#decided to check on some blogs i blocked cause I saw that post going around of new users being forced to follow upon blog creation

[cntarella]

"does x sexuality really exist??? does y sexuality exist or is it just a bit????" you sound like a terf. that's terf rhetoric. i hope you fall off a flight of stairs

[darling-miaxoxo]

Fuck you! (part 2)

A/N: part 2 of the fuck you drabble/oneshot i made- Also due to the amount of p*rn bots circling tumblr, im blocking blogs who have a default pfp, no title, and have no posts. Sorry for the inconvenience! Also this is long af- I wont be posting for the next 3 days as it is my exams, again. Warning/s: Murder, mentions of cheating, violence, successful assassination attempt. Summary: It's been a few years since you last saw them. You have been working as an assassin to make ends meet. You get a request to take out a girl. Not just any girl. The girl Alma was with. ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

You were opening up your phone to check on social media. As you were watching some videos, you decided to go check on your secret. The main reason you were making money. You opened up the app that looked like a dictionary. It asked for facial recognition and the password. You let the app scan your face and entered the password. It was the assassination app. You checked your requests for any new assassination requests. So far, there were a lot, it makes sense as you are the third top assassin, and was never caught. But one request caught your eye. It was requesting for you to kill a girl. Not any normal one. The girl you caught Alma with. And their offering a hefty amount of money too! 10,000$ to be specific. You accepted their request and were going to meet up at their house in Wales when the job is done. Ha! Funny isnt it? The risk of getting caught by your ex-wife. Almost like the time you caught her. Actually scrap that, Just like the time you caught her. Adrenaline was rushing through your veins. The thought of seeing her again in shock of her seeing her ex-wife murdering a-not-so-innocent girl. You were getting ready for the job. Shotgun's, pistol's, knives, smoke bombs, your mask, your hoodie, and most importantly your lucky necklace, which included a photo of the children in it. Just the children, no Alma cause you were heartbroken and cut that part of the photo off. You made sure that everything was intact and ready for murder. Violence is not the answer is what you would tell to a child. But to a grown adult? Violence is the answer to almost everything. They can take it, their a grown adult adult after all. You found out that this girl was in Wales. Stalking skills sure do come help in assassination. ≪•◦ Time skip ◦•≫ You were currently on Wales, your backpack was heavy, but it is a small price to pay for you not getting killed by police. After all, you did kill hundreds. If they found out, you would be sentenced to death almost immediately. Oh sweet Cairnholm. I missed you. You tried to find out where this girl was, your not planning to stay for long. You put on your white hoodie and mask and started to walk the place. A regular person would think; why would an assassin wear a white hoodie? Well because, you can just see the blood splatter across your hoodie. One might say you were crazy. But you have gone too crazy to care. You heard a crack. Reflexes kicked in, you turned around almost instantly. There you saw her. The very girl you saw Alma with. "Well. Long time no see hm? Never knew your name." You said, your voice deep. "Huh? Who are you?" The girl foolishly said. "The person you will see last." You murmured. Grabbing your knife and then slashing her dead. The blood splattered against your white hoodie. Oh, this was fun. You took off your hoodie and was ready to go to the person's home. The person was non-binary, so you tried your best to use their preferred pronouns, which was they/them. You started to walk to their house and knocked. The person answered and asked you to come in "Hey, thanks for eliminating her for me. She was cheating on me and tried to kill me after wards. Anyways, I know your here for the money and not my sad story so here it is" The person said, and you wanted to help her out so you replied with; "No problem. I know the feeling. Please contact me again, next time is on the house." You grabbed the briefcase and started to walk back to the ferry. You decided to might as well visit them. As long as they dont find out your secret. You walked to the cave entrance and heard the familiar popping sound you hadn't heard in years. You heard the flowing of the grass as the weather of Cairnholm was changed from a foggy day, to a clear, sunshine day. You started to walk to the home. You heard the familiar laughing of the children in the distance. But, you couldnt stay long. Or else, they might find out your secret. You breathed in and finally stopped being scared and knocked. Ready to face whoever it was, after all, if it was Barron you could easily slice his head off.

Emma answered the door, her eyes wide as she saw you. "Miss Y/n?" She said, her voice shaky and laced with both curiosity and sadness. "Yes?" You said, mischief laced in your voice in contrast with her curiosity and sadness. She came forward and hugged you, tears coming out of her atlantic-like blue eyes. "Shh, I'm here now." you cooed. You were an assassin, not a monster. "Now let's come inside, shall we?" You said as the blonde-haired teenager sniffled. She led you inside. You were wondering were Alma was and that question was soon answered when you saw her outside watching the children with a smile on her face. You started to walk closer to her, your black and white Japanese-styled shoes clicking on the wooden planks beneath you. "Hello darling, long time no see hm?" You murmured in her ear from behind. She instantly turned around. "Y/n!" ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

Part 3? 10 notes if yes

[marengogo]

https://www.tumblr.com/marengogo/739886505084993536/it-is-a-very-very-very-basic-and-simple-thing?source=share

"why are you here if you think you're right" because i saw you saying that "Imagine if i have to check every acct i post from......" Thing where you directly indirectly said some people who think like this ain't gonna survive if jkk turned out to be not dating so i replied cause I'm a jkkr and no i don't think they're dating and i also do think tae should have double checked the acct before reposting. So i thought blogs are where you have discussions even when you're not agreeing to things so i did that but just got to know that you're supposed to block and scroll down.

"the problem is is that the account is shipper account and no one's ready to have that conversation" for some people it might be like that but since you replied to my ask saying this let me clear this that i don't care if he's posting from shipper acct or any kind of acct my problem is that is anti and now unintentionally it got 42k around followers space where people belive he posted it after checking the acct so now they have all the rights to continue their hate. Yes he's not responsible for what people think but he's responsible for what he posts. Media training is there for a reason if he had time to check his name tag I'm sure more 10 sec wouldn't have caused much problem. You said one scroll always don't tell you about the acct which i agree and i would have been fine again if those anti posts were down the page i would have assumed he didn't scroll that down and it's fine but ths posts are up there so in this case 10 sec would have been enough.

I hate it when people thinks that just because we're pointing out something it's gotta have something to do with "shipping" when we don't care about it that's why i replied.

That's all i wanted to clear although i do have things to say but it's waste of time so it's agree to disagree situation.

One more thing for @/chikoritajjk, i ain't reading all of that as i have zero interest in knowing what they think since i didn't go to their blog but thanks for taking your time.

Hi Anon,

I’m going to reply point by point, when I get a second (most likely tomorrow), but in the meantime if you could please clarify this for me:

Media training is there for a reason if he had time to check his name tag I'm sure more 10 sec wouldn't have caused much problem

What do you think that is, what are the tell tell signs he should have picked upon, how did his media team train him to pick up on this signs, what are other famous examples of media training etc etc… Because it feels like you and I have a very set idea of how this works and before I reply and assume stuff, it would be great if you could clarify.

Thanks!

Marengo

PS - Also, was the Artichikoo comment necessary? Common, you know better! You want a world where JM doesn’t have antis yet you come to my public blog, where ANYONE can reblog, and start behaving confrontational as if they didn’t have the right to reblog and express their opinion, is not like they asked you to reply, did they? ... sometimes ignoring IS the answer. People, everyone, you, me, etc, WE ALL need to understand how things work, in general, because “if you can’t stand the heat…”. Once again, I repeat this is a PUBLIC BLOG📢, so you are ALL subject to the public’s answers and opinions.

The moment you sent your ask, with the tone you chose, you instantly decided the type of replies you were going to get. Had you sent a “I want to discuss this topic” type of post, we would have discussed. You sent a “stop accusing me/us of yadda yadda … he should have yadda yadda” type of post, so I am replying to the yadda yadda. Makes sense no?

It really takes nothing to not be confrontational behind a keyboard, when you are put on the spot IRL, it is difficult, I can understand. That aside, I am assuming your main goal is to “protect” JM right? Antagonising one of those people who loves him more than life itself, doesn’t seem to be the way to go about it.

PPS - sorry to all my other Anons, this person has points I need to make so I really want to address them 🙏🏾

[reapcrbunny]

Hello.

To the Followers that remain, new people seeing this message wondering what thas been going on, and people checking on this blog to see if I’m still here . .

I’m writing this to express my apology and accountability for the last year and a bit that this blog ( and soulseekcr ) was active.

My original pinned with my rules doc attached has been replaced with this post but I will place my rules for prosperity purposes here. If you are reading this post on soulseekcr's blog, you will see it link to dahlia's rules document, though the rules information that has been updated was also updated on that too. Fair warning, this post is long and there will be no read-more, hence the content warnings below. I do not wish for it to be seen as me trying to hide something when I at this point am trying to be genuine, truthful and sincere in where I have failed.

Thus, the content warnings are as follows and read at your comfort or pace: mentions of grooming / predatory actions, my behaviour, boundaries being pushed, mentions of incest.

I implore people reading this already rolling their eyes to bare with this whole thing — please. This is not me tossing blame on other people. It’s just .. me. I know this is long. I apologize. I have much to apologize for and acknowledge. This apology is to the people who saw me in general and to who that hurt because of my past behaviour that, in 2016 - 2018 had been predatory and grooming. This apology is to the people that have been effected directly or indirectly from my actions of being in various servers either from their conception or later on — it was never at all my intent to “ block evade “ as I have been said to have. This apology is to the people who I made feel my writing(s) with them were coerced. I will get into everything if I can. If I miss something, I am sorry, there is a lot that is going around that I have done and without any real knowledge of what else there is besides what I know. I'm speaking about what I know I have done in years past up to the Australian date of 19th April 2023. This was written by me and me alone. Before you ask yourself or think to someone who may have prompted me to write this - no one has told me to make a statement or say any of this. This has been written over a course of a day throughout my work breaks and upon me returning home by my own volition. Thank you.

This apology will cover the grooming / predator accusations, the block evasion accusations, my behaviour and some other things that I believe have been brought up over the course of the last few days through people writing to me as a final goodbye through discord or other means. For starters: my intent was to try and find a community to interact in where I could possibly grow and change in. It is clear, obviously, that this action was taken as something more hurtful and my intentions? They do not matter. I’ve hurt people by existing in discord and certain tumblr spaces and effectively caused more harm. Making my blog over on soulseekcr was, in my mind, harmless. But to some it was seen as, once again, block evasion or someone I did out of malice. To say I did not, again, I know may not be believed and that is alright. I understand how things now look and how I can be believed is non existent. To comment on the apparent confusion, surprise and most likely ridicule, about my rules seeming to be non transparent is something I absolutely apologize over.

For the past few years ( since the edit done when my receipts blog was created in 2020 ) no one brought up the fact that my rules were hard to read due to the formatting itself or that the rule under where I dropped my receipts blog wherein my callouts are located was an issue or seen as me hiding my past. While it clearly does not matter now as, well, y’know … it has been updated to be at the very top and if I ever decide to write either here on this blog or anywhere on tumblr again it will be done in such a way. I am not placing blame on any one person for not telling me this, nor am I going to blame my autism OR my learning disability in full for it not clicking that when people seemed surprised over things that were in my rules when it was brought to them by other parties that, like, it was an accessibility, placement or a me problem rather people than just not reading. I am aware that I have absolutely expressed my disgruntlement on main ( and in private ) about it which, absolutely has been hurtful to the people who were affected by this. Again, I am sorry for not taking the steps earlier to move things around on my rules document sooner. Following the issue with my rules document not being clear or as some clarified " being too far down " … it does make sense wherein people would be surprised over the actions I committed seven years ago.

The behaviour of me writing smut or initiating smut discussions, sharing nsfw art that I have commissioned among other things related to smut content . . was understood to be agreed upon on my end to be something chill on all fronts. If I ever felt something was a little off I either clarified to make sure everything was okay / if comfort levels were okay or dropped the conversation. In my belief, if content being written was being continued then I didn't think anything was wrong as I believed comfort levels were intact. Clearly, they were not. Should I have been, like, more self aware? Probably. Was I? No. Despite my learning disability and autism in understanding things like tone in writing or subtle hints to be like 0% and with long covid throwing that into the negatives . . i still pushed boundaries. Whether I meant to or not does not matter. The excuse I used wherein I would be excited to write with people at all does not matter. People were made uncomfortable and I pushed your boundaries. To individuals I was under the impression I writing with and coming up ideas with -- I wasn't on top of it enough to catch onto discomfort and disassociation and I am at fault. I got caught up in writing something I believed to be at comfort level, when it was not due to signs i did not see - and that is on me. If boundaries were actively being pushed and told to me directly I would have backed off, apologised, and carried on with different genre's of content as I would have been aware that the consent of the nsfw was no longer, like, consensual. For that, to the probable boundless people I have hurt with this, I do not blame any of you for this. I was. Really excited to write with people who were giving me another chance at the time. I have even expressed this fact on voice calls or in text that I was just overjoyed to write with people or I needed communication on certain things - But I was blind to the fact that people were uncomfortable, noticeable or not in terms of distancing content and that is on me and I am sorry.

The grooming accusations? Regardless of my age and how I was just barely an adult at the time or not does not matter. Regardless of me not being sexual in any capacity to the the original maker of my 2018 callout ( wherein my grooming behaviour happened in 2016 - 17 ) or the other individual I dated prior to me turning 18 does not matter. What matters is that, yes, it happened. Regardless of me backing off or not, I was 18 - 20 and I voiced my crush on a minor ( and dated someone else when I was 18 after turning so ). It does not matter to individuals that these actions are not being committed anymore — I will be seen as a monster always to some and, while frustrating to me, that does not matter. What matters is that is how they feel and I respectfully accept that. I was short - sighted to believe that something I did seven years ago to such a degree was something that people could see me change from or that staying in my own lane was possible. I cannot see the man who hurt me as likely changing. It makes sense. It wasn’t and I was wrong. No amount of double checking, blacklisting on my end or trying to co-exist in servers or any activity was going to probably work. Could it have? Maybe a little better. Or not. In hindsight I genuinely don't know -- but I do know that my belief was wrong, unintentionally I continued hurting people directly and indirectly and I am sorry. The last few days wherein my initial statement was made and commented about incest only was my mistake alone. I assumed due to a previous interaction that it was only about that and proceeded to think I was being compared. I breached trust with someone who gave me that information, someone I do not blame this on as it was my fault for running with it and I am sorry.

The trauma the person who was warning the community about because of the grooming in 2016 - 2017 was ( is? tense is hard, I am sorry ) warranted. The belief that I am always and will be that to them, a groomer and/or unchanged, is valid as that is all I will be remembered as to them and anyone else who had been effected by my actions. To the person who made the callout: I apologize. I heard that you were dogpiled — that was not something I wanted nor asked for. Your request to avoid me and the people that wrote with me was valid, it never not was. My behaviour in the past ( and, clearly, in the present ) being made to seem as current set me off and I made a statement I asked if it was alright to make about it to what I thought was the case. I felt I was being chased into a corner and grew defensive. I had a meltdown because of this and stepped away from the conversation as I felt either me or the other person I was dialoguing with wasn't understanding or trying to rile me up on purpose. It was charged, I handled it wrong and I was seen to be deflecting the situation because I misunderstood and misinterpreted the situation -- it is no ones fault but mine. I made assumptions, I had a public meltdown in a server when confronted with the reality I didn't understand where it was coming from because I was triggered by words being spouted at me. As I explain above in terms of the coercion that I have made others feel been committed by myself, among literally everything else I've seen from people before they've left in their goodbye discord messages . . was such. Whether I meant to or not, people were feeling hurt by current behaviour or coersed. But because I grew hyperfocused on the belief that I was being compared to someone who was writing incestuous content actively I did not know about on main when it was brought to my attention. Due to the events being one after another ( like days apart ) I thought that ( guilty by association or writing said content with them ) was the reason I was being called out ( again ). I got upset. I thought it was something to just start a lie. I got defensive, blind to anything else and as someone has said: remorseless. To say I am remorseful as I had the chance to be disconnected and isolated from the situation since I was removed from servers, cut off from those who were people I talked to . . is true. I've sat and come out of defence and shut down mode, read the last messages people have given me and properly stepped away, went to work, and got my brain to realize the reality. I'm remorseful because I was not calm. I tried to express my understanding of my victims and those I hurt and how they feel by bringing up my own -- which, like, in my understanding . . to bring up how i relate to other peoples' experiences is to express compassion or understanding with the situation. However, it was viewed and made to feel as weaponizing my victimhood and spinning the narrative and I am sorry. I was upset, defensive and already under the assumption that something else was why I was being called out. I saw it as an attack that made no sense. I felt antagonized, grew childish and lashed out in the conversation which is plain to see. I did not understand where it came from so suddenly, as I thought I had steered away and kept distance from people I knew didn't like me in a " public space " but I know now that me just being there was not helping and I recognize that. I recognize that it is not about me and my change or lack thereof - it was about victims of my actions being heard. I am sorry that it took so long and I was either ignorant, blind or just ??? I don't know. In any case: the conversation has been documented several times at this point and by now is most likely on my receipts blog.

The actions and other behaviours I committed when I was younger ( and currently with those who I made feel coerced, lies, etc ) … it effected people and still does even when it happened 7 years past and now, recently. As a survivor of csa I understand completely in how it follows people and while I know my apology cannot fix the trauma, loss or hurt that has been caused: please know that I am sorry. I am sorry that due to my lack of awareness, my excitement to write with people or, like, common sense that my appearance kept being seen. I believed blacklisting would fix the situation or that it was the problem in the first place. It wasn't. I believed that the state my rules were at was fine. It wasn’t. It was not my intent for people to feel deceived or lied to due to the content I expressed above but, again, my view of it does not matter. It happened and I am sorry for it. Actions have been taken on my end for it to be deadly clear and you are welcome to look and see. While in my head, saying or acknowledging any of this feels like a moot point, because again who is going to believe me? Who is going to read this? Who knows. Even if no one does, it needs to be said. I believed I'd been doing better in engaging with people who brought up serious topics to me wherein boundaries were breached, I got called out in my behaviour, acted a fool and got hyperfocused on the wrong thing and stepped away from the conversation when I felt it was going nowhere because of my own fault of not calming down. My aim was to not try and control a narrative, my aim was to, in my narrowminded view, not be accused of things I thought I was not doing anymore. Regardless of being directly aware or not of the things I was doing . . it was happening. I was doing the one thing I never wanted to do again or be the cause of: hurting people I saw as my friends. Its not a fault of a lack of communication on both sides, it is me still being unable to recognize social cues or subtle cues that, hey, maybe someone is uncomfortable, it should not always have to be something that has to be punched in my face. It is something I need to continue working on and be more attentive of if I'm ever granted another chance or I write in another rpc again. Semi - finally, I want to apologize to the individuals, moderators and admins that ran servers I was in that were accused of harbouring me in some sort of guilty way. Your mental health has been effected irrevocably and I am sorry. I am sorry for indirect or direct words spoken in your directions. I am sorry to the people that had to either be triggered by the content discussed in the server itself to those who i made feel uncomfortable. I am sorry that my presence in my selfish attempt to have a safe space ruined yours. I am sorry to anyone and everyone that has been indirectly effected by this and your comfort shattered. I am sorry to the individuals that I made feel that my victimhood or my pain was more important than yours. Your pain has and always will be important, relevant and real. My behaviour that you ( and others ) more than likely brought up days ago, and the behaviour that has been more than likely been mentioned in the reblogs of the post, others' or, god knows where else . . was valid to speak out about. Thank you for doing it and holding me accountable. I have not seen everything said and I do not know if I ever will as it will 100% be a breach of boundary if I go looking on peoples' blogs. And I have already done enough damage. I want to thank my former friends and people who gave me a chance at all. I’m sorry that I abused that chance, your boundaries and the trust that was given.

Where will Miles be going to hide next you might ask, wondering when I'll shut up and end this very long post, disappear and reappear somewhere else under a different name. I am not going to hide is my short answer. But I don't have an answer for long term of what I am going to do. The answer I do have for the short term is to leave this post here and on @soulseekcr pinned. Leave avenue's open for dialogue or if anyone left wants to talk to me, and . . take an indefinite hiatus. I clearly need to reflect on what I have definitely blundered on and work on, again, the things I can work on to be more attentive to social / text cues. Actively being here when I have not, like, properly done so when I think I have is doing no one any good. I've made a mess of things. A big one. I know that people who have been hurt by me mayhap not have made it this far and I am aware of that. I am aware that my second chance ( or third or fourth ) has left the building and for that I understand if, in the future, I have run out of them. If I do return to this or any rpc, this blog will be the first to be updated with the url most likely under this pinned post. I do apologize in advance if I am seen in FFXIV, I've taken steps to remove from my friends list those I know do not wish to see me - which does, you know, make you not stand out to me. I am sorry if you see me, the blacklist feature is useless and we all know this. I am sorry if you get upset that I am either in your area, in your alliance or in your dungeon. I will say nothing. I will not bother you. I will not interact in any form besides to probably heal you if I am and then leave. Most likely I'll remain silent if I notice ahead of time. If I have already been removed from the FC's I was attached too - good. If not, don't worry, I've already likely deleted that alt or in the process after posting this to do so. FFXIV is a global game and while, again, my credibility is shot and at this point no one is bound to believe me . . I am not in the business of looking after people in the game to see what is going on. I'm not wishing to press boundaries that have already been run over by a truck.

Finally, I know that this post is being shared in private, picked apart and dissected before anyone even got down to this point. I am not in control of that and I am at the mercy of the ffxiv RPC, my receipts blog ( probably ) and anyone else picking this apart or wherever else it ends up. I hold no malice to the people that do this as it is fair and deserved. If anyone has questions, wants to talk or if anyone wants to discuss my statement ( calmly and without coming at me swinging and even if you do: that's fine. i will probably take an hour at most to read it over a couple times, breathe and then respond like a human being rather than someone just. like. unwilling to listen and defensive. ) I am available on discord ( ᴇᴍᴏᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ꜱᴜᴘᴘᴏʀᴛ ᴠɪᴇʀᴀ#7914 ; this will update if i update it ), through Twitter DMs ( @sayteenies ; this has no chance of changing or me moving ) or through tumblr DMs / asks — though this last avenue may take longer for me to respond to due to by above mentioned however - long - hiatus. Thank you for reading this monster of a post, everyone keeping me accountable, your time and sanity to get to the end.

Miles. | April 19 2023.

[ashdumpsterpile]

ASH’S TMA HURT/COMFORT/FLUFF REC LIST 

For the gays. (And @damcrows who’s been dead for the past 24 hours. Rest in peace babe. Read some gay fic. Deny the inevitability of canon. <3)

___

the end, but the start (of all things that are left to do)  by @ajkal2

Jon wakes up.

aka. mag200 tore out my heart

(Very smol, very short, very spoiler. Def recommend for anyone who just finished the podcast.)

remind me how to smile by @tamerofdarkstars

Jon is probably fine, just hiding out somewhere while the whole murder thing blows over and that's... fine. Martin is fine with that explanation. Really. He's got plenty to distract himself - like listening through the entire What the Ghost episode library, for example. Or watching Georgie Barker's Instagram livestreams.

(Yea this was in the last rec list, but you don’t understand THE ADMIRAL GIVES CUDDLES)

Chamomile by Dribbledscribbles

Whatever the ex-tea was, if it really had ever been that last bag of chamomile Martin claimed he’d found tucked in the back of the cupboard, it was fast now.

Martin had tried catching it, chasing it, blocking its way with shoebox lids and plates and an upended footstool, but the thing was just too quick. Jon knew as well as Knew that he might have left off the attempts completely if not for the creature’s preferred game.

The game was, See How Many Times I Can Push Martin Towards Cardiac Arrest Before He Comes at Me with The Broom.

(Scottish Honeymoon Era. Adorable and weird. A vampire gets harassed.)

hey stranger by @ennuijpg

It’s a late night Tesco run, how eventful could it be? It’s not like Martin is going to run into his boss who’s wearing something absurdly different from usual and get the most acute form of whiplash possible from seeing him, right?

(Martin runs into Jon at the grocery store and has an existential crisis.)

roses roses, roses. by @judesstfrancis

Rose scented laundry detergent. Running into Jon in the breakroom. Running into Jon on his way back to his desk. Rose scented detergent. Running into Jon. Roses. Jon. Roses, roses, roses. 

(Canon enemies to friends to lovers au-ish. Martin POV. Very pining much sweet.)

go softly by doomcountry

And there is nothing else besides this. 

(More hurt/comfort than fluff. Scottish Honeymoon Era. Mild eye mutilation.)

Not Alone by @backofthebookshelf

After the coffin, Daisy and Jon are both fragile. They hold each other up. 

(Post-buried Jon&Daisy starter pack. Very hurt/comfort.)

trust my love by antlsepticeye

“you… you’re real, aren’t you?” jon whispers, the fog slowly dissipating from his mind. “it is not a trick?”

“i’m here,” martin says softly, reaching up to grab jon’s hand that was resting on his cheek, intertwining his fingers with jon’s and squeezing. he moves jon’s hand to martin’s chest, resting it over his heart. “you’re alright. i’m alright. take your time, love. let’s just take some deep breaths, okay?”

(TOUCHSTARVED JON HAS ENTERED THE CHAT.)

reaching out by Athina_Blaine

By the time things settled, when Martin had finally managed to crack through his cold shell, feel some of his old self returning to him in bits and pieces, they had found their little routine.

One that had the two of them sleeping in the same bed, making breakfast, going to the mart. Where Jon reached for his wrist while they slept, and Martin luxuriated in the gentle warmth of his fingers.  

But not one where Martin reached back. One that had Martin kissing Jon awake or taking his hand over the breakfast table, because ... Martin never had the courage to try. And then it never became a part of the routine.

And Martin desperately wanted it to be.

-

Martin and Jon have an important conversation.

(More Scottish Honeymoon Era for the soul. Hurt/comfort/fluff.)

Belabor by @janekfan​

Jon's given the position of Archivist and is falling apart at the seams. Tim and Sasha are upset and playing games. Elias is overbearing and manipulative.

And poor Martin is stuck cleaning up the mess.

(THEE first fic I ever read for tma. Season 1, hurt/comfort/fluff, and hints of Jmartin. janekfan is the absolute master of seasons 1-3 hurt/comfort. This is my favorite, but pls check out the rest of their fics.)

tea, blankets, and a damnable stubborn attitude by ivelostmyspectacles

“Are you really gonna stay here and pester Jon all evening?”

“I’m not pestering him,” Martin retorted, sounding vehement if not busy going through the cupboards. “I’m heating up soup.”

“Oh, you might as well make him another cup of tea while you’re at it.”

“Oh, good idea.”

Jon shot Tim a withering look.

(The one where Jon is ill, Martin makes tea and they watch doctor who together. Fluff 1000%.)

A Kind Hand by @voiceless-terror

Jonathan Sims was adjusting just fine, thank you very much.

In which a minor workplace spill causes Jon to realize that he might have friends.

(Ah yes, the other master of seasons 1-3 fic aka voiceless-terror being my other fav author in the fandom. This one is also season 1 hurt/comfort/fluff.)

A Weather In The Flesh by @cuttoothed

"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."

*

Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.

(More touched starved Jon! Much hurt/comfort!)

Something Old, Something New by @cirrus-grey

Months have passed, and everyone is doing better than they were. Daisy and Basira are getting married, Melanie is feeling her old self, Georgie is as much herself as she has ever been, and even Jon has stabilized on his wild fall away from humanity. Everyone is doing better.

Well. Almost everyone.

(Daisy/Barsira wedding! Melanie is a bitch and we love her! Jmartin dance! Post-canon (almost) everyone lives!)

The Weight of Love by @voiceless-terror

Jon is a restless sleeper. Martin attempts to adjust. 

(The fic where Jon is literally me and Martin attempts to sleep for 1k words.)

The Art of Conversation by @voiceless-terror

"Do you ever stop talking?"

Jon has a complicated relationship with words. Difficulties come and go.

(Jon has adhd and Martin is in love.)

Novelty by @backofthebookshelf

Jon experiences A Sexual Attraction; Martin has A Concern. They figure it out.

(Any fic that explores the ace spectrum is a 10/10. We stan all ace interpretations of jon on this blog.)

Half a Hug by Dathen

I know you weren’t going to hurt me, I trust you, he said again and again. And then a different kind of fear shone through, hollow and echoing: “Please don’t stop touching me."

-

Or: Life is hard when you're touch-starved but have trauma related to your closest friend.  Spoilers through TMA 132.

(Honestly bless every author who saw jon&daisy and was like. They’re siblings. No I will not elaborate.)

the loneliness never left me (but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company) by Athina_Blaine

It was about Martin making Jon feel safe, treasured, and loved. And it had been so, so long since anyone made him feel that way.

And, in the face of it all, Jon was starting to flounder.

(At this point I just need to make separate rec list for Scottish Honeymoon Era.)

you can watch me corrode by scarletfish

"So, how long have you been pulling this shit then?"

"I… excuse me?" Jon’s indignant, certain she can’t mean what he thinks she means.

"When was the last time you ate?"

(Georgie decides Jon and Melanie need a normal day off. Jon learns that he and Melanie have more in common than he thought.)

(Look, Melanie isn’t my favorite person in tma, but she and Jon are like THE SAME PERSON and I adore fics that elaborate on their relationship.)

Out of the Wind, In From the Cold by @ostentenacity

There are two bedrooms in the safehouse, and two beds.

For a moment, Jon considers asking to share, but decides against it with a wince. “I really loved you,” Martin had told him. Loved. Past tense. And Martin doesn’t exactly have a lot of choices right now in terms of company; it would be cruel to demand he play at feelings he no longer has just to make Jon happy.

(For a moment, Martin considers asking to share. But he dismisses the idea with a shake of his head. Jon has already done so much for him. Martin isn’t about to ask for more, especially not when it’s something he doesn’t really need. He has his right mind back, and he has Jon’s friendship. That should be enough for him. It’ll have to be.)

---

Jon thinks that Martin doesn’t love him. Martin thinks that Jon doesn’t love him. They do not, of course, discuss this. Unrequited love is already awkward enough, right? No need to dwell on it.

(THEE SCOTTISH HONEYMOON ERA FIC. IT’S ABOUT THE PINING, BEING MUTUALLY OBLIVIOUS AND FALLING IN LOVE. 10000/10.) 

I Do by @voiceless-terror

“I, um- this was supposed to be a lot more romantic, I swear.” Martin looks down at the dirty bar floor. “I had it all planned out, I-I was going to take you somewhere nice, and then we’d go for a walk in the square- I’ll still do it!” He hurries to explain, as if that’s the most pressing part of this situation. “It’ll be really nice, I’ve already hired a photographer-”

In a fit of protectiveness, Martin proposes to Jon.

(Everyone lives, Martin accidentally proposes and Jon is crying in public.) 

________

[its-deputy-caleb]

would u possibly do some NSFW morbell? where they're up in colter ( i loved ur original morbell post on them ) pls do more as i love ur blog 💛

this is an absolute mess oml i literally have no idea how to write anything smutty but here we go i guess. I love this pair but i kinda went off topic and centred this on a praise kink for micah. ANYWAY this is probably terrible since i'm melting, its literally 40 degrees and the aircon is broken so its unedited af and i wont look at it again until i have a cold drink. but pls enjoy some morbell <333

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

‘Cold up in Colter’

Fuck, what a mess Blackwater had been. The Pinkertons were on them faster than ever and they found themselves fleeing from a blood bath.

That was almost three days ago and Micah hadn’t had an ounce of sleep. He’d been sent out with John to scout ahead, having found a homestead which ended up burning at the hand of O’Driscoll’s. Okay maybe house burning down was his fault but he tends to make stupid decisions when he’s had little to know sleep. And it was so fucking cold.

That didn’t stop heat rising to his face when he felt Arthur’s hands on his shoulder, pushing him back with a roughness he could only wish for in another way. Damn Arthur Morgan and his ability to have Micah curling in on himself and blushing like a virgin at the mere thought of a hand on his shoulder.

He should hate Arthur, really the two are nothing more than rivals, competing for the spot of Dutch Van Der Linde’s right hand. At the beginning, almost six months ago now, Micah couldn’t stand the sight of the man but somehow that anger tapered off into something more akin to admiration and that admiration slowly turned to desire.

He’ll never admit to how badly he wants Arthur but he won’t deny however that he’s pushed the man’s buttons more than once just to have an interaction with him. All he had to do start a silly argument over camp earnings or a bet at five finger fillet to have the man shaking him by the collar and threatening to break his nose.

It almost always ended with Micah sneaking off into the woods with half a bottle of whiskey and his pants bunched around his ankles as he thought of the way Arthur roughed him up by his shirt collar. Fuck he was pathetic sometimes.

There were other occasions where the two had actually managed to get along and that’s what pissed Micah off more than any threats of violence. Arthur just had to go and bring him a beer as he grabbed one for himself, letting their fingers touch accidentally. Or he went and offered him a seat by the fireplace where they ended up much to close for his comfort. Damn Arthur for always leaving him short of breath with a hole in his heart.

Despite what Micah did to impress Dutch, Arthur was still the camp’s favourite by a mile and he never failed to outcompete him in the eyes of the gang. Micah never minded much, not looking for anyone’s approval, but the thought of proving himself to Arthur, of being worthy of his praise is enough to have his wild side reined in.

Naturally that didn’t stop Micah from losing it from time to time and wasn’t surprised when his jealousy shot up again as Miss Grimshaw announced Arthur got his own cabin while he shared with the rest of the fellers. And he’d be damned if he had to share a room with Williamson who didn’t stop snoring.

That’s why he found himself huddled in the makeshift stables, choosing instead to wrap himself in his coat and down a bottle of whiskey to wait the night out. He cold planks he was sitting on offered little comfort and the draft in the room had his lip shaking. But at least he wouldn’t have anyone in his hair and he’d be left alone, just the way he liked it.

Of course that didn’t last long when the cranky wooden door was barged open, spooking some of the horses in the opposite end of the room. A broad figure entered the room, blocking most of the door way but that didn’t stop to whoosh of cold air flood into the room, draining even more colour from his face.

It wasn’t until the door was closed and the man stepped closer when he realised it was Arthur.

“Micah? What the hell are you doing in here?”

Arthur sounded surprised, with only a hint of concern in his voice.

“Sleepin’— what the hell ya doing here Morgan?”

There wasn’t much of a response from Arthur, only a quiet noise which was barely heard over the whistle of the wind between the planks. He walked over to the horses, checking over them and ensuring none of them were freezing to death. Micah watched in silence, scared to disturb the man as he patted along Taima’s neck.

It wasn’t until after Arthur had checked over all the horses did he turn his attention to Micah.

Micah watched as Arthur’s gloved hand extended out and offered itself to him, he hesitated before taking before taking it and being pulled to his feet. Arthur’s hand draped over his shoulder which he didn’t realise had shaking in an effort to keep warm, having drunk the remaining whiskey from the bottle.

“Common now, yer gonna freeze in here alone.”

Micah dug his heels into the ground, not allowing Arthur to pull him any further to the door as he tried to hold his voice steady. He’d be damned if he ever let Arthur know just how much he affected him.

“I ain’t sharing a bunk with Williams—“

Arthur tutted, pulling Micah out the door as he pushed him towards his cabin in the snow storm.

“Quit yer yapping, you’re sharing with me and I ain’t having any more folk die tonight. Now let’s go.”

Arthur didn’t utter another word until they were well and truely in his room, wrapped in a blanket that was barely big enough for the two of them. The bed wasn’t much bigger, having been made for one person which was evident by Arthur pressing against Micah’s back in efforts for them to fit. The only thing that kept them apart was the fabric of their jackets, otherwise Arthur would probably hear Micah’s heartbeat which was beating much to fast for his liking.

The uncomfortable silence was broken when Micah cursed under his breath which caused his teeth to chatter and Arthur spoke up.

“Yer still cold, c'mere”

Micah’s breath fell short as Arthur’s hands slid under his coat, resting his hands on his tummy to use his body heat as a source of warmth. In doing so Arthur had moved even closer, ensuring Micah’s back was flush against his chest.

Despite that Micah wanted to protest, to go straight to his default of arguing he couldn’t help but feel as he began to warm up and he slowly relaxed under his hands.

A blush rose high on his cheeks as Arthur also relaxed into their embrace, accidentally letting his hands drift lower until he felt the hard press of Micah’s straining erection against his knuckle.

Micah instantly sucked in a breath, panicking and trying to push his way out of Arthur’s hold.

“Shit Arthur I—“

Micah froze as Arthur gently pulled him back to the bed and rubbed slow circles along his stomach.

“S’alright Micah, I’m not mad…”

Arthur held him close, letting him relax before talking again before he whispered right into the shell of his ear.

“…This what you want? Is this why you’re always staring at me from across camp, why yer always picking fights and asking me to robberies?”

A high pitched noise left Micah as he shivered, feeling Arthur’s hot breath against his ear. His blush deepened as he pushed back slightly into him, whimpering at the feel of Arthur’s own erection pressed against his ass.

Fuck it, he thought as heat pooled in his abdomen and he finally allowed himself to have the one thing he’d been craving for months. He nodded frantically, grinding back onto Arthur’s clothed dick and squirming in his grip.

“Relax boy, gonna give you everything you’ve been waiting for— just be good and you’ll get it”

Micah nodded in agreement, a needy, desperate sound leaving him at the promise of praise. He wanted, no needed to be praised by the man so badly that he’d do anything for an ounce of it from the man.

“Oh god Arthur! I need it, need you. Fuck I can be good I promise.”

He knew he was probably being too loud but apart of him didn’t have it in him to care. He moaned softly as Arthur moved him to roll onto his back, towering over him but ensuring they were still kept under the blanket.

Arthur spent the next ten minutes undressing him without exposing much of his skin to the cold. He unbuttoned the lower buttons of his leather jacket, enough for Arthur to work his fly down and pull one pant leg off. He whined pitifully, grabbing at the lapels of Arthur’s coat in a silent plea for him to undress him properly.

Micah mentally scolded himself at just how desperate he was for Arthur to rip his clothes off and fuck him like a bitch in heat but he knew that wasn’t happening any time soon. Arthur however caught on pretty quickly to what he wanted, it seemed the man knew just what made him tick.

“I know sweetheart, once we’re well and truly outta here I’ll get us a room and we can do this properly.”

Micah’s eyes beamed at the thought of Arthur taking him to a hotel in the future, panting as his mind raced with images of Morgan making him fall apart on his cock for hours on end.

While Micah was busy in his mind, Arthur took the opportunity to retrieve the gun oil from his satchel. It certainly wasn’t the best option but it was their only choice with their limited supplies.

Arthur draped himself back over Micah’s body, kissing at his jaw and nibbling as he coated his fingers. The air was cold, only making the oil feel colder as he slowly dipped his index finger past Micah’s rim.

A devilish grin came to Arthur’s face as he heard Micah sigh and take his finger easily, deciding to work his way up to two sooner than he was expecting.

“You’ve wanted this for a long time haven’t you? I saw you once, bout a week ago. Head down, ass up with three of yer fingers inside you while you cried out for me to fuck you. It all clicked in my head then when you started acting different around me at camp.”

Micah flushed a deep red, coughing on air as he realised Arthur knew about his little crush. He tried to think of an excuse, to weasel his way out of it but his thoughts died in his head when Arthur twisted his fingers, scissoring and stretching him open before adding a third.

Arthur dragged a lip along Micah’s cheek to his lip, ghosting his lips over his before kissing him properly. This time Micah didn’t even try to fight for dominance, opening his mouth instantly for Arthur’s tongue to enter. Instead he sighed into it, pulling his legs to wrap around his waist as his hands wrapped around his lover’s shoulder.

It went on like that until Arthur was satisfied that Micah was well prepped enough, simultaneously rubbing against Micah’s prostate while he kissed him deeply. He only pulled away to pull his own leaking member out, bunching his pants around his thighs so he had enough room to move but could stay warm. He coated the rest of the oil onto his member, jerking slowly as he stared down at the sight of Micah below him.

Micah looked like an absolute mess against the pillows already, his face was flush and the scarf around his head had unwrapped slightly, revealing his disheveled blond hair. His chest was heaving as he panted and his thighs shook from pleasure as the weakly wrapped around his waist.

“You look so pretty like this sweetheart”

To say that Micah hated the pet name was a lie, one that he didn’t try deny as he moaned softly. His back arched and he gripped Arthur’s coat tightly as he felt his cock slide between his cheeks and over his hole. He’s wanted this for so long now and yet somehow it still didn’t quite feel real as his mind was clouded with arousal.

Micah’s toes curled and he moaned when he felt Arthur push into him, slowly inching forward until he felt him bottom out.

“Ah— ah! Oh Arthur fuck! Please fuck me, I’ll be good I swear.”

Micah practically sobbed with pleasure as Arthur set up a fast pace, pulling almost all the way out till just the tip was left inside his tight hole before pushing back in quickly, brushing his prostate in the process. His cock twitched from where it rested against his tummy, pinned between Arthur’s jacket which caused a string of moans to fall from his mouth.

“Look at you, so good for me— fucking perfect Micah. Such a good boy”

Arthur’s hands came to hold onto Micah’s hips for leverage, pulling on his slight muffin top under the jacket to help pull him back to meet his thrusts. Beneath him he heard Micah whine and whimper at the praise so desperately needed to hear.

Micah bought a finger up to his mouth, biting on his knuckle to silence any more noises he deemed to be pathetic from slipping out of him. He hated how close he already was just from being praised by Arthur.

It seemed Arthur wasn’t having any of it when he pulled his finger away from his mouth before kissing him like he had done not that long ago. He swallowed every one of Micah’s noises, mindful of Dutch sleeping next door and slowing his thrusts to something deeper and slower.

His hands roamed all over Micah’s clothed body, breaking away for air and whispering praises down his ear.

“That’s it, make those pretty noises for me sweetheart.”

Micah eye’s rolled into his head as he cried out.

“You’re mine, all for me— my good boy.”

More moans slipped from his lips.

“Atta boy— taking me so well, so good.”

His back arched and he withered in his embrace

“So eager to please aren’t you? I’ll take care of you now boy.”

“—Arthur! I’m close— Ah, I’m gonna—“

“Go on sweetheart cum for me…that’s it good boy.”

Micah’s whole body when rigid as he finally came. His mouth hung open, tongue lolling out as his orgasm dragged out with each thrust Arthur delivered, eager to chase his own.

He collapsed into the pillow, thighs shaking as he whined at the oversensitivity. It didn’t last long before Arthur’s thrusts changed pace to something more erratic, picking up the pace as he spilled his load inside him.

Arthur groaned into his neck, pulling him close and collapsing into him as he regained his breath.

He pulled out slowly with a wet and obscene pop, sitting up and helping Micah put his clothes back on. Micah only weakly managed to fiddle with the button on his jacket while Arthur gently manhandled his jelly-like limbs to fit back into his pant leg. He used the blanket to wipe the cum off his tummy, a weak attempt at cleaning up and something they would both no doubt regret come tomorrow morning but for now they were keen to sleep after such a horrific and chaotic few days.

Arthur pulled Micah into their original position for the night, the only difference being that his face was now tucked into his chest. Arthur rested his chin of Micah’s head, littering his hair with kisses as he played with his hair between his rough fingers.

Micah was the first to fall asleep, curled up with his forehead against Arthur’s collarbone. Arthur wasn’t far behind him either, finally letting himself get some much needed rest but not before he pressed a soft kiss to his hairline.

[svtskneecaps]

Number 17

Vernon Chwe x (gender netural) reader

Words: 5048

Genre: fluff, some pining (does pining count as angst?)

neighbor! childhood friend! aus

you’re feeling the summer listlessness. vernon helps you find something to do

day 35 of a tct summer collab

(holy shit guys i’ve been excited to post this since like, MAY holy shit i hope y’all enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it)

(my masterlist)

You shot him a text. Very simple.

vernon i’m going crazy

He shot a text back. Very simple.

why

why do you think? you ask. i don’t know what to do

it’s summer, he says, you can do anything. for example, i’m lying in bed enjoying myself

it’s 1 pm

it’s summer

Who are you to argue with that?

i’m still going crazy. you might be able to stay in bed all day but i’m gonna go insane

so find something to do

i can’t, you say, because it’s true.

all year you were listing hundreds of things you would do when you got the time

i know, you say, i know. but it’s like, now i have the time, but i just feel paralyzed. i don’t know what to do

And you wait for a response and none comes for long enough that you worry you said something that was too weird even for him, but then your screen goes dark and your phone buzzes and his contact is on screen. You answer and his messy bedhead fills your screen.

“You want me to decide?” he asks, and his voice is rough like he just woke up.

“Sure,” you say.

“Try baking something,” he says. “Like chocolate chip cookies or a pie or something.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to eat it.”

“Absolutely,” he mumbles, face still half buried in his pillow. “I can grab a quick shower and come over just in time for the taste test.”

You snicker. “No way, you don’t have the palette for a taste test.”

“Alright, then I’ll put them in the oven and we’ll hit up a couple friends and force them to try it.”

And. . . honestly that doesn’t sound half bad. It’s been five days since you saw anyone outside your immediate family--which is suffocating in its loneliness, after the routine closeness of the year--and maybe that’ll make you feel less paralyzed.

“Okay,” you say.

True to his word, Vernon’s over within thirty minutes, leaning his bike up against yours in the garage. He handles the oven for you, although not without teasing you about the time you burned yourself on the top of the oven while taking out your grandma’s angel food cake at Christmas.

“Well at least I helped you remember how coordinates work,” you say, because you both knew that was the reason you two learned whether to move on the x or y axis so much faster than your classmates.

“At least I know how to keep my skin intact,” he shoots back.

While taking the tray out of the oven he very nearly blisters his thumb and drops the tray; after securing the tray’s safety and running cold water over the blister, once your heartbeat returns to something acceptable, you inform him that instead of cookies he’ll be eating his words, to which he responds with, “At least my words taste good,” and you snap him with the towel. He flicks water at you, and only the fear of having even more to clean up keeps you from starting all out war. You tell him to bring his swimsuit over tomorrow, though. There’s mischief in his eyes as he agrees.

You each balance a tupperware of cooled cookies on your handlebars as you coast through the neighborhood, knocking on doors and handing them out to friends and friends’ parents. Minghao takes three. Seungkwan’s mother trades you two bottles of water, fresh from the fridge, for a cookie and first dibs on the next batch. She takes another one and says it’s to give to Seungkwan when he gets home from acting camp, but winks when she says it. You snap Seungkwan the picture of his mom with the cookie, and he snaps back a picture of himself and Jun making dorky faces demanding you save a few for them because make no mistake we will be swinging by your house when we’re done for the day and we expect cookies you two!

Jeonghan and Joshua aren’t home, but you find them all hanging out in Seungcheol’s pool. Jeonghan asks why you aren’t selling your cookies. “Because this is the taste test,” Vernon says. “We’ll be getting you hooked on this batch and then start charging ten bucks on the next round.” Jeonghan praises your business sense and takes a bite out of Seungcheol’s cookie while he isn’t looking. Seungcheol tackles him into the pool and you leave before the ensuing splash fight can get the cookies wet.

True to their word, Jun pulls into the driveway with Seungkwan in the passenger’s seat and Mingyu in the backseat (they must’ve agreed to carpool with Mingyu after his cooking workshop), and you get nervous because Mingyu’s going to college for baking and everyone knows that out of the group Mingyu is the best cook, but Vernon presents him with a cookie no hesitation and Mingyu tells you they’re amazing, and Vernon gives you this smile as if to say, see, nothing to worry about.

Wednesday, Vernon comes over with his swimsuit and you make a pair of rudimentary signs for a car wash out of an old cardboard box. His is very simple, bubble letters with the address and CAR WASH in all caps. You tried to get a little creative with yours.

“I love it,” Vernon says, crouched next to you as you hover over your sign. “You can almost hear the cloud cow saying ‘graphic design is my passion’.”

You push his shoulder hard enough that he topples over, laughing. “It’s supposed to be a soapy car!”

He’s so proud of himself for that joke that he suggests you start a car wash company instead of going to college. “You can call it Clean Mooters,” he says, as you’re filling your buckets.

You blast him with the hose and he laughs so hard he snorts.

You spend the day covered in soap and water, spraying Vernon with the hose if there isn’t a car to wash and shrieking and trying to dance around behind him every time he gets the hose from you. When the cars stop coming you pack up shop, uprooting the signs and taking them inside, tossing them in the recycling bin.

Thursday it’s raining outside. Vernon comes over anyway. You call him an idiot. “Don’t you know the rain’ll rust your bike?”

He shrugs with a half smile, shrugging off a raincoat that now has a strip of mud up the back where his tires kicked up the dirty street water. “There’s only a hundred and four days of summer vacation,” he says. “I didn’t want to miss one.”

You seize his coat and toss it in the sink, bowing your head to scrub off the mud so he doesn’t see how red your cheeks have become.

You play Mario Kart on the Wii for most of the day (Vernon hits you with a red shell right before you cross the finish line; you hip check him off Rainbow Road), and even as out of practice as the both of you have become over the school year, you’re still pretty well matched. By the time you get bored with that, your mom has texted to say she’s going to need to stay at work a little longer and you might be on your own for dinner. That’s fine, you and Vernon try out a recipe for lasagna that you found on a food blog (buried under the woman’s lengthy story of the time her husband nearly got stomped by a cow. “It’s a sign,” Vernon says, “Clean Mooters is your true calling.” You’d hit him if you weren’t very carefully adding a layer of sauce).

It’s still raining when Vernon has to leave. You stand there, just outside the cover of the garage, watching Vernon shrug on his raincoat.

“You’re gonna get soaked,” he says.

“You say that like I care,” you say, rain beginning to drip down your hair.

He steps out of the garage then, too, standing next to you. You turn your face to the sky, closing your eyes against the heavy drops that splatter against your cheeks.

“You’re gonna catch your death.”

“Says the guy who’s wearing a raincoat with the hood down.” You shove his chest without looking. He catches your hands. You look down.

Your eyes meet.

Vernon drops your hands and coughs. You reach up to brush the water from your forehead, gaze on the ground as your face burns, despite the cool rainwater still sliding down your cheeks.

“I, um, I should go,” he says.

“Yeah,” you say. “See you.”

He hops on his bike and rides away. The rain falls so hard you lose sight of him before he rounds the corner.

Saturday the whole team gets together at Jeonghan’s house, because he has a firepit. Seungkwan is standing on the picnic table when you ride up, in the middle of a dramatic retelling of some odd thing that happened at acting camp. He appears to be fencing Vernon with an imaginary sword, and you can only imagine the context of that story. You don’t announce yourself, for fear of making one of them fall off, and help Wonwoo get the food from the kitchen. Mingyu is already getting set up at the grill (despite being one of the youngest, he’s the only one any parent trusts near the grill; previous block barbeques have ended in disaster that no one’s eager to repeat). Minghao is by the firepit, holding the lighter very tightly, either to keep it away from Soonyoung or to ensure he’s the one to start the fire.

Seungkwan jumps down from the table when Jihoon tells him to, although he continues telling his story in an enthusiastic yell. Vernon meets your eyes and grins, flicking his eyes at Seungkwan like you’re sharing an inside joke like normal, and you can almost forget that moment in the rain ever happened.

Nearby, Jeonghan is filling a plastic baby pool with water. You ask him what it’s for but he just grins and tells you it’s a secret. When it comes to Jeonghan that’s usually cause for concern, but also you’re itchy inside your skin and all you did Friday was pick out a couple songs on the old piano your great grandmother left your family and no matter what the adventure you’re down for it, so you leave him to it. It’s the first bonfire of the summer. You can handle anything.

They get the fire started before Mingyu finishes grilling, the smell of the meat wafting over the yard and making your stomach rumble. Unfortunately, they misjudged the wind direction and half of the chairs are directly in the path of the smoke. There’s a lot of complaining as people rush to shift their chairs out of the way. Vernon ends up next to you in the scramble. You aren’t complaining; now you get to tease him about the way he seasons his food and he’ll tease you back about your tendency to drown your burgers in ketchup.

(except you don’t; you eat quietly and neither of you bring up the other’s habits and somewhere deep down that scares you)

When the sun goes down, Jeonghan and Joshua bring out the alcohol, and everyone who’s old enough drinks.

The baby pool, Jeonghan says, is for the losers of the tournament. The tournament, he says, is simple. And for pairs.

The first challenge is a wheelbarrow race down the street. You thought you and Vernon had a pretty good chance of winning, but then, by some divine magic, Jihoon and Mingyu shoot off and cross the finish line miles before everyone else. Half the group calls bologna because come on they’ve got just about the biggest height difference between them, out of everyone, but Joshua was reffing the starting line and didn’t see any false starts; they won fair and square.

The second challenge is hula hooping. You don’t have much hope for your score, not because you’re bad at hula hooping, but because you’re bad at hula hooping when Vernon is right next to you and also hula hooping. You end up laughing so hard that you lose your hoop within three spins, but in the end it doesn’t matter, because Vernon can carry the team score to victory.

“Who needs eight years of gymnastics?” he asks, and you beam.

The third challenge is a ‘who knows their partner the best’ challenge. Jeonghan put together a list of questions, which he and Joshua list off and give time for each partner to write down both their answer and what they think their partner put. You’re a little scared; you’ve known Vernon for as long as you can remember but sometimes you wonder if you really know him like you think you do. The questions aren’t so bad, simply asking what your partner’s favorite clothing brand is, or what time they get up in the morning, or what they think of pineapple on pizza. You breeze through the questions, until the last one. Joshua lists the final question, which member of the group is their favorite?

Your answer is simple enough, but you aren’t sure of his. Sure, you partnered up, but Seungkwan had all but thrown himself directly at Wonwoo when Jeonghan sent you off to partner and you knew Vernon and Seungkwan had known each other long before you had talked to anyone in the neighborhood or gone to a barbeque or slotted yourself into the dynamic of the block, and you knew he and Joshua had a special sort of friendship because of their similar heritage and you just didn’t know for sure what he would put (especially after the strange moment in the rain; you weren’t sure what it meant and you weren’t sure you wanted to know).

Eventually you write Seungkwan’s name on the sheet and hand the paper to Jeonghan when he comes around to collect. You fidget with your fingers as they tally up the scores. Next to you, Seokmin hops up to either get into a passionate debate with Soonyoung over what his true favorite movie is or to maybe just tackle Soonyoung into the grass. Either way, Vernon slides into his empty chair.

“So what’d you put for number seven?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

You roll your eyes, knowing exactly what he means. “Clean Mooters,” you say.

He pumps his fist. “I knew you’d see the light eventually!”

“Well I did get the most tips,” you tease.

“Well of course,” he says, “you’re the best looking, it’s only natural.”

Jeonghan calls out that they’ve tallied up the scores before you can process the full implications of that sentence.

You win that round too. Joshua hands the sheets back, and you carefully fold yours and shove it in your pocket.

You play a few more rounds: the chubby bunny challenge (Mingyu crammed an ungodly amount of marshmallows in his mouth, you almost wanted to go to church after seeing that; he kept going even after he won, until he almost choked and Joshua shut him down), the perfect s’more challenge (which you suspect was just an excuse for Jeonghan to get s’mores without having to make them; Mingyu’s first marshmallow slid off his stick, and the second caught fire; Seungcheol and Chan ended up winning and Seokmin called nepotism), the long jump (Soonyoung got overexcited and misjudged his landing; he landed hard on the cement and although he was totally fine, he would ask Jeonghan at random intervals for bonus points because of his injury with a shit eating grin all the while), and finally, a game of hide and seek.

The hide and seek rules are simple; they’ve been the same since you were old enough to be outside after sunset: don’t go off the block, don’t go inside, don’t leave your partner, and don’t use a light. The tournament judges give you thirty seconds head start. You and Vernon take off down the street and the thrill of the game sings through your bloodstream.

“Think they’ll think to look for us up Mrs. Boo’s tree?” Vernon asks as you run.

“Yeah, you remember Seungcheol did that once and Jeonghan’s never forgotten it, it’s the first place he’ll look.” You pass Chan and Seungcheol as they try to conceal themselves behind the Christmas decorations that Mr. Wilkinson still hasn’t taken down. “Mrs. Kim’s porch?”

“No, she’s got her light on.”

You skid to a halt at the end of the street, chests heaving, both casting around for a hiding space. Down the street, Joshua is beginning to yell, counting down from 10. Vernon tugs your sleeve, and points.

You grin.

Moments later, you resettle the plastic lid onto the box, burying yourselves carefully under the tarp inside and setting a few bricks on your backs for good measure. Mr. Lee is upgrading his yard this summer, and one addition is planned to be a brick footpath, and thankfully he left the tote of bricks out where you could get to it. Holding the tarp firmly in place, with the bricks above you for insurance, if they open the tote and decide to slap the tarp, you would just feel like a full box of footpath bricks.

Perfect.

Of course, it’s a pretty small space and you and Vernon have to lie pretty close to one another in order to fit, and your foot presses against his shin and his elbow is in your stomach, but if you lay there and don’t breathe, you’ll have the game in the bag.

“So,” Vernon says, voice so soft it’s sometimes hardly more than a breath, “what’d you put for number seventeen?”

You think back. “Vernon there was no number seventeen.”

“No?” he asks, with a tone like he’d always known. “Guess I’ll have to make one up.”

You snort, very softly. In the distance, yelling breaks out; Soonyoung and Seokmin just got found.

“How do you feel about long distance relationships?” he asks, so softly you nearly miss it.

Your heart skips a beat. You’re pretty sure he’s implying something but you aren’t sure if it should scare you or not. “I think they’re hard,” you say carefully. “Not impossible. But it takes work from both sides. So it’s hard.”

You hear him inhale like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t, and you feel the breeze from his exhale on your face. Neither of you speak, and you aren’t sure if it’s because you’re listening hard for the seekers or because you have nothing left to say.

The lid of the tote scrapes. You stop breathing. Jeonghan says something above you, drowned out by the beating of your heart. He pulls the lid off, and the moonlight filtering through the pinholes in the tarp might as well be a searchlight after the darkness.

Vernon’s face is inches from yours.

You blink, feeling like your eyelashes will brush his face with the motion. They don’t. Jeonghan pokes the tarp, hitting one of the bricks lying on your side. Apparently satisfied, he closes the lid. His footsteps recede.

Vernon’s face is still burned into your eyes like a sunspot.

He was staring at your lips.

You end up losing hide and seek, despite your perfect spot, because Minghao and Jun somehow managed to get onto Jeonghan’s roof (nobody’s managed to guess how and the pair smugly refuse to tell). The tournament ends with only Seungkwan and Wonwoo having not won any challenges. They change into swimsuits and dunk themselves in the baby pool, and then sprint back across the lawn to their towels yelling about the cold (you put a finger in; it wasn’t nearly as bad as when Jeonghan had filled it).

Vernon stops you before you get on your bike to get home.

“I’m. . . gonna be out of town for a couple weeks,” he says, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I can still facetime, but probably only in the mornings and evenings.”

“Okay,” you say, even as your heart sinks (he’s never been away this long).

“Yeah,” he says, and you stand there beside your bikes, looking at each other, like you’re both a little lost in what to do. His eyes keep flicking to your lips.

“So what’d you put for number seventeen?” you ask softly.

He doesn’t hesitate. “I think it could work,” he says, voice as soft as it was in the tote, and you find yourself leaning in to listen. “Easily, even, if it was someone as special as--”

He goes quiet. “As?” you prompt.

He shakes his head. “Someone special,” he says.

You haven’t drank at all but something still buzzes in your veins. It’s the first Saturday bonfire of the summer, and moon floats above the horizon like a glowing balloon, and a warm breeze caresses your skin, and you don’t feel afraid of anything.

“I guess it could work easy,” you say, “if it was someone like you.”

He stares at you long enough that you think maybe you overstepped and your cheeks start to heat and you duck your head and step back with something like an apology and--

--his lips crash into yours.

You don’t know if the kiss lasts for three seconds or three hours. All you know is when you break for breath, you find yourself caught in his eyes, the same familiar deep brown as you’ve seen for years growing up through schools and summers and camps and sleepovers, lying on the floor of the living room and whispering about movies and grades like they were the most important thing in the world.

And then you blink and the world unfreezes and he mumbles something about a curfew and you mumble something about your mom and as if pulled by the same strings you mount your bikes and pedal off in opposite directions.

You lie awake for hours, thinking about his eyes.

You facetime at any and all available hours. You find yourself staying up later to be able to catch him on a lunch break. And it’s hard, but you do it. Because, look, everyone on the block has known that his parents want him to go to Korea for college, and that he wants to go to Korea for college. For years you’ve known this moment was coming. And he’s only going to be there a couple weeks for some kind of tour he landed because his grandmother knows a guy who knows a gal who’s related to a guy who used to babysit for the guy on the school board, or something, and then he’ll come back and you can spend the remainder of the summer doing whatever.

Until then, you’re content to wake up earlier just to get an hour chatting with him before he goes to sleep. You show him all the pages you’ve marked in your mom’s old recipe book and tell him when he gets back you’ll make a couple and sell them for profit. You draw an official logo for Clean Mooters, and he suggests you add a restaurant as a side business that you two could run for extra profit. “Clean Mooters and Good Burgers,” he says, and then says, “No that’s terrible. I’ll keep thinking.”

“Are you the whole Clean Mooters marketing team?” you ask.

“Of course,” he says. “We both know all the business sense went to me.” And he smiles and you forget how to breathe.

You don’t talk about the kiss.

One time, he calls you, and your eyes swoop to check the time, because you know it’s crazy late where he is. You answer.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says before you get a word out, and his voice is hoarse and it twists your stomach. “Can you-- just tell me about your new project?”

And you do; you’ve taken up crochet this week and your grandma gave you a couple pointers and you do your best calming ASMR voice as you repeat her pointers and what you plan to do to build your skill, and then end up going off on a tangent on whether Clean Mooters should have a gift shop selling cow merchandise (“It would make sense, there are a lot of cows around here.”) and when you pause to recollect your thoughts, all you hear is his quiet breathing.

The day Vernon’s set to return is a Thursday, which is perfect, because it gives him time to recollect himself before the Saturday bonfire, which will be the real welcome back party. On Thursday, you and the other kids on the block draw all over the street and then, when his flight is late and the sun goes down before he gets to the street, assemble to hold flashlights over the really good stuff. You only see his smile for a few brief seconds as the car goes past, but it’s enough to make your heart swell.

Friday you wake up to a knock on your bedroom door. “Hey, up and at ‘em, it’s noon!” Vernon calls through the door.

You groan and throw an arm over your face. “Says the guy who was still in bed at one pm that whole first week!”

“Yeah, and it was heaven. Come on, you get up fast enough and I’ll buy you a donut.”

You get dressed and meet him downstairs. “Try that again and I’ll convince my mom to rehide the spare key,” you threaten.

He just grins. “I’d be able to find it.” He picks up your bike helmet. “You want to get out of the neighborhood with me?”

You’d rob a bank if it was with him. “Absolutely.”

It’s a rush to be back on your bike, both of you pedaling faster and faster to try to be in front, weaving around the cars parked on the streetside and hopping the curb just to prove you can. Last week’s project was learning to ride a bike no handed and you show off the new skill as often as you can.

You go everywhere and nowhere. You hit up the mall and he buys you a donut and you wander the halls window shopping, and he buys a whole rainbow set of tinted glasses just because they looked cool; you break open the package the minute you own them and check out your reflection in the store window.

“We look ridiculous,” you say, adjusting the red pair so they sit better on your face.

“Speak for yourself,” Vernon says, turning to see himself from different angles. “I think purple’s exactly my color.”

You shove the blue pair on over the red, even though they barely fit on your nose, and stick your tongue out at him. “There, now we match.”

He puts on another pair of glasses and it turns into a competition of who can wear the most, and then into who can wear the most without getting a headache. That second winner was Vernon, but you won the first half.

You hit up the McDonalds in the food court and get the large cup for a dollar, and then go down the drink machine and hit it with just a quick blast of each, repeated over and over until the cup was full. It tastes like a mess of conflicting sugars and syrups. You drink the whole thing through separate straws. You can’t stop glancing at his lips. Your faces are so close.

You get ice cream and sit under the bridge over the creek to eat it, watching the sun go down somewhere downstream, listening to the cars whizzing past overhead.

“I missed you,” Vernon says.

“I missed you too,” you say, even though that doesn’t convey the half of it.

“During the school year--” He stops, and you glance over to see him staring into the sunset, his ice cream melting toward his fingers.

You take his free hand. “It’ll be hard, not being close for so long,” you say. “But-- we could do it. I’m not just going to stop talking to you because I have classes and-- you know how my sleep schedule gets during the year.”

He laughs, softly, lacing your fingers together. “I’ll be able to call and tell you to go to bed without you turning it on me.”

“Damn.” You scowl at your feet. “Didn’t think about that. You sure you can’t just go to Europe instead?”

“Nope,” he says. “You’re going to have to find a new defense.”

You sigh. “But Vernon that one’s worked since we were fourteen.”

“It never worked!”

“Yes it did because then it got you on the defensive instead!”

“But you still went to sleep when I hung up, didn’t you?”

Double damn. He’s right and you know he knows it, from the raised eyebrow look he’s giving you as he catches the ice cream that’s melting around the edges of his cone.

“. . . That’s entirely beside the point.”

He just grins. You bury your face in your ice cream cone, trying to devour the rest in a single bite to avoid the urge to pout. Of course, all that really does is get ice cream all over your face, but whatever. When you look back at him, he’s still looking at you, his eyes soft and fond and damn but you’re going to miss him like a lung when he’s gone.

“You’ve got a little something there,” he says, and you make a face at him to maybe hide how very obviously whipped you are and do your best to wipe it off with the pile of napkins you snatched.

“Better?”

“No, it’s still--” and he scoots in, and you both go really quiet as he wipes the ice cream from your cheek. His thumb traces your lip.

“You know,” you say, very softly, “if you wanted to kiss me you could’ve just asked.”

His eyes blink up to meet yours, and red tints his cheeks, but he still smiles. “Okay,” he says. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah.”

Your ice cream melts. (“It’s okay,” Vernon says, “I’ll buy you another.”)

[draco-and-tom]

TW!!!-  Mentions of suicide attempt, Mentions of suicide note, Mentions of alcohol, Mentions of grooming, Mentions of sexual assault, Mentions of cheating, Mentions of early eating disorder signs. Please let me know If you catch any I didn’t say.

This is about Talia (@satans-little-devil) Okay, so it has come to my attention that I have been played long story short. It all started when she sent in this request. I love requests and was delighted to write for her. Talia would keep checking up on me and asking if I ate/drank etc. We started talking and becoming friends and after about 2 weeks she started getting flirty. I did not know her age at the time so I would flirt back. I'm a little flirty with all of my friends so I didn't see anything wrong with it. After about another week we got even more flirty and on a Friday of (I think) April we started dating. I called her 2 times while we were dating and both times she had an excuse for why she couldn't speak, only listen. On those calls I told her how alcohol and sexual abuse were triggers for me which will come into play later. We dated for 3 days till she told me that she wasn't comfortable with my age, so we were going to wait a bit. We continued to do the exact same things as we were doing before. We weren't supposed to talk romantically to anyone else, we weren't supposed to kiss, touch others, anything like that. After about a week of that is when the suicide attempt and letter posts happened. She had told me about how her parents were abusive and I even supposedly got her in trouble because of our messages. Her parents are homophobic and her sister read through them, then told their parents. I don't even know if I believe this anymore because I've had a gut feeling about this and some things didn't add up which I will get into later. That night I begged her to not do it and told her a whole bunch of things to get her to stop. I even messaged a random person I saw on her blog a couple of times (that I did not know) seeking help. She ended up telling me that I had convinced her and that her parents needed her for chores or something. At this point I'm blowing up her phone, because she hasn't answered me in a while and I'm starting to get worried. She answers me after a few more minutes and tells me that she’s okay and going for a drive. I tell her that's fine, but to be safe because the last time she told me that she got into her wreck. She told me that she would be and once again she stops answering completely. I blew up her phone a lot at this point because i was so scared that something had happened to her. I woke up around once every hour to check our messages and send new ones. I wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning and see that she messaged me back. I read it and she tells me about a post that her sister made for her talking about the attempt. I keep talking to her and she keeps saying sorry and so do I. After a couple of days all of her surgeries are done and she is resting in the hospital. That weekend I get random messages from her telling me things that I couldn't quite make out. She ended up telling me about a day later that she was in a Christian mental hospital and that the messages were her trying to get help. This is why she was saying things like “I'm fine they told me themselves”. She was talking about the nuns. I was pretty skeptical about this because I’ve been told by people I know that they take away electronics from patience there so I asked her how she still had her phone. She told me that she didn't and that they allowed her to have her school lap top. Me being me thought that it was odd, and decided to trust her because I thought that we were close. I’ve always been a trusting person and refused to act on all of the red flags that I saw. She told me that her parents forged her signature, but later she informed me that she found out her doctor signed her into the mental hospital/group home type place. After a while she seemed to be getting better and told me that she liked it better there because she didn't have to deal with her parents. A few days later she informs me about a friend named Blake. Apparently he was one of her friends that she had known since elementary school. She told me that they were really close and that they cuddled which I was uncomfortable with because I'm a very jealous/territorial person, but I let it slide because I felt that I was over reacting and she shouldn't have to change her friendship habits for me. The next day were talking and she tells me that they kiss in a “friend” kind of way. I don't know exactly what that means to her, but that was were I told her in made me upset. She told me that he was gay and that he had a fiancé that he loved dearly. A few moments later all of the sudden Blake is bisexual. She tells me to not worry about him and I brush it off. The next day I am informed that Blake’s boy friend cheated and they broke up. She started telling me about how He would get drunk and become violent and would tell her to hide the alcohol from him. I asked her how he got it in the first place since they were in a mental hospital after all. She basically told me that the nuns didn't care. One of the days he got drunk she told me that he sexually assaulted her. I told her that it was not okay and that she should cut him off. She said no because he was one of her best friends. I eventually convinced her to at least talk to him about it and they ended up crying. We ended up setting boundaries for them. After all of that cleared up she tells me about a friend named Jacob she had coming to visit. Before reading this part please note that I am a minor. I have no experience with sexual matters other than what I see and read, so I have no clue how communication during works. I'm obviously not innocent, considering I run a smut page, but I am not sexually active either. Talia would always push me into sexual things, but in the end I always gave my consent. We didn't do anything overly sexual, just texting. She would always tease me about doing sexual things with both of her friends even though she knew it bothered me. One time she did and told me that she did sexual things with him. I didn't believe her. Later in the day I told her to be nice and that I wasn't mad to which she responds with something like “you aren't mad about Jason?”. At this point I was a little confused and asked if they actually did anything and she ends up saying that they did. She basically blamed it on me and I ended up feeling bad for 2 reasons. 

1. I had just been cheated on for the first time

2. I felt like it was my fault.

she said that she was sorry, but I was being too mean and she wanted to be good for someone and that I should have known. By this point in our relationship I started developing eating issues. I would get so stressed out that if I even thought about eating I felt like I would throw up. I told her about it, but did not tell her what the cause of my eating problems were. After a couple of days I'm having a good time at the beach on vacation. She knew that I was on vacation and that I was trying to relax because of my recent problems having to do with her, and just life in general. About 2 nights ago she messages me and tells me that she kissed Jason again. I’m going to try not to show too much emotion in this because i don't want to trauma dump you guys, so ill say the rest as good as I can. I forgave her again. I told her that if it happened again that we were over and she agreed. everything went fine and yesterday was actually pretty smooth sailing. Me and her had nice talks. Her friend messaged me and she asked me to block her, and I did. The only thing that was bothering me at this time is that she started to stop talking to me earlier in the day. The schedule change was drastic. We used to message throughout from around 9am-1am, and it recently changed to around 12pm-8pm. Today I woke up, got ready to leave my hotel, and messaged her at about 7am. In the car I messaged her and told her that I might not be able to talk for awhile because i lost my charger. she ends up responding with “hiii” and that was the last message I got and will probably get from her, because when I got back home and checked my messages her whole account was de-activated. I unblock her friend and ask her if Talia is okay. her friend still hasn't answered, even though I don't think I want her to anymore. I saw a couple posts about her, but didn't believe them until i saw an ask from @sexy-for-cedric about @were-not-doing-get-help  ‘s post. If it wasn't for that I would probably still be on her side, but knowing that I was cheated on ATLEAST 3 times in a month by the same person sent me over the edge. I understand that what she did was horrible, but please don't tag me in any posts shunning her or saying dreadful things about her. I know that its wrong for me to, but I still love her and I hope you all understand that I hate myself for it, so please don't be rude to me. I was already nervous enough to post this. And if anyone tries to tell me how I feel trust me, I know how i felt about her. I have a locket with her picture in it that I cant wear anymore. I hope anyone that is going through what I am knows that my dms are always open and that this is not your fault.

And Talia if you are seeing this I'm sorry and I truly do love you, but the pain started to be too much as of today when I found out. I'm sorry, I hope you find your way in life. I hope you are okay.

People I think should read this: @sexy-for-cedric @were-not-doing-get-help @georgeswh0re @quindolyn @krasivayadarling @inureflower @just-the-best-devil @mrzweasley

[baseballbitch116]

PB&J

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x reader

Request: Daryl x Reader where they go out hunting or something but the reader gets hurt and Daryl has to get her back home before she bleeds out or something? Just some hurt/comfort with Daryl and the reader 

Setting: Takes place in S6 before the Saviors - inspired by S4E13 with Beth and Daryl

Word Count: 1296

Warnings: none, just some good ol flufffff ♥

A/N: I know this doesn’t involve the reader being seriously injured but I hope you like this :)

Masterlist | Fandoms | Request | Support My Blog | Coming Soon

Daryl was pretty upset when you got hurt while you were out hunting with him. He was teaching you how to track - something the two of you had done together numerous times over the last few months, but something had gone wrong this time. A rotting walker hidden under a lot of dirt and debris had grabbed your foot out of nowhere, causing you to tumble down a few foot slope, hurting your ankle.

Daryl killed the walker and within seconds was by your side. “Ya alright?” He asks as he glances around, checking your surroundings. When he knows the coast is clear he bends to help you up but you let out a screech when you put pressure on your right ankle, collapsing back to the ground. “Shit,” Daryl mutters, taking your foot into his lap. He raises your pant leg to look at the ankle and gently moves it, watching your face tense up in pain when he does so. “Probably sprained it.” He grumbles.

Of course he blames himself for you getting hurt. It had nothing to do with him but in his mind, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt if he had been paying closer attention. Thankfully you guys were only a short walking distance away from the walls of Alexandria, but you still weren’t going to be able to walk there. Daryl helped you onto your feet, making sure you kept your right foot raised while you leaned on him for support. You held onto his shoulder as best as you could as he guided you up the slope and through the trees, hopping along slowly.

Eventually Daryl gave up and told you to stop, helping you lean your back against a tree so that he could let you go. He readjusted his crossbow so that it was swung around his chest, then lowered himself in front of you and extended his arms. “Hop on,” You stare at his back for a second before letting out a quick chuckle.

“Seriously?” You ask. Daryl wasn’t normally one for initiating any sort of physical contact, let alone letting you wrap your whole body around him to be carried.

“Serious piggyback. C’mon,” He grumbles, readjusting himself as he waits for you to climb on. You decide not to argue with him and jump onto his back as best as you can. He lets out a huff as he adjusts his grasp on your thighs and you try not to focus on his large hands gripping you there. It wasn’t like you and Daryl had never done anything, being as you had been together since the prison - but it was usually rare that you had any physical affection from the man - not that this was affection.

You clear your head as he begins walking back toward the front gate from the woods, keeping an eye out for the two of you as he carried you. Aaron gave you guys a strange look as he opened the gate up and you hid your face in Daryl’s shoulder, feeling your cheeks burning. Most people knew that you guys were together, but no one ever really saw you guys do anything - so this must have been a sight. You were pretty sure that Daryl wasn’t liking all the looks that he was receiving as he passed by different people on his way to Denise’s “office” to get your ankle checked out, but he didn’t say anything.

After confirming that you had sprained your ankle, Denise wrapped it up for you and gave Daryl instructions on how to take care of you for the next few days. He stood awkwardly with his arms crossed as she showed him how she was wrapping your ankle and told him how to keep your foot positioned. He nodded and grunted every so often and you tried hard to keep a straight face at the scene.

Rick offered to help you get back to the house that you guys shared with him and some of the others, which Daryl surprisingly turned down. Instead, he lifted you up bridal style and carried you back to the house himself. You were sure you were not light to carry and he had to walk over a block to get there, but he didn’t seem to struggle much. He set you down gently in the kitchen on the island counter before moving around to put his things away. You sat there and watched him, trying not to let your sappiness get the best of you. Times like this, where Daryl showed how much he cared about you, really meant a lot to you.

“What?” He asks when he spots you watching him. You shrug your shoulders and look away, your eyes wandering aimlessly around the kitchen. “Hungry?” He asks, approaching one of the cabinets.

“Yeah,” You respond, watching him as he pulled out a few different items.

“How’s it feel?” He asks as he starts spreading peanut butter onto a piece of bread. Watching him do this makes you feel almost domestic, but you ignore the longing feeling and continue watching him.

“Just sore.” You say. He lets out a grunt in response as he folds the two pieces of bread together and hands you the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He grabs the nearly empty jelly container and leans against the counter across from you, watching you take a bite. He would never admit it, but he didn’t mind taking care of you like this.

“Thanks babe.” You tease by the use of the pet-name. Daryl rolls his eyes with a smirk and shoves two fingers into the container, messily coating them in jelly before jamming them into his mouth. You let out a gasp and giggle at his disgusting behavior, enjoying his jelly covered smirk. “You got a little somethin... There.” You joke, pointing at his whole face. He licks his fingers clean and then his lips before setting the container back onto the counter. “C’mere,” You mutter, motioning him toward you with a finger.

Daryl gives you a look before moving to stand in front of you, basically at the same height now because of your seat on the island counter. You grab his bare arm and tug him closer so that he is standing between your legs. He cocks an eyebrow at you but says nothing, clearly a bit taken aback by your bold actions. You raise your hand up and brush your thumb against the corner of his mouth, capturing the rogue spot of jelly he missed before sticking the tip of your thumb in your mouth to lick it off.

His intense blue eyes watch you as you do so, his expression changing to one that you don’t quite recognize. Taking in the intimacy of your position, you are dying to kiss him. Sure, you’ve kissed before - but it was rare, like most of you physical attention from him. You lean in slowly, giving him a chance to back away if he wants to, but he doesn’t - so you press you lips against his softly.

The kiss is slow and tender but it takes your breath away. You pull away just enough to lean your forehead against his, “Thank you,” You mumble as you move back.

“For wha?” He questions, his husky voice a little deeper than a moment ago.

“Helping me. Being you. Everything.” You say. He studies you for a moment before shrugging.

“Ya hit yer head too?” He taunts halfheartedly, grabbing the jelly again and sticking his middle finger back into it, making you chuckle.

“I dunno maybe.” You joke, picking your sandwich back up and taking another bite. Daryl leans back against the counter and watches you as you guys eat together, taking in the peaceful moment together.

---

Masterlist | Fandoms | Request | Support My Blog | Coming Soon

@crossbowking​ @glitteryathleterebeluniversity​ @elizaaishi​ @permanenthunger​ @lasswarrior​ @givethnofucketh​  @lokilover2000-blog​ @tv-show-shit​ @mtngirlforever​ @jodiereedus22​@cole-winchester @loudlydarkcollective​ @tehfabbooty​ @momc95​@fuzzy-panda @sourwolf-sterek32​ @mwesterfeld1985​ @badluckgirl​ @namelesslosers​ @my-current-fandom-is​ @zzeacat​ @twdeadfanfic​ @elamy17​ @fangirlsarah16​ @gryffindorshadowhunter​ @justaclosetedgay @a-little-piece-of-heaven-xox​@hello-valerie @huntress-valkyrie​ @pleasepleasepleaseme​ @fangirl-juchan​@dotslabyrinth @isayweallgetdrunk​ @vibhati123 @ask-kakashihatake@clumsy-writing-rdb @07chenzo03 @iminlokisarmysofi​ @daryldixonandfrogs​ @franzixlovesxsomeone​ @of-storms-and-sadness​ @duchessdeer​ @mazerunnerrose​@gruffle1 @harry-titss​ @coffeebooksandfandom​ @marissacooper​ @neeadinghugs​ @theserpentinequeen​ @firelonewolf​ @habelm @isilmiel @itsmysticalmystery​ @misscamptl​ @escapetothemind-dancefloor @dixonslover​ @walkingdeadfan25​ @qrangr​@mblaqgi @daryldixon83​ @negansviolentdelights​ @multiefandamn​ @fandom-trash99 @bvbwestfall​ @sugoichenzo​ @daryldixonswifey​ @thoughtsmeander2tumblingblindy@esdlaliniadedurin @jasminetherandomweirdo​ @abilostinlight​ @thebeckyjolene​@too-many-fanfiction-fandoms @celticheart72-masterlist​ @whizzer1320​ @nohemi2500​ @nugget3455@axelwolf8109 @twd-imaginesss​ @hells-mistress​ @kaleeandspn @sekkitsu​ @fxckyourlife​ @topsykretts926-blog​ @lighthope08​ @runlikeclockwork​ @elysijin​ @mummy-woves-you​ @princess-of-idgaf​ @icantstopreblogging​​ @rhyatt-deauxtreve​​ @nikki082489​​ @twdeadfanfic​ @superdeadwalker @ringpopdust​ @twdsfix​ @dixonluvv​ @angelophany​ @imaginecrushes​ @the-wonderful-werewolf @chocolatealmondmillk @catlya​@firedancernix @princessxpunk​ @collecting-stories​ @ly–canthrope@maydayfigment​ @emilyabeth@classygladiatorcupcake​ @buckygal95​ @aj3684​ @nervous-bouquet-werewolfs-posts @hudsonbird​ @expectroyalpurple​ @thecraziestcrayon​ @d-e-e-e​ @dylan-o-yumm​ @dead-walking10​ @glitteryathleterebeluniversity @neilox​ @lauravic @d-e-e-e​ @cultliter​ @ravenmoore14​

[stingray-stories]

Day 66 9/1/2021

Greetings blog readers. Ray here! Today was pretty hectic but super fun.

In the morning, I did the weather and went to the runway to take the wind and saw a bunch of Blacktip sharks hanging around at the end of the runway. Due to the heavy rains, a lot of freshwater has been entering the ocean particularly at this point because there are channels built on either side of the runway that flow into the ocean after big rains. This has been bringing a lot of nutrients to this particular spot and is a reason I think a lot of sharks and fish have been attracted to this area. So I sat there for a while just watching and there were probably about eight sharks hanging out, hunting, and just doing shark things. It was really fun to watch! After that, we had our community day (every Wednesday)so I headed over to the solar field which is basically just a bunch of solar panels on a flat concrete block. We scrubbed them with soap and water to get the mold off and made sure they were spic and span so that they can continue to bring us clean energy. Then, Dada had a bio security chat with Allie to go over protocols for going on the refuge and I got us ready for our adventure in the afternoon.

Before lunch, we set out to snag our mosquito catches from our three sites on Cooper. We drove the ATV up the runway and got our catches from one of the COCOs site and the HEFO site. Then we drove back grabbed our bikes and rode along North Beach which is an alternate route to get our other COCOs site. Due to all the rain, it was crazy getting over there. There was a ton of water that flooded the road and lots of mud so we powered through, got super muddy and we’re super tired by the end of it haha. When we got to that site, our trap did not want to come down. Uh oh! This was not ideal for obvious reasons and we think the rain may have caused added tension so we left it and headed to lunch to problem solve. Talking with Katie, we decided that the trap could stay up there for the night since we wanted to prioritize going to Bird Island to check on our Christmas Shearwater game camera. We also were just really excited to go and see if there’a any evidence of nesting. This is one of my favorite things we do!

After lunch we got all ready and headed to Strawn to collect our catches and we also changed out our SD cards in the cameras of our two separate attraction sites that are at the tip of Strawn. One is a bird caller and one is a decoy colony. This was really fun because it’s a great view of the atoll and we saw a lot of baby tiny sharks. I swear the sharks probably came out of the womb very recently. Then we headed back to station, quickly docked, put on our bio security clothes and headed to Bird Island.

Since we had gone to Strawn the day before, I had Dana drive the lagoon boat and I drove the boat to Bird Island since it is “tier 2” boating and Dana hasn’t trained for that yet. It was both very exciting and nerve-racking since I have only gone through these cuts a few times on my own, but I was really excited to get more practice. Navigating through the channels and dodging Corals went very smoothly and we anchored just off of Bird, walked to shore, and got ready for our Christmas Shearwater reconnaissance mission.

When we arrived, we made sure to be very stealthy, grabbed our binoculars, and crawled under the trees to make sure we didn’t flush our precious pair. At first I thought I saw one of them under a palm frond that we had seen them previously, but turns out it was a little shorebird. A Golden Pacific plover. Since we didn’t see them, we decided to get closer and examine the area. We confirmed that there is a masked booby nest nearby which we suspected from our last visit but weren’t sure if it was an active nest. We were a little concerned that this could mean the Christmas Shearwater pair would not want to nest here, but we did see potential evidence of a scraping or a nest under one of the palm fronds. Hopefully it is the Christmas Shearwater pair practicing or starting to make a nest. After examining the area a little further, we were amused by a large group of masked boobies perched on a large log. There were about 15 of them!! As we were walking to the boat, a very large blacktip came right at me and I really thought that it was going to take a nibble but it got startled, bolted off and we rushed back to the boat and hopped in as quickly as we could. After that, we headed back to station and I don’t mean to toot my own horn but I docked the boat beautifully. It was textbook.

Since we got back pretty close to the end of the workday, we decided to wait to look at our game camera photos and save those for the next day.

Alsooooo I haven’t been great about updating you on what I’ve been eating but trust me when I say we have been eating good! The new galley guys really know how to bake some bread. I’m talking chickpea sloppy Joe’s and homemade sesame buns. It was insane. They have done a great job feeding us reallllllyyy good food and just making the most delicious bread and rolls. Bread making is hard enough. And they’re doing it on a hot atoll. It just really blows my mind.

I’m not exactly sure what I did in the evening but I’m sure it was just more drawing of my sharks. They are taking me quite a bit of time.

Goodnight!

So many sharks at the end of the runway! I counted 7.

Hi!

Sharkies and a blue fin trevally at the end of the runway.

More photos in the next post!

[ds-sparrow-manufacturing-co]

A Rebuttal

Ok so I really did not want to make this post. I would’ve loved to have left this whole thing behind because I’m aware I made some mistakes and would like to atone for them, but it seems I’m going to have to go over this one more time. For anyone seeing this post who somehow doesn’t know, I said some regrettable things about Aidan Gallagher here. I later made another post here summarising the entire situation that resulted, so I would suggest you read that first. 

I’m still getting people telling me what I said was fucked up, which is entirely justified. However, I have just now realised that the person who took it upon themselves to ‘correct’ me about my opinions of Aidan Gallagher (something that has not changed, I still strongly dislike him) later made several derogatory posts about me. I was not aware of this because after the first rude post they made about me, I blocked them to save myself the additional stress. 

I have done my best to deal with this whole thing as calmly and politely as possible. When this person was downright evil towards me, I didn’t bother to argue with them, I just made an admittedly-snarky post with a screenshot of what they said, and then blocked them because I had no desire to begin an argument. When I realised that what I had said about Aidan Gallagher had been fucked up, I apologised, accepted my mistake and did what I could to fix it. But I am out of patience. I don’t take kindly to being treated the way this person has treated me, I don’t think anyone does. So here I am, about to break down everything they said about me bit by bit to show you how much of a lying scumbag they have been towards me (as well as possibly others).

warning: this post is incredibly long

tw: su*c*de mentions

My first interaction with this person was when i got an anon ask who wanted to know what Aidan Gallagher had done to make me dislike him. I responded with a brief list, excluding most of my evidence because it was late at night and I didn’t have the energy to go down the rabbit hole of all this. The following day, the blog this post is about reblogged my post, attempting to disprove everything I said. I will not include screenshots here, because it was a long post, you can find it in my archive if you so wish. I read what they said, took everything into account, and responded with my proof for things I hadn’t previously included the proof for, as well as explanations for why certain things he’s said annoyed/upset me. I expected a polite response, as we had both been courteous so far. 

Instead,  I received the following:

Now, lets break down some of what they said.

‘stop saying things you can’t prove, because it’s fake’ - I provided my proof. I am not trying to lie to anyone, or perpetuate rumours. All I aimed to do was explain my point of view and why I personally dislike him.

‘some of your screenshots are fake’ - That’s just blatantly untrue, especially as they have at other points said things along the lines of ‘well yes but he apologised/he didn’t mean it like that’ for everything I have provided screenshots for. Make up your mind.

‘you’re so gullible’ - For... having an opinion? That I researched before forming? And which is based on something other than my blind faith in a 17 year old? Right.

This was when I blocked them.

I thought that was going to be the end of the situation. Then, I got some asks.

I saw this and, being a minor, was a little creeped out. I had assumed this person was a teenage fangirl because that’s who the majority of Aidan Gallgher’s fans are so this information was surprising.

This one scared me. I did what the anon suggested, created a backup (i won’t tag it here because I get the feeling some of the aforementioned ‘army’ are going to see this) and reported the other blog. Once again, I thought it was over.

It was at this point that people started telling me how fucked up what I said in my original post was, and I realised they were right. As mentioned at the start of this post, I apologised, and did everything I could to fix it. End of, right?

Until today, where I started thinking about what the above anons had said and decided to fact check, mainly out of curiosity. I unblocked the blog, only to discover they had made 3 posts about me that I hadn’t seen.

This was the first one, as you can see they began it with a screenshot of my original post. Let’s talk about this.

“but you wishing him dead is ok?” - I never wished him dead, to start with. Stabbing does not automatically equal death, but I know that’s nitpicky of me. I also did not wish he was stabbed. I said in that exact tag that I didn’t, because of TUA. However, I know that this ‘joke’ was really shitty of me, and I have already apologised multiple times.

“what kind of a low life do you have to be to have nothing better to do, but talk shit about a kid?” - Why don’t you tell me? As I’ve said multiple times, I am a minor. That doesn’t excuse what I said, but that does make it incredibly hypocritical of them to say that given everything.

This was the second post they made about me, beginning with the same screenshot as in the first post.

“they’re spreading false rumors” - I’ve already covered this one.

“they want a reason to be mean, even if it isn’t true” - I would never be mean to someone if they hadn’t done anything to deserve it. I’m a strong believer in the moral philosophy of respecting everyone until they give you a reason not to. Aidan Gallagher has given me more than enough reasons to lose respect for him. And, honestly? I still respect him as an actor, even if only that.

“you can’t say you’re a decent human being and wish someone dead. you can’t say you’re anti-bullying and want to prevent suicide and then bully someone” - That is some big talk from someone who claimed they were ok with what Aidan Gallagher said about mental health because they’ve had their own experiences with suicide, before immediately telling me to rot and burn in hell for disagreeing with them. And, wait a second, wasn’t Aidan Gallagher the one supporting women’s rights and feminism who then turned around and made gross comments towards a bunch of girls? Hmm. Also, wishing someone dead is too wide of a blanket statement to actually measure whether someone is a decent human being with. 

“i tried to be nice” - I didn’t know telling someone to rot in hell, calling them a stupid hoe, was being nice. I didn’t know lying, and telling people to report someone because they disagreed with you was being nice (notice how they never said anything about my stabbing comment until I disagreed with them.) I guess we have very different definitions of nice.

“if they really cared, they would kindly ask a fan if the rumors were true” - And that, ladies gentleman and variations thereupon, is a brilliant example of how not to perform unbiased research! I based my opinion on actual evidence, and neutral articles as well as arguments from both sides. Not on one fan who’s likely to deny everything.

“they said it themselves, they have no proof” - That is so incredibly cherrypicked. What I actually said was “supposedly used the f-slur although i can’t find proof“, one of the many points on my list of reasons I dislike Aidan Gallagher. You know why I said that? Because I found a screenshot of him supposedly having called someone that slur via Instagram but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided it was probably edited. I included the point on my list in the hopes of people doing their own research. And I certainly did not say I had no proof for anything, as you would know if you saw my original response to this blog, where I provided proof.

“threatening him and bullying him is wrong” - I am fully admitting of the fact my stabbing comment was in poor taste but it was very clearly not a threat and not even close to being bullying. Furthermore, I would say making four posts harassing and telling others to harass someone because they disagree with you is a lot closer to being bullying than anything I did was.

“defamation is a crime” - I live in the UK, so let’s use those defamation laws. A statement is not defamation unless it ‘ has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.’ Less than a hundred people are even aware my blog exists. Nowhere near enough people have seen anything I’ve said to count as defamatory. Not to mention that a statement is not defamatory if it is a statement of opinion.

“you’ll get karma for lying and playing the victim” -  Ohhh the irony. I have not lied once. I have provided all the necessary proof for everything and I have owned up to my mistakes. And yet, they, who have repeatedly lied about me, twisted my words and oddly enough, avoided including proof outside that one screenshot of my original post, are the one accusing me of playing the victim. Classy.

“hi to your little follower that you cry to” - This one’s just hilarious to me. I’m happy to have people on here who will let me know when people are, you know, harassing and bullying me. And, what the hell do they mean by ‘cry to’? Do they mean ‘mentioned that this situation was stressful once’? Wow.

“I promise you misery for the rest of your sad little life” - Honestly just re-read the other screenshots after seeing they said this. Jesus Christ. And, as someone who already struggles with depression and other mental health issues I’m interested to know what they’re intending to do that’s gonna be any worse.

“you’ll pay! that’s not a threat it’s a promise” - Are they planning on tracking me down? Or are they just going to keep sitting on their throne of yes men and echo chambers acting as if they’re actually affecting me? 

I would say this is the last post I plan to make about this situation but I’ve said that over and over again throughout the last 12 days and it’s never the last post. This whole situation has honestly been very emotionally taxing, and combined with some real life things, it’s been a bad week or so. Hopefully this post is enough to end this whole thing. 

[hugsfromdad]

I've been mia on here, but not mia in the disaster bisexual front. So lemme fill you in

Okay, so idk if I've talked on here over the past few months about a cute cashier, but I can't seem to find it on my blog, so imma assume I haven't.

Back in mid August, I got my kitten. I got him 2 weeks earlier than expected, so the day before I picked him up, I had to run out and get his supplies. My friend was coming over that day, so we decided to hang out (outside) at my house, go get ice cream, and then go to the pet store for my stuff. after we got all that I needed, we went into Market Basket to buy some snacks so we could sit out in the parking lot and talk for a few hours. Well, that's where this story starts.

I looked hella fucking gay that day. (Striped button up UNbuttoned like halfway, my huge choker chain, and then my white washed levi's with a white 'Sisters' belt, and white converses. I can post a pic later if y'all want) so anyways, I was expecting to get some looks and stared. I did. Whatever. Well, were checking out at the speed aisle, and I notice eyes on me. I normally glace around when I'm checking out to see who is working, but I was met this time by the gaze of a cashier two rows back. I glanced down cause I didn't want to be rude, but when I check again, she was still looking at me. So I intentionally held her gaze for a few moments as I took note of what she looked like. Then I finished checking out and left with my friend.

While I'm a disaster bi and will focus and freak out over the smallest interraction with a cute person, I have become aware that most people (my friends) don't read into moments like that and will make fun of me if I do. That being said, I told myself it was probably just in my head and not that significant; that she was just checking out my outfit and clocking me as either a gay guy out with his girlfriend, (which was pretty much the case) or a couple getting some things.

WELL, so right as I was trying to not make anything out of it, my friend turns to me and goes. "Did you see that cashier staring at you? Like, she kept looking at you." And I was like "OKAY SO IT WASNT JUST ME" and she was like "no, she was really looking at you. She's really cute, too." And thus it began.

She's got a great style (also gorgeous even with a mask on, but I was more intrigued and attracted to her style). I told her that I liked her style a couple months ago and she repeated it back to me. She wears multiple necklaces, rings, and somehow makes her store uniform look cool. When I first really took note of her, my immediate thought was "she gives me west coast vibes." My best friend agreed with me when we were in the store together and she was there. And she might not be from the west coast, but if she told me she was from san Fransisco, I would believe it in a heartbeat. She got like a modern Marissa from the OC style. (I didn't watch the show, only those couple gay scenes with her character in it, so don't come for me)

So anyways, for the first 3-4ish months, my brain would short circuit as soon as we would lock eyes. Like, I can't describe it besides just a fog or a mental lockdown. I could like make eye contact, but I would just be in constant panic. I also couldn't imagine what to do next. Thus, I would panic and choose to go in a different aisle than hers for the first while. I didn't know what to do with a gorgeous woman who had eyes on me. (ALSO; I would like to state that her vibes and style are so immaculate, that I almost expect her to be gay. I thought she was clocking me as another gay person at first, but then I realized that we gays don't stare at someone of the opposite gender THIS much. So she could be gay. Idk. I'm good either way.)

Back to the panic: so it took me awhile to actually get the nerve up to choose her aisle when I could. Then we finally like interacted. I finally got her name, and I like asked her how she was. This happened like twice, and then there was a time I came in right after seeing my nephews(socially distanced). It was a slower day, so I didn't feel hurried in moving along. I asked her how her day was, and she answered and asked how mine was. I mentioner being happy cause I finally got to see my nephews after months of not. She then asked how old they were. We talked for a moment before I knew I have to go. It was as I was picking up my bag that I paused and looked at her and said "I've been meaning to say, I like your style." She like paused and said thanks, and that she liked mine as well. I then said something like "see you next time" and left.

From then, I'd see her when I went in, but almost every time she was in the wrong lane. We'd lock eyes as I walked in, and as I checked out and left, but we didn't get to like talk. That is, until I was tagging along shopping with my mum the day after fucking election night.

I don't think I need to say that I was more anxious and distracted than I had ever been when going in, and glued to my phone; refreshing google and watching the numbers come in. I don't think I even looked up when I walked in. I was in another place. I should also mention that I had noticed that the cute cashier (that's literally my nickname for her) usually worked on the weekends. This was a wednesday. So I was NOT paying sttention. I just followed my mum around the store while watching my phone and trying to do the math to see if there was a possibility that biden could win. Well, my mother eventually stuck us in line to check out, and asks me to get off my phone and help her unload, thats when I lift me head, and I'm staring directly into her eyes.

She was bagging for our aisle, so she was just standing there in my direct line of sight. And she has been watching me, waiting for me to fucking finally look up.

I'm sure I looked beyond stunned. Because I was. I honestly was so braindead from the day, that it took me a moment of staring back at to her process as to what was happening. I got it together quickly tho and bantered and talked with her a bit as she bagged and I helped load. She definitely was doing more than most, if that makes sense. I challenged her to fitting all of the groceries onto one cart cause she said she could. It was fun, and I think I again said "see you around* or something like that as we left.

And once again, once we got outside, my mother now goes "oh that bagger was cute." And I told her that that was the cute one I had mentioned before. THEN SHE GOES "oh yeah I picked up on that vibe of y'all." And I WANTED to ask her what that MEANT, but I didn't want to push it and then have my mother know/be able to make things awakrd.

ANYWAYS, 3 chapters in, lemme get to last months. I fucking got in anxiety meds. AND MY WORLD CHANGED. my mental block and fog was GONE. I could finally see a pathway through to like actually talking talking to her. SO, I pulled out a receipt, wrote down my number, and stuck it in my wallet for the next time I saw her.

Welp, the next time that was, she was in the wrong lane and teaching a new cashier what to do, so there was no way I was gonna try and insert myself into that situation. BUT, as I was walking both in and out, we locked eyes as usual, but this time as I was leaving, I did like a quick smile which caused me to squint my eyes for a half second. It almost looks like when a cat does their slow blink at you. I saw her respond to that and like smile back at me as I left. It was the first time I had ever done anything that was direct and nonverbally flirty.

So, I had to go again last night. And my parents were putting us in strict lockdown for the next 10 days, so we had to stock up. Before we left, I rewrote my note. And I told my best friends what was happening, and no matter what was the situation, I was gonna give her the note.

Well, she wasnt there. I was extremely disappointed.

Annnnd that leaves us here. It's gonna be a good 10-14 days before I'm allowed to go out, but youd better fucking believe it when I say that imma be giving her my number the moment I see her next. So wish me luck.

And also in case anyone asks; I don't want to try any dating apps cause I hate them. Also I'm half asleep now she don't have the energy to go back and edit this. Hopefully it's coherent.

So I guess I'll update y'all when I eventually get to leave the house and see her again

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 25: Oh Hai Mai

Heyyy we’re back. Thank for bearing with me, it’s been kind of chaos over here. Everything from a pandemic (we are very sloooowly reopening over here but I’ve been quarantined so long I can french braid my damn leg hair.) to important political protests, to getting an evacuation order because an arsonist burned down 90 acres in the heat of summer (luckily we’re all fine), to a vole that ate everything in my pandemic self-care garden so I lost my entire mind and waged war and dug so many holes and put out 17 mouse traps and set off so many critter bombs under the ground trying to kill the little bastard like it was Caddyshack (It’s still alive, ps, I lost that war). These last 3 months have been the longest decades of my life. The only month longer was the one where I’m pretty sure I had mono and it made me positive that my basement was haunted.

Man, bring back my haunted basement, Sorry if this comes through in my writing, I tried but, I can’t edit it out. You get FML-Rachel today.

Lets get back to a good, mindless distraction, lets turn on Yugioh.

BUT------->it just so happens that this episode of Yugioh has cop stuff in it, I’m just going to be blunt. We’re going into Valon’s backstory, he’s very much a victim of problems within the bizarre Yugioh legal system, and much like a Gotham supervillain, he is a symptom of the problem more than the cause.

I’m not going to ignore that, but in case you are overwhelmed about that right now, if you want to like...save this for later--I have another FMA recap coming out soon that I wrote in a simpler time before....the corona freakin ruined us all.

Last we left off, we were on the heels of Joey Wheeler, who decided to book it down the street because he wants to murder the hell out of Valon.

Youknow...Joey is one hell of a protagonist. He just does...so MANY antagonistic things.

Joey has decided that although the world is ending, and everyone left alive will be absorbed into the Great Leviathon’s big yummy tummy, which can only be prevented by three people, of which he is one of--he’s going to go sprint in completely the other direction.

We even managed to get Kaiba on board. We were ready. We were done, but then Joey had to lose his freakin mind because that’s just what Joey Wheeler does sometimes.

Normally heroes avoid the call to duty because of a severe lack of self confidence, but this is Joey, and he’s going to avoid the call to duty because of too much self confidence.

And so Joey and his Chaperone turn a corner and walk into this random orc who’s just casually living his best life and touring SF.

One of my worst fears walking through SF, tbh. Running into high school people. Not so much the orcs.

Yo, I wonder what the bushman was doing through all of this? So IRL, we have this guy who just...hides in a bush and jump-scares tourists. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in a bush and then just...all these orcs show up and you’re all.

...oh no, now I’m the fool...

I just want to know if bushman made it, or if he’s in a paper card that’s just a picture of foliage.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, Joey was already in the process of running, so they just turned around on this street of...so much parking.

Like y’all there is SO MUCH PARKING this episode. I was trying to pay attention to anything else, but like...do you see this!? It takes nearly half an hour usually to get a spot but this--this right here?

And the crazy thing is, recently my bro had to go pick up some old guy from a cruise that...got quarantined...and so bro had to go the Pier and like--this is what the city looked like. This is a pandemic, it’s just lots of parking, so I want to criticize Yugioh, and I normally would, but I can’t. I’ve seen the receipts. They called it. This is what the endtimes look like and it’s so much parking.

Also, they were too lazy to draw cars but damn, they called it.

So, left with no other option, Joey decides to...be Joey, and punches a huge orc covered in armor.

So Valon’s here, because apparently SF has just...no one left alive in it except for these few kids and that one Uber Eats driver. I imagine it’s a lot easier to find Joey if you just follow the only one screaming in Japanese in a Brooklyn accent at the top of his lungs.

And Valon decides that this one way street isn’t good enough, and that they must duel somewhere else.

I assumed it would be a tall structure, but considering Kaiba just blew up the tallest structures in the Financial District...I was like...what else is tall? And bear in mind, I’m a mess, so I was like...OMG I wish it were Macy’s!!!

Now I hear you saying that’s weird, and we shouldn’t have a very fancy Macy’s in 2020, and you’re correct. but we still have one, and the top floor is just...a massive Cheesecake factory, and I can’t think of anything more 00′s than a Yugioh duel on top of that specific Cheesecake Factory.

And I’ve never really thought before about where the best Yugioh duel would be, and it’s there. It’s at the high rise Cheesecake. Listen Yugioh, if you need an insider to choose locations for your Netflix remake of S4--call me.

So anyways, instead of doing the right thing and going to the Cheesecake Factory on top of Macy’s like any other self respecting 00′s teenager, Valon and Joey are going to drive through the most boring parts of town.

They had an opportunity to go chase eachother through any tourist attraction, Lombard street, Ghirardelli Square, the Palace of Fine Arts, China town, reuse some assets and drive through Japan town, that fountain that looks like Yoda--but no...they decided to drive through literal trash.

Just...a missed opportunity, and it should have been a Cheesecake Factory.

Also, I totally and fully acknowledge that a strange nostalgic affection for the Cheesecake Factory is a weird Millennial thing (much like our weird encyclopedic knowledge of Sailor Moon) but listen. You have your thing, too. You go do you, I’m gonna soak my sorrows in a bowl of Chinese chicken salad so wide, it’ll last me 3 days.

Anyways, Joey’s gonna steal that guy’s bike.

Yugioh just predicting the future in 2003. We actually have a HUGE problem right now with vehicle theft in the city to an almost comedic degree, which is partly why the parking situation has gotten so incredibly dire. It’s kind of incredible that this guy left his bike out because after about 1 day in the city you learn pretty fast that you need to be constantly checking on your street parked vehicle--I mean, that guy was just asking for it, honestly. If Joey hadn’t taken it, some other guy would have absolutely taken it, (even that orc would’ve taken it, the city has no consideration for cars.)

Sorry --one sec-- that was an earthquake just now. As I’m typing this. Just a little guy. Just a little treat for me...

...but still like...c’mon. I’m also getting this weird issue where Tumblr doesn’t save my drafts so like...this is like the 3rd time I’ve had to write this like...I just want to make a Yugioh post for my tiny funtime tv blog, Universe. Don’t @ me right now, Universe.

SO MUCH FREAKIN PARKING.

...is it the space between two piers? What is this? We don’t have rivers in SF, it is a peninsula covered in very steep hills. Like very VERY steep hills. All water just rolls into the ocean and there’s a couple of lake thingies but...no rivers that I know of (And like maybe this is a thing, and I just haven’t seen it? Learn something new every day.)

*loud, audible sigh* home. Where we belong. At the warehousssssssse.

Back at the RV base, Duke Devlin is still babysitting. Maybe this is to make up for the two seasons he spent trying to date a girl Rebecca’s age, that they felt like going out of their way to show that he has indeed no longer horny now. Got to hand it to them, that’s a lot of character development right there. Although at the same time, it has made Duke Devlin a very non-character.

But imagine how insanely complicated would it have been if Duke got involved in that bizarre love-square that is Yugi, Tea, and the Ghost that killed Yugi by accident.

PS that’s either a freeway onramp (which is too far South from where they were, I think) or it sure does look like old Embarcadero behind them. Youknow, that lifted street from the 80′s that fell down in Loma Prieta and was never rebuilt? I just freakin love that it’s still here in 2003. This bizarre Yugioh alternate California.

Anyway, because this is alternate California, Seto set a massive fire and the entire city didn’t immediately go up in flames. Apparently they just kinda ran away from the explosion and damage before anyone noticed.

Probably because most people on Earth are dead anyway, so what more can these two actually do?

And so Yami ends up getting lectured by the wife.

And justifiably, the wife seems to have absolutely no confidence that Yami will be able to do a damn thing right.

Wifes all around this episode.

Speaking of,

At this point, Arthur Hawkins senses that Yami’s nearby, so he opens the door just to freakin dump some guilt on him.

...Rebecca seems to be a character that’s mostly there to recap the lore and also to dump on Yami. I don’t mind that. Yami needs to get dunked more often, and I’m saying that in S4, where the entire season’s tagline is “how many times can we dunk on Yami?”

So lets check on Yugi, how’s that kid doing? It’s been quite a number of episodes since we last saw him.

Yep, still hanging out in the Han Solo cosplay room.

And then, because I guess everyone is just hanging out in the same 4 blocks, Mai and Tristan have a heart-to-heart.

In the show, this conversation was Mai (who is now a serial killer) saying “Oh hey, Tristan, where’s Joey?” and Tristan saying “It’s ALL YOUR FAULT he wants to kill Valon--thanks a lot, Mai! GODS!” all indignant like.

Not how you would ordinarily talk to a serial killer, just saying. No one from the Yugi crew fears this woman...at all...and she has killed over 20 people in front of them and is trying very hard to kill Joey Wheeler all the time.

Like what would it actually take for them to fear this woman? They can’t, right?

Meanwhile, Valon is trying to explain to Joey that his obsession with Mai is in fact damaging any relationship they could have had.

So then when you’re like OK...this is actually very valid points on Valon’s part, and Joey really does need to step back and let people make their mistakes considering Joey was barely a part of her life to begin with. But then, Valon just turns a 180 and...it becomes a catty love triangle where only one person in the triangle even feels romantic emotions.

I just...so Valon is doing this fight because he thinks Mai is in love with Joey.

This whole time I was like “well maybe it’s more that Valon is trying to defend Mai’s right to make her own choices” but no...he just straight up thinks Mai is in love with Joey. And, in fighting Joey, Valon himself is ignoring Mai’s life choices

Just a whole lot of misunderstanding that would have been fixed with better ways than dueling with cards. At least that one guy in S2 who tried to marry Mai actually dueled HER instead of some random guy.

It just really feels like these boys are having a pissing contest and Mai was never let in on the deets that this was even happening.

Mai needs to hang out with older men. Set her up with Roland, this is ridiculous.

Back at the RV, which got very, very big in this shot, Seto has an odd convo with Mokuba about how they are probably not going to get Kaiba Corp back. And then no one really argued with him about that.

He’s taking it really well. Maybe because this isn’t even the first time or the second time or even really the third time Seto’s lost everything. Kid’s really freakin great at failure. At least this time Mokuba isn’t currently abducted, which is really good improvement for these two.

Outside the RV, Tristan has decided to...give up as well, just right here, in the middle of traffic. Then he gets Orc’d...these orcs are kind of like Slenderman, in that they kinda...show up...but then that’s all they do because the designers didn’t actually want to animate anything.

And then this happens.

God bless this story boarder for this random series of events presented in just this way.

Also here’s yet another example where Tea just has...no fear. She’s actually only out here because she was like “that’s it, we’re getting another driver” and was going to chew out Duke Devlin. The Orc being in the middle of the road was not the reason she walked out here.

Anyways, Yami killed it because everyone here can just throw cards forever, these things are not threatening.

The subplot of everyone refusing to drive with Duke Devlin after he busted his car in Death Valley is still ongoing, and it’s still low key hilarious that no one will outright say “Duke, your driving is just so bad” and instead, Duke just has to sit there and watch Joey STEAL A MOTORCYCLE just so he won’t have to drive shotgun with Duke Devlin.

Rebecca, our plot-dump device, then informs us that Valon has Special Rules.

Because Valon, if you’ve forgotten, has a card that allows him to physically punch his opponent in the face.

They should have invented that card a long time ago TBH.

SO, lets get into Valons tragic backstory. First off, go turn on your Les Mis Soundtrack, because this is some old school cop stuff.

So apparently Valon, as a child just...stayed in the system forever. We don’t know why yet, but lets just assume that it’s tragic and heavy handed. If he steals a loaf of bread and ends up in 12 Juvies (which is a line from the show and not an exaggeration--12 Juvies) then I will expect him to be singing by the end of this and I will be very disappointed if he does not.

Anyways, he was such an asshole, that he caught the attention of some very illegal rich bastard who was trying to turn prisoners into...card murders. (it was Dartz.) because apparently...Dartz also funds prisons and that is...that is some deep lore.

And so probably about the same time that Yugi was Dueling to the death on Pegasus’ Island, and about the same time that Marik was hanging out in the ocean next to Pegasus’ Island with a pair of binoculars, and about the same time that Noah was underneath Pegasus’ Island just watching Pegasus steal KaibaCorp, Dartz decided to make his OWN murder island--because I guess he got jealous.

Anyway, Valon won, and didn’t even need to set anyone on fire.

Those little green things there--those are all souls of prison inmates.

YUGIOH.

Millennials got DARK, OK? Freakin...we had a show for 9 year olds that went deep into the school-to-prison pipeline and didn’t even try to hide it under any layers of symbolism. Like Hunger Games at least had two people survive.

This was a show to sell PAPER CARDS.

+++++++++++THIS IS A RANT WHERE I WENT OFF ABOUT PRISON TALK IN KID’S SHOWS FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++++++++

Now, there’s a lot of good conversation going on right now about errors in the modern justice system on not just a local scale, but on a global scale, especially regarding racial profiling and criminalization of poor, sick, and young, and we better keep pushing it. But it’s surprising when people pretend like this hasn’t been talked about for a long time. Because...we’ve been talking about it in kids and YA shows for a long time. This is not something that just popped up in 2020.

Like millennials didn’t invent this obsession with dark and gritty stories with uncomfortable themes. It’s been around for thousands of years, but back in the 90′s and 00′s, a lot of shows for YA and younger enjoyed talking about the problems with prisons and abuse of power with our justice systems--a lot. Batman, X-men, Death Note, so so many, hell, even the OC.

And like, don’t get me wrong, we still have these shows running around, but I’ve been there’s been a trend of stories (not saying names) where just...nothing bad happens. And, that’s kind of sad because...they CAN have small elements that are more progressive in them, but only brought forth with a very risk-free cotton candy fluffy coating to make the majority of the population happy.

I could go long about this, and I’m getting very cryptic. If a kid escapes to more colorful worlds where nothing bad ever happens, that’s OK--sometimes you need that, but when nothing bad ever happens surrounding certain experiences where bad things normally happen--the meaning of the story changes because it isn’t a real experience anymore.

Like I don’t want to tangent too much, and I just had to delete a lot of examples, but I know a lot of people want to write stories about misrepresented minorities and about real deal serious situations and are just so afraid of misrepresentation that they go in completely the wrong direction by not putting in anything uncomfortable at all. I think it’s important to look at the work and ask yourself is this about the minority the work should be about--or is this work about patting the majority of the population on the back and saying neat, we’ve achieved utopia without having to even do anything?

...anyway, obvi I’m ranting, but I feel like we’re taking a step backwards when it comes to the importance of kids programming and that we do need to talk to kids about prison again. This is a show about paper cards, and they don’t do a great job at talking about...the reality of prison, this was exaggerated with genre stereotypes, but at least they didn’t cover it with rainbows and unicorns, because this isn’t about how great Joey and the “normal” people are at saving Valon, this is about how society screwed Valon beyond repair, and I am 99% certain we will see this guy’s soul stuffed in a brick above Dartz’ snake fireplace.

Like, yeah he duels to the death on an island, but that’s imagery that is very close to real life prison issues. We don’t talk to kids a lot about how a lot of inmates get enlisted into the military during war times (and quite literally...duel to their death...on islands). We don’t talk about how we use inmates to betray eachother for a chance at maybe getting amnesty. We don’t talk about how a lot of the victims of this system are essentially children, and have been caught in a system of endless prison for what will probably be the rest of their lives. We don’t talk about how we’re systematically turning kids into criminals so much in kid’s shows of late...and Freakin Yugioh just did in a filler season. 

....................I think our standard for modern kids programming to talk about serious issues is way too low if Yugioh just threw this out there in a filler season, is all I’m saying.

++++++++++++++++++END OF PRISON RANT++++++++++++++++++++++

 So, Valon is free but...is he?

Not really, he’s just gone from one jailer to another, but at least this time he gets his own room. Don’t blame him for latching onto Dartz’ dream to end the world, because the world for him has been one behind bars. He doesn’t know it. Never been there.

It’s just interesting juxtaposed to Joey because Joey had some sort of Season Zero history with a gang and I haven’t watched that episode yet.

So that’s it for now, again, I’m very slooow lately. I slept for 3 hours today...and I don’t know why. But hey--we all got through three (four???) months of this...we just gotta go...one month at a time.

That and I accidentally did my taxes early so there’s that. See? Good things still happen.

Also, because I only slightly referenced the most incredible movie ever made on San Fransisco soil, I’ll just leave this here. The true hallmark of our city.

Anyway you know the drill, here’s the link

[1-1snailxd-art]

Sanders Sides Oneshot - Babysitting

This is how you beat writers block - you draw and then find your will to write afterwards.   

Characters/relationships: Logan / Virgil (analogical), Patton / Roman (Royality), Kid Thomas

Warnings: none

Words: 1511

Summary: This came about from a post by @fanartfunart and seeing as I’m trying to learn how to draw people better, I decided to challenge myself with a drawing....that drawing then turned into a little fic. FYI, I know there is a lot wrong with Logan’s proportions in the picture (I can see it), but Thomas is cute so whatever.  

_____________________________________

"Don't be such a baby, Logan." Virgil huffed, following his partner into the kitchen. "It's a kid, not a freakin' nuclear bomb."

"I know that, but..." Logan kept his back to Virgil as he absentmindedly took ingredients for dinner out of the fridge and cupboards. "I don't know anything about babysitting a child."

Watching the cook’s shoulders slump at the admission, Virgil softened his tone and moved to lean on the counter next to Logan.

"What's to know, Lo? You give him some food, easy for you, and turn on the TV. Job done." Virgil sighed when Logan didn't look away from the bowl in front of him; hands floured as he prepared a pasta dough. "Look, I only need to be in the studio for an hour at most; then I'll come straight home. You can entertain 'til I get back, right?"

"Are you sure you can't stay?"

 The tone of Virgil's phone gave him his answer as the other man quickly excused himself to take the call. It wasn't that Logan didn't like children; he just didn't think he was good for children. Honestly, he questioned daily what Virgil saw in him; a pensive, workaholic wasn't that romantic and didn't scream partner material. Patton on the other hand was destined to be a parent; they'd wanted to be one since they were kids.

The pasta dough came into shape as Logan recalled the day Patton video called them to announce they had been approved for adoption now Roman had consistent work. He'd shared in their excitement but never fully understood it. Admittedly, Logan was still hurt that Patton had moved so far away to support Roman's career and their relationship took a hit from the distance.  

Setting the finished dough aside to rest, Logan washed his hands and turned to find the dejected Virgil walking back in.

 "Virgil? What's wrong?"

"I've gotta go, Lo. Shit's hit the fan with the computers at the studio and Nate's pissed."

"How bad is it?" Logan moved closer, knowing there would be no way out of this now and accepting that he would have to face Patton alone.

"Backups failing bad. I should have gone in earlier when it was just a glitch. It was stupid of me to ignore it and-fuck I'm gonna pay for it n-"

Logan tilted Virgil's chin back and placed a soft kiss on his lips to silence the worrier.

"I apologise for my earlier attitude and clouded judgements. I will be fine this evening. You should go." Taking Virgil's hand, Logan walked him towards the door. "I will be fine until you or Patton return."

"Yeah, you will." he replied with a half-smile, before giving Logan a final kiss goodbye and heading out the door.

  The silence of the apartment was crushing as Logan threw himself onto the couch; sliding his glasses up off his face as he massaged his brow. It was all too much at once. First, he was just worried about seeing Patton and Roman again after years of dwindling contact; then they asked the couple to babysit while they went to the award ceremony that brought them to town; and now Logan would have to face it all alone. A knock at the door pulled Logan from his thoughts and he was quick to sit up and correct himself before answering it.

 "Hey Specs" Roman smiled from the entry; the pink backpack on his shoulder a harsh contrast to the black suit he wore. "It's great to see you again!"

"It's good to see you too, Roman. You are looking well considering the travel."

"Oh please," With a hand gesture Roman stepped into the apartment and put the apparently heavy bag down. "It would take more than a few hours on a plane to ruin this face."

"Indeed," Logan chuckled, turning just in time to see a pink blur heading towards him.

 "Uncle Logan!" Came a cheery voice as a body slammed into Logan and constricted his middle.

"Um...Thomas, I presume."

Logan looked up to see Patton beaming as they walked up the path in a simple blue gown. They looked so happy and lively that Logan forgot all his past grievances; it seemed Patton was happy and that was all that mattered.

"That's my Thomas," Patton giggled.

"It's good to see you again, Patton." Logan pulled a face as he looked down at the figure still holding his arms by his sides. "Your son is very... Huggie."

Roman and Patton both laughed, and Roman snapped a quick picture of the awkward man pinned by his son.

"Oh, I know. I trained him well, don't you think?"

"Indeed, Patton, but...um," Thomas giggled as Logan tried to lift his arms out of the vice grip around him. "How do I un-train him? I do need to work at some point this evening."

"That will do, Thomas; give Uncle Lo some breathing room."

At Roman's word, Thomas let go and moved to his father's side. Logan's moment of reprieve was short lived as Patton replaced their son, pulling their old friend close and whispering in his ear.

"I really missed you, Logan."

"I..." For a moment, he was lost for words before mimicking the tight grip around his friend. "I missed you too."

  The group remained in the entry as Patton began rattling off things Thomas could and couldn't do. Though he listened intently, Logan's eyes kept shifting to the young boy in the pink jacket that lent against Roman; holding onto his father’s arms around his neck and smiling up at Logan.

".... And if you need anything, just call me and I'll come right back and-"

"Calm down, Pat." Roman interjected, "We're just going for a few hours. I'm sure Lo and Thomas will be fine."

"Right. You're right."

"I always am." "That's not true, Dad." Thomas turned to look up at his father in confusion. "We were late to the airport because you got the times wrong, and you brought the wrong chocolate milk last week, and you-"

"Alright, that's enough." Roman was quick to scoop the boy up and headed inside. "Let's get you set up, hey."

A smile crept across Logan's face as he watched them go.

"Is that a genuine smile I see, Logan?" It comforted Patton to see him looking so content, despite his obvious fear of being responsible for Thomas.

"I'm proud of you, Patton." Their eyes widened as Logan turned; his own shining in the sun light. "You made the family you always wanted." "Almost," they laughed. "It's just missing one thing." "Hm?" Brows furrowing in confusion, Logan wracked his brain for what Patton was talking about. "What could you possibly be missing?"

"Just an uncle to teach Thomas about computers and another to show him how to cook. Any idea on where I could find them?"

"I think I do, but they live pretty far away." "That's okay, we're moving anyway." "What?" Logan was genuinely shocked by the news, mouth left ajar as Roman came up from behind and place a hand on his shoulder.

"You ready to be a full-time uncle, Logan?"

 The question left Logan reeling. Three years ago, Patton left their teaching position to follow Roman's quest for recognition in music and theatre; leaving Logan and Virgil behind in the process. One year ago, they adopted Thomas and their contact became almost non-existent; so to be told they were returning to include him and Virgil in their family...was amazing.

 "I suppose I'll have to be."

This time, Logan initiated a group hug; wrapping an arm around each of his friends and briefly forgetting that they had somewhere to be and he had a job to do.

"Jeez Specs, Thomas rubbed off on you quickly." Roman joked; causing Logan to quickly step back and adjust his tie.  

"Ah, yes, sorry." Logan stumbled over his words, causing his friends to laugh at his sudden display of affection. "I got a little carried away." "It's okay, Lo." Patton assured, waving at the little figure that was poking his head over the couch inside. "But we should get going or we'll never leave."

"Right. Yes. Of Course."

 Logan watched as Patton blew a kiss to Thomas before heading down the front path with Roman. Once the car had pulled away, he shut the door and turned to the smiling figure kneeling on the couch, waiting patiently. Brown eyes looked expectantly at him and he thought about Patton's wish for uncles for their son.

 "So… Thomas. Have you ever made pasta before?" The boy shook his head and slipped off the couch as Logan held his hand out. "Perhaps it's time uncle Logan taught you then."

 *************************

 When Virgil came home, he was shocked to find the apartment lit only by Steven Universe playing on the TV. Tiptoeing around the couch he was greeted to the scene of Logan fast asleep with Thomas laying on his chest. It didn't look comfortable at all, but Virgil had to admit it was an adorable thing to come home to.

________________________________________

Tags: @thequeensphinx

What else have I done:

The Shield to your Sword (WIP - A fantasy/magic au - Prinxiety (Royal Roman and orphan Virgil - they’ll admit to their love eventually), Virgil angst, non binary healer Logan, *spoiler* Patton, cursed Deceit and ridiculous Remus)

Libraries are for Meetings (ongoing WIP - Human/University au with Royality and developing Analogical. Slow burn and heavily focused on a grieving group of friends that Virgil slowly becomes a part of to better himself.)

And more....

Writing Master Post

Check out my other blog for random fandom reblogs and stuff @snail-giggles

[icecoldtwin]

Intro 1 (feat. PAFK)

/Howdy all! This is the mod of this blog, running and keeping it organized for a friend until they decide to take over, if they do! Any and all asks and replies from Luci will be from them, but I’ll be coordinating to them through discord. 

I’ll be posting our introductory rp together to showcase Lucifer and how he gets into @punsandfuturekingsmen‘s Arthur’s town, where he’s currently staying. This is part 1! If you read it, please enjoy!

Link to all Intros:

1 (You are Here!)

2 

3

4

Lucifer scowls as he kicks at the back wheel of his bike without force, glaring at it hard before he sighs and shakes his head. He was a block away, just a block, from the auto garage he had been pointed to. And his stupid, beautiful bike died a block away. "Fucking scrap metal..." He grumbles before just giving in and pushing it the rest of the way, grumbling to himself the whole time even after he walked into the shop with his bike parked out front.

~

Arthur felt like the air was colder when he meandered in, but he wasn't sure why. Maybe the heat had been turned down. His uncle gave him a look from behind the counter at seeing him, but Arthur waved him off. He wasn't going to let his uncle pay him to sit around and tinker in his back room. That wouldn't keep the shop running. Arthur shuffled a little until he could see who was waiting. "Oh hey. You guy. You're here for the bike, right? Can you give me a rundown?"

~

Lucifer looks at Arthur and raises an eyebrow immediately once he looks at him. "Fuck happened to you?" He asks in a small grumble before huffing softly. No it wasn't his business.....but he still wanted to know. "Dunno. It started stuttering down a few roads back then just shut off completely about a block away."

~

Arthur frowned at him. "It’s been a long few weeks." That was really all he wanted to say, and he clapped his hands together with a soft sound, and rubbed them. "Anyways. You have the keys? I'll take a look. Sounds like you might have a loose fuse."

~

Lucifer grunts softly and holds the keys out to him as he eyes him. ".....Are you even....medically able to work? No concussion?"

~

Arthur snorts. "All due respect to ya, I won't hurt your bike, if that's what you're worried about. My head is fine. If I couldn't work, the boss-man here wouldn't let me within a hundred feet of the building." He took the keys in hand, finger through the ring, and swirled them a moment as he made his way back to the garage.

~

Lucifer scowls and rolls his eyes as he follows after him, tugging off his helmet and fixing his hair with a hand pass.

"Well ex-fucking-cuse me for being concerned someone who looks like a mummy is about to work on my only way of getting around."

~

Arthur didn’t seem perturbed. Annoyed customers that were a bit rough-around-the-edges weren’t uncommon in the shop. "Hey man, I get it. You're concerned for your baby." He hummed as he made his way to where the bike was resting. There were a few chairs around and when he heard the sound of creaking leather behind him, he snagged one for the guy to sit in. "I'm not judging. But I promise the shape I'm in might be rough, but it's still good." He straddled the bike to turn it on before immediately frowning.

~

Lucifer huffs and straddles one of the chairs to rest his arms on the back of the chair as he watches Arthur.

"I guess you're the expert. Still, just....I dunno, don't mess it up more."

~

Arthur's frown was still on, and he touched the metal with his real hand. "Hey. This is like... really cold? How long have you been here again? I thought you just got in."

~

Lucifer tenses just slightly and narrows his eyes.

".....Is it? Yeah I got here like, a few minutes ago but it's not like it's super-hot outside. It did just stop a ways away too, had to fucking walk it here."

~

"Yeah but if it was running for a while it shouldn't be this cold." Arthur’s expression was a thoughtful one. "That might be your problem too. I mean, the engine gets super-hot and if you don't let the bike warm up first, the metal doesn't expand to where it should. The pistons will overexpand because they get hot from the bike engine running, but the rest of the metal hasn't warmed up enough to expand first. So that affects the cylinder bores and you can end up with scuffing and maybe even seizures in--"

He had been talking, clearly invested in what he was saying, but when he glanced up at the biker, his voice dropped out.

Arthur blinked. "Uh.....seizures in. uh. that area. Which... can cause parts to break. And your oil flow might not be the best which can... cause other things to break because it's not properly... um. Warm. Enough to circulate, I mean."

~

Lucifer blinks as he listens - most of it going right over his head. He was never that great with machines like this, that was always-... that was never his own strong suit. But he tries to listen.

At least until Arthur looked at him and he raises an eyebrow at his look before scowling.

"So i just am not letting it warm up enough before driving?"

~

"Uh.... probably." Arthur saw his scowl and forced himself to look away, though he did shoot another quick glance back. "I mean. Metal is affected by temperature a lot and it can change the size and shape. So if part of the bike is super cold and part is super hot... They're built to connect together kinda perfectly. Like a 3d puzzle. But a puzzle won't go together the right way if some pieces are too small and some are too big. And these pieces move, so when they don't fit it just-- makes things mess up even more."

~

Lucifer scowls more but this time less because of Arthur and more at himself. So...he was basically ruining his bike.

"Gotcha. So.. basically parts of it are too cold while others are hot."

~

"Basically." Arthur hummed. He chanced another glance at the guy. "If the oil gets cold it doesn't move as well too. So that can muck up parts that need it if you head out too soon. And I already mentioned the other stuff. If it's running this cold? I could see that causing issues. But I'll see what broke so I can get it fixed up. That's just more a future reference kinda thing."

~

"Right. Well. Guess it's good to know to try and keep the thing from breaking down again."

Lucifer hums softly, thinking. He'd have to possibly get more layers he supposed. Annoying. But it would help hopefully...

~

"Yeah exactly." Arthur left the bike, grabbing the handle of one of the rolling toolboxes. He came back and started undoing some of the parts so he could have a look inside. "Hey uh.... can I get your name?"

~

Lucifer watches him closely, resting his chin in his hand and his elbow on the back of the chair. ".....Lucifer. And yours?"

~

"Oh-- Arthur. Arthur Kingsmen." Arthur smiled at him. "Like the name on the front. Uh... you look...familiar. Have you uh. been here in Tempo before?"

~

Lucifer raises an eyebrow and glances down at himself.

"....Pretty sure I'd be more then 'familiar' with how I look. Don't exactly have one of those faces, ya know? But no. Never been here before."

~

"Well-- i guess that's true." Arthur rubbed at his neck with a wince. "You just uh... look like someone I know. Knew. Sorry." Arthur focused on his work instead, swallowing hard.

~

Lucifer blinks in confusion and stares.

".....Well, never met anyone who looked like me while I've been traveling. Nice to know I'm not the only giant around I guess."

Lucifer hums as he watches him, frowning lightly.

~

"-- Yeah." Arthur swallowed again. "It's a bit uncanny. But yeah. I hope you like Tempo. If you're here for a bit I might suggest the pizza place in town for food? Or if you like spicy things, maybe Pepper Paradiso. It's really good. Good milkshakes, too." He only paused in offering it, given Lucifer’s look.

It... might make them sad. But they needed the money right now, too.

~

"....Thanks I suppose. Dunno how long I'll be staying. Don't really have a place to stay or much money to my name right now."

More like almost none. Hopefully he had enough to cover this but it would be close he was sure....He just hoped a part didn't need replacing that they had to order a part for.

~

"That's too bad." Arthur frowned. "Hopefully this won't take too long then. But uh-- nevermind." Arthur rubbed at his neck again with another wince, leaning into the bike.

~

"Thanks at least. I'll keep it in mind in case I do stay."

Lucifer says before frowning as he watches him.

"You sure you're doin alright?"

~

Arthur nodded. "Oh-- yeah I'm fine. Just forget I'm sore without thinking." He hummed. "No worries. Won't mess up your bike." He leaned further in. "If you do, I think there's a cheap place near here to stay. Tempo doesn't get a lot of people passing through."

~

"Yeah? Where at? I might as well look it up to see if I can actually afford it, just in case."

Lucifer says and blinks as he realizes where his gaze had been going. Well. He could at least appreciate good looking things. Even if he wouldn't say it.

~

"You have a smartphone?" Arthur asked as he worked, feeling the guy's eyes on him. He really cared about his bike being taken care of right, didn't he? "I can get you a link to their site you can check out."

~

"Yeah I do. I need to connect to your wifi though… saving data, ya know?"

He actually didn't even have data. Nor did he actually own this phone. But....the guy didn't need it anymore. So it was fine.

~

"Oh yeah." Arthur glanced over at him. "Clients get to use it, so you're good. I think the password is on that board behind you? If it's not, I'll ask Lance." He pulled off a piece of the bike, sufficiently loosened, and set it next to him on a creeper.

"Mmm.....yeah. Your bearing seized. Looks like insufficient oil lubrication. Which would make sense if it's running cold and can't circulate. Looks like the journal needs replacing. The crankshaft got too hot. And I don't think we have any in the shop right now so we'll have to order one."

~

Lucifer glances behind him and puts in the password, frowning slightly. He'd need to charge this soon… he didn't wanna fry another phone trying to charge it his own way...

"....Order one? Ah....any fucking idea of the ballpark of how much that would be?"

He grumbles, sounding angry - but not really at Arthur more just the situation.

~

If Arthur noticed he was annoyed, he didn't respond to it, focused as he was. "Mmm.... it might be a few days to a week probably?" The place we get them from is a bit aways. But It shouldn't be too long. And journals are cheaper than ball-bearings at least. I can probably get you an estimate at about.... forty, fity ish? For the part and replacing it. Since we'll have to disassemble parts of the engine."

~

Lucifer flinches. Well. That was about 30 more dollars then he had. And that included trying to get a motel room to keep up appearances...

"Well shit....since I'll be stuck in town for a while it seems....know any places that are hiring?"

~

Arthur paused, before nodding, swallowing something warm and thick. "Are you good at waiting tables? Or with bookstores...? Go to Tome Tomb or Pepper Paradiso. Tell them Arthur sent you. They're uh... some of the staff isn't available, so they could use some extra hands, I'm sure."

~

Lucifer makes a small face. That sounded like a lot of people interaction....which most jobs he supposed are. He hated having to be 'customer friendly' though.

"Guess I don't really have much fucking choice...." He grumbles to himself, glaring at his phone as the room drops a little in temperature.

~

Arthur shivered. Someone must've opened the door to let in more cold air. "Well. What kinda jobs are you good at?"

~

Lucifer thinks, trying to think of what he could say that would be believable without seeming impossible.

"Well...I'm strong as shit after taco bell, i guess?"

~

"After....taco bell?" That made Arthur look up, giving him a confused glance. Was that a weird meme he hadn’t heard? You had the power of god and anime on your side, after a crunchwrap surpreme?

"I have no idea what that means. But the restaurant might be able to put you in the back to help move boxes? Or maybe check with my uncle. He's in with some guys who do construction. So he might be able to get you on a job if he likes you."

~

"I dunno, heard it was a saying."

Lucifer says with a shrug. Not like he ever ate taco bell to fully understand exactly what that meant.

"…I could probably do construction. I guess I'll ask, see which one even works...see which one doesn't fuckin ghost me." He says with a small snicker.

~

Arthur raised an eyebrow at him, but shrugged. "Tempo is pretty small. You probably won't need to worry about that. You wanna keep your bike here in the meantime?" He hopped off with a stretch. "I can give you a lift to that motel if you want. Though if you do some work for Lance and his buddies, he might let you crash on his couch and save a few bucks."

~

Lucifer frowns as he thinks, staring down at his phone. "....yeah i guess I'll leave my bike here. And I'll see if...Lance, right? See if he has any jobs. But I'll go to the motel later."

Won't have to pretend as much if he's not staying with someone else after all.

~

Arthur nods. "Whatever floats your boat. Lance is in the main part of the building. The guy who looks like me but with a beard." Arthur hummed, pointing back towards the front where he'd first come in.

~

"Ah...short guy who was behind the counter?" Lucifer asks as he stands up, snagging his helmet to rest against his hip.

~

"Don't call him short to his face if you wanna get a job." Arthur laughed.

~

Lucifer snorts with a small smirk.  "Fair enough. Don't want to insult my possible future fucking boss."

He says with a smirk as he turns to walk back to the other room.

~

Arthur looks back at him as he heads out. He'd comment on the number of fucks the guy was giving, but he himself didn't have any. And it wasn't like Lance wasn't used to that kinda talk in his circles. "Good luck with that."

~

Lucifer waves a hand over his shoulder to let him know he heard but doesn't do much more than that. He really hoped Lance did have some sorta job so he didn't have to do…retail.

He didn't want to have to deal with almost punching another dick wads face in while working.

[artificialqueens]

Not Nineteen Forever (15) (Branjie/Scyvie/Ninex)- Ortega

a/n: oh u thought the worst of the angst was over? it’s only just begun. apologies in advance hnggggggg. love is always appreciated here or over on my blog! love and hugs xxxxxxxxx

please note: this fic contains young adults often behaving in irresponsible/unadvisable ways with regards to alcohol, drugs and sex. if you are someone who feels as if they could be heavily influenced by fic and incorporate what happens in the plot into ur own life, pls steer clear!

summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree.

last chapter: Scarlet helped Vanessa deal with the aftermath of the breakup, aided by lecture-skipping and the prospect of a pink-haired rebound. Monet was gearing up to ask Nina to be her girlfriend in the most elaborate of ways, and Scarlet and Yvie finally said the most important three words to each other since “let’s get takeaway”.

this chapter: it’s Valentine’s Day, Brooke is a living flip flop, and something happens that nobody saw coming.

***

“Ayo. We’ve got a mouse.”

Brooke finally got her jacket off that she’d been struggling with and faced Yvie, who was lounging on the sofa in their little living room in front of the TV. “Well isn’t that a romantic Valentine’s Day greeting.”

“Well we do,” Yvie shrugged, Brooke leaving her bag on the kitchen table and joining Yvie in front of Coronation Street. “This storyline has been going for about a year, I swear to God.”

“Should you not be out doing romantic shit with Scarlet?” Brooke asked, hearing how monotone her voice was but unable to take it back now. Yvie looked across at her and raised an eyebrow.

“She’s got uni. I’m picking her up from her flat at five, we’re going for drinks and then out to the restaurant.”

“Picking her up with what, your bare hands?” Brooke let out a small laugh, Yvie chucking a couch cushion at her and snorting.

“Shut up. I’ll get an uber. I might even get an uber exec, really push the boat out,” she quipped, Brooke laughing again. As her laughter died down, Yvie tilted her head. “So what’re your plans for tonight?”

Brooke groaned and tilted her head to the ceiling. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stick on some films, eat some chocolate. Maybe skype my parents. I’ll be fine.”

“You said that twice.”

“Well I will be.”

Yvie made a click with her tongue. “And we all know the hallmark of a person who’s fine is if they have to repeat it about twenty billion times.”

“Yvie Oddly, ladies and gentlemen, queen of exaggeration,” Brooke said sarcastically, Yvie giving a sarcastic flourish of her hand right back at her. In the conversational lull, Brooke checked her phone. All over her instagram page there were couples; disgusting, happy couples who really were just making an embarrassment of themselves with their totally cringeworthy captions. “Happy Valentine’s Day to my number one” with every heart emoji under the sun, “happy vday baby i love u” beneath a picture of someone’s boyfriend pulling a silly face, and the worst, “he’s ok”, the understated caption contrasted by the horrendously soppy picture of a couple that Brooke knew from back home kissing for the camera.

Brooke had a cheek, she supposed. She’d made her bed- breaking up with Vanessa, as difficult as it was, was supposed to make her happier and make everything go back to normal. But it hadn’t. Knowing how much she’d hurt Vanessa brought no happiness to her at all, nor did it make her life any easier. Seeing her post sad, slow R&B song after sad, slow R&B song to her instagram story didn’t alleviate her guilt, nor did her radio silence on the group chat. Brooke had seen her only once since the breakup- across the square on campus when Vanessa didn’t realise Brooke could see her, flanked by Silky and Akeria, wearing baggy clothes and not a scrap of makeup, her face and eyes puffy and red. There was nothing about Brooke that was relieved; she desperately wanted to be there for Vanessa, to dry her tears and talk shit about herself. She had the deepest desire to be a friend to her through the breakup she had been the cause of, because ultimately she still cared about her. Brooke didn’t know if that was normal or not. She was past caring or trying to figure it out.

What was she going to do tonight? Yvie was out with Scarlet, Nina was at Monet’s right that minute. Plastique had told her in the library the other day that she was going for drinks with Ariel (“the most casual of drinks”, she’d said, although Brooke knew it would be anything but casual). She didn’t know what the others would be doing. Akeria would probably drag Vanessa on a night out and Silky wouldn’t need much encouragement to go either. It looked like Brooke was in for a night by herself after all.

Mid-scroll, one of the uploads caught Brooke’s eye- a photo from months back at Vanessa’s birthday night out of all eight of them together, dressed up and smiling with their arms around each other. It was only a few seconds later that Brooke realised she was smiling at it, completely unaware that her facial expression had changed. She wished they could all go back to October. She would exchange all the hurt and the guilt and the sadness that she’d caused in exchange for pining for Vanessa for the rest of her days. Her eyes drifted down to the caption, and her stomach plummeted when she realised who it was posted by.

missvanjiemissvanjie Happy Valentine’s Day to my day ones! Best bitches I could ask for in my life. Love you!! 💓

Brooke scanned the photo again. She hadn’t been cropped out, even though she was on the edge of the photo- the curse of being tall, Nina had called it. Her heart began to spring to life. This was a good sign. Vanessa clearly didn’t hate her, and somewhere deep inside her was a want to be friends again and go back to how things used to be. Injected with optimism, Brooke clicked on Vanessa’s messages. She paused for a moment, looking back at the last ones they’d sent- the day of the breakup, Brooke asking to talk, Vanessa wondering if everything was alright. It felt like a harpoon to her stomach.

Trying to stay positive, Brooke typed out a message.

B: Hey. Hope you’re doing okay. I know we said we still wanted to try and be friends so I was wondering if you wanted to maybe hang out tonight? Just as friends obviously. Since everyone else will be busy. Let me know.

Brooke’s finger hovered over the “x”. She decided against it. Hitting send, she found herself waiting anxiously for a reply.

“How do you know we have a mouse anyway?” Brooke asked Yvie, her words suddenly registering. Yvie shrugged.

“Ran across the worktop about five minutes before you came in.”

“What the hell are we going to do about it, then? I don’t want to even imagine what Nina’s reaction’s going to be if she sees it,” Brooke shuddered.

Yvie laughed. “No, Scarlet’s going to be the same. I don’t know, she looked like a nice lil’ fucker. I think we should get a cage. Put a block of cheese in it and then keep her as a pet."

Brooke felt her phone vibrate twice. Picking it up to check it and seeing that both the messages were from Vanessa, she nonchalantly carried on the conversation. "So Scarlet would be fine with that, would she?”

“Scarlet isn’t here all the time.”

“No, just 99% of it,” Brooke raised her eyebrows, opening Vanessa’s messages.

V: lmao

V: Are you on crack. You broke my heart two weeks ago and now you’re trying to be my friend already. Have you never heard of a thing called a healing process?

Brooke felt her stomach tense. She hovered her thumbs over her screen to reply, but nothing she thought of seemed to make sense or be the slightest bit appropriate. Despondent, she was about to close her phone when another message shot through.

V: And I’m busy anyway. So it still would have been a no.

Well, that was that. Vanessa was out with Silky and Akeria, and clearly she wasn’t invited. That was fine. Brooke could have kicked herself. She instantly wished she’d never been so tone-deaf. It had been a stupid suggestion. Of course Vanessa wasn’t going to be best friends with her a fortnight after they’d broken up.

Brooke couldn’t help the fact that she missed her, though. Even just as a friend.

“Hey, panini head? Are you listening to me?” Yvie suddenly yelled, her best Gordon Ramsay impersonation catching Brooke off-guard.

“What?”

“I said, would you look after Mrs Tibbs if I went home for the weekend?”

Brooke rubbed her temples in confusion. “Who’s Mrs-”

“The mouse! Jesus, Brooke, have you been on this earth for the past five minutes?” Yvie laughed, then gradually a frown spread onto her face. “What’s wrong?”

Brooke hadn’t realised she’d been showing her guilt and disappointment on her face. She sighed. “It’s nothing. I just still feel bad. About Vanessa, you know.”

Yvie furrowed her brow. “Listen, girl, I know dumping someone is hard and it’s unpleasant. Shit, I would know, I’ve had to do it enough times. But there comes a point where you’ve got to stop beating yourself up about it. I mean you ultimately did what was best for the pair of you. It wasn’t fair to string her along if you didn’t want to be with her. It hurts her now, but it’s better in the long run.”

Brooke nodded. Part of her couldn’t help but wonder…

…it didn’t matter.

Brooke’s phone vibrated again. She hoped and prayed it wasn’t another text from Vanessa to berate her for her shitty idea. What was to come would actually make her feel a hundred times worse.

Okay Then: happy valentines day fuckers!!!!!!! even though im out being soppy tonight i still want u all to know that ur my main bitches and number ones and i love u all sm 💖💖💖

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: You’re disgusting. Love you too hoe xxxxxx

Yvie’s Bitch: Awwwwwww Plastique!!!!! We love you too!!!!

Yvie’s Bitch: What’re everyone’s plans for Valentine’s Day?????

Scarlet’s Bitch: i don’t know i’ve got plans with this weird girl called……Scarface? idk i’ll probs cancel on her

Yvie’s Bitch: Suck my clit x

Akeria Sainsbury’s Bag For Life: Children PLEASE

incongruous silkworm spiced praline: HAPPY INTERNATIONAL DAY OF FUCKING

incongruous silkworm spiced praline: ME N KIKI GOING OUT ON THE TOWN LOOKING FOR THIRD DIVISION FOOTBALL PLAYERS

Okay Then: oh bitch aim high? second division xo

Brooke’s heart dropped twenty storeys when she saw who was typing. Their names on the chat had been quietly changed back, but Brooke still knew who it was.

cursed SatNav voice: Happy Valentine’s Day hoes 💓💓💓

cursed SatNav voice: Even though all you couples can suck a bag of dicks

Scarlet’s bitch: gladly, bitch 💜

Okay Then: Vanj are u not going out with Silk n Kiki?? bc if not ur welcome to join me n Ariel!! it’s just casual!!

incongruous silkworm spiced praline: YES PLASTIQUE IM SURE SHED LOVE TO THIRD WHEEL U AND UR HONEYMOON PHASE FLATMATE

Akeria Sainsbury’s Bag for Life: anna ou

cursed SatNav voice: 💓 That’s sweet but I’m busy tonight!! Thanks though boo

incongruous silkworm spiced praline: SHE GOT A DATE ANYWAY

Time seemed to freeze. Brooke couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe. All she was able to do was blink at her phone screen as the chat blew up around her. It was only after a few moments that she realised Yvie was looking at her.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Um. Yeah, no, I’m fine,” Brooke stammered, nodding and putting her phone down in a futile effort to seem relaxed. Yvie gave a laugh.

“Brooke, you can’t break up with her and then get mad she’s going on a date with someone else.”

Brooke bristled. “No, that’s not it, that’s not it at all.”

There was a small silence as Yvie typed away at her screen, her eyebrows raised in a defiant show of disbelief. In the silence, Brooke gathered her thoughts.

“I’m just kinda…I don’t know. Not hurt, but…I mean I thought she cared about me a bit more than to be over me in the space of two weeks.”

Yvie gave a gasp, clutching at her heart. “Oh! The fragile ego of Miss Brooke Lynn Hytes. The wings of a moth cannot compare, nor the web of a spider!”

“You know, you can be a really shit friend when you want to be,” Brooke spat, getting up without a second thought and storming through to her bedroom. She threw herself down on her bed and curled up into a small ball, wishing the world would give her a break.

Her ego was hurt. Her pride was battered and bruised. She supposed she’d been so used to being revered and cared for in the eyes of Vanessa that she found it odd for that to no longer be the case. Brooke sighed. Yvie was right- she wasn’t supposed to care this much, she was supposed to be happy. Fuck, shouldn’t this have been the ideal outcome? Vanessa had moved on already.

So why did Brooke feel absolutely gutted?

She sat on her bed in the cold of her room, stewing in her thoughts, trying to figure them out and failing. She didn’t know how long she’d been there for but it had clearly been enough time for Yvie to make a cup of tea, as Brooke found when her flatmate gave a gentle knock on her door and shuffled in with the Sports Direct mug in her hand.

“Hey,” Yvie began, crossing the room and putting the mug down on Brooke’s cluttered bedside table. She sighed and lay down on top of Brooke in what could have been a cuddle or an attempt at smothering her to death. “Brooky, I’m sorry-”

“Don’t. She used to call me that and…” Brooke began, sighing when she couldn’t figure out why she had an issue with it. “I don’t know.”

Brooke wrestled an arm free from under Yvie’s stomach and brought it to rest over her back. It felt more like a cuddle now.

“I knew she was going on a date, by the way. Scarlet told me the other day. I just didn’t think you’d give a fuck,” Yvie said quietly. Brooke exhaled and felt her ribcage deflate.

“I didn’t think I would either,” she said, feeling small. There was a pause. “What’s her name?”

“Monique. The girl from Monet’s party with the purple hair,” Yvie said. It felt like a stab through Brooke’s chest. She remembered Monique, she remembered the way Vanessa had laughed at her stories and the way Monique had looked at her and the obvious chemistry between them. “If it helps, Brooke, I don’t think it’s going to be anything serious. Scarlet said that apparently she literally gave Vanjie her number and was like ‘In case you ever want a rebound’. They’ve been messaging all week. Tonight’s more of a 'fuck Valentine’s Day’ drink than anything else.”

Brooke thought about Vanessa’s perfect body, about her touching Monique the way she used to touch Brooke, talking to her like she used to talk to Brooke, someone else making her come apart the way Brooke used to. Brooke rolled out from under Yvie, grabbed her pillow, and buried her face in it, letting out a long, loud groan.

“Do you feel like you fucked it?” Brooke heard Yvie’s voice ask matter-of-factly. Brooke brought the pillow off her face and whined.

“No! No, I made the right decision. I didn’t want to be Vanessa’s girlfriend. It’s just fucking…weird. It doesn’t exactly fill me with glee thinking of her with somebody else, you know?”

Yvie smirked. “Because you know Monique’s going to fuck her better?”

Brooke launched the pillow at her flatmate, Yvie giggling. “Sorry! Sorry! Fuck, okay, point taken. Inappropriate.”

There was a silence. Yvie’s joke still hung in the air.

“Well, as long as you feel like your decision was correct,” Yvie smiled gently, patting Brooke’s thigh. “Then that’s the main thing. And it’s natural to get a little jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Sure, Jan,” Yvie raised her eyebrows and began to slide off Brooke’s bed. “Look, I’ve got to go get ready for dinner. You sure you’ll be fine?”

“Well I said it about twenty billion times, remember?” Brooke deadpanned, earning her a laugh from Yvie. “Just go. Go have fun. Have the best night, baby. You two deserve it.”

Yvie leant down and gave Brooke one last little squeeze before leaving her bedroom and going back into her own. Now she was alone with her thoughts Brooke wanted desperately to silence them so she grabbed her laptop and shoved on the least romantic film she could think of- Kingsman. As she sipped her tea and watched a man get completely sliced in half from skull to anus, she thought that would only be slightly less painful than what her emotions were currently putting her through.

As Taron Egerton refused to kill his dog, Yvie shouted a goodbye to Brooke.

As Colin Firth went absolutely mental in a church and killed everybody single-handedly, Brooke grabbed her phone and deleted all of her messages with Vanessa.

As the end credits rolled, Brooke wondered what the fuck she’d done. Two and a half years of friendship gone and deleted in the blink of an eye. But maybe it was for the best.

Brooke had been scrolling Netflix searching for something else to watch for what could have been an entire hour when she heard four things in rapid succession- the heavy bang of the front door, a scurry of hurried footsteps across the hall, the bang of Nina’s fire door and then a rapid sobbing that poured out of whoever was in the room and through Brooke’s wall. Brooke’s previously lethargic body sprang to life and she shot off her bed, took three quick steps to her door and hurried out into the hallway where she knocked on Nina’s.

“Nina? What’s happened?”

The sobbing continued from inside, Brooke unsure if the girl had even heard anything. Hesitantly, she pushed on the door.

“I’m coming in, okay?”

With no response other than more sobbing and a snuffle, Brooke entered Nina’s room. There was her usual organised dressing table with her makeup strewn all over it, indicative of a rushed getting-ready process. On her usually tidy floor was a mess of tried-on-and-rejected clothes, and there on the Aristocats-patterned duvet curled up with her stuffed teddy was Nina, absolutely crying her eyes out. Brooke practically vaulted the end of her bed to get to her flatmate who was squashed in between her pillows and the wall in the foetal position.

“Hey, hey, hey! What’s wrong?” Brooke asked her, pulling her close and wrapping her arms around her. Nina batted her away weakly.

“Don’t, Brooke, don’t, fuck, getting held is just going to remind me of her and I don’t-” Nina descended into another burst of sobs, Brooke completely and utterly confused.

“Monet? I thought you guys were fine? Oh my God, Nina, she didn’t break up with you?!” Brooke asked, scared and trying to fight the sinking feeling taking root in her chest. Nina elegantly wiped her nose on her teddy and pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, rubbing harshly and leaving her looking like a human panda.

“She didn’t break up with me,” Nina sniffed, finally seeming to calm down.

“Oh, thank fuck.”

“I broke up with her.”

This was at least twenty times worse than what Brooke had feared. Pulling away, she fixed Nina with a look of complete incredulity. “You did what?!”

Nina rubbed at her eyes again, this time with her fingers. “Yeah, because obviously I can’t have anything fucking half-decent in my life without completely sabotaging it or making it go to shit, can I? I broke up with her, I’m a fucking idiot. Happy?”

Brooke could only blink in response as Nina leaned back and let her head hit the pillow, her stare boring into the ceiling. Her thoughts were all colliding. This was the most sudden and unexpected event, and it had completely knocked her for six. “Rewind. I thought you and Monet were fine?”

“We were fine,” Nina sighed so deeply that Brooke wasn’t sure she would have any air left in her lungs. “I was so fucking happy, Jesus. But there’s always a catch, right? Nobody can stay that happy forever, it’s always got to come to an end at some point.”

She stopped and sat up, propping her head against the headboard. Not looking Brooke in the eye, Nina continued. “She started being really distant with me. Not replying to texts for ages, being really deep in thought when we were together. I’d ask her what was wrong, but…she’d just always say nothing was. I was over at her flat the other night, we’d had a nap together and I woke up and she wasn’t there. I went into her living room and she was there with two of her flatmates. They stopped talking the second I got in, honestly I might as well have caught them all in the middle of a massive fucking orgy,” Nina laughed humourlessly. “And then it clicked. It all started after I told Monet about you and Vanessa. Nothing bad…just about how you weren’t sure, and how it’s better to just break up with somebody if you’re having second thoughts about them. It all made sense. Her being distant, always seeming off, obviously talking to her flatmates about it and having to stop because I came in. She didn’t fucking want me anymore, Brooke.”

Shocked, Brooke could only put her arms around her friend as she leaned into her chest and began to cry again. Nothing about it seemed to fit. Monet was absolutely head over heels for Nina, anyone could have seen it. It all seemed so out of the blue and sudden. Brooke tried to think about the last time Monet had been over at the flat. It had been about a week ago and Monet had seemed fine- although, now that Brooke thought about it, Monet had seemed a little quiet. Almost nervous, Brooke considered. But she was still cuddling Nina and giving her small kisses and paying her attention. It didn’t make any sense. Brooke frowned. “Nina, are you sure she actually wanted to break up with you?”

“I wondered it too. Because I didn’t want to believe it, of course. But then yesterday we were just lying in bed doing nothing. She was on her phone and my head was on her chest. I saw what was on her screen just for a second and she’d fucking-” Nina sighed, cutting herself off. “- typed this guy’s name into Google. Obviously some guy she’s met and she’s trying to find him on social media. I actually felt like I’d been stabbed, Brooke. Obviously she saw me, because she only got as far as the first name and then closed her phone. But I know what I saw, you know?”

Brooke’s frown only got deeper. “But that makes no sense. Why would she look someone up on Google, what is this, the fucking 90’s?”

“Brooke, you weren’t there. You should have seen how quickly she shut her phone off, and she was instantly all over me and telling me how lucky she was and-” Nina’s speech was interrupted by a bubble of a sob. “Oh fuck, it hurt so much. And today she woke up with me and was all "Happy Valentine’s Day!” and all that shit. I couldn’t do it, Brooke. I couldn’t make myself look like an idiot any longer. I suggested going for coffee and while we were out I just…I just fucking did it. Oh my God, it was so so bad, Brooke. She looked so fucking destroyed and she was so pissed off with me that I thought it was all a mistake but…fuck, I didn’t know what to believe. I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’ve done.“

Brooke sighed, desperately not wanting to believe it was over between the two girls. "But didn’t she explain herself? I mean what did you actually say to her? Did you confront her?”

“Jesus, no! No, I didn’t want to make it look like I was this poor, lovesick, pining idiot who was making a fool of herself over her! I jumped before I was pushed. I pretended I was the one whose feelings had changed, that it wasn’t working for me anymore. It was all a crock of shit, but she obviously believed it.”

Brooke bit the skin at the side of her thumb. There was a silence. “But didn’t she try to make you stay? Didn’t she fight for you?”

“She-” Nina cut herself off. Brooke looked down and saw tears pouring down her face, and her heart broke. “- she just sat and looked at me. Something in her eyes just…shut down. They just went all glassy, like those black marbles you got as a kid, remember? Anyway I said my piece and she just…ugh, she just nodded. She just nodded and went "Right. Got it.” in the most cold voice and then she got up, put on her coat and left. And I let her.“

With that, Nina swept her hands under her eyes and heaved a gut-wrenching shudder of a sigh. Brooke was at a loss of what to say. She had thought Nina and Monet were made for each other, and the fact that Nina had thrown it away for the sake of what Brooke was sure had to be a misunderstanding was gutting. She heaved a similar sigh to Nina’s.

"Look at us. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’re both single, we’re both here regretting breaking up with someone-”

“Wait what?” Nina asked suddenly, eyeing Brooke with suspicion. It was only then that Brooke had realised what she’d said. Startled, she backtracked.

“Well, I mean, not regretting breaking up with her, just regretting causing her hurt,” she said, Nina nodding quietly. Although Brooke was still spooked. Why had that thought popped into her head, let alone out of her mouth? She didn’t regret breaking up with Vanessa. It was the ick, just like Plastique had said. She had changed her mind. She couldn’t exactly change it back.

Could she?

“Why don’t we watch a film? I’ll bring my laptop through, get snacks from the kitchen. You don’t even need to move from this room. Or this bed,” Brooke suggested, ignoring the dangerous thoughts swirling round her mind. Nina gave a sniff and a silent nod.

“21 Jump Street?” she offered hopefully, Brooke unable to help the small laugh that escaped her mouth at the suggestion.

“This from the queen of Disney?”

“Disney’s too happy for me right now,” Nina moped, wiggling underneath her duvet cover. Brooke screwed up her face.

“Too happy? C’mon, you’ve seen Bambi. And Lion King. And Big Hero 6. And-”

“Brooke I swear to God if you don’t go get your laptop and stick on 21 Jump Street,” Nina warned, not finishing the empty threat. Laughing, Brooke did as she was told. She could only hope that the film would be enough of a distraction to her and to Nina for the next two hours.

She had no idea what they’d do once those two hours were up.