#damn this ship literally takes up so much RAM in my mind

[emoooii]

I think about them, a normal amount.

NariLamb doodles! Might recycle some of these sketches for future pieces or comics :-)

[kittyprincessofcats]

She-Ra S5 E08 - Shot in the Dark

There might be spoilers for the rest of the season in this post!

I absolutely LOVE this episode, and at first, I couldn’t really put my finger on why I liked it that much. And then Noelle tweeted this:

And yeah, that’s what it boils down to. This is the first *happy* Catra episode since... basically since “Once Upon a Time in the Waste” - and back then, the happiness didn’t last long.

(I also just think that story of AJ being so worried about Catra and Noelle reassuring her with every script is so adorable. I love to see how much they all care about these characters.)

Now let’s get into the episode!

- “Why does space hate me so much?” Yeah Glimmer, as I’ve said before, your powers don’t work in space because otherwise things would be way too easy and this show would be over way too quickly.

- “So, your plan is to, what? Ram through an armada of ships?” “No! ...Maybe!” 😂 I love Adora.

- The way Catra’s hands are shaking when she tells Adora they’re going to get caught... oh, baby 😢. And how Adora suddenly looks so worried... gosh, these two.

- Catra and Adora playfully arguing over whether or not Catra ‘defeated’ them in the past is so cute. I love this kind of ��former enemies’ bickering and it’s why I was so glad they didn’t wait until the very end of the show to redeem Catra.

Bow: “Adora, Catra’s right.”

[Everyone’s eyes go wide.]

Bow: ... “That felt weird to say.”

😂 Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Bring on all the ‘former enemies’ bickering, please!

- So, is this just because Wrong Hordak’s “brains were scrambled”, as Bow put it, or do all the clones randomly blurt out that Horde Prime has a weakness whenever they hear someone ask about it? I’m going to assume it’s the former. Also, the way he keeps blurting out more and then denying that Krytis exists is super funny.

- I like how they set Krytis up before with Catra having visions of it back in Taking Control - still pretty convenient that just hearing the name lets her make the connection, but I’ll take it. (Is it meant to be some lingering effect of being connected to the hivemind that she’s having visions of it again now, or is it just her remembering what she saw before?)

- I love the detail that Darla’s information on Krytis is locked and they need administrator clearance to access it. Shows again that the First Ones aren’t that different from Horde Prime - they were also ashamed of their failure to conquer Krytis and tried to hide the information on it.

- “In- In- In- Incorrect. It is located nowhere, because it does not exist, because Lord Prime destroyed it.” I honestly think this line should be a meme. When you want to hide something from someone (but you know it does exist), just quote that exact line (kind of like “There is no war in Ba Sing Se”). I once said it to my sisters when they asked about certain fanfics I wrote as a teenager. (“Nope, they are located nowhere, because they do not exist, because Lord Prime destroyed them.”)

- Changes in the opening: Micah, Spinnerella, Scorpia and Mermista are now standing mind-controlled around the Heart of Etheria in the villains’ shot. They’re also all missing from the final heroes’ card. In that final shot, Perfuma and Sea-Hawk both look sad now, and Netossa looks angry.

- Catra touching her neck when she sees the spire on Krytis... 😢. I’m here for the angst, but I also just need Catra to get lots of love and comfort after everything she’s been through.

- Can we talk about how absolutely ADORABLE her space suit is, though? Bow is absolutely right to coo over those ears. And when she tries to take it off with her foot? And Adora laughs about it? And Catra smiles when she sees her laugh? ❤️❤️❤️

- Wrong Hordak still denying that Krytis exists while currently being on Krytis is absolutely hilarious to me. It reminds me of flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers, or people who try to deny Covid exists (while others are currently dying from Covid) - not that any of those are funny, of course. I just mean that wrong Hordak nicely demonstrates how ridiculous they can sound.

- Catra calling out the Best Friend Squad on how dumb their plan is and then reacting with “Honestly, what did I expect?” is absolutely iconic. They really were missing her as the team’s braincell all along.

- Bow and Glimmer teasing Catra about her “first mission”, Catra grumbling that she’s going to kill Adora’s friends, Adora responding with a really calm “Please don’t” - everything about this is perfect. 🤣

- Also, small detail, but I love how Catra has a hard time walking in her spacesuit because she’s not used to wearing shoes.

- The remaining rebels looking around the destroyed camp is really sad. Frosta immediately trapping Castaspella in ice and checking her neck is great, though. That’s what they should have been doing all along. Why didn’t they also check Shadow Weaver’s neck, though? I know she’s intimidating and all, but there was no way of knowing if she’s chipped.

- “How did the rebellion lose so many of our finest members and yet we’re still stuck with you?” Castaspella’s asking the real questions! I like how literally no one in the rebellion likes Shadow Weaver. (Though honestly, I’m also glad she’s not chipped. Imagine how hard fighting a chipped Shadow Weaver would have been.)

- “But if you try anything, I won’t hesitate to strike you down.” Castaspella said ‘I won’t hesitate, b*tch!’

- Every single part of Wrong Hordak’s existential crisis (and Entrapta’s handling of it) is absolutely hilarious. I’m not going to quote all of it here, but pretty much every line of it is comedy gold. My favourite moment is probably “It seems Wrong Hordak has begun to question the meaning of life” (and everyone’s annoyed expressions at his crying) 😂😂. (On a more serious note, though: As much as it’s played for laughs, Wrong Hordak turning his entire worldview around in such a short amount of time is also pretty epic.)

- Catra just cutting through that door - damn, she’s strong! And I love Adora’s blush! (Yeah, the door was probably just an illusion, but my point still stands. She’s at least strong enough that it doesn’t seem completely weird that she'd be able to just cut through a door like that.)

- “You have an arrow that turns into a magnifying glass? I can’t believe we were losing to you guys.” 🤣🤣 Catra realizing the people she was fighting are actually idiots will never not be funny.

- It goes hand in hand with Bow realizing Catra is actually a cute kitty with an adorable sneeze. Good stuff. And the way her tail gets fluffy when she insists she’s not cute? D’awww. (Bow saying “The angrier you get, the cuter you are” reminded me of that scene in Steven Universe where Peridot loses her limb-enhances at the beginning of her redemption arc and Steven calls her cute and “an angry little slice of pie”.)

- Castaspella’s cape getting stuck in tree branches and the like is pretty funny, ngl. This is why Edna Mode said “No capes”.

- Shadow Weaver saying that her gifts are “far subtler” than mind-control is very fitting. Her thing is manipulation, after all. She doesn’t need to control people’s minds when she can just manipulate them and raise them in a way that’ll make them do what she wants. It’s scarier than mind-control in a way because it’s far more realistic. Mind-control doesn’t exist in real life, but manipulative parents (or just manipulative people) who will mess someone up emotionally? Very realistic.

- I like that you can tell that something’s off about Entrapta’s voice this time if you pay attention to it.

- “Seriously? How have you guys stayed alive this long?” Yup, the people you were fighting are idiots and you’re the braincell of the team now, Catra.

- I love the creepy music when Entrapta tells them it’s the first time they’ve talked since the last floor.

- Also, I love how Catra’s first instinct is to just launch herself at Melog, even though you could tell she was terrified just a moment earlier.

- I really like the moment where Glimmer realizes there’s magic on Krytis, especially since she doesn’t have her other powers right now.

- Melog bonds with Catra because they have the same sneeze ❤️❤️

- “Are you... are you petting the thing that’s been trying to kill us?” I love this whole moment 😹. I also love how Adora is so protective of Catra and immediately yells “Get away from her!” when Melog seems to get angry.

Catra: “I’m sorry. I got angry. It’s something I’m working on.”

Adora [with sparkling eyes]: “Aww, you are?”

Catra: “Yes! Now can you please...” [deep breath] “Yes. I am.”

I love everything about this. Catra genuinely working on her anger issues, Adora being so touched about it (remember back in Taking Control where she wished that Catra would ‘at least try’?), Catra having to hold back her anger because she realized Melog responds to emotions - perfect. ❤️😂👍

- Catra is so sweet when she calms Melog down. And the moment where they form their bond is really nice.

- So, can Catra understand Melog because of their bond, or because they’re both cats? I’m assuming it’s because of their bond?

- Melog’s backstory is really sad. But Adora offering to take them to Etheria is a really sweet scene.

- I like the parallel between the Best Friend Squad realizing that magic is Horde Prime’s weakness (and that the only planet he ever failed to conquer had wild magic) and Shadow Weaver telling Castaspella that the First Ones weakened Etheria’s magic and they have to set it free.

- “Stop me if I try to take the power for myself.” I’m not sure how I feel about that line. I like how SPOP has very much written Shadow Weaver as ambiguous so far. She’s not a good or nice person by any means, but is she at least on the side of the good guys and really trying to help now or is she still only after her own selfish goals? I very much did not want Shadow Weaver to get any sort of redemption or forgiveness, and I’ve always interpreted her as still being power-hungry. So, I have mixed feelings about this line. I like that it canonically acknowledges that Shadow Weaver is still tempted by power and might actually try to take the magic for herself, but asking Castaspella to stop her if she tries makes her look more selfless and like she’s taking precautions against it. (But then again, could Castaspella even stop her if she tried? I’m pretty sure Shadow Weaver is the stronger one of the two. So, you could still read this as Shadow Weaver being a master manipulator and only saying this so Castaspella will feel more inclined to trust her and go along with her plan - while knowing full-well that she could easily defeat Castaspella if it ever actually came down to it.)

Glimmer: “So, just to make sure I get it - We’re going to go running through a Horde blockade while relying on the magic of a creature we just met?”

Catra: “That about sums it up, yes.”

You know what this means - Catra’s a part of the Squad now!

- “Punch it, Darla!” I still love that the ship’s name is Darla. Also, all of their expressions when they fly through the blockade should be a “draw the squad” meme.

- Catra holding Adora’s hand and getting embarassed about it ❤️❤️ (while Adora is dumb and doesn’t even notice).

- I did not expect us to get a Glitra cheek kiss this season, but I’m not complaining! Also, Catra complaining while Glimmer and Bow are hugging her is such a cat thing; I love it.

- “We made it. We’re home.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is actually the first episode this season that ends on a happy / hopeful note and not on some kind of cliffhanger. And I really like that. This is where the “space arc” of season 5 offically comes to and end and I’m glad it has its own little happy ending. (And as much as I like the final episodes of the season, the space arc is still probably my favourite half of it.)

I love this episode, mainly because of what it means for Catra. She’s finally happy, she saved the day, she’s bonding with Bow and Glimmer and constantly flirting with Adora, and she has an amazing therapy cat now! I loved all the bickering between her and the others and how she’s starting to open up to them. Also, Wrong Hordak was absolutely hilarious in this episode and I commend Entrapta for having the patience to deal with his existential crisis. This was a really nice way to wrap the space arc up and bring the Squad back to Etheria.

[Previous episode]   [Next episode]

[mystery-star]

The Biggest Compliment – Spock

Pairing: Spock (AOS) x gender-neutral reader

Warnings: none

Words: 3944

Please do not repost my work on other sites or platforms!

-

Of course everyone in the 23rd century knew about Starfleet. But while you were certain that you would never join them, you had not believed that you would need to work together with their Academy one day. You hadn’t known what they wanted of you, when you had been told that your designer talent was needed. First you thought they might want to have new uniforms but probably a tailor would be better for this. Then you speculated over the possibility that they wanted a new logo. Or maybe it just was something like an advertisement for new recruits or so.

The thing they needed your help with, however, turned out be a test. Well, a simulation, to be exact. They wanted to animate the whole thing new. And not just animate, as you heard also the coding hat been redone, for whatever reason. After they had shown you what the old simulation looked like, you were introduced to your co-worker; the one who had written the new coding. It was a Vulcan and you didn’t know what to think of that. Not because he was not human but because you had never seen a Vulcan ‘close-up’ but hat heard a lot of, not so good, things about their race. As it seemed, also the instructor who was showing you around didn’t seem to be a big fan of him and leant closer to you before he left you in your new office.

“Don’t mind him, he can get pretty prissy sometimes” he whispered to you before he wished you good work and then left, leaving you alone with the man you’d spend the next weeks with. You looked at him for a while and didn’t know what to say.

“May I see what you have?” he asked. It was the first time you heard his voice and you had to admit, it sounded quite good.

“What do you mean, what I have?”

“I am certain you have already prepared something” he said it with such a certainty that made you feel bad that you had, in fact, nothing.

“No?” he raised an eyebrow “Look, I literally heard what they want from me half an hour ago. Before, they only told me that they needed my as a designer and I had no idea what it was” he remained silent and you didn’t like that “All I have are a few notes. I’m sure you couldn’t have made drafts beforehand if they just called you to their office for making a new code without telling you what it was about first”

“That is not quite correct. I have asked to reprogram the test myself and therefore have arrived to the meeting sufficiently prepared” you rolled your eyes

“Well as I said, I only took a few notes during the simulation I watched”

“May I see those?” he held out his hand to you

“It’s just the basics, like what notes what it is about. Because I was told that you would tell me exactly what you need” he still didn’t move his hand, so you sighed “Fine, here you go” you pulled out your PADD and placed it on the table. Because you didn’t want to give it into his hand if he behaved like that. He had a look then pointed at the title.

“The simulation is called Kobayashi Maru, not Cobrayoshi Moru”

“Well excuse me for understanding it wrong” he didn’t reply and continued

“What do you mean by ‘good ship’?”

“The ship, this Kobayashi Maru that is in distress”

“Then please describe it accordingly

“As I said” you hissed “this are only first notes”

“Besides, I already have defined the amount of the Klingon warbirds to five, so your note that reads ‘ca. 4-5 enemy ships’ is inaccurate”

“I counted them on the screen of the simulation I watched. And apparently that wasn’t good or else you wouldn’t have reprogrammed it, right?”

“I have solely noticed inconsistencies in the coding. The animation itself was not much flawed”

“Okay” you took a deep breath “How about we sit together and you tell me exactly what you want, so that I can get working on it?”

“For now, I solely need one of the animated warbirds”

“But that’ll take hours to make. I could make a sketch in 5 minutes or so”

“I need a three-dimensional model of it”

“Well, I don’t have one right now. The only ship that I can offer you as a model of a cruise ship. Or no, maybe we also have one of a science fiction starship somewhere”

“I do not need a cruise ship or a random starship” he explained that he needed the actual ship that would be used in the simulation so that he could finetune the programmed movements with the animation.

“Good then give two hours and you’ll have a draft-model. I can still change it later on when you have calibrated it”

“Very well” he gave a nod and you sat down at the desk that had been prepared and started unpacking your stuff before you got working on some sketches. Suddenly, you noticed that someone was standing behind you and you turned around.

“Please don’t do that”

“What are you referring to?”

“Looking over my shoulder. It’s distracting. I can’t work like that” he raised an eyebrow but left you alone.

-

About half an hour later you were ready to present him your three drafts of the ships.

“I only requested one”

“Yes, but I made three versions. Drafts”

“I have not asked for drafts, especially multiple ones”

“Do you have any idea how design works? Obviously not or you’d have done the damn animation yourself” you muttered the last part “I always make drafts for a client after they told me what they need, which you didn’t even do, so sorry if I don’t get it quite right on the first try.”

“I have informed you that I need to have a model of a Klingon warbird”

“And here you have three drafts” you pointed at three models “Which one do you like best?”

“I do not like them” you had to bite back a sigh and a part of you just wanted to smack him right in the face.

“Good” you said, taking a deep breath and picking up your stylus “Then what would you like instead?”

“I would have preferred if you had invested all your time into one model instead of three”

“Look, I will put more work into one of them, just tell me which one is the best”

“They are all flawed” at least you now totally understood what this other man had meant with that he could get prissy.

“Well it are only drafts” you explained “Don’t Vulcans do drafts?”

“We do not prepare several different versions if only one is needed since it would be a waste of time”

“Good speaking of wasting time; just tell me which model you want me to edit and make it perfect”

“No matter how much work you will put in it, it will always stay an animated model and therefore will never be perfect”

“Which. Ship?!” you hissed gesturing at your PADD.

“This one” he pointed at the second draft “However….” You had to fight not to roll your eyes. Of course you knew there was a ‘but’ coming. You did your best to not become upset when he told you what mistakes you had made on your draft, while you made notes on the most important points. A part of you wondered how long you could take it before you just broke his nose, cut off his ears, ripped off his bangs or rammed your stylus in his eye. Or all together.

-

While you started to get working on the chosen model, Commander Spock took the draft to link it with his coding, while you tried to make the starship as authentic as possible which was not so easy without an accurate source or idea how it looked like except for the description you had gotten. When you left for the day, your client seemed to be a bit disappointed that you could not finish the model already. For that reason you decided to come an hour earlier the following day but to your dismay, the Vulcan was already there

“Did we not agree that you may start at 0830 hours?” you had been in the office for three seconds and already were pissed off by him again although you had tried not to be anymore.

“Yes but since I didn’t come as far as I wanted yesterday, I decided to come earlier today. The sooner I get the animation done the better” because it meant, among other, that you would be rid of him. Luckily, you didn’t need to talk to him that much today. But then he requested you to get a second model for the second ship. “Give me a second”

“I doubt you can create an accurate model in a second”

“Just watch and see” you tapped on the model you were already working on and duplicated it “there. Took me a little under two seconds”

“You cannot just duplicate the model”

“Oh but I can. I can also centuple it” you glared at him, tapped the model again, called up the settings and set the number of duplicates to 100 and when you returned, the whole screen was filled with ships “There. That should occupy you for a while”

“As I already said, there are only five ships that I need for the simulation. Besides, I cannot use these duplicates. If you wish to copy your models, you need to use a template”

“Well okay” you said “But that’ll take me a couple of minutes” he gave a nod “Why thank you, (Y/N)” you muttered to yourself “Thank you for your co-operation and withstanding my coldness”

-

Because he wanted all ships to be visually different, you decided to change minor details on them before you gave him the new model. Once you had prepared all ships, even the Kobayashi Maru, you needed to take care of the surroundings for which you designed the space, of course in the dimensions that Spock had told you. Then you set your models into it and adjusted their positions so that they more or less corresponded with the coordinates that Spock had programmed for them. When he had a look at the model he raised an eyebrow

“What now?” you asked, knowing that something did not please him at all.

“The positions of the Klingon warbirds one, three, four and five need to be adjusted slightly” At least he was now calling the ships by numbers and not the stupid model names he had given them in his code. It had taken you almost two days to get him do that and you had just written his model name onto the according ship in ugly red letters so that you knew which one he was talking about. “Move ship one 2.3 millimeters to the left and 1.8 millimeters down, ship two….”

“Woah wait… I never heard anyone saying decimals of millimeters. This model doesn’t even accept them. I can give you half millimeters but not point three or point eight. Besides, no one can actually know if the ship is perfectly aligned when they do the simulation. And if we align the weapons right they will still hit the ship if they enter the coordinates of the ship”

“I know but I wish that it is as accurate as possible. Speaking of accuracy” he explained that the surroundings were not accurate either because the constellations were wrong and did not look like this ad the place the simulation took place

“In other words you want me to fucking re-align every single star correctly?”

“It does not need to be completely accurate, yet I do ask you to adjust their positions so that it does have more similarities with the coordinates where the simulation occurs”

Well, in contrast to you I don’t have a fucking stellar map saved in my brain” he walked away and then handed you a PADD, explaining that it would turn into a 360° stellar map if you opened the correct program and entered the coordinates you wanted.

-

So you just spent the following three days on redoing the whole surroundings, this times even with micrometers as unit so that you could adjust the ships perfectly as he wanted. At times you found it easier to agree to what he wanted and have more work instead of discussing with him, which would result in you doing as he wanted anyway. You hadn’t even been able to make it clear to him that sometimes you need to be polite and say please and thank you, to which he replied that such formalities were illogical since they did not change anything about the request and that he would never say please in an order to subordinates.

Since it was a bigger project, it took up several weeks of collaboration with Spock and somehow the thing that bugged you most about working with him was the fact that you had to admit to yourself that, despite everything he did or said, your stupid, illogical heart had managed to develop romantic feelings for the Vulcan. You didn’t know if that just was because of his appearance or if it also was his almost dominating behavior that made you feel that way. One thing was for certain; the more you worked with Spock the stronger these feelings got. So, you were a little relieved when the semester started again and he wasn’t around all day but spent a great part of his time teaching classes. But at times that also brought problems because you had learnt that sometimes it was better to just ask him if he was okay with something sooner rather than later because if he wanted you to change many things about it you’d have more work later on. So you would just leave your office and go looking for him instead to show him what you had done. He had forwarded you his timetable so that you knew where to find him at which time. If you found the correct classroom, of course.

“Spock, I think I finally could make the final….”

“Can you give me three minutes?”

“Fine but then don’t complain that we’re three minutes behind in schedule” you muttered

“There is no such detailed schedule. I even do not have a fixed date on which we need to be finished but rather a time interval”

“So that means we don’t just have one more month but two in total?”

“Yes” you gave a nod

“Good then I’ll let you finish your stuff”

-

One thing you always loved about your work was to see it in action. In that case that was, when everything was finished so far that some test people could make the simulation to see how everything was working. It was mainly to test the simulation itself, to see if the coding worked but you had been asked to be there as well so that you could have an eye on the animation and make sure everything happened in life time and correctly. You were quite proud when you noticed that almost everything was working perfectly fine and that there only were a few details you had to change. As well as some details on the ships themselves because Spock still was not perfectly happy with them.

“And?” you asked after four goes at the simulation

“What do you wish to know?” Spock asked

“Well what you think of it”

“I have noticed that there are a few instances that you will need to go over” you crossed your arms

“What?” you couldn’t believe that this was his answer and to your dismay he started listing up some flaws.  “Stop” you growled, making him raise an eyebrow “I know that there are some imperfections but I’m sorry that I’m not as perfect as you”

“I never claimed that I was perfect. I am a being and all beings are flawed”

“Wow that I got you to admit that”

“To claim that I am perfect would be a lie and highly illogical”

“You and your stupid thinking in code”

“The assumption that I think in ‘code’ is not correct”

“But logical. You think logically, as a Vulcan. Coding is pure logic”

“I see, yet the conclusion is still incorrect” you sighed

“Wow, you’re never ever gonna compliment me or my work, huh?”

“It would be illogical to point out points that do not need modification anymore. Therefore I only tell what you will need to work on again”

“Well but I’m human and we sometimes need reassurance that what we did is good!”

“As you can derive from my statement, your work can be considered as good, when there is nothing that I ask you to change about it”

“You don’t get my point, do you?”

“I do but I do not think it is necessary to point…”

“Just one compliment about my work. I stood your behavior for weeks now”

“Four weeks, five days and 3.6 hours to be exact”

“See, even worse. You have to be so precise and perfectionistic every fucking time”

“However, if you had a problem with something you would have addressed it”

“No. Because humans don’t always do that. But I am complaining now”

“Very well. What do you wish me to change?”

“Well you could make just one simple compliment or something that you like about the way I work on this project” he raised an eyebrow and was silent “Or are you just as fed up with me as I’m with your behavior?”

“You work highly focused” you let out a huff

“Well at least something”

“Besides” he added a bit more quietly and after a pause “I find your hands and fingers to be pleasingly shaped and they move gracefully”

“Okay that was hella unexpected” and even a little creepy “Did you pay that much attention to my hands?”

“When you were showing me something, yes I was at certain times” you frowned. How could he still have noticed so many flaws in your work then if he had just stared onto your hands?

“That is a little weird, don’t you think?”

“No”

“No?”

“Hands hold a different value on Vulcan” he explained that their hands were extremely sensitive and often were something like a symbol of love in their culture.

“So if you told that another Vulcan… what would happen?”

“Usually, Vulcans will only compliment their bondmate’s physiology”

“Hm okay. Are bondmates something like a spouse?”

“Or what you call fiancés”

“But back to my question, what would happen?”

“I cannot say because some might react emotionally in such a situation”

“So you’re saying that you’re not acting emotionally? Like never?”

“We are sentient being so we all will act emotionally at times, whether we want it or not”

“Okay. But what do you want to do, now that you told me how much you like my hands?”

“I have never stated that I like them” you frowned

“That sounds like something is bothering you”

“It is of no consequence”

Come on, tell me. You already told me you like, no wait you… whatever, find my hands pleasing or how you’d want to formulate it. And now something is bothering you”

“I was wondering… whether you would let me touch you”

“And you ask that?” you just took his hand in yours and ran your fingers of the other hand over the back of it. His hands were softer than you had imagined but also colder. When you looked up at him, you saw a slight green blush on his cheeks and smiled “Suddenly so flustered, huh?”

“Touching hands is something rather intimate in Vulcan culture”

“Oh” you let go of him “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know that” but maybe you could have thought about it, considering what he had told you about the meaning of hands on Vulcan.

“I did not tell you, therefore you could not know” he said “You do not need to reproach yourself” you gave a nod and were surprised when he continued “In fact, I have found it rather pleasing” you smiled. For some reason you just held out your hand to him again and he actually took it. Well not really, he more or less just traced his fore- and middle finger over your skin, making you shudder a little

“You’re right that feels nice” he raised an eyebrow and placed his other hand at your back and pulled you closer, then lifting your head and leant down until your lips were inches apart

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all” you breathed and then his lips were on yours. For some reason you could not really say what you were feeling and you wondered if it was right to do this, you were working with him after all, at least for now. Contrary to what you had imagined, he was a pretty good kisser and his fingers still were stroking yours and while you liked the feeling, you wondered if it felt even more sensual to him. When you felt him pull you closer, you thought that this probably was the case and felt yourself smiling into the kiss. You placed your free hand at the base of his neck and pressed your whole body against his. He didn’t seem to mind but some seconds later you parted, looking at each other

“Perhaps we should not have kissed”

“We should” you corrected and leant up to do it again and he responded immediately. This time, the kiss came to a more abrupt end when suddenly the door opened. You let go of each other and quickly stepped apart. While Spock turned to the visitor, one of the people that had tried out the simulation, you touched your lips which were still tingling from the kiss, making you smile

“I’m sorry, if I interrupted something or came at an inconvenient time I can just go and well… leave. We can discuss it later”

“I will be with you momentarily” Spock said and told him to go to a briefing room. You awkwardly played with the hem of your shirt, not sure what to say.

“Well, I should get working on my faulty animation then”

“It is not faulty, (Y/N)” was there a difference in how he said your name now? You had had a long time until you got him to call you (Y/N) instead of his formal for of addressing you with your surname and he had allowed you to just call him Spock in return.

“Was that just another compliment?”

“If you wish to take it as one” he replied and you gave a nod, wanting to return to your workstation, but he took hold of your wrist

“Huh?” you asked

“I do not know what humans will do after such occurrences but on Vulcan, the logical conclusion is that the two individuals will start a relationship”

“You’re asking me for a relationship?”

“If you approve of it”

“I…” you looked down but then found yourself nodding “Yes. I think so”

“Very well” you didn’t know if there was something like a tiny curl in his lip that may have been a little smile. This made you smile as well “I suppose that the discussion will take up the rest of my time at work. Would you be amendable to accompany me to dinner later?”

[no-gorms]

You are the author whose works I re-read most frequently. Would you ever do a coda (or headcanons) for Cold Space, Warm Welcome? I love those space boys 🥺

Awwhh thank you! 🤩 I actually did have a coda-ish scene from Cold Space, Warm Welcome, and now an excuse to write it!

Steve/Tony, coda to Cold Space, Warm Welcome, fade to black (also on ao3)

Normally at this time of day Tony would have a few more hours left in him before he’d call it a night. But it’s a been long 24 hours, and there are limits to how long Tony can fire on all cylinders while in troubleshooting mode. By the time Rhodey closes the post-mortem, Tony thinks that he’d get a migraine if he had to look at another circuit board or codesheet.

“Anyone want to go up for drinks?” Bruce says. “Just to…”

“Yes, please,” Pepper says.

“I’m game,” Sam agrees.

Tony doesn’t even need to beg off. Once glance at his face and the crew’s post-battle conversation releases him without comment, allowing him the painless exit that he so badly wants. He stands up, rubbing a knuckle against one eye, as the others start a friendly argument about what ‘drinks’ specifically means, and if coffee counts or is at all sensible when everyone’s already crashing.

Before Tony leaves the room, he glances back one more time. Steve meets his eye, the way he always does, and Tony mouths a silent, “’Night.” Steve reciprocates with a nod and a small smile.

Leave taken, Tony lets his legs carry him all the way to his room.

His eyes are open, but they might as well not be for how he zones out the whole journey; he only snaps back to awareness when he realizes that someone (Bucky) left his blanket on the floor in their rush to answer the morning’s alarm.

Tony considers leaving the blanket where it is, then sighs and drapes it back over the bed.

There are many different kinds of exhaustion, though one of the most annoying is when the body and mind are out of sync. Tony’s body is ready to crash, but his mind still in fight mode, not yet convinced that the ship is out of peril, because what if! What if they’d pushed the ship’s reactor to the limit, or hadn’t shaken the hostiles off their tail as they thought, and so on and so on?

But the Iron Advance is quiet. In need of repairs, but quiet.

Tony sits on his bed for a few minutes, and tries to distract his brain with an equally annoying evergreen tune that’s randomly popped up in his head.

There’s a knock at the door.

Tony glances at his communicator automatically, but he hasn’t missed any messages. He’s too wired to be confused, so he gets up to answer the door without a single grumbled curse.

Which is probably a good thing, because it’s Steve on the other side of the door.

Steve, who’s standing at angle from the doorway, like a page half-turned. The good former-Captain is broad enough to fill just about any doorway on the Iron Advance like a battering ram with those damned shoulders of his, but right now he’s barely filling half of this particular doorway, and there’s a beat before he meets Tony’s eye.

It takes Tony a second, but that’s okay. Tony’s almost always a half-second slow in understanding Steve, because of the unusual space he fills in Tony’s mind and world.

“Yeah.” Tony backs up, allowing Steve to enter. “It’s pretty much the mess you’d expect.”

“So’s mine, if it makes you feel any better.” Steve’s eye immediately goes to the maintenance arm, still half-unfolded from its bay, before trailing to Tony’s crates in the corner, all of them mismatched and colorful and covered with stickers from their travels. He doesn’t ignore Bucky’s side of the room, but it’s obvious where his interest is.

There’s a chair that Tony can offer, but he won’t.

Fact is, Steve’s never been in Tony’s room before.

Dating while living on the same ship was always going to be strange and boundary-slipping, but they’ve managed so far. ‘Dates’ are formally-demarcated pockets of time, occasionally spent off the ship but most of the time on it. When on the ship, they space walk, or reserve an area of the ship just to themselves. It’s a work in progress, and they’ve never visited the others’ room beyond seeing the other off at the end of each date. (Actual making out is done elsewhere; the observation deck in particular has been excellent for it.)

Tony’s even avoided doing maintenance in the spare room – now Steve’s room, effectively, until they finish renovations – by handing it off to one of the others. Not because he’s afraid, but because he knows himself and he’d get distracted studying every single thing in there that he won’t get the job done.

“You said your arm is fine,” Tony says.

“It is. It is,�� Steve insists, when Tony gives him a look. He turns back to the rest of the room curiously. “I thought you kept spare suit in here.”

“Under the bed. Folded up, though.”

Steve actually looks under the bed, though when Tony laughs, he straightens back up with an affronted scowl. “You weren’t serious?”

“No, I’m serious, it is there. But.” Tony steps towards Steve, claiming that pocket of warmth that would be the circle of Steve’s arms if he were to lift them. He looks up into Steve’s ridiculous eyes, and is aware that his mouth is quivering from the effort to stop himself from smiling.

Steve is often direct, and alarmingly so. But other times he isn’t, and is for some reason only able to exude sincerity and hope in being understood.

“You’re not here to look at my suit.” Tony puts his hands on Steve’s waist. The muscle there jumps, as does Steve’s throat. “You’re here – I mean, you literally walked all the way down here, on purpose, because you want to have—”

“We don’t have to,” Steve says quickly.

“I know. You’d be happy with anything. And it’s been a long day.”

Steve relaxes. “Yes, that, exactly.”

“You still did it knowing it was a possibility, though.” Tony’s full-on grinning now. “What about Bucky? You got a thing about getting interrupted?”

“Uh.” Steve’s mouth drags sideways in a sheepish wince. “He’s in my room. I said that if I don’t come back in an hour, he should, uh… stay there.”

“Amazing.” Tony means that; he’s impressed. He knows that Steve is not above having base wants, but getting carried away while pawing at each other isn’t the same as making a clearheaded request, which is exactly what this is. “There’s being forward, and then there’s being—”

“Tony!” Steve laughs and dips his head forward, bringing his temple to brush against Tony’s. Tony’s hair is a little longer now, some strands of which fall over Steve’s eye, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Steve’s fingers trail feather-light lines down Tony’s forearms, before coming to rest at his elbows. They stand together like that for a while, breathing in, not yet kissing.

Steve swallows again, his Adam’s apple bobbing large and dramatic at the edge of Tony’s vision. Steve’s holding himself still but Tony gets the impression of nerves and anticipation, which in turn has excitement flickering up Tony’s spine.

Tony turns his head, guiding his lips across Steve’s cheek until he finds his mouth. Steve sighs and kisses back, while his fingers dig tight and eager around Tony’s elbows.

[tellywoodtrash]

shaadi mubarak 01+02.09.20 lb

01.09.20

oh ho kusummmm, don't be so rukhiii rukhiiiii. this is a delicate momentttttt.

the actual physical discomfort preeti is in while stepping into the house. my hearttttttt.

kusum is so hella mad and wants to smack the shit outta.... well, someone, that’s for sure.

the actress playing juhi has heavyyyyyyy dalljiet as anjali vibes no?

preeti is having TUMHARAAAAAA SASURAAAAL!!!! waala breakdown. sis chill for a sec.

kusum been knowing that this shit was coming. she looks so damn mad.

priyanka FORSHO has history with tarun. i get the feeling he might have rejected her coz she's not "refined" enough or some such thing.

"beta hi khota nikla toh bahu ko kaahe sunaana?" 100% nailed it.

i fully get how kusum can be perceived as callous but she's just someone with duniya ki samajh and doesn't bother sugarcoating her words for effect. she speaks the plain truth, not what anyone ~~wants to hear.

also she is totallll self confidence goals.

"ram ji ki laathi kaise maathe pe baaji!" lmaooooo

oh no preeti heardddddddddd.

sumedh running to do damage control, bless his heart.

kusum like BRO DON'T YOU TRY TO SHUT ME UP I'M STILL THE BOSS OF THIS HOUSE SO HELP ME GOD

the badly cgi'd exteriors are so blah. like, surely you can devote a day or two to taking some establishing shots and then use them over and over?

poor KT can't shake the visuals from his head.

KT really the rudra of this house huh. a spoilt, doted on lil BABY man.

lol mom and chaachi are instanttttt shippers.

cheesy man has secret center of angst.

ouff again with this sasuraal waala ratttt.

juhi is best beti.

GOD WHO MAKES THESE DUMBASSSSSS FUCKING RULES ABOUT WHO GETS TO LIVE WHERE ITS BLOODY 2020 FFS SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT HAS COLLAPSED JUST DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

juhiiiiii asking ALL the rightttt questions.

yes juhi you establish that haq!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lmao kusum is so me.

great, piyu has a new reason to hate juhi's fam.

GOOD LORD SHE'S SUCH A FUCKING DRAMA QUEEEEEEN. she's second on the list of "ASSHOLES WHO NEED TO DIAL IT DOWN, WAY DOWNNNNNNNNN" after tarun.

kusum trying to find some peace of mind.

oh ho, piyu has a backstory, where she was shipped off to gaon by her parents for some reason. ok i feel a little bad for her (but not thaaaaat much also.)

juhi sambhaale toh kitne maaon ke draamey sambhaale aaj???!

BETI KE GHAR KA PAANI TAK BLAH BLAH BLAHHHHHHH

sumedh ko koi sach mein koi mantriii banao. he is best man for the job.

KT is always expected to perform the dialogues of his movies, like some kinda circus monkey?????

KT and his mom are veryyyyy wholesome.

ummmm, literally none of these people said any of these things, preeti. ainvaaayi khayaali khichidiiiiii of unpleasantness you're cooking in your head.

this fucking samaaaj is the jaddd of allllll problems. fucking burn it all down to the grounddddddddddddddddd.

02.09.20

KT wants to call chaabi waali to check on her. sweet.

great, preeti left her phone over at tarun/rati's.

OMG THIS BITCH. NAATAK?!!?!? MY GODDDDDDD, FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU RATI.

KT didn't believe a worddddd of that bs.

bless this man's empathetic heart. he Soft.

RATI I SWEAR TO GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD I HOPE THIS GHAR OF YOURS FALLS ON YOUR DAMN HEAD.

and tarunnn, i wish you'd fall into a moat filled with hungry crocodiles.

sumedh is trying to find diplomatic solution while kusum eavesdrops lol.

oh i think sumedh and juhi handle some kinda family business together. sweet.

SUMEDH BE SETTING HUSBAND GOALSSSSSSSS. YOU RAISED A GOOD ONE, KUSUM.

lmaoooooo kusum and her ramji sayings are my fav.

my god, bohut hi besura bhajan chal raha hai subaah subaah.

i wish the walls of this house weren't so AGGRESSSIVELYYYYY BLUE. it makes the space look claustrophobic and dark.

(recently painted an accent wall in my living room, and this comment is a result of having read 30 thousand home decor blogs in a week.)

every time i see that wall hanging over preeti's face in that photo, i lol. kusum you're so deliciously petty.

khatarnaak music and ainvayiiii ka tevar for kusum.

LMAO THE MISLEAD WITH THE TWO MUGS OF TEA. KUSUM YOU PETTY ASS B I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

juhiiiiiiiiiiiii is literalllll sunshine.

and sumedh got them a special pass to go to some mandir in pushkar. god bless these twoooooo kidsssss.

preeti has enough self-flagellation and guilt to put the best of catholics to shame.

LMAOOOOOOOOO KUSUM RUNNING AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY TO HIDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AND DO NAATAKKKKK.

i guess to get some attention + to get preeti to stay home with her???

yupppppp, she fully wanted quality time with preeti.

hahahahaha raajeshwari sachdev is honestly a gifttttttt that i didn't expect from this show but i'm soooooo glad it gave me.

askjfhkdsjfshksjf kusum's comments on youngest daughter's (kajal?) dungarees.

kajalllllll fully knows how mummy works. i like her best of the sisters.

"purkhon ne aakhein di hai ya cctv? kuch bhi na chupe thaanedaarni se!" hee hee heee

kusum + kajal tying for best maa-beti jodi with preeti + juhi.

"door se dikhaana tha toh photu kheench ke bhej deti; nimbu kharchne ki kya zaroorat thi???" hahahahahaha

lmao kusum tum juhiiiii ki saas ho ya preeti ki.

GOOD LORD WHAT IS THIS NAAGIN MUSIC?!?!

kusummmm ainvayiiiii mein tang kar-ing preeti to see till what extent she'll bend over backwards to accommodate the nakhras.

i mean, i don't blame preeti for wanting to leave this place.

oh god KT's mom is gonna do some totally unnecessary matchmakingggg. LITERALLLLY WHO ASKED FOR THISSSSSSSSSS??!?!?!

stop calling a 40 year old man A LADKA, jesus. daaant haath mein aa jayenge phir bhi desi maaa ke liye apna raja beta LADKA hi hai.

kusum is totalllly miffed at preeti's over-formal, farmabardaaaar behaviorrrr.

OH HOOOOOO KUSUMMMMMMMM TAAAANA MAT MAAROOOOOOOO

I SHALL NOT BE FOOLED BY THE RED HERRING PRECAP I'M SOOOOOOOOO FUCKING HYPED FOR TOMM'S EPPPPPPPP IT'S GOING TO BE FUCKING GLORIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 2: 1x26 Errand of Mercy

Errand of Mercy is truly a trip. I’m swiftly losing my ability to be coherent because I need to go to sleep but here are some attempts:

First of all this is, of course, a straight-up, pure, unfiltered Kirk/Spock episode with a tiny bit of unrequited Kor/Kirk on the side. Like, we’re not even going to pretend to find stuff for the rest of the crew today. I see you, Gene Coon.

This is the first Klingon ep. I just... the actual Klingon-centric episodes ARE good, but the Klingons in general are pretty boring and I legit don’t understand why they became the standard Star Trek villain. (DC Fontana apparently thought that it was because their make up was simpler v. the Romulans, acc. to Amazon trivia and....I’ll buy that.)

Is the “cultural scale” called the Richter cultural scale? I seem to recall another scale with the exact same name....

I get why there would be such a scale but they are dead wrong about where the Organians fall on it.

Anyway not to harp on this yet again but @ fanom this isn’t the military right?? Lol

Oh, no, it’s Code One! No idea what that means but the music tells me it’s a big deal and it’s bad!

“Curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.” He’s talking about war but I can think of some other things that fall into this category.

I think it’s pretty funny that Kirk records his Captain’s logs in public.

CAPTAIN SULU.

“There’s a war happening, so Mr. Spock and I will just leave the ship... together.”

“You’ll get out of here, Sulu, and leave Spock and I... alone.”

“You’ll fall back to rendezvous with the rest of the Fleet in the Laurentian system.”

Why do these people show no interest in us beaming down into their village? Hmmm, I wonder. If the Organians really were what K and S think they are, beaming down in that way would be uh a bad idea.

Spock seems much less awkward at gesturing than Kirk does.

Finally, by the end of the season, they’ve figured out the context for the Enterprise: Starfleet, the Federation, etc.

I wish the Organians were our alien overlords and taylor.

So the Klingons are a military dictatorship.

Kirk finds them so frustrating. I feel like this ep falls into the genre “Kirk is frustrated by hippies.” All this generic peace talk and faultlessly chill attitudes are just not him.

“I’m a soldier, not a diplomat.” That’s why Spock likes him so much.

The Organians are trying to follow the Prime Directive but Kirk is making it SO HARD.

“Space vehicles.”

I know the Klingons are actually supposed to be in yellow face but you know what it looks like black face to me and I RE-ALLY wish they had not done that.

They look good in those Organian outfits. Love that they kept their command and science colors lol. I feel like this is the sort of outfit AOS Kirk wishes he had in that boring ass closet of his.

Mr. Spock does not look like an Organian.

I MUST know more about these “not uncommon” Vulcan merchants. “Dealing in kevas and trillium.”

KOR IS SO INTO KIRK. This flirting is the least subtle. “You’ll be taught to use your tongue.” “Where is your smile?” “You’re a ram among sheep.” “I need your obedience.” “You seem to be in command.” Is all of this supposed to sound sexual or...?

Right up there with “a stallion must first be broken.”

Whereas Kirk is so not into this. That expression says, “Don’t even think about talking about Spock’s tongue.”

The mind sifter is actually a crazy advanced sci fi machine and STID wanted us to think Klingons don’t have warp usdfsf go fuck yourself.

Kirk is so turned on by Spock’s mental strength.

Every spare moment of this ep is given over to K/S flirting. They legit act like an old married couple. “I thought you were going to fight that guy.” “I just might.” Or whatever.

I love that Kirk’s method of fighting is to literally launch his WHOLE BODY at enemies.

Whereas Spock’s there just running awkwardly in the background. He is Not coordinated friends.

Kirk’s speeches ARE admirable. He is lacking context here but in general if they WERE an oppressed people, this should be inspiring.

“For some reason, he feels as though he must destroy you.”

This Kor and Kirk scene... Kirk literally canNOT stop himself from flirting. His default smile is Charming. “Nothing...inconsequential [was destroyed] I hope...” Flirty smile, wink.

GO CLIMB A TREE I MEAN WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT.

We are the same species...tigers...hunters

Is this not the same cell they always use?

I feel an “and there was only one cell” fic coming on...

The Organians are actually kind of hilarious. They’ll basically let these rando aliens do whatever they want, as long as they do no violence. That’s it, that’s the one rule.”Your captors planned to do violence to you, and to that I said...naw.”

THIS is real Pacifism @ Commander Spock.

Kirk ready to go out in a blaze of fire for a bunch of annoying hippies like “I’m going to white savior you now, ungrateful Organians.”(I say this with love; I love him.)

Can you believe Kirk and Spock are about to die in an unwinnable fight of 2 against Lots of Klingons, and they’re using their last moments to FLIRT AGAIN?

Gene Coon loves writing dialogue in which Spock calculates statistics and Kirk is turned on.

Also can you BELIEVE he just pulls Spock along by the arm? Any excuse to touch him.

Okay the Organians are officially tired of your bullshit.

Too hot! Hot damn!

“We find interference in others’ affairs most disgusting.” Prime Directive! Like I said!

This is basically the plot of A Taste of Armageddon except in that ep Kirk was the Organians.

“People have the right to handle their own affairs.” Is he wrong though??

The Organians are like “okay, we all had our fun here, now get out. Seriously.”

Can you imagine how fucking weird it would be to just randomly see this alien dude materialize in the White House, or, like, Starfleet San Francisco HQ, or wherever the “home world” of the Federation is supposed to be? Just a little throwaway line in there.

By the end Kor is just straight up hilarious. He’s giving off real Ian McKellan in Vicious vibes when he says “I can handle them.”

“I guess that takes care of the war.” Yep! Very efficient!

The “it” in “It would have been glorious” is DEFINITELY not the war lol.

Good game, good game.

“I was furious with the Organians for stopping a war I didn’t want.” I’m sorry but could not THAT have been the plot of STID?

“Spock, your math was wrong the whole time.” And now Spock and Kirk can BOTH sulk lol.

Those were all of my liveblog thoughts and it’s late but.... I had so many additional thoughts on this episode... Like a lot more.

First, I love when humanoids turn out to not be humanoids, that’s one of the best things.

Second, I think this is a very gutsy episode to air at the time, and that it would still be a gutsy episode to air now. I feel like it’s one of the peanut gallery’s favorite criticisms of ST nowadays to say it’s “colonialist” but this ep makes it pretty clear it’s not--that’s the opposite of the lesson of this story.

To attempt to explain better: I completely and unironically love Kirk but I do recognize that like all 3 dimensional characters he has flaws. In this ep, I thought that while his speeches and general point of view and strategic plan were definitely right for situations a population is oppressed--that people do have the power to fight back against dictatorships, even when the odds are bad, and that it is worth it to have the courage to fight back against such oppression--he was ultimately shown to be wrong in this instance because he wasn’t actually coming into that situation. He didn’t understand as much as he thought he did. He thought he was going to be the savior here: taking control for peoples who didn't know better, saving them from oppression, and then gifting them with technology and advancement as he understood it. The Federation wouldn't have enslaved them, but the Federation did want to use them. But the Organians really truly didn't need help--the native people understood their own needs better than the outside people. That's the lesson I took from the episode. Your intentions can be good but if you're coming into a foreign situation looking to control it, without understanding the actual people involved, you’re not being a true friend or ally, and you're likely to do no more harm than good. Opposition to tyranny has to come from the source, the oppressed peoples themselves.

When he refers to “weak, innocent people” standing in the way of superpowers in the beginning--he’s not attempting to derogatory, but that is a pretty demeaning characterization.

I also thought it interesting that the Organians can take any form they want and put their society at any stage of "advancement" they want and they chose a basic agrarian aesthetic. Cottagecore rights.

Kirk really had a confirmation bias when it came to the Organians. He had an image of them--innocent, weak, oppressed--and he only took information that fit with that characterization, rather than listening to them and what they were saying.

My mom and I also discussed whether this was IC or OOC of Kirk. I’m of two minds, myself. I think Kirk at his best is much more open-minded than this. His core morality is good faith, peace, friendliness, and care for all life forms, and there are plenty of examples of this (Charlie X, Mud’s Women, and The Corbomite Maneuver all immediately come to mind.) But he does have a blind spot that I think comes up often enough to be canonically part of his character: if something is threatening or killing his crew, or his people more broadly (the Federation), then ALL he cares about is neutralizing the threat. Rare alien? Possible scientific discovery? Might not have the full details of the situation? Doesn’t matter. I’m thinking The Man Trap, The Devil in the Dark, Arena. He wants to protect aliens, but not if the alien is killing his crew. He wants to make overtures of friendship, but not if the new being has already been aggressive.

I mean like I said... a part of me is like "no he is better than this!" but another part is like... well he does have that 'soldier' side of him, he is intensely loyal to his people. The “evil” Kirk of The Enemy Within. I think he just sometimes gets these blinders in certain situations when he's just sure he's right, which is very human.

Also although he's between McCoy and Spock on the continuum of "an objective right thing exists for all people and in all situations and we should always follow that morality" and "morality itself is relative, we should be respectful of alien ways of living even when we don’t understand them" I think in general Kirk and the show is more like McCoy. There IS a right morality here. (I’m thinking of The Apple or even A Taste of Armageddon.)

I also maintain that to say in 1967 "the very personality trait of being warlike is a common denominator between enemies at war" is a dramatic statement.

My mother suggested that Kirk was “strangely appealing” in his desire to save the Organians, with or without their help, and I do agree... I think that’s the complexity of the episode. The overall thrust of the plot is that Kirk was wrong--he’s left embarrassed at the end. I stand by what I said above. And they certainly go out of their way to show that the Klingons and Federation have something in common--namely, as I said, their very capacity to wage war, and interest in waging war.

BUT, as much as I get the point that they have certain similarities with the Federation--and I think this concept of 'these war-worthy disagreements seem trivial to an advanced and neutral species' is interesting, and even more so in comparison with A Taste of Armageddon which, as I said, is this same scenario from the Organians' POV essentially--at the same time it's a bit irritating to hear the democratic Federation compared to the oppressive dictatorship of the Klingons. Like yeah, okay, none of them are light beings and they both wanted to destroy each other--point taken. But would the Federation park itself on a random planet and kill 200 people the first day? I think not. So in this sense Kirk IS right. The Klingons are an adversary worth fighting, just not over the Organians.

I don’t know what I would think of his position if the Organians were being harmed but were also just...actually sheep. Like I guess I would say "well they have to have a reason.” And in fact they did--their bodies cannot be harmed, so they really don't care if the Klingons pretend to harm them. But I just can't comprehend people being like really honestly okay with that level of oppression, as opposed to too scared or too beaten down or too brainwashed to fight it, which is different.

...And from there we went into a discussion of curative v transformative fandom and yet more on what’s wrong with AOS sdfasfjsaldf it’s past 1 am I can’t be stopped BUT I SHOULD BE STOPPED.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #258

“as above, so below, what you reap is what you sow. what you give comes back threefold, as above, so below.”

Who was your favorite cartoon character when you were a kid? Pikachu! Have you ever asked a guy out on a date? No. Who do you consider your best friend in your workplace? N/A Do you have to have your bed or anything else in your room a specific way before you go to sleep? I think I almost always have to be facing the left, but I can't really say with total certainty considering you don't really like... *realize* when you fall asleep. Have you changed your mind about anything lately? I've been on the fence about things. What do you dream about most? What is the general tone or mood of your dreams? They're either uncomfortable, melancholic run-ins with Jason or horrible nightmares about being attacked in some way and being incapable of fighting back. Do you mind going grocery shopping or is it something you enjoy? Does ANYBODY enjoy it?? If you could have a physical feature like wings, horns, a tail, ect., what would you have? GIVE ME RAM HORNS. What is something you wish more people understood about who you are as a person? A lot of my struggling goes on in my head. Like I think I'm relatively open about when I'm having a hard time, but it's come to my attention recently that there's a lot of battles people don't see and leads to the belief I give up easily. Have you ever gone through a time when you had no friends? How did you deal with it? No friends I ever hung out with or anything, yes. I just had to start reaching out and opening up a bit more, and that's when Colleen came in. What is your favorite food to have as a snack? It depends on what flavor I'm craving. Usually though, something sour and gummy. What time do you usually eat dinner? That can vary from as early as 5:30 to as late as like, 8:00. When was the last time you felt extremely happy? Like about a week ago, the second night Mom slept on the pull-out bed a family friend got us versus that damn couch she's slept on for years. Her doing it a second time was like, verification that she was more comfortable and would keep doing it, which she has. Has any food ever made you sick to the point where you’d be afraid to try it again? No, thankfully. What is something you wish you had the opportunity to do more often? Get out of the house. Do you have any interests or hobbies you thought you would outgrow, but haven’t? I wasn't sure if I would ever "outgrow" RP. Apparently I won't. Is there an outfit that you wear much more frequently than any other? There are a few shirts, yeah. How old is your television? We got it when my parents were still together, so it's old. Do you have a laptop or desktop? A laptop. Do you own any television series box sets? Just Meerkat Manor. Have you ever been in a fight with your best friend? Yeah. Was the last movie you watched a horror film? No. Where is your favorite place to go when you’re depressed? On a car ride where I can blast my music. In high school, were you in trouble a lot? No. I only ever got in trouble for too many tardies in the morning. Do you enjoy your hairstyle? Yeah. Do you have weak upper body strength? Yikes yes. Do you think hugs are awkward? Not if they're friends or similar. People I don't like and/or know well but am expected to hug anyway, yes, it's uncomfortable. Story of my life with my sister's in-laws. Do you think facial hair is gross? ... No...? I mean sure, if it's not groomed it can be, but it's very natural and normal? Would you ever dye your hair an unnatural color? UGH I want to. My hair has such a hard time holding color... Has anyone ever been weirdly obsessed with you? No. What is your favorite band of all time? Ozzy Osbourne. Always. Would you consider getting a tattoo any time soon? Literally ASAP. I was supposed to get my Mark one tidied up big big time for my birthday by a really professional artist with both holiday and birthday money, but Mom literally had to use it to keep this house and the car. It was admittedly frustrating, but I could tell she was far from happy about it and I can't *rightfully* be pissy about it. Then the cancer came along and threw a massive wrench in the plan, so now idk when that's happening now. What movie did you last watch with someone? I THINK it was the live action The Lion King with Dad. It's been a long time. Are you afraid of airplane rides? Not very actively, no. I acknowledge the risk, but it's not something I deeply worry about. If you’re reading a book, what page are you currently on? Don't have a book to read currently; I just finished the second Wings of Fire book, now I'm moving onto The Testaments by Margaret Atwood when we can order it over Amazon. Do you have a job you like? I don't have a job period. Have you ever lived with a roommate before? Yeah. How many scarves do you own, if any at all? Maybe one? If even that. Did you tell your last girlfriend/boyfriend that you love them? Yeah. What was the last thing your parents got mad at you for? Idk about Dad, but Mom... probably something I said? But I'm not sure. Do your pets have favorites? I'm the only one who handles Venus, and I'm Roman's favorite. How many people could sleep comfortably in the room you’re in? Just two if we share the bed. Would you like to have a treadmill in your house? I DESPERATELY want one. My legs are getting bad again now that I haven't physically been in school for what, a month? What’s the longest you’ve ever liked someone without telling them? Well, that would be Girt, but I went on-and-off with like-liking him for years... Since freshman year, really. It's hard to say because of my mind constantly changing. When is the last time you were on a swingset? Wow, no clue. At sleepovers, do you usually sleep on a bed, couch or floor? I haven't had one of those in too long of a time to really tell you. It would depend on the relationship, too. What’s the sweetest thing a gf/bf can do to get you to forgive them? Changed behavior. How hot does the temperature get in the summer where you live? High 90s/lower 100s. Was the last hoodie you wore too big for you? No. Did it belong to someone else? No. Have you ever taken Ambien to fall asleep? I was given it at the hospital, but it never did much for me. Did your last ex try to get back together with you after the break-up? No. Do you know someone who has 6 or more siblings? Possibly, but I don't think so. Do you rent movies frequently? Nope. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Take pictures. Will we ultimately end up destroying our own race? Yup. How do you think the world will end? Human life, climate change. Earth itself, probably like a meteor or black hole or something. I believe the universe itself will always exist. An alien ship lands at your house, and they want you. Do you go with them? Errrr no. If I even had the option. What’s your favorite meal to cook? I don't cook. Homework: Do you actually READ the chapters, or just skim through them? I read. I'd be too nervous about missing vital info to skim. If you were in a horror flick, would you be one of the first ones to die? Probably, but it depends on the predicament, I guess? What movie has been taken WAY too far, as far as sequels go? I don't know. I'm not a film buff. Do you refuse to eat certain foods because of what they look like? Yep. Green olives, for example, look so fuckin gross to me. Would you ever become a fan of a team you hate to please your spouse? No? Can you handle scary movies? I love scary movies. I enjoy the adrenaline of 'em. How often do you get a new purse…and for guys a new wallet? Not often at all. What is the most money that you have ever spent on getting your nails done? Never done that. Do you have a fake I.D.? Nope. Would you date someone 5 years older than you? Yeah. Have you ever been fingered? Yes. What is your favorite horror movie? Hmmm. I've got a bias towards Silent Hill, of course, but I also really enjoy both The Blair Witch Project movies, as well as The Crazies. Has a little kid ever fallen asleep on your lap before? Yeah. What’s your favorite kind of float? (coke, root beer) I can't remember the last time I had one of those. If you heard your best friend’s significant other was cheating on them, would you tell them? Even if you couldn’t prove it? UM yes. I mean it kinda depends on who told me this, like it could be total bullshit, but, they'd deserve to know that there was a possibility. If you discovered you were pregnant at this point in time, would you keep it or abort it? Why? If I got pregnant now, it'd have to be a case of rape, in which case I would probably abort, considering I'd be fucking traumatized worse than I already was. What is the last thing you googled? Uhhh shit. I think the definition for a word to ensure I was using it correctly? Have you ever jumped off a high dive into a pool? Nooo. I always wanted to as a kid, but I was ultimately too scared. Do you like hot, cold, or lukewarm showers? Hot, usually. Do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? Yes. Where did your mother and father meet for the first time? I think work. Have you ever stayed in a cheap motel? No. I'm too much of a germaphobe for that. Have you been to Mount Rushmore? No. Do you sleep with the door open, kinda open, or completely closed? Open or kinda open, depending on if the cat moves it or not. How old were you when you got chicken pox? Never got it. What’s your sexual orientation? Bisexual. Do you have full or thinner lips? Uh idk, they look pretty normal to me. Which of the Pirates of the Caribbean's was your favorite? Never watched 'em. Do you press the delete key or the backspace key to get rid of a mistake? Backspace. How far do you live from your parents? I live with one. How many family photos do you have in your home? Like, on display/the walls? A pretty decent amount. Are you happy with how much money you make? I make none, so like... guess. Are you the type of person that will parallel park? Fuck that. To you, what is “the best thing since sliced bread”? Probably the Internet. Do you read and believe your horoscope? No. Do you have rules for naming your future children? I'm not having kids, but if I was to, no. Which actor, in your opinion, played the best Batman? I haven't seen them all. Have you ever TURNED DOWN an invite to a wedding? Why? No. Do you believe people should get married in a church? lol get married wherever the fuck you want. Name a movie everyone else thought was funny, but you couldn’t stand: *shrugs* Does the mall you go to have an arcade? Do you go in there? No. What is your favorite Little Debbie snack? This is ACTUALLY impossible. Don't ask me this question lmao. Got any interesting wigs? I don't have any wigs. What Mario game was your least favorite, and why? I've literally only ever played Mario Kart. I'm not that interested in the games. Have you ever been snowed in? Not to where like, we couldn't go outside. Does playing games in 2-D bother you because you now play mostly 3-D games? Oh no. Graphics absolutely do not make a game. Sure, they're more desirable considering it greatly improves immersion, but still. Sometimes 2D fits the "vibe" of the game. Tell the weirdest name of a town/city you’ve ever heard: Conetoe. You're pronouncing it wrong. Do you know anyone who DOESN’T have a cell phone? I don't think so. Do you like pineapple? Oh yeah. Do you get a flu jab each year? No, but I should start. Did you ever dream about being an animal? Maybe? Idk. What's your favourite colour on a dog? Orange/red. Do you have an electric or gas cooker? Gas. What do you like to drink at a restaurant? I usually get a soda. If we're at some fancy place for once, I'll usually get some light, fruity alcohol. What was the last book you read that also is a film? I don't have a clue. Have you always known what you've wanted to do with your life, career-wise? It's changed many, many times now. Would you stay at a haunted hotel? Hell yeah. What is the best HAND-MADE present you've ever received? It was this long, extremely sweet letter my mom wrote for my b-day two years back. It meant a lot to me. Have you ever gotten pizza delivered to your house that you didn't order? I don't believe so. Do you follow a 5-second rule after dropping food on the floor? NOOOOOOOOO sir. Did you take Flintstone vitamins or any others as a child? EW, no. We were lucky enough to have fruity chewy ones, not chalky crap. What types of things do you think the government is hiding from us? Oh my fucking god, a universe of information. Aliens probably being one of the least scary things. How do you like your soda: I think it tastes best cold from a can. Have you learned anything valuable today? No. What's your favorite kind of Doritos? Cool Ranch. Do your parents have MySpace pages? Mom has a Facebook. Be honest...ever peed in the pool? Noooo. When I was a kid, you went behind the pool and handled that. Have you ever pulled a fire alarm? Nope. Have you had your tonsils removed? No. Isn't Chef Boyardee awesome? Not a fan. What reality show has been taken WAY too far? I don't watch enough TV for this. Must you grab a souvenir from almost everywhere you go? Nah, not always. Did you enjoy making things out of Play-Doh as a child? I did. What do you put on hot dogs? Mustard and ketchup. Can you swim? Yeah. Hot dogs or cheeseburgers? Cheeseburgers. Your favorite hobby? Taking pictures, particularly of animals. Do you wear glasses? Yes. Do you have a phobia? Plenty. Can you drive a stick? Never tried. How many TVs are in your house? Two. Do you like to sing? Not very long. Favorite car? Idc. Is there anything (out of the obvious) that makes you feel really ill? Perhaps, but I'm not certain. Maybe some smell. WELL WAIT, gasoline can give me a real headache, but I don't feel like, REALLY sick. Do you know both of your biological parents? Which one do you prefer? Yes, and I don't want to choose between them. When was the last time you wrote so much your finger ached? My final exam for Writing last semester. What is something you think about yourself that nobody agrees with? Quite honestly, I wouldn't put extreme emphasis on my loyalty, but only because if you prove to me that you're undeserving of my friendship, trust, or anything like that, peace. I'm out. Family, friend, whatever; I don't care. Yet most people who know me have pointed out I'm extremely loyal, but really in all cases I can think of, I remained loyal because the person was worthy of it. What about something people think of you that you don’t agree with? This depends on the person and situation of course, but mostly, that I put on a damn good front of not being a socially anxious mess. Teachers and friends have pointed that out quite a bit, but I could NOT disagree more. I think I do awfully. What design is on your calendar this year? I don't have a current one. What is your favorite type of video game? Horror. What’s the weather like where you live? (All year round, not today) The baseline is IT'S HOT. Even our winters are - usually - very mild. Summer usually soaks the shit out of us; afternoon storms are literally an almost daily occurrence, so as you can imagine, the humidity could kill a man. The weather in general is very unpredictable year-round. When was the last time you climbed a tree? I've never actually properly done so. I grew up with almost exclusively pine trees, which only have branches much too high to climb.

[virmillion]

Coffee’s for Closers

alternative title: lab has absolutely no chill when airing out their dirty laundry

Summary: Virgil is a barista. Logan is a barista. Everyone is gay—it's just that this gayness only occurs at Logan's cafe. Warnings: cursing, rude customers and coworkers, let me know if you think of any more Ships: romantic analogical, romantic royality, platonic LAMP+Remy Words: 22,222

Check it out on ao3!

    Grande white mocha latte. Steam milk to the third line, four pumps of syrup, two shots of espresso, put on a sleeve, pour the milk, whipped cream, lid, hand it off, next. Kid’s hot chocolate. Steam milk to the bottom line at one-twenty seven degrees, two pumps mocha, one pump vanilla, pour the milk, whipped cream, lid, hand it off, next. Venti iced caramel macchiato upside down with coconut milk and an extra shot. Pull two shots of espresso into each teacup, six hits of vanilla in the cup, espresso over the vanilla, coconut milk to the top line, ice to the rim, caramel drizzle of seven vertical, seven horizontal, two circles, lid, hand it off, next. This is literally the only thing running through Virgil’s mind anymore.

    Alright, maybe not the only thing. There is the odd customer who gets annoyed at receiving a small cup when they asked for a tall, because ‘I thought tall meant large!’ and Virgil has had just about enough of people not understanding the price difference. There’s also a regular here and there that hands off their reusable cup with a grin, so he can fill it with caramel and decaf and nonfat milk for the regular’s wife, and the guy can get a tall pike place roast with caramel syrup in a grande cup, and Virgil can hand it off and feel proud of himself for knowing a regular’s order so precisely. Oh, and lest we not forget the ever-present parents thinking it’s cool to let their toddlers run wild and knock down his signs and spill drinks everywhere because ‘it’s okay, honey, he gets paid to clean that up!’

    Okay, so there are several things running through Virgil’s mind right now. At this incredibly specific moment, one of those several things is the fact that he only has to survive twelve. More. Minutes. With the literal worst coworker on the face of the earth. He can’t speak to the quality of workers beneath the earth’s crust—sorry, team members—but for air breathing losers such as he, his buddy here just. Takes the damn cake. Stole the candles. Blew out his wish. On his birthday. Without a birthday gift. Spit on the frosting. Grabbed two chunks with her bare hands. Ate them like a toddler. Complained when she was the only one eating cake. Took the cake anyway.

    Virgil doesn’t particularly care for cake.

    “Hey, how’re you doing?” Kim asks the next guest, plastering the absolute fakest smile Virgil has ever seen on her face. Like, he’s pretty sure it’s bordering on genuine. That’s how fake it is.

    Virgil doesn’t particularly care for Kim, either.

    “I’m good, how’re you?” the guest replies, staring up at the trifold menu and holding up a line of seven people behind them because they didn’t have the foresight to decide on a drink during the fifteen minutes they spent in line. “I’ll take a grande salted caramel mocha.” Virgil ignores Kim as she delivers the spiel about the limited supply of whipped cream, instead focusing on the measurements of all the drinks waiting to be finished. Sure, he admires that one lady for getting eight shots of espresso—he could definitely do with some of what she’s having—but her drink is doing a terrible job of holding up the line when their dinky little store only has one mastrena.

    Ten minutes.

    “Venti double quad for Debra?” Virgil calls, ignoring the line of drinks that haven’t been claimed yet. Seriously, if these people are as intent as they seem to be on getting out of here quickly, you’d think they’d jump at the chance to take their drinks. Virgil doesn’t really care either way, as he only has to survive nine more minutes.

    “Hey, we need a milk run before tomorrow,” Virgil tells Kim, shuffling down the line of drinks. To be fair, they’re moving much more quickly now that the whole espresso machine isn’t focused on one drink from five minutes ago. “Want me to do it?”

    “Ugh, yeah,” Kim groans, rolling her eyes. She waves off the concerned look from the next guest, eyeing Virgil’s obscenely long queue of drinks. “I’ll finish those up, you go get the milk, peace out in ten?”

    “Something like that,” Virgil agrees, topping off the last row of grande hot chocolates. “You know where the button is for extra help?”

    “Duh, of course I know where it is.” Rather than give a sarcastic remark to her attitude—which is what he wants more than anything—Virgil smiles brightly, pushing his way past the swinging door and straightening the hat that never sits quite right on his head. In the near back, he pulls out his constantly dying phone to snap a picture of the barren fridge. All the way to the back of the main store and into the freezer, he trundles one of the squeaky-wheeled carts between the aisles, dodging oblivious mothers and manspreading dudes with man-buns and ratty tennis shoes.

    “Okay, twenty two blue, five pink, seven red,” Virgil mumbles to himself, double- and triple-checking the picture to reassure himself of what they need. “Maybe just seventeen blue, five pink, five red.” These corrections continue as he sets about pulling every jug he can find from the crates, absently tugging down his sleeves as the cold sends goosebumps skittering over his skin. “Two more red, maybe a few half and half?” Thinking back, he’s pretty sure corporate didn’t ship any half and half this week, either. Sunday’s gonna be a blast. “Still no heavy whipping cream, no surprise there. The rations thin. The plot chickens.” Allowing himself a small laugh at his own nonsense, Virgil backs the cart out of the fridge and deepens his chronic slouch to put more force behind the wheels. They squeal and scream in protest as he shoves the—trolley? Is that what they call it?—back to the front, practically spilling it everywhere as he swerves around a narrow corner to avoid a stray child pinballing off the end cap displays.

    Finally at the near back again, Virgil fights with the cart to get it through the doors and over the floor mats covering the little alley, very nearly ramming his head into the sink when the wheels free themselves with no warning. “Okay, freakin’ ow,” he mutters, rubbing the bruise on his side from the impact. “Whatever, just a few more minutes, and I can go somewhere that doesn’t totally suck or drain the life from its patrons.”

    True to his word, Virgil eventually succeeds in restocking the rest of the milks, popping his head out to check on Kim’s status in regards to whether she’ll survive the next three minutes. One severely long line that’s steadily trickling out, most of them with drinks in hand, and if the flurry of legs outside the shuttered window is anything to go by, another slam is hot on its heels. Virgil tosses out a flippant farewell to Kim and makes a break for the punch clock, having absolutely no desire to stick around for the hell that awaits.

    “Okay, cool, cool, love driving in the rain, favorite part of my Saturday,” Virgil sighs, glancing at the window. If nothing else, should customers not be deterred by the weather? Seriously, just go home. Go home!

    Of course, no one is listening to Virgil’s complaints. All too aware of this fact, he rolls his shoulders forward to shrug on a hoodie over his work-mandated black shirt—at least the uniform doesn’t suck, he supposes. Flipping his hood up to protect his hair and tucking in his earbuds, Virgil strolls out into the clogged aisles of people and things, easily blending in with the other loners that would rather be literally anywhere else, were it not for their families dragging them along. Virgil has no such ties, and accordingly escapes from the store with ease.

    And no, he won’t lie—Virgil absolutely walks slower in the rain to the beat of the song in his ears, and he absolutely imagines some cheesy pathetic music video happening around him, and he absolutely would deny that if you confronted him with it.

    By the time Virgil reaches his car—neon blue, mind you, because it was the cheapest model he could afford—his hoodie is sopping wet, and he has had just about enough of this whole ‘existing’ nonsense for today. But no, no, he wants to go to that new cafe one of the regulars told him about. Stupid stubbornness. Of course, he’s too stubborn to get rid of it. So. On he drives.

    You might think this is where the stars align—where Virgil stumbles his way into a warm cafe from a cold car, where he bumps into his soulmate on first sight, where he knows in an instant that this is where he belongs, that this new place is the home he was always meant to find.

    You would be wrong.

    “Damn broken phone,” Virgil scowls, shaking his phone as the screen refuses to wake up, despite being at a solid seventy percent. He keeps his gaze toward his shoes and the tiled floor beneath them, pressing the home and lock buttons harder than he probably needs to. “If anyone dares to so much as look at me the wrong way, I am chucking you out the window and letting you electrocute yourself like a tiny toaster in the rain.”

    “—Upside down, iced, and pick your poison for the milk,” the person waiting at the register is saying, leaning forward as if they have all the time in the world. Virgil’s frown deepens as the person starts to socialize with the barista.

    “Ah, Roman? I believe there might be someone waiting behind you,” the barista says, their voice carrying over past the pompous person that’s basically a wall at this point. As the guest scuttles away to wait for his drink, the barista beckons Virgil forward, saying, “sorry about him. Never seems to understand that other people occupy this world besides himself.”

    “It certainly would appear that way, wouldn’t it?” Virgil says out of the corner of his mouth, not looking up to meet the barista’s eyes. Regardless of whether they’re the social type, he isn’t about to find out the hard way. The hard way being the only way, of course. Virgil does not want to talk to this person, is what he’s saying. “I’ll just take a small of whatever the cheapest thing you have is that isn’t brewed coffee. Please.”

    “Sure, that’ll be one fifty.”

    “Keep the change.” Virgil passes over the first crumpled bill he can find in his pocket—a five—and moves for a table around the corner of the bar to wait. According to that regular, the baristas here are competent enough to hunt down the guests when their drinks are done. So. Hiding around the corner. His modus operandi.

    The worn chair at a table for two is more than welcoming enough, offering a decent view of the crying clouds outside and the over-soaked flowers decorating the windowsill. Virgil dusts off the plum colored seat, which probably used to be plush when it was new—at this point, it’s so well-loved that there can’t be more than an inch of fabric separating Virgil’s rear from the wooden underside. He tucks one leg beneath himself, propping the other foot along the reddish brown window edge. The beaten-up greys and purples of his sneakers offer a painful contrast to the flowers, shining dull under the relentless rain.

    “Hey, haven’t seen you here before,” a new voice says. The same guy that was bugging the barista plonks himself down across from Virgil, pressing his nose to the window. What was his name, Ho Man? “Did the rain scare you away from a main chain trash place like Starbucks?” Rather than dignify him with a response, Virgil holds up the too-small black cap he’s supposed to wear to work. Proudly displayed in white stitches is the Starbucks logo. The way Ho Man’s face turns beet red as he fumbles to cover up the mistake is almost enough to make Virgil laugh. Almost. “Okay, wait, I didn’t mean—it’s not like I wanted to—obviously I don’t disrespect your profession—not that it���s like you have to have it! I mean, unless you like it, but I didn’t want to assume—that’s what they always say about assuming, isn’t it, ass out of you and me, right?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Okay, yeah, yeah, cool! I, uh, I’m just gonna—I’m gonna go sit over there now.” Ho Man jabs his thumb back over his shoulder, loudly scraping his chair back under the table as he stumbles over his own feet in a mad scramble for the front area of the cafe.

    “He seems fun,” Virgil mumbles to himself, resting his chin on a knee and pressing his forehead to the window. Out in the parking lot—if you can even call it that, it’s basically just ten rectangles that happen to be outlined in white—his car looks incredibly crowded in. Neon blue trapped by dark greys and flat reds, all of them reduced to shields sending rain shooting to the concrete.

    A few tables away, Ho Man has plonked himself at a bigger table, facing off with someone turned away from Virgil. They certainly seem to be in deep conversation about something, but Virgil doesn’t care enough to figure out what, much less elaborate on it. To drown out the light conversation of a considerable amount of quiet patrons around him, he digs his laptop out of his shoulder bag and unfolds it on the table. In any fantasy story he’s ever imagined, this is probably the part where his one true love appears in the vacant chair across from him, reaching out to close the laptop and reveal sparkling blue eyes that dance like the stars on a dark and clear night.

    Yeah, no thanks.

    “There you go, cheapest thing we’ve got that isn’t brewed coffee,” the barista says, appearing very much in Virgil’s field of view to hand over a ceramic mug decorated with tinier cups in every shade of blue and purple. “Apple cider with cinnamon and caramel.”

    “That’s the cheapest thing you’ve got?” Virgil sputters in disbelief. “That’s, like, four bucks at a chain place.”

    “I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized we were on par with a ‘chain place,’” the barista replies, making air quotes around the words. “Anyway, make sure you return the mug when you leave. If you take it with you, bring it back next time for a refill, five cent discount.”

    “Seriously? Cool,” Virgil says, reaching for the mug as the barista turns away. “Seems like a good way to encourage people to steal the mug if you ask me, but alright.” The barista hesitates, looking from the bar to Virgil and back. No guests demanding service. Without asking permission or begging forgiveness, the barista slips into the seat across from Virgil. “Yeah, sure, have a seat.” Virgil closes his laptop, bringing the mug to his lips.

    “So I’m not even going to ask whether this is your first time, since it’s pretty obvious,” the barista says. “For one, you didn’t even make eye contact when you ordered your drink, which, okay, rude, and for another, you don’t know the system with the mugs, not to mention that you didn’t even say hi to—”

    “Yeah, yeah, cool, great, can I just enjoy my cheap drink in peace here?” Virgil interrupts. He certainly wouldn’t admit it if this guy asked, but it’s better than what they make at Starbucks. “Yes, my first time, I don’t like eye contact, I certainly don’t like conversation—actually, come to think of it, I have a long list of dislikes, and you are quickly working your way to the top. Please go away.”

    “My name’s Remy.” The barista sticks his hand out, prompting Virgil to merely stare at it with thinly veiled disdain until he retracts it with an awkward laugh. “I run this place with my brother, since he bought the building when the lister needed to move before the taxes got too high, and he pulled me in on the deal for my sparkling charisma—”

    “Of which you have none.”

    “—and because he likes dealing with the numbers more. He’s actually sitting right over—”

    “Don’t care. Why are you sitting here?” Remy wags a finger at Virgil, biting his lower lip and puffing out his cheeks. “Spring a leak much?”

    “Mostly ’cause I was bored. You seem interesting, I don’t know. Thought I could educate you on the mystical ways of how we don’t go bankrupt from people stealing our mugs.”

    “Okay, yeah, sure, cool. Great. Educate away. Special tip, though? You kind of suck at educating so far. Like, a lot.”

    “Noted. We’re small enough that we don’t get many guests, and the ones that come in pretty often usually have their own mugs reserved. Picked yours out for you when I saw you walk in. Brand new, never used. Just for you. So special.”

    “Alright, let’s lay off the dramatically short sentences, Mettaton. You still haven’t convinced me why I should care.”

    “I mean, I think you’re cute, so there’s that. Anyway, we use the same mugs for our regulars, and we get so few one-timers that we barely ever lose a cup. Even when we do, they normally come back out of guilt for keeping the cup, and get another drink at a crap discount. That’s our motto, you know? Come for the guilt, stay for the five cents you save. Well, not really our motto. We don’t have a motto. I’ve always wanted one, but we never set one in stone, since my brother isn’t exactly into all that stuff. Speaking of which, you wanna meet him? He’s right over—”

    “I do not want to meet your brother,” Virgil says. He shakes his head, trying to force his mind to register Remy’s nonstop babbling. “I literally just want to finish my drink in peace.”

    “You’ll be back,” Remy replies, tapping out a rhythm on the table. “The cute ones always come back.”

    “I have literally never wanted to come back to a place less than I do right now. Please go away.” Finally, miracle of miracles, Remy takes the hint, scraping his chair back and moving for the table where Ho Man is still chatting up whoever it is that probably doesn’t want him there.

    Alone once more, Virgil exhales, scraping off part of the dollop of whipped cream on his drink with a finger. Before the caramel drizzle can drip down his hand, he fwips it off with a sharp inhale, pretending like he doesn’t care that he’d probably be drawing thousands of weird looks if anyone were paying attention. Over at Ho Man’s table, Remy slams his fists down on the tiled surface, making the collection of mismatched mugs bounce around dangerously. Ho Man’s friend relaxes their perfect posture by half an inch before straightening again as Remy leans forward to whisper something. Virgil quickly shifts his focus to stare out the window.

    While the rain seems to finally be letting up, its aftereffects are long from forgotten. Orange tulips and red roses in the distance are wobbling on thin stems, desperately holding onto the last of their leaves as the wind does everything it can to wrench them away. Even the trees are mourning the early summer storm, their overgrown leaves tearing away and drifting across the streets to stick themselves to windows. Virgil fights back the urge to recoil as a particularly large leaf smacks into the other side of the glass, tiny drops of water peeling away to race for the flowerbed below.

    When he lifts the mug to his mouth again, it’s empty. Smalls are always so much smaller than larges. Time to go.

    “Hey, uh, where do I, um…?” Virgil calls to Remy as he moves for the door, lifting his empty cup as indication. “Like, do I just leave it on the table, or…?”

    “Just keep it,” Remy replies, waving off Virgil’s annoyed sigh. “Seriously, keep it.”

    “Seriously, no.” Rather than take the mug and run, which would be immensely gratifying if it were, you know, actually against the rules, he deposits it on the island with cream and sugar for coffee. Dammit, even their carts are nicer than the crappy little nothings that Starbucks has.

    “See you later?” Remy yells as Virgil wills the door to close faster behind him.

    “Maybe. Probably not, but maybe.” Before the bell over the door frame has even finished chiming, Virgil is already at his car, not bothering to dodge the few remaining raindrops. “Weirdo. Hate to see how much of a disaster his brother is.”

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

    “How long, exactly, did you talk to that poor guy?” Remy appears none too impressed by the question, much less the implication of how annoying he probably was to said poor guy.

    “Look, bro, he looked lonely, I thought I’d just pop in on his day and—”

    “And encourage him to leave my cafe without taking the mug for a discount next time? Try harder to cover for yourself. And stop calling me ‘bro,’ it makes you sound like a teenager.”

    “Alright, Logan,” Remy retorts, letting the mocking tone dangle in the air, “FYI, I am a teenager, so lay off for a hot sec, why don’t you?”

    “I would rather not. Don’t use acronyms out loud, you sound like a preteen. You turned twenty last week. Roman, kindly refrain from displaying the inside of your mouth like that.”

    “Dude, what? Happy birthday, man! Why didn’t you tell me?” Roman demands, leaning his elbows on the table and forcefully inserting himself into a conversation where he’s decidedly not welcome.

    “I’m having a surprise party for myself,” Remy hisses in a stage whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, Logan thinks I don’t know about it.”

    “I am not planning you a surprise party,” Logan says. “There is literally not one person planning you a surprise party, in this cafe or otherwise. Go help that next guest, I never said you could take a break for this long, anyway.”

    “You aren’t the boss of me,” Remy grumbles, crossing his arms and slouching lower in his chair.

    “Technically, I am, having been the one to buy the place, not to mention that I was born first. Go help the next guest.” Logan rolls his eyes as Remy trudges over to the bar, a completely different demeanor washing over him like a wave as he steps behind the register and turns into a cheerful mannequin. Shifting his focus back to Roman, Logan presses his glasses up higher on his nose and releases a low, steady, frustrated groan.

    “Talk to me, man, what’s goin’ on?” Roman asks. “Are you really that mad that what’s-his-nuts didn’t take his mug? You didn’t even pick it out, Remy did.”

    “Mmm, no, that’s not it.” Logan rubs his knuckles against a sore spot on his forehead, considering Roman’s earnest look. “We haven’t been doing too well in sales lately, not that many new guests coming in, much less any of them returning for the discount, and I’m still waiting on your list of ideas for how to make myself more welcoming.”

    “Well, for one, don’t dump all your emotional baggage on the first person to ask.” Roman waves his hands quickly as Logan moves to get up, trying to fan whatever flames of frustration are boiling in his brain. “Kidding! Kidding, I am totally, completely, legit-ly kidding.”

    “Legitimately.”

    “Tomato, potato.”

    “To-mah-to.”

    “I’m pretty sure it’s tomato. Anyways, I did draw up that list for you, which, objectively, is the literal best thing in existence ever to be created. In existence. Ever. Objectively.” To be perfectly frank, Logan is incredibly close to shutting the cafe down and locking himself in the fridge to cool down, both literally and figuratively. Nevertheless, he endures, propping his chin on his fist and sighing heavily as Roman draws a stack of bent and ruffled papers out from who-knows-where. At the very least, if Roman’s antics don’t put him out of business, he’ll be able to end the month with a bang. Maybe.

    Roman smooths out the uppermost pages on the tiled table, letting the bottom sheets flare out like a background for the top nonsense. Pointing to each piece of paper as it comes up,  he fumbles his way through the chaos, periodically looking up to make sure Logan is paying attention. Against better judgement, he is.

    “Okay, so first off, it’s June, right? Pride month, bay-bee! Break out a new collection of mugs—”

    “I am not changing the mugs.”

    “He is not changing the mugs,” Remy seconds, returning from the last guest.

    “Alright, alright, truce, no new mugs. I know you don’t totally go for the pizzazz side of things, but—and hear me out here, just something small—we could put different colors of powder on each drink, like purple sprinkles on a latte can be called a purple drink—”

    “We cannot do that, Starbucks already has pink and violet drinks, and I will not associate with them.” Logan straightens his glasses again, pulling one piece of paper out from beneath the rest. “Are all of these ideas centered around pride month?”

    “No,” Roman grumbles, scraping about half of the papers off the table. “I do think it would be cool if you did pride stuff, though. Show support to everyone.”

    “Me, in particular,” Remy cuts in. “Show some support to my gay ass.”

    “Your ass is trans.”

    “What’s your point?”

    “I guess I don’t have one, Remy. Roman, please, if you would?” Logan gestures with his hand, indicating for Roman to find a new thread of ideas to follow. The watch on his waving wrist boasts of closing time rapidly drawing near, as a solid third of his patrons slowly head for the door, carefully selected mugs clutched between their fingers.

    “Right. Okay, so you said no new mugs, and you said no pride stuff, and you said no fun, so let me just jot that down, and we’ll keep going.”

    “I said no new mugs, I asked for different pride stuff that wouldn’t infringe on corporate coffee franchises, and fun is a subjective measurement on behalf of our patrons. Drop the attitude, or I’m cutting you off.”

    “What? No, I’m your best customer!” Roman whines, wearing a pout for a good few seconds before continuing. “I really do think some nice decorations would probably help the atmosphere, maybe string up some white fairy lights around the ceiling? I know you hate those, but they do wonders for how the interior looks once it’s dark outside. Turn off the main lights, turn on the tiny ones, and bam, you’ve got a fairytale date night. Literally.”

    “I don’t think you know what literally means.”

    “I also think you should hire me. Not with obscenely high pay, I know how frugal you try to be, but Remy and I are basically your best bets for customer service. Let me cover the shifts when he disappears for clubs and stuff, you can make the drinks as precise as you like, and I’ll chat up the guests to keep the drinks coming. If nothing else, it’ll train me for how I should exist in the real world.”

    “You’ve existed in the real world for years without working in a cafe.”

    “What’s your point?”

    Logan is very well aware by this point that the conversation is going nowhere. A few decent ideas, a few pieces of nonsense, and that’s about it. As such, he snaps the piece of paper he already grabbed, watching the top stand at attention at the peak of its arc.

    “I guess I don’t have one. Remy, please, if you would?” Struck by how he’d unintentionally repeated himself, Logan shifts his focus to the paper, blowing a long breath out through puffed cheeks. “We’re supposed to close up soon, and I sincerely do not have the willpower to do it tonight. I have way too many things to deal with behind the scenes, and I can’t just—”

    “Say no more,” Remy interrupts, plucking the paper from Logan’s hands. “Sit here, close your eyes, don’t do anything. I’ll teach Roman how to make your usual.”

    “Seven extra shots,” Logan murmurs, dropping his head to rest on the table. “Actually, make it eight. Please.”

    “Yeah, no, we’re only gonna give him hot tea,” Remy whispers to Roman, dragging him away from the table. A heavy exhale from Logan sends a few more sheets of paper fluttering to the floor. “He doesn’t get caffeine until he can go a full night without waking up to finish whatever piece of work he forgot about.”

    “And you think he can’t tell there’s no espresso in that?” Roman asks, watching Remy move as quietly as possible, considering that he’s dealing with the sound of metal on metal.

    “Oh, no, he can definitely tell. We’re both lying to each other, it’s kind of our thing, you know?”

    “Sounds like a great sibling rivalry.”

    “You could say that. Here, put these gloves on, protects from germs and junk when you’re handling the tea bag.” As the last dredges of guests file out of the cafe, most of them pausing to knock gently on the table in lieu of a soft goodbye to Logan, Remy and Roman fall into an amicable silence.

    “Maybe the pride powder would be fun?” Logan mumbles to himself, dragging his chin to his chest so only his forehead rests on the tiles. “Or I could get some food coloring, dye the whipped creams? We definitely don’t have the funds for colorful cups or anything like that, but maybe I could put a little colored dot on the bottom of each cup, have random chance dictate what color whip they get? But then I might not meet the demands, we could run out of food coloring, run out of whip, it doesn’t let me appeal to vegans or people who abstain from dairy products, not to mention that the color might leech into the actual drink. Maybe the fairy lights, just as a summer thing for softer lighting, quiet hours once they go on, I could probably get some people to do open mic stuff or something, clear out a couple tables…”

    Logan lets his words trail off at the sound of Remy plunking a drink beside his head, and while he knows very well that there’s no caffeine in the cup, he downs the whole thing in one go. Roman appears behind Remy, offering an identical drink in a bigger cup.

    “Whoa, try coming up for air bro—brother of mine. Brother. Is what I was going to say. Was brother. And not bro. Brother.” Remy excuses himself to finish dealing with closing up the bar, letting Roman reclaim his seat across from Logan.

    “Hey, buddy, you want to maybe get home, get some sleep?”

    “Yeah, probably,” Logan mumbles, not lifting his head from the table. “Still got so much to do, though. Barely even touched most of your ideas.”

    “Oh, please, you tore them to shreds!” Logan allows himself the smallest of smiles at that, shaking the back of his head and pressing his forehead deeper into the table. There’s probably a pattern of indents appearing on his skin by now. “And we didn’t even get to the best ones, which you can tackle tomorrow, after you get some sleep.”

    “Get some sleep!” Remy echoes, flitting between the sinks with every possible piece of dishware in the building. “But not at home. Go hang out at Roman’s.”

    Roman splutters indignantly, sending the rest of the papers flying. One lands over Logan’s head like a blanket. He does not remove it. “Why does he have to come to my place?”

    Although he can’t see it happening, Logan would wager a good fifty dollars that Remy has positioned himself atop one of the counters that food doesn’t touch in a dramatic pose. “Because he literally lives at work. Like, the next floor up. He needs to get some distance from this place. Plus, I mean, look at him. I’m not putting him up for the night.”

    “I’m the one paying your rent,” Logan retorts to the floor, watching his heels and toes click together.

    “You’re also the one keeping me awake at three in the morning because you had a sudden idea and are seemingly incapable of restraining yourself from writing with a squeaky marker on a squeaky whiteboard, but no one’s asking me. Just go with Roman. Roman, take him. I am not asking you, I am telling you. Take. Logan.”

    “Taking Logan,” Roman confirms. “Come on, Logan. I, Roman, am taking you, Logan. Onward, to my house, owned by a man named Roman, where I am taking Logan!”

    “Shut up, you goof.” Remy’s semi-humored tone is accompanied by the sound of what is probably a balled-up napkin punting Roman in the head, but Logan still isn’t paying enough attention to see. When he hears Roman’s chair scraping into place, he forces himself to stand on exhausted legs.

    Once he sees Logan steady on his feet, Roman shouts, “dibs on the bed!” and runs for the door. Logan offers a half-hearted wave to Remy before trudging after Roman, wincing against the ringing bell. Sure, the tea was good, but it does absolutely nothing to help his flagging energy.

    “Why would I ever want to take your bed over the couch?” Logan mutters, barely stifling a yawn as he slides into Roman’s bright red car. “Moreover, you knew it was supposed to rain today. Why on earth did you not close your windows?”

    “Because I like how it looks better with the windows down.”

    “I want to make sure that you are aware that we are currently sitting on wet leather, and that your steering wheel is drenched beyond belief. Are you aware that we are currently sitting on wet leather, and that your steering wheel is drenched beyond belief?”

    “I am aware of whatever it is you just said. Now be quiet, I can’t have you talking if I want to see the road.” Logan doesn’t bother to explain just how many levels of incorrect that is, instead reclining in the passenger seat and removing his glasses to watch the lights float by in blurry spirals of red and yellow. “So how ’bout that new guy?”

    “What, the one that Remy assigned a mug to based on first sight? Yeah, no, just another guest. What about him?”

    “Well, super cute, for one, and you’ll never believe this, but he actually works at—” Roman cuts himself off, glancing at a very much asleep Logan. “Alright, fine, I won’t tell you. Let you work it out for yourself.” With that, Roman turns up the radio and hums along quietly, careful to keep the noise low, to let Logan rest. Until tomorrow, at least, when Roman has every intention of screwing with his friends’ love life.

    Come on, you’ve gotta let Roman have some fun.

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

    “Ma’am, I’m sorry, we really don’t have blond espresso beans here, and we don’t have blond roast, and we don’t have decaf roast, as our shipment doesn’t come in ’til tomorrow. Is there anything else we can help you with?” To tell the truth, it is taking every single miniscule last ounce of willpower for Virgil not to vault over this counter and punch the very nice lady in the face.

    “Okay, but could you just do a blond pour over?” The very nice lady seems to be getting very agitated, but Virgil very much does not care. “Like, I get that you don’t have blond roast brewed, but I’m willing to wait for a while for a pour over.”

    Virgil is incredibly close to having to physically restrain himself from saying you’ll have to wait until tomorrow, since that’s when your stupid shipment will come in. Instead, he continues, “Sorry, no, we can’t do that. No blond roast beans.”

    “Yeah, but I’m not asking for blond roast beans. I am asking for a blond pour over.”

    “Pour over machine’s broke,” Virgil finally sighs. Yeah, sure, it just takes a small filter and some hot water, but he doesn’t have the patience for this person, much less to find any missing blond beans. So. Broken and nonexistent machine.

    “Oh, well that’s perfectly understandable!” the very nice lady says. “I’ll just take a medium blond roast, then.”

    Virgil leans over to grab Kim’s shoulder, pulling her closer to hiss in her ear, “if there are any hammers in here, you need to find and hide them immediately, because it will end up inside of this lady’s skull, and it will then find mine in quick succession. Fix her situation, I’ll catch up on the hot bar drinks.” Kim nods quickly, and Virgil is half-convinced that she thinks he’s serious. Maybe he is.

    Nonetheless, he moves past her for the mastrena machine, praying for the end of his shift to come quickly and with reckless abandon. It does not.

    “Grande affogato vanilla bean frap for Jenna?” he calls, handing off the espresso-drenched smoothie. “Thanks, have a nice day.” She probably says something or other about him having a good one,  but Virgil doesn’t even bother pretending to care, already busying himself with the next drink. “Couldn’t’ve possibly picked a better day to start grinding beans slower,” he mutters, wincing against the comparatively louder screams from steaming coconut milk. Of literally all the times for the mastrena to decide that it was being too efficient with the espresso, this is the worst time imaginable—smack dab in the middle of a rush of people, none of whom understand the concept of ‘not having blond espresso.’

    “Venti iced americano in a trenta cup with extra ice for Matthias?”

    The end of his shift literally cannot come fast enough.

    “Okay, dude, I’m really trying here, but I have absolutely no idea what this says,” Virgil informs Kim, showing her the illegible box on the cup. “You need to write the order down, and when you do, you need to make it possible for the most basic computer to decipher.”

    “It’s a salted caramel mocha with two extra shots and almond milk instead of two percent for Tommy,” Kim says. It does not slip Virgil’s notice that she has to squint incredibly close at the cup for a solid five seconds to figure out what it says.

    “Awesome. Great. Try to write it more neatly next time, yeah?” Finding a rare moment of gratefulness for his constantly cold hands, Virgil presses a frozen finger to his temple as he waits for the machine to finish rinsing. Is his shift over yet?

    Miracle of miracles, his boss, Anne, pops her head around the corner of the bar. “Hey, Virge, call for you guys, I’m covering food av, can you take it?” Virgil plasters a fake smile on his face and nods, neglecting to comment on how he never agreed to that nickname as he accepts the phone.

“Gainesville Starbucks north, this is Kim speaking, how can I help you?”

“Breakfast sandwiches.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Breakfast. Sandwiches.”

“I, ah, I apologize, I’m unclear what you’re asking me.”

“Breakfast sandwiches! You got any?”

“Oh! Yes, um, we’ve got tomato mozzarella paninis, sausage egg and cheddar sandwiches, ham and cheese croissants, turkey basil—and they hung up. Cool.” Virgil nods at the dial tone coming from his hand, quirking his mouth to the side. “Just, uh, just gonna stick that right down there.” Dropping the phone on a nearby counter, he returns to the hot bar, where Kim is absolutely drowning in the chaos she caused by sucking so much.

“Virge? Seriously?”

“If you even think about calling me that, I am going to go find that hammer I was talking about and bury it in your spine.” Kim pulls her lips between her teeth and nods, turning back to the register. Sniffing twice, Virgil tops off the next round of drinks. “Salted caramel mocha, two extra shots and almond milk for Tommy?”

“Hey, Virge, over here,” Anne calls again. “Need to see you for a sec.” Virgil bites back a relieved huff for the break from Kim, instead settling for a long exhale through his nose. No, he doesn’t really care for the nickname, but he’ll suffer through it for a brief reprieve like this.

“What’s up?” he asks, leaning over the swinging door. “’Nother phone call?”

“No, it’s just—you’ve got a lot of overtime, you know that?” Virgil glances back at Kim, who is currently occupied with trying to find the serious strawberry frappuccino button.

“Frapp creme, second row, last on the right,” he calls, taking great pride in how he doesn’t roll his eyes at her. Turning back to Anne, he continues, “yeah, I kind of have to have a lot, since she’s kind of, you know…” Virgil trails off, hoping Anne is enough on his page to fill in the blanks.

“Drowning? Yeah, I noticed. You’re doing a great job carrying her, you know that?”

Virgil pokes a tongue against his cheek, unsure how to respond. “I mean, I’ve only been here a couple months.”

“You’re really doing great. Anyway, too much overtime for you, and we aren’t supposed to be letting team members have any overtime. You think you’d be good to head home early?”

“There’s nothing that would make me happier, but are you sure she’ll be okay with this on her own?”

“Definitely not, which is why I’m here. I’ll relieve your position, but you need to get going, like, now.” If Virgil were a more confident person, he would take Anne by both hands and press them to his lips in a show of relieved thankfulness. As it stands, he snaps and offers her a pair of finger guns, skirting the swinging door and making a run for the break room before Anne can change her mind.

“No human has ever existed with a better soul than Anne,” he murmurs, punching out faster than he’d ever done so before. There’s a certain cafe he’s interested in getting to a little earlier today.

In his car, Virgil hisses lightly as he scrapes his bare wrist against the scalding metal of the seat belt buckle. Now safely secured and ready to go, he queues up the route to the cafe on his maps, bopping his head along as a song starts up on the radio. Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, he chants in his head, getting through a solid twenty songs on shuffle before finding one he likes.

The lights of the streets, not yet bright as they battle the sun for dominance over the mid-afternoon sky, pepper the sidewalks with golden flecks between the cracks of beige and white. Virgil tilts his head to avoid the glare of the light reflecting in his eyes, skipping through his chosen song before it’s over. As he flicks on his indicator to pull into the cafe’s parking lot, he belatedly wonders whether the owners will start to think he’s weird for showing up this often. Especially that Remy guy, what was his deal?

This worry chases him past several traffic lights and more than a few disconcertingly fast drivers, right up to pulling into the same parking spot as yesterday—decently far from the doors, but not so far that it’d be a hassle to get there if he happened to be holding seven cups of coffee. He shifts into reverse, triple-checking that he’s perfectly within the lines before parking the car and sliding out.

A cold breeze swipes over his face, startlingly out of place in the mid-June heat. Were it not for this abnormality giving him pause, maybe he would’ve gotten inside safely without drawing the attention of the silver car careening into the parking lot. It beeps brightly as it pulls into the furthest spot from the door, spitting out a driver dressed in bright blues and pale greys.

“Virge, hey, you made it! I was wondering whether you’d ever listened to my suggestions!” he calls, running over to Virgil and ignoring how his loose sleeves smack against his chin. “Find your way okay?”

“I mean, I’m here, so I guess I did.” Virgil shrugs, electing not to comment on the forbidden nickname that he would punch Kim in the face for using again. “And anyway, I always listen to your suggestions. Come here, try your usual—not a fan, by the way—and call you Pat. I’m not really one for nicknames, either, so I’d rather stick with Patton, if that’s okay with you.”

“Whatever makes you happiest!” Patton replies, taking Virgil by the hand and swinging it violently as he leads the barista inside. “So did you get to meet the owner yet, or is this your first time? I can introduce you to—”

“Pantone!” Remy exclaims, vaulting over the register counter to greet Patton. Virgil steps aside, bumping into someone’s shoulders and muttering his apologies as they leave. “I haven’t seen you around here in forever, what the heck, man? Hanging around with the cutest riffraff in town, I see.” Virgil scowls, moving for the register and scanning his eyes over the menus. Handwritten in white chalk, they look much more personal than the ones at Starbucks. Maybe not very colorful, but nice enough.

“Remy, how many times have I told you not to let any part of your body make contact with that counter? It doesn’t know where you’ve been,” someone scolds from a nearby table. The same person Ho Man and Remy were tormenting yesterday. Remy ignores them, still chatting up a storm with Patton. The person sighs, pushing back from a table covered in loose papers and moving to the register.

Virgil sizes them up as they walk, inspecting their carefully strict gait, the tie cinched perfectly around their neck, the strict khakis with only the most uniform of creases. If Virgil didn’t know better, he’d swear they were going out for a job interview at some craphole like Starbucks.

“Sorry about Remy. Little brothers, what can I do, right? What can I get started for you?” Virgil doesn’t answer, his gaze fixated on a speck of dirt marring their sharp glasses. They blink, waiting patiently and having no idea of where Virgil’s attention is directed.

Ho Man appears from around the corner, where only a few other patrons occupy the tables overlooking the windows. “Hey, it’s you! Logan, buddy, he was the guy here yesterday, the one Remy gave the wrong mug to! Wrong mug guy, this is Logan, he runs this joint!”

“Wrong mug?” Virgil repeats.

“Wrong mug,” the new person—Logan, apparently—confirms. “We carefully select mugs based on the person they go to, rather than selecting one at random like Remy does. He refuses to learn the process behind choosing mugs, so whatever he hands you, it’s probably wrong.”

“Sounds about right,” Virgil agrees, glancing back at Remy and Patton, both of whom are staring at him and giggling.

“So what can I get started for you?” Logan repeats. Virgil cocks his head to the side, considering Logan for a long moment.

“Surprise me.” Logan’s steely expression lightens for the briefest of seconds, revealing a soft grin and bright eyes. It vanishes as quickly as it came.

“I’ll have that right out for you.”

Virgil offers a small smile in return, passing over a five dollar bill and waving off Logan as he tries to hand him his change. “Just keep it.”

“We really don’t do tips—”

“Just. Keep it.” Virgil slips around the bar and moves for his seat from yesterday, tucking his legs under himself and watching Remy nudge Patton repeatedly. After a solid few bumps to the back, Patton stumbles forward, bumping into Ho Man as he curbs around the bar to straighten the creamer cart. Distracted by the way Patton’s hands flutter around his face as he talks to Ho Man, Virgil hardly notices Logan until he’s positioned himself in the empty seat across from him.

“Drink it first, then tell me what you think it is.” Logan pushes a mug across the table toward Virgil, careful to keep the motion near the bottom so it doesn’t splash. Unlike the cup covered in cups from yesterday, this one is something Virgil might actually consider stealing, if they hadn’t drained the excitement of doing so by explicitly allowing thievery.

Midnight blue and splattered with tiny white dots, this mug looks to be plucked straight from the heavens themselves. The inside offers a pale blue to offset the darkness folding in at the rim, enveloping the top of the drink’s meniscus in hues to rival the sky. Virgil traces a finger over some of the constellations skirting the outside—bright enough against the blue to be recognizable, but not going so far as to connect the dots with garish straight lines. All in all, a good mug. Maybe he will steal it.

Virgil takes a long, slow pull from the cup, pretending to be deep in thought as Logan stares unabashedly into his eyes. He holds the mug over his mouth a few seconds later, waiting for the flush in his cheeks to subside. Why couldn’t Logan have been the one to take his order yesterday?

Virgil lowers the mug, licking away the drink moustache on his upper lid and pulling his tongue back in with a pop. “First guess?”

“First guess.”

“Green tea latte.”

Logan grins, rapping the table three times. “Nailed it.”

“It’s ’cause I’m a genius,” Virgil says, lifting the mug once more. This Logan guy might keep some strange company, but he can make a mean green tea latte. “Eleven out of ten, would order again.”

“That’s an improper fraction,” Logan mutters, but there’s a gleam dancing behind his eyes. The bell chimes over the door, drawing Virgil’s attention to where Ho Man and Patton look to be in a particularly compromising position. With Patton flattened against the door and Ho Man hovering closer than necessary, Virgil can only watch as Remy appears out of nowhere, shoving Ho Man forward without warning. Logan releases a breathy laugh as he watches the debacle—moreover, as he watches Ho Man thrust his hands out to brace himself on the wall, as well as caging Patton in around the shoulders by doing so. If this were a romance movie, they’d probably start kissing right about now.

As it is, Ho Man stammers out some excuse, cheeks almost as red as the roses smattered his white shirt. Patton only smiles back widely, not moving from the wall. If Virgil didn’t know better, he’d swear his eyes were delirious. Maybe he doesn’t know better.

“I see you understand the nonsense I’m forced to endure around here,” Logan says. “With Roman being a flirt and Remy being the charming everyman, I do pretty much everything myself. Any tips on how to better survive it?”

Virgil blinks, unsure why Logan decided to dump all this on him. At least he knows what Ho Man’s actual name is now. Full disclosure, Virgil’s gonna miss calling him Ho Man. “I don’t know that I’m your best bet for help running a small coffee shop.”

Logan huffs something close to a laugh, gnawing on the corner of his lip. “Not a problem, I’m just uncertain where to go from here, and they’re being of little help. All they’ve done is force me to get sleep and toss a couple papers about pride at me, and that’s hardly a reliable way of forming a more successful business.”

“Sleep is important,” Virgil says. “I can’t speak from experience, but I’ve heard a lot of people say so.” Still midway through processing Logan’s words, his mind catches on a certain piece of information. “Did you say papers about pride?”

“Indeed, Roman thinks I ought to spruce the place up for pride month, and he’s even managed to pull Remy into the idea. You’re welcome to help, if you want to, but there’s no obligation on your end.”

“Sounds fun,” Virgil admits, raising the cup again and startling himself as he finds it empty. “I’ll take a look, if you want to show me those papers. Oh, by the way, my name is Virgil, in case I haven’t said that yet.”

“Virgil,” Logan repeats, testing the word and rolling it around his mouth. He peels his lower lip out slowly, savoring the V, puckering his lips out around the R and letting his tongue hesitate against his teeth on the L. “It’s a pleasure. I’m sure one of the other two said it at some point or another, but I’m Logan.”

“Logan,” Virgil confirms. “So, Logan, about those pride papers and this empty mug?”

Logan stands, somehow managing not to scrape his chair as he pushes it back. Virgil attempts a similarly graceful move, wincing at the grating sound of metal on tile. “Let me get that mug from you and I’ll fill you up—do not even think about handing me another five, this one is on the house, and I am returning your three dollars and fifty cents at my first opportunity. These papers, disorganized and chaotic as they are, are the only things we’ve got in the way of ideas to drum up more business.”

Virgil seats himself at the cluttered table, grabbing a sheet at random and letting the distant clanks of Logan behind the bar fill his head. Stuff about colored whipped cream—probably too expensive, not to mention non-vegan friendly, and powdered sugar colors—kind of similar to Starbucks with their colored drink gimmicks, which doesn’t seem like Logan’s style. He pauses on the mention of white fairy lights, glancing around the room and imagining how they might look framing the windows. Maybe a little too winter-holiday for mid June, but the tackiness could very well add to the overall charm of the place. Certainly a warmth that overcrowded Starbucks stores could never hope to have. Or they could line the windows in different colors, if Logan really does want to keep with the whole pride thing, or else—

“Try that, tell me what you think,” Logan says, plunking the blue mug on one of very few clear spaces between the papers. Virgil complies, poking his tongue at a crooked front tooth as he considers the flavor.

“Tastes like cinnamon, but that’s all I’ve got.”

“Cinnamon and almond milk latte, one of our most popular drinks,” Logan confirms.

“You don’t get called out for it being too similar to the one Starbucks does?” Logan goes deathly still, an expression somewhere between fury and shock freezing on his face.

“We are nothing like Starbucks here, and I’m going to pretend you didn’t just compare me to that steaming pile of garbage.” Virgil nods, deciding this probably isn’t the best time to inform Logan about his own line of work. “Anything good come out of that disaster?”

“Maybe.” Virgil takes another swig from his mug, running his tongue over his lips and humming to himself. “The colored powders and whipped creams seem kind of impractical, but the lights and quiet-hour thing doesn’t seem to bad. You could do soft pastels for a warmer tone around the room as a whole, and different colors around each window to fit pride month. I don’t know about open mic, since that’s a lot to organize, but maybe use that empty corner on the other side of the door for some little bookshelves and comfy chairs, have a chill zone when the lights go down and the moon comes up? Oh, and this is definitely just a suggestion, so you don’t, like, have to do it, or anything like that, but it might be cool if you changed up the colors of your menu signs, so they weren’t all just white and plain. You could do one board in blue and purple and pink for bi, and another in purple and yellow and white for nonbinary, and another in pink and yellow and blue for pan, and then do a bunch of little drink drawings on all of them in every color to represent gay pride as a whole?” Virgil bites his lip, suddenly realizing that Logan is staring intently at him. Again.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to��I mean, I wasn’t trying to—you don’t have to do all that, obviously, and it’s not like I’m forcing you to, and I wasn’t trying to—” Virgil cuts himself off, ducking his head down and hiding his face behind his mug.

“No, no, that’s great, really, I love those ideas,” Logan stammers, waving his hands frantically to shake away Virgil’s hesitation. “They’re splendid, exactly what I was looking for.” Virgil nods quickly, not coming out from behind his mug. Logan places a hesitant hand on Virgil’s shoulder, trying to offer some semblance of comfort. Against his own volition, Virgil leans into the touch, tilting his head toward Logan’s knuckles before he can stop himself. The moment his ear grazes the back of Logan’s hand, he jerks out of the seat, spilling the rest of his mug all over his work-mandated khakis.

“Oh, jeez, oh man, I mean, shoot, crap, okay, I just, I’m just gonna go,” Virgil rambles, stumbling for the door and clutching his unwittingly emptied mug tightly in his shaking fingers. Before Logan can even think about calling after him, he’s behind the wheel of his car and careening out of the parking lot, already berating himself for being such a dork.

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

“Where’d Wrong Mug Man go?” Remy asks, popping his head over the bar as he pauses midway through restocking the milk fridge. “Scare him off with your utter lack of charm and cold exterior?”

“A little too on the nose,” Roman calls out from his usual spot in the corner. Well, not ‘usual,’ per se—Roman can barely tolerate staying in the same place for more than a week before moving on for bigger, better seating options. He’s had much the same opinion regarding boys for as long as Logan can remember, and the selection of the week seems to be Patton on the windowsill with the Toy Story clouds mug. Practically a real-life version of Clue, with romantic motives to boot.

Remy finger guns at Roman and ducks back down to finish with the fridge. Logan blinks, the exchange flying past him as he tries to come up with a reason for Virgil’s sudden disappearance. The first person to choose his flatter tones over his brother’s exuberance, and they run away like an owl from a forest fire in the middle of Canada.

Logan has never been one for analogies.

He reaches across the counter, startling Remy in the process as he grabs for a clean rag and sanitizing spray. In no less than five minutes, the spilled latte is gone without a trace. At least Virgil took the mug with him—if nothing else, he’ll come back to return it. Maybe even to use it for that discount—not that Logan would charge him. Virgil doesn’t seem like the type to acquiesce not to pay, but Logan is the owner, so what’s to stop him from making every drink free for the short instances when Virgil shows up?

“Roman,” Logan says, “what are the odds you have some colored chalk you don’t need?”

“Fifteen out of three,” Roman calls back, not looking up from the phone tucked in his lap. Across from him, Patton mirrors the position, curled into the corner of the windowsill—not strictly a real seat, but they both seem to be making do well enough.

“So five?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. I’ve got, like, a whole crate full of art supplies that I can’t use, because someone told me not to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming the next Leonardo Dicaprio.”

“Da Vinci. And I would hardly phrase it like that—I merely suggested that, were you to aim for realism, it might be wise to avoid giving your elephants tails for trunks and trunks for tails.”

“Stop stifling my creative energy!”

“Stop stifling his creative energy,” Patton echoes. Oddly enough, Logan doesn’t feel that familiar urge to roll his eyes as he watches Roman glance up from under a curtain of bangs, staring at an oblivious Patton. He’s never looked at one of his weekly obsessions like that before. Or maybe he has, Logan doesn’t pay very much attention to that sort of thing.

“The point being, you do have colorful chalk, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because I need some. Bring it in with you tomorrow, if you would be so kind.”

For reasons Logan doesn’t care to puzzle out, Roman tumbles off the windowsill, jumping to his feet and brushing off his knees as he rushes to Logan’s side. “Or,” he whispers excitedly, bouncing on his toes and waving his hands around his face, “I could run home and get them now! I could even go out to a store, buy more stuff you didn’t know you needed, spruce the whole place up! Patton could come with me!”

Patton’s head perks up at this revelation, and he pockets his phone before joining the other two. Even Remy leans over the bar, half-intruding on the conversation as he waits for the next guest to decide what they want. Logan crosses his arms, considering Roman’s eagerness.

“You know very well that I don’t trust you to decorate my cafe to your tastes, much less on your own dime.” Glancing at the menus in plain black and white, Logan does have to admit they look, well, plain. Boring. Virgil wasn’t wrong when he said they might look better with more colors. And yes, Logan would greatly prefer having Virgil here to coach him on how to properly execute the pride color schemes—Logan’s never been one for art—but Patton doesn’t seem totally hopeless. “Tell you what. I’ll close up early tonight, and us three can all go out and stock up on decorations. Keep the place closed tomorrow, and we’ll plan out how to make it look best to ramp up business.”

“Excuse you,” Remy cuts in, “but I think you mean us four. Don’t go excluding me from the party.”

“Who said you were invited?” Logan retorts. Roman stifles a snort behind his fist as Patton’s jaw drops in startlingly believable dismay.

“Logan! We have to take Remy with us, he brings half the fun! It wouldn’t be as exciting without him there!”

“Who said I wanted it to be exciting?” Logan mutters to himself, shooting a quick look toward the back of the cafe. Pretty empty, save for a couple patrons here and there nursing at their personal mugs. Casting his eyes to the ceiling, Logan pulls in a long breath through his nose, blowing it out through his lips and wondering why Virgil couldn’t be here to endure this nonsense with him. Immediately thereafter, he wonders why he wonders that. He didn’t even know Virgil’s name yesterday, why is he so set on having him here now?

Remy and Patton’s hopeful expressions drag him back to the moment—specifically, the moment where Logan is being forced to take three overgrown toddlers on a shopping spree to decorate the building that makes up his entire livelihood. No pressure.

“I am definitely going to regret this,” Logan sighs. Pretending as if he hadn’t said that, he continues, “fine, I guess Remy can accompany us. No candy, though—we don’t need to be buying food when we already have some upstairs.”

“Aha, but I have tips!” Remy declares, shaking a paper cup full of coins. “I’m gonna buy so many peanuts with these.”

“Explain how,” Roman says.

“Do not explain how,” Logan says. Not allowing either of them the chance to finish their charade, Logan turns to Patton. “You walked in with Virgil, didn’t you? Do you two know each other?”

“Something like that. I’m a frequent customer where he works.” This catches Logan’s attention. A direct pipeline to the owl that got away.

Again, Logan has never been one for analogies.

“Where does he work?”

A mischievous glint takes residence in Patton’s eye as he nudges Roman’s shoulder.  The latter snickers quietly, nudging right back as the former gets out between giggles, “that’s just something you’re gonna have to figure out on your own. The answer will shock you.”

“If he works as a clickbait journalist for Buzzfeed, I am banning both you and him from this establishment.”

“He does not work as a clickbait journalist for Buzzfeed, but you’ll never guess what he does instead!” Roman hisses in an action-star voice. “This summer, coming directly to your screens, and coming soon to own on video and DVD—” He drops his tone to an impossibly deep register while ramping up his volume, drawing the attention of pretty much everyone in the room. Patton and Remy join in on the tagline, both yelling at the top of their lungs.

“Are you quite finished?” Logan asks, wholly unimpressed. Having failed to get so much as a huff of acknowledgement, the other three sigh dejectedly and nod. “Good. Remy, finish cleaning up behind the bar. Roman, can you wipe down the tables and start stacking chairs? Patton, I know you don’t work here, but—”

“On it,” Patton interrupts, already moving toward the back to gently rouse the student that fell asleep doing their homework at a table. Morally, Logan has no problem letting people stay as long as they like, even if they don’t buy anything, but it’s a little more difficult to be lenient about that sort of thing when he’s closing up the cafe. He turns his attention back to the papers scattered across the table as the other three flit about their respective tasks, and wonders whether Virgil might try to come back tomorrow. If they close the cafe for renovations, would he even get out of his car? Or would the lack of business  and other patrons scare him off? Maybe Logan should position the other three at various seats in the back as he does all the work himself, making it look like he kept the place open so Virgil would still come in, without being terribly obvious about that being his goal all along. Of course, that brings up the inevitable he knows that I know that he knows situation, but it’s not as if—

“Hello? Earth to Logan? Paging alien squadron fleet two K four one nine oh?” Roman waves a hand in front of Logan’s face, pulling him out of his head. Before him is the only unwashed table in the cafe, still littered with papers that have yet to be picked up. The  only page that managed to find its way into Logan’s arms is the one Virgil was talking about when he made additional suggestions. Logan blinks, gathers up the rest in a haphazard bundle, and steps back to let Roman finish his cleaning.

“Can I drive?” Remy asks. He slides around the bar, dusting his hands off on his pants and tossing a dirty rag over the lip of the sink.

“We need to get you an apron,” Logan replies absently, eyeing the gathering dirt stains on Remy’s thighs.

“I didn’t hear a no!” Remy singsongs, tilting his head to lean against Logan’s shoulder. The top of the mess of hair tickles along the crook where his jaw meets his earlobe, and Logan blinks as his mind unhelpfully conjures an image of Virgil in the same position under a blanket of stars. Where on Earth did that come from?

“No, you cannot drive. Give me Roman’s car keys.”

Roman emits an unholy shriek, somewhere between miffed and scandalized that Remy had managed to steal the keys to his soccer mom car. Granted, those things basically live in various spots around the cafe as it is, but still. Groaning in a pitiful attempt at getting sympathy, Remy tosses the jingling chain to Logan, who snatches them out of the air with ease. Before the owner of said keys can protest, Logan passes them on to him, biting back a laugh as Roman instinctively ducks.

“Hey! No dangerous projectiles in the house!” Roman whines. The keys hit the door and clatter to the tiles below.

“Not a house, and you don’t make the rules here, anyway.” Logan wisely keeps his gaze elsewhere as Patton makes his way to the door, grabbing the keys to pass them to Roman. Of course, the windows are reflective surfaces—this unfortunate reality fails to protect Logan from having to see how Patton’s hand lingers a moment too long on Roman’s. Honestly, the whole point of looking away was to not have to deal with their nonsense in the first place. “Let’s go.”

Lingering at the back of the group, Logan lets the other three exit before him, double- and triple-checking that everything is off, unplugged, cleaned up, closed, and generally in various states of presentable. The last thing he needs right now is for his life’s savings to literally go up in flames. Well, not his life’s savings. He’s got some common sense—everything he hasn’t spent is carefully accumulating interest in various reputable banks. So. The expendable portion of his life’s savings. That’s what he doesn’t want to go up in flames.

“What happened to ‘let’s go,’ sonny boy?” Roman calls, popping his head back in the door and making the bell chime. Logan tilts his head, wondering if anyone would ever question why he picked that bell in particular to greet his guests.

“I’m older than you.”

“Patton dared me to call you kiddo, but I thought mine was funnier,” Roman admits.

“I’m older than Patton, too.”

“You didn’t even tell me Patton’s name until last week!”

“Ever heard of barista-guest confidentiality?”

“No, because it doesn’t exist. Now hurry up and get in the car, or we’re tying you to the roof and I’m letting Patton use the backseat as his own personal lounge area.”

Tossing a sigh to the ceiling and casting one last glance at the way his cafe was always meant to be—before everyone else barges in to redecorate for him—Logan follows Roman out.

He slides into the back on the passenger’s side, not voicing his apprehension at Patton taking the front seat. That’s Remy’s seat, he thinks. Remy doesn’t seem to mind, though, already pressing his nose to the window and bouncing on the worn cushion.

“Seatbelt,” Logan reminds his brother—and the car as a whole, he supposes, as even Roman jolts to comply. “I am hereby imposing a price limit of one hundred dollars on this excursion. Anything over that will be coming off of your dime.”

“I don’t even—” Roman begins, but Logan isn’t having any of it.

“I know, I know, you don’t even work for me, but if you want to? And you want to help, shall we say, ‘spruce up the place,’ you will refrain from exceeding my budget, lest you pay the overages.”

    “If we go to the place on the corner of Eighth and Main, I’ve got an employee discount for ten percent,” Patton offers.

    “By the Texaco?” Roman punches the coordinates into the car, tapping his foot impatiently as Siri attempts to connect with his dwindling internet connection.

    “You really ought to know your way around the town by now,” Logan opines. “You’ve been to the Texaco more times than Remy’s flirted with my guests.”

    “Shut up, Logan!” Remy hisses. Were his face not pressed against the window and his shoulders hunched defensively, Logan is certain his comment would be rewarded with cheeks glittering ruby.

    “Got it!” Roman exclaims, punching the roof. “And I refilled the tank a couple days ago, which means no gas money going into this excursion! Can I get a what what?”

    “You cannot,” Logan says.

    “What what,” Patton agrees.

    “Plus,” Roman continues, shifting into drive and doing a mediocre job of backing away from the building, “with the discount, just think of how much more stuff we can get!”

    “Yay.” Logan has never known his own voice to be more flat. He glances up just in time to see Patton shoot him an apologetic look, mouthing the word sorry. He smiles as he does it, though, so Logan isn’t completely convinced of Patton’s regret.

    The excited conversation of the other three fills up the car as Logan lets his gaze drift out the window, watching the bright greens of summer flash by in bursts between the blemishes of humanity’s invasion upon the world. Traffic lights, street signs, lampposts, telephone lines, couches at curbs, discarded plastic bags, crushed coffee cups, dead patches of grass, cracked squares of concrete, buildings crawling for the skies and stretching to escape the natural world without which they could never dream of existing.

    Logan does not particularly care for the overdevelopment of what used to be a homey nook of nature around his cafe. He can hardly see the stars at night anymore, what with all the city lights pulling his eyes to the ground.

    “Beep beep!” Roman announces, punching the roof again before slipping out of the car.  Logan blinks, suddenly realizing they’d already arrived at the store. Time to suffer.

    “One hundred dollars,” he reminds the others. His words fall on deaf ears as they all sprint for the doors, chattering excitedly amongst themselves about color schemes and bargaining and how to make the most of spending every last dime they can squeeze out of Logan’s pockets. More to himself than anyone else, he murmurs, “I bet Virgil would understand the significance of imposing a spending limit before getting surprised with an obscenely high total crowning the receipt.”

    “Come on,” Remy groans, doubling back to grab Logan’s wrist. Patton and Roman have already vanished, probably traipsing through the birthday party aisles for decoration ideas. “At least pretend you’re having fun, yeah? Show some enthusiasm for Virgil’s ideas, I bet he’d love that.”

    “When did he tell you his name?”

    “He didn’t. You used it when you asked Patton where he worked.”

    “Where does he work?”

    “If you push the price limit up to two fifty, maybe I’ll tell you.”

    “Maybe I’ll stop letting you accept tips.”

    Remy’s eyes widen slightly at that, and he wobbles on his toes before running the rest of the way to the door, waving his hands over his head. “La la la, I can’t hear you, I’m too fast for the sound barrier to keep up!”

    “That’s not how—oh, whatever,” Logan mutters. Hands in his pockets, he dips a chin to the greeters just inside the door and maintains a leisurely pace, waiting for his friends to reveal themselves. Admittedly, he’s a little impressed when he sees them next—they’ve managed to avoid getting covered in streamers and sparkles. So far, at least. Unfortunately for Logan, the night is still young.

    “Hey, what about these?” Patton asks, grabbing a pack of pride-themed playing cards from an end cap display.

    “How are those supposed to drum up business?”

    Patton shrugs, turning the cards over in his hand. “I dunno, they just look neat.”

    “Make it a puzzle,” Roman suggests, picking up a matching set. “Have different fun facts about pride history written on cards from one set, but keep out a piece of important information. Someone finds a card and can tell you the answer without having to look it up, they get a card from the deck you didn’t write on. Get a full suit, get a prize. Maybe they get all the diamonds, then they get to name a drink after themselves. Get all the hearts, they can save ten cents instead of five.”

    Logan has to admit, it isn’t the worst idea Roman’s ever come up with. The worst was probably that time with the stuffed sheep, the empty ramen cup, and the half-eaten ring pop. He shudders at the memory before relenting. “How much for a pack?”

    Patton glances at the sticker on the side, sucks a sharp inhale through his teeth, and sets the deck back where he found it. “More than it’s worth, even with the discount. Come on, I know where the shelf is for stuff we’re trying to get rid of. It’s hidden in the back so we can make more money, but who ever had fun paying full price?”

    “I did, back when it meant doing less damage to my cafe,” Logan grumbles. Nevertheless, he follows dutifully behind, stifling a snort as Roman grabs Patton’s hand and they skip—literally skip—down the aisles. Every few steps, one yanks the other to a stop, cooing over some toy or game meant to catch the eye of passing toddlers. Remy’s eyes sparkle, and he leans over to Logan when he thinks the other two aren’t listening.

    “You know,” he whispers, “I like this one a lot more than Roman’s other flings.”

    “They’ve barely been talking for more than a few days,” Logan retorts, careful to keep his voice low. “You cannot place all your eggs in the basket when the eggs don’t even exist yet.”

    “You lost me, but seriously, bro, look at them.” Tutting to himself, Logan watches the way Roman’s eyes catch on Patton more often than they catch on bargain bin attractions. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe you don’t see it.”

    “That’s hardly any of my business. All I care about is how much they’re making me spend. And what did I tell you about that ridiculous nickname? It isn’t even original.”

    “Nothing’s original, not even originality,” Remy fires back. “A redux of something that already exists is way more fun than not doing it in the first place. Or would you rather have me tell Virgil the real reason you opened up the cafe?”

    Logan yanks Remy to a stop by the neck of his shirt, balling the fabric up in his fists. “If you do that, then so help me, I will have you shipped back home faster than you can spit out that infernal nickname, and you will never set foot in my cafe again.” Remy blinks, laughs, and bops Logan’s nose.

    “I bet Virgil would think you’re cute when you get all angry like that.”

    “That’s not—I don’t—shut up!” Logan sputters. The epitome of elegance.

    When Logan’s first instinct upon releasing Remy is to wonder whether Virgil would think he looked cute like that, he knows he is well and truly screwed.

    Elegance, indeed.

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

    Virgil’s current favorite shift is opening. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he shows up at the ass crack of dawn for work. A solid hour by himself to get the bar set up to his liking, to work in silence without worrying about angry guests, and the knowledge that he’ll be out by noon. The turning stomach of too little sleep is certainly less than ideal, but he’s lying to himself about liking being here this early. Cut him some slack.

    “Just fire her already,” he mutters to himself, moving faster than he’d like to as he restocks the pastries. Not for the first time, Natalia closed last night, and she never does any of the shift’s duties right. Case in point, the expired pastries still being in the serving zone. The milk fridge being barren. Having less than three whips. Forgetting the refresher shaker lid in the washing machine—still dirty, mind you. Not wiping down the tables before stacking the chairs. Not washing the half and half from the little cart. A quick sniff reveals the insides to be well past curdled.

    You know, maybe Virgil just wants to gripe in general about the incompetence of his fellow team members, and it really has nothing to do with the quality of his workplace experience.

    Or it could be that he’s still reeling from the ridiculous note he left Logan on yesterday. That is a very strong possibility.

    Glancing at the clock on the register he has yet to open, Virgil weighs his options. He can either sprint for the milk fridge and pray there’s enough left to restock, or he can stay up here and try to straighten up the place for the off chance that corporate shows up and tears Anne a new one. Though he likes Anne well enough, he’d rather face the consequences of corporate’s wrath than deal with pissed-off customers who can’t have their precious two percent milk.

    Just his luck—the stock fridge is empty. This is the moment Virgil’s mind chooses to remind him that today is Monday, and that they’re supposed to be getting a shipment in later. So no half and half, no two percent, no heavy whipping cream, and an insatiable desire to go home before the whole ‘interacting with the public’ part of his shift has even started.

    As the clock ticks over to eight, his boss’s boss’s boss, Stephen, walks over with his usual fistful of crumpled singles. Virgil doesn’t even bother asking for his numbers, already keying in the discount and punching the order into the register. In the amount of time it takes him to start lingering on yesterday’s disaster, Stephen’s usual—grande mocha, no whip—is already done and gone. Whether this is because Virgil is fast with making drinks or because he’s very adamant about the masochism of reliving embarrassment is open for debate.

    Seriously, what was that? Logan puts a hand on his shoulder and gravity decides to be a little bitch, dragging Virgil’s head to the side to lean on a basic stranger? Naturally followed by the most logical reaction—dumping his entire drink all over himself. Yesterday was the first day he wore those pants after their wash, too; he can usually get three or four days out of a pair before they need to be cleaned. What a waste.

    One singular glimmer of positivity in the hellscape that is the opening shift, though, is how much faster it seems to go by on Mondays. When the mid shows up, they vanish to the back to take care of the order, so Virgil basically has the bar to himself for four hours, then the fifteen minutes of dealing with the other mid. All the better to suffer through his own blunders in peace.

    At least it’s a slower stream of guests.

    “I’ll take a trenta very berry, but with all the kinds of berries in it,” some guy with a greasy man bun says, strolling up and scrolling through his phone. Virgil nods, keying it in and going through the usual polite spiel while he waits for him to pay.

    “Anything else for you?”

    Man Bun glances up from texting, raking his eyes over the purple fading from Virgil’s bangs. “Yeah, can I also get extra blackberries—”

    “Sure.”

    “—and your number?”

    “No. Five twenty-nine.” Virgil turns his back to the register as Man Bun sets about dealing with his credit card, and wonders whether this guy’ll be a nuisance for him as he finishes the drink. “Trenta very berry, extra blackberries, have a good one.”

    Man Bun takes the cup, tearing off the straw wrapper and throwing it on the floor. Literally, the garbage can is, like, right there, dude. Don’t be an ass. “So I seriously don’t have a chance with you?”

    “Definitely not.”

    “What, are you not gay? I mean, with the hair, and with—”

    “I’m gay, just not for you. Have a good one.” To escape any further annoying questions, Virgil vanishes into the near back, organizing the drying dishes to wait out Man Bun. Once the coast is finally clear, Virgil returns to the bar, where Patton awaits with a bright grin. Fantastic.

    “Hi, Virge!” Patton calls, bouncing on his toes. He does a twirl to make sure no one else is in line behind him before propping his elbows on the counter and leaning in as if he were sharing a secret. “I’ll take a venti iced caramel mach-yeet-ato with an extra shot of eek-spresso, if you please.” With another spin, Patton nearly crashes to the floor, the weight of the bag on his back yanking him faster than he can recover from.

    “I got the yeet, but you’re gonna have to explain the eek bit.”

    “I want you to pull three shots like normal, but scream at the fourth one. Scare it into submission. Then I’ll drink it, and get the scared bean energy.”

    Virgil blinks, his pen hovering over the boxes on the side of the cup. “You. Want me. To scream at your espresso?”

    “Only the fourth one! I need the other three to be brave, so I can have the bravery in addition to the terror.”

Virgil opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and shakes his head. “Okay. Five thirty five.” Patton presses a ten across the counter, refusing as Virgil tries to pass back the change, and slides to the end of the bar before Virgil can force him to take his money. True to form, Patton leans over the counter to watch Virgil making the drink, scrutinizing the pouring shots. “You know,” Virgil remarks, “it’s faster to pull two and two shots than two and one and one.”

“Yeah, but then my drink would be half scared, and we can’t have that, now, can we?”

“I guess not. What if I just pull the last two into two separate cups, and apologize to one to get rid of the scared emotions?”

Patton quirks his mouth to the side and hums. “I guess that could work. Make sure the apology’s genuine though, so I can have some empathy in my drink, too. And you don’t have to actually scream at it, either—just rile it up a bit. Scare it into submission however you see fit.”

This was one of the worst possible things Patton could have told Virgil to do. The barista leans in as the second round of shots pours, putting his mouth as close to the cup as he dares. “I’m going to stand outside your house and chant ominously about your sins while pouring expired coffee grounds on your sidewalk, then I’m going to hack into your sims account, give everyone full autonomy, and age them up to the maximum elderly age possible. Sorry, other espresso—I promise your sims are safe and your sidewalk is clean. For now.”

Patton looks understandably disconcerted by the time Virgil has finished, although the latter isn’t completely convinced that what he said was necessarily scary. He hands off the drink, drenching it in far more caramel than necessary and leaving the lid off. With an unholy grin on his face, Patton brings the cup to his lips and swallows half the caramel drizzle before the scared espresso even has a chance to settle.

“So hey, are you coming by Logan’s cafe today?” Patton asks. Virgil glances at the clock—five more minutes, and no line to be seen. He swings around the bar to sit at one of the guest tables, pulling out a sharpie and setting about dating the pastries. Whoever the mid is, they didn’t bother to show up on time, so they certainly can’t be trusted to do something literally in their job description. “You kind of left in a hurry yesterday.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t need a repeat of that embarrassment. I’m just gonna go home and hide under a blanket.”

“What embarrassment? I think Logan liked talking to you, I bet he’d like to have you come back.”

“Definitely. I’m sure he’d adore talking to the guy who couldn’t even keep his drink in his mug, much less remember to leave the mug there.”

“Virge, that’s the point of the mug system. You weren’t supposed to leave the mug there.”

“It’s not the point of my system, though. Now I’m basically, like, obligated to go back and return the cup, if not use it for that discount. Not to mention—which I already did—how I literally dumped my drink all over myself. I do not want that to happen again.”

“So just don’t drop your drink, and it won’t happen again! Simple.”

“Oh, and I bet you’ll just go ahead and police Logan so he doesn’t touch my shoulder again, prompting the situation that drove me to run out in the first place.” At the way Patton’s eyes sparkle, Virgil rushes to backtrack. “Not that it meant anything! It just startled me, so I shook my hand and my drink spilled.” Virgil glances at the bar, but there’s still no guests appearing to save him from this disaster of his conversation. All the pastries are dated, too, so he doesn’t even have the excuse of occupying his hands. “I do not want to go back.”

Patton grins. “So you’re going back?”

Virgil throws his hands in the air and groans. “I’m going back.”

“Promise?” Holding back a sigh as Patton thrusts out a pinky, Virgil links it with his own.

“Promise.”

“Great! Because your shift just ended, and Logan’s keeping it closed for the day so he can do renovations. Just you, him, and a few other people for as long as we’re there, doing decorations and generally engaging in close teamwork. Forming bonds to last a lifetime.”

“You tricked me,” Virgil hisses. “You scheming snot.”

“But it worked, didn’t it? And oh, look, there’s your mid! Let’s leave.”

Virgil glares behind him, where Natalia is tying her impeccably clean apron around her waist and fastening the hat on her hair. The only reason her stupid apron is so clean is because she’s impossibly slow, so as not to get anything dirty. The one time he could use her tardiness to his advantage, too.

“Fine, whatever, give me five minutes to clock out and I’ll meet you back here.”

Patton takes another sip from his quarter-scared drink and nods. “But if you aren’t back within those five minutes, I’m gonna find your boss and file a missing team member report.”

“You don’t even work here.”

“You don’t even understand the extent of my relentless matchmaking skills.”

“Nor do I want to. See you in five.”

“Make it four.”

This is how Virgil finds himself begrudgingly driving toward Logan’s cafe, with Patton’s car hot on his heels. Clever enough, he supposes, since now there’s a literal heavy piece of machinery holding him accountable for reaching the destination he pinky promised to attend. Virgil would rather be hiding under the covers at home.

Swinging into the parking lot and taking his normal spot, Virgil wonders whether Patton would notice if he just hid out in the bathroom until everyone went home. He glances at the mug nestled in the passenger seat—secured with a seatbelt, of course—and decides against it. If nothing else, Logan would probably get suspicious about the goings-on in there, not to mention he’d be the one to have to clean it. Patton’s cheerful honk rings through the air as he locks his car, scooting over to press his nose to Virgil’s window.

Virgil raps the glass lightly, jolting Patton into taking a few steps back before he not-so-discreetly points at the door and dances on his toes. To tell the truth, Virgil is procrastinating, because he absolutely does not want to go inside and see Logan.

“Hi, Logan!” Patton calls, bursting through the door with Virgil in tow. “We’ve been waiting all day to see you!”

“We?” Virgil repeats skeptically.

“Oh, right, right, my bad,” Patton says, waving his hands sheepishly. “Virgil has been waiting all day to see you!”

“That is not better,” Virgil mutters. He lifts a hand to his shoulder, massaging a sore spot along the slope of his neck and wishing he could be literally anywhere else right now. In an effort to diffuse the awkwardness that Logan hasn’t bothered to notice, he continues, “looks nice in here with the lights down. Kind of home-y.”

    “Indeed,” Logan agrees, balanced precariously on the second-highest rung of an unreasonably tall ladder. At its base, Roman holds the legs steady, grinning as Patton slings his backpack onto a nearby table. “Patton, I assume you brought more decorations I never greenlit?”

    “You know it.” Patton grins, upending the bag and watching every manner of rainbow trinket spill over the tabletop and onto the floor. “Okay, so see these? They look like normal food coloring, but they actually—”

    “If they sparkle or make the drink behave like pop rocks, I do not want them.”

    Patton pouts before tossing the food coloring stuff back in the bag. “Alright, well how about this one? It’s like a DIY mug for—”

    “Don’t use acronyms out loud, and I am not having mugs that guests design themselves. That defeats the purpose of my system.” Patton puts the mugs away.

    “Fine, so I also found these little mythical creature trinkets that—”

    “No.” Patton puts the trinkets away.

    “Or these things that look like scratch off tickets, but instead of the lottery, you can—”

    “No.” Patton puts the tickets away.

    “I found this book of stickers that has—”

    “No.” Patton puts the stickers away.

    “You know, I’m beginning to think you didn’t want me to bring all this stuff.”

    “I did not want you to bring all that stuff.”

    “Well, fine! I’ll just take it back home, then!”

    “Good! I do not want it here! Please remove it from my establishment!” Virgil cocks his head to the side, his thoughts catching on the mock enthusiasm in Logan’s voice. If anyone could possibly be the breathing personification of a sarcastic exclamation point, it’s Logan.

    “Can I help you up there?” Virgil offers. Logan glances down, still precariously balanced on his ladder and stretching out an arm to toss a strand of string lights over the menu boards. “You know, it might be more effective to pull the signs down and write the menu first, then tape some lights to the top, then hang them back up.”

    Thrusting out a hand for stability on the top rung, Logan lowers the spool of lights waiting to be thrown. “You may have a point. Roman, if you even think about shaking this ladder, I am going to ban you from helping any further with the decorations.”

    “Come on, dude, it’s pride month! Show some spirit!” Roman whines. Regardless, he holds the ladder steady as Logan descends.

    “I’ve already shown my spirit by deigning to allow you in my cafe while it’s closed. Don’t push your luck.” At the sound of a yelp and something crashing near the seats around the corner, Logan presses his middle finger to his glabella and groans deeply. “Remy, if you broke one of my windows, I am legally obligated to inform our parents that you are unfit to be an adult, and that I am sending you back to them, effective immediately.”

    “No, nope, everything is totally fine back here. You aren’t legally obligated to do anything whatsoever.” Remy pops his head into view, his cheeks flushed and his hair flopping into his eyes. Taking one look at Logan’s stern face and Virgil’s reserved one, he jerks his head at Roman. “Hey, wanna give me a hand back here? Your boyfriend can come too, I guess.”

    “He’s not my—” Roman begins, but Patton barrels right through it.

    “Sounds fun!” he declares, grabbing Roman by the elbow and dragging him toward whatever chaos Remy already caused. With a quick pause to point from his eyes to Virgil’s and back, Patton winks and vanishes from sight. In their absence, silence reigns supreme.

    “So,” Logan says.

    “So,” Virgil agrees.

    “How’s your handwriting?” Logan asks, clearly just as desperate to fill the awkward silence as Virgil.

    Virgil shrugs, grabbing one of many pens spilling from Patton’s abandoned backpack and twirling it between his fingers. “Not terrible, I guess. I do most of the boards where I work.” For a brief moment, Virgil wonders whether he’s ever mentioned to Logan where he works, but ultimately decides it’s not important just yet. He watches the pen spins for another few moments before continuing, “I have this style of super straight lines, though. Not exactly bubbly and inviting for your guests.”

    “My guests know I own this place. They aren’t expecting any manner of bubbliness, inviting or otherwise. Help me pull down the signs?” Allowing himself the smallest laugh at Logan’s matter-of-factness, Virgil moves for the lower right corner of the trifold board, hoisting it off the wall in tandem with Logan. “I suppose we ought to erase it first, before we go about ruining it.”

    “Do you know what kind of scheme you’re going for?” Virgil asks, shifting into decoration mode as he starts wiping off the first section. He shoves aside any lingering thoughts of yesterday’s fiasco in favor of focusing on the task at hand. Maybe if he pretends to have forgotten, it’ll be like it never happened in the first place.

    “Scheme? I was simply going to write the drink options in various colors,” Logan admits. He scrapes together a pile of chalk from a children’s craft box leaning against the bar, grimacing as he rubs the dust from between his fingers. “Unless you know of a better idea.”

    “I mean, we could do something like cold drinks here, and hot ones here, and you could have some people personalize based on this third one over here? And then, like, each third can be a different pride flag, like how I was saying yesterday—maybe make the miscellaneous board the pan flag, since it’s basically everything? Unless you don’t like the pun side of that, of course, then we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Or we could do the whole rainbow there, again with the ‘everything’ deal, but it might not look so cohesive as being strictly separated thirds of the menu. We don’t even have to separate by themes, if you wanted the whole menu to be just one section. Maybe we could do the bi flag for the cold drinks—if you decide to go for the cold, hot, miscellaneous boards, I mean—just because the blues and purples could go well with cold drinks, color theory and all? Or I guess there’s also the possibility of stuff like the transgender flag, or the polyamorous flag—maybe you could have a pastry menu, and put it there for a sort of pie-pi pun? I don’t know how well that one would go over, but if it sticks out to you well enough…”

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

    Logan props his chin on a fist, his legs crossed beneath him and his knee supporting his elbow. All of Virgil’s words are floating straight over his head, and he doesn’t even pretend to hide it, so entranced is he by Virgil’s enthusiasm. In all honesty, Logan stopped listening by the third sentence, more focused on how Virgil’s pale lips formed the soundless words, washing the cafe in an ocean of rolling tones and low asides. Not ten seconds into his rambling, Logan is certain he saw Virgil’s eyes light up, ever so slightly, at the prospect of having creative control over something so simple as menu theming.

    “Does that work for you?”

    Shit. Logan forgot he was supposed to be listening.

    “Er, I’m actually somewhat unclear on what you meant. Do you mind rewording your suggestion?”

    Virgil blinks at him, and Logan feels his soul melt—no human has a right to look that much like a confused puppy. “I don’t really know how you expect me to reword ‘I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick while you think about which theme you like,’ but I’m certainly willing to try if you need me to.”

    “Yes, no, I mean—of course, absolutely. Go right ahead, second door on the right in the back.” Logan waves a flippant hand as Virgil pushes off from his knees, tossing a two-fingered salute to the other three working in the back. Logan has no idea what they’re doing back there anymore, nor does he really care. He’s slightly more concerned with that complete social blunder between Virgil and him. Could he have come across any more ridiculous?

    “So what do you think of Virgil, hm?” Patton asks, appearing over Logan’s shoulder. Logan flinches, sitting up straighter and nearly slamming his head into Patton’s chin. “Think he’s got a cute butt?”

    Pausing to absorb the second question, Logan wonders whether he doesn’t look too dissimilar to a computer rebooting itself. “He certainly has an ass.”

    “Do you know any other swear words?” Remy groans, trudging over and draping himself across the bar. Meanwhile, Patton is spluttering in disgust at Logan for daring to use a more crude synonym for the word ‘butt.’

    “You should be proud that he even knows that one,” Roman chimes in. “Why, when I first met Logan—”

    “We are not doing emotional history montages,” Logan declares, getting to his feet and waving a hand at Roman. “We are here only to improve the environment in and around my cafe, so that is what we are going to do.”

    “Actually,” Remy corrects, “I’m mostly here because I want to set you up with Virgil. He was a dick from the moment he walked in that first time, which is exactly your type.” Pointing at Logan with a wink, Remy moves to lean against the wall.

    Logan doesn’t bother to question his motives, and pretends he didn’t hear the first half of Remy’s statement. He does, however, hear the general motivation behind the words, and responds accordingly. The sly grin on his face makes Roman take a subconscious step back.

    “Oh, and you aren’t here to set Roman up with Patton?” Turning his focus on them, Logan wonders in the back of his mind whether Virgil might walk in on this. “Of course, everyone’s talking about it, Remy. Don’t you want to be the first trendsetter with the newest, hottest couple?”

    “Since when does he know what ‘hottest’ means?” Roman hisses in a stage whisper. Patton shrugs, pressing his lips together as his cheeks stay annoyingly neutral, not at all embarrassed by Logan’s tirade. “Do you think he doesn’t know?”

    “I think he doesn’t know,” Patton replies. He doesn’t even bother to lower his voice, which serves only to further infuriate Logan.

    “What don’t I know?”

    “He definitely doesn’t know,” Remy agrees, peeling himself away from the wall. “It’s almost pity full, really.”

    “You don’t know the meaning of the word. You don’t even know the pronunciation.”

    “But I know you use it on me, like, all the time, which is only that much more pity full for you.”

    “Pitiful. Like your tenuous grasp of the English language.” At the sound of the sink faucet turning on around the corner, Logan glances back at Roman and Patton, who are still whispering together intently. Patton is barely hiding his giggles. “So, tell me; what is it, exactly, that I don’t know?”

    “Should we tell him?” Roman whispers. Patton shrugs, pushing his glasses up by pressing his finger directly against the lens. Logan can feel something shattering, deep inside his innermost soul.

    “Oh, tell him, you dorks,” Remy groans. “It’s literally, like, so obvious, it’s almost sad that he hasn’t figured it out yet.”

    “Figured out what?” Virgil asks, materializing around the corner.

    “That me ‘n Patton are dating,” Roman says.

    “Duh, everybody knows that.” Glancing around, a look of concern grows on Virgil’s face. “Was I not supposed to know that?”

    “Well, actually, Logan here—” Remy begins, but with a swift smack to the arm from Logan, he cuts himself off. “Nope, yep, totally justified in knowing that. Seven out of three. Good job. So smart. We stan a clever icon.”

    “Please stop talking,” Logan says. “Can we just get back to decorating?”

    “Way ahead of you.” Virgil drops to his knees, gathering up scattered pieces of chalk and positioning the blank slates in front of him. “Did you decide which theme you liked?”

    Logan very much did not do that. “I like both the gender flags and the sexuality flags. What do you think?”

    Virgil, clearly not prepared to be in control, blinks twice. “Um. Well. Maybe we could make the first board sexualities, and the second one genders, and have each drink be a different flag based on which menu theme they’re under? And Remy likes making up drinks, yeah?”

    “Yes,” Remy unnecessarily confirms. Logan scowls at him until he disappears around the corner with Patton and Roman.

    “Cool,” Virgil continues, “So that way we can do a little of everything on the menus, and then the lights can just look nice in general, and they don’t strictly have to coordinate with the menus.”

    “Where do you work, some interior design place?” Logan asks, raising an eyebrow at Virgil’s confidence, which rapidly grows the more he talks himself through ideas. “You really seem to know what you’re talking about.”

    “Not exactly,” Virgil admits. “Where I work doesn’t really matter, though, does it?”

    “Want to work here?” Logan blurts, before immediately clapping his hands over his mouth. “Sorry, that was probably too forward. I don’t even know why I said it, I mean, look at this place, I can barely pay Remy, let alone add another hire, not to mention—”

    “You’re fine,” Virgil says absently, more focused on the menu spread. “Anyway, so the flags. Do you want to start listing off some drinks you serve, and I’ll write them on my phone, and we can just go from there to decide which drink goes with which flag?”

    Logan swallows thickly and nods, launching into his perfectly memorized list of everything he makes on a day-to-day basis. At least Virgil elected to ignore his outburst.

    As the sun makes its trek toward the horizon, shooting beams of light through floating bits of dust in the air, Logan sits back on his haunches to admire Virgil’s handiwork. For how consistently they’d been working all day, he has to admit some small amount of pride in the outcome.

    The first board, comprised of iced and frozen drinks, proudly bears all manner of gender orientation flags that Logan could find, both common and obscure. Each in bright pastels, of course, as neither Roman nor Patton had the foresight to bring darker colored chalk. The second board boasts hot drinks and sexuality flags, and despite himself, Logan quite likes the soft brightness of the middle menu. The third is still blank, with an added wooden board at the bottom to hold chalk.

    “That way,” Virgil explained, “whoever makes the custom drink of the day can draw it there, and write the ingredients without having to hunt for the chalk.” Although Logan doesn’t particularly care for letting guests take control of the menu, he begrudgingly agreed that it was a good idea.

    “You guys took, like, forever to do basically nothing,” Remy complains, now sprawled out across a table.

    “Guests eat off those,” Logan remarks, still more focused on the menus than his brother’s antics. “And you only managed to string up a few sets of lights between the three of you. I would hardly call that an achievement.”

    “Among,” Virgil corrects.

    “What?”

    “You said between the three of them. Since it’s more than two, it’s among the three of them.” Logan can’t decide whether to be horrified or enchanted by how Virgil managed to catch his own grammar mistake.

    “Roman?” Logan calls, drawing attention away from his flub. “What, exactly, might you be doing?”

    Roman merely grins in response, precariously balanced on one of the tables near the front. He lowers his hands from the upper frame of the window and jumps to the floor, trying to duck into a somersault and failing miserably. Patton giggles before helping him up and glancing at what he’d been messing with.

    “This is my cafe,” Logan reminds them, “so I believe I ought to know what you’ve done to it.”

    Offering a shrug and a wince, Roman follows Patton’s gaze to the window. “Mistletoe.”

    “Mistletoe,” Logan repeats.

    “Mistletoe!” Patton agrees.

    “Mistletoe,” Remy choruses. At Logan’s glare, he raises his hands defensively. “Sorry, I just wanted to feel included.”

    “Why, pray tell, is there mistletoe in my cafe?” Logan sighs.

    “Bitchmas in July,” Roman replies. Logan can’t decide whether to throttle him or to simply scream.

    “Roman?”

    “Yes, my dearest friend and barista?”

    “It is June.”

    “Yes.”

    “Bitchmas, as you say, is in July.”

    “Yes.”

    “June is not July.”

    “You lost me.”

    “Actually,” Patton cuts in, “I think I know why Roman put mistletoe there.”

    “Why might that be?” Logan is extremely close to tossing one of the people in this room out the window, and based solely on proximity, it very well might be Virgil.

    “For this.” With no further warning, Patton grabs Roman by the neck of his shirt and yanks him to stand behind the chair he’d been using as a stepstool. Logan hardly has the chance to blink before Patton is pulling Roman in, closing his eyes, and—

    “Yep, nope, super cool, very much did not need to see that,” Virgil announces, mercifully drawing Logan’s eyes away from the scene. “Besides that nonsense, did you guys get the lights all finished? I need to peace out pretty soon here, but I want to see the cafe in its full glory before the guests come and destroy it by existing in its presence.”

    Roman hesitates to answer, still breathless beside a beaming Patton. Remy cuts in first, allowing the other two to regain their composure.

    “We got everything done, so if you wanted to pack up whatever stuff you brought, I’ll get the last of the connections and cords all set up, so you can bask in the splendor before you go.” Leaning in close enough to whisper so that Virgil can’t hear, Remy’s breath tickles Logan’s ear. “His mug is on the side pocket of his bag. Sneak it away while I distract him, and make him a personalized drink. It’ll be totally endearing, I know it.”

    “I am not doing that.”

    Remy dangles the mug from his fingers with a smirk, thrusting it at Logan when Virgil isn’t looking. “You are doing that.”

    Logan frowns and reluctantly takes the mug. “I am doing that.”

    “Unless you want to be doing—”

    “Don’t you dare say it,” Logan hisses, snapping his head around to cast the entirety of his glare at Remy. “If you swear, in this moment, to shut your damn mouth, I will make him a drink.”

    “That’s all I want,” Remy says, dusting his hands off and tugging Virgil to stand in front of the door. The mistletoe dangles a few ominous feet away. Logan’s scowl melts into a vague feeling of contentedness as he watches Virgil taking in the unlit decorations. His hands work on autopilot, making an old favorite of his that has long since outgrown its recipe. When Remy clicks the lights on and Logan catches Virgil’s face in the light, the barista is pretty convinced he might just collapse right then and there, coffee and all.

    Framed in the soft blues and yellows of twinkling artificial lights, Virgil’s pale skin almost seems to glow against his jet black hair, a silhouette of ethereal splendor captured oh-so-perfectly for a split second, before the illusion shatters. Virgil turns to look at Logan as the latter absently slides the full mug across the counter, so entranced is he by the former.

    “You good?” Virgil asks. Logan can only manage the smallest of nods, barely capable of closing his stunned mouth as he watches the way the moonlight flicks off the purple tips of Virgil’s hair. “Dude, you didn’t have to go and make me anything!”

    “It’s one of his oldest favorites,” Remy cuts in, rescuing Logan from himself. “No, no, put your money away, this one’s on the house for helping us remodel.”

    “All I really did was draw on a couple menus,” Virgil protests. Nevertheless, he pockets his wallet and takes a hesitant sip from the mug. A beauty to rival that of his shape against the night sky lights in his eyes as he tips the mug, draining the rest as fast as he can manage.

    “Good, right?” Remy asks. Logan wonders whether his own mouth will decide to start functioning properly any time soon.

    “So good,” Virgil murmurs, still holding the rim of the mug to his nose and inhaling deeply. “Smells amazing, too.”

    With a swift elbow jab to the side from Remy, Logan manages to choke out a broken “thanks,” his voice cracking on the vowel. Miracle of miracles, Virgil doesn’t notice. Or, if he does, he pretends not to, which only makes it worse—or better, Logan isn’t sure.

    “Well, uh, thank you too,” Virgil mumbles. He clutches the mug as tight as he can manage, shouldering his way out the door. Not two feet beyond the threshold of the door, he absently raises his shoulders toward his ears against a cool summer breeze.

    “Logan, close your mouth,” Roman calls. Logan moves his jaw up, realizing all too late that he’d been staring open-mouthed at Virgil for no reason. Turning his face toward Patton’s neck, Roman giggles and whispers, “he’s so head over heels.”

    “That’s an understatement,” Patton replies. “If his head is where it is now, you’d need a cinderblock and the Mariana Trench to get to his heels.”

    “That was a bit of a stretch,” Remy says. “I know you’re trying, hon, but maybe try more puns, fewer metaphors?”

    “Puns,” Patton echoes, rolling the word between his lips and chewing the n. “Pun pun pun.”

    “Now look what you’ve done,” Roman groans.

    “Pun,” Patton repeats, pointing up and nudging Roman to the side. Roman blinks and follows his finger to the mistletoe, which is wobbling dangerously. “Don’t think you used enough tape there, Crumb cake.”

    “Maybe not,” Roman agrees. As he reaches up to adjust the decoration, Logan’s hand thrusts out of its own volition.

    “Do you maybe want to move that over the door instead? Maybe? I mean, you don’t have to, I just—”

    “Logan’s rambling,” Remy announces. “Better do what he wants before he short circuits entirely.” Roman and Patton titter at this before the former pulls down the mistletoe, removing the old tape and producing a new roll from his pocket.

    “Thanks,” Logan sighs, watching Roman stick the mistletoe just to the right of the bell. What he wouldn’t give to be under that with—

    “Closing time!” Logan shouts suddenly, ignoring how the other three flinch. “It was all very fun and nice, but it is time for everyone to go home. Right now. Please leave. This very second. Immediately. Get out.”

    Remy exits first, followed quickly by Patton and Roman, none of whom bother trying to hide their laughter. Logan is the last to leave, still focused on that mistletoe. Still focused on who he wants to see beneath it.

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

    Virgil is having a bad day.

    He woke up with only two minutes to spare before having to leave for work. He stepped on poop from his neighbor’s dog when he went outside. He found a smear of mocha syrup along the seam of his pants in a very conspicuous pattern. He didn’t have any other clean pants ready. His car wouldn’t start fast enough. His USB cord to his phone wouldn’t connect, no matter how many times he turned it. His throat ached, but without a fever, he was still legally allowed to work with food. His voice was all but gone.

    Virgil wants nothing more than to go back home, crawl under a mountain of blankets, and stay there until the sun goes away.

    This would be a task much more easily achieved if Natalia would bother to show up on time. Virgil forces a tight smile onto his face as he mindlessly nods along to the latest guest’s conversation. Ten more minutes and he’ll hit compliance, which means a stern talking-to between Anne and her boss, which means a stern talking-to between Anne and him, which is basically the last thing keeping Virgil from walking out of the store right now.

    Virgil wants to go home.

    “Have you seen Natalia?” Anne asks, appearing on the other side of the bar once the line dribbles down to nothing. Virgil shakes his head, already halfway through making her usual order as she groans. “Okay, well, you’re gonna hit compliance in a second here.”

    “I know that,” Virgil snaps. “There’s not exactly a whole lot I can do about it.”

    “Mind your tone,” Anne chides lightly, and though Virgil can tell she’s kidding, he really isn’t in the mood for it today.

    “Yeah, sorry. Do you mind, uh, you know?” He tilts his chin to the next guest, as well as the cluster of families preparing to queue up behind them. Anne nods and apologizes with a laugh, scurrying off to do whatever it is she deems more important than helping Virgil to keep this line in check.

    This is the part where Virgil is supposed to launch into a spiel of every drink he makes, as well as the struggles that accompany calling out complete orders with a voice that basically doesn’t exist, but based on the morning he’s had so far? He has absolutely zero desire to get into it. Guests are rude, baby boomers are impatient, the sky is blue, Virgil is in hell, next question.

    “Hey, um, excuse me?” Some dude leans over the counter, shaking his empty cold cup at Virgil. Evidently, he did not notice the line waiting to be helped. “Barista boy?”

    Virgil glances where his name tag should be, shrugs at its absence, and nods. Yeah, that’s a fair nickname. “What’s up?”

    “You made my drink wrong.” His empty drink, that is.

    “Oh, I’m so sorry about that, did you want me to remake it for you?”

    “No, I want you to give me a refund.”

    “Sir, I—you already finished your—by store policy, I can only make you a new drink, I can’t give you a refund if there’s no drink to take back in return for the money, sorry.”

    “Yeah, but I didn’t like it.”

    “Then why did you—never mind, would you like me to make you a new one?”

    “No, I want compensation for a miserable drinking experience.”

    This goes on for some time, and while Virgil is largely skilled at keeping his composure when he has to, that’s much more easily said than done when the guest is flinging curse words at him left and right.

    “Sir, I’m sorry, it’s—there’s a long line, so unless you want to have me remake your drink for you, there’s really nothing I can do.” Angry Guest Man rips out a few more choice words before storming off, shouldering patiently waiting customers out of the way. Virgil rolls his shoulders back and moves on to the next guest, relieved when all they want is a grande mocha.

    Virgil.

    Wants.

    To.

    Go.

    Home.

    “Hey, I’m here to cover for Natalia!” Kim announces, prancing behind the bar without a hat on, as if she doesn’t notice the hold up Virgil’s dealing with.

    “Awesome. Get here sooner next time. Put on a hat—or a hairnet, I don’t care which—and start taking orders while I catch up on hot bar. We’re almost out of skim milk, and the almond milk shipment is behind today, so only offer coconut and soy milk.” Virgil tosses out orders almost as fast as he hands off drinks, waving off Kim’s bewildered demands. “I don’t care how or why Natalia got you to show up late—better than not at all—but I need you to kick into gear. I’ll get you as caught up as I can, but I’m gonna hit compliance, so savor this partnership before you’re on your own.”

    Kim bites back whatever protests she might’ve had, instead nodding and moving for the register. She plasters a welcoming smile on her face and starts chatting up the next guest as Virgil slowly but surely picks apart his backlog of orders.

    Virgil does not want to be here.

    Another guest complaining about their cappuccino not having enough foam is incredibly close to being the straw that shatters his back. Virgil bites back a groan as he gingerly takes the unlidded cup from her, nodding his apologies and profusely assuring her he’d remake it. She scowls and mutters something about hurrying up.

    “There you go, sorry ’bout that,” Virgil says, passing off the new cup.

    She removes the lid, glaring at the drink and completely ignoring the swarm of people behind her that would very much like to get their orders. “There isn’t enough foam for the caramel to sit on top.”

    “Yeah, that’s how physics—I mean, yes, my bad, do you want more caramel drizzle?”

    “No, I want you to make it right.” With no further warning, she scrapes off the top layer of foam and flicks it at Virgil, cocking her head to the side as it plops across the bridge of his nose.

    He might just scream.

    “So you’ll have me remake it, then?” Virgil forces himself to smile as she nods with a harrumph. “Right, okay, just give me a minute here, aaand—there you go.” He pushes the latest creation over the bar and comforts his shot nerves with the mental image of throwing the drink in her face.

    “There’s not enough foam.” Before Virgil can even pretend to be sympathetic to her first world problems, she dips her finger into the foam.

    And flicks this one square at his chest.

    “Anne?” Virgil’s voice is sugary sweet as Anne drifts lazily over from across the seating area, moving as if she had all the time in the world. “I’m going to hit compliance in less than two minutes, so I am going to clock out. I will not be coming in tomorrow, as I have a backlog of sick days, and I will be using one to figure out whether I want to come in the day after that. Good luck getting someone to cover for me, since it was obviously such a difficult task for Natalia.”

    “Virgil, if you don’t come in tomorrow, you can kiss this job goodbye,” Anne snaps.

    Virgil considers this, removes his hat, and places it squarely on her head. “If you want me to stay away, I’ll do so happily. In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t a whole lot of qualified backup for you here.” Anne can only manage bewildered sputters in response as Virgil unties his apron, drapes it over a chair, and strolls off to the break room.

    Virgil is leaving this hellscape.

    “I really wanna leave this stupid town,” he sings to himself in the car, ignoring his blatantly wrong lyrics as he tears out of the parking lot. “And today, the time has come.” Ramping up his voice to little less than a furious scream, he pounds the steering wheel to the rhythm, and feels an odd lightness when he sees the empty passenger seat. For once, he doesn’t have to have the ever-present company of that obnoxious apron, wrapped up and tucked inside that ridiculous hat.

    Virgil is going home.

    At least, Virgil thought he was going home.

    No one could be more surprised than him when he finds his hands steering the car toward Logan’s cafe of their own volition.

    “Hey, Virgil, what’s going—wait, hey, you walked under the mistletoe!” Roman whines from the counter, where Remy is closely monitoring his work behind the bar. “You can’t just walk past mistletoe without a kiss-letoe!”

    “Stop talking, or that mistletoe is going up your ass-letoe,” Virgil mutters, making a beeline for the mound of bean bag chairs in the corner. A nice touch of comfort amidst the soft lighting and colorful menus they’d added yesterday. Probably Patton’s idea.

    He falls to his knees before he knows what he’s doing, shoving his face into the plasticky surface and letting the rustling beans consume his senses. He’d barely bothered to notice how loudly his pulse was thrumming through his head until it stopped, overpowered by the artificial cushion beneath him. At the sound of footsteps drawing near his head, Virgil briefly considers sweeping out a leg and knocking them to the floor. An action movie sequence fantasy at best.

    He feels them speak before any words come out, and has never felt closer to cussing out someone he met mere days ago.

    “Hey. Rough day?” By some merciful chance, it’s not Roman, or Remy, or even Patton. Logan continues, careful to keep his voice low and measured, “I get that. I had the lights turned down temporarily to test the environment in direct sunlight, but I’ll leave them down for your sake. We also received several compliments on the new menus—all your handiwork, of course.

    “Remy’s training Roman on how to make drinks right now, since I’ve heard many guests discussing how to get their friends to join them on trips here. With that kind of increase in business, I could really use his extra set of hands, no matter how inexperienced. I see you brought your mug, as well—if it doesn’t upset you too terribly, I’ve already had Remy begin teaching Roman how to make up drinks, so you might get an odd flavor combination, what with the steep learning curve and all. Roman is creative, I’ll give him that, but he’s never truly been one for understanding the intricacies of taste and texture among our staple ingredients.”

    With every word out of Logan’s mouth, Virgil can feel his mounting headache slowly, ever so slowly, draining away. In the wake of Anne and Kim’s nonsense, he hadn’t cared to notice the exhaustion, much less how severely it hurt. Even now, his pulse is pounding like a jackhammer against the roof of his skull.

    “When Remy first picked out that mug covered in cups for you, I have to say, I was horrified. As far as I could tell, it was just the first thing he grabbed, which is about as basic a tactic as any other. Your current one, with all the constellations and the blues, just felt right, if you know what I mean. Not exactly a logical way to select your mug, but I can’t really explain it.”

    “I like to call them mug-mates!” Roman announces. “You know, mug, soulmate, mug-mate?” An image crosses Virgil’s mind of throwing his current mug at Roman’s head, and he laughs. “See, Remy, told you I was funny.”

    “I hate to break it to you,” Remy says gently, “but Patton was only lying about you being funny because you suck at everything else.”

    “Shut up,” Logan singsongs, his voice achingly calm against their raising tones. In a voice that somehow manages to be even more soothing than before, almost dulcet, he continues, “most of my guests have a particular piece of clothing or accessory that stands out, matching their immediate mug. You just felt, well, different, somehow.”

    Virgil fights the instinct to flinch as he feels something come to rest against his head. A moment passes, two, before it starts to move, lightly combing through his matted hair and gently scratching at his aching head beneath. Against his own volition, a contented sigh escapes his lips. The scratching continues unaffected.

    If it were possible, Virgil would stay here, just like this, forever. Motionless in a pile of bean bags, with only Logan’s presence to remind him he still exists. Naturally, this isn’t possible, as a gentle set of three raps against the wall over his head jerks him out of his half-conscious state.

    Logan nods with a smile as a guest lowers their hand, moving for the door and stashing their mug in their bag. At Virgil’s questioning gaze, Logan raises his hands and explains, “that’s how my best guests say goodbye. The first few regulars I had liked the peaceful silence, so instead of cutting through the air with words, they’d just knock on the tables. It sort of became habit, I suppose.” Virgil glances from Logan’s mouth to his shoulder and back, releasing another sigh as the scratching shifts down to his back.

    “Feel any better?” Logan asks. His eyes are filled with a warmth that Virgil swears wasn’t there yesterday.

    “Little bit,” Virgil mumbles. “Work sucks.”

    “And where, exactly, do you work?”

    “Starbucks north.”

    The shock in Logan’s expression is almost laughable. “I have never been more disgusted with a single human being in all my life than I am right now.”

    “Yeah, that’s fair. I think I just kind of quit, though. Not exactly a ceremonious end to my shift, if you know what I mean.”

    “Rude guests?”

    “Try obscene and pathetic. One flicked her foam at me.”

    “Wait, don’t you get free drinks when you work there? Why buy my drinks when you can get stuff without paying for it at all?”

    “We aren’t, like, a chain place, since we’re owned by the department store we’re in, so we kind of follow different rules than the regular stores. I only get one grande drink per shift, and it has to be while I’m on the clock.”

    “Okay, but you can still get those drinks. Just make them on your last five minutes and walk out with them. Why bother spending money on what could be free?”

    “I’m not funneling the money I get from that place directly back into it. They are a capitalist regime based on the basic downfall of the foremost man empowering story, and I refuse to fuel their fire.”

    “How closely did you analyze Moby Dick?”

    “Sparknotes.” Virgil pushes himself onto his elbows, still savoring the feeling of Logan’s fingers gently scraping along his back. “Hey, what was that you were saying yesterday about offering for me to work here?”

    Logan’s face colors immediately, flush with about as much red as is humanly safe. “I didn’t mean to impose—I mean, er, I didn’t want you to feel like—”

    “It’s cool,” Virgil interrupts. “Anyway, were you even a little bit serious? Because I don’t really have a reference from my last place, but if you’re willing to accept a new hire with a shady history who knows how to run a coffee bar, I’m your guy.”

    Logan nods quickly, glancing back to where Roman is struggling considerably under Remy’s watch. “You’re hired. You start today.”

    “Actually, I know this is probably a bad first impression on my new boss, but do you mind if I start tomorrow? I’m not really feeling it today.”

    “Indeed, I should probably draw up the paperwork, as well.”

    The finality of this tenuous agreement hangs in the air, an oddly relaxed cloud of, well, something that can only wait to be shattered.

    Roman does a perfectly fine job of carrying out this task.

    “Logan, you’re gonna be so proud of me in a second here—I made my very first drink! Remy said I have to give it to Virgil, since you won’t take it.” Roman passes the constellation-covered mug over to Virgil, who glances warily at the murky substance rippling within. “Relax, it’s literally the easiest drink I can make.”

    “Earl grey tea,” Remy calls over. “Two tea bags, hot water, and honey. I promise he didn’t poison it.” Only after Remy’s reassurance does Virgil take a hesitant sip, admiring the flavor as soon as it hits his tongue.

    “Oh, that reminds me!” Logan exclaims, raising a finger in the air. It takes everything in Virgil not to whine at the loss of the reassuring hand against his back. “I got something as a thank you for helping us with the decorations yesterday—it’s right upstairs, actually. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll have it right back down here for you.” As Logan rises, something jingles and clatters to the floor, escaping his notice as he moves for the door. A keyring, covered in at least ten keys and even more keychains.

    “Hey, wait, you dropped these,” Virgil says, grabbing the keys and following Logan to the door. Logan lifts his chin slightly, taking the keys and shoving them in his pocket—careful enough that they won’t fall out this time.

    “Oh, look at that,” Roman coos. Virgil raises an eyebrow, turning to see where Roman and Remy are excitedly elbowing each other and giggling. Even Patton appears from around the corner and smiles along with them—probably leaving the bathroom.

    “Look at what?” Logan asks, obviously quite finished with their nonsense. Rather than dignify him with an answer, Roman merely points above their heads. Virgil follows the motion to see the last decoration he could’ve expected in June.

    Mistletoe.

    To the tune of the other three quietly chanting, “kiss, kiss, kiss,” Virgil swallows an annoyed moan and glances at Logan, whose face somehow managed to turn an even deeper shade of pink.

    “If you don’t want to, I mean, if you didn’t, you know, feel comfortable with—” Logan stammers, every word darkening his cheeks, but Virgil cuts him off with a laugh.

    “Maybe I do want to. Kiss you, that is. I mean, if you want to.”

    “No, yeah, I mean—yes. I would like that. To kiss you, I mean.”

    Virgil’s face glows like a rose on fire. “Okay, cool, because I also want to do that. Also.”

    So he does.

[amosbrittany]

Shattered Chapter 1

Disclaimer : I don’t own Transformers Animated or any characters for that matter.

Notes : I haven’t done fanfiction, let alone TF based, in ages. And never for TFA, So I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing but what the hell, I’m going for it. lol I took quite a few liberties, pulling bits from various continuities to build this sucker.

Warnings : I have a tendency to put characters through hell. Violence and character death this chapter. Eventual Optimus/Sentinel, Megatron/Ultra Magnus, Bumblebee/Blitzwing, Jazz/Prowl and Ratchet/Pharma.

Summary : The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but Sentinel’s latest stunt might just kill them all...or worse.

The Fringes had to be the worst possible place to put a space bridge. On the very edge of Autobot territory, it took a regular beating from the Decepticons and even anti-Cybertronian organics. Crews came and went during its construction and maintenance, at times never making it back to Cybertron at all. For the most part, the disappearances were blamed on the Cons. It was a dangerous assignment that wasn't helped in the slightest if the crew assigned were full of incompetent or delinquent workers,  which was typically the case as no one with a whole procoessor would settle for the post.

Sentinel Prime knew Alpha Trion  sent him out here in particular as punishment, pure and simple. After the unmitigated fiasco Megatron's trial had been, he'd not only lost his position as Magnus but as second-in-command as well. He was bumped all the way down to repair duty with a group of fools and sent off to the Fringes. Naturally, he was angry. He was angry with the Decepticons for living up to their cursed name, at Alpha Trion, and at Optimus for not only upstaging him with the Powermaster armor but for taking his job afterward. He was humiliated and bitter. His team didn't help make the situation much better.

There were four other bots on the large rockbound base with him. Broadside was one of few triple changers in their ranks who could turn into a plane and a sea craft...but he was deathly afraid of both heights and water. Sentinel had no idea how that was feasibly possible, but he imagined the bot would have a spark attack on Earth when the rain came. Second was Landfill, and despite being a decent soldier and overall nice guy, he lived up to his name. Quite literally. Sentinel had no idea where the stench was emanating from on the mech's person and it was almost insulting that the mech couldn't pick it up himself. The whole team kept a wide distance from him at all times. Sentinel knew he could be whiny at times himself, but Huffer took the oil cake. He took the oil cake and complained the whole time he ate it at that. He avoided literally everything difficult, whining about it for good measure and he was the most likely bot Sentinel was going to throttle one day.

The only member of the team worth anything was the medic and truth be told, Sentinel had major concerns about the mech. Dark rumors from Delphi on Messatine followed this bot after his experimental jet upgrades following the success of the twins. Pharma had apparently glitched in the processor and hard from the procedures, not only setting a plague loose on the facility, but sawing a Decepticon defector that recently joined their ranks in half. Length ways. After some orbital cycles under intensive therapy, the doctor was cleared for limited duty and shipped off with him out to the Fringes, away from the good people of Cybertron in case he lost it again. There were a few times the Prime caught his medic giggling in an alarming manner and even talking to himself, so Sentinel wasn't entirely comfortable with his presence. But Pharma was the best in the field, so he prayed it panned out well for them.

"Can you not figure out why Landfill stinks so bad? What kind of doctor are you?" Huffer whined, shaking Sentinel out of his thoughts rudely. They stood gathered at the base of the space bridge, surveying the damage recently wrought by an agitated Deception that had attacked in passing.

"Last time I checked, it was my job to make sure you don't offline and continue to function optimally...Not help you smell like fragging rosewood." Pharma hissed, brandishing an inactive saw in place of his left hand at the minibot. "And if you don't shut up, I will ram this up your tail pipe and turn it on!"

Sentinel snorted. At least he didn't have to babysit the doctor.  He glanced up at the patchwork space bridge, the south pole smoking the hit and run. It happened frequently and it was damned annoying. "Could you all just pipe down so we can fix this and get it over with?" He scowled at the rest of the team.

"But...But that's so high up..." Broadside frowned.

"Oh for frag's sake..." Pharma rolled his optics, hands thrown in the air. "You have a plane alt-mode. What is your malfunction?!"

"At least it isn't as bad as yours-" Sentinel could appreciate Huffer's brave attempt at snark, but the screaming that followed it as the jet transformed and proceeded to run the minibot down in retaliation just ground further on his nerves.

Landfill called from a few yards away. "Permission to come closer?"

"Permission denied." Sentinel grumbled. "Go, I don't know...Scout the area or something, make sure the Cons don't set anything unwelcome up."

"SIR YES SIR!" Obviously happy to have his orders, the truck changed forms and drove off to scout around. The asteroid was sizable, so it would almost be a mega cycle before he swung back their way.

After knocking Huffer violently into a hole that would likely take him a few cycles to climb out of, Pharma returned to the pair, gracefully transforming as he dropped down. If the slagger wasn't so crazy, Sentinel would be tempted to talk him into a casual frag or two. He was quite the piece of optic candy, the only piece available really. But the jet prattled on in the worst way about Ratchet of all people, so he doubted he would have much luck. "Enjoy yourself? Because we have work to do." Sentinel grumbled.

"I'm a medic, not a mechanic." Pharma groused back, examining his fingertips.

"It's the same damn thing." The Prime held up his hand as his comment almost earned him a scathing lecture about the differences. "I don't want to hear it. Get this scaredy-bot up there somehow and take care of it while I get Huffer! And that's an order if you need clarification!"

He ignored as Pharma acted like he asked him to move the moon, turning away in favor of fishing Huffer out of his hole so they could get to work at the base of the structure. Beyond the upkeep of the space bridge, which would be their way home in case things went south where they were, he couldn't be bothered with improvements to the troops. They were good soldiers, for the most part, but personality flaws were a pain in the aft to try and work over. Besides, he didn't necessarily mind so long as the work got done, his mind was elsewhere anyway. All he could think about were his recent failures and how he was going to get back up in the ranks, at least enough to get positioned back on Cybertron. It was glaringly obvious Optimus would be following in Ultra Magnus's footsteps and he doubted the golden mech was going anywhere any time soon.

Sentinel sighed to himself, crouching at the edge of the hole for a moment. He was finding it hard to stay angry at Optimus, at least a little. Of course, the business with Elita-1 was always at the heart of his ire, but somehow seeing what she had become and the horrible things she was out there doing like what happened to Wasp had tempered it. When Optimus had taken Megatron down and brought the remaining Decepticons back to Cybertron, he had to admit his old friend looked like he had been dragged through the slag pits. He found it hard to imagine what it was like in that battle and he sometimes wondered if he would have had as much mettle to duke it out with the tyrant in the fragging air as he had. The disgraced Prime wasn't exactly a slouch in combat simulations, but he wasn't nearly as battle-hardened as Optimus. His optics flickered thoughtfully, coming out of his musings when he realized he wasn't absently listening to Huffer complain. "Huffer?"

The hole was empty. Turning on his headlights to examine the small pit better, it looked to turn into a tunnel that dipped down after a solid foothold. He could even see where Huffed had hit the edge and likely slid his way deeper into the asteroid. Sentinel let out a long, suffering sigh. Now he had to go searching for the little pest.

<Good job, Pharma. You knocked him Primus knows where.> Sentinel scowled as he climbed down into the hole.

<Well, I say good riddance.>

<That tower better be patched by the time I drag him out.> His threat was answered with some mild grumbling. After reaching the foothold, he slid down into the tunnel, sliding for several yards before he was struck by an odd sense of vertigo. His HUD exploded with warnings on a somewhat muffled and unknown energy reading that was turning his systems on their head. Sentinel grimaces, digging his fingers into the rock to stop himself. 'Woah, that's not right...' His knees shook as he tried to collect himself. He noticed there were spidery veins of glowing violet embers visible in the cracks and further down, there were large chunks of what reminded him of raw crystallized energon that grew in abundance deeper in. Tank churning, Sentinel hurriedly climbed his way back out, thankful that getting topside cleared up his readings.

"Ugh..." Sentinel shook his head, glancing back. <Pharma, what the hell is underground in this rock?>

<How am I supposed to know? I'm a doctor. DOC-TOR. Not a digger. Landfill is the geologist specialist. Why?>  After Sentinel explained what he ran into, Pharma sounded far too fascinated for his taste. <Odd. I don't suppose you brought a sample back out with you, did you?>

<Frag no. You think I want to touch that stuff?> Sentinel made a face. Of course, now they had a new problem. <Huffer, come in.> There was silence from the minibot. <We can't leave him down there...Whatever is down there.>

<Well, I'm not going down there and getting my circuits fried. They're already bad enough as it is...>

The Prime ran a servo over his face, sighing. No, he didn't need Pharma going postal on them. Resting his elbow into his servo, he gently tapped the knuckles of his free servo against his chin as he considered what to do. There weren't many reports on the innards of the large asteroid they were on, the ones there were mostly belonged to the teams who never survived their assignment and even then, there wasn't much to them. The reports got progressively more erratic prior to their stopping completely. Given what he felt when he was down there, Sentinel mused whether the energy from the crystals had been a bigger problem than realized. It was a suspicion he was going to have to put in his report.

Pharma and Broadside returned to him. "...Well?" The medic crossed his arms, head tilted.

"...I guess we're leaving him down there." Sentinel frowned. It wasn't a great call, but he didn't want the whole team to be the next crew to go MIA. That wouldn't look good for him. "If he's all right, he'll find his way out."

"And if he's not...?" Broadside didn't look pleased.

"Then...we'll...send a report he went missing. If we find him, we find him...But I'm not sending anyone down there and don't even think about arguing with me about it. I don't know what the frag is down there and I don't really want to. It felt all kinds of wrong."

"But you're just going to leave Huffer down there?" The triple changer pressed before he glowered at Pharma. "And what about him? This psychopath was the one who knocked him in there in the first place!"

"In my defense, I thought it was a simple hole." Pharma sniffed.

Sentinel shook his head. "No one is going down there till we have more information, now let's deal with the rest of these repairs. And Primus willing, the Cons will let us call it a solar cycle."

~+~

Sentinel returned to the Axalon after sending Broadside and Pharma out to hunt for Landfill when the truck never returned to the post. They'd never had an issue with someone patrolling around alone until now. It left the Prime uncertain if it was at all connected with Huffer's disappearance...or those of past crews. It was possible the bot could have been picked off by the Decepticons, but then Sentinel was sure Landfill would have called for backup if that were the case. He went digging into the base's old files as he compiled his own report, pausing when it sounded like company had joined him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Pharma.

And only Pharma.

"...Please tell me you didn't kill Broadside." Sentinel muttered flatly.

The medic gave him an offended look. "No. I did not. He ran off on his own, thank you very much."

"And why did you not stay with him?" He demanded in exasperation.

"Because the daft fragger decided to take a cave tunnel down to go look for that idiot Huffer. That's why." Pharma scowled back at him. "I started to follow him in, when I started to feel what you described and heard voices so I decided to backtrack and report in. This infernal rock is probably layered with particular metals and stone that keep the underground contained below because he wasn't responding to his infernal comm-link after I backed out of the cave."

Well, that explained why Huffer hadn't answered him. But something was bothering him about this situation. Something was putting a bad twist in his tank. "...Lock down the Axalon." Pharma gave him a perplexed look before he shrugged and the two of them set about doing so. Once the ship was sealed off, he felt only somewhat better.

"What is with you...?"

"Not sure...I just have this feeling there is something weird going on and it's bugging the hell out of me."

Pharma frowned, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He supposed his Prime had a point. There was something unsettling about their team's disappearances. He had a feeling even a brief exposure to whatever was below ground had helped unnerve them. "You know..." Pharma began thoughtfully, looking out the bridge window. "The Decepticons never really touch down here or properly engage. It's always passing aerial strikes. Do you suppose they are wary of the asteroid?"

Sentinel's optics flickered with surprise at how he had never considered that. "That...would make sense. I mean if anyone would know these parts...It would be the Decepticons. But..." He frowned. He didn't want to try and communicate with a Con again. It would look bad, especially after the last time he had struck a deal with one. Of course, losing three of his four team members was pretty bad too. But maybe he could get answers without completely damning himself. He pulled up the communications array and started to ring up Cybertron. Pharma gave him a curious look but stayed quiet as the line was opened with high command. Sentinel sighed as he found Optimus staring back at him.

"Sentinel...?" The SIC seemed a little surprised to be hearing from him since all of his reports were in file format and he generally let Pharma deal with the talking. It was hard enough just looking at him and seeing just a bit of the Elite Guard badge on his shoulder.

"I'm going to cut to the chase, Optimus." Sentinel completely skipped over pleasantries. He hadn't wanted to make this call but he had little choice. "Earlier this solar cycle, one of my men took a tumble down a tunnel. When I attempted to retrieve him, my systems were assaulted by a strange energy source, so the retrieval was aborted. Landfill who was sent out on a scouting assignment has not returned. I sent Broadside and Pharma to look for him, but they found nothing and Broadside decided to venture underground to find Huffer. Pharma attempted to go with him, but was assaulted by the same queer energy and reported back. We can't contact them and they've-"

"Oh look, there's Huffer!" Pharma piped up cheerfully.

"Uhh..." The Prime's faceplate heated up as he glowered at the jet, paying the amused look Optimus gave him no mind. He stood to look over the console, seeing the minibot. But his gait was...off and he had an odd, distinct violet glow emanating from his biolights. Pharma took his pedes off the console and leaned forward for a better look himself.

The SIC called to them. "Sentinel? Is it Huffer? Is he all right?"

"Well, he looks kind of funny-" Not that he wasn't built funny for a minibot to begin with but something was quite off now. But neither of the bots had much time to contemplate the differences as the short mech launched himself into the air and threw himself into the windshield. Pharma shrieked, falling back out of his seat and Sentinel staggered back in shock. Huffer's faceplate was twisted in a ghoulish visage of hateful rage as he proceeded to pound on the thick glass, quickly causing the material to crack under his blows. The Prime cursed as he accidentally dented his leg on his chair to get back, drawing his shield and lance out while engaging his face visor. "Pharma, behind me!"

"SENTINEL! What's going on?!" Optimus looked alarmed, unable to see anything but their panicked faceplates and their defensive positioning.

Pharma scrambled to get behind him as he backed further along the bridge. The windshield gave out under the minibot's assault. Sentinel tensed as the small fragger charged them, faster than he thought Huffer capable, if that even was Huffer. As the minibot lunged at him, mouth open wide with gnarled denta, the Prime struck out, driving his lance straight in. The smaller bot went rigid and twitched, speared through on the energy lance, momentarily stunned. Sentinel relaxed slightly before tensing anew as Huffer tried to drag himself towards him along the lance, as if it was a mere inconvenience at worst. The roar of a chainsaw made him jump as Pharma darted forward and pressed the saw into the minibots's head, tearing the helm apart. Violet goo spattered everywhere as the body finally went still, limbs dropping. Sentinel threw his lance down, stepping back from the speared body in horror.

"Good lord..." The medic murmured, his plates shaking. He turned off the saw, shaking off the foreign fluids. They looked over at the communication array where Optimus was just gaping at them in shock. Pharma turned to Sentinel. "He broke through the bloody window..."

That blatant observation jarred him out of his stupified state. "YA THINK?!" Sentinel sqawked back at him.

"What the hell did I just see..." Optimus's optics flickered.

Pharma crouched by Huffer, nudging him onto his back for a better look. Shards of violet were embedded under several cables, his denta were shattered as if he had been chewing on something hard and volatile, and violet goo oozed from the wounds they had inflicted to his frame. He could, however faintly, pick up on that same wrong energy they had felt from the caverns below. That feel of unease returned anew. "I don't know, Optimus Prime...But I think you should send us back-up. Immediately. Because I have a feeling Broadside and Landfill might be returning much the same way very soon."

It looked for a moment that he had lost his ability to process let alone vocalize, but Optimus regained his wits as he nodded grimly. "Understood. We'll be there asap!"

[remedialaction]

So, the more I think about The Last Jedi, the more problems I have with it. I came out of the theater thinking I loved it but had a few quirk moments that really annoyed me, but as time has gone on I’ve reached this point where I simultaneously love it and hate it, and I’m just going to embrace that and both love and hate it in equal measure.

And because of this, I have a lot to say and I’m just gonna go ahead and post it. Obviously, under a read more cus I’m not gonna bother attempting to hide spoilers. This may ramble some too, but whatever. Time for Starcourse!

The first thing I have to make clear about The Last Jedi is, to me, it did not feel like a Star Wars movie. By this I mean that the way it was shot, the way it was written, the way it is placed inside the whole cinematic series just doesn’t feel like a Star Wars film. Some of this is on a meta level: it begins mere moments after the end of The Force Awakens, and that sets it apart from all the other films, which have massive gaps between them. 

The Last Jedi and The Force Awakened could be one movie, in many ways, and that’s not really a good thing, because regardless of anything else, it begins to break down the feel of what a Star Wars movie is. However, the issues that make me say this go on further. On a technical side, the scenes don’t FEEL like a Star Wars movie. There are many things to say about George Lucas but I feel the cinematography in his films was, at the least, distinct. And that distinctness left a clear impression.

But The Last Jedi doesn’t really have that. It’s shot radically different than other films in the series, I felt like. And so that contributes to the feel that it’s a movie using Star Wars props and settings and characters, but yet not feeling like a Star Wars Movie, if you catch my meaning.

Another issue is music. In prior Star Wars films, the music is as much a part of the scenes as any other element, and it stands out in my head. I can hear the music when imagining the scenes, the music is distinctive because of how the scenes are shot and scored. I don’t remember any of the music from The Last Jedi, and while I’m sure it’s actually fantastic it just... didn’t capture me the same way. I’m not sure why yet, and it’ll take multiple viewings to really grasp it probably.

Moving on, the way it’s written also doesn’t feel Star Wars. I mean this in two ways: it’s pacing is all over the place, it’s dialogue feels out of place, and the humor, while occasionally actually good, doesn’t feel like Star Wars humor. I want to be clear that for some of these, much like the above comments, these are not necessarily reasons why it’s a bad movie, but perhaps why it may be a bad Star Wars movie. Other cases, though, absolutely mark it out as just bad writing regardless, but I’ll touch on that in each case.

Firstly, the humor. There is a lot of attempted humor in this film, some which works better than others. I’ll admit, while I found the opening bit with Poe and Hux amusing, it felt utterly out of place. It’s basically an extended version of the scene from The Force Awakens, which itself felt out of place, particularly given the context. In that, we literally just saw a mass slaughter of a village and you’re now doing a comedy bit. Not only that, Star Wars doesn’t really do comedy bits. The humor in Star Wars is delivered in different ways, but the timing is also key. This is akin to Padme cracking wise after Anakin talk’s about how he killed all the Tusken Raiders.

In The Last Jedi, there is less of a poor timing, but the entire bit robs the film of momentum, and also serves to render Hux into a buffoonish character (which I’ll touch on later,) and it just doesn’t feel like Star Wars. It’s funny, but out of place. In a lot of ways, I include Luke’s flick of the saber (though I think that also works well enough) but even more so his dusting his shoulder off. The former at least serves well as a shocking sort of moment. The latter serves to break the drama and scale of it all. Included in this, though, are Poe’s ‘permission to jump in an X-Wing and blow stuff up’ line, which again, just feels... out of place given the situation. It robs the scene of seriousness.

Which is sort of the major issue; I don’t feel like The Last Jedi takes itself seriously. Or, at least, it doesn’t do so consistently. Lines like that, or then lines like Rey when Kylo shows up in the mind link shirtless, and so on just serve to make it feel... less serious. Some might say it grounds things, but that’s the big issue: Star Wars isn’t grounded. It’s a Space Opera, it’s epic fantasy in space, and The Last Jedi doesn’t feel epic. Indeed, the whole film seems... small.

This is as much an issue with The Force Awakens, though, in that it really fails to establish the sort of scope of the First Order, and the Resistance really comes off as minor as well. It continues in TLJ though in that it really just never feels like things are ‘a big deal.’ We’re told of things but it’s very mixed on actually showing, I guess? Or the showing just... falls flat.

Linked to the issue of it taking place right after The Force Awakens, the whole film takes place in, arguably, the course of, what, a day? A few days? It’s hard to tell. At first, I thought it was only literally about a day because they literally give hour counts on their fuel but Rey is with Luke for what seems like a few days. Yet the pacing is such that thing seem both too slow and too fast. There is no real sense of time in a lot of the scenes, and that really causes issues with the pacing. And also with things like Rose and Finn, because we’re talking about people who just met at most a few days ago, on less then stellar circumstances, and then things progress so very quickly, and it seems... out of place.

And then we get things like the entire Casino subplot, which irks me on many levels. First, the intentional aping of the Cantina introduction with a reworking of the ‘scum and villainy’ line, the panning around of all these fantastic and weird aliens and all, and whatnot. Sort of clever, but it just gets hamfisted when Rose goes on to imply that the only way to get this rich is arms sales. I damn near groaned out loud at that moment, because this is a movie by Disney telling me the only way to get rich is arms sales. Eat my ass, Disney! You mean to tell me there are no Space Googles or Space Comcasts or Space Disneys? It doesn’t even make sense!

Particularly not when we just had a bunch of movies about the Trade Federation and the Banking groups and other members of the Confederacy that were rich, and thus had a lot of arms to defend their financial interests, rather than being rich BECAUSE of their arms. And then we have the whole stampede through the city, and how great it was to stick it to them... yet are you trying to imply EVERYONE in the city, all the stuff you broke only belonged to rich arms dealers who are assholes to kids and kick puppies or something? I get that Finn is new to this, impressionable, and so on, but he went from being amazed and loving it to literally being glad they smashed stuff up.

Also, the alien dude with the southern accent was terrible. Should have let it be an alien language and just let us UNDERSTAND through VISUAL STORYTELLING. You know, like we got with the Kubaz who ratted out Luke and Han and them in A New Hope. Indeed, not doing this makes the whole universe feel small. Aliens just aren’t used right.

And honestly, I’m just going go through a long string of ‘why’ questions that really irked me, in no particular order or organization. These aren’t all equal complaints, but they’re just things that got to me...

Why are the bombers literal bombers, when we had Y-Wings and B-Wings in the other movies that clearly were strike craft with heavy payloads for the sort of thing they were doing. Why would you ever have a literal ‘bomber’ in space, given there is no gravity for the bombs? That whole sequence also makes the Resistance feel very very small, because it doesn’t feel like a lot of ships get blown up but apparently that’s their WHOLE bomber wing?

On that subject too, Poe gets hemmed up for disregarding orders and taking out the dreadnought, abet at heavy losses, to the point that he gets demoted and the Vice Admiral (who, by the by, I really hate the design of. Leia looks at least paramilitary in outfit, but she is just straight up wearing a dress and it just feels... out of place) treats him pretty badly despite later saying she actually understood and likes him, but later, when they get caught due to their hyperspace tracking stuff, it becomes utterly apparent that it was absolutely a good thing that Poe did what he did cus had he not, the Dreadnought could have just blasted them from space. Instead, they manage to outpace them because Poe’s desperate gambit took out the ship that could have blasted them due to its superweapon guns.

On that subject, how the hell does ‘out of range’ in a vacuum work? Like, I guess the argument is the energy dissipates but how the hell can they maintain that speed that always keeps them at range yet never outpaces them? And why doesn’t the supermassive Snoke battleship have those same guns? (Also the way these ships are introduced is meh, not like how they did the like Super Star Destroyer in the original trilogy, but that gets back to how the movie is shot and not feeling right.) 

And how the hell does on person manage to fly that massive Mon Cal ship, anyway? How come the massive damage done by it ramming them going into hyperspace is played up yet apparently the ships are still mostly functional, at least enough to get folks down to the planet and all? That felt very odd...

And on that subject, the planet! The whole plan seems so very odd. How the hell did they manage to fly so far on sublight speed to get in range of this planet that just so HAPPENED to be an old rebel base (which only has one way in an out, for some reason,) and somehow no one saw these planets? Or, you know, the SUN it must be orbiting? And why not TELL people this plan, like what was the purpose of KEEPING IT SECRET? Particularly not when you have a hotheaded and brash guy who already is on notice for disobeying orders he thought was wrong, and you think your little stern talking to was gonna shut him down? Really?

And the irony is, Poe got hemmed up for his scheme to take out the dreadnought, which ended up being not merely good but necessary. But no one really talks about how his scheme to shut off the tracker, which led to the First Order becoming aware of the transports because the slicer (cus he’s a slicer, not a codebreaker, again, use the damn Star Wars-y terms, film!) ratted them out, and that leads to, what, like 90% of the Resistance dying? For that matter, how big IS the resistance, cus you seem to have enough folks to fill the trench yet apparently everyone fits on the Millennium Falcon in the end?

And why the hell is Finn piloting one of those speeders anyway? He’s not a pilot, we’ve literally been shown he was figuring out how to operate the guns on the TIE Fighter and Falcon but he explicitly NEEDED a pilot, that’s why he rescued Poe, after all, and that’s why Rey piloted their escape. If anything, he should be with the ground forces cus that’s his expertise. And speaking of expertise, how is it that this one guy who was a janitor apparently was a janitor for Starkiller base, and thus knows his way around that in a complex and technical way, and ALSO knows his way around Snoke’s superbattleship, in a complex and technical way? That seems... weird.

Like, I liked when Rey could navigate Starkiller base cus she was familiar with Imperial tech and designs from crawling around in them her whole life. Finn being that knowledgeable seems... sort of weird. 

On the earlier thing, why is Hux portrayed in an almost buffoonish way? It robs him of any menace. His other officers seem more competent, and he just seems... very very NOT competent, and it sort of messes things up. It robs some menace from the First Order when he’s the on in charge.

Why does everyone seem to get to where they’re going instantly? Travel time seems simultaneously a plot point and non-existent.

Why introduce Snoke as this strange character if you do basically almost nothing with him? Like, the Emperor at least had build up and then sort of mattered. And yeah, they could reveal more in the third film but that’s... really not helpful for THIS film feeling odd. And then the biggie: Rey and Kylo. And I don’t mean any sort of romantic overtones cus I actually like how they handled that, with Rey conclusively saying fuck no to Kylo and thus squashing that as a thing (though I know some folks refuse to see it that way,) 

What I mean is that Kylo’s ‘let the past die, kill it, and start over’ ideology is basically the exact same thing that Yoda is telling and what is happening with the Resistance and Jedi. Which, honestly, is itself fairly stupid and I object to this idea that somehow she already knows any of the good things in ‘old religious texts’ and whatnot, because of broader implications, but if you’re gonna have that message then why show that actually they saved the books and their on board the falcon at the end.

Honestly, there is probably more that I’m missing but this is the general thrust of things. I want to be clear, though, I actually liked a lot of it. Finn is still the best character, even if put in situations I don’t actually totally agree with. The humor was legitimately funny, and sometimes actually fit well. BB8′s constantly trying to pluck the ‘leaks’ and then using their head to do it felt both funny and very Star Wars-y; I can see R2 doing something like that. (though, as a note, that R2, C3P0, and Chewbacca all get basically no real place again sort of stands out. R2 and C3P0 being major aspects of the Star Wars franchise is sort of a big deal. They’re supposed to be there, and they’re really not in this.) 

But the fight sequences are pretty damn good, with a few minor hiccups, and like I really enjoyed the film while watching it. I’ll certainly watch it again, but there is so much that I feel also was just in JUST to tweak with people and Rian trying to play gotcha games, and it, at the core, just didn’t feel like a Star Wars movie. It’s a movie using Star Wars trappings in ostensibly the Star Wars universe, but it just...

Didn’t feel like Star Wars.

[glasyasbutch]

playlist: gent

link to playlist (on spotify)

1. The Gael ... Time Flies by Pirates for Sail

Time flies when you’re having fun me boys, time flies when you’re having rum / When you’re sailing under the black flag and you’re firing all your guns / When you take a Spanish treasure ship you divide by rule of thumb / Our voyage will be over soon enough, time flies when you’re having rum

SEA SHANTIES FOR THOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fr tho this was one of the most upbeat shanties I found so not only does it slap and fuck, it also really gets across like “hey being a pirate is cool and fun and I love my crewmates!!” which is definitely how Gent feels. The Wench is a home and the crew his family.

2. The Siren’s Song by Brave the Sea

She’s a liar, a thief, and a damned old fish / But she’s the only one I want, she’s my only wish / And if I did go overboard, I would surely die / But if I could have one thing in life, I would love her by and by

What, you thought I was going to make a lesbian pirate playlist and not include a song about falling in love with a sexy mermaid?

3. First Night Back in Port by Ye Banished Privateers

Hoist your flag and ride the storm until the sails are hanging loose / Feast upon the oyster, stretch your neck into the noose / Dock your schooner in my port, ram your ship into my docks / Dance your peg leg on my poop deck, unleash the cunts and cocks

;)

4. Rum is for Drinking, Not for Burning by Gold Steps

Sail with me into the setting sun / The battle has been won, but war has just begun / And as we grow, emotion starts to die / We have to find a way just to keep our desire alive 

Ok, now we’re getting to the real songs. This was sent to me ages and ages ago by Morgan just bc she thought it was sexy and I loved it and I’m so glad to have a character to put it with! 

It’s about being a pirate at face value, yes, but it’s also about the lengths you’re willing to go to in order to achieve the things you want, how willing you are to defy all expectations for you and walk away from people to stay on the path, and that struggle of learning what you want and how to get there is really what’s central to Gent.

Also fun fact! I wrote a 7 page queer theory essay in ~8 hours while listening to this song on repeat. So it’s forever gay in my mind.

5. Outlaws by Delta Rae

Rules were meant to be pushed and pulled, we were meant to be sparks of light / Running now with the raging bulls, baby, we could be magic tonight

A song for the crew of the wench! Not only is it blatantly obvious with the “we could be magic” cause. they all are. But it’s also got such an upbeat FUCK yeah we do what we want, and we LOVE it vibe, and I love that for the wench.

6. Kick Ass (We Are Young) by MIKA and RedOne

We are young, we are strong / We’re not looking for where we belong / We’re not cool, we are free / And we’re running with blood on hour knees I could change the world, I could make it better / Kick it up and down, took a chance on me

MIKA kin song assigned way way way too late. But it’s here now. This has a sense of carefree-ness that I think is very true for Gent, especially younger Gent. It’s just like ... fuck it, we’re having fun. Very much the atmosphere he had on the Wench. But there’s also this underlying current of “I’ve got a destiny beyond this, I’ve got the potential to do something big and important, and I don’t know how to get there, but I’m going to do it”. That I think really sums up the transition from ship to hard-core wizard study for him.

7. My Shot from the Hamilton OBC

Don’t be shocked when your hist’ry book mentions me / I will lay down my life it it sets us free / Eventually, you’ll see my ascendancy / And I am not throwing away my shot

I spent literal weeks trying to find one more song to fill out this playlist that really, truly, captured just how blinded by ambition Gent can get. I was scrounging through Caleb playlists but everything was so fucking depressing and Gent’s one of my least emo characters, surprisingly, and then I saw this about twelve playlists and I went. Oh Fuck. That’s It.

Gent is 100% a LMM Alexander Hamilton archetype. His thirst for knowledge, accomplishment, and acknowledgement is unquenchable, and it very well may kill him someday. We’ll see.

(Also if you so choose, maybe the revolution here is Captain Crystal’s attempt to overthrow Darktow that Gent is starting to get inklings of.)

8. Five by Sleeping At Last

I want to watch the universe expand. I want to break it into pieces small enough to understand and put it all back together again in the quiet of my private collection.

This is a song for wizards whose curiosity will stop at nothing to understand the most inexplicable secrets of the arcane. Yussah’s tower soundtrack.

9. Heartlines by Florence & The Machine

Odyssey on odyssey, land over land, creeping and crawling like the sea over sand / Still I keep following the heartlines on your hand / And this fantasy, this fallacy, this crumbling stone, echoes of a city long overgrown / Your heart is the only place I call home / Can I be returned?

I really wanted a Florence song on here because she understands love on a poetic level like no one else, and I ended up picking this one out for the travelling/journey motif. I think it’s fitting for a sailor whose loves usually remain on land, and for a scholar who sometimes gets lost in his studies and forgets which way the exit door to society is.

10. Things That Make it Warm by Cavetown

My feathers seem to have taken the brunt of the storm, I am feeling pretty worn / We finally found shelter tucked away inside a wall, and although it’s pretty small / You and me, we can make this hole a home / We can fill it up with grass and all the things that make it warm 

Feel free to disagree but this song is about what being butch means to me. Protection, shelter, active work to perpetuate both of those everywhere you go, and the ability to share them with those you care about. Since Gent is my most blatant self insert yet, he is getting it.

11. Honey by Andrea Gibson feat. Chris Pureka

You are running down the dock at the harbor / Screaming my name / You’re screaming “Honey, Honey” / And I’m screaming “Don’t trip” / And you’re screaming “Honey, Honey” / And I’m screaming “Baby, don’t fall down” / I am running for your red lips / I am running for your red heart / With my red heart / Red, as a Mississippi sunset / Honey. Honey. Honey

Lesbians fall in love like this.

[ninjacat1515]

The wind chilled Henry as the crow’s nest was battered ruthlessly. But at least he had some damned privacy from the creatures below. He shook with rage, the spyglass nearly slipping from his grasp. Salazar was a wretched man....he had literally been handed his worst enemy; his prison was utterly destroyed for good.

And Armando had retracted his agreement with Henry. The necklace served as a connection to Turner’s mother. As long as it was in the vampire’s hands, she was in danger. They could open a doorway right into her home....Henry was also angry with himself, and the moronic assholes who had been at the helm of the Monarch. They hadn’t LISTENED to him....and he hadn’t been convincing enough.

He was a failure. Now, he had little to no future, and was a servant of El Matador Del Mar. For hours he had been taring at the horizon, looking all over for a ship. But there was nothing. Maybe he could chance a sit down....rest against the mast. He eased himself back; heaving a sigh. It was overcast, a light mist was falling....and a clawed hand came into his field of view, pointing at a cloud.

“That one looks like a puppy!”

Henry screamed, jolting up to his feet. Moss was laying against the mast, arms folded behind his head; a mischievous glint in his yellow eyes.

“Mind if I join you up here?”

His officer’s outfit was filthy with dried blood, mold, and dirt. Moss noticed Henry’s distaste at the smell, and stuck his tongue out at him. 

“You’d be rotten too after 30 years in a cave, nino! When we get to Havana, we’ll be able to get proper attire.” he picked his numerous fangs with a claw tip.

Henry slowly went around to the other side of the mast. Not much distance could be had, but some was better than none. It was then, that he spotted a ship. A dutch one. The Mary was sailing away from it, thank the Lord above. Turner was aware of a presence next to his face. Moss was laying upside down on the mast; his hat and clothing in perfect alignment; seeming to be in defiance of gravity along with their owner.

“Aren’t you going to inform the capitan? We must build our strength, amigo! We’ve suffered for decades....or do you want your pirate madre to take their place?”

Cruel golden eyes studied him with a grin.

“I’ll let Armando know you’re unwilling to cooperate!”

Henry got close to the officer’s face, enduring the putrid breath and dangerous proximity.

“I will let your capitan know of the dutch craft.”

Moss booped his nose with a cold finger. “Bien!”

Henry swiveled himself away from the officer, eyeing the boat. It had altered course, and was making a wide turn in the Mary’s direction; picking up considerable speed. Were these people looking to ram the ship?? What was wrong with them?

Something fired at them; landing on the deck and exploding into a cloud of glittering dust. The vampires shrieked, racing around and trying to avoid coming into contact with the dust. Henry blinked at the scene. Must be silver dust...why fire something that did no damage to the ship?

Not a single canon was hurtling metal. Moss was snarling and crawling down the mast like a spider. Henry managed to pick up a few mumbled words. “Slayers....mierda....”

Turner’s heart bloomed with elation. He might finally be free of these leeches! An entire ship loaded with people trained to kill the undead. The dutch vessel came right alongside the Mary; men leaping off of it and beginning to battle the monsters.

Henry remained where he was, head lowered. He prayed for Salazar to be slain; for every last one of the things that had slaughtered his friends, to perish. Someone was climbing up towards the crow’s nest, and his insides churned like the seas. Moss was back....but wait....no...it wasn’t the vampire. An incredibly stern looking, well dressed young man aimed a gun for Henry, shooting him in the shoulder, before drawing a silver sword.

Henry dropped, gasping and grabbing at the wound, looking to the stranger with pure confusion. “Why did you shoot me!?”

The stranger froze, going pale. He had just shot a human. “Oh my dear God....” he crossed himself, and scooped up Turner.

“My sincerest apologies....I thought you were one of them....you being above deck and not held in the brig...”

He secured a zip line to the dutch boat, making certain Henry was properly in place. A few moments later, they descended from the crow’s nest, landing neatly on the deck of the dutch ship.

“Wait....he-he has my mother’s necklace...Salazar has it.....I have to get it back or he’ll kill her...it’s gold with a heart shaped box...”

The stranger untied him, glancing back over his shoulder. “I’ll go fetch it.”

Turner was immediately given medical attention. Everything had happened so swiftly, he could barely gather his own thoughts.

A great crimson dragon had appeared, wings filling the sky above them. It glowered down at the dutch ship, and was about to unleash a torrent of flames, when it paused, the glowing in its chest subsiding. Henry realized it had locked gazes with him. He staggered back as he recognized those intense, primal orange eyes. Fuego....dear God he could become a dragon?? Was there no end to their powers??

Fuego narrowed his glare, a nasty smile creeping onto his scaly face. He dropped, landing lightly on the deck; and arching his neck like a serpent.

“Heennnnnryyyyy.....have you forgotten which ship is which? The Silent Mary is over there....you seem to have lost your way. Let me help you with that....the capitan would be very displeased if you sailed away!”

Huge talons snatched at him, but Turner dodged, or rather, slipped in the nick of time. The slayers had gathered around him, silver swords raised to form a bristling barrier of burning metal. Fuego roared as a blast of silver dust hit him square in the face. He took off from the ship, screeching as he ducked into the sea to relieve the pain.

Salazar shook his head as if chastising a wayward child. The slayer was out of his little mortal mind!

“You and your men have not managed to kill even one of my crew....and you dare to approach me? Many other slayers have come before you over the centuries, all unsuccessful. You basically have served yourself up to me, hombre! I do appreciate willing prey.”  he darted in, easily grabbing the back of the young man’s head.

But something pierced his heart. A hidden device up the slayer’s sleeve. Henry’s necklace was cut from around his neck. The slayer stepped back, letting Armando fall helplessly to the deck, clawing at the silver stake embedded in his chest. The slayer took off like a shot. They had been fighting a losing battle, and now it was time to retreat.

“YOU GOT IT!” Henry embraced the slayer, who accepted the gesture of gratitude. “What is your name?”

“Benjamin. Unfortunately, my crew was overwhelmed, and I did not manage to kill Salazar...”

Horrifying screeches rang out from the Mary, and the captain of the dutch craft forced the ship to go as fast as it possibly could. They had made a dire mistake, and were now realizing it.

Benjamin growled at his fellow shipmates. “How could we have fumbled that attack? How could we have lost 5 men?? TELL ME!!!”

Back on the Mary, Salazar raged. They had taken Henry....and the necklace. They had taken HIS prize....

“I want everyone on that ship....do not burn them, do not fire any canon. They will all answer to me personally....starting with Turner.”

Armando fumed as he went into his cabin. Henry thought he could slip away like a fish from the net? He would soon discover the error of his ways....and that slayer would pay dearly for encroaching on the Mary.

[jedwashere]

A Billion Years Away - Chapter Ten

This Is Never Going To Go Our Way If I’m Gonna Have To Guess What’s On Your Mind

***

So open up my eyes,

Tell me I’m alive,

This is never going to go our way

If I’m gonna have to guess what’s on your mind.

***

Starbase 93 dock.

Lorca.

“Technically this ship has been ready to launch for over two weeks, but between bug tests and a certain lacklustre effort on Starfleet’s part, what with it being an older class of ship with comparatively minimal utility, the ship has not been named or fully commissioned yet…”

Alpha-32 was talking, and Lorca wasn’t listening. Which, he supposed, was better than being driven to distraction by her. Ignoring the wave of conflicting emotions that threatened to bubble up inside him, he looked about as they walked, taking everything in.

The corridors of this ship were bare and utilitarian, the panels lined in computer access consoles, the crew wandering about in the same neat, jacketed uniforms Jallistra’s crew had worn. It was almost heartening, in a way, but somehow, he had trouble thinking of them as ‘his’ crew.

“Captain?”

Lorca blinked, looking at Alpha-32, who was looking at him with that same patient, neutral expression.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” he said without meaning it. “Where were we?”

“I was just informing you of some of the ship’s quirks, sir,” Alpha-32 replied, giving one of those neutered, empty smiles of hers. So unlike Michael. “According to all of my research and data on the subject, it is beneficial for a commanding officer to know their ship.”

That was true, but he didn’t say so. He didn’t really want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she’d said something accurate to the situation.

“Have you considered a name for the ship, yet?” Alpha-32 asked after a moment.

“No,” Lorca said dismissively. In all the ‘excitement’ of meeting Alpha-32, he’d simply forgotten that he had been given that option.

“If I may, sir, I would like to choose the name,” Alpha-32 said, almost hesitant.

Lorca gave her a sidelong glance. “You would?”

“Only if said name meets with your approval, of course, sir,” Alpha-32 clarified. “I find it an intriguing prospect, naming a vessel. Not something asked of a crew often.”

“Hm,” Lorca grunted. He let out a low chuckle. “Just make sure you don’t pick anything inappropriate. I don’t want to fly a ship called ‘daisy’.”

“Noted, sir,” Alpha-32 said. There was an infinitesimal pause before she added: “I will remove ‘Daisy’ from the list of potential names.”

Lorca sighed. He didn’t know whether she was messing with him, or whether she was genuinely that dense. Neither option was particularly appealing.

“Come on,” he said. “There’s probably more to this bucket than you’ve shown me.”

“I was not considering ‘Bucket’ as a name for the ship, sir,” Alpha-32 replied, “but there is more to see.”

God save me from literal-minded robots, Lorca thought, rolling his eyes.

“If you’ll follow me, sir,” Alpha-32 continued, “I will show you to the bridge.”

***

Alpha-32.

“If you’ll follow me, sir, I will show you to the bridge.”

Captain Lorca was not enthusiastic about his command. That was… unexpected. The Exeter-class’s similarity to the 23rd Century Constitution-class alone should have been enough to garner a measure of positivity, if only on the basis of nostalgia. That had been, after all, one of the reasons Commodore Hayne requested this ship (which had only previously been slated for training missions and the occasional bout of diplomatic or scientific busywork).

Still, Alpha-32 thought as she walked. There are other options still available to improve the Captain’s morale, and I have yet to undertake the two emotionally-charged actions that will foster an attachment to the ship and myself.

Asking to name the ship was the first. Alpha-32 was certain that she had picked a choice that was fitting, especially when she added in her complementary choice for her own new designation.

Considering the two designations that she had picked made her pause. If she had activated her emotional subroutines, she might have found a certain hesitation at the thought of the names. Had she chosen correctly? However, despite her probabilistic calculations having been previously less than accurate regarding Captain Lorca’s reactions, she was confident she had made the right decisions.

“You said ‘minimal utility’,” Lorca said after a moment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It took Alpha-32 three nanoseconds to decide the best response. “The Exeter-class is obviously not a top-of-the-line vessel. You have been on the Enterprise, after all.”

“Yeah,” Lorca said, nodding. “Hell of a ship.” His expression became somewhat irritated. “So what, this one’s the dumpster for has-beens?”

‘Dumpster’ definitely was not a good sign, and though she was not entirely familiar with the phrase ‘has beens’, it, too, had negative connotations. She shook her head.

“The Exeter-class is fitted for extended scientific missions, diplomatic transports…” Lorca’s expression became more derisive, and Alpha-32 immediately knew she had to change tactics. “It is also used in area denial escalation missions, as well as first-response tactical engagement.”

Ah, there it was. A flicker of something else - the expression-reading subroutine she had coded into her system indicated that it was interest. Military-oriented missions seemed to hold his interest more than science or diplomacy. That much was predictable.

“So we’re first response?” Lorca asked after a moment.

“Essentially, Captain,” Alpha-32 said quietly. “Our ship is not powerful enough to stand toe-to-toe against more heavily-armed vessels, but there are a few modifications to her -”

“The fuck,” Lorca interrupted harshly. He was no longer looking at Alpha-32, but instead glaring at a female Klingon walking down the corridor, clad in a gold Starfleet uniform jacket.

Alpha-32 already knew that there was a certain animosity towards Klingons in the 23rd Century, but with a sudden, troubling realisation, she also recalled Lorca’s imprisonment at Klingon hands. Those two facts meant that it made all too much sense that his reaction to seeing a Klingon on his ship would be… unfavourable.

“Sir, this is Lieutenant B’Rena,” she said evenly, putting the barest hint of emphasis on the rank.

“Why is there a Klingon on my ship?!” he hissed, pointing at B’Rena and clearly ignoring Alpha-32’s introduction. His expression was filled with a kind of naked hostility that Alpha-32 had not anticipated. B’Rena squared herself up, clearly feeling challenged.

“And who are you to question my place here?!” she hissed.

“The man who’s gonna kick your ass!” Lorca said hotly.

Alpha-32 held up a hand to forestall the Klingon’s angry retort. It was logical that he would be angry upon seeing B’Rena, but Alpha-32 felt confident she could defuse the tension.

“Captain Lorca is a temporal refugee from the 23rd Century,” she exclaimed to B’Rena. “You will have been briefed on his situation.”

“Ah!” B’Rena said, her demeanour completely changing as she grinned. “The glory days of the Dahar Masters! A time of great heroes - Kor, Koloth, Kang -”

“T’Kuvma and Kol, actually,” Lorca said, his tone bitingly sarcastic.

Alpha-32 ran the names through her history banks, and found information entries for the Battle of the Binary Stars, ‘T’Kuvma the Unforgettable’, and a host of other things that she suspected might cause an officer who had lived through those times some degree of… consternation at a Klingon’s presence.

“T’Kuvma the Unforgettable!” B’Rena said with a grin. “Ah, to be a Klingon warrior in those days! Truly, that would have been glorious!”

“Yes,” Lorca said, his expression cooling into disdain. “I’m sure ramming cloaked ships into vessels under a flag of truce and bombing the shit out of defenceless civilians would have been such a glorious way to spend your time.”

B’Rena’s expression dropped in what might have been confusion on anyone else. “What?”

Lorca scowled. “Excuse me. Lieutenant.”

He pushed straight past her without another word. Alpha-32 gave an approximation of an apologetic look, before following him. B’Rena simply stayed put, and Alpha-32 calculated a 73.7% chance that she was still processing the encounter.

Alpha-32 caught up with the Captain a moment later, just as he entered the turbolift.

“Bridge,” he ordered gruffly. He glowered at Alpha-32. “You never answered my question. What in the hells is that thing doing on my ship?”

Alpha-32 stiffened. “Lieutenant B’Rena is one of the most qualified tactical officers of her class. Having her aboard is an asset.”

“She’s a Klingon,” Lorca hissed.

“The Federation made peace with the Klingons, Captain,” Alpha-32 told him. “It is one of the many things that has changed since your time.”

He said nothing after that, and Alpha-32 wondered for approximately eighteen nanoseconds whether she had gone too far. Changing tack, she imitated an action she had often observed among humans: she took a deep breath. This had the effect of making Captain Lorca look at her in bemusement.

“You breathe, Commander?” he asked.

“On certain occasions, Captain, I have seen humans audibly and deeply breathe in order to diffuse tense situations,” she replied primly.

“‘Diffuse tense…’” He chuckled. “Commander, you’re a damn marvel.”

Success, Alpha-32 thought, allowing herself her logical satisfaction. After all: it was one step in the right direction for dealing with Captain Gabriel Lorca.

***

Lorca.

When the Turbolift opened, Lorca found himself looking around the bridge space with a feeling of mild irritation.

The space itself was more utiliarian than Jallistra’s bridge on the Enterprise had been, which on some levels he could appreciate. It had a familiar layout: centre seat, helm station, Ops station, tactical station, science station… the only real difference between this and the Discovery’s bridge was, ironically, that it was smaller, not to mention a mite more colourful.

In truth, Lorca wasn’t irritated by the bridge. He wasn’t particularly paying attention to the bridge at all. He was still thinking about his encounter in the corridor.

Change, change, more change. He scowled. A damn Klingon serving in the fleet.

He had anticipated change, of course. It was inevitable. Indeed, it was almost welcome: had he somehow emerged into a time where everything looked the same, where everyone wore the same uniform, he was fairly certain he would have gone mad. But all the same…

Damned in change, damned in status quo, damned all the way, he thought, resisting the urge to scowl again.

“What do you think, sir?” Alpha-32 asked from behind him.

Lorca didn’t answer. He noted the door that said ‘ready room’, and almost immediately made a beeline for it, entering without another word to anyone. Alpha-32, thankfully, didn’t follow him.

The ready room wasn’t much different than any boring standard one. Lorca scowled slightly at the chair. He’d always preferred a standing desk - something he’d shared with his other self, he’d realised with some surprise at the time. Still, it was good to have a chair right this second.

“Right,” he said to no one in particular. “Let’s get on with this.”

***

Alpha-32.

Alpha-32 sat at the command chair, checking the readouts. There were more than a few reports awaiting the Captain’s attention, so she forwarded those on. She calculated less than an 11% chance that he would actually read the reports, but 11% was not 1%, as she was sure many of her human colleagues would have said to her. She’d never quite understood that attitude - it was still an unacceptable margin, by any machine’s standards - but as history bore out time and again, organic idiosyncrasies did not stop them from achieving their goals.

As she went through some reports aimed at her, she saw the door to the turbolift open and Lieutenant B’Rena step out.

“Commander,” she said quietly. “A word.”

Alpha-32 stood, and walked over to the Lieutenant:

“What is on your mind, Lieutenant B’Rena?” she asked.

Analysing B’Rena was always a study in contrasts. Like all Klingons she seemed gruff, often unresponsive to traditional human platitudes. She was well built, muscular, lean, perfectly proportioned for security. Her hair was worn in a regulation ponytail. And, unlike many Klingon officers, she had chosen against wearing a Klingon honour sash.

“That man is the Captain?” B’Rena asked her quietly.

“He is,” Alpha-32 confirmed.

B’Rena nodded thoughtfully. “Do you know if it is true?”

“If what is true?” Alpha-32 asked in return.

“What he said about T’Kuvma ramming a ship under a flag of truce,” B’Rena clarified, folding her arms. “Is it true?”

Alpha-32 nodded. “I believe it is.”

Truthfully, that was one of the few things that had remained relatively clear about the Battle of Binary Stars. What information they had about the battle was limited - the number and type of ships (especially the Klingon fleet), the exact casualties - but the destruction of the starship Europa was something that was well known. Alpha-32 had committed a dozen different interpretations of the day’s events to her memory - from dissertations condemning the weak stance of Admiral Anderson to analyses condemning Phillipa Georgiou for not leaving at the first instance. Her own interpretation was something she had yet to decide upon: just one of many things requiring further cogitation.

“I see,” B’Rena said, frowning. “It is… disconcerting to hear one of whom I have thought highly dishonoured in such a way.”

“Do you wish to speak with the Captain about it?” Alpha-32 asked.

“No,” B’Rena said, scowling. “I wish to think. And then I will decide.”

Alpha-32 nodded. “That seems like a wise decision.”

It was a wise decision, but in truth Alpha-32 was only devoting a small amount of processing power to it. There were, after all, other things to think about.

My mission, she thought.

***

Lorca

Starfleet regulations didn’t change much in two centuries. In fact, apart from a few new ones named - presumably - for people that Lorca had never heard of, they seemed entirely static.

Bureaucracy, he thought derisively. Never changes.

Tugging at the red jacket of his uniform, Lorca idly wondered if there were different ship service uniforms, as there had been in his time. He recalled the first time he’d seen the memo about the new uniforms aboard Constitution-class ships - he had been, almost despite himself, intrigued: there was something exciting about the colours. A promise of vibrancy, excitement, adventure. He remembered thinking, as he looked at the plans of one of the various Connies: ‘after the war, a Constitution-class ship. That’s the plan.’

Win the war, get the prize. Best ships in the fleet. Prestige, and the chance to pick his own crew and go out into the great unknown, far from Admiralty breathing down his neck.

Yeah, sure, he thought, snorting. Vibrancy. Excitement. Adventure. A Terran Captain didn’t crave such things, or at least, not in the same way a Federation Captain did. For a Terran, vibrancy was alien blood splattered on a wal, excitement was battle, adventure was conquest.

But I did get a Constitution-class ship, he thought, snorting derisively at the thought of the Exeter class - ‘an older class of ship with comparatively minimal utility’, she had called it.

Could say the same damn thing for me, he scowled.

The door beeped, and Lorca sighed, his thoughts snapping back to the present (bitter irony filled him at that thought).

“Enter,” he said curtly.

Sure enough, in came Alpha-32, a small, empty smile on her face.

“Are you settling in comfortably, sir?” she asked without preamble.

“I prefer standing desks,” he replied gruffly. “But I’ve been taking the time to catch up on my reading, so there’s that at least.”

He brandished the PADD as he spoke, giving her a wry smile.

“That is good,” Alpha-32 said, still smiling. “While you have been acclimating -”

God, this robot doesn’t have a sarcasm module.

“- I have made a selection for the name of the ship.”

“Oh?” Lorca asked blandly.

“I would prefer to show you, sir,” she said. “I ordered it painted onto the hull by the time we get onto a shuttle.”

“Well, isn’t that nice,” he said with a sardonic smirk. He stood. “Can you get me a standing desk for when we get back?”

“Unlikely, but I can put in a request,” Alpha-32 said, nodding once.

Lorca sighed, motioning to the door. “Shall we, Alpha-32?”

She paused, almost hesitating, before looking him in the eye, her smile gone.

“I have also selected a new name for myself, sir,” she said, her expression entirely serious. “It was a difficult choice to make, but I believe it is the right one.”

“Alright,” he said, trying not to sound too disinterested. “What is it?”

“Raphael,” she replied at once.

It took him a moment to process

“Raphael,” he said after a moment, “is a man’s name.”

Her small smile returned, now almost sardonic. “So is Michael.”

He paused at that, before smirking ruefully. “Touché.”

Her smile widened. “Shall we, Captain?”

***

The name was emblazoned on the saucer section in neat black lettering for all the universe to see.

U.S.S. Seraphim NCC-102017

“Interesting name,” Lorca commented from the seat of the shuttle raft.

“I chose it because it is the term for the highest choir of angels,” Alpha-32 - Raphael - said evenly.

“Ah.” He snorted. “‘Gabriel’. ‘Michael’. ‘Raphael’.”

“Exactly,” Raphael said. “Although technically, they were archangels, not necessarily Seraphim. There is some theological uncertainty in that regard.”

He smirked. “The name works, Commander.”

She gave another of her neutral smiles, before returning her attention to the helm.

Lorca considered for a moment whether there was an aspect of emotional manipulation at play, but then dismissed it. After all, Raphael seemed, for the most part, about as emotionally aware as the average brick. Smiling as he comforted himself in that realisation, Lorca leant back, admiring the lines of his ship. It sure looked like a Connie from here, he had to admit.

Captain Lorca of the Starship Seraphim, he thought, smiling. Now that was something he could get used to.

***

A:N: So, this is the last complete chapter I have at present (and the one posted last on AO3). I am still working, slowly, on this work, but my fan fiction work almost always takes a backseat to my original work (which you can see elsewhere on tumblr at jteroracleverse, or usually reblogged here). I’ll keep at it slowly, though.

[bastardnev]

The King and the Prince

*honks la cucuracha horn* HEY GUESS WHO WROTE A FIC FOR A SHIP THAT ISN’T WADE/NEV

for @champnatalya!!

(like to ao3)

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: World Wrestling Entertainment, Professional Wrestling Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Mustafa Ali/Pac | Adrian Neville Characters: Mustafa Ali, Pac | Adrian Neville Additional Tags: Denial of Feelings, nev's a Big Angry Gay Mess, mustafa's a Big Cutie, And a bit of a flirt Summary: A few lighthearted comments from Mustafa causes Neville to rethink how he'd been feeling the past few months.

If someone could kindly remind Neville as to why he agreed to spend the rest of his evening with a group of peasants, then that would be lovely.

He had originally planned on going back to his hotel room after 205 Live went off the air that week, getting some rest before heading off to the next location in the morning, but the rest of the division had other plans. Seeing as everyone was in a good mood, Cedric proposed going out for drinks once the taping was over, and they wanted the King to go with them.

The answer seemed obvious -- of course Neville was going to reject their offer. Why would he want to spend any more time with these guys than he had to? Between Raw and 205 Live, he spent two whole days of his week with them -- two days that he would have rather spent doing literally anything else. Did they really think that they could ask him to tag along with them on their late night adventures and that he would be eager and willing to go?

Then Gallagher went and made an offhand comment about being able to outdrink Neville in a way that 'only a gentleman could'. Nothing made Neville tick quite like snide remarks from the arguably inferior Englishman. Vowing to prove him wrong, Neville finally accepted their invitation, knowing damn well that he would be standing tall in the end just like the last time he and Jack had faced off.

Later, Neville was making his way back to the locker room following his main event match (and successful title defense) against TJP. He was actually in good spirits, having once again proven to the WWE Universe that there was simply no one else on the 'Neville Level' and as such there was no one who was good enough to take him down. And despite his prior hesitation, he was even looking forward to going out, the anticipation of getting yet another victory over Jack causing a devilish smirk to form on his face. He had already won one fight that evening, and nothing was stopping him from winning a second.

Neville pushed the locker room door open and immediately spotted Mustafa sitting at the far end of the room, playing around on his phone. Neville's smirk melted away, and his cocky expression was replaced with the usual annoyed one that he always wore.

Mustafa Ali had made quite a name for himself ever since arriving in WWE, earning a reputation among fans and colleagues as being one of the best high flyers in the company, and his sights were set firmly on the purple strap that could always be seen resting on Neville's shoulder. He had made his title ambitions quite clear, going as far as to tweet him about how it would take a 'Prince' like himself to dethrone the King. There would even be some times during their matches where Neville would knock him down only for him to defiantly stand back up, the fire in his eyes burning even fiercer, the challenging expression on his face unwavering. He had so much passion, ambition.

Neville hated that.

Their issues found their way outside of the ring as well. All it took was one passing glance from Mustafa for Neville's attitude to do complete one-eighty. An unusual feeling would well up inside him, almost as if there were butterflies in his stomach. Sometimes they would accidentally bump into each other in a crowded hallway and it would take a whole ten minutes for Neville to stop shaking. He felt... uneasy in his presence and would much rather be as far away from his as possible.

At the same time, if Mustafa weren't around, then Neville would be wondering where he was, why he wasn't hanging out with the other losers in the division. It was a unique hatred that not even Neville himself fully understood. He wasn't sure if he wanted to.

As Neville washed up in the showers, he toyed with the idea of simply ignoring him, but there was something nagging at him. Was Mustafa going with the rest of the roster to the bar? Would he be watching him obliterate Jack in their drinking contest? Hell, had he even been asked to go in the first place? Neville knew that whenever Mustafa had a match -- even if it was against a local competitor, as was the case that night -- he spent a good amount of time alone as he mentally prepared himself. It was possible that no one had gotten around to inviting him.

The way Neville saw it, he had two options. He could go through with his original plan of ignoring him, believing that if the other cruiserweights were really Mustafa's friends then they would have already told him about the evening's festivities. That, or he could simply ask him about whether or not he'd been invited. If not, then he could make fun of him for having fake friends who didn't truly care about him. The latter seemed more fun.

Neville shut the water off and quickly dried himself before heading over to his bag, digging around for more casual clothes to slip on. It was as he was sliding a t-shirt over his head that he look a look over his shoulder at Mustafa, who was still doing God knows what on his phone. "What, are you too busy screwing around on Twitter to even acknowledge your King?" Neville asked.

Mustafa finally looked up from the device, letting out a sigh through his nose before replying with, "The last time I greeted you when you came in the room, King, you told me to shut up."

"Maybe so." Neville took a seat on one of the benches, clasping his hands together on his lap and hunching forward. "But this time is different. I actually want to speak with you."

"Do you?" He looked a little surprised.

"I want to know what you're doing tonight." Neville smirked. "If you have plans to go anywhere."

"Uh... no, I don't," he admitted. "Why do you want to know?"

Huh. Neville thought. So they didn't ask him. What good friends he has! "How about you accompany your King to the local bar tonight? I'm in the mood for celebratory drinks. Or does someone such as yourself prefer to hole up in his hotel room? Is that more your definition of 'fun'?"

Mustafa's eyebrows raised at Neville's offer, what appeared to be a faint blush growing on his cheeks. Neville couldn't even begin to imagine what he was so bashful about. Then again, he had no way of knowing how the mind of a peasant worked. "Well?" He asked. "Answer me."

"King..." Mustafa let out a little embarrassed chuckle, the sound of his laughter as well as the smile on his face making Neville go a little red himself. What the hell was he laughing at? Was he mocking him?!

"I don't think there's anything particularly funny about this, Ali." Neville scolded him with a cold glare. "You should know better than to disrespect your King. Haven't you learned anything from the last time you did that?" Neville had no problem locking Mustafa in the Rings of Saturn once again if it meant getting him to behave.

"I'm not trying to be disrespectful at all." Mustafa raised his hands self-defensively, his grin having grown wider. "I just think it's funny, that's all. You? Asking me on a date? It's not what I expected."

Neville felt his mouth drop open, the slight shade of pink on his cheeks now having grown full-on crimson. What?! A date?! Mustafa thought that Neville was actually asking him out?! "Don't think so highly of yourself, Ali!" Neville shot up from the bench. "You're not worthy enough to be anything even close to my lover." His fists clenched. "I'm asking you because all of the others are going out tonight."

"So it's not just you? Damn. Here I was thinking I was getting some alone time with the King." Mustafa clicked his tongue, though he offered Neville a wink, which caused him to swallow.

"You had better cut that out--" Neville took a few steps towards Mustafa and abruptly stopped when the locker room door opened, and they both looked to find TJ now standing in the doorway. He looked between the two of them with a puzzled expression, like he wasn't sure what in the world he'd just walked in on. Neville backed away from Mustafa and snatched his bag up, huffing and storming towards the exit.

"I'll see you later, King!" Mustafa called after him. Neville ignored him and rammed into the door with his shoulder, stepping out into the hallway. It was as the door was closing that he overheard TJ mentioning the plans to Mustafa. Just my damn luck. Had I waited a few more minutes, that bullshit could have been completely avoided.

Where the hell did Mustafa get off saying those kinds of things, anyway? Did he really think that he was that important in Neville's life to the point where Neville would actually ask him out on a date? To the point where Neville would actually be interested in being in a relationship with him?

Christ, imagine if the two of them were actually dating? Neville's mind was suddenly flooded with images of the two of them hanging out before the show started, talking about their respective matches, actually being nice to each other. He thought of greeting him with a hug, giving him a good luck kiss, waking up next to him in a hotel bed... The same butterfly feeling that Neville usually got when thinking about Mustafa returned with a vengeance, and when paired with this context, it almost seemed... nice.

NO. Neville's eyes shot open wide, his grip on the handle of his bag growing almost impossibly tight. There was no way in hell that that was what was truly going on. Neville would be damned before he-- before he actually developed feelings for someone like Mustafa. Neville was the King, dammit. He didn't have time for crushes or things of that nature. Someone who was a constant thorn in his side couldn't possibly have worked his way into his heart...

...could he?

[lesbian-nautica]

Your opinions on the newest issue? How do you feel about the sequel lost light in general?

Under a cut because BOY THIS GOT LONG AND SALTY

Alright so. Y’all remember that 2 hour video on why Sherlock is terrible? If you haven’t, go watch it, it’s great, but it brings up a very important point: Moffat is not a bad writer when he’s writing short things, or one-offs, or in tandem with another writer, it’s when he’s given full control over everything that he starts being suck-ass at his job.

In order to really understand what exactly is wrong with Lost Light, let’s take a moment to look back at mtmte. MTMTE was basically the renaissance of Transformers comics, as it brought in a whole new slew of people who otherwise wouldn’t be reading comics about robots. MTMTE had the perfect mix of plot and character, never (well occasionally but sparingly) sacrificing one for the other. You can see characters mature, see them grow, see things affect them, see them occasionally lose a nose because Milne drew an issue, etc. We all love MTMTE because even with its faults…..its many faults……it’s a good comic. It’s a great comic.

Which brings me back to the Moffat comparison. I’m not saying JRO is a bad writer-yes I am, but like, I’ll give him a break for one minute, okay-he was given creative control around the last quarter of MTMTE, and told to bring it to a close or whatever (where did Milne even vanish too. Where is he. Find him). You start to get a real suspension of disbelief, but at first, we were all okay with it, because at first read, it looks like Megatron was being handled well-and he was! I’ll admit, even I fell for it, that charming idea that even Megatron isn’t immune to the charm of living life on the Lost Light, that he too changes with it. The end of MTMTE was a little bit of bullshit, a genuinely well-written moment, severe hearache for soundad, and then…..the last issue is just catching up with Fort Max and Red Alert and Prowl. It’s actually a better place to cut off mtmte than the end of that last bullshit arc, because the end of that issue is the final reminder of the tone that MTMTE had-that tone of life as a thing worth living, even if it’s small, that tone of people learning to get over the past and move toward the future, the world ahead being both bleak and yet intriguing, stuff like that. It’s not surprise why Prowl shows up, I’d pay to have a whole series on Fort Max and Prowl dealing with their shit.

And that was the end. We all went through withdrawals, we NEEDED those gay robots flying around through space, how would we live without them?? Not to worry!! JRO is writing a sequel!!! YAY!!!!

LL1 actually had me sold on how it was gonna go down, because LL1 still feels (at least to me) like mtmte. I didn’t mind the art so much (background characters still look like they all need saving oh god) but the first issue was good. There were even LESBIANS in it!!! Lost Light gave me in thirty seconds what Transformers hadn’t given me in thirty years, some LESBIANS!! So we all looked at the lesbians and grinned, and got a good chuckle out of Blueberry Rodimus, and out of Brainstorm, and out of Nightbeat, and we all felt sad for Rung, and so on, and so on. We got obsessed with the little moments of mtmte that lost light was still giving us, especially during those first issues.

I’d like to say and then lost light four happened and we all realized this was bad, but no, we were all trapped and willing to stretch our bullshit tolerance to spare the fact that Lost Light was doing…so much wrong. It sacrificed characters for plot (i’m not even talking in the literal sense yet but we’ll get to that), it had too many plots happening at once, and then the plots had to just STOP because there was too much happening, none of it could hit emotionally because there was just too much trying to make itself investing.

And then lost light five happened and half of us realized what was happening, the other half hit up my inbox bragging about how they were right for guessing the Lug thing since I had been so hopeful and avid against that bullshit but who cares I guess you being right is better than the fact Lug fucking DIED, okay.

And then lost light six happened and we FINALLY all fucking realized the big problems with Lost light, and started to be like “wait no, no stop, wait, not this, stop it JRO” but it was too damn late, JRO was alone at the controls of a train he either didn’t know how to smoothly drive or fully intended to ram into a wall.

And then, Lost Light seven became JRO slamming that train right into a wall. Because Lost light seven, for all its cute moments and lesbian interactions, for all its fun little dialogue bits and promise to keep to one plot and just move that one forward, for all this and all that, it ends as an absolute train wreck. Not only did it LITERALLY BURY A GAY, it also destroyed a character most relatable to the reader-the character who had been out of the loop, so he could ask questions to simple things that new readers wouldn’t know, the one someone absolutely new to the franchise could easily relate to, and also the ship’s damn adorable mascot. It doesn’t matter now, if Rodimus gets his ship back, because……look at his squad. All their character was buried with Tailgate, who was buried FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

So here’s my real beef with JRO, flat out. He thinks that just because he brings gay characters back means he can kill them without us criticizing because hey, he brought them back!! Nevermind the fact he killed them, they’re back tho!!! Nevermind the fact he lets Megatron go free without ever facing justice for what he’s done, don’t worry about it, fucking GETAWAY am I right??? Literally sacrifices one gay relationship before he’ll stop making tragic lesbian relationship? Psssha, no, his characterization of Cyclonus in Lost Light is PERFECTLY THE SAME AS MTMTE, how dare you point out that Cyclonus would’ve told Tailgate the truth much sooner, how dare you point out that Tailgate has been turned into an asshole for no other reason than JRO needed him to be one so he could kill him, because JRO apparently can’t write a comic without killing all the gay ones while also letting fucking MEGATRON get away scott free.

TLDR? I think JRO has been given more than he can chew, so he’s spitting it out onto the floor and calling it art.

[tellywoodtrash]

ishqbaaz 25.09.17 lb

oh NOW om is calling gauri all frantically. asshat. 

i’m sorry i just can’t take shivaay seriously in those sunglasses. 

greattttttt, phatphati is outta gas or some shit. 

suman be like jfc, trusting these two was a baaaaad idea. 

this mukhiya is so ridiculouslyyyyyy OTT i can’t even. 

OH GOD ANIKAAAAAAAA DON’T SPLIT UPPPP

shivaay’s radar beeping that wife is nearby. 

OMG THIS IS THE WORST HIDING I’VE EVER SEEN YOU STUPID GIRLS

ok fwding coz ughhhhhhhhh 

mukhiya, those two were on the side of your one good eye. honestly. 

ANIKA DON’T BE A DAMN HERO 

LORD ABOVE

ok i hate mukhiya so much. someone beat him up. where tf are you, shivKara???

OK FUCK YOU SUMAN THESE TWO PUT THEIR LIVES AT RISK FOR YOU

suman’s dialogue delivery is hella bad

GREAT. anika’s gonna get herself fucking slaughtered at this rate. stand still you idiot girl. 

shivKara eavesdropping on these two gundas from like a mile away. in pouring rain. amazing.

lmao listening at the description they’re like YUP. SUCH GANDDDDH CAN BE MACHAOFIED ONLY BY OUR GIRLS. 

SLOW MO SWAGGER WALK. impaired by the ankle deep flooding. 

pft, first of alllllllllll, so fucking extra, you assholes. secondly, that poem was for bromance purposes. don’t be modifying it for your bs heterosexual relationships. 

lmao mukhiya’s second eye is also gone. 

ok fwding coz this is hella boring. 

ok shivaay, that could be ANYONE’s blood. or does your Awareness™ extend to doing blood typing and DNA testing by eye too?

i’m 1000% here for om’s angsty discovery of gauri’s kapde ka chichdaa tho.

girls, this is india. have you not been living here all this while? don’t you know what the police is like? 

“kadak ho ya bhadak, humein isse kaa matlab??” lol 

oh great. madamji is here. 

oh ho anika baaaat sun toh letiiiiiiiiiiii

LMAO HER NAME IS TAADAKA 

fyi: name of a powerful female demon in hinduism, slayed by lord ram. 

oh noooooooo. they’re laughing at her name. 

oh boy. madamji is like madhusudhan phupa of sarabhai. just the “hein???” is missing. 

anika’s miming is hella bad. do not pick her to be on your team for charades. 

greattttttttt. both of them have gotten themselves locked up. 

lo, suman bhi andar. LOL SHE’S SO CUTE. I LOVE HER FAAAAAAAACE.

shivaay’s like me - sees an unknown number calling and like NOPE IM NOT PICKING THAT UP

i toh don’t pick up known numbers also. like, just don’t call me. i won’t pick up. i hate the phone. just text me like a normal person. (so i can leave you on read.) basically, unless you’re my mom, i’m most probably not going to respond to you. just don’t try to contact me.

SAB PHONE PE HI POOCHENGE KYA, IDHAR NAHI AAYENGE???? 

snort.

oh ho tyaagi ki bhi badi dukh bhari kahaani hai. 

ok literally don’t care about ruvya. fwding the fuck outta them. 

shivaay, ouff, must you be such an asshole to all public servants??? like, at least know the scope of your jurisdiction man. 

lmao, awaaz neeche, really???? lady, you’re deaf. 

lol gauri too appealing to bade bhaiyya, as if her husband standing next to him is invisible. 

BAAT BAAT PE HOME MINISTER, JAISE UNKO TOH KOI KAAM HI NAHI HAI, BAS TUM LOGON KA PHONE HI UTHAATE REHNA HAI

OH MY GOD OM IS EVEN MORE TADIBAAZ, HE’S LIKE CALL THE DEFENCE MINISTER, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU IDIOT

aaaaaaaaaaaaand…. 

yup. 

lmaoooooo anika taunting om too. 

shivaay’s finally met his tadi match in inspector taaadka. 

lol shivaay snarkily asking suman if she’s okay and enjoying, hee hee hee

pffffffffft no jail can contain sassy!kara’s sass. 

lol his gesturing at someone to let them go. ugh why is he so damn cuuuuuuuuuuuute??? and look at gauri watching him!

LOCKUP MEIN ROMANCE SUJH RAHA HAI????

please don’t dismiss her billu, tera bas chalta toh you WOULD sex her up here. dadi bhi nahi hai tujhe control karne ke liye. 

UGH ANIKA WHY SO CUUUUUUUUTE. i love your damn face so much. 

ok fuck his stupidass hand wound. awaiiiii. 

lo. ho gaye shuru idhar bhi. 

ok stop trying to be all rational and shit here, omkara. you’re wrong. shut up and stand there in your wrongness being wrong. 

“gauri, meri baat khatam nahi hui hai.” “lekin humari sehan karne ki shakti khatam ho chuki hai.” 

in more ways than one, son. so mind it. she’s thisss 👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽 close to leaving your ass. 

OK TEJ IS BEING THE MOST FUCKING EXTRA HE’S EVER BEEN IN HIS LIFE

lmaoooooo all of them gesturing noooooooooooo in the bg. INCLUDING SUMAN.

LOLOLOLOL

aaaaaaaand…. 

LMAO ANIKA’S DEATH GLARE AND OM’S SIDE EYE AT SHAKTI. 

“jab shivaay aur meri nahi chali toh kiski kya chalegi.”

at least this maamle mein tej recognizes that shivaay has more tadi and extraaaa than him. 

who will freeee them nowww?????

fwding this ruvya nonsense. 

pffffffffffft, everyone’s yelling at anika and gauri. 

if she’s deaf, how come she can hear all this??? 

waaaaaaaaaah. dadi is here to show HER tadi. 

lol shivaay guraaaoing in bg “isne DADI ko lock up mein daala toh i’ll SUE this lady.”

anika: simmer down loser, you need to gtfo here to be able to sue her in the first place. 

face-off between two badass buddhiyas. 

indian judiciary has come down to settling cases by a match of panja. maybe this is how salman khan keeps escaping jail, by beating all the prosecutors in arm wrestling matches. 

LMAO THEIR FACES. SP. THE MEN. 

oh of course, the old birds are friends. 

i want to kiss these two faces. i love them so much. 

pfffffffffft, idiots calling out their names as if dadi’s forgotten who they are. 

omfg, shivaay adding “sabse chotiiiiii” after gauri yelling her name. #thisBROTPwillKillMeWithFeelz.

how considerate of gauri to intro suman as well. 

“tuney inhe andar kyun kiya?” “arre, bolte bohut hai. 😒😒😒😒” 

dude i love her. i say we get inspector taadka to move into oberoi mansion. she’ll shut down their nonsense and have that ship sailing smooth in one day flat. 

ok, good. suman is safe. 

god dafa karooooooo rasmein and just get these little shits married alreadyyyyyyy.

CHUNARI KI RASM. THAANE MEIN. oufffffff. matlab, hadh hai. 

billu is ever ready. he don’t give a fuck. he just needs to marry her. who cares where. iska bas chale toh shamshaan ghaat mein bhi shaadi kar le. 

wow what even is happening with ruvya? they look close to making out. 

they should. it might make them infinitesimally interesting if there was at least some sex to their relationship. 

aaaaaaaand they lost me with the close ups of their mouths. fucking whyyyyyyyyyyy are they shot like this??? you don’t do this to shivika and rikara? then why this grossness here??? 

chalo chaddho, mainu kiii. i don’t even like this pairing.  

they literally decorated the thaana. my goddddddddd. these ppl are so fucking extra. inka bas chale toh they’d bring all the fairy lights in oberoi mansion here too. 

so just…. fuck jhanvi and pinky, i guess. 

can you really blame pinky for feeling left out and hating the rest of them? i don’t. these people are hella insensitive. 

PFT. BILLU. IDIOT. 

ALSO OUFF OMKI WHY SO CUTE?????? BUT ALSO WTF IS THAT WEIRD PIC BEHIND YOU????

lol inpector taadka truly is dadi’s friend. she’s like DOOOR HATT!!!!!!

pft is this photobaaazi necessary? 

ring ceremony bhi baaki hai aaj, oufff.

so, did shivaay buy that stupidass persian emperor ring or what? 

ugh ruvya nonsense. isse achcha toh meri svetlana ko dikhaate. 

OMFG RUDRA JUST SAID AAPKI UMAR MEIN OPTIONS KAM HOTE HAI…. I WANT TO….

FUCK HIM UPPPPPPPPPP BHAVYAAAAAAAAAAA. 

ok you know what, fuckkkkkkkkk this guy. honestly. fuck him to fuck. i still love him as a brother and devar and all, but he honestly sucks in literally every other dept. 

i’m kinda glad sumo escaped him while she could. i now envision her living her best life with a hot surfer nerd in australia. 

yesssssssss, manav’s here! fuck youuuu rudra! 

manav is looking more and more handsome to me. esp since rudra is fucking ugly on the inside. 

wait why the water wars tomorrow???? 

ew that ring is fug.