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prairiesongserial · 2 years ago

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20.5

The game, as d’Orléans explained it, was simple. Just a parlor game this group had a tradition of playing between the Demeter’s last stop and its final destination; a diversion the ship’s regular passengers had found to pass the time. Everyone would write down the name of a relatively well-known person on a slip of paper and add it to a bowl. Each player would then draw a slip from the bowl and, without looking, stick it to their forehead with a little saliva. The first to guess the name they’d been assigned was the winner, but play would continue until everyone had guessed correctly.

The man with the eyepatch passed around the stack of blank white cards that d’Orléans had been holding, along with a handful of pens. Cody watched John stare at his card with brows furrowed, then saw Friday lean over to say something quietly into John’s ear. Of course–neither of them excelled at reading or writing, and d’Orléans had clearly assumed that everyone in their cohort was literate. Friday seemed to know a little more than John, at least; Cody watched her fill out her own card and then, so quickly he almost missed it, palm John’s to fill it out for him.

“Cody,” Val said lowly, drawing Cody’s attention back to the end of the room he currently occupied. “I don’t think I want to play this game.”

“Leave, then,” Cody said.

Val frowned. His pen was hovering over his own blank card. “It’d turn into a whole…” he gestured vaguely. “Never mind.”

“I’ll pretend to be sick,” Cody volunteered. The valets had gotten skipped over for cards–apparently they weren’t part of this game. Jolie had already slipped out of the room to be somewhere else, though Sanvi and Etienne had stuck around, hanging back like Cody on the fringes of the room.

“You’re John’s valet, not mine.” Val shook his head. “That’ll look fishy.”

“What if you win?” Cody asked. “Then you can go, and people won’t ask any questions about it.”

Val’s frown deepened. “I’m not good at guessing games.”

“You don’t have to be,” Cody said. After the past couple days, God only knew Val deserved a win, even a small one. Maybe it wouldn’t make him feel much better, but it would definitely get him out of here faster.

“I don’t?” Val asked.

“I’ll help you cheat,” Cody said. He fought down a smile. He hadn’t made much low-stakes trouble in a while, and now that he’d had the idea, he’d be disappointed if Val turned him down.

Val exhaled a long breath out of his nose. “How?”

“Tear a bit off your card,” Cody said. “And leave your pen here when you go and put your name in the bowl.”

Val did so, ripping a narrow strip of paper from his card in a way that looked to any outside observer like he was fidgeting while he waffled over what name to write. He let the smaller slip fall to the waist-height windowsill between them. After another few seconds, he scribbled down a name on his card that Cody couldn’t read, then folded it in half and crossed the room to drop it in the communal bowl d’Orléans had set on a chess table.

“When you get your name, I’ll write down what it is and put the paper in your pocket,” Cody said. “Don’t guess it right away. Ask some questions first, so you don’t look sketchy, then act like you figured it out.”

“Okay,” Val said. He nodded, like he was trying to reassure himself.

Val wasn’t a good actor, so far as Cody knew, but he didn’t have to be for this. At least half the people in the room were already a little tipsy on the mimosas they’d had with their breakfasts, and d’Orléans was making a show of mixing bloody Marys from the small bar in the corner. Cody figured others in the room were liable to be cheating, too. Possibly colluding with their valets, though John hadn’t so much as looked Cody’s way since he’d entered the room.

Anyway, if they got caught cheating, what was the harm? It was just a little fun. At worst, Val would get laughed at for trying to lie his way into a win, and that would be that. This wasn’t La Salle.

The man with the eyepatch soon circled the room once more, carrying the bowl and passing out cards to the participants of the game. Something like a scowl passed over his carefully neutral expression as he came to Val and offered Val a slip from the bowl. Val took the card from his hand, and the expression on the man’s face was gone so quickly that Cody immediately began to doubt he had seen it at all. Val didn’t seem to have noticed it, either–he was too busy brushing his hair aside and affixing his card to his forehead.

“Well,” d’Orléans said, clapping their hands for attention once more, “now that you’ve all received your cards–let the game begin!”

The room filled with chatter immediately. Participants turned to their neighbors to eagerly grill them with yes-or-no questions, the only kind they were allowed to ask for the duration of the game. John and Friday were talking again, apparently playing in earnest.

The name on Val’s card was no one Cody recognized. Still, he diligently copied it onto the strip of paper Val had left for him on the windowsill while everyone else was distracted with their own deductions. When he was finished copying, he dropped the strip back to the windowsill. He moved away from Val to reset the pool table, idly retrieving the balls from the pockets and placing them into the rack. It was something to do with his hands, at least, and he would attract less attention if he looked busy with some chore.

Cody tracked Val in his peripheral vision as the other man moved towards the crowd in the center of the game room, apparently resigning himself to joining in the fun of puzzling out what name he’d been randomly assigned.

“Am I a woman?” Val asked.

“No,” someone in the crowd returned, loudly.

“A man?”

“Yes.”

“Deceased?”

“Oh, certainly!” someone else said–Cody thought it was Mrs. Dumont.

“Am I…a philosopher?”

There was a long pause, as though not everyone knew the answer to this. Finally, someone Cody couldn’t see said, “Yes.”

“A theologian?”

“Yes,” the same person said, again. Cody saw that it was the man with the eyepatch, who had once again taken up his post at d’Orléans’s side.

“From the Roman Empire?” Val asked.

“Yes,” the man said a third time.

“Then I must be Clement of Alexandria,” Val said. He plucked the card from his forehead, looked at it, and placed it down face-up on the table with a wry smile. “Oh, would you look at that. I am. I’ll see you all for dinner.”

Val turned on his heel and left the game room. Most of the other players looked stunned; Cody noticed d’Orléans looking faintly annoyed, their eyes narrowed to slits as they watched the door swing shut in Val’s wake. Sacha caught Cody looking and offered him a grin and a wink.

“Mr. Lecter must be particularly well-versed in decanonized pre-congregation saints,” Sacha said lightly. “That’s some party trick for a film producer.”

Cody saw Friday and John exchange a look. Apparently Friday had embellished her marital backstory a little too thoroughly in the past day or so.

“It’s a hobby of his,” Friday replied primly. “He takes the church very seriously.”

“Well, I admire a man who can find something to believe in and stick to it that well,” Sacha said, leaning back in his armchair and kicking his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. “Guess I’d better get serious, huh? Am I…an American?”

The number of competitors in the game had begun to dwindle. Sacha had guessed his card almost straight away after Val. He’d then been followed in short order by d’Orléans and a couple of their friends, including the man with the eyepatch–whose name Cody now knew was Casimir. Friday and John remained as competitors, alongside the Dumont couple, Clovis, and an older woman named Ghislaine with a severe-looking valet who kept bringing her glasses of scotch.

“Ah,” Friday finally said in recognition, snapping her fingers. “Am I Madeline Bellamy?”

Cody hadn’t been paying attention to the last question she’d asked–he’d ceased paying attention to the game at all, instead sitting on the windowsill and watching the veiled deck of the ship outside. Occasionally some passenger or crew member would move past the window, too obscured by the gauzy curtain for Cody to see much more than a shadow.

“You are,” d’Orléans said with an indulgent smile. They, Casimir, and Sacha had stayed behind to see the rest of the game through; a handful of the others who’d already guessed their cards had followed Val’s example and wandered away for other amusements.

Friday clapped her hands in delight that Cody suspected was half for show. She took the card from her forehead and slapped it down onto the table, then turned to John.

“You can get yours,” she encouraged him.

“I don’t remember what I’ve asked,” John said, a note of frustration in his voice. He was sitting with his back to the window–Cody couldn’t see what was written on his card, though from Friday’s tone of voice it could only have been something painfully obvious.

“You know you’re a man,” Sacha said, ticking facts off on his fingers as he went. “You’re not an American, but you live in America. You’re a gang leader. You’re involved with Hemisphere, and we agreed that most people dislike you. You-”

“Marc Waters,” John said. Apparently hearing all the facts together had helped him come to a conclusion.

“There you go!” Sacha said, clapping him on the shoulder. Cody clenched his jaw around an impulse to tell the man John didn’t like to be touched. That was not his job at the moment.

“I still don’t know who I am,” Clovis complained. He had been mostly complaining throughout the entire game, and doing very little question-asking. Cody was almost surprised that Etienne hadn’t helped him cheat, given that the two of them didn't appear to have any qualms about bending the truth.

Cody had assumed that John would leave once he’d guessed correctly, but John made no move to get up from his spot on the couch next to Friday. And as long as John was in the game room, Cody had to stay. He waited with the other valets, now impatient, fidgeting with his sleeves and ponytail. There was no reason for John to stick around, but Cody couldn’t just say he wanted to leave. It wasn’t a valet’s place.

Time continued to pass, and John continued to sit on the couch, largely doing nothing except replying to Friday when she spoke to him. The participants of the game dwindled further; Ghislaine guessed correctly that she was some character from a book Cody had never heard of, and the Duponts finished shortly after, egging each other on over the finish line. Clovis was the last participant left, and with multiple hints from Sasha and d’Orléans he was able to deduce his card was John the Baptist. Cody didn’t know Val’s handwriting well enough to identify it, but he was sure that Val had written that card.

"This is a stupid fucking game, anyway,” Clovis said, snatching the card from his forehead and throwing it to the floor as he stood up. “Come on, Etienne. We’re leaving.”

He stormed out with Etienne on his heels. Sacha whistled, still reclined with his feet propped on the table.

“That man has a worse temper than Conti,” he said.

d’Orléans shrugged. “Some people are sore losers, dear. Shall we discuss lunch?”

John stood abruptly and collected his cane, perhaps sensing that the time had come to either leave, or be roped into lunch plans. Cody let himself exhale in relief.

“Thank you. I had a good time,” John said, politely. He squeezed Friday’s shoulder briefly in passing as he turned to go, and Cody saw her smile. Then, with a quick gesture for Cody to follow, John left.

Cody slipped out into the hallway, relief quickly giving way to annoyance at being made to wait so long for no apparent reason. He suppressed the urge to walk side-by-side, instead trailing behind John like he’d seen the other valets do with their employers. It was a tough pace to keep, slower going than Cody was used to.

“What the hell was that?” Cody demanded. “You could’ve left when you were done, and you just made me stand there.”

“You could have left, too,” John said pointedly.

“No, I couldn’t’ve! Did you see the other valets leaving? I’m stuck following you around, John, that’s how this works.”

“That must be so hard for you,” John said. He didn’t turn around.

20.4 || 20.6

#story

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years ago

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The Guy in the Chair and the Guy in Spandex

(Read on AO3)

Ned Leeds has always harbored some small fantasy of being Super.

He’s not, probably. He’s not a mutant, and he doesn’t have a powered suit or superspy training. He’s just Ned Leeds, high school senior and future computer engineer. He thinks that, if he does well enough at MIT, he can probably end up as somebody’s Guy In The Chair, which would be totally awesome.

In pursuit of this goal, he spends a lot of his free time coding. The things he codes aren’t the most complex or super, really, but learning to do mods for video games is still practice. When he’s really lucky, he gets to use the school’s 3D printer to make the kinds of tools that he think the superspy kind of heroes might use. He’s not exactly great at it yet—that kind of thing is proprietary, and he needs classes on the topic before he can actually do anything like that—but it’s fun.

MJ’s been encouraging him. He’s pretty sure she thinks it’s kind of dumb, but she doesn’t say so. This is incredibly nice, for MJ.

Lola keeps telling him he’s got magic in him, and it comes out in his coding, but he prefers to think it’s the hard work and endless practice. He’s a nerd, and he’s proud of that.

It’s just that sometimes… it feels like there might be more.

Ned doesn’t initially pay much attention to Peter Parker. The guy is just one of Michelle’s customers. He’s about their age, and seems to be in a shitty enough life situation that it’s notable, but he’s just some guy. The only reason Ned really notices the dude is that he probably has a crush on Michelle, and it’s kind of Ned’s job, as her best friend, to scope the guy out a bit.

Unfortunately, Peter Parker apparently has no internet presence. There isn’t even an out-of-date Facebook account or anything. Parker just… doesn’t seem to exist. It might be a fake name. It probably is. That’s not actually a big deal, though. Giving strangers the wrong name in places like donut shops isn’t sketchy.

Ned vaguely notes it when Parker starts working for a lawyer. MJ mentions it, and the job shift means that Parker is now wearing a button-down instead of pizza delivery clothes. He doesn’t come in smelling vaguely of grease and tomato paste anymore. He drops by a little more often than he did, and sometimes gets a donut instead of just coffee. It’s a good sign, Ned thinks, but also not really his business.

Except then MJ catches his attention, and does the wide eyes that mean ‘do what I say, or I’m going to lecture you about it later.’ Ned does as she says, because his best friend is kind of intimidating, before he processes what she’s even trying to tell him to do. She’s jerking her head and doing the ‘pay attention’ expression, and Ned follows the gesture to… Parker.

The guy looks beat to shit.

Exhausted. Bruised, both under the eyes and across the cheek. Raw-red knuckles and an angry cut on his temple that Ned really hopes isn’t going to get infected.

“Go talk to Ned,” he hears his best friend order a boy who might as well be a stranger.

“Um, that’s not—I mean, I—that’s—”

“He’s bored and I’ve got customers. You’re both loser nerds, it’ll be fine.”

Why the hell does Parker look like he’s going to cry at that? Yeah, it’s an insult, but it’s not a particularly intense one, and MJ had even insulted Ned in the same breath. It’s chill.

Parker glances at Ned and, on the spur of the moment, Ned flips MJ off. She returns the gesture, fake surprise across her face.

Parker looks torn between laughing and fleeing.

Maybe there’s an issue with his home life or something.

Ned is legitimately surprised, if only a little, when Parker actually does as suggested and joins him at the counter. He looks nervous. He won’t meet Ned’s eyes.

“So, how’d that happen?” Ned asks, waving vaguely at Parker’s face. He already sort of knows, because he’s overheard Parker talk about living in a rough area before, and people usually take that as a neutral topic. It’s New York. Fights happen.

Parker meets his eyes, blinking like a stunned lemming. “Uh—what?”

“You get mugged?” Ned tries to clarify. “You’re kinda banged up.”

“Oh! Yeah, um, sorta?” Parker looks away again. “I was on my way home and some guys were harassing these girls in club clothes and I tried to step in to distract them while the girls got a Lyft. Wasn’t planning on having it turn into a fight, but…”

“Dude, that’s so cool,” Ned enthuses. “Like a little hero moment, right?”

Parker flushes. He also goes pale. It’s a very strange and uncomfortable look, sickly and unpleasant. “Not really? I mean, the second people started throwing punches, the bouncer noticed and finally got involved. I barely got a hit in.”

Ned isn’t sure if that’s true. Parker’s definitely spindly enough that Ned can see him not doing too hot in a fight, but something tells him it’s more complicated than that. “Still cool that you helped them out, though.”

“Yeah, I’m—I mean I guess?” Parker just really does not stop stuttering. “It’s not, uh, not a huge deal or anything.”

Ned tries to think of something to say. He’s got nothing.

“So I hear they’re completely reworking the sequel trilogy now that everything’s mostly settled from the Blip,” Parker says, and just like that, they’re off.

(Continue on AO3)

#Ned Leeds #Michelle Jones #Peter Parker #Stephen Strange #phoenix files #people and peter

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sunlightandsuffering · 3 years ago

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ANON WHO WISHED ME GOOD LUCK ON MY PAPER THIS IS FOR U BOO 🤣🤣🤣 ABSOLUTE SILLINESS!

Butterflies erupt in her stomach as she marches down the stairs to apartment 2A, it's at the ned of the hall right next to the fire escape and Mikasa swallows nervously as she stands in front of it. The familiar cracked lines of the door bring her no comfort today and neither does the vague smell of weed on the other side, today she has something more serious to ask her dealer.

"Just go Mikasa," Sasha had pushed her out the door, telling her spice up their party tonight a little bit more whilst wiggling her expressive dark brows, firmly locking Mikasa out of their apartment until she came back with the goods. So now, here she stands outside her drug dealer's apartment with a fist full of cash about to ask for a little more than she usually does. Before she can stop herself she raps her knuckles on the door, three quick strikes that echo in the otherwise quiet hallway, their apartment building has a good reputation, not known for being loud which is funny when her drug dealer lives on the second floor.

She hears a groan and some moving around before the door opens up and she comes face to face with her dealer, who in his typical fashion slips through the entryway giving her just barely a glimpse into his apartment before the door slams shut.

She steps back, trying to remove herself from his personal space a little, she doesn't want to offend him before looking up, craning her neck just slightly to observe her dealer. Eren Yeager, quiet, unassuming, if it wasn't for his dark clothes and overall shiftiness she'd never know he was a drug dealer, but she knows now. He's goodlooking under his typical ball cap, hiding those intense green eyes of his and chiseled cheek bones, he's hot even, her drug dealer. But he also scares the shit out of her.

She'd met him through Connie, another neighbour of hers and Sasha's childhood friend, he'd reccomended Eren when Mikasa had first wanted to try pot, but wanted to do it safely, make sure nothing was laced in, no fentanyl, nothing sketchy, just a small joint for fun. Now, she was a regular, gummies, sativa, indica, all of it, it helped her sleep sometimes and Sasha was a little bit of a pothead so Eren had become a regular dealer. And despite Mikasa not actually using very many of the drugs she bought with him, she was always the one sent to his apartment, Sasha claiming he gave her discounts for being pretty. Mikasa denies this vehemently, their weed guy does not give her a discount because she's pretty!

.... but also their weed guy totally gives her a discount because she's pretty... she'd seen how much Connie and Sasha paid when they went to Eren by themselves and it was a fuck of a lot more than what she did, triple digits more.

So, not only is their weed guy hot, he also has a very obvious crush on her and once again absolutely scares the shit out of her. He's not the biggest guy around but he has an intimidating presence, standing in front of her now he seems massive, so much wider than her delicate frame, he could crush her in his arms if he really wanted. He makes her nervous, so very nervous and she's quiet as usual as she hands over her wad of cash.

Eren nods at her, "The usual Mika?"

Even his voice is dark, attractive, promising deliciously terrible things if she were to follow him into his apartment, he probably has a sex dungeon in there, but she's never seen more than a glimpse into his entryway.

She bobs her head up and down at him, yes and Eren disappears back into his apartment to get her stuff. She's stalling, trying to buy herself time, she has to ask, but she's so nervous.

Hard drugs, she has to ask for hard drugs today, from the scariest dealer she's ever seen. He's always wearing black and she's sure it's because he kicks the shit out of people that cross him on the regular, it's to hide the blood she's sure of it. He's probably into kneecappings and she's sure the impressive bulge she's seen in his basketball shorts once or twice is a gun, it couldn't be anything else.

Her breathing picks up as her panic sets in, she can hear Eren's footsetps heading back towards the door with her usual order and finally he reappears in the door way handing her a cute prepackaged little pink bag. Another thing Sasha and Connie definitely do not get when they buy drugs from him, she can only hope his crush on her will save her life when she asks what she's going to next. "Thanks," she whispers and Eren nods, looking her over strangely, "You good Mika, you look a little queasy." "I'm fine," her voice is high-pitched and unconvincing but Eren shrugs, leaning back against his door, looking her over. "So umm, what are you up to tonight?" "A party!" She says abruptly barely before Eren even finishes his sentence and his face falls under his ball cap, strong brows furrowing and mouth turning down. Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! He knows they live in his building, she just excluded her drug dealer from their party, she just rubbed her plans in his face, fuck!

"Fun," Eren replies awkwardly, looking around, "Umm, I'll let you go then I guess, I don't want to keep you." "No, um actually I was just wondering if you well, I wanted to know," she struggles for a moment and Eren watches her intensely, hand coming up to fiddle with his ballcap, and fuck why is he so hot, why are his hands so big and strong?

"Yeah?" His voice is hopeful, excited and it doesn't compute until after that he probably wanted an invite to said party. "Iwaswonderingifyouhadanythingstronger?"

"What?"

Mikasa takes another deep breath, "Umm do you have anything stronger?" She gestures to her little bag of weed, bouncing it in her hand and Eren frowns, "Like a different strain? You want Sativa? I think maybe I gave you indica, let me look and I'll--" "No!" Eren looks at her funny, and Mikasa really struggles under the crushing weight of her dealer's gaze, how can he not understand how can she make it more clear? "Like umm, you know," she brings a finger up to her nose and inhaling aggressively, miming snorting a certain white substance that she desires, a very illegal white substance...

Eren breaks into a fit of laughter, "You want cocaine?"

"Shhhh!"

Eren is still laughing as he rather abruptly snags her around the waist and drags her back into his apartment and Mikasa thinks this is how she's going to die, her dealer is going to murder her for asking about the forbidden substance.

Eren is still laughing as he pulls back, shutting the door and Mikasa is left in a very regular looking apartment, white walls, a tidy kitchen, a rug under her feet, this is not the hom of the drug dealer she expected.

She pouts as Eren continues to laugh, doubled over, wheezing now and Mikasa is very upset. What is so funny about this? She needs the good stuff! Sasha wanted her to 'spice up' the party, telling her the drug dealer liked her, he'd for sure sell her something a bit more fun.

"What's so funny?" Mikasa snaps, despite knowing she should definitely not be talking back to the plug, she's in his apartment now, he could easily murder her now. "Mikasa," he finally looks up at her, tears in his eyes, "I'm a pre-med student, I don't sell hard drugs, I don't know what the hell gave you that idea, but i'm strictly a weed kinda guy." "Oh," she whispers softly, her cheeks warming rapidly as Eren stands up, still chuckling a bit to look her over. Her drug dealer suddenly isn't so scary anymore and she really doesn't know where she got this terrifying image of him? "I mean i'm glad you guys think I'm scary and all, wouldn't want anyone stiffing me my money, but like I sell weed on the side and only to friends, i don't have a full scale operation here." Mikasa is suddenly very embarassed, even more so as she recalls Connie cackling at her as she suggested he get the hard drugs from Eren, "Why don't you ask him Mikasa, see what he says," her friend had chuckled and now here she is, very embarassed.

"Oh," she whispers again and Eren shakes his head at her, "Yeah, did you think I was this big scary drug dealer the whole time, is that why you're always so quiet?" "Umm." That's exactly what she'd thought. Eren sighs, bringing a hand up to mess with his bun, tugging his ball-cap off and somehow he's even more attractive with his hair all messy.

"Ugh I'm gonna kill Connie the next time I see him, I can't believe you thought that." Mikasa shrugs helplessly, it was an accident, she's been creating this narrative for months now, "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head at her fondly, "It's fine don't worry about it Mika, but unfortunately for you I don't have any hard drugs, other than like some tylenol-3's I have in the cupboard if you really want, but that'll just knock you out."

"I think i'll be okay." He grins, "Then I'll walk you out." And like a gentleman and not a terrifying drug dealer he does just that, opening up the door for her and grinning as he watches her walk down the hall and to the elevator safely. But she stops herslef just before she gets on, looking back at the immensely attractive boy she's thought was a drug lord for the past few months with the biggest crush on her ever, she puts him out of his misery. "Hey Eren, I'd really love if you came to our party tonight, Apartment 6B," she dangles her pink bag of weed in her fingers, "Maybe you could help me light one up? I don't smoke much, I usually stick to gummies," she wiggles her eyebrows, "Maybe you could show me what shotgunning is?"

Mikasa watches, satisfied as his jaw drops to the floor, her cute drug dealer frazzled for once before dancing onto the elevator.

#lys's drabbles

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delta-hexagon · 3 years ago

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Hi! I really like your creature designs! How do you come up with them? What is your design process like?

aah thank you! i really appreciate the kind words, it means a lot to me <3

as for my design process!

it can be a little all over the place. generally i like to start with a feeling, a trope, or any sort of fun vague idea, and try to expand on that in different ways. i get a lot of inspiration from dreams, nature, sci fi and fantasy media, and from friends!

a good example is this cool monster a friend made for a DnD campaign he was DMing for us. it was this funky termite dog, and i liked the idea so much i had to draw it. my initial designs are usually rough, messy, and focus on shapes and anatomy and how they play with each other

for this buddy i had a pretty good idea of what i was after. he wanted it to have six legs, and i loved the idea of a weird big misshapen termite head, so i went with that. then i start refining the design a bit and playing around with different features until i settled on the final iteration and did a full painting of it

all of my initial scribblings tend to focus on shapes and feelings first. if i want something to look big and hulking, i'll focus on big shoulders, large backs, bolder shapes. if i want something to feel more whimsical, i'll fiddle with sillier shapes and reference nature and the like to find them

heres some examples of some sketchies i found in my screenshots folders~!

i dont know how helpful this answer was, but i hope i was able to answer some of your question! i just really love nature and how things work together, and i try to implement that in my funky creature designs. i guess the best advice i can give is to look around you and be inspired by the world

theres so much wonder out there~

#delta answers #i never get asks so thank you!!#this was really fun to answer :D

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ponds-of-ink · 2 years ago

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Sounds interesting:D what you got so far for it

Do you mean the Fazbear Frights/Tales from the Pizzaplex fan story I had in mind for Scraptrap? Well, if you do, I’ve only got a rough synopsis and a couple of actually-written snippets. A “proof of concept”, I guess.

If I had to do something like those Tales From/Fazbear Frights blurbs to start, here’s what I’d put. I’ll put the rest under a “Keep Reading” section, just so the post doesn’t get too long for anyone not interested.

“…After a school trip to a local Fazbear Museum leads to a recreated animatronic going missing, Oliver realizes that not all things are what they seem…”

Yeah, it got kinda vague at the end but I guess it matches the actual stories. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Again, don’t expect too much spooky stuff but at least it might fit the Tales From the Pizzaplex brand if I could figure out a few tweaks.

Anyway, it starts up with this small-town FNAF fanboy Oliver going with his friends to this aforementioned Fazbear Museum on a school trip. You’d think it’d be high-end but I’m pretty sure its quality is more like some actual small town attraction and not like the Smithsonian. Fun, educational, but maybe a bit… hokey? Old-fashioned? The only thing that’s probably modern are these pretty neat replicas of animatronics thanks to what’s left of Fazbear’s Delivery Service and a couple of extra donations from the company.

So Oliver’s enjoying the exhibits when he stumbles into this FNAF 6 section. Or, as the Museum calls it, “Salvaging the Rest” section. This mishmash of what hasn’t been solved, in-verse. That includes one animatronic that sets some negative emotions off in Oliver…

“…Oliver peered up at the replica animatronic. Though the sign told him it was supposed to be worn down, something about it made him shiver with disgust. Maybe it was the proportions that were just off enough. Maybe it was the buck teeth set with sharp edged metal. It could have even been the eerily shining eyes that only looked good in shadows. Whatever the real cause was, it left him shaking his head rather than trembling in fear. ‘Whoever dug you up should’ve tossed you back into the dumpster,’ murmured the boy as he turned to leave. ‘You’re not a scary monster, you’re a…’ His voice trailed as he thought. What should he call this freak of machinery? A mistake? A misshapen clown? ‘Maybe the gang can help me with some ideas on what to call this thing,’ he murmured to himself before catching up with the rest of the group…”

Yup, it’s Scraptrap. Err, well, a replica reconstructed from what security footage was left. Anyway, Oliver meets up with his friends and they discuss this weird bunny thing. They conclude on calling this guy “Peanut Skull” and decide to dismiss him as a poor-man’s Springtrap… A few feet away from the very thing they’re talking about.

Understandably for this timeline, Oliver’s parents show their concern when Oliver returns and tells them about this robot. They explain to him that, replica of an animatronic or not, he’ll have to apologize for all the mean things he said. They don’t want him to be another of those Fazbear-related freak accidents, after all. Begrudgingly, Oliver agrees. He decides to go later that night, just to save face.

“…Oliver found himself once again outside the Fazbear Museum. He swallowed his saliva as he knocked on the door. ‘I can’t believe I have to do this,’ he pondered, his eyes fixed on a light turned on inside. ‘All for a stupid apology.’

As quick as Fazbear’s infamous ability to lie on the spot, the door unlocked and opened halfway. On the other side was a disheveled night guard with flashlight in hand. ‘You’re that Thomas boy, aren’t ya?’ he asked, brushing back with curly black hair. ‘Oscar Thomas?’

‘It’s actually Oliver,’ the teen corrected, trying to sound offended.

‘Oliver, right,’ the night guard chuckled shakily. ‘Listen, kid, I’d hate to chase you out, but there’s been some sketchy stuff going on tonight.’

‘What kind of sketchy stuff?’

The night guard shuffled his feet. ‘I know from Molly that you didn’t care for him that much,’ he began with an eye roll. ‘But one of the robots from the Salvaging Exhibit’s gone missing. Ol’ “Peanut Skull”, as you and your friends call him. Guess he heard what you said and wasn’t too happy.’

‘B-But there’s no way he could’ve heard us,’ Oliver stammered. ‘He’s just a replica!’

“I was joking, kid,” the night guard replied weakly. “But, given the history of this business, it shouldn’t surprise me. Or you, really.” He lowered his flashlight and tapped his foot. ‘Maybe I should let you inside,’ he resumed thoughtfully. ‘Your presence might be able to draw him out.’

‘Fine, I guess,’ Oliver groaned. ‘But I’m not going to apologize.’ …”

Thing is, he doesn’t even get to apologize. By the time he’s in there, Scraptrap’s gone. And the strangest part is that a couple of other items disappeared with him. A few clothing items from the gift shop, some small gadget from one exhibit, and even a couple of random office supplies like a stapler or a sharpie. Left to conclude that someone broke in by sneaking through the back door, the staff dismiss Oliver and tell him not to worry about it.

During the next school day, Oliver and his friends chat about the incident. A couple tauntingly warn Oliver that “Peanut Skull’s out to get him”, but he tells them that some low-tier bandit just stole the thing since it must’ve been pretty light… Well, for an animatronic.

Months pass and everything seems to be back to normal, all things considered. The Museum has a temporary exhibit done up while investigations keep going, Oliver does pretty well in school, and no other incidents have come up. All in all, a quiet time for a quiet town…

That is, until a few weeks before Summer Break. Turns out that there’s a new janitor for Oliver’s school, since the last guy retired. Rumors spring up that this new hire must’ve stolen Scraptrap, since he looks like the kind of person who’d break into a museum for kicks. Being curious (and still lowkey deep into his hatred for Scraptrap), Oliver decides to investigate.

Oliver meets this guy (only known as “Walleye Wally”, due to his eye color) and they chat. Oliver explains the situation, and Wally laughs about the idea of hauling a bulky animatronic out the door. You see, he can’t really do much except cleaning due to a few health conditions. Kinda weak eyesight, bad arm, poor stamina… Definitely not one fit for a robbery of that type. Oliver, frustrated about the implications, starts to throw a fit about Scraptrap possibly haunting him— if not, more indirectly than most. This strikes up a conversation between the two, and they become decent acquaintances… Oliver getting weird pangs of nausea every time he looks at Wally directly aside.

To make a long post shorter, they grow a bit of a bond over the course of the remaining weeks. Like an older brother, younger brother thing maybe. Unfortunately, Oliver starts also to get hallucinations of Scraptrap lurking around right as he leaves school for the day. He tells Wally about this a few afternoons in, and Wally starts to panic a bit. They have one final chat before he flees the scene, leaving Oliver more confused than anything. The day after (also the day right before School Break), it’s announced that Wally has resigned due to his overall health worsening.

Upset by this news, Oliver goes home to sulk. His mom suggests that maybe he should go back to the Museum sometime to cheer himself up, since Wally’s clearly not well enough to receive visits. Oliver gives in and goes back, now kinda hoping Scraptrap’s there. Because, y’know, that robot was how him and his new pal met.

So, he goes the first chance he gets. And whaddya know! The museum staff finally found Scraptrap in the back alley! The only thing is, as our unnamed night guard from the second excerpt explains, it’s now low on power. And, somehow, it’s wearing one of the stolen shirts with an illusion disk stapled on it. Oliver puts two and two together, asks the night guard where Scraptrap is, and runs to a maintenance room.

Oliver enters in, sees Scraptrap, and taps the illusion disk. The replica changes form to reveal Wally snoozing away, the disk itself now looking like a grungy name tag.

And I guess I’ll leave it there, since this post is long enough. Sorry about getting carried away, but the basic outline’s been on my mind for a while. I was actually going to let the Scraptrap Replica pretend to be a fellow school kid, but I realized just today that a janitor might work for his disguise in the long run. 🤷🏻‍♀️

(Hey, if anyone can figure out what this entire story was inspired by, I’ll give you a cookie emoji. Hint: It is a FNAF video)

#long post #ask answered #scraptrap #tales from the pizzaplex #fazbear frights #fan story #thanks for the ask!#i really enjoyed writing this one #even though it took me a bit #oof

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queenlua · 4 years ago

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hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue. see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP. and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP. so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on. there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc. you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

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chiropteracupola · 4 years ago

Photo

So I’ve been asked “HOW DO YOU EVEN. DO THAT. GOD.” and other questions approximately in that area. Well, you can find out, through the power of the ridiculous number of progress photos I took while making these! I’m pretty much self-taught, so some of these steps might be a bit weird and convoluted, I’m just out here trying my best.

Alright, let’s start out with materials. Most of the construction is done in Super Sculpey Living Doll, which is the creepiest possible name they could have given this clay. It ends up slightly translucent when baked, and it’s surprisingly durable as well, which is excellent if you are like me and drop it on the floor constantly.

First step, schematics. I was intending these as scale drawings, but then I decided not to go through with the larger size and more complicated joint system. Having a sense of the shapes you’re going for does make it a lot easier later on. I ended up leaving out the double-jointed knees, as well as changing the shoulder and ankle joints somewhat as well.

For the rest of the materials, I’ve got superglue, something to spread the superglue with, pliers, pencil and eraser, sewing pins, felting needle, pipecleaner wire, ruler, acrylic paint, matte varnish, watercolor pencils, paintbrush, purple marker, aluminum foil, non-serrated knife, fork, and permanent markers. You can use something closer to actual sculpting tools, or more paint, but this is just the stuff I had lying around the house.

I bought a couple of kind of sketchy molds off I’m not even sure where on the internet anymore. They are not intended for doll-making, they are intended for those little sugar figurines you put on cake. Do I care? No. I mostly hand-sculpted these guys anyway, and here are the major shapes I ended up constructing. Particularly for Jack, some of the pieces are sculpted around an aluminum-foil core.

Here’s a view of my desk, partway through the sculpting process. This posture is not recommended for sculpting, but I had found a hat and wanted to feel like I was some kind of noir detective.

Heads are a pretty simple shape. Sculpting the face basically consists of sticking on a triangle for a nose, then smoothing in the edges and poking it around a little bit to create the vague idea of cheekbones, eye sockets, and so on and so forth. Sculpt in some collarbones if you are, like me, very emotionally invested in collarbones. This is perfectly normal.

Before baking the clay, make sure to poke a hole in all the joints to glue in wire later. The first diagram shows where these need to go. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS. (I forgot to do this.) This is a cross-section of how the wiring for the neck will sit eventually. (Except in the case of Stephen, because I forgot to do this. If you also forget, this situation could probably be fixed by drilling a hole with a very small drill, but I’m very afraid of power tools and instead spent an inordinate amount of time doing foolish things with knives, and his head still won’t stay on. Be better than me.)

Another view of my desk. Craft pipecleaner wire is fairly sturdy, and I haven’t yet found an alternative to removing the fluff with pliers and using that. It is very tiring and time-consuming, make sure you have snacks and maybe a video to watch. Stay hydrated, nutritioned, and entertained, and remain calm. This is a long and torturous process, do not torture yourself more if you don’t have to. Also, you’ll live if you get superglue on your fingers, but be careful anyway. If possibly, work in a ventilated area as well.

The process of joint creation went largely un-photographed, as I was engaged in the more attention-consuming process of cursing at tangles of wire and cloth tape for hours upon hours.

I wrapped the wire connections and the ends of the clay pieces in some sort of cloth tape I found in a closet, and where necessary, filled in some gaps with wool and pieces of craft foam. (Very Small Jack is about 30% craft foam, which means he is Huggable and Pleasantly Squishy. Tiny Stephen only has these adjustments around the knees, and he is, in comparison, Stiff and About As Huggable As A Desk Lamp.)

The process for shoulders is slightly different. Instead of a wire connecting the two clay pieces, the arms have wire hooks connected directly through the torso by a tiny rubber band. (Dental rubber bands are truly fantastic and I don’t know what I would do without them.) I’ve added some cloth tape wrapping here as well, for added stability.

Next up, hair and faces. I’ve added some color around the joints in watercolor pencil, added eyes and so forth in permanent marker, and painted in the hairline and eyebrows with dubious paint I got from my neighbor. A little bit of color on the cheeks in watercolor as well, particularly for Jack, and scars in white watercolor pencil. I added a little bit of matte varnish on the fingernails for some contrast. (I had leftover clay, so I also ended up making a tiny dragon, which shows up in a couple of the photos.)

The hair is made of brushed yarn (I’ll make a separate post to talk through that, as it’s a bit of a process in its own right.) I’m gluing on longer pieces in a spiraling pattern.

Gluing on hair, bit by bit. He looks a bit like Henry Le Vesconte and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

After some trimming and styling, he’s looking good!

Now, my favorite trick here is what can be done with a lavender marker. This is just a fairly light-colored standard purple felt-tip, but in combination with the slightly translucent clay, it makes really nice false shadows that add a lot of depth to the faces. Go crazy with it, it’s fun.

So yeah! That’s how I do what I do! This got quite long, so I think I’ll do the the rest of the explaining (clothing, shoes, etc.) in a separate post sometime later. Hope this was helpful, and thank you so much for all the love and kind words, it means a lot to me!

#em makes stuff #crafts #adventures of tiny aubrey and maturin #long post

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violetwolfraven · 4 years ago

Text

Peace and Joy

@spot-king-of-brooklyn I’m your secret Santa! @newsies-secretsanta

You said your favorite ships are sprace and/or javid and you’re good with pretty much anything so I’m gonna write two separate vaguely holiday-related oneshots in the reincarnation AU. Don’t worry though nothing heavy, just fluff. No COVID because I’ve had enough of that dude and I say so. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!

Tw: referenced past period-typical homophobia.

...

Spot couldn’t remember being this happy... ever. Not in the early 1900s or in the early 2000s.

Well, the closest he could think of was 1902, when he and Race moved on from being newsies and from being leaders of their respective boroughs and rented that old apartment in Brooklyn together. But that had been muted by the need to be careful. They couldn’t be normal young people in love because they always had to hide.

And that was fine at the time because it was expected. It was them doing whatever it took to be together not knowing they’d ever get the chance to do it another way.

Now, in the bright, beautiful, forward-thinking 21st century, they could be safe. They could be in love without fear of the consequences. They could go out Christmas shopping together, and Spot didn’t know if that counted as a date, but it kind of felt like one as he watched his boyfriend bop a little to Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You as he looked around.

He ended up having to look away before he started blushing too hard. Even if he wasn’t the King of Brooklyn this time, he still had a bit of a reputation as a stone cold badass. For all he knew, one or more of their more mischievous friends could be spying on them right now. And besides, this thrift store probably had stuff he could get the few Brooklyn kids who’d come back, too.

He was still deciding if Hotshot would think it was funny if he got him a tank top that said ‘hot stuff’ on it. The others would find it funny, but Spot honestly wasn’t sure if it would make his former second uncomfortable.

“Hey, Spottie, ya think my little brother would like this?”

Spot turned back to see Race holding up a bright purple worm on a string, but a giant version of one. One that was big enough to be a scarf.

“Knowin’ your family,” he admitted, “I think any of ‘em would be happy to get one of those.”

It was true. Honestly, the most sensible Larkin brother was the second-oldest, Crutchie, but Spot could still see him proudly wearing a worm-on-a-string-scarf to school after winter break ended.

Besides him, Medda, Race’s mom, tended to embrace whatever unique fashion choice she could find. And Jack, of course, didn’t let being the oldest of four stop him from being a theatrical little shit who liked drawing attention to himself.

And Romeo was somehow even more eccentric than Race, so he would definitely like that thing.

Race grinned, “I’m gonna get Ro a worm scarf for Christmas.”

“Your family is ridiculous.”

“Thank you. So, what’re ya gettin’ for Denton?”

Oh, shit. Spot had completely forgotten about getting anything for Denton.

He really should get something for him. After all, the teacher hadn’t even known Spot when Jack asked if he could stay with him. All he’d needed to know was that Spot needed a place to hide from his terrible parents and couldn’t stay with the Larkins, mostly because Medda had a strict rule about her boys’ partners sleeping over unless it was absolutely necessary. (it was also because Spot couldn’t think of anyone he’d want to live with less than Jack Kelly, but Denton didn’t really need to know that, did he?)

So far, Spot’s parents hadn’t shown any signs of missing him, and Spot couldn’t decide if that hurt or not, but it barely mattered anymore.

Because Denton didn’t really have any rules beyond ‘do your homework’, ‘take a shower occassionally’, and ‘if you leave the house, let me know where you’re going.’ He helped Spot pick out a Halloween costume, let him spend Thanksgiving with Race, and gave him money for Christmas shopping. He was fine with Spot being gay and having a boyfriend, even if there was an added rule with that of ‘you can’t have the door closed if you’re alone in your room with Race.’

He gave Spot space, but also made it clear that he could come to him for anything he needed help with. He never hit him, never pushed when Spot wanted to be alone, never even raised his voice unless they were in an already-loud room and he needed to get his attention.

In short, in only a few months, he’d become the best adult Spot had ever had in his life. He wasn’t his father, but he was closest thing Spot had ever gotten to a dad.

The Denton they’d known in their last life had been kind of like that, too. He’d helped as best he could whenever one of the newsies got into trouble, always being there for anyone who needed him since Kath first introduced her new reporter friend to her newsie friends. Of course, Spot hadn’t been living with Denton then, so he’d never really thought about it.

“What do you even get a middle-aged man for Christmas?”

Race shrugged, “Power tools?”

The idea of getting Denton power tools was so ridiculous that they both laughed.

“Uh... he’s a writer,” Race pointed out, “So... fancy pens?”

“Fancy pens? We’re at a thrift store, Racer.”

“Well we don’t gotta stay here forever. There’s a Barnes and Noble across the street.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, but Spot wasn’t sure about the whole ‘fancy pen’ thing. It seemed a little generic.

“Yooooo! Spot, check this out for Jack!”

He was holding up a bright blue sketchbook that said ‘Sketchy Bitch’ on the cover.

“Oh yeah, ya definitely have to get that for Cowboy.”

Spotting (no pun intended) something else on the shelf behind him, Spot grinned.

He had the perfect thing to get for the man who’d taken him in.

...

“This is gonna be so fuckin’ awesome.”

Davey snorted, “You’re way too excited ‘bout this, Jackie.”

He loved his boyfriend, but he had a tendency to get overenthusiastic about things.

Well, he loved that about Jack, too. And he loved being able to call him his boyfriend, now. That they didn’t need to hide this time.

He and Sarah had both been a little worried about their parents’ reaction, but it had turned out to be for nothing. They’d each gotten a t-shirt with their respective pride flag for the first night of Hanukkah, and Jack and Kath were always welcome to come over as long as at least one parent was home.

Davey loved Jack just as much in this lifetime as he had in his first, but it was different, not having to hide it. It was good different, but definitely different. Being able to be who they were and be in love and knowing that it was generally frowned upon to be homophobic now, at least where they lived.

And being able to do random shit that was romantic and fun as hell, but not something would even occur to most people to do.

After a sleepy conversation once Crutchie, Race, and Romeo had fallen asleep watching White Christmas (which Davey appreciated for the choreography in the dance numbers) one time about how there weren’t really any Hanukkah movies, Jack had collaborated with Kath to write a lesbian Hanukkah musical romcom to post to YouTube.

Objectively, it wasn’t that great. It was good for a movie made by a bunch of high school juniors, but they couldn’t afford good cameras or microphones or anything. Plus, it was appealing to a very niche audience, so Davey doubted this movie would get more than twenty views.

Still, it meant a lot that Jack was so excited about it, that he was working so hard on props and editing in the lighting and music for it so Kath and Saz could play Jewish lesbians fake-dating at a holiday party who fall in love. It was cute.

“It ain’t gonna win any awards,” Jack admitted, “But I think we’s got somethin’ good here!”

“We do,” Davey agreed.

Was he actually talking about the romcom starring his sister and her girlfriend? Partially. It was a pretty good movie for something produced by teenagers.

But they had something good there that wasn’t on the screen of Jack’s laptop, too.

Jack seemed to share those thoughts, with the way he was smiling.

“What’s with the look, mi amor?”

Davey rolled his eyes as the other boy put his arm around his waist.

“Like you don’t know, love,” he chuckled, “Remember the last time we did somethin’ like this? And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you.’”

“Shh,” Jack shook his head, “Nope. We don’t talk about the latkes incident.”

“You mean when you almost burned down our tiny little kitchen trying to—“

“We don’t talk about it!”

Davey laughed. It was funny, how Jack couldn’t, in any lifetime, cook anything more complicated than like... chili or stew. While he could make something edible, he couldn’t make anything that was really considered good.

“Davey, love, luz de mi vida, it was literally over a hundred years ago, so stop. Bringin’. Up. The. Latkes. Incident!”

He punctuated the sentence by hitting Davey with one of his mom’s throw pillows.

“Okay, Jackie, I get it! Stop hitting me!”

“Fine,” Jack grinned, “I ain’t almost burned down a kitchen in over a century, babe. I thinks that’s a good record to have.”

“Most people never almost burn down a kitchen,” Davey pointed out, “I know I—wait, did you just call me ‘babe’?”

Jack was definitely not meeting his eyes to try to hide how he was blushing, “Uh... is that okay?”

Davey smirked. Jack didn’t get flustered that often, but it was adorable when he did.

And even if he had almost burned down their apartment, it had been cute back then, how he’d tried so hard to try to do something nice for Davey for the holiday season. It was cute now, too.

That was one thing that hadn’t changed through the decades, he guessed.

“It’s definitely okay, babe.”

...

“Spot, is this a... ‘Best Dad In The World’ mug?”

“...if you cry, I’m outta here.”

#newsies #newsies secret santa #btw i’m sorry i wrote in a nod to wormsies #i couldn’t help it #sprace #javid #javey #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #jack kelly #davey jacobs #reincarnation au #fluff #violet’s writing

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oneofyatosfollowers · 4 years ago

Text

Yatori Week 2021- Day 5

@yatoriweek2021

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32090953/chapters/79500055

Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13905660/1/Yatori-Week-2021

“Oh my goodness, Hiyori! A fifth date!” Kofuku squealed, “you never even agree to a second date!”

Perched on her rolling chair, the pink-haired nurse spun so fast her curls flung out like a halo and her pink capybara scrubs were a blur. Across from her, Hiyori dropped her pen and lurched to stop the girl from falling over. Kofuku was such a spaz it was any wonder Hiyori’s father hired her. But she was truly a ray of sunshine and giggled as she was righted.

“I sometimes agree to second dates. It’s more that they don’t call me back,” Hiyori muttered around her smile. Embarrassed, Hiyori spun around and tried to focus on patients’ lab samples but that didn’t deter her friend. Kofuku’s arms curled around Hiyori’s plum scrubs and she rested her chin on Hiyori’s shoulder.

“See? I told you, you two would hit it off,” Kofuku purred.

“You make it sound like you introduced us,” Hiyori said with a playful roll of her eyes. The man in question was one who often landed in Hiyori’s family’s hospital and was a childhood friend of Kofuku’s. He often had problems such as tears in a rotator cuff or labrum and brusings, things he claimed were from his job. Nothing particularly major but still frequent enough where Hiyori had gotten to know him fairly well. It didn’t help that he would try to stay longer than needed just to talk to her- even bust in the nurse's office with the excuse of looking for Kofuku- or specifically request her. It annoyed her at first; sometimes she was really busy with demanding families or tired from an all-nighter. But she couldn’t stay mad at him for too long, he would always be so excited to see her and happy to hear about what she had to say. It was easy to talk to him and sometimes Hiyori had found herself picking up the pace to his room only to sit beside him and talk about everything and anything.

“Well I basically did! I invited you both to hang out at my place with Daikoku and I! I even told you when and where he gets his coffee so you can talk outside of work! That’s where he asked you out isn’t it?” Kofuku continued to grin in Hiyori’s ear, causing them both to giggle.

“For your information I went to that coffee shop before I met him!” Hiyori shooed her friend off with a smile. Kofuku fell back into her chair with a sigh but fixed Hiyori with a soft look.

“I’m glad you like him. Yatty can be a little quirky but he’s genuine. I know you like that.”

“I do,” Hiyori admitted, “but you’re right he is odd.” The word odd didn’t quite cover it. Yato, Yatty as Kofuku called him, had some personality quirks for sure. It took a lot to outwardly flirt with a nurse while she tried to pop your shoulder back in it’s socket and blush when she laughed around you. Beyond that, he had some peculiar habits that Hiyori found it difficult to ignore.

For one thing Yato was fairly jumpy around people approaching him, like he didn’t want to look directly into people’s eyes yet would get extremely excited when someone did. What’s more, sometimes he would pull her away, like he saw someone he was trying to avoid. Not that she thought anyone would recognize him. It didn’t matter where he went, Yato would always be covered: thick jackets, sun glasses, hats, the works. He even showed up to their second date with a hospital mask on. Hiyori almost walked out then and there but Yato begged her to stay.

“Maybe he’s famous,” Kofuku once suggested. That was always an option, with the way he often wore an up-turned collar, but Hiyori did an hour of google search to prove that wrong. He was lucky she had gone most of her life without finding someone who made her laugh so much, otherwise Hiyori wouldn’t have agreed to that second date.

As the saying goes, just talking about someone was enough to summon them. Her phone chimed on her desk and Hiyori didn’t even have to turn it over to know it was him. That was another one of his quirks, frequent texting and social media, but Hiyori didn’t mind. Only because she liked talking to him and he didn’t get upset with her when she ignored her. They had another date tonight, Yato would be meeting her at a bar, per her request. She typed out her reply, reiterating for the third time that he was not to come in any ostentatious clothing.

“Well, I’m glad you two have fun anyway!” Kofuku chirped from her seat, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Hiyori laughed at her words. Meanwhile, after Hiyori spent an hour picking out clothes, making sure her makeup was just right, and waiting patiently for Yato to arrive ten minutes late, she took one look at him and walked away.

“Wait, wait, wait, Hiyori!” Yato jogged after her and grabbed her hand. Teeth bared, Hiyori whirled around and fixed her most searing glare on him. She watched him physically recoil, blue eyes wide with shock. At least she imagined they were, large tinted sunglasses blocked any view of them so Hiyori wasn’t sure. Either way, her glare reflected back at her and she watched herself scowl at him.

“Let go of me,” Hiyori growled. He let her go when she yanked but easily kept up as she marched away from their meeting spot. They swerved though the crowd of happy families and loving couples, the groups jolting out of the way of her warpath.

“Hiyori, please, I’m sorry! It’s just to get here! That’s why I wanted to get here early so I could change!” Yato continued to plead as he walked alongside her. She stopped and skeward him with another glare, this one capable of pinning him to the building behind him.

“You’re ten minutes late.” She informed him.

“Ahh. Hah, uh,” Yato’s jaw worked uselessly for a moment before he swallowed thickly and looked to the ground in shame. Hiyori watched him for a moment then walked off again, Yato catching up to her after some time.

“Hiyori, please!” Yato appeared suddenly in front of her, hands up to get her to stop, or in surrender. Despite herself, she did stop, allowing her glare to slip and show him the hurt she felt. Now, Yato wasn’t the sharpest tool in the doctor kit but he had the sense to take off his baseball cap, letting his black hair fall free, and his glasses to look her in the eye with nothing but concern. They stared at each other as music and people happily surrounded them.

“Hiyori I,” Yato paused as pink spread across his cheeks, “I really like you. I’m sorry it’s just a habit from my job. Please, don’t go.” He spoke so honestly that Hiyori couldn’t stop her shoulders from sagging. Of course the genuineness of the statement was overshadowed by the fact Yato was undressing as they spoke. Hiyori watched him stuff the glasses and hat in his jacket pocket before stripping off the jacket and tossing it in a bush. Once he tore off his pants, thankfully leaving behind shorts, Hiyori was left to sigh at the dirty baseball jersey and bruised arms. Yato watched as she gently picked up his arm to poke at his swollen elbow.

“I like you too,” she started, “but you promised. Several times. I asked you and you said you wouldn’t walk around like this and suddenly drag me around.” Hiyori reminded him. Of course he hadn’t done it yet but it was almost guaranteed at this point.

“I know, I’m sorry. There’s just so many people here and it’s for my job, I swear,” Yato repeated.

“And what exactly is your job?” Hiyori let her eyes flicker up to him. That was treading on dangerous territory. Yato- as another personality quirk- did not like talking about his job. He answered her questions but the responses were always vague and he was quick to change the subject. Even if she didn’t say something, she noticed; yet it was her fault for trusting him when he assured her it wasn’t anything sketchy or illegal. With the way Yato struggled to look at her, and come up with an excuse, it was clear she wasn’t going to get an answer this time either. That was fine. Afterall, Hiyori was hiding things from Yato too.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me right now. I don’t want to get into it.” Hiyori said. His elbow thankfully wasn’t sprained but it was definitely irritated. He would need to ice it and rest, not have fun at a festival. She let it go and held onto her purse handle.

“I think I’m going to go though,” Hiyori mumbled.

“No, no, no!” Yato’s hands waved, “Hiyori, please, I am so sorry. Let me buy you food? Or just chat? This doesn’t even have to be a date or longer than an hour. I just really want to spend time with you.” He bit his lip and scanned her face as she thought it over. There was really no harm. He didn’t do anything particularly wrong and she had no doubt they would have fun. It wasn’t like she actually wanted to go home anyway.

“Well, you’re going to be spending more time with me if you don’t rest that elbow,” Hiyori huffed. The sentiment confused Yato but he huffed out a laugh, not making a move as he stared at her. With another sigh, and a prayer to heaven, Hiyori gently let her hand rest in the crook of his good arm. Yato’s other hand quickly came up to support his arm, the pressure causing him to flinch through his excited cheers.

“Oh and!” Yato suddenly left her side to dive into the bush. Before Hiyori could contemplate her decision, Yato opened his hands like a toddler showing their parents something new they’ve found.

“I won it for you at the ball-toss,” Yato admitted with great pride, “that’s why I was late.” His smile was awkward as he looked between her and the plastic cat keychain, still holding it out to her. At this point, how could she still be mad? With a snort and a giggle, Hiyori attached the keychain to her purse, took Yato’s arm, and knew she would stay much more than an hour.

“Hey, Hiyori?” A nurse popped her head in the office a month later, “That, uh, patient is here for you?” The office was filled with snickering, mostly from Kofuku, as Hiyori leaned back in her chair. She knew why he was here, but Hiyori couldn’t decide if she wanted to deal with him right now.

“Thank you, I’ll be right there,” she pushed back from her desk. In the doorway, the nurse cleared her throat.

“Actually, he’s here, here,” she pointed off to the side just as Yato peaked into the office.

“Hello darling!” Yato grinned, folding his sunglasses to hang off his shirt collar. The other nurses snickered as Hiyori sputtered and hissed that she was not, in fact, his darling.

“Yatty!” Kofuku sprang off her seat on the counter, running to give the man a big hug. Yato needed both hands to catch her, which accidently showed off the bouquet of roses he brought with him. Most likely from the gift shop in the lobby.

“Uh, hey,” Yato cleared his throat after he put Kofuku down. Hiyori spun to face him with her arms and legs crossed. Letting a girl jump into his arms in front of her did not help his case, but that wasn’t why she was upset.

“I figured you were on your lunch break,” Yato’s eyes slid to her lunchbox and back, “I brought you roses.” He held out the flowers. Hiyori let her eyes drop to them, then looked up at him. Yato set them down on the desk and fiddled with his fingers.

“So, how’s it going?” He tried. They ignored Kofuku’s snort as she sat down to watch along with the rest of the nurses in the office.

“My parents are starting to get offended, Yato,” Hiyori remarked, “this is the second time you said you couldn’t come over for dinner.”

“Ooo! Dinner!” Kofuku sang. Her two friends gave her a heavy look and she apologized with a grin.

“I know, Hiyori, I’m so sorry. You know weekends aren’t good for me. I tried to talk to Daikoku about it but he hasn’t budged.” The end of Yato’s sentence was heavy with meaning as he let his eyes slide to said man’s wife, sitting happily on the counter.

“That’s got nothing to do with me, Yatty, you know that,” Kofuku shrugged, her smile never leaving. It was a known fact that Daikoku was Yato’s boss in whatever job they had- part of the reason Hiyori believed it wasn’t suspicious- but that was not the point. Her huff got Yato’s attention and he immediately took another step towards her.

“You know I’m super happy you want me to meet them! I really want to meet them too! It’s just the weekends they happen to pick, are when I happen to be working.”

“That’s because my dad likes to watch the game when my mom cooks big meals,” Hiyori pouted, “it’s a bonding thing with him and my brother and any male in the- the- you know, family.” She waved her hand in a way that should have dismissed her words but did nothing to wipe away the red in both their cheeks.

“Am I part of the family?” Yato asked as he crept forward another step, a grin growing on his lips. By now everyone in the room was smiling except her and Hiyori threw her hands up.

“You’re not part of the family yet because you won’t come to family dinner or give the truthful reason as to why,” Hiyori slammed her hands on either side of her paperwork. The entire situation was frustrating because they both had things they wanted to hide. While it’s true Yato wouldn’t talk about his job, he also wouldn’t say his last name. That wasn’t his decision. It was a little known fact that Hiyori’s family owned the very hospital they found themselves in. Because of this, Hiyori had opted out of saying her last name when meeting new people. Just to avoid any assumptions and to ensure they liked her for her. Of course that prompted Yato to insist he wouldn’t give his last name until she did. Another thing that made it hard to research him, since Kofuku wouldn’t say a word. This was also what made this family dinner such a big step for them. Not only would Yato be introduced to her family as a romantic interest, but there would be no hiding how much money her family made. But while it was agreed that family names and overall lifestyles were not to be mentioned, their individual jobs were not.

“Yet?” Yato repeated, still missing the point. With a sigh, Hiyori kneaded her forehead as Yato and Kofuku cooed behind her.

“If you really want to meet them you can probably find them,” Kofuku shrugged.

“Wha-?” Yato cocked his head as Hiyori whipped her chair around to narrow her eyes at Kofuku. It was all too frustrating. The rumors already reached her parents, which both helped convince them she wasn’t lying and made them think Yato was avoiding them. Another sigh escaped her, this time accompanied with a groan. That tampered her friends’ mood and Yato took a seat on the counter next to her, pushing the roses aside.

“I promise I’ll make it up to them. I’ll take them out to dinner, my treat,” Yato offered.

“Yato, you don’t have to do that. Trust me, my parents can pay for themselves.”

“I can too,” Yato said, “I want to, okay? Wherever they want.” It was another promise Yato would have to live up to, but Hiyori appreciated him trying, if not slightly. She looked up to him with a small smile, which Yato returned.

“I have to get back to work,” Hiyori said. Standing, Yato backed off and watched Hiyori stretch.

“I’ll see you soon, yeah?” He urged.

“You said you were working this weekend,” Hiyori reminded him.

“Yeah, I am, I am,” sighed Yato, “but once I’m done I’ll come straight to you.” He finished his declaration with a wink and smiled wider when Hiyori’s own happiness became more genuine. With one kiss to her head, Yato flounced back out the door and left her to sigh and flop back into her chair. By now the rest of the nurses had gone back to their business, leaving Hiyori to pet the rose petals and thoroughly think over her relationship.

“He means it, you know,” Kofuku said. Her tone was so honest compared to her everyday jeer and Hiyori immediately met her serious gaze.

“What?”

“What he does, how he acts around you. Yatty’s always had trouble making friends, let alone opening himself up in the romantic sense. Just like you, he would hardly get past the first date! But I can tell, he does really want to meet your family, the idea makes him so happy. Daikoku says you're all he talks about,” Kofuku chuckled, “Yatty does truly like you a lot.” Her words lit a fire across Hiyori’s cheeks and collarbones but it didn’t completely wipe away Hiyori’s misgivings.

“It’s just-! At first I thought it was an accident or two, then I figured he would get better or change if we got serious. But, I can’t- I don’t want to think about this being a constant thing throughout our relationship.” Hiyori sighed at her lap. Next to her, Kofuku let out a thoughtful hum, setting her chin on her hands.

“You really like him too, huh?” Kofuku mused. The statement caused Hiyori to blink at her but the label on the feeling sounded right. Why else would have given this guy so many chances?

“Yeah, I do,” Hiyori confessed.

“I’m happy for you two. I really am, this was the best thing to happen with you two. I just knew you’d make each other happy!” Kofuku swooned, “you know what?” She spun back around and grabbed her phone. With a couple of taps and chimes, Kofuku was invested in her phone. For a moment, Hiyori thought the flighty nurse got distracted again and forgot about their conversation but when she opened her mouth, Kofuku just held up her finger. After a moment, another chime sounded and Kofuku’s grin grew even more.

“Okay! Clear your schedule this weekend cause we are hanging out!” Kofuku declared. Hiyori sputtered as the bubbly nurse tossed her phone back on the counter.

“Wha-? Kofuku, I have dinner with my parents this weekend!”

“Saturday night is not this weekend.”

“But what will we even be doing?” Hiyori vacillated, leaning back in her chair. Her time with Kofuku outside of work always ended up in absolute chaos. Oftentimes, Kofuku would be wearing that coy, cat-like grin. Much like she was right now, but this one held much more knowledge.

“Why, to Yatty’s job of course!”

Despite Hiyori’s initial shock with Kofuku’s declaration, she couldn’t help but feel apprehension. Of course Hiyori had dabbled on the idea that, while Yato’s job may not be illegal, it could still be less than savory. With the way Yato and Kofuku talked about it, Hiyori thought he may be a stripper; and while she could see Kofuku doing that, she couldn’t actually imagine Daikoku being a part of it. The plate Hiyori was setting on the table stopped mid-air as she thought of the massive, terrifying looking man. Now that she thought of it, he looked exactly like a bouncer, or bartender. One of those men that walked young women, and handsome young men, to their cars late at night. Hiyori shook her head before the thought could sink in, afraid of finding out if she would be okay with it.

“Hiyori?” Her mother questioned from the other side of the table, bundle of utensils in hand.

“Hmm? What’s wrong, mother?”

“Nothing dear, I just thought maybe you were worrying over-”

“Gah!” Her father bellowed from the living room, “how do you miss that?” His short fit of rage simmered down after her older brother ran in and asked what happened. The women waited for the complaints to settle down before her mother sighed.

“I just think that people who really want to, can make the time.” Her mother huffed.

“They better catch up this inning,” her father continued saying.

“He’s told me he can’t do weekends. We see each other a lot during the week,” Hiyori said as she set down the final plate.

“Relax, Yaboku’s up to bat next and there’s two people on base,” her brother replied. Her father’s joyful reply covered her mother’s sigh as they finished setting the table.

“Well, alright dear, if you say so. Some of the nurses did tell me he comes around a lot but I thought that was for an illness or something,”

“There it is!” Her father cheered, “that Yaboku always knocks it right out of the park!”

“Geez, why do they even let him play? Between him and that busty pitcher,” Her brother chuckled.

“Masaomi language!” Her mother huffed before flashing a smile at Hiyori, “well, I had a feeling that might be the case. It’s not every day a boy shows up to the hospital and requests the same nurse.” She winked, leaving Hiyori to choke out a smile. It was rather sweet.

“And Hiyori?” Her mother popped her head in from the kitchen, “tell your father and brother to shut off the game, it’s time for dinner.” With a nod, Hiyori went into the living room and pried her family away from baseball with some difficulty.

Which was why when Hiyori took the train into the city and walked a block to the meeting spot Kofuku proposed, she was shocked to see the stadium. It was ironic and Hiyori couldn’t help but smile as she imagined the jealous faces of her father and brother. Of course, they had season passes to the games but the hospital kept them away.

“Hey Hiyori!” Kofuku suddenly popped into her view.

“Kofuku!” Hiyori pulled her into a hug.

“You ready?” Kofuku coaxed. Hiyori would have been happy to answer had it not been for the sly way Kofuku was holding up a black ribbon.

“Do I have to be blind folded?”

“Yep! Helps with the surprise,” Kofuku pulled the band taunt. It showed how much trust Hiyori gave the young woman, allowing Kofuku to lead her around a city with a blind fold. Then again, it only took a couple minutes for Hiyori to realize Kofuku had actually led them into the stadium. So it wasn’t just a meeting spot, then. Of course, Hiyori could be wrong but the way they shuffled in a massive line and walked up a couple flights proved otherwise. She could smell the popcorn and hotdogs, and hear the chattering of baseball fans. Once Kofuku untied the ribbon, Hiyori’s theory was proven to be correct, but it didn’t answer her question.

“So he works here? Why would that need to be a secret?” Hiyori asked. She could picture Yato working at the snack bar or as a vendor, he was loud and repetitive like that. She could also see him being a security guard or IT, the man was talented.

“Well, I mean he often works here but he doesn’t always, I guess you could put it,” Kofuku tapped her chin with a giggle. That made it more suspicious but Hiyori had to wait for the announcer before asking.

“And now for your home team! First up to bat is first basemen: Abe Toshiki. Second is the catcher: Kazuma Hirano!”

“Is he, uh, the announcer? Or maybe a news reporter? I’m not political, you know?” Hiyori tried to guess. Behind a smirking Kofuku, the home team was running out onto the field as they were introduced.

“Third up to bat is none other than the only female in the big leagues, pitcher: Bishamon Vaisravana!” The third player, rather famous- even Hiyori’s heard of her- strutted out onto the field as the entire stadium erupted in applause and cheers.

“Nooo,” Kofuku purred. It was hard to hear her but Hiyori could read her lips nonetheless.

“Then what?” Hiyori sighed, exasperated, throwing her arms down and resisting the urge to stomp her foot. She knew Kofuku wasn’t a mean person, but Hiyori was starting to feel like the butt end of a joke that toyed with her feelings. Instead of answering, Kofuku pointed up, grin never fading. Following the direction she pointed in, Hiyori looked up to the ceiling of the tunnel and saw nothing but a ceiling. Before her eyes could drop down to Kofuku, they caught on to one of the small TVs that lined the inside. Hiyori found herself frozen as the fourth batter appeared on screen.

“And fourth up to bat, pitcher: Yaboku Ayakashi!” The announcement was met with less applause than with the previous pitcher. Jaw dropped, Hiyori watched all the screens in the stadium light up with Yato’s face, the flamboyant way he posed with the bat, supposed name, and stats. She rushed to the top of the seating area and watched him run out onto the field as he waved and kissed to the crowd. Yato jogged up to stand beside Bishamon, who smacked him when he wouldn’t stop throwing kisses. They got into a tussle right on the field and Hiyori watched Daikoku rush from the dugout, waving a clipboard, and work to separate them. Hiyori tried to close her jaw while an entire stadium of people laughed at her major league boyfriend while his major league coach worked to wrestle him on national television.

“He’s,” Hiyori pointed at the field and Kofuku gently set her hands on Hiyori’s shoulders.

“Let’s go sit down,” Kofuku nudged Hiyori down the stairs and into their seats. They didn’t talk until after the national anthem and the rest of the announcements.

“Yato is his alias, for obvious reasons,” Kofuku said as munched on the popcorn she swiped from an actual vendor.

“Uh huh,” Hiyori breathed. She still couldn’t believe it, just wait until her family hears. Now that she thought about it, they were just talking about him last night. Had she glanced at the screen, she wouldn’t be this flabbergasted. Of all the things.

“That’s what was so funny, you know? You both were keeping secrets about yourselves for the same reason,” she tossed more kernels in her mouth, “of course, now that I brought you here, you’ll have to tell him the truth.” Kofuku smiled at her and Hiyori felt her lips quirk up. This practically guaranteed Yato wasn’t after her money. Plus he would almost definitely be loved by her family for having such an occupation. By the time Hiyori settled down, Yato was up to bat. Again his stats came up and the entire stadium filled with anticipation. Hiyori knew enough about baseball to know that with the bases filled, Yato was to bring them home. She thought about what her father said and waited for the pitch.

“What do those numbers mean?” Hiyori asked without looking away.

“Hmm? Oh! Those are Yatty’s batting stats see the RBI? That’s how many times Yatty sent people home like this,” Kofuku explained, “It’s also why is H stats, hits, are so high. Highest in the league in fact. He’s trying for the Hall of Fame, it’s been his dream for a long time.”

“Ah,” Hiyori hummed. The number was high, but she was confused why Yato hadn't hit for the first couple pitches. Three balls two strikes, that meant he would have to hit or leave soon. Hiyori’s fists tightened in her lap with anticipation. Suddenly, Yato stepped out and did some practice swings.

“Honestly Yatty, making a big show again,” Kofuku sighed. Hiyori was confused for a moment until Yato sauntered up to the plate, using the tip of his bat to trace the plate with his butt out. Then he swung the tool up in the air, pointing up and out of the stadium. The crowd roared, cheers mixed with the booing of the rival team. It was then Hiyori saw his hips wiggle and realize he was taunting the pitcher. Her laughter came out in a breath just as the ball was thrown. Yato’s bat sliced through the air with cut-throat precision and sent the ball right to where he pointed, disappearing into the stands.

The stadium cheered as the team was sent home, Yato bringing up the rear as he waved. Hiyori’s smile was just as broad as Yato’s and she stood up with the people around her. She was happy, caught up in the excitement of the game and the pride of knowing they had feelings for each other. Beside her, Kofuku stood and cheered, elbowing Hiyori’s side with a sly smirk. When the celebration died down and the next player was up to bat, the girls sat down. The game got going and, despite Yato and the home team being phenomenal hitters, the other team refused to back down. Four innings and several crowd games later, Kofuku decided to poke Hiyori’s side.

“Want to let him know you’re here?” Kofuku cooed. Just like that all of Hiyori’s excitement vanished and she was left sputtering.

“Wha-? But, but I-! I mean how? Don’t distract him!” Hiyori insisted. She tried not to think about how she would approach the conversation, that she went against their initial agreement, but Hiyori knew she didn’t want to do it during the game. The fact that Kofuku was typing on her phone was a bad sign. Currently, the rival team was back on the field, warming up before the game resumed. Yato batted in the last turn, so he most likely wouldn’t make an appearance until the next inning. Instead he draped his arms over the fence of his dugout, blowing a bubble with pink gum so that it popped and scared Kazuma, someone he told her was his best friend. When they met, they offered a double date and Hiyori wondered if Kazuma’s girlfriend was watching him too.

“Kofuku, what are you-?” Hiyori was interrupted again by Kofuku holding up a finger. She pressed the phone to her ear and looked directly at her husband. From on the field, Daikoku immediately picked up with a smile, waving his clipboard at a much older looking coach with a goatee. Hiyori couldn’t hear what she was saying over the noise of the game but she saw Daikoku turn and look at them, Kofuku standing and gesturing wildly to Hiyori and the jumbotron.

“No!” Hiyori gasped, “Kofuku, no, don’t you dare!” But it was too late. Kofuku hung up and Hiyori could see Daikoku talking into his headset.

“Alright ladies and gentleman!” The announcer boomed around the field, “it seems we have a special guest in the stadium today! Someone who can handle our number 4 and who he’s set his sights on!” The stadium filled with gasps and ‘awe’s as everyone immediately started whispering their inquiries. Nervousness and anxiety, like she hadn’t felt since her childhood piano recitals, crackled throughout Hiyori’s body as she remained rooted at the spot. She wanted to sit down, to sink into the folding chair and block her ears of the announcement, but then she wouldn’t be able to see Yato as he perked up and asked Daikoku what was happening.

Then, when his head whipped around and his blue eyes grew wide, Hiyori followed his gaze to the massive flat screen. There she stood, face red from the heat and embarrassment, looking up and off to the side. Since she thought Kofuku would be taking her to some sort of shop or restaurant, Hiyori had dressed in heels and skirt, her hand bunching the front of her blouse. It was painful how much she stuck out, clearly not dressed for a ball game, but the hoots and whistles came all the same. Instead of finding the camera, which was somewhere below them from the way Kofuku hung off her to wave, Hiyori looked immediately to her boyfriend.

Yato was already looking at them, directly at her to be precise, like he figured out exactly where they were yet couldn’t believe it. It was only when their eyes met, and the world stilled and the sounds muffled, that Yato seemed to process what he was seeing. It was as if they were face to face, Yato’s joy radiated from his eyes first, then his smile. He took off his cap and waved it frantically, like he was saying goodbye to a cruise ship. It wasn’t enough, Yato tried to climb the fence and wave even harder, his body hanging out of the dugout while Kazuma grabbed his belt and tried to pull him back in. Hiyori couldn’t help but giggled and wave shyly back, ignoring the cheers of the people surrounding her and the cooes of the announcer. Her family was definitely watching this at home and would probably call her after they picked up their jaws off the floor. But Hiyori found she would be happy to if it meant she could see such an adorable grin all the time.

“I have also been instructed to inform you that the adorable young lady in the coach’s jersey is off limits, for your own safety,” the announcer eventually tacked on, signaling Kofuku to spin around and point to the name and number on her unbuttoned jersey.

By the end of the game, the home team finished with an impressive lead and Hiyori was quickly tugged into an empty suite. People were still leaving the game but Kofuku left Hiyori to call her family back- her brother, mother, uncle, and cousins- and get some candy. Saying goodbye to her older cousin, Hiyori finally hung up and put her phone away with a sigh. Her brother’s phone call had been the most exhausting. Apparently, he had recorded the game because he couldn’t stop laughing and pay attention to the rest of it. It wasn’t Hiyori’s sudden screen time that got him; It was the fact that every time Yato got onto a base, or made a play, or caught her eye, he would wave dramatically at her. Eventually she had to ignore him because he would completely turn away from the game to beam at her, jumping up and down and shouting every time he ran to home plate. Hiyori worried the crowd would start to get annoyed at her if one of the star players kept getting distracted. But somehow Yato did even better than before, so she was left alone.

“Hiyori? Ya done?” Kofuku poked her head in the room.

“Huh? Oh yeah!” Hiyori frantically tried to fix herself, ignoring the grin Kofuku gave her. She definitely saw the soft smile she was just wearing while thinking about Yato’s antics. The premium seating was located up by the club, open for members only, so the area was air conditioned and covered with carpet and trophies, making it considerably quieter than the rest of the building. It was because of this the girls were able to walk to the elevator and take it down to the basement without anyone approaching them. The bodyguards must have recognized Kofuku, because they let her trapeze past the batting cages with a nod. The entire basement was filled with the excited chatter of a team that just won. It was when Hiyori heard running water and saw Kofuku was walking towards an open door with steam coming out, that she opened her mouth to say something. Thankfully, Kofuku stopped about half way down the hall and cupped her mouth.

“Yattyyy! Guess who’s hereee?” Kofuku sang into the hallway. From another doorway on the right, closer than the showers but certainly just as loud, Yato rocketed into the hallway. He skitted, facing them with his jersey open to reveal black Under Armour and loose shorts. Hiyori met his eyes again, brighter from this close, and watched his smile grow.

“Hiyori!” Yato cheered, dashing at her in flip flops. She squeaked when he practically tackled her into a hug, squeezing her tight. When she wrapped his arms around him out of habit, Hiyori realized he hadn’t showered and the entire side of her face and neck was now slick with another’s sweat. She also noticed he smelled good, like someone sprayed him head to toe with sports deodorant.

“You came!” He gushed, sounding truly happy for someone who never talked about his job. But Hiyori couldn’t find it in her to be mad. With a tap to his shoulder, Yato pulled back, fixing his smile directly on her.

“You did great!” Hiyori complemented, her own giddy smile forming.

“Really? You think so?” He swooned, “Thank you! That means a lot coming from you.” His honest smile caused her heart to throb.

“Please, it was average at best,” a femine voice sounded from behind him. They separated to see Bishamon strut up to them with Kazuma and Daikoku following behind.

“And get off the poor woman,” Daikoku huffed, “you’ll get her sweat all over her.” He crossed his arms and looked Hiyori up and down as if to scan her for Yato’s sweat.

“Oh shut up, I’m not,” Yato growled back. He did separate from Hiyori though but didn’t put too much space between them.

“I’m surprised you really exist,” Bishamon said, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

“Of course she exists!” Yato threw her arm around her shoulders but Hiyori removed it and held his hand instead.

“Viina, I told you that,” Kazuma sighed from her side. He appeared to be the only player with the sense to shower after the game.

“Yeah but I know how you are with him, you two keeps secrets,” Bishamon narrowed her eyes at him but Kazuma just laughed awkwardly. It was then Hiyori decided to take a small step forward and offer a hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Hiyori, my family is a big fan,” Hiyori greeted as she shook the blonde’s hand.

“Nice to meet you too,” the beautiful woman smiled, “please tell me if this leech is holding you captive.

“I am not, skank!” Yato snapped at her. From beside him, Hiyori gasped and swatted his shoulder.

“Yato! Don’t say that!” Her words caused his jaw to click shut and he blinked.

“I’m sorry,” Yato said immediately. The rest of his friends stared at him like he just sprouted a second head. This time it was Bishamon’s jaw that fell open while Daikoku let out a low whistle.

“See?” Kofuku grinned, “I told you it was serious.” That statement caused Hiyori to stop and she felt her heart clench again, this time in a guilty way. She looked up at Yato with a slight plea, biting her lip.

“Actually Yato, can I talk to you real quick?” hesitated Hiyori. She could feel the hallway’s cheer droop slightly but Yato gave a jerk of a nod.

“Sure.” He held his hand up and Daikoku tossed him some keys. Walking to the end of the hall, Yato opened a door with the glass window sporting Diakoku’s name. Yato flipped on the lights to reveal a modest office and faced her with his hands in his pockets.

“So,” he cleared his throat, “what’s up?” his voice cracked. In front of her, her hands clenched the strap of her purse and her skirt.

“Yato, I know that neither of us have been completely honest with each other,” Hiyori started. She heard him suck in a sharp breath and quickly sped forward.

“I know you didn’t want me to know about your job, Kofuku didn’t tell me but she did show me so I’m sorry. But! Now I know we were keeping secrets for the same reason. I didn’t tell you about my name or family because I wanted to make sure you weren’t after my family’s money.” She said. Yato blinked and some of the awkwardness melted away.

“Oh, uh, that’s good, I guess?” He coughed.

“Yeah! Yeah, it is. And now you know I’m not after you because you’re-?” She wasn’t exactly sure how much a professional ball player made compared to a doctor-family that owned a hospital, but Yato shrugged nonetheless.

“A star?” He offered. The picture of him wearing layers in public flashed across her mind and she snorted. Soon they dissolved into giggles that quickly climbed to laughter.

“So what are you?” Yato asked as they died down, “a gymnast? Ballet?”

“No,” Hiyori stuck out her hand, “my full name is Hiyori Iki.” Her hand, which was taken without much thought, slowed it’s excited shaking.

“Iki?” Yato repeated slowly. The syllables clunked along his tongue as the wheels in his brain turned.

“As in the, uh-”

“As in the hospital you always go to, yes,” Hiyori held his hand gently, “it’s been in my family for generations and most of my family works in the medical field.” Her confession came out in a heavy breath, taking the weight with it. Now that it was out in the open, Hiyori could only stare at her feet as Yato decided whether or not he wanted to bear the name of the city hospital. She waited with bated breath as the room filled with silence.

“Oh so no wonder you’re so good at patching me up,” Yato praised with a nod and grin, “runs in the family.”

“Really you don’t mind?” Hiyori finally looked back up at him with something close to hope. Yato just blinked in surprise.

“Mind? No, why would I mind?”

“It’s just my family is old, old money; a-and the hospital is a big name to carry! Not that I- or marriage is a thing!” She sputtered with frantic hands.

“It’s not?” Yato pouted.

“No.” Hiyori narrowed her eyes through her embarrassment, Yato letting out a sigh before smiling.

“Hiyori, I think it’s super cool your family owns the hospital! Look, I don’t know anything about old money or what that entails. I come from nothing, I stayed on the field all night as a child. Baseball is what got me through life; It carried me through school, it was the whole reason I went to be honest. But, I like you. I really like you. And if playing baseball is what’s going to keep me by your side, then that’s just an extra blessing that came with the sport.

“If you’re worried about money, don’t, I’m not after your family’s discount or anything. And Daikoku’s going to have to drag me off the field to get me to retire! And once that happens, I’ll probably coach or go on talk shows or star in films; I already coach this middle school team sometimes- none of them believe I work here- and this one kid is just like me I swear! Haha! So just,” Yato squeezed her hands, “keep being my girlfriend?” He had to catch his breath from that speech and Hiyori had to close her mouth, shocked from hearing him talk so much so seriously.

“I read on the schedule you’re out of town soon.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.”

“When you come back, will you meet my parents?” Hiyori asked.

“You kidding!” Yato laughed joyfully, “I’ll bring them all season passes and signed baseballs!” He wrapped his arms around her waist and Hiyori muttered about how fast her family would fall in love with him if he did. Hiyori peaked up at him through her lashes, eyeing the dirt stains that spotted his cheeks around that goofy grin. Grabbing his collar, Hiyori yanked him down for a passionate kiss.

“So,” Hiyori breathed, “does this mean I get to wear your number?”

#noragami #noragami au #noragami fanfiction #noragami fanfic #yato #yatogami #noragami yato #yato noragami #hiyori #hiyori iki #iki hiyori #noragami hiyori #kofuku #yatori week #yatori #yatori week 2021

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fantastic-rambles · 4 years ago

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Okay I somehow just managed to see your Sk8 character rankings so in hindsight, I’m super sorry for making you reexplain some of this stuff. I do get you’re second point about Shadow too. (And how ppl def show their true faces when they’re wearing masks) The lasers and stuff are shown as gimmicky toys so I agree that the damage they could do has been kinda ignored bc of what you said about Shadow being a comedic character. I do feel though that Adam shares a certain recklessness just in a different, more subtle way. While the only time we see him directly attack a skater at all is Cherry, I think you could argue that he is emotionally manipulating/terrorizing/coercing most of them. Being mean isn’t a crime obviously (everybody just brushes off Shadow’s threats so it’s not abnormal for the nature of S) and people are ultimately in charge of their own safety, choices, reactions, etc. But Adam has a pattern of egging on skaters in a way that to pushes them to the point of getting hurt. Like by holding onto Reki and keeping him physically safe, he terrified that boy without any remorse when he could have just let Reki skate freely. And I may be wrong on this part bc I’m not sure of the ep, but I think that in a flashback a skater actually did fall off a cliff while skating with Adam because he was pushing the skater to live up to Eve standards of being interesting and pushing safety limits. He’s like the kid who jumps off a bridge, but while actively telling you bridge jumping is the only way to be cool and worthy of him. It’s pretty much coercion. Cherry and Joe confronted Adam in the flashbacks because there was a pattern of him irresponsibly encouraging others to follow him in unsafe skating situations above their skill level. Adam’s ideas around skating make him dangerous in a different way from Shadow that scares characters rather than irritating them like with Shadow. Shadow has a jerky persona but mainly just wants to win and Adam is messing with people kind of just to see if they can take it or because he finds it fun. So basically, just pick your preference for mainly physical or mainly emotional trauma 😃/hj (I’d lowkey choose Adam because his dramatics are superior. I am so incredibly entertained whenever he does his lil heel toe tappy dance and the theme music turns up lmao)(And I know it’s just rich ppl shenanigans but skydiving into S with 1000% confidence he won’t miscalculate and *smack* the stage is kinda an iconic move)(Plus, imagining all the bizarre orders Tadashi has had to do for the sole goal of adding flair is so funny to me)

Thanks for letting me know about the potential other shady stuff. That does make me a bit more invested in that plot line. As much as I see Adam hate, I still forget details of what they set up bc it feels like ages ago lol.

And good luck with the WIPs + future stuff!! I don’t think we share any other fandoms but it’s still really nice that you have works you can enjoy spending time writing 😊

It’s fine, I have way too much Sk8 stuff on my blog (and only recently realized I could condense my long-ass ask responses), so some of it probably gets lost, lol.

Adam absolutely fucks with his opponents mentally. But the way I see it, it’s his way of testing other people’s love for skating (and again, trying to prove that he loves it more). If they really love it, then they won’t let him fuck them over (like Langa), and if they rediscover their love after his mindfuckery, then they can get back on the board again (like Reki). But if they get badly physically injured, then they can’t return no matter how they feel about it, so I believe Adam intentionally attempts to avoid that because skating is his safe space/where he can be free, and he doesn’t want to permanently take that away from anyone else if they want to be there. This is all just my theory though. And it doesn’t justify him terrorizing his opponents. xD

There was a skater who fell off a cliff against him, yeah, but I frankly don’t blame Adam for that. He had no direct influence on that incident (unlike the situations in which he’s grabbing his opponent, or even his Love Hugs, or if the accident had been caused by throwing fireworks/shining a laser in the guy’s eyes). The nature of anyone who is excellent in their field, especially in sports, is that people will admire them and attempt to emulate them, even if it’s beyond their ability. How many kids got hurt, maybe even seriously, trying to copy one of Tony Hawk’s tricks? Like you said, people are ultimately in charge of their own safety, choices, reactions, etc. Sure, Adam is closer to Cherry, Joe, and his prospective Eve than Tony Hawk is to his fans, so they have the opportunity to show off/try to impress him directly, but in the end, it’s their own decision. His prospective Eve believed that he could make the turn, so he tried, and he failed because he overestimated his ability. Was he influenced by Adam? Undoubtedly. But is Adam to blame for it? No more than Tony Hawk, in my book.

Yeah, no problem. I’m not “gung-ho” about Adam being in jail, I just think that’s the likely conclusion. I get your confusion, though, because the reasons that the haters want him in jail isn’t the reason he’d actually be going. The anime has been really vague about what he actually did to merit an investigation, but he definitely did something sketchy with another Diet member and committed perjury with regard to it.

Haha, thank you! Though “enjoy” is such a weird word to use to describe my fanfic writing. I’m in such a love-hate relationship with it. I have so many ideas, but when it comes to actually setting them down, it’s torture. xD

#sk8 #sk8 the infinity #skate the infinity #sk8 adam #shindo ainosuke #ainosuke shindo #analysis #long post #mine

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angst-fairygodmother · 4 years ago

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Tinsel: All Aglow (A Light Fingers Christmas Special 2/2)

Read Chapter 1 here: First Christmas A/N: We go from happy Christmas fluff to angsty sort of plot relevant stuff. But still kind of soft? Word Count: 2314 Content Warnings: discussion of childhood poverty, social workers, implied/referenced child abuse and neglect (past), references to drugs Cross-posted to AO3: here

“Hey, Y/N,” Klaus asked after the others had left, having stuck around to help with clean up the party and have the chance to get to know you better. “You look really familiar. Have we met before?”

“What?” you asked, frowning in confusion, at the same time Diego did with a seemingly affronted tone, one you knew was a cover for his insecurity at being reminded of your colorful acquaintances.

“Yeah. Yeah, I definitely do. I’d recognize that adorable face anywhere. It’s the eyes I think…I just can’t figure out where from…”

You grimaced. You could think of a lot of places a junkie might know you from: pawn shops, back alleys, sketchy clubs, your fence’s house, to name just a few. Luckily Eudora was long gone, so reference to your illegal activities wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it came up, but honestly you didn’t want to be reminded of them tonight of all nights, not after the evening had gone so well up until now.

“The mausoleum!” he suddenly shouted with a snap of his fingers.

“What?” Diego asked with real confusion now.

Klaus turned excitedly to Diego. “Remember, I swore you and Ben to secrecy because Dad would have been so pissed? The girl, the one that glowed and kept me company when Dad locked me up, and helped hold the ghosts at bay?”

“I always thought you were making that up. Or that it was a friendly ghost that made the others back off somehow. I never…You’re telling me it was Y/N?”

He turned back to you for confirmation. You studied Klaus, the pinch of your eyebrows as you concentrated creating that cute little furrow that was of Diego’s favorite quirks of yours.

“Oh!” you cried suddenly, remembering.

You had snuck into one of the creepy old buildings in the graveyard near your family’s home to hide from the woman discussing “removal.” You were just making yourself comfortable in one of the cubbies, meant for coffins and just tall enough to sit in, when the doors were thrown wide and a boy about your age had stumbled in.

“Three hours,” a voice which later haunted your nightmares had barked. “Maybe by then you will have learned that death is to be controlled, not feared.”

The boy was crying. You felt terrible. So you made yourself glow, though it was hard without much to draw from, and poked your head out of your hiding spot. He screamed and started crying more. It took quite a bit to calm him down and explain that you weren’t a ghost or a monster, and then he’d explained that he could see ghosts but they terrified him and his father was unhappy with him because of it.

“Your dad is a bully, and when he comes back, I’ll kick him,” you offered your new friend.

While he hadn’t accepted that offer, he had the one to come back again in case he was ever thrown in there again, and to shed a little light while he was there (even though it made you feel sleepy and sick to keep it up for so long. It wasn’t like your new friend needed to know that, and he needed your power more than enough to make it worthwhile).

It was no surprise, really, that you hadn’t recognized Klaus. He looked extremely different from his childhood self. It wasn’t a bad look by any means, but it certainly wasn’t the round-cheeked, freckle-faced and crying boy you had known. And it had been so long ago, a friendship that had ended when you were about seven, after one incident where you'd nearly been caught and he had been more scared of what his father might do to you than he was of the dark and the ghosts. He had insisted that he never wanted to see you again, and not knowing yet how to fight for the things that mattered, you had let him push you away.

“Huh,” you finally said, acknowledging the accusation. “Small world.”

“You knew Klaus? Why didn’t you say anything?” Diego asked, unable to keep the hurt from his voice.

“To be honest, I didn’t realize...I sort of forgot,” you said, hoping to brush the whole thing aside. “I try not to think about...roughly ages four to nine. It wasn’t a good time to be me.”

Diego raised an eyebrow and you knew he wouldn’t let it go, so you sighed.

“Look. It was after Dad died. Mom wasn’t doing well emotionally, and money was tight. Apparently when your kids constantly show up to school with no breakfast in them and no lunch, and their jeans are held together with strips of duct tape because a roll of that is cheaper than trying to get new clothes, it raises questions about parental fitness. There were a lot of social workers in and out of my life, and I spent a lot of time running away. Can we not talk about this on Christmas?” you asked quickly, your voice tight, before turning to Diego’s brother. “Where are you staying tonight Klaus? Our couch is available if you don’t already have a place.”

“I’d love to crash at yours, if my brother doesn’t mind,” Klaus said, offering you a hesitant smile.

“He doesn’t,” you replied determinedly, and both brothers glanced at each other over your head, a silent conversation about your sudden terseness and the ways they might be able to help.

Later that night, the three of you sat around the apartment, earlier tension forgotten. Your back rested against Diego's shins from your seat on the floor, head falling on his knees as you threw it back in laughter from some story Klaus was telling about when they were children and he and Diego had started some sort of prank war with Ben (secretly supported by Five or Vanya or maybe both, Diego had said he suspected). It made you happy to hear about the good times, that they had still found ways to be children despite their harsh upbringing.

“The way he stuck to the honey in his mattress was so worth having mine taken away for a month,” Klaus concluded, laughing and oblivious to the horror widening your eyes.

Diego’s fingers combed unconsciously through your hair, massaging your scalp. You started to feel calmer with each pass, matching your breathing to his movements. The physical contact grounded you, reminding you that, despite everything, you had both made it through and made it here.

“It couldn’t have all been like that though...right?” you asked hesitantly. “There must have been just average days where you got to be normal kids?”

“We were allowed to have fun on Saturdays,” Diego was quick to assure you.

“For a whole half hour!” Klaus chimed in, still laughing, false cheerfulness radiating a sharp sting of bitterness. “And on special occasions, Mom made chocolate chip pancakes.” He paused, seeming to listen to something. “Yeah. I think Ben’s funeral was the last time we had any.”

“Oh.”

You sighed, leaning as far into Diego as possible, as if he could give you strength, or you could give him back the peace he had been robbed of pretty much from birth.

“I used to envy you, growing up,” you admitted. “I thought if I had been adopted things would have been better. But really I just wouldn’t have known how bad they were. There really wasn’t a not shitty end of the deal, was there?”

Silence fell over the three of you, uncomfortable and awkward.

“It’s okay though,” Klaus said eventually, shifting nervously and picking at his nails. “We survived it, figured out to be functioning - semi-functioning - adults. And never have to go back.”

“Right,” Diego said and you felt his body shift as he nodded at his brother. “It’s just a thing in our pasts. Everyone’s got...stuff.”

“Yeah,” you mumbled. “I guess.”

“Hey is there any of that roast left? I’m starving,” Klaus said, standing to climb over the back of the couch and wander toward the kitchen.

You stared after him, unsure if he was serious or just trying to lighten the mood. When you shifted your gaze to Diego questioningly, he just shrugged.

“It should be in the container with the blue lid,” he told Klaus, waving vaguely at the fridge.

The three of you talked (one might even have dared to call it bonded) long into the night. It was past midnight when Diego finally bowed out, practically asleep on the couch already before he stumbled off to bed. You took his spot, sitting cross-legged and facing Klaus at the other end of the couch, and the pair of you continued to talk for at least another hour.

“Y/N, you should sleep,” Klaus eventually suggested. “You look exhausted, and it’s no surprise, with everything you did today, and putting up with my brother all the time to boot.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” you sighed. “I’ll go grab you some stuff to sleep and be right back.”

Quietly you slipped past the screen into the darkened bedroom area and frowned, scolding yourself internally for not doing this before Diego was in bed. He was a light sleeper and got so little of it on a regular basis, and though you could adjust the light to not wake him, it was an imperfect solution. Trying not to disturb your sleeping husband (the word still felt weird and wonderful to wrap your head around and you couldn’t help but smile), you lit your hand with a faint glow and dug through the bins beneath your bed to find your spare bedding.

“You really don't have to worry about it, Y/N,” Klaus whispered, having followed you to the doorway, trying to wave off your efforts. “The couch alone is better than I've had lately. I can just use my coat as a blanket.”

“Absolutely not,” you hissed back determinedly. “You are a guest in my home. I want you to be comfortable, not just 'good enough.'”

He opened his mouth to protest and you held up a finger warningly.

“Klaus, be smarter than Diego, and know that you can’t argue with me and win. Especially not over something as simple as me finding the spare bedding.”

His mouth shut with a dramatic popping sound that made you tense as Diego stirred in the bed.

“Go wait in the living room before you wake him up,” you asked, “please? He’s tired enough as it is most days.”

You felt more than saw Klaus’s eyes as he studied you for a moment before nodding and, shockingly, doing as he was told. A few minutes later, you emerged once more, handing Klaus a pile of bedding.

“Blanket, light sheet, pillow,” you said, patting the pile. “I can grab another blanket if you need, if this won’t be warm enough. I have like a hundred of them.”

“No, this will be fine,” he said sincerely. “I sleep warm anyway. I think it’s the nightmares. Or the drugs.”

“Riiight. Are you sure you’re good? You don’t need anything else? Glass of water? More food? Cup of tea?”

He laughed, reaching out to rest his hands on your shoulders. “Relax, Y/N. I appreciate it, but I’m fine. If I need a drink, I’ll raid the kitchen later. I have everything I need. More than I deserve.”

“That’s not--” he put a finger to your lips dramatically, stopping you short as you squinted in confusion at him, going cross-eyed to try and look at the offending digit.

“Don’t try to argue it. It’s a lifetime of a feeling. But I appreciate you trying. And everything you’ve done, then and now.”

You cocked your head softly. “You know, that offer to kick your father remains on the table.”

He grinned.

“But maybe we should table that discussion for tomorrow, it’s getting late. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Actually, I’ll be gone then,” Klaus said in a tone clearly meant to be reassuring. “Before you wake up, if my brother’s smart enough to take a day off or learn that there’s no reason in general to get up with the crack of dawn. Especially with a beautiful woman in his bed.” He shot you an exaggerated wink.

You rolled your eyes fondly. “You don’t have to, Klaus. You can stay for a while. Days, weeks, whatever.”

“You’re sweet. But you don’t really want me around.”

“Of course I do,” you insisted, frowning at how casually he said such a thing. “We do. You’re family.”

“I don’t think anyone with the last name of Hargreeves really knows what that means.”

“Actually, I took your brother’s name when we got married so…” you shrugged.

Klaus laughed and you smiled.

“I’m serious though,” you pushed. “Diego will never admit it because he’s stubborn and dumb, but he cares about you, and worries. And I think he misses you.”

Suddenly, Klaus’s long arms were wrapped around you, hugging you fiercely. There were tears in his voice when he next spoke.

“Thank you, Y/N. That means...a lot. And hey, take care of him, will you? He’s gonna get himself killed otherwise.”

“Of course I will, Klaus,” you said, hugging him back. “I do kinda love him.”

The pair of you pulled away to share a smile, and somewhere deep inside, you felt the stirrings of your ancient friendship awakening from hibernation. After a moment, you shook yourself.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get some sleep. And if you happen to stick around, I’ll make pancakes in the morning. See if I can’t scrounge up some chocolate chips?”

“You drive a hard bargain, Y/N. I’ll think about it.”

You chuckled, before flicking off most (leaving the one above the sink to help ease his fear of the dark) of the lights. “Goodnight, Klaus.”

#Light Fingers #canonical Christmas special #sibling and sibling in law bonding #twas the night after Christmas and all through the apartment...these idiots were having just as bad sleep habits as me #Diego Hargreeves x Reader #The Umbrella Academy fic #I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate the idea that the reader and Klaus were old friends for ages #and since I decided to make the special canon #I took the presented opportunity to shoehorn it in

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nighttimepixels · 5 years ago

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Imagine the skelebros... running a local theater company, and hiring [you] for help!

Theater positions:

Lead Actors: Papyrus (UT Pap), Vex (UF Pap)

Makeup/costuming: Cider (US Pap), Zen (HT Sans)

Set design/construction: Red (UF Sans- building/structures), Lune (HT Pap- painting/scene dressing/props)

Tech (lights/sound): Rus (SF Pap)

Stage Manager: Sans (UT Sans)

Directors: Sable (SF Sans), Caelum (US Sans)

You’re the human that responded to the help wanted ad/job posting looking for an all around extra hand for help... and being a human was necessary. See, they aren't a huge company, and well, while they do alright- esp amongst monsters and humans who are great allies/enthusiasts, they're still hurting from a lack of 'human outreach'. Begrudgingly, and after tons of arguing, they agreed to hire a human... but just the one, on probation no less!

See, Vex (UF Pap) and Sable (SF Sans) don't trust a human with their delicately balanced machine of a company; sure, both monsters and humans audition & have roles in the plays they put on, they're not... entirely against humans as a rule. They're pretty used to them at this point, actually. But their weird, accidental, constantly-butting-heads family only keeps this company going through a lot of work and most importantly established roles- it's all too easy to see it going sideways by adding a human to their permanent crew.

Rus (SF Pap) is vaguely worried too, but mostly because he doesn't see a human choosing this as anything close to permanent. He's not keen on letting someone in to their daily lives and figuring them out just for them to disappear for bigger and better things, y’know...? Red (UF Sans) meanwhile is a bit unconvinced they need another person on the crew in general. They're all already geniuses in their own rights after all, and several of them have damn big egos that could become a struggle with a new, constant person in the mix... but he's not actually mad about it and merely tosses in his two cents before shrugging at the decision, just doubtful anything'll pay off... well, beyond the fun of a good time teasing/flirting with a new face.

Jokes on all of them, though; Sans (UT Sans), wary enough and pragmatic to boot, has already decided to give the human they hire the primary job of ticket sales, marketing, and so on, rather than something more immediately entangled with the rest of them. See, he’s the stage manager, but also takes on the role of assigning jobs and finding squeaky wheels in their operation in general.

It's technically what they needed you for the most, anyways, and besides him casually running you through the wringer on knowledge of monsters to test whether you're really an ally/good person or just a theater person desperate enough to take a sketchy job with a bunch of monsters... well, it keeps you away from the other guys on a need-to-visit basis, and keeps the wrench out of the gears, he figures.

... and of course, joke's on Sans, then, because the other guys are far too curious, no matter where they stand, to not poke their head into your broom closet of an 'office' (that has literal brooms in it. and lavalier mics. and a precarious stack of boxes above their tiny desk on a shelf with countless wigs that Sable doesn't trust to be hidden anywhere else from the rest of the guys).

In the end, it's not long until they hit crunch time in the week leading up to the next show, and you stay late, despite not needing to- it starts with bringing Red a drink as he's hanging from a ladder, updating some high set structure that Vex will monologue from; it turns to jokes and raunchy hilarity that you roll with better than he'd have thought- you end up helping steady some plywood, and offer a cheeky hand to quicken the pace with the painting portion. Cider (US Pap) had arrived to help with that- waiting to fix up the costumes after the dress line run that was happening elsewhere in the building while Red worked on the sets.

That lead to you bonding with them both, of course- and Lune isn't far behind, just arriving back from a shopping run for new set dressing, and he's beyond delighted you're here to get to know- and Caelum (US Sans) rushes in, half attempting to check off the list of to-do's, half quickly distracted by your subtle touches on the set and praising your good eye. He'd already been the one that had welcomed you the warmest and worked most frequently with you, outlining the marketing work and focusing the vision for how to sell the show to the public, and gave some great pointers over early morning coffee-

Well, the week continues, and suddenly you're involved in a heck of a lot more of the theater tech than you'd thought. You surprise Rus (SF Pap) with knowing more about spot placement than he'd have guessed, and fixing it during a dress rehearsal when he was elbows deep in trying to troubleshoot actor lav mic nonsense- Vex is shocked when you know enough about the lines/part he's playing to offer to help him run them, the perfectionist, while everyone's on lunch and you're the only one to catch him on stage, pacing and trying to perfect his motions for his Big Scene... Papyrus (UT Pap) can't help but eagerly request the same when he finds out, and you play the badly laughing damsel stand-in as they try to up the ante on their fight choreography, surreptitiously glancing to you to see your honest reactions, and seeming extremely pleased when they get a good gasp or an oo or an aww out of you.

Zen (HT Sans) has been largely in the shadows- getting a lot of work done, because he's actually the best at sewing and has a strangely perfect eye for materials and adjustments to make every costume shine on each actor- but as he's adding the finishing adjustments/hemming to a last few outfits just a couple days before opening night, you're there late too. It's an odd, peaceful quiet that falls through the theater when most everyone's gone, yet the basic stage lights are on, warming the air and catching little drifts of dust motes on stage. You're helping Rus run a last check of the sound from different parts of the audience, and Zen's sitting on the stage itself, in the light for once, seeming to want to check his handiwork in the relative peace, and under stage lights to see if he's missed anything.

In between Rus' adjustments, you strike up conversation with him... and it... actually flows, much more than you'd thought it might, from the shorter interactions you'd had previously. He's... way funnier than you'd have guessed, albeit in a darker way - and when you dare to hop back up on stage and take a peek at his handiwork- your awed praise of his flawless stitchwork and eye for story-appropriate detail soften something in that blood red eyelight of his. He tells you more as Rus appears beside you guys, mysteriously holding a bag full of Muffet's donuts - and after Zen carefully puts aside the costumes, you end up shooting the breeze and unwinding from a long, long day with two of the softer, or perhaps simply lesser spoken of the guys.

And dammit, Sable just can't argue with the results of your hard work - from pitching in to making sure the whole show worked, to your most important assigned duty of, well, getting butts in the sold-out seats! You're invited to the opening weekend cast party by Sable himself, though neither of you catch Sans watching from the wings of the stage, a thoughtful look in his eyelights.

#undertale #undertale aus #skelebro squad #imagine the skelebros #long post #the skelebros run a local theater #guess who was absolutely the local wlw theater tech in high school and college looool #bonus: red and lune act as general stage hands during the show run itself #technically all auditioning actors get a fair shake at being lead actors #but pap and vex are dedicated and actually Very Good so #it's kind of a brand at this point XD #this one's been sitting loosely in my brain/scribbles for a long time #feels good to make it into some sort of sense for a post pfffff #even if it's barely brushing on each of them kasjdflk this is the struggle with 'full cast' imagines sighhh #hope you guys like though ;v; lemme know if you do so i know whether to put effort into cleaning up more ideas for similar posts~#Caelum and Sable would make for daunting and delightful duo directors though jfc #talk about strong personalities and visions #they balance each other surprisingly well though

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