#his face is apparently on the side of the cube from all the times he turns away out of fear while watching scary movies... that's so cute...

[twerkyvulture]

Been playing lots of We ❤ Katamari Reroll lately and I find myself drawn to Shikao. So here's a headcanon that's been rolling around in my head!

I was surprised at Shikao's choice of car at first but now it makes perfect sense. You always see him watching TV in front of the electronics store, so I think they offered him a job in their warehouse!

Shikao is no doubt very proud of himself for getting his forklift certification, and wants to master the forklift mech next. Nobody has clued him in yet that forklift mechs aren't a real thing.

[lazyjellyfish300]

𝒊𝒄𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒇⠀᜔🧊ᮬႚ

🍓ೃ࿔ post-shibuya scarred!nanami kento x pregnant fem!reader

🍓ೃ࿔ being pregnant during the summer can be unpleasant, but you and your husband find a good way to cool down. 💦

🍓ೃ࿔ words: 3.2k

🍓 ೃ࿔ cw: minors dni, pregnancy, temperature play, smut, p w minimal plot, oral f receiving, fingering, nudity, brief oral m receiving, cum play? fluff, scarred post shibuya!nanami kento.

🍓ೃ࿔ a/n: self indulgent hell basically. thank you @ambiguouslady42 for the beta & encouragement as always 💗 ilysm!! my first time writing something like this so idk but enjoy anyway.

༘ ₊ ˚ . sparkle dividers~@/anitalenia, strawberries~ @/strangergraphics. ice symbol~ @/lilac-dreamxxz

The melody of cicadas flutters gently through the screen window of the master bedroom in the farmhouse. The sky is shrouded in a cloak of hushed indigo with scattered stars sprinkled haphazardly in smokey clusters. The sun disappeared but the heat lingered, bathing the countryside in a humid blanket that clung stubbornly to the Earth as summer made its hasty descent with the rolling essence of salt mingled in the breeze from the ocean that dwelled past the horizon.

You were doing your best to seek the coolness of what the soft whirring fan at the base of your bed afforded you. Your five month baby bump is cradled against the soft nooks of your pregnancy pillow as you both lay completely naked, nose to nose with your husband, Kento, homemade strawberry lemonade in a jar with a straw he holds steady for you as you take slow sips.

The muddled fresh strawberries mix perfectly with the sugar as the ice cubes tinkle against the glass, leaving the taste of early summer on your lips. You sigh with a bit of refreshed relief, before going right back in for more.

Kento can't help but chuckle, proud to enable your pregnancy cravings and that you apparently love this recipe in particular, mentally bookmarking it for a later time and hoping that this will do the trick to allow you a bit of reprieve from the relentless heat that pestered you all day.

"Don't forget." He reminds you, shaking a bottle of antacid pills as he pours one into your outstretched palm.

"Thanks, sweetheart." You mumble as you throw it back, taking a sip from the glass of water he has waiting for you when you do, sweetly tapping his foot with your own in that adorable way you always did since the stuffy heat and the sweat wouldn't permit cuddling, but you desired to touch him anyway.

"Of course." He murmurs, barely skimming your bottom lip with his finger as he takes the glass away.

The affection in his expression is unmistakable despite the patches of scarring on his left side, more expressive now that he allowed it to be free of his usual eye patch, such a relaxed side of him you blessed the stars every night for allowing you to be the one afforded the precious privilege of venerating every morning when the sun surged over the rain-laden clouds to tranquil evenings like this one before your eyelids dusted with sleep.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Aghh, it's still hot as hell..." You groan, shifting uncomfortably in search of a better position that would at least alleviate the ache in your lower back, anything at this point to get your mind off the laundry list of discomforts you were experiencing with this summer pregnancy.

Kento's heart twists with concern at seeing you in such a state, glancing down at the empty jar of ice cubes. He takes one between his fingers, softly skimming it over your forehead.

"Shit, Ken!"

You jump by the sudden burst of cold, but your breathing adjusts into the foreign sensation. The stifling heat fades away underneath the area where the cube is gently soothing.

"Oh, that..."

"Better?" He whispers, running the ice cube along the outline of your face, to the ridge of your jaw.

You just nod, gasping softly in response and closing your eyes as he carefully allows the ice to travel lower, the salt from your sweaty skin causing it to melt ever so gradually. The coolness trickles and leaves you with a satisfying effect that finally starts to assauge the stifling heat that had afflicted you.

You slowly open your eyes to be met with the attentive stare of his, that eases ever so slightly when it makes contact with your own. He can't help the deep seated stir in his loins born out of intimacy and care, the kind that needs no grand declaration and unravels only when you look at him like that in the solitude of your bedroom, particularly when you were in such an open state as this, glowing and naked, divinity emanating so freely with the softness of pregnancy despite your assertions otherwise.

It is a fact he has all but accepted by now that would always seize him without warning despite the years of love you had under your belt together.

He leans closer and drags the ice cube over your lips, tracing where they pout at their fullest, to the dainty corners, his own lips parting in mirrored response between your hushed breaths.

He can't deny his attention wandering to the little details, the trickle from the melted ice now dripping down your chin to the alluring juncture of your bare, beautiful neck, the dainty diamond necklace that resides there glitters mutely in the dull light and the gold chain glistens from the beads of sweat.

"Go lower."

He smirks as you dare him, unable to turn down such a lovely request. He groans as the payoff of such indulgence is immediate and very very apparent in all the little reactions you start to give him.

Your lovely eyelashes quake with flutters as he glides the ice between valley of your supple breasts. Your balmy lips fall open and shuddered breaths catch in a broken cadence that resemble moans and he feels himself immediately harden.

That soft, telltale wrinkle between the corner of your eyebrows has him sit up, leaning over you as the ice he's guiding with his fingertips traces deftly to your left nipple.

The response is almost immediate as your areola hardens with constellations of goosebumps that spread in a map to the expanse of surrounding skin. The silky bud grows perky and wet as the ice glazes over it from the contrast in your body temperature. Your sensitivity is skyrocketed at this time as your body made preparations to milk for your newborn baby, sending little pulses of pleasure that extended in ebbing waves all throughout your body.

You don't restrain your moans this time as you let them flow out of you like the rambling stream that courses beyond the walls of your farmhouse that shield your sounds from the outside world, spurring and coaxing him like the hypnotic call of a siren from the neighboring sea as he teases the ice in a slow circle.

Kento's eye is hooded under his impossible arousal that makes him leak from his scarred cockhead, uncut and swollen as it pulses to life between his long legs. But, the heady satisfaction he feels from being the cause of your pleasure makes him more than willing to wait, willing to bask in this gorgeous display of you wallowing in ecstasy under his watch, by his doing, and on his own sweet time that slowly scratched that unceasing itch he had to possess you in every way that he could.

He decides to leave the ice right there, almost nothing more than a melted chip as he balances it perfectly atop the center of your breast, flitting his wet fingertips along the squishy flesh before he brings them to his own mouth, unable to resist taking a good lick of the essence you left behind.

You grow keenly aware of the frosty sensation as it rests on your nipple, but it gives way quickly to something completely warm, warm and gooey like the building slick between your thighs that is of much greater interest to you in this steamy moment, like your husband's gorgeous, scarred body that hovers over you now with his solid frame of lean muscle he refined and worked in the sun, day after day in this piece of rural rainy heaven you carved out as your own.

You watch, spellbound by the precision of his fingers as he controls the second piece of ice, slowly from the top of your head, to the curve of your nose where it affectionately bumps the tip, to the nubile pout of your lips, down your chin and along the same valley the previous had endeavored, circling and swirling around the delectable nipple of your right breast until it comes to a rest on top just like the left.

"Oh, just look at you..." He massages your hips in an effort to not pull out his cock and stroke himself. Somehow his unequivocal patience would not depart him even when you were spread out so flawlessly like an offering.

The soft ice dissipates into rivulets that coat your breasts like the drops of dew that clung to the grass every morning when he ventured outside, the weeping trails like strings of raindrops that drifted from the mountain tops of your budding, enlarged nipples like the bumbling rivers of milk that would eventually pour from them when you gave birth to his baby cradled in your growing belly.

Your stretchmarks ran along your bump like twines of wild greenery, the most emerald ivy, electrified divinity that compells him to worship from the halo of your hair, to the swell of your hips, to the shine of your velvet sex that began to peek from between your wet folds and he groans as your back arches underneath him.

You look up at Kento, precious diamonds in an infinite arrangement of your ring catching in the light as you place a hand on his abs that flexed and twitched over his manhood, swinging and heavy underneath where the mosaic of scars from his left bled into the terrain of his polished right. He pops one more ice cube in his mouth without a word, his hand finding yours and giving it a soft squeeze before he pins it next to your head.

Now, his intentions are apparent as the ice between his lips ventures quickly past the trails he marked on your breasts and moves swiftly down your belly.

Your clit pulses and aches with need and you moan as he draws a circle around your belly button, allowing the convex of your belly to make the water dribble down and scarcely avoid your mound. The wispy hairs that sprout from your sex shudder underneath the cold, throbbing with a primal craving to be rubbed, licked, and fucked.

Kento sits back on his heels, panting as the precum from underneath the hood of his cock sears with more driblets, gathering the wetness that seeped into your pubes and distributing it just along the outside of your sleek folds, sucking hard on the ice cube for just a few more moments before he carefully brings his lips to your clit.

The glossy tip of the cube sweetly skims over your soft pearl and you immediately clench, your toes curling and the tousled cream colored sheets of the bed gather in your fists. He maps the outer parts of your smooth labia with the ice, running and massaging the cool between the honey that drools steadily from your needy pussy.

You moan gratuitously, sweetly purring and angelically sighing as you comb and run your fingers through his silky locks of pale yellow.

"Ohhhh I love you so much, Ken...mmmph so, so fucking good..."

Your words pierce his soul and they swell in the parts of his heart that your name is scorched into as every reverberation of the divine sounds you moan echo to limits that surpassed his ever exceeding threshold of tenderness he harbors for you.

The lustful haze you have him under is slowly making it hard for him to function. He's intoxicated off of this moment, off of the raw carnality your body is conjuring all for him. He places the ice in the alcove of your belly button, kissing it farewell before he goes right back to feasting.

His mouth is chilled but his breath is dulcet and warm. You feel him breathe and moan into your pussy as his tongue gently parts your folds and delves into the dribbling flood of nectar. His nose bumps your clit with each purposeful undulation of his tongue into your soaking wet paradise, delivering a bursting sensation of hot and cold that made every vertebrae in your spine coil into a searing knot and tear a desperate tirade of adoring pleas of his name.

"Ohhh I love your mouth, Kento....you're so wonderful. So good...so, so good..."

His balls writhe with pent up cum and he can't resist rippling his own hips against the mattress for a little relief. He grows weak with how you easily you praise him, for how unabashed your desire was for the disfigured parts of him he had long thought were not deserving of such unconditional treatment. It was honestly close to being more self-serving for him than yourself despite the fact he was the one currently wrecking you beyond all comprehension.

He adores when you tell him how much you love him as he's performing the physical manifestation of how how irrevocably and steadfastly he burned for you despite having you every single day, how undeniably you belonged to him with how flawlessly your bodies fit together in the ultimate expression of devoted passion, how you'd beg him to consume you until there's nothing left as you teetered on the cusp of the pinnacle of release.

He sits up, gaze roving all over the sight of you spread, engorged breasts bouncing, bumpy and perky nipples from the crisp wetness that began to chill with the subtle breeze that pours through the open window.

He murmurs something you can't quite make out into the juncture of your neck, leading with his thumb over your clit as he teases two scarred fingers at your entrance, swallowing your cries with his mouth before they can tumble out to the nighttime air without his permission.

His precum oozed from his slit that rests on your bump as he steadily pumps his fingers, the leathery texture of his cock inviting your thighs to squeeze together at such direct, naked warmth, his arousal and its obvious presence, knowing, remembering, craving the stretch of it inside you that bordered on obsession.

The ease of his grunts strain under his concentration on flexing and circulating the movements of his less dominate hand to thrum and rub against that magical spot of silk inside you that was tried and true.

"So good for me. Always so sweet. It...hah...it feels absolutely incredible for me too, God, watching you like this, darling." He breathes.

He brings the ice cube that began to drift in a melted puddle back from your belly button, gracefully guiding it with his right hand while he continues fucking you with his left, glossing and dripping it over each nipple in a fresh coat, leaning in and suckling his tongue over the ice cube to give you that delicious dual sensation of hot and cold as he sealed it with gentle pressure from his mouth before releasing with a lazy plop.

"I would have done this much sooner if I knew how much you enjoyed it." He teases between sucks with a low husk, going back to lapping at your tits with what coolness was leftover on his methodical tongue.

"Oh, look at that..." He punctuates his statement with a soft kiss to your nipple, turning his head to watch his fingers shine and ooze with your slick as they slipped back and forth.

"Gorgeous. You're even more responsive than usual."

"Ken, I'm so damn close..." Your velvet walls spasm with measured rhythm around his fingers.

"That's just cruel, love..." His teeth grit as his self restraint stretches past the bounds of comfort as every clench of you delivers the phantom sensation of being buried in your wet heat. "You know I prefer you do that when I'm deep inside you..."

You gaze up at him, half-lidded eyes cloudy with a lust-blown haze, lips parted and silky and you pulse again. "Yeah, like this..?"

His eye, intense and rich like the dreamiest caramel impossibly darkens as he buries his face in your neck, his balls wind with mind melding ache.

"Oh darling, if you weren't carrying my baby, I think I'd punish you for that..."

Your movements cause some of the melted ice from your belly button to drizzle towards your clit where his thumb collects and swirls it in a mixture of your pearly cyprine, delivering another cool rush of euphoria upwards and then...

"There..."

His embrace muffles the shivering tremors of your rippling orgasm, and the mellifluous chorus of your honeyed moans causes his cum to leak in a milky stream down your thigh, gripping you tighter against his frenzied heartbeat.

You're arguably more sweaty than when you started but the sea of sensuality he immersed you in headfirst offsets that sensation completely, elation set ablaze by the absolution that brings your bond impossibly closer as you clutch one another, all aches and pains you had in the beginning long forgotten as the flames diminish to a low simmer.

A healthy blush spreads across his face, running a hand through his bangs where your fingers had left a tousle from earlier while he was feasting on your sex, a tad embarrassed as your eyes wander to the small reservoir of cum that dripped from one side of your belly to your thigh.

"I'm sorry I didn't last this time." His exhale halts halfway out of his lungs as he watches you suck a fresh ice cube into your mouth, doing his best to see over the receding fog of carnality and discern what dastardly scheme brewed behind those bewitching irises that gleamed with a flame that was not extinguished just yet.

"It's okay..." You coo as you tease the ice cube with your tongue along his sensitive tip, letting it trickle with a mixture of cum and drool down the veiny girth of scar tissue, watching it twitch with the promise of slowly stiffening back to life as a groan rumbles between his teeth. "But I'm curious, sweetheart..." You lick him from base to tip, smearing his cum with the ice in a mixture of hot and cold and his stomach muscles tighten in a vice.

"Tell me more about this punishment you were speaking of earlier."

His brows crinkle in surrender, sighing in a state of fucked out bliss as the irresistible contrast in temperature already has him hard, combined with the silky texture of your probing tongue.

"I....fuck...I hardly think it can be referred to as such, darling. You react quite the opposite." His eye droops as he involuntarily cants his hips a little further past your lips. "Besides, as I said, you're pregnant. That will just need to wait for another time."

You suck him off with a wet plop. "Mm...that's a shame. Maybe I would've wanted you to."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

He tilts his head, gathering his fists at his side as the ice melts even more in your palm that's gripping his girth as you lather his cock with lewd squelches of skin, subtly teasing the slippery length between the seam of your breasts as you lean over him.

"Mmmph...what kind of man would I be to handle his wife in such a way when she's in delicate condition?"

Before you take him in your mouth again, you notice the glass of ice cubes that was far from empty on the nightstand, grinning knowing you're about to enjoy your turn with him much more than you should, and that the morning was still hours away.

"We'll see about that."

[enigmatist17]

I've never written Deadlock before, but RatchLock(?) in the Mecha Pilot Jazz Au by @keferon has me by the throat bc Ratchet is my #1 babygirl of All Time ❤️❤️❤️

My other fics I've done in said AU 1 2

---

Ratchet was old.

Sure, he still had a good 50 to 60 years left in him, but hoy boy he was old. He knows most of that "aging" happened when he worked with the mecha program, and while it had been the highlight of his life, the dark road they had started to turn down wasn't for him.

Pilots dying in dozens from all sorts of ways, the worst being the degradation of their minds from the very machine used to defend humanity

Bright-eyed rookies turning hollow and their spark burned out, most leaving with eyes unseeing inside the same black bag.

Demands for more, demands to integrate human and machine, demands to take away their humanity to win

Demands that still haunt his dreams, especially when old superiors ambush him with a gaggle of his new students and interns in his tow.

His town, dammit!

Most of them watch Ratchet spend the rest of the day cursing up a storm that could make any sailor blush while slamming things down, everyone escaping when he eventually made a vague motion to the door. He goes for his bottle of whiskey once he makes sure the last student drives off with some friends, taking a seat in the middle of the shop floor as he pours himself a generous glass, setting the bottle by the side of his chair.

"Does Ratty have all his toys away~?"

"For now." Ratchet rolled his eyes as he took a sip, able to hear the bay door behind his chair rattle before opening with a slight screech. To a normal person, the sight of what appeared to be an unpiloted mecha slipping into some random repair shop would have caused a bit of a ruckus, but Ratchet is unbothered as he takes another sip of his drink. "Make sure you close the door this time."

"I leave it open one time." The mecha scoffs, glowing red eyes cycling in exasperation as the bay door is closed with a slight tug, the loud crash of metal on concrete making the human in the room pinch the bridge of his nose. "Oops."

"If I had a wrench within reaching distance..." The mecha grins as it crosses the shop floor, unapologetic as they sit on the floor across from the bioengineer. "Any luck today?"

"I was able to take out two scouts, should give me enough energon for a few cycles." Ratchet watches as two glowing cubes are pulled out from a seemingly endless storage space inside one arm, shown off before they're placed back inside. "I've survived off less."

"I'm still working on a synthetic version, but no luck." A flicker of regret crosses Ratchet's face, and the mecha reaches over to poke the top of his head. "Hard to create an alien food source, apparently."

"You're still trying, I'll take that." The mecha croons, glowing eyes watching Ratchet take another sip with a sort of purring noise.

No, not a mecha, an honest-to-god alien known as a Cybertronian.

"You seem upset." While the strange organics lacked an EMF field, Deadlock didn't need one to see the annoyance in those pretty optics of his human.

"Just some of the usual bullshit." Deadlock raised an optic ridge and stared, his ornery human staring right back with a scowl. "Got somethin' on my face?"

"You don't get this grumpy over the "usual" bullshit." Deadlock leaned forward with a slight tilt of his helm, the low rumble of his engine getting the other to relax just enough to consider it a victory. "Ratty~"

"Stop calling me that, my name is Ratchet." The Cybertronian only grins, reaching forward to poke the man in his chest.

"I don't like you being upset." Metal that should not be that expressive molds into a pout that would rival his little niece, and had he not seen Deadlock rip out a part of one of the alien threats (Quintesson he's been told) with those sharp teeth, he might find it cute.

.....

Fuck

"Some of those government fucks showed up in front of my people, wanted me to just leave and go back to all of....that." The whiskey is drained, and Ratchet leans over to grab the bottle. "It's one thing to harass me over the phone, but the street? In front of my kids? They can fuck right off with that." The glass is filled again, and the two sit in silence as he slowly drinks, looking at the floor with his brows furrowed. "I can't go back to that, no matter how much that would help out my....project."

"Aw, I'm a project now?" Deadlock cooed, a clawed digit gently caressing the side of Ratchet's face with as much care as he could muster. "I got an upgrade~"

"You're a disaster." Ratchet rolled his eyes, but otherwise didn't move as he listened to the (begrudgingly) familiar cadence of Deadlock's systems. While he could be as silent as the grave, Ratchet was pretty sure he was some sort of spy or assassin of some kind despite any questions getting the brush off, the alien mech had adopted the practice of allowing his natural ambient noise to become noticeable.

Just for his human, one of many things he'd adopted for his savior-turned-object of affection.

"Would you like for me to kill them?" Deadlock purrs when Ratchet raises an eyebrow, taking in the warmth against his digit. "I could make it look like an accident~"

"Like hell you will, that'll just get more eyes on me."

"Are you sure? Didn't sound like you were all that upset by the idea Ratty."

"Yes I am...though if they approach me in public again, maybe you could cause an accident or something, as a treat."

"Oh you do spoil me~!"

[revelboo]

The sideswipe and sunstreaker story has been a blast to read!! Talk about being stuck between a rock (sides treating the human like they’re a barely sapient baby animal) and a hard place (sunny being so openly unhappy with the arrangement) lmao

I’ve always had a soft spot for the disaster twins. The very first fanfic I ever wrote was about them years ago

Can’t Finish What You Started Pt 7

Sunstreaker x Reader, Sideswipe x Reader

• “Here.” Startling when a blanket is dropped on your head, you frown up at Sunstreaker and he scowls right back as Sideswipe watches. “You’re not eating,” he adds, reaching out to nudge the box of cereal at you. And then waiting expectantly until you cave and dig out a handful just so he’ll stop hovering and worrying. Ever since the awkwardness of you getting caught singing to him like he was a little kid, he’s been marginally less irritable toward you. A very small margin, but it’s something.

• Uncomfortable with the way you’re smiling up at him and Sideswipe’s own grin, Sunstreaker stalks past to retrieve an energon cube. Leaning a hip against the storage cabinet that you’d taken over as your space. Wheeljack had been busily making human things for all of the little organics after a mixture of angry ranting, pleading, and general miserableness from the Ark’s smallest residents had made it apparent that they were being unwittingly neglected. A big chunk of your space being dedicated to waste disposal and a little wash rack, it’s that space you head toward arms stretched over your head and little hips swaying.

• Watching you disappear under the blankets draped over the crude frame erected around what you refer to as your bathroom, Sideswipe leans his chin on a fist. One time he’d gotten curious enough to lean over the open top of your ‘private’ space. It’d been a surprise to see you without your coverings, wet and disturbingly like a little protoform as you stared up at him, eyes wide. Sometimes before recharge he finds himself thinking about how soft you’d looked, wet and furious. And he hadn’t realized your voice could be so painfully shrill when you were angry. They’d tried to fully enclose the spaces at first, but after Cliffjumper’s had hidden nearly nine hours in theirs refusing to come out until Cliff had started dismantling the walls, the roof, door, and walls were removed on all of them.

• Stripping and stepping into the warm spray, you keep half your attention on the open top of your bathroom. Because Sideswipe is a jerk and a voyeur. While you doubt your wet organic form does anything for him, you still don’t want to be stared at while showering and naked.

• Keeping an optic on Sideswipe to make sure he doesn’t bother you, Sunstreaker runs a polishing cloth over his armor and waits. Not because he cares about your weird human modesty, but because he isn’t the least bit interested in that awful noise you make that Sideswipe seems to find hilarious. Head lifting when the door to their quarters opens, he frowns at Wheeljack and the human he’s carrying cradled to his chassis. “What did your human do?” Wheeljack asks, servos flexing as his leans out dangerously far from his hand to look around. “Are they a medic?”

• “Medic?” Sideswipe asks, setting aside his energon cube. “Someone’s hurt?” One of the tiny organics? Walking past Sunny and ignoring his growled ‘don’t,’ he leans over the blanket draped enclosure. Sees your eyes widen right before you start screaming profanity at him. “Are you a medic?” He asks with a grin, watching as you try to cover yourself with your hands. Leaning back as you throw your little bottle of cleanser at him and miss badly. Screaming at him to get out. “Don’t think they’re a medic.” Laughing when Sunny grabs him by an arm and drags him away.

• Swearing and red faced, you grab one of the torn strips from a blanket that pass as towels and wrap it around yourself, shoving out of the bathroom with soap still in your hair and stinging your eyes. Stopping short when you see the other Autobot and the human in his hand that waves awkwardly at you. That calms some of the fury humming through you at least, fingers tightening on your towel, you exhale. “I am-was a digital artist,” you mutter, aware of Sunstreaker’s head turning to look at you curiously.

Previous

Next

[ryomens-vixen]

90s Boyfriend Toji

CW: Toji is a warning all on it's on, daddy kink, 90s Toji, mentions of drvg selling, smut, slight aftercare if you squint, hitting, etc.

Word count: 🤷🏾‍♀️ I don't know babes...

Good luck 🤞

Author note: thank you @blkkizzat for the nickname I really didn't know what to call him without being cringe af, I've never wrote for Toji so I hope this is kinda good I'm not too confident in this.

90sBF Toji who loves his son so much that he bought both of them matching gold chains, you could say they're almost like twins in a way, wherever Toji goes you'll definitely see megumi following behind him like the daddy's boy that he is. 

90sBF Toji who listens to artists like Notorious B I G, Tupac, DMX, Ice Cube, Ol Dirty Bastard, Nas, Sir Mix A-lot, and Snoop Dogg. 

90sBF Toji who's street name is “T-Raw” (thanks kali.) Almost all the ladies around his hood know him by that, even those he distributes Kush to, he just got it like that. 

90sBF Toji who'll only kick it with you if his son likes you, he's the most important person in his life. If megumi doesn't like you then it's a wrap. 

90sBF Toji who sells Kush for a living along with another side hustle of his… aka slanging dick, yes this whore of a man sells dick as well. 

90sBF Toji who usually picks up single moms around the corner store from his place. 

90sBF Toji who only lets the ladies that Megumi picks come over the house. 

90sBF Toji who won't settle down with anyone unless his son Megumi likes you which doesn't normally last long. Once you do something Megumi doesn't like you better hope you can fix it before he tells Toji. 

90sBF Toji who constantly makes Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto babysit poor Megumi every time he's hauled off to jail. 

90sBF Toji who is almost always cellmates with his homeboys Shiu and Ryomen who of course nags him about whether or not he wants to see his son

90sBF Toji who's surprised by Megumi suddenly took a liking to you one day. Maybe he had mistaken you for another girl Toji use to fuck on or maybe he just thought “Woah pretty lady” and claimed you to be his new mom, but whatever his son wants, his son gets and Toji ain't arguing with that at all. 

90sBF Toji who started making you, a college student babysit little Megumi who continues to call you “mama” and you have no clue as the whether it's because Toji calls you mamas or if he genuinely thinks you're his mother, either way he's cute with an annoyingly fine ass father. 

90sBF Toji who's more into fuckin than he is romancing, but is willing to put forth the effort to keep you around more. 

90sBF Toji who leaves all his women begging for more, surprisingly he hasn't gotten anyone pregnant by now. 

90sBF Toji who constantly has to reassure you that you're the only one he's laying pipe on, he hates that you have to deal with the Plethora of heart broken obsessed women he's left behind.

 90sBF Toji who fucks you like he like he's trying to get you pregnant. “Fuck- that's some good pussy, Hah- Ngh—” 

“Fu— T.. To..ji! too much, too much!”

The more you begged him to slow down even just a little bit, the more he made it apparent that he wanted his dick in your stomach. God it felt like he was trying to break you- fucking you into the mattress. One hand on the back of your neck, the other on your frontal a fist FULL of hair mind you. It was intense. He wanted yet another orgasm out of you to cream and squirt all over him again, you needed this dick and he was going to give it to you all damn night if he had too. 

Oh did your moans and screams turn him on even more than that ‘O’ face you were making. No wonder everyone called him “T-Raw”. “Shut the fuck up, you've been teasing me with that phat pussy all damn day- Fuuughck—”  Toji said in an annoyed tone as he cocks a hand back and smacks a handprint onto your ass. 

“m'sorry daddy!”

“Nah.. Don't cry now, take this dick, take it mamas.”

Oh boy did he take you down through there, eyes in the back of your head, tongue hanging, tears forming at the corners of those pretty (e/c) eyes. What was this your fifth? Sixth Orgasm? How experienced was this man, this is what you get for fuckin with a grown man like him. There he was beating your back in, creamy white ring formed at the base of his cock from both your pussy juices and his cum fusing together, blunt in mouth. Where'd he get the blunt from? Don't know, but man was his dick good no wonder he had so many women flocking after him. The way he makes you feel it in your stomach was no joke he really knew how to fuck you right. 

90sBF Toji who didn't really fuck with college girl had you wrapped around his fingers… I mean his dick. It didn't matter where or when he wanted that pussy before your classes, after your classes, in your dorm room, his car, it didn't matter to him because he was a nasty old man. 

90sBF Toji who had you chasing behind him wondering where he was taking that dick, YOUR dick, was he gonna start slanging dick again? You didn't know but you felt just like those older women he'd Freak then leave.

90sBF Toji who'd reassure you that he wasn't fuckin anyone else by making sweet love to you. He doesn't need you acting crazy on him. I mean who else is going to watch Megumi besides Satoru and Suguru? 

90sBF Toji who gets a little annoyed when you show up blowing up on him about another woman flocking him again, he gets so annoyed that has to shut you up with cock in that tight throat of yours.

“Now tell me who the fuck do you think you're talkin to again!?” 

“Mmmf- Sowry—” 

“Can't talk with all that dick in your mouth can you, heh…” 

You did your best trying to take it all, but couldn't make it to the base of his cock without gagging and coughing. But that was nothing he couldn't fix, with a smirk on Toji's face he held your head down on his thigh and began to fuck himself into your throat. God did this nasty bitch enjoy hearing your ‘gluck gluck gluck’ sounds coming from you. This slutty man let out a deep bellowing groan at the sensation he was feeling in his groin. It was a tight, and warm feeling making his pace grow sloppier by the minute.

“Nasty ass bitch look at you , mouth full of dick fuuughck Im gonna— gonna c.. Cum-” 

Patting on his leg trying to signal him to slow down so you could breathe, if your face could visibly turn blue it would he was not letting up as he chased his own high. One strong thrust he came deep into your throat, god if he could put all that good dick in your kidneys he would. 

90sBF Toji who isn't too big on aftercare, but since he's down bad for you, then he might just indulge in it, just for you, only for you. 

90sBF Toji who after a good pounding throws a towel onto your body and praises you for taking him so well.

“Fuck, you take dick like a good lil bitch don't yah? What cat got yah tongue?”

“ since Megumi ain't trippin bout yah I guess you'll do for now .”

“How about you get cleaned up, come watch a movie with me.”

90sBF Toji who truly can't believe you're to put up with all his bullshit, even his homeboys think something's wrong with you.

90sBF Toji who hates bringing you over to Satoru and Suguru's place for boys night because it always end in a fight everytime Satoru thinks it's be funny to flirt with you.

90sBF Toji who hates that you have to remind him that you don't want him to end up in jail everytime they fight.

90sBF Toji who starts to grow a lil bit of a soft spot for you, so much that he starts to show you off to his old hoes.

90sBF Toji who randomly shows up to your college class to drop off YOUR son Megumi when Satoru and Suguru cancel on him, leaving all your homegirls to think you're a mother now.

Tags: @blkkizzat @littlemochabunni @honeeslust @gojos-thot-patrol-main @oreo-creampie @screampied(I was told to tag you) @halosdiary @connorsui (I was told to tag you) @biscuitsngravie

[misfit0789]

Miserable

Alessia Russo x Reader

Summary: R is tired of being left out at work so they talk to Alessia about it.

Word count: ~ 1k words

Warnings: Shitty bosses, other than that none

Just a short one while I work on a couple longer fics.

Y/n POV

"Y/n, I'll see you at the party tomorrow, right? The one we got for finishing that training?" I look up from the report I'm working on to see my supervisor leaning on my desk. I push back my chair and lean back in my seat looking at him.

"I never knew there was a party even happening. I knew there was a possibility of one but not that one was happening," I say confused. He looks at me surprised.

"Really? I'll forward you the invite," He stands and returns to his desk. I roll my chair back to face my computer and open my email waiting for the invite to arrive in my inbox. I refresh the page and open the email once it loads. I scoff lightly when I see the invite was originally sent two weeks ago.

Seriously? This is the third time I've been left off something in two weeks!

"Thanks for sending it over. I was one of the first done with the training I'm confused how I was missed on the invite." I call back to him as my desk cube is in front of him only separated by the divider.

"I'm not sure, but at least you have it now," he says going back to what he was doing. I sigh and go back to the report.

Later that afternoon…

I sat in the last meeting of the day with my supervisor and other team members who are in the office and not remote today. I open my OneNote to capture the notes from today's meeting before looking up as the lead for the meeting begins to speak.

"So, in out meeting from the other day we discussed-" I immediately stop listening when the other meeting is mentioned the notes long forgotten.

I was never in another meeting with these people. I thought this was the first one.

This is getting ridiculous. I have been fere for over a year and I have been left out of almost everything that has to do with this project and yet they expect me to know what is going on. I'm over it.

I sit quietly and patiently wait for the end of the day so I can go home.

Time Skip

"Babe! You're home!" I smile hearing the voice of my girlfriend of five years.

"Hi, my love," I set my computer bag down on the bench by the door and open my arms to catch her as she runs to me from the kitchen. I wrap my arms around her body tucking my head into her neck, as her arms wrap around my neck holding me close to her. I let out a sigh of relief in her arms tightening my hold on her waist. She holds me having a sense that I need this.

"Rough day?" She whispers into the quiet between us. I nod, she turns her head pressing a kiss to my head. "Why don’t you go freshen up, we'll order take out and spend the night in bed. I nod again and reluctantly release her from my hold before moving towards our ensuite to shower and change.

Once I was showered and changed into an old college t shirt and basketball shorts. I walk into our room to see Alessia in an old jersey of mine from when I played softball in high school and a pair of underwear. She is sat leaning against the headboard, bags from my favorite takeout place in front of her, Law and Order SVU queued up on the TV in our room. I slowly move towards my side of the bed before flopping face down into the mattress.

"What happened today, baby? I've never seen you this bad after work," Alessia asks running her fingers through my hair. I take a minute before I turn onto my side, propping my head up on my arm to look up at her.

"Remember how a few weeks ago I told you that the team was told if we completed all the training before the other teams, they'd give us a pizza party?" She nods, "Well apparently we did that and were given the party, which is tomorrow but they sent the original invite two weeks ago. And now there was other meetings besides the one they sent me to today about the project that they have not included me on. I was lost the entire meeting on what they were talking about because it was a continuation of the previous meetings. I have been with this company for over a year, and they have been excluding me from the start! My supervisor is an ass and won't tell me anything, and he seems to be avoiding me at all costs. Anytime I ask anyone on the team a question they act as if talking to me or helping me is some big inconvenience for them. I just can't take it anymore." I proclaim, dropping onto my back. I lay my arms over my eyes and release a deep sigh.

"I'm sorry baby," I feel the shift in the bed as she moves closer before feeling her hand splay across my chest. "This job was only temporary until you had everything together to be able to open the café. It's all about done now, so tomorrow call them and tell them you quit. We have enough savings to work with until we have money coming in from the café. The girls and I will help in any way that we can. There is no sense in you staying somewhere you are miserable," I remove my arms from my face to look at Alessia. When we make eye contact, she offers me a reassuring smile before she leans down to capture my lips in a kiss. I place my hands on her waist and maneuver her to be straddling my hips.

"What would I ever do without you in my life?" I whisper into the air between us once we part. She chuckles and presses another kiss to my lips before answering.

"Probably live a miserable life," I chuckle and nod before wrapping my arms around her, holding her to me as she buries her head in my neck pressing light kisses there. I let out a sigh knowing that things are going to change for the better.

[faerymin]

Just My Luck: Episode One

Synopsis: With the discovery of a tribe populating a remote island between Japan and South Korea, your lover and head of the broadcasting network, Kim Namjoon, temporarily demotes you from your role as a news anchor and sends you on location in favor of filming a documentary. With your already cold relationship straining further, you’re sent to film the project only with a cameraman infamous around the station for womanizing, the recently recruited Jeon Jungkook.

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader (ft. Kim Namjoon)

Tags: Drama & Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, From Sex to Love, Infidelity, Brief Friends With Benefits Situation, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Workplace Romance, Dubious Morality, Fluff, Guilty Pleasures, I'm Sorry Kim Namjoon, Secret Relationship, Mutual Pining, Substance Abuse, Rich RM, (Kind of) Slow Burn, Eventual Smut

Word Count: 4.7k

Author’s Note: Cross-posted on AO3.

━━━

“Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.” Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

━━━

IN THE FIRST HOT MONTH of the fall KBS gave an obituary to a popstar who’d been admitted to Asan Medical Center with her wrists cut in a segment on the morning news, which you watched only because you forgot to switch off the TV and must have pressed some buttons in your sleep to play that particular channel. The medical records and the anchor (who was the weather girl before you’d divorced the broadcasting system) said exhaustion but in the afternoon you spoke to Seokjin and he told you about the actor who left her for an underwear model, which is why you spoke to him in the first place, because Seokjin knew about things like that, knew about people, and to appease you he continued to tell about the news anchor, Mido Nang, becoming the frequent visitor to a surgery clinic in Hannam.

“How do you know it,” you said. You were on the long white chaise in the employee lounge, and he smoked by the open window although it was forbidden. “How do you know she got anything done?”

“I know because I know this surgeon who did her. And you want to hear something funny? Apparently she asked to get her nose cut from all sides the second time so she’d look like Shin Minah in A Love to Kill. The poor thing doesn’t understand that’s not how bones work.”

“Her performance was lackluster this morning,” you said then, swirling sugar cubes into the coffee. “She was trying to pose for the camera while pronouncing the girl dead.”

“She’s lackluster every morning. The only reason she stays the anchorwoman is because she’s screwing, I think, the president’s nephew.”

Echo of voices bounced in from the hallway, and Naeun, who was a director and wore her hair choppy and boyish, flipped a page of the copy of Cosmopolitan she’d been exhausting for the better half of an hour, her foot swinging in the air in single pendulum motion. “If HR gets another complaint about the smoke you’ll be the next one pronounced dead.”

He laughed. “What are they going to do. Fire me?”

The lounge at once became populated with insiders of another crew who were responsible for an underperforming tabloid show and seemed perpetually exhausted. They had come from location, their faces grave and cameras slung across their shoulders, and milled about the kitchenette in a terrible racket. One of them said, “I got the footage of IU, the bitch, flipping me the bird.” Somebody answered, “You think that’s good? I have a shot under Suzy’s skirt, right at the angle where you see all the cellulite.” And they all appeared at once placid and greatly weary with this particular conversation as they got their sandwiches and instant coffee and spread their banquet upon the board in the corner, a Dantesque mass of white shirts and blazers. Naeun made a point to show her back to them.

“You’re a lot of laughs this afternoon, ladies.” Seokjin threw his cigarette out the window. “I’m glad I didn’t dine out.”

“Don’t leave,” you said, draped lazily across the chaise. You’d only begun to drink your coffee.

“Can’t, I already told you. I have to see someone about a job.” Seokjin’s fingertips grazed very lightly across your arm on his way out, and before the door had closed after him someone else entered, someone you realized was the cameraman only when he’d passed you.

“Sunbae,” he said, to neither of you precisely, and continued to the coffee machine.

You noticed Naeun’s foot had stopped swinging and after a moment she retired the magazine, looking at you. She did not have to say anything. The new on-location cameraman had joined the news station that summer, after a soapy program about a ghost copulating with a diner waitress got cancelled. The management liked him for being a son to a videographer who was acclaimed overseas but everyone was sceptical due to him being only twenty-four and having completed his master’s degree earlier in the year. Naeun especially was peeved at having him dumped into her department.

He was a bewildering presence anyhow, entirely emblemed in ink and sultry, and even when he took the jewelry out of his face there were small chinks in his lip and eyebrow. The air around him had proven persistently languid, all gum-chewing naiveté and a boredom so direct that it was offensive. Bets about when he would quit had already been made in his second week on set, and Naeun Bae placed thirty thousand won on ‘until September’ then and lost, because it was already September and instead of a resignation letter there were dressing room rumors about how he’d seduced half the talk show staff. Perhaps due to the hearsay, he seemed to change more recently from simply flippant to downright and impervious.

“You’re a sunbae,” you told her.

“Don’t start with me.” She leaned closer and the bangles on her arm clattered, air cloying with the note of iris in her perfume.“Minji from archives told me the other day she suspected he snuck in there for his rendezvous. She hasn't caught him yet but an employee pass is missing.”

“You think he’s getting it on next to financial reports.”

“I think I’m getting him fired.”

Both your hands wrapped around the cup. “Do you think the editors will give you those thirty thousand won back?”

“The way I see it,” she smiled, “they’ll all be treating me to a meal.”

“You’re optimistic.”

“I’m in a good mood this week, naturally.” When you said nothing, she fixed you with a sceptical eye, as if you had blundered at picking up a thread or failed to react appropriately to some particular allusion, but you did not know what she meant even as she gave pause, a moment of extra leeway for you to continue where she’d left off. “Are you not?” she said then.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine,” she repeated. “We have everything well underway and you’re fine. You in particular should be ecstatic.”

“Because of what?”

“Because,” she began, and then sighed. Her bangled hand came to rest against her forehead like she was nursing an impending migraine. “Have you heard nothing from Namjoon?”

You could say nothing, because indeed you had not heard a word from Namjoon, and you suspected you should have known something that was well underway and would make you ecstatic and that others already knew. Naeun took your hand and when she looked at you, because it was very hard for Naeun not to, she failed to avoid looking superior, soft fingers bringing yours into her lap.

“Well, he’s been so busy. He’s surely planning on telling you one of these days.” Then, leaning, she said, “He has to tell you, I mean. We can’t do the segment without our star anchor. Mido Nang will be green with envy when she sees it in a few weeks, that’s a promise.”

━━━

“I’VE BEEN BUSY,” quite funnily, was what Namjoon said the following evening, while you dined at Pierre Gagnaire in Executive Tower 35F, just off the Namdaemun road. You weren’t quite so fond of the floor-sweeping, white tablecloths or the chandeliers looming overhead, but he insisted on going there and you supposed the landscape of Seoul from so far up was nice. You were wearing, you realized only then, a babydoll dress from black chiffon he had bought you last summer. “There has been an offer for one of our series to be broadcast in America but I’m sure you don’t care for the details.”

Repeatedly he ordered an entire feast, numerous plates of roasted scallops, smoked eel, and a tenderloin steak which he now cut into morosely, face sullen as he stopped a dashing waiter and ordered another bottle of wine. Dessert, too, was to be brought out soon, but you had already stopped eating at the second course. “I don’t feel so good,” you said. “I can’t drink any more wine.”

“Then don’t drink it.”

“I mean,” you leaned over the table, “I don’t feel so good and I want you to take me home. I’m too unwell for dessert.”

“You have a delicate palette,” he said, and it did not seem like a compliment. “Stay put a bit longer. Chaulkin, the American, has a reservation here at eight. I have to speak to him. Then we’ll see.”

“Speak about what.”

“The series, Y/N. I just told you about it.”

“Why do you have to speak about it now.”

He lowered the silverware. “Stop that.”

“Sorry,” you told him after a while, and stabbed the sea urchin floating in your consommé. “I didn’t mean it. I’m tired.”

“You always say things you apparently don’t mean.” Namjoon retired his fork and knife entirely in pursuit of the wine glass. “When I’ve spoken to Chaulkin we’ll go. We’ll go home and spend time alone. I’ll make you some tea. Will that make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then please try to stay put until we’re done. I have enough problems as is.”

Conversations with Namjoon, as it were, often bore an illusion of a problem having been solved. There was nothing else to say now and you reposed on the chair, continuing to pick on the food. You desperately wanted to order water but felt that doing so now would seem frivolous.

He noticed and then he said, “When the American comes over, please don’t look so hostile.”

You left the Haute French restaurant at quarter to ten, after finishing the bottle the American Chaulkin had ordered, and at the end of nearly two hours plump with conversation it remained unclear whether they would be picking up the series; there was a dreadful altercation about a translation issue, talk about censoring a scene in which a character gets assassinated. “Too much blood,” he had said in clumsy Korean. “This is, how do you say, a purple-rated channel, and that is leaning towards a Tarantino film. And you.” He turned to you. “You said you’re an actress. You act in this show?”

“A news anchor,” you told him for the second time.

“Shame. You should be an actress,” he said for the third.

Namjoon was quiet then and he was quiet in the car.

When you arrived at his house in the Cheongdam area, Gangnam, he did not make you tea. Instead he sat on one of the lounges in his living room, all of which were dressed in cowhide and made an ellipse around the fireplace, and stared up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and you knew the vein in his temple was pulsing. “Listen,” he said. “Come here.”

You did come, sitting beside him.

“I mean closer.” He still did not look at you when he pulled you by the waist, until you were cradled against his hip. He sighed and opened his eyes. “Listen. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you whispered.

“Right.”

His hand settled on the back of your head to pull you closer, but he did not kiss you until you kissed him.

“I really love you,” you breathed against his lips.

“I know you do.” He led your hand to his belt. “Take it out.”

“Namjoon,” you said.

“What?” He was preoccupied with kissing your neck, and when you weren’t fast enough he pulled on the thick leather strap until it popped off the buckle.

“Nothing.” Your hand dawdled reaching into his underwear. His skin was hot, almost scorching. “I love you.”

Later, while you lay across his bed, studying the books trapped inside his vitrine which had been organized in the same way since you’d known him (English ones in alphabet, Korean by width), you asked him about the well underway project everyone knew about aside from you.

“I was under the impression that it involved me directly.”

“Nobody told you about it. I’m certain I delegated someone to tell you.”

“Tell me what.”

“There’s this uncharted island between Jeju and Fukue. Staff from some cargo ship noticed people. Turns out it’s populated by a tribe, all Korean-speaking.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You’re going.” He rested against the headboard, naked, and put down his cigarette to chase a pain pill with wine. “Next Monday. You’re going with someone from the camera crew alone, the tribe chief wouldn’t allow it otherwise.”

“Why not some on-site reporter?”

“Because,” he said. “The footage needs a star.”

━━━

“LET’S GO TO ITAEWON TONIGHT,” Seokjin said when he picked you up in his Corvette the next morning. You could see through his sunglasses that he was eyeing the spotty discoloration on the back of your neck, but it was too hot to let your hair down and hide the marks. He would know they existed anyway.

“Why?”

“To grab drinks, listen to music, I don’t know, have fun. Seems like something you would need.”

“You think I don’t have fun.”

His hand wandered out of the car in greeting, then draped across the door. The roof had been brought down and wind was mussing his hair. “You’re cranky. We’ll fix that.”

“Do you think he knows?”

There was a long silence. “It happened a long time ago.”

“Maybe he knew for a long time.”

“We’re going to Itaewon,” he decided.

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Yes you do.”

━━━

FOUR DAYS BEFORE DEPARTURE, the cameraman chosen to accompany you ended in a small traffic accident which dislocated his shoulder. He had been a bulky man with a bent nose, your senior by a decade, and had years of experience on the scene. Seldom you’d spoken to him in the genesis of the station and remembered liking him. Somebody told you he’d been shot at before while filming. “Look,” Naeun said, tapping a mechanical pen against her desk in a deliberate, mind-numbing rhythm. There was a fleeting impression she was looking at you as she studied her hair in the wall-length mirror. “We need someone who can protect you.”

Her office occupied the highest floor in the building and was three doors away from Namjoon’s, on the corner which looked at the Jeongdong park. There were no curtains, abstract brush-stroke artwork occupied the indigo walls, and incense permanently burned in the enamel censer upon her desk.

“Don’t tell me that.”

She shrugged. “It’s true. You should know how this goes, you used to be a reporter.”

“And then I became an anchor, thinking I wouldn’t get demoted out of nowhere.”

“You’re not demoted.” She focused on you. “Listen honey, you’re not seeing this the correct way. This is a good thing for your career, this is a story nobody in the nation got a hold of yet. When the ratings skyrocket, it’ll be your face everyone remembers, and it’s nice having a documentary under your belt anyway. We’ll twist a spiel about how you’d chosen to do this yourself. Being humane is the chic thing to do right now.”

You sighed. “Just tell me who’s going with me instead.”

Naeun opened a drawer and gave you a file. Black and white headshot paperclipped to the carton. Jeon Jungkook.

“You’re serious.”

“About that. Someone from technical forgot to return their pass.”

“Who are you putting on air instead of me?” you snapped.

“Just someone.” When Naeun spoke again, her voice was flat and preoccupied. “We’re still seeing about it.”

You left her office and tried to see Namjoon, but his secretary told you he was having lunch with the American and head of the programming department and you left three messages on his machine, none of which he returned. That afternoon the bank called about your overdrawn account, your stockings ripped while filming the evening news, and once you left the dressing room you encountered Jungkook smoking at the back of the building with an apprentice journalist on his arm.

“Good night, sunbae,” he said, unconcerned with hiding the sneer in his voice. The girl untangled from him and bowed but you refused to look at her, in fact you refused to look directly at either of them and vaguely nodded, pulling hair over your neck. While you walked off there was a sigh, a relieved chuckle, the wet, wicked sound of a kiss.

━━━

IN A DISPLAY of what Seokjin had told you was a “self-destructive personality” streak and reason enough to “consider seeing a shrink,” in the days leading up to departure you began harboring great regard for the cameraman who’d help with the perilous expedition. Mechanics of him interested you, why the snark on his face, why join this broadcasting house in particular. There was no sleep, or hardly any at all, a continuous hovering over the coffee table, the scratch of pen as you wrote down, in order, everything you could remember he’d said or done. On Friday Seokjin copied his employee file and brought it to you, which he’d easily done not because he was the Chief Marketing Officer but because everyone knew he was Namjoon’s confidant. Just that morning there was a column about them in the tabloids, a photograph from a party of which you’d refused the invitation, with a starlet whose name you didn’t recognize.

“There’s some principle in here I’m not grasping.” He sat on your sofa, rolling a cigarette. “I’d really like to understand the inner workings of your mind.”

Papers were spread across the table, over the floor, all gridded scraps from notebooks, half-written pages that revealed nothing much in conclusion. “There’s nothing to understand. We’re going together. I want to know.”

He tapped the cigarette butt against the table, lit it, and watched you search through the file. After a time he said, “You never asked how the party went last night.”

“How did it go?”

“We went to my place afterwards.”

He left half an hour later when his phone rang, and he spoke to the person on the line all the while he put on his jacket and shoes. There was a tousle of hair, a promise he would call you later. The door banged. Silence fell upon your apartment again.

File belonging to ‘Jeon, Jungkook’ listed his place of residency as Nowon, the neighborhood on the outskirts of Seoul, nearly bordering Gyeonggi. He was born on the first of September, 1997. His social security number and financial information were scratched out with a blue pen. Korean by birth, but his education history suggested he’d lived in Australia, spent several years in Japan, and previous work experience was notched with helping his father on various documentaries, the last of which explored a jungle on the west coast of Tahiti and won numerous awards. When you searched his father’s name on the internet you found he was rather well-situated.

There were notes from HR about suspicions of “unprofessional conduct” in the workplace but no definite proof, and aside from those notes he appeared entirely clean, even competent. You copied his phone number and in the afternoon you called him.

“When we board that boat on Monday,” you told him. “I don’t want to see you being late.”

There was a smile in his voice. “I don’t know if you know this, sunbae, but you’re calling me on my day off.”

“I’m not your boss. I don’t have to call during working hours.”

“Then why are you calling me at all.”

“Because this is an important story,” you said. “Because you’re a novice.”

“I didn’t even know a celebrity had me on her phone, my heart is pounding with excitement. Who gave you my number. Naeun-sunbae?”

You paused. “Someone in HR the other day.”

“This is too fun.” His voice had a particular condescending quality that never really waned. “Am I allowed to save your number as well. Will you respond if I text you.”

You said nothing.

“It will be all right if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve filmed documentaries, I know how to make it look good.”

“All right is not good enough, this has to be great.”

He laughed and you could hear him do something, perhaps unload a car. “You’re not a fan of me, sunbae. But I’m a fan of yours. Don’t lose sleep over it.”

After the call ended you stared for a long time at the list you’d compiled, of various names which had claimed an affair with the cameraman. In the administrative department were three names, five in marketing, and in programming there were twelve. You did not know what the name of that apprentice journalist was.

━━━

WHEN THE TELEPHONE RANG on Sunday, it was four o’clock in the morning, before dawn, and you untangled the cord in darkness. The evening had been hot and your skin was wet beneath the blanket, a dreamy lethargy you’d imagine of a snake poison permeating your muscles. In those days you did not sleep in your bed but on the leatherbound, glossed couch which made a terrible creak with every dip of pressure. The dreams which played when you slept there were terrors of Mido Nang and KBS, but you continued to doze off on the couch, in a convoluted pretence of an accident for no one but yourself. The ritual eventually began to seem penitent.

No sound came from those cords until there was a long, desperate draw on a cigarette. “You may be the only person in Seoul who continues to keep a landline,” the voice said, draggy, and then came a quiet, rustling sound of moving clothes. There was only one telephone in Namjoon’s home and it was in his office on the second floor, in the room with a window that overlooked his garden, which was the only place he didn’t allow visitors to roam.

“Besides you,” you said.

“Besides me,” he repeated. “People who do business have it. You have no need for it other than the fact you’re used to it. You keep it because you have trouble letting go.”

You lay very still on your back, brushing off a lock of hair that had stuck to your forehead. “Why aren’t you sleeping.”

He sighed. You could imagine him hunched over the grand mahogany desk. “I’m depressed.”

“What for.”

“I don’t know,” he said, then silence.

You didn’t want to rush him.

“This station would be shit if I hadn’t brought you on,” he said after a while. “You know that. Everything would be shit.” You could hear him take off his glasses, and when he spoke next it was with a careful, sensible voice of declaring condolences. “Listen, Y/N. I’m not good to you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Maybe it was a mistake to mix business and feelings.”

You had always imagined that hearing him say this would hurt more than it did. “People do it all the time.”

“They do. People do all sorts of things. A little number of them are right.”

“You want me to resign,” you concluded.

“God, no,” he sighed again, “but I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did.”

Silence. Something awful was happening.

“Maybe we could try,” you said.

“Maybe we could.”

For a long time both of you thought of what to say next.

Namjoon took the coward’s way out. “Listen. Look pretty for the party today.”

Before you could get another word in, the call ended, and you stared at the telephone pensively for several minutes before you pulled the cord loose from the jack and turned around. No sleep came for you that morning, no matter how much you goaded the punishment of dreaming about Mido Nang replacing you on national television.

━━━

THAT AFTERNOON, fifteen hours before departure, the starlet you had seen in the tabloid was oiling her legs across the pool. Namjoon had thrown a party in honor of the brewing documentary and populated it with people you didn’t much like; now he spoke to an executive from Mnet two feet away from the chair she lounged on, but he didn’t seem capable of seeing her, as if she were spectral.

Her name was Binna and her last name used to be Lim, Naeun had told you so, and she was experiencing a crisis after a divorce with a B-rated movie producer which, she said, you could see in how her thighs had become rough. Now her agent begged for jobs to be given to her “as a favor to Donggeun.”

“That’s tragic,” you said, and meant it, but Naeun derived the sort of enjoyment from your words that made the lines around her mouth crease. Her eyes were not on you but on the girl’s legs. She was putting down the bottle of oil and turning to an actor’s assistant who’d been trying to get her attention for the past several minutes.

“When I see how dry her calves are, I feel almost… frightened.”

About the party there were crowded tables and a band and a thousand white napkins folded into doves, as if the courtyard had been dressed for a wedding. Nobody milling around registered to you as anything other than a foreigner, a hussy or a gangster, and there was a circle of people who’d gathered on the long cantilever deck and danced what seemed to be the tarantella. Someone, a girl, had stumbled and fell into the pool, and two or three people jumped after her, their costumes soaked as they dove out of the water and began to play Marco Polo. The ruckus made Namjoon’s forehead crease and he murmured something to the executive before they disappeared inside.

The crowd and the noise had made you queasy, and for a long time you listened to Naeun report on who was coming and going and pretended to study the small letters on the card, the digest of the upcoming documentary where “the star anchor Y/N” would uncover the traditions of a previously unknown tribe. This woman written about on the card seemed to you someone other than yourself, a grinning television representative you might see if you switched on any channel other than the one you acted for. You wondered if Mido Nang would be sent to a deserted island with only one cameraman.

“Your first documentary,” someone said behind you, and when you turned you saw that it was Min Yoongi. “Looking good, baby. It’s going to look great. Superb.”

Seokjin stood beside him and flicked the gold lighter closed, smiling as Yoongi kissed you on both cheeks like a European.

“How’s Namjoon?”

“Namjoon’s around,” you told him, but Min Yoongi was staring at the very young girl who’d fallen into the pool.

His head canted to get a better look. “I’d like to get into that,” he said contemplatively to Seokjin.

“I wouldn’t call it an impossible mission.”

“Not much competition tonight, mostly sissies. Foreigners.”

“Maybe she’d go for a sissy.”

“Maybe I show her what a good time looks like.”

“Riddle of the week, Min.” Naeun showed her polished teeth and leaned over the table. “Whose ex-wife has been spotted whoring herself out at this very party?”

“Let me guess.” He searched the courtyard until he spotted Binna Lim kissing the actor’s assistant and looked wayward at Seokjin, allowing him to light his cigarette. “Your friend from the tabloids?”

“Friend?” Naeun was scoffing now. “Did you enjoy fucking her?”

He smiled. “Not particularly.”

Min Yoongi was staring at the girl again. He absently patted your arm. “How’s it going, baby? How’s Namjoon?”

At the table on the terrace where Naeun and you sat for dinner, aside from Seokjin and Yoongi, there were a Japanese actor, the director of his latest film, and two talk show hosts who lived in the skyscrapers across from Samsung Town. You sat next to the director, who spoke no Korean, and during dinner Seokjin and the Japanese actor disappeared into the house. You could see the white specks under their noses, the thin red fissure of vessels on the cornea, but this was not mentioned on the terrace. The director and two talk show starlets were discussing the dehumanizing aspect of film succumbing to westernism, in Japanese. When the actor got up to dance with a girl in a red halter dress, you excused yourself to the bathroom, only to find once you stood before the mirror that your eyes were wet, and the mascara was beginning to blotch beneath them. Why were you crying, you wondered. You couldn’t think of an answer.

[solar4seekstron]

Can I request TFA Optimus x Femme Autobot reader? If I can, I have a cute wholesome scenario with some feelings. At the Academy with Sentinel and Elita, Optimus was courting his classmate. But when Archa 7 happened and he was kicked out, they kept in touch via video calls. However, when Team Prime crashed onto Earth, they lost contact with each other. Then the Elite Guard comes to Earth and suddenly the reader is on the ship, having joined Ultra Magnus' crew on the ship. So they reunite and there's some emotions.

I. LOVE. THIS!!!! If you have seen of my other writings (that don’t include smut) I can defiantly write for this scenario! This will be long so Long chapter warning! Anyway I love this idea and I hope I do it justice!!!

Elite Guard

TFA!Optimus Prime x Cybertronian!Elite Guard!reader Oneshot

Content: SFW

Introduction Movies/Series Oneshot Masterlist

TW/Tags: wholesomeness and fluff so bad you’ll get sick.

It was a normal day at the academy. Orion Pax was named Optimus Prime at last at the time still. Every morning he would walk to class with his friends Sentinel and Elita. The trio were kinda the trouble makers from time to time when they’re spotted in the halls.

Optimus would always try his best to stay out of trouble though.

Once he made it to class he always sat next to a special bot. Someone who always puts a smile on his face. You. You feel the same towards him and you both were pretty shy when near each other at times. They all are at the age in Cybertronian years of being at your mid 20’s and courting is what some bots at the academy did. Though not everyone.

He had been courting you for a good while. Though today he thought he’d give you a small gift. Small energon candy that he noticed while shopping for anything else to give to you. Well that was mostly any other kind of food.

He looked the other way as he set the energon candy on you desk while in one of your classes. You noticed and looked at him with your usual gentle smile “thank you Optimus Prime”

“P-please call me Optimus, Y/N.” He blushed as his cervo rested on the back of his neck.

You chuckled and picked up one piece of the candy. And offered another to him “Please. Accept you.” Optimus doesn’t argue wanting to not deny you,

He takes the cube and eats it as you eat yours. Then classes started.

Some time later the class was outside. You and Optimus were next to each other. Standing with your arms behind your back as you listened to your mentor. He would glance at you every now and then as you did the same. As you two would train together. You both tried your best to not be heard chuckling as you two flirted with each other every time you two sparred.

After the long day everyone was headed to their sleep quarters as you and Optimus walked together. You both stand for a moment. “I’ll uh…see you tomorrow?”

“Y-yeah tomorrow..” you two looked at each other then down both blushing. You were quick to stand closer to him and kiss his cheek. Then runs off “see you Optimus!” You say blushing. He stood there with his blush more blue and had a silly grin.

From afar Sentinel and Elita can be seen watching with their heads tilted and hands on their hips.

“They do this….EVERY! DAY!” Sentinel yells as Elita side eyed him.

“Hmph I would say they’re a distraction…though they ain’t-“ the two groan and know they can’t do anything about it. So the two leave together. That was…until the two got an idea.

The next day you were in your shared class with Optimus. You were so excited and before you knew it. The whole day went by and you didn’t see him at all. You decided to go to one of your mentors and asked for Optimus. You were hot with the painful news. To you it’s painful. Apparently something happened to Elita. Optimus got the blame and Sentinel was allowed to stay. You were sad. Really sad.

You reached out to Optimus after classes and you two talked. He told you it’s best you don’t know. He was too ashamed. You knew Optimus and you trusted his word.

You hated seeing him like this. So you could only video chat with him. You both would call as you continued classes. And he looked for a new job. After a few days Optimus told you he is able to get a job in space bridge maintenance duty with some other bots. All with incredible promise. You were so happy for him…but because he only got more and more busy. You realized your courtship was over and you were so sad. After that other mechs and even fems tried to court you. But they weren’t- they aren’t your prime.

Rodimus was the only friend you could really talk to you. After some time you were finally made prime. And graduated along side Sentinel. You both didn’t talk much even when Magnus requested you both to join his team. The Official Elite Guard. You were part of the team now. Your dream….came true…..

———————————————————————————

It’s been many years since then. One day you were speaking to Jazz. And was interrupted by Sentinel walking in like he owned the place. Apparently one of the maintenance for space bridge duty were finally found their signal. And the possibility the all spark with them. You didn’t have much hope that it was Optimus team. You weren’t even sure what he was up to now.

After some time the ship made its way to a planet full of organic life. You didn’t have anything to say bad about organics. You never met one before but have grown curious.

Once the ship landed, there were these little creatures infront. You stayed in the ship as ordered by Magnus. Keeping an eye out for signals for anything doing with the all spark.

After some time the others return. You turned around and froze. It- it was Optimus!!!! He was talking to a yellow bot but when he looked up he too stopped. Both of your optics meet as the others looked at you two.

“Y/N”

“OPTIMUS??”

“Y/N”

“Wait like Y/N from the academy?” The yellow bot asked

“Yes…that’s them.” He says as you walked over. The other bots on his team jaws drops to the floor as they looked at you. You were pretty well built. Bulky but slim chassis and shoulder plates. A smaller waist and bulky hips. Your legs being the same as you stood tall. (I was thinking a lot similar to Rodimus in the series but with a smaller waist)

You hugged Optimus as the others continue to walk. Sentinel crossed his arms as the boys on primes team looked you up and down.

“It’s so good to see you Optimus!!”

“It’s incredible to see you too Y/N.” The moment is interrupted when Magnus spoke. You and Optimus had to separate as you had to return to standing next to Magnus. After some time Optimus and Magnus spoke and both Optimus, Sentinel, and Magnus both left to the area where Team prime last had their battle with the Decepticons.

You had to stay behind with the other bots as you waited. A bit disappointed you couldn’t stay next to him for a little longer. And so time went. You and Optimus always waved at each other and smiled.

After a few days you asked Magnus if you could explore this planet more. Maybe have one of the bots take you to discover. Magnus agreed and spoke like as if he was your sire. You said you won’t be long and head to team primes base. Little do you know as you drove. Optimus drive right past you. Both of your wheels can be heard stopping as you both recognized each other and transformed.

“OPTIMUS! Oh hey I was just making my way to uh…see you guys!”

“Magnus said you were heading towards us to ask if one of us can help you wonder and see more of the city. Thought…uhm…”

“I’d….like that.” You two stared at each other then down as you both blushed. “We umm…aren’t the young bots we use to be huh…so..Prime?” He asks as you two walked to the base.

“Yeah got picked to work for Magnus and well that’s where I’ve been.” He looked down. “Hey how about we go to the forest in the mountains. He can get a better view of the city from there”

You let out a small chuckle “Sure..I’d love to.”

———————————————————————————

You both drive to the mountain far up with a good view of the city. You transformed and stared into the city. You let out a sigh as you looked at the lights. Optimus behind you as he places his cervo on your shoulder.

“Y/N…I….i want to apologize.” You turned around to look at him. You’re back to the city now.

“I never meant to stop courting you. I-I wanted to find you and finish courting you but I was so scared you-“

“Optimus.” You held his cervos “it’s alright. Life just throws things at you…and maybe what happened was the universe telling us….that it just wasn’t time for us..But- But now! We can have our chance!”

“R-really? You’d still….take me?”

“Is that really a question?”

Optimus couldn’t stop smiling and was about to ask to court you once more. But you interrupted him before he spoke.

“Nope. You can only ask me. No courting.”

“O-ok Y/N will you make me the happiest bot and become My Conjunx?”

“Yes Optimus Prime. I’ll be your Conjunx.” You two stared at each other before holding each other in an embrace. After a moment you two pulled away and stared At each other.

Then at long last both of your dermas connect at last. Your kiss passionate and warm as you slowly close your optics. Both of your spark chambers opening. Allowing you sparks bond and dance together.

You and your conjunx can finally stay together at last.



Sorry that this took a while to make I kept getting busy. I hope you like 😊

[fourmoony]

May I go on a 𝐏𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 with Sirius and #6 if you’re feeling it <3 (I can’t get over how fun this celebration is!! Love you regardless of whether you’re feeling this or not haha)

pls don't stop requesting i'm having so much fun writing these lmao!!!! thanks angel, you're too sweet ♡︎

774 words | cw: none

Sirius is a ball of energy as he weaves in and out of stalls, a bag of cinnamon cookies in one hand and a caramel hot chocolate in the other. He has a pumpkin woollen hat on that Hope, Remus' mum, knit him last year, his hair falling in wild curls out of it. He looks happy. Undoubtedly so. It makes your chest warm, even if the rest of you is absolutely freezing.

You assume he's too excited to notice your sniffling, but when you hit the fifth time in two minutes, Sirius whirls on you to find you trying to wiggle some feeling back into your nose. Your cheeks redden, even more so than the autumn air has already made them. You've been caught.

When you'd told Sirius about the autumn themed market in town, he'd made immediate plans to take you. What you hadn't accounted for, was how high maintenance he'd be about the whole thing. This morning, when you arrived at his apartment, he'd practically reamed you out for not choosing appropriate attire. Apparently, stylish was not the vibe and "keeping all of your lovely limbs from getting frostbite" is.

Sue you, for wanting to look cute.

He'd rambled on for ten minutes about how cold you were going to be and only allowed you to leave the house when you agreed to wear the matching mittens to Sirius' hat.

"Don't even say it, Sirius." You warn him.

Sirius holds his hands up in mock defence, his smile equally as goading as it is knowing. "I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, doll face." He quips, stuffing the cookies into his jacket pocket and using his now free hand to poke at your cheek.

You try to bat him away whilst fighting off an amused smile.

"Oh, my!" Sirius beams, "Your cheeks are as cold as ice cubes," his pointer finger boops your nose, "Nose, too!"

"I'm fine." You pout, childishly.

It's rare, that Sirius is wholly right about something. You know he's going to milk this all day, now.

"If only you had a handsome, smart, caring, wonderful, boyfriend who could have pre-warned you that this might happen!" Sirius exclaims. Passers by eye you both sceptically, but you're used to the attention with Sirius - always the loudest in any room - Black.

"Okay, enough. I'm fine, really." You shoulder Sirius on, who's still muttering about how amazing he is at predicting the future.

The next few stalls are torturous. Your face only gets colder, your sniffling louder. Sirius refrains from goading you further, but seems to reach the end of his tether when he catches you blowing into your hands and rubbing them on your nose.

He sighs, pulling you to the side and out of the way of foot traffic.

"Okay, give me your face." He says, bluntly.

A startled laugh tumbles from your lips, "What?"

"Give me your face, I'm going to warm it up."

You stare at him perplexed, "Sirius-"

"No, your nose is practically blue. I love you, but I think I'm just vain enough to be less attracted to you if you don't have a nose." Sirius takes your face in his hands.

Your eyes go wide, desperate to fact check whether your boyfriend would actually love you less without a nose, but Sirius already has his entire mouth around your nose. His teeth nip the skin a little teasingly and you huff, resigned to the fate of having a slightly abnormal boyfriend.

You're glad he's pulled you away from the crowds as he blows hot air directly onto your nose. The warmth is welcomed, but his method is arguably questionable.

When he's done, he pulls back and gives you a once over. Then, he removes his scarf and wraps it in bundles around your neck. He presses a final kiss to the tip of your nose, which, thanks to him, you can feel.

"See, fixed it. Nose safe. Lets get some treacle tarts and head home." Sirius says, like he hasn't just tried to eat your nose.

It's a little much to keep up with, so you allow him to guide you, rather stunned, along to the next treat stall. It's not until you're home, in fuzzy pyjamas, with a mug of hot chocolate that you remember to ask, "Would you actually love me less without a nose?"

Sirius looks over, a little alarmed, with a mouth full of cinnamon cookie. He swallows, shrugs, devilish smile on full display. "As long as I'm here to save you, we'll never know."

You scoff, fuzzy socked foot reaching out to kick his thigh.

[cactusisconfused]

I have yet another idea. (Apologies for any grammar mistakes.) Some magic item turns Ghost into a kid, panic ensues.

-

The mission is straight forward in more ways than one. Intel confirms that the object that they are to be retrieving from the enemy is a highly dangerous weapon- a mission the 141 have ran more times than they could count. When asked about this weapon from Price to Laswell, she gave an easy confirmation, confident in the Intel gained. Confident in the location, the faces who were holding it- hell, they even knew the exact patterns for potential weather. Something so straight forward should’ve been the easiest thing they’ve ever done.

But it wasn’t.

Of course it wasn’t.

The mission itself went fine. The weather was just as it was described to be, same with the amount of people guarding the rusted old warehouse where this weapon of destruction was being stored. All four of the 141 made quick work of the enemies inside and out, eventually leading them to a small room where the weapon is stowed in. Upon entrance, the case sits in a desk, at an angle and on top of scattered pieces of paper. The case itself looks average, silver with black corners.

Soap approaches the case with care and observes it to clarify if the weapon could possibly be hooked up to an explosive or simply even be an explosive. Once he deemed that the four of them wouldn’t turn into a crisp, soap opened the case with swift but efficient hands.

Inside sits…something none of them were expecting.

Instead of a new weapon or some in the works chemical, there sat a black cube with an almost polished obsidian sheen to it. Upon closer inspection, letters are engraved on the edges of each side of the cube in a neat thin line. Soap scrambles to come up with what language is written but comes out with naught. He wonders for a brief moment if the lines are some scrambled code, but again, nothing fit.

With a sigh, soap calls over ghost to inspect the cube. Soap had learned a few months ago that ghost is apparently taken up a fascination with various languages and became very knowledgeable on the subject, something he was apparently into since he was a kid.

Ghost moves over to soap, Gaz taking his spot at covering the door with price. Carefully, ghost leans in, his eyes squinting slightly to focus on the engravings. Soap watches as ghost’s mind works and after a few moments ghost speaks.

“Is it safe to touch?” Ghost’s voice is quiet, a telltale sign that he’s focused.

With a nod Soap speaks, just as quiet. “Aye, don’t see any signs that it’s an explosive. Give it caution though.”

Ghost lets out a slight grunt and switches to hold his gun in his left hand. Carefully he reaches out to the cubic object and grazes the top face of it. The feeling is smooth and cool despite the barrier of his gloves. Ghost hand moves over the letters and sighs.

The letters look more like runes than anything if a Latin or Arabic alphabet. Some look familiar, like the line that cuts through itself at angle could possibly be a T or an X- or he could just be completely wrong. All and all he doesn’t recognize them.

“Got anything L.T?” Soap asks, his eyes flicking between ghost’s searching and the door.

“Negative. I’ve never seen this before.”

“What do you think it is then?” Soap asks, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Ghost observes the black cube in front of him a moment longer. “Not sure. Could be made up. Either way, we need to get it back to base and evaluated.”

Soap nods and looks towards price. “Package is secure.”

Price opens his mouth to speak to give new directives when the engravings in the cube begin to glow white, constant clicking sound beginning just seconds after.

Before any of them can act, besides price shouting a quick “Get down!”, the room becomes shrouded in a blinding white light- worse than any flash bang any of the 141 have gone through.

The light slowly dims after a few seconds, though it feels much more like an eternity. They all lay prone on the ground for a moment, each trying to blink the tears from their eyes.

“Any of you broken?” Price’s voice is gruff as it cuts through the panic that filled the room. Soap shakes his head and gives thumbs up as he squeezes and opens his eyes in rapid succession.

“I’m good.” Gaz lets out in a breathy tone as he moves to stand, using the door frame as a support. “Bloody hell, was that a flash bang? I didn’t see anyone.”

Price shakes his head, he didn’t see anything either.

“It was that fuckin’ cube. Started glowing and- shit, Simon?” Soap’s eyes finally cleared enough to see ghost on the floor, his body unmoving. He doesn’t understand how it took him and the other two this long to take ghost into account, they just got hit with a bright light, not an RPG. He’ll be the first to say that cube is a fucking curse.

Without a second thought, Soap scrambled over to ghost quickly then pausing just as fast. Simon isn’t- something’s wrong.

Something is very wrong.

Because where Ghost was standing right in front of the case now lays a kid. A scrawny, blonde haired kid with a shiner on his right eyes and a split lip. He looks no more than thirteen.

The room becomes utterly still as the other two realize what they are seeing. Price’s eyes widen in confusion and something akin to dread.

The silence is shattered with a sharp sting as the kid in Simon’s place sits up and rushes to back against the closest wall. The kid’s eyebrows are furrowed in anger, but his eyes are wide. His one brown eyes and one hazel eye. Simon’s eyes.

Shit.

Shit.

“Who are you- where the fuck am I?!” Kid Simon’s eyes flick quickly between Soap, Gaz and Price. Thankfully, Price is quick enough to get through his stupor and speak. The captain makes his face and voice softer- as soft as he can on an active mission.

“Easy son, we’re friendly.” Price puts his hands up in surrender. This however has the exact opposite effect as kid Simon snarls.

“Don’t call me son. Why should I fuckin’ believe you? What do you work with my dad?!” Simon’s British accent is just as thick as ever in his younger voice. The mention of Simon’s dad makes the room feel like it’s spinning. In one swift moment, the room feels like it’s spinning. Price cringes at the comment while Gaz look worried and utterly confused. Soap knows some of Simon’s past, and even then that’s lenient. Soap knows some about ghosts mother, that she was sweet and cared for Simon and his younger brother who he never got a name for. When he spoke of his father- if he ever spoke with of father, it was barely more than a few cut words. Enough to get the impression that Simon’s father wasn’t exactly someone you would want to be around.

Price began to open his mouth after quickly trying to find the right words to dissolve this situation as much as possible, mainly due to the fact that they’re still on an active mission and don’t exactly have all the time in the world. His soon to be words are cut off as footsteps and shouting began to make their way around the building- definitely not friendlies.

“Simon, I know you don’t know what’s going on, we can explain it later. But right now, you need to listen to us.” Soap cuts in, hoping that maybe Simon would at least vaguely recognize soap enough to semi trust them. To his surprise it works, or maybe it’s just the fact that bullets ricocheting off of walls became audible and the kid got scared. Either way, with a low grunt, kid Simon closed his mouth and nodded.

Soap tried giving the kindest smile he could muster and nodded at ghost. Quickly he stood and shut the case containing the cursed cube inside of it. The sound of footsteps have began to grow closer and Gaz and Price are by the door at the ready. Soap checks in gown weapons and tells kid Simon to get behind him.

This is going to be a long day.

-

Wow ok, this became a lot longer than I planned. I might do another part to this because this somehow broke me out of writers block?

For my sanity I’m also gonna put this here (because the internet is weird). Kid Simon and soap ARE NOT TOGETHER because that’s fucking gross.

[luvnami]

𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 - based on this tweet, set in a college!au 𝐜𝐰 - alcohol 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 1.1k+

Tomioka Giyuu has never quite been a senseless man. Most of the student body know him to be quiet and intelligent, but terrible at reading the room. He definitely was not the type to rock up to a club on a Friday night – Giyuu prefers heading to bed early, and it was many hours past his 10pm bedtime, thank you very much. Besides, there was club training tomorrow and-

“Giyuu!”

Your voice cuts through the club music that causes Giyuu’s eardrums to throb. He looks over to see you squeezing through a throng of sweaty club-goers, twisting your hips this way and that as you half-shout ‘sorry!’ and ‘excuse me!’. 

You had invited Giyuu as your plus one to Mitsuri’s birthday party. He normally would have refused, quoting some sort of fanatical reason that he couldn’t make it, but your argument caused Giyuu to shrivel up inside. 

“It’s not like you have anywhere else to be, do you?”

Giyuu stares off to the side as he remembers what you had said just a few days ago. Your gentle huff of laughter was the final nail in his coffin as he mumbled something along the lines of agreeing to go. You definitely were not wrong, as much as Giyuu hated to admit it. He had nowhere else to be on a Friday night. No one but you would invite him out, though you knew that he usually preferred to spend his nights alone thumbing through a paperback. 

But it was Mitsuri’s birthday! And it had been far too long since you had the opportunity to go out, so it was only natural of you to drag your best friend along. 

“What are you doing here?”

Giyuu shuffles his feet to make space for you as you finally reach him across the club floor. You squint your eyes at the toilet sign hanging above his head, directing drunk patrons to a safe haven for their throw-up. Giyuu has no answer for you. He shrugs weakly, eyes drifting over your frame briefly. 

Glitter on your eyelids catch the flashing lights of the club, turning into specks of a rainbow each time you blink. Giyuu stares at your lips. You had swiped on some gloss that night, and he wonders if your lips had ever looked so-

“Giyuu!”

He snaps out of it. You look crossly at him, eyebrows furrowed together. 

“Sorry,” Giyuu mumbles. 

He shoves his hands in his pockets and tries to focus on a piece of trash on the club floor. It was more apparent than anything that the poor man wanted to go home. 

“Have you had a drink yet?” you ask.

You raise a plastic cup of swirling liquid, melting ice cubes bumping against each other. Giyuu shakes his head. The moment you entered the club, he had lost sight of you as a sweaty couple shoved themselves rudely into his side. He vaguely remembers them trying to eat each other’s face off. Giyuu had then consigned himself to blend in to the crowd the best he could – at least, his definition of that was sticking to the toilet entrance till you collected him to go home. 

“Come on, you can have a sip of mine.”

Giyuu eyes the cup. There’s a faint lip print on its cusp. He rarely drank, if at all, and Giyuu opens his mouth to protest. But someone must have pushed you from behind, given how your body collides into his with a noise of surprise. 

Giyuu’s brain short circuits. His hands hover above your shoulders. He tries to connect the words to ask if you’re alright. But the music is loud, and the scent of your sweat and perfume hits him, and you’re so warm and and and-

“Asshole!” you shout, sticking a middle finger up at a random person. 

You take a step back and steady yourself. Giyuu is glad that the club is dim, and the lights are dizzying. He hopes you can’t make out the red splotches on his cheeks. He hasn’t even had a sip of liquor yet, but his head spins. 

“C’mon Giyuu. You don’t mind vodka, do you?” 

His eyes dart back to your face as you shove your plastic cup towards him once more. Giyuu protests, but the words disappear in his throat as his head nods yes. You grin. You gently guide him to an empty sofa a few steps away, and Giyuu’s grateful as his weak knees buckle. He falls back onto the fake leather seat and gulps as your feet plant themselves next to his. 

“Tilt your head back for me.”

Giyuu doesn’t like taking orders. But he obeys so easily as your hand cups his chin, thumb digging slightly into the meat of his cheek. 

God. 

Giyuu’s heart pounds faster than the bass-heavy track booming in the background. You place the plastic cup against his lips and he tastes strawberry lip gloss first, before vodka and sprite. He doesn’t know where to look. His eyes want to flutter half-shut as you pour the drink into  his mouth, but your eyes are so focused on his face that Giyuu barely musters enough courage to meet your gaze. 

His Adam’s apple bobs with each gulp. The alcohol burns its way down his throat and into his stomach and Giyuu hopes you can’t feel how his cheeks are on fire. You’re standing so close to him that Giyuu knows he could easily pull you into his lap. He keeps his hands balled tightly into fists, knuckles turning white. 

It’s over as soon as it begins. Ice cubes press against his lips and you pull the cup away, drained of its drink. Giyuu gasps for a breath of air as you pat his cheek once, twice. 

“Good job,” you grin.

Giyuu thinks he’s about to pass out. This is exactly why he stays in his dorm alone on Friday nights – so that he’s safe from you. 

Tomioka Giyuu has never quite been a man of irrationality. But… Perhaps he can be persuaded. 

-

Giyuu clutches the nearby lamp post for stability, the other hand on his knee. He retches into the street as his stomach turns itself inside out.

“Aw, Giyuu! You only had one drink…” you soothe, rubbing circles into his back.

His head spins and Giyuu thinks his eyeballs must have gotten lost somewhere in the back of his brain. He looks up at you with a blank stare and vomit trickling down the side of his mouth. You have to suppress a laugh. 

“I’ll call us a cab back, alright?” 

Giyuu nods, but all he sees after that is black.

“Giyuu!”

[jellieland]

This is somewhat inspired by some of the fics @theminecraftbee has written.

---

Two figures watch, from a nebulous nowhere, as Scar stands, alone, in the remains of his destroyed shop.

"I'm sorry," he says, mournfully, to no one.

"You Know," says the first figure, "I Really Wasn't Convinced When You Pitched This One."

Scar does not react. He cannot hear them.

"Yes," says the second, with an air of long-suffering patience. "I Do Know. You Were Very Vocal About It."

"...I really wanted to try and make some friends, this time." Scar, simultaneously right in front of them and a great distance away, sighs and looks up at the sky. "Oh, well. Nothing to be done about it now!"

"I Have Come Around To It," says the first.

"Good," says the second. "I Knew You Would."

They watch Scar start to sort through the mess.

"They Forget They Have A Choice," says the first. "It Is Fascinating."

They move on.

The move on to ash.

Skizz and Tango and Bigb stand right in the thick of it, quiet.

"You try to do one nice thing," says Skizz.

His hands curl into fists. He glares at the smoldering remains of the heart in front of him.

"You try to do ONE nice thing!" he yells, and punches one of the last remaining bits of wood.

Brittle from the fire, it breaks.

"Yeah, well! I guess this is why we don't," says Tango, resigned.

"It was always gonna happen eventually," says Bigb, voice level.

"They Always Try," says the first. "They Always Keep Trying."

"Yes," says the second. "They Chase Each Other In Circles Until All Of Them Are Dead. They Give Themselves Their Own Tasks."

"That Is Not What I Meant," says the first. "But That Is Also True."

They watch the three members of the Heart Foundation stand, for a while, in silence.

And they move on.

They move over to the mesa.

Martyn is standing inside his house, that used to be Jimmy's house too, facing the three chests on the wall labelled "TIMMY", "MUMBO" and "MARTYN".

He is talking animatedly, and gesturing. "-and I kept trying to get them to follow me there, but nobody was taking the bait. Honestly, you guys would've laughed at me. But it-"

They let the rambling fade into the background.

"A Good Dog," says the first.

"Yes," says the second. "He Does As He Is Told."

"-and I've honestly been feeling a bit left out today, isn't that funny? But- Bdubs said, he said he would join me next week, so-"

They move on.

They move to the cobblestone castle, in the side of the hill.

Grian is cooing over a small magma cube named Etho's Dishwasher.

Cleo and Etho are leaning against the staircase watching him.

"Are you both alright?" asks Cleo.

"Sure, I'm fine," says Etho.

"Me?" says Grian, turning around. "Oh, I'm good, I was being a total coward. I just hung around at the top of that tower by the Secret Keeper for ages and none of them ever thought to look up."

"Really?" asks Cleo, amused. "Some of them I would expect that of, but I'd think Gem would be a bit more on the ball."

"Well, apparently not," says Grian.

He turns back to the magma cube, and they settle into quiet.

"I Would Have Expected More Of The Alliances To Have Fallen Apart, By Now," says the first.

"Loyalty Is At Its Most Interesting When It Is Stretched," says the second. "These Three Know It Will Never Last. They Know That All Of Them Are Aware Of This. That Is Why They Are Still Here. They Know How Much They Can Care Without It Being A Lie. And Then Privately, They Care More Than That Anyway."

Eventually, Etho sighs. He looks tired.

He glances from Cleo, to Grian, and back, and after a moment of hesitation, speaks. "I, uh. I'm glad you two survived." He shifts awkwardly, and continues before they can respond. "I thought they were going to try and make me kill you, at one point, and- Grian, I don't know if you know this, but Cleo is scary when she's getting revenge. I did not want to have to worry about that."

Cleo laughs, slightly, and gives Etho a look of the deepest affection. "Well, I did die, is the thing, so thanks for reminding me of that."

"No, no, you knew what I meant! See, Grian? See what it's like?"

"Uh huh," says Grian, raising an eyebrow. "Well, thanks for not killing us."

Cleo frowns at him, suddenly curious. "Grian?" they ask. "Are you the only one who didn't die today?"

Grian opens his mouth, then stops to consider it.

"Or- no, wait. Martyn." says Cleo. "Well. Well done either way."

They watch the trio for a little longer, and then they move on.

They move to Scott.

He is alone, in a forest somewhere.

He is leant up against a cliff face, staring down at the floor.

"None Of Them Even Died, This Time," says the first. "Not Permanently."

"No," says the second. "It Was Controlled. Directed. There To Even The Playing Field. We Can Just Ask Them To Do That, Now, And They Will."

Scott draws his knees up to his chest, and rests his head on his arms.

He doesn't move, or shout, or cry.

He just stays there, quiet.

Eventually, they move on.

They move to the Secret Keeper.

Gem is standing there.

She is looking at it.

"If She Had Decided To Fail At The Start," says the first, "She Most Likely Would Have Lived. She Lost So Much More, Taking Things From Other People, Than The Nothing She Would Have Lost In Failure."

"Yes," says the second. "That Is My Favourite Part."

They watch her.

"Anyway," says the second, "She Would Not Do That."

"She Wouldn't?" asks the first.

"No," says the second. "She Understands Why It Is My Favourite Part."

Gem smiles.

"Thank you!" she says to the Secret Keeper. "That was a lot of fun!"

"You Are Welcome," says the second.

Blood on her hands, Gem turns and leaves, grin as bright as the sun.

They watch her go.

[xiaq]

Steddie Time Travel Fix-it: Pt. 7

Ao3 Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4 Pt. 5 Pt. 6

Eddie is good at puzzles

Cryptograms, jigsaws, Rubiks cubes, mazes. For all the trouble he has in school, he’s always loved word search and crossword assignments. He finishes first; he saunters up to the teacher’s desk; he slaps it down in the assignment box. He grins as they grade it with grudging respect. The strategy required for D&D was just as appealing, initially, as the escapism.

So. Eddie is good at puzzles.

Until, of course, Steve Harrington appeared in the early-morning hallway of Hawkins high, apparently having turned over an inexplicable and very puzzling new leaf.

Steve Harrington is unsolvable.

And it makes Eddie crazy.

He’d written out a list detailing the nuances of the Steve Harrington Puzzle. That was the title on the piece of the paper he’d torn out of his campaign spiral: There was the sudden friendship with Robin Buckley and the additional strange company he’d been keeping with Nancy and Jonathan and Barb. There was quitting the basketball team and absolutely burning bridges to ash with his former friends.

The panic attacks, related to flickering lights and D&D monsters The kids. The walkie-talkie check-ins and mentions of gates.

Chief fucking Hopper’s involvement.

The weird obsession Steve seems to have with Eddie. The flirting.

The baking.

Okay, the baking could be normal, but it’s still potentially out of character enough that Eddie doesn’t scratch it off the list.

Eddie's first hypothesis is drugs, even though that doesn’t explain everything.

As long as he’s not leaving town, there’s only one person Steve could be getting drugs from if he’s not getting them from Eddie. So Eddie walks to the gas station down the road and calls Rick from the pay phone outside.

“Hey. Weird question. Are you selling hard shit to Steve Harrington on the side?”

Rick laughs at him until he hangs up. That’s fair. It was a long shot anyway.

His second hypothesis is…

Well, that’s the problem. He doesn’t have a second hypothesis. Because nothing explains all of the everything going on with Steve and even drugs only explain like…half of it.

Eddie crumples up the paper and tosses it in the trash and the Steve Harrington Puzzle remains unsolved through Saturday night as he loads up his guitar and amp into Gareth’s mom’s car.

One of them really needs to buy a van or a truck or something. Showing up to your metal gig in a minivan is not the cool aesthetic they’re trying to embody.

Eddie has been trying not to have expectations. Just because Steve said, several days before, that he was going to come to their gig didn’t mean he’d actually show up. And unlike Eddie’s embarrassing, seat-saving hope from Friday, his anxious door-watching as they set up and then take the stage at Hideout does not pay off.

Steve doesn’t show.

Maybe he forgot. Maybe he changed his mind or something better came up or maybe he never intended to come at all. 

It doesn’t occur to Eddie that there’s another potential reason until he gets home, hoarse and jumpy with endorphins to find a note from Wayne by the phone. 

Steve called. Said he’d been in an accident and was sorry he couldn’t come. Sounded rough. Left his number for you.

Eddie calls the number, even though it’s late. It rings. And rings. And rings. They have an answering machine, because of course they do, but the woman on the recording sounds like a stuck up bitch and Eddie lingers, just for a moment, trying to think of something to say, before hanging up.

He tries again on Sunday, just past lunch. Still no answer.

By Monday morning he’s vacillating between annoyance and concern which takes a careening turn down the concern offramp when he catches sight of Steve in the hallway. His face is beat to shit and his neck––

His neck looks like someone tried to fucking hang him.

But despite the bruises and the line of stitches at his temple and the general signs of a thorough ass-kicking, Steve is moving through the tide of students around him with the unmistakable swagger of someone who won.

It really does make Eddie want to see the other guy.

Eddie isn’t thinking. Well, he is thinking, he’s thinking what happened and are you ok. He’s not thinking about optics as he pushes his way through the other students in the hallway, grabs Steve’s wrist and drags him into the bathroom. It’s empty, thank god.

“What happened?” Eddie says, tugging down the collar of Steve’s shirt so he can better see the—Jesus, the ligature marks on his throat. “Are you ok?”

Steve’s hands catch around his shoulders, pushing him back with an infuriating little smile that says he’s enjoying Eddie’s reaction. Enjoying Eddie’s concern about him nearly being killed, the sadistic asshole.

“Hey, easy,” Steve says, “I’m fine. Though that does hurt a little so maybe let go of my shirt, yeah?”

“Oh what, you can pull me into bathrooms and feel me up but I’m not allowed to return the favor?” Eddie snarls.

Steve goes delightfully pink. “Okay,” he says. “I’ve apologized for that.”

Eddie lets go.“And you still haven’t explained it.”

“I can’t.”

“And all of this?” Eddie gestures to encompass the entirety of Steve’s stupid, muscular, injured self. He’s wearing the same jeans and boots as he was on Friday, this time paired with a black T-shirt that is likely intentionally a size too small.  “Can you explain this?”

“I––”

“Can’t.” Eddie finishes with him.

At least Steve looks cowed about it.

“Are these the worst of your injuries or are there more under your clothes?” 

Steve opens his mouth and Eddie interrupts before he can say anything. “Don’t lie.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “My back is a little beat up, but it’ll be fine.”

“Let me see.”

“What, do you have a medical degree, now?”

“Let me see.”

“Fine. Fine,” he turns, bracing one hand on the sink and using the other to hike up the back of his shirt. “I forgot how goddamn annoying you are when you’re––”

He cuts himself off, going still. His eyes are wide where they meet Eddie’s in the mirror. “I mean. Sorry. Whatever. Look, I’m fine.”

Eddie looks.

“Oh my god.” He’s touching the mottled bruise down the left side of Steve’s spine before he realizes he’s going to do it and by then it’s too late. He tries to be gentle, at least. “What hit you, a truck?”

“Eddie.”

“Are you pissing blood?”

“Only a little. Honestly, I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

Eddie drops the shirt and lets Steve turn to face him, but he doesn’t step back. Instead, he leans closer still to inspect the tidy line of stitches hugging Steve’s temple.

“At least everything looks clean,” he murmurs, pushing Steve’s hair out of the way. “Did you go to the hospital for these? Please say you didn’t do them yourself.”

He doesn’t get a chance to answer, though, because Tommy Hagan pushes his way into the bathroom. Where Eddie currently has Steve pressed against the sink, nearly hip to hip, with his hand on Steve’s face.

He’s going to die today.

“Oh, fuck off, Tommy,” Steve says with a degree of annoyance that Eddie finds commendable considering the circumstances.

“What are you––what’s going on?” Tommy says as the door slides shut behind him. “Did Munson do that to you?”

Steve scoffs and Eddie should probably be insulted. Steve slides around him, putting himself just a hair in front of Eddie as he half-turns to face Tommy. One of Steve’s hands is on Eddie’s chest and Eddie isn’t sure how it got there, but it’s steady and firm, like he’s holding Eddie back.

“No,” Steve says. “He’s just a concerned citizen. What do you want?”

“He was touching you,” Tommy says, low and quiet and weirdly hurt. 

“He was,” Steve agrees easily. “But there’s nothing wrong with that. Friends touch each other all time, right? No reason to make it weird.”

The words land like a blow. Eddie watches as Tommy physically recoils from them.

“Steve.” Tommy sounds wounded.

“Tommy,” Steve answers, dispassionate.

Tommy’s eyes move to Eddie. Move to Steve’s hand on Eddie’s chest. He turns abruptly and shoves his way back out of the bathroom with a muttered curse.

Steve watches him go, and then, when he turns to face Eddie again, his mouth twists.

“Shit, I wasn’t thinking. I sort of implicated you, there. I swear he won’t tell anyone, though, even if he does think we’re––whatever. I can,” Steve exhales, shoving a hand through his hair, and then winces, either because of the stitches or his side. “I can tell him you turned me down.”

As if that would happen.

“No,” Eddie says. “It’s fine. I mean, a lot of people already assume that I’m––” he knows he shouldn’t ask but he can’t seem to help it, “––wait, are you?”

“Yeah?” Steve says, like it should be obvious. “I like both. Either. All.”

“Right.” Eddie says. Like his entire worldview hasn’t been shaken to the core. “And you and Hagan—?”

Steve leans back against the sink. “I’m honestly not in the practice of outing people, if I can help it.”

“Hey, I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“Yeah,” Steve says finally. “I know.” He’s got his hands braced on the lip of porcelain on either side of his hips. It makes his biceps look enormous. “We didn’t have a thing,” he murmurs. “Not really. I wanted to, which is embarrassing in retrospect, but––” he laughs and there’s nothing comedic to it. “Some guys are just fine with you giving them handjobs in the dark, but god forbid you ask them to kiss you in the daylight, you know?”

Eddie does know.

“Their loss,” he mutters.

Steve bites his lip. “Hey, so. I’m sorry I missed your show. Can I buy you dinner tonight as an apology?”

Eddie might not recover from the conversational whiplash. “What?”

“I can pick you up at seven?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Okay, cool. We should get to class.”

And then he’s gone. 

Eddie has a quiet, 30 second, existential crisis before following him.

***

Steve takes them to the diner again: same booth; same waitress.

She doesn’t try so hard this time to get Steve’s attention, either because she learned from last time or because Steve’s face looks like it’s been put through a meat grinder.

Regardless, they’re mostly left to their own devices and Steve gets him talking about the Lord of the Rings and once again Eddie finds himself flailing his way through a long-winded rant while drinking a chocolate milkshake. Steve watches him fondly.

He keeps forgetting that Steve is a giant, potentially dangerous, puzzle that needs solving in the face of his fond looks. It’s really becoming a problem.

Eddie is trying to find an elegant way of inviting Steve back to his place when Steve’s ever-present overstuffed backpack makes a static noise and then Eddie hears the muffled sound of Chief Hopper’s voice saying: Steve, you there?

Steve is out of the booth, throwing money on the table, in seconds.

Eddie scrambles to follow him.

Steve unzips his bag and pulls out the walkie before he’s even out the door.

“Hop?” he asks into the receiver. He doesn’t hold the door for Eddie which Eddie will be bitchy about later.

Are you still at the diner? Hopper asks. He sounds out of breath. 

“Yeah.”

I’m two minutes away, meet me in the parking lot.

“It’s happening now?”

It’s happening now. Sorry, kid, I know you probably haven’t recovered from Saturday yet but––

“No, it’s fine.”

Two minutes, Hopper repeats. Be discreet.

Steve starts running.

By the time Eddie catches up to Steve at the back of  the parking lot, he’s got the trunk of his car open and he’s pulling basketball uniform shirts out of a giant duffel bag. Previously hidden under the layer of jerseys are—guns. 

Holy shit, that’s a lot of guns.

And grenades? Probably. Eddie has never seen a grenade in real life but he’s reasonably sure those are grenades. 

“What.” Eddie says. 

Steve zips the bag back up, cursing, and reaches for a baseball bat wrapped in a towel. Except when he pulls it out by the handle, the towel falls away and Eddie realizes the top of the bat has been gored through with at least two dozen nails: Spiked and lethal and covered in a red brown patina. 

It could be rust.

Eddie is pretty sure it isn’t rust.

“Steve,” he says.

And Steve meets his eyes with a disturbing degree of calm.

Neither of them has a chance to say anything else, though, because Hopper's truck is careening into the parking lot and literally screeching to a stop a few feet away from them.

Steve tosses his bag of guns and his murder bat into the truck bed with a degree of familiarity that Eddie does not want to think about.

“What the hell, Steve,” Hopper is saying through the open window, “what part of be discrete did you not––oh.”

Eddie turns and when Hopper’s eyes settle on Eddie’s face, he stops talking.

 “Eddie,” he says.

And that is not a way that Chief Hopper has ever said Eddie’s name before.

“Hop,” Steve says levelly.

“Fuck,” he says, still staring at Eddie like—Eddie doesn’t even know. Like he’s a ghost, maybe.

“Right,” he says. “Munson.” He drags his attention back to Steve. “We need to go. Now. Is he—“

“No.” Steve says. “Absolutely not.”

“Am I what?” Eddie asks.

Steve is shoving something into Eddie’s chest. Eddie’s hand comes up automatically to close around—keys. Steve’s keys. 

“Do you know where my house is?” He asks.

“Yeah? Everyone knows where your house is, dude.”

“Don’t go home. Wayne is working tonight, right?”

“Yeah, but—“

“I need you to trust me. Please. Go to my house and––wait, no. The pool.”

He looks at Hopper.

“Henderson,” Hopper says. “The Henderson’s house. The other kids are already there. No nearby gates.”

“Gates? What the fuck are you two talking about?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Hopper says.

“Where are you going?” Eddie demands. “What is going on?”

“Eddie,” Steve says, urgent and terrible and wild. “Please.”

There’s an undeniable supplication in his tone, in his eyes, that makes Eddie say: “Okay. Alright. Just––tell me what to do.”

Steve pulls out a sharpie and a butterfly knife from his pockets. He pushes the knife into Eddie’s hand that is already holding Steve’s keys. He takes Eddie’s other arm and turns it palm up, uncapping the sharpie with his teeth. He writes hurried instructions across his wrist.

“Ok,” he says. “There. Take my car. Go to Henderson's house. Stay with the kids until I come back, okay?”

“When will you come back?”

“Late. Early. I don’t know. Before school tomorrow.”

“Steve,” Hopper says.

“Just don’t go back to your house, ok? Don’t go anywhere near Forest Hills or Lover’s Lake. We’ll get a message to Wayne too, but. Don’t go back. Go to Henderson's. Wait for me.”

“Steve,” Hopper says.

He squeezes Eddie’s arm. He lets go like it hurts him.

Steve climbs into Hopper's truck and Eddie watches them pull out of the parking lot with a dread he can’t explain sitting like stagnant water in his chest.

Eddie’s pulse is loud in his ears and heavy in his stomach as he considers the black ink on his arm; the knife; the keys. There’s a thunderhead building, eerie and green, eclipsing the sunset in the distance.

He walks to Steve’s car, closes the trunk, and opens the driver’s side door. He sits. He cranks the engine. 

Dio is playing.

He looks at the instructions on his arm, directing him left onto Main Street, and for a minute he considers obeying. He doesn’t. He puts the car in gear and turns right toward Forest Hills. 

He’ll go to Henderson’s. But Steve is acting like the trailer park is going to get bombed in the night and there are things at the house that…there are things he needs. He still half thinks this is all some giant prank, but Steve’s injuries are real and the guns were sure as hell real and Hopper is real.  If something terrible is going to happen tonight, Eddie has to save his guitar, his mom’s records, the t-shirt from the first concert Wayne ever took him to. He’ll need to get Wayne’s favorite mug and the rosary Wayne’s mother left him and their social security cards and other important documents from the drawer in the kitchen. 

It’ll take five minutes. Guitar. Milk crate of records. One bag of assorted shit. And then he’ll go to Henderson’s.

Five minutes.

In and out.

It’ll be fine.

[emptybattlefield]

"just a little more" (day 12)

Dipper perseveres through some outdoor work with Grunkle Ford, and pushes himself too far. This is a combo with Heatstroke.

“What the hell does Ford have him doing out there?” asks Stan lackadaisically, sipping on a strawberry lemonade that he and Mabel just cooked up. It is the hottest week of the summer, and the two are cooped up under the shade of the veranda. 

Mabel sits on her knees in the chair beside him, tipping another packet of Stan’s sweet-n-low into her glass. “Disinfecting some kind of gadget parts. Apparently gnome saliva is very dangerous,” she answers. 

Stan grunts, and keeps an eye on Dipper, who’s wearing a hazmat suit, standing over one of Stan’s folding tables, which is laden with gadget parts of various shapes and sizes. Ford was nowhere to be seen. Stan takes a swig of his pink drink. Dipper rounds to the other side of the folding table—trips over one of the folds in his too-large hazmat suit. Stan is tight in his chair as the boy successfully catches his balance. 

But then, a second later, he faints. 

Stan is up from his chair in an instant. “Dipper!” Mabel cries while her uncle bolts across the lawn. 

Stan unzips the suit—trying his best to avoid iridescent rainbow goo—and slips Dipper out of it like a shell. The kid’s hair is plastered with sweat from nape to crown. Stan picks him up and carries him inside the kitchen.

He yells for Ford to come up. Where the hell was he? Stan places Dipper on the cool countertop. Heavy footsteps pound up the laboratory stairwell. Meanwhile, Dipper is listless, pale, and not very responsive.

The look on Ford’s face as he reaches the landing… “Dipper!” he hollers, rushing over. “Dipper, it’s your Uncle Ford. Is he alright?” 

Their nephew shifts—but does not rouse. 

Ford is already unsheathing his pocket vitals machine. “Dis you see any gnome saliva on him when you found him?” he asks. 

Stan wanted to slap him. “He’s done collapsed from heatstroke, you idiot. Dipper, it’s Stan. We’re gonna get you cooled off, kiddo.”

“Blood pressure is low. His temp is 103.4 degrees,” Ford says worriedly.

Stan glares at him. He found himself combing his thick fingers through the kid’s sweat-slicked hair. “You are not* a medical doctor.”

“I never said I was, Stan,” Ford states categorically. “I have 14 Ph.Ds, and a bachelor’s of science in nursing. You said Mabel’s running a bath, right?”

Suddenly, Dipper’s whole body stiffens and shudders on the countertop peninsula. His eyes fly open. “What did I just do?” he asks fretfully. 

“You fainted. You’re gonna be alright,” Stan answers gently. He carries him through the house to the bathtub, and lowers him in. His body twitches from the sharp cold. Mabel stands in the doorway—her worried, pink fingers at her mouth. The empty ice cube trays were discarded upon the toilet seat.

Ford quickly follows behind. Stan saddles the side of the bathtub, sitting him up—one of his dark socks underwater. Poor Dipper dry heaves, but nothing comes—false alarm. 

“Am I…contaminated?” Dipper directs his fearful look to Grunkle Ford. 

Ford replies, “No, son. Just a touch of heat exhaustion, by the looks of it. Best for you to stay in the bath a while, I’m afraid.”

Ford offers him some cool water, and Dipper sips it slowly. Ford can’t tell, but Stan can see that Dipper looks disappointed in himself. 

“Temp’s better,” says Grunkle Ford. “Pressure’s bounced back, too.”

Together, they laid Dipper back, so that all but the rounds of his shoulders and face were underneath the water. His shorts poof out to both sides. Mabel keeps him company. Ford disappears outside to retrieve the tableful of machinery pieces—apparently, they can’t be left in the sun for too long without damage.

The visceral zing! of the gnome saliva creeps into Stan’s spine. His head starts to feel a little light and airy under its influence. He ultimately ignores it. After some time, Stan grabs a bath towel from the top shelf of the closet. He shoos Mabel so that her brother can change and get into bed. 

Stan wasn’t the tucking in type, but he asks Dipper, “Kid, what were you thinking? Did you feel yourself overheating, or…?”

“I don’t know…I guess I did, but I was so focused on decontaminating,” he responds, ashamedly. 

“Just—all I ask is that next time, you listen to your body. Think you can do that for me?” says Stan.

“I will—next time,” Dipper replies sadly. 

Grunkle Stan laughs— “Y’know, way-back-when, you had to throw something at your Grunkle Ford to get him to even look up at you, if he was in the middle of a really good book.”

Dipper beams. 

“All’s I’m saying is—you didn’t get it from me,” Stan tells him.

“Where is Great Uncle Ford?” Dipper asks.

“Getting the gadgets. Something about the sun ‘degrading the finish.’ But, he agreed with me. It’s best you take it easy the rest of the day,” says Stan grimly. “You’ll be up and at it tomorrow.”

Stan leaves Dipper to himself, and descends to the basement lab. Ford looks up as soon as he hears Stan’s footsteps. “How is he?” Ford asks worriedly. 

Stan can’t help it—he sees red, and immediately shoves Ford into the concrete laboratory wall and pins him there. He has his brothers collar between his knuckles.

“You are on thin ice with me, Poindexter, you get that?!” Stan hisses, inches from his face. “How old were you when you had your first job mowing lawns? You know that he idolizes you. He wants to please you—that’s why I can’t let him turn himself inside out doing your* legwork.”

“I’m sorry, Stan, I’m terribly sorry,” Ford says helplessly.

Stan lets him go. The old man shakes his head. “Honestly, I think it’s good you let him work with you, but when are you gonna get it through your thick, plated skull—he is not your peer, Stanford,” he says all too frustratedly. 

Ford coughs. “I know that, Stanley—”

“You better,” Stan warns. “Because need I remind you—everybody else in the world thinks you died in ‘92. If anything happens to those two kids, it’s me who has to answer to their parents. You get that?”

“Understood,” answers Ford regretfully.

Stan grumbles something inaudible—and says nothing more to him before trumping back up the staircase.

McGuckett was the one who produced Ford’s industrial six-fingered gloves. Now that he had his memories back, the first thing Ford asked him for (aside from his forgiveness) was to make Dipper a pair as well. Ford had them on his desk because he was going to surprise Dipper with them once they returned. With how small they were—they looked silly now. 

When Ford emerges from the basement lab, he tenuously asks where Dipper is.

“Sleeping,” Stan retorts. He and Mabel are at the table playing cards. “Best you let him.”

“Grunkle Ford, do you want us to deal you in?” Mabel asks kindly. Stan’s stony face is in his lap.

“Sure. I can play one round,” he says. 

After several, Ford enters the twins’ bedroom, hoping to apologize to Dipper, but he’s out like a light—little threads of drool hang from his lower lip. Ford places the note on Dipper’s bedside, and the gloves on top to weigh it down. Outside, Mabel is calling a bit too loud because it’s his turn. Ford closes the door quietly.

*end*

[enigmatist17]

Mirage/Hound was my first love, haven't written for them in a hot minute. Also, Hound isn't like his canon Bayverse self, ngl I am not a fan, and no one can stop me :)

Also part 2, the Autobots were not wiped out, because holy shit I hate that that even happened

---

The first time Hound met Mirage, it had been less than six jours after the illustrious Towers had fallen, a large portion of the Cybertronian royalty wiped out as a testament to Megatron's power. No one wanted to say it from either side, but not much coolant was shed for bots that had held major sway in the Functionalist system of Cybertron, innocents aside. The few survivors either fled to neutral cities or simply disappeared, and as far as Hound knew up until this point, you could count on one servo those who joined the Autobot cause. The former noble was sitting alone in what served as a mess hall, a cube of energon sitting in front of him as the mech stared at the glowing liquid without actually seeing it. Hound knew the signs of someone trying to escape the reality around them, so he grabbed his own ration and headed for the white and blue mech, only to get stopped by someone he didn't recognize.

"I wouldn't bother him, he only ignores us peasants." The disdain drips from every word, but Hound isn't phased as he gently brushes past, taking a seat at the table across from the other mech. The other mech had a smaller frame upon closer inspection, his plating looking almost like one entire unit with how it had been assembled with care, despite the numerous scratches and bumps that littered a once pristine surface. Hound took a sip of his energon when he saw a flicker in the other's optics, doing his best to look nonchalant as his body language tensed almost immediately.

"May I help you?" The soft-spoken yet commanding voice was not what Hound expected, but in a way, it suited the mech across from him.

"No, I'm alright." The bigger mech shrugged at the question with a soft smile, setting his cube down to extend his servo. "I'm Hound, it's nice to meet you...?"

"...Mirage." Mirage's smaller servo slips into his as he gives a short but firm handshake, pulling away after a moment. "I do not often have company, may I ask why you are here?"

"You seemed lonely." Optics cycle in surprise at the simple response, and Hound finds his spark ache a little bit at the evident surprise. "So, I figured I would come say hello, keep you company."

"For what reason?" A slight frown crosses Mirage's face, waiting for some unspoken punchline. "A dare?"

"Nope, just giving a lonely mech some company." Hound keeps the smile on his face and a content feeling in his EMF field, saying nothing when he feels Mirage brush his own field against his before drawing it up and into his armor.

"Very well, Hound, if you wish to stay, that is your prerogative." The green mech considers the venture successful when Mirage drinks his ration, talking about everything and nothing to fill the silence.

The noble is hanging onto every word, and Hound already thinks about what they'll discuss tomorrow.

---

Mirage remembers the first time Hound made him feel like more than an outcast in the army he fought for. For a long time, he was shunned or outright ignored, his former social status as royalty apparently paramount to criminals after his home was destroyed. He took every jab and insult on the chin, too numb from having no time to mourn his old home to even care.

Then Hound joined him one day, and that all began to change.

Every cycle they shared off-time Hound was there, sometimes talking to him, sometimes just sitting with him in companionable silence. It went on for a good while before Hound joined him one day with a new bot, the mech introducing himself as Jazz with a grin that slightly unsettled Mirage. Jazz wasn't always available for their little table chats, but the noble found himself growing to like the other mech, even more so when Jazz revealed that he was one of the saboteur commanders.

"I've known Hound fer ages, an' I'd like ta poach ya for my division. You've shown some great marks in subterfuge, an' yer outlier only makes that more obvious. An' on the plus side, you'd get to see my main mech here a lot more." The smile sent his way is one of the more genuine ones Jazz had been giving him as of late, and his optics flick over to Hound, who is just giving that Primus damned smile he thought of constantly.

"I would like that very much."

It's the day after he's transferred that Mirage learns Hound had been crossing the massive base just to refuel with him every cycle, and his spark flutters at that knowledge. He has suspicions that Jazz is why Hound took an interest in the noble, but whenever he asks, the commander only shrugs and grins.

"Don't know what ya mean."

Uh huh, and he's secretly Primus.

It doesn't matter before long, however, as Mirage finally felt like he belonged somewhere in the Autobot army for the first time. His soon-to-be fellow saboteurs were on their best behavior at first, but over time, they seemed to genuinely accept the noble as one of their own, even if they did mock his attitude at times. It was...soothing, to consider some bots like Bumblebee and Tracks friends, bots who hadn't really cared about his past in the first place. As long as he could keep them alive and carry out missions, it was all that was needed, and it was what he best excelled at. Seeing friendly smiles after long missions that could span jours was a significant boost to the spark, but nothing compared to the joy he always felt when he saw Hound after those missions. All it took was a smile from the bigger mech to send his spark soaring, Hound laughing at times when Mirage would shimmer out of sight to hide his embarrassment.

It wasn't perfect, but in war time, everyone took what they could.

---

The first time Hound and Mirage were parted for more than a few jours, it had been when Cybertron was abandoned by both factions. In the chaos of ships fleeing the planet that was quite literally turning into a husk, draining the life from anything filled with energon, they had become separated. Rendevous points were either met by ships crammed full of mechs, or turned into graveyards by other ships lying in wait, sending the Cybertronian race out and into the stars. Cycles turned into jours, jours turned into vorns, and soon vorns turned into simple routines, mechs just trying to find allies or simply survive the remainder of a War that many doubted was still ongoing.

What was there to fight for now? Their home was dead, what had once started as a bastion for change had ended with the destruction of the very planet they had all loved once.

Mirage had managed to flee in a small ship that, quite frankly, should have fallen to pieces long before he had picked the first message from anyone in over a centi-vorn, latching onto his communications console in near desperation. It had been far too long since he'd heard another voice besides his own, let alone Optimus Prime, so he let the message play across the small bridge as he listened in stunned silence.

I am Optimus Prime, calling all Autobots. It is time...to come home.

The glyphs that spelled out the planet the Prime had settled on were hurriedly input, and for the first time, Mirage allowed himself the first brush of hope to settle in his spark. The journey to this new planet took him a further three jours, the saboteur forgoing even basic energon scavenging the closer he got to the galaxy that held the Prime and his current allies. The sight that greets him when he drops out of hyperspace for the last time is one that makes him power down the engines, cycling his optics as if to change the sight before him. Cybertron and this new planet were...entangled, for lack of a better term, the husk he had left so long ago no longer the unsettling dark grey that had faded away as he ran. The "chains" that led from the new planet to Cybertron glowed the familiar blue of energon, and both planets seemed to have found some sort of synergy despite whatever had caused this merge in the first place. A small shuttle eventually makes its way towards his ship, Mirage powering down the little weaponry he'd installed over the years as a gesture of good faith as it came to a stop several yards away. It took a few moments before a communications ping appeared on his monitor, and Mirage jabbed the button probably a little harder than necessary.

"Alien craft, identify yourself and your faction." While Mirage did not understand the vocal communication, the text sent alongside held a Cybertronian translation. "If you do not understand my voice, we can send you a translation packet; just send us back something in your language."

Hm, interesting.

Mirage sent a glyph of greeting in response, and a rather hefty data packet was sent a few klicks later, providing him access to something called the internet. The shuttle was likely full of something called humans, and after trying out a few dialects, Mirage moved to reply in his own voice rather than text.

"This is the Blade of Dorin, and my designation is Mirage." Oh by Primus it was a bit of a processor rush to be able to speak with someone! "I am a part of the Autobot faction."

"Well well, an Autobot! Let us cross-check and make sure you're above board, and we'll go from there." The guarded voice turned friendly as Mirage slumped back into his pilot's chair, hoping dearly this was more than a dream. "My name is Robert Epps, nice to meet you man."

"Likewise. You are a human, correct?"

"Mhm, since the day I was born." This Epps chuckled before he was interrupted, a muffled clap sounding over the comm. "Well well big guy, seems like you've caused a bit of a stir back down in HQ! You just follow us, and we'll bring you in to the landing zone."

"Proceed." With a click the communications were cut, Mirage following the now obvious Earth and Cybertronian constructed craft down and into a planet that was just so...colorful, he nearly veered off course in distraction.

"You alright back there?" Epps sounded amused as Mirage adjusted course, idly wondering what Hound would think of the planet as he reset his vocalizer. "Pretty, ain't it?"

"I've never seen such intense color in water, nor foliage." Sure, there are probably planets out there that were just as vibrant, if not more so, but he had never stopped long enough to take notice.

"Trust me, you're only seeing a fraction, we have a whole host of climates."

"As you say." The journey over the water ends at a massive compound that stretches throughout three interconnected islands, several bots gesturing up at his ship as Mirage was led to a massive airfield, a few other Cybertronian ships parked all over the tarmac.

"Welcome home, Mirage; let me be the first to officially welcome you to Earth."

"Thank you, Robert Epps, it is nice to be...home." The word had not graced his derma in a long time, the saboteur powering down his faithful craft with a gentle pat to the main console after he finally found his landing spot. "You have served me well."

Now, all he had to do was leave....easy, right?

Being a spy was, by trade, a bit of a lonely job on the best of assignments. Forced isolation by fleeing your home planet...less so.

So if it takes Mirage a few good klicks to work up the nerve to open the airlock door, that's no one's business but his own, the seal letting out a hiss as the door pops open. He stands still for a moment in the threshold as fresh air floods the inside of his ship, offlining his optics after reaching out to the sunlight flooding the outside, engine letting out a pleased rumble at the warmth.

"Y'know, you can come out and actually stand in the sun." Optics onlining, Mirage looked around before a sound dragged his optics down, revealing a small organic standing with its hands on its hips, nodding its helm. "Promise we don't bite."

"Robert Epps?" The organic nodded as Mirage finally left his ship, closing up his ship before stretching his sore limbs, wondering what the strange smell lingered within the refreshing breeze.

"Epps, all my buddies call me Epps." The human was unphased as Mirage knelt down to his level, extending a digit after combing through accepted greeting gestures. It took a second for the N.E.S.T agent to realize what he was doing, but he shook "hands" with the other bot with a grin. "First bot I've ever met with manners."

"Undoubtedly." Epps grinned when Mirage pulled back to stand once again, the two no longer able to ignore the vehicles approaching the airfield. "It appears the other welcoming committee has finally reached us."

"Good luck, they're always excited to see new bots." With that Epps headed towards Mirage's ship, taking a seat on the step that led into the ship as Mirage watched the entourage transform from their strange alt modes, the foremost being Optimus Prime himself. The Prime held up a servo to silence the myriad of voices, Mirage standing at attention when he approached the newcomer.

"Mirage, it is good to see you alive and well." Optimus looked a lot more worn than Mirage had last seen, but it had been a long time, the two clasping arms in greeting.

"It warms my spark to see you too, sir, I have not seen a single mech in a very long time." The smile on his face is genuine as Optimus released his arm, eyeing the other mechs lurking a few feet away in slight discomfort. "How many of us are here?"

"Just over a hundred Autobots and Neutrals, our numbers grow as my message makes its way amongst the stars. I invite you to -"

"Mirage?" Whatever Optimus is saying takes a backseat as Mirage whips his helm around, the group of bots parting to reveal a green mech near the back of the grouping. His frame is a little bit boxier than it had been back on Cybertron, and the green paint is a little darker, but those optics hadn't changed in the slightest.

"Hound?" The designation is heavy on his glossa as the bigger mech practically pushes his way past anyone still in his path to Mirage, the noble trying to process that it was indeed Hound coming toward him when servos are gently grasping his helm. The contact burned as much as it left him wanting more, Mirage melting into the touch with a soft sigh, pretense be damned at the moment. "I never thought I would see you again..."

"Neither did I." The scout scanned Mirage as his other half cycled his optics off, fighting the urge to go all mother hen as the humans said, settling for pressing a kiss to the top of Mirage's helm. "I hope you know that this time, I'm not letting you go."

"I wouldn't dream of it." The saboteur let out a weak laugh as he wrapped his EMF field around the scout, nearly giddy with the returning affections running through Hounds in return. "Primus I have dreamt of this for so long..."

"I know." The unspoken promise that they would finally bond the moment privacy was afforded rang through their intermixed fields, the two never having had the chance before being separated.

That could wait, for now, Hound was just happy to have his Mirage back and in his arms.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

sometimes I just write a scene I really like and want to share it right away before the rest of the chapter is ready to post, so have a sneak peak of the next chapter of Baby Steps, featuring good ol' Stan Twins bantering:

Stanley, for his part, suggests convincing the town that he's a fortune teller and charging for readings no less than three times. Apparently, he'd done it more than once during the loop. 

"And now most of the town knows you," Stanford argues. "Ignoring the fact that you would have had a limited amount of "predictions" before you ran out of what you'd learned during the loop, you've definitely missed your window now." 

"Eh," Stan says, twisting Fiddleford's abandoned Cubix Cube in his hands. Stanford doesn't think he's ever seen him actually solving it; he thinks he just likes having something to do with his hands. "I could get people to buy it. Ma did it all the time without a time loop, and that was Jersey schmucks! Gravity Falls schmucks are even more gullible. I'd fleece 'em dry, Six!"

"Until they figure out the con and run you out of town. Like every other con you've told me about." Stanley winces. He appears to focus harder on the Cubix Cube to avoid looking him in the eye. "This is why all your cons fail. You never think far enough ahead."

"You never think far enough ahead," Stanley mumbles to the Cube, twisting it roughly. Then he blinks down at it and lifts it triumphantly with a shout. By chance, he's managed to line up the entire green side; Stanford will hold his awe until he manages to do the same with the other sides.

He rolls his eyes. "You've already been banned from most of the country, Stanley. I'd prefer not to get run out of my own house because you add Oregon to the list. By trying to fake a supernatural ability in perhaps the most supernatural town in America."

"Have more faith in me, geez," Stanley argues, turning the Cubix Cube again. He frowns down at it when the move breaks up the green again. "Wait" — he glances up at Stanford — "why would you have to leave your house?"

"Because obviously I'd be going with you."

He watches the grin build on his brother's face and runs the sentence back in his head, recognizes how utterly saccharine it sounds, and hurriedly cuts off the mocking before it can begin. 

"Not like that! Because you'd drag me into it somehow, I know you would. You always dragged me into your schemes."

Stanley snorts. He gives up on the Cube, tossing it on the table. "My schemes, huh? Wasn't me who came up with the homework ring in fifth grade."

Stanford flushes. He shoves a forkful of roast in his mouth to give himself time to think of a retort. Stanley waits patiently—the way he only does when he knows Stanford's walked himself into a corner. 

"I might have come up with the initial idea—" 

"Might?"

"But you were the mastermind!" Stanford insists, pointing the fork at him. "You're the one who got us our clients!"

His brother just grins, looking far too satisfied with himself. "Yeah, I was, wasn't I?"

Stanford had forgotten all about the homework ring, in the same way he'd erased most of his own willing participation in their antics from his memory—the same way he'd adopted, for a while there, his father's way of thinking and pretended Stanley had been the troublemaker and Stanford himself above such things, as if it hadn't been him who'd suggested dropping one of the dissection frogs in Crampelter's locker on a Friday so it had the full weekend to marinate.

As if he hadn't always been right there beside his brother even when it wasn't his own idea.

Still, he doesn't want their reputation in town to get any worse, what with most of the town thinking Stanford's a drunk menace at worst and a paranoid recluse at best and Corduroy Lumber already warning other businesses off hiring Stanley. His brother has even complained that most the stores are cracking down on his shoplifting, suspicious enough now to keep a closer eye on him.

They're certainly a pair. Made for each other, he supposes. Trouble whether they're with each other or not.

The thought is weirdly reassuring. 

"I could call Ma and ask for tips," Stanley considers.

"Please don't."