#i had to do like 5 smash fights before I got this picture

[good-advice-ganondorf]

Hey Mr. Dragmire, what do you do when you’re frustrated with a game?

[blackbirdsblackberries]

I Hate The New Hero

Pt 2: A spider's nest is different to a bird's.

Pt 1 - Pt 2 (You're here) - Pt 3 - Pt 4 - Pt 5 - Pt 6 - Pt 7 - Pt 8 - Pt 9 - Pt 10

Okay, judging by how the polls are going now, this one is winning!! I'll post the second part of Don't Drink The Kool-Aid soon (possibly tomorrow or the day afterwards). Don't be afraid to send in asks and such regarding anything! I love answering them and doing side stories/headcanons for this series or other series of mine!

The day rolls by painfully slow. How could it not when you're going to invite someone, who you're pretty sure would throw you to the wolves for a dollar, into your shitty apartment?

You exit the school building with two of your friends; Sherri Webster and Tia Hunt. You see Timothy leaning against the wall to the exit of the school building and you can't help but scoff, does he not have a life or friends?

Tia notices your gaze and chuckles, you had already told them both about Tim and the project, they laughed and made fun of you - you'll get back at them.

Sherri pats me back "If you don't come back to school tomorrow we'll let the police know he probably murdered you!" Tia laughs at that and I grumble and elbow Sherri.

"Oh shut up! God, you're insufferable!"

"And you're about to be dead!"

"Oh please, no one in Gotham stays dead these days!"

"I'll make sure you do!"

Tia interrupts before the minor spat ends in the two forgetting Timothy is there - now looking at the three with the very hatred you'd give to your parent's murderers.

"Can you guys fight later? In the group chat maybe? I'm starving and want to go home - private school food tastes like shit." Sherri sighs but agrees and the two wave goodbye before leaving you.

You wave and after a bit of awkward silence you glance at Timothy who is now staring daggers at you, his eyes are calculating but aren't narrowed - like a feral wolf analysing it's target. You hold back a sigh as you raise a brow.

You make a hand motion for him to follow you and you start to walk along the path to your amazing, beautiful, posh, cool apartment that in no way is flawed.

The walk is silent and painful, at this point your willing to bust out the charms and joke with him but you're scared he's going to smash your head into the concrete as soon as you make a joke.

You walk past a poster that was hung up regarding the heroes of Gotham, Aranea is near the center hanging to the side of a wall. You scowl at it - the picture was bad and didn't flatter you at all.

Timothy catches your scowl and makes a show of rolling his eyes and typing something on his phone. You can't hold back any longer.

"What? You grading me or something? Speak the fuck up if you have a problem, Richy Rich." You sneer as you say the last part, he snaps his head up at you in offense.

"Oh, you want me to speak up?! Fine, you're a selfish brat who's got parents that fawn over you and you never lacked anything in your life yet you go after some sweet innocent girl who would a hundred percent save you if you needed it. Aranea is one of the best people in Gotham and it's disgusting that you are so rude to her!" Timothy rants. You can't help but raise a brow, you want to laugh so hard - the irony is right there.

Instead you roll your eyes "You hate me because I hate someone you fangirl over? How pathetic. Hate me for a real reason!" You try not to smirk when you see Timothy try to take deep breaths and calm down.

"... Let's just get to your apartment already." He states as he continues walking, you raise a brow. "Wrong way." He turns around and follows you silently.

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

Finally you stop in front of your stunning apartment. Out of the corner of your eye you see Tim raise a brow.

"How'd you get into a private school if your parents can't even afford an apartment building that doesn't look like it's had ten different crime scenes this week?"

You deadpan, ouch man...

"I got in through an engineering scholarship." You reply blandly, no point in spilling your emotions and true personality to a person like Timothy.

Timothy doesn't say anything else and you take that as the conversation ending and lead him into the complex and to the apartment you reside in.

It's home and you wouldn't want anything different. The plants are dead, there's a leaky tap, the clock that's stuck on the wall ticks annoyingly, there's a small spider making it's home in one of the corners and all the furniture looks one kick away from dust.

Your parents don't have much time to clean...

You look at Timothy out of the corner of your eye, despite loving where you live you know people will judge and Tim will probably use this against you some time in the future.

.............................................................................................

Tim's confused. You had always exuded "rich spoilt brat" behavior and seemed so stuck up yet live in actual filth? On top of that you got into Gotham Academy on a scholarship? Do high schools even do scholarships? It doesn't make sense.

Tim's not an idiot, he knows he's being petty but at the same time he can't bring himself to stop. Aranea is one of the kindest people he's met in Gotham, a saint, an innocent person who deserves a good life.

Yet, you hate her guts, you say awful things about her despite not even meeting her - or maybe you did, either way there's no reason for you to be acting like this.

Tim isn't petty, he won't use your living situation against you but the scholarship thing can be.. a small post can ultimately cause ridicule in the school.

He blinks a couple times, not noticing how he's already in a cramped bedroom - it's the size of a supply closet in the manor!

There's a bed in the corner, a window that's curtained up, a closet, a toy chest and a pile of sketch books that reaches halfway up the bedframe. It's cozy he supposes - for a sewer rat at least.

You mumble something about getting food before leaving the room. Seems you have some smarts and etiquette.

His phone buzzes and he looks down at the Gotham Vigilante Group Chat (GVGC), it's a message from Aranea.

Aranea: "Heyyyy!! I won't be able to go on patrol tonight, my mama wants to go out for dinner :("

Tim sighs, that's good. He can't go because of the stupid project so it seems he won't have to get horrendously teased for missing out on hanging with Aranea.

Tim's phone buzzes again and it's Bruce.

Bruce: "Message if (Reader) does anything sketchy. You can't trust someone so hateful."

Way to state the obvious. Tim already had multiple plans in case you did something.

He pockets his phone after responding with a thumbs up and he sits down, on the floor - assuming that's where they'll work.

.............................................................................................

Soon you come back with snacks in hand and had changed into more comfortable clothes - they were your dad's because in no way were you going to show Timothy your sense of style.

The clothes consisted of cargo shorts that were grossly oversized and tied with some shoelace to stop them from falling and an oversized shirt with the image of Garfield on it.

You raise a brow at where Timothy is sitting.

"Uh, why are you sitting on the floor?"

"That's where we'll work. Why?"

You think you're ready to go cry in a corner out of frustration.

"I have a bed."

"okay? I doubt it can even fit the both of us."

... Okay, that's true. Still, even if you hated him your parents didn't raise you to be rude to guests.

"Fine. You sit on the bed and I'll kneel on the floor."

You watch as his eyes widen, not expecting that response. You push him to stand up and make him sit on the bed before plopping down and taking a big sketchbook and flipping to the back of it.

"Okay, let's get started." You mumble, more so to yourself.

You two spend the next three to four hours researching, drawing things and writing down dates. By the end of it your tired and just want to sleep. It would have been done sooner if there wasn't an argument that caused you to storm out of the apartment and pace the halls and if Tim didn't leave to the halls to answer a call but at least it's over with.

You rest your head against your bed, you're still on the floor and more than content staying there, you doubt your body will even allow you to move.

Slowly your eyes close and you drift off to sleep.

[owliellder]

Two's A Crowd

College Bully! Leon Kennedy x fem! Reader

MDNI 18+

(Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5)

Description: College is proving to be a lot harder than you imagined. You cannot fail this math class. So when you've tried everything else, a well-known student is recommended to you by your professor for tutoring lessons, not really leaving you with much of a choice but to work with him.

Warnings: Not proofread, No Use of Y/N, Dub-Con, Unprotected Sex, Bullying, Yelling, Cursing

Tags: College AU, Bully! Leon, Shy! Reader, both are in their early 20's, Leon is Rude AF in the beginning, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Fingering, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mention of a Fight, Additional Tags to be Added

Author's Note: Ahh thank you for 1,000 followers!! I don't even know how that happened!! Anyways, I think it's a little anticlimactic? I just feel like since I am definitely not the kind to raise my voice, a shy reader wouldn't either. Besides, disappointment hurts more than anger, right?

Cross-posted onto AO3

Chapter 4:

Leon really did like you, honest. You were such a sweet girl, so innocent and clueless. Maybe it’s because he never gave his one night stands the time of day, or maybe it was just the sheer amount of time he had to spend with you to get this close, but now he knew he was a pretty terrible person for taking that bet

In the beginning he didn’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt due to the words the frat spewed at him. He knew all the right questions to ask, all the right things to say, the sweetness of it all had you under a spell.  It was also such a menial thing to get, a single pair of panties… You probably wouldn’t even know it was missing!

But as time went on, it got harder and harder for Leon to stomach just what he was doing. You’d opened up so much to him about your home life, how stressed you were, how much pressure you were under. Doing this would absolutely ruin you so he did his best to convince himself that he was being the nice one by waiting to complete the bet until you had finished all your finals. All that time spent together had him second guessing, triple guessing, even quadruple guessing his decision to go through with this. The good grades were important to you, he didn’t want to draw your focus away from that.

It was a shame his friends couldn’t keep the damn thing to themselves even if their life depended on it. He’d explicitly told them that it’s done and there was nothing more to it, yet of course they just had to snicker and make snide little comments to each other the next day when they saw you in passing.

Leon wouldn’t admit out loud that you’d really grown on him over the months, so he could only brush his friends off whenever they’d tease him about getting angry whenever the topic arose. Chris was the worst out of all of them, being his best friend, it seemed like his mission was to dance on Leon’s nerves any chance he got.

“Delete that.” A scowl graced Leon’s features as he glared at Chris, who’d stepped back from the agitated man. Almost the entire frat had posed with the panties Leon stole from you, all of them making some form of exaggerated pose and face. What was only meant to be goofy on their part was making the man responsible furious.

“Relax, it’s just a picture. I thought you’d find it funny.” Chris chuckled, bringing his phone back in to look at it again himself. “You’re acting real sour for nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You’re all acting like a bunch of fucking idiots and I’m sick of it. Now delete that damn picture before I smash your phone with a hammer.” The nonchalant attitude from Chris was driving Leon up the wall. He already knew he’d fucked up big time, and with the way everyone was acting would only get him into bigger trouble.

“Shut up, man.” Chris laughed, like this was all some big joke. Everything was a joke to him. “Acting like you’re gonna explode or something.” This man was an actual dumbass, never taking a moment to actually think about what consequences having photo evidence with the entirety of the frat’s members posing with something stolen would have.

Leon scoffed, holding his hands up before letting them fall dramatically to slap against the tops of his thighs. “No fucking way..” One hand came back up to cover his mouth, breathing out sharply through his nose. It was a sad attempt to keep himself from pouncing on the other man, seeing as not barely five seconds later he tackled Chris, hands scrambling to rip the phone from his hand.

Chris was a few inches taller than Leon, a bit stronger too, so the scuffle didn’t last long. Some punches thrown here, a few kicks there, and Leon had the wind knocked out of him at some point, thrown to the side and left to struggle to get up off the floor while Chris decided to make his way to a different part of the house, muttering under his breath all the while.

“God dammit-” Leon wheezed, on his hands and knees, one hand against his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Sure he reacted purely on instinct, but Chris could stand to be knocked down a few pegs in his opinion. The guy is an ass.

After finally collecting himself, Leon slowly spun around to rest his back against the foot of the couch, elbows resting on his knees. He coughed a couple times and let his eyes fall closed, eyebrows furrowed as he silently seethed. Chris was most definitely going to send that picture around since he obviously thinks it’s the funniest thing to ever grace this planet. You were going to see the picture. That thought alone had his head falling forward in defeat, breathing out a weak sigh and a few more coughs. 

If he had just followed his own shitty advice, he would’ve taken a second to think about it. Why didn’t he just tell you in the first place? Why didn’t he just go to the store and buy a random pair of panties? Why did he follow through on such a meaningless bet?

Now that Leon thinks about it, he was the dumbass in this scenario. A royal one.

He probably sat there for an hour with his eyes closed, mind racing a million miles a minute. Trying not to make another stupid decision, he decided the best course of action would be to tell you before you saw that picture. You should hear it from him and not a total stranger. It was the right thing to do. Right?

He let out a few more strangled coughs and wheezes as he stood up off the floor and threw his coat on, beginning the walk of shame to your building. It wouldn’t have taken that long, but the snow and sludge on the ground made it a bit more dangerous, he needed to tread carefully. In more ways than one.

The extended walk left him alone with his thoughts, seeing as he didn’t grab his own phone to bring with him. With every step his mind grew heavier, an involuntary grimace scrunching his face up as he mulled over what exactly he’d done. He was mentally beating himself up over how easy it would’ve been to avoid this situation if he’d just thought outside of himself for one singular minute.

What had he done? 

Leon stomped the excess snow off his boots once inside of the dorm building, hands hidden in the pockets of his jackets as he meandered over to the stairs to get up to the second floor where your dorm was. He took his sweet time, practicing what he wanted to say under his breath as he stared down at his feet while walking up the steps.

Your dorm was down the hall around the corner, allowing him the few extra seconds it would take to get there to get his heart under control. You would be mad, rightfully so, but would you forgive him? Is it selfish to hope that you would?

He stood in front of your door for a minute longer, hand hovering just in front of it, trying to bring  himself to knock. Licking his dry lips, he quickly hit the knuckle on his index finger against the door three times, his eyes downturned. As much as he wanted to be the bigger person, it scared him to no end. He’s never cared this much before, so why was he so worried about it now?

Leon’s eyes shot up at the sound of the door opening, immediately showing his confusion when it was Sky on the other side. They didn’t say a word, but they looked mad, or at least very irritated. “Hey, I really need to talk to-,” they cut him off by simply holding up the palm of their hand to him, taking in a deep breath. “We saw it.”

Those three words made his heart drop to his stomach, his eyes quickly darting to look through the opening in the door to see if he could see you. “Please, if you would just let me explain I can-”

“Don’t embarrass yourself. Just go.” Sky was just about to close the door before they quickly looked over their shoulder, shutting the door almost all the way. Leon could hear them whispering to you, and though he desperately wanted to listen in, he decided to take a step back from the door and wait patiently. It was the least he could do.

He looked side to side to make sure no one was walking through the hallways, not wanting anyone to eavesdrop on such a sensitive situation. The door reopened, only this time it was you standing in the doorway. You looked so sad, so disappointed.

Leon hesitated before opening his mouth, yet you cut him off before he could even get a word in. “I trusted you,” you rasped quietly, a shaky sigh passing your lips, “I-.. I trusted you… and this is how you treat me..?” His shoulders slumped as he listened to you. He didn’t think he could feel any worse about this, but here you were, reminding him just how much of an ass he’s been.

“All that time we spent together.. all those kind, encouraging words you told me.. were all a lie?” You sniffled, arms slinking around yourself tightly. Sky was standing out of his view rubbing your back, knowing you wanted, no, needed to confront him yourself.

“No- I-..” Leon stuttered, trying to find the best way to explain everything. And no matter how many times he formulated it in his head, the explanation would never justify his actions. Instead he settled on something that would probably mean and do nothing for you. It was worth saying, though. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m so sorry,” his voice fell to a whisper as he repeated himself, eyes remaining on yours. What else could he say?

Silence fell between you as you only stared back at him with glassy eyes, your every breath shaky as you held back sobs. Crying in front of him would only give him more fuel, was your thought process. In your mind, he couldn’t even be trusted with your trash. 

By now, Sky had walked over and grabbed your suitcase, rolling it over next to you. You were leaving a day earlier than you said you would, Sky having offered to drive you back home since your hometown was only a couple hours away from where theirs was.

You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response, instead taking the handle of your suitcase from your friend before silently walking out of the room, past Leon, and down around the corner. He only stood and watched you walk off with a deep frown, head turning back to look at Sky when he heard them lock the door behind themself. 

“You’re only sorry that you got caught.” They grumbled as they walked past him, giving him a quick yet harsh glare. They soon disappeared around the same corner you had, leaving him all alone in the now quiet hallway. 

You were the nicest, most considerate person he’s ever had the pleasure to know and he blew it. The worst part about it all was you didn’t even seem mad, just heartbroken. Disappointed in him.

You had put so much of your trust into him, even after he’d been so nasty towards you in the beginning, and what did he do with it? He basically spit on it, lit it on fire, and then flushed the remnants. He was only annoyed with you the first few times he had to help you study, the bickering the two of you shared easily becoming one of the things he liked about you.

Leon honestly liked you from the start, so determined to pass a class that you’d put up with what was basically harassment from him. When he told his frat buddies about you, they were quick to draw up that bet. Unfortunately, he’d known most of these guys since middle school, and you were just a girl he met on chance. His friends’ words blanketed his own morals, and because they saw you as a target, so did he, that subconscious need for peer approval leading him to make one of the worst decisions he’s ever made thus far.

If he was in your shoes, he’d raise hell, so your decision to leave was completely understandable. For some reason you’d let him off easy and he knew he didn’t deserve such light treatment. 

All he could do now was hope you’d come back next semester. He’d be fine just getting to see you in passing since you most likely wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him anymore, your friends would certainly keep him at a distance away from you. 

Would writing a message be okay? You need time before he approaches the topic with you. Should he leave you be? No, you deserve an apology, even if you don’t want it, nor accept it. 

Someone brushed by Leon, breaking his train of thought. He was still standing in the hallway in front of your dorm room. He needed to go and try to make this right, or at the very least rip everyone at the frat a new one. He wasn’t sure, maybe it was because he was angry at them and himself, but leaving the frat sounded like a pretty good way to start righting his wrongs. Not before he made sure that the picture was wiped from everyone’s phone and the panties he stole were kept far away from everyone there. 

Chris sent the picture to you, which means it was sent to a bunch of other people too. He’ll spend all winter break tracking down every last person it was sent to, tell professors what he’d done just so it didn’t spread any further. And if it meant he’d lose his scholarship, then so be it.

tags:

@kayotee4 @k-fallingstar @bobastayhigh @mi-zer-y @chasingkennedy @l30nva @espressonerd @jjouki @5tarx @bunnybreadloaves @whoisgami @cyanscribe @c4b3r1a @darichvep @mmmangel @kingtacocat @klee-iii @baby--vera @dakiniii @kenma-izhu @aliidarling @leonsmamacita @deadghxsty @nekoheist @dumbassmortal @cassiecasluciluce @iovewilliams @maeplayscello @deddiemunsonsblog @paranoid-but-android @mariesmain @tteokhwaa @bonnibuckets @eilonwykennedy @1dk-anym0r3 @papatyacikcik @animesnowstorm @lexi-zsy09 @mylifedoesntexist @ifeellikedying @yourmommylol04 @ravioli19 @dakiniii @papichulo120627

(few of your blogs won't work, i tried though 😭)

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 63

Who cares about everything happening? There's cleaning that needs doing!

The end of the dungeon is surprisingly mundane.

Marcille's hair style this time pulls all her hair to a ponytail but has two braids coming out as well. Ever since she made her familiars, Marcille hasn't integrated braids as much.

That's adorable. Kensuke is trying to pull Laios toward the house.

Please keep your Izutsumi's indoors to protect the local wildlife.

Are these magic mirrors? Is Thistle aware that the Winged Lion feeds on desires and Thistle smashed all these mirrors to keep from being aware of his own desires? Or are these regular mirrors and Thistle can't stand to look at what he's become?

The broken spot in that central mirror makes this shot more creepy since it causes Laios's reflection to not have a head. It's like a threat to any intruders.

But my first thought was that Thistle is short and probably could still see his reflection in that mirror.

At first, I thought Kui recycled the same drawing in these two panels, but now that I see them side-by-side, it's clear these are actually two different drawings. The "WAH!!!" might be the same though.

I spotted the grape woman painting and the painting of Delgal's wedding on the right wall.

This one painting got my attention.

The left person is definitely the puppet at the table and the right person looks like they're wearing Yaad's clothes. So I think this is Yaad and his parents. So the people at the table are the kingdom royals. Delgal's body is here, but Yaad's father is missing. Does that mean the person from chapter 1 wasn't actually Delgal?

The actual Living Painting chapter never got to show us how inherently creepy they can be. We saw the one painting and then the rest of the chapter was Laios trying to steal food from them.

This scene really shows what it feels like to be in a room with these things. The only thing missing is muted laughing or incomprehensible mumbling coming from the pictures.

Senshi was really absent during the first part of this chapter. This is page 9 of the chapter. There have been 59 panels up to this point. Senshi appeared in 4 of them, and we never see his reaction to anything in the house. It makes him seem indifferent to all this.

It would be funny to see the phoenix trying to enter the house. It's attempts to enter through the fireplace were so disastrous that it actually died and had to resurrect itself once it got in.

I bet while the party was investigating the house, the phoenix was crashing into every window it found until it decided to divebomb into the chimney, broke its neck on impact, and its corpse rolled down the chute and made all that noise.

This isn't the phoenix being majestic. This is the phoenix trying to pretend that embarrassing entrance didn't happen.

I can't tell if Laios is proud or surprised that his plan worked.

Just like Senshi was missing for the first 9 pages, Izutsumi was missing for the next 10 pages. She doesn't appear at all during the phoenix fight. Kui does a good job making sure everyone is involved in the story, but this chapter is a little awkward because everyone is gathered together in a small space so not seeing them is more noticeable.

Side note: At this point, I had to save this post to drafts and go to school. While waiting for my class to start, I was telling a classmate about Dungeon Meshi and it led to me thinking about some of the earlier chapters. Remember how Senshi wanted to investigate what oil was used in the hot oil trap in chapter 5? What if the oil was olive oil because Senshi desired something he could cook with and the dungeon delivered?

I love Laios's face here. He would be over the moon if you gifted him a feather bed made with basilisk and cockatrice feathers.

Lazy cat. And she waited for Laios to change out the sheets before sleeping on the bed too.

The magic over the Kingdom has kept it in a general state of preservation. The castle and the castle town look like people haven't lived there in a while, but they look more like they were in use until recently, like maybe everyone abandoned the town a year ago.

The interior of this one building actually looks like it's been abandoned for a long time. The exterior looks new, but the interior looks like a house that has been abandoned and been decaying for at least thirty years. And of course, that one plate shattered just by touching it.

This house is a microcosm of the castle and castle town. Thistle wanted to preserve the kingdom and on the outside, it still looks great. But when you go into it, it's clear that the kingdom is abandoned, disorganized, and slowly decaying.

I wish I got a good look at Izutsumi's plate. The trimmings for that confit had mushrooms so I want to see if she has any mushrooms in hers.

What's really wrong here is that Laios and Senshi draped Delgal's arms over their shoulders. They are completely unbothered by this arrangement.

Oh no.

back

[femmmie]

THE ISLAND

Chapter 5: The agent

Tommy knows something's not right when he arrives at the office.

(Author's note: at this point I had no clue how I was ever going to write 25k words! But being true to my obnoxiously optimistic self, I just figured it would be fun to wrote from the perspective of one of the sidecharacters in the story, being Tommy. So just like AR Smosh he got promoted from crew to cast xD also, when you're writing Tommy, you can't not write Spencer. And Spencer couldn't not be Chosen coded. And the Chosen was exactly what the story needed! So if you ever are stuck in a story, you could try a perspective change! It worked for me x3)

Chapter word count: 907

Rating: general

Tommy was always the first in at the office. He’d unlock the main entrance, put on all the lights, turn on the less than stellar coffee machine…

But today was different.

He sensed it as soon as he saw the door. It didn’t look right. Upon further inspection, he saw some scratches near the lock that weren’t there before.

“What the...”

Should he call the boss? Should he call the cops?

But something defiant took over in him. He took pride in being first every morning, for doing his job well and being considered for a raise.

Tommy always had to work a little harder than everyone else just to get by. Because if he was being honest with himself, his heart was somewhere else. He actually didn’t even want this job, however, he needed the money. He definitely worked to live, instead of living to work. He much rather spend all his time composing and playing music, watching Dance Moms or liking cute mens’ pics on Instagram. And he had a talent for finding viral social posts.

But what’s a guy to do? He for sure wasn’t going back to his bartender era. He needed to use his brains, or he’d die of boredom.

Tommy had basically begged Pressalike to start a social media account, but they always said no. It frustrated him a little bit, but he understood. They weren’t a media company, but a bio-engineering lab. Still, there was so much fun stuff he could share about it! The beautiful colors of the vials, the succulents being strengthened to weather literally any storm and most fires…

He'd also really like to take pictures of Anthony, his fucking model-looking colleague…

He tentatively stepped into the building.

“Oh boy, this is bad…”

Everything in the entrance hall was smashed. Someone had absolutely ransacked the place. Tommy started to run towards the labs. Would his projects still be intact? He opened every door in the long, solemn hallway.

“Thank God…” He panted.

The water containers were untouched. He walked inside, checking the algae. Anthony had taken over this project, but Tommy was still going to keep an eye on it. It all looked fine.

He was about grab his phone, when he finally noticed the person who had been following him from the entrance hall.

“Are these the cyanobacteria?” A soft, almost funny sounding voice asked him. Tommy turned around.

“Who are you?!”

“I’m FBI,” the guy showed a badge. Tommy was too scared to see straight and check it.

“FBI? What are you doing here?”

The agent was dressed in all black, with shades and everything. He looked really… hot. He had curly hair, a cute body, not really what Tommy would imagine an FBI agent would look like. Wait, why was he getting distracted! This could still be some kind of criminal!

“There might be a dangerous hydrosol pathogen in this lab. I’m here to destroy it before it gets into our water systems. You know, like in Deus Ex.”

“I can assure you, there are no dangerous pathogens anywhere in this lab! We’re working on carbon hypercapture, not viruses!”

“Still, just to be sure…” the agent aimed at one of the containers.

“No!” A voice came from behind Tommy. It was Anthony. He lunged at the agent and the two guys started to fight.

“Anthony! What are you doing!”

“He can’t get his hands on this!”

“On what?!”

“Our project!”

“He’s FBI! Why are you fighting him?!”

“Because, Tommy- argh! I’ve not been honest with you!”

The agent now sat on top of Anthony, arm around his neck.

Tommy felt helpless. “Please, just give up! He’s going to kill you!”

But Anthony regained the upper hand. But just as he climbed on top again, the agent shot the tank.

“No!”

Anthony stopped fighting.

“Everything is ruined now!”

“Please, mister FBI, I mean, what- what’s your name?” Tommy wanted to plead for Anthony’s life. They might not be best friends and Anthony might have done something illegal, but he was still his colleague.

Strangely, the FBI agent softened up a bit. Maybe he didn’t find it necessary to detain Anthony, now that his mission was complete. He looked at Tommy and took off his glasses. He had dark gray eyes. Tommy had never seen eyes that beautiful.

“I’m Spencer Agnew. What’s your name?”

“T- Tommy Bowe. Not the rugby player.”

“I can see that, haha. I mean, you do look nice.”

Tommy couldn’t handle this guy’s timbre, everything he said sounded like he was telling you a joke. But at the same time, Tommy was mesmerized by Spencer’s dark, wayward curls.

“You look very nice as well… I’m so sorry, I had no idea that we did anything illegal…

“It’s okay, you obviously didn’t have anything to do with it. I’ll take your colleague into questioning late- Um, where is he?”

Anthony was gone.

Tommy thought hard and deep about it. Would he do it? Betray Anthony like this? But then again, Anthony also betrayed him, doing his own little experiments without anyone knowing the extent of it.

“I know exactly where he’s headed.”

Tommy must have looked contrite because Spencer put a hand on his shoulder. With the other, he lifted Tommy’s chin.

“Hey, you did good. In fact, can you join me in finding him? He might be more willing to cooperate if he sees you’re with me.

Tommy swallowed. “Y- yeah. Okay.”

[blondrichclosetwitch]

Random’s instructions for sunday 2/5/17

Hi. (tearful) hi. Um, sorry i’m a little….um.. (trying to find words) i’m getting a little panicked about work, and how i’m going to pay rent. (fighting tears) and i need a little counsel here. You know how i did that dual action candle for jakk? The black and the green, for his work? I think i only put small ones (she starts turning things upside down, looking for a green candle) so if i burn a small black and a small green………on a plate…or one the cookie sheet..will that..work on my shit? 

Yes? You think so? And you feel that that’s the best job for me right now? I mean i know that the love between us was just so obvious. 

Are you happy to have myrth? So first i should clean the surfaces that i haven’t cleaned….that’s why i’m having stagnant….right? That’s the first thing i’m gonna do,. That’s the first thing. 

I miss  you so much. (still teary) but i’m happy to be able to communicate with you. Can you help me figure out….once we get a job in place, can you help me figure out how to make this work? Because i would like to get this business going. I mean, i feel like we should have one meeting  a week. Like a three hour meeting. 

Did you see what honza and i did last night? That felt..different. Like…i’m learning to communicate in a different way. (lets out a sigh) so first what you want me to do is clean off the surfaces….god i wish you could just appear….but of course i have to hold you in my left hand, which is my writing hand. Two…..do the candles? 

Three……what do you want me to do third? 

Work on jobs?

No. three..wait…is three….okay, hold on…that is not gonna work. I don’t understand how all this….ok,(writing) surfaces, candles……so i’m trying to figure out…tarot….writing…cause this is stuff that myrth and i talked about today. Surfaces first, candles second, is astrology on the list for today? I have to write that carrie anne lady back who wants to make a life size pendulum. And go back to the tree. Breakfast is on the list for today, aka petit dej (she reads off the list) is that everything? Is that right? So if surfaces is first and candles is second, what is third? Petit dej? Fourth is jobs? 

Is writing fifth? 

And getting carrie anne, 6th? 

Tarot, 7th? 

Tree…….astrology…..ok. That’s everything. Got it. And at some point go back to that store and get..get some more shit. You like him, huh? What’s his name, starhawk? You like him alot. So i should be working on restaurant jobs today. Should i put an ad up about spiritual counseling? Got it. Give my love to everybody. Is david bowie here too? So what’s the deal, now katie jakk and i are doing this wedding processional to blue jean now? Every day!

(this was another ritual i was told to do. I would go to the park, do a dance routine down the path to bowie’s blue jean where i would dance from tree to tree the length of the path, holding jakk’s small picture, and end up at the angel, where i would sing ultralight beam…then to a grassy area east (north of the main tree) where i would sing sufjan’s chicago…then to the tree where i would walk in circles while smashing pumpkins “mellon collie and the infinite sadness” played twice. The first time i would walk clockwise, the second time counter-clockwise. And then i would stand on the roots and sing tonight, tonight with jakk’s picture in my right hand, and the pendulum in my left. In my playlist, this is titled “wedding tree” , and later on, i would be told to do this ritual three times a day, to help jakk’s sickness.  Once, there were police there, and fakekatie pointed to a lady, and said she had reported me days before for insanity, and that i would be getting arrested that day. I didn’t get arrested, but I remember having tapes about it with fakerandom or gina.)

Does he love that? (shrieks with laughter) it’s amazing. What am i supposed to call my business? It seems to have something to do with heroes or blue jean or something. So i would love you for you guys to be talking about that. I feel it in my legs now, i feel like you’re already talking about it. Ok, i love you so much, talk to you later. 

(transmission) 

We need to order pictures too. Oh my god i’m a crazy person. (she hugs the cat that meows petulantly) 

(end of tape) 

J encounter 2/5/17

(talking to psychic jakk…makes a noise, then laughs while gypsy plays in the back ground)

 Hi! I miss you. I mean, it’s nice to feel you at the same time. My cat’s mad cause i won’t give her fresh food. How was work last night? Good? It’s going well, huh? I knew it would. That’s awesome. It’s so good.

 What happened, did matt just take a position somewhere else? 

Is he moving out of new york? 

Wow!  Good for him. 

He’s probably got a family and shit, i mean you can’t blame him. You can only stay in NY for so long with kids. 

Are you working today?

That greenpoint family who has your same birthday, they passed on me because they didn’t have enough hours. Random said…i knew they weren’t perfect for me. Like, working to make it work. It’s the other kid that i really loved. But Random led me on how to take care of work. I was getting a little flipped out. This is a big stretch for me.

 The thing is, nothing has come in restaurant wise, and i wonder if that has something to do with Blond. I don’t know. 

(transmission) 

You think it does? 

She red flagged my…..? Really? *Really*?

Seriously? (gold dust woman plays) 

Ugggh fuck. Can she do that? But she has, she knows, she has nothing to do with me restaurant wise. She knows nothing of my experience. 

Maybe i can ask tylor to look at it. Maybe he’ll be able to see something i can’t. Fuck,ok. 

(louder, amazed) she’s just (screams)

Have you talked to laurie again? Does laurie know that she’s doing these things? 

So what is the plan….i understand that right now what you need to do is stabilize saam bar…right? 

(transmission) 

Right. So…….um, is that what you’re saying yes to, stabilizing saam?

 Is that what Random is telling you to do, also?

Stabilize saam. And basically for us to do this sex ritual every day. And that the idea…is that is he instructing you to start filing for divorce after her birthday? 

So after her birthday. ….

I’m trying to hear what you’re saying. 

Are you still talking about filing for divorce? 

Cause i was getting a little freaked out about what i was gonna do…hopefully i’m gonna get this job. The spirits have a bunch of shit for me to do today. 

And the first thing i’m supposed to be doing is clearing off surfaces, so i can get ready to  do some candle magic on my own job situation,  —what it did on your job situation should have secured it, it should have been pretty powerful. Um, i think i’m pretty good at this. I’m learning. But according to the spirits and what’s been happening at the tree, you and i are pretty tapped in to this stuff.

And like obviously katie is our…she’s our….i don’t know if you want to call her conduit or what…cause i don’t actually know the definition of conduit…( laughs) is conduit the right word? Did i use the right word? I love you so much. 

It’s like we’re in foreign countries..where we don’t have phones (cracks up) but actually you’re just around the corner..and we’re using a pendulum. 

Yeah, so…..they seem to want me to make an instagram post about how my brother and sister in law freaked, the spirits were really pushing that point last night….one step at a time man.

People keep asking me how i feel about this power, and i’m like, it’s intense. It’s alot. 

And like having sex with your boyfriend through a pendulum, it’s great, ……but i want to have sex with my boyfriend.

(laughs) and we just have to keep being patient…cause it’s the greatest love affair of all time. We just got to keep being patient and i am i’m patient. 

I was thinking about you and moco yesterday. I was imagining..him bringing you a lot of comfort. And that really made me happy. 

Did you ever listen to me reading you the comrade poem? Did you like it? I always think of you in that line, “i no longer have one shred of respect for myself, but i see hoodlums who smoke the same cigarettes as me..my god my god i will be accordingly always the same..my head in my hands, and my hands in my head”

We’ve been doing this so long! I’ve never made so much sense, with anyone. I don’t even need to see your face. I can hear your voice in my head…and you make me smile. 

Ann all i have for pictures are pictures that your  wife have taken…but it doesn’t matter.

And that we do this insane wedding promenade to Blue Jean every day, ..crazy but it unites us, and it’s beautiful. And i can feel the root growing, and when i put it together with the prayer and the mantra about the root….the more pieces that i get, ……we don’t need the other stuff. It’s about  us, it’s not about how much money we have, when we have money–great, and when we don’t it doesn’t fucking matter. Because we’ll give everything to each other, and we share all of our problems, and we are so there for each other…but we had to go through all of this, we had to have this war-like love story to get to the other side of this, Jakk. go through all of this ….distance to get here. We had to lose the baby, we had to not know what was happening to us…in order to get here. And now we’re here. And we know we’re gonna get there to get it. We don’t even have to be together to feel each other. And we know it’s the death of katie that has brought us back together, it’s like the song, we fell apart in december but fell back together..it’s what we were meant to do. 

And i know that you know that that song was about the abortion. I know you know it’s about us fighting on the street, and about us being in that medical room, and you catching my eye, and how like……….(teary) how like i was so ..lost..how that was endless, how it was endless, and then…i caught you looking at me…and it was the only thing…that got me through,...was that look, that look and your hand…was the only thing that got me through. That look lasted so long, even if it was just a matter of seconds…that lasted so much longer than that whole experience. 

You know? And now, here we are, you in your apartment, and me in my apartment, pacing the floor like i like to do when i’m talking to you. And we’re together. We found our way back to each other. We know it.(showing him the altar)  The magician and the high priestess, with the strength card between us. And on the other side of my altar is katie and jakk and tinka against the candle of the Baby. so…..i know we’re fine. We just have to keep doing this everyday. 

Alright, are you ready to have sex? (cracks up)

Remember what a mess i was in 2012? 

I mean you were too. But you became my best friend. You did. You were my best friend. And it’s 2017, you’re the magician, it’s time for this shit to happen. 

And that’s why katie keeps making me play five years….over and over and over. Ok, cause i know you have to go to work soon, and who knows, Blond could come home early. Ok, let’s get this shit done. 

I have to go get new pictures of you from staples. 

I keep thinking about jesus and mary magdalene. About me being the holiest woman in the world, and you being the ultimate whore. And how it makes so much sense that we found each other. 

And i keep thinking about why Blond is so deathly jealous of us. 

She’s judas, they say.

Should i feel bad that you’re popping in and checking on me while you’re at work? You’re doing it because you miss me. Yeah you finally realized. I tried to tell you for a long time. I know she made it hard. I know she guilted you into a lot of stuff. She forbid you from seeing me or talking to me, or responding to me.. But i knew you loved me.  I knew what was between us. 

That’s why when i saw the ring on insta, i had a heart attack. 

I might also not…i might save the orgasm for tonight, like we did yesterday. Is that ok? 

You’re losing your signal for some reason.

Did she come home? 

Blond’s home?

Do you want your taylor swift song? 

So i’m just going to let you be on top of me, and i’m not going to have an orgasm. But you are, and that’s what we’re gonna do. 

Gonna give you a special treat…and…this is to keep you going today. (all you had to do was stay starts to play on repeat–she starts making cooing laughter noises) 

Wow….i see you moving. 

How’s that feel babe (she laughs) 

 (                                               )

She laughs some while the song plays, something is comical

You’re ok? 

Did you come?  (She cracks up )

Ok good are we done for today? Do we have to start our day? Ok guys time to start our day. (she laughs some more)

(the music gets loud, end of tape) 

God random j 2/5/17

Hi. that was really jakk, right? 

Ok. 

Well so far today i’ve talked to myrth, random, katie and jakk……..and now you. Am i gonna get that job with mika? You say yes. 

Is it true…jakk said Blond wrote something on my restaurant application??

(transmission)

What did she write? 

Fuuuuck. 

That i was a sex worker?

Fuck. if tylor goes and looks at it, will he see this? (texting) 

You’re saying she did do this. 

(yelling) what are you going to do about her? 

I don’t mean to raise my voice, but …this is unacceptable. 

Look. (getting mad) i have not done anything to her. You know that. (she hyperventilates) 

This is not fair. This is not fair. I just want a job. (cries for a sec, then tries to pull it together. 

Please lord please, this is fucked up. This woman…

Yes, i’m listening. 

I feel like you’re saying “she’s going to get hers”

What do you want me to do? Go back to sexwork? 

Really? Is that what you’re saying? 

(transmission)

Change my name? Change my number? 

Is that what you really want me to do? 

“Go back to tantra.”

(going to the dishes) Is that what you want me to do?

That’s what you want me to do, you want me to go back to tantra. 

What do you want my name to be? 

“Something in the bible.”

(transmission) 

Magdalene? Magdalene? ( she repeats it a few times  )

“Practice here. “

Here? Isn’t that dangerous? I’ll change my number. 

Was allan  one of hers? I thought so.  Magdalene, and change my number?

“ Change it right now. “ 

And…that’s it. magdalene.  Magdalene? (she’s still questioning this choice) 

Am i still gonna get the mika job? 

(she cleans for a while)

Magdalene. 

( the next few minutes she repeats this to herself, trying to feel it out) 

Magdalene. Yes? 

(she finishes making food, slams a lot of drawers)

So……the pictures. 

(transmission)

You want me to take new pictures? 

(transmission) 

Ok. 

It’s only the fifth, so. (about rent being late)

Completely different ad, from my old ad. Of course. 

(eating) 

Um….um…(something new is pinging her)

Is that jakk? 

It’s jakk. 

(still eating)n Hi, jakk. What’s going on?  You wanted to tell me something,  i’m guessing. 

(transmission) 

Blond. 

(still eating) 

My harri…my harri thing?  Yeah, i was just talking to “God” about it actually, and He said she wrote on there that i was a sex worker. 

That’s why i’m not getting any calls about restaurants. Real classy. 

(sighs) 

I thought we had an agreement that she wasn’t going to, like…….that you threatened divorce on her, and she wasn’t going to aggressively go after me anymore. 

I’m not yelling at you…..i’m not….um, it’s not your fault. 

(transmission) 

(texting someone about the situation, the cat meows) 

Ok, well tylor says there’s no place to write on harri…anything like that. 

So what does this mean?

(texting again after contemplation) 

Random!

I really need your help. So what just happened was……..

Jakk told me….is jakk, please tell me the truth Random (exhales) 

Is jakk communicating with me? Has jakk been communicating with me?

(transmission) 

 Is jakk *aware*  that he’s been communicating with me? 

You’re saying yes. 

He just told me that Blond wrote something so that i would not get hired by any restaurants. 

But tylor says it’s not possible to do that. 

Is it that…that she was thinking about doing it? 

In that she’s sending out all this evil eye energy, and that’s why i haven’t gotten….did she do a spell or something? 

(transmission) 

And that’s why i need to do the candle..ok, ok, so jakk has correct info still. 

And so i’m still talking to Jakk and God is that correct. 

And God told me to go *back in* to tantra. 

   As “Magdalene”. 

Do you like that? 

And change my phone number. 

And that you still think i’m gonna get the Mika job. Ok, i’m going to clean off the counters, and do the candles. Thank you for checking in. sorry i got a little flipped out. I’ll talk to you a little later. 

(transmission) 

Ok. thank you. Bye. 

(to self) ok, let’s take a break. Jesus.

All we’re doing is talking to spirits. 

(end of tape)

[ashesandhackles]

Deconstructing Harry: The boy we meet in Philosopher's Stone to the man in Deathly Hallows

I have often seen fans talk about how nebulous Harry is as a character, especially in the earlier books. They can't make sense of who he is as a character and other more colourful, more actualized personalities take over our attention from any traits Harry might display. Harry becomes more defined for a lot of people OOTP onwards where he displays traits that sometimes make him unbearable or unlikable.

Harry, as we are introduced in PS, has a very little sense of self. He is narratively self deprecating or plays down his presence or skills, not that he is aware he has any. He grew up without any presence of him displayed in the house - no photos, no idea about his parents or what they look like or what really happened to them and discouraged from asking questions. Harry as we meet him is neglected, rootless about his identity and longs for escape. For him, every day is a battle against Dudley, who bullies him or Vernon, thus setting a worldview that never truly goes away: him vs adults. But just because Harry doesn't attach traits or values to self, does not mean he does not have it.

It's an effective narrative tool though - for Harry to be our eyes of the world. Only in later re-readings can we get a grasp of the traits that become more pronounced as books go on. Also, it's not surprising that Harry develops a better sense of self when he is removed from an abusive home.

Let me begin with this:

1. Harry is a fighter

One of the things that struck me in later re-readings is that how much of a fighter Harry is, from the very beginning. He will not lie down and take abuse. The narrative presents it as no big deal, because Harry doesn't assign any importance to it - it's every day life for him.

-Verbal standing up-

See his reaction to Uncle Vernon and the letter fiasco. He stands up for himself, even if it falls on deaf ears. "I want my letter - as it is mine!". Later on, in the same book, a completely befuddled 11 year old Harry stands up to Snape too, but in a politer way: "I think Hermione knows the answer. Why don't you try her?". He gets less polite with Snape as books go on. Harry's humor is something he employs liberally with Dudley when standing up to him - "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick" and we see this trait manifest into the sass we all know and love.

- Fight or flight-

He is remarkably good at "fighting himself out of tight corners" as Snape put it. And although Snape attributes it to luck and more talented friends, he is onto something about Harry's ability to worm out of tight corners. He lives moment to moment in a dangerous situation - relying on his nerve, very fast reflexes and athleticism. He is also able to notice things in an environment that will get him out of a quick pinch. You see this clearly in Department of Mysteries in Book 5 where he comes up with the idea to smash shelves, the mad idea to escape on a dragon, the ministry escape where he manipulates Runcorn's image (as he noticed how people were reacting to him) to create chaos and get the Muggleborns and the trio out, Chamber of Secrets when he instinctively understood the diary is the source of power and stabbed it.

Where does the athleticism and ability to spot dangerous situation come from? This boy has spent a decade cheeking Dudley and running away from his gang, spotting when he needs to get out of the way as "long experience had told him to be out of Uncle Vernon's arms reach" or "ducking when Aunt Petunia aimed a frying pan at his head". The instinct to see a dangerous situation develops over the course of the books in his adventures - to the point Harry unconsciously brings out his wand in Tottenham road without thinking too much about it. He is almost always wary and less quick to lower his wand.

When hiding/ escaping is not an option, Harry is not above physical fighting - despite how small and skinny he is in Book 1. Both he and Dudley fight for a chance to listen at the door when letter first arrives for Harry. Dudley wins the fight. Later on, Harry jumps Uncle Vernon from behind and hangs on to his neck to get his letter. He even does the same thing to the troll in the same book. ( Then over the course of series, we see him beat up Sirius in Book 3, Malfoy in Book 5, strangle Mundungus in Book 6 - all of these are related to his fury over the dead, so different context. But still).

- Manipulation/ Cunning-

11 year old Harry even tries sneakily - waking up early to get his letter (unfortunately didn't work). The other sneaky methods he has employed throughout the series is - not telling Dursleys at end of PS that he is not allowed magic at home, threatens Dudley with it in COS, not telling them Sirius is innocent to play up the threat of a murderous godfather to keep them accountable, and also the smooth way he negotiates with Uncle Vernon for Hogsmeade letter. ("Well it will be hard work, pretending to aunt Marge that I go to St Whatsits" ,"Knocking the stuffing out of me won't make Aunt Marge forget what I could tell her"). He similarly displays his negotiation and playing to what he knows about people with Slughorn in Book 6, Pettigrew in Book 7.

The scene with Slughorn is disturbing, with Harry coercing a drunk Slughorn to give up his memory. You can argue that this is the influence of Felix Felicis, but I think the potion acted more as facilitation. The disturbing way Harry brings up his mother's murder to unnerve Slughorn is his own doing. ("Voldemort stepped over my father's body towards mum" "I forgot - you liked her, didn't you?"). Again, in a life threatening situation, Harry plays to Pettigrew's latent guilt: "You are going to kill me? After I saved your life? You owe me Wormtail!"

2. Relational justice over abstract justice

Harry's concept of justice is relational and based on his high empathy for the underdog. He notices power dynamic in a situation and empathises with the victim. This is in contrast to Hermione, who has more abstract, bigger picture view of justice. It's no wonder that Hermione is the one who is the most political of the three.

His high empathy for the underdog and needing to stand up for them is because he feels responsiblility that no one should go through what he went through. He stands up for Neville in PS and encourages him to stand up for himself. When he sees his father bullying Snape, it is not about an abstract "this is wrong behavior". Harry goes further: "Harry knew what it felt like to be taunted among a circle of onlookers" , Harry focuses on young Snape's mismatched clothes because he himself knows what it's like to wear clothes that are not yours or ones that make you look ridiculous. His empathy extends to Voldemort too - understanding why he may not want to go back to his orphanage and desire to be in Hogwarts, wondering why Merope wouldn't stay alive for her son, his fixation with Voldemort's maimed soul in King's Cross chapter and later asking Voldemort to feel remorse (" I have seen what you will become otherwise"). Even his reaction to Dobby in COS - "Can't anyone help you? Can't I?" when Dobby talks about his slavery. Hermione is usually seeing the bigger picture, Harry sees the individual.

3. Pathological mistrust of adults

He is less likely of the trio to take an adult at their words or be assured by them when they say they are taking care of things. He has learnt, from a very young age, that he is always expected to take care of himself. And the times he does take things to adult, they consistently disappoint him - by patronising him or acting like he is a child, neither of which he has tolerance for or appreciates. This is why he takes to Sirius and Lupin, who exhibit neither of these communication patterns. In some ways, Mr Weasley too.

Umbridge's abuse of him for him is framed as a battle of wills between her and him, as if he is an equal. And he loses if he complains - "not giving her a satisfaction of knowing she got to me". Harry's worldview has always been - adult vs him.

His inability to trust adults even extends to the ability of adults he likes to look after themselves. While Sirius is understandably a wreck in OOTP, he has by and large followed Dumbledore's orders. This doesn't register with Harry (Ron points it out: "Sirius listens to Dumbledore even though he doesn't like what he hears") and Harry's fears about Sirius, excaberated by Sirius's tendency for recklessness, comes to play.

He even showed similar distrust in Lupin's judgement in taking a potion from Snape in POA ("Harry felt the urge to knock the goblet out of Lupin's hands" and tries to hint at Lupin that Snape will "do anything" for DADA job). And he shows this once again with the most magically powerful wizard he knows - Dumbledore. ("if I tell you to abandon me and save yourself, you must do so". Dumbledore has to insist on this before Harry nods reluctantly. It's also Dumbledore's wording, but this is a wizard Harry feels safe with almost entirely because of his power - and yet Harry cannot obey an order like this without reluctance). It's not about Harry's own ability to take care of them - he just innately cannot leave people to it.

4. Humor as a value and coping mechanism

Harry has an established coping mechanism by the time we are introduced to him - quip in the face of danger/ dark humor. There are repeated instances of Harry amusing himself with snarky comments in his head when things are really bad for him. Like in PS, when they are in the hut, Harry wonders if the roof will fall in and then thought that if it did fall in, he might be warmer. In the earlier books (before his growth), he seems to value Ron over Hermione simply because he is more "fun". Harry enjoys being around funny people like Ron, Weasley twins, later Ginny simply because there is some dark stuff happening with him and he needs "fun" people for semblance of normalcy, escape. In fact, this desire is so strong, he attaches it to his romantic relationships: Ginny is a "blissful oblivion" and times with her are "something out of someone else's life". His relationship with Cho failed because her coping mechanism is discussing her trauma and Harry's is escaping it.

-dealing with conflict with people he likes, small digression-

A part of his growing up in later books includes valuing Hermione as much he values Ron and we see it in display in HBP, where he is more willing to stand up for her to Ron (something he kind of did more quietly before in POA - "can't you give her a break?" ) and also get confrontational with her instead of using Ron as a buffer between them to fend off her more boisterous/ bossy tendencies. ("let him make up his mind" "skip the lecture" "don't nag" - Ron took the heat in earlier books. In HBP, Harry is more willing to be irritable with her in a day-to-day interaction - "I hope you enjoy yourself" he tells Hermione when she states her intention to investigate Half Blood Prince. Or when she tests the book - "Finished? Or do you want to see if it does backflips?" "Do you have rub it in Hermione, how do you think I feel now?" at the end of HBP. ) In OOTP, his best method to deal with her when she bothers him was lying, avoiding her nagging and if that doesn't work, explode and treat her to display of his temper. There is more to explore here, of course - even with regard to how he deals with Mrs Weasley in Book 4, 5 and the difference of him hugging her in Book 7.

5. Fascination with the dead/ a passive death wish

Harry feels remarkably little sense of betrayal knowing that he was set up to die by Dumbledore. His self sacrificing streak is rooted in his love, yes, but I also think Harry is a little bit too fascinated by death, not surprising considering most people he loved are dead. Him wanting the resurrection stone in DH, him obsessively spending time at Mirror of Erised (to the point he feels feverish and Ron thinking he looks strange) until Dumbledore stops him, him almost wanting to fail to learn a Patronus because he wants to hear his parents voice, the hearing of whispering voices in the Veil in OOTP which only Luna could hear apart from him, the scene at the grave where he almost wishes he was "lying under the snow" with his parents, the possession scene in the book of OOTP has him wishing to die so he can be with Sirius. You can almost argue the Harry has, in many moments, shown raw desire of death. In fact, him choosing to let go of the stone and not go looking for it is a big character decision for him.

I also want to address Harry's temper and how that develops over course of series, the implications of understanding the people he loved and put on pedestal are flawed - but I am afraid this post is already way too long. So I will leave that for some time later.

[darkenedreaper]

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Reader, Avengers x Reader

Featuring: GoTG, Peggy Carter

Warnings: Angst, sad I suppose

Summary: 2 years after her death, your struggling even more. And it’s killing the team to keep their secret. (I changed Endgame because I can. Come at me. I might make it into chapters.)

Masterlist

‘It can’t be undone’ she said

*2 years ago*

You had gone through years with her. Years with the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. You had gone through love with her. You had gone through the 5 years with her. You had gone to Vormir with her. Yet you had won the final fight without her.

When you all came back from the time travel success you had to try and keep yourself from collapsing. You saw the others standing with smiles on their faces but all you saw was her. Her lips and eyes pleading you to let her go. Her body descending forever. And her sprawled out onto the floor, a pool of blood surrounding her head confirming Natasha Romanoff no longer wondered the earth.

“Are you telling me this actually worked?” Rhodey questioned, followed by Thor’s wheezy laugh. Their faces became confused when they heard a long bang. You have dropped down onto your knees, stone in hand and body wet from wherever you had been teleported to after she had sacrificed herself.

“Y/n where’s Nat?” The big green guy said. Your eyes were stuck in front of you. A sorrowful look on your face. You couldn’t even move. You couldn’t speak. You could’ve all been there for hours or seconds. But Steve lifted you up by your arms and tried to read your expression. With the help of Nebula you were taken to your bedroom you shared with Natasha. The both of them tried to gently take you to the bed but instead you walked shakily to the bathroom and shut the door. Of course Steve was upset. He had a lost a part of his family. He had shed tears while he walked with you. He could only imagine what the scene must’ve been for yourself. The unspoken news of his friends death was indescribable, but having to be there in an unimaginable situation would’ve been even harder. And he understood that. Nebula grieved, she barely knew the woman. But she grieved. She saw the distraught and pain on your face and in your eyes. She placed her hand on Steve’s shoulder and took him out of your room.

In the bathroom you had caged yourself into. You had your hand gripped to the sink. Your eyes trained to the sink bowl. Your eyes drifted to the left for you where her makeup and hairbrush had been layed out this morning. You took a step back, nervously clasping your hands together. You tried to calm down before someone got hurt. You looked down at your hands and you were maintaining some level of sanity before you remembered that your hand had let her go. If anyone would walk past your bedroom door, they were bound to hear glass smashing and screams and words of anguish.

You didn’t speak to anyone. You completely shut yourself down. The only reason you spoke to someone was to communicate over the earpiece when you were fighting. There was a short debate over the coms as to who was going to steal the stones from Thanos. You nearly went into a fit of rage and upset before Carol ordered you to look into her eyes. Your excuse to use the stones was so you could be with her again. When Tony clicked his fingers the enemy became dust, and the world became a little more louder and a bit more lighter. The battlefield was filled with new and old faces. Tony’s snap had been so powerful he was able to bring back the people that mattered the most to those around him. Steve had Peggy in his tired arms. Clint had Laura and his children. Wanda had Vision. Quill had Gamora. Thor had his mother and brother back. Tony had Pepper. He was unharmed and Bruce’s arm had healed. Everyone had someone. You had someone. You had your whole family. But your special someone was Natasha. You had never felt so lost. Natasha would be holding you, you holding her. She would tuck your head into her shoulder while letting your arms envelope around her. But all you got were sad looks.

Some of the ‘newbies’ had questioned their closest. After a lot of loud whispering, there was silence. The battlefield was silent in memory of Natasha. The only noises were the hundreds of sniffles and sobs of those who had the news broken to them. The dying fires crackling. The next minute footsteps were approaching you. You had internally begged for it to be Natasha. But you looked up to see a short boy. His suit red and blue with a spider on it. His brown curly hair was tinted with grey. His teary eyes gave you the saddest smile before and steadily put his arms around your shoulders. You accepted the young boys embrace. You were thankful for it.

The news were around the place as quick as they could’ve been. Pictures were taken. Statements were took. The public had tried to surround the heroes but were pushed away by the helping police. It has been released to the enormous crowd that one of the most heroic heroes had died. The crowds became distraught. They sounded like how you felt inside. They tried to surround you and shout out their condolences but you kept walking. Where to? Who knows.

*2 years later/present time*

You spoke to no one. You spoke out in bursts of anger. Anger if someone tried to tell you to come away from your desk and to stop working and trying to find a way. Peggy, Steve’s wife, had became close to you. She understood how it felt to lose a loved one. She understood she wasn’t Natasha. She understood why you were working yourself so hard. She would never judge you, if you looked all disheveled or smelt from not taking a shower. She encouraged you to do your best, but she never pushed you. 2 years ago, you found a solution to stop Thanos. 2 years ago you lost her. 2 years ago Steve returned the stones. You haven’t been able to go through any videos or voice messages of her. Just a photo that you have framed. There were and still are memorials for her, but you would never attend any.

You had only cried to yourself. But right now you were on the edge of having a definite breakdown. Tony and the whole team of Avengers, Wakanda, GotG and Carol had wanted to check in as you had been back to Vormir. Which you greatly regret. Scott had made an extra time travel refill for you. All you were told by red skull was a ‘soul for a soul’. You argued with a ghost. You lashed out a ghost. You didn’t dare look to the edge. Knowing you would either throw yourself of or cry so much you wouldn’t be able to move.

They all met you at the Compound. At the platform that sat on top on the lake.

Steve and Peggy. Tony and Pepper. Rhodes. Bucky and Sam. Clint and Laura. Thor and Loki. Bruce. The Guardians were there. Rocket was by your side. Peter was there with Happy. Carol was at the edge of the platform. Wanda and Vision. And the rest were all there. You had your back turned to them. You were silent trying to understand why they all had such guilty faces, except Thor. They all had a secret. One they had agreed to not tell you, for fear it may completely break you. But they decided enough was enough. They had to tell you.

“Look we need to get her back to stop this shit with the Avengers get it together.” Thor spat at Steve, as he still saw him as the Captain.

“Can’t get her back.” You spoke up, causing everyone’s attention on the two of you.

“Wh..wha..what are you..?” Thor mumbled out.

“It can’t be undone. It can’t.” You said quietly looking at him from over your shoulder.

He laughed at your words before saying, “Look.. I, I’m sorry but your a very earthly being okay, we’re talking about space magic and can’t seems very definitive. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah look I know that I’m way outside my.. my paid rate here. But she still isn’t here is she?” You said. Tony took of his sunglasses, getting upset.

“Yeah well that’s my point.” Thor said in a hushed manner.

“It can’t.. be undone.” Your voice cracking, your tears had crawled their way down your face now. “Or that’s at least what the red floating guy had to say. Maybe you wanna go talk to him. Ok, go grab your hammer and you go find him you talk to him!” You yelled at him. He looked down to the floor. You shouldn’t be angry with him. He missed Natasha. But you couldn’t help it.

“It was supposed to be me.” You admitted with a breaking voice. Bucky let a tear fall freely from his eye. “She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone, she bet her life on it.” You started to breakdown in the middle of everyone. Angry at how she could’ve died for nothing. How it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Even Wanda began to breakdown. She felt your pain from far away. Your longing. And your grieving. Rockets fur was wet as he was upset just like everyone else.

He couldn’t take it anymore. The lies. Not the acting. But the lies. Clint stood up and said, “Y/n we’ve been lying to you. Natasha is here. She’s perfectly fine. She’s alive. You just can’t see her.” No one else bothered to look up as he said what was needed to be said. You slowly turned around to him. “What?” Was all you could choke out. Steve stood up and walked towards you before keeping a distance. “When I returned the stone. He told me that we could all get her back, after all it was a soul for a soul. But the one who travelled there has been cursed. You can’t see or hear her and I don’t know if you ever will. But she’s alive.”

You took time to observe his words.

She was standing in front of you. Her arms crossed but her eyes were stuck on your face that was wet from the tears you had cried. Your eyes brows moving in a sorrowful way. She wasn’t crying for herself no. She cried for you. For your pain. She had never seen you so upset. And because she had been with you ever since she got back, she’s had to watch you cry almost every day.

Natasha wishes you could see her. She has been next to you this whole time. She was gone a few hours and then she was back. She couldn’t find you and instead ran into Sam who held her tightly. Instead she sped off to Tony’s cabin where she found Bucky and Steve, who explained everything.

She wishes you could hear how proud she is of you. She wishes you didn’t have to see you break yourself and live in your mental anguish. It hurt her. Every night you fell asleep at your desk, she would drape a blanket over you, and almost cry at your confused state in the morning of who had been to your office and covered you.

She wishes you hadn’t been traumatised by her silly yet heroic actions. She wishes she could tell you how much she loves you and how she wants to be held by you and she wants you to be able to hear her words, “I love you.” The others heard it. But they didn’t dare tell you.

She was determined to get her words to you. If not by speaking to you then by page. Determined to prove that she was with you all of this time. She wants to tell you how much she loves you.

She wishes there was a way.

If you would like a part 2, let me know.

[johnsamericano]

『 Ͳąҽվօղց / ටҍʂҽʂʂìօղ 』

warnings: stalking, noncon picture taking, pantie stealing, obsessive behavior (duh), threats, violence, twisted yongie who want’s you all for himself.

taglist: @nakamotocore @blinkxblackpink44 @la-ra-rumi

loveholic masterlist.

Could you be any more perfect?

Taeyong asked himself as he captured a photo of you kneeling to feed a stray cat. Click. Oh, how beautiful these new pictures would look in his collection. Click.

The sudden sound of a notification almost had him dropping the camera he'd spent months saving for. A professional camera to capture every single detail of you.

It was just spam from the takeout he'd ordered a few days prior. He made a mental note to block the number as soon as he got home. His slim fingers positioned themselves under the camera once again, only to find you were already gone.

“Fuck.”

“Hey, Yongie.” Your minty breath crashed against the exposed skin of his neck, sending goosebumps all around his body. “I didn't know you lived nearby.”

“Oh, yeah.” He remained as calm as he could, hoping you'd not hear his heart loudly drumming. “I live over there.” He pointed in a random direction, hoping it’d sound convincing enough for you to not ask any more questions. “I was just taking pictures for an online course I signed up for.”

“Cool.”

He loved your naivety, the way you'd oh so innocently trust anyone with a smile big enough to seem kind. It made everything easier for him.

“Wanna hang out? I made banana bread, I was just waiting for it to cool down.” He hated bananas, but as long as it gave him the chance to spend some time with you, he was willing to pretend it was the most savory food in the world. Maybe he'd even get the chance to steal another pair of panties from your closet, the ones he had were already worn out from how often he used them to relieve himself.

“Sure.”

It had been a while since he was last in your house, 5 weeks and 2 days to be exact, but it wasn't like he had a calendar to count the days since your last meeting, not at all.

You and Taeyong met a year ago when his infatuation with you started. But it wasn't until a couple of months later that you became friends, or at least that's what you thought. Taeyong, on the other side, preferred to consider this as a temporary stage before you started to realize your feelings for him, or before he made you realize them.

“Make yourself at home, I'll get the bread.”

Your apartment was so bland, you'd definitely like better the room he'd been preparing for you. Of course, since his house didn't have a heater you'd get a little cold during winter, but he'd be there to warm you up. Just as his eyes scanned through the living room, making sure everything was in place, he realized there was a male coat hanging off the individual couch. As far as he knew, you weren't dating anyone, so who's coat was it?

“Here you go.”

“So...” He crossed his legs, taking a more comfortable position to seem as natural as possible. “Who’s the lucky guy?” He forced a smile despite the fear blooming inside him.

“Oh, that?” You picked up the coat, folding it carefully before setting it down on the couch. “It was just a casual date, nothing too serious. You actually know him, it's Haein from our literature class.”

‘Sweet, innocent y/n, you shouldn't be so trusting.’

“He seems really nice!” Pity he’d have to get rid of him.

He left your house an hour later, claiming he had to visit his mom. He spent the whole day following your date, thank goodness he documented his entire life on Instagram stories.

Haein hung out with friends until past midnight. Taeyong adjusted his cap and face mask, making sure he'd be unrecognizable. He turned left on a narrow hallway with his shadow following closely behind.

“What the-?” Someone pulled him from the collar, smashing his head against the nearest wall. “I have a few dollars in my pocket, take them! That's all I have!”

“Pathetic.” Taeyong muttered, pressing his skull harder against the hard surface. “I’ll say this once. Get away from y/n or I swear to God you'll never see the daylight again. Are we clear?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

‘He gave up without even fighting? He doesn't deserve y/n. I’m doing her a favor.’

He leaned in closely to whisper in his ear:

“Run before I change my mind.”

And just like that, he was a step closer to having you all for himself.

[arcadejohn127-9]

Hii 👋 😁 okay so I'd like to request a valentines date with the brothers and newdatebales but while they are on the date MCs ex who is a complete jerk interrupts their nice time and MCs date makes the ex pay for being so rude. Happy Valentines Day! 💝

Happy valentine's! Ugh exes really can be a pain! I'd fist fight my ex for a stick of gum, no hesitation

Sorry this took so long, I've been asleep for most of the day

Pt.2 = undateables (minus Luke)

Context: you decided to go to the human world for your date

Lucifer:

Restaurant! Always - it's a classic

It was fairly lavish, Everyone was in suits or dresses, the place seemed to glitter from how polished it all was

A small classical band in the back

"I'm having a lovely time, I hope it's all to your liking."

"definitely is, though if you were the one playing the piano I'd make it even better."

"I'll keep that in mind for later."

He smirked, taking a sip of his wine whilst you just beamed

You two have been waiting month's for this renovation and you glad you were able to get it in on Valentines

"Oh! (Y/N) been ages- didn't expect you to be here, who's your friend?"

Your stomach dropped

Your ex just smiled at you two, leaning on your seat

"boyfriend."

"no! No way! You're dating?! I heard you were so broken after our breakup, so glad you were finally able to move on, must of been hard."

"Will you leave? I'm trying to enjoy myself-"

Lucifer glared at them, shifting in his seat incase he had to settle this - he had faith in your strength but knew he wouldn't stay silent for long

"Why so hostile?! I haven't done anything wrong it's not like I've gone and told him how clingy you were or the fact you just LOVED arguing."

"fuck off will you?! I wasn't clingy, you were just distant and barely treated me like a partner and we got into arguements because YOU kept going behind my back."

He finally stepped in, noticing you were getting EXTREMELY worked up and had tears lining your eyes

He pulled your ex around, gripping their face and flashed them his true forms face

They screamed as they shoved themselves away from him, darting away to their table

This made everyone look at them, Lucifer fixing his hair and wiped his gloves with a scented wipe

"how unpleasant, Let's get the check, we can finish this back at the house."

He called over a waiter, quickly paying and collecting the now packaged food

"Just tap me and I'll step in sooner, I know you can handle yourself but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing you cry."

Mammon:

A drive in movie - wants to show off his hot wheels and attractive partner~

He was pulled all sorts of cheesy moves, the yawn and stretch is one but many

He smiled having you leaned against him with his arm around your shoulder

You told him you were going to get more snacks and he tried to follow you but you said it'll be alright

Though when you came back you saw your ex leaning on mammons car, flirting with him

"Babe! I told them to back off but they kept pushing-"

"I didn't expect to see you here, are you with him?"

"I'm very much with him, he's taken."

You roughly handed mammon the snacks

He knew to keep his mouth shut, that look on your face wasn't something to mess with

"what a shame, I'm glad you finally got over me though, I heard from your friends you disappeared for 6 months."

"yeah, I was busy with living my life not crying over you."

Your exes mouth twitched whilst you just jumped back into your side of the car

"Right, right - so are you two serious or just a fling? I know it's difficult for you to keep a partner - why not keep me company? You're too handsome to be with them, don't you think? There's no way you actually like them-"

They trailed a hand up mammons arm, sending him a wink

He smacked their hand away from him, growing tired of their behaviour

"you listen here I'm in love with them more than your tiny little human brain will ever understand, back away from my car or watch us go on with our date."

When your ex didn't move he grabbed your shirt, pulling you in into a heated kiss

Whilst you two made out your cradled his head, flipping off your ex, mammon didn't have to even look to know what you were doing

He joined in on flipping them off, you both stayed like that until you heard them scoff and leave

"just say the word and I'll do whatever you ask, I won't let them get away with talking to you like that."

When the movie was done you spotted your exes car with the window down, mammon happily through your Popcorn into their window

But it wasn't over, when his car got close enough he took a pocket knife, slashing their car and immediately drove off at high speed

Levithan:

Arcade; was there really anything else?

He was determined to get you all the arcade prizes, using all his skills to make the machine do as he wished

Has used his tail to grab a prize from a rigged claw machine

"what else should we do? I saw a two player shooter finally open up."

"maybe dance dance Revolution? It'll be fun~"

He groaned, not wanting to do physical exercise but smiled when you weren't looking

He knew every dance song and pattern! He was going to impress you so much!

Of course there was a line, two kids hogging it and people recording them

Though things took a turn when your ex showed their face

"i should of known you'd come here, can't seem to stop visiting our old dating spots, huh?"

You rolled your eyes, clutching levithan's hand

If you were going to be honest, you completely forgot this was one of your old date places

You just remembered it was close by and you've been there when you were younger

"get over yourself, I'm on a date with my boyfriend."

"him? Really? I knew I hurt you but I didn't expect you to downgrade this much."

Levi looked down ashamed, anger boiling inside of him at how they spoke to you

He suddenly moved Infront of you, gripping your exes shirt as he pinned them to the photo-booth

"I don't care what you say to me but I know that you're just a cheating liar who gets off making others feel shitty, stay away from us or I will rip you to shreds limb by limb!"

He didn't even know his voice raised, punching the booth beside their head

Your normally timid boyfriend only got like this when you tried to be a better TSL fan than him or he lose his patience with mammon

Your ex cowered under his gaze, darting off as soon as they could

"i- I hope I didn't speak over you! I know you could of easily dealt with them but I just couldn't stand it!"

Satan:

Meausum, very interesting with different moments in history and discoveries all for the public to see - a date for nerds

Good thing you're both nerds (tbh I'd love a date like this)

"I was actually alive when this happened, It was pretty remarkable."

Oh yeah, expect him to be giving you all the classified details of moments in history

You just wished you had him whilst you were doing your history exams, you could of gotten so much extra credit!

"were you ever in any pictures? It would be pretty fun if we spotted you in the back of one of these."

He just laughed, grinning as you slowly began to realize that was an actual possibility

But before you could press on your mouth flew shut

Your ex was here

You elected to ignore them but they didn't have the same idea for you

"I never expected to see you around again, I thought you disappeared completely when no one heard from you in months."

"now that you're talking to me I wish I had, is there a reason you're interrupting my date?"

"your date? Is this him? I didn't think you'd move on so quickly~ shows what value you have on relationships."

Satan was pleased; he's heard all about your ex and was mad they were even breathing the same air as you

You were more annoying than any of his brother's and he hasn't even said anything to them yet

"I got over you quickly which might I add 10 months isn't a short time span - because you mean nothing me, you're a bitch."

"Back off or you'll end up with a bloody nose."

"gonna hit? Some man you are! Quick to violence-"

He grabbed their head, quickly jerking their head as if he was going to smash it into the display

His fingers dug into their scalp and tugged at their hair

"You have 5 seconds, I'm feeling nice today because it's valentine's - run now or I will put a dent in your skull."

He let go and he began to count, your ex looked at you both with fear before running

Just grazing the 5 second limit

"what was we discussing? Ah yes, I'll point out where I am, I think the picture is just up ahead."

Asmodeus:

Bath store date!!!

If it's with asmo - anything can be exciting

Even if it is you two walking around snorting bath bombs and poking the bath jello

Asmo handed you a bar

"smell it~ it's got herbs and flowers in it, doesn't the smell remind you of the kitchen back home?"

You gave it a small sniff but almost got abit of herb stuck in your nose when you saw your ex looking straight at you

He caught onto your surprise, slightly turning to see someone approach you two

"Careful there, don't want it to get stuck up your nose."

Your ex laughed, you just frowned

The demon looking between you, noticing how unhappy you were

"Do you want something? We're busy."

"I spotted you and thought to see hi! It's been so long since we've talked! Are you feeling abit better now after your break? I know the breakup was hard."

They gave you a pity filled look, patting your shoulder

"No, the breakup was easy to get through but why does it matter to you? We're not friends and you dumped me and that was that."

"come on it couldn't be just that, don't be shy Infront of- who are you exactly?"

Asmo quickly wrapped an arm around you, hugging you close as he gave your ex a tight smile

"Their boyfriend~! And I'm not happy about you talking to my sweetheart, leave."

"boyfriend? You look like that and you wanna try to be tough, you're as scary as a cloud- this is what you moved on with? I should of expected it."

"cute, look me in the eyes whilst you say that, won't you?"

Your ex foolishly did, Getting ready to insult but felt themself be fully charmed

"Won't you be a dear and spin around for me? Perhaps start clucking like a chicken, I think there's some feed over there." He cooed.

You bursted out laughing watching your ex do exactly as they were asked

Your boyfriend just smiled, picking up another soap and sniffing it before handing it to you

"ooo it's really fragrance, let's get this one."

You ignored your charmed ex, leaving the store with your stuff, hearing them yell out in humiliation as soon as you stepped out the store

Beezlebub:

Picnic, Should of been expected

You watched him do his stretches; you knew he had to keep himself occupied with draining tasks to keep better control over his constant hunger

He already scarfed down most of what was in basket before his fitness watch went off

You just sat back and observed

"I know this isn't romantic but once I'm tired we can continue, I'm sorry."

"Beel, I'd rather watch you flex your muscles than feel starved."

"I'll do my best."

He leaned down and you met him half way, Sharing a quick kiss before he went jogging

Everytime he passed your spot you gave him a cheer

But what you didn't expect was your ex to whistle, watching Beel with you

"do you mind? That's my boyfriend."

"I can see, how'd you get a guy like him? He's shredded, I didn't think big guys were your type."

"It's none of your business what my type is, our relationship is over and I told you I never wanted to see you again."

Your ex scoffed, glaring down at you

"is that why you disappeared for months? You really think I'd be desperate enough to message you again?"

"is it it of your system yet? Can you leave?"

"What's the issue..? You don't look pleased."

He was looking directly at you, concern on his face

You sighed In annoyance

"oh~ and he has a nice voice aswell, aren't you a package, wanna go somewhere more private?"

It was your turn to scoff, beel frowned at your ex

He knew how unpleasant your ex was and immediately stepped towards them

He grabbed their head and easily lifted them off the ground and put them to his eye level

"Apologize and Leave."

Your ex whimpered, wincing in pain, beel moved them like a ragdoll and made them face you

"I'M SORRY FOR EVERYTHING!"

They were let go and scampered off

You turned to beel, cupping his face, his mood immediately improving

"you did amazing, baby, are you tired or do you need to keep exercising?"

"I think I'll be able to be fine now, I'm glad they left so quickly, I was going to eat them."

Belphegor:

He wanted sky diving but you decided to go to the mattress store

Odd date choice but it made perfect sense to your boyfriend, they were having double bed special offers

He sunk into the mattress, sighing feeling how soft and bouncy it was

"We Should get this one."

"you said that with the last mattress, I'm sure you could find one hard as a rock and still want it."

"the top of the sofa is a comfy spot but I like my mattresses soft."

You just hummed, looking at the prices

"Tore up the old one with one of your tantrums? What a shame."

"excuse me??! I had a death In my family and that was an accident-! Why are you even here?!"

You can't believe it! Your ex had to be here of all places!

"I did want to say hi but now you're just getting all worked up over abit of teasing, you're still so sensative."

"Wow, forever the gaslighting cunt, I'm really not surprised you haven't changed but you got real balls to be so public about how much of a shitty person you are."

Beel was propped up on the mattress, happily watching you verbally destroy your ex

"you're just a bitch as always-"

"hold on, I'm just teasing - no need to get all angry about it."

He snickered whilst you smirked, coping the same tone your ex used

"Ah~ I know you, they told me about you, you're the ex that slipped and fell into the pool full of sick, I've been laughing about that for months."

"you-! I can't believe you'd talk about me so much, have you really moved on?"

"they told him one story, calm down, is this what you do now that you're single? terrorise couples in mattress store?"

They tried to bark back but he cut them off

"You know...I know plenty of ways to suffocate a human and I wouldn't even have to put a single finger on you, unless you want to see what I can do to your mind, I'd turn around and bother someone else."

They stared at him in horror, seeing you both just look down at them, enjoying their struggle for words

"you're both little shits, I hope you're miserable."

"and I hope you get the hell out of my face before I decide to stop being nice."

His eyes glowed as mist formed at his fingers, unnoticeable to anyone else around you

Your ex winced, a choked noise escaping them

They surprised you by being smart for once, turning around and storming away

"Are you miserable, belphie?"

"only when you're not around."

[retroellie]

Ellie Williams as a mom

Summary: Ellie and Joel daughter!reader as moms <3

A/N: I’m not done with requests but this was in my head so i had to do it :)  Also sorry i haven’t been active, i have literally had no motivation at all lmao. 

Warnings: Mentions of NSFW, mentions of miscarriage (not really but just incase) 

Word count: 1.5K 

- When you found out you were pregnant, oh my lord she was so excited. (Lets just say y’all were planning it so it’s not like the dina situation) 

-You guys keep in on the down low for a minute just so you know your pregnant and your not gonna lose the baby

-It literally eats her up inside cause she wants to show you off

-Once you get past like 3 months, you can’t really hide it anymore so the first person you tell is your dad (Joel) 

-Joel is so happy oml he could cry 

-Than slowly everyone finds out, everyone loved you and ellie so this baby wasn’t just yours it was the community’s 

-Everyone was happy for the two of you 

-Ellie was the most excited though, she loved every single thing about you being pregnant 

-She would caress your belly, giving it soft kisses while you tried to take a nap 

-She would talk to your little belly too<3 

-”Hey kiddo, it’s your mom. Well your other mom, hey i wonder how that would work?? Will they call us both mom.” 

-”You know, you're gonna have the coolest family. You got your Granddaddy Joel, the coolest man ever. You have your momma, just like her daddy the coolest most badass woman you’ll ever meet.” 

-”One day, when you get older. I’m gonna take you to the moon with me and of course your momma’s gonna come with us.”

-Everything you need she gets you, she wants to spoil both of her babies

-She loves seeing you pregnant but she hates the effects it has on you 

-Your really tired all the time, your feet swell up sometimes, and the stomach aches you get 

-Around 4 or 5 months you decide to get the farmhouse, y’all want your own space with each other and the baby 

-Joel’s not really happy about it, he doesn’t want his babygirl to get hurt ya know 

-”You guys can build a little farmhouse here in jackson, you know where there’s protection and your families here.” 

-”Dad, I love it here but we need our own space. I want this kid to grow up independent, you never know what’s going to happen to me and ellie.” 

-Joel can’t fight with you, he just gives in because it’s what you want and he wants you to be happy

-Plus he will most definitely do country boy things there because he’s a whore for a good farm house 

-Moving out was hard for you, you had to say goodbye to your friends even if you do live literally 5 minutes from Jackson plus girl your pregnant; hormones are going crazy 

-The whole town help you guys get situated, imaging that is so cute idc 

-The pregnant sex in the farmhouse hits differently because your horny all the time and ellie just loves how sensitive you are because of the hormones

 -I swear y’all have sex at least 3 times a day

-Morning sex, after breakfast sex, lunch sex, ‘this painting is tiring’ sex, before and after dinner sex, shower sex, before bed sex 

-Maria is definitely planned a baby shower for y’all and she went full on out 

-Obviously babies are born in Jackson often but it’s not every day when the town leader’s niece is having a baby, so it’s huge 

-Joel gave you a crib he made, LORD IMMA CRY WAIT A MINUTE 

-Everyone pitches in to give y’all something 

-You and ellie decorate the nursery together, it’s definitely space themed idc 

-Joel and tommy help too :) Joel helps paint the crib he made with stars and rocket ships 

-It takes 5 days to complete but it’s so worth it

-The walls are painted dark blue with white little stars and your dad helped you make a little planet mobile 

-By the time your 7-8 months you guys are mostly comfortable and happy, the house is almost done and the farm is growing little by little 

-There’s still stuff to do around the house and it bothers you so you're always doing stuff 

-Ellie hates it because mama you are literally about to pop and you still out here carrying pieces of wood upstairs 

-”Baby, you gotta be careful or your gonna end up giving birth on the stairs” She jokes

 -”I’m not incapable of doing things baby, i’ll be fine; plus it’ll build her muscles up, she’ll be okay.” You joke back 

-Joel always told you that you were like your mom, never stopping even if your carrying another human in your stomach 

-Around the end of 8 months you had decided to stay back at Jackson because you could go into labor at any time 

-When you finally give birth it is the hardest thing you have ever done 

-Your family is in the room with you and ellie is holding your hand, even throughout the pain you're still cracking jokes with ellie 

-”Woah! Okay your hand is all the way inside” 

-”Womb tour *sobs*” 

-”If i go through all this pain for my baby to not like David bowie, i swear it’s going back in.” 

-Ellie is literally dying of laughter

-She holds you hand the entire time and she gives you soft kisses

-When the baby finally get here, there is a wave of relief that comes over you

-You stay in Jackson for a little bit for a week or 2 until you guys can go back home

-Ellie does literally everything you need her to do because your still healing 

-She will gladly stay in bed with you all day if you need her too 

-She willingly gets up in the middle of the night with the baby just to let you sleep and it hurts her heart when she has to wake you up to breastfeed 

-Speaking of breastfeeding, it makes her blush a little when your breastfeeding 

-She finds it so hot when you parent, idk how to explain it but it just gets her going 

-She also loves your mom bod, like your boobs got a lil more bigger and your hips got wider 

-She just loves you as a mom, like she thinks you are so hot 

-Ellie loves holding the baby, She’s so soft and small. She will never get over how pure she is 

-Ellie will show her around the farm, showing her all the animals and making her giggle 

-She’ll love to spend time with the baby, she’s such a good mommy i swear 

-She will definitely make time for you of course

-You guys don’t even have to smash to feel satisfied, just 20 minutes alone with each other would be good enough for the both of you 

-She loves when you call her mommy throughout the day 

-”Well good morning mommy” 

-”Does mommy wanna watch too.” 

-It’s so soft and cute, ugh she’s just a big ole softy now 

-Grandpa joel....that’s all

-He’d be such a good grandpa, he would spoil that child rotten 

-He would tell you how to parent, as annoying as it could be sometimes you appreciate the help because you honestly have no idea what you're doing sometimes 

-”You're patting her too softly, you have to do it a bit harder.” 

-”Dad... I know what i’m doing.” 

-”I know, i know. I just want her to get a good burp in, don’t we?” He said to the baby, smiling down at her 

-Joel definitely babysits all the time, like he will straight up ask you if he could take your kid in for the night 

-you and ellie let him, obviously y’all need a decent night of sleep and a night full of... you know ;)

-Ellie does yoga with you to help you get back in shape, ellie doesn’t think you need too because she loves your belly <3 (your beautiful babe :))

-But you just want to regulate your body back a little bit

-You guys and the baby would have little pinics together, they are so cute 

-You have pictures upon pictures of the baby on the wall, like literally your baby has taken over the house 

- Dancing with the baby obviously 

-Ellie would read to the baby a lot, there has been countless times when she had fallen asleep in the rocking chair with the baby 

-Ellie massages your boobies when they get sore from breastfeeding, she feels so bad :(

-Joel and Tommy make wooden toys for the baby, they get so excited to give them to the baby 

-Her room is filled with toys from them and she is literally still an infant lmao 

-OH AND TOMMY AS AN UNCLE(??) luckiest kid ever 

-You both do farm work with the baby or one of you does farm work while the other keeps the baby from crying 

-You guys won’t force your baby to play with barbies if she doesn’t want to 

-but when she gets old enough ellie plans on taking her out in the city for practice of killing infected 

-That scares you but your award you both have to prepare her for anything that happens 

-But besides that y’all are the cutest parents and ellie deserves to be happy with her daughter :)

-

-

-

(Credits to gif owner) 

[milliedazzledust]

War Rages On: part 3 (Bucky Barnes imagine)

Words: 2451

A/N: if you don’t want to cry, word of advice, don’t listen to anything remotely sad. I literally have 3 potential endings to this story, don’t know which one I’ll choose. Part 4 will have a lot more action and part 5 will probably be the last. Don’t forget to keep tissue close by while reading ;) - enjoy!

Previously: part 1 - part 2

When Bucky walked inside the building he had once lived in, he felt anxious. Not for himself, but for Y/N. During the two hours his ride in the air lasted, he envisioned a thousand possibilities this could play out. He needed her to make it out of there. Whatever he would have to endure, he’d agree to any kind of torture so long as she was safe. He knew he wouldn’t bear to add her name to his already long list of victims. Her only fault had been to fall in love with him. It couldn’t lead her to death, not like this, not because of him. He would never allow Hydra to break the only pieces left of him she had managed to glue back together. 

He knew the place by heart, so finding the cells where they would usually keep all their prisoners was fairly easy. Focused on the task, he was taking slow, measured breaths, watching every step he was making, avoiding the guards and the security cameras. He was silent. A ghost. He stopped at an entrance and sneaked out behind a soldier standing by the door. With a swift motion, he broke his neck and used his badge to access the place. Every movement felt rehearsed, a routine he had done a million times. He was mimicking the Winter Soldier with a perfection that still surprised him. He had almost reached the end of an endless hallway of empty cells when he stopped in his track. 

“Y/N” He whispered. There she was on the dirty floor, laying right in front of him. She wasn’t moving and from the distance, she looked pale. Too pale to be alive. 

“Y/N!” He repeated louder, not caring if anybody could hear him.  

She didn’t answer, didn’t even move an inch. He took a tentative step toward her, afraid of what he would see when he would open the door. He raised his metal arm and grabbed the lock, tearing it apart in a swift motion. The gesture was effortless, the power colossal. He didn’t even blinked, his eyes remaining always on her frail figure. He slowly bent down, trying to ignore the bruises visible through her half-torn shirt and the dried blood everywhere on the floor. He laid a fearful finger on her throat and waited a second. Finally, he released a shaky breath, relieved beyond measure when he felt her heartbeat. She was alive. 

Gently cupping her face, he brushed a hand against her cheek. His heart broke when he saw the shadow of a smile forming on her lips. 

“Bucky” She muttered in contentment.

“Yes, doll. I’m here” 

She didn’t open her eyes but tears slowly coursed their way down her face. Her lips parted and she leaned against his hand, inhaling deeply.

“We have to go, Y/N”

“You feel so real,” She answered. “Why do you feel so real ?”

She sounded upset, but not because of him. She could make out every detail, his scent, his voice, his touch. She wondered what kind of cruel game her subconscious was playing as she let his presence submerge her entirely. He raised his eyebrows in confusion, not understanding that, for her, there was no way he could be there. She had spent the last couple of days picturing him in her mind to ease the pain, to escape the torture. He was the fragment of her imagination keeping her alive. Her last shred of strength. 

“Am I dying ?” She murmured. “Is that why you’re here ?” 

“Y/N, open your eyes” He demanded with force.

“No..”

“C’mon, doll” 

“You’ll disappear. You always do” She sounded broken, on the verge of snapping, but kept them closed.

“I promise I won’t” His voice cracked with every word, overwhelmed by the pain and helplessness when she spoke.

She grabbed his wrist, holding it tightly as she slowly opened her eyes. Her whole body was shaking, afraid the soothing sensation of his skin on hers would be gone and she would only see an empty room once again. It took her a moment to realize he wouldn't disappear and she started sobbing. Her shaky hands cupped his face, wiping his own tears. He gently laid his forehead against hers and she didn’t waste any more time and hugged him. She clung to him, her only safe place, as the battle for the remaining shred of her sanity raged. She tried to catch her breath but it was useless. This was days of emotions bottled up to survive, days of dreaming she could return to him. 

“We’re gonna be okay” He kept saying, holding her tightly.

“Bucky …” She choked in despair. This was the safest she had felt in days. 

“I’m here, doll”

He swallowed and blinked a couple of times, trying to stay strong and not break down. 

“We have to hurry, Y/N” He reminded her after a while. 

His voice seemed to bring her back to reality and she suddenly sat up, ignoring the dizziness and the pain it instantly ignited in her body.

“No, no, no, you have to leave!” She started begging, furiously shaking her head and clenched his shirt in desperation. “You can’t be here! You can’t! Please … Please go ” 

“Y/N…”

“You don’t understand, they … they want you, Bucky. They’re using me to get to you” She put some distance between them and pushed him away when he tried to get closer. “You have to go”

“Not without you” 

“You’re not listening!” She replied, frustrated.

“I am! And I am telling you i’m not leaving without you!” 

He stood up and helped her do the same. She couldn’t hold on her own, too weak and tired. She pressed her hands on his shoulders to steady herself and his metal arm circled her waist.

“I’m taking you home” 

“I don’t think so” A voice with a thick accent replied behind him. 

The former assassin cursed under his breath and was quick to react. He pushed Y/N behind him, hiding her wounded body from the intruder. Suddenly on high alert, he stared at the man he once knew, a man hired by Hydra with the sole purpose of creating new super soldiers. He was the brain behind the Winter Soldier program. The Sergeant subconsciously grabbed the woman by her hip, bringing her as close to him as possible.

“Dr.Faustus” He greeted him without sympathy.

“At last we are reunited, soldier”

Bucky clenched his jaw so tight his veins were now visible. In all the time he had spent away from Hydra, he never thought he would come face to face with the doctor ever again. All their encounters had been turned into a distant memory, another one of his nightmares. The Sergeant was unexpectedly conflicted, like two parts of him smashing against each other for the first time, two very different men colliding together without his consent. The broken one felt scared, powerless, becoming once again a victim, while the assassin was already on the lookout, trying to find his way out of there. 

Y/N could feel it. Hidden behind him, she laid her forehead on his back, defeated. His muscles were tensed under the pressure of his emotions and his grip on her hip tightened. She couldn’t contain her terror and silently cried. How could she save him now that they had him back ? What could she do when her body was in no shape to fight ? 

“I wouldn’t advise trying to escape” The man spoke. 

“You know I don’t back down without a fight” Bucky replied, eyeing the three agents surrounding the doctor. They were outnumbered. 

“You might want to reconsider this time” He smirked viciously. 

He made a step toward the couple, moving like a snake reading to suffocate its prey by strengthening its hold around their neck.

“Before you think about taking them down,” Hydra’s doctor began, pointing at the agents next to him “You should know she won’t survive. You see, the girl serves no purpose anymore. She was a mean to an end and she played her part perfectly. She got you right where we wanted you to be, up against a wall”

Bucky gritted his teeth in silent fury. 

“I’m assuming she means a great deal to you, soldat” He sniggered irritatingly. He seemed to enjoy the emotional torture. “Now the real question is, how far are you willing to take this to save her life?”

Bucky looked around him and just felt a rage he couldn’t explain, a will to survive he never had before. Y/N grabbed the hand on her hip, entwining their fingers, and he closed his eyes. For a short instant, he held onto that comforting sensation, the sense of home she could bring to him by the simplest touch. He remembered the day they met, the exact moment he had fallen in love with her and the day they had promised forever to each other. He had a collection of precious memories they had built, engraved in his heart, and each one of them had the power to lessen his pain and lighten the weight on his shoulders. They needed more time to create their magic, to turn the horror they had endured into sparkles of distant memories. More time to live the life she had given back to him. But even more so, he needed her to survive.

“If I surrender myself, what guarantee do I have you’ll let her go ?” He offered. 

“No!” Y/N shouted, trying to move around Bucky. He didn’t have to use much effort to push her back. 

The doctor laughed, pleased his plan was working flawlessly. He turned on his heels and nodded at one of the soldiers next to him. The man took a phone out of his pocket and handed it to the former assassin. 

“What is this ?” Bucky questioned him, ignoring the pleading eyes of the woman begging him to not give in. 

“A message” Dr.Faustus replied. “With coordinates to this place, addressed to your Captain”

“This isn’t enough” 

“Press the button and send it yourself, then” 

Bucky gave him a wary look but took the phone nonetheless.

“I have a condition” He raised his eyes to stare at the man.

“You are in no position to negotiate, soldat”

“If you want me to follow you willingly, you will listen”

He pursed his lips in annoyance.

“Very well”

Bucky glanced back at his girlfriend, barely holding on her legs but still ready to kill him herself for what he was about to do.

“Let me have a moment with her” He pleaded, his voice deep with emotions.

“If you plan to escape …”

“I won’t” He cut him with a promise he would keep. 

He seemed to ponder his options for a moment before he gave a nod, accepting the request. Bucky dropped his head in defeat and pressed the button on the phone screen, sending the message to Steve and praying he would be there soon to get her out of there. 

The doctor turned around, gesturing to the other agents. In less than a minute, the room was empty and they were alone for what would probably be their last moment together. Bucky made a step toward the woman, knowing whatever time they had it would never be enough, but before he could do anything she gathered all the strength she had left and slapped him across the face. 

“I hate you!” She shouted, tears streaming down her face. “I hate you!”

He had expected her anger but her words still hurt him. He couldn’t begin to understand what she was feeling when his own heart was already being torn apart. 

“I had to…”

“Why didn’t you fight ?” She choked. “Why … why did you gave up on us ?”

“I gave up on me!” He told her in a deep voice, quickly closing the distance between them and cupping her face with force. “I’m choosing you over me”

“There is no me without you, Bucky” She muttered

“They don’t know the Winter Soldier is no longer here” He told her, trying to reassure her. “Whatever they have plan for me, it’s not gonna work”

“You don’t know that”

He laid his forehead on hers and a tear on his own rolled down his cheek.

“I know I need you to stay alive. I’ve lived on borrowed time long enough, Y/N, maybe …”

“Don’t you dare!” She cried, pushing him away. She struggled to stay on her feet but she couldn’t seem to care. “I swear to god, Bucky, I will kill you myself if you dare giving up now!”

“Steve is gonna find you and bring you back” He continued.

She shook her head and her eyes grew hot, the tears welling so quickly it was impossible to blink them away.

“Please don’t break my heart” She whispered.

His lips started trembling and he choked on a small but audible sob. Losses after losses, he had shed his own shade of tears, had been broken beyond measure and brought to hell. This was something else. Pain had a sweet taste of horror and self-hatred when it was felt under the power of all his sanity. 

“Let me hold you” He begged her.

Despite her anger, she didn’t waste any time and sank her face into his chest, letting him comfort both of them. He kept her close, looking down at her with gleaming eyes, wishing he never had to let go as he tightened his arms around her. 

“I love you” He spoke right next to her ear. “Like I’ve never thought it was possible to love. You picked up every pieces of me you could find and glued them back together. You built the man I am today from scratch with your kindness, your resilience and your love. You gave me a second chance, and a second life by your side, and what a life it has been. You are my world, my soul, but most importantly, my home. You will always have me, doll.”

“Don’t say goodbye like that” She muttered, an aching wound opening deep in her chest as the tears kept falling.

“This isn’t goodbye, I’ll make damn sure of that. Wherever you are is where I am too. That’s the deal we made, right ? I’m with you till the end of the line”

“This is the end of our line” She forced up the words. 

He raised her chin with a finger to look into her eyes and in that moment they kissed, together in each other's protective embrace. 

“It will never be”

“Promise me you’ll give them hell”

“I promise I’ll fight with everything I have”

Tag list below the cut

@briannareneea985​ - @bangtanxberm​  - @kissmyoops - @steve-is-daddy - @tylard-blog1 - @harprs - @animegirlgeeky

[vanillann]

five star conversation (r.p)

a/n: i’m going to cry, i can’t believe this is the last part of my favorite mini series:(

word count:

5 star conversation masterlist

place four: a 1 star gig

Flynn was always on top of things, she always was, but when she wasn’t you didn’t want to be lodged on a tour bus with her. She had already tried to throw her phone out the window, thank God Alex was looking for his hat and he caught it.

“They canceled our reservation! That must be illegal!”

I curled closer to Julie on her bed, letting my head rest on her shoulder every time Flynn let out a line of words. Reggie had a small panic attack with the yelling and Flynn tried to apologize but he didn’t blame, he was just as mad. So now the boy walked around the gas station we had stopped at and Julie and I let Flynn rant to us, she deserved it.

“Maybe another venue will host us,” Julie spoke up when Flynn didn’t yell again, her feet had finally stopped leaving marks in the carpet from pacing.

“I’ve already called two and they said their full, which had to be a lie, and plus how do we get the word out to the fans!” Flynn reached down and grabbed my knee, looking at me with sad eyes.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, waving it in the air while I sat up.

“I can always do a live and explain everything, why don’t you get some air,” I rubbed her shoulder, hoping she would take my advice, She had always given Reggie and Alex a heart attack and maybe going to the little nature walk across the street would be good, she could throw some rocks at some trees.

“I’ll get some air, yeah okay.”

She hurried off the bus, most likely to throw or kick rocks around the parking lot as Flynn never liked nature trails, it was nice to dream. If she dented this bus, we’ll be in debt.

“I can’t believe the venue canceled, it was our last gig on tour too!” Julie stood, looking down as I laid on her bunk and played with my phone in between my fingers.

I didn’t have to heart to tell the fans that we didn’t have a venue, that we wouldn’t have a final gig that was supposed to help release the new album coming out in five months.

It might have seemed small, we were blessed we even had this opportunity but it doesn’t change the fact that the one we're most excited for now was not happening.

“I’m going to find the boys, you coming?”

I closed my eyes, the boys. Everything they worked for was now becoming a nightmare, their idea of the perfect tour was ruined with falling through plans and missed opportunities.

“No, I need to go live and get the word out anyways,” I brushed off Julie, I didn’t have the heart to look any of them in the eye and tell them. To break their heart like everyone else in their life has, I just couldn’t do it. Julie waved behind her, I waited until the bus door shut before I let my head rollback.

I looked up at the bunk above me, Flynn’s, and let my mind wander over the past few months. They were perfect. Watching the fan scream their name for hours and they showed them in their element. The pictures that have been taken, many saved in my phone of the people I would always turn to. The edits that have been made have made me laugh harder than I imagined. Before this tour, nobody knew me, not that I ever cared, but I was behind the scenes. Now, the fans want me on the stage even if I don’t contribute to the music.

The music, the music had been show-stopping. Luke has been through four journals the past few months, writing back fast food drive in’s and doing stupid things with friends, that how the new album was coming out so fast. They were all so excited, Reggie was so excited to have one of his own songs featured as a single.

Reggie.

I let my hand run over my face, feeling the embarrassment from the incident at the fair. Watching his face move closer to mine, like a slow-motion picture and then ripped away when it was ripped in half. I took a minute and tried turning it into a moment, but it was never our moment. All the giggles and inside jokes hurt my chest and I thought back to the more recent time of the tour.

The motel, the way the light shines across his face and we wondered would the world cave in around. The feeling of his hand gripping my shirt because he always felt he had to be touching someone, he said it reminds him not to act so dead.

The diner when he gave me sweet little comments and took my fork from my lips. When we laughed about food poisoning and wondered would we ever be the same people after he played with my finger from across the table.

The fair where I gave him his first horse, then named it after an artist I introduced to him too. The way the wind passed his hair like he was made to run away from the world that had disappointed him more than once.

Every one-star establishment that made me believe could kiss my butt because now we had nothing. I didn’t need any more one-star buildings and places in my life. They’re just cheap and used for people who have no other options.

I sat up quickly, so quickly my head hit Flynn bunk.

No other options and cheap, exactly what someone in our situation could use right now. I let my phone spin between my fingers, unlocking it quickly before finding my search bar. We sat in the center of California, there had to be a one-star building somewhere near, one that we could turn into a dive bar or something. I smiled when a cheap bar popped up first, the area large enough to hold people and a small stage the band could work with.

Larry’s Bar was suddenly open for business. I dialed the number quickly, praying for the first time in a week something would go my way.

“L-larry’s Bar,” the woman sounded out of breath but I couldn’t care.

“Can we rent out your bar for a band?”

“Huh?”

“We need a venue for a band performance,” I realized why Flynn handled this and not me, this was out of my comfort zone.

“Are you sure you have-”

“Incredibly sure, yes or no?”

The line went silent, for a minute I thought she hung up on me and I considered crying with Reggie’s stuffed horse for a minute.

“The bar’s yours,” the lady's voice sounds light suddenly like we finally both got some good news. She definitely made my week without knowing.

“We’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” I didn’t wait for a response, rushing out of the tour bus to find someone. When I spotted everyone leaning against an ice machine outside the gas station with sad faces, my legs couldn’t stop me from rushing. I was happy Fylnn already kicked all the rock because otherwise, I would have felt.

“Guys!”

“Hey,” Alex's voice was sad and sincere, about to place a hand on my shoulder but I was bouncing on my toes.

“Whip off your sad faces, I got us a gig!”

*

“Just got off live, the fans are going to spread the information,” I yelled throughout the bar, and Luke and Jessie, the lady from the phone, moved the last few tables around the bar to make more room. Reggie and Alex did a quick soundcheck, we were currently renting amps and such from across the street since the owner's daughter was apparently a “Luke Girl”.

“Thank God, I would hope we don’t do all this work for nobody to show up” Alex called back as he did the classic comedy drum sound, giving a smile as he grabbed the extra drumstick from his back pocket.

I rolled my eyes, hopping off the stage to the small table at the door for Flynn and me to sit at for tickets and shirts, CD including, and a special code for the single Reggie was presenting tonight.

Luke and he had been fighting over it for ten minutes because Reggie changed the one he wanted to release last minute, it must have been good if Luke was letting him get away with it.

“I can’t believe you pulled this off,” Flynn sat in her seat with her arms crossed, people would be arriving as soon as possible and we were prepared for anything.

“What can I say,” I smiled brightly, taking the seat beside her.

“What made you think of this?”

I wanted to say, Reggie, that he almost always somehow inspired my best ideas but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Almost everyone knew of the almost kiss and how awkward things have been between us, so awkward I couldn’t say his name.

“Just about what happened at the motel, how we had to make it work.”

It wasn't a lie, that was for sure.

“Well, you saved the tour,” Flynn leaned over and squeezed my shoulders, her bucket hat titled as it smashed against my face. I hugged her back, smiling into her shoulder, I saved the tour.

*

The crowd screamed as the band finished off “Bright”, sweat dripping down them as they gave wide gestures.

“Thank you! Now it’s surprise time!” Julie passed the microphone to Luke, who looked so excited for his next set of words.

“The rumors about the new album are true,” he let the mic drop until the screams died down, “and we are here to show one of the singles for the said album that will drop on March 3rd at midnight!”

The crowd went crazy again and I laughed against Flynn, we both decided to stay in our chairs for the performance as we had an amazing view and we didn’t want to push through everyone. I was scared that everyone would see the one-star and turn the other way but every ticket that was bought came.

Reggie smiled as he took the stage, his bass switched for an acoustic, which confused me but I didn’t think much about it, I knew he liked to mess with it sometimes.

“Hi everybody!”

Reggie gave a peace sign to the crowd, the few girls who wore Reggie’s face on their shirt screamed at the top of their lungs.

“This is a song I wrote a few weeks ago on tour called “Five Star conversation.”

I looked over my shoulder at Flynn, her eyes wide as she watched Reggie get situated on his stool in front of the mic.

“What song is this?”

“Uhm, this one?”

All she did was point and I decided to go back and watch him play. I could always ask later, I’d have to make merch with it anyways.

“Dingy bathrooms and motel floors, I’d never wanted you more than right now,” Reggie's voice came out rough as his voice played with the melody just right. His finger-picked at the string and I was shocked by the slow melody. This definitely wasn’t a song I’d heard.

“The city lights across your face, I swear you fell from grace. The world around me seemed to disappear the second you spoke,” that when it happened, the moment he turned his head. He looked in my eye, the words rooting themselves in my chest, tattooed across my heart.

“Our five-star conversations were softer than the pillows beneath me, I wish you could have really seen me.”

I felt myself chew on my bottom lip, feeling my eyes turn to me as his attention never left my face. He was watching me, the same way he had in every other one-star establishment, but this felt different.

“Oh, you wouldn’t know the five-star conversation I had with your soul.” The medley rang out, Julie’s soft humming joined in behind and I wondered how anyone could focus.

How could anyone think straight when someone was looking so adoring under the flashing light of a cheap bar that smelt like feet?

How could I pay attention while he looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky when he hung the moon?

“Crappy food and screaming doors, I wonder if you knew of your own grace!” His word rang back in my eye, like a bug that wouldn’t quite go away, not that I would ever want this to stop.

But it had to stop because I was suddenly the center of attention and I couldn’t handle it. I couldn't know the world more than I did. But I was rooted in place watching the boy I had fallen so hard for a look at me with his puppy eyes and wonder where we would stand after this.

“Don’t let me lose our five-star conversation in a one-star world after all,” he strummed the last bit of the song, I barely processed half the word before I let my legs go. I was walking somewhere, wherever my feet would allow me to go. I was outside, the brick wall of the bar brought me back to reality.

The same reality where I didn’t think boys wrote songs that sweet and they didn’t look at you like that. They didn’t look at you like you spun gold strings and gave them pretty smiles, but he did.

He always did, he always looked at me like I belonged next to him saving tours and making horrible plans. He looked at me like I could be his muse for the rest of his life, of death is more appropriate. He looked at me as if I was more than his because I wasn’t his, I was myself and that’s all he wanted.

He was in love with me, the same person from the motel, the same person for the diner, the same person from the fair.

I was the five-star person in the world star world, I was the extra star he was always looking for.

“(Y/N)!”

As soon as I watched his body slide out the door of the bar, I walked to him. I didn’t realize how far I walked until he started rambling.

“I’m sorry to put you on the spot but I couldn’t stop-”

My hand gripped the thin jacket material, not thinking twice and my lips smashed against his with force. He fell back slightly, his hand grabbing my wrist for a second before he was running them over my shoulder and down to my elbows. He pulled me closer if that was possible, and I let my hand touch over his heart.

The heart that wanted me, Reggie wanted me. There were girls who would wear his face on a shirt and he wanted the person that made those shirts.

I was his five stars, even if I loved him in every one-star and three-star establishment.

I felt myself pull away, our forehead resting on one another and I took a shaky breath.

“I’d give that kiss two stars.”

He smiled down at me, raising his eyebrows and letting his tongue run over the side of his cheek with a smirk.

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll make it five stars.”

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[vslattae]

ALL I COULD EVER WANT

ɪᴛ ᴀʟʟ sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇᴅ ʙᴄ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴋᴘᴏᴘ ɪᴅᴏʟ...ʙᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ɴᴏᴛɪᴄᴇᴅ ʜᴏᴡ ᴏɴᴇ ᴏғ ʜɪs ɢʀᴏᴜᴘᴍᴀᴛᴇs ᴘᴀʏᴇᴅ ᴀᴛᴛᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ..

Paring: Taehyung x Reader

Warnings: ...tae kisses y/n but then something happens.., slight fluff, a little angst, taehyung finally isn’t a dick for a phat second,...and yeahhh new character yes.

ᴀʟʟ ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ɢᴏ ᴛᴏ ᴠsʟᴀᴛᴛᴀᴇ

UNEDITED. i just wanted to throw a curve ball :)

Chapter 3. Well now what..

———————————————————————

you’ve been in the car for a little over an hour or two...Jk took over driving while jin and haru made themselves comfortable in the middle row of jins mini van rented by the company. Which left you and Tae in the very back.

You of course were struggling to sleep and even attempting to get comfortable laying your head against the window and thinking about the messages between you and haru before you left. See...you telling taehyung your feelings is like letting him win. Sure he was heavily a dumbass but you as time flew by you noticed how much he payed attention to you..it’s like he can read your mind half of the time.

Behind all those snarky remarks and dreading the times taehyung flirted with you, it was drastically easy for everyone else to notice how much you really didn’t hate Tae.

Taehyung noticed how uncomfortable you were only because you kept mumbling and tossing and turning in your sleep. So common curiosity he carefully picked your head up off the window and placed it on his shoulder so you could peacefully fall asleep.

“thank you tae” you whispered. He was shocked that you weren’t actually sleeping yet. He of all people other than your brother and Haru knew you were a deep sleeper among everyone else. See...sometimes Taehyung wished you spent more time with him so this lovely 5-6 hour drive in the middle of the night was the closest he ever got to you.

“ of course y/n, sleep you need it” he placed his cheek on the top of your head and finally drifted to sleep too until...jungkook pulled over behind namjoons car because everyone needed a bathroom break and jimin was hungry.

The lights came on and you arose from the short nap...only to find your head on Taes lap his arm around your small petite body and of course he was still sleeping. The company must have overworked him for the last comeback.

Glancing as his sleeping figure, you finally noticed how undoubtedly attractive he was. His long lashes, soft lips that were partially opened and his soft curly brown hair that almost overflowed his face, the quiet snores that came from him. Flawless was the only word you could think of...until he woke up stretching his arms up and yawning then to look down to catch you starry eyed looking at him.

“ is there something on my face? Am I drooling?” he jolted and then in return you chuckled. “ No..i Just thought you had something in your hair” you lied smoothingly more than you had hoped.

He gave you that boxy smile as everyone hopped out to stretch there legs. “ Oh my god it’s freezing” you shivered running to the warm body that stood in front of you which just so happened to be tae. It was about 10 pm and you were close to the water so you guess that made the weather change.

Everyone walked around taking pictures of the moon and the stars but you and tae were the only ones closed in by the cars. Then that was when you knew...you promised haru that you’d tell tae how you felt and now was the time to do it. sure it seemed rushed but...if you didn’t tell him now you were probably never gonna let it out.

Focusing back on the subject and focusing your eyes on the only person around you he just stood still staring at your lips... “ Tae why are you staring at me like that” you questioned him “pretty” was the only word that came from his mouth as he walked towards you pulling you in. His lips ghosted yours like he was hesitating whether or not this was good idea but then again his lips swooped down and mashed against yours.

Magical. You swear on your life no one has ever kissed you like Tae did..he was so soft and gently barely using any tongue just him and you pushed against each other kissing gently. Until his phone rang. Disconnecting from the kiss made you a little woozy but he pulled his phone out answered the call and pressed it to his ear.

“ oh shit..” he hung up both of you spinning around to only find...Ryujii. Taehyung ex...and his first love. He was so whipped for this girl when you first met but of course she was just an occasional girl that hung out with the boys but now she was back..

Everyone now turning back to get in the cars and now seeing this girl that taehyung used to mess with. You of course told yourself that you should have known better...so as always you ran to hug your brother and stand by yoongi.

“ oh hey everyone...my uh friends left me here and like i need to a ride to the closest town.” she smiled hooking her arm around taes. “ it’s okay if we drop her off right hyung?” Tae glanced at jin and of course he nodded.

Haru noted how quiet you were. you should have been laughing and cracking jokes but you just stood there emotionless. “ Excuse me guys i think y/n is sick give me a moment” haru chuckled and pulled you away from the crowd.

“ what’s wrong what happened?” her eyes widening.. “ are you sick? or like what happened to y/n is she possessed hellooooo” she waved her hand in front of your face. “....we kissed” you spit out. “ but now haru came back and you know how she is and i can’t keeping playing this stupid game haru...i wanna be like you and jin but obviously that’s never gonna happen because guys that Tae don’t go after girls like me.” you stood there fighting the feeling not to cry.

“ y/n hold up. you guys kissed like actually kissed kissed?” Her eyes frantically scanning your face. “ yeah..( you wiped your face a little )...yeah we kissed but it meant nothing and this is stupid..i just want to get to where we’re going and have a nice time with my brother.” you managed to get out laughing a little. “ okayy...i’m gonna ask if jimin if the car is open for you to ride in there okay? I don’t wanna have to pull you out of a police car.” She laughed as you nodded.

Jungkook came looking for you and haru hoping you two didn’t get kidnapped. “ my gosh y/n...are you alright? what’s going on.” he asked tilting his head to the side. “ oh nothing y/n is gonna ride with joon and them she wants to actually sleep but you know how loud jin snores..” haru covering for you as you nodded frantically. “Jins car is weird and i usually ride with yoongi and them” you spat out walking back to the others.

“ so joon..is okay if y/n rides with you guys?” haru looked at namjoon. “ yeah yeah of course she’s gonna have to sit in between yoongi and jhope. you know how jimin is” he laughed. “ wait why isn’t y/n riding with us?” Tae asked puzzled. “ because we’re taking ryujii and there’s no room.” haru looked at tae trying so hard not to smash his face through the window.

Finally back on the road jimin and everyone else started to question you. “ so you wanna tell us the REAL reason why you decided to ride with us? I thought you and tae sorted shit out?” Jimin asked. “ hahaha that’s what i thought to until his ex girlfriend came out of nowhere. He kissed me out of nowhere and bam just my luck..shit” you covered your mouth and now everyone’s eyes were on you. You covered your face in yoongis shoulder.

“ YOU GUYS KISSED?” Jimin screamed making namjoon swerve a little he apologized and sank back down. “ yeah... i mean we all knew you had a thing for taehyung but we didn’t think it get that far after you shut him out every time.” Namjoon snickers.

“ Can you guys please not be a dick for one second..i’m going through a crisis and i’d like to throw tae out of a window god i’m so stupid.” you manage to get out but as always everyone comforted you. “y/n relax...everything is gonna be fine you know she cheated on tae and he’s never gonna go back to her.” jhope stated. “ oh but you guys don’t remember her like a month ago sneaking out at like 4 in morning?” Jimin questioned. “ what the fuck..guys i think i have to go to the hospital..i might have to get checked for stds.” you chuckled out.

“ chill taehyung clean as far as we know but anyways he kissed you? like in a rough dom kind of way orrr” jimin poked your cheek and smiled. “ ew gross no he kissed me like i was the last thing on earth and now i’m confused and like at this point i’m throwing away my feelings for tae because i obviously can’t handle this type of shit” you poked jimins cheek and pouted.

“ you’ll be fine everything is gonna clear up and you’ll have your chance with tae...hopefully” yoongi inputted. “ yes but for nowwww we’re gonna use y/n as our pillow and sleeeep night everyone” jhope layed his head on your shoulder and you layed your head on yoongis and finally drifted to sleep forgetting everything that happened in the last hour and half.

———————————————————————

an: welp. taes kind of fucked up and bam you got drama now so yay :) btw...you know that, that kiss meant everything to y/n and she’s hurt but she’s bottling it up cause she’s bad like that :) Until next chapter flowers 🌸

BTW lmk if you wanna be in the taglist :)

TAGLIST :

@hantaev @strawverryxmilktae

[copias-thrall]

Cause I'm Young and I'm Here and So Beautiful

A look into the rise and fall of Mary Goore's flash-in-the-pan modeling career.

~12.5K Mary Goore/Reader *drug/alcohol use; mentions of past child abuse; brief homelessness; plot no porn; POV shift*

This fic was inspired by and is very loosely based on Aurelio Voltaire's early days in NYC in the 90s, though I have set it in Boston in the early aughts. 😊

Many thanks to the artists who did commissions for this! 🥰

One Way Streets

Mary stepped off the regional rail and gripped his backpack. He had $72.57 in cash rolled into his socks and a give-em-hell attitude.

When he’d packed his bag the night before, he wasn’t even sure if he’d go through with it, but he couldn’t stand being home anymore. Some of his friends had told him he was crazy.

"Three more months, dude. You got this. Just finish high school, then bounce."

But they didn’t have to live with his dad and the step-monster. Every day was a new indignity. Having them bitch about his music and his style was one thing—that he could have dealt with—but everything else had just kind of…escalated.

Now that the kiddies were older, they’d turned into gremlins. They’d somehow sensed that Mary wasn’t their beloved older brother—he was some sort of half other. They’d stopped questioning why "mom was so mean" to him and had accepted that she was because there was something wrong with Mary. They realized they could be little shits and blame everything on him.

And dad just didn’t care. He’d throw up his hands and say, "I have to live with her"—as if Mary wasn’t in the same boat.

Dad hadn’t stopped her when—in a rage—she’d smashed every single vinyl album Mary had owned because the twins ruined her nice tablecloth. He’d shrugged when she cut all Mary's guitar strings so he couldn’t play "the devil’s music." He’d held Mary back when she took a match and burned all his secret stuff that Mary kept under his bed—action figures, books, guitar mags, journals—in the backyard because he got detention for smoking. He hadn’t said a word when the police showed up after she came at Mary with scissors because he’d dyed his hair black and he’d pushed her away before she could scalp him.

Mary thought for sure he was going to get carted off to jail as she screamed about him terrorizing the family and being afraid he was going to kill her sons in their sleep, but the officers had just looked at her bored and told her being a teenager wasn’t a crime.

So, no: Mary couldn’t wait 3 more months.

He’d scraped together what money he had left from his secret shifts working as a busboy under the table at a local dive downtown, packed his backpack with the essentials, and walked the 5 miles to the train station instead of going to school.

Eighteen was 10 weeks away. He could fudge it for a few months, especially since he could already get away without using his fake ID to get into shows most of the time.

So, to the big city it was.

He shifted his weight and tried to pretend that he belonged here in Boston, but actually facing the busy streets was a lot different from looking at a bird’s-eye view map. He had a printout in his pocket, but he didn’t want to look like a doe-eyed tourist. So he set off down the seemingly labyrinthine streets in the direction he could have sworn was the correct one.

It wasn't.

When he came out a side alley into Faneuil Hall, he almost wondered if he'd gone through a fairy portal, since he was clear on the other side of town. Begrudgingly, he checked his creased map, and set out once more.

And ended up spit out by the State building.

Finding the hostel turned into a fraught adventure, and he got turned around several times more. When he tried to ask for directions, most people pushed past him while one lady shoved $5 at him. He used the cash to buy a hotdog, and it was the vendor who ultimately gave him directions in his thick, Southie accent.

Of course, making it to the hostel ended up being just part one. The rates were almost double what it stated online ("Sorry, honey—that site hasn’t been upgraded since the 90s."), and two nights were practically all his savings. Mary had thought he’d at least have a couple of days to find a job, not 36hrs.

He left the hostel, wondering for the first time if maybe he shouldn’t go back home…but he decided it was a nice day out. Surely there was some place he could hunker down. Just for the night.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the cops at every fucking turn telling him to move along. And any place out of line-of-sight seemed to already be inhabited.

He finally found a place behind some rocks in the Seaport where he didn’t think he’d be murdered in his sleep, curled around his backpack, and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Mary woke up damp from the dew and the morning sun streaming into his eyes. The birds were creating an awful racket, but Mary guessed it was as good an alarm clock as any.

He ran his fingers through his bird's nest of hair, and he made his way back to the South Station. The men’s room may have smelled like a sewage treatment plant, but at least it was free. He had expected it to be mostly empty at the crack of dawn, but it was full of commuters making that last run to the head before they had to take the train 2hrs out of the city for work.

And it was a sight: a bunch of suits with their fancy lattes washing their hands, and Mary in the corner trying to surreptitiously wipe down with paper towels under his Misfits t-shirt and his shredded jeans. At school, he’d have probably gotten into several altercations by now—no one would have let him just turn into Mary Goore without a fight—but this was Boston, and no one gave him more than a cursory glance.

Just another college kid.

It emboldened Mary to go full-out in the kind of way he had only done when going out to the punk shows downtown at night: kohl all the way around his eyes, and some on his cheekbones; mascara because his lashes are long and thick, and he knows it (his dad had said it made him look hard, and Mary had sneered that maybe that was what he’d been going for. But maybe it had been because he’d liked the way it had made his green eyes pop.); a smear of the step-monster’s fanciest matte lipstick on his full lips; and airplane glue in his hair to give it that lift.

He made a kissy face at himself in the mirror, and headed back out.

It was a nice Spring day—almost boiling in the direct sun—and it tempted Mary to wear only his battle vest, but even he kind of figured applying to jobs half dressed was a mistake.

He walked all over the city, trying not to get lost, looking for any kind of work—dishwasher, busboy, barback—but all he had to show for it was blistered feet and a raging appetite. The only good part of the day was that he noted any restaurant or bakery that looked like it might toss perfectly good food at the end of the day.

He and his friends had become experts at dumpster diving in his podunk town, and he felt confident that he had a good feel for a jackpot. Mary staked out a bakery and was rewarded with a find of "old" bagels. He shoved as many as he could into the nooks and crannies of his backpack before slinking off to the Commons to inhale at least two of them.

Cold, stale dough never tasted so good.

He watched the tourists and the professionals walk by in ones and in groups while he ran his bare feet through the grass. Some laughed with each other as they sauntered down the path while others seemed singularly intent on their ultimate destination. A pack of dogs ran and played with each other as their owners looked on fondly, and nearby the baseball diamond hosted a casual game.

Mary counted his lucky stars that his first week in Boston was April at its kindest—always mild during the day, even when it turned cloudy, and a few times even downright warm. The nights turned chilly, though, and it had Mary in more layers than an onion. If the birds or damp didn't wake him, his butt cramps from being curled in a tight ball all night did.

He spent those days walking around the city proper looking for work. He wasn't adventurous enough to make the leap across the bridges to Cambridge just yet, but his travels gave him a good sense on how the different sections of Boston connected—and showed him potential places to crash at night. He didn't even mind living off day-old garbage food and drinking from bubblers (he'd bought a water for the express purpose of reusing the bottle), but the barren wasteland that seemed to be the job market was beginning to weigh on him.

At home, he could always find a shit job if he was willing to put up with shit hours and ridiculous requests. Here, though, Mary was just one of many desperate people willing to do desperate work.

And he didn’t look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

@dipendancesld

Hashtag WTF

I’m scrolling through Insta on the T, and I’m way down the rabbit hole of hashtags. New content was at a minimum this morning (how can I follow accounts in triple digits and only see the same 4 posts?!), so I’d started with some art tags and ended up where I usually end up—trolling social media for blurry pictures of my boy.

His band has been a local staple for years—or at least that’s what he told me on our first date. I had just moved from New York after a nasty breakup, ready to start fresh, and I’d seen him at a coffee shop hanging posters for his next show in his leather jacket, asymmetrical Metallica crop top, and stomping boots.

Fresh had never looked so good.

Then, a few months back, an online publication had featured his band in the year’s 50 best bands "you’ve never heard of," and now the band's starting to gain traction.

He’s starting to gain traction.

Finding the new online content of him first has become a game the two of us play. We had to stop counting images posted from the popular fan accounts because Mary's now acquaintances with most of them, and I said it was hardly fair to snipe me that way. Mary had pouted—but it was to cover up his grin. So now we troll for the pictures of his latest gig or at his favorite haunts from either his  casual fans or one of his new ones. I even have a whole range of hashtag typos saved if I really want to triumph, since Mary just doesn't have the attention span.

I usually win, though, by virtue of not keeping Rockstar Hours—and because Mary doesn’t have a smartphone. Mary delights in spending the wee hours while I'm sleeping finding new content, and I'll often wake to one he's pulled up on my laptop and a "suck it" sticky note stuck to my monitor.

(But I’m reigning supreme.)

There’s a thirst tag I sometimes comb through (for reasons), and today I’m desperate for that morning serotonin to keep me from dozing off, which is why I stumble across a particularly convincing cosplayer in some…risqué poses and outfits.

The dude is really good, and I have to admit he really does have Mary’s mannerisms down pat. He’s younger and a little skinnier than Mary is now, but his facial expressions are on point. I zoom in to see the contouring technique because he's using one of those filters to make it look old…and that’s when I sense something off. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but usually there’s an uncanny valley to his serious cosplayers, and this dude looks so real. He’s even 100% accurate with the mole placement, which is something I never see.

My heart does a flip-flop.

Is that…actually Mary?

Foundling

Mary's sixth night in the city, it rained. It was more of a brief Spring shower, but it was still enough to soak him and his backpack through. He shivered through the early morning hours until the sun came up, then he made his way to the Commons to lay his belongings—and himself—out into the sun to dry.

By midday, he had a slight sunburn across his nose, but most of his things were dryish—though the food was a soggy lost cause. He cut his losses and decided to buy a sausage from the hotdog vendor, even if that meant he was down to $52.37 in his sock bank.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever eaten in his entire life (sometimes he still dreams of it), and he gobbled it down as he sat in the grass and watched the show of people pass by.

He could take today off from his job search.

Just another Groundhog Day of rejections.

A gaggle of kids about his age walked past, and he lit up when he saw them: studs and bright hair and cuffs and combat boots. They ran and shrieked and shoved at each other, and Mary had never felt such longing to be a part of something.

Not that nebulous feeling of "my world is out there somewhere," but "my world is right there if I can just get to it."

And he realized maybe he could.

These were his people.

Mary hopped off the bench and approached the boisterous group.

"Uh, hey…guys."

The pack stopped and looked him over, confused but not hostile.

"Oh hey, man" said a girl with green fins and a studded, leather jacket.

"Hey."

I have nowhere to go. Can I go with you?

"Sorry, I forgot your name."

"Oh, you don’t—"

A guy in a tight striped shirt, snake bites, and blue hair interrupted him.

"Shit, were you in my intro into film class last year?"

Mary was a high school dropout.

"Nah, dude. I’m new and shit."

…But he wasn’t stupid.

A curvy white goth with bleached blonde hair and a cream princess dress smiled at him.

"Aww, that’s rough, honey. If you think about it, they really ought to give transfers on-campus housing. It sucks to be so new and away from the action."

Mary nodded. "Yeah. Sucks."

"Well, we’re going to The Pit, wanna come?"

"If you guys don’t mind…"

"Fuck, the more the merrier!"

Mary smiled as they assimilated him into the group. He found out the goth’s name was Vanessa ("But call me Vanity."), green fins was Alexa ("Or Alex. I’m trying it out."), striped shirt was Billy, and the two other punks were Mandi (Manic Panic red) and Aaron (band tee, spiked collar).

No one laughed at him when he introduced himself as Mary or asked him why he had a girl’s name.

They took him onto the T at Charles MGH, and Mary marveled at the setting sun over the Charles River before the train ducked underground to barrel in Cambridge. At Harvard, they ushered him off the train and directly into The Pit, and Mary almost cried when he saw the pit rats there playing hacky sack, strumming guitars, and smoking cloves. Mary watched as his group high-fived, bumped chests, and hugged nearly everyone there before introducing him as if they’d known him for years.

He was shit at hacky sack, but he accepted a round on the guitar and shared a clove with a white girl who had a rat's nest of hair.

"Fuck their beauty stands," she said when she caught Mary staring.

Mary smiled and pointed to his own mess of hair. "Fuck ‘em," he repeated.

She cackled and handed him a brown bag with what he expected to be whiskey, but tasted like turpentine.

She laughed harder at his face as he coughed, and she pounded him on the back.

"Moonshine, dude. Lenny makes it in his bathtub."

"Which one is Lenny," Mary asked as he wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, he’s not here. He goes to MIT. We have a strict trade agreement—booze for pot. I’m Katie."

Head fuzzy, Mary had made out with her until Aaron tugged on his arm.

"Shit dude, we gotta go before the T closes. You live close to here?"

"Uh…"

"Aww, I think he got into Lenny’s moonshine," said Vanity. "If he’s a transfer, I bet he’s at some shithole in Allston. You in Allston, honey?"

Mary just nodded.

"All right then," said Alex, taking charge. "We’ll put him up tonight. There’s no way he’s gonna make it back to Allston by himself, and I’ll be fucked if I’m trekking out there without a BU party to crash."

Mary wobbled slightly as Alex took his arm in his and led him to the T.

"Ok, we gotta go now or we’ll all be hoofing it."

They took Mary back to their dorm by the Hatch Shell and signed him in as a guest.

"Is this ok?" Mary asked warily—he didn't want to get kicked out in the middle of the night.

Mandi patted him on the back.

"We do it all time. No one really gives a shit. Vegan Mick dropped out 2 semesters ago and they don’t even check for his ID."

That night, Mary slept in the common room on a lumpy couch that was half as long as he was.

It was heaven.

The next morning seemed like the end, and Mary slumped as Vanity to sign him out. For one brief day he'd been a part of something, and now it was back to Mary, party of one. But Vanity took one look at his face and asked if he wanted to get breakfast at the dining hall.

Of course, he wanted to…but he thought of the dwindling cash in sock bank and hesitated. Vanity, bless her, misread his trepidation.

"It's on me, sweetie. I know most transfers don’t opt in. Too expensive when it’s not bundled. No worries, I got a ton of points I don’t use."

Alex and Aaron were already half done with their food when Vanity and he joined them, and they looked on in amusement as Mary ate half the breakfast buffet.

When the subject of classes came up, he shrugged off questions.

"None this morning."

Alex narrowed her eyes at him.

"What year did you say you were?"

"Sophomore."

"Not a freshman?"

Mary shook his head. "I’m not a freshman."

She seemed about to ask another question, so Mary quickly changed the subject.

"I thought I’d spend the day applying for jobs. You guys know of any place that’s hiring?"

"No work study?"

"No."

"What kind of work you looking for?"

"Shit, anything. I’ll sweep the fucking floors."

They bandied about ideas, places for Mary to try, but no one had any leads. Too soon, some unknown gong had them scurrying to get to class.

Mary suddenly panicked.

"Hey, do you guys mind if I spend the night again? I mean…"

"Yeah, sure," said Vanity. "Aaron?"

"Yeah, man. Meet me after class and I'll swipe you in."

It apparently was a time-honored tradition, passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen, on gaming the guest system. Most kids used it to essentially move their significant others into their dorm rooms, but a handful every year used it to give haven to others who had questionable housing situations.

So, just like that, Mary had a place to rest his bones.

@dilfpassing

A Deeper Look

I’m so intent on scrolling through the comments on the grainy pics—which I'm sure now are actual scans—that I completely miss my stop, and I have to put my phone away so I can wheeze lightly jog my way to where I work as a receptionist at an alternative hair salon.

It’s really important that I start a good hour before we open so I can return any calls left on our voicemail first thing in case I can fit anyone in today. Which means I have to shelve my find for now, much to my irritation.

Mornings are super-busy because apparently there are some people in the world that like getting up with the sun and want everything done by noon. (June Cleaver’s salon lets me get away with a lot—like coming to work in denim short-shorts and ripped tights, free hair colors, and a snarky attitude—but late start times aren’t one of them.) I honestly don’t have room in my brain to obsess about the pictures because I’m too busy answering calls, making coffee, settling accounts, and giving the new customer spiel for the 57th time to a walk-in.

It’s just after midday, when Penny, the shampoo girl, collects my cash for the salon-wide sandwich run, and I finally have a moment to breathe. And obsess.

I take out my phone again, and I have to retrace my steps because of course the app has refreshed, which is why Sonia has the time to look over my shoulder.

"Missing dream boy’s dick so much you gotta spend your lunch hour ogling pics of him on the internet?"

I zoom in on the one of maybe!Mary in his underwear.

"Who does that look like to you?"

Sonia makes a guh sound in her throat and backs away.

"I don’t need to see your intimates!"

"That’s the thing! It’s not mine!"

"Your boy’s nudes get leaked??"

I wave my arms around.

"I don’t freakin’ know! They may not even be him. Fucking. C’mere and help me out!"

Sonia warily creeps back over, and so does Ryan, since all the yelling has attracted him.

The three of us peer over the phone as I scroll through the images again.

By the time Penny comes back with lunch, we’ve gone back and forth on who’s in the images—Mary or a fake—and I haven’t been able to do any actual research. The afternoon rush starts, and I have to table the whole thing again, having made no progress at all.

It isn’t until near-closing, when most of the other stylists have gone home—and it’s only June who does the post-work crowd—that I can really dig into the matter.

A deep dive and a couple of defunct, decade-old forums later, I find that what I took as an aspirational hashtag was actually the name of a zine called "Heroes."

There’s like, zero online trail about it—except for a few other grainy scans of other pages of articles, poetry, concert pictures, and art—but it seemed to be an early aughts missive for local underground culture and color.

It still doesn’t explain why Mary’s in there in various states of undress and poses.

Or why Mary has never said a word about it to me.

Stripped Bare

Mary settled into a sort of routine. He spent most days looking for a job—any job—with his backpack full of food from their dining hall. Most nights he rotated couches on different floors so the RAs didn’t notice that he basically lived there.

He made friends with Vegan Mick for about 5 seconds until Mary had eaten an entire Rotisserie chicken from 7-11 in front of him. Mick had launched into a whole spiel, and Mary had pointed out that Mick's jacket and Docs were made of leather. He’d only meant it as a joke—a callout in answer to a callout, like he'd do with his friends back home—but Vegan Mick had turned purple, then iced Mary out every time he saw him after that.

Oops.

The brief friendship had lasted long enough, however, for Mick to give Mary some tips and tricks of being homeless.

Homeless.

That had been a tough pill to swallow. Until Vegan Mick had put Mary’s situation like that, Mary had just thought of himself between places.

But it was true: he didn’t live anywhere. He skated by on the kindness of his new friends, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the ruse of "transfer student who didn’t like his shithole apartment and was too busy job searching to concentrate on classes."

He still spent a few nights a week finding an out-of-the-way place outside to hunker down in or huddling in with Katie and a few of the other gutter punks under their boxes in the corners of the T stations. He knew they would have been more than happy to make room, anyway, but Mary always emptied his backpack of all the pilfered dining hall food for distribution amongst them.

It honestly wasn't so terrible now that he had friends and a warm place to go on cold or rainy nights, but.

He needed an actual place to live. To afford an actual place to live, he needed a job. To get a job, he needed a place to live.

It seemed like a catch-22, and he began to despair that he’d never get ahead…until Mandi offered him a leg up.

Mary was sitting on the grass in the Commons in the shade, thinking that with summer coming up, maybe he could fudge it until the gang came back in September. There was always Katie and The Pit, and Mary was sure he could chip in somehow.

Mandi sat down next to him.

"I thought that mess of hair was you, Mare."

"Hey, Mandi. What’s kicks?"

"You still looking for a job?"

Mary put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Don’t remind me."

"You over 18?"

Just last week. But Mary hadn’t said, since they thought he was a Sophomore.

"Yeah."

"Wanna be at least 21?"

Mary grinned at her.

"That’s what my fake ID says."

She laughed, a tinkling thing.

"You got anything against strip clubs?"

Mary furrowed his brows at her.

"Uh…what’s the right answer here?"

She shoved him playfully.

"Do you want a job?"

"Yeah?"

"Then say no."

"No. No problems with strip clubs." He squinted at her. "Are they looking for male strippers?"

She laughed again.

"Definitely not." She canted her head at Mary. "I mean, you're very pretty, Mare. I could probably put you on as one of the girls…even with these triple As," she flicked playfully at his nipple, which had him grunting and batting at her, "but I was thinking more behind the scenes."

Mary held up his arm and made a weak muscle.

"I don’t think I’d be much of a bouncer, Mands."

"You said you’d wash dishes, sweep floors and shit, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the club I work at—"

"The club at you what now?"

Mandi gave him a strange look.

"Yeah. The strip club I work at."

Mary’s eyes bugged out.

"As a…waitress?"

"As a stripper, Mary. Duh." At his dumbfounded look she shook her head. "It’s kind of extra credit, as a dance major. I’m going to turn it into my thesis. Plus, I make hella bank."

She swept her arm across the park that made up her college "campus."

"How else do you think I can afford this rock-and-roll lifestyle? Not all of us are here on scholarship or mom and dad’s dime."

She tilted her head at him.

"I thought you’d get it."

When Mary didn't respond, she touched his shoulder.

"Mare. I know you don't go here."

"W-what…? I…"

He looked at her, wide-eyed as the blood drained from his face.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not gonna tell anybody. Not if you don't want me to."

Mary looked down. "Thanks." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You know that means I've got no address."

Mandi bumped his shoulder and waved his words away.

"A lot of the girls dance. Paddy is used to dorm rooms as addresses. You can use mine."

Mary looked at her, hoping he could convey every ounce of gratitude he was feeling.

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder.

"So, you up for it? Sweeping floors and bussing tables?" She leveled a look at him. "Cleaning up puke?"

Anything.

"Fuck, I’m desperate, Mands. I’ll hold their hair back if it means a paycheck."

"That’s the spirit!"

***

Mary was sure Patrick was part of the mob—or at least in cahoots. The guy had taken one look at Mary’s ID and had said, "But how old are you really?" and Mary had said, "Nineteen."

Patrick had thrown up his hands. "Well, you ain’t gonna be serving alcohol anyway, kid. Your job is to do whatever I tell you. Some asshole breaks a bottle, you clean up the glass so the girls don’t hurt themselves. Some idiot ralphs all over the toilet seat, you scrub the shit out of that fucker. A bachelor party leaves a table a hot mess, you better be out there clearing off the table for the next one, got it?"

Mary had nodded.

"You show up at 5 to help the girls set up the bar. You stay til whenever it takes to close down—but you only get paid 'til 2am—and you get an hour to eat, unpaid. You don’t bother the girls, and," Patrick had leaned in, "you don’t steal from me."

Mary had gulped and nodded emphatically.

Patrick had jabbed a finger at him. "That includes the booze. If I get fucked because some snot-nosed, underage kid is drinking with my good friends Jim and Johnnie, I’m gonna be very put out."

"Got it, sir."

"Don’t call me sir. I’m Paddy to my friends, so you can call me Patrick."

"Yes, Patrick."

Patrick had looked him over.

"You get paid as an independent contractor just like the girls, so you gotta deal with your own taxes, you got that? I’ll start you at $10 an hour."

Mary’s eyes had gone wide. Back home he was lucky to get 5.

"Ten…?"

Patrick had tilted his head again.

"No, you’re right, 12. Do a good job, and I’ll think about raising it to 15."

Mary had to physically stop his jaw from dropping.

"You do weeknights for now so if you fuck up it’s not that much of a problem. If you don’t fuck up and the girls don’t hate you, you can get weekends. Deal?"

Mary had sat up straighter. "Deal." He’d held his hand out, but Patrick had just looked at it until Mary pulled it back into his side.

"Ariel vouched for you, so I’m giving you a shot. Don’t make her regret it."

Mary had shaken his head as Patrick had handed him some forms to fill out.

"Come back at 4 tomorrow with these and we’ll get you started. Now, get out, I got shit to do."

Mary had taken the forms and skedaddled.

Mandi was outside waiting for him, all smiles.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah, but fuck—your boss is scary."

"Nah, he’s a teddy bear."

***

The job was awful.

The puke was an almost nightly occurrence, and by the end of the first week, little cuts covered Mary’s hands from the broken glass. The customers were loud, rowdy, and acted as if their mother was going to clean up after them.

Mary swore he would never get the beer smell out. It now lived in his soul.

One dude punched Mary and broke his nose for no reason Mary could tell before the bouncers dragged the guy away. The girls gave him some tampons to stop the bleeding, and Mary finished his shift.

Patrick paid Mary in cash at the end of every week with a "It’s your job to report that, not mine," and at the end of the month, Patrick bumped Mary up to $15/hr. He worked 5 days a week because, according to Patrick, "The Lord gave us a day of rest, and you get one day off per week."

Mary never reported a single cent to the IRS.

The girls loved him, and joked that Patrick had gotten them a pet. They showed him winged eyeliner and smokey eyes and how to contour. They guffawed when they watched him try out their shoes like a newborn deer. On slow nights, they tried to show him pole techniques.

He saw the gang less and less because by the time they were getting out of class, he was going into work, and when he was done work, they were crawling into bed. Fortunately, the desk sitters seemed to forget that he wasn’t an on-campus "student" and didn’t even bother signing him in anymore. There were a few sticklers, but Mary found that—while back home he was less than scum—here, he attracted all the right kinds of attention…and a smirk with the right compliment went a long way.

By the time their school year ended, Mary had saved up $1,000 (and he needed to transfer his money out of sock bank and into the ripped lining of his jacket).

Even though they didn't know just how much they'd saved him, Mary showed up on the last day as thanks to help them all move their stuff into family cars or rented trucks. They hugged him goodbye and said to ring them next semester.

Mandi bopped him on the nose and told him to keep his nose clean.

Mary took a sublet in Allston with 2 BU kids and a Berkley grad student. The "room" was a closed-in porch with a sleeping bag left by the last resident—but it was $400 a month until September, utilities included.

At first, Mary didn't know why the gang was so snobby about Allston, but the summer seemed to be one continual party. It didn't matter what day Mary got up, there were always broken beer bottles and stale beer on their front stoop, and the apartment had a designated watering can for washing away the vomit that dripped down from the top porches to their own.

But he took it in stride, and when he wasn’t at the strip club or sleeping, he was partying with the BU kids, or letting the Berkley grad show him better string fingering techniques.

Mary still tried to get out to The Pit with what groceries he could spare, but Katie had moved on with some of the others to do a protest tour with an activist street band that had come through town, and without her or the gang, it made Mary feel lonely.

By the end of the summer, Mary had saved up enough money for first, last, and security. He even had some left over to buy more than ramen and some new clothes. To Mary, it felt like a million dollars. He rented a garden-level apartment in the cheap part of Jamaica Plain for September 1st and spent that entire day with the BU dudes driving around in their rented truck for Allston Christmas’s best furniture finds.

Mary ended up with a mattress that he hoped on a wish and a prayer didn’t have bedbugs, a mismatched set of dishes, plastic drawers that were slightly warped, and a broken futon frame he swore he would fix. Throw in a few sets of slightly used string lights, and Mary’s cave felt downright homey.

When the gang got back, he simply told them he’d dropped out.

"Yeah, I just don’t think college is for me. Music’s my real passion, you know?"

Alex had groaned.

"I knew that Berkley kid was gonna be a bad influence on you."

Mary shrugged.

"My grades were shit anyway. But I’m still around, you know. The strip club’s only a block from campus."

"Because we saw you so much then," deadpanned Billy.

"Hey! Stop piling on Mary," said Vanity. "He’s following his path."

Mary shot her a wide smile.

"Thanks, Vanity."

Patrick finally gave him a little more leeway with his days off, and Mary started taking Saturday night to join the gang in Harvard Square for the shadow cast of Rocky Horror. One of Aaron’s classmates, Amber, was in it, and they all wanted to support her.

Mary felt that something again. That thing that told that this was his place and his people. This eclectic group who got up in front of strangers every week in their underwear for free enthralled Mary.

He and Amber bonded immediately, and Mary began going even without the gang. The cast welcomed him in as an honorary groupie, and Mary's friendship with the gang waned. There was still Mandi to cavort with at the strip club, but now when Mary wasn't there, he was at any one of the Rocky crew's apartments getting high and playing dress up.

"You’ve got such a Look, Mare," sighed Amber. "I’d kill for your cheekbones."

"I’d kill for your tits."

She slapped him playfully. "Don’t be gross."

"No, I’m serious. Someone once put it in my head that I'd be a hot chick."

The girls had giggled and proceeded to dress him up in bras and corsets with cutlets. They added a wig, and the glo-up surprised even Mary.

Still buzzed, they went out for girl’s night and hit up all the bars in Fenway and flirted their way to free shots from the dude bros before batting their falsies at bouncers to let them into the clubs ahead of the line and without the cover.

The cutlets eventually became a nuisance—and soon they were all flapping them about above their heads as they danced—but Mary had loved the feel of the lace and satin corsets against his skin.

When they’d all collapsed in a pile at the end of the night, Mary wondered if they’d tell him where to get some lingerie for himself.

***

By August, Mary was ready to quit the strip club.

He was tired of cut fingers (they were making it hard to play the guitar he’d bought), the drunks, and the sick everywhere. Now that he had a little cushion, he thought maybe he could at least find something with better hours.

Mandi had graduated and was well into a summer internship at Disney in hopes they’d bring her on as a dancer.

Alex had also graduated and moved out to LA to make it as a film editor.

Vanity and Aaron had started dating after finals, and they had moved in together in Cambridgeport for their last year.

Billy had stopped going to classes before dropping out altogether. No one seemed to know what happened, and when they called his home, his mother just said he was unavailable.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to stick around the Grid anymore, and it was a bitch of a commute back to his place if he wasn’t going to hang out with the Rocky crew. He landed a job at a record store that was walking distance to his apartment.

Patrick seemed surprisingly sad to see him go, saying, "Ah, the good ones smart up," and gave him a $500 bonus for not "fucking up."

Tim, one of the older Rocky people, turned out to not live too far from him, and when Mary started hanging out there, so did the party.

Now that Mary was no longer shackled by the strip club’s hours, his world opened a few more degrees. He spent his nights dressing up while he watched the cast rehearse. (When he showed them a move or two he learned from the women at the club, they tried to get him to do a guest star as Frank. But Mary had shaken his head and said that wasn’t the kind of performing he wanted to do.)

When they weren't rehearsing, they dragged Mary to TT The Bear’s, The Middle East, and The Milky Way Lounge for underground shows. They took him to fetish night at ManRay after a trip to Hubba Hubba for pleather and lingerie, and Mary made a lot of new friends.

Sometimes, Mary would show up to work straight off a night out in his club clothes, eyeliner smudged and lipstick smeared. It should have got him fired, but his boss just shrugged.

"I used to keep rockstar hours too."

Mary still wore all his old vestiges—his battle vest and his ripped jeans—it was just that now he sometimes added a corset and heels.

Wherever Katie was now, he hoped she knew he was still fucking their beauty standards.

ry.omen Insta

Answer Me This

I practically vibrate the entire way back to our place. I'm still trying to wring information out of the internet like it's too-wet clothes, but the only thing I accomplish is making myself motion sick on the bus, so I put my phone back in my pocket and breath through my nose.

When I get home, Mary is sprawled across the couch in his pjs with various limbs hanging over sides and edges as he watches some extreme sport show on my laptop.

I wonder if he just got up, but I see the start of dinner on the stove, so I decide not to snark at him.

"Hey," he says without looking up.

I am, however, gonna need some answers on "Heroes."

I gently close the laptop, and he meets my eyes.

"What?"

I climb onto the couch, and Mary’s limbs recede like vines to make room for me as I scroll through my phone to my photo app where I’ve saved screenshots.

"Lucy," I say in a terrible accent, "you have some ‘splaining to do!"

Mary squints at me and takes my phone, his expression morphing into one of surprise.

"Shit, babe. Where’d ya find these??"

"So they are you!"

He chuckles.

"Christ…I haven't thought about these in fucking years."

"Mind telling me what the fuck?" I ask, my hands on my hips.

I'm only half joking.

Mary grimaces at me.

"Ah."

"I'm gonna need more than that, mister."

He rubs the back of his neck.

"Fuck, you know those were hard times for me."

I know about his family, the homelessness. I know he tried out a lot until he found a life that fit. He'd given me the overviews with occasional anecdotes filled with names I never remembered.

But none of them included naughty pictures.

I worm my way under his arm.

"Yeah, I know, Mare."

His hand strokes down my arm.

"I mean, shit. I was kinda an asshole, you know?"

I wrap an arm around his chest.

"You're still kind of an asshole, Goore."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

When he doesn't say more, I poke him hard in the side.

"I’m literally dying here."

He laughs a little.

"Fine. But you gotta remember you asked."

Model Behavior

One day, Mary was walking down the street on his way to drinks with the new friends he'd made the weekend before. It was a good day. He wasn’t hungover as fuck, his makeup was only smudged artfully, and he was pretty sure he was going to get laid.

A guy in a leather jacket and tight jeans maybe a few years older than Mary stopped him on the street.

"Hey, man! I love your style."

Mary batted his eyelashes at him. "Thanks, dude."

"You ever think of dark modeling?"

Mary squinted his eyes at him.

"Dark what now?"

"You know—modeling but like," he gestured up and down Mary’s form, "for dark beauties. Show the world beauty isn’t cookie cutter."

"For like what? A website or some shit?"

The guy dug into his pocket, pulled out a card case, and handed one to Mary.

Heroes Greg Karson, Photographer/Web Design Butera School of Art

Actually, Mary had heard of this. It was a zine about the local happenings around town—concerts, art shows, parties, etc. There was a stack of them next to "Rrriot!" in the record shop. He’d flipped through one occasionally, mostly interested in the band reviews.

"We’re really on the lookout for anyone with the right look. You know, wear stuff you already own."

"So like a street fashion spread?"

"Well, we might do a little more with it, but—you know how it is. Most of the budget goes toward printing costs."

Mary perked up.

"Would I be paid?"

Greg laughed.

"Peanuts, my dude. But yeah. Even if it’s a T token. You interested, then?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Mind if I take a few test shots."

Mary smirked at Greg.

"How do you want me?"

"Just natural."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Mary arched his back and gave Greg his best snotty hipster face.

Greg dug out a digital camera from his carrying case and took a dozen or so pictures of Mary from different angles while telling him to turn this way or that.

Afterwards, the two of them huddled over the camera and scrolled through the shots.

"Aw yeah, this one. I love the attitude. The guys are gonna love it. You have a number where we can reach you?"

Mary gave him the number of the record shop. (His apartment had a phone, but he’d never gotten around to wanting to pay for service.)

Later, he and Amber looked up the Angelfire website on the back of the card. It was one page that contained the mission statement, bios of the creators, and locations to pick up the zine.

"Omigod—you’re gonna become a famous model, Mare!"

"Yeah, right. You know most of it ends up in the trash, right?"

But when Ben called, Mary said he was game. He directed Mary to a co-op in a converted warehouse in Dorchester, and Mary brought his favorite clothes in a borrowed duffle.

A girl in cat pajamas opened the door and pointed at a set of metal stairs with her cereal spoon.

On the second floor, Mary found Greg setting up a makeshift studio. A girl with multiple piercings and yarn dreads leaned against the wall in her black babydoll dress.

Mary sidled up to her.

"You here to model, too?"

She gave him an unimpressed once-over.

"I’m the art director, asshole."

Mary flushed hard as she turned to Greg.

"Couldn’t find one with brains?"

She turned back to Mary.

"I don’t know if you thought this would be a good way to meet chicks or what, dude. But I’m letting you know right now that I’m here on my day off to make sure this adheres to our aesthetic, so if you're not serious, fuck off."

Mary rubbed the back of his neck.

"Shit, sorry. I was expecting a dude named Ben."

She waved her hand in the air as if dispelling Ben.

"The Bens are morons. Good idea, terrible execution. I’m here to make sure we remain true to the idea of 'Heroes,' so don’t fuck up my shoot." She gave him a once over. "Christ. You have any experience?"

Greg turned from where he was testing the white balance.

"Angelique, stop harassing the talent. We get it, you have a degree from RISD."

Angelique snorted.

"As if I don't hear you going on and on about being a professional photographer. 'Hey, lemme shoot your portfolio, baby.' Whatever. As if we're not your only professional credit."

"Hey—you wanted a photographer for peanuts? You got me. You wanted models for peanuts? You got him."

Mary gave her his full snaggle-toothed grin.

"I take T tokens."

Angelique sighed, then pasted on a smile.

"Hi! So happy you’re here!" Her smile drooped. "You got your wardrobe in there?"

"Yeah."

Mary handed her the duffle, and she handed him release forms.

"Here: sign these"

She pawed through his offerings.

"Not bad, not bad." She pulled out a corset and his heeled boots. "We'll keep you in your jeans and have you wear your jacket over your corset. Cool?"

Cool.

The shoot was as professional as a shoot in a warehouse in what Mary was taking to usually be a living room could be. Angelique directed Greg with what she wanted. Greg called out positions and expressions for Mary to pose in.

It was surprisingly hard work, and by the end of a solid hour, his smirking lip was getting tired. Angelique and Greg scrolled through the shots, murmuring to themselves and nodding.

Mary waited—greeting at the other inhabitants as they squeezed by on their way either up or down—until Angelique approached him.

"That’ll do. You mind if we post on our website?"

Mary preened.

"Yeah, that’s kosher."

She handed him a pen and pocket notebook.

"Write down a quick bio."

He scribbled down a quick elevator pitch

Into general skulking and metal \m/

and handed the notebook back to her.

"Great, thanks."

She handed him a $20 bill, her eyes skimming him up and down.

"Next time we should show off those hip bones. Just jeans, I think."

Mary perked up. "Next time?"

"We’ll call you."

***

"Omigod, omigod!"

Amber perched on the record store counter, flipping through "Heroes," as Jon peered over her shoulder.

"Mary…look at you!"

Mary tried to swallow his smug smile.

Failed.

"Yeah. I’m hot shit, ain’t I?"

She bopped him on the nose with the newsprint.

"Don’t be vain."

He showed her his toothy smile.

"I like to think of it as confidence."

"So did Icarus."

Mary snorted and went back to putting prices on the new CDs.

"The camera loves you," said Jon, who was always quiet and reserved as you please…until he put on Frank’s corset and heels.

Mary had tried flirting with him, but Jon always ducked his head and played it off.

"Thanks, man," said Mary, giving him a softer smile.

"So??"

"So what, Amber?"

"Are you gonna do it again?"

Mary shrugged.

"I mean, if they call me, sure."

But he was kind of hoping they would.

When the next issue came out weeks later, Mary stared at the cybergoth on the pages and felt himself deflate. Listlessly, he thumbed through the delicate print, barely skimming the section devoted to the World/Inferno Friendship Society’s set he’d been at the week before.

He set it down with a sigh before he picked up his guitar and plucked out a tune he was trying to coax into a riff.

By the time a Ben called again, Mary had given up the modeling thing as a one-off.

"Hey, dude—thought maybe you guys forgot about me," Mary said in a teasing tone.

The Ben on the other end chuckled.

"It’s like herding cats to get shit out. Nah, dude—we definitely want you to be one of our regulars. You in for next Saturday?"

He was.

***

Over the course of a year, "Heroes" had Mary come out multiple times for shoots. Mainly, Mary wore his own clothes and did his own makeup, but occasionally, Angelique wanted something specific.

"How comfortable are you with boudoir shots?"

"With what?"

"Like a pinup, but more…saucy than sexy."

I'd pose nude if you paid me enough.

(Sure, he was a noodle boy, but he knew he had the goods.)

"Yeah, I’m cool with that."

Angelique brightened at him.

"Great!"

She picked up a set of complicated leather garters and thrust them at him.

"Put these on."

Mary had only ever worn lace garters—mostly out to clubs, but occasionally under his ripped jeans for an extra pop—but he found he liked these even more, liked the way they emphasized his thighs.

"Hey—where’d you get these…?"

(He was already thinking of what he could pair them with for goth night.)

"Local leatherworker. He mostly does pieces for Renn Fairs, but he'll also do custom. I can give you his info."

She led Mary into what was clearly someone's bedroom.

"Don't fuck anything up, or Joye will never let us use this again."

Mary shot her his best shark smile.

"Hey, I only mess up the sheets if someone asks."

Angelique gave him a flat look and called for Greg.

(But when he draped himself over the bed and told Greg to "Paint me like one of your French girls," Mary could have sworn she almost smiled.)

On one memorable occasion, she brought in a guy whose rope bondage demo she watched at a sex convention.

"Put on some of that lingerie and we'll truss you up. You ok with that, Goore?"

Mary ran his fingers over the coils and gave her a wolfish smile.

"You know I'm game for anything."

She gave him a vulpine smile of her own then, and she looked down at him from the height of her platformed boots.

"Good. I thought you should be submissive for once."

Mary had no witty rejoinder for that.

He listened with interest as the guy carefully explained what he was going to do, complete with pictures, and he relaxed easily into the process. (They put bunny ears on him, and it would be much, much later that he got that particular joke. Well played, Angelique.)

The ropes hadn’t let him do much posing, but Mary had kind of liked the constriction, and his thoughts were already on asking Amber to help him create a more versatile version for fetish night.

He’d left that day with a new kink…and the guy’s number.

"Why not just do one big shoot?" he asked another time. "Get it all done in one big bang!"

Angelique held up his garments to eyeball over him.

"Honey, we never even know if there's gonna be a next issue. The Bens spend most of the time arguing. My god you should hear them—Ben bankrolls the whole thing, so he says he should get final say on shit, and Benji wants total artistic control because it was his idea, because 'he's the graphic designer', and because it's his Kinko's employee discount they use."

She gave Mary a curled-lip smile as she tossed a few items at him.

"In the end it's this bitch you're looking at who gets shit done."

Mary began to change (they were long past modesty).

"How'd you get involved?"

"Went to school with Benji."

"Ben too?"

"Neg. The Bens are childhood friends. Ben works some cushy start-up job, so Benji lets him bankroll them both. Rent, utilities—everything. I love Benji to death, but he's a giant mooch."

"Shit, that must be nice."

Angelique shrugged. She stood back to appraise Mary's look.

"It's fucking lame. But it least it gets us fucking paid."

Mary didn't say I'd do this for free. Instead, he struck a pose and said, "I'm just happy for the exposure."

Angelique rolled her eyes and went to fetch Greg.

***

That year and a half would become a nonstop party with Mary as one of the VIPs; he wouldn't say no to anything—be it casual sex, club appearances, or whatever drug the current pretty thing was offering him in the bathroom.

But recognition started slow.

At first, it was customers who would leaf through the zine and recognize Mary.

Then, it was the occasional scenester who’d stop him on the street in JP as he walked about, and Mary would pose for grainy cell phone pics.

Soon, he was being approached at shows and clubs. The first time it happened, Mary was high off his new infamy and ready to please. A woman in a black bandage bra and pleated skirt with bondage straps approached him, and Mary was already thinking of what he could do with those.

"You look like that guy in ‘Heroes’!" she'd shouted to him over the music.

Mary had flashed her a crooked smile and leaned in.

"Maybe I am the guy in ‘Heroes’."

She'd given him an exaggerated once over before sidling closer with hooded eyes.

"I dunno…you're wearing way more clothes."

Mary had pulled his mesh top down by the collar in a tease as he'd curled over her.

"Take me somewhere more private and I’ll let you do a comparison."

She'd compared him all night.

And that was before he and the other "Heroes" models formed their own posse.

The Bens had thrown a BBQ and had invited everyone they'd ever met. There were people packed into their little 2 bedroom in Brighton, spilling down the back stairs, and equally packed into the little square of shared backyard. Ben had taken the 12-pack of 'Gansett beers Mary had brought, then introduced him to the other dark models.

"Now you're all here!" said Ben. He slung his arm around Mary. "Guys, this is Mary. Mary this is Mayhem, Lesley, Lola, and Bryan."

Mayhem was a rivethead, and Mary took to him instantly, but he was wary of the others. Lesley was the cybergoth who'd been in the first issue after him, and Mary still felt a bit salty at them, even though Mary knew by now the Bens rotated the models. Lola, the romantic goth, reminded him enough of Vanity that he felt guilty for losing touch with her and had him projecting a little. Bryan was a metalhead, so: competition.

Mary had thought they'd get along like cats and water, but weed, booze, and "Never Have I Ever" went a long way to creating a shared bond.

And there it was again. That pull. The magnetic force telling him that he'd found the place he was supposed to be. They quickly coalesced into their own pack, calling themselves the "Deathbutantes" (because they always killed it when they debuted for the night).

It had been rare for Mary to miss Friday and Saturday night shenanigans with the Rocky crew, but now, every night was Friday night. There was always a show or a concert or club that one of them knew about—and if they couldn't get lucky with the local color, they'd just go home with each other.

Mayhem taught Mary what Lola jokingly called the "grab a bat" dance, and the two of them cut quite the picture on the dance floors.

Lesley took to Lola, and the two of them could always be counted on for scintillating conversation in dark corners when Mary's limbst needed a break from flailing about.

The clubs weren't really Bryan's scene—take him to a sticky hole in the wall with concrete floors and a stage close enough to feel the sweat from the bands, and he was in heaven—but he liked to come along to hang. He'd drink PBRs, rub Lola's feet when she invariably abandoned her heels for the evening, and argue with Mary about the purity of death metal.

Mayhem and Lola weren't really into live music of the screaming kind, so—while Lesley, Bryan, and Mary bounced off each other in the mosh pits—they'd save a "home" base at one the bartops.

Amber noticed Mary's diminishing presence and stopped by the record shop to call him out.

"So you're not dead! Could've fooled me."

Mary was organizing the albums into order, and he grunted at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a cad. I'll make it up to you."

"You missed game night."

"Sorry. Jethro Tull played some tiny venue in nowhere Mass, and Bryan was salivating. I mean, Jethro Tull. Can you blame me?"

He looked at her, arms out wide in supplication. But she just blinked at him.

"You have no idea who Jethro Tull is, do you?"

"Sorry, dude. But christ, Mare. You should have invited me. I'd've gone. Maybe I would have even liked them. Now you'll never know."

"I could just lend you an album."

"Nope! The moment passed. Too late!"

Mary riffled through the stock and shoved a Jethro Tull CD into her hands.

She tapped it against her thigh.

"So, when do I get to hang?"

"I can get us into 80s night free."

"No, I mean, with your cooler friends. Your 'murder models', or whatever."

"You wanna hang out with the Deathbutantes?"

Amber scrunched her nose.

"That's so fucking pretentious."

Mary kind of liked it.

"Dunno if they're really your scene."

"Oh? And what's my scene?"

"Musical theater on crack."

She mock gasped at him, "Called out!" before smacking him with the CD. "Whatever. You love musical theater on crack."

Mary draped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't live it, you know? You guys have your niche—and fuck…I love to visit—but it's not mine."

Amber looked up at him, her expression serious.

"So the Dumbutantes are your niche?"

Mary shrugged and went back to shelving.

The Rocky crew had been good to him. They'd taken him under their wing, no questions asked, and helped him realize things about himself. Tim had taken him to the ER when Mary had come down with a serious case of the flu. Matty had taught him the basics of sewing. Gretchen had held him after a bad trip. Omar and he had had many drunken heart-to-hearts about their shitty home lives.

And Amber was his best friend. She'd been his #1 cheerleader for years and had never been afraid to call him out on his shit.

So yeah, he loved the Rocky crew…but they laughed at anyone who took anything too seriously. Mary would show up to game nights in his latest creation—with everyone else in pjs or jeans & hoodies—and they'd tease him about trying to impress the wrong people. He'd try to talk about the newest guitar god he'd been mainlining, and they'd make snoring noises at him.

How could he explain the kinship he felt with the Deathbutantes? That they were as serious about music as he was, that they just…got why he felt the need to dress the way he did to express the way he felt inside on his outside.

Instead, he said, "I'm just trying shit out, Ambs." He quirked his eyebrow at her. "I gotta do something while you guys do your real-person jobs."

(Amber had recently started as a junior marketing assistant at the American Repertory Theater. "Purely mercenary," she'd said. "Maybe it'll give me a leg up during auditions.")

She made a disgruntled scoffing noise in the back of her throat.

"Fuck, don't remind me. I actually gotta go to bed a reasonable hour now."

"Don't worry." Mary winked at her. "I'll keep ya honest."

"That sounds a lot like my head in a toilet, Mare."

"I'll hold your hair back."

She gave him a good-natured shove, and he pretended to cower.

If she wanted to cross pollinate, who was Mary to stand in her way? So, he invited her out the next time the Deathbutantes went to a show, and it went exactly like he thought it would.

They disliked her, and she was equally unimpressed. They thought she was too loud and frenetic, and she thought they had no sense of humor.

"I fucking told you," Mary had snorted as they sat on the curb sharing a clove.

"Shut the fuck up, Mare."

But she'd put her head on his shoulder.

"They make you happy, though. So I guess I approve. Just as long as I don't have to play nice."

Mary still hung out with the Rocky crew—there were still game nights and drug-fueled sex parties and theater games—but the Deathbutantes introduced him to the underground scene. They always seemed to have insider knowledge about the best up-in-coming bands and the secret shows. Theme nights at the goth clubs were always a must, and they rarely missed one. Sometimes, Angelique would crash, and they'd take the commuter rail to Providence to party at Club Hell before collapsing in a sweaty, smeary pile at a friend of a friend's hole in the wall.

As a bit player in the Rocky crew, Mary had been another made-up face in the crowd. As a certified member of the Deathbutantes, Mary became the face.

They all did.

The owners loved them because they bought round after round at the bar, and if word got out that the Deathbutantes were there, their admirers came to spend money as well. The employees loved them because they were fun and talked to them as equals. The clientele loved them because they were pretty young things.

Sometimes, though, Mary wasn't in the mood to party or get laid, so he talked to the DJs instead. He'd buy them rounds and stay past closing to help them pack up while they talked about the history of punk and 80s new wave and nu metal. There was one in particular, Dave, that Mary even considered a friend.

The two of them would sit in the club past closing, sharing a whiskey and talking about life while the bartenders closed down and cashed out. Occasionally, Dave's other friends would be around, and they'd all walk back to his place; he'd fool around spinning in his home studio, and they'd drink box wine as they danced and laughed before Mary would have to sit on the ground in an intoxicated exhaustion, good for only thumbing through Dave's vinyl collection.

Mary was just happy to talk shop with another music aficionado, but Angelique had pointed out that he should leverage his minor clout.

They'd been waiting for Greg to finish setting up, and Mary had been struggle city after a particularly hard night out. It was all he could manage to sit there quietly and hope some god would put him out of his misery.

"You need to get your shit together," Angelique had said out of nowhere.

Mary had cracked a puffy eye and had slowly (as to not bring the nothing in his stomach back up) turned his head to her.

"As if I haven't seen your melted ass on the floor wanting to die."

"Fuck, Mary. You've turned it into an art form."

He'd closed his eyes and given her the finger, but that hadn't stopped her.

"You wanna be a rockstar, boy? You can't just sit on your ass and hope the right person on the right night hears you. You're effervescent and charismatic—heads turn when you walk into a room and not just because of your skinny jeans—but you need more than air, Mary, which is all you are right now."

"Fuck you, Angela."

She'd clapped in front of his face, and she was lucky he didn't Exorcist bile all over her.

"You're a fucking pain in my ass, Goore. I'm doling out the good stuff, try not to bite my hand off, k?"

"All right, all right!"

"You wanna start that band? You wanna get play and amass fans? Well, make that demo you're always droning on about and give it to those DJs you're alway fanboying over. Fucking network, Goore."

At the time, Mary had been too hungover to care, but her advice would sink in…

Eventually.

For the time being, Mary was content. He loved the attention, and it made him feel invincible, made him feel like it was finally His Time. And he was going to make up for every slight, every unfair situation, and every beat down with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

With his newfound nightlife, Mary's day job had become an afterthought. He started sleeping through opening shifts, but with the extra foot traffic Mary brought to the store, his boss seemed resigned to let Mary slide (after a stern talking to and a pay docking).

The shadow cast had started using him as a mascot of sorts, and he was happy to show up on Saturday nights and hype up the waiting line with a pseudo striptease. (Even if it was sometimes to kick off his evening with the Deathbutantes and not hang with the cast after.)

Mary started a band ("auditioning" any and all of the many admirers who said they’d be more than happy to join it), and after a few false starts and a couple of lineup changes, they began working on an EP. (At least, when Mary showed up to rehearsal, they did.)

A Boston Phoenix reporter got wind of the Deathbutantes and called around about doing a story on them. The Bens were excited about the exposure that meant for their zine, and Angelique and Greg were excited about what it could mean for their careers. Mary did a brief interview over the phone where he answered questions about his style and talked about his dream of making his band a household name.

Mary saw his name up in lights, and he was reaching for it, full speed ahead.

But then things turned.

The story fell through at the last minute with no further explanation or contact by the reporter.

His boss finally fired him after Mary showed up too high to function too many times—or not at all.

The shadow cast had a turnover, and suddenly he was old news—a cringey hanger-on.

A trip to the clinic and a round of antibiotics for an STI had him way more wary of who he hooked up with.

"Heroes" lost momentum when imitators popped up and Ben cut off the gravy train.

Angelique moved to NYC for "better opportunities," and the Bens took their brand of counterculture to Portland, OR.

Greg took down the website when he got offered a legit job as an apprentice at a food magazine, and that was that.

The physical zines were cheap things, most ending up papering the sidewalk after trash day or lining the bottom of cages. Without the online presence, did Mary's "modeling career" even exist?

Mary was a little sad to see the era go, but when he woke up in Maine on the hood of some girl's car and only a hazy recollection of how they'd gotten there, he was beginning to see Angelique's point. He needed to get his shit together if he was ever going to become a rockstar. And frankly, he kind of felt like he needed to spend an entire month eating carrots and hydrating.

The 24/7 party had always been an ephemeral thing; it had been sand passing through his hands in a finite amount as he'd tried to hold onto it

He put himself on detox, and waking up sober for the first time in months felt like a revelation. And as it turned out, playing the guitar without badly shaking hands was way, way easier.

He found another job in another music store, and his starter!band was bringing butts into the smaller venues, like Toad.

He still had his old Rocky friends and the Deathbutantes. The club and venue owners still let him in for free, and Dave was always happy to give his demos a spin. By anyone's else's measure, he was steal one of the scene's darlings.

But Mary was beginning to realize that he needed to stop seeing himself as that scared kid who’d arrived in Boston 4 years ago with only a backpack, $72.57 to his name, and void where his family should be.

He needed to stop finding people to please into loving him.

Instead, he needed to live for himself and let them love him for who he was—fuck ups and all.

@slimylayne

Epilogue

"Honestly, that’s probably the reason I even got a band together," he says. "I was still kind of shit at guitar, but people came to see ‘Model Mary’ perform in his underwear."

He shoots me a smirk.

"I’m sure there’re pictures out there of me looking more glam than metal. I kind of played up the whole pinup thing for a while."

"Fuck, I would kill, literally kill to see that."

He pulls me into his lap until I’m straddling him.

"I could open up my underwear drawer and show you right now."

"Goore, you temptress."

I lean down to kiss him, and his hands sneak under my shirt, but I pull away again.

"I kinda thought I knew all your torrid secrets by now. Shit, how come Dave's never needled you about it?"

After 2 years with him, I’m surprised I hadn't even heard a peep from his oldest friend.

Mary snorts.

"Dave would miss shit hanging off his nose. Great dude, amiable as fuck, but he's always had fucking tunnel vision for his music."

I smirk at him.

"Sounds like someone else I know."

Mary pulls a face at me, and I apply kisses to every line until he laughs and bats me away.

"But really, Mare—how come you never told me about your brief career in blue steel?"

He blows out a breath, his hands smoothing up my thighs.

"Fuck. Cuz maybe I was a little embarrassed at how off the rails I was then, ok? Didn't want you to know what I fuck up I was." He takes my hand and kisses my palm. "And even I know it's a shit move to pitch woo at someone by telling them about banging half of Boston."

I make a face at him, and he laughs.

"Yeah, that’s what I thought."

His hands rest on my waist.

"Christ, everything about that year's a bit fuzzy, and it was like 10 years ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else, honestly. And shit—most of those people aren’t even around anymore. College kids who moved on and 20-somethings that grew up and moved who knows where. I used to watch Amber have—what is it when it’s four people?—and now she lives in bumblefuck Pennsylvania with 3 kids. After she left, I just kinda drifted away from all that."

He shrugs, his eyes downcast.

"I’m sorry, Mare," I say as I smooth his eyebrows.

He shrugs again.

"I mean, we all kinda keep in touch. It's like the only reason I have Facebook."

"When was the last time you even signed into that?"

Mary grins at me.

"Lola's birthday."

"One of the models? What happened with them?"

Mary bites his lip and thinks.

"Mayhem found religion after an OD and kinda ghosted everyone. Lesley followed a girl to New Hampshire. Uh…Lola pursued a PhD for something sciencey involving renewable energy with sugar beets in Idaho, and Bryan moved back to Florida to care for his grandma, who raised him."

Mary leans his head back on the couch and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I mean, shit. We were fucking babies back then. Head empty except for a good time and unlimited potential."

I run my fingers through his hair.

"You miss it?"

His eyes pop open to look at me.

"Fuck no. Not for a million dollars. Too many question marks." His eyes glint as he runs his hands down me. "I like what I got going on right here."

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and kiss his forehead. The fucking sap.

Mary picks up my phone and scrolls through the pictures again.

"Fuck. I used to be goddamn adorable, though. Half this shit wouldn’t even fit me anymore."

I squish his little potbelly, and he grunts at me indignantly.

"Do you still have any originals?" I ask.

He shakes his head, his eyes wistful and his smile sad.

"Nah. Got destroyed when my roof collapsed and leaked everywhere. Fuck, landlords are useless. Glad we fucking own now, babe."

He scrolls up, scrolls back down.

"Just these four?"

I nod.

"Yeah. They were the only ones I found—and I did a lot of searching."

"Christ, I think there were at least 10."

I smile ruefully at him. "It’s not gonna be long anyway before they make their way into the popular tags and shit starts coming out of the woodwork."

He tosses my phone onto the table.

"Whatever. Just shows that I’ve always been cool."

And then he’s kissing me again, his hand tangling in my hair.

"You know, I’m your family now, Mare. Just for you."

He brings my hand up and kisses it.

"Fuck, I know that. Why’dja think I put a ring on it?"

[bravo-four-seal-team]

Demons and Help?||Part 1/2

Co-written/Proof read: @disasterfandoms

Summary: Ashley is finally in Virginia, battling her own Demons, what could go wrong with being out at 5am? She did not expect to run in to the people or person she’s been trying to avoid A/N: Trigger warnings added, torture mention, blood mention, argument, captivity mention. (yes I know its early in the morning)

Tag: @rebelwrites @chibsytelford @galaxysanduniversesinmymind @velvetcardiganbucky @supervalcsi @abby-splace @itsonautopilot @thegirlwhoisalwayswriting @pinkrockstar19 @softi92 @mrsmarvelous1995 @jayhalsteadfan-2417

“Tell me why you are in my country,” the figure asks, slowly walking around the area she was hanging from.

“For the view,” Ashley smirked, spitting blood to the floor, head snapping to the side as a hand connected hard with her cheek.

 “Get the wires,” the figure smirked as another two men moved in. She knew it was a battery; she’d been through this for the past two days. “I give you one more chance to tell me,” the figure said.

 Ashley spat in his face. “Bite me,” she snapped. 

The next few minutes were agony. She screamed as the wires came into contact with her skin, leaving behind marks of where they were being placed. Wheezing when it finally ended, “Get her down” the voice snapped, her arms unhooked from above her, the pain shooting through her shoulder, she was dragged over to a tub head shoved under, again and again, each time she struggled, causing her to swallow more water. She would be held as she was repeatedly struck in the stomach, then her head shoved back under the water. 

“She want to play savior, then we let her,” the figure laughed, selecting the whip on the table, the light reflecting off the metal shards in the leather. Ashley tried to break free as the whip was brought closer to her. Hands gripped her, holding her in place on her knees as the weapon came down on her back. She bit down on her lip, trying not to scream. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, her blood beginning to stain her back as the metal did its job in taking chunks out of her back. Eventually, she was thrown back into the small dark room, her hands bound. 

Ashley woke with a jump, soaked in sweat, shaking, and breathing hard. The ticking of the clock seemed so loud. At 5 am, she was trying to calm herself down. The shaking began to subside, breathing calmed. She was back in Virginia, hiding out in her apartment, staring at the ceiling, her neighbors arguing again, something smashing against the wall. She kept replaying everything, she got Trent’s email, but she never opened it, too scared to see the ‘Don’t contact me again’ in the main body.

The notification there on her phone and laptop haunted her, beeping every so often to say she had something unread in her inbox. Sighing, she swung her legs off the couch, getting up, looking about the table, beer cans lying around. That made more sense. It has been two months since the email. Nightmares plagued her, but she was clear for deploying again; the next place would be the Philippines, on base, helping training, nothing too serious. 

It took time for her to get ready. She was still stiff, pulling her shirt off the mirror, catching a reflection of the scars littering her back, still healing, slowly, eventually, she got washed, wrapped fresh bandages around herself then dressed in her civvies, grabbing her baseball cap, glaring at herself in the mirror. Her lip was stitched, that picture stuck in the corner of her brother and her, before she went off for her first deployment, quickly turning and grabbing her keys then leaving, door slamming behind her. 

Food shopping for the next few days...no coffee, coffee first. She had returned yesterday, finally clear to fly home correctly, so didn’t have any food in the apartment, part of deploying, get rid of food that would spoil, she never saw the point of even buying any personal items, the place came with a sofa and bed anyway, along with a TV, all she needed to do pay the bills and rent and buy food. 

“You know what, Trent, Fuck you! All you see is what she wants you to!” 

“Ashley, you are out of line.” 

“I thought you learned from the first one! Look what happened! Every single time I try to get to know them! They pull this shit!” 

“Ashley C Sawyer! Enough!” 

“No! You always believe what they feed you! Just like the first one, this one is spinning lies!”

“Are you shitting me? Watch where you are going, asshole!” Ashley snapped, eyes narrowed at the man who walked into her. 

“What did you say bitch” he snarled.

 “You hard of hearing or what?” Ashley countered, squaring up to the taller man, not in the mood to deal with anyone. 

The man huffed and walked away, grumbling about psychopaths. 

“Don’t even bother contacting me until you learn to grow up!”

“Oh, come on! You're gonna support her?! After what she just said?” 

“Get the hell out of my life.”

“I’d rather die than be in your life, Trent. Good to know my brother doesn't even have my back!”

“Get the hell out!” 

Pushing the door open to a small coffee shop, walking over to the counter, the Barista smiling and greeting her. “What can I get you?” the woman asked. 

 Ashley sighed “large, strong coffee with cream,” she said, getting her wallet out of her coat pocket, handing the money over. “Keep the change for whoever does not have enough to get something,” she stated; it was usual for her to say this as she took the to-go cup and left. 

Phone beeping again, that unread email haunting her still and walking along the street thinking about what she needed to get. It was quiet. She was glad; no one was around this early in the morning. She could hear footsteps behind her. She went on full alert, moving to the side to let the person go. 

As they ran by, she heard “Thanks!” being called back to her.

“Yeah, no problem,” she muttered, never looking up. Moving to continue to where she was going to go, she didn’t know where but walking around aimlessly customarily worked. 

“Sawyer, you good?”

“I’m fine, Cole.”

“He responded, are you going to open it?”

“Knowing him, he’d respond to tell me how much Bullshit I spouted and to keep away from him.” 

“You don't know that. People change.”

“Cole, keep out of this” 

“You can’t avoid it forever. Better to open it at some point.”

“Better to ignore it than being crushed, Gunny.”

She walked down the street, hearing a couple up ahead, someone complaining about night shifts, the man chuckling, she couldn’t make out what he said, but again she stepped to the side, allowing them to go past.

What she did not expect to hear was the woman to speak up and say, “Ash?” her stomach dropped, head hung low, she couldn’t do this, trying to focus on not shaking, trying to hide her face. It was too early for this.

 “Ashley,” that was Trent, now she needed to get out of there. 

Why of all the days did it need to be the one morning she was dealing with her things?

“You look like hell,” Amelia said. “Are you okay?” she asked, and Ashley snorted. Was she okay? Three months in hell, now seeing the people she was trying to avoid for the majority of her life? No, she wasn’t okay. She was in a literal nightmare. 

“Fine, just tryna get to the base,” Ashley lied with ease, glancing at the two. Trent still was not saying anything; he kept his expression neutral. He was trying to think what to say. He hadn’t received a response. He could see the way she held herself; he knows pain; he knows that haunted look she has all too well. 

“Sorry, I ugh, gotta meet Cole for target practice,” Ashley mumbled, moving around them quickly. She needed to make sure she got away from them. Her chest was tight, her head hurt. She stumbled around a corner, making her way to a bench and sitting down, setting the coffee on the ground and leaning forward, head going between her knees, trying to calm herself down.

Trent had walked Amelia back to her apartment, with her telling him to talk to her and something was off. He agreed with her, not wanting to argue, memories of their previous fight still in his mind. He did not want to be on Amelia's wrong side again. 

He walked back towards where they had seen Ash and then proceeded towards the way she had taken off. Glancing at the time, 6:30 am, which meant it would still be quiet. Walking the quiet streets, it wasn’t long before he located her. It was clear she had just got herself down from a panic attack, so he didn’t want to spook her.

 “Ashley,” he called out. If she had reacted any quicker, she would have got whiplash. 

“You good?” He asked, walking over. Ashley could be what many described as a deer caught in headlights. “Mind if I sit?” 

Ashley shrugged, trying not to react. This is the one thing she wanted to avoid, looking ahead as Trent sat beside her. “Didn’t read it, did you?” he asked quietly, elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward slightly.

 “Didn’t have to, knew what it would say,” she whispered back. 

“What would that be?”

“To keep away from you, people you know, and your life.” 

He supposed he deserved that response; the argument was ugly. When things came to light about what happened, a year later, when wife 2 wanted a divorce, it was too late to repair anything. 

“Ash, it never said that,” he says, looking out across the park. “You were one of them... one of the Marines captive?” he says, not getting a response. “Whole base heard about it; no names are given out to anyone not in the Marines. I was deployed at the time. Our base was chaos. The Marines on base were talking, whispering about what happened,” he sighs, “I expected to hear on the news you were dead,” he said calmly. 

“That makes your life easier?” Ashley says, voice going cold, fist-clenching on her lap. 

“No.” he sighed. “Would make life a lot harder. I got back from a spin up, lost a brother, then a few days later, you emailed.  All I could think was that it was a joke, realized it wasn't.  Amelia and I argued about it.”

“Why are you here?” She snaps; looking at him, he could see the extent of damage to her face. Her black eye is still healing from having her nose broken and set correctly, along with stitches and minor cuts littering her face.

 “To make sure my baby sister is okay. If you had read the email, you would have seen me offering to meet you at the airport, along with wanting to help with your recovery-”

“I don’t need your help; done fine without it.” 

Trent stood up, Ashley mentally preparing herself to walk away again, only for him to kneel in front of her. “What happened in the past happened, okay? We both said things we regret. I'm here now to help, and I can guarantee that Ames will help out as well,” he said, watching her reaction. “Got time for coffee, and I can wrap those wounds properly.” 

Of course, he’d notice when someone hadn’t correctly changed dressings or wrapped their wounds properly. He deals with Bravo and them not treating injuries properly daily, so it was easy to spot. He was grateful it was warmer than it had been the past few days, so being outside for this long, he didn’t mind.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Ashley muttered, pulling her sleeves down. “Look, I’m not...I ain’t expecting you to play big brother Trent, or give a damn,” she muttered, tugging her cap down to try and hide her face more. She was not in the mood to be poked, prodded, or questioned.

“I don't need to play it when it's my job.” he states with a frown, “Come on, get up,” he said, carefully getting her up. “You look like shit. Have you been sleeping?”

“This is just my face, Trent.”

“You look exhausted. You’ll come back to mine. I can check those wounds, then you can grab some sleep after you take painkillers,” He said, frowning. 

“Hell no, you aren't!” Ashley stated, her eyes going wide. “Not happening at all! No way,” she said, not moving from her spot. Shaking her head, she did not want anyone near the wounds on her back. She would keep those as quiet as she could. The look she was getting from her brother was telling her she would need to give him an answer as to why. 

“Look, I just want to go to the range, go home, sleep, and get ready for a deployment in a few weeks, that's it,” she says, binning the cold coffee.

 “Do you want to talk about what happened, Ash?” The SEAL asked, worried that she would end up worse if she shut down more than she already was. He finally got her moving, leading her to his truck. 

“No, I don’t want to talk about it, not with you,” she states. “I got a shrink,” she lied. It was easier than saying, ‘oh yeah, goes from being tortured to you laughing at what happens at me.’

 Ashley fell into a light sleep 5 minutes into the drive. 

The water was dripping on the ground; she’s lying on her side staring at the door. She's tired of fighting. She wants to sleep, but when she sleeps, bad things happen. The metal door opened, men entering with weapons, another one entering and hauling her up, dragging her out. 

Arms being hauled up over her head, the restraints being hooked onto the metal hook hanging from the ceiling. 

“Shall we do this again” the man smiled. 2 months, 25 days, this had been going on. She’d begun learning to keep track of how many times she would be left alone, along with how the temperature dropped in the evening and warmer during mornings. 

“Who are you?” 

She was tired, mumbling “Marine Staff Sergeant Sawyer” everything was blurry. The dim light seemed brighter than anything she had seen. Her senses were being overloaded with different things: light, sound, the smell of decaying flesh. 

“Very good,” the man smirked, looking at the tools on the table. “Why are your people in my country?” he asks, smacking her when she didn’t answer. “I asked you a question!” 

“Dunno,” she muttered “why are we anywhere” she slurred, fighting to keep awake. Her body needed the rest to recover; she caught a glimpse of one of the rookies being dragged in, a gun being held to his head. 

“Shall we try that again?” the man asked, the rookie pleading for his life, but when she didn’t, the gun went off, and the young man fell forward, blood beginning to form a puddle, lifeless eyes staring at her. 

She ended up back in that small room. The dripping, she focused on that, zoning out, the screams of her teammates fading into the background.  

Ashley woke with a jump as Trent turned off the engine. Running a hand over her face, she cleared her throat. Trent chose not to comment on it; he’s seen friends, brothers who suffered from sleepless nights, hell he had them himself, so he knew what it was like.

He still wished she had spoken to him before signing up. He couldn’t figure out why she would even want to join the Navy after seeing the type of injuries that could be sustained. 

They remained quiet, Trent helping his sister inside, telling her to sit on the couch. She did so, the haunted look back in place. He was concerned about that. He wasn’t sure exactly what went down, but the stories circling base were all the same: unit ambushed, multiple dead, three alive. He moved to his office, walking to the shelf where he kept his kit then returning out. “Easier to get this over with, kid,” he states, surprised that she removed her jacket without a fight. “So, you spoke to Amelia a few months back. What do..you think of her?” 

“Don't matter what I think.” 

“Sure it does. You’re normally asking a bunch of questions that I can’t get you to shut up about.”

“That was past me; new me don't give two shits, head down don't ask questions.” 

He was not expecting that response. Quite frankly, he wasn’t expecting her to be so shut down. Starting on her upper arms, he frowned, noticing the burns.

 “Electrical?” he asked; at her nod, he just knew it was going to be worse.

 “They don't like the ones who fight back, Clarkes got off light:  a broken arm, a few broken ribs, was running a fever. Cole had about the same as me, just a bit better. I kept fighting: not giving information, get told not to. In the end, I was just tired.”

Trent made a mental note to speak to Amelia to see if she could spend a few hours with her; get to know Ashley better, see if she would open up more about what happened. “Nightmares keep you awake? It’s normal, you know, you can ask your doctor for some sedatives to get some sleep.” 

“Allergic,” Ashley muttered, “Learnt that one the hard way after being sprung from the confines of hell.” She made a hissing noise, “Ow! Take it easy,” she snapped, jerking her arm away 

“You haven’t been cleaning these, have you?” 

“Medics on base did before we were sent home here,” she grumbled, glaring at the swabs he was using, and whatever the stuff was that was burning the wound, the last person to use that stuff got a broken nose as a reward. 

“Stop being a baby.”

“Or what? Going to tell me to leave and not come back until I grow up?” she grumbled.

Trent stopped and looked up. “That was a low blow kid,” he said but left it; she was in pain. He was 100% sure he would call Amelia after she got a few hours of sleep to come over and help out with this situation. 

The dripping of the kitchen tap is all Ashley could focus on. 

‘He doesn’t hate you, you do know that, right? He told me stories about how you two were when he was still at home. You should reach out to him.’

 That's all Ashley could think about from her conversation with Amelia. She frowned, the last person to probably ever see her alive; she should have listened, should have reached out to her brother; this could be her last moment alive, and she’d die without getting the chance to say sorry. To let him know she didn’t mean what she said. 

As if on cue, the door opened: dragged out, chained, hung, beaten. This time they left her hanging there.

 “He told me he worries he’s going to see your name in the obituaries one day, that he won’t be called when you die. You think if he hates your guts, he would be worried for you?” there was Amelia's voice in her head again, her mind creating an image of the woman leaning against the wall watching her as she spoke. It was like she wasn’t allowed to die in peace; what was so wrong with that? 

Her arms and shoulders were killing her. They trick you into believing you have people who care, keep you fed and hydrated. They did it to Clarkes and Craig, who submitted to their tricks, thinking the men who offered the food were kinder people, but they weren't; they had given their names to them. Their beatings had stopped, but Ashley didn’t fall for their tricks. She’d heard enough about it, questioned SEALs who were on the base during her first few deployments about what not to do. She wasn’t going to let them break her, sure she gave up her rank and second name, but that's all they would get. 

One man came back in. This person was different, new; she had never seen him before, he never spoke. His specialty was using a cattle prod in open wounds, making her scream out in agony. 

“Ashley, I need you to focus on me.” 

Looking around, she couldn’t find the voice. 

“Ashley, you’re ok. Just focus on my voice. It’s safe.”

Trent. 

Blinking, looking confused, “You with me?” she heard Trent ask. He was sitting on her right side now, dealing with the dressings there. She could see the concern in his eyes. She kept silent for a while, not wanting to talk about anything, just happy to be in her brother's presence without a fight hanging over them. She wasn’t sure how long it would last. 

“I called Amelia. She’ll be by in a few hours. Want to tell me where your mind went?” he asked, finishing her right arm. “Need to look at your torso to see what needs to be done,” he calmly explained. 

“I was back there,” she whispered, “I don’t like being there, but I always end up there, or the argument,” She states, not moving at all. “I don't want you seeing Trent. Base Docs can deal with it,” she mumbled, looking away from him.

“I have dealt with all types of injuries, Kid.” He sighs, watching her. This was the reason he never wanted her signing up. “I'm not going to judge,” was all he said, but Ashley shook her head. This was one thing she was determined to hide. Trent decided to leave it for now. “You still take your coffee with a shit load of sugar?” he asked. 

“Strong with Cream, no sugar,” Ashley muttered. “I'm just gonna call a cab head to base.” 

“No, you aren’t. You’re going to sit there or lay down and get some rest. When Amelia arrives, you let her check those wounds you won’t show me,” he stated. Removing the medical gloves and throwing them in the bin, he headed to the sink in the kitchen to wash his hands. “You know which people got you out?” he asks, putting the used medical supplies in the trash along with open packets.

“Marine Unit with a SEAL Team...Alpha think Gunny said,” Ashley was blinking to stay awake. Trent just sighed.

 “Kid, get some rest. We’ll talk about everything once you can keep your eyes open.”  He walked back over, getting her to lay down. He shook his head at the fact she had pretty much passed out, then unfolded the blanket at the back of the couch and placed it over her. He would talk about everything, though right now, he’d need Amelia's advice on it all.