised entertainment, but that’s the whole point of them leaving - alison wasn’t in a position where she could worry about entertaining them all the time whilst also being with her husband and raising a newborn. it wasn’t fair to keep asking her to run around after a houseful of ghosts when looking after yourself and a small child is hard enough. she could have stayed and ended up resenting them, getting frustrated and angry the way they did with mike’s mum, potentially souring that relationship with the ghosts. instead she moved out and gets to go back and see them and love and enjoy them fully without that responsibility 24/7. i’m sure she took them new things, gifts, let them watch tv and read books, i bet they had requests for whenever she visited which she was more than happy to supply. and i bet they always had new anecdotes and things to catch her up on.

the more time i have, the more i warm to it all. it’s easy to say “they should have stayed together at the house” but this show is about being human, about life and death, how existence is both cruel and kind and beautiful and unexpected and it changes you and you change it. they did stay together, just not under the same roof. home is more than just button house, more than just a dream because dreams change as we go, and belonging is about more than just a destination. alison found home and belonging in the ghosts, and they found it in her too. the rest is just bricks and mortar.

[iamvegorott]

Magicians Don't Need Superheros Pt36

First: Link Prev: Link Next: Link

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Jackie sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands and staring at the ground. He was so exhausted in more ways than he thought was possible. After Mad went home, despite Anti’s claims of wanting his ‘emotional support nerd’ to stay, they decided to eat some food. Robbie joined them, so Jackie didn’t talk about what had happened until after he ran off to play. Robbie would get the explanation when he changed to an older age, permission already given to Chase to fill him in later. 

It was a long and awkward talk. They all had been in the living room and staring at Jackie as he explained what those doctors did to him. A strange numbness took over and allowed Jackie to speak freely, albeit in a monotone voice that no one liked. Jackie thought he’d feel relief, the whole ‘weight off his shoulders’ thing, but instead, he just felt so…empty. 

Jackie had also insisted on Chase and Henrik going out on their dinner date, not wanting to ruin their plans because Dark ended up yanking some sour stuff to the surface. It had been nice spending the day with the others, mainly just lounging about and watching a few movies together. Jackie had called it an early night because he thought he would fall right to sleep with how tired he felt, but after getting changed, he just found himself in a daze for the past few hours. Maybe he needed to walk around or something.

Jackie sighed as he stood up and left his room. He paused as he looked at Marvin’s bedroom door. He was tempted to knock on it, ask Marvin what he was doing, and watch some TV with him until he could finally sleep… they’d done that plenty of times for each other, but the thought of doing that now felt so weird after his whole crisis he still hadn’t figured out. 

Chase should be back home by now, and he could sit with him. Jackie chewed the inside of his cheek as he walked down the hall, passing Robbie’s door and hearing some giggles as he turned the corner. 

“Two glasses of wine, and you become a mess.” Henrik teased in a whisper as he and Chase leaned against each other, walking through the other end of the hall and stopping in front of Chase’s door. 

“Coming from the man that had three.” Chase teased back. 

“It was good wine.” Henrik quickly protested.

“And I can’t help but laugh at how it feels like we’re teenagers sneaking back home after staying out too late with how quiet you’re making us be.” Chase chuckled. 

“Have we ever technically been teenagers? Aside from Robert, I do not think-” Henrik got stopped by Chase kissing him. “You could have just told me to stop.” He said with a big grin.

“Can’t think straight, too much wine.” Chase hummed with his own little smirk. 

“Well, I will help keep you from thinking for the rest of the night.” Henrik opened the door and pulled Chase into the room by the front of his shirt. 

“Oh, gross,” Jackie said to himself, faking a gag and wishing he hadn’t just witnessed that. He turned back around, thinking that maybe if he just buried himself in his bed, he’d eventually pass out. 

“Jackie?” Marvin’s voice got Jackie to look up, seeing that he had just stepped out of his room. “Can’t sleep either? I was going to make some tea. Would you like me to make some for you as well?” He gave Jackie a soft smile. Jackie craved the normalcy they had before he started making everything weird. 

“Yeah…would you mind making that one really fruity one? With the mango stuff?” 

“Of course.” Marvin chuckled, waiting until Jackie started walking before following suit.

“We might want to make the stuff quickly and get back to the rooms,” Jackie warned.

“Why’s that?” 

“We have both been traumatized by seeing Chase and Henrik together.” 

“You saw ass?”

“No.”

“Then we’re not on even ground.” Marvin did end up walking a little faster past Chase and Henrik’s rooms. 

“I can handle us not being even if it means I never see Henrik’s ass.” Jackie chuckled, leaning back against the counter while Marvin got to work making their drinks. 

“Hopefully, they’ve learned their lesson, and there’s no more office incidents.” Marvin clicked his tongue. “I can only handle so much naked man in one day.” He added with a little gesture at Jackie before stepping side to get the flavored syrups. 

Jackie looked down at himself, and it reminded him that he was shirtless. He had always been comfortable being shirtless around Marvin. This was just how he slept, so he didn’t think much about it. Was it too much? No one else batted an eye about it, why would it be weird to be like this around Marvin? Maybe he should start sleeping with a shirt on. Maybe Marvin was bothered by it but didn’t want to be rude. He slept with a shirt on. Was it throwing him off that Jackie didn’t? Although, Marvin was very blunt, so if it was a problem he would have told him about this a while ago. 

Maybe he should wear shirts around Marvin until after this whole weird crush thing went away. He didn’t want to be awkward, well, more awkward around Marvin. What if this was all just a phase? What if his brain was being weird and taking some thoughts and twisting them into a romantic frame when it was just platonic? His brain was trying to process a Septiceye that was different from the others.

When he first met everyone else, there was always something that cut them off. His meeting with Anti was…bad, so that took him off the table immediately. He saw Chase as a parental figure, and Henrik took that title as well because it was even obvious to him that something was between them, but there wasn’t a name for it just yet. Something about JJ just screamed off-limits, and he was a good friend, so when Marvin came around, everything was different. Everything about Marvin was different. The way he carried himself, the way he had no fear when he spoke, his smile, his laugh, his-

Jackie was yanked out of those thoughts when the back of a hand pressed to his forehead.

“Huh?” 

“You’re looking red. I wanted to be sure you weren’t having a fever,” Marvin explained, lowering his hand. “Either it’s that, or you’re still recovering from seeing Chase and Henrik,” He added with a chuckle. 

“It was really gross,” Jackie said. 

“Some tea will help you forget. We’re also going to find Night tomorrow so there’s that to think about as well. I want this to be the last time we deal with him or I’m going to literally throw Dark at him and leave the Ipliers to suffer the consequences.” Marvin stirred some honey into his tea. 

“We should try to see if Host’s vision has changed. We didn’t really ask Mad about it, so I can call him in the morning and ask.” Jackie looked down at the other tea mug that was his but he wasn't ready to pick it up yet. 

“Speaking of the devil.” Marvin hummed when he pulled out his buzzing phone and saw Mad’s name on the caller ID. He didn’t have any pictures of the others to use as contact photos yet, so for the moment, Mad’s was the picture of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue. “What are you doing up?” Marvin asked when he answered the call, putting it on speaker and setting the phone on the counter.

“You’re up as well. You can’t question me.” Mad retorted. “Am I on speaker?” 

“Yep. Jackie’s here.” 

“Hey.” Jackie waved at the phone despite knowing he couldn’t be seen. 

“Why are both of you up?” Mad asked.

“Mad, why are you calling?” Marvin didn’t want to keep going in circles about this. 

“It’s…It’s Host.” Mad’s tone changed.

“Is he okay?” 

“Kind of? I mean, he’s just-uh-he’s just really off after this whole thing with Night started.” There was a pause as a clicking sound came through the phone. “He says he can’t focus on anything else. Parts of the vision keep coming back, and it’s changing.” 

“Changing? Those things don’t change?” Jackie said. 

“They usually don’t. That’s what throwing Host off so much about this. Something about Night is throwing him off. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the supposed ‘God’ status of his or something else, but Edward’s been having to change his bandages several times a day instead of only once. That only happens when he’s beyond stressed out.” The clicking sound got faster. 

“Have you…read him lately?” Marvin asked. “Does he feel stressed?” 

“I’m not allowed to read him outside of my whole top-layer stuff I can’t control.” The clicking paused. “But, yeah, there’s some stress and confusion. I want to go deeper, but Host can tell when I’m reading him, and I don’t want him mad at me...I also don’t like seeing my friend hurting so much.” 

“How much of this does Dark know about?” 

“If he’s only overheard what me and Host were talking about today, then he only knows about me helping you guys find Night. Host wanted to know details of the tracker, and Dark cut us off before we could talk about anything else.” The clicked sound came back, and it was much slower than before. “Maybe we should do what Darks says and wait for him to figure it out.” 

“I haven’t listened to him since I’ve met him. I’m not about to start doing that now.” Marvin scoffed. “We’ll get Night tomorrow. I think getting him into the Manor will help Host with his problems.” 

“Okay…just…neither of you are allowed to get hurt,” Mad stated.

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.” Jackie said with a puff to his chest. 

“I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. This will be over soon.” Marvin promised. “Now, put the lighter away and go to bed.”

“What? What lighter? I don’t…” Mad’s weak denial turned into an even weaker laugh. 

“Oh! That’s what that sound was.” Jackie said.

“Good night, Mad.” Marvin hung up the call.

“Sounds like everyone’s being thrown off with this whole Night thing.” Jackie finally started drinking his tea. 

“Everything’s been off since I arrived,” Marvin mumbled to himself. “How are you feeling?” He asked Jackie before what he said could be processed. 

“I’m fine.” Jackie shrugged. 

“Just fine? That was a lot you went through today.” Marvin pocketed his phone and ended up standing closer to Jackie. “You’re allowed to be tired, upset, even a bit grumpy. You punched a man into a wall, you had to describe severe trauma, and you saw Chase and Henrik being gross. You can be not fine.”

“I’m…” Jackie was going to say ‘fine’ again, but it didn’t feel right anymore. 

“You’re what?” Marvin was now standing in front of Jackie, not technically trapping him, yet it almost felt like it.

“I-uh…I’m just-like…um…” Jackie cleared his throat.

“Jackie.” Marvin’s voice was stern, showing he wasn’t going to leave until he got an answer. 

“I’m…I’m tired, Marv,” Jackie confessed, his shoulders dropping. “I don’t know how to feel. I’m just tired.” 

“And that’s okay.” Marvin placed his hands on Jackie’s shoulders, squeezing them. “You can be tired.”  

“Thanks.” Jackie liked Marvin being this close. It was nice seeing the care in his eyes and the-

Nope, nope, nope.

Jackie, you need to not. 

Jackie quickly slipped away and fumbled back a few steps. 

“Did I step on your toes or something?” Marvin asked. 

“No! No, no, no.” Jackie waved his hands in front of himself. “Sorry. I just-the-the tea is kicking in, and I’m like super sleepy now.” 

“You don’t sound sleepy,” Marvin stated.

“I’m really good at hiding it.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Those are different things.” Jackie felt the smile he gave twitch from his nerves as Marvin picked up both mugs and handed him his tea. 

“Did you want to watch anything together while you finish your drink?” Marvin asked.

“I’m just gonna chug and sleep. Got a lot to do tomorrow…night.” Jackie gave another awkward smile before scurrying out of the room. 

“Good night?” Marvin said mostly to himself as he stayed in the kitchen. “That was…weird?” 

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

Hi, it's controversial opinion anon... thank you for answering my ask and thank you to everyone in the comments as well for trying to make sense of everything! I took a step back after reading through the responses and went like "yeah why even talk about this, it's just confusing everyone and helping no one and I'm personally insecure about this too (which is why I'm on anon) and maybe Tumblr isn't the best place to discuss something like neurodivergence/mental illness x spiritual realm in-depth".

And then I saw the following art just casually appear on my dash - it's a religiously connotated dark figure with red eyes, originally from an artist who says it's based on an experience with schizophrenia. Just...like that. Normalized. Completely normal. I'm sure they're a random, wonderful human being who just enjoy making awesome stuff on Tumblr. Still I went like NOPE.

https://www.tumblr.com/comikbook/762444161315160064/buy-liz-a-coffee-ko-ficomlizpenceart

Like, you can't rule it out. You can't say it's not related, imo. People are tormented by spirits and are calling it clinically depressed, having hallucinations, having hormone imbalances or whatever.

@/marietheran wondered in the previous replies what kind of definition I have of the spirit vs. the mind. Well, to me, only two spirits exist: The Holy Spirit and worldly spirits. There is no inbetween. The human mind decides on a daily basis by which one of them it wants to rule/be ruled. And based on that, humans get blessed or cursed. It's very black-and-white, I know, but that's God vs. the devil for you. Under man's free will, this stuff mingles. Gets gray. Neutral. Obscured. Normal. Normalized. Luke-warm. Almost like a lie. Jesus defeated this stuff, yet we are plagued by such things. It's a fallen world. But I say we still accept wayyyyy too much of this shit to rule our lives instead of throwing it out by Jesus' name.

Now to tread carefully and respond to your own comments.

'what the hell xD you're telling me the fact that I'm autistic is demon possession?'

I don't know you. Or your life. I don't want to insult or scare you, and since - like I said - I have no trustworthy knowledge of the spiritual dimension myself, I just can't know what is or isn't and I won't assume. What I do know is that it's the result of a curse, since it inevitably brings you some blessings (making you who you are), but the downsides are just so so so not worth it. You deserve a better identity, a way of loving yourself that doesn't want to end you. You deserve abundant life, not the thief who comes to kill, steal, and destroy trying to take your life.

If you think the language (oh no! I said curse!) is too strong, see how in Maleachi 3:9 God says that the people are under a curse for not tithing. Zechariah 5:3 says that the people are cursed for stealing and swearing falsely, and it has real consequences like "being banished from the land". "And my curse will remain in that house and completely destroy it." (Verse 4). Curses are everywhere where sin is, even "small" or "socially acceptable" sins are destructive. God will destroy an entire house for "just" stealing...!! Stealing doesn't sound that bad, but the consequences ARE that bad!!

'>could be an ancestor's sin I swear there's a verse to combat that.'

Yep, there is, but look at its development.

Exodus 34:7 says "I lay the sins of the parents upon their children & grandchildren [...] til the third and fourth generations."

Then Jeremiah 31:29 says "the people will no longer quote this proverb: The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children's mouths pucker at the taste."

Ezekiel 18 (whole chapter): "Why do you still quote this proverb? [...] You will not quote this proverb anymore in Israel. [Only] The person who sins is the one who will die."

Then you have the last supper, where Jesus passes around a cup of wine to his disciples in remembrance of his sacrifice -> drinking the cup/spilling his blood for us.

And finally, John 19:30 says "When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said "It is finished". And bowing his head, he yielded up his spirit."

ISN'T THIS AMAZING???? Jesus drank the bitter cup of generational curses for us!!!! He said "It is finished!" !!!!!! Then why are we still suffering?????????

Somehow - and I am treading carefully here, since I DO believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ - there seems to be the need to actively renounce such curses in the present even though everything has already been paid for. We are still supposed to take the last supper in the present as well, aren't we? It wasn't a one-time thing. Idk it seems to be a lifestyle thing. We are still called to behave according to God's will even though every and any trespass has been forgiven. We're still supposed to act like God's children and abide by his laws in our daily lives. So - somehow - and this is the bit that confuses me as well - curses, too, still need breaking today.

How? Maaaaaaan do I look like I know how? Jesus' name. Idk.

How does this not spin us back into a vicious Old-Testament cycle of "do bad or do good and reap the consequences" instead of resting in the amazing grace of Jesus' work on the cross? I don't know.

The thought of a daily battle can be burdening. That's at least what it does to me. How do I not constantly curse myself and my children with my bad behavior, which is, alas, still here?

How do I cure my family from curses that came into effect three or four generations ago, which I might not even know about?

The best approaches I currently have are these: A friend (from those charismatic evangelicals I've talked about) said that once you've been set free, you don't really desire to return to a sinful lifestyle. So the need to break bad stuff of someone again becomes a lot less.

Another thing could be that Idk, Jesus sets someone free from a smoking addiction in an instant, so that they don't desire it anymore, but that person still needs to break their daily habits (buying cigarettes, carrying a lighter, taking smoking breaks, associating with smokers) themselves. They need to go actively walk in their freedom.

There is something about this. There is something to this. To break the above mentioned curse from a house, you apparently need a stronger man to throw him out and to continuously be on guard (Luke 11:21-28). Let's learn how to throw the murdering thief out of our houses, out of our minds and bodies, which are God's temples.

I want to crack the principles that dictate the spiritual realm without fearmongering that we could return to a Old-Testament way of thinking. We haven't earned grace, we are set free by Jesus' mercy. But then somehow we have to fight to go take (and keep!) the benefits as well.

I don't get it myself, I want to be very open about that. But I wanted to plant it in your awareness. As a thought to maybe pursue. There is nothing I want more for you than to find relief from your situation as well. I'm done talking now. :)

People are tormented by spirits and are calling it clinically depressed, having hallucinations, having hormone imbalances or whatever.

Why do you say it's spirits?

What I do know is that it's the result of a curse, since it inevitably brings you some blessings (making you who you are), but the downsides are just so so so not worth it. You deserve a better identity, a way of loving yourself that doesn't want to end you. You deserve abundant life, not the thief who comes to kill, steal, and destroy trying to take your life.

The fact that I'm autistic has nothing to do with the fact that I want to kill myself. I think your generalisation of autism as a Curse is... problematic. It's a disorder, sure. It's disabling, to a greater or lesser extent. Many people can be happy with it, though.

ISN'T THIS AMAZING???? Jesus drank the bitter cup of generational curses for us!!!! He said "It is finished!" !!!!!! Then why are we still suffering?????????

Sin, honey. The reason we're still suffering is sin and living in a fallen world. The world is still fallen even though Christ came. "To live is Christ and to die is gain."

The best approaches I currently have are these: A friend (from those charismatic evangelicals I've talked about) said that once you've been set free, you don't really desire to return to a sinful lifestyle.

Mmmm I'm hesitant to agree with this because of the power of addictions.

I don't get it myself, I want to be very open about that. But I wanted to plant it in your awareness. As a thought to maybe pursue. There is nothing I want more for you than to find relief from your situation as well. I'm done talking now. :)

Feel free to come back into my inbox and ramble more, but I really do think this conversation is best served by you - idk, making a sideblog - and having a conversation rather than sending essays into my inbox. To be clear, I don't mind that at all. I just think it would be more productive to discuss in a more conversation manner than slabs of text like this - also easier to find the rest of the conversation.

tagging @marietheran bc mentioned

[twofrontteethstillcrooked]

Close shave: 10 Oct. Suptober

Dean yawned and leaned against the island to observe. Cas's hair had curled a little in the steam from the pan and Dean's fingers itched to pet it. "What's porridge?" he asked instead.

"There are several versions in various cultures," Cas said, "but we asked Eileen and she said oats."

"So it's oatmeal?"

deancas ust

Metal ringing woke Dean from the dead sleep of a glorious afternoon nap. He staggered into the bunker kitchen ready to fight, an impulse short circuited by the way his sock feet slipped on the tile once he'd descended the stairs.

"Sorry," Jack said. "I dropped a lid."

"To what? Sounded like the whole pan rack exploded in here." Dean's attempt at sternness was undercut by his voice crackling like a tween's as he regained his balance. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just helping Cas make porridge." Jack went back to rooting through the pantry. "Dried fruit would be good, I think."

Cas was tending something in a small pan on the stove. "This is almost done. If we want to stir the fruit in now, I think it will reconstitute in the milk."

Dean yawned and leaned against the island to observe. Cas's hair had curled a little in the steam from the pan and Dean's fingers itched to pet it. "What's porridge?" he asked instead.

"There are several versions in various cultures," Cas said, "but we asked Eileen and she said oats."

"So it's oatmeal?"

"We're stealing some of Sam's," Jack said, sprinkling a handful of cherries into the pan. "Hopefully he won't mind."

"Nah," Dean said. 

He watched for another minute, rubbing sleep from his eye. Side by side, Cas and Jack were so much like a biological parent and child – same mannerisms, similar features – it was slightly spooky. Not that biology was necessary to make a family, Dean knew. Just that… It sometimes struck him funny. Made his chest ache. 

"You wanna try some?" Jack asked him while Cas scraped sludge into two bowls.

"He can have my portion," Cas said, a smile at the corner of his mouth as he made eye contact with Dean.

Dean's stomach growled. It had been all of two hours since he'd had a meal. 

At the kitchen table, staring down into the bowl, he felt less hungry, more despondent. He'd never been an oatmeal aficionado. Growing up, he and Sam sometimes ate the instant stuff with the consistency of glue. Cold cereal was easier to contend with in a motel room; untoasted Pop Tarts were more manageable in a car; and on the road, an old fashioned Pig 'n a Poke was the undisputed champion, even if it killed a guy repeatedly.

He bought himself some time by asking, "Why'd you get a hankering for porridge anyway?"

"Oh," Jack said, "we watched Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave. There was a cyberdog and a bunch of lost sheep and a malfunctioning porridge robot."

Literally none of that sentence made any sense to Dean except the part where a movie (a movie?) had been watched without him.

"You were napping," Cas reminded him, having – apparently – accurately read whatever confusion was in Dean's face.

"This is good," Jack said to Cas, sounding surprised. "I like the chewiness."

Dean was so depressed about having to try the porridge he could feel his body attempting to go to sleep again to protect his digestive tract. No. Dammit. He was an adult who wanted to experience new things. He blinked open his eyes widely, wielded his spoon with fierce determination, and took a big bite of gloop.

The first second was horrifying, but the mouthful immediately improved thereafter. The oats were chewy, though not in an off-putting way, and the flavor was lightly nutty and salty and brown sugar sweet, with a little pop of sour from one of the cherries. 

"Not bad," he had to admit. "Not bad at all."

"I can follow directions," Cas said, with more humor than defensiveness. 

"First time for everything." Dean grinned quickly between bites and went back to devouring the porridge like a starving dog.

"Do you know how to make oatmeal cookies?" Cas asked him.

"Ooh, yeah, do you?" Jack chimed in.

"Not really," Dean said, "but we can look up a recipe later."

"I'm shadowing Jody tomorrow," Jack reminded him.

"Well," Dean said, "we can wait until you're back." He'd forgotten he and Cas would be alone in the bunker for a day or two, assuming Sam and Eileen stayed out on a hunt for a while longer. He kept his eyes on his emptied bowl. "Or, y'know, me and Cas could make a small batch, just like a trial run."

He chanced looking up at Cas and let himself get lost in that intense blue for a second. 

"Sounds like a plan," Cas said softly.

"Great." Jack was already putting his empty bowl in the sink. "Do you want me to help do the dishes?"

"We can wash them up," Dean said, already thinking about standing next to Cas with their hands knocking against each other in soapy water. 

Cas looked like he was thinking the same thing.

Fuck it, Dean thought, and slid his hand beneath Cas's, right there at the table. Cas gripped him tight, as usual.

[bistaxx]

JINX !! tell me why you ship Quackity x Luzu and why you dont ship Quackity x Wilbur I need to know the Lore

Hiiiiiiiii Vin! oh gosh- I'll try to condense this as much as I can OKAY SO...

yeah I don't vibe with tntduo 😭- I already talked about q!tnt so I'll just explain about c!tnt instead:

Why don’t you ship it: The Fandom. Listen I hate saying it but it really is 90% of the reason why- I always try not to let annoying fandom stuff sour my opinions but like... MAN- Because like I actually did really use to enjoy /r tntduo fuck man I was shipping it back in October 17th 2020 after the moment in the button room and especially after the famous Niki's birthday stream like- idk I just liked the dynamic and the chemistry it was fun! I was even still shipping it when I first started getting really into the c!fiances and was hyped when Wilbur and Quackity met up again... but then. IDK- something about the fandom take on their dynamic just didn't click with me it didn't feel like the same characters I enjoyed ESPECIALLY IN REGARDS TO THE WAY C!QUACKITY WOULD GET TREATED- like GIRL- Quackity would not cave and be visibly annoyed or flustered by the first jab Wilbur makes hello-??? or the fanart that would portray Wil as like completely disregarding Q's personal space as this 'teehee funny flirty' thing like I HATED that shit- I also just hated how when I tried to look up c!fiances content I had to filter like 5 million tags to actually find what I was looking for because there'd be so many c!tnt fics that had the fiances tagged in them and 50% of the time it was just so Quackity could break-up with them for Wilbur 😭 I also just like got sick of seeing it everywhere when I wanted to find c!Q content it felt like it was inescapable and that people only cared for my favorite character solely to mischaracterize him in a ship I was quickly growing tired of... yeha I think that sums it up-

What would have made you like it? Um.. All of the above not happening LMAO-

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? Like I said earlier I DID really like it and I have tnt shipping mutuals who do the dynamic justice even if I got super burnt out on it (shoutout to Thes)

... So anyway uh- SO LUCKITY-

(this will be a lot shorter despite how much I have to say about Luckity I'm just really tired rn SORRY 😭)

This will be about k!Luckity specifically cuz I rly don;t have much of anything to say about q!Luckity outside of finding Arinckity cute

What made you ship it? Started for the fluff and stayed for the toxic ship 😈- GOD Quackity and Luzu fucking outdid themselves with Luckity in Karmaland V like dude it's just so good- like looking back on it the writing was already on the walls that they were so doomed from the very start- like they somehow manage to be both "it's tragic because it didn't have to end this way" and "it's tragic because it was always gonna end this way." if that makes sense. But god at the start it was just so easy to overlook the blaring the red flags because they'd give us just enough hope that it'd end well only for the rug to get pulled during the elections and the whole dynamic get's flopped on it's head but now instead of cute fluff or funny flirting it's this Angry passion and resentment- from start to end they were devoted to each other whether in hatred or in love. The build-up and payoff were both just amazing even if I felt miffed about the ending of the arc at first I've since come to love it because really it's just the cherry on top of their tragedy leaving the possibility they could just end up doing it all over again yeah <3 They were The Moment yeah!

What are your favorite things about the ship? A lot of things but like- I love that they're sun and moon coded <33333 I remember associating them with sun/moon imagery before they took those iconic photos with the sun and moon and like I was so hyped when that happened <3 my toxic sun/moon boys yeah <3

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? Not really no- but HEY check out this web weave I made about Luckity that I'm still super proud of and debate remaking one day: X :3

[inverted-flowers]

Ok ok so! I just did a tarot spread for Joel for secret life! I posted before about this but I didn't wanna reblog it again so... I'm gonna do some of the others too but I got excited and needed to post this.

I made a 5 card spread for this which just means I drew 5 cards and put them in a line. If you don't know anything about this stuff don't worry you don't need to. If you do and are curious about the spread I made for this go see my last post. I don't wanna repeat it and make this post even longer lmao.

First Card - The Start

I drew the Knight Of Wands in reverse. In the start of the season, Joel could be making plans that aren't very well thought out. He might make some hasty descions... Or already has since we're kinda coming out of the beginning. Maybe this could point to his joining of the Mounders. Maybe this is because of his raw bacon tower thing I can't spell- he mentioned disliking it at some point towards the end of his second ep.

Second Card - Individual

This card is supposed to represent how Joel will do on an individual kind of level. How he plays it. The card I drew for this was the Knight Of Swords. Throughout the season he might move forward too fast and, as a result, not be able to see the consequences. He could do some things (take "shortcuts" as my deck's manual put it) that keep him from seeing the problems that mount up.

Third Card - Social

This card is supposed to tell us how things are gonna go in the social aspect for Joel. The card I drew was Strength in reverse. He might have some misdirected strength and/or lash out at those he doesn't need to. He might also end up depending too much on others due to self doubt. THIS is interesting huh? There's a lot of things that come to mind for how this could display. He could end up betraying the mounders for a start. I can see that happening very easily. Something else here could be some sort of deal he makes with someone going sour.

Fourth Card - Big Impact

This card is meant to describe what ends up being the most impactful thing for Joel. It could be what makes or breaks his game or just what makes the most dramatic turn. I drew the Eight Of Wands in reverse. This was kinda difficult for me to interpret just because it's so straightforward. It's just saying he's gonna take on too much at once.

Fifth Card - End

How's it end? Does he win? Is Jimmy right? If only Tarot was so simple as a blatant yes or no... Alas we must interpret them instead. (/overdramatic). Well the card I drew was the Page Of Pentacles in reverse... This card is saying he might get lost in the details and miss the whole purpose of whats going on. It actually kinda ties back into our 4th card! There's also a lack of progress that occurs.

So overview? Yeah it's not looking like he's gonna win. If the cards are correct, Joel's got a season full of poor planning and rushing into too many things. If you want my guess on what it means in terms of events... I think he'll probably die from failing his tasks. He'll fall out with the other mounders if not completely betray them or switch sides. Perhaps he does something without realizing they're gonna be upset with him for it. Maybe he betrays them on a whim or over something super small. Or I'm wrong and the cards mean it in some other way. Or the cards themselves are wrong and he has a great time and wins the whole thing. Who knows! I'm even more excited to find out now though :D

[graph100]

is it just me or does gamedev youtube kinda suck? like, its all the most generic sounding people making uninteresting indie games and having nothing super interesting to say. like idk, maybe its just me. the only people who i really like are randy and miziziziz, but even some of miziziziz's stuff leans toward generic indie stuff, hes just different enough in attitude and method that i can watch him. everyone else just feels so samey.

nobody's doing anything that feels original. like yeah they all have their great ideas and such, but theres nothing interesting going on.

i have this theory about how we think about our creative projects. as humans, we naturally make categories for things. we do it for everything. it helps us process things. when we make art, we either start with an idea from a category or genre and expand from there, for fit the idea into a category or make something specific of that category. it feels like gamedev youtube is just making things to fit the "game" shaped hole

I kinda feel this way with indie games as a whole. like in the 2000's and 2010's all of the sudden it became super easy for individuals and small teams to make games, and they fucking ran with that. then later on in the 2010's and 2020's we formed this idea of what "indie game" means and started making "indie games", and its dragged innovation to a halt.

maybe im just salty because im super picky with what i like but i seriously think that there is so much more that we could be doing as a whole that a lot of people dont see.

I was watching this video essay about detention (a game by the same people who made that game that got banned because it had whinnie the pooh as xi jinping) and the essayist was talking about games that have similar energy to silent hill. he brought up signalis, and admitted that he thought the game was similarly good, but said that it wasn't as great because it was clear that it was inspired by/a spiritual successor to silent hill, and that detention fit his criteria for "silent hill like game" not because it tried to be silent hill, but because it was just as good as doing the same things as silent hill

this is where i think indie games fall flat; it feels like everyone is trying to make something like another game, instead of doing something new that is also great. I understand that inspiration is one thing, and that not all spiritual successors are bad, but it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I can really easily tell what the a game wanted to be, but didnt end up being.

I tried to word that kind of broadly, because not all of the games i dislike try to emulate one game or a specific set of games, but some seem like they try to emulate a certain style of art or game that they cant do.

I just thing that we need to learn to move on from the past and make new things that are great.

Another gripe I have with gamedev youtube is that they come up with game ideas that fit labels. whenever i see a devlog video they always introduce their game as a set of itch.io tags. I know this is good for like publicity or whatever, but their game ideas are entirely based around these boxes that we need to think outside of; labels come second.

Look at doom for example. It's possibly the greatest game of all time. When it came out in 1993, nobody called it like we did now because they didn't have the term "first person shooter". In ahoy's video on what genre is doom, he shows that it was advertised as a virtual reality action game. That term is wayyy worse at describing what doom is, but thats because doom was so different than other games.

rant over (for now)

[x-authorship-x]

Hey torship.. do u think ppl binge reading on long ongoing fanfictions are bad? I was just finished bingeing a work and another reader commented before me like " oh wow icb i've just finished this (200k+series) in 2 days, what am i gonna binge read now?" And i was like, whoa so honest bro, would that hurt the feeling of the author or not? If it was said like that..

Hey✨

Hmmm, I've not really thought much on it, not enough to have a solid answer off the cuff. I'll try and muddle through it but, short answer? Don't we all 'binge' read?

Long answer is a bit more scrambled but stick with me.

I mean, you gotta join an ongoing fic at some point. If you mean specifically the type of binging where readers wait until updates pile up so they can read big chunks of the story in one go (I have readers who do this, you poor things will be on tenterhooks for decades at this point lol) or, maybe, they wait until the story is completed to start... That's a little different but it's not bad or wrong. I think it's more that, when you read that way, you're distancing yourself from the author's ongoing creativity.

Now, quick disclaimer, a fic is a fic and you can read it however you like, I binge stuff all the time. But fanfic is different from published OG work because the reader DOES have that opportunity to, kinda, participate in the creative process, to be there every step - or update - of the way.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this question, it's about how you approach your reading as much as how you view your writing. To me, as an author with a majority of ongoing works AND breaks in my updating, comments like that are a bit... Sweet and sour. This person binged my fic, maybe even the whole series or all of my works, and now they're left adrift with all these cliffhangers and emotions and the track is hanging, suspended and unfinished, and it's hard to scale off the ride by yourself. I always feel feral when I come up for air after a binge like that, like one of those pics of deer in dark grasses and the eyes are all lit up by the torch. You devoured my work like an animal, all fingers and teeth? I'm delighted!

But the listlessness of an unfinished work binge can also, intentionally or not, sting. Like, yeah, I know that was a lot to leave you hanging with, ain't it rough? (But please don't beg me for more because then the pressure makes it worse) and oh you read all 50K in one day, so you must've been so gripped? (You only commented on the last chapter, you ate that five course meal with a ladle and you mashed all the dishes together and did you even notice the care and garnish?)

My slowly revealed banquet becomes a buffet, whether you're picking at it or gorging. It's a different experience altogether. That's not your fault and it's not mine. It just is.

Most people don't pace themselves when they start a new show, you watch everything you can get your grubby paws on before jumping over to AO3, so why does binge reading become a thing in fandom? Because, for most people, it's the slower process that really makes the experience so positive. I've never published a work that was rubber-stamped finished before the readers ever saw it, so I'll be honest that I'm talking out of my ass as per usual, but I don't think I'd want to just.... Post all the chapters together. I want the reactions, I want the anticipation, I want the readers to travel with me.

To come back to your actual example tho, Neptune, "what am I gonna binge read now?" Is a comment that I would largely overlook by itself. I mean, if that's it, nothing about enjoying the work or thanking the author or anything to soften it, then it's a bit of a micro. Up there with letting the door swing behind you instead of holding it for the person after. (No harm really meant, just in your own world)

If it's part of a comment that expresses that the reader might've shoved down those five courses without savouring the flavours but they just REALLY loved that food, then it's more than fine, it's a big compliment! You were so busy eating that you barely paused for breath! And binging isn't a prerequisite to not commenting or savouring! It's like a mukbang, they love the flavours but fucking hell can they pack down that food in one sitting.

If it's rude, entitled, then I wouldn't give it the time of day. Putting something out there does not mean you're entitled to getting something back, even a smile or thanks. That doesn't, however, mean that it's not poor manners. And, if someone comes into my house and wolfs down my five course banquet before huffing with impatience or immediately leaving for their next meal, that's only a reflection of them and not me. I put the meal out, I can't tell people how to eat it.

This metaphor is running away from me lmao

TLDR: everyone binges, it's not a bad thing. But your manners matter and we should all be mindful that you're enjoying something for free; if the author wanted that conversation between chapters, if the author thinks binging is a compliment, if the author doesn't care at ALL. It's not a crime to be "late" to an ongoing fic, it's not a crime to read how you want.

Personally? I binge a lot, I try to comment as much as I can, and I try to remember that fandom is about community. I hadn't thought too much on the topic before this, tbh, and I don't even know if this makes any sense but I tried to sound it out for you guys anyway.

[persoaprilo]

April the Translator's blog.

Reason to translate fanfiction works no.2: to let my fellow Russian readers know there are awesome works that worth their attention.

It is a fact that in my country English is a subject at school, that we start learning it basically at first grade, though back when I was at first grade it was just an after-class activity club and we started to learn it as a subject at second grade. Some people show interest to other language and learn it by any methods they find suitable for them, so by the time they graduate from school their level may be around B1 if they didn't have any tutor.

But mostly students are not learning it because they don't find the other language useful for them. Though it's a dumb point, because you never know when you will run into need to read in English/translate something into your mother language. Like yeah, you can just be a lazy mf and use Google Translate or Yandex Translate or other machine translator (which is a pure evil invention by one of my professor's standarts), but if you don't have Internet, or your vocabulary is limited with primitive words and phrases and there's no proper translation of the text you're reading, you're pretty much screwed.

And that's when I kick in.

You see, there are several reasons I translate stuff. Y'all already know the first one and there are some more of them, but the second reason why I translate fanfiction works is because my fellow Russian readers may have poor English and they can't understand shit except for certain words they already know. Usually machine translators turn the text into a crap translation with lack of sense, lack of adaptation of words, idiomas and references. For example, if you copypaste some sentence from Wenclair fanfiction with Wednesday's name in it, Google Translate won't use transliteration (it's a translator's thing when we don't translate the word, we just write it with the letters of the language of the translation) in Russian version, it'll just translate her name as the name of the day. So instead of having a proper Уэнсдей (Wednesday) in machine-translated sentence, we will have Среда (Sreda, Wednesday in Russian), which doesn't count as an adequate translation because the whole context and adequacy are basically fucked hard and thrown into the window. Just imagine reading a text and instead of seeing a grammatically-correct sentence in English you see a set of words some of which are not linked to another or have no adequate context. It looks like Asian person trying to speak English (no offence and my apologies if I offended someone by accident). If you were me, an almost-qualified translator, I'm pretty sure your brain would hurt.

Maybe some readers want to read eye-bleeding machine translation in order to get the basic context and plot of the fanfiction work, it's their right. But those who want to read a grammatically-correct, literature-style translated thing, are usually searching for proper translations. I'm trying to create those by playing with words (Russian language has a quite massive vocabulary so there is a lot of space to get creative with the adaptation) and using my writer skills to build a nice adaptation my fellow readers could enjoy.

And as a cherry on top of this linguistic cake, if I see a reference to something that my readers may not understand (like memes about Ohio or about Caren 'I would like to speak to the manager' lady) or a mention of something we don't have in Russia (like Reese's Cups or Sour Patch Kids and etc), I'm either explaining the reference if I know what it is, or I just Google the thing and put it into the footnotes just so peeps wouldn't need to get distracted from reading and see the explanation here and now. April the Translator, caring about the time of readers since 2019!

So that's what I do most of the time: I scan Wednesday fandom or Life is Strange fandom to find awesome Wenclair/Pricefield works to translate and make a Russian adaptation of them just to share with the fellow readers who don't understand English enough to read it, but know it enough to leave some thanks to the Author of the original.

[bigbrainkatrina]

Once Burned - a Kim Possible/Shego spy thriller

One year ago, Shego went under a deep cover mission with the Bermuda Triangle. Things turned sour fast and Shego betrayed Global Justice. In a desperate Hail Mary, Kim tries to retrieve her, and learns that things aren't quite what they seem.

“Kim… um, I—I can’t go with you.”

“Ron?”

“I… can’t do this anymore. You a-and me, it’s not working, I know you know that—”

“...Ron. Please don’t do this.”

“KP—I don’t   want   to do this. They’re—they’re making me.”

“Making you? R-Ron, we need to go stop the Seniors. Can you just—”

“You can   handle   the Seniors, Kim. All that we do, you got it. I’m—I’m Class A and you’re Class B…”

“But… no, Ron.”

“Betty wants me doing… I don’t know, bigger things, bigger things I can’t tell you about. I’m sorry, I… I have to do this, Kim. My powers need me to do this and… it’s just—the mission stuff. It’s all we have that’s making   us   work, and I’m… sorry, KP. I don’t want to hurt you, I just…”

“Ron, I love you. Whatever you need me to do to keep you here, I’ll… I’ll…”

“KP, it’s over. And I love you too. I love you more than you can understand.”

“So why are you doing this?!”

“God, I’m sorry, I… I gotta go. You gotta go too. You gotta go save the world now. Alone.”

“No… no! Ron, I can’t—I can’t do it without you, I—”

“No Kim. You can. Remember: you can do anything.”

“Kim, are you with us?”

~~KP~~

 10 Years Later

Kim snaps out of her reprieve and takes a moment to collect her surroundings.

Rumbling all over. The steel plated floor vibrates against her palm. Her breaths are shallow and she feels cold. She pulls her winter coat closer to her purple tunic and looks to her right, where the friendly yet concerned voice is coming from.

Wade Load. Now twenty five years old, he’s as plump as ever with some facial scruff. Still weird seeing him in person. 

“Finally awake, eh?” he jokes.

Kim frowns. She’s in a Global Justice aircraft, with a parachute loaded backpack strapped tightly to her torso. By this point, they should be soaring over Colorado. Over Middleton. She hasn’t been there in years. 

Too bad it’s for a mission. 

“And they call  me  a space cadet with my head in the clouds,” a nasally voice whines from her left. That surprises her. Who else could be here—Drakken. Doctor Drakken. A blue man with a ratty ponytail and scar below his left eye. He wears his traditional lab coat and a thick winter coat like her. She looks ahead.

“Sorry, yeah, I spaced out,” Kim mutters. “Which one of you am I working with again?”

Wade raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know? Kim, c’mon.”

“Oh no! No no no no no no!” Kim gasps in a panic, simultaneously whipping her whole body against her hips to look at Drakken, her apparent partner. “Not  you , right? Please tell me I’m not—”

“I’m crushed!” Drakken moans. 

Kim rolls her eyes. “Who thought this was a good idea? It’s a joke, right?”

“Aw geez, Kim, dude,” Wade frowns. “He’s right there. And for the record, this is on  you  for not playing nice with Team Impossible.”

“Those guys suck,” Kim grumbles, looking back over at Drakken again. “I’ve worked with them, you, Hego, Will Du, Felix, Monique, Bonnie, I mean, guys, I’ve worked with  Junior  of all people! And the one time,  the one time  I worked with someone who could actually keep up with me—uh, no offense Wade.”

“None taken,” Wade frowns.

Kim continues, throwing her hands into the air, “The one time I worked with someone who could actually keep up with me, she turned out to be evil!”

“Evil?” Wade echoes with confusion. Drakken raises an eyebrow with a similar energy. “You mean Shego? When did you work with Shego?”

“Yes, I don’t recall that, Kimberly Ann,” Drakken frowns.

Kim winces; she wasn’t supposed to bring that up. “Uh, sorry, I must have been thinking about the Lowardian Invasion or something… heh heh.”

Wade observes Kim carefully, then shrugs. “Okaaaaaay.”

Drakken leans forward with a sharp intake of breath, as if he’s about to say something important. But instead his face falls and he leans back into place. “I’ll have you know, Kimberly Ann, that I’m much geniuser than Shego! I think you’ll be quite surprised by my abilities on the field.”

Kim stares blankly at him. “Uh huh… okay, Wade, how about you sitch us already?”

Wade rolls his eyes, and pulls a remote out from his GJ uniform. He clicks a button, and the hatch before Kim and Drakken opens up, revealing the cold night sky. Vicious winds rush through, whistling and howling. 

“You both have five seconds to make the jump,” Wade says carelessly.

“Oh okay,” Kim chirps.

“What?!” Drakken blurts out, going pale in the blue face. “Wait—can we, erm, do a flyaround—”

Wade smirks. “No.”

Kim pats Drakken on the shoulder playfully. “See you in a few, Drak.”

She jumps. Her ponytail whips behind her head, and the wind rushes into her face. She grits her teeth through it, forcing her eyes to stay open.

Down below, she sees what looks to be some kind of military compound. There’s gray warehouse after gray warehouse, all arranged in a grid. From up high, the streetlamps appear to her as blips and they are beautiful.

She smiles and spreads her arms like wings. Despite the circumstances, she feels calm. 

Behind her, she hears a distant shriek. 100% it’s Wade physically shoving Drakken out of the plane. But soon it fades as the wind overcomes her. Until Wade starts talking in her earpiece.

“ Montgomery Fiske, also known as Monkey Fist, has threatened to level the entire state of Colorado with two nuclear bombs  …” Wade monologues. “  ...unless Ron is to sacrifice his powers to him, which is not an option. ”

Kim narrows her eyes; from her understanding, Ron is off-world right now, defending Earth from invading Lowardians. The Lowardian Invasion back in ‘07 was just the beginning.

“ We have managed to pinpoint the location of the bombs to the Villain Timeshare Labs located in Middleton  ,” Wade explains. “  Your mission is to defuse both. We don’t know where the bombs are, so Kim you should take the West Side of the compound and Drew, I think you should go East.”

“ Which way is East ?” Drakken moans, only able to be heard through her earpiece. 

Kim rolls her eyes. “It’s behind you, Big D.”

“ Don’t call me that. ” 

Kim smirks, and focuses on what’s ahead. The timeshare lab complex gets closer, and closer, the ground enlarging and giving way to more and more detail. Tiny black dots patrol the warehouses, they must be Monkey Fist’s army of monkey ninjas. 

She aims her body like a rocket, falling and falling. The skylight to her chosen warehouse grows near and at the last second, Kim flips mid flight, and she pulls the string on her parachute. 

Fwoomp!

The parachute pulls against her, dragging her out of her dead fall. She lands on the roof beside the skylight, and drops a knee. Waits for some change in formation from down below, but there’s nothing. Apparently none of the Monkey Ninjas saw her. (She assumes the black dots are Monkey Ninjas… though from her vantage point the troops look awfully tall to be Monkey Ninjas.)

The timeshares are arranged in a grid, unfortunately too far apart for her to go roof jumping. Without proper intel, she can’t even ‘skip’ this warehouse so she tiptoes to the dead center of the roof where there’s a skylight. Quietly she goes for her laser lipstick, and starts blasting out the bolts to the skylight. It’s something that she’s done a million times over, so she takes a look around and notices two problems right off the bat.

Firstly, Drakken has already unleashed his parachute… practically one mile into the air. 

Kim growls into her earpiece. “Drakken, what are you doing?!”

“ What am I doing?  ” he repeats sarcastically. “  I’m not Tom Cruise, Kimberly Ann; I’m playing it safe! ”

“Safe? You’re like a sitting duck up there!” Kim seethes. “If they see you—”

“ Kim  ,” Wade interrupts. “  I’m with you, but he can’t exactly fold his parachute back in—we’ll deal with it. Move on. ”

Kim grinds her teeth then shrugs it off. “Tell me about the ninjas—oh shit, hold on—” The final bolt skips out of its socket, and the skylight falls… but Kim catches it. Heavy, the massive piece of glass dips into the warehouse. Awkward to hold, Kim tenses and manages to lift the skylight up through the gap, and set it aside. She throws one foot through the gap, and readies her grapple line. “—I’m back. But the ninjas… those aren’t monkeys, right?”

The ninjas aren’t monkeys at all, she noticed while yelling at Drakken that they were walking, talking humans. 

“ No, I think those are people, which as you know isn’t Monkey Fist’s M.O.,  ” Wade sighs. “  I’m trying to ID them, but I got nothing. ”

“No ID, huh,” Kim sighs to herself. That sounds familiar to her, but she can’t quite place where it’s coming from. But out of her vast rogue’s gallery and network of connections, she knows someone who Wade wouldn’t be able to ID… but who?

She drops down into the warehouse, her grapple line unspooling. She lands on a hard cement floor and the lights turn on in her presence, shining through the windows like a beacon. “Oh great.”

Slamming at the door. Kim scans her surroundings: lots of golf clubs and barrels of exploding golf balls. Not much else. Definitely Duff Killigan’s. How classic of him to be so one-note. She snags a golf club from one of the duffel bags and spins it in her hand. Looks like a Driver club, at least, as far as she knows. Her only experience with golf is from Wii Golf, which she played with Ron before the break-up. 

The steel door flies off its hinges, and smoke pours into the room in a flurry. Two black-hooded heads that just peek over the top of the smog rush into the room, running in opposite directions. 

Kim leans into her heel and lets the two ninjas surround her.

She grins, and the ninjas charge her with a series of kicks and punches. Kim spins the golf club around her like a bow-staff in figure-eights and precise spins.  Clack! Clack! Clack! Flesh strikes steel in precise jabs. 

Kim blocks every blow coming her way. Trained as the ninjas might be, they telegraph their movements immediately. 

“It’s amateur hour, fellas,” Kim snarks.

A kick to the hip, a punch to the chin, a swipe at the neck, it doesn’t matter, she spins her golf club where she needs to, and emerges unscathed.

The ninja on her left goes by a high kick to the chin. Smirking, Kim slashes her club into the air and manages to hook the Driver against the man’s ankle. He whines in pain and she drags his foot higher into the air then spikes the club downard, whipping the ninjas into the cement. 

Kim whirls around and faces the second ninja. He scuttles backwards, hands raised for defense, and she charges him. Cartwheels forward and tries to kick him in the chest with both feet. He throws his body backwards and she lands before him, leaving her wide open. She spins the club horizontally at his head, but he ducks the blow—but before he can fully slip away she flips the club in an underhanded spin, and precision jabs the goon in the face. His body shoots backwards and falls flat on the ground.

Kim smiles at her handiwork, but the moment is short-lived. From the skylight, another ninja drops down. With two sais in hand, he swings at her. With the hilts to each sword as pointed as the blade itself, curved like a trident, it’s a deadly weapon. He swings and swings and swings. Kim dodges and dodges and blocks! But the sai cuts clean through the golf club and the top half tumbles to the floor. Frowning, she tosses the broken club aside and goes for a daring move. Her hands snap forward and grab onto the ninja’s wrists. She pushes and he resists, but his arms shake more than her. She’s stronger. 

With the ninja’s arms locked in place, it leaves the guy’s front wide open. So Kim takes advantage, she swings her head down and bashes her skull against his. He falls backwards, hands losing their grip on the sais, which clatter to the floor.

Kim kicks high and nails the ninja in the face. He collapses, down for the count. 

Kkkkk!  A boot scrapes against cement behind her. Kim tries to whirl around to face the incoming ninja, the first one she downed, but she’s not fast enough. She hears the blades cut through the air, so instead Kim focuses on dodging. She playfully dodges to the left, hands folded behind her back. Another  shwing!  and she bobs to the right. She bobs about, dodging blow after blow. When he swings at her ankles, she hops into the air.

Again and again, the ninja pursues her, but he can’t hit her, and somehow, despite not being able to see him, Kim knows each and every move he’s pulling. 

How does she know? she wonders.

The ninja swings both sais at her neck. She knows that move. Ron used it sometimes when his powers were recharging.

Kim ducks the blow and her hands snap upwards, clamping onto the ninja’s wrist. She struggles, holding the ninja’s arms high in the air. Simultaneously, her arms stiffen, locked into place just like the ninja’s. Deadlocked and stuck, neither have the advantage… until Kim grits her teeth and manages to twist her hips enough to kick the ninja in the stomach. He doubles back, and Kim—unable to resist—yanks the ninja’s hood off his face. 

Hirotaka. From Yamanouchi. 

Yamanouchi gave its sword to Monkey Fist?

Yamanouchi is a secret;  of course Wade wouldn’t be able to ID them! It makes sense.

But it doesn’t matter\, at least for now. So Kim kicks Hirotaka in the face, and he collapses like a broken toy. Sais once again clatter to the floor. Kim looks ahead, throws off her winter coat finally, and runs out the door and into the open night air. Looks up and Drakken is  still  making his way down. She rolls her eyes and looks around in a panic.

“Where do I need to go, Wade?”

“ Cut through the two ahead of you  ,” Wade chirps. “  That’ll get to you Monkey Fist’s, that’s my best guess. Passwords are going to be Coco Moo, Niener and Die Ron, Die. ”

“ Die Ron, Die is with spaces?” Kim notes.

“ And a comma, yeah. Monty’s has gotta be grammatically correct. ”

Kim stops at the first terminal to the first timeshare lab before her. Types it in rapidly. C-O-C-O M-O-O.

The door opens and Kim is greeted by a very familiar sight. Syntho-Drones lie dormant in their acid-filled glass containers, lined up along the walls. Kim hesitates, then sprints through. Takes in the sights. A death ray, a pool of electric eels, a few Weather Machines, and a mountain of cardboard boxes with cupcake logos.

She has to ask.

“Drakken, you—uh—still have your Timeshare Lab, huh?”

“ Hrm  ?” Drakken hums. “  Do I? ”

Kim laughs under her breath. “It’s been twelve years, Drew, you might want to, uh, get rid of this?”

“ I was wondering what that charge on my credit card was every month …”

Kim opens the door opposite the one she came in through and charges ahead to another Timeshare Lab. Types in the password. N-I-E-N-E-R and… this one is filled with plans. Charts and diagrams are smeared across the wall, alongside blueprints of evil devices and corporate ladders. It rings a bell but…

“ Hank Perkins, ” Wade answers for her.

“Hank Perkins!” she cries out with mirth. “I forgot about that guy. Uh, the villainy consultant, right?”

“ The same. ”

“ Ooh  !” Drakken cries out. “  Cupcake Hank? What’s it like in there? I’m in Dementor’s Timeshare right now  —” He pauses and repeats the name with disdain. “—  ugh, Dementor. But his Transportulator, WOW! Don’t tell him I said that though —” 

Kim blinks. “Drew, um, not to burst your bubble, but there’s a bomb going off soon? Maybe you should be, uh, looking for it?” 

“ Oh, erm, yes, I suppose…” Drakken mumbles, still in a trance.

“Drak!” Kim shouts as she exits Hank Perkins’s timeshare. “Up and at ‘em!”

“ Alright! ” he bemoans.

The next timeshare is up ahead, as ordinary as ever. She types in the password. D-I-E-R-O-N-,-D-I-E. The door opens revealing a dark space lit by torchlight. She slides to a stop and scans the space. Flickers of light illuminate aged and eroded monkey idols that are embedded into the walls. Kim keeps looking and at the center of the room she finds first of two bombs. The lid is already popped off, the wire exposed. She narrows her eyes and steps forward—

—only for Monkey Fist himself to drop down before her. Formerly raven black hair grayed with specks of white, his mutated skin aged and patchy, the years have not been kind to the monkey man.

Shuffling from outside as monkey ninjas crowd the entrance. Monkey Fist raises his hand, stopping the ninjas in place. He steps forward, the torchlight playing on his angry face.

“Where’s Stoppable?” Monkey Fist grunts, then looks at his minions. “Go. Find Dementor’s Transportulator, use it to escape.” He turns back to Kim. “Well?”

“Not coming,” Kim growls. “This is sick and wrong, Monty. You have to know that.”

Monkey Fist grinds his teeth. “What’s sick and wrong is that Stoppable child taking the Mystical Monkey Power from  me ! What’s sick and wrong is Stoppable being unwilling to sacrifice his powers to save millions of lives.”

“ Don’t let him talk, Kim  ,” Wade says. “  He’s stalling .”

Still though, Kim finds herself shaken. Because it is true. Doctor Director isn’t willing to give up Ron for  anything . It’s unlikely Ron even knows this caper is going down. 

Kim sprints at Monkey Fist, and Monkey Fist does the same.

“How long do we have?” she asks before shifting into a high kick at Monkey Fist’s jaw. 

“ Three minutes ,” Wade says, anxiety creeping into his voice. Ever confident in Kim’s abilities, it’s unlike him to be so stressed. Three minutes is plenty of time to make magic happen.

Monkey Fist leans back and his hand snaps at Kim’s ankle. He grabs it tight, and with all his might, he turns on his heel, and lifts Kim into the air. He swings her like a ragdoll, and throws her behind where he stood.

Kim spins through the air and soars over the bomb. It all happens fast, but in her mind’s eye things slow to a crawl. She looks down, and sees the matrix of wires looped over and over each other, and the sequence plays in her mind. Red-Purple-Green-Yellow-Brown-Blue-White. Her hands reach down and just as she passes over the bomb, she snatches the Red, Purple, and Green wires from their spots. Lands on her haunches and stares at Monkey Fist. 

“Stoppable’s not here, Monty. Because he’s Class A and you’re a Class B Threat. But I’m here,” Kim growls. “And I’m going to stop you.”

She vaults forward and flips over the bomb. It plays in her mind again as time slows. Yellow-Brown-Blue-White. She snags three of them, leaving the lone white wire behind and cartwheels over to Monkey Fist to—

—it doesn’t matter, Monkey Fist strikes first. Sends his leg crashing into her back as she flips forward. 

Crack!

Kim hits the floor, dust from the flooring smearing her tunic. She tries to boost herself up, but Monkey Fist presses one bare foot against her stomach. She squirms under his hold. He smirks and, before she can recover, he stomps her face in, heel of his foot nailing her in the nose. Her head bounces back, striking cement and rebounding up, blood squirting out of her nose, her face bruised. 

Monkey Fist goes for another stomp.

This time Kim reaches into her utility belt and comes back with a pistol. Aims it right at Monty’s face. He flinches and so does she.

Twelve years of being a Global Justice agent and she’s still never killed someone. 

Monkey Fist takes advantage of her lapse in judgment, and snatches the gun from her hands. Points it at her face. 

“Well, Miss Possible,” Monkey Fist tuts. “You’re quite the worthy adversary, and I do not enjoy our play, but if you die… well, they’ll just have to send Stoppable, won’t they?”

Kim presses her teeth together, trying to suppress the smile itching at the corner of her lips. 

And Monkey Fist fires.

Click! A hollow sound. He frowns and raises the gun to his eye level. Presses the trigger again and nothing. 

“What?” he exclaims.

In Monkey Fist’s lapse of focus, Kim strikes. Hits him like a freight train. Snaps her legs around Monkey Fist’s waist and flips him onto the floor. He hits it hard, the gun sliding out of his hand, not that it matters. She never loaded the thing so that she’d never be able to use it. Makes for a good sleight of hand at a moment’s notice however. 

Before Monkey Fist can regain his footing, Kim charges him. Grabs him by the waist and flips him completely upside down over her shoulder, then piledrives him headfirst into the floor. She feels him crash into the cement, his body twisting and contorting as she squeezes his body in like an accordion. Finally, when he can take no more abuse, he collapses in a heap, and so does she, at least briefly. She stumbles back up, and runs at the bomb, plucking out the white wire. 

The bomb shuts down with little fanfare. 

“Alright, that’s one down,” she barks into her earpiece. “We’ve got eyes on the other one?”

Wade answers immediately. “ Yes, it’s in DNAmy’s, but uh—we’ve got a problem. ”

Kim thinks for a second and starts her jog to DNAmy’s—wherever that is—and responds. “He forgot the sequence?”

“ Kind of, I’m trying to talk him through it, but the bomb sprayed him with some gas. Made his eyes like a dog’s or whatever, he can’t see color. Look, I’d talk it through with him, but I don’t know where the wires go. I only know the colors and I was thinking —”

“That won’t work, I don’t trust him to follow directions,” Kim charges into the open night air and turns. Her limbs snap against their joints, pushing her ahead as quickly as possible. 

Then Monkey Fist rounds the corner behind her, giving chase on all fours. Kim looks over her shoulder and sighs.

“ But Kim! You have one minute !”

“One minute is plenty.”

“ No it’s not! ”

“I don’t care,” Kim snaps. “Directions, I need directions.”

“Kim, you’re killing me over here,” Wade growls. “You’re going the right way. Pass by three more timeshares and it’ll be on the right.”

Sweat beads on her forehead. She wants to have faith in herself, she always cuts it close like this… but something about this whole caper feels… off.  First, the Yamanouchi Ninjas. Then Monkey Fist’s point about Ron being a no-show. But that is what they do at Global Justice; they don’t negotiate with terrorists. 

Now there’s this. Can she make it? Can she do it?

“ Remember  ,” Ron said long ago when they broke up. “  You can do anything. ”

And she can. She knows she can. She can—she can—she sees the timeshare up ahead. Panics. She doesn’t know the password, she doesn’t know the—

Another line plays in her mind.  Cuddle Monkey  . DNAmy used to call Monty her  Cuddle Monkey . 

She types in the code.

C-U-D-D-L-E-M-O-N-K-E-Y.

“Kim, the password is—”

“I know what the password is!” Kim snaps. “I just need to… need to… yes, door’s open, we must have thirty seconds, right?”

“ You have ten, Kim .”

Her heart nearly stops. She sees Drakken crouched helplessly over the bomb, she sees the wires. Around them, animals float in tankards. Experiments-to-be. She rushes to the center of the floor, drops a knee. Starts plucking away.

Red-Purple—Blue? No, Green! 

Her hands hover above the wires, her jaw drops. 

“ Kim  ?” Wade chokes from his end. “  Five. Four. Three …”

She remembers. Red Purple Green… she plucks them out as the colors flash in her mind. Yellow. Brown. Blue. 

The final wire: White. 

She reaches for it and—

—and—

Boom.

                                                            The bomb goes off. Heat pushes against Kim’s body, the light is blinding. She braces herself and—

—a globe of blue light materializes around the explosion, trapping the fire from escaping. Flame pushes against the blue light, and curls backwards like a wave. The explosion surges against itself, and Kim opens her eyes. Slowly, the globe of blue light shrinks inwards, and then becomes so small it crushes the explosion out of sight, out of reality. 

“Nooooo!” Monkey Fist howls, snapping Kim from her reprieve. “Where’s the kaboom?! There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboo—”

Boom.

Blue light explodes again, this time into a portal at least twelve feet tall. Light flashes from within, the light within the portal airy like storm clouds. Drakken and Monkey Fist both turn on the portal, jaws agape, not sure what to expect. But Kim? Kim groans and smacks her forehead. 

Another distant boom, and a flash of light through the portal. A silhouette appears as a blip that becomes larger fast, and then Ron Stoppable swoops out of the portal, and soars right at Monkey Fist. Grabs him by the throat, and jettisons him across the room, smashing into a tankard holding a baby elephant. Cracks splinter the glass, and a foreign, green liquid spits out the cracks only to retreat back inwards. Blue light burns along the cracks, resealing the glass as nothing was damaged to begin with.

Ron has barely aged since their high school days, Wade’s theorized it has something to do with Ron’s powers. The only hint that he’s in the beginning of his 30s is the occasionally white hair speckled along his blond head, and even then, it’s mostly from stress.

And then there’s his eyes. Formerly brown and amber, they’re hardened now and a cold, steely blue. They glow like headlights when he uses his powers. 

With some extra muscle caked onto his lanky frame, he fills out his navy blue Global Justice uniform well.

Kim wonders sometimes if Ron is even human anymore. 

Ron stares Monkey Fist in the eyes. A crack of light and Monkey Fist’s body goes limp. Carelessly, Ron lets Monkey Fist’s body slide out from his grasp and hit the floor. He turns over to Kim. “Don’t worry, KP, he’s just knocked out, I didn’t kill him or nothin’.”

Kim stares at Ron, still on her hands and knees. “Who called you?”

Ron frowns, taken aback. Probably because she hasn’t seen him in  months,  and yet she’s still unhappy to see him. “Oh, um, Wade, called me like a few seconds ago. Heh.”

If it wasn’t for Ron, all of Colorado would be gone… all because Kim Possible wasn’t willing to give Doctor Drakken basic instructions. She can still feel the heat from the explosion singed on her body. It’s the closest she’s ever felt to death.

She quietly gets to her feet. “Wade, can you keep Ron’s appearance off the books?”

A long silence.

“ Sorry Kim  ,” Wade sighs. “  I can’t. ”

~~KP~~

“For the last time,” Monkey Fist moans, handcuffed to a wooden chair in an otherwise empty interrogation room. “I didn’t mind control anyone from Yamanouchi, they willingly joined me.”

“Really?” Doctor Director scoffs. “You’re really sticking to this story, huh?”

Doctor Director is a tall woman. She towers at least half a foot over Kim and Ron. Over the years, crows feet have grown into her skin around the eyes, the creases particularly harsher from behind her eyepatch. A streak of white cleaves through her neatly cropped, chestnut brown hair. 

Kim’s never seen her outside of her GJ uniform. 

Standing besides Kim and still in uniform, Ron frowns. “You said Hirotaka was there, Kim?”

Kim nods. “I know, it doesn’t sound like the Hirotaka we know.”

Ron’s frown only sinks deeper. “Yeah…” he says with the air of someone who knows a little bit more than they’re letting on. “Betty, I think… Monty’s telling the truth on this one.”

Kim raises an eyebrow. What is it that she doesn’t know? She used to know everything but now that she’s stuck in Class B…

Doctor Director raises an eyebrow too. “Stoppable, if there have been issues at Yamanouchi, you need to be communicating that with me.”

“Sorry,” Ron bows his head in shame. “Sensei and I… had an argument, and I kinda interpreted it more as a personal problem than a saving-the-world kinda problem but I guess… yeah, I’ll do better, Betty, I swear it.”

Kim sympathetically reaches over to Ron and strokes his back.

Ron looks up. “Thanks, KP. Uh, so do you want me to round up the Yamanouchi peeps who got away?”

“It’s fine,” Doctor Director snips. “Possible’s got it.” 

Oh, yeah,  of course  Possible’s got it.

Monkey Fist sneers at the three of them. “Some people in Yamanouchi felt that I had a point—that the Mystical Monkey Power shouldn’t belong to someone who isn’t willing to sacrifice their powers for the greater good.”

Ron sniffs loudly. “Dude, I didn’t even know about this shindig. I would have—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Doctor Director snaps. “God, you two… alright, I’ll take your word for it, Fiske. For now. You tell me where your people are hiding and we’ll be in better standing, got it?”

A twitch in Monkey Fist’s cheek. “Not a chance.”

“We’ll see about that,” Doctor Director growls, bending away from the chair. She shoves the door open with her elbow, and walks out into the hallway at a brisk pace. Kim and Ron follow.

The hallway is a pristine white. Not a speck of dust in sight. Immaculately clean, this is Global Justice DC, the homebase for most operations. 

Doctor Director regards Kim harshly. “I don’t even know what to say to you.” She stares at her for a moment, her single eye burrowing deep into Kim’s soul. “You’re suspended for a week.”

She figured her punishment would be something like that. 

Doctor Director turns on Ron. “Thank you for your work, Stoppable. While you’re still out here, I’d love a briefing on what’s happening in Lowardia.”

Ron glances over his shoulder at Kim. “Actually I was kind of hoping me and Kim could catch up, it’s been a minute for the two of us and um—”

“ Now , Stoppable,” Doctor Director says coldly. 

Ron cringes and offers Kim a meek hand wave before walking away with his commander. 

Once they’re out of earshot, Kim slouches and exhales.

“I know,” Drakken says suddenly, and Kim jumps. She looks back and sees the Formerly Bad Doctor staring at her from a few feet away. “Sorry, did I surprise you? Ha, who would’ve figured I’d be able to get the drop on the great Kim Possible…”

Kim winces. “I’m not great, I’m not even Class A.”

An awkward silence unfolds between the two, Drakken doesn’t seem to understand what she’s saying.

“Whatever, I’m just having a bad day,” Kim sighs, joining up with Drakken, nodding for the two of them to go to the cafeteria. “So don’t gloat about surprising me. Can you see colors again?”

He nods. “Could we… not go to the cafeteria? I actually wanted to speak with you. About a private matter.”

Kim stops in place. Blinks and shrugs. “Where to?”

~~KP~~

A few minutes later, they wind up in Drakken’s dormitory. It’s a messy room in need of a maid. Blueprints and schematics are scattered all over the floor. A half-filled mug of cold coffee sits at his desk. 

“Apologies for the mess,” Drakken mumbles, using his heel to slide some of his paperwork underneath his bed. “Been working overtime on some… projects.”

Kim raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t think too much of it. She takes his desk chair while Drakken takes a seat on his bed. 

“So?” Kim says when Drakken doesn’t say anything.

“Mm,” Drakken bites his lip. “It’s about… Shego.”

Read Chapter 2 today on AO3! Chapter 3 coming soon. : ) 

[consistantly-changing]

[Image descriptions in order: screenshots of tags left on the post. They say: #literally #i stopped posting bc no one engages with my fics at all #its not a pleasant feeling #i dont want to have to join fucking discord servers or some other forums just for the off chance that ppl might be discussing my fic #you have to leave comments on fics #or else what is the point]

[#how infuriating to know there are people saying nice things about you who won't say them "to" you]

[#i remember finding out once #that a group of mutual fandom acquaintances had an entire roleplay server based off one of my fics #meanwhile it was sitting at 50 hits 3 likes and 0 comments #then they got upset at me for shelving the fic like #what did you expect]

[#yeahhhhhhhh #every day my desire to write again is knocked down by shit like this]

[dude feed your writers and your artists #making art is lonely and we share it to find community]

[#ao3 #fandom #i struggle with the lack of comments so much #like i legit feel like theres no point in posting sometimes might as well just keep shit in the google docs]

[#my Non-Secret AO3 account's been updated recently too and there hasn't been much engagement #it kind of soured me on updating those stories for awhile]

[why is there this weird push to make fandom less accessible to OTHER FANS?]

[#writing #i get kudos nearly every day and it's lovely #but i get comments like #once every few months #people are reading but not leaving their thoughts #and ngl that kinda sucks]

[#How are writers supposed to know you like their work if they CANNOT see it??? #How are they supposes to stay motivated and write more if they cannot see how many people actually like it??? #I am writing 13k-15k chapters; do you know how LONG that takes??? How much time and effort??? #It's why I reblog the chapter index as much as I do; I NEED people to tell me if they like them #Otherwise it just feels like I'm posting my stuff on a brick wall that nobody is looking at #It's SO demotivating; to the point where I start to wonder if it's even worth continuing at times]

[#Brb literally crying at the very idea of how cheated I would feel if people did this for my fics]

[#(I keep discovering people that have-according to them- been gushing about my writing on discord) #(often I didn't even know these people existed because they never left me a comment) #(sometimes it's only months later through discord that I learn lots of people loved a scene that I thought totally flopped-) #(-because nobody ever once said anything about that scene in my comments.) #(if nobody says they liked it-I assume nobody liked it. please tell me if you like it.) #(you can tell your friends too but I'm gonna get a lot more out of it than they are.)]

[#yeah I got like six kudos the other day on a 150k fic from three years ago #and i was like ok clearly someone has shared this in their discord group and they've all read it and that's lovely! #they must have said really nice things about it for the whole group to presumably have talked about it a lot (it is 150k of fic) #wish a single one of them had said that in a comment instead of me having to just imagine the situation!]

[#fics literally need comments to survive like #yeah its for yourself and for the joy of creating #but its a STORY #with detail put into it and plot twists and things that i want to #im TELLING YOU a story #of course i want to see how the people im telling the story to think lol #PLEASE comment]

[#i tried to get back into writing fic #but the sheer lack of comments made me feel less motivated #kinda need feedback or i feel like my writing is getting lost into the Void #so i deleted the fic and gave up]

[#this #like my god why go to such lengths to NOT tell the author you liked their fic #this sort of thing leads to despair and to writers quitting #please let writers know you appreciate their work #please #why must we beg for crumbs]

[#yeah #I try to avoid being driven or encouraged by comments too much #no matter how much I deeply love and appreciate everyone who DOES take that time #because people are tired and busy #but that feeling of if I stopped 10000 people would take my place #that hit kinda hard today]

[#i had this experience #people were talking about my fic on a server i wasn't on #meanwhile i was having an existential crisis because no one was commenting on the fic itself #i was ready to abandon it until someone told me about the server #only a few years ago i could expect at least 20 comments on each chapter #now if i hit double digits that feels like a win #fic writing woes]

[#please do this #writing is hard #← prev tags #Ain't it #l see people rave about my stories on rec lists or see lovely comments in the bookmarks #You're already writing all that down #Why would you not tell ME #You know I am a human person right? #I publish these this for you to enjoy; I want to SHARE them with you]

[#sometimes i will get half a dozen kudos on the same fic in one day #(my fics are not popular so this is notable for me lol) #and it does make me wonder if the link just got posted in a group chat somewhere that i'm not part of #i did once get added to such a group chat and i was like... why didn't any of you comment?]

[#yeah I had dozens of docs on ff.net #ao3? 2 #what's the point of writing fanfiction when it can stay perfect in my head and I get the same level of engagement anyway #I posted to find people to talk about the stuff I liked #nobody wants to chill so I don't post anymore]

[#THIS #I'll randomly get an uptick of kudoses on an older fic and know someone shared it in a group chat #But no comments :/]

[#jfc that just makes me want to scream #hey kids guess what - if you create these little book clubs and exclude fic authors #you won't get any more fic #i can't tell you how much the comment count on my fics has gone down over the years #because this generation of fans think that kudos or inbox-squeeing or DMs is a substitute for an actual comment]

[I've been told by a reader "they love your fic in my server" and like oh... Okay, guess I'll never find out. Oh well.]

someone I follow on the bird app just announced they're starting a very exclusive private fic server because they and a bunch of other people want to talk about how much they love the fics they're reading, and as an author can I just say that a really great place to talk about a fic you love is in the comments for that fic

I understand that people are trying to create safe spaces, but as the number of comments that I get on my fics dwindles with each passing year, knowing these spaces exist where my fics are being discussed, places that I am excluded from, makes me want to write fic LESS

I mean I guess who cares, right, because if I stop writing, there's 10,000 other people that will continue...but if you participate in a fic "book club" server and you say nice things there about a fic you loved, maybe copy and paste that into a comment on AO3?

the only thing fanfic writers are asking for in return for hours of hard work is attention. please don't rob us of the one thing that we hope for when we hit "post"