#is everybody PUMPED for tuesday

[anna-scribbles]

Despite what Ladybug had promised, when the light of their detransformations faded, Adrien pried his swollen eyes open and he could see.

And, like a vision straight from his darkest nightmares, the bloody, terrified face staring back at him was Marinette’s.

- one of my favorite scenes from chapter 4 of call it even :))

[demonoflight]

Fun facts and tidbits from Deep Cut’s stage dialogue:

While Shiver and Frye have favorite weapon classes they swear by (stringers for Shiver and splatanas for Frye), Big Man is the kind of guy who uses different weapons for different stages. Some of the weapons he uses are brushes (at Inkblot Art Academy), blasters (at Humpback Pump Track) and sloshers (at Eeltail Alley).

Frye likes coming up with attack names for Specials used in highly specific ways and charging in with a war cry in turf battles. She is not stealthy.

Deep Cut sells their treasure from the Crater at a high price to a guy running a shady stall in Hagglefish Market.

Shiver’s need for speed is not limited to riding Master Mega into battle. She has openly contemplated taking the cars at Mincemeat Metalworks and the Manta Maria itself for joyrides, and her parents were worried about her riding a bicycle because she’s a danger and a menace to everybody and WILL run you over.

Some stage dialogue basically confirms Deep Cut are housemates (oh my god they were roommates) - the three of them even go shopping for groceries at MakoMart together (Shiver recommends buying in bulk on Tuesdays for great savings!). Frye keeps trying to sneak unapproved snacks into their cart, but Shiver and Big Man are on to her shenanigans.

Big Man has been teaching the girls how to cook ever since they started living together! In Japanese, Shiver straight up admits to struggling with cooking when she moved out of her parents’ house since she’s never really had to cook before, and Frye says before Big Man taught them the basics she mostly ate junk she got from the supermarket. Either way, Big Man points out Frye has a bad habit of putting a ton of sugar into EVERYTHING. She’s... she’s working on it.

None of the Deep Cut trio have ever lived in a housing complex with apartments like Flounder Heights. Frye is very open to the idea, but Shiver isn’t since she thinks she wouldn’t get along well with neighbors.

Deep Cut’s go-to venue for birthday parties is Big Man’s house. It is unclear if it’s because it’s the biggest and nicest of the clan houses, or if it’s because Big Man (and his family by proxy) are the most easygoing and willing to hold parties there.

Both Big Man and Frye have a past with Undertow Spillway - Big Man got lost there once as a child while chasing butterflies, while a young Frye used to skip dance lessons and take her little brother with her to explore and look for treasure.

Frye used to skip school a LOT.

Deep Cut has filmed music videos at Mincemeat Metalworks and Hammerhead Bridge, but the latter was never released because Big Man was knocked over by a strong wind.

Some time ago, Deep Cut were extras for a movie filmed at Scorch Gorge. They were only in the film for two seconds.

Deep Cut are completely weirded out by the NILS Statue, are further weirded out by the fact no one really talks about anymore, and think it’s stupid that there are still tour boats sailing right by the statue. See, they CAN be sensible every once in a while.

Big Man likes to imagine the big cranes at Sturgeon Shipyard combining into a giant robot. Big Man is a nerd.

One of the Mahi-Mahi Resort dialogues has Shiver complaining about how hot it is at the poolside. In English, Big Man suggests taking a dip in the pool, and immediately realizes his friendly advice could be misconstrued because what works for him does NOT work for an inkfish. Compare and contrast Marie telling Callie to take a dip in said pool back in the first game’s NOA translation... they’ve definitely gotten better about this, Big Man really just comes off as a well-meaning goofball here. Meanwhile, in Japanese, Shiver’s complaint brings him to a realization: “so THAT’S why you keep standing in my shadow when we’re here...”

Frye is the kind of person who goes into turf battle with a weapon in one hand and a snack in the other (the only person, Shiver insists). This has made her the target for seagulls enough times that she has issued a public service warning about the little snack thieves.

Once, Frye used Zipcaster to enter one of the high cages at Scorch Gorge... and could not figure out how to get out. There were tears. She insists she didn’t cry and does not want to talk about it.

[vexx-ation]

365 Albums in 365 Days: 197/365

Date: Tuesday July 16th Album: Everybody Wants Artist: The Struts Released: 2014 Genre: Glam Rock Review: Sometimes, you just need some glam rock in your life. The energy here is infectious, the lyrics are fun, and it’s the exact type of album to pump you up and make you feel like you want to sing along. There are lots of loopable bangers on this one. Bring on the leather and glitter. Favorite Track: Could Have Been Me

[inbarfink]

List of which songs are included on each Polka under the cut

Polkas on 45: "Jocko Homo" by Devo, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, "Sex (I'm a …)" by Berlin, "Hey Jude" by The Beatles, "L.A. Woman" by the Doors, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly, "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads, "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones, "My Generation" by the Who

Hooked on Polkas: "Twelfth Street Rag" by Euday L. Bowman, "State of Shock" by The Jacksons and Mick Jagger, "Sharp Dressed Man" by ZZ Top, "What's Love Got to Do with It" by Tina Turner, "Method of Modern Love" by Hall & Oates, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes, "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, "99 Luftballons" by Nena, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins, "The Reflex" by Duran Duran, "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" by Quiet Riot, "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Polka Party!: "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel, "Sussudio" by Phil Collins, "Party All the Time" by Eddie Murphy, "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie, "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin, "What You Need" by INXS, "Harlem Shuffle" by The Rolling Stones, "Venus" by Bananarama, "Nasty" by Janet Jackson, "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco, "Shout" by Tears for Fears, "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna

The Hot Rocks Polka: "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)", "Brown Sugar", "You Can't Always Get What You Want", "Honky Tonk Women", "Under My Thumb", "Ruby Tuesday", "Miss You", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Get Off of My Cloud", "Shattered", "Let's Spend the Night Together", "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - all by The Rolling Stones

Polka Your Eyes Out: "Cradle of Love" by Billy Idol, "Tom's Diner" by DNA featuring Suzanne Vega, "Love Shack" by the B-52's, "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic, "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M., "Unbelievable" by EMF, "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground, "Cherry Pie" by Warrant, "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson, "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls, "Dr. Feelgood" by Mötley Crüe, "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice

Bohemian Polka: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

The Alternative Polka: "Loser" by Beck, "Sex Type Thing" by Stone Temple Pilots, "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, "Bang and Blame" by R.E.M., "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by The Smashing Pumpkins, "My Friends" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, "I'll Stick Around" by Foo Fighters, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, "Basket Case" by Green Day

Polka Power!: "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls, "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger, "Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)" by Pras featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mýa, "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" by the Backstreet Boys, "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smash Mouth, "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys, "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba, "Ray of Light" by Madonna, "Push" by Matchbox Twenty, "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind, "The Dope Show" by Marilyn Manson, "MMMBop" by Hanson, "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground, "Closing Time" by Semisonic

Angry White Boy Polka: "Last Resort" by Papa Roach, "Chop Suey!" by System of a Down, "Get Free" by The Vines, "Hate to Say I Told You So" by The Hives, "Fell in Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes, "Last Nite" by The Strokes, "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed, "Renegades of Funk" by Rage Against the Machine, "My Way" by Limp Bizkit, "Outside" by Staind, "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock, "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D., "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem

Polkarama!: "Chicken Dance" by Werner Thomas, "Let's Get It Started" by Black Eyed Peas, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand, "Beverly Hills" by Weezer, "Speed of Sound" by Coldplay, "Float On" by Modest Mouse, "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz featuring De La Soul, "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes, "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers, "Slither" by Velvet Revolver, "Candy Shop" by 50 Cent featuring Olivia, "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell Williams, "Pon de Replay" by Rihanna, "Gold Digger" by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx

Polka Face: "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga, "Womanizer" by Britney Spears, "Right Round" by Flo Rida ft. Kesha, "Day 'n' Nite" by Kid Cudi, "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum, "Baby" by Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris, "So What" by Pink, "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry, "Fireflies" by Owl City, "Blame It" by Jamie Foxx ft. T-Pain, "Replay" by Iyaz, "Down" by Jay Sean ft. Lil Wayne, "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz ft. Ludacris, "Tik Tok" by Kesha

NOW That's What I Call Polka!: "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus, "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, "Best Song Ever" by One Direction, "Gangnam Style" by Psy, "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, "Scream & Shout" by will.i.am feat. Britney Spears, "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye feat. Kimbra, "Timber" by Pitbull feat. Kesha, "Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO, "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz, "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams

[numetaljackdog]

1, 12 and 10 for the OC asks!

1 . how would you describe the world your story takes place in?

the world of RM is like. it's very much borne of the times we're living in where the apocalypse happens and everybody kinda has to go "eh, just another tuesday." as i've already indicated in the comic itself (:3c) it takes place in the relatively near future, in the year 2121, and late-stage capitalism is still getting more and more late-stage. it's a very harsh landscape, a lot of sparse ruined land and overdeveloped concrete jungle that completely blurs the lines between the corporate and the personal. i wouldn't quite call it cyberpunk, bc the aesthetic has some different bends, but it's like. diet cyberpunk :3 there's also monsters sometimes but those are incidental. also 21st century nostalgia is a big thing, mostly to justify why all these musicians 100 years in the future are so obsessed with the music that we're listening to rn lol

10. if your story is titled, why did you choose that title?

ooh a fun question that i don't really have a very fun answer to..... it just Sounded Right. i named the band before i decided i was making a comic out of this, and so when i named the comic i was just like. yeah that works i guess. as for how the name itself came about, there are multiple parts. i get really upset about the continued abuse of marilyn monroe's constructed marketable image and story, so i liked the idea of calling the band that because it sort of offers the catharsis of finally letting the woman rest, even if it sounds grim. it's a fresh start of like, what if it was over. what if we let her rot instead of pumping the idea of her with plastic just to make a buck every few years. i think that fits nicely with the theme of trying to overcome the blending of branding and personhood. and then the other part is that the second most famous marilyn i can think of is professional shithead manson, who is obviously very associated with the sort of mallgoth aesthetic that RM personifies. so i liked the idea of putting that connection to assholes of the past to rest - whereas we're letting monroe rot with a fond memory, because it's time she finally gets to rest, we're letting manson rot because we hate his ass!! and then i got the idea to do the M as teeth and i was like ahhhh that would be so sick. and i was right i think

12. okay be honest. pick a favorite oc from this ocverse.

LMAO. well one of them is essentially just me. so probably that one, at least out of the main four. that's laura AKA session AKA sesh, the lead guitarist and professional puppygirl. i created her first, as a sona for myself, and then gave her some friends bc i'm lonely, and that's how the band came about. she's got the handful of things that i really like about myself, plus some things i wish were true about me. i don't always have a self-insert in all my projects, but i find that the ones i do tend to be easier for me to work on

[motownfiction]

oddity

From the moment she learned to speak, Lucy’s mother has held her close and called her my little oddity.

It seems nice for a little while. Mom never says anything mean to Lucy. She loves everything about her. When Lucy picked up a guitar and started strumming non-existent, non-rhyming songs about women in cafés in Europe, Mom kissed her cheeks and called her perfect little Joni Mitchell baby, my little oddity. When Lucy got really into wearing mismatched socks because she thought it added subtle character, Mom said she was proud of her, so proud of her, my little oddity. It was a term of endearment, like when Sadie’s mom called her sweetheart, or when Will’s mom called him baby. Mom’s just smarter than all the other parents, including Dad, most of the time. Oddity is a stronger word. A smarter word. A better one.

Until Lucy is too proud of it on the way to art class in fourth grade.

And Nick Crosby tells her it’s an insult. An accurate one, to be sure, because Lucy is the only kid in the whole fourth grade who knows the difference between all the different painters that Miss Kovacks asks them about every Tuesday morning, in art class.

She carries his words in her chest like a bomb for almost two more hours. Thankfully, recess rolls around, and she can detonate. Right in front of Sadie, the only person who knows how to listen. They’re sitting motionless on the swingset when Lucy finally gets the courage.

“Am I weird?” Lucy asks.

Sadie shrugs.

“I guess so,” she says. “Why? Is that bad?”

“I think. But you have to be honest with me. Am I weird?”

“Yeah.”

Sadie doesn’t even hesitate. Lucy wonders what it would be like to punch a hole right through the air.

“Great,” she mutters. “How do you know I’m weird?”

Sadie shrugs.

“You know how everybody else likes Greg?” she says, beginning to pump her legs and swing back and forth, back and forth. “Including me?”

“Yeah.”

“You like Peter.”

Lucy screws up her face.

“That’s not weird,” she says. “He’s kind of like Will.”

Sadie turns her head and gives her a look that only a ten-year-old girl with gossip behind her eyes can give.

“Sure,” she says. “You’re weird.”

Lucy sighs.

“I knew it.”

“But that’s not bad. If you weren’t weird, I don’t think I’d like you very much.”

Lucy smiles, even though she doesn’t mean to.

“OK,” she says. “I guess I’ll live with it, then.”

They swing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

(part of @nosebleedclub november challenge -- day 18!)

[kenovele]

Bogs blog 49

We returned from Nelson on Tuesday and Benoit went back to work on Wednesday and Thursday while I enjoyed my time off between jobs. Whilst I was momentarily unemployed, I did jobs around the house, and just general life admin before getting ready for our long weekend of activities. On Thursday night we had a group of friends meet up at Runciman for a shared BBQ for dinner before all of the crew went to Shipwrecked. We went to shipwrecked last year and got rained out early on Sunday morning due to the catastrophic flood events that raged throughout the country, this year we were more amped than ever. We had a good group coming, friends from Tauranga mainly, and we were so keen to get the party started.

Everyone except for Benoit and I got too excited on Thursday night and stayed up until 2am painting our camp flag. Last year we found it quite difficult to find our camp so decided that a flag was needed to lead the way back home in the wee hours of the morning. Our neighbours at camp last year ceremoniously named us the jazz camp after playinga significant amount of cruisy jazzy music and the name kind of stuck. On Friday morning, the flag and everything else was packed into a few vans and my little car and we were on route to Te Arai for the three day festival. To say we were excited was a bit of an understatement, but even with us all building it up, I do not think that anyone was disappointed. The party spirit was definitely with us this weekend and it was constantly being passed around in each others smiles, base drops and grooving. Each night we stayed up until at least 5am and each day we were all just as excited to head back to the festival and keen to keep on grooving. The camp life was well organised, everybody was allocated a meal to cook for the camp, either a late breakfast or an early dinner and everyone took their roles seriously, we had good food and always a nice catch up with everyone that was in the camp. The meal times were nice relaxing times where we could laugh about the days antics and have a good debrief with everyone there. It was so fun at camp that sometimes it was hard to convince the big group that it was time to move to the main event! As we walked into the festival the whole mood changes, there was about a 10 minute walk between the camp and the festival, which was good because it meant that despite the loud music playing 24/7 we did manage to get some sleep as the base was quiet enough to tune out. On the way to the festival, you walk past a lake and look towards the festival, with the trees lit up in different colours, and multiple different sculptures and artworks to look at. Throughout the weekend there are live painting exhibits, workshops, yoga, talks, and shops with neat things to tempt your wallet. Then you arrive in at the main event, there are five stages that each have a specific genre of music and a completely different set. As the stages are permanent stages, they have perfected the music, base and quality of the sound directed at the stages mosh pits. It is amazing that even with so much sound, there is no distortion between the stages, and when you are in the middle, there is almost no sound. In the centre of the festival, there is a set up for performers, such as fire dancers, silk dancers and everything else you can imagine. It truly is a festival for all the sensations. During the day, the stages are still pumping but there is also the lake to swim in, and a rope swing to practise back flips on (if you are Benoit). Although our bodies and eyes were tired our hearts were so full.

On Sunday, we had a nice wind down boogie before slowly packing up and heading back home. Jamie and a few others decided to stay on until Monday as the festival and the experience was just too hard to leave! Monday, Benoit went to work and I had my last day off before starting my new job, it has been a long time coming but finally I was out of holidays and ready to start a new chapter. To say I was nervous was an understatement, luckily, during the day on Monday, I wasn’t actually worried at all and spent my day smiling at memories from the weekend and creating pottery, however, around 4am Tuesday morning, I woke up feeling sick with worry and nerves. It was hard to sleep and I really wasn’t feeling in the best mind set when my alarm did eventually go off in the morning. Luckily my outfit was already sorted, so I just needed to throw it on and Benoit drove me to the train station. Typically, the train I was on was diverted, so although I allowed myself a reasonable amount of time to get to work, I ended up fast walking to make it there on time. Luckily, though, as soon as I arrived, I felt comfortable. The team seem nice, they have systems but they seem to make sense, I have a mentor but not someone breathing down my neck, I went out and was able to buy myself completely new personal protection gear with no questions, and I even started my first job without feeling too out of my depth. So a good first day. Honestly, I would rather stay on holiday, but wouldn’t we all, so all things considered I am looking forward to this new chapter. I got home at 7pm, so late, but we have a new crockpot, so we are having easy dinners while we settle into this new rhythm.

Love Kate xxxx

[hardynwa]

Netizens kick as fuel price hits N617/litre

Nigerians on social media on Tuesday kicked against the adjustment in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, known better as petrol. The PUNCH reports that the pump price of petrol was raised from N537/litre to N617/litre at some filling stations operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited in Abuja on Tuesday. Independent oil marketers confirmed the increase in the cost of the commodity, as they stated that any shift in price by NNPCL stations was an indication of a rise in the pump price of PMS. “This is because NNPCL is still the major importer of petrol into Nigeria currently, though other marketers are gradually importing the commodity. The price this (Tuesday) morning at some NNPCL stations is N617/litre,” the Secretary, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abuja-Suleja, Mohammed Shuaibu, told our correspondent. Justifying the increase, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, attributed the rise in petrol pump prices in Nigeria to market forces. Addressing journalists after a closed-door meeting with Vice President Kashim Shettima at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday, Kyari said, “They are just prices depending on the market realities. This is the meaning of making sure that the market regulates itself. Prices will go up and sometimes they will come down also.” Alarmed by the development, Nigerians took to social media to bemoan the price hike, lamenting that the situation would further impoverish the citizens “NNPC fuel price is now N617 per liter. I hope you’re enjoying the renewed shege?,” a popular tweep, Nefferetti with Twitter handle @firstladyship wrote. @PoojaMedia wrote, “President Tinubu needs to address the nation NOW. Hunger is walking on the streets of Nigeria.” @OfficialUdiBoy wrote, “Fuel has gone up to 617 naira, renewed hope has turned to renewed shege. E go touch everybody until we get the mandate back.” On his part, @YemieFash said, “The same petrol that was 190 naira per litre two months ago is now 617 naira per litre. Is this the renewed hope?.” “Not up to a month and Tinubu times are this hard!! No way in Hell I am buying fuel for 617 naira. Once my phone goes off now na till Nepa bring light next,” @KhaleedSZN wrote. @SodiqTade wrote, “Dear Tinubu Boys, A litre of fuel is now selling for 617 naira almost two months after the removal of subsidy by Tinubu. Do you still think the 8k per household will cushion the possible effects of this new price? It seems Nigerians have entered one chance with this mandate.” @Shayor19 said, “617 naira per litre and we going to just adapt and move on like nothing happened?……..we are gradually missing Buhari right now”. On his part, @sirvicbrown, wrote, “When Tinubu said he was going to continue from where Buhari stopped, many of us didn’t really understand. Am sure is clear now?” Also contributing, @The_D1amond said, “The economy is not funny anymore… This is proof that it’s not getting better anytime soon. The government is against us, the economy is also against us🤦🏾‍♀ If you know what’s best for you, start investing in online skills that would help you earn in dollars>.” Read the full article

[phawareglobal]

Becky Mack - phaware® interview 396

In this episode, pulmonary hypertension patient, Becky Mack discusses navigating her rare disease diagnosis right after losing her husband to cancer. She also shares her story of adoption and motherhood. My name's Becky Mack, and I live in San Diego. I am a pulmonary arterial hypertension patient. My entire life I've had difficulty and had trouble breathing. I’ve always had lung things, but was never really diagnosed with anything. As I got older it got worse. I was, as is common with pulmonary hypertension patients, misdiagnosed with them all; asthma, bronchitis, COPD. Go down the list, I had them all. Doctors gave me pills and they gave treatments and they gave me all kinds of stuff, and none of it really helped. Then my husband got sick. He got cancer, unfortunately, and he died. I went to my cardiologist for my yearly checkup, because I had… as part of my story we now know, I had a mitral valve replacement 22 years ago. The only thing they could tell me at the time was that my mitral valve had been fused and blown or wrecked from rheumatic fever as a child. We checked with everybody in the family. Nobody remembers me having rheumatic fever. My oldest sister said, "No. If you had anything and anybody had said those words or if you would've been in the hospital, I would know. You did not." Okay, so whatever it was, I evidently had something. I had bad strep throat. It was probably a cousin of rheumatic fever. Whatever it was, it blew my mitral valve. Life goes on. Years later, I grow up, and I start having difficulty. I went to a doctor, blah blah blah, and he diagnosed me with a blown mitral valve. So we replaced it. I got mechanical valve 22 years ago, and life was good. Then the breathing trouble started. It got a little worse. It got a little worse, and life went on. My husband got sick. After he died, I went for my checkup about two months later. As I'm getting my sonogram, the technician said, "Oh, stay right here, I'll go get the doctor." That's always your clue that something's wrong. She comes back in and says, "The doctor would like to see you in his office." I said, "Oh my gosh, it's got to be bad news." I went into the doctor's office and he looked at it and he said, "I see something wrong. I'm not real sure what it is. I would like for you to see a pulmonologist. I'm going to send you to a colleague who's two offices down." I marched my little rear end two offices down right then and there. He wanted me to do it right away. I went into his office and he listened to my lungs, and he said, "Well, those are the clearest lungs I've heard all day. I don't hear any wheezing. I don't hear anything." He said, "But I suspect something. I'm going to send you to a colleague of mine at UCSD." I said, "Okay." He said, "Let me make a phone call." Then he said, "Okay, next Tuesday morning, 7:00 AM, show up at UCSD, blah blah blah, do this, that, and the other." So I did. I had my number two son with me. The doctor was going to give me a right heart catheterization. I had never had one. I didn't know what they were. As everybody now knows, when you have a right heart catheterization, they don't put you completely out. Therefore, my son was able to be in the room. So I'm laying on the table and the doctor's got the little scope and his little camera, and he's putting it down and he's barking orders, telling everybody what to do. Everything's going along fine. My son is standing in the corner. He's observing everything. I'm aware of what's going on. The doctor gets all the way down, takes all the pictures he wants to, and says, "Just as I suspected, she has pulmonary hypertension." Without skipping a beat, he turns to my son and says, "Don't google it." In the meantime, my son's on his phone googling it. His eyes get big. I had no idea. Six hours later, I was in the pulmonary hypertension center at UCSD diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, getting fitted for a subcutaneous pump. That was seven years ago. That was in a new reality. I was absolutely, totally blown away. Here I was, alone. It was the most unreal time in my life, because everything had happened so quickly. I was still very much grieving the loss of my husband. I get him buried and it's like, okay, now it's time to focus on me, and then boom, this. Now I've got this life-threatening illness, and I have to deal with that. It was scary as all heck, because I no longer had my partner to lean on. I had to do it by myself. I had no choice. My kids are, at that point, 28, 29, and 30. They all stepped up and did what they could as they knew how, in their grieving of just having lost their father. So it was tough on all of us. They all just kind of took turns getting me to the doctor. It was tough on everybody, because not only were they grieving the loss of their father, now they've got a mom who's sick, who's got this weird thing going on, and all this medical equipment she's got to use. She's got to be hauled all over town to doctors. It was a really, really, really rough time. People say, "Oh, you're so strong, you're so strong, you do this, that, and the other." There's no choice. I have no choice but to step up and do what needs to be done. I got to do it myself. So I do. I don't like it, but there's no other options. My choice is to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can, continue to do as much as I can for as long as I can, and advocate for my own health. So you just do it. Now, I have my days of depression, but most of the time it's okay. It's either that or, I don't know what, curl up and not get out of bed. I don't want to do that. I'm stubborn. I'm not ready to die. The support of the few people that I have met through support groups really is what kept me going, because in the beginning I didn't know anybody. It's such a rare disease that you don't meet people in the supermarket that say, "Oh, yeah, my nephew's got pulmonary hypertension. Oh, yeah, my great-aunt had PH!" Nobody's ever heard of it. It's like, okay, I have to find something. I have to find my people. I was lucky enough to do that through UCSD. They connected me with the San Diego Pulmonary Hypertension Support Group, Pulmonary Hypertension Association, and Facebook groups. Sandy Lombardi was marvelous for doing that. When there was something going on that I could go to, I go, because I crave being around other people, because nobody's ever heard of it. My husband and I got married in 1980 and children were always on the plan. A couple of years later, okay, it's time, We're preparing to have kids, and I can't get pregnant. We wait six months. Then we start the infertility treatment. Nothing is working. We were both checked out. They didn't see anything major. We tried everything, spent every single dime we had. Any money we had saved for a house all went into infertility treatment. About six years later, I had a fellow at work who just kind of looked at me just out of nowhere and says, "Well, what's most important? Do you want to be a parent or do you want to be pregnant?" For some reason that just clicked, and it's like, I want to be a parent. So then it was like, okay, okay, adoption's our next option. We talked and we thought about that. Then we started the adoption process. We fostered for a while. What was important to me, and I know it sounds selfish, but what was important to both my husband and I was that we had a child that looks like we could've given birth to him or her. We applied to many, many, many agencies. I started at A and we went all the way through. We found Vista Del Mar Childcare Services in LA. They were just like a perfect fit. I remember they said, "Okay, come to an orientation meeting." So my husband and I dutifully went down there. We walked in and this fellow's up there, and there's this whole roomful of people. He looked at us all and said, "Congratulations, you're all about to be parents." I just started to cry. Everybody in that room did. It's like, wow, somebody here's offering me hope. We stuck with their program. It took us about two years, and we were blessed enough to be matched. We adopted a baby boy. We brought him home from the hospital, and life went on, and it was good. When he was five years old, it's like, okay, we'd like to do this again. By that time we had moved to San Diego and had looked into adoption here in San Diego. Then I got to thinking, you know what? I am 40 years old. I am not so sure I want to do that infant business again. Well, God had other plans, because my next door neighbor, who was a minister of a church, said, "Oh, I know two little boys who need a place to stay just temporarily, and I know that you guys have room." We said, "Sure, we'll take them in." So we did. They were in the foster care system. We were already licensed as foster parents. Rory and Ryan were six and seven at the time. And they stayed, and that's a whole other story I won't get into. A year, 18 months later, we had a conversation and a social worker had the conversation. "Okay, obviously there's no reunification. How do you guys feel about adopting them?" We said, "We're in." So life goes on. It took us another year, and we adopted Rory and Ryan. Now, all of a sudden, I have three boys, five, six, and seven. It was like, okay, we're done. I got three boys. Pulmonary hypertension and pregnancy do not mix. I'm thinking that this was going on, and I'm thankful that that's the case, why I could never get pregnant. It would've killed me. You know, what is is, and there's no way I could ever know that, but it worked out. That's how we became parents. That’s how it fits in with my pulmonary hypertension story. Had I been pregnant, it might've killed me. If I had to give advice to a newly diagnosed patient, I'd have to say, "Imagine if you were planning a vacation to Holland, and you had read everything there was to know about Holland. You'd seen pictures of all the flowers. You knew exactly what you were going to do in Holland, what you were going to see. How life was going to be. You got on the airplane to go to Holland, and the plane landed and you got off, and you're in Italy. Now what? Okay, you enjoy your time in Italy. You learn how to love Italy. You just do whatever it takes. You planned on going to Holland, but you ended up in Italy, so here we are." My name is Becky Mack, and I'm aware that I'm rare. Learn more about pulmonary hypertension trials at www.phaware.global/clinicaltrials. Follow us on social @phaware Engage for a cure: www.phaware.global/donate #phaware Share your story: info@phaware.com

Listen and View more on the official phaware™ podcast site

[miekasa]

M-mie could we get some athlete boyfriend eren hcs too if you don’t mind, please and thank you😩

He is: my boyfriend, and I love him dearly. Perfect amount of himbo and athlete without being a jock, everybody give it up for Eren for being my dream boy <3

Eren plays sports year round, with the exception of maybe one or two winter seasons, just because his school/work/home life was too busy for athletics at those times. Otherwise, he’s always go something to practice for: soccer in the fall, hockey in the winter, and his choice of baseball or basketball in the spring.

He’s not a varsity athlete; that is, he’s not “committed” to any one team, so he’s not tied to playing one sport every year, nor are his academics linked to his athletics, or vice versa. He’s just a pretty athletic guy, and he’s got a lot of energy, and he enjoys sports, so naturally he plays whenever he can.

As it turns out, it does help him with his academics. Knowing he’s got practice the majority of the week forces Eren into building a schedule that prioritizes both schoolwork and sports so he can enjoy them equally. It teaches him to be independent in a way that he wasn’t expecting, but he’s come to really love.

And because he loves it, he doesn’t mind working hard for it. Liking the way he’s set it up for himself encourages him to do his best in both areas. It’s really just good for him all around: a good outlet fo his energy, a good way to spend his time, a good way to keep his grades in check, and a good way to keep himself comfortably happy and busy.

His appetite is insatiable, so it’s only dramatized when playing sports. He takes the all you can eat in all you can eat sushi a little too seriously.

The thing is… he’s a shit cook, too, so it’s not like he’s meal prepping to make sure he’s satisfying his appetite. He just buys a shit ton of food whenever he’s hungry. He’s always asking you if you wanna grab food, and part of it is to ensure that you’re eating—not as much as him, but eating nonetheless—but part of it is that he just likes sharing meals with someone.

He also doesn’t like to eat alone, so even if you only have your ten California rolls to his forty six spicy tuna rolls, that’s fine; he just wants the company.

That’s also why even if you say you’re not hungry, he’ll drag you out to eat with him anyway. And you’ll probably get fed some of his food even if you don’t order anything and insist that you’re not hungry because, “It’s really good, baby, just try it—just one bite, it’s okay I’ve got plenty left!”

He usually keeps a few granola bars and chips and other snacks of his liking on him. But because of Eren’s nature, he keeps them on you, too: in your car, in your backpack, in your apartment/dorm. You’ll meet him after class and he’ll kinda just start walking behind you, and you realize he’s opening your backpack, and you don’t even have time to question him before he’s pulling a bar out of the smallest pocket with a smile and munching on it.

Sometimes you come home and see his little protein shakes in your fridge. You definitely didn’t put them there, but you don’t move them, either. When you stock up on more when they’re running low, Eren contemplates marrying you.

If it’s been a hard week of practice or school, he tends to get sleepy when studying (usually when studying for his least favorite class, no coincidence there). He’ll close his laptop, put his hood up, and scooch his chair closer to yours before leaning his head on your shoulder.

He gets increasingly clingier the longer he naps; hand wrapping around your waist, nose poking at your neck. He’s not so subtly trying to hint that he wants you to quit studying and take him home to cuddle instead. If you don’t get the message, expect him to shut your laptop for you.

When you protest, Eren just looks at you with pouty lips and tired eyes, “Chemistry sucks anyway. Wanna nap, and also wanted you to do that thing with your hands when you massage my back for me.” (He then promptly falls asleep mid-massage on your bed).

He’s actually got a waiver to see a physical massage therapist because of how frequently he’s exercising. On occasion, he goes, but he claims he likes your massages much better. Also because he’s hesitant about a stranger touching him and once he moaned when the guy was working on his back and Eren swears it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life.

He doesn’t get upset if you can’t make it to every game, but he does like it when you show up. Gets all cheesy and cocky with his arm around your shoulder, going on about how, “You’re my good luck charm, baby. I play better when you’re watching, you know?”

He has so much team clothing, from sweats to hoodies to t-shirts to socks. All he asks is that you wear something on game days, even if you can’t be there to support him while he’s playing. And that you keep one or two things for yourself anyway. He’ll put them in your closet for your if you don’t take them yourself <2

Because seeing you in his hoodie is always great, but his team hoodies are extra special, because they’ve got his name and his number on them. Whenever you’re wearing one, he trails just a half step behind you so he can see JAEGER printed on your back while you walk. Something about you wearing his last name around is… enticing, to say the least.

Even if it’s not the clothes branded with his name, Eren’s got a thing for you in sweats and/or workout clothes, so he’ll toss them at you whenever you sleep over. He’s always handsy, even if you’re just wearing an Under Armour shirt with the school’s logo on it; the material of it, and knowing that it’s his just makes him want to keep his hands on you.

Truthfully, he doesn’t workout all that much outside of practice. Occasionally, he’ll go to the gym with some of his teammates if they need a buddy, or go himself to stretch or take one of the free classes, but he doesn’t have a strict schedule for it. If you go to the gym, he’ll follow you if you ask, tho.

Turns out something that he does like is yoga. He’s not particularly flexible lmfao, but the stretching helps with muscle pain and tension, and he kinda finds the whole atmosphere of it relaxing. He’s still not so great at the meditation part of it, but he’s getting there.

(Actually, it’s pretty cute because on Tuesday and Thursdays, the yoga classes at the gym on campus are open-level and beginner friendly. That’s when the majority of the athletes show up, and you see people like Eren, Jean and Connie holding tree pose in the back room).

This, of course, makes him think that couples yoga is a great idea. Let’s just say, you’re lucky that Eren is strong enough to catch you and has sharp reflexes, because he’s certainly not the most balanced partner for this activity.

Game days are fun for him, and usually even if his team loses, he’s still so pumped up on adrenaline that he’s pretty happy. He only gets moody if he thinks the other team is playing dirty, or the refs are unfair, or he’s just been in a bad mood because of something that happened in his personal life; sports are an outlet for him, not his drive in life, so losing a game doesn’t take a huge toll on him.

Usually, even if he is upset about something personal, he’s able to funnel it into his game play. Small things used to make his whole sportsmanship sour, but overtime, he’s really gotten better at using his energy to fuel the right things. However, one thing that makes him foul (emotionally and literally; as in he might foul out of a game), is if he’s been fighting with you.

Sometimes it works in his favor—using the game as outlet, like usual—but it goes south pretty quickly. Because instead of using his aggression in a productive way, he gets distracted and easily pissed off, and it’s no good for anybody, especially himself. Because if he fouls out, or the coach takes him out for doing too much, then he can’t play; and if he can’t play then all that pent up frustration has no where to go; and then he’s forced to just sit with himself and his thoughts, but usually he starts deflecting and telling everyone else to piss off. Truly a no good, very bad box he’s put himself in.

You guys don’t fight that often, and it’s rare that it drags out for an extended amount of time when you do; but as with any relationship, it can happen. And when it does happen, if Armin doesn’t get to you first, expect one of Eren’s teammates to come groveling at your feet.

Or, rather, two. Because when you and Eren were fighting for over two weeks about god knows what at this point, it was Connie and Jean who ambushed you in the library. Jean had some pride to keep, but Connie was practically begging you to make up with Eren: “Look, I know he’s probably the one who said or did something to piss you off, and I’m not saying you gotta forgive him, but please just talk to him. I can’t run anymore extra laps because of him, and it’s gonna be so embarrassing if we lose to a C-list team on Friday because Eren’s funking up everyone’s attitude. PLEASE!”

Jean is more interested in the tea between you guys, but he also wants Eren to go back to being his normal hotheaded self, and not his current moody self. “He’s been playing like a bitch baby all week, and I’m gonna knock his skull in if he doesn’t fucking get his act together,” Jean rolls his eyes, “So just show up on Friday, alright? Do it for me and Connie, at least.”

When Eren does see you in the crowd at the game, it’s not a Troy and Gabriella moment, but when he sees you he feels so much relief that he’s physically calmer and way more mentally relaxed—because at this point Eren wasn’t even mad, he was just scared you might break up with him, and that fear brought out the worst in him. Seeing you in the stands, even if you didn’t wanna speak to him, was reassurance that you still gave a damn about him, and that was motivation enough.

He rushes to you after the game, wanting to make sure you don’t get swept away or leave with your friends. He’s smiling and so happy to finally see you that he almost forgets that you’re mad with him; hugging you and grinning ear to ear. When the reality kicks in, he kinda steps back at bit and rubs at his neck, embarrassed, but at least he knows he still has a chance to make things right with you.

(When you do make up, you’re surprised to find flowers and $10 coupon for your favorite pizza place in your mailbox a few days later. They’re from Connie, and his poorly handwritten note thanks you for “saving the team” and “curbing Eren’s temper).

[bunnysuit-femboy]

The Vampire

(Eren x Reader) - Word Count: 3.9k

Creature: a corpse supposed, in European folklore, to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth.

Warnings: Slight Powerplay, Unprotected Sex, (Kind of) Public Sex, Blood Kink

Quick Summary: a night at a new, popular, and mysterious nightclub opens your eyes and makes you a permanent member.

Extra Notes: Happy Halloween, everybody! I had so much fun writing for every day this week and I hope to do this next year as well! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! And I hope you had a super spooky day!

Just a few minutes outside of the nightclub was enough to make you want to down another shot. You were already dazed from six celebratory shots back at the apartment, but you could still notice that something about this place was off. You just couldn’t ignore the cold air, the cold bodies, and the cold glares you got upon joining the line - drinking until you could hardly remember which dress you were wearing was the only way to feel better in a place like this, around people like these.

The nightclub had just opened up a month or two ago. It was right in town, in the center of the city’s college scene, and attracted a specific type of people. You had driven by this place more times than you could count, and every time you saw the people entering, they were decked out in blacks, laces, and sometimes even dark red scarves around their necks.

The place was always dark as well, from the black exterior to the lack of a neon sign on the outside, and even a lack of windows as well. The nightclub didn’t even need much of an advertising campaign, it always had lines of people waiting to get inside - even the night that you decided to show up along with your roommate, Mikasa.

You didn’t understand why you were waiting in line when you had been invited here tonight. You had been sitting in your normal Tuesday afternoon class when your classmate, Jean, had asked you about your weekend plans. He was known for throwing expensive house parties, so you were hoping for an invite to one of those events, but what you got was so much better. He practically begged you to check this place out, calling it by the mostly unknown name of Freedom. The club was exclusive enough to make your adrenaline pump through your veins just by imagining a possible night out in there.

But, even in your most realistic daydreams of this place, you never imagined the sickening reality of how cold you would grow from waiting outside of the building. The weather wasn’t necessarily cold, but being late October, the middle of the night, and most of your skin being exposed by your lack of clothing was enough to make goosebumps decorate most of your body just waiting for the line to move a step forward.

“We shouldn’t even be waiting right now,” Mikasa said annoyedly, mostly to herself, “I’m a red member, this doesn’t make any sense.”

“A red member?” You glanced down at the red scarf now around her neck, and you were sure it wasn’t there earlier. “What’s a red member?”

“You’ll find out.”

You wanted to pry, but part of you didn’t even want to find out what Mikasa could mean by those words. You were sure you’d find out soon enough anyways, it wasn’t like the Universe to dangle something so seemingly important and not contribute it to your everyday life. Maybe you’d also end up being a red member by the end of the night, you never know - but also, you weren’t sure you actually wanted to be a red member, the phrase itself gave you the creeps.

You went up on your toes in an attempt to see the front of the line, you seemed to be farther from the entrance than you were an hour ago. And, the worst part of the entire thing was nobody was even being let in right now. You’d been waiting in line for how long and it hasn’t moved forward even a step. And, you swore if one more person walked by the entire line and just waltzed right into the nightclub, you were going to start demanding a manager or something a bit less dramatic than that.

You moved from one foot to the other, trying to conserve some kind of heat in your body. You were two minutes away from grabbing Mikasa’s hand and marching her and yourself back to your apartment ten blocks away. This was ridiculous, this was no way to treat invited guests and apparent red members, whatever that meant.

“Mikasa,” You said from behind chattering teeth, “If-f they don’t let us i-in soon, I swear I-”

“Eren.” Mikasa wasn’t even paying attention to you, instead grabbing for a boy walking by her on the other side of the red velvet rope. “And Jean, hi - could you help us get inside?”

“Yeah,” Jean said quickly, “I don’t know what you guys are even doing out here, you’re both on the list for tonight - you should’ve called me or Eren, Mikasa, we could’ve helped you as soon as you got here.”

“You-you’ll help us inside?” You leaned towards the two boys, staring at them with wide eyes and a wide smile. “Tha-that’s so nice!”

“Of course darling,” The boy you heard Mikasa call Eren said, “And, you can even sit with us if you’d like - we’re VIP, so we get free drinks back there and we don’t get bothered by boring people.”

You rubbed your hands down your biceps, attempting to create heat for your body, “Th-thanks!” You couldn’t say more than one word without your face hurting from the cold.

Eren shrugged before holding the red velvet rope over your head as you moved after Mikasa underneath it. Jean concentrated all of his attention on Mikasa, not even giving you a pity wave, so you were instead stuck with his friend, Eren.

Eren couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, watching as you rubbed your cold limbs to bring life back to them. His emerald eyes were heavy on your skin as you attempted to ignore his penetrating glare. The boy licked his lips before grabbing your attention by suddenly speaking.

“Are you cold?” You nodded quickly, trying to keep from speaking in broken words from your chattering teeth. “That’s too bad, I could get you a red scarf if you’d like.” You didn’t like the way Eren smiled at you after he said that. “It’ll keep you warm in this awful October weather.”

You bit your bottom lip harshly, “And, wha-what do I have to do f-for that?”

Eren grinned even wider, “Don’t worry, I’ll show you.”

It was surprising to you how seemingly easy it was to enter the nightclub - well, if you were Jean or Eren. Jean was leading the group, so he just walked up to the bouncer outside of the entrance and mumbled something low to him. The big muscled bouncer quickly glanced over the group, and nodded you all in. If you knew all you had to do was mumble some nonsense and wait for a nod, you’d have been out of the cold and dancing inside an hour ago.

The inside of the nightclub was almost as dark as the exterior. There were some blinking lights over the dancefloor, and a red LED light decorating the top of the bar, but other than that, it was as dark as night in here. You were sure the outside was actually brighter than the inside, at least the street had lamps.

You kept close to Eren as he walked towards their VIP section in the back of the club. With the lack of light, you had to hold onto the back of his black button up shirt to keep from getting lost amongst the people. You could barely see other people as they walked by and scooted through the group, but Eren saw all of them and he made sure to keep you safe from them.

You tried to get a good look of the nightclub as you walked through it, but it was hard to do with the lack of lights. All you could really see were dancers grabbing at each other and kissing each other’s necks on the dancefloor. And you even noticed a strange amount of red scarves being discarded on the floor everywhere you looked.

“‘You still with me?” Eren shouted to you, behind his back, over the loud music coming from all around the nightclub. “I can’t feel your hand anymore, darling.”

“Here,” You said before wrapping your hand around his side as confirmation of your existence.

Eren met your hand on his ribs, putting his deathly cold fingers on top of your own, “Good, I’d hate to lose you so early in the night. I was hoping to learn more about you.”

You felt heat flush your face from the comment. It was nice to hear him say something so innocent, even if it was just a lie to save face. Most guys these days only wanted one thing from pretty girls like you, and it was exhausting. So, even if Eren was lying about his intentions, at least he had the decency to make it seem like he wanted more from you.

“How about,” You said to Eren as you leaned in close to his ear, “I’ll tell you everything you can handle, alright?”

Eren grinned to himself, “Alright, but I can handle a lot more than you think.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

The VIP section was just as dark as all other parts of the nightclub, except a few dimmed lights over the black leather couches. There were only three couches in the area behind the red velvet rope separating VIPs from normal guests, and the couches formed the shape of a U with a black stage in the center of them. The area was boring, but you supposed minimalism was an important man’s favorite designing technique.

The VIP section wasn’t just for Jean and Eren and their guests which only became obvious upon entrance. A blonde boy was already taking up one of the couches, and he seemed to be busy talking with a brown haired girl in a hushed conversation. He was so into the conversation that he never even noticed the group’s entrance until Jean had loudly announced himself and his friends.

“Sasha,” Jean shouted with his arms out wide, “You’re here tonight, hello babe - it’s been ages since I’ve seen you last.”

The brown haired girl rose and you felt your stomach drop with realization. You weren’t sure why you guessed the blonde boy was the important one on the couch, but instead it seemed the girl was the third VIP present. You honestly should’ve assumed, the boy was much too quiet to give off the same energy as the other boys, but Sasha perfectly reflected that same important energy.

Sasha smiled as she rose from the couch, “Jean, babe, and Eren - it’s so nice to see you two back together, it’s been too long.” The blonde boy turned towards the group at this, suddenly interested in the conversation. “You two were always two peas in a-”

“We’re not,” Jean said quickly to cut the rest of Sasha’s sentence off, “We’re just colleagues now, alright? I guess I can’t blame you, you did miss a few decades, important things happen during long periods of time.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at that. Decades? Maybe the group was just dramatic, but everyone seemed so in the know but you. You almost wanted to ask them what they meant, but it was obvious that you weren’t important enough to speak too loudly, and Mikasa and the blonde boy understood that completely.

“I guess,” Sasha said with a sigh, “But, you missed things in my life too, Jean. I finally found Niccolo again-”

“Oh God.” Eren grabbed your hand before heading to the couch opposite Sasha. “You’re still talking about that asshole? You should’ve gotten over him when you got over poodle skirts.” You tilted your head at Eren, but he just shook his head at you. “He never really loved you, that was always obvious to everyone but you.”

Sasha sighed, “I guess, but I still found him and-”

“And, I see you found somebody else as well-” Eren gestured to the blonde boy on the couch before sitting on his own leather couch- “It’s nice to see you again, Armin. You’ve been hanging in there?”

Armin kept quiet and instead allowed Sasha to speak for him, “He’s been well, and I brought him as a present - for you, Jean. I know how much you prefer him, even after all these years. So, I’ll take the sweet girl you have here - oh, a red member I see - and you can take Armin, babe. How’s that sound?”

Jean looked a bit awkward giving up Mikasa for Armin, but it seemed to be the easiest decision of his life. And after Armin met Jean on the third couch and Mikasa started talking with Sasha on the other couch, things started getting quiet in their VIP section. But even if you were just watching them talk in hushed conversations, you were still more interested with everyone else than Eren sitting right beside you.

Eren used two fingers to pull your face back towards his, “Can I get you something to drink, darling?”

“Sure,” You said hesitantly, “I’d like a-”

“I’ve got it.”

Eren leaned over the back of the couch to order from some waiter, but you went back to focusing on the other people. Armin and Jean seemed to have known each other for a long time and hadn’t seen each other for awhile as well, so you weren’t surprised to find them kissing passionately on the couch right beside you. And, Mikasa and Sasha seemed to be deep into introductions on their couch.

“Here.” Eren handed you a glass with what looked like a dark red liquid inside. “Drink up, okay?”

You eyeballed the drink intently, “What is it?”

“Drink up.”

You didn’t need to be told a third time. The liquid tasted of honey and peaches, something you were not expecting. After a sip, you removed the glass from your lips, and spoke to Eren in a hushed tone.

“You don’t want anything to drink?” You gestured your glass towards Eren as a silent offer to share.

Eren shook his head gently, “No, no - I’ll drink once you’re done.”

You nodded, “Okay, if you’re sure.”

There seemed to be nowhere to place your cup, so drinking all of the contents quickly and discarding the glass to the ground was the only option for you. You started to take big gulps and it seemed Eren was encouraging of this behavior. Maybe you were taking too long, so Eren had to take it into his hands by placing his finger at the end of the cup and forcing you to drink all of the liquid in a few hard swallows.

“Good girl,” Eren said with a smile.

“Thanks.” You placed the cup on the ground beside the couch. “I think I have a lot of experience from-”

You could hardly get the rest of your sentence out before Eren’s lips were on your own, and you could still taste the honey and peaches but now from him. You leaned into his kiss, spreading the taste of your drink from your tongue to his tongue as a way of gratitude for the free drink.

Eren was eager for more from you. He leaned into you, pushing your body to the couch underneath you, and trapping you under his own. You moved your hands into Eren’s long hair, only pulling it further where it was loosely tied.

You suddenly remembered the other people around you and Eren. You felt uncomfortable knowing other people were close and able to hear your desperate little moans from Eren’s couch. They, both people you barely knew and your beloved roommate, could look over and see you and Eren practically dry fucking there on the creaking couch.

You pulled your lips from Eren’s lips, “Wait, the others-” You looked over to the other couches and found that they weren’t in much different positions than yourself. Mikasa’s scarf was discarded and Sasha was kissing down her neck, and Armin was getting neck hickies as well from Jean. “-are also kissing.”

Eren leaned in and gave your cheek a gentle kiss, “Yes darling, that’s kind of what we do here.” Eren kissed your jaw, “Why do you think you were invited here tonight?” Eren kissed your neck, “We wanted you here for this.”

You looked at Eren with deeply furrowed eyebrows, “You said you wanted to get to know me.”

“No,” Eren said, now making eye contact with you, “I said I wanted to learn more about you. Not necessarily your personality, but rather the way you taste - I really want to know how you taste.”

Your heart was racing in your chest from those words. You wanted to let him know how you tasted, but now your pride was in question. He dragged you on a damn leash, and you let him. He made you think he wanted more from you, and all he wanted was the same thing as everyone else. You were angry, hurt, and on the verge of throwing up the red liquid you finished only a few minutes ago.

“Get off of me.” You felt eyes from the other couches turn to you when they heard your words. “I have to- um, I have to go to the bathroom.”

Eren raised his eyebrows at you, “Now?”

“Yes, now.” You said it harsher than you wanted, but the anger got the point across. Eren moved off of you, and sat back on the couch. You rose from the leather, trying to ignore the four sets of eyes watching you intently from the other couches. You kept your head down and headed off to where you hoped the bathrooms were.

You eventually found yourself amongst the only white walls in the entire building, and thankfully at the end of the hallway were the bathrooms. The line was surprisingly nonexistent which was a once in a lifetime experience for nightclub bathrooms. Maybe it was because everyone was too busy getting fucked on VIP couches or even on the dancefloors.

You walked into the white bathroom, and didn’t bother with either of the four stalls. You instead stood in front of the mirror, staring at yourself in all of your shame. You still wanted to go back to the VIP room, and finish what you started with Eren, but you wouldn’t let yourself right now.

You closed your eyes, and took a deep breath. You moved your hand under your black skirt, thinking about Eren’s body on top of your own. Your black panties were already soaking from the moments you had with him on the couch and you could finish just thinking about what he would’ve done to you-

The door to the bathroom slammed open to reveal Eren. He looked absolutely pissed off, and too focused on that anger to notice the way your hand suddenly moved from under your skirt.

“What the hell are you-” You started, but Eren cut your question off.

“I don’t like being embarrassed in front of my friends,” Eren said harshly, “So, let’s meet in the middle, and play pretend date, alright? With every kiss, you tell me something about yourself, and I’ll tell you something about me, okay?”

You smiled to yourself, “You’re really a hardass, aren’t you?”

“Shut the hell up and kiss me already.”

Eren met you by the mirror, scooping you into his arms and pressing you against the sink as he kissed you. His kisses were just as desperate as on the couch, and his hands moved over your body, feeling your curves under his fingertips. You kept your arms wrapped around his neck, bringing his lips closer to yours with each kiss.

Eren leaned back an inch, “Your turn.”

“Uh,” You whispered, saying the first thing that came to mind, “I like that drink you got me.”

Eren grinned against your lips, “I knew you would.” He kissed you again, sliding his hands up your skirt and exactly where your own hand had been before he interrupted you. “I’ve been to every country in the world, even the unimportant ones.”

“What?” You leaned back from him, more interested in hearing about how that was even possible, “Every single country? You didn’t miss a single one?”

“Nope.” Eren stared intently at your lips. “Not a single one.”

“Have you fucked somebody from every country?”

Eren smiled at you, “This isn’t a Q and A, I’m not answering that.”

“So, that’s a yes.” Eren’s hands cupped your ass over your panties, and pulled your body closer to his. “And, I’m just going to be another name on a seemingly very long list, aren’t I?”

Eren shook his head, “Just tell me something about yourself.”

Eren moved in to kiss you again, but instead missed your lips and went for your neck. He decorated the sensitive skin with sloppy and wet kisses, and sucked delicately right where the vein that became prominent during your episode in the VIP room is. You leaned your neck to the side to help his procision, and to give him more room to work with.

Eren moved his hands to the back of your thighs, and lifted you onto the sink behind you. He took place between your legs as he still worked at your neck. His hands now slid back under the bottom of your skirt, but instead of waiting on your panties, he pulled them down your thighs and let them fall to the floor below.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Eren whispered against your neck, “I’m waiting.”

You thought of what to say next as Eren removed his hands from your skin. Your breath hitched in your throat as he nipped on your neck and you realized just where his hands had gone. He now worked on his pants, loosening the waist of his black trousers.

“I-I uh,” You could hardly speak as you waited for him to finally have you exactly as you wanted him to, “I went to a waterpark once, and I really enjoyed it.”

Eren leaned back to smile at you, “This is the information you said I couldn’t handle?” Eren continued speaking but now in a sarcastic tone, “Oh God no, you’re joking! Not the waterpark!”

You laughed as you pushed his shoulder playfully, “Shut up.” Eren placed his hands on your hips, and moved himself forward. “Now, your turn.”

Eren kissed your neck again, sucking gently where he had already made a mark. While darkening the spot he made, he gently thrusted forward, and the sudden feeling had you moaning out for more. You were glad it was his turn to speak because you weren’t sure you could get coherent words out right now. Eren definitely fucked somebody in every country in the world, and he now used that excessive experience on you.

You were so consumed by the grind of Eren’s hips against your own that you couldn’t focus on anything else. He felt so good in you, and you almost wished you were back on the VIP couch so you could show everyone else there how much you loved the feeling of him inside of you.

“Well,” Eren breathlessly said against your now burning neck, “I’m a vampire, most of the people here are vampires, except for the ones in the red scarves. They’re red members, and you’re about to become one.”

“Wha-” Half of the word was all you could get out before Eren bit your neck open with his now sharp teeth. He drank from you as he continuously fucked into you harder with each sip of your blood. You didn’t even care about anything he said or anything he took from you, as long as Eren could make you feel this good again - you’d give him a pint of your blood every single day until you died.

[twst-the-night-away]

❤️🖤 Karaoke Night at Heartslabyul 🖤❤️

(aided/abetted by dear @twstinginthewind)

❤️ Karaoke night is held in the Heartslabyul lounge on the fourth Tuesday of every month, starting at 7:32 sharp without fail, and ending by 10. If you're in the middle of a song and the clock hits 10, you're cut off. If it's 9:59 and the last song has ended, someone is selected to juggle hedgehogs until 10.

🖤 If you want to sing, turn your song request in on the appropriate form to Vice Housewarden Clover by noon on the fourth Tuesday.

❤️ All requests are to be personally approved by Housewarden Rosehearts before the event. He looks over the forms over his afternoon tea. Any song that he finds unsuitable for the character of the dormitory is disallowed.

🖤 Queen's Rule #420: No Stairway. Denied!

❤️ No songs over five minutes, and no songs with long instrumentals (with one exception). Karaoke is about singing, after all.

🖤 The song order is chosen by flamingo.

❤️ Riddle takes his own song selection very seriously. He has a list of songs that suit him best based on his vocal range, organized by how energetic he's feeling at the time.

🖤 Trey is the one who programs the requests in and sets up all the audiovisual equipment. He initially volunteered to do all of this so he didn't have to sing.

❤️ The one time Trey sang, because Riddle demanded it, he did this. Unfortunately, Riddle thought that it was so funny that he now makes Trey do it every time.

🖤 Cater plays host, greeting everybody and announcing who's up next. Of course, he takes this opportunity to sing the first song. After all, if he sings first, then no one out there will be shy about going first, riiiiight? He's here to get everybody pumped! Or so he says. He really just wants to show off, usually with some bouncy pop punk.

❤️ Out of all the dorms, Heartslabyul is the one with the most eclectic mix of songs. You might hear a funny polka ditty, an emo ballad, a Broadway tune, a power metal anthem, a tongue-twisting rap - no genres are off the table, just songs that don't meet Riddle's standards.

🖤 Ace knows all the K-pop bands and sings their songs with choreography. He's not great at it, but he has the spirit. Sometimes some others in the crowd join in with the dancing - if Riddle allows it.

❤️ The first time Deuce participated, he picked a song that he thought would make him seem like a good honor student - but when someone else went on stage and did a hardcore punk song, he got all fired up and started singing and bouncing along to it. A little too much. People were watching him more than the guy on stage, and he ended up getting beheaded for taking attention away from the person currently performing.

🖤 On that note, Heartslabyul has a very supportive crowd. They won't judge you for what you choose if you do a song that suits you and that you can perform well. They're serious about supporting who's on stage, so anyone who heckles them or tries to steal focus gets dealt with severely. Mic stealers are beheaded and banned from singing at the next karaoke night, as stealing the mic is the worst crime.

[bellamer]

Songs From My Playlist That My Favorite One Piece Characters Would Enjoy

Sir Crocodile

Mad Monster Party by Ethel Ennis

Mr O'Butler by Jive Me

We're Going Up by Tim McMorris

Pumped Up Kicks by American Murder Song

Sh Boom by The Chords

Crazy Like Me from the Life is Strange soundtrack

Capture by Ego-Wrappin'

Ruler of Everything's by tallyhall

Feel Right by Mark Ronson ft Mystikal

Heat by Brockhampton

Torched Song by The Real Tuesday Weld

You're Different from the Mad Monster Party soundtrack

Back on The Chain Gang by The Pretenders

Man of War by Radiohead

Sydney by Caravan Palace

Necessary Evil by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

On To Something by Von Smith

The Swing Phenomena by Wolfgang Lohr

Rock It For Me by Caravan Palace

Money by Mystery Skulls

Ain't No Other Man by Cristina Aguilera

A Left Foot Trapped In Sensual Seduction from the Hellsing soundtrack

Everybody Want To Rule The World by Tears for Fears

Womanizer by Franz Ferdinand

They Mystery of Mister V by Von Smith

Catch Me if You Can by Taisei Iwasaki

Do It All The Time by I Don't Know How But They Found Me

PJ and Rooster by Outkast

The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie by Colter Wall

Can I Get a Witness ? by SonReal

Black Betty by Caravan Palace

Bad Boy Good Man by Tape Five

Jolie Coquine by Caravan Palace

Dramophone by Caravan Palace

Panic by Caravan Palace

Reefer Man by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Via Con Me by Bart & Baker

Don't Get High No More by The Real Tuesday Weld

Lone Digger by Caravan Palace

Bodhisattva Cathedral from the Hellsing RAID soundtrack

She Wants Me Dead by Cazette

Don't by NakamuraEmi

Nights in White Satin by Moody Blues

The Hell of It by Paul Williams

Je m'amuse by Caravan Palace

Gangsterlove by Alice Francis

Betty Boop by _Blan Kato

Shoot Him Down by Alice Francis

Killer Queen by Queen

I Put a Spell On You by Tim Curry

Brotherswing by Caravan Palace

Killer

I Scare You by The Roaring Girl Cabaret

Kirai by The Oral Cigarettes

Halloween no Yoin by The Oral Cigarettes

Starget by The Oral Cigarettes

Vampire Culture by Will Wood and The Tapeworms

Laplace's Angel (Hurt People ? Hurt People!) by Will Wood

Change by Deftones

Love Me, Normally by Will Wood

Bathwater by No Doubt

Friends In Low Places by Worthikids

Burn by The Cure

Little Ghost by The White Stripes

Here's The Thing by Sports Team

Deceptacon by Le Tigre

Sweet Dreams TN by The Last Shadow Puppets

Back on The Chain Gang by The Pretenders

Sha La La by The Oral Cigarettes

Man of War by Radiohead

I Don't Know by BADBADNOTGOOD

Supremacy by Muse

Sex With A Ghost by Teddy Hyde

It's Terror Time Again by Skycycle

Tighten Up by The Black Keys

At Least It Was Here by The 88

Bloody Stream by Coda

Black Catcher by Vickeblanka

Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand

Kizukeyo Baby by The Oral Cigarettes

Afraid by The Neighborhood

Hey Kids by The Oral Cigarettes

Wagamama De Gomakasanaide by The Oral Cigarettes

Ghost by Mystery Skulls

Devil's Train by The Lab Rats

Dancing Shoes by Arctic Monkeys

Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High ? by Arctic Monkeys

Barracuda by Heart

Sweatpants by Childish Gambino

Inferno by Mrs Green Apple

Low by Foo Fighters

Bodhisattva Cathedral from the Hellsing RAID soundtrack

Bad Little Boy by SLevin

Blues of Shichiten Battou by The Pinballs

Black Sheep by The Clash at Demonhead

Killer Queen by Queen

Caroline by Alex Clare

I Put a Spell On You by Tim Curry

Katakuri

Wild Side by ALI

Cakes and Apple Pies by Alice Francis

Change by Deftones

You Don't Exist by Von Smith

Love Me Love Me Love Me (Aishete Aishete) by Kikuo male cover

Speed Demon by Michael Jackson

Abracadabra by Bradio

Saving All My Love by Whitney Houston

Deceptacon by Le Tigre

Sweet Dreams TN by The Last Shadow Puppets

Torched Song by The Real Tuesday Weld

Back on The Chain Gang by The Pretenders

Sha La La by The Oral Cigarettes

Man of War by Radiohead

Supremacy by Muse

Necessary Evil by Unknown Mortal Mortal Orchestra

Suga Suga by Baby Bash

Tighten Up by The Black Keys

At Least It Was Here by The 88

Bloody Stram by Coda

Candyman by Christina Aguilera

Powerful by Major Lazer

Black Catcher by Vickeblanka

Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand

Handclap by Fritz and The Tantrums

Afraid by The Neighborhood

Complicate Ya by Otis McDonald

Honeypie by Johnny Utah

Ghost by Mystery Skulls

Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5

Cousins by Vampire Weekend

Tangled Up by Caro Emerald

Bad Boy Good Man by Tape Five

Movements by Pham

Via Con Me by Bart & Baker

Barracuda by Heart

West End Girls by Pet Shop Boys

Low by Foo Fighters

Bodhisattva Cathedral from the Hellsing RAID soundtrack

Bad Little Boy by SLevin

Blues of Shichiten Battou by The Pinballs

Black Sheep by The Clash at Demonhead

Majestic by Wax Fang

Put It Together by Langhorn Slim and The Law

Bambous by Caravan Palace

Now or Never by Mystery Skulls

Killer Queen by Queen

Lost in Love by Brockhampton

Caroline by Alex Clare

Jinbe

I Will Always Think of You from The Bojack Horseman soundtrack

Remember Us by Gabriel Royal

Change by Future Islands (BADBADNOTGOOD reinterpretation)

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) by Pink Floyd

Dust and Ashes from The Great Comet of 1812 soundtrack

Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega

Treasures of Time by Yuji Ohno

When You Came Around by Gabriel Royal

Past The Flowers by Gabriel Royal

Back on The Chain Gang by The Pretenders

Man of War by Radiohead

I Don't Know by BADBADNOTGOOD

Sydney by Caravan Palace

Just The Two of Us by Grover Washington Jr ft Bill Withers

Pink + White by Frank Ocean

Bloody Stream by Coda

Harder, Better, Faster Stronger by Daft Punk

On Again, Off Again by Sean Lennon

In Your Eyes by BADBADNOTGOOD ft Charlotte Day Wilson

Time Moves Slow by BADBADNOTGOOD

Carmen by Stromae

Dearly Departed by Brockhampton

Save Me by The Real Tuesday Weld

Sweet Thing by Rufus and Chaka Khan

Paris in The Summer by Charles X

Bodhisattva Cathedral from the Hellsing RAID soundtrack

Live Your Life by Yuna

Majestic by Wax Fang

Many Different Worlds by Von Smith

Aokiji

Too Young To Die by Jamiroquai

Cloud 9 by Jamiroquai

Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) by Mika

Four Out Of Five by Arctic Monkeys

Crumbs by Jordan Dennis ft Blasko

You Don't Exist bu Von Smith

You Give Me Something by Jamiroquai

Cold by Annie Lennox

Beatophone by Caravan Palace

Moonage Daydream by The Last Shadow Puppets

Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder

Come and Get Your Love by Redbone

Yato by Balduin

Here's The Thing by Sports Team

Deceptacon by Le Tigre

Lost in Paradise by ALI

Will I See You Again by Thee Sacred Souls

Sweet Dreams TN by The Last Shadow Puppets

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing by Leo Sayer

Past The Flowers by Gabriel Royal

Can I Call You Rose ? by Thee Sacred Souls

Back on The Chain Gang by The Pretenders

Man of War by Radiohead

I Don't Know by BADBADNOTGOOD

Necessary Evil by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Never Was A Love Like Mine fro the Mad Monster Party soundtrack

Just The Two of Us by Grover Washington Jr ft Bill Withers

Suga Suga by Baby Bash

Feel it Still by Portugal the Man

Pink + White by Frank Ocean

Sunflower by Post Malone, Swae Lee

Sunflower by Rex Orange County

Cry For Me from the Jersey Boys soundtrack

Sweet Love by Anita Baker

Womanizer by Franz Ferdinand

Time Moves Slow by BADBADNOTGOOD

Can I Get A Witness? by SonReal

Dearly Departed by Brockhampton

Nights by Frank Ocean

Movements by Pham

Save Me by The Real Tuesday Weld

Can You Do It ? by Charles X

Cops Are Comin by Bande Originale

I Like To Move It by Will.I.Am

Sweet Thing by Rufus and Chaka Khan

Chinese New Year by SALES

Coming Home by Leon Bridges

Don't Get High No More by The Real Tuesday Weld

The Whole World by Outkast

Paris in The Summer by Charles X

Bodhisattva Cathedral from the Hellsing RAID soundtrack

Live Your Life by Yuna

Lazy Place by Caravan Palace

Fly by June Marieezy

Nights in White Satin by Moody Blues

Don't Leave Me by SWEEP ft Osaka

Many Different Worlds by Von Smith

Let's Face It, I'm Cute by 11 Acorn Lane

Lost in Love by Brockhampton

[spenciegoob]

The Fifteenth

A/N: I’m so sorry in advance.

Pairing: Spencer!POV x Fem!Reader

Category: Angst/Fluff

Content Warning: death of a major character, talk of drug abuse, mentions of blood/cases (usual criminal minds terminology), mentions of panic attack/depression

Masterlist

Word Count: 2,163

____

As I sat down with the woman that made me feel whole, I felt the familiar serenity of her presence fill my senses even as the rain around us poured down in sheets. The pressure felt like sharp, cold glass sinking into my skin, but with her in front of me, I couldn’t find myself to care because her warmth held me like it was always meant to do.

“Hi, sweet girl. Do you remember the day you told me I was your world for the first time? I think about it everyday. I wish I could go back and just-”

She laid her head on my bare chest, her hair spreading out to tickle my sides, and her arms tucked securely around my back. Usually, a position so intimate would cause me a great deal of discomfort, but with her it felt natural; peaceful; perfect.

“Have I ever told you how much I love you?” She asked out of the blue. Even as a whisper, the question startled me. Before, in the moments of serene quiet, her breathing evened out, and I thought she was fast asleep. I was about to allow myself the relief of saying everything I couldn’t find the perfect words for when she was awake, looking at me with those loving eyes I fell in love with.

“I love you, too, Y/n.” But that answer did not satisfy her. She pulled her head from it’s previous position to look at me directly, and while I love to look at those eyes, the tears that welled there were gut twisting: soul crushing; heart wrenching.

“I mean it, Spence. You are my whole world.” A tear escaped when the words left her mouth, the ones that caused my own eyes to water, threatening to join hers.

I brushed my thumb across her cheek, catching the fallen drop before it finalized on my chest.

“And you are mine, sweet girl.”

“But what I meant to say was you’re not mine. Y/N, you are bigger than my world. You are the sun, the one that I rotate, the light that I need to survive, the power source that keeps me habitable.”

I had to clear my throat before continuing. 

“The first day I met you, you unknowingly saved my life, and to this day, I regret not telling you until now. It was the day I quit. I didn’t understand it then, how my mind changed so suddenly, but now I do. It was that smile, it was always that smile-”

I need a fix. Just one. It was one of the worst cases I’ve ever worked. I deserved a fix. I would say it was out of my control once I set that text message, but it was long before that. The second the jet landed my mind had been made, and once that happens, not even me could stop it. 

So I walked out of my apartment into the night that held too many unknowns, pulling myself further into my jacket and keeping my head down. I know that no one knew me to judge, but if I were to look at the very few strangers as they walked past me to live their own equally as destructive lives, I would’ve felt daggers piercing my skin instead of a needle that night.

But then I turned a corner, and from my position with locked eyes on the concrete, I could see a head come into my vision, hit my chest, and fall to the ground.

“Oh my g- I’m so sorry I wasn’t loo-” I had started to explain myself before a giggle interrupted my plan. I allowed my eyes to forget the laser vision on the sidewalk, and meet the eyes of the source.

My god was she beautiful. Her eyes so full, looking up at me from the hard ground with something that could only be described as pure, unadulterated joy. 

“It’s quite alright, I wanted to be on the ground tonight, anyway.” I titled my head, peculiar with the beautiful strange woman on the ground, but when she let out another giggle at my confusion, I couldn’t help but let out a breathy chuckle.

And then she held her hand up, silently asking for help from the position I so rudely shoved her into. While I would usually politely decline hand-to-hand contact, it didn’t feel right to refuse to help her stand after I all but tackled her.

So I took her hand, and the warmth generating from her in the cool night was like a breath of fresh air after drowning for so long.

When she regained her balance in front of me, she asked the question I least expected her to.

“I was just on my way to get coffee. Would you like to join me?”

“Wha.. I um- I’m a stranger on the street that just pushed you to the ground, and you’re asking if I want to get coffee?” When she nodded, I asked her another question, hoping to be able to teach her a lesson in stranger danger she so obviously lacked.

“How do you know I’m not a murderer?”

“With kind eyes like yours? I find that highly unlikely.”

“How could I say no to you? Y/N, you were my guardian angel that night. I didn’t look back when you linked your arm with mine, and led me to your favorite coffee shop. I still go there, you know? I don’t even have to order anymore, they just silently start making my coffee when I make my presence known-”

“Can I have an iced french vanilla with 3 pumps of liquid sugar?” She asked the barista Sam who had already started punching in her order before Y/N started speaking.

“What the hell did you just order?” I couldn’t stop the question from leaving my lips. Whatever concoction the barista was making was quite possibly the weirdest coffee order I’ve ever heard.

“Hey, Sam, can you make it two?” She ordered another instead of answering my question. “Trust me, stranger on the street. It’ll change your life.”

“Oh, um, my name’s Spencer by the way.”

“Well, stranger on the street named Spencer, I’m Y/N, and it looks like our coffee’s ready,” she said to me with the most beautiful smile. That smile can cause grown men to drop to their knees. Quite frankly, I almost did. She was the most peculiar and intriguing woman I had ever met.

She grabbed the two cold drinks and sat on one of the many different couches around the tiny shop. I just watched, my eyes following her lead without my control as she put me in a trance her presence induced.

“You coming?”

“Oh, uh, yeah sorry.” She only giggled as I quickly shuffled my way to her. We were the only people in the cafe, not surprisingly so as it was 10:42 pm on January 15th, a Tuesday night.

“You, Spencer, are infatuating.”

“Me? Why me?”

“It has to be something in those eyes.” We stared deeply at each other for what felt like an eternity, even if it was merely a second too long. She was the one to pull away as if she was done studying whatever she found. 

With a deep inhale, she shook her head and handed me my beverage.

“Allow me to change your life?” She asked like I wouldn’t let her if she continued to beam at me the way she did.

But instead of freaking her out and saying that, I took the coffee from her hand, and hesitantly took a sip.

It was so sickeningly sweet, like drinking melted candy with the amount of sugar to send someone into sugar shock. It was perfect.

She was perfect.

“When I first started showing up to work with a large iced coffee that was basically cream with a dash of coffee bean, I got weird looks. Derek even made a couple comments, but I didn’t care. It was a part of you you decided to share with a stranger that night. Eventually I told them the story, and now when I walk into the bullpen with the same coffee like clockwork, they give me solemn looks, but no comments.”

“The day you met them was one of the best days of my life, even if it was by accident-”

“Reid and Morgan, I want you two to go down to the dump site. The woman who found the body is there, I want you to interview her.” Hotch’s voice boomed. It was a local case, and while no case is the end goal, the locality was enough.

I got to go home to lay in her arms.

Derek and I drove to the site, bouncing off theories to each other to fill the time. When we got there, news vans had already taken up most of the space, and a sea of reported crowded behind the barricade. 

We shuffled our way through, avoiding eye contact and the “dire” questions from the press. When we made it to the front and flashed our badges, one of the officers led us to the body.

A prostitute in an alley. Easy profile, not so easy scene. There was major overkill, the blood from the body deep in the hallway trailed all the way to the sidewalk. It was only 7 am, my theory being a morning jogger found the trail and followed it to the horror show.

“Do we know where the person who found the body is?” I asked the officer who was next to me.

“We tried to ask her questions, but she got too worked up and couldn’t breathe. She’s on the back of the ambulance now I believe.��� A panic attack.

It wasn’t uncommon for an unready participate in a criminal investigation to have a panic attack. Not everybody was made to see such things.

Derek and I made our way over to the ambulance when we started to hear a very heated argument.

“I AM FINE! There’s no reason for thi-”

“Y/N?” There she was, sitting in the ambulance, fighting with the EMT who was just trying to do his job. I don’t know who I felt bad for more in this situation. She knew how to win an argument, trust me.

“Oh Spence, thank god.” She quickly got up to crash her body into mine. I don’t think there was a speed that would be sufficient when it came to how quickly I squeezed her back. “It was so scary.”

Her body started to shake with tears she was probably holding in. She didn’t like to cry in front of me for the longest time, let alone hundreds of cops, reporters and pedestrians. 

“I know, sweet girl. I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m so sorry.” I ran my fingers through her hair. It aways calmed her down.

And it seemed to partially work, because she pulled her head from my chest to look up at me with wet cheeks and terrified eyes.

“I just... I was runni... She’s d-”

“It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over now, okay?” Slowly she nodded, her eyes trailing down to her feet. That was until Derek spoke up. In the midst of my concern, I had completely forgotten he was there.

“Uh... what?”

“Oh Derek, this is Y/N. My uh, my girlfriend. Y/N this is Derek.” She looked up to find my baffled coworker looking between me and her and smiled. Hey, his stupidity got her to smile!

“So you’re the lady’s man he tells me about?” Shit.

“Hey now wait a minu-”

“Maybe we should go back to Quantico. You’ll be safe, and we can ask you questions when you’re ready, yeah?” I had to deflect quick, but Derek would rip me a new one for this.

We all piled into the SUV. I got in the back knowing that she gets car sick back there ever since she was a little girl.

“So, you and Spencer, huh?” Maybe that was a mistake.

“They loved you so much. I loved you so much. I still love you so much. I miss you every day of my life, but it doesn’t hurt to think about you anymore. Life gave us all the time it could spare, and I am so grateful I literally ran into you that Tuesday night 8 years ago. Sometimes I hate my mind, my eidetic memory is a curse on it’s own, but when it comes to you? The memories we shared I will never forget are the ones that keep me fighting. You still keep me going, sweet girl. You always will.”

With that, I got up and placed the sunflowers on top of her headstone, brushing off the dirt and leaves that accumulated during the fall season.

The rain stopped pouring then, and the sun shone down on me. On us.

My sun.

____

Join a taglist here Tell me your thoughts on this fic here Have a request? Send it in here

[alfredosauce50]

She’ll never know [Yandere! Iceland x reader]

Synopsis: Everybody’s pumped for the week-long skiing trip in Switzerland. While Emil and you are back to showcasing your weird relationship— “platonically” holding hands and sharing beds, Mathias never catches the drift like everyone else does and demands the same treatment from you. Emil eventually gives in to jealousy and denounces his friendship with you the first night in. He thought he was satisfied with these developments, all until he overhears a conversation between Mathias and Lukas two days later. Seems like he wasn’t the only one pining for you. His chance at revenge arrives when he finds the Dane unconscious in the snow after a freak accident. Wordcount: 4,288 The reader is referred to as she/her.

It was supposed to be a drama-free ski trip. 

You were tagging along for the first time, sitting with him on the plane and sharing a room at the resort. Getting a seat next to you was a wildcard, for sure. But the latter was a given, considering it was Tino who made the sleeping arrangements. Out of everyone in the group, or anyone for that matter, you had always been the closest to Emil—the Finnish man was well aware of that.

Even then, he planned on sticking to you like a tattoo. For seven straight days, being with him also meant you would be in the company of a loud-mouthed Dane. And sometimes, he could be all up in your business. But he was safe for now, so long as he didn’t try anything on the plane. 

The soft murmuring of passengers and white noise of the cabin filled his ears as he walked down one of the aisles. Once you found your seats, he didn’t waste time to buckle himself in and get comfortable, all so he could pull out his phone. The last time you were with him, you both watched Interstellar. Well, most of it. 

“Em, this flight is a little over an hour. Why not take a nap instead?” You suggested, but he never slowed his movements to open Netflix.

While the downloaded video loaded, he pulled off his sweatshirt to ruffle up his silvery-white hair. Under that was a black graphic T-shirt with a cat on it. “Mm... No. We have to finish it while it’s still fresh in our memory.”

“Okay, fine. I didn’t wanna watch it right now because I’ll cry again.”

“So? Nobody’s gonna see.” 

Nobody except him. But you never minded, as you were already leaning over to finish the movie with him. His taste in sad movies rubbed off on you, and you were quick to tears. That, he was very familiar with. But besides crying, you also had a habit of falling asleep in his bed after staying up to watch things or play games. So it wasn’t weird to know how often you slept with him. 

Eventually, a strange chemistry started to brew between you both. 

A physical and emotional closeness so intimate, it was comparable to that of a relationship. But Emil never thought of things like that. Best friends could do this stuff, couldn’t they? Holding hands and sharing clothes was the norm. 

Drinking from the same cup was just a regular Tuesday.  

“Gimme some of your apple juice.” You whispered, feeling a little dry in the mouth after tearing up. Reaching out for his cup to take a few gulps, he furrowed his brows and grumbled. He was left with nothing but backwash. 

“I was gonna drink that.”

A few mischievous laughs fell from your lips. “There’s still some left.” Picking the cup up, you swished around the remaining contents, which wasn’t much. 

“This should be more than enough for you, you dehydrated gremlin. I’d encourage you to have more, but we both know you’d only have a sip whether I drank from it or not."

A light blush dusted his cheeks and he frowned. “No I wouldn’t.”

“You would. That’s why I left you a sip.”

“... Shut up.”

The plane landed not long after, and your spunk died down near the conclusion of the film. Yes, it was sad. And yes, you cried. Like Emil expected, you were going to be silent for a while. When everyone regrouped to walk around the airport, you stayed by his side and held his hand. At the platforms to wait for the train, you and him were inseparable—head on his shoulder and all. But in your defence, you were tired. And this wasn’t the first time.

If anybody else did this to him, he would be shoving them off. They could hit their head for all he cared. And that was precisely why Tino and Lukas were giving him funny looks in the carriage. 

Laughing quietly to themselves with a hand covering their mouths, they watched on with a devilish expression. “Huhuhu,” was what Emil heard as he sat comfortably in his seat, but he knew what it translated to. Look at you, holding her hand while she’s asleep. He simply turned away with rosy cheeks. He didn’t know what they were on about. This wasn’t weird at all. 

Yes, he wasn’t exactly the most touchy-feely with people, but you weren’t just anybody. And he knew he liked you, a lot at that, but it was perfectly platonic. 

Nobody was convinced, however. All except for the Dane who practically came bounding over from a few rows down. But it was likely he never even got the gist.

The train finally reached a slower, constant speed, so he was prepared to join the group for some small talk. Leaning down on the backrest, he laid his eyes on you and Emil with a grin. “Well, well, well. Don’t you two look cozy.” He commented, his voice making the boy glance up. “Don’t get too comfortable, though. We’re going skiing today!”

“But hey—”Combing a hand through his wild and unruly locks of blonde, he smiled sheepishly. “Do you think I could sit with her on the way back?”

Just when he thought nothing could ruin this vacation, he was proven wrong. That was right. Mathias was the only other person present who actively showed you affection, and it always bothered him. God, the thought of you sitting with him for hours made him sick. 

“... Only if she wants to.” He mumbled, sinking lower into his seat to cause his hoodie to ride up. Since it was already on his head, it came drooping over his face to hide his dark purple eyes. There, he could read the other’s expression.

He could take a few things away from it. Right now, he was rubbing the nape of his neck while watching you snooze. Every time Mathias was expectant, he wouldn’t stop moving his hands. The sight made his frown deepen. When Lukas and Tino witnessed this, they looked away and shared the same thought. 

Just let him be, you idiot.

But Mathias didn’t quite get the memo, let alone read their minds.

So he stood up and responded with this. “Well, of course she’ll want to! Who wouldn’t sit next to me?” A brief silence fell around the group. Lukas coughed. Berwald continued to watch the mountainous landscape outside the window without a word, trailing his icy blue eyes over the snow that glowed purple at dawn. “Seriously, guys? This is why I like (F/N) the best. At least she’s nice to me.” 

Emil squeezed your hand as you slept. The tightness in his chest only seemed to worsen by the second. And it showed in his visible discomfort. Lowering his head, he let his fringe fall over his eyes.

“... She’s nice to everyone.” 

The blonde shrugged while closing his eyes in a look of satisfaction. 

“If you’re gonna be train buddies, then we can be skiing buddies. Right, (F/N)?” Reaching down to your head, he tipped it gently in a nod before saying this. “Of course, Mathias! You’re my favorite.” 

As if. 

“That was a terrible impression.” 

“What impression?” 

He huffed under his breath. They hadn’t even arrived at the resort, and he was already dreading the next seven days. This gut feeling turned out to be right, because it only seemed to get worse. 

***

Shortly after arriving, everyone dropped off their things before leaving to get right into the sport. After napping for nearly two hours, you were replenished with the energy to go skiing. Despite being quite the skilled skier himself, Mathias was kind enough to accompany you on the easier slopes. More accurately put, he was jumping at the opportunity to teach you. 

Hell, he’d been waiting outside your room to take you to the ski lifts. The moment you opened the door, you were greeted by the man all geared up, with goggles on and all. 

“Morning. You ready to roll? Or, slide?” He asked. 

Seeing him so eager was cute, so you were obliged to follow, leaving Emil alone in the room. When said boy left the bathroom after freshening up, he saw the door close behind you. “Sorry, Emil! I’m gonna go ahead! I’ll see you outside!” 

And just like that, you were gone. Dropping his face towel off on a chair, he dug his hands through his hair and breathed in deeply. Since when was the last time he felt this much anguish? Yes, he was rooming with you. But that was only at night. Daytime meant you would be with Mathias. He had no place complaining, considering he wasn’t the best at skiing. Nothing he could do about that. 

He changed out of his T-shirt and into his snow gear with a sigh. 

His excitement to go skiing was gone. 

And if he wasn’t going to ski, he’d be holed up in his room. His logic told him this was selfish, but he wanted you to stay with him more than anything. 

You returned late in the afternoon as the sun was going down, but he’d been staying inside ever since lunch. Perking up at the sound of the door creaking open, he forced his head down and popped his earphones in. After you set your things down and changed to more comfortable clothes, you walked over to the bed and found a bump under the blanket. Lifting it up by the hem, you found him curled up with his phone. 

His earphones fell out. “(F/N)?” 

“Who else would it be, dummy? I was wondering where you went.” You kicked off your slippers and slid right in. He didn’t know how much he’d been longing for this until now—the feeling of you laying next to him in bed. But he couldn’t get carried away yet. It wasn’t even night yet.

A displeased expression contorted at your features, but it melted away as you pulled his phone away. 

“H-Hey!” He tried reaching out for it, but it was already on the bedside table. 

“No more screen time for you.” You tapped him on the nose. “How else am I gonna get your lazy ass out of bed?” He knitted his brows together and rolled into you to hide his face. Then, he curled two arms around you, albeit slowly.

“To do what?”

“To ski, duh.” 

He squeezed you. “But I don’t want to.” Emil’s wintry white locks were soft against your chest, and you felt his body heat waft over to yours. It was a sure fire sign he’d been under the covers for too long. That was when an idea struck him. This would definitely get you to stay with him for the rest of the day, and maybe tomorrow if he was lucky. “I... feel kinda sick.” 

Your smile fell and you immediately reached out to cup his cheeks, then clamp a hand over his forehead. When he felt your touch as you checked his temperature, his heart rate escalated. He was on cloud nine. 

“... Oh no... You’re a bit warm. I think it’s best that you stay in bed. But don’t use too many blankets, or your fever will get worse.”

The sensation of your hands on him was to die for, and the thought that you were worried about him made it better. Nobody would have expected this trait from the usually detached boy, but he was secretly clingy. And he had the most subtle ways of showing it. An example would be lying about feeling unwell, but he didn’t feel bad about it at all. 

A headache was pounding in his skull, and it wasn’t wrong to say he was upset. And plus, if this worked, you could stay with him. He could practically feel a smile creeping to his lips at the thought, but he hid half of his face with the blanket. “... Are you gonna ski tomorrow?” He asked quietly. 

You craned your head to the side in thought. 

“Only if you can. Who’s gonna look after you when I’m gone?”

Blood rushed up to his face and he nodded. “Okay.” 

Reaching out to his cheek again, you groaned. “Oh my god. Why are you so hot? Hold on. I’m gonna find you an ice pack.” You slid off the bed, but not before giving him an affectionate pinch. He made a soft noise in protest. “I think this is a sign for you to fix your sleep schedule and stop eating instant.” 

Before you left, he reached out to grab your wrist. 

“What is it?”

He released you after a few moments. “... Nothing...” 

You smiled weirdly. “Okay, hun. Give me a ring if you need anything.” 

A couple hours later, the group gathered for dinner in a nearby restaurant. Despite the freezing temperatures that dropped significantly at night, Mathias insisted to sit outside at the balcony to enjoy the views. The views in question weren’t even that visible with how dark out it was. There was nothing but faint outlines of mountains stretching on for miles into the horizon. 

Much to Emil’s displeasure, you insisted that he sit opposite you. Understandable, because it was closer to the indoors where the warm air was wafting out of. But that only meant you’d sit next to the Dane, and he was quick to notice you shivering lightly in the cold. 

Like him, you had a sweater on, but he was the human heater, not you. Curling an arm around your shoulders with a softened gaze, he rubbed your arm up and down. Almost like how a boyfriend would to their girlfriend. 

And Emil witnessed it all happen. 

“You’re shaking like a leaf, min elskede. Do you want my sweater as well?” He laughed, to where you shook your head profusely. 

Did he just call you ‘my love’ in Danish? Since when did he start calling you that? And he was offering his clothes to you as well? He thought only he did that. Gripping the hem of his hoodie with clammy hands, he lowered his head as his heart started to sting. Fuck. He hated this feeling. 

But what he saw next made it unfathomable. 

“No, of course not! I can deal with this. You’d be crazy to take it off—" He lifted his sweater up and threw it over his head, the action making his t-shirt ride up. “—and, you’re taking it off.” He fixed his top before sliding the knit over you. Pulling it down so you could fit your arms through the arm holes, you were overwhelmed with his smell, and not to mention, completely encased with warmth. 

He was now left in nothing but a T-shirt.

“That better?” Mathias grinned.

“Yes, you idiot. But if you catch a cold because of me, you won’t be the only sick one in the group.” You grumbled under a blush, a little embarrassed he actually gave you his sweater. “Thank you, though.”

His stomach churned. His breathing deepened. Unbeknownst to you, or anyone for that matter, he started to spiral down a path of self-destructive thoughts. Did he always like you that much? He lifted his gaze to you, and found you carrying on with your usual banter with the Dane. Did you always like him that much? You laughed. Emil bit his lip. It always made him euphoric to hear you laugh, but knowing it wasn’t him that was responsible for it made him feel an unpleasant mix of all kinds of things. Sadness, anger, and a violent kind of jealousy.

So shortly after finishing his food, he stood up and left without a word. That silenced the chatter at the table, and everyone called out to him. But he was too quick on his feet.

You’d never seen him do something like that. Either he was nauseous, or something was really wrong. “He’d got a fever, so maybe he’s going to... You know. I’ll check on him.” With that said, you stood up and took Mathias’s sweater off. “Here. Just in case I don’t come back.”

Jogging up to your room, you were relieved to see that your instincts were right on the mark. Emil had retreated back here, and was currently hiding under the covers. Nearing his side, you lowered yourself to your knees. "Em? Are you okay? Did you puke?”

“... No.” His voice was thick and nasally.

And that pointed to one thing.

The poor boy was crying.

Breathing out a soft sigh, you removed all your layers until you were in your undergarments. Lifting up the corner of the blanket, you joined him before wrapping your arms around his form. “I know you don’t like talking about yourself, but I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong.” You murmured, rubbing soothing circles into his back. “You can tell me anything. I won’t be weirded out or judge you. I’m just worried about you, okay?”

He popped his head out from under the blanket to reveal his flushed face stained with tears.

“... Anything?”

You hummed. “Mmhm. Anything.”

Emil paused for a moment. Frankly, he had no idea why he was feeling like this. Perhaps he did, he just didn’t want to say it. That maybe, everyone was right about him. That what he felt about you was anything but innocent. The signs were all there. He’d never been this attached to anyone, ever, and even if he was, he would’ve hid it to some degree. But not with you. He’d been all over you since the start of the trip, and even now, he had his arms looped around your neck. And when other people decided to do the same to you, he was choked with turbulent emotions.

It even got to the point of intrusive thoughts. Back at the dinner table, all he could think about aside from worrying about this relationship was this—something terrible happening to Mathias. He didn’t want him to be there. He just wished he’d disappear, even for a little while.

When he realized these desires, he knew he couldn’t tell you. But there was still something he wanted. “... I’m fine now. But I just wanted to ask you something.”

You frowned. “Doesn’t look like you’re fine. You can’t keep brushing it off and expect me to let it go.”

“You’re right. But I promise I’ll feel better after this.”

“... Alright. But the next time this happens, I’m not letting you off the hook.” You murmured, reaching out to give his cheek a pat. “What did you wanna ask me?”

He flickered his eyes down to your lips. Then, he returned his gaze, but his stare felt a little hot on you for some reason. It never crossed your mind that he was hugging you around your neck, but it did now. “Would you ever...” Emil blushed darkly. “... Kiss me?”

You blinked at the unexpected question, but reacted nevertheless. The red flushing his cheeks spread to yours as you strung together the words to respond. “Well... I’m not disgusted or anything. We’re really close, so I wouldn’t mind kissing you.” You answered honestly, but that didn’t change the fact that you were curious why he even asked such a thing. “... Why?”

“I just wanted to know.” Emil mumbled. “Would you kiss anyone else?”

“No. That would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

His heart started to pound in euphoria. But the longer he lingered on what you said, his heart began to pound with another emotion.

“If you’d kiss me, then would you kiss me now?”

You had a feeling things would pan out this way. But you didn’t mind it in the least, in fact, you kind of wanted to do this. Leaning in to him, you heard his breath hitch from the close proximity. “... Maybe. But only a short one, because you’re sick.” Pressing your lips to his for short and sweet peck, he squeezed his arms around you and pulled you in again. Attaching his mouth to yours for a deeper kiss, he caught you off guard by the sudden build-up in intensity.

His coils around your neck tightened, and for the next few minutes or so, he kept kissing you. He just couldn’t stop moving his mouth with yours, nibbling on your lips ever so often. It felt too good. He never thought he’d ever be able to do this, but he was never going back now.

Everything he’d ever done with you now felt like child’s play. How could he have resisted these feelings for so long? Rolling you onto your back, he loomed over you and continued to make out with you on the bed. The connection between your mouths was starting to feel hot. The taste of yours only grew more prominent, and that was how he knew he was denouncing everything he used to have with you. He couldn’t take it, being friends with you. Emil had always been clingy. Jealous. And he was facing the truth—the reason.

He liked you. In every way you could like someone. But that wasn’t all. He was obsessed with you.

That night, you fell asleep on his chest.

To say he was satisfied with these developments was an understatement. He always thought of himself as your best friend, nothing more, nothing less. But he was relieved he finally accepted he really felt about you. So there was no need to pretend to be sick anymore.

He felt like skiing again, especially when you had another reason to be with him instead of Mathias.

The next day was a blast.

He finally got to try the intermediate slope thanks to your encouragement, and he could officially say he wasn’t terrible at skiing. And he continued to explore the harder slopes the day after as well.

Sometime in the afternoon, he returned back to the resort for a hot drink break. Taking a seat in the dining hall, he overheard two familiar voices. He swallowed down what he had in his mouth before listening in to their conversation. Hm. Was that... Mathias? And Lukas? Those two have always been pretty close, so he could already guess that their conversation would include pretty confidential contents. But it wasn’t his fault they held it in his earshot, right?

“Hey, so I’ve been thinking. I really like... You know. And I wanted to ask her out.”

“You mean (F/N)? Good luck trying to separate her from Emil. If they somehow don’t already like each other, then maybe you’ll have a chance.”

“Nah, it’s worth a shot! He isn’t the type to be in a relationship, anyway.”

Emil froze.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

The memories of that conversation replayed in his head like a broken record. Even while he was enjoying the cold night air as he skied later that day, he couldn’t stop lingering on it. Fuelling the anger he felt a few days ago. So that was why he gave you his sweater. Gliding through the soft blankets of snow, he never slowed down. Nobody knew you were dating him yet, but that only reinforced the fact that this relationship was new. Nothing was set in stone yet. And that only meant things could change, wouldn’t it?

His chest tightened and he slowed to a stop. He couldn’t let that happen, no matter what.

As if the world wanted to test that statement, his attention was stolen by a gap in the snow fencing. It looked as if something shot through it, or more accurately put, crashed into it and broke it. Sliding himself closer to take a better look, he was shocked to find a body outside the barriers. A skier. He must’ve swerved too hard and passed out from possible head trauma.

But Emil soon discovered it wasn’t just any random ‘he’. The clothes and gear were all too familiar. Could it be? His blonde hair gave it all away. This skier wasn’t a stranger. It was Mathias.

He was laying on his side with half his head submerged in white.

Upon realizing their identity, the fear-induced urgency to call for help suddenly subsided. Instead, he turned around, and skied away, slowly, back to the resort. What was he doing? Was he seriously going to leave him out in the snow where he could easily die? Emil couldn’t stop himself from moving. Was he seriously that upset? It was clear. He was.

But he knew he didn’t want him to die.

Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone, not until an hour later, at least.

He didn’t know what was going through his head. But he knew what he felt. He wanted him to get sick at least. That would incapacitate him for a while, but not forever.

Sure enough, when the search and rescue found him, he was down with a bad case of hypothermia. He was immediately tended to by medical professionals, and it was revealed that he wouldn’t have made it if Emil never brought up the matter that Mathias had been missing. The color drained from his face when he heard that, and he never felt this guilty in his life. But it was short-lived. After all, he was still alive, wasn’t he?

He secured you in his arms as you cried softly into his chest. Nobody had to know about this. Especially not you, who warbled out how thankful you were that he remembered Mathias’s disappearance.

As he kissed your tears away, the only thought that repeated in his head was this.

She’ll never know.

[renaerys]

PPG One-Shot: A Balmy Tuesday in Hell

Taking a break from the prompt requests to wish a very happy birthday to @snailbutters! Tbh I like this idea a lot and I’m tempted to expand on it more. Cross posted on AO3. 

xxx

When Mike went looking for a part-time job to earn some spending money, he had a hard time finding one that worked around his college class schedule. All the good on-campus jobs were taken, and most of the ones he found offsite required him to be up way too early or way too late with very little flexibility. 

The front desk position at the Beelzebob, a local hair salon advertising an array of “wicked styles” for any occasion, was not the most glamorous position, but it welcomed part timers and offered flexible schedules to be discussed on a case by case basis. It was at the tail end of a long week of job hunting with little to show for it, and Mike was tired. Still, he dragged himself all the way there after his three-hour Friday seminar and put on his best retail charm for the interview. 

One of the stylists told him to wait in the lobby while she grabbed the manager for his interview, and so Mike sat in a plush, purple chair and eyed the stack of magazines on the coffee table—HJi, Professional Beauty, NHF, and others he recognized from Googling “how to work at a hair salon” last night. A playlist that seemed to consist entirely of K-pop pumped ripples of bubblegum bass through the speakers and had Mike tapping his fingers on his hip. There was no one behind the sleek, glass reception desk, so Mike got up and wandered over to it. He tried to imagine himself with the headset on, fielding phone calls and helping customers pick out one of the many luxury hair products on the walls behind the desk. He touched his own brown hair—plain and getting a bit long, but styled with a little wax for the day—and worried about whether he should have tried a bit harder for this interview. Would he be judged on his own hair? That seemed reasonable enough—

“This simply won’t do.”

Mike startled at the lyrical voice and turned around to find a seven-foot, red-skinned demon in Lululemons appraising him over an enterprising nose. Which would have been a cause for mild to moderate alarm even in Metroville—a hub for lowlifes, Supervillains, and the occasional monster on a mission out of Townsville farther north—except that Mike recognized this particular demon. At which point he got the pun in the name of this place and smiled. 

“Him,” he squeaked. And then, remembering his high school retail training: “I mean, Mr. Him.”

Him—Prince of Pestilence, Duke of Depravity, Earl of Evil, et cetera—blushed the color of an open wound. “You’re house trained, I see. All right, this way.”

Him turned on his Louboutin heel and headed into the salon. Mike hurried after Him, unsure whether this was good or bad. Him led him to a styling chair and sat him down. A purple salon cape made its way around Mike’s neck with a flamenco flourish, and Him leaned over his head in the reflection. 

“What are we thinking?”

Mike eyed his potential future employer from perfectly curled goatee to artificial mink lashes and hesitated. 

This is a test. 

It had to be. Surely, anyone manning the phones had to know something about haircare in general. If he was to be the vanguard, the watcher on the Wall, he would have to be able to alert his colleagues of the incoming threats and answer questions about how to fend off anything from tangles to split ends. Mike tried to remember the last time he got a haircut; Boomer had been with him, his eye far more discerning than Mike’s. 

“Comb over,” Mike said. 

“Quiff?”

“More faux hawk.” He tried not to think of the heat on the back of his neck, and instead of the sly grin on Boomer’s face the last time he’d been under the scissors. “With a low fade. Um, please.”

Him’s fangs gleamed when he grinned. “Good choice.”

For a demon with claws the size of dinner plates, Him was surprisingly adroit and precise to a literal razor’s edge. In fact, Mike was certain Him must sharpen his claws to get them sharp enough to shave the hair from the nape of his neck, which seemed like a sensible time-saver. Blackpink’s Pretty Savage blared over the speaker as Him coifed and styled the thicker locks that remained on top of Mike’s head, combed to the left in enviable, anti-gravity perfection. 

“Wow.” He touched the side of his head, marveling at the close but generous cut and the perfect blend. “This has to be the best haircut I’ve ever gotten.”

He got up and removed the cape, only to find Him with a broom in his claw. “I run a clean salon, Michael.”

Mike accepted the broom without question. “Yes, sir.”

Him preened. “Good lad.”

“Does… Does this mean I got the job?”

Him flipped his claw. “There will be a trial period. You young people are so used to texting that I’ll have to determine if you’re fit to answer a phone. But, considering your manners, I have a good feeling about you.”

Amazing! “Thank you so much! When do I start?”

“Honey, you’re already late. I have customers waiting.” Him snapped his claw. “Chop chop.”

Mike swept up his shorn hair and the hair around the chair next to his, dumped it all in a bin labeled “Hair,” and ran to the front desk to answer the phone ringing off the hook. The stylist who’d greeted him, Marisol, helped him with the computer login so he could manage appointments and checkout. It was easy enough, a Square card reader and a cash register and a huge logbook of every sale. 

“Middle finger up, F-U, pay me,” Mike whisper-rapped along with Lisa. 

A couple hours later, Him handed him a check for the time worked and told him to be back here tomorrow at 3 p.m. Mike accepted the check, but he didn’t pocket it. 

“Sir, I should tell you for the sake of full disclosure.”

Him peered down at him with his claws on his hips. “Oh?”

This should not be so hard.

“I’m, well, I’m involved. With your son. Boomer.”

Him clicked his claw, and Mike held his breath. 

Boomer had spoken about Him—Baron of Brutality, King of Chaos, Emperor of Enmity et cetera—on just a few occasions throughout their acquaintance. Raising souls from the dead was a hobby of Him’s, apparently, but often his necromantic offspring ended up rotting and were no fit candidates to promenade in civilized society that wasn’t eternally damned and burning. Chemical X cut out that inconvenience, and thus the perfect little boys were reborn, or something. According to Boomer, Him was evil on Sundays, a prolific genius on Tuesdays, and crocheting with his kobolds on Fridays. The rest of the time he was just a normal demon trying to survive in this capitalist post-modern society like everybody else. Anyway, Sunday wasn’t in Mike’s work schedule, so that seemed safe enough.

“I know,” Him said. “You don’t expect me to believe you’d Googled the most flattering hairstyle for your bone structure without help, do you?”

Mike was pretty sure there was a compliment in there, even if it wasn’t for him. “I guess not.”

Him beamed. “Don’t worry. I would never let my favorite son’s romantic life influence the culture at Beelzebob. You’ll be judged before an impartial tribunal of incubi, like everybody else. Now, before you go, I’d like you to dispose of the waste, please.”

Mike learned the value of separating trash that day. Discarded receipts and candy wrappers dumped in the waste bin went into the trash, lunch leftovers went to compost, and cut hair went to sacrificial offerings. 

“Sacrifices reduce our carbon footprint and offer protection against flat Earthers. It’s a proven science, you know.”

Mike supposed it would be poor manners to argue with an ancient evil on his crochet day.

xxx

Boomer was all sly smiles and discreet hand touches when Mike treated him to dinner at their favorite Thai place later that week. 

“So, your job seems to be paying well,” he said. 

“Well enough to take my boyfriend out to a nice dinner now and then.”

“Careful. Spend too much time with Him and your tastes will get really expensive.”

Mike laughed. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll switch majors to cosmetology and join the family business.”

“You know what? He’d probably love that. He tried so hard to get Brick to follow in his footsteps, but Mojo let him mess around on his E-Shares account once when we were eleven and Brick was lost to the finance track forever. I’m pretty sure Mojo did it on purpose.” Boomer leaned in and clinked his wine glass to Mike’s. “Anyway, buy me this dinner before you jump to joining the family business.”

Mike flushed. “I’m—I didn’t—”

Boomer laughed. “Chill! I’m just messing with you.”

The playlist at the restaurant began playing Blackpink’s Kill This Love, and Mike burst out laughing. 

“What?” Boomer asked. “You like this song? You know, Him is really big into K-pop lately. Butch thinks someone must have sold a bunch of souls and made a killing.”

“I know.” Mike kissed Boomer’s hand. “It’s just funny how things work out.”

Boomer smiled. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

Their food arrived, and Mike happily ate his meal across from Boomer. And in the back of his mind, he said a little thank-you to Him and whatever chaotic forces he controlled for reviving Boomer all those years ago. 

It must have been a balmy Tuesday in Hell.

xxx

If you enjoy my writing, check out more of my fics on AO3, link in my profile. I’m currently updating Trinity House and The Alchemy of Us. Thanks for reading!