#i think she tried pearl's loops but they looked too young. she probably wears it in that style when they go out together to match though <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

like a lot of people, I am into giving Iris a little haircut after she gets out of jail, but I just realised that the bob that a lot of people (me too <3) give her is pretty much the same style Valerie wore her hair in? and now i'm thinking of Iris changing her hair to reflect a little bit of all her sisters and im. Her.

[goodgirlsfanficawards]

Happy Friday! This week your weekend reading includes these five one-shots from October. Make sure you give them a read or a reread and show them some love!

Bad Guy by gangfriend / @00gangfriend00

18 Oct 2020, M, 1.5K, 1/1

He returned again and again to the simple and straight-forward world inside the colorful pages of his comic books. With his life far from black and white, there was comfort in the heavy handed dichotomy of good and evil.

But heroes weren't real. 

He grew taller and cops started stopping him. Citing bullshit policy, they’d push and prod at him with smug entitlement.

He grew older and his brother started bringing home wads of cash. He’d watch as the money was passed to his mother, an eagle rippling on his brother’s bicep.

That cash turned into a hot dinner, it got rid of the motel supervisor that would leer at his mom. Eventually, his brother’s cash afforded them an escape, an apartment with a lock on the door and windows that closed all the way.

As a young teenager, comics became comforting in a different sorta way. Less and less did Spiderman catching the bad guys bring him that old surge of satisfaction. But Thanos, Killmonger? They had something to say. They excited him. They made sense to him. Right and wrong didn’t fit so neatly in his mind anymore. It was refreshing when characters embodied the complicated chaos that was coursing through his life.  

Cute without an E by Niham87 / @niham87-deactivated20210221​

04 Oct 2020, E, 4.7K, 1/1

He maintains a closeted shrine for her here. They were gewgaws at first. Turned into mementos after he’d fuck her, hot and nasty in that seedy bathroom. It’s the dirty little obsession we’d tucked away after three bullets. 

He loops the newest, a red rubber band, around the waxed bottleneck of the last - the bourbon. Puts his mouth where hers was, takes a sip. Relishes, brushing through the glass body where her hands touched, the pearls that her neck graced, the blue panties that had clad her cunt and still embodied her ghost.

When you looked at the bigger picture it wasn’t the bullets that were dissonant. 

She’d intrigued him, he’d wanted rub off on her, too tunnel-visioned with her sweet pussy to grasp the concept that he hadn’t created the monster. It had always been there.

The fact that his blood still runs a bit too hot for her complicated things. But if he knows something by now is that the past is a living thing. You can���t shake it. You have to own it. And she owed him.

you showed me colors (i can't see them with anyone else) by gild_fire / @gild-and-fire​

11 Oct 2020, NR, 4.1K, 1/1

Pushing his phone back up to his ear and training his eyes on Beth, Rio finally moves aside and lets her in. As she shuts the door behind her, his eyes linger a moment longer before she hears his monosyllabic answers fade away and he pivots to the kitchen to finish up the call. 

Beth stays by the door for a moment, not quite sure if she’ll be walking on steady ground if she ventures any further. Eying a table by the entryway, she notes a bowl with a pair of keys and a lighter. She tries to remind herself that, unlike when she broke in, Rio had given her the address and invited her into his home. And yet, Beth doesn’t feel secure in that knowledge. 

She prefers to meet at neutral places, places where he didn’t have home-court advantage. Places where her heart didn’t flutter without her permission and her eyes couldn’t explore without restraint. But she’s here now, curious as ever and absorbing any details she can. Glancing around a tasteful living room, Beth spots a kitchen on her left.

The walls are dotted with small, muted pieces of art. The sofas are few and far between. The kitchen is highlighted by warm recessed lights. And then there’s Rio—at the center of it all—looking right at home, and slowly, there’s that feeling she wishes she could forget. 

everything you love will burn up in the light by tooshyforthis / @bathroombreaks​

31 Oct 2020, T, 1.7K, 1/1

“You know what, sweetheart,” he replies, voice that deceptive sweet tone that isn’t sweet at all.

For a moment, panic hits her. And then she realises he’s probably just trying to gauge if she’s suspicious — maybe she shouldn’t have given him so much shit for the terrible excuses. The last thing she should do is show him that she panicked. She laughs it off instead, finally opening her eyes only to roll them at him. “Seriously, what’d you eat?”

He smiles at her. His smile is sharp in a way that it’s never been before, not when directed at her. It’s more a bearing of teeth than a smile, really.

“One of those bags of O- I keep on the bottom drawer of the fridge.”

A breath stutters out of her, too loud in the space between them.

“How long have you known?”

His smile is wider now, but no less sharp. “How long have you?”

Nine-Tenths by riosnecktattoo / @riosnecktattoo​

23 Oct 2020, E, 6K, 1/1

But the fast movement draws her eyes to his hands, to the way the late afternoon sun is glinting off the ring on his pinkie finger. To the leather and string bracelets on his wrist.

To the purple hairband in between them. Her purple hairband.

She narrows her eyes and she’s sure. Doesn’t know how she missed it earlier. The vibrant purple stark against his skin in the light.

He said he hadn’t found it though? Why hadn’t he just given it back to her?

He strolls back in to the kitchen a few moments later and Beth busies herself with mixing her herbs.

She peeks at him as he picks his water bottle back up and drinks, peeks at the band around his wrist, tucked between the ones she’s always known him to have, wearing it like it’s just another one of his bracelets.

And it’s strange, how she finds she likes seeing him wear this small something of hers. She thinks about his face whenever she throws on one of his hoodies and nothing else, the possessive sound in the back of his throat.

Is this a tiny shadow of that? Because the sight of her hairband wrapped around his wrist, the purple elastic against his pulse point, a piece of her he must’ve kept with him all day, has her biting down on her lip.

If you know of anyone’s tumblr/twitter and we haven’t found it or tagged incorrectly, please send us an ask to let us know.

[prairiesongserial]

11.7

Ice cream in hand, and Val’s wallet a little lighter, Friday and Val explored the steamboat. The outside walls of the middle deck’s cabin were papered with posters - the photography kind, which was rare and expensive. All pictured the same girl in the same pose, about a hundred of them in a row, some overlapping, even. The text was printed in a regional style that gave Friday a headache if she tried to read it, though that didn’t stop her slowing her pace to admire the figure of the pictured girl.

“You think I could clean up that nice?” she asked Val around her ice cream.

Val seemed to notice the posters for the first time. His eyes scanned over the girl’s slinky dress, each wrinkle in the silk intentional and suggestive with light and shadow. Three strands of pearls were fastened close to her neck, her dark hair tidily pinned away so the pearls drew in the eye and held it. The girl’s features were dainty - and clearly belonged to someone several years Friday’s junior.

“You already dress like that,” Val said.

Friday laughed. She didn’t own anything that rich. “What are you talking about?”

Val gestured down to Friday’s sundress, then kept walking. Friday wanted to make fun of him for the crime of conflating cotton and silk, but she couldn’t quite shake the compliment under the comparison. She trotted to catch up with Val.

A young mother was passing in the other direction, counting coins out of a change purse. She wore her Sunday best, a green dress that closed at the neck, with sleeves that billowed outwards. Her three children circled, nearly tripping her, their eyes on the purse.

“Hold on, now, all of you,” she snapped, counting pennies into their palms in turn. “Don’t spend it all on peanuts, do you hear? And Gawain, watch out for your brothers.”

Friday tugged Val’s shirt, steering him over to the woman. As the last of the three children hurtled off with his handful of pennies, Friday gave her a wave and a smile.

“Hello, do I know you?” the woman said. Her change purse still held loosely in her hand, the woman’s attention slid from Friday to her children, still barely in sight.

The pickpocket in Friday, long retired, wondered what on earth was wrong with this woman. She felt baited into robbing the poor creature, though of course she kept her twitching fingers to herself.

“No, Ma’am,” Friday said. She looped her arm in Val’s, sensing he wanted to escape. “We’re in town with the circus.”

“Oh, how lovely,” the woman said with a smile. “I’m Marian Pérez, pleased to meet you.”

“Friday Wilmot, and my associate Valerie Lecter.” Friday held out her hand to shake. “This is our first time in Everglades City, so we really don’t know our way around yet.”

Marian’s sons were out of sight among the distant circus tents. Marian didn’t seem to be concerned. She set her purse down on the boat’s railing to shake Friday’s hand. Friday frowned at it. People passed by on either side. In Vegas, that purse would have already been gone, but there it sat.

“Is Everglades City a very safe town?” Friday asked.

“Oh, certainly,” Marian said. Friday barely heard the response, watching the change purse bob with the gentle rhythm of the water under the boat. “There’s no safer place to live. I’ve only just moved here recently myself, when I was pregnant with my second, and that was exactly why. Even you can tell, and you’ve only been in town a handful of hours.”

Marian beamed at Friday proudly.

“It’s due to the Bellamys, of course,” she added. “I only found out well after I moved here, but I was curious too!” She tittered, touching Friday’s arm familiarly, and Friday laughed with her. This was getting very interesting.

“What do the Bellamys have to do with it?” Val asked. He no longer looked like he was waiting for an opening to slip away, his gaze focused intensely down on Marian.

“They got rid of the crime,” said Marian simply.

Friday’s eyes went wide before she got her face under control.

“The Bellamys operate Everglades City,” Marian said, finally taking up her purse. “There hasn’t been crime here for as long as they’ve been in charge, and that’s been a long time. If you’re interested in the town history, I’m sure there’s someone else who could tell it better. Oh, let’s see...”

Marian’s attention jerked back to one of her sons, who had reappeared with ice cream, and seemed to want nothing of his mother but to show her. Friday licked a drop up from the bottom of her own ice cream cone. She had to agree with the kid; this was noteworthy ice cream - and in her book, all ice cream was noteworthy.

Friday grabbed Val’s sleeve urgently, and he went rigid, startled.

“What?” he hissed.

“If we travel with the circus, we can eat this all the time,” Friday hissed back, voice tight with emotion. She waved her cone around. “We can eat ice cream every day, Val.”

The kid stopped mid-sentence, looking at Friday with the eyes of a hawk.

“Mama, I want to join the circus,” he said. “Mama - ”

Friday took a big bite of ice cream, looking innocently up at Marian as the kid’s idea began to increase in pitch and volume. Whoops. Val began to steer her away, which was probably for the best.

“Thank you for the pleasant conversation, Mrs. Pérez,” Val said quickly. “On behalf of the Madsen and Something circus, I hope you enjoy your afternoon.”

Marian’s expression was quickly turning sour, but Friday and Val happily made their escape before the kid really began to squall. Val had led her down the ramp, back onto the pier they had arrived by, before Friday cracked up.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she laughed, ice cream running down her fingers.

“You’re awful with children,” Val said wonderingly. It only made Friday laugh harder.

“Christ, I need to sit down,” she gasped, stomach aching. The pier looked like it had been put together without much care to how long it would last, or the unlucky fate of the person who would finally find out how long that was, exactly. The planks creaked loudly as Friday hoisted herself up on a barrel. As she straightened, the wind whipped a lock of blond hair in front of her eyes, reminding her that she was still wearing the wig she’d found.

Val paced in front of her, the skin at the base of his neck pink and glowing with sweat. His hair was so long, now, he must have been hot. It was hard to say whether or not he was in better spirits now, but his forehead wasn’t knotted with worry anymore. Not that he looked anything near relaxed.

Friday smiled to herself. She had leveled the top of the ice cream, though half of it had dribbled down her fingers.

“Here, eat this,” she said, holding the cone out to Val.

Val paused his pacing and came over to her. He took the ice cream, then sighed.

“This is sticky,” he said.

Friday hopped off her barrel and pulled a pink handkerchief from the pocket of her sundress. She wiped at her fingers, but found them unpleasantly still sticky. The water lapping at the pier was fairly high, high enough that if she reached, she could probably dip her handkerchief.

Friday was showing off a bit, as she knelt by the edge, straining to reach the surface of the water, but she almost hoped she would fall in. She was already clowning - it didn’t matter that she was wearing a nice wig and not a yarn one. She wasn’t running around interrogating young mothers for the joy of it; she was trying to make Val forget they were kind-of-sort-of prisoners of a traveling circus and there was no knowing when Val would see the door of the convent again. Why not commit to the bit and fall in a few feet of water? Val was too nice to laugh at her, but he would make a big fuss over her and forget to be melancholy for a few more minutes.

Friday’s concentration was complete as she strained for the water, her ankles wobbling as the handkerchief danced a hairsbreadth above the water’s surface. Several locks of hair fell in her eyes, and her ankles wobbled again as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“What are you doing?” Val asked. She couldn’t see him, but she heard him quietly crunch through a piece of ice cream cone.

An oar passed under the water, just under the spot where Friday’s handkerchief hovered. She looked up. An old man sat in a rowboat, kept company by a writhing net of the biggest fish Friday had ever seen. Each one was the size of one of Marian’s kids, four feet long at least. The fish took up more room in the boat than the old man did.

The old man paused his rowing. He glared at Friday - or more likely, into the sun behind her.

“You’ll lose your arm,” he said, and spat over his shoulder.

Friday straightened up. The man had the ordinary things one expected of fisherfolk in his rowboat with him, but he also had a shotgun wedged under the seat.

This was the person Friday should be asking questions. Friday shoved her handkerchief back in her pocket. The old man was moving on, bringing his rowboat to the shallow end of the pier. Friday followed, jogging along the pier to keep up. She could hear Val behind her, following at a sensible pace.

“Hey, I was wondering if you know someone named, uh…” Friday struggled to remember the previous courier’s name. “Adams! Someone named Adams?”

The man grunted.

“You don’t know him? Or you do?” Friday pressed.

The man was wrapping rope around a post as his net of fish flopped back and forth, rocking the little boat. A cloud moved overhead, its shadow passing over the water. Friday frowned. In that case, why was the old man still squinting like the sun was in his eyes?

Val caught up, finally.

“Something’s bothering me,” he said, pulling Friday aside. His hands were sticky too, she noticed, with satisfaction. “On the way in, Ezra told us not to wander off. But Mrs. Pérez says there’s no crime. And you saw…”

“How she just left her purse there?” Friday finished.

The old man tossed his fish up onto the pier; the writhing net landed an inch from Friday, and she screamed, jumping out of her skin. The old man climbed up after his catch.

“Don’t know an Adams,” the old man said. Friday wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself. “There’s more than two dozen people living here, pet. Haven’t you ever been to a city before?”

Friday barked a laugh, stepping toward the old man. Val caught her shoulder.

“How about any disappearances at all lately?” Val said.

The old man cracked up, howling with laughter. A shiver ran down Friday’s spine. Val was perfectly still beside her, his stiffness validating the wrongness that Friday felt under the old man’s laugh. The two of them stood and watched him, his net of fish all but forgotten as he cackled.

“...What’s funny?” asked Val.

“There’s more disappearances in Everglades City than there are people,” the old man said. “And as I was telling the lady, there’s no small number of people.”

The old man’s face twisted now, not in laughter, but in some unclear emotion. No feeling came through in his words, his laughter dead in the air.

“Been a peculiarity of this city as long as I’ve been alive,” he said. “People’ll pack up a boat and row out into the glades, never come back. Leave their whole family behind. Some weeks, it’ll be one a day. Then you’ll have a dry month or two...but it never stops.”

The old man rubbed the white stubble on his chin thoughtfully as his net of fish slapped the pier in a frenzy.

“Just keep your hands where they are, young lady,” he mumbled, finally turning away. “Just keep ‘em where they are.”

11.6 || 11.8

[kilyin]

WITHIN THE FOREST, P03

Donald wasn’t sure just how much time passed before he was blinking awake again. Slowly he sat up in the strange room and looked around, finding himself alone.

The pain was dull and negligible, so he tossed his legs over the side of the platform, resting them against the floor- the step?- it sat on. His shirt shifted and he looked down at himself, finally realizing he wasn’t wearing his costume or his sailor suit. Instead he wore a pale orange tunic. It was sleeveless, edged with a strangely soft vine that looped around his neck, holding the top up. A yellow sash was tied around his waist, embroidered with black diagonals all around. Whatever purpose that served, Donald had no idea.

Slowly, he pushed himself off the... bed? Was that what it was? It was the closest thing he could think to compare it to. He looked around, noticing for the first time the heavy drapes on the wall. The doorway had beaded strings dangling in it, obscuring his view of whatever was outside, but he could see that there was a door- two halves of a door that swung into the room, sitting open as wide as they could. Large silver metal- some form of hinge, Donald presumed- fastened the door to the wall. The door looked heavy, thick dark wood and nearly tall enough to reach the high ceiling. A torch was set right above the door, and after a moment or two he noticed the room had eight torches in all.

One above the door and one on each side of the doorway, one above the bed, and two evenly spaced on the remaining walls. They cast dark shadows, yet it was still light enough that Donald could clearly see the fur set on the stone floor.

It was cold in the room.

He stepped down the steps onto the floor below, gazing around. Where was he?

“I see you are awake.”

He almost jumped, attention snapping to the door. He hadn’t even heard anyone approach, and as he took in the sight of the young girl- hardly more than a child, if he had to guess- he quickly caught why.

She was taller than Donald by several inches, and she wore a green and yellow dress-like garment that fell about her knees. A cape was settled on her shoulders, gold and a green gemmed clasp holding it in place, and a golden belt that was definitely more for aesthetic than functionality was fastened around her waist. Pale yellow sleeves hung loosely from golden armbands, and silver beads- they looked like pearls but Donald knew without a doubt that they were not- were woven on golden string through her black hair.

The soft cloth shoes on her feet told Donald why he didn’t hear her approach.

The bird had blue and almost-magenta feathers -a cotinga, he realized- and green eyes. Very green eyes. She stood tall, posture straight, hands folded in front of her- Donald knew she was important.

Yet her gaze was soft, her eyes kind and not the sort of look he would have expected from such a severe stance.

The queen will meet with you.

Surely, Donald thought, this child wasn’t the queen.

“Ah- y-yes,” Donald answered, the unfamiliar words escaping him. “Where... am I?”

“Tharin Athlin,” the girl answered, neither word translating. Donald could only assume that that was the name of where he was. “In the forest Athlin.”

Near the Amazon, he remembered Uno saying.

“I- how do I get back to Duckburg?”

The cotinga looked at him. “Duck... burg?”

“Duckburg. Calisota. United States. You know...” But he could tell by her eyes that she didn’t.

She simply shook her head. “I am sorry. I know nothing of the world Outside.”

Isolated locals, he surmised. He’d dealt with them on previous adventures... but they had typically been hostile. This girl didn’t seem hostile.

They had healed his wounds.

Maybe they had saved his life.

“I am Kilyin Asveya Saravine,” the girl said after a few moments. “Queen of Tharin Athlin and one of the Nine Chiefs of the forest.” Not that Donald knew what the Nine Chiefs was.

“D... Donald Duck,” Donald said, shaking his head. “I- I need to go home. My family-”

“I’m sorry. You cannot go home.”

“What?” Maybe she wasn’t so kind after all.

But Kilyin looked at him, such a sad look in her eyes, and it didn’t feel like a threat. Just a fact of life.

“The forest keeps what it takes. Once you have come, you cannot leave. The forest would never allow it.”

If there was one thing Uno hated more than Scrooge McDuck, it was when technology failed him.

Every drone he sent- cut off. Lost contact. Only a brief surge, fractured data that he could make no sense of, before all connection broke and he could only assume the drone failed, just like the PK Jet.

And the most frustrating part was, if the PK Jet and all of the drones- every single one- failed as soon as it hit that perimeter, that strange, unreadable energy field...

That meant he would too.

He sat down, head in his hands as he tried to figure something- anything- out. He couldn’t send a car to get Donald. He couldn’t go in and get Donald himself. He didn’t even know where Donald was- the signal became so scrambled, there was no telling just where the jet went down.

Even trying to map it by hand was incredibly difficult, as the map spread out on the table in front of him showed. Blue marks to dictate the paths that he could only estimate that his drones took- yellow marks to show the last known location before the signal was lost... and red to show the predicted path. But they were only estimates. He wasn’t even sure if the drones could have kept to his directions, with the interference.

He stared at the map- at the red perimeter where he could only estimate his drones failed. It was like a wobbly dome- not at all even, yet roughly circular, with a clear center somewhere in the southern Amazon region. It was a fraction of the forest- probably less than ten percent- yet a large enough space that, even if he could go inside that perimeter, he would not likely find Donald in time.

Several days had already passed.

It was already a miracle if Donald was even alive- the PK Jet, failing right above an unknown part of the Amazon Forest? He was bound to have crashed. Who knew how bad it was?

Clenching his jaw, Uno dropped his hands and grabbed his phone. He had to hurry, before this rescue became a recovery mission.

He couldn’t go into the forest, inside that perimeter, but he knew someone who could.

Six someones, in fact.

[artificialqueens]

CuntCracker Chpt 2 (trixya- lesbain ballet au) - pastelcholita

AN - Hello kids! Sorry I’m late, but here’s the new chapter. Enjoy!

Warning for language and crass humour

Katya’s POV

My hand pushed down on the plastic lever, the soft trickling of individual cereals thudding against the styrofoam bowl situated on the plate under the slot. That day had been a considerably dreary day. I had planned to go on a walk before rehearsals, but the dense fog accumulated outside the warm campus seemed eerie. It had also been one of those days where your soul was clouded with a longing for a paternal, yet sensual, relationship; strictly no strings attached, if ya know what I mean.

I removed the bowl from the dark surface, and I moved to my usual table in the cafeteria. Violet, Willam, and Courtney sat in the according chairs, engaged in some odd conversation regarding the lagoon ducks in Central Park.

“Some guy can’t just pick the ducks up in a van, can he? That’s just not ethical?” Courtney asked, searching the other girls faces for an answer. She smiled when she met my gaze. “Oh, hi, Katya! We were just discussing the ducks, ya know the ones in the lagoon?”

“I see…” I trailed off. My mind couldn’t really settle on any one topic, for some reason I had not quite identified.

“No, you idiot, some guy couldn’t just shove them in the back of his pedo van,” Willam added, and had earned a chuckle from Violet.

“She’s right Court. Well about the van at least. They probably just migrate, it’s their nature. Like the fish, they just adapt, I guess,” Vi suggested. I didn’t necessarily agree with any of them, but I just contently stirred my Froot Loops. I didn’t want to admit it, but since auditions I couldn’t seem to get Trixie out of my mind. It was silly and trivial, and I knew it. Trixie was full of potential and still young, like a little pink firecracker. I was simply a jaded ballerina with callused feet. Boy did I sound yellow.

I excused myself to toss my soggy Loops and grab a cup of coffee on the way back. I was staring deep into my coffee, examining each bubble that rose to the top and migrated to the outer edge. Stupid move, I concur. In the process of making my way back to my previously claimed seat, I managed to ram into somebody, splashing my boiling beverage all over their clothes.

“Hey, watch it, you- Katya?” a sharp voice snapped from in front of me.

“Mishka, I am so sorry. Let me help you clean up.” Why did I have to spill my coffee all over Trixie, goddamnit. That day was just determined to be one of the most unfortunate days of my life.

We had hurriedly sauntered over to the paper towel dispenser dabbing her white - might I mention satin - nightie with the paper that seemed to be doing nothing.

“It’s really fine. I have more clothes back in my dorm,” she comforted. I was up to the tops of my ears in guilt.

“Leave it to me to ruin such a pretty dress with coffee,” I spat the word out like it was poison. Trixie laughed at my foolishness. “They don’t call me Cunt-ya for nothing.”

“Who the hell calls you that,” she thrashed.

“That’s King Cunt-ya to you. Well I’ve already messed on you, the least I can do is invite you back to my kingdom,” I remarked overly cheesily, extending my forearm to her. She crossed her own arm under mine, in a square-dance-esque fashion. We walked across the cafeteria like that, occasionally side stepping or shuffling, even adding a few twirls in ever so often.

When we had arrived, I pulled a chair from the adjacent table. “Your chair, m’lady,” I uttered in my most dapper tone.

“Why thank you, kind lady,” Trixie offered. That was probably what I adored most about her; her ability to play along and bounce back with a statement equally as funny. Boy, was I falling for her quick.

We chewed the fat with the other girls for a while, collectively concluding that the ducks probably flew down to somewhere like Florida. Then Courtney went on a tangent on what the fish did when the lake froze over. Trixie shifted forward onto her arms, and let out a guttural yawn.

“Wanna head back to my dorm, sleeping beauty?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I stayed up late in the studio with Missus Davenport practicing aerials and stuff,” Trixie groggily answered. Trixie and I said our goodbyes, parting ways with the other dancers. En route to my dorm, Trixie suggested we stop by her room to get something comfy - and not soiled with coffee - to wear.

She opened the door to her dorm and it was like the both of us were spontaneously transported to a Mattel interpretation of Narnia. Pink pearls had been draped over the curtain rod, creating an illusion of fresh pink snow tendrils fallen from the roofs. Fluffy pink scarves adorned the bed rails, acting as floral tassels to the overstuffed bed. It was truly a spectacular sight, in my eyes of course.

“Kotehok, I greatly appreciate your creative integrity, but why so much pink?”

“Oh, well you see,” Trixie explained while she rummaged through a pile of laundry, “it’s my fantasy.” She craned her neck around to smirk at me from her seated spot on the floor. We exchanged a giggled before she had turned back to sort through the clothes.

I gradually migrate to the bed, plopping down comfortably on the frilly pile of blankets that I had assumed accumulated over the course of a few months. Suddenly, an insurmountable urge to lay my haphazard mane of waves down upon the sea of peachy fluff had overcame me, so I did just that. I slid down onto my back, disappearing like a small child. I began to quietly whisper a tune, quite dorkily actually, now that I think about it…

Trixie’s POV

“-Eka-trina Petrov-a Zamolod-ikova, -ut your da- ju-t calls me…Katya.”

I scaned the room quickly, my eyes darted around the room only to have found two boney feet emerged from a puddle of cushion atop my mattress.

“You rotted cunt,” I laughed. Katya’s head popped up from under a faux pelt. “What are you mumbling this time?”

“You know, the usual, just summoning satan to come have sexual intercourse with my decrepit, senile, womanly body,” she massaged her hands over her core, reaching up and pushing up her ample breasts. She concluded this statement with an assembly of wheezes and flailing arms.

Katya exploded off of the bed, landing in fourth position. “Yekatrina.” She transferred her weight onto her forward foot, lunging into it. “Petrovna.” Katya extended onto releve, releasing the tension built up from her back leg and turning a la second. “Zamolodchikova.” Yekatrina planted her back foot and raised her hands up to her face, almost shielding herself. “But your dad just calls me.” She waggled her fingers about, drawing her hands away from her face. “Katya.”

My mouth dropped open and I wildly clapped my hands “Encore, encore!” Katya rolled down to the floor and planted herself beside me. She reached at my forearm, grasping onto it, leaning into my body. A sort of - how do I explain this without sounding overly gushy and sappy - wave of goosebumps and electricity washed down my back and cusped around my toes. I laughed along with Katya and tried to mask my subconscious shiver.

“What time does practice start anyway?” a voice I had never encountered before questioned.

“Wait, you’re not Russian?”

“Yeah, I mean I’m from Boston,” a new accent coated Katya’s voice.

“Seriously, though,” I deadpanned, “where in the hell are you from?”

“I’m really from Boston. My mother is Russian, hence ‘Yekatrina Petrovna Zamolodchikova.’”

“Ah… It’s in like an hour and a half, around ten I think.”

Katya rested her head on my shoulder. The tenseness slowly began to uncoil and I settled into the half-embrace as well. I pulled my phone down from the countertop that we were situated against, scrolling through twitter with my unoccupied hand. Katya had begun to softly stroke my hair, mumbling something that sounded like, “Good kot,” but I’m still not too sure. I scrolled down to a video of a ballerina from Joffrey absolutely eating shit on stage that Pearl retweeted. I moved to show Katya the video, sure that she would have a heart attack watching it, only to realize that she was gingerly snoring, mouth slightly agape, with her head nestled into the crook of my neck. It was nearly time to start getting dressed in our leotards and sew our pointe shoes for practice, but Katya just looked so fuckin’ precious all curled up. I found myself wishing that this wasn’t going to be a one-time deal. I tried to pry this thought from my head, but it had buried itself deep inside the back of my cranium. I guessed it was going to stay there for a few days before I adjusted to Katya’s strange version of friendship, but boy was I wrong.

[ralbeleren]

Accidental Dating/Accidental married, Mermaid AU, Pretty Woman AU, Didn’t know they were dating, A Dark Night in Cincinnati, Abusive Relationship AU, Witch/Witch’s Familiar AU, 1950s Infidelity AU, UGH Whatever, Psalm 91:11 >___>, I See the God Among Me, Fall Among Me, Found Family, and kill the lights

Cut for length! Only one of these didn’t have a snippet to post. 

Accidental Dating/Accidental Married: 

“First round is on me.” José squints at him a little bit, but he doesn’t protest, just sips on his drink and props his chin in his hand, watching James through half-lidded eyes. James tries to pretend that he doesn’t actually notice and that his palms aren’t sweating. It’s nerves; this could go really badly. “I’m not really sure how to go about this but…” James starts and looks at the bottles lining the wall, “… I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor.” José frowns a little, but sits up straighter. “Here I was, thinking you just like my company.” “No, it’s not that.” James says. “Dunno how you think that gonna make me wanna do you a favor.” “That’s not what I meant.” José raises his brows. “I mean, I need your help.” “I not agreeing to something before you tell me what it is, wasn’t born yesterday.” James doesn’t really know how to bring it up.

Mermaid AU:

He’d learnt, but he never stopped loving the water. When he’s about 12, his daddy lets him fish with them. The boat gleams in the summer sun. There’s a gleam of bright bejeweled blue and James wonders if he’s seeing things, as he’s sure he sees tails far too large to be any fish swimming in the murky depths. When he says as such, his dad brushes it off as old wives tales. James is about 12 when he sees his first merman. He can’t be much older than James, with dark hair and tanned skin, and a gleaming blue tail with the occasional red scale. He’s caught in one of the weighted nets, arms and tail tangled with it. James knows it’s one of those big crab hauling nets that their neighbors use and technically, he’s not supposed to be over in their yard. But vaguely, he remembers the pearl, remembers the tail and– not enough. But he wonders that maybe, maybe that was what saved him. “A life for a life.” James murmurs to himself and he picks his way over to the net. The merman struggles. “Shh, it’s okay.” James has a dog that he attempts to calm the same way, but the kid glares at him, dark eyes defiant and angry. James pulls out his fishing knife and starts to cut the rope netting. He has to saw at it, watching the strands break and snap, until he’s cut the net enough to let the merman free. 

Pretty Woman AU: 

This never got started but it was going to be Verlander and someone-- Scherzer I think, maybe? That was a prompt fill for the MLB Fic Exchange but I never got around to writing it because of the timing. 

Didn’t Know They Were Dating: 

José looks miserable, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Was Boston colder?" James asks, the wind chapping his face as he leads José to his truck. José looks stung when James asks about Boston and James files the reaction away as José doesn't answer. It must be a sore spot still. He can imagine why, he wonders if that was why José was looking so upset at his phone.

"How you adjust? Is different than…" José squints at him. "Nebraska?"

"I should kick ya out of the car. Arkansas. But I grew up in California. And we had snow in Arkansas."

José chooses to turn the radio on instead and changes it from 99.5, jabbing at the seek button like it offended him.

A Dark Night in Cincinnati: 

“Is this a fire extinguisher?” Carson’s tone is incredulous and Guardian’s mouth presses into a flat line. Tony runs a hand through his dark brown hair and his brow furrows slightly.

“Of course it isn’t,” Tony says, shaking his head at him, “I’m not some kind of amateur.” Tony crosses his arms over his chest, a motion which causes him to twist his face a little and quickly uncross them. Guardian puts a hand to his elbow lightly.

“I mean, it’s a flame retardant chemical that’s been compressed…” Tony started.

“So it is--”“Let me finish,” Tony snaps at him. Guardian sighs a little, eyes moving towards the ceiling. Tony huffs at Carson. “Can you believe this guy?” “Tony,” Guardian’s tone is stern, but quiet.

“FINE,” Tony says and he turns back to Carson. “It has power dampening properties too.”

Carson frowns at that.

“That seems like a dangerous road to go down…” “And I suppose you would rather that Spitfire just continues to run rampant then?” Tony counters. Carson frowns even more.

“Just seems a slippery slope, that’s all.”

Abusive Relationship AU:

Jose always wears wristbands when they're on the field. And James watches him pull them on, sees the faint, fading marks on his wrists. They're faintly yellow, almost gone.

James frowns a little as he notices them and he moves over to Jose. He grabs his hand and prevents him from finishing putting on the bands. There is loud Spanish reggaeton playing from a boombox and James takes a quick glance around to make sure that no one is paying attention.

"What happened?" James asks. José frowns and jerks his hand away from James's grip.

"Was just an accident." José finishes tugging on his wrist bands. "You probably dunno how it is, when a pretty chica wanna play around."

James raises his brow at him.

"Play around?" James repeats.

José nods a little but he doesn't meet James's eyes.

"Yeah, you know, she likes to tie you up and play around."

James can't help but imagine that and his cheeks flush red.

"Forget I asked." James shakes his head a little.

José laughs -- but it sounds a little forced. James doesn't know if he knows José well enough to know it's fake, but it's just lacking something that he's heard before. James frowns a little at José and squeezes his shoulder. 

Witch/Witch’s Familiar AU:

James remembers dying. When he closes his eyes he can still feel it sometimes. The sharpness of steel between his ribs, and the way the blood felt as it trickled from the corner of his mouth. He remembers laying there, with surprise and horror, unable to move, staring up at the brilliant blue sky-- so bright it almost hurts.

It was a beautiful day to die on and sometimes when he dreams, he dreams of that.

He remembers that he dies and that his name was lost-- so he keeps it burned into the back of his tongue like a word he can't quite get out, that he chokes on when he introduces himself.

James doesn't know why he was reborn-- perhaps just the way it goes, when someone is praying for a miracle, any miracle.

When he's young, skinned his knees and his mom is wiping them up with astringent peroxide, bubbling away the infection, she tells him he was her miracle baby. How he almost died.

James remembers dying, but then he forgets.

1950s Infidelity AU:

He makes his way downstairs and grabs the newspaper and some coffee, looking at the headline. He reads through the article about GM and the UAW but the looming threat of the strike at the Ford plant he works at causes him to quickly flip through the pages, leaving behind the more serious stuff to check out something else.

There's a real fear there looming, although it wasn't too long ago that things were negotiated differently, and that the threat of a strike was eased off of. But the worry still settles there like a lump of coal low in his belly. Christian and Kane and Jess don't deserve the leanness of having to tighten their belt loops if James was to be out of work.

He reads through the sports pages and tries not to feel some kind of way, looking through baseball news.

"That Bucky Harris is a smart one." James says to himself, mostly, looking at the rainout news and what the plans had been, the all-righty line-up versus a southpaw. Too bad for the rain and he eventually puts the paper aside to work on getting breakfast.

The twins fight over the comics page, until Jess hushes them and takes the paper away.

"Have a good day at work, hon." Jess kisses him on the cheek and flutters away to do the dishes, sending the kids upstairs to get dressed for whatever they planned to do that day, and James heads off with his leg still aching.

Fear still settling in the bottom of his stomach.

But it should be okay-- he's certainly survived worse. His street is relatively quiet this early, muggy and humid, it feels like breathing in water. It's gonna be a long day and on the ride to work, he's already sweating through his dress shirt.

UGH Whatever: 

Los Angeles has been hard. He doesn't mind. He knows-- he feels-- this team is going to get him what he wants. Not that it changes the fact that he misses Detroit and the culture and the grind. Or that he misses Texas in spite of how he felt he was treated.

But it feels like ages ago. The feeling fades and the anger becomes more manageable and more secret. He doesn't wear it on his sleeve as much.

He had wanted to retire with Detroit, in Detroit. But he knows it's business, it's all business. Wants and desires only extend so far. And Ian, as much as he misses the other places, he has his own desires too. He wants to win a ring. He wants to have a shot at the hall of fame. He wants those things, with the prestige. The parades.

And while he has his preference whether he's wearing Angels red or anything else, he doesn't care as long as he can raise that World Series trophy. He's a gamer. He works hard and he doesn't know if deserves is a good word. But he wants.

It's a powerful thing, to want.

He knows he's lucky too. As he checks up on his old friends. Naps is out for the year, maybe the rest of his life depending. They're not young guys anymore, harder to bounce back from surgery. Harder to get back right after being out for so long. (It makes him feel a dread of mortality, his age looming like a spectre behind him, waiting for the one misstep before it makes itself apparent.)  

It wasn't that long ago the same thing happened to C.J., going for surgery and never coming back. And shit, things with Josh.

Then there's guys who had gotten to the top, now toiling away in the minor leagues. Salty is doing that and he had a World Series ring. He knows all this stuff is fleeting and he tries hard not to think too much about Salty.

Psalm 91:11 :

Daniel sees God in all things. The people that he meets, the stories he hears, the places that he goes -- where he searches for peace amidst a troubled soul, and everything else on the Earth.

Things aren't coincidence to him, they are the points he needs to be. It wasn't a stroke of luck, but the hand of God himself that gave him his love and talent for baseball, but the mind to stay humble.

In small ways, this is reinforced and in large ways too. Daniel doesn't believe in coincidence. He believes in Fate, he believes in a divine plan. He believes that he is wholly created to be just as he is -- flaws and all.

It's difficult sometimes. It's hard to reconcile his concept of a loving God when horrors happen. It's difficult to figure out why he was blessed and others weren't. He wishes he has an answer, he wishes he knew what made him worthy. What makes him special. Surely, everyone in their own way, but when he gives money to a homeless person, knowing that will never be him, he feels as though there's something.

Daniel often meditates on this, when he's standing on the beach with the waves lapping against the bared skin of his ankles.

I See the God Among Me, Fall Among Me: 

Nick hates to see James cry. He hasn't seen it a lot -- mostly due to injuries-- back in the clubhouse away from the cameras. But he still hates it. He still feels a grip of something like panic settle in the center of his chest and clench in so tight he almost forgets how to breathe.

But this -- this is different. It's worse. It's nothing anyone could have prepared him for. James had wanted to be a dad so bad and for this to happen has crushed him. Nick wishes he has some special thing to say, or a place to lay his words that would banish the hurt.

Found Family:

He supposes someone whose kid looks up to him as a role model though isn’t going to be inclined to be forgiving. Or to care about the jumbled mess in his mind. They wouldn’t care about how he’s always desired to wander free or just be himself and do his own thing. But he’s always been beholden to someone or something else.

When Jess left, that restraint left too.

But no one would care-- if he was getting his grief out or if he was just rebelling against years and years of an institutional demand to hold everything back. Those parents wouldn’t care. That wasn’t their problem. Their problem was knowing what he was like away from the ball club.

So publicized too.

He thinks maybe it’ll blow over.

But the guys are the guys and of course there are jokes. He isn’t sure who put the blow up doll in his locker down in Lakeland, there’s too many people laughing to really pin it down and he’d be lying to say if his cheeks didn’t burn.

This humiliation is nothing -- nothing at all -- compared to his first Spring Training start. There’s an honest to god protest and he’s not entirely sure what to do. They’re set up behind home plate, jeering and quoting stuff at him. He’s sure it’s not the Florida sun making his neck feel so hot.

James wants to tell them to fuck off. But there’s small spaces of him that feels that they’re right.

“Damn man,” The Houston batter up in front of him says, “You really making some enemies out here.”

James doesn’t recognize him and he stands up and gets in his face, shoving him in the chest as anger that’s been bubbling up for a while now explodes off of him like a firework. Sudden and bright and loud.

“Maybe shut your fucking mouth,” James hisses at him and throws a punch. One of the new kids he doesn’t know yet has his arms around him almost as soon as his arm goes round-- trying to pull him back. And the batter is getting held out of the way by the umpire but he gets ejected and he can’t even care.

kill the lights:

His mama always told him it'd been something that he was making up, but he doesn't think he could have maintained a charade like that for so many years; pretending there was something there wasn't, just to stick it to her that he wasn't just imagining it. But he'd stopped mentioning it to her. He'd stopped mentioning it to anyone.

Somehow, it's stronger in Detroit.

When he lays in his bed at home, he hears it calling. The sound of it lulling, almost like a siren song. The hissing almost sounding like whispering. Saying his name, calling him closer. Like a voice down so many distant halls, echoing like the breezes stirred the curtains. Calling him endlessly in the darkness.

He tries to shake it off, like he always does, and he never succeeds. Why can't he shut it out? Why does he get out of his bed and follow the noise. Walking towards the back part of the house and into the backyard.

It's midnight-- ink black with just the dim white light from a street lamp lighting one corner. There's a hatch there, like those old tornado shelter ones he's seen in Kansas, with rusted handles, and old wood that's a little bit cracked and splintered.

Had that been here when he'd bought this house? It's weird he suddenly can't remember and he bites down on his lower lip and considers going down there. He reaches the spot and grabs the handle which is cold enough to make his hand feel like he shoved it into an icebath despite the July humidity making his hair stick to his forehead and beads of sweat to prickle all over his skin, make his shirt cling to his shoulders.

"It's cold," Mikie says, mostly to himself and jerks his hand back. There's an odd line like he's been branded that flashes on his palm for a moment, before it disappears and he's sure he's imagined it. There's some shrill inhuman shriek he hears and it's right in his ear but it's also echoing beneath him and some birds spook from a nearby weeping willow and flutter off in the night.

He feels a chill go through him and when he turns back, the hatch is gone.