#i got a shit ton more content and its time to fucking party

[kazxraval]

The relative silence on the ship felt like some kind of trap. For all the racket Kaz made, no footsteps slapped across the deck. No search parties roared and shouted for a piece of anyone. Thankfully. Without any real way to protect himself, the current injuries Kaz carried would be easy to attack and disable. Next time, would he wake again in the moldy old bedroom on a boat? Or not at all.

Kaz comforted with a simple idea: it meant Emre possibly stalked through the ship. Not as a roadman. As a soldier? A form Emre gave shape to as they talked in the grotto. A shadow Kaz knew of but never saw before. Not fully. Perhaps seen in bits and pieces. Parts of a whole that changed everything.

In the supply room, Kaz used the sharp edge of a desk to try and escape the zip tie around his wrists. When the light under the crack of the door broke up to reveal movement on the other side, he stopped sawing and reached for the first thing his restricted hands found.

The door was flung open. Blurred vision instantly sharpened. Pain in his side forgotten enough for his lungs to expand with an excited breath. Tongue nudged at the open crack in his upper lip, which had an irresistible taste of metallic bruises. At first, he croaked: "You're okay?" A reasonable question as Emre was covered in blood. A veritable Jackson Pollock of blood splatter on his shirt, the left side of his face and neck. Sunny freckles and moles had bright crimson counterparts. Thicker stray stripes of red across the belly, a pool of the stuff near his shirt collar. Dried patches of blood heavier around the wrists and faded up to the elbows. Once he knew Emre was indeed uninjured, the blood became rubies lavished adoringly on a Mughal prince. "Thought you'd never find me." An audible exhale, a smile brighter than any he'd felt in a long, long time. Favorite. Beautiful one, the only one. "Get me out of this," he whispered and held out his wrists, the skin cut up and rubbed raw with the zip tie still harshly cinched. "This fucking thing is tough as hell to take off."

"They had me in a room downstairs but I got out. If I didn't find you, I was gonna turn the boat around. Go back for you." He ducked to rest a cheek against Emre's as he waited to have his hands freed. "What did they do to you." Quiet enough to hear the brush of their beards together, and his lips left a wet dab of blood on Emre's earlobe as Kaz whispered again. "Did you kill them all?"

Once Emre freed his hands, he went back to items on the shelf. Kaz had been able to snap open a case, and now he removed what was inside. "It's a speargun." Never held one before, and it felt sleeker and light than imagined. "Fucking wild, hm? Can't believe people fish with this shit. Cheating, isn't it." A spear was pulled from the case and Kaz figured out how to load it into the barrel. "Still got the axe?" They didn't have a ton of time to rummage through the place. Kaz quickly scanned higher on the shelf. "There's some big, ugly looking hooks up here. A chain, a winch that could knock someone's head off..."

Kaz opened his mouth for more ideas but the boat tipped unexpectedly. A loud thunk! rattled the bones of the ship. He grabbed onto the shelf in front of him to stabilize, as he also tried to give Emre a hand. However, the ship rocked and Kaz was knocked against another shelf that rained its contents down on top of him.

Kaz looked to the ceiling above. "What are those stupid fuckers doing." Didn't take a captain to determine the ship's engine had shut down. (Or manually shut down?) A bare light in the room flickered before extinguishing. "The engine." Kaz pushed away a few boxes and heavier canvas bags of supplies that dropped on him. He planned out the best and least painful way to get back up on his feet.

"Really need to get out of here. We can see who's left. Maybe start the engine again on our own, get back to land." Kaz moved to the door, an indication he wanted to lead the way. "Anything else I should worry about on the other side of this door?" A beat. "We, I mean."

As Emre waited for the boat to set sail, he couldn't help thinking about Georgina's supposed last words to him: wish you'd gone to dinner now, don't you.

Maybe true, but also Emre suspected there likely was no 'dinner'. Kaz seemed about as hateful towards this Georgina as he was towards his parents; but Georgina claimed to love Kaz - something his parents likely never did. Or never in a way that Kaz could believe. Could Kaz have once...believed in Georgie's care?

So Georgina was likely a big liar, and possibly even betrayed Kaz. Or hurt Kaz irreparably, which was bad enough. It made bile rise in Emre's throat to think he'd almost done to same to Kaz too. One more to add in a long trail of betrayals if Emre hadn't done everything he could to repair things. And for Kaz to even allow Emre a chance to repair...with this new context, it took Emre's breath away.

Feroze on the walkie talkie. Time to set sail, and Feroze mentioned something about 'cargo'. Couldn't find 'Taylor'. An urgency to set sail, and it seemed Georgie agreed.

An engine rumbled - so it had enough petrol left in Seattle to motor the thing, interesting. Fuel had to be precious though. Georgina and her 2IC were not setting sail on a luxury yacht for fun. Georgina wanted to get to her destination in style, to impress. But...were they headed to the mainland, or further out to sea?

Regardless, this all meant that Kaz was definitely on-board.

Feroze headed up to the bridge, leaving a guard patrolling the bow. Zaid heafd a ruckus below deck. A constant, if slightly erratic - BOOF. BAFF - something constantly slamming into a barrier. The muffled sound of Georgina's high-pitched voice, petulant and annoyed.

And then - a heavy roar that uncoiled a sudden liquid-heat deep in Emre's belly. The confirmation, the forcefulness of a man who could never give up. Not when it was important. Not when it was...

...Emre smiled. A length of thin silk boat-rope around the guard's neck made for silent disposal. He could go down to save Kaz now, but Emre wanted to do better.

He swung up to the bridge deck and easily located the Captain, having set course and just popping to his cabin. Giving Emre the perfect opportunity to apprehend the poor bugger, leave him bleeding on the floor and bleating for help. Emre ducked behind the door when Feroze entered the cabin with true shock at the sight of the Captain. Emre's teeth-whistle made Feroze spin and to his credit, stared at Emre like he was seeing a ghost.

Emre was on Feroze, knife hilt connecting with Feroze's temple, bearing forward so the younger man slipped in the Captain's blood and fell. Emre hauled him back up, knife at his throat. "Call your girlfriend," Emre demanded. "Tell her there's a problem she's got to deal with." That would buy Kaz some more time. "Do as I say or you're next, Feroze. Tired of your games, tired of you."

"You'll pay for this," Feroze sneered, after he obeyed Emre's order. Still trying to look derisive and smug. Up-close, Emre realized he didn't look a damn thing like Kaz. "You and your butt-buddy, I don't get why he's so -"

Emre didn't let Feroze finish. Kaz wouldn't have, was Emre's reasoning. Kaz, for once, didn't seem to care about getting answers here, only getting out. Run, escape, run. Emre was in-tune with this now, finally.

Georgina's arrival to the bridge was almost anti-climactic. Emre didn't give her time to scream, just knocked her out, leaving her tied on the bridge for now.

"Don't move, I'll be back for you," Emre told the Captain, shutting his cabin door after dragging Feroze's unconscious body out, throwing it over the side as well. Feroze didn't make it into the water; he landed on the lower deck, arm at an odd angle. Oops. Emre hopped back down to the bridge deck, just in time to see someone duck behind a small door.

Another guard? Or - Emre poised his knife, then flung the door open to find -

"Kaz." my darling, meri pyaar, my Kaz, mine. Emre couldn't help his sudden, bloody grin. A tight, screaming thrill bolting through him, at the sight. Kaz looking more dishevelled than his carelessly breezy look, angling his body in tense holds that betrayed the brutal beating he'd just survived. Ribs likely cracked. Fingers crooked. Blood staining his nose and cheek, split lip, a swollen eye, bruises mapping his body.

He was beautiful.

A nod to Kaz's choice of weapon. "What you gonna do with that then, my love?"

[moonlit-jeno]

fifth time’s the charm? (m.)

pairing: johnny suh x female reader

genre/warnings: explicit sexual content | mentions of recreational drinking/ drugs (weed) | fluff | jaehyun being, well, jaehyun

words: 5.2k

summary: sometimes the universe aligns for you. and sometimes, it really doesn’t

1. There’s a delicious warmth between your thighs, growing with every slow grind of the guy’s hips. You don’t know his name and there’s no chance to ask, not with the way your lips are practically glued together, his tongue doing wonderful things as he licks at the seam of your mouth. He nips at your bottom lip at the same time his hand slides up your thigh, stooping just short of the hem of your dress, and you jolt, whining loudly.

He’s got a cocky smirk on his face when he pulls back to catch his breath, lips swollen and eyes dark. You stubbornly try to pull him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist and grinding your hips up more desperately. The two of you are as close together as the kitchen counter allows you to get. The muscles in his back flex under your fingertips and you’re so turned on that you think you could cry.

You’re just about to ask his name but then his lips are on your neck, leaving a trail of marks down the delicate skin. His hand squeezes at the meat of your thigh and you moan, tossing your head back and smacking it against the cabinet. A soft curse leaves you but the pain doesn’t really register, not when you’re being touched like that. His fingertips are so, so close to your core but he doesn’t dare move there yet. That spot is reserved by his dick, the impressive hardness dragging deliciously against your core.

There’s a commotion next to you and you turn your head to look, immediately regretting it. A guy from one of your classes- Jaehyun, you think- is emptying his stomach contents all over the floor. Your nose wrinkles and you rapidly tap your hookup’s shoulder, trying to get him to pull away. He does, a little confused, but then he follows your gaze just in time to watch Jaehyun throw up again, this time on the opposite side of the same counter you’re sitting on. Your arousal fizzles out and you groan, trying to ignore the wave of nausea that replaces the lust.

“Oh, for fucks sake Jae.” Your hookup groans, running his hand through his messy hair. He turns to you. “I gotta go take care of him, sorry.”

“Friend?” You ask as he lifts you off the counter.

“Best friend. And roommate. Which means I’m probably gonna hear him all night.” He sighs, glancing over to where Jaehyun’s got his face shoved under the faucet. “Thanks for this, though. It was fun.”

You smile, pulling him in for one last kiss. “Sorry we didn’t get to finish.”

He winks as he walks away, throwing a “next time, then.” over his shoulder. You watch as he rubs Jaehyun’s back soothingly, whispering something in his ear before picking him up. “Don’t fucking throw up on me.” Your hookup tells him, adding a “please,” as an afterthought. It makes you laugh.

It isn’t until you get home that you realize you never got his name.

2. You’re on the couch at yet another party when you see him again.

“I’m Johnny.” He offers you a joint and you take it gratefully, placing it between your lips. He even lights it for you. What a gentleman.

“Y/N,” You finally respond after taking a deep hit, watching all of the smoke leave your mouth and float overhead. “Nice to see you again.”

His eyes drift to your mouth when you take another hit and you let your head fall back to expose the column of your neck. “It is.” Johnny murmurs quietly, tongue wetting his lips.

It doesn’t take long before you end up on his lap, his hands grabbing desperately at your hips as you grind down, kissing him with the same ferocity as last time. The only difference now is that you’re high, you’re so, so high, and Johnny feels so good against you that you’re drowning in him.

Johnny pulls away to take another hit, tugging your mouth back to his so that he can pass the smoke between your lips. You accept it easily, loving how the burn in your chest matches the burn in your gut.

“Mhmm, if you feel this good now, I can’t imagine what it’s gonna feel like when I finally get to feel your pussy.” Johnny groans, bucking his hips up against your core. “Bet you’re so wet, so fucking tight.”

“Just for you.” You whisper in his ear, giggling at the deep groan he lets out in response. His hand makes its way under your skirt and you gasp, fully prepared to let him finger you on the couch in front of everyone.

His fingertips graze your core over the thin fabric of your panties and you whimper, swiveling your hips. Johnny’s a tease, just lightly petting your folds, not quite giving you what you want. You open your mouth to beg when a hand clamps down on your shoulder.

You jump when you realize it’s not Johnny’s hand, turning to find a very nervous looking Taeyong.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt. Uh, the house is currently on fire so we’re evacuating everyone.” He explains, trying valiantly to keep his eyes from wandering to where Johnny still has his hand under your skirt.

“Oh, fuck. Is everyone okay?” You ask, standing on shaky legs.

Taeyong nods. “Yeah, I think we’ve got it under control. But we don’t want to take any chances.”

Johnny nods. “Yeah, for sure man.”

Taeyong walks away after bidding the two of you a goodnight. You and Johnny look at each other, sighing deeply before he breaks into laughter.

“Damn, we are so unlucky.”

You groan, laughing despite yourself. “It’s unbelievable.”

3. The last time you’d seen Johnny wasn’t perfect, but at least you got his number.

Johnny texts you like you’ve known each other for years. He doesn’t bother with ice breakers- thank god, because you can’t stand small talk. It’s all memes and stories about how chaotic his day was and honestly? It’s refreshing.

Especially because he always takes the time to ask about your day, letting you rant and giving you support. He doesn’t leave you on read for hours at a time, either- you’re pretty sure the longest you’ve had to wait for a response was about an hour, and that was because he’d been in a class.

Surprisingly, there hasn’t been one suggestive message from either of you. You’d certainly been expecting it, considering the nature of how you met. But Johnny keeps everything family friendly, with the exception of a few dirty jokes and curses.

The most suggestive text he’d sent was a “hey, wanna come over and watch a movie?” But even then, you can’t guarantee that it’s going to lead to sex. You can certainly hope, but it isn’t determined.

Of course, you still shower and throw on your sexiest lingerie. Hell, you even lotion your legs.

Which you’re very thankful for as of right now, because Johnny’s got one hand up your dress and the other cupping your breast. He’s half on top of you, his lips pillowy and insistent against yours. You moan and pull him closer, tugging at his soft hair.

The movie is still playing from his laptop and you lean up to close it, reaching to set it on the floor. You’d hate for it to fall off the bed and break later on.

“I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to fuck.” Johnny huffs a laugh, pulling away to catch his breath. You giggle, tugging at his shirt to get it off.

“Hey, we haven’t fucked yet.” You remind him, sliding your hands up his toned stomach, feeling the firm muscles. He flexes and you slap his chest lightly.

Johnny leans back down to connect your lips, finally moving your panties to the side to run his finger along your drenched entrance. “Well lucky for you, I have a solution for that.”

The door creaks open before the first finger can even slide in. “Johnny! Taeyong baked us a shit ton of cookies, you want some?” You and Johnny jump apart at the speed of light, your hand flying to smooth down your dress while Johnny pats down his hair. The impact of your back hitting the headboard has you grimacing and you distract yourself by focusing all of your energy on glaring at the intruder.

Fucking Jeong Jaehyun. This is the second time he’s interrupted you, although if you take into account that it was probably him that caused the fire, it’s the third. You’re fully prepared to kill him, though you suppose you’ll spare him if he gets the fuck out of Johnny’s room.

He doesn’t.

The idiot’s looking down at his phone, so he doesn’t even notice what position you and Johnny had been in, and he somehow doesn’t even notice how both of you are panting and sitting in unnaturally stiff positions. Finally, he looks up from the device. You raise your eyebrows, waiting for him to notice that Johnny’s shirt is off and that he has multiple hickies scattered across his skin, but he doesn’t! Jaehyun smiles and lifts the tin of cookies.

“I’m okay.” Johnny says shortly. He’s holding a pillow over his lap and he looks absolutely murderous. 

“Suit yourself.” Jaehyun shrugs, wandering further into the room. “Were you watching a movie?” Doesn’t this kid know how hookups work? He had to have seen the two of you together at one of the last parties, has to know that there’s a reason you both have swollen lips and messy hair. 

“Yeah. Inception.” Johnny responds, clearly hoping that the complicated nature of the film will have Jaehyun sprinting away. 

“Oh, I love that movie!” Jaehyun drops the cookies onto your lap and clambers in between you and Johnny, excitedly opening the laptop. “Oh cool, you’re only fifteen minutes in!” He presses play.

Johnny groans. You shove a cookie into your mouth.

4. To say that you’re sexually frustrated is an understatement. 

You like Johnny, you really do. Spending time with him is fun. Texting him is fun. He’s a good person overall, and you want to get to know him better. Another thing you desperately want? His cock.

Every time you try to hook up, you get rudely interrupted. Maybe it’s a sign that you should actually start a committed relationship. Maybe it’s a sign that you and Johnny aren’t meant to be. Or maybe, just maybe, the universe hates you. 

It’s late, way too late to text him to come over, but you’re horny and annoyed and your imagination just isn’t doing it for you. Your attempts at fingering yourself are fruitless, and even though you’re so turned on that you think you could explode, you just can’t get wet. It must be a curse. Probably Jaehyun’s fault, you grumble, though there’s absolutely no way it could be his fault considering he isn’t here.

Your fantasies keep failing you and despite you having clear ideas of what you want Johnny to do to you, it’s not enough. After a full minute of consideration, you grab your phone.

[Me] 11:43pm

You up?

[Johnny] 11:45pm

Of course I am

It’s not even midnight yet

What’s up?

[Me] 11:46pm

Bored

Thinking about you

[Johnny] 11:46pm

Oh so I’m boring now

The little quip has you huffing a laugh, smiling down at your phone. You bite your lip and roll onto your stomach, propped up on your elbows.

[Me] 11:46pm

Hmm

I mean I guess I could change my mind if you prove me wrong

[Johnny] 11:48pm

You only think I’m boring bc I haven’t had the chance to show you how much fun I am

I might even be too much fun for you

[Me] 11:48pm

Prove it

It’s not surprising that your phone starts ringing, the stupid selfie Johnny had taken last time you hung out popping up on your screen. Your stomach jolts in anticipation, teeth finding your lower lip as you answer it.

“Hello?” You roll back over, shoving your pillow under your head. Your free hand rests on your stomach, drawing shapes into your skin.

“Hey baby,” Johnny’s voice is a low purr over the phone and just the sound of it has your stomach flipping, the pet name drawing a soft whimper from you. “It’s awful late for you to be thinking of me. Mind sharing what’s on your mind?” You consider it, sinking further into your mattress and drawing your knees up a little. “Mhmm, I dunno. I’d rather you share what’s on your mind.” That draws a soft laugh from him. “Oh, nothing much. Was just debating if you’d rather come three times on my cock or three times on my tongue.” The bluntness of his words has you sucking in air through your teeth, though your chest is so tight that you doubt you got any oxygen. “Oh.” Your voice is small and you may have been the one to initiate it, but you have no idea how to continue it. “Oh, fuck.” “Yeah?” Johnny laughs lowly on the other line. “Well, which one is it?” “Both.” You try to sound confident but you’re a mess, hand trembling with how hard you grip the phone.

“Greedy girl.” Johnny clicks his tongue, and you can almost see him shaking his head. “How are you going to earn it?” Your mind is blank, nothing but warm arousal shooting through you. “I-” You try to start, finding yourself unable to finish the sentence. The words are too filthy to be spoken out loud.

“Would you suck my cock baby? You’d probably like that, hmm? I know I would.” Johnny’s voice sounds breathless, and you can vaguely hear the slick sounds of him jerking off. “Would look so pretty with your mouth full. Do you want that?” “Yes.” You manage to gasp out, letting your hand find its way between your thighs. Two fingers dip into your core before moving up to trace quick circles into your clit.“Wanna be stuffed full.” A deep groan leaves him. “Fuck, I’d stuff you so full, baby. Do you think you can take my cock?”

“Mhmm, yeah, I can take it.” You moan, finally starting to pleasure yourself the way you want to. Fingers fucking into your core quickly, palm hitting against your clit. “Oh god Johnny, I’m so fucking wet.” “You sound so good princess. Makes me want to-” His voice cuts off and you hum, urging him to continue. He doesn’t.

“Johnny?” You ask, frowning at his silence. A sigh leaves you when he still doesn’t respond and you draw your hand out of your panties to pick up your phone. Your confusion turns to annoyance when you're met with a black screen and a spinning circle. “God fucking damnit!” You scramble for your phone charger but it’s too late, the dead battery symbol popping up when you try to turn it back on. 

You flop onto your bed and scream.

5. It’s been a long time since you’ve had sex, and it’s all you can think about.

Now look, you’re not unreasonably horny. You think about sex the normal amount, and it never actually interferes with your life, but there’s something about Johnny that’s just fucking you up. He’s nice and considerate and makes you laugh so hard that tears stream down your face, and you catch yourself smiling at him fondly even when he’s not doing anything besides frowning at his laptop. Everytime your phone lights up with a notification, you dive for it to check if Johnny had texted you. You’re not in love, but he’s got you wrapped so tightly around his finger that it almost hurts.

It doesn’t help that he’s fucking hot. He’s tall and strong and sexy, and carries himself with so much confidence that you find yourself swooning. You’ve gotten just the slightest taste of what he’s like in bed, but you want the full experience. The whole legs going numb, eyes rolling back, head empty experience. Preferable without any cockblocking roommates.

So no, you don’t think that you think about sex too much. Even if you do end up paying Jaehyun twenty dollars to go see a movie and get dinner so that you and Johnny will finally have the apartment to yourselves. Honestly, you think that locking him in the abandoned storage room would have been more efficient, but this is definitely the more legal option.

Johnny doesn’t look surprised to see you when you knock on his door, letting you in with a smile on his face. He dips down for a kiss and pushes your jacket off of your shoulders, hanging it over the back of a chair. 

“My baby.” He whines, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you tight to his chest. “I missed you!” 

You giggle and melt into his embrace. “Let’s make up for lost time, then.” “Did you have something in mind?” Johnny pulls away a little to look you in the eye, an amused smile on his face. He brushes his thumb over your cheek and you press into the touch like a cat. His smile widens. “You know, Jaehyun’s not here tonight. We have the whole place to ourselves.”

You act like this is new information. “Oh, well then it looks like we’ll have to make the most of it.” 

Johnny hums. “Wanna watch a movie? I’ve got some popcorn waiting to be popped and some wine just begging to be drunk.”

“We could do that.” You humour him, smiling and pulling away when he leans in for a kiss. He pouts and you giggle, pressing your lips to his cheek before moving closer to his ear. “Or you could fuck me.”

Johnny stiffens for a moment and you swear he stops breathing, but then a deep groan rumbles in his chest. “Fuck baby, you can’t just say that.” You giggle and pull back to look up at him with innocent eyes. “I can’t? Why, do you not want to fuck me?” It’s meant to be rhetorical, because you know just how badly he wants you. He’s made it plenty clear. You turn to walk away and Johnny grabs you by your shoulders, anchoring you to him, your back to his chest. He brings his lips to your ear and leaves a lingering kiss on the skin just under your lobe, pressing his hips to your ass. There’s already a sizable bulge there and your stomach flips, mouth suddenly dry.

“Does it feel like I don’t want to fuck you?” Johnny asks, rolling his hips into you. “I want to fuck you so badly that it hurts, baby. Do you know what I imagine doing to you?” 

His breathing gets a little heavier when you grind back on him. “Mhmm, no. Why don’t you show me?” Johnny effortlessly spins you around and picks you up, the squeal you let out muffled by his lips. He laughs softly and the corners of your mouth twitch up. “What?” You whine, pouting at him. “Why are you laughing at me?”

“I’m not.” He doesn’t sound convincing at all. “I’m not! You’re just too damn cute.” The pout on your face is kissed away by his insistent lips and he closes the door to his room with his foot, setting you down on the edge of his bed. 

There’s still a teasing smile on his lips but his eyes are dark. You swallow thickly as he drops to his knees in front of you, the heat of his palms on your bare thighs nearly too much for you. “Will my cute baby let me show her what I’ve been imagining?”

His words have your breath hitching and your head feeling fuzzy but you manage to find the energy to nod, a shaky “yes,” passing through your lips. Johnny moves his hands higher up your thighs, thumbs playing with the waistband of your shorts. Your stomach jolts when his thumb brushes over the bare skin just under your belly button.

“I’m gonna eat you out.” There’s no hesitation in the way he speaks, his gaze determined. Your core clenches at the thought of having his mouth on you, his pretty lips and tongue working to please you. “Help me take these off?” You stand up just long enough for Johnny to tug your shorts and panties down your legs, kicking them off so that they land somewhere far away from you. And then Johnny’s pushing you back down onto the bed, palms on your thighs to push your legs apart, and you nearly scream with the anticipation. You’ve waited so long for him that you feel like you might die if he doesn’t touch you right this second. 

“Fuck, I’ve been wanting to do this for so long.” Johnny groans, staring at your pussy like he’s in awe. He parts your folds with his fingers, tongue coming out to moisten his lips. “You’re so pretty.” He kisses your inner thigh and hooks your legs over his shoulders, dipping down to press a kiss to your clit. You inhale sharply, and Johnny looks up at you with nothing but lust in his eyes as he begins to eat you out eagerly.

You have to throw your head back when he drags his tongue up your entrance, dipping the muscle inside just slightly before moving up to suck at your clit. It’s too much too fast and you feel like you’re falling, head spinning and feeling fuzzy with all the sensations he’s giving you. His hair is soft between your fingers when you reach down to grab a hold of it, trying to simultaneously pull him closer and push him away.

Johnny moans into your core and pulls away to smirk at you. The lower half of his face is covered in your arousal and his plump lips glisten. “Feel good, princess?” There’s a filthy noise as he spits onto your cunt, using his thumb to spread the saliva around. “Because you taste fucking divine.”

Breathless curses of his name leave you as your elbows finally give out, your body hitting the mattress only to arch right back off of it. Your hands fist in the sheets and your head rolls from side to side, your body not quite sure how to handle this much pleasure. “I’m gonna cum,” You whimper, pressing your heels into his back to draw him closer. “Johnny, keep- keep doing that, ‘m gonna cum.” It comes out as a plea, and another few cries of his name leave you before your orgasm washes over you, drowning you in the pleasure. 

The fog finally clears from your mind and you pry your eyes open to find Johnny still kneeling in front of you, licking his lips clean of your release. “Feel good?” You scoot back a little to allow Johnny room to join you on the bed. “Amazing. Knew you had pretty lips for a reason.”

“Aww, you think my lips are pretty?” Johnny teases, making an exaggerated kissy face. You scoff and steal a slow kiss from him, slipping your tongue past his lips at the same time you slide your palm over his dick, feeling the shape of him through the confines of his pants. He moans and tries to pull away but you catch his lower lip between your teeth, nibbling gently.

“I think you’re pretty. I also think we should take care of this, hmm?” You squeeze him gently and his thigh jerks. Johnny laughs breathlessly and reaches down to untie his pants, pushing them down his thighs just enough to free his cock. You waste no time wrapping your hand around the thick length, stroking him slowly. And Johnny makes such a pretty sight, his eyelids fluttering closed and his mouth hanging open. You shuffle back a little further on the bed, moving to lower your mouth to his cock, but he stops you.

“Too impatient,” He pants out, stepping off the bed and throwing his shirt off, kicking his pants to his ankles. “Wanna fuck you.” “I think I’m okay with that.” Your core clenches painfully at the thought of being filled up, and some of your arousal leaks down your thighs. He laughs at your response and reaches for a condom, rolling it on while you rid yourself of your shirt.

You throw your bra at him in an effort to get him to move faster, but it has the opposite effect. He looks at your bra for a moment before moving his gaze to your breasts, swallowing thickly. Both of you groan, but for different reasons.

“Babe, you can look at my boobs while you fuck me.” You whine impatiently. Johnny nods, tongue licking across his bottom lip slowly, eyes still locked on your breasts. It takes him a moment to crawl over to your body, settling between your legs and drawing you into a deep kiss. His dick brushes against your thigh and you wrap your legs around his waist.

Johnny’s always been a tease but you didn’t think he’d be this bad, holding what you want right in front of you, just out of reach. He presses the tip of his cock to your pussy, drags it through your folds, bumps your clit, does essentially everything except for what you want him to do. “Ready?” “Yeah, please,” You sigh, trying and failing not to sound desperate. And yet he still doesn’t put it in. He bends down to place a kiss on each of your nipples, swirling his tongue around one of the buds before moving to the other one. It has you sighing out in pleasure, and his teeth graze the sensitive skin at the same time he finally slides in.

The way his cock stretches you out has your eyes rolling back, your walls clenching around him desperately to adjust. Johnny swears and buries his face in the crook of your neck. “Fuck, babe, you gotta- you gotta stop doing that.” “I can’t,” You arch against him, the action only pushing his cock deeper. “Johnny, you’re so big.”

“You’re just too small.” Johnny quips back, but it’s lacking the normal bite. This time it sounds strained, and your stomach flips at knowing he’s just as affected as you are. “Jesus Christ, how are you so fucking tight?” He finally bottoms out with a groan, grinding into you with a little half-thrust before moving to pull out again. “Guess I’ll have to change that.” Johnny fucks like he simultaneously has all the time in the world and like he has none at all. His thrusts go from hard and fast to slow and deep, the overall effect leaving you with your head spinning and your body burning with pleasure. Your nails dig into his back and you chant his name like it’s a prayer, and he responds by fucking you even harder, sucking bruises into the soft skin of your neck.

One of his hands grasps at the sheets near your head, the other resting on your breast. He gives it a loving squeeze before moving his hand up your arm to lace your fingers together, lifting his head up to find your lips. Both of you are panting heavily but Johnny kisses you like oxygen isn’t important, messily sucking at your bottom lip and meeting your tongue with his own. He lets out a deep groan and breaks away from you, dropping his face back to the crook of your neck. His grip on your hand tightens. “I’m not gonna last much longer.” “Mhmm, okay,” You squeeze his hand back. “Touch me?” He lets go of your hand to clumsily work his hand between your bodies, rubbing tight circles into your clit. Your eyes roll and you arch against him, gasping out his name. Your orgasm is so close, you just need that extra push…

Johnny gets there before you can, teeth sinking into your shoulder to muffle his groan. His hips stutter and his rhythm grows sloppy but he keeps desperately fucking into you, fingers still frantically rubbing at your clit. He presses a messy kiss to your shoulder, moves up to your ear. “Come on, baby. Wanna see you cum for me.”

It only takes a few more of his dirty words, a few more desperate thrusts, a few more presses of his thumb to your clit before you’re coming, legs locking around his waist and nails digging into his back. He swears at how your walls lock around him in a vice, his hips stuttering again as a hiccupy moan leaves him.

He all but collapses on top of you after, rolling to the side and panting heavily. You giggly breathlessly and curl up next to him, head on his chest. His entire body shivers when you press a kiss to his nipple, and he misses the shot when he tries to throw the condom into the trashcan.

“Did it live up to your imagination?” You finally catch your breath enough to ask. 

Johnny shrugs. “I guess.” He cackles and catches your hands in his own when you slap his chest and make an indignant noise, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “I’m kidding! But actually, it might’ve been even better. We might have to try this again soon, just to be sure.” “Right.” You drag the word out in one long syllable. “Is this your way of saying you wanna go for another round?” “That depends,” He says carefully. “Do you want another round?” You laugh and shake your head. “You’re insatiable.” The air is cold when you roll out of bed and help yourself to Johnny’s closet, slipping one of the sweatshirts that you’ll ‘forget’ to return later on over your head. “But yes. Later though, I’m starving.”

The popcorn Johnny had offered you earlier gets stuck in your throat when Jaehyun barges into the apartment, the door slamming open with way too much force. Johnny snickers and pats your back, moving your water closer.

“Hey man, you have fun?” Johnny asks, only half paying attention as he tries to make sure you don’t die. You manage to dislodge the kernel and give him a thumbs up.

“Yep, nothing better than a free movie!” Jaehyun states happily, chugging the red bull in hand before opening the fridge for another one.

Johnny furrows his eyebrows. “Free? How’d you get free tickets?” 

Your eyes widen and you try to motion at Jaehyun not to say anything, but he’s as oblivious as ever. “Y/n bought them for me.”

“Oh, did she?” Johnny grins, the pieces clicking into place. He turns to look at you, grabbing your hands in his own when you try to bury your face in them. Jaehyun’s already wandered away and Johnny shakes his head in disbelief. “You had this planned, didn’t you?”

“It’s not my fault!” You whine, pouting at him. “Can you blame me for wanting to have sex with my hot boyfriend?”

“Yeah, I am pretty hot.” Johnny sighs, laughing with his entire body when you glare at him. He coos at you and pulls you into his chest. “But am I your boyfriend?”

Your face goes hot and there’s a moment of sheer panic before you shoot your shot. “...yes?”

“So that makes you my girlfriend, then.” His smile looks even brighter now. “Well girlfriend, it looks like we’re gonna be buying Jaehyun a lot more movie tickets now.”

You groan. 

[sassyhobbits]

Rowaelin college AU pt2

i recently reblogged an older oneshot of mine (you can find it here) and some people said they wanted a pt2. You can probably read this as a standalone, but enjoy!

~~~

There was nothing more euphoric than the moment you finished your last final.

Except maybe that first shot you take to celebrate.

Rowan Whitethorn had already experienced both that day.

The hell of finals week had finally come to its end. The hours upon hours he spent in the library with his peers had paid off. He had felt confident about every exam he had taken. Even statistics. He and Aelin had really focused in and refused to leave her dining room table until they thoroughly understood each and every concept.

Usually, Rowan detested studying. But, studying with Aelin was bearable. Almost enjoyable, actually. As enjoyable as looking at equations and cursing out Excel could be.

But what made it worth it was the fact he got countless hours alone with Aelin. 

After their almost-kiss two months ago, they never mentioned it again. They had slipped back into their roles as friends, determined to keep it that way. Though Rowan knew it wasn't what he really wanted.

It seemed his feelings for Aelin had increased ten-fold after that moment. His eyes were always on her, doing whatever it took to wring smiles and laughs out of her lips. He found more and more ways to spend time with her. Asking her to proofread an essay, more and more study sessions, bringing her a ridiculously sweet coffee that she loved and saying that the barista has messed up his order but in reality, he got it just for her.

He was completely, utterly, enthralled with Aelin Galathynius. Her fire, her spirit, how she was always burning so brightly.

Even now, in a crowded, noisy room, all Rowan had eyes for was her.

In celebration for the end of finals week, Dorian Havilliard had invited a shit-ton of people over for a house party. He was more Aelin’s friend than his, but they got along well enough. 

The house was filled to the brim. Dorian had no problems using his father's copious funds to buy an obscene amount of booze and such knowledge tended to draw a crowd.

Rowan knew Aelin loved parties. He was less of a fan of them himself, but she asked him to come. So he did.

It was packed and loud. Music blasted over tall speakers, people cheered and shouted and laughed over it. There were a group of people in a game of beer pong, which must have been good if their screams were any indications. People were doing body shots of the kitchen island, others making out in the corner.

Rowan was lounging on a couch, sipping at a beer, thankful that Dorian didn't buy the cheap shit. He knew he should be up and socializing, but he was too preoccupied. By Aelin. More importantly, who she was talking to across the room.

Rowan had met Chaol Westfall on a handful of occasions. Aelin had introduced them. She, Chaol, and Dorian had all gone to the same highschool. Rowan had known they were all close, but he hadn't known how close exactly until Aelin let it slip that she and Chaol used to be involved. She had explained it was short and doomed from the start, but still… watching them talk now set Rowan’s skin on edge.

From his spot on the couch, Rowan had the perfect view of the two of them. Aelin was leaning against the counter, plastic red cup dangling from her fingers. She looked beautiful tonight. She had left her golden hair down, letting it spill in thick waves down her shoulders and back. She was dressed simply in a black, cropped tank and what he guessed must be expensive jeans. Aelin always had sophisticated tastes. Her face was tilted up at Chaol, the two of them sharing a laugh. 

Rowan ground his teeth and took another sip of his beer. Aelin had said she and Chaol were better off as friends, but they were standing with such an intimate sort of casualty that it drove him up the wall. And when Aelin placed her hand on his upper arm… gods, Rowan could barely watch.

Thankfully, he was distracted from his self-imposed misery when someone plopped down beside him. Rowan glanced to his left, finding Aedion settling back with a beer of his own. 

"Hey man," Aedion said before glancing towards where Rowan had previously been looking. His turquoise eyes, identical to Aelin’s, turned back to him. “You ever gonna ask her out?”

“Who?”

“Aelin. Who else?”

Rowan choked on his beer, quickly managing to regain control over his breathing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Aedion rolled his eyes. “Come on, Rowan. It’s obvious that you two are into each other. It’s exhausting watching you two dance around it. So ask her out already.”

Rowan looked at his roommate incredulously. “Are you serious? She’s like your little sister. I figured you’d be telling me to fuck off.”

Aedion threw his head back and released a loud bark of laughter. “Aelin would castrate me if I ever tried that, as she phrases it, territorial bullshit. She’s her own woman capable of making her own choices, including those about who she dates.”

Rowan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The main reason he had never made an advance on Aelin was because of his friendship with Aedion. But hearing his explanation about it now… Aelin would berate him to no end if she found out. It wasn’t like her to let any man get in the way of a decision she wants to make.

“I… I just need the right time,” Rowan said pathetically, not knowing how else to express himself.

“Well, I don’t mean to rush you,” Aedion drawled, swinging his gaze back towards Aelin and Chaol stood. “But Aelin likes you a lot. I suggest making a move before she settles for someone else.”

He was right. Rowan knew deep in his gut that Aedion was right. Aelin would never wait around, putting her life on pause, waiting for another man to act. She was proactive, she was strong. It would do him good to remember that. 

Rowan set his jaw in determination, gulping down the rest of his beer and pushing to his feet. He tried his hardest to ignore the grin of satisfaction Aedion sent his way as he strode across the room.

Rowan tried his best to gracefully maneuver through the crowd, not wanting to get himself into a fight now that he finally decided to act. 

He finally made it to the kitchen, coming up upon them. Aelin spotted him first over Chaol’s shoulder, her face breaking out in a wide, bright grin.

“Rowan!” she greeted. “There you are! And just in time to meet Yrene.”

It was then that Rowan noticed the woman who had come up and pressed herself against Chaol’s side. She was a stout girl, golden brown skin splattered with freckles and a head full of righteous curls.

“Nice to meet you,” Yrene said, jutting out her hand. “I’m Chaol’s girlfriend.”

Rowan took her hand, trying to not let his surprise show. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Aelin nudged Yrene with her elbow playfully. “She finally managed to escape from her pre-med work and have some fun!”

Yrene rolled her eyes in good fun. Rowan could tell it was something she probably heard a lot. Pre-med majors did have absolutely packed schedules.

Of course Chaol had a girlfriend and Rowan had stressed himself out over nothing. The gods decided he needed to learn some humility after letting himself stew in jealousy.

Rowan looked back to Aelin, placing a hand on her lower back before he could think better of it. “Can I talk to you for a bit?”

Although she looked a bit confused, Aelin nodded. She knocked back the rest of whatever the hell was in her cup, tossing it into the trash, before reaching down and taking his hand. “Let’s go somewhere quieter. It’s too damn loud in here.”

Rowan didn’t object as she began tugging him by the hand through the house, expertly weaving through the crowd. She shouted a quick hello at Dorian when they passed him. He seemed very content, though Rowan wasn’t exactly sure why. Manon Blackbeak was perched on his lap and although she was beautiful, she was terrifying. Dorian didn’t seem to mind.

Aelin eventually tugged him through the front door, into the blessedly cold and quiet air. She brought them over to his car, leaning her weight against it as she turned to him. Rowan was disappointed when she dropped his hand to cross her arms over her chest.

“What’s up?” she asked casually. 

“I have something to ask you.”

Aelin quirked a brow. “Is something wrong?”

Rowan sighed. He was going about this all wrong. “No. Nothing is wrong.”

She didn’t look convinced. “You’re acting really weird, Rowan. Did Aedion say something stupid again? Or did one of those asshole footballer players do something wrong because I swear I will knock them on their asses so hard and-”

Rowan acted without thinking. He lunged forward, cradling Aelin’s face between his palms and crashing his lips against hers. For a beat, Aelin was frozen in surprise. That short moment was the most terrifying of Rowan’s life, not knowing if he had made the right choice… but the next moment, Aelin practically melted. He heard her sigh against his lips, her hands snaking up his arms until they wrapped around the back of his neck.

Rowan tugged her closer, relishing the heat of her body against his.

For so long he had wondered what it would be like to kiss Aelin Galathynius. The reality was better than anything he could have imagined. 

He parted Aelin’s lips, kissing her deeply, hoping he could convey the months of emotions that had been building up inside him that were finally coming to the surface. 

Eventually, after what could have been seconds or hours, they slowly pulled away from one another. Rowan’s lips still tingled in the aftermath of the kiss. He opened his eyes, finding Aelin’s eyes still softly closed. She released a short breath before those stunning eyes were finally meeting his. 

“Oh,” she whispered. “Alright.”

“Aelin…” Rowan murmured. “I really like you. I have for a long time. And I’d like to take you out sometime.”

Her lips spread into a slow smile. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

“I shouldn't have waited so long.”

“Damn right,” Aelin grumbled, rolling onto the tips of her toes and kissing him again quickly. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get out of here.”

“Any ideas?”

“Well, Lysandra is staying with Aedion tonight so I have the apartment to myself,” she said, lips curling into a wicked smirk. “And there are some things I’d like to see if they’re better in real life than in my imagination.”

Gods, was Rowan lucky.

He kissed her one more time, feeling her smile against his lips. 

He never would have guessed how wonderful this moment would feel, finally admitting his feelings to her, knowing she returned them. He had been such a fool for waiting so long.

But now that Rowan had Aelin, he would do everything in his power to make her the happiest woman on this planet.

[homogrimoire-archive]

Kingfield's Fourth Anniversary - Day 1

Just An Urban Legend

Feng, David, Dwight, and Jake find themselves at the fire together after a trial. Stories from back home are exchanged to pass the time, and some of those stories manage to find their way into the trials.

AO3 Link

This time around, it was Dwight, Jake, David, and Feng around a fire. They all had finished a trial some time ago, Dwight and David were with a different set of survivors, and Feng and Jake from another set as well. Jake was contently resting on the outskirts of the camp, Dwight and David were leaning against each other by the fire to keep even more warm, and Feng was sitting on a log bored out of her mind.

She really didn’t like this place. Its not like she was ever particularly outdoorsy. Sure, she had her smartphone, which miraculously never died, but it was entirely useless. No offline games on it, no music, and the clock was obsolete in a place where time didn’t matter. The flash didn’t stun killers, and throwing it at them just made them angry more than anything.

Still, she held onto it. A piece of home. All of them had something from home they kept on themselves. For Jake, it was a well used Swiss Army Knife, an expensive and genuine one at that. For Dwight, it was his old wristwatch. Apparently, he had it since forever. It looked as old. And for David, it was a roll of sports bandages. It never seemed to run out, despite how much he used it.

“I’m bored. Any of you got any stories?” she eventually asked since she figured the others would like to kill the time too.

“Hmmm… ” Dwight contemplated. Feng noticed that David patiently awaited his boyfriend’s response. How someone could manage to fall in love here was beyond her.

“I saw bigfoot once.”

“No you didn’t.” Jake quickly protested as he shot up from where he slept. “It was probably an emaciated bear, or some guy in a suit, or a trick of the light with some branches or something.” He then promptly went back to lying down.

“Yeesh mate, how long’ve you been holdin’ that one in?” David wondered.

“I just have very strong strong and very right opinions on dumb myths like that.” he rationalized.

“Well it’s true!” Dwight pouted. “I was working as a janitor for this huge park and this kid got lost in the woods so they arranged a search party. I went to help after my shift with a co-worker. We were searching for hours, and it was getting dark, so we decided to head back. Keep it one missing person instead of making it three, you know? So, we were on our way back when we heard this terrifying scream! It was like something I’d expect to hear here, honestly. So me and my co-worker are scared shitless. We’re back to back with our flashlights looking around to see if we can find the thing. And just when we think we’re kinda safe, I turn my light to see two glowing eyes staring right at me and the outline of a huge man.”

“No!” Feng says, almost in disbelief.

“Yes! I scream and cling onto my coworker, and then he sees it and screams, and we trip over ourselves and fumble as we run away, still screaming like little girls!” Dwight laughed. “No joke though, it had to have been at least twice as tall as me.”

“What you heard was probably a cougar, or some other large cat. Or some animals mating. Those things are freaks.” Jake shuddered. He heard animals getting it on more times than he would have ever liked to.

“Well, I know what I saw, or my name’s Aloiscious the Third! And its not.” the honest man proudly stated.

“…Whatever.” Jake sighed.

“Well, I believe you, luv.” David comforted with a kiss to his cheek.

“Thanks David.” Dwight cooed as he leaned back into his boyfriend.

“You know, I saw something’ kinda scary too when I was a kid.” David mentioned. “Not so scary now, but that’s kinda expected.”

“I’m down to hear it. Fire away, champ.”

“It began on a dark night. Me ‘n some blokes were bored and decided to pay a visit to an abandoned church.”

“You know how cliché that sounds, right?” Dwight questioned.

“And wanderin’ to the woods at night ain’t?” David fired back.

“…Touché.”

“Anyhow, we were walkin’ up to the place when we saw the thing. It was a Black Dog. Thing was guardin’ the place of course. Pry thought we were gonna tear it up, so it howled bloody murder and ran straight for us barkin’ like it was rabid!” David laughed at the memory. “Needless t’say, our arses were humbled for a few good days.”

“You saw a feral black dog? I guess that’s kinda scary.” Feng commented. She liked Dwight’s story better.

“Yeah… Could be scarier.” Dwight admitted.

“Wasn't just any ol’ bloody black dog, A Black Dog. Guess you lot might not know what they are. Legend says the first buried at a churchyard had t’guard it ‘gainst the devil. Since no one wanted to be the poor sod stuck doin’ that, people buried a dog first. Then again, could’ve just been a regular ol’ demonic black dog. Lot more of those furry bastards.”

“I could believe that.” Dwight conceded.

“Yeah. If I’m remembering correctly, there are tons of spirits and a ton of different types back home. I never really bothered to learn about it though.” she nonchalantly admitted. It never really interested her. “But, this one gaming cafe I was staying at did have a legend around it. Supposedly, a guy solo queued nonstop and died there. Sounds like a noob if you ask me. Honestly, he wasn’t even Top 500. He wasn’t even Grandmaster!” she laughed, and then saw David and Dwight looking at her in confusion. “Oh wait, you’re all kinda old huh? Guy played alone in a team based video game nonstop, and died. He wasn’t even that good at the game.”

“Ah.”

“That makes a bit more sense.” David said gratefully. Things could get rather confusing when you had friends from a few decades ahead or behind you.

“So anyways, legend has it that if you sat in the chair he died in, his spirit would possess you, and you’d get his skills. But, you’d also game yourself to death like him.”

“Did you ever sit in his chair?” Dwight wondered.

“Pft, and gain the skills of a noob like him and get wrecked? As if! I might as well have went AFK for a week. I had some juicy Prestige to keep up you know.”

Before they could pester Jake for a story, the Fog began to roll in.

“Aw shit, here we go again .” Feng said as she rolled her eyes.

“Ain’t no rest for the wicked, huh? See you guys there.” Dwight said with a wave. With his other hand, he still held onto David despite knowing the Fog would separate them regardless. They had all worked together before, so Dwight didn’t need to explain a plan of action.

“I hope it’s one a them Legion bastards. Love seein’ ‘em lose.” David grinned, sure they would have a successful trial. He gave Dwight a kiss on the cheek in celebration of the impending victory, making the shorter man blush.

“As long as we survive, I don’t care who we're up against.” Jake said as he threw in an offering, hoping it would land them in the forest. “See you all on the other side.” And with a salute, they were whisked away.

-

The Fog cleared to reveal the Red Forest. Dwight knew that somewhere, Jake was happy. He just hoped the Huntress wasn’t here this time. She was far too efficient on her home turf. Dwight wandered shortly before coming across a generator to work on. Surprisingly, he managed to complete it before something happened. Based on the scream, David was hooked. But thankfully, he wasn’t too far away from him.

Sneakily, Dwight made his way over to the hook, keeping an eye out for this trial’s killer. In a close call, he saw the eldest Legion member passed right by him. Dwight let out a sigh of relief once he was in the clear, and then rushed to David.

“My knight in shining armour’s come t’rescue me, has he?” David chuckled, but instantly regretted it and winced from the pain of the hook.

“You can thank me later. Come on, let’s go!”

“Oh, I will~” David said smugly.

“You’re terrible…” Dwight said in a restrained voice, not wanting to reveal his anticipation and spurn the other man.

Eventually, it came to the last generator, and Dwight ended up being the one to keep the Legionnaire busy.

“Come out come out wherever you are! Don’t worry, I bite!” the young man teased. Dwight tried to keep calm as he hid in the locker. Slowly, the legionnaire passed by the lockers, dragging his knife across the metal doors.

“Gotcha!” he steamed as he yanked open a locker door, revealing it to be empty. “Fucker…” he cursed as he slammed the thing shut. “Now where could he have gone?” he wondered as he idled in front of the locker Dwight was hiding in.

“How about… Here!” he screamed as he opened the locker Dwight was in, causing him to scream in turn. “HA HA HA! Classic!” the Legionnaire rejoiced as he tossed Dwight over his shoulder.

Dwight tried to break free, but was unable too. The closest hook was nearby, leaving him with not enough time.

“Alright, let’s hear you scream again!” the killer announced with eager anticipation. But just before setting Dwight on the vile contraption, there was a roar that seemed to shake the area. “What the fuck was that? What the fuck is that?” he said once he caught a glimpse of the roar’s source. Dwight saw it too, a tall thing with glowing eyes.

“Hmm?” the killer hummed, and brought up his free hand to the side of his face like it was a phone. “… Really? … Alright, alright! I get it! Sheesh… Consider it done, boss.” the killer said and hung up, and threw Dwight to the ground. For a moment, he thought he was about to get mori’d.

Instead, he got a kick to the dick and a boot to the face as the killer ran off laughing joyously. Meanwhile, Dwight curled up into a ball as he clutched his groin. A few moments later, he got up and hobbled away. A terrible experience, but better than being mori’d. When he reached the group, they had just finished the last generator, sounding off to let the killer know as well.

“Shite, wot happ’ned to ya?” David fretted as he immediately went to Dwight’s side, the deep bruise on his face and funny walk evident. “I swear, I’ll find a way to make the bastard pay!”

“Well, a kick to the dick and face. I’ll live. But, something else happened, something odd.” Dwight began. Then, they felt the heartbeat, letting them know the killer was near. Then, something passed then, something neither survivor nor killer.

“Get back here so I can skin you alive! Papa needs a new pimp coat!” the Legionnaire giggled.

“Hey, watch this pro strat!” Feng told the other survivors. “360 no scope!” she announced with a twirl, and tossed her phone. It flew in the direction of the killer, just so happening to land in front of him. He stepped on it, and slid head first into a tree. A crack formed on the mask as he groaned.

“Suck it!” Feng taunted as she brought her hands to her hips as she thrusted outwards. The others celebrated with her. This was the most fun she had in a long time.

“You little bitch! I’ll-” he began, but was cut off with a swift knee to the dick. He let out a long, high pitched squeal as he slowly crumpled to the floor, clutching his family jewels.

The thing had come back to help out. It gave a thumbs up. They all knew what that thing was now that it was in front of them.

“Nice.” David said as he gave it a thumbs up in return before it ran away again. Dwight looked at Jake with a shit-eating grin once it had left, and they were on their way to the exit gate.

“Okay, you know this doesn’t count!”

“Gotta take the L, my guy.” Feng said as she patted Jake on the back.

Back at the campfire, Dwight recounted what happened, to the shared anger and surprise of the others.

"Least that bigfoot bloke seems like a good fellow. Has my respect."

"I hope we see him again. He seemed cool." Feng hoped. It would be something to spice up life in hell.

"And what do you think, Jake?" Dwight smugly asked.

"I refuse to acknowledge that thing." he simply stated. Dwight let out a little laugh that David found cute.

But, to the surprise of everyone, the Fog rolled in. It never rolled on so soon after a completed trial.

"Oh come on! We just finished one, you bastard!" David yelled out.

“It’s probably because of what happened last round.” Dwight sighed. None of them were in terrible condition or overly exhausted, but still. It would have been nice to have a longer break.

“I’m sure we’ll do fine like last time.” Jake assured.

“I just hope it’s not that doctor. He really creeps me out.” Feng said. The others agreed, and were taken by the Fog.

On the other side, they found themselves in a warm climate, a ghost town in the wild west. Dwight and Feng found themselves spawned near each other, and were quick to get working on a generator. As it neared completion, their hearts hastened as they heard the fear-inducing lullaby of The Huntress.

She was unbothered by the vastly different environment. She sniffed the air, and snapped her head in the direction of the generator. An axe was readied, and thrown in the direction of the generator.

“Run!” Dwight yelled as the generator announced its completion. An axe buried itself in the spot where he was. Feng was faster than him, so Dwight found himself the target of the killer once more. He cursed being fun to chase. He noticed that for some reason, the Huntress particularly liked to hunt him. He didn’t want to dwell on why.

He was eventually axed and downed in a single hit. He screamed when she yanked it out, revealing that its iridescent red color didn’t just come from his blood. She scooped him up in her arms and held him like a baby, resuming her song to try and comfort him. He tried to wiggle free, but it was harder than it looked. Sometimes, he wondered if the Entity even gave her any supernatural strength. He wouldn't be surprised if she didn’t. He was soon on the hook in a basement, crying in pain. She stood there for a moment to admire her work, or something, before leaving.

Dwight knew to wait for someone to unhook him. It was safer, even more so with David around. But basements were a more dangerous place to be when the Huntress was involved. She always seemed to know when someone was there. He figured that another generator or two had to be finished by the time he heard someone approaching. It generated a spark of hope that quickly dissipated as he heard her song.

And down the stairs came Feng, a wound in her shoulder, also in her arms like a baby too. As she screamed on the hook, the Huntress also winced, muttering something unintelligible before leaving.

“Hey Feng…”

“Hey…”

“How- Ack!” he cried as the hook moved a little in him.

“Fine.” she sighed, already knowing his question. “Two more gens. … I hate this place.”

“Yeah…”

They waited for a rescuer in the ambient silence of the basement. With two left, it would be easy to lure the Huntress far from the basement so they could be saved. Their hopes rose and fell, just as before. She came down singing with David slung over her shoulder. One of his arms appeared to be wounded.

“Fockin’ bitch!” he screamed as she tossed him onto the hook and left without a second glance at him. “I swear ’m gonna- Argh!” he yelled as the hook dug into him as we squirmed.

“Okay, let’s just, keep calm. Wait a few moments, and then we’ll try to free ourselves.”

“As you say luv.” David agreed. Feng hummed in agreement as well.

“So, how’s it hangin?” he dared to ask after waiting a little bit.

“Ughhh, you did not just say that.” Feng groaned.

“David, I swear!”

“Sorry…”

“You’re lucky I love you. Alright, on the count of three guys. One… Two… Three!” Dwight yelled as they tried to unhook themselves. Each of them failed, screaming in pain as they fell right back onto the hook, Entity’s claws showing up to induce more fear.

“It’s okay guys. It’s- It’s alright.” Dwight said, trying to sound calm himself even though he was not, panting, sweating, and a few tears breaking free. He didn’t want to feel that emptiness that even love could not stave away. Neither did the others. Then, the last generator sounded completion. A few moments later, Jake came hurrying down the stairs. The Huntress would surely be there soon.

He unhooked David first, who unhooked Dwight with one arm as Jake got Feng. They didn’t even bother to heal, not that it mattered when she could one shot them into dying this trial. But at the top of the steps she awaited. With a hunter’s cry, she threw an axe down the stairs, the survivors narrowly dodging it. Still, she sang her song and grinned a mad smile

Just when she was about to lunge at them, she shifted to block an attack from something. It was a dog. It chomped right through her axe handle. She wasn’t singing anymore. She quickly retaliated with a headbutt, knocking it away. She cast aside her broken axe with a snarl and lunged at the other beast. They wrestled each other to the ground, aiming for each other’s throats. Seeing their chance, the survivors took it and ran.

“I thought you said those things were demons?!” Dwight questioned as David carried him in one arm.

“Most a ‘em! The church ones ain’t the only ones to do protectin’.”

“Who cares! Let’s just hurry up and escape!” Jake yelled as he led the way.

They soon reached an exit gate and hurried to unlock it. About a third of the way through, they heard an animalistic yet human roar. She had won. Around her mouth was black blood. But, she did not come out unscathed. She bore many scratches, a number of them deep and flowing with dark red blood. Even half of her mask was broken, revealing a red iris surrounded by black.

“Come on come on hurry up!” Feng shouted at the switch as she ran towards them, laughing maniacally with an axe in hand. Their hearts were pounding, the knowledge that at least one of them was probably going to die about to set in. Jake took out the flash light to try and stun her, but fumbled and dropped it.

And out of nowhere, she was knocked to the ground by a blur of black. It was the black dog again. It was on top of her, and then in one swift motion, she was on top, and tore out it's throat with her bare hands. She tossed aside the flesh and fur and resumed her true hunt. She was only a few feet away when she fell forward, the dog’s maw mangling her ankle. She let out a scream as she tried to hit it with her axe, but missed. Then the alarm sounded and the gate opened.

“Go, go, go!” Jake ushered.

“Wait!” David shouted, and switched Dwight for Jake’s flashlight. He ran back, and aimed the light at the Huntress as she thrashed about. Once she was blinded, David whistled for the dog and patted his thigh to usher it to come.  It did, and ran beside David as they ran through the exit gate to the safety of the campfire.

David and Dwight laughed in celebration, the dog rejoicing with them. Feng breathed a sigh of relief as Jake mended her wound.

“Wanna refuse to acknowledge this one?” David joked as he ruffled the dog’s thick, dark fur. Jake finished patching up Feng, and went to go patch up David while Feng took care of Dwight

“Refuse to acknowledge what?” he asked, playing dumb. “There’s no such thing as a Black Dog, just black dogs.” Just as he was about to apply something to David’s arm, the dog growled at him, causing him to back away. The others lightly laughed.

“Alright, fine! … It’s real.” Jake told the dog. It seemed content with being acknowledged, so it let Jake do his work, proceeding to rest at David’s feet.

“So, what can you tell us about your dog, King?” Feng asked.

“Hmm… their name is Heir, being heir to the King’s throne an’ all. Fights like a King too!” he praised he he ruffled the dog's fur.

“You mean we’re keeping them?” Dwight asked with a bright smile.

“Well, I hope so.” David said as he continued to pet it. “Don’t think Heir’ll be goin’ to trials though. Pry for the best.”

“Aww, so cute! C’mere!” Dwight called. It got up and went to sit before Dwight. He let the dog sniff his hand, and it licked it before ploping back down in front of David. “Oh my god they like me!” Dwight squealed, looking like he was about to cry.

“‘Know I said most were demons. A few are good, like this little bloke ‘ere!” he praised as he scratched behind its ear, which it seemed to like. “Either protect a church, or guide the wayward. Fittin’.”

The Entity seemed to be willing to allow them the repose, since it didn’t quickly call them into a trial. Even after the next trial the dog remained by the fire, awaiting David’s return. If David were out in a trial, Dwight would oft find the dog at his feet, lounging around. The big, dark furball comforted other survivors after dreary trials, even if it too could not dissipate that empty feeling.

And even so, the trials soon became much more lively, as did the times round the fire

[vintagedolan]

forgetful (egd)

it’s not like Ethan to forget things, so there’s no way he forgot your birthday... right?

word count: 4.2k

requested by: anon (thank you beeb!) 

warnings/tags: sad!ethan, forgetting of a birthday, panic attack, mentions of sean, angst (but it’s resolved cause im a weak fluffy bitch oops)

feel free to send in requests! i’ll write most things! hope you enjoy :)

This was one elaborate plan, you’d give him that. And he was hiding everything so well that you were ridiculously impressed. You went along with it, not wanting him to think that you were suspicious of anything.

“You all packed?” You asked, pouting a bit as he zipped up his bag and stood it up on its wheels. 

“Yep. It’s just for a few days, I’ll be back on Thursday. Need some family time with Mom,” he reassured you. 

Thursday. Your birthday. 

You never really made a big deal out of birthdays but after you had gotten Ethan two new custom longboards for his, he had promised you an epic celebration for your big day. And he hadn’t let you in on the secret at all. It took all your self control not to pry and ask questions as you followed him out to the car where Grayson was waiting. Was he even going to Jersey? Or was this all some big ploy? You wouldn’t put it past him. Either way, you knew you weren’t going to see him for a few days, which pulled at your heart strings a bit.

“Okay, well fly safe, and let me know when you all get there,” you wrapped your arms around his torso, squeezing tight. He nuzzled into your hair for a moment, squeezing you even tighter than he usually did. Between the way he was talking and that, you could tell something was definitely going on. 

“I will. I love you,” he said, leaning down to kiss you goodbye. It was quicker than usual. It only convinced you more.

“Love you too,” you smiled at him, letting go and moving to hug Grayson goodbye. You waved until they were out of sight before going inside, with a million thoughts of what he could be up to running through your head. 

He text you a quick made it safe about 6 hours later, right on time for a landing in New Jersey. You sent back some hearts and a response. 

Have fun hanging with your mom, I know you’ve missed her. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you! It was a subtle way of trying to assure him that he didn’t need to be talking to you when he should be visiting with his family. 

He sent back a I will baby, I love you too and you left it at that. 

The next day went by fairly slow for a Monday. You piddled around the house, getting some work done and generally just relaxing. Ethan FaceTimed you around noon, and was acting even weirder than before. Something was definitely up, and you couldn’t help but get a little bit excited. He must be planning something big if he was this nervous about it. 

Tuesday was even weirder. He sent you a good morning text, but you didn’t hear from him again until that evening, and when he called you could tell that he was exhausted and wasn’t much in the mood for talking. It puzzled you some, but worried you more than anything. 

“Are you okay baby? You seem a bit off,” you asked.

“Yeah, I’m just tired. I need to go to bed. I love you.”

“I love you too, get some rest.” 

By Wednesday, you were actually starting to get concerned. You considered texting Grayson - if Ethan was actually upset about something, his brother would probably tell you. But you felt bad at the idea of going behind Ethan’s back so you waited. 

It was 9pm your time, which was midnight back in Jersey, when he finally facetimed you. He was in a bit higher spirits, which made you smile. His day was much more interesting than yours had been, so you listened to him talk about anything and everything, just content to hear his voice. When he finally got through all the events, he asked all about yours. There wasn’t much to tell, but you walked him through.

“I’m sure tomorrow will be more eventful,” you teased, rolling your eyes a bit.

“Yeah, about that. Cam is coming to surprise mom tomorrow, and Gray and I are gonna stay an extra day so we can see her. It’s been ages since we’ve all been home,” he explained. You balked. Was he kidding? You watched him closely, trying to see if he was joking or not. You noticed that he was fidgeting a little bit, one of his nervous habits. Something else was up. 

It clicked for you then - he was probably setting up the surprise, wanting you to think that he wasn’t even going to be in the state. Sneaky.

“Okay, that’s fine,” you responded, secretly looking around the screen to see if you could spot a camera. He would be filming this for sure if there was a video, and you didn’t want to ruin it.

“I was wondering if you could do me a favor tomorrow though. Louis Vuitton is getting a shipment of new stuff in for me and Gray, and we’re supposed to pick specific stuff by Saturday, do you think you could go get it and bring it home so we have more time to decide once we get back?” 

There it was. 

The weird get-you-to-a-certain-place excuse that was customary with any Ethan surprise. You breathed out a sigh - for a second there you really thought that he had forgotten. This was one of his less creative ideas, but you rolled with it anyways. 

“Yeah, I can get it. What time am I supposed to go?”

“Whenever is fine! Thank you baby,” he offered you a soft smile.

Weird. Usually he would be specific on a time. Oh well. He definitely just needed you out of the house so he could set up whatever it was. 

“You’re welcome. Isn’t it like 1am there now? You should be asleep,” you reminded him.

“Yeah, we’ve gotta get Cam pretty early in the morning so you’re probably right. Well, I love you, I’ll check on you tomorrow. Goodnight!”

“I love you too, goodnight baby.”

It was hard to sleep that night. Your mind was racing with a million different things, trying to think of what he would be planning. He was probably on a plane already. You woke up throughout the night, convinced you were hearing him sneaking in. But eventually you fell asleep with no dreams.

And when you woke up the next morning around 9am the house was empty and quiet. You didn’t feel any older, and to be honest it didn’t feel much different from your past few birthdays - you usually spent them alone. You walked around the house cautiously, peeking around corners to see if someone was there to jump out and surprise you. No one showed, so you simply went to the kitchen and made yourself a quick breakfast. 

Once that was done, you went back to Ethan’s bathroom and started getting ready. It had been awhile since you’d done a full face of makeup, and you put on one of your favorite outfits as well just to make you feel nice.

As you were putting your shoes on, you felt your phone buzz. 

Morning baby! what’re you up to? was the text from Ethan that came across your screen. 

morning! I’m headed to louis to get your alls clothes

You felt the butterflies starting to mount as you headed out to the car. Who knew what was gonna be there when you got back. Deciding to make the most of it, you stopped by your favorite coffee shop and got a drink on your way to the store. The workers were nice as always, even helping you to get all the garment bags into your car before waving as you drove off. 

The excitement mounted with each minute that passed on the way home. You were practically bouncing by the time you got to the driveway, opening the gate and pulling in. Nothing looked different - of course, he would have hidden the cars somewhere. 

You gathered all the garment bags, holding them high above you so they didn’t drag the ground, hoping you wouldn’t drop them if someone jumped out. 

Opening the door slowly, you braced yourself.

And nothing. 

Nothing happened. 

You kept walking, placing the bags down over the couch. 

“Hello?” You said, listening to the echo. There was no response. And then it hit you like a ton of bricks. 

No one was here. 

No one was coming.

You’d been forgotten. 

The tears came quickly, hot and angry down your cheeks. It took a moment for you to realize that you were actually embarrassed. You’d made up a whole scenario in your head that your boyfriend was planning some major surprise for you, when in reality he was actually across the country with no idea what day it even was. It stung much more than you thought it would. 

And so, you sat on the floor and cried, leaving tear stains on your outfit and throwing a full on pity party. You felt stupid, and childish, and unloved all at the same time. A tiny sliver of hope remained, but when you got a snapchat from Grayson of them in the car with Cam, it faded too. 

After about an hour you managed to get yourself up off the floor, going through the motions. You hung the boys clothes up in their closets, cleaned up your makeup; it was still your birthday. You were going to try to have a good day if you could. So you went back out to the grocery and bought yourself a cake. A whole ass cake in your favorite flavor, and you had the bakers write “happy birthday to me” on top of it in white icing. 

As you drove back to the house, your sadness started to turn into anger. You didn’t deserve this shit. You deserved to be celebrated on the one fucking day of the year that was about you. And you were happy that Ethan was getting to see his sister - you really were. If he had told you about it and been apologetic that he couldn’t be there for your birthday, you would have understood. But it was so very obvious that he’d completely forgotten, and that was what bothered you the most out of anything. 

When your phone rang with a facetime from him, you knew better than to answer it. You would say something that you really, really regretted. You let it ring through as you pulled in the driveway, carrying your cake inside and sitting it on the counter. Your phone rang again, and you ignored it. 

He seemed to give up, and sent you a text instead.

Hey baby, we ended up needing to get a flight tonight so I should be home around 11 or so your time. didn’t want you to get scared if you heard me. can’t wait to see you, I missed you!

You closed your phone. You didn’t trust yourself to not be an asshole. You knew that as soon as Ethan realized what was going on he was going to feel absolutely terrible. So you didn’t want to be a complete asshole. But... that didn’t mean you couldn’t be a little bit petty. 

So you decided to stay up until he got home. And by stay up, that meant waiting in the kitchen for him with your cake on the counter so he could realize exactly what had happened. Petty. But justified. 

The wait was long, but worth it when you finally heard them coming down the driveway. You started eating the cake, making sure to just get the corners because you wanted the words to stay visible.

The door clicked open and shut, and you heard the rustling of the boys coming in.

“Tell Y/N I said hey if she’s up, I’m going the fuck to sleep,” you heard Grayson explain, not even coming into the kitchen.

Good. You didn’t want him in the middle of all this anyways. 

Ethan almost passed you on his way to his room, but you caught his eye. His entire face lit up when he saw you, and you felt your resolve to be petty crack a little. He was so damn cute, it was hard to stay mad at him. 

“Baby you didn’t need to stay up! I figured you’d gone to sleep early since you didn’t answer earlier,” he grinned, coming over to you. 

“I’m awake.” Your tone stopped him in his tracks - he was on his way to kiss you, no doubt. You were even surprised at how mad you sounded. It wasn’t like you to pick a fight. 

“I can see that. Are you okay?” He was more cautious now, looking around to see if he could figure out what was happening. You gave him a minute before you took another bite of cake to give him a clue.

He looked down at the icing, and you watched him mouth the words as he read it. 

“Did you buy a clearance cake or something? What’s going on? I’m confused.”

“I can wait until you figure it out.” 

You watched the gears turn in his head. When he looked up from the pastry, his eyes were wide. 

“What’s today’s date?” He asked, his voice meek.

“I’ll give you one guess,” you murmured, taking another bite.

“Oh no. Oh no no no no,” he said, hands coming up to his hair. He held his head for a moment, and you noticed that his chest was rising and falling too fast. He stumbled a bit, reaching back to catch himself on the counter. His hand slipped slightly - was he sweating?

You pieced it together immediately. 

Panic attack.

Any anger, any pettiness you had flew out the window. You dropped your fork, running over to him and grabbing his hand. 

“C’mon, come with me Ethan it’s okay,” you said, guiding him as quickly as you could to the room you shared. They always resolved quicker if he was in his most comforting place, so when you got him in the room you immediately guided him to sit on the bed. 

You knelt in front of him, holding his hands in yours. 

“Breathe in while I squeeze, out when I let go, okay? Just like we always do, and it’ll stop. I’m right here,” you reassured him, squeezing his hands. To your relief he was able to take a deep breath in with you, but he exhaled immediately, panic still overriding. 

“You’re. You’re gonna - leave.” He was gasping through the words.

“Ethan I’m right here. I’m right here, I’m not leaving, no matter what. Just breathe baby, just breathe.” 

It took almost 15 minutes to get him fully calmed down, and you only knew it was over when he opened up his arms for you. You climbed onto his lap, no hesitation, wrapping your arms around him. 

It didn’t matter how angry you were - nothing was worse than seeing the man you loved in pain. You couldn’t stand it. 

“I am actually the biggest piece of shit to walk the face of the earth,” he mumbled into your shoulder a few moments later. You shook your head, pressing a kiss to his hair. 

“No you aren’t, I’m -”

“If you apologize, I swear to god,” he cut you off and you fell silent as he sat up and looked at you. “Please, please do not try to make me feel better right now.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” You asked honestly. You felt guilty that your pettiness had caused him to panic so quickly. 

“Yell at me, scream at me, be fucking pissed off that I literally forgot the most important day of the fucking year,” he said, exasperated. 

“I’m not gonna do that.” You couldn’t do that was the correct answer. “Besides, I already had my fun. With the cake.” 

Ethan looked like he was going to explode.

“So I forget that today is your birthday. Not only do I not have a whole party and surprise for you, but I don’t even say happy birthday. And you spend the entire day alone, while I’m just fucking around on the other side of the country.”

“You were with your family, that’s not fucking around.” 

“While I’m just fucking around on the other side of the United States-” he repeated. “And your revenge on me was to buy yourself a cake...”

“And be petty about it,” you shrugged. He looked at you in disbelief. And honestly, you were surprised at yourself too. You’d been so hurt and mad earlier, but all that anger had left you somehow. Something about being with Ethan put you at peace, even in the most unsettling of situations.

“That wasn’t even being petty! What do you even mean!? How are you not screaming at me right now!?” He practically yelled. 

“I mean yeah, I was sad, but I pretty much hurt my own feelings.”

His face was actually red with frustration.

“Please explain what ridiculous way you’ve convinced yourself of that.”

You hesitated.

“It’s gonna make you sad.” 

He didn’t say anything, and you sighed, knowing he was gonna make you tell him. You looked down, toying with the hem of his shirt as you explained.

“Well, I thought it was kinda weird that you were going home so close to my birthday, so I kinda convinced myself that maybe you were surprising me or something. Like pretending to be gone, but actually you were gonna be here. And you seemed off while you were home, so I thought maybe you were just planning stuff, or maybe you were nervous about pulling it off. And I thought you asked me to go to Louis to get the clothes so you had time to set stuff up. But then when I got back I realized you were still in Jersey. So really it was only bad because I thought something was happening.”

“I am a piece of shit,” he repeated after a moment. 

“What was going on in Jersey that had you acting so weird?” You poised, trying to change the subject. He was going to continue beating himself up over forgetting, and there wasn’t much you could do to stop him, but you were genuinely curious as to what had been going on. You knew him well enough that you were sure that it was something - you’d just assumed wrong when guessing it was about you. 

His arms tightened around you slightly, pulling you to his chest while his cheek rested on your shoulder. Sometimes, he found it easier to talk about things when he wasn’t looking right at you. 

“It was Mom and Dad’s anniversary last week. It’s always really hard for her, and Grayson and I wanted to go see her to make sure she was alright, but we couldn’t get out there on the actual day. But we went to his grave on Tuesday, and I realized I hadn’t been back out there since the funeral. It stirred up a lot of emotions for everybody, but it was really nice being home with my family, even just for a little while. We facetimed with Cam while we were there, and she got upset too and wanted to see everybody so we got her a flight to come up for the day.”

You took a minute to process everything, and then you leaned back so that you could look at Ethan.

“Baby why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known all that I would have told you to stay longer.”

“I just... I didn’t want it to be a big deal. It shouldn’t be a big deal.” 

“Yes it should. Your family is the most important thing to you, it always has been and it always will be. That comes before anything,” you reassured him. “If your mom was having a hard time, you did the right thing by going to see her when you could.”

“My dad always handled everything so well. Always had a million things going on at once and never dropped anything. And I can’t even remember two fucking things.” His voice was getting rougher, and you could tell his throat was tight. You put a hand behind his neck, running your fingers through the hairs at the nape of it.

“I just wish I could be more like him. I always fuck everything up.” 

“You don’t Ethan. You’re more like your dad than you’ll ever know, he raised you to be an amazing man. I see parts of him in you everyday.” 

And for some reason those words broke him down, and he began to sob. You hadn’t seen him cry like that in a while, but when you had, no words could comfort him. So you just held him tightly and let him cry his way through it, running your fingers along his back gently and occasionally pressing a kiss to his temple. 

When he had finally cried himself out he just melted into your shoulder and let you hold him for a while. It was a few more minutes before he spoke.

“This must be a wonderful birthday for you. Your asshole boyfriend forgets about it, then comes home and spends the last hour of it in a panic attack and then bawling like a baby over his dead dad. I sure do know how to bring the party huh.” 

You leaned back to meet his eyes, and he had been so monotone through the whole thing that you couldn’t help but laugh. Your giggle caused him to start to crack, and before you knew it you were both cackling so hard you were crying.

“We’re quite the duo,” you teased, taking his face in your hands and wiping his tears away.

“I really am so sorry baby. I feel terrible.” 

“It’s alright Ethan. You had a reason, and to be honest it was kinda fun being petty for a minute. I don’t get to do it often,” you said. He was already forgiven. To your surprise, instead of arguing, he took your wrist in his hand, turning it to look at the time on your watch. 

11:58

“It’s still your birthday. Can I give you your present?”

“You got me a present?” You perked up.

“Of course I did, I’m not that shitty.”

“Gimme,” you smiled, holding out your hands. He smiled at that, putting his hands on your hips and lifting you off his lap. You watched him as he went to his closet, reaching behind one of his shoe boxes to pull out a small blue wrapped box, followed by an envelope. You made a grabby hand at it, making him chuckle as he handed them over.

“Which one should I open first?” 

“You’re the birthday girl, you decide,” he grinned.

You opted for the envelope, pulling it open and looking inside. There were a few pieces of paper, but you chose the one with Ethan’s handwriting on it first. In his messy scrawl you read:

plus a shopping spree for anything you want to take with us :) 

“Take with us? Where are we going?!” You exclaimed.

“Open the rest of it,” he urged. 

You reached in and found two plane tickets to Maui. 

“Holy shit! We’re going to Hawaii!?” 

“We leave in two weeks. I figured it was about time we went there by ourselves. I got us a nice little villa to stay at, and we’re gonna go clothes shopping for whatever you want. Though, I do request you pick out many, many bikinis.”

You smacked his chest before you kissed him.

“This is too much. Way too much.”

“Not possible. Here, open this one. It’s not as exciting, but I think you’ll still like it.” He passed you the box and ripped off the paper. What else could he have possibly gotten you?

When you pulled open the box, you gasped. It was a beautiful ring, with a raw black crystal on it that had a tiny blue stone nestled in it. It was obviously hand crafted, and it was just your style.

“Ethan this is beautiful,” you said, picking it up and admiring it. “What kind of crystal is this?”

“It’s black tourmaline, and the little stone is zircon, which is my birthstone. Black tourmaline is for protection, so it’s my promise to you that I’m always going to keep you safe.” He took the ring from your hand and slid it onto your finger. 

“I love you,” was the only response you could form as you crawled forward and settled yourself back in his lap. You kissed him hard, trying to say what you wanted without the words. No one had ever gotten you a gift so meaningful. He kissed you back, responding to each move you made, reciprocating as you lead, hands wandering. 

He took you by surprise when he stood up, hands moving to your ass as he lifted you and carried you towards the door.

“Where are we going?” In all honesty, you didn’t care. 

“I’m declaring it birthday week, and we’re celebrating every day. So we’re starting day two with cake.”

“I have sad news.”

His feet stopped and he looked at you, quirking an eyebrow.

“It’s not dairy free.”

He gasped a bit in mock hurt, but it turned into a smile that you kissed off his lips a moment later.

“Well then, I’ll just watch you eat cake and think of all the ways I’m going to spoil you until your next birthday to make up for this one.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” 

[mytwitterisdogtoast1]

Kingdom Hearts 3 broke my heart.

I am a fan of Kingdom Hearts. i've been here through the first game and even though I grew up without the money to play every game I stuck with the series as best I could. In fact I've bought multiple copies of games on multiple systems and beat a couple of the games not just once but 3 or more times. Here is a list of the things I've done involving this series.

1: I bought KH1/2/COM on more than one system such as ps2,3, and 4. 2: I've played and beaten on the hardest difficulty on each main installment (except critical mode of 3) 3: I have 100% KH1 which might not seem like a big deal but it is the only game I have 100% ever. Got all the trophies and so on. 4: I stuck with the story and even recently before 3 came out played and beat most of the games. (except DDD since it wasn't my kind of deal since I don't like the flowmotion part of the combat.)

You could say I'm a fan of the games and have done what I can to in general keep up with the series as well as have enjoyed the series.

But then 3 came out and I was just not happy with it. After waiting for so long and playing the game and screaming and ranting about certain plot points that just don't make sense to me (KH is notoriously hard to keep up with plot wise and I am just not the brightest person in the world when it comes to shit. Like I really need some things explained outright for me and to some degree do not mind spoilers for some things) I swore off KH the entirety from now on cause it was just that bad of a game for me. It wasn't a horrible game but the direction they started taking it in was just so far removed from what the original 2 games in the numerical series were that this was just NOT Kingdom Hearts at all. Sure you can say it is a love letter to the biggest of fans but I can say that a letter to regular fans was something it needed to do more than cater to such a rabid fanbase compared to a regular fanbase. I thought this was unfair and then bought Memory of Melody. That is now the worst game in the series to me. So I dived into what people thought and looked at a ton of youtubers who played the game and saw what they thought. I looked at reviews of non youtubers and read what they thought and the game has made the fanbase more divided than anything I'd ever seen from a fanbase. So I replayed the game with the intent to write down all I felt on the game to give it a fair review. Like I said I'm a filthy casual and I can give stuff a large break when it comes to media and have a large understanding of what that thing is meant to be. Sometimes a product is meant to be a certain way and we have to enjoy it for what it is and I can try and do that. I mean I love the WWE and Yugioh and anyone who is a part of those fanbases knows in their hearts (kek hearts) how bad those things can be at times. So I played the game and wrote down all the thoughts I had on it and Some might be easy to explain while others are in general probably at least fair on how I feel about it.

Kingdom Hearts is a series not meant for the new comer. It knows what it wants to be and does that thing. It isn't here to make everyone happy and that is just absolutely fine in general. I've been a fan and it makes me happy that the game is one long story that I can appreciate and make call backs to in stuff. I remember being so rewarded when I looked at my then best friend who skipped over chain of memories (I had to emulate it but I think it was fair of me to do so since I bought the game 3 times since now that I have the money to do so) and said he knew what happened because he saw the cutscene of Sora reaching the top and Namine betraying him by putting him into a pod. I laughed at him cause he was a fool who knew nothing of how the story went cause he foolishly just thought he didn't NEED to play the game. This made me more invested into the series than he was. I stuck with the series reading up articles and even watching videos on the series for stuff I missed out on since again i couldn't afford everything. They were building a story over a decade long and at the end it just didn't do it for me. It's not that the story wasn't the end of the series in general. Heck gotta make dat' money Y'all but in general this was the end of a saga for Xehanort and it just didn't cut it. But maybe I'm not starting at the right spot to give my feelings on it. Maybe I'm coming fresh off a game play and feeling a rant building for multiple reasons. So let me start with the positives before I bury the list under a pile of problems for me.

So I'll be putting things in order of good, mixed, bad. They will be somewhat fair and if they have an answer you have my sincerest apologies but remember I'm slightly the "dumb" and would in general like to just get simple straight answers. Something simple and clean if you would. On that note

1: The starting song is a god damned banger - Face my fears is up there with sanctuary which is better than Simple and clean. To be fair though simple and clean was made in like a flight and pretty much is nonsensical to the game in general. However it is a good song. How could it not be with one of japans best pop artists? Have you heard sakura drops? Colors? Traveling? Apples and cinnamon? Fuck man this song is just really good. 2: The game looks great - Sure the game might not look like ps2 graphics anymore but this isn't a bad thing it just is a different thing. The only time I thought it looked bad was during the pirates area where they had to make real people. Sometimes it is better to have a different art theme and even if something is just ok at best during it it can still be over all great. Everyone looked good during it. It just in general looked like a new version of KH entirely. 3: You can power up keyblades - One of the best parts of the game is powering up keyblades. Now sure mickey saying "we should have powered up our keyblades" is a stupid line in general when they are magic items and not fully meant to break form normal stuff but i think the ability to latch onto a key and make that sucker your main key is a great idea. Finally I can power up keys like sweet memories or the kingdom key and go through the cutscenes with the keyblade never changing and it look like it's meant to be there. 4: The whole getting treasure for sinking ships - Even if in general people might not like the ship combat the idea of being a pirate and stealing treasure from a ship when you sink one of the large ones is one of the best thematical ideas in the game. You can just sail the ocean and just pirate ship for loot if you wanted to and since you get xp during it and get your ship to be better it just is a great idea in its entirety. 5: Rikus keyblade - That is one of the better keyblades. I'm not gonna lie but the final fantasy cloud based keyblades where they are more realistic have been one of my favorite designs and I am sad i can't throw it on sora. I like the idea of an actual blade instead of a blunt weapon in the game since it just feels cooler sometimes. Riku getting a keyblade that not only looks more like a sword but is also still a key for a more modern car is one of the cooler things they have ever put in. 6: The call back to union cross players - This was a little lover note to people who played the game. They grabbed a ton of names and threw them in as you threw hundreds of keyblades at the giant heartless storm mob thing. I think it is great and even if I didn't play one of the names that pops up is my actual name so I find that pretty cool whenever I see it.

And that is it. Those are the best parts of KH3 to me. Everything else is either a mixed bag or just not good. I'm sure you can tell which one has more in it. As for the stuff that is in the middle of both good and bad let me make it clear that some stuff that is bad will probably be talked about in the bad section because it needs its own commentary.

1: All the party members - I always was a little sad having to remove one of the characters in my party to add the one new person they wanted to add in and was always sad at that limitation but with 3 you can now have ALL THE MEMBERS. This is great because now I have access to all of my forms with donal...... Oh right, they're not in the game anymore. 2: Nice to one and done an area - Back in the day when I first played the original first game I never went back cause I beat the level and thought it was extra stuff. When I got older and playued through 2 I was a little impatient and just didn't want to keep going back. Now as I am older and wiser and more patient I just do the thing cause it's a part of the game and deal. Thankfully it is all in one trip which is good CAUSE I DON'T WANNA FUCKING PLAY THESE LEVELS EVER AGAIN. 3: I'm gonna say it and people are gonna question me (probably not I'm not a large content creator thus people probably don't care about my opinion so strange of you to be here reading this) but I fucking hate winnie the pooh. I don't like him as a person and I'm just not a fan of his entire world. I only like Eeyore and not cause "gosh that's how I feel" Eeyore is the fucking man. He never lets his bad mood get him down and he powers through even when life is shit. Good for him man. Love that guy. Such a trooper. I just don't like pooh but the levels. God Kingdom Hearts mini games are just mostly not fun in general so not having to play so many mini games in poohs level is fantastic. EXCEPT EVERY WORLD HAS A DAMNED MINI GAME IN IT. 4: Speaking of mini games the ship combat is fine. - It's just, fine. 5: I had so much money - I don't remember playing any other game having so much money. I remember caring and investing and even trying to get money to spend on stuff in some points and in here it just.... I never spent it until i got bored and started using food. I didn't use food until the last world and beyond cause I wanted to finish the game faster. I mean the change of pace having money is nice but there was nothing really to do with it. Maybe I should have bought Hayner, Pence and Olette a ton of pretzels with it. 6: Playing as any other keyblade wielder - Man this was one of those great moments that I was excited to do. Having played as many other characters during other games was always nice and refreshing and being able to do so here was great. It got me excited to play as Mickey again since I got to use him a few times in KH2 or to be able to use Ventus or Aqua again cause they were gonna be saved and be able to fight in the upcoming battle. That is you know. If they are used in the game more than one time each. 7: Giant heartless battle - One of the best moments in the game was the "goofy just died" moment. Not because The goof man "died" but because you got to solo fight a crowd of enemies and in this game it was so cool to have that call back. The shit icing on that beautiful cake was having to use the train to win. Like it just felt like I was making no progress and I can't on my own fight the enemies and no matter how hard you try you can never stop the enemies ever. 8: The what if scenario - The group dying was pretty cool and was a great what if but would have been better if they didn't come back to the past and have Ventus run up and think it was Terra again. It was cool for the lingering will to step in and help but even then the whole situation was so stupid that it could have been written better. What if instead of doing the whole scenario it was a mind fuckery to sora to put him down mentally like they had been trying to entire game. What if it showed him losing and that it was possible? Instead we got this long winded scenario where people didn't learn from their first mistake and tried to go run up to Terra when in that moment Aqua when Ven tried going should have grabbed his shoulder and said "you know it's not him so let's just get ready to fight"

Those are the mixed bag moments I was commenting on. Some things are fine and aren't really an issue except the are a part of a bigger problem in itself which makes them a mixed bag. The last part's I'll be writing about are pretty much a giant rant or asking questions to things. There are problematic points I'll be making as well. So now let's look at the bad stuff in KH3. However, before I get into it, I want to also write down the not as bad stuff as well as some of the really big stuff so I'll make sure to point out when it is a gripe that isn't the worst thing in the world compared to it actually being not good.

1: Nitpick/The social media is dumb - Look I'm not much of a social media person and I know todays kids and teens are all about that jazz and such but man this part of the game is pretty dumb. I am in no way too old to "get hip with it grandpa" and think social media is a bad thing. Times and things change but WHY IS THIS A THING? Sora and friends are out saving the world and probably do not know about current phones since they are so busy. They would be like really old people trying to catch up with todays world and just in general should not have time enough to do it. Sure giving a phone is fine which whatever they can just add in ways to contact which again makes the phone fine but social media is dumb. What platform are they on? Who is following them? What world is this being sent to in general? Does anyone really care?

2: Nitpick/Why 7 VS 13? - I think the number is just really off. Ok look the original organization 13 was fine. Having 14 members in it wasn't a big deal and sure fighting them seperately and not all in one game made me a little sad until final mix came out but at least i got to fight Marluxia in all his pretty boy glory. The point I make is they just seem to have stuck with the 13 which is fine I guess? It just seemed like it was more or less there for no real reason. Sure we would have to fight every single Xehanort around such as Ansem, Xemnas, Terranort, Xigbar who works with old man Xehanort, Young Xehanort, Old man Xehanort. If you also in general wanted him to have each good guy fight a bad guy we would need one for each single keyblade wielder to come out. So let's say Kairi and Axel were just gonna join in so we can have for whatever reason Xion and Roxas just pop out to fight people. We would have need for a total of 7 enemies to fight. Let's just use these guys here as people for people to fight. We can have terranort fight someone before he comes back as lingering will to fight and get his body back. We can have Kairi fight Xion until she defects in general and fights another person with her. We can have axel fight Xemnas so he can get revenge and then have him lose and Roxas can come out. So on and so forth until we have just enough for each person to be matched with another person. You wouldn't need to stretch and find whatever you can and just fill the numbers. You could have at that point just filled it with villains you knew you wanted on your team. Not just bring back generic dudes who don't even need to be here. I'll get more into that in a moment but the numbers just seem off and could have been anything not 7 v 13 but like I said. Nitpick.

3: The plot of Sora flying around this time is a little weak. - So Sora lost his powers and needs to get them back. So he fucks off for a bit until he can regain the powers. Wouldn't it be better if he also trained with Kairi and Axel? What about just going into the realm of darkness to help the others get Aqua? What if instead of just going back and forth to each Disney world like he normally did he in general just.....trained. See the point of the other games was "close the keyholes of the world so heartless stop getting in. Stop those nobodies from opening Kindom Hearts." Kind like saving the world is a great motivation to have compared to "fuck off until you are good or something". It's one of the biggest issues in general. Now if he was told something more substantial than "you need the power of waking" than it would have made the grind through much better. Add in a new plot element for him to need to travel to lands in general so he can earn the power of waking. Send him to places to get that shit instead of "get stronger". You think I can't just do that shit with story? Shit's boring man lemme do stuff.

4: You cannot turn off attractions - That is without playing critical mode. Man Attractions are in general one of the worst parts of the game. Sure I find it hilarious when I'm fighting an important boss (such as Xemnas) and I last hit him with a merry go round but in general they just suck. They aren't fun and they slow the games combat down with a cinematic. Sure they can be "avoided" and I "don't have to use them" but they exist in the game. They are the creators vision and he wants you to use them. If they didn't want it to be a huge part of the games combat system they wouldn't add it in and the fact that it shows up so often just kinda proves they want you to use the thing. Combat in here is very floaty if you haven't noticed and a more grounded approach is sometimes best. This is what the attractions do since they still try and attack you thus getting closer to the attraction in the first place. It's really a jarring object. Telling me not to use it while having the chance to actually accidentally press the button is frustrating. It's the smaller version of telling someone don't be mad when they are mad or try not to be depressed. It's hard to avoid and the answer isn't just "don't do it." Especially when the game puts in abilities to make them more prominent such as extending the time on them. Another point on this is that if the developer wanted them to be optional they wouldn't sometimes be mandatory or even show up during boss fights. Either this was an added on horse shit thing where Disney was like "add attractions or we're done" or Nomura just was like "i recently went to disney land and you gotta put this in it's dope". Joke aside it is one of the worst parts of the game since I can't turn them off and it is hard to get around them. Let me turn them off fully or let them be used as an ability where you can add them in if you want it. Customization should be more of a thing than a gimmick you keep getting. Also they show up so often and I believe in every enemy spawn group. Multiple times even if you miss it the first time. Having so much prominence placed onto this one mechanic just shows they went in hard on it and sure if it was just the rock titan or just the horde of heartless at the end or maybe even rare I wouldn't find it much of a problem but it is EVERY FREAKING COMBAT. I hit that button on accident more times than I wanted to that in general I was trying to use a spell but I missed it by seconds or something and the carnival ride started up and I just said "god dammit" and had to end it dealing a burst of damage since you can't just stop it, it has to go full swing. Also only in critical mode is kind of bullshit. Add it to every mode in the game and it'll be less of an issue.

5: Nitpick/Sora is an idiot - Look I don't mean the whole "he's so stupid now he just is always happy or has dumb dialogue" I mean the idiot tried to touch fire and instead of water magic which he now has and I spammed on the fire balls he walked up to a freaking inferno of flames and just tried to see if it was hot by touching it with his bare hands. Shit Sora you dumb fuck Goofy had a better idea than the mage and the main character and he's not always the brightest. Fuck you.

6: There is too much stuff in this game - Way too many mechanics and most of them are on forever. You have so much you can do such as the shotlock, Flowmotion, Carnival rides, Extra forms, Summoning the fat cat dream pokemon, so many mini games,  just so much shit and I'm sure I forgot something. Now look I can let go of the whole "cat" thing because it is a summon and those are normal but in general it just feels like the entire game was overloaded with everything from every other game EXCEPT for cards and if we don't have cards for character upgrades or something it feels like a waste. (that's a joke) The point is that there is too much stuff and it's all filler and fluff and we can just have a nice game without 10,000 things to learn in the first section of the game.

7: Nitpick/ I think the selfies are just dumb - I've taken a total of maybe 5 selfies. All of which are to show a single person in that specific moment. Selfies don't really do much in the world we play in for KH3 and I just think it is in general a dumb game mechanic. However it is not required to do so it's not a big deal to have in. Just another nitpick.

8: Food and cooking - Look, this is not monster hunter. This is not another game where food is an important detail and sure I don't mind the addition of it if you really wanna put it in but it does make the game easier when used. In that direction fine making a game easier isn't a bad thing, however, constantly telling me now is a good time to find ingredients for little chef is annoying every time. I could figure it out if I really wanted it but in general since it is an optional mechanic to which I can just buy the parts for it and even the food at a kupo shop than what is the point in adding in the game play mechanics for it? The mini games are dumb and take too long to do for such a small mini game. Crack and egg get soup. Nothing else but crack an egg. So than the game is too short for a mechanic I'm supposed to do often? Why not add in a larger game so that I can help him create the object one time to see if he likes it and then when he adds it on I can order the object from him. Don't add it into the kupo store if I you want me to make it and don't make me make it be so tedious if you want me to make it. Also why is sora cooking at all? It's Remys passion not mine. He's even shown to run a packed restaurant all on his own at the end of the game in the credits scene.

9: More customization please - Here's a major issue I have with the game. There is less customization compared to other games. This is strange as in general it seems to be the same. The problem is this. I have to use flowmotion in the game. It is not an option because in certain levels it is a legitimate requirement to use for moving elsas castle. It is required in a couple other places as well but the point still stands. I need to have them equipped in order to make progress. The fact that in KH2 I could turn off big moves from team members but cannot now takes the agency away from me from making my fighting style more what I want to do. This means in order for me to really enjoy the game I have to really accept mechanics I was not a fan of in DDD. Maybe having an option for character customization such as turning off forms, and what special attacks you wanna do would be nice instead of giving everything under the sun. Do I want to be a fast mobile fighter? Than make that a character level abiliy choice instead of just making me have it from the start and also making it mandatory for levels. Allow me to remove the big moves with my team and stop making them always on since I never liked them. Sure I can ignore them but it comes down to the same thing as the attractions. Sometimes you cannot avoid hitting the wrong thing. This also goes into the whole magic sucking ass in this game. Every spell is offensive and thus it just feels like it is the same. Wanna do a little small thing with some damage? Wanna do massive damage comparatively? It just feels like they wanted to simplify the whole having a summon, having a spell, having 2 items on or something along those lines. This stops you from having more options on your character and just stream lines you in to a generic build. I didn't use ice once past the first time finding out its pretty much a fire ball. I used cure, fire, water, thunder. Thunder for crowds, fire for damage, water for crowds also because I just stopped caring and cura cause I heal all my damage cause DONALD NEVER HEALS YOU. WE'RE 4000 GAMES IN MAKE DONALD HEAL BETTER. This again comes back to the limits. Let me turn them off since I do not like them. If they worked as magic they would be better cause the magic sucks ass in the game. I mostly after a while stopped doing any real care in magic and just used healing. This also comes back to the original abilities in second form that you can unlock via smacking them with your keyblade. They would be nice since the magic in the game again sucks ass so having something to use magic bar that is not cure would be a nice touch.

10: For a guy who lost his powers I sure have a ton of abilities right away - Remember when in the beginning of each game you lost all your powers and had to slowly unlock everything and it would come to you not just willy nilly? Man those were the days. Could earn powers for reasons. I'm not helpless in the game if I can run up mountains or sky scrapers. If I can glide with the shotlock from one spot to another. I'm too strong if anything at the start and it just makes you feel like the game is padding time before the small amount of story at the end that matters. This could have literally been with the final chapter prologue and it would have worked fine. But no, we didn't get that. That leads into us just spending time until something happens. The story has its own issues (which I will touch up on near the end) and it has some really bad pacing issues. There is bad pacing, and then there is bad writing because of bad pacing. Why not put some shit in the middle. Show I'm getting better instead of just having me just do everything all at once.  That's not really an issue if they space parts of it in or let me play as the other characters while sora is fucking off for power. Imagine if they added in more parts with Riku while Sora quests for strength. Imagine us going through the land of darkness instead of just Disney world after Disney world. Imagine what we could have had had it not just been all the Disney stuff then the finale all at once. It wasn't bad pacing for the end to pick up, it was bad pacing for there to be nothing in the middle. This is where the final fantasy characters could have been nice. Adding in the end of the Cloud and Sephiroth stuff so we can fight for more power there. Having us talk with Leon and the gang while they battle with some heartless just in the area and needing help. This would have made better pacing since it would have cut the monotony of the Disney grind. There are times when you just sit there waiting for stuff to happen as you run through world after world waiting for plot in general to just move forward. This does not mean it is bad pacing, this just means there is nothing important going on and leads to the story just falling short of being gripping and engaging. I again bring up the final fantasy characters because let's face it, if they did exist it would give something in general more time to flesh out. There is nothing to do but repeated disney movies that either play out like normal or that you play no real part in since it is after the story in the whole movie. Sure it was great to see what happened with boo and the monsters but Randall just is there and I'm sure he was gone at the end of the first movie. In fact after using my Disney plus account (#notsponsored) to just hit the end of the movie it shows him in a trailer getting beat with a shovel. He probably got back but still.

11: The combat is too "floaty" - I'm in the sky like fucking constantly man. Like all the time. Which is a bad thing since the fucking god damned level creation is now just a tall hallway. See I say tallway (patent pending) beause the level of the game is still pretty small but now it just also goes up a long way. I know this because there are so many flashing walls that there should be seizure warnings in the beginning of the game. It doesn't stop either since in general you have to climb high and doing so brings you ledges and if you have to hit people flying then you are gonna fall. Sure we can use magic but magic runs out and is complete ass. Now look this isn't just me saying it can happen since it does right in the hercules area. The first area where they could have been testing thing and probably did which means someone dealt with this shit and said it was fine enough to pass. That's just bad game mechanics right there. If you want me to be floaty in combat that do not put ledges I can fall down in your game. I do not want to climb all the way back to the top just to get into more fights I might fall down because of. Maybe make the parts I'm on bigger platforms. It just seems they want us to use the attractions because you can't fall off the safe attractions. Another thing is that it isn't just combat that is "floaty" but your movement is also a little too fast. Making larger areas and then making us speed up into a sprint is fine but having me stop right next to a save spot inches too short of touching it only for me to Vroom Vroom right over it because of how fast and far I move is god damned infuriating. It also continues combat wise as an issue in that once you get the ability to knock people up you start going into air combat and smacking them away and you can do that so much since in general the areas you fight in are so large that you can knock a single heartless out of the spawning area enough that you have to run back to fight it.

12: Proud mode is a fucking joke - I think I died a total of one time in proud mode which is probably more than others. See the difficulty has been said to be really easy on this games play through and I'm inclined to believe them. Here is the thing. I know critical mode now exists. I just don't like it. See critical mode was doable in 2 since it was just again harder stuff but in this it is no longer you playing KH3. It is you playing Dark Souls which if I wanted to play that kind of game I'd pop in my copy of bloodborne or turn on my copy of dakr souls 2 which in general I'm not a huge fan of so I stopped playing those games. Difficulty in a game is fine but there is going from hard to fuck why am I playing dark souls? No I'm not the kind of guy who says anything hard is dark souls because I grew up in the era of gaming where games had one difficulty and you had to learn to "get gud" or deal with never winning. Even if I was never good at games I didn't shy away from things being difficult. There is however an exception that the game changes so drastically that there is no happy medium between pants shittingly hard or baby mode. The other thing is that in general DLC should not dictate if a game is good on its own. DLC is meant to enhance the fucking experience and should not make me want to have to buy something (this was free) to get a god damned happy experience out of something that cost me top dollar to begin with. If I need your DLC to have fun or enjoy the story than you clearly missed the damned mark. DLC is extra boss battles. It is final mix of the game when it comes out. It turns your vanilla play through into more than what it once was. It adds aesthetics to the game not makes the game difficult and if it does it doesn't make the game different to such a degree that I'd rather fucking play a game that was created to be that difficult because their combat system is hand crafted for said difficulty. Secondly on that list of being too easy who the fuck thought kupo coins was a good idea. I literally just stopped giving a shit since I could use my now always full magic bar since magic is ass to heal when I needed it and to just run away with my big fucking area during battles and not take damage until I could go in and do slappies for a while before running away and gauging if I need to heal and then if I died come back to life. With all the power moves and free attractions each combat I could have beaten proud mode without gimping myself by trying to not use attractions. The forms didn't help with that either because I would just second form and have a brand new powerful thing to do since it was right there. Not only that but rage form is a full heal and why am I heartless sora again? Either way rage form into run away fast because I run like I'm form kenya with all the movement abilities and then with kupo coin and magic makes the difficulty in here easier than "just don't use it". Mostly because it is implemented in the game and they want you to use it. Telling someone not to use the thing is again stupid because if they didn't want me to use it they would remove the feature. This is no longer a kids game. I'm over 10 years older than I once was and I'm a big boy and want to not be treated like a child. Sure they could be putting it in for kids but why not just have it in easy mode since kids will either do easy mode or know they want that extra challenge.

13: Many of the fights and heartless are just not that good compared to earlier games - So firstly the giant horde of heartless was cool one time. Each time you fight it it gets more and more boring and feels like a cop out on trying to make a good battle and a "oh man this is such a cool idea lets use it alot more than we need to". For a game that was in development for 6 years you think they would have more varied enemies and fights and by that I mean more better heartless. Also some of the heartless are just kinda eh in general. Not only that but the places we visit feel like the heartless are kinda thrown in there and they just made way less enemies than normal. Maybe that is me forgetting if other games did the same thing but I can remember many places having more unique enemies that made more sense. Like why is the monkey heartless here? This is not the time to return to monke or some shit like that and it makes 0 sense when I have to fight it in more than one area. How about the lady heartless with the umbrella. Doesn't fit in every single place it shows up and just feels like it is there. Sometimes they do a nice job putting in certain heartless such as the reindeer which I thought was a nice touch but i don't remember them interacting at all with the reindeer from frozen. I also in general remember each heartless having a newer form such as the fat heartless eventually turned into fire breathers and then eventually into shield dudes. They do not make a reappearance but the fat ones show up all over the place and it would be nice to fight things that are great for the area. Some just also have eh designs and the game just feels poorly made because of it. Some bosses are just boring as well. In fact off the top of my head I can't really remember one I like but I sure as shit can remember the one I hated most which happens to be the airship section where you board a machine gun heartless to fight that sky bird thing in the pirates section. I even found the robots in general tedious because they were hard to beat without the use of the robot suits and felt like another tacked on gimmick to use to make combat more easy. Had they been a single section and not everywhere in the store it would have been cooler but instead we had many fights to do with robots who almost always wrecked my shit. In fact it ruined combat a little for me in general and made the section of toy story a little less good. See most of these issues I have with the places are the grand scale of things and having to go back and forth with them with having really unmemorable heartless for the most part and just not finding the game to be that great with some of the more important parts. Enemies help to flesh the game out to be cooler and as much as I love the generic heartless the worlds make the heartless cooler by making them change to be better suited for the world they are in. Having extra enemies like nobodies and unversed without having much of a reason to have them there other than "you remember this right?" seems like a waste of design chances. Some just either were frustrating tank sponges and the others were just not good. The other issue is some bosses appeared numerous times and just didn't feel impressive when fighting them since they just keep coming back. The giant heartless who I saw in hercules mode coming back on the bridge where you first meet Baymax makes the scene not great since it is a simple color swap at most and it is the same thing again. A lot of the bosses in general just feel ok at best too design wise. I can look back at many of the designs and just name really enjoyable ones who are better than the ones we got here. Honestly the designs are just so much of a let down I don't even wanna revisit the stages which is good because the game just isnt that much fun. One of the more unfun parts of enemies is also the shield stuff they have sometimes which is just more ways to give them extra health. Why not just in general just give them more health since it is just a way to beef them up? Not only are they now mostly damage sponges but the fact that some turn into shielded damage sponges just makes me less happy to fight things. The worst version of unfun boss happens to be the lich at the end when you need to rescue everyone from it. The thing is that it not only takes forever and makes you have to fight it numerous times but it also has the ability to make you unlock from it and in such large areas that becomes tedious to deal with lengthening the entire fight from the already long fight it is.

14: Quick speed round of things I don't like that are just not as good as earlier games - Magic sucks in this game. It's all relatively the same since it is all offensive. Aero was in general the same as thunder since it is aoe with a secondary effect. Water, Fire, Ice are all the same as they shoot a ball of the element that homing devices onto an enemy and when not in general locked on fucks off wherever. I miss the older spells and how they worked and felt more unique in 2 while also having more than just offense. Maybe introduce more spells to the next main entry based on the spells of every other game? I'm just not a fan of some of these worlds as they are all new. I haven't had a chance to catch most of the new movies (even thought I have disney plus which is great you should totally buy it #stillnotsponsored) I just don't like some of the places and the mini games in the don't help. Slight inconvenience but making me have to press x as I load new levels is kinda dumb. Maximus should be a party member. Give me him instead of eugene. Why do I need the flowmotion to progress? Hooray WATER LEVELS MY FAVORITE. Crabs. Watch me beat davy jones in a 4 on 1 battle.Darkubes are dumb. Jesus christ Jiminy shut up I'm trying to grind in the best place for the end game. Oh look it's an organization member maybe I can figh....nah they gone now. THERE ARE SO MANY CUTSCENES.

15: 2 final things before the story issues - Playing as other characters, keyblade forms. One of the biggest gripes I had in this was each time I used a new keyblade i wanted to fight with it and not transform into a new form because I do not like the new forms. They do nothing for me and since they kind of all are ok at best that it just kinda feels meh to me to use them. I pretty much used the kingdom key because second form was fine and stayed a keyblade. If anything I would rather have a new style of fighting like second form in general like the original forms are in KH2. I like valor and wisdom form and as cool of a call back as it was for the 2 first keyblades to be given to you I don't like the final ability to be used which makes me less inclined to find a weapon I do like. Which leads into my second final gripe. I was really excited to play as multiple keyblade wielders. Playing as mickey in 2 was super fucking cool and I miss that. Playing as Aqua and Riku in this made me hope for eventual fights at the end where it was each person fought someone else and you would get an ability to play through a final area for extra boss fights as any character for extra gameplay. I was excited to see what Axel and Kairi could do since in general they finally had moments to shine. You could make them fight and even if they did win just have them lose via cutscene and bring back Roxas and have Xion turn to your side. So many issues I have with that because it goes into another issue of.......

16: Everyone but Sora is fucking worthless - I have seen Dragonball GT and the main main main main main issue I have with that show is no one matters except Goku. See in other series characters could fight and kill or do something against the not main villain and be worth a damn but when GT happened everyone kinda just. Became worthless. No one could win a fight except Goku especially near the end when they had him fight 7 dragons. Sora does the same here when he has to be involved the final boss rush in the game. I'd have liked to see other characters stand out but even then he is the only one who can fight Xehanort when Mickey failed to do anything. It was all sora. Even waking Aqua was all sora. The only time someone did something was when Aqua fought Vanitas and still got her shit kicked in at the end during the cinematic and at that point he just didn't wanna fight 3 people. This is a shame because as I already said it would have been cooler to have those characters fight people and it matter. Let's break down the people who would be on our side Riku Kairi Axel Roxas Terra Ven Aqua Xion Sora Mickey Thats a total of 10 different people to play as. That would have made the final boss fights unique and super cool. You say that would have taken so much time and I say "Cool" but it would have been cooler to fight as these different characters. If they put in 2 extra just do them all. It is the most let down of let downs in gameplay mechanics. Who could they have fought in the game? Let's look at the villains Xigbar Marluxia Terranort Young Xehanort Xemnas Ansem Larxene Luxord Older Xehanort Evil Clone Riku Vanitas Saix Xion There are 12 total people to fight that are not the original Xehanort and each one could be fought with someone totally different. If Xion fights twice but wasn't really trying the first time she can be fine for the second battle. Let's give everyone a person to fight. Let's get the easy ones out of the way. Remember the ones who we fight first don't matter as much because each person not Older Xehanort do not matter even if they are him in other forms. Terra as the lingering will is gonna fight Terranort and get his body back. Riku can fight Ansem who tries to use his darkness and their past against him. Kairi can fight Xion who is noticed to not even be trying and then kairi can be captured to still do the ending they planned for. Xion who now defects can join and fight Larxene Axel can fight Xemnas and lose leaving him almost die while Roxas can jump out and fight him instead Ventus can finally defeat Vanitas Aqua can fight and defeat Xigbar who she has some history with Sora can fight and defeat Luxord so he can give him the card he was going to give. This fight can be more simple than the others and Sora can have to fight against the other Riku Mickey can fight Marluxia Before losing his fight with Xemnas Axel can fight and beat Saix We get to the final battle and while Sora who ran off to find Kairi he has to get through Younger Xehanort to get to the older one.

Look at that clean battle line up. Throw them in the correct order and you can have fights with so many people and even do the stuff needed for it to make the story go smoothly. Everyone gets to be unique and have their day in the sun. The final fight would be sora and gang fighting Xehanort and since the end game would be choose who fights who you can literally have over 120 different fights total if you leave out Donald and Goofy from the sora versions of fights. Heck allow us to fight the final boss final main form and we can in general have even more as we fight him with each character.

17: What is the difference between a heart and a soul? - This is a simple question because they keep saying we don't need the bodies cause we still have their hearts and I'm just having troubles figuring out if the story writers know the damn difference between a heart which is a physical thing or a concept of the soul which is the metaphysical thing. You know like what makes you you.

18: Why doesn't Axel have 2 keyblades? - Like I like that he holds it the way he does, it's very him very unique and all that but if Roxas can have 2 and he gets one from Xion who is no longer a part of him because she is right there than why can't Axel who is specifically a dual wielder of weapons get 2 of them? I mean give the main a sword that is like a Chinese Dao sword combo. It literally is a blade that turns into 2 blades. Like don't even tell me that shit is unable to happen cause Ventus fucking gets that strange keyblade because it is unique to his style so if that is how it works and they all have based on their personality he should have two. Especially since it would be a great call back to my favorite Axel line in the entire series. "Two!?"

19: Clone Riku should not be a boss - Remember when we beat the shit out of Riku as Sora and then Riku clone and then Riku beat Riku clones ass? He's not a challenge. "He was given more darkness powers" Nice, cool cop out there. Fuck you.

20: Why kill everyone just to set up a story line when you could just do it better - So this one is a little subjective. Need sora to meet Chirithy or whatever its name is and maybe set up remind dlc or whatever but in the end you could have just broke his spirit from his body and put him in the other world by making Xehanort who tried taking him over show him everyone dying and it causing Sora to blank out and travel there as a spirit or some shit. It could have worked just as fine allowing the rest of everyone else to go fight the enemies at the end giving sora time to eventually wake up and join in while Donald and Goofy protect him. Then when he wakes up Luxord who could have said "I'll handle the boy when he wakes up could have just did what he wanted to do with the card then. It's just a dumb moment and we could have instead of dumb gameplay where we have to put ourselves back together and have to save everyone and re watch a stupid ass cutscene just watched a cutscene and went back while everyone handled what they needed to.

So before I get into the final 4 parts to get into I hope that you know I was trying to be really fair with a bunch of these and not just looking for things to gripe about. When I didn't understand things I made myself look up to make sure I understood and didn't just bitch about it for the sake of bitching. These last 4 things are kind of in general I beleive super fair.

1: The battles stop as you talk with each person - Nothing kills a fight sequence like starting it, defeating a single enemy in it, talking with a full blown conversation to them, then as they die restart with another fight scene to do it with every single person in the fight. WHY WOULD MARLUXIA AND LARXENE ALLOW LUXORD TO GIVE HIM A CARD? Why would they stop fighting? Why would Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort watch as one of the others fell and talked? Why would any sane fucking person do that? It makes 0 sense and ruins that boss rush.

2: I know you need to set up another game but fuck you - You literally made the happiest of endings where everything is the best for everyone ever and I MEAN EVERYONE except for Sora and Kairi. Fucking fuck you man. I'm not even mad that that was the ending but when everyone comes up fucking peaches and cream I tend to question the product even if they need to set up story. They can do it better, do what you did at the end of 2 and send a message in a bottle and say "there are still other worlds out there that need us, just not in this universe" or some shit like that. Shit if in general they can have emotions in games than have sora have to jump into the game. You already said my microwave can feel love so than if he can be in that rex universe than he can just go in after he has a nice break with all of his friends.

3: No - Xehanort was not a good guy the entire time. He literally murdered people and stole a childs body and ripped the emotions out of another child and made them not whole. He got a child so angry he murdered his new sorta dad. He pretty much was the whole reason anything bad happened and he was "misguided and wanted to good but did bad to do so". Then in the end he's forgiven and everything is fucking fine? Then he turns into a good guy and goes into the big heart in the sky. This is the kind of writing that literally kills off stories for at least me. Not everyone needs a second chance and sometimes people are just evil. We need stories that have people die at the end sometimes. I know it is fantasy and it can be all rainbows and butterflies but dear god Steven Universe was literally "no you" and that was the end of the entire fucking series. This is the same thing. It might not be "no you" but fuck this ending. This was a story that was supposed to end a 17 year long story and the end of this single part literally spits in the face of people who played it by saying "hey guys, he wasn't bad, he is sorry now". That is complete and utter horse shit. I don't mind that this is not the end of the series. I don't care because if I stuck around this long I would do the same if the story had a satisfying ending. Fuck man in the new game he's even evil then unless that is just how Kairi remembers him but let's face it. The gang would have told her what happened and this is just horse shit in general. This is a fucking stupid story and I literally am fine with alternate realities since time travel and other dumb stuff has been the main name of the game the entire fucking time but let's face it. This is one of the worst ideas for an ending for a villain. The buold up is fucking massive and the payout is just sad.

4: NO - Fucking xigbar. I don't even know how to put this into words how much of a let down it is for Xigbar, Fucking XIGBAR to be the next main enemy. (or at least it looks that way). Fucking we could have had Luxord. We could have had Marluxia. We could have had Demyx. We could have had fucking I don't know Vexen. We could have had fucking anyone but we get Xigbar. You could have slapped any other character onto his scenes and gotten the same amount of out of nowhere shit to explain him being next but it is fucking xigbar. Fucking unreal.

So yeah. That's my massive wrap up on KH3 and I personally do not know where I stand from here. Maybe if the next game doesn't play like shit in 400 years when Nomura gets off his ass and lets us have kingdom hearts 3.76 tie in to 4 which is oddly enough a main title and not a second part of 3 I'll see how it plays. Until then I think I'm gonna sit hereand never touch 3 again and never finish Melody of Memory.

[trashmancan47]

Intrulogical.

TW!!! Language! A little suggestive! Fighting!  In the imagination that was now split into two halves, and shared by the two brothers, were the two creativities themselves, fighting about something stupid once again. Roman furious, and Remus laughing, having fun watching his brother get so mad, and flustered about this small quarrel. Remus had put a plant that tends to kill everything in its path in Romans half on purpose, Roman was throwing a fit, and yipping about the damage it could have done. Roman’s half of the imagination was sunny, and happy, filled with forests, valleys, rivers, villages, people, and so many animals. Remus’ was rainy, filled with swamps, moss, mold, deadly animals, dangerous plants. Now Remus had things there that only he knew about that he kept nice, and taken care of. He would go there when he felt down, or when he was just content, believe it or not Remus could be calm, and quiet, though it wasn’t often, if you just took your time, you’d see he wasn’t all bad. “You imbecile! You could have destroyed everything that I’ve been building up for forever!” Roman shouted at Remus, standing in front of him, fuming. Remus stood there grinning wickedly like normal, and laughing at his words. “HAha! You mean all of this gross happy garbage that you spent a week on! Yeah, sure, I would have been improving it!!” Remus shot back, Roman growling, they had been shouting at one another for some time, and neither had realized that someone else had entered the imagination, and for once, not Roman’s side. Roman poked Remus chest, getting in his face. “Oh shove it! Your disgusting, and you need to keep your disgusting plants, and stuff out of my beautiful kingdom!” Remus put his hands behind his back looking at Roman still, his face growing annoyed, and him rolling his eyes, speaking a little harsher. “Beautiful? It looks like a fucking unicorn puked all over it. Plus yo-” Remus stopped as he felt something inside of him feel like it was being tugged at, which could only mean one thing; someone was in his side of the imagination, and was walking through his forbidden forest. His whole body turned, and his face grew a little distorted, and his expression dropping again, his eyes looking around, his lips slightly parted, but his breath stopping for a moment as he listened. Roman had crossed his arms, and tapped his foot.” “Seriously don-” “-Shush!” Remus put a hand out a finger up as a shush motion, Roman just turning around, and walking off, mumbling to himself. Remus let out a sigh as he started to breath again, and jumping off, him able to jump far, and fast in his own world, he could do about anything. He went to the forest, walking in, and hurrying, jumping up into the trees, and stopping for a moment, holding onto the branch, and the main part of the tree looking around not finding anyone before he started to jump further in, and stopped as he heard a random squawk. “Gah! Fuck!” Remus’ eyes went wide as his grip on the tree had loosened, and his hand fell from it along with him, it not taking long before he landed in a shit ton of thorn bushes, Remus gasping a little letting the pain seep through him, and his eyes growing lustful for a moment, a small moan escaping his lips. “Holy shit~” Remus stood up, moving out of the bushes as he caught his breath, the fall having taken the wind right from him before he started to laugh like a maniac before quieting, there now being tears in his clothes, and thorns sticking out of random parts of him, along with scratches littering his face, and body. He brushed himself off, and picked out most of the thorns, the only major injury being a scratch that was on his cheek, a few inches long, but it didn’t really affect him, he stopped moving as he heard leaves rustling and turned, looking, and looking fierceful for a moment before his expression softened seeing Logan. Remus had to hold in a laugh as he saw Logan hoping on one foot, bent over a little, his other foot up, and Logan’s hand trying to detach a plant that had gripped around his leg. “Come on, let go.” Logan said plainly before yelping as he fell back, closing his eyes, ready to embrace the impact of the fall, but it never came, he didn’t meet the ground. Instead there was another body that caught him, a pair of arms under his own. Logan opened his eyes, and looked up, seeing Remus, he was looking down with a small smile. Logan let out a breath of relief as Remus helped him stand straight, and Remus glared at the plant wrapping around Logan’s leg, the plant instantly releasing, and disappearing, Remus; expression growing satisfied as he stepped away from Logan, and looking up to see the other brushing himself off, and adjusting his tie; and glasses. “Thank you Remus.” Remus just hummed, and looked at the other, seeing Logan smiling a little, though just as quick as Remus went to say something about his smile it faded, and Remus felt a hand on his cheek, and saw Logan closer with concern, and worry all over his face. “Remus, what happened, why are you covered in scratches? Did something attack you, did you challenge another Hogbear? Did you-” Remus put his hand over Logan’s mouth with a small chuckled, Logan's eyes softening as the hand moved to his waist, and the other to his side, Remus pulling him closer. “I fell into some thorn bushes Logie, I’m fine.” Logan gave a nod, and caressed Remus’ cheek for a moment before looking into Remus’ eyes, a fond smile on his lips. “You’re so stupid you know that?” Remus laughed lightly nodding as he smiled, and leaned into the hand that was on his cheek. Logan chuckled, and looked up again, Remus being slightly taller than the other sure they all appeared the same for Thomas, but in the mind, they were all different in their own way. “What are you doing here anyway Logan, you know my part of the imagination is dangerous.” Logan kept his small smile, and hummed, not answering him. Well, not verbally. He took hold of Remus’ collar, and pulled him closer, his gaze turning to one of an unfeed, and unknown hunger which Remus saw before Logan closed his eyes, and pushed his lips to Remus’. Remus had no problem kissing back, his eyes closing too, how gentle the kiss actually was surprised him, though he kept it that soft, and filled with a need for the other. Although the two could sit there for decades, and share this moment, each knew that they couldn’t, and that for where they were, they shouldn’t. Logan didn’t break the kiss at the time he usually did, this time holding it longer, their lips moving against one anothers as he pushed himself to Remus, his arms wrapping around his neck the more gentle they got, honestly Remus could have melted. Logan’s hands traveled to the back of Remus’ head, tangling with his short curly locks, and Remus’ hands were placed at Logan’s hips, holding him close against himself. After what felt like forever, but was actually only three to five minutes Remus was the one to end the kiss, lightly panting for a short moment along with Logan, he grinned as their foreheads connected, and Remus opened his eyes again, but not all the way leaving them half lidded as he looked to Logan. “You came out here to make out with me?” Remus asked with a small chuckle, Logan let his hands fall to Remus’ chest, and pushed him a little as he asked the question. “Oh shush, you loved it, and yes. Plus I’ve been busy for almost a week, and so have you, you even longer for once, so I have not had a single bit of attention for almost two weeks. I couldn’t wait any longer, I wanted you.” Remus grinned, and pulled back a little pressing on Logan’s hips, knowing everything about Logan, including everything about his body. He watched proudly as Logan bowed his head, and pushed his head to Remus’ chest, feeling Logan’s breath pace change almost immediately. “Oh, but I love you, and I was just excited to see you too, I was ready to come to you, surprise you tonight, but Roman threw a baby fit over nothing.” He rolled his eyes, and pushed on Logan’s hips again, as he saw his head start to move up, though Logan’s breath hitched, and his head stayed down. Remus took his hand, and pushed his head up by his chin, seeing Logan’s face red, and his eyes glisten with that same hunger for Remus in any sort of way, making Remus chuckle, and give him a short sweet kiss. “Though now that you’re here, why don’t we go, enjoy ourselves, huh? Anything you want, all night. I’m yours.” Logan gave a short whine after the kiss ended, but it wasn’t loud enough to be heard, he controlled it better than he normally would. He looked into Remus’ eyes, and gave a nod. “You’re mine.” Logan said, and pushed his lips to Remus’ again, sliding his hands back up to his hair, and wasn’t afraid to pull it once it tangled in his curls again. Remus gasped against the others lips, and Logan chuckled as he pulled back for a moment before pulling it again, and pulling his head back, exposing his neck, and kissing it, though he kissed back up to his lips, and held the kiss once more, Remus having grinned while his lips were free though he knew that tonight Logan would want to sit, and cuddle. Whether Remus yapped about his day, or his work, or a plant, a deadly encounter, or if it was silent, or maybe if Logan decided to talk about himself for once. Either way, he’d love tonight, and he’d be happy to finally be able to fall asleep next to his love for the first time in far too long for either party. Eventually Remus picked Logan up, and took them to Remus’ castle, laying on the roof, looking at the stars, Logan, much to Remus’ delight, had started to talk about himself, and the week he had. Remus watched, and listened with care, intent, and love. He loved his precious little nerd. All his.

[anthonyed]

color me you  (stevetony college! au inspired by this scene from skam france) also on Ao3 rated M for sexual content

“This is stupid,” Tony sighs, pain brush dropping with a plop into the paint can. Dark blue mixing with bright yellow, Tony couldn’t give a fuck about them.

“Speak for yourself. Personally, I find this very soothing,” Clint shrugs, swirling white into pink and marvelling at the pastel.

Rhodey aims a kick at his side, ignoring Clint’s protest to address Tony, “What’s going on?” He asks.

Tony gives an abortive shrug, “Nothing, I just feel,” he pauses to pull in a breath and exhales it out loud, “You guys aren’t even responsible for this,” he waves at the pathetic mural that needs repainting.

Clint stands up from his crouching, going to paint a stroke of pastel pink over the faded black ink of ‘Work Hard Study Smart’. All three of them scrunch their noses in distaste.

“Lighter,” Clint decides.

“We told you we don’t mind,” Rhodey tells Tony.

“I’m having all the fun,” Clint dribbles more white, beaming up at them.

Tony rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I meant -,”

“What is it then?”

Tony tries to wave it off, but Rhodey’s stare means business so he caves in and admits, “Rogers’ supposed to do this.”

“What’s going on with you two?” Nat asks from her seat at the back of the room. She’s too cool to paint is her excuse.

Tony turns from her to find two more pairs of eyes on him. He shrugs, picking up his own paint brush, wishing they’d accept that for an answer and drop the topic. But they’re still looking when he glances up from the brush so he sighs, shrugging again.

It’s not like they don’t know the rest. He’s told them as much.

“We’re not talking,” he says.

“Talking, face to face or -,”

“Talking, in any way,” Tony tells Clint who purses his lips thoughtfully and says, “But those notes…,”

“He gives you notes?” Nat chirps in, having moved in closer in the span of last minute. Tony scowls at her.

“He draws comics on post-its and gives them to Tony,” Rhodey supplies.

“Tony’s a rat and Rogers’ a bunny. Real cute,” Clint grins, “Show her, Tones.”

Tony shuts him up with a glare but Natasha’s already holding out a hand, carefully plucked brow raised in challenge.

Giving up, Tony pulls out the folded collection of the longer sticky sticky-notes from his back pocket. “It's a mouse. Not a rat.”  

He watches Natasha read through them, her face remaining stoic throughout until the end when she holds them out for his taking and remarks, “Cute.”

“Shut up,” Tony grumbles, pocketing them back.

“And you carry them with you all the time?”

“I thought you have an important assignment?” He scowls at her.

She levels him with her infamous no-shit stare. “Why are you not talking to him?”

Tony sees Rhodey and Clint share a look before busying themselves with the paints. He disregards them for Nat and answers her. After all, she’s the only one who’s yet to know about last weekend.

“He urm. He got back with his girlfriend.”

“He told you?”

“I saw him. They were kissing at Sharon’s party.”

“I thought you said they broke up?”

“That’s what he told me!” Tony loses his cool for a second, realises it and recollects himself. But Natasha’s face says it’s too late, she’s computed his reaction already.

“Did you ask him about it?”

“No. I told him to fuck off,” Tony grumps, scuffing the floor with his sneaker.

Natasha hums, leaning back against the desk, a pinched expression on her face. “But he still sends you those notes.”

“Slips ‘em in when I’m not looking.” Tony shakes his head, “Maybe he just wanted an out from this stupid project,” he sighs heavily, attempting a light hearted comment as he smirks at Nat.

But Natasha’s not listening, lost in her own thoughts which Tony leaves her to. He’s got tons of work to do anyway. Like a wall to paint.

 They’re collectively scolding Clint for getting the pink to white ratio wrong when Natasha speaks again.

“Text him,” she says.

Rhodey and Tony fall silent, looking at each other and at Clint as well.

“What?” Tony laughs nervously. “I’m not doing that.”

“Gonna play collector to his comic till you die then?”

Tony bristles.

“Geez, Nat. No need to be so morbid all the time.”

She silences him with a stare, “Send him a text. Tell him, he either chooses you or he stops with those notes.”

Tony blinks, fingers immediately reaching for his back pocket but stops when Natasha’s gaze falls on them. She gives him a pointed look. “It’s not fair of him to lead you on.”

“He’s not leading me on,” Tony mumbles.. 

“Are you sure about that?” Rhodey bumps his shoulder lightly. An encouraging smile plays along his lips. Tony glances at Clint and sees the same look on his face.

“So, what do I write exactly,” he sighs, pulling out his phone.

  Date me or quit sending those notes glares at him as he hesitates. “Do I add an angry emoji?” He looks up at the mastermind behind it; Nat.

“Are you five?” Clint cringes. Natasha tips her head in his direction, wordlessly executing  what he said.

“Just send it,” Rhodey urges. Hunched next to Tony on top of a desk they share while Nat and Clint share another, paint drying on his brush’s bristle.

Tony taps the blue button. “There,” he announces. “I did it.”

Clint raises a hand for high-five which he meets weakly. Rhodey tousles his hair while Natasha silently glares at the phone until it beeps just a few seconds after he sent his text.

Tony stares at his phone and then looks at her.

“What? You need me to tell you how to open the text now?” She snipes at him.

“Dude, what does it say?” Clint bumps into his side, buzzing with excitement. Natasha rolls her eyes at him.

Tony glances at Rhodey and taps on the message at his silent nod. He’s not usually like this, but apparently, it’s what Steve Rogers has made of him.

“He says he wants to talk.” He reads the reply out loud. Another beep comes through; “He asks if I’m free.”

Clint begins to coo but a kick to his shin from Nat shuts him up.

“What’re you gonna say?” She asks.

Tony looks at her, confused. He was, after all, under the impression that she was dictating him throughout this process. But she raises her brows at him, following her question.

“Tell him you’re busy,” Rhodey quips helpfully.

Tony looks at him and thinks about it. “I’m gonna say I’m busy with this shitty mural he’d abandoned,” he decides.

He looks over at Nat who simply shrugs; your text, your words. He looks at Clint who tells him seriously, “No emoji please.”

Tony steps on his foot the moment he sends the text.

“Ow!”

This time, no reply comes.

Ten seconds.

A minute.

Five minutes.

“You think green will work?” Clint asks Rhodey who looks relieved to knuckle his shoulder and start a banter about Clint’s artistic skills with him.

“Forget about it.” Natasha tells Tony in the hum of the boys’ raising voice. “Take me for ice cream after this. I want mango and coffee.”

Tony blinks and blinks before he smiles up at her. “Two flavours that don’t mix,” he comments.

“Fuck you. Don’t judge,” Nat flicks at his nose, pecking his cheek before she returns to her seat at the back of the classroom.

Seven minutes.

“I want ice cream too!” Clint wines when Tony tells him about their plan.

Nine minutes.

“The football team requested to use the court for training this week,” Rhodey mentions conversationally, “I’m gonna tell them no.”

Tony’s hand pauses in its repetitive stroke against the wall. He gawks at his best friend, “You can’t do that.”

Rhodey shrugs, dipping his brush in the paint can. “You’ll hear about my power once the complaints start pouring in.” He tosses a devilish smile over his shoulder.

Tony shakes his head. Couldn’t help but snort at him. “Don’t,” he says. “He’s not even in the team.”

“His best friend is.”

“Yeah, but Barnes doesn’t deserve it.” Tony sighs, bending over to dip his own brush. “It’s not worth it,” he tells Rhodey. “Trust me,” he adds when Rhodey looks unconvinced.

10 minutes

“I can send him dead roaches.” Clint offers good naturedly.

“I’ll tell him it’s you and he’ll shove them down your throat,” Tony grunts at him. “Seriously. Stop.”

Clint pokes his tongue out at him in retaliation. Tony wonders who gave this guy permission to accuse other people of being five years old. He doesn’t vocalize it, but he sure does poke at Clint’s side just when he’s getting the straightest damned stroke of paint. The line wiggles out of track.

“Fuuuck! Tony you, fucking bastard!” Clint lunges for him, but Tony neatly steps aside, letting him catch the air.

A big grin breaks across his face at Clint’s second attempt, but before his third, someone knocks on the door.

All of them pause to look in its direction.

“Who is it?” Clint asks them dumbly. Rhodey rolls his eyes at him and Tony’s distracted by the beeping from his phone.

He pulls it out. Reads the text, looks up at his friends, reads a few times over just to be sure and his palms begin to get clammy. 

“It’s Steve.” He tells them.

Clint’s jaw falls and so does Rhodey’s. Nat’s hand squeezes his shoulder, shocking him out of his skin. She orders, “Okay boys, time to pack up,” before Tony could express his surprise.

Another set of knocks, three quiet ones followed by a text; “Can I come in?”

“Get out!” Tony whisper-shouts at his friends who’re scrambling for their stuffs. “Through the back door!” he commands when Clint rushes to the front one.

The instant all three of them are huddled at the back door, Tony opens the front one, signalling them to spill out just as Steve steps in.

 “Hey,” Steve greets, slightly breathless. He looks like he ran here; windblown hair and flushed cheeks.

“Hey,” Tony answers, taking a step back, making space for him.

Steve gaze stays fixed on Tony, drinking him in even as he shuts the door behind.

For a while, they don’t speak. Simply taking each other in; studying the other’s face and their body, missing the way Steve stands or fidgets because he can never stand still.

Tony blinks, telling himself to not to be so stupid when it comes to Steve Rogers, but fuck. He just cannot do it.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asks, swallowing down the strange lump in his throat. He steps away from Steve, back to the wall, where it still looks as horrible as it did yesterday.

“Looking for you,” Steve says, following him, and he too stands. Staring at the wall, marvelling at its ugliness. “I see you’ve started repainting.”

“Maria’s at my throat,” Tony shrugs. “Don’t think she will hesitate to knock on my apartment door demanding I get it done tonight.”

Steve snorts and when Tony looks, he’s sucking his lower lip in, seemingly thinking over his next words.

When he says, “Wanna Jackson Pollock it?” Tony blinks, confused. “What?”

“Jackson Pollock,” Steve turns to him. His backpack is slung over one shoulder, blonde hair sticking out haphazardly and he looks as breathtaking as he always does to Tony. “Want me to show you?”

“Sure,” Tony answers before he could think.

Steve grins at him, dropping his backpack fluidly onto a clean patch of the floor and taking off his jacket. He’s in a black t-shirt, matching Tony’s in tone and its simplicity.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Tony rasps out, working his throat. He feels slightly light-headed. The last time Steve had taken anything off of himself, they were tangled in a bed, kissing and kissing until the world disappeared around them.

Steve looks up from where he’s bent, picking at one of those brushes Rhodey and Clint had left behind. He's a few inches lowered from Tony’s standing height and when he looks up, his baby blue eyes shine from under his long lashes, stunning. Tony sucks a breath in to steady himself.

“How’s Peggy?” He asks Steve, careful to not let any distaste slip into his tone.

“Why are we talking about Peggy?” Steve stands up, forgoing the brushes to take a step towards Tony.

Tony huffs out a laugh, stepping back. “I don’t know. Maybe because she’s your girlfriend.”

“She’s not,” Steve denies.

“Don’t lie.” Tony snaps at him. “I saw you two kissing at Sharon’s party.”

“We’re over.” Steve takes another step towards Tony. Insistent.

This time Tony doesn’t step back. He simply looks Steve in the eyes and says, “You said the same thing the other day only to shove your tongue down her throat the very next day.”

Steve shakes his head, not moving anymore forward. “Not this time.” He says, “The last time I told you, I don’t know, I thought you looked shocked that I ended it. And Peggy – Peggy knows me too well for a very long time and I just –,” Steve stops, breathing in deep before he lets out, “Ever since I saw you, you’re the only one that matters. I want a relationship with you, Tony. But I thought you weren’t ready to commit -,”

“I am,” Tony cuts him off. Almost shouts it out aloud.

Steve blinks. “Yeah?” he asks, voice so soft like that Saturday afternoon when he’d cradled Tony’s face and told him he’d never felt this way ever before.

“I want to commit. To you,” Tony tells him truthfully.

Steve lashes flutter as if he’s trying hard not to blink. To not miss the way Tony looks right then.

“Me too,” he exhales before scooping Tony up in his arms, mouth meshing together in the warmest, wettest worshipful dance and he swings Tony around in the paint stinking classroom of their college.

 Jackson Pollock.

Tony swears he’ll take that name to his grave.

“There,” Steve says, flicking the bristles of a freshly coated paint brush at the wall. Tony looks from the tasteless splatter of black paint to Steve. He’s met by an amused face; the afternoon sun lighting his full-blown grin so beautifully it twists something warm and tight in Tony.

Tony minces on his responding smile, pinches his thigh to stop being so smitten and he asks, “What is this?”

He watches as Steve takes another dip in a different paint can – green – and flicks it at the wall, some droplets overlapping, some not and he turns with that same full grin to Tony.

“Jackson Pollock,” he presents with a single-handed wave at the questionable result, “He usually splatters paints and pours them making a mess and calls it art. I thought we could try that.”

Tony would rather bite his tongue than say no to that face, so he dunks his brush and splatters a good amount of blood red onto the wall.

“Huh,” Steve cocks his head studying it. “You did it wrong.” He informs softly.

Tony gawks at him. “No, I did not. No one can do wrong with this. This is just flicking paint. You have to really suck to fail at it.”

“Yeah,” Steve turns to him, lips wobbling, “I just didn’t want to be the one to say that to you.”

Tony opens his mouth then snaps it shut and glares at the now laughing man. Going for a second dunk, this time, instead of flicking the paint at the wall, he flicks them at Steve. Covering him with dots of red that contrasts beautifully with his light toned-skin.

Steve recovers from his shock quickly, swiping a paint covered fingertip across Tony’s cheek.

 It starts like that; paints and laughter all fully clothed. But somewhere along that line, Steve ducks and kisses Tony and the brushes fall.

Next, their t-shirts come off.

Then their pants with belts still looped in their buckles.

And then Steve pushes Tony up the wall, almost all of him now covered in paint and he kisses him, paint covered fingers dancing across warm skin, smudging more and more until only about five percent of Tony’s skin was untainted.

Tony doesn’t hold back either; dragging palms across Steve's face as he cups his cheeks and sucks on his tongue, trails red, blue and white coated fingers down Steve’s chest. Lower and lower, leaving not an inch unpainted.

Then he smacks a hand over Steve’s ass and squeezes as he pulls him closer. His cock throbbing from the friction; wedged between their warm bodies and every time it drags across Steve’s hard erection, he shivers.

“What if somebody walks in?” He pants as Steve takes his and Tony’s cock into his hand and starts a rhythm.

“No one will.” Steve nips under his jaw, teeth dragging down the column of his throat as he breathes; hot and wet across Tony’s skin.

“But -,” Tony pauses, unable to stop the shudder that wrecks down his spine. He clutches onto Steve and clings on. “What if?” He exhales a sigh as Steve swipes a thumb over his wet slit.

“I locked the door when I came in.” Steve kisses his shoulder, opens his mouth and bites; starting gently and he sinks his teeth harder and harder as he goes.

Tony whimpers into his neck, finding purchase in Steve’s naked ass. Now slippery from all the paint and good God, they’re both going to stain like hell after this.

But in that moment, nothing matters except for the way Steve sucks at his skin and marks him as his own. The way he strokes Tony into completion and stops in pursuit of his own just to marvel at the face Tony makes when he comes undone. And to kiss him. And gets distracted in kissing him that Tony bats his hand away and takes his cock into his own hand.

Then it’s all about working Steve until he comes and comes and sighs and smiles into Tony’s shoulder. Until he’s all limp and happy and honest to god, fucking shines when he blinks up at Tony.

And Tony falls in love with him.

As if he hasn’t already.

[c-c-cherry]

I simply must ask... could you spare some spooky Halloween headcanons? I know it’s not quite Halloween yet but I’d love to see your spin on a jojo Halloween!

Oho....hohoho...you have no idea what kind of a beast you’ve awakened in me...

Halloween is arguably the best holiday ever because free candy, costumes, and the weather is fucking PERFECT. (also idk what’s up with the rest of y’all but Canadian thanksgiving is in the middle of October so I’m still riding the high of good thanksgiving food by the time its Halloween (AND I’m half-American so we celebrate it in November too hehehe)

But long story short I love spooky season (and autumn in general) with a burning passion and I am SO willing to go hard on jjba spooky headcanons

Thanks again to @jjadegreen for alway being my best headcanon bud!!

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Part One:

-For the sake of this, I’m making them like 13 or something, like maybe not even a year after they met

-In 19th century England, it was actually pretty typical for them to have a bonfire on Halloween!!

-Halloween costumes were popularized a few centuries ago in France so you bet our phantom blood buds were wearing costumes and shit :)

-I doubt the rich participated in such “unruly” stuff like lighting shit on fire and bearing torches and whatever (but you never know)

-Like George probably spoiled Jonathan with candy as a kid and let him dress up with his school friends and that was it lol

-Dio though OH MY GOD-

-You know based on where he grew up that all that wild shit definitely happened

-He can’t say that he misses living like that, but there’s some kind of weird nostalgia that comes with it

-...which is why Jonathan is really confused when he catches Dio sneaking out of the mansion in the middle of the night

-Begrudgingly, he tells Jojo his plan and this boy’s eyes LIGHT UP

-Instead of being a “stupid, crybaby, tattletale,” as Dio puts it, Jojo is like,,,super hyped

-“Oh! I have an idea! Why don’t we sneak out in costumes so no-one knows it’s us??”

-The sheets on their beds may have two holes in them now, but it's worth it

-They hijack a horse or some shit and skeet over to a giant bonfire

-Dio thinks it's gonna be a drag since Jonathan is there to watch his every move, but it's actually,,,really fun

-As a kid who’s barely ever left his sheltered property, Jonathan is having the time of his life and Dio never thought he would be happy to see Jonathan so happy

-It ends with the two of them sitting by the river, absolutely exhausted from the rush and Jonathan pulls out this bag of shit from his pocket and is like

-“It’s candy!! :D”

-Dio could never really afford things like sweets on Halloween growing up so he’s a bit touchy about it but OH MY GOD that shit is GOOD

-Probably one of the only times where they actually bond properly

-BUT IF THIS IS MY POCKET DIMENSION THEN I CAN SAY THAT THEY BECOME FRIENDS >:)

Part Two:

-I’m just gonna start out with the fact that Joseph is fucking OBSESSED with candy. You know those kids you knew growing up that loved it more than anything on this goddamn earth? *cough cough @jjadegreen*

-That is Joseph

-And now that he consumes that type of shit with the power of mastered Hamon at his fingertips,,,holy shit man,,,it's like a child’s sugar rush but 100x worse

-Caeasr is put in charge of Jojo to make sure he doesn’t do anything idiotic *which he definitely will trust me*

-The MOMENT he goes to the bathroom, Suzi pops in like “JOJO!!!! :) Let's go trick or treating!!!”

-He can’t say no to that, bro,,,he and Suzi are tight ;-;

-While Lisa Lisa is out to meet Speedwagon and Erina and bring them back over to where everyone else is, Joseph sneaks out with Suzi and the two of them dash off into the streets of New York

Caesar: *steps out of bathroom*

“Jojo, what the hell do you and Suzi want for dinner?”

*silence*

“...Jojo?”

*Hears the screams of of children in the distance*

“JOJO, NO—”

-So turns out Joseph’s way of trick-or-treating at such an old age is just terrorizing young children and ransacking them for candy

-Suzi Q is just totally unphased by how awful this is and just thinks its the funniest shit

-Caesar is running out into the streets of New York like ???? and spots Joseph being himself and he could probably just pretend he doesn’t know them

-But,,,Joseph may be an idiot but he’s his idiot and Suzi Q is his bimbo best friend so he goes out to drag them back home

-Erina, Lisa Lisa, and Speedwagon are already home by the time they get back and Caesar sits Joseph down and chews him out in front of everyone

-Erina is super pissed and lectures him about “Joestar values” or whatever and tells a really embarrassing story about how a kid took his candy once when he was little and he cried about it for DAYS

-Caesar is still really angry about it so he replaces all of Joseph’s gummies with sugar free ones (you goddamn know the ones I’m talking about) but he didn’t know Joseph WOULD EAT THEM ALL AT ONCE

-He is so fucking sick on November 1st

-Also off-topic but Lisa Lisa gives out dental floss or some shit on halloween

Part Three:

-Honestly all Jotaro wants to do is buy candy for himself, hole himself up in his room like he always does, and just munch and watch shitty horror movies 

-But of course he has actual friends now

-Kakyoin tackles him before he can get his ass upstairs and suggests that they go out and trick-or-treat

-To which Jotaro thinks is a joke and laughs because he’s not only 17, but also 6’5” but Kak’s face looks dead serious

-Kakyoin goes on this long, detailed ramble about how he meticulously made the best Halloween route for them to get the best candy

-Now THIS is when Polnareff abandons whatever he and Avdol are doing to join in on the stupid plan they have

-When Kakyoin comes back with a handful of white sheets, they already know what he’s thinking and its brilliant

Kakyoin’s 5-step, foolproof Halloween plan:

Step one: It’s already established that stands can hold non-stand items (like when Star Plat whipped Iggy across the desert) so what’s stopping them from being able to have sheets over their heads?

Step two: They faze a bit of their stands into the ground so that they at least resemble the height of children (plus non-stand users can’t see anything besides the sheets so it's perfect)

Step three: Polnareff pretends to be the father of these shy children who can’t speak (he looks the oldest) while Jotaro and Kakyoin hide nearby so their stands don’t de-summon

Step four: Hit up every good house in the neighbourhood

Step Five: Candy.

(Kak used to put a sheet over hierophant all the time as a kid and always got twice the amount of candy each year)

-It actually works pretty well, aside from the fact that Star would sometimes scream “ORA” in a really deep, manly, not seven years old at all voice whenever the people at the door would try to speak with him or make him say ‘trick-or-treat’

-They finally reach the richest house in the neighbourhood, where the snootiest lady lives (but she has a shit ton of candy leftover every year since no one goes there)

-Once the stands knock on the door, she starts saying stuff like “ohh, let me see your faces so I make sure you aren’t too old for this” and ducks under to look at the sheets…

-...Only to find that there’s literally nothing there

-She looks up at Polnareff like 👁👄👁 and Kakyoin seems to get the message because one of hierophant’s tentacles grabs her ankle and she SCREAMS and throws her entire candy stash at them, slamming the door behind her

-Half of them are full-sizes chocolate bars. Candy acquired.

-When they get back, Joseph is so fucking angry that they didn’t invite him out for Halloween shenanigans  >:(

-Avdol and Holy have a very nice chat, meanwhile. They answer the door while everyone's gone and are so sweet to the kids about their costumes :)

-Also Avdol is 100% the kind of person to bake pumpkin seeds and season them and shit

-Kakyoin sorts all his candy and puts it on a spreadsheet and also make a pie chart just like he does every year

-T’was a very successful halloween

Part Five:

-Giorno is probably short enough to go out if he really wanted to

-But he has maturity issues and there would be no way in hell that the Bucci Gang would catch him going out in a costume and begging for candy

-So as soon as all the daily tasks and shit are met Giorno locks himself in his room

-He honestly wants some candy and to watch spooky movies with the gang but he just feels like an outsider to all of that stuff since he never did it

-So Bruno slips a thing of dracula-themed chocolate pudding under his door and leaves him be :)

-Narancia and Mista DO go out, however

-Not only do they go out and steal shit, but they also go and hit up houses for candy just for the fun of it

-The moment the clock strikes 6 Trish is OUT of there

-Girl is hitting up as many parties as she possibly can and eventually meets up with Nara and Mista at some shitty Halloween party and end up just buying really shitty beer and going to the graveyard or something

-Fugo wants none of that shit

-He’s perfectly content sitting with the black cat that Giorno made him and watching shitty reruns of whatever’s on

-Bruno takes out his tacky Halloween apron that definitely looks something like this

-Fugo helps him make all this really good spooky-themed dessert shit and helps him sort the candy in the nut and nut-free bowls :))) (because Bruno really goes and does that)

-Abbacchio seems like the kind of person who would go really fucking hard with Halloween decorations

-Like, no explanation why, he just loves it and everyone knows not to get in his way

-The moment October 1st comes around, this man is in his ELEMENT. He’s READY.

-It’s the one month where he looks anywhere near normal compared to other people and man is ready to rock that shit

-Later that night they go to check on Giorno and find him asleep surrounded by bags of candy

-Turns out he snuck out and had a good time after all :’)

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You’re wondering why I skipped part 4, right? ↓ ↓ 

I’m sorry to disappoint y’all, but I don’t think I’m gonna be doing much for Whumptober this year! (I’m just shit at monthly challenges in general lmao) but I think y’all need a breather from all this giant dump of whumpy stuff coming this month, so I, your dear friend Cherry, have decided to write fics throughout the month that I dub SOFT HALLOWEEN :D  (with uhhh a side of whump and hurt/comfort and all that shit because I can’t help myself)

It’s gonna vary (hopefully from parts 1-5)! I didn’t add any part four headcanons in here because Jade and I are literally writing part 4 shenanigans first and we didn’t wanna spoil anything :)

SPEAKING OF SPOILERS here’s a horrifying, blurry, teaser picture that’s only gonna make sense once you read the fic:

Isn’t it beautiful?

Hope you enjoyed these!! Tell me what you want the Jojos to do on Halloween!

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Ok so apparently its not normal to sort your candy by type, count it all out and then put it into a spreadsheet which then gets made into a graph? Because I did that. EVERY. FUCKING. YEAR. Ask Jade​. She was there every goddamn time. Please I’m begging you someone else tell me you did shit like this I need to know

[olderthannetfic]

Escapade Vid - The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

Here’s my writeup of my vid, crossposted from DW.

This is one of my two vid premieres for Escapade Con 2021. It spoils all of The Sleuth of The Ming Dynasty, specifically anything involving Wang Zhi. The discussion below is similarly spoilery.

I fell hard for The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, harder than for The Untamed or anything else for ages. (Okay, that's a lie, I fell that hard for Kingdom, but I don't ship anything there.) I knew I wanted to vid it for the con because it's so beautiful and because I knew a lot of people wouldn't be familiar with my favorite character via osmosis.

Sleuth is a historical mystery series (no magic/fantasy) based on a danmei novel. It has three leads: the two halves of the book ship and my fave. Facepalm.

I got into the series by knowing it was new-ish, some kind of buddy mystery series, and that fans liked it. That's it. I glanced at a poster, but I hadn't properly osmosed that there were three leads, not just two, so when Wang Zhi showed up, I naturally assumed he'd turn out to be a villain. His introduction is him driving a man to suicide. Practically the first thing we find out about him is that he's a palace eunuch with a high political position whom the politicians fear, look down on, and hate.

Could there be a more stereotypical villain for a historical drama?

So I went through a rapid progression from thinking he'd be the smiling pseudo-ally they have to defeat later to loving him and being like "They'd better not make him a villain!" to realizing I'd completely misosmosed this series.

I had a lot of feelings.

Picking a song / How I got into BTS:

Finding a vidsong for Sleuth was tricky. I had other vid ideas I could have made. I was tempted to make three vids, one for each lead (though not all for Escapade). I was tempted to make an OT3 pimping vid. My problem was that I also have had a lot of feelings about BTS this past year, and I knew I wanted to use them for an Escapade vid, but that presented a problem.

BTS… man… How to explain…

I grew up not really listening to music. My mom was a music teacher and only listened to Classical. When I eventually got into popular music, it was Enya and Alice Cooper. (Yes, syrupy Celtic crooning in various languages + shock rock is a pretty good summary of teenage me, why do you ask?) Also Cat Stevens, who was even more of the wrong generation for anyone else to care. The first time I really gave a shit about music was when I was living in NYC in my 20s absorbing the taste of someone with strong and specific music interests. I would by no means call myself knowledgeable about music.

A year ago, I tried to learn a little about BTS before Escapade so I could pick some shippy vid and stick it in the dance party. I want people to be able to go to the party and feel like they've got their finger on the pulse of fanfic-adjacent fandom even if they aren't into all of those fandoms themselves. I've never been into idol music, and it's not for lack of exposure: many successive waves of jpop and kpop idol-loving friends have tried, and I've been immune. It's the soppy ballads. I cannot. Some of the bouncy stuff is fun, but it wasn't enough.

Unfortunately for me, BTS is fucking confusing, so there was no easy 101. The only way to know anything about the fandom dynamics and which ships are popular was to know a lot. And once I'd bought in that far, I was up for some fic reading because huge RPF fandoms always have tons of AUs that are practically original fic, and hey, that sounded fun… I tried their reality shows a little bit, but my allergy to idol music is second only to my allergy to reality shows. I'm bad at getting things done if I don't sit down and commit properly, so I made myself a spreadsheet of all of their albums, guest appearances, and side projects and sat down to listen to the lot via Youtube…

They blew me away.

I didn't know. No one told me! I would never have predicted what they actually sounded like. It's not that they're good. Lots of idol groups are good. It's that they can rap. Korea has plenty of good rappers, but they're not in idol groups! I cannot properly convey the level of shock I experienced or even how and why BTS are so good. I like hip hop, but I don't know enough to describe anything properly.

When I made it to Hip Hop Lover, it all made sense. Imagine my reaction as a much more confused and incoherent version of this youtube video. Of course RM is into Talib Kweli and everyone else like that. Of course he's into conscious hip hop, a lot of it from NYC. Everything about their dense lyrics and their choice of subject matter made perfect sense after looking at their self-described list of influences. But in a way that Monq can articulate and I cannot.

I love shit that requires buy-in. All nerds do. I swear, hip hop is the nerdiest damn music there is because it's so into referencing its influences and responding very directly to other artists and to current culture, assuming the audience will keep up if it cares to. BTS know far more than I do about hip hop from here, plus they're Korean and like puns in a language I don't speak, so understanding what the actual fuck is going on in some of their songs is an adventure involving multiple youtube explainers. But they also have enough goofy dance music and rap that just sounds awesome to keep me interested even when I don't get it.

Daechwita dropped in May 2020, and holy shit, can we have a fandom just for that video? Historical architecture, hot dudes with swords, be still my beating heart. This is totally why I ended up watching Kingdom. I was dying to start learning some Korean, but then I got distracted by more Chinese media. Damnit. How do I choose?

So Escapade 2021 was rolling around, and I knew I wanted to make my Untamed vidbunny from last March, but I also wanted to vid Sleuth, and I wanted to vid it to BTS. I was now presented with my problem:

BTS is a 7-member group, and most songs prominently highlight 3-5 of them if not all 7. One might be able to do this as aspects of one character's personality, but it's very hard to make it work for a two- or three-person ship. I started looking at the rap line's songs, which have just the three of them, but even then, you're stuck saying that Character A is singer X and so on. How do I divide up the Sleuth leads? Do I make the angry one the angry one and the sunshine one the sunshine one? But the sunshine one is not the bookworm in BTS, unlike in Sleuth, and that just feels wrong!

That was when I decided to do a character vid rather than a ship one, to pick Wang Zhi, and to choose something off of one of the rap line's solo side projects. And what combination could be more obvious than tiny, angry, beautiful Yoongi paired with tiny, angry, beautiful Wang Zhi?

In the end, I did not pick Daechwita because, much as I love it, it has that kind of monotonous, hypnotic flow, and I feared I'd end up making a boring vid. I went back to Agust D's first mixtape, which is much angrier, and picked a song I felt had more obvious internal structure. I picked it mostly based on sound, as I always do. I needed vocals that I felt conveyed Wang Zhi's personality. Once I had a song in mind, I looked up the lyrics… And kept looking.

This would probably have been helped by not making the vid in like 3 days, mostly after the deadline because my other premiere dragged on way longer than I expected. Doh. Someone said that the vids were great this year because everyone had been stuck indoors with nothing else to do. I can assure you that I was my usual disaster self and was still trying to pick songs like a week before the deadline. There's always next year. Sigh.

So while vidding, I had a couple of okay but not great translations of the lyrics and at least one line I straight up did not understand. My process for all vids is to make a spreadsheet and put the lyrics down one side with clip ideas in another column. If the song isn't in English or isn't straightforward, I have other columns on the lyrics: original writing system, transliteration, translation, notes. I often have a column for song structure (verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus version A, chorus version B, etc.), or I might do that part by color coding chunks of the lyrics/translation. In this case, I had a lot of different columns of translation bits that moved around, and I also color coded column A based on whether there was a significant English language lyric. Here's a screencap of part of my planning spreadsheet with colors changing to show song section breaks and some clip concepts I was considering written in. (I usually end up abandoning most of my content notes once I get into actually editing a section.)

I finally found a good translation of it the morning after the vidshow. Sheesh. It wouldn't have radically affected how I vidded that part because the lyrics are so fast that you can't hit every little thing with a relevant clip and still have your audience visually parse anything at all. I still wish I'd had a better translation beforehand.

I foolishly thought it wouldn't be a problem vidding something in Korean, but it turns out I have such a hard time understanding Korean phonology that it's very hard for me to tell which bit is which even with a phonetic transcription. On top of that, most of the translations swap clause order for no good reason--"Your mother will be sad when you lose your last asset, health" instead of "When you lose your last asset, health, your mother will be sad"--despite both working perfectly well in English.

For the purposes of making the vid, I only needed to understand well enough to know how I was matching the lyrics or not, but for posting, I had to come up with something a little more polished. In the end, half before vidding and half after (oops), I have gone through with like 4 different translations, google translate, and an online Korean dictionary to cobble together something that I think is a fairly accurate translation, with clauses in the order they fall in the song, and some attempt at idiomaticness and correct tone and level of informality in English.

Lyrics translation:

The best of the translations I found in terms of being annotated and fairly easy to understand in English is this one by Muish.

Here's my version:

They call me new thang The new recruit is here: take my bags Whole world, concert Not bad, Asiana Asia You could be my new thang Different from the guys who neglect their duties Insubordination from a celebrity Damn, only the strong can fuck with me Some say I made it too easy Fuck you, I'm a thorn in the side of those guys So far from success Honestly, "SSaihanuwar" is embarrassing1 Now, we sell half a million copies a year The k-pop category Ain't big enough to hold me, whoo! Right, go ahead Try booking first class My seat is business You're economy, forever behind me kissing my ass Next goal is Billboard Brazil to New York My passport gets no rest A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with2 My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology I hunt down those who copy the copiers. Get 'em down no matter who the fuck they are. Doesn't matter if I'm a jerk or if I'm wack or fake, I'm the one who carves history across the field. Among boring rappers, I get the lion's share. I'm about to take your bread. Bros' jealousy making all this noise. Hey ho I don't give a fuck Keep shoveling shit I'll bury you alive in the grave You dug yourself Hey ho you can't handle me You wasted rappers should be grateful I'm an idol Cause I'm busy, I'm busy, 24/7, what rest? Latecomers, go play amongst yourselves. Jealous and childish you wail, Yet you don't know shit.3 Paris to New York, damn My non-stop schedule A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I'm sorry I took your daily bread, boy. I'm sorry. Don't be mad. When you lose your only asset, health, Your mom's going to be upset. I'm sorry. Change careers. Amazing how you keep digging, So change, boy. I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. That your rapping sucks compared to mine. A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology

1. I straight up had no idea what the "SSaihanuwar" line is supposed to mean when I was making this vid. People said it was a pre-debut song, so I assumed he meant his skills had improved. What it actually refers to is that song bragging that they'd sold 30,000 copies, while as of this song, they were selling 500,000, so that childish bragging about a tiny past achievement is embarrassing now. Of course, as I type this, BTS sells like four million albums a year…

2. This is referencing a movie title, The Wailing, and then a famous line from the movie, which is said in dialect. I haven't seen the movie and nothing online explains the context in which "Important? You don't know what's important!" is used. If anybody's seen it, feel free to drop me a comment. Hopefully, it won't be something I'd radically change in the vid.

3. Literally 'take you to Hong Kong', which can be used like "blow your mind" in the regular sense, but is also used to mean "give you an orgasm", hence the italics on 'blow' above. Yes, it's an oral sex joke. Yes, he means it like that.

What the song means and what I did with it:

Okay, so now that we know the main lyric of this song is apparently "STD", what's it actually about?

Overall, this is a diss track. Like most BTS dis songs, the concept is: I may be an idol, but I'm still twice the man and twice the rapper you are.

I'm not the only one who was surprised to hear good rappers show up in an idol group: the underground rap scene that Suga comes out of thinks of idols as both inauthentic sellouts and as embarrassingly girly. They wear makeup and sparkly outfits. Laaaaaame.

This felt like an excellent parallel to the social position of eunuchs in The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: Wang Zhi is one of the most competent and ruthless, yet loyal and honorable administrators we see in the entire series. If he were running the government, all of them would be better off. He's like that version of Lex Luthor or Emhyr var Emreis that astolat likes to write.

Throughout the series, politicians and generals see Wang Zhi as less than a man and thus not a worthy enemy or not worthy of his high position, but he's twice as worthy as any of them. He's not only better at being a ruthless badass, but he's better at keeping the body count low. Sure, he's introduced forcing a guy to commit suicide… But Wang Zhi promises him his family will be spared the same fate, where normally a traitor's entire family would be wiped out. The only reason things go poorly later is that the guy's son is too stupid to realize what a favor WZ did them.

Even Tang Fan is a complete asshole to him repeatedly. In this case, he doesn't treat WZ as lesser, but he's so naive and fixated on fluffy feelings that he assumes WZ is cold and cruel when he's pragmatic or that he has no feelings when he's clearly devastated but trying to fix the situation instead of breaking down about it. TF is the worst sort of idiot who values superficial virtue over practical results. It's a good thing he's so endearing!

There's this heartwarming bit at the end of the series about how WZ learned humanity from TF and SZ or something, but it's complete nonsense: him adopting child orphans and pretty much all of the rest of his behavior for the whole series was already merciful within the bounds of their society and the demands of his position.

On to my vidding process: I laid the song out on the timeline and put markers for the sections, color coded by what type of section they were and also made the spreadsheet seen above. That helped me see the structure of the vid. One of the first parts I tackled was the opening, which is long and slow and samples another song. It feels like it should have establishing shots, and it's long enough they could get boring. I realized it was an excellent opportunity to have some text on screen. I love typography, but I normally don't do it because there's no space in the song I've chosen, and I'm making the vid on the day of the deadline and have no time to think about fonts. Poking through all the confusingly-named Chinese fonts I have installed took as long as all the editing in this section.

I then had to figure out what to do with the chorus.

Yoongi's normal rapper name as part of BTS is 'Suga'. He's from Daegu and proud of it. So his solo rapper name is 'Agust D', which is 'DT Suga' backwards. A to the G to the U to the STD is just him repeating his own name. Aside from saying Agust D = Wang Zhi, I didn't have a lot of specific ideas here. Wang Zhi has a really hot mouth, but there isn't that much in canon that's an obvious oral sex joke.

I knew I didn't want to make the vid strictly a linear retelling of canon since the point was more conceptual. I also love the emotional impact of the Yang Fu stuff, both the times it's funny and the times it's upsetting for characters, but it's hard to communicate it in a vid without spending some time, so I decided to use the choruses entirely for Yang Fu. At the very end of the vid I had more story that needed to go somewhere and no more Yang Fu (and I wouldn't have ended on Yang Fu anyway), so I had to vary that pattern.

The final verse is a 2-part one that is slow and even more sneering than the rest of the song, so I picked WZ's most idiotic enemy for that. WZ literally took away his job by killing his father, which caused him to come home from the military and his brother to be fired from his job as an official. His mother is ill because of grief, and everyone keeps telling him to go look after his family instead of chasing WZ around and trying to start shit, so the lyrics are quite apt. This guy is just not up to WZ's weight class, and that's what this verse is about.

The first two verses required more thought. They have a 3-part structure and are fast. I looked for individual Wang Zhi plotlines that matched the specific lyrics of each section thematically. There are shittons of speed effects all over this vid for obvious reasons, but I still needed to pick footage that was naturally more dynamic. The show has a fair amount of talking heads, slow scenes, and cute and fluffy stuff that didn't fit the tone here, not to mention WZ being the least important of the three leads, so selecting the correct bits of WZ plot was essential.

I originally planned to use verse 1 for the horse market case, but there just isn't enough great footage to do the whole thing, so I did the first two thirds. Section 1 has military-sounding lyrics about a new recruit taking over from "hyungs" (older guys) who neglect their duties. This idol (a celebrity) is going to show the underground rappers how it's done. I had wanted to use the 'new thang' lyric with flashbacks to WZ first getting his position at the emperor's side, but that footage makes him look too meek and doesn't connect well to anything. 'You could be my new thang' I wanted for Jia Kui, but again, there isn't good footage that communicates their relationship visually.

The general from this arc has a similar thematic role: He's a ~real man~ who cares only about duty and is rude to the effete, useless official from the capital, while the other local powers fawn on him… Except Wang Zhi responds to this by being amused, showing up the others, and approving of General Chen. (By the end of the arc, Chen is all offended on his behalf that other dudes think he's merely a eunuch instead of a total hottie capable and honorable servant of the empire.) The first section is WZ on 'new thang' and Chen on 'my new thang'. This third ends with 'only the strong can fuck with me' as Chen joins the welcome feast. Out of all of the people in charge of border security, he's the only one who's strong.

The next third of the verse is about people thinking Suga got to his position too easily, which is also something basically every official feels about powerful eunuchs in Sleuth (and also in every single other historical drama with eunuchs because holy shit is this a common trope, and also in actual history, which is why). In this plotline, WZ is there to deal with the incompetent border guards and sort things out in ways they haven't been able to. He is certainly a thorn in their sides. For this part, I showed one of the obsequious officials smiling, WZ toasting them, and Chen being unamused.

This section finishes up with Suga saying his past bragging is embarrassing because he's so much more badass now, and k-pop isn't big enough for him (which I think is less about wanting to break out of kpop and more about definitions having to be readjusted to accommodate his awesomeness). The scenes from Sleuth are WZ suddenly revealing he speaks the local languages flawlessly--something no normal official from the capital does and that he's been hiding up till now as people insult him--and then WZ resolving the case with murder and smart political maneuvering that puts one of the local chieftains in his debt. The category of eunuch is certainly not enough to encompass Wang Zhi's political ambitions or abilities.

The final section of verse 1 is using a plane/flying metaphor to talk about Suga being ahead of everyone. It also has a particularly awesome lyric in English that I wanted to emphasize. This was the last part of the timeline I filled in, and I used a scene that is not one of the major enemies WZ cares about but where he is wonderfully bossy and in charge. The guy tries to pull rank on him, and he throws away his supposed police informant badge, being like I am the police.

The second verse has the really fast part in this song, so I wanted to show a lot of different cool shit WZ does. Section one is about Suga hunting down poseurs, whether they're new or long-established and powerful. Suga says he's going to take the other rappers' "rice bowl" (livelihood).  WZ similarly goes after all kinds of people, including very highly-placed politicians. The serial killer duke was supposedly untouchable, but WZ tells him he's an insect. He'll do the low-level dirty work (running around at night in ninja outfits) and the high level supervision (commanding men at the depot). The line ends by talking about other rappers' jealousy making noise. For this, I used Wang Zhi's trial where all of the politicians team up to wrongly accuse him of a laundry list of crimes.

The next line is about how Suga will bury other rappers alive in the grave they dug themselves, and they should be grateful he's an idol (because if he were a fellow underground rapper, they'd be shown up even worse). There's a suggestion in Suga's lyrics that part of the "wasting time" (digging/shoveling used as a metaphor) these other rappers have done is talking shit about him. They hurt their own reputations by doing it, and he had no desire to take them on until they forced the issue. I used WZ's introduction. That politician doomed himself by talking shit about the emperor's consort. Before he goes to meet with WZ, he talks shit about how eunuchs aren't actually powerful or scary to his drinking buddies. WZ spends the whole scene outlining how his downfall is his own damn fault.

The last section of the verse is about how busy Suga is. Losers should go bother each other, not him, because he has real shit to do. They have no idea what's important, unlike him. I opened with a quick shot of WZ's trial and then the silver case. WZ continually waves off concerns about the trial, even while he's in prison for a few days, because he's concerned about the actual problems occurring at the same time, namely that the entire government is about to go bankrupt and collapse. He's fending off assassins and getting people executed. Wan Tong's embarrassing attempt to mindfuck him in prison is laughable. They're just not on WZ's level.

I capped it off by showing the end of the plot and WZ winning. The three shots of his enemies looking upset are all from times he fucked with them earlier in the series. The final shot of him looking smug is from very early on when he'd just informed his chief rival, Shang Ming, about the suicide he caused in his intro. At the end of the vid, we're back at the beginning of the plot: Wang Zhi was always better. He would have worked with his rivals, but they just had to make it a contest. From the very beginning, they should have known they couldn't win.

The vid I’ve already posted to tumblr, but here’s the AO3 link again:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573175

[nelllraiser]

best served cold | group chatzy

LOCATION: pat’s place. SUMMARY: revenge is a dish, and pat’s is serving it up. PARTIES: @nelllraiser, @beatrice-blaze, @divineluce, @whatsin-yourhead, @humanmoodring, @themidnightfarmer, @seizethecarpe, @faecurious, @detective-keen, @sgtrolandhills, @normallee, @detectivedreameater, @chasseurdeloup, @theskyeandsea, @mor-beck-more-problems, @theshadowandvalleyaremine  CONTENTS: mass poisoning, food poisoning vomit (brief description)

Nell wasn't entirely sure why she'd been chosen to receive a VIP invite to the grand re-opening of Pat's Place, but she certainly wasn't complaining. After all, it meant she got an entirely free meal instead of only getting 20 percent off like the flyers around town were advertising, and she'd never say no to free food. Perhaps she should have been a little more suspicious about the invitation, but only hindsight is 20/20. And she was hungry. With Bea by her side, she presented her special invitation to the host at the door, who promptly showed Nell and her sister to the long row of food laid out on a table. But not before being presented with two free drink tickets. "Oh, hell ya." As others filtered in with the regular flyers, they were also shown to the large spread of Americana style food, tall tables meant for standing and eating scattered around the dining area after paying at the door with their discounted price. "Where should we even start?” Maybe she should have waited a bit with the truth serum still working its way through her system, but it would be fine...right?

Remmy was excited to be going out tonight. It'd been a while since they'd done something just for fun, and even better, they were there with someone who they'd recently made friends with. Nadia was nice, and fun to talk to. And she made Remmy stutter and ramble, like some other people could make them-- and though they felt a little guilty, still, Luce had made her position clear. They stepped up and pulled the door open for Nadia. "Ladies first," they said with a big grin, trying to push away the nerves and anxiety that trembled their fingers each time they left the house. But this would be fine, right? They were out with someone they trusted, and it was a big public place. Nothing bad would happen here. "Thanks again for inviting me," they said as they headed inside with her. "You'll have to introduce me to your friend so I can thank them sometime."

When she first got the invitation, Bea had assumed she had been given a VIP ticket because she was also a business owner. Turned out that she wasn't quite so special and her sister got one too. "Well, I want a free drink to start the night," The eldest Vural answered, finding herself moving to the bar without seeing if her sister was following. She placed her free drink ticket down and the bartender smirked at her before making her drink and sliding it to her. She turned to her sister, "That guy was weird."

Dave wandered in curiously. Hell, he was always down for a cheap meal. Circumstances of their reopening sounded fishy (seriously, a whale shark had crushed the place?) But with two free drink tickets he wasn't about to complain. Food smelled good too, although he was only hankering for the meat section. Not knowing anyone yet, he went right for the table, picking up a plate and starting to serve himself with the tongs by each option.

Skylar blinked at the flyer she'd found around town-- it seemed a little too good to be true, but a part of her was curious about Pat's Place. She'd heard about it, but never got a chance to go before the fish rain incident had taken out the roofing. She wondered if Shiloh had helped fix the restaurant and idly wondered what the other woman was doing. Maybe she'd bring her back something? As she entered, she saw the long buffet set up and shrugged. Ah. Maybe not. Oh well. As she took a plate from one end of the line, she glanced at the drink tickets that had been handed to her. "Oh-- I don't..." But she was left with the drink tickets all the same. Looking to the person next to her, she offered a slight smile. "Um... I'm not really a drinker. Do you want these?"

Jared was already inside. He wasn't adverse to cheap food and definitely wasn't deterred by the thought of eating alone. He was too busy loading up a plate with as much as he could get his hands on from the table to notice others filing in behind him. He only had eyes for the food. Jared only glanced over when someone else came close. "Great spread huh?" He commented to the bloke with a grin.

Morgan couldn't believe she'd let Remmy talk her into visiting a restaurant of all places. They were zombies. They didn't need to eat, there was nothing here for either of them but--oh. Morgan arched a brow as she saw her friend playing chivalrous with a pretty girl. Well, maybe there was something here for one of them, and she supposed she could play wingwoman if Remmy felt a little awkward. And maybe give them a tinsy bit of a hard time if they weren't. "Wow, and here I thought I was your date," she teased. "You guys really know how to pick a place. It's so packed, I think half the town is here." She scanned the room, looking for someone familiar, or at least unaccompanied in case the maybe lovebirds needed some privacy later.

Dave nodded at the guy talking to him. "Better taste as good as it looks. Did you go to this place before it had shut down?" He carefully balanced his plate on one hand to offer Jared his to shake. "I'm Dave."

With an easy grin on her face, Nadia let Remmy hold the door open for her as she walked into Pat's Place. "Why, thank you," she said with a wink. The place was pretty nice in kind of an old school kind of way. Nadia could definitely see a crime boss of some sort owning a joint like this. Definitely the kind of person that Tommy would work for. Speaking of... "I'd love to introduce you to him, some time. Don't see him around at the mo, though." Truthfully, she didn't expect to. Probably for the best. She didn't want him to get distracted. She looked over at the other woman that came up to her and Remmy, giving her a smile. "I wasn't expecting it to be this packed. Really hoping it lives up to the hype."

Nell followed her sister over to the bar, all too ready to get that started. After getting her own drink and taking the first sips, she made a mocking face at her sister before saying, "You think tons of people are weird. But now it's time for food, come on! I wanna be rolled out of here." Somehow...the truth serum had allowed her to say such a thing which meant it was, in fact...true?

Norma saw the flyers for a gathering. It was not taking place at the best restaurant in town, the Bottomless Booty, but she would hardly hold that against this Pat's Place place. And if she was lucky, perhaps a fight would break out and she would get some delicious chaos energy to feed on. For now she hopped inside and saw a bar and many tables full of food. None of it was necessary for her but where there was lots of human food, there was usually lots of humans to feed from. She took a plate and picked up many of the green leafy things on the platters to put on her plate on the way down. "Oh, you don't need water to survive?" she asked the woman in front of her who was brandishing her drink tickets. "That's rather unusual. I'm perfectly fine with my two tickets, however. Thank you! I'm Norma! Norma Lee," she said holding out her hand.

Luce had found a flyer hanging outside of Ink Inc after a particularly long shift and you know what? Fuck it. Why not. Pat's Place had been decent enough before it had been taken out by that fucked up fish rain bullshit. And if they were trying to get more people in the door, she couldn't blame them too much. Pushing open the door, she raised an eyebrow as she noticed that her sisters were already here, with Nell eyeing the buffet spread and Bea leaning against the bar. "Bitches." She muttered under her breath before freezing when she saw who else was inside. Remmy. They were here too? Why the fuck-- they didn't even need to eat. Catching sight of the woman next to them, Luce felt the color drain from her face. Fuck. Shit, fuck, fuck. Taking her drink tickets, Luce made a bee-line to the bar and glared at her sisters. "Whiskey. What are you guys doing here?"

Jared grinned and nodded. "Yeah, lived in town all my life. It's real tragic about Pat, but I'm glad the place could re-open." Shuffling his two plates into one hand he offered the other a free one to shake. "I'm Jared."

"Luce!" Nell exclaimed at the sight of her sister, before brandishing her VIP invitation by waving it in the elder girl's face. "I was invited. You weren't?" she teased the fire caster. "So was Bea."

Agatha was a big fan of the place before it shut down, but after having heard that the staff had died crushed under a whale (which sounded like bullshit, by the way), she was no longer sure that the restaurant would ever be worth it ever again. But none of this mattered anymore, Agatha had spotted the buffet spread, and all she could think about right now was food. Some people were more interested in the bar? Their loss. Her plate full, she made her way to an empty table. She did not come with company, but it was fine. Nothing unusual for her.

"Tons of people are weird. Do I have to remind you of the man at the Stacked Deck or that lady in the grocery store? They were all weird." Bea frowned at her sister before taking a drink. She raised an eyebrow at the middle Vural. "We're VIPs." She said with a little smirk. "Did your VIP ticket get lost in the mail?"

Q was a bit over his head here, but he had promised his dad that he'd try to get out more and not lock himself away in the laboratory until he had a white beard. Everyone seemed friendly enough, even if that familiar feeling crawled under his skin. He moved with a small plate towards the woman sitting alone. "Hey, I didn't realize this would be so busy. Can I sit with you?"

Luce raised an eyebrow at her sisters, waving at them with the drink that was slid her way. "Bitches. Both of you. And yeah, I guess it did. Worked out for me, though, I found a flier next to work so I decided to pop by cuz it's apparently pretty popular." She said, bending her head to hide behind Bea's taller form. "Knowing Nell, she probably tossed my invite in the trash." She replied.

"Jared, nice to meet ya," Dave said with a grin, taking the kid's hand. Working hands, at that - this wasn't a guy with some office job. Then again, considering the long narrow scars that stretched along Dave's face and hands, nor did he. "Yeah, I heard. Sounds real shitty, what happened here. Did you know the staff at all?"

Skylar was a little confused by the woman's response and her head cocked slightly. Had she misheard her? There was a lot of noise happening around her, but... "Um, I mean, I do need water. But these are for beer or alcohol or other things?" She said, looking at the little tickets closer. Mhm, yeah, that's what they were for. At the woman's introduction, Skylar awkwardly shifted her empty plate from one hand to the other and smiled. "Nice to meet you, Norma. I'm Skylar. McKay." She said and nodded. "Did you find a flyer too?"

Tilting her head at her sister, Bea looked over to Nell, "Nellie, does it seem like Lulu is hiding from something or is it just me?" Over the last few weeks, it had gotten easier to be outside and in crowds. She was growing more confident every day, finally feeling like maybe her paranoia could ease up a bit.

Morgan snorted. "Aww, you're Nadia? That's so amazing, we talked so much when we first moved here! I didn't realize you knew Remmy. They are, I gotta say, one of the best people in town I've ever met. I'm sure they've got an amazing night planned out for you." She side-eyed Remmy and lowered her voice. "Does she know you don't need to...you know?" This might be more awkward than she wanted in her night. The loner tables in the back were starting to look a lot more cozy.

Agatha, her cheeks filled with food, raised her eyebrows as a young man approached her to get a seat. She glanced around her. Yeah, he was talking to her. "Mmmh," she nodded, wiping her mouth clean. "You know, you could have gotten more food?"

"I probably will, I was feeling indecisive at all the choices and didn't want to seem greedy," Q shrugged, but he did notice her plate. "Not saying that you were greedy-- maybe you have the appropriate amount. I’ll know for next time." He grinned and sat down. "I was at this place before, why is it so popular?"

"Oh definitely, Bibi. Poor Lulu, looks too upset to not be hiding anything." Nell knew it was only a matter of time now until Luce decided to take a swipe at either one of her sisters, so Nell took another gulp of her drink while she still could. "Sure you found a flyer, but did you get in free?"

Jared began to say, "Likewise bud." Taking both his plates back in a more steady grip the nymph shrugged one shoulder. "Knew of them, Pat was the knowable one if you get me? Always happy to chat to the customers. Wasn't here for the funeral or I woulda gone, he was a cool guy."

Norma's brow furrowed. Had she said something incorrect once more? "Oh, why would they call them drink tickets if they were meant for alcohol? That's odd," she said as she tossed one of the garnishes back over her shoulder. She had seen that's how children ""ate"" their broccoli, she assumed it would work here, too. "Nice to meet you too, Skylar! And yes, I did find the flyer. I work at Bottomless Booty, you know. I needed to check out the competition." Her eyes scanned the food table. 'Tell me, is any of this worth consuming?"

"That's me!" Nadia said, though mentally she was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Fuck Nadia for talking to people. "Yeah, Remmy and I are new friends. I took a bit of a fall, and they were there to help me out. Totally agree with you, though. They're the fucking best." She gave them a smirk. It was strange, that both of the people around her were complete emotional and literal dead zones. She looked over to the bar, watching as people took their drinks. Huh. Well, there was one familiar face, and she didn't look too happy.

Bea took another long sip of her drink before half choking as her sister called her Bibi. God, she hadn't been called that in a long time. "Do you think you got in for free because they know you're broke, Nellie?"

Remmy couldn't help but blush. "Morgan," they muttered, "shut up." But then Nadia was agreeing and they sort of wished they could sink into the floor. Clearing their throat, they pointed towards the bar, not even noticing the familiar faces by it yet. "Anyone want a drink? I'm gonna go get us drinks," they said with a squeak, getting ready to head off.

Dave walked them over to a standing table, mouthing back Jared's words to make sure internally he'd gotten them all right. "Right, that sorta guy. I hear it was some sorta freak weather event. Anyhow, you probably don't want to dredge all this back up." Dave picked a chicken drumstick, and took a big bite. He hated eating with his teeth caps on, but needs must and all. "So, Jared, what do you do? You a student, working?"

Luce clenched her hand around the whiskey, the glass heating slightly in her fingers. "Yarrağımı ye, both of you." She gestured to the two of them. "You can both fuck off. I'm not hiding from anyone. You're hiding from someone." She growled. Leave it to Nell and Bea to make shit even worse. Christ. As she glanced around the restaurant, Luce froze as she caught sight of Nadia staring at her. And fuck. Remmy was coming up to the bar. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me." She mumbled, leaning against the bar, head ducked low.

Nell's shit-eating grin she'd been wearing for the roasting of Luce quickly disappeared at Bea's words. Hold on. That wasn't fair. They were supposed to be going after Luce right now. "If I'm broke, so are you!" Apparently hospital bills did that to a person when they didn’t have insurance. So caught up was she with Bea's betrayal, that she didn't realize Luce slipping even further down. "Your’s is probably just a pity invite, anyway."

"I was invited because business owners support business owners," Bea sniffed. "I am not broke. I just have less money than I did before." She patted Luce's back. "Do you need me to distract someone if they notice you?"

Morgan pulled Remmy back. "No, I'm good. I don't really drink much these days, you know? I'm on this great all protein diet and don't really wanna mess up my insides. I'm gonna check out who else is here but--" she kissed her fingers and reached to smush them into Remmy's cheek. "You two kids have fun. I'm sure we'll circle back after the line gets less long. I definitely want to spend more time with you, Nadia, when I get back." Pleased to have thoroughly embarrassed her friend, she slid away from the entrance and sidled up to the back by the more empty tables. There was a woman and what looked to be a college kid sitting together, plates piled high. "I gotta respect people who have their priorities in line. Does it taste any good?"

Jared nodded. He'd heard the same, despite not being in town. Fish rain had been a particularly interesting story to hear. Stuffing a whole wing in his mouth Jared nodded. "Farmer. Own a farm just in town. So not devoted enough to be a student or anything like that. Sounds like too much school to me." he laughed. "What do you do, bud?"

Skylar shook her head apologetically. "It's a little weird, right? I've never really worked in food service, but I think it's because of the cost of alcohol?" She offered helpfully. But, she was only more confused when Norma tossed one of the lettuce garnishes onto the ground. "Um, I don't think--" She said, but was too caught off guard by the woman's words to do anything other than flounder. "Ah-- I mean, I think the ribs look nice? And the fried chicken smells nice too." Skylar said as she put a few pieces of each on her plate. "Bottomless Booty? I've heard of them, that's the pirate restaurant, right?" She asked, a little confused how Pat's would have any kind of competition from the kitschy themed restaurant.

"...Dude, people are going to get food, and you'll be left with the stuff no one likes," she eyed at the vegetables, then back at Quintin. "I'm Agatha by the way," she didn't take notice of his comments. She did not mind being called greedy if it was about food. Being greedy about good things was not a sin. Or maybe the exact definition of a sin. Sin sucked. "I don't know, maybe because for one, there's no mimes here?"

"Oh I'm with ya. Just about scraped my GED, and that was enough for me," Dave replied with a rough laugh. "You got animals or crops on your farm? Oh, I'm a fisher, deep sea angling. Keeps me busy and fed, and the van working."

Norma nodded and then grabbed some of everything Skylar pointed out. That was perfectly normal, she was sure of it, asking for recommendations and then taking them with no questions asked. "Oh yes, it is perfectly pirate themed. I wear a hat when working there. Where do you work?"

Skylar nodded at Norma's words. She didn't really understand what she meant about the hat thing-- did she mean a pirate hat? She couldn't really imagine that Norma meant she showed up wearing a ball cap or something. Wandering down the line, Skylar picked out a few more meat based items before adding a couple vegetables just for appearances sake. She didn't really want anyone to ask any questions about what she was eating. "I work for the school district. I'm not a teacher," She added quickly, trying to avoid that particular rabbit hole. "I do interpretation."

Jared "Got one up on me there, I didn't manage to graduate." He laughed heartily. Looking up at the other man and spotting a congregation of people at the bar he knew. He smiled and then refocused. "Animals. A small greenhouse for flowers though. Oh a sea dog huh? Sounds pretty rad. Got a boat and everything of your own?"

Norma could not imagine working with children. Normal mortals were far too young to have anything in common with as it was. "You do interpretation? Of what? Ancient languages?" She didn't quite understand why small children would need to know demonic languages but that did make some sort of sense given their nature as tiny agents of chaos. "I'm going to go get an alcoholic beverage with my drink ticket, would you like some water of which you need to survive?"

"Q, or Quintin--" Q responded, happily munching on his plate as he never enjoyed enough good food. "So you are on team 'no mimes'." He air quoted, glancing up towards a few other people. All, he didn't know. "Do you know anyone else here?"

Luce rolled her eyes at Nell and Bea. "Broke. Both of you. At least I own my cabin outright." She muttered, head still bent low. For the first time in her life, she wished that her tattoos didn't make her stand out so much. She'd probably be able to blend into the background and just slip out the door if it wasn't for them. But, Nadia had already seen her. "I really don't think that will work. But thanks for everything, Bibi." She shook her head.

Jared took a water from a passing waiter.

It was kind of amusing to watch Luce sink away from the way Nadia watched, but she wasn't super focused on the witch. When Morgan left, Nadia gave a slight wave. "Looking forward to it." She watched Remmy walk away as well, enjoying the blush on their cheeks while she could. Then, she opened her phone and checked the time. She made eye contact with one of the bartenders.

"Cool, what sorta animals? Not at the moment," Dave replied, polishing off the last of the meat on his plate. He eyed the buffet table, that was beginning to look somewhat crowded. Eh, he was a grown man, he could wait for a bit. "Used to have a pretty little ship, but I had to move inland for a while, so now I'm boatless. If I end up staying here long enough I'll get a new one, but for now I'm renting."

The thing Bea had started to notice about herself was sometimes she didn't need anything to make her feel unsafe for her body to begin to react. Tonight, apparently, was one of those nights. Her heart had begun to pound. She put her drink down, the sharp click of it against the bar ringing in her ears. She took a deep breath, far too aware of how fast she was breathing now. "I'm... I'm just going to go to the bathroom for a second okay?" She slipped away from her sisters then and only made it so far before bumping into someone as she tried to walk fast to the bathroom. She wasn't going to freak out in front of all these people. "Excuse me. I didn't mean to hit you." She swallowed hard, trying to control her breathing, but couldn't seem to make it regulate. "I'm just- I have to... I'm just running to the bathroom."

Nell wasn't entirely sure what to make of Bea's quick departure, but she knew that her sister didn't seem quite as social as she'd once been in situations like these ever since she’d been resurrected. Maybe she just needed some air? Still, she wanted to make sure that the eldest Vural was doing alright, and took a quick step after her. One step in, and her head was spinning. What the hell? She'd barely had half her drink at this point. Dizziness wasn't something she should be feeling this early on in the night. Another step forwards, and she had to clutch the end of the bar to steady herself.

For what felt like the third time in as many minutes, Skylar blinked in confusion. "Ancient languages? Like... Latin?" She guessed, not sure what the other woman was talking about. She didn't think that ancient languages were part of the White Crest curriculum. "I-- No, I'm a sign language interpreter." She said before shaking her head. "Oh, no, I'm good. Thank you for the offer, really. I'm okay." She said before wandering away from the buffet. As she wandered through the crowd, her face went slightly pale as she saw Jared and Dave talking to one another. Two people who knew what she was? Mmmmmm, nope, nope nope. Hurrying away, she settled into a booth at the back, sighing as she relaxed into the seat.

"Q? That's funny, my other name is 007," Agatha deadpanned, although a smile soon followed. As much as she liked chit-chat, she was no longer eating. When he asked about mimes, her mouth was, thank God, full again. The food was alright, but there were really too many people in here. Another person had approached the table, and Agatha glanced at her with her eyebrows raised. Nice. "I really think you should hurry to get a plate if you ever want to find that out by yourself," she replied with a smile. "But to answer your question, it's pretty good, yeah."

Remmy swatted at Morgan. "I hate you," they mumbled at her before she left and they headed to the bar to get a drink for Nadia. On their way over, they felt a slight pang in their stomach. That was weird, they shouldn't be hungry? They'd eaten before Nadia came over. "Two whiskeys," they said to the bartender when they arrive, ignoring the feeling. They glanced idly around, noticing just down the bar were two familiar faces. "Luce?" they said. Two drinks were set down in front of them and it echoed loudly in their ears, glass clinking. Remmy shook their head, went to grab a glass. "Nell, are yo--" they started, but the glass suddenly fell from their grip and shattered on the floor. Remmy blinked, looking down. The world swayed under their feet. "S-sorry..." they mumbled as someone came around to clean up the mess. They looked at Luce again, went to say words, and found their throat too dry.

Jared blinked rapidly. His heart sped up and his head started to spin a little. It was faint at first but was building rapidly. He leaned his elbows on the table, taking a larger drink of the water he'd gotten, finishing the glass in the hopes it'd help. "Some cattle mostly." He lied in answer to Dave. He thought he spotted Skylar whiz past behind Dave but couldn't be sure as he got more dizzy. "Renting hah right..."

Norma thought that Skylar girl was rather odd, but nice. Once she got her drink, a tea from a long island, though she was unaware of which one, and took a sip. As she did, she felt a familiar sensation. It was like a pit dropped into her stomach and churned and turned it. The room started spinning and she gripped to the edge of the bar to try and hold herself up. "Fucking bounty hunters, not again!" she growled as she felt herself falling and tumbled to the floor, her heart pounding in her chest and the world starting to go black around the edges of her vision. Why these idiot hunters thought this could take down a fury, she'd never understand.

Quintin laughed. "That's awesome, do you have the scars to prove it?" The question didn't need an answer, clearly he was also playing along. "Hello," he said to the person who plopped at their table. "You alright?"

Jared's face grew a little slack, his eyes unfocusing as he leant heavily against the table. Dave's brow creased, leaning in concern. "You alright, kid?"

Morgan was bumped not once but twice on her way to the booths. One couple rose, spilling their drinks, and as she sidled down the aisle, one more person ran into her so hard she slipped and had to brace herself on the nearest table. There was something...off about all this. "Uh, I am, but I'm not sure if everyone else here is," she said to the young man. "Are you?"

Jared shook his head before realizing that made everything worse. His legs grew wobbly and he closed his eyes firmly hoping the feeling would pass. That was until his attention caught someone to his left falling to the floor. "Something is wrong."

The second Remmy dropped the glasses, Nadia moved over to where they were at the bar. Some poor fuck dropped their glass and stumbled in front of her, but she side stepped them, eyes on her target and concern in her eyes. "Remmy?" she asked as soon as she approached. "Hey, are you alright?" She completely ignored Luce, not seeing any sort of reason to pay attention to her. She wasn't getting paid to watch over Luce.

There was a tightness in her chest that seemed like it was set to stay, and no amount of air that Nell drew seemed to be enough. He hand slipped off the end of the bar as weakness gripped her, and she didn't even notice the floor coming up to meet her as her knees gave way. One second she was standing, and the next she was simply...not standing, trying to scramble to all fours on the ground. "Remmy? Luce? Bea?" Where did her sister go? Was she still here? Her brain was trying to connect dots, but the fuzziness around its edges was making it hard to understand.

Luce stared in confusion as Bea wandered away from the bar, her face pale. And then Nell-- she seemed to be holding tightly onto the bar. "Are you--" Before she could finish her words, Remmy was next to her, equally startled and just as out of sorts as Nell. Looking from her sister to Remmy, Luce slid her untouched whiskey away from her, glaring at the bartender for a moment before reaching out to steady Nell. "Nellie, are you okay?" She asked. In a moment, Nadia was there. Glancing over to the other woman, her eyes narrowed for a moment at the way she seemed to ignore her. "Are they okay?" She asked.

"Yeah, no shit," Dave replied, putting his hand on Jared's back. He looked around, eyes narrowing, as people staggered, looking green in the gills and falling over. Food poisoning usually took a whole lot longer, but... this was a lotta sick people. Could be a spell, could be, well, real poison. Shit. He smacked Jared's drink away. "Don't drink anymore of that. Don't eat. Hold tight kid. Think there's something in the food."

Bea pushed her way through the crowd, trying to get out of the thick of it. She found herself leaning close to the entrance, head beginning to pound as she slid down to the ground. This wasn't just a panic attack. No something was really wrong. "My sisters," She called out. "I need help finding my sisters."

Skylar quietly ate at her table, idly looking around as she ate. The dining room was quite crowded and, now that she was out of the fray, she could see that there were quite a few people that she recognized. Besides Jared and Dave, she could see that Nadia was there-- she hadn't seen her in ages, Skylar idly wondered if the woman had been keeping up on her ASL-- and then, Morgan. That was a little surprising, given.... Morgan's new situation. She didn't think that zombies could eat normal foods. But, the more she looked, the more she realized that things weren't quite right. People seemed to be stumbling around, people were rushing away from the bar? Glancing down at her plate of food, Skylar pushed it away before wandering towards where Morgan was standing, "I, um, hi Morgan." She said before dropping her voice slightly, "I-- Are things off to you too?"

The world was getting sluggish, fuzzy. So were Remmy's arms. And legs. And mouth and tongue. They blinked, heavy lead eyelids, and looked over at Nadia. Nell had collapsed, Luce was on the floor with her, asking if she was okay. If they were okay. Remmy stumbled backwards a little. A jarring pain ripped through their stomach and they jerked, keeling over a little. Wide eyes looked up at Nadia. "S-somethings wrong," they muttered, barely able to get the words out. "I'm not-- supposed to feel--" but another jolt of pain made them jerk wildly again, this time lower down in their stomach. They collapsed to the ground, hands digging so hard into the counter the wood gave way under their fingers.

Morgan tried to wave the woman’s attention away. “No, I’m good. I’m good, really.” But then she was off, darting into an increasingly unstable crowd. Then she saw another familiar face. “Skylar! No, I’m okay, just knocked around. Are you—?” She looked between her and the other kid at the table. “Are either of you okay? Are y’all seeing this?”

Jared was shaking, his knees knocking together like he was some sort of scared cartoon character, but there was nothing he could do. But he could hear voices he knew and he forced himself to move. "In the food? Pats would never." he whisper yelled stumbling towards a nearby table and almost toppling over someone on the floor, crashing to his knees next to the woman. "Fu-dge."

"Hey, I've got you," Nadia told Remmy soothingly. She slipped herself under their arm and wrapped her own arm around their waist, supporting their weight against her. "I've got you." She looked at Luce long enough to shoot her a look that said Not now. Then she pulled Remmy away from the bar. "Gotta be a fuckin' bathroom around here somewhere."

Things had gone to shit real fucking quick. Luce gently patted Nell's face, resting her hand on her sister's head for a moment before glancing over at Remmy, who seemed to be in an equally bad state. What the fuck? How could something be affecting them? They were a zombie this-- Watching as Nadia held onto Remmy, Luce felt a wave of emotion-- jealousy? Relief? Confusion? She couldn't fucking tell-- wash over her. Whatever was going on... it didn't matter. She needed to make sure Nell was okay. "Nellie? Nell, hey, what's going on. Talk to me."

"What the fuck is happening," Q frowned, standing up to catch a guy falling down to their knees. Was someone killing these people? Could he really not have a normal time anywhere? "I'm okay," he said to the woman asking. He didn't know how to help them.

"Pats ain't here kid, and new management don't seem too friendly," Dave said, and tried to catch Jared as he stumbled to the ground, the kid just slipping out his grip. "Shit!" He yelled, pulling out his phone to dial emergency service. "Got a whole lot of people suddenly sick at Pat's Place. Haven't been going long enough for it to be alcohol." He frowned as the call operator said there were already people on route, but was grateful someone had made the call before him. Putting his phone away, he knelt beside Jared. "Keep talking to me, kid."

Skylar's eyes darted around the room as she tried to make sense of what was going on. All around her, people were doubling over, some of them stumbling into tables, others of them just dropping where they stood. What was going on? She swallowed and nodded. "I-- I'm okay. This, there's--" She struggled with words as she caught sight of a familiar form falling to the ground. Remmy. And Nadia, she was carrying them away. "Remmy-- they're here too? They don't, I don't think they're doing alright." She said, her fingers instinctively signing the words as she spoke.

 “Good! Okay is good!” Morgan said. “Maybe don’t touch anything on your plate to make sure it stays that way huh? I mean it’s gotta be the food, right?”

Roland rushed out of the station as quickly as the police had received the tip. On the way over to Pat's Place, he radioed paramedics and a good deal of the officers who worked under him to make sure they could get to the bottom of this. His team was still tracing the tip, but they'd been told a special strain of cyanide was planned to be used at this event. Worry was evident in his features as he rushed over. He didn't bother with parking in an actual space and sirens were still blaring when he arrived with a slew of cop caps and ambulances behind him. He ran into the restaurant and it seemed people were already starting to feel the effects of the poison. "Everyone, remain calm and don't eat or drink anything else." Medics were already rushing over to those obviously affected.

Norma tried to talk but her words were slurred. "H-hey, wa-watch it!" she said as someone tumbled over her. The world went black. She fucking hated poison. Why poison? It was so slow. A stab to the heart was so much easier. She could simply pull out the knife and walk away then, but poison. What a trip. Ugh she would have to wait a bit until she could wake up again.

Back with a glass of water, Agatha felt like this was not going to be much of a help. What a mess. The sound of sirens stopped her in her tracks and she put the glass of water down on the table, heading toward the Sergeant hurriedly. "Hey, do you have any idea of what is going on?"

Jared mumbled an apology to the woman he'd fallen over, looking back at Dave as he reminded Jared that Pat was gone and something was definitely in the food. He squinted up at the new face as well. "Who're you, soft landing." he mumbled incoherently before looking back to Dave. "What if I stop? Will I die? This is far too early for that right?"

Roland looked to Agatha with a worried look on her face and immediately asked, "Do you feel okay?" He examined her for any sign of illness before he finally explained, "We received an anonymous tip that a special strain of cyanide was supplied for the reopening. Paramedics are on the scene and ready to treat anyone affected. Police are looking for whoever is in charge of this shindig."

Morgan barely heard Skylar over the noise of panic and sickness. But she caught her signing out of the corner of her eye and followed her gaze. “That...shouldn’t be happening,” she said. “C’mon. We gotta go.” She took the girl by the hand so they wouldn’t get separated but turned quickly back to the boy. “Hey, I mean it about not eating anything else weird. I’ll check on you later if I can.”

Kaden had planned to stay at home until the stripes were gone completely, he would use up all his sick days at work and then some if he had to. But when he got the call, the tip of a mass poisoning, all hands on deck, he couldn't let his vanity outweigh the risk of human lives lost. Putain. He grabbed gloves and made sure to wear long sleeves. His face and neck were harder to cover, but Regan could be mad about his attempts at using her makeup later. It wasn't great, but a least it hid most of the fucking face paint as he ran out the door and sped directly to Pat's Place, bursting in right behind Sarge and the rest of the crew from the station. The place was pure chaos. Fuck, he didn't even know where to start. Then his eyes landed on a familiar face by the door. "Bea!" No, no, no, she looked bad. But she couldn't die again. She couldn't. No. He ripped an antidote kit out of someone's hand, he didn't see whose. "Bea, talk to me!"

Nell was only slightly aware of Luce, only able to focus on her breathing and the fact that she felt like the world was quickly fading. Was there someone yelling about poison? Who the fuck would poison an entire restaurant? Whoever the hell thought they could get away with poisoning was in for a rude awakening when she was done with them. Luce was hard to make out, the edge of everything blurring. But wait. What about Bea? Was Bea poisoned? she wanted to ask. But instead when she parted her lips, there was nothing. Only the sound of her gasping for air and coughing. 

Marley had gotten the call while she was out on patrol. It was an emergency broadcast, which meant Jane had gotten the call, too. By the time Marley arrived, the place was in disarray. She had her kit in hand and rushed in, ignoring the swells of fear she felt as she waded through the crowd to the closest person passed out on the ground. Sarge was talking to Agatha, Kaden was with Bea-- Kaden knew Bea? Ugh, small towns-- and other officers were filling in behind her. She came to a man, collapsed on a table, an older gentleman helping him. "Is he sick?" she asked the man who didn't look like he was about to collapse.

Q's skin crawled in that familiar, warning way from the weight of the other. "Just listen to him," Q said to the one in his arms, talking wasn't the worst thing to keep doing when the threat of closing your eyes forever was the other option. "The cops are here, it will be fine." Though the words were stale on his tongue if this was supernatural related and not human.

"Medical's here," Dave replied, ignoring Jared's question about death entirely as he looked up as police and paramedics came up. A woman approached her, holding a kit, and Dave couldn't help breathe a sigh of relief. "Yeah, he is. Started about five minutes ago. What is this, you know?"

Remmy watched the floor slide by them as Nadia carried them off somewhere. Where were they going? Why couldn't they move? At some point, they'd stopped moving. Remmy slid to the floor, barely able to keep themself upright. "Nadia...what's..." they muttered, looking around for her, reaching out to try and grasp her as the world went fuzzy, dark, then sprung back to life again. They gripped their stomach in agony, trembling. "What's happening?"

Norma couldn't tell how long she had been asleep, or dead, it was hard to say, she never really knew, but her eyes flew open and she sat up and then turned to her side, the contents of her stomach spilling out on the floor beside her. Disgusting. She looked around and saw there was a man halfway fallen on top of her and another man helping him. And what she presumed was a medic. Oh no. Should she have played dead? "Wow, I must have eaten something horrible. Oh no, so tragic. How is it going here?"

Skylar let Morgan slip her hand into hers before offering an apologetic grimace to the two people the other woman had been talking to. "I'm sorry-- I--" She managed before hurrying away with Morgan towards where she'd last seen Remmy. They'd been by the bar, she'd seen them with Nadia. Where had they gone? And then, she saw that the two of them, Remmy's arm flung over Nadia's shoulder. "Morgan, over there." She said, tilting her head towards where she'd seen the two hurry off.

Bea looked up at Kaden's face, dizziness making it hard to focus on him. "Why do you look like that?" She asked, voice a bit choked. She coughed and the reality of what was happening began to hit her. She couldn't control the tears that started to leak from her. "I don't want to die again, Kaden, I can't die again," She told him, not even able to attempt to control how panicked she sounded. She grabbed his arm suddenly, looking back into the crowd. "My sisters are here," She wheezed out to him. She didn't want to die again, the thought terrified her in ways she couldn't even begin to understand, but her sisters couldn't experience what she had. She had told the truth when she said that she was willing to die for them again. She tried to push him toward the crowd. "Please."

Luce glanced around her as police began to flood the room, paramedics following close behind them. As Nell began to gasp and cough, Luce scooped her younger sister up in her arms. No. Not today. She'd resurrected Bea, summoned lightning for Nell, blown up a building and murdered countless people for her sisters. She wasn't going to let fucking Pat's Place hurt her family. Not today. Hurrying towards the entrance, she noticed Kaden kneeling over Bea, her sister saying words she couldn't quite hear, "Grab her and get her out of here." She growled at the man before pushing past him out of the building. She needed to get Nell to the ambulances outside, needed to make sure she was safe.

Jared's vision swam as yet another person arrived. He tried to raise his hand to show a peace sign but all he managed was a weird sort of wave at the newcomer, his arm falling heavily back into the guy holding him up. "Dave the fisherperson is a hero, I'm naming my next kid after you Dave." he decided his mind full of cotton.

There weren't supposed to be cops here. That was all Nadia could think about as she dragged Remmy away from the chaos. She flinched as they reached out to her, though she tried not to let it show. "It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine," she kept muttering over and over, though it was more for her benefit than Remmy's. When she got somewhere less crowded, she set them against the wall and leaned down in front of them. "I don't know what's going on," she said, glancing worriedly back as the cops all filed in, "but it's going to be okay, alright? I'm gonna get you some help."

Agatha 's eyes grew wide. She knew that her belly was more than full and her nervous smile, that probably looked like a freaky grimace told exactly that. "Never better, Sarge, never better," either way, she would have to do her job, anyway. "I'll go gather the staff in the kitchen." And with those words, she turned her back on the sergeant and crossed the restaurant countless times, each and every time with the same strict directions.

Marley took the dizzy man by the arm and shuffled around him. "I need you to open your mouth for me," she said, that firmness to her voice. When he obliged, she popped in the breathalyzer antidote before motioning over to a paramedic to administer the IV. "He'll be okay," she said to the older man, "we've been told it was cyanide. The EMTs will know more. Are you okay, sir? Not feeling any symptoms?"

Nell's heartbeat was growing weaker by the second, her head lolling uselessly as Luce carried her to...to...where were they going? Was she floating? Something felt wrong. Where were they going? There were so many people yelling. There were people in danger. She wanted to stay and help, but the thought was faint as her body continued to shut down, and finally the world faded away as a whole.

Morgan followed Skylar’s lead, all the way up to Remmy, not fleeing the place so much as being dragged away by Nadia. "This is not supposed to be happening, this is definitely not supposed to be happening, flipping universe, this just not..." Chaos was erupting around her. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw the Vural sisters in similar distress, but she couldn't split her attention right now. She grimaced, pulled Skylar along until they were outside with Nadia and Remmy. "What happened?" She asked Nadia, voice shrill. "How long have they been like this?" She dropped to her knees to examine Remmy, though for what, she wasn't sure. "What happened to Remmy?"

Roland was relieved to hear Agatha hadn't been poisoned though he did notice Luce rushing outside with someone in her arms. He'd have to check in on her later. Right now, it was imperative to find whoever was behind this before they got away. Agatha made her way toward the kitchen and he decided to check out the bar first. Not everyone was sick and this was a buffet. There was a chance the beverages were behind this. He walked up to the bar and demanded, "I need to see whoever is in charge of your bar immediately."

Kaden scrambled to get the antidote kit open. This wasn't going to happen, she wasn't going to fucking die again. Once was more than enough. "Open your mouth, you're not fucking dying, Bea, you're--" Her sisters? And then she was up and trying to move. Fuck, he grabbed her and pulled her back, maybe harder than he had to. Just then Luce brushed past cradling Nell. "They're okay, they're fine." He pushed the breathalyzer antidote towards her and called for a medic. "You're not dying. Nell's not dying. Neither is Luce. Now sit still and where the fuck is a medic?" One finally ran over to administer an IV at his second shout.

Dave shifted backward on his knees as Marley leant over Jared, giving him the antidote. "I feel right as rain. Guessing whatever it was wasn't in the meat, that's all I'd eaten so far, and hadn't got to drinking yet." He eyed Jared in concern, rubbing his jaw in concern. "Don't name no one after me, kid. Just keep talking. You already got kids?"

Remmy wanted to cry out, it hurt so bad. Pain torn through the stomach, like swallowed lava. A burning so deep inside they wanted to tear their chest open and rip it out. "Get it out," they muttered, clawing at their chest, "g-get it out. Morgan, get..." they could barely see now, the world spinning around them so fast it made them fall over, even as they were sitting up. Someone's hands caught them. They couldn't see who it was, only hear familiar voices. "Make it stop," they gurgled, feeling something rising in their stomach, their chest, their throat, "make it stop."

Luce made her way out of the building and blocked the path of a passing paramedic, her eyes burning with enough anger and fear to stop them in their tracks. "You're going to save my sister, right fucking now." She snarled as she lay Nell down on the ground. Without a word, the paramedic bent over her sister and opened up the antidote kit. She gripped her sister's hand, holding it tightly as she looked around. So many people were in the same state as her sister, so many people were hurting. "You better fucking save her." She said. "You better fucking save her."

Q let the medic help the person near him, and after setting them down, stood up to aid anyone else to get over towards the medics so there wasn't delay in their care.

Marley patted the younger man on the shoulder. "You're gonna be okay," she said, as the EMT arrived to take over her spot. She gave a glance to the older man, nodding. "We're not sure yet. Count yourself lucky, though," she said, turning to head off to the next person, but-- finding that she was already up and alright. Marley eyed her warily, and the pool of wet next to her. "Everything okay, ma'am?"

Bea fall against Kaden, looking at him with wide, panicked eyes. She finally opened her mouth at Kaden's instruction. He said that her sisters will be okay. She had to believe him. He'd take care of them or make sure they were being taken care of. She knew he would. Her friends took care of her family, she had to trust that. As the medic administered her IV, she realized how hard she was shaking. Through gasping breaths, she asked Kaden and the medic, "What's happening?"

"Get what? Get what out, Remmy! I don't know what you mean!" Morgan shrieked, hands fluttering everywhere and nowhere at once. "Did you actually eat something, Remmy?" She looked helplessly over at Nadia. "I don't understand! Did you see anything?”

Agatha stood in the kitchen with the restaurant's staff. "Everyone here?" She watched them look at each other else before nodding. "Alright. I'm going to need whoever was in charge of food to go over here, and whoever works at the bar to go over here." She had not had anything to drink, so clearly, there was something in the water.

Jared "Got tons of kids. Farm full of 'em." he told Dave. "Don't have a Dave yet so it's perfect." He winced at the IV going into his arm and make a face at Dave. "Feels like a movie, no one gets poisoned in real life do they?"

"I don't know," Nadia said, her tone matching Morgan's. She began to back away, her hands shaking as she watched the two undead. "I--" she needed to get out of there and fast. But there were too many fucking people around. She couldn't be suspicious. Inwardly, she willed herself to calm down, while outwardly she put all of her effort into looking concerned and panicked and horribly inept at handling this situation. "I'm going to get help," she said, backing into the main room. On the way, she saw a discarded drink tray. Fuck, she didn't sign up for this. As slyly as she could, she downed the drink and headed back into the main room, hoping the effects hit quickly. In the mean time, she pretended to look for someone to help Remmy. Not that they could. Zombie poison really was a real bitch.

Skylar followed behind Morgan, doing her best to dodge the people who were between them and Remmy. Before she knew it, Skylar was staring at Remmy, their hands pulling at their chest, their body wracked with pain. Her eyes widened, memories of the last time she'd seen them in pain coming rushing back to her. The way they'd been ripped in half, the way their insides-- "No, no, no, no, no." She mumbled, frozen in fear. She shook her head, trying to force away the memories. She didn't-- they didn't-- she couldn't handle seeing them like this. "Help! Someone, someone help!" Skylar yelled, not knowing what else she could do. She just knew she needed to get Remmy help, and fast. They were in so much pain.

Dave nodded as the officer walked away, turning back to Jared with a bemused smile that didn't quite mask his worry. "Right, your cows're your kids," he agreed, looking around. "Pretty shitty movie, if you ask me. Whoever made that first call saved a fuckload of lives."

Roland gave the timid looking assistant bar manager a harsh look. "Are you the one in charge here?" His words had a bite to them and he was frustrated. A mass poisoning was horrific and he couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around it. The younger man stuttered, "Oh, I-I- I don't know what happened. I was walking a-around seeing if everyone enjoyed their meals. I'm nn-not sure where the bartenders ran off too or what's making everyone sick." Roland narrowed his eyes. It was hard to tell if the nerves were because he was lying or because of the utter chaos ensuring around them. "I'm going to need you to come back to the station with me and answer some questions."

Kaden could feel Bea shaking, closer to death than she had any right to be right after just coming back to life. "Got a call about a poisoning. Breathe, I need you to breathe." Because if she stopped fucking breathing, it would all be for nothing. He couldn't handle that, not again. And he knew Luce and Nell couldn't even begin to handle that. "Luce looked okay. She had Nell. There are medics everywhere, I'm sure she's okay." God fucking help him if he was lying to her right now. He'd never live it down. But he couldn't leave her to go check. He had to trust that Luce would kill someone to keep Nell safe. Had to admit, that wasn't a stretch to believe.

"Get it out, it burns!" Remmy nearly screamed, tearing at their clothes. Sweat was beading on their head, pooling under their shirt. Their arms felt stiff, slow. Their entire body heavy. They sank to the floor, curling up. Exhaustion rushing into them. "It burns, everything burns, it--" they choked on their words, shaking. Wished that the darkness would just take them over, wish they could slip into that release, too. "Please, please," they begged.

"Ma'am-- I need you to--- Ma'am! Get out of here!" The medic yelled and Luce found herself being pulled away from her sister. "Alright! Alright! But, you better fucking, you better save her!" She swore as she stumbled down the pavement. Breathing hard, Luce stared up at the restaurant again, saw Kaden next to Bea, watching over her while the medic administered the treatment. Hurrying back towards them, she glanced around and stopped dead in her tracks. Through the doorway, she caught sight of Nadia... Saw the glass in her hand. What the fuck? What the fuck? Her eyes widened in horror as she watched Nadia drain the glass dry.

Morgan tried to reach out for Nadia before she backed away. "NO, no, you have to tell me what they did! Fucking--Nadia!" But the girl was gone. Yeah, she definitely didn't know that much about her date if she thought the paramedics were going to have anything to help a zombie in distress. Skylar, nearby, was feeling some distress too. "Hey," she said, her voice firm with determination. "We're gonna figure this out, okay? Just not here, and not with the help of human cops. I'm going to take Remmy back to my place. Can you cover for us, Skylar?" She heaved her arms under Remmy's body and picked them up. It was awkward with their difference in size, but she was going to make it work. "If Nadia comes back, tell her we're okay, make sure she doesn't ask any questions?" She tried to lock eyes with the young selkie. Tried to sound as confident as she wished she was. "We're gonna handle this, and we're gonna be fine."

"That's right." Jared’s head still felt wrong, but the cotton was clearing a little as the medic monitoring the IV in his arm gave a nod to someone to help Jared to his feet. "The worst movie I've ever seen bud." he agreed, being hauled into a chair to be moved. "Coming for the ride in the ambulance? A cyanide come down is a great way to meet new friends."

Norma tried to stand up, but still felt weak. The poison was no longer killing her, but the effects always lasted far longer than she would like. It was unfortunate that someone had noticed her fall. She glanced around her, every other mortal who had fallen was being given intense medical care. Gods, how could she explain this one? Hopefully this human approaching her was very stupid. "Oh, yes, I'm fine. I think the poison just didn't stick. It's a miracle! Praise your deity of choice!"

Instead of looking for someone to help Remmy, Nadia immediately went over to the EMTs, stumbling by the time she got to one of them. "I think-- Fuck." Fucking cyanide. Fucking cops. She wasn't getting paid enough to poison herself. She groaned and allowed the EMT to help her out. Tommy was going to be getting some choice words after all of this.

Poison. Some fucking bastard poisoned her and her sisters. Bea was going to fucking kill them. She was going to burn... No, not burn anymore, but she was going destroy whoever fucking did this. Her tears started to clear as she was worked on and she looked up at Kaden, face set in rage, "I'm going to kill them." She looked to the side, trying to find her sisters and saw Luce. Reaching out to her, she called to Luce, voice rough. "Luce!"

Skylar focused on Morgan's words, doing her best to hold herself together, though her shoulders were shaking violently. "Mhm, mhm,. I can-- I can do that. Just, make sure they're okay. Please, please make sure they're safe." Skylar glanced down at Remmy, watched as they screamed and cried, and curled on the ground. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes as she nodded. "It's all going to be okay, it's gonna be okay." She said, more to herself than to Morgan. It had to be okay.

With the sergeant handling this, Agatha left the kitchen, passing a woman who was thanking God instead of medicine with a judgemental look on her face. Yeah, no, no time to argue. Besides it looked like someone was taking care of her. It seemed things were getting slowly under control. But time would tell how bad this truly was.

Marley eyed the woman carefully. "Didn't stick, huh?" she said with a low voice, glancing around them before leaning in, "sounds pretty...supernatural to me." Before leaning away. She didn't exactly have time for this, there were more people who needed poison kits. She backed away from the strange woman, smiling, gave a wave, before heading off to another sick person. This town sure was strange sometimes.

Roy Chambers couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face if he tried. What was there to be upset about? The day had been good to him. Another day with the sun warming his skin was a good one, in his book. Coupled with the sound of ambulance sirens cutting through the air? Oh, that tickled him in more ways than most people could properly understand. What did it mean? What was going on? That was probably what most people were thinking. Roy, however, knew exactly what it meant. It meant success. It meant his plan had gone off without a hitch. As he neared the restaurant—Pat’s Place—he watched the chaos from the sidewalk. No way this place was going to pick back up after a catastrophe like this. Shame. They had the best cheesesteaks in the area. With the mess unfolding, everyone was far too consumed with the sick and dying to notice him. He halted at the sight of a familiar face. Remmington McAllister. 30. One of the parties to blame for the Ring explosion. He was sure Penelope Vural was around here somewhere. Preferably dead. Remmington didn’t look too far from it themself. He caught their gaze, lowering his sunglasses to fully take in the picture. Phew, boy. Looked like that hurt. He winked, his grin spreading wider across his features. Tucked his hands into his pockets and carried on down the road, a melodic whistle on his lips and a pep in his step. The day had been very good to him indeed.

[captainsaveasmut]

Heartache

Pairing  》 Chris Evans x black!plus-size reader

Synopsis 》 Follow Evans through his emotional journey as he tries to understand why his relationship failed and work through his heartache

Warnings 》 angst / slight smut / mild profanity

You know

Maybe you’ve never been in love like I’ve been in love

And maybe you’ve never felt the things that I’ve felt

But this is what I told my friend

I said, you know, sometimes you get lonely

And I cry, I cry

And the tears would fill up in the wells

In the wells of my eyes, baby

And then it got so bad, it got so bad

Till one time I thought I’d roll myself up in a big ol’ ball and die

       - Lenny Williams / Cause I Love You

Why did no one warn me that it was going to hurt this bad? Why did no one give me a heads up on the pain that I feel in my chest? In my heart? Why am I here? I am the cause of this. That’s why I’m here. Our last argument constantly replays in my head like a broken record. Haunting me when I’m the most vulnerable.

I don’t baby. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it, but I see it now. I see how distant I was from you. How much I didn’t appreciate you… care for you… love you. You wanted my attention. You needed me and I didn’t see it, but now I do; when it’s too late.

"You don't care! You never cared!"

"Pay attention to me!”

"Why can’t you see that you are the reason why our relationship is failing?”

“I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

That was the last thing she said to me. It cut me deep. It caused me the most pain because it wasn’t until then that I realized that I lost her. Next thing I know she’s gone. Everything packed up and off to the next destination. Damn, I didn’t realize how small and empty my house is without her. Dodger is great company, but something is still missing- she’s still missing. What was once we and ours are now me and mine. But what’s so funny about her leaving is that I didn’t think she was going to. I’ve been single for quite some time before Y/N, but now that she’s gone the feeling almost seems foreign to me. Like I’ve been with her all my life.

We’ve been bickering for a couple of months and I thought it was just another argument. Same shit, different day. I would’ve never guessed that she would leave me. I mean I knew she could (and a part of me wanted her to in the heat of the moment), but that would mean that we would have to start over from scratch. Since I tolerated our bullshit, I assumed that she tolerated it too. We aren’t getting any younger, this was the best we could do… or so I thought. Wouldn’t she be more comfortable staying here than leaving to hopefully find something better (that may or may not be out there)? Wasn’t she content like I was? This was just a bad cloud over our relationship, that seemed to take some time to pass. Every couple goes through it; no big deal, right?

Sucks to have an immature mind. Mine just ruined a relationship that could’ve last. Our relationship started to break apart when we started talking AT each other instead of TO each other. Almost everything she said in our arguments was true. I did stop caring at times and would get lazy in the relationship. I’m a busy man, what can I say? Is that an excuse- at the moment, yeah it was, but now I know I was just pride getting in the way. Y/N had her faults too, don’t get me wrong. She was controlling and immature at times, but I guess I brought it out of her. I was lethargic and she was fed up. She wanted to fix it but, I was too arrogant to go about it.

After Y/N called it quits and moved out, I was “cool” for about a week or so. After that, I became the new resident at “sulk city”. The heart sure does know when it’s broken and it makes sure to remind you of its brokenness, no matter how much you try to ignore it or distract yourself from it. It felt like a ton of bricks just landed on my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I was slacking in my career, I couldn’t focus, I didn’t have the strength to go outside the house or get out the bed for that matter. I was depressed. My boys gave me “legit advice” (or whatever they called it) and told me to go out and explore my options. "Man, why are you still worrying about Y/N? She’s a dime a dozen. You’re fucking Captain America, you’ll find a new one by tomorrow. You need to get your panties out of your ass first. Can’t move on buddy, if you’re crying and shit.”

I can honestly say I’m not surprised my fellas’ idea of “moving on” is having meaningless sex with any and every female that walks past me, but I decided to give it a shot. What’s the worst that can happen to a heartbroken man anyways? I went to a small house party with them and met this beautiful woman named Angela. She was sexy, there was no denying that, but she wasn’t Y/N. But that’s the point, right? To find someone new? So, I filled my body with alcohol, drowning any thoughts of my ex, and had a great time with Angela. She was definitely interested in me; hanging onto me throughout the entire night, and I willingly let her.

“Maybe you’ve never been in love like I’ve been in love and maybe you’ve never felt the things that I’ve felt.”

     - Lenny Williams

We were having a great time, drinking and dancing, next thing I know she’s whispering in my ear that she was ready to leave. We all know what that means. I planned to take our private party back to her place to finish what we started, but Angela wasn’t the patient type and had other plans. And now I have a beautiful, naked woman in the backseat of my car, waiting for me to take her right then and there. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I haven’t had sex with another woman in the past three years, a century in relationship years. This was new territory. I didn’t know what she liked, her hot spots, hell I didn’t even know her, but I had to get over Y/N one way or another. So, I undress and slip in the back with her. I was having sex with a stranger in my car.

Everything was going well for the most part, until it wasn’t. She was straddling my lap, grinding herself on my crotch, as we made out. I quickly slipped a rubber on and it was smooth sailing from there. She loved it. If her moans didn’t tell me then her body did. Angela began kissing all over my neck and collarbone as she rode me; my hands latched to her hips as I met her halfway. Was I getting over Y/N? I thought I was until Angela kissed and sucked a spot on my body that instantly makes my body go weak.

My earlobe.

I don’t think she realized the severity of what she just did to me. My body just went numb under her and a hard groan escaped my lips along with a name, which wasn’t hers. You can probably predict who it was. She surprisingly wasn’t fazed by it. She just claimed that once she was done with me that her name would be the only name I groaned out. She just shrugged it off and kept riding, but I, however, couldn’t just shrug it off. It bothered me. Not the fact that she didn’t care that I practically yelled out another woman’s name, but that she sucked on my earlobe in the first place.

First things first, you have to understand the importance of my earlobes. My earlobes are my spot- the spot. The same spot that Y/N discovered and has always taken advantage of for the past three years. She sucked on my earlobe when we made love and when she wanted to make love. That was HER spot. Y/N’s spot. Angela and I weren’t making love; we were fucking. And even if we were making love, Y/N claimed my earlobes as hers or at least I claimed them for her. That was Y/N’s spot as much as it was mine. No one but Y/N knew how much it affected me and now I’m starting to feel like no one but Y/N is allowed to activate that feeling. It didn’t feel right if it wasn’t her doing it.

Once I came to grips that my earlobes belong to Y/N and that sex wasn’t going to help me get over her, I told Angela to stop. I removed myself from under her and put my clothes back on while handing back hers. She complied but she wasn’t happy about it. You can bet your bottom dollar that she gave me a few words while she got dressed too. I just sat there and took it. Oh, and I can’t forget the hard-ass slap she gave me before she stormed back into the house. I deserved it.

After that sad attempt of “moving on”, I went back to my lonely, depressed state. My boys came by again, made fun of me, and tried to hook me up once again but, I was done. I can’t go through that shit again. They eventually gave up and left their poor excuse of a friend in his empty home. I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore. I love Y/N and I want her back but I think it’s too late. No one waits around seven months to get back with their ex. Especially if they were the ones that were dumped. She probably moved on by now. She’s a good woman, so I know someone already claimed her as theirs. Someone better than me.

Someone, please make it stop! Just tell me what to do because I’m a hopeless wreck at this point. My friends were no help, so maybe I should ask someone wiser and who understands women. "Christopher, if you feel this strongly about her then you need to win her heart back. Nothing is worse than losing the one you love, especially if there was a chance to get them back”, my mother told me & she was right. I needed to get Y/N back, but I couldn’t find the strength to come face-to-face with her.

“Go get her back dumbass!”

“Shut up! It’s over. She’s gone.”

I guess I was embarrassed that I waited this long to finally do something about it. Or maybe it was my big, dumbass ego trying to prevent what it ruined in the beginning. Either way it goes I was scared. Scared of being rejected by her. Scared that she wouldn’t give me another chance. And so here I am, lying in the middle of my bed, tears of frustration filling up in the wells of my eyes, as I deciphered through my options.

Should I get her?

Should I not?

Should I get her?

Should I not?

A ball of hurt and heartache formed in my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. “I need her. I need Y/N.”

And just as those words fell from my lips, my body immediately lunged itself from the bed and out the bedroom. I grab my car keys (no wallet, no phone) and race to my car. I had no idea what I was doing exactly, but I was determined to leave my pain and misery. I started the car, backed out the driveway, and drove off. As I traveled down the road, I tried to put together some last-minute confession of my love for her, but honestly, I was a fucking wreck and nothing I came up with seemed to be good enough.

My mind ran a mile a minute, as my foot pressed harder on the accelerator & my hands steered me though the dim-lit streets. I pull into her neighborhood until I reach the familiar, cozy, one-story house. I stare at the exterior of the home for a while, before my hands opened the car door and my feet guided me out of it. I walked up to the driveway, to the stoned walkway, up to the porch, until I came face to face with the front door. Here it is. The moment of truth. I didn’t want to knock on the door, but my hands decided otherwise and did it for me AND rang the doorbell, as to say that it was urgent for someone to answer the door. No please. I NEED them to take their time. Give me a minute to pull myself together.

“Can someone answer the door!”

That voice. It was enough to make my heart pound and my body go limp. I wasn’t ready! Just as I was about to back away from the door and HUAL ASS, the door opened. A handsome Ethiopian man, with a stubble beard and intense eyes, answered the door. I am very secure in my sexuality, believe me, but this man was gorgeous. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a model of some kind. I sure hope this isn’t the next guy she moved on to. It would just crush me more than I already am.

I stood there, rocking on the heel of shoes like a fool as I tried to let other words besides “I” come out of my mouth. The man looked confused and worried as he stood there looking like a god. I felt stupid. What am I even doing here!? Man, this is embarrassing. I looked passed the man to see Y/N’s close friend, Jean and another guy peeking from behind him. The comical look on Jean’s face made me want to shit myself. No, now THIS was embarrassing. I looked passed all of them, avoiding eye contact. Words still haven’t come out of my mouth and it felt like I’ve been standing here for hours!

“Hey, can I help you?”

“I- I- …”

“Adam baby who’s at the door? And why are y’all crowding aroun-”

There she was. As much as I wanted to avoid eye contact, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. This girl sure does get better with time; like a fine wine. She looked perfect.

“Chris?”

She sounded shocked and confused, yet it had some type of joyful undertone to it. I would expect her to react that way. I mean it has been almost eight months and I’m sure I’m the LAST person she would expect on her porch at 10:47 PM, but it was time we made up for lost time.

Was I nervous? Yes.

Scared? Yes.

Sick to my stomach? Yes.

Did I know what to say? No.

Did I want to have this conversation? Not really.

Was I ready for whatever she was going to tell me? Hell no!

But I can’t let another second go by without trying to get her back. So, I pushed all instinct to run and hide aside and faced her like a man. I was sick and tired of this heartache. It was time I attempted to fill the hole in my chest again. I needed my girl back.

“Hey Y/N.”

Tags 》@et-lesailes @kirstie-evans-writes @evansproject @chrisevans-sexualfrustrations @chrisevans-daily @weheartchrisevans @evansensations @chrisevansdaddycap @captainsteveevans @cevanstorytime @cevanscentral @chrisevans-imagines @luvinchris

[ These tags are temporary & are used to help get my story out to more readers. Pls reblog & tags others! @ me if you want to be tagged in future content. Thank you!]

[ineffablegame]

hey for the prompt thing: a/c 43 taking care when the other one's sick?

I hope this doesn’t feel like I phoned it in!  :o

Also available on my Ao3.

In Crawly’s defense, he hadn’t meant to get mixed up in Legion’s nonsense.

He hadn’t even wanted to be in Gerasa.  He’d been shooting for Pella, intent on meeting Aziraphale for evening drinks at a tavern of some repute, but he’d bungled the miracle and sent himself too far east.  He’s been in Gerasa not five minutes before Legion streaks past, clad in the body of an emaciated human and nothing else.  Stupid with shock, Crawly is helpless against Legion’s pull; it sucks him in, as powerful as gravity, and he is trapped inside the pinwheeling pandemonium of the human’s mind before he can so much as blink.  

Legion is a well-known party animal in the bowels of Hell.  Sometimes, they make for a roaring good time.  Whenever the ruling class of Hell looks away long enough for the lesser demons to drum up a party, Legion is always the first on the dance floor, badly-boogying their little heart out.  

This would all have been tolerable – fun, even – if that were the end of it.  But Legion is the sort of obnoxious partier that inspires frat boys ‘round the world to get spectacularly shitfaced, ratchet up the decibels of their bellowing with each successive drink, and plague every woman in a fifty-yard radius with atrocious pick-up lines and beer-rank breath.

They are, in short, an unholy pain in the arse.  And Crawly’s just been forced to share some poor sod’s body with them.  

“Crawly!” they exclaim.  Their voice is a cataclysm of shrieks and squeals and wrenching moans, impossible for the human larynx to replicate.  Crawly winces as pain lances through the man’s throat.  “How you doin’, buddy?”

“Uh, fine,” he replies automatically, because banal pleasantries are the only blessed thing that make sense in the careening carousal of flashing light flickering image dank dark gibbering sobs please let me go let me go let me GO—  “Er.  Just great.”  

“We haven’t seen you since… shit, can’t remember the last time!”

Yes, Crawly thinks, I’d been rather making an effort with that.

“Where are we?” he asks, because the sooner he gets past the basics, the sooner he’ll be able to disentangle himself and escape.  “Who are we?”

“Hell’s teeth, I dunno!” Legion bellows.  

“So why are we—”

“I was bored!  Buddy, am I glad you came along!  We’re gonna have so much fun with this stupid human!”

Crawly, inwardly grimacing, resigns himself to be an unwilling guest in the revelry.  Legion is an idiot with the attention span of a goldfish; the moment they lose interest and cast the wasted husk of this human body aside, he’ll be free.  He only has to wait.  

Three days later, Legion hasn’t lost interest.  And then Jesus of Nazareth wanders into Gerasa.  

“Hello, there,” says Jesus.

Legion may be a fool, but they know the Son of God when they see him. They pull back the man’s lips in a feral snarl.  “Dude, fuck off.  There’s, like, a ton of us.”

Jesus of Nazareth smiles benignly, head cocked, eyebrows arched.  Crawly, crammed inside a body that feels like it’s withering away by the minute, shivers with a soul-deep terror.  

“There certainly are a lot of you,” says Jesus.  “It’s not right, one person being so many.”  

As he speaks, each word uttered with total composure, Crawly becomes aware of the squeals and snorts of pigs nearby.  He clambers up to the human’s eyes, elbowing fragments of Legion aside for a look.  Over the Son of Man’s shoulder, a boy and his father are guiding their herd of swine toward the scene.  

“I think,” Jesus says, quiet menace creeping into his tone, “that you should go back to being separate.  Now.”

The change is dizzying in its suddenness.  Before Crawly can make sense of what has happened, he is looking up at Mary’s baby boy from an entirely different angle, snorting and snuffling and stamping his trotters in the dirt.  He’s been dropped into a bloody pig like a recalcitrant plant that’s outgrown its pot.  

The squeals around him reach a frantic pitch and Crawly turns, startled.  The other pigs are throwing back their heads with rending screams, eyes rolling, spittle flying from their mouths.  A fragment of Legion has been placed inside each one, and the separation is driving them mad with terror.  They barrel past the boy and his father, heedless of their staffs, and stampede down the rutted dirt road.  It is a narrow road, turning sharply to hug a cliff face overlooking a deep, cold lake.

Jesus blinks.

A thunderous rumbling sound judders over Legion’s screams and the road buckles, crumbles.  Crawly watches, relief warring with terror, as each pig topples after the other like chain link following chain link to vanish, shrieking and cursing, over the side of the cliff.  The sound of frantic splashing ensues, cut short with preternatural swiftness.  Silence descends.  

Jesus turns to Crawly, who shrinks into himself inasmuch as a two-hundred and fifty-pound hog can shrink.  But the Christ’s smile is no longer menacing; in fact, it’s practically pleasant, warming Crawly from the tip of his snout to the end of his curly tail.  His every demonic instinct warns him against that warmth – that his will is being leaned on, manipulated – but it’s difficult to focus when he feels suddenly so content.

“Hello, Crowley,” says Jesus.

“That’s not my name,” Crawly replies.  It’s all squealing and snorting, but the Word of Life understands him anyway.  

“My mistake,” Jesus says, in the unbothered, smiling way of someone quite certain they aren’t mistaken.  “Crawly, is it?”

“Maybe,” Crawly mumbles.

“Sorry about that.  The snout, I mean.  Legion had quite the hold on you.”

“Um… it’s fine…?”

“I’ll sort you out right now.”  Her Only Begotten Son rubs his palms together in a way that, some millennia later, will come to mind when Aziraphale embarks on his one-sided love affair with magic tricks.  “Send you off to your friend.”

“My wh—”

Crawly’s vision whites out before he can complete the question.  A moment later, blinking dazedly past the haloes branded on the backs of his eyelids, Crawly finds himself seated at a table, back in his own body.  Aziraphale, siting opposite of him with a jug raised to his lips, stares in wide-eyed amazement.  He lowers the jug.

“Crawly!” he says.  “Why, we were supposed to meet three days ago!  I was worried sick!”

“I’m—”  Crawly pauses, sniffling, and sneezes.  He pointedly ignores the offended expression on Aziraphale’s face as he shields the jug from a drizzle of snot.  Recovering with an accusatory look around the tavern, he continues, “Glad you were able to overcome your crippling worry and c—”  Another sneeze, and this time Aziraphale lifts the jug out of harm’s way.  Crawly soldiers on.  “Carry on without me.”

Aziraphale has the grace to look guilty.  “This is the seasonal menu.  It won’t last much longer.”

“Of course.  How silly of me.”  Crawly points at the jug.  “Give me that.”

“It’s mine,” Aziraphale sniffs.

“Angel.”  Crawly leans across the table, elbows propped on the gnarled wood.  “I’ve been stuck in a human’s body for the last three days with the most annoying demon this side of Creation.  After that, I was trapped inside a sodding pig.  Give.  Me.  That.  Drink.”

His speech would be more persuasive without a dribble of snot hanging off the end of his nose, but Crawly glares at the angel nonetheless, determined not to be cowed.  After a moment of staring, perplexed, Aziraphale passes him the jug.  

“You’re leaking,” the angel says petulantly.

“S’fine.”  Crawly takes a determined swig.  “It’ll pass in a minute, don’t you worry.”

-

It doesn’t pass.  In fact, over the next few days, the sneezing gets worse.  With it comes a ridiculous amount of snot, rivers of the stuff, and chills and fevers and stomach upsets that put him entirely off drinking altogether.  By the seventh day, he is bedridden, wheezing and certain he’s about to be discorporated with Someone’s inventive new take on the plague.  

“Oh, stop being so melodramatic,” Aziraphale says, miracling a square of linen to mop the sweat from his brow.  “You’ll be ship-shape in no time.”

“It was the pigs,” Crawly rambles, staring at Aziraphale with glassy eyes.  “I’ve… I’ve got a pig illness.  A pig flu.  A swine flu.”

Aziraphale, cold-hearted nurse that he is, merely scoffs.  “What rubbish.  ‘Swine flu.’”  He chuckles.  “I’m sure I’ve never heard such nonsense.”

“Bet it’ll be all the funnier when it kills me,” Crawly moans.  “Then you can laugh.”

“Hush.” Aziraphale lays a gentle hand on his brow.  There is no miracle at work – only the cool, steady pressure of his touch.  Somehow, that is enough.  Crawly closes his eyes with a sigh.  

[a-bugz-life]

Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw || Anita & Luce

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @professoranieves​ and @divineluce SUMMARY: Anita shows up at Luce’s with a bottle of tequila, Luce has whiskey. Neither woman is at all distracted by thoughts of another lover.  CONTENT WARNINGS: NSFW (Kissing, Touching, Sex mentions)

Anita wasn’t sure why she was so comfortable going back to Luce more than once. It was different with her than it was with Marley. With Luce it was exactly what it was - emotionless fun. Maybe that’s why she found herself pulling up to her cabin with a bottle of liquor in tow, because she needed something that wasn’t complicated right now. She walked up to the front door, straightened out her shirt a bit, then knocked three times, not sure how the evening was going to go, but fairly certain she was going to enjoy it. “Hey,” She said with a warm grin when she saw the door swing open.

Frowning at the book she’d borrowed from Orion, Luce muddled through the words. Possession, prior instances of ghosts… hosts… None of this made any sense to her but-- the knock at her door jolted her out of her focus and she blinked in surprise. Shit-- Anita. Shoving the book into the drawer of her bedside table, Luce hurried over to the mirror to do a once over. The black choker rested snuggly against her throat, covering the thick scar across her neck which was all that she really cared about. “Hey yourself.” She said with a grin, glancing down at the bottle of liquor. “Mhm, I see you held up your end of the bargain.” Luce moved out of the way, letting Anita come inside. “You feeling like a tequila or whiskey first?” She asked as she grabbed the half empty bottle of Glenlivet and two glasses.

Anita smiled as she walked into Luce’s cabin, “I always make good on my promises.” The isolation of Luce’s place was really blissful. While Anita didn’t live in the woods, living on the edge of Dark Score had its fair share of isolation. “You know what, let’s start with whiskey this time.” It was nice that there didn’t need to be a ton of pretense when she was with Luce. They knew what they were there for. Even though Anita prefaced this meet-up as ‘catching up’ with each other, they clearly both knew what that really meant. “This must be the good stuff if you’ve blown through half a bottle already, huh?”

“I can’t say I mind that.” Luce said with a smile, though her thoughts were drifting back to a certain other someone who hadn’t held up their end of the bargain. Who hadn’t kept up with their agreement. At Anita’s words, Luce nodded, already pouring out a healthy amount of whiskey into one of the glasses before pausing. “On the rocks or neat?” She asked, tilting her head over to the fridge in the kitchen. “I might be out in the middle of nowhere, but I’ve got pretty much everything you could want.” She said as she leaned against the counter of her kitchen. “Mhm, yes and no. I’ve had this one for a while. I save it for special occasions. And women of taste.” Luce said with an easy wink.

“Neat.” Anita replied, not feeling the need to add that she’d never choose something cold since she’s already cold all the time. “Oh I’m out in the middle of nowhere too.” It was at that moment that she realized that she had never invited Luce over to her place. “If you don’t mind being near Dark Score Lake, we should do this at my place next time.” It was abnormal for Anita to plan ahead like that with women, but if she kept seeing more than just Marley regularly then it didn’t  mean anything big that she kept going back to the same person again and again. “Well I’m flattered to fall into that category. That’s high praise coming from you.” Anita picked up the glass of liquor, and moved a bit closer to where Luce was and leaned against the same counter. “Especially since I’m sure you have your fair share of options when it comes to women of taste.”

Pouring out another whiskey, Luce threw two ice cubes in for herself before handing the original glass to Anita. “Cheers.” She said, before taking a sip, savoring the dark flavor and warmth. “Dark Score? I haven’t been to the lake in years. I’m not much of a swimmer.” She said, glass dangling from her hand as she spoke. As Anita slid closer to her, she shifted slightly so their arms were touching, warmth radiating from her body.“But yeah, I’d be down for that. After all, you’ve seen mine, it’s only fair to show me yours.” Luce said with a wry laugh. At Anita’s comment, she shrugged. “Credit where credit’s due, you know? I call ‘em like I see ‘em.” She said, letting her eyes travel slowly up and down the other woman’s form. “And I like what I see.”

As much as Anita avoided getting close to people, the kind of close with Luce was what she could handle. Fully flirty, little to no deep conversation, and a whole lot of fun. “Well, not to be too presumptuous, but I don’t think we’d actually be spending much time at the lake if you came over.” A warm grin formed across her lips as she brought the glass of whiskey up to her mouth and took a long slow sip. There was a small part of her that wondered if she should ask her about her day, about what she had been up to recently. But maybe she had just been spending too much time with Marley recently. “That’s definitely a mutual feeling. Cause I really like what I’m seeing too.” Anita moved herself closer towards Luce, taking the opportunity to lean in close and whisper in her ear, “Though I do think  I prefer when there are less clothes involved.”

“You know, that’s a very fair assumption.” Luce said with a wry grin, “I can think of quite a few things we could get up to.” She took another drink from her glass, watching the other room over the rim. Anita was so fucking hot and, past experience said she was more than talented in bed. Which was all Luce wanted right now. Glancing down at the counter top, she noticed the seam in the wooden counter, a scar from when she had brought Remmy here and a Torple had attacked the cabin. That had been the first time they’d-- “What, you don’t like my outfit?” She teased, leaning in to kiss Anita’s neck, nipping lightly before pulling away. Luce slid back from the counter, glass in hand before tilting her head to the bedroom. “You coming?” She arched an eyebrow with a smirk. She would be soon.

Anita grinned widely as Luce made her way towards the bedroom. This was exactly the type of distraction that she needed. Just passion and heat and nothing more. And as far as distractions went, Luce was an absolutely perfect one. She knew exactly what to do to drive Anita crazy and drive her into a puddle of pleasure. So when Luce asked, Anita followed her into the room.

The hours seemed to fly by, as they always did when Anita spent time with Luce. As Anita finally fell back into the sheets, every inch of her body tingled with satisfaction. Well, almost every inch.  There was a strange feeling in her chest she couldn’t quite shake. It wasn’t a feeling that she was used to and she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was different about tonight from the other nights. “You really know how to wear a girl out.” She said, somewhat breathlessly as she looked over at Luce.

This little arrangement between the two of them, quippy conversation over a few drinks followed by them falling into bed, pleasure making the time pass far quicker than it had any right to. She knew what made Anita tick, liked seeing the way the other woman unravelled beneath her, enjoyed it all. As Luce slid next to Anita, her skin burning hot like it always was, a restlessness lingered within her. She’d felt it before, with other women, other people. The night after her trip to the carnival, for one. And a few nights after the one she’d spent staring into the darkness of Candleton Cemetery, when she’d hooked up with some random woman at Soul. At the other woman’s words, Luce let an easy smile spread across her face. “What can I say? I aim to please.” She winked before stretching, the sheets cool against her skin. “You know how to treat a girl right yourself.”

“Well, I do try my best.” Anita replied, grinning over at her. After laying there for a moment, fully enjoying the remnants of heat that they had made together, she rolled over and slowly climbed out of Luce’s bed. The best thing about what the two of them did was that there was never any pretense, they didn’t need to put on a show for the other because they were on the same page with what this was. Casual sex. Gathering her clothes that had been hastily thrown about the room, there was some strange feeling tugging at her. Like with most feelings she got, she decided to just shove it down and ignore it. “So, my place next time, yeah?” There was a small hesitation in her voice, and even she wasn’t exactly sure where it came from. So she tried to cover it with a smirk as she turned towards Luce, still half naked.

As Anita rose from the bed, Luce glanced over at the bookshelf of her bedroom, at the books she’d borrowed from the Scribrary. After her chat with Ariana-- Megan now, she supposed-- she’d realized that maybe she’d been onto something with whatever the fuck was going on with Nadia. There were things she needed to look up regarding possession and ghosts, and what happened to the people who had been possessed before. Anita’s words caught her attention and Luce blinked. What the fuck-- she’d literally just had a gorgeous woman in her bed and here she was, thinking about reading? Christ. “Uh. Yeah, for sure.” She said, before realizing that hardly sounded enthusiastic. This was good. The sex had been great and it came with zero strings attached. Unlike Remmy. She couldn’t give them what they wanted and she wasn’t interested in being like that. Never had been, never would be. “After tonight? Definitely.”

Anita thought she recognized the tone in Luce’s voice. A tone of voice that she had used before, many times, when women she was only half interested in asked to see each other again. Maybe it was just a reaction to her own tone in the original question. Maybe she was just a little hungover. “We can just play it by ear.” She added as she pulled on the remainder of her clothes. “Not like we ever really were big on the whole planning thing, anyway.” That was the good thing about this, wasn’t it? It was unplanned and it wasn’t complicated and it didn’t make her stay up for hours thinking about what each small glance meant like being with Marley did. They were good together in that they weren’t together. They were just there to exploit a physical need. “But you know me …” Anita made her way back to the bed, and sat down beside where she was lying. She leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to Luce’s lips. “I’m always down for more of this.”

“Playing it by ear sounds good to me. Besides, I like to keep you on your toes.” Luce replied smoothly, her typical flirtatious tone returning as she schooled her expression into one that was more casual, less distracted. And while she might look as though she was focused on Anita, her mind was buzzing with frustrating thoughts. Wondering about Nadia, her whole… situation, what it could mean. And Remmy, poor fucking Remmy. Caught in the explosion and the crossfire of what had happened at the Ring. Adam too, but he was a Hunter. Didn’t mean he wasn’t just as fucked up by what she’d done, but, she should have known better about Remmy. She knew what they’d been through in the army, knew that they’d worked in explosives. The second she’d found out they would be there, she should have called Erin and said she couldn’t help her destroy the Ring, at least, not that night. But… what’s done was done.

When Anita leaned over her, lips brushing against her own, it caught Luce off guard for a moment. Fucks sake. She needed to get her head on straight. Well, she mused as she processed the other woman’s words, not too straight. “Mmm, glad we’re on the same page.” She said before rising from the bed, not bothering with modesty. She lived in the middle of the woods, who the fuck would see her? Luce walked Anita to the door and pulled the woman in for a harder kiss before backing away with a wink. “Something to tide you over until the next time.”

Anita grinned as she watched Luce climb out of bed, taking a moment to let her eyes wander over her body. A little incentive to make her come back around. Sure, lately when she needed a little late night pick-me-up she called Marley, but Luce had a way of making her forget about all the complicated shit that was going on there. For a moment anyway. “Same sentence, of the same page, of the same book.” As she made her way to the door, she couldn’t help but feel an aching emptiness hit her. She shook it off, focusing back on Luce when she pulled her in for another kiss. She let it linger, relishing in the warmth of her skin for one last moment. “That’s not gonna last me long.” She shot back with a smirk, “I’ll see you around, Luce.”

[kyleknight]

Apples and Cloves

October Writing Challenge Day 3 project: midnight verse (that nickle au I wrote last year) content: kyle knight/nick jonas, december’s tragedy au warnings: none, it’s just soft nickle :3 an: I have so many nickle aus now but this one is still one of my absolute favorites. I love it so much.

Every time Kyle calls Nick, he gets butterflies in his chest. The good kind of butterflies— the ones that flit around his heart with nerves and excitement and glee upon hearing Nick’s soft “hey Kyle” greeting. 

It’s been over a month since… since Halloween. Since everything happened with Midnight and despite all that, Nick still asked to date Kyle. Things have been good, but a bit crazy. A lot has happened all at once. Alexis became Brandon’s official replacement, Kyle wrote a ton of new songs, and Steve paid for a few days of studio time so they could speed-record the album. It’s good. Kyle is really proud of it.

Today, the band, plus Awsten and Jawn, are in the middle of filming a video for Soap Bubbles and Birthday Wishes. Right now, they’re taking a brief break for lunch. Asher and Scott left a few minutes ago to pick up tacos and burritos from Taco Wiz. Alexis and Otto are messing with the mannequin that Awsten acquired for the video shoot. Awsten and Jawn are on Awsten’s laptop, fussing with what they’ve filmed so far. 

Kyle has moved himself outside of the house they’re using. He sips at a thermos of apple cider— lukewarm now— and waits for the call to connect. Nick is in London right now, but he sent Kyle his schedule in case Kyle wanted to call. Kyle did the time zone conversions three times to make sure he wouldn’t be calling at a bad time.

Nick answers. The screen fills with his beautiful face, and Kyle’s butterflies expand in his chest. He’s so beautiful, Kyle forgets to say hi for a second.

“You look good today, Kyle,” Nick says. 

He looks good? He’s just wearing what he always wears. Plus a little bit of makeup for the camera. Kyle flounders at the compliment. “Thanks. Uh, you look really good too. How was the interview?”

Nick shrugs. It looks like he’s in a hotel room, so Kyle must have gotten the timing just right. “Not all that great. Old people talking down to us, not asking anything new. You know, same as every other interview. How’s the video coming?”

Kyle smiles and settles more comfortably against the porch of the house. “Probably not as exciting as any of your video shoots. It’s kind of funny, I guess. Awsten borrowed this mannequin from one of his classmates and we’re using it like its… well, okay, it’s actually going to end up being a really weird video. But I guess it’ll be memorable?”

Nick laughs at that. “What are you doing with the mannequin? Didn’t you say the song was a love song?”

“Yeah,” Kyle bites at his lip and looks to the side. “Uh…” How is he supposed to tell Nick that it’s a crushing type of long distance love song he wrote after one of their hours-long phone calls? “You’ll hear it soon, I promise. You still want to wait until we officially release the CD?”

Nick nods seriously. “It’s only another three weeks, right? I’ve got my preorder all set.”

“You preordered it?” Kyle says. “I said I was going to mail you one early!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick says. “I want to support you. Tell me more about the mannequin. You aren’t going to kiss it, are you? Cause I might get jealous.”

Kyle covers his face with one hand. “No… although Awsten tried to get me to do that. It’s like… ugh. Okay, so we all have these parts where it’s like we’re on little dates with it. Spending time with it. It’s so weird. Thank god we’re also going to film us playing. I think Jawn wants those clips for the chorus. I don’t know, they’re going to work on editing it once we’re done today.”

“Hmm,” Nick says. “Kyle, I can’t believe this is my life now. A mannequin gets to be your boyfriend for the day and he might even kiss you. I have to say, I’m really feeling jealous.”

“He won’t kiss me,” Kyle says, suddenly feeling bold. “You’re the only one who gets to kiss me. You know you’ve got my heart. Just you.”

Oh god that was so cheesy. Also probably too much. They’ve only really known each other for a little over a month, after all. Kyle groans and hides his face again. “Fuck, just forget that, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Nick says. “I’m glad. Glad you like me more than this mysterious mannequin.”

Kyle takes another drink from his thermos just for the sake of not spitting out even more embarrassing statements. The taste of apples and cloves is nice, and would be nicer if it was still warm. It would be nicer still if he was sharing it with Nick. Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of thing he needs to not blurt out without thinking. 

Nick lets out a soft sigh. “I miss you. I want to try and visit before you go on tour, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away from everything for long enough.”

Kyle holds the phone closer to his face. “It’s okay. You’ll be in LA on the 21st when we’re playing there. That’s only about a month and a half away.”

Nick’s face also comes closer to his screen, so that Kyle has a close up of his eyes and forehead and hair. “That’s too far away.”

It does feel like it’s too far away. But Kyle knows the next three weeks are going to be packed with the album release party planning, the tour preparation, making sure Asher’s van isn’t going to give out on them mid-tour, and rehearsing the songs. Alexis is a guitar goddess, and she’s working on learning lead for all of their songs, so they’ve been putting in as much extra practice as they can to help her out. It’s amazing how December’s Tragedy feels far more complete with her than it ever did with Brandon. 

Kyle offers Nick a smile. “After that, we’ll have your tour. We’ll get to see each other every day. I still can’t believe that’s happening.”

“It’s still too far away,” Nick says. “I want to see you right now. I want to be in Dove and push that sexy mannequin aside so I can kiss you instead.”

Kyle’s face heats up. Nick is probably going to flip when he hears the lyrics of Soap Bubbles and Birthday Wishes. 

“I wish I could be in London with you right now,” he says. “Did you do anything fun after the interview?”

“Not really,” Nick says. “Joe and Kevin aren’t the best company, and I was hoping my boyfriend would call me. London would be way nicer if I had you here with me.”

Kyle can’t help the probably-goofy-looking smile that spreads across his face. Unfortunately, Asher’s van pulls up to the house at that moment. Asher steps out first, squinting at Kyle. 

“Hey,” they yell. “You wanna help carry this shit in?”

“Uh,” Kyle glances down at the screen. “Nick, I’m sorry, I’ll call you back in a minute—”

“No, it’s okay, you do your thing,” Nick says. “Have fun! I’ll be excited to see the video when it’s posted. I’ll retweet it.”

“Thank you,” Kyle says. “Uh. Have a fun time in London. Talk to you later.”

He feels bad ending the call, but he doesn’t have long to feel that way. Scott puts a heavy bag of Taco Wiz goodness into his arms and walks back towards the van. Kyle inhales the unbeatable smell of cilantro, jalapeños, and taco seasoning and moans a little bit. He carefully moves the bag to one hand so he can put his phone in his hoodie pocket and pick up his thermos.

“We just got all the two-dollar menu stuff,” Asher says as they walk past Kyle into the house. “So you can fight with Otto and Awsten over the chicken burritos. The refried bean supreme ones are mine.”

“Fine with me,” Kyle says. 

Everyone starts clamoring when they realize the food has arrived. Kyle puts the bag down and manages to snatch one chicken burrito before Otto and Alexis claim the others. Awsten complains and threatens to make all of them make out with the mannequin. Otto then shows Awsten how he and Alexis have managed to remove the mannequin’s head, which is nowhere to be seen. 

Kyle sits down with his burrito and opens his phone to look at his phone background. The picture of him and Nick. In a month and a half, he’ll have the chance to take another one. It really does feel too far away. 

As they start eating, someone starts playing Soap Bubbles and Birthday Wishes again. 

Cause all I want is kisses, Soap bubbles and birthday wishes, Sleeping in and hanging out and wishing on the stars. Yeah, all I want is with you When all I do is miss you, So I'll close my eyes and blow out the candles one more time tonight.

[rocket-remmy]

Keep Clam and Carry On||Layla and Remmy

TIMING: Before the Ring blew up PARTIES: @laylacooke and @whatsin-yourhead SUMMARY: Late night beach parties never go as planned. CONTENT: Blood

Ulfric had warned Layla about the dangers of squid people at the beach, and that warning was something she took very seriously. But the hot summer temperatures and the longing to at least experience some aquatic relief was calling her towards what any Tennessean, who had grown up in the southern heat and humidity, loved, the ocean.

 Treading carefully down to the beach, her eyes took in the sights and the smells of the sea water. The sounds of waves crashing along the shore brought back memories from early on, when her mother and father had actually cared more about their child than what she was destined to become. And as she looked out at seagulls flying overhead and a boat out in the distance, Layla closed her eyes for the briefest of moments to imagine a world where she was just a normal teenager on vacation, before her freshman year of college started. The cool, wet sand squishing through her toes as she walked along the shoreline.

 However, her thoughts had soon shifted to something that seemed to be ridiculously funny. The laughing sound nearby had signaled what must have been some kind of joke to the girl, but she couldn’t quite figure out the punchline. Maybe it was the squawking of the birds or the scurrying sound on the sand. Or maybe the huge clam walking towards her. Whatever it was, it had her on her knees laughing so hard that she struggled to breathe. Tears pouring out of her eyes as she uncontrollably continued to laugh. What was once nostalgic was nothing, but a joke. And that joke continued on as she watched the deer sized clam continue to move towards her, “Why is this so funny? Ulfric did you dress like a fucking clam just to just to prove a point?! BAHAAAAA.” The laughter was ugly and loud, but somehow she had found her way back to her feet, “Ooooooo! Big bad Ulfric the clam is coming for me!” Turning away from it, Layla started to stumble around in the opposite direction, but the lack of oxygen in the air and the giggle snorts coming out of her mouth tired her out, until she tripped and face planted the sand.

 Pausing for a moment, she tried to regain herself, before the laughing began again, but by the time she had realized it something was happening, the oversized clam had latched onto her ankle with it’s tendrils and began pulling her closer and closer, until her foot and half of her leg were drug over the razor sharp pieces protruding from its shell deeply slicing the skin open causing blood to seep out into its mouth, back down her leg and into the sand. But, like a trip to the dentist’s office, Layla was into much of a daze to realize that if she didn’t get help soon, she was going to be nothing more than a headline in the local newspaper.

 Life was moving on, and Remmy didn’t know how to keep up. It’d been less than a week since they’d gained their freedom, but it felt like the world had rushed forward and left them behind. They’d lost their job with the security firm, the person who they’d been helping out on the side left, and now they’re earnings from fighting were no longer coming in. The outside world was also...a challenge. Remmy still remembered what it was like to try and go outside when they’d first gotten back from Afghanistan-- but then it’d been something different holding them back, hadn’t it? It had been an emotional pain, a weight bearing down on their shoulders, keeping them flat on their back, laying in bed staring at the ceiling. The outside world, back then, had seemed too harsh to face alone. Now-- it was fear holding them back.

 The Ring was still up and operational. There were still people there that had followed Jax’s orders and stared Remmy down and dragged them through Hell along with him. Which meant there were still people who knew Remmy and knew what they’d done. Blood on their hands. Even if it was needed, even if it was the only way out-- their hands still shook at the thought. They needed air. Lydia’s house still felt safe, but staying in one room too long now made Remmy feel as if the space were condensing and if they didn’t move, they’d be trapped again. Doors were now always left open. Remmy crept out of the house, Moose close by their side this time. He hadn’t left their side since they got back and they doubted he would leave anytime soon.

 The town was always relatively quiet at night, unless you wandered down to Amity. But crowds of people were already tough for Remmy, so to the beach it was. The beach was calm, quiet, relaxing-- and loud? Someone was screaming. No, laughing? Remmy blinked, squinting through the darkness. There was someone down on the beach and a shadowy figure was hunched over them. Was it two people playing or something? But upon further inspection-- no. Remmy recognized the silhouette over the creature-- they’d seen one in the cages. It was going to kill that person on the beach. Unhooking Moose and leaping down the stairs in one motion, Remmy bolted for it. Full on tackling the giant clam-like creature off the girl. Strength wasn’t what it usually was in their arms but they still managed to hoist the creature away as it snipped at them. “Get out of here!” they shouted to the girl. “Hurry!”

 Layla was entranced by the creature. Laughter still flowed from her lips and blood flowed from her leg as she was slowly being consumed by the huge clam. It was the sudden jerk, and her body being tossed from the creature, that seemed to snap the redhead out of the trance she was in. The air was still thin, but the gas was clearing up and her laughter no longer existed. Instead, she gasped for oxygen as she tried to gather her train of thought and surroundings. What was happening? Why was she on the beach? “What? What’s happening?” Eyes scanning the area, she suddenly heard the voice telling her to leave. And then she laid eyes on it. The clam. “What the actual fuck?” Her voice was merely a whisper at this point, but with the more time the clam had been occupied, the more it felt like the atmosphere was clearing. However, along with that realization came the pain that now shot from her foot upwards as she was trying to scramble backwards out of fear.

 Coming to a halt, Layla’s eyes followed the trail of blood all the way to her leg and let out a deafening scream. Looking from the mollusc to the person latched onto the clam and the nearby dog, she was almost in a panic of what to do. And then it hit her like a ton of bricks. That uncomfortable feeling she got when she was getting close to shifting. But her body was weak from lack of oxygen and blood and instead of actually shifting, Layla suddenly felt light headed. Eyes bouncing between all three creatures, everything started to go dark, and before she could stop herself, the teenager went backwards, head and back hitting the sand as she drifted out of consciousness.

 Shit. This wasn’t good. The clam latched onto Remmy’s arm as they turned to shoo away Moose. “No! Stay!” they snapped, and the dog stopped its frantic movements and barking. The other person-- a girl, with striking red hair-- was struggling with something, and then a scream rattled Remmy’s head and they had to clasp their hand over their one good ear to stop it from hurting their head anymore. Even Moose flinched back, haunches taught as he whined and howled with her. As if he understood what she was saying through her anguished cry. He ran over to her and laid across her legs, putting his body over her wound. Remmy was snapped back to attention when the clam yanked and they were tossed over its head, landing hard on the sand on the other side. “Fuck,” Remmy wheezed, feeling ribs crack back into place. They leapt up quickly as a claw? Foot? Talon? Came down near their head and spun, kicking out hard. Feeling the bones of their feet bend as it made contact, sending the creature flinging backwards into the waves. They scrambled over to Moose and the girl, then, checking for a pulse. “Hey, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

 The most random images were floating through Layla’s mind as oxygen seeped back into her body. It was a voice and the crashing of waves on the shore that started to bring her back into consciousness, “Frankie? I said Netflix and chill, not Netflix and kill…” Her words didn’t make sense. But when she was finally able to open her eyes and find her grip on reality, she noticed Remmy next to her and a very large dog splayed across her legs, “Wh-Who are you, and why is your dog using my legs as a bed?” She slowly pushed herself up. The weight of Moose seemed to mask the pain as the blood flow from the wounds had slowed down. Letting her eyes drift around the area, everything had started to come back to her, “Also, did you...was there a large clam with legs walking around here earlier?” She looked to Remmy hoping she wasn’t losing her mind.

 “Frankie?” Remmy asked, looking around. There was no one else there. Had this girl hit her head or something? They looked back down at her with concern wrought across their face. “I-- sorry. He’s-- just helping. It’s what he was taught to do with injuries, it’s um--” they turned to Moose, “--staunching the blood flow. H-hopefully.” They could smell the blood and see it staining his fur underneath. They needed to get her out of here, fast. “Can you walk? I think we should get you to a hospital, o-or something.” They did another sweep, looking for the creature again, but the sand seemed clear. “I-- I’m Remmy. I was just walking when I saw-- whatever that was-- attack you. A-are you okay?” Moose whined quietly. “Oh, and uh-- that’s Moose. My um, service dog.” 

 Upon hearing the explanation about the dog, Layla looked back down at the animal. A small smile came to her face at the idea of having a big fluffy bandage stopping her bleeding, “Moose.” Looking back to Remmy, she blinked a few times. Everything seemed to be coming back to her, at least before the clam had taken hold with its laughing gas, “Yeah, I should be able to, I mean once...Moose...gets off my legs. Moose. Such a fun word.” She was still vaguely loopy, but it had probably been for the best, “Remmy. Hey! Are you that same Remmy from the computer? I’m Layla. And I think I’m okay. Guess we’ll find out soon enough won’t we…” She looked back to the dog, “Moose.”

 Layal was probably loopy from the injury, Remmy supposed. They looked at her with slight concern, before moving to help Moose move. He seemed less concerned now, and when he stood from his spot, Remmy saw the wounds, wincing. “Yikes...does it hurt?” they asked, glancing up at her. They didn’t have any sort of first-aid on them, but maybe they could find something to help staunch the blood and clean the wound. Still, they needed to get out of here before that thing came back, otherwise they’d all be in trouble. “Can you walk at all?” they asked, turning back to her, before she exclaimed to know them. “Oh, uh-- I think so? You...you were the one who needed a ride to the doctor’s, right?” Remmy had been worried for a while after that, but clearly she was okay. Well...maybe not okay, but whatever danger that had been back then must have passed. “C’mon, I can help you stand,” they said, offering their hand and a shoulder to lean on.

 Once the dog had risen from its resting spot, Layla felt a chill creep over her legs from the breeze off of the water. She hadn’t managed to look at the wound just yet until she heard Remmy say something. Eyes moving to the messy, blood stained skin, her brow furrowed, “Surprisingly, nope. Moose wanna come lay back down on my legs?” She looked at the dog desperately. Walking would be a completely different challenge. Turning back to Remmy, she spoke, “I guess we’ll soon find out. But, uh, yeah. That was me. I guess I might still need that ride after all.” She noticed the person’s hand and reached out, “Maybe if we do this quickly?” Layla wasn’t entirely sure how this was going to work. Bending her leg didn’t seem like the best option, but she would figure a way to maneuver herself to her feet. Hand latched onto Remmy’s, she started to shift her weight to the uninjured side; wincing slightly at the pain starting to take hold as she moved around.

 Remmy felt the nerves building inside of them again as if they were being watched. They didn’t want to hurry Layla too much, though, watching her wince in pain as she tried to move around and stand. Moose gave another soft whine before a low growl started coming from him and Remmy’s head whipped to look back at the waves. From the depths of them, the lumpy form of the monster clam breached the surface and began scuttling towards them. “Fuck it!” Remmy said, and scooped their arms under Layla, lifting her up with ease. “Moose! Follow!” they commanded, and the dog turned on a dime and started after Remmy, who was hauling as fast as they could up the beach, feet sinking unsteadily into sand as they ran. “Sorry!” they said, feeling Layla shift in their arms as they ran. “Sorry! I’m sorry! We just gotta-- I’m gonna get us outta here, just hold on!”

 Layla could sense the unease in Remmy as well as hear the low growl coming from Moose. That thing was coming back, and she knew if she didn’t get her ass up soon, they’d both be back in the same situation they were just in. However, it was Remmy picking her up that had startled Layla. She hadn’t expected them to be able to lift her up with so much ease, but she had appreciated it, especially when the laughing noise had started again, “Don’t apologize! Just run!” She looked over Remmy’s shoulder to see it moving towards them; the oxygen quickly starting to leave the area again. Feeling lightheaded and loopy, Layla started to point and laugh, “Look at that fucking thing! It waddles! HAAAAA. But it’s going to be okay, Remmy. Just keep clam and carry on.” The irony in the statement had her snorting with laughter as she buried her face in their shoulder. 

 Remmy ignored the sound of scuttling behind them and just dug their feet into sand and rock as they ran. All they needed to do was reach the stairs and they’d be home free. Why that thought came to them, they weren’t sure. But when they reached them, they took the steps two by two until they screeched to a halt at the top, finally setting Layla down. They didn’t even show any signs of being tired or winded from the run, as they turned back to make sure the clam wasn’t following them up the stairs. Moose was at their side, sticking close to Layla, ears pressed back. The clam came up to the stairs and made a loud, angry hissing noise, before retreating back towards the waves. Remmy let out a long sigh of relief and turned back to her. “Are you okay?”

 It was like the air had cleared up faster than before. They were alway from the shore and the clam, and Layla could breathe again. She was still a little hazy, but not like before and with a few blinks while she settled into a nearby railing, she spoke up, “Okay, what the fuck was that thing, and why do I feel hungover?” Layla looked back down towards the water before taking a look at Moose and then Remmy. “You-You both saved my life. What can I do to make it up to you?” Had Remmy and Moose not been around, she would have surely been giant clam food. An idea that was still processing in her mind. “And are you and Moose okay?” This wasn’t exactly how she would have imagined meeting Remmy, but here they were.

 Remmy looked back at the beach for a moment before returning their attention to Layla. Her wound looked like it had stopped bleeding, but she was still a mess, as was Moose’s fur. They needed to get somewhere and get cleaned up. “I don’t um-- I don’t remember what they’re called, but it’s like...some sort of giant clam creature, that uh…” they ruffled their brow, trying to remember what Nell had told them about it, “...that like, um...cause hallucinations or something? They’ve got some sort of gas that like....confuses people.” Letting out another short breath, Remmy turned back to Layla. “We’re okay. Don’t worry about me. We should, um...get somewhere safe. Do you um-- live nearby? I live kinda live...a ways off.” 

 A giant clam. Of course Layla would find herself in the mouth of a giant clam, “Well, that’s a new one.” Ulf had been right about not visiting the water. The warnings had proved true. Although that was the farthest thing from a squid-person. “Do you know Ariana or Ulfric?” She looked back at the water one last time before directing her attention back to Remmy, “I live with them. If that’s too far, I can call someone to come and get me. You’ve done enough. Really.” From saving her life to offering to help clean up the wound, Layla was truly grateful. She’d have a lot to explain to her housemates, but that wasn’t anything new.

 Eyes quickly diverting to the sky, Layla heard thunder rumbling out in the distance over the water, “But whatever you want to do, we should probably move to shelter soon.” Smelling like the remnants of a dead fish dinner was one thing, but mix that with wet dog smell, and Layla was probably going to have a few more questions on her hands than just where she lived and if she was okay.