#god why do i just make long fucking tag rants whenever i get drunk

[shamblz]

Mum: I would never wish death upon someone-

Me: I would.

[auramindedd]

Talent ||

Desc: You and your new friends decide to a drunk Among Us game. You have lots of fun and you’re glad to be able to have amazing friends like them. After ending the stream and sobering up, Corpse asks you something you’d never thought you’d be asked.

Warnings: Cussing, drinking

Notes: i’m using these fake social media apps bc they’re fun &’ i like using them for messaging and twitterrrr! i hope you guys don’t mind them! <3

also, i’m super sorry for not posting in a while. my motivation comes and goes, but right now i have lots of it.

i wanna work on an smau series so, be on the look out for that! :))

——————————————————————————

“No balls!” Rae shouts, daring you to kill Jack who is trying to get something out of the vending machine, but him being drunk as fuck doesn’t help.

“I have three, actually.” You joke. Both you and Rae burst into a fit of laughter, but not for long since Jack goes up to you two.

“What are you two laughing about?” He asks, laughing with you guys even though he has no idea what he’s laughing about. Gosh, Jack, you’re really making it hard for me to kill you right now, you think to yourself.

“This,” You answer, killing him. You and Rae run away, screaming whenever you see someone. Thank God for everyone being drunk or else you two would be sussed out for being complete maniacs.

“Y/N,” Rae whispers. She gestures towards the green room and you can see Sykkuno watering the plants.

“No!” You whisper-yell. You’ve become Rae’s hitman, Brooke being the other Imposter. You need someone to vouch for you so, you don’t mind being by Rae the whole time.

“Hey, Sykunno!” Rae shouts when Sykkuno walks out. He’s slurring over his words, trying to say ‘hey’ back. Yeah, no way you’re killing him.

“See? Absolutely no fucking balls. Small dick, too.” Rae taunts. You want to kill her, but if you do, you’d immediately get voted off. So, you kill Sykkuno instead. It hurt, but you had to show Rae what’s up.

“How come no bodies have been reported?” You ask to nobody in particular, just wondering out loud.

“I’m good at hiding them.” Corpse jokes from behind you, scaring both you and Rae. Corpse knows how sensitive you are to any sound when it comes down to places that are quiet, and since only you and Rae have been together, his voice was the cause of your overdramatic ass scream. Playing along, Rae starts screaming with you two, the both of you being extremely obnoxious.

You know that he was just joking about hiding the bodies because Brooke is your partner for this round. You’re not even sure how Corpse isn’t dead yet.

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Corpse chuckles. “I won’t sneak up on you like that anymore.” You and Rae stop screaming, relieving Corpse’s poor eardrums of being blown.

Rae starts running around you in circles while you and Corpse are in the middle of a conversation. You know what she’s hinting at, but you decide to ignore her. You’re not going to kill Corpse.

“No balls!” Rae shouts competively.

“What?” Corpse asks, sounding confused.

“I have so many, Rae, you don’t even know, but I’m not gonna- I’m not gonna kill Corpse.” Good going, Y/N, you think to yourself. Well, now you have to kill him.

Corpse starts running away and you do everything your drunk ass can do to catch him and kill him. He’s laughing, running into walls, you doing the same. Finally, you’re able to kill him.

Rae catches up to your avatar, laughing maniacally. She cheers you on, knowing that’s the only way that you’ll continue to be her hitman. Jack, Sykkuno, and Corpse. You’re not even sure if Brooke has killed anyone.

“Brooke! Brooke, have you killed anyone yet?” You try to be quiet, but your shitface drunk and you don’t think that’s working.

“No, have you?” She asks, trying to be quiet, too.

“Yeah, three people. I’m Rae’s hitman.”

“Okay, I’ll do better.” And with that, she’s off to go kill people.

———

“His body was in the hallway to Decontam... I think, don’t quote me on that.” Dream says, slightly slurring on his words.

“There’s 4 bodies and we’ve only found one? What the fuck?” Charlie sounds exhausted and you can’t help but laugh.

“Sorry,” You try and catch your breath, but once you do, you’re still giggling a bit. “Sorry, that was funny.”

Everybody else starts laughing and eventually, the voting time ends and nobody is voted out.

Wow, a tactic you didn’t even mean to use actually worked. It’s either because of how drunk everyone is or because of how contagious your laugh is - a lot of people call it cute and adorable.

———

You guys decide to end the game, everyone else ending their streaming while you just close your laptop. You all seemed to sober up towards the end, none of you wanting to drink anymore. Right now, you’d say you’re 85% sober. Taking a shower and drinking lots of water should have you good and all sobered up.

After taking a shower and getting a cold bottle of water, you lay in bed, watching random Minecraft speedbuilds of people building cute cottages.

You get a DM from none other than Corpse Husband. You smile to yourself before answering.

———

You wake up with a minor headache. Last night, you’d say that the Minecraft speedbuilds helped sober you up, but right now, you know it was the cold shower and cold water bottle.

You remember the text message Corpse had sent you, about wanting to check up on you. You two have only known each other for about a week or two now, and you two haven’t really talked. It’s nice, though - having someone who wants to check up on you. He’s done it these last three days you’ve played with him and his friends.

You text Corpse, telling him you can talk on the phone now. You both have been trying to plan to talk to each other just so you guys can get closer. You and Corpse relate to a lot of things and talking in Among Us with proximity chat and Corpse’s stream, it’s not the best way to have a deep conversation.

“Hi,” You greet him, placing your phone down that way you can make breakfast and talk to him. He wanted to FaceTime, and you’re not sure why because he said he’d be covering his camera. It’s fine with you.

“Good morning, Y/N. What are you up to?” A small yawn escapes his lips.

“Making some chocolate chip pancakes.” You grab your phone, showing him the pan that’s mostly filled with chocolate chips.

“Gosh, Y/N, want some pancakes with your chocolate chips?” He chuckles. You giggle, placing the phone back down and turning the camera to face you.

“I’m an amazing cook, puh-lease. I know what I’m doing.”

“I think we’ll have to test that theory.”

“You live like 2 hours away from me, how are we gonna do that?” You ask him, placing a pancake on your plate. You put more butter on the pan before putting more pancake mix on.

“I’d 100% drive two hours to your apartment just to try out your food.” He says. You smile at him, shaking your head and rolling your eyes playfully. “Speaking of going to each other’s houses, I have a question.”

“What’s up?”

He chuckles nervously, “Do you maybe want to collab?”

You’re caught offguard by this. You quickly put your pancake on your plate before answering.

“I’d love to.” You’re able to contain your excitement, surprisingly. “But Corpse, if you’re not comfortable with meeting me, we can find some way to do it over the phone. I really don’t think it’d be that hard. You could record your parts and I cou-”

Corpse cuts your rant off, chuckling a little bit. You smile sheepishly, taking a bite out of your pancakes.

“I’ll be fine, Y/N.”

“Okay,” You give him a small smile. “We can make plans later.”

“Good,” He says and you can hear a smile in his voice.

“Good,”

You and Corpse talk about anything and everything, alternating from really deep conversations to lighthearted, funny ones. Lots of laughing, but also lots of crying on your end. Corpse telling you that it’s okay and that everything will be okay is your new favorite thing. You never knew how much those two phrases would be changed just by coming from a different person. They never really meant anything when they came from anyone else - as much as you appreciated people reassuring you. But hearing it from Corpse, it really did feel like everything was going to be okay.

You two end the call, both of you being busy today. He promised to call you more often and you did the same.

——————————————————————————

Taglist:: Updating it tonight, comment or message me if you want to be added!

@bakugonua @emsies-dream @i-love-scott-mccall @anyasthoughts @diesinspanishbcimhispanic @campcampie @happyheartsss @izthefangirl @just-that-bi-girl @fire-heart-raven @tayloryorkscurls

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Tags:: ignore

[severetimetravelnerd]

I Don’t Know(13) (ft. G Dragon and MINO)

Part 13

You’ve had enough of this crap.

This series will be updated once a week, every Friday! No specific time though lol. It’s an AU where Jiyong has a younger sister and you’re her best friend! Featuring my OC Mirae as the Best friend. Just saying, it’s not related to any of the scenarios I’ve written so far. Please do leave me some comments or asks! I love receiving them! It’s also a bit of a love triangle situation, so yeah :)) There will be eventual smut in this series.

(I don’t own any of the images used. All credit goes to the original owners.)

I only write on this blog on tumblr, so if you see my work on any other platform, please let me know immediately.

Taglist:

@kwonnansi​ ; @unabashedturkeytreeslime​ ; @happiestgirlontheeastcoast​; @yee-hawwwwwwww​ ; @slayergroupie0128​ ; @herewecomeitsjekki​ ; @happygirl327​ ; @to-all-the-stories-i-love​ ; @kankoshio​

Please comment if you’d like to be added to the tag list:))

This is the second last part!!

Word Count: 2020

WARNINGS:  crying, drinking.

——————————————-

You tried to put up with it. You really did. For two weeks, you respected his wishes and put some distance between the two of you, no matter how much it hurt you to go back to being practically strangers with Jiyong. You didn’t message him. You passed on all messages for him via his manager. You didn’t try and acknowledge his existence at work, even though you were working on his comeback. It got tougher by the day, because his manager had given you printouts of the lyrics of the songs in his comeback for you and your team to have a better idea of what to do and after reading them, you were moments away from bursting into tears, because of the beautiful way in which he put down the feeling of longing he had for you. You knew that feeling. It was what you felt for him. For all those years, and somewhere deep down, you knew you still did. You also had to fight the urge to laugh, because when you read his lyrics about wanting to be close to you, all you wanted to do was shake him and ask him why he was pushing you away again. Yeah, maybe he wasn’t being mean to you this time, but it hurt. It hurt so goddamn much. You were so confused. But you tried. You really tried to maintain the distance. You tried even harder to pretend like it wasn’t affecting you. But you betrayed yourself in the small things. The hope in your eyes whenever you thought you heard his voice. The constant looks towards the door. The general air of weariness about you. The pained expression you got whenever someone spoke about him. Even so, you persevered for two weeks before a combination of things made you snap.

-two weeks later-

You were mid conversation with Hwiyoung when Jiyong’s manager walked in. He was smiling and looked very excited.

“Okay, you guys! I thought it might help with your work if you listened to Jiyong’s album, starting with the title track ‘I Don’t Know’. It’s the song for the music video you’ve been working on!”

And before you could make an excuse to get out of listening to something you knew would only cause you more pain, he started playing it. The moment you heard Jiyong’s voice reading out the message he sent you the night you confessed to him, you found yourself unable to move. You wanted to get up and walk away, but from the sound of his beautifully melodic voice and the things he was talking about, you were stuck in this flurry of memories. They all flashed before your eyes. The day you realised you liked him, the times you cried over him, the times he comforted you; everything took over in this wave of emotions and it proved to be too much for you to bare. The song had ended, but you were still stuck in your own world. You were only jolted out of it when Somin hesitantly wiped a tear off your face. Shocked at yourself, you looked upwards to find Hwiyoung, Lia, Somin and Jiyong’s manager staring at you, confused. You opened your mouth to make an excuse and laugh it off, but you couldn’t.

“I-I need to go.” Your voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”

And you walked out of the room, tears streaming down your face.

What was going on? What was Jiyong playing at? You liked him and then he rejected you. You tried getting over him and more or less succeeded, but then he entered your life again. He told you he loved you, he acted like he cared. He drew you out of your walls, enough to trust him again and expect something from him, when he disappeared and ignored your existence. That song pushed you too far. You were just so confused. You walked down the hall, fully planning on crying until you calmed down and returning to work, when you heard his voice. At first, you thought it was just the song echoing in your head, when you heard it again. His laugh. Pausing, you looked around and realised you were near a practice room, with the door wide open. Against what your mind was telling you to do, you peeped in to see Jiyong doubled over with laughter and the actor blushing and hiding her face.

“Jiyong, stop laughing at me!”

“That is not what I meant when I said dance.”

“Well, I know that now.”

“Here, this is how you do it.”

He turned her to face him and guided her arms to wrap around his neck. Smiling, he wrapped his arms around her waist, leaned her head against his chest and began swaying to the music. And that was it. You snapped. It wasn’t even seeing the way she looked at him or the way he touched her, though that didn’t help. It was the song he played while dancing with her. It was the same song that played for the first dance at Sohyun’s wedding. It was the same song the two of you danced to over and over again. You looked down at your phone, looking through the images and finding the picture from that night. It was one of the few good memories you had with him. Subconsciously, you always thought of that song as special to you and Jiyong. Seeing just how special it was to him, you felt betrayed. It wasn’t even noon, but you were done. You needed it to stop. You walked off, deciding to go to Mirae’s house and drink your ass off. Little did you know Jiyong heard your footsteps as you walked off. He wanted to run after you, hold you and erase every memory of him with that other girl, but he couldn’t. He knew he had to maintain the space. You were happier without him.

---

Mirae jumped up from the couch when she heard this continuous knocking on her door, almost annoyingly loud.

“Hold on, for fuck’s sake! I’ll be there in a minute.”

She flung open the door, fully prepared to scream at whoever was at the door when her jaw dropped. You were standing there, seriously dishevelled, in your work clothes. Your hair was pulled out of the neat arrangement it had been in in the morning, your make up was smudged from all the crying and you had tear marks running down your face. You had this painfully forced smile on your face and you held two bottles of wine in your hand.

“Mirae! Babe,” You threw your arms around her. “Let’s get drunk.”

“Y/N, what? It’s 11 am.”

“So what? Who cares? It’s just a little wine anyway.”

And before Mirae could stop and ask you what happened, you opened a bottle of wine and chugged.

Mirae gently coaxed the bottle, which was half empty, out of your hand and sat you down.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? Do you want to talk about it?”

You grabbed the bottle back. “Nope.”

Before you could drink again, Mirae snatched it away again.

“No, we’re not doing this. You’re going to get drunk and rant and then forget everything if you continue drinking. Not happening. We’re going to talk this out and deal with our problems, okay? We can take however long you want, and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you’re not doing this thing again where you try to forget about them.”

You fell silent.

“You wanna take a shower and change into something comfy? I’ll fix you something to eat in the meantime.”

You slowly nodded and left. When you got back, you were decidedly calmer. Your skin was a little splotchy from having cried so much, but you weren’t near hysterical anymore, which is always a good thing. Mirae just quietly watched you and didn’t say a word until you had eaten. While handing you a glass of water, she sat down beside you and pulled you into a hug.

“Y/N, I don’t know what happened, but it’s okay. I’m here for you. We’re going to get through this.”

You couldn’t help it. You started crying again. She held you and let you cry it all out before finally asking you,

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

You took a deep breath and started ranting about Jiyong. Mirae heard you out throughout and with each passing second, she got more annoyed at her brother.

“Good god, he is an idiot. I don’t know what he’s thinking. You know what he rants about when he’s drunk? About how he would do anything for your happiness. I didn’t realise he meant he wanted to pull this bullshit. He always talks about how he will wait for you, no matter how long it takes, if you’re unhappy. That idiot doesn’t realise that there is no need to wait for fuck’s sake. He even heard you tell him you love him. But no, that’s not enough. Why? “She won’t remember saying it.””

She paused when she noticed you staring at her.

“What?”

“I told him I love him?”

“Yeah, you did. You were drunk, which is probably why you don’t remember.”

But the moment she said that, hazy recollections of the night he sat with you in the park started to come back to you. Fuck. You told him you loved him. You told him you missed him. And as you sat there shocked over your words, you realised just how true they were. Shocked, you whispered to yourself,

“Then why is he doing this?”

Mirae sighed. “He’s an idiot, that’s why. Also, he thinks he’s never seen you smile as happily as you did when you were with Minho.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s only because I wasn’t with him!”

“I know that. You know that. The only problem is he doesn’t.”

You jumped up, determined to go and talk things out with Jiyong, when Mirae held your arm, stopping you.

“Look, I know you want to go talk to him now, but it’s only 2 in the afternoon. He’s still at work, with everyone else there. If someone records your conversation, it would be a huge scandal. You should talk to him after he goes home. Why don’t you nap for a while instead? I know you haven’t been sleeping all that well.”

Reluctantly, you followed her advice. She was right. You couldn’t afford to risk a scandal involving you, Jiyong, Yuna, Jae and Minho.

---

It was late when you woke up from your nap. Really late. You rubbed your eyes and reached across to check the time on your phone. 11pm. Wait. What. How on earth did you sleep for nine hours straight?! You doubled checked the alarms you set on your phone. Great. You managed to sleep through all of them. You looked around Mirae’s room and you saw a family photo. Jiyong. That was why you were exhausted in the first place. You couldn’t sleep thinking about him. Well, not anymore.

---

Jiyong was lazily watching some old reruns of a tv show, not able to bring himself to watch anything you liked, when he heard someone maniacally banging on his front door. Worried for a minute, his fear eased when he heard your voice.

“Kwon Jiyong, I know you’re in there! And if you don’t fucking open this door, I’ll stay here all night.”

Worried about you, he gently opened the door, prepared more for you coming in and sitting down. He was not prepared for you storming in with crazed eyes, kicking the door shut behind you, grabbing his collar and pushing him against a wall.

“Wh-what”-

“Enough. I’ve had enough of this Jiyong. Why? Why are we putting ourselves through this?! No. Why are you putting me through this?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve had enough of you ignoring me.”

“Y/N, I had to-”

“Shut the fuck up and listen. I love you Jiyong.”

And you pulled him closer, sliding your arms around his neck before kissing him.

---

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Any unlawful and unauthorized sharing of these works will result in legal action.

(Reblogs are good :) )

[kayteewritessteve]

DT - Drunk Twitter 1/3

Description: One stupid drunken night leads to an uncomfortable week from hell. That only gets worse when you are forced to face the problems, that your drunken escapades caused, head on. Yeah, you are never going to drink ever again.

Masterlist HERE.

Word Count: 8,380 ish.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: PG.

Warnings: Lots of curse words, awkward moments, and a slightly frustrated reader. Little angst here and there, but lots of stupid humour.

Requested: Nah, this just randomly popped into my head and I ran with it.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

You groan loudly as your hand flails out from under your duvet cocoon, blindly searching for the hellish contraption that currently insists on screaming at you. It is far too early for such an ungodly sound, and you are far too hungover for this shit right now.

Your hand finally makes contact with the screeching little asshole that is your alarm clock, causing a loud smash to echo through the room, just from the sheer force of your flailing limb alone. And then instantly your room falls back into silence once again. Though the constant ringing in your ears, both from the alarm and your hangover, makes that last fact slightly unknown to you in this moment.

You groan, grumbling incoherently as you pull your hand back into the warmth of the little blanket bundle that has now become your life. You plan to spend the rest of your days just hiding in this dark little cove, and then eventually one day dying here. Which from the aches and pains wreaking havoc on you currently, might be sooner, rather than later.

Why the hell did you drink so much?! Who let you polish off two bottles of wine last night?! Like, where the hell was your adult?! Clearly from this day forward you’d need someone to constantly make life choices for you, so that you never ended up in this position ever again.

You vow in this exact moment, that from this day on you will never ever drink again.

But then you remember your best friend's birthday is in 2 weeks, and you groan loudly. Okay, so you kinda have to drink for that, but mark your words now, that will be the very last time that you do!

Your phone buzzes on your bed beside you, lighting up the dark little fortress you’ve created around yourself. And whelp, looks like you never plugged it in last night. You’re honestly surprised it’s even still alive. You’d have to write a tweet to Apple about how their phone actually made it 24 hours on one charge. You’re sure that’s something they’d like to know about, as that was a highly uncommon thing to actually happen.

You reach over to grab your phone, picking it up and bringing it close to your face, before hissing at the brightness and yanking it away with such force you’re surprised you didn’t fling it across the room. You squint your eyes as you fumble to turn the brightness down, and once you successfully have you bring the screen back to you. Directly in front of your face so your blurry, dry eyes can actually read it.

And instantly you gasp loudly, your eyes watching as notification after notification pops up on your lock screen. Your twitter is blowing up right now and a cold sweat promptly rips through you. Because oh God, did you do it again?! Did you seriously post something while stupidly drunk again?!

Fuck. You groan, unlocking your phone quickly to check. Because for some ungodly reason, drunk you always insisted on posting the stupidest tweets. Normally you’d wake up the next morning, hungover and a little closer to death than the day before, and you’d open your twitter to find all the ridiculous shit you’d posted about, the previous night. Usually all of which only had maybe a retweet or two, a couple likes and usually at least one comment—thanks to your lovely best friend. Her comments normally consisting of both laughing at you and calling you out for being a crazy drunk tweeter. She just knew you and your quirks far too well. It was seriously a problem.

But this time, this time was clearly entirely different. However that was just an educated guess, due mainly to the hundreds of notifications that you now had, thanks to whatever your dumb drunk ass had posted, which had obviously blown up. And now you’d be lucky if you could sweep it under the rug like you’d always done in the past.

Oh God, please don’t let it be another praising tweet to some figure head or celebrity. That seemed to be your go to favourite thing to drunk-tweet. You had this weird need to cheer random strangers up when you were drunk. This insistent desire to support and appreciate the people you idolized. Oh please God say you didn’t tag the person the tweet was about this time.

Your shaky thumb clicks the iconic blue and white, Twitter app icon. Completely ignoring the ridiculous number in the little red circle on the icons top right corner, as you do. You haven’t even read the tweet yet and already you’re freaking the fuck out.

You quickly make your way to your profile and your eyes widen at the insanely large rant, that’s continued through multiple separate tweets, and is now sitting at the top of your page. Your eyes skim over them all, in order of posting, and you cringe, truly and utterly mortified now.

‘Do you ever just hear of someone in passing, or see them in the media, and have this instantaneous deep longing emotion within you. Not a longing in the sense of wanting them, but entirely due to hoping with everything inside you that they find their true happiness one day..’

‘..‪That they wake up in a few years and smile, like truly smile, because they are exactly where they wanted to be. Where they deserved to be. That they’d ended up with every desire they had yearned for. And I’m not talking about material objects. I’m talking life goals and accomplishments..’‬

‪‘..I’m talking about the true important aspects of life. The things that actually matter in the grand scheme of it all. Well, that is how I feel whenever someone brings up Steve Rogers. Or whenever I see an article or a news story about him. I instantly have this desperate want for him..’‬

‪‘..to be happy. Truly and utterly happy. The man deserves exactly that, and yet so much more. What with everything he has done for us and this planet. If anyone in this world has earned their happily ever after, it’s that man.’ ‬

‪Oh God. You groan, as your free hand comes up to cover your face in sheer horror and embarrassment. I mean, at least the silver lining here is you didn’t make any major spelling mistakes, and you also luckily, completely forget to actually tag him in it. So those are both small victories, in and of themselves. ‬

‪But the fact parts of that rant had blown up, regardless of you actually tagging him, is a little disheartening. You’re pretty sure he’s either seen it or been informed about it by now. And even if by the off chance he hasn’t, you know it’s only a matter of time before that changes. ‬

‪You scroll through the notifications and you feel your heart stop, as all the blood leaves your body and goes—honestly who knows where it goes, but it definitely doesn’t stick around to be apart of this train wreck of a situation. You abruptly sit up, the blankets falling from your upper body and pooling around your waist now.

‪Tony Stark retweeted your post. ‬

‪5 little words that make you want to delete every social media account you currently have, plus move to ‬Lesotho or something. Never heard of Lesotho? Well, that’s exactly why you’d picked to move there. Because most people don’t really know it even exists, nor where to find it on a map. So it would be the perfect place to hide away, and start a new life under a fake name.

Yup, it’s settled. Pack your bags, we’re moving to Lesotho!

You don’t even have it in you to read Mr. Starks response back to your tweets, nor dig any further into your notifications to see who else may have retweeted this whole mess. God, what is wrong with yo—

Your phone ringing scares the complete shit out of you, damn near chucking the metal brick across your room, for the second time this morning if anyone is keeping tabs, as your heart thumps loudly in your chest. However, you manage to keep a firm grip on your phone, but just barely. Effectively saving the thing from an untimely death, thanks to being forcefully introduced to your bedrooms brick wall.

Though come to think of it, maybe smashing it would be the best option here?

You sigh deeply as you finally notice it’s your best friend calling, a groan leaving your throat as you then instantly realize that she is probably calling thanks to your stupid Drunk Twitter rant. You contemplate not answering for a second, you could pretend you’re still asleep. But you know she’ll just keep calling until you answer, or worse, she’ll just show up at your house and let herself in with her spare key. Then you won’t have the luxury of hanging up on her if her teasing gets to be too much.

So as you click the answer button and hesitantly raise the phone to your ear, you prepare yourself for your incoming humiliation. I mean, more so than your already currently experiencing. Which is both surprising and frustrating, because who knew you could ever be this mortified in real life? You certainly didn’t, but yet here you are.

“Oh my God, Y/N!” Lindsey’s loud voice mixed with her unabashed laughter rings out of the phones speaker, it’s so loud that you instantly yanked the phone away from your ear. Your headache coming back tenfold as you groan loudly and message the side of your skull.

“Giiiiirl!!” She hollers now, and so lustrously that you can hear her perfectly, even with the phone still being nowhere near your ear. “What the hell were you drinking last night? And where can I get me some!”

You grumble out a, “you need to lower your voice or I’m hanging up on you.”

“Awe, is someone a little hungover today?” She coos in a motherly voice, though at a much quieter level now, at least enough to warrant putting the phone back to your ear once again. However her voice may be softer now, but the playful and teasing edge to her tone is as loud as a freaking bomb.

“More like dead,” you mumble falling back down to lay on your bed and slinging your free arm over your eyes. “Or at least I wish I was.”

Her gleeful cackle rings out of the phones speaker now. “Girl, don’t say that! I’d miss you too much, and you’re fucking famous now!”

You just groan, not even remotely interested in what she means by that.

“Oh, and why am I famous now, Lindsey?” She says in a mocking tone, clearly trying to impersonate you, but in your opinion not coming anywhere close. “It’s so wonderful you should ask Y/N! Probably because your tweets are all over the news stations, social media and the internet. Even most of the Avengers have already retweeted it, most notably Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson AND Bucky Barnes. Ya know, all of Steve Roger’s best friends. But yet, no one has commented on whether the recipient of your beautiful drunken words has actually seen it or not. Buuuuut we can all assume he probably has.”

“Can we just not do this today?” You roll onto your side, your free hand now pulling the duvet up and over your head again. “I am in far too much pain and far too humiliated to be having this conversation right now. Can we please, for the love of all things that are holy, talk about something else? Anything else, I beg you!”

“Hell no!” She exclaims, you wincing at the abrupt volume change. “My best friend is famous! And all because she drank too much wine and tweeted a ridiculously sweet rant about thee Captain America! Honestly, this. Is. Just. Too. Damn. Good.” She squeals, “you can’t even write better shit than this!”

“Lindsey,” you groan, “I am way too hungover and under caffeinated for this right now. Seriously, I’m going to hang up now and hopefully fucking die.”

“Fine, fine,” she relents but you can still hear the humour in her voice, “I promise I’ll drop it, for now. But get your sexy ass out of that bed and meet me in the kitchen STAT.”

“Uuugh,” you drag the sound out. “You’re freaking in my house right now, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she says gleefully. “But before you flip shit, don’t. I brought coffee and bagels, so be a good girl and get your ass out here or I’m going to eat all of it myself.”

You don’t even respond as you hang up the phone, she had you at ‘coffee’. You quickly flip the blankets off yourself and roll out of bed. Not even bothering to check yourself out in the mirror because honestly, Lindsey has seen you at your worst. So she is entirely used to this from you.

You trudge your way out to the kitchen, seeing your best friend pulling wrapped food from a brown bag and you groan again, but this time happily. Her eyes dart up to you and she gives you a once over, a small frown on her lips now.

“Oh boo thang, you look horrendous,” she says softly, sweetly, as you reach her, and she hands you the large to go cup of coffee. “Drink this. Then go jump in the shower, you stink like shame and poor life choices,” she scrunches up her nose playfully.

“I honestly don’t think a shower will remove those particular smells from my skin. I think that’s just my natural scent now,” you giggle as you take a deep waft of the glorious life juice’s warm aroma, a content sigh coming out on the exhale. You bring the drink to your lips and almost moan. Yes, you are this much of a coffee nut. You take a few generous gulps then stumble over to the counter stools and plop down. “But a shower does sounds like a good plan,” you nod, the cup staying close to your mouth for quick and easy access.

She hums in agreement, nodding as she hands you a wrapped up bagel. “So, should we talk about what caused you to want to get ‘Sappy Drunk Tweets’ wasted last night or?”

You sigh, “I just had a shit day at work. My boss was a raging asshole, yet again.” You shake your head, “but what’s new?”

“I can not stand that evil little man!” Your friend growls. “You seriously need to find a new job, Y/N. You can’t keep working for that piece of shit anymore. And I honestly don’t think your poor liver can take much more of these semi frequent beatings. Somethings gotta change.”

“I know, I know,” you nod, “I’ve been searching for something else, but there just isn’t many available jobs at the moment. But I’m hopeful I’ll find something soon.” You take another large gulp of the sweet, sweet liquid gold, feeling as the warmth radiates throughout your whole body, as your brain slowly begins to rejoin the land of the living.

It’s been a few days since your stupid drunken escapades on Twitter, and a few days since Lindsey visited. You both had enjoyed your coffee and bagels, talking about everything and nothing. Luckily she had kept the drunk tweet talk to a minimum, like she promised. And once you were all done that, Lindsey headed off to work and you hopped in the shower, before spending the entire day on your couch, watching movies and pointedly ignoring your phone. Or rather, the never ending string of notifications on said phone.

So now you’ve been basically hiding out since then, only leaving your house to go to work or to make a quick trip to the store down the block from your apartment. The stupid tweets are still blowing up, people are still retweeting them and talking about them.

You’d hoped this would have all blown over by now, that something else ridiculous would have come along and stolen everyone's attention. But alas, you aren’t that lucky. Because not a damn thing is going on in the world right now, obviously, as everyone is still very much hung up on your whole embarrassing sap fest.

So much so that you are being recognized now as the ‘Steve Tweet Woman’. Which is just fucking outstanding—ha! not!

News outlets, websites and talk shows have been blowing up your phone and email, asking for comments or to set up interviews. Wanting to know if anyone from Steve’s camp has reached out to you, or if you’ve been invited to the tower to meet the team. Also asking if you and the Avengers are now friends, or at the very least acquaintances. And those are just a few of the things they are asking you. Honestly, those are the least ridiculous questions—which is freaking sad.

So leaving your house has become a damn chore now, you have to wear a full disguise just in the hopes no one recognizes you. This is not what you wanted at all. Shit, you don’t even know what you wanted from making that tweet, but this for sure was not it. Not even close.

You’d avoided Twitter along with all your social media playforms since that dreadful morning, as well. You were just too overwhelmed with all the notifications and messages you’d been receiving ever since. Far too many to ever read, let alone even keep up with. Nor did you want to see what any of them actually said.

You sigh, trying to focus back on your computer monitor. You were currently at work, hiding out in your cubicle and keeping your head down.

At the moment you worked as a writer for a news and entertainment website, much like Buzzfeed but nowhere near as large or well known—And I know! Ironic right? Uuuugh! Your damn life was just such a joke.

Your cubicle neighbour, Tyler, springs up over your divider wall. His arms resting on the top as his chin sits on them, a small frown on his face. So this obviously isn’t going to be good.

“Do I even want to know?” You ask quietly before he can utter a word.

He sighs, “probably not. But sadly you kinda have to know.”

“Okay,” you spun slightly in your chair to face him fully. “I’m ready, lay it on me.”

“The boss saw your tweets,” he starts and you wince in embarrassment. “He messaged me as your email keeps sending his messages back undelivered. So you should probably check into that, but first, he wants to see you in his office.”

You groan, dropping your forehead onto your desk with a thud, “my email has been so swamped the last few days that I shut down the receiver.”

“Understandable,” he says quietly, and you can hear that the frown is still present on his face.

“Does he want to see me now?” You peek up at him.

He nods, “yeah, said it was urgent.”

“Shit,” you mumble and sit up, grabbing a notebook and pen quickly as you stand from your chair. “Well, wish me luck, hopefully he doesn’t just fire me the second I walk through the door.”

Tyler shakes his head, “he’d be an even bigger idiot than we all currently think he is, if he did that. Don’t sweat it, at worst he’ll probably just throw a tantrum and give you a slap on the wrist.”

“On second thought, I think I’ll just quit instead,” you say playfully as you walk out of your cubicle. Hearing Tyler’s deep chuckle behind you as you do.

“But then who will keep me entertained everyday?”

“You’ll find someone,” you giggle, shrugging. “My replacement, most likely. Though sadly they will never be as awesome as me!”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he agrees as he lowers back down into his chair and you continue on towards your bosses office.

A moment later you find yourself standing outside of his closed door, notepad clutched to your chest. You have no idea what this impromptu meeting will be about, but you can only assume it has something to do with your stupid drunken posts.

You take a deep breath in, raising your fist up to knock on the door. And a moment later hearing a muffled and authoritative, “enter.” God, he really was just such an entitled asshole.

You open the door and peek your head in, “you wanted to see me, Sir?”

He glances up and nods, “ah, Y/N. Yes, come in.”

You quickly open the door and make your way into his office, closing the door and then hastily moving to stand in front of him.

He interlocks his fingers together and rests his hands on his desk, just staring at you. “Why isn’t your email working?”

“Oh, uh,” you shift awkwardly in your spot. “I um, I shut it off for a bit.” You nod, “just till I could get caught up on the emails I already have.”

He raises a brow at you, “your email is being swamped with messages, I take it?”

You nod again, “ah yes, Sir.”

“Does that have anything to do with the tweets you sent out last week?”

You almost groan, almost, but manage to contain it. “It—it does, Sir.”

He nods, glancing to his monitor, “now normally, foolish shenanigans such as this would be grounds for termination. And I was going to fire you for the embarrassment you’ve brought on this company, but I had a change of heart. So you won’t be losing your position just yet.”

You nod slowly, wishing you could give this idiot a piece of your mind. But your need to pay bills and have a job forces you to bite your tongue. “Oh, um, thank you, Sir.”

“But,” he flicks his beady eyes back to you, “you will have to make this up to me.”

You almost gulp, what the hell does that even mean?! “Um, how,” you clear your throat, “how exactly would you like me to do that?”

He leans back in his chair, a smirk on his lips. One that instantly causes a chill to run down your spin, and this time you do gulp. “There is a press conference in 3 days. You are going to attend it on behalf of our website.”

You nod, following along so far, and honestly this doesn’t sound so bad. Getting to be at a conference first hand is a huge accomplishment. Being trusted enough to be the one present is a big deal in this company. Normally only seasoned writers get to attend such functions.

Yet, something about this feels...off. Like there is a shoe about to drop nearby and you can’t shake that thought. “Okay, um of course, Sir. But what is the press release for, exactly?”

His smirk grows into a full blown grin and your heart rate picks up instantly because of it. “I’m so glad you should ask,” he nods, “It's a press conference for the Avengers. They are opening their new facility and are holding a press junket to cut the rope and answer some questions.”

And instantly you choke on air, no joke, then coughing a few times to clear your airway. Because oh fuck. Fuckity fucking fuck fuck. Why you?! Why does life always do this to you?!

“Um, Sir,” you start quietly once you stop coughing. “I don’t um—this is not to say that I’m not completely honoured that you’d choose me for this job. But uh, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to send me to this. Not with everything currently going on, at least.” You swallow thickly, your hands turning clammy as your nerves pick up. “There, ah, there has to be someone more qualified to send to this event. Ya know, someone other than me.”

He shakes his head, “there isn’t. And even if there was, I can’t send anyone else. You were specifically asked for by name, we weren’t even originally supposed to attend this press release. Only larger media outlets were invited.” He opens his top drawer in his desk and pulls out an access pass on a lanyard, holding it out to you. You gingerly step forward to take it then take a few hasty steps back once it’s in your grasp. “You were the only one invited, and were given an all access pass for the whole event.”

You gaped at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open as you glance between your boss and the press pass currently in your hand. “But ah,” you shake your head, “why me?”

He shrugs, “probably because of those silly posts you made. You clearly caught someone's attention. So get to work, you have a press conference to prepare for,” he dismisses you with a wave of his hand.

But you just stay firmly planted in your spot, “Sir, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Oh but it is.” His eyes shoot to you and narrow, “so you either attend that conference or I’ll fire you. We are making the most out of your blunder here, don’t mess this up. You only have one shot at this, and I expect the article from this to not only be outstanding, but also on my desk Monday morning. This is the break our website needs, but if you aren’t willing to pull your weight and fix your mistakes, then we don’t have a place here for you anymore. So it’s your choice, Miss Y/L/N.”

You sigh defeatedly, and nod, “okay, I’ll do it.”

“I figured you would,” he nods once then turns back to his computer screen. “Close the door behind you.”

You nod, spinning on your heels and exit the room. Shutting the door softly behind you like he’d asked and then heading back to your desk to start preparing for this press conference.

But all you can think about is how truly mortifying this whole week has already been. And it’s clearly only going to get worse from here on out. How do you get yourself into these things? Now someone from the Avengers team has specifically requested that you be there. Great.

Were they planning to embarrass you further? Were they going to make a mockery of you because of a stupid drunken mistake? Were you going to regret accepting this article instead of just quitting?

You glance down at the press pass in your hand and sigh, there is no way to know currently just how this will all play out. But sadly, you’ll be finding out the answers to your questions soon enough. And in a little less than 3 days, at that.

You stand in front of your full length mirror—wearing the seventeenth outfit you’ve tried on so far this morning—and trying desperately to find faults with it. In all honesty, all the outfits you’ve tried on had looked perfectly fine and would have worked. But you were determined to stall, to waste as much time on pointless outfit changes as you could, so that you didn’t have to face your reality.

That reality being that today was the day, today was the Avengers press conference at the new facility. And oh God, how you really did not want to have to do this today.

I mean, the moon wasn’t in the right placement. Nor was Jupiter currently aligned. And your horoscope had warned you about ‘life changing events should you venture out of your box.’ And you could only assume said life changing events weren’t going to be good ones, and this was very much venturing outside of your box. Plus like, you just had this strange gut feeling, something deep inside you telling you that something was going to happen today—And one should always trust their gut in true times of crisis.

So really, that was all to say that this was a horrible idea, and you should probably just stay home. Yeah, it’s settled then, you’ll stay home. That was a much smarter plan for sure.

Your hired car pulls up to the large, intimidating steel and glass structure and you instantly feel like you’re going to puke. And if the hired car didn’t charge you your first born for doing just that, you’d gladly probably have puked in this exact moment. It comes to a stop and you thank the driver before collecting up your belongings and climbing out.

Glancing around you notice a bunch of people hanging about, some with large camera’s around their necks, others with microphones. But all are wearing various passes, some look similar to yours, however none match it entirely. Your hand grabs on to the pass around your neck and pulls it away from your body to examine it more closely.

Yeah, yours is the only one like it, that you can currently see. Which yeah, that’s extremely odd, for sure. You release the pass, letting it fall back to your chest and head towards the check in booth, just wanting to get this all over with so you can promptly go home and die of humiliation in your bed. Alone and away from the world.

You give one of the ladies at the table your full name and instantly notice a wicked smirk appear upon her lips as she hears it. Which honestly can’t be a good sign for what’s to come. No, this is a sign you should probably just leave now. The universe is clearly trying to warn you, but your dumb, job needing ass can’t leave. No matter how much you desperately want to.

She hands you a map, pointing to the location where you will be standing for the conference. Then she points behind herself, in the direction you are to head and you mumble a quick thank you before heading the way she showed you.

As you make your way to the location, you continuously glance between the map in your hands and the area around you. The last thing you need right now is to get lost on this insanely large property, and end up missing the press release all together. Oh God, your boss would pitch a fit if that happened.

Your heels click on the cement ground, thankful you aren’t trudging it through grass at the moment. Heels and grass do not mix, and with your luck you’d probably end up twisting an ankle or snapping a heel. And the last thing you want right now is to draw unwanted attention to yourself. Ya know, more so than you already have.

You glance down at the outfit you’d finally begrudgingly decided on, choosing to stick to basic shades to help you blend in a little better. No fancy or colourful prints or shades today. No, blacks and whites was what you went with. Hoping that most of the other press members would be dressed similarly. And with one glance around you, that hope actually came true.

You’d decided to go with a black pleather pencil skirt, that was form fitting but also flattering to all your softer areas. With a long sleeve white shirt tucked into it, and simple black pumps. It was a pretty basic look, but that’s exactly what you were going for. You wanted to blend in, praying none of the Avengers or press would even noticed you, let alone figured out you were the drunken Twitter tweeter.

God, doesn’t that just sound so stupid? The ‘Twitter tweeter’. Just ridiculous. And to think, this is your life now! This is who you are now. Seriously, the next time you drink, you are going to leave your phone at work. As you clearly can’t be trusted with it when you’re intoxicated.

As you make your way closer to the spot the nice lady had shown you, you realize that you are the only one in this location. All the other press are further down, in front of the stage, whereas your place is off to the side. It has a perfect view of the stage, but there is nothing and no one to hide behind.

You halt your steps, and even though it’s a beautiful sunny day, you feel a cold sweat come on. Are they segregating you? Are they going to make an example out of you? Or treat you like some circus clown?

You know these thoughts are ridiculous, these are world heroes we’re talking about here. Good people who put their lives on the line everyday for everyone else. But maybe they are going to force you into speaking to the press, maybe they are going to use you for good PR. Your stupid tweets are the hot topic at the moment, everyone is wanting the inside scoop on you, your life and your possible new affiliation with the mighty team.

But being in the spotlight isn’t your thing, you like to be unknown, anonymous. Just another face in the crowd. And if this is an ambush, then take you the fuck off that sign up list. You are not interested in this being spun around on you. Fuck that.

You turn on your heel and head back to the main press area, you’d just hide out there amongst all the other reporters and journalists. At least you could hang in the back and keep your head down while you take notes.

You might be overthinking this. Or be acting a little too irrational at the moment. But cut yourself some slack, this week has been hellish and overwhelming, to say the least. And your poor frazzled mind is in overdrive mode, overthinking the smallest things and making you a bit of a basket case. Clearly you don’t handle stressors like this very well. That’s obviously a flaw of yours, but one you very much do not plan on addressing today. Or ever, maybe. But definitely not here and now.

You reach the main press area and tuck yourself into a back row chair, lowering your large black purse onto the ground and digging through it to grab your notebook, recorder, pens and your phone. You’d record the whole press release, taking notes and photos here and there. Then when it was all over you planned to hightail it out of here, long before anyone noticed you. Hopefully. That was the plan anyways.

You glance around, noticing a few nearby press members staring intently at you. God, you hope none of them cause a scene and point you out. You quickly glance up at the stage, seeing that it is still empty and none of the team is up there yet. So you drop your eyes down and decide to just doodle in your notebook till the junket begins.

Time seems to be ticking along at an alarmingly slow pace. Probably just because you are so desperate for this to all be over, therefore it’s doing the opposite now. The minutes currently feeling like hours to you.

Finally, after weeks of waiting—at least you swear it’s been that long. You hear commotion up on the stage, and notice as everyone around you is seated now, taking photos. You grab your phone and flick your eyes up to the stage, seeing the mighty group of heroes slowly ascending the stairs and fanning out on the platform.

You snap a few shots and then prepare your recorder, hitting the button to start it once Tony Stark makes his way to the microphone. You balance the recorder on your left leg, your notebook open on your light and pen at the ready. Your phone sitting in between both legs, fully charged, set to silent and camera app open.

The conference starts with Tony doing a speech, thanking everyone for being here and just general PR stuff. You are sort of paying attention, but also not. You know that you can always listen to the recording later if you miss any part of this conference, so there isn’t a huge weight on you to be fully listening currently.

So instead, you get lost in your own mind, continuing to berate and chide yourself for your horrible life choices. Ya know, all the ones that led up to this very moment. You keep your eyes down for most of the event, only glancing up periodically to snap a few more photos here and there. But then they flick back down to continue doodling in your notebook.

On the plus side, the grassy, flowery meadow you have been drawing this whole time is looking wonderful. Even if it’s only in all blue and black pen ink. But focusing on this is better than possibly locking eyes with the poor victim of your latest drunk tweets. You know he is up there, because they all are. And the last thing you want is to look at him currently. Your immense guilt and humiliation preventing you from even entertaining the idea of ogling the handsome man right now. Not even a little bit, no matter how badly you want to. No matter how much you want to see just how attractive he is in person. You can’t allow yourself to.

You don’t even really deserve to be here right now, the only reason you are, is because drunk you is a sappy asshole. Had you not posted those stupid tweets, you wouldn’t have been invited here today. God, how you wish you had a time machine right now.

You’d made a bunch of mistakes throughout your life, I mean, who hasn’t? But this one was by far the worst, you were definitely paying for this one. Tenfold. Maybe this is the wake up call drunk-you needs though. Hopefully she will have learned her lesson from all of this. Buuuuuut knowing her, probably not.

You sigh, picking up your phone to take a few more photos as the time nears to the official opening of the facility. To the rope cutting, which is the true reason you are all here today. You keep your eyes on your phones screen, but movement off to the side of the stage catches your eyes and they snap from the screen to it.

They lock with a greyish blue set, and you see the owner of said eyes glance over your face momentarily, before a smirk breaks out on his lips. Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier aka Steve Roger’s lifelong best friend. You are currently having a stare off with an ex hydra assassin, and an insanely good one at that.

You are just about to break the eye contact when you notice him elbow the blonde super soldier to his right. Leaning in once he has the other man's attention and whispering something in his ear, before his head nods in your direction. Oh God, this also can’t be fucking good.

The blonde furrows his brows for a moment, his eyes scanning the crowd before they land on you. And the second your eyes meet, you are fucking trapped. Because, Jesus! This man is basically a human bear trap, and your ass just willing stepped right on to it.

Greeeeeat. Now you’re having a stare off with thee Steve Rogers. Just exceptional. Note the extreme sarcasm.

And then you notice as he frowns, most likely now realizing you are the crazy lady who tweeted about him. He snaps his eyes away from you, turning to glare at his best friend. Who only grins wider in return and then shrugs his shoulders before nodding his head to the billionaire at the podium. Mr. Roger’s heated gaze then flicks to the side of Mr. Stark’s head, narrowing a little more and honestly, if looks could kill, everyone here today would be witnesses to a murder. To the death of Iron Man, at the eyes of Captain America.

And oh fuck, this is not going well. So much for going unnoticed. You can’t do this, you can’t be here any longer. This is all just too much and you want to go home.

You quickly pack up your belongings, throwing them haphazardly into your large purse. As the tears of humiliation begin prickling in your eyes. What did you do to deserve any of this? Clearly you fucked up in a past life and now you were paying for it in this one.

Your eyes involuntarily glance back up to the stage, tears threatening to fall but you try to force them to hold off until you are away from this place. Away from all the prying eyes. The last thing you need is photos of you crying like a baby, at the Avengers new facility opening, to start circulating the internet and only adding fuel to the fire.

They’d probably play it up like you were this insanely huge fan, and just being here made your crazy come out to play. Bawling your eyes out for just being here, in the presence of the hero you so clearly had lady wood for. But yet, that wasn’t it at all. You know most of these people were probably too focused on Mr. Stark to even notice the moment between the super soldiers. You’re pretty sure you were the only one who actually did see it.

Your eyes lock once again on the intense pair of blue ones, finding yourself momentarily trapped all over again. Then his eyebrows furrowing snaps you out of it, thankfully, and you feel a tear slip down your cheek. You quickly wipe it away as you turn and hastily make for the press area exit.

You don’t look back, you can’t bare to see the relief probably on Mr. Rogers face now. He is probably thankful you are leaving early. He probably never wanted to actually see you in the flesh. He probably thinks you are just some ridiculous, crazed fan who went out of her way to either try to get noticed by him, or boost her career via the exposure.

God, how far from the truth that actually was. But not like you’d ever get the chance to prove that to anyone now. You vow in this exact moment to delete your twitter the second you get into the Uber. Like completely deactivate your whole account. Then you’d have no way to embarrass yourself ever again. At least not publicly, not in front of the entire world.

As you reach the spot where the hired car had dropped you off, you pull out your phone and open your Uber app. You had a hired car set up to pick you up later on, for when the press release was supposed to be over. But as it was still early and now only over for just you, you needed a ride and fast.

You begin filling out the order, hastily walking down the laneway towards the main road. Like hell were you going to stay standing on the facilities grounds any longer. Risking being seen or stopped by random press members. You’d just meet the car down the road a bit. That was the best plan here.

But as you are making your hasty get away, you hear fast footfalls coming up behind you. And you cringe slightly, too nervous to turn around and see who is coming towards you currently. You pray it’s just someone running to meet their car. Maybe one of the press people has an emergency and needs to leave early because of it?

“Hey, hold up,” a deep voice calls from behind you, effectively killing that last thought dead in its tracks. Much like you wish would happen to you right now. If you could just drop dead in this moment, you totally would. You didn’t have suicidal thoughts, ever, but in this exact moment, you’d take any out you could get. The sheer humiliation of this week finally crashing down on you.

You sigh, quickly wiping your cheeks of the few tears that refused to stay put in your eyes, and slowly turn around as the footsteps near you and come to a deafening halt. You know whoever it is, is now only a few feet away from you and there is no avoiding this awkward situation any longer.

You instantly realize the person now standing mere feet from you, is the very last person you want to be anywhere near right now. Even with keeping your eyes down, focused entirely on the ground so that whoever the person ended up being wouldn’t see the tears, now in your eyes. You still instantly know that it’s Steve Rogers, the newest and current victim of your drunken praise, and it now takes everything in you to not start rambling out a ridiculous apology, while also bawling your eyes out.

A heavy silence looms over you, starting to feel as if you are being crushed by it. You take a deep breath, keeping your eyes honed in on the cement ground. “I um, I’m really, really sorry,” you start, the words coming out raspy from your unused and tear tingled voice. The volume barely above a whisper so you quickly clear your throat, “I shouldn’t have come here today. I ah, I didn’t want to ever make you feel uncomfortable in any way. And I guess I just need to apologize to you for my ridiculous antics last week. And ah, and for stupidly agreeing to come to this junket. I’ll just um,” you glance over your shoulder momentarily. “I’ll just be going now,” you finally glanced up at him, as you gesture with your thumb over your shoulder and take a step back. “Sorry again, for um, for everything.”

But holy fuck, he is so much better looking than you could have ever imagined. Up close and personal he is a freaking dream boat—Argh! You have no right to ogle this man! Give your damn head a shake. You are the very last person on this planet who is allowed to fangirl over him right now.

You quickly turn and continue to hastily make your way towards the road, not even giving him a moment to respond to your words. You don’t need him to say anything back though, he doesn’t owe you a damn thing. You are the dick that brought this all on to not only in yourself, but this poor man as well.

You got the chance to apologize to him, which is more than you could have ever asked for. Now you just want this all to be over. You just want to go home and pretend like this entire week never happened. He can go back to his normal life, and you to yours.

God, you could really use a stiff drink right now, but that’s what got you into this whole mess in the first place. So that’s probably not the smartest idea at the moment. So instead you’ll settle for a giant tub of ice cream and a lengthy, tear filled, phone call with your bestie.

“Wait,” he says softly, probably so he doesn’t startle you any further, as you feel a large warm hand grasp your elbow, urging you to turn back around.

You clench your eyes shut, why can’t this just all be over already?! Why you?! You take a deep stuttering breath in then open your eyes and turn to face him again. He releases your elbow as you do and then you awkwardly lock eyes with him once again.

One of his large hands comes up to rub the back of his neck, the action almost looking sheepish. Clearly he also has a few words for you, and whatever they are you’ll totally deserve them. Even if they are chastising you for your stupid posts. So you quickly steel yourself for what’s about to come.

“I ah, I wasn’t—“ he pauses then quickly corrects himself, “I’m not uncomfortable about you being here,” he shakes his head, “not at all. I just—firstly, I just wanted to apologize to you, actually. I know they probably forced you to be here today, I don’t really know how, but judging by your reaction to all of this, I’m guessing you really had no say in being here.“ He sighs deeply, “I had no idea that they’d actually invited you, so I can only assume that Tony played a huge hand in all of this. He really likes to insert himself into other people's lives, so I apologize that you got dragged into this. He doesn’t really know when to butt out.”

You nod slowly as you glance down to the ground again, “it’s okay. You really don’t owe me anything, I honestly brought this all on myself. I um, I don’t blame anyone else for any of this, but thank you for saying all of that.” You look back up at him, “it really helps to hear. This week has just been—“ you cut yourself off with a deep sigh, as you wave a dismissive hand around, “sorry, that’s really not important. Um, just basically thank you, ya know, for easing my mind with all of this.”

He frowns a little, but quickly corrects it. And you still just honestly want this all to be done with. But he looks like he still has more to say, so looks like your hopes will go unanswered this time. And just as you suspected he speaks up again.

He shakes his head, “don’t mention it, but I should really be the one thanking you.”

Awe, isn’t that just so dang sweet of him—wait, what?! I’m sorry, come again?! Your eyes widen as your mouth falls open slightly. You imagine it’s a super attractive look—note the sarcasm again—but you honestly can’t bring yourself to care about that at the moment. Because what did he just say?

Your eyebrows furrow after far too long of a moment with you just gaping up at him. “I’m sorry if this is rude, but um, why exactly would you owe me a thank you?”

He smiles down at you, then quickly glances over his shoulder before looking back to you. “I’ll explain all that, but first, can I show you something?”

You find yourself nodding before you’ve even realized it. “Um, yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, great. Just uh, just follow me then,” he says through a hesitant smile as he leads you off and away from the gathering. You aren’t sure where exactly he is taking you, but for the first time all week, you aren’t worried at all. Probably because this is Steve Rogers, the man out of time, and a true gentleman, in every sense of the word.

And maybe, just maybe, your hellish week that all began thanks to one stupid drunk moment, might just end on a way better note. Maybe your Drunk Twitter escapades weren’t all bad. Maybe they weren’t entirely horrible.

But honestly who really knows, you’d just have to wait and find out.

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

Part 2 of this, from Steve POV, will be coming sometime this week! So stay tuned for that!

@caps-lockdown @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @tfandtws @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @steeeeverogers @zombiepotterfour @mu-mu-rs @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers @justkending @alagalaska @silent-loucidity @sabertooth-potato @pies-wands-and-more @interstellarmess @gabriella69816 @phantom-soilder @wordlesscaptain @captain-hammer-of-asgard @starstucknature @viarogers @pixieferry @kaithezaftig @the-kinkiest-goblin @hysterically-original @badassbeckettswan @heyiamthatbitch @zlixlle @capsicledoll @givemehopenfandoms @pretendingandpreposterous @frozen-phoenix17 @emotionallysalty @saturngirlz @atomicsludgedonutbiscuit @ivannagotthebeat @bohemian-barbie @marvelous-capsicle @ivoryhazlewood @steverogersxreader @cjhorseback @jasminecalia @secondstar2disney @jessiedaeum @betsynodak @capricornprince118

[syngigeim]

Day 29 - Talk

Ugh. Elly’s head hurt. Too much to drink the night before. She helped to save the world again and thus party. Thankfully, she felt no body next to hers. She said a quiet prayer of thanks for that one.

There was a note on her bedstand! She bolted straight up. Thal’s balls, maybe she did take a man to bed.

Elly

I wonder how much you remember of last night.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite. This was sounding bad already.

You kinda had a breakdown after many drinks, saying that I was a bastard who was never around. Moaned about just when you managed to find me, well, I at least stopped you from mentioning that G’raha teleported us here.

...gods this was worse. There goes Elly’s reputation with the people of the Crystarium. And she was beginning to figure out who wrote this.

So I volunteered to take you to bed. And then had the glares of everyone in the Wandering Stairs for my poor wording. Just envision Y’sthola glaring at you and that might cheer you up. Anyway, the Washi sisters took you to your room and I just offered to leave you a note. Whenever you are ready for breakfast, come meet me.

- Thancred

Okay, only half as embarrassing as a night that Thancred evidently had. That was at least somewhat welcome. Time to ignore the splitting headache and to see if he’s actually sticking around somewhere.

–

“Oh hey, you’re finally up!” Mariko said, spotting Elly walking out of the Pendants.

“How bad was I last night?” Elly asked.

“Clingy to Thancred. Like holding his arm all night. I think there was moaning about not wanting him to slip out of your grasp again.”

“GODS!” She felt her face go beat red.

Mariko gave a sly grin. “And here I thought you were getting over him.”

“I thought I was! Balls!”

She heard him laughing at her swearing. Damn you! Quit enjoying this too much! “Anyway, he’s been waiting in the Wandering Stairs for you,” Mariko said, grinning, pointing over to the bar.

She gave him a dark look as she headed on up. Sure enough, there he was, sitting patiently. He gave a small smile at her and waved her over. Gods strike her down now. She sat down, her face still red. “I was horrid last night, wasn’t I? I should stop drinking like that. What in the gods did I say to you?”

“Well I was going to ask what did you remember from last night. I guess the answer is, not much.” Thancred said.

She moaned and slumped over on the table. “I don’t even have a real good excuse this time. Other than ‘Hey! It’s a festive time! Drink until you forget everything!’” She moaned again.  She then heard the thunk of a glass being put on the table. She looked up to see a tall glass of water.

“Nothing beats a hangover more than a drink and a good meal,” Cyella said. Elly just turned her head to the side and stared at her. She was undeterred. “An order of sausages and eggs?”

“Sure.” Elly said, half-mumbling, moving her face back to rest against the table. Thankfully Cyella said nothing more as she headed back over to the bar.

Thancred chuckled at Elly’s antics. “Oh come now, it wasn’t that bad. I’ve heard worse professions and declarations before.”

Declarations?! She sat straight up at that. “Wait, did I say that I...well...liked you?”

“Well, not like that. You were acting a lot more like uh...many women who’s hearts I’ve broken before,” He said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

“Great.” Elly said, this time slumping against the chair. “The perfect image for people to have of a hero.”

Thancred tilted his head. “I thought you weren’t too terribly concerned about that?”

“No it’s more that...I thought I was over you. You have different things going on than I do. You’ve got Ryne to look after and I have to well, find myself I guess?” She shrugged. “I still can’t even think of where I want to even be after...well, there’s the thing. I still can’t think of any after being the hero.”

“There might not ever be an ‘after’ Elly,” Thancred said with all seriousness. She stared at him with shock, and he smiled at that. “Life tends to keep continuing on and on and we just have to take what we can get.”

A steaming plate of eggs and sausages was suddenly placed in front of Elly. “Anything else?” Cyella asked, cheerfully.

“No thank you,” Elly replied, wondering if the former adventurer was listening in. She cut into her sausage first.

“You know, if I had actually drank last night...I might have joined you last night.”

Elly quickly put up her hand to her mouth, making sure she didn’t accidentally cough her sausage out. Well, it wouldn’t have been the first time the two took a tumble together but she just had a sudden thought with that statement. “What about Ryne?”

He looked confused at that. “What do you mean?”

“One, aren’t you like, sort of a father to her now? You need to be more responsible and like focus on her! Hells! Why aren’t you with her right now?!”

“She wanted to keep an eye on Syngigeim. Besides which, she wants me to at least work on things with you.”

“Did you tell her what I said to you before? That...I thought we were going in different paths and that while I cared, I didn’t know about any relationship?”

He nodded. “Yes, but remember, you were kinda...despondent last night. Scared that I was going to vanish on you again, I think was about what you said.”

She quickly shoved more pieces of egg white in her face. So those thoughts were what she said while drunk. It was less sadness and more anger. Anger that she could never find him after the Liberation of Ala Mhigo, right when she was done. Right when she could have talked and actually maybe started something stronger with him. The most she got was one night together before he ran off to be a spy in Garlemald. And refused her help, because she was a bloody famous Warrior of Light in the Source.

Elly poked at the yolk of the egg. Did she say anything about Minfilia? That...wait. The man was right in front of her. And wanting to sort things out. She gulped and steeled her nerves. “Did I say anything bad about Ryne? Or Minfilia?” she said softly. Elly was scared of this answer.

Thancred sighed softly at that. “You might have mentioned something about how you were never anyone’s most important person. That no one looked out for you and you alone.”

Crap, shit and fuck. “I am sorry of saying that. Really. And gods, I’ll need to find Ryne and-” She said bolting from the table but Thancred managed to grab her arm, stopping her.

“You didn’t say anything about Ryne or Minfilia.”

“But it’s what I meant. I’m jealous. And I know I shouldn’t be. They’re important to you and I always secretly felt jealous that you seemed to care more about them than anyone else.”

He held tighter onto her arm. “A lot more of your ranting was about how you didn’t feel like you deserved to be celebrating. That your contribution was nothing compared to the Warrior of Darkness. And let me tell you that that’s wrong.”

She gave a short huff and tried wriggling out of his grasp. “We all know that Syngigeim is the real hero here. I just, we all in Wanderer’s League tend to tag along. Hells, I only fought two Wardens! And I could only watch as her soul fractured and break! I couldn’t even fight Emet-Selch and that’s what we’re supposed to be good at! What purpose do I have here?!” she yelled, slipping out of his grasp...and into the table right next to her. Her arm slid across the top, as the side of the table jammed into her side. Worse, her feet slid out from underneath her and she had to cling onto the tabletop in order to attempt to stay up.

Elly felt Thancred help pick her up and onto her feet. “No. You weren’t useless here.”

“Ha. I’m one of many people who can fight.”

“Really Elly? Are we really doing this? No. Not everyone can fight as well or as skillfully as you. And I’m sick of you tearing yourself down like that!”

Elly stared at him. She wanted so badly to say No! I’m within a group of people who are all skilled as I! But he would ignore that. Instead she sat back down in front of her breakfast, stabbing her fork into a piece of sausage a bit more forcefully.

Thancred sat down across from her, his expression serious. “You know, you said you and I were going on different paths, but you never allowed me to speak. I, for one, have always loved the light and life you are. Your energy, your determination. And for the longest time, I tried not to get too attached because yes, as it turns out, I too, have a bad habit of pushing away those who care for me. Focusing on the next duty and what I needed to do, pushing feelings aside. Well, now let me say this. I will respect your feelings if they are different than mine but I for one, love you.”

“Now you say that?! Now after I gave up? Cut my losses?!” She said, slamming her hands on the table. Which hurt more than she was going to let on.

“You have every right to be mad at me for that. And trust me, it took me a long while to realize what exactly I felt towards you. And if your passions have cooled and you now can’t stand me, that’s fair.”

She sat back down in her chair. “Again...I ask, aren’t you now a father?”

“I-”

“No,” she said, raising her hand. “Listen to me. You trying to do right by Ryne. That, is the big difference between us. You are ready to take care of someone and guide her. And if there is anything I have thought of, it’s that I’m not ready for anything like that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. My answer is the same as it was on the sands. I care for you. Would like to spend nights with you. But...you will always have another obligation. Another duty. I think we both will.”

Thancred inhaled a deep breath. “I can accept that. I won’t press further.”

Elly nodded. “Thank you.” And quickly ate up the rest of her food and waved down Cyella to pay the bill.

“I’ll handle that. I asked for you anyway.”

She would have fought but any anger she had was long dissipated.

Slightly outside the Wandering Stairs, on the steps around it, was Ryne and Mariko. Ryne looked disappointed and sad after hearing Elly and Thancred’s agruement. “Sometimes things don’t work out like you hope they would,” Mariko said. “She was evidently angrier at Thancred than I thought.”

“I might have figured...but I kinda held onto that foolish hope I guess, that everything could work out,” Ryne said glumly.

“Love’s kinda hard to control and fickle like that. Trust me on that regard. Take absolute care of yourself and your heart.” Mariko said, grabbing her shoulder and squeezing it. She at least nodded at that. But there a familiar look in her eyes, one of stubbornness. This wasn’t over yet, but he sure hoped that Ryne would not hurt herself too much in the process. He’d seen enough of that.

[mayordamien]

Title: Fallen Angel

Chapter 3: A House Divided

Fandom: Markiplier (Who Killed Markiplier)

Pairing: Damien x Fem!Reader

Word count: 7,170

Tagging: @markired (if you’re still interested in readin’ it! :D)  And if there’s anyone else who’d like to be tagged whenever I upload a chapter, let me know!

You dashed in, looking around. All that remained was an outline made of tape where the body had lay, but exactly as the detective had said, no body.

The detective gestured angrily, shouting despite himself. “Who did this? It certainly wasn’t me. No, no. Somebody, not me, must have moved it between the time I was the last person alone with the body in the room and then stepped out for a few minutes to take care of some personal business that you don’t need to know about! Could have been anybody… except me,” he declared, speaking almost a mile a minute.

You thought it was rather sketchy, personally, that the detective felt it necessary to say this, but you had learned over the past day that he was almost as eccentric as the Colonel, albeit a close second. The circumstances were already strange enough as it was, and now to have all of this happen—there had to be something more to the situation.

Shaking your head, you looked around, but were jolted out of your reverie by the butler coming in—it was like déjà vu, like a flashback to that very morning. He stood over where the body had been, looking around in confused disbelief. “What the hell happened here?” he inquired, gesturing wildly. The detective shrugged, a look of frustration on his face.

“The body’s been moved,” he answered. The butler’s expression, in response, became more confused, if such a thing was even possible.

“On its own?!”

The detective shrugged again, glancing back at you momentarily before exhaling in frustration. “We haven’t quite ruled that out just yet, but let’s not forget we’ve got a murderer,” he declared, and the lightning cracked loudly outside on cue.

The Colonel came in the room shortly thereafter, getting in the faces of everyone one by one as he surveyed the area. “Bully! Quite a storm out there, eh, chaps? What are you doing huddled in here in fear?” The chef piped up a moment after, startling most of them with how suddenly he had shown up. “We have a zombie problem,” he declared, and you exhaled tersely. Couldn’t any of them take it seriously? Although you supposed that there could in fact be things out of the ordinary, you doubted that any of that could extend to this house, let alone to such a degree that someone would be reanimated from the dead.

I have been feeling a little… off since I entered the house though.

The Colonel continued on his grand rant, though now he had drawn his gun and was swinging it around, and you ducked, resisting the urge to smack him. “Ah, homo necrosis! The most dangerous game. Well, if someone needs to put the old lad down again, I’m well up for the privilege,” he declared, and that made everyone’s eyebrows shoot up to the top of their foreheads.

Abe was the first one to speak, pointing a finger at the Colonel, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you mean by ‘again’, and what do you mean by ‘privilege’?” he asked. You were internally glad that he asked that question—you were afraid to vocalize it yourself. Yes, Damien had said that the Colonel was an eccentric, but sometimes he just seemed a little more than odd—mad? No, perhaps it was just the leftover alcohol in your system from the previous night, you guessed.

          The Colonel put the gun down, seemingly coming back to his senses, realizing it probably wasn’t the best idea for him to wave it around. “I’m just saying, I’ve got plenty of… e-experience on the matter,” he reasoned, and your eyes narrowed. Was what Damien had been saying true, or was the Colonel more than just eccentric? You decided to reserve your judgement, however, and see how he acted more.

          The chef, not wanting to be left out, spoke up, “So do I.” Everyone’s eyes darted to him, and then back to the Colonel after a moment.

          “Yeah, that just raises more questions,” the detective pointed out, arms crossed over his chest. You glanced back and forth from the detective to the Colonel to try and see if you could figure out just what they were up to, but before you could say anything, the Colonel spun on his heel and headed in the opposite direction.

          “Well, I’m off to the grounds to see if I can catch a whiff of the old bag of bones, eh?” he declared, walking away. The butler spoke up as the Colonel left, but to no avail, it didn’t stop the other man.

          “Wait, weren’t you and Mark the same age?” he asked, and the Colonel laughed, before the laugh dissolved into a cough. They were the same age? you wondered. You hadn’t met the Colonel before, so you hadn’t known how long they had been friends—the only one of the three you had known the longest was Damien, and even then, you didn’t know if he was the same age as Mark and the Colonel were.

          Abe shrugged, seemingly coming to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be worth it to go after the Colonel at the moment. They were all still stuck on the grounds of the manor; they would always be able to converse with him about the matters later. “All right, I don’t trust him. Then again, I don’t trust anyone. Alright, lock this place down. Secure the front gate. I don’t want anyone in or out of this place until we get to the bottom of this,” the detective ordered, but then the butler interrupted.

          “Locks won’t keep people from getting out, sir,” he pointed out, and the detective rolled his eyes before the chef also turned on his heel to leave.

          “Locks won’t, but Chef will.” With that cryptic statement he headed off toward what was predictably the kitchen, and the butler looked at the detective for some sort of answer or explanation.

          The detective turned to the butler, speaking firmly. “Look, you’re a real smart son of a bitch. Handsome, too. Beautiful, even. But, we don’t have time for this. I think we forgot the most important question of all during our arousing game of whodunit. Why? Why?” he asked, leaving the butler looking confused—it was like none of them had actually stopped to think about that. Starting off in the same general direction that the Colonel had walked in, he gestured for you to follow him, and you begrudgingly did.

          “Come, walk with me. Why did he invite us all here? Why tonight? He said we were celebrating something, but he never specified what. It’s almost as if this whole shindig of a hootenanny was just a ruse. Mark was my friend; had been for years. But then he went quiet. I knew something was wrong, I just never figured out what,” he murmured, pausing after you had walked a fair distance. “Now I guess I never will. Look, I’m gonna level with you; you’re my new partner. I’ve been working with him for years. Now I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I know something is wrong.” They began walking up the stairs that Mark had descended just the previous night—when he was alive—how did things change so quickly?

As you walked up, and he continued musing, he declared, “There is a murderer—“ but was interrupted by the thunder and lightning “—here amongst us, and we need to find him. Now you look like a trustworthy woman. I know we just met, but I am an excellent judge of character. Excellent like a fox,” he said with a grin.

“I smiled and fed them a line of bullshit. The truth was, I couldn’t trust them any more than the other scuzz around here,” Abe continued, “But like my late partner once said right before he died, best to keep your enemies close. You don’t look like you have a reason to kill him. And if you do,” he said with a grin, “Best to keep your enemies close, eh?” You shrugged, only half listening to what he was saying, as you were trying to familiarize yourself with the layout of the house—you hadn’t had that many chances to look around before getting drunk the previous night.

Now he was getting to the real questions, and you perked up when he asked, “So, the real question we should be asking is: Who stood to gain the most from Mark’s death? Now, in my thorough analysis of the corpse, I discovered that in addition to being stabbed 37 times, he was also poisoned, beaten, strangled, drowned, and shot, in that order. Now, if you ask me, that’s a lot of trouble to go through to knock off one guy, and it sure as shit is no accident. No. No, my friend. There’s gonna be no simple candlestick-in-the-library solution to this whole…puzzle.” You glanced at him incredulously.

“Is that seriously everything that happened?” you asked. “All last night?! Stabbed, poisoned, shot, beaten, strangled—everything?!” and you were shocked when you saw him nod.

“His body was fucked up. I didn’t want to tell anyone else about it, but… God, it was terrible,” Abe murmured, looking a little pale. You couldn’t blame him; if you had seen the extent of the damage, you wouldn’t have been taking it well either. Seemingly he was trying to ignore it, as you reached Mark’s master bedroom, and the detective clapped his hands together. “So, we’re gonna have to do the detective-ly thing and go through the victim’s most private and personal possessions.”

He put a hand on the knob and swung the door open, an arm gesturing for you to go in. “Well, after you.” Abe let out a sigh, and put his hands on his hips, surveying the room—papers were everywhere, books were scattered, clothes were awry on the bed, to name a few of the things out of place. “Looks rough, but I don’t think he was killed here. Take a look around, see if you find anything, but be careful. I’ve lost three partners before to bedroom booby traps. Make sure you don’t tamper with any evidence! Lemme know if you find anything,” he ordered, and you nodded.

There just seemed to be something almost sacrilegious about this, to be digging through the possessions of a man—a friend—who was now dead, and whose body was nowhere to be found. You looked at a desk in the corner of Mark’s room, and was a little surprised to find four different photos: three were facing up, and one was facing down.

The first one was a picture of Mark, Damien, and the Colonel all smiling and laughing, and you found yourself smiling in response. They must have been such good friends—and Damien—God, that smile made your heart race. Your eyes darted to the next picture, and confusion filled you. Damien and the Colonel were off to the side in the picture and it looked as if they were glaring at Mark, who was looking happily at a woman who was hanging off his arm.

The third picture that followed was just a picture of Mark and Damien, both looked somber, and the Colonel and the woman were nowhere to be found. The final picture was flipped over, and you picked it up. It was a picture of only the Colonel, and the frame was shattered. That seemed like a clue of some sort, so you held it up to Abe.

“You find a clue?” he asked, and you nodded, holding up the picture of the Colonel to look at it closer—but was interrupted by the Colonel himself, who stood in front of you and got in your face, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. You jumped, putting the photo down as the Colonel looked at you quizzically.

“You’re quite on the case, aren’t you?” he asked. “Say, detective? May I borrow your friend here?” The detective stood in the far back corner of Mark’s room, and looked defeated, yet looked at the Colonel with a large amount of skepticism.

“Yeah, sure,” he grumbled, before setting down whatever it was that he was looking at. “Don’t worry, partner, I’ll handle it from here.”

With that, you began following the Colonel out of the room, albeit nervously. The Colonel was just too wild for you to predict—and you almost wished Damien was there, he would at least be able to rein in the Colonel’s more hyper or unpredictable tendencies. “Bully. Take a walk with me. I thought that it was about time that we got to… know each other. Someplace far, far away from the prying eyes of, uh… anyone else. Come with me,” he growled, and the tone of his voice made you shiver against your will.

It took a moment, but almost as if out of nowhere, you were off the second floor and then on the downstairs patio outdoors, and you had to stop yourself for a moment—had you just… teleported? No, it couldn’t be. “Now correct me if I’m wrong, but…you and the Mayor know each other, right? He’s a good man, that one,” the Colonel declared, and you relaxed a little bit as the conversation turned to Damien.

“Yes, I do, we went to college together,” you replied, and the Colonel laughed heartily.

“We’ve been fast friends for as long as I can remember. Now there came a time when I could have said the same thing about Mark, but.. Well, best not to speak ill of the dead.” You reached a pool out on the patio and you glanced at it, and somehow, within a moment, the Colonel had changed into a bathing suit with horizontal red and white stripes, and a hat that looked like something an Italian gondolier would wear. “Oh! The pool hasn’t aged a day! GERONIMO!” he shouted, jumping in.

You raised an eyebrow, but then whirled to look to your right when you heard hurried footsteps and saw Damien. Your face immediately flushed bright red much to your chagrin, and the sentiment seemed to be mutual, as Damien’s face was red as well. You noticed him push his hair back, smoothing a stray strand pack into place before he spoke. “Have you seen the Colonel? I thought I heard him. I need to speak with him. I may have been a little short at our last encounter… Well, if you do see him, let me know.” He gave a small nod of his head before heading off—you hadn’t even had the chance to tell him where the Colonel was before he had left, and you shrugged.

Somehow, the Colonel had gotten out of the pool, back in his military garb, completely dry, and was standing in front of you proudly, as if he wasn’t completely avoiding Damien, and you sighed.

“Bully! Oh, life needs a bit of madness, eh, chap? Now, what were we talking about? Oh, yes! The grisly business inside. Well, I’m sure I’m not the first to say that our host had a great deal of enemies as of late,” he grumbled, and you tilted your head.

Enemies? Mark hadn’t struck you as the kind of man to make enemies of anyone, but then again, you didn’t know him as well as the Colonel or Damien did. “My prying eye might suspect that the people who worked for him might have reason to stab him in the back. God knows he’s a tough son of a bitch to work for.” The Colonel had continued walking forward, and then when he reached a railing, he looked over it and his expression brightened—followed by him immediately dashing down the stairs. “Oh, the old golf course! I-I’ll fetch my clubs.”

After this escapade he disappeared from view and you exhaled tersely. He had such a bad habit of running away—but then almost as if on cue, Damien came over to you, looking around. Where the hell had the Colonel gone, anyway? You was, however, glad to see Damien, so you couldn’t complain. “Colonel? Damn, I thought I heard him,” he murmured, stepping forward, linking his hand with yours affectionately before giving you a quick yet gentle kiss on the forehead. “No matter. Would you accompany me? There’s something that I would…very much like to discuss with you.”

You felt your stomach do flips—was he hoping to discuss what had transpired earlier? Judging by the look on his face, he was more likely about to discuss the issues that they had been dealing with in regard to Mark and the death. Sure enough, he continued, still holding your hand. “Now, I know you’ve been assisting our… intrepid detective with his investigation, but… I have to bring some concerns of mine to the forefront. If we look at this situation logically, we can only assume that the killer who struck down our dear friend Mark was with us last night,” Damien reasoned, pointing at the manor. The pain was obvious in his voice, and you squeezed his hand.

“And while I would stake my life on the innocence of the Colonel or yourself, can we really say the same of our beloved detective? Or worse yet, mayhaps our counting skills aren’t as good as we assume them to be… and mayhaps… in the shadows of this manor, unseen to any of us, lay hidden…a murderer,” he murmured, as the lightning went off on cue. Right as Damien uttered that word, however, a gunshot rang out in the house, and the sounds of arguing could be heard from outside. Damien didn’t even give you a second glance before he dashed toward the house, still holding your hand, throwing open the door.

Inside was the detective, aiming his gun at the Colonel, who was, in turn, aiming at the detective. There was a vase shattered on the floor, and the butler dashed over to it quickly. You hid behind Damien for a moment and then moved to his side a minute after.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at but you better lower your weapon, you murderer!” Abe growled, still aiming his gun at the Colonel.

“I bloody well won’t, you’re the one that assaulted me! For all I know, you could be the murderer!” the Colonel shot back, aiming the gun at the detective’s head. He looked furious, ready to shoot, and you gripped Damien’s hand tighter. The Colonel wasn’t just an eccentric—you saw the animalistic rage in his eyes and it struck you then—he was dangerous. The whole time the two shouted the word ‘murderer,’ the thunder went off on cue.

The chef ran into the room and then threw his arms up in the air when the Colonel aimed the gun at him. “What the fu—whoaah!” Abe, however, tightened his grip on his gun and shouted at the Colonel again. “Last chance, drop your weapon!”

The butler, however, had his attention focused on the shattered glass. “Master’s prized vase!” he cried.

Damien kept an arm in front of you protectively, cane in hand, raised. “Everyone, please! I know we’re all on edge, but can’t we resolve this amicably?” You sighed. It was so like Damien to want to resolve things peacefully. It was how he acted in proceedings with the city too—he was always a much kinder soul than you.

The detective, still enraged, spat at Damien, “On edge?! This psycho tried to shoot me!”

Mockingly, the Colonel growled, “That’s a bold-faced lie! I was merely doing some light target practice!” His gun was still aimed at the detective and Damien pushed you further behind him, shielding you with his body, even though it was the last thing you wanted him to do.

“Inside?!” the butler shouted incredulously, sweeping the broom across the Colonel’s face.

The Colonel grimaced. “Well, yes, I couldn’t go on the grounds now with that bloody chef in my way, could I?” Right as he said this the chef got up in his face, and the two men glared at each other fiercely. “You’re damn right! You should’ve remembered that, Private! Besides, you’re not my boss anymore!”

That shocked you—had the Colonel lived here before? You had thought maybe you were getting to the bottom of things, but it appeared that you were just more confused than ever. Damien said nothing, still standing in front of you, and you wanted to move past him, to confront the Colonel about his place in all of this, but now was not the time.

“It’s “Colonel” now,” he growled at the chef, and the detective interrupted—neither man had dropped their weapons.

“Enough of this horseshit! You knew I was onto you and you were trying to whack me off before I could finger you… as the murderer!” Abe had paused after a moment to reconsider his phrasing, as it sounded rather inappropriate, but the lightning ruined the almost ironic comedic timing of it all, and the Colonel yelled back, “I will not be called a murderer in my own home!”

Right as the lightning flashed and the thunder cracked at the mention of the word ‘murderer,’ the door was flung open by a newcomer.

“Stop!” the female voice shouted, and you looked past Damien’s arm to see none other than the woman that had been in the photo with Mark.